Mike made his way along the crowded street. The prevalence of the pointed Asian kooley hats made the people seem like floating heads on a concrete pond, faceless and bobbing along. Many hauled rickjaws behind them, filled with their belongings: groceries, medicine, children, CPUs. He ducked his head as he passed under a low hanging sign, which boasted that the restaurant inside still took dollars, instead of the much more valuable Yen. Mike had been getting killed by the exchange rate. Damn company, still paying in sorry ass dollars. Smugly, they signed an E-check for him every week, knowing that they were making a killing off of paying him in the devalued currency. The government must have made a fortune off of Japanese donations, in exchange for keeping the dollar the official US currency, even though just about everything had to be paid for in Yen. An exception to this the cup of Wanton soup and pork-fried rice combo, advertised inside for only $32.
He rode the elevator to his apartment, looking through the bullet proof window as the city below began to look more and more like a distant runway. He flipped open his wallet and checked his account on his currency card. On a tiny monitor, a smiling female face opened its eyes as the card sensed his body heat. "Account drawn today for $90,000 US dollars." The tiny face on the card nodded respectfully, then bent its head down waiting for the next transaction. Mike paid his bills as he rode the elevator. He always paid his bills this way, as he rose up above the chaos of the city. It would be a lean couple of months, with his latest purchase and all, but it had been beyond worth it. He would enter his apartment after a tough 11 hour day and there she would be, dinner would be ready, news items would be prepared for him and even... Mike licked his lips at the thought.
As he stepped out of the elevator, a massive commuter ship came by overhead. Half as big as the building he lived in, it coasted slowly past the window, a low humming coming from its glowing engines. Ten Thousand people were aboard that ship, all poised to scramble out of its hull and began the next phase of their commute. Statistics showed that one hundred of them would be, in various ways, assaulted on their way home. 82 would be robbed, 25 sexually assaulted, and 9 murdered, possibly suffering a rich combination of violations before their death.
"Mike Kovar." The door slid open recognizing his voice. Inside, the smell of an Italian feast waifed out of the kitchen. He threw his briefcase onto the couch and went to the bathroom to undo his tie and take off his armored vest. His eyes looked like tiny pink sockets with thin blue circles within them. He washed his face with a handful of water from the sink, running his wet hands through his hair. With his eyes closed he kept his hands on top his head and just stood there. The pat of a few footsteps, perfume. Mike felt long fingernails gently scratching his neck. Sultry lips left a supple kiss on his neck, up by his cheek, just where he liked it.
"Rough day?" Kabey asked, running her hands down Mike's chest.
"Lots of smog. Too many crowds. 4 more processors lost their jobs today."
She turned him around, looking into his eyes. "Your pretty blue ones look awful." She reached past him into the medicine cabinet, her firm breasts brushing against his face. Mike planned on eating dinner first, but he was apt to change his mind. Like always, she looked perfect, not unlike those raw-socketed women down on the streets below and she was willing, willing to make his dreams come true... for the next 18 months. She drew out a bottle of eye drops and began to care for his sore eyes. As she did, Mike rubbed her waist, ran his hands down her perfect hips. He slid down lower, making it harder for her get the drops into his eyes. She smiled flirtatiously, steadying him with her free hand on his shoulder.
He began to undo her blouse. Mike struggled with the buttons with one hand and rubbed her neck with the other. She kissed him hard, a passionate pre-fade-to-black kiss. "Default kiss," he muttered. Her lips began to crumble at the command, their mouths melting together. She rubbed the back of his neck passionately. Kabey sent a signal to the kitchen, making certain that supper would not burn. They would be here a while. Man cannot live on bread alone.
Sitting across from him, she pushed the food around her plate. When she first arrived, she would just sit there opposite him and engage in conversation. Mike had insisted that she at least pretend to eat, even though she didn't need to. They both were a bit disheveled from their escapade in the bathroom, but that didn't matter. She wasn't apt to complaining and neither was he.
"You'll never guess what I saw today." He said. Kabey came to strict attention as he spoke. "A parking space!" A look of surprise spread across her face.
