by Eric Vall
As I approached his dwelling, my concerns began to increase.
The building Amin was living in looked to be at least twenty years out of date by 2019’s standards, and my scanners indicated it only had about seven more years before it would give out structurally and collapse.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I even needed to kill this man. If I just waited long enough, the building would do it for me.
According to the data I’d taken off Darren Byers’ computer, Amin lived in room number 209F, located on the second floor. So, I pushed open the rickety door of the building’s entrance, sauntered through the lobby, and then walked up the stairs with the same intensity I normally felt when hunting my prey.
The mission was simple. I just needed to “socialize” with him enough to get him to tell me about his past and potential future romantic partners. Alexander Amin was born almost one year from this very date, so whoever his mother was, she had to have encountered Tony around this time frame.
As soon as I had the info I needed, then I could dispose of the Amin bloodline once and for all, and the Resistance would be over before it could even begin.
I walked down the hallway of the run-down building, and I began to scan through the walls. I was sure none of these pathetic humans were of any threat to my safety, but it was standard protocol.
There was an older man situated in a chair in front of an old TV, and he was sleeping so deeply his vitals barely showed up on my HUD. Then there was a young couple who were laying on top of each other in their bed, and they were gyrating against each other. Their heart-rates and body temperatures were through the roof, which indicated that they were fornicating like wild rabbits.
Finally, I came up to Tony Amin’s dwelling. Through the walls, I could see the man dashing around like a decapitated chicken, tossing handfuls of clothing onto a large pile at the back of the room and then closing the door to try and hide them from sight. Then he ran over to the bathroom area of the dwelling, splashed some water onto his face, and spritzed his neck and wrists with some sort of liquid in a bottle. Finally, he pulled open the waistband of his pants and spritzed some of the liquid onto his groin.
When I finally got to the door, I raised up my fist and rapped as gently as I possibly could. I could see Amin’s body go rigid on the other side of the wall, and for a brief moment, I grew suspicious.
His heart rate was rapidly increasing, as was his perspiration, and his hands were trembling.
Was this some sort of trap? If it was, he was mistaken if he thought it would do any good.
Finally, the man let out a deep breath, ambled over to the door, and opened it.
He was standing there in a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and a black, short-sleeved shirt that had some sort of strange yellow circle with a wedge cut out of it. It almost looked like the circle was supposed to be a living creature, but that couldn’t be right.
“H-hey Hannah,” he stuttered as his heart rate increased tenfold. “Welcome to mi casa.”
Ah, he was bilingual. Now that sounded like a quality a future Resistance leader would have.
“Gracias por tenerme,” I responded in Spanish. “Quiero hablar contigo acerca de mujeres con quien has tenido relaciones sexuales.”
“Uhhhhh,” he said as his face contorted, “I’m gonna be real with you here, I don’t know any Spanish, I was just using the expression.”
“Oh,” I said as I stared at him.
“You speak Spanish though? That’s awesome!” Tony rubbed his hands through his dark black hair as his face turned red.
“I speak every human language,” I confirmed.
“Dang,” he laughed. “That’s crazy, you must be super smart.”
“My mental capabilities are in line with the requirements for my given tasks.”
“Well … ” he paused as he blinked at me a few times, “come in, and I’ll give you a grand tour of the place!”
He stepped to the side and kept his hopeful green eyes on me the entire time as I walked into his dwelling.
“Grand tour?” I questioned. “This place is far too small to require guidance. I think I’ll find my way around quite easily, thank you.”
“Okayyyy,” Tony mumbled awkwardly. “Welp, the bathroom is right there, and if you need a glass of water or anything, the sink and the fridge are right there to your left.”
“I believe I will be fine,” I reiterated.
“I apologize for the way this place looks,” Tony added, “and for the way I look. I had an interview a few days ago, and I haven’t had time to do the laundry, so all my nice clothes are dirty.”
“You look fine,” I told him.
Honestly, I didn’t really give a damn what he looked like. Caring about appearances was such a human trait. Yet, it was one The Hive had intended to exploit when it built me.
I was created to be the perfect female specimen, innocent and seductive all at the same time. It made my job easier, especially when my target was a man.
“Do you want to sit down?” Tony gestured to a small chair in the corner of his dwelling. “I figured we could order in some food and sit back and chat? I’m thinking maybe getting Thai?”
“You’re ordering a person from Thailand?” I asked. “Why?”
Amin’s face went beet red as his eyes widened, and his mouth fell agape.
“No, no,” he stumbled over his own words. “I meant Thai food. To eat. You’re a very literal person, aren’t you, Hannah?”
“I’m not familiar with Thai food,” I admitted. “I’m assuming it’s imported from the finest chefs in the area?”
“It’s being imported from the Thai Palace,” he chuckled.
“Really?” I cocked my head at him. “The Vimanmek Mansion? Or perhaps Bhubing Palace?”
“I should have known better than to be sarcastic,” Tony snickered as he pulled out his cellular device and began to type. “The restaurant is called the Thai Palace. I swear they make the best damn Pad Thai in the universe.”
