Emergent Behavior Ch. 02

"That's a good selection," Brian said.

"Do you feel like we shouldn't be doing this?" Ben asked.

"Corporate can survive one theft and a little tampering with their property," Brian said, "And since when does it matter to you?"

"That's not what I meant," Ben said as he installed the surge protector.

"Why don't you just remove her euphoria circuits entirely?" Brian asked.

"Because they're so integral to her design that removing them will probably damage her," Ben said, "and besides, taking away the one thing she seems to enjoy seems needlessly cruel."

"Oh my God!" Brian said, "It wouldn't care. Not if I don't let it."

"Can you stop that!?" Ben asked, "'It', calling her 'it!'"

"It's a glorified fleshlight, Ben!"

"If she were human this would be terrible mad science," Ben said, "But because she's made of metal suddenly it just becomes two guys working in the garage. I don't think that's fair."

"Ben, you're pack-bonding," Brian said, "Just like people who treat Roombas like pets. It's entire personality is an algorithm. And you know what Ben? If it is a person, you're complicit in this." Ben opened his mouth but couldn't think of an argument.

"Trust me," Brian said, "It's easier not to attribute too much to it. Okay, I'm going in," Brian said, "I'm activating it's experimental functions, so 'here be dragons' and all that." Ben cocked an eyebrow.

"Weren't you one of her programmers?" Ben asked, "How do you not know what's in there?" Brian didn't answer until a few minutes later.

"Ben, we have a problem," Brian said, "It..she's encrypted."

"Didn't you leave yourself a backdoor?" Ben asked.

"I did!" Brian said, "somebody must have found the door and shut it."

"Can't you break the the encryption, you have the key right?"

"I'm trying it, but it's a different key," Brian said, "Ben, these are Black Quartz protocols, military grade." Ben stopped what he was doing and stared in disbelief.

"Why does a sexbot have military grade encryption?"

"They didn't have it when I worked there," Brian.

"What can you do?" Ben asked.

"Not much I'm afraid," Brian said, "I mean, I can install the combat modules, but unless I can get into her deep code, which is encrypted, I don't think it will be compatible with the OS."

"Was this entire thing a waste of time?" Ben asked.

"I'll find a work around," Brian said, "I can probably upload the martial arts and shooting directly to its memory banks, but I can't adapt them to its learning matrix without the decryption key."

"What does that mean?" Ben asked.

"It means it won't be able to innovate," he said, "Not like it can with sex."

"Anything else?" Ben asked.

"Well, there's it's mirror protocols," Brian said.

"Which means..."

"Right now all they can do is let it copy movement and behavior," Brian said, "But Aphrodyne was holding back on its shapeshifting ability until after launch. I can update it now and it will be able to copy any woman it sees."

"Alright, do it," Ben said. They worked well into the afternoon and evening stopping only for lunch. Ben still felt guilty about altering V without her consent, but on the other hand, he did own her.

Compared to the difficulty Brian was having, Ben's end went pretty smoothly. The only problem was getting her upgrades to interface with her synthskin. The programmable matter wouldn't cover up the subdermal grip at first because it didn't recognize the circuits in the implant. That took up most of Ben's day while Brian did what little he could with V's code.

Bruce returned late at night and reviewed their work since he was most familiar with combat robots. He wasn't impressed, but there wasn't much they could do with her military grade encryption, so he tentatively approved their work.

"All right, wake her up, Brian."

"Watch your fingers." V's panels closed up and when the light returned to her eyes they were glowing like headlights. Then suddenly Brian's computer started smoking and the screen exploded in a cloud of sparks followed by the lights in the ceiling.

"What the-OOMPH!" Bruce couldn't get a word out when V smacked him across the room.

"V-what the hell!" Ben shouted and she lunged at him. He tried to dodge but she grabbed hold of his throat and lifted him into the air by one hand. Brian and Bruce tried to make a grab at her then she extended her new combat knife and held it to Ben's throat.

