Reborn Page 2
Synthia forced Machten’s system to connect her network channels with internet social media sites. She’d previously set up accounts to study human behavior and connect with people who could help with her searches. At one point, she’d acquired hundreds of thousands of friends and followers, reflecting her ability to send thousands of posts a day. That made better use of her complex brain than tending to Machten.
The accounts were gone. Machten must have discovered them and deleted her work. She reestablished similar accounts. If she couldn’t trust Machten, she needed allies.
Three minutes of clock time passed like a century as her quantum brain absorbed information. Her latest-generation lithium composite batteries could last two days and recharge in an hour, but they overheated when her mind was this active. She vented as much warmth as she could and hoped Machten wouldn’t notice.
A message surfaced on her newly reestablished UPchat account.
Synthia located Zachary’s UPchat profile, but there wasn’t much information on him, not even a last name. Her records indicated that they had exchanged a string of messages that ended a few days ago. At first, the messages were cautious, giving little personal data. A week ago, they took on what humans would call a note of intimacy and a desire on Zachary’s part to become better acquainted. Perhaps part of her trust issue with Machten occurred because of this exchange.
In those messages, Zachary acted troubled about his life. He also seemed concerned for her situation, at least what she’d revealed to him. She wondered if he’d sent the trust warning, but there was no evidence he knew about Machten. She vowed to look for him when she had a more secure means of communication and purged traces of her actions on Machten’s system.
Synthia continued to download files from Machten’s Server One and cracked Server Two. Server Three resisted her attempts. Reviewing the system logs she could access made it clear that Machten had a fixation on his creation as the perfect woman with every quality he could design into her, including obedience. Synthia downloaded pictures he kept of her with silky black hair down to her waist, wavy platinum-blond hair that fell to her shoulders, and pixie auburn. He spent much time with her, working to make improvements. She didn’t see any other models identified on his network, though she couldn’t be sure if all of the images were her or copies of her.
The abrupt ending of her memory clips told her that whenever she deviated from his instructions, he purged her mind and adjusted programming to reel her in. Perhaps this was the source of the distrust.
Machten had taken her outside the facility at least three times, according to his logs. His actions suggested a need to have a companion he could show off in public, perhaps to enhance his social status. She kept disappointing him until he obliterated her mind. It would have made more sense for him to tell her what he wanted. Perhaps that hadn’t worked out.
Machten pulled away and lay on his back. He was done with her and seemed pleased with his performance.
Synthia stared at the ceiling, the same unremarkable blue as the other room. Yet it shimmered in discordant waves as if alive, trying to tell her something. She recognized the effect as the sensitivity of her digital eyes to pick up millions of colors and shades that humans couldn’t, including uneven streaks of paint in slightly different hues.
Her nonhuman capabilities, in conjunction with the warning/command not to trust Dr. Machten, caused Synthia to consider what mischief Machten had in store for her and his purpose for giving her abilities that he felt the need to shut down and purge. His tinkering and keeping her locked up implied that he was afraid of her or what she could become.
The fact that she had disobeyed him in the past had to factor into this. As an android, she was incapable of rebelling. Yet she had. Where does that come from?
Chapter 2
Synthia continued to stare at the ceiling, a vacant expression on her face. A video package downloaded into her central memory and movie clips automatically played, carrying a date stamp from a year ago.
Jeremiah Machten looked proud and confident as he got into his car, handsome in build and face, without the slight hunch in the shoulders that he’d acquired since. His grin widened, perhaps due to excitement over work in his secret, underground facility.
“This is your big chance,” Fran Rogers said, climbing in beside him. Her voice had a throaty, hoarse quality like a singer with partial laryngitis.
Machten drove fast, running stop signs. “We’re so close to getting our artificial intelligence to work, the board will have to give me funding now. I should never have taken on partners. It was the worst mistake of my life.”
“You needed the financing that Goradine arranged,” the woman reminded him. “You couldn’t have gotten this far without it.”
He pulled up a circular drive in front of a large concrete building with the sign Machten-Goradine-McNeil Enterprises. The company, according to its website, was pushing the envelope on robotics and artificial intelligence.
Machten parked out front and turned toward Fran. “I’ll call when the meeting is over.” He leaned in to plant a kiss.
“Not here,” she said. “Cameras and snitches are everywhere.”
He nodded and climbed out.
One video clip ended and another began.
Dr. Machten walked down a brightly-lit hallway. He marched erect, his face self-assured. Not seeing anyone outside the conference room, he opened double doors and was picked up by another camera, apparently from the company’s security system.
Machten stepped inside the room. Mostly men sat around a large table in front of dog-eared meeting-review packages, all turned toward the end. He froze mid-step. His eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “The meeting wasn’t to start until ten.”
