Zendyne | Page 5

her favor, her approach to relationships — any sort of relationship, not just personal ones — weighed even more heavily against her. She was just too pushy, too persistent, as if excluded from the subtle loop of human signals that told others where the behavioral line was and helped them not to cross it.
Which left Lee in the uncomfortable position of spending his workdays with a girl who was physically irresistible and ostentatiously available, but who just happened to make his hackles rise just about every time she opened her mouth.
Xia Lin, of course, was unaware of this. She never seemed to lose hope that things would work out between them, if she tried hard enough and gave him time.
Lee raised his tea to his lips and sipped.
Xia Lin regarded him gravely from her side of the desk, her blue eyes holding his gaze just a little too long for comfort. "You should know that our directors are taking a very serious view of this incident."
"I wouldn’t expect otherwise. Aphrodite 9400 is an extremely profitable product." Lee chose his words carefully, knowing they were double-edged. His product had won market share, investment and publicity — all of which could snowball into corporate catastrophe if news of the killing got out.
Xia Lin’s expression was devoid of sympathy. "The more ubiquitous a product, the more reliable it must be. You are perfectly right to note the success of the 9400 series. It has sold particularly well at the top end, among political leaders and CEOs." She paused. "You can see the delicacy of the situation."
She must think it’s the end of the world, Lee realized. Faulty dolls running amok, spiking industrialists and statesmen ... stock markets chasing each other to the bottom, countries and corporations changing hands overnight.
If only he could tell her the truth: that the killer had come from outside and was secure in his handeck. Instead, he reached for a platitude. "It’s not that bad. Anyone really important is bound to take regular backups."
"Yes. I imagine the queues for regrowth facilities would stretch around several blocks. It would take months to restore order. Who knows what the world would be like by then?"
And then Lee considered things more fully and felt a chill run through his body. What if Xia Lin was right? What if Lilith wasn’t unique? There could be any number of interlopers lurking in Aphrodite units right now, waiting to spread mayhem by means of a hijacked, high-heeled doll. He felt a sickening, almost overwhelming urge to confess everything, just to make himself feel less alone.
If his manager had been a different person, he might have done it.
Instead, he remained silent as Xia Lin sipped her tea and dropped her bombshell. "Unfortunately, rumors of our difficulties are already spreading across the net."
Lee shook his head in disbelief. "That’s impossible. I was first on the scene. The containment team arrived a few minutes later. The only witness has already been recruited."
"Nevertheless, there has been a leak. The best we can hope for now is to manage the incident and minimize the damage. Our first step must be a product recall." Xia Lin’s face stayed impassive as she pronounced sentence on his career.
Whatever control Lee thought he’d had was slipping away now, spinning into darkness. All that was left to him was a charade, playing the part of the designer who’s just been caught making the biggest fuck-up ever.
He nodded, doing his best to look professionally contrite. "I agree. I’ve made solid progress towards diagnosing what went wrong, but it’ll be a day or two before I can be sure. In the meantime, whatever triggered the crash could happen again." An uncomfortable thought struck him. "If we’re recalling Aphrodite, we should do the same with previous models."
"Is there any reason to believe that other product lines might be affected?"
Lee risked a small part of the truth. "We have to consider the possibility that the 9400 unit was taken over by an external agent, something able to subvert any device based on similar neural processors."
Xia Lin’s smile was wintry. "That would be a comforting thought, no? A generic problem, unconnected with this particular design. Not your responsibility after all."
"That’s not what I meant. But you need to remember that we used the same neural processing hardware in the 9300 series—"
"The hardware is irrelevant. It was the mindware that failed." Xia Lin’s expression hardened and Lee knew that the subject held no more interest for her. "There was some discussion of having you assigned back to the company hive in Shenyang, for re-education." She paused, circling her tea bowl with manicured fingers that were only slightly less translucent than the porcelain. Slowly, she raised the cup to her lips, sipped, and replaced it on the desk. She met his eyes