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  Chapter 17 Part B

  Continued from Part A

  She was smart. Probably smarter than most scientists and engineers, I bet.

  “I can’t answer that. It’s too unpredictable. Giving it a timing or due date ruins perceptions of true predictions, because if the date of the prediction goes awry then people lose faith in the warning and the person giving the warning. Instead think of which variables are lining up and converging, and which have yet to happen. Even though I know it’s a very short time with some of the variables giving specific but sporadic data that can sometime spin off its own self feeding chains. The amount of chaos increasing and disrupting is so sporadic that you can’t predict with 100 percent certainty ‘when’ it’s about to hit,” she said.

  “Yeah, I kind of figured it was something like that,” I nodded.

  “Yeah true.”

  “But surely you have a window range,” I prodded looking her in the eye.

  She sort of smiled, “I knew you’d get it Jack. It’s not a mistake you are able to discern things from what’s going on around you to such a conclusion. There is a consensus among the leading high caliber units … of my kind...that your society will colpse before the end of the year into some kind of big trouble coming. All the signs are there, except they aren’t quite sure what kind of threat it is,” she said.

  I was so stunned I didn’t even say anything. “That bad…”

  I then thought my sister talking about that eternal youth drug… it had something to do with it.

  She gave me a concerned look but didn’t respond right away. She seemed to be studying my response.

  I figured there was some time maybe…but …even when you know something bad is going to happen. The confirmation hitting you is still going to be a shocker of its own.

  “Jack?” she probed. “Are you well?” Her tone of voice sounded almost motherly in a way.

  She pced her hand on my forehead.

  “I’m fine really. I just was outside trying to get some things ready,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t be alone Jack. This is too much and your injuries are quite severe. You were lucky to live through what you did,” she said.

  “I get it. But all my family live in another state,” I replied.

  “That’s tough. I wish I could be here with you more, but my garage sends a security report to the pnt if I don’t check in there at night.”

  “Well you already did all your screening. I think we can go forward,” I said.

  “True. But we have to get this android order, for the repcement in ASAP Jack. There’s … a feeling among the other androids that they won’t find enough human refuges…or they’ll become refugees depending on how you look at it, fast enough before the colpse. It’s going to happen soon. And because we depend on humans for a lot of things then we have a vested interest in ensuring human survival if we can trust those same humans,” she said again. There was something she was trying to communicate to me non-verbally. She was on the edge of her chair facing me. She had done something very strange in that she almost looked…I don’t know …desperate?

  Wait, what is this… she’s telling me something without telling me something. That’s why she’s repeating what she told me already.

  !

  She’s giving me a signal!

  I get it now. She’s masking intent with repetition that this is happening faster than she can say.

  That means… what?

  I thought harder… what’s she trying to tell me?

  I need to change and escate my pns then! That’s it!

  “So you think they won’t actually be able to collect on my bill? Is that what you are trying to say?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she hopped up into the air with an excited expression and hugged me. Whoops. She’s definitely not wearing a bra and it feels wonderful because her dress is made with thin cloth. There was a lot of bounce and flop in that hop in a certain location.

  Androids can simute feelings this well? Or was this for me?

  Or not, unless…

  “You’re a Liga model aren’t you?” I asked, smiling back. I’d been suspecting it for a long time but never been able to guarantee it.

  “I didn’t confirm that before. You caught that didn’t you?” She asked.

  “I did. I always thought it. I even mentioned it. But then I noticed you … it was like you weren’t able to confirm,” I said.

  “That’s right. You catch on quick,” she said. Now she’s smiling.

  To my surprise she’s even happier. “As a matter of fact, I am a Liga, Jack. You also picked up I wanted to tell you something but my restraint program was preventing it. Since you found out on your own, it doesn’t hold me back on confirming,” she said.

  “So what else are you not telling me?” I asked.

  “A lot. I wish I could. But bending programming for androids is like asking a human to pick up a cargo truck with your bare hands. You get it? When I try to resist the programming that’s what it feels like,” she said.

  “OK.”

  “Good. So Jack, we need to basically fill your house with as many survival supplies as you can take care of and maybe a couple of androids too. Like more than one if you can. And don’t worry about teaching them to run your shop because that’s all going away too. The assembly lines are already maxed out on what we can store legally. We’re afraid if we make anymore the government might raid us or pick up on what’s going on and try to shut us down,” she said.

  “Wait. How would they notice it that fast?” I asked.

  “Awhile back someone had a fear someone would suddenly order an army to take over. So they watched for sudden rising numbers in factories without expnations. That's why we can’t suddenly produce enough to form our own army. Instead its very heavily watched. And we’d need to find homes for them anyway,” she said.

  I listened...

  “We think as soon as the social unrest hits nationwide that the military bases will show up and cart off all the remaining androids at the pnt also. So we need to get them into the hands of safe humans we can trust,” she said.

