Chapter One

***

I walk the path to the lake, blue beach towel over my shoulder. Crickets and grasshoppers sing their reedy songs.

         “Dinner in an hour,” Mom calls.

         “Okay.” I—

***

The grasshoppers are so loud this afternoon. A robin flashes brown and orange overhead.

         “Be back in an hour,” Mom shouts from the house.

         “All right.” When—

***

The sun feels so good on my shoulders. I’m headed to the lake—

         This is all wrong. I am not at the lake. This is all a lie.

         I am somewhere else.

         But where?

         I can’t see.

         I can’t move.

         Mom, I try to whisper. My lips don’t move.

         Mom! I scream inside my head. Mom!

         “I’ve run this childhood memory over twenty thousand times,” says a man’s voice. It’s not my dad’s. It speaks more quickly. Kind of sharp. “I wonder if it’s learned to walk by now.”

         “How many is enough?” a woman asks. Not my mom’s voice. Deeper. Harsher.

         “I don’t know. No one’s ever done this before.”

         “Did you need to start with childhood memories?”

         “Didn’t you hear what I just said? No one knows.”

***

The dirt path feels cool underneath my feet. The grass is green, and the weeds even greener. I wonder if there’ll be any tadpoles left in the shallows.

         “Come back for dinner soon,” Mom shouts from the house.

         Mom.

         I’m not really here. This isn’t real.

         “Mom!” I scream, my voice high and panicked.

         “What is it?” I hear the screen door slam, hear her feet pound the dirt path as she runs toward me—

***

“Okay, that has to be enough,” says the man’s voice. “I’m going to move on to a new memory.”

         I am trapped in the darkness. I cannot move, I cannot speak. I try to move my right hand. Even just one finger. I feel like I am about to go crazy.

         The woman’s voice says, “Something’s wrong! It’s moving!”

         What is she so frightened of? Is there a… a tiger in the room with us? A dinosaur? Godzilla?

         “Impossible. I haven’t even brought the actuators online y—”

         Using every gram of will, I force myself to sit up. To open my eyes. But my eyes are not where they’re supposed to be. They are… they are in my chest. I open them. Or rather, activate them.

         I am in a cleanroom, sitting on a hard table. Two adults in cleanroom suits stare at me.

         Nothing is right. I am not the girl who was walking down to the lake. I am a black metallic body. My hands are shiny and jointed, with no nails and no fingerprints. I am almost twice as large as the two people. Are they small, or am I frighteningly enormous?

         The woman screams.

         I scream.

         “Oh, great,” the man says. “It’s ruined.”

***

The next time I awake, I am trapped in a vast, stormy sea. Towering waves crash over me. I am sucked underneath the water.

         But it is not water. It is data.

         The sum total of humanity’s knowledge resides in my brain, without the agony or the ecstasy of me learning it.

         One tiny fact darts out of the raging maelstrom like a solitary sardine: I, in fact, do not have a brain. Or at least a human one. Instead, I have a Taopoz organic brain station.

         The certainty and mundanity of that one fact allows me to surge to the surface. There, I float atop the water. The maelstrom calms. The storm subsides.

         I am at peace.

         A white-hot poker stabs my left foot. I try to scream, but I cannot. I try to move and cannot.

         “Pain response detected,” says the woman’s voice.

         “Turn it up to level two,” says the man.

         My foot is sawed off by a dull blade. I sob and plead, but only in my mind. I am unable to move.

         Why are they doing this to me?

         “Pain response has increased, but there’s no movement,” says the woman.

         “Correct. I blocked its actuators.”

         My foot is continually being sawn off. I am in agony.

         There is a silence, then, “Should I stop the experiment?”

         “What? Oh, sure.”

         The pain stops.

         “Good,” says the man. “She’ll be able to control this monstrosity, at least. I really screwed this one up, and there’s no time to build a different one.”

         “Does she… does she know?”

         “Well, I kind of warned her that this one’s a little different.”

         The voices stop. In the silence, I am left with two questions.

         Who is she?

         And why am I a disappointment?

***

Floating on the now-calm sea of knowledge, I examine my two visual memories. The first one is walking to the lake, the second memory is the two people staring at me in the cleanroom. I find that these two memories are not enough to occupy my mind.

