Evolved by N.R. Walker
Chapter One
Year 2068
I arrived at Synthetic Android Technology Inc, or SATinc, as it was more commonly known, at ten to ten on an already cool autumn Melbourne morning. I thanked my driver, a government standard C-Class android, and got out of the vehicle.
I stood in front of the large, white, glass-wall building for a brief moment. My reflection met me. My hair matched my camel-coloured wool coat; my chocolate-brown scarf was the exact colour of my eyes, though the set of my jaw belied my nerves. I took a deep, affirming breath—today was the day I took control of my life. I fixed my coat collar, and went inside.
The interior was as sparse as the exterior. Vast shiny floors led to a seamless reception desk, the only object in the huge room. Despite twenty-foot ceilings and walls of glass, it was surprisingly warm and eerily silent. My anxiety about what environment I would be walking into eased, and I felt comfortable in the minimalistic room.
The woman behind the counter smiled at me. She was strikingly beautiful, possibly Japanese, with straight black hair and perfectly white teeth. It took me a moment to fully realise that she wasn’t human. Jesus. She was so… real.
“Can I help you?” she said. Even her voice sounded real.
“Yes, my name is Lloyd Salter. I have an appointment at ten o’clock.”
She didn’t need to check a computer. She was one. “Yes, of course. Mr Kingsley is expecting you.” She stood, walked around the side of the desk, and gestured with her hand. “This way, please.”
She walked like a human, behaved like a human, spoke like a human. She was by far the most advanced synthetic android I’d seen.
She led me to a white door in the white wall, which I might not have even known existed if it hadn’t opened as we approached. The hall was yet more white, though there were doors leading off the hall to what I assumed were offices. She stopped at one door in particular, which opened as if on cue, and stepped inside. “Mr Salter to see you, sir.”
The man she spoke to stood at the end of his very large office, looking out through an internal window. He was younger than I’d expected. Younger than me even. He wore tailored navy suit pants and a crisp white shirt. He was rather handsome, his features even a little perfect, and I might’ve thought he was an android too if his smile didn’t produce wrinkles at his eyes.
“Ah, Mr Salter,” he greeted me as if we were old friends. He walked over to me and stood just a fraction too close. “Are you ready to change your life?”
Well, I was here, wasn’t I?
“I assume for the better,” I said.
His smile became a grin. “Like you can’t even imagine.”
Within five minutes of meeting Sasha Kingsley, I knew several things. He was an elite salesman, and he was incredibly intelligent. Genius even. He was the mastermind behind SATinc. At thirty-four years old, he was the CEO of the biggest synthetic android company in Australia. He was astute, critical, streamlined in his conversation and movements, and I might have even liked him.
If I liked people.
And he wasted no time in getting to the point. “You’ve purchased the newest A-Class synthetic android,” he said, slowly nodding.
I almost smiled. “I’m two hundred thousand credits shorter in my account, so I assume it’s purchased.”
He smiled right back at me, and I decided he was on the smarmy side of confident. A trait I didn’t truly care for. He clapped his hands together, a loud noise in an otherwise silent space. “Then let’s get down to business. To the showroom.”
He waved his hand toward the door, much like the android receptionist had, though I was grateful he was pretty much no-nonsense after that. If he expected me to need pandering for dropping a rather large sum of money in his account, he was wrong. I didn’t need my ego polished. He already had my money.
I followed him further down the hall where a set of doors opened as we approached. The room inside—the showroom, as he called it—was large and white, like everything else. But, the way a car showroom might display the best vehicles, this showroom displayed synthetic androids. And not just the full bodies, but the parts as well. Six almost naked forms, save underwear, three gynoid, three android, stood along a wall like almost naked mannequins, only very, very humanlike. There was a section of wall dedicated to hair, to eyes, to feet, to breasts, to pecs, to skin colour and texture. It was like I’d walked into a body workshop. In many ways, I guess I had.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
“I uh, I thought it would be more digital,” I said. “That I’d be selecting from 3D holograms.”
“Here at SATinc, we want you to know what you’re getting. Especially with the A-Class, I want you to feel the hair, feel the skin.” He reached out and almost touched one of the gynoids but paused. “If you were ordering ten C-Class units out of a catalogue to be fitted as tram drivers, then sure. But when customers expect the very best, they’ll get exactly what they ordered.”
Fair enough. I stared at the three android models. I’d researched online for quite some time, so I knew which one I preferred, but to see him up close… And nearly naked… God, the bulge in his underwear was impressive. It made me feel warm all over.
“Which model do you like?” he asked, though he didn’t really need to. I hadn’t stopped staring at him.