by C. Gockel
Volka stopped. A chill of cold logic crept into her hormone-addled brain. He had no idea what he was getting into. She couldn’t share him, and Sixty…Sixty might need to share. The thought made a growl rise in her throat, but the anger wasn’t at him. It was at herself. She couldn’t change him any more than he could change her. Her hands itched to touch him, but she knew if she didn’t act now, she’d give in to the need pulsing through her. Closing her eyes, Volka gave one last furious growl, summoned all her strength, and the last shred of her self-control she knew would vanish in another instant. With a cry, she pushed him out the door.
The door slammed in front of 6T9’s nose, and he heard Volka growl on the other side. She was angry at him? She’d been prepared to use him as a toy. Static of anger flared beneath his skin.
Why did he care? He was designed to be a toy.
His Q-comm, humming like mad since the moment she’d told him why she’d been so amorous, briefly went offline.
He heard Volka on the other side of the door. “I’m so sorry, Sixty. Please forgive me. I didn’t think of your feelings. It was wrong of me.” Volka’s voice was so close, he knew she had to be leaning against the door as she spoke. “And it’s a terrible idea. I…I’d want to kill anyone else you were with if we…and…we are the best of friends, and it would be horrible if that ended...” she laughed, and it sounded like she was crying at the same time, “...because I went to jail for murder.”
His Q-comm came online again with such force it hurt, its final analysis of the situation downloading instantly. He’d always thought Volka regarded him as more than a sex ‘bot. A moment ago, that understanding had shattered. But now Volka was apologizing to him, and he’d been right all along. He pressed his forehead against the door, contemplating knocking it off its hinges to get back inside, but his Q-comm sparked again, comprehending the rest of what she’d said. She was monogamous. If he wanted to be with her, he’d have to be monogamous, too. He opened his mouth. He was designed for fantasy, and “I’m only yours” was one of his preprogrammed lines. His Q-comm snapped his mouth shut. That lie would hurt her more than her current pain. Even if he didn’t care about Volka in particular, he wouldn’t be able to pretend; he was programmed not to cause suffering…even if it caused him suffering. And he was suffering now. His sensory receptors had stopped working, and his hardware, up until minutes ago fully functional, was now inoperable. Only his emotional display functionality was still operational. His breathing was coming in short, ragged gasps.
He swallowed. Did he want to be monogamous? He pressed his head against the door. Monogamy wasn’t his default setting.
Could he be monogamous? He’d never given a hard no to any advance unless there was something that outweighed the human’s sexual need. On the Kanakah Disk, when he’d been mistaken for a prostitute, he’d lied and said he wasn’t a sex ‘bot. If the man hadn’t desisted he wouldn’t have been able to say no, not until the Luddeccean spies put the defector’s life on the line. Mr. Darmadi hadn’t asked him directly for sex, nor had Stella Tudor. He hadn’t even turned Volka down just now. If she had persisted, he would have gone through with it. He was designed to please. He wanted to please… Didn’t he? He closed his eyes. “I can’t be what you need,” he whispered. His circuits went dark. Turning around, he sank to the floor and leaned his back against the door.
“I can’t own you, Sixty,” Volka said. For a moment he thought she was speaking metaphorically, but then she added, “I can’t flip your monogamy switch.” His circuits sparked, and he realized she was speaking literally. Code filled his eyes. And there it was. A simple Boolean value that could be toggled on and off at his owner’s will. He tried to access it and was denied. He blinked. He wasn’t owner of himself? He went to his records, and saw that indeed, he wasn’t owned at all. He tried to get into the code, to reprogram it, but could not. He blinked, scrolled through more lines of code, and saw the flaw: he wasn’t allowed to own a sentient being that was self-aware. He couldn’t own himself. He was caught in an inescapable if-then loop. No, not inescapable…Even his core programming could be reprogrammed, but he’d need a physical access key to change his original code. Other AI possessed their access keys, but 6T9 was a special case. He hadn’t been built to be an AI; he’d been an ordinary sex ‘bot who’d had a Q-comm installed long after his manufacture. Sex ‘bot access keys stayed with the manufacturer. No major manufacturer wanted their sex ‘bots being reprogrammed to kill people.
