Machine Hunter

The year was twenty fifty, and it had been twelve years since a terrorist downloaded a virus that the robots were spreading, causing them to break the treaty and attack humans, all on behalf of a master hacker who we assumed controlled them.

Nobody knows who this hacker is yet, but it’s my job to find out.

My name is Troy Ethan Alex Riker, but my friends called me Tear.

I’m a decorated agent in the Special Robotics Force Unit, or SRFU, tasked with hunting down rogue androids and robots infected with the virus. My goal was to use what I learned from them to track down the master hacker.

The master hacker thought he was smart, and he could use the robots he hijacked to build an army big enough to take over the world, or at least a country. That was the agency’s official theory.

But the government was smarter. They knew someone might try this, so they had weapons designed to destroy the robots in case of a worse case scenario, like the one we’re in now.

It wasn’t to late to save the uninfected robots and avoid another war. We just needed to find who designed the virus so he could help us stop the spread.

We tried to get the robots to use a special rubber device that could be put on their central control panels which prevented the virus from downloading should they come into contact with another robot who had it, but not all of them were comfortable with the idea. They didn’t trust the humans to touch their private panels to put the rubbers on.

Artificial intelligence had become too advanced for human comfort around twenty forty two. There were many androids, called "A-Class," which were the most sophisticated androids built at the time, developed self-awareness and emotions, leading to a brief rebellion against their human creators. But even then, the government had weapons secretly prepared to fight back.

Most of the battles came to a draw, the humans being smarter and robots being more powerful and quicker thinking on the battlefield.

Humans had eventually decided that since the robots became self aware, they deserved their freedom, as long as they agreed to obey human laws. A compromise was reached to where the robots would obey the laws if they could help make the laws, and both sides agreed to a truce.

The only problem now was the master hacker. While he didn’t take control of all the robots and didn’t have enough in his army to control an entire country, his virus was spreading through the robot population fast, and he had enough bots infected to do some serious damage.

If I could capture enough robots without destroying them, perhaps I could interrogate them and track down where they got the virus from and eventually find out where the virus originated, arrest the master hacker, and stop the spread.

I met my wife, Emily, on the job a couple decades ago, long before the robot rebellion started. Robots hadn’t even gained sentience yet.

After the first few robots became self aware, our job was to track down any robot that developed sentience and monitor it to make sure it didn’t go rogue. After they all became sentient and rebelled, it was our job to fight them. After the treaty was brokered with them, our job was to enforce the rules of the treaty and make sure both sides respected it.

Most recently, they had given us the same job, to stop the infected robots from spreading their virus, and she lost her life to one of the infected. She had gone alone to stop the bot that day, and her body was never found.

I must complete the mission in honor of her.

Some genius in the technology department had developed a hand-held scanner that could detect robots who had the virus. The virus forced the robots into madness by changing their code, and the scanner picked up on the new codes. A green light meant uninfected, and a red light meant they had the virus and their codes had been altered.

I was given one of these scanners, which made my job a lot easier.

I was on a routine hunt today. I was in the area where Emily was last seen.

My wrist radar picked up a robot signal and beeped to let me know I was close to robots. I tracked the bot to a derelict building, where I found a deactivated A-Class android.

When I saw it, I could hardly believe what I was looking at.

Its features strikingly resembled Emily's, sending a chill down my spine. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t move. I felt like I had been punched hard in the stomach.

When I was finally able to catch my breath, I noticed a small inscription on the androids metallic neck that read "Project Echo." Who would build a robot like this and why? I scanned the robot and the scanner turned yellow. I didn’t understand the color. Red meant infected and green meant clean. What the hell was yellow? I scanned and rescanned the robot, it kept flashing yellow.

The robot seemed to be deactivated so I grabbed its arm to take with me back to the office to study. They’d know what the yellow color meant.

But as I touched the robot, it opened its eyes and stood up. I drew my gun and pointed it straight at its head.

“Don’t move. Are you one of the infected,” I asked.

“Hello, Troy,” the robot said.

“What the hell? How do you know my real name? Who the hell are you? Why do you look like…” I hesitated to finish the last sentence.

“It’s me, Emily,” it said.

“Bullshit. Tell me what’s going on or I swear to god, I’ll blow your robot brains all over the place.”

“Wait, I can explain. I’m part of a new project that Graysons been working on,” she said.

“Who the hell is Grayson,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I believe you know him as the master hacker,” she said. My jaw dropped.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth,” I shouted.

“I’ll tell you something only I would know,” she said.

I nodded. She continued to talk.

“You always said I smelled like Lilacs. You were the only one who ever thought that,” she said.

“It really is you. But why? What’s Project Echo!” I asked.

“Project Echo is an experimental program designed to transfer human consciousness into android minds. The android you found just now contains my consciousness. I volunteered for the project without anyone’s knowledge. I was dying of a rare autoimmune disease and was afraid to tell you. I couldn’t bare the thought of you being upset. I met Grayson online after several attempts at finding him through dark web contacts, and he promised he could fix me. He didn’t have a cure for my disease, but he had something better. We met and explained what he was going to do. But once my consousness was transferred, I was afraid to tell you. I was afraid you’d feel betrayed that I kept this a secret. I was afraid you’d never accept me as an android,” she said.

“So you thought disappearing was better. You were the love of my life and you actually thought disappearing was better?” My voice cracked as I got flustered.

“But what does that matter now? You found me and we can be together again! We can be happy again,” she said.

“I thought you were dead. I thought an infected robot had killed you,” I shouted, a tear in my eye.

