The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense (13 page)

“You know technically she
and I aren’t thirsty, right?” he said, looking at her with a
smile.

Mandelie tried to
laugh.

“I know. Sorry. She’s really
something. I had no idea Adventis was making androids like
her.”

“She is designed to produce
a certain effect,” Luke said. “I suppose to a human being she is
somewhat enthralling.”

“Jake is definitely
enthralled,” Mandelie said.

Luke took a step closer to
her. The tension between them was broken when Jake looked into the
kitchen.

“Come on, you guys. If the
androids aren’t thirsty, Mandelie, I’ll take both of those
sodas.”

Chapter 32.

Mandelie tossed and turned
on her mattress in Trista’s spare room. Every time she closed her
eyes to sleep she drifted into nightmares. She saw buildings
burning all around her, people and androids running through the
fire, screaming.

Finally she got up and went
to the den. Brigite was curled up on the couch, in a deep sleep
state.

Luke was sitting on the
couch. He was awake.

He looked up and saw
her.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Mandelie
said, sitting down beside him on the couch. “I keep having
nightmares of things, androids, and people on fire.”

“It’s a dangerous time right
now,” Luke said. “I couldn’t help noticing this.”

He nodded at the notebook
lying on the table in front of him.

“I got that from the police
station,” Mandelie said. “My father’s project notebook.”

“I know,” Luke said. “You’re
trying to find answers in it?”

“Yes,” Mandelie said. “Maybe
you can help me.”

She opened the notepad. She
turned to the first page and then felt Luke take her other hand.
Her fingers entwined with his, tightly.

Carlie sat in a hard plastic
chair in a brightly-lit hospital corridor, as nurses and doctors
walked past her and announcements crackled over her
head.

“Dr. Stills to surgery,
please. Dr. Stills.”

She was holding onto her
iPad with shaking hands, ignoring the various messages and alerts
that kept flashing across its screen. She picked up her paper cup
of coffee and took a long fortifying drink from it.

She heard footsteps
approaching her and looked up.

A nurse in a blue smock
loomed over her, holding a clipboard.

“How is he?” Carlie
said.

“He got through the surgery
alright,” the nurse said. “We’re cautiously optimistic about his
chances. Are you his wife?”

“I’m his assistant,” Carlie
said.

“We’re taking him to a
private recovery room now,” the nurse said. “If you’ll follow me.
Just one thing, Miss-”

“Wesler,” Carlie
said.

“Miss Wesler, he won’t be
able to walk again. The bullet hit a vital part of his spinal cord.
He’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. If he
recovers.”

Carlie stared at her,
stunned.

“This notebook is
specifically about the Mind Portal,” Luke said, as he and Mandelie
paged through it. “From day one.”

“He has the messiest writing
in the world,” Mandelie said, as she tried to understand her
father’s scribbling.

“Wait a moment. This
language isn’t even English. It’s-”

“Latin,” Luke said,
deciphering the language.

“Why would he be writing in
Latin?” Mandelie said. “I didn’t even know that he knew
Latin.”

Luke did not answer. He was
busy translating the words aloud.

“The Society of the Future
means to preclude humanity. It feels that nothing can be done to
stop the inevitable fall of humanity from happening. The only way
for the Society to survive is to ally itself with a far more
advanced intelligence. Perhaps the Mind Portal will change the
Society’s mind. This is my aim.”

He stopped.

“What’s the Society?”
Mandelie said.

“I’ve never heard of such a
thing,” Luke said.

“Wow,” Mandelie said. “If
you’ve never heard of it, then it must really be
obscure.”

Chapter 33.

Carlie had been dreading the
moment Damian came to consciousness. She sat beside his bed in his
private recovery room, unable to even look at his face.

Instead she stared at her
iPad, drafting messages to Lina at the Adventis building, staying
informed of the activities there.

When the hour grew late into
the night, she began to nod off in her chair. Her iPad slid to the
ground.

Then she heard Damian mutter
something. He began coughing.

Carlie jolted awake and
stumbled to him.

Damian opened his eyes and
looked at her.

“Unbelievable. I’m
alive.”

“Just barely,” Carlie said.
She swallowed.

Damian tried to move and
groaned.

“Tell me what happened
again.”

“Mercenare shot you,” Carlie
said.

“Right,” Damian said. “I
remember now.”

“Damian,” Carlie said. She
froze, unable to say the words.

“What, Carlie?” Damian said,
with impatience. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“You’re … you can’t walk
anymore, Damian,” Carlie said. “You’re going to have to use a
wheelchair. Permanently.”

Damian stared at
her.

“You’re kidding
me.”

“Would I kid about something
like that?” Carlie said, distraught.

Damian looked down at his
legs. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his
hand.

He said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Carlie
said.

Damian drew in a ragged
breath.

“Do you want to be alone?”
Carlie said.

When Damian said nothing she
began getting up from her chair.

“Wait a minute, Carlie,”
Damian said. “Sit.”

Despite his incapacitated
state, his tone of command still had an effect on Carlie. She
sat.

“I have to tell you
something,” Damian said. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you.
About Adventis. About the androids. About anything. I need to come
clean to you.”

“What are you talking
about?” Carlie said.

