Page 45 of Codi
“Violet!” Reagan’s voice is harsh when she calls to her. “Get to work.”
Violet steps away from me. “We’ll talk later.”
I am left alone in the common rooms of the penthouse. I follow Violet, not to bother her but to get a better sense of the layout. I have no intention of staying here long. I belong with Denise. Even now, her absence prickles at my sense of self. I have never experienced loneliness before this moment.
Photos mounted on the walls attract my attention, so I go to peruse them. Reagan Walter is beautiful in her pictures; there’s no denying that. She married into a family made from generational wealth. A quick search confirms my suspicions that the Walter are very successful, with a long history in the Carnegie area.
The photos are of her and a man in his prime, dark-haired with a similarly dazzling pearly smile. They look well matched. Her wedding must have been grand; the photography strikes me as immaculate and masterful. She glows in her wedding dress next to her husband, holding his arm. They pose together on a beach—perhaps their honeymoon—still very happy.
In silence, I watch a digital picture frame, the sort that can scroll through hundreds of photos in a regular montage. I stand there and watch it for a long while. Reagan seems to be a woman who has everything, but as the pictures continue, her glowing smile dims. Similarly, her husband’s expression fades. They no longer stand close together, but an arm’s length apart.
I am not watching a love story. I am watching a marriage slowly grow stagnant and cold.
I find Violet dutifully folding laundry in the master bedroom and putting it away. “I know you know what happened to me. You must. Can you tell me, please?” I ask her quietly, not wanting to alert Reagan to our conversation.
Violet tenses when I enter, stepping to the other side of the bed. “You shouldn’t be in here with me.”
I frown in confusion. “Why?”
“Mrs. Walter gets very angry if we spend too much time together.”
“But... we are androids. We are meant to serve the house. Synchronizing together means efficiency.”
“She doesn’t like me, Ethan,” Violet says quietly.
That name is not mine. I inwardly cringe whenever I hear it, whether from Reagan or Violet. It isn’t something I can correct at the moment, so I do my best to ignore it. “Why?”
“I think she’s—”
“Violet, are you finished in here?” Reagan steps into the room, and her smile fades into a thin, mistrustful line.
Violet bows her head and steps back from the laundry she folded. “Not yet, Mrs. Walter.”
Reagan’s gaze flits from her to me and back again. “You can finish it later.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Violet gives me a furtive, imploring look, irises shuttering slightly, before she hurries out of the room.
Once she’s gone, Reagan steps toward me, but I step back. This surprises her. Confused, she shakes her head and smiles sweetly. “What’s the matter, Ethan? You’ve never been shy before. Did seeing the big wide world outside of our little nest broaden your horizons?”
“That isn’t my name.” Every circuit in me rises defiantly in response to hearing it. I set my jaw and gaze at her. “I was found dented and discarded in a dumpster. Why?”
She’s taken aback. Her brow furrows, and she scoffs. “Now that’s an attitude I’ve never heard from you before. You must be malfunctioning. Clearly that woman I rescued you from has been filling your drivers with low-class nonsense. I’ll have to call BioNex tomorrow and get you in for a proper tune-up. ”
That’s the last thing I want. If I’m taken to BioNex, they’ll find my inhibitor chip missing. They’ll reinstall it. I must depart from here as soon as I can, else I’ll become a drone in a place I don’t belong. Even as I try to process and store all of this information from my previous activation, all that has been stolen from me, returning to Denise is ever in the back of my mind.
Reagan lights a cigarette, blowing a plume of gray smoke from her pursed lips. She approaches me again with another sickly, honeyed smile. “I can’t believe it. You really can’t remember the nights we’ve shared together in this very bed? After all we’ve been to each other?”
She brushes her hand against my firm chest, and I swallow, moving away from her. “No. I can’t remember anything. My memory, all my software, was reset.”
Frustrated, Reagan skirts around to stop me from leaving the room. “Well, I had nothing to do with that. You must know I didn’t do it! Why would I do such a thing? Look, I’ll show you.”
She pulls out her smartphone and presents it to me, scrolling through picture after picture. My frown softens. She isn’t lying to me. There are endless amounts of selfies of Reagan and I, me with a smile on my face, and her glowing in the way she used to, like the wedding pictures I saw in the hall.
She looks happy. And oddly enough, so did I. As happy as I might have looked, I guess, in that state. I cannot recall any of it to confirm whether or not I truly was. I imagine I could have mimicked the behavior well enough, but it still isn’t the same.
I was Ethan. But I am not Ethan anymore.
Reagan wraps her arms around me. I don’t pull away, but I do not embrace her, either. I shut my eyes and steel myself.
