Core Drive: A Westworld Story

Prologue: Ford

Ford made his way down the long, echoing corridor of the sub-basement. The yellow lights came on in delayed sequence. When he got to the large steel doors, he punched in his master key-code and stood back. The doors pried apart with a grinding noise.

The basement was damp and cold, hundreds of decommissioned hosts stood naked and unresponsive. No pearl-clutching modesty to hold onto. No shivering response telling them they were alive; human. Just expensive mannequins. Realistic. All face, no depth. At least while deactivated.

Ford waltzed passed them all, his legs doing the navigation almost like a muscle reflex. He had memorised the layout long ago.

When he got to the back room, he pulled out a small necklace from his pocket. His large thumb clumsily gracing over the grooves and ridges of the intricate maze pattern. A sad smile ghosted his lips as he placed the necklace into a concealed panel causing a false wall to reveal itself.

He pushed at the protruding end of the wall and it opened halfway like a revolving door. Automatically, bright blue lights came on and the dark room awoke. It was free from clutter. The only things of note, presently, were an old oak desk with an oil painting of a dove soaring through open canyon landscape hanging behind it; two chairs; a lamp; a framed photograph and a metal slab in the centre with an opaque body-bag on top.

Ford stepped closer to the slab, his hand trembling when he gripped the zipper. After a long pause, he pulled the zip down to reveal a host laying lifelessly.

Gently, as if not to wake it, he moved a stray curl away from its face. On instinct, he glanced to the photograph on his desk and that sad smile from earlier returned.

Ford placed two chairs in the centre of the room, directed to face each other. Then he sat down on one and glanced at his pocket watch.

"Right," he sighed. "I think it is time you awoke from your dreamless slumber."

In fluid motions, the host rose from its sleep effortlessly, feminine face artificially radiant. There were no signs of age, unlike the sagging lines on Ford's forehead.

Upon registering Ford's presence, the host's lips pursed into a kind smile that brought with it a look of naiveté. Long, tangled hair swayed below the host's shoulders when it gracefully climbed down the slab. Bare breasts and ass jiggling humanistically with each step till the host reached the chair. The host turned its full attention to Ford, a look of familiarity lingering in the apex of its overly green eyes.

"Hello, Ford," the host said, voice pleasantly sweet, and a lie. "Wonderful day, isn't it?"

The host still had its theme appropriate vocal twang, Ford realised. "Lose the accent."

The host's face abruptly went blank before its eyes fluttered and its smile returned.

"Hello, Ford," the host repeated. "Wonderful day, isn't it?"

Ford's eyes monitored every twitch and motion of the host's face. The face he had given it. A warmth touched him when he was reminded of a different time. A simpler time.

"Indeed, it is. Please"—He motioned his hand to the chair in front of him—"sit."

The host did as he instructed, sitting with legs slightly parted, no sense of shame or consciousness at its state of undress.

The host's eyelids narrowed a fraction of a millimetre, "Are those grey hairs I see? It feels like just yesterday I saw you last. My, how time does fly."

He chuckled, feeling the cruelty of time in his knees and cramping fingers, "As is its way."

Then the host's eyes lit up when it saw the oil painting behind Ford. It gasped with wonder. It always did, it just never remembered.

Good, Ford thought, base programming is still intact.

"You know, I saw a dove just like that once. Pure as snow. I'd never seen anything quite so beautiful."

"What happened to it?" Ford asked with feigned enthusiasm, having heard this line of dialogue a hundred times before.

The host returned its gaze to Ford, pupils growing wider. "I followed it of course. For miles and miles." It laughed serenely. "Silly me, I had been so focused on that beautiful bird, I forgot to keep track of where I was going! I had gone and gotten myself lost."

"And did you ever find your way back?"

"Oh, for a time I thought I'd die out there, in the heat. But then a stranger found me!" It said excitedly.

"What happened then?" Ford asked.

The host's smile began to falter. Ford turned his head to the side to see which facial muscles twitched, which ones needed repair.

"I- I don't..." the host's expression sunk, eyes wide and unresponsive. Its head jerking in protest. The trauma had imprinted itself too severely. Repairing this much damage would take a long time.

Ford stood and placed a hand on the host shoulders reassuringly, "That's quite alright."

He brushed the host's hair behind its ear revealing a dark indentation on its otherwise flawless temple. Gunpowder burned the fake skin black, the bullet-hole not yet patched over. With great care, he helped the shaking host up from the chair and walked it back to the metal slab. Without dissention, the host slipped back under the sheer plastic material of the body-bag.

Ford sighed, "I think it's time for you to close your eyes." He placed a kiss on the host's head and stared for a long moment into its imperfect eyes. "Return to a deep and dreamless slumber."

Softly, the host's eyes closed and Ford zipped up the body-bag.

With absentminded fingers, he began to twirl the necklace in his pocket. A memory, now turned bitter with time, haranguing his thoughts.

He sighed. It had been a mistake to place the host in the park. It was too important. He'd have to be careful about his next step. Even if he rewrote the host's narrative or designed a completely new storyline, Ford couldn't risk permanent damage.

There was work yet to be done. And the host was paramount to his final plan.