His breathing came ragged and fast again.
He didn’t own himself. He couldn’t own himself. Didn’t that make him still a slave? Putting his hands to his head, he wracked his Q-comm. Who would know how to find his key? Who would be able to get it? Suddenly desperate, he withdrew his consciousness from the body that he loved, that he’d thought he’d never wanted to leave, to his server aboard Time Gate 1.
There was nothingness and his thoughts. He queried the emptiness. “You gave me self-awareness; can you give me myself?”
There was only the gray emptiness. A null value.
“One!” he shouted.
Time Gate 1 did not respond, but two familiar avatars emerged in the dimness.
“Noa? James?” 6T9 asked.
“Sixty, is that you?” said Noa, her avatar looking around the empty space. Usually 6T9 hated being “here” without an avatar, but he couldn’t bring himself to give himself even a parody of a physical form now.
James’s avatar said, “Since Time Gate 1 hijacked my mind, I can only deduce you’ve gotten yourself into some kind of mess.”
Could Time Gate 1 hijack Noa? She was a human. Her brain didn’t exist on a server in Time Gate 1.
James’s avatar took the hand of Noa’s avatar and responded to his thoughts. “Noa never lets me face a computer with a God Complex alone.”
Noa’s avatar touched the neural port in her temple—the interface that allowed a machine mind to touch a biological mind. “He’s looping me in via ethernet.”
Volka didn’t have a mental connection to the ethernet and could never have one. Had Volka thought he wasn’t a toy because her connection to him, and understanding of him, was imperfect and she couldn’t see what he really was?
Noa’s avatar’s eyes became soft. “That is you, isn’t it, Sixty?”
“It is me,” he replied, but still couldn’t give himself an avatar. Or, more oddly, didn’t want to. “I need my access key. I need to reprogram. My manufacturer must have it, but it’s not mine, is it?”
Tilting his head, James’s jaw hardened. “No.”
“I’m a slave without it,” Sixty said.
Noa and James turned to one another. They didn’t say any words or think anything he could hear. Raising her head, Noa said, “We’ll fix this,” and James said, “We’ll do our best.”
James’s answer was the android response. The logical response.
“We will fix it,” Noa reiterated again, her avatar’s face becoming hard. “But Sixty, we’re worried about you…we always worry about you. What brought this on?”
The answer was Volka. She was alone in the real world, and he couldn’t leave her alone in a hostile environment. He couldn’t even be sure if he didn’t want to, or if he was physically incapable of not returning to himself.
“I have to go,” he said, and slipped back into his own body, sitting on the floor of a brothel, outside Volka’s door.
He found himself blinking up at a male weere, staring down at him with angry eyes. “You’re not in there,” the man said. He was dressed in a bellhop’s uniform.
“Who is that?” Volka asked behind him, her voice muffled. He heard her nails scratching the door.
Before 6T9 could respond to either of them, the weere man left.
It was 4.3 minutes before Volka whispered, “Sixty, are you still there?”
And 1.2 minutes before he answered. “I am.”
A couple, a weere woman who looked only a little older than Volka and a human male who appeared t
o be in his sixties, hurried down the hall. They entered another room without a backward glance in Sixty’s direction.
He heard Volka’s nails on the door again. His programming prompted him to say, “Is there anything I can do for you?” His eyes rolled heavenward. “I mean, aside from—”
“I’m fine,” said Volka, sounding distinctly unfine.
He heard a thump on the other side of her door. Based on the location, he guessed she had sat down and was leaning against it, much the way he was.
He almost said, “I wish I could just hold you,” but knew such a comment when she was in her state—and he had been in the sex ‘bot equivalent of it on far too many occasions—would be painful. Also, he wasn’t sure if he’d be saying it for himself or for her. He didn’t want to have sex, or couldn’t want to, because it would hurt her...but he did want to be with her. He wanted reassurance that what they had still existed.
