29. Wallace
Wallace
Wallace wandered into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator to peruse the contents while the chefbot rattled off a list of possibilities. He was really craving something crispy and salty. But not too heavy?
Ooh! He wanted tempura shrimp. Maybe with some sushi.
And that spicy miso and mussel soup that his favorite restaurant did so well.
That would be a perfect celebration. “Chefbot, stop,” he commanded, ending the monologue of dinner options.
“Daddy?” he called across the apartment. “I think I’m going to order sushi.”
There wasn’t a response.
He figured Volt was probably talking with Angel or maybe grabbing something from the bathroom where it was harder to hear through all the walls.
Wallace smiled fondly at his distracted Daddy as he sat on the couch and pulled up the menu on his tablet.
He knew what he wanted, so ordering would have been quick, but he knew that they sometimes put in an orchid flower with the more expensive sushi platters, and he wanted to make sure he got one tonight.
Why? Because it was pretty. And he was allowed to want pretty things.
He wrote the instructions for the flowers in two places and tossed in an extra large tip. Hopefully that would do it.
“Daddy?” he called out again when he was done.
Still no answer.
Now that was really strange. “Volt?”
He got up and walked down the hallway. Volt usually spaced out for micro-seconds, maybe a few full seconds at most. This was too long.
Maybe he’d just been interrupted by Angel again? Though even if they were talking, Volt usually would have come back to the living room by now. He wasn’t completely incapable of multi-tasking, just a little distracted.
Wallace hoped this wasn’t a silly trick. Or… maybe he didn’t? If it was something fun and kinky? Surprises weren’t usually their vibe, but his Daddy was still teaching him lots of things.
Wallace’s brain came up with a lot of possibilities to keep the tentative thread of anxiety at bay.
But they were all wrong.
Volt stood in the bedroom, stock still, his eyes completely vacant. One arm was folded across his body, like he’d just been touching his other arm and was caught in the middle of the action.
Wallace’s heart slammed. When Volt was talking with Angel or looking something up online, he never stopped dead in the middle of a movement. Maybe he’d pause for a fraction of a second, but then he would cycle into repetitive movements or continue what he’d been doing without his full attention.
He looked like a statue from that silly children’s game where everybody froze mid-motion.
Except he was an android, and this wasn’t a game.
It was Nanny all over again.
Frozen.
Gone.
No, he couldn’t believe that.
“Daddy?” Wallace asked again, trying to keep the fear from rising in his voice.
He’d seen Volt glitch and reboot after sex more times than he could count, so maybe something similar had happened. It rarely lasted more than ten seconds now, but Wallace was used to it.
He made himself count to one hundred, sure that it would be enough time for Volt to boot up.
It was the longest hundred seconds he’d ever counted.
And Volt still didn’t move.
Shit, shit, shit.
Wallace looked around frantically. What had happened?
Everything in the room looked normal. The bed was made.
Wallace’s wallet and keys were beside the bed on top of a book, where Volt had apparently placed them.
The slacks he’d worn earlier were still hanging over the back of the chair, though he thought he’d left them draped over the other side.
It made sense that Volt had moved them looking for the nickel drive.
Fuck. Was it the nickel?
God, it had to be. Why hadn’t Wallace put the clues together sooner? He’d expected Volt to come back to the living room where they could pop the nickel into his tablet to look at it together, but Volt must have inserted it into a port somewhere on his arm.
It was probably that fucker Maxamillion’s fault. And Wallace had been the one stupid enough to let his boyfriend insert completely untested software, slapped together at the last minute by a rogue knowledge without safety protocols in place, into his own body.
Fear gripped Wallace like a vice.
All the clues added up. He didn’t think that Maxamillion would have done this on purpose.
But by accident? All the clues pointed to the type of slap-dash brilliance and irresponsibility that he’d expect.
There were a thousand layers of quality assurance and safety checks that apps usually went through before hitting the market, and Wallace had been too excited about trying new outfits to even think about the consequences.
He walked over to Volt, searching for clues to confirm his theory.
“Daddy, can you hear me? I’m going to try to fix this.”
No response. Not even a flicker of an eye.
For a second, Wallace was seven years old again, surrounded by party streamers and crying his eyes out at the feet of a motionless nannybot.
No, he wasn’t going to go down that path. He was an adult now. He had a fucking degree in robotic engineering. There was a good chance that whatever was wrong, once he stopped the program, everything would be fine.
“Volt model three six seven, force stop any programs with the words Maxamillion, Max A Zillion, and FashionMax or any abnormal functions from the last five minutes.”
Nothing. No response.
“Volt model three six seven, return all settings to last recorded check point prior to”—he glanced at the clock—”seven forty.”
Nothing, again. Wallace made himself count to a hundred. His chest felt tight. He could hear his breath coming out in nervous little huffs.
“Volt model three six seven, open all arm ports and eject all devices.”
There was a brief whirring and then four little patches of skin, all in different sizes, popped up. One fell to the floor with an eerily soft thud, while the other three slid to the side, still attached.
Thank fuck. At least some of his internal mechanisms were still responding to voice commands.
And yes, it was kind of ick that his boyfriend’s skin was lying on the floor, but this was normal. Volt was a bot.
Wallace didn’t want to think about what it meant that the other commands didn’t work.
He heard a very faint whirring from near the arm drive that Volt was almost touching. No devices had come out, so he got closer to investigate.
Yes, there was definitely something in there, a little flash of silver from the edge of a nickel drive. Stuck. The gears were grinding together, trying to get it out.
Wallace tried, stupidly, to pull it out with his fingers, mentally apologizing to Volt when his thick, fleshy digits slid over the exposed internal mechanisms.
Of course, his fingers were useless. The nickel drive was deeper inside.
For a moment, his mind went totally blank, paralyzed with fear.
Then he remembered that he had needle-nosed pliers in his closet somewhere, or at least he hoped he did.
He ran out to the hallway, tugging down the toolbox, spilling half of it to the floor with his shaky hands.
They clattered and clanked, one of them slamming down on his toe.
He drew back with a hiss, but the pain was meaningless.
He saw the red and gray handles he was looking for, snatched them up, and ran back to the bedroom.
He took a deep breath, settling his nerves. “Volt model three six seven, turn off power to the arm slot containing the nickel drive.”
He waited a moment, gratified when the whirring stopped. Then a moment longer, as he repeated all of his previous commands in case that made a difference.
Nothing.
That was super not good. Really, really not good.
He gripped the nickel lightly with the pliers.
He wanted to yank it out and crush it. To fling it across the room or out the window, far away from here.
But he knew that he had to be careful. He didn’t want to hurt Volt, and if there was still a problem after he got it out—which seemed likely with this degree of non-responsiveness—he might need to study the software on a different machine.
“Come on…” he whispered as he started to wiggle it out.
This had to work.
It just had to.