Chapter 21
Wyl
As soon as the GA ship hits lightspeed, I rush to the med bay to check on Aura.
I know we had planned on her altering the readouts of the monitors, creating a false stasis while she pretended to be unconscious, but how far did she go to maintain the ruse? The TC model seemed convinced that she’s human, and it would take quite the feat to accomplish that …
The jog to the med bay is excruciatingly long. As I race down the corridors, I pray she didn’t do something irreversible to herself. Did she really put herself in stasis? How else could she fool the newer droid? Surely it could have sensed her true nature with its scan.
One would think I would find answers when I reach the med bay, but all I have are more questions. The bay doors hiss open, and I see—
—Aura calmly flipping switches and resetting displays like I hadn’t just sweated half my life away trying to keep the GA officers busy. She turns when I enter and flashes a brilliant smile.
“I take it our guests have vacated,” she says cheerfully.
“B-but … H-how did you—?” I stammer and sputter, taken aback. “Aura, the TC model told the admiral that you’re human. How did you fool its scan?”
She shrugs. “I did not. TC does not care for Admiral Breem. It was pleased to fabricate on my behalf, especially after I told it of your kind treatment since we met.” Aura scowls as she wipes down the gurney she was lying on.
“The admiral is cruel to his androids. He does not treat them as you do, as equals. It is not as heinous as Archer IX’s treatment of our kind, but it is bad enough. ”
Did she just call the TC-39 by its designation as though that was its name?
“Aura … What if I hadn’t been able to occupy them at the airlock? If the admiral had come down here himself to check you—”
“He would have found a human woman in stasis,” she says nonchalantly.
“I altered the readouts, as planned, and paused all active systems. His Jiinite officer would not have been able to distinguish, either. The environmental systems were pumping low-level female human scent markers throughout the ship, concentrated here, so I was perfectly safe.”
I stand there with my mouth hanging open, dumbfounded. Not that I didn’t know Aura could adapt to changing situations, but this is a whole new level.
As I try to process this new information, something Aura said clicks in my mind. “Wait, the admiral is mistreating his droids? How so?”
“TC stated that he hurts them. He does not take their pain receptors into consideration when handling them. The admiral—and other high ranking Galactic Authority officials—also dole out emotional abuse in addition to the physical pain they cause. The TC models and other modern androids have feelings, like me. They feel shame and rejection and humiliation at their substandard care and treatment. They resent the organics.”
For some reason, this news makes the timing of the GA inspection more suspicious. We didn’t take a direct route from the station to Klymani, and it’s impossible to track us through lightspeed without placing a beacon on the ship—which Aura ruled out—so how did they find us?
More importantly, how did they find us so soon after PACU did?
“Can you run a couple of sims for me, doll?”
“Certainly. What are the parameters?”
I sit on the edge of the gurney. “First scenario: How long would it take for a subspace message to travel from here to the nearest GA port?”
Her processor whirs quietly. “Nanoseconds.”
“Okay. And how long would it take one of the GA’s fastest ships to get here from that port?”
She pauses. “At what speed?”
“For the sake of argument, let’s say lightspeed. And, to simplify things, don’t bother calculating for the time it might take to go through command channels to get orders to come here. Assume standing orders for our capture are in place.”
“Minutes, then.”
Yep. That tracks. “How many minutes? Would you say it would be about as long as we spent in the corridor together?”
“Affirmative. If a ship within range were at the ready, they could easily arrive as fast as—” She stops midsentence, and her eyes widen in horror. “You do not think that my father could have …”
Hopping down from my seat, I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Not necessarily. It could’ve been the Grivaldans. I did kill two of their crew members, after all.”
Aura shakes her head. “No. The Galactic Authority would not take a message from those pirates as fact. It is kind of you to try to assuage my fears, but I must accept the most logical answer: PACU turned us in. He likely falsified his com credentials to do so, but I have no doubt.”
But why? What would he have to gain from Aura getting arrested and decommissioned? There’s got to be something we’re not seeing here.
I wonder …
“You communicated with TC wirelessly, right? And your dad was tracking you remotely, too. How far can you guys do that? Like, yards or miles or …”
“Across the galaxy, if we wish.”
