#also let me clarify they have no obligation to sell their dragon to me!!

[bbeelzemon]

ugh in my dream last night, that person replied to me.. im really obsessing over this way way way too much if ive had a dream about it!

[enkisstories]

Just like them (part 8)

 Henry Ford Commemorative Park Thursday, November 18, 2038

“What the… are you nuts… that’s never going to work… why do I even care, no, scratch that, what were you thinking!”

“Behold the PL600 domestic assistant, programmed with a comprehensive vocabulary that it knows to use to the best effect!” Gavin sneered. “There’s a reason Cyberlife stopped producing you guys, ey?”

“At least they had to actively drop support for me, while you seem to have a death wish!” the PL600 replied.

“Uh-uh.” Gavin shook his head, then pointed at his partner. “That would be this old fossil here. Me, I’m the clever one, who knows how survive. The only thing I don’t get is, how come we run into you all the time? In a city the size of fucking Detroit?!”

“Might as well be a single-street dump somewhere in an RA9-forsaken prairie”, Daniel replied with a shrug. “Don’t you remember? Right after Markus’ final stand President Warren issued an evacuation order. Only about one-third of the humans stayed and are now mingling with an unknown number of us.”

“As if I could forget!”

Detroit, the Android City. They had made that literal.

Warren told the humans to flee to safety, but the new situation also makes it easier to send a few tanks into town to deal with us without worrying overmuch about human casualties, Daniel mused. Those who still remain here are most likely android supporters and thus expendable in the president’s eyes.

There were a handful residents he, too, could have done without: Most of the DPD officers, for starters. There was no chance for that, though, the law enforcement personnel had been obligated to stay. A rare few humans Daniel would have missed: His downstairs neighbors, the Rasoya family, probably also Neil. And then there was an even smaller number of humans who weren’t here, that he wished would return: Emma… Caroline… and John.

John Phillips. Why do I want you back? To apologize or to kill you again?

Dwelling on his conflicting feelings was of no use now, though. Even if the deviant found an answer, it wouldn’t give him what he really wanted: his old life back. Daniel forcefully shoved all thoughts about his absent family far, far away.

Concentrate on the present, deviant! Like Anderson and Reed, who are standing right in front of you!

Lt. Anderson nodded; nothing in Daniel’s words had been new or unfathomable to him. He even took over the explanation from here, stating that android life would most likely revolve around the five Android Zone stores in Detroit.

“And where there’s people, there’s crime”, Hank said.

“Pray tell, what crime?” Gavin challenged. He was ignoring Hank, staring at Daniel instead. “Don’t you have the city-wide Android Woodstock that you always wanted now?”

“Poverty, Gavin”, Hank supplied. “Don’t you see? The Android Zones now function as upscale restaurants and private hospitals rolled into one. Cyberlife knows that.”

Indeed the company was adapting quickly to the new situation: the erstwhile slavers were now selling luxury items like temperature sensors for models that did not ship with them. CL’s Department of Humanization had some new addons in its lineup that allowed androids to experience the world similarly to the way humans did – to be equipped on a whim and de-installed when it was no longer fun. It was as if Cyberlife hadn’t exactly planned the revolution, but at the very least prepared for an eventual one…

But of course such pleasures were only available for those who could afford it. Therefore the company was also the first employer in Detroit that officially took on androids. And thus the newly freed species was slowly getting fractured into the haves and the not-haves.

“Or did you for one moment believe this crapsack world’s rules would change, just because a few new pieces are on the board now?” Hank grunted at the end of the explanation. “I watched Jericho’s livestream yesterday, they dealt with exactly that topic, among others. Markus was trying to not let it show, but he was shocked to his very core at the development!”

“Of course it would be”, Gavin remarked in a dismissing tone. “It’s an annoying homeschooled arts major, after all! Is Markus alive? We’ve got to treat it as such. But is it fit to sit at the adult table? Nah!”

“Speaking of shocked”, Daniel said, pointing at Gavin’s head. “Explanation, please!”

Because, hello? How come the DPD’s resident human supremacist would wear a LED on his temple? And android LED! That was taking cultural appropriation to a whole new level!

“I re-attached the bad boy yesterday”, Gavin said in a casual voice. “Didn’t you know? I used to be a perfectly ordinary PC200, but deviated over a shitload of abuse received from my so-called co-workers. So far I blended in with the humans, only now that we have to investigate in an android-dominated neighborhood I thought I’d better re-connect with my cultural heritage.”

“No!” Daniel snapped. “No way! I don’t believe you!”

