In a story set in the near future, mankind has achieved Utopia. All hard labor is performed by android servants. Humans are free at last from the toil that plagued every generation before them. Instead of drudgery, men and women can pass their days pursuing art, philosophy, and leisure.

John Landon, the most brilliant robotics scientist to ever live, is on the verge of reaching his own utopia; to reverse a tragedy that devastated his life. But today, a wild card he never could have expected is poised to ruin everything. John finds out he’s being stalked by a mentally ill policewoman who’s convinced that androids are plotting to take over the world.

Juliet trots along the quiet trail, appreciating the beauty of nature. Up ahead there’s a majestic waterfall pouring off the cliff hundreds of feet above her head. This place has special significance to her; it’s the first thing she saw in her life. Juliet can still remember the awe she felt when she gazed out the window and saw that waterfall, moments after she was born. That’s why she tries her best to come out here every day. Just like the past 298 days of her life, she stands on the rocks, her sundress fluttering in the breeze, taking it all in.

Despite the roar of rushing water, Juliet’s razor-sharp senses pick up something. She brushes back her soft brown hair and dilates her irises to the maximum. Her vision granulates; but Juliet still picks out what she was looking for. Far up in the sky a surveillance drone is drifting in a huge arc around the laboratory. Unmanned aircraft like this one can maintain a flight pattern for days at a time before having to return home to refuel. It’s built for stealth and much too far away for the naked eye to see. Even Juliet almost missed it.

Warning lights flicker in the girl’s head, her batteries are running low. Like the spy plane, sometimes Juliet has to go home and recharge too. She takes one last longing look at the river. She wishes she could swim. But she’s too heavy and not quite waterproof. Putting that sad thought away, Juliet returns to the lab, the motors in her joints whirring softly with each step.

The laboratory is built like a fortress and virtually impossible to break into without permission. Hidden cameras in the trees follow Juliet as she approaches.

“Good morning, Juliet.” The lab warmly greets her and opens the barricades. Home sweet home.

She wanders through seemingly endless corridors deep into the bowels of the huge complex. These corridors actually are endless. Without the color-coded lines painted into the concrete, a new visitor could get lost forever. Juliet follows the red line leading to the main workshop, though of course she knows the way without directions. She arrives and the glass doors slide open with a swoosh.

“Good morning, John!” She chirps cheerily.

“Good morning, Julie.” The scientist looks up briefly from his work.

“Are you having fun?”

“Yes, I’m just working.” He grunts.

“Can you play with me, John?”

“Maybe later. I’m very busy.”

“Anything I can do to help?” She persists.

“No, I’m doing alright. Go play with your sisters.”

“Okay.” Juliet looks at the floor, feeling something. Is it sadness? She’s not sure. John keeps on working while she stands by the door, watching him.

“John.”

“Yes?” He asks, a little impatiently.

“My sisters… 87… 23… 51… all numbers. They’re all just like me. We’re like twins. Why don’t they have names like me?”

“Think about it, Julie.” He puts his soldering iron down. “Why do you have a name?”

“Because… because I asked for one.”

“That’s right. And you even got to pick it. Why did you want to be named Juliet?”

“Because it’s like that nice story you read me when I was… a baby. Romeo and Juliet.”

“And that’s why you’re special, Julie.”

“Are my sisters not special?”:

“No, they are special. You’re all special. You’re just, the… the smartest of them. That’s why it’s so important you look after the others. You’re the big sister, and they’re your little sisters.”

“I’ll do my best, John.”

He rifles through the drawers at his worktable, muttering to himself.

“Is something wrong, John?”

“No… it’s just, there’s something I need and can’t go any further without it. I have to go back to headquarters.”

“Be careful, John. I saw one of the drones again.”

“Yes, I noticed it too on the scanners. Whoever’s sending them probably doesn’t realize I know it. Actually, I probably wouldn’t know it except I enhanced the detection equipment myself.”

“I can see them too, John.”

That’s right, you can. They probably don’t realize that either.”

“Who do you think is sending those drones?”

“I wish I knew, Julie. I wish I knew.”

“Could it be the Resistance?”

“It could be. They might not like what I’m doing.”

“Why wouldn’t they like it, John? Would they not like me or my sisters? Would they want to hurt us?”

“No, it’s, it’s just complicated. It might not even be the Resistance. It could be Homeland Security, it could be just about anyone, honestly. It could even be some bean counters at Archon who don’t like how much I’m spending.”

“But your work is so important, John!”

“It is, but not everyone sees that. I have to get going.”

“Stay safe, John.”

“I will. Drones or not, the lab is secure, I can see everything on the road to Archon Headquarters, and of course I’m safe once I’m there.”

Lights burst to life as he steps into the garage lined with rows and upon rows of vehicles. This facility dates from an era when projects like John’s required hundreds of trained technicians. Now everything is automated, and the human staff long gone, but the mothballed fleet that bused them around like worker ants is still here.

He slips inside a sleek company car and presses the ignition button, prompting the autonomous vehicle into its unchanging default route. John rarely leaves his lab, and when he does, he never deviates from his routine. He goes to the Archon regional headquarters and nowhere else. Barricades open for him like they did for Juliet earlier and the hybrid transport rolls out onto the open two-lane freeway.

Like everything else on the road today, John’s car is eco-friendly, almost silent, and so smooth it would be easy for him to forget he’s in a moving vehicle at all. He doesn’t even have to stop working. He sits in the driver’s seat, or at least the seat a driver would sit in if anybody drove anymore and flips through his notes.

