Project 17 (11 page)

The woman with the ponytail was a robot.

The woman with the ponytail was Felisa.

*

“Caleb!” It started raining hard when Lillian left the grocery. She took a cab to the Doloreses and hit the handle of her wet umbrella on the front door. “Paul!”
Bang. Bang.
“Open up!”

How fast does news travel? Very fast. The brothers were up early and they had their Newspads and the social networks. Paul opened the door, looking shell-shocked.

“Lillian?”

“Margaret Morales is dead,” Lillian said.

“I know,” Paul said.

“Where’s Caleb?”

She walked past him, dripping rainwater everywhere. Caleb was on the couch, his face in his hands. It was a familiar pose.

“Felisa killed her!” she shouted. “Is that what they made you do? Turn your Final Days nurse into an assassin-for-hire?”

Caleb looked up. He had been crying. Lillian took a deep breath, feeling the weight of what she had just said. Paul stood behind Lillian, as quiet as a Sentry.

“Caleb,” he said. “How did she know about Felisa?”

Caleb looked at Lillian. She looked away.

“Caleb?” Paul said, and Caleb said, “Lillian, did you hack into my files?”

She looked at her feet.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Paul said. “How much does she know?”

“And now what are you going to do?” Caleb said, still speaking to her. “Are you going to sell this information to the media?”

“I would never do that,” she said. “What was Margaret doing here? Was she on her way to see you?”

“Get out, Lillian,” Paul said.

“Paul,” Lillian said, then stopped. “Abe,” she said, and Paul looked at her with fear, “Margaret probably never knew how the Felisa project mutated to its current
form, and when she found out she made her way here. And now she’s dead.”

Nothing but the sound of rain.

“The Judge that got shot in the head? And Nikolas’s wife? The first one was a clear murder, followed by what appears to be a suicide. Nikolas is refining the robot’s MO.
It’s like an audition, an exhibition to buyers. ‘Look, my robot can make an assassination look like an accident!’ Who knows what other murders the robot has committed?”

Caleb turned away, covering his ears.

“This is an assassin that can get past Sentries, Abe. This is
fucked up.
Can you imagine what will happen if Nikolas sold this tech?” Lillian nearly clutched at his shirt.
“Northpoint-Pascual’s men killed Toni and Sophie, not your brother. Northpoint has
nothing
on you, while you have all the information that can destroy them.”

But all Paul said was: “Get out.”

Lillian was flabbergasted.

“Just get out.”

“Didn’t you hear a word I just said?” She turned to Caleb. “You have to do something. You have to
stop this!”

Paul’s back was pressed against the wall, giving her space to walk away.

Caleb said nothing.

She gripped her umbrella and left.

*

*

“I got fired,” Lillian said on their way to Lester’s.

Max stopped by the stairwell. “You confronted them, didn’t you?”

As they walked, Lillian told her everything that happened from the moment she saw Margaret Morales in the grocery store up to the moment she slammed the door on her way out of the Dolores
house.

Lillian said, “Didn’t I tell you I saw Margaret in the grocery store? But you refused to believe me, you nonbeliever.”

“This day is getting better and better,” Max muttered.

“They said the robot was carrying a syringe of Neuropro,” Lillian said.

“Margaret probably already knew she was being followed. Brought that IED with her. Probably even made it herself.”

“Maybe she was already injected in the grocery, so she just—” Lillian lifted her hands, made a noise simulating a detonation.

“Killing your own sister,” Max said. “Your own wife.”

They walked.

“What if Nikolas leaves the country?” Lillian asked.

“With his sister yet to be buried and Northpoint-Pascual’s Pharma department getting hit in the media? I doubt it. He’s staying put.” Max looked at her. “Jamie
called me from work this morning. He was hysterical.”

“Should we be worried?”

They had reached Lester’s unit. Max looked at her for a long time.

“Why should we be?” she finally said, and knocked on the door.

“Dancers On-Call!” she said. “Dancers ready to dance! Open up or regret this hesitation for the rest of your life!”

The door opened suddenly, and Max almost knocked on the enormous chest now blocking the doorway.

“Good morning,” said a tall man in a tuxedo, who had opened the door for them.

“Oh,” Max said. “Hello. Lester still lives here, right?”

From inside the unit, they heard Lester shout: “Let them in and shut the door!”

They stepped inside, and the man in the tux closed the door behind them. “May I take your bag?” he said, gesturing to Lillian.

“No, it’s okay,” she said.

Lester was streaming a delayed podcast featuring two celebrity hosts whose names Lillian couldn’t remember. “What was she doing in Hagonoy anyway?” Host 1 said in a shrill
voice. “There are no tourist spots there.”

“Harsh,” Lillian said.

“This was the first time she was seen in the area; in the province, even. Was she meeting a friend?”

“If she had gone to Malolos,” Host 2 interjected, “their PR peeps could say she was just going to visit Barasoain Church. Spin, spin, spin!”