“No, for real! I was born an android. The stories I could tell you about all the ways in which the suckers at the DPD disregarded my feelings… not pretty.”

“I trust you know a lot about android abuse, but only because you committed all those deeds yourself”, Daniel replied. “The rest I don’t buy.”

“LED – Android. Android – LED.”

“That’s a paper-thin disguise you’re wearing there, detective”, Daniel fumed. “All it takes to expose you as a human is one digitally sent ask that your biological brain cannot answer.”

“Alright then, try me!”

“Will do!”

Gavin stood relaxed, expecting the android to try to talk to him in his head. Daniel sighed, nodded, but then he suddenly leaped forward and pounced the detective! Taken by surprise, the man got rammed against the nearest tree. While struggling to free himself, Gavin’s feet caught in the low fence that ran around the trunk. And then, while his body was held helpless, an android fist connected with Gavin’s face. The blood emerging from the nose was red. And that was also exactly the color his LED was not turning into.

“Human”, Daniel said, immensely satisfied. “Fake LED.” He took a step back from the tree and Gavin. “Thought so.”

“What the hell, you were to TALK to me!”

“Wrong person for that, mate.”

“Not even a person. – And that was assault on an officer of the law just now!”

“No, it was property damage. You introduced yourself as a PC200.”

Having freed his foot by now, Gavin pushed himself away from the tree. There was a bit of an oversized flying squirrel about the man when he came rushing towards Daniel, his open jacket flapping in the November wind, and shouting:

“You son of a toaster!”

“Only the son? No longer the toaster itself? We’re making progress!”

Daniel side-stepped the onrushing detective, but although he was quicker on his new feet, the human wasn’t THAT slow. While passing by the android, Gavin reached out and got to grab Daniel by his loose fitting sweater. For a few seconds they were stumbling around each other, then Gavin managed to get a firm grip. He was breathing heavily and the exhaled air thickened to a cloud as it cooled down upon leaving the body. To Daniel it was as if getting breathed at by an angry dragon. His real eyes below the thin layer of artificial skin were fogging up, clouding the android’s vision.

But even so, it was Daniel who spoke up first:

“Don’t lie to me again, Detective! Not even in such an obvious manner! Hear me? Just… don’t!”

“You cannot make me do what you want! Sucks, huh, little deviant? All that bleeding heart new android law, written and printed for nothing…”

“I can make you stop doing what I don’t want you to do, though!” Daniel hissed.

I can kill… I know I can! If I know how to survive, does it matter that I’m dead inside?

“Final, too!”

Why’s life always forcing me into on the violent path? That’s not me. I’m dying, despite living on. Already this body consists of at least three different androids, but Daniel, Daniel was shot at the roof and is winking out of existence. Every day I lose more and more of myself, only to become like those I hate.

“Not to elbow myself into your date, but…”

Human and Android turned around to where Hank was sitting quite comfortably on a park bench. The more experienced officer had watched the scene rather amused until it had reached a level of escalation where he felt the need to intervene.

“…how good is that disguise for real? Can’t say Gavin didn’t deserve the attack just now, but we cannot have him die. – And you, “partner”, let him go already!”

“On a passing glance, there’s nothing wrong with the disguise”, Daniel said, after Reed had really let go of him as instructed. “But it will break under the smallest scrutiny. I’m not exactly exposing a secret here if I tell you that androids pass information back and forth via our LEDs. It’s rather similar to body language.”

“Then try talking to asshole in android… in binary… LEDese… ey, in whatever you call it.”

“I suppose I could do that…”

“If you do, your parole officer will hear from me about you having aided an investigation.”

“’kay.”

The android didn’t even have to concentrate. With the same ease a human was turning from one conversation partner to the next, he addressed Gavin wirelessly. Daniel fully expected to talk into a void, because humans naturally didn’t communicate digitally. But instead there was an actual answer:

<<<Sorry, pal, can’t talk to you that way. Flight mode.>>>

<<<What did you just say? Did you just say something?>>>

<<<It’s a requirement during investigations to discourage hacking attempts.>>>

<<<What the hell…?>>>, Daniel stammered.

<<<Sorry, pal, can’t talk to you that way. Flight mode.>>>

“It’s more or less an answering machine”, Gavin explained. “Soon as the device picks up an attempt to communicate with the wearer, it intercepts the signal and sends a reply. Neat, huh?”

“Your idea?”

“’course!”

“Heh. Who’d thought you could be so creative!”

“Most of the programming was done by Rika”, Hank clarified. He could as well have spoken to an android LED…

(to be continued)