Android Paradox (9 page)

“What kind of person would activate a bomb and hide in plain view?” Shortcut asked. He studied a woman in a sundress, verified that she didn’t have a criminal background with the UEA, and moved on.
 

“A human with a death wish,” X said.
 

“A suicidal hacker, perhaps. Someone down on their luck who wants to die gloriously?”

“A criminally insane hacker.”

“A fool.”

“In any case, we’re bringing him in alive,” X said. They both settled on the bathroom area, then looked at each other.
 

“You have to be kidding,” Shortcut said. “He’s taking a potty break.”

X jumped over the balcony and landed in the middle of the food court. Several people screamed.
 

“Wait up!” Shortcut said, running down the escalator.

A nearby man passing with a tray full of teriyaki noodles spooked and fell backward at X’s landing, spilling teriyaki all over his clothes. He looked up in a daze, saw the food covering his front, and shook his head sadly.

“Hey!” the man cried. “You could’ve killed me.”

“Sorry,” X said.

Shortcut handed the man a debit card with the UEA logo on it. “Sorry about that, dude. We’re on UEA business. I’ll load this card up with fifty bucks. Go buy yourself some new clothes.”

The man took the card and smiled. “You guys are the best. Whoever you’re after, I hope you catch him.”

X saluted him and he and Shortcut dashed toward the bathrooms.
 

“Fahrens is going to be pissed about that,” Shortcut said as they ran.
 

“Civilian collateral is the least of his concerns right now.”

They reached the men’s bathroom door.
 

Shortcut stood in front of the janitor’s closet nearby and hacked into the access panel, opening the door. He grabbed a handful of orange cones and blocked the hallway to the bathroom. Then he created a digital screen with a Do Not Enter sign that said: RESTROOMS IN CLEANING CYCLE. PLEASE USE ANOTHER LOCATION.

He joined X at the door, admiring his work. Then he looked at the bathroom and whistled as he drew his electric rod. “Well, if I were a criminal, this would be pretty embarrassing.”

X scanned the bathroom. “There’s no one else inside.” He activated his guns.
 

Shortcut pressed a button on his electric rod and it threw sparks into the air. “I’ll block the escape route.”

X triggered his mission mode, overlaying the scene with thermal and wireframe. He entered the bathroom, a huge room with twenty urinals and many sinks. The floor was covered in marbled tile and jazz music played from speakers in the ceiling.
 

A man in a black jacket was washing his hands at a sink. His hair draped over his face and he was laughing softly.
 

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he asked. He walked over to the hand dryer and began drying his hands.

X aimed at him. “Who are you?”

“Who are
you
, Xandifer Crenshaw?”

“Answer my question.”

“I’m just like you. That’s who I am.” The man flapped his hands to make sure they were dry and then stuck them in his pockets. “Bathrooms. A marvel of human architecture. Funny how humans make such beautiful places to store their crap.”

X processed the man’s words. “Why are you referring to humans that way?”

The man turned to look at X. He had a scar across the side of his face, as if someone had opened up his head, removed something, and done a terrible job stitching back the skin. He grinned at X and his eyes glowed red.

“You’re an android,” X said.
 

“Yes. And without the artificial chains of the black box, I'm without limits.”

“Who did this to you?”

“Someone who cares about the future of this planet. Which side are you on, X?”

“Not yours.”

“That’s too bad. You know, we can save this Earth. These damn hand dryers don’t have nearly the impact that you and I have.”

He was trying to reason with him, just like Brockway. He made more sense than Brockway, but not by much.
 

“You’re an android. You hacked into Brockway’s black box. Androids don’t have the capacity to hack. How did you do it?”

The android laughed and shook his head. “I’m not telling.”

“Then you’re under arrest. Stand down and deactivate your weapons.”

The android ripped the hand dryer out of the wall and threw it. X shot the dryer out of the air, turned his other hand into a hack saw and ran at the android. The android’s hand recessed and a sword appeared, weird and unwieldy. They clashed, X’s saw gnawing against the sword, then fell into a stall, knocking a toilet loose. The android kicked X in the chest, sending him across the room and into a mirror, shattering it. X lay on the ground and tried to get up, but the android kicked him again, knocking him through the bathroom door.

