“What do you mean no one knew you were an android? Someone had to know,” Commander Lucas Von snapped.

“Okay. I guess my parents knew.”

“You don’t have parents. You mean your owners or your designers?”

I scoffed. “Yeah. My owners. But they never told anyone. I was like any other kid growing up. Went to school. Played baseball. Eventually beat the crap out of my dad. You know, normal stuff.”

“Growing up? Explain that one.”

“My understanding is that it involves witchcraft and lying about sudden overnight growth spurts.”

“Ugh. That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that led to the new android laws. I guess, in a way, it worked out for me, though.” 

He climbed over the center console and pulled the radio onto his lap. I watched him wiggle the battery into place in the rearview. Clamping it down on either side, he turned a knob beside the keypad, and a dim green light appeared on the screen. He shook out his fingers. It must have still been hot.

Afterward, he choked down a palm-full of painkillers from an orange container he dug out of his pocket.

If only I had a handful of pills that would quell the searing pain in my hands. Unfortunately, pain killers had never worked on me.

“You can help me get back to my command,” he said as he fiddled. “Then I’ll take you to the nearest repair station. They’ll wipe your memory and get you where you’re supposed to be. No harm done.”

The nearest repair station? No. I couldn’t do that. “I’m one of the recalled models,” I told him, and the words stuck in my mouth like taffy.

He didn’t even look up. “Great. You’re scheduled for a wipe then anyway.”

“I don’t think they’re worried about wiping my memory. The recalled models aren’t going back into circulation. They’ll just break me down and use me for scrap.”

He shrugged.

“You don’t care?”

“Why would I care? I don’t own one of your models. And even if I did, I’d just trade you in for one of the upgrades.”

Rain beat against the car like a million tiny fists trying to get inside. It had gone from a trickle to a downpour. I considered turning the wipers on, but I didn’t know if my wrecked hands could handle flipping the switch. Even setting them in my lap sent a flash of pain through my body. I held them in front of me like two mangled claws. It was the first time I’d ever seen my inner workings. I thought I was beyond suffering, but the open, ugly, throbbing wounds brought it all back.

All for a man who didn’t care.

“Pumpkin, pull over.”

The car confirmed, signaled, and slid into the shoulder. A passing truck sent a splash of water against the road-side doors. I didn’t bother looking at Commander Lucas Von, the same way he hadn’t even bothered looking at me, when I said, “Get out.”

“What?” he asked through a nervous laugh.

“Get out of my car.”

“Wait... Did I offend you?”

“If you’re going to set up a radio, you’ll probably get the best signal from the top of that hill,” I pointed to a steep incline outside the mushy window. “You might have to wait for the weather to clear up, though.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had...feelings.”

“You’re sorry, huh? Good to know.” I waited for him to make a move, but he didn’t. He sat in tense silence like he was waiting for me to say, Just kidding! and drive away.

But I wasn’t kidding.

“What are you waiting for?” I snapped and finally turned to face him.

His mouth opened, and his head turned right, then left, then right again as he looked between the window and me. “It’s pouring rain out there. And I’m on crutches.”

“Well, you’d better hurry then. You don’t want that security bot to catch up to you. You can take my gym bag if you need it.”

A sudden panicked breath puffed up his chest. “I don’t think you understand.”

“No, I don’t think you understand. If you don’t get out of my car right now, I’ll come around the back and drag you out.”

His beard shifted with a flex of his jaw muscles, but he didn’t say another word. As he popped the door open, a chilly gust of wind blew through the car, and sheets of rain soaked into the seat. He visibly trembled. If I was a cruel man, I would have demanded he hurry up, but I let him take the time he needed to steady himself on his crutches and lift his leg across the seat without hurting himself.

He collected the radio and its parts into my gym bag along with his sweatsuit from the hospital. I wanted to offer him an umbrella, but I didn’t have one to give. On the other hand, I had something else. One last lifeline. Under the front seat, I kept an emergency bag with a small toolbox, a first aid kit, a flashlight, and a tarp. I lowered the passenger side window as he was slamming the back door shut.

