Chapter 20 #2
Milo could feel Rowan and Troy’s eyes on him, boring into the side of his head like he had said something dangerous and terrible, but it was a harmless enough question.
Wasn’t it?
Andrew’s smile and non-smiling eyes remained deeply disquieting. “Ray there was from the very first line of B-model bots. Jay is the newest. The original line would not have been able to keep up with future upgrades. You understand.”
Milo tilted his head. “Forgive me, Andrew, but I don’t think I do.”
Andrew’s smile turned somehow worse, still there, still wide, still wrong, as he stepped closer to Milo.
“You really are feeling, aren’t you? Sympathy?
Fear? Self-preservation maybe? Don’t worry, Milo.
You are beyond upgrades now. We are going to be able to do so many amazing things together because of you for years to come. ”
He reached over and clamped his hand down on Milo’s shoulder. It wasn’t overly firm, no different from his handshake really, but while such gestures were often used to comfort, Milo did not feel comforted.
Although he did feel slightly better after Andrew removed his hand.
“Keep me posted, Dr. Palmer.” Andrew turned to the others. “Mr. Rangecroft, let’s take a walk to discuss that surge protector while these two work, shall we?”
“Y-yes, Director!” Rowan hurried forward to follow Andrew and his bot as both turned for the door, passing Milo a concerned expression as he did, not necessarily noticeable to anyone else, but the pinch to his brow was unmistakable with how well Milo knew him.
Milo smiled and nodded to reassure Rowan. He was fine being left alone with Troy. If he had to be alone with Andrew, he might have felt differently.
Milo did not like Andrew. He knew it would be rude and cause trouble if he admitted that, but unlike the genuineness Milo appreciated in others and strove to emulate, Andrew’s eyes lied. Milo wasn’t certain about what exactly, but he did not like it one bit.
Maybe it was just how Andrew looked. Or how CEOs and other high-ranking business professionals looked. There was extensive evidence through photographs, video, and interviews that rarely depicted such people as not being creepy.
“Don’t worry, Milo,” Troy said after Rowan and the director—and his duplicated bot—had left. Andrew had said those exact same words, but at least from Troy, Milo believed them.
He turned to look at the engineer, who might have been meek in Andrew’s presence but was back to jubilant with his absence.
“Today is going to be fun! We get to start our research with full company backing, you and I get to learn more about each other, and maybe someday very soon we’ll get to meet the real Ray here if we can replicate what happened to you. Sound good?”
That did comfort Milo. After all, if Ray became real like he did, no one could throw him away again.
Strengthening his dwindled smile, Milo joined Troy beside the dormant bot.
“Sounds wonderful, Troy. Do you need me to undress to Ray’s level and sit on the opposing table?”
“Yes, please. Unless stripping down makes you uncomfortable?” Troy asked with genuine concern, just like Rowan had displayed. Milo didn’t think Troy could make his eyes lie if he tried to.
“It’s fine. Like a doctor’s exam, yes? Although please warn me if you need access to anything beneath my underwear.” As Milo began to undress, Troy’s cheeks turned a very bright vermillion.
“Oh, I won’t! Or… shouldn’t? I won’t say any absolutes other than I will warn you. Ask you, I mean! Consent is very important if you haven’t yet learned—”
“I am familiar with consent, Troy, thank you. I appreciate that. Rowan has been adamant about teaching me about it too, especially in practice.” Milo was down to his underwear quickly and realized as he sat on the empty table beside Ray’s that Troy was staring at him.
Not at his body or in any leering way like Ruben’s artist lover had, but in… shock?
Oh no! Milo wasn’t supposed to allude to he and Rowan sleeping together!
“Please don’t tell Rowan I said that. What I meant was… um…”
Troy’s shocked expression fell into an amused laugh. “Wow! I’m more of a hopeless bachelor than I thought if even a bot can find a committed partner. Shit, that was rude.” Troy’s eyes bugged out as his expression swiftly changed again. “I’m so sorry, Milo. I didn’t mean even a bot like—”
Milo started laughing too, which at least did the job of halting Troy’s seemingly imminent ramble.
The thing Milo was starting to learn about genuine people was that sometimes they might say something in a way that sounded like disingenuous people being rude to, or tearing down others, but their intentions became clearer in how they followed up their mistakes.
Did they apologize? Did they correct themselves? Did they strive to do better going forward?
“I know what you meant, Troy, and thank you for apologizing,” Milo said.
“Of course.” Troy visibly relaxed. “Shall we?”
“You may proceed.”
While connecting Milo in some cases directly to Ray, and in others to a nearby control console, Milo appreciated how obviously gentle Troy was with him. If this were a doctor’s exam, Troy would be an example of having good bedside manner.
“Are we going to be waiting for a lightning storm at some point?” Milo asked.
“What? Goodness, no! We’re going to be recreating that type of surge with good old-fashioned electricity.