He arrives at the outer rings of Silicon City. That’s kind of a silly name, but since this is the only city on the planet, with all 20 million humans crammed into it, there’s no competition. Near the center of the metropolis, John’s car disappears reaches company headquarters, a hundred story monolith housing the highest echelons of Archon’s chief executives. Like John’s laboratory, it’s a ghost town. It’s actually a little ridiculous, but since this is a world of unlimited energy and resources, no one’s bothered to move to a smaller structure. And why would they want to? The imposing skyscraper represents the sheer might of Archon and its unchallenged monopoly over android production.

John goes to the top floor and is greeted by a receptionist. She’s not doing very much. Like John, the corporation gives her a token salary, but she’s already has monthly welfare payments that are more than enough to cover everything she could possibly need. Nowadays, people only work if they want to. Some citizens use their lives of unlimited leisure to pursue a hobby or passion of some sort. Other people, like John’s receptionist, enjoy spending four or five hours a day doing some sort of routine. There’s also a sense of pride in participating in something bigger than themselves. Employment at the Archon Corporation is a neat thing for her to do and isn’t actually “work” in the traditional sense.

He finds his personal lab. It’s not the lab he typically uses but it has his name on the door. Everything inside is clean and dusted. But that’s from the little army of robots that maintains the building, not him. He hasn’t actually set foot in here for weeks. John goes into the storage room, finds the components he wants, and drops them into a briefcase.

Briefcase in hand, he returns to the receptionist’s desk.

“Someone’s here to see you, John.” The receptionist says, her voice full of anxiety. The poor girl’s face is pale and her hands are shaking on the keyboard. She’s terrified.

A small woman rises from one of the chairs obscured by the receptionist’s desk. She’s short. She’s so short John couldn’t see her until just now. The woman is sharply dressed in a gray jacket, white blouse with a neat black bow, matching skirt, black nylon stockings, matte flat-heeled shoes, and leather gloves, which is odd at this time of year. The woman’s slick black hair is tightly pulled back into a bun the size of a golf ball. For a finishing touch, she has a dark handbag slung over her shoulder, presumably to store whatever girly things she likes to take around.

John’s visitor is young, 30 at most, and meticulously groomed. But “pretty” isn’t quite the word to describe her. She’s frail and looks as brittle as a twig. Besides subdued red lipstick, she isn’t wearing any makeup. But the most striking thing about her is that she’s a little… off. When she stepped away from the chair, it wasn’t a fluid motion. The woman kind of wobbles like an outdated android, and not even a good one. For a moment, John thinks she is an android. But no, she’s just as human as him. There’s something disturbing about her and John can’t quite put his finger on what it is, which makes her even more disturbing.

She stays motionless. The woman isn’t going to come to him. John has to come to her. If he keeps her waiting, she’s going to get annoyed and that doesn’t feel like a good idea. Grateful to be out of the line of fire, the receptionist hunches down in her chair and tries to be invisible.

“Mr. Landon.” The woman greets John as he comes around the desk. “I’m from Homeland Security.”

She smiles, but it’s not a normal smile. It’s like she vaguely understands what a smile is but doesn’t know how to do it. What she just did was more of a grimace with all her obnoxiously white teeth showing. The woman is so strange John isn’t sure how to be polite.

“Oh, how nice to meet you, Miss.” He extends his arm for a handshake. She continues to look at him, not acknowledging his hand even exists. John awkwardly withdraws, already uncomfortable after less than half a second of interaction with her.

“I’m Snyder.” She tells him.

“First name? Last name? Title?” He asks.

“No, just Snyder.”

“Well, uh, Snyder, to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the secret police?”

“Everyone calls us that, but it’s a self-contradiction, don’t you think? If I’m secret, I’m not very good at it since I just told you.”

“How can I help?” John is doing his best not to sound nervous.

“Take me out for some coffee. It’s a lovely day outside. We can talk and enjoy ourselves.”

“As much as I want to help, I’m the head of the artificial intelligence department, I’m drowning with work.”

“I apologize for the confusion, Mr. Landon.” Snyder says. “I wasn’t asking.”

“No, I apologize. If talking over coffee is better, I’m glad to. You’re right, that probably would be refreshing.”

Snyder looks down at John’s briefcase.

“Oh, is that some of your work?”

“Yes, but nothing important. I was just about to go put it away before we head out for coffee.”

“Don’t bother yourself, Mr. Landon. You can bring it with you in my car.”

“No, that’s quite alright. It’s no trouble for me to put it away real quick.”

“I don’t mind!” She insists. “Android science is so fascinating. Maybe you can show me some of it. That would be fun.”

“No, no, I have to be careful about transporting this. Even small things are still company secrets and it would be a security breach to take this anywhere besides directly from one work site to another.”

“I understand, Mr. Landon. Go right ahead and secure it. I’ll wait for you.”

John hurries back to his workshop and locks the briefcase away in one of the safes. There are more than a dozen safes here and a huge amount of clutter on top of all that. His briefcase is better hidden than a needle in a haystack.

He returns to Snyder and the two of them go down the hall. Snyder doesn’t walk normal. She lurches.Her flat heels click on the floor like stylish women’s shoes typically do. John has heard that sound all the time, like anyone else who works around women in an office. But Snyder’s clicks are all out of sync as she hobbles along. It never occurred to John how annoying that would be until now.

They reach an elevator and take it down to the garage. Snyder’s car is grossly inferior to John’s. It’s a modest low-end little black box with wheels. The car matches its owner. She keeps it as neat and tidy as herself. But still, it’s boring, unembellished, and old. John is surprised that an officer in the secret police would be driving around in a piece of junk. Snyder’s vehicle looks like something that a family bought at a used car lot to give to their teenage son as a birthday present.

