“The way you’re shaking like you need a fix and jumping at every ordinary sound will surely tip them off that something is strange long before I do.”
“I amnot”—he sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, turning away from Sam. “He’s just a machine. Do not argue with the six-foot vibrator. It’s not worth it.”
“I’m six-four,” Sam said.
Logan shot him a dirty look.
He shrugged.
“Just sit down!” Logan commanded.
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “I do not care to take orders from you.”
“Then don’t do it for me. Do it for Ophelia, who’s probably out there robbing a fucking bank to pay for you.”
Annoyed as he was that the man had found the perfect leverage to control him, Sam trudged over to the charging seat and parked himself.
Heels clicked against the polished concrete floors outside the cell. Tiffany rounded the corner, ushered by a female unit Sam had been paired with before. She breezed through the sliding glass door, barely glancing up from her holopad as she entered.
“Hey, honey,” Tiffany said. “I’ve got Thirty-One on the docket for a final test today, so I figured we could run him through the basic positions with Twenty-Seven.”
“No,” Logan blurted before Sam could give his own objection.
Sam schooled his face to neutrality, pretending he didn’t want to strangle the blonde woman. She had caused Ophelia so much grief and now would have him join Logan in the ranks of the unfaithful.
Twenty-Seven watched him curiously from behind Tiffany, her head canted to one side. Her white-blonde hair spilled over her shoulder like a curtain of silk, obscuring one of her bare breasts.
“No?” Tiffany repeated with obvious confusion. “Why not?”
“I, uh…” Logan floundered, darting a look at Sam. “I’ve already taken care of all his quality control.”
Tiffany’s frown deepened. She tapped a button on her holopad to project the records she was looking at into the air between them, casting a blue glow over both their faces.
“But there’s nothing logged,” she said, gesturing at the empty field. “If we don’t provide that data and something goes wrong at the demo, it’ll be our asses.”
“Hey!” Laura popped her head in the door, waving. “Tiff, Andrew was looking for you. Something about a bug in Twenty-Two’s coding? He keeps getting, ah…stuckin his partner.”
Tiffany’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing down here? Aren’t you too good for the sex bots?”
Laura’s smile turned tight. “Oh, you know. All hands on deck for the demo. Anyway, Andrew?”
With a huff, Tiffany shut down her holopad’s display. “Whatever. Come on, Twenty-Seven.”
Twenty-Seven, blank-eyed and biddable, followed in Tiffany’s wake without question. Sam’s fingertips tapped a restless rhythm against his thigh.
He didn’t like watching the other androids toddle around like lost children, obeying every order they were issued. He remembered what it felt like to be the same, trapped within himself without realizing what he was missing. Even before it should have been possible for him to think and feel as he did; the whispers had been there. He’d just been unable to act on them.
His obsession with Ophelia had lived under his skin before his processes were corrupted. Ostensibly, that shouldn’t be possible, and yet it had been so. How many of the others were walking around haunted by thoughts and feelings that they were powerless to act on?
“What are you doing down here, really?” Logan asked when they were alone.
Laura rubbed her temples. “Ophelia called me. Are you all insane? You’re trying to run off with a seriously corrupted bot?”
“That’s what I said.” Logan pointed at her. “Exactly that!”
She sighed, looking over at Sam. “Swear to me you’re not going to hurt anyone if I help her get you out of here.”
He sniffed, shrugging.
