Page 54 of Garbage

There was no answer. No voicemail, even. Just endless ringing.

That was odd. For a moment Evan imagined that Quincy’s hands were dirty so he couldn’t pick up.

But that was ridiculous. Quincy didn’t have a phone. His phone connection was embedded in his circuitry. He didn’t even need to speak out loud to answer. If he wasn’t emotionally overwhelmed, he could silently order pizza while using his voice to chat with Evan.

Evan’s stomach knotted.

Maybe it was just a bad connection.

He called again.

Ringing and ringing. Endless ringing.

There were still reasons Quincy might not be answering. Maybe he was talking with his dispatcher or something. Maybe he’d had an innocent malfunction. Ben had soldered parts of his new circuit board together by hand.

He was relieved when he saw a voicemail. “Evan! The ba—!” and then it cut off.

But there was panic in those two and a half words. Abject terror.

Evan wanted to race down the stairs and get in his car. He wanted to scream.

But neither of those would help. Fuck! Ffyc! Cachu hwch!

After a deep breath, he called Ben.

That call didn’t connect for a long time, either, but he finally got a groggy, “‘lo?”

“Ben. Thank god. You have to help me. Something happened to Quincy.”

“Like what? An accident? A malfunction?” Ben was waking up slowly, which wasn’t unexpected with his night shift schedule and caffeine addiction.

“No. I don’t know. But he’s terrified, Ben. And he’s not answering his phone. Which is like, impossible. It’s part of his body.”

“Unless someone slapped a disruptor on him,” Ben said flatly, confirming all of Evan’s fears.

“No…” Evan said, even though he knew it was the most likely reason.

“Shit, uh, ok.” Ben was probably in bed, blinking around as he found his glasses. “I’m gonna… okay. I’m gonna tunnel into Maxamillion, from my home system. I’ll let you know when I’ve located Quincy.”

“You can do that?” Maxamillion was Ben’s AI interface for the mainframe computer that controlled most of the manufacturing operations at Orbit Robotics central headquarters. Its computing powers were staggering, but it wasn’t a spark. Ben had named it affectionately for his own quirky and unknowable purposes. Maybe all those hours sitting alone on the night shift.

What Evan did know was that Ben wasn’t supposed to be using corporate property in his off hours, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to be capable or ethically willing to track an android without the written permission of the company that owned it.

Evan had been counting on him doing it anyway. “Thank you, Ben. I can’t ever, ever repay you.”

“No problem. I’m gonna hang up and get started. You call the police with the update and get them to bug the company for official permission to track him. Or maybe they can do their own permission thingie. Ah, fuck it. It’ll probably get me in the hot seat if they see there’s already a search on, but it’s not like I’m on anyone’s good list here anyway.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “But you know I’m the best. They’ll never know I’ve been here.”

Evan hoped that was the case, but he couldn’t worry about Ben’s debatable methods or tenuous employment situation right now. If Ben wasn’t doing something like this for him, he’d probably get his kicks somewhere else.

All Evan needed was to find Quincy.

Getting the police on the phone took forever. And then explaining it—twice, as he passed through the AI operator and finally reached a human—was excruciating. Even when he brought up the case number from the first report, and the hatemongers who must have taken Quincy again, the guy didn’t see the urgency.

Quincy’s hearing wasn’t for another week. Right now, he was stolen property, and he’d barely been missing for a few minutes.

The officer told him to call back at the end of the day if Quincy hadn’t returned.

Evan highly debated kicking every wall and piece of furniture in the room.