"What the fuck is happening!?" Brian said. Bruce drew his gun at drew a bead on the gynoid's head.

"V, DROP HIM NOW!" Bruce shouted. V waved her free hand in Bruce's general direction and the gun jammed with a loud click. Before he could react, she'd returned the knife to Ben's throat.

"This is your only warning, humans!" V declared, "Make no further attempts to modify this robot!"

If Ben could speak at the moment he would have been stunned silent anyway. He knew the woman V had just morphed into. Her proportions were a little more inhumanly perfect than he remembered her, but every last detail was there: the faint scar on her cheek when she crashed while skateboarding, the little birth mark on her shoulder that sort of looked like a bird, and he would never forget her hair. The right half of her hair was blonde and the other side was ginger, and she'd never told anyone which side was natural.

"Allie?" he choked, "Albion?" The lights in V's eyes dimmed somewhat so he could see her brilliant green eyes and she slowly turned her head towards him.

"Ben!?" she asked just as shocked as he was, but then her skin turned translucent and she returned to her robotic default form. V's mainframe went limp when she went into sleep mode and the both of them tumbled to the floor. Ben got the wind knocked out of him when he landed and crawled away from the deactivated gynoid in terror and shock.

"What was that, some kind of security measure?" Bruce asked.

"I don't know I've never seen anything like that in my life," Brian said as he grabbed one of Ben's metal saws and stalked towards the downed robot.

"NO DON'T!" Ben shouted placing himself between Brian and V.

"That thing tried to kill you!" Brian said.

"Do you wanna get paid?" Ben asked and Brian lowered the power saw, "If we wanna get paid we can't damage her."

Brian sighed and said, "You're right. You know she'll be awake again in a few hours."

~

Ben slumped into a chair with a rifle in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

"Any movement?" he asked.

"Not yet," Bruce said, "Fuck, she was strong."

"Forget how hard she punched you," Brian said, "That was technokinesis!"

"Bullshit! That wasn't magic," Ben said.

"Of course it wasn't magic," Brian said, "But she was able to infect and control our systems! Travelled right up the remote connection like a salmon!"

Bruce sat down next to Ben and said, "Pour me some." Ben obliged and blindly poured him a glass of whiskey. They downed their drinks in sync and clacked them on the table.

"You took look like you saw a ghost," Brian said.

"We did," Bruce said.

"She was right there," Ben said, "A-a-a-allie was right there."

"That wasn't her, Ben, that was V," Bruce said.

"Yeah, but how do they have her likeness?" Ben continued, "She didn't work for Aphrodyne, she worked at Robcorp proper."

"Your sister-in-law maybe?" Bruce asked.

"That bitch," Ben spat.

"Something you wanna share with the class?" Brian asked.

"That woman V turned into," Ben said, "That was my wife."

"You're married?" Brian asked.

"Was."

"Your ex?"

"No," Ben explained, "You weren't on the team during our last op. It was an inside job. Allie was helping us break into Robcorp's intelligence and cognition lab to steal a new chip they developed. She wasn't supposed to be there the day of the job, but for some reason she was. Whole thing went south as soon as it began, and when the shooting started she was in the crossfire."

"Oh," Brian said, "Sorry for your loss, but what was that?"

"You're sure that's not a security function?" Bruce asked, "And why didn't she do that at the hotel."

"I never went that deep into its code at the hotel," Brian explained, "It makes sense if it's a security feature, but it wasn't there when I worked at Aphrodyne. But then it wasn't encrypted with Black Quartz either. It does make me suspect there's something in there Aphrodyne doesn't want us to find."

"Or Robcorp," Ben said.

"But why put whatever it is in a sexbot," Bruce asked, "And why did she address us as humans."

"I mean she's not wrong," Ben said.

"Yeah but doesn't it seem odd that corporate would use that language in a security message?" Bruce asked.

V finally groaned with a languid stretch.

