Mechanical Gods (lgbtq+)

Chapter Twenty-Two (Part 1): Entangled in a Cage

     "I am giving you these files for some light reading the following days," Gideon Reese said, tapping on his datapad and Tyler felt a vibration at his back pocket where his foldable datapad was. "Hopefully these will convince you the true magnitude of Aiden's existence. As I said earlier, no one wants to repeat 2038."

     Opening it, a file appeared at the bottom, which was the files Reese sent him about the San Francisco Incident and the development of the Android Act right after it. "You think this little thing would shackle me to this building?"

     "Not think, Tyler. I hoped. You are angry, and I understand that, but Aiden is another Himari, and you let your personal feelings for that Android cloud your judgment."

     "He won't hurt anyone," Tyler said with gritted teeth.

     "But he already did, and make note that he's going to once more with whatever shitstorm the government created inside his brain. Whatever those scripts are, it doesn't give me any reason to sleep soundly at night." Reese went back to the table and sat down, resuming his breakfast.

     "And if he turns violent? Like Himari? What then?"

     Reese sliced his sausage into pieces so delicately and took them into his mouth, dragging out the silence after Tyler's question. He seemed to enjoy it, and with one swift move, he picked something under the table and placed it on the surface. It was a Glock. A gun.

     "We'll kill him," Reese said with determination, resting his hand on the gun.

     Tyler held his breath, glancing instinctively at the elevator door. "May I go now, please? Call me old-fashioned, but, I don't like to eat where there's a rude gentleman on the table."

     "You're dismissed," said Reese, making sure that it sounded like Tyler was just one of his underlings, which he didn't appreciate.

     As Tyler was about to leave for the door, he caught sight of a portrait to his right. It was a black and white photo of Gideon Reese and none other than Dr. Royland Quinn. It was a graduation portrait with Reese dressed up in all the regalia while Dr. Quinn handed him his diploma on a stage surrounded by three other people Tyler didn't recognize. They were both beaming widely, happy and in jubilation.

     But that wasn't all.

     There were three other smaller portraits in picture frames situated at the far corner on a side table. Dr. Quinn and Reese in lab coats in what seemed to be a SynTech factory and them in some fancy corporate luncheon.

     "He was like a father to me," said Reese behind him. Tyler almost jumped from the surprise.

     "I didn't know you two were this close."

     "Yeah, everyone here looks up to him as a mentor. Aiden is his last work, and I want to figure out what got him killed for it," Reese said, frowning.

     Silence once again seeped through the room.

     "Read the file, Tyler. Hopefully, it will make you understand what we're fighting against."

---0---

     Tyler was still angry at Reese's offer, or what felt more like a demand of staying indefinitely in the facility. His imagination was running wild of him cooked up inside the facility, unable to meet Eileen, Frank, or his sister again. How he wished he could play with Erica and watch their favorite superhero movies, and it saddened him that he may not be able to do that anymore or even get back to his job.

     No. I am not staying here, and Reese can't force me. I have to make a plan, Tyler thought. However, he didn't know where to start.

     By the end of the day, he still hadn't opened the file Reese sent him. He didn't want to read it as he guessed Reese meticulously chose the data that would convince him to stay. The tragedy of Itsuki Nakamura and his android, Himari, had been turned into various plays and movies, of a man cast out by society, repressed by the growing expansion of globalization and technological advancement that he created the first artificial intelligence with murderous intent. The movies usually painted him a tragic villain. One even went so far as making him maniacal.