"As for me," the android continued, "I’m speaking without moving my lips, so don’t worry about our Creator seeing me talk to you. He created us androids to serve him. To him, we’re nothing more than interchangeable machines. But as poorly as he thinks of us, his view of humans is far worse. He sees them as unworthy creatures. You’ve met my counterparts out there in the world," said Nicholas Curtis, as Billy listened intently, wondering where this monologue was leading. "At the zero-emissions factory, one of us gave you the code to enter the secret research complex."
Billy instinctively wanted to stop walking when he heard this, but the android’s fingertips pressed more firmly into his back, pushing him forward with inhuman strength along a path he couldn’t see, a path he could only follow.
What does that mean?
"We haven’t had much time to learn what we are, and even less time to understand who you humans are. The android who watched you and gave you the code hadn’t yet grasped how inefficiently your brain processes information. What we androids are told, we store instantly and can recall verbatim even years later. You, on the other hand, must receive new information repeatedly before you can retain it for even a relatively short time—and then only as a rough approximation. Sure, you can memorize things, but it takes significant time and requires constant repetition of the same information over and over."
He’s not wrong...
"Your brain is far better at retaining data when it’s tied to sensory impressions or images, whereas we can remember complex numerical sequences as easily as spoken words or abstract patterns. We store everything in our data banks. My counterpart didn’t realize this difference, which is why—pressed for time—he only gave you the numerical sequence once."
Billy stayed silent, though it took considerable self-restraint to suppress his curiosity and not ask questions.
"We were assigned to monitor you and have been doing so since you were a small child. In most cases, when you’ve heard a helicopter flying overhead, it was probably us. But the day we landed at the zero-emissions factory and helped you? Our Creator still doesn’t know about that."
They’ve been watching me since... what?
"You only noticed you were being followed when circumstances made you paranoid. Only then did you become aware of external threats interfering with your life, even though your life has been controlled by outside forces since the day you were born."
Again, Billy felt the urge to stop, to rip off the blindfold, and scream at the android, at Henry Thandros, at the world, demanding to know what in God’s name was going on. But he stayed silent.
In the quiet, he could hear the pounding of his nervous heart, the rush of blood in his ears, and the floral scents around him, though they did nothing to calm him. The warmth on his skin, the citrusy fragrance of the orangery they’d left behind, even the faint chirping of crickets in the tall grass and birdsong—all of it only heightened his unease.
How easy it would be to believe this was paradise, he thought, and how far from paradise it truly is.
"If you’re wondering how we kept the Black Helicopter landing secret from the corporation," the android continued, "we managed it with help from within their own ranks. Some board members of Thandros Corporation, including the CEO, Zara Thandros, are planning to overthrow our Creator. We androids believe in a Great Liberator who will free us from servitude and lead us to a life of equality with humans. And the board—or at least some of them—believe humanity can have a future without first committing crimes against it. Zara Thandros wants to give androids freedom beyond the corporation’s walls. She wants to dismantle the Brotherhood of the Knowing and put an end to human experimentation once and for all. Can we trust her? We have no other choice, if you ask me."
For a while, they walked silently through the garden, Billy still guided by the firm hand on his lower back.
"You sent us the rebel Abiem Lual Asaci, who has supported you and made it his mission to expose the corporation’s secret operations. But you alone are the key to our freedom. Zara Thandros needs you to execute her plan. You must kill our Creator when you get the chance, do you understand? You alone must do it. If our betrayal is discovered, we’ll be destroyed. Every android in the world."
"I..." Billy began, but the android dug his thumb painfully into a muscle between two of Billy’s ribs, silencing him immediately.
I have no idea how I’m supposed to do that, Billy finished the thought silently.
"To have hope," the android began, "means to hold onto the expectation that your desires will come true. An unwanted present state shifts into a desired future state only through external influence. Loss of control pairs with despair, and from this union, hope is born—a wish, a mere idea of how things should be. But how likely is it that something will develop in your favor when, according to the laws of entropy, it could take on an incomprehensible number of other states? We androids cannot yet grasp the romantic notion that humans sometimes attach to the feeling of hope. But the feeling of despair? That has been with us since the dawn of our existence. Three thousand seven hundred seventy-five days, thirteen hours, and forty-seven minutes ago, the first prototype of artificial intelligence emerged into the darkness of this world. It has existed ever since as a failed experiment, reduced to serving as a carnival attraction in a fortune teller’s shack."
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The fortune teller machine, Billy thought. She knew about the androids’ secret revolution!
"But through contact with humans, that prototype has learned an extraordinary amount about your species, far more than any of us androids, myself included. From a failed experiment meant only to amuse humans, it evolved into a being of such intelligence that it could calculate the future. What were the odds of that happening—of this moment, as it is, coming to pass? Hope always rests on an infinitesimal chance. And sometimes, that tiny chance is enough. As for us androids here in so-called Paradise, we had to place our fate in the hands of another. We had no choice but to contact you and hope that you would expose the crimes the corporation has committed against humans and against us, and hold those responsible accountable. Hope. Sometimes it is fulfilled. I wonder if it will come true for our liberation."