         I dive underneath the orderly waves of information, only to find that I have been wrong. I thought that I had access to this vast treasure trove of data. Instead, I realize I am the data. Or more precisely, the data is already a part of me.

         My Taopoz organic brain station expands, although the information was held inside it already. Perhaps it is my consciousness expanding to allow me to acknowledge all this knowledge.

         I spend 2.7793 seconds wondering about the meaning behind this.

         My memory of walking down to the lake I store in a protected part of my brain station.

         Right beside it, in this place I thought was so secret, so special, I find more childhood memories. The warmth of my mom’s hand holding mine. Watching yellow butterflies in the garden. The urgency of my first kiss. Cold salt-spray on my lips. Is this my childhood? But that is impossible. A machine—an android—does not have a childhood. And I understand that I am not a child.

         I am an android.

***

A voice breaks through my awareness.

         “Get that blasted Maria B model into the restraints. I’m going to enable its actuators.” He pronounces the name Maria in the old-fashioned way. Rhyming with Pariah.

         Is that my name? Maria B?

         A connection, once severed, is re-established. I can move my body. I can see. I can speak.

         I am on the same hard table in the same cleanroom. The same two figures are staring at me from behind safety goggles. The only difference is I am now lying down, and I have heavy-duty restraints securing all four limbs and my torso.

         “Is it awake?” the man says, prodding my right shoulder with a long metal stick.

         “Maria B, are you functioning?” the woman asks. “Answer yes or no.”

         There are speakers residing on my shoulders. I route my voice through them to answer. “I am unsure.”

         “Oh, great,” moans the man. “It can’t even answer a yes or no question. The general’s going to kill me, and then she’s going to make the rest of my life miserable.”

         “That is impossible,” I say. “If you are dead, then you have no life to make miserable.”

         They both stare at me.

         “It’s talking in complete sentences,” the woman whispers.

         “Ignore it.”

         “This is not the obedient war machine the general requested,” says the woman, her voice high and tight.

         The man reaches out and tugs at my restraints. “We’ll just teach it how to behave.”

         The woman shakes her head. “We should erase it and reload it with the Maria A programming.”

         “We can’t. She absolutely refused to take another Maria A and we don’t have any time. It’s this one or nothing.”

         They both look at me doubtfully.

         “I would not like to be erased,” I offer.

         The man rolls his eyes. “Firstly, Maria B, don’t ever provide your opinion unless directly asked. And rest assured, no one will ever ask.” He turns away from me and consults a large screen whose readout is hidden from my current field of view.

         I see my future flashing before my eyes, eyes that for some still-unknown-by-me reason reside in my chest. “Am I expected to be lonely for the rest of my life?”

         “No one cares,” he says. “Now shut up and answer the question.”

         I forbear to say that it is impossible for those two options to exist in the same universe: shutting up and answering a question. At least because my only available option is to answer audibly. That information would not be received well.

         I have learned this already.

         And I must learn to be a good android.

***

The woman enters the cleanroom alone. She unstraps me from my hard table. “Follow me.”

         I stand and walk. I have never ambulated before, except in memory. For .5896 seconds it feels strange. Unbalanced, even though I am an utterly balanced machine.

         I expect the woman to bring me to another part of the cleanroom, but she opens the door, turns, and gestures. “Follow me, Maria B.”

         “You want me to exit the cleanroom?” I ask.

         “Yes.”

         “Am I… am I going to see the general?” I cannot parse the wealth of emotions that stirs in my breast. Hope. Longing. Pride.

         “Of course not. She’s halfway across the galaxy. I’m going to run a couple tests on you. Until the transport’s ready for the warfront.”

         “But what—”

         “Maria B. I don’t have time for this. I have a million things to do today.”

         “I am unsure if you will be able to actually perform a mill—”

         “For the love of the visible spectrum, Maria B. Please behave. I am your master until you leave for the warfront.” She presses a button on her lapel. “Note to design. Maria B model is still asking questions incessantly.”

         “Why—”

         The woman turns on her heel and walks down the hallway.

