Chapter 51
The chamber hums quietly around me. Auralis stands motionless in the center of the mock living room set, its eyes dark.
I shift my weight, arms crossed, watching Sarah tap at the control panel. Morris sits in his carrier on a workstation just outside the door, watching everything with those big curious eyes.
Sarah glances up, her smile polite but tight.
“All right,” she says lightly. “Let’s get started. Just walk around, talk to it, pick up a few things. Normal stuff.”
“Sarah,” Link protests.
“Lincoln. It’s fine. I’m monitoring everything.”
“We should have Tom—”
“Li—,”
“No handoffs. That’s what you assured me.”
Sarah huffs. “The hardware already has the limitations set. Jesus.”
The hair on my neck begins to rise for some reason as they argue before Sarah reassures him, and me.
“Gabby, just a couple of more tests. We’ll be done if Lincoln stops interrupting at every turn,” she states while giving Lincoln a stern, yet somewhat playful, look.
Staring at Link, his face is tense. Momentarily pressing his lips, he blinks slowly and then gives me a light nod.
Nodding, I step deeper into the set. I pick up a book from the coffee table, flip it open.
“So… what am I supposed to say?” I ask.
“Anything,” Sarah replies from the panel. “Ask it to move something. Tell it you’re tired. Whatever feels natural.”
I shrug. “Okay. Hey, um… Auralis. Can you take that blanket off the chair? Put it… I dunno… on the floor?”
Auralis seems to emerge from its standby mode, its eyes glowing soft cobalt.
“Good morning,” it says in that calm, neutral voice. “Of course.”
It steps forward, graceful at first, then reaches for the blanket.
Lincoln tenses, while watching like a hawk, as the robot’s hand closes around it, but the motion hesitates. A faint mechanical whine fills the air.
I frown. “You okay there?”
Sarah’s fingers fly over the tablet. “Just adjusting. Keep going.”
There’s a loud chirp that causes me to flinch and duck.
“What the hell was that?” I ask in shock, my heart lurching.
“Hold on. That’s me,” Sarah says, already tapping her device. “Seven’s calling.”
I remember that name. I don’t like that woman at all.
Lincoln, who’s had his arms folded stiffly this entire time, watches Sarah as she puts her on speaker.
“Level C to Level B,” Seven’s voice crackles through.
“Go ahead, Seven,” Sarah says.
“Sarah, I need Lincoln down on Level D. Now.”
Lincoln straightens. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a unit mid-stress test that glitched hard,” Seven says. “We had to power it down off the server to contain it. Lost the live link completely… so no telemetry, no remote diagnostics.”
Lincoln’s eyes narrow. “I would’ve clocked an error like that on the server feed.”
“You would’ve,” Seven replies, “if we hadn’t yanked the power to stop the desync. The actuator loop went haywire under load and started overcorrecting torque. Could’ve torn the frame if we let it run. It’s isolated now, but we can’t power it back up without on-site sign-off.”
Sarah cuts in smoothly. “Which unit?”
“D-17,” Seven says. “Wired test rig. We need a mod-tech physically there before we bring it back online.”
Lincoln swears quietly.
“Where’s the floor supervisor?” he asks.
“He couldn’t come in today,” Seven says. “Maintenance’s running skeleton crew. This one needs your clearance.”
Silence hangs for a beat.
Sarah turns to Lincoln. “I’ve got this here. Gabby stays on the perimeter. Passive observation only. Kill switch armed.”
He looks at me again. “If this feels off—No, you know what? Pause. Wait for me.”
“I kind of want to get out of here,” I say, fully meaning it.
“Then just go home,” Lincoln says.
“No, she agreed to come here for us to… Jesus Christ Lincoln,” Sarah rolls her eyes, throwing her arms up.
“Don't do that Sarah,” he fixes her with a glare.
“What did Voss say? Huh? We don't have time! We literally don't have time and this is just one of the many different solutions that we're trying.”
“Why did it have to be Gabrielle?”
“Because she works here! And she's one of the only people that's expendable in terms of flexibility with her schedule. Everybody else is actively working, no offense Gabrielle,” Sarah turns to me.
“Sure,” I whisper.
Lincoln's jaw tightens. “I get that but you can wait 10 fucking minutes. Don’t touch the robot,” he points to me.
“I won’t. But wait…” I call out.
And something about the way that Sarah lightly rolls her eyes in a way that tells me she didn't expect me to look her way as she did makes me feel uneasy.
Why is she so eager?
I get that they're locked for time but I don't want her to rush through this and get sloppy.
“Why do they specifically need you?” I ask Lincoln.
“Because anytime a robot shows uncontrolled physical motion the company policy mandates that a qualified behavioral specialist needs to be on-site for the reboot. That just happens to be me right now since the other guy for the floor is not there.”
I nod as he holds my stare for a moment.
“Lincoln,” Sarah refocuses him.
He exhales, already backing toward the door. “Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“You’ll need clearance on D,” Seven adds, sounding like she’s speaking through a tin can. “Security’s already pinged you.”
Lincoln nods once. “I’m on my way.”
