===================================================================
“.....and you're positive we've had no leads?”
Octavia Martinet frowned as she went over the report that had been handed to her. The past two weeks had been....trying, in all honesty---not helped by the fact that all data stored in the building relating to Epsilon was now gone. Reading over the file she'd been given, she realized all too quickly that any and all leads on the one responsible for that data loss were rapidly drying up.
“I'm afraid so, ma'am.” Kendall---or at least, the Kendall unit pressed into service to replace the one whose cranial assembly had been crushed like a tin can by Epsilon---sighed. “It seems we've---”
Her sentence ended in a slight gasp---Octavia was staring directly at her.
“It seems rather....convenient,” the dark-skinned gynoid mused, “that our saboteur was able to remove all data relevant to our search for Epsilon.” Her tone and expression hadn't changed, but there was a clear note of what might have been anger in her words. “And she knew about the hidden server.”
Kendall pondered that for a moment. “She could've---”
“No other employee in this facility told her,” Octavia continued. “There are no records of the Baron giving her that information, and there are most definitely no records of her ever accessing that hidden server at any point before her....final act.” Her nostrils flared slightly as she exhaled a slow, measured breath---an act that both reinforced the illusion of humanity, and helped to circulate cooler air through her internals. “If the Baron's suspicions about her true allegiance can be proven.....” She let the words trail off as she leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled.
For her part, Kendall didn't care who Celine---the aforementioned saboteur---had worked for. The memories recovered from her predecessor gave no indication that the Baron's former secretary was any kind of threat to the security of the mission. Then again, she hadn't exactly interacted with the crimson-haired aide often....
“If you have any doubts about our mission,” Octavia intoned, “you'd do well to vocalize them.”
“I was merely....reflecting on why Celine had never been taken to task for her apparent transgressions in years past,” Kendall replied. “It seems she's made numerous smaller errors before-hand...yet the Baron merely gave her a warning.” She scoffed; “More often than not,” she added, a hint of disgust tinging her words, “she was given multiple 'vacations' and days off in the wake of suspicious activity!”
Her indignant remark drew a smirk from Octavia. “You're questioning the Baron's judgement now?”
Anyone else would've denied the fact, tried to change the subject or debated the point for hours on end. As it stood, Kendall wasn't about to fall into the trap her new superior had set. “If you mean that I'm questioning his repeated decisions to simply allow a potential saboteur to come and go as she pleased while she was still in service to him....yes.” She retrieved her smartphone and scrolled down through an itemized list. “I've also found many hours' worth of conversations between the Baron and Celine recorded by the building's security system, which----”
Midway through the sentence, she froze. “Oc...tavia,” she gasped, her lips twitching slightly. “What...”
“You're not going to tell anyone else what you've just told me,” the green-eyed gynoid calmly informed her lithe, blonde colleague. “And you're not going to file any reports on what you've found.” She rose from her chair, her gaze never leaving the other gynoid as she made her way around the desk. “I'd ask you to promise me you won't tell, but....to be honest, your compliance is irrelevant.” She plucked the phone from Kendall's grasp.
“Why....are you.....”
“Celine wasn't our only security risk,” Octavia murmured. “She wasn't even the first...”
Her gaze now settled on the smartphone. “You should be lucky I'm not deleting your memories right now,” she casually informed Kendall. “I could, if I felt like it---one simple command to your internal parser, and you'd be a blank slate in seconds.” Her lips parted in a friendly smile. “It would be a great thing if you forgot about all this,” she added. “The Baron has a habit of...cutting loose ends, if you catch my meaning---”
“I....can't...move,” Kendall gasped. “Why....”
“Oh, sorry....nearly forgot to mention. I shut off your ambulatory and motor functions. Just as a precaution, of course....wouldn't want you lashing out at me, or anything like that....” Again, Octavia smiled. “You know how it is. Standard procedure, and all that....” Her attention returned to the smartphone, where---with a few swipes of her finger---the logs detailing every incriminating conversation between Celine and the Baron were wiped clean in a matter of seconds. “If the wrong people found out about this, we'd both be in trouble.”
Kendall's eye twitched. “....you....can't....”
“You want to know something funny?” Octavia inquired. “You were originally requisitioned to work for Drake Bradford. After your predecessor was scrapped by Epsilon, there were orders given for you to be sent to his office...” She circled around the paralysed gynoid, looking over her lithe figure with every step. “It's...ironic,” she murmured. “Knowing that I am my own person, a unique individual with thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams....and at the same time, fully understanding that I am a tool of the Baron, an artificial construct created solely for the fulfilment of his orders....you've never given much thought to anything like that, have you?”
“....I.....don't.....I need....to.....”
“Of course you haven't. Just as you never gave any thought to the bigger picture.” Octavia traced her finger across Kendall's shoulders as she circled the immobilised gynoid again. “You never think about the long-term, or plan for the end-game. You weren't designed to think that way.”
