Analog Heart by Avery Blake & Avery Blake

Author:Avery Blake & Avery Blake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone

Chapter Nineteen

Vaughn straightened the knot in his tie, trying not to lose his shit as he descended the three steps out of Dewey’s.

“So that’s it?” Lou said.

“That’s it for here, but not for good. We’ll head to the Boundary and see what the doctor has to say.”

Dewey’s had been a bust, not that Vaughn expected anything more. Robots in a place like that didn’t care too much for Cascade, or their officials. Sure, the company had created a good deal of them, and if not them then at least the original AIs that made them all possible. But they were all well past their dates and abandoned by their gods.

Vaughn had the authority to pull the source code on any of them. Guaranteed, one hundred percent of those he audited in that diner would have been sent straight to recycling. He wasn’t planning to do that. There wasn’t time, and he didn’t want to fill out the paperwork even if there was. But there was a cold war between the expired bots and humans, with the one side always knowing that they were living on borrowed time.

So no, Vaughn hadn’t expected any answers, not unless he came down hard, but that wouldn’t get him anywhere, especially not fast. Most robots covered for each other, though that was hard to prove and subordinates laughed behind his back when he said it. But Vaughn knew it was true, and trying to see if one of the robots still in the diner may or may not have seen something from hours before that he didn’t already know was futile. The owner, cooks, every server had already told him everything that they supposedly could, and between Vaughn and his men, the four of them had parsed through all the available video.

They saw Dodge and Signal, but the tweaker had done something to screw the video. It was mostly scrambled, no matter where it was coming from. The audio was worse, filled with a high-pitched shrieking that hurt to listen to.

Dewey’s was a dead end as expected, but Livia was still on his ass. Vaughn needed answers.

Hopefully, they would hit pay dirt with the doctor. He’d heard from people who’d seen the Beast in the area, and later saw Bronson emerge from the doctor’s office.

This group was wrong for the job. Vaughn either wanted backup, with many more men and women to aid and advise him. Or less. He would be fine with just Polly. Lou and Arnold were both good enough at their jobs, but superfluous in a situation like this. They needed to be spread out, each of them looking into different leads. But Livia wanted them in a cluster, sticking together, ready for anything.

She had already sent him a handful of messages, each time telling Vaughn that she didn’t want to be checking up on him, then offering a friendly reminder that Dodge was dangerous, and that the asset must be recovered or destroyed at all costs.

Are you prepared to do what

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