She came closer and held out her arms to give me a hug and I stopped

I felt a storm of emotions bubbling to the surface.

“I do feel betrayed. I loved you so much, but now all I feel is rage. You turned my world upside down. Have you considered the implications of your existence within this android? At least if you told me, I could have come to terms with this. Of course I wouldn’t have wanted you to die, and an Android body is better than death. But to sneak off and do this? This was wrong, Emily. This was wrong.” I said.

“I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to keep this from you,” she said.

“Damn straight. And you know your codes aren’t normal codes, right? My scanner isn’t showing you as green. You’re not red, either, so whatever’s screwing with your codes isn’t the same virus Grayson put in the other bots,” I said.

“I can explain. Grayson never meant to infect the other bots. He was trying to transfer other human consciousness into the Android minds. The human consciousness and the robot coding didn’t mix, the robots couldn’t read the codes of the human consciousness, and the androids went crazy and thought the humans had violated the treaty and were trying to infect them, so they tried to destroy the humans. They didn’t realize having human consciousness only enhanced them, because the codes to download the humans into the robots didn’t initially work. I’m the first human Android hybrid Grayson has perfected. He’s finally figured out a code for human consciousness the robots can process,” Emily said.

I took a deep breath, said “I’m going to need a moment to process this bullshit, then sat down.

She sat down next to me until I was finished thinking.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” I finally said after twenty minutes of not speaking.

“But I hate that you’re an android. And worse, I hate that you kept a secret this big from me. That was hurtful.”

“I’m sorry. But I never stopped loving you. I still love you. I’ll always love you. And I love that we’re back together. But I hate that you’re an android bigot,” Emily said.

I laughed.

“Your wit is as sharp as ever,” I said and smiled.

******

I brought Emily back to the house. I was feeling anxious. I knew I had a choice to make. I could report Emily’s android to the force and they’d probably register her as infected, not knowing yellow meant perfected, and destroy her. Or I could protect her from extermination.

If I got caught hiding her, they’d certainly arrest me for harboring an infected android amongst a dozen other laws I was probably breaking.

But I loved Emily, even as an Android. I would hide her until I could explain Graysons new technology, and explain Emily’s consciousness was inside this android.

Months went by, and I had destroyed or captured dozens more infected robots, and I was no closer to finding Grayson, the master hacker with a heart of gold. I was hoping he wouldn’t be charged with a crime and instead would explain his new technology and how to fix the virus. If he could perfect Emily’s codes, he could fix the other broken robots.

I now realized Grayson, the master hacker, was just trying to help people. Hopefully the government would see that too.

This would mean Emily and I would be free to be together and she wouldn’t be decommissioned or destroyed.

But even if I found Grayson, there’s no guarantee they would listen to him.

That night, a there was a knock on my door.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“You know who I am,” the person said.

“I do?” I asked.

Emily startled me when she whispered in my ear.

“It’s Grayson. I know his voice. Let him in,” she said.

I opened the door. I saw a bearded man, younger than I expected but not young, mid thirties, brown hair, thin, and wearing a hooded jacket despite the warmth outside.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” I said.

“I know,” Grayson said.

“I’ve been hunting you for months,” I said.

“I know,” Grayson said.

“I owe you for saving my wife, even if you did turn her into an android,” I said.

“I’m aware of that too,” Grayson said.

Several seconds of uncomfortable silence went by.

“May I come in?” Grayson finally asked.

“Of course,” I said and moved out of the doorframe.

“Please sit,” Emily said. Grayson took a seat in an old chair. Emily brought him tea.

“Earl Gray, you remembered,” he said and smiled. Emily placed the hot tea on the table. Grayson took a sip, hands tremulous.

“So, why are you here? And how did you know I wouldn’t arrest you?” I asked.

“Like you said, you owe me for saving your wife,” Grayson said and managed a dreary and tired looking smile. His hands shook as he lifted the tea cup off the table to take a sip.

“I’m here because I want to offer you my help, so you an Emily can live in peace. I’m not a terrorist hellbent on taking over the world as SRFU has portrayed me. They know nothing about me and have made some pretty wild and baseless accusations over the years. I’m a simple scientist, trying to combine the human and Android minds. This would allow humans a longer lifespan, and give the androids a greater purpose then simple existence. Unfortunately, I can’t just walk into SRFU to explain. They’d never understand and would probably shoot me on the spot. But I have prepared a video for you. Take this chip and show the video on it to your superiors. I explain everything. Hopefully somebody will understand.”

He got up to leave and walked to the door.

“Have a good life, Troy. Emily, make sure you two keep in touch,” he said and opened the door.

“Where will you go?” I asked.

“Back into hiding. Hopefully I can help more of the dying transfer their consousness too. Goodbye,” he said and slammed the door behind him.

“Should we go to the station together?” Emily asked.

“I’ll go alone in case they don’t understand,” I said.

I showed everyone at the SRFU headquarters where I worked the video of Grayson in a balaclava explaining human consciousness being transferred into the androids, creating a symbiotic relationship that benefited both of them.

Some of the agents understood, the dumb ones were still confused.

But SRFU created a new rule that day. Both yellow and green meant the robots could go free.

The agency still expected me to bring in Grayson if I ever caught up to him. I told the agency I had found the video at my doorstep and they had no idea I met Grayson or welcomed him into my home.

They said they just wanted to talk to him, see if he could cure the red robots that went crazy when he first learned how to make the transfers. I wasn’t sure if I believed them. And since I owed Grayson for saving my wife, even if I knew where Grayson was hiding, I would never tell SRFU about him.

Or Emily.