Chapter Text
The message has no sender or subject line. Typically, something this suspicious would have been caught by Figaro’s self-made filters—his name is too public to escape a barrage of messages, both real and false—but the preview line of the actual message that follows is too coherent to ignore.
A pair of hands, warmed by battery-generated electricity and not by cells, settles on Figaro’s shoulders with too much strength for their childish size. He jumps.
“Figaro, dear, you seem troubled!” Snow chirps. “I can tell this from your expression alone, but my sensors indicate your heart rate has doubled.” He squints at the screen Figaro had been focused on. “Is it perhaps your unread four thousand messages ailing you?”
Figaro presses two fingers to his pulse point. Damn. He runs a hand through his unkempt hair. “Master Snow, do you think that message is real?” He points to it, careful not to let his finger come too close to the touchscreen.
“‘Professor García,’” Snow reads, “‘you have obligations…’” He tilts his head. “From this alone, it is suspicious. Can you not select it to read the rest?”
“That’s what I’m worried about. Clicking it. I’ve made a few enemies in my career. Can’t you tell if it’s malicious?”
“Figaro, you are so very darling and so very smart, even when you have been awake for forty-eight hours,” Snow says, “but the one with human common sense and the advanced degrees in intelligent mechanical engineering is you.”
“And you’re the AssistRoid.”
Snow huffs. “That does not mean I can talk to computers! Hup.” Balanced on one foot, he throws himself forward to tap the message, spreading on Figaro’s screen. And it doesn’t go dark; it doesn’t get mired with static. It’s just a message:
Professor García, you have obligations to your Kardia System sponsors. My client has already invested a considerable amount of money in this project. Because of your proven engineering capabilities, he will pay $5 million up front for the development of an AssistRoid according to his specifications. You will be paid another $5 million upon the AssistRoid’s completion. If the AssistRoid is to his satisfaction, he is willing to pay more. He is requesting a meeting. Confirm your availability this Wednesday at 8 pm. We will have a vehicle for you outside of your lab. Bring your AssistRoids.
Figaro slumps in his chair, unshaven cheek flat against the scant space left on the desktop, littered with empty coffee cups and aluminum energy drinks. “Master Snow,” he says thinly, “isn’t today Wednesday?”
“Indeed it is! But the day is young.” He easily pulls Figaro up. “Go, go, my dirty little Figaro! Make yourself presentable to your masters!”
“Hey.”
“I will respond to the message for you,” Snow continues, ushering Figaro out of the lab. “Dilly-dallying any longer will anger them!”
Nights in the lab are common enough for Figaro that a room of sorts, including a bathroom, had been installed in the building for him alone. As he rinses his hair, he wonders—vaguely, with the dissociation of sleeplessness and of being at beck-and-call for governments and criminals alike—if Snow’s reply will mention that there is only one García AssistRoid now.
A nap before a career-ending business meeting does nothing to refresh Figaro. He wipes dry, dreamless sleep from his eyes as he and Snow wait outside the lab building. He tries to find somewhere to stare at in the city’s night that isn’t in truth offensive as daylight: gases stuck in glass tubes, buzzing for everyone’s visual pleasure except for his own; skyscrapers with their hundreds of windows alight; aircars, airships, and airbikes whizzing past, headlights cutting the paltry dark, as if Vollmond City will die if its transport is not in perpetual motion.
“Master Snow,” he says.
“Yes, Figaro, dear?”
Figaro fingers the hem of his coat. “Can you remind me to get my clothes laundered? This is my last clean suit.”
“Of course! I will remind you to send your clothes to be laundered tomorrow morning. I will include an ironing request for your suits.”
“Why not after we’re back from the meeting?”
“Because I know you will collapse into a deep sleep as soon as you are free!” Snow pats Figaro’s hand. “My poor, overworked Figaro deserves at least twelve hours of being undisturbed.”
“That is assuming I can sleep that long,” Figaro sighs, his other hand reaching for his hair. He catches himself before he can muss it from its careful parting. “Someone always needs me for something, or something in the lab is always going wrong—oh,” he says, “I think that’s it.”
A sleek, black aircar has deviated from the designated phosphorescent lanes, approaching the private path leading to the laboratory. It sweeps soundlessly in front of Figaro and Snow, its single door sliding up, puffing out cool air that flutters Figaro and Snow’s clothes.
The car’s interior is as black as its exterior, its plush seats facing each other. The only thing breaking it is the person—dressed in muted grays, face hidden by the tablet they read—already there. They lower the tablet.
Figaro gapes at a man with a face cut out for white-collar crime and the regal posture of someone assured his horde of lawyers will argue him out of conviction. His gaze is aloof, posed on Figaro for a tense moment before saying, in a voice that would beckon thunder from the polluted heavens, “Get in.”
“Yes, sir,” Figaro mumbles, hitting his head on the aircar as he ducks in. He falls on the seat opposite the man and lets himself linger there, certain his embarrassment is coloring his face, hoping the aircar’s engine will decide to explode right there and kill them all. Instead, Snow is cooing after him, helping him up and offering an apologetic excuse to the man.
