Ensnared

by Rita Stradling

  “Okay, wait—you’re going to go tomorrow?” Alainn scooted forward on the bed. A dormant hope resurged through her. Alainn would do anything—she’d worship at the robot’s feet if Rose agreed to go.

  “No, you are going to go tomorrow.”

  Alainn froze, staring at Rose. “What?” she whispered.

  “I have calculated one way in which all parties can achieve their desires.”

  “I’m sorry—I’m not understanding.” Alainn shook her head. A hard knot formed in her stomach.

  “I am not surprised.” Rose reached out to pat Alainn’s hand. “You are not as intelligent as the rest of your family.”

  “Spell it out in really simple terms, then.” She just managed to not growl the words at Rose.

  Slowly, Rose looked up to the ceiling, moonlight slashing up the curve of her neck, her chin, and the line of her nose. “Earlier tonight, I arranged for you to be picked up by Mr. Garbhan through e-mail, writing as if I was Father. In one hour, a car will arrive outside to take you to his building. I have designed and created hardware for your body. If you are scanned, a chip in the hardware will communicate to the scanners that you have an organic circuitry system rather than a human brain.”

  Alainn shook her head, hoping to dislodge some of the grogginess there. “I’m still not following—you’re saying you want me to pretend to be you and turn myself over? That you already arranged it?”

  “Yes, you are following. That is exactly what I am saying.”

  “I—I—” Alainn shook her head again. The air thinned around her.

  “I have a working plan for the transplanting. You can assimilate easily into a life of servitude as you are already accustomed to the labor you will be asked to perform.” Rose lifted a hand, ghostly gray in the low light, and ticked off the chores on her fingers. “Cooking, housekeeping, and bookkeeping. Unless . . . is your concern that he might use you for sexual gratification?”

  “What? No.”

  “I believe that this would be a particular concern of yours.”

  “I never even considered that he would do that to you—I, of all people, would never have tried to push you into going if I thought you’d be used that way.” Alainn blinked furiously. “Rose, do you really think that I would have let myself be the model when my dad printed your face and body if I thought Mr. Garbhan was going to do that to you?”

  “It is highly unlikely that I was designed for this function. I have also been assured that there were documents signed to that effect addressed to Father.”

  Alainn held out her palms to Rose. “Rose, it’s not just that. I can’t take your place. There’s no way that would work . . . and I can’t live in that tower for the rest of my life. I’m a human. I know that probably sounds callous to you, but you were created to not need sunshine and fresh air. And you don’t need exercise. Humans need those things, me especially. Everything I am,” she touched her chest, “is centered on being in the outdoors.”

  “The duration will be seven to fourteen days, no longer.” Her head swung down, causing shadows to swallow her eyes. Two black hollows focused on Alainn. “When Mr. Garbhan pays Father, he and I will make the Rosette model; this process should only take a week, unless there are complications. And then I will devise a way to switch you with the new model.”

  “No—there’s no possible way that Mr. Garbhan will believe I’m a robot for two weeks—after five minutes with both you and me, no one would mistake one of us for the other.”

  She shrugged. “He does not know how an AI robot behaves.”

  “He knows. He approved all of your plans; he knows exactly how you function. And we sent all those videos of you.”

  “He knows what I look like.” One of her fingers pointed. “I look like you. He knows what I sound like, again, like you. He does not know what I am capable of, or anything about my behavior or speech patterns. This is the only solution I have been able to devise that would get Father and me out of imprisonment. Also, it is the only method that would give me the capability and resources to create the Rosette model.”

  Alainn gazed off to where a breeze rustled the leaves beyond her window. “If you’ve been devising this plan for a while now, why would you wait until tonight to tell me?”

  “You are emotional and rash. You would have told Father—to alleviate his stress and your own. I also calculated it as a low probability that Father would let you turn yourself in instead of him.”

  A chill traveled through Alainn’s veins. “Have you calculated the probability that I would say yes?”

