Evolved(40)

I let out a low breath. I wasn’t prepared for his anti-government or Big Brother tirade but it did work in my favour. “Is there any way to turn off certain appliances? Not turn the appliance off, but turn off their connectivity and keep the appliance on?”

He blinked, clearly surprised by my question. “I don’t… that depends. Like your TV? Or your internet browser?” he asked. “If you want to search something online, do it from here. But be aware, nothing illegal. There’ll be someone busting down your door before you’ve logged off.”

“It’s not my TV or the internet,” I admitted, but that wasn’t a bad idea. I could do information searches from a library access point. As long as I kept it general… unless SATinc somehow had eyes on my internet activity at work too… I cleared my throat. “What if it was an android?”

He stared, unblinking. His nostrils flared. “What kind of android?”

I considered telling him but stopped myself. “Any. They’re designed to send information back to the AMA if mistreated, right?”

“Yes,” he replied cautiously.

“So, can the AMA access information at will?”

Jae studied me for a moment. “Lloyd, has something bad happened to one of your androids? Because that’s a federal offence.”

“No,” I answered quickly. “But what about a manufacturing company? They can download automatic updates to keep their androids abreast of say, traffic law updates, yes?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Can they upload information from the android? Like, if they wanted to double-check what CPU they were running on?”

Jae stared and blinked, and I knew I’d asked a question that was too specific. He answered quietly. “They’d need internet connectivity, and they say it’s a unidirectional network, but I have no doubts it’s possible. They watch everything.”

I looked around the lunch room to find it almost empty. I asked my next question, looking at the door instead of him. “And if I wanted to disconnect my android from my Wi-Fi?”

“Depending on what kind of android it is; they all have different parameters for how long they could be without internet. But it would eventually shut down, and the AMA would be notified.”

I sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

“I’m going to ignore the specificity and sensitive nature of your questions, Lloyd, and ask if everything’s okay? Are you in trouble?” Well, weren’t they loaded questions—and ones I apparently didn’t have to answer. “I guess you wouldn’t have asked otherwise.” He leaned in again and whispered, “Don’t do anything stupid. They’re always watching.”

I wasn’t sold into his conspiracy theories about the digital war on cybernetics or whatever he thought the government was doing, but there was a truth to his madness. They were watching. Maybe not the government per se, but I was beginning to think SATinc was. They had an vested interest, didn’t they? Something about the questions Myles asked, the way he asked them, the way he paused, made me uneasy.

I didn’t even trust them to search for information myself. But there was no reason Jae couldn’t, was there?

“Can I ask you to search something for me? You have your ear to the ground on these things, right?”

He smiled like I’d just validated his entire existence in his personal war against the digital Goliath. I took it as a yes.

“Can you find out what companies like SATinc have access to? Once an android is registered to a home hub, what can they access?”

His eyes went wide, his mouth fell open. “SATinc?”

I nodded, giving myself away completely. There was no point in hiding it now.

“Holy shit.”

“I’d rather no one know,” I added. “But—”

“But they’re a very big fish in a very small pond.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t trust them.”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t.”

His eyes narrowed. “Leave it with me. I know certain people, certain underground people…”

Oh boy. Was he talking… “Darknet?”

He nodded quickly. “I’ll see what I can find out. Might take me a few days.”

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

He left like I’d given him a secret operative mission, and I felt better for having asked. I got through my afternoon classes and couldn’t wait to get home. Shaun greeted me with a tight hug, as though he didn’t want to let go of me as much I didn’t want to let go of him. He rubbed my back, ran his hands over my arse, and gently massaged the knots out of my shoulders. I melted against him, and my God, he felt so damn good. Eventually he pulled back and kissed me softly. “How was your day?”

“Okay,” I answered. “How was yours?”

“Quite good,” he said, pulling my hand and leading me to the sofa where we sat down. “I cleaned again and ordered your food, and I watched this.” He faced the holographic TV screen. “It is most interesting.”

I stared at what was on the screen. Oh boy. “Home and Away?” I asked, disbelievingly.

“Yes. It is very exciting.”

Exciting? Oh boy, indeed.