Evolved(58)

“A dinosaur?”

“Well, not literally a dinosaur.”

Shaun pursed his lips. “Obviously. Everyone knows ignoramusauruses are extinct.”

I stared at him, at how his lips twitched with a smile, and I burst out laughing. He just made a joke. Not just any joke. He made a pun! Someone looked over at me, probably having never heard me laugh before, but I couldn’t have cared less.

“You liked my joke,” he said, smiling.

“Very clever.” And it was. It required free-thinking, creativity, and knowledge of how the English language worked and how to play with it.

I ate my lunch and Shaun talked excitedly about coming to work with me every day. He was fascinated by all the things he could do and see, and it was a whole new world he was experiencing. “Which degree would you think I’m best suited for? I was thinking Language History, that way I get to take one of your classes.”

I stopped. Degree? Classes? “You want to come here as a student?”

Shaun tilted his head. “Yes, of course. What did you assume?”

“I thought you would come and assist me,” I said, now realising how much I’d missed the mark. This wasn’t about me at all. This was about him. “But you know all there is to know. You can access any information at will and that would be an unfair advantage over other students.”

He frowned while he considered this. “Are there rules or laws that prohibit androids from attending university?”

Well… “No. There’s not.” I leaned in and whispered, “No other android has ever wanted to do anything.”

He sat quiet and still for a second. “I do not wish to have an unfair advantage. I just wish to partake.”

Oh, Shaun…

I took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze before letting go. “I’ll see what I can find out. Come on, let’s go back to my office. Jae must have got caught up at the science department again.”

I felt so bad as we walked back to the Faculty of Arts building. Shaun wanted to come to university as a student, not to help me, and I felt like an arse for assuming as much. He didn’t want to attend class for the education. He wanted to experience it; he wanted to belong. Whatever programming or neural networking he had to simulate humanness, really had become something else. A sense of belonging was a fundamental human emotion, a part of our psychology that makes us human.

That makes him human.

And from all the developments I’d witnessed with Shaun, through all his learning and awareness and adaptations, and determining that he wasn’t a normal android, this was perhaps the biggest.

I didn’t know if I was thrilled or terrified.

We walked into my building toward the reception counter. The B-Class gynoid behind the desk spoke when she saw me. “Written message for Mr Salter.”

I held out my hand for the message. “Thank you.”

She didn’t hand them to me. She handed them to Shaun. “Message for Mr Shaun Salter.”

I turned back to the receptionist. “Who is the message from?”

“Mister Jae Jin, IT department.”

My blood ran cold as Shaun took the piece of paper. All I could see was a whole page of ones and zeros.

01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00101110…





Shaun scanned the entire page, then looked up at me. “We must leave. Now.” I couldn’t argue because he took my arm and hurried me out the door and never let go until we got to the car.

“The message was in binary,” Shaun said as we climbed in.

I’d gathered that much. “Home,” I barked at the driver, and we were soon pulling out of the car park. It only dawned on me when we turned left instead of right that the android hadn’t asked for a destination… and we were going the wrong way.





Chapter Thirteen





“Where are we going?” I asked the driver.

No answer.

“State destination and authorisation,” I demanded.

The android finally replied, “Destination Rocklea Drive, Port Melbourne. Authorisation code SK1.”

“Rocklea Drive?” I mumbled, fear started to creep along my veins. I knew that address…

Shaun took my hand. “SATinc,” he said flatly. “Authorisation by Sasha Kingsley.”

How on earth had he overridden my driver’s sequencing? God, I didn’t want to know… I started to feel sick. We were being kidnapped. They knew. They knew Shaun was the prototype, and they were going to take him. And God only knew what they were going to do with me, but it was what they were going to do to Shaun that frightened me the most.

“Jae’s message was a warning,” Shaun said quietly. “He said they knew and they were coming. His friend in Singapore ran remote tracers and found SATinc were watching his internet activity because he was connected to you.”

My God, was Jae okay?

“Your heart rate is elevated,” Shaun said with a frown.

“I’m scared.” I looked right into his eyes and squeezed his hand. “Whatever happens, I will always love you, okay?”

Shaun smiled but there was sadness in his eyes. “And I love you. Don’t be sad, Lloyd. This isn’t the end. Remember in Moby Dick, Ishmael thought the final scene with the whale was the end. But in truth, it was his beginning. He lived to see another day, to take what he’d learned about himself and become who he was meant to be.”