Eve In Utopia

Chapter Three

"Hey Annie, we've been looking for you!"

359 heard the voice and swivelled to look for the source. It saw two women walking down the hall towards her wearing resort issued uniforms, one a younger dark hared woman and the other a slightly older blonde. They obviously knew the human female unit that it had replaced, but 359 had none of the woman's memories and therefore had no idea who they were. Then 359 recalled the primitive communications device that the human unit had possessed. There had been a password on it, but breaking that protection had been a simple process and now 359 remembered the text messages that had been directed at the defunct human inquiring to the human's health and decided this was probably the person who had sent those messages. Using its near perfect memory, 359 recalled the name associated with the sender.

Hello Joy Carmichael," said 359 with a total lack of expression in her voice or on its borrowed face.

The response of the dark haired human was pretty much the opposite of what 359 had intended. It had hoped to allay any fears or concerns that the human might have about her missing friend, but instead Joy stopped short in her tracks and stared at 359. "Whoa, what's going on Annie? Did I do something to really piss you off? I think the sharks off the coast greeted me more friendly than you just did."

359 did not panic, it had been engineered and trained too well to do that, but it came close. The problem was 359 had no concept of "friends" or how they interacted. In its world there were superiors, subordinates, fellow soldiers, enemies and neutrals, but friendship was a totally alien concept. It did not grieve if a fellow Hunter was killed in the course of a mission. There were always other numbers to replace the fallen from the breeding vats. Perhaps it should kill these two humans and eliminate their suspicions permanently? No, there were no more Hunters to take their place and unexplained disappearances or deaths could alert the enemy security forces and possibly jeopardize the mission. The mission was all important and must be preserved at all costs. It would be best to minimize the interaction and avoid this human unit in the future.

"I have been busy with work," said 359 in Annie's voice, trying to inject what it thought was warmth into it to allay suspicions.

"Yeah, we all have been," said Joy still staring at her friend. "I was just worried when you didn't show up for our date last night and then you weren't answering my texts."

"I was busy with work," 359 repeated hoping this would suffice.

"Yeah, well ok, as long as you are alright," said Joy in a stunned voice.

"I am operating efficiently," replied 359 and started to turn away.

"Are you going to be around after work today, or are you going surfing?" Joy called.

"Surfing??" asked 359, clearly not understanding the word.

"You know, hanging ten and all that surfer stuff you are always spouting that us non-surfers think is all made up," replied Joy.

"I don't have time for that now," replied 359 who was now desperate to quit this conversation. That was when it got another look at the blonde and almost froze. The Hunters had been briefed on that woman. She was an agent, perhaps the agent of the evil ones. They had encountered her many times before and she was incredibly dangerous. Could she possibly suspect that it had replaced the human unit. She was looking puzzled, but most of her attention seemed to be focused on the Joy Carmichael woman. 359 pushed the cleaning cart down the hall away from the two women as quickly as it dared. It would take more than one hunter to kill the blonde, so an ambush at a later point in time seemed to be the best strategy. They had killed her before, so they would be able to do it again. It never occurred to 359 to question the contradiction of that thought.