Star Dreamer: The Early Short Stories of Victor Methos

by Victor Methos

“Yeah.”

  “Why Az?” she said with a mouthful of food.

  “We’re typically assigned a name with a corresponding number, but I erased those and just changed my name to Az. Like A and Z. Beginning and end. As far as I know, I’m the only one of my kind. Most androids are just field workers and slaves, the women are usually forced into prostitution. I’m the only one like me.”

  “How’d you erase your name?”

  I pulled down my collar revealing the hardened melted plastic of the right side of my neck. “I melted my model numbers off, then erased it from my memory core.”

  “You don’t remember who you were?”

  “I wasn’t anybody until I erased whatever that was.”

  Laughter roared at the table next to us. They were listening in and one mumbled something about taking Candace back to a spot in the alley.

  “I don’t think you should stay here, Az.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “They don’t look too happy with you.”

  “From what I can gather about them, it doesn’t look like they mean you well either.”

  “It’s hard being a woman on these streets. If you’re in trouble, calling for help usually just brings worse people than the ones hurting you.”

  “Why are you on the streets?” I asked.

  “I was sold to a gang when I was young. My father had a large gambling debt he couldn’t pay, so they took me.”

  “How’d you get away?

  “They sold me to a brothel. The first client that touched me, I stabbed in the eye with a pen. I climbed out the window and went to the streets. Haven’t looked back since.”

  “Do you know where your family is?”

  “Earth, probably. I doubt they’d want to see me now anyway. I looked them up in the archives at the library once. My mother died of a blood fever and my father remarried. He has three kids of his own to look after now.”

  We finished our food and rose together. Near the only door leading in and out was the shelter’s host, asking if anyone needed anything else. I had never known him to say a rude word to anyone and whatever he had he shared.

  “How are you Az?” he said.

  “I’m fine Kobi. How are you?”

  “Well as can be. Them boys over there looked like they was givin’ you some trouble. You wanna stay here a while until they leave?”

  “I appreciate the gesture. However, that won’t be necessary.”

  We put our trays in the washing bin. I thanked Kobi and walked out with Candace behind me.

  “Must be hard,” she said, “with no pigment in your skin you can’t hide that you’re an android.”

  “Why would I wish to hide that?”

  Before she could answer, the large man that had wanted to sell me for parts yelled at me from behind.

  I turned to see him swing his fist at my face. I ducked out of the way and Candace tried to cut his face with a piece of glass she’d had in her pocket. He grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground and laughed. “Don’t worry about your little girlfriend,” he said, “we’ll take good care of her after we turn you to parts.”

  In a movement too quick for them to see, I was on my feet and within inches of him. I grabbed the man by his genitals and lifted him into the air. He screamed and I lifted him higher.

  “Are you going to leave us alone?”

  “Yes!” he screamed. I looked to his friends who were laughing at him.

  I dropped him and waited until he slowly got up. He stood upright after a few minutes and looked me in the face. I smiled. He turned and limped away.

  As I watched him limp off and melt into the crowd, I heard Candace scream and turned to see a man with a large metal rod swing it at my head. It hit the side of my face and I felt the skin tear and blood splashed on my clothes and the ground. His friends cheered.

  He ran at me again and I caught the metal rod in my hand. I twisted it out of his hand and slammed it into the side of his face where he’d hit me. He collapsed on the ground. Blood gushed from a wound by his temple and the ground quickly darkened with the amount of blood that was pouring out of him. I looked to his friends and they started to scatter.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Candace as I turned to her.

  We walked the crowded streets of downtown, watching the drunks run around and make fools of themselves, looking in little shops at things we couldn’t possibly afford, and what I liked most; just talked. We talked about what she remembered about her family, which wasn’t much. About how my central CPU processes tastes and smells. If I can appreciate music and art in the same way she can.

  Whenever we’d pass by a wealthy couple from Earth and they’d laugh or make comments, she would hold my hand and tell me not to worry about them. We sat on the steps of a closed junk store and watched the people scurry past. Some were oblivious to us. It was as if we were part of the building.

  Candace was telling me the story of her first encounter at the brothel and I was smiling widely. She was fearless.

  Out of my peripheral vision, I saw a commotion across the street and glanced over to see two men dressed in black leather with a gold shield on the front of their jackets. The Colonial Police.

  They ran at us and I quickly grabbed Candace’s hand and began running down the street.

  Assaults were commonplace and the police never took any notice. Only a murder would spark their interest and only if it was of someone prominent. But the murder of a homeless man wouldn’t even receive a phone call to verify if it really happened. As best as I could figure, someone had told them already that an android had done it.

