What Lies Behind: A New Adult Dark Science Fiction Romance (8 page)

The door closed behind Natalia. The apartment was silent except the whirring of the fabricator finishing up the final dress suit for Talia. Cass let out a sigh of relief, her reverie only broken by the honk of a hover car as it glided by.

Finally, a day alone.

While she’d already waited a week and a half to go see the doctor, Cass could barely stand waiting the last few minutes for the fabricator to finish. She busied herself by changing out of her normal “house clothes” as she’d come to call the polyester pants and stained flower shirt, and slipped into a short lavender dress. She’d taken to waking up early before Natalia needed her so she could comb her hair, so it wasn’t hard for her to style it. By the time she was done, the dress suit was finished fabricating. She hung it on hangers and placed it in the black clothing section of Natalia’s closet.

She slipped on the pair of sandals that Brandon had brought to her that first day, and Cass left the apartment.

The moment she shut the door behind her, Cass felt like she was a different person. Out here, in the wide world, people didn’t know her. While they might know that she was an automaton from the infrared eye, they wouldn’t know what her precise function was. She could literally be anyone. She lifted her chin, a sense of freedom making her heady.

She took the elevator to the spacious lobby that was decorated in cheerful yellows and oranges. There wasn’t anyone at the front desk, so there wasn’t any questions or any witnesses to see Cass leave.

Once outside in the overcast day and the warm wind, Cass connected to the internet so she could get a sense of where Doctor Gerard’s office was. Before her a dotted path lit up on her visual overlay but the route before her was far too long to go on foot. She found the nearest taxi tower, shuttled to the top in the elevator, and waited for an air cab to come around.

Cass climbed into the back of the black and yellow hover car and gave the cabbie the address she saw on her visual overlay that indicated it was where the doctor’s office was located. Her mind was on the last meeting. Would the doctor give her information? It was obvious he had to know something about her past. When memories were wiped they were kept on a backup for legal purposes. Automaton’s memories could be used in legal cases since the robot recorded everything they did and all of the interactions they had. It was an unbiased form of evidence that could be used.

If something had happened in her past, he would know about it, and he would tell her.
Or better yet, maybe he will show me. Maybe put those memories in?
Was he the one that wiped her memory to begin with? She was remembering things now, so either he hadn’t wiped her memory, or some things couldn’t be erased.

The taxi settled outside the doctor’s office. Cass paid him and climbed out. The dust swirled around her as the taxi lifted off, but she could only stand outside and stare at the small brick building. Inside lay all of her answers. She would finally know what was happening to her.

Then what?
She wondered.
What if the wipe didn’t take and he wants to wipe my memory again?

She reminded herself about the defense system that had been newly activated.

This isn’t getting me anywhere,
she thought. Cass forced her feet to obey her command and before long she was tucked inside a corner of the doctor’s office in a plastic chair waiting for Doctor Gerard to see her.

“Cass,” the plump nurse called her from the doorway. Cass followed her down the hall to a different patient room than what she’d been in the other day with Brandon. Cass sat herself in a chair instead of on the table. She didn’t plan on letting Gerard try to check her over. She wasn’t there for that.

“So what can we do for you today?” the nurse asked, looking through the glass computer tablet at Cass’s files. “I don’t see a scheduled checkup for you. Are you experiencing any difficulties concerning the nature of your last visit?”

“Nothing like that. I just have some questions for the doctor.”

“Is it anything I can help you with?” the nurse asked.

“No,” Cass told her. There was more finality in her voice than she’d intended. “I just have some concerns only the doctor can answer.” She added more softly when the nurse scowled.

“Alright, you weren’t on the schedule, so it might take a while,” the nurse said, and left.

Cass was left to her own thoughts for less time than she would have expected. When the door opened, ushering in more noise than the white noise from the speaker above the door, Cass looked up to see Gerard enter.

“What can I do for you today?” he asked cheerfully, shutting the door behind him and setting the glass computer on the counter. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you having complications from your injury?”

“Kinda,” Cass admitted. She told him the entire story. She told him about Natalia hitting her with the fire poker. She told him about all of the new programs that had come online at the time. She even told him how she’d been feeling since then. It wasn’t something she’d intended on telling him, it came out when she was talking about what had happened since the accident.

“And then there was this memory that seemed like a dream. I think I belonged to a woman named Olivia Hamilton.” Cass looked up in time to see the doctor shift his weight from one leg to the other and take in a deep, steadying breath. “Is that name familiar to you?” she asked him. “You seem to know about my past. I was bought from here by Natalia, wasn’t I?”

“You were,” Gerard answered her.

“And I was previously owned by Olivia,” she said. “Why did she get rid of me?”

“I can’t answer that,” Gerard said.

“But you know?”

“I know all of the information on the automatons that come through here. It’s how I’m able to treat them. I have to keep detailed records on my inventory. It’s mandatory.”

“Why are these memories surfacing now? Was it something you programmed into me before I went to Natalia?” Cass asked him.

“It’s not uncommon that an automaton can remember bits and pieces of their past,” Gerard told her. “After all, your memory is a big computer, and it’s impossible to erase data from a computer. It is still stored. What the memory wipe does is just erases those files from your main processor. You could still, technically, access them.” He sighed.

“But?” she asked. “There’s something more, isn’t there?”

“You
could
access them, but I have to be honest, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of an automaton actually remembering anything after a wipe.”

“And why do you think I’m remembering?” Cass asked him.

