Ezra (New Carnegie Androids #6)

Chapter 1 #2

“Rude,”

I mutter under my breath, rubbing my now very sore shoulder. Androids have a steel skeleton. There’s a lot of power underneath their synthetic skin. Makes me wonder if he ran into me that hard on purpose. Is pettiness programmable now?

I swing open the door to the women’s bathroom and hurry inside. After relieving myself, I wash my hands, brooding about those two wannabe influencers and how quick they were to use inciteful language. How easily they found it to threaten burning androids, and how uncomfortable that made me. I know a lot of diehards in Humanity First want them all shut down. While I understand being upset about losing a job, that’s just not going to happen. BioNex and their creations aren’t going to go anywhere any time soon. Not when they’re expanding globally, raking in billions of dollars, and now even have contracts with the US military.

I do what I can to try to mitigate the damage BioNex has wrought on the city economy. I support small businesses and human artists. The term “pro-bionic”

may be popular right now, but the words “human operated”

are trending too. People are noticing what we stand for. People are starting to understand.

I’m upset it took a bombing and the loss of ten lives for people to realize we aren’t some group of crazy android-hating supervillains, like how the media paints us to be.

I’m about to dry my hands when a deafening blast shakes the entire building, including the ground beneath my feet. I’m thrown against the sink, grasping the cold porcelain so I don’t lose my balance. My body goes taut as I desperately fight my anxiety. I’m frozen, my heart pounding. The memories and echoes of the attack a year ago play like a movie mockingly in the back of my mind, a constant reminder of the bloodshed I’ve seen and experienced firsthand.

But it can’t be happening again. Surely, this can’t be what I fear it is.

Not again. Please.

Other women in bathroom stalls shriek in surprise. The electricity flickers and then goes out completely. My ears ring. Everything is pitch black.

“What the hell was that?”

“Oh my god, I can’t see!”

“What is happening?”

“Get your phones,”

I call to them in a quaking voice, pushing past my own fear when I hear their distress. “Turn on your flashlights. Stay here. Don’t go anywhere until I say so. I work here. I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

I’ve never done well in the dark. Steadying my breathing, I feel my way from sink to sink until I find the wall, and then the door, which is ajar.

Walls and exhibits have collapsed. Cement, wood, and tile lay everywhere in shambles. The afternoon sun illuminates everything above my head, streaming through the skylights. I halt when I see the café.

It’s completely obliterated.

Forcing myself to take one more step, I’m so dazed, so horrified, that I trip and fall. I catch myself on my hands and immediately stand back up as shards of glass and splinters from wooden tables prick my skin and scrape my knees. I try not to hyperventilate as I survey the damage. Nothing is where it’s supposed to be. Visitors are in a state of panic, flooding through the front exit doors, threatening to trample anyone and everyone in their path. What security guards remain try to get them to slow down when they knock others over.

The ringing in my ears lessens and fades. That’s when I hear the screaming.

Bodies are littered everywhere on the café floor in unnatural positions, like discarded dolls, surrounded by growing pools of crimson. I count seven of them. Their clothes are shredded by homemade shrapnel—there are nails and screws embedded in the flesh of those closest to the blast. Some of them are unconscious, others are sluggishly trying to move.

Two of them are in pieces. A woman’s arm lies separate from a body nearby. She’s still, her upper body ragged and bloodied. I think she may be dead. A few feet from her, a leg is completely shredded right down to the bone. The man it belongs to stares up at the ceiling, pale with shock. He moves, opening his mouth and choking on the plaster dust that covers his face.

“Help . . .”

I’m shaking. Bile rises in my throat. I heave, and clamp my hand over my mouth, swallowing it down. I remove my belt and stagger over to him, then kneel and use it as a tourniquet for his leg.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Help is coming.”

I have to stop the bleeding, and I have to try not to vomit. My eyes are filled with stars. I’m so dizzy. But I have to stay awake.

I tighten my belt around the man’s thigh and have to look away from the carnage. Nearby, a young tour guide huddled in a corner is on the phone with emergency services, sobbing as he pleads for them to come quickly.

That’s when I spot Zoey, lying whole but unmoving. She’s near the café counter, covered in broken glass. Her eyes are shut, mouth slightly open, and when I scramble to reach her and shake her awake, she doesn’t respond. I check her pulse, leaning down to see if she’s breathing.

She’s alive. Tears streak my face. Thank God, she’s alive.

