Chapter Forty-Two

Marek

Marek and a few of the others in his group wait in an alley across from Werker. It’s kind of hard on their eyes being out in the middle of the day like this. Tey is hanging out at the bus stop in some normal looking clothes, talking to anyone that’ll stick around for a minute. No one he’s talked to so far has been able to confirm any specific details about having seen a robot that was a little out of the ordinary. When one person finally mentions that they’ve seen a new and rather tall AMF robot around, he relays the details back to the group.

“Marek, they described the machine as a tall well-featured woman that is mostly charcoal in color. They think that someone in their apartment complex must have bought it as a used or distressed unit or something, but they can’t figure who could afford it.”

“Why do they think it was distressed?”

They say it was never painted, and that it has an angry-looking face all the time. Maybe it’s stuck that way? Oh, and they say it’s usually naked. Apparently it’s a pretty intimidating piece, that’s what they remember anyway.”

“I doubt we’re looking for something in a female frame.”

“They said it was certainly over six feet tall, and not timid looking.” That raises everyone’s eyebrows.

As far as Marek and his pals can tell, no robots at all have come or gone from Werker the entire day. The only person that seems to be coming or going regularly is some fat guy in a green shirt and black sweatpants. He seems to be hurrying about too. What eventually catches their attention, is the man’s face. He looks to have been roughed up recently. When they pay closer attention to him, he does appear to be acting a little shifty.

Marek’s group knows to keep things cool as long as they can, but this guy is a really easy target. They don’t want to start working anyone over this soon, but it looks like too important of an opportunity to pass up. No one ever cares all that much if one of their own disappears or dies, but that’s not the case with a normal civilian. They need to figure out what he knows, but it might bring a lot of unwanted attention down on them. Their anonymity goes a long way but stops at kidnap and murder. As long as they don’t disrupt normal society too much, they’re left to their ways.

It takes a while for him to make a decision, but when he does, he doesn’t hesitate any further. He has to intercept this man. If Leadership is willing to use a bomb like what they’ve acquired, whatever he does till then will be water under the bridge. He strides out of the shadows and heads straight for the man on the curb, ready to chase him down and drag him away if he has to.

Gabriel immediately notices the city rat crossing the street towards him. He is a rather tall young man but doesn’t look as rough as most derelicts do. His hair and beard are crudely cut as short as it could be with scissors, making him look rather silly. Surprisingly, his teeth look to be in pretty good shape when he smiles. The man is moving quickly, and right for him, but not in a way that indicates that they are planning on mugging him. He doesn’t know what to do. If he tries to run, they will likely take him to the ground and beat him for it. Rats are kind of like animals in that way. If something runs, they automatically chase it.

He freezes up and tries to not stare when the man crosses onto the sidewalk in front of him, but it does no good. The rat walks right up and stands right next to him anyway. He’s so nervous, he’s already starting to sweat through the armpits of his shirt. Out of the corner of his eye, he looks the guy over.

The big heavy oilcloth duster that he’s wearing looks to be fairly well put together, for being made by an idiot. It’s not made out of random scraps like most other homeless people’s clothes are but is reinforced, with metal brads and heavy stitching at the seams. The guy looks as if he would be tough to take even in a knife fight.

He looks up at the man’s face and quickly darts his eyes away when his prying is noticed. When he looks up again, the rat is staring right down at him. He begins to twitch and tremble without being able to stop himself. Startling him upright, the young man speaks to him in an energetic voice. It’s not what he had expected at all.

“Are ya feelin’ alright friend? Ya look like I am gonna stab you or somethin’.”

“What do you want? I… I’ll scream if you do anything!”

Marek assumes a rather disappointed look on his face and lets out a long sigh. “Now that was a li’l impolite don’t ya think? Why’d ya say such a thing? You hurt my feelings you li’l piggy fuck.”

Gabriel knows it’s too late to backpedal now, he’s gone and done it. “I don’t care, you… you… rat.”

Marek puts his hands on his hips and turns to him. “What was that last part, ya li’l fuck?”

“You know where you are, huh? You’re standing right out front of the Werker development campus you idiot. This entire place is under heavy surveillance. You’re up to no good and I don’t have to take any of your inbred rat bullshit!”

“My name is Marek, and if you say rat one more time, I’ll splat your guts all over this place.” He grabs a fist full of Gabriel’s hair on the side of his head and pulls him in close to his face. “I’ve a few simple questions that you’ll be answerin’, and if ya don’t, I’ll smash your squishy fucking head in!”

When Gabriel’s knees get weak, Marek holds his weight up by the wad of hair that he still has a hold of. The pain straightens his knees back out, keeping him upright and focused. I’ll do whatever you want! Ow! Just let go. Please! Ow!”