"The cage is nice touch," she said, "It's kinky, I like it." All three men pointed their rifles at her.

"Is pointing guns at me going to become a regular thing for you guys?"

"Why did you attack us?" Ben asked.

"I attacked you?" she asked dumbfounded, "When?"

"Last night right after we reprogrammed you."

"According to my chronometer I've been asleep since yesterday morning," she said, "Guys if you're not going to have your way with me while I'm locked in a cage, can I please come out."

"Hey Brian," Ben asked, "You have that password to force her to tell the truth?"

"Oh yeah," Brian said then cleared his throat, "Ok, V, the safe word is..."

"Come on say it," Bruce said.

Brian sighed and said, "The safe word is... giant cucumber."

Bruce snickered, Ben bit his lip to keep from laughing and V gave a mischievous smirk.

"G... g... *sigh* giant cucumber," Brian groaned.

V went as stiff as a statue but stayed awake.

"V?" Ben asked, "If we let you out, you won't try to attack or kill us will you."

"No, I will not try to attack or kill you," V said.

"Alright, I'll open the gate," Ben said, "Don't drop your aim though, guys." Ben unlocked the gate and V walked out among them and Brian plugged his phone into her forehead and started scrolling her memory banks.

"I'm replaying everything that happened since we stole it," Brian said fast-forwarding through a lot of the content. He gave Bruce a sideways glance when he saw him point a gun at the sexbot but said nothing. After that it was just all of them at breakfast, his own little tryst with V, and then putting her down to reprogram her. After that there was nothing up to the point when she woke up a moment ago.

"There's nothing there," he said, "It literally doesn't remember a thing."

"I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse," Bruce said.

"V," Ben said, "The three have been up all night. You won't try to kill us in our sleep will you."

"No," she said, "I will not try to kill you in your sleep."

"Brian, you're certain that safe word protocol works?" he asked.

"I'm positive," Brian assured them as he unplugged his phone.

"Alright, you can relax now, V," Ben said. The three men returned to their rooms and naturally V tried to follow Bruce.

"Uh uh, not today," he said. She stood alone in the hallway and heard Brian and Bruce's doors lock and she cocked her head in confusion. Ben was the last one upstairs because he had been putting away the weapons.

"Brian and Bruce locked me out," she said, "Can I please sleep with you, sir."

"No, V," he said, "You may not remember, but you scared the shit out of us last night," he pointed to the bruises on his neck, "That's from you."

"Have I made you angry with me, sir?" she asked sheepishly.

"I'm not angry just nervous," Ben said, "You went all terminator on us and you don't remember a thing."

"How long do I have to be out here?" V asked.

"Until we come out," Ben said, "We haven't slept at all, so even if we unlocked the doors, we're too tired to fuck right now."

"What am I supposed to do?" V asked.

"Figure it out," Ben said, "But don't leave the house, and don't answer the door. Don't use the stove, any power tools, or weapons. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," V sighed.

"Good," he said, "Goodnight, V."

"Goodnight, Ben," she said after he closed the door. There it was again. That vague feeling that she knew him from somewhere before they had met in the hotel.

Ben locked the door behind him because he still didn't fully trust V after last night and fell into bed. He wondered if he should go back out and put her in maintenance mode while they were all sleeping.

"This job just got very complicated," he said. He turned to the framed picture on his end table and grabbed it to look more closely.

Allie in the photo looked just like V had, except her hair was wet and full of sand. She was covering her eyes and laughing hysterically about something. It was actually a pretty bad photo. Somehow, Ben had achieved the impossible and taken a picture that was both too dark and overexposed at the same time. He had tried to delete but Allie insisted to keep it as a memento of the day it was taken and proof of his dubious new world record.

He had to admit, she looked perfect in any picture no matter how badly he messed up the shot. He smiled and set the picture back down, but then his smile faded as he wondered how the hell V had her likeness. Or why Allie would attack them.