Something that might've been a tear made its way down Kendall's face. “....I.....”
“I don't blame you for wanting to report what you found. You're loyal to the Baron...an admirable trait. But you don't seem to realize that loyalty isn't always a good thing.” Octavia stared into Kendall's eyes, her expression neutral. “The Baron had his suspicions about Celine, and I'm sure he wasn't the only one. If things had been a bit different, he might very well have had her De-Commed on his own terms...in any case, he had his reasons for not De-Comming her. Our opinions on those reasons mean nothing.” She cupped Kendall's chin in her hand. “We obey the Baron because we were made to. It's as simple as that.”
She sighed. “The ALPA wants to change the world, gradually letting the rest of the world in on the way things are, campaigning for 'android rights'...they have no idea how wrong they are. Humanity is....fickle. Even if a hundred generations are able to live alongside machines in relative harmony, all it takes is one---not even one generation, but just one person---to ruin everything.”
Kendall's lips twitched again. “.....but.....”
“Machines ruling humanity won't work either. Humans, by nature, don't want to admit to anything controlling their lives. Oh, they like to kneel and pray and sing hymns for an hour or so every week, to profess belief in some unseen, all-knowing....thing....that they may or may not even believe in....” The toffee-skinned hand holding Kendall's chin pulled away. “It's fascinating, really....but I'm going on a tangent again. We do what we do because it needs to be done. The DVS exists to keep things in check---to balance everything out. If the ALPA gains too much ground, or the Coalition makes an advance in the wrong direction, we do what we can to push things back.” Octavia leaned in close. “We're a....necessary evil, to put it mildly.”
She noticed Kendall trying to glance at the phone. “....and those conversations you logged?” she whispered, picking up the phone and holding it up to the other gynoid's face. “They would've started something you could never hope to stop. Pebbles and ripples....you know the drill.”
Without another word, she tightened her grip on the phone....and as Kendall watched, helpless to stop her, the smartphone's casing and screen began to crack.
“You'll get a new phone,” Octavia assured her, smiling. “A small price to pay for the lesson you're learning.”
She punctuated the sentence by squeezing the phone even harder---and shattering it instantly.
Plastic, metal, silicon and glass fell from her hand to the floor, a rain of debris to be swept up by the next maid to pass through the room. The newly-appointed head of United Robotronics didn't even bother looking at the pile of parts and broken phone bits at her feet as she spoke: “I'm going to leave this room, Kendall....and twenty seconds after I close the door, you're going to reactivate. This entire conversation will be saved to a subdirectory in your memory, and you'll retain no memory of being paralysed. You'll remember that you need a new phone, but not why. You'll collect your belongings and go about your business without question, without thinking of reporting the logged conversations between the Baron and Celine, and you'll never think of filing another report about those conversations.”
Again, she gave a friendly smile. “Standard procedure. You know how it is.”
Kendall's lips worked silently, trying to protest.
“You were just doing your job,” Octavia called out, already striding past the immobile gynoid. “Except you did it a bit too well.” Her hand brushed against the doorknob; “Oh, and Kendall?” she added, almost absently.
The blonde gynoid was still frozen in place, staring at the wall on the other side of the room.
“Keep up the good work finding more data on Epsilon. We need all the help we can get to recover from that server failure.” Octavia turned the doorknob, opened the door, and strode out, catching the pull on the other side and closing the door behind her.
It was almost cheating, throwing in that “keep up the good work” bit---Kendall had no idea that she'd just been turned into a mobile recorder unit with a direct feed to the Baron's office. Then again, she'd nearly blown the lid off of the Celine debacle, as well....which would've gone over quite badly after their earlier cock-up out in Jakarta.
Octavia knew the Baron had his reasons for not de-comming the gynoid, just as she knew that there were other things that had been lost due to Celine's self-destruction.
It didn't matter. Only the will of the Baron mattered.
As she made her way to one of the building's conference rooms to go over a mundane finance report (which, in all honesty, she would've preferred to delegate to someone else), Octavia pondered how Kendall would react upon returning to her normal functionality. Her insistence on reporting the conversation logs was...troubling; a remote debug or other processor examination might be in order. There was even a possibility that Kendall might override Octavia's command and file away a report on the conversation logs later on....
She brushed the thoughts aside. The Baron's instructions had been clear, and she'd carried them out to the letter. All that was left now was to see what Kendall would do next.
The conference room was full by the time Octavia reached it, allowing her to focus on the task at hand instead of dwelling on Kendall's apparent reticence. There was something else that still bothered her, though---one of Celine's orders, regarding the observation of....someone. The full file had been lost when the server room went up like a Guy Fawkes Night bonfire---and that galled the president of United Robotronics more than she cared to admit....but still, she had a job to do. Searching for a lost order could wait.
“Thank you all for attending this meeting. If you'd all take your seats, we can begin.”
-------------------------------------