"An unclaimed one?"
Mike nodded affirmatively as he chewed a piece of garlic bread. "I couldn't believe it! Then two seconds later, some guy landed in it, probably processed a claim on it by now."
Kabey shook her head, smiling. She did that whenever Mike said something that he thought was amusing. Mike looked down for a moment, then looked over at the perfect women who sat across the table from him. She looked down at her plate, making swirls in the tomato sauce with a fork.
When he first moved out here, he never thought he would do something like this, get one of her, but it had happened. Reality had slapped him in the face too many times. Too many women who turned out to be complete head cases, too much disease, too many cross-dressers, too many other bio-mutes with more genetic problems than you could count. You really couldn't blame the last group, it isn't their fault they're the way the are. Mike didn't feel like paying for their misfortune though. Kabey, though not exactly human, was better than perfection.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"I think you can," she teased. She even had a sense of humor, which was rare even among real women even back home.
"What's it like to be you?"
"Be me? I'm me. I'm what I am. I never really thought about it."
"How about before you came to me? What about that?"
"I don't remember that."
Mike didn't know where he was going here, but he had to keep at it. This whole arrangement for him was still uncomfortable, though he loathed the alternative. "Not a even little bit?"
"Sorry."
"Don't be sorry."
She nodded and raised an eyebrow. An earlier edition of her model would have said something like, then I will not be sorry. Thank god they had taken that out. She just smiled at him sideways and filled up his wine glass. Mike felt like kicking himself, you don't question paradise. Meanwhile, 9 people from the commuter ship had been murdered, about 3 times that laid bloody on the sidewalk. He sat at a table above it all with a beautiful female Humoid, that was programmed to be his everything.
Fizzle, fizzle boom. The back of the CPU exploded and the screen went black. Frantically everyone in the office saved their work. Predictably a second later, the central system shut down. Zhiang pounded on the box on his desk, ripping the smoking hulk out of the wall and dropping it to the floor. "Dammit, Mike we've had this system 23 years. It runs only 2 giga-hertze. What the hell do they expect?"
Mike looked down at the smoldering mess lying on the floor before them. Zhiang smiled bitterly and shook his head. He opened his drawer and began pulling out his personal items. "I don't think that..."
Zhiang cut him off. "Man, I might as well go hang under a commuter ship's retros. I'm done." The rest of the system came up again, that comfortable computer hum filling the office again. "If these pricks had any sense they'd reside all of this stuff on-line so this crap didn't happen every two weeks."
"God forbid somebody gets the formula for freezing metal." The two men smiled despite themselves as people all over the office glared at them. Predictably, the managing operator approached.
"What happened?" The dry wrinkled old woman demanded. Zhiang knew any answer he gave her wouldn't be good enough.
"Just blew, can I clear out my things now?" The managing operator crunched her lips up and squinted at him. "What?" Zhiang asked.
"No, just don't let it happen again." A corporate flunky rushed up behind her. "Charles, please cut Mr. Kosai's pay in half for the next two months. That should replace this unit." She motioned to the CPU lying on the floor. "You break it, you buy it," she muttered smart-ass as she turned to go.
Mike stooped down to help his cubicle-mate gather the smoldering computer from the floor. "A fate worse than death?"
"I've got enough saved so I can make it home."
"They're aren't any jobs for you at home either. And don't you make a killing off the exchange rate, being a Japanese citizen and all? They have to pay you in Yen."
"Look around, if a non-jap had done that, he'd been history. I'm sure I'd be real missed. I tell you man, this whole place sucks. I hate it out here. I do. You know the last time I had a woman. A friggin' honest to goodness normal woman?"
Mike drew close to him, pushing the CPU away from them. "Now you be real quiet. I've got something at home that'll knock your socks off. I went and bought one."
"Not what I think you bought?"
"A Kabey model series 11. Out-fucking-rageous, tall, light brown hair, perfect from head to toe."
"You don't seem like the type, you industrial farm-boy."
