I am Automaton 3: Shadow of the Automaton Read online

  He took his place in the patio chair and took some consolation in the fact that the only way he would be able to get into the house would be to break his way in. He felt confident that he would be able to suppress the urge to do so, but he didn’t want to tempt fate by leaving himself easy access to the house.

  He thought…hoped that for the night his father was safe. He allowed the rhythm of his father’s heartbeat to lull him into drowsiness and then an uneasy sleep, keeping the primal urges that Carl planted at bay at the fringes of his volition.

  ***

  Elicia sat with her feet up on the desk at the front of the computer lab, lazily paging through a novel as her laptop was searching for kernel mode rootkits in the Planar Mobile operating system. She was about to abandon the novel due to what she deemed poor writing. It was one of those zombie novels where corpses wandered the post epidemic landscape in search of romance and validation with other zombies. And, of course, they were all teens re-enacting adolescent dating rituals and tweeny politics.

  The last straw for her was a love triangle between two zombie boys and a teenage human survivor. Disgusting. She put her digi-reader down on the desk in front of her and considered the empty lab that lay before her under her watch. She enjoyed the job. The campus was a ghost town during the summer sessions, particularly summer session one, and it gave her time to kick back without the intrusion of human interaction.

  Her mind wandered to her blog and all of the FBI activity on campus. Since she abandoned the blog, federal activity had not slowed down. In fact, it had appeared that their presence had doubled. With the internet, there were all kinds of way to track people.

  The FBI was fond of using hyperlinks associated with websites of interest as honeypots to glean IP addresses. So all one had to do was click on a link to her seditious blog, and boom…IP address logged, search warrant obtained, and the Feds were knocking on your door the next day. They were following breadcrumbs.

  Short-wave radio would have been much more difficult to detect and out of the reach of the FBI. Elicia supposed the NSA would have the means to pursue it, but she laughed at the thought and chastised herself for being so paranoid. Besides, she was protected under the First Amendment.

  She had seen in the news that authorities believed that OIL was regaining strength and stepping up their activities. She recalled some incident in Tijuana regarding a possible scuffle with Special Forces, but the government denied everything.

  As she looked out across the rows of vacant computers, she became aware of an electrical hum that made her uneasy. All computers hummed. It was a combination of heat synchs and fans working to keep the dormant computers cool, but this was different. It was more palpable than the usual ambient hum. It was a buzzing…

  …and it felt like she wasn’t alone in the lab.

  Just then, someone crossed her view in the lab, and her skin went cold as she registered who it was. Her illustrious Matt Brauer had entered the lab, about twenty minutes before closing, and took a seat in the first row, the third computer in, placing him front and center before her.

  He didn’t look up. He only grabbed the mouse with his right hand and began clicking, staring at the screen intensely.

  She sat up, pulling her feet off the desk in front of her and nearly sending her toppling off of her chair. Her cheeks burned from her apparent clumsiness, and she straightened herself and looked up to see if he had seen her near accident.

  Thankfully, his eyes were on the screen in front of him, the screen which mostly blocked her view of his face. This meant that his view, too, was mostly blocked.

  She heard Darcy’s insistent voice in her head. Go for it, Elicia. You have him all to yourself. There’s no one else around. You’ll never get a better opportunity.

  But truth be told, Elicia wasn’t sure what “going for it” entailed. She thought about it and quickly came to the obvious conclusion that whatever it entailed it had to begin with a conversation.

  To begin a conversation, she had to get up and walk over to him. The only problem was that she appeared to have lost all control of her legs. As she pondered their frozen state, excuses of why she shouldn’t go over to him began to pop conveniently into her head.

  It was late, and she had to close up soon anyway. So why begin a conversation now? He was obviously busy and didn’t come into the computer lab to talk to her. Leave him alone.

  When he came in, he didn’t even look at her or acknowledge her presence. He obviously had no interest in speaking with her.

  After closing the lab at 9pm, she had to compose patches for the Planar operating system in her dorm room. She had a deadline to keep, and she had already used up her good graces with her supervisor at Planar.

  However, as these very appealing excuses popped into her head, she chased them out and steeled her resolve. She wasn’t going to chicken out this time. Darcy’s voice was drowning out the excuses with success, and Elicia began to will her legs to move.

  She stood up, stepped from around her desk, and rounded the end of the first row of computers, exposing Matt’s profile. He was dressed in a faded blue tee shirt exposing athletic arms and a pair of broken-in blue jeans and white sneakers. Then there was his chin, her favorite feature. He had a strong, masculine chin. A jolt of excitement shot through her at the sight, propelling her toward him with such force that she almost didn’t stop.

  She applied the brakes and stopped just a couple of inches short of colliding with him. He looked up at her startled by her quick approach, smiling awkwardly. “Hi.”

  This was it! She was fully committed. No turning back now. “Hi.”

  He waited, looking up at her expectantly. It took her a moment, but she realized that he was waiting for her to speak. She did, after all, approach him.

