A living THING

Chapter 34

"Sit down, please!"

"Just be careful. Don't put it there, where it is not needed. I don't want to look like a monster." Bryce smiled at me and sat down on a couch in my fathers living room.

"That's why I asked you to sit down. Otherwise I would have smeared it all over you face."

       Bryce's wound have almost healed, just some minor scratches and scarring was left on his jaw and chest. But I see, it took longer to heal his damaged skin, than it should do. It's been one week, since we first started to do a healing treatment - applying CyRo's given cream. CyRo's employer said, it would take only few days, but now it is still visible after so long time. Why is it not healing properly? Never mind. I will just apply it on for couple of more days, maybe then his skin will be fixed. After that night in a greenhouse, I decided not to tell anybody yet about Bryce's infection. Though, he said, he is not infected, I still have the feeling he is. I think he didn't tell the truth to me. It took too long for him to respond. He wanted me to trust him, but I can't make myself.

       The whole interaction made us to leave the past events behind us and focus on the future instead. He said, he is never going to hurt me, and I want to believe him. I know, I made a scene out of his actions, but he actually never hurt me. I am still shaky around him, but much less, than days before. I am working on it, on my unstable emotions and paranoia.

        Bryce have become his old self, with these light emotions he has, smiling and that ever gleaming light in his eyes. I liked it, the way he looked. He made a gentle person's impression with his light smile. He said, he was very upset and disappointed, I sent him for testing. He felt, I did not trust him. He thought, I want him gone, because that is what they would do, if they would discover his infection - recycle him and uninflected parts would use for someone else, most likely. That thought never occurred in my mind until he was there, going through his testing. But I was afraid, very afraid at that moment. I still don't have any actual proof of his infectious state, but I know he is. I will try to forget this fact as long as he is behaving and not hurting anyone again. But how CyRo didn't discover it? I wonder.

"Bryce!"

"Hmm?" he lifted his eyes to look at me.

"What did they do to you? CyRo. What kind of test was it?"

"It was just a simple psychological test. They asked some questions. That's it."

"For four hours? How many questions were there?" I was surprised.

"Many..."

"Hm!" I nodded in acknowledgment.

      I wonder what he answered to them. He passed the test, with his infected mind. How? I wanted to ask him, but I didn't want to bug him about his sickness. I was curious, is he aware of it? He must be, if he managed to pass the testing. I decided to ask some questions myself. I have finished working on his jaw and proceeded to his chest wound.

"Do you feel anything?" I lifted my eyes to look at his, while stroking his chest. He was looking right back, studying me, I suppose. Again, there was a long pause. I new, what he is going to say.

"No, I don't feel."

"Are you sure?"

"I am."

      His face was back to his serious one. Did I ask something wrong? I suppose he doesn't trust me fully either, seeing the way he responded. He denied it. The thing, he actually can feel something. I better don't ask him more about it at this moment. I might trigger something in him and I didn't want to.

I finished with his wound and put a jar on a table. A yawn broke free from my lips.

"I am so bored." I said out loud to myself.

     There must be something interesting on TV or on network. I walked to a panel next to our entrance door and pressed a button, which extended a TV device on the living room's glass wall. I took a remote and went back to sit on a couch. I switched it on, skimmed through some channels, but found nothing that interests me. I should check what's on network. I opened one of the news pages, to see, what is happening in Amber. I have been at home for almost a week and I had no clue what was going on around, just some unreliable gossip I have heard from staff. On a first page there was a big picture with a robot in it. I could see it was off. He had a tablet like device hanged on his neck. On it was written with green letters 'SEB'. What is this? Scrolling farther down I finally see a headline. EGOR factories are closing after SEB virus breakout. What? Is that a robot infecting virus? I feel my body get stiff. I scroll further down to see, what is this about.

   This morning EGOR factories have discovered many infected robots in their warehouses. Luckily, they have not been activated yet and they have taken actions to remove all of them for investigation. We give out a warning to everyone, who have purchased some of their products in past two month, to immediately  return them back to EGOR. As they might have been infected. They will be returned to their rightful owners, after testing is done. Meanwhile the factories itself have stopped all their work and closed all their manufacturing premises, until investigation is done.
Like we have informed earlier, this virus is affecting robots, making them unstable in their behavior, damaging their systems and leading to actions that are not acceptable in our society.
A clue have been left in a crime scene in EGOR warehouse, where the infection have been discovered. A suppose to be culprit, have left a single word message on one of the robots - 'SEB'. We assume it is name of this unknown virus. We will be reporting as soon as we get a new information about the case.

    I couldn't believe, what I was reading. The whole factory was closed down, because of this virus - SEB virus. I looked at the picture on the top of the article. What does it mean? And who is doing all these things? Was it this woman - Natalie Leary? Was it really her? Why is she doing it? The way the message was placed, looked like a name tag put on a robot. Is it in fact a robot's name? I don't know. It is kind of not my problem. Police is working with it and they have more information about it than me. I glance over in direction, where my android is sitting. I caught him starring  right at me.

    We didn't say anything. Just looked at each other. Police is working hard to find a culprit and eliminate SEB virus, but I am keeping one of the infected at my home. I might get in trouble for keeping him here. Hopefully nobody will discover it, discover him.