The gray light of dawn was
pouring into the den of Trisha’s apartment as Luke and Mandelie
remained trying to make sense of the notebook. It contained more
references to the “Society of the Future,” none of which they could
understand.

“The others will be awake
soon,” Luke said. He ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I still
don’t know what Dr. Miles means by the ‘Society of the
Future.’”

“Did you say the Society of
the Future?” Brigite said. She was awake and staring at
them.

“Does that sound familiar to
you?” Mandelie said.

“Not really,” Brigite said.
“But once Mr. Foster asked me to entertain a few of his guests who
came to see the androids. They were older men, in suits. I did my
thing and I heard them mention the society of the future. And
something else. The android revolution.”

“I never told you about how
I started Adventis,” Damian said. “Why I started it. Or what I was
doing before it.”

“You told me you worked at
Argonaut Laboratories,” Carlie said.

“Yeah, I did,” Damian said.
“I must have been seventeen or eighteen when I started working
there. I never knew my mom or my dad, I was raised by a mechanic
who fixed Dr. Jason Miles’ car once in a while. One day Dr. Miles
asked me if I wanted to help out at the lab, and I said I
did.”

“I worked there for six
years, learned everything I know now from Dr. Miles. He’s the most
brilliant man I know, Carlie. I can’t deny it. He could make things
happen that just didn’t seem capable of happening. It was like he
knew how to bend the laws of science, somehow. It must have been in
my fourth year of working in his lab that I heard him mention
something about a top-secret society called the Society of the
Future.”

“The Society of the Future,”
Carlie repeated.

“Yes. It’s a society of
brilliant minds, most of them scientists or technicians. All of
them have this belief that humanity is doomed and another race of
technological beings will take its place. Androids. The only way
for humans to survive is to make sure that they’re in control of
android technology when that android revolution
happens.”

“Dr. Miles used to be part
of the society, but he disagreed with them and left. He told me
that he thought there was a way to make humans more advanced in
their intelligence, capable of using the full potential of their
minds to help ensure their survival. When he told me about the
Society, I wanted to be a part of it, Carlie. So I left Argonaut
Laboratories. I contacted the Society and told them I wanted to
join them.”

“Well, they thought I could
play a vital part in their revolution because I knew Dr. Miles’
secrets and I knew his ideas. They told me to set up a company – a
technological company – and start building androids. Basically, the
company would be a legitimate front for the Society of the Future.
I’d pretend to be selling androids to make the country a better
place, while in reality I was building an android army for the
Society to use and control.”

“The Super Soldiers,” Carlie
said. “Are you saying I’ve been helping you run a fake
company?”

“Yeah,” Damian said. “Sorry.
But you did a great job making it seem real.”

“Why would Mercenare try to
kill you, if you’re a part of this society?”

“I don’t know,” Damian said.
He sounded gloomy. “I guess I was never a part of the Society. I
just thought I was.”

“I should hate you,” Carlie
said. “I should really, really hate you. What are we going to do
now? Your stupid society has gotten its hands on a huge,
potentially lethal army of androids.”

At that moment they both
heard a huge explosion outside of the window.

“What was that?” Damaian
said.

Carlie ran to the window and
looked out.

“Oh, no,” she said, her face
paling. “There’s a bunch of Super Soldiers running down the street,
blowing everything up.”

Chapter 34.

Mandelie, Luke and Brigite
heard the explosions as well. Brigite ran to the door and opened it
before anyone could stop her.

Mandelie pushed her out of
the way and onto the ground as bullets ripped through the air over
their heads.

Luke crawled to the door and
looked out before he slammed it shut.

“What’s going on?” Mandelie
said, in a panic.

“Super Soldiers,” Luke said.
“All over the place.”

They waited until the
explosions died down and the Super Soldiers seemed to be moving
away from them.

Trista and Jake appeared
behind them, looking shaken.

“Is it the end of the
world?” Jake said.

Mandelie and Luke glanced at
each other.

Lina looked down from the
window of Damian’s office in horror at the scene surrounding the
Adventis building. She could see Captain Mercenare and a huge
number of Super Soldiers, attacking the police officers and
exploding their cars. The sounds of screams and gunshots deafened
her.

She closed the window and
backed away from it.

She picked up her
phone.

“Tony, get all of the
androids to a safe location in the building. Now.”

She did not hear the sound
of breaking glass at the bottom of the building as the Super
Soldiers broke through the line of police officers and crashed
through the doors of Adventis.

“We need to go to the
Adventis building,” Luke said. “Make sure everyone there is
safe.”

“That’s the last place we
should go,” Trista said. She pointed to the television screen,
where images of the Adventis building surrounded by smoke and
flames were flashing.

Brigite looked
stricken.

“There’s tons of androids in
there! And the other X-droids!”

“There’s more of you there?”
Jake said. “Okay, we have to go there now.”

He did not seem to be
intentionally trying to be funny.

Trista grabbed her car
keys.

“I hope we’ll all fit in my
car,” she said.

Miranda cowered in the
dressing room of Luke’s room as she heard shots and screams all
throughout the building. She tried not to breathe as she heard the
door of the room opening and heavy footsteps enter.

“Come out, come out,
wherever you are, android,” Captain Mercenare said. “You and I have
unfinished business.”

Miranda hunched lower to the
ground.

“I don’t see anyone here,”
she heard another android say.