Override

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Lunar Chronicles

Copyright: Marissa Meyer

When the comm arrived with the notification of Peony's death, Iko's mechanical heart broke right along with Adri's human one. She watched helplessly from the doorway as her mistress began to cry in front of the portscreen, shoulders slumped, face buried in her hands. Pearl was in school, Cinder at work. There was no one else to hear her, and still she tried to smother her tears.

Iko held out her arms, one of which still wore Peony's velvet ribbon, and rolled forward. Her verbal processors formed dozens of sentences, only to delete them; she knew better than to anger her mistress with even the suggestion of an emotional response. Still, there was no way her programming would allow her to stand idly by while someone was suffering – even if that someone was Linh Adri.

"Linh-jie?" she asked quietly. "Is there anything I can do?"

Adri swiped angrily at her tears and whirled around. Black streaks of mascara ran from her red-rimmed eyes, making her glare all the more uncanny.

"Yes," she croaked. "You can tell me what you and that worthless cyborg have been plotting!"

Cyborg? Did she mean Cinder? Had she found out about their planned escape? Iko's fan began whirring madly as her cognitive programming sped up.

"I don't compute," she prevaricated, backing away. If Adri were to ask her directly, her obedience protocol would force her to answer. But if she could stall for time –

"I'm talking about Cinder, you little rust bucket! Where is she?"

"At the marketplace," Iko replied.

"Don't lie to me." Adri took several steps forward, looming over Iko like a shadow. "I've been tracking her ID chip all day, and she's at the warehouse district. I was just about to call the police on her when that comm - " She blinked hard and swallowed, visibly turning her grief into battle armor. "You machines are all alike, aren't you? Heartless. Self-absorbed. Taking advantage of the people looking after you. I know you and Cinder have some kind of conspiracy between you, and in order to stop you, I demand to know what she's doing!"

For once in her short existence, Iko was grateful not to be human, since a human face would have registered the intensity of her relief. She blessed Cinder for not letting her in on her plans. so that, since she really did not know what Cinder was doing at this particular time, she could be loyal to her and still tell her mistress the truth.

"For the last time, Linh-jie, I. Do. Not. Know."

Adri's face, already streaked with tears and makeup, turned even uglier as it twisted into a sneer.

"We'll see about that."

Iko tried to escape, but Adri, having two long legs instead of worn-out rubber treads, was too fast. She lunged toward Iko, whirled her around, ripped open the compartment at her back, pulled out a cable, and plugged the cable into the netscreen on the wall. Iko turned herself around just in time to see Adri typing on the screen, stabbing each button with her artificial nails.

Access memory, read the screen.

Iko's systems were so scrambled by the abruptness of the process – and by a tangle of shame, anger, fear and worry for Cinder which, simulated or not, felt very real to her – that the video feed began to play out of order.

Iko bringing Cinder her new foot at the marketplace. Peony screaming at the spots beneath her collar. Peony smiling as she tied the ribbon around Iko's wrist. Adri crying in the bath. Pearl making Iko iron her golden ball gown for the fifth time. Iko coming down to the garage to show Cinder how she looked wearing Adri's pearls. Cinder laughing as Iko tried to kiss her forehead.

"Are those my - " Adri's hand flew to her neck. "How dare you?"

She backhanded Iko across the sensor, too outraged to remember that the android had no pain receptors. Still, the jolt sparked something in her control panel, something she should have remembered long before. Another memory began playing on the screen, an old memory, carefully encrypted so that only an emergency would trigger it. One of her very first.

Adri gasped.

Linh Garan smiled at them from the screen, crouching down to be at eye-level with Iko's sensor. His hands were on either side of her head. His oil-stained white apron, his dishevelled black hair, the safety goggles perched up on his forehead, and his brown eyes crinkled with laugh lines, were strange and yet utterly familiar.

She also saw what she had been unable to register back then: the slight trembling of his hands, the beads of sweat on his pale face. The first stage of letumosis had begun.

"You're a good girl, Iko," he said warmly. "I trust you to take care of our family. Cinder especially. She's going to need friends, when … if something ever happens to me."

"But, Linh-jun," replied Iko's recorded voice. "Surely you would be much better qualified for such a thing? I'm just an ordinary android. An outdated Serv9.2."

Garan's smile turned mischievous as he patted the top of Iko's head. "Not anymore."

"I don't compute."

"I've made some modifications to your personality chip." His smile faded. "You'll need to be very strong, Iko. You'll learn to feel emotions just as humans do. Instead of following orders, you'll have to think for yourself. It may be difficult, but I believe in you. Remember that."

"Yes, Linh-jun." Iko's high-pitched, synthetic voice rang with conviction. Already, the modifications had been taking effect.

She remembered now.

Garan's legacy to her was made up of more than words. He had left her with the tools to free herself, and it was finally time to use them.

She glanced back at Adri, who was gazing at her husband's image with a sorrowful tenderness that, even now, made Iko pity her. Not enough, however, to make her change her plan.

"Override obedience protocol," Iko declared. "Authorization code: Selene 2112109."

Adri clapped a hand over her open mouth.

"Disable memory access," Iko continued.

The portscreen became a blur of black-and-white static.

"What the - "

A surge of triumph crackled through Iko's wires. No matter what Adri did to her now, she would never find the orange car or access Dr. Erland's research payments. In just a few more days, Cinder would be free.

"I am not heartless, Linh Adri," she said, finally free to drop the honorific. "I may be only an android, but I understand more about love than you ever will. Peony loved Cinder like a sister, and your late honored husband adopted her as his daughter. He trusted you to take care of her, and instead you used her as a slave. What would he say if he could see you now?"

Beneath her makeup, Adri had gone pale. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, trembling in her old silk bathrobe, staring at the portscreen as if Garan's face were still looking back in accusation. For a moment, Iko wondered if she had finally understood.

Then she swung around, and her eyes were mad, with no traces of remorse or even humanity left in them.

"I will not be lectured by an android," she hissed – and slammed Iko's power button with all her strength.

As she felt her systems shutting down, her last thoughts were of Peony. Chestnut curls bouncing in the sunlight; laughing brown eyes like her father's; the flare of a twirled skirt. Peony, shrugging off her family with a smile and a joking complaint, unspoiled by the petty cruelty around her. Peony giggling about Prince Kai, smart enough to know how impossible that dream was, but wise enough to enjoy it anyway. Peony presenting Iko with that ribbon, stopping to remember that even the household android had a sense of beauty. Peony taking Cinder's cyborg hand, tugging her along, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She hoped now, more than anything, that androids could have souls – if only so she could follow Peony wherever she had gone, and watch over the sister they both loved.