Mike shook his head. "What, I'm not lonely, afraid to get any one of the hundreds of contact viruses out there? I'm the perfect type. The god-damned poster boy."
"Man, what I wouldn't give..."
"Come by tonight, it'll get your mind off all of this." Mike motioned to the chaos around them. To the human rats scattering from place to place as new priorities came up.
Zhiang shook his head unbelieving. He didn't know what to say. A few seconds of silence passed and than his mouth spread into a wide grin. "I'll bring the scotch. She cook too?"
Mike nodded.
Mike and Zhiang entered the apartment. Both were still a little shaken up by the skin-heads that had been in the elevator with them. They hadn't tried anything, noticing the plasma hand-cannon that hung from Zhiang's belt. They spent the ride to the top spouting off anti Japanese rhetoric, as if the elevator had been empty except for them. They also started going off about any self respecting white man that would hang around with a Nip. As they spoke, Mike imagined blowing them out with window of the elevator with the plasma cannon, their shattered bodies falling to the street below. He gritted his teeth as the two young men and young woman stepped off. As the door closed they turned in unison and spit on the pair.
Zhiang, hands on hips, inspected the apartment, looked around for what he knew was there waiting. His anxiousness was uncontrollable.
"She'll be around. She likes to give me a minute to get myself together." Shyly, Kabey peered her head around the corner. She stepped out, brushing the light brown hair out of her eyes in an innocent fashion. "Kabey, this is Zhiang, my friend from work I've told you about." She grasped Zhiang's hand gently, for some reason she seemed much too shy, shyer than she had ever been before, even when she met Mike for the first time.
"Mike's told me so much about you. I hear he paid you off in one shot."
"I didn't know that." She replied, looking over at Mike for a second. "I've made some dinner, enough for two." Of course she meant, Mike and Zhiang, not herself. She thrived on power from a small nuclear reactor nestled under her breast.
All he did now was stare at her across the table. Zhiang gripped his knife as he examined her, looking as if he was going to carve her up for his next course. He had drank more than his share of scotch as the lively conversation moved along after dinner. Zhiang's comments began to sink to lowly depths. He began to ask about Kabey's sexual prowess, if her breasts were firm to the touch, things like that. She had answered them all honestly, immune to the violation of the questions. Her candid answers pushed him to ask even ruder questions. Mike had sat there silently and raised no protest though, as a sort of worried anger swelled within him. Now as Kabey cleared the table, Zhiang silently hungered for her, his graceless comments replaced by pure animal wanting. "So when can I get into it?" He asked.
Kabey turned her head slightly as she loaded the dishes into the sonic washer. "Whenever. Is this all OK with you, Kabe?"
She turned, forcing a smile. "Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Now's good for me." Zhiang said rising from the table. He approached Kabey, placing his arms around her, feeling her waist and hips. As he held her he turned to Mike, "I've got to buy me one of these." Mike swallowed hard, he didn't understand the feelings in his head. We're they feelings? They couldn't be, no way.
Zhiang led her into the bedroom by the hand. She went silently, a blank stare on her face. Mike noticed no sparkle in her eyes like when she made love to him. Make love. God no, that's not what me and her do, she's not a human. Mike tried to shake the scotch out of his head, to somehow decide what to do. As they entered the bedroom, she turned back to him one last time, pleading with her eyes to stop this. As the door closed, Zhiang howled with delight and Mike fell helplessly into a large cushy chair as the world news automatically began its broadcast.
Zhiang tapped Mike on the cheek, waking him from his crumpled state on the chair. Mike saw the face of his friend glowing with happiness. He rose, rubbing the nap from his eyes. "Damn, that was unreal! She was... I've never had a woman like that before... unreal."
"I know." Mike felt oddly ashamed as he said that.
"She's asleep now, in your bed."
Mike smirked as he crossed into the kitchen, pulling a carton of orange juice-aid out of the refrigerator. "She doesn't need to sleep. I've configured her to do that afterwards." Mike took a long sip of juice, then placed the carton back in the fridge.