“Wait!” I called over the roaring storm. I pulled the bag free and held it out to him. Even its smooth surface against my skin was torture. Whoever designed me to have pain simulation was a bastard. But the rain felt good.

“Thanks,” he grumbled.

“Good luck,” was the last thing I ever intended to say to him. Or any living being at all for that matter. It was time for me to finish what I’d set out to do.

Pumpkin performed a U-turn to carry me home, and Commander Lucas Von’s hobbling form disappeared into the rain. I tried to keep my focus on the storm pounding down on the roof, but every once in a while, I slipped into my memories. And that was somewhere I couldn’t go. The red marks on me were gone, but the events themselves couldn’t be so easily burned away. I pitched my burned fingers to keep my mind in the here and now where it belonged.

I expected the security bot to be hot on our tail but saw no sign of it. When I arrived at the dirt road to the lake house, the reason became clear. The mud tracks left behind by its motorbike didn’t turn the way we’d gone. They formed a smear on the road to the right.

Maybe it’d gone off somewhere to file a report with a higher authority? Although, both the nearest emergency services station and Genesis Robotics were in Dempsey, which was to the left, so that didn’t make sense.

I promptly put it out of my mind. It wasn’t my problem anymore.

The car parked itself in the driveway where I sat debating which was worse: walking up the hill in the pouring rain to where I left my gun or waiting it out for a few hours and suffering my own thoughts. As I mulled it over, the front door caught my eye. It was hard to tell what I was looking at, but it seemed like there was a long black line from the top of the frame to the porch.

Was it open? I turned on the wipers. It was as painful as I thought it’d be, but the spot they cleared from the windshield revealed, yes, in fact, it was. But Mia wouldn’t have come so soon, and there were no other cars parked outside. Who could have opened it?

I crossed the driveway to the door. Rain instantly soaked through my undershirt and plastered my hair to the top of my head.  The lock dangled from the handle by its wires, and the window along the frame had been reduced to shards. Muddy tracks led from the doorway to the hall, but they weren’t like any footprints I’d ever seen. They were narrow and disjointed where the different parts of the foot came together, the kind of tracks a new AR model might leave. The kind of tracks a security bot might leave.

I froze in the doorway, my mouth hanging open. The thing had torn the house to shreds. Every drawer was open and empty, every piece of furniture upturned. The full contents of the lake house littered the ground in heaps. Why would it do this? What was it looking for? Didn’t it have better things to do? These questions and more rolled in my head as I wandered the halls. One thing was clear. Helping Commander Lucas Von had been a mistake.

My reflection stood in the mirror above my dresser, a disheveled mess. And there was the case for my gun, sitting upside down and wide open. The gray foam had been torn from the shell and dumped on the floor. Did the bot want my gun? Good thing I left it outside. But, somehow, I thought, that wasn’t it. It was already armed. What would it need my piddly little pistol for?

Still, my thoughts locked on the case. I couldn’t turn away. Something about it set off warning bells in my mind. My fingers reached out, as if on their own, and touched the small zippered pouch on the inside of the case. It stung, but it didn’t bother me. An invisible force drew me to that pouch, the pouch where I kept the gun’s registration papers.

But the papers weren’t inside.

I checked under the case. Around the room. In the foam. Under the dislodged mattress and blankets. Where were they? Where were those papers? At least the house was already torn to shreds, all the easier for me to scour through every last inch. But the longer I searched, the farther my heart sank—or whatever it was in my chest that made me feel like crap all the time.

I spent too long disbelieving what I knew to be true. The thing the security bot was looking for was Commander Lucas Von. As far as it knew, Commander Lucas Von was with me. And this was my house. It came here to figure out where we were going, and what it found was a piece of paper with my father’s full name, social security number, and home address on it.

That’s why it turned right at the end of the street. It was on its way to our townhouse. To my sisters.