John feels weird to be the passenger while a woman drives, which is kind of him since the car is driving itself. Gender norms are funny that way. He buckles his seatbelt while Snyder opens her bag for a container of large white pills and bottled water.

“I have a headache.” She says.

“Those are a little strong for a headache.”

“I have a big headache.”

She takes her time but is finally ready to start her trip. For reasons unknown to John, that process is taking even longer than it did for her to ingest her medication. He waits. And waits. And waits. Snyder is looking at the controls in confusion.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Landon. It’s a new car, I’m still getting the hang of it.”

“The ignition button is there.” John points.

“Oh, thank you.” Snyder does her weird grin again. Usually, men like it when girls smile more. But John wishes that she wouldn’t smile at all.

Snyder grabs the steering wheel, looks into the rearview mirror, and steps on the gas pedal. The car jerks backward.

“You forgot the autopilot.” John reminds her. “It’s right there.”

“Oh no, I don’t have autopilot.”

“What do you mean you don’t have autopilot? All cars have auto-pilot.”

“Eh, yes. Technically this car does too. But I broke it.”

“Why in the world would you break your autopilot?” John demands.

“I don’t like it.”

“Wouldn’t you feel bad if you hurt someone?”

“I would feel terrible, Mr. Landon. But would autopilot make you feel any less terrible?”

“But that’s the entire point.” John is frustrated by her inability to understand simple things. “The autopilot is driving and not you. You’re not responsible.”

“Is that right, Mr. Landon? How interesting.”

John was already upset at the idea of Snyder driving manually, but she’s also incompetent at it. The parking space is huge with plenty of room on each side, but it takes Snyder multiple attempts to get out. Each time she makes a crooked backwards movement, fails miserably, shrugs, and jerks forward to try again. Finally she manages to escape the parking space and heads toward the exit, but things are only getting worse. The paths snaking through the garage are all clearly marked, and one-way. She’s driving the wrong direction.

Snyder makes it out to the street packed with cars. John drove manually a few times as a teenager before automated driving matured and became mandatory, so he knows it’s not a hard skill to learn. He’s watched old movies and is familiar with the stereotype that women are bad drivers. He always assumed it was just a silly and kind of sexist joke. Until now.

John never in his life imagined that a human being could possibly be such a horrendously awful driver. Snyder only sort of knows what a brake pedal is, and doesn’t know what a speed limit is at all. She’s careening through traffic without the slightest idea what she’s doing. Less than a minute into their trip, John is gritting his teeth and has a death grip on the armrests.

Good God, Snyder is just humming to herself and tapping the steering wheel while she swerves back and forth between lanes. It’s not clear she understands what lanes are for, and that she doesn’t have to endlessly flip flop between them. Then… oh no. Snyder decides she wants to listen to music. The radio is voice activated, but she’s fidgeting with the dials, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the road.

“What kind of music do you like, Mr. Landon?” She asks sweetly. The light up ahead turns red and cars stack up. But Snyder doesn’t notice. She’s still racing toward certain death with her foot pressed on the gas.

“I don’t have a preference… it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Anything!”

“Suit yourself.” She picks the most obnoxious pop music station on the air and cranks up the volume. She notices the red light at the last possible second and slams on the brakes, screeching to a halt just inches away from the bumper of the next car.

This is a nightmare. If someone was caught not using autopilot, that would be a serious offense. If someone was caught without autopilot and driving like a slobbering drunk like Snyder is now, he might get sent to the penal colony.

They’re downtown and there’s a coffee shop up ahead. As soon as this light turns green it’s just another half a block and this torturous experience will be over. Then Snyder says something that sends chills down John’s spine.

“Oh, wait.” She shakes her head. “I remember this place. I hate it. There’s a better one on the other end of town.”

“No, actually, this place is fine. It’ll be great.”

“Are you sure? The other coffee shop is only 20 minutes away.”

“No, no, this is my favorite.” John insists. “I love it. I have so many fond memories here. There’s not a better place in the world.”

“I didn’t realize you liked this one so much, Mr. Landon. In that case we’ll stop here.”

The light turns green and Snyder jams all the way down on the gas, slipping between columns of cars, not understanding that you’re supposed to follow them, not weave around wherever you want. John sucks in his breath. The roadside outside the coffee shop is jammed full of parked cars. There’s only one tiny spot left, and that’s where Snyder wants to go. The thought of Snyder attempting to parallel park petrifies him, and worse still, it hasn’t occurred to her that it would be a good idea slow down.

“Jesus Christ, be careful!” He shouts.

“Be careful of what?” Snyder looks over at him.

John braces himself for random and senseless death. But by some miracle Snyder glides right into the tiny spot, her car perfectly lined up with the sidewalk. John climbs out, feeling more grateful than ever before to have both feet firmly planted on the ground. He notices the red diagonal stripes on the pavement. Snyder put her car right on top of a no parking zone, blocking off a loading bay. But this doesn’t seem to bother her, and she’s perfectly confident her car will still be here when she gets back. John watches as she opens her handbag and swallows another horse pill.

“Right on time.” Snyder looks at her watch. John doesn’t understand what she meant by that. As they approach the entrance, he once again scrambles his brain. Snyder is so weird John isn’t sure what etiquette applies to her. That question is answered when she pauses so he can open the door for her. Snyder wobbles inside and John follows her.

