Corporal Bomani disengaged from B2-9E’s now inactive interface. He rubbed his face and stretched. He always found it difficult moving from the sensory perception of a mech back to his own senses. The first few minutes after disengaging gave him the same groggy feeling that waking from a lucid dream did.
The communicator strapped to his arm crackled to life. “Negative EM activity,” said Corporal Machario. Bomani opened his cocoon hatch and climbed out of the tank, crunching nanite carcasses as he stepped down. Several other cocoon hatches opened, disgorging the other fifteen pilots and their cell lieutenant.
They all slipped on transparent face masks to filter out the inert nanite dust. The nanite carcasses were like fine dust and might cause cancer. Shielding his still sensitive eyes, he walked up to Machario, a slightly taller and thinner pilot who held a scanner like his and panned the gravimetric facility slowly. Except for the fence, corroded door, mounds of foam, and a week’s worth of sweeping up nanite dust, the facility seamed unscathed.
“So,” Machario asked Bomani without looking at him, “Did you know she was duped?”
“That sounds so crude.” Bomani, still reeling from meeting an android in the form of his dead wife, took a deep breath. Duping was possible now, but only with written permission from the one being duped. Corporations were finding new ways to acquire permission to deep scan – the critical element in the duping procedure. He looked up at the sky and his reply came out barely in a whisper. “We didn’t get a bonus for it,” he said. The death insurance benefits were standard, no large comp for a dupe.”
“Serious?”
“She hated the idea. She said it cheapened life. ‘One of me is special,’ she told me. ‘But make copies, and if I die, who cares?’”
“And they didn’t tell you they processed the droid? Maybe they’re not legally obligated to tell everyone about the duping,” Machario said, “but they should tell the family.”
“It must have been hidden in her contract somewhere or they lied. It wasn’t in the insurance policy. I checked after I got the benefits ‘cause they were so little.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Lieutenant.
“Good job, Corporal Bomani,” the Lieutenant said. “A bit long-winded with the android, but good job.”
The Lieutenant tapped a few notes into his data pad.
“Sir,” Machario said nodding towards Bomani, “you didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That was --” A look from Bomani cut him off. “That was his attempt at diplomacy, sir.”
“Next time, don’t waste your breath.” The Lieutenant turned and yelled to the others milling around, “Alright, everyone who lost a mech, haul it out for repair. The rest of the tech team will be here within seven minutes.”
“Lieutenant,” Bomani said motioning towards the lab, “if it’s alright, I’m going to help Machario first. He has a long haul.”
The Lieutenant nodded. “Go ahead.”
Bomani jogged into the facility with Machario following. They were greeted with darkness and flicked on the searchlights attached to their scanners.
“Are you alright?” Machario asked.
“Donno. Ask me later.”
Seeing it with his own eyes, the hallway seemed different: dull and flat. The mech interface allowed Bomani to see and feel more than his own senses did.
“So,” Machario asked, “if you don’t mind me asking, why did they spend the cash on the duplicate? Why not just download her knowledge into a computer?”
“From what I understand, a pseudo personality can think outside the box better, something necessary for creativity or discovery. The best androids think they’re human. It’s easier to interact with them, especially for the android scientists.”
“No way. If they brought you back as a dupe, I think I’d have to tell you. I couldn’t just play along.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s working the night shift.”
Machario almost lost his footing on the slick nanite dust. “Were you serious about all that religious crap?”
“It wasn’t crap. I believe it.”
They reached the detector control room and saw more damage. An acrid smoke hung in the air. Two of the racks had fallen over, disgorging shattered equipment across the floor.
“Well,” Machario asked, “crap or not, do you have to push your religion on an android?”
“What do you mean, push? We can argue about sports all day, and that’s not pushing. What is it about talking about God that makes it pushing? Anyway, she asked me, remember?”
Machario’s lip curled. He pointed his searchlight at Bomani’s feet. “Hey, man, it’s bad luck to stand on your mech.”
Bomani looked down, flinched, and hopped off.
“Eh, I don’t mean to be harsh, dude,” Machario said, “especially after you believe you just saw your wife alive and then die again, but a dupe is just an android.” He pointed his searchlight at a broken and lifeless Kutisha. “You don’t need to go saving its soul. It’s just a bigger version of the nanites.”
Bomani looked quickly away from the android’s form as a flood of grief almost overwhelmed him. The image of the form seemed even more real because it was part biological, complete with organs and a bloodlike fluid. She was not a robot with large gears and motors, but a machine on the cellular level with some functions relying on molecular biology. She was probably one of the latest models, ones that ate, excreted, menstruated, and even, Bomani shuddered, act as a surrogate womb. As android technology had improved, the line dividing man and machine had diminished.
He scanned the wall with his flashlight and found the shielded safe. “This program can be resurrected.” He retrieved the module from the safe, and held it gingerly with both hands. How could someone’s life essence be reduced to something so small?
"Is that the android’s... eh, Kutisha’s memory module?”
Bomani nodded.
“I watched your video feed, like everyone else. I didn’t see you take it.”
“I looked away. It’s not on record.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know."
"Dude, they duped your wife without telling you. That should be illegal. Take it already."
“It should be illegal, but that doesn’t give me the right to take it.” Bomani sighed. “Duping her without her consent is illegal, and that means this should go to the family.” He slipped the module into his pocket.
More from Justin Tyme
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