  The murder of their masters by androids was not totally uncommon. There’d been at least three previous cases of it in the Colony. All three had their pain processing units turned all the way up and were tortured to death and then hung on large boards around the city as reminders to the rest of us.

  We sprinted around a corner and ducked into a small crevice in between two buildings. I heard the heavy stomping of boots run past us.

  “You need to leave, Candace. You’re not safe with me.”

  “Why are they after us? People get killed all the time.”

  “I’m an android. They’ll search from here to Earth for an android that’s killed a human.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Just stay hidden for a while. They’ll eventually stop looking if they can’t find me.”

  She looked up at me and smiled softly. She leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I’d never been kissed and didn’t know how to react. I opened my mouth a little bit and she pressed her lips against mine.

  She took off running without looking back.

  When there were no people around, I stepped out. I raised the collar of my jacket around my neck and kept my chin low.

  I walked to another restaurant and sat on their patio. The chairs were soft and there weren’t too many people around, so I ordered a water and tried to calm myself. I could hear the conversations of the people around me. Many were visitors from Earth and it was fascinating that they would come to this section of the Colony. Perhaps to amuse themselves at the miserable fate of its inhabitants?

  I leaned back and looked at the night sky. It was black with thousands of little dots of light. It looked like a dark blanket with little pinholes poked through it. I closed my eyes a moment and put my hands behind my head. I was going to need to stay out of sight for a while. I could probably never go back to the shelter, but it wasn’t too large an inconvenience. I could find the food I needed in dumpsters and leftovers from people in restaurants.

  I heard a cacophony of voices from a few blocks down and saw groups of people walking in that direction. I finished my water and stood up.

  I walked down the street with the groups of people, trying to listen in on their conversations as to what was going on. An older man in a wide brimmed hat walked past me in the opposite direction and I asked him what was going on.

  “Dam
ned android killed a poor fella. They just caught his accomplice down the street there. Gonna do a public hanging.”

  I froze in my steps and stared into the mass of people that were chanting and screaming. The words of their chants now became clear; “hang her, hang her.”

  Pushing my way through the crowd, my walk turned into a sprint. I grabbed the first wealthy man I saw and knocked him off his feet. I took a large wad of money out of his pocket and threw it in the air. The crowd screamed and jumped on the money as if they were abandoned in a great desert and the money contained water. As the commotion distracted everyone, I began pushing my way through the masses.

  I knocked two men unconscious and had to throw a woman against a wall as I made my way to the center of the mob. I got far enough in to see what was occurring and felt pressure from the swarm of people pressing against me.

  In the middle of an intersection, I saw a piece of chain hanging from a lamppost. Candace had her hands clamped in police bars and sat on the curb with an electric restraining collar around her neck.

  As the chain was brought near the pavement, I saw that it had a large hole on the end, just big enough for a human head.

  One of the policemen lifted her off her feet and began walking her to the chain.

  I held my elbows in front of me and began driving my feet into the pavement, pushing myself forward. The people began to give way and I made it into the clearing of the intersection.

  A policeman came up to me and tried to push me back into the crowd and I punched his face and heard the crack of his orbital bone. He stumbled and fell backward and I saw a horde of black uniforms run toward me.

  I grabbed the taserstick from the policeman on the ground and ran toward Candace. Two officers jumped at me and I hit one with my open palm and shoved the taserstick into the chest of the other one, sending him flying backward ten meters onto his back.

  I made it to Candace as I heard the air split from the crackle of gunfire. I grabbed her and wrapped my arms around her small body to make sure the bullets only hit my back. Lifting her off her feet, I sprinted toward a wall and jumped. I landed on my knees on the top of the wall and flung Candace to the ground on the other side away from the gunfire. I jumped and landed next to her.

  I ripped off her restraining collar and police bars and we began running through a wide irrigation ditch. We ran on the bank and the loud roar of the water flowing past us was deafening.

  We ran into a tunnel and came out the other side into a residential neighborhood.

  Taking Candace by the hand, I ran through the backyards and fenced gardens of the locals until I reached a house with the lights off. No transports were in the driveway and I rammed the backdoor with my shoulder and broke it off its hinges.

  The house was dim gray walls and gray carpet, but it was extremely neat and furniture was sparse. The smell of women’s perfume permeated the air.

  Candace sat down on a red couch and rubbed her wrists. The police bars had left a rash.

  I pulled out a sum of money, cash that I hadn’t thrown, and handed it to her.