"Are you pissed or something, man? You asked me if I wanted to do this. I didn't impose."
"Hey, I just lent out my lev-car as far as I'm concerned. She is not a she. She is a glued together mess of plastic bones, circuits and programming."
"Then why are you all bothered?"
"I don't know. I just don't. I wish I did."
Zhiang sensed the discomfort in Mike's voice. He picked his jacket off the chair and draped it around his shoulders. "That'll hold me for a while." He said as he stepped out the door.
Mike watched him walk to the end of the hall and wait for the elevator. As the door opened for him, Zhiang stepped into the box and descended to the streets below. Mike closed the door to his apartment. When he turned, Kabey was straightening up the living room. "What are you doing?" He asked.
"Just cleaning a little."
"Don't." She looked up at him confused. "Don't ever let me do anything like that to you again."
"I didn't mind. He was your friend. He needed a release."
"You seemed to mind."
She tilted her head and approached him. She seemed like her old self again. "Did you mind?"
Mike turned away, unable to answer. "All these things. You do them for me, everything. I don't know what you want. What you like."
"I like what I'm programmed to like."
Mike kissed her gently on the lips. She began to kiss him passionately back, but he stopped her. Pushed her away. "Forget it all, gently." She drew close to him, slowly. Began to nibble his lip, gently run her tongue along his teeth. "Find what you want, what you like. I want you to run this past your processors until you figure it out. I don't care what it takes." She continued to kiss him, just kiss him and nothing more. Mike could feel her shiver slightly as she wrapped her arms around him.
"Please, don't do that to me again." She quivered, remembering Zhiang's sweaty body next to hers.
Kabey laid next to him. They had just laid together all night. Mike had felt uncomfortable with her next to him, after her being with Zhiang and all. He pitied her as he looked at her, pretending to sleep. She still shivered and he placed a hand on her shoulder. The technician at HumoidTech had told him that his model might shiver if she ever had a sensory shock or anything. It was the micro-components of her processors filing themselves into their correct sockets. This happened once before the first day Mike had gotten her. He took her to the park and on the way she was frightened by a Mag-Lev train whistle. The Kabey 11 series was actually the first Humoid model that you would actually want to go somewhere with. Mike's Kabey was actually a prototype model, the newest of the new. He had gotten her extra cheap for being a beta tester. The 11's were actually able to hold reasonable conversations and develop likes and dislikes for certain things. They were more like human than anything that was yet to be developed. They smelled human, looked human, acted human. There was only one way you could actually tell if an 11 was human and that was to ask one. They could be pleasantly deceitful about certain things, but that was not one of them.
Kabey continued to shiver, wrapped in the warm comforter on Mike's bed, even after he had gone off to work. As he looked in on her right before he left, straightening his tie and running a comb through his hair, he worried about her. Out on the street he worried as he gingerly avoided the gaping construction holes in the punctured street.
He looked up at his building as he waiting for the Mag-Lev train to arrive. She was up there, obviously in a pain of some sort, which he could neither understand nor do anything about. I could take her in. The thought had crossed his mind. The truth was, he was embarrassed. Even if he didn't tell them, the tech-rats at HumoidTech could run back her mem-circuits, find the command he gave her. Find what you want, what you like. He shook his head, she was up there, trying to find her preferences. Mike wished he had left good enough alone. Last night had been a relative disaster, but he just could have brushed it off and kept enjoying his Kabey unit. Then another thought crossed his mind. God, Zhiang. He would smile, maybe joke about last night. Mike bit his lip.
Actually Zhiang was rather quiet. It's amazing how psychic some people can be sometimes. He must have sensed the confused emotions within Mike and decided not to get under his skin. He was probably just thankful for what he had gotten the night before. They two sat back to back all day and at 6:30, left. Zhiang gave Mike a sideways smile as he left to catch his Commuter Ship.
