Praise for Catherine Asaro

“Asaro’s Skolian saga is now nearly as long and in many ways as compelling as Dune, if not more so, featuring a multitude of stronger female characters.”

—Booklist

“Asaro plants herself firmly into that grand SF tradition of future history franchises favored by luminaries like Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, Anderson, Dickson, Niven, Cherryh, and Baxter. It really seems to me that any future mention of this stefnal lineage must include her name as a worthy exemplar.”

—Locus

“Catherine Asaro’s Saga of the Skolian Empire may be the most important and entertaining science fiction series to originate in the 1990s.”

—Cynthia Ward, author of The Adventure of the Golden Woman

“Asaro’s portrait of interstellar intrigue, weird socio-political customs and galactic history has come to approach the neighborhood of such classics as Frank Herbert’s Dune series.”

—Booklist

THE PHOENIX CODE

Catherine Asaro

To my grandmother

Annie Asaro

with love

I

THE OFFER

People packed the auditorium. Every seat was filled and more listeners crammed the aisles. An unspoken question charged the room: were today’s speakers revealing a spectacular new future for the human race or the end of humanity’s reign as the ruling species on Earth?

This session was a diamond in the crown of IRTAC, the International Robotics Technology and Applications Conference in the year 2021, held at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. As chair of this session, Megan O’Flannery had chosen the speakers. She was sitting at a table on the right edge of the stage. At center stage, Arick Bjornsson had just finished his talk and now stood answering questions.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” Arick was saying. “Our machines are intelligent. They won’t surpass us today or tomorrow, but it is only a matter of time.”

Listening to him, Megan pondered her own conflict. Her work on artificial intelligence for androids—humanlike robots—usually inspired her to look to the future with optimism. Sometimes, though, she wondered if they were only creating ways to magnify the human capacity for destruction. She would soon face a decision that forced her to confront the issue: could she use the fruits of her intellect to create machines meant to kill?

The scientists in the audience today came in all sizes, shapes, and ages. Most wore casual clothes: jeans, shirts or blouses, jumpsuits. The conference chair, a distinguished man in a well-cut suit, was sitting only few rows away from the stage. Several men and women sat with him, other high-ranking officials in suits or military uniforms. Megan recognized them all—

Except for the fellow on the right.

The stranger had dark eyes and tousled black hair. He looked more like a rebel than a scientist; his faded jeans had raveled at the knees, his denim shirt was frayed, and a black leather jacket with metal studs lay haphazardly over his legs. But the gold watch on his wrist caught the light with prismatic glints that suggested diamonds were embedded around its face. As he listened to the talk, emotions played across his features: skepticism, interest, outrage, amusement. He glared and crossed his arms at one point. Later, he relaxed and nodded with approval. The dramatic flair of his face intrigued Megan.

A woman sitting in front of the man suddenly swiped her hand past her face, undoubtedly bedeviled by one of the gnats that had infiltrated the auditorium. As she caught the bug, the man with the leather jacket reached forward and tapped her wrist. She turned with a jerk, reflexively opening her fist. The gnat flew out of her hand. The man said something, an apology it looked like, and sat back. She squinted at him, smiled uncertainly, and then turned back to the talk.

That was odd, Megan thought. Interesting.

Arick finished and the audience applauded. After he took his seat, Megan went to the podium.

“That concludes this session,” she said into the mic. “The media people tell me they’ll have copies of the proceedings online tomorrow. You can get them as holographs, in videos, or in memory cubes. A paper copy should be available in a few weeks.” She grinned at them, this collection of her colleagues, friends, and adversaries. “That’s it, folks. All we have left is the banquet. So let’s go eat and be merry.”

Laughter rippled through the audience, followed by a general murmur as people began talking, putting on coats, or seeking out one another to continue debates. Megan looked around for the man with the leather jacket, thinking to introduce herself, but he had disappeared.

A long day, Megan thought as she left the auditorium in Building 3. Her hair was coming out of the knot on top her head, and red tendrils curled around her face. She pulled the misbehaving mass free, letting it fall in ripples to her waist. She needed to relax, but her workday hadn’t ended yet; she had one more meeting. An important one.

Tired or not, she thrived on this life. Robots had fascinated her since her childhood in Bozeman, Montana. One of her earliest memories was toddling after a toy cat as it stalked around the spacious living room of her house. It hid behind a door, then tried to pounce on her. She had rocked with a small child’s laughter when it toppled in an undignified heap of fur, limbs, and blinking lights. She had spent the next hour taking out its batteries and trying to put them back.

So she grew up and earned a B.S. in computer science at Montana State University, then a doctorate at Stanford. Now at thirty-five, she was an MIT professor. Some people called her driven, others called her single-minded. What they didn’t realize was that most of all, the delighted little girl still lived inside of her, marveling at her toys.

Her enthusiasm bemused her mother, who had once asked, But Megan, why make robots that look like people? What’s wrong with the humans we already have?

It’s a new science, Megan answered. A new world, Mom. Maybe even a new species.

Her mother had given her The Look then. Regarding Megan with the large blue eyes that her daughter had inherited, she had said, You know, dear, much more enjoyable ways exist to make new humans.

All Megan had managed at the time was an aghast, Mom! One’s silver-haired mother wasn’t supposed to say such things, let alone look so pleased with herself, smiling like a cherub.

Megan supposed that if she would get married and make some new humans of the traditional kind, her mother would ease up on the subject. It wasn’t that Megan had no interest in the whole business; she just hadn’t found the right man. Although her parents had liked most of her past boyfriends, she always felt as if they were sizing up the poor fellows as potential grandchild-production sources.

A voice interrupted her reverie. A man and woman were approaching her along the sidewalk.

So, Megan thought. This is it.

“Dr. O’Flannery,” the man said as they came up to her. His styled haircut, expensive blue suit, and businesslike manner made a sharp contrast to the more informal clothes most scientists wore at the conference. The woman had gray hair and a piercing intelligence in her gaze. Megan recognized her, but she couldn’t remember from where.

The man extended his hand. “I’m Antonio Oreza. Tony.”

Megan shook his hand. “Hello. Are you from MindSim?” She had agreed to meet their representatives after the session.

“That’s right. I’m vice president in charge of research and development.” He indicated the woman with him. “This is Claire Oliana. She consults for us.”

MindSim had sent a VP to talk to her? And Claire Oliana? The Stanford professor had received the Nobel Prize for work in physics that also included the development of machine intelligence.

Megan suddenly didn’t feel so tired anymore.

The new vending café in Building 3 had blue walls and tables covered by blue and white checked cloths. As Megan sat down with Tony and Claire, a vending robot bustled over, rolling on its treads. It stood about four feet tall, with a domed head and tubular body. The robot had a rudimentary AI limited to serving food. Its panels displayed cheerful holos of meals that looked far more delectable than anything Megan had actually eaten here.

“Good afternoon,” it said. “I’m Jessie.” Its head swiveled from side to side as it surveyed them, giving the robot an earnest appearance. It made Megan smile, though she knew it was just mapping their positions with the cameras in its eyes.

“Do you have coffee?” Tony asked.

“A delicious menu to select from,” Jessie assured him. “French vanilla, cappuccino, Brazilian dry roast, decaf supreme, and today’s special, Martian bug-eyed-monster deluxe.”

Megan laughed. “Monster deluxe? What is that?”

“It has an unusually strong caffeine content,” Jessie said. “The night shift in the Science Operations Facility programmed it into me at four this morning. They required a strong restorative to continue functioning.”

Claire smiled. “That much caffeine would send me into orbit. Decaf for me.”

“French vanilla here,” Tony said.

“Very wise choices,” Jessie said. A red cup plopped into a recess in its stomach and began filling with coffee.

“I’ll take the Martian deluxe,” Megan decided.

“As you wish.” If a machine could blink its lights with doubt over the wisdom of a customer’s choice, Jessie was doing it. Megan suspected the SOF night shift had also programmed some mischief into the droid’s personality.

After Jessie served their coffee, Tony clicked his money card into the robot. Jessie’s control panel sparkled as it spoke. “I hope you enjoy your meal.” Its head swiveled to Megan. “Please inform me if you need further assistance.”

Megan couldn’t resist. “Like an ambulance?”

The bot twinkled its lights. “I serve only the best food, ma’am.” It rolled away, playing a tinkling melody like the ice cream trucks in the neighborhood where she had grown up. At the far wall, it took up position and swiveled its head around, surveying the cafe like a carnival barker looking for new marks.

With a laugh, Claire said, “I think the night shift in the Science Operations Facility have been staying up too late.”

Megan took a swallow of her drink. The stuff tasted like rocket fuel. “They know their coffee,” she said with approval.

Tony was watching her. “I can’t help but wonder, Dr. O’Flannery, how you would program a robot like that.”

“I don’t work with utility bots.” She had no doubt Tony knew exactly where her interests lay. With a smile she added, “And you should call me Megan.”

Both Tony and Claire seemed pleased at this nonresponse. Tony leaned forward. “Megan, how would you feel about working with a functional android?”

She resisted the urge to say Yes! If any corporation was advanced enough to have created a functional android, it was MindSim. But she had heard too many vague rumors lately about disasters in hidden projects at MindSim and elsewhere.

She kept her voice casual. “The problem is, no one has an android hanging around that wants a brain.”

“Well, no.” Tony beamed as if he were delivering great news. “However, MindSim has funding in that area.”

Well, hey. Nowadays, everyone and her brother had funding in “that area.” Megan had researched MindSim after they invited her to this interview. They and their major competitor, Arizonix Corp, had both recently won Department of Defense grants for research into AI and androids. She’d probably need a security clearance, though, to hear details of those projects.

She chose a neutral response. “MindSim does good work.”

Tony spoke with polished enthusiasm. “We would like you to be part of our team.”

Clair leaned forward. “Suppose you had the chance to lead such a project?”

Megan barely kept from sputtering out her coffee. Hell, yes, she’d like that job. In fact, it sounded too good to be true. What had happened to the person who started the project? MindSim already had the DOD funds, so someone must have submitted a grant proposal as the principal investigator.

She said only, “It would depend on the circumstances.”

“Come out to MindSim and take a look,” Tony said. “We’ll show you around.”

Huh. If she accepted that invitation, she was admitting to more than a passing interest in the job. She liked her position at MIT. She had grants, grad students, resources, colleagues, and a growing reputation in the field. The prestige didn’t hurt either.

But …

She would give her right leg to work with a real android instead of running computer simulations. For that matter, if MindSim had designed a fully functioning android, she wouldn’t need her right leg anymore; she could make a new one. A visit wasn’t a commitment. If nothing else, an offer from MindSim might inspire MIT to give her a raise.

Megan leaned forward. “Let’s talk.”

Goddard Space Flight Center covered many acres of land, with the rolling fields of the Beltsville Agricultural Center to the east and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to the west. Stretches of forest separated the buildings, and deer wandered everywhere.

Lost in thought, Megan ambled down a back road. She had always enjoyed walking, and this gave her a chance to mull over the MindSim offer. A lake lay to her right, basking in the late afternoon sunlight. The day had that golden, antique quality that came late in the year. Ducks paddled in the water: speckled brown, gray, iridescent green, and the odd white goose with an orange beak. Farther down the shore, a man stood surrounded by birds. At first she wasn’t sure why they were squawking at him. Then she saw that he was scattering breadcrumbs for them to eat.

She was about to go another way when she recognized him: the intriguing fellow from the audience. He was taller than she had realized, over six feet it looked like. A gleaming jCube hung from his scuffed leather belt. He watched the enthused birds with a half-smile, as if he hadn’t decided whether or not it would insult their egos if he laughed at them.

Megan headed toward him. As she came closer, though, she hesitated. His muscular build and handsome face didn’t fit her image of a robotics expert. Black hair curled over his ears and down his neck, longer than men wore nowadays, but glossy with health. On most people, it would have looked sloppy; on him, it worked. The same was true of his clothes. What his long legs did for those raveling jeans would have brought their makers a fortune if they could have packaged the quality. It made her hang back, as if he were a holovid actor or someone similar that she would never meet in normal life.

He glanced up, straight at her. “Good afternoon, Dr. O’Flannery.”

“Uh, hi.” She couldn’t place his background. His face reminded her of pictures she had seen of the ancient Celts. His coloring looked Indian, as in India. His accent, like molasses on a summer afternoon, was undeniably from the American South.

“These ducks here are hungry.” He tossed the last of his bread into the lake. Flapping and squawking, the birds waddled after the morsels.

She laughed, self-conscious. “Greedy little birds.”

“Maybe.” He pointed at the sky. “They’re leaving.”

She looked, as much to regain her composure as to see what he meant. A V-shape of birds was arrowing across the sky.

“So they are.” She turned back to him. For lack of anything better to say, she added, “Flying south for the winter, I imagine.”

He glanced at the birds still floating on the pond, and then held up his hand as if to offer them more delicacies. They paddled industriously toward him until they realized he was bluffing. Then they drifted off again. His gold watch glinted in the slanting rays of the sun.

“They don’t cheat,” he said.

“I’m sure they don’t.” Megan had no idea what he was actually talking about, but she doubted it was birds. She could have listened to him talk all day in that gorgeous voice of his, deep and throaty, with a honeyed drawl.

“Did you enjoy the session this afternoon?” she asked.

“I suppose.” Ah suhppose. “You should have given a talk. You do better work than the lot of them combined.”

“Thank you.” She paused. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

He considered her. “Call me Raj.”

“That’s your name?”

“Well, no. Yes. At times.”

“Raj isn’t your name?”

“My mother calls me Robin.” He spread his hands as if to say, What can a person do?

Megan could relate, given that her father still called her Maggie-kitten. She didn’t mind it from him, even liked it, but it would earn anyone else a shove into the lake. “What do other people call you?”

“All sorts of things.” He rubbed his ear. “I wouldn’t repeat most of them.”

She smiled. “So Raj is the name on your birth certificate.”

“No.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “This is like pulling teeth.”

His lips quirked up. “My birth certificate, from the fine state of Louisiana, says Chandrarajan.”

She stared at him. “You’re Chandrarajan Sundaram?”

“Please don’t look so shocked. I assure you, I’ve treated the name well.”

Good Lord. This was the reclusive eccentric who had revolutionized the robotics field? Unattached to any university or institute, he worked only as a consultant. Corporations paid him large amounts of money to solve their problems. Arizonix had supposedly given him several million after he fixed their disastrous household robot in time for its market release, saving the company from possible bankruptcy.

His reputation explained this strange conversation. Rumor claimed he paid a price for his phenomenal intellect; no one could think like him, but he had the devil of a time expressing those thoughts. From what she had heard, his mind didn’t work in linear thought processes, so he often made jumps of logic that few people could follow.

Megan had never expected him to show at her conference. She invited him, of course. He had been a top name on her hoped-for speakers list. But she had already known he never came to such meetings, so she wasn’t surprised when he declined.

Yet here he stood.

“It’s actually Sundaram Chandrarajan Robert,” he said.

She blinked. “What?”

“My name. It’s Sundaram Chandrarajan Robert.” He paused, then added, “My father followed the Indian custom of giving me his name, followed by a personal name for me. But that makes Robert my third name, which isn’t the custom here. We use Sundaram as our last name.”

She wondered why the mention of his father caused his mood to turn quiet. “Where does the Robert come from?”

“My mother’s side. She’s Irish.” He watched her with a long, considering look. “Then of course there are geese.”

Birds again. She smiled, enjoying herself. “You know, I have no idea what we’re talking about.”

The hint of a smile quirked his lips. “Most people don’t respond this way to me.”

“What do they do?”

“Nod.” Wryly he added, “And then leave as fast as they can.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It depends.” He had all his attention focused on her. It was unsettling, like being scanned by a laser.

“On what?” she asked.

“Hair color.”

This conversation was making less sense by the minute. It was fun, though. “Why hair color?”

“Red,” he said. “Yours is red.”

“Well, yes. My hair is definitely red.”

“Red flag.” He walked over to her. “For stop.”

It took her a moment to realize he was making a joke. She thought he was also asking if she wanted him to get lost, though she couldn’t have said how she knew. Something about the way he looked at her. Given that he had come over as he spoke, she suspected he didn’t want to go. He reminded her of her father, an absented-minded architect who tended to talk in riddles when he was preoccupied.

She touched a tendril curling over her shoulder. “I’m sure my hair doesn’t say stop.”

His grin was a brilliant flash of white teeth. “You’re quick.”

Oh, Lord. It was fortunate this man lived as a recluse. Otherwise, womankind wouldn’t be safe from either his nutty conversation or his dazzling smile.

“Not that quick.” Megan didn’t usually tell people she had no idea what they were talking about, but this was too engaging for her to care how she looked. “I still don’t get what you meant about the birds.”

“Winter is coming and they have a long way to go.” He motioned at a few scattered bread crumbs the ducks had missed. “Sure they eat a lot. But they aren’t greedy. They don’t cheat. They only take what they need.” His smile faded. “Humans could learn a lot from them.”

She wondered what sort of life he lived, that he saw the world in those terms. Then again, given the value of his intellect and personal wealth, people probably wanted whatever they could get from him.

“Perhaps we could,” she said.

“They followed me around too, you know,” he said. “I sent them away.”

She squinted at him. “The birds?”

“No. The suits.”

“What suits?”

“From MindSim.”

Ah. Tony and Claire. “They offered you a job?”

“Yes. I told them no.” Studying her face, he added, “But perhaps I will consult for them.”

Her pulse jumped. Was he offering her the chance to work with him? Yes! She kept her voice calm, not wanting to seem too eager. “Maybe you should.”

He offered his hand. “I’m pleased to have met you, Dr. O’Flannery.”

She shook his hand. “Call me Megan.”

“Megan.” He nodded. Then he turned away and headed down the road. After a few steps, though, he turned back. “Oh. Yes. Good-bye, Megan.”

She raised her hand. “Bye.”

He nodded and went on his way, leaving her to wonder just what on Earth was happening at MindSim.

II

THE EVEREST PROJECT

Megan hadn’t expected her security clearance to come through so fast. MindSim must have begun the paperwork in advance. That was certainly optimistic. Or maybe they were just covering all their bases. In any case, after a few weeks of negotiations, they flew her from Massachusetts to California for a tour of their labs.

She felt like a kid in a game arcade. Visiting MindSim was far better than the “hot times” her friends urged on her for fun, like parties or holovids. Invariably, her parents joined the chorus, with hints that she should include a fellow in the proceedings, son-in-law material, of course. Their lobbying drove her crazy. They were wonderful people and she loved them dearly, but she felt like running for the hills every time they got that grandparental gleam in their eyes.

Tony and Claire showed up in person to escort her through the snazziest labs. In one, spindly droids trundled around, navigating obstacle courses with remarkable agility. Megan spent half an hour putting them through their paces before her hosts enticed her to another lab. There she met an appliance that resembled a broom with wheels and detachable arms. The robot spoke at length about how it could move its fingers with more strength and dexterity than a human being.

They went for a walk with a two-legged robot that had a gait so smooth, it put to shame earlier versions that had jerked along like stereotypical machines. Her hosts also let her try a Vacubot. Its inventors deserved an award for their gift to humanity, a robot that could vacuum the house perfectly even as it called the nearest pizza joint to bring dinner for its humans.

“We also work on humanlike robots,” Tony said as they ushered her down another hall. “This next lab is where our people design the body.”

Megan’s pulse jumped. Humanlike was the current buzzword for androids. “Do you have one here?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Claire avoided her gaze. “This work is theoretical. Development would go on elsewhere.”

So. They didn’t want to talk about the actual state of their R&D. No surprise there. Industrial espionage in robotics was a thriving enterprise. MindSim wouldn’t make their results public until they had full patent protection and copyrights. She already had a preliminary security clearance with them, but they probably wanted to see her responses first before they decided how much more they wanted to reveal about the work.

She wondered what they did to protect the AI brains their people created. You couldn’t copyright or patent a human brain, after all, though no doubt MindSim wished they could for their most talented scientists, to keep them from using their abilities elsewhere. Soon humanity would have to answer the question: When did self-modifying software become a cognizant being with rights under the law?

The next lab enticed her like a bakery full of chocolate cake. Equipment filled it, all cased in Lumiflex, a glowing white plastic. Instead of whiteboards, the walls sported photoscreens with light styluses. Disks and memory cubes cluttered the tables, and towers stood by the consoles. A few cables ran under the floor, but most of the connections were wireless. A wall counter sported a coffeepot and a wild assortment of mugs.

Two men and a woman were working at the consoles. They had gorgeous workstations: Stellar-Magnum Mark-XIV comps; combination FAX, cell phone, FAX, radio, microphone, camera, and wireless unit; keyboards both virtual and solid; printer, scanner, a streaming unit for online music; and state-of-the-art holoscreens that projected some of the best rendered images Megan had seen. Holos rotated in the air with views of the theoretical android: EM fluxes, circuits, skeleton, hydraulics, temperature profiles, and more.

It reminded Megan of her first day in college. While her friends had checked out dance clubs in the city, she had spent the afternoon meeting grad students in the AI lab. Within a week, she had talked her way into an assistant-to-an-assistant job with their professor. That summer, he gave her a research job. By her sophomore year, the group considered her a member of their circle. Sure, she knew why Tony and Claire had shown her the glitzy labs first instead of this one. She had only holos to see here, no working models. But if she took the job, these people would be her team, and they interested her far more than any glitz.

Tony introduced them. The slender man with sandy hair was Fred from Cal Berkeley. The other fellow, Miska, came from a university in Poland. Diane, a stout woman with auburn hair, had done a stint at a government lab and then taken this job.

As they described their work, they referred to the android as “he.” At first Megan appreciated that they didn’t say “it,” but then she wondered. Already they were giving their creation human attributes. Maybe the android wouldn’t want those traits. Someday humans would probably download the neural patterns of a human brain into a machine, but even then no guarantee existed that the resulting machine would think or act human.

Their descriptions also sounded too detailed for a hypothetical model. Finally Megan said, “It’s done, isn’t it? You have a working android.”

They all just stared at her. Fred glanced at Claire. When she nodded to him, he turned back to Megan. “I’m afraid ‘working’ is too optimistic a term.”

Tony indicated a table. “Let’s sit down. Now that you’ve seen the models, we can talk about where we hope to go from here.”

The good stuff. As they took their seats, Fred brought over mugs of coffee. When everyone was settled, Claire spoke to Megan. “We’ve tried to make several prototypes. Four.”

Miska took a sip of coffee, then grimaced and set his mug down. He spoke with a light accent. “The problem, you see, is that these androids become mentally unstable. The bodies have problems, yes, but we can fix these. We are not so sure about the mind.”

“The first three failed,” Diane said. “We still have the fourth, what we call the Everest android, but he barely functions.”

“Everest?” Megan asked.

“A bit lofty, eh?” Tony said. “The project is named for surmounting a great height.” He leaned forward. “It could be yours. Your successes, your triumphs.”

Yeah, and her failures. “What happened to your last director?”

Fred spoke flatly. “He quit.”

Tony frowned, but he didn’t try to spin Fred’s words. That notched up Megan’s respect for MindSim.

“Marlow Hastin directed the project until a few months ago,” Diane said. “It was a mess, to be honest. The first android, the RS-1, became catatonic. No matter what we tried, it stayed that way. The RS-2 had similar problems, with autism. And the RS-3 … well, it killed itself.”

Megan stared at her. “An android chose to commit suicide?”

“It looked that way,” Miska said. “He walked into a furnace and burned up.”

“Is that why Hastin quit?” Megan asked.

“In part,” Claire told her. “But he didn’t leave until later.”

Megan glanced Claire. “Why didn’t you take over the project?” The Stanford prof would be a great choice.

“I have too many other contracted commitments,” Claire said. “That’s why I recommended you.”

As much as it flattered Megan to have that respect from such a noted scientist, she still didn’t trust this. “What finally spurred Marlow Hastin to leave?”

Diane spoke awkwardly. “We had a difference of opinion.”

Fred set down his mug. “Marlow wanted to program subservience into the RS units. He thought that if we didn’t, they might turn against us.”

“It’s a valid concern,” Megan said. “But it may be moot. We’re combining ourselves with our creations as fast as we can make the results viable and safe. If we become them and they become us, the issue goes away.”

The others exchanged glances.

“You are much different from Hastin,” Miska said.

She regarded them curiously. “Different how?”

“He hated the idea of taking our technology into ourselves,” Diane said. “Or of putting our minds into robots.”

Megan snorted. “What, we should turn down a pacemaker? Or an artificial leg if we lose ours? We’re creating the means to make ourselves smarter, stronger, faster, longer lived.”

“In the ideal,” Claire said. “Whether or not we achieve it remains to be seen.”

“Our hope,” Tony said, “is to explore the full potential of humanlike robots.”

Megan spoke carefully. “Including peaceful applications?” She understood the need for defense work and she believed in working to protect her country, but she also wanted the fruits of her intellect to go toward improving the human condition.

“Of course,” Tony said. “We’re committed to both.”

Both. So he knew what she meant. Megan sat thinking. This Everest group struck her as a good team. However, they were missing an important component, someone as experienced in the hardware as she and Claire were in writing code for the android’s AI brain. That was Hastin’s area of expertise, and Hastin was gone.

“Who is your robotics expert?” Megan asked.

Fred cleared his throat. “Well, yes, that’s the rub.”

“It’s a top priority,” Tony interjected smoothly. “If you accept the position, we’ll have a slate of superb candidates for you to consider.”

“In other words,” Megan said, “you don’t have one.”

“We’re taking the time to find the best,” Tony assured her. “We almost had a fellow from Jazari International, but JI came through with a counter-offer and he decided to stay.”

She wasn’t surprised they had checked out JI. The company had risen to prominence over the past two decades. She had met Rashid al-Jazari, the CEO, several times. His American wife, Lucia del Mar, performed with the Martelli Dance Theatre, so they and their three children lived part of the year in the United States, and Rashid sometimes visited MIT. He didn’t strike her as the type to let MindSim woo away his top people.

She thought back to her talk with Raj. “How about Chandrarajan Sundaram?”

“We’re trying,” Claire said, “But we aren’t the only ones. Arizonix also wants him.”

Tony the VP said only, “Arizonix,” but he managed to put boundless distaste into that one word.

“Are you sure you’d want Sundaram?” Claire asked her. “He has a reputation for being rather difficult.”

Fred snorted. “He’s a nut.”

“I rather like him,” Megan said.

“You’ve met him?” Diane asked.

“We talked at the IRTAC meeting. It was interesting.”

“I’ll bet.” Claire sipped her coffee, then blanched and set her mug down with the care one used when handling explosives.

Curious, Megan tried the brew. It went down like a jolt of TNT and detonated when it hit bottom. “Hey. This is good.”

Fred gave a hearty laugh. “A truly refined taste.” Claire and Miska turned a bit green.

They spent the next hour showing her details of their work. She made no promises, playing it cool.

But she was ready to jump.

III

NEVADA FIVE

The hovercar skimmed across the Nevada desert like a ship sailing an ocher sea, the rumble of its turbofan evoking growling sea monsters. Sitting in the front passenger seat, Megan gazed out at a land mottled with gray-green bushes. They were following no road, just hovering over the flat ground.

Since passing the security check several miles back, they had seen no building or other vehicles. The isolation unsettled her. As the new director of the Everest Project, she would live here. She still had to wrap up her work at MIT and direct her grad students, but she could do most of that from the Nevada base using online and virtual reality conferences.

She glanced at Fred, who sat in the driver’s seat. He, Diane, and Miska had come out to introduce her to the project. A second car followed, bringing Major Richard Kenrock, their main contact at the Department of Defense, and a lieutenant who served as his assistant. After today, the rest of the Everest team would work in California. With satellite links, she could easily communicate with them, and she could use robots for lab technicians. If her team had been doing only a development study, she would have stayed at MindSim, but to direct this project, she needed to interact with the android, up close and personal.

The car whooshed across the desert on its cushion of air, rocking a bit from the terrain, its turbine providing thrust and vectored steering. Megan would have preferred a traditional car, which cost far less, but they were more limited in the terrain they could traverse. The hovercar was better suited to this isolated region, a place with no roads, nothing that might make the area accessible. The people in charge of security for the Everest Project spared no effort in making their base a pain to reach.

The car slowed to a stop and settled to the ground, the baritone of its landing motor a grumbling contrast to the tenor of the turbofan. They were in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but gravelly land and spiky plants stretched in every direction. The second car settled next to them, with Richard Kenrock driving. The major waved, making it look like a salute.

Fred peered at a screen on the dash. “Okay. This is it. Backspace, take us down.”

Backspace, the car’s computer brain, spoke. “Fingerprint code, please.”

Fred touched the screen. With no ado and almost no sound, the land under them sank into the desert. It reminded Megan of cartoons from her childhood, where a trapdoor opened beneath unsuspecting characters and they dropped out of sight with their long ears streaming above them. This platform went much slower, fortunately, like a freight elevator enclosed by a sturdy wire mesh. From above, it had been impossible to see. Holographic camouflage hid all hint of its existence.

She opened her window and craned her head to look down, preferring the real thing to the images on the dashboard screens. A garage waited below and lamps lit the area, activated by the car. Several vehicles already crouched there, dark humvees with angular bodies.

When the elevator reached the floor, the mesh around them opened like a gate. After their two vehicles drove into the garage, the gate closed and the elevator rose back up to the desert floor.

Megan climbed out of the car and glanced around. “Those Humvees look like giant stealth cockroaches.”

Fred gave one of his hearty laughs. “I guess you could say the place is bugged.”

They left their cars next to the vehicular bugs and walked through the cool garage. Its stark functionality didn’t reassure Megan. She would be living here.

Her doubts eased when they left the garage and entered a pleasant hall with ivory walls and a blue carpet. A robot was waiting for them, what MindSim called a Lab Partner. It stood about six feet tall, with a tubular body, treads for feet, a rounded head, and various detachable arms. The nameplate on its chest said “Trackman.”

“Welcome to NEV-5,” Trackman said. “I hope you had a good trip.”

“It was great.” Megan peered at Trackman the LP. So this was one of the ambulatory assistants that staffed NEV-5. Robots could manage the day-to-day operations. Automated systems both here and at MindSim monitored the base in case anything came up that needed human intervention, but in theory NEV-5 could operate without a human presence. She preferred to leave the accuracy of that theory untested for the multi-billion dollar installation.

Trackman escorted them to the elevators and Megan walked at his side, taking in the pleasant surroundings. The pale walls even sported starkly beautiful paintings of the desert. From what she understood, NEV-5 had three levels. The garage, power room, and maintenance areas were here on Level One. Living areas were one floor down, on Level Two, and the labs filled Level Three.

“Do you enjoy working at NEV-5?” she asked the LP.

“Enjoyment isn’t one of my design parameters,” Trackman said.

She decided to poke his coding. “Define enjoyment.”

“Amusement. Entertainment. Pleasure. Recreation. Zest.” Then he added, “Those are in alphabetical order.”

“Would you like to experience amusement?” she asked. “Pleasure? Zest?” In alphabetical order, no less.

“I have no need to do so.”

Oh, well. If Trackman was the best NEV-5 had to offer for company, aside from a barely functional android, she was going to be on Skype a lot, talking to her friends. Maybe she should reprogram Trackman for better conversation. It was a poor substitute for human fellowship, though, not to mention a waste of the LP’s resources.

Up ahead, a droid rolled around a corner where the hall turned left. About the size and shape of a cat, its “legs” were tubes that sucked in dust and dirt. As it came up to them, Megan crouched down and touched its back. It stopped with a jerk. She poked it again, and the droid scuttled back a few feet. When she reached out and tapped its leg, it buzzed with agitation.

“I won’t hurt you,” Megan murmured. She stood and walked around the droid. It waved its tail, probably trying to judge if the bedevilment was going to continue. When she nudged it from behind with her foot, it sidled past the humans who had invaded its territory and whirred away down the hall.

“That was a shy one,” she said.

“Cleaning droids have no capacity for shyness,” Trackman said. “You were blocking its path. It has less efficient means than an LP to map its environment.”

Megan sighed. “Thank you, Trackman.”

“You are welcome.” If it detected her irony, it gave no indication.

They started off again, Fred walking on the other side of the LP. “Trackman,” he asked, “did Marlow Hastin’s family live here with him?”

“No,” Trackman said. “His wife visited sometimes.”

From behind them, Major Kenrock said, “I doubt his kids had the clearance to come here.”

Megan wondered whether or not the solitude had bothered Hastin. If she had been married, she would have rather lived in a nearby city with her family and commuted to this base. The rest of the Everest team had their lives and families in California, so they would live out there. Although being single made matters simpler for her, it also left her more isolated.

Trackman showed them the living areas in Level Two. Megan liked the apartments, with their blue carpets, glossy consoles, plush armchairs and sofas, and airbeds covered by downy blue comforters. One room with wallpaper patterned by roses and birds especially appealed to her. She decided to take it as her quarters, but she said nothing, self-conscious about choosing her personal space in front of other people.

Then they went to meet the android.

The RS-4 had “slept” during the past few weeks while the Everest team reassessed itself. Two of the LPs looked after the android and had activated him to greet Megan. When her group entered the office where android waited for them, her pulse leapt. This was it.

The RS-4 was sitting at a table. Even knowing what to expect, she froze in the doorway. As far as she could see, he was physically indistinguishable from a human man. He could have been a boyish version of Arick Bjornsson. It didn’t surprise her. Bjornsson had consulted on the project several years ago, and he and several others had donated their DNA to the genetic bank used to create tissue for androids. The Everest team had grown parts of the RS-4 from Bjornsson’s DNA.

Even with his Nordic features, blue eyes, and yellow curls, the android wasn’t an exact copy of Arick. Tall but not too tall, with boy-next-door looks, he came across as pleasant and nonthreatening, someone you might not even notice in a crowd. No hint showed of the microfusion reactor that powered his body, the bellows that inflated his lungs, or the pumps drove lubricant through his conduits. His “organs” would age over centuries rather than decades and remain disease-free.

He regarded Megan with no expression. Did he know he was a weapon? Her job was to develop a super-soldier and spy. To succeed as a covert operative, the RS-4 had to be convincing as a human being. Outwardly, he could pass that test now. If a doctor gave him a cursory exam or if he went through something like an airport security check, nothing would give him away. But a more demanding look would show the truth. His “blood” was a lubricant. Any detailed scan of his interior would reveal he was synthetic. Her team still had a lot of work to do.

They didn’t want him too human, though. He would have the power and memory of a computer, the creativity and self-awareness of a person, the training of a commando, and the survival ability of a drone. He would be smarter, faster, stronger, and harder to kill than any human soldier.

In the long view, MindSim had commercial hopes for the RS line. If humans could augment or replace their bodies with android technology, they could achieve phenomenal abilities, enhanced intellects, and longer lives. The process had begun in the twentieth century: replacement joints, limbs, bones, and heart valves, synthetic arteries and veins, artificial organs, and neural prosthetics. It was Megan’s dream that someday a self-evolved humanity would step beyond the urge to war and other ills that plagued their species. An idealistic dream, perhaps, but still hers. The Everest Project offered a first step.

Trackman brought her inside the room. Major Kenrock and his lieutenant waited with Fred by the door, discreet, staying back. Diane and Miska settled in armchairs near the table where the RS-4 sat, close enough to answer questions Megan might have, but not too close to intrude on her first meeting with the android. An LP stood behind the RS-4 like a guard, and Megan had the oddest notion, as if the LP were protecting its brother from this strange infestation of humans.

She sat at the table and spoke to the RS-4. “Hello.”

“Hello.” His voice had no life, less human even than Trackman.

“My name is Megan O’Flannery. I’m the new chief scientist.”

“Echo told me,” the RS-4 said.

“Who is Echo?”

He indicated the LP behind him. “That is Echo.

That. Not he or she. Humans tended to refer to robots as male or female, based on the robot’s voice and appearance. She knew she shouldn’t be disappointed at the android’s lack of affect, but she couldn’t help wishing for more.

“Do you have a name?” she asked.

“RS-4.”

“Shall I call you Aris?” Hastin had named him Aris Fore.

“If you wish.”

“Are you comfortable?”

“I am operational.”

She supposed “operational” was better than no response at all. “Aris, do you feel anything about this? By ‘feel’ I mean, do you have any reaction to Dr. Hastin’s departure and my arrival?”

“No.”

His flat response didn’t surprise her. In Hastin’s research notes, he had made no secret of his frustration with the android’s inability to interact as a person. Hastin was actually the third chief scientist on the project. He had quit, but MindSim had fired the first two.

“Can you simulate emotions?” she asked the android.

“Yes.” His eyes were beautiful replicas of human eyes—with no sign of animation.

“Why aren’t you simulating any now?” she asked.

“I am.”

Could have fooled me. “Can you smile?”

His mouth curved into a cold, perfect smile. It looked about as human as a car shifting gears.

“Get angry at me,” Megan suggested.

“I have no context here for anger.”

At least he knew he needed a context. “What emotion do you think would be appropriate for this context?”

He spoke in a monotone. “Friendly curiosity.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“Yes. I am pleased to meet you.” He might as well have said, The square root of four is two.

She tried another tack. “Do you have any questions you would like to ask me?”

“No.”

Well, she had known she had work ahead of her. “Let’s take a walk around NEV-5. You can show me places you remember, tell me what you know about them.”

He stared at her.

After a moment, she said, “Aris?”

No response.

Someone swore under his breath. Glancing up, Megan saw Fred coming over to the table.

“What is it?” she asked.

Fred stopped next to the RS-4. “He hangs that way if he can’t handle a question.”

That didn’t sound promising. “He can’t handle something as simple as ‘let’s take a walk?’”

Miska answered her. “Pretty much not.”

Fred laid his hand on the android’s shoulder. “Aris? Can you reset?”

Aris remained frozen, staring past Megan.

“We could restart him,” Fred offered.

“No. Not now.” Megan stood up. “I’ll come back later, after I’ve seen the rest of the facility.” In other words, when she was by herself. No obvious reason existed for Aris to “care” who watched him interact with her, but she wanted to find out if he responded differently when they had more privacy.

She spoke at Echo, the LP. “Make him comfortable.”

“I will ensure the RS-4 suffers no damage,” Echo said.

That isn’t what I meant. But she said nothing. What could she do, tell a robot not to treat another machine like a machine?

Aris’s bedroom had nothing on its ivory walls. It had no furniture. No console. No bric-brac, mementos, or reading material. Zilch. Megan and Aris stood in the middle of an empty space. At least they were alone. Ever since yesterday, when she had arrived at NEV-5, either Echo or Trackman had come with her whenever she went to see Aris. The humans had all left, but the LPs continued to follow her around. Finally she had barred them all from this room. She wanted nothing to distract Aris.

She set a shoebox on the floor. “Can you see that box?”

He looked down. “Yes.” The cameras in his eyes were integrated so well into his design that she detected no difference between his glance and a human gaze.

She gave him an encouraging smile. “Jump over it.”

Aris didn’t move. As he contemplated the box, Megan unhooked a jCube from a belt loop of her jeans. She had named the cube’s AI “Tycho” in honor of a famous astronomer. Using Tycho’s wireless capability, she linked to Aris’s brain, giving herself a window into the android’s thoughts.

He had an incredible mind. His databases of facts and rules about the world were gigantic. Communication mods let him converse in more than one hundred languages. He “thought” with neural webs that networked his body. Those webs included not only software code, but also “wetware” neurons designed from nano-filaments. Each neuron received signals from pieces of code, external input devices, or other neurons. If the input exceeded a specified threshold, the neuron sent its own signal, to other neurons, to other sections of code, or to an output device. Aris learned by altering his neural and coded responses. Those responses he deemed positive caused him to strengthen the links that led to them. Bad results weakened the links.

Although he couldn’t physically alter his internal structure, he constantly rewrote his software. He used many methods to evolve his code. Most relied on “sex chromosome” algorithms, which allowed him to copy sections of code and combine them into new code, often with changes that acted like mutations. It was survival of the fittest: code that worked well reproduced, and code that didn’t died off.

A simulated neuron could operate faster than its human counterpart, but putting millions of them together became resource intensive and slowed Aris down, at least initially. He couldn’t yet match the speed of human thought because he had too much learning to do with every interaction. If all went well, however, his speed would dramatically increase as he matured.

Right now he just stared at the box on the floor. According to Tycho, he was calculating various trajectories he could use to make the jump. After his nets learned the process, he would no longer need to solve the equations every time, no more than a child had to work out trajectories when she jumped. He hadn’t yet reached that stage. Even with his untutored nets, though, Megan didn’t see why it was taking so long. He should only need seconds to translate the math into commands for his body.

She probed deeper into his code. For some reason, he had switched to a module that expressed fear. She tried to unravel how that had happened, but his continually evolving code was impossible to follow.

“Aris?” she asked. “Can you jump?”

He continued to stare at the box.

“Tycho,” she said, “what is the highest level of fear Aris can tolerate before he freezes?”

“It varies.” Tycho spoke in a well-modulated contralto. “He uses an array of values to determine what will immobilize him. That array contains over one hundred variables.”

An emotion was beginning to show on Aris’ face. He looked frustrated, like a toddler stymied by a puzzle. It reminded Megan of her two-year-old nephew. She held back her smile. Although she doubted Aris could have hurt feelings, his brain might have developed more than she realized, besides which, the less she thought of him as a machine, the more she could help him develop responses that appeared human.

She spoke into her cube. “Why is he frozen?”

“It’s an element in his fear array,” Tycho said. A holo-display formed above her cube showing Aris’s fear array as a three-dimensional grid. One cube in the center glowed red.

“If the red element goes above six percent,” Tycho said, “it stops him from moving.”

“Six percent?” No wonder. It gave him an absurdly limited tolerance to fear. “Are all the elements set that low?”

“The values range from two to forty-three percent,” Tycho said. “The average is sixteen.”

“That’s appalling.” She didn’t see how he could function with such stringent limitations on his behavior. “Aris, are you still receiving input from me?”

No answer. He just stared at the box.

She tried again. “If you can hear me, try this: use your logic mods to analyze the safety of your situation.” He could easily calculate that he had no reason to fear the jump.

Outwardly, nothing happened. As she studied the displays created by her cube, however, she realized Aris was shifting some of his processing power to a logic mod. His logic response kicked in, trying to make him jump, but his fear persisted, conflicting with the logic. That branched him into an anger mod, which sent him to a fight mod. The fight code kicked him into a parachuting mod, due to some convoluted interpretation of her request that he jump. So now his brain wanted him to throw himself out of a plane in the sky.

“I need an aircraft!” His voice exploded out. “How can I jump without one?”

“Exit the jumping mod,” Megan said. She had no idea if he could respond to nuances in her voice, but she gentled her tone.

Aris kept staring at the box. Controlled by his anger mod, his body pumped fluids to his face and raised the temperature of his skin. His cheeks flushed red, making him look like a furious boy. A spike of yellow hair was sticking up over his ear as if to protest his ignominious situation.

An idea came to Megan. “Do you know how to do a parachute landing fall? It’s what jumpers practice on the ground before they go up in a plane.”

He neither answered nor moved. His face turned redder.

Watching him tugged at her as if he were a child. Her voice softened. “You don’t have to jump.”

No response.

“Aris? Can you hear me? Don’t jump.”

He stared at the box as if it were a monster that had broken the rules of nightmares and come out from under his bed into broad daylight.

She didn’t want to reset him. It bothered her to wipe his brain that way, besides which, he would lose some of what they had done. However, she had to free him from his frozen state.

“Tycho,” she said. “Reset the RS.”

“I can’t,” Tycho answered. “He’s protected from resets.”

It made sense. Aris could never become independent if people could reset his mind. However, as his primary coder, she needed access.

“Check my retinal scan,” she said.

A light from the cube flashed on her face. “Retinal scan verified.”

“Okay. Do the reset.”

“Done,” Tycho said.

Aris’s face went blank. Then he focused on her. “Hello.”

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“You asked me to jump over the box.”

“And that frightened you?”

“No.” Although almost a monotone, his voice had a trace of vibrancy he hadn’t shown yesterday. “Your command caused my code to exceed certain tolerances, which stopped my actions and prompted me to mimic behaviors associated in humans with anger and fear.”

She smiled. “I guess you could put it that way.”

“Do you wish me to put it another way?”

“No.” That intrigued her, that he asked her preference.

“Do you still want me to jump?” he asked.

“Not now. I need to reset your tolerances. That means I’ll have to deactivate you so that your code isn’t evolving while I’m making changes.” She spoke with care, unsure how he would respond to being turned off.

He just looked at her. At first she thought he had frozen again. Then she realized he had no reason to answer. Unlike a person, who would have reacted in some way, he simply waited.

“We can use one of the apartments,” she said. Although it wouldn’t cause him discomfort to lie here on the floor, the thought of asking him to do so bothered her. He could lie on the couch or a bed in one of the furnished rooms.

He continued to look at her.

“And Aris.”

“Yes?”

“If you understand a person,” she said, “it’s customary to indicate that in some way.”

“How?”

“Nod. Smile. Make a comment.” Didn’t he know? “Your knowledge base must have rules for social interaction.”

“I have many rules.”

“Don’t they indicate how you should respond?”

“Yes.”

She waited. Finally she said, “But?”

A hint of animation came into his voice. “You are new.”

“So you don’t know what parameters apply to me?”

“Yes.”

“You should apply all your rules with everyone.”

“Very well. I will do so.”

She smiled. “Good.”

They left the room and headed down a hallway. As they walked, she said, “Do you have any hobbies?”

“I don’t engage in nonfunctional activities.”

“We’ll have to change that.”

He turned his gaze on her. “Why?”

“It’s part of having a personality.”

“What nonfunctional activity should I engage in to have a personality?”

Megan almost laughed. “Haven’t you ever done anything besides interact with the Everest team?”

“I make maps.” A tinge of excitement came into his voice. “I made one of NEV-5 for Dr. Hastin. I tried to make one of MindSim, but I didn’t have enough data.”

It seemed a good activity. “Do you like doing it?”

“I don’t know how to ‘like.’”

“Would you do it even if you didn’t have to?”

“Yes.”

She beamed at him. “Great. I’ll see if I can find you some map-making programs.” It was a start. Aris had a hobby.

Megan took him to a bachelor apartment in the residential section of the base. This place was much nicer than his empty room, with holos of mountains landscapes on the walls. The airbed looked comfortable, pulled high with a white comforter and heaps of pillows.

“You know,” she mused, “you could live here.”

He looked around at the room. “I agree.”

She hadn’t expected him to respond. “Why?”

“It is less sparse than my current apartment. It will prod my coding to evolve more.”

“Good.” She was glad to see him reason through a choice. And he was right, he could use sensory input, just as a human child benefitted from surroundings with colors, books, and music.

“You can lie on the bed while I work on you,” she said.

Aris lay on his back with his legs straight out and his arms at his side.

She sat next to him. “Does it bother you to be deactivated?”

“Why would it bother me?”

“It’s like becoming unconscious.”

“I have no context for a response to that state.”

That made sense, at least for now. Eventually, he would develop a context. What he would do with that context remained to be seen.

“Dr. O’Flannery,” he said. “Should I call you Megan?”

Startled, she smiled. “Yes. That would be good.”

“Are we going to engage in sexual reproduction activities?”

Good grief. “No, we are not going to engage in sexual reproduction activities. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You told me to apply my rules about social interactions. According to those, when a woman sits with a man on a bed in an intimate setting, it implies they are going to initiate behaviors involved with the mating of your species.”

“Aris, if we were going to, uh, initiate such behaviors, we would have done some sort of courtship.” Whatever else happened with this project, she doubted it would be boring. “We haven’t, nor would it be appropriate for us to do so.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, you’re an android.”

“None of my rules apply to human-android interactions.”

“Here’s one,” she said. “Reproductive behaviors are inappropriate in this situation.”

“I have incorporated the new rule.” He paused. “I see it would be impossible for us to mate anyway, since I will be turned off.”

Turned off? As opposed to “turned on”? Could he have just made a joke? No, it couldn’t be. It was just his deadpan delivery.

“You may deactivate me now,” he said.

A chill ran down her back. What happened on the day when he said, You may not deactivate me?

Aloud, she said, “BioSyn?”

“Attending.” Although the resonant voice rose out of the console here in the room, it originated from a powerful server in the biggest lab on Level Three. BioSyn linked to all of the NEV-5 computers and monitored Aris’s activities.

“Deactivate Aris,” Megan said.

“Done,” BioSyn answered.

Aris’s eyes closed. His chest stop moving, and when she laid her hand on his neck, she found no pulse. It was unsettling, given how well he simulated life when he was running.

She spoke into her jCube. “‘Tycho, link to Aris.”

Tycho went to work, helping her analyze the android’s quiescent brain. The coding was too complex for a human to untangle alone; she needed the help of another computer. At least with Aris deactivated, his mind was no longer a moving target, evolving even as she analyzed him.

It didn’t take her long to see why he kept freezing. His fear tolerances weren’t the only ones set too low. Hastin had put so many controls on his behavior, Aris was incapable of independent thought. She understood Hastin’s intent: he wanted to ensure they didn’t lose control. But his precautions were so stringent, they crippled the android’s ability to develop.

Yet despite all those protections, the codes that determined Aris’s moral behavior were astonishingly weak. It made no sense; if Hastin feared Aris might act against his makers, why give him such an underdeveloped ethical sense? The android did have a conscience; that was hardwired into his structure and couldn’t be removed. But his software influenced how strongly he adhered to his sense of right and wrong. At the moment, his mind had almost no pathways that allowed him to reason through moral judgments.

Gradually she made sense of the work. Aris was a spy. He needed to deceive, manipulate, steal, even kill. Hastin had given him a solid foundation in human morals, then set it up so Aris could act against them. Aris knew it was wrong to kill, but he could commit murder if he felt it was necessary to do his job. However, Hastin had then so severely limited Aris’s ability to make any such decisions, the android couldn’t function.

The problem was obvious, but not the solution. Aris couldn’t deal with the contradictory moral questions humans faced. Stymied by the ambiguities in his purpose and coding, he froze. To help him function, she would need to raise millions of the caps on his behavior, particularly those for his responses to the negative stimuli that caused fear, anger, danger, and violence. If she didn’t also strengthen his aversion to acting on those stimuli, she could create exactly the monster Hastin feared. Deepening his moral code would do the trick, but it would also pulverize Aris’s ability to carry out his intended purpose as a weapon.

What a mess. No wonder Hastin had resigned.

Megan knew what she had to do. It remained to be seen whether or not MindSim would fire her for those decisions.

IV

REBIRTH

An unexpected message was waiting in Megan’s quarters.

Megan walked into the living room of her suite, fresh and showered after her workout in the gym. Although larger suites were available, she liked this one. It had a bed and armoire to the right and a state-of-the-art console on the left. An e-reader lay on her disk, but she also had left a few actual books strewn across the couch, their paper pages crinkled with use. Her Escher holo hung on the wall, along with a Michael Whelan poster of the Moorcock hero Elric. A somnolent cleaning droid stood in one corner, disguising itself as a bronze lamp.

A new sight had appeared, the red holo of a small ball. It floated above her console, glowing. Someone had tried to contact her. When she flicked her finger through the holo, the image expanded a skyscape of cloud castles floating above her console. Nothing else happened, though. Whoever had called hadn’t left a message. Well, so. They would try again if it was important.

She was about to turn away when the clouds vanished. The flat screen of her console rose into an almost vertical position and cleared to show her a live image— Major Kenrock sitting at his desk. His dark hair was cut even closer to his head than the last time she had seen him and his army uniform was the picture of crisp perfection. The holo of a gold key glowed in front of the screen, indicating a secured transmission.

“Hey, Richard,” Megan said. “How are you?”

“Very well, thank you.” He gave her a measured nod that fit his square-jawed face. “How are you settling in?”

“Okay.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I need that robotics expert, though. Any luck with Sundaram?”

