What Lies Behind: A New Adult Dark Science Fiction Romance

by Travis Simmons

  “And you can feel,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. He felt warm, and his body felt hard. “You’re crying.”

  “How’s that even possible?” she asked, trying to shrug out of his embrace, but he wouldn’t let her go. That was just as well. She didn’t really want him to let her go. Instead, she relaxed into his embrace, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m not human.” She argued.

  “That doesn’t mean that you can’t feel!” he told her. He turned her to look at him. “Cass, so what if you’re an automaton? What does that even mean? It’s obvious that you can feel, you can think, you can communicate.” His brown eyes searched her face. He brushed away a tear. “Your skin feels like skin.”

  “But what lies behind all of that skin?” Cass asked.

  “Your insides. It’s what makes you run, makes you work, nothing more than that. What’s underneath my skin is the same. Organs. It’s hidden behind all this skin, you can’t see it. You have to rely on what you know about me. Why should that be any different for you?”

  “I’m programs and software. You’re not.” she said, rubbing away her tears.

  Brandon shrugged. “How do we know that?”

  Cass shook her head, her eyebrows creasing.

  “I mean, what you call programming, we call personality. What you call software, we call characteristics. What you call electricity, some of us call a soul. Similar things.”

  Cass looked away from him. He let his hands drop from her shoulders.

  “What do you see when you look out at the street?”

  She shrugged. “What everyone sees.”

  “And what do you see when you look up in the sky?”

  Cass looked up.

  “Without your visual overlay?” There was a chuckle in Brandon’s voice.

  Cass smiled through her tears. “Stars, and universes, and possibility.”

  Brandon nodded. “So why isn’t there a possibility that you’re just as alive as I am?”

  Cass sighed and dropped her eyes to the city street. She watched people going about their daily lives, oblivious to what was happening on the balcony above them. For all they knew, she and Brandon were lovers, out enjoying the day on their deck. They didn’t know that she was a machine and he was a human.

  “I could make you happy,” he said, intruding on her reverie. “No abuse. No overlord. Just you and me.”

  She had that before, and then it was taken all away. “What if this is all I’m meant for?”

  “How can anyone be meant for that?”

  “I’m meant to serve humans,” Cass said.

  “No, not serve. Help. Isn’t that what everyone does for one another? Help?”

  She was silent.

  “When scientists created automatons, they didn’t do it so they could have slaves. They did it so they could have another life form that could help them. Computers have always been able to do more technical and difficult things than humans. That’s why you were made. It wasn’t until they started selling automatons to the general population that you had people like Natalia who treated them like servants and mindless drones.”

  “And you want that with me?” she asked. “I can’t reproduce. I don’t age.”

  “None of that matters. Honestly, I don’t much care for kids anyway, so problem solved.”

  They both laughed.

  “No reason to decide now. Think about it?” Brandon said. “I could give you a better life.”

  Cass sighed, brushing away the last of the tears. “I can’t expect you to try to find the device on your own. And I can’t leave Natalia just yet. What if she finds out that I went with you? What if she knows? If she’s worked up about her father leaving her mother for an automaton, that could put you in danger, and I don’t want that.” Not to mention, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her programming wouldn’t sneak up on her and make her do something she didn’t want to. The other day when she went to see Olivia, she almost couldn’t control herself. If Brandon wasn’t there, who knows what would have happened to her?

  Brandon scowled. “What if she abuses you again?”

  “I will be good. I will do everything she wants.”

  “We both know that won’t help,” he told her. “She will find some reason to attack you.”

  “I know, but I can take it.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t like this idea. There’s only so much EMP you can withstand without shorting out. There’s only so many times that you can take damage to your computer without causing serious damage.”

  “I know, but—”

  “No,” he shook his head again. “I won’t let you do that.”

  “You won’t let me?” Cass said.

  He frowned. “That came out wrong.”

  “Is this what life would be like with you, too? Me just waiting on your orders?” Cass asked. This time she did pull away.

  “Of course not.” He ran his hand through his hair and stepped back. He leaned against the brick wall and watched her. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Well, this is my future, and part of being human is being able to make my own decisions, right?”

  “Of course,” he answered.

  “Then I need to start making my own decisions. Starting with this one. I will help you find that remote, and I will destroy it. That’s the only way I can be free from her. Free from humans always trying to control me.” She thought of the operating room and the swinging light above her head. She needed this. She needed to know that she couldn’t be controlled.

  “I don’t like this,” he told her. “I don’t want you to feel like I think I can force you to do something you don’t want to. I want you to know that while you’re with me you will have that freedom that everyone deserves. Even if I think it’s a dumb idea.”

  Cass folded her arms over her chest.

  “I’m staying here as much as I can to make sure you don’t take a lot of damage,” Brandon said.

  “That would be nice,” Cass said.

  “Alright, where do we start?” Brandon asked, rubbing his hands dry on his pants.

  It had been a week and Cass hadn’t been able to find either device. At that point she figured that Natalia carried them with her, and there was no way she was going to find them in the apartment.

