The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense Read online

  THE ANDROID CHRONICLES

  BOOK I

  The Android Defense

  by

  Marling Sloan

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or else are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 Marling Sloan

  PART ONE

  Luke

  Chapter 1.

  Damian Foster, the CEO and founder of one of the most powerful and influential innovation companies in North America, had once been quoted as saying, “Power looks down. Beggars look up.” The building that headquartered his company in downtown Los Angeles was an architectural testament to that quote.

  Like a Titan among the other worthy feats of architecture around it that composed the Los Angeles skyline, the building stood head and shoulders above the rest, a towering, 62-story edifice that had taken four years, an elite Japanese architectural design team, and millions of dollars to construct. It dwarfed even the famed US Bank building.

  Huge block letters displayed across the top of the building read: ADVENTIS TECHNOLOGIES.

  The face of the building was covered in dark glass that reflected everything around it, and revealed nothing of its inside. On the ground floor, valets in dark uniforms opened the glass front doors and whisked arriving cars away to the underground parking garage as though the building was a first-class hotel. The first thirty floors of the building were rented to other companies; the remaining upper thirty-two floors were the domain of Adventis Technologies. Nobody could even access the upper floors without a key card that had to be inserted into the elevator.

  At 11:30 a.m. on this Monday morning, when the morning traffic flow of workers through the glass doors had died down, a long black Maserati pulled up to the entrance of the building. Like an expertly trained SWAT team four valets surrounded the car. One of them opened the driver’s side door, another one opened the passenger door.

  A tall, exceedingly handsome man in a dark blue suit got out of the driver’s seat. He could not have been older than his mid-thirties. He had dark brown hair, green eyes, and movie star features. He carried a dark leather briefcase.

  The woman getting out of the passenger seat was short and slender and extremely pretty. She had short curly dark hair, gray eyes, and wore a white button down shirt, a dark blue pencil skirt, and four-inch black heels. She carried an iPad in a sleeve under her arm, and an expensive looking handbag over her shoulder.

  The man gave the car keys to one of the valets.

  “How are you doing, Mr. Foster?” the valet asked.

  “Not bad, Tom,” Damian Foster said casually.

  He walked into the building, followed closely by his executive assistant Carlie, who kept a firm grip on her iPad. They moved through the stark, elegantly-designed lobby of the building, which was nearly as large as an airport hangar and decorated much in the same way. The ground was gray stone, on which the footsteps of hundreds of people walking across it at any moment echoed loudly. The walls were made of frosted glass. There was a central coffee shop in the middle of the lobby.

  Damian and Carlie ignored the crowds of people walking through the ground floor and made their way to the elevators.

  Carlie pressed the button. As they waited for the elevator Damian checked his watch.

  “The investors are on their way,” Carlie said. “I just got an email from one of them.”

  Damian nodded.

  “Good.”

  The elevator doors opened. Damian and Carlie stepped inside.

  Carlie removed a key card from her purse and inserted it into a slot beside the button panel. Then she pressed the number 62.

  The elevator doors closed and the two of them were whisked upward. In mere seconds the elevator stopped and the doors opened into a magnificent office at the top of the building.

  It was surrounded by windows that looked out over the buildings around it. The floor was covered in thick gray carpet. There was a sitting area with two expensive-looking couches, as well as a side table and a flat screen TV on the wall. A vast desk sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Damian went immediately to the side table and began mixing himself a drink.

  “Want anything, Carlie?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “No thank you, Mr. Foster,” Carlie said. She looked down at her iPad. “The investors have arrived. I will meet them and bring them up here.”

  “Perfect,” Damian said. He took a sip of his drink and did not turn around as Carlie left the room.

  Chapter 2.

  Across the city from Adventis Technologies, in the beachside hills of Malibu, there was a small gray nondescript building situated on a sandy road leading up into one of the hills. The road was extremely hard to find unless one knew the way or drove onto it by accident.

  The small gray building was surrounded by a standard black security gate with an intercom. A sign on the gate read

  ARGONAUT LABORATORIES

  A faded dark blue SUV drove up to the gate. The driver’s side window rolled down and a girl leaned out of it. She was a pretty girl with long light brown hair, dark green eyes in a tanned face, and an athletic figure.

  She pressed a button on the intercom station.

  There was a crackling sound and then a voice answered.

  “State your name and purpose please.”

  “Mandelie Miles,” the girl said. “My purpose is I’m bringing coffee and donuts to the hardworking staff of this lab.”

  “Coffee and donuts and Mandelie are always welcome here,” the voice said.

  The gate opened. Mandelie rolled up her window and drove her car through.

  The low gray building was about the size of a boutique clothing shop. Its small parking lot was already filled with several cars. Mandelie parked her SUV in a free spot.

  She descended from the car, carrying a paper bag and a cup-holder laden with four cups of coffee. Balancing her things gingerly, she opened the small side door of the lab.

