He was like a slick version of Miles Erck, and Eva wanted to punch him immediately.
“The challenge is to ensure the cross-compatibility of components,” he was saying as Eva and Vakar strolled up to his court of onlookers. His hands moved in broad, theatrical gestures as he spoke. “You see, many of the Attuned have similar abilities despite different anatomies, and so to yield efficiencies in production, it made sense to have the methods by which the abilities were reproduced be modular.”
“But my version is older,” one of the women in front of him whined. “I was promised an upgrade since the new models are so much more advanced.”
The kloshian’s smile faltered. “I’m sure someone as lovely as yourself will be properly tended to,” he said, waving a hand in her direction and offering her a flirty head shake. “And I wouldn’t say the new models are wildly different from the originals. When I was approached to work on the project, the scope was unsustainably broad, but I was able to delicately reshape the team’s vision to something much more practical while retaining the elegance of the creatures themselves.”
That felt like an in for Eva, so she took it. “You’re Dr. Lywin?” she asked, her tone much more coy than it had been with Tob-Or. This one didn’t want flattery, he wanted a challenge. “Your reputation precedes you.”
His eyes shifted color, from a pale green to a deep teal. “Only the good portions, I hope.” His gaze dropped to Mala, and his smile broadened. “That isn’t one of the Attuned, is it?”
“I’m afraid not,” Eva replied. “This is a cat. Terran in origin.” She stroked Mala gently, watching Dr. Lywin’s expression as she did. It reminded her of Sue’s, like he was mentally dissecting Mala and figuring out how to reconstruct her in his own way. It was creepier when he did it, for some reason.
“Charming,” Dr. Lywin said. “May I say, your facial scar is fascinating. How did you come by it?”
Eva thought of fire, the swipe of an Attuned’s claws, and swallowed acid. “I’m sure any story you might come up with would be more interesting than what really happened.”
“Would it be?”
Did he know who she was? No chance. For all that Eva was supposedly Damaal’s honored guest at this event, she’d done nothing whatsoever to call attention to Eva. This guy was fishing for his own amusement. But more importantly, she needed to get him to talk, or the psychic-imprint device wouldn’t do its thing.
“You do seem to have a particularly well-developed imagination,” Eva said. “I suppose it takes some mental flexibility to figure out the complexities of a living creature and remake them so convincingly.” Me cago en diez, I sound like Mari, Eva thought. Or some rich girl making nice. Either way, it felt icky, but the fawning crowd around him was enjoying it well enough.
“Indeed, attention to detail is essential,” Dr. Lywin said. “Any engineer with a rudimentary education can cobble together a robot, but the challenge is in verisimilitude.” He produced a capsule from the pocket of his coat with a flourish, opening it and releasing the Pod Pal inside with equal pomp. It was one of the turtle-looking types, its leathery skin impressively similar to the real Attuned Eva had seen before with Watcher Rakyra.
Mala went rigid around Eva’s neck again. She really did hate those things. Probably because of the psychic tech.
“Observe this masterpiece,” Dr. Lywin said. “One might mistake it for its organic counterpart, but this version has an array of additional features that make it vastly more useful. And more importantly, as the Prime was discussing, I’ve managed to take the additional step of creating what I call Technical Manifesters.”
“What are those?” someone asked.
Dr. Lywin’s eyes shifted to a lighter shade of green, his hair tendrils waving slightly. “They allow our robots to be upgraded with abilities from entirely different models, regardless of the intrinsic biologies of the original Attuned.”
Okay, yes, that was impressive. Eva maintained her aloof demeanor, sensing that the good doctor was gauging her reaction. Mala was still bristling, but her posture was equally controlled.
“So you could keep upgrading one of those to do everything the other models can do?” Eva asked. “Why bother buying multiple ones when just one of them can have every ability?”
“There are limitations,” Dr. Lywin said, his color’s brightness fading a touch. “Only six upgrades per unit at the present time.”
Smart business plan, or he hadn’t figured out a workaround yet, Eva thought. His reaction suggested the latter.
“But consider,” he continued, as if sensing his audience was losing interest. “The modularity of the Technical Manifesters is unprecedented. It renders the applications of the robots into near infinity. If you no longer wish for your model to, say, produce defensive stunning spores, you can remove that ability and replace it with something else entirely. Full customization!”
Why was he bothering to shill this stuff to people who were already sunk eyeball-deep into partial ownership of it? Maybe the funding was more tenuous than Damaal had let on. She was at the top of a government that had recently taken control over a whole planet, was apparently rolling out all kinds of new stuff, had laid down a surveillance grid as complex and widespread as nerves in her own body . . . How was it all being paid