Cardinal Spark

By Tracy Eire

The prototype android left to Zoey Collins turned out to be precisely the 'hotshot' Cardinal Machines lawyers described, when they tried to persuade her to sign away her rights to him. With Cardinal Machines like Ocean harvesting mineral-rich asteroids and terraforming the moon, Zoey sent Ocean where he could do the most good: back to the LAPD SWAT team and the FBI. Why would she check with Ocean about that?

But when the luminary suddenly begins to rebel, it's time to ride to the rescue. Maybe an ace like Ocean doesn't belong in Zoey's penny-ante world of private investigation? Or maybe he has the exact right skills to dig into the fragmented and overlooked case of a woman's suicide in an Android Depot. Either way, Zoey's faced with winning back the trust of a now defiant android -- for whom she's developing the most curious feelings -- at the same time she must venture into the strange and unseen world of artificial existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracy Eire
• Release date: Nov 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463030172

Tracy Eire

My name, Tracy, means warrior in Irish, and that's apt. I come from a much-storied island off the coast of Eastern Canada, where kids weren't handled with kid-gloves. We had the run of the place -- icebergs and all! The land, the storms, and the beliefs shaped me into a storyteller. But I'm also an avid collector of things, like dolls, books, and... ghost hunting tips. I have a background in literature and psychology, with an entirely unhealthy dollop of technology (that's run a decade now and includes Clouds of all kinds)! I paint too much and think about trivia and oddities about the same, but it all comes out on the page! I've been writing professionally for about 7 years now. You'll like my work if you're interested in near-future science fiction, ghost-stories, or kick-@$$ heroes and heroines. And if you're Street Team Strong? Let me know on my site's Contact Page! Thanks and happy reading!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Cardinal Miscalculations

Chapter 2. The Big Reception

Chapter 3. The Sim that Broke the Camel’s Back

Chapter 4. Lick the Wounds

Chapter 5. Emmeline is Coming to Town

Chapter 6. The Woman who Fell

Chapter 7. His Blood and Bones

Chapter 8. Firefights and Final Calls

Chapter 9. Picking your Poison

Chapter 10. The Perfect System

Chapter 11. Ocean spies the Night

Chapter 12. Even a Worm Will Turn

Cardinal Spark by Tracy Eire

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author-publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Copyright © 2018 Tracy Eire

Chapter 1. Cardinal Miscalculations

Zoey Cardinal pinned her certificate on the fridge, because Why not?

Far from a cascade of trumpets, Noah announced, I think my hair is getting too long.

Sure, Zoey turned toward Noah. His black hair was, in fact, getting long enough to curl around the back of his neck. Looks good though.

She returned her attention to her certificate on the front of the double-fridge. Like the graduation certificate, the fridge was new and had replaced the one that had been here originally and… conked out a month ago. She touched the display on the front and it tried to tell her what was waiting inside for her, but… it couldn’t compete with the magnetic photos all over the front.

Zoey touched the photo of 15-year-old her sitting at the table just steps away, with her uncle Ryan. Funny thing, time. If she could have touched it, turned around, and just seen him sitting there, waiting for her to come back to the conversation, she would have done it in a hot second. She would have told him that she’d finished Grade 13 and graduated High School. That she didn’t know how, exactly, but suspected that it had something to do with the Cardinal name. She would have told him she missed him, for sure.

She loved him to this very instant.

And then she would have touched the picture above it and come back again.

She straightened it a little above the bubble letters ‘Zoey and Ocean’.

The picture was from months before, taken in the art room of her school. In it, she was posing for the camera with Ocean beside her. In the photo, his face, with its gorgeous angles and tastefully clipped hair, was pointed at her, unruffled, visually stunning, and almost smiling. He wore the blue coat-suit of Cardinal Machines, the one with his designation on his pocket, and, by it, even though he’d slid the crescent of light that could take its place on his throat, down to his upper chest again, she could tell he was an android. C001-Oisín. Her Ocean. Arguably the most important thing her Great Aunt had ever given her, well, apart from the entire Cardinal Machines legacy, and, raised a Collins, she felt distantly connected to that. He’d lived with her once. In her mind now, it was like trapping a pair of butterflies together in her hands. In her mind, he’d become something of a different form of life, and that was a very important thought for a Cardinal to have.

They made androids. They’d made her Ocean. They were one of the most powerful Artificial Intelligence companies in the world today.

