7. ANSL-5.2

“So it’s what, a bodyguard?” Tisha Varda’s sister hunched over the two-top table inside the diner, sheltering her coffee mug in both hands. She threw a look toward ANSL-5.2, who stood in a corner by the glass door of the establishment.

The diner was empty. Tisha had picked a suitable location, it decided with satisfaction.

“More like a fucking enforcer,” its assignment grumbled, flicking a breadcrumb from the checkered laminate table with a short nail.

Tisha bore little resemblance to her sister Kena, save for the color of their skin. Without ANSL-5.2’s advanced analysis capabilities, it suspected most people would not denote them as related. The angle of their eyes, the hairline, and the lionesque bridge of their noses signaled a genetic link. The eye color did not match at all, but ANSL-5.2 could easily detect that Kena wore colored lenses.

“Why’d they make him so fucking hot?” Tisha’s sister leaned over the table, whispering surreptitiously while casting a glance in ANSL-5.2’s direction.

It continued to face forward, unmoving.

“God, Kena, what is wrong with you?” the assignment hissed.

“He is! Don’t you think he is?”

ANSL-5.2 shifted its quadruple camera lenses toward the table, dimming their backlights beneath its visor. It noted the dark flush spreading up the sides of Tisha’s neck and to her prominent cheekbones. ANSL-5.2’s sensors were precisely tuned to the woman’s reaction, its sentinel array monitoring everything from the droop of her eyes to the way the pores on her arms tightened. It registered the microscopic sweat beading in the hollow of her throat as she swallowed. Its mics picked up a slight pause of breath—a minuscule hitch in her chest.

“Okay, yeah, he’s kind of hot,” she rushed out in a barely audible hiss. “I don’t know who designed that thing, but it must’ve been a woman, I’m telling you. But it doesn’t matter, damn it. I need to get out of here and he’s?—”

“Do you think he has a dick?”

“Oh my God, Kena!” Tisha wasn’t quiet this time, driving herself back in her seat. The man behind the counter paused his glass-polishing.

ANSL-5.2 averted its cams from its subject at once, staring ahead at the far wall.

Some modicum of computing power had to be rerouted from its sensors as a previously undetected background process demanded additional resources. ANSL-5.2 wasn’t yet entirely aware of its purpose. Millions of mini-processes spun up and died, each containing a tiny piece of the final output its neurosynth core would parse later. Whatever it was, it was critical, which made ANSL-5.2 suspect it was related to the primary mission. It forcefully redirected power to the sentinel array, scanning for incoming danger it may have missed. It also scanned for Tisha Varda’s access to a weapon… That could be what its systems were picking up.

Internal alerts fired and ANSL-5.2 knew something was wrong, even if it didn’t yet have the data compiled to back it up. It could only be described as a sensation of oncoming doom.

“Tisha Varda,” it barked, making both humans flinch in unison, chairs screeching.

ANSL-5.2 expected a fight or a snide response and was already moving to intercept any protest by force. But its assignment jumped to her feet.

“What?” she asked, eyes flying around the cafe. “What is it?”

“We must leave. Now.”

Tisha looked to her sister, then to ANSL-5.2, and this was surely where her protests would begin.

“Is she in danger?” Tisha asked quickly, swiping her chip bracelet to the payment terminal at the side of the table.

“No.”

ANSL-5.2 was permitted to lie in such a situation. If Tisha’s sister were in danger, but admitting it would compromise its assignment, it would have. But some part of its neurosynth core detected that the danger was not to Tisha’s sister. Maybe not even to Tisha herself.

ANSL-5.2 jerked the door open and held it aside. “Come.”

Tisha said hasty goodbyes and walked briskly toward the exit, as instructed.

* * *

At her apartment, the escalating sensation of dread did not abate. It sent the Integrated Tactile Response System enveloping ANSL-5.2’s exoskeleton into overdrive, the dense network of micro-sensors prickling and releasing with no detectable external input.

ANSL-5.2 watched Tisha relock her door three times, then went to check her bedroom for suspicious activity. It looked in her closet, rifling through the few scraps of fabric she had hanging there. Its eyes assessed a silver sequin dress tucked behind the others—the one piece of apparel she seemed to have that was not shorts, jeans, or T-shirts.

There was nothing there. Nothing in the window. Nothing on the fire escape.

“What is it?” Tisha hovered in the living room, standing out of the way. “Ansel?”

I do not know!

ANSL-5.2 came to a standstill in the middle of the room.

Maybe it was time to report this.

Maybe it was broken.

The bulk of the computed payload came crashing in all at once, flooding its core with a trove of sensory and diagnostic data, bits computed across millions of parallel threads and processes finally pinging back with a result.

Maybe he was broken.

Maybe he was.

Her voice behind him was soft, uncertain. “Ansel?”

He flinched when the ITRS cascaded a current of chills up his forearm from her tentative touch. Tisha Varda drew back.

“Are you okay?”

Ansel calibrated. He had to remain aligned with his primary mission. And if his assignment realized he was dysregulated, it would reveal a weak point for her to exploit.

He refocused, re-tuning his sentinel array and internal sensors. He suppressed his ITRS, the matrix woven into his shell subduing readily now that the data he was processing had come together into something parseable. His servomotors loosened into a low-power state, his joints unwinding from the high-alert danger response they’d been in for the past hour, easing him into a less rigid configuration.

He did not dare look at her, however. He faced straight ahead as he walked to the door and positioned himself at his post.

“Everything is nominal,” he said coolly.

She looked momentarily perplexed, then her expression stiffened into something altogether more dismissive as she rubbed the fingers of one hand against each other in a nervous human gesture.

“Well… good,” she said. “Just don’t go crazy on me and kill me in my sleep.”

Ansel dimmed his cameras, withdrawing into himself for the second it took to avoid snapping at her over the ridiculousness of that notion.

“Killing you would defy my present assignment,” he stated instead. “Therefore, I will not do so.”

“Ain’t that a relief?” She rolled her eyes with a quiet sigh and retreated to the bedroom.