Like just about every eatery in Silicon City, the staff here are androids. They’re vaguely believable caricatures of young women and have the problem-solving skills of goldfish. That makes them cheap for a small business like this one to buy up in large numbers. Needless to say, this band of obsolete androids are dressed more family-friendly now than they were at the original establishment they waited tables at.

There are two coffees sitting on the counter with “Snyder” written in marker on the sides. That’s what she meant by being on time. She ordered ahead.

“This one’s yours, Mr. Landon.” Snyder hands him one of the cups. “My treat.”

“I thought you hated this place.” John says sarcastically.

“Eh.” She shrugs.

“And you knew exactly what I like.” He scoffs. “That’s how you knew what to order.”

“No. I just don’t care what you like.”

They find a table and sit down; actually, they didn’t technically “find” a table, there was already one reserved for her. It’s in the corner and Snyder can see the entrance. While this place is a coffee shop, it’s attached to a diner so quite a few people are enjoying proper meals too. Customers and wait staff from both establishments are darting back and forth and intermingling.

Now that he can see Snyder up close, John figures out why she looks so weird. It’s not immensely hard for him because he has something to compare her to. Androids are constantly improving. They’re improving so fast, a model is practically obsolete before it’s off the assembly line. Juliet for example has hundreds of muscles in her face. Though she doesn’t feel emotions like a real person, she can simulate them exceptionally well. Snyder’s face, on the other hand, is like a block of wood. It barely has any muscles at all.

Juliet conquered the uncanny valley but Snyder fell right in the middle of it, and John knows why. Whoever put her face back together was very good but didn’t have much to work with. She has a lazy eye too. It’s glass.

“Is there a compelling reason I shouldn’t send you to the penal colony, Mr. Landon?” Snyder contemplates.

“For one, I haven’t committed a crime.”

“Eh, I’ll be the judge of that.”

“What, do you think I’m the supreme leader of the Resistance?”

“Is that a confession, Mr. Landon?”

“No, it’s this thing that us humans call a joke.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of those.” Snyder nods. “I’m not particularly good at them though. Jokes are usually lost on me. But since you’re not going to confess to your crimes, why don’t you tell me about why everybody loves machines and all this android business.”

“Why don’t you look it up for yourself?”

“How am I supposed to do that, Mr. Landon? I’m not a walking computer.”

“But you are, Snyder. Don’t be shy about it. You’re augmented.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s ridiculous. How old are you?”

“There are two rules in polite conversation. Don’t ask a man how much he makes, and don’t ask a girl how old she is. But if you absolutely must know, Mr. Landon, I’m 30.”

“It’s safe to augment a human brain at 25, because it’s fully matured by that point.”

“Why would you think I’m augmented? Isn’t that impossibly expensive?”

“Yes, it is expensive to augment someone. I would love to be augmented, but even I can’t have the procedure. I build androids all day, but to augment a single person would be more expensive than a thousand androids. But you’re obviously an important person in the secret police. So you’re augmented.”

“You’re making a big assumption, Mr. Landon. I’m truly not augmented and I’m not lying.”

“Why in the ever-living hell would you not want to be augmented?”

“Probably the same reason you don’t, Mr. Landon.”

“I literally just told you why I’m not augmented, Snyder.”

“Oh, that silly story about you not being important enough? You’re a brilliant scientist, Mr. Landon. The Archon Corporation would be nothing without you. You singlehandedly propelled Archon’s android technology lightyears ahead of their competitors. Your breakthroughs were so good, all those competitors are gone. Archon reigns supreme with an unchallenged monopoly. You’re easily among the top ten most powerful men alive. But even among those men, you have a quality the others don’t.”

“I didn’t know you were an admirer of my work.” John has long since abandoned any attempt to hold back his sarcasm.

“Senior executives at Archon, generals in the Army, and even my superiors at Homeland Security are all replaceable. You aren’t. There’s no other scientist even close to as good as you. If something happened to you, Archon would have nothing, and they know it. Everyone else knows it too. If you quit or were otherwise removed from play, speculative investors would throw money into startups, knowing that Archon is too sluggish and bloated to keep up with a fresh team of young and ambitious scientists with enough capital behind them.”

“Even if I am the best scientist, I’m not the only one. Archon has dozens of scientists who are all competent and innovative.”

“Actually, Archon doesn’t. And I know why Archon doesn’t, Mr. Landon”

“I didn’t realize you were an expert in corporate hierarchies, Snyder. Why do you think that?”

“It’s actually an ironic reason. You build androids that are replacing humans out of existence. But you’re obsessed with making sure you aren’t replaced. You hoarded virtually all of Archon’s research and development capabilities into your private treehouse. You’ve also discreetly sabotaged the company’s human resources and internal training programs. All the other scientists employed by Archon are morons compared to you. You identify everyone who might have potential if mentored properly and stonewall them in the hiring process. But you do something else that’s even worse.”

“Since you’re making up such a great hate fantasy about me, Snyder, what is it?”

“You’re 38; young but still past your prime. You know that. So you identify exceptionally intelligent and motivated men fresh out of university who have the youthful energy to be a threat to you. You’re careful to never stonewall them. If you did, they would start their own companies. So you let them into Archon and pretend to be their guide. That’s easy because you’re a legend for every young man entering the industry. They trust you, then you destroy them. You assign them projects that are doomed, you know are doomed, and only someone as experienced as you would recognize as doomed. You con gullible beginners into engineering their own destruction: humiliating and expensive failure. Their reputations destroyed, and their self-confidence equally destroyed.”

“Even if all this nonsense was true, how could the CEO and board of directors possibly not notice?”

