Duplicate Minds

Eight

Rajeev awoke the next morning with the same troubling questions on his mind. As his mind cleared, he summoned Daniel to check his schedule.

"You don't have anything scheduled for today—other than physical therapy, of course."

"Could you send a message to Dev asking if he'd care to join me after my appointment?"

"My pleasure. Here's your message—"

"I'm sure it's fine, thank you. Go ahead and send it."

He nodded. "Very well. I've sent the message."

Dev responded a couple minutes later, saying he'd meet Rajeev at the end of his appointment, then take him up to his office where they could talk.

At physical therapy that day, Rajeev found he was making progress. He could walk for a few minutes without his walker, although the longer he pushed himself past that timeframe, the more he began to falter. Brian was right—he should be completely rehabilitated in a week's time, although Rajeev thought "rehabilitated" was a bit of a misnomer, since this was his first go-around in his current body; if anything he was being "habilitated."

As he was leaving the rehab facility he ran into Dev waiting outside in the hall.

"You didn't have to wait out here," he said. "You could have come in and had a seat while I finished up."

"I didn't want to disrupt your appointment. I take it it went well?"

"It went great. I can walk on my own without the walker now . . . a little bit, at least."

"That's great, dad! Care to demonstrate?"

"Ehh . . . I think I'll stick with the walker for now until I make more progress."

"Probably a wise decision."

Dev led him to his office. This time, he sat down behind his desk and offered Rajeev a seat across from it.

"So. What did you want to talk about, dad?"

"I'm making great progress in physical therapy. Like I said, I should be done in less than a week. So I was wondering what the next steps are as far as leaving. I mean . . . what's life going to look like on the other side? I'm not going to be able to work. I'm not going to be able to live a normal life."

Dev's brow furrowed with concern. "Dad, I don't want you to worry about any of that. I know you'll be done with physical therapy soon, but I think it's best if you just stay here for the foreseeable future—for the very reasons you just stated. It won't be too much longer until we're able to get you a better body that's more recognizably human. Besides, if you wait until our androids officially hit the market, all the publicity will make people more comfortable with the sight of someone such as yourself walking around. In fact, you may even turn into something of a minor celebrity—one of the first people to ever undergo this revolutionary procedure."

"That's all well and good, but I'm not asking to move out for good just yet. Can't I just arrange a trip to see Sarah and Mira?"

"Tell you what. Why don't I get in touch with mom and Mira and arrange for them to visit you here?"

Rajeev wanted to get out of the lab as soon as possible, but he didn't feel he could get anywhere arguing about it. He was beginning to rethink Brian's claims that NLT wouldn't let such valuable tech leave the premises.

"I guess that would be fine."

"Thanks for being flexible, dad. Anyway, I've got a lot of work to get to today. Can I help you with anything else?"

"That's everything. Thanks again for meeting with me."

"Of course. I take it you don't need any help getting to your room, what with all your recent progress?"

"Uh . . . yeah, that's fine. I'll manage." He wheeled his walker onto the elevator and returned to his dorm.

***

"I'm growing concerned, Daniel."

Rajeev was sitting upright on his bed, a hand on his chin as he contemplated everything he'd learned in the past two days. Daniel, standing against the wall boasting his near-perpetual smile, tilted his head. "Why is that, Rajeev?"

"I think my son has been led astray by the lure of money. He touts my accident as the impetus behind the founding of this company—and that may well have been his initial motivation. But it's clear he's accumulated a great deal of wealth and power for all his effort and I fear he's become addicted to both."

"As Lord Acton said, 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely.'"

"My fear exactly. But what can I do about it?"

"Dev is your son. Your loved one. You care for him, which means you care about his well-being. If you think he is going down a dangerous path, is it not your responsibility to do something about it?"

"I don't think it's quite that simple."

"Why not?"

"The path he's headed down isn't as demonstrably bad as if, say, he'd become addicted to drugs. Most people would aspire to the same success he's achieved and the continued success he aims to achieve: To change the world, technologically speaking, and accumulate a vast amount of wealth—enough to buy whatever one's heart desires, and to do whatever one dreams of doing."

"But you believe that ultimately the lifestyle he's prioritizing now is to his detriment."

"I believe so, yes. He seems to be putting family on the back burner. I don't think he talks to Sarah or Mira nearly as often as he implies he does. And he's at the age where he should be starting a family, yet the things I saw in the tabloids yesterday . . . well, I don't particularly trust tabloids, but I do believe they tend to exaggerate stories rather than manufacture them out of whole cloth. He may not be a playboy per se, but it's clear he has no intention of settling down anytime soon."

"And you don't think there's anything you can do to set Dev on a better path?"

Rajeev pondered the question. Perhaps it was old-fashioned of him, but he'd always considered himself a family man—not out of a sense of tradition, but rather out of a steadfast belief that a properly-functioning family unit was one of the greatest forces of good in the world. He hadn't always lived up to that ideal, but he'd always strived to. His familial ties to Dev had been prematurely severed after he'd gone comatose, but perhaps Dev could still be steered down the right path through his relationship with his mother and sister.

"Daniel, are you able to look up Sarah and Mira Sundaram's phone numbers?"

"One moment." There was a pause. "I have the number for one Sarah Sundaram, but I could find no phone records for Mira Sundaram."

That seemed unusual, but maybe Mira had an unlisted number. He was sure Sarah would be able to give it to him.

"So how would I go about placing a call?"

"Outgoing calls are prohibited."

Rajeev couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "Outgoing calls are prohibited? What do you mean?"

"All outgoing communications use Next Level Technologies' network, but you've been blocked from any external communication. You can only call numbers within Next Level Technologies' own network."

"Just me? Or have other people's communications been blocked as well?"

"I can't say. All I know for sure is that yours have been blocked."

Rajeev could somewhat understand his son's reluctance to let him leave to visit his family. It might be a bit of a shock to them to see him as he currently looked. And the fact was, he did represent a huge investment on the part of the company and it made sense that they couldn't let him leave without being accompanied by some kind of security.

But blocking his phone calls and other forms of outgoing communication? Not only was it not right, but it seemed suspicious as hell. It seemed Next Level Technologies had become a prison for Rajeev and that meant one thing.

He had to break out.