She touched the photo with careful fingertips and wondered, again, how he was doing. Her Ocean hadn’t just been the last thing her Great Aunt Katherine Cardinal had ever created, he was a prototype, and the first of his line. After forging paths into the military, she’d designed him for law enforcement, but the truth was, Katherine 1, as they called her – seeing as Katherine Cardinal was Zoey’s name too, albeit with ‘Zoey’ in the middle – had been clever. She’d designed her androids from the outside in. First, she’d worked with NASA to develop units for space exploration, lunar occupation, and asteroid mining, then she’d worked her androids into the military. Slowly, inexorably, she’d moved the androids closer and closer to human daily life.

And then Ocean.

Who’d lived in her house.

Until Zoey had realized the good he could do, and the selfishness in her actions, keeping him from doing it, so that she’d let him go back to the LAPD with Lieutenant James Ott.

That didn’t stop her missing him.

That didn’t stop her calling him.

So far, though, all she could do was leave messages.

Noah, sitting at her kitchen table, was inspecting the pair of new cuff-links they’d bought, seeing as graduation was a time for celebration. These were upgraded multi-device emulators that mounted onto a person’s wrist like a soft leather sheath. The phone-forms this thing made in air could take on different configurations. Anything from a regular rectangle to a little earpiece that sat connected to a person’s ear. Zoey had seen them before, with their ‘wire’ leading up across the arm, and shoulder, and neck, into the ear, and then down the cheek. Police had them. He turned the boxes over to show the expensive cuffs inside. So, do you want the pink one?

I got that one for you, she told him. Mine’s the gray. Zoey gave her love to the pictures on the fridge, for all the good it would do either of them – her late uncle, or the android she’d come to care for, and loaned away to the LAPD – and she returned to the table. Returned to the living.

Noah raised the rose cuff-link and looked at it longingly. You know I can’t wear this.

Sure, you can, she said of the glossy thing. It was little more than a motile foil with a gel casing around it. Just put it on. It’ll fit nice and snug to your wrist.

He put it down and rubbed his face, two-handed. If my dad catches me with this…. He didn’t finish the sentence. And he really didn’t have to, Zoey thought. She looked at the table, at her gift for him, and then switched out the boxes.

It’s… it’s dove gray. She told him as encouragingly as she could. Because she didn’t want to say, Wear the gray one and your father won’t kill you, though, lately, she was starting to worry about that a lot. She looked at him quite seriously. Take the gray one.

Noah didn’t come out of his hands. I don’t want the gray one.

Zoey felt her insides pinch. She steadied her breathing and nodded at him. Noah, you know how to shut that down. I’ve told you. He didn’t say anything, so she continued. You’ve graduated now.

You need your own space.

Zoey laughed when he said it. Months, and nothing had changed here since Ocean had walked out the door to go back to L.A. Before that? About 2 years of atrophy. Life in a vacuum, when she hadn’t been in an institution. I’ve got nothing. Nothing but space. Promise me you won’t walk around in your underwear, and you can have a room on the main floor. You can move in.

Like that won’t cramp your style with… he peeked out at her. Are… are you dating Derrick now? Or, is it Owen?

Hey, she pointed at him, this is not about me. Move in, and you can have the pink one.

Move in and I can have the… the dove gray one, because I wouldn’t want anything to get back to my family about me. He picked up the gray one dryly. Maybe I can accessorize?

She smiled at him. I have a package of strawberry stickers from Clara and all the strawberries are smiling. I mean. She opened her arms and then pointed at the drawer beside the fridge.

Legit. Noah got to his feet and went to fish through the catch-all drawer. Got ‘em! He curled up on the couch, grinning about how adorable the laughing strawberries were, and how she hadn’t mentioned they were scratch-n-sniff, and she looked in the fridge for the cookie mix. She had some now, though… mostly she let Ocean’s automatic orders roll in as-is.

She just hoped Noah was still considering it.

Zoey couldn’t spare any more attention for it. She started cutting the frozen dough into chunks and setting it out on a baking sheet. Because she owned a baking sheet now. It didn’t alarm her when a car soared down her driveway and braked on the crushed stone. It skidded to a halt about 8 feet from the house, and 2 from the posts at the end of the drive.

She was too distracted by the glass surface of the television. Turn it up?

Noah was already doing it.

Zoey loped over to the couch and stared at the set. The ticker lit up along the bottom of the screen with ‘Cardinal Machines Android send to investigate NYC parking garage bombing’. Zoey didn’t pay a lot of attention to the report, she was too focused on the images of a dark and cramped passage, spewing smoke. Humans in thermal radiation suits showed the faces of radiation meters and Geiger counters to the camera. The image flipped to one of a press of reporters clustered outside of a tall wooden doorway, with police pressing through the little space afforded them.

