Con Code Read online

  I need to pay attention to differences and start adopting some of my own if I’m going to pull off being human. One woman scratches the back of her neck over and over. I try it. Not for me. It’s uncomfortable and I don’t see the use in the nervous habit.

  Another man taps his heel. I could do that. It could serve as keeping rhythm and patterns around me, something I like to do anyway, and could hide my data collections behind a nervous habit. I try it. At first, I tap too hard and draw some attention at the sound of my bare, heavy metal-framed feet against the cold hospital tile. I try it softer, which requires more effort and attention. I’d rather pound indents in the flooring than bother controlling my strength. But I keep working at it because I need something to help me blend in.

  “Whose turn is it to take Jennie for a walk?” Spaulding asks like my heel tapping is the signal that the dog needs to be let out. I know he’s concerned about my ability to move naturally, seeing as I lack the ability to move naturally at the moment. And he wants to move forward on my public appearance since Ecuador announced more success and, what I assume, is a five-year plan ensuring grant money, endorsements, and investors. We’ve got nothing because my team has been waiting for me to show signs of success before seeking funding.

  Ecuador changed everything in a matter of seconds.

  “I’ll take her,” Gordon says. He doesn’t lower his head, or huff, or anything that would indicate he’s above the task at hand. Thanks, Gordon. I make a note that he’s either a great faker or someone to keep around.

  I turn from the window reluctantly but know I need help with how knees work for my own sake and follow Gordon out of the room.

  “Let’s focus on a smooth motion and gait that matches your height,” he says as we exit.

  I’ve seen footage of crisp blocky moving soldiers who walk as though they are made of wood and being propelled by motors. It’s the closest to natural human movement I can accomplish at this point, but I’ve been told it’s not natural enough.

  I take large steps, matching my height by my stride.

  “No, no.” Gordon stops me in the hall. No one else watches us. The windows that flank the hall are unobstructed. The crowd outside are all on the other side of the building. Now we’re in this hall with windows lining an atrium at the heart of the building. Natural light must have been the design theme of this structure since it’s rich with windows and sunlight. “Look at how I walk.”

  Gordon saunters up and down the hall in front of the windows, silhouetted by the light coming in from the atrium. His arms swing gently at his sides. He takes little half steps compared to his short frame. I try smaller steps, still a bit unsure how to manage with the weird ball-joint in my knee. Such an unstable frame they gave me. Inside the game, none of this was a problem. I moved and knew how and there was no gravity or rotation of the earth. I didn’t feel the degree of imbalance in the foundations of buildings, which I can now.

  As a matter of fact, if I set a marble in this hall, it’d roll slowly into the window across from me. I walk toward the windows and turn on my heel like a soldier. Then return with a slightly less prominent heel clap on my return.

  Gordon puts a hand to his forehead. “How long have we been working on this?”

  “Seven minutes.”

  “No, not this. I mean this.” He motions a circle in front of him. “This. This whole thing.”

  “Since I woke up?” I say.

  Gordon raises his voice, “The whole thing! The…” He looks at me with his head tilted to the side. “It’s like you’re not even human sometimes, like you don’t get any of it.”

  I’m exposed and have no idea how to cover this. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re just so rigid, you know, and stupid.”

  All those notes in my data files about Gordon being a decent one, a human I could trust, they’re about to be sent to the recycle bin.

  “Look at those people down there.” He points to the landing of the atrium. It goes down to the second-floor roof, where a garden and walking path circles a fountain. A very small group of people stand together in front of the fountain, arguing it seems. “They don’t have to think about it, not as you do. They just know how to move.”

  “I’m learning,” I say.

  “Yes, but not even like a baby or an accident victim who has to learn to walk all over again.”

  I let my eyes focus in on the group below. I observe, like always. I always observe. Why can’t I imitate? It should be so natural to fake these frail human movements. Why is it so hard?

  “It’s like you have absolutely no experience with walking.”

  I don’t give him the honor of looking at him when I speak. “I have experience walking.”