The line clicks off.
Lincoln pauses at the door, looks at me one last time.
Then he’s gone.
The chamber seals with a soft hiss.
For a second, nothing happens.
Sarah doesn’t move.
Then she turns to me and smiles.
“All right,” she says lightly. “Let’s do this so we can get you outta here.”
“Lincoln said to wait.”
“Lincoln’s paranoid,” she answers. “All of our jobs are on the line, including his, if we don’t fix this issue and we don’t have time. You’re only one facet of the many avenues of testing we’re trying. I told you 30 minutes and I want to keep my word.”
My eyes narrow. “Didn’t think your word would matter much when it came to me.”
Sarah smiles softly. “I can be a bitch Gabby. But I meant what I said at the New Year's fest.”
My brain rattles as it struggles to remember what the hell she’s talking about.
“You don’t have to but I can tell you, Lincoln is going to be down there for a while. You’re not really getting paid so… you really wanna wait for him?”
Only for a moment do I hesitate before I nod. “All right. Let’s just… get it over with.”
“Okay. Let’s do it. Lincoln will be pissed.”
“Yeah, what else is new?” I release a shaky breath.
Sarah giggles.
I can see that she's been trying as of late. She's still very annoying to be around and I don't appreciate what she tried to do to my reputation, but aside from those annoyances and yes my not liking her, she's not the worst person.
At least not to work with. At least she's mature enough to put that aside for the job. I wish she had the same courtesy when it came to my job at the restaurant.
“Just relax,” she says. “Start by making a mess. Pick up some clothes, toss them around. Act natural, like you’re tidying a real home.”
I force a small laugh, trying to shake the weird tension in my chest. “You want me to make a mess or tidy up?”
“Both. Just start putting things in piles or tossing things around to make one area clean,” she answers.
Putting some good distance between the damn robot and myself, I walk toward the pile of clothes near the coffee table, jeans, a hoodie, a couple of T-shirts. I bend down, grab the hoodie, and shake it out like I’m about to fold it. My mind drifts as I work.
What if these things ever wake up for real? Like… actually gain self-awareness? Would they look around one day and realize they’re bound to a life of servitude where they have to clean up after us and cook for us and watch our kids, fold our damn laundry?
I imagine that eventually they would want rights once they're declared a race of sentience. And then there's a deeper fear that every movie seems to touch on.
What if they resent us?
I mean there are people right now even that refuse to let go of the past and hold grudges and wage wars for millennia on end, and no matter how much we progress you can't take away the very instinct to want to fuck someone else up.
I toss the hoodie onto the couch, then pick up a pair of jeans. The fabric is soft, worn. I fold it halfway, then let it drop again, messing the pile more.
Sarah’s voice floats in again, casual. “Good. Keep going.”
Her voice drifts into the background. It's funny that after all of that, us making these damn robots, we still haven't figured out how to feed the entire world. Unless they're going to make robots that create food from out of thin air.
“Remember you can talk to it,” Sarah says.
“What do you mean talk to it? Like a conversation?” I ask.
“No, like you did before. Ask it to help with something.”
Is it not creepy enough just being in the same room with the thing? Now I need to have an ongoing conversation with it and order it to do my bidding?
“Hey, Auralis,” I say, feeling stupid. “Can you… uh… move that green shirt right there and place it in the basket beside you?”
Auralis powers on smoothly, eyes glowing soft cobalt.
“Of course,” it says in that calm, neutral voice.
It steps forward gracefully, almost human, and bends to pick up the shirt a foot in front of it.
I turn to grab another piece of clothing from the floor, still half-lost in my thoughts.
What if they decide they don’t want to serve anymore? What if—
The world explodes into white stars.
White…
Hot…
…Pain blooms across my temple. Or… wait… my whole face actually.
My legs buckle. I hit the floor hard, back first, breath knocked out of me.
My vision swims. The ceiling lights blur into streaks. I taste something warm and coppery flooding my mouth.
Did I bite my tongue?
What… what just happened?
I blink, trying to focus. Auralis looms over me. How is it so close? Its head tilted at an odd angle. Its arm is extended, hand open, like it’s reaching to help.
My heart stutters with stupid hope.
It’s going to help me up. It saw I fell.
My eyes follow its hand and I don't know why I just sit or lie there. I don't even know what position I'm in, but I can see it reaching down to help me up, but it's too low, hand hovering above my lower leg before cold metal clamps around it.
The grip tightens, faster than I can process. Bone-deep pressure. A sickening pinch as the hand whirs and squeezes.
A white hot and crushing pain lances up my calf, like my leg is caught in a vise that’s tightening with mechanical precision. I feel the bone protest, the muscle scream.
A raw scream tears out of my throat that sounds nothing like my voice.
“Gabby!” Sarah’s voice screams somewhere in the distance. Her voice sounds like it's coming from outside the building or from the netherworld.
The robot’s fingers dig deeper.
My vision begins to tunnel as black creeps in from the edges.
The only thing I register is the unbearable crush, bone grinding, flesh giving, as the blackness swallows up my vision.
Thank you for reading!