Ensnared

by Rita Stradling

  The best Alainn could come up with was, “I like eating. It is very interesting to me.”

  “Don’t come to dinner late again,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t have come late if you hadn’t told me that it was cancelled.” The moment the words were out, Alainn wanted to drag them back in.

  Stupid mouth.

  Why couldn’t she control her own words?

  True, it was a jerk move to blame a robot when it was so obviously his fault, but a robot wouldn’t have cared.

  Alainn waited for his response, but he remained silent.

  Slowly, Alainn turned back to her chicken. Mr. Garbhan said nothing as Alainn stripped the chicken from the bone then moved the bones to get at the potatoes underneath.

  For some reason, the candle caught her attention again. Alainn held a hand just a little toward it. “That’s not real?” she asked.

  “No,” came his voice, almost startling her, as in the darkness, he could have vanished without her realizing it.

  Alainn peered down the table. “It’s very good. I wouldn’t have known, except there’s no heat.” She reached forward to touch the candle holder, seeing that the flame moved with the breeze from her hand.

  “Did you burn yourself before?” he asked.

  Alainn’s gaze fell to her arm. Clearly lit by candlelight, a faint pink, oval burn showed on her arm. It took Alainn a moment to even remember what it was from.

  Meatloaf, oven, cold water in the sink.

  “Does your body burn?” he asked.

  Alainn raised her wrist, shifting the burn toward him. “I tested the blush on my arm, but I was heavy-handed. I don’t know much about makeup.” Setting her wrist back down on the tabletop, Alainn held her breath, waiting for his response.

  “You don’t need to wear makeup. I don’t care. I just had my buyer order everything she said a woman needed for beauty products.”

  All points on the “creepy” side of the tally board. The verdict was definitely in.

  He bought the makeup for Alainn. And judging by the pseudo-date here, she was almost positive that she was his robot wife and not his robot daughter.

  Alainn pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling.

  “Are you done eating?” he asked.

  Her appetite had vanished, but she was not ready to move on to any other possible wifely duty he had planned for her. Alainn would sacrifice a lot to keep her father out of prison, but not that. She could not let things go that far.

  “I could still eat,” she said, forking a big glob of potatoes into her mouth. It stuck like paste, coating the inside of her throat as she tried to swallow.

  “You don’t need to.”

  Slowly, Alainn set down her fork.

  They sat there in a locked silence. She squinted, trying to see into the dark. Alainn’s vision had somewhat adjusted to the low light, but Mr. Garbhan was little more than a darker shadow within a shadow.

  “You can go to your room,” he said in a low voice.

  Alainn nodded. “Okay.”

  “Go straight there. Once you are inside, you will be locked in for the night.”

  She wanted to sag in relief or whoop for joy, but instead she concentrated on maintaining an even expression. Nodding again, she lifted up her skirt and turned for the door.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Garbhan.”

  “My name is Lorccan. I wish for you to call me Lorccan,” he snapped.

  She nodded once again. “Of course. Goodnight, Lorccan.” As slowly as she could make herself, Alainn walked out of the room.

  7

  December 4, 2026

  Ice cubes clinked in Connor Murphy’s glass as he lifted a tumbler to his lips. A strong, pungent taste of alcohol hit his tongue, making him splutter.

  The robot attendant had given him alcohol in his soda again. They often did, likely because his voice was at a lower octave than the clinking, chattering, jingle-making machines around him. Sighing, he set the drink aside.

  He pulled the lever down on his machine, and the holograms flashed above their stations. The first hologram stuck: a floating pair of cherries on their stems. The second hologram stopped at another pair of cherries. His heart surged as the last hologram flashed through various symbols.

  The first win of the night.

  The last hologram was a bar. His total cash bank decreased a dollar.

  Sighing, Connor pulled the lever again.