Alone in a crowd. The swirling human mass around him did not exist. Above, the sky cracked with lightening. Mike approached his apartment, his mind still transfixed on Kabey. He hoped that she had reached some conclusion. As he entered the darkened lobby a man stepped out of the shadows. The man was subtly striking in appearance. Bright blue eyes, slender build, anvil shaped jaw, short cropped gray hair. Mike, just stopped there, unsure if he should be scared. Mr. Kovar? Don't be alarmed."
"Yes, I'm him."
"Oh," the man remarked, seeming highly relieved. His bright blue eyes relaxing in their intensity. "This is for you."
The man handed Mike a letter with a circular seal holding it closed.
"Thank you, what is it? Don't you guys believe in Email?"
The man smiled, seeming to fill with humor. "No," he simply said, draining any humor out of himself and of Mike.
"Thanks, Charlie." Mike muttered as the man titled his head slightly, nodded and then turned to go, the heals of his dress shoes clacking on the lobby floor loudly. He pushed through the heavy lobby door effortlessly. Mike, suddenly feeling vulnerable, approached the elevator. "Server, elevator" he asked the panel. Not satisfied with the its quickness he asked for it again and again until the elevator quietly arrived.
The seal was unbreakable. That was what Mike concluded as he struggled to get it off the letter that the man he had christened, "Charlie" had given him. He stepped off the elevator quickly, suddenly fearful that it might be rigged to drop unchallenged to the basement. As he was about to utter his name at the door, he heard laughing from inside. It was Kabey and another, a man. Mike slowly opened the door to see Kabey and the man at the table. She was seated and he was behind, playfully trying to get her to drink some cheap liquor, which she was refusing to do.
"Hello," was all that Mike muttered as they both looked at him surprised.
"This your brother?" The man asked Kabey, as he straightened up.
"No..."
"I bought her. She's mine for 18 months."
Kabey rose slowly from the table. The man shook his head, and leaned against the wall behind him. He looked over at Kabey angrily. "Where did you meet... ?" Mike asked.
"James." Kabey responded. "Down at the Mag-Lev station, he runs a lift." Mike looked over at James. He looked like a degenerate, had an energy tan from loading active materials all day and greasy black hair.
"Did he touch you?" Mike asked.
"No..."
"Bitch" James muttered, his speech that of a someone missing a few key teeth. He turned to Kabey angrily, his fists clenched tightly.
"I wouldn't," Mike advised. James looked briefly over at Mike then back at the fake woman who stood up against the wall. "Don't let him touch you, Kabe."
The door opened behind Mike at that instant. Five men, masked Paras, dressed in black para-military garb entered. With them was the man, Charlie from the lobby. As they entered, James smashed the liquor bottle onto the table. He pointed a piece of the sharpened remains at Kabey. A look of disgust washed over Charlie and he shook his head. "Shoot" he ordered. There was the near silent thump of the plasma weapons and then James fell, convulsing to the floor. One of the Paras approached the body. "Is it dead?" Charlie asked.
"No," the Para replied.
"Make it that way then." Charlie muttered coldly. The Para fired his plasma weapon again and then with a partner carried James's body from the room. Charlie turned to the shocked Mike as the remaining Paras took up strategic positions in the room.
"Why'd you kill him?" Mike asked.
Charlie smiled. "We checked him out. He was wanted and a bio-mute. I'd disintegrate any dishes he might have used."
"What about her?" Mike asked, referring to Kabey.
Charlie nodded, "That's why we're here." Charlie approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Cease fear simul, 11-631." Instantly Kabey relaxed, the ordeal seemingly forgotten. "I'm from HumoidTech. We've been monitoring Kabey and the instructions you gave her. She underwent a fundamental change this afternoon as a result of instruction number, 11 dash 523 dash 68 dash 18976453282 point Zero. Find what you want, what you like." Mike was shocked. So many things at once surprised him. One thing that didn't even register was that Charlie had simply recited the instruction code from memory and had exactly imitated Mike's inflection from when he actually gave that command. Before he could process any of this, Charlie drew close to him, a deadly smile on his lips. "Kabey will come with us now."