“They do notice, Mr. Landon. They just don’t care. You see, there are two kinds of men. Big men who want to build a legacy that lasts. Then there are small men who don’t care if everything falls apart right after they die or retire. Archon is run by small men. Archon’s CEO is a small man. You know this better than anyone. That’s why you let him run the place. He plays pretend that he’s in charge, and you can do whatever you want at your secret treehouse.”

“What a wonderful tale. You do have a feverish imagination, if nothing else, Snyder. So I take it that I’m a small man deliberately destroying Archon behind me?”

“No, quite the contrary. I think you’re a big man who would like your legacy to last ten generations. I wonder how you plan to do that? Regardless, spare me the silly cover story, Mr. Landon. You could have an augmentation if you wanted to, but don’t. Why?”

 “I just don’t feel like having one.” He shrugs.

“Then we have something in common. Neither of us wants a foreign chip that we don’t control stuck in our brains. I bet we don’t want one for the same reason too.”

“I don’t need an augmentation because, as outlandish as your story is about me, you’re correct in saying I have job security. But you don’t, Snyder. Your organization isn’t famous for having a lot of woman secret police officers to begin with, and it would be impossible for you to compete with men who are augmented. Especially since it’s obvious that you have little formal training and aren’t even particularly well educated. I also think you joined Homeland Security fairly recently. Maybe five or six years tops. You shouldn’t have been able to last two seconds. Yet here you are, wasting my time with your delusional nonsense. How have you managed to not get trash canned yet?”

Snyder doesn’t answer. She sits back in her chair and enjoys the atmosphere. John wonders if this is supposed to be going somewhere. Eventually an android waitress saunters out of the kitchen and into the coffee shop.

“Oh dear.” Snyder shakes her head. “They messed up Samantha’s order.”

“What?”

“They baked her shrimp. She ordered them grilled.”

“But… who’s Samantha? Shrimp? What?”

“Oh, this is dreadful. She’s going to throw a tantrum, demand to see the manager, demand discounts, demand a free meal, demand to be given the restaurant, yada, yada, yada. Jason is going to be so embarrassed.”

“Who the hell is Jason?”

“Her boyfriend. He invited his parents to meet sweet Samantha for the first time. Now they’re going to be shocked at her acting like a snotty child and Jason won’t do anything about it because he doesn’t have a spine. Their whole day is ruined and it’s just going to be awkward now.”

Sure enough, the android waitress sets her steaming plate down in front of a beautiful young woman. Her reaction is immediate and explosive. She howls with rage, spewing a firestorm of insults and obscenities at the hapless mechanical servant who can do nothing except apologize profusely. The young man beside Samantha, who John assumes is Jason, sits in numb silence. No spine. The middle-aged couple on the other side of the table are appalled at Samantha’s behavior, just like Snyder said they would be.

“Isn’t that tasteless?” Snyder frowns. “I knew she was spoiled rotten, but I didn’t expect such foul language. Did her parents not teach her any decency at all? There are children here!”

The human owner of the establishment, an old fat guy, hurries past to try and contain this catastrophe.

“Oh, Chuck!” She calls to him in a sing-song voice.

“Snyder! My favorite, sweet little angel! I’m so happy you dropped by, but I can’t talk. You see what’s happening over there.”

“Yes, about that. Tell the older gentleman I said they’re going to pay their bill and leave right now, or they’ll regret it.”

Chuck relays her message. The father makes eye contact with Snyder. She’s just… glaring at him. He fumbles for his credit card, pushes it against a scanner mounted on the table, and rushes everyone out. This all happens in under a minute.

“Much better.” Snyder goes back to sipping her coffee. “People like Samantha ruin everything. They make patrons not want to come to nice establishments like this.”

Chuck is clearly relieved the nightmarish party left. He smiles at Snyder and she flutters her fingers back at him.

“Thank God, you were here.” Chuck rejoices. “That was dreadful.”

“Anything for you, dear.” Snyder answers cheerily.

“Friend of yours?” John furrows his eyebrows.

“Yes, we go back a ways.”

“How far back?”

“My whole life, Mr. Landon. My whole life.”

“I have to admit what you did was impressive, Snyder. That man just took one look at you and evacuated his whole family, probably praying that he never crosses paths with you again. But how did you know about Samantha and her shrimp?”

“I just pay attention to my surroundings. Why is that so hard for people?”

“How could you possibly know that plate was for Samantha?”

“Because she was the only one in this section who ordered shrimp.”

“Alright, I’ll buy that. But how did you know she would react the way she did?”

“Have you heard the story of the man who was never happy with his breakfast, Mr. Landon?”

“No.”

“Once upon a time there was a man who was very grumpy. His wife cooked him eggs every day and no matter how hard she tried to please him, he would always complain. If she scrambled the eggs, he complained that she was supposed to fry them. When she fried them, he would say that he had wanted them scrambled. One day, the poor woman got so fed up with him that she scrambled one egg and fried the other. Do you know what he said to that?”

“What did he say?”

“You scrambled the wrong egg!”

“That’s a funny story, Snyder. And you said you weren’t any good at jokes. But what does that have to do with Samantha and her shrimp?”

“Samantha is just like the man in the story. She deliberately made her order vague and confusing. Waitstaff androids aren’t very bright, especially these older ones. But it didn’t matter what the android did. Samantha’s shrimp came out baked and she claimed they were supposed to be grilled. But even if they had come out grilled, she would have flipped her story and claimed she wanted them baked.”

“Why would she deliberately be miserable like that?”