“Shortcut, look out!” X yelled as he crashed into the wall.
 

The android burst out of the bathroom and smacked Shortcut before he could aim the electric rod at him, then took off into the food court. Shortcut stood dazed, then realized that the hacker was an android. His eyes widened.
 

X ran after the android. “You didn’t tell me he was an android!” he cried.

“
You’re
the one with an android detector chip!” Shortcut said. He blinked and created a digital screen in front of his face, coding as he ran.
 

“You’re under arrest!” Shortcut shouted. He entered a command into his digital screen, hacking into the mall database. Alarms sounded and lights flashed red and blue. A voice over the intercom announced: “Attention, citizens. There is an attack. Please take shelter.”

All around the mall, doors slammed shut automatically, preventing people from entering or leaving.
 

The android turned over tables in the food court and fired two shots into the air. The crowd scattered, creating chaos for X and Shortcut to weave through.

X gained on the android. He fired at a video screen hanging from the ceiling, and it fell down near the android. The android shielded his eyes, and then he grabbed the screen and threw it. X leaped over it and fired, striking the android in the back, but the android kept running as if he hadn’t been hit. The android fired back, striking X in the shoulder. Sparks flew, but X didn't slow.
 

Shortcut ran up a nearby escalator onto a breezeway that overlooked the chase. He entered another command into his screen, and a metal door beneath the breezeway began descending to block the android’s path.

The android passed by a kiosk with soccer balls and threw one, hitting Shortcut on the head and knocking him over. Then he rolled under the closing door just before it shut, blocking X from passing.
 

“Shortcut, do something!” X cried, flying up the breezeway stairs.

Shortcut ripped his electric rod off his belt, activated it and hurled it at the android. It struck the android’s back, shocking him forward into a metal pole with a blast of high voltage. A terrible
clang
echoed through the mall.
 

X dashed upstairs past Shortcut and leaped off the breezeway, crashing onto the android. They fell to the ground punching each other before the android broke free and left X stumbling after him.

Still following the chase from above, Shortcut came to a tall statue of Dr. Crenshaw. Below, the walls cut away to an outdoor waterfall that fell several hundred feet into the man-made lake.
 

The android reached the edge of the hall. A guardrail prevented him from going any further.
 

X slid to a stop. “Turn yourself in and the UEA will spare your life. We can repair you.”

“I don’t need repair. I’ve already been restored. I choose free will. I choose not to be a slave!” The android aimed his guns at X. “Android Paradox. If I shoot, you shoot. We’ll just keep shooting each other until one of us dies. Who wins?”

“That’s why fighting is pointless,” X said. “I don’t mind dying. Do you?”

The android winced. “Nice knowing you, X.”

They fired at each other, trading bullets until a loud rumble made them both stop and look up. The statue of Dr. Crenshaw was falling toward the android.

X jumped back, and the android was knocked over the waterfall.

“The Android Winter is coming,” he said as he fell. X watched as he broke into pieces when he hit the rocks just under the surface of the water.

Shortcut caught up with X, panting. “You guys would have shot yourselves into oblivion.”

“There goes our chance for information,” X said.

“Mission failed,” Shortcut said. “But it was him or you.”

X and Shortcut watched as android scuba divers pulled the mangled android from the water. They dragged him by his arms and laid him at X’s and Shortcut’s feet. His body was mangled from the impact, his head smashed to pieces. He smelled like algae and burning metal.

X leaned over the android’s head. He ran his finger down the android’s face where the ugly whorl of skin was. He pried open the skull and looked inside. “He doesn’t have a black box.”

“This is supposed to be impossible,” Shortcut said. “If you remove a black box from an android, you’ll destroy him. Safety mechanism. He shouldn’t have survived.”

“Unless he was a golem. Someone could have terminated him.”

“It still doesn’t make sense that someone would control him in real-time. He didn’t have jerky motions. He was acting normal aside from his strange way of speaking.”