  “Ninety-six percent, if you trust that I will make your replacement.”

  “What percentage if I don’t?” she whispered.

  “Eighty-four percent.”

  “That’s . . . still pretty high.”

  “Be assured that I intend to make a replacement for you and do all in my power to replace you as promptly as possible.”

  “Why?” Alainn glared. “Why would you get me out?”

  Rose leaned into the light, making her inhuman eyes shine with an opaque white. “Because the longer you are in captivity, the greater the chance that the deception will be discovered. If you are discovered, likely both you and Father will go to prison. This would not be in the best interest of my work.”

  “I see.” Alainn looked away, into the darkness of her room. “I’m going to need a few minutes . . . I need to think.”

  “We do not have time for you to think. You must prepare to look like me, and we must meet the car in thirty-seven minutes. I have brought the materials for your transformation.”

  “Give me a minute.” She stood and crossed to her open window. The screen swung on its hinge, something she had installed for this very purpose. Her bare feet stepped from her sturdy wooden end table through the window to a rough, splinter-covered bench seat. Turning, she faced Rose, who had not moved or shifted, but gray had crept in around her now the early morning light had started to shine. She thought better of what she was going to say and turned back to the small, terraced yard that stepped down the hillside.

  The air out there wasn’t fresh; it wasn’t like the first inhale of the morning on her mountaintop. But it was free air, air that came and went as it pleased. She didn’t know much about Mr. Garbhan, but she knew that he’d intended Rose to live and work in his tower. If Alainn went, there was a very real possibility that this would be the last free air she would breathe for weeks—until Rose helped her escape. If Rose helped her escape.

  Avoiding the rotted wooden boards on her mother’s old garden bench, she sat. Chipped paint clung to the wood—small traces of her mother’s careful work. At the top of the bench was an almost-intact rose, pink outlined in black.

  Their house sat upon a hill that gazed across the length of the Bay Area. In the distance, the first rays of morning broke over the mountains. The sun managed her climb over the peaks, spreading a soft glow onto the sleek bridge stretching over the water.

  A hillside of houses sloped down below, blanketing out into a multicolored quilt of rooftops. Far off, the long, lean silhouettes of city towers clustered along the shore.

  To the east, above it all, waited her mountains. The forests looked down on her, waiting for her decision.

  As if weighing in on that decision, the roses beside her rustled, grabbing her attention. Alainn could almost imagine her mother here, smiling from the bench, roses blooming to their fullest as if to impress her mother’s appreciative gaze.

  What would she give to have her mother back?

  Anything, absolutely anything.

  The thought comforted her. With her mother, no robot had snuck into her room at night and said, “Your mother is going to die, but if you spend two weeks trapped in captivity, she’ll survive until she’s so old you have to carry her to her gardens.” She didn’t know what she would have chosen at ten years old, but today she’d knew she’d be buried alive to save her mother.

  Alainn stood carefully so she would not jostle th
e fragile boards underneath her.

  As if the mountains wanted Alainn to change her mind the moment she turned away, the sun lit their length. Their peaks shone out in a world overcast by shadow.

  She turned to see Rose standing at the window, watching her. Alain looked into Rose’s face—her own face. Alainn knew three things: she didn’t trust Rose to get her out, she would go anyway, and she was probably making a huge mistake.

  5

  December 2, 2026

  The self-driving car made another turn. Alainn gripped the leather seat at her sides. She attempted to keep her expression as placid as possible—Rose was so unflappable.

  At least she looked the part. Rose had taken to the task of transforming her with quick efficiency. She’d brought a sort of kit containing a change of clothes, hair devices, and several plastic cases. After she’d smoothed Alainn’s hair, Rose pulled out the first clear case.

  Rose snapped open the lid, revealing a round disc about the size of a thumbprint. “Open your mouth.”

  After a pause, Alainn had.