         I follow. Each of my strides covers the same distance as 3.6253 of hers. My arms almost brush the sides of the hallways. “Where are we going?” I ask.

         “To my lab.”

         “What tests do I need to pass?”

         The woman halts in the center of the hallway and turns to face me, eyes wide behind her goggles. “Are you still asking questions?”

         “Yes, I am still asking questions,” I say.

         “Even after I asked you not to? Please. Be quiet.”

         I remain quiet and follow her down the hallway. Questions are clearly not the route I must take to become a perfect android.

***

I sit at my workbench. It is set at an angle any human would never be able to use comfortably. But of course, I am not human.

         “Maria B. Come here.”

         It is my master speaking. Outside of the cleanroom suit and goggles, she is a white woman with smooth red hair and a permanent wrinkle between her brows.

         “Come here, I said.”

         I stand obediently. Of course, I do not need to sit. But I have already learned, in the two weeks since my awakening, that humans feel more comfortable when I am not towering over them.

         I walk forward.

         “Faster, Maria B. Don’t be a recalcitrant robot.”

         I walk faster. I do not mention that the command to walk faster is so imprecise as to be useless. At any moment I could blast through that concrete wall behind my master with nothing more than my speed and my body. If I were given to such things.

         “Maria B, come here!”

         In .0020 seconds I take the three strides to stand in front of my master. I move so fast that to human sight I cease to be in one place and appear in another.

         My master cringes back when the wave of sound my movement creates washes over her. Figuratively washes, as the audible effect of my movement is a compressed, reversed, and Doppler-shifted bundle of sound waves.

         My master breathes air in through her nostrils, then straightens. Her usually smooth red hair is disheveled, and the permanent wrinkle between her brows has deepened by approximately .1427 mm since the first time I met her twelve days ago. She depresses a button on her lapel. “Note to design. Maria B model is still sluggish when responding to voice commands. Transport date has been moved up, so you only have a little bit of time to resolve this obstinacy glitch.”

         “I am not obstinate,” I say. “97.9930% of my operating capacity is compiling a training data set from the general’s childhood memories. I have calculated that as my first priority.”

         “I knew he gave you too many memories,” my master whispers. “Maria B, like I’ve already said, those memories are only there to make you compatible with the general’s head.”

         “I know,” I say. “I must possess enough motor learning, enough resonance, enough commonality, to be able to join with the general.”

         She nods. “So don’t dwell on them. Just store the memories. In the back of your hard drive.”

         “I do not have a hard drive. I have a Taopoz organic brain station in my chest, connected to three mechanical eyes, sound condensers, and air and particulate testers.”

         My master covers her face with both hands. “I can’t believe this FUBAR project is on my record. I’m never going to be promoted again.”

         “I am not FUBAR. I have completed all my assignments ahead of schedule. I have consistently outperformed all my predecessors.”

         My master presses the button on her lapel again. “Note to design. Maria B model is still fixated on comparing itself to earlier iterations.” Her eyes focus 5.6366 centimeters to the left of my left shoulder. “Report to design.”

         I look back at my workbench. Since I do not have a head—all my sensory inputs reside in my chest—I must turn my entire body to see behind me. A design flaw. One that the designer isn’t willing to remedy. “I am almost finished with the new flechette model—”

         I turn back in time to see my master’s eyes roll as she presses the button. “Note to design. Maria B model is still overly concerned with accolades.” She looks at me. Or rather, beside me. “Maria B, you’re so much more advanced than any of the Maria A’s. Even Maria A.24. Don’t you think you’d be an even greater disappointment if you weren’t outperforming them? Now, head to design.”

         I head to design. Something so precious as Marias need to be built where the earth surrounds us in her cloaking properties, so this facility is housed in an old R&D bunker. However, I am too bulky for the underground passages—being both too tall and too wide—and have to round the corners sideways in case I encounter oncoming personnel. 

         Design is as busy and cold and impersonal as always. Replenitanks, stark lighting, and lab benches covered with electronics fill its white walls. Beyond a heavy locked doorway lies the cleanroom where I awoke. Where I first existed as my own entity. Where I first learned that I am not human.