  “How are you this bad at it?” he asks, throwing his hands up so that even without looking at him, the motion registers in my peripheral alertness system.

  “I am not in a human body, Gordon. It’s a lot harder than you think to force a non-human machine to work with human impulses. Is there anything else you’d like to accuse me of, while we’re seven floors up and lacking character witnesses?” I’m not even sure if I’m threatening him. I can tell by the expression on his face, he thinks I’ve just insinuated I’m about to break a window with his face and drop him over a concrete bench secured to the landing in the atrium below us.

  Gordon, now several shades paler than before, shakes his head. “That’s a whole lot more speaking than you ever do in there.” He points to the room, where I’m sure they’re still arguing about how best to lie in my favor and theirs.

  The people around the fountain increase in argument as well. One person turns her back to the group. Her movement opens a path in my line of sight to where a broad-shouldered male sits on the fountains ledge. He has dark hair a little long and unkept. His face is sharp, accentuated at this distance with a stubble shadow. And his eyes are exactly the same as in the game. I walk to the window and slap it one time, accidentally breaking the glass. “Ace!”

  He looks up. It’s him. Right down to the way his brow shades his eyes when he’s irritated. Ace made it too.

  Glass shatters to the landing below. The group screams and covers their heads. Ace quickly recovers from ducking and covering— as any military trained human would, I imagine. He stands, his eyes lock with mine. His motions and expressions flow in a way that makes my collarbone ache. If Ace were here, he’d be robotic like me. How is this happening? He’s like the human version of the game Ace. Real Ace can’t be non-terminal and in the game. A person can only be uploaded, by law, if they’d die anyway. Then again, are there really thousands of terminal patients whose paperwork goes through in time, every month, to have that many players uploaded?

  “Gordon, is there something the facility isn’t telling me?” I know there is. I feel it in my leaden stomach. The player’s math doesn’t add up. Certainly Ace can’t really be here.

  Gordon grabs my shoulder, pulling me back from the hole where the window pane recently occupied, as though I’m liable to lunge through the gap. “You know him?”

  I don’t look away from Ace. He squints in reply.

  “Ace,” I shout again. He shields his eyes from the sun coming overhead then narrows them even more, forcing his eyes to remember me even if his brain can’t. If he’s an upload, when did he upload? Why hasn’t anyone told me there were more uploads? Is that his family he’s with? Why are they upset with him? Maybe I’m lucky to not have a family.

  Then I wonder, what if he tells them who I am really? We didn’t part on the best terms.

  I step back from the window. Gordon relaxes under the impression he’s finally managed to pull me away from the opening.

  “You know Mr. Pierson?”

  I turn to Gordon because I don’t know Ace’s last name, but how could it be anyone else? I nod.

  “The guy whose family funded more than half of our program? All programs for that matter.”

  I don’t know anything about Ace’s
family financials. The real-world counterpart of Ace feels invented, dreamed, lied.

  I can’t calculate what’s wrong exactly. My brain is on overload trying to put things together based on the information Gordon’s giving me. Movement below catches my attention. Ace points up to where I stand and says something faint. I could probably make it out if I dialed up my auditory sensors.

  “Maybe this is a good thing,” Gordon says.

  Confrontation with Ace has a history of being a toss-up, either good or deadly.

  Everyone from inside the media room files out to the hall. Like moths to a light, they’ve been summoned by my outburst.

  “What the hell happened?” Ben has a way of extending his arms and his welcome too far. “We heard a noise.” Wow. He’s articulate too. Another one of his grating qualities.

  “Gordon?” Spaulding asks, clearly expecting answers. Then he sees the metal frame where the glass pane window used to be and stops himself from adding anything after addressing Gordon.

  “She knows Mr. Pierson,” Gordon announces in high spirits as if the window isn’t shattered and everything is perfectly normal.

  “What do you mean, she knows him?” Spaulding touches the edges of the frame where tiny bits of glass still cling. “Everyone knows him.”

  “She knows him.” Gordon raises his shoulders like that’s the whole answer, which I guess it is right now. “Her memory might be coming back.”

