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The wan light of summer dawn pours through the large window on one side of the open room. It wakes me long before anyone else. I shift around and stretch along the length of the worn-out cot that I'd been assigned. My body aches and my back is stiff where the springs of the mattress stuck into it. Austin lies on the cot next to mine, his feet hanging over the end. He's still asleep. In the dim of morning, I make out the lashes that rest on his cheeks and his lips closed into a tiny, pink rosebud.
I remember when we first met. It was at a house party in an apartment of a mutual friend who lived near the university. The first thought that came into my head while we shook hands was that he was handsome.
In this moment, watching him sleep, I can't believe I ever wanted anyone else. The ghost of almost leaving him crosses my mind and with it, guilt acrid as burnt rubber. I tuck it away as best as I can, knowing that I'll drag it around with me like a child with a favorite toy.
The only way to release it would be to confess, but that won't help anything but to alleviate my conscience. And if we're going to survive the rapid-fire changes the bots have brought to the city, I need to let it go. Austin has had so many shocks lately. So much of what he believed about the world turned out to be false. I'm not about to destroy our relationship on top of everything else just because I need a confessor.
My thoughts break apart with the first heavy footfalls that cross the threshold into the gym. I twist in the cot, straining in the direction of the sound as it grows.
Then I see it. A tall security patrol bot, with its long metallic arms swinging by its sides. It weaves his way through the rows of cots. It turns repeatedly, its head arcing from side to side. Just before it spots me, I feel a modicum of relief that it doesn't look like me. It heads down the row, directly toward us.
"You can't stay here," its mechanical voice croaks as it approaches.
Austin's eyes blink open. "What's going on?" He mumbles.
Others around us shift in their sleep or stir out of it and look up at the towering machine as they blink sleep out of their eyes.
"Andrea Anderson," the bot continues. "You have been identify as a suspected accomplice to the Queen's Park bombing. You can't stay here."
"What?" Austin manages to utter the question that weighs immediately on my mind. "You can't be serious." He bolts upright on his cot.
That's right, I think. Austin has no idea.
"Austin, let's just go. It's almost morning anyway." I avoid his gaze as I pull a light shirt over the tank that serves as my undershirt and pajamas.
"Why would this... thing think that, Andrea?"
"I don't know, okay? Maybe because I there that day."
"That can't be it," his voice is fierce as his eyes bore into the side of my face. I busy myself with packing up my meager belongings. "Did someone implicate you?"
I don't answer, but the thought gives me pause. What if someone did?
My hands stop. I'm stock still as I realize. It's so obvious. As soon as he switched sides, as soon as he sold me out, there was nothing to stop Chris from implicating me. He roped me into the position of accomplice, why wouldn't he put the blame on me?
"Maybe you're right," I concede, but pause before I'm tempted to add details. "We have to get out of here."
Austin gets up and we frantically stuff clothes into our backpacks as the machine continues to tower over us.
"You can't stay here," it repeats.
"Yeah. We're going." Austin zips up his pack and throws it over his shoulder.
I slowly put mine on my back and unfold my legs from sitting on my cot.
The patrol bot is right beside me, and I look into his blank silver eyes as I stand up. I wonder how much information it can access. I wonder whether or not it has Chris' full confession, whether it knows that I am the one who placed a bomb in the Ontario legislature.
If so, it makes no indication. The stern expression on its sharp plastic face doesn't change. I lower my eyes and quickly turn to follow Austin towards the door.
"What are we going to do for food?" I ask at soon as we step out into the morning. There's a chill in the air of humidity that's cooler overnight. It's a warning - once the sun comes up, the day will be like walking through hot bath water.
He shakes his head, indicating the fact that I know too well. We have no money.
"I'm not sure, Andrea. We're just going to have to –"
"You two looking for something to eat?" A man interrupts my husband.
I turn. He's materialized out of the dawn, his body covered in dust-encrusted rags. His tanned face is pockmarked and rimmed with shaggy hair and a massive beard. Full eyebrows frame his deep-set eyes. By the look of him, he's one of the originals - one of the first to lose their job and live on the street.
I'm immediately weary. We are new - obviously new. Still clean, our clothing still not frayed. Easy prey. And there's no one else on the street at this hour.
"Yeah." Austin's friendly reply makes it obvious he doesn't share my misgivings.
"The city set up service centers. They'll get you whatcha need."
"Service centers?"
"Yeah, easy as pie. Food, water, shelter, meds. Whatever you want. Pretty cool, huh?"
His bushy moustache curves and the corners of his eyes crinkle as he talks.
"Where are they?" Austin continues as I elect to silently watch the stranger.
"Closest's at Dundas Square."
"Great! Thanks so much," Austin says as the man takes a step to pass us on the sidewalk.
"Got to help each other out, right?"
I continue to watch him as he takes a step, and then another, towards me. He passes me on the right with both eyes on mine, and a disarming smile on his face.
"Thanks." I say as he comes abreast to me.
"Anytime."
So close, I can hear the note of tin that's a frail undercurrent in his voice. So near to me, I can see a subtle flash of orange in the very center of his pupils. I feel his lack of body heat, breathe in his absence of body odor.
Gasp as I turn back to Austin, eyes wide.
"What? What is it?" Austin asks a little too loud when he sees my expression. I glance back over my shoulder, thankful that the thing does not seem to hear him. It doesn't turn back.
I grab the corner of Austin's sleeve and guide him along the sidewalk until I know that we're safely out of earshot.
"Austin, that wasn't a man," I whisper. "That was a bot."
"No way," he glances back to examine the form that's swiftly diminishing into the distance. "There's no way, Andrea."
"You're just going to have to trust me on this. I was there. I saw her - the bot that replaced me. They don't smell. They aren't warm. And there was something else I've only seen once or twice. It has an orange light in its eyes."
"Orange eyes? I didn't see any --"
"Not the irises. The pupils. I've only ever seen that in the latest upgrades, only in the best mimics."
"It fooled me, Andrea. How could it have fooled me?"
"It almost fooled me, too. They don't have that uncanny feel to them, Austin. They're convincing."
Canny, I avoid saying out loud. The specter of the bot that took my job rises in my imagination. The way she took on my speech, my tics and my mannerisms. The way that people couldn't tell us apart. And then the Henri bot - how I, momentarily, mistook him for my friend.
I wonder, thinking back, who was replaced by the helpful urchin we'd just encountered? What did they do with that man who was replaced? And how many other people, walking around the streets looking for food, water, a place to sleep, have been replaced? How could we now tell the difference between friend or foe?
"Austin," I say as we start walking away. "Do you think we should go there? Should we really go to a service center that a bot sent us to?"
"Maybe not, Andrea," he replies. "But we need to eat and we have no money. I don't know that we have any other choice."
As he turns to face the road before us and I pick up my pace, I know he's right.
To be continued in Chapter 47...
A/N:
Happy Friday!
This incident reminds me of the current dangers of deepfakes. Can you imagine the existential issues that would arise from deepfakes IRL? I guess that's explored in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Otherwise known as the source material for Blade Runner. Have you read it?
Let me know and look for Chapter 47, coming out Monday, January 29th.
In the meantime, check me out on my socials:
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All the best,
Stephanie