Not far from her are the blackened remains of a steel skeleton and an inhuman face. Its clothes, synthetic skin, and hair are completely melted away from the bomb blast. Tentatively, I get up and inch nearer to it, afraid it may yet be operational. It remains powered down, and I push away that fear with reason. It’s far too damaged. Completely destroyed. The state of its body isn’t what holds my attention, but its head.

Crudely scratched into the android’s metal skull is a single word.

Purify .

The New Carnegie Police Department arrives in full force in a matter of minutes, along with the fire department and a small army of emergency paramedics. I’m escorted outside onto the marble steps so I don’t get in the way, and wander with jelly legs down to the pavement before turning and surveying the damage. The museum doors and windows are blown out. Officers barely had time to put up the glowing blue crime tape before the reporters arrived, their little drone cameras flitting through the air and thrumming like hummingbirds behind the barriers, trying to get the best angle they can of the devastation inside.

They bring out several body bags and more critically injured people on gurneys. Zoey is among the last to be brought out and lifted into an ambulance. That gives me hope that my friend is all right.

“Is she going to be okay? Please, I need to go with them all.”

Arnold Vaughn is panicked, his dirtied cheeks streaked with tears as he speaks with one of the paramedics carrying her out. The face I’ve come to know and appreciate as always smiling, always cheerful and easy to laugh, is wracked by worry. “They’re my employees. I need to make sure they’re okay.”

“Please step away,”

the paramedic scolds, and we both watch helplessly as she and dozens of others are driven to Carnegie General Hospital, sirens blaring and flashing so brightly they hurt my already pounding head.

I don’t know what to think, what to feel, what to do. I’m so useless, standing here like an idiot while paramedics see to the injuries of those who weren’t directly in the blast. Cuts, gashes, bruises. Blood everywhere.

My sanctuary. The one place I was happiest outside my own home. The place where I dreamed of future expeditions, exciting archaeological digs, the papers I’d write and publish on findings of my own.

“I can’t believe this is happening,”

I murmur. One minute, Zoey and I were planning to sit down for lunch and heckle each other about my distinctly pathetic love life. The next, I’m swallowed up by smoke, dust, debris, blood, and body parts.

This is the second time I’ve just narrowly missed being killed by a bomb built within the confines of a BioNex android. My city is hardly a city anymore; it’s a warzone. I still the trembling in my hands, squeezing them into fists only to swiftly open them again when I realize I’ve still got glass and splinters digging into my palms. The wind picks up and toys with my blue blouse and black leggings. Rain begins to pour.

But I’m alive. Others weren’t so lucky.

The police form a human shield in front of the ravenous journalists on the other side of the tape. I try to breathe, to hold back the flood of tears I want to shed in my distress. All these innocent people, here to learn and expand their horizons. Freeing themselves from the drudgery of their day-to-day lives, from always looking down at their phones and mindlessly scrolling, and taking time to appreciate where they came from, the world before they knew it. What will they do now?

It’s a miracle the students weren’t physically harmed. They won’t forget today. I’ve been watching parents rush to one of the school buses to collect their frightened children from their teachers. Who knows what kind of damage has been done beneath those little faces?

“Excuse me. Are you Katrina Carson?”

A tall, sturdily built plainclothes detective with deep brown skin approaches me. He clears his throat and greets me gently, not bothering to offer his hand. It doesn’t really seem like the time or the place for pleasantries. “Detective Washington. I’m the lead investigator of the NCPD Artificial Crimes Unit. This is my partner, Ezra.”

He motions to the man standing next to him, dressed in a long beige trench coat.

Ezra stares levelly at me with a pair of sharp white irises around his pupils.

Part of me can’t believe it. Here he is, standing in front of me again. My mind is clearer today, and I recall seeing him for the very first time years ago. He was in sleep mode, perfectly still behind a glass display. Back then, I remembered thinking to myself how it was as close to a fairytale I would ever get. A slumbering prince, a powerful automaton. Even handsome. Tan skin, jet black hair.

It’s so strange, seeing someone drawn on a page or on a graph. Like a character in a story. A thought, an idea. Then suddenly science and technology have brought them to life. As close to life as they can be.

Does he know where he really came from? Would it matter if he did?

I calm myself with a long, deep breath. “I know. I remember.”

Washington seems puzzled, exchanging a curious glance with his bionic partner. “You remember?”