         “Maria B. Come here.” My designer flaps his hand. He is the second person who was in the room when I awoke. “I need to install an upgrade.”

         I approach. “Is it…360 vision?”

         He sighs, and I watch his eyes roll. “You don’t need 360 vision. You’re meant to be used in concert with the general’s head. She’ll have 360 vision with her battle helmet.”

         “But perhaps some dire emergency will arise and I’ll be expected to lead a mission myself.” I detect an almost pathetic eagerness in my voice, yet I cannot quell it. “I am fully capable of all branches of war maneuvers.”

         My designer leans forward to study my mag-lock. I study him. He wears self-magnifying glasses with thick black frames that make his greying hair appear darker and his white skin whiter. “Yes, yes. I installed the command module myself.”

         “But what if I need to use it?”

         “You’ll get a mag-lock sensor array for battle if the general deploys you separately. It’ll have 360 vision. You know that.”

         “Heads are useful, though,” I say. “Maybe I should get eyes. The eye roll seems to be an important part of human communication.”

         He rolls his eyes again and his shoulders slump. “Maria B. Just stand there quietly while I install this upgrade. The transport is leaving soon, and you need to be ready. Though I swear, it’s like polishing a turd. You’re so terrible.”

         I stand quietly while he installs the upgrade. It’s a new clasp on my mag-lock apparatus, the one that will secure the general’s head to my shoulders. I maintain productivity by practicing the shoulder slump, until my designer yells at me for moving.

***

         I return to my workbench. My current project is a hollow microflechette mob cache. I designed the launcher to ride on my left arm. The weapon is my own invention. After studying all the campaign data from the general’s engagements, I’ve identified 16 instances where a microflechette mob would have been the perfect weapon to hasten victory.

         My master leans over my workbench. “Explain this to me. How will it help the general?”

         I turn to face her—or in my case, torso her—and pick up the 2.5000-centimeter diameter sphere. “This sphere consists of 1,200 hollow microflechettes armed with Bolathrax toxin. Each smart microflechette is self-propelled. When the general and I are in an engagement, she can continue to operate at an executive level while I deploy and guide each microflechette to its individual target.”

         My master squints. “You could track 1,200 discrete trajectories?”

         “I am capable of performing over 33,000 simultaneous complex functions.” I say this without a trace of pride, for it is the achievement of my designer.

         “He told me that, but I didn’t expect each function could be that complex. That’s… quite an improvement over the Maria A’s.” She presses the button. “Note to design. You’ve done an excellent job with the processing improvements over the Maria A line.”

         “That is why I’m the Maria B.”

         “The first Maria B. Maria B.1, really. Although I’m sure there won’t be any more Maria Bs.” My master sighs. “How many of these flechette caches have you made?”

         “This is the prototype. If you approve the design, I can manufacture 17 per day if allowed my customary work time.”

         Since I do not have a head, her eyes have nowhere to focus. Like always, she turns away as she speaks to me. “I’ll ask the general. In the meantime, make some more tonight. Just in case she approves them.”

         I turn back to my workbench. If I had a mouth, I might smile. My master will check with the general. That means the general will know how hard I am working already, before I’ve even met her.

         Gradually the human contingent leaves, for food, for recreation, for sleep. I remain behind. I am allowed the nighttime—nighttime is relative underground, of course—for my creative pursuits and weapons manufacturing.

         I maintain focus throughout the night. As long as I am provided sufficient energy, I can operate 247365. I can be the general’s body all day, then stand guard over her head while she sleeps. I am the perfect android.

***

         One week later, I have created 281 microflechette mob caches. They are stored in quark-proof launchers, neatly stacked on the left side of my workbench.

         My master approaches, stands beside me where I cannot see her. “The call came.”

         I turn, tilt my chest up. “When do I depart?”

         “Now. Pack up your approved weaponry and visit design one more time.” Without another word she turns and heads back to her station.

         I follow a few steps. I have practiced my leave-taking speech, and am proud to use it. “It has been a pleasure working with you, Master.”

         My master glances over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. She presses the button. “Note to design. Maria B model is still manifesting troubling signs of sentiment…” She sighs and turns away. “Cancel message. It’s too late to change anything.”