From down the hall came the sound of bedsprings. From behind him came a whimper.
A single pair of light footsteps came from the stairway. A few moments later, a weere woman appeared in the hall. She had long hair streaked with gray and kohl-lined blue eyes. With the wrinkles in her forehead and around her mouth and eyes, she appeared to be around forty-seven and was dressed to the nines. Sniffing at the doorway, she tilted her head and looked down at Sixty, but then kept walking and disappeared into a room.
He heard Volka turn on the radio. Perhaps she was attempting to cover up self-maintenance. It didn’t excite him the way it should. His circuitry dimmed, and he went into power save mode.
“Get up, man!” said a voice.
6T9 came out of power save to find a human male standing above him. In his late thirties perhaps, the human’s suit screamed wealth. There was a wedding band on his left hand. “Go on, you couldn’t satisfy her. It’s my turn,” the man said, kicking 6T9’s leg.
6T9’s head tic took that inopportune moment to return. Smacking a hand to the back of his neck, he spoke loud enough to be heard on the other side of the door. “She hasn’t said anything about receiving visitors.”
There was no response from Volka, no definitive, “I called for him,” or “Send him away.”
His Q-comm sparked. If she said now, “Send him in,” would that be considered of her own free will in her hormonal state? Or could she be considered drugged? There was no case in Republic law that could answer that question. If she asked for this man to come in, 6T9 couldn’t stop him. Static unfurled under his skin, and his head jerked to the side. He wanted…he wanted…
The man huffed. “Look gimpy, move out. I paid good money downstairs for access to this bitch’s season.”
The words put an end to his quandary. Humans were not allowed to be sold into sexual slavery in the Republic. His lips turned up wryly. That was for sex ‘bots. Of course, he was programmed to like it.
The human man began rolling up his sleeves. “You going to be difficult?”
6T9’s nostrils flared. “Yes,” he said. He couldn’t kill the man, or hurt him, but he could restrain him—which was unfortunate because he didn’t want to touch him. His Q-comm lit with inspiration, and he smirked. “Just let me roll up my sleeves.” Reaching down, he loosened the synth skin from his left arm and rolled it up to expose his metal bones, and synthetic tendons and muscles.
The man paled and his eyes got wide.
6T9 casually began rolling up the skin on the other side, and the man took off.
A gasp to his right caught 6T9’s attention. He glanced over his shoulder. The lone weere woman was staring at him from a crack in her door. He wasn’t sure if she could see his exposed hardware, but at his glance she slammed the door shut and vanished.
“Is he gone?” Volka whispered, very close to the door.
“Yes,” 6T9 replied.
Volka sighed, and 6T9 couldn’t tell if she sounded relieved or disappointed. Maybe both?
He looked to the window. “It’s getting dark, Volka. You know, I’m sure the embassy doctor can put you on hormonal suppressants. We should go home.”
“Sundancer and Carl know where we are and what is going on. Carl told the ambassador I’m meeting with a potential recruit to cover for me. I cannot walk home with you in the dark, 6T9. It would be too hard.”
6T9’s faux breathing stopped.
“I think…I think…I haven’t been sleeping well…I should have known,” she whispered. He imagined her ears flat against her head, but even though his Q-comm was whirring, he didn’t know what to say.
“I’m tired,” Volka said. “I’m going to lie down.”
He listened to her retreating footsteps, and then he went into power save mode.
Seven hours, two minutes, and thirty seconds later, he came out of power save with a start. Turning his head, he ascertained that the hallway was empty. There was the faintest patter of rain on the window, but not enough to wake him. What had brought him back to full power? No one had come or gone; he would have awoken if they had. Perhaps the strangeness of that had sparked his Q-comm? He supposed it was easily explainable though. The desk was probably diverting people to other floors due to the Galactican monster-machine-man in the hallway.
That was the likely explanation, but he didn’t like coming out of power save so quickly without knowing for certain the cause.
From Volka’s room came a whispered, “Alaric.” Was she calling the captain?