“Sorry.”

I try to clear my jumbled thoughts, caught between past and present. “I meant Ezra. He was there at the march last year.”

It’s impossible for me to forget him. How could I? He didn’t have to help me, but he did. Even after he knew who I was. What I stood for.

Ezra is stoic. “I remember you too.”

“What can I do for you?”

I ask the detectives. My body aches from being slammed into that bathroom sink. I have blisters in my flat shoes from running back and forth all around the café, just trying to help anyone I could.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions while the incident is still fresh in your mind,”

Washington says.

“Where were you when the blast occurred?”

Ezra asks.

It’s such a simple question to ask and answer, but all it does is remind me that the only reason I’m here standing on both feet is pure luck. I was in that café. I was going to sit down and eat. What’s worse, I asked Zoey if she could save us a table. If I’d just stopped her, asked her to come to the bathroom with me instead...

“Miss Carson?”

Washington presses softly, drawing me out of those thoughts and off the precipice of spiraling.

“I was in the bathroom,”

I murmur. “Freshening up. I only just stepped away.”

“Did you see anything unusual leading up to the attack?”

Ezra asks. He’s at least six-four with broad shoulders, standing with unnaturally perfect posture, his hands clasped behind his back. The collar of his blue tailored shirt is slightly undone. His voice is still deep and low, serious and grave, but lacking the comfort, the gentleness, when I was knocked out cold by the blast.

“I’m sorry.”

I look from Ezra to Detective Washington. “It’s difficult. My thoughts are a bit jumbled...”

“I understand. You’re in shock. Take your time but do your best,”

Washington replies.

Ezra gazes at me with his piercing eyes. The rain has slowed to a drizzle. The dampness doesn’t seem to bother him.

“I don’t know that I can be of much help.”

I wince at the stinging in my palm. I haven’t asked for medical aid yet, not when others are hurting far worse. “I’m honestly surprised you’d want to talk to me at all.”

“We’re aware of your affiliation with Humanity First,”

Ezra says, “if that’s what you mean.”

“And that’s not enough to scare you both off?”

The sound that comes from Ezra is almost like a scoff. But not because he’s angry or irritated. It’s like I nearly made him chuckle. Such a human reaction. It’s not what I expect at all. “Perhaps some other time, Miss Carson. But not today.”

The patience of these two men isn’t lost on me. I appreciate that they aren’t rushing me, but the pressure of trying to piece together anything before the blast is hard. “It’s just—I’m sure there are people who saw it happen.”

“There are,”

Ezra agrees. “But I’d like to hear from you.”

Not we , but I . As though Ezra has come to this decision alone. His programming really must be state of the art. Adaptive. I try to focus and make sense of everything that happened in the moments before.

“There were several androids inside. We don’t have a way to scan them or stop them for security measures yet. It was a busy day. I only really noticed one that was... strange.”

“Tell me about that one.”

Ezra rests his hands by his sides. Washington remains quiet, watching me.

“He was wearing a baseball cap. And an oversized hoodie. I’m not certain who he belonged to. He ran into me on the way to the bathroom. Hard. My shoulder still hurts from him slamming into me the way he did. I was surprised he didn’t apologize. Most would in any other scenario, but?—”

My mind strays to that singular word, etched on the droid’s forehead.

Purify.

Did I run into the killer on the way to the bathroom?

“And you didn’t see him with anyone? No family or person of any kind?”

Ezra asks, more urgently now.

“It was crowded. I couldn’t say. I wish I had. Does that help?”

“It helps,”

Ezra replies as Washington pats his shoulder and whispers something to him I can’t make out before he walks away. “Thank you, Miss Carson.”

“You’re welcome,”

I manage, glancing at a paramedic hurriedly passing me. I hesitate, wondering whether I should say something about my hands. But it seems so pointless in comparison to everyone else. I’ll have to go home, see if I can’t take care of things with a pair of tweezers and some antibiotics.

“You’re hurt.”

I turn to Ezra. He peers at my bloodied palms and scraped knees, his pupils shuttering, narrowing and widening like a camera lens. Like he’s zooming in on me.

“It’s nothing,”

I say. “I tripped and fell. I’ll make do.”

He frowns at me. “Stay here.”

He walks away from me, his trench coat, wet from the rain above our heads, trailing behind him.