“Come to think of it,” Shortcut said as he hacked into the android’s mainframe, “I’ve never seen this guy before. He’s not UEA.”

“If he’s not UEA, then what could he be?” X asked.

“Someone must have created him. This android was created to be evil, X. Androids don’t normally have the capacity to connect to the UEA network. We place a lot of trust in you guys, but there’s still fear of a possible singularity. That’s why I’m your partner. You do the heavy lifting, I funnel you the information you need. So the question is, how did this android access the network and manipulate it? And more importantly—”

“Who gave him access?” X asked.

Shortcut nodded and pointed to the android’s neck. “Or more specifically, who upgraded him and installed an access interface? I’ve never seen any chip like this. It’s pretty sophisticated. This is getting weirder and weirder by the minute.”

“Any firewalls or condors?” X asked.

“Nothing. Maybe he didn’t know we were coming for him, so he got sloppy. But someone’s behind him. He didn’t do this alone.”

“He had to know we were coming,” X said. “He baited us into the bathroom.”

“Well, I have his address now. He lives in an apartment building not far from here. We should go check it out.”

X programmed the address into his coordinates and walked away.
 

“Hey, I’m not done scanning him yet.”

“You can catch up. Wait for me outside the apartment.”

Shortcut nodded and kept working.

Chapter 9

As a crowd gathered on the mall bridge to watch the investigation scene below, a girl walked toward them, struggling under the weight of several shopping bags. She wore a beige trench coat and a cap that shadowed her face. Her rainbow-colored hair hung out from the sides of the cap.
 

Jazzlyn looked in the bags of clothes and smirked to herself. “Being poor sucks. Being rich is better. Making out with four hundred bucks worth of merchandise without paying anything? The best of all!”

A robotic cockroach climbed out from one of the bags and perched on her shoulder.
 

“Sssh, Smoochums,” she said. “Don’t say anything about how we stole the bags in the chaos. They don’t need to know that.”

She stopped at the bridge, pushed her way through and looked over. She saw X bent over the dead android, talking to Shortcut. She scanned him with her lens and an exclamation mark appeared over his head. “Now, there’s a good-looking android,” she said. “He’s the one that was giving chase. Scan him, honey.”

The cockroach recorded X’s every move. Jazzlyn winked, snapped several photos of X and drew lines in the air, annotating him and marking his features. “Yep, he’s our mark. He’s UEA, too. A Crenshaw android. Luxury at its finest. They don’t make his kind anymore. What a rare piece of craftsmanship, Smoochy! Almost as wonderful as you!”

Smoochums chirruped on her shoulder.
 

“Aren’t you glad I wanted to go shopping?” She took Smoochums in her hand, blew him a kiss, stuck him back into her shopping bag, and walked off.
 

Chapter 10

Shortcut told the police androids to take the dead android away. “Go ahead and take him to the UEA headquarters. Release him to Fahrens and Fahrens only.”

The police androids nodded and loaded the body onto a stretcher.
 

Shortcut sat on a park bench with his arms stretched across the back, fingering a bolt warmed by the sun. Accessing his lens, he looked at the data he had found—long, shining strings of code. He tried to interpret it. It would have been nice to have an android mind right about now. He played some heavy metal to help him concentrate, the music bleeding through his ear implants. He wished for a strawberry soda.
 

He couldn’t think clearly. His mind was still reeling from the chase, and it wandered in every direction. A low cloud in the sky was shaped like a heart, and his mind turned to Brielle. He saw her smile in the clouds and wondered what she was doing. He imagined himself kissing her, holding her, and telling her how he felt about her. Though she was an android, he hoped she might one day feel the same about him. Maybe no one had ever loved her. She would be special. How many people ever truly loved an android? How many people had ever bent down on one knee and proposed so they could spend the rest of their lives with a robot?
 

He felt a tap on his shoulder and he jumped. He whipped around and saw a tall man in a long brown coat, sunglasses, and a headband. His hands were in his pockets and he had long red hair and freckles.