  A cloud of cigarette smoke blew into his face, making Connor turn his head. Unfortunately, this had been the last open slot machine, and slots were all he would allow himself until Alainn escaped. Also, Rose had him on a strict budget to make sure he did not cut into the money needed to build Rosette 82GF. The major expenses had already been paid for on the day of the payment’s arrival. To Connor’s shock and relief, Rose had arranged everything in advance. Rosette’s body would soon be printed by a new, better company than he had used for Rose. TechniHealth would be building Rosette with the most advanced medical-tech available—Rose had overseen the plans herself.

  He had been right; Rosette’s hardware and software were far beyond his capabilities to design or print. Connor had spent two days around the house, impotent to help and fighting stress-induced indigestion. The third day, Rose had practically pushed him out of the house, saying she was “not functioning at full capacity with his hovering.”

  After simply standing outside of his house for an hour, he’d walked down to the bus stop. Taking Route 509 to the 120, he’d arrived at the casino just as the sun began to set.

  He told himself he wasn’t going to spend more than three hundred. Four hundred was his absolute maximum.

  The slot machine’s holograms flashed. The first hologram stuck on bar, the second on sevens. Connor began to turn away, hoping to flag another robot when his machine went dark.

  The clanking, clattering among a myriad of jingles suddenly fell silent—and was quickly replaced by a loud, angry outcry.

  “What the hell!” shouted the elderly, smoking woman beside him. Her plethora of rings made a loud clack as her hand smacked her slot machine. “I still had forty dollars in there!”

  “Oh . . . uh, that’s awful.” Connor still had 215 dollars in his now-dead machine.

  “Well, damn it! I’m demanding a refund!” She swiveled before stumbling out of her chair, leaving her cigarette smoldering in an ashtray.

  As the crowd of irate casino customers headed deeper into the casino, Connor headed out. Just outside the doors, his son Colby waited for him. Under one arm, Colby held a briefcase.

  They fell into step, saying nothing as they walked toward the bus stop.

  After taking their seats inside the next bus, as the hum of the engine echoed around them, Connor turned to his son. “I had nowhere else to go.”

  “Go to the movies,” Colby said.

  Connor stared at his rough, dry hands. “I don’t think your sister would be very happy if she got out next week and you were in prison instead of me.”

  Turning forward, Colby pushed his glasses up his nose. “Then don’t go back until the Rosette is finished. You remember how this goes, Dad. I’ll shut them down every time.”

  Connor sighed. “Yes, I remember.”

  And that was the problem. All he wanted was to forget.

  8

  December 5, 2026

  The pounding in Alainn’s head made it hard to concentrate as she gazed down at the disc resting on her hand. The small blue circle shone in the evening light. Alainn had no idea how it would help get her out of there. To be fair, she knew very little about robotics or microchips—or whatever category the disc fell into.

  Alainn sat cross-legged on the bed, a peach dress pooling around her legs. As always, she’d chosen a dress with long sleeves. Her burn had not quite healed. For the last three days, she had ensured that she was ready for dinner several hours ahead of time. Three days she’d already been locked in this tower. Three days, and absolutely nothing had changed from that f
irst day.

  In most ways, that was a blessing. If Lorccan was planning to make her some sort of sex robot, he wasn’t in any rush. She wasn’t sure what to make of his reluctance to step out of the shadows.

  Each day, the majority of Alainn’s time was spent in the bathroom. She drank copious amounts of water from the sink to alleviate her hunger and luxuriated in the privacy. Either the voice didn’t spy on her or didn’t know that she was acting in a way unusual enough to report to Mr. Garbhan.

  Alainn would have given almost anything to be able to send a message to her house. Her father deserved to know she was safe—at least for now.

  But of all the devices that Rose had devised for her, one to communicate with her home was not among them.

  The whole encounter with Rose had played on repeat through these last four days as Alainn played hermit in her room. The more she thought about it, the less she trusted that Rose was busy devising a method to get her out. And she hadn’t trusted it very much to begin with.