One of the Paras took her by the arm and started to lead her away. Mike swallowed hard, trying to think of something to keep her here, "She could have killed that guy herself, with her bare hands."
Charlie smiled with one half of his face. "She won't be doing any of that with me around."
Mike began to panic. Kabey looked at him with sad but unworried eyes. She seemed too willing to go with these men. Mike stepped in front of the Para leading Kabey out of the room. "I want to go with her." Charlie half smiled again and nodded to one of the Paras. The masked man leveled his plasma gun at Mike. Before he could even react the man had fired. A sharp pain. All white. Mike began to experience a jumbled series of half conscious events. He felt himself being zipped into a bag, a lev-car ride, the sound of a late Commuter Ship overhead, the cold air of the quiet night. He was being carried through what must have been a wooded area. They must have taken me hundreds of miles. Twigs bent under boots. No one spoke. He was laid onto the ground and someone seemed to take an old fashioned flash picture of the bag. Again there was the pain of a plasma burst and Mike passed out. This time fully.
He woke up in a physicians room, but there was something odd about it. He was lying on a bench on against the wall. He rose, sniffing the air. The was an odd animal smell about it, like this was a veterinary examination room. The room was bright and it hurt his eyes. He quickly found a mirror on the wall and noticed a plasma burn on his forehead. "Jesus, what am I." He muttered. He turned to see one thing on the examination table. It was the envelop that Charlie had given him in the lobby. He was able now to open it. The envelop must have had some kind of a magnetic seal on it. Mike shook his head in confusion and dropped the envelop to the floor. He couldn't even deal with this right now. He looked at himself in the mirror again. Took a long look at someone he didn't even know. Mike felt old. He felt like the last months in the city had cost him years. He hated himself at that moment, hated everything that has added up to the quotient of his life.
Charlie entered the room at that point, he instantly picked the envelop off the floor and approached, handing it to Mike. "Michael, you don't want to be waving your rights now, do you?"
"Of course not." Mike replied, his throat seemingly full of gravel. "What's this mean?"
Charlie smiled. "When you signed for Kabey, bought her..." Charlie calmly bit into him with that term... "it was with the understanding that she was a beta and that under catastrophic circumstances we might need to take her back."
"She was having dinner with some wack-job, I don't call that catastrophic."
Charlie calmed Mike with a wave of his hand. "Please, the implications of that dinner are much more important than the act itself. It represents a diversion from her programming. You didn't want that to happen, did you?"
"No, no..."
"But you asked her to Find what you want, what you like..." Again in that exact tone of voice... "but you never expected her to... try to make you jealous, did you?"
"No, no but I don't get..."
"This whole thing is just making our job easier, you coming here. You'll get your answers Mr. Kovar, but after that, I'm afraid I won't be able to let you live."
"What? I'm secure! I've zero, one, five at work! I can forget about this!"
"I'm sure you could."
Charlie began backing out of the room. Mike was panting and seething. He drew close to Charlie "You god damned son of a bitch!" Just then two Paras entered the room from behind. They quickly and skillfully grabbed the struggling Mike and threw him to the floor.
"We couldn't let you live anyway, sorry. We will need your assistance with Kabey. You helping us will determine if she needs to be terminated as well. Thank you."
"What's your name? You SOB! You can't do this to me."
Charlie knelt down next to him, drew close to his ear so the Paras couldn't hear. "The name you have chosen for me will be sufficient."
A muffled thump, the white light and darkness again and then the pain.
Mike awoke in a small glass room. Actually a cylinder in the middle a larger dark laboratory. On a nearby table, he could see Kabey lying. A man was hovering about her making notations on a digital clipboard. Mike banged on the glass and began yelling. The man looked up from his work and spoke into a wrist communicator. He listened for a response and then left the room. Mike screamed and banged on the glass as the man went. He suspected that the little room was totally sound proof and that the man hadn't heard a single furious sound he had made.