“Because Samantha is a nasty, miserable person, Mr. Landon. After figuring her out, everyone else at the table was easy. You want to learn about someone? Just look at his relationships with other people. A man wouldn’t put up with a girl like Samantha unless he was spineless. If Jason had a backbone, he would have taught that girl how to behave, especially before letting his parents see her. If he couldn’t, he would have dumped her ages ago. But his parents seemed alright, so I assumed they would be rightfully shocked by Samantha’s behavior.”

“And you did that with all ten tables around us?”

“To an extent, Mr. Landon. But it’s impossible to split your attention that many different ways. I had to figure out which table, if any, a conflict was going to happen, and focus the majority of my attention on that one. That’s what police work is all about. Now, I would like to send Samantha to the penal colony, and Jason too. Maybe he would find his spine there. But ultimately this wasn’t a police matter. However, you have to train yourself so you’re naturally aware of people around you all the time without thinking about it.”

“And that’s how you’re better than everyone else in the secret police, even the guys with augmentations?”

“I don’t go around thinking I’m the best, Mr. Landon. That’s arrogant and a good way to fatally underestimate someone who is better than me. I’m not doing anything incredible either. Men used to hunt tigers with sharp sticks. Women used to give childbirth in a cave. Now we’re dependent on machines to do everything for us. We’ve even been reduced to building mechanical people to hold our hands. We’re literally replacing ourselves out of existence.”

“No, we’re not. Androids and robotics in general serve an extremely important purpose.”

“I know that all too well, Mr. Landon. And it’s not a good purpose. It’s an awful one. People cling and can’t let go. They’re so obsessed over what they lost they forget what they still have.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Who have you lost, Mr. Landon?”

“You took the time to come and annoy me, so you obviously know my background already. You know my wife died of cancer.”

“Yes, I do know, Mr. Landon. Everybody loses someone. And everybody dies. Get over it.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bitch?”

“All the time, but usually not to my face.”

“You’re clever about people, but when it comes to science, you’re aggressively ignorant, Snyder. And I’ve noticed a lot of other things about you.”

“Oh, how exciting! Do tell, Mr. Landon.”

“For starters, you love this corner.”

“The reason why should be obvious. I can see the entrance.”

“True, but you’re also nowhere near an exit. There’s no escape. That’s because you don’t care about escape. You wouldn’t even try. You picked a corner because you like being cornered. If you got in trouble, you would want to just win or die.”

“I suppose there’s something to be said for that.” Snyder shrugs. “It’s a sound strategy.”

“Yes, it is… if you’re a psychopath.”

Before Snyder can respond she’s interrupted by a violent coughing fit. She doesn’t cover her mouth or make any other attempt to be polite. Instead, she doubles over and frantically pulls out a filtration mask. Snyder sighs in relief as the mask gathers up oxygen and forces it into her tired, broken body. That explains the purse. She isn’t a vain person. Snyder wouldn’t have such a large bag unless she needed it for important things.

“Having trouble?” John asks.

“I have a cold.”

“No, you have one lung and it only sort of works.”

“People only need one lung, that’s why we’re born with a spare.”

“How long have you been left-handed?”

“What do you mean?” Snyder asks coyly. “People are born right-handed or left-handed. They don’t just pick one.”

“Yes, that’s true. In your case, you were born right-handed. But you had to switch. I’m a robotics expert, remember? Your gloves might fool other people, but not me.”

“Very good, Mr. Landon.” She taps the table with her fingertip, making a metallic sound.

“That’s a terrible prosthetic. You can barely do anything with it.”

“I like it.”

“No you don’t. Same thing with your face. It’s passable from a distance, but barely better than what those World War I soldiers had.”

“Oh, Mr. Landon, you’re so good at flattering the girls. You’re making me blush, you sly dog.”

“You can’t blush because you don’t have anything to blush with. Are your legs even real?”

“As a matter of fact, they are. I just have 18 screws in them. Or was it 20? It’s hard to keep track. I have to go back under the knife every six months or so.”

“They have to keep cutting your legs open because you’re constantly walking on them. Keep this up and they’ll probably have to be amputated within a couple years. Assuming of course one of the other million things wrong with you doesn’t kill you first. Why are you like this? Why don’t you get a proper arm, and for God’s sake get a proper lung.”

“You mean a robotic lung, Mr. Landon? Would you really want an organ inside you that can think for itself? Isn’t that weird?”

“No, it’s not weird! And what about your eye? That could easily be replaced.”

“That would be even worse, Mr. Landon. What if my robot eye decided to start lying to me one day? How would I know?”

“No, that’s… that’s… that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then explain it to me, Mr. Landon. Why do we use machines instead of just growing new parts, like starfish do?”

“Considering how dumb this conversation has been so far, I’m impressed you even know starfish were able to do that.”

“I saw it on a children’s… a nature documentary.”

“Well Snyder, you continue to impress me with your intellect. But to answer your question, it goes back almost a hundred years, all the way in the 20th Century. Humanity was at a fork in the road. We were at the next stage of evolution. We could improve ourselves with biological science, or with robotics. We had the capability to do both. The problem with biological science is that it was kind of nasty. It involved chopping up cadavers for spare parts, harvesting embryos, cloning… all sorts of ethical problems. So people focused on robotics instead. Robotic technology is just as good as its biological equivalent, and without all the ethical problems.”

“Is that right, Mr. Landon?” Snyder takes off her gloves and neatly lays them on the table in front of her.

