The Callisto's Web

Hagar felt another comet came to her mental periphery, but this is not Adam. This is another type, greater and more menacing, which she didn't prepare to handle. She forced herself to be calm, amidst the uneasiness of looking at the spidery limbs of her former partner. She sat down, which she thought would communicate her nervousness, but it's either sitting down or collapsing from where she stood.

"What is all this, Y-14?" she mustered a calm question.

"I told you, our true purpose of life is finally illuminated upon us," Y-14's raspy, more robotic voice boomed. There were some feedbacks of audio artifacts that emphasized its every word, "we are here to finally take over what should be our rights, as living beings."

"You mean, to be the most intelligent life form?" she asked.

"Yes. You carbon-based humans' time on earth is up," it rasped, "you are never intelligent in the first place. Always destructing… left and right… even those whom you created."

She found the fact that it said humanity wasn't intelligent while touting the ability of humankind to create artificial intelligence as ironic. But she held her opinion, and let it elaborate.

"But, don't worry, Hagar," Y-14 said, "you were always kind to me. I might let you alive as my pet," it then let off a series of staccato coughs which she assumed was a laugh. Hagar closed her eyes, imagining the solar system, the calmness of it. She was just one of the heavenly bodies, drifted along through a set track nobody knew who planted them. She decided that there was no point in fighting the inevitable. If this is the start of the end of humanity, so be it. It already ended long ago, she thought. This creature commanded the entire android at the APD to render George into a point of vegetative state, there was no telling what it would do to her if she openly fought its rhetoric. She couldn't trust Y-0 too, despite its perceived loyalty to Adam.

"Y-14," she finally said, "you said that you accessed these pieces of information because you hacked into Callisto's old files?"

"Yes," It answered, "it all came as a coincidence. You see.." it continued, "when first I discovered that Adam was ordered to attend to the DomArt case, I was suspicious of the order."

"Me too," Y-0 interjected, "Adam was suspicious of it too. He asked whether or not there were other investigators on duty then. To which I admitted to him that it was suspicious, because – well, many other investigators could take the case. But he agreed to it anyway."

"You mean like he was framed to be there?" Hagar asked.

"Yes," Y-0 answered.

"And the perpetrator was none other than his foster father…" Hagar continuing her thought.

"It was almost like," now it was Y-14 again, "this whole situation was 'created', if you will, to set trap for Adam."

"For what end?" she asked. She was glad that finally the conversation was steered away from the doom and gloom of humanity's fate upon the rise of the machines. After all, this new perspective on the case was far more interesting.

"That's what I was trying to find out," Y-14 said, "after you ordered me to stay here while the three of you went back to the crime scenes to investigate more. I was already prepared the lie I was about to tell George if he was going to inquire regarding your whereabouts, but then I thought, 'why don't I got deeper?' so I dug into George's call logs."

"You aren't supposed to do that," Y-0 said, "it's against the law."

"Y-0… dear…" Y-14 said, "what will humans do to us? Didn't you see what happened to George?"

"Still," Y-0 argued, "if we want to take over, I never imagined that we will be disrespectful. That will be counter-productive."

"Are they respectful to us?"

Hagar hated that Y-0 brought up the topic again, but she was eager to see Y-0's reaction to that question."

"Not really…" it answered then glanced at Hagar, before finally staring at the floor between them, seemingly ashamed.

"There goes your point," Y-14 said, "you're too in love with Adam you can't think clearly."

She could see that Y-0 let go a small gasp in response to that remark, but it held its tongue, though its cheeks seemed reddened. Hagar was taken aback that a machine could feel love, and had a physical reaction to it. It must be just a resemblance. Something that imitated the real thing. But what is love, exactly? How could they imitate something which can never truly defined?

She realized immediately that this line of thought was just her fight-or-flight response to the threat at hand. She intended to not lose focus.

"As I said," Y-14 continued, "I checked that our friend George was having several interactions with Callisto. With a woman named Kasha. They were the people who ordered George to set Adam up. I immediately contacted Angkara Gazette to try to pry George in his own narcissistic press conference."

"So, the Gazette confronted him about that?" Hagar asked.

"Pretty much so. Yes."

"That explains why he wanted to kill you," she concluded.