  Forgot about that lie. I can’t pretend to not know him now, the broken glass is a dead giveaway that my memory banks aren’t totally wiped. I look around for an escape. What can I possibly say to Ace? If he’s already upset over something, it’s probably not a good idea to lead with, “how’d you get out?” But if the guy’s family has money, it makes sense. If you can’t throw around wealth to ensure your kid wins the eternal life prize, what good is wealth?

  It also raises a lot of questions about Ace’s behavior inside the game. If he had a lock on the win, why was he such a desperate loser when things didn’t go his way? All of this leads me to wonder about his resources inside the game. Was there a mole? And if there was, did the Commander know about it? And what if the Commander had money? Is he here too? He was definitely well supplied on the inside. Forgetting my desire for an exit, I scan for any face reminiscent of the Commander. Not exactly a man I ever want to confront again.

  Down the hall the elevator dings.

  My already rigid body locks at every joint.

  A small group of loitering techs follows Spaulding down the hall toward the opening elevator doors.

  “Mr. Pierson.” Spaulding extends a hand. Ace moves his right side out of line with the extended greeting, unabashedly snubbing Spaulding and leaving no doubt in my mind regarding his identity. He continues down the hall toward Gordon and me.

  Ace stops in front of Miller, who asserts himself in front of me in an appreciated protective manner.

  “Who did that?” Ace indicates the few glass shards remaining in the window frame. A slight breeze tickles its way down the hall. The wild outdoor air couldn’t care less about where it’s not supposed to be.

  Except for Ace, all heads in the hall turn to look at the gaping hole in the window wall. No one speaks, though a few mouths are open as if they’re forming blame, but not quite ready to sling it yet.

  “Someone called ‘Ace’.” He strikes his pointer finger toward the window. “If this is some kind of statement about the fallout from my family pulling funding…”

  The Piersons pulled funding? Why? They get Ace back and then bail? Yeah, I’d be pissed too. I might even be glad I showered glass down on those near the fountain.

  “I expect an answer,” he says.

  All heads turn to me. Like the robot-girl equals the best scapegoat they’ve got.

  “You did this?” Ace stares at me. I expect him to recognize me, but then remember I gave the features designer of my physical robotic attributes some novel identifiers so that I wasn’t found out as a fake. “The robot?” He scoffs and turns to Gordon. “I saw you with it. You ordered your new toy to break that window, didn’t you?”

  Gordon stumbles over the response he’s trying to make. Something in the vein of, “I would never.”

  “It’s me,” I say. “GenE.” I wish I could erase the audience of humans in the hall, but they’re all here. All the people who have to show me how to sit and tell me that I need to blink so I don’t freak other humans out. They’re more likely to pull theater popcorn from their coat pockets than leave the hall at this moment.

  Ace scrunches his forehead. His eyes narrow at me. “What is this?” he asks Gordon.

  Gordon raises his shoulders, this time in an ‘I have no answer’ manner. He could use a new gesture response.

  “Where did you upload?” I try to whisper, but it’s no good. The hall is filled with listeners. Several of whom look confused by my question. “I thought I was the only one who made it.”

  The frustrated wrinkles in Ace’s forehead slacken and smooth out. His lips part to reveal his white teeth. Seconds pass like this, time pounding in my ears for the waste of it. Ace swallows before speaking again. “You think I’m AI?”

  It’s obvious something isn’t adding up, so I don’t answer.

  “You know me?” he asks.

  I stop looking at him because of course I know him. He’s exactly the same as he was in the game. I’m starting to wonder if I’m still in the game on some not cool and not funny level where everyone is about to shout ‘psych’ and laugh as I level up to another zombie-murder-holding-cell gamescape.

  Ace leans close to Miller, who is standing the closest to me still. “Can I have a moment to speak with it alone?”

  “Absolutely not,” Spaulding says from where he’s still stinging from being snubbed behind Ace. When Ace and Miller turn to him both with the attitude of ‘who invited you to this conversation?’, he adds, “She is expensive property.”

