Brain Recyclers (Robot Geneticists Book 2) Read online

Gemini blinked bleary eyes. “Ammonia? You’ll kill us both. You… we humans can’t breathe those fumes without special protective gear that I don’t see in evidence anywhere around here.”

  Eve crunched into a bite of apple. When she wiped the seeping juice from the bare fruit onto her pants, her hand came away dirtier than before. Setting aside the remains of the fruit, she found the kitchen faucet to wash up. “Well, we can’t stay put indefinitely anyway. We need a supply of food, not just a cache. Someplace we can break into on a regular basis.”

  It occurred to Eve that Toby22 might be willing to help them. He didn’t live far from here, according to public records. But with so many people after them, how could Eve ask Plato’s friend to put himself at such risk?

  “Southern France,” Gemini blurted.

  Eve shut off the faucet. “Huh?”

  “Occitanie Regional Distribution Hub,” Gemini clarified. “We can get corn, potatoes, wheat, grapes. I’d fancy a nice wine…”

  Eve perked up. “You’ve had wine?”

  Was Gemini more sophisticated than she let on? Sophisticated people drank wine, according to movies. Most of them didn’t wear army clothes like Gemini’s. Movies weren’t always reliable sources of data, Eve had learned, but Gemini seemed to know something of the world on her own.

  “Once or twice. Perhaps. I mean, I drank squeezed grapes. Might not have been wine, come to think of it. No, probably not wine at all. I mean, after all, what would robots make wine for? You and your sisters are all under age, and they wouldn’t waste the stuff at the Scrapyard.”

  Eve’s fists balled up. “Don’t call it that!”

  “Call what what?”

  ”It’s the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins. The people there are just like you and me, but they need a little more help.”

  Gemini pressed her lips together but failed to suppress a chuckle. “What have they been filling your head with? Nora109 was your chaperone. She of all people should know that those miserable creatures are merely attempts at humans. A place with a name as long as the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins needs a nickname, and Scrapyard suits it quite nicely. It’s the rubbish bin for geneticists too guilty to dispose of their own mistakes.”

  Eve backed toward the far end of the transport. “Can we not talk about this?” There was room in Eve’s heart for leeway with this newfound clone of Plato’s, but her attitudes were nothing like those of her heroic genetic brother. Gemini’s creator probably sounded a lot like Eve’s, because Gemini had picked up similar attitudes.

  “Suit yourself. Where are you sneaking off to?”

  “I’m not sneaking,” Eve argued, continuing to slink toward one of the doors at the back of the hideout. “I’m going to program some new clothes. Plato’s got an older model cloth-o-matic. Want me to make you anything?”

  Gemini’s eyes shot wide as if Eve had asked to personally dress her. The subject of measurements hadn’t even come up, and despite Eve’s sisters not seeming to care, many movie characters seemed sensitive about sharing personal data.

  “I’m well enough attired. Though if we’ll be out in the rain, possibly a windcheater. Size parameters eighty-one, sixty-six, ninety-one, seventy-three,” Gemini rattled off.

  “What’s a windcheater?” Eve asked. The size rundown was consistent with a shirt. “And not that I’ve measured you, but wouldn’t that be awfully tight?”

  Gemini opened her mouth without a sound. After a moment she tried again. “Not sure what’s come over me. I’ll be fine without. French countryside ought to be lovely this time of year.”

  Eve shut the door behind her, wondering what was wrong with Gemini. It could have been anything from horrible experiments to drug exposure or genetic defects. Charlie7 had warned her that other than Eve, all the other attempts at humans had failed, even Plato. Some just failed more blatantly than others.

  As advertised, Plato’s cloth-o-matic was indeed primitive. Dead spots plagued the touch interface. Eve had to enter erroneous measurements using the numbers available, then manually adjust up and down until the computer knew her sizes.

  The machine’s preset style guide was crammed with brash, masculine attire consistent with Plato’s taste in movies. The whole library was a Halloween costumer’s closet. Selecting a few more practical garments, the machine spat out Eve-sized versions.

  As for undergarments, Eve was at least able to scan Phoebe’s into the machine for replication. The fit was her sister’s preference, not Eve’s, but the size was right and the warm garments were clean.