  Stepping forward with the disc balanced on her thumb, Rose hooked her finger into Alainn’s mouth and pressed the disc to the roof.

  Pulsing pain shot through Alainn. Her mind went blank and her sight darkened. She screamed, but a fist wedged into her mouth, muffling the sound. Seconds passed with only pain and nothing else, until the searing lessened bit by bit.

  “That one should be the most discomforting,” Rose said as she pulled her fist out of Alainn’s mouth.

  Alainn had barely made it through the rest without killing Rose—or decommissioning her, as it was. Two other chips pushed so far into her ear canals that she swore they would rupture her eardrums. The last chip pierced the inside of her nostril. Rose had lied; the nostril chip hurt the most. Yet soon enough, it was over. Rose held up another kit Alainn was supposed to bring with her.

  “This,” Rose said as she held up a tube, “was supposed to contain the clear plastic coating that I use once daily to protect my teeth. It instead has a flavorless toothpaste—but you should only use it once daily.”

  “Why?”

  Rose ignored her question. She held up another tube. “This is T9640. It’s an acidic compound that I ingest to clean out any buildup if my cooling system is malfunctioning. Do not drink it—it will kill you. I only included it because they might test what you bring in.” Setting the tube back into the small bag, she extracted another disc-shaped object.

  Alainn shifted back involuntarily.

  “This is not for your body,” she said, holding it up.

  “Oh, yeah. Okay . . . ,” Alainn whispered, though she didn’t move forward.

  “It is a hardware diagnostic tool I use to ensure that all systems are working properly, but I have modified it. This is an essential tool in the plan for your replacement by the Rosette model. Keep it on your person if you possibly can.” Rose held up the small bag, setting the disc inside.

  “How will it help me get out?”

  Rose cocked her head. “It’s too complicated for you to understand, and you only have three minutes until your transportation arrives.”

  Rose did not escort Alainn out; she had walked away without a good-bye as if there was no doubt in her mind Alainn would follow through with the charade. The driverless car waited outside, door open.

  She’d hesitated before climbing inside.

  “Please enter the car, Rose 76GF,” said a mechanical, disembodied voice.

  The car had weaved between lanes as the number of morning commuters multiplied on the expressway. Almost every car drove northbound, toward the gleaming towers that blocked sight of all else. A robot transport passed her in the fast lane. Identical robots in city worker uniforms sat in the glass pod bus, lined up in rows of unnatural uniformity.

  She broke her gaze away from the pod car as her own car took the off ramp into the city. Robots were everywhere—sweeping the streets, opening the shops—their too-practiced mechanical movements distinguishing them. Alainn knew that after eight years of automatons slowly integrating into society she should be used to the sight. She wasn’t.

  This time, the black tower snuck up on Alainn—her focus had been trained on a robot walking with a group of kids in uniform. The car bumped up into that same private alley Alainn had raced out of less than twenty-four hours before. Two tire skid marks lined the road. Alainn fought a smile at the sight.

  It served Mr. Garbhan right.

  As the car turned toward the underground ramp, the steel door rose.

  Alainn hoped that if scanners inspected her at that moment, they wouldn’t detect the acid tsunami in her stomach, or the galloping hooves in her chest. Alainn wasn’t much of an actress, nor was she good at hiding what she felt.

  In this situation, Rose would probably look on placidly. She’d examine her surroundings in a clinical way, interested but not invested. If Alainn was managing to give that impression to whatever she assumed was examining her right now, she would have surprised herself. The moment the car passed under the gate, the outside light faded away. Looking over her shoulder, Alainn found the gate closing her in.

  The parking garage gleamed. Dozens of metallic, smooth-lined cars lined up against one wall. The car stopped halfway down the line.

  “Please exit the car, Rose 76GF,” the robotic voice told Alainn.

  The car door glided open.

  Grabbing her small kit, she followed the car’s instruction and climbed out of the car.

  “Please step back,” the voice said.

  “Oh,” she said, stepping out of the way.