Zoey! But Noah looked up to find her already there and fell into silence.

They watched the trail of officers and Feds file out, and then Ocean appeared in the line. He looked like a celebrity. Zoey knew it was him, her Ocean, from the tan of his skin, his crisp dark brown hair, and cerulean eyes. She could see the shadow of freckles on his skin. Of the five C001-Oisín prototypes that were in circulation, she knew of only one other who worked with the FBI, and he was with the Crime Lab. His pale skin, black hair, and honey-brown eyes were all wrong for this sleek creature the news cameras fought to follow. Ocean – her Ocean – didn’t look at the camera, but his face was set. He’d always looked gorgeous at rest. But now Zoey’s brows pulled down.

Jesus, have mercy, Noah paused the screen and talked with his hands. "He’s gotten better-looking. Like a young… graphene… god. Can he do that? Can an android get hotter?"

Uh, no? We just haven’t seen him in a while… and he’s more of a mix of trademarked… fiber hydrogels and… experimental stuff, Zoey said distractedly. His expression. It looked so hard.

Noah waggled the flat glassy controller at the screen, You shacked up with him, and you’re still okay with me moving in? I mean I’m gonna be a lot… messier.

She shrugged at him, I keep my boys on the first floor. And that’s where Ocean had stayed the whole time he’d been there, but she didn’t want to get into that. She didn’t want to say what she had and hadn’t felt, or done, not to anyone. After letting him go, she didn’t talk about him. She felt twitchy looking at him.

I’m in, said a voice from the door.

Now that it was summer, Zoey was happy to keep the double-doors open to the breath of night, and there, leaning against the doorjamb was Derrick McMurray.

Zoey heaved a heavy sigh and tried to keep her patience, What?

If you’re keeping your boys on the first floor, I’m in, he told her with a happy smile.

You’re not invited, she looked him over and said, Wait… aren’t you having a graduation party at McMurray house right now?

He held up a bottle of far-too expensive wine. Got another one in my pocket.

You left your own party, said Noah from the couch, to hang out with us?

Derrick scoffed, Noah, you’re a fresh-faced ingenue, so I don’t expect you to know this, but you can’t roll-up with beer to a Cardinal party.

I’m not having a party.

He opened his arms, You should be partying with me.

Derrick, for the thousandth time, I’m not your girlfriend.

He tossed the wine so that it spun in air before he caught it again, You’re being hasty. Anyway, I come in peace to see where my bad bitches are at.

Call us bitches again, and I’ll cut you. Zoey headed back toward the kitchen and waggled it as she went, I have a knife. But when she arrived she just turned to look at Ocean, and, unbidden, Derrick came in. He grew sober when he saw the face of the android on the screen.

Far from being the bully and jock he’d often played at school, Derrick now looked concerned, Hey. Something… happen to him?

Hell yeah, Noah gestured at the screen. He’s going to look at some dirty bomb in New York.

Derrick took the other wine out of his pocket, his expression unravelling. That’s fucked up.

Look at that. An Android saves you from one brush with death, and suddenly it’s ‘What happened to him’, and ‘Is he okay’, she set four lumps of cookie-dough on the baking sheet. Faith in humanity, restored.

She looked up at Ocean just before Noah let the images roll forward, and she watched him walk off screen, camera struggling to follow him as he passed out of the shot. And out of her life again. Zoey hid that she took this hit. She fussed with the baking sheet she tucked into the oven, still feeling the blow as a direct hit to her chest that sucked all the air out.

Derrick was closer than she thought, behind her, You okay?

Open the wine.

Say what?

Open the wine, Derrick, Zoey told him flatly.

Whatever you want, blondie, he set it down on the table with the second bottle and pulled out a corkscrew. Behind her back, he looked from Noah, whose sculpted brows went up, to Zoey’s turned back. Whatever you want.

All the news stations carried him, so Zoey sorted through them.

She checked online on the old cuff – the cuff-colour argument never having been settled. There was a segment of the population who gobbled up photographs of Ocean. His image was all over fan websites, and it was easy to find the latest footage there.

Zoey drank wine until she was no longer interested in the television, or social media, and it seemed more inviting to slow dance on her front lawn with Derrick. Noah fell asleep on the couch before she puttered inside with him again. You think your party’s still going?

Couldn’t care less. He pulled in close to her and touched her face. Zoey. You look so sad.