  If Rose wasn’t engineering the escape, what was this disc? Was it just what Rose said, a diagnostic tool that wasn’t actually doctored?

  For all Alainn knew, it could be a piece of sea glass from their garden. But, like she had every day these past three days, she took the small, smooth disc and slipped it into her bra.

  “You should leave right now if you wish to be a few minutes early for dinner,” the voice said.

  “Thanks,” Alainn said as she scooted off the bed.

  Instead of heading for the door, though, she walked to the window. If she stood in just the right place, she could almost see the house she lived in. Perhaps if she had more of a vantage point, it would actually come into view.

  Every time she’d left her room in the last few days, the voice had been waiting to greet her on the other side. Alainn always reentered her room pretty soon after dinner, but soon itchy feet would overcome her need to be unsupervised.

  A few days. Alainn knew that she only needed to keep the act up for a few days—a week and a half, at most—and then she and her father would be free. “You will have to leave right now in order not to be late.”

  Alainn’s gaze drifted over to the bay—or where the bay would be, if there wasn’t so much fog.

  “Please run, Rose 76GF,” the voice said.

  “I’m going, Voice.” She didn’t quite run, but went quickly up the now-familiar path.

  Pausing in the doorway, she examined the table. “Did you move the candle?”

  “You are very close to being late,” he said.

  She walked to stand beside the candle. It had definitely moved from its position the first day, but now that she thought on it, it might have moved yesterday as well.

  “Please take a seat,” Mr. Garbhan said from the darkness.

  Alainn sat in front of what looked a little like chicken but smelled a heck of a lot better. “Is that chicken?” She leaned in.

  “Duck.”

  “Oh, I’ve never . . . seen people eat duck,” she said, forcing a smile to hide the near slip.

  “Eat it,” he ordered.

  Her jaw clenched as she peered into the darkness. “The Murphys usually say please and thank you to me. I prefer that.”

  He made no response.

  She needed to learn to bite her tongue. If Rose was actually pulling through for her, this would only last between four and eleven more days. But, she was beginning to suspect that her own mouth was determined to blow her cover.

  Taking up her fork and knife, she cut the duck.

  She couldn’t fathom why she had fought him on eating the duck. She hadn’t had a bite to eat since dinner the previous night. This one-meal-a-day thing wasn’t going to cut it.

  Duck, Alainn learned very quickly, was nothing like chicken. In a very good way. It had a deep, almost greasy—but not quite—taste that filled her senses. For a second, she forgot everything and simply focused on separating every morsel of duck from its bone.

  “I was almost sure that Connor Murphy had cheated money from me.”

  Alainn’s fork paused halfway to her mouth. When he didn’t continue, she ate the bite off the fork before setting the utensil down. “Do you feel cheated?”

  He took a long time to answer. “I do not.”

  Alainn raised her gaze to the darkness, finding the man-shaped outline a little easier to determine in the shadows. Mr. Garbhan’s words both made her want to sigh with relief and squirm because he was happy with her as his wife-bot.

  If things stayed the same, fine. She would dress up in fancy dresses and eat duck for a couple more days, no problem. But the candle was gradually moving up the length of the table, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that meant.

  “You have not left your rooms,” he said.

  So Voice was spying on her.

  “Not often.”

  “Do you not need to . . . entertain yourself?”

  “I appreciate entertainment,” she said, carefully.

  “I will give you a tour of the tower,” he said the words fast, almost irritably.

  Alainn glanced into the deep shadows clustering around him. Was this going to be a tour in the dark?

  “You’re going to show me around the tower?”

  “Yes,” he said on a breath. “I will give you a tour at eleven a.m.; leave your room then and do not be late.”

  Alainn nodded. “If you’d like.”

  “That is what we’ll do . . . Thank you.”

  She blinked at him. “Thank you.” Alainn returned her attention to the bird bones on her plate. She attempted to pull the last little strip of meat off the bone, wanting every succulent bite.