6T9’s head jerked to the side, and he smacked a hand to his neck. His programming would compel him to step aside if Alaric came here…or make him fetch the good captain if she asked him to. His head jerked in the other direction. With a groan of frustration, he grabbed his head with both hands, pulled his knees to his chest, and braced his elbows between them. Gritting his teeth, he waited for Volka to say, “Sixty, fetch me Alaric.”
The captain would come, 6T9 had no doubt. He’d seen how the man looked at her, and he knew he had interrupted an almost tryst between them on the captain’s ship. If 6T9 brought Alaric to Volka now, he might be able to watch.
6T9 toppled over, the side of his head knocking repeatedly against the floor, and he couldn’t make it stop.
The door opened, and a moment later Volka was kneeling over him.
“Sixty, what’s wrong?”
Head spasming, teeth clattering, he couldn’t answer if he’d known the answer.
Volka grabbed his head and cradled it in her lap. Leaning over him, she whispered, “Reboot. I’ll watch over you.”
Not able to respond, he initiated the shutdown sequence. Just before he lost consciousness, he saw Volka’s fingers above his eyes and felt her gently shut his lids.
He came to minutes later, flat on his back, his head still cradled on Volka’s lap. Leaning over him, her yellow eyes were fixated on his. For twenty-three seconds, neither of them moved. And then her lips parted, and she leaned down. She was going to kiss him. What was the ancient Earth saying? A kiss was just a kiss. He rose to meet her lips.
From behind Volka came a click. His Q-comm whirred and informed him it was from a primitive, projectile Colonial .44 revolver.
21
The First Shot
Planet Luddeccea: No Weere
Volka’s eyes bolted open. The sound of a gun being cocked sent a bolt of cold down her spine and cleared her hormone-addled brain. Sixty’s eyes were open and on hers.
Without a word, he rose and looked behind her, his movements a little too fast and a little too powerful to be human. She heard a muffled sob through a door. It came from the same direction as the pistol being readied.
“A woman’s in there,” he whispered, going two doors down.
Volka jumped to her feet and followed him. She was tired, she hadn’t slept well—she’d had a horrible dream about Alaric. She’d been an invisible specter, following him as he’d run through Mr. Darmadi’s house looking desperately for something, too anguished to feel her presence. Now, in her state of exhaustion, her senses flowed through the walls…and she
almost fell over.
“Sixty, the woman in there is suicidal!” Volka whispered.
He looked down at the doorknob and up at her. He mouthed the words, “I can break in.”
Volka held up a finger for one minute, closed her eyes, pressed her ear to the door, and called out, “Ma’am, please don’t do this.”
She heard a sob and then, “He left me. I’m too old. I can’t go on without him.”
Volka’s ears delivered what her vision and rudimentary telepathy couldn’t. If the room was laid out like hers—bed in the center of the room past a bathroom and closet—the woman was sitting on the bed, facing the window, not the door.
Volka whispered, “I know it hurts. My human lover left me, too.”
“I can’t. I’m not strong enough.” There was the sound of something soft being laid on the mattress, and then muffled wailing, bedsprings, and a gentle tap, tap, tap...
Volka’s ears twitched, hearing the scene. The woman had laid the gun down and was now covering her face with her hands, rocking back and forth on the bed, her feet brushing the floor.
Backing away, she gestured toward the room. Sixty put his hand on the doorknob. There was a loud crack, and he was in the room so quickly he was almost a blur. She heard him within, “Ma’am, I cannot give this back to you.”
Volka blinked. He hadn’t taken the door off its hinges, but he had taken the molding off the frame to open it. Entering, she “closed” the door gently. The woman was sitting exactly where Volka had imagined her, bent over and weeping. “There’s nothing for me! I’m too old for any other human man and no weere man will have me. I’ve got no skills. I have no life other than him. I’m as good as dead now anyway.”
Volka took in the woman’s chic clothes. Her nails were black under red polish, her fingers smooth and not calloused with manual labor. She smelled years older than the age she appeared to be—she’d been able to avoid walking to and from a hard job under a sub-tropical sun. Other weere would know what she’d been by sight and by smell, and they would hate her for it.