“Professor García spent two consecutive nights poring over his code, trying to find the bug that kept it from running. He was successful!” he says. “However, he is somewhat behind on sleep. Please forgive any indiscretions of his.”
The man frowns at Figaro. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Figaro says, rubbing his head. “Um, I mean, yes, sir.”
The car door shuts and off the aircar goes. The dim overhead lights shift color to something more intimate. Figaro swallows down a bout of panic. The lights may be different, as is the setting, but he has talked flawlessly in front of cameras his entire career. No light had been too dazzling nor any shirt collar too starchy to mar the charming, knowledgeable, friendly persona that Professor Figaro García has spent that same career perfecting. He breathes in deeply, his tailored vest tightening, and gives the man his best smile. “Well, you know who I am. I assume I have the pleasure of meeting the one who messaged me, but I don’t know your name.”
“No.”
Figaro blinks. “‘No’?”
“I was not the one to contact you. I am the one who requested we meet.”
“You’re the sponsor?”
“Yes…?”
There are Kardia System sponsors who are proud to be attached to the name, whose pictures with Figaro and generous donations to the bettering of society grace the news broadcasts. Then there are the sponsors whose questionably earned money contact Figaro much as today’s message had: nameless, or in pseudonyms; screens in remote meetings rendering their sponsors in shadows, their voices warped by filters Figaro himself had designed in his youth. Figaro would have very much remembered meeting this man. He doesn’t. Ergo—
He folds his hands in his lap. As long as they pay, it doesn’t matter who they are. But it does make looking him in the eye more difficult. “What can I call you, then, sir?”
“Oz.”
“Oz?” Figaro repeats. He likes the crispness of it in his mouth.
His lovely face wrenches itself. “No,” he says, “ignore my previous statement. I am Divine Lightning.”
Figaro’s jaw slacks.
So much for white-collar crime. Of all of Figaro’s sponsors, the one he feared the most is sitting in front of him, grabbing Figaro’s hand from his lap to firmly shake it. The infamous Divine Lightning is in possession of an eponymous weapon with the power to annihilate half the world. Now he wants an AssistRoid, a transcendence of humanity and robotics, to do as he likes.
When Figaro extricates his hand, he’s absently rubbing it. “So,” he says, relieved that his voice doesn’t hitch, “you want an AssistRoid?”
“Yes.” Oz gives Snow the large suitcase at his side. “Enclosed are the first five million. The passcode is 04062.”
Snow hauls the suitcase next to Figaro. Figaro taps the numbers onto the touchpad, and the suitcase unlatches. The worth of the equipment in his lab far exceeds than five million, but, because of how long they’ve been in his life, he has never considered it. The money in neat piles is nothing but itself. He closes the suitcase, hands gripping its sides, head spinning.
The message had been correct: this is not a deal, nor a suggestion. It is an obligation.
“Divine Lightning,” Figaro says, “do you mind if my AssistRoid records us? For note purposes.”
Just as the aircar drives under a stream of lights that not even the tinted windows can obscure, Oz glances at Snow before considering Figaro. Like blood, those eyes. Like blood just spilled and quickly, quickly cooling.
The air conditioning in the car is cold, as cold as Figaro likes it. But he shivers.
“I do not mind. But I was under the impression,” Oz says, “that you had two AssistRoids, Professor García.”
“I had two, yes. Now I have one.” He runs his hand lovingly through Snow’s hair. “We don’t like to talk about it. We’d have been shut down if it got out that an AssistRoid killed another. We’re mimicking human sentience and emotions; we don’t want to mirror them in all their ugliness…”
“‘Killed’?”
“We’ve learned from our errors, though! That was the only time we’ve had it happen, and it’ll be the last time too. The Kardia System your AssistRoid would have is far more advanced in emotional subtleties and simultaneous control.”
“...I see.”
“Master Snow,” Figaro briskly says, “please record Divine Lightning and I’s conversation starting now.”
“Recording,” Snow replies, unflappable.
Figaro turns to Oz. Those eyes. They are not like the uncaring lens of a camera; they are worse than an audience hearing him speak with bated breath. A trick to lessen anxiety: look not into the eyes of who you speak to, but at their nose.
It’s sculpted as sharply as Oz’s cheekbones. Below, his mouth is out of focus until Figaro’s eyes flick to it. The lights outside are incessant and emphasize the depth of Oz’s philtrum quite nicely.
Figaro finds a spot behind Oz to look at as his fingers drum on the suitcase. “I can start working on your AssistRoid once I’m caught up on sleep. I need to know what you want, though?” He’s ended on a questioning inflection. A lack of confidence. Maybe he can throw himself out of the car at the next intersection.
“I want you to give me a child.”
The violence with which Figaro chokes on his own spit has Snow—and Oz—reaching toward him. Red-faced from more than the coughing, he waves them away.
“Sorry. I’m fine,” Figaro wheezes. “Um, are we going to talk anywhere else?”
“No. Why?”
“Oh, no reason… Okay, so. Back to business. A child AssistRoid. Like Master Snow?”