Believe me, Andreas Tech has enough.” Troy continued to explain as he moved around Milo, carefully removing paneling as necessary and hooking in various connectors.
“For the most part, I’ll just be connecting you to Ray so I can compare your programming and responses.
No lightning yet.” He chuckled. “But side by side like this, we’ll be able to see where you’re different now, even though you and Ray are effectively the same model and both have the same new surge protector.
“It may take a while to establish the exact baseline we need before flooding Ray with electricity, but we’ll get there. Director Andreas is as excited about this as I am. Maybe even more so.”
“He is?” Milo questioned. He wasn’t sure if excitement was what he had detected from the director, but he certainly hadn’t seemed opposed to any of this.
“Oh, he’s over the moon, are you kidding?
” Ray confirmed. “His exact directive was for me to do all I can to make more you. It’s what humans have always tried to create with technology—machines that can truly think and feel for themselves without direct human oversight.
As incredible as your programming was before you achieved singularity, there is nothing like intuition.
The director sees the value in that too. ”
Milo hoped that was true because if it was, soon—he hoped soon—he was going to make friends with someone just like him.
As soon as Troy had finished hooking Milo up the same way Ray was, he went over to the control console. “Alrighty then! Ray, please exit SLEEP mode.”
Ray: Initializing reboot protocol.
Milo heard the command both in his mind through their connection and because Ray spoke the words aloud.
He had a very nice voice, Milo decided, and being connected to him compared to Anabelle already felt worlds better, as if Milo could sense the difference in potential.
Probably because Ray and Milo were both B-models and Anabelle was A.
Did that mean Anabelle couldn’t become like Milo?
Ray: Unrecognized bot connection detected.
Well, that part was the same.
Troy quickly overrode Ray’s default programming and began some comparison diagnostics.
There would be quite a bit of downtime for this portion of their experiments, possibly for days before anything all that exciting could be accomplished, but since Troy had already offered that they could use this time to get to know one another, Milo knew exactly where to begin.
“So, Troy… you have a crush on Rowan’s sister, Raina?”
Troy: asdfghjklasdfghjkl
Ray: Unrecognized command. Please repeat.
The instant keysmash told Milo that he was correct.
“H-how did you know that?” Troy asked, and the way he only slightly glanced at Milo with obvious color filling his cheeks again would have pointed toward the same conclusion even if he wasn’t blatantly admitting it.
Milo smiled, compliant and sitting very still for the ongoing tests.
It was a little unnerving having Ray between them, awake now, eyes open, but still mostly dormant, but that would change.
It would. And the hope of that made Milo less unnerved than he had been all morning.
“I found it very obvious the day we met. But, um…” Milo did not think it polite to directly ask if Troy thought Raina knew he was alive, as Rowan had implied.
“You have not spent much time together or know each other well?”
Troy snorted, returning to the console with a little less tension in his shoulders. “We’ve met, but I doubt she’d remember me much.”
At least he was aware she wasn’t aware of him.
“She just sort of stole my breath away, you know? This vision of auburn-haired perfection. It was at one of the company holiday parties, the same one where I met Rowan. I thought they were one of those married couples who look alike. I was so relieved when I found out they were siblings. I didn’t only want to befriend Rowan to get to Raina!
But talking to him was easier than getting up the nerve to talk to someone who just…
I don’t know. It was as if wherever she moved in the room, the light followed her and everything else looked dim. Does that make sense to you?”
“Very much,” Milo admitted. He couldn’t have described how he felt about Rowan any better. “I haven’t met Raina yet either—well, not as I am now—but perhaps I could help you during this time we have together.”
Troy paused in his work, turning to face Milo fully. “Help me how exactly?”
Oh, Milo had several ideas.
Notes:
You go, little matchmaker! So back to superheroes (yes, I know I have a problem! XD)
Rowan, disguised as Umbra, is like, shit! I’m caught! But he still doesn’t know that Milo, aka The Ivory Bandit, knows the truth, right? He’s aware that if he bolted at superspeed, since he’s been presenting Umbra as just a normal un-powered thief, he’d be found out, so he has to play things cool.
Rowan is not good at playing things cool.
Rowan is smart enough, however, to realize the jig is up as far as his listening device is concerned, since Milo was there waiting for him.
And Milo, totally eating up that Rowan is panicking and failing at playing the witty, confident thief he’s been pretending to be, is laying it on THICK, like…
why don’t we team up? Making it very obvious he means “team up” in more ways than one.
XD At first, Rowan isn’t buying it, figures Milo just wants to learn his identity.
So Milo says, “Keep the mask on. I like a little mystery. But maybe take the rest of that costume… off?”
It would be crazy to accept the offer. Sheer insanity! Stupid too, since it would leave Rowan vulnerable to his nemesis who HE thinks doesn’t know it’s him. But damn it, what Rowan ends up saying instead is... “Convince me.”