Mechanical Gods (lgbtq+)

Chapter Eleven: Questions

     Al and Eileen watched Tyler curiously across the table, hunched over their cups of coffee while patrons of the coffee shop bustled around them. It was a reaction Tyler had expected. With Al working as a SynTech software engineer, he had the best knowledge about this stuff than he did.

     Tyler kept Aiden at the apartment while he and the others get some coffee and hang out. He felt guilty about leaving Aiden there, but it seemed Aiden wasn't bothered by it too much. 

     Once Tyler showed them the datapad, he didn't sweeten the news.

     "So, let me get this straight: You think Aiden's sentient?"

     "Intelligent, yes. Like as if Aiden's--"

     "Alive? I get that," said Al, shaking his head. "You've said that many times."

     Tyler blushed, hiding it with the last gulp of his cappuccino.

     "Maybe AD-Class 700s are just that advanced. Ads on TV always boast about how adaptive they are," said Eileen.

     "Have you two been asleep the past hour? I've already shown you my evidence. He accumulated more violations in his programming than my track record!"

     From that, Eileen laughed. "Getting arrested for underage drinking in high school doesn't make you look like a badass or give you creds, Ty. That was only one tick on your bad side."

     Tyler grew frustrated. He was almost at wit's end, so close to pulling all his hair. Tyler switched the datapad to all the dialogue sections. He read over all the critical errors that popped up once in a while in Aiden's dialogue tree. Al was at least understanding of Tyler's suspicions. He did acknowledge that Aiden wore human clothes last night, which was against the law and went against his programming. At the time, Al thought Tyler jailbreak him. Jailbreaking, according to Al, was widespread, hacking the Android's programming entirely and changing their codes to fit whatever they wanted.

     And it was very illegal.

     Al scrunched his face and stared at Tyler hard. "I thought you jailbreak Aiden last night. Man, I wasn't going to say anything since, well, I work for SynTech. And we're friends, so, I didn't want you to get in trouble."

     Tyler rolled his eyes. "For the last time, I didn't change his programming just so he can get into the club, alright? He told me he was incognito, and as it turns out, he wasn't!"

     "Okay. Okay. I know this is upsetting. I'm not accusing you of anything. Sorry," said Al, lowering his voice. "It's just weird."

     "See? That's what I've been trying to tell you!"

     "I admit that Aiden shouldn't have accumulated discrepancies like this for the past week. And he shouldn't have lied, too. Frankly, I'm not surprised you're not in an orange jumpsuit based on the many violations you made and what you did to your Android," said Al, grinning.

     Tyler blushed again. "I didn't do much."

     "What's funny is that the crimes aren't even related to, well, sexual stuff. You've seen many of those in the news lately," snorted Eileen.

     Tyler blushed even more.

     Al nudged Eileen to be quiet. "The behavioral parameters don't make sense. Are you sure none one hacked you? You should take him back to the factory to make sure you aren't. It's dangerous."

     "But why? He didn't do anything that could harm me. He seems perfectly fine. He saved my ass last night. If it weren't for him, I'd be dead!" said Tyler.