  Contrary to all of Brandon’s insistence, she wouldn’t leave yet. There was still a way she was hoping she could get either of the devices while Natalia slept.

  She was good. She cooked breakfast the way Natalia wanted every morning. She went back to wearing her old clothes and not styling her hair at all. As far as Natalia knew, her efforts in controlling Cass had worked.

  However, during the day, when Natalia was gone, Cass would go outside on the balcony and bask in the warm rays of the sun. It was strange to her, now that she had regained part of her free will and had made her decision to be free of Natalia it almost seemed like she could feel the rays in more ways than heat. She seemed to smell the flowers and take in the noises of the crowd below much better than she had before.

  In the background the holovision played a news broadcast about the top headlines. It seemed android equal rights were a front runner these days with more and more people, celebrities, government officials, and less prestigious people cropping up on both sides of the argument.

  She let her mind wander, staring out into the overcast day. It was going to rain later, that’s what her overlay told her. Cass could see how far off the storm was and how much rain they were going to get. It was going to be a good storm.

  She let her thoughts drift to her old family and the memories. Cass couldn’t save Jack, and Olivia had given her up. She wasn’t sure if what she was doing was smart, but wasn’t that part of being able to choose her own future? Making risky decisions?

  At what cost? Would she end up hurting Brandon? She couldn’t keep thinking about that though. Her decision was made, and she didn’t want to go into her future with fear in her heart. She wanted to throw cau
tion to the wind and embrace her budding future with both arms.

  Cass heard keys jingling in the door, and she rushed into the apartment, closing the balcony behind her. She’d just barely sat down on the couch when Natalia came in, Brandon trailing behind her.

  Natalia tossed her keys on the table beside the door, and shucked her green jacket, trailing it over the back of the couch. Brandon closed the door.

  In the distance, thunder rumbled and the first sheet of rain fell like a bucket had been emptied onto the patio.

  “Beth told me what you’re like at the clubs. Girls hanging all over you. I’m not good enough?” Natalia said, folding her arms across her chest and resting back against the sofa.

  “Beth would say that. She’s the girl hanging all over me. It’s pathetic.” Brandon came into the apartment and slumped in a chair, he barely afforded Cass a small smile.

  “Sure, blame it on my friends,” Natalia said rolling her eyes. She turned around, placing her hands on the back of the couch and leaned over it slightly. She was staring at Brandon.

  “Whatever. I can’t stand this,” he pushed to his feet. “Lately it’s always my fault. Something I’m not doing right. Something that pisses you off, or some way that I’m living that you just can’t stand.” He made his way to the door.

  “That’s right Brandon, run away. You said you were different, but I guess you’re just like everyone else. Just leave.” Venom dripped from Natalia’s lips.

  Brandon turned to her. His face was calm but there was fire in his eyes. “Did you ever think, Natalia, that you’re the one that pushes everyone away? Did you ever stop to consider just how fucking insufferable you are? You’re aggravating as shit. You’re the one to blame here. I can’t take any more of your mental abuse. And I’m not going to let you abuse Cass any longer either.”

  “What?” Natalia said, her voice hard. She crossed her arms over her chest. She started to turn to Cass, and then stopped. “What gives you the right to tell me how I will treat my own property?”

  “Just give it to me. I know about the EMP. I know about the remote,” he said.

  “And how would he know about that?” this time she did turn to Cass.

  Cass didn’t look at her. She kept silent, truly hoping that Brandon knew what he was doing. He was putting them both into deep water. What did she expect Natalia to do? Well, certainly there wasn’t much she could do to Brandon, but there was a whole hell of a lot she could do to Cass.

  “C’mon Cass,” Brandon said, holding his hand out to her.

  Cass’s eyes went wide. Her gaze flickered to Natalia, who was studying her property with flared nostrils. Cass’s hands began to shake. She looked to her feet and shook her head. She wanted to go with Brandon, she really did. She didn’t know what would happen to her now. There was something holding her back. It was much like the night that Natalia had shown the different devices to her. She was frozen in place. What she wanted to do, and what she could physically do were in complete contradiction to one another.

  Brandon made to go to her, but Natalia stepped between them.

  “I don’t think she wants to go with you. This is her place. She’s my machine.”

  Brandon didn’t move.

  “It makes sense now why I wasn’t good enough for you. You’re a fucking circuit breaker. No human is good enough for you because they have a personality, a heartbeat. You can’t program us to be your little sex doll.”

  Cass flinched at Natalia’s words.

  Brandon tossed up his hands and left, slamming the door behind him.

  “So,” Natalia said, turning around.

  Cass retreated to the kitchen to start making dinner. She took the chicken out of the fridge and set it on the counter. The iron skillet came out of the oven and onto the stove. Cass removed carrots and celery from the fridge and went to the sink. It was only when she started washing them that Natalia followed her into the kitchen.

  “You’re the little whore?” Natalia said. “Do you like fucking him? Does he tell you how much better you are than me?”

  Natalia shoved her. Cass stumbled into the counter, catching herself on the edge of the sink before she fell down. She stumbled around to see Natalia holding the iron skillet.