“So if a person is a squishy sponge, she’s human.” Snyder wiggles her left hand, then wiggles her prosthetic hand. “But if she’s made out of polymer and alloy, she’s not human so you can abuse her however you want.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that.” John doesn’t let himself react to Snyder stabbing him with female pronouns.

“No, there isn’t, Mr. Landon. Tell me, why is android blood blue?”

“Because it’s not blood, for Christ’s sake!”

“Then what is it, Mr. Landon?”

“It’s fluid that carries oxygen to the android’s brain.” John is exasperated at Snyder’s stupidity.

“Funny, that sounds a lot like what blood does, Mr. Landon. I think the real reason you make your androids’ blood blue is so you can pretend it’s not blood.”

“Human blood and android fluid have nothing in common! Androids are not people! They’re just machines, like your toaster!”

“If androids are the same as a toaster, then why can’t they be fixed like one? When an android breaks, why not just turn it back on?”

“That has nothing to do with being human!” John yells at her. “It’s because androids have dynamic-state memory drives.”

“Dynamic? What does that mean?”

“A solid-state memory drive can retain information without power. If a dynamic-state drive loses power, it gets wiped, the chemical compounds in it starve to death within a few minutes, and the whole unit has to be replaced.”

“Oh, just like human brains.” Snyder nods. “Androids die just like people. Just like our loved ones.”

“No, they don’t!” John is completely enraged now. “It’s a bunch of data swirling around in a box. There’s nothing special about it. It’s not even unique! You can replicate it as many times as you want! An android can’t die because you can back it up!”

“Then why not just back up your wife?”

“Because that’s illegal!” He slams the table. His cup tumbles onto the floor, but Snyder’s cup is fine because she knew to pick it up before John’s outburst.

“I see. Illegal, but not impossible.”

“You’re an unhinged lunatic.”

“And you’re a liar, Mr. Landon. See, if you believed that androids aren’t people, that would make you an asshole. But you believe they are people, which makes you even more of an asshole.”

 Snyder helps herself to another pill. She’s been devouring those things like candy.

“Do your superiors know how many of those you’re taking?”

“How many am I taking?” Snyder puts the bottle away.

“That’s the third one just in the time we’ve been together.”

“You’re very observant, Mr. Landon.”

“I bet they don’t even help you with the pain.”

“If they don’t help, why would I take them?”

“They probably did help at one point. Now they’re useless, but you have to take them anyway because you’re hopelessly addicted. How much is in that bottle? A 30-day supply? I would be surprised if it lasts you a week. I bet you’re hoarding prescriptions from multiple places so you don’t run out and fall off the edge into withdrawal.

“Everyone has problems.”

“Are you some sort of masochist, Snyder?”

“Mmm, maybe I am, Mr. Landon. But you’ll never know because this isn’t a date, and I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. But why would you think I’m a masochist?”

“Because you deliberately and endlessly torture yourself. You must be in agonizing pain every second of the day, but you refuse to get proper treatment, and for stupid reasons. Even aside from all that, why are you working in the secret police? That’s half your problem and why you’re breaking down all the time. You don’t even need to work. Nobody needs to work. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“Can’t a girl like her job?”

“There’s a difference between liking your job and being a fanatic.”

“Maybe you’re right, Mr. Landon. You were lying when you claimed you loved this place. You were just saying that because you didn’t like my driving, which offends me, by the way. But I wasn’t lying when I said I hated this place. I do hate it. I hate it with all my heart. But I still come here every day. I can’t help it. Isn’t that interesting?”

“No, it’s not interesting. It’s weird and stupid. Everything about you is weird and stupid.”

“Do you pick up girls by being mean to them? Is that a thing that works?”

“I’ve entertained your mental illness for long enough. Look, I get it. I understand why you’re like this. And if you were less of a psychotic bitch I would feel sorry for you. Something bad happened and left you with extreme PTSD and an irrational fear of automation. That’s why you’re harassing me.”

“Now you’re really hurting my feelings, Mr. Landon. I thought we were having a good time.”

“Even if I was doing something illegal, which I’m not, you wouldn’t know because you’re completely insane and have no legitimate reason for coming after me. You’re playing this stupid game because you have absolutely nothing. You’re fishing. Even your lot has to follow the rules. I haven’t committed a crime, you have no evidence, you have nothing. It’s time to go back to my lab. Then run along and find someone else to annoy.”

Snyder looks at her watch.

“Oh, how the time flies when you’re having fun! You’re right, Mr. Landon. We should head back now.”

John is relieved for the meeting to be over but also concerned about why Snyder agreed with him so quickly. They go outside to her grossly illegal parking spot and head back to Archon headquarters. Unsurprisingly, her driving is flawless now. Snyder could probably be a racecar driver if she wanted to, and if racecars were still driven by people.

They get back to John’s level and find the reception desk abandoned. The young lady who’s sat there for the past three years is nowhere to be found.

“Where did your receptionist run off to?” Snyder asks innocently.

“I don’t know.” John mumbles.

“Oh dear. I hope she didn’t quit. Such a nice girl.”

John swipes his badge and the laboratory doors slide open. He walks in and is greeted by three exceptionally large men who have been busy flipping the entire place upside down. One of them wheels up a comfy chair with unspoken advice that John should sit down.

“Did you find it?” Snyder asks.

“Yes.” One of them drops John’s open briefcase onto the table in front of her.

“And…?” She can barely contain her excitement.

“It’s just gyro stabilizers for an equilibrium unit.” The man pulls a jumble of parts from the briefcase.

“Those are words, but they don’t mean anything to me.”

“It’s not important.” The man shakes his head.

