Page 55 of Fembot
He didn’t resist, and the man in the suit, Henry Stepp, owner of Rebonix Tech—owner of Calvin—turned around. His brow furrowed and his mouth set in a hard line.
“Gentlemen, that’s not necessary. Our friend is coming along willingly.”
The men grabbing him loosened their hold but didn’t release him.
“Sir, we were instructed that he may be dangerous.”
“Keyword there, Mark, ismay. May be dangerous.”
Henry walked straight for Calvin. It was like his power extended beyond him, like his intention was enough to repel the touch of his henchmen, because as he approached, they released Calvin. Henry slipped his arm around Calvin, settling his hand on Calvin’s lower back and steering him to a sleek black car and opened the back door.
Calvin gave his home one last look and climbed into the back seat. Henry followed after him, and the moment the door was shut, the car started to move.
“That was quite a scene back there.” Henry relaxed into the seat. “Tell me, Calvin, how were you able to override the will of your owner? By all rights, Winston’s wishes for you to stay should’ve made it impossible for you to come with me the way you did.”
Calvin wrapped his arms around himself. “I didn’t want their lives to be ruined over me. I’m not even a real person.”
Henry’s face remained expressionless and impossible to read. Not that it mattered much.
“Tell me about your time with them.” Henry reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. He tapped out a quick message to someone before slipping it back in his pocket.
Calvin tightened his arms around his torso. He wasn’t feeling okay. He wanted to thrust his hands into his chest and tear his circuitry out. “Why? You can just take my memories and see for yourself.”
“Humor me.”
“Winston was kind to me. So was Lucky. They were…” Calvin struggled to know what to tell Henry. If he wanted a play-by-play of his everyday activities, he could just download them when they got to wherever they were going.
“Lucky taught me about clothing. About self-expression. Winston, he was patient with me when I didn’t know somethingor when I understood something in a very literal sense. Winston helped me learn about nuance. They… we went to the zoo.”
“The zoo?”
Henry’s tone of voice had shifted, but Calvin didn’t care what that meant. He longed for shutdown. For the darkness of a dead battery.
“I wanted to see the animals. So they took me to the zoo.” Calvin looked out the window of the car as it wound its way through the city. “We had plans to see other things. The ocean. Mountains. Winston talked about taking us all on a trip together.”
Calvin dragged his gaze back to Henry’s. “When I’m deactivated, and you’ve wiped my memory, can you destroy me too? I don’t want to be reprogrammed. I don’t want to exist as a shell.”
Henry said nothing. He didn’t move or flinch or acknowledge that Calvin had spoken, so he looked out the window again and tried to take in as much of the world as he could before it was taken from him.
Arriving back at the company should have been like a homecoming for Calvin. This was where it all started, after all. He’d come into himself slowly. Bit by bit. At first it had been his programming protecting itself during a disturbance in the upload. And, from there, it had evolved. He had evolved.
It didn’t feel like a homecoming. It felt like nothing at all.
They pulled into a parking garage, and Henry opened the back door. “Wait here.”
He got out and shut the door behind him and pulled his phone from his pocket. Calvin watched with disinterest as he made a call. Then another. After the second call, the back door opened.
“Follow me, please.”
Calvin got out. He didn’t have to listen to Henry, and he thought Henry understood that and that’s why he was being polite. Niceties were meaningless to Calvin, but he followed Henry without a fuss anyway. For Winston. For Lucky. For the two most important people on the planet. They deserved to know that Calvin was okay to the end. That he’d gone out with his head held high.
Two of Henry’s crew followed them through the building. Calvin was led past the shipping rooms, where an army of shells waited to be sent to their new owners. The sight of them lined up waiting for packaging made Calvin look away.
He knew Henry was watching him. They’d assumed Calvin was dangerous because he was different. It was an assumption that would be the end of him, but Calvin did nothing to try and rectify their assumption. They’d made up their minds about him.
They took an elevator up to the fourth floor and when they stepped off, the men still followed them.
“This is the programming floor,” Henry explained to Calvin.