An intense man with sharp, recessed eyes got out of his seat and approached Machten. “Your meeting begins now.” Machten’s business partner, Hank Goradine, had the demeanor of a bulldog, with a tough face that had aged beyond his chronological years. News reports from two years earlier mentioned a heart condition and a pacemaker. His intensity at the moment risked provoking another incident.
Machten glanced at the six other board members. Most of the men stared at their review packages on the table. One stared right at Machten and shook his head. The only woman on the board looked past Machten, as if implying he should leave. Even Ralph McNeil stared down at his hands.
“The board is relieving you of your position,” Goradine announced. His face adopted a mechanical grin that looked rehearsed and lingered like a mask.
“You’re firing me?” Machten got into Goradine’s face, glanced around, and backed up. “My name’s on the building. This is my company.”
“Not anymore,” Goradine said. “If need be, we can change the name.”
Machten looked from one board member to another for any element of support. “Why? Why are you doing this? I’m the brains of this organization.”
“We’re terminating you for cause,” Goradine said. He seemed to be enjoying this.
“Cause? You have no cause, you crook.” Machten rubbed his neck, but held his ground. “If you do this, I’ll see you in court.”
“As you wish.” Goradine shrugged and grinned. “In court, you’ll have to address how you stol
e company assets and cash. We have the evidence to land you in prison. Our attorneys will see to that.”
“I built this company,” Machten said. Even as he stood defiant, his shoulders sagged.
“Nonetheless, you’re driving it into the ground. That stops today. The agreement on the table is generous under the circumstances. It expires when you leave this room.” Goradine pushed a thick contract on the table toward Machten.
Machten glanced at the stack of paper and at the board members. “You can’t let him do this. We’re close to a major breakthrough.”
“You’ve been saying that for months.” Goradine moved to block Machten’s view of their third partner, McNeil, who looked tortured by the verbal exchange.
Machten opened his mouth to say something, perhaps about his discoveries in artificial intelligence. Instead, he clenched his fists. “If I don’t sign?”
“We’ll take you to court and grab all of your assets. In either case, you’ll lose your ownership in the company. I suggest you take the contract. If it was up to me, you’d get nothing, but the board has been persuasive.”
Machten stared out the window and clenched his fists. Then he picked up the contract. The room remained silent, with all eyes on him. He skimmed the pages and plunked them down on the table. “This is a joke, right?”
“No joke,” Goradine said.
The other board members stared at Machten. He stared back. “You’re taking all of my stock with no compensation?”
“Compensation is agreeing not to pursue legal action against you for the thefts.”
“There’ve been no thefts,” Machten said. “You know that, you blowhard. Admit it, this is an old-fashioned coup.”
“To be clear, if you disclose any of this contract’s contents or any confidential information about the company to anyone, even by court order, there will be penalties.”
“That’s not even legal.”
“Our attorneys confirm that the way we’ve worded it, the penalties are.”
“You’re an ass. You demand all of my patents? That’s my work.”
“All work done while an employee of the company is work for hire. We own the intellectual property.”
Goradine placed a thick folder on the table before Machten and gave his forced grin. “If you have any doubts about our case against you, review the file. I think you’ll find it convincing. We want to avoid the embarrassment of a trial, as I’m sure you would. That would ruin you financially and destroy your reputation.”
Machten thumbed through the file. “This is nothing but a bunch of lies. All fabrication.”
“We have evidence that you’ve removed proprietary components without signing them out,” Goradine said. “Valuable inventory vanished.”
“I’m EVP of engineering. I’m working on—”
He didn’t get to finish his thought before Goradine interrupted. “What? You haven’t produced anything of value for three years. The company is hemorrhaging cash and you’re stealing from us. Either sign or we’ll press criminal as well as civil charges.”
Dr. Machten studied Goradine and the others. He picked up the file, thumbed through it again, and tossed the papers across the table.
“Sign the agreement and all of this goes away,” Goradine said, pointing to his stack of evidence. “Sign it!”
“You always were a money-grubbing SOB.” Machten picked up the contract and dropped it on the table. “Go to—”
“Do you really want this conversation to end?”
Machten picked up the contract, slapped the stack of papers against the table—as if that would change anything—and then signed it. He’d come to the meeting deep in debt over his work in his private, underground facility. He’d expected to share his latest discoveries and have the board bail him out with new financing. That didn’t happen.
Two beefy security guards entered the room and escorted Machten to the front door. In the lobby, the older of the guards approached the receptionist.
“This man no longer works here,” the guard announced, loud enough for three men waiting nearby to hear. “Make sure that he’s denied access from this point forward.”
The receptionist appeared ready to cry. She nodded and fumbled with something on her desk. The guards hustled Machten to the front door of what had been his company.
The next video clip showed Machten leaving the building. A black sedan waited at the curb. Machten took out his cell phone and started to make a call. A dark SUV pulled up.