Gerard didn’t answer her.

“I had this memory, when Natalia struck me,” Cass told him. “There was a fire. I was part of the fire. Apparently I made it out of the house?”

Gerard nodded. “You were in the garage. The fire didn’t spread that far.” His eyebrows drew down over his eyes as if he wasn’t sure he should be telling her this.

“And people died in that fire,” she pressed.

“Well, it’s all part of public record. I don’t see why I can’t answer you. Yes. One man died in that fire. Jack Hamilton.” Gerard took a seat in another chair by the door. He crossed his ankle over his knee and folded his hands in his lap.

“But not Olivia,” Cass said more to herself than to Gerard.

“Why is this so important to you?” Gerard wondered. “Why do you need to know your past? You don’t belong to Olivia now.”

“Because there’s this feeling in me, that there’s something more behind the surface. What lies behind my current programming?” Cass asked. “Why is this all happening to me? The free will, the emotions, the memories? If what you said about memories never fully being erased is true, it seems like they would be stored in a deeper part of my motherboard than where the nanobot can reach.”

Gerard pushed to his feet with a huff. “I can’t answer any more of your questions.”

“There
is
something more to tell?” Cass pushed to her feet too.

Gerard started to open the door, but Cass slammed her hand against it. The door jerked out of the doctor’s hand and slammed shut. Pictures and diagrams along the walls shuddered and rattled with the force of the blow.

“You’ll answer me,” Cass said. It was the first time she’d really experienced anger. “You know what’s happening to me, and you won’t tell me. There’s some other programming under my current one, isn’t there? And you would have been the only person who could have put it in place. You know what’s happening to me. You know
why
it’s happening to me.”

Gerard was backing away from her. His hand digging around in his pocket. Cass paced after him, following him around the room.

“You know what I’m meant for, and you will tell me. It’s obvious that Natalia isn’t my
real
controller any longer.”

Whatever she wanted him to tell her, Cass was never going to hear. Gerard pulled a black cylinder out of his pocket. It looked like a small pen, or maybe a pointer flashlight. He clicked a button and fire swarmed up Cass’s legs and through her arms. Her head jerked to the side, shivered against her shoulder. Her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor. Her joints were frozen in an electric storm that ate through her circuitry.

“Yes,” Gerard said, stepping up to her. He crouched before her, looking into her eyes. Her vision was jumpy, the image of the doctor blurry. “I know all of that, and I can’t tell you any of it. You aren’t a human. You don’t have the right to
know
what you’re being used for. I did give you something that wasn’t required…free will. When the time comes and your programming takes over,
use
that free will. But I have to tell you if you come here again, the electro magnet pulse that I release from this device will make you nothing more than a lump of metal and synthetic skin.”

He stood again and adjusted his shirt, tucking it in better in the back of his pants. “Now when you can stand, see yourself out.”

Cass’s knees were still weak when she pushed her way out the back door of the doctor’s office. She didn’t know what she’d expected from Gerard, but it wasn’t an attack along with his confession. When she’d gone to him last he seemed so nice, like he genuinely wanted to help.

Whatever,
she thought. She would have to do it on her own. Cass looked at the time on her visual overlay. It was several more hours yet before Natalia got home and Cass could do with some alone time. She didn’t have enough money left for another taxi, she hadn’t wanted to skim that much where Natalia might notice it was missing.

The route home appeared on her visual overlay in a series of green dashes pointing the way to her apartment. She followed the GPS.

At least Gerard had given her one thing, and that was proof that something else was happening under the surface of her programming and he thought she was going to need help. That’s why she had the free will. Now what could she do with the information he’d given her? That was the real question. She would have to dig more.

Maybe I can go see Olivia.

“Cass!” she heard someone call behind her. It sounded as if they’d called to her many times. “Cass, wait up!” It was Brandon. He gripped her arm to stop her. “I thought it was you. Didn’t you hear me yelling to you?”

She turned to him to see the typical smile he always wore.

“Sorry, I was lost in thought,” she answered.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his smile melting. He must have read the tone of her voice.

“Nothing,” she answered.

“Why are you out this way?” he wondered, looking around.

“Why are
you
out this way?” Cass asked him, easily dodging the question.

He smiled at her. “I volunteer at a soup kitchen just down the road. What are you doing now?”

“Just heading home,” Cass told him. She shrugged.

“Well, cancel those plans. Let’s go do something fun,” he said. “And I will fly you home after.”

Cass smiled at him. She wanted nothing more than to go home and think and rest, but maybe there had been too much thinking for one day. Not to mention the EMP had frazzled her and she could still sense the nanobots doing their minor repairs. It wasn’t a great time for thinking.

“What did you have in mind?” Cass asked him.

“A psychic,” he told her.

She stopped in her tracks and looked at Brandon. He walked further before he realized she wasn’t following him and he turned to her. “What?” he asked.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Yeah, why not? It will be fun!”

“Because psychics aren’t real,” she told him.

“Exactly why it will be fun!” he said. “They won’t know that you’re not a real person. In the right light you can’t even see your infrared eye. I bet they will come up with some really strange ideas for you.”

Cass laughed at him and took his hand. “Alright, let’s go.”

“So why were you really out here?” he asked, running his hand through his hair to keep the wind from blowing it into his eyes.

Cass sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Nope,” Brandon told her.

“I went back to the doctor,” she said. “I wanted to find out if he knew what was happening to me.”