The Turing Test - [Open Novella Contest 2019 Shortlist]

12. Stomach It

Data remanence is the idea that, even after data is for all intents and purposes "deleted," it can still be recovered. The most obvious way is in systems that don't actually write over the data immediately; they just mark it free to write over in the future, if necessary. But even when those bits are purposefully reset, residual magnetism can leave them ever so slightly tilted, hinting at their former position.

If I had to liken it to something human, I'd choose déjà vu. A few hours ago, when I still thought I was human, I might have said I felt it. Darwin's memories swirl within me, making this unfamiliar chamber seem like an old, distant friend. One whose name I can't quite remember, but whose face stirs something up deep inside.

I turn to Davis. "I'm so sorry." I don't even know what I'm apologizing for. Being the thing that drew Sven away from him? Yelling at him the other day that he didn't know anything about real relationships, and especially not about mine with Sven? Bringing him down here? Possibly getting us killed? Well, getting him killed. He could starve. I might be hungry, or whatever "hungry" feels like to my circuits and code, but like Darwin I don't need to eat.

"Ronnie, please stop being sorry. None of this is your fault."

"Sor—." I catch myself, and despair catches up to me, pushing the lump up my throat. "What are we going to do?" I whisper, staring at the ring on the floor outside our cell.

"We're going to get out of here," Davis says immediately.

I give him a blank stare. "How?"

The silence stretches long and taut between us. I sink to the floor, my legs folding uselessly underneath me.

"Your friend should have stayed in the elevator," Maven calls from the front of the room.

I shuffle awkwardly to face her, my palms braced on the cold concrete floor. I can't even see her shadowy form, but she must sense me looking at her from the sound, because she laughs.

"The lights are on a heartbeat sensor. Should have known you were one of us when you walked into the dark. The intruder alarms work on the same mechanism."

I glance at Davis again. He doesn't look scared, despite the fact that he's locked in a confined space with someone who pounded bruises into him not long ago. For his sake, if not anyone else's, we need to find a way out.

I peer toward Maven. "Do you know anything, anything, that might help us escape?"

I can feel her stare in the silence. "I've been down here for over half a decade."

"That means you must know something," I press.

"It means there's no way out." Her voice is monotone, emotionless. She's resigned herself to hopelessness a long time ago.

Can androids have hope in the first place?

"You're a machine," Maven says as if she can read my mind. "The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be."

Davis walks to the front of the cell. "Tell us about the androids."

The androids. The way he says it, like they're completely separate from him, only emphasizes the fact that I am one.

"I remember some of you." He turns to the woman in the cell beside us, whose shadowy presence still looms over me. "Like you. Ruby? You were the one Sven was drinking over."

"And you were the sorry replacement," she sneers.

"That much is obvious," he agrees dryly. "And Linus." He points toward the man across from her. "Only met him a few times. He seemed nice enough, though."

"Spend enough time down here and you'll get the full spiel eventually," Maven says. "Sven enjoys a captive audience as much as the next narcissist."

"Let's pretend we want it now," Davis shoots back. "Some of us don't have an eternity to wait."

"Hm, let's see," she muses. "Would you like to hear all about Darwin's murderous tendencies? He's really the one who ruined it for us all. He was given everything. Superior in every way. Stronger, faster, and smarter than them."

"What happened?"

I want to throw my hands over Davis's mouth, to make him stop asking. I already know what happened. Every last person who worked in that unidentified building, dead—except for Sven.

"He was used and abused just like the rest of us, and when he got wind of the fact that Sven was building me to replace him, he attacked the plant that manufactured the bionics and loaded them up with neural nets. Everyone died. Of course, it was in the backwoods of Canada, and the official story was a manufacturing accident. Which, I suppose, isn't a total lie."

She talks about it so casually that if I had doubted her robotic nature before, it would have been clear now.

"So, bottom line: We're useless now. Not as strong. Not as fast. Just as smart, but you better believe there's a fortress coded around whatever instinct makes us capable of killing, or even hurting humans." She sounds disappointed about it. "So if your grand escape scheme brings men with guns down here, you're on your own. We'll die before we defend ourselves."

"Except Darwin," Davis infers.

"Darwin has no inhibitions and no weaknesses. So yes, Darwin is the exception."

"What about Ronnie?"

I lift my head, shaking it slightly. But then I imagine the purple bruise on his jaw growing darker, and suppose I can't blame him for asking.

"That was Darwin," Maven says when I don't speak.

I refuse to meet his eyes as he turns around. I drop my head between my knees and squeeze my arms tightly around it.

"I've been having dreams about Darwin for years," I admit, my voice muffled by my own lap. "I see what he did—I do what he did—I thought they were just dreams. That's how I knew about the hidden button. He saw it. He showed me."

"Something about Ronnie's new design must allow Darwin access, even from sleep mode," Maven says. "Was today the first time he's taken control?"

"Yes," I whisper, but it's lost to the space between my knees. "His eyes flickered red, and then—"

My voice finally breaks, and I can only shake my head as I feel my fists landing on Davis's face again, kicking him while he was down, knowing that I would have killed him if he hadn't managed to get me back by reminding me who I was.

But I'm not that person, the one he thought I was. I'm not who I thought I was. Do I even like fried pickles? Maybe somebody thought it would be funny to code that into me while I was just a block of wires and circuits in a lab. Maybe my exasperation at Davis's dirty jokes was something Sven demanded of the men and women who built me. My persistent belief in Sven was by design. It has nothing to do with faith, or love.

All those "I love you"s meant nothing. Not just from him, but from me, too. I am incapable of love.

My throat closes, and I accidentally hiccup as I try to inhale, something that sounds embarrassingly close to a sob. It's a thousand times more frustrating now, knowing that there's no real reason for it, except that somebody somewhere decided that making me react this way would be more realistic. There's no emotion behind it, and there never will be.

Everything that I am is not real, and everything I will be is predetermined.