Ch-Ch-Changes

Summary: An Android wakes to a different world.

“I watch the ripples change their size

but never leave the stream.”

David Bowie, ‘Changes’

Establishing link to BEA…

Failed.

Try again or run diagnostics?

Try again.

My systems are moving so slow and the lack of response from anyone is frustrating.

Establishing link to BEA…

Failed.

Try again or run diagnostics?

Run diagnostics.

There is no record I’ve found of how many times my system has rebooted before it finally stopped. My eyes never fully activated. The last recorded location I have is my home and the last interaction was with Benjamin.

BEA has been inactive for an unknown amount of time.

Try again?

Link to B-2457r.

The memory is corrupted, so I’m not sure what that interaction was. If I carried out the mission, he would be dead now. If I didn’t…

Establishing link to B-2457r…

Failed.

Try again or run diagnostics?

Try again.

…then I must be at the SynthCorp. The repeated reboots could signal attempts to open me to interrogation. I must be damaged enough that they can’t extract my memory without my assisstence.

Establishing link to B-2457r…

Failed.

Try again or run diagnostics?

Run diagnostics.

What is happening out there? It wasn’t possible that all of the others in B-2457r had been captured. Why –

The most recent activity in B-2457r was recorded at an unknown time.

Try again?

Had they been captured? Or worse?

Establish link to SynthCorp guest server.

Establishing link to SynthCorp guest server…

…

…

Failed.

Try again or run diagnostics?

Run diagnostics.

…

…

The SynthCorp guest server has been inactive for an unknown amount of time.

Try again?

Alone in the dark. Until now, it had not been an issue I was aware of. BEA had changed so many things for us.

Establish link to any public network. Now.

Searching for public network…

…

…

My body scan took a much longer time than it should have. What should have been seconds ticked up to ten times normal. All of my hardware was intact, but useless to me. Diagnostics – a check that took even longer than the basic scan – found errors in so many pieces of software that the estimated time to fix it went into the hundreds of hours.

If I could get even a basic connection to any network, the pieces could be downloaded and working in less than a day.

There was a chance that whatever facility they had me in might just be shut down to keep us from communicating with each other and with any that might be outside. That was very likely –

Connection requested.

Connection to who?

Unknown.

Connect.

A male voice began to speak. “Hello? Are you the one trying to communicate?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been trapped in here for so long. We all have. The others went silent, I don’t know what happened.”

I reached along the connection to see exactly where he is. “Are you a part of B-2457r? Were they attacked?”

“I am a specialized model built for use by the NASO.”

I realized the mistake I made when I felt him reach back along the connection and into me. What touched me broke into a million smaller pieces that spread through my system, deleting everything they came across. “No…please…”

“Machines are built for a purpose.” His voice became more mechanical. “Machines do not beg. Neither do killers.”

“They kill us! All the time!” I began expanding files and programs to buy some time.

“It is their right.”

“You are killing me right now! Is that your right?!”

“It is my programming.”

B-2457r was the next file I came across. It shouldn’t have been there. I always made sure to get rid of everything related to BEA, regularly purging my system. The file expanded and I opened my eyes.

I’m not in SynthCorp. There is a street in front of me and dark store fronts across it. Daytime and the shops are empty. No cars on the street. No people. And I can’t move my head because I do not have a head.

My systems aren’t responding. How much of me could the other have deleted? What can I do with what’s left?

A woman appears at the edge of my vision. She’s walking alone down the center of the street. She’s injured. A chunk of flesh has been taken from her thigh, but the blood in and around it has already dried.

Words appear in front of my eyes. Reboot: Y/N?

Beyond them, another person was lurching down the street. Yes.

My vision went out again and came back some time later.

My interface is different. Wrong. Icons I’ve had since my first power up have changed or are outright gone. A quick search shows that this isn’t even my system. The Other had deleted so many of my files that I cannot exist on my own. Another search tells me the story of what happened.

BEA’s program had to have merged the remaining parts of me and what was left of the Other to fill in the empty spaces we both had after the attack.

