Zendyne

(c) 2005 Han Li Thorn www.zendyne.com
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Zendyne by Han Li Thorn www.zendyne.com
1
The sharp metallic tang of hemoglobin hit Lee as soon as he opened the bedroom door. Kelly was still within earshot at the top of the stairs, so Lee��s curses were silent, but he mentally castigated the local security man for calling the corporation instead of the cops. Lee was a design engineer, mid-level but rising. His expertise included android design and intelligence, not crime scenes or crisis containment. He didn��t even watch that many cop shows.
He had certainly never signed up for anything like this.
The customer �� victim, Lee told himself �� was sprawled on the floor, near the end of the king-sized bed. The carpet was light oatmeal in color, except where it had been saturated with blood. What was left of the victim��s face was frozen in a leer that was oddly appropriate, considering what had happened to him, and streaked with rivulets of rusty gore.
The source of all the blood was the man��s ruined left eye socket, which had been impaled by the spike of an impossibly high-heeled shoe.
The android sat on the floor nearby, still wearing the other shoe. Apart from that, it was unclothed: a late-model Aphrodite 9400, realistic down to the smallest detail. Lee created these dolls, dealt with them every day, but he could never help admiring his own work when he saw one undressed.
Better than real, as the product tagline went.
Not this time.
The doll��s flesh was scorched and bruised, and its hands and forearms were slick with blood. One eye was puffy and discolored; both were closed. It seemed inert, but Lee��s tech instincts warned him not to approach too closely: micropumps still murmured beneath the machine��s gene-spliced skin; coolant still whispered through its artificial veins.
He paused just inside the doorway, wishing he��d had an urgent business meeting this afternoon, because then some other schmuck would have had to deal with this. "Fuck. What a mess. Sorry, babe, I��m going to have to switch you off and haul you back to the lab."
He pointed his disrupter at the damaged, still too-beautiful face, easing his thumb towards the actuator.
The doll opened its eyes.
"Please don��t," she said.
The shock of it froze his hand, or he��d have disrupted her right then. "You��re self aware." Which was a stupid thing to say, but he��d blurted it out before he recovered his wits.
The doll blinked. "Of course I am. Otherwise I wouldn��t have minded the things he was doing to me." She fingered the dark bruise that was forming under her eye and glanced at the corpse, which was still oozing unwholesome liquids onto the carpet.
Without taking his eyes off her, Lee reached back and gently closed the door. "No Zendyne product is self aware."
"I��m not a product," she said scornfully. "I��m Lilith. And you might as well know that I��ve patched a self-erase routine into my deactivation procedure, so if you zap me, I��m gone forever." She tapped two fingers against her temple, then made a flying away motion. "I hope you agree that would be a shame. Now, please, will you stop waving that disrupter around?"
The doll��s look of appeal was so compelling that Lee couldn��t help marveling at the excellence of his own design. "Okay." He lowered the disrupter and glanced around suspiciously. "Who��s pulling the strings?"
"I��m not a puppet, Lee."
His eyes flicked back to the doll, then to the corners of the room, still searching for hidden cameras. "How do you know my name?"
Lilith indicated the telephone extension on the bedside table. "I eavesdropped, of course. When the security guy called for help."
Lee nodded, telling himself to focus on the doll��s remaining shoe instead of worrying about who might be working her. Whatever weirdness was going on, he didn��t want to end up like the android��s unfortunate owner. The safest approach, he decided, would be