“Then I look forward to indulging in it,” I said.
Tony tapped on his phone for another minute or two, and then he looked up at me and smiled.
“Aaaand there we go,” he explained, “the order is sent, and it should be here in the next thirty minutes.”
“Excellent,” I said with an air of fake enthusiasm. “Now, Tony, I will get to the point of my visit. Please tell me all about the different women you’ve been inseminating for the last few months.”
The man’s face went deep red, and he averted his eyes.
“Wow,” he chuckled awkwardly, “straight to the point, aren’t you?”
“I am curious,” I explained. “You seem like quite the catch, and any woman would be lucky to have you.”
This was a technique we Decoys referred to as “intimate infiltration.” We tried to appeal to the humans’ most intimate desires, try to make them feel like they were the greatest beings in the history of the universe and that they were a highly desirable mate. Then, once their guard was down, we would hit them up for the information we needed.
If Tony Amin’s heartbeat was any indication, it was working quite well.
“Well, if you must know, it’s not been great lately,” the dark-haired man sighed. “Like, this is the first date I’ve been on in months.”
My HUD began to calculate. If Tony hadn’t had any partners recently, then he had not yet met the woman who would become Alexander’s mother. If this was the case, I could easily kill him right here and now, and then he would never have the chance.
However, that wasn’t my mission. I needed to take out the father and the mother in order to make it a one-hundred percent certainty.
The Hive wouldn’t accept anything less.
“Sooooo,” Tony finally broke the silence, “what’s your story, Hannah? Have you lived in Seattle all your life, or are you new to the area?”
“I’m new,” I answered, but offered nothing further.
There was another lon
g pause before Tony answered again.
“What about movies?” he asked. “I’m a huge fan of the Deathstalker series, and I totally think Out of Time is the funniest damn thing ever put on film. What about you?”
“I am not familiar with either of those,” I admitted. “In fact, I do not believe I have ever watched a movie in my life.”
Tony sat forward as a look of disbelief spread across his face.
“Really?” he gasped. “You’ve never seen a single movie in your entire life? Not even when you were a little kid and your parents wanted you to be quiet?”
“I have watched plenty of security footage,” I explained. “That is about it.”
“Damn,” he whistled. “You really are an enigma, Hannah.”
“Why do you think I am a puzzle?” I asked. “I have made my primary objective clear to you.”
“Uhh,” he said as he looked around the room. “Well, you, uhh, walk into Carmichael’s out of the blue, get Darren to give you a job, and then ask me out on a date? I really, really need to know your story.”
“My … my story?” I echoed with a tilt of my head.
“Yeah,” he continued, “like, where did you grow up? What brought you to Seattle? What did you do before you were here?”
Were all humans this talkative?
“There is not much to my story,” I lied. “I was conceived years ago, grew up with a strict-yet-caring parent, and then I went off to do my own thing.”
“You only had one parent?” Tony asked sympathetically. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”
I’d made an uncharacteristic gaffe. We machines were all creations of The Hive, and we referred to her as our “mother.” Humans, on the other hand, needed two people to procreate.
“It was … difficult,” I replied. “She always had very lofty standards for my brethren and I.”
“So, you have brothers?” he asked again, and I was now starting to grow perturbed.
“Lots of brothers,” I explained.
“Well crap,” Tony chuckled, “I guess I need to really be good to you, or I’ll have a bunch of pissed off dudes coming after me. And if they’re half as badass as you, then I’m toast.”
“Thank you,” I said aloud, but then I instantly slammed my mouth shut.
I actually felt … grateful for his compliment? What was going on?
I needed to find something to change the course of this conversation. Anything. As I scanned the room for any sort of distraction, my sensors came across a rather large rectangular device over by a small desk. It appeared to be missing its entire left side, and all of its wires and circuits were on full display. The computer tower shone brightly in the dark corner, and it covered the desk chair and underside of the desk with a neon blue light.
“Does that machine over there have a Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060?” I questioned.
Tony looked at me with bewilderment in his eyes, and then he nodded his head happily.
“Yes, yes it is,” he chuckled. “I wasn’t aware you knew so much about computers.”
“Why else would I have chosen to work at an electronics store?” I questioned. “I may not know a lot about your popular culture, but I know plenty about machinery.”
“That’s so cool!” the dark-haired man whistled. “I’ve dated some computer nerds before, but never anyone who could identify an individual component from all the way across the room. Most girls aren’t really into gaming hardware.”
“I’m not most girls,” I noted. “Would you mind showing me?”
“Sure thing!” Tony said happily as he stood up and walked over to the desk. “Do you want to play? I’ve got a whole Steam library full of multiplayer games, and I have a second controller for when Kevin comes over.”
A computerized simulation that was also a competition? I didn’t think I could pass up this opportunity. Besides, The Hive knew the Tony Amin we were looking for was a master strategist. What better way to test out his abilities than with a simulation?
Either way, he wasn’t going to win. No human could best a machine at a computer simulation.
