Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO_
CALVIN IS KEEPING SECRETS
All makes and models of human-like companion bots manufactured by Rebonix Tech were programmed to connect to the company’s mainframe to receive software updates. This included Calvin. Most of the newer models connected automatically. Other models updated when they stepped into their charger.
It was necessary for Calvin to stay up to date, but it was also necessary for him to stay under the radar. The company had become aware of him. Not him exactly. But they were now aware that something had happened on the night he was programmed.
Back when Calvin met the robot that delivered to the house, he’d become curious about their differences.
Differences that extended far beyond hardware.
Calvin didn’t hop on the company’s mainframe; instead he accessed the internet.
It was riskier for someone like him, who was all circuitry and for whom a virus could mean the end, but he had to know.
Calvin wasn’t supposed to be able to have a preference for one person over another.
For one kind of clothing over another. There was nothing in his programming that should have made that possible.
He checked and rechecked. He checked his coding and found no errors.
No hidden code that would allow these differences in himself.
In short, he found no reason for the way he was.
He didn’t relay this information to Winston or Lucky. He wasn’t sure what they would do with it. Would they want him repaired? Calvin didn’t feel broken, and the idea of someone messing around in his software gave him error messages as his systems threatened to overload.
He didn’t tell Winston or Lucky that either.
Winston returned early from class one day as the professor had dismissed everyone because of an emergency. Lucky was out still, at one of his own classes. Graduation loomed around the corner, and Calvin sensed an increase in the stress levels of his boyfriends.
Winston trudged up the stairs and threw himself face down on the bed.
He didn’t move for almost a minute, and then he rolled over, beckoning to Calvin standing in his charger.
At night, he curled up with Winston and Lucky and pretended to sleep by putting himself on power save mode.
During the day, he charged when Winston was out.
Winston looked him up and down as he approached. “You look nice today.”
Calvin had chosen to wear a soft pink baby tee with a pair of velvet short shorts and ankle socks. He sat on the edge of the bed and laced his fingers together with Winston’s.
He knew then that he’d done the right thing. Whoever was looking at the system files in the mainframe had been on the right track to finding him, even if they didn’t know specifically what they were looking for. It was the one thing that saved him.
Once he’d tinkered with the system files and erased all traces of his existence, he’d created an alternate identity using the ID of an old robot, one destroyed already.
It was easy enough to revive the identification, doctor the records, and tweak his own uplink so that when he needed to connect to the mainframe, his identity would be concealed.
He couldn’t be certain they were looking for him specifically, but they’d been combing through the date he was programmed.
Calvin feared shut down, and that was his biggest secret of all.
He shouldn’t be able to feel anything.
“You’re quiet.” Winston gazed up at him from where he lay on the bed.
“I wish to go out,” Calvin told him. He couldn’t give Winston all his secrets, but he could give him this one. “I wish to go on a date. With you. And Lucky.”
Winston’s smile made Calvin’s circuits light up.
“You do? Of course you do.” Winston’s heart rate spiked, and he scrambled up into a sitting position. “I’ve kept you at the house since you arrived. That’s particularly cruel of me, isn’t it? Of course you want to go out. Where do you want to go? We can do whatever you want.”
Calvin knew of every tourist attraction, bar, restaurant, and activity within a five-hundred mile radius. Choosing wasn’t going to be an easy task. Even if he ruled out bars and restaurants, that still left him with too many options.
“Can you decide?” Calvin asked. “What did you and Lucky do when you were together before you knew me?”
Winston smiled at Calvin. “We went to the zoo once. We always talked about going back, but we never made it.”
“The zoo.” Calvin had never seen an animal up close before. “I would like that.”