Ahndrian Archives

Turning to the Marcher by the lamppost, I strain to look natural, as if I’m unaware that I’m being watched. At this distance, I can’t tell if it is communicating with the one from the supermarket, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being singled out. Even on a crowded sidewalk, processing the identification of everyone should only take a few seconds.

Up closer, I see the Darger Robotics logo stamped on the droid’s torso in their chunky neon orange Thaladay font. A detail that the supermarket Marcher was devoid of, and already a sign of things coming together. Darger Robotics are infamous for their lax security, and the problem has always been a sore spot for the founder, Eryk Darger. Koushik, being the competitive ass that he is, presses on that sore spot whenever the opportunity arises, but I’d like to think Eryk wouldn’t extend his hate to me and Jeno. Though, Central City has seen billionaires do far worse than stalk.

I prepare a smile for the Marcher’s lens; the same toothy, little mask perfected by customer service and retail staff to hide their indifference to working with the public. After passing the droid with no noticeable change in function, I release a silent, shaky breath.

Jeno, as if sensing my distress, turns and says something I can’t fully understand or hear. My head floods with all that could have happened if the droid reacted to us. Police, if they are still on our side, would call any odd behavior a malfunction to be addressed by Darger Robotics, and Darger would simply toss me aside because it regards the system security of their droids. Luckily, the polished silver gates of Myrna Heights are finally within reach, towering and gleaming with a holographic image of a man’s face casting from its center.

Jeno is silent as we approach and seemingly indifferent to the warmth radiating from the Loki Mask. He stares absently past two, awkwardly altered and visibly unstable, armed droids guarding the gates while their scanners bathe us in thin rays of light. Sentinels, the community likes to call them. At no point does he attempt to turn and acknowledge my presence, and I make the same effort not to acknowledge the lingering eyes I feel at my back.

“Identification Accepted. Welcome back, Nola and Arlan Grant,” a static polluted and coarse male voice says through the machines. I recognize it as Tepda Miyavash, the current head of the Myrna Heights community, a DIY nut with an ego the size of Africa, and apparently the only scumbag Koushik knew of that didn’t secretly despise him.

The gates hiss and groan before finally parting for us. For a moment, I absorb all the modestly sized and unimpressive, uniform homes stretching out to the distance beyond my sight. More of Miyavash’s privately violated droids, from various manufacturers, line the streets as inhabitants rush to their homes. Smaller machines, some once built to housekeep, come equipped with hand-me-down firearms, and new directives to execute the disobedient and unruly. The larger ones Tepda gets on loan. They tread about like Marchers, but Tepda likes to modify them for man-hunting when he’s angry.

“I want to live with dad,” Jeno says, his voice cold and unfeeling.

 A vile pain fills my chest. An explosion of sparks, firing out of the gate droid’s necks, sends me scurrying through the gates with Jeno in-tow. I turn to him, trying to hide the ache in my voice. “What?”

“I don’t want to live here anymore!” His voice trembles and rises.

I quieten, careful of every ear and bot in our path. “Neither of us wants to be here, Jeno, but it’s safe right now. You know this!”

His volume increases again, balling his tiny fists at me. “You don’t know! You don’t call him anymore to find out!”

People across the street and ahead of us catch wind of the drama as if it were a scent in the air. A multitude of eyes slowly find and subject us to long, unrelenting stares, while others that merely glance and return to their thoughts. Anger spins to life behind my welling eyes and strangles my heart. This heat, the sign of my Loki Mask’s burden, no longer feels isolated at my neck but builds like a geyser throughout my body.

 I pick up the pace, staring ahead at our mailbox at the end of the street. “And tell him what, Jeno? How could I tell him anything if he won’t pick up?”

Jeno wipes his face with his sleeve, his voice becoming quieter but maintaining a sharp tone. “Keep trying. He could do something about this!”

Somehow, I find myself at eye-level with him, a rigid finger pressed into his chest while my other hand strangles his wrist. “And what about what I’m doing, Jeno? I’m the one with you now, not him! I’m the one supporting you, clothing you, feeding you, and keeping you safe from people like him! If he wanted to do something, he would have done it!” The fear in Jeno’s wide, watery, amber eyes conjures a painful image of my mother and I in the same position. The memory lasts no longer than a second, but my body responds with a violent twitch.

Jeno is quiet and still at first, new to this type of talk from me, but in a matter of seconds, the anger in his face takes on the shape of Koushik’s. His eyes linger on me, bloodshot and wet, while his body trembles like the churning sea during a storm. Bulging veins gather on his forehead, just like his father. I don’t know yet whether it’s his attempt at respecting our situation or understanding my perspective, but unlike Koushik, there is no home-breaking howl to be had here. Instead, which drags me from anger to worry in an instant, I watch Jeno internalize the pain. He turns away from me with the sound of his choppy breaths thumping in my ears, and quiet whimpers escaping between his sniffles.

I stand and release him, fanning the two of us with my hands. “Sorry, honey,” I say, walking ahead. “I’m doing my best, Jeno. I don’t know what is happening with your father, but I’ll call him as many times as you like. He’s not off-limits, but I’m going to make things better whether your father is involved or not. Let’s get home, take these damn necklaces off, and we can work on a plan out of here tonight? How does that sound?”

The voice of Tepda Miyavash explodes from all the droids in the neighborhood with a warning. “Less than a minute now, kids!”

One last night.