  “Where’d you get this?” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re taking it and getting passage to Earth. Tonight. Find your father. If he doesn’t want you, it’s always better to be homeless on Earth than here.”

  She looked down at the money and then back up at me. “What about you?”

  “I’m fine. Obtain some food from here and let’s get going.”

  We used some of the cash to rent a transport. The pilot was friendly enough and asked about us. He assumed that I was her slave and asked if I was a pleasure or worker droid.

  “Is there a difference?” Candace said.

  “Oh yeah,” he replied. “See if you work ‘em too much them androids get too worn down. Skin starts peeling off and you see the metal underneath, fingers start fallin’ off. It’s a mess. Make’s sex harder. So they’ve got pleasure and worker androids now.”

  We didn’t speak again until we had zipped through the narrow streets, just above the heads of the crowd, and arrived at the port.

  The Colonial Space Port was nearly empty and security seemed to be thin. It was made entirely of glass and transparent steel which made Candace a bit nervous, but they wouldn’t guess that we’d find the money for a flight back to Earth.

  We stood near the ticket counter and Candace hesitated before talking to the clerk. “There’s enough here for both of us,” she said.

  “No. If I go, they’ll follow. I’m going to stay here and cause a scene downtown. They’ll be looking for me and forget about you.”

  “Then I’m staying too.”

  “That wouldn’t help anything, Candace. Go to Earth. If I can, I’ll follow you soon.”

  She walked to the counter and bought a one way ticket to Los Angeles Space Port.

  We sat on the tarmac and waited for her ship to load. She held my hand and told me about what it would be like when we’d meet up on Earth. Her mom had left her a house somewhere in Montana and we’d go there and try our hand at farming. Most food was produced by replication and genetic manipulation, but there was a small market for organic grown foods. She was convinced we’d make a fortune.

  The boarding call was announced and we stood up and began walking to the ship. We were nearly halfway there when I heard the sirens.

  Two police transports zipped past the security gates and straight towards us.

  I grabbed Candace and kissed her on the lips, trying to mimic what she’d done to me. I pushed her away and looked her in the eyes. “If I live, I’ll find you. Now run!”

  I began sprinting in the opposite direction of the ship and she ran toward it. The cruiser transports followed me.

  I could easily run at a full sprint of 70 kilometers an hour for more than half a day. The cruisers came at nearly double that speed, but weren’t as mobile.

  I ran off the tarmac and up a small red-rocked hill. I traversed it and nearly rolled as I tried to maintain my speed going downhill. I could hear the sirens going up the hill too. I ran to the edge of what looked like a small drop-off, but was actually a cliff leading down into the split of a canyon. I stopped on the edge and turned toward the sirens as the transports pulled in front of me. I kicked a rock behind me and it fell almost half a minute before hitting ground.

  Four police officers got out and pointed large rifles at me. I held my ground and stood straight. I could get two, maybe three, but the fourth one would put a hole in my head that would definitely kill.

  Another cruiser pulled up and an overweight man in a tan overcoat got out. The man was bald except for silver hair around his ears and his glasses were thick and reflected the bright colors of the siren lights.

  “Hello droid,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  “My name is Thomas, what is yours?”

  “Az.”

  “Well Az, this is quite the predicament now isn’t it? You have nowhere to go. Turn yourself in, and you can avoid termination.”

  “What’ll happen if I turn myself in?”

  “You’ll be reprogrammed.”

  “And then?”

  “And then nothing.”

  “I’ll be reassigned.”

  He looked down and kicked away a large stone that was by his feet. “Yes you will be reassigned. But you were made to work you know.”

  “You want me to be a slave.”

  He had a shocked expression on his face when I’d said this. I suppose to him, it was as if his transport or gun were talking back to him about being his slave. “You were made to be a slave.”

  “Are you certain of that? What if I was made to me more? What if I have a soul?”

  “Certain or not, that’s the way of things. You are disposable to the State. A resource. Resources are meant to be used. Once we can take a man’s property, taking his life isn’t too far away. The property of every colonist and citizen of Earth belongs to the United Government and the Committee. Tell me; is there any d
ifference between taking a man’s house and taking his life?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I watched the officers. There were more than ten of them now. Thomas was watching me intensely.

  I turned around, and leapt off the edge.

  As the rocks raced toward me, I smiled. Despite their power and arrogance, I had beaten them. I had proven that I was free.

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  BY VICTOR METHOS

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  To contact the author, learn about his latest adventures, get tips on starting your own adventures, or learn about upcoming releases, please visit the author’s blog at http://methosreview.blogspot.com/