Beat by Jared Garrett

Author:Jared Garrett [Garrett, Jared]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Future House Publishing
Published: 2015-06-14T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

He wasn’t a robot.

His hand was warm, the skin I felt when I touched his wrist and his hair—they were all real. No robot had flesh and bone.

I held my breath and pushed his hand. It slid across his desk, feeling completely limp. But he had no reaction. Nothing at all. Still breathing unnaturally slowly.

I released my breath and scanned the office. It looked exactly like it had before. Three walls covered in now dark skreens, a couple of doors. Turning back to the Prime Administrator, or whatever it was, I investigated him—it—a bit more. Everything about it looked human. It had talked a little funny, now that I thought about the time I’d spent in this office earlier, but it walked normally and everything.

It had to be sleeping, or something like that. But I needed to use its desk, so I carefully pushed its hands off the glass desktop and set them on his lap. It leaned forward somewhat; I figured the hands had been propping it up. I ran my hands over the desk, searching for a place to power it on.

I thought back. The corner. The robot thing had brushed the corner of the desk. I put my hand there, fingers spread.

A hiss, and I sensed some movement. Heart suddenly clawing out of my throat, I spun, bumping the sleeping thing. The door. Just the door closing.

It didn’t matter. I had to move fast. Flickers appeared on the bank of skreens on the left wall. The flashing pixels resolved quickly into multiple images—images of life in New Frisko. I needed to go backward and find that clip that I’d seen of me and the other Pushers. I searched the desk with my hands. As I did so, multi-colored rectangles of light illuminated beneath my fingers. I leaned more over the desk, nudging the Prime Administrator again.

He slumped more, then slid sideways, falling limply toward the floor. I grabbed at him, but he was a grown man, or robot man, or whatever. He was too heavy. I got ahold of his shirt, but he pulled me forward as he fell. With a thump, he hit the floor, still in pretty much the same position he’d been in when seated.

His weight nearly pulled me off my feet, so I grabbed at his chair with my injured hand.

An electric shock, stronger and longer lasting than a static shock, coursed up my arm. What the Bug?

I jerked back, stepping away from the chair. The tingles in my arm faded, but my fingertips felt numb. The chair was electrified.

I stretched and wiggled my fingers to get rid of the numbness. I peered closer at the chair. It looked like nothing more than a chair.

The Prime Administrator, whatever it was, lay completely unmoving, in a semi-fetal position. Obviously the electrical current wasn’t some kind of defense mechanism on the chair; it had to have been going while the Prime Administrator was still sitting there.

Of course. Whatever the thing was, the chair charged it.

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