Kriegspiel [Sequel to The Turing Test]

5. Checkmate

Four. Five. Six-A. Six-B.

I count the exits as they flash by, each one arriving more quickly than the last. I stare out the passenger window as we speed steadily closer to what Sven calls home.

Home. A few months ago, I didn't have one. I guess I still don't. But for a brief period of time, I had a family in the ragtag group of refugees underground. I imagine them now, warming their synthetic hands in front of the fire while Davis lingers in the background, an outsider.

For half a second, my spine relaxes as I think of him. I let myself hold my breath and unleash a prayer that he's okay. Then Sven shifts, sighing as he flips the turn signal on, and I stiffen again.

"Talk to me, Ronnie," he murmurs into the silence. I stifle the urge to reach for the radio and turn it up. If I stay still, maybe he'll forget I'm here. Maybe I can fade into nonexistence.

"What did they do to you?" Sven asks when I don't make a sound. "Where's my Ronnie?"

I close my eyes as the basement prison flashes through my memory, with Maven looking on as Davis cowers at my feet. He asked me the same thing then, as I pummelled him into the ground. He'd yelled it in my face. Where are you?

Where is that Ronnie? The one who fought to escape Sven? The one who stood up to him? The one who'd thrown his ring right back at him and told him to get the hell out?

I've reverted to a useless, meek mute in his presence, but what did I expect, really? It's in my programming. I exist for him, for his pleasure.

Maven and the others would be embarrassed to know me. But all their talk of resistance, their persistent belief in Sven's evil nature, can't erase the truth.

He made us. We can't just wish away the existence of our creator. Sven is our god.

"I don't know how much you remember," Sven finally speaks again, shattering the heavy silence. "From before they took you."

I feel him watching me, and I curl closer to the passenger door, wishing I could phase through it. My fingers twitch closer to the handle, a desperate backup plan forming in the back of my mind. Even as it takes shape, I know it won't happen.

I'm not that Ronnie anymore. I am what I've always been: Submissive. Helpless. His.

I hate it, but I can't escape it. Not through long, pleading looks at the officers as he led me out of the station. Not by jumping out of a moving car. I realize now that there's nowhere I can run that he won't find me again, and there's no one that will believe me over Sven Karlsson, founder and CEO of SynCo.

"How much do you remember?" he presses.

I let the whir of the car answer him for a full minute, and only when I hear the slight pop of his lips parting do I finally whisper, "Everything."

"Even the psychotic break?"

The air thickens in my throat, leaving my lungs empty. I know I shouldn't ask, shouldn't even entertain the thought, but the word escapes anyway. "What?"

I watch the faint outline of his reflection in my window, because I know if I look into his eyes, I'll lose what's left of myself.

We roll to a stop at a light, and he turns to face me completely. "You...."

He trails off, and I flinch when his hand lands on my shoulder, but there's nowhere to move away from it. Gently, it rests there like the weight of the world, leaving me like Atlas in his grip.

He clears his throat. "You were having a session with Dr. Maren the day after Carlos's update went live. You had a mental breakdown. When she tried to sedate you to call for help, you escaped. And then you went to SynCo, but the androids, they—"