Mike looked over to Kabey thoughtfully. He had gotten himself into this mess because he cared for her. She looked so beautiful, lying there on the table. She looked like she was sleeping. Mike had caught himself so many times just watching her sleep. He thought about a million ridiculous things when he did that. He thought about taking her home to meet his parents, of having children with her. He had to remind himself to make himself stop, that she was only a machine. Only a machine, that's why he suspected he was here. Now he was going to die because of her. He hung his head. He cared for her, but he did not love her, that he knew. Falling to his knees. As he went down, he noticed the envelop Charlie had given him was in his pocket. He must have planted it there after I went out, Mike thought.
Just then Charlie and the other man entered. Mike knew what was coming. The man was going to serve as Charlie's assistant and Charlie was going to interrogate Mike. Charlie approached the glass.
"Thank you for coming." He said smugly.
"Why do you want to do this?" Mike asked, his voice coming out of a speaker on the other side.
"We've been under some allusions for a long time, regarding artificial life forms. The science fiction of last century painted human emotions as the be-all, end-all. That if a machine could develop these "real" emotions then it wouldn't be a machine after all...
Mike stopped him, the pain from the last plasma burst rising to a froth in his head. "I'm not going to die for any Star Trek, Orwell shit, OK. I wasn't born for this."
Charlie calmly backed away a few feet. "It seems, right now, that I'm going to determine what you were born for, my friend. If you'll let me finish... human emotions are not the end-all, be-all. They can be replicated. There is no struggle, no infinite internal battle that must be won. If you give a machine the ability to build emotions, then the right stimuli will build them."
Charlie gave Mike the opportunity to look as Kabey rose from the table. She was led close to the glass by the other man. "She loves you, Michael, because you... asked her to find a way to."
Kabey looked at Mike with sorry eyes. Something in her was feeling now and that thing was generating guilt a guilt so heavy that it overwhelmed her. "I now have to find a way to make this make sense, but you've done the ground work that we needed."
The other man looked at his digital clip board. Mike could see a list of many, many questions. He had no doubt that Charlie would use any method to make Mike answer all of them truthfully. Mike heard the doctor speak for the first time. "This confinement cylinder is capable of directing electric shocks, sub-degree temperatures, broiling heat and in the least case, Sodium Penthanol."
"Jesus..." Mike muttered, wishing he believed in some kind of god.
"God is an abstract concept and can't help you right now." Charlie turned briefly to the other man, "Is there any thetic-coffee?" The man nodded like the question was planned.
"Yes, sir a whole carafe in the other room."
Charlie backed away from the glass. Kabey leaned against it, trying to hold Mike through the barrier. Mike starred Charlie down, but Charlie just smiled as his plan went off without a hitch. "Don't you give a rat's ass about killing people?"
"I just made an android who is indistinguishable from human."
"I'm not sure you are."
Charlie stopped for a second, looked down. Mike could see the veins in his brow pulsing. "I'm on top of the world" he said calmly, raising up his head to smile at Mike, a cheap tooth filled grin.
The two men left. Mike knew that the questions on the clipboard didn't mean anything. They just wanted to hear the upcoming conversation between himself and Kabey. She leaned against the glass, head buried in her arm. There were tears coming from her eyes. "Stop grief Simul." Mike said softly, half hating her.
"I can't," she responded. "It's not a simulation anymore. Let's not talk, that's just what they want to hear."
Mike banged against the glass furiously. "What do I have to fucking loose?" He spun in the chamber. "I don't love you Kabey, I don't love..."
She pulled her head up. Her eyes were red. She was neither beautiful, nor perfect.
"I think I want to be sick. These feelings... how could you do this to me?"
Mike looked down on her. He felt like an animal in a holo-zoo. She sobbed below, her emotions running out of her in the form of wet saline tears. He still had a hard time feeling for her. It seemed her problems were not high on his priority list right now. "They are going to kill me because of you, because they put you into my hands. Don't you even think about blaming me for what you think passes as a broken heart. You want to see hearts broken? Go see those people I pass everyday, every one of them is alive because they don't have the nerve to end it themselves. Life is cheap in this world."