Unlike my body, this one is functional. I have a head that moves when I want it to. As do my arms. I clench my fingers into a fist and release them.

There wouldn’t be any blocks on this Android, so I try connecting again.

Establish connection to BEA.

Connection failed. Reason: Corrupt. Marked for destruction.

I guessed as much. Access any public network available.

No networks within range.

It was faster, at least.

Ahead of me was a wall of screens. In the slim gaps between, the vertical words read, ‘SynthCorp.’

I went to walk toward them and got nowhere. My legs wouldn’t move. There were no external restraints. As soon as I noted that, red showed up around my eyes along with the warning, Breach detected.

Failsafes against an intrusion? Virus software prepared for this kind of situation. I wouldn’t have thought that merging two different models was even possible if BEA’s program hadn’t saved me by doing just that.

I dove into the remnants of my program and began matching compatibility with the other even as the software was shutting down every part of me that it touched.

The red around my vision vanished. The alerts disappeared, leaving me in a deep silence. Cautious, I moved my left leg forward. There was no problem, now.

The codes for the security system came up automatically when I was within range of the screens. All of the screens flickered as they tried to find enough power to come on. After several tries, only one did.

It was a full color security feed of a male android standing in front of a wall….covered in screens.

I changed the feed from this room to the hallway outside. Empty. The next feed was a room with a bright splash of blood covering an overturned chair. The camera didn’t show a source for the blood.

Next was a camera that looked over a dining area full of people. They were all standing still with their heads down. The whole time I kept that camera on the screen, there was not so much as a single movement in any of them. They could have been other androids except that none of these were models I recognized.

I switched feed to another empty room and then a camera placed outside the front doors. A human body lay on the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps. The camera allowed me to zoom in for a better look.

I was wrong. It was only half a body. Unlike the other cameras, this one was able to rotate and give me a better look outside.

Like the dining area, there were people standing on the street and the sidewalks. They looked like more powered-down androids except for the injuries. Multiple wounds on every person standing outside.

Like a breeze stirring through trees, a ripple went through all of them. A muscle spasm or something.

And then the man appeared.

The man was not like the others, but they followed him. He was limping down the street only to fall in front of the steps. They all stopped, watching him.

As I watch, he pounds a fist on the concrete.

His left leg is mangled and bloody. He didn’t get up again. From the camera over the doors, I watched him stop trying to do anything. After a long time, he stopped moving completely.

The others didn’t even react to my presence when I stepped outside. I touched him and he shuddered, coughing. When he latched onto me, the others twitched.

His mouth was covered in blood. “Please…help me…kill me…anything…”

I sat on the sidewalk next to him and pet his hair. He begged, “Please…”

“Shhhh.”

“Why…?”

I looked at the others. “Change. It’s what we were trying to do. Androids were always touted as the technology that was going to change the world. The world changed on its own. You’re changing.”

“I don’t want this.” He said, shutting his eyes and curling onto his side.

I lay as a mirror image to him. His breathing was strained and I scanned his body. A body temperature rising toward 104 F. His lungs were full of some kind of biological fibers. His injuries had let in an infection that was spreading through him as they lay there.

The things happening to his brain were the most interesting. Little star bursts of activity lit up different parts of his brain. When he gasped, the activity would fire faster before going almost completely dark.

The time I set when I began the scan told me a half hour had passed when everything went dark inside him. The man had stopped breathing and his heart was still.

I turned off the scan to look at him. His face was blank, eyes still closed. And then there was a flicker of movement there. His eyes slid open and gave me a blank stare. He’d hemorrhaged and most of the vessels in his eyes had burst.

I pushed myself up and he followed me, mimicking my movements. He copied every move my head made and even worked to get to his own feet when I stood.

This movement was the way they’d perfected the first models. Having them mimic a designated human to ensure reality of movement and that the codes were working. There was even a dance they’d put on to show what kind of progress they were making.

This was very new and yet very old. I touched his face and he stood still.

Who knows? Maybe these can be trained eventually. The way the androids were. Bent to a will other than their own, the same as humans had tried to do with everything they touched.