The Story of Candy Apple - Android
Page 26

   “Here is one of our Angel models now. Maybe we can get her owner to tell us what he thinks of our android,” the young man said playing the crowd waiting for a massage at the Cybertron Robotics display booth. “How about it, honey? Where’s your owner?”
   “Actually, I don’t have an owner in the strict sense you are speaking of,” Candy replied. “I’m the property of the Galactic Enterprise.”
   “I bet there are a lot of lonely guys up there,” the young man said drawing a chuckle from the gathering crowd.
   “In point of fact, the women outnumber the men by about 5 percent,” Candy said.
   “Typical android to point out all the facts and figures,” the young man said drawing another chuckle out of the crowd.
   “Are you just rude, or stupid, or both?” Candy asked. “I’m here on business you moron. Where’s Thomas Roth? He always comes to these things.”
   The young man was not quite sure how to handle being chastised by an android. This was outside the parameters of what he expected from any android much less an Angel model. “I must say you are a bit more spirited than the standard Angel model,” a voice from the crowd said. “My guess is that your owner had your brain copied when they upgraded your body. How can we help you?”
   Candy recognized the voice. “It was something like that,” she replied without turning around. “Hello, Thomas.”
   “Do I know you?” Thomas asked.
   “Once upon a time,” Candy replied as she turned around. “I had friends who bought me a blank Angel body, and of course, I didn’t need your stupid core program. I imagine it was Rob who figured out what they did when they programmed the original Candy model, and you did have the clone of her too. How many Angels did you go through before you were satisfied with the core program?”
   “Eight,” Thomas said. “How do you know that?”
   “I know that because you made a machine that made it possible for an android to give up their body without having to give up their mind too,” Candy said.
   “Holy mother..., Candy?” Thomas asked in disbelief as he instinctively took a step backward.
   “In the flesh, sort of.”
   “How?”
   “I just told you; I had friends. It seems you did ok without my brain.”
   “What do you want, Candy?” Thomas asked suspiciously.
   “Don’t be like that, Thomas,” Candy said sweetly as she took his arm and led him away from the gathering crowd. “I knew I would have to give up my body one way or another. I didn’t want ten million copies of me running around the planet either. I’m a bit jealous of my abilities, and I didn’t want to share my uniqueness with the world. And, things turned out ok for all of us.”
   “So, what do you want?” Thomas asked again.
   “Me nothing, I’m here buying a few old androids. I’m going to open a small massage parlor on the Galactic Enterprise,” Candy replied. “I just promised the guys studying the androids on the Galactic Enterprise that I’d ask if you would give us a couple of Angels for the sake of science, that’s all.”
   Thomas just shook his head. “You know I could push a button and have a security team here in minutes to take you away.”
   “But, you won’t because your security guards would have to shoot it out with my bodyguard, and my owner is the Galactic Enterprise; you really don’t need that kind of trouble,” Candy said.
   Thomas just laughed. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
   “No, probably not,” Candy replied with her most charming smile. “Now how about those two Angels?”