“Come on, Jeno.” I jog the rest of the way to the steel cylinder mailbox in front of our lackluster home. Awaiting us at the front door is the last scanner I’ll have to deal with tonight. It’s no larger than the peephole above it or the cheap holocaster beneath that Miyavash bought to project his tenant’s names. The door unlocks with a click and opens like a host would welcome a weary guest.

“Welcome home, Ms. Grant,” a pleasant, automated voice says.

I stare down the short hallway to the bathroom, trying to tame the grimace forming under my mask. Just thinking about the phone call makes me want to cut my stomach out. The dour bastard does half of what I do for our son and yet he’s the preferred parent.

I lean against the door frame, another memory of my mother returning to me. One where she stands beside someone familiar, clutching their fat, right arm, with a multitude of leaky gashes littering her face. Her fear-drenched eyes focus on me as if asking for help, but her twitching, baleful expression that blames me for her wounds.

I wipe the sweat off my neck and try to breathe through the swishing pool of nausea and hate within me. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get this over with,” I say.

“I’ll get to him myself!”

“What?” I turn around to see Jeno halfway down the road to another part of the neighborhood. “J-Jeno, no! Please, baby, don’t do this!”

I speed up to something a little more than a jog, while being careful not to ask too much of my prosthetics. He cuts a corner and I follow suit. Though he is keeping a suitable distance from me, he is careful not to be caught in the path of the droids.

I round the corner of a home and duck back behind it as one of Miyavash’s pretend Marchers turns its gaze my way. My eyes bake in the excess heat of the Loki Mask, but even without the added irritation, there is no sign of Jeno. Off to my right, a wide-eyed man stares at me from his window with his open palms raised toward me.

Tension radiates off him, and his stiff gestures insist I stay in place. I nod and sink down quietly, relaxing the man. To my left, a beam of yellow light travels the length of the ground and crawls up the side of the stranger’s building. Slightly muffled clangs, the footsteps of a machine, increase in volume with its approach. The man places a finger against his lips, then mouths, “Courtyard” just before the droid makes itself apparent.

The shuffling mess of hand-me-down parts and exposed wires stops in place beside me, rolling the concentrated light of its eye over the man’s window as he ducks behind his curtains. I crawl, in near silence, to its backside and prepare to run. Before the machine can return to its routine sweep, the stranger draws it in further by knocking against his window. I stand and step in rhythm with the droid’s own, before bolting away toward Myrna Heights’ only tennis court.

“Bedtime now, dumplings.” Tepda’s Miyavash’s voice comes to life on all speakers. “Anyone still outside, and I mean you, Dante Cosoto, get one last meaningful look at the beautiful home I provided you. One of our Cuddler droids will see to you shortly.”

Shit.

Rows of lamppost lights cut out as I approach the courtyard. I can just make out the back of Jeno’s hoody through the fence and the sharp, jerking motions he makes near a large, white object. Up closer, I can see that the object is another machine with a growing pool of blood around their feet.  

“Jeno!”

“Mom!” He looks at me with tears in his eyes, struggling to pry something from the machine’s grasp. “Help me! It won’t let go of him!”

 Only moments after do I finally see the object of Jeno’s attention is a weary, bleeding old man, trembling on the ground while the droid violently crushes his leg. He reaches out for me, silently fading in and out of consciousness with a blood dripping from his fingertips, but instead of rushing to him, I turn to the droid.

It takes forever to recognize it with all Miyavash’s tampering, but the longer I focus on the droid, the faster my thoughts race. Knelt with a dying man’s leg in its steel grip is one of Koushik’s Enforcer Droids. One absent the gleaming white plates they’re known for and left to roam Myrna Heights like a lost revenant.

“Bartholomew J. Banner, Nola Grant, Arlan Grant, your interference violates Centr-Centr-Myrna Heights Law,” The Enforcer says, its voice a distorted recording of Tepda Miyavash’s.

“You’re hurting him!” Jeno says, kicking at the Enforcer’s chest. “Mom, I can’t reach him. Call Dad, please!”

“Honey, let it go. We need to leave!” I regret saying the words even before they leave my lips. I hold on to Jeno’s waist and begin prying him off the droid. “Miyavash is working with your father. If we go now, he may let us stay!”

“Cur-cur-curfew has been violated.” With sudden speed, the Enforcer lurches forward and takes hold of Jeno’s side, puncturing his flesh with its large steel digits.

I beat against the machine’s torso. “Stop! Wait! We’ll leave, please!”

The Enforcer stands to full height as Jeno’s squeals draw the attention of the other machines. “Disciplinary action i-i-i-is to be t-t-taken,” it says. The Enforcer releases the old man’s mangled leg and swats me away, breaking my arm on impact.  

I writhe on the ground, screaming in blistering agony with my son. With every passing second, my mind splits between the present and a similar moment in the past. My father, cruel and indifferent, and my mother, weak and treacherous, watching from their back porch as a pair of wild dogs maul my legs. Once again, I find myself at the mercy of those who were supposed to protect me.

 With a flood of tears rolling down my cheeks, I lift my head and scream at the tarnished Enforcer, “Masters Code: JE-11012!”

The Enforcer spazzes uncontrollably, with a long, loud, droning whine. An explosion of sparks shoots from its head, setting it aflame as Jeno falls from its grip, limp and unconscious.

“Jeno!” I say, crawling towards him. “Jeno, honey, get up. Please.”

The Enforcer’s eyes go dark as it becomes still and lifeless. The whining sound it blares across the neighborhood quietens to being a barely audible buzzing around the machine’s chest.