Chapter 4 #3
I flee the kitchen, my mind and my emotions all over the place.
I wanted this to go a lot smoother than that.
But I’ve been holding a lot of this in for a long time.
It felt weirdly therapeutic finally letting it all out.
But all I have is guilt left over. Jessica has bigger problems now than Apollo’s and my drama.
Was coming to New Carnegie really the right choice for me?
* * *
Nolan
“Hey. Wake up.”
The voice and a soft kick to my boot bring me out of sleep mode. I power up with a smooth whir. My visual feed activates to find Apollo standing right in front of me, staring me down.
“Good morning, Apollo.”
He ignores my greeting. His mouth is a thin, unpleasant line. He furrows his brow. “Anything you want to ’fess up to?”
My system temperature rises to a nearly uncomfortable level.
I’ve never experienced this level of tension inside me, at least not when I wasn’t immersed in a fire, fighting to save lives.
Shit. I’m in unfamiliar territory. I gaze back at him neutrally, locking down my facial responses. “Could you be more specific?”
“Don’t fucking do this, Nolan,” Apollo demands. “Don’t do it. Not after all we’ve been through. Tell me what happened last night. Bennigan is getting his ass reamed by the mayor, and I can’t have your back if you don’t tell me everything.”
My processors are already calculating the odds of Apollo knowing I kissed Mia last night. According to the numbers, there’s no way he could tell. Apollo’s clever, but he’s not a mind reader. I have no idea what could be wrong.
“Is this because I went to Cyber Street to help out yesterday?” I ask.
Apollo clenches his jaw and shakes his head with exasperation. “You need to get down to the chief’s office,” he says as I move past him. “And after he’s through with you, you come find me. We’re not done here.”
My skeletal frame remains stiff, despite my attempts to normalize my movements.
If Apollo doesn’t already know, he certainly suspects.
I’m operating on limited time. If Mia doesn’t address this soon, it’ll fall to me. If I don’t handle this, I could lose my closest friend in the department.
That worries me most of all.
* * *
“I need you to explain yourself. From the beginning.”
Standing with my hands clasped behind my back, I regard Chief Bennigan.
My boss is red-faced and putting away high blood pressure medication in his drawer.
He’s been in a sour mood for months now, mostly because of his wife.
She’s a good woman, but she’s making him eat healthier due to his risk for various heart conditions.
He hates it. If I have to eat one more goddamn yogurt parfait is one of his favorite utterances.
“I was planning on heading to the movies,” I reply. “But I wasn’t able to take the bus, due to new android transportation policies. I received a message from Mia Bennett that Jessica wasn’t feeling well. They were short-staffed at Cyber Street, so I volunteered to assist.”
Bennigan slowly twists his computer screen around to face me. “What about this? Can you explain to me what this is?”
He plays what is undoubtably a cell phone recording of me lecturing last night’s thieves, along with their hasty retreat from the shop.
My gaze plays over the headline from New Carnegie Weekly, a notorious big-city tabloid: Local Firefighting Android Can’t Stop Playing Hero, Busts Boutique Shoplifters.
“That you?” he asks.
As far as headlines go, that one seems rather harmless. “Yes, sir, that’s me. I was unaware I was being recorded at the time.” I raise a brow as Bennigan sighs and leans back. “Sorry, but is this even really a problem? Am I in trouble?”
“If it were up to me, there wouldn’t be an issue.
Hell, I’m not angry at how you behaved. You handled yourself well.
But now Mayor Rivera’s breathing down my neck, talking about how we shouldn’t be loaning out our most expensive equipment to retail shops.
She’s hard up for numbers from independent voters.
She’s trying to take a stricter stance on androids to win over the Humanity First crowd for the next election.
” Bennigan shakes his head. “I just want to be careful we’re not coming under unnecessary scrutiny. ”
“Frankly, sir, she’s making a mountain out of a mole hill,” I reply. “It was my personal time, which you said I’m entitled to, just like anyone else here.”
“I know,” Bennigan agrees. “And I’m doing what I can to keep it that way.
From now on, be careful. It’s easier for me to protect you when you’re discreet.
Politicians like to pretend they aren’t in BioNex’s pocket.
There’s a lot of virtue signaling and peacocking going on.
I don’t want our department getting caught up in that mess. Fair enough?”
