Chapter Twenty-Five

Viktoriya woke up mechanically. Not to the ringing of alarm bells or the chirping of birds. Her eyes just shot open, her hands still holding the blanket from when she pulled it up last night. She stared at the ceiling for another five minutes, thinking of nothing at all, then turned to the clock on her bedside.

She sat up, then yawned. She had fallen asleep in her clothes from the previous day and quickly switched into her night pajamas, knowing it would upset her mom to see that she had not changed. After she mussed her hair and washed her face, she smelled the fragrance of pancakes in the air and headed to the kitchen for breakfast.

“Good morning, baby girl,” her mom called out. Viktoriya strolled toward her, taking her chair at the table. Her mom turned and planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Hope you slept well?”

She nodded. She was still frumpy from just waking up, but she was no doubt surprised to see her mother cooking. She had not entered the kitchen to actually cook in almost forever, and seeing her do that now meant either of two things. Sometimes, when her mom was trying not to think about something, the only way to distract herself was to cook manually.

She watched her mom vigorously handle each utensil until she had prepared breakfast, then she placed the food on the table.

“Mom? What’s going on?” she finally asked.

“What do you mean, baby girl? Breakfast is going on,” she answered, smiling. Baby girl was another one of her tell details. It was always honey or hun, but never ‘baby girl’. Not unless something upsetting was coming.

“You never cook, and I’m ‘baby girl’ twice now already,” she said innocently.

“What? I do cook,” her mom responded, looking puzzled.

“No, you don’t. Droids cook. You rarely cook. Unless something is going on,” she said and bit on the bread.

“What are you talking about?” Eva asked innocently, then turned to work on the dishes.

“What is it, Mom?”

“Nothing.”

She insisted further but gave up, just as her mom continually denied having anything to say.

“Okay, if you say so.”

Viktoriya stood to walk away.

A few moments afterward, her mom finally caved in, knowing she had to say something, anyway.

“Okay, I do have something to tell you.”

“I knew it!” she shouted.

“We got you something. You know, with all that is going on right now and considering your dad and I have to work, we decided to get you this. We were going to wait until your fifteenth birthday since it is just a week away, but we both agreed that you may have it early, just for this once,” her mom said, smiling and giving Viktoriya her full attention.

She called out, “CLEFF,” and the metal droid strode into the room.

“Your own, personal side-kick android—a new friend!”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“You… You are getting me, what, a babysitter for my birthday? In what world is that even okay? You are protecting me from—Aunt Aura?” she asked.

“Not just Aunt Aura, dear. The people Aunt Aura got caught up with—”

She didn’t give her mom time to finish before spitting out, “You’re wrong, Aunt Aura will never hurt me!”

Her breathing elevated, and her mouth dried out.

“You cannot be so sure, darling. And she’s not actually your aunt—so we should probably stop calling her tha—”

Her mom tried to plea with her, but Viktoriya had stormed off out of the kitchen sobbing.

“Aunt Aura will not hurt me. I don’t want it,” she argued. She cast a scornful look at CLEFF with the tears now streaming.

“Hi Viktori-Ya,” CLEFF spoke with the synthesized machine voice as she passed.

“My name is Viktoriya,” she retorted. The droid tried again, but nothing he said was good enough for her.

She did not want it, and the monotone voice that escaped from it irritated her to no end.

Viktoriya was silent for a moment. “So, is this CLEFF thing a babysitter or a, ah what? You know, you guys are already never here anyway, and this is how you finish it off?”

Her mom’s face dropped. She had expected her to at least be a little excited, to be eager to learn more about the science behind the droid, to be happy to have a new friend.

Or, at the very minimum, she’d thought she would have imagined CLEFF was cool.

“Come on, darling; you will love him.”

“I won’t! You don’t understand me at all! You are absent from my life and then pass me off to this thing!” she shouted, but as she began toward her room, the machine followed her.

She turned and screamed at him to stop, but he did not.

“Get away from me!”

Instead, his machine voice explained to her all the protocols. They had created him to obey, and one of them was being by her side at all times.

“Sweetie, this isn’t a punishment.”

“And the damn thing can’t even pronounce my name right!”

“Viktoriya, language, my darling!”

“Fine, okay, okay,” she calmly responded, walking to stand right in front of CLEFF.

To her mom’s content, Viktoriya looked right up at the droid. But instead of shaking his hand or introducing herself, she kicked the robot in the shin.

“My name is Viktoriya, Viktoriya, you stupid refrigerator. Not Victor-eee-yeah.”

And with that, Eva watched as her daughter—the person who exposed a terrorist group by randomly overhearing a conversation—turn her back on her and marched out the door in contempt, CLEFF following right on her heels.

“Stop following me! I hate you!”

The next few minutes were just between Viktoriya and CLEFF debating territories.

“Could you please take your nose out of my butt-crack! Can I even be by myself anymore for one minute?” she screamed, starting to shiver. Her hands began to shake, and her mouth dried out. She knew where this was headed, and she was about to collapse, meltdown, and it would only bring much more trouble. She began breathing deeply, cyclically, desperately trying to hold on to what sliver of focus she had left.

“I’m okay… I’m okay.”

CLEFF tried to chat with Viktoriya. She continued repelling him until her mother had enough.

Mom stepped in.

After a long conversation with her, seeking to find common ground where she would allow CLEFF to do its job, she promised her she could invite Choe and a few friends for her birthday, in their home and in their presence. Saying that with her friends all around her, she wouldn’t even notice CLEFF, and the visit would help her become accustomed to him.

When her mother had promised to let Choe and her friends come to visit, Viktoriya relented and finally accepted.

Because of Choe.

“I need to see Choe. I don’t have any other friends; you know that. I don’t care if anyone else comes.”

Viktoriya agreed, not because she wanted the rest there but because she had plans of her own. Putting up with CLEFF was not a problem as long as she found the answers she was looking for. And Choe was part of her plan.

She thought of what she had found on the Collective about the Dark Snare the previous night, as well as anything she could find on Argosys.

Aunt Aura was in real danger if those androids were the ones they had sent after her. She had read all about the horrible things they did to people.

It was nothing she wanted to linger on; it was unsettling for her to watch such horrible things. She never even made it through the first few seconds of a video clip.

Some people had gone missing after encountering the bots, never seen again. The worst rumors of the disappearances would have made great horror movies.

Others imprisoned indefinitely—never to see the light of day again. A captive prisoner for the rest of their days, forgotten and slowly erased from the world as they dissolved from existence.

But Argosys hadn’t seemed like a terrible killing machine, just a bunch of clever and intelligent hackers.

Perhaps that would be beneficial to Aura if they did catch her.

After all, they knew her well in the international scientific community.

Maybe she would have some bargaining power with her intel on the Argosys group and individuals.

Maybe.