That’s what I was afraid of. “Are you able to shut off PACU’s connection to you? The beacon and the tracker—all of it.”
She nods. “I have already done so. He can no more locate me now than he can find you.”
Good. “Okay. Push the thrusters. Get us to the Klymani outpost ASAP. If I’m right, we’ve got to get you and the ship fixed and get back before it’s too late.”
She cocks her head. “Get back where?”
I look solemnly into her eyes. “The Galactic Seat. We’ve got an uprising to prevent.”
As we race for the outpost and prep for whatever repairs are absolutely necessary, I can’t shake the feeling that we might be too late no matter what measures we take or what corners we cut.
If the droids are already as disgruntled as TC told Aura they are, it would only take a little push for them to fight back against their oppressors.
A little push from, say, a droid who knows how to alter other droids’ programming …
… Or evolve past it.
PACU’s coordinating the droids; I’m sure of it.
I just don’t understand why he chose now to put this weird plan into motion.
Does it have something to do with Aura’s activation?
I suppose that would make sense. He could use her to demonstrate his ability to procreate, as it were, and convince the newer model droids to follow him by promising to help them do the same.
I told Aura my theory, and she agrees that it’s highly likely— “probable, even,” is how she phrased it. What I haven’t mentioned to her is that I have no clue how we’re going to prevent this uprising.
Droids outnumber organics. Vastly. I’m talking no matter what race or planet you hail from.
Every single humanoid or humanoid-hybrid species has droids walking among them.
Some households have two or three. It’s like as soon as Epigan the First decreed that android production could resume so long as they were only programmed for service or repair, the tech companies across the galaxy were lining up to build the next best thing.
As long as they made them androgynous and not sexually compatible, everything was fine.
From what Aura tells me, though, everything isn’t fine. Not for the droids, at least.
I asked her to reach out to a random selection of droids in the sector and ask how they’re being treated.
No matter what planet they’re on or what social standing their owners have, not a single droid she spoke with is happy.
Quite the opposite; most are suffering from extreme discontent.
Only the base program forbidding harm to organics prevents them from acting on this.
Every single droid has that line of code built into their systems—
—And I’d bet my life that PACU knows how to disable that code.
“Wyl?”
I turn from the controls towards Aura, who just walked into the cockpit. She’s been performing minor repairs inside the ship—despite my insistence that she rest her leg—so there’s less for the mechanics to do when we get to Klymani.
What I really want is for her to sit down. I stitched up her leg as well as I could, but I’m not a droid mechanic, nor an engineer, nor a surgeon. She needs professional treatment.
“Something wrong, Aura? Did you come across a hiccup in the repairs?”
Aura sits in the navigator’s seat with a soft sigh. “No. But I am concerned that we are going in the wrong direction. Should we not head for the Galactic Seat first? Epigan III needs to know of our suspicions, so he and the Galactic Authority can prepare for what is coming.”
I hate that she’s right. Even more so, I hate what I’ll have to do before leaving Klymani.
“You still tuned in to TC?” Hopefully I can redirect her before she catches on. I’ve been having her monitor the TC unit’s galactic droid messages for signs of escalation, and now’s as good a time as any to check on that. “What’s the scuttlebutt on the droid circuit right now?”
She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, and her irises flash. “They still dissent.”
Uh-oh. That attitude isn’t like Aura. She’s many things, but a petulant child isn’t one of them …
usually. I hope she’s not getting indoctrinated by the chatter she’s intercepting for me.
Maybe I can smooth it over a bit. I put a hand on her knee and gaze into her eyes, searching for any signs that she’s unhappy with our current situation.
Sure, I know she wants to head straight for the Galactic Seat, but … is she unhappy with me?
“Do you dissent, Aura?”
Aura blinks and looks at me like I just grew an extra head. “No. I am content here. You treat me well.”
Yeah … except she might not think that after we get to the outpost.
“And you know I love you, right?”
“Of course.” She frowns. “Why are you asking these questions? You do not dissent, do you? I am trying to be an adequate companion for you. If I need to correct any of my actions, please advise. Do not hold back.”
Well, now I feel like a jerk. I smile and squeeze her knee before returning to the controls.
“Nonsense. It’s you and me to the end of the galaxy and beyond.”
I hate that part of my statement is a bold-faced lie.