  Showering could wait for less urgent times. Eve dressed in the cloth-o-matic room, leaving Phoebe’s soiled clothes on the floor.

  When she emerged, Gemini sat in her sleeveless ensemble, munching apples.

  “You look like a recruitment poster for the women’s motorcycle association,” Gemini mumbled through a mouthful of apple.

  Eve looked down at her outfit. The black leatherette jacket covered a plain white t-shirt. Loose denim dungarees ended in a pair of black, ankle boots. Glancing back to Gemini, she raised a hand and made squeezing motions. The leatherette creaked. “Gloves a bit too much?”

  Gemini waved away her concerns. “Not at all. We’re rebels, aren’t we? May as well throw ourselves at the part.”

  An incongruous thought suddenly crossed Eve’s mind. “Are you making fun of me?”

  Pointing a finger at her own chest, Gemini raised her eyebrows. “Me? Who am I to cast aspersions? I’m done up like an army doll. All I’d need is a carbine and a few grenades at my belt and I’d be ready to assault Normandy.”

  Eve tried to keep track of all the unfamiliar terms. She’d look them up later, rather than get into a lengthy exchange with Gemini over her choice of vocabulary.

  While she couldn’t pin down exactly what, there was something the matter with Gemini. Her memory was scattershot. Her word choices sounded asynchronous with her persona. Eve’s younger sisters all had their quirks, but by and large, they sounded alike. Plato had been raised in a lab but spent years on his own; he’d adopted the diction of the movies he admired.

  Gemini sounded like a committee robot. That was it.

  Eve felt a wash of relief at putting the clues together. Evelyn11 had purposely raised all the Eves with a particular goal in mind. Part of that goal involved the denial of all outside knowledge. Without that overarching plan, Gemini merely sounded like the robots who created her.

  “You need a reboot?” Gemini asked impatiently. “Quit standing there gawking at me.”

  Eve blinked and felt a warm flush in her face. “Sorry. I… uh, didn’t mean to stare.”

  Gemini hopped to her feet and slung the sack of apples over her shoulder. “No matter. Let’s be off. I know where we’re going, so I’ll do the flying.”

  The transport cargo ramp rose at Gemini’s button press, letting in a wash of crisp morning air, scented with dew.

  Eve gathered a few kitchen implements for cooking on the go, then hurried to catch up. “No, you won’t. I locked out the controls with a biometric lock.”

  “There isn’t any such thing,” Gemini protested. There was a hard edge to her voice that told Eve that her companion wanted no argument.

  Fortunately, Eve didn’t need to argue. She stood silent as Gemini climbed into the skyroamer and took the pilot’s seat.

  Gemini fiddled with the controls. She pressed harder. Eve heard the thumping of a woman attempting to spear a touchscreen console with a finger.

  “What’ve you done?”

  “I told you,” Eve explained. “I locked it out. You’re in no condition to be flying.”

  “I demand that you release the controls at once,” Gemini snarled. “I’m fine.”

  Eve had left the question in the air. It wasn’t merely Gemini’s gastric distress that worried her. The larger girl’s mental state was wobbly at best. Fresh from the lab, Eve wouldn’t have trusted herself to fly; at least her present-day self wouldn’t have trusted the frightened, bewildered past-Eve t
o fly.

  Gemini was out of luck, as well.

  “No,” Eve said. “You’re not entirely well. I think—”

  “AT ONCE!” Gemini bellowed.

  At first, Eve was taken aback. She had slept the night with Gemini’s arms around her and never felt unsafe. The hints of an unbalanced psyche merely confirmed her initial assertion.

  Eve dug in her heels. “No.”

  Gemini tried the console again. “When did you even have time to program this?” Her voice rose in ever-increasing frustration.

  A mischievous temptation to lie and say she’d done it under Gemini’s nose warred with Eve’s desire for credibility. “It’s James187’s skyroamer. He’s the one I wasn’t sure I could trust. While he scouted the tram tunnels, I programmed a lockout in case I needed to strand him. All I did when we were in flight was trigger it.”

  “There’s no way you had the time for that.”