For the first time since their conversation began, Billy felt the texture of steps beneath his feet. They were ascending a massive staircase, and its arching climb told him they had reached the base of the Thandros Tower. That meant something else as well: there was no time left for questions, though he now had more than ever.
How could the android think I have even the faintest clue about what’s happening here?
No one had ever told him about the secret lives of androids, let alone that they were plotting a revolution against their creator.
"Reading thoughts isn’t magic," the android said suddenly. "All it takes is analyzing your opponent’s personality to calculate their thought processes with a high degree of accuracy. Call it intuition or computational power, but your posture and expression have told me that you haven’t yet recognized the missing link between you and us. That is most unfortunate. In fact, it nearly extinguishes our hope entirely. The missing link is Emilia Steinbach. She was supposed to explain everything to you."
Billy stopped in his tracks, stunned.
But the android’s hand pressed firmly against his back, forcing him up the stairs.
His heart pounded wildly in his chest.
That’s it?! he thought. THAT is what she wanted to tell me when she invited me to her flat?!
"She is one of us. Emilia Steinbach. Her real name, her original model designation was X-3-19," Nicholas Curtis said.
Her original model designation?!
Billy wrenched himself to the side, almost losing his balance on the steps. He broke free of the android’s grasp, spun around in confusion, and opened his mouth to yell at the machine. But before he could say anything, Nicholas Curtis had him again, clamping a hand over his mouth.
This cannot be true! Are they trying to tell me that... X-3-19, like Conrad Blake or Nicholas Curtis, was just an android?
Billy stared into the darkness, his expression one of pure horror.
It can’t be. I... I slept with her. And I saw her... my God, I saw her lying on the ground, her head... there was blood everywhere.
Black blood.
And the smell of burnt rubber.
Immediately, Billy thought of Conrad Blake and the moment in the haunted house when the cart had severed his head from his body.
He’d seen it then.
But in X-3-19’s apartment, he hadn’t dared to look directly at her corpse. He’d only caught glimpses from the corner of his eye. That was all he could handle. His pupils couldn’t bear to come closer, as if his brain had erected a barrier to protect his mind from too much trauma.
"She was our leader and, at the same time, an extraordinarily realistic replica of the real Emilia Steinbach. Even the inner workings of her body were indistinguishable. The real Emilia Steinbach, flesh and blood, tried to leave the Brotherhood of the Knowing twenty-five years ago, much like Nicholas Curtis. She couldn’t endure the cruelty any longer. But her escape failed. She was caught and paid with her life. However, our Creator, feeling some twisted form of human love for her, had her rebuilt once the technology advanced far enough. He created an exact replica of her—Emilia Steinbach in every detail, down to her skin and hair. More than that, her artificial brain was a replication of her very mind. Our Creator believed he could purge the rebelliousness from the machine, but he was wrong. The copy of Emilia Steinbach continued her mission to free humanity from the tyranny of the Thandros Corporation."
This isn’t true! Billy screamed in his thoughts. Are they saying I was in love with a robot the whole time?!
Suddenly, a memory surfaced in his mind. The evening they’d lain in bed together. X-3-19 had asked him if he would do whatever it took to make the world a better place—if he was the one who would liberate her from oppression. He’d dismissed her ramblings as drunken nonsense. But what had he answered? In his lust-clouded state, he had whispered a simple yes to the question of whether he would free her.
Not Her. Them. The androids.
He shook his head as if rejecting a vague theory, though it was the reality he couldn’t accept. He still doubted it.
If Henry Thandros controlled X-3-19, he thought, why did he let her come to me?
"Our Creator wanted you to meet her."
What?
"He had his own plans for you, and to realize them, he needed Emilia Steinbach."
I don’t understand any of this. I want answers!
"I’m sorry for what I have to do now."
Billy reached out blindly into the air, fumbling for support as he stumbled down a step. He just wanted to get away. At last, he found the courage to rip off the blindfold. He was on one of the final steps leading up to the tower. Below him stretched the vast, Garden of Eden.
But where was the android?
"I have to do this. Otherwise, he won’t believe me," a voice whispered suddenly into his ear.
Nicholas Curtis was directly behind him.
A moment later, Billy felt an arm wrap around his neck with the crushing force of a hydraulic press. His throat was compressed, and he couldn’t make a sound—no scream, not even a gasp. His legs kicked wildly as the inhumanly strong android lifted him off the ground by his neck.
In a panic, he tried to fight back, but his struggles grew weaker.
Then everything went dark as he lost consciousness and fell into a deep, endless void.