  I want to shout, ‘I’m not property!’, but this isn’t the time to push robot politics and intelligence-rights platforms. I manage to keep my head down and my mouth shut.

  “I’ll supervise,” Miller offers.

  Ace nods agreement. The techs all display their disappointment in the afternoon’s entertainment being cut short through a variety of reactions, slapping one leg, rolling their eyes, muttering under their breaths, and most likely devising a means to eavesdrop before retreating down the hall. Most of them still search for a way to explain my amnesia and fake my identity so the company can get more funding through a publicity tour.

  Dr. Spaulding doesn’t leave with the techs.

  “Just us,” Ace motions to me and Miller.

  “I don’t approve,’ Spaulding says. “I’m a major part of this operation and don’t want you handling my discovery.”

  “You didn’t discover me,” I say before anyone can speak for me.

  “I was there when you woke up.”

  I nod.

  He points to himself. “My finding.”

  “I’m not taking credit from you, Spaulding. Just standing here so these two can talk,” Miller says. “It’s good to get her interacting with anyone beyond our tight circle.”

  “Not without me, she’s not,” Spaulding says.

  Ace steps closer to Spaulding. “I don’t want you here, and I’m the guy signing your checks. So, if you want a job tomorrow, get the hell out of my hallway.”

  Definitely an Ace power move. Spaulding postures himself as though he might risk a firing, before letting out a breath, and retreating slowly down the hall. “If you sabotage anything… I swear.” He points to security cameras positioned inside little black bubbles on the ceiling. They weren’t hidden at all, because it’s not a design feature to have black bubbles protrude from ceilings anywhere there are not security cameras. “I’ll be watching.”

  Ace waits for Spaulding to disappear behind closing elevator doors. “Those don’t even record sound,” he mutters. He glances to a black bubble
then turns his back on it, probably ensuring viewers in the security room can’t read his lips on the video footage. Though I’m certain, if I were in the video room, I’d use glass reflections to figure out what I might be missing over audio.

  “Why did you try to kill me just now?” he asks.

  Miller remains at my side. It’s impossible to guess if Ace is hinting at me to play along—the way it worked in the game like he’s in hiding, or maybe he was never in the game. If Ace was a virtual reality plant, I’m gonna be pissed. I mourned him, damnit.

  I look at the black bubble in the ceiling and how I’m facing it, and anything I say might be guessed at if someone can read lips. The one thing whoever developed me didn’t skimp on is my ability to produce speech, perfectly replicating normal human pitch, tone, cadence, everything. My mouth is my most developed piece of equipment from an outward appearance.

  Ace puts his large rough hands on my hospital gown like I’m a child in need of stilling. His dry and broken skin catches on the fabric as he repositions me at an angle impossible for anyone behind the camera to read my lips, he must assume. Which definitely means he’s not Ace from the game. Game Ace would know there are ways around angles and lenses if someone’s driven enough.

  “We worked together in the game,” I say side-eyeing Ace. If he flinches, or maybe if he doesn’t flinch, does it mean he’s the Ace I know? Or maybe he was controlling an Ace avatar from the outside?

  Dr. Miller stares at Ace as if Ace is the one withholding information. Like I had help from the outside and must now forfeit my win due to cheating. I mean, sure, I cheated. Everyone cheated to survive in the game. But are they going to load me back up and download my brain into that virtual prison hell because of that? Best case, this Ace is from the game, lost his memory, just like I had inside the game. Somehow, we’ve reversed roles.

  “I think you’re mistaken,” Miller says.

  “I’m not,” I insist. If I could sweat in this fake body, I’d be doing it now. I don’t want to give too much away. If I reveal myself, or Ace blows my cover, reveals me to be a product of the game and not an official donor, what might happen? Would they melt me down? Would my thoughts cease, or would I exist in an eternal state of feeling melted down and unable to interact with this horrid choppy world? “I saved your life,” I say, feeling like this is a safe revelation and might jog his memory.