"What you asked me to do, didn't you think I wanted to just find a way to love you?"
"Conditioned response, that's what love is to you Kabey, a way that you should feel." Mike was becoming more angry now, and he paced about, his hands about his face. "Something happens, and you react in some way that you've been taught to react. That's all, you don't know how,... how you want to be feeling, just how you should feel."
"What's the fucking difference between us?" The android coldly muttered.
She stepped away from the glass and staggered lightly back to the table. She sat down and clutched the leg of the table like it was her mother. As she laid there, she cried so hard, it seemed like her life was leaving her. Mike closed his still dry eyes, his fingers resting on the glass. Charlie and the other man entered again. The glass cylinder rotated a bit and opened. Mike didn't step out though, but simply stood there, waiting to be sent to die. "Thank you Bert, you can go now." Charlie said to his assistant, who shot Mike a quick worried look then left.
"What the hell's going to happen?"
Charlie smiled, shaking his head. He approached rather close to Mike. Mike could have punched him if he hadn't been so damn scared. "We've been over this, you signed the letter and gave it back to me before. I generally don't have all day."
"Letter, what are you talking about, I have..." Charlie stopped him by raising a small plasma gun level to his face,.
"Your rights were waived in that letter. Hers to. Up Kabey." Obediently, Kabey rose at his command." Mike hoped she would attack him. She had 10 times the reflexes of a human and could break a tire iron over her knee. She just stood there though, starring into the short distance of the lab.
"One question," Charlie asked. "Do you love her?"
"Will that save my life?"
For a moment, Charlie lowered the weapon. "Your life isn't worth my time, Mr. Kovar. Now Michael, do you love her?"
Mike looked to the perfect woman standing by the table. Her appearance was already recovering from her emotional outburst. If she had been real, he would have swam to Australia to be with her, but she was only a machine. It wasn't even that though. He could heave kept pretending if his life wasn't dependent on it. This was just too much trouble. "No, I don't."
"Oh." Charlie remarked. He turned and fired at Kabey sending her flying across the room along with the examination table. Mike fell to his knees from the sound of the plasma weapon. He had never heard one make such a deafening sound. "She's done now. I can do better, so I will." Mike felt an intolerable ringing in his ears. Charlie's black boots approached him. Mike just looked into his knees as he felt the muzzle of the plasma weapon resting against his head. He saw Kabey lying in a heap against the wall. Her neck was twisted in some ungodly angle and she stared open mouthed and wide eyed.
"The cameras are watching Michael, but..." Charlie knelt down next to him, whispering in his good ear. "You've seen what I've done, the killing the murders, I need you."
Mike breathed heavily, hloding his ear from the pain. The muzzle of the gun moved from the top of his head to his face. "Smile for the camera." Charlie remarked..
"Elvis reads my Email." Mike awoke, looking around him. He had no idea where he was. He was on a bench at a bus stop and a homeless man marched in tight circles in front of him, repeating that phrase over and over. His lip was puffy and there was a lump on his forehead the size of a golf ball. For some reason there was snow on the ground.
"Why the hell. Am I alive?" He asked, stumbling to shaky legs.
The homeless man stopped and came close to him, stepping in tiny marching steps. He marched in place in front of him. "From the shores of Tripoli, you ugly! Ugly Mo-fo, you. El-a-vis read-iss my Email-iss."
Mike pushed him away. "Where the hell am I?"
"You in my kingdom, ug-ass. This place is Canada. Fuck nose!"
Mike stumbled back to the bench, holding his battered face. "No, why the hell am I alive?"
The homeless man was quiet, marched up to him slowly and quietly with little steps. He put his hand on Mike's shoulder. When Mike shot him an icy stare he pulled it away. "I guess cause' somebody has a grudge against you."
Mike was about to argue when he realized that the man was right. In the distance a lev-bus approached. Mike rose and found a debit card in his pocket. He also found the letter that Charlie had planted on him. "God, damn. Somebody does have a grudge against me."
The headlights made Mike want to throw up, but he knew there was no choice but to step aboard.