I huddle beneath the museum’s awning, wishing I could just go home. When he returns, he has a small first aid kit in his hands. “Sit down,”

he orders.

“Really, I’m fine?—”

“Sit down, Miss Carson,”

he repeats firmly.

He just commanded me. An android just told me what to do. I slowly lower myself to the museum steps. “Okay.”

Ezra kneels next to me, opening the kit. I’m briefly distracted by the small, glistening drops of rain in his dark synthetic hair.

“I make you nervous.”

I look at him in surprise. I thought he’d see to my hands in silence. “It’s nothing personal,”

I reply. Odd how having a conversation with a machine makes me say things that should only apply to a human. But he looks so much like one, it comes out naturally. As though I could cause offense. “Most androids make me nervous. Especially now.”

He takes one of my hands, turns my palm upward, and carefully removes what remains of glass splinters and shards that weren’t large enough for me to see or pull out myself. “I imagine this will be an interesting talking point for your platform.”

He works quickly with a pair of tweezers, eyes focused on what he’s doing. I quietly marvel at his programming, how quickly and painlessly he sees to me. When he’s done, he uses an antibiotic spray on the affected area and wraps my hand snugly in gauze. “The more people against bionics, the better, I presume?”

“Not exactly. Our fight is with corporate greed, not androids,”

I say with a frown, watching him as he tends to my other hand. “As a matter of fact, my father was quite excited about the possibility of an android on a police force.”

More than that, really. But I want to see if he knows the truth. If anyone told him.

Ezra furrows his brow. “Why police in particular?”

“A machine can’t be corrupted or bought,”

I reply. I guess he doesn’t know anything after all. But it makes sense why Schroeder wouldn’t want to give Dad any credit after their falling out. “Or easily scared. He saw the opportunity for real change, and he liked it. You were the only android he could justify existing for the betterment of people everywhere.”

“I see.”

He wraps my second hand in gauze. “And now?”

“I—don’t know,” I admit.

Ezra doesn’t flinch at my words. “Your knees are bleeding,”

he declares. “Roll up your pants.”

I do so after a moment’s hesitation. Pulling the fabric up over them hurts, the blood drying and sticking to my leggings. My tugging makes them bleed anew. Ezra applies hydrogen peroxide, which stings. I hiss, cringing a little. There’s a reason I never went into the medical field.

Ezra doesn’t afford me a single glance. “I think your organization has made androids a scapegoat for what’s wrong in the world you’ve made.”

“How do you figure?”

Finally, he lifts his gaze to meet mine. I see defiance in them, where there shouldn’t be. Androids weren’t meant to feel; they can’t have personalities. They’re machines, programming, motherboards. Individuals aren’t supposed to exist in a collective of mechanical devices.

And yet, here he is. Seeing to my injuries, not because I asked, but because he wanted to. He could’ve easily walked away with his partner and left me alone. He’s a detective, not emergency personnel. That bothers me a little. I want to ask him why he’s helping me. But I say nothing.

“We exist because you made us,”

Ezra replies. His voice is low, more patient than perhaps he wants to be. “There’s no going back from that. No magic switch you can flip. I think it’s best that you and the rest of Humanity First learn who your true enemy is and make your peace with this new world before it leaves you behind.”

I want to protest. I don’t recall ever calling him my enemy. At the protest a year ago, I went out of my way to make that plain because I believed in what I was saying, and I wanted every camera focused on me to get their facts straight. But I refrain as he finishes up and rises to his feet.

He’s clearly formulated his own opinions about me already. I’m not about to try to dissuade him. What good would it do right now? It doesn’t matter.

I can only accept that he tended to my wounds. “Thank you.”

I tentatively flex my hand as it mildly pulses.

Ezra nods. “You’re welcome.”

His gaze lingers on me, and then he turns and walks away, leaving me to my thoughts. I’m exhausted, desperately wishing I were home, or that I could escape to those painted caves I’ve always yearned to see.

Instead, I’m here. And it feels as though everything has changed.

My watch thrums, and I scan through panicked holo-messages from both my parents, dozens of missed calls, and a united determination to drive to the museum themselves to come and get me. I send them both one simultaneously.

It’s okay. I’m safe. I’m not hurt badly. Don’t come here, you won’t be able to get through. The streets are barricaded.

“Kat?”

Arnold Vaughn looks just as beaten down as I feel. “I hope you don’t mind, but they’re not letting anyone back into the museum while they process the crime scene. I used my manager override from the garage kiosk in the break room and activated your car to take you home.”