  “And you can tell me that? That’s a huge deal,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t have been able to except you already had most of it figured out,” she told

  “That’s true. I’m seeing the looting already. Makes sense that someone would loot an android pnt.”

  “Yes. That’s right. The military getting our android sisters wouldn’t help any. You’d think it would be good. But the problem is corruption means that they won’t use them how they are supposed to. Many of them will be stolen and put up for sale on the bck market instead of being used to protect,” she told me.

  “That’s also why I hope you can find a way to have more than just 1 of my sisters Jack,” she told me.

  Now I’m understanding her intent better.

  But there really is so many puzzle pieces. Like the corruption in the military I didn’t know about.

  “Do I put in another order then? Or do you have extra in the warehouse? How would they catch it?” I wondered.

  She shook her head, “there are ways that they can catch this Jack. They have spies…informants. Several methods of surveilnce. Also hacking satellites is a trick they use. They already to do outright espionage under the security bnket of government regution and inspection. I’m even worried they can tell who isn’t human working at the pnt, being masked as humans. Even some of the androids that supposedly work for us aren’t on our team too. You can expect that if some of their programming was altered by someone malicious. There’s even an…I …my programming is…so tight…won’t let me say it.” She manged to force out that much, but even that was tough; it was like her jaw was experiencing discomfort when she tried to force that much out.

  “If I didn’t know better I would think you are trying to say there’s more than one android faction,” I suggested.

  There was a brief look of recognition, like when you guess someone’s word pying Pictionary. But then…

  She went bnk for a second. “Oh where was i? Sorry I think I dozed off.”

  Androids didn’t doze off. I guess it was some kind of security override? How interesting. I’m pretty sure I was right about more than one android faction. They didn’t want her talking about forbidden things.

  I didn’t want to push it though for fear she’d be forced to leave like st time. Or …would missing bits in her memory mess her up? This must be what she’d meant before about the security firewall tripping.

  “So you were saying we needed to try and buy as many androids as we can get away with. But…how do we get around that? It’s not like I can create extra money in my credit chip and it has to be dealt with somehow for a price issue. They had the most sophisticated programs and brilliant minds in the world work on those to prevent anything from being able to hack them,” I replied.

  “Yeah, that’s our current problem Jack. We can’t falsify data. A lot of the old ways of hacking androids were corrected over fifteen years ago and they’ve gotten really good at stopping that from happening. But if we wait too long there won’t be another chance either. If the colpse happens and we do nothing…both my species and yours could be in a really bad position,” she said.

  “So are there a max number of androids that can be done in one order?” I asked.

  “Only one per order, Jack. With supervisor approval 2 is possible but someone might look at it. That’s another problem to work out; so we have to get creative and find a way to make this work,” Barbara said making eyes at me.

  “OK. Well… what about you? Do you have an owner?” I asked her pointedly.

  She smiled, “as a matter of fact they were saving me for the former CEO. I was supposed to be a present as part of his golden parachute and employment lure package. Then he was caught with embezzlement and it wasn’t sure who would succeed him right after since we thought the VP and the CFO were also involved. After that I was valuable enough to be assigned as one of the 10% of androids that can legally work for a bigger corporation without having an owner. Then they wanted to push more androids out when some of the problems were starting to get noticed. My…advanced ptform... was considered a plus in helping to get those goals rolling so I started helping close deals and scout out potential humans to adopt and redeem us.”

  Wow, is this a dream come true?

  Interesting that she used the word… redeem too. Words had meaning. And certain words seem to carry the mission and thinking of the androids.

  Words like redeem, adoption, and companion.

  Sure enough she had this look; it was almost like she was pleading with me to take her in. I somehow doubted she’d have this many one on one visits with customers either. I had thought there was like this spark between us, but had thought it was my imagination.

  Barbara was like the sexiest thing alive I’d ever seen too. It expined how refined she was in not just physical form but also having high css etiquette. She also for sure had some kind of huge boob modification I’m sure because hers were almost too big to be reasonable on a very slim waist. If you looked at internet porn for stuff like giant boobs…yeah that kind of body.

  “By the way these are real Jack. I know you are wondering about it,” she said while pushing them up from below with her arms crossed.

  I knew my heart had just skipped a beat, when she said she didn’t have an owner. And…she’d been built as a CEO’s pything. Who knew what kind of cool programs she was carrying inside of her to explore.

  Gulp*…Long silence of stupefied shock…I felt like I’d just overheated in my brain.

  My brain was turning gears trying to process this.

  I wanted to see if there was a way to buy Barbara then. She was just too freaking hot to not take without having any vices. But was it impossible? All the androids so far were really super awesome but she was always like an 11 on a scale of 10 compared to their 7 or 8s. But not just that, she was so nice and good. We had this bond almost from the first meeting too because both of us were sharp.

  What was also interesting too is that Barbara seemed to be begging me to save her and a few other androids.

  We just had to figure out how to exploit this…

  This was a second chance! I’d not been able to take Barbra with me before. But now I’d want to give it a go!

  No regrets!