Read What Lies Behind: A New Adult Dark Science Fiction Romance Online
Authors: Travis Simmons
Tags: #science fiction romance
What Lies Behind: A New Adult Dark Science Fiction Romance
Copyright © May, 2015 by Travis Simmons
What Lies Behind
Published by:
Wyrding Ways Press
Cover Design by:
Najla Qamber Designs
Formatting by:
Wyrding Ways Press
Edited by:
Wyrding Ways Press
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual places, events, and people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
Thank you Andy Ruffley for answering my questions on robotics! Thank you, Dave Taylor, for asking me “when are you working on science fiction?” and introducing me to Andy. Thank you, also, to my brother-in-law, Barry Fretwell, for being a sounding board and helping me bounce ideas around, and for the awesome idea of bio-fuel. Thanks to his techy ways, he helped me create a more viable future Earth. This book was certainly a process, and so many people helped me shape it!
Special Thanks
Since I have no life and little to no dating experience, writing a book with heavy romantic elements was nearly impossible for me. My editor said “Um, yeah, you need to make them date more. They went from meeting to suddenly in love.” I sent out an SOS to my Facebook page. “Please help, since I’m destined to be forever alone and I have no dating experience, I need to know what you think are some great ideas for dates!” The responses were awesome. A huge thank you goes out to the following people. Without their insights into the dating world, this book wouldn’t have been as exciting as (I hope) it is.
Simone Lily
Brook Buttitta
Ren Reidy
Heyley Guertin
Diana Horne
The light swung carelessly above Cass blinding her to the room around her. She lay on a hard surface, and if the sensors in her skin were any indication, it was metallic. She imagined that it was cold. Wasn’t that something normally associated with metal tables in sterile rooms like this? She couldn’t feel the cold, however. Automatons weren’t capable of feeling that way, unless they were programmed to. She could normally, at least determine the temperature of something, if something were hot or cold, or if it were soft or rough. Not because she could feel as humans did, but because the sensors in her skin told her programs that. In a way, wasn’t that like feeling?
She couldn’t register cold then because all of her senses were still focused on the fire. Her family, the ones who’d kept her since she was first produced, all dead in a single, terrifying night of flames.
There were voices around her—movement to her right.
“And it’s done?” a male voice said. “They’re dead?”
The words conjured before her eyes the rough white door that led from the garage and into the kitchen. Behind the door a fire raged. She could hear it eating away at the interior of the house in monstrous snaps and pops that nearly drowned out the screams of help. She’d wanted to help. Every part of her urged Cass to go to the door, to throw it open and to rush in and save her family, but she couldn’t. Automatons were meant to do whatever they could to help and aid their owners unless it put them in direct danger of death. Her sensors told her that the room was hot, too hot for her computers to handle and function within. It would mean a kind of death for her. How she wanted to escape her programming and go into the burning home after her family. After the people that she’d lived with since she was a new robot, just off the shelf.
But she couldn’t.
“All dead,” a familiar voice said to her left. It was a female and conjured all kinds of memories and what she thought were emotions within her. At least she felt a positive response to the woman. “How is she?”
“Remarkably well,” the man said. The light shifted over her body. The absence of the glaring white light only served to blind her further. “No burns, no scrapes. Where did they find her?”
“Right where she was supposed to be, in the garage.” Where did she know that voice from? It could have been anywhere. She’d run many errands for her family, but this voice wasn’t one she’d heard in passing. This voice was one she knew very well.
“Does anyone suspect?” the man asked. Cass detected something probe at her side and she knew that he was working with her computer interface.
“So she’s ready for the memory wipe?” the woman asked.
“Yes, let’s get her back in the show room.”
Bit by bit the memories faded. The fire dimmed, the screams washed away. The house where she lived became a very faint memory, so faint until it was transparent, and then erased completely. All of her life, bit by bit, scrubbed away until she remembered one thing…her basic programming.
…Memory cell damage detected.
Repairing…
Cass detected the nanobots swarm up her spine and to her head. She wasn’t sure how much had been damaged this time, but she couldn’t see, and she couldn’t move which meant—
…Energy unit damage detected.
Repairing…
More nanobots swarmed down her spine and to her core, where the bio-energy containment unit was hosted.
…
Visual overlay damage detected.
Repairing…
Bots raced across her brain to the forefront of her skull. She was aware of them tampering there with things she knew little about. All she knew was that this time it had been worse than last time. Memory units hadn’t been damaged last time Natalia got angry with her.
Static flashed before her eyes. Her vision wavered. A bright light came into view and there were voices around her. This wasn’t Natalia’s room. This wasn’t the apartment that Cass had been living in now for the last…well as long as she could remember.
“Have you programmed her with the next assignment?” the woman to her left asked.
“Just let me get this one last memory,” the man said.
“Are you going to fix her hands? I thought you said she wasn’t damaged in the fire.”
“No, not in the fire. And yes, I will fix the hands. Will you shut up and let me work?”
Cass’s vision wavered and the light faded. The voices ebbed away. She tried pulling them back, delving deeper into the memory, but she must have sustained more damage than she’d first thought.
…Emotional response array offline.
Enabling emotional response array…
What is that?
Cass wondered. She’d been through a lot of nanobot repairs lately, and she’d never heard of an emotional response array.
Emotional response array activated.
…Free will nodules offline.
Free will nodules activated…
Cass’s hand began to shake. What did
that
mean? She was an automaton. They didn’t
have
free will…or emotions. What was happening here? Natalia must have really messed something up this time. She’d never heard of these systems. Cass did not know she
had
these systems. What was happening to her hand? Why did her stomach churn the strange way it did, as if there was a little vile engine inside of her churning up all of these ill feelings?