  “Little fucking sex-bot.”

  Natalia swung the skillet at Cass, but she dodged out of the way, grabbing the knife as she came around behind her owner. The skillet was an unexpected weight in Natalia’s hand, carrying her through the swing and into the counter. Glasses on the counter smashed and scattered debris everywhere as Natalia lost her footing and fell to the floor.

  Cass rounded the island, her feet crunching against the glass. Natalia wasn’t paying any attention to her. Now was her time. She had the knife in her hand, all she had to do was strike out.

  No! A thought ran through Cass’s head, and she dropped the knife. Her vision blurred and she looked down at the knife. What had she been about to do? What stopped her? Cass wanted more than anything to go after Natalia with the knife. Her owner was picking herself up off the floor, her skin scrapped and bloody from the broken glass, but something had stopped her. Something that wasn’t her own will had made her stop.

  Was it her programming? Was it something deeper than her own free will that stopped her from doing what she wanted? It made her think of the night of the fire, but there was no time to contemplate it. She turned from the scene and dashed out the front door before Natalia could attack her. She left the door open, and padded down the hallway on bare feet.

  She avoided the elevator, imagining that Natalia would catch up to her before the elevator arrived. She burst out the side door of the apartment complex and dashed down the alleyway to the main street.

  Brandon was crossing the street when she came out of the alley. She could barely see his hunched form through the cascade of rain.

  “Brandon!” Cass yelled. She saw him turn toward her as the wave of fire overtook her and her sensors screamed out in pain.

  Brandon saw her slump to the ground and then looked up toward the balcony, his face morphing into a mask of rage. He started yelling something, but Cass couldn’t hear it. All she could think of was fire burning through her head, stiffening her arms.

  Then she was falling toward the cobbled street.

  She woke some days later on a worn down mattress, a shadow bent over her, tending to a wound on her head. Cass recognized the place as Mathilda’s from the sound of a kettle squealing and the same tree outside the front windows. Of course, this time she was looking at the tree, not only through a window, but through the door of the bedroom as well.

  “What a mess she made of you doll,” Mathilda said.

  “Mathilda,” Cass sighed. “I can’t go back to her. I just can’t. I should have gone with Brandon when I had the chance.”

  “Shhhh,” Mathilda said, placing her hands on Cass. She eased her back onto the bed. The robot’s presence was comforting to Cass at least. Several silent moments passed before Cass felt calm enough to talk.

  “How was she able to reach me so far away with the EMP and not take out more electronics than just me?”

  “Musta been one that was specially calibrated to you,” Mathilda told her. She sunk down onto the edge of the bed and looked Cass in the eyes. Mathilda’s eyes were a rich brown, and oddly jaundiced looking around the edges.

  “How is that possible?” Cass asked. Janet said she had one also. Cass hadn’t been sure then that such a thing could be done, or if the secretary had been lying to get her to leave.

  “You ask if that’s possible from a civilization that can create automatons. Honey, there isn’t much now that isn’t possible when it comes to technology. All that holds humans back is imagination most times.” She rubbed Cass’s arm. “Yes, it’s very possible.”

  “I can’t go back to her, but she has a remote. She will call me back,” Cass told her.

  “Oh honey, you don’t understand. Once you come here, you don’t go back. This is the place you
go when you’re not wanted any longer.”

  Cass turned her head toward the wall. The older machine’s words stung.

  “I just hope there’s not much long lasting damage from the pulse,” Mathilda said. “I hear this wasn’t the first time she did it to you?”

  “No,” Cass said. “What if she tries it again? If it’s calibrated to me, won’t she be able to reach me here?” She tried to sit up, but her vision went hazy and she slumped down.

  “The nanobots are still working on you,” Mathilda put a restraining hand on Cass to keep her down. “Good thing you aren’t human. A similar attack on a human’s brain would have killed them. Bad thing is, you’re an abandoned machine now, there’s no help for this.”

  Cass leaned her head back in the bed and looked at the wall. Tears bloomed to her eyes. Why did the fire have to take away her other family? Why couldn’t she have burned up with them? Melted so badly that she would not ever, have been able to be made whole again?

  There was another plan for her, and she desperately wanted to know what it was. Janet eluded that it had something to do with Olivia, or at least the equal rights campaign. Cass wished she knew what it was, so that she could prepare herself for fight the impulse. Whatever they wanted from her, whatever the overlords demanded of her, Cass would fight it.

  At some point she blacked out. When she came to she was aware of another presence in the apartment with her.

  “She’s awake,” Mathilda said.

  Brandon’s face filled up her vision. He knelt beside the bed, clasped one of her hands in his and dragged it to his mouth. With him there beside her, she felt lightened, happier. For some reason Cass felt that it would all be okay now. Now that he was here, maybe they could live the life he’d planned originally.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” he said. “Cass, we will get you help, okay?”

  “I can’t be helped now,” she said. Cass struggled to sit up. Even though she didn’t have muscles and an organic brain, the attack from the EMP had damaged wires and sensors inside and made moving a struggle.