Zoey didn’t know what to do with that moment, so she just looked up at him. Derrick. Well. She didn’t want to say yes, but also didn’t exactly want to say no. She pulled out of his hands and walked up the stairs toward her room. But she threw back glances at him. Of two minds.

And she woke up in her sheets around noon, a free woman, having graduated from school, and having, as far as she knew, no other destination.

No game plan to speak of.

She hadn’t wanted to think about this.

Graduation had thrust it upon her.

She rolled over, and smacked into Derrick’s long, pale back. For a moment, she froze. Her brain registered that he had an incredible tattoo on one shoulder – it looked like very fancy Celtic knotwork, sitting within curling leaves, and clover flowers. And then she hit the floor.

He didn’t stir. She collected up her clothes and went all the way downstairs, wrapped in a sheet. Noah was whistling to himself in the kitchen. It smelled like bacon was underway.

Hey. He glanced over her. Rough night?

She looked up the stairs, I… think so. I don’t remember all of it.

We drank a couple bottles of wine, he shrugged in her direction, and, hate to tell you, but you’re not a drinker, Zoey. You don’t handle your liquor well.

What was your first clue, she pulled the sheet more tightly around her. Head pounding.

There were oh, so many, from his post by the oven, he laughed at her pain. "Did you know you were dancing with Derrick, out on the lawn? You left the front doors wide open when you went to bed?

Do you know he’s upstairs?

Oh, did he crash on the second floor?

She chickened out, Yeah. Uh, he crashed on the second floor. Oh my God, do I smell waffles?

And they’re not made with pancake mix either, girlfriend, Noah told her. I don’t play.

Zoey went to the downstairs shower. Her ginger fingers traced over the line along her ribs on her left side. She’d gotten a gash from a bullet when she’d last involved herself in a murder investigation. Ocean had come out of that with two bullet wounds. She bet he didn’t have any scars. She touched the wrinkle of mounded tissue and thought about a tattoo like Derrick had. Or better yet, an olive branch. Standing in the hot pounding of shower water. She tried to feel different. Tried to feel it in her skin and body that she’d had sex with Derrick McMurray.

But all she felt was numb.

Her head replayed images of Ocean while she was trying to sort out whether she needed a Morning After pill, just to be safe. It was enough to wring tears from her. Zoey had never been able to admit to before, what occurred to her now that she was no longer distracted with squeaking through at school and breaking he-said / she-said cases – sending Ocean away had been good for the world, but, for her, it had been a return to nuclear winter.

She wept with frustration in the shower, because she’d done this to herself, and it was devastating.

By the time she was dressed and shuffled out to the kitchen, Noah was sitting at the table with McMurray. They both looked pretty damned serious.

One word, Noah told her, and I throw him out and call the Sheriff’s department.

With what? she asked quietly. Two stupid kids who got drunk and hooked up on graduation night? Pretty sure they’ll put you on hold because there’s a line. Also pretty sure her cheeks were as red as a lady-bug’s backside.

Oh my God, Derrick ran his hands over his face. Anything. Anything you need, Zoey. Just ask me, and it’s done, okay?

I guess it’s too late to ask for condoms, she sucked a deep breath and her lips compressed into a line. She took a chair at the end of the table and sank into it.

I’m sorry, he put his face in his hands. When I asked, you said Yes. Otherwise-

Noah’s laughter was harsh, Oh, you want me to believe you would have stopped?

But Derrick’s expression crumpled in disdain. "What the fuck is wrong with you, man? I’m not some kind of predator, and there is no fucking way I’d hurt Zoey. She’s saved my ass before, but you wouldn’t know that. You were getting your hair done."

She’d also involved him in her machinations that might have cost him his life.

Noah bared his teeth, She’d been drinking, you tool. He glanced over at Zoey. I have the Sheriff’s on speed-dial. I’m not kidding around.

Neither am I, she gathered her courage and shut her eyes to say. You can’t call the Sheriff’s department on him, Noah.

He started dialing the number, Watch me.

No, she forced aside the memory of her desperate desire to stamp out her loneliness, tangled with the warm heat of Derrick’s very willing body. You can’t, Noah, because there’s nothing to report.

You’re telling me, Noah stopped to chuckle, You wanted something to do with him? It was then he remembered the hours of slow-dancing they’d done on the lawn.

Apparently, she glanced away at the television. Nothing about Ocean on there today. Thank God. She didn’t know how she could have faced him, even digital him.

Noah stood up, I’m not judging, but watch yourself, McMurray. I will smack you in the head with a rock, if you screw up. Understand? He went away to redistribute the breakfast so that everyone had something.