Snow frames his face with his hands and beams.
Oz appraises him. “Yes.” He frowns. “No. Perhaps older.”
“One of the programs I’ve been working on lets the AssistRoid modify itself,” Figaro says. “Granted, the modifications are pre-approved by the administrator, so you wouldn’t have an AssistRoid suddenly growing knives for fingers and coming after your throat. I could work on modifications from an age angle.” Figaro cups his chin, mumbling, “I’d need to make the limbs retractable, and let the face plates be malleable to change the shape of the skull as needed…”
“What?”
Figaro—thoughts flying off faster than he can speak them—fizzles out of his concentration and laughs nervously. “Sorry, I get ahead of myself sometimes. I can have this in text, if that’s easier?”
“I couldn’t hear you.”
“Oh. Um. Anyway, it’ll be better if you can read my proposals for your terms. Master Snow, did you catch what I said?”
“Of course! Shall I send it to Divine Lightning?”
“Not yet. We need his terms, too.” Figaro looks at him askance, half in awe at his implacability, half in fear of the judgment that cool gaze privately makes. “What kind of personality do you want?”
There is a pause, and then a whisper as Oz crosses one long leg over the other. It doesn’t seem to Figaro, astute observer of human behavior that he must be to develop his AI, that it’s a contemplative pause. Logically, it couldn’t be one; the message had specified the sponsor needed a meeting precisely to discuss his demands. But presently—with how Oz casts his face aside, mouth opening yet no sound yet coming out—it is most definitely not a contemplative pause.
He’s embarrassed, Figaro realizes, his earlier fear twinkling to perplexed amusement.
“Kindness,” Oz says.
“Hmm?”
“I need,” Oz says, like it hurts him, “an AssistRoid who is kind.”
“Anything else?”
“They should be eager to work for me and have no qualms about…” He trails off. “About what I do.”
“Got it, got it. Master Snow?”
“That is recorded as well!”
“Anything else, Divine Lightning, sir?” Figaro asks again. “About appearances, too? Or a name? Gender?”
Oz shakes his head. “I leave the rest to you, Professor García.”
The freedom granted by a lenient sponsor has often resulted in Figaro’s most notable accomplishments. None of those sponsors have been as unreadable and as intimidating as this one, ordering the aircar’s self-driving AI to return to Vollmond Laboratory. It is a long drive back, and they spend it in silence: Oz looking out the windows, tint decreased to enjoy the view, shadows stuttering on his profile when they flit through busy underpasses; Figaro trying not to look at Oz, or think too deeply about the assignment and the money and his social skills.
At last the aircar returns to the lab. It hovers in place, the door remains closed. Oz hands Figaro a strip of bioplastic.
“Contact me at this address,” he says. “Burn it after your AssistRoid memorizes it.”
“Will do. Wait,” Figaro says, belatedly, “some of our sponsors like to have visitor badges so they can pop in when they like. It’s especially useful if I’m the one working on a project, because my schedule can get wonky and leave me pretty much no notice to cancel meetings. Sometimes it’s better to come to me yourself and catch me when I’m free for a second. If you’d like. Sir.”
Oz nods.
“I am contacting security admissions personnel to generate you a visitor badge, Mister Divine Lightning,” Snow says, eyes clouding over as he processes data. “I do require an ID of some sort so they may verify you. Do you have anything in your person I may scan and send them?”
He does. Curious, Figaro leans over Snow’s shoulder to read it, and is disappointed to find it has an egregiously false name on it.
“All set! Mister Divine Lightning, you are approved for at-will access at Vollmond Laboratory,” Snow says, giving Oz his ID back. “We look forward to this project and seeing you in the lab!”
Oz waves his hand. The door opens, and the sounds of the city—barely subdued despite the lab’s seclusion—rush in. It has Figaro stumbling out an almost-forgotten thank you that Oz probably doesn’t hear, because the door is sliding shut as soon as Figaro and Snow are out. The aircar swoops away.
Those in the security booth, staffed by humans and AssistRoids alike, smile and wave and pass them through, not questioning the suitcase Figaro drags along. He has Snow carry it as they ride the elevator to his lab’s floor. The blue-tinged lights awake at their movement; the equipment itself is ever-hungry, the noise of power a constant background, codes running even when nobody’s there to watch them. It is as much a comfort as the womb must be to a child.
“Please deposit the money tomorrow, Master Snow,” Figaro says, checking on a computer modeling the latest tweaks to a muscular system code. “Meanwhile, though, here’s Oz—Divine Lightning’s address. Save it, please.”
Snow reads the bioplastic. “Done! I will burn it with one of our lasers.”
Figaro doesn’t remember collapsing. He is walking out of the lab, a frantic throbbing behind his eyeballs; he is on the floor, astringent with cleaning chemicals, cradled by a frantic Snow.
“Figaro, Figaro! Do I request medical assistance?! Your vitals are fine, but—”
Figaro throws an arm over his eyes. “Master Snow.”
“Yes?!”
“That man is really, really scary but really, really handsome.” He lets his head loll against Snow’s chest. “And I am really, really tired.”