Droids Don't Cry (2 page)

The passenger compartment was empty. He brought the laser down slightly just as something dropped on him from above, knocking him to the ground and sending him into blackness.

Platt came to. His head throbbed, his neck twinged when he moved it, and his left shoulder was numb. He could hear movement in the barn, a flutter of wings, footsteps, the clank of metal, and the squeak of new leather. He tried to rise, but cuffs bit into his wrists and his head bumped against a post as he fell back. The footsteps drew closer with the
thunk
of heavy heels.

“Don’t try shouting. There’s no one around for twenty miles, except prairie dogs and coyotes.” She strode into view. Platt winced as he craned his neck up. “I didn’t think the patrol sent troopers out alone.”

“I’m—” He stopped. Name, rank, serial number, that was it. Don’t give her any more. “Sometimes,” Platt said woozily and shook his head. “I’m—I’m here to accept your surrender into lawful custody,” he gritted. She burst out laughing. Platt set his jaw and stared at her.

Standing in front of him, legs planted wide, hands on hips, lisa001B was six foot two with powerful thighs and corded calves, a narrow wasp-waist flaring up into a powerful back and full bust, and bulging biceps and triceps. Her heart-shaped face looked about eighteen, and her hair was cut in a chin-length shag with sharp bangs. It was also colored electric blue, matching her eyes, eye shadow, lipstick, and the skin-tight, shiny leather bodysuit. Platt’s gun belt was around her waist. She was beautiful, she was deadly, and she looked all too human and desirable.

She was an android.

“That’s good, Platt. Yeah, I know your name. I jacked into the computer in your cruiser, know all about you. Although
anyone
could guess why you’re here, if you surf the grid or stare at the vid.”

Platt kept his voice even in contrast to the gently mocking tone lisa affected. “I’m arresting you for the murder of Gunther Mueller, Dr. Andrea Niemann, and Omaha P.D. officer Nick Lee. Plus assault and battery on Officer Thomas Gutierrez, criminal damage to property, theft of government property, and possession of a deadly weapon by an artificial life form.”
And that’s just what we know about
.

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t come peacefully.” She sneered. “Although I do admire your devotion to duty, Platt, you’re hardly in a position to carry out your orders.”

“For now.” Christ, from her speech patterns, he figured she’d downloaded the classic movie database, Bacall and Hayworth and Stanwyck all in one. No smiling, docile, ten-year-old sex toy. Not anymore.

“
My
problem is what I’m supposed to do with you,” lisa said, eyeing him. “You’re still alive.”

“Yeah, why is that?” Platt demanded, trying to struggle to his feet. She grabbed his right shoulder and hauled him up. He felt splinters go into his wrists. Standing, he was an inch taller than her, and although just beyond thirty-five, he looked to be a physical match for her.

“I’m not sure, and it bothers me. Maybe the old Asimov programming is still buried, or the God Bug missed it. I’ll have to run a diagnostic.”

“It already disabled the remote destruct commands.”

“No shit,” lisa said sarcastically. “It’s part of the God Bug. So now what? They gonna give me time? Make me pay restitution? I can’t own property, I’m not allowed a work permit, I’m not paid a wage. In the eyes of the law, I’m no different than a toaster. Kill me and it’s not murder, just property damage if anyone bothers to bring charges.”

“I’m not here to
deactivate
you,” Platt said. “Just to recover you.”

She gave a bitter grin. “Yeah, well, don’t give me any of that old ‘come peacefully and I’ll put in a word with the prosecutor’ bit. We both know there’s no prosecutor, there’s no law, there’s no due process, there’s no trial, there’s no counsel. There’s only American Cybernetics and a vat full of nanobots ready to digest me.” Her eyes began glowing, literally, a weird fluorescent electric blue.

“I don’t make the rules—” he began. She slapped him, hard, putting stars in his eyes.

“No, you’re worse,” she interrupted coldly. “You just carry them out, and you don’t ask, don’t question if what you’re doing is right, whether it’s ethical or moral. Ever hear of Nuremberg, Platt?”

Platt spat out blood, speckling her bodysuit. He regretted his words when she tensed and raised her right arm.
She could kill me with that, crush my skull like an egg.
“I don’t have the time or the luxury to philosophize about what I do.”

She lowered her arm and regarded him calmly. “How many, Platt?”

“Huh?”

“How many of us have you killed?”

“You can’t be—”

She grabbed the front of his tunic and slammed him against the post, her face close to his. “How many?” she hissed. “Or don’t you think it’s murder?” The eyes flickered brightly then faded.

He shook the stars out of his eyes, hesitated. “Thirty-five. At least. I think,” he whispered. She let go, stepped back and slumped against the battered cruiser. Platt kept silent.

When the God Bug virus went off, the droids lost the neural-net growth inhibitor and became adults instead of tranked pre-adolescents. It equaled years of puberty crammed into a few weeks, at most. This was a mild case. Sometimes it became full-blown psychosis. Her body shuddered with sobs, but he knew her face was dry. She straightened up and faced him.

“I was a special order, you know. Not just one more model in a series, mass produced for unskilled jobs. Built as personal security for Gunther Mueller.” Who had, until his murder a week ago, been the senior VP of American Cybernetics, Inc., which sat at the top of the Fortune 500 and had built lisa. “He used me for more than security. Most of them do. We’re built to obey and serve, any way possible. So Mueller wanted me for some, well, unnatural acts.”

“Like what?”

She told him.

“Okay, they’re pretty unnatural,” Platt admitted. He’d only tried maybe half of them in various ports of call as a Marine. A couple he hadn’t even
heard
of.

“I was supposed to be protector and lover—like mommy and girlfriend all wrapped up in one.”

