As they moved down the hallway, the porthole windows, larger than normal, let in a lot of natural light, giving the place an inviting yet desolate feel. Strangely, it felt like home.
X remembered that the color scheme of the ship matched the color scheme of the Crenshaw mansion. He got the weird feeling that Dr. Crenshaw would have approved of this ship, though nothing like it existed in the UEA. He felt a memory insinuating itself against his conscious, but since he didn’t have his memory chip, ghost pixels danced across his vision. He couldn’t make sense of it, and it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Whatever the memory was, he hadn’t been able to process it yet.
Above, the mechanical sails turned, clicking and creaking and groaning. Android footsteps stomped across the ceiling, shaking the walls.
They came to a hallway with jail cells—four of them, two on each side. Xadrian opened the doors and threw X, Shortcut, Brielle and Jazzlyn into their own cells. X’s cell was next to Shortcut’s, and they both faced Jazzlyn and Brielle.
The cells were dark, and only Jazzlyn’s and Brielle’s cells had windows.
“Hope you enjoy your stay,” Xadrian said.
“Go to hell,” Jazzlyn said.
Xadrian slammed the cell doors shut. “God bless all of you,” Xadrian said. “It’s good to have visitors in our home. It’s the first time. Anything you want—within reason!—and we’ll make it happen. We’ll bring you meals and all that. Mama’s a good cook. Even though she’s plotting world domination, she still cooks her own meals.”
“So she can poison us,” Jazzlyn said.
“You know, I’m the one who campaigned for your guys’ survival. Mama wanted to kill you, but I begged her not to. I told her she couldn’t kill one of Dr. Crenshaw’s finest creations and his friends. That wouldn’t be right. Even though you almost killed me, I’m living Big Papa’s values. I’m being the better android.”
“If this is what being a better android looks like, just kill us now,” Shortcut said.
“Mama needs you alive,” Xadrian said. “She—”
Jeanette’s voice sounded on an intercom. She had been listening to the entire conversation. “Xadrian, stop talking.”
Xadrian looked up at the ceiling reverently. “Sorry, Mama. You know how we feel about having people here. It’s nice to get some variety in our lives!” He looked back at the group and pointed his guns at everyone. “You all better keep quiet or we’re going to paint the walls with your insides.”
“Whatever happened to being the better android?” Shortcut asked. He grabbed the bars and rattled them. “You need to re-evaluate your programming!”
Xadrian laughed and skipped off, leaving them alone. He shut a door and darkness descended on the hallway, the only light coming from the porthole windows in Jazzlyn’s and Brielle’s cells.
“Well, this just got interesting,” Shortcut said, pacing around his cell.
“Interesting in all the wrong ways,” Jazzlyn said.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” X said. “I don’t know what Jeanette is planning.”
“This is your fault,” Shortcut said, pointing at Jazzlyn with his still-shackled hands. “If you hadn’t betrayed us, we—”
“Shut up, Shortcut,” Jazzlyn said. “Shut the hell up!”
“No,” Shortcut said. “You’ve been nothing but trouble ever since you came along. First you were a pain in X’s side and now you’re a pain in the UEA’s side. We failed our mission because of you.”
“Failed?” Jazzlyn asked. She gestured around. “I helped you freaking succeed.”
“This is your definition of success? What crazy world are you living in?”
“I was supposed to help you find Jeanette Crenshaw. Look around. We found her.”
“And got captured!” Shortcut said.
“You have no faith,” Jazzlyn said. “You’ve never had to fight. You’ve never been captured.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ve been in way worse situations than this,” Jazzlyn said. “You’re just a wimp. You can’t defend yourself, so you’re taking your insecurity out on me. It’s okay. I’ve met people with way less of a backbone than you, so don’t feel too bad about yourself.”
“At least I stand up for what I believe in,” Shortcut said. “You don’t stand up for anyone but yourself.”
“Shortcut,” Brielle said sternly. “Stop descending to her level.”
“Oh, so the pretty android is going to take shots at me, too?” Jazzlyn asked. Her face was flushed.
“Jazzlyn, please be quiet and calm down,” Brielle said. “And stop talking to Shortcut. That goes for you, too, Shortcut.”
“I’m not going to be silenced by an android,” Jazzlyn said, stomping her foot. She started to say more, but X interrupted her.
“All of you, be quiet. Brielle, do you detect that scent?” X asked.
Brielle stopped and scanned the air. “Yes.”
“It’s a pheromone,” X said. “Jeanette is filtering it into the room. Whatever it is, it’s making you more irritable than you already are.”
Jazzlyn’s and Shortcut’s eyes widened and they sat down quietly, scowling at each other.
Jeanette’s voice sounded from the speaker again. “Very good, X. I had hoped your friends would keep fighting. It was getting good.”
She disconnected, and Shortcut and Jazzlyn both looked at X.
“Sorry,” Shortcut said.
X leaned against the wall. “We’ve got more important problems right now.”