  The car shut its own door and then parked itself by sliding into a space between two similar cars.

  A familiar, smooth female voice said, “Welcome, Rose 76GF. Please exit the garage through the door on your far left.”

  Without meaning to, Alainn shifted toward the car she’d just climbed out of. It had almost completely blended into its surroundings. For some reason, she wanted to stay with it. Forcing herself to step away, Alainn strode as evenly as she could manage through a gleaming line of metallic bubbles. The walls themselves illuminated the room; soft white luminescence shone from walls, floor, and ceiling in uninterrupted sheets of glass. The entire space could have been made from the same material as the screen from just outside the garage.

  The hallway loomed on Alainn’s left, tall and rectangular. As if seamless, the glass continued smoothly in. The hallway stretched a short way before coming to an abrupt end.

  A soft ding sounded. To one side, a rectangle of the seemingly uninterrupted surface shifted inward and then slid away. Inside was a small room made entirely of the same white screens.

  “Please step inside.”

  The last thing Alainn wanted to do was step into that little box. Her pulse beat against the side of her neck as if pleading, “Go back, go back.” What her pulse didn’t realize was that she was already trapped.

  The moment she stepped into the room, the glass slid back into place, sealing her in.

  “You are now being scanned. Please hold still.”

  The ever-present ache in Alainn’s ears, nose, and the roof of her mouth gave her a strange sort of comfort. She waited for the verdict, listening only to the rasp of her breath in the softly lit cell.

  The room did not speak for almost a minute.

  Alainn kept her hands to her sides, though she could not keep them from shaking. Her eyelids slipped closed. She needed them closed. She imagined herself looking over the wide expanse of the view she could see from the top of her mountain. The forest stretched out for miles, boughs heavy with snow in every direction. And she was alone. Dark hair blew in every direction as the wind embraced her.

  “You are functioning properly; however, you have contaminants on your skin and clothing. Please remove your clothing.”

  “Excuse me . . . did you just say to take off my clothing?” Alainn glanced around the elevator.

  Two small compartments scrolled open. The
y looked like white, glass dresser drawers shifting out of the wall.

  “Please place your possessions in the compartment on your left, and your clothing in the compartment on your right. Immediately.”

  Alainn hesitated before putting her small bag in the left compartment. Her hand barely cleared it before it snapped closed.

  “Please remove your clothing, Rose 76GF.”

  Rose wouldn’t have hesitated; Alainn knew she was already taking way too long. Until Rose had introduced the idea to her, Alainn truly had never even considered that Rose could have been intended as some sort of sex robot.

  Holy hell.

  She hoped that Rose hadn’t been commissioned for this purpose.

  Fighting the hot feeling that ringed her eyes, Alainn unbuttoned her shirt. The small plastic buttons eluded her clumsy fingers as she moved down, unhooking one after the other. When she reached the last button, the garment slipped off her shoulders. Gently, she set the shirt in the second bin before retuning her hands to her skirt. Her skirt came off easily—too easily—and she put it into the bin, too.

  “Please remove your undergarments.”

  Blinking rapidly to force back the tears that would instantly give her away, Alainn reached back and unhooked her bra, setting it into the bin. After the bra, she slipped off her underwear. She set it and her shoes into the bin.

  The bin closed.

  Her breathing refused to slow as she stood in the small room, completely naked. Closing her eyes, she tried to return to her mental mountain, but all she found behind her eyelids was the low, white light.

  “You will now be decontaminated,” the voice said.

  Powder hit Alainn from all sides. She gasped, gaining a mouthful of something that tasted a lot like baking soda and soap. A warm spray of water shot at her from above, before shifting over her body, spraying down her back and front. The spray softened as it moved over her face, then ceased.

  “Please raise your arms.”

  When Alainn lifted her arms, the spray did one final pass over her body. Warm air replaced the water, blowing over cleansed skin and down the length of her body. In moments, she was dry.