THE CHASE - Connor x OC (I Am Sequel)

Chapter 12

"Charlotte?" Christen asked, jumping up from her seat. She ran over to me and gave me a hug, wrapping her arms around me tight. If I get hugged one more time today, I'm going to launch a war. She backed up and smiled at me.

"Hi, Christen," I smiled.

"So, what's up? What made you drop by?" She asked.

I really haven't seen Christen since she moved out of Nick's house. Since then, she's moved in with Kamski. I'm not too surprised. I fully expect her to marry him considering the way he care about her and Fiona. They have such history, all the way back to college.

"Connor. I took him to the hospital but...he's unresponsive. It said critical data failure. I tried self repair but..." I began.

"Oh, that's an easy fix," She said. She headed off to her desk and picked up a flash drive. "Let's head over there."

"I hope you don't mind if I ask you some extra questions. I have an investigation, and they're very pertinent," I explained, as we walked quickly to the elevator.

"Well, we've got time. Go ahead and hit me," She said.

"One of our suspects, he's been around for a long time. A long, long time. How long have the RKs been in production?" I asked.

"Well, Chloe is the first android. Those are the RTs, and the STs. The RKs have conceptually been around for a long time. The RKs are designed to be the perfect android. Autonomous, able to integrate into anything, and practically human. So of course, they've been an idea since the beginning. RKs are supposed to be, well, perfect. Even though CRs were produced after the release of some of the first RKs, CRs are meant to be the compliment to RKs. You are less autonomous, more controlled and refined, with an almost soft, feminine quality to you. Emotional to some degree. Personal. Unlike our other models, CRs are all females, instead of having other sexes or genders."

"And...what is the exact timeline for the RK production?" I asked.

"Oh goodness. The first RK prototype had to be 2023. That would be the RK000-0. The first functioning prototype probably wasn't until 2024, with the RK100-01. However, that was never released. It's always possible that any of the prototypes were gifted away by Elijah after we got our data," Christen explained. "Markus, the RK200 probably wasn't developed until 2035. He was gifted away."

"Were the RK800s the first officially released model?" I asked.

"Technically, yes. Although, you can probably go around looking for earlier models that Elijah gave away."

"Were there any bugs with those early prototypes?" I asked.

"Oh, certainly. There are always a few," She explained. We climbed into the taxi, and began to head towards the hospital.

"What kinds of bugs?"

"Usual stuff. Breaking down, unresponsive, malfunctioning AI. With the early ones, I think Elijah coded the autonomy far too high with some of them. I told him they shouldn't be that high. That's how we got Markus, so it wasn't the worst," Christen shrugged.

"Was Kamski trying to create an android that would be..." I began searching for words.

"Be like Markus?" Christen finished for me. I nodded, and she shook her head in response. "I don't think he was, at least. Elijah never listened to me, but I don't think he would ever go that far. Markus was an accident. A pleasant one, but an accident. To assume he did it on purpose...well...that's a little too much."

"You never had any prototypes that seemed...almost creepy? Disobedient? Aggressive?" I asked.

"Well, of course. Some never emoted, some never listened, and some wanted to kill everything in sight. That was a simple AI fix," She shrugged.

"You never just threw them out?" I asked.

"In my lab, all androids were...well, disposed of...properly. If Elijah came and wanted a prototype to hand out, I always made sure they were practically perfect, save for marketability issues. If Elijah came and took one without permission, I would've known. I can't speak for what he did with the prototypes though. I know he's extraordinarily responsible though," Christen defended. She acted like he was here, or like I was speaking ill of him, when I had barely even asked about him.

"How would you...dispose of androids?" I asked.

"The same way we do it now. With the ones who are unsalvageable from the technodump, we have to just burn them..." Christen explained.

"You destroy androids now?" I asked, confused.

"We check for family connections first. We never just destroy an android. If an android has a working cortex, but no salvageable body parts we destroy the body, and upload them into another body. When I say unsalvageable I mean the cortex is completely destroyed. I've had androids come in with 1% of their mental capacity remaining, and we can save them. It's the ones where...they're entirely, completely gone. If we brought them back, it would be like a rudimentary AI system. The kind that's driving this taxi," Christen said, gesturing to the empty drivers seat.

"I understand. I'll probably have more questions to ask later, but thank you, Christen."

"It's no problem," she said, finally settling in her seat. "But about Connor..."

"Yes?"

"I haven't seen him yet...but based on your questioning...you should know. Androids with the same prefix, you know RK, or CR, that sort of thing, can communicate with each other much easier. Whenever you communicate with Connor without verbalizing, like when the two of you communicate just through your heads and the such, that is mutual consent. Both of you have to acknowledge the message, sending and receiving. When you have the same model prefix, there is no mutual consent. It's just one android sending messages to the other."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because. With service androids who would often work in the same department, it was smart. It became a project wide policy early on though. There shouldn't be a way for an Android to alter code through messages though, especially not single consent ones."

"But? Hypothetically speaking?"

"Hypothetically speaking if one were to figure it out, they could seriously reek some havoc on internal systems."

"Do I need to worry about my suspect taking out Markus?"

"I sincerely doubt it. Just don't bring him within a certain distance of him. Androids can't communicate with each other from over 2000 feet away...you know without calling, and that's an entirely different form of contact."

"There's no way for someone to alter code through a cell phone call...right?"

"Absolutely not. That would be...well...batshit crazy," Christen shook her head.