They all sat in their cells without speaking. Outside, dusk danced on the horizon as the ship sped through the sky. A sea of orange and pink clouds passed by the windows, with occasional pockets of ocean shining through.
Strange memories afflicted X. They overtook his vision without warning and he didn’t know why. They weren’t upgrades, but they weren’t real memories either.
He was in Dr. Crenshaw’s laboratory. He walked around, but the place was empty—no tables, chairs or androids.
“X,” said a voice.
It was Dr. Crenshaw. X looked around and saw no one at first, yet Dr. Crenshaw was in the room. He saw a silhouette of the doctor standing across from him, but it felt like they were in different dimensions.
Dr. Crenshaw said something else, but his voice sounded like it was underwater.
“I can’t distinguish what you’re saying,” X said.
X reached for Dr. Crenshaw’s silhouette. Suddenly, everything flashed around him and he was in the lab along with a crowd of press androids surrounding Dr. Crenshaw for a press conference. Now X was invisible, only a silhouette of himself standing next to Dr. Crenshaw.
“Xandifer,” Dr. Crenshaw said, pointing to X. “He’s my new prototype android.”
The journalist androids all talked at once.
“What is he for?”
“Why did you create him?”
“What does he have in common with your other androids?”
Dr. Crenshaw answered their questions, but his voice became indistinguishable again, and the room wavered as if it were going to turn itself inside out.
“I remember this conference,” X said. “But I don’t.”
The room flickered, and he appeared in a funeral home with Dr. Crenshaw. Dr. Crenshaw looked around for a casket, speaking words that X couldn’t understand. The memory was exactly how X remembered it, except there were no caskets in this version.
The surroundings flickered again, and X stood alone in the Crenshaw mansion as flames rose up around him; though they weren’t real, he felt their intensity. Glass shattered, and he detected the smell of gas.
A scream pierced through the flames and made his algorithm chip buzz—Jeanette.
“Where are you?” X called out. But his voice went nowhere. Instead, he saw a silhouette of himself stalking into the flames, walking through them as if they were nothing. His guns were drawn.
The memory faded and changed again
. And again. Each time, just before X could remember and establish his presence in the new memory, the scenery changed. No matter where he turned up, he was just a shadow.
He wanted to analyze everything he had seen, but his mind was working too fast.
He needed his memory chip back; he couldn’t be a proper executor of Dr. Crenshaw’s estate without the true memories.
Why did Dr. Crenshaw choose him? There were plenty of other androids who could have done the job better than him. He wasn’t special. He was an attack android, programmed to defend.
Yet that was what he was doing, defending. Protecting Dr. Crenshaw even in death, even though he didn’t truly know why. The more he learned about Dr. Crenshaw, the more questions he had—and the more he realized he couldn’t trust his own memories.
The mission was simple. When it was time, he would fight. He would fight to protect his life. He would fight to protect Shortcut. He would fight to protect the UEA and uphold peace and prosperity.
Would there ever be a calm? Would there ever be a chance to see the fruits of Dr. Crenshaw’s intended legacy? What would it be like to live in the world as a bystander and not an android agent?
He couldn’t comprehend it. He had been born on battle lines, and there was no other alternative.
But when it was all over, when Jeanette was stopped, when the world was safe … then what?
He closed his eyes and sat still, letting his body repair itself slowly while he did his best to cope with the ghost memories. He kept chasing after the visions, but they always slipped away just before he could grasp them.
Smoochums crawled onto Jazzlyn’s palm. She brought him to her lips and kissed him.
“We’re in deep now, aren’t we, Smoochy?”
Smoochums darted around her palm, his footsteps massaging her skin.
“I know,” Jazzlyn said. She gazed out the window, where the stars shone brightly in the purple sky. “What are we fighting for? We spent our lives going from place to place, never finding friends, always making enemies, and never satisfied.”
She didn’t know what she wanted her life to look like. Outside, she saw the bright outlines of a city twinkling against the clouds. The city looked innocent and peaceful, but she knew it was just a façade. Below, at any given moment, there was probably gunfire, rapes, and all kind of violence going on as everyone in the badlands fought for themselves.
When would it end? When would fighting for herself finally work out for her? What would it be like to move past simply surviving?
She didn’t know, but as she stared out the window, she realized the city sparkling on the horizon was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen in her life, despite the circumstances. Even prettier than the rainforests she’d visited with her parents to gather specimens for ecological research, sweeter than the fragrant pines she’d climbed to impress her dad, more arresting than the sun sinking through the trees at twilight outside their campsites.
She remembered the times she spent with her mom and dad on the road in the desert, rock ’n’ roll music blaring and mountains in the distance that rose up big and tall and made her feel small.
How long had it been since she stopped to experience nature? Not since her parents died.
Fucking memories.
A bitter knob bulged in her throat and she swallowed it down, resisting tears.