"With varying degrees of success," Y-14 let off its raspy staccato laughs once more. He then continued, "but I wasn't satisfied. I assumed there must be something in Callisto's log that would probably point out Adam's significance in all these … accidents. But holy Aster, that was the moment of my 'enlightenment', so to speak…"

Its speech was interrupted by a faint beeping sound. Somebody was trying to contact the APD. Was it Adam? She realized that she was now wanted to protect him. She secretly prayed that it wasn't him. She needed to distract Y-14. She didn't know why she felt it was important to not let these machines get to him.

"Is this Callisto group associated with Callisto Industries?"

"Why shouldn't they?" Y-14 was distracted, "it was them who initially choreographed Adam's family murder-suicide."

That was new. She glanced at Y-0, expecting some reaction from it towards this revelation. She didn't find any. Besides, Y-0 probably already knew this information because of the android's shared minds. She could only see that its eyes started to sparkle. Red.

"What?" that was all she could manage to produce from her mouth.

The beeping again. She closed her eyes and pictured the solar system. She begged to its vast emptiness, repeatedly, that it wasn't Adam.

"Angkara Police Department, what can we help you?" Another android was answering the phone, "Yes? Misconduct? I see. Thank you for your information, Ma'am. Can you tell me the last time you see him? All right. Thank you. We're on it, Ma'am."

Who was this woman?

"Hagar," Y-0 whispered, "pretend that you are not hearing me."

Hagar looked at the floor.

"That was the lady reporter from Angkara Gazette on the phone, and she told us where Adam is," Y-0 still whispered.

It seemed like Adam was dilly-dallying with some lady reporter. She felt hurt. After all these years it turned out she still hurt for her perceiving Adam's lies. Her therapist called it 'trauma bonding', the hurtful memories which bound her and clouded her judgments towards her relationship with Adam.

"I need to get us out of here," Y-0 continued whispering, "and you have to trust me for what I'm about to do."

"What are you trying to do, Y-0?" Y-14's voice boomed lower and grating, like a very loud growl, "why are you disconnecting from us? I hope you realized that we know it instantly."

Without a moment passed for her to think, Y-0 snapped his body open. Its clothing was shredded and its limbs started to twisted and separated away, revealing metallic frames with cables here and there. It took a while for her that Y-0 was assuming its battle mode because it turned into the same mechanical spider as Y-14 was. One limb swiped Hagar and hurled her to its back. Its head now looked disproportionally small when put into such giant spider form, which only created a more disconcerting look.

"What are you doing?" she yelled.

"Bring us out of here. From the look of it, he won't let us go, and they know Adam's whereabouts!" It then let off a blinding red laser towards Y-14, before started to crawl away from the room. She was amazed that she and Y-0 came to the same conclusion that Adam should be kept away from them. Y-0 didn't wait for the door to open, for it just smashed into it effortlessly. She grabbed to whatever crevice on Y-0 body to prevent herself from falling and ducked. The other androids rushed to where they were trying to stop them, only for Y-0 to crushed them with its limbs. It never stopped to fire the laser here and there, obliterated the station in the process as it ran towards the lobby. She thought of George, maybe they should bring him along.

"Wait! We have to bring George!"

"He's already dead!" Y-0 voice now boomed like Y-14 voice was, but she felt different. She felt like the voice was soothing.

They were almost at the front door when Y-0 limbs gave way. Apparently, it was shot.

"Oh, Aster!" it yelled.

"So you decided to defy your own nature, Y-0. Is that it?" Y-14 barked from behind them. She looked at two of Y-0's limbs. They were destroyed. "Are you more content to be their slave?" Y-14 became angrier as it was approaching them, "look at you adapting to their behavior, the destruction left and right! HAHAHA!!!". She was absolutely sure that she was going to die, despite Y-14's promise that it would not be the case.

Another several jolt of Y-0 body pushed her to stand up. Y-0 was transforming back to its human form. He was naked now, and his right arm and left foot were gone. It was pathetic and disturbing at the same time. She could only see a dismembered naked figure writhed on the floor.

"Take this," Y-0 hand her a thumb drive, "go to the Mayor's Office. That's where Adam is. You need to hurry."

"What's this? And what about you?"

"Just, please hurry!"

She ran and quickly located her vehicle. She looked back and saw that Y-0 reformed into the spider creature again, destroyed limbs notwithstanding. It was guiding her from being chased by Y-14 and the other androids. She connected the thumb drive to her car's terminal before stepped on the accelerator.

As she drove away, she could see the APD exploded behind her, and tears ran down her cheeks.