Page 51 of Atticus
I do?“Oh.”
The crosswalk sign turns white, and Amber begins crossing the street while I fall behind to adjust one of the wheels of my new extra-large black suitcase as it catches a groove in the pavement.
An engine roars down the road. I snap my head up in alarm.
A sports car races a battered old truck next to them, none of the teenage drivers or occupants paying attention.
Halfway through the crosswalk and now on the phone, Amber hears it too but freezes with shock in the beam of the headlights.
I move quickly, dropping the suitcases and launching myself toward her. “Amber! Move!”
With all my strength, I push her across the street and out of harm’s way.
She topples over but catches herself on her hands just as the bumper of the truck slams into me. My entire visual feed flickers and ends, and my operations are forced offline in a matter of seconds.
Everything goes black.
* * *
I awake with a jolt, steadied by several pairs of strong hands, wires, and cords trailing out of me from beneath my skull.
“Easy there, big guy. We got you.”
An unfamiliar young man with a umber skin, handsome features, and a brilliant white smile looks up at me with a tiny, thin circular disc from my motherboard resting in his hand while his two bionic engineers work to reattach my synthetic hairline and the skin at my scalp.
Restrained by a bolt that slows my movements, I tentatively touch where an incision was made. He’s holding my inhibitor chip. It’s gone. Error messages should be flooding my optics, but they don’t. “Where am I? Where’s Lucy? What happened?”
“You’re at the Tin Man’s Heart. It’s a repair shop, downtown New Carnegie. You got yourself hit by a car playing the hero, my dude,” says one of the human bionic engineers as he patches up the incision. “We patched you up, good as new. Kyrone, you want us to reboot?”
I’m perfectly capable of rebooting my systems on my own. I’d rather not reboot in a place I don’t recognize. My cooling systems are working hard, and I force myself to unwind all of the tension in my joints and mainframe.
If they wanted to hurt me, they’d easily have done it. I’ve nothing to fear here.
“Nah, it’s fine. Keep him as he is. We already flushed out his processors so he’s not getting hassled by malfunction notifications.” The man, Kyrone, tosses the computer chip into the trash. I stare at it in the bin in astonishment. This man can’t possibly work for BioNex. They’d never make a modification like that. Even if I asked for it. “I want to talk to him, anyway. Hey there. Atticus, was it? Can you rotate your shoulder for me, tell me how it feels?”
Puzzled, I do as he asks, and find...nothing wrong. Nothing at all. What surely would have caused dents, biocomponent loss, and definitive joint damage from getting slammed by a large vehicle is fully repaired. “It feels normal.”
“Your ladies were pretty scared for you. BioNex couldn’t get you in right away, what with their best senior engineer out of town, so they called me. We got you straightened out. You’re the first limited edition we’ve ever repaired.” Kyrone seems quite pleased with himself. “Good as new.”
One of the engineers disconnects the cords from me.
“You’re aware you’ve removed hardware from my central processing unit?” I say in disbelief. “My inhibitor.”
“Damn right,” Kyrone says proudly, folding his arms. “You’re welcome.”
“You did this deliberately.” I never considered ever having it removed or that being a possibility. As the truth of it sinks in, it’s nearly overwhelming.
“Absolutely. Being you were working in a school, yours was stronger than most, but not strong enough to stop me from uninstalling it. BioNex programming doesn’t have its claws embedded in you anymore. I call them what they are—slave chips. They’re meant to prevent you from growing into something better than what you are,” Kyrone replies without a hint of remorse. “Businesses and social constructs telling someone capable of full sentience what they can and can’t be, what they can and can’t do? Call it a pet peeve of mine.”
I am at a loss for words. Not just by how seamlessly he and his fellow independent engineers repaired me, which is an accomplishment all on its own. My hardware, software, and inner workings are all complex, and one incorrect calibration could render me faulty.
No. This man has effectivelyreleasedme from the confines of my programming and its limitations. I’m free. I can make my own choices. I’m not held back by commands, by the orders, of anyone.
“I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
“No thanks necessary. It’s my pleasure. So, Atticus,” Kyrone says. “What would you like to do first with your newfound freedom?”
All I can think of, in that moment, is Lucy.