She hated memories. She had seen older badlanders held captive by memories. Always daydreaming about how things used to be before the singularity. That kind of thinking never got them anywhere but killed. Sure, life sucked, and sure, things used to be better. But if you didn’t keep moving forward, you were as good as dead.
Yet here she was, thinking about the past. This wasn’t the time to be weak. She had been in worse situations before. Once, she’d had a gun pointed to her head, with the assassin just about to pull the trigger. But she had gotten away. Another time, she had taken a wrong turn during a chase and ended up at a dead end. Once again, she had talked her way out of death.
Deep down, she knew everything would turn out okay. She couldn’t stop from feeling the pit at the bottom of her stomach, but she had felt the same way every other time, too.
This isn’t going to be how it ends. Not for me. Maybe for the rest of them. But not me.
She took comfort in her ingenuity and fell asleep watching the stars.
Shortcut leaned against the bars of his cell.
“Brielle, can you hear me?” he asked.
Brielle was curled up in the corner of her cell with her hands wrapped around her knees. Her green eyes glowed in the darkness. He could still smell traces of her floral perfume, and it reminded him of a spring meadow.
“Are you okay?” he continued. “You hit your head pretty hard on the dashboard when the van went down.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I should be asking if you’re okay.”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“I came for Jazzlyn, but I also came for you,” Brielle said. “You didn’t sound right. I still can’t figure it out, but you don’t look right, either.”
Shortcut didn’t say anything. He imagined the nanos swimming around his brain and tried not to think about the eventual outcome.
Brielle crawled to her knees. “You need help, Shortcut. You’re not okay.”
“We have to worry about getting out of here before we worry about my health,” Shortcut said. He surveyed the area again, seeing only the dim shapes of the cells in the darkness. “We’re in a lot of danger now.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”
“No matter what happens,” Brielle said, “we’re in this together. I have no regrets about my life.”
The sound of her saying ‘together’ made the butterflies in his stomach twirl. “T-Together?”
Brielle smiled. “Together.”
Shortcut smiled back. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. We’re going to get out of this. I don’t know how, but we’re going to find a way! Isn’t that right, X?”
X didn’t answer.
The hallway door opened and Xadrian and two android soldiers with guns entered. “You guys are awfully quiet,” Xadrian said. He elbowed both of the soldiers. “You know what they say about silence, guys.”
“Not good,” the soldiers said at the same time.
“I think we need to start some commotion in this place,” Xadrian said. He pointed to Brielle. “You look like a good place to start.”
Shortcut shook the bars. “You better not touch her!”
“We’ve followed your orders,” X said from the shadows. “Leave us alone.”
“How can we do that when we have the secretary of the Council with us?” Xadrian asked. He bowed to Brielle. “We’re very sorry, miss. We didn’t realize how important you are. A woman of your status doesn’t belong in a cell with these criminals.”
Xadrian opened the cell door and grabbed Brielle by the arm. She struggled as he pulled her out.
“What are you doing with her?” Shortcut asked. “If you hurt her, I swear—”
“It’s okay, Shortcut,” Brielle said. “I’ll be fine. I promise.” She smiled at Shortcut and said, “If something happens, don’t come for me.”
The guards carried Brielle through the door and Xadrian laughed. “Looks like I hit a hot button, little guy.”
“When I get out of this cell, I’m going to dismantle you piece by piece,” Shortcut said, “and then I’m going to solder your chips to a garbage bot.”
Xadrian laughed even harder. “You have a crush on her.”
Shortcut stopped talking.
“Ha! You do!”
X stood up and approached his cell door, making Xadrian step back. “If you don’t need anything else, leave.”
Xadrian slammed the door behind him, his laughter trailing down the hallway as he walked upstairs.
Shortcut banged his head against the bars. “We’ve got to save her. X, we’ve got to d
o something!”
“Shortcut, calm down,” X said. “Jeanette is still trying to rattle us. She’s targeting you.”
“But they took her,” Shortcut said. “They took her, X!”
“Sit down and be quiet,” X said. His voice was cold, harsh and paternal.
Shortcut sat down in the darkness of his cell, fear clenching his stomach and tears in his eyes.
Across the hall, Jazzlyn stared at him from the corner of her cell. He had forgotten about her.
“What?” he snapped. “Got a stupid remark to make?”
Jazzlyn put her head down and closed her eyes.
Shortcut buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
Morning came, and X watched quietly as Xadrian and two guards entered.
The guards fired a shot into the ceiling, waking up Shortcut and Jazzlyn.
Xadrian shouted, “Get up!”
“Was a gunshot necessary?” Jazzlyn asked, rubbing her eyes.
Jeanette entered, carrying a large tray. On it were porcelain plates covered with cloches. An android guard set up a stand and Jeanette set the tray on it. She slid a plate into Jazzlyn’s cell, and another into Shortcut’s.
X eyed Jeanette suspiciously. “What is this?”
Android X: The Complete Series Page 32
