What Lies Behind: A New Adult Dark Science Fiction Romance

by Travis Simmons

  She tried looking for Doctor Gerard, but the list of results didn’t happen to show the specific doctor she was looking for. Cass wasn’t sure what his full name was, or what the name of his shop was.

  Olivia…she’d heard her name earlier on the news. Cass let her mind enter the information required for Olivia Hamilton and a ton of search results populated before her eyes. She made sure to store the results for later in case Brandon returned while she was investigating.

  There wasn’t much information on her that was helpful to Cass. She was a prominent figure in the android rights fight and had lost her husband a year ago to a fire in their home. When Cass read about the horrible fire, she stopped reading the article all together.

  Had she been part of that fire? Was that why Olivia had gotten rid of her? If Cass was right, and her memories were true then she was the old automaton that belonged to Olivia and Jack. She knew where the house was when she was flying with Brandon, and it had been burned out.

  Is that why she got rid of me? Cass wondered. Was it because she couldn’t bear to think about that fire? Was I a reminder of that?

  “What has you so deep in thought?” Brandon asked.

  Cass pushed the stream of information from her mind. Her eyes came into focus. Brandon was wiping his hands on his dark, beat-up jeans leaving wet tracks over the pockets.

  “Nothing. You had something you wanted to show me?” Cass said.

  “Yea, the exhibit should be starting soon,” he told her. Brandon dragged Cass to her feet by her hand, and led her through the throngs of people headed down a sloped hallway. At the base of the hallway they turned left. Skylights created pools of light on the gray slate floor. Cass could almost feel the excitement of all the humans around her.

  Now and then she caught the glimpse of a robot with their family. All automatons were programmed with recognition devices. Cass was able to tell through her programming when a person wasn’t a person but instead a machine. She wasn’t precisely sure why this was, if it was intentionally done by humans to make sure that robots knew who the humans were and who they needed to serve, or if it was some kind of electronic signature that all robots could recognize.

  Brandon’s hand tightened in hers, drawing her eyes to him. He smiled at her as he led her along.

  “What are you thinking about?” Brandon asked her.

  For some reason in that moment Cass felt she could trust him. It was only yesterday that she’d been so uncertain about Brandon, wondering if he was a spy of sorts for Natalia. Now she thought if he were a spy, he probably wouldn’t have gone this far out of his way to make Cass feel so welcome.

  “Why some things are the way they are. Like how I can tell the automatons here from the humans,” she told him. Cass looked up into his brown eyes, somehow different today, almost golden in a way she found both hypnotic and mildly frightening.

  Brandon shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about that. I guess it makes sense, you’re all connected into the internet and maybe you can read each other that way.”

  Cass nodded. “That would make sense. You don’t think it was anything done specifically so we would know who to serve?”

  “Not that I know of. My parents used to run an automaton shop and I’ve never heard anything like what you’re talking about,” Brandon told her.

  If we are all connected to the internet, could we communicate that way too? She wondered. She gazed at one short woman that looked like any normal human, long brown hair pulled up. She wore a yellow hoodie, a pair of faded jeans, and was tending to two children. Only Cass knew that she wasn’t human at all. That girl was an automaton. Could she communicate with her?

  Singularity, Cass thought. In the past humans used to think that at one point the machines they created would rise up and destroy the human race. They called that the singularity. What if it was more prophetic than they realized?

  The crowd around them was starting to slow, and so was Brandon.

  “Here,” Brandon said, pulling Cass out of her contemplations. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

  He slid in between groups of people, pulling Cass along with him. It earned him scowls of disapproval from parents and solitary people alike, but no one said anything to them. Cass and Brandon were next to the glass now and on the other side was a cage filled with lions.

  The cage was open to the sky, and the sun shown on the lions making them look as if carved from gold. When Cass thought of lions she thought of fierce hunters, not what she was seeing now. Some of the lions were sunning themselves around the only male lion in the cage. Other lions were playing with one another, behavior she would expect to see from any regular house cat.

  There was something strange about the male lion. Something that Cass and a few of the other automatons around her seemed to notice.

  “He’s not real,” Cass said.

  “What do you mean not real?” Brandon asked.

  “He’s synthetic,” she told him.

  “I know, but that doesn’t make him any less real,” Brandon said.

  Cass frowned at him. He doesn’t understand, she thought. He thinks we are real, but we aren’t the same as humans. That lion isn’t the same as all the others.

  A tour guide was standing before the glass cage, a microphone clipped to her ear broadcast her speech out to all gathered. She was short and squat with dark hair and bright blue eyes. Cass wasn’t really listening to what she was saying because at that moment she was giving a rundown on what made lions lions, and how they acted when in their pride. It was all things that Cass could know if she took the time to look up lions on her visual overlay. It wasn’t interesting to her.

  “So he is an automaton?” Cass asked Brandon.

  Brandon shook his head no. He was listening to the guide, and so Cass had no option but to listen as well. She studied the male lion. It was odd how none of the other lions treated him any differently.