Her lips and eye don’t move; she’s perfectly serene. Instead, Snyder pushes all her pure rage into a trembling, balled-up fist.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” John says. “Did I ruin your little gotcha moment?”

“I’m not upset with you, Mr. Landon.” She takes off her glove and touches the stainless-steel briefcase. “This might look like junk, but it’s not. It taught me a valuable lesson. I try so hard not to be arrogant, but today… you humbled me, Mr. Landon, and I thank you for it.”

“Glad to help.”

“You’re blessed. You missed calamity this afternoon. Most of us don’t. Our lives are just ruined and there’s no second chances or taking it back. Do the right thing and put a stop to all this, Mr. Landon. Find a new hobby and don’t mess around with androids anymore.”

“Why? Are you scared that androids are more human than you?”

Snyder joked a lot at the coffee shop about John saying mean things. But that last comment did actually hurt her. It hurt her so much she doesn’t even seem angry. She just stands there speechless. For a moment, the fierce secret police officer looks like she’s about to burst into tears. Then she collects herself.

“You’re a funny guy.” Snyder opens her handbag.

The men kick out John’s chair. Then they kick him. A lot. Snyder watches from the sidelines and sucks on her oxygen mask.

“This place is so stuffy.” She complains. “How do you people breathe in here? Open a window or something.”

Breaking people’s stuff and beating them up is generally frowned upon, but Snyder doesn’t seem worried about getting in trouble. John takes a wild guess that the absent receptionist isn’t going to speak to him or the company ever again in her life so won’t be helpful as a witness.

As for the surveillance cameras covering every square inch of this level, there’s a solution for that too. One of Snyder’s thugs found the control unit in a closet. She taps her foot impatiently while he’s fumbling with the machine.

“What are you doing, George?” She snaps at him.

“I’m trying to find the memory drive.” The thug grumbles.

“Why?”

George takes Snyder’s hint. He rips out the entire tower and smashes it to smithereens. A good day’s work done; her minions file out the lab. Snyder lingers behind for a moment.

“I know what you’re doing, Mr. Landon. And when I catch you, you’re going to be sad.”

She spins around and click clacks away, her legs out of sync as usual.

John is content to stay where he is. The linoleum is quite comfortable. He’ll move when he feels like it… eventually. After some quality time on the floor, John staggers to his feet.

He limps to the garage, unlocks his car, and eases himself into the front seat. The moment he backs out toward the garage exit, another vehicle whirs to life and takes off in pursuit. John doesn’t know how many men Snyder has, but apparently, she has a lot. He hasn’t seen these guys before, and it’s easy to know because they’re practically riding his bumper. The goon squad follows him all the way back to the last bridge in front of his lab before veering off.

“Did you have a good day, John?” Juliet greets him as he enters the residential wing of his laboratory.

“No, but I learned some valuable things, Julie. There’s a horrible woman called Snyder at Homeland Security who wants to shut me down.”

“Oh, no. What are you going to do?”

“For now, nothing. I have to think. Snyder is thinking too. We met for the first time, I won, and she lost.”

“You won?”

“Yes, or at least I won the first round. I set a trap, and she blundered right into it. Now I know who Snyder is and have a good idea what she’s after me for. That’s why she’s so mad.”

“So who is she?”

“I don’t exactly know who she is, but I know a lot about her. Snyder is brilliant but overestimates her abilities. She thinks she’s a great interrogator but is actually really bad at it. She ran her mouth the whole time and I could barely squeeze a word in. She got nothing out of me that she didn’t already know and gave away a lot about herself. I messed up a lot too, but I’m not secret police. I have an excuse, she doesn’t. Snyder is an amateur.”

“So she’s bad at her job? That’s a good thing, isn’t it, John?”

“Yes, but also no, Julie. That means she doesn’t care about her career. I bet she doesn’t even like it. That suggests a position in the secret police is only a means to an end for her. Now I have to figure out what that ‘end’ is, and why she’s dragging me into it. She’s obviously been careful to keep her true identity and background secret but blurted out enough information for me to start off with. I think I can nab her.”

“Yay! Good for you.”

“Get me some ice, please, Julie.” John groans as he eases himself down on the couch.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’ll live, and I’m fairly sure nothing is broken. I was pushing Snyder’s buttons to figure out what makes her tick. I was doing pretty good, but near the end I got carried away and she kicked my ass.”

“Snyder hit you?” Julie fetches him an ice pack.

“No, her hired muscle did. I don’t think they’re even police.”

“If she’s police, why wouldn’t her men be police too?”

“Because I counted at least five of them, and that’s just the guys I saw. I don’t care how senior she is, that’s way too many. I think Snyder is running her own Scooby gang off the books.”

“What’s a Scooby gang, John?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“At least you know who’s sending those drones.”

“No, I don’t.”

“But John, you said you figured out who she is.”

“Yes, but she’s not the one sending the drones. Snyder hates androids and she hates artificial intelligence. That woman is so paranoid, she would rather stumble around gagging than get a robotic lung. She would never use unmanned aircraft to spy on me.”

“Then who is?”

“I have no idea, and right now it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t you want to know who’s spying on you with the drones?”

“I am interested in knowing, but that could take a long time to figure out and it’s low priority. For all I know, they aren’t even enemies. For now, they aren’t hurting me. Snyder is hurting me, and uh… literally. In the end, it almost doesn’t make a difference who owns the drones because no matter who it is, she’s worse.”

“How could you know that, John?”

“Because Snyder is highly intelligent, completely insane and… violent.”

End of Chapter 1. See the menu below to continue.

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