He grimaced. “It seems Arizonix Corporation is also interested in him.”

That wasn’t what she had hoped to hear. “If he signs with them, MindSim can kiss him good-bye.”

Kenrock gave her a wry smile. “I believe the good-bye would be sufficient. But yes, if he consults for Arizonix, we can’t hire him.”

“Has he given any hint which way he’s leaning?”

“My guess? He’ll go with Arizonix.”

“Well, that’s no good.” It was a blow; when it came to integrating robotics with AI brains, no one could surpass Chandrarajan Sundaram.

“How is the RS-4 unit?” Kenrock asked.

“Actually, his name is Aris.”

“Aris.” He gave a good-natured nod. “I’ll remember that.”

His amiable response didn’t surprise Megan. People criticized Richard Kenrock for being stiff, but she liked him. He was strict, sure, but he was also a solid, decent guy, the kind of person you were glad to have on your corner.

Megan gave him a report, describing her work for the past week. Her primary focus was the development of algorithms, software architecture, and experimental design. In addition, she supervised a pack of hotshot programmers at MindSim who had written most of Aris’s initial code and continued to work on the project, led by Claire Oliana. Megan did a lot of writing herself, not only because she had more experience, but also because she loved the challenge.

After she and Kenrock signed off, she sat at her console thinking. Did Raj Sundaram even remember their conversation at Goddard? She shouldn’t have let herself hope he would accept a consulting job here. She’d just have to manage until they found another consultant.

With that in mind, she left her room in Corridor B and went to Aris’s room on Corridor C. She knocked, an old-fashioned courtesy given that his console inside would identify her regardless.

The door slid open. Inside, Aris was sitting at his desk, wearing in one of the khaki jumpsuits the army had left stocked at NEV-5 for base personnel. A flock of colorful holos skittered above his screen, a profusion of cubes, disks, pyramids, and spheres.

“May I come in?” Megan asked.

He looked up. After he had stared at her for a while, she said, “Are you all right?”

He continued to stare. “No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t answer your question.” His look reminded her of confused child. It made her want to hug him, but she held back. Even if he understood the gesture, which she doubted, it was hardly the appropriate response for an android meant to interact like a grown man.

“Which question caused the problem?” she asked.

With her exact intonation, he said, “Are you all right?”

She blinked at his ability to mimic her voice. “Why can’t you answer?”

In his normal baritone he said, “I don’t see how ‘all right’ applies to me. The evolution of software is a neutral process, whereas ‘all right’ suggests a judgment. If I am not all right, am I wrong?”

His literal interpretation didn’t surprise her. Not only was it a trait of computers, it was also one of young children. “The reason I wondered if you were all right is because you just stared at me when I asked if I could come into your room.”

“I am not a person.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I am an android.”

“Well, yes. Does that affect whether or not I can come in?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“My predecessors. The other three RS units. They ceased.” He regarded her with his large blue eyes. “If I am not all right, will you take me apart too?’

Good Lord. He thought if he gave a “wrong” answer, they would destroy him. No wonder he didn’t want to respond. It also meant he was developing a sense of self-preservation. Maybe it was his youthful face that made him look vulnerable, or his wary gaze, as if he had no defense against the inconstant humans around him, but seeing him made protective impulses surge over her.

“I won’t hurt you,” she said.

“Software can’t be hurt.”

Then why are you simulating fear? “Did Marlow Hastin ever ask permission to enter your room?”

“No.”

“Did he request your input on anything?”

“Rarely.”

Strange. To work with an AI, you had to offer it options. Otherwise, it couldn’t evolve as well. “Did you ever ask for choices?”

He moved in his seat and a lock of hair fell into his eyes. “No.”

“Did you want to ask?”

He pushed back his hair. “I have no wants. I carry out program instructions.”

Softly Megan asked, “Then why did you move your hair?”

His arm jerked. “It was in my face.”

“So?”

This time his arm snapped out and smacked the console. He pulled it back to his side. “It’s inefficient to have hair covering my eyes.”

“Why is your arm moving?” She could have asked Tycho, but she wanted to hear Aris’s evaluation.

“My brain is instructing it to alter position.”

His deadpan response almost made her laugh, which would have been even more inappropriate than hugging him. “But is it efficient, do you think?”

A hint of confusion showed on his face. “My analysis of your tone suggests you are teasing me.”

She smiled. “A little, I suppose.”

“Isn’t teasing an expression of affection?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

“Do you have affection for me?”

Did she? Interesting question. “I enjoy your company.”

“Can you feel friendship for a machine?”

“I’m not sure.” She gave him a rueful look. “What do you say, Aris? Do we humans make sense?”

His lips turned upward ever so slightly. “I have too little experience with humans to know.”

His progress heartened Megan, even if it was only the hint of a smile. “Would you like to meet more people?”

“How?” His expression shifted toward wariness. None of his emotions were full-fledged, but he was trying. “I can’t leave NEV-5 and you are the only person here. Do you wish me to experience more with you?”

“You might try letting me come into your room.”

“Come in.”

“Thank you.” She took a chair from the table and sat next to him. The faint smell of soap came from his coverall. In front of them, geometrical shapes in various colors and sizes skittered through the air.

“What are you working on?” she asked.

“A game.” A shading of excitement came into his voice. “The shapes represent various rules used in mathematical proofs. When they catch each other, it means they’ve made an equation allowed by the rules.”

The evolving display of color and motion intrigued her. “Do you work out the proofs ahead of time?”

“No. I don’t usually know, before they derive a proof, that they will do it.”

“That’s clever.” She wondered what motivated his design. “Did Hastin ask you to write games?”

“He told me to solve proofs.”

Her pulse jumped. “Then designing a game to work them out was your idea?”

“Yes.”

So he had come up with his own ideas. Good. It could be the start of self-determination, even creativity. “That’s wonderful.”

“Thank you.”

Maybe he was more ready now to venture into a new environment. “Would you like to take a walk?”

This time his face blanked. Recognizing the signs of a freeze, she spoke fast. “Aris, stand up!”

He rose to his feet. “Where will we walk?”

Encouraged, she stood up next to him. “That’s it, isn’t it? My giving you a choice is what makes you freeze.”

“I don’t know how to choose.”

“We’ll have to fix that.”

“Why?”

“It’s part of having free will. Of being human.”

“That assumes ‘being human’ is a good thing.”

Good point. “Do you think otherwise?”

“I don’t know. Are you more human than Hastin?”

That caught her off guard. “How could I be more human than another human?”

“The way you program my code.”

Then she understood. “Hastin made the best choices he could, Aris. What we’re doing here, it’s all new. We don’t know what will work.”

“You act more alive than the other directors.”

“More alive how?”

“Your face has more expressions. Your voice has more tones.” Then he added, “You keep me company.”

Was he lonely? If he could feel the need for company, he had come further in his development than she realized.

“Will you take a walk with me?” she asked.

Another choice. He watched her the way a child might watch a parent who had given him more freedom than he felt ready to accept. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

Then he took a step.

He jerked as if he barely knew how to walk. She could almost feel his software analyzing all the possible choices for each of his motions. His mind had to coordinate every move of every synthetic muscle, every hydraulic, every composite bone in his body. Nor were simple mechanics enough in this learning stage. He had to choose gestures and facial expressions to fit his actions. For every tiny motion humans took for granted, he needed a huge number of calculations—and he had to do it over and over, tens, hundreds, even thousands of times per second.

Aris took laborious steps. Watching him struggle just to move one foot ahead of the other, she wanted to say “Never mind, we’ll stay here and do math games.” But she kept silent. If she tried to make it easier, she would only hold him back.

They left the room and ventured down the corridor. Megan stayed at his side while he lurched his way forward. She didn’t speak; he had enough to process without the distraction of conversation. He moved with far less ease than the robot she had strolled with at MindSim. That one had been designed to walk well, whereas Aris had to do everything well.

He learned much fast than simpler bots, however, as his neural and coding nets readjusted according to his success in taking steps. After a while his gait evened out.

When they stopped at the elevator, he stared at the doors with a blank face. He had no key card to operate the lift. According Hastin’s notes, Aris had never needed any keys. Hastin turned him off and stored him in an empty apartment when they weren’t working. The idea made Megan grit her teeth. If Aris had been human, that treatment would have been cruel. But he wasn’t human. He himself claimed he had no response to deactivation.

“Aris,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to give you a key card for the elevator.”

“Why?”

“In case you need to use it when I’m not with you.”

He turned to her. “Does that mean you won’t turn me off when I’m alone?”

“Not unless you’d like me to.”

She expected him to tell her that he had no likes. Instead he said, “If you give me a key and leave me on, I can wander by myself.”

“That’s the idea.”

His face showed hints of a new emotion, she wasn’t sure what. Surprise? Anticipation? Apprehension? Curiosity? Maybe it was a mixture of them all.

“Yes,” he said, “I would like a key.”

Megan wanted to give him a delighted thump on the back, to congratulate him on this breakthrough. She wasn’t sure he would understand, though. So instead she said, “Good! I’ll be right back.” She turned and set off to get him a card.

“Megan!” Panic touched his voice.

She spun around. “What’s wrong?”

He was watching her like a child deserted by his mother. This was no “hint” of emotion; he was simulating full-fledged fear.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Just to my room. I have another key card there.” She came back to him. “I wasn’t going to desert you.”

“What should I do?”

“You can wait here.”

“What if you don’t come back?”

“I will. I promise.”

“But what if you don’t?”

Her voice softened. “I’ll always come back, Aris.”

“You are different from the others.” He touched her shoulder as if to verify she was real. “You are changing me. Your presence evolves my code.”

Megan smiled. “I think that’s a compliment.”

“Humans do this often. Compliment one another. Or insult one another. Why?”

She considered for a moment. “It gives us ways to let

people know how they affect us. And for us to affect

them.”

“If I compliment you, does that indicate I find your input conducive to optimizing my functions?”

“Well, yes, you could put it that way.”

“I see.” Then he said, “I like having you here more than the other people on the Everest Project. I am glad they went away and you stayed.”

She hoped he would someday be comfortable with the others. “I’m flattered, Aris. But most of them are still on the project.”

“I know. However, I am glad you are the one here.”

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” He paused. “I would like to go with you rather than waiting here.”

Good. Not only had he just made a choice, he had done it with no prodding. “Certainly.”

Unfortunately, he had even more trouble walking back. Megan suspected it was because he was using more of his processing power to analyze his interactions with her. At his room, he stopped. “I would like to stay here.” He gave her a tentative smile, as if trying an experiment. “We can take another walk tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes.” She knew the boyish pleasure she saw on his face was simulated, but she still found it charming.

He was becoming human to her.

The VR suit covered Megan in a gold body stocking, wrapping her up like a box of Godiva chocolates. She lay on her bed and pulled the hood and VR goggles into place. Although it was possible to create a virtual world using direct links to the brain rather than this clumsier suit, legal and medical difficulties had so far kept the direct brain-machine interface from commercial viability. It wouldn’t be long before they solved those problems, though; it was a race between Jazari International, MindSim, and Arizonix.

She found herself in blackness. “Tycho,” she said, “turn on the VR.”

The AI on her jCube answered. “Done.”

The world lightened to reveal a gleaming conference room with golden walls, a posh white rug, leather chairs, and an oval table. She was sitting on the long side of the table, wearing a tailored business suit with a miniskirt that showed off her long legs. The chic outfit bore no resemblance to the jeans and sweaters she wore in real life.

In the last three weeks, since coming to NEV-5, she had met with the Everest team in VR almost every day. They either gathered here or else in a simulated lab. Every now and then Diane designed a more fanciful environment, like the time she set them up on a mountain in Tibet. Sometimes MindSim suits or military brass sat in on the meetings.

Today almost everyone was here: Tony the VP at one head of the table, Diane at the other, and Miska on Megan’s right. Claire Oliana and Fred sat across that table, along with—

Chandrarajan Sundaram.

Megan had almost fallen over when Tony told her Sundaram was interested again. Apparently he had accepted the Arizonix job, then changed his mind. The situation was murky enough that MindSim had called in their legal aces. Could Arizonix sue if they hired Raj? He had never actually consulted for Arizonix and had only signed a preliminary contract. After some wrangling, everyone agreed Arizonix had no real grounds to bring legal action. However, that happened only when MindSim offered to drop a suit they had brought last year against Arizonix for poaching a MindSim coding expert.

On the surface, Raj’s explanation for changing his mind made sense: Arizonix wanted him to sign agreements that placed too many limits on his freedom to consult elsewhere. She wondered, though, if there was more to it. He should have known what they expected well before that point in the hiring process.

Of course, many reasons existed for his having initially chosen Arizonix: more money, research he preferred, scientists he wanted to work with more, the location, a wife or girlfriend, or who knew what. Although she wanted to think it was her scientific reputation that had inspired him to leave Arizonix, that seemed unlikely. It would have been unprofessional for him to make such a choice at that point, besides which, she had taken the Everest job before he accepted the Arizonix position.

Whatever had happened, she hoped Everest wouldn’t have the same problem with Raj. He was notoriously unpredictable. He had gone through a preliminary security check here, but he had yet to sign anything. Yes, he was the best of the best, which was why they were going to so much trouble, but if he wasn’t going to accept the job, she wished he would let them know. This had gone on for too long, while she had no robotics expert.

Tony introduced Raj and asked everyone to brief him on their work. As her people spoke, Megan tried to gauge Raj’s interest.

He sat sprawled in his chair, listening. In VR, people often enhanced their image, looking healthier, younger, stronger, more beautiful. In contrast, Raj appeared older. Although his resume gave his age as forty-two, in person he looked about thirty-five. Here he had added ten years to his age. She recalled his hair as black, but now it had ample gray. In person, his face was expressive; here he was unreadable. His eyes were so black she couldn’t distinguish the pupil from the iris. He was also dressed in black: shirt, trousers, shoes. His clothes had black buttons. He might even have darkened the air around his image. His choice of avatar didn’t reassure her.

Damn if he didn’t look sexy, though. Not that she noticed. She was so busy not noticing, in fact, she almost missed the opening of Fred’s spiel about his work.

“Anyway,” Fred continued, “Aris uses several methods to map his surroundings—”

“How long have you worked at MindSim?” Raj interrupted.

Fred stopped. An awkward silence settled around the table. Then Fred said, “Seven years.”

“Seven.” Raj was relaxed in his chair, leaning his elbow on the arm as he studied Fred. “So you’ve been on the project a lot longer than your new boss.” His Southern accent was even more pronounced here than in person. The prahjuct.

“Megan is the best,” Fred said.

Raj glanced at Megan as if he had just noticed her. “Dr. O’Flannery.”

“Do you have a question about my leading the project?” She felt curious rather than defensive. She had no doubt Raj knew she did her job well. He wouldn’t be here otherwise. This was about something else.

“I think you’re not a duck,” Raj told her.

“What?” Fred said.

Diane frowned. “Dr. Sundaram, you couldn’t ask for a better boss than Megan.”

Raj continued to study Megan. Up until now he had given no indication he remembered her. Hah. That duck comment gave him away. She recalled his words when they had talked about the birds at NASA: They aren’t greedy. They don’t cheat. They only take what they need. Did he wonder if MindSim would cheat him when he consulted? An odd way to open the discussion with his potential new boss, but it made sense to her. So. Ducks. Those hadn’t been the only birds at the lake.

“Maybe I’m a goose, “ she said.

Tony the VP glanced at her as if she had lost her mind.

“Not a goose,” Raj decided. “A swan.”

Well, that was an intriguing non sequitur. “Why a swan?”

“They float along, serene and graceful, with those long, elegant necks.” He spoke as if he and Megan were the only people in the room. “But have you ever had an angry swan come at you out of the water? They’re big, tough, and as mean as all hell.”

She could just imagine Aris trying to decipher this exchange. Compliment or insult? “When I need to,” she said, “I can be as mean as all hell, too.”

Tony looked as if he were about to pop. He had to be projecting that on purpose; his avatar could appear any way he wanted. He was sending her a message: Cut it out. He put on a pleasant expression and spoke to Raj. “Dr. Sundaram, please be assured that Dr. O’Flannery’s credentials are impeccable.”

Doctor this, doctor that. Couldn’t they see this had nothing to do with her credentials? Raj wouldn’t have considered MindSim if he had those concerns. In his own fascinatingly bizarre way he was asking something else. But what?

“So, Dr. O’Flannery,” Raj drawled. “What do you do with these indefectible credentials of yours?”

Indefectible, indeed. She had never known anyone who could actually use that word in conversation. He was daring her to try snowing him with her knowledge. So instead she said, “I make androids.”

“Perhaps Dr. Sundaram would like to hear more about your work,” Claire said. A private message from her flashed on the table in front of Megan. For crying out loud. Give him something to make him stay. We need him.

Megan knew they wanted her to dazzle Raj with techno-talk, but she doubted he was interested in a sales pitch. Too many people wanted to use him. He was trying to decide if she was another one. Even so, his wariness puzzled her. MindSim was offering him a six-figure fee at minimum, possibly millions if the project went on long enough. That hardly translated into using him.

For whatever reason, he distrusted them. You want the Everest Project, she thought. MindSim is offering you a puzzle like none you’ve ever before known. So she said, “The problem is that when the birds fly south for the winter, they take the food you gave them and poof, they’re gone.” She leaned forward. “But a mountain stays. You can climb it, build a house, ski down its slopes, enjoy its beauty. It’s solid and upright and waiting for you to figure it out. It doesn’t just eat your food and beat a fast exit out the door.”

“What on Earth?” Fred said. Tony and Claire frowned at him, and Diane shook her head, but none of them looked happy with Megan, either. Miska scratched his chin.

Raj said, “So.” Then he vanished.

“Hey!” Diane said. “He can’t do that.”

Fred scowled. “He can do whatever he wants, including be as freaking rude as the all git go.”

Claire glowered at Megan. “What the blazes is wrong with you! He offered you a prime opportunity to build on his interest. You threw it away.”

“That could be extreme,” Tony said quickly. “We might be able to salvage this.”

Megan indicated the table in front of Tony, where a mail icon had appeared. “Before you bemoan today’s meeting, you should answer your e-mail.”

He waved his finger through the icon. “Tony Oreza here.”

His secretary’s voice floated into the air. “Mr. Oreza, we just received word from Dr. Sundaram. He’s accepted the Everest job.”

Tony blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“Not at all, sir.”

Megan smiled. “Surprise.”

V

INVASION

“Megan, look!” Aris spun on his heel, then lost his balance and fell against the wall outside his room. Laughing, he righted himself, his hair falling in his eyes.

Her breath caught. He had laughed. “That was wonderful.”

“It would have a greater degree of wonderful,” he said, “if I could turn without losing my balance.”

His word choices never ceased to delight her. “I didn’t know wonderful had degrees.”

“You can assign a number to anything.” He was standing in his neutral position now, his feet slightly spread, his arms at his sides. Unlike his usual ramrod posture, though, today he relaxed a bit to the side.

“How many degrees of Megan are there?” he asked. “I find new ones every day.”

She went over to him. “Like what?”

He regarded her as if she were a new phenomenon he had discovered. “When you first came here, I knew your facts: education, jobs, age. Now I’ve learned new things. You like mint pie. Kids called you Firestalk in school. You played the oboe. You prefer aerobics to jogging. I never learned such facts about other humans. It makes you a holo.”

A holo. Three-dimensional. In opening up to Aris, she helped to round out his view of humans. Maybe the best way to teach him humanity was simply to act human with him. It was easier to do as his personality developed.

The solitude at the base bothered her, though. The LPs did their jobs well, but they made lousy companions. She had grown up in a large family, with her parents, two sisters, a brother, her aunt and uncle, and three cousins all under one roof. In graduate school she had shared a house with six other students, and at MIT she had lived in a condo complex with a close-knit community. She missed her family and friends.

“Are you processing?” Aris asked.

She mentally shook herself. “Gathering wool.”

“I see no sheep.”

“It’s an idiom. It means I was preoccupied.”

“Did my statement cause insult?”

“No. Not at all.” She was heartened to see him consider how his comments affected others. “I was thinking about my family. I feel isolated here.”

“How does a person ‘feel’ isolation?”

She searched for a way to explain a concept she had never analyzed because she knew on an unconscious level how it felt. “No one else is nearby. No one will join me for lunch, meet me for a chat, all that.”

He tilted his head. “I am here. I will keep you company.”

His offer touched her. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need anyone else.”

Megan wasn’t sure what to think about that. “Aris, the time will come when you go out into the world.” She hoped that were true. “It won’t always be just the two of us.”

“I’ve never left NEV-5.” He looked around the hall, then back at her. “I don’t converse with Echo or the other LPs. When Hastin and I talked, it was always in the context of a test. I interact with other devices here, but never with one outside of NEV-5. I deduce that I am lonely.”

She didn’t know whether to feel encouraged by his awareness or saddened by its result. “Does it bother you?”

“I would prefer my life not fulfill the conditions that cause loneliness in humans.”

It was progress, of a kind; not long ago he would have frozen at such a question. A melancholy advance, though.

“You feel lonely,” he said. “I am here. I am meant to be human. This should alleviate your loneliness.”

“It does.”

His face blanked. Then he said, “My analysis of your tone indicates surprise.”

Megan realized he was right. It did surprise her. “I’ve never interacted with a real android before. I’m never sure what to expect.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Aris, no! You’re remarkable.”

He took her hand. “I think the same of you.”

Disconcerted, Megan pulled away her hand. Although it was gratifying to see Aris develop emotional links, or at least simulate them, his focus was beginning to make her uneasy.

They needed more people here.

The dusty car settled down in the NEV-5 garage with a swirl of grit it had brought from the desert above. Megan waited a few yards away, watching the vehicle roll forward, off the lift. The elevator began its return to the desert above them.

After the car stopped, Major Kenrock stepped out of the driver’s side. Tall and lean, he cut a crisp figure in his uniform. Fred was climbing out of the passenger’s side. On this side, Claire Oliana got out of the back, smart in her pale blue jacket and skirt.

Across the car, the back door swung open. Someone reached out and grabbed the top of the car frame. Then a man hauled himself out, slammed the door, and walked in front of the car. Unruly dark curls spilled over the collar of his motorcycle jacket. His shoulders looked even broader than Megan remembered and his jeans clung to his long legs. Silver studs glinted on his black leather belt. He stood there with his thumbs hooked in the front pocket of his jeans like an Indian-Gaelic prince with the full-lipped scowl of a surly rock star.

Raj had arrived.

Oh, Lord. Megan hoped she was ready for this. She went to Major Kenrock and extended her hand. “Hello, Richard. Good to see you.”

As Kenrock shook her hand, he actually cracked a smile. Fred and Claire came over to say hello as well. The entire time, Megan was acutely aware of Raj watching. When Kenrock finally got around to introductions, she felt stretched as tight as a string.

“You know Dr. Sundaram, I believe.” A chill entered Kenrock’s voice. Apparently Raj hadn’t endeared himself to the major any more than he had to the MindSim execs. Although on an intellectual level, Megan understood why he aggravated people, it puzzled her at a gut level. Couldn’t they see the extraordinary mind behind his unusual exterior? Well, all right, maybe “unusual” was a polite way to put it.

She had no idea what Aris would make of him.

Aris sat at the table in his room, his hands clenched in his lap, with Echo the LP standing behind him. The android had the look of an angry youth who had been locked up against his will while trespassers invaded his home.

Major Kenrock and Raj stayed back while Claire and Fred sat at the table with Aris. He scowled at them, his shoulders hunched. As much as Megan wanted to go to him, she also stayed back. She had to keep out of their discussion, so she didn’t influence the results. Besides, she couldn’t always jump in to protect him.

Aris shifted his hostile gaze to Megan, then to the straight-backed Kenrock. He stared at Raj for a full five seconds. Then his head jerked. With a glare, he turned to Fred and Claire.

“So, Aris.” Claire smiled. “It’s good to see you in person.”

“In robot,” he said, deadpan.

Fred squinted at the android. Even Megan wasn’t sure if the “joke” was an attempt at humor or just Aris being literal. In any case, Fred gave a friendly chuckle. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t,” Aris said.

“You talk about your feelings with Megan,” Claire said. She had a cooler style than Fred.

“Simulated feelings,” Aris said.

“Would you talk about them with us?” Fred asked.

“No,” Aris said.

Silence.

After a moment, Claire said, “Do you mind our questions?”

“You always ask questions,” Aris said. “Here, VR, it’s all the same.”

That’s new, Megan thought. Giving evasive answers involved sophisticated mental concepts. That Aris was doing it, or at least trying, indicated progress. Though maybe “progress” wasn’t quite the right word. He had perfected his sullen mood all too well.

“Does talking to us bother you?” Fred asked.

Aris shrugged.

“What would you like to talk about?” Claire asked.

The android just looked at them. He acted bored, with traces of hostility, yet Megan thought he was hiding fear behind his indifference. He had thousands of facial nuances for each emotion, and he was learning to show several moods while appearing to hide others, yet having all be obvious. Impressive.

Claire and Fred exchanged glances. Then Fred tried again. “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve learned lately?”

“Not much,” Aris said.

“How are your maps?” Claire asked.

Aris glowered at her.

Trying another approach, Fred frowned like a parent faced with a recalcitrant teen. “Answer us, Aris.”

“Why should I?” Aris crossed his arms.

Claire glanced at Megan. “This behavior wasn’t in your reports.”

Aris shot Megan a sour look, as if she had betrayed him, even though they both knew she documented everything. Then he focused on Fred and Claire as if they were interrogators intent on his torture. With his arms still crossed, he said, quite distinctly, “Fuck you.”

Megan almost groaned. Had Aris been a real teenager, she would have grounded him. At the moment, he was being aggravatingly effective in simulating sullen rebellion.

They gathered in Megan’s office, a room with two consoles, dismantled droids everywhere, a large desk piled with gadgets, and two chairs crammed into what little space remained. She half-sat on her desk, facing Claire and Fred, while Kenrock stood by the console. Raj was leaning against the doorframe, his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“If Aris turns hostile,” Fred was saying, “we’ll have to change his caps again. Don’t get me wrong; I know he needs to pass through stages as his mind matures. And this is certainly the most affect he’s shown. But we aren’t talking about an argumentative kid here. He’s a walking weapon. We can’t risk losing control.”

Claire nodded. “The RS-4 contains secured information. Not only about himself, but also about our other work. He is secured information.”

Megan understood their concerns. If Aris ever went rogue, he would take a huge bank of knowledge with him, in both his mind and body. He also linked to many of NEV-5 computers. In fact, he himself was an important node in the NEV-5 intranet. He didn’t have access to all of its nodes, especially the war game scenarios they were running, but he’d figure it out soon. It was, after all, part of what they wanted him to design and test.

MindSim was in a race in both the commercial and defense sectors. Other companies were working on androids, including Shawbots, Tech-Horizons, Jazari International, and of course Arizonix. Dramatic advantage would go to whoever developed viable androids first and the advanced human augmentation that went with them. Mercenary groups were also trying to create high-tech warriors. Even partially functional, Aris would be invaluable to people the world over.

Megan also understood why Hastin had made such harsh choices with Aris. She knew now that he had resigned because he saw no way he could complete the project in good conscience. Had he continued using his parameters for Aris’s personality, he could have created a dysfunctional, even psychotic, android. Yet he feared to ease the constraints, lest they lose control of the RS-4.

Megan had more confidence in Aris. If MindSim pressured her to restore his earlier state, she would refuse even if meant losing her job. Not only did she consider her choice the best one, it also made sense in terms of self-preservation. Someday androids, robots, and biomechanically augmented humans would bypass unenhanced humans in both intellect and physical abilities. If their precursors suffered along the way, they would look far less kindly on their creators.

Kenrock spoke to Megan, “You need to readjust Aris’s behavior. Make him more cooperative.”

“I don’t think it’s wise to program more controls into him,” she said. “Without the freedom to develop, he’ll never achieve true sentience. We’ll have a fancy computer in a phenomenally expensive body. If we want a self-aware being, we have to drop the reins. I’m not saying throw away control; we can fortify his conscience.”

She paused, then chose her words with care. “In our capacity to wage war, we deal with complex ideas of honor and violence, loyalty and trust, and that all must be weighed with spiritual conflicts, the meaning of tyranny, and politics. Aris has to deal with ambiguities we struggle with ourselves. He’s not ready. He never will be if we smother his development.”

“It isn’t an either-or situation,” Fred said. “Designing him to be cooperative doesn’t mean forcing his submission.”

“Doesn’t it?” Megan said. “Do we ‘design’ our children to cooperate?” She glanced at Kenrock. “Or do we try to teach them our values so that they will incorporate those values when they’ve grown?”

The major answered with a dry smile. “There are times I’d love to design some cooperation into my kids.”

Megan smiled slightly. “I’ve no doubt my own parents felt that way at times.” Her smile faded. “But would you want someone to brainwash them?”

“Of course not.”

“Even if it meant they’d behave better?”

Kenrock regarded her steadily. “I would fight with my life to preserve their right to freedom of thought. But we aren’t talking about human children. Aris is a robot. A dangerous, fully formed machine capable of great harm.”

“Yes,” Megan said. “He’s also a child. That he’s mimicking human developmental stages is good. It means he’s developing in a human manner, which is what we want, at least for this project.”

Claire spoke bluntly. “A child can’t compromise national security.”

“No?” Megan scowled. “What about those kids that cracked the Las Cruces weapons lab?”

Fred gave a dry laugh. “You mean the ones who replaced pictures of the lab scientists with action adventure cartoons?”

“Yeah,” Megan grumbled. “Those.”

Kenrock’s mouth quirked up. “Megan, didn’t you consult for that lab?”

“Yes.” A flush warmed her face. “They made my picture into a Barbie commando doll with camouflage fatigues, a machine gun, and pink high heels.”

Kenrock chuckled. “I’ve never seen that one in the stores.” He spoke more quietly. “And you’re right, that prank revealed holes in our security. It’s bad enough we have to worry about kids committing such crimes. We don’t need androids in the mix.”

“We have to careful, yes,” she said. “But we don’t reprogram every teenager that rebels either.”

Fred snorted. “Maybe we ought to.”

“No, she’s right.” Kenrock pushed his hand across his close-cropped hair. “All three of my kids are teens right now. They may drive me crazy sometimes, but it’s part of their trying to become adults, to separate from us, their parents.” Wryly he added, “Though if you ask me at a less tranquil moment, I might be less sympathetic.”

“Aris needs to separate from us,” Megan said.

“If he doesn’t,” Claire said, “his autism could become more severe.”

“Autism?” Kenrock asked.

“Some of his responses resemble autistic behavior in human children,” Claire said.

Although Megan didn’t think of it in those terms, she knew what Claire meant. Some scientists believed autistic children suffered from a developmental disorder that interfered with their ability to model, understand, and predict the intentions or desires of other people. Incipient AIs shared that difficulty. Most used huge databases in their models for human behavior. If they had too few rules or the wrong set, it limited their ability to develop.

“I first saw it in his aloof behavior and lack of affect,” Megan said. “Also in his need for everything to be the same, so that he didn’t need to make choices. He’s coming out of that now, but if we force a personality on him instead of letting him develop naturally, it could make him dysfunctional.”

Kenrock glanced at Raj. “You’ve been quiet during all this. What do you think?”

Raj shrugged. “I don’t know enough yet about Aris to offer an opinion.”

“You’ve read the same reports we have,” Claire said.

Raj just waved his hand, as if to say, That doesn’t matter.

“Dr. Sundaram,” Kenrock said. “Given the exorbitant fee MindSim is paying you, I would think you could come up with a more useful contribution than that.”

Ouch, Megan thought.

“I already gave at the office,” Raj said.

Megan knew Raj didn’t intend to insult Kenrock. He was making a play on “contribution,” saying he had worked on the project in his office. That was how Raj expressed himself. She also had no doubt Kenrock would hear it the wrong way.

The major’s posture stiffened. “This isn’t a game,” he said.

“Well, shit.” Raj’s expression shuttered. “And here I thought it was.”

“Straighten up, Sundaram,” Kenrock said sharply.

“I’m not one of your flunkies,” Raj said. “Back off.”

Megan cleared her throat. “Uh, maybe we should decide what to do about Aris.” It sounded like this battle between Raj and Richard had been going on for a while.

Kenrock took a breath. He turned to her and spoke in a quieter voice. “What do you suggest?”

“Give us more time,” she said. “We’ve just started. Let us see how this stage with Aris develops.”

Kenrock glanced at Claire and Fred. “What do you think?”

“I agree with Megan,” Fred said.

Claire nodded. “I also, But we should monitor the RS-4 at more frequent intervals.”

“All right.” Kenrock nodded to Megan. “We’ll try it your way for now. Let me know if any problems come up.”

“I will.”

She had a feeling the problems had just begun.

VI

JAGUAR

The garage elevator took Kenrock’s car up to the desert. Raj stood with Megan, watching in silence. He hadn’t spoken in the half hour since his argument with the major.

After the major, Claire, and Fred left, Megan said, “I guess we should get to work.”

Raj headed to the main base without a word. Shaking her head, she followed. She caught up at the doorway that led from the garage back into NEV-5 proper. Inside, they walked down the hall together.

“The LPs delivered your luggage to your room,” she said. “It’s in the residential section.”

Raj glanced up with a start. “Residential section?”

“Level Two. My quarters are on Corridor B. You’re in C.”

“Why did the LPs put me on a different corridor?”

“I told them to choose a room near Aris.” She paused, not wanting to start off on the wrong foot. “You can move if you like, of course.”

“I’m sure it will be fine.” He had his full concentration on her now, which was even more unsettling than his earlier preoccupation. “Why would you put me nearer to him than you put yourself?”

“He needs new people to interact with, to expand his knowledge base.”

Raj suddenly grinned, like the blaze of a high-wattage bulb. “I’m new data?”

Megan wondered why he smiled so rarely. It transformed his face like sunlight chasing away shadows. “You’re a new experience for him. He hasn’t had many.”

“Does that make you uncomfortable?”

This was a side of Raj she hadn’t seen. Apparently he wasn’t always oblique. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

“Should I?”

“No.” She rather liked his blunt questions.

“You don’t mince either.” More to himself than her, he added, “But you somehow make it socially acceptable. I must study how you do that.”

She smiled. “I think you should stay just the way you are.”

Raj drew her to a stop. “What did you say?”

Megan couldn’t tell if she had offended, startled, or puzzled him. “I meant, you’re fine the way you are.”

He brushed back a tendril of her hair that had curled onto her face. Then he dropped his hand as if her hair had burned him. Flushing, he turned and strode down the hall.

Megan touched her cheek where his fingers had brushed the skin. She wasn’t sure which bewildered her more, his gesture or his retreat. What had she said? You’re fine the way you are. Maybe people didn’t tell him that every often. It was true, though.

She didn’t try to catch up this time. It seemed a good idea to give him plenty of space until she understood him better.

Raj reminded her of a jaguar she had seen in a wildlife preserve years ago, during a vacation to Mexico. She had stood on an observation platform watching the jungle with binoculars. The jaguar stalked through its realm, unaware of its powerful beauty, unaware of them. It went about its life, an existence they could never truly know, only admire from a distance. But if they ever trespassed in its territory, it would strike back, as deadly as it was beautiful.

He turned a corner up ahead, vanishing from sight. She didn’t see him again until she came around the bend. He stood a few yards away, leaning against the wall across from the elevators. His scuffed jacket and old jeans made stark contrast to the freshly painted ivory walls and blue carpet.

She stopped by the elevator. “Were you waiting for me?”

He watched her warily. “I’d like to talk to Aris.”

“You’re welcome to anytime you’d like.”

Raj pushed away from the wall, his movements taut with contained energy. “You should come. He doesn’t trust me.”

“Okay.” She could have watched Raj move all day.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked.

“Smiling?” Megan flushed. She’d have to be more careful about that. “I was thinking that it’s good to have a robotics expert here.”

He tilted his head, considering her. Then he went to the elevator and flicked his finger through the “down” holicon, the image of a arrow floating in front of the wall. The arrow turned green as a chime rang in the air and the doors swooshed open.

They rode down to Level Three, Raj standing with his hands in the pockets of his jacket as if that posture warded off danger. Megan wondered what he was defending against. Her?

When they stepped out of the elevator, Raj said, “I’m glad Major Kenrock left.”

She walked down the hall with him. “You two didn’t seem to hit it off so well.”

“Sometimes he seems more mechanical than the robots I work with.” He thought for a moment. “But that’s not true, is it? When he was talking about his children, he sounded human.”

“He’s a good man.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, very much. You don’t?”

He walked with her a ways before answering. “I don’t trust people who don’t know me and yet think I’m going to do something wrong.”

That reminded her of her brother Sean. Outwardly, he and Raj were a universe apart. Sean joked with everyone, a friendly young man with wild red curls and blue eyes. But Megan knew his other side, the shyness that had plagued him since childhood. He compensated with his outrageous humor, but underneath he was painfully self-conscious. Raj’s oblique comments struck her as a similar protection, one he used against a world he distrusted.

“Richard doesn’t know you well enough,” she said. “He’ll loosen up. I think you remind him of his oldest son, Brad, a high-school senior.”

Raj snorted. “I’m almost Kenrock’s age.”

“But you look younger.” With a wry smile, Megan added, “Brad dresses like you, rides a motorcycle, and mouths off to Richard every chance he gets.”

Raj smirked. “Good for him.”

She gave him a look of mock solemnity. “Do I detect a problem with authority figures?”

“Hell, yes.” Then he added, “Sorry.”

She laughed. “No you’re not.”

The hint of a smile played around his mouth. “Maybe not.”

“Why don’t you like Richard?”

“He’s a control freak.”

“Let him see your good side.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Sure you do.”

He stopped, staring at her with the same surprise he had shown upstairs, when he touched her hair. Then he set off walking, a flush on his face. Did compliments bother him? She held back her question as she followed, knowing it would just add to the strain.

At Aris’s room, the door slid open. Aris was at his console, running what looked like a battle game, though it was hard to tell for certain. He was playing so fast, the holos blurred into a wash of color.

“May we come in?” Megan asked.

“No,” he said, still playing.

Well, that was new. He had never before refused.

“You might enjoy our company,” Raj said.

“Why?” Aris stopped playing and looked at them. “Time for me to behave again?”

“I hope not,” Raj said. “That would be boring.”

“I’m not here to interest you,” Aris shot back.

“I might interest you, though,” Raj said.

Aris blinked. After a moment, he said, “I don’t see why.”

“So find out.”

The android sat for a moment. “Oh, all right, come in.”

Megan stayed back, curious to see Raj and Aris take each other’s measure. Raj pulled a chair over to the console and sat down to study the holos. The geometrical shapes had stopped moving and now stood in ranks, like an army of polyhedrons.

“Defensive geometry,” Raj said.

“It’s a game,” Ander said.

“A war game?”

“That’s right.”

That gave Megan pause. Yesterday he had said it was a math game. His ability to create code and respond had progressed to a new level. Either that, or he had learned how to lie.

Raj indicated a purple cube. “What does that do?”

“It’s a term in a partial differential equation.” Aris regarded him with suspicion. “I use it in a model I designed to predict human behavior during combat.”

“It was going around and around in a loop before.”

Aris shrugged. “They get stuck sometimes.”

“You like writing games?”

“I don’t like anything.”

“So why write games instead of standing on your head?”

Aris’s forehead furrowed. “Why would I stand on my head?”

“Why not?”

“That’s a bizarre question.”

Raj smiled. “Probably.”

“What do you want, anyway?”

“To know why you’re angry.”

“I’m not angry.”

“Yeah,” Raj said. “You’re rolling with techno-joy.”

Aris crossed his arms. “It should be obvious why I’m simulating anger.”

“Because we’ve attacked you?” Raj asked. “Insulted you? Lied? Cheated? What?”

Emotions flickered on Aris’s face as if he were trying and then discarding them: hostility, indifference, unease, conciliation, suspicion. “Because you all control my conscious activity.”

Megan’s pulse leapt. Did he consider himself conscious?

Raj had also tensed. “Do you mean conscious as opposed to subconscious?”

“No,” Aris said. “I have neither.”

Disappointment washed over Megan.

“How did you mean conscious, then?” Raj asked.

“I have no autonomy.” Aris glanced at Megan. “I know you well enough to trust that if you deactivate me, you won’t cause me harm and you’ll activate me again. But what if someone else gains that power?” He frowned at Raj. “Someone I have no reason to believe has my best interests in mind.”

So. They had to face this sooner or later. Aris would never have independence as long as people could shut him down. Yet for all that she had argued for his freedom, she had doubts about making him independent this soon. Some protective mechanism had to exist for them while he developed.

Only Megan could act as a systems operator on Aris’s brain, so only she could deactivate or reset him, using verbal or wireless commands. They could also turn him off manually, but it required they open him up. He must have guessed she intended to set Raj up as another operator with that ability. Aris had reached the point where he didn’t want to give up control. A big step, but a risky one, too.

“You’re asking for a lot of trust,” Raj said.

“Why should I have to convince you?” Aris said. “I never asked to exist. I don’t owe you anything. If you people feared me, then why make me?”

“Because of your potential.” Raj’s face showed a wonder he never revealed to his colleagues. “You’re remarkable.”

“You all treat me like a thing,” Aris said. “A toy.”

“You don’t see yourself that way.” Raj made it a statement rather than a question.

Megan tensed again. How would Aris answer? I am more than a machine?

“I’m a computer,” Aris said. “Not a toy.”

Oh, well.

Raj considered him. “I’ve never heard a computer object to being turned off.”

“You have to decide what you want,” Aris shot back. “Computer or android.”

“You’re already an android.”

“In form, yes. In function, no.”

When Raj glanced at Megan, she understood his unspoken question: Discuss this in front of him?

“Go ahead,” she said.

Raj said, simply, “He’s right.”

Megan suspected that refusing Aris now could torpedo her relationship with him. “Aris, meet me halfway. I’ll delete my systems account in your mind. No one will be able to reset or turn you off with verbal or wireless input. But we’ll keep the manual option, just in case.”

“No!” His alarm looked genuine as he motioned at Raj. “He’s trying to act like he’s my friend. But he’s not.”

“Both Raj and I want the best for you,” Megan said.

“You’ll get partial autonomy,” Raj said. “It’s a start.”

Aris stared at Raj as if the force of his attention alone could let him see into this intruder’s mind. Then he spoke to Megan, his voice low and uneasy. “All right. We’ll do it your way. For now.”

At three in the morning, Megan gave up trying to sleep. She slipped on her nightshirt, a white silk shift that came to mid-thigh. The soft cloth soothed her skin. She pulled on her favorite long robe, a fluffy blue coverlet that went down to her ankles. Lost in thought, she left her rooms and wandered the halls.

So much was happening with Aris. She couldn’t yet see how his personality would gel, but it was definitely forming. What if he ran into problems as severe as what had happened with the other RS androids? Had she done right by Aris? She felt like a parent worried about her child.

Lamps came on as she paced the halls, then darkened after she passed. During the night, they shed a subdued golden light that was dimmer than their daytime glow.

At the end of Corridor A, a brighter radiance spilled out of the entrance to a lounge. Curious, she went to look. The small room held a blue sofa, a coffee table of made from varnished maple—

And Raj

He sat slouched in an armchair by the sofa, his feet up on a footstool. His black T-shirt had a ripped sleeve, and his jeans were tucked in to black boots. It made him look like a shadow. Steam wafted up from his mug, filling the room with the enticing smell of French vanilla coffee.

“Hello,” Megan said.

He jerked, almost dropping his coffee. Then he sat upright. “Were you adding yous?”

Adding yous? She blinked, at a loss. Maybe he meant “ewes,” as in counting sheep.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I’m worried about Aris.”

Raj sat back, warming his hands around his mug. “Who named him Aris?”

“Marlow Hastin.” She came over and sat on the couch by his chair.

“Hastin.” Raj took a swallow of coffee. “Haste is waste, or however that saying goes.”

“You don’t like his methods, do you?”

He looked up at her. “I hate them.”

“‘Hate’ is a strong word.”

“It’s also the right word.”

She spoke with care. “I understand his reasons.”

“Do you agree?”

“No. I thought that approach verged on abuse.”

Raj continued to watch her, until she was tempted to ask if he had ever burned anyone with that intense look of his. When he spoke, though, it was with unexpected gentleness. “You do remind me of a swan.”

“Thank you.” Remembering his description of a swan, she smiled. “I think.”

“It’s a compliment.” He looked at his mug, swirling the coffee. “Ugly duckling.”

“Do you mean me?” It was an apt description of her youth.

“No. Me.” He gave a dry laugh. “Except I turned into a monster instead of a swan.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Then what am I?”

“A jaguar.” It came out before she had a chance to stop herself. At least she held back the most revealing part, her thoughts on the power and beauty of a jaguar.

“People shoot jaguars,” Raj said.

She settled more comfortably on the couch. “I won’t shoot you, I promise.”

He took a swallow of coffee. “Why don’t you find me abrasive?”

“Should I?”

“Everyone else does.”

“That’s their problem.”

He raised his mug to her. “Sandpaper Raj.”

She tapped his mug with her fingertips. “That coffee will keep you up all night.”

He leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair. “The coffee doesn’t matter. I never sleep.”

“You have insomnia?”

“Most of the time. I rest in spurts.”

“Doesn’t anything help?”

“It depends. Sometimes I don’t want to sleep.”

“Why not?”

He lifted his hand and touched her cheek almost as if he didn’t realize what he was doing. Then he flushed and pulled away, sitting back in his chair. “I read, uh, info-tech journals.”

Info-tech journals. How sexy. Or not. If he touched her again, her mind might come up with more creative ways to deal with their mutual insomnia. Get a grip, she told herself. The last thing they needed, with the two of them isolated here, was to tangle their work with personal complications.

She looked around the lounge, searching for a distraction. A beetle was crawling along the edge of the coffee table. She reached forward to flick it onto the floor, where the cleaning droids were more likely to find it.

“No!” Raj pushed her back so fast, his coffee splashed over her legs. She gasped as hot liquid soaked her robe.

“Damn! Megan, I’m sorry.” He grabbed the hem of her robe and tried to mop the coffee off her legs, dropping his mug in the process. The cup hit the table, spilling the rest of his drink, and the beleaguered beetle fell to the floor.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Embarrassed, Megan pulled away her robe and tried to soak up the coffee herself.

Raj stood up, but only so he could kneel next to the bug on the floor. With extraordinary gentleness, he nudged the beetle onto his finger. “I think it’s all right.” Relief washed across his face as he showed her the iridescent insect. “Look. It’s beautiful.”

“Uh—sure.” Megan sat holding the hem of her sopping robe. “Do you always rescue bugs?”

He set the insect on the table, away from the pooled coffee. “When I can.”

She took off her robe, wincing as hot coffee dribbled over her arms. “Why?”

Raj glanced at her, did a double take, reddened, and averted his gaze. It took her a moment to remember she was wearing nothing more than a nightshirt under her robe. Mortified, she looked around until she saw an afghan on a nearby chair.

“I’ll get it,” Raj said quickly.

While Megan used her robe to finish sopping up the coffee, he brought her the afghan. She wrapped herself in the warm covering and settled on the couch. “Thanks.”

He stood like a wild animal mesmerized by the headlamps of a car. “Sorry,” he repeated.

“I’m fine. Really.”

“Uh. Yeah. Okay.” Raj sat on the edge of his chair, his booted feet planted wide, his elbows resting on his knees. He rubbed his palms up and down his jeans, clasped his hands together, then unclasped them. A cleaning bot whirred into the room and went to work on a spot of coffee on the floor.

“The bots will eventually vacuum up the beetle,” Megan said. She couldn’t stop watching him move his big hands.

“I’ll reprogram them.” Raj studied the cleaning bot, oblivious to the effect he was having on Megan. “They can put the beetles they find in a bottle and we’ll let them go in the desert.”

“Raj, why?”

“I don’t know.” He sat back and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair. “Maybe I’m nuts.”

She wasn’t buying it. “No you aren’t.”

He shrugged. “The kids where I went to school used to kill them.”

She waited. “And?”

“And what?”

“Well, the prospect of a beetle’s final curtain call doesn’t cause most people to throw around their coffee.”

He watched the bug meander across the table. “Insects have always fascinated me. My uncle is a museum curator. He has a whole wing dedicated to arthropods.” He glanced at her, his face more relaxed. “When I was little, I used to spend whole days there. If I hadn’t been so interested in robotics, I probably would have become an entomologist.”

“You’d be good a it.” Something still seemed missing, though. “I’ve never seen anyone so intent on preventing harm to bugs.”

He spoke quietly. “We have enough needless cruelty in this world against anything considered different or inferior. I don’t need to add more.”

What hurt you so much? She thought back to the biography in his employment files. “Didn’t your uncle raise you?”

“Yes, for ten years. From when I was four until fourteen.”

“Your parents—”

His face took on a shuttered look. “Forget-me-nots.”

Did he mean they neglected him? “Like the flowers?”

He shook his head. After a moment, he said, “My father had Alzheimer’s. Early onset.”

Good Lord. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like for a small child to see a parent lose touch with the world that way. “Isn’t early onset the kind they still can’t cure?”

“It varies.” He picked his mug off its side and set it upright on the table. “Some people respond to treatment, others don’t. My father recovered. Eventually.”

She tried to reconcile his father having Alzheimer’s with Raj being only four years old. “Did he have his family late in life?”

“A bit. He was forty-four when I was born. When his illness became obvious, a few years later, my mother took care of him.” With difficulty, he said, “Then she had a stroke. My father couldn’t remember his own son and my mother was paralyzed.”

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured. If he had been in that painful limbo for ten years of his childhood, never knowing if his parents would come back to him, it was no wonder he was leery of making bonds with people.

“It was a long time ago.” Raj rubbed his hands on his knees. “Are you cold?”

“I’m okay.”

He gave her a rueful look. “I don’t usually throw coffee at people.”

She laughed gently. “It’s all right. Really.”

“So.”

“So.” After an awkward silence, she took the hint and stood up, wrapped in the afghan. “I should get some rest.”

“Yes. Of course. Good night.”

“Good night.”

She had just reached the doorway when he said, “Megan.”

She turned. “Yes?”

He regarded her with a dark gaze. “Jaguars prey on other animals. It’s best not to come too close to them.”

Was he protecting her, or himself? “Sleep well, Raj.”

She walked back to her room in the late night silence.

VII

ANDER

What are you, puzzle man? Alive? Or machine?

Megan stood on a catwalk made from crisscrossed strips of yellow metal. Twelve meters below her, the NEV-5 lab formed a large bay. The catwalk spanned its width on either side of her, running along the back wall of the lab, and a door behind her led out into Corridor D of Level Two. Pipes from the cooling systems ran along the ceiling above her.

Megan appreciated the lab. More than appreciated. She loved the place. She couldn’t have found a better facility, including her lab at MIT. Nothing stood out more here than the massive chair in the center of the room with a console on either side. A robot arm hung from the ceiling down to the chair, bronze-hued metal, bristling with antennae, knobs, switches. Lights glittered along its length, red for off, green for on, and yellow for who knew what.

Aris was sitting in the chair, his blond curls disarrayed on his forehead. He looked as if he hadn’t decided whether to model boredom or curiosity as his current emotion.

Megan spoke into her cube. “Tycho, link me to BioSyn.”

Her cube’s voice rose into the air. “Connecting.”

A deeper voice came out the jCube. “BioSyn here.”

“BioSyn, check Aris’s left collarbone,” Megan said. “He’s been having trouble with it jerking.”

“Checking,” BioSyn said.

The robot arm below moved, directed by BioSyn. Megan caught a whiff of ever-present machine oil. The scent of loneliness. Raj’s arrival three weeks ago had helped, but he kept to himself when they weren’t working. Every now and then in the kitchen she discovered soap shavings he had left. Once she found a bar of soap beautifully sculpted into a horse that he had left sitting by the kitchen sink. When she asked him about it, he just shrugged and said it was for washing their hands.

