Not Human

Chapter 7: Recall

Carter said, "Heard the news?"

Sharon replied, "Yes. Biggest recall since 2060."

Carter sighed, "What's worse is that it's a replacement model."

Sharon agreed, "Recalling replacement androids. That's like killing them all over again."

I imagined how it would feel if it was Sharon's model. I can't even bear to think about it.

The same thing happened in 2060 when a servant model was recalled. They wiped up the entire OS and copied the data. Rumors started circulating that they were to do the same thing with replacement androids and nation-wide protests broke out.

CEO of Limbo had to call a press conference promising to solve the safety hazard without changing anything inherent about the robots' identities.

Carter said matter-of-factly, "They increased their workload ten-folds by announcing that. Copying the memory drive would be much cleaner for such a big recall."

I looked at Sharon. Her eye was twitching with anger, but her lips betrayed nothing.

We continued with our testing till lunch break when Sharon announced that she was taking a half-day.

I said, "Where are you going?"

Sharon replied, "Adam Jones is to be recalled today. I'm going to meet up with him."

"AJ47?"

"Yes."

"But why?"

"I disabled his limiter."

"Yeah but it would automatically turn back on so..."

"The time limit can be manually reset. I'm sure AJ turned it to indefinite."

The authorities aren't informed of the disabled limiter which means they're going to send in only a skeletal crew to extract him. Since AJ47 is in the trash unit they would just dismantle him instead of fixing the safety hazard. If AJ47 draws the same conclusion he would resist capture and it would be breaking news before the day ended.

"If you knew about the limiter why didn't you turn it back on right then!?"

Sharon raised her eyebrows, "Would you like to live on sedatives for the rest of your life?"

I took off my goggles and rubbed my temples. There was no point in discussing this now.

"What are you going to do?"

"As much as I hate it, I am going to enable his limiter."

"I will come with you."

"No. You will only slow me down. If it comes down to a fight, I am the stronger model anyway."

I had checked her specs before. She's as strong as they come. But still sending her alone didn't seem right.

Before leaving Sharon gave me a hug and whispered into my ear, "I would know if you try to follow me."

***

Sharon walked inside the warehouse. AJ47 stood in wait.

AJ47 said, "I was waiting for you."

Sharon said, "Then you know why I'm here."

"I just have one request."

"I will hear it."

"Give this to the kids."

AJ47 handed Sharon a cloth bag.

Sharon asked, "May I look inside?"

"Be my guest."

Sharon opened the bag, inside was a silver ring, and a neatly sculpted horse from the segregated plastic.

AJ47 said, "Adam bought me that ring. He let me keep it. Now that I'm going to be disassembled, I think I would rather his son Andy have it. Give the horse to Lily, she loves horses."

"Okay."

Sharon then enabled the limiter and left with the bag. My spy-bot followed her out only to be trampled under her shoe.