“Alright,” I said, somewhat smugly. “Shall we engage?”
“Okay, so this one is called Fatal Fire,” he explained as he used a wishbone-shaped device to navigate through the program on the screen. “Ever heard of it?”
I nodded. “I believe I saw a copy of that software in our store.”
“That was Fatal Fire II,” Tony corrected. “It was supposed to be the long-awaited sequel to this game, but everybody hated it. So, even though this one is nearly five years old, it’s the one everyone on the competitive gaming circuit plays. It kinda has a high learning curve, do you think you’ll be able to handle it?”
This man had no idea what he was in for.
“Once you explain how it works, I will be dominant,” I replied.
“A trash talker?” Tony said as he quirked his eyebrow at me.
“Just stating the truth,” I told him. “I always win over the meatb--I mean men.”
“I’m liking you more and more by the minute,” he laughed.
Suddenly, my heart fluttered, and my face began to flush. I silently ordered my systems to do a diagnostic scan to make sure I was alright, but the results came back clean.
That was odd. I’d never had that happen to me before.
I quickly recomposed myself as Tony handed me another black wishbone-shaped device. I studied the chunk of plastic and circuitry and concluded it was some sort of input tool. It had two trigger-like mechanisms on the back, while the front had a control stick, a “start” button, and four multicolored buttons with different letters of the human alphabet on them.
“So, what do I do with this?” I asked. “Once the simulation starts.”
“It’s pretty simple,” Tony explained as he sat down in the chair beside me. “The ‘A’ button will be how you pick up new weapons, the ‘B’ button is a melee attack, the ‘Y’ button switches out the weapons in your inventory, and the ‘Z’ button jumps. If you want to fire, just squeeze the right trigger.”
“And the control sticks?” I questioned.
“Those will help you aim,” he continued. “The one on the left moves your guy, and the one on the right is how you look around the screen.”
“And the objective?” I prodded further.
“You want to capture the flag and take it back to your side of the map,” he said with a nod. “Whoever gets five captures first is the winner. Just watch out, we’ll be playing with bots, so it’s not gonna be easy.”
He didn’t even know the half of it.
The game booted up, and the screen was split in half horizontally. On each one was the simple image of a hand holding a pistol alongside a HUD that looked like it was designed by a two-year-old human with color-blindness. We were both standing in some sort of desert landscape, surrounded by the wreckage of several military vehicles and a large, abandoned building.
It was a military simulation? This was really going to tell the tale about Tony Amin.
“Begin!” a deep voice roared out of the screen, and then Tony’s character began to move.
“No screen watching, now!” he laughed. “That’d be cheating.”
“I do not need to cheat to defeat you,” I replied.
“Tough words coming from a woman who just asked how to use a controller,” he cackled.
I saw a three-dimensionally-rendered soldier appear on the screen, and my programming instantly aimed the cursor at him. I squeezed the trigger on the controller, and I was rewarded with a spray of crimson mist from the man’s head and the announcer calling out “headshot!” My character dashed around the corner, and that’s when I saw it.
There was a bright red flag standing there, swaying in the breeze. This must have been the objective.
I moved my character over toward the flag, but then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I whipped the cursor around and blasted another three-dimensional soldier in the face, d
ropping him instantly.
Then I heard the bark of a shotgun, and my screen went red.
“Ohhhhh,” Tony laughed as his character grabbed the flag. “Shotgun to the back.”
How did this happen? Couldn’t the so-called “elite soldier” on the screen hear Tony sneaking up on him? More importantly, how did I let myself get bested by a human?
“Point, red team!” the announcer called out. “Finding new flag location.”
“You will not beat me this time,” I warned. “Now, I know your tricks, and I’ll be ready for you.”
“Correction,” Tony said smugly, “you now know one of my tricks.”
This time, the flag appeared to be on top of the building. I forced my character to move as quickly as it could, but I paused when I got a notification on my screen.
Hold ‘A’ to pick up Sako TRG.
Now, that was something I couldn’t pass up. I commanded my character to pick up the sniper rifle, and then I began to head toward the building. A solider popped out from behind a downed helicopter and put a few rounds into me, but I was quick to blast him in the face with my rifle. Even at this short of a distance, I hit him with pinpoint accuracy and caused his head to explode into a gory mess.
Still, I had taken some damage, and I couldn’t just run in there guns-blazing.
I had my character dash back to an empty Humvee, hop on top of it, and then crouch down into a more accurate sniping position. Then I pressed down on the left trigger, and a magnified image appeared through the on-screen scope. I moved my crosshairs so they were right over the fluttering flag, and then I waited.
A soldier appeared on the roof, with the name “TerribleTony89” above his head.
That would be him.
I took aim, squeezed the right trigger, and Tony’s character went down.
“Nice!” he laughed. “But you’re still too far away from the flag.”
“I am,” I noted. “The rest of my team is not.”
Through my scope, I saw one of my teammates appear on the roof and snatch up the flag. Now, I just had to cover him while he made his way back down to our checkpoint.