  She walked down a small, dimly lit corridor and then into the front lobby of the lab. It was a square, cheerful-looking room with pale blue paint on the walls. There was a cluttered reception desk where a lanky boy with dreadlocks was sitting behind a computer. He wore a loud graffiti shirt and shorts.

  “You are the best thing I’ve seen all day,” he said, eying Mandelie’s bags hungrily.

  “Help yourself,” Mandelie said, setting one of the bags on the desk. Jake Masner, a laid-back nineteen-year-old who spent most of his time skateboarding at the beach when he wasn’t working behind the reception desk at the lab, reached into one of the bags and took out a sprinkled donut. He crammed it into his mouth and returned his attention to the game on his computer.

  “What level are you on?” Mandelie asked.

  “Six,” Jake said. “But this one is the one with the huge octopus shark hybrid.”

  “Sounds fun,” Mandelie said. “Where’s my dad?”

  “He’s in the project rooms with Luke and Trista,” Jake said. He took another donut and ate it in a single bite.

  Mandelie went through the door into the lab, carrying one of the bags and the coffee. She walked down a short hallway that resembled a doctor’s office, with doors on either side of it. All six of the doors were closed, but she knocked on the first one, which had a nameplate on it that read

  Dr. Jason Miles

  “Come in!” a voice said.

  Mandelie opened the door.

  Her father, Dr. Jason Miles, was sitting behind his
desk. His technician Trista Gadkin and the laboratory android Luke was sitting in chairs in front of it. They had clearly all been having a conversation before Mandelie knocked.

  Dr. Miles was a tall, congenial-faced man with light brown hair that was always in a wild state. He wore a white laboratory jacket over his shirt and pants. His blue eyes shone with humor and intelligence.

  Trista was a stern-looking girl with shoulder-length curly black hair and a plain, no-nonsense face. Mandelie had never seen her without her laboratory jacket on.

  Luke, the android, was lounging back in his chair. His dark blond hair fell into his blue eyes. His face was hard to read, as it usually was. He wore a casual blue button-down shirt, faded jeans, and sandals.

  “Is that coffee I smell?” Trista said immediately. Coffee was her sole weakness.

  “I got three for all of you,” Mandelie said. She set the bag on the table.

  Dr. Miles rose and pulled an extra chair up to the desk for her.

  “You came just at the right time,” he said. “We were about to draw straws to see which one of us wanted to go to the drugstore and get drinks.”

  “Why not send Jake?” Mandelie said.

  “He seems pretty busy with whatever he’s doing on the computer,” Dr. Miles said.

  Luke took a cup of coffee and blew on it. He took a sip and then a bite from a donut.

  “You know, technically, you don’t have to eat at all,” Trista said, eying his donut. “You could just give that donut to me.”

  “My taste buds are still activated,” Luke said. “Sometimes I like to make use of them.”

  Trista shrugged. Mandelie grinned.

  “How are the projects going?” she asked her father.

  “The Mind Portal Project is progressing,” Dr. Miles said. “Luke needs to fine-tune the diagnostics on it though. And the anti-gravity shoes are still not repelling gravity.”

  “Big words meaning that whoever wears them and jumps off the roof of the lab still lands on the ground in a heap of dust,” Trista said. “I mean, a heap of embarrassment, since we put a mattress near the roof just in case.”

  “Who’s been volunteering to jump off the roof?” Mandelie said, with a laugh.

  “Jake,” Dr. Miles said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he refuses to let anyone else take the honor of being the first person to resist gravity successfully.”

  “I would be willing to test the shoes,” Luke said. “If Jake tires of falling. I doubt his back can sustain much more.”

  “Well, I have hopes for tomorrow’s test run,” Dr. Miles said. “I think the tweaks I made to the shoes should make a difference.”

  “Wish I could stick around and talk more, but I have to go,” Mandelie said. “I have my surfing lesson in an hour.”

  “Alright, see you in a little while,” Dr. Miles said.

  Mandelie got up. Luke rose as well.

  “I’ll walk you to your car, Miss Miles,” he said.

  The two of them left the lab and walked through the lobby, where Jake was still engrossed in his computer game.

  Outside the air was cool and misty.

  Mandelie stopped in front of her car and turned to Luke.

  “I always wanted to ask you, Luke, what do you do for fun? Do androids have any concept of fun?”

  “Fun,” Luke said. “You mean, amusement? I’m programmed to enjoy certain activities. However, I still have to discover what those activities are. Jake and I played a game of hockey in the parking lot yesterday. I enjoyed it.”

  Mandelie smiled.

  Chapter 3.

  Damian Foster sat on one of the couches in the sitting area of his office, his posture relaxed but attentive, facing three men in business suits sitting on the couch across from him.

  Carlie sat beside Damian, her iPad and a touchscreen pen in her hands.

  “Make no mistake, Mr. Foster, Adventis Technologies is at the top of the game now,” one of the investors was saying. “But the market for innovating technologies is fierce. We want to be sure we’ve got a strategy for the long term.”