  “I just wanted to let you know that I have to close the lab at 9.” Shit. She finally summoned the courage to speak to him and the first thing she did was throw a rule at him.

  “Okay. I won’t be long.”

  Elicia was about to walk away with her tail between her legs, and she began to turn but she stopped. “You’re Matt, right?”

  He looked up from his screen and back at her. “Yeah. Art Appreciation, right? You were in my class with Dr. Hanson.”

  “That’s right,” she said encouraged by his recognition. “I’m—”

  “Elicia. I know.”

  This was getting even better. She was even beginning to smile now. “So, I didn’t know you were taking summer classes,” she probed, emboldened.

  “Yeah, I’m taking Anatomy and Physiology. It’s a tough class, lots of memorization. I figured I’d get it over with.”

  “Smart. That’s what I’d do.”

  “So what about you?”

  “Oh, I’m taking Literature during summer session one. Figured I’d just get it over with. I’m just watching the labs during summer session one.”

  “Smart,” he replied.

  “So, are you working on a project for your class? Because if you are, I can close the lab a little later if you want.”

  “No, nothing like that. I’m just checking my email. The FBI came into my room and confiscated my laptop.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m not sure. They wouldn’t say, but I think it had something to do with this podcast I was following. Some girl on campus has been railing against the government and all of the surveillance they’re using on the population.”

  Shit. Shit. Double shit.

  “Oh, I’ve heard something about that,” she answered, trying to sound as casual as possible but probably overdoing it. “Tronika, right? So what do you think?”

  “You mean about what she says?”

  Elicia nodded.

  “I think she’s right. In this digital age there’s a million different ways the government can track what any John Q citizen is doing on or offline. It’s not just the internet. They can track cell phone or mini-com usage, credit cards, digi-lock access to tell where you go and when y
ou are or aren’t home. They have surveillance drones patrolling the skies, armed no less.”

  Elicia frowned. “Yeah, I heard about that thing in New York City. So there’s something to this podcast? What about the girl who does it? The University is stopping short of calling her a terrorist. I think ‘seditious’ is the term they are using.”

  Matt was now turned toward her, and he looked fired up. “I think she’s brilliant. She seems like one of the few girls on campus who has any kind of original thought going through her head. And, let me tell you, she’s got balls. Big ones…”

  She was in love. As she listened to him go on about her, her grin widened to Cheshire Cat proportions.

  “…the FBI has been combing the campus, but she’s announced that she’s dropped off the grid, which sucks. People need to hear what she has to say.”

  This was it. This was her chance. “Well,” she looked up at the clock, “I have to close up the lab in a minute, but I was wondering if you would like to grab a cup of coffee at the café. I think they’re still open.”

  His expression suddenly changed, the enthusiasm from discussing the podcast draining from his face, replacing it with an awkward smile. “Oh. Well, I have to get going. I have lots of studying to do.”

  “Well, maybe another time then. You tell me.”

  He stood up. “I-I’m going to be very busy this session. It’s a heavy class. Won’t have much free time.” He was now backing away from her, making his way towards the door. “See you later.” He turned and left.

  Elicia was still standing there by Matt’s computer, the reality of his blowing her off still registering. The room suddenly felt like it was one hundred degrees and she felt strange being so embarrassed in an empty room.

  She listened for Darcy’s voice in her brain for some words of support or encouragement, but apparently, it too had been rendered speechless. Great. Just great.

  When she heard Matt rave on and on about Tronika, she forgot that he had no idea she was Tronika. The fact was Matt was interested in Tronika, and it was clear he had no interest in her.

  She immediately became jealous of her now defunct avatar, and she was glad Tronika was dead (so to speak). She wondered what image of her guys like Matt conjured up in their immature little minds. She imagined raven black hair, leather, and whips and such.

  She shook her head, clearing the image out, and turned off the power strips at the end of each row of computers, the incremental noise reduction making the peculiar hum that was detectable before only more apparent. However, strange buzzing was the last thing from her mind. She just wanted to lock up the lab and get back to her room.

  She walked through the quadrangle alone and across campus back to her apartment. She absent-mindedly slammed the door behind her, dropped her bag on her bed, and sat down in front of her computer.

  She was in no mood for writing code. Her interaction with Matt seemed to be a vacuum, sapping her enthusiasm as well. Rejection never felt good, which is why she tried to avoid social interactions with the opposite sex like the plague.

  She switched on her computer, paused, and then switched it back off. Planar would be disappointed, but they would have to wait. She walked back over to her bed, placed her bag on the floor next to it, and lay down with an awful heaviness of body and soul.

  What was the point of all of this anyway? Maybe her sister was right. Maybe she hid behind all of this shit—the podcasts, the blogs, her side jobs—to avoid her discomfort with people, particularly boys. It was a crutch that she was beginning to grow tired of using.

  She needed to learn how to socialize with the opposite sex. She had to realize that small talk was not stupid or useless. It was a way people connected. Social media and technology were great for sharing ideas but was incompatible with chemistry and vibes and all of that horseshit Darcy droned on about.

