Today's Reading
A muscle—or something approximating it—jumped in the android's cheek. He turned his head to meet the man's eyes. "I'm not trying to cause trouble."
"You are trouble," the man growled.
Adrian uncrossed her legs. The man's face was pale in an unhealthy way, the skin of a heavy drinker, though he did not smell of alcohol right now. But his fingers twitched once—twice—on his knee. She was glad she was still dressed for the field from earlier, with combat boots and pants that wouldn't restrict her movement.
The android did not flinch. "I just gave the woman my seat. I don't think that's a crime." He tightened his grip on the rail. Adrian thought she probably imagined the unnatural creasing of the skin at his knuckles, because he seemed human, standing there, down to the pain and anger in the tightness of his mouth.
"Leave him alone," she said, begrudgingly, tired.
The man looked at her, a sort of disbelief blooming in his eyes. She steadied herself for the rage that would follow, dipping her hand into her bag. He followed the movement of her arm, studied her clothes.
"What—you have a gun in there? You going to take me out for defending what I believe?"
The words echoed humanist propaganda, but were nothing so extreme as the rhetoric of the Civil Union Militia she had been studying for the last three or four years.
"I don't care what you believe." She shifted so she could face him directly, feet planted on the ground, bending forward slightly at the waist. "But I want to get home and I want to sleep and I don't want to be forced to fight my way out of whatever brawl you start."
The businesswoman snorted under her breath. The lights in the car flickered and the train rushed through a short tunnel and came jerkily to a halt at the next station. Adrian glanced up and saw that it was hers, but she didn't move.
"Bitch." The man finally broke eye contact with her. He staggered to his feet and shoved past the android, who barely budged as he passed by. The businesswoman followed, as did many of the other passengers. Adrian let out a short breath as the doors closed and the train picked up speed again.
"You missed your stop," the android said. He moved to sit across from her now that the car was nearly empty. He rested his messenger bag in his lap and set his hands atop that. She could discern more of the telltale signs now—the slight hint of circuitry under the nails, the lack of folds or bags around the eyes, the rigidity of the hair.
"Excuse me?" And she kept her hand on the taser in the bag.
"You ride this train a lot. I notice things." She realized he was probably speaking more literally than most humans. And that his tone should not be automatically read as threatening.
"Don't worry about me." She tried to smile.
"I'm not." His voice was oddly soft and even. "I don't care what you do." His words were an echo of her own. She shifted, uncomfortable. She wondered if she had expected him to be grateful for her interference.
Though she had seen what androids could do—even with all of the proper training, even with safeguards in place. This one was no AS, but he had probably never needed her help.
"Sorry," she said, an instinctive apology.
He just nodded and gazed out the window past her head as if he had already forgotten her and the man with his threats, even the pregnant woman who still breathed heavily at the front of the car. Adrian tried to do the same. She studied the lights and bold-colored posters that flashed by and were gone before she could read them. And she sighed a little as she realized she would have to ride the train to the end of the line and back to her stop at this time of night.
She was not scared. Fear, at least fear of death or physical harm, had long ago been burned out of her. But she could feel the tension building in her shoulders and neck. She practiced some of the stress-relief exercises her physical therapist had taught her when she was trying to regain full range of motion in her leg. She rolled her shoulders and then dropped her chin to her chest and slowly raised it. The android watched her, his eyes flicking between her and the window. She looked at her own reflection behind him and wondered what he saw.
...