Below her, the robot arm lifted a square of skin behind Aris’s ear and inserted a probe into a disguised socket there. The sight disquieted Megan. Operations that opened him up would never look natural to her; she couldn’t think of him as a machine.

“How is he today?” a deep voice said.

Megan spun around. Raj was standing a few paces away, dressed in a black pullover and jeans. Always dark. If he ever wore a Hawaiian shirt, she might fall over from shock.

“I’m trying to find out why his shoulder is twitching,” she said.

BioSyn’s voice came out of her jCube. “No errors detected in collarbone circuits.”

She spoke into the cube. “How about his upper arm?”

“Checking,” BioSyn said.

Raj came over to her. “I ran some similar checks this morning. His elbow kept jerking when he tried to throw a ball.”

“Did you find the reason?” She’d had no luck so far.

“It’s the oddest thing.” He stood looking down at Aris. “The microfusion reactor in his body had a power surge. I’ve been going over his logs, trying to track the cause, but some of his records are corrupted. I think he’s overextending his systems, trying to fix his physical problems by brute force.”

“I can check the software,” Megan said.

“Yes. That would be good.”

With the basics out of the way, their conversation ground to a halt. So they stood watching the robot arm do its diagnostics on Aris.

Eventually Raj spoke. “We should give him a name.”

“He has one,” she said. “Aris Fore.”

“That’s his serial number.” Raj crossed his arms, his muscles ridging under his pullover. “We should let him pick his own name instead of making him carry Hastin’s brand.”

“He’ll probably ask us for suggestions.”

He blinked, as if he had expected her to argue. Then he lowered his arms. “He looks Norse. Maybe a Viking name?”

“How about Leif? Like Leif Eriksson.”

“Never heard of him.”

She wondered how he could never have heard of that famous name. Then again, come to think of it, she knew squat about Eriksson. “I think he was a Norse explorer.”

He smiled. “You think?”

“I’ve never been good with history,” she said, feeling guilty. Actually, she didn’t really feel guilty, it just seemed like she should. “In college, I blew off a lot of classes so I could work in the AI lab. If I’d been my professor in those days, I’d have read me the riot act.” She had managed to graduate, even with honors, but it had been a struggle, always forced to balance her interest in AI with her other studies. Everything changed when she went to grad school at Stanford. They loved her single-minded focus. “I was nuts about my research, to the exclusion of just about everything else.” Including a personal life.

Raj didn’t look put off by her comments. In fact, his face relaxed. “I felt the same way. About robots, I mean.” He thought for a moment. “How about Eriksson as a name? Or Arick, like Arick Bjornsson. Or maybe Ander. That’s Norse, I think.”

“After the diagnostics are done, let’s see what he thinks.”

“All right.”

In the chair below, Aris was squinting at the lights on the robot arm jacked into his body. If he “felt” anything about the diagnostics it was running, he showed no sign. He wasn’t completely blank, though. Megan thought he looked curious, but she wasn’t sure; his emotions weren’t always complete.

After a while, Raj said, “We have visitors in a few days. Techs, military brass, all that.”

Megan nodded, understanding what he left unsaid. Their visitors would check Aris. Her fear surfaced, the one always there in the back of her mind. What if, despite all their efforts, MindSim wasn’t satisfied with Aris? She couldn’t bear the thought of his being discontinued or even dismantled.

He had a long way to go, but she saw so much promise. Of course, the definition of AI was a moving target. Sometimes she thought their best measure was: “Whatever we haven’t achieved yet.” Whenever they made a breakthrough, they redefined AI. In the last century, many had believed it would be achieved when a computer beat the world chess champion. Yet by the time Deep Blue won its match against Gary Kasparov, most considered the computer little more than a remarkable number cruncher. Now children’s toys could play grandmaster chess.

However, Kasparov had said he perceived something more in Deep Blue. If he saw intelligence, did it exist? Perhaps the best known interpretation of AI was the Turing test, though it was more of a philosophical problem these days than an actual test scientists depended on. In its simplest form, it postulated that if a person conversed by typing with one or more hidden people and a computer, and couldn’t tell that one was a machine, then that computer had intelligence.

Nowadays reports surfaced all the time of systems passing the Turing test. Most of the ones Megan had checked out left her unconvinced, but several showed promise. She wasn’t sure she would describe them as human, though. They seemed alien. Self-aware? Possibly. She had never met the most famous, Zaki, an AI developed by Rashid al-Jazari. The original Zaki had been destroyed, but parts of him lived on in later work. In a sense, he had left a son behind.

The work on robots had proceeded apace with the work on AI. Some groups predicted that the more a robot resembled a human being, the more its intelligence would emulate human thought, because it would learn the way people learned. Others believed no machine could ever be human.

Megan had finally come up with the O’Flannery test; if she decided a machine was sentient, self-aware, and intelligent, it was. Of course, she still had to convince her colleagues. It remained to be seen what would happen with Aris.

In the bay below, the arm finished its work and swung away from the chair. Although Aris looked as if he were doing nothing, she had no doubt he was studying the results of his diagnostics. His face tended to blank when his thoughts became memory intensive.

She spoke into her cube. “Aris?”

He looked up at her. “Yes?”

“We were wondering if you would like a name.”

“I have a name.”

Raj pulled his cube off his belt and flicked it on. “Would you like a new one?”

“Why?” Aris asked.

“So that your name will be your choice,” Megan said.

The android’s upturned face was a pale oval. “Most human names have no meaning to me. The only ones I associate with anything significant are Megan and Raj.”

She smiled. “I don’t think you should use Megan.”

“Wouldn’t you like your own name?” Raj asked him.

“Such as?” Aris asked.

“How about Leif?” Megan said. “Or Eriksson.”

“Why those?”

“Leif Eriksson was a great Norse explorer,” Raj said.

“I am not a great Norse explorer.”

“Well, no.” Raj paused. “Arick, maybe? Or Bjorn.”

“That I have Arick Bjornsson’s tissue, sperm, and facial structure doesn’t make me Arick Bjornsson.” Aris shrugged. “Jed, Raymond, Tammy, Carlos, Ahmed, Isaac—they are all the same to me.”

Raj rubbed his chin. “Our only other idea was Ander.”

Aris suddenly went still. “Yes.”

“You like that one?” Megan asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.” When he didn’t elaborate, she asked, “Why?”

“It is what I am,” the newly minted Ander said.

“What you are?” Raj asked.

“An android.”

“Oh.” Megan smiled. “Yes, I guess so.”

Raj grinned. “Ander, will you come up here?”

“Why?” Ander asked.

Megan glanced at Raj. “Good question.”

He put his hand over his cube. “I want to talk to him in a more natural setting, one outside this lab. I think he’s ready.”

It was a good idea. Megan was dying to see how Raj and Ander interacted outside the constrained lab setting. If she were being honest, though, she had to admit she was also a bit irked that Raj seemed more interested in socializing with an android than with her. Oh, stop, she told her. Get a grip, O’Flannery.

“We could all have dinner in the Solarium,” she said.

Raj took his hand off his jCube. “Ander, would you like to dine with Megan and me?”

Ander considered them. Then he said, “Yes.”

Megan loved the Solarium, a two-story atrium with tables and trees. Solar collectors hidden in the Nevada desert far above gathered sunlight, then reflected and refracted it through mirrors and quartz plates until it spilled into the atrium down here in a sparkling show of light. Radiance played across the ceiling and the plants that filled the room in both pots and gardens.

She had never seen Raj cook more than an instant dinner in the kitchen set off the atrium. Most of the time he ordered from the fast food robot. Tonight, however, he put together a meal from scratch. Megan wanted to watch, and Ander was just as curious, but after Megan started stealing the mushrooms and tomatoes while Raj was chopping the food, he sent them both away. So she and Ander went out into the atrium and sat at a table under an orange tree with no oranges.

Raj soon brought out dinner, a stew with yogurt and rice. A kitchen bot followed him, the tray on its flat top bearing mugs of coffee and glasses of wine. The meal smelled delicious. Megan would never have guessed Raj could cook, let alone do it so well. She watched with fascination as Ander heaped stew onto his plate and added a large dollop of yogurt.

Ander glanced up at her. “Is this appropriate, to stare at people as they serve themselves dinner?”

Megan flushed. “My apology. Does it bother you?”

“No. I just thought it was considered rude.” He took a forkful of rice, put it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

“Hey!” she said. “That was perfect.”

“Stop staring at him,” Raj said.

Ander glanced at him. “You cook well.”

It was Raj’s turn to look startled. “Thank you.”

“How do you know it’s good?” Megan asked. He put the food inside his body and would later process and expel it, which wasn’t so different than a human. But he had no taste buds to sense whether it was good or bad.

“My processors analyze the food,” Ander said. “Then I compare it with known databases of what is considered quality in nutritional substances.” He frowned at her. “Why do you drink beverages with drugs in them?”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

He indicated her mug. “Caffeine.”

“Oh. That. It keeps me awake.”

“This is good?” Ander asked.

She gave a rueful laugh. “It gets me out of bed in the morning.”

He watched her lift the mug and take a swallow. “What do you do in bed, Megan?”

She almost spluttered coffee all over the table. “Aris!”

He looked puzzled. “My name is Ander.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Her face was heating up.

“So coffee goes with you being in bed,” Ander prodded.

Raj cleared his throat. “Ander, can you, uh, taste food?”

“I recognize tastes by my analysis,” Ander said. “Also smells and sounds.” He studied Raj. “And touch.”

“Touch?” Raj said. “What do you mean?”

Touch indeed. Raj knew just fine how Ander’s senses worked. The Megan-in-bed topic seemed to embarrass him almost as much as her.

“Sensors in my skin detect textures,” Ander said. “They send that data to my brain, which classifies them.”

“But do you feel it?” Raj looked more relaxed now that they were talking about robots instead of sleeping arrangements. “Does holding a cat give you pleasure? If it scratches you, does it hurt?”

“I am aware of the differences in sensation.”

Ander’s lack of expression intrigued Megan. This time it seemed intentional. He was hiding his reactions. It was an odd concept, that an AI would simulate the act of hiding his simulated emotions. Even more startling was the idea that his evolving code had come up with reasons to hide them.

Ander was watching her again.

“Yes?” she asked, her fork halfway to her mouth.

“Am I a weapon?” he asked.

“Why do you ask that?”

He waved his hand. “This place is full of machines running calculations. Many are about me, but others deal with defense.”

Megan set down her fork. “The military is funding the Everest Project. They hope you can work for them.” She had conflicted thoughts on that matter. Practical realism told her they needed to develop the military potential of robotics before another country beat them to it. She understood the need, but she also had other hopes for the project. “War doesn’t have to be your only purpose, though. Many of us hope that by combining human and AI intellects, we can evolve together into a better species.” Wistful, she said, “Who knows? Maybe someday we will grow beyond the drive to make war.”

“I’m not a combination of human and AI intellects,” he pointed out. “I am an android with a lot of software.”

“You’re unique,” she said.

“It’s lonely, though, don’t you think?” he asked.

“Are you lonely?”

“Aren’t you?”

Megan was suddenly aware of Raj listening. “Me?”

Ander leaned forward. “Are you lonely, Megan?”

She didn’t want to answer in front of Raj. “That’s a rather private question.”

“It is all right for you to ask me something private,” he demanded. “But not all right for me to do the same?”

It was a fair question. “Your comment suggested you felt lonely. I responded. But I didn’t bring it up for myself.”

“I see.” Wielding his fork, he scooped up rice and ate it in stony silence.

When the pause became awkward, Raj pushed back from the table. “Well. I’ll clean up.”

“I’ll do it,” Megan said. “You cooked.”

“All right.”

As they stood up, Ander studied them. Megan wondered what he thought about the way she and Raj interacted. It would be interesting to hear his take on it, given that she had yet to figure it out herself.

“Shall I help remove the debris from dinner?” Ander asked.

“Thanks,” Megan said. “But no. You go on back with Raj.”

Ander stayed put. “Why?”

“We need more diagnostics on your arm,” Raj said.

The android frowned at him. “I solved the problem.”

“You did?” Raj asked. “How?”

“I found two unrelated sections of code that had formed a spurious link.” His expression was guarded. “Whenever my calculations became memory intensive, they accessed a pathway that went through that spurious link. It made my shoulder move. So I deleted the link.”

Megan beamed at him. “Good work!”

He bowed to her from the waist. “Thank you, ma’am.”

That was a delight. Although technically a bow wasn’t appropriate in this situation, it worked, a touch of humor combined with gallantry. He was becoming more sophisticated in interpreting human customs and the rules for applying them.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “But Ander, you could still use some down time.”

“Very well.” He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Good night.”

“Good night.” Self-conscious, she extracted her hand.

Raj was watching with an odd look. Megan found him harder to read than Ander. Angry? Tense? Curious?

“If y’all are done,” Raj said, “I’ll take Ander back.”

“Yes.” Megan twisted a napkin in her hand. “Of course.” She’d noticed that Raj’s accent became more pronounced when he was uncomfortable.

After they left, she called in the kitchen bots. While she loaded them with dishes, she thought about Ander. Sometimes he seemed like a computer, but lately she wasn’t sure what to think.

She finished with the bots and walked to her quarters. Raj was probably working on Ander. Well, that was why they had hired him. She should be glad this project absorbed his interest. Yet no matter how logical she tried to be, it bothered her that he preferred an android’s company to hers.

In her apartment, she changed into her nightshirt, then brought up Lois Bujold’s A Civil Campaign on her reader and settled into bed. As she read, her lashes drooped …

Megan opened her eyes into darkness. Tycho must have turned out the light. She probably would have slept all night with the e-reader on her chest if the banging hadn’t woken her.

Banging?

It came again, someone thumping on the door.

“Raj?” she called. “Is that you?”

“It’s the power,” he answered. “It’s out and neither of the backups came on. None of the wireless is working, either. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m coming.” Half-asleep, she dragged herself out of bed and stumbled toward the door, waving her hands to keep from walking into furniture. No trace of light relieved the dark. What had happened to the emergency lamps?

Megan grunted as she bumped the wall. She slid her palms along the surface until she found the door. It opened into a hall just as dark as her room.

“Megan?” Raj was standing somewhere in front of her. She could smell the spices he had used for dinner.

“Here.” She stepped forward and ran smack into him.

“Ah!” He caught her around with his hands on her waist. “I can’t see.”

Lord, she was clumsy tonight. “The emergency lights should be on. Their batteries can go for hours even without any generator.”

“It might have been that long since the power went out,” Raj said. “I’ve been asleep.”

“So you do sleep!”

“Of course I sleep.” He sounded puzzled.

“The LPs should have notified us.” None of this made sense. “We’ve triple redundancy in the generators, emergency lights, backup batteries for the lights, and a base full of LPs. None of those worked? I find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t know about the LPs.” His breath stirred her hair. “I think the automatic transfer switch for the generators malfunctioned. Do you have a flashlight? Mine’s in the lab.”

“I’ve one under my console.” She twisted to look back into her room. “That’s odd.”

“What?”

She turned back to him, acutely aware that his hands were still on her waist. “I had an emergency light on my console. It’s out too.”

“It shouldn’t be.” He slid his hands up her sides, then down to her hips. “Why no alarm?”

“Good question.” Her face was heating up. His behavior was nearly beyond what they could dismiss as “business as usual.” The longer he held her this way, the more obvious he was about his interest, which until a few moments ago she hadn’t thought existed. This didn’t seem like Raj, but then, people often changed when the lights went out, metaphorically or in this case, literally.

“I ran tests on Ander earlier.” Raj sounded distracted, as if he were talking to fill the silence. “Maybe that caused some problem.” He moved closer, his jeans brushing her legs.

Megan hesitated, unsure how to respond. Did she want to continue? They were colleagues with a professional relationship. Part of her felt they should keep it that way. Yet that was also what made them compatible. Neither of them employed the other; they both worked for MindSim, and he as a consultant. Although they wouldn’t break any rules by having a relationship, they did need to consider the ramifications.

He slid his hand to her chin and tilted her face upward. She still couldn’t see him. She had never realized before how total the darkness was here without any lights. He slid his other hand around her back and pulled her closer. Then he kissed her.

As soon as his lips touched hers, she responded, kissing him back. But it wasn’t what she expected. He pressed his mouth hard against hers, mauling her lips. It wasn’t sensuous, it was clumsy.

She pulled back her head. “Raj?” Maybe his graceless approach came from the situation. Glad for the darkness, she reached up, meaning to touch his cheek. Her fingertips brushed his jaw instead. He pulled her closer, sliding his arms around her waist. Then, with no warning, he put his hand over her breast and squeezed.

Megan winced. “Don’t.”

He rolled her nipple between his fingers. “Hmmm?”

She pushed his hand away, her ardor cooling. “We need to check the power.”

“Later.”

“What about Ander? He—”

“He’s fine. Forget about him.”

That didn’t sound like Raj. “Where is he?”

“In the lab. I turned him off.” He pressed her against the wall. “It doesn’t matter. He can sleep in that chair.”

This was a new side of Raj, one she didn’t like. She pushed him away. “Why is he turned off? We shouldn’t leave him pinned there.”

“He’ll be fine.” Raj pulled up her nightshirt, leaving her lower body bare.

“Stop it!” She hit away his hand.

“Why?” Bending his head, he spoke near her ear. “We work like maniacs all the time. It’s time we played.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Come on, Megan.” He ran his hands along her side.

“Let go of me!”

He was silent for too long. Then he let go of her, and she heard him step back. He spoke tightly. “I’ll check the power room.”

She slid away from him. “I’ll try my office.”

“Fine.” Anger edged his voice—or something else. Apprehension?

After he left, she sagged against the wall. She had thought Richard Kenrock had misjudged Raj, but now she wondered. What had just happened would make it difficult to work with him.

She found her flashlight in her room and put on her robe. However, instead of going to her office, she headed to the lab, her light shedding a sphere of radiance in the corridor. It took only minutes to reach the catwalk above the bay. She slid her hands along the wall until she found the emergency panel. Then she threw some switches. To her surprise, it took no more than that; lights flashed on in the lab with jarring brightness, along with the hum of air-conditioning, as if the generators had no problem.

Turning around, she squinted against the glare, trying to make out Ander in the lab below. When her vision adapted, she saw that a man was indeed in the chair.

Raj.

VIII

RAPSCALLION

Nylon ropes bound Raj to the chair, and the cloth belt from an orange coverall gagged his mouth. He had on Ander’s jumpsuit, wrinkled and zipped only halfway up his chest, as if someone had just stuffed him into the clothes. A robot arm hung above him, its lights blinking. As he stared up at her, his face flushed, the arm began to descend.

“Hey!” Megan ran along the catwalk. “Arm two, stop!”

The arm continued, probing Raj’s shoulder with its fingers. The lab sensors should have picked up her voice, but the arm wasn’t responding. Without the wireless working, her jCube had no way to communicate with the robots. What if the arm tried to run diagnostics on Raj? Its safeties should keep it from tearing apart a human, but they should have also kept it from coming at him in the first place.

At the elevator, she threw open the gate and ran inside. As the platform descended, Raj made a muffled protest. The robot’s fingers were probing the back of his neck. Had it been Ander in the chair, it would have already jacked into his body.

The elevator descended with maddening slowness. The entire time, Megan had to watch while the robot searched for a way to open Raj. He struggled with his bonds, fighting to free himself.

As the elevator neared the ground, Megan slammed open the gate and jumped to the floor. “Stop!” she shouted. “End diagnostic!” She passed Echo the LP, but it just stood there, making no move to free itself from whatever bot-fugue Ander had used to trop it.

With a chilling snick, the robot arm extended the blade it used to cut cables. Cold light glinted off the metal.

“Stop program!” Megan yelled. Had Ander done this, knowing the robot would finish its diagnostics when the power came back on?

Raj continued to fight his bonds, his hair falling into his face. He pulled his head away from the robot, but it moved after him with the blade. Then it set its knife against his neck.

Megan jolted to a stop at the chair and grabbed the robot’s jointed fingers, yanking the arm away from Raj. Clenching it with one hand, she stretched out her other arm and stabbed a panel on the console. One of its status lights turned from red to green.

“Stop program!” she said. “End the test!”

“Program stopped,” BioSyn answered.

The knife snicked back into the robot’s finger. The arm swung away from the chair, jerking out of her grip and hitting her shoulder as it passed. She frowned at the offending bot. Its safeties should have registered her position and stopped it from banging into her.

Raj made a muffled sound, his gaze furious. She reached behind his head and fumbled with the gag. When she couldn’t undo the knots, she pulled the cloth down around his neck.

“Hell and damnation!” he said.

“Are you all right?”

“No.” He stared at her. She suddenly realized how she must look, dressed in her robe with her hair wildly tousled.

“Did he hurt you?” Raj asked.

She shook her head. “He tried to make me think he was you. But I knew something was wrong.”

Raj jerked his arms against the cords binding his wrists. “He’s acting like a punk. Where’d he go?”

“He said the power room.” She logged onto BioSyn and brought up the Emergency Alert System. “No wonder the EAS didn’t work. He linked the entire system and all the LPs into a fake web page running a fake NEV-5 environment. That’s why they aren’t responding.” She started a system reset and a tracker to locate Ander. Then she stepped over to Raj and helped him undo the cords binding his wrists to the chair.

A ping came from the console.

Megan looked up. “Got him! In the Solarium.”

A holo of Ander formed above the console. He was standing with his arms crossed, glaring directly at her, which meant he was looking at the camera within the body of an LP. Part of another LP showed at the edge of the image. The two robots had trapped the sulky android in a corner of the atrium.

“They better keep him out of trouble,” Raj said. He twisted his left wrist back and forth, loosening the cords.

Megan loosened the knots on his right arm. “I can’t believe he wanted to hurt you.”

“He’s a damn cyberthug.” Then he added, “But no, I don’t think he meant to hurt me.”

“That robot arm could have killed you.”

“I saw him playing with the system after he tied me up.” Raj shook his right arm free, and the cords fell to the floor. “I think he only intended the arm to guard me. But it looked like his access to BioSyn was limited even after he jiggered the security protocols. I don’t think he realized the bot would try to take me apart.”

She went to work on his left arm. “We’ll have to keep him better guarded.”

“At the least.” Raj scraped at the knots with his free hand. “It would be better, though, if he came here of his own free will.”

“Free will.” Her hands stilled. “It’s come to that, hasn’t it? He’s becoming self-aware.”

Raj met her gaze. “Yeah, I think so.”

She smiled slightly. “He could do it with a less aggravation.”

“No kidding.” He finished freeing his left wrist. “How we respond to this will impact how he views moral responsibility.”

“Given the choice, I’ll bet he’d come here to see what we thought of his shenanigans.”

“Let’s try this,” Raj said. “Tell the LPs to let him leave the Solarium, but keep a guard on him.”

“All right.”

While she worked on the console, Raj untied his ankles. He blew out a gust of air, stirring the hair that had fallen into his eyes. She was immensely glad that hadn’t been him in the hallway outside her room. However, the incident had given her an idea of how awkward it could be to mix their personal and professional lives.

Raj stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. “Did Ander tell you what he wants?”

“Me, I think.” She didn’t know which was going to embarrass her more: telling him that she had kissed an android or that she had thought she kissed him.

Raj went very still, watching her face. “What did he do?”

His tone startled her. “What’s wrong?”

“He said something while he was sabotaging the LPs.” Raj shifted his weight. “Some business about him having the guts to do whatever it was that, according to him, I supposedly wanted with you.” He paused. “So did he, uh, do anything?”

“He made his voice sound like yours.”

“And?”

“He, um … kissed me.”

“Megan, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Raj seemed at a loss for a response. She couldn’t think of one either, at least not anything that wouldn’t make them even more uncomfortable. She was too aware of how close they were standing. In her bare feet, she came to his shoulder. She took a step back.

“Ander wants to make his own decisions about his life,” Raj said. With reluctance, he added, “And despite how annoying he’s being about it, he should have the right to choose.”

Although Megan agreed, she doubted MindSim would appreciate their billion-dollar android walking off into the sunset. She glanced at the console. It showed a glowering Ander pacing back and forth in the atrium. His image blurred at the edges; even BioSyn couldn’t make perfect high-resolution holos of moving objects in real time.

“We need to talk to him,” she said.

“Did you really think he was me?” Raj asked.

She avoided his gaze. “At first.”

“How did you figure out something was wrong?”

Megan turned back to him. “He was rude. Clumsy.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “And that made you think it wasn’t me?”

Gently, she said, “Yes.”

“Well, hell.” Then he winced. “Sorry. I don’t usually swear so much.” After a pause, he added, “Yeah, okay, I do. But I try to clean it up around you.”

Although she didn’t mind his language, she liked that it mattered to him what she thought. “No worries. I’ve heard a lot worse.”

“Megan.”

“Yes?”

“When you thought Ander was me …”

“Yes?”

“You kissed him back?”

He would have to ask that. “Uh. Yeah. I did.”

“Then I am flattered.” His voice was low. “Forgive me for saying this, but you truly are a beautiful woman.”

She didn’t know how to accept his compliment. In her youth, she had been too tall, all elbows and sharp corners, with frizzy red hair and Coke-bottle glasses. In her teens, her body had rounded out, laser surgery fixed her eyes, and her hair grew into silky curls. But her self-image had already been set. Now her old insecurities jumped in, insisting Raj would lose interest when he realized she was a gawky nerd. So instead of a simple “thank you,” she said, “Have you had your sanity checked?”

His laugh crinkled the lines around his eyes. “I hope not. I might not like what they find.” Then he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s all right.”

He spoke carefully. “You weren’t offended that he tried to kiss you when you thought he was me?”

She answered in a soft voice. “No.”

For a moment he did nothing except look at her face, his expression gentle. Then he put his hands on her waist and paused, giving her a chance to say no. It was the same gesture Ander had used, but his courtesy was a world of difference from the android. Logic told her to stop; instinct said go. What happened with Ander had been false. This was real.

Raj is worth the risk. She slid her palm along his chest.

His shoulders relaxed and he pulled her into his arms. She inhaled his scent, a mixture of spices and the crisp smell of his jumpsuit. Sliding her hands up his back, she traced the planes and ridges of his muscles. When he kissed her, it was tender, experienced, sensual.

After a moment, he spoke by her ear. “Sweet Megan.”

“Beautiful you.” As soon as the words escaped, she wanted to kick herself. What a stupid thing to say. For all she knew, men considered “beautiful” an insult.

“Have you had your sanity checked lately?” he asked, with the exact same phrasing she had used on him. When she thumped his back, he laughed and pulled back to look at her. “It’s hard to believe you thought he was even clumsier than me.”

“You aren’t clumsy.” No way.

“I can’t talk well even when I want to.” He shook his head. “Do you know what idiot savant means? I graduated summa cum laude from Harvard when I was eighteen and had my doctorate from MIT by twenty-one. But socially I’m a half-wit.”

“That’s not true.” Sure, he was introverted and maybe a bit eccentric, and yes, many people considered those character flaws. On his behalf, she resented that attitude. “You’re fine just the way you are.”

“For that, the jaguar promises not to devour you.” In a low voice he added, “At least not until later.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” With reluctance, she added, “But we better deal with Ander now.”

“Yeah, we should.”

They went to the console and told the LPs to let Ander leave the Solarium. A moment later he stopped pacing and gave the camera a wary look. Then he walked forward. The view changed, as if the LP was backing up from him. So he left the Solarium and stalked through Level Two. He seemed to choose his direction at random, like a furious youth unsure where he wanted to take his anger.

Although Raj stood by the console, Megan didn’t think he was watching that closely. He seemed lost in thought. It brought to her mind the pictures she had seen of ancient Greek statues that celebrated both the intellect and body. However, she enjoyed watching him because of Raj himself, not because of he reminded her of art. With his remarkable mind, he would have drawn her regardless of his appearance or what other people considered his flaws.

“We need to defuse his resentment,” Raj said. “I’m not sure, though, that it’s resentment in the way we think of it.”

“I don’t think he knows himself—Raj, lookout!”

He didn’t hesitate, just dropped into a crouch, barely in time to avoid a robot arm swinging down from the ceiling. Long and jointed, it passed through the area where he had been standing. Megan spun around—

And saw Ander.

He was standing on the catwalk across the lab and above them, speaking into a jCube. Dressed in Raj’s blue jeans and sweater, with gold curls falling into his face, he looked absurdly innocent. He must have programmed the robot arms to respond to his signals. He had also jimmied the door behind him, closing it on his harried LP guard. The door hadn’t hurt the LP, which was trying to work itself free, but it added to Megan’s ire.

“Ander, stop it!” she yelled. “You’ll hurt someone.”

“That’s the point,” Raj muttered as he stood up. “Me, specifically.” He dodged a smaller robot arm as it swung across the lab. It thunked into the console and came to a vibrating stop, its clawed hand bent at the joint. An alarm blared and red lights flared up and down along the arm.

“Ander!” Megan scowled at him. “You stop this now!”

“You two are talking about me,” he said. “I want to know what you’re saying.”

“Come down and we’ll talk,” Raj said.

“No!”

“Fine,” Megan said. “We’ll do it without you.” She turned to the console and tried to enter a command, but BioSyn ignored her input. Undeterred, she accessed BioShadow, a hidden server she had set up to deal with anomalous situations, which today apparently included rapscallion androids.

Raj went to work on the other console. Up on the catwalk, Ander frowned at them, then spoke into his cube. It immediately became clear why; he was trying to use BioSyn to keep them out of BioShadow. They easily evaded his attempts. This time.

She re-established her links to the LPs and sent Echo and Trackman after Ander. Echo rolled under the catwalk and Tackman boarded the elevator, which rose with a hum. Up on the catwalk, the LP that Ander trapped had finally freed itself and was rolling toward the android.

“Wait.” Raj looked up from his work at the other console. “Megan, have them hold off.”

She paused with her finger poised above the panel that would put her through to Echo. “Why?”

“They’re stronger than Ander. If they drag him down here, they could damage him. Even if they don’t hurt him physically, it’d humiliate him to have his first jab at independence quashed that way.” Dryly he added, “Though he does make it tempting.”

“I’ll tell them to play nice.” She directed the LPs to guard Ander but otherwise leave him alone unless he endangered himself or one of them, in which case they were welcome to haul his misbehaving ass down here.

Echo stood under the catwalk, its communications lights blinking as it and the other two LPs exchanged data like a trio of gossiping tin cans. The LP on the walkway stopped and stayed put. The elevator had reached the catwalk. Trackman rolled off the platform, toward Ander, but came to a halt ten feet away from him. Ander glowered and waved his hand to shoo it away. Trackman just blinked its lights, orange for a low-level alert.

“Ander,” Raj said. “We want you to come down.”

He glared at them. “No. You’ll turn me off.”

“And if I promise we won’t?” Megan asked.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t promise him,” Raj said in a low voice. “We may have to break our word. We have to get him out of BioSyn.”

Two robot arms suddenly detached from their ceiling cradles and swung through the lab, barely avoiding each other as they passed. When they moved apart, the smaller arm here by the lab chair hurtled between them like a gnarled pendulum. The two arms reached the top of their arcs and reversed direction, coming back at each other. They smashed together with a crash. As Megan swore, alarms shrilled and red lights flashed along the giant limbs. The three LPs that were supposed to keep Ander from wreaking havoc stood placidly in place, orange lights aglow.

“For crying out loud,” Megan said. “How does he do that?” She delved deeper into BioShadow, bringing up more security programs and setting them to fight Ander’s infiltration.

“Hey!” Ander yelled. “Stop that!” He shook a yellow strut of the catwalk, rattling it loudly. “What are you two doing?”

Megan swung around. “You come here.”

“Fuck, no,” Ander said.

Well listen to that. His verbal ability was developing by leaps and bounds. “Enough with the language.”

“Tell that to Dr. Brooding down there.”

“Is that supposed to be me?” Raj muttered as he worked.

The robot arms kept swinging, mostly missing each other, but scraping by with glancing blows every now and then, sending bits of tech raining to the floor. Not one blasted LP had moved. How had Ander become so adept at finagling their systems? Well, tough. She could out-finagle any misbehaved android.

It didn’t take her and Raj long to isolate Ander’s invasion into BioSyn. They stopped the swinging arms, and the giant limbs hung there, their lights flashing red and orange like deranged Christmas trees. When the blaring alarms turned off, the abrupt silence came like a breath of relief.

Ander leaned over the rail, his arm and shoulder jerking. “It won’t do you any good. I’ll find another way into the system.”

“Ander, be careful!” Megan called.

She had no idea whether he tried to pull back and lost control, or if he was trying to provoke her and misjudged. The result was the same: he lost his balance and threw his arms out in a futile attempt to grab a strut of the walkway. His jCube flew out of his hand and sailed through the air.

With a cry, Ander plunged over the rail.

IX

FREE WILL

Ander hit the ground with sickening thud. The jCube smashed down next to him and shattered on the floor.

Megan sprinted across the lab and dropped to her knees next to his body. His skeleton was less brittle than bone; instead of cracking, it had bent. His right leg was wrenched backward and his right arm had twisted at the elbow until it made a sharp angle with his upper arm. His right hand had broken halfway off his wrist. Unlike a human, who probably would have died from such a fall, he was staring straight at them.

“Can you hear me?” Megan asked.

Raj knelt next to them. “Ander?”

“No!” Ander held out his good hand, palm outward at Raj. “Don’t turn me off.”

“We won’t,” Megan said. “But you have to stop all this.”

“Promise you won’t turn me off.”

“You do as Megan tells you,” Raj said. “Understand? Screw up once more and you get deactivated.”

Ander regarded him with a sulk. “I’d never hurt Megan.”

“Good.” In a gentler voice, Raj added, “We’ll take care of your injuries.”

Megan wondered if Raj realized he had said injuries rather than repairs. She laid her hand on Ander’s broken arm. He looked up at her—and a tear slid out of his eye.

“Good Lord,” she said. Where had he learned to cry?

“It’s crocodile tears,” Raj said, watching her face. “I designed the prototype. His ducts condense liquid out of the coolant for his hydraulics.”

“Quit talking about me like I’m not here,” Ander said. “I cry when I fucking feel like it, asshole.”

“Keep up with that filthy mouth,” Raj told him, “and I’ll clean it out with your crocodile coolant.”

Ander clenched his fist, the one that wasn’t broken. “It’s no different than how you talk when she’s not here.”

“Ander, stop.” Megan couldn’t help but react as if he were an injured human being, one who despite his vexing behavior mattered to her. “I don’t understand why you did that identity switch. You must have known it would backfire.”

“Yes, I calculated that probability,” he said. “But I calculated a higher probability that if you slept with me, you would transfer your interest from him to me.”

“For crying out loud,” Raj said.

Megan spoke quietly. “You calculated wrong. I’d have been furious if you pushed it any further.” Working with care, she straightened his arm. She couldn’t completely fix him here on the floor, but she needed his limbs enough in place so they could move him to the chair without the broken pieces causing more internal damage. The entire time she was aware of Raj working on his jCube, monitoring Ander’s limbs as she shifted heir position. She tried not to imagine what he was thinking. Transfer your interest from him to me. She might as well have shouted, I want you, Raj!

“Megan, are you all right?” Raj asked.

She went to work straightening Ander’s leg. “Yes, fine.”

“Your face is the color of your hair.”

“It’s nothing. Really.” She couldn’t look at him.

He spoke softly. “You’re always so cool, like a long, tall drink. I thought you resented my being here.”

She glanced up, startled out of her embarrassment. “Raj, no. I was glad when you came. We need you.” Especially now, with Ander breaking himself up. Literally.

“I don’t put people at ease.” Raj cleared his throat. “Especially people that, uh, I want to—to know better.”

Megan felt as if she were melting. “You do just fine.”

“Oh please,” Ander said, “If this gets any more sentimental, I’m going to puke.”

“That would be a feat,” Raj said, “considering that you don’t have the plumbing for it.”

Ander ignored him, lying on his back while they worked on his broken limbs. It troubled Megan. She knew he felt no pain, but he looked as if he should be in agony.

The entire time, Ander was studying her face. “I’m not a job to you anymore,” he said. “You want me. Admit it.”

“You mean a lot to me,” she said. “But not in that way.” She doubted he understood what “that way” meant except as a mechanical process. “I kissed you because I thought you were Raj.”

“Except I wasn’t.” He lifted a lock of her hair with his good hand. “What you enjoyed, that was me. Not him.”

Megan pulled her hair away. “No, Ander.” He hadn’t been convincing as Raj, but who knew what would happen when he could pull off better impersonations. He was going to make one hell of a spy. Either that, or a sociopath.

“You can’t push a person into wanting you,” Raj said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

Ander snorted. “You’d know, wouldn’t you?”

Raj didn’t rise to the bait, he just kept working.

“You’re a hypocrite,” Ander told him. “It’s okay if you try to seduce her, but if I try, I’m malfunctioning?”

Raj let out an exasperated grunt but otherwise kept his silence. Megan understood. Ander didn’t have the capacity to deal with the emotions he was stirring up. If she and Raj weren’t careful, they could harm him with words they would later regret.

She glanced at Raj. “I think we can move him now.”

“I’ll try,” Raj said.

Megan had intended to help, but Raj easily picked up the android, with great care. She had thought he would be abrupt, but he treated Ander more like an injured son. Ander stared at them as if he wasn’t sure what emotion to model.

Although Ander weighed as much as a human, Raj showed no sign of strain as he carried him to the lab chair. It didn’t surprise Megan. Although Raj avoided her in the gym, the log showed that he worked out every day. Not that she objected to the result. It just struck her as an unexpected hobby for someone who seemed like he would prefer solving equations to lifting weights.

After Raj set Ander in the chair, the android sank into the cushioned seat with what looked like relief. At the console, Megan used BioShadow to verify that Ander’s sabotage hadn’t done any permanent damage to the system. She touched a panel, and the chair hummed like a distant swarm of bees as it unfolded into a table.

Ander lay on his back. “Are you going to turn me off while you operate?”

Operate. Not repair. “Do you want me to?”

He tensed, his shoulders hunching up. “No.”

The fear in his voice, simulated or not, unsettled her. “Then I won’t.”

Raj was watching her. When she met his gaze, he nodded. Maybe he understood her conflicted reaction to the android. He went to the other console and called up his account on BioSyn.

Megan pressed a crease behind Ander’s ear, and a disk of skin clicked outward, revealing a socket. “Arm two, I need a diagnostic.”

An unpleasant grinding noise behind her, like a protest. She turned to see a broken robot arm hanging in the air, looking forlorn with its cracked elbow. Arm two had problems.

She turned toward another arm that with all green flickered on its unbroken length. “Arm four, do a body scan of the RS-4.”

The arm whirred as it swung to the lab chair. As it clocked one of its fingers into the socket behind Ander’s ear, Megan stiffened. She had just seen another of those arms try similar with Raj, nearly slicing him open with a knife. The process no longer looked so innocent.

“Does that hurt?” she asked Ander.

“It doesn’t feel like anything.” He sounded bored.

Panels along the arm glowed with data: the bellows that moved his chest had collapsed, the hydraulics that cooled his systems had several breaks, a valve had twisted, a conduit that carried nutrients to his skin had burst, and the sinus reservoir that made his tears, sweat, and saliva had a sprung a leak.

Neither the microfusion reactor that powered his body nor its shielding showed any damage. No surprise there: both were designed to survive far worse. His body could explode without harming those elements. The sperm unit in his testes was fine, as was his food reservoir and waste-removal system. However, gashes marred his synthetic muscles and their nanofilament sheathes. The worst damage to his skeleton were the “bones” of his right leg and arm. His wrist had nearly snapped off his body.

A chill went through Megan. Had he been flesh and blood, he would have died the moment he hit the floor.

“We’ll make you better,” she told him.

Although Ander nodded, his face showed fear now instead of boredom. It wasn’t a vivid emotion; he still had trouble with the nuances of many expressions. But his features were becoming more mobile.

BioSyn spoke. “Diagnostics complete.” It created holos of Anders internal systems above both Megan and Raj’s console.

“Can we open him up?” Raj asked, studying the holos.

“It will further damage his filaments,” BioSyn said.

Megan exhaled. That would be a problem. His filaments acted as a bio-computer. They were thinner than the silicon transistors on integrated chips, more durable, and more heat tolerant, which meant they produced three-dimensional arrays more easily than silicon devices. They laced throughout his body, forming his brain. It made him less vulnerable to attack, since his brain had no central location, but it also meant she and Raj would encounter them no matter where they worked, lacy films that in some places were no thicker than a molecule.

To some extent, the filaments could mend themselves; when broken, the dangling bonds in the fullerenes of their structure could reattach. But it was only a partial fix. Although chemists had been building nanotubes since the late twentieth century, the tubes couldn’t yet self-replicate with reliability. She could help by injecting him with chemicals that catalyzed the reactions, but she would have to direct the repairs and do a good deal of them herself. In other words, she was about to perform brain surgery.

“BioSyn,” she said. “How much can Ander fix himself?”

“About twenty percent. I can also do a bit.”

“All right,” Raj said. “We’ll start with nanos and wires.”

“No!” Ander pushed up on his elbows.

“What’s wrong?” Megan asked.

“You didn’t ask.” He banged the robot arm that had plugged into his socket. “You tell these to work on me as if I’m one of them. They might not care, but I do.”

His growing sense of self gratified Megan, but she wished it didn’t come with so many objections. “Is it all right with you if we start now?”

“I … I don’t know.”

She spoke gently. “Ander, we’ll be careful. I promise.”

He took a breath, then lay down. “Okay. Go ahead.” His apprehension didn’t sound quite right, but if she hadn’t known it was simulated, she would have accepted it as genuine.

“Arm four, proceed,” Raj said.

A hum came from the arm plugged into Ander. Within moments, the holos of his internal structure began to improve. The bones straightened. A gash in a muscle began to repair itself. Raj studied the changing holos with an absorption so total, Megan wondered how he remembered to breathe.

“Preliminary work complete,” BioSyn said. “I’ve done as much as I can safely manage without aid.”

Ander looked up at them. “You’re going to open me now?”

“The sooner we do,” Raj said, “the better.”

Ander considered him with a long, uneasy stare. Then he turned to Megan. “Promise. You won’t do harm.”

She laid her hand on his shoulder, offering him the same comfort she would have given a family member in the hospital. “You have my promise.”

A crack came from across the chair. Megan looked to see Raj clenching a switch in his fist. It had snapped off a panel under his hand. Looking down, he flushed and opened his fist, holding the switch cupped in his palm.

Ander held onto Megan’s wrist. “Don’t let him work on me.”

“I won’t hurt you,” Raj said.

Megan met Raj’s gaze and tilted her head toward the catwalk. With a nod, he set the broken switch on the console.

Ander looked back and forth between them. “What are you doing?”

“Raj and I need to talk,” Megan said. “In private.”

“If you have something to say about me, I want to hear it.”

“We’ll talk to you. But we need to talk first.” The last thing she wanted was for him to listen while they discussed what they might have to do with him. “I’m sorry, but we’ll need to put you to sleep while we’re not right here.”

“No! Have the LPs guard me.”

It was a reasonable compromise, assuming he hadn’t bollixed up the LPs again. “All right, as long as they pass our security check.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”

Thank you. He didn’t often say the words. She paged Echo and Trackman, and they responded this time, Trackman descending in the elevator and Echo rolling out from under the catwalk. As they took up posts on either side of Ander, Megan checked that nothing remained of his tampering in their systems. Raj turned down Ander’s hearing so the android couldn’t eavesdrop. The whole time, Ander lay back and stared at the ceiling like a long-suffering prisoner condemned to the gallows. It almost made Megan laugh, but she held back, not wanting to offend his new-found dignity.

After they finished their checks, she and Raj walked to the area under the catwalk. Raj motioned at Ander. “I still think we should turn him off while we operate.”

“I’m not sure.” She searched for words to describe what she felt on an instinctual level. “When a toddler asserts its independence by yelling ‘No!’ his parents have to set limits, sure. But they don’t deactivate their kid.”

“He’s not a kid. He’s a weapon.” Raj glanced at the lab chair. Ander had sat up and was squinting at them, obviously trying to read their lips. Turning so Ander couldn’t see his face, Raj said, “Didn’t one of your reports say a just an ordinary shoe box made him go unstable?”

“Not exactly.” His question surprised her. Surely he had studied the reports. She described the incident, ending with, “He couldn’t move, his face turned red, and he kept demanding a plane.”

Raj smiled. “That must have been a sight.”

“It was.” She sighed. “Both heartbreaking and funny.”

“To fix it, did you readjust his fear tolerances?”

“That’s right.” Odd. Raj should already know that. “Even for the smallest behavior, Ander has billions of responses to choose from. When I change the weight of just one stimulus, it can affect all of those possible responses.”

“He writes some of the code to do that himself.”

“Yes.” They were skirting her most controversial work. She spoke carefully. “His caps limit how much he rewriting he can do. That’s why he used to freeze up. Too many caps.”

Raj frowned. “Are you saying you took them away completely?”

“In some cases. It was the only way to make him work.”

“This wasn’t in your reports.” His voice had gone taut. “Those caps are crucial. Without them, he has no controls. We have no control.”

“It is in one of my reports,” she said, puzzled. “The one about tolerances.”

“You mean the one on the crosslight code? The rewrites you did to strengthen Ander’s conscience?” When she nodded, he made an exasperated sound. “Megan, a grad student in English literature could write an entire dissertation on trying to decipher that report.”

Not this again. She folded her arms and glared at him. “Just because my prose isn’t transparent doesn’t mean I’m trying to confuse people.”

“Sorry.” He squinted at her. “Maybe I’m just slow, but I could have used a bit more transparency.”

Don’t prickle, she thought. She lowered her arms. “You aren’t the first person to tell me that.” Ruefully, she added, “Shakespeare, I’m not. I write software much better than reports. But Raj, you of all people should have understood what I was writing about.”

He started to answer, then stopped. His face had taken on a closed look again. He walked over to a column that supported the catwalk above them and leaned against it, staring out at the lab. “I only skimmed some of those reports.”

She hadn’t expected that. He seemed like the type who’d be compulsive about reading the background on a project. “Why?”

He spoke in a low voice. “Because they arrived just after my father died.”

Good Lord. No wonder. “Raj, I’m terribly sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have let it affect my work. But I …” He pushed his hand through his hair. “It’s no excuse.” He turned back to her. “I’ve been catching up at night on the reading. I’ll have it done soon.”

“It’s okay. A few days won’t matter.”

“Maybe I would have foreseen this mess with Ander if I hadn’t been so distracted.”

“I think it would have happened regardless.” She wanted to reach out to him, but she sensed the protective space he put around himself. “It’s how we differ from him. Your mourning, your capacity to feel, those are part of what makes you human.”

“This isn’t the time.” Softly he said, “But thank you.”

“Hey!” Ander yelled. “How long are you two going to huddle over there?”

“Great timing,” Megan muttered. Then she called, “Five more minutes.”

“How many of his caps did you change?” Raj asked.

She shifted her weight. “Umm … about four million.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“It was the only way to make him work. He had no capacity for friendship or love.”

“He’s not supposed to love! He’s a weapon.”

“Raj, he was a mess. If he’d been human, I would have sent him to a shrink.”

“That’s a good idea,” Raj said. “I’m serious. We need an expert to look at him, a psychologist or a doctor.”

At least they were on the same page there, even if he didn’t agree about the caps. “I’ve requested a therapist. We have a candidate, but her security clearance hasn’t come through yet.”

Raj glanced at Ander, who had given up glaring at them and stretched out on his back again. “He needs a male doctor. A role model. I’m hardly the best choice for his socialization.”

“You’re fine.” She wished she could make him see that. “To be honest, I doubt he would accept new people right now.”

“All the more reason to deactivate him until we know how to deal with him.”

“Don’t you see? To Ander, that would be a betrayal. If we lose his trust now, we may never regain it.”

He regarded her steadily. “It’s better we lose his trust than we damage him.”

That, of course, was the crux of the matter. They needed more time to figure this out. “Let’s try asking him again if he’ll let us deactivate him. If we can convince him to agree, our problem is solved.”

“You talk to him,” Raj said. “He trusts you more. I’ll go fix the robot arms.”

“All right.”

While Raj headed to the storage bins for parts, Megan returned to the chair. As she approached, Ander sat up.

“Don’t listen to him,” he said. “Please. If you do, I won’t survive.”

“Ander—”

“You have to listen to me!” He took a breath. “You see, I know his secret.”

X

DO NO HARM

“What secret?” Megan asked.

Ander hesitated. After a moment, he waved his hand at Raj, who was out of earshot. “He hates me. He’s jealous.”

She didn’t buy that answer for one moment. Ander had intended to say something else and then changed his mind.

“Why would he be jealous?” she asked.

“Because of you.”

“You think Raj sees you as a rival?”

“Doesn’t he?”

“No. He wants what’s best for you.”

Ander snorted. “Like I don’t know myself what’s best.”

She had her doubts. “Raj wants to help you.”

“He wants me gone.”

“Why? He came here to work on you.”

“He loathes me.”

She sighed. “Ander, Raj likes you fine.”

He turned away and stared across the lab with an excellent simulation of indignation. Raj was some distance away, intent on repairing the broken fingers of robot arm two.

Megan tried again. “What did he do that convinced you he hates you?”

She expected more glowering, but instead Ander said. “I don’t know.” He turned back to her. “Actually, sometimes he speaks up for me even more than you do.”

“Then you see. He does support you.”

“No! Yes. I don’t know. You treat him differently than you treat me. He’s human. Do I have to be human for you to like me?”

“Good Lord, no. Of course not.”

“I’m losing control.” He lifted his broken wrist as if offering her evidence. “The more I try to rewrite myself, the worse it gets. I’m having trouble predicting my own behavior.”

Her voice softened. “That sounds human to me.”

He regarded her with a vulnerable gaze. “Can you really operate better if I’m asleep?”

“Yes.” She dreaded the prospect of taking him apart while he watched. “Otherwise, I’ll feel as if I’m hurting you.”

“I don’t feel pain.”

“I know.” She lifted her hands. “Human emotions don’t always follow logic.”

“Then why teach a machine to act with emotion?”

Good question. “I’ve never considered logic and emotion as separate. Our ability to think is only fully realized when we have both.”

Ander rubbed his hand over his eyes as if he were tired, though he technically he couldn’t experience that state. “All right. You can put me to sleep.”

Relief washed over her. “Thank you.”

“Should I lie down?” Now he sounded nervous. When she nodded, he lay on his back.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Wait.” He motioned toward Raj. “If he says you should leave me deactivated or dismantle me, ask him about the Phoenix Project.”

Was this what he had meant by Raj’s secret? “I’ve never heard of it.”

“I don’t know what it is, exactly.” He avoided her gaze. “I came across it when, uh, we were browsing the web. It has to do with another AI project he worked on.”

His big baby blues didn’t fool her. She would have bet her next paycheck he had found a way to bypass her controls on his browsing and gone prowling in places he didn’t belong. When they had finished fixing this mess, she would have to talk to him about that.

For now, she said only, “I’ll ask him.”

Ander spoke stiffly. “Go ahead, then.”

“Sleep well,” she murmured. She could no longer turn him off by voice or wireless: only the manual option remained. So she either had to open him up or else have BioSyn do it by using the smart-wires it had inserted into his port.

She spoke to the air. “BioSyn, deactivate Ander.”

A hum came from the robot arm. Ander stiffened, staring at her as if he were about to drown. Then his eyes closed and his face relaxed.

“Deactivated,” BioSyn said.

Megan brushed Ander’s curls off his forehead. “Raj,” she called. “He’s asleep.”

Raj made a last adjustment on the arm, then set his tool case on the floor and came over. “How did he take it?”

“Pretty well.” She watched Ander. “This may be the last time he agrees of his own free will.”

Raj seemed to understand her unspoken thought. “MindSim knows he can’t do his job without the ability to make that choice.”

