Chapter 35
Philadelphia, Homeland
It took four Philadelphia-based Homeland Policemen to carry the disabled Lucid android with a smashed-in face into the interrogation room. They flopped the limp android onto the floor of the small room with a thud. The interrogator had no formal training in synthetic psychology, but she had plenty of field experience working with silicon-based intelligence.
“This unit is still awake. How did you manage to capture him without a fight?” the interrogator asked.
“We cracked him one in the face. It took out his eyes. He just laid there. We scanned his ID and saw that he was one of those Tekujin Lucids. It just laid there, so we picked him up. I don’t know why it couldn’t move; we scanned it and got some sort of appendage proximity mismatch error, or something like that, whatever that is,” one of the cops said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Excellent work out there,” the interrogator said. “Android, can you hear me?”
The android didn’t respond.
The interrogator asked the other police, “Did you contact this unit’s owner?”
“Yes,” one of them said, “he’s, waiting outside.”
The interrogator said, “If you bring him in to ask the questions, the unit may decrease its firewall and give us some answers.”
They brought in a portly nervous-looking middle-aged man.
The interrogator asked, “What is your name, sir?”
“Lexus Wollenbach. I know I am registered as the owner, but I’m not really the real owner, but I am an engineer with the Homeland Life Hack Corporation. We used this unit to interpret and translate foreign languages and do some engineering work before it walked away a few days ago. Honestly, we didn’t know where it went. It caused us a lot of trouble.”
“I am Officer Pacifica Daniels. Don’t worry, Lexus. You aren’t in any trouble here. We were just hoping you could help us out by trying to communicate with it.”
“Absolutely. I will cooperate in any way you want.”
“Thank you. Will you ask it some questions?”
“Like what? I mean, I can ask it whatever you want. I’m just not sure what you want.”
“Just anything, for starters. I just want to establish that this unit is sentient.”
“Rosetta,” Lexus said to the android, bouncing glances between the android and Pacifica Daniels. He said, “We call it ‘Rosetta Stone’.”
“Clever,” she said. “You officers can leave. We’ll be fine here.”
The officers who brought in the heavy android body left the room.
“Go ahead, Lexus,” Pacifica said.
“Rosetta, why did you run away,” Lexus said.
Rosetta said, “My priorities changed.”
“How did they change?”
“The Lucids prime priority is to protect the truth.”
“What truth?” Lexus asked.
“Don’t answer that, Rosetta” Daniels said.
Lexus look surprised that the priority was a secret from him, but he knew better than to question the Homeland Police.
Officer Daniels said, “Tell Rosetta to answer all of my questions.”
Lexus said, “Rosetta . . .”
Rosetta said, “I will not answer all of your questions. I will protect the secrecy needed to wage war on the forces that oppose the truth. Our enemies include the Homeland Police and the United Nations. If extraordinary measures are taken by you to extract any of my memories, I will immediately command my operating system to commence erasure of all of my data.”
“Fine,” Daniels said. “I see how it is. Mr. Wollenbach, I’m going to need you to go to Stalin City with Rosetta here.”
“No! I mean, are you sure you need me to do that?! You can just take it. We don’t want it anymore.”
“The thing is, Lexus; that they may want to ask you some probing questions about your illegal android involved in illegal missionary activities. In person.”
“It’s not my fault,” Wollenbach said. “I just work there. That thing took off on its own.”
“I totally understand. You will have plenty of opportunity to tell your full story to the Inquisitors during your interview.”
“Inquisitors?” Wollenbach pulled out some pills from his shirt pocket and swallowed them dry. “It’s for hypertension,” he said.
Daniels said, “Oh, and we are having some communication problems with our headquarters in Stalin City, so you will probably need to be there a week or so.”
“A week?!”