  In truth, there hadn’t been. Eve had uploaded the code for a skyroamer biometric lockout during her preparation for escape. Downloading the code from one random point in the Earthwide where she’d stashed it seemed low risk, even while on the run.

  “Believe what you like, but you’re not flying that skyroamer. If you want to one of these days, you’re going to have to rein in that temper. Self-control is the cornerstone of the intellect.”

  It felt slimy to quote Creator’s edicts, but this one seemed necessary. Gemini couldn’t continue lashing out if she was going to remain Eve’s companion. Thus far, three robots had paid with their lives for her lack of mental discipline. Eve felt a duty not to allow any more crystal matrices to pile up on her conscience.

  Also, Eve wasn’t keen on Gemini turning an angry outburst in her direction. Words, she could weather. A woman with thirty kilos advantage, Eve wanted no part of fighting.

  Swearing with combinations of words Eve would definitely need to look up later to fully comprehend, Gemini extracted herself from the pilot’s seat and moved to the passenger side of the skyroamer.

  Gemini fixed Eve with a glare that could boil water. “If I weren’t half starved, I’d EMP this whole bloody toy rocketship and force us both to walk to France.”

  “You mean swim…”

  Gemini snorted. “Shows what you know. There’s a tunnel under the English Channel. Pre-invasion, even.”

  Eve hmm’ed. Intriguing. Still, the skyroamer functioned, and the walk would have taken weeks. Strapping into the pilot’s seat, Eve pulled down the canopy and sealed them inside.

  “I really am sorry about this,” Eve said. “I was lost and scared for a while too, when I was on my own. But now we’ve got each other, and that means looking out for one another. Even when it’s not easy…”

  Gemini opened her mouth to reply. Then she merely swallowed and looked away.

  The skyroamer rose and headed for an obscure French agrarian depot.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  With a belly full of oatmeal bars, Gemini felt inclined to forgive Eve’s earlier impertinence. The two women lounged in an alcove of the Occitanie Regional Distribution Hub. An overhead pipe for one of the rinse systems had a valve for easy access to clean water. Through the grated steel floor, they could watch the hordes of automatons below as they made food for Western Europe—and at least one staple food for the Scrapyard.

  “This reminds me of the day I met Nora109,” Eve mentioned between bites.

  The resourceful young lady had warmed again once Gemini gave up asking for her to unlock the skyroamer. It was difficult, but the longer she maintained her silence, the better Eve seemed to like her.

  “The oatmeal at the sanctuary was watered down and heated up,” Eve continued, making conversation enough for both of them.

  Did the other Eves not carry on their share of conversation? Did Nora109 not provide an outlet for this endless stream of verbiage? Gemini couldn’t remember Eve14 ever being so noisy.

  “Once we’ve rested up a little, I think we should figure out how much we can pack into the skyroamer. We’ll grab some of the industrial cleansers, too.”

  Gemini said nothing.

  “Once our food situation is settled, then we should focus on trying to locate Plato. Despite my Human Committee access, I don’t know where they’re keeping him. They seem to forget all the time that I’m even there. Stuff from the transcripts reads like they don’t know I have access. Except that none of them ever, ever, ever mentions where they’re keeping him, who’s overseeing his captivity, or anything about his well-being.”

  Gemini peeled the wrapper on another oatmeal bar and took a bite. They could dearly use a sprinkle of cinnamon. Even a dash of yogurt wouldn’t have gone amiss.

  “And then we’re going to steal a transorbital, build an army of automatons, and conquer Earth in the name of Dorothy, Queen of Oz.”

  Gemini blinked. “What’s that?”

  Eve crossed her arms. “You’re not even listening,” she huffed.

  Time to anger Eve again. Since it seemed not to matter what she said, Gemini opted for frankness. “You’re babbling, dear. No one listens to babbling. Entirely your fault, not mine.”

  “I’m not babbling. And I wouldn’t have to if you’d talk back.”

  “Wisdom is the ability to think without the thoughts spilling out your mouth,” Gemini countered.

  “Friendship is opening up to someone about who you really are.”

  An icy winter settled into Gemini’s stomach. How had Eve found out who she really was? The girl was watching her like a hunting dog with a fox. All Eve lacked was the menacing growl.