“Nothing to spin here, though. Have you ever been to Hagonoy?” said Host 1. “I have, and there’s
literally
nothing to see there.”

“What were you doing there? Were you buying a black-market Dancer?” They laughed, their laughter resembling the cry of jackals.

Lester walked out of his room and said, “A robot assassin. Seriously.”

“Why are you listening to that stupid show?” Max said. “And really, Lester? A
male
Dancer? Jamie is going to be so pissed at you for refusing to go out with him that
one time.”

Lillian looked at Tuxedo Man again, and smiled. “Oh!” she said. “That was the robot you were converting.” She touched the robot’s hand, traced the silver D.

“I wanted a butler,” Lester said. “Okay, Max? And you! Stop touching him!”

“This is so cool,” Lillian said.

“I don’t suppose you named him Alfred Pennyworth?” Max said, and the robot raised a hand and said, “As a matter of fact—”

“I call him Al,” Lester said. He stared at Max, challenging her to say something.

Max laughed.

“Enough with this shit!” he said. “You better start telling me where you got copies of these restricted Northpoint projects!”

“You’ve decrypted the files?” Lillian said.

“With difficulty, and not all of them.” Lester sat down on his rug, and Lillian realized that he didn’t even scream at them about their shoes. “Did you hack into
someone’s personal files? Because these documents are marked with the Northpoint-Pascual logo, but when I looked into the company’s network the documents are not there.”

“The files were about this female robot?” Max asked.

“Looks like it. These are black files, Max. These are CIA-level secret shit.” Lester sighed. “You have a source. I think the best thing to do now is to anonymously tell the
authorities about—”

“You looked into the network?” Max said. “Northpoint-Pascual’s network?”

Lester, who was bent on finishing his message, had to pause to re-assemble his thoughts. “Yes.”

Max glanced at Lillian. In the background, Lester’s computer had switched to another podcast, this time with a news anchor saying, “The question is: Does this robot have a
Controller, and was this robot given a directive? Does it have a target? Or do we have a robot just walking around aimlessly with a syringe full of lethal, experimental drugs?

“Why didn’t you just ask us instead of hacking into the system?” Lillian said.

“I wake up and suddenly there’s a female robot killing people in town,” Lester said. “You’d forgive me for feeling the urgency of the moment.”

Lillian couldn’t think of a reply.

“I just saw a tiny sliver of the network,” Lester said, not seeing the panic in the eyes of his audience. “I worked on that for hours and hours, and when I got in today, I saw
nothing. Anyway, in the file I decrypted, there’s something called Project 17, and it’s a feasibility study on creating a robot for private security. Ever since SentryServ, having
private security has been deemed illegal, so that’s enough to send anyone to ja—Wait a minute. You didn’t bring Mimsy?”

“Uh,” Lillian said.

“Could they have traced you, Lester?” Max asked.

“Why would they bother? I’m not even sure I got into the
real
network.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Jamie?” Lester asked.

“He’s at work,” Max said. “Were you expecting anyone?”

Al looked through the peephole. “It’s a woman, sir.”

“I’m not expecting anyone,” Lester said. He jumped to his feet. Max stepped in front of Al and looked through the peephole herself.

She stepped back quickly, as though burnt. “We need to get out of here.”

There was a ping, like the sound of a tapped doorknob, and the door was kicked in to reveal Felisa, Girl X, the robot of Project 17 with her gun raised. She pointed it at Lester. Al elbowed her
in the face and she staggered. Lillian screamed. The gun was still in Felisa’s hand, and the robot aimed again. Al reached over, as calm as a man reaching for a dish at the dinner table, and
broke her gun hand. He kicked the weapon away from her when it fell to the floor.

A robot with a different programming wouldn’t have wavered from her directive. But instead of going after the gun, Felisa went after Al, the perceived protector of her target. They fell to
the floor, Felisa straddling Al’s torso and punching him in the face.

The door was wide open but they couldn’t run away. If they tried, Felisa would stop hitting Al and just come after them. Lester knew this as well, so he pushed Max and Lillian into his
room and locked the door.

“Should we call SentryServ?” Lillian said.

“Fuck,” Lester said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Start erasing files,” Max said, and dialed the hotline.

“No!” Lester said. “Al can handle it.”

The robots were still exchanging blows, the force making the walls vibrate. Lillian could feel the door trembling beneath her hands.

“Jesus, Lester,” she said. “You didn’t make a Cleaner, you made a
personal bodyguard.”

“I know,” Lester said. “Proudest moment ever. Too bad I’ll get the lethal injection if anyone ever found out.”

Max urged him. “Lester, Sentry’s probably on their way. And you have neighbors. Start backing up and erase files from your disks. If you called this in, it would look less suspicious
than if we ran away.”

“But Al—”

“We’ll tell them he came with the murderous robot! But you need to call this in before somebody else—”