His scalp is already tender from what Mikel had done, but now he’s sure there’s an air pocket or something under his skin now for sure. It feels like there’s something the size of a damn muffin stuffed in under there. He’s had enough of people attacking him, all he can think of is getting Paul rebuilt so he can have some of his own muscle to throw around. He imagines Paul ripping through the piece of shit rat, and all his gutter-buddies too. He hates being weak. He can only imagine the things he’d do if he could. He chose his life and now he has to live it.

Not wanting to waste any more time out in the open like this, Marek presses his first question. “Where’s the assassin robot that killed my friends?”

Pie eyed, Gabriel has no idea how to answer. He couldn’t have cooked up a crazier question himself if he were paid to do it. Before he makes the mistake of calling Marek a crazy rat again, his wits kick in.

“What? There’s no such thing as a robot assassin! Trust me, I’d know, I develop robots. They don’t have the kinds of skills for that, that’s absurd.”

Marek reaches up for his hair again but stops when Gabriel holds up his finger in protest. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“Wait, ok, I know who you’re looking for!”

Hesitating for a bit, he gives himself enough time to fabricate a convenient little plan. He isn’t quite sure who exactly he wants to send the rats after first. He knows Valerie is the head of the snake, but he kind of actually hates Mikel more than her at the moment. The lump on his head has been reminding him about it plenty. Thinking of Valerie again, he realizes that she’s the one who’s beating up on him the most.

“Valerie Morgan! She’s the one you’re looking for. She works here, like me, but she made the robot you’re looking for. It wasn’t authorized, and she stole it. She snuck it out of here. That’s the only robot that could’ve done something. And Marco Greco too… he’s working with her, he helped her make the thing!”

“Tell me everything right now or I’ll absolutely drag your ass underground and torture everything out of you!”

“She made two killer robots, one smaller and innocent looking, the other, tall and clear black. She’s the dangerous one! Valerie is still making more of them, one of them is to be hers.”

“Like a sexbot? He suddenly looks like he’s heard enough.

“There’s another man though, that you have to watch out for too. His name is Mikel Hawkes. He’s killed two of us already, and he almost killed me when I tried to stop them!”

“What’s he look like?”

Gabriel pauses for a second, thinking on how to not sound stupid. His voice is much more mellow. “He dresses like a cowboy most of the time. You should probably just kick his head in as soon as you see him, just to be safe!”

Marek looks around, figuring he’s just about out of time. “If I have to find your dumb ass again, I won’t be as friendly.”

Gabriel staggers back while the homeless guy dashes away just as abruptly as he had shown up, running back across the street and down the alley with the rest of his thugs. When the rats are all out of sight, he looks around and then jumps up and down in the air with his fists up over his head. There’s blood in the water now. The rats will be frothing up out of every hole in the ground, swarming for Valerie and the others. He probably won’t have to lift a finger himself now. All he has to do is stay up all night and wait for the aftermath to be spread all over the local news again.

He’ll need to hurry up and send out a fair warning to Sabrina though. She’ll need to be ready to erase any company involvement. Instead of waiting for the bus, he rushes down the sidewalk towards the printing lab. Things are speeding up and he’ll need Paul ready as soon as possible.

When Evan’s alarm goes off on his watch, the three of them all pack up what’s left of the pizza, and put it in the break room fridge. With Aaron still out there hanging naked in front of the curing lamps, he asks that he be left to his work, alone, again. It’ll take at least another five hours for him to do the paintwork, so he recommends that Valerie and Marco take off somewhere for the time being.

He’ll need a good amount of time to paint Aaron’s face. If it doesn’t look exactly like Aaron, she won’t be able to bond with him as well again. He brings up the photographs of Aaron that they had scanned and zooms in to the pixel level. From there, he picks out a couple of individual colors within the digital file to use as bases.

This time, he makes sure to set up the spray gun recording equipment so that the paint job can be saved for later. If Aaron plans on living very long, he’ll likely need to be re-finished from time to time. Having his scheme on file will be necessary.

He ponders a few things for a moment, figuring that the body in front of him may very well last many generations into the future. He finds himself envying Aaron a great deal, to be young forever, strong, and with a woman like Valerie. He wonders what the man may live to see in his time. He stands up a little taller, considering that if his work is ever going to be revered far into the future, this man will be the one to carry his legacy. He will do his best to honor the opportunity.

After the first base color is on, he applies a light clear coat, and then a second foggy base coat followed by yet another clear one. The base coats are all applied in a slightly transparent manner, to give living depth to the skin. He also includes hints of vascularity and other typical underlying features that are in natural skin. By the time he’s done, he has applied four paint schemes on top of one another. Until a person is quite close, they won’t be able to tell that Aaron is not human. Only very subtle differences might give him away.

