RoboNomics

Chapter 86 - 2016

"What's wrong?" Austin asks sleepily.

He doesn't open his eyes or turn towards me. It's the middle of the night, and I've been tossing.

"I just...have to go to the bathroom," I fib as I roll from my side out of bed.

But that's not why I can't sleep. That's not the problem. My real problem is that I have no idea how to find Chris. No way of knowing how to contact him. I need to tell him that I can't hack into iTronics.

"We'll find you," he said when I asked.

And so, after being waylaid by Rupert in the lobby of the iTronics building, I went home. I didn't know what else to do.

When I return from our massive en suite, Austin is snoring softly. I think about squeezing back into bed with him. But I can't just stay here and wait for my secret to be revealed.

I go into the closet and grab a blazer, a pair of shoes, and my purse. I throw them on quickly, careful not to wake my husband. This is my chance.

I pad quietly through the house to the study. I walk to the window in Donald's anti-bot sanctuary and pry it open. I crawl out of it and release myself gently onto the driveway below.

I walk. It's the only way to avoid the bots and their constant information collection. I start towards the center of town. Rolled up in my purse is my FlexPhone. It contains all the information I gleaned from observation of the iTronics quantum computers.

The streets are slick with rain, but it's no longer falling. Beyond the domes of New Rome and the mountains, quiet thunder booms and vague flashes of lightning announce that the storm has moved off.

The slight chill of this night of the month we call Leo, similar to November back on Earth, suggests the Mediterranean winter to come. I shiver and pull my blazer closer around me.

It feels like a long walk towards the center of town. The lights gradually get brighter and I start to wonder where exactly I should bend my steps. I don't have to wait long for an answer.

The streets are so quiet. Walking through the European District is almost always like this. Most of the late night parties that the young people of this city of upper classes attend take place in the neighborhoods filled with the monuments of the Americas.

Perhaps they feel like debauchery should take place near the 'Empire State Building' and the 'Cristo Redentor'. I don't know. All I know is that tonight, there isn't even a single pod car that passes me on the street.

Until suddenly, there is one.

As I walk on the sidewalk, it rolls up slowly beside me, then stops. The back door pops open.

"Anderson?" Asks a woman I don't recognize. She sits in the back of the car, clad in all black.

"Who's asking?" I stop walking at the sound of my name.

"You know who. Get in."

I don't have time to argue. She and a man get out of the car and bustle me into the back seat.

#

"Well, do you have it?" Chris asks.

I sit across from him in the dim-lit back room of his speakeasy. It's the same place I first saw Matt here on Mars. When the pod car stopped, I was shoved out into an alley.

In front of me was a green storm door that led to this, his den of Anti-Robotists. Down some stairs I found the dark room.

People don the rags of their Earthbound brethren. They huddle around small round tables in a room with its foundation walls painted black. Along the far wall is a bar with a flesh-and-blood bartender who wipes out a martini glass.