“She will be the first of her kind, specialized and lethal like you wouldn’t believe. The coding safeguards required by the AIA were the first lines we wrote for her, with some tweaking. She will only harm the one human she is assigned to. Though, for obvious reasons, you have to be extremely specific. Don’t want to accidentally kill the wrong person.”
The scientist chuckled and shook her head, looking at the android she was talking about with a proud expression. She acted as though this robot was her child, and that killing people was equivalent to making finger-paint art.
“Doctor Kaye… I’m sure you understand our hesitation here. You made this thing capable of killing people?”
A mumbled wave of agreement traveled through the room, emanating from the man that spoke. Doctor Kaye narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before taking a deep breath and trying to smile reassuringly.
“General, Athena is a bounty hunter. Of course she is capable of killing people. But I assure you, she will only harm the one person she is programmed to. She is even required to bring back proof to whoever set the order that she killed who she was supposed to. So long as your name is never entered, you are never at risk.”
Doctor Kaye ended her explanation with her smile a bit more cold than intended. Every time she gave a presentation on Athena’s progress, people voiced concerns like this. How many times would she have to answer the same questions? Do these people even read the meeting briefings?
The general looked uncomfortable with her last comment, but it served him right. For once, the military doesn’t want a killing machine? Maybe because it looks too human. Isn’t that ironic?
“Any other questions?” Kaye’s tone left no room for questions. She wrapped up her presentation and walked out, Athena following close behind.
“Did they not like me, Doctor?”
Athena’s voice barely sounded synthetic, it was soft and almost melodic, always soothing Kaye’s nerves after those meetings. She turned to face Athena with her most genuine smile of the day, reaching up to cup the android’s cheek in her hand.
“They just don’t understand you yet. But don’t worry. They will soon.”
Three years later, Athena had gone through multiple upgrades. She looked and sounded completely human, and even people who knew she was an android sometimes had a hard time remembering. Doctor Kaye was immeasurably proud of her accomplishment, and the military finally was too.
Athena was sent on a new hunt almost every week now, tracking down people on the ISC’s most-wanted list across 15 different galaxies. Prisons weren’t as crowded, there seemed to be a fear of doing anything bad enough to get on the list and have Athena sent after you. Kaye felt she was doing her civic duty to prevent crime, though some people felt it was too much.
But no matter what their opinion on Athena was, nearly everyone agreed that she was needed to take down the infamous coder named Lucky. He was wreaking havoc across the entire ISW and had to be stopped immediately. Kaye was hesitant to sent Athena after Lucky, worried that he would somehow harm her greatest creation. She didn’t think that really would happen, but this coder had shown extreme skill, greater than some of the government employees she worked with daily. If anyone besides her could do anything to Athena, it would be Lucky.
It took some heated discussions and drawn-out debates, but Kaye finally agreed to program Athena to hunt down Lucky. She had to alter some of the instruction code to account for the fact that Lucky’s true identity was unknown, but Athena understood. Athena was no longer just a program doing what it was told, she was a growing, thinking intelligence. She had even expressed her own opinions on a few occasions, much to Kaye’s delight and everyone else’s discomfort.
“Doctor, your concerns are logically unfounded. I run diagnostics on your coding daily against every other code active at the time and the one inside me is always significantly safer. The odds of anything happening to me due to internal sabotage are practically nonexistent. The only way I could come into harm would be through external force, and we all know how difficult that is,” Athena said with a nod towards the pile of scrap in the corner.
Athena’s body had gone through rigorous testing multiple times until Kaye was sure it was as strong as possible, though it didn’t stop her from working with materials engineers to come up with even stronger alloys. The android was a true modern marvel and Kaye sometimes couldn’t believe she made Athena with her own hands.
“Athena, I am never logical when it comes to you. You are my proudest achievement, I just want you to be safe. I know you can handle yourself and I know your software and hardware are impeccable, but… a mother still worries.”
Kaye’s voice was gentle, like she really was talking to a child who was just a few years old. Athena’s soft silicone face shifted to form a smile as she reached out to hold the doctor’s hands.
“Well then, mother, you’ll just have to trust me.”
With a watery smile, Kaye embraced Athena in a final goodbye. She had to wipe tears away as she watched Athena board the rocket that would take her to Lucky’s last known location, feeling like she was sending her child off to war. She had every confidence that Athena could manage this mission, but her nagging anxieties still cast a shadow. Only time would tell if Athena would pull it off.
Three weeks later, Kaye lost contact with Athena. The signal between them had been spotty for some time due to Lucky’s localized EM bombs that he kept detonating when Athena got too close. The one weakness Athena had, and Lucky had figured how to shrink an EM field’s effects down enough to only harm Athena while leaving all other nearby tech alone. Kaye cursed his ingenuity.
When Athena’s signal cut out, Kaye felt like she was watching a heart monitor go flat. The entire wall of screens she had dedicated to the android all went blank one by one until just the text screen remained, relaying Athena’s thoughts. She wasn’t scared, she wasn’t confused. She just sent one last coherent thought before the last thread of communication between them went dead.