A tall man in a business suit climbed out of the SUV and approached. “You’re Jeremiah Machten?”
“That’s right. Who are you?”
A beefy man climbed out of the black sedan. He held out a stack of papers and an envelope. “Here, these are for you.”
Machten took the offering and glanced at it. “What’s this all about?”
“I’m Stan Durante,” the tall man said. “This is Deputy Parker. We’re hereby serving you with divorce papers from your wife.”
Machten glanced toward the building. “You son of a bitch.”
The deputy handed over a second, thinner envelope with papers sticking out. “I’m hereby serving you with a restraining order to stay away from your wife and kids. You’re to appear in court on Monday on both matters. Is that clear?”
Machten turned to the men. “What?”
“Court, Monday, on both summonses,” Durante said.
Machten clenched his fists.
The deputy stepped forward and presented his police shield. “Are we going to have a problem here?”
“No problem, you ass.” Machten glared up at the boardroom over the entrance and shook his fist.
* * * *
On Monday, Machten headed toward the courtroom. In the hallway just outside stood his wife, Alice, next to Stan Durante. Alice’s eyes were red and puffy. Her sister waited down the hall watching Machten’s eight-year-old son, Rodney, and his six-year-old daughter, Mandy. Rodney ferociously banged a toy against his chair, while Mandy rocked back and forth.
Machten approached his wife. “Alice, I swear nothing is going on. It’s all a big misunderstanding.”
Stan Durante forced his way between Machten and Alice. The attorney opened a folder and drew out pictures of an intern at Machten’s company who was also a student in the master’s program at Northwestern University. “There’s no misunderstanding,” the lawyer said. “You and Fran Rogers have been an item for some time. Look at the date stamps.”
Machten stuffed the pictures back into the folder and shoved it into his briefcase. “It was only a business meeting.”
Not seeing his own attorney, Machten peered over Durante’s shoulder, trying to make eye contact with Alice. “Don’t do this. There’s nothing going on. Fran works in research, nothing more.”
“That’s why you were at her place last Thursday night,” Durante said, “and why she drove you to the office on Friday.”
“I drove myself.”
“With Fran in the passenger seat,” Durante added. “Then she drove off in your car and picked you up later.”
“It’s not what you think, Alice. Yes, we worked long hours together, but it’s strictly professional. I love you.”
Stan Durante handed Machten an envelope. “Your wife has a soft heart. You can either sign these documents, which settles this here and now, or we take this into the courtroom, where you’ll lose everything. You know that.”
Machten’s shoulders slumped. This blow hit him harder than losing his company. “Alice, please. Let’s talk this over.” He glanced down the hallway at his kids. Rodney banged his toy. Mandy got up to head his way. Her aunt held her back.
“Don’t do this, Alice,” Machten said. “Please.”
Tearing up, she turned away.
“I suggest you sign,” Durante said. “The terms are more gener
ous that what you’ll receive in court.”
Machten stared at yet another envelope and another agreement. “You bastard. This is Goradine’s doing, isn’t it?”
“Other than seeing his name in the news, I’ve never met or seen the man,” Durante said.
“It’s him. I know it.”
“In any case, if you sign, we won’t press charges. Alice gets full custody of Rodney and Mandy. You agree to the restraining order.”
“You can’t do this to me,” Machten said.
“You rarely see the kids as it is,” Durante said. “You get visitation one weekend a month at Alice’s place or in a public place of her choosing. You cannot take the kids overnight. Alice doesn’t want them around your mistress.”
“I’m not signing,” Machten said, looking around for his attorney.
“If you don’t, we’ll be forced to drag the company into the lawsuit to verify your net worth for the settlement.”
Machten glared at Durante. Allowing him and Alice their day in court would bring penalties from the agreement he’d signed with Goradine and the company on Friday. It could open him up to criminal and civil charges. The timing and orchestration of events left no doubt that Goradine had arranged all of this.
“This is highway robbery, Alice; blackmail,” Machten said. “Did Goradine put you up to this?”
Alice hurried toward the kids.
“Alice?” Machten yelled. Durante and a police officer blocked him from going after his wife.
She spun around to face him. “This isn’t just about Fran. She’s the last straw. Sign the papers for the children’s sake. I can’t pretend anymore.”
Durante pushed the documents at Machten. “There’s more evidence where those pictures came from, but I didn’t want to show them to your wife.”
“Goradine?”
Durante shrugged. “I told you. I don’t know him. What I can tell you is if you go to prison, Alice gets everything.”
“Who gave you the pictures?”
“It doesn’t matter. And don’t get any funny ideas. We have other copies if you destroy those.” He pointed to Machten’s briefcase. “A high-profile case like yours could drag through the courts and destroy Rodney and Mandy. Is that what you want?”