  But that was just it! Maybe it wasn’t all horseshit. She had to start realizing that. Really realizing it, not just recognizing it on an intellectual level. Dammit, it was time to stop thinking and start doing it. For God’s sake, Darcy was no rocket scientist but she knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

  Elicia realized that she had made it more complicated than it actually was, putting it up on some kind of pedestal, and therefore placing it out of her reach. She had psyched herself out.

  She lay there angry at herself. It was time to stop blaming all of the guys on campus for being superficial and stupid. She was the one being stupid. Resigned to her failure with Matt Brauer and resolved to do something different, her last thought was that she was going out to the local bar tomorrow night and she was going to force herself to flirt with guys.

  ***

  Luka Kojic tossed and turned in the night with the sensation that his blood was literally burning in his veins. He wanted to tear his skin off for relief, and he thought of his parents and sister as they were years ago before they were slaughtered in retaliation by Serbs in Bosnia.

  He wondered if the young girls ripped from their beds went through as much agony in the rape houses as he felt now, for he too felt violated. Kafka had invaded his body and changed it somehow, and Kojic knew that it was never going to be the same again.

  He fingered the bandage on his neck as he wondered if Farooq and Al Razi felt the same way. Kojic’s wife, Marina, stirred next to him, shaking the bed. In her sleep she reached out for him, lightly stroking his forearm with her fingertips. He became aroused and hunger for her welled up inside him.

  He reached out for her and placed his right hand on her arm. She stirred again and as he applied pressure, her eyes opened and met his in the dark. She reached out and touched the side of his face, slick with sweat, with her hand.

  As he rolled over on top of her, she rolled on her back and received him, the two of them moving in one fluid motion like only a married couple who knew each other could.

  As he entered Marina, they began to squirm together in unison, the rhythm slowly building momentum and picking up speed. His fever began to worsen and his hunger exploded into frenzy, feeling like it would never be satiated.

  He began to bite her neck gently, the soft skin between his teeth feeling right, and she scratched her nails gently down his back. Pain melded with pleasure as they wrestled in the sheets.

  He slid his hand over her face and clamped down over her mouth and nose. She was initially startled by the gesture, as it was new in their repertoire, but she began to feel the effect of the air depravation. She felt her lust rise up in waves and the rush of an impending orgasm when she needed air.

  She placed her hand on his wrist, a sign to let go so she could breathe, but her eyes widened in terror when she realized his grip was not relenting. She began to squirm under his grasp, shaking her head from side to side, but his grip on her face only tightened as sweat rained down from his face onto hers.

  Her panic only fueled a lustful rage that he had never felt before. He had felt the two sensations separately, but never in synergy like this. As his gaze met her eyes, wild with the instinct for survival, it felt like a new level of intimacy they had not yet experienced. However, this moment was interrupted when she bit down into his hand hard enough to cause him to release her.

  Outraged by her act, he slapped her across her face so hard it made his own ears ring. She cried out in horror, “Luka!”

  He struck her two more times on the face. Then he jumped off of her and backed into the corner, panting as if he would never catch his breath.

  She sat up clutching her eye and only stared at him in incredulous terror. She rolled off the opposite side of the bed, ran into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her.

  As he heard her lock the door, he slid on his back down to a crouching position and tore at his receding hair with his hands, digging his fingernails into his scalp.

  He all at once became ill, physically ill, as guilt became shame. This was not the first time he had ever struck Marina. He had many times before, as was his right as a man. His fath
er had done so with his own mother right in front of him on many an occasion.

  But that was right. It was not undeserved. He did not indulge his wife like American men did. They pampered and forgave, and the end result of their mercy was spoiled wives who weren’t fit to live in a man’s home.

  This time Luka knew he crossed a line. Violence had no place in the bedroom as part of pleasure, but in the moment that had just transpired, he felt pleasure and punishment to be one in the same. Depravation and climax, two sides of the same coin. His infliction became foreplay to a greater need…murder. The idea felt foreign and degenerate to him, yet it was planted in his mind and took root.

  “Marina,” he called out. He could hear her trying to suppress sobs on the other side of the door. He so badly wanted to apologize. It was normally bad form for a man to apologize to a woman, but in this case warranted. That bastard Kafka had planted this in him. He infected him with this poison.

  Luka got up and walked barefoot over to the closed bathroom door, leaning on it. “Marina, I am sorry.” He did not know what else to say.

  But his apology must have had some kind of impact, because he heard her sobbing slow and eventually downgrade to wet sniffling.

  “Marina, I am sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I think I am sick.”

  There was silence on the other side of the door. She was listening. That was something.

  “There is no place in our bed for such things. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  The door slowly opened, and he stood up so that he wouldn’t fall in. She stood before him with a puffy face and a swollen left eye. Normally the sight of this did not move him, but tonight it made him sick with remorse.

  “My Marina. I am so sorry.” He reached out and gently placed his hands on either side of her face. She let him, but her body tensed with anxiety. She knew better not to resist.

  “Why?” she whispered, her mouth trembling as she was on the verge of tears. “Why, Luka?”