“I don’t mind at all,”

I reply. That kiosk is one of the bigger technological functions Vaughn invested in for his employees. No need for valets; just push a few buttons to start a car’s auto-drive function, and it meets you at the door.

“It can’t make it through these barricades, obviously, so I’ll walk you to it. But let it do the driving. You shouldn’t be operating anything in your state.”

I’m in no position to argue. My boss walks me to my sleek bright red Flagler Gazelle, a standard four-door electric sedan with a drop-top. With a touch on the button on the door handle that registers my fingerprint, it unlocks for me.

“You sure you’ll be all right?”

Arnold asks me tentatively. “If not, I can call for a ride. Or reach out to your father.”

“I’m fine. I won’t drive, like you said. Thank you.”

I stare at my car. “I’m sorry. About all of this.”

“What?”

“This is—”

I steady my breathing. “If Humanity First had done more, made more of a difference, or if I’d—”

The words die in my mouth. If I’d just tugged Zoey with me.

“I won’t hear any more talk like that,”

Arnold insists sternly, resting a hand on my upper back. “None of this was your fault. There are bad people in this world, Katrina. You aren’t one of them. Whoever these people are, they chose our museum as their targets today because they know history is dangerous. The more we know of it, the less likely we are to repeat it.”

I wish I could believe him. I can’t shake the crawling, dreadful feeling that somehow I’m to blame for all of this.

“What are we going to do?”

I ask softly. “About the museum? We have to?—”

“Let me worry about that,”

Arnold cuts in. “Consider yourself on paid leave, along with Diana. Along with everyone else. I’ll be in touch on when we can reopen. Right now, we all need time to grieve and come to terms with what occurred today.”

To people who don’t understand our passion, why we do what we do, my question must seem cold, perhaps heartless. People have died again, they’re hurt and suffering, and here I am, worried about a building and the contents within, alongside everything else. About objects. But they aren’t just any objects. They’re a part of us. They aren’t cars or TVs or smartphones. Just like people, our artifacts are irreplaceable.

“I could start a fundraiser,”

I say quickly. “I could host it, and all of the proceeds can go to everyone in the hospital to help with their bills and—”

I get choked up. “To the people who lost—for their funeral expenses.”

“Good lord, Katrina Carson,”

Arnold chastises me gently. “You’re possibly one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever had the honor of meeting. Those are thoughts for another day.”

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“Yes, you can,”

he replies. “You have to. Go home and rest. It’s not up for discussion. We can talk about fundraisers later. Go on, now.”

Reluctant, I finally open my driver’s side door. The moment I slide inside, I stare at my bandaged hands.

They’re shaking.

“It’s okay, Kat,”

I mumble. “You’re alive.”

Still shaking. Goddamn, that frustrates me. I’m not as injured as some, and I’m certainly not dead. But I’m still frightened.

“You’re alive,”

I repeat, quieter. “You’re?—”

I burst into tears, covering my own mouth to stifle my own sobs.

“Home,”

I bark, angrily wiping away the wet from my cheeks. My car moves, smoothly backing out of the parking spot. “Take me home.”

I don’t need to even touch the wheel.

The car knows.

It’s programmed to do all the work for me.

Except it won’t talk on its own or behave like a human, like androids do.

And as I take to the highway, leaving behind the glow of whirling emergency lights and the haunting song of sirens as they transport the injured to the hospital, I dread walking through my parents’ front door.

New Carnegie is deceptively beautiful.

Skyscrapers stretch as high as humanly capable, as though they mean to challenge heaven.

I stare at them in silence on the interstate, wondering how many people were injured, how many died.

I can’t see any sign of the attack from here.

No smoke, no debris.

Just the skyline from the Vanderbilt Bridge that crosses a wide, lazy river of the same name.

The rain plays upon the water.

BioNex Tower glows blue above them all near the impressive EverFed building. The beacons of Astor Arena are similarly bright. I wonder tiredly if there’s a bionic fighting match tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised; it’s become one of the most popular sports in the nation.

I can see my future apartment building as my car soars on by.

Hard to miss with its little rivets of neon pink.

It’s an older establishment, but it’s a ten-minute subway ride to the museum, perfect to save me some money on daily parking expenses.

I’ve signed the lease and everything for my own place, but it won’t be ready until the end of the month.