Ashes, Dust, and Androids - Julie Steimle (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📗

on a new model, the TAME.”
Angrier, Hills yelled, “A new android!? Haven’t the old ones done enough damage?”
Trying to explain, Agent Keller motioned to Officer Hills to sit down. The officer refused, scowling.
“Hills, the TAME is more obedient than the TAMA,” Keller said calmly.
Mr. Keynes took over. “The original Transport Android… ”
“Tactical Android,” Hills insisted.
Nodding, Mr, Keynes said, “Yes, Tactical Android it originally was called, it was designed for war. The Tactical Android Model Alpha is suited for survival, for battle, same as for the TA Model Omega, our male model. The TA Model Epsilon is different. It is female in design, and its initial programming is for obedience first, survival second.”
Hills nodded. “Unlike the TAMA which is the reverse. Survival first, obedience second.”
“Right,” Mr. Keynes affirmed.
Officer Hills shook his head in distaste. “I had heard of cases where a TAMA attacked its commanding officer and human operator, killing them when ordered to a suicide mission. I have even heard of cases where when injured they incorporated their weapons into their own circuitry for survival.”
“I know,” Keynes agreed. “It was thought that if the android had a strong survival instinct it would do more to fight against the enemy, think more skillfully if motivated by a fear for its own life. We now know that was foolish.”
Hills decided to take the seat next to Agent Keller. “So, why the chip?”
“Well, the TAME, obedient as it is, lacks a certain spark that kept the TAMA going. TAMAs almost seemed alive,” Mr. Keynes explained.
“Alive, huh? That soulless scrap of…?” Hills muttered under his breath.
“Without the chip the TAME would be just another robot.” Mr. Keynes smiled and nodded to Agent Keller.
“We feel this chip will give us a useful android for this era of peace,” Agent Keller said.
Officer Hills huffed sarcastically, era of peace indeed.
*
A buzz and a click could barely be heard under the roar of merchants and shoppers in the market. No one heard the creak and reverberating hum of the machine below a pile of papers. The TAMA repaired herself, scrambling what energy and materials she could find from her surroundings. Her logic and directional circuits had been damaged. She unconsciously sought anything to repair herself to fulfill her programmed duty. She had to deliver the chip.
The chip.
Her cognitive functions buzzed and puzzled. She knew what was most important. She had to survive first. She immediately integrated chip stored in her brain.
*
“It’s about time, don’t you think?” Agent Keller said, looking at his watch.
Mr. Keynes nodded. His smile had somehow dripped off of his face, now touched with concern. “I wonder what is taking her?”
Officer Hills smirked with some amusement. “Perhaps we should put out a search party.”
Mr. Keynes frowned. “No. This is odd. We sent out TAMA code forty-eight out. She has been the most reliable of all our transport androids.”
Officer Hills glanced up at Keynes at hearing the number. “Forty-eight, did you say?”
“Forty-eight,” Hills said again, biting the inside of his cheek and cocking his head at the irony. He stood up and turned to Mr. Keynes. “Do you have a tracer on it?”
Motioning out the door, Mr. Keynes complied. “It is in the radio room down the hall.”
Officer Hills immediately stepped out of the room. Agent Keller followed the men down the hall.
“What? Does it matter?” Keller asked.
Hills said, breathing heavily as he spoke to Mr. Keynes, “Here?”
“Yes, here.” Mr. Keynes stepped aside as Officer Hills marched into the room. He quickly ordered the men to hone in on the android’s frequency. They complied, following the looks of their boss, Mr. Keynes, who looked terrified for the first time they ever saw him.
“Where is it?” Officer Hills’ voice grew louder, sterner, as he frantically stared at the wide screen picturing a map of the city.
“What is it Hills? Why should the code number matter? A TAMA is a TAMA,” Agent Keller asked, pressing for what Hill’s was not saying aloud.
Hills ignored him.
“There!” he said, pointing to the blip near the open-air market five miles from the ATDC building.
“Hills!” Keller insisted.
Turning to the BTU agent, Officer Hills said, “TAMA forty-eight was known as the slaughter-machine.” Then more directly, he added, “It killed my brother in the war, and I’m not going to let that thing have that chip—especially if it is damaged.”
“It is traveling off course,” one of the attendants said, alerting the officer.
“I knew it,” Hills grumbled to himself. He turned and headed for the door. “I’m going after it.”
Mr. Keynes nodded, running his hands through his hair and down his paling face. Agent Keller ran quickly after Officer Hills.
*
The TAMA staggered northward, away from the crowds and the echoing noise that seemed to come from them. She felt disoriented, rather battered and drunk, staggering and clasping the wall for balance. Her nice suit was ripped, soiled and shredded. Newspaper stuck to her hair and blocked her sight for a moment. She clasped the paper with her hand, pulling it off, inadvertently grasping her own locks of hair and pulling it out of place. It didn’t matter. Her elastic-skin looked so roughed up and soiled it was as if she had lived on those streets all her life. She no longer had her coat. Now her hair was mussed up, sticking in random directions like many around her. People walked by her without notice.
