ALN23061912RK

Submitted for Contest #82 in response to: Write about an android just trying to
blend in with their human companions.... view prompt

Cyndy Spice
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379 likes 138 comments

Feb 27, 2021

SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURE SUSPENSE

Something wasn’t right.

The farmer’s market buzzed around him, his arms heavy with his cloth totes filled
to the brim. There’d been a lovely selection of candles this morning. Now he waited
among the sea of humanity in the square for the curly-haired vendor to wrap his
fresh-cut flowers. An acoustic band played in the middle of the market, twangy
notes bouncing off tents and muddled with the voices of the crowd. He reached out
for his wrapped bouquet with a smile while alarm bells rang in his head.

It seemed like a pleasant day- from all the available information, it was. Yet
every time he turned a corner, every time he bumped into someone and mumbled his
apologies, he felt as if eyes were burning into the back of his skull. He checked
his breath rate and found it functionally normal. He tested his blinking mod and
found no concerns. Still, as he weaved through the market, he zoned in on the port-
o-johns and stood in line as calmly as he could.

When he finally made it inside, he closed his eyes and scanned. No functions seemed
abnormal. Still, with his sensory circuits firing so much today, he decided it best
to do a soft reboot. Candles heavy in his arms, the flowers peeking over the sides
of his totes, he stood still in the port-o-john and let his CPU reset.

A few functions stuttered at first; mostly the modifications he’d added in the last
few years, like the blinking mod. After a second or two, they all hummed quietly
into order, evening out their memory usage. Response time under a second.
Respiratory simulation at a resting rate of fourteen breaths a minute. Blinking mod
pushing a blink every seven seconds. Nothing out of order. He let his shoulders
relax and flushed the toilet behind him. There’d be no way to differentiate him
from anyone else. Couldn’t be. He exited the port-o-john and tried to push the
feelings away. Maybe it was time to leave the market.

He headed down the street at a leisurely pace, careful not to seem in any hurry.
After all, if for some reason it wasn’t his sensory awareness misfiring, it’d be
best to not to appear paranoid. There’d be no reason for a man visiting the
farmer’s market on a beautiful morning to think he was being followed. Even in this
train of thought, he reassured himself that being followed wasn’t likely. Why let
it ruin the day?

Whether to throw off his pursuers or to force himself to abandon the silly
thoughts, he took a detour on the way back to his apartment. He stopped in at the
local gardening center, where the shopkeep knew him by his fake name and bought a
new spider plant. Now, his arms and hands full, he walked a little quicker towards
his complex. He told himself it was to get the snake plant inside, but he knew fear
chased his footsteps.

The doorman greeted him as he stepped through the door. He nodded once, the snake
plant’s hanging leaves jostling as he pulled out his resident card. Only when
walking up the stairs to his third floor studio did he relax.
A neighbor, Mrs. Whistledown, waved in the hallway. He smiled and greeted her as he
shuffled his things to unlock the door. Once inside, he let the totes fall to the
ground and set the snake plant in the windowsill. Then he leaned against the wall
and put his head in his hands. The alarm bells were quieter now that he was inside.
Locked in. Safe. His apartment complex was the safest place he could be. So why
were the alarms only quieter and not gone?

Something at the market must have been off. Off in a way that his logic systems had
found dangerous. It would take hours to sift through the raw data to find what had
triggered it. Hours of audio, of video, all having to be sifted through to find
what had gone wrong. He looked at his apartment and sighed. He wouldn’t be able to
go into rest mode until he’d found it, he knew that. With a heavy dose of
trepidation, he started the script to find the trigger.