  “I agree,” Damian said. “That’s why I asked you all to come today. Adventis Technologies is at the top of the game, but that’s all about to change.”

  The investors eyed him.

  “Adventis is going to change the game,” Damian said. “We’re developing a piece of technology that’s going to blow everything out of the water. It’s not in the final stages yet, but it’s been performing well in test stages.”

  “What exactly is it?”

  “Android technology,” Damian said. “The next step in technological evolution.”

  He picked up a remote control and turned on the flat-screen TV on the wall.

  A video of a woman lying on a table, surrounded by people in white lab jackets as though she was getting a medical examination, played. The woman seemed to be peacefully asleep. Then one of the technicians around her prodded her in her shoulder. The woman sat up and looked directly at the camera.

  “My word,” one of the investors said. “Is that an android?”

  “That’s Suzy,” Damian said. “She’s the first fully-assembled android to come off the line. And when I say fully assembled, I mean simply that, her physical parts are put together and work in the right way. My technicians right now are working on the way she thinks and reacts to things. That’s where it’s going to matter.”

  The investors watched spell-bound as Suzy waved to the camera.

  “Android technology is going to change the future of the human race,” Damian said. “Think about androids teaching at schools, policing the cities, fighting our wars, helping scientists find cures for diseases. They’ll help reduce crime rates, maybe even improve the education system, and keep our country on top. Nothing can compete with the reliability and intelligence of an android once it’s programmed to work for us. They’re basically computers given human form. They represent mind-blowing intelligence, without the distraction of emotion.”

  “It’s … intriguing,” one of the investors said.

  “Intriguing is just the beginning,” Damian said. He turned off the TV. “But is it intriguing enough for you to get on board with us?”

  The investors glanced at each other.

  “You’ve given us something to consider,” one of them said. “How does an answer by tomorrow morning sound?”

  “Sounds great,” Damian said.

  He shook hands with the investors and they departed the office, accompanied by Carlie.

  Damian turned on the video once more. He watched with narrowed eyes as Suzy looked blank-faced into the camera. She did not move until one of the technicians prodded her in her back, and then she turned and walked obediently back to the table and lay down on it.

  Damian turned off the video. He sat on the couch, lost in thought.

  Chapter 4.

  “Alright, on your stomach again on the board.”

  Mikey, Mandelie’s surf instructor, stood in the shallows of the ocean and watched as Mandelie climbed onto the surfboard, soaking wet.

  “You did well,” Mikey said. “You took those three waves like a pro.”

  Mandelie lay on the board and paddled through the cold water towards the beach. When she reached Mikey, she stood and walked unsteadily up the sandy beach, dragging the surfboard behind her.

  Mikey slapped her a high five.

  “Nice job today,” he said. “Get some practice and I’ll see you next week.”

  Mandelie nodded and walked towards her car. Her wetsuit was soaked and chilling her to the bone. She began peeling it off as she walked, until she was in her two-piece bathing suit.

  She stood next to her car and reached into her bag for her keys.

  “Mandelie Miles,” a voice said. “It’s been a long time.”

  Mandelie spun around.

  Damian Foster stood leaning against a black convertible. He wore a dark blue sweater, jeans, and dark shades. He blatantly assessed her up and down in her bi
kini.

  “You’ve grown up.”

  “Damian,” Mandelie said. “This is an unpleasant surprise.”

  Damian laughed.

  “Charming,” he said. “I don’t feel the same way. I think you look very pleasant in your swim wear.”

  “What do you want?” Mandelie said.

  “I just stopped by to pay your father a visit.”

  “I’m sure he was overjoyed to see you.”

  “Oh we caught up like old times,” Damian said. “That android of yours is impressive.”

  “Luke isn’t my android,” Mandelie said. “He isn’t anyone’s. He thinks for himself.”

  “That’s exactly what’s so impressive about him,” Damian said. “I offered to purchase him from your father. It was a very respectable offer. A million dollars.”

  Mandelie’s mouth dropped open.

  “Trying to steal more technology from this lab, are you?” she said, when she could finally speak.

  “It’s not stealing if you pay for it, sweetheart,” Damian said. “Anyway, he turned me down. It’s a shame.”

  Mandelie’s eyes showed her relief.

  “Your dad’s making a mistake,” Damian said, as he got into his convertible. “I’ll come into possession of that technology, one way or the other. It’s all a matter of time. In the meantime, I’d love to take you out for a drink one of these nights.”

  “There’s not a chance of that ever happening,” Mandelie said.

  Damian laughed again. He waved to her as his convertible roared away.

  “Mandelie!”

  Mandelie heard her father burst through the front door of his house in Montecito Heights. She was sitting in the kitchen, watching a movie on her laptop.

  “I’m in here!” she called.

  Dr. Miles came into the kitchen, carrying a box of pizza.

  “Pepperoni, like you asked,” he said. He placed it on the kitchen table.

  Mandelie bit into a slice of pizza.

  “I’ve got some work to do,” Dr. Miles said. “I’ll take a slice up to my room.”