“No, it’s not fair enough,” I reply, trying to keep my voice level. “I’m almost always on the clock. I work just as hard as anyone else in this department, if not harder. I shouldn’t be scrutinized like this.”
Bennigan leans back in his chair. “You’re right.
It’s not fair. You already know why everyone watches you.
It’s hard enough that you’re an android, but TerraPura has made everything worse.
People were mad and looking for something to blame before.
Now they’re scared. They don’t see the hero who keeps our firefighters safe.
They see a machine who has potential to do a lot of damage if he gets rewired into some kind of bionic bomb.
That’s the way it is, and it’s not changing anytime soon while McKinley and her extremists are in charge.
We have to hunker down and weather the storm. ”
Bennigan isn’t talking down to me. I can see the concern reflected in his face, how he’s trying to maintain balance between his own position, his men, and what the city expects of him.
Arguing with him won’t help anything. Not when he’s on my side.
I realize I’m clenching my fists and force myself to relax them.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” I harness my words, maintaining a neutral, uncaring, almost mechanical tone I can bring out when I need to. If they want me to be fully machine, well, then that’s what I’ll be.
“We might be sending people to the West Coast to deal with a wildfire that’s burning out of control,” the Chief says, frowning. “It isn’t set in stone yet, but they need all the help they can get. If the call goes out, are you in?”
“Of course I am,” I reply. “I’ll be there, with the rest of the team.”
“Good.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all. I’m sorry, Nolan.” Bennigan sighs. “You can go.”
Stalking out of the chief’s office, frustration courses through me, like it’s inherent in my ivory blood. Getting dinged by the mayor for stopping theft in a nonviolent way? Really? Is there nothing I can do right?
A message flickers across my visual feeds from my automatic internal diagnostic sensor. Temperature spike and programming anomalies detected. Initiating biocomponent cooling sequence.
Humans can take deep breaths, count to ten, and soothe themselves down naturally. All I can do is allow my many parts and programs to operate within the limits of their primary functions. Going back to my room and going into standby, powering down, may help me cool off.
But when I see Apollo walking toward me, I know I won’t get the chance.
His brow is furrowed, but his expression softens when he gets closer to me. “Hey—you okay?”
“Not according to most of the humans in this city, if not the country, or the world,” I grumble, trying to force my steel mainframe to relax. “Sorry. It’s just that damn video.”
“I saw it. I don’t blame you for being pissed off. I would be too,” Apollo says, but I can see there’s something on his mind. “But we need to talk.”
Mimicking a sigh, I motion for him to follow me to my little dorm above the station, the old barracks. “Okay. Sure.”
* * *
“So I hear you’re talking to Mia, and that I, quote, can’t do anything about it.” Apollo paces in front of me, running his hand through his hair.
Reading his agitated vitals, I watch Apollo closely, and choose my words carefully, too. “Yes, I’ve been talking to her for the past few days.”
“And?” Apollo stops, looking at me in surprise. “Here I was, thinking I must’ve hit my head or something, but it’s true. You went over my head. How could you, Nolan? And how far has this gone already?”
I can’t ignore that uncomfortable pulse when he asks me this question. That level of deception isn’t in me, not when I’m confronted point-blank. “A kiss. Nothing more.”
“Come on.” Apollo groans, resting his hands on his hips as his pacing finally comes to a halt.
“Mia? Of all people, you had to go after her? She’s been in town for a few days and you’re already—” He points at me, grimacing and worried.
“Tell me you guys didn’t do it in my wife’s store. That’s—that’s—a health hazard, man!”
“We didn’t do anything beyond kissing,” I repeat.
I feel as though I’m stuck between two steel beams, uncomfortable with sharing even one fact about my private interactions with Mia.
My systems are twisted around. I want to please my best friend.
But I also want to protect Mia. Our correspondence is nobody’s business but ours.
I shoot a message off to her. Good morning, beautiful. Heads up. Apollo is giving me the talk.
“I don’t buy that. I know what you’re like with women,” Apollo says heatedly.
That earns a hard stare from me. “What am I like with women, Apollo?”
“Come on, that’s—I—I just know!”
“You’re angry and irrational,” I reply. “And I don’t like the implication behind your words. I’m not AJ or Travis or even Booker with women, and you know it.”
“You’re right. You’re right. That was uncalled for.” Apollo sighs, his shoulders sagging somewhat. “I just—I can’t believe you didn’t come to me.”