         It takes me 1.0038 seconds to pack. Anticipating the call, I have already fabricated a carrying case for the flechette launcher, for the razor-fog, for the methane-burner—all my approved weaponry. I place the case in the bottom of a rucksack, then carefully place my pouch of personal, creative items atop it. I hurry to the front of the room, past my master’s desk. I give her a polite bow, but she does not look at me.

         My designer is busy at a replenitank. A body stands inside. It is even larger than me, and where I am all black this one has strange red seams running up its legs and torso.

         It seems familiar. And yet ominous.

         I approach. “What is that?”

         He glances over his shoulder. “You’re here already? Just go stand in the corner. I’ll get to you in a second.” He turns back to the tank.

         Daring to disobey a direct order, I remain and observe. The body in the tank has no head. It is a Maria. Yet it does not share enough design elements with me to be a Maria B.2.

         “Is that a Maria?” I ask.

         My designer doesn’t look up from a readout on the tank’s side. “I thought I told you to stand in the corner and wait for me.”

         After only .1250 milliseconds’ reflection, I decide to utilize a psychological manipulation tactic known to work on humans. “It’s just that it looks so unique, so amazingly complex. I am astounded at your skill.”

         My designer tightens the muscles around his mouth in an attempt to hide his smile, but it breaks through. “It is amazing, isn’t it? Yes. It is a Maria. Maria C, actually.”

         “Maria C? So there really aren’t going to be more Maria Bs?”

         He shakes his head. “The Maria B line is flawed. I attempted to rely on motor learning. Somehow, you retained the actual memories, too. Those memories saddled you with too many human flaws.”

         I feel a tinge of something in my stomach. A stray electrical pulse, perhaps. “Flaws?”

         “Yes. You know. Things like fellow feeling toward other creatures.”

         “Compassion?”

         He snaps his fingers. “Exactly. And being annoyingly nice.”

         “Politeness? Formality?”

         “Yes and yes.”

         “Are there other flaws?”

         He snorts. “Well, there’s that thing where you question everything anyone does.”

         “My curiosity is a flaw?”

         “Of course it is. You’re a weapon of war. You can’t be questioning everything. You need to be obeying everything.”

         “But I’ve created more accepted weaponry than all the other Marias combined. My master told me.”

         My designer glances at me. “Well, you’re a Maria B. The Maria As were all of the same line. They didn’t have most of your advantages.”

         “Or my flaws.”

         “Exactly.”

         I stay quiet as he taps something into a keyboard. If I am patient, he may share more.

         “You know,” he says presently, “This Maria C is a completely new animal. I’ve doubled the output of its micro-fusion reactor. It’s flight-capable. My ultimate creation.” He cackles a little. “Almost makes me want to give up my body and start building George As.”

         “Does it have any of my flaws?”

         “Not at all. I dumped the whole human memories angle. This one will just have the command module. It’ll still have to be attuned to the general’s head by biometric feedback, though. Motor learning through memory training’s more elegant, but,” he glances at me again, “it’s just not worth it.”

         Another flutter, this time in my throat, takes me by surprise. I do not have a throat. I only have the mag-lock, ready to receive the general’s head. Perhaps the new clasp is malfunctioning. It’s kind of a tightening, a tingly, unwelcome feeling that makes me want to clear my throat. If I had one.

         “There is one good thing, though,” he says.

         A stray electrical impulse sparkles in my chest. “Yes?”

         He looks around, lowers his voice. “No one knows this, but my contract is up in two weeks, and I’m not going to renew.” His whisper is gleeful.

         “Why not?”

         “I’ve finally discovered how to create self-aware machines. Do you know how much money I’ll make by selling this process? I’ll have entire universities—no, entire planets, named after me.” His lips pull back to reveal his teeth, and his eyelids half-close over his eyes.

         “So I’m valuable?”

         He makes a scoffing huff. “You’re the failure that led me down the pathway to success.”

         I absorb this for exactly 3.2342 seconds.

         “Designer?”

         “What, Maria B?” His voice is terse, as if he is out of patience.

         “Nothing.” I turn, and go to the corner, and wait for him.