Page 7 of Atticus
Principal Carlisle follows her, her features knitted together and watching the deliverer like a mistrustful cat. She stands back, arms are folded, while the deliverer situates the box near my desk as I move out of her way. The packaging features the minimalist BioNex symbol—a pentagon eclipse—with a jumble of letters and numbers that means nothing to me: BN2065LE.
“Drove all the way from Chicago to deliver this bad boy to you, ma’am.” The driver carefully unwraps the plastic that surrounds the box. She opens the BioNex box piece by piece like a puzzle rather than ripping into it.
“My god,” Carlisle exclaims as the android hidden within is finally revealed. I refrain from a soft gasp myself. “Thatis a robot?”
The deliverer seems to puff up a little with pride, smirking. “Yes, ma’am,” she confirms cheerily. “Y’all are getting a limited edition courtesy of Algrove Schroeder. He wanted to make sure the schools got models nobody else could get anywhere. No other android in the country looks like this cutie.” She raps her knuckles on another piece of box she just removed. “They even made him a ginger so he’llreallystick out.”
I understand Carlisle’s astonishment completely. The bionic assistant currently being unpackaged by the whistling driver doesn’t appear to be anything like a machine at all but 100 percent real, as though he’s a slumbering prince in a fairy tale. He’s just over six feet tall, with an angular jaw bearing the slightest hint of a reddish five o’clock shadow, freckled olive skin, short crew-cut faded hair, and a pair of kissable lips.
Wait, did I really just think that?
“That looks like an actual man,” Carlisle says, resting her hand on her chest like she’s scandalized. “Is BioNex manufacturing machines or people?”
“Yeah, we get that a lot,” the driver says.
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to push past the fact I thought a machine’s lips werekissable.
“He’s fully functional,” the driver continues. “He can cook, clean, run errands, supervise. Any language you can think of, he can probably speak it. He can teach, help with homework, tutor. Hell, he can even play sports if you want him to.”
Carlisle’s low chuckle is borderline derisive. “Well, we won’t tell Mr. Sullivan that.”
The woman pulls out a tablet and streams through several virtual prompts on the glowing screen, then finally clicks a large blue bar labeled “Activate.”
Slowly, gracefully, the android awakens, his eyes fluttering open to reveal a striking pair of white irises. His pupils shutter like a camera lens, dilating before becoming small.
Those cybertronic eyes fix on me and stay there as he steps out of his own packaging as though emerging from a dream. I cannot believe how utterly gorgeous he is. He’s dressed in a gray-and-white tailored suit with cerulean stripes emblazoned on his shoulders, the standard BioNex android uniform.
He stares me down with intensity. Then those lips I’m trying to forget curve into a friendly smile.
“Hello there.” His voice, a light tenor, greets us all for the first time. I thought it would be computer-like without inflection, but it sounds as natural as anyone else’s. “Thank you for activating me. I am at your service.”
“Goodness,” Carlisle mutters, and despite her slight recoil, there’s a mild breathlessness to her tone that betrays her. She’s as taken off guard by him as I am.
“Shall we register the android under your name, ma’am?” the BioNex representative asks.
Carlisle quickly shakes her head. “No, no. It should be registered under the school.”
“We’re still in the process of creating new options for androids to be registered under an organization instead of an individual. For all intents and purposes, he belongs to the school district, but I still need someone to be listed as his owner or handler for technicality’s sake. We can always switch it over later when those updates roll out.”
Put out, Carlisle waves her hand dismissively. “Put Lucy’s information down. She knows more about these machines than I do, and she’ll be dealing with it primarily anyway.”
Hardly. I’ve never owned an android; I’ve only ever seen them. But as it’s my first day, I’m not looking to argue with my new boss. “Sure. Of course.”
I recite my contact information mechanically. Filling out BioNex paperwork is a lot like filling out paperwork for a car. They want to know everything about me—my name, my address, my email, and even my emergency contacts.
A little voice in my head defiantly tells me I shouldn’t have agreed to this after registration is complete. What if there’s an accident or a glitch? Will I be held liable for him? Android repair bills are the last thing I need. I assuage my own doubts by reminding myself this is such a high profile circumstance that there’s no way I could personally be held responsible for the school’s robot. Not in the slightest. I could probably call BioNex directly, and they’d send engineers straight to me funneling down ropes from a helicopter like a SWAT team. From that Schroeder guy’s social media profile—what I remember of it, anyway—he’s definitely eccentric enough to do it.
Still, I should make sure. “What if there’s an issue?”
“Don’t worry,” the rep says. “He comes with a twelve-month specialized assistance package. He can connect directly to our BioNex lab associates if ever there’s a problem.”
That’s a relief. I glance at the principal, who shifts impatiently.
“Well, everything seems to be in order, and I have a mountain of other things to do,” Carlisle declares. “Do you have a handle on this, Miss Warren?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I tell her.
“Mm, good. Call me at my extension or head to the office if you have any questions.”
