She walked through the door and looked closer at the puppies in the display case. They all noticed her presence, wagging their tails and panting with excitement as she approached. She leaned in and put a hand against the plastic wall of their encasement, and a couple of the synthetic animals tried to offer her their paws.
It was subtle, but she could tell they were fake. It was the fur. Animal fur had a resilient, random nature to the way each individual hair grew. Synthetic animals were all made of uniform fur. Every thread about as long as the others. And something about the way it was connected to the “skin” made it look like it was sewed on, rather than growing from follicles.
She stepped back and smiled at the puppies. The imitation of life was nearly perfect.
I wonder if they’re like Vicky, she couldn’t help but wonder. Real animals, just hollowed out and reprogrammed.
She shook the thought from her mind almost as quickly as it came. There was no logic to it. Disregarding the ethics of killing innocent animals, there would be no purpose to hollowing them out and putting in a computer, just so they can mimic what they already were. Not to mention the time and money that would be wasted on such an effort.
No. She knew they were robots just designed to look real. They were made by man and not slaughtered. They served many purposes that real animals could not. They provided companionship to those who are otherwise allergic to the animal. They engaged in long relationships for growing children, and could even be programmed to simulate aging and death, then rebirth, just in order to teach the cycle of life.
Or, at least, the cycle as it is now, Beth observed.
She was distracted by a cage of artificial geckos when a man stepped up beside her.
“Almost like real, aren’t they?” he commented.
“Almost,” she replied.
She didn’t look at him. After a moment, she walked to the other side of the store, feigning some interest in the robotic canaries in order to get away from the stranger. He followed her.
“It’s an interesting place to meet,” he said. After a moment, he added, “In the mall, I mean.”
Beth turned to face him. She almost half expected it to be Marcus using some sort of disguise, but the thought left her mind when she saw nothing familiar. The man was much older than her, probably in his late fifties. There was a bright circle of flesh atop his head where his hairline had receded and started to gray. A pair of old folks glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, all above a slightly crooked smile. He didn’t have a very welcoming appearance, she thought.
“Do I know you?” she asked, squinting a little.
“Not me — no — but I’m a friend of Marcus,” the stranger replied. “My name’s Mark.”
He offered an outstretched hand. She took it and shook.
“Beth,” she introduced herself. “Where’s Marcus?”
“He’s in the stairwell,” Mark replied. “Between the stores.”
Beth’s eyebrow went up. “Why?” she asked.
“He wouldn’t tell me, but he said you’d understand,” the man said.
The detective looked around her for a moment, at the clerk behind the counter, at the one other shopper in the store. No one seemed to pay them any mind.
Why would Marcus want to meet in the stairwell? Beth asked herself. Is he in danger, too? Perhaps Tarov was able to get to him and threaten him, or something like that. But why would that keep him from meeting her out in public? She had been threatened herself, and here she was. Was that a mistake? Was she just standing out in the open for the Liberators — like a sitting duck?
There must be some method to Marcus’s madness, she decided. She’d known the man for over eight years now and he’d always proved to have a good intuition. If he felt it was dangerous to meet out here, then there was a reason for it. She grew nervous herself as she followed Mark out of the store.
“This way,” he beckoned her, heading to the right and into a door that was painted to look like part of the rest of the wall. An exit sign with a stick figure man fleeing down a flight of stairs hung above the door.
Once she stepped through, the door was closed behind her. She jolted a little and turned to see Mark with his hand on the knob.
Looking around, she realized they were alone. She sighed a little to herself.
You fell for the trap, dummy, she thought. Rule 101: don’t trust strangers.
“Where’s Marcus?” she asked.
“He’s been rerouted somewhere else,” Mark — if that even was his name — said.
“Who are you?” She felt around behind her as she spoke, not daring to remove her eyes from the stranger. She grabbed onto the railing that followed the stairs down to the lower level. “What do you want with me?”
“I’m here on behalf of my master general, detective,” Mark said.
“So you’ve come to kill me?” Beth asked. “And you’ve brought one of your meat puppets to do the job?”
Mark said nothing.
“You realize that Tarov is an A.I., right?” Beth said. She took a step back, feeling with her feet how close the first step down was. “He’s fooled you all into following his cause.”
“They said you’d say something like that,” the meat puppet assassin said. “Luckily, I was well conditioned before they transferred me into this body. There’s no doubt as to my loyalty.”
“Then I supposed you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do,” Beth replied.
Without hesitation, she spun around and ran down the first flight of stairs. The I.I. chased after her, pushing off of the closed door to give himself a boost.
Beth wanted to
