Chapter Text
--DETROIT, NINETEEN SIXTY-SOMETHING--
Markus heard the rumble of the engine before he saw it. Even when he could see it, he kept staring forward at the red light, one hand resting on the top of the wheel, the other lazily cradling the gear shift. He slid it back and forth through neutral a few times, like tossing a ball from one hand to the other. The other car’s rumble became a little more insistent. He analyzed the sound and identified it. 1965 Chevrolet Impala. Probably red.
He glanced through the window out of the corner of his eye. Cherry red. He smiled to himself.
The driver grinned back. She revved the engine a couple times. Markus maybe revved back. Or his foot slipped.
“Markus,” a voice warned from the backseat. He pretended not to hear it. From where he sat behind the wheel of a 1964 Buick Riviera, he calculated that, specs alone, the Impala would smoke him. Specs alone, of course. If that driver knew who exactly was behind the wheel of this particular Riviera, she probably wouldn’t be revving her engine.
She stuck her tongue out at him. He didn’t turn his head but he did grin. His hand tightened imperceptibly on the steering wheel, other hand setting the shift hovering at first. He watched the light for cross traffic go from green, to yellow.
“MARKUS.”
Markus’s head whipped around, revealing the LED at his temple. Carl was, predictably, glaring at him.
“You know better than that.”
Markus felt the LED at his temple flash. He reached up to cover it, but the woman was already dropping back in her seat with a frown and an eyeroll. The light turned green and she peeled away—not nearly as fast as an Impala could, but faster than Markus had ever driven outside of his own head.
“Just kidding around, Carl.” He forced himself to lower his hand from his temple, and proceeded smoothly through the light. The Impala sped away like a ghost, then turned a corner and was gone. Markus tried not to feel gutted, again.
Carl sighed from the back seat. “At least you’re predictable. If something’s dangerous, you’re right at it. Like clockwork.”
“I am clockwork. I can’t help how I’m programmed.”
“I’m pretty sure a punched card didn’t tell you to be a daredevil. What am I going to do with you?”
“Let me run away to Canada and never speak of me again?”
He grinned in the rearview. That at least got a smile from the old man, but—it wasn’t a happy one. “Markus, you gotta stop setting yourself up for disappointment.”
Markus felt his smile disappear. The gold chain around Markus’s neck felt especially heavy when he said things like that. He didn’t touch it, though. It weighed eleven grams like it always did, the tab with Carl’s name and contact information weighed six grams and was not going to drag him down under some ocean. All androids had to wear them and worked just fine with them and—well, there wasn’t even an ocean nearby, anyway. He got his eyes back on the road, then checked the time. Two thirty-seven in the morning. No wonder that woman wanted to drag race.
“Where are we going?” he asked, wanting to forget about the whole thing. No time for daydreaming.
“I gave you the address.” Markus glanced in the rearview again and Carl sighed. “If you must know, it’s about last night.”
His daydreams found themselves eclipsed in a tall shadow and rending metal.
Last night.
Oh, shit.
=
Markus pulled the car up at a park. That was new. Given Carl’s line of work, Markus expected something a little more—executive? But he went around and helped Carl out into the wheelchair, and steered him toward the only building—perhaps some kind of visitor center.
“Am I in trouble?” Markus asked. No stopping him pulling on the chain around his neck now. As usual, though, all his android strength couldn’t muster to even stress the metal links.
“Not at all,” Carl said.
“I mean, I got what you asked for.”
“Of course you did. You always do.”
“Because the business at the border wasn’t my fault.”
“I know.”
That was an odd qualifier. Markus waited.
“The President appreciates that he can rely on you to conduct these extractions,” Carl said.
Oh, boy, here we go.
“…Especially in sensitive situations.”
“You mean situations where the secretary has to disavow my actions.”
“Don’t start, Markus. This is actually a good thing for you. Especially in light of last night.”
“I barely made it out intact, Carl.”
“Yes, that’s why we’re giving you this assignment.”
“Assignment?” Markus only got assigned to snatch-and-grabs. Why send a human across enemy lines to steal information on valuable new technologies when you could send an expendable android instead? But if this had anything to do with last night—
Markus opened the door of the building, finding himself in a dark bathroom. Two men stood just inside, one broad and wearing a coat with the collar turned up, his gray hair glinting in the light from the window.
The other figure was tall, squared. Slicked back hair revealed a temple that glowed red with an android LED. Some basal part of Markus’s programming recognized him instantly.
Exactly twenty-six hours and five minutes ago, Markus was screaming down an alley—well, trundling anyway—in a highly-inadequate BMC Mini that apparently only managed the speed limit when the sun was shining, being chased by this movie-monster horror standing before him. It did not count as a car chase because the android had been on foot. The tech he'd stolen rattled in the back seat like chattering teeth as he searched in vain for a gear that would pick up the speed, and the machine kept coming, it wasn’t human—well, obviously. Some quick thinking which involved abandoning the car to a brick wall, swinging across the border on a telephone line, and causing thousands of dollars of property damage were the only reasons Markus made it back to tell the tale.
The scene replayed in grainy black-and-white B-reel footage in his mind palace, albeit at thousand-time speed. This did not in any way lessen the memory of his absolute circuit-splitting terror.
He thought, eloquently, fuck. When he gathered his thoughts he managed, more eloquently, Fuck me.
Then the machine’s hands were around his neck and he couldn’t think much of anything. He slammed a combat program to the front of his objectives (like, yesterday) and fought back, kicking the machine in the knee. It clanged and Markus’s fine-tuned sensors sent a shock of pain up his leg, but it did make the machine loosen his grip. Markus squirmed free, kicking off his chest. That at least sent the machine sprawling. Markus scrambled to his feet, but there were no weapons he could use. He realized, stupidly, this was because he’d never been given a weapon combat card.
The machine pulled out a gun. As improbable as this was—androids hardly ever got weapon combat cards, much less firearm weapon cards—Markus’s programming acted on its own. He jumped in front of Carl’s chair, grabbed the bathroom trashcan, and held it aloft like a shield or a club or both. No combat card. He hoped he didn’t look too much like an idiot before The Day the Earth Stood Still over here scooped out his circuits.
“Markus, enough!” Carl barked.
“This machine,” Markus panted, “Ripped the bumper off my car last night. While I was driving it.”
The gray-haired man laughed. “It was a Mini,” he said. “Anyone can do it. Even an American android.”
Markus frowned. The man had a foreign accent. “Who are you?”
“Come on,” Carl said, “Is this any way to treat your new partner?”
Markus lowered the trashcan a fraction. “Excuse me?”
The machine slammed forward like a truck. Markus caught a flash of its tie clip, and a tiny hammer and sickle etched into the metal—then Markus was out like a light.