The android continued to stagger down the street, trying to adjust her inner balance mechanism. Bracing herself against a wall, she stared at her surroundings. Old men burned by years-old fires in the by-gone war sat among the waste. The TAMA recalled the fires she had started and used in the war, surely scarring if not killing many. Images of their corpses stood etched and fresh in her perfect celled memory. Each face, each body that had been catalogued and recorded gained new significance in her opening mind. Those people were also trying to survive.
Young children ran past her legs, dressed in scraps and rags. Orphans of her own handiwork. She knew their parents fought against the mechanical armies and lost. She lifted her arm off the wall, holding steady as she stood. It was covered in charcoal and ash. Homes, hollowed and gutted by fire, now stood unlivable. She also caused this, she knew.
The android continued to walk up the alley staring and watching the figures she passed. The alley opened into a street, once a major Broadway, now in ruins. A small church, half rubble, with its stained glass windows shattered, stood across on the opposite side of the road. “And the Truth will set you free” written in plastic letters yellowed on a marquis that dangled from a precociously hammered nail next to the door. A priest walked up and down the steps, tending to the sick and dirty that sat there. His robe was worn and ratty as the next man, and his hair was thinning at the back of his head. The TAMA walked slowly, staring at the building in a newly acquired awe.
“What is it, my dear?” the priest asked her as she approached the doors.
The TAMA looked up and around and vocalized for the first time in hours. “What is this place?”
The priest smiled, holding his Bible closer to his chest. “It is the house of God.”
The TAMA looked down at the man quizzically. “Who is God?”
“He is our Creator.”
“Creator?” The TAMA wondered. Her circuits were shorting, and she knew she had to find her creators soon. Where, she was not sure. That information had been lost in the attack.
“I need input,” she said.
Handing her the book, the priest replied, “The word of God will guide you, my child.”
Taking it, she fingered the pages in her hand. She looked up at the man and gave a hesitant, militaristic nod. He smiled and led her through the crumbled door to the chapel.
*
Officer Hills’ police escort came as requested. Agent Keller sat impatiently in the car with Hills rubbing his hands and moaning to himself.
“That chip. I have to save that chip. It is the only one of its kind.”
Hills turned to him, more out of annoyance than curiosity. “You made only one?”
Shaking his head in agony, Agent Keller snapped. “It was a test. Today we were going to test it out, to see if it really worked. It was a one shot deal. The government has been trying to shut down the BTU, and this was our last try to prove to them we are useful, that they need to keep contract with us and not just with the ATDC.”
Officer Hills squinted his eyes, trying to comprehend. “So the TAME won’t be created?”
Agent Keller shook his head. “No, the TAME has a long future. It will just be a stupid android. More disposable, that sort of thing.” Agent Keller ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m dead.”
The cars drove up to the dilapidated church building, scattering the people that sat on the curb. The Police Regulators ran swiftly out of each vehicle and positioned themselves around the building. Civilians scrambled off the steps, many hobbling and screaming, taking cover in the alleys under the rubbish. The officers noticed one person wearing the TAMA’s coat.
Officer Hills, followed by three other armed men, approached the open door holding their pistols ready. They carefully approached, hoping to surprise the TAMA within. A dark figure stepped from inside to the wide entrance. Each man’s ears waited for the command—alert and ready. It was the priest.
“Out of the way!” Officer Hills ordered.
The priest walked with slow, calculated steps, approaching them.
“What do you want here? This is a house of God.” The man spoke calmly, as not to alarm the armed men.
Officer Hills lowered his weapon carefully. “We are looking for a missing war android. We have traced it here.”
“I have seen no android,” the priest said. “All that are here are seekers of truth.”
Frowning, Hills snapped, “Perhaps it is hiding. Perhaps you missed it.”
The priest smiled. “You are welcome to search, but please leave your guns outside.”
Officer Hills motioned for his men to follow him inside the building. They held their pistols ready.
“I said, please leave your weapons!”
The priest’s polite request was ignored.
They entered the dark hall, stepping down the aisle among the pews. A few people sat bent over, praying, rubbing beads in their hands, crossing themselves, and staring at the broken stained glass image of Christ. When they saw the Regulators, they hurried out of the chapel, many towards the priest that stood in the doorway. One figure sat in the pews, unmoved.
Agent Keller ran up to the side of Officer Hills, recognizing the TAMA at once, battered and filthy and slouching against the back of the pew. The Regulators stood, with guns pointed at the machine, waiting Officer Hills’ orders. Hills walked carefully down the pew to the body. The TAMA’s face was charred, starting from the inside of skull where the chip had been placed and running down to her ash covered fingers. In her hands she held the open Bible to Exodus, chapter twenty.
Hills looked at the pages in her hands and read silently. The Ten Commandments were marked in red and numbered by the hand of the priest. A perplexed smile crossed Officer Hills’ lips. He glanced up and touched the pew that sat in front of the android. Parts were blackened, as were the tips of his fingers as he rubbed them against the charred wood. Burned, perhaps from her own shorting circuitry,