  “You don’t need to continue eating when the food is gone,” he said.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, putting the fork down. Forcing her gaze away from that little tiny bit of duck, she managed to refocus on his shadow.

  “What do you like?” he asked.

  “Like?” she asked.

  “Prefer, enjoy, seek out when you have time free?” he snapped. “If I am taking you on this tour—there is a lot to show you—I’ll have to filter much of it out. What would you prefer to see?”

  There was one thing that Alainn would consider giving her left arm to see. “Living things. Plants,” she said.

  “Is that a joke?”

  It was immediately obvious to her that something in what she said was very wrong. Were robots not supposed to like living things?

  Perhaps. Rose had never once gone into the garden.

  Quickly, Alainn listed off, “I prefer movies, books, art, games . . .” Her brain would not cooperate.

  What would a robot enjoy?

  “Learning—mostly from books.”

  “Good. You may go now.” A loud scraping sounded before his shadow grew into the shape of a tall, standing man. With a tapping sound on the floor, the shadow moved away until it disappeared into the darkness altogether.

  Alainn stood, slowly. “Are you still here?” she asked in a whisper.

  There was no response.

  Stepping as lightly as she could, Alainn rounded the side of the table. Her fingers dragged over it as she placed one foot toward the empty chair and the darkness beyond. Lifting the other foot, she slowly moved forward, tiptoeing another step into the darkness.

  “Please return to your room, Rose 76GF,” Voice said.

  Alainn jumped, almost falling backward. Breathing in sharply, she looked back to the shadows, but there was no movement within.

  “Please return to your room now,” the voice said placidly.

  Alainn did. As fast as she could without running, she rushed back to her room. The moment the doors closed behind her, the now-familiar click of the lock sounded.

  Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the door.

  Damn it.

  She was amazed she had kept up the deception this long. Three more days might be way too long for her to maintain the ruse, and that was Rose’s low end of the estimate
. That was, of course, if Rose didn’t actually intend for Alainn to rot in here until she was discovered.

  Unzipping her dress, Alainn almost ripped the long sleeves off. As always, she stuffed the dress in the open bin in the wall that waited to snap shut. The moment it did, disappearing completely, the wood wall stretched on seamlessly.

  She forced herself to sleep, but woke in the middle of the night as hunger pains tore through her.

  Crossing into her bathroom, she turned on the water and brought her mouth down for a drink, taking long, deep sips. When her hunger—though not satisfied—lessened, she stood straight.

  As she lifted her hand away from the faucet, a strange, faint sound emitted.

  Leaning in, she stared at the faucet. The humming sounded again, but it wasn’t coming from the faucet. It was a long, low sound and very faint—almost too faint to hear.

  It stopped.

  Alainn stood very still, hands up, trying not to make a single movement. There was silence for almost a minute, and then it came again. Her gaze snapped up to the ceiling.

  Climbing onto the wide marble lip of the raised tub, Alainn reached up to the ceiling in the direction of the sound. As she ran her fingers along the mahogany ceiling, Alainn felt small ridges in the section the sound came from.

  “Vent?” she whispered.

  Climbing off the tub, she ran to her vanity, grabbed the chair there, and rushed back.

  The chair barely fit over the marble lip of the tub, the feet straddling each side of its width. Holding a breath, she climbed onto the marble, then, very carefully, onto the chair. Alainn stood slowly, reaching to the ceiling for balance.

  The sound fell silent again.

  She was high enough now that her head was inches from the vent. Taking a deep breath, Alainn pointed her feet, rising to the tips of her toes, which gave her the little extra height she needed to press an ear to the ceiling.

  Nothing came. Perhaps the mechanical system had simply turned off. It could have been absolutely nothing—the whir of a pipe in the walls that needed repairing, or a poor, helpless animal that had somehow found itself in the vents of what was pretty much a building-size computer.