  “Andi is one of the first successful android animals,” the guide said. “Android is the next evolution of automaton, and scientists are finding all kinds of interesting things to do with them. Take Andi for example. He is the king of his pride here at the zoo. He can do everything a regular lion could do, and the lionesses don’t react to him any differently than they would a flesh and blood lion.”

  There was a murmur from around the crowd. Awe that the lions took so easily to the android.

  “Can he mate?” Cass wondered aloud.

  “What was that?” the guide asked her.

  “Can Andi mate?” Cass asked louder.

  “Not yet. Scientists are working on a way for Andi to function completely as a lion, but at the moment he can’t mate.”

  “What about eating?” a boy asked to the far right of the group. “Won’t that harm him?”

  “Not at all,” the guide said with a smile. “Andi functions just as a living lion would. His insides aren’t wires and circuits like it is with automatons. He has been evolved so that his insides aren’t much different than yours and mine, other than it’s the lion version.”

  The guide turned to the group at large. “Scientists have been able to fabricate synthetic organs for years now. These organs, grown in a lab, can be placed inside an automaton. Paired with a synthetic brain and electric impulses, Andi is able to think and make decisions and keep his pride in check. He needs to eat to fuel his body, just like a living organism.”

  “But he’s not real,” Cass said. “He’s a robot.”

  Brandon’s hand tightened on hers. She looked at him, but he didn’t give any indication that he was upset with what she said.

  “No,” the guide said. “He’s not a robot. He might not be organic, but he is most certainly not a robot.”

  “How can he not be?” a woman asked.

  “He has no programming,” the guide explained. “He’s able to think and act on his own without any interference from humans other than building him, but at the same time, he’s not organic, and that makes him not an actual li
on.”

  The questions continued, but Cass was focused on one thing, this lion wasn’t a real lion, yet at the same time he was as close to a lion as any of the others she saw. If she hadn’t been told he was an android, Cass would not have known what he was. She knew he was different because of the energy signature coming from him. If he has an energy signature, then there’s some kind of robotic implants inside of him.

  That wasn’t too farfetched, most humans now had robotic implants. Cybernetics was a booming industry.

  “See,” Brandon said, bringing her to the present. “Just like all of the other lions.”

  “Except he’s not really,” Cass said.

  “The lionesses don’t know the difference,” Brandon interjected.

  “Do you think if he was capable of higher thought that Andi would know he wasn’t a real lion?” Cass looked into Brandon’s amber eyes. The air in the hallway shifted, and his brown hair gusted around his face. A door was open somewhere deeper in the tunnel, letting in the afternoon breeze and the sound of people and children enjoying their day. The crowd was thinning around them now. The android lion didn’t hold as much interest to the people now, but he still held a lot of interest to Cass.

  “And is that what’s going on with you now?” Brandon asked. “Higher thought. Automatons aren’t capable of that either. At least, none that I’ve ever met. They are all programmed with specific purposes. Except you, it would seem.”

  Cass frowned at him and looked at Andi sunning himself on the rocks. She neared the glass to see the lion better. There wasn’t any infrared in his eye. He could see like real lions could see.

  “Did you know that you were different before you started getting these higher thoughts?” Brandon wondered, placing his hand on her shoulder.

  Cass shrugged. “I think I did, but I didn’t really dwell on it. Not like now.”

  “And what’s changed?” Brandon asked. “Why do you have these thoughts now?”

  “The truth?” Cass asked him. She felt more nervous now than she had in all of her life. Or at least, in all the time she was able to remember. “It started the day you took me to Doctor Gerard.”

  “When Natalia knocked you out with the fire poker,” Brandon nodded.

  “All of these programs started coming online.” She refused to look at him while she spoke. Instead, she stared at the android lion. How much different life would be if she were an android. Maybe then Brandon would think of me as a real woman. Maybe as he thinks of Natalia.

  She told him how the nanobots repaired her that day. As they were repairing her how programs like free will and emotions were coming online. Things she’d never experienced before, never thought automatons were capable of doing were becoming normal for her.

  “And my thoughts have been changing too,” she confessed. This time she did look at him. She hoped that she didn’t see satisfaction, or any indication that he wasn’t who she thought he was. She hoped that she was right in trusting him. She saw confusion on his face. His hand slipped from her shoulder. “It’s like all of these new programs that have come online have changed my previous programming. I don’t just do what I’m told blindly now. I have thoughts and opinions about them that I don’t understand.”

  Brandon sat on a bench beside her. “How is this possible?” he wondered.

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “But I want to find out.”

  “Why?” Brandon looked up at her. He stood and placed his hands on her shoulders, staring into her eyes. “Why do you want to find out. Can’t you just accept what’s happening? Can’t you be happy that you’re changing and maybe you can get away from Natalia’s abuse?”

  Cass shook her head, confused. It was almost as if he didn’t like Natalia any longer. “These things don’t just happen to robots,” she told him. “Not without a reason. I want to know what the reason is. Are these programs coming online because there’s another program inside of me that’s overriding the programming that already exists?”