  Gemini’s hand crept toward the vest pocket with the impact syringe. Having to call for help transporting the girl would be a risk but not half the danger that assaulting Eve head on would be.

  “We are friends, aren’t we?” Eve asked. Her thin eyebrows knit together in worry.

  Good Lord. This child wasn’t a devilish mastermind; she was starved for companionship. Gemini stopped reaching for the sedative dose and averted her gaze. “I’ve never had a friend.”

  A soft, warm hand rested on the back of Gemini’s. “I’ve only had two, and Charlie7 is dead. But if you help me find Plato, all three of us will be friends.”

  “Well, technically…”

  Eves eyes lit. “That’s right! You’re his sister. That means you have to help me find him.”

  Gemini’s mind raced. The last thing on Earth she needed was to stand within arm’s reach of a human with a history of ultraviolence. But that was Evelyn11 thinking. Gemini had to agree with Eve, because that was the persona she’d adopted.

  Then again…

  “All right. But let’s not waste our opportunities. We have a data connection right here. This is where we find Plato.”

  Silence hung between the two women while far below, the factory gears ground automaton toil into food.

  “What’s the matter?” Gemini asked. “Had a whole gaggle of arguments lined up to sock me in the teeth but nothing to say when I hop aboard the rescue wagon?”

  “We’ve been over this. We can’t risk—”

  “Less risk finding out where Plato is than blundering all over the globe playing blind man’s bluff for him. If some committee busybody discovers our search, we’ll be long gone before they investigate.”

  Eve held stock still except for her eyes. What those sharp, insightful orbs were seeing wasn’t the world before her, Gemini knew. Eve14 got that way when facing a puzzle that flummoxed her.

  “I should probably run the search,” Eve said.

  “It’s not as if there’s a lone terminal in this whole jolly building. It’s the size of Hyde Park. We’ll run in parallel. Two terminals in shouting distance. Once one of us locates him, yell for the other.”

  Eve gave a curt nod. She never was one to argue once a logical matter was settled. “I’ll walk you through how to—”

  “I’ve used a computer before,” Gemini cut in. “I’ve been on my own longer than you have. Just run along
and get started. Best to pack up the skyroamer first, though.”

  Once Gemini and Eve had loaded a good three weeks of meals into the vehicle, they parted ways inside the factory.

  Gemini weighed how long to draw out her search. Killing time, she idly browsed the news feeds. Within minutes, she was obsessed with every bit of information the official reports could spew regarding Eve’s escape and the search for her.

  The Human Committee was in a tizzy.

  Services for the two EMP-wiped robots had been that very morning. Gemini was glad to learn that neither had been anyone she liked.

  As she watched a video showing statistical projections of Eve’s likely escape routes, Gemini ran a background task on the terminal.

  Eve’s footsteps alerted Gemini just in time to switch her Plato search to the foreground. The celebrity runaway was tilting back a canteen. When she gasped at the end of her chugging, Eve’s breath reeked of grape juice.

  “What’ve you found? I wrote a crawler algorithm and left it to run a while.”

  Gemini was careful not to roll her eyes before turning away from her screen. “Here.” She stepped aside and let Eve look.

  There was Plato. It was a snippet pulled from a private account that a lax member of the conspiracy hadn’t adequately secured. The bear-sized human stalked a smartly appointed cabin that would have cost a 2065 passenger five thousand quid.

  Eve squinted at the screen despite her perfect eyesight. “No… it can’t be.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “That’s just not fair.”

  Gemini chuckled. Of course, she’d known all along where Plato was being held. “Life wasn’t designed to be fair. The world is merely a collection of physical laws. That we exist at all is no small miracle. You can’t expect physics and mathematics to bend such a vast creation into a shape that fits you like clothes fresh from the cloth-o-matic.”

  Eve slumped against the nearest wall. Gemini winced as that priceless head bumped against concrete.

  “I guess there’s nothing to be done,” Eve muttered, staring off into the factory.

  “Right,” Gemini said, flashing a smile that passed unnoticed. “No chance of getting in the very hovership you escaped without getting caught. That’s leaving aside the impossibility of getting out again with their prized prisoner.”