And Derrick blanched, Your pal? He’s messed up.

S’why I like him. She pulled her orange juice over into her quivering hands. In other news, he’ll be living here.

Derrick scrubbed his face with his hands, "Fffuck."

Sing it, sister. Zoey sipped.

Okay. He lives here. Fine, Derrick reached out and placed his hand over hers. Doesn’t change what happened. I’ll take you in the auto-car. We can go to the pharmacy, get you a Plan B.

Bet you say that to all the girls. She still hadn’t looked at him. She looked at his hand on hers.

All the…? I’m not joking around, Zoey. You might have wanted to do… what we did, he glanced across at where Noah cut sausages into sausage coins, and tread carefully, but it’s my fault I didn’t have a safe on me. I just didn’t… didn’t expect.

Because, she smiled in self-mockery, I’m not that kind of girl?

Stop. Look, just stop. Stop beating yourself up, he shook his head at her. "For Christ’s sake, just let me do something for you, please. Anything. Because you’re so miserable, I could taste it, Zoey. And… and I’m responsible for half of this. We need to get you to a pharmacy."

I can do it, she said. I’ll do it. Visually, she started searching her rack for her car keys.

His right hand came in to cap the left, Why won’t you let me help you? He seemed fascinated by the delicacy of her fingers.

Maybe one more time would be the charm. Because I’m not your girlfriend, Derrick.

His hands froze for a moment, and then eased away from hers. Complex emotions flowed across his face, and he said a quiet, Okay. I get it. I hear you, Zoey… he breathed evenly, and looked into her eyes before she could dart away, but if you and me had sex last night, then this is something I’m gonna need you to do.

She had no idea what he saw there, but there was a softening of his expression.

You have my word, she nodded up at him. And I’m sorry, she had to suck a breath to go on, that this is happening to you.

He risked a reach up to push her hair out of her eyes. We should talk about this later.

She shut her eyes because, to be honest, his touch felt good. Yeah. She brought her hand up to press against the back of his, but thought better of it, and let her hand drop to the table again. His hand swept away. I guess we should.

You going to be all right?

Yeah.

He picked up the dove-gray cuff, summoned up the phone, and typed frantically. See that? That’s my personal number. That’s my inside line.

Zoey blinked at it.

Anything. Okay?

Right, she felt herself starting to smile as he got to his feet and headed for the door, his backward glance harrowed as Noah savaged a melon with a melon-baller.

And I’ll see you later? he asked from the door.

Anything’s possible, Zoey shrugged.

Okay. He passed out the door and she saw him lope into the garden to his auto-car.

Oh my God, I thought he’d never leave, Noah growled from the counter. He brought over plates of food and set them down before her. You upset about him?

No… I don’t think so. I’m upset with myself. Zoey exhaled slowly. I’m upset that I drank a bottle of wine and had a fly-by with Mr. Popular-

He’s cute, and I’m not judging. Noah put in.

But… I am kinda amused that he put his personal line into your cuff, big guy. So, you know, maybe that door swings both ways. She looked at Noah, and they burst into smiles.

You’re okay. Noah set to erasing Derrick’s number. Like you couldn’t figure out how to get these digits in your sleep.

Yeah, she rubbed her hands on the thighs of her jeans and picked up the rose-coloured cuff. What she didn’t bring up is how one act had blown her life apart. Derrick wouldn’t forget this, and Owen? Anything with Owen was off the table.

It was still on her mind when she drove to the Planned Parenthood offices and ate a pair of pills that would take care of any unplanned conception – one that would take effect immediately, and a second for the five-day span in which pregnancy was a danger. Zoey had no desire to trap Derrick McMurray like some of the other girls in his life appeared to be scheming to do. She also wasn’t going to go forward without making sure she was all right, which meant a panel of STD tests. This, she realized, was a necessary evil that came hand-in-hand with adulthood.

Still, on the end of the sampling and pill-popping, she dropped by a cupcake shop for tea and comfort. A little buttercream icing would take the edge off. She checked the phone in her cuff, calling it up with a deft flicker of fingers and found calls from both Noah and Derrick. She didn’t see the need to answer either. Instead, she sipped her cranberry green tea and ate a cupcake with chocolate frosting, her eyes on the set in the corner.

The suspected NYC bombing came on, full of billowing smoke and crumpled stone, and she noticed that several FBI were interviewed, but no one spoke to Ocean. She could see him in the background of one shot, in quiet conversation with Lieutenant Ott, who, apparently, travelled with him when he was called away on these sorts of