  Brandon sighed and turned away from her. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “But I can see why you’d want to find out.” He turned to her. “What can I do to help you?”

  Cass shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help me. I need to find these answers out for myself.”

  “Well at least I can make sure Natalia doesn’t do any further damage to you.”

  “That would be nice,” Cass said and smiled at him.

  The next week and a half was agonizing for Cass. Natalia was doing a lot of working from home, which meant Cass was doing a lot of working around the apartment. She fabricated clothing for Natalia’s next week, which was apparently going to be a big one, though Cass could only hear snippets of conversations Natalia had with people on the phone. It seemed like another job interview, which was strange to Cass since Natalia’s father ran the magazine where she worked. It would seem like she’d want to stay there and inherit the company, but Cass didn’t think much of it.

  Fabricating the clothes was interesting to Cass. She didn’t understand why people didn’t go out and buy clothing as they used to. Sure, they could still go and shop, but now more often than not, what they shopped for was the fabrication schematics for clothing. They’d bring it home, input the software, provide the fabric and let the machine scan their body to get a perfect fit. From there, the fabricator would spit out a perfectly tailored article of clothing.

  Cass lost count of how many designs she’d input and how many different types of fabric that ran through the fabricator, but it did give her an idea. Since that first day out and about with Brandon, Cass had saved the outfit she’d snuck from Natalia’s closet. She kept it under where she “slept” in the closet. Since Natalia didn’t go into Cass’s closet, she had no way of knowing what Cass was doing.

  If I get my own fabric, I can have this machine make clothing for me, Cass thought. The idea excited her, and she had to fight a smile. Natalia was too enwrapped in her own work to pay much attention to Cass, but it was her luck that her owner would see the smile and that wouldn’t be good. She would know something was going on with Cass. She would know that her automaton was different.

  Which brought Cass to the issue she’d been having for the last week and a half, no time to sneak off to see Doctor Gerard. If Cass had overheard the conversations correctly, Natalia would be starting her normal shifts in the office again tomorrow. Which meant she had to make it through this one last day before her questions about where she came from and what she was meant for could be answered.

  Cass stared out the window while she worked. The last week had been oddly sunny and warm for Seattle. She’d had to adjust the climate control for the patio. Even though past their deck the sun shown on windows of passing hover cars, inside the patio was overcast and damp. The plants thrived like always on Natalia’s little garden she rarely enjoyed and did not allow Cass to enter.

  She vowed that next time Natalia was gone, she was going to go out on the deck. Over the last few days, those thoughts and little rebellions had cropped up more and more. So frequent, in fact, that Cass was starting to think of them as normal rather than something wrong with her. It was frightening at times, but she was starting to take all of her knew thoughts and emotions in stride.

  Like jealousy when Brandon would stop over in the evenings to see them. Cass really hated seeing him with Natalia, knowing what her owner was like and knowing what Brandon was like. So different, she thought.

  At least she was able to see him, even if they didn’t really get a chance to talk. Cass was worried the first day after the trip to the zoo, when she’d opened up to him about what was going inside of her that he would tell Natalia. It had been a huge risk for her, but it was one that she would gladly take again. Now that she knew things would turn out okay that was.

  The fabricator beeped and she opened the lid and pulled out the dark orange dress. She shook it a couple times and hung it on a hanger beside the device. She loaded in a bolt of purple
fabric and selected the option for a pant suit. The fabricator chirped a couple times while it brought Natalia’s scan online. Then it whirred to life as it began its work.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Who the hell?” Natalia barked. “Answer that,” she waved her hand dismissively.

  It was Brandon. Cass smiled when she opened the door, and Brandon winked at her. He slid up behind the couch and covered Natalia’s eyes with his hands. “Guess who?”

  “Brandon, I don’t have time for this shit,” Natalia said. “I have mountains of work to do before tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” he said, removing his hands.

  Cass shut the door with a frown and went to the fabricator. It was thirty percent done with the pant suit.

  “Well I wanted to let you know that I have a concert coming up in a couple weeks,” he told her, slipping over the back of the couch to sit beside her.

  Natalia moved papers out of his way with a scowl. “That’s nice,” she said. From the tone of her voice, she didn’t really find much nice about his concert at all.

  “It will be at the Bay Side. I thought maybe you could come out. There are supposed to be some talent scouts there,” he told her.

  “I’d like to,” Natalia said. “But I have real work to tend to.”

  “And what I do isn’t real work?” he asked.

  “Well, you’re twenty-six, right? Don’t you think you’re a little old for this?”

  “For working toward my goals?” he asked.

  “For having these unrealistic dreams,” Natalia said.

  Cass shot a glare at Natalia, but her owner wasn’t looking up from her work.

  “The day I forget my dreams and work like a slave for someone else is the day I want someone to put me down,” Brandon told her. He pushed to his feet.

  “Wait,” Natalia said, putting her papers down. “I’m sorry.”

  She rounded the couch and caught him halfway to the door. “I’ve been working all day,” she said. “I’m just exhausted. Let’s order a pizza and watch the holovision for a while?”