Conduit

Ch. 23

This wasn't how I wanted to spend my morning. I woke up, fully intending on chilling. Instead, I found myself looking dead on at a line of androids. To think the doom and gloom groups were supposed to be the worst of my problems. They weren't, not with this line of machines I didn't recognize.

As I stared at the five of them—two male and female Personals—I dipped my head, mentally analyzing. They were dressed in normal clothes; this meant they were assigned to a family or a person. Or multiple families; I couldn't assume they all came from the same group.

Or could I?

"Elijah." Victoria came to my side. I glanced at her hands, fingers nervously rubbing together in slow circles, but looked away when Reggie stood opposite her. Both had concerned looks on their faces with white flickers of light passing over their eyes.

"What's going on?" I asked. If anyone knew, it would be Victoria. She had a good eye for these things, I made sure of it.

"I'm confused by their frequency," she said.

Frequency? "What does that mean?" I sidestepped and shifted, slightly facing her. "I thought you said that all androids sync together at all times."

Reggie cleared his throat. "We do," he answered my question, his voice deeper than normal. Was he sensing danger? "These androids seemed to have blocked us from syncing with them."

"Exactly." Victoria's head subtly moved from side to side as if she was observing them. "I just can't see what they're thinking.

"Blocked you?" My gaze bounced from her to Reggie. "Are you sure that's what it is?"

"It's either that," she looked at me, "or they've purposely turned off parts of their systems to walk in this..." she waved her hands in the air, "void."

A void? An empty pocket within the electronic frequencies in the air? No, that was ridiculous.

Biting my bottom lip, I looked back at the androids. Each of their eyes was red and shimmering. That would've been strange on its own. Pairing it with androids who were walking under the radar, this was alarming.

As far as I was aware, the part of the android that allowed their computers to be monitored and tracked was supposed to be untouchable. When I would work on androids and machines illegally, even if they were outside the city limits, I knew there were parts of their computers I couldn't touch. It was either take one of two chances. 1) The android would stop functioning and officially become an expensive and heavy paperweight. Or 2) the government would realize an android wasn't trackable and they would send agents to the location.

Neither of those situations was good and if this was the case, why hadn't Lyons dispatched agents from the building? They were right there.

"Okay, maybe there's something deeper," I said, looking back over at Victoria. "What if they've evolved to do this in an undetectable way? Would that be possible?"

This was something I should know and yet, honestly, I was clueless.

"That's a possibility," she sighed. "A very dangerous one."

Dangerous wasn't a word I wanted to hear today. Androids working irregularly wasn't something I wanted to see. I passed my hand over my face and inhaled sharply.

"If it counts at all, I am not detecting any aggression from these androids," Reggie said.

"I second that," Victoria added.

I glance at the two of them. Was I going to argue with them? No. But in my mind, red eyes were a definite sign of aggression...

"I guess that's the plus side to this weird situation."