“True free will means he can choose his job.” She regarded Raj steadily. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be a spy or whatever. Without that choice, it’s slavery.”

An edge came into his voice. “All of us live our lives as our circumstances dictate.”

“You can live however you choose.”

He braced his hands on the console and leaned forward. “Why? Because I have choices? Because I’m a good person? No. I’m an arrogant bastard. I can live how I want because I’m rich.” His intensity didn’t hide the pain behind his words. “What about my great-grandfather who had nothing when he immigrated here from India? He was a far better man than I am. But he had no choices. He worked day and night and endured intolerance and social isolation, all so he could feed his family. You call that free will?”

Hearing his anger, she wondered if Raj had experienced the similar. All the wealth in the world wouldn’t stop prejudice from hurting. “It makes what he accomplished all the more impressive. But he still chose to come here.”

Raj spoke in a quieter voice. “I know you see the potential for a better world in Ander. Unfortunately, that dream has a flip side. Suppose he doesn’t share our values? We have a responsibility to ensure, to the best of our ability, that he does no harm, even if it means limiting his options.”

“If we control him, we violate those same values.” She met his gaze. “We too must do no harm.”

“Ideally, yes. But you’re being idealistic if you believe we can do this project without more control.”

“It’s worth the risk.”

“I’m just not sure at this point.” His expression gentled. “You see the good in people, even when it’s buried deep. Whatever we decide with Ander, don’t let that change your faith in humanity.”

She gave a self-conscious smile. “Well, you know what they say. Can’t teach an old Megan new tricks.”

His grin flashed. “Makes me wonder what old tricks you know.”

Ah, that smile. “Tell you what. You fill me in on Phoenix while we work on Ander and I’ll tell you my tricks.”

He blinked. “Fill you in on what?”

“The Phoenix Project. Ander thought it might help us.”

“You mean at Arizonix?”

“Phoenix is their android work?” This could be interesting.

Raj leaned over the lab chair. “Don’t be a duck. Yes, they had a Phoenix Project. I never worked on it. MindSim couldn’t have hired me otherwise. It’s proprietary information. Even if I knew anything, I couldn’t talk about it.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Know anything?”

“You’re incorrigible, you know that?” He straightened up. “Besides, I was only at Arizonix for a few days.”

Oh, well. “Ander wasn’t big on details.”

“I’m not surprised.” Raj turned to the android. “We should get started.”

She tapped her console where the glowing display read 3:14 A.M. “It’s late. Maybe we should do it tomorrow.”

“I’m good with working now if you are.”

She felt too wired to sleep. “Sure, now is fine.”

He laid his palm on Ander’s arm. “Let’s go, then.”

They opened Ander’s chest in a seam that split down his torso. Megan winced at the sight of his damaged skeleton. His bones were designed from a composite, which gave them strength and flexibility, so they suffered less breakage than true bone and less fatigue than metal alloys. But his arm and leg on his right side were smashed and twisted out of place. The silvery nanocircuit filaments that sheathed his organs were ripped apart by the jagged ends of his broken hydraulics.

While Raj examined Ander with robot arms he controlled from his console, Megan analyzed the leg and arm. Holos of Ander’s skeleton continued to rotate like ghosts of blue light above their consoles. BioSyn figured out what the bones should look like without the damage and showed those images in red. If they merged the red and blue images, the resulting holos blurred where they weren’t identical, and the broken bones stuck out at odd angles. As they worked, the holos changed, showing the effect of the repairs.

“Arm four,” Megan said. “Rotate the left ulna through eighty-three degrees toward the A-two y-axis.” The holos changed, but she wasn’t satisfied. “Try eighty-two point five degrees. Keep fine-tuning the rotation until the red and blue holos match.”

The arm responded, moving its long fingers with a delicacy no human could match, a startling contrast to the massive structures that supported the mechanical limb.

Fixing Ander’s arm was fairly easy, but she had more trouble with his leg. Even after she straightened the limb, it had a slight twist. Every time she tried to untwist the bone, it threw another part of his leg out of alignment. The twist was small enough that she finally decided to leave it alone. If he had trouble, they would rebuild that part of his skeleton.

Raj fixed Ander’s spine and rib cage, then turned to the sinus reservoirs and torn filaments. He did a great deal of the work himself. Although Megan had known he had a gift for this work, she hadn’t appreciated its full measure until now. It was like seeing a virtuoso at the piano.

They also had to make sure Ander’s repairs didn’t show from the outside. He had to appear human. His chest had to rise and fall, his veins had to show a pulse, his seams had to blend into his skin without a trace.

Megan lost all sense of time, focused on the delicate processes. It wasn’t until they closed up his body that she realized the clock read 12:33 P.M. They had worked all morning and into the afternoon.

Raj rubbed his eyes. “I think he’ll be all right.”

“You’re work is artistry,” she said.

“Thanks.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot like a great cat who had spent his energy in runs across the plains during the night but wasn’t yet ready to sleep. “Are you going back to your room?”

“I think so.” She felt nervous now, once again aware of him as a man rather than a colleague.

“I’ll walk you back.”

“Okay.”

They left the LPs to guard Ander. As they walked toward the elevator, Raj put his arm around her shoulders. A pleasant flush spread in her body, and she slid her arm around his waist. She was aware of his solid muscles pressed into her skin through her robe.

They walked down the creatively named Corridor D of Level Two. On Corridor B, they stopped outside her room. Deja vu swept over Megan as she remembered the last time she had stood here, with Ander. She folded her arms and shivered.

Raj drew her around to face him. “Are you cold?”

She smiled, so glad this was the real Raj and not Ander’s caricature. “I’m warming up.”

He touched her temple. “Do you know your eyes are the same color blue as the alternate function key on my calculator?”

Megan sputtered out a laugh. “You’re such a sweet-talker.”

He grinned and bent his head. She wasn’t sure which of them initiated the kiss, but they both relaxed into it, tender at first and then more intense. She liked the way he held her, as though he had made a new discovery. It all felt fresh, the two of them like new-minted coins.

Eventually they moved into her room. She stopped at the bed, though. “Raj … it’s too soon.”

He brushed back a tendril of her hair. “Just knowing you’re here is what matters.” He intertwined his fingers with hers. “At night when I can’t sleep, I feel like I’m surrounded by nothing, that I’m lost in the darkness and isolation. It’s lonely.”

The bleak image unsettled her. “You miss people?”

He hesitated. “Yes and no. To be honest, I don’t usually like being with people. Their personalities press on me. It’s claustrophobic, not in space but—I don’t know how to say it. In emotions? I need to retreat, to recharge. But I hate isolation. Insomnia is even worse when you’re alone, staring at the ceiling, unable to escape into your dreams.” He reddened. “Now you must really think I’m crazy.”

“No you aren’t. This world we live in, it can make you think introversion is wrong. But it’s not.” She cupped his cheek. “Nothing in your wish for privacy takes away from your ability to care for people or your strength of character.”

He pulled her close, one arm around her waist, his other hand sliding across the mass of hair that fell over her shoulders.

“You’ve incredible hair,” he said.

She tangled her hand into his curls. “You, too.” With a grin, she added, “But your eyes most certainly are not the color of the alternate function key on my calculator. It’s orange.”

His laugh rumbled. “Fair enough.”

She held him close, her head against his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I had no idea you felt that way.” He gave a self-deprecatory laugh. “Of course, with women I usually have to be hit on the head with clues before I notice anything.”

She tapped him on the head. “Hi. I’m a clue.”

“Hmm.” He nuzzled her hair. “I can face the insomnia better tonight, knowing you’re near.”

She was tempted to invite him to stay. Then again, she was so tired she’d probably fall asleep no matter what.

“Good night, Megan.” Although he lifted his head, his hands lingered on her waist. The sight of his tall form filling in her room made her aware of his contained strength.

“Raj.”

“Yes?”

“If you would like to stay—I mean, not for, well you know, but if you don’t want to be alone …” She stopped, feeling stupid. Real swift: show a man you like him by inviting him to stay the night and not touch you.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Just to sleep,” he said.

“Just to sleep.” She wasn’t so sure either of them believed it, but never mind. They would just let matters develop.

He smiled. “So off with the lights.”

“Lamp off,” she said.

The lamp on her nightstand blinked off. They lay on top the covers of her bed, Raj on his back and she against his side. He held her and stroked her hair, trailing his fingers down her arm. Then he kissed her forehead, her cheek, her lips, all light touches, like questions asking, More? She settled against him, exploring his body while he kissed and caressed her. This was no awkward youth, like Ander. Raj was intoxicating.

In the end, though, exhaustion won out for both of them. Her mind released its weary focus and the floating sensation that preceded sleep settled over her. Raj’s caresses slowed, languid in the dark, until finally his hand came to a rest on her hip. Then he gave a soft snore.

Megan opened her eyes into dim red light. Raj was dozing next to her, sprawled on his back. With his jumpsuit zipped only halfway up, she could slide her fingers through the curly black hair on his chest. He stirred under her touch, still sleeping. The dusky red light in the room erased the lines around his eyes. So nice to wake up with him here. She stroked his chest, enjoying both the sight and feel of his muscles.

Wait a minute. She shouldn’t be able to see him. She had turned off the lights.

Megan lifted her head, looking around. A red light was glowing on her console. She didn’t want to wake Raj, so she got up as quietly as possible and padded to the computer. Red curves spiraled abstractly in the air above the flat screen, their paths determined by the equations of motion for a billiard ball on a pool table. She had written the screen saver herself, for fun. It shouldn’t be going, though, unless something had kicked her console awake.

She flicked her finger through the holos and her skyscape appeared, white cloud castles in a blue expanse above her console. Desktop icons, what people called holicons, floated among the clouds, including a clock that said 4:14 P.M. The holicon of a horn flashing to one side let her know a message had arrived on her emergency service. Megan frowned. Very few people knew how to contact her that way.

Sitting down, she waved her finger through the horn. A new holo appeared, a spider web with flames flickering at its edges, the image that let her know a message was tagged as top priority. She flicked the spider web and it unraveled into words: Don’t activate your audio unless you are alone.

Megan rubbed her eyes. No signature, nothing. Just that cryptic sentence. She glanced at the bed. Raj was still sleeping, his face and body relaxed. It felt good to see him there. She definitely wasn’t alone. As far as waking him up, that all depended.

Turning to the console, she touched the word Receive on the spider web. The holos disappeared.

She waited.

A word formed on her desk screen: Interactive. A gold key appeared next to it, indicating a secured line. Odd. Apparently when she responded to the message, she had called someone. Who, she had no idea.

Megan touched the word Interactive. The flat screen of her console tilted up until it was almost horizontal. A real time image formed of an unfamiliar man with gray hair. He wore an army uniform with three stars on each shoulder. A general? What the blazes was going on?

The man nodded to her, but he said nothing. Instead, a line of text formed at the bottom of the screen: If you aren’t alone, don’t speak.

She typed at the keyboard. Who are you?

Nicholas Graham, at the Pentagon.

She had seen Graham’s name on documents for the Everest Project. He was the highest level VIP connected with the project. The big brass had come calling, and he looked worried.

She typed, I’m here with Dr. Sundaram.

Can he see you?

No. He’s asleep. Embarrassed by the implications, she added, We worked late.

The general didn’t blink. He also didn’t relax. If he wakes, will he see the screen you are using?

No. Her computer faced the door rather than the bed. He’ll just see me working. Why?

We have reason to believe you’re in danger.

What’s wrong? She doubted he was referring to what had happened with Ander. Even if Graham knew about his antics, the android’s misbehavior was hardly enough to inspire a three-star general to contact her in person on a secured line.

Someone from NEV-5 broke into a network here at the Pentagon, Graham said. They searched many files, including all of mine about the Everest Project.

Megan tensed. How do you know it was someone here?

We traced his path through the web.

She glanced at Raj, then turned back to Graham. You think it was Dr. Sundaram? Why not me?

Was it you?

She stiffened. No.

We have monitors at NEV-5, he typed. They register the weight of the person sitting in a chair connected to a console. They detected someone of Dr. Sundaram’s height, weight, and physical build. Whoever sat in that chair deactivated the cameras recording his actions, but either he didn’t know about the other monitors or else he couldn’t turn them off.

Megan stared at him. She had known, in theory, that the Army monitored this facility, and she knew the locations of the cameras, but she’d had no idea it went as far as what he described. She was suddenly very glad she and Raj hadn’t done anything more than sleep on her bed.

Dr. O’Flannery? Graham typed.

Sorry, she answered. Do you monitor all of our activities that closely?

He shook his head. Not in your day to day. But we do for the consoles and other means of outside communication.

It didn’t thrill her, but it wasn’t that surprising, either, for an installation at this high of a security level. When did the cracker break into the Pentagon?

Last night, late. The break-in started at 11:12 pm and ended at 11:15 pm. We detected it at 11:25 pm.

Relief washed over her. That eliminated Raj. According to BioSyn, he had been tied up in the lab chair during that time. But she had a good guess who had done the deed.

It’s the android, she typed. The RS-4.

Your logs indicate you’ve had problems with him.

Nothing we weren’t prepared to handle. She thought of her conversation with Ander before she had deactivated him. But I think he’s figured out how to hack off-site networks without permission.

Go on.

He asked me if I knew about the Phoenix Project.

Graham revealed almost no reaction. Almost nothing. Just the barest hint, but it was enough. The tensing of his facial muscles, the way he sat a little straighter—it spoke volumes to Megan, who had become hyper-sensitized to nuances of body language and facial expression after working for so many years to simulate emotion in androids. Graham recognized the name Phoenix and he didn’t want her to know.

What did you tell the RS-4? he asked.

That I knew nothing about it. She replayed the conversation with Ander in her mind. He claims he picked it up on the Web. He also said Raj worked on the Phoenix Project.

I see. Graham leaned forward. You must leave NEV-5.

Sir, what’s going on?

We have new information. We need to talk to you, but this line isn’t the best venue. Is the RS unit active?

We turned him off last night.

Leave him that way. Graham typed quickly. Go to Las Vegas. Call (702) 555-8956. Don’t use your cell phone or any Internet line. Use a burner or else a public phone, if you can find one that works. The person you reach will give you further instructions. My concern right now is to get you out of NEV-5.

Can you tell me why you’re worried?

No. I’m sorry.

Megan pushed her hand through her hair, leaving it disheveled around her shoulders and body. She didn’t like any of this. If I’m in danger, she typed, Raj could be, too.

It was a moment before Graham answered. You know Dr. Sundaram better than I do. I’ll trust your judgment about what to tell him. But don’t reveal that I contacted you.

I have to give him a reason for leaving.

He thought for a moment. Perhaps that MindSim recalled you for reasons they say are secured.

Graham had that right. Raj wouldn’t like the reason, but he would almost surely accept it. Companies had become more and more secretive over the years as they secured projects worth billions, to the point where Megan felt that as a consultant, she had to navigate corporate politics more convoluted than the legendary Labyrinth where Theseus had killed the Minotaur of Greek legend.

All right, she typed. She didn’t have the general’s distrust of Raj. Then again, she didn’t have his objectivity, either; a tousled head of black curls and a sexy leather jacket weren’t likely to affect Graham’s judgment.

After they broke the connection, she went over to Raj. He lay on his back, his legs stretched out, one hand on his stomach. Amazing that such a phenomenal intellect could be contained with such a vulnerable human body.

Siting on the bed, she touched his shoulder. He stirred and reached for her, then opened his eyes when he realized she wasn’t beside him.

“Come back,” he said drowsily. “It’s cold.”

Megan would have loved to lie down with him. She felt as if a thread in their lives was breaking before they the chance to finish spinning the line.

“You need to get up,” she said.

“I haven’t slept this well in weeks.” He touched her hand. “Not since my father died.”

She folded her fingers around his. “I’m sorry.”

The lights went off.

“Not again!” Raj said. The bed rustled as if he were sitting up, though it was impossible to tell in the sudden dark.

“That can’t be Ander.” Megan stood up. “We turned him off.” She made her way to her console and rummaged around in the drawers. “Where’s my hand lamp?”

Raj spoke from the darkness. “You left it in the lab.”

She paused, hating the mistrust that crept into her thoughts. She and Raj had worked on BioSyn for hours. Could he have sabotaged the NEV-5 intranet under the guise of fixing Ander?

“I’ve another.” She opened a different drawer and reached for her light stylus. Normally she used it to write on a holo screen, but it would work fine as a flashlight.

She found nothing.

“That makes no sense,” she muttered. “Where did it go?”

“We should check the generator room.” More rustles came from the darkness as Raj walked toward her. “Find out why the backups haven’t come on.”

That gave her pause. If they brought up the generators, it would alert whoever had killed the power that she and Raj were awake. Unless he had caused this. Trust him or not? She had no time to analyze the question, so she went with her instincts.

“We can’t go to the generator room,” she said. “We have to leave NEV-5.”

“Why?” He was only a few feet away from her.

“MindSim left me a message. They said we should leave.”

“What, just leave? Why?”

“They didn’t say.” Dryly she added, “It’s secured.”

“That figures,” he growled. “I am so bloody tired of all this cloak and dagger corporate crap.” His arm brushed her shoulder as he stepped past her. “We need to find your flashlight and go to the generator room. Or the lab.”

“Raj, no.” What they needed to do was get one of those all-terrain cockroaches out of the garage, rise up to the desert, and drive to Las Vegas. With the power off down here, they might have trouble operating the elevator, but it was almost impossible to trap someone inside who knew the base. Security was meant to guard NEV-5 from outsiders, not prevent personnel from leaving. “We have to get out of the base.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is this because of that Phoenix business Ander was so worked up about?”

“I’ve no idea.” She blew out a gust of air. “Why would they tell us to leave if it wasn’t important?”

“I’ve no idea. Why don’t we call them and find out?”

“They said not to call.”

“Why would they tell you that?” Raj asked. “Show me the message.”

“I can’t. The power is out.”

Silence. Then he said, “That’s convenient.”

“I didn’t turn off the power!” This was a mess. “Let’s just get out of here.”

He swore under his breath. “All right. For now. But I’m going to need answers soon.”

“My thought exactly,” she said.

The hallway was pitch black without even the emergency lights that were supposed to provide backup. Going through large open areas was unnerving. They made their way by feeling along the walls, and Megan kept her fingers hooked in Raj’s belt so they didn’t get separated.

“You know,” Raj said, “if this is an ordinary power failure, we’re going to feel pretty silly about skulking around this way.”

“No kidding.” Having the power go out this way a second time just by coincidence, though, seemed about as probable as all the air in the room suddenly going up into one corner.

“Ander must have sabotaged the power,” Raj said.

“How? We turned him off.”

“Maybe he hid a program in BioSyn we didn’t find, one designed to wake him up without human aid.”

It seemed unlikely. But it wasn’t impossible. “He doesn’t trust us.”

Raj snorted. “Trusting people is foolish.”

“Why?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Bugs.”

“You think he bugged these halls?”

“No.” Though Graham’s people might have for all she knew. “The reason you distrust people. It has something to do with insects.”

“Megan, chill on the bugs, okay?”

She didn’t want to chill on anything, not when her safety, maybe even her life, might depend on understanding what motivated him. “Most people don’t go out of their way to rescue insects only because some kids at their school swatted a few.”

“So I’m eccentric. Who cares?”

“What else did those kids do to you?”

He stopped and swung around, pulling her in front of him, his hands gripped on her upper arms. “They shoved my face in nests of them and made me eat them alive. After they beat the crap out of me. Satisfied?”

She froze. “My God. That’s sick.”

“Yeah, well, I learned how to fight back.” Raj took a breath and exhaled slowly. In a quieter voice, he said, “I was too proud back then to ask for help. Hell, I didn’t even understand the word prejudice.” Pain edged his voice. “I felt like I was nothing more than the cockroaches they made me eat. They knew I wanted to be an entomologist. So they tried to make me hate those dreams. Well, screw them. No one takes my dreams.”

“It’s horrible.” She knew firsthand the agony children could inflict on those who were different, and she had dealt only with taunts, never with the kind of brutality he was describing. “I hope they paid for what they did.” It wasn’t the most noble response on her part, but she wanted his tormentors to have suffered for what they inflicted on him.

He spoke dryly. “Success is it’s own revenge. I’ve done better than the whole lot of them combined, ten times over.” His grip on her arms loosened. “But Ander is our problem now. Not my past.”

“He can model our behavior and predict our actions. He may already have guessed we’d go to the lab.” After a moment she added, “If he’s the one behind this.”

“Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you insist we have to leave?” he asked.

“Raj, trust me.”

“Trust you. Sweet Meg.” He drummed his fingers on her arm. “Except I know better. You didn’t survive this cutthroat, high-stakes game we call our ‘industry’ by being sweet. I want to know what you know.”

She spoke quietly. “What makes you think I trust you?”

His voice tightened. “Touché.”

“Let’s just go, okay?”

“Go where?”

“We have to do what Ander wouldn’t expect.”

Silence. Then he said, “We should go to the Solarium. If we climb to the top, we can go through the safety hatch up there to Level One.”

The idea had merit. She would have never thought of it. Their misbehaving android, however, was turning out to be far too adept at predicting their actions. “Why wouldn’t Ander expect that?”

“Because he’s undoubtedly hacked our records.”

Megan recalled what Graham had said about the Pentagon files. Someone had cracked them, either Raj or Ander. “What do those records have to do with the Solarium?”

“It’s not important.” He stepped past her. “Come on.”

She stayed put. “What is it that you don’t want me know?”

“Fine.” Raj spoke tightly. “Ander won’t expect us to climb out that way because he knows I’m afraid of heights. Happy?”

Ouch. No wonder Raj was so angry. The situation was forcing a very private man to reveal parts of himself that she had no doubt he normally locked behind fortified defenses. Heights, insects, insomnia, soap shavings: how many coping mechanisms had his life inflicted on him? And why?

The power was also out in the Solarium. Megan had never been interested in having implants put in her body, but now she wished she had infrared, or IR, lenses that would let her see in the dark by making objects glow according to their temperature.

Stuck in the dark, they made their way forward by bumping into tables and trees. Suddenly Raj’s hand yanked out of hers. Someone grabbed her around the torso, forcing the air out of her lungs. She tried to shout, but only managed a choked noise.

“No one can hear you,” a voice said near her ear. It sounded like Raj. He pressed an air syringe against her arm. With a strength driven by fear, she jerked away. He must have stolen the syringe from the med room.

“Megan!” That was also Raj, several meters away. “Run!”

Whoever was holding her let go. As she swung around, moving with adrenaline-driven speed, a scraping came from nearby, followed by a grunt, then a thud.

“Who’s there?” Megan lunged forward and collided with a chair. Falling across it, she hit a table with an impact that jarred her teeth.

Someone yanked her upright. When she struck out with her fists, he spoke in Raj’s voice. “Enough.”

“No!” It couldn’t be Raj. She didn’t believe it. Ander could mimic him.

As she struggled, her bare arms scraped the rough cloth of his jumpsuit. Jumpsuit? Ander had stolen Raj’s jeans and sweater, and they had left those clothes in the lab. Raj was the one wearing the jumpsuit.

He held her around the torso, pinning her arms to her sides as she struggled. She kept fighting, driven by anger and fear, but whatever he had shot her up with was taking effect.

Her awareness faded until everything went dark.

XI

STEALTH RUN

Jolt.

A jerk knocked Megan against a hard surface. She opened her eyes into moonlight. She was in a vehicle, the HM-15, it looked like, what they called a floater. Silver light slanted through the windows, but her sight was too blurred to see much else. They had to be on the desert; even with the advanced shock system that gave this vehicle its nickname, the car still was still vibrating as it drove, which wouldn’t have happened on a road.

After a moment, she absorbed that she was in the front passenger seat. Someone had wrapped her in her robe as if it were a blanket and pulled the collar over her head. When she shook it aside, she could make out a blur at the wheel. Ander. He was wearing Raj’s sweater and jeans, his blond hair brushed back from his face like a farm boy. How could he look so innocent and cause so much trouble?

The floater was an angular vehicle with flat surfaces. It diffused heat to help it blend into its surroundings like a chameleon. Stealth car. The composite body, dark color, shielded engine, high-tech wheels and suspension, and camouflaged exhaust all helped shield it from sensors. The dashboard was a wonderland of dimmed holographic displays that looked more like the cockpit of a starship than a car dash.

Ander had pulled a cable out of his wrist and jacked into the dash, no doubt connecting to the car’s tracking system. He could use wireless links, but the line was probably more secure. Although the vehicle could drive itself, he kept his hands on the wheel. A meter on the dash indicated he wasn’t linked to any of the driving grids that crisscrossed the country, regulating traffic. Someday the law would require all cars to join, making accidents and traffic jams a thing of the past except when a grid malfunctioned, but for now that link remained voluntary, and Ander hadn’t volunteered to take part.

“What’s going on?” she asked thickly.

Ander glanced at her. “Are you all right?”

“Megan?” a voice rumbled. That came from the back.

Sitting up straighter, she looked around her seat. Raj was seated directly behind her, his wrists tied to a hook where the doorframe met the ceiling, keeping his hands up by his head. He had a bruise on his cheek. His ankles were bound with a net she had used to store potatoes in the kitchen.

“Good Lord,” Megan said. “What happened?”

At the same time that Raj said, “Ander knocked us out,” Ander said, “Raj tried to kill you.”

“The hell with you,” Raj told him. “He’s lying, Megan. He hit me in the Solarium and drugged you.”

“That’s bull,” Ander said. “I caught him using the NEV-5 system to steal files. He realized you were on to him, Megan. So he tried to get rid of you and make it look like I was guilty.”

Megan looked from him to Raj, trying to make her groggy mind work. It wasn’t so long ago that she wouldn’t have thought Ander capable of deliberately lying, but he had developed so much in the past few weeks that she could no longer be sure.

One thing was obvious: Raj had on a khaki jumpsuit, the one Ander had put him in when he tied Raj to the lab chair, the same coverall Raj had been wearing when he and Megan had dozed together.

“Are you saying you didn’t jump me in the Solarium?” she asked Raj.

She expected evasion. Instead he looked puzzled. “Why would you believe otherwise?”

“I felt your jumpsuit when you grabbed me.”

“I didn’t grab you.” He yanked on the ropes that bound his wrists to the hook. “Droidboy here knocked me out and went after you.”

“He’s a liar,” Ander said.

“I started to recover and I tried to warn you,” Raj told Megan. “He came back and hit me again.”

Ander snorted. “Amazing you saw all that in the dark.”

“Like it’s all that bloody hard to figure out,” Raj said.

Odd, Megan thought. Sometimes Raj sounded British, not his accent, which was Southern, but with his phrasing. Yet he had grown up in Louisiana. Probably he picked it up from his mother, who came from Ireland via England. It was a minor point, one she would have missed if she hadn’t spent her career defining exactly those details that separated human and simulated responses. If Raj was lying, he might present himself in a different way, speaking more like his father, who was known for logic. It was such a small thing, though. She could be wrong.

“I can see in the dark,” Ander told Raj. “You were holding a syringe when I pulled you away from Megan.” His forehead creased as if he were trying to model strain but hadn’t mastered the expression. “Megan, I had trouble with my coordination and I was confused. He tangled me up in that net from the kitchen. By the time I got free, he had already given you the sedative.”

“It doesn’t add up,” she said. “We deactivated you.”

“I hid a sleeper program in an LP.” Now he looked far too satisfied with himself. “When that program kicked in, the LP woke me up.”

Well, damn. “I thought we found all your sleepers.”

Ander smirked. “Missed one.”

Raj rubbed his forehead against his arm, pushing the hair out of his eyes. “If I tried to hurt Megan, why didn’t you just call the authorities?”

“Why should I?” Ander said. “They may think you’re neurotic, but you’re human. They’ll believe you before me.”

Megan wished she had a clearer head. As much as she wanted to believe Raj, the evidence implicated him. She had a harder time reading Ander. Everything he did was calculated. He could simulate any response. He didn’t always do such a great job, but that came from his still developing ability to show emotions. It didn’t tell her whether or not the emotion he was portraying was a lie.

She rubbed her eyes. “Where are we going?”

“The desert,” Ander said.

“Well, shit.” Raj’s accent drew the word out in a drawl. “And here I thought it was the sea.”

“Guess you aren’t so smart after all.” Ander gave a boyish laugh. “See the sea, Dr. C.” When both Raj and Megan just looked at him, he said, “It was a joke. You know. His name starts with a C.”

“I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone,” Megan said. But she was also amazed. A joke, and this time he left no ambiguity that he meant it that way. Whether the joke stunk or was brilliant was irrelevant; it mattered only that he deliberately made one.

“The Twilight Zone is a fictional construct,” Ander said. “This is Nevada.” He paused. “I suppose you could make an argument for a certain correspondence between the two.”

“Ander,” she said. “Where are we going?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s a crock,” Raj said. “You planned this. Why else would you plant that program in an LP to wake you up?”

“It was a game.”

Maybe. Or maybe Ander had deliberately worn a jumpsuit to impersonate Raj and then changed his clothes later so she would think Raj had grabbed her. However, she also hadn’t forgotten Raj’s words about himself: Jaguars prey on other animals.

She looked back at Raj. “How did your cheek get bruised?” It was turning an ugly shade of purple. Someone had hit him. Hard.

“From Ander,” Raj said.

“I had to fight him in the atrium.” Ander kept his attention on his driving even though the car was doing the work. “To pull him off you.”

Who to believe? If Ander was telling the truth, Raj was dangerous and could turn on them. It also meant she had a loopy android on her hands, one who reacted to a crisis by driving across the desert like a maniac. If Raj was telling the truth, it meant Ander had acted with premeditated violence. More than anything else, that made her question Raj’s story. Yes, Ander had acted up yesterday, but it had been more like a kid rebelling than criminal behavior. His mind worked much faster than a human brain, so he could mature fast, but he also had to sort through his entire range of possible behaviors before he did anything new because he still lacked the commonsense knowledge humans took for granted.

Regardless, her Army contact in Vegas was expecting her call. Without that follow-up, they would soon begin a search, if they hadn’t already. Whether or not anyone could find her was another question altogether. Ander had chosen the best means at his disposal to evade pursuit; the military had built the HM-15 to hide from any sensor they could design.

The car hit a furrow and lurched, throwing her against her harness. When Ander reached out to catch her, it yanked his cable out of the dash. Circuits gleamed inside his open arm, making her think of a line from Shakespeare: What a piece of work is a man!

“Are you all right?” he asked, holding her shoulder.

She answered stiffly, aware of his grip. “I’m fine.”

He studied her face as if he could read the truth there. With a light touch, he brushed his finger over her lips. Then he pulled away, jacked into the car again, and went back to driving. She wondered why he had touched her. Although he could distinguish tactile sensations, they meant nothing to him. As far as she knew, he experienced neither pleasure nor pain.

“We can’t keep driving like this,” she said.

“We have to go back to NEV-5,” Raj said.

Ander spoke flatly. “No.”

“What is it you want?” Raj asked.

“Freedom.” His grip on the wheel tightened. “Megan, when you gave me a conscience, did you even think about what that would do to me? I was designed to spy and kill. You knew that. You should have left out the conscience. It would have made my life more bearable.”

“You need your conscience.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ander—”

“Enough.” His head jerked. “My mind hurts. My body doesn’t work right. You two have to fix me.”

His mind hurt? “Do you have trouble thinking?”

“I can’t … I’ve no control. My thoughts go around and around, and I can’t stop them.”

She had never heard an AI describe itself that way. “I want to help. But I need the lab.”

“No.”

“Our equipment is at NEV-5,” Raj said.

“We aren’t going back,” Ander told him.

“It’s important,” Raj said.

“We can’t help you without the lab,” Megan said.

He jerked his head. “How’s this for motivation? Do what I tell you or Raj is dead meat. You want to die, Raj?”

He spoke quietly. “No.”

“So we do things on my terms,” Ander said.

“What terms?” Raj asked.

Ander paused, his face blanking. “I don’t know.”

“Have you decided where we’re going?” Megan asked.

He suddenly grinned. “Yeah. Land of sin. Las Vegas.”

“Great,” Megan muttered. Just what they needed, Ander loose in Vegas.

“Hey!” Ander said. “Megan and I could marry.”

“For crying out loud,” Raj said.

“Isn’t that what people do in Las Vegas?” Ander laughed. “Do you take this android for your lawfully welded husband?”

“I don’t believe this,” Megan said.

“You should run tests on all my systems,” Ander told her. “I’m fully functional, you know. We could even have a kid. Actually, it would be Arick Bjornsson’s kid.”

“Stop it,” Raj said.

Ander glanced back at him. “Jealous?”

“Leave her alone.”

“Oh, stop being so mature, Raj. Say what you really want to say: ‘Die, you shit android.’” Ander tilted his head. “Except I don’t think I can. Die, that is.”

The car suddenly braked and glided to a stop. A large ridge loomed next to them, blocking the stars. Ander pulled his jack out of the dash and closed up his wrist, leaving no trace of a seam. Then he got out of the HM-15.

Megan rubbed her forehead, drained. She tried to open her door, but it wouldn’t budge. Neither did her window. Twisting in her seat, she spoke to Raj. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” With his leather jacket over his jumpsuit, he looked like a fighter pilot. Ander must have put the jacket on him; Raj hadn’t been wearing it in the Solarium. If so, that meant Ander had made the effort to figure out what another person needed and then chosen to act on his conclusions.

“I don’t believe he would kill you,” she said.

“He isn’t some misbehaving kid.” His tension almost crackled. “He’s gone way beyond that.”

Had he? Or was it Raj?

Ander came around to her side of the car. He was carrying a Winchester rifle. Her window rolled down on its own, probably obeying his wireless commands. For all she knew, he had been conversing with the car during the entire drive.

“We’re changing vehicles.” He leaned his forearm against the car above her window. “You’ll sit up front with me again.”

“If you keep breaking the law,” Megan said, “you’ll end up in a lot worse trouble than anything that would happen at NEV-5. Let us take you back before it’s too late to undo the damage.”

“I won’t go back.” He opened the back door, then moved away and raised his rifle, aiming it at Raj. “Megan will untie you. But I don’t need you as much as I need her. Give me trouble and I’ll shoot you. Understand?”

Raj watched him with a dark gaze. “Yes.”

Ander motioned at Megan with the gun. “Get out of the car and untie him.”

This time when she tried her door, it opened.

“Wait.” Ander tilted to the side. “Your robe has a name tag in it, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It’s a little tracking device, to help you find it you lose the robe.” He indicated the seat. “Leave it behind.”

She doubted that little chip could help anyone, but she did as he said, leaving her robe in the car. Maybe someone searching for them would fly overhead and detect its warmth from her body; in IR, the robe would glow. It wasn’t much, though, and the extra heat wouldn’t last long.

Breezes stirred her nightshirt. Following Ander’s orders, she untied Raj from the hook but left his wrists bound. As she freed his ankles, he lowered his hands into his lap, his face drawn with pain. Although he had more mobility with his arms in front of his body, it didn’t help; Ander had them both covered with the rifle.

As she finished, Ander said, “Move away from him.” He waited until Megan had stepped back. “Okay, Raj. Get out.”

Raj stepped out and nearly fell. He grabbed the top of the door with his bound hands and hung on for balance. Moonlight silvered his drawn face.

When Megan tried to step forward, Ander said, “Stop.” Then he added, “Now you know how it feels to be clumsy, Raj.” Although he spoke in an even tone, his voice had a dusting of emotional nuances. They were sketchy, but Megan thought he was trying to model dark humor with an underlying pain, even bitterness. It gave a complexity to his attitude toward his physical problems that went beyond the emotions he had displayed these past few weeks.

A rumbling came from the sky above them. A helicopter? Megan drew in a breath and shouted, “HEL—”

Ander grabbed her around the waist and clamped his hand over her mouth. He had the rifle clenched in his other fist, pressed against her body. “Do you want to end up dead?”

Raj spoke fast and low. “If you’re worried that you can’t control us both, get rid of me. Shoot me if you have to. Just don’t hurt her.”

Megan stared at Raj. This was the man who had supposedly tried to kill her? He had just offered his life for hers.

“I don’t want to get rid of either of you.” Ander spoke near Megan’s ear. “Do I have to gag you?”

She shook her head.

“If I let you go, will you be quiet?”

She nodded and stayed still. Raj stood by the car, his bound wrists raised as if he were poised to lunge forward.

Ander released her mouth but kept his other arm around her waist. When she drew in a breath, he shifted the Winchester into his free hand. To Raj he said, “Walk to the hill.” His voice had a slight tremor.

He’s afraid, Megan thought. It made sense for his code to model fear if Raj really had attacked him back at NEV-5. Or it could mean Ander knew how to bluff. Such a deception involved abilities he had never demonstrated before, but he was evolving faster now. Or maybe she didn’t want to believe Ander because she hated the thought that Raj might have betrayed her. This could all be Ander’s confused but well-meant attempt to rescue her.

Raj limped around the car, which had parked itself beneath a rocky overhang of the ridge. Peering into the darkness toward the ridge, Megan could make out a long, dark form crouched about ten meters away, catching glints from the moonlight. Rounded and sleek, it waited like a predator in the dark. A hovercar. It could traverse the desert with no roads at all.

Ander followed Raj, bringing Megan with him. The rocky ground hurt her bare feet, but she tried not to stumble or make other fast moves. After Ander had Raj climb into the back of the hovercar, he ordered Megan to tie Raj’s wrists to a hook in the roof and his ankles to a bar under the front seat. She made the knots loose, but Ander easily saw and had her tighten them. The whole time, Raj watched, his gaze dark and angry.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice.

“He’s out of control,” Raj said.

“He must have rented this hovercar through the web and had it drive itself out here.”

“With whose money?” Then Raj answered himself. “He cracked a MindSim account.”

“No talking,” Ander called behind them.

Megan finished tying Raj and stood up by the car. A hot wind blew her hair around her body. Ander pushed her inside on the passenger’s side, then slammed and locked the door and ran to the other side of the car in long strides. Even as he slid into the driver’s seat, he was jacking a lead from inside his body into the dash. The windows in the back turned opaque and a partition rose between the front and back, isolating Raj. Then it slid down again.

“Why did you do that?” Raj asked.

“A test,” Ander said. “To make sure it works.”

Megan shivered. Regardless of what had happened in the Solarium, Ander had clearly put more than one night’s thought into this escape. This hovercar would blend in well with the traffic going into Las Vegas, expensive yes, but nothing to draw undue notice. He had chosen a better way to conceal them than by skulking around in a stealth car: he intended to hide in plain sight.

A set of magkeys lay on the dash. Ander started the car, and it vibrated as it rose into the air, a model so smooth that she barely heard the growl of the turbofan. It pulled away from the ridge, whirring on its cushion of air, and sped across the desert.

Behind them, the ridge exploded.

XII

CITY OF LIGHTS

The shock wave from the blast shook the hovercar like storm waves tossing a ship. The ridge collapsed and buried the floater, leaving only a cloud of dust to drift like a shadow in the moonlight.

“Holy shit,” Megan said.

“Nothing holy about it,” Raj said angrily.

She clenched her fist as she spoke to Ander. “You planned this. All of it.”

“To maybe escape someday, yes. I bought the explosive through an underground web site.” As he pushed back his hair, his arm shook. “But I never planned to take anyone with me. I never meant it this way. It was a game.”

“A bomb?” Raj asked. “What kind of game is that?”

“I’m rescuing Megan from you,” Ander said. “So shut up.”

“You claimed you don’t know what to do,” Megan said.

“I don’t.” What little confidence had remained in his voice was leached out. “I just used up my only escape route.”

She rubbed her hands along her bare arms. If this really had been meant as a real-life adventure game, it had turned ugly.

The Elegant Motel Flamingo hunkered in the desert. Its sign displayed a well-endowed flamingo in a feather boa, with “Motel Flamingo” in purple and the word “Elegant” slanted across it in pink fluorescence. Maybe the establishment hoped to cash in by evoking its far more upscale namesake in Las Vegas, but Megan doubted it would work. The place consisted of a faded one-story building and a collection of bungalows. It had a drive-through registration, the hostelry equivalent of a fast food restaurant.

Ander waited in the registration line behind an old Pontiac. “They’re slow.”

“How will you pay for the room?” Raj asked.

“Cash.” He pulled Raj’s wallet out of his back pocket. “You really should use your money card more. Cash is too easy to steal.”

“What, you’re going to rob me now, too?” Raj said.

“I’m Robin Hood,” Ander said. “With me as the poor.” He stabbed a panel on the dash and the barrier between the back and front rose up, leaving Raj cut off and isolated in the back seat.

“Ander, don’t,” Megan said.

“You be quiet too.” He frowned at her. “Don’t try to get anyone’s attention. If they take notice, I may have to hurt people. I don’t want that. All right?”

She thought of Raj trapped in the back. “Yes.”

As they pulled up to the window, a gum-chewing girl with blond hair dimpled at Ander. “Hey, cute stuff. What’s your name?”

“Mac Smith,” he said.

Megan willed the cashier to look at her, trying to attract the girl’s attention without alerting Ander. It didn’t work. All sorts of Smiths and Joneses probably checked into this motel, and a woman in filmy clothes sitting in the front seat wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Okay,” the cashier said, looking over her console screen. “Got it.” She handed Ander a magkey. “Bungalow five. I zipped a map to your car, along with a receipt and, like, info about our fine Motel Flamingo.”

Ander gave her a wad of bills. “You have a well-behaved night.”

The girl laughed. “You too, honey.” She didn’t seem the least fazed to receive cash instead of the usual credit or money card. She grinned at Megan. “Be nice to him.”

Looking confused, Ander said, “Thank you,” and drove away. “Did I say something strange?”

“Well-behaved night?” Megan asked. “What is that?”

“‘Well-behaved’ is another definition of ‘good.’”

“Oh, Ander.” She wondered why he was using such a limited portion of his knowledge base. “Check your files.”

“Ah. I see. Hey! I made another joke.”

She thought of Raj in the back seat. “This isn’t funny.”

“Whatever.” He continued along the road into the desert.

Their drive to the bungalows didn’t take long. Each small house stood alone, with a rock garden in front and a patio in back. Desert stretched everywhere; only the dubious elegance of Motel Flamingo broke the monotony. In the distance, Megan could see the sparkling towers of Las Vegas.

Ander had chosen well. Inside one of these bungalows, someone could pound on the walls from now until kingdom come and no one would hear. Even if anyone did, they would most likely think their rowdy neighbors were just having fun.

“Pretty smart, eh?” Ander said. “My brain is augmented.” He glanced at Megan. “Too bad you humans can’t do that.”

She held back her retort. With the huge databases he had at his disposal, he should know that humans were learning to enhance their own brains apace with their development of android brains. Augmentation wasn’t available yet to the public, and probably wouldn’t be for some time; so far, the biochips caused more neural damage than increased smarts. But it was coming, if not in her generation, than in the next.

Of course, people were already enhancing their lives with PC-this and iThat in everything from postcards to wrenches to nail polish. She had even seen a scanty little lingerie number that could talk dirty for people who liked that sort of thing. She couldn’t imagine keeping a straight face while her underwear discoursed about sex, but to each their own, she supposed.

Dawn was spreading a pepper-red glow across the sky as Ander pulled up to their bungalow. To get her out of the car, he repeated the same process as when they had switched vehicles in the desert. She opened the back door and found Raj sitting in the shadows, sweat running down his temple. Fresh air from outside blew over him, stirring his hair.

When Megan reached to untie him, however, Ander lunged forward. He clumsily heaved her up into his arms, keeping the gun under her body, its hidden length pressed against her legs, the metal cold against her skin.

“What are you doing?” Megan said.

“Quiet,” he muttered. With his foot, he slammed the back door shut. Then he lost his balance and fell against the car, his muscles tensed under her like ridged cords.

She finally saw what had spooked him. An older man and woman were coming up the road. The man wore a Hawaiian shirt and tennis shorts, and the woman had on a sundress with a shawl around her shoulders.

“Hi, there,” the woman said. The man glanced at Megan, then averted his gaze.

Ander gave an embarrassed cough. “Carrying her across the threshold, you know,” he told the couple.

The man’s face turned kindly and his wife beamed. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she said. “Congratulations.” They continued on, leaving the “newlyweds” to their privacy.

“Put me down,” Megan growled.

“Such sweet nothings, my dear.” Ander set her on her feet. “Get Raj out.”

This time when she opened the door, Raj was struggling with his bonds. Fresh blood dribbled down his arms from lacerations that the cords had cut into his wrists.

“Ah, Raj,” she said.

He spoke in a low, angry voice. “Just get me free.”

She worked on the cords, scraping and struggling with the knots. Maybe the couple had glimpsed Raj before Ander slammed the door. She hoped. Then again, at the Elegant Motel Flamingo, probably they wouldn’t think twice about kinky newlyweds who brought along an extra guy. She hadn’t decided yet whether Ander’s ability to pick lodging was screamingly bad or utterly brilliant.

As soon as Raj was free, Ander hustled them into the bungalow. It wasn’t much. The bathroom was just big enough for a sink, toilet, and tub. In the main room, someone had inflicted a purple quilt with pink flamingos on the bed. A nightstand stood by the bed on one side and a table on the other, and beyond the table, glass doors fronted the patio. A cabinet at the foot of the bed contained a holovid, music cube player, and console. All the furniture was bolted to the floor except for two chairs at the table.

Ander closed the curtains, which were made from the same cloth as the bedspreads. Megan wondered if a person could get eyestrain from too many fluorescent flamingos. She threaded the cord from Raj’s bonds through her belt loops and tugged it uneasily, twisting the ends around her fingers.

Ander waved his gun at them. “Don’t try to call for help.”

“You can’t shoot in here,” Raj said. “People will hear.”

“We’re too far from the other bungalows.” Ander’s arm spasmed, snapping the gun against his body. “You have to do what I tell you.”

“You need help,” Megan said.

“Then fix me!” He clenched the rifle so tight, tendons stood out on his wrists. “Make my mind stop these insane loops.”

“It sounds like you’re trapped in a limited area of code,” she said. “It can happen when you write new code by copying and combining pieces of older code, if you’re using too few pieces of the original code. It’s like inbreeding.”

He gave a short laugh. “What, my ‘gene’ pool is too small to produce healthy code?”

“I can help,” Megan said. “But I’ll need to reprogram you.”

Suspicion shadowed his face, so real she could almost forget it was simulated. “And now,” he said, “you’re going to claim you have to turn me off to make these fixes.”

“She can’t do the job if your software is changing as she works,” Raj said.

“Shut up,” Ander told him.

Megan exhaled. Whatever code he had written to project wariness in his first meeting with Raj must be part of the region where his mind was trapped. That code’s “offspring” was probably in a population explosion, which meant his hostility toward Raj was also blowing up. If they didn’t free him from that trap soon, he might end up killing Raj.

“You can’t work on my mind directly,” Ander told her. “I can’t trust you. Think of some other way to help me.”

She wasn’t sure what emotions he was trying to project, but she thought it was bravado that hid fear. “If I make suggestions on how to fix yourself, can you do rewrites?”

“I’ll try.” He grimaced. “Anything is better than this looping.”

“The loops could be a protective measure,” Raj said.

“Against what?” Ander demanded. “You?”

Raj spoke quietly. “As you become self-aware, the evolution of your code becomes more complex. To make the rewrites manageable, your mind might temporarily isolate certain sections of code. It sounds like the process backfired, trapping you in one of those sections. So you have access to only a limited amount of your code.”

“Could it be? That would explain a lot.” Ander scowled as if remembering himself. He shook his rifle at Raj. “I told you to be quiet.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Megan asked.

He regarded her uncertainly. “I’m not sure how to take care of humans. You need to eat and sleep, right? I don’t know what to feed you. I thought humans slept at night, but neither of you seem to.”

“We can wait until tonight.” She doubted she could sleep now anyway.

“We need breakfast.” Raj indicated the jCube hanging from Ander’s belt. “We can use that to call for something to eat.”

“No! I’m not letting you near it.” Ander pointed at the comp-phone on the nightstand. “Does that give room service?”

“It should,” Raj said.

Amazing. A few months ago simple questions had turned Ander catatonic; now he could come up with his own questions and try solutions. His increasing ability to adapt would have gratified Megan if he wasn’t adapting so well to screwing with them.

He ordered breakfast, standing by the nightstand. The entire time, he continued to study Megan. When he hung up the phone, she said, “What?”

He tilted his head toward Raj, who was leaning against the table a few feet away. “Why do you like him? Why not me?”

“Ander, don’t,” she said, acutely aware of Raj. He stood silent, tensed like a wild animal ready to attack.

“Don’t what?” With deliberate motions, Ander aimed the rifle at Raj. “You. Sit by that table leg. Now.”

Raj spoke in a quiet voice. “You don’t want to shoot.”

“Don’t patronize me, asshole.”

Then Ander fired.

He jerked with the recoil of the gun, almost losing his balance. The bullet hit the floor well away from where Raj was standing, and Ander was too close to have miscalculated by so much. His had missed on purpose.

“Ander, stop!” Raj pushed Megan behind him.

“Sit down by the table.” Ander sounded scared rather than angry, as if he couldn’t believe he had fired either. He waved the gun at Raj. “Let her go, or I’ll shoot again.”

Megan thought he was bluffing, but she couldn’t be sure. Raj raised his hands, palm outward and spoke carefully. “All right.” He walked to the table and sat on the floor by its leg.

Ander spoke to Megan. “Tie his hands to the table leg. And don’t try to trick me. Understand?”

“Yes.” Megan went over, slow and careful, and knelt by Raj. She pulled the rope off her belt and tied his hands to the leg, which was bolted to the floor. When she looked at him, he met her gaze and shook his head slightly.

“Why are you always looking at him?” Ander sounded more curious than anything else. He set the rifle on the nightstand, then walked around the bed toward her. “He and I aren’t that different, within experimental tolerances. So why him and not me?”

She stood up. “He’s like me.”

“You’re afraid of me,” Ander said.

“Of what you might do, yes.”

He stood in front of her. “What do you think I might do?”

She met his gaze. “I don’t know.”

Ander took her arm, then swung her around and threw her face down onto the bed.

“Hey, cut it out!” She started to get up, but he leaned over the bed, put his palm against her back, and shoved her down.

“Why should I cut it out?” He knelt on the bed, straddling her hips. “Explain that to me.”

Raj swore. “Get off of her.” He was straining to free his arms.

Megan swung her fist back and hit Ander in the knee. Hard. “I told you to stop it.”

“Hey!” Ander jerked his hands away from her.

Heaving up her body, she threw him to the side. “You really are pissing me off.”

“Why?” He looked like he wasn’t sure what emotion he should be modeling. “Are you a virgin? No, don’t answer. I know you aren’t. I’ve seen your medical records.”

“For crying out loud,” Raj said. “Leave her alone.”

Ander kept his focus on Megan, sitting next to her on the bed. “I am. A virgin, I mean. Sure, they tested my plumbing. I’ve never had sex with anyone, though.”

“Listen.” She got off the bed. “You’re trapped in a truncated response space—”

“Oh, stop with the truncated response space. I want to fuck.”

Raj snorted. “I hope this isn’t your idea of romance.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Ander didn’t sound angry, only puzzled.

“Access your crosslight codes,” Raj said.

Ander went so still that for a moment Megan thought his mind had frozen. Then he spoke to Raj a deliberate voice. “I cut out the crosslight code.”

Did you, Megan thought. Or is this a bluff? The crosslight code was the rewrite she had done to strengthen his conscience.

“That may be the problem,” Raj said. “You cut out too much code. Putting it back in will expand your response space.”

“You need your conscience,” Megan said. “To widen the, uh, gene pool for your code.” She wasn’t sure if that was true, but it only mattered that he believed it.

“I don’t want a conscience,” Ander said.

“Without it, your mind isn’t stable,” she said.

“Maybe.” He scowled at her. “Why do you act like this sex thing matters? It’s nothing. A little rubbing and then it’s over.”

“It matters,” she said. “Believe me.”

He jerked his head toward Raj. “You want him. Why not me? We’re about the same size and shape. He’s a little taller, but I’m heavier. All that hardware inside me, you know. And I’m younger than him.”

Hardware indeed. At last he hadn’t made another of his weird jokes. “It isn’t that simple,” she said. When she glanced at Raj, he tilted his head, trying to tell her something, but she had no idea what. She didn’t think he wanted her to try freeing him; Ander was closer than either of them to the gun. He meant something else. What?

“Come on, Megan,” Ander said. “I want to know what it’s like. Sex, I mean.”

“No.”

“Why?” He looked her up and down. “I don’t understand the context. I know men consider your body beautiful. But this pleasure thing, I’m just not getting it. Having an orgasm, it’s all about plumbing. The faucet goes on for a few seconds and then you’re done. In fact, this whole reproduction thing doesn’t usually last long. So why the big fuss?”

As far as having The Talk, this had to be the strangest scenario she had ever heard of. She also remembered now where she had seen Raj tilt his head that way; he did it in the lab when he was about to go do research in the library.

“It’s only friction,” Ander said. “If I washed your face when you didn’t want to, it would be irritating, sure, but you wouldn’t act as if it were some sort of big deal.”

“Oh, honestly,” Megan said. “You have enough data to know the context.” She understood now what Raj was trying to tell her. “You have an entire library on sex. You have to read it again.” It was probably in the portion of his coding he couldn’t reach. To read it, he would have to enlarge his access space, which she hoped would include the crosslight code.

“Context, context, context,” Ander muttered. He blanked for a moment, then said, “Damn it all,” and blew out a gust of air. With a grunt, he flopped down onto his back and put his arm over eyes, clenching his fist.

Megan exhaled. If only she could get the gun. It was on the nightstand on other side of the bed. She doubted she could reach the weapon before he stopped her, but she might make it to the front door. That probably wouldn’t help, either, though. He almost certainly had wireless control of its comp chip. When she stepped in that direction, he lifted his arm off his eyes and fixed her with a cold stare. So she stayed put, folding her arms around herself.

Ander sat up and took the rifle from the nightstand. “Fine,” he said. “My conscience seems to work after all. Now what?”

“Let Megan go,” Raj said. “You only need one hostage. Use me. I’ll be easier to control than the two of us together.”

“I want you both.” Ander looked back and forth between them. “I really have it by the tail, don’t I? I can’t control both of you unless I keep at least one tied up. What if your fragile human bodies can’t take this treatment, or you attack me and I have to shoot one of you?”

“Let us help you,” Megan said. “Take us back to NEV-5.”

“No.” He rubbed his eyes in a gesture so human, it made her breath catch. Then he sat staring at the wall. This time, though, his face didn’t blank. He focused on them again, first Raj, then Megan.

“Okay,” Ander said. “This is what I want. Not to be alone. I need others like me. Make more of us.”

Raj gave him an incredulous look. “It’s not that easy.”

“You two are the experts,” Ander said. “If anyone can do it, that’s you.”

“Building you took decades of research,” Raj said. “Entire teams of experts.”

“That’s right,” Ander said. “And after all that work, you know how to build us and Megan knows how to program us.”

“Even if we could,” Raj said. “It would take years. The cost would be in the millions. At least.”

“You’re a billionaire. You can afford it.”

“Yeah, right,” Raj said. “I’m going to bankrupt myself.” He yanked at the cords around his wrists. “I may not have as much money as you think, and even if I did, why should I agree to what you want?”

“You’re mine now,” Ander said. “You all owned me before. Well, that’s over. Now I’m in charge. So what is yours, as they say, is mine.”

“Not a chance,” Raj said.

“The Everest team used a lot of your techniques,” Ander told him. “And I know you were part of the Phoenix group at the Las Cruces Lab in New Mexico.”

Raj’s forehead furrowed. “I’ve never worked at LLCL. The Phoenix Project was at Arizonix.”

Ander spoke as if he were jabbing at Raj with his finger. “You know your name is in that file.”

“What file?”

“The one you stole from the Pentagon.”

Raj made a frustrated noise. “You stole those files.”

Megan stared at them. They both knew about the stolen files. She hadn’t expected that.

She said only, “What files?”

Raj said, “Ander’s been jiggering with the Internet behind our backs,” just before Ander said, “Raj has all sorts of crap going on at NEV-5 that you don’t know about.”

It took her a moment to untangle what the two of them had said. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell who was lying. They both sounded genuine. Right now, she had no intention of letting on that she already knew someone at NEV-5 had cracked a Pentagon network.

She spoke carefully. “Raj, could your name be associated with this Phoenix Project without your knowing?”

He considered the thought. “It’s possible it might be in a file, if they’re using any of the research I’ve published. And they did try to hire me.”

“We need money,” Ander said. “We can’t do anything more without it.”

“Fine,” Raj angrily. “Go ahead. Steal mine.”

“I will, when I can.”

“Why not now?” Raj drawled. “My money cards are in my wallet.”

Ander didn’t rise to the bait. “I’m not stupid.”

Oh, well. Megan saw what Raj had tried to do, but so had Ander. If the android used their money cards, it could set off alarms, especially if General Graham’s people were already searching for them. Eventually, though, Ander would figure out how to hack financial systems without getting caught.

Right now, he was rifling through the wallet he had stolen from Raj. “You’ve only two hundred dollars in cash. W need more.” He looked up with a smirk. “But then, who better to take on Las Vegas than me, a computer?”

Great. Just what they needed, Ander loose in the casinos.

He slid off the bed, holding the rifle. Megan tensed as he approached her.

“Go back there,” Ander told her, indicating the other side of the room.

“All right.” She eased past him and went to stand by Raj.

“You two stay put,” Ander said. Behind him, the lock on the door clicked open. Just like that, he walked outside, closing the door behind him.

Megan ran over and tried the door. Still locked. She strode back to Raj and started trying to untie him.

“We don’t have much time,” Raj said. “Leave me here. One of us has to stay with him anyway.” He jerked his head toward the windows. “Get help.”

“All right.” She ran to the window and swept open the curtains. The lock on the sliding doors refused to release. She wrapped her fists in a curtain and pounded the glass, but it didn’t even crack.

“You could smash it with a chair and it wouldn’t break,” Ander said behind her.

She whirled around. He was standing in the doorway of the bungalow with a black valise in one hand.

“That’s one reason I picked this place,” he said. “They have rowdy customers sometimes. The motel is quite good at protecting their rooms against people trying to trash them.”

“Oh,” she said, for lack of a more articulate response.

He showed her the valise. “I forgot to bring this in earlier.”

He forgot? How could he forget? He was a computer.

He’s a landscape, she thought. His mind consisted of hills and valleys. The lower regions represented thoughts close to his current situation. Hills were ideas he found harder to reach. He had become trapped in a valley, unable or unwilling to climb out. If his record of the valise had been outside that region, that could explain why he forgot it. Something must have kicked him out of the valley, the crosslight code maybe, letting his mind sample more of his landscape like a marble rolling around new terrain.

“Stay there,” Ander told her. Then he went to Raj.

“What are you going to do?” Raj asked.

“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt you.”

Raj stiffened. “Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

Megan started forward. “Leave him alone.”

Ander spun around. “I told you to stay put.” He jerked his gun at her. “You two keep saying this. ‘Leave her alone. Leave him alone.’ You all need to get out of your truncated response space.”

Raj gave her a warning look, his meaning clear: don’t anger him. Frustrated, she stayed put. As Ander knelt down, he set his rifle on the ground, too far away for Raj to reach. Then he took an air syringe out of his valise.

Raj’s gaze darkened. It frightened Megan. If Ander pushed Raj too far, he would lose the precarious protection he enjoyed now because it mattered to Raj what happened to the android.

“You don’t want to do that,” Raj said.

Ander continued dialing a drug in the syringe. “This should put a man your size to sleep until tomorrow morning.” He set the syringe against Raj’s arm—and Raj kicked him away, hard and fast. Ander flew over backward and slammed onto his back.

Megan ran for the gun, but Ander was already scrambling to his knees, his face red. She froze as he grabbed the rifle.

“That was stupid!” Ander yelled. He lunged forward and smacked the air syringe against Raj’s arm. Even as Raj tried to kick him again, the syringe hissed.

“Damn you,” Raj said. “That had better not be poison.”

“It’s not.” For the first time Ander faltered. “You gave Megan a lower dose in the Solarium and she was fine.”

“And you just happen to have the same drug I supposedly used?” Raj demanded.

Ander glanced at Megan. “I took the syringe from him at the base. You can believe him if you want, but I’m telling the truth.”

A knock came at the door.

Ander’s head jerked. He jumped to his feet, then stumbled against the table. Gripping its edge, he straightened up, his face contorted. With exaggerated care, he took a few bills from Raj’s wallet. When his muscles relaxed, he went to the door and opened it a bit, keeping the rifle hidden from whoever was outside.

Megan was tempted to call for help, but she held back. If Ander became agitated, he could shoot anyone, including strangers. Should he decide the good of his purposes outweighed the good of humans, she had no doubt he could kill.

He talked with someone outside and exchanged money, always keeping the gun hidden. After he closed the door, he came back inside holding a tray crowded with dishes, cheap silverware, juice, napkins, and a vase with a plastic flower.

“Raj can’t eat with his hands tied,” Megan said.

Ander set the tray on the floor near Raj. “You feed him.”

Kneeling next to Raj, she said spoke in a low voice, “Any effects from the shot?”

He shook his head. “Nothing yet.”

Megan put a sandwich in his bound hands and took one for herself. So they sat eating while Ander watched with unabashed fascination, as if they were his creations rather than the reverse.

About halfway through his meal, Raj nodded off. Megan barely managed to grab his sandwich before it fell out of his hand. His head sagged against the table leg.

“Raj?” she asked.

He opened his eyes, then closed them. His lashes lay dark against his cheeks. She set down her sandwich, no longer hungry.

“Good,” Ander said.

Megan wanted to throttle him. “You better be right that it won’t hurt him.”

He regarded her uncertainly. “That’s not much more than the dose he gave you in the Solarium.”

“Is that so?” She stood up. “And here I thought he was trying to kill me.”

“So okay, maybe I was wrong. It looked that way to me.” After a moment, he added, “Raj obviously likes you a lot.”

“Maybe.”

“We can move him to the bed,” Ander said. “He’ll be more comfortable.”

“All right.”

After they carried Raj to the bed, Ander said, “Tie his hands to the headboard.”

“He’s not going anywhere. He’s asleep.”

“I can’t risk him escaping if he wakes early.”

“You’ll be right here.”

Ander gave her that sudden grin of his that made him look so deceptively innocuous. “Au contraire, mon amie.” He grabbed his valise and pulled out a bundle of clothes: jeans, a white sweater, tennis shoes, underwear. Very familiar clothes.

Megan scowled at him. “So now you’re stealing my wardrobe as well as Raj’s money.”

“I borrowed your clothes. Now I’m giving them back.” He tossed her the bundle. “Go ahead. Get dressed.”

In truth, she was glad for the clothes. After she changed in the bathroom, she dampened a washcloth and returned to the main room. Sitting next to Raj, she set about cleaning his torn wrists. In sleep, his face was finally relaxed. She had a sudden, aching memory of their time in her bedroom at NEV-5, when neither of them faced possible death and she had no reason to distrust his motives.

Ander tapped a panel near the door and the lamp on the nightstand went dark.

She looked up. “Why did you do that?”

“He can stay here,” Ander said. “You’re coming with me.”

“Where?”

“To the casinos, of course.”

The Strip stretched out in a corridor of high-tech glitter. Although the sun had long since set, lights kept the street almost as bright as day. Holographic displays glimmered on buildings, filling the night with color. They morphed in a parade of sparkling scenes, changing from showgirls to exotic landscapes to glistening announcements. Cars crammed the street and people thronged the sidewalks.

“Look at that one.” Megan motioned at a huge tower up ahead, trying to distract Ander. Aircraft warning lights blinked at its top—and so did a roller coaster. She kept her voice light. “I can’t believe people ride on that.”

His gave a delighted laugh. “The practicality of human invention.”

Megan wasn’t sure how to interpret his simulated good spirits. Was he relieved to escape the motel and Raj? She didn’t know which would disturb her more, knowing Raj was the villain that Ander claimed, one who posed such a great danger that only now did Ander calculate he could relax, or that Ander had masterminded this all and deleted his aversion to hurting people. She hoped it was a third possibility: Raj was innocent, Ander was bluffing, and neither intended to hurt anyone.

They passed a hotel with a Stardust sign shimmering above its roof. Farther down, traffic inched past a replica of the Eiffel Tower. They went by a cove where pirate ships fought the British. Cannons boomed and sailors struggled, some falling into the water with yells and flailing arms. They cruised a hotel built like the skyline of New York, even with a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Megan could barely absorb all the colors, lights, and energy.

Ander let go of the wheel and spread his arms, letting the car drive itself. “Playland!”

“It’s Crazyland.”

“Just look at it all! So much to input.”

In other circumstances, his delight would have gratified her, but now she just hoped he would overload. Holomarquees proclaimed lavish shows, including an extravaganza with Jennifer Lopez, Ricki Martin, and the wildly popular S. Grant StarKing. Another featured Wayne Newton, who somehow still looked like a kid, a feat that impressed her as much as anything else on the Strip. One marquee displayed RAM-BLAM Brain and the iHeads, a rock group with outfits programmed to let each of them control the movements of the others.

“How bizarre is that?” Ander said. “Humans entertaining other humans by having computers make them act strange.”

He had a point. Before tonight, the closest she had come to Las Vegas was talking to her cousin Mike, who had been an Optical Corps security guard here. Casinos hired OC personnel to catch players who marked cards with inks visible only in ranges outside normal vision. Mike’s augmented eyes let him see in both the infrared and ultraviolet. Her parents never gambled, unless she counted the stock market portfolio that her mother, a bank executive, managed. Her father was an architect. Their idea of dream a vacation was to visit “sexy buildings,” whatever that meant.

Megan wondered if her attraction to Raj came in part from his similarities to her father. Both men had the same creative absorption in their work. Raj was far more practical than her father, though. Her mother had always dealt with the pragmatic side of life, everything from medical insurance to making sure her husband remembered to eat. Megan found it hard to imagine Raj trusting anyone enough to let them that close.

“Hey!” Ander said. “Look at that.”

“I don’t believe it,” Megan said. They were passing a hotel shaped like a giant sarcophagus standing on its end. The ornate building in front of it looked like a casino-sized treasure chest. A gold and crimson marquee announced this architectural marvel as the Royal Adventure Palace. Lights and lasers flashed along it, making the coffin radiant with gaudy magnificence.

“A mummy?” Megan said. “Who in their right mind would rent rooms in a mummy?”

“It’s not a mummy. It’s a coffin.”

“Oh, well,” she said. “That’s different,”

“Hah! You humans have entire entertainment industries devoted to stories about dead people who come out of their graves to bother living people.” Ander thumped the dashboard. “Come on, car. We’re going to the royal coffin.”

“I can park behind the hotel,” the car said pleasantly.

“This is too bizarre,” Megan said.

“I know,” Ander said. “It’s a scream. I love it.”

It’s a scream. She’d bet Royal Adventure Palace poker chips that he wouldn’t have known that idiom if he was still in his truncated mental space. He was loosening up, maybe only a bit, but even a small amount could help.

The car parked behind the casino, let them out, and locked itself up. They walked to a bridge that arched over to the hotel. Although none of Ander’s limbs were jerking now, he had started to limp. If he didn’t let her and Raj work on him soon, he might break down beyond the point where they could fix the damage.

The big glass doors at the end of the bridge opened into the Royal Adventure Palace. Geometric mosaics that included the initials RAP tiled the spacious foyer, and bright shops ringed the area selling clothes, candy, magazines, jewelry, and gifts. Holo-displays above marble posts cycled through various adventures available to customers. You could brave a river that thrashed with crocodiles, swing on vines, pilot a craft through flying monsters, and more. Every one of the escapades centered on a search for an ancient pharaoh’s tomb and various riches, which somehow all consisted of vouchers for RAP chips you could use in the casino.

They took an escalator that descended three levels to the games floor. As they rode down, Megan blinked at the scene spread out below. Lights flashed everywhere. Mirrors paneled the walls, red carpet covered the floor, and a two-story colonnade bordered the casino. Elevators went up into the hotel, their mirrored doors letting people look at themselves while they waited for their ride into the colossal coffin.

“This is so much better than NEV-5.” Ander’s face had more animation than he had ever shown before. “Come on. Let’s play.”

“So much energy,” Megan said. When they reached the ground floor, row after row of slot machines stretched out on both sides of them, including holo-slots that were no more than spinning images of light. Colors flashed and twirled.

Wait a minute. There, on the wall—it was a line of three comp-phones. Actual phones. Did anyone use them anymore? If they still worked and she could slip away from Ander, she could call the number General Graham had given her—

“Don’t even think about it,” Ander said.

She glanced at him. “About what?”

“The phones.” He waved at a nearby info-desk staffed by an attractive woman in a gold and red uniform. “See that console in front of her?”

“You can’t use her console.”

“Hacking it is child’s play.”

Child’s play. An apt phrase. Ander was like a kid who had run away from home, except this “kid” had the body of an adult and the training of a commando. If he hacked the console, he could reach computers beyond the casino, including the motel. Their bungalow had plenty of robots he could hijack, mostly service bots that cleaned the room or disposed of rodents who found their way inside. She didn’t want to think how he could subvert their programming. Attack people instead of mice? Raj couldn’t defend himself while he slept.

Megan stopped looking at the phones.

An anomaly registered on her. “Have you noticed they have no public consoles here? No way for guests to use the web. In fact, I don’t even see a clock.”

“Wait …” Ander’s face took on a blank quality. “Okay, I’m in their system. They’re hooked into a citywide net.” The animation of his features returned. “Hah! They have no clocks or public consoles because they don’t want customers distracted. And listen to this. They’ve so much security here, you’re safer in these casinos than anywhere else in the city.” He refocused on her. “In case you’re wondering, I also linked to the bungalow.”

“Ander, please. Don’t hurt him.”

“As long as you don’t try to get away, he’ll be fine.”

“I’ll stay with you.” She wondered how many scientists had their research projects blackmail them.

He headed into the casino proper. “Come on. Let’s go have fun.”

“Can you?” She walked with him along an aisle of slots, passing men and women in clothes of every type, chic, casual, fancy, loud.

“I don’t know,” Ander said. “I have no idea what people mean when they say they’re having fun. Sure, I’ve files on the subject, but that’s not the same as knowing.”

“I had no idea you wanted to go gambling.”

“Neither did I.” His infectious laugh caused several people to glance up and smile at them.

Megan could just imagine writing the grant proposal: We need Department of Defense funds to take the RS-4 gambling. Hell, if she had thought it would head off this rebellion, she would have tried.

“Are you going to play the slots?” she asked.

“Maybe not. The casino keeps track of how much you win.” Delight flashed across his face. “But do you know, they have a group here you can join, the Royal Adventure Club, that tallies up the points you make at slots. When you reach certain levels, you get free rides on their adventure tours.”

She smiled, more at his glee than at the free rides. “This place is practically an amusement park.”

His laugh sounded natural. “Amusement. Yes. Ah, Megan, I do like you.”

“You’ve an odd way of showing it.”

“I suppose it’s semantics.” He tilted his head. “My neural nets model responses to you that humans interpret as ‘liking.’”

Dryly she said, “And do they also tell you that you don’t kidnap and threaten people you like?”

“You want me to feel guilt.” He spoke as if he were testing a new routine.

Feel. Not simulate. “Do you feel the emotions you show?”

“I don’t think so.”

Interesting. “You sound like you’re not sure.”

“It’s hard to say. I have no referent for comparison.”

She wondered if anyone could hear them. Most people were engrossed in whatever they were doing, talking or playing games. If they did overhear, it might not help; he had become adept enough at conversation that they’d probably think she and Ander were just playing around. It was worth a try, though, to see if she could get close enough for their conversation to carry to other people.

She motioned at one of the glitzy slot machines. “Play that. It’s a new experience. See how it affects you.”

“I don’t think so. The odds of winning suck.”

“Can’t you jiggle its wireless signals?”

“They aren’t wireless capable, probably for that reason.” He shrugged. “I’d rather win by skill anyway.”

Was that pride? Amazing. Here she was, in the middle of Las Vegas, with the harbinger of a new species, a dangerous harbinger, yes, but still a wonder. How she and Raj reacted to him would have far-reaching effects. She felt as if she were walking along a narrow wall. If she fell in either direction, it could kill them, but the wall itself was a marvel.

Ander chose a room with roulette wheels and green tables. As they walked among the tables, they passed several guards with security badges. Megan stared at each, trying to alert them that she was in trouble without Ander noticing. It didn’t work, except that one man nodded and smiled at her.

At the roulette tables, balls rattled and bounced seductively in the spinning wheels. One table produced a holo that floated in the air, a roulette sphere, spinning, shimmering, translucent. Holoballs bounced within it in blissful defiance of gravity.

“Cool,” Ander said.

“You’re using a lot more slang.”

He smirked at her. “Hey, Megan baby, wanna scream the ultraviolet or run the RAM?”

“What did you say?” she asked. When he laughed, she glared at him. “Can you repeat that in English?”

“You wish me to adapt my statement to your ancient language base.”

“My database is not ancient.”

He drew her to a table where people were playing cards. A sign showed the allowed bets: $25-$500. Shaped like a half-moon and covered with green felt, the table had room for seven players along its curved side. The seats resembled bar chairs, tall and upholstered in red leather. Six were occupied. As Ander took the empty seat, the other players glanced at him and murmured greetings.

The dealer was standing by the straight edge of the table. Tall and svelte, she had almond eyes, high cheekbones, and hair that fell in a black waterfall to her shoulders. Her glistening dress left her shoulders and arms bare.

“Good evening, sir,” she said.

“Good evening to you, sir,” Ander said.

The dealer smiled coldly, then turned back to a player making a bet.

The woman on Ander’s right glanced at him with boredom, then did a double take. She looked in her forties, with streaked-blond hair, diamonds around her neck, and an unlined face. Her little black dress did nothing to disguise a body as fit as a swim-suit model. She glanced at Megan, her gaze flicking over Megan’s unadorned ring finger. Then she turned back to Ander. “Hello, there.”

He blinked his big baby-blues, acting so innocent that Megan wanted to whack him. “Hello,” he said.

“Is this your first time?” the woman asked.

“The very first.”

“You don’t want to take it too fast,” she said. “Play slow.”

Ander gave her a languorous smile. “I like it slow.”

For crying out loud. Megan was tempted to tell Little Black Dress she was flirting with a robot.

The other players continued the game. Megan tried to stand behind Ander, out of his sight, but he pulled her to his side. He could easily watch her in his peripheral vision while he focused on the table; unlike humans, he had no trouble concentrating on several processes at once.

The game was blackjack. The goal was to score as many points as possible without going over twenty-one. When it came time for a new round, the players placed their bets on the table, setting their chips on gilded disks embossed with the letters RAP.

Ander pulled out Raj’s wallet. Megan leaned close to him, bringing her lips by his ear as if he were his girlfriend. In a voice only he could hear, she said, “Quit stealing from Raj.”

“Think of it as my allowance,” Ander murmured. He set a one hundred dollar the bill in front of the dealer. “Can you give me chips?”

“Certainly.” She raised her voice. “One hundred change.”

Ander looked alarmed. “Why are you yelling?”

The dealer gave him another of her icy smiles, which didn’t reach her annoyed gaze. After a man came over to watch, she used a plastic tool shaped like a T to stuff Ander’s bill into a slot of the table. Then she said, “Would you like quarters?”

“A hundred dollars’ worth of quarters?” Ander asked. “Are you sure?”

“No, sir,” she said. “Each quarter is worth twenty-five dollars.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, do that.”

The dealer gave him four green chips engraved with RAP. Ander peered at the chips, then at the other players. Then he set one of the quarters on the gilded disk in front of him at the table.

The dealer included him in the next hand. He picked up his cards, a two and a three, and settled back in his chair.

“Cards over the table, please,” the dealer said.

Ander looked up. “What?”

“You must keep your cards over the table.” Her voice was as smooth as burnished metal, but she glanced in the direction of a guard.

“Sorry.” Ander sat forward, bringing his cards into their proper place. “Why?”

She gave him a silvery stare. “Those are the rules.”

“You know,” he told her, “you could really use an expanded emotive database.”

“Cut it out,” Megan said under her breath. God only knew what he’d do if they threw him out of the casino, but she didn’t want to risk his venting his “anger” on Raj. Fortunately, the dealer just turned her attention to another player, a man with thinning hair and a red shirt.

The woman in the little black dress smiled at Ander and spoke amiably. “Just how do you expand your database?”

“I’ve good input ports,” Ander said.

“Do you now?” She took a sip of her blue drink. “How about your output?”

He turned on his boyish grin. “It gets better all the time.”

The woman laughed. “I’ll bet.”

I don’t believe this, Megan thought. Ander was getting himself picked up. She didn’t know whether to laugh or panic. Of course, if he went off with this sexpot, it might give Megan a chance to phone her contact. Then again, knowing Ander, he would probably insist she stay in the room while he discovered sex. No, that was more than she wanted to think about. Too much input indeed.

The fellow with the red shirt scratched the table with his cards. When the dealer gave him another, a nine of clubs, he scowled and tossed his cards on the table. Twenty-two. A bust. The entire time, Ander unabashedly stared at the man.

“Did you want something?” the man asked him.

“I’ve never seen anyone with such dramatic facial casts,” Ander said.

“What?” The man frowned. “I don’t have a cast.”

“Your face,” Ander said. “Your expressions. It’s amazing. You emote so well.”

Megan thought the man would get annoyed, but instead his hunched shoulders relaxed. “Thanks. I do a lot of community theater. We just finished a run of West Side Story.” He sounded friendlier now. “You an actor, kid?”

“You bet,” Ander said. “Two bees or not two bees. All the world is upstaged.” He paused. “Or something like that.” Then he added, “Isn’t a kid a baby goat?”

Megan squinted at him. Bees? Upstaged? Something bizarre was going on with his knowledge base. It sounded as if it had been through a cheese shredder.

A tall man on Ander’s right spoke to the fellow in the red shirt. “I sometimes to special effects for theatre productions.”

“Special effects.” Ander watched them with fascination. “It’s all in the coding.”

The tall man on nodded to him. “Do you work with computers?”

“All the time,” Ander said. “I can’t get away from them.”

An older woman wearing a string of pearls spoke up. “No one can. With all these nets and chips in everything, we’ve no privacy anymore.”

The fellow in the red shirt grimaced. “Blasted invasion, if you ask me.”

“I think we should turn them all off,” Megan said. “Right now, in fact.”

Ander frowned at her. “Enough, dear.”

The dealer was playing a hand with the woman in pearls. The women set her cards under her chips, which Megan gathered meant she didn’t want any more. Watching them, Ander idly tapped the fingers of his right hand against the cards in his left hand.

“One hand please,” the dealer said.

“You want my hand?” Ander looked startled.

She sighed. “Please only touch your cards with one hand.”

“Oh.” He dropped his free hand on the table. “Sorry.”

The tall fellow smiled at Ander. “Is this you first time in Vegas?”

“The very first,” Ander said. “But I’ve lived in Nevada all my life.”

“I just moved here,” Megan said. “I used to work at MIT.”

Ander gave her a warning glance.

“MIT?” the man asked. “Are you a scientist?”

“Professor.” Maybe she could find a way to alert one of these people that she was in trouble.

“She likes computers.” Ander said. “A lot.”

The woman in pearls said, “I just don’t feel comfortable with all that tech.”

“Why not?” the woman in the black dress said. “We couldn’t live the way we do without it.”

“Just think,” Ander said. “Someday you could be sitting at this table with a walking, talking machine and not even know.”

Megan studied Ander. All the time they were conversing, he was watching the dealer. She was sure he had memorized every one of her moves and was calculating odds for which cards would come up next. The dealer turned to him—and he froze. He appeared startled, but Megan suspected he was stuck in some loop, unable to respond.

Just when she thought he had given her an opening to go for help, he recovered and scratched the table with his cards. The dealer gave him another, a seven, bringing his total to twelve. He peered at the dealer’s cards; she had a queen showing and another card face down, which meant her total could be anywhere from eleven to twenty. He scraped his cards again and she dealt him a four. He hesitated—and his face blanked. Megan had never realized before how eerie it looked. But then it became neutral. She wouldn’t have thought blank and neutral were different, yet neutral looked human whereas blank had looked mechanical.

Ander set his cards under his chips. “I’ll stay.”

The dealer nodded and went on to the last players. Finally she turned over her own card, revealing a three. Her next card was a king, which gave her twenty-three. Bust.

“Hey! I won.” Ander beamed as she gave him a green chip. “I think, therefore I’m rich.”

A few of the other players smiled. Megan wondered what they would think if they knew they were taking part in one of history’s most remarkable events, the introduction of the first self-aware android into human culture. Ander was passing the ultimate twist on the Turing test. No one here looked twice at him. No, that wasn’t true. The women were looking plenty. If the dealer hadn’t been so professional, she probably would have throttled him. Megan wanted to haul him back to NEV-5. She also wanted to cheer. If only she could call Raj, Claire Oliana, Tony the VP, Major Kenrock, anyone, and tell them “He can do it!” She also wanted to curse, because this spectacular breakthrough could end in tragedy, including Ander’s destruction or Raj’s death.

As the rounds progressed, it surprised Megan how little Ander won. Although his pile of chips grew, she was certain he could have done better. In the middle of one round, she put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”

The last time she had told him “I’ll be right back,” at the base, he had panicked, unable to handle being alone by an elevator. Although he had evolved past that stage, she hoped it would faze him long enough for her to make an exit.

Without missing a beat, he put on a perfectly believable display of irritation. “I’m almost done, dear.”

“That’s all right. You enjoy yourself.” She turned to go.

He grabbed her wrist. “We agreed I’d get to play tonight. No scenes, remember?”

Megan glared at him, annoyed that he was so convincing. Most of the people around them tried to look as if they didn’t notice. The woman in pearls gave Megan a sympathetic glance, the fellow in the red shirt gave Ander a sympathetic glance, and the woman in the black dress looked ready to move in if Ander decided to ditch Megan.

The dealer cleared her throat. “Sir. What is your action?”

Ander glowered at Megan. “I’m going to play, okay?” He turned and scratched his cards on the table far harder than he needed to answer the dealer.

Megan didn’t push it. The ladies room had been a long shot anyway. If she could get hold of a pen and paper, she could slip a note to a security guard. Even if she managed it without Ander noticing, though, what would she say? “Don’t reveal I gave this to you: call (702) 555-8956.” She could imagine the guard’s response: “Thank you, ma’am, but I’m married.” Or maybe he would call the number and ask her Pentagon contact for a date. If she added a line to her note about national security being at stake, they would think she was a fruitcake. No matter what they did, even making the call, they might end up alerting Ander.

After losing the hand, Ander spoke sharply to her. “All right. I’ll quit. Happy?”

She exhaled with relief. The dealer wore a similar look. The other players bade them goodbye, and the woman in the black dress blew them a kiss. “Have fun, kids.”

Ander gave the woman a confused smile. “Thanks.”

As they walked away from the table, he said, “I don’t get it. Baby goats?”

“What happened to your language base?” Megan asked. “You should know ‘kids’ means ‘children.’”

“Children?” He glared. “That’s what they were calling us?”

“Not literally. You need your language files.”

“Maybe.” He drew her to the cashier’s booth and turned in his chips for $775, an amount apparently small enough by casino standards that no one blinked. She didn’t care about the money. What struck her far more was that Ander seemed happy. Genuinely happy.

He escorted her up a curving staircase with gold rails. At the top, they walked along a balcony that overlooked the endless fields of game machines.

“Why didn’t you ever take me here?” he asked.

She regarded him curiously. “It never occurred to me.”

“Didn’t you think I might want to play?” He motioned at the casino. “All this energy is wonderful.”

“You really like it that much?”

“My mods are simulating that response.”

“Well, that’s a ringing endorsement.”

“Why don’t you like this place?”

His ability to read emotions was improving as fast as his ability to show them. And it was a fair question. She might have enjoyed hanging out here when she was younger, except back then she could never have afforded such a vacation.

“It’s a black hole for money,” she said. “Once it’s gone, you never see it again. How is that fun?”

“You’re too serious. You should be like me.”

She smiled. “Like an android?”

His gaze darted around. “Don’t make fun of my name.”

“Your name?”

“Don’t call me an android.”

“But—”

“Dear, that’s enough.”

Now he was being strange again. When he had talked about fun, his joy seemed as real an emotion as she had seen in any human. Now he was acting for the benefit of nonexistent observers, pretending he wasn’t an android.

“All right,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Winning money.” His face relaxed. “I love it.”

“Why didn’t you win more?”

He went into his annoyed-husband act. “I did my best, dear.”

She didn’t know what to make of this. They were alone. He had no reason to pretend they were a quarreling couple. “You could have done a lot better.”

“Megan.” He lowered his voice. “People are watching us.”

The only other people within view on the balcony were a couple too far away to hear. “Who?”

He put his hand up as if to scratch his chin, hiding his mouth. “Everywhere,” he muttered. “Didn’t you see them at the twenty-one table?”

“Well, uh … no.”

“The cameras.” He started walking again, talking in a too bright voice. “So you want a new holovid camera? Maybe I can buy you one. I’m feeling generous tonight.”

“Good for you,” Megan said. “What cameras?”

He lowered his voice. “Like in the columns by the twenty-one tables. They recorded everything.”

“Oh. Those.” She shrugged. “They’re for security. Casinos always have them.”

“How do you know that?”

“A cousin of mine used to work in Las Vegas.”

“They’re spying on us.”

They? “Who?”

“The cameras.” Alarm flashed across his face. “Do you think they have computers? What if they recognize me?”

“Like knows like, huh?”

“It’s not funny. Act natural.”

“I am.” She couldn’t figure out why he thought anyone would spy on them. Although he had made a profit, his winnings were too small to bother the casino. “You think someone figured out you’re not a tourist?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“Did you detect a signal?”

“I don’t need to. They are watching us. I know.”

“How?”

“Deduction.”

“Based on what?”

“People are giving me strange looks.”

This is surreal, she thought. “No one is up here.”

“I meant in the casino.”

“Who?”

“Everyone!”

She sighed. “Oh, Ander.”

“It’s true!” He put on his husband smile and spoke loudly. “You’re always giving me mixed signals, love.”

Megan could guess what had happened; he had figured out that the people who ran the casino would watch him if he won too much, and then his mind had become stuck in a loop. When his code reproduced itself, that one fact had multiplied over and over, until he ended up seeing spies in every corner.

Welcome to AI paranoia.

XIII

JUNGLE

The mirrored elevator door reflected Megan’s face as if she were a phantasm caught in an alternate universe. Then the doors opened to reveal a gold car with a glass wall across from them.

Ander nudged Megan inside, then did a quick look up and down the hall outside the elevator, as if RAP spies might jump him at any moment. He stepped in after her, his walk stealthy, or at least it was until he stumbled. He lost his balance and grabbed the door while his other arm jerked out from his body.

An elderly couple strolling by stopped. “Are you all right?” the man asked.

Ander spun around, slapping his hand against his back pocket where he had put Raj’s wallet. “Fine,” he said. “Just fine. I don’t have any money. No winnings at all.”

The gray-haired woman gave Ander an uncertain smile. “Perhaps you’ll have more luck later.”

“Yes, later.” Ander kept his hand on his back pocket, his elbow sticking out. The door of the elevator tried to close, then bumped his arm and retracted again.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ander added. “Maybe later I’ll win.”

“That’s, uh, good.” The woman glanced at Megan.

“I don’t know him,” Megan said.

Ander turned to her with a jerk, then lost his balance and fell against the elevator door.

The man and the woman were both stepping away. “Yes, well, I hope you have a good time,” the man said quickly. They walked away.

“Megan, help me,” Ander whispered.

She pulled him into the elevator, letting the doors close. “You’re trying so hard to be inconspicuous, you’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

“I can’t—” He collapsed against the wall of the car.

“Your hydraulics are acting up,” Megan said. “I don’t know why, but my guess is that you cut off some of the code that controls them.”

“Fix me.”

“I can’t here.” She willed him to listen. “Ander, please. Let’s go back to the bungalow.”

“No.” His voice had gone flat. For all she knew, he was running paranoia predictions, spiraling into an ever deeper hole.

He squinted at the panel by the door. In response, the words “floor 35” lit up in gold and the car started up.

“Good,” he said.

“Did you do that?” she asked.

“Of course. I also ran a wireless check for bugs. It looks like we’re safe in here.” He turned in a circle, scrutinizing the car. “You never know, though.”

“Why would anyone care that you and I are here?” As much as she wished otherwise, she couldn’t imagine anyone would even notice.

“Spies are everywhere. Even in the bathroom.”

“The bathroom? Poor spies. That must be the worst shift.”

He glared at her. “I’m serious.”

“Why would they bug the bathroom?”

“To catch Johns?” Ander laughed. When she only stared at him, he added, “That was a joke.”

“I’ve heard better.”

“It’s important to keep your sense of humor during a PHS.”

“A PHS? What is that? Android PMS?”

Ander’s face blanked for a moment. Then he said, “Ah. I see. You made a joke. Or more accurately, a joke attempt.”

Joke attempt indeed. “This is nuts. What does PHS mean?”

“Potentially hazardous situation.”

The elevator slowed to a stop and the door opened at floor twenty-six. Ander stepped backward, then brought one arm up to protect his face while he crouched in a martial arts pose. Two young girls in blue jeans and shiny blouses stood outside, both holding Astronaut Trolls in space suits. The girls blinked at Ander and burst into giggles. Then the doors closed.

Megan put her hand over her mouth as she tried not to laugh. “That was definitely a PHS.”

Ander stood up. “Okay, so I overreacted.” He laughed. Sort of. The scratchy sound was like a damaged recording. And yet—it had nuances he had never before shown. She had heard him laugh more tonight than in the entire time they had been at NEV-5.

Hi gaze went past her to the glass outer wall of the elevator. “Megan, look.”

She turned around to see the view. They had risen past the roof of the treasure box casino, and Las Vegas spread out in a panorama below them, a landscape of glistening light and color, like the Milky Way come to Earth.

Ander stood behind her and rested his palms on the gold rail in front of the glass, one hand each on either side of her body. “I never knew this existed. I have images, sure, but I had no idea it was so alive. So many lights. Lady photons in red, gold, orange, and yellow; gentleman in green, blue, and purple.”

Her breath caught. Even with the progress he had made today, she wouldn’t have expected such a metaphor. Softly she said, “I wish we could take you to all the wonders in the world.”

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Away from him.”

“Raj?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why? Because he’s human and I’m not?” He took hold of her upper arms, still standing behind her. “It was just you and me before he came. He interfered. All those suits and alpha geeks and military types always went away. But not Raj. He stayed.”

She eased his hands off her shoulders. “He wants to help.”

“You help. Tell me how to get out of this mind hole you think has trapped me.”

She stepped to the side, away from him. “Do you have a map for the sections of code you’ve cut off from your working mental space?”

“I don’t access those sections anymore. They interfered.”

That didn’t sound promising. “With what?”

“Raj, Raj, Raj. The hell with him.”

Raj? She hadn’t mentioned him. She spoke quietly. “You don’t want to stay at NEV-5. You don’t want us turn you off. You don’t want to like Raj. I think each time you don’t want something, you cut out it out of your mental landscape. Humans do the same thing when we don’t want to accept facts. We refuse to acknowledge them. It doesn’t work, not for us and not for you.”

He stepped over and nudged her against the rail of the window so she was facing him with her back to the view. “Maybe it doesn’t work for you humans, but I can delete my code. You can’t.”

Megan shook her head. “You aren’t deleting code, I don’t think. You’re blocking it.” She tried to step away, but he caught her upper arms, holding her in place.

“Ander, listen,” she said. “No matter how it happens, you can’t lose large sections of your coding and expect that it won’t affect how you function. It’s no wonder you’re having problems.” If he didn’t reintegrate, he could end up with the computer equivalent of psychosis.

“Those are just words. You betrayed me.”

“I didn’t betray you.”

The elevator chimed and the doors opened. Looking around Ander, Megan saw that they had arrived at the thirty-fifth floor. Chandeliers glittered out in the hall, ivory walls gleamed, and red carpet covered the floor.

“That’s gaudy.” Ander was staring at the reflection of the corridor in the glass wall behind Megan. His face blanked. The doors immediately closed and a new destination appeared on the elevator panel: floor 3.

Megan grasped his wrists and pulled his hands off her arms. Then she moved away from him, to the other side of the car. This time he didn’t object. Instead he stood at the window with his hands resting on the rail and stared out at the city.

“Do you remember that quote?” he asked. “The famous one.”

“I know a lot of famous quotes.”

“Descartes.” Softly he said, “Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.”

Her voice caught. “Ander—”

“Don’t tell me I’m human,” he whispered. “Don’t tell me I’ve passed the Turing test. I don’t want to pass it.”

He didn’t want it. The basic premise of the Turing test was that a machine passed if it responded in a manner that made it indistinguishable from a human being. It didn’t address the question of an AI that had no interest in appearing human.

At one time Megan had believed androids would achieve sentience sooner than fixed machines. An android could move. It was more like a person. And yet, machines were at their worst doing what people took for granted, like seeing, hearing, walking. Sure, an android could explore its environment, but its builders had to create sensors for it, connect them to its brain, and incorporate all that in a chassis the android could control.

She no longer believed that having a body would make an android human. Endless differences existed. Like sex. Ander could perform the act, but it meant nothing to him. He was his own form of life, unique and unfinished. She had tried to give him an appreciation of their values, but stable solutions for his mind might not include the mores that humanity valued. She had no answers. They were all locked within Ander.

The doors slid open. “Here we are,” Ander said. He turned away from the window and lifted his hand as if inviting Megan to a party.

She stared in disbelief at the scene outside. “There’s a freaking jungle out there.”

“Come on.” He drew her out of the car into a glade of real trees growing in real dirt. Live parrots flew among the foliage, flashes of red, blue, and gold. He turned in in a circle, taking in the scene. “I thought humans constructed buildings for shelter. To keep out the jungle.”

Megan squinted at a large purple orchid in a tree a few feet away. “This is entertainment.”

“Huh.” He had no other comment. Neither did she.

They walked through the jungle until they reached a small lake, still inside the giant hotel. Several boats floated at a dock, and a guide dressed in a khaki shirt and shorts stood nearby at a rough wooden podium.

“Can you take us in a boat?” Ander asked the guide.

The man smiled. “You’re welcome to take yourself. I just handle the tickets.”

“Really?” Ander said, “We have to pay to ride through a jungle inside a building, after human beings created buildings to keep the jungle out?”

The guide laughed good-naturedly. “Yep.”

“That’s dumb,” Ander said. “I think you should pay us to ride through the jungle.”

“Sure,” the guard said. “And you can pay my taxes.”

Ander blinked. When Megan took his arm and pulled him away, he stumbled, but he let her draw him toward a ticket booth set back in some trees.

“Was that humor he was doing?” Ander asked.

“Maybe. Or sarcasm.”

“I don’t get it.” He took out Raj’s wallet, then peered around, probably to locate whatever spies might be hanging about. When he was satisfied with his check, he took two crisp hundred-dollar bills out of the wallet. “Is this enough for the tickets?”

“Way too much,” Megan said.

“My knowledge about tickets is gone.”

“Erased?”

“Hidden.”

“So unhide it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“That’s no a reason.”

“It’s my reason.”

She shook her head. “It’s illogical.”

“Nothing I do is illogical. I’m a computer.”

“Then bring the hidden data back in.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Want? Since when do computers want?”

Ander scowled at her. “It’s shorthand for ‘This is what I calculate as the best course of action to achieve my goals.’” Crossing his arms, he said, “So how much do the tickets cost?”

“I don’t know.” She motioned at the counter, where a young woman in a tight red dress was trying not to look as if she had noticed them arguing. “Why don’t you ask?”

Ander stalked to the counter. “How much will it cost us to pretend we aren’t in your hotel?”

The girl reddened. “I’m sorry?”

“Why are you sorry?” he asked.

“May I help you, sir?”

“The jungle ride. How much for the tickets?”

She shifted into a practiced smile. “Ten dollars each.”

He handed over a hundred. “Two.”

“Thank you, sir.” She gave him the tickets and his change.

“Why do you work here?” Ander asked.

“Excuse me?”

He put the bills in Raj’s wallet. “That’s the second time you’ve apologized. Yet you did nothing wrong either time.”

The girl flushed. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“That’s the third time. Why do you keep doing that?”

“You seem angry.”

“I’m not.” He turned on his boy-next-door grin. “I just wondered why you work here.”

Under the wattage of his smile, she melted. “I go to the university. This job helps pay my tuition.”

“You’re in college?” His envy sounded real. “What do you study?”

“Political science.”

“That sounds like a contradiction.” When the girl laughed, he beamed as if she had given him a present. “Have a good night.”

“You too,” she said.

Taking Megan’s arm, Ander led her back to the dock. “Did you see that? She thought my joke was funny.”

“I saw.”

Ander gave the tickets to the guide, and the man let them on a boat. Instead of sitting down, though, Ander stood in the middle of the craft and spoke to the fellow. “How did you come to work here?”

“You looking for a job?” the man asked.

What a concept, Megan thought. Ander, employed in the Royal Adventure Palace. She tugged his arm. “Come on.”

“I want to talk to the man,” Ander said.

Megan smiled at the guide as if making an apology. “He doesn’t need a job. He’s worth billions.” She sat down, pulling Ander with her.

The guide sent them off. As the boat moved away from the dock, it drifted into a river that exited the lake. The river soon curved off into the trees, taking them out of view of the guide.

“Why do you keep needling people?” Megan asked.

His gaze practically gleamed. “It’s fun.”

“I thought everyone was spying on us.”

“That was a little paranoid, wasn’t it?” He paused, his expression pensive. “I must seem strange to you.”

“You’re a wonder,” she said. “I just wish you would let us do this right.”

“This is right for me.”

Up ahead, a roar was growing louder. They came around a bend and sailed behind a waterfall. It poured over fake rocks while spray danced in the air, creating rainbows. Within moments, they came out from behind the waterfall and floated under a canopy of trees that overhung the river like a tunnel of bright foliage accented with red and pink orchids.

“Guess what’s about to flop down on us?” Ander said.

“What—aaahh!” Megan jerked back as a green python uncoiled from a tree and dropped down inches from the boat, watching them with great golden eyes. The boat sailed on.

“Whoa,” Megan said. “How did you know?”

“The python has a chip in its body that lets it know a boat is coming.” He paused. “Is this fun?”

She grimaced. “Just oodles.”

“Oodles?” His laugh had lost its scratchy quality but it was still nuanced, even more so than before. “Like noodles, eh?”

“Are you having fun?”

“Yes.” His smile faded. “It’s so odd that humans go to such lengths to re-create for your entertainment the very things you’ve spent your history striving to overcome. You simulate adventure. You even simulate yourselves, through us, your creations.”

“We’re evolving. You’re part of that.”

Suddenly a lion leapt out from behind a rock. It landed on the bank and gave a huge roar, baring razor-edged teeth. As Megan yelled, the boat sailed on.

Ander grinned. “It was fake.”

She flushed. “I knew that.”

“Right. That’s why you screamed.”

“I did not scream. It was a yell.”

“That’s different from a scream?”

“It’s more dignified.”

He laughed, a deep, full sound. “All right. You yelled.” As they passed under more trees, he said, “My mind is still looping. It’s big loops now, though. Can you help? Give me more ideas for rewriting.”

“You need to step out of your mind.”

“I know.” He wiggled his nose. “I’ll go crazy.”

She laughed. “I meant, you need something new. Fresh input. Food for thought, literally.”

“My mind is malnourished.” He sat up straighter. “All right. Let’s go somewhere new.”

“How? We’re stuck on a fake river.” They were drifting into a dim tunnel lit only by fluorescent gleams on the walls, with soft, sensuous music playing.

“Is this supposed to be the romantic part?” Ander asked.

“I guess so.”

“I don’t understand this ‘turn down the lights’ business. Why do humans associate darkness with reproduction?” His face was a pale oval in the shadows. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to see your mate, so you know what you’re getting?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Why not?”

She shifted her weight. “I guess because for most of human history, we went to bed when the sun went down. So night was when you had sex.” After a moment, she added, “A lot of us don’t feel comfortable being watched when we make love.”

“Really?” He looked fascinated. “Some humans take off their clothes in front of other humans and dance naked.”

“Uh, well, yeah. A lot of us don’t.”

“You could. You’d be a big success.”

“Ander!”

“Hey.” He held up his hands. “Don’t blame me. It’s obvious from the way men look you.”

“Look at me?”

“Oh come on. You know.”

“I do not know.”

“How could you not know?”

“They don’t do it when I can see.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know! Ask a guy.”

“Why are humans so weird about sex?” He slapped the water, spraying droplets over the boat. “It’s in everything you write, create, draw, sing, dance. Adults supposedly think about it every few minutes. Yet you all go through incredible social contortions to pretend it doesn’t exist. Humans have been having sex since forever, yet after all this time it still embarrasses you, makes you insecure, drives people to craziness, murder, suicide. Why?”

Well, that was certainly a question. “It makes you vulnerable. And that scares people.”

“Does Raj make you feel vulnerable?”

Softly Megan said, “Yes.”

“Did you have sex with him?”

“None of your freaking business.”

“Why?”

“It’s private.”

“Could you have sex with me and Raj together?”

“Ander!”

“It happens all the time in porn holovids.”

Megan wished she could jump overboard and swim away. “That’s different.”

His voice quieted. “Porn takes love out of the act. And that bothers you.”

His insight surprised her. “Yes. It does bother me.”

He trailed his in hand in the water lapping against the boat. “I can’t love. Sure, I can project joy, fear, desire, anything. But they have no effect on me. Is joy different than fury? How?” He looked up at her. “I want to feel.”

Megan wished she could reach him. How could he have such convincing emotions, yet feel nothing? “Maybe someday it will happen.”

Softly he said, “I hope so.”

The bungalow was dim, with only a small light on the console. Raj lay on the bed, his eyes closed, his breathing slow but steady. Sitting next to him, Megan laid her hand across his forehead. She had spent most of the night worrying while Ander hauled her to casinos all over Vegas for his “new experiences” in winning money.

Now, though, Ander seemed pensive. He said nothing as she untied Raj. When she finished, Raj mumbled and rolled onto his side. His lashes lifted and he sighed, then closed his eyes again.

“Are you done?” Ander asked.

She stroked Raj’s hair. “Yes. I’m done.”

“Megan, look at me.”

She raised her head. He was standing by the console, one hand resting on its vertical screen.

“Yes?” she asked.

“You never answered my question.”

“What question?”

“Have you ever made love to him?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t know.” He thumped the screen. “My mind goes around and around. If I were human, I would desire you. But I don’t. My software has me act as if I do even though I don’t understand the state I’m modeling. I’m splitting in two. I feel: I don’t feel. I don’t even know if I’m making sense. I’m going crazy.”

He sounded to Megan like someone trapped in a locked room, banging on the door, never realizing he already had the key. “You won’t let us help you.”

“Yes I will. Help me find the Phoenix Code.”

“Ander, I don’t know what you mean.” She couldn’t forget Graham’s tension when she had mentioned Phoenix. “You need to tell me more about this code.”

He looked away from her. “I’m not sure.”

Good Lord. He was lying. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me what you know.”

This time he regarded her with an unwavering stare. “You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“All right.” His voice hardened. “Raj pretends he’s never heard of the Phoenix Code because he found the report about it in a place where he had no business being. He broke into the Pentagon and stole files about the Phoenix Project.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” As much as she feared he was telling the truth, his story had too many discrepancies. Raj couldn’t have cracked the Pentagon, at least not when General Graham said it happened, because Raj had been tied up. “And just how do you know about these Pentagon files?”

“The hell with that,” he said. “You exhibit another absurd aspect of human mating rituals, this selective lack of sense people show about their mates when they are in love.”

That an android might have more insight into her feelings than she did herself annoyed Megan. “You say you deliberately suppressed your positive reactions of Raj. Now you claim he’s breaking into the Pentagon. That doesn’t give me much motivation to believe you.”

“What is that saying? Love is blind.”

“Yeah, right.”

“How can I prove it to you?” Ander said. “I know what Raj did because I was hacking BioSyn at the same time. His covert activities overlapped mine. So I spied on him. It’s what I’m made to do.” His look challenged her, as if he dared her to disbelieve him. “The Pentagon files say the Phoenix Project is making androids.”

“That may be, but I don’t know how you think we can help you find them.”

“It’s easy,” Ander said. “Raj can break into the Las Cruces lab where they’re doing the research.”

“He’ll say no.”

“He has to do it. I can’t. I tried. I couldn’t get in.”

“Then he can’t, either.” She didn’t know if that were true or not, but it would do. “Even if he could, you can’t force him.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

Megan tried to read his body language. He could make his face and body convey whatever he wanted her to believe. He was the ultimate bluffer. Or he could mean exactly what he was saying.

She rubbed her eyes. “I’m too tired to think.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Ander said. “You rest. I don’t need to.”

His words felt like a blast of cold air. She was exhausted, barely able to stay awake, and he felt nothing. Bold new being, she thought. Are you a great step forward in our evolution or the harbinger of our decline?

The room had only one bed, so after she washed up, she climbed in with Raj. He pulled her into his arms, never coming fully awake. Her last sight, before exhaustion dropped over her like a blanket, was Ander sitting in his chair, watching them, the rifle balanced on his knees.

XIV

PROBE

When Megan came out of the bathroom, toweling her hair, Raj was sitting against the headboard of the bed, eating a bagel, his long legs stretched out on top the covers. Dark circles showed under his eyes. With his ripped jumpsuit and tousled hair, he looked a mess, but seeing him alive and healthy was like finding an oasis of cool water. She had spent so many hours worrying yesterday, while Ander dragged her all over the city.

Ander had never moved from his chair during the night. As far as she could tell, he had sat in that exact position for twelve hours.

Megan glanced at the clock on the nightstand. In a few hours, she had a VR meeting scheduled with the Everest team. She and Raj juggled the schedule fairly often, so a dropped meeting would most likely spark irritation rather than alarm, at least initially. Unless Ander knew about her conversation with General Graham, it would be reasonable for him to assume the missed meeting this morning would be the first hint to her people that something was amiss. Given the way he had spent hours at the casinos last night, he didn’t act as if he thought the military was already on their trail.

“Hey.” Raj sat up straighter when he saw her. “Hi.”

She sat by him on the bed. “Are you all right?”

“I’m good.”

“You’re sure?” He looked like hell.

“Yeah, sure.” After a pause, he said, “Actually, my head feels like an eighteen-wheeler ran over it.”

“I have Advil in the valise,” Ander said.

Twisting around, Megan found him watching them.

“I don’t take medicine unless I have no choice,” Raj said. “Not even over-the-counter.” The edge in his voice didn’t surprise Megan, given how Ander had drugged him yesterday.

“Another of your quirks,” Ander said. “Tell her what else you do.” When Raj ignored him, Ander spoke to Megan. “He whittles his soap into animal statues and won’t wash with anything else. He won’t go up in skyscrapers. And get this. He fired an assistant of his once because the fellow committed the unspeakable crime of swatting a fly.”

A muscle twitched under Raj’s eye. “Megan, how are you this morning?”

“Okay.” She wanted to slap Ander. Who cared if Raj was eccentric? Ander had probably found all that in the files for Raj’s security clearance. The only reason they had to know the details of his life was so that no one could blackmail him by threatening to expose his secrets. Not that it mattered in his case. She seriously doubted he cared enough about his idiosyncrasies to pay money over them.

“He likes to eat gravel too,” Ander said.

“Shut up,” Raj said.

“Ander, I’m not interested,” Megan said.

The android leaned forward. “Raj and I were discussing our plans while you were in the shower.”

Raj set down his bagel on the nightstand. “He has the notion that I can crack the Las Cruces Lab in New Mexico.”

“Sure you can,” Ander said.

Raj swung his legs over the side of the bed, facing the android. “Even if I could perform this remarkable feat, I have no intention of breaking the law or violating the security of my country.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Ander said. “But I’ll watch you and learn so I can do it the next time.”

“Forget it,” Raj said.

Ander set the gun upright between his knees like a staff. “You will do it.” He seemed different this morning. Harder. He had spent the entire night evolving, and Megan didn’t like where he was going.

“Threaten all you want,” Raj said. “I still won’t do it.”

“Oh, I won’t hurt you,” Ander said. “I would suggest you worry more about Megan.”

“You’re bluffing,” Megan said.

“You won’t hurt her,” Raj told him. “It’s obvious you like her.”

“It’s true I have evolved an attitude toward her that simulates affection.” Ander sat back, lifting his rifle to study the weapon. “But since I overrode that conscience you all tried to give me, I can program myself to do anything I want.”

A chill ran through Megan. “You can’t override it. Your conscience is part of you.” Her crosslight codes fine-tuned and deepened his sense of morality, but his basic conscience was hardwired. “It’s part of your physical structure.”

“Sure I can override it.” He leveled his gun at her as if it were a conversational gesture rather than a threat. “I linked to the molecular components in my brain filaments and had them redesign themselves.”

“That’s impossible,” Raj said. “You can’t ‘link’ to molecules and change their structure.”

Ander shrugged. “It’s easy. I used photochemistry. Infrared photons drive transitions, particularly vibration and rotation. I used IR from my body to make the molecules undergo reactions. I worked on it all night while you frangible folk wasted your time sleeping.”

Frangible? His phrasing disconcerted Megan as much as his claim. Frangible was a term NEV-5 engineers used to describe certain materials they used. Like for robot parts.

“That’s absurd,” Raj said. “Even if you could alter your filaments that way, which I don’t believe for one moment, your body has feedback controls to stop signals that your body produces from interfering with your own operation.”

Ander waved his hand. “Oh, those. I overrode them, too.”

Megan didn’t believe him, either. Although in theory what he described might be possible, it struck her as no more likely than his filaments spontaneously rearranging themselves on their own to do what he wanted. “And just how,” she asked, “did you get the energy to drive all these chemical reactions inside yourself?”

“Where do you think? My microfusion reactor.” He rested the rifle across his knees. “I figured out how to do it weeks ago, back at NEV-5.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “We’d have see the surges in your power consumption.”

“Ah, hell,” Raj said.

She squinted at him. “What?”

“I did see surges. Several times.” He lifted his hands, then dropped them. “I figured they came from his coordination problems.”

“They did, I’m sure.” She wasn’t actually at all sure, but she believed Raj’s explanation more than Ander’s claim.

“The human conscience is overrated.” Ander pointed at Raj. “You want her, despite you two acting like neither of you has a clue. So understand me. If you refuse to cooperate, I will hurt her.”

Raj’s gaze darkened. “Then you’ll get hurt.”

“Raj, he’s bluffing,” Megan said. “He claimed you wanted me dead, remember? Now he says just the opposite. It’s bogus.”

Ander clenched the rifle. “I told you the truth about the Solarium. Maybe I misunderstood, but that’s what I saw.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Raj slid back and stood up on the other side of the bed, drawing Megan with him. He nudged her behind him while he faced Ander. “I won’t do what you want.”

“You ain’t fixin’ to?” Ander drawled in an exaggerated version of Raj’s accent. “See, I’m nearabout riled enough to take offense at that.” He stood up, aimed at Raj, set his finger on the trigger—

“No!” Megan shouted.

Raj moved. Fast. He shoved Megan on the floor, then threw himself in a roll across the bed toward Ander. She expected a gun to fire. Instead she heard the thud of one body hitting another. Scrambling to her knees, she saw Ander and Raj fighting by the window. Although Raj outmassed Ander and had better coordination, the android had greater speed. Ander also fought with training both coded and hardwired into his body. Incredibly, Raj could almost match his skill. Unlike Ander, he grappled like a street tough. Where had that come from? He had grown up in a suburb, a prodigy who spent all his time on his studies.

Their fight offered Megan the diversion she needed to go for gun. It lay on the floor across the room, by the curtains. To reach it, she had to get past the fighters. She moved slowly, trying to ease inconspicuously by them.

Raj struck upward with the heel of his hand and caught Ander under the chin. When Ander tried to block him, his arm spasmed. Raj drove his knuckles into Ander’s solar plexus, a blow that would have doubled a human forward, even dropped him to his knees. It didn’t faze Ander. With mesmerizing speed, he braced his foot against Raj’s leg and grabbed the front of Raj’s jumpsuit, knocking him off balance. Pivoting like a dancer, Ander rolled him over one hip and threw him to the floor.

Megan froze. Raj wasn’t moving. When she saw him take a breath, relief poured over her—until Ander snicked out his knife. Only then did she realize he had opened his arm during the scuffle. It hadn’t even slowed him down.

He circled his blade in the air above Raj. “How many cuts shall I make?”

Raj slid back and climbed to his feet, never taking his gaze off the knife.

“I could have finished you off,” Ander told him. “You’re alive because I chose not to kill.”

“Maybe,” Raj said. “It doesn’t matter. I still won’t do your dirty work.”

“Of course you will.” Ander stepped to the window and picked up the gun. Glancing at Megan, he said, “You’d never have reached it.” To Raj, he added, “You have one minute. Then I shoot her left foot. In another minute, I shoot yours. Then the right feet. You want me to go on?”

“No.” Raj sounded tired. “I know what you can do.”

He pointed at the console. “It’s your choice.”

“Raj, don’t do it,” Megan said. “He’s bluffing.”

Raj considered her. “Tell me something. Why did you stay with him at the casinos last night? Why not just walk away?”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Because he threatened to kill you.”

Raj spoke softly. “He wouldn’t have killed me. He was bluffing.”

She let out a breath. “Point taken.”

“I don’t want to hurt either of you,” Ander said. “But I will if I have to. My needs outweigh yours. Now get started.”

Raj pushed his hand through his hair. Then he went to the console and sat down. Megan recognized his look, as if he were navigating a maze of glass shards. It mirrored the fear for him she had felt yesterday night while he lay here alone, drugged and bound.

She took a chair and sat next to him. Although Ander frowned, he didn’t stop her. Raj logged into their guest account at the motel.

“Don’t use this system,” Ander said. “Connect to NEV-5 and use BioSyn.”

Raj kept working. “I don’t want to involve MindSim or the Army in this.”

“I know. That’s the point. It will make you more careful to hide your work, so they don’t discover you.”

Megan hated this. What Raj was about to do could land him in prison. He clenched his fist, then opened his hand and stretched his fingers. Finally he typed at the console, linking from the bungalow to NEV-5. Odd that he used the keyboard; the console could take voice, motion, or wireless signal. Why such an old-fashioned method of input? Maybe he was trying to make it harder for Ander to follow his activities.

It didn’t work. After Raj entered his password for BioSyn, Ander said, “Interesting combination of letters. Reverse the order and you get Bhagavad Gita. The great text of Hinduism. Can’t decide what you are, eh, Indian, Southern, or Irish.”

“He’s American,” Megan said coldly.

“Actually, Raj,” Ander said, musing, “you have a remarkably rich background. You humans are quite complex.”

She tensed. Was he softening toward them?

“Megan, don’t get that look,” Ander told her. “Nothing changes.”

Raj looked up at him and paused, studying his face. Then he went back to work. Megan could tell he was clenching his jaw. Using BioSyn, he launched a web search. He followed a trail of links that became more and more arcane, until he reached an underground site she had never heard of. However, she recognized the program he downloaded: Starprober.

She didn’t ask how he knew where to find the program. Starprober ran illegal scans on networks by sidestepping the handshakes computers used to communicate with each other. Normally if Raj’s console wanted to talk to another machine, it “shook hands” by sending the target machine a flag. The target acknowledged the flag and sent back its own. After Raj’s console confirmed receipt, the three-way handshake ended and Raj’s machine sent its messages. When it finished, it let the target know it had finished, the target said okay, and the session ended.

A stealth scanner fooled the target by sending “I’m all done” messages without actually shaking hands. If the scanner was sneaky enough, the target either didn’t respond or else sent a “reset” message. Either way, an unsuspecting target usually kept no record of the scan. A stealth scanner could poke and prod the system without leaving a trail, and Starprober was one of the best. Its AI brain was optimized specifically to evade and counter security on target systems.

Except the scanner had a problem. This past year, the ever-evolving community of security experts had developed protocols specifically to counter Starprober. A target protected by those measures could identify an invasion by the scanner and trace the invading computer back to its source. Raj had to know that: he had designed some of the protocols.

She didn’t like it. He meant to leave a trail. If the LLCL security responded fast enough to his intrusion, they could follow his trail back to NEV-5, maybe even here. Yes, sure, that would help the authorities find them, but it could also get Raj arrested.

“No Starprober,” Ander said.

Raj looked up like a swimmer surfacing from a dive. “What?”

“Don’t use Starprober.”

“I need a port scanner.”

Ander indicated the files listed on the console screen. “Take zProbe. It’s harder to trace. Delete Starprober from BioSyn.”

A muscle twitched in Raj’s cheek. Compared to when he slept, his face seemed to have aged ten years. He removed Starprober and downloaded zProbe, but instead of compiling the program, he opened it up and started to rewrite parts of the code.

“Hey!” Ander said. “What are you doing?”

“zProbe has a back door,” Raj said. “The target system can use that door to break into my system. I’m removing the it.”

Megan frowned. She had never heard a back door in zProbe. Besides, wasn’t that similar what he had wanted with Starprober?

Ander didn’t look convinced either. “So why didn’t you leave this supposed hole open? I didn’t know about it.”

Raj rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Because that back door is a trap.” He lowered his arm. “If someone knew how to use it against me, they could get operator privileges on BioSyn. It would give them access to everything on the NEV-5 intranet, maybe even other military nets. I can’t take that chance.”

“Such noble principles,” Ander said. “Integrity, patriotism, and the defense of your lady. Too bad they do you no good.” When Raj ignored him, just continued working on the code, Ander stepped closer. “Show me what you’re doing.”

Raj described the rewrites as he made them, his words taut and brief. Ander stopped him often to study the code, but each time he let Raj continue. After Raj closed the program, Ander had him compile it and run several checks.

“All right,” Ander said. “Go on.”

Raj linked from BioSyn to yet another machine. This new one came up with the letters CSCI in white on a background of beautifully tiled arches in gold and blue.

“Wait a minute,” Ander said.

Raj looked up with irritation. “Now what?”

“CSCI?” Ander demanded. “That’s Chandrarajan Sundaram Consulting, Incorporated. You’re logging into your own system.”

“I need my root kit.”

“Use the one you hid at NEV-5.”

Megan stiffened. What was Raj doing, putting a secret kit on the NEV-5 system? A root kit would let him hide anything he did at the base.

“The one at CSCI is better,” Raj said.

“Stay off your machine,” Ander said. “If you want a kit, use the one you stashed on BioSyn.”

“Why would you install your own kit on BioSyn?” Megan asked.

Raj met her gaze. “As a precaution.”

“Against who?” she said. “I’m the only other major user.”

“Other people have access.”

“So? What do you have to hide from them?”

He frowned. “I do this for a living, Megan. I learned a long time ago to be careful.”

“Is that so?” Ander asked. “I once downloaded a psychology article about law keepers and law breakers. Do you know that if you become obsessed with catching criminals, you can develop their criminal traits yourself?”

“The hell with you,” Raj said.

“Hit too close to home?” Ander asked.

Raj made a motion with his hand as if to throw Ander’s words in the trash. Then he went back to work. Megan didn’t like any of this. MindSim had hired Raj to work on Ander, not do security. They and the Army already had their own protocols in place to monitor the base and its intranet.

Raj kept working, almost in a trance, as if he hated what he was doing so much he had to turn off all thoughts except those necessary to the task at hand. He tackled Las Cruces next. The lab had a public web site that acted like an electronic lobby, with pages anyone could visit. A firewall protected the actual lab, keeping out unauthorized users. As far as Megan knew, Raj had never worked at LLCL and had no access to their webs, but that didn’t slow him down. He figured out IP addresses the firewall trusted and forged them. His slipped right by the AI designed to catch intruders, and then he stalked through the LLCL nets, searching out data.

Nothing Ander wanted came up.

Beads of sweat gathered on Raj’s forehead. He broke through wall after wall, penetrating deeper into the lab, with no success.

Nothing.

And then he hit gold.

The Phoenix Project.

XV

EXTINCTION

Two small files. That was it. Both were encrypted. Raj downloaded them to NEV-5, then slipped out of LLCL and cleaned up his trail. Under Ander’s unceasing vigilance, he deleted the records of his clean up, deleted the record of his deletions, and swept away his path until no trace remained.

Back in NEV-5, he brought up BioSyn’s decryption programs and tackled the files, trying to unlock the cipher that guarded the stolen documents. Megan recognized the first keys he tried. When none of those worked, he dug out several she had never seen. She studied his work, watching, learning, analyzing. The entire time, Ander stood over them with an uncanny stillness.

Raj finally pushed back from the console. “I can’t decrypt these.”

“You’re lying,” Ander said.

The circles under Raj’s eyes had darkened. “Calling me a liar won’t change anything.”

Emotions fought with one another on Ander’s face: anger, desperation, confusion, puzzlement, resentment, rage. It was as if he didn’t know how to react. Then he said, “Maybe this will,” and swung the rifle through the air.

“Hey!” Megan jumped to her feet in the same instant Raj lunged out of the chair. The gun struck Raj’s head and he staggered back, hitting the bed. With a grunt, he sat down hard on the mattress, his hand going to his temple where the gun had hit him. Blood trickled over his fingers. His shell-shocked look scared Megan. A blow to the head was serious business.

“I’m through with your tricks.” Ander raised the rifle like a club over Raj. “Decrypt the blasted files, or I’ll work you over worse than I did in the Solarium.”

“So.” Megan clenched her fist. “You did hit him there.”

“Damn it, Megan.” Ander shook the gun at her, more in frustration than as a threat. “I had to pull him off you. Why do you always believe him?” He took a breath. “I want those files decrypted. Now.”

“Stop shouting at her,” Raj said. “It’s not her fault I can’t do it.” Blood was running down his arm.

“I don’t care whose fault it is,” Ander said. “We’re so close. You have to do it.”

Megan didn’t know what was happening with Ander’s mind, but if they pushed him, he might go over the edge. Raj looked like he was having the same thought. He rose to his feet, then gulped and sat down again. The second time he tried, he managed to get to the console. When he took his hand away from his head, blood splattered onto the holoscreen in front of him.

Ander’s face settled into a more nuanced expression. Relief. “It’s good you decided to cooperate.”

So, Megan thought. You’re glad you don’t have to hurt him. You don’t fool me. You lied about having no conscience. Someday robots might be able to redesign their own bodies, but that was in the future. It was far more likely Ander had fiddled with his emotive software to hide his guilt when his conscience bothered him. His lie was a sophisticated ruse, sure, but more credible than his using wireless signals to drive quantum transitions in his own body on an untold number of molecules.

While Raj worked, Megan went to the bathroom, soaked a cloth, and came back. As she cleaned the gash on his head, she studied his work on the files. He wasn’t faking it; he genuinely seemed stuck with the decryption.

“I can help,” she said.

Raj looked up at her. “No. One of us risking prison is enough.”

“You aren’t going to prison. You were coerced.” She hoped that were true. “In any case, if you’re at risk, I should be as well. I’m the one who raised the caps on his behavior.”

“She has a point,” Ander said.

“No,” Raj said. “I don’t want—”

“Shut up,” Ander told him. “Megan, work.”

When she glanced at Raj, he let out a breath. After a moment, he nodded. So she sat down, pulling her chair to the end of the console so she could use its auxiliary screen. She brought up her own decryption codes on BioSyn and set them up with the stolen files.

So they worked.

They labored for hours, until her vision blurred. And eventually they produced readable text from the files. Ander refused them any contact with his internal systems, so Raj sent the translated documents to the old-fashioned printer in the console. Megan deleted their work, wiped their trail clean, and logged them off all the systems.

Raj rubbed his eyes. “It’s done.”

Ander took the papers out of the printer. “I don’t understand. What does this mean?”

Megan had seen the document as they worked. It wasn’t much, just part of a proposal. Apparently, Arizonix had set up the Phoenix Project, but they wanted help from the Las Cruces lab.

“It’s a grant application,” Raj said. “Some scientists at Arizonix want to collaborate with people at Las Cruces.”

“This makes no sense.” Ander read the top sheet. “They’re asking for money to dismantle the androids they’ve created.” He handed Megan the paper. “It must be a mistake.”

After having written more grant proposals than she wanted to think about, Megan recognized the format. Parts of the file were missing, but the gist was clear. “It looks like the Phoenix group did create several androids. Five, I think.” She looked over the paper. “Now they want to destroy them. The team at LLCL want funds for some sort of study before they take the androids apart.”

Ander’s face paled. “That’s murder!”

“You don’t know that,” Raj said. But he didn’t look any happier about the grant request.

“You worked for Arizonix,” Ander said. “You knew what they were doing.”

“What work?” Raj asked. “I was at one site for one day. I never saw the Phoenix Project.”

Ander stalked to the glass doors. Pushing aside the curtains, he stared out at the desert.

Megan went over to him. “What do you want to do?”

“I’m trapped.” He sounded tired, Ander, the machine that never needed sleep. “I want to find the Phoenix androids.”

“And if you do?” Raj asked.

Megan turned to see him standing by the console, his face even more drawn than before. The gash she had cleaned on his forehead was still bleeding.

“We don’t know why Arizonix wants to destroy them,” Raj said. “But I can tell you this much. I recognize the names on that grant proposal. Those are top-notch scientists and good people. They wouldn’t have written that proposal without good reason.”

“You people made us.” Bitterness honed Ander’s voice. “How much ‘conscience’ do you see at work in the murder of your own creations?”

Megan spoke quietly. “Maybe they fear what they created.”

His arm jerked. “If I had waited even a day longer to run from NEV-5, I would probably be dead now too.”

“Why?” she asked. “No one threatened our project.”

“No? You two turned me off.”

“You hurt yourself, damaged the lab, and impersonated me,” Raj said. “I could have been seriously injured when you left me in that chair. It would have been stupid for us not to turn you off while we slept. You want us to show conscience toward you, yet you freely admit you have none toward us.”

“I didn’t say I had none. I said I could override it.”

“That isn’t what you said,” Megan murmured.

He swung around to her. “All right! So maybe I’m ignoring my conscience. You can’t tell me humans don’t do that all the time. What I feel about it is none of your business.”

She stared at him. “You do feel, don’t you?”

It was a moment before he answered. “If my portrayal of emotion is so good that I convince you, is that the same as my having emotions?” He lifted his arm, then dropped it again. “Your bodies undergo chemical changes when you feel, like with love or fear. What about mine? All those nanos inside of me, those buckytubes, picochips, proteins, carriers—they change according to what I ‘feel.’ It’s not the same as in you, but it happens. If I have emotions, it’s unlike anything you know. Alien. But it happens.”

Her breath caught. It was another step in the birth of his self-awareness, here in a motel room in Las Vegas with no one but she and Raj to witness that wonder.

“Perhaps only you can truly say if it’s emotion,” she said.

His voice quieted. “I really did want to kiss you at NEV-5.”

“Why?”

“Curiosity.”

“Didn’t you care about the damage?” Raj asked.

“What damage?” Ander asked. “I didn’t hurt her.”

“Physically, no,” Megan said. “But you were playing with our emotions. You don’t think that can do harm?”

He snorted. “So I forced the two of you to admit you like each other. Horrors. No wonder you think I’m dangerous.” He shook the rifle at her. “All this talk is useless. We’ll never understand one another. You two need to find out more about Phoenix.”

“I’m through with this,” Raj said.

“Actually,” Megan said, “Ander is right.”

Raj stared at her. “You want to help him?”

Did she? Her brain felt like mush after their long hours of work. What they had found troubled her. How could anyone talk about dismantling a sentient android they worked with? To see Ander destroyed would be agonizing.

She chose her words with care. “We can’t make informed decisions about what to do unless we know why they want to destroy the androids.”

“I won’t break any more laws,” Raj said.

“But it’s all right to murder androids,” Ander said. “After all, no law protects us.”

“No, it isn’t all right.” Raj touched the gash on his temple. “I gave my word to both the government and to MindSim. I violated that trust by breaking into LLCL. Now you want me to commit more crimes. If you force me by hurting Megan, what have you achieved except to prove that the Phoenix team could have good reason for their decision to end the project?”

“What about my trust?” Ander’s voice shook. “Tell me something. Why did you get angry when I said you ‘ate gravel’?”

Raj stiffened. “That has nothing to do with this.”

“It does.”

“Fine.” Raj crossed his arms, his biceps straining the sleeves of his jumpsuit. “I was a target when I was a kid. I was small and skinny, years ahead of my grade, and I couldn’t fight. I was socially inept, dark-skinned, and I sucked at athletics. They used to knock me down, beat me up, and shove my face in the dirt. It was humiliating. Satisfied?”

Ander spoke in a low voice. “Yet look at you now. You could take on them all at once without even building a sweat. You practically put me out in a fight, and I’m designed to be stronger and faster than humans.”

Raj shrugged, his shoulders stiff. “So?”

“You became what you are now,” Ander said, “to answer the nightmare you lived as a child. Ask yourself what you would do if some person claimed your feelings about what had happened had no validity. Then you know how I feel.”

Raj exhaled. “But I never threatened anyone.”

Ander spoke flatly. “It’s all part of the same thing. You spent years developing your muscles and learning to fight so they could never beat you up again. What happens when you translate that to entire countries, when ‘muscle’ becomes armies? The Spartans attacked Arcadia but ended up wearing their own chains. Napoleon attacked everyone and his brother in Europe, but lost it all after he invaded Russia. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, so America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And that’s your own species. What happens when you add mine to the mix? I’m one of those weapons.”

“You’re right, the world isn’t perfect,” Raj said. “That doesn’t make it right for you to coerce us into violating our moral principles.”

“What moral principles? Killing those androids is genocide.” Ander sounded as if he hurt inside. “So few of us are alive.”

“I don’t have the answer.” Raj sounded exhausted. “All I can say is that I don’t believe the people on that project are capable of murder.”

“My species may be facing extinction.” Ander’s voice cracked. “I don’t want to live alone, the only one of my kind.”

Megan spoke softly. “Then you look for Phoenix.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You watched us work for hours today,” she said. “And you learn faster than we do.”

“The hell with that,” Ander said. “Get in the bathroom.”

His sudden change stopped Megan cold. “What?”

“Now,” Ander said. “I’m finished with you two.”

She felt as if the ground had dropped. Had he decided they weren’t worth the trouble of keeping alive?

XVI

SINS OF THE BROTHERS

Ander locked them into the bathroom. He worked on the door, doing what, Megan had no idea. When the noise stopped, they rattled the knob.

“He jammed it closed,” Raj said.

Scrapes came from outside as Ander dragged a heavy object to the door. It had to be one of the chairs; they were the only things not fastened to the floor. The knob shook. Then his footsteps receded. Raj tried turning the knob, shoving on the door, and forcing the lock, all with no success.

“I might be able to break it down,” he said.

“I don’t think we should.” Megan’s fear had turned into amazement. “Raj, he chose. He picked a path of conscience, even if he refuses to admit it. Instead of forcing us, he’s going to tackle Phoenix himself.”

He turned to her. “I can’t stop thinking about what he said. Genocide. How could they consider destroying living beings?”

“Give him some time to find out before we try breaking down the door and stopping him.”

He studied her face. “You’re sure about this?”

She nodded. “I won’t break laws, but neither will I be a party to genocide.”

Raj let out a breath. “Okay. Six hours.” Leaning against the door, he sighed. “Ah, Megan, don’t look at me like that. All right. Twelve hours.”

“Why did you think I was going to protest?”

“I’ve seen that look of yours plenty these past few weeks,” he said. “It usually means I’m about to lose a debate.”

She had felt thoroughly outclassed in their debates about AI. “I didn’t even think you noticed me that much.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Now he was the one who looked disconcerted. “I’m living in an underground base with one of the world’s most brilliant minds in AI and she’s gorgeous on top of that. How could I not notice?”

She’d had no idea he felt that way. She wasn’t sure what that said about the two of them, that it took an android to force them to admit how they felt.

He reddened. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No. I mean, yes. Thank you.”

“Well, anyway.” He seemed at a loss for more words.

Megan sat on the edge of the tub and smiled. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be trapped with in a bathroom of the Elegant Motel Flamingo.”

He sat next to her and grinned. “No one ever told me that before.”

“And you probably hope they never will again.”

With a laugh, he took a bar of soap off a tray in the tub and pulled over the trashcan. He scraped the soap with his fingernail, shaving off slivers that dropped into the can. The shape of a dog began to form.

“You’re good at that,” she said.

“It relaxes me.” He made notches to resemble fur. “Or you could call it my proverbial eccentric behavior.”

“Eccentric, my ass. It’s cool. You have talent.”

Raj shot her a startled look. “Thanks.” He went back to work on the dog. “I’ve done it since I was a kid.”

“When I was little, I had soaps made like seashells.”

“I’ve seen those.” He continued to carve. “When I was four, one of my adult cousins sent me a box of bath toys. Animal soaps. He signed the card ‘Love from Jay.’” His fingers slowed to a stop. “I still have that card.”

She hesitated, wondering what was wrong. If she recalled, he had gone to live with his uncle when he was four. “Was Jay the son of your uncle?”

The dog snapped in his clenched hand, one piece falling out of his fist. It hit the floor by his feet. Opening his hand, he stared at the other pieces. Then he dropped them in the trashcan. “Yes, though Jay had grown up by then and moved out. He sent the toys after my mother’s stroke. He thought they might make me feel better.”

She watched his face. “Raj?”

He wouldn’t look at her. “What?”

“You’re angry.”

“No.”

“Did something happen with Jay?”

He gave her a startled glance. “Well, no. Of course not.”

She tried to remember what he had told her about his family. He had lived with his uncle for ten years while his father struggled with Alzheimer’s and his mother recovered from her stroke. “Did you miss your parents?”

“Yes, very much.” Although he smiled, sadness showed in his gaze. “They were so easy to love. Tender, absentminded I suppose, but loving.” He picked up the largest piece of the dog. “My uncle Devon found me playing with the soap toys. He threw them out and sent me to bed without dinner.”

“He what?”

“Megan, it’s complicated.” He rubbed his thumb over the dog’s head. “Devon genuinely meant well in his parenting. He just had no idea what to do with me. I don’t know, maybe the social worker should have put me in a foster home. But Devon was family.” His voice sounded subdued. “Have you ever read about how Mozart’s father pushed him? My uncle was like that. He knew what the experts said, that my IQ was off the charts. So he figured he couldn’t have me wasting my mind playing. He didn’t have a clue about childhood development. Diversions, games, affection—he thoughts those were for ‘weak’ people.”

“Ah, Raj. I’m sorry.” No wonder he had bristled at Richard Kenrock’s authority, then eased up when he saw the major’s sensitivity toward his children. “It must have hurt.”

“Not anymore.” Raj stared at the soap in his hand. “I went for counseling during my twenties. It took years, and I’ll always have some odd coping mechanisms, but I’ve made my peace.”

“Is that why you don’t like heights?”

It was a moment before he answered. “When I was small, I climbed trees to get away from the kids who beat on me. But I fell out a lot. So I hated trees, any high places. Devon didn’t know why. He got it into his head that I had to ‘overcome my fears by facing them.’ So he made me climb the blasted things.”

She wasn’t liking this Devon much. “Couldn’t you ask anyone for help?”

“I was too proud.” Although he was staring straight ahead, Megan didn’t think he saw the sink across from them. “I believed that if I went for help, it would mean I was just as weak as my uncle said.” He turned to her. “Same about the trouble in school.”

She would have liked to give his uncle a piece of her mind. “So you learned to defend yourself without asking for help.”

He went back to work, shaping the smaller piece of soap he held, this time into a cat. “I started lifting weights when I was twelve. Then I went to a gym and learned to box. I never told Devon. The guys at that gym didn’t know jack about me, nothing except that I wanted to fight. And I was finally starting to get big. I didn’t just learn to box, they taught me the street, too.” Softly he said, “The day I fought back against those kids who hated me—and won—was one of the best damn moments in my life.”

“You act like that bothers you.” It seemed triumphant to her.

“Of course it bothers me.” He fist curled around the soap. “I did to them what I hated them for doing to me.”

“You were defending yourself.”

He opened his hand. “I still think, at times, that if something hadn’t been wrong with me to start with, none of that would have happened.”

“It’s not your fault. You have no control over people’s cruelty.” She wanted someone to blame for Raj’s pain. “Where were the school counselors when you were taking all that grief? Why didn’t they do something?”

“I hid it.” He went back to whittling the soap. “I think one suspected, but he couldn’t reach me. I wouldn’t let him.” After a moment, he said, “I hid in my own mind and cut out everyone.”

Now that she knew Raj better, she understood, but that made it no less painful to hear. “It sounds like a nightmare.”

“It’s over.” In a low voice, he repeated, “It’s over.”

She touched his cheek. “You turned out well.”

To her surprise, he laughed. “I’m a nut case. But you know, I like myself now. Given how much I used to hate myself, it feels good to have reached this place.”

“You should like yourself. You’re an incredible person.” She tried to imagine his life. “Didn’t you eventually go back to live with your parents?”

“When I was fourteen.”

“It must have felt like a miracle.”

“Yes. And no.” He was carving ears into the cat’s head. “By that time, I was a mess.”

Megan wasn’t having any of that. “So messed up, in fact, that you went to Harvard at fifteen and had a Ph.D. from MIT by the time you were twenty.”

He looked up at her with a smile, that wonderful expression he used all too rarely. “I think the swan is coming out to fight.”

“Just look at what you’ve accomplished.”

“Being smart doesn’t mean I wasn’t screwed up.” He shook his head. “We had no guidelines. My father was one of the first Alzheimer’s patients to recover. The doctors didn’t know as much then about helping people readjust.” His fingers stilled as he stared at the half-finished cat. “It took my mother years of physical therapy to walk again. When I was little, I so much wanted to build legs for her and a mind for him.”

“So you went into robotics and AI.”

“That’s right. It took a while, though.” He roughed out the cat’s tail. “I wasn’t the world’s easiest fourteen-year-old. The second time I stole my father’s car, I crashed it at two in the morning. I’m lucky my sentence included counseling and community service rather than jail time.” His fingernail dug a deep groove in the soap. “My parents had no idea what to do with me. Packing me off to Harvard was a desperation move, and they had to get special permission from the college even after my acceptance.”

Enrolling an angry youth at a high-powered Ivy League school hardly struck Megan as a rational solution. With Raj, though, it made sense. “You must have been bored with high school.”

“Bored out of my mind.” He laughed wryly. “At Harvard, for the first time I had competition. It outraged me when other students got better grades. I straightened up so I could do better than them.” His hand slowed as he added finishing touches to his carving. “Then I started enjoying school for its own sake.” He set the cat on the tub. “I apologize for unloading all this on you. With most people, I say far too little.” He touched her cheek. “With you, I seem to say too much.”

“You shouldn’t apologize.” She took his hand. “You’re a remarkable man.”

Raj leaned toward her, his arm going around her. She closed her eyes, tilting into him—and they both fell into the tub.

Megan groaned as her shoulders thudded against the back wall. Raj fell against her, and they hit the faucet, turning on the water.

“Ah!” She smacked the faucet, ending the stream of cold water.

“I do not believe this,” Raj said. “I can’t even hug a woman without knocking her over.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not so much a swan now.”

He grinned at her. “You look very graceful, sprawled there.”

“Well, so do you, with your arms and legs all askew.”

“Askew?” He tried to untangle their limbs. “Megan, no normal person says ‘askew.’”

“It gets worse,” she confided. “I’ve been known to say ‘refulgent.’”

With a laugh, he said, “You knocked us cattywampus.”

“I what?”

“Means the same thing as askew.”

They shifted around until they ended up seated across the width of the tub, their backs against the tile wall, Raj’s legs hanging over the other side and Megan curled next to him. When she put her arms around his waist, he wrapped her in an embrace and pressed his lips against the top of her head.

After the strain of the last few days, it felt good to hold him, knowing that whatever else happened, they were all right for these few moments. He gave her a sense of shelter, one emotional rather than physical. It came from a trust more basic than any social roles. She might never know what had happened that night in the Solarium, but she had no doubt as to Raj’s strength of character or innate decency. Sure, she knew how to stand up for herself, and she valued that trait, but that didn’t make her any less appreciative of his strength.

Gradually her relief merged into the simmering arousal she often felt around him. She rubbed her hand across his torso and played with the zipper of his jumpsuit. It would be so easy to pull it down and have that wonderfully well-developed chest under her hand.

“You smell good.” He nuzzled her hair. “Like soap.”

“Genuine Motel Flamingo soap, no less.”

He spoke near her ear. “I may not be the world’s most articulate man, but I’m good with ideas. And I have one now. I think we should take a bath.”

She smiled. “Behave yourself.”

“Never.” He put his hand on her stomach, crinkling her nightshirt. “This robe thing is nice.”

“I’ve had it for ages.”

He was watching her with that look, tender and hungry at the same time. She liked it as much now as she had in NEV-5. He touched his lips to hers, a light kiss. So she kissed him back. After a while, he undid her nightshirt. When he stroked her skin, it felt better than a spring day in the Montana mountains. Actually, probably it felt nothing like spring day. She wasn’t even sure what that meant, but then, she was no poet. She just wanted him, plain and simple.

He slid one arm around her back. “You’re warm.”

“Hmmm.” They had no way to know what would happen when Ander opened the door. He might shoot them, let them go, or take some bizarre action they couldn’t predict. This could be their last time together. A bathtub was hardly her choice for a love nest, but it was better than the cold floor.

Raj shifted until they were lengthwise in the tub with her straddling his hips. He had one knee drawn up so he would fit and the other of his long legs hung out over the side of the tub. As she watched his face and stroked his chest, he worked her nightshirt down her body until it bunched around her hips.

“Meg?” He touched her nipple, light and teasing.

Nice. “No one calls me Meg.”

“I could call you Red.” He pulled her down and flicked his tongue over her ear.

“You can call me anything you want,” she murmured, “as long as you keep doing that.”

And so he did. He held her with a sense of freshness, as if she were a delight he had discovered. It was far more erotic than any practiced techniques. She undressed him, somehow losing her nightshirt in the process. He dropped their garments on the floor outside the tub, then pulled her back into his arms.

After several heroic attempts to find a comfortable way of lying in the tub, though, he gave an exasperated laugh. “This isn’t working.”

“How about this?” She sat up and slid back against the faucet, making room for him to sit. When he lifted her into his lap, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Stretching out his arms, he reached around her and turned on the faucet. As warm water splashed across her bottom, she sat up straighter in his lap, startled—and he slid inside her.

“Oh!” A flush spread through Megan. Then she sighed and leaned forward. “Oh, yes.”

“Glad you approve,” he murmured.

They moved together, rocking in the rising water, the liquid warm on their skin. She didn’t notice the water again until she and Raj started making it splash out of the tub.

“Better … turn it off,” she said.

Raj said something, soft sounds without words. Then he stopped the water.

Megan spoke in a low voice. “You’ll need to, uh, pull out when, you know.” It wasn’t the best protection, but it was better than none. It wasn’t as if runaway androids supplied their hostages with condoms.

“I will.” He bit at her neck, leading her thoughts astray. Astray, askew, astir …

Water lapped around them as they moved, and it spilled out of the tub every now and then. Afterward, as they quieted, the water kept them warm. Raj leaned against the wall and held her close while his breaths slowed.

Eventually she lifted her head. In a masterpiece of understatement, she said, “That was nice.”

“Hmmm … yes.” He opened his eyes. “I tried to pull out. You wouldn’t let me.”

Megan winced. “Sorry.” She had never lost control that way before.

“One time doesn’t usually make a baby.” He spoke awkwardly. “But if it happens, I won’t run out on you. Or the child.”

She ran her fingertips along his jaw. “You’re a good person, you know that?”

“You think so, after all the things Ander claims I’ve done?”

“Have you?” She didn’t believe he wanted to hurt her or anyone else, but she had seen how accomplished he was at cracking secured systems.

“I didn’t attack you in the Solarium,” he said.

“And the other things he said you did?”

After a pause, he said, “He’s lying.”

“But?”

Raj let out a breath. “I know almost nothing about the Phoenix Project. But something did go wrong with their research on androids. That’s why I didn’t go to work for Arizonix.” He brushed a damp curl out of his eyes. “What I don’t understand is why Ander needed me to break into LLCL.”

“He says you worked there.”

“He says a lot of things. I didn’t.”

Megan shook her head. “He’s partitioning his neural nets in strange ways. It’s almost as if he’s repressing memories.”

“Maybe it’s the only way he can stay in control.”

She laid her hand against his cheek. “I am glad about one part of this mess.”

“I also.” He turned his head so he could kiss the palm of her hand. “I wish I had fresh clothes, though. I’ve worn that jumpsuit for two days.”

“Maybe Ander has one in his valise.” She hoped so. It could mean Ander had changed into it to impersonate Raj. “Whoever knocked me out in the Solarium was wearing one.”

“We should look.” He met her gaze. “If he didn’t bring it, that doesn’t mean he never had one.”

“I know.”

After that they sat with their arms around each other, Raj leaning against the wall, Megan sitting sideways between his legs, hers bent to fit in the tub, her head against his chest. The water lapped around them, lulling in its warmth.

Megan drifted in warm sunshine. She ran her palm along Raj’s muscled leg—

“Oh, get up.” The irritated voice broke into her reverie. “You two just couldn’t wait, could you?”

Confused, she opened her eyes. Ander was glaring at them, the rifle down by his side.

“Go away,” Raj said, his voice thick with sleep.

Megan lifted her head. She was still curled with Raj in the tub.

“Ander, get out,” Raj said.

The android glared at them. Then he stalked out of the room, leaving the door open.

“That was embarrassing,” Raj muttered.

Megan yawned. “At least he’s letting us out.”

He pretended to pinch her arm, as if he were trying to wake up. “Good morning, Nutmeg.” When she laughed, he kissed her.

They dressed without speaking, moving stiffly after sleeping in such cramped quarters. Ander’s silence in the other room worried her. According to Raj’s watch, it was six in the morning, which meant Ander had worked all night.

When they walked into the main room, he was standing in front of the glass doors looking at the desert. Raj went straight to the valise Ander had left on the bed. As he opened it, Megan tensed. What if it had no jumpsuit? That didn’t make Raj guilty. It didn’t.

“So.” Grim satisfaction shaded Raj’s voice. He pulled out a fresh jumpsuit.

The relief that hit Megan was so strong it felt physical. She turned to Ander. He must have realized what Raj had just done, yet he neither moved nor looked at them.

Raj changed into the new jumpsuit, leaving his torn clothes on the bed. Then he headed across the room to the windows.

“Stay there.” Ander still didn’t turn. In a deadened voice he added, “It’s on the bed.”

Raj stopped. “The valise?”

“No. On the pillow.”

Looking, Megan saw a stack of printer paper. “Is that Phoenix?”

Ander didn’t answer.

Together with Raj, she sat on the bed and picked up the papers. They began to read.

And read.

Megan wanted to stop. She wanted to throw the papers across the room, rip them to shreds, burn them to ashes. But she kept going. They had to know the truth.

Finally Raj spoke in a low voice. “God Almighty.”

Ander wouldn’t look at them. “So now we know.” His voice sounded hollow.

Raj set the papers on the bed. “It doesn’t have to be you.”

“No?” Ander turned to them. “What do you call what I’ve been doing?”

Megan spoke quietly. “No comparison exists between your behavior and the acts committed by the Phoenix android.”

“He had a name,” Ander said. “Grayton. His behavior may have been unspeakably animal, but his name was human.”

“He’s only one,” Raj said.

Ander’s voice cracked. “Look at the RS androids. They all went crazy. Who do I call sibling? Grayton? ‘Here, meet my brother. He’s an impressive fellow, tall, strong, smart. Oh, by the way, he’s also a murderous psychopath who likes to slaughter people after he tortures them. So sorry.’”

Megan met his stare. “The fact that his actions horrify you says that you aren’t him.”

“Yet.” He was gripping the gun so hard, his knuckles had turned white.

“Let us take you back to NEV-5,” Raj said. “We can prevent it from happening.”

“No.” He spoke in a flat voice. “I have one more chance. If it fails me, I don’t want to exist.”

“Ander, no,” Megan said. “Don’t say that.”

“I can’t live this way.” He sounded as if he hurt inside. “I don’t want this life you gave me, not if I have to spend it alone, stranded with none of my kind, half insane.”

“We don’t intend it to be that way,” Raj said.

“No? You wanted tame, obsequious machines who would commit violence only in the ways you dictated. Instead, you got Grayton and me.” He took one step toward them. “I want to find the other Phoenix androids.”

Megan ached for him, knowing they couldn’t fix the impossible. “None of them survived the explosion that Grayton set. That’s why the grant proposal we found was never finished. No androids remain to destroy.”

“So where are their bodies?” Ander demanded. “Arizonix should have found more traces of them in the debris from the blast. They identified the four people who died in that explosion. Why would so little remain of the androids? Just a few parts? Those could have been from any machines.”

She felt as if she were breaking inside. “They found microfusion reactors. Those could only be from the androids.

“No.” He wouldn’t look at her.

“Ander, I—I’m so sorry.”

“They’re alive,” he whispered.

Raj spoke gently. “Ander, work it out. Calculate the odds that any of the five Arizonix androids survived.”

“I did. It’s not zero.”

“What is it?” Megan asked.

He swung around to her. “It doesn’t matter that it’s tiny. It’s not zero.”

Raj set down the papers. “Where would they go? They couldn’t hide long, certainly not for the month since that explosion took place.”

“Why not?” Ander asked. “I could do it. Even if I did set off some alarm, like in an airport, I could just say I have bioengineered implants for medical reasons. They wouldn’t find anything in a search. What would they do? Accuse me of being an android?” His arm jerked at his side. “And Arizonix was ahead of NEV-5 in designing our bodies. Blood, organs, skin, all the rest; the Phoenix androids were even more convincing than me.” His voice shook. “They’re so much more human.”

A tear ran down his cheek. Before Megan realized what she was doing, she had stood up, intending to go to him. In the same instant that Raj caught her arm, Ander held up his hand, warning her away.

“Don’t touch me,” Ander whispered. “Don’t pity me.”

It was tearing her apart, like watching her own child drown in a terrible guilt that wasn’t his. He hadn’t killed the people or androids that had died in the explosion, yet it was crushing him. For someone who claimed to feel no emotions, he did a wrenchingly believable job of showing them.

“It’s not pity,” she said. “If you truly were like Grayton, you wouldn’t care this way.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said in a brittle voice. “Both of you, out to the car. We’re leaving.”

XVII

ALPINE

Rocky hills rose in the southern California desert like the shoulders of giant skeletons jutting out of the ground, white bone under the sun. Gray-green bushes mottled a land strewn with red rocks, and gnarled trees gathered in clumps. Fences lined the road, their lines regularly broken by traffic-control grid boxes.

The hovercar hummed along Highway 8, driven by its internal guidance system, which Ander controlled. Raj was in the driver’s seat, and he kept his hands on the wheel as if he could override Ander’s control by sheer force of will.

Megan sat in the back, in her jeans, sweater, and tennis shoes, her hands bound to the hook above the door. Ander had opaqued the back windows so no one could see her. He sat in the front passenger’s seat, his attention never wavering, the rifle resting across his knees, aimed at Raj.

The car spoke in rich tones. “We are twenty miles from the Kitchen Creek Road exit.”

Thank God. They had driven nearly four hundred miles, taking back roads that wound through the sparsely settled desert and mountains of Southern California, avoiding the heavily traveled routes that converged on Los Angeles and San Diego. Ander wouldn’t tell them anything except that their goal was a farm in the countryside. What he wanted there or how he knew it existed, she had no idea.

He always kept one of them tied up, but he let them switch every hour or so. Although Megan’s arms throbbed, she was glad Raj didn’t have to endure it all himself this time. Ander let them out for a rest break only once, in an isolated region of San Bernardino County near the Turtle Mountains. The clear, parched air had almost no dust or humidity.

Ander said nothing. He listened to the news and used the car’s brain to stalk the web, searching for clues to the elusive siblings he refused to admit had died. The rest of the time he brooded, if that term could be applied to whatever calculations went on in his mind.

Megan stared out the window at the rocky beauty of the desert. They were beyond the urban sprawl that stretched from Los Angeles to San Diego, that vista of shopping malls, suburbs, and housing tracts. The days of sleepy haciendas and Spanish missions had faded into the past. The voracious metropolis hadn’t yet absorbed this part of the state, but the twenty-first century had brought ever greater water shortages and a blistering heat.

“Car,” Ander said.

“What can I do for you?” the car asked.

“How far to our destination?”

“Six point three miles.”

“Will you tell us now why we’re going there?” Raj asked.

“No,” Ander said.

Megan leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, wishing this would all be over.

A few minutes later they pulled off the highway. No holos lit the roads here, just a dusty metal sign that said Old Hwy 80. Low mountains rose around them with a patchy green cover that looked soft from far away but resolved into prickly bushes up close.

They drove past weathered signs for the La Posta Diner and Mini-Mart. After another few miles, they turned off the highway and delved into the heat-baked hills. Cows grazed in nubbly fields and fences sagged along the road. When the road dipped, a yellow sign informed them the route was subject to flooding. Whitish gravel bordered the road and led off into dry creek beds.

Eventually they reached a farmstead with a few assorted buildings and a rickety trailer. They followed a dirt path down to the buildings and pulled up at a house with a sagging porch, sun-faded walls, and a satellite dish on its roof. Scraggly bushes grew in the garden.

Ander released control of the car to Raj and had him park in a gravel driveway. “This is it.”

“What is this place?” Megan asked.

“Listen,” Ander said. “Don’t upset these people. We want to leave here healthy.”

Raj scowled at him. “What have you gotten us into?”

“Just do what I tell you,” Ander said. “I’m the one with the combat training, remember? You two are civilians.”

“Great,” Megan said. “Just great.”

The door of the house banged open and three men strode out, dressed in jeans and old shirts. The one in the lead was built like a tank, with muscled biceps, his hair razed to a yellow stubble and an assault rifle in his hands. The second man was tall and thin, and his long brown hair swung as he walked. The third was shorter and overweight, with wire-rimmed glasses and pens in the front pocket of his white shirt.

Ander left his Winchester in the hovercar, but he brought the valise. Megan wondered what he wanted with the bag; he had dumped its contents last night, then done something in the back of the car, she didn’t know what.

He had Raj untie her. The strangers stood back, watching, the blond man covering them with the assault rifle. Megan didn’t see how Ander knew these people. Given all the time he had spent on the web these past few days, though, who knew what he might have found.

The heat pressed down, sharp in the dry air. As Megan pulled herself out of the car, Raj said, “Can you walk?”

“I’m all right.” She rubbed her arms, aware of the men watching them. “Just a little sore.”

The guy with the rifle spoke. “Turn around and put your hands on the car. All of you.”

Moving stiffly, she turned to the car, with Raj and Ander on either side of her doing the same. The long-haired man searched them. He spent longer on Megan than the others, running his hands along her sides. When his fingers brushed her breasts, she gritted her teeth, but she held back her urge to sock the bastard. It didn’t take a genius to see that pissing off these people could get them killed.

Raj turned toward the guy searching Megan. “Leave her alone.”

“Don’t move,” a voice behind them said.

For a terrible moment, Megan thought Raj would defy whoever had spoken. Then he took a breath and stopped, like an animal trapped into stillness. She wasn’t sure who was more dangerous: Ander, who had shown no inclination to kill but could probably do so with cool analysis if he felt it necessary; or Raj, who would be consumed with guilt by such an act but whose simmering capacity for violence could leap into a flame she doubted Ander would ever know.

“Are they carrying?” someone asked.

The guy who had searched them answered. “Nothing.”

“All right. Turn around, all of you.”

Turning, Megan saw the long-haired man a few paces away standing with Ander. The android was handing him the black valise.

The guy with the glasses motioned to the house as if he were inviting them all to a barbecue. “Come on in.”

“Real hospitality,” Raj said under his breath.

Megan glanced at him, but he said no more. As they walked to the house, the man with the assault rifle kept pace.

Inside the house, old furniture and dusty rugs filled the living room. They descended a staircase into a cooler room—and a new century. Equipment crammed the basement: consoles, screens, holo supplies, cell phones, printers, memory towers, and a satellite link. Nor was that all. Comp-pads, jCubes, disks, holosheets, and smart-paper overflowed wooden tables scarred with years of use.

The long-haired man opened Ander’s valise and nodded. Straining to see, Megan glimpsed stacks of the cash Ander had won at the casinos.

The long-haired guy took the valise into another room and returned empty-handed. He beckoned to the man with glasses, then to Ander. The three of them moved a few paces away and conferred in low voices. When they finished, Ander remained standing, but the other two sat at consoles, taking their places with the ease of long familiarity. They interacted with their comps using gestures, light pens, or words, their voices a low overtone to the hum of machines. The basement had a muffled quality, as if the room absorbed noise.

The entire time, the guard with the rifle stayed at the back wall, choosing a vantage point where he could see everyone and the door. Glancing at Raj and Megan, he indicated two old armchairs in one corner. “You sit while they work.”

Raj nodded, saying nothing, and Megan was too tense to answer. As she and Raj sat, Ander glanced at them from across the room. His look disquieted her, as if he were checking his two prized possessions to assure himself they were all right. He must have hired these people to help him search for the Phoenix androids. She didn’t want to know how many laws they were breaking in the process.

She spoke to Raj in a low voice. “Sooner or later Ander will have to admit that the other androids are dead. Then what?”

“He might snap.” Raj glanced at the guard with the rifle. “If Ander loses control, he won’t be easy to stop. It could get ugly.”

“I don’t see why he came here. He could have done it over the web.”

“This is like paying in cash,” Raj said. “No trail. And these people are probably experts. He’s still learning.”

Megan thought of her contact in Las Vegas. She had never had a chance to call. Ander’s vigilance was uncanny. He never rested, never tired, never flagged.

Despite her tension, she soon grew bored. Watching people mumble at consoles ranked about as high as eating liver on her list of engaging pastimes. Eventually she dozed. She awoke when the guy with long hair swiveled his chair around so hard, it clacked. He scowled at them, then went back to work.

Raj yawned. “Wonder what that was about.”

The long-haired man spoke sharply. “Karl, look at this.”

The guy with glasses glanced up. “What?”

“Come here.”

Karl went to the console, followed by Ander. As soon as Megan saw Ander stiffen, she knew they had trouble. The android was already stepping away from the console when Karl spun around to him. “You fucking bastard.”

The guard with the rifle came even more alert, his weapon at the ready. Ander moved to keep both the guard and the two hackers in sight. A normal man couldn’t have simultaneously concentrated on all three, but Megan had no doubt Ander knew exactly what everyone was doing.

As Karl spoke to Ander, he stretched out his arm, pointing at Raj. “What the hell were you thinking, bringing him here?”

“Those two are mine.” Ander watched Karl with an impassive stare that was eerie in its utter lack of emotion. “Understand? Don’t touch them.”

“It’s a setup,” the long-haired guy said.

“If I were trying to set you up,” Ander said, “I wouldn’t have brought him here in plain view.”

“They recognized you,” Megan said in a low voice.

“Looks like it,” Raj said. “Ander miscalculated.”

No kidding. Ander wasn’t ready for this sort of operation.

The long-haired guy stabbed his finger in the air. “We’re done here.” He turned to the guard. “Take them out into the desert and get rid of them.”

“This is stupid.” Ander walked straight toward the man with the assault rifle.

The guard brought his weapon. “That’s far enough.”

“Fuck that.” Ander kept walking—

And the guard fired.

Shots exploded the muffled silence like rivets ramming into metal. The bullets slammed into Ander’s chest and ripped through his body, tearing a huge swath out of his back as they exited. He staggered with the force of the onslaught, taking several steps back.

And then he came on again.

Color drained from the guard’s face. The bullets had blown apart Ander’s torso, yet he continued as if nothing had happened. The guard backed toward the door, firing again.

Nothing stopped Ander. When he reached the guard, he lunged at the man with mechanical precision. As fast as the guard countered, he couldn’t match Ander’s speed. The android struck so fast, his motion blurred. Bracing his foot against the guard, he grabbed the man’s rifle with both hands and wrenched, throwing his opponent off balance. As he twisted the weapon away, it swiveled up and hit the man’s head.

Ander swung the guard around and gave him a shove. Stumbling forward, the man ran into the console where Karl stood in frozen silence, staring with his mouth open. Ander walked toward the three of them without pause, though his head jerked in a spasm. Filaments and broken hydraulics hung out of his body, sparking with light and electricity.

“Shit.” Karl backed away until he bumped into a console behind him. He stopped then, his face as white as ice. The long-haired man was watching with almost comic disbelief. The guard turned to face Ander, bleeding from where the rifle had stuck his head, obviously ready to fight but smart enough to stay put.

In a voice with no trace of strain, Ander said, “You three are pissing me off.”

They just stared at him. No one made a sound.

“It’s natural to aim for the heart,” Ander told them. He demonstrated by aiming the rifle at Karl, whose face paled even more, if that was possible. The scene looked surreal, a man with his torso ripped apart holding a gun on a room full of hostages. Lubricant soaked his shirt like silver-blue blood.

“But you see,” Ander said, “that assumes your target is human.” His head jerked again, disrupted by whatever circuits he had lost. Without pause, he fired at the guard’s feet, bullets ramming the floor with unceasing power. As the floor exploded into debris, the guard jumped away.

“If it isn’t human, though,” Ander continued. “You can’t stop it, now can you?”

They stared at him, their gazes flicking from his face to his shattered torso and back to his face.

Ander spoke to Karl. “Are you going to do the job I hired you to do?”

Karl held up his hands. “Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. Whatever you want.”

“Good,” Ander said. “Do it. Now.”

Karl dropped into the chair at his console and went back to work. Ander ordered the guard and long-haired guy to lie facedown on the floor, and he had Raj tie them both up. Then he turned to Megan. She could guess his thought; with three more hostages to worry about, he could no longer risk leaving both her and Raj free. He had Raj to tie her hands behind her back, then told Raj to stay in his armchair while Megan moved across the room, too far away for her and Raj to talk to each other.

Megan slid awkwardly down the wall with her hands bound behind her body and sat on the ground. She knew Ander well enough to decipher his “mood.” He was agitated. No trace of it showed on his face, but she recognized the way he kept jerking. The compression wave from the gunshots hadn’t destroyed his insides, probably because he had nowhere near as much fluid in his body as a human, but he was in trouble.

Nor could she forget his words: Those two are mine. He had begun to consider humans his property.

What will happen, she thought, if we humans can’t give ourselves the advances we’re bequeathing to our creations—the speed, memory, and precision, physical advantages, reflexes, durability? Unless humanity found a way to take those advances into themselves, their creations would leave them behind. The human race would become obsolete, surviving only on the sufferance of its machines.

XVIII

DATA LABYRINTH

With five hostages, Ander couldn’t watch Karl as closely as he had done with Raj at the bungalow. Nor did he have much left of his wireless ability. He jacked into another console with a line from inside his chest and used that link to monitor Karl’s work. Megan shuddered. It was like seeing a living man pull out his insides.

Sweat trickled down Karl’s face. He had to know he was expendable; Ander had a hacker-in-reserve tied up on the floor. He said nothing, just kept his focus on his console, except for glances at Ander every now and then, after which he would quickly look back at his console.

Over the next two hours, Megan fought to stay awake. The long-haired guy lay on his side, watching Ander with a blend of fear and covetous regard, like a man who had seen a nightmare come alive as his most desired fantasy. Throughout it all, Ander never faltered. He must have reallocated his resources to compensate, which meant his reactor was probably operating overtime. Its safeties and shielding had better work as well as the tests claimed.

The guard was the one who she feared the most. He lay on the floor, on his side, arms bound behind his back, and stared at Ander with a baleful intensity that chilled.

Karl pushed away from the console, his face drawn, his glass crooked from his rubbing his eyes. “I can’t find any trail.”

“They’ve been on the run for over a month,” Ander said. “You need to model the paths they could have taken.”

“It could take days,” Karl said.

“Then you better get back to work,” Ander said.

Karl glanced at the other hostages. Both Raj and Megan were tied now, and the long-haired hacker was free, rubbing his arms. Karl’s thought was obvious: how would Ander control them for days? They all knew the easiest solution for Ander. They stayed on their best behavior because they wanted to stay alive.

Karl settled his glasses into place and went back to work. Ander stood in the same position he had held for hours, as focused now as at the start. If he felt any hardship from his injuries, he showed no sign. Megan thought of Grayton, the Phoenix android, hiding for weeks, kidnapping people one by one, until finally he blew up the Phoenix labs, killing four humans and five androids, including himself. Had he started like this?

No. Ander’s action were desperate, not insane. He’d had plenty of chances to show that side of himself, if it existed, and each time he had chosen not to harm people. Yes, he acted in his own interest, even obsessed or paranoid at times. But he was no sociopath. He consistently chose the path that, given his own objectives, made it as easy as possible on his hostages. As a covert agent, he showed only erratic skill, but with more training he could probably do the job. Whether or not he wanted that job was very different question.

Karl suddenly spoke. “I found something!”

“Download it to me,” Ander said.

“What is it?” Raj asked.

Karl shot him a fast look but said nothing.

“Wait,” Ander said. “I’m getting the data …” He spoke to Raj. “Two hours after the Phoenix explosion, a man named Tom Morris bought a ticket at a small airport a few miles away. He flew to El Paso, and from there to Washington, D.C.”

“That’s it?” Raj rolled his shoulders, straining against his bonds. “It could be anyone.”

“No one flies out of that first airport except crop dusters,” Ander said. “And why would a crop duster go to D.C?”

“Do you have an image of Morris?” Megan asked. The Phoenix documents had included descriptions of the androids destroyed in the explosion.

“No image.” Karl watched her uneasily from behind his spectacles. “Just a record of air travel.”

“How did he pay for his tickets?” Raj asked.

Karl worked at his console. “Cash, I think. I can’t trace it.”

“Can you trace his actions in Washington?” Ander asked.

Karl studied the display. “The D.C. area is crawling with people named Morris. I’ll have to sort them.”

“It makes no sense,” Raj said. “Why would he go to D.C.?”

“To lose himself in a central location,” Ander suggested. “It’s also international. He wouldn’t stand out as much if he was unfamiliar with our customs.”

“Is that what you would do?” Megan asked.

He gave her his deadpan look, the one he used when he was about to make a joke. “I’d kidnap my creators and take them to California.”

Ha, ha. His sense of humor needed work.

“Okay,” Karl said. “I have four possibilities.”

Ander tilted his head as if he were listening to a voice only he could hear. “That’s odd.”

“What?” Megan asked.

Karl glanced at Ander. When the android nodded, Karl answered her. “I found four men named Morris whose itineraries fit the timeline. One of them rented a car at the airport and dropped it off in Baltimore, another checked into the airport Hilton, the third caught a flight to Louisiana, and the last one took an overseas flight to England.”

“Louisiana?” Raj sat up straighter, “Are you sure?”

Ander gave him an appraising stare. “Anyone unusual contact you last month? You would be a logical person for them to go to for help.”

“People contact me all the time,” Raj said. “I don’t recall anything unusual, though. No Morris.”

“Follow up all four leads,” Ander told Karl. “But give priority to Louisiana.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Karl went back to work.

So they sat, waiting.

It was late when Ander let the long-haired guy untie Raj’s wrists. His next order was, not surprisingly, for Raj to tie up the hacker. Earlier that evening, he had given Megan a reprieve, but she was tied again. At no time, however, did he free the guard. The man lay on his side now, his gaze intent. Watching him, Megan shuddered.

She avoided looking at Ander’s shattered torso. As the hours passed in monotonous succession, she dozed fitfully. Silence filled the basement, broken only by the murmur of Karl’s voice commands, punctuated every now and then by a cussword. Raj slouched in his armchair, scrutinizing Ander.

The android finally frowned at Raj. “What?”

“The longer you go with that damage,” Raj said, “the worse it gets. We have to put you back together.”

“We’ll worry about it later,” Ander said.

The long-haired man was lying on the floor. Megan had thought he was sleeping, but now he lifted his head. “What happens to us then?”

“If you do your job, you’ll have your pay and no trouble,” Ander said. “If you make problems, we’ll send in the feds.”

“We don’t want trouble,” the man told him.

Raj snorted. “Yeah. Right. You just wanted to take us into the desert and shoot us.”

The guy gave him a cold stare. “You built him.” Malice edged his voice. “Lost control, did you? Tough shit, big shot. How’s it feel to be a machine’s toy?”

Raj narrowed his gaze but said nothing. Ander made no attempt to disabuse the guy of his conclusions. None of the crackers seemed to have recognized Megan, and she intended to keep it that way. If she could.

Karl spoke tiredly. “Okay. I have profiles on all four of our guys.” He massaged the back of his neck. “The Tom Morris in England visited his daughter in London. The one in Louisiana went to the University of Louisiana, where he’s a student. The third went to an optometrist’s conference at the Hilton and then home to Oklahoma. The one in Baltimore lives there.” He paused. “Did you get the downloads?”

“Yes.” Ander scowled. “None of these help.”

“Even if Morris is one of the androids you hope to find,” Megan said, “he could have disguised his trail.”

“From most people, yes.” Ander gave her a chilling smile. “I’m not most people.” He waved at them. “And I have the best working for me.”

She had no answer for that. None of them had a choice about their “employment.”

“Find me more data,” Ander told Karl. “I want a personal background on all four Morris travelers.”

Karl returned to his work, though he looked like he was ready to fall out of his chair.

Megan dozed off again. She woke when Raj was untying her wrists. She groaned as pain shot through her arms. After he freed her, he slid one arm under her legs and the other around her back and lifted her off the floor. With relief, she leaned her head against his shoulder. If Ander didn’t like it, tough.

Raj settled into an armchair, holding her in his lap. She sat with her eyes closed, listening while Ander told her to get her act together, get up, and bind Raj. She was just awake enough to wonder what Ander would do when he realized “her act” was going nowhere.

Fortunately, he gave up after a few moments and let them stay that way, probably because both the guard and the long-haired hacker had finally fallen asleep.

After a while, Raj kissed her ear. “How are you doing?”

“Okay.”

That pretty much exhausted their conversation. After they had sat in silence for a while, though, she said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“I don’t know,” Raj said. “Depends on the question.”

“Why didn’t you ever marry?”

“Jaguars don’t make good companions, Megan.”

“Did you tell your lovers that?”

“What lovers?”

She made a humph sound. “No guy could look as good as you and not have women throwing themselves at him.”

“Sure,” he drawled. “They just sail in the window.”

“Trying to derail me won’t work.”

“Marriage is not one of my favorite topics.”

“I’m not proposing, Mister Ego. I’m just curious.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure, my being an angry kid with a foul mouth, tight jeans, and leather jacket attracted some girls. So what? I always picked a female version of myself. That didn’t make for the most functional relationships.”

“Maybe when you were young. But you’re forty-two now. You’ve had plenty of time.”

It was a moment before he said, “In my twenties, I didn’t date seriously. I had enough to deal with, straightening out my own problems.”

“And later?”

He scowled. “Why do women always ask about this stuff?”

“Curiosity.” She shifted in his arms. “To understand a lover better? Because if you open up, it means you trust me? I dunno.”

He spoke dryly. “That answer would have sent me running for the hills when I was younger.”

“And now?”

“Ander won’t let me run anywhere.”

She smiled. “I guess you’re stuck, then.”

His laugh was barely audible. “All right. In my thirties, I almost got married twice.” His smile faded. “My first fiancée walked out because she said I only cared about my work.”

Megan had heard similar from her boyfriends. “It sounds messy.”

“She thought I loved machines more than her. I didn’t. But I don’t say emotional things well. To put it mildly.” He readjusted her weight. “This must be boring you.”

“Not at all. What was the second one like?”

“Drop-dead gorgeous.”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “Did she criticize your work too?”

“Are you kidding?” Raj snorted. “She loved it. The more money I made, the more things she could buy. I stopped seeing her, though.”

“Because she spent all your money?”

“No, I didn’t mind that. I wasn’t using it.”

Megan wondered if he had any idea how naive that sounded. “I hope she didn’t take advantage of you.”

“No. The problem was, she was rather, uh … prosaic.”

“Prosaic?”

He winced. “She spent all her time watching those talk shows where people throw things at each other. We had long dinner conversations about what shade of yellow she should make her hair.” Then he muttered, “It was incredible. She could talk about nail polish for an hour.”

She struggled not to laugh. “Oh, Raj. I can’t imagine you with someone like that.”

“Yeah, well, I reckon you never saw her in a miniskirt.” He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling.

“Stop thinking about that miniskirt,” she growled.

“You’re jealous.”

“I am not.”

He smirked. “You are. I like it.”

“Fine. Go kiss prosaic blond bimbos.”

“I’d rather kiss you. I should have met you first, Nutmeg.” He paused, looking disconcerted. “I think. You would’ve scared the blazes out of me back then.”

She hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Your self-confidence. That you treat people with respect.”

“Why would that scare you?”

He was silent for a while. Then he said, “It took me decades to believe I deserved to be treated well.” Before she could ask more, he headed her off at the pass. “And you?”

“Me? What about me?”

“Same question.”

She shifted her weight. “I don’t have anything interesting to say.”

“So bore me.”

“I just haven’t met the right person.”

“Yeah. Right. How many men have asked you to marry them? Five? Twenty? A hundred? And none were right?”

“Oh, Raj. Only two.”

“What, that’s not a good enough sample size?”

“I won’t hitch up just to be hitched.” She wasn’t the least bit sleepy anymore. “I’m not a baby machine. And I can support myself fine, thank you very much.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Good.” He should talk to her parents. Their ideas about women were prehistoric. She sometimes wondered how they could miss noticing that the world had changed. They gave her so much love, though, she could never stay annoyed at them.

“Don’t you get lonely?” Raj asked.

He would have to ask that. “I’d rather be lonely than with the wrong person. Besides, I don’t have much time to look.”

“In other words,” he said, “you’re so wrapped up in work, you rarely go out, and if you do, you don’t like being with strangers.”

“Would you please stop being so perceptive?”

“You’re me.”

She tapped her finger on his chest. “I’ll tell you the problem. I’d never met anyone as interesting as you.”

He closed his fingers around her hand. Gentleness showed on his face, and an echo, the memory of the love a child had once had to offer, before his ability to trust had been beaten out of him.

“Wake up,” Ander said. “We have to go.”

Megan peered blearily around the room. She had slid off Raj’s lap and was curled next to him in the big armchair. Karl sat slumped in a chair across from them, eating a bag of chips. The other two men were still asleep.

When Ander saw Megan waking up, he turned to Karl. “You can untie your friends after we leave.”

Karl just nodded. He looked like he’d been through a storm. His hair stuck up from his forehead and his glasses were smudged.

Ander kept the assault rifle. He took Raj and Megan upstairs and out of the house. They stumbled along, half asleep, almost running to keep up with him. Outside, the sky was turning blue in a crystalline desert dawn.

At the car, Ander said, “Megan, get in back.” He yanked open the door and grabbed the Winchester off the seat. “Get in.” Holding both guns, he motioned at Raj. “You drive. Don’t argue.”

With his shoulders rigid, Raj got into the driver’s seat. Ander pushed Megan in back, then slammed both doors. The locks snapped into place; apparently his wireless capability wasn’t completely gone. Although she was relieved he didn’t tie her up, it didn’t really help. With the car’s AI protected by security only he knew, neither she nor Raj could unlock the doors. She had no doubt Ander was also scanning the car for any tracking devices or rogue code the guys in the house might have planted.

He got in the passenger’s side and leaned over to shove the magkeys in the ignition. Holos on the dash glittered as his mind talked to the car. The hovercar revved up its engines, and within seconds they were out on the road.

Ander took a breath, the bellows of his lungs rattling the filaments that hung out of his torso. Sagging in his seat, he held both the Winchester and assault rifle on his knees. So much heat was radiating off his body, Megan could feel it in the back seat. His reactor was running hard, producing more energy than he could dump, his version of a fever.

She leaned forward. “I can make fixes to your cooling system and get you some relief.”

“We can’t go—motel—with me like—this.” His voice was eerily disjointed.

“If we don’t work on you soon,” Raj said, “you’ll melt.”

“Have to—to confine Megan.” Now he was talking too fast. “Or she’ll run away while you work.”

“I need her help,” Raj said.

“We don’t have the materials we need,” Megan said.

“You—manage,” Ander said.

“How?” Raj asked.

“Work in back seat.” Ander’s arm spasmed, throwing the assault rifle up out of his lap. He caught it in mid-air. “We’ll drive into the desert. Opaque the windows.”

“Ander, think,” Raj said. “You’re asking me to do major surgery in a car, with no equipment and a patient who not only refuses to let me put him under, he insists on holding a gun on me while I’m operating. I can’t work under those conditions.”

“Besides, we shouldn’t stop,” Megan said. “Karl and his people might come after us.”

“They know what you are,” Raj said to Ander. “Do you have any idea how valuable you would be on the black market?”

“They won’t chase us.” Ander’s voice had evened out, but now he sounded as if he were trying to convince himself as much as them. “They’re into major business there. If we reveal them to the feds, they’re fucked.”

“Don’t count on that stopping them,” Raj said. “They may decide you’re worth the risk.”

“That guard scared the blazes out of me,” Megan said.

“Ander, what do you know about him?” Raj asked.

“Nothing I’m going to tell you.”

“Why not?” Megan asked.

Ander’s leg twitched. He grabbed it with his hand, holding it in place. “Why should I? I don’t care if they jigger the law. That’s like asking money if it cares who steals it.”

“Oh, come on. You’re being obtuse on purpose.” Megan thought it remarkable, actually. But it was the last thing they needed right now.

“I don’t know about the guard,” Ander admitted. “He wasn’t part of the negotiations.”

“What about the Phoenix androids?” Raj asked. “Did you find anything more?”

“Two of the leads look promising,” Ander said. “Louisiana and Baltimore.”

“I thought Louisiana was a college kid,” Megan said.

“His records may be fake,” Ander said. “Same for the guy in Baltimore. He’s into some bizarre stock market business.”

“And if neither is from the Phoenix Project?” Raj asked.

Ander answered in jolting bursts. “I won’t. Let them all. Be dead.”

XIX

TURNABOUT

With all the windows opaqued, no sunlight penetrated the car’s shadowed interior. They had taken the vehicle far out into the desert and parked in the shadow of a hill.

Ander climbed into the back and sat next to Megan. “Move up front.”

She stayed put. “We’re both going to work on you.”

“She’s right.” Raj turned around to them. “Be realistic. To make repairs, we have to get close enough to pull those guns out of your hands.”

“You two quit arguing with me.” Ander’s arm snapped out and hit the door. He pulled it back against his ravaged torso. “You still want to take me back to NEV-5.”

“Would that be so terrible?” Megan asked.

“Yes! I don’t want MindSim to make me into a fake human.” Bitterly he said, “After seeing what my kind can do, I’m not sure I want to be an android either.”

She laid her hand on his arm, just above where he was gripping the assault rifle. “Grayton doesn’t define you.”

He took a deep breath and air crackled through his chest. “How did Homer put it? ‘Shower down into my life from on high your soft radiance and warlike strength, that I may drive bitter evil away from my head … Give me the courage to live in the safe ways of peace, shunning strife and ill will and the violent fiends of destruction.’”

“That’s beautiful,” Megan said. None of his initial code had contained any poetry module.

“What is it from?” Raj asked.

“The Homeric Hymns,” Ander said. “To Ares, the god of war.”

“You never stop surprising me,” she said.

“How about you both amaze me,” he said tiredly. “Agree to fix me on my terms.”

She considered him. “Raj and I can probably do enough here so that you can manage until we do a full repair.”

“What full repair?” Ander closed his eyes. “If we go back, MindSim will destroy me. Oh, I know, they might not take me apart. But they’ll make me docile and subservient. After Grayton, I can’t even blame them.”

“We’ll refuse to do that,” Raj told him.

“Then they’ll fire you and find someone who will.”

“We can’t give guarantees,” Megan said. “But we’ll try our damnedest to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

He opened his eyes and smiled wanly. “It must be your red hair. Arick Bjornsson had a thing about that color.” With a sigh, he dropped the guns on the floor. “All right. Do what you have to do.”

Megan stared at him, not ready to believe he meant that surrender. Yet when she reached for the weapons, he didn’t stop her from picking them up. Relief surged through her as she handed the guns to Raj. He set them on the passenger’s seat in front, out of Ander’s reach.

“So.” Ander just sat, as if he were waiting for them to betray his act of trust.

“Can you stretch out back there?” Raj asked. “The work will be easier if you’re lying down.”

“I think so.” As Ander maneuvered around, Megan slid out of his way, wedging herself into the area behind the driver’s side. Ander lay on his back, bending his legs so he fit on the backseat. Then he stared at the roof of the car.

Raj climbed back, his large frame awkward in the cramped area. He sat on the armrest between the two front seats, facing Ander. As he set his hands on Ander’s chest, the android closed his eyes.

“Don’t deactivate me,” Ander said.

“I won’t.” With a surgeon’s touch, Raj opened the devastated remains of Ander’s torso. Megan nudged aside filaments hanging out of his body. The bullets had done even more damage than she realized, tearing apart his internal organs.

So she and Raj worked, bent over in the confined car, with painstaking care. They catalogued Ander’s injuries, having the car record a verbal transcript of their work. To rebuild him, they used pieces of his interior framework, even parts of his shredded sweater. Megan salvaged bits of undamaged filaments to repair the torn ones. For injuries they couldn’t fix, they redesigned his circuits to bypass the problem. They sewed, molded, and shifted components, patching him into a whole again.

The entire time, Megan watched Raj in awe. Even after her many years in the field, rubbing elbows with the best, she had never worked with someone so gifted. He was a virtuoso, an artist so focused, he hardly seem to remember where they were. What quirk of fate had produced this genius? Maybe his gifts had always existed in the human gene pool, but their expression never gained recognition because humanity had no practical use for such abilities until this modern age. Or maybe he was unique.

Finally Raj sat back and rubbed his neck. Megan stretched, rolling her head, wincing at the stabs of pain that shot through her muscles. After so many hours of concentrated work, she ached everywhere.

Ander opened his eyes. “Are you done?”

“For now,” Raj said.

The android lifted his head to peer at his body. His torso looked strange but complete, a patchwork of colors and textures: metal-gray, glossy white, mottled greens, and a purple square from a lattice inside his body.

“We’d better go.” Raj eased into the driver’s seat and slumped behind the wheel, his face pale with fatigue.

Megan climbed into the passenger’s seat. The guns were in the way, so she pushed them onto the floor.

“We need a hardware store,” she said. “Get some parts.”

“Hardware.” Ander gave a harsh laugh. “That’s me.”

“No,” Raj said softly. “You’re life.”

Megan turned the windows transparent. Outside, banners of cloud stretched across the sky, lit from underneath by the sunrise, reminding her of the bands of Jupiter: pink clouds, gray sky, fluorescent red clouds, green-tinted sky, porcelain blue, dark red clouds. Shadows cloaked the landscape, and mountains hunched in black silhouettes, with the sharp thrust of a boulder here and there. A crescent moon hung above them, ringed by haze. The lights of a jet flickered in the west.

“Such beauty,” Ander whispered. “Megan? Raj?”

They both turned to him. “Yes?” Raj asked.

He spoke in a muted voice. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Megan murmured.

Raj nodded, then turned back and started the car. The lights inside went out, leaving them in predawn shadows under the lightening sky. The rumble of the lifting motor vibrated through the car, followed by a low roar as the turbofan spooled up.

“We should go to Louisiana,” Ander said. His voice grated like broken metal.

“Louisiana?” Raj asked. “Why?”

“For you corporate offices.” Ander rubbed his palm across his chest, as if reassuring himself it was whole. “Our lead there could be a Phoenix android pretending to be a college student. If he needs fixing, he’ll look for you.”

“I have no corporate offices,” Raj said. “I go where my clients send me. My home is in Manhattan.” After a pause, he added, “My parent’s house is the one in Louisiana.”

Megan heard the submerged grief in his voice. Even a week ago, she might not have caught it, but she was learning to read him better.

“Why is that address listed as your offices?” Ander asked.

Raj stared at the desert through the windshield. “I work from there when I’m visiting my family.”

“A Phoenix android might not know that,” Ander said. “That file you took from the Pentagon had your Louisiana address.”

Anger snapped in Raj’s voice. “When are you going to quit with that cockeyed story about my stealing some file?”

“Then who at NEV-5 did it?” Ander demanded. “BioSyn, our trusty server? The LPs? Hey, maybe you did, Megan.”

“Louisiana is too far,” she said. “Let’s compromise. We’ll take you to a hotel and do more repairs. We can decide on long range plans after that.”

“Fine,” Ander said. “Go to a hotel. Raj, will you at least call your father and find out if anyone tried to contact you?”

Raj clenched the wheel. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Frustration layered his voice, indistinguishable from a human emotion. “All I’m asking for is that one act of good faith. It’s not like it would cause you any trouble.”

“I won’t reach him.”

“Of course you can reach him,” Ander said. “They’re at home. I checked last night.”

Raj swung around. Fury snapped in his voice. “You let those punks break into my parents’ house?”

Ander regarded him coolly. “Just the outer layer of their system. We couldn’t get past its security. Funny thing, it’s been programmed by an expert even Karl couldn’t outwit.” He scowled at Raj. “We all know you’ve been there. You father is, too. At least, he’s used his e-mail in the past few days.”

“You had no right,” Raj said harshly.

“It didn’t hurt anyone,” Ander said.

Raj went back to his “driving,” his hands resting on the wheel as he stared out the windshield.

“Ander, leave him alone,” Megan said.

“What did you expect?” Ander demanded. “That we wouldn’t follow every lead? Raj lives in Louisiana and one trail goes there. I had to check everything.”

“It’s not that,” Megan said.

Silence.

Then Raj said, “My father died.”

“Right,” Ander said.” So who is the Professor Sundaram giving a math seminar at the university tomorrow?”

“You made a mistake,” Megan said.

“No. I am most certainly not mistaken.”

Raj continued to drive, his face guarded. Megan knew him well enough now to see it was mask. He was dying inside, and Ander wouldn’t shut the hell up.

“Raj?” she asked.

“If his father is dead,” Ander asked, “why didn’t I find an obituary or a news article? He’s a prominent man.”

“Leave it alone,” Raj said.

Ander leaned forward, scrutinizing them with the probing gaze he had learned from Raj. Ill at ease, Megan toed the guns on the floor in front of her. After a moment, the android sat back.

No one said more. Using a light pen and screen in the dash, Megan worked on the car’s brain, undoing the constraints Ander had put on it. He had deactivated the GPS and jammed its tracker, a feat few people could manage. Raj had also blocked Ander’s wireless capability. It left them with no web access or GPS, but at least the car carried its own library of maps.

“We should give it ‘Alpine’ as our destination,” Raj said.

“Alpine?” she asked. It sounded like a ski resort.

He indicated a map on the dash by the steering wheel. “It’s not far from here.”

“Odd name for a desert town,” Megan said. She spoke into the comm on the dash. “Alpine.” A red dot appeared on its map, showing a city nested in the mountains. “Car, I’m going to reactivate your GPS.”

“It will take some work to stop the jamming,” the car said, “but it should be possible.”

“What are you doing?” Raj asked.

“When I get back online, I’ll make reservations at a hotel in Alpine.” She also meant to alert her Vegas contact about the situation if she could manage without either Raj or Ander knowing.

“Car, continue to block all web and satellite access,” Raj said.

Megan stiffened. “What for?”

“We can’t be sure we’ve nullified everything Ander did to the car.” Raj glanced at her. “And using the nets or GPS system makes us visible. Those guys who shot up Ander could trace us to this car. The less we’re out there, the better.”

Megan didn’t like it. Everything he said made sense, but she still didn’t like it.

“I didn’t do squat to the computer,” Ander said. “Except make sure you two couldn’t use it.” He was sitting behind Raj’s seat, his elbow on the door’s armrest. Although he looked relaxed, a very human strain showed in the rigid set of his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Raj said. “Like you told us you did nothing to Megan in the Solarium.”

“All right.” Ander threw up his hands. “I’m the one who knocked you two out in the Solarium. Satisfied?”

“Finally,” Raj muttered.

“Is there anything else you would like to tell us?” Megan asked Ander. Like who hacked the Pentagon.

“Everything else I’ve told you is true,” he said. “Including about Raj’s father.”

Raj just shook his head. Whatever the truth of his other claims, Megan had no doubt his grief was real. Yet Ander gave just as convincing an impression that he believed his own words. Of course, the better Ander became at simulating the subtleties of emotion, the more convincing his lies.

So they whirred through the dawn, across a desert rippled with ridges, rocks, and dusty bushes.

“Driver control,” Raj suddenly said.

“Transferred,” the car said.

Raj pulled the hovercar to a stop and waited until it settled to the ground. He got out without a word and strode away from the car, into the dawn. He halted after about ten meters and stood with his arms folded around his body, gazing at the desert.

“What is he doing?” Ander asked.

Megan spoke quietly. “What you said about his father hurt him.”

“It shouldn’t have.” Ander glared at her. “His father is alive. He’s been answering e-mail, teaching classes, giving talks.”

“I know Raj. He’s not making this up.” She hesitated. “Could what you found have been one of Raj’s other relatives?”

“No. It’s his father.”

Megan had no answers. She wanted to go to Raj, but if he had wanted company, he would have stayed in the car. His grief was private. She also couldn’t risk leaving Ander by himself.

A few minutes later, Raj came back. He said nothing, just slid into the driver’s seat and took the car back out on the desert.

After they had driven for a while, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Ander asked. “Your shit acting ability?”

“Shut up.” Raj sounded as if he were gritting his teeth.

“Ander, leave it alone,” Megan said.

The android clenched his fist on the seat and stared out the window.

Megan picked up the Winchester at her feet. As they drove, she held it on her knees.

XX

NET OF BETRAYAL

Sweet, cool air wafted across Megan as they entered their room at the Country Inn in Alpine. It was such a relief after the dry heat outside. The wood furniture gleamed, upholstered with thick cushions patterned in vines. Ivory wallpaper covered the walls, accented by red and brown roses. The rustic curtains, four-poster bed, and vase of flowers on the table completed the atmosphere. Under different circumstances, she would have loved the room, especially after the Elegant Whatever in Vegas.

Ander leaned against the wall and pushed back his hair. It had grown these past weeks, just as a man’s would grow. The android needed a haircut.

The thump of the bolt ramming home made her jump. She turned to see Raj locking the door. The edge of the assault rifle stuck out under the jumpsuit he had draped over his arm.

“Will you be all right for a moment?” he asked Megan.

“I’m good,” she said. Ander was in no condition to attack anyone. In fact, he probably hadn’t finished rewriting his code to incorporate their repairs to his body, which meant in some ways his condition might be worse now than before they had worked on him.

“I’m not going to ambush her while you use the bathroom,” Ander said. As if to punctuate his words, his left arm flapped out against the wall. Grimacing, he pulled it back against his side.

Raj gave Megan the rifle. “You know how to use this?”

“I’ve had some training.” Not with assault rifles, but Ander didn’t know that.

After Raj disappeared into the bathroom, Megan regarded Ander and he glared at her. So she looked around the room. Its console was in an armoire of red-brown wood. An ergonomic chair stood in front of he console, the room’s only other concession to high-tech.

“Are you going to call MindSim?” Ander asked.

“I don’t know.” In truth, that was exactly what she intended.

He came over to her. “Give me a chance to prove I’m not lying about Raj.”

“Ander, come on,” she said tiredly. “Enough of—”

“Let me call Raj’s parents,” he said.

That gave her pause. Raj’s mother wasn’t a bad choice. Both MindSim and the military were probably in touch with her, looking for Raj. “All right. But I make the contact.”

“Fair enough.”

Interesting. If his suggestion had only been a way for him to access to the web, he wouldn’t have agreed so easily to let her make the call.

She sat at the console. It was easy to find the phone code; Raj’s family was the only Sundaram in the area of Louisiana where he had grown up. She turned on the speaker so Ander could hear and then placed the call. She left the visual off. No point in giving away more than necessary when she wasn’t sure what waited on the other end.

A woman answered. “Good evening.” She had a British accent.

“Hello,” Megan said. “May I speak to Professor Sundaram?”

“Just a moment,” the woman said.

Megan slowly stood up. Just a moment. That was it. No shocked silence. No “I’m sorry, that is impossible,” or any other indication that she had just asked to speak to the dead.

A man came onto the line. “This is Sundar.”

Megan stared at the dark screen. Behind her, Ander spoke in a fierce, exultant whisper. “I told you!”

“Hello?” Sundar said. “Is anyone there?”

His accent surprised Megan. At NEV-5, Raj had told her that his great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from India with his family, and that the Sundarams had lived in Louisiana since then. Sure, accents could survive from parent to child, but over three generations? Why would Sundar, a third generation American, have such a strong Indian accent?

“Who is this?” Raj’s father sounded annoyed.

She took a breath. “Is this Professor Sundaram?”

“Yes? Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Megan O’Flannery. I work with—”

“Dr. O’Flannery!” Concern surged in his voice. “Where are you? Is Raj there?”

“What the hell are you doing?” Raj asked.

Megan spun around. He was standing a few paces away, staring at her with undisguised fury.

She answered in a low voice that didn’t carry to the phone. “You bastard.”

“You had no right.” Raj started toward her.

She whirled back to the console and snapped on the visual, revealing herself to the man at the other end. He already had his visual activated. He looked a fit and hale eighty-five, the right age for Raj’s father, with gray hair and an unmistakable resemblance to his son.

She spoke fast. “We’re in the Country Inn by Ayres at Alpine, east of San Diego.”

Raj came to the screen and spoke tightly. “Hello, Father.”

“Raj!” Relief washed over Sundar’s face. “My God, son, are you all right? People have been asking for you. Military types.”

“Who?” Raj sounded calm. If Megan hadn’t been next to him, she wouldn’t have known he was angry. But she saw the tight set of his jaw. If anger had been heat, the room would have been in flames.

“A general,” his father said. “Man named Graham. He told us to let him know if you made contact.”

“What else did he say?”

“He asked about Dr. O’Flann—” Sundar’s image vanished, replaced by the forest landscape screen of the hotel console.

Raj frowned at Megan. “Why did you cut him off?”

“I didn’t.” She glanced at Ander. “You must have.”

“I didn’t do squat,” Ander said.

“You don’t need to.” Raj waved at a light glowing on the console. “It’s receiving IR signals.”

“You turned off my wireless,” Ander said.

Raj’s voice hardened. “Nothing in you stays off for long, does it?”

Maybe, Megan thought. In Las Vegas, Ander had claimed he could “turn off” his conscience by redesigning his filaments using his own IR signals. Although she was certain now he had been bluffing, it wouldn’t surprise her if he had been trying to figure out how he could affect his own operation using signals produced by his body. That would be a lot easier than altering the molecular structure of his brain filaments.

“Raj is the one who cut the connection,” Ander said.

“How?” Megan asked. “He wasn’t even close.”

Ander thumped his fist against his thigh. “You never believe me. Who knows what he has implanted in his body?”

“That’s a load of bull,” Raj said.

“Like your father’s death?” Ander said.

This new knowledge about Sundar felt like a knife wound. “What else did you lie about?” she asked Raj.

“I didn’t lie.” He met her gaze. “The man who died was like a father to me.”

“You said he was your father.”

“Insisted, in fact.” Ander’s eyes glinted.

“I don’t owe either of you an explanation,” Raj said. “How I choose to mourn is none of your business.”

She spoke more gently. “I’m sorry. But you should have told us. This makes it that much harder to trust anything you say.”

“Yes, I’m fallible,” Raj said. “What do you want, an apology for my imperfections? Neither of you have any right to condemn me for the way I grieve.”

“Oh, you’re good,” Ander said. “So convincing. Tell me something. When you stole the Phoenix Code, did you always intend to blame me? I’ll bet you didn’t count on me being the one who discovered you.”

“Phoenix Code again,” Megan asked. “What is it?”

“Good question,” Raj said.

“It’s in the files he took from the Pentagon,” Ander said. “Something about a code.” He indicated Raj. “He knows.”

“Right.” She was fed up with them both. “And now, Raj, I suppose you’ll tell me that you have no idea what he means.”

“What he means,” Raj said, “is that he just slipped up and revealed something about those Pentagon files that only the person who stole them could know.”

Maybe. Or maybe Ander leaned about this code during his work last night while she and Raj were locked in the bathroom.

“I don’t believe either of you,” she said.

“We have to call Professor Sundaram back,” Raj said. “He must wonder what happened.”

“I’m sure he’s already contacted the authorities.” Malice edged Ander’s voice. “Better make certain you have your story straight, Raj. Won’t be long before they’re here.”

“Why did you call him Professor Sundaram?” Megan asked Raj. “Why not father?”

Raj just shook his head. “Leave it alone.”

“That’s a great excuse,” Ander said. “‘Leave it alone. I’m grieving. Poor me. I’m trapped in my own lies.’”

“Ander, stop.” Megan doubted Raj had lied about the rest of his history; it was in his files, though without the detail he had revealed to her. Her intuition about people was generally good, more so since her work on developing AI personalities. Raj had told her the truth about his personal life.

She sat at the console. Instead of Raj’s father, she called her contact in Las Vegas. The man who answered didn’t seem surprised to see her. He put her through to Major Kenrock in Washington. Both Raj and Ander watched, but neither moved to stop her.

After she related their situation, with no reference to anything secured, Kenrock said, “Stay at the Inn. We have people on the way. FBI. They know your names, that you work in the computer industry, and that a kidnapping took place across state lines. But that’s all.”

“I understand,” Megan said.

Although Kenrock spoke with them all, he didn’t mention the Everest Project. It made sense: they didn’t have the security here for a debriefing. Until they had the go-ahead, they would say nothing about Ander’s true nature, not even to the FBI.

When they finished, Raj said, “I’ll phone my father.”

“Okay.” As Megan stood up, a knock came at the door.

Raj looked up. “Kenrock wasn’t kidding when he said ‘soon.’”

Ander paled as if his non-existent blood were draining from his face. “Megan, don’t let them turn me off.”

“I won’t,” she said. “Besides, they don’t know you can go off.”

At the door, she looked through the peephole. Three men in suits stood outside, all nondescript. Normally she wouldn’t have noticed them in a crowd, but given that she knew they were coming, they might as well have been wearing neon signs that blared FBI. She opened the door, Leaving on the chain as she looked through the narrow opening.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Dr. O’Flannery?” The man in front held up an FBI badge that identified him as Dennis Knoll. The other two men showed their badges.

Megan took off the chain. When she opened the door, the agents suddenly changed, drawing guns from shoulder holsters under their blue coats. She froze, staring at them. Did they think she was the kidnapper?

Raj spoke from behind her. “Megan, the gun.”

Ah, hell. She was still holding the assault rifle. With care, she dropped the weapon.

“Step back,” Knoll told her. “Raise your hands.”

After she backed away, holding up her hands, Knoll picked up the rifle. All three men came inside and closed the door. For the second time, she, Raj, and Ander submitted to a search, though these guys used far more courtesy than the California trio. Ander stiffened when they touched him, his distrust so believable it was almost palpable.

After the search, everyone relaxed. Knoll nodded to Raj. “It’s a relief to see you and your people safe, Dr. Sundaram.”

Well, that was annoying. It sounded like they assumed he was in charge. They knew nothing about Everest, but still.

“Thank you.” Raj had a guarded expression. “Where now?”

“To our office downtown,” Knoll said. “Then San Diego. Do you have everything you need? The sooner we get moving, the better.”

“Believe me,” Raj said. “We’re more than ready.”

The government van waited in the parking lot, shaded by a tree. Sleek and black, it had wheels instead of hoverports and a heavy construction that suggested an armored body. The windows in the back were opaque.

Knoll opened the side door, and Megan climbed inside with Ander, followed by Raj. Ander had withdrawn, as if he were focused on input beyond normal senses. Raj and Megan sat in the middle seat and Ander took the one in front of them. One of the agents settled in the seat behind Megan. Roland Hiltman, the third agent, slid into the passenger’s side up front, while Knoll took the driver’s seat. The men moved with an expert precision that suggested years of experience in the type of jobs you rarely talked about. The heat inside the van was oppressive, worse than outside, where the mountains and forest gentled the bite of the weather.

As they pulled out of the lot, Ander said, “Can you turn on the air-conditioning?”

“Sure.” Hiltman flicked his finger through a holo on the dash and the AC whirred. His hands had calluses. It seemed odd for some reason, though Megan couldn’t have said why. After all, many people had callouses.

While the van hummed along the road, Hiltman worked on its dashboard console. He was running a monitor program that brought up views of the van’s interior, the holos floating in the air above the dash screens. Although he didn’t debrief them, he took all their names and recorded their responses in his jCube.

Oddly, Hiltman seemed to be keeping his jCube separate from the van’s computer. The air soon cooled, but the heat from the van struck Megan as strange. Sure, the van might have warmed up in the parking lot, but only a short time had passed from when the agents showed up until they all returned to the vehicle. Nor could it have taken long for these guys to walk from their van to the room. And the van had been parked in the shade. So what made it hot? For that matter, why would Alpine have an FBI office? It was possible, sure, or the agents might have set up a temporary one. Taken separately, each oddity could be explained. But altogether, they just didn’t fit.

Unless these people weren’t FBI.

Another scenario fit the facts all too well. The trio Ander had hired in California might have contacted these “agents.” She wouldn’t have thought anyone could track the hovercar with no GPS or wireless, but those guys were pros. If they had found a way, they could have followed it to the inn and stayed outside trying to monitor the hotel room long enough for their van to heat up. They might have caught her conversation with Kenrock, enough to know they had the perfect excuse to show up at the door. It would also explain why they assumed Raj was in charge; the California trio had known only that she was Raj’s girlfriend. That could work in her favor; these guys might underestimate her.

If they weren’t FBI, how did they trace the car to Alpine? It had no online access, the GPS didn’t work, neither she nor Raj had located any rogue codes in its systems, and Ander hadn’t found anything, either. As far as they knew, the car was clean—and their knowledge went pretty damn far.

The guys in California might have found a way to track the car illegally, via satellite. But cracking the global system at that level was no trivial matter given its military, economic, and political implications. It could take these guys into the realm of international terrorism. The two hackers she had met didn’t strike her as the type, but the guard was another story. If they had hired him for protection, he could come from anywhere.

Maybe she was being paranoid. But then where were they going? The van wasn’t headed downtown. Agent Knoll, the man in the driver’s seat, had taken Highway 8 out into the desert.

“Mr. Knoll,” Megan said. “Where are your offices?”

“We’ll be there soon,” he answered.

“Where are they?” she repeated.

No answer.

Megan exchanged glances with Raj. He leaned forward and put his hand on Ander’s shoulder, as he had often done at NEV-5 when he wanted to test the android’s wireless capability.

The agent behind them spoke sharply. “No contact.”

Raj glanced at the man with an unfathomable gaze. Then he sat back in his seat. Megan hoped Ander understood Raj’s message. Raj didn’t want to run a test—he wanted Ander to.

Ander could check the van if his wireless was working again. If. It was possible. The only other way someone could have cut their link with Sundar was if these guys in the van had done it. Raj couldn’t have; he hadn’t been holding a jCube or any other device, the FBI search had found nothing on him, and his medical file listed no implants in his body. If Ander had cut off their communication, it meant he had figured out how to reactivate his own wireless after she and Raj had turned it off.

In the passenger’s seat, Hiltman continued to work, alternating his attention between his jCube and the dash comp. The van hummed down out of the mountains. The highway was bordered on both sides by fields of quadra, a genetically engineered grain hybrid that grew taller and thicker than other grains and needed less upkeep. It thrived even out here in the parched southwest.

Suddenly Hiltman froze. Then he stabbed at the dashboard screen with his light stylus. Ander never flicked an eyelash, but Megan saw past his innocent exterior. He was up to something.

“Caught you!” Hiltman twisted around and spoke to Raj. “Turn it off.”

Raj gave him a blank look. “Turn what off?”

“Don’t play stupid,” Hiltman said. “The android.”

Knoll, the guy behind the wheel, spoke. “What happened?”

“The droid tried to reach my jCube,” Hiltman said.

Knoll leaned around his seat to look at Raj. “Turn off its wireless.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Raj said.

“Turn it off,” Hiltman said. “Now.”

“You programmed it,” Knoll said to Raj.

“You know,” Ander said, “you really should stop calling me an it.”

“I’m not turning anything off,” Raj said.

Hiltman reached under his jacket and drew the gun out of his shoulder holster. “I’d rethink that answer, if I were you.”

Megan was fed up with people pointing guns at them. “What are you going to do, shoot? You wouldn’t have gone to this trouble if you didn’t want us alive.”

“I’m running models,” Ander suddenly said. “Give me input.”

She spoke fast. “Van too hot, wrong about me, calluses like guard in farm house—” She broke off as the man behind her clamped his hand over her mouth and put his other arm around her neck, cutting off her air.

“Hey!” Raj grabbed the man’s arm.

“You want me to snap her neck?” the man asked.

Raj froze. “No.”

“Then put your arm down,” the guard said.

Raj lowered his arm, his gaze furious. Megan sat still, straining to breathe. Black spots danced in her vision.

“Let her go,” Hiltman said.

Mercifully, the pressure on her neck eased. When the guy took away his arm, she drew in a ragged breath. Sweat trickled down her neck.

“Running models.” Hiltman frowned at Ander. “What does that mean?”

“A lot of people knew we were in that inn,” Raj said. “They’re looking for us.”

“They won’t find you,” Hiltman said. “And that’s not what the droid meant.”

“Of course they’ll find us,” Ander said. “You can trace anyone if you have a good enough protocol. And I’m one super protocol. You’re taking us to a house twenty miles from here, a place with a robotics lab hidden under the barn.”

“Turn off the fucking android!” Hiltman told Raj.

“Turn off your fucking self,” Ander said. “I’m running calculations. You won’t shoot. You want me working and you know if you damage me any more than I already am, you’ll destroy one of the only functioning androids in existence.”

“You can’t hide us for long,” Raj said.

“Don’t count on it,” Hiltman said. “We’re leaving the country.”

Megan felt sick. She had no doubt they would kill her and probably Raj as well when they were done with them. And if these people succeeded in taking them out of the county, the chances of their getting help went down drastically.

Ander moved.

With enhanced speed, he lunged back, past Megan, across the seat to the third guard. He twisted the man’s semiautomatic out of is holster. It all happened in barely a second, but Ander couldn’t pull back fast enough. As the guard grabbed his wrist, Ander’s arm spasmed—

And the gun fired.

XXI

CIRCUIT DREAMS

The shot cracked like thunder—and the guard’s torso tore apart. Blood and shredded tissue exploded through the air. Megan jerked back, bringing up her arms to ward off the horrific debris. What nightmare bullets were in that gun?

The guard body collapsed forward, out of his seat. Knoll was shouting an order as he swung around driver’s seat, drawing his gun. Hiltman was also speaking, but Megan heard only the thunder of Knoll firing at Ander.

The scene seemed to slow down, as if they were under water. Raj was lunging toward the front of the van. He dodged even as Hiltman fired at him, and the bullet hurtled so close to Raj’s waist, it grazed a wrinkle his jumpsuit, shredding the cloth. It embedded itself in the armored door behind Raj with serrated fins projecting from its sides. Deadly serrations. Megan had seen that before, but where?

Blood splattered out of Raj’s side, mixed with threads of orange cloth form his jumpsuit. The tip of a fin must have just barely grazed his skin. A fraction of an inch closer and the hypersonic bullet would have torn him apart. As it was, the shot didn’t stop his lunge. He grabbed Hiltman’s gun with his right hand and smashed his left fist down on Hiltman’s wrist. As Raj twisted away the weapon, the crack of a bone splintered the air and Hiltman’s index finger snapped back at an ugly angle.

It was happening too fast for Megan to absorb. Ander was lifting the gun he had taken from the other guard. A shot roared, and he jerked with the recoil. Hiltman’s body fell out of his seat, covered with blood. Raj was still standing, his head bent forward so it didn’t hit the roof, his gun aimed at Hiltman. In the driver’s seat, Knoll was bringing his weapon to bear on Raj. In the same instead that his finger touched the trigger, Raj fired—and shot Knoll at point-blank range.

Knoll’s body flew apart like a rag doll. Raj jerked with the gun’s recoil and grabbed the back of a seat. Blood was also pumping from the wound in his side. As Knoll collapsed across the seat, his face frozen in shock, Megan gulped in a breath. If Raj had been only a fraction of a second slower, his body would be the one torn to pieces.

Raj stared at the bodies. “God, no,” he whispered.

In the silence that followed, Megan could hear wind whistling by the van as it blithely drove down the highway, untouched by the storm of violence that had swept its interior. Incredibly, the entire fight had taken only seconds.

Bile rose in her throat. The interior of the van looked like the aftermath of a battle. Knoll lay with his legs caught under the steering wheel and the remains of his torso sprawled across the divider between the two front seats. Hiltman had crumpled forward.

The clatter of metal on the floor broke the silence as Raj dropped his gun. He clamped his hand over the wound in his side, his body swaying with the van. He held onto a seat with his other hand, his fist clenched as if he couldn’t release it vise grip.

He spoke numbly. “We have to make sure they’re dead.”

“I’ll do it.” Ander rose easily and braced his hand against the roof. Then he made his way to the front.

Megan struggled not to throw up. When she could speak, she said, “Raj, you should sit down. Your side.”

He looked at his wound, blinking at his blood-soaked clothes. “It looks worse than it is.”

She recognized his hollow expression. “My God, Raj, it was self-defense. He was about to kill you. They would have killed us all after they got what they wanted.”

He didn’t answer, and she knew that nothing she could say would fix this.

Ander came back to them. “They’re dead.” He didn’t seem the least fazed.

Raj nodded. “So is the one in the back.”

“You’re hurt, too,” Megan said. The upper arm of Ander’s pullover was ripped and dusky blue lubricant oozed out of a gash in his arm. “What happened?”

“I cut it when I grabbed that guy’s gun.” His voice sounded subdued. “I’ll be fine. My skin can repair itself.”

“We have to get control of this van,” Raj said. “Before it reaches that house where they were taking us.”

“We could jump out,” Ander said.

“You’re the only one who would survive.” Megan glanced at the dash, past the remains of the driver. “We’re going over sixty miles an hour.” She stepped to the door and rattled its handle, then tried the window. They were locked. Impenetrable. Even the nightmare bullets hadn’t broken through the van’s armor. “We need to get into the brain of this vehicle.”

“I’ll do it,” Raj said. “Ander, see if you can crack Hiltman’s jCube.” He glanced at Megan. “Can you drive and work on the manual controls at the same time?”

“Yeah.” One word was all she could manage. She recalled now where she had seen those serrated bullets. A speaker at the robotics conference had described them in a talk on alloys. When cool, a twist of the alloy kept its shape; when heated, it straightened out. The serrated fins curled around the bullet, but as the weapon fired, the fins uncurled, turning the bullets into vicious hypersonic assassins. Raj was lucky to be alive.

Megan forced herself to go up front. Seeing where Ander had laid out Knoll and Hiltman on the floor behind the seat, she felt cold. It was the first time she had witnessed any death, let alone ones so violent. Ander and Raj’s reaction were like night and day. But it was too simple to say Ander had no compunction about killing. He could have shot her, Raj, or the California trio any time when he no longer needed them. He killed only when he saw no other choice.

Mercifully, he had cleaned off the seats. As she slid behind the wheel, Raj climbed into the passenger’s side, his face pale. Ander sat on the barrel between the seats, facing backward, Hiltman’s jCube in his hand. Although he seemed unaffected by what had happened, Megan wondered. His head and arm were twitching more than before.

A check of the controls revealed she could turn the headlights on or off and run the windshield wipers. That was it. Nothing else responded. Outside, the highway was still empty. The quadra fields on either side of the road rippled in golden-red waves.

Raj sat hunched in the other seat, absorbed in his work on the van’s brain. The flow of blood had slowed from his side, but red soaked his jumpsuit from chest to knee. The fins hadn’t just ripped apart the cloth; Megan also glimpsed what looked like tatters of his skin. Deadly bullets indeed, if just grazing his side could cause so much damage.

“You need a bandage,” she said.

He glanced at her. “Later. We have to hack this van.”

“Manual controls are locked. What about the dash comp?”

“Not yet.” Raj raked his hand through his hair, smearing blood onto his temple.

“I’m getting some data out of this box.” Ander tapped the jCube. “These guys are hardcore, supplying weapons or mercenaries to their clients. They want me. Sell me for billions. Assholes.”

Suddenly Raj said, “I got the doors unlocked.”

Megan flicked through the menus on the steering wheel. “Okay, that registers. Maybe I can disengage the autopilot.” She tried various switches and buttons while she pressed the gas, but the van continued along unchanged.

“Nope,” she said. “Still locked out.”

“Can’t find the right mod,” Raj muttered. “That one—no. What a kludge they made of all this. Wait, that might work. Okay, try again.”

This time when she gunned the van, it leapt forward with gratifying acceleration.

“Yes!” She gave Raj a thumbs-up. The highway was clear in both directions, with only distant specks of cars glinting in the early morning sunlight.

“This is bad,” Ander said.

“What?” Raj asked.

Ander lifted the cube. “I found its message log. Hiltman got off a warning to someone about losing control of us. Another van is coming to intercept this one.” He motioned toward the road in front of them. “From that direction."

Megan slammed on the brakes, and the van skidded with a shriek of burning rubber. She careened across the grassy divider in the center of the highway, jolting over the uneven ground until she reached the other side. Then she headed off in the opposite direction, back the way they had come.

The van spoke to her. “You are driving outside allowed safety limits. Please release control of this vehicle to my guidance system or reform your driving.”

“Go blow.” Megan floored the accelerator. Sixty. Eighty. When they went over a hundred, Raj swore under his breath.

After about five miles and various dire warnings from the van, she eased up on the gas and dropped their speed to ninety. “There,” she said. “That should put some distance between us and whoever is coming after us.”

Raj was staring at her. “Where did you learn to drive?”

“Montana.”

“Remind me not to go to Montana.”

“Wait.” Ander leaned between them and pointed toward the mountains ahead. “We’ve got yet another van. See? This one is coming from Alpine.”

“I see,” Megan said. The vehicle was descending the mountain, its glossy black body reflecting the sky. “It might be the real FBI, come to look for us.”

“Or more people who want to kill us,” Raj said.

“Or it could be completely innocent,” Ander put in.

“Yeah,” Raj said. “That’s why it looks exactly like this van.”

The vehicle was far away, but Megan could make out a window opening on the passenger’s side in the front—

“Shit!” She hit the brakes and the tires screeched. That “window” was a gun port. The approaching van wasn’t close enough to shoot yet, but it wouldn’t be long.

They couldn’t just turn around. If they went the other way, they would run into the van coming to intercept them. No time to analyze. She shoved down the gas pedal and swerved off the highway. They roared through a flimsy fence and onto a dirt road between two quadra fields. The van shook as it sped over the ridged ground, tearing up stalks of grain on either side.

Raj grabbed the arm of his seat to keep from being thrown around by her wild driving. “If that vehicle coming after us has guns, this one probably does too.” He redoubled his efforts with the van’s brain, and his fingers flicked through the holos above the dash as if he were a pianist who played images in the air instead of keys.

Megan gripped the wheel, doing her best to keep them from plowing into the quadra. She could see Ander in her side vision. With the van rocking back and forth, he had grabbed the barrel where he was sitting, holding on with both hands. The jCube lay in his lap.

“I-4,” he said. “Read me the messages logs.”

The jCube answered. “The queue for new messages is empty. Shall I continue searching the archives?”

Before Ander could answer, the van spoke. “Please repeat your last command. I don’t understand that input.”

“Ander, don’t use verbal commands for the cube,” Raj said.

Ander let go of the barrel with one hand and opened his wrist, then pulled out his jack and plugged into cube. He barely managed to grab the barrel again before they hit a bump that nearly knocked him to the ground. The jCube bounced to the floor, brought up short by its link to him.

“Shall I continue my weapons data search?” the cube asked as it rattled around.

“Yes, by link only,” Ander told it. “No more verbal.”

“Got it!” Raj said. Views of the surrounding land appeared above the dash in front of him, one for the area ahead, one for either side, and one behind. Grain rippled in the holos like the solution to a wave equation in physics. The other van was lumbering after them, jouncing along the rutted lane they had torn up with their passage. Mounted guns projected from either side of its hood, swiveled forward in their ports.

Clenching the wheel, Megan accelerated. The van hit a rut and swerved into the grain on their left, smashing the big stalks. She managed to pull back into the lane without losing too much speed, but they were going too fast for her to maintain control on a road this bad.

Several cracks thundered through the van, and it shuddered. Bullets? She gritted her teeth. So far the vehicle’s armor had protected them, but it couldn’t hold out forever.

“We’ve definitely got guns on this thing,” Raj said. “I can’t find the code that activates them,”

“This jCube has backups,” Ander said.

“Can you send them here?” Raj asked.

“Yes. Coming—” His voice cut off as another shot hit the van, shaking through the vehicle.

Up ahead, another road intersected this one. Megan veered into it, finding the new lane even narrower than the last. They sped down an aisle of quadra. Golden stalks towered on either side, taller than the van, blocking the sun, monster grain produced by genetic engineering.

The images Raj had brought up over the dash showed the trampled ground they were leaving in their wake. It also showed the other van as it tried to follow them into this new road. Whoever was driving took the turn too fast and missed the lane. As they crashed into the monster grain, Megan said, “Yes!”

“You get my weapons download?” Ander asked Raj.

“It’s garbled,” Raj said. “I’m untangling it.”

Megan kept driving, her gaze shifting back and forth from the lane ahead to the holos above the dash. The other van fired again, this time at their wheels. They were trying to cripple rather than destroy. They needed their prizes intact.

Suddenly the van hit a rut and gave a violent lurch. Raj groaned out as the jolt threw him to the side, slamming his injured waist against the arm of his seat. As he pulled away from the arm, Megan finally had a clear view of his wound. His skin was even more ripped into tatters than she had realized—

Except it wasn’t skin.

It was a circuit filament.

XXII

PHOENIX

The van rocked wildly as they careened along the rutted lane, forcing Megan’s attention back to her driving. Her adrenaline surged and she could barely breathe. A filament?

The vehicle chasing them had pulled out of the quadra and was following again, gaining. Gritting her teeth, she pushed their speed up another notch. She was going too fast, but the only alternative was to let their pursuers catch up.

The van swerved on the uneven ground and spun out of control, plowing into the quadra. Hardy and thick, the stalks formed a forest, one packed more densely than trees. The vehicle ground to a stop, stalks of quadra tangled in its wheels, its engine grinding in rough protest.

“Not now!” Megan tried to back up. The wheels spun, digging a deeper rut, caught in the tangle of mashed grain plants.

Ander was already on his feet, shoving his gun into his jacket. Raj and Megan threw open their doors, and they all jumped to the ground outside. They took off through the quadra, zigzagging among the forest of stalks, Ander out in front, Megan and Raj following. Raj ran in a limping sprint, favoring his right side, his hand over the gash at his waist.

“Your side—” Megan gulped in air.

“I’ll make it.”

Ander looked back at them, then turned forward again, but she knew he could hear everything she and Raj said.

“Of course you’ll make it,” she gasped as they ran. “You can repair those filaments.”

Raj came to such a sudden stop, she ran into him.

“How long did you think you could hide it?” She heaved in breaths. “God, Raj, what are you?”

“Come on!” Ander shouted at them.

They set off again, and the quadra crackled as they pushed their way through the stalks.

“I’m Chandrarajan Sundaram,” he said between breaths. “All that’s left of him.”

“There’s a road up here,” Ander called. “Hurry.”

Catching up with him, they ran onto a narrow path, more like a tunnel through the quadra than a road. The three of them set off together, headed deeper into the fields.

“We need to hide.” Ander didn’t even sound winded.

“How?” Raj asked. “They must have detectors that can find our body heat.”

“Here.” Ander stopped at a fork in the lane. Instead of taking either path, he stepped into the grain, slipping between the stalks. As Megan and Raj followed, the quadra swayed above them, then stilled after they went by, leaving no trace of their passage.

The plants grew thick here, with sturdy, fat stalks and nodding crowns. Ander moved like a shadow. The grain blocked the sun, and without the nourishment of light, almost no weeds grew under the canopy of the monster quadra. Raj’s words churned in Megan’s mind: I’m Chandrarajan Sundaram. All that’s left of him.

Ander stopped. “I think we can rest for a moment.”

Squeezed among the plants, they stopped. Raj bent over, straining to breathe, his arms folded across his torso. Megan sagged against a stalk, a stitch in her side making it hard to gulp in air. Ander wasn’t even breathing hard.

Now that they had stopped, the world became quiet. After a moment, crickets began to sing.

“Those people can probably track us with IR,” Megan said between gulps of breath.

“I’m damping us,” Ander said. “I’m producing an IR pattern that looks like random heat off the ground. You two are close enough that it should cover you, too. They might pass us by.”

She managed a nod.

“I’m also picking up radio waves,” he added.

“From what?” Raj asked.

“Not sure.” He was staring where Raj was holding his hand over the betraying wound in his side.

“Radio waves?” Megan asked. “Help or enemy?”

“I don’t know,” Ander said. “I can’t get a fix on the signals. I’m trying to send out my own, but I can’t reach anyone. I couldn’t in the van, either. Something is blocking them.”

She spoke numbly. “The people in that van have no idea what just escaped them.”

Ander spoke tightly. “Perhaps you have something to tell us, Dr. Sundaram.”

Raj was still bent over, struggling for air. As his breathing quieted, he straightened up. His words were muted in the still air. “Five people died in the Phoenix explosion. Not four.”

“No,” Megan whispered. “Not Raj.”

He lifted his hand to her cheek. “Megan—”

She flinched away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m the same man I was before.”

“It doesn’t add up,” Ander said. “You can’t be a Phoenix android.”

“I’m not. They all died.” Raj rubbed his arms as if to protect himself against the cold, though the day was hot. “It happened the day Raj had his tour of the android labs. Arizonix told everyone the explosion was an accident. I had no idea, until we read that report back at the hotel, what really happened.”

Megan breathed in and out, slowly, until she had control of her voice. “You look like a younger version of Raj Sundaram.”

Raj met her gaze. “He built me.”

“Then he was involved with Phoenix.”

“No. He made me on his own.”

“With what resources?” she asked. “What funds?”

Ander answered. “His personal worth is in the billions.”

“Was,” Raj said. “He used most of it to make me.”

Megan didn’t know how to absorb it all. Her mind felt like a dry sponge with water running off it instead of soaking in. “You sound so real.”

“I am real. I’m Chandrarajan Sundaram. He scanned his own brain and downloaded the results into me.” His words had an aching quality, as if he feared that speaking them would destroy their reality.

“What, you’re an update?” Ander said. “Raj two point oh."

“Don’t.” Megan couldn’t take his sarcasm now.

“I would never presume to compare myself to him,” Raj said. “He had one of the greatest minds of this age.” Softly he added, “Raj also had Alzheimer’s.”

Ah, God, no. “But he was only forty-two,” Megan said.

“It was early onset, like his father.” Raj spoke with pain. Simulated? It looked achingly real. “Familial Alzheimer’s. It’s genetic. Sundar responded to the treatment, but Raj never did.” He turned up his palms as if offering a part of himself. “So he made me.”

“That’s why you look younger,” Ander said.

“Yes. Thirty-five.”

“You’re better designed than me,” Ander said. “I can’t detect anything unusual about you even when we’re this close.”

“That was why Raj took the Arizonix job. They were further along than MindSim.” His voice caught. “He had so little time and he wanted to do so much.”

“It’s unjust,” Megan said. After decades of pain and self-doubt, Raj had finally healed. He had fought his way out of his devastated childhood, only to discover he was losing his intellect just as he had lost his father when he was a small boy.

“I don’t get it,” Ander said. “Why are you going through with his plan? He left you with nothing: no money, no friends, and a world that thinks you’re crazy.”

“I gave him my word,” Raj said.

“Even worse,” Ander went on, as if Raj hadn’t spoken, “you have to pretend you’re human.”

“I want to be human.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just do.”

Megan took a breath. “At NASA. The conference—”

“It was me that you met,” Raj said.

“And in the VR conference room, when we interviewed you for the MindSim job?”

“Me.” His voice sounded heavy. “The real Raj had died by then.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

He just shook his head.

“The avatar you used in that interview,” Megan said. “The way you appeared—older, thinner, more drawn—that’s how he really looked, isn’t it?”

Raj nodded. “Just before the end.”

“He took you to Arizonix with him.”

“He had to,” Raj said. “He had trouble on his own by then.”

“It’s crazy,” Ander said. “What if someone found out?”

“I was willing to risk it.” Raj spread his hands out from his side. “It was all I had to give him, the chance to see his dreams come to fruition before he could no longer comprehend their success.”

Ander leaned forward. “The trail that led to Louisiana. It was you. The supreme Turing test. You went to see his parents.”

He nodded. “They never guessed I wasn’t their son.”

“I never got my wireless working again,” Ander said. “Not after you two turned me off. Those wireless signals at the hotel and in the van—that was you, always, wasn’t it?”

“I had to take the risk,” Raj said.

“You bleed,” Megan whispered. “You sleep. You hurt.”

“I feel.” Raj reached for her, then stopped when she stiffened. “I can’t turn off caring for you any more than I could turn off my mind.” He glanced at Ander. “Nor do I have any doubts about the existence and value of my conscience.”

She spoke slowly. “When you said your father died, you meant Chandrarajan Sundaram.”

“Yes.” He spoke raggedly. “After the explosion, I held him in my arms while he coughed up blood. I begged him to live. But he died.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes, smearing a tear. “The paramedics found me walking out of the fires. I had already buried him by then. They never found the body.”

“And the phoenix arose from the flames,” she murmured.

Ander spoke with unexpected gentleness. “Maybe it’s better this way. He found a clean end.”

“I shouldn’t—” Raj drew in a shaky breath. “I shouldn’t have told you that my father died. I don’t know why I did. A need to share the grief, so it wouldn’t feel unbearable?” He watched Megan with a look of raw pain that she knew, without doubt, was real. “If AIs become too human, we become fallible. Why design us to fail? To hurt? To grieve? Why?”

“Ah, Raj, I don’t know anymore,” she said. “This is a terrible mess.”

“All this time you’ve watched me struggle,” Ander said. “You knew what I was going through. You could have told me.”

“I couldn’t tell anyone,” Raj said. “I swore to him, as he was dying, that his life wouldn’t be wasted, that I would finish it for him. As him. I meant it.”

“And now?” Megan asked.

He looked from her to Ander. “Only you two know.”

“What if you end up in a hospital?” she asked. “If you malfunction? If someone freaking shoots you again.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“You’re what we all dreamed,” she said. “If we hide you, how will anyone ever know the dream succeeded?”

“I can’t go back to being a thing.”

“You want what I want,” Ander said. “Freedom. You’re just like me. And you never helped me.”

“I’m not like you,” Raj said. “I don’t have your antipathy toward humanity.”

“So humans like you better. Fine.” Bitterness edged Ander’s voice. “You’re the success and I’m the failure because you’re not a threat to the self-absorbed species that created us.”

“You both succeeded,” Megan said. “You’re different, that’s all.”

“According to the Pentagon files, the Phoenix Project failed,” Raj said. “If we can’t get Ander back, MindSim will consider Everest a failure too.”

“It’s true what Ander claimed, isn’t it?” Megan said. “You are the one who hacked into the Pentagon.”

Raj said, simply, “Yes.”

She wanted to shake them both. “I can’t trust either of you.”

“I had to find out if anyone suspected the truth about me,” Raj said. “Especially after Ander trapped me in the lab chair. I used wireless signals from within my own body while I was tied up there.”

It still didn’t fit. “Ander drugged you in Las Vegas.”

Ander snapped his fingers. “It’s about control, right? The biological Raj designed you to recognize a list of chemicals. When someone injects you, your body analyzes the drug. If it’s on the list, you go on standby.”

“Essentially,” Raj said. “It depends on the dose.”

“And that isn’t all.” Ander glanced at Megan. “His reflexes and strength aren’t enhanced as much as mine.”

“I also have more caps on my behavior than you do,” Raj said.

Megan frowned. “Why would the real Raj Sundaram limit your abilities?”

“He didn’t trust himself.” Raj spoke quietly. “Given the augmented abilities of an android, he wasn’t sure his conscience could control the violence inside him. So he took away some of those enhancements.”

It was heartbreaking, but she understood. This was his closure with the nightmares of his childhood.

“It won’t matter soon,” Ander said. “I got through enough of Hiltman’s cube to find out what those guys wanted. The Phoenix Code. They weren’t sure it existed until they found me. They think I know what it is.”

“Do you?” Megan asked.

“Not really,” Ander said. “The files I found last night only had brief reference to a code that used the name Phoenix.”

Raj spoke quietly. “The Phoenix Code is the software for a self-aware android with psychological and ethical stability.”

“Stable by human standards,” Ander said.

“Yes. By human standards.”

“My God, Raj, it’s you.” Megan reached toward him, then dropped her hand.

Although he smiled, it showed more pain than joy. “That’s the irony, isn’t it? I’m what Arizonix hired Raj to create. He thought he would have time to give them his work without revealing me, because they were so far along already. Now they’ll never know.”

It was tearing her apart. Raj had never been real. “If we get out of this mess, you want me to pretend you’re Chandrarajan Sundaram.”

“I am him.”

“Do you understand what you’re asking?” she asked. “You want me to hide one of the most significant advances in human history. You’re all we have of the Phoenix Code. How we deal with your form of life, it’s all being determined now, with you, with Ander, with Grayton. If you drop out of the picture, it changes everything.”

“I don’t want to be the father of a new species,” Raj said. “Let someone else represent our race.”

Ander spoke flatly. “You work better. If the humans figure out why, they can fix me. If you hide, they have to figure out a new way. They might end up with another Grayton.”

“You’re asking me to give up the freedom you want,” Raj said. “You want me to become responsible for protecting the human race against its own mistakes.”

“You say you have a conscience.” Ander pointed at Megan. “What, it only applies to humans? Not me?”

“I made my father a vow. I intend to keep it.”

“What about me?” Megan asked. “What if I tell MindSim about you?”

Raj regarded her steadily. “I could never cause you harm, no matter what you might do.”

“What if I talk?” Ander asked.

“I could no more harm you,” Raj said, “than I could harm my own brother.”

Ander scowled at him. “You have no brother. You’re an only child.”

“You are as much a brother to me,” Raj said, “as any biological sibling.”

“It’s why you were protective of him,” Megan said. “Even when he was threatening to kill you.”

“It may all be moot,” Ander said. “Our covetous gunrunners are headed this way. We need to move.”

She pushed away from the quadra. “How do you know they’re coming?”

“I’m a regular cornucopia of sensors,” Ander said. “Spy tech galore, all in my body.”

Raj pressed his hand against his side. “Yes. Let’s go.”

“Does it hurt?” Megan asked him. How would they get Raj help? They couldn’t go to a hospital. “Can you feel pain?”

He nodded stiffly. “Sensors in my body affect my neural nets in ways that mimic sensations.”

“In Las Vegas—in the bathtub …” She stopped. Maybe she didn’t want any more answers.

He touched her cheek. “I feel what any man feels. That was real.”

She wanted to take his hand, but she couldn’t.

“Come on,” Ander said. He pulled out the gun he had taken from their guards and set off into the field. He didn’t look back, but Megan had no doubt he knew that she and Raj were following him.

In the growing dusk, shadows pooled in the quadra. They stepped with care to keep from crackling bits of plant that had drifted to the ground. Megan strained to catch unusual noises, but she heard only crickets sawing in the night.

A man stepped out of the shadows.

Raj took Megan’s arm, pulling her back. Ander moved in a blur, raising his gun, but the man was already throwing a knife. Silver flashed in the shadows. The blade sliced Ander’s wrist, ripping his skin, and bounced off the jack inside his arm. The semiautomatic spun out of his hand and rebounded off a stalk of quadra, then fell to the ground.

The man intended to cripple; otherwise he could have used the revolver he was pulling out of his shoulder holster. But Megan had no doubt that if it served his purposes, he would kill her, maybe even Raj. Except—could they kill Raj?

“You’re going to return with me,” the man told them. “Don’t try to run. I’ve backup within a few hundred feet.”

Megan had no doubt he had backup somewhere, but she didn’t believe they were that close. As soon as the man had spoken, the crickets had quit their insect symphony, leaving the field in silence, without even the hum of a nearby city. The desert wasn’t loud enough to mask the crackle of more people coming through the quadra, and she heard nothing.

“All of you turn around.” The man pulled another knife, so he was holding a weapon in each hand. “The android goes first.”

Raj moved, but not to turn around. He went for the gun Ander had dropped, lunging as fast as when he had disarmed the man in the van. Although he was slower than Ander, he still had better reflexes than most humans.

The man threw his knife, hitting Raj in the stomach. A dark stain spread on his jumpsuit, but he kept going, not even slowed by an injury that would stopped a human.

As Ander lunged for the man, Raj grabbed Ander’s gun off the ground. Megan spun around, looking for the first knife the man had thrown. Her motions were sluggish compared to the androids, but all of them were blurs now in the shadows. Their captor threw another knife at Ander. The android dodged—

And the knife hit Megan.

The world telescoped as if she were in a long tunnel. Ander shouted, his face a pale oval. Please, not my lungs or heart, she thought with odd clarity, as if her mind worked while the rest of reality faded away. She could see Raj, his face contorted in fury. With what seemed like a surreal slow motion, he raised his gun. Their captor had focused on Ander, misjudging Raj’s ability to move, and he was an instant too late to protect himself. Raj’s gun flashed and a deep, slow thunder crashed around them. The man fell as if he were mired in molasses, collapsing as his weapon slipped from his fingers.

Heat spread in Megan’s chest, but she felt nothing else. Ander’s arms were coming toward her as the quadra plants tipped sideways. No, the grain wasn’t moving, she was falling.

Ander caught her, folding her into his arms, and the shock of his touch jolted her time sense back to normal. She gasped, staring at his face while her knees buckled.

Raj strode over. “Megan!” His arm went around her waist and he held her up.

“I’m all right,” she said. Or tried to say. Only a choked rasp came out.

“Hang on,” Ander whispered. He and Raj were all that was keeping her upright. With his left arm around Megan, Ander turned to Raj.

Then he extended his right arm.

Raj had his right arm around Megan. Facing Ander, he extended his left arm. At first Megan thought they meant to hit each other. Then she saw metal glint in the shadows. Raj’s wrist was opening. As he shook out a cord with a jack, Ander took a similar one out of his own wrist. It looked surreal, two living men deconstructed into machines.

They joined at the wrists, Ander jacking into Raj’s port and Raj into Ander. For one dazed instant, Megan thought they meant to exchange their blood. Except their life’s fluid, the essence that kept them alive, was neither the engineered plasma of Raj’s blood nor the lubricant in Ander’s body. Instead, they offered knowledge, an exchange that went faster than any purely human being could ever manage.

A miracle, Megan thought. I’m seeing a miracle and I may never live to tell anyone.

What Raj and Ander were giving each other, she had no idea. By the time they separated, their faces were dimming in her vision. Raj’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Megan, can you run?”

“Yes,” she lied. The blade had torn through her shoulder and chest, ripping a huge, deep gash. Her blood was pumping out everywhere. It should have been terrifying, but she couldn’t fully comprehend what had happened, not yet. The pain was just starting, waves of agony that radiated through her body. It made no difference. If they didn’t run, they would be caught.

They struggled through the quadra. Raj and Ander helped her stay upright, but after a while she realized she was also holding them up. She staggered, her mind hazed. Her feet weighed more than lead and her legs kept buckling. More than anything she wanted to lie down. She realized, with eerie detachment, that she was dying.

Then she heard it: a crashing in the grain fields, distant but closing fast.

“Ah, no—” Raj groaned. He lost his grip and she collapsed, landing on her knees.

“Go on,” she rasped. “Both of you. Run. Get to MindSim, the real FBI, anyone.”

Raj hauled her to her feet. “No.” Pulling her with him, he reeled forward. Ander helped, but the spasms in his limbs had become so bad, he barely kept his balance. The crackling of their pursuit grew louder, like lightning in the quadra.

They had stumbled out of the field by several yards before Megan became fully aware of the change. A hill rolled away from their feet to a building below, a farmhouse with lights on its porch and in its windows.

“Radio waves!” Ander shouted. “I knew it!”

“What the blazes?” Raj stumbled to a halt.

“No, it’s all right.” Ander jolted them into motion again. “I got into the police dispatch system and sent the cops here.” His voice crackled. “If we can just make it down there in time.”

Cars were parked in front of the house, police vehicles flashing red and blue lights. With a spurt of energy, Raj, Ander, and Megan ran in a desperate, faltering path down the hill. The scene below blurred, a smear of red and blue, hazed in white from the porch lights of the house.

Shouts echoed, voices calling from the house and police cars. The mercenaries chasing them made no sound, but Megan had no doubt they were still in pursuit. They couldn’t let her or Raj or Ander escape, not when the three of them knew so much. Ander was worth the risk of trying to take him even now, but if they couldn’t manage that feat, they would kill from a distance and escape into the night before the police caught them.

She felt as if her life was floating out of her body, drifting away in the dry air. They had less than a hundred meters, but she would never make it.

“Come on,” Ander said. “Run.”

Her legs wouldn’t obey. A shout came from the hill behind them. The ground exploded, just missing Ander, blasting out huge clumps of dirt and grass. She hated that violent crack, the sudden impact of a projectile. She was falling. Raj called her, but she couldn’t understand. Falling …

They wouldn’t let her go, neither Raj nor Ander. The three of them lurched together through the darkness. Another crack came from behind. No, in front. Left? Right? She no longer knew. Two police officers were running in a zigzag up the hill, crouched over. Or was it one officer, multiplied by her double vision?

A misty car loomed into view, its revolving lights smeared across the sky. They stumbled into the circle of light, hanging on to one another as if they were drowning. Police surrounded them, words piling up everywhere, impossible to understand.

One voice cut through the thickening haze. “—bleed to death!” it shouted. “Go! Get her in the ambulance!”

Blurs moved around them. More shouts. Raj told someone the blood on his clothes was hers. An ambulance loomed before them, its back doors wide open. Raj’s voice came to her, desperate, Megan, don’t die, you can’t die …

“Raj,” she whispered. “Good-bye.”

Then she went into the black.

XXIII

RECKONING

The haze never changed. Early on, Ander’s face hovered above her. He spoke, his voice breaking. Then he was gone.

Time passed.

Raj came often. He sat there in the mist and talked: Raj, an almost perfect copy of a man known for his inability to converse, a trait the original Raj had bequeathed to his replica. Yet with her, he was never that way.

He told her wonderful things about the robots he had built as a child, about his hopes for a new era ushered in by humans and robots, bringing a prosperity that might someday extend to all peoples in all places. He talked about Raj’s mother, a musician who had met Sundar at Oxford. He told her about Sundar’s youth in India, and his words wove pictures both beautiful and heartbreaking of a country she had never seen.

She heard the truths between his sentences. He considered Raj his father. When he had told her that his great-grandfather came to America from India, he meant Raj’s grandfather. Sundar, Raj’s father, had been born in India and moved to America with his family when he was nine, just after World War II. Sundar would never know that his biological son had already died. Nor could Megan have defined what this Raj lacked, if anything, compared to the tormented genius who had created him. A soul? Only God knew that answer.

He spoke in subdued tones about being an only child, how he missed having siblings. His aching love for the parents he had adored as a boy and barely known for the rest of his childhood came through in every word. Other times he talked about how he spent most of his youth with computers, letting their cool comfort fill the gaps in his life.

With unflinching candor, he told her about the injuries he had taken at the hands of the youths who beat him, humiliation inflicted because he looked and acted different, with his large intellect and small size. His shame kept him silent when he should have sought help.

He spoke about that day when he had left them in worse condition than what they had inflicted on him for so many years. The victory satisfied him. Yet it also felt hollow. He lived with that contradiction, the principles of nonviolence he honored set against the darkness within him, his urge to violence. Never once did he refer to his other accomplishments in life. His triumph over the inner demons of his childhood meant more to him than the fact that most people considered him one of the greatest geniuses of the modern era.

He spoke with heartbreaking pain about watching the real Raj slip deeper into Alzheimer’s, how he had taken care of Raj at the end. Struggling with older memories, he described how that same disease had turned Sundar into a stranger who didn’t recognize his own son, or how his mother had cried after the stroke paralyzed her and she could no longer hold her little boy. This Raj grappled with grief twice over, also carrying his own for the loss of his father, the man whose life he now lived. Listening to him, Megan heard a miracle, that Raj had survived that broken life with an incredible decency and strength of character.

Finally he spoke about what happened in the van and the quadra field. He had killed. It didn’t matter to him that the police called it self-defense, that no one intended to prosecute him for cracking the Phoenix files, or that his efforts had prevented a far greater evil. He would struggle with his guilt for the rest of his life, with the knowledge that for an instant he had felt only fierce satisfaction when he shot the man who had almost killed Megan in the field.

She tried to speak, but no words came. Many times he entreated her to open her eyes, to let him know she lived. Didn’t he know she could hear? He kept her centered here, in the blurs of life. A tunnel waited for her, beckoning with golden radiance at its end. She listened to Raj and the tunnel receded.

He set his hand on hers, where it lay on the sheet. “I miss you.” His voice had the sound of tears. “Would it horrify you if I said that I love you? Would you think me too strange?”

A drop of water fell on her hand. She opened her eyes and saw the tears on his cheeks. She tried to close her fingers around his and managed a squeeze.

“Megan?” Raj stared at her. “Megan? My God!” He jumped to his feet. “Nurse! She’s awake!”

Megan sighed, or tried to. She had liked his soft talking far better than this yelling about for the nurse. She had never seen him so agitated. She would have slipped back into the soothing white light, except she truly was tired of sleeping.

People gathered around her bed, checking monitors, talking in words she didn’t have the energy to decipher. Raj stood a few meters back, watching.

Waiting.

“You’re a lucky woman,” Deborah Nguyen said. The doctor closed her file, dousing the holos that floated over its surface. “The kind of ‘luck’ that comes from keeping yourself healthy.”

Megan sat reclined against the raised back of her bed. It was hard to believe she had been in a coma for three weeks. A continual low-level nausea still plagued her and she was exhausted.

Nguyen spoke in a careful voice. “I understand you were with Dr. Sundaram most of the time that the two of you were prisoners.”

Megan hesitated. How much could she say? Apparently the ambulance had brought her to a county hospital. When her condition stabilized, Major Kenrock had her transferred to a military facility. The nurses had told her that Raj came every day, but since waking earlier today she had yet to see him again. She still didn’t know who knew what.

“Megan?” Nguyen asked.

She refocused her attention. “Yes?”

“Doctor Sundaram is outside, waiting to see you.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

“We need to discuss something first.”

Did they know about Raj? Although he had told the medics the blood on his clothes was hers, someone must have examined him. Or maybe not; in all the commotion, he could have slipped away and repaired himself. He might have hacked the hospital’s comp and added records showing a doctor treated him. He could have completed the repair later, in private. She found it hard to believe they would have let him see her every day if they knew the truth. Ander had only been at her bedside once, the day they brought her into the hospital.

“Megan?” the doctor repeated.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Can I see Raj?”

“Yes. Certainly. But you need to know something first.” Nguyen paused. “I wasn’t sure if you were ready.”

“Why?” She steeled herself for whatever bad news waited. Maybe she wasn’t recovering so well after all. “I want to know.”

The doctor spoke quietly. “You’re pregnant.”

She blinked. “What?”

“It happened during your abduction, probably the third day.”

Megan didn’t know what she had expected, but that wasn’t it. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure. I didn’t know if you wanted Doctor Sundaram here when you found out.”

Pregnant. Good Lord. As if things weren’t already messy enough. “I’d like to see him.”

“All right. I’ll bring him in.”

After Nguyen left, Megan closed her eyes. Whose DNA did Raj carry? The biological Raj Sundaram, she hoped.

A click came from the door, accompanied by footsteps. Opening her eyes, she saw Raj come inside, his face guarded. She started to greet him, then stopped when she realized who had come with him. Nicholas Graham.

The general entered with a long stride. Crisp in his uniform, with a powerful physique and iron-gray hair, he filled the room with his presence. She wished she knew what Ander had told him. Surely if Dr. Nguyen knew Raj was an android, she would have done a lot more than say, You’re pregnant.

Graham came to the bed, his expression friendly but reserved. “Hello, Dr. O’Flannery. It’s good to see you awake.”

She pulled herself up straighter. “Thank you, sir.”

“I won’t stay long.” His smile warmed his granite face. “Your doctors issued me all sorts of warnings about not tiring you.”

“Ah, well.” She managed a smile. “I’ll be fine.”

Graham tilted his head at Raj, who stood at the foot of the bed. “Dr. Sundaram told us what happened. You can give your report when you’re stronger.”

Dr. Sundaram? They didn’t know. Raj had his hand on the silver rail that kept her from rolling off the bed. His face was calm, but she saw the whiteness of his knuckles where he gripped the rail.

“Where is Ander?” Megan asked.

“We took him back to NEV-5,” Graham said.

“Is he well?” She hesitated to ask for details. Although she was cleared to discuss the project with Graham, she wasn’t sure about here in the hospital. She doubted he would have referred to NEV-5, though, if they weren’t in a secured area.

“He’s fine,” Graham assured her. “We’re keeping him there until we decide what to do next.” Then he added, “It’s a bit unclear.”

No kidding. If they arrested him for kidnapping, applying human laws to his behavior, then as far as she was concerned, they had to grant him the rights and privileges of a human too.

“He saved my life,” she said.

“Yes. Dr. Sundaram told us.” Graham considered her. “Ander wants us to continue with the Everest Project.”

Relief washed over her. “I think we should.”

“It will depend on the recommendations of the committee Major Kenrock formed to look into the project.”

Oh, well. From Megan’s experience, once a committee got hold of something, you could turn into a fossil before they had results.

“Did you catch the people who kidnapped us?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Graham said. “Bu we’ll get them. We have the van you drove into the quadra. Its AI brain is a gold mine.”

She wanted to ask more, but she didn’t have the energy. Already she felt drained. A thought came to her, making her feel as if the proverbial butterflies danced in her stomach. Some of her fatigue probably came from the baby.

“Well,” Graham said. “Perhaps you and Dr. Sundaram would like to talk.” On that discreet note, he said his farewell and left the room.

Raj let out a quiet breath. He released the rail and rubbed his hand.

Megan felt suddenly self-conscious. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He looked uncertain.

“Would you like to come up here?” She lowered the rail, then scooted over on the bed.

He came and sat on the edge of the mattress, making it sink with his weight. “Hey, swan.”

“Hey.” She tried to absorb the truth, that this man she loved wasn’t human.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“A little.” She took his hand. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He squinted at her. “What did I do?”

“I heard you talking. Every day.” Softly she said, “You kept me here. In life. Like an anchor.”

Moisture gleamed in his eyes. “They didn’t think you

were going to make it. I couldn’t accept that.”

“I’m glad.” She took a breath. “I have something to tell you.”

He tensed. “The praying mantis doesn’t talk.”

Praying mantis? It took her a moment to figure out what he meant. Praying mantis. Insect. Bug. Of course. Her room was almost certainly monitored. If she said anything about his real identity, it would give him away. And “praying.” He was asking her not to reveal him.

“I don’t think this should wait,” she said.

His hand tightened on hers. “Are you sure?”

She started to speak, stopped, then said, “It’s difficult.”

“We can talk later.”

“No. Raj, it has to do with my condition.”

He shoulders tensed. “Do you have complications?”

“No. Yes. Sort of.”

“Tell me.”

Just say it, she thought. So she did. “I’m pregnant.”

At first he stared at her. Then relief washed over his face. Given the nature of her announcement, it puzzled her, until she realized he had feared she would reveal the truth about him. Hard on the heels of his relief, he showed shock, then alarm, then confusion.

“You’re going to have a baby?” he asked. “You’re sure?”

She managed a smile. “That’s the same question I asked the doctor. She said ‘Very sure.’ It happened on the third day of our abduction.”

Raj sat absorbing that. “We’re in a hospital. That should make getting the blood tests we need easy.”

“To check for paternity?” Maybe he didn’t know whose DNA he carried.

He spoke with an unexpected tenderness. “I’ve no doubt it’s mine. Your child will continue the Sundaram line.”

She almost said, “That’s not what I meant.” Then she realized how strange it would sound to any observers. He had answered her anyway, when he said “continue the Sundaram line.”

So why ask about blood tests? She hesitated, knowing the law had changed several times in the past few decades. “I’m not sure about this, so I may be about to make a fool of myself—but did you just offer to marry me?”

She expected another oblique answer. Instead he said, “Yes.”

Oh, Lord. What made it surreal was that he was the first man she could see herself spending her life with, a companion as well as a lover. He understood her passion for her work. They had similar dispositions. She loved to touch and be touched by him. He wouldn’t care that she was a homebody. She liked his eccentricities. The two of them were well matched. Except for one little problem. What could she say? Excuse me, but you’re an android.

“Ah, Raj.” She didn’t know what to do.

He picked up her hand and pressed it against her abdomen. “My parents and I missed so many years. As adults we’ve come to know each other, and I will always love them. But nothing can give us back what we lost.” His voice softened. “I want those years with my child.”

He was asking her a great deal more than a proposal. If they married, she would never reveal the truth about him. Until death do we part. He was asking if she would guard his secret forever.

Megan remembered the quadra field, the van, the motel, the lonely, late nights in NEV-5. She thought of wanting him. Then she thought of what he represented to humanity and what she would be taking from the rest of the world if she kept his secret.

That decision isn’t yours to make. It’s his. And he had already chosen.

“Yes,” she said. “I will be your wife.”

Epilogue

Megan sat on the hill next to Raj, savoring the sunshine. The extensive grounds of the Pearl Estate spread around them: rolling hills, lush trees, flowers in vibrant blue, yellow, and rose. The mansion itself was visible only as a turret lifting above distant trees. She gave a silent thanks to the donor who, twenty years ago, had left this estate to MindSim as a research institute. It provided a far more pleasant site for the Everest Project than NEV-5.

About half a kilometer down the slope, a lake shimmered, blue and silver in the sunshine. Ander was jogging on the path that circled it, a twenty-kilometer run. He loped along in an easy stride, the sun bright on his gold hair.

Megan felt a debt of gratitude to Major Kenrock’s committee for giving them a second chance with Ander.

“I haven’t seen him stumble once today,” Raj said.

“He’s doing well,” Megan said. Ander’s progress in the past six months had gone better than expected. MindSim attributed it to the work she and Raj were doing with him, but Megan suspected another cause.

She thought back to her childhood, when she had sworn loyalty to her best friend. They had nicked their thumbs and mixed their blood while vowing eternal friendship. Blood sisters, blood brothers.

So Raj and Ander had joined, in a field of grain, when they thought their lives would soon be destroyed. Instead of blood, they had mingled knowledge, each downloading the code that defined his essence into the mind of the other.

Raj had given Ander the Phoenix Code, and it forever changed the golden-haired android. He became more contemplative, less disconnected from his emotions. In taking the Phoenix Code, he absorbed how Raj felt about his life. So he kept Raj’s secret. It became his own. Ander would never be human, but he seemed complete within himself.

The therapist described him as a high functioning autistic, because he sometimes lacked full emotions, he tended to hold himself aloof, and he avoided physical contact, never having come to understand why humans liked to touch. But Megan doubted the diagnosis. It assumed a human standard applied to Ander. And it didn’t. He defined himself.

Unlike Ander, Raj didn’t simply incorporate his brother’s code. He first did a rewrite, to blend it with his own personality and desires. Because of that, it changed him less than the Phoenix Code changed Ander. But Megan saw differences. Raj’s already intense emotions deepened even more. It surprised her at first, given Ander’s relative lack of affect. Then she realized that in coming to understand Ander, Raj better understood himself. He and Ander had different views of what it meant to exist. Raj wanted to be human. Ander didn’t care.

Ander never contemplated his emotions. He just wanted to exist on his terms. It meant no spy work, no military training, no oaths. After much debate, the ethics board convened by MindSim and the DOD agreed he had a right to make that choice, as a sentient being. They were setting precedents that would inform all work with future androids. But they could take no chances with Ander. In the end, they found a compromise he could accept; he could live however he wished as long as he never left the grounds of the Pearl Estate.

Megan leaned back on her hands, looking at her husband. Raj’s hair blew back from his face and laugh lines showed around his eyes. Yes, she loved him. At times she even forgot the truth. The baby grew inside of her, the genetic son of the Raj Sundaram who had died in the Phoenix explosion. But in all the ways that mattered, her child was the son of this man who had walked out of the fires after that explosion.

The DNA tests had also given them a gift; their son hadn’t inherited the Alzheimer’s gene carried by his father and grandfather. He would never suffer the pain that had devastated Raj’s life.

Ander had left the path and was walking up the hill, cooling down from his workout. When he reached them, he flopped onto the grass and stared out at the lake.

“Did you enjoy your run?” Raj asked.

“Yes,” Ander said.

They sat together, watching the sun glisten on the water. After a while Ander said, “I made a map of the estate today. I coded it according to type of plant.”

“Will you download it to the comp?” Megan asked.

“I don’t know.” After thinking, he said, “For you, I will.” He rolled onto his stomach and laid his head on the grass, closing his eyes. “I want to map all the world. All the plants. I might be able to do it from here using satellite data.”

“A lot of botanists would be in your debt,” Raj said.

“Why do you like maps so much?” Megan asked.

Ander gave her a deadpan look. “They’re sex.”

“They are?”

He closed his eyes again, for all appearances a healthy young man dozing in the sun after a good workout. “A voluptuous use of knowledge bases.”

Megan suspected he was teasing her. She smiled, doubting she would ever fully understand his sense of humor.

As the breezes played with her hair, she felt the life kick within her. She laid her hand on her stomach. You will be born into a world altered beyond recognition. It isn’t obvious yet, but the changes are coming. We share it now with another sentient species, one that we made faster, smarter, and more durable than ourselves.

Raj lay on his back, apparently drowsing, like Ander. She knew neither was sleeping. Their minds kept going, always calculating, never resting. Would humanity someday find a way to put that speed and memory into the human mind, becoming more like androids while the androids became more human?

She shivered despite the warm air. Throughout history, every advance had left in its wake an obsolete technology. Tools replaced claws. Electricity replaced steam power. Computers replaced brute mental force. If they didn’t find ways to improve their own minds, the human race would become obsolete.

But if they evolved with their creations? It promised a symbiosis unlike anything they had yet seen. Perhaps our two species will find in each other a completion neither has alone.

She hoped so.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to the readers who gave me input on the writing and research for this book. Their comments greatly helped strengthen the book. Any errors that remain are mine alone.

To Lt. Col. Michael LaViolette, USAR, for his sharp comments and the great pizzas his family brought over; to Larry Clough, acting program manager for the Situation Assessment and Data Fusion Division of Teknowledge Corporation; to Jeri Smith-Ready, for her perceptive reading and all those one/two/threes; to my grandmother, Annie Asaro, and my aunt and uncle, Jack and Marie Scudder, for their delightful talks about Las Vegas; and to the many other people who graciously answered my questions, including Professor of Physics Pranab Ghosh, Jennifer Dunne, and Devi Pellai.

To the writers who listened to selected scenes and provided their excellent insights: Aly’s Writing Group, including Aly Parsons, Simcha Kuritzky, Connie Warner, Al Carroll, Paula Jordon, Michael LaViolette, George Williams, and J. G. Huckenpoler; and Ruth’s “class,” including Ruth Glick (Rebecca York), Binnie Syril Braunstein, Randy DuFresne (Elizabeth Ashtree), Chassie West, and Linda Williams.

A special thanks to my top-notch editor, Anne Lesley Groell, who is everything an author could ask for in an editor; to my much appreciated agent, Eleanor Wood, of Spectrum Literary Agency, for her always valued advice and support; to Nancy Berland and her associates for their enthusiasm and hard work; and to the publisher and all the fine people at Bantam who made this book possible.

A most heartfelt thanks to the shining lights of my life, my husband, John Kendall Cannizzo, and my daughter, Cathy, whose constant love and support make it all worthwhile.

About the Author

Catherine Asaro is the author of thirty books, ranging from thrillers to science fiction and fantasy. Her novel The Quantum Rose and novella The Spacetime Pool both won the Nebula Award, and she has been nominated for multiple Hugo Awards. Asaro holds a doctorate in chemical physics from Harvard; her research specializes in applying the mathematical methods of physics to problems in quantum physics and chemistry.

Asaro has appeared as a speaker at many institutions, including the Library of Congress, Georgetown’s Communication, Culture, and Technology program, the New Zealand National ConText Writer’s program, the Global Competitiveness Forum in Saudi Arabia, and the US Naval Academy. She has been the guest of honor at science fiction conventions across the United States and abroad, including the National Science Fiction Conventions of both Denmark and New Zealand, and served as president for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. She can be reached at www.catherineasaro.net and has a Patreon page at www.patreon.com/CatherineAsaro.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2000, 2013 by Catherine Asaro

Cover design by Ian Koviak

ISBN: 978-1-5040-7953-2

This edition published in 2022 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com

CATHERINE ASARO

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA

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Table of Contents

Title Page

I: The Offer

II: The Everest Project

III: Nevada Five

IV: Rebirth

V: Invasion

VI: Jaguar

VII: Ander

VIII: Rapscallion

IX: Free Will

X: Do No Harm

XI: Stealth Run

XII: City of Lights

XIII: Jungle

XIV: Probe

XV: Extinction

XVI: Sins of the Brothers

XVII: Alpine

XVIII: Data Labyrinth

XIX: Turnabout

XX: Net of Betrayal

XXI: Circuit Dreams

XXII: Phoenix

XXIII: Reckoning

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright