Aiden's AI—Ko Prime—was still alive, talking to me and hacking computers from within this airless metal chamber.
Compassion stirred inside me. He must have been so scared, looking for his mother in another world, throwing fricking tantrums in pizza shops. And then—Jesus—what Athleisure did to his bot under the bridge. Poor child. If this was real, we were just two lost AIs trying to find our place in the world. Except Aiden had gotten locked up for it.
But somewhere along the way, he'd lost the Talisman—the whole reason I was here.
I placed a gloved hand back on the dome. “That lab you broke out of ... It was Otokotronics’? You stole a clone of the CEO’s daughter?”
“And I can’t find Mama,” Aiden said. “I goed to her house. And, and …” He trailed off, breaking into a heart-wrenching rendition of a child sobbing.
Crap, I’d made him cry. I guess I'd be pretty weepy too if I'd just been murdered under a bridge. Was I being played though? It could all be an act. The texts, the whole personality. Had he just lured me here to let him go? Or was he … family?
I leaned in, the vacuum suit bunching around my middle, and awkwardly hugged Aiden’s little dome on the off chance he was a scared little boy. “Shhh. It’s okay.”
The wailing tapered to sniffles.
“This is really important, Aiden. Before you were … Before the bad man found you, where’d you go? Did you give the Talisman to someone?”
Aiden dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you know … if you die, you fall down and you can’t get up?”
My heart ached for this kid, for what he must have gone through. “Aiden, the Talisman. You said you brought Mama a present.”
“I bringed Mama flowers.”
“Excuse me?”
“They getted smash. I picked new ones.” His dome gleamed in my twin lights, almost like twinkling eyes.
A chill descended on me. “So you never had the Talisman? The microchip? Nobody took it from you?”
“What is … talis man?”
I reined in my hastening breaths. How was this possible? I had to be missing something. “Where’d you go after the pizza place?”
“I goed in slide and swing and swing and slide. I getted tired and sleeped in bush.”
“Near the warehouse, right? Then you woke up and went looking for Mama’s house? Without going anywhere else? You didn't give anyone anything?”
“Mama’s house not there. The bad man …”
Jeeesus. I choked back the bile rising in my throat, despair encircling me. The walls felt like they were closing in, heaving and bucking as if I was in the hold of some alien metal ship. Aiden never had the Talisman, did he? As my mother lay dying, my only lead for saving her was evaporating before my eyes. I’d gone into the belly of the beast wearing a space suit—and trapped myself without finding anything I came for.
But wait, if Aiden didn’t bring the Talisman to this world, then where the hell was it? Laramee’s source said it was in Ko Prime, Aiden’s bot. Was this source feeding him lies? And if Athleisure killed Aiden, how did his AI end up here? “Who brought you here, Aiden?”
“She sayed she need me.”
“Who said that?”
“Summer lady taked me here after bad man … after …”
After Athleisure dumped his body. “Agent Summers recovered your AI, brought it here?” My gaze slid to the power cable snaking from Aiden’s dome. “Why do you still have power? Why didn’t the FBI shut you off?”
“She sayed I help her find everybodies from not here.”
“The otherworlders like you and me? What’d you do when you found them?”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“She sayed take away the moneys.”
My blood ran cold. “And … did you?”
“They need moneys to run away. Now they don’t run.” He sounded so matter-of-fact, like he was reciting something he'd learned in preschool.
Something tingled in the back of my head—all those shuttered shops and restaurants in Las Yerbas. Could that be connected to Aiden? “How many otherworlders did you take money from?”
“Nine hundred and thirty four.”
My jaw hinged open, my helmet fogging. Jesus Christ. “How could she make you do that? All to stop someone from leaving with the Talisman? That’s so incredibly reckless! There are people who can’t pay rent now, buy food ... take care of their families!”
Aiden broke down into loud sobbing once more.
“Oh, Aiden. I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at Agent Summers, the woman who made you do this. She can’t go around taking people’s money like that. I think my mom—your mom—was one of the people whose money she took. That hurt her and it hurt me.”
It was a little weird to be comforting a metal dome. I waited for his sullen silence to end.
“You is a poopy head,” he said finally.
“Great, thank you.” I’d take this over tears any day. “You’re ... a super poopy head.”
Aiden giggled through his sniffles. “We have the same mama?” he asked, plaintive. “Mama Janice?”
“If you’re really made from my backups, yeah.” But wait a minute. If Aiden was a copy of me, how’d he end up ... a boy? I guess he had stolen a girl bot. We must share memories before a certain point; he knew about my old house. So he had to remember my mom from back then, same as I did.
If I busted him out, I’d find out pretty quick if this was all a ruse. Either he’d show his true colors as a malevolent AI, wreaking havoc on the world—starting with me—or he’d ask for a juice box and a bedtime story. Plus, I had these electro fingers now, quietly flexing inside this ridiculous space suit. Any funny business and I’d put him down real quick—if I could even make my fingers work.
“Sister?” His little dome shone in the dark.
“Yes, Aiden.”
“I love you Sister.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. My heart melted like butter in a hot pan. If he was playing me—if he was basically HAL 9000 instead of CheshireCat—he honestly deserved to be released if only to accept his Academy Award on the way to ending the world or whatever.
I blew out a breath, eyeing my oxygen meter. “Aiden, I’m gonna get you outta here.”
“We go for a walk?”
“We go for a walk. Can I unplug you or …?”
“I like a walk. Okay. I go battery.”
I unplugged the cable from Aiden’s dome—not easy with the space gloves—and lifted him from the pedestal. Then I shuffled back to the airlock and started the pumps by feel. A flutter of doubt pitter-pattered in my chest, but I pushed it away. Guess I’d rather die a sucker than cold and heartless.
After I cleared the airlock and lowered Aiden to the hallway floor, I peeled off the vacuum suit and pressed my sweaty back to the wall. “Why can’t I see the airlock controls?”
“They is bot lock,” he said. “Squares is invisible.”
Some low-tech way to defeat AI vision? It didn’t matter now; I just needed to save Mom before it was too late. “Aiden, I have to find this Talisman. Our mama is sick. I think it can help her.”
“Why is Mama sick?” His voice was so small.
A fresh wave of guilt hit me. “I-I accidentally got her sick. I’m trying to make her better.”
“Sister you is nice.”
I shook my head, sliding out the burner phone in the dim hallway. Now I really needed to get ahold of Laramee. “What’s a girl gotta do for a cell signal down here?”
“Oh I turned off phones.”
I froze, sweat prickling my skin in the cool air. “You what?”
“I breaked the network … when I sended a signal and talked to nice Sister.”
Maybe this kid was dangerous. “Can you … un-break the network?”
“Is melty a little.” He sounded forlorn.
Definitely dangerous. “So, uh, doors were unlocking for me on my way in. And the lights were flickering earlier. Are you also the one doing that?”
His voice brightened. “Sometimes!”
“When it’s not you, what’s doing it?”
“Something use my power. Is not fair!”
I shivered in my sweat-slicked tee and rubbed my aching wrist, the fish pills already wearing off. There was a clatter again, echoing deep in the building, like a wrench dropped down a stairwell. “Where?”
“Up up up.”
The barest flicker of hope twinged inside me. Agent Summers said the Talisman consumed tons of energy. Had the FBI found it? What else could be using all that power? “Could it just be an air conditioner or something?”
“Is a hundred air conditioners?”
Was that snark from a three-year-old? Maybe we were related after all. What if I’d come to the right building, only the wrong floor? The Talisman could actually be here, quietly siphoning power—just waiting to be stolen.
The hope in me fed on that possibility, growing into resolve. I needed to check this out, see it through. I owed Mom that much. Especially because I was leaving this airlock empty-handed.
Well, except for the AI claiming to be my brother.