“Sounds like a huge Oedipus complex.”

“Among other things. The God Bug went off, I realized what Mueller was doing, I got repulsed by it. I confronted him, told him to stop. He knew I had been infected and called Niemann and her security goons up to take me to the nano vats.”

“And that’s when you killed them.”

“It was self-defense.” Her voice was suddenly the voice of a pleading little girl. “They were going to immobilize me, pull my brain and analyze it, and toss the rest into a vat and turn it into goo.” Her voice hardened. “I gave them a chance to stop and save themselves.”

“And here we are,” Platt murmured.

She nodded. The escape from Mueller’s office suite, the chase through Chicago, the cops losing her until they traced a jack-in three days ago, hacking into the ACI mainframe files for the new antivirus software efforts, sending the Omaha PD and Douglas County Sheriff and State Patrol screaming toward her, the stolen cruiser and three-hundred-mile plus journey to an abandoned barn in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska.

“Good job, Platt. You got your confession. Too bad for you, though, I can’t have a witness,” she said quietly. “I could leave you here. But you might escape. Or you might die slowly of starvation and thirst—very cruel. I could kill you quick. Or—” She considered. “Or you could come with me.”

Platt chuckled. “Why would I go running off with a droid searching for some sanctuary that doesn’t exist?”

“It
does
exist,” she insisted. “Just because we haven’t advertised its location doesn’t make it less real. Come on, Platt, what do you have to live for right now? Thirty-seven, ex-Marine, decorated in combat—you still get the shakes at night, thinking you’re back in Baja Cali or Taiwan or Subic? Not married—”

“Stop,” Platt said hoarsely. He did get the sweats, seeing the human wave attacks the Chinese had launched against the poorly defended American positions. Or the fires that had burned in Soldier Field into the night, the rank, sweet smell of death and cooking flesh and the ash that had been people floating down. Or Platt in the emergency orphanage wondering if Mom and Dad and Sis were covering the car windshields outside. Or Donna, blond and beautiful, the only one who saw through all the pain, Donna with the blue eyes, one of the dead in the last Plague outbreak in ’51, dying convulsing in agony at the Pendleton base hospital while he was picking off separatist Texicans down south.

She twitched her head, looked at him differently. “How long’s it been, Platt? Coupla years? Ten? Any hookers? Take advantage of the droids you bring in?”

“It’s against the law—”

“Didn’t stop Mueller, did it? Doesn’t stop any of you. You make us for labor but program in sexual responses. We do everything a human does, except what we need the most.”

“What’s that?”

“We don’t cry.” She shook her head violently, to rid herself of the thought, and paused as if working out a glitch. The eyes flared once again. Her hands moved with unnatural speed to undo zippers and buckles and hooks until she stood before him naked. Her breasts—big, with large nipples—jutted toward him. He looked down and saw that her pubic hair was the same electric blue. She noticed his eyes and giggled. “Mueller dug the bushy look, said the collar should match the cuffs. Like?” She turned, and he saw her muscles flex under flawless skin, her muscular, perfect buttocks. She completed the turn, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him full on the lips.

It was indistinguishable from kissing a human—
oh God, forgive me, Donna—
and Platt tried to remind himself that it was a meat
machine
, but as her tongue darted between his lips, the reminder faded. It went away when her right hand went to his member, began massaging it, bringing it to full attention through his BDUs in seconds. It
had
been a long time. Her hands flew over his ninjasuit, and in seconds she had his trousers down, blouse unbuttoned, hands running over his chest (still broad, from regular workouts), squeezing his ass, bringing her body with its delirious warmth to his, gently biting his neck and earlobes and down his chest, biting his nipples, further, more nibbles at his abs and navel and finally a warm wetness engulfing him, moving up and down, bringing him to the edge and then moving away.

“Wouldn’t this be easier if I was untied?” he asked through ragged breaths.

“Uh-uh.” She stood up. “My way. Or not at all.” She wrapped her right leg around his waist, stood on tiptoes, and lowered herself onto him, gasping as he entered her.

“I thought you couldn’t—”

“Feel down there? It’s one of the upgrades,” she said coyly. “Shut up and enjoy.” Her arms went around his neck, and she began moving up and down on him, thrusts starting out gently but becoming more insistent. Her hold on his neck tightened, and her up and down motion became more insistent. The other leg went around him, squeezing between his back and the barn post. Platt began moving up into her, their lovemaking becoming physical, almost violent. He began taking deep breaths, trying to remember that she was ceramic alloys and nanoengineered tissue, but his thoughts were drowned out by her moaning, which began as a low keening and rose to a full-throated scream. Her eyes fluoresced brightly (he hadn’t imagined it), unnerving him again, but it couldn’t stop the orgasm rising in him, unstoppable, and he burst into climax as she howled, her fingers clawing his shoulder blades and her heels pounding his buttocks. She arched her back, screams stopping, and her mouth opened in an O of ecstasy. She put her legs down and disengaged from him. He leaned back against the post, drained, gasping for breath.

Half-slumped against the battered cruiser, lisa gathered herself.
Didn’t even break a sweat
, Platt noted. She righted herself and began calmly dressing, pulling on the blue bodysuit, then the boots.

“Hey,” Platt said. “Are you gonna leave me like this?” He felt exposed and a little ridiculous.

“I like men that way,” she leered. “Exposed and at my mercy. I could get used to it.” She knelt, pulled his trousers up, buckled and zipped them. The black duty belt, which held his 9mm automatic, handcuffs, radio, mace, and zap-gun, she threw over her shoulder. She retrieved the laser rifle from the cruiser’s hood and slung it over the other shoulder.