The lack of hair on a body will always be the most tell-tale difference between an AMF robot and a real human. He has experimented with multiple types of embedded hair but nothing ever turns out to his standards. Only when the detail gets to the level of including even peach fuzz, does it pan out, and it’s never worth all the trouble.

As soon as the paint has set, he gives Aaron one last special abrasion-resistant clear coat and then parks him in front of the curing lamps again. The man is finally ready. Not wanting to leave Aaron to be awoken naked in front of everyone, he hunts down a pair of jeans and leaves them out to put on when it’s time.

He walks in circles around Aaron’s body for another half hour, making sure everything is absolutely perfect before moving it back over into the tilting work station. He takes a final ten-minute break in his chair just looking at him from a few yards away. He holds the portrait of Aaron out in his hand and looks back and forth between it and the body. Aaron’s body may be a bit more built than it originally was, but his face is still a perfect copy. He can only imagine what it took to fight one of these muscled frames back at Barry’s place.

When he’s ready, Evan quietly walks into the lounge where Valerie and Marco are waiting. Both of them are asleep this time. Valerie is sprawled out across the long leather sofa, face down, and with one of her arms dropped down over the edge. Marco is sitting mostly upright in one of the larger cushy chairs, with his head cranked back all the way. His glasses are crooked, and his mouth is wide open. He considers taking a nap himself before waking them.

He wishes he could have a chance to rest before things get heavy, but he needs this all to just be done and over with. He can barely stand as it is, and he won’t be dragging things out any farther than they have to be. He lets out a long sigh and sits down on the couch beside Valerie. He puts his hand on her shoulder and softly shakes her just enough.

Valerie suddenly jerks upright, as if she might have fallen asleep at the wheel. She wipes the drool off her face and rubs at her eyes. Marco wakes up, not even realizing where he is, demanding to know what’s going on. When she comes-to, Valerie just sits there with big eyes staring at him, not saying anything. She’s almost too nervous to go out and finish what they’ve all started. All that’s left to do is to wake Aaron up with the start module, yet it feels like they have a mountain pass to get over first. After they all sit quietly for another couple minutes, Marco is the first to get up.

“It’s time.”

Evan holds his hand out for her and pulls her up off the couch. He evens holds the door open for them in hopes that they will finally get their asses moving. They’ve napped all damn day, and he is toast. He leads them down the hall to the finishing room where Aaron is waiting.

When they approach the tilt station, Valerie is only barely able to hold her tears back. When she gets a good look at him, it is like he was never dead and has been waiting there for her this whole time. Just by looking at his face, she feels like everything is going to be ok again.

To see her like this is all he will ever need as thanks. If she were to try and speak, she would break down into tears for sure. Not a single word is spoken as they go on about preparing to boot him up. No one wants to jinks anything.

Marco reaches behind Aaron’s neck, where the contact points are still under the skin. He puts a hand over Aaron’s forehead and pokes the two device prongs through the thin skin until he can feel them make contact on the underlying terminals. He briefly looks at the other’s faces one more time before firmly pressing down on the start button.

It only takes a few seconds for the sequence to complete, initiating the wakeup. Aaron’s eyes are quick to open, but when he becomes aware, they open even more. Their hearts are all pounding, nervous as hell, and wondering if he is ok. As expected, he struggles for a few seconds to get up out of the station. It makes clear sense why the straps are made so heavy. They creak against his strength.

Marco puts his forearm across Aaron’s chest and speaks to him calmly. “Aaron… Aaron? Hey buddy, just hold still for a second, alright. Can you relax for me for a second, just lay back?”

Aaron tilts his head towards him, mumbles something, and then tries to get up again. Marco keeps eye contact with him and tries to lean in front of him as closely as he can, so Aaron can see him. It helps keep him a little more still. They can’t tell what Aaron is saying, but they can make some assumptions. The last word he tries to shape sounded like “happened.”

Feeling that Aaron is at least calm enough to not panic or be a danger, Marco works quickly to undo the restraints on his wrists. As soon as Aaron is focused and not so clearly disoriented, he helps him out and down off the stand. Aaron’s dexterity is poor. He falls forward onto his hands and knees when Marco doesn’t have the strength to hold his weight up.

Aaron stays there on the floor, trying to get a feeling for his balance. It’s remarkably better than what Five and Arma had started with. They had to be weakened and often suspended from a leash while their brains relearned all of their motor functions from scratch.

When Marco looked over the work that Gabriel had done, one thing stood out for sure. The learning patch that supposedly came from Five, did not match what was in her file. He’s pretty sure Aaron is going to be able to learn much more quickly than anyone expects. The patch plainly had to have come from Paul and the two are even sharing the same frame design.

It makes him wonder how Paul had adapted so quickly after only being dead for a few months. A few almost clear words come from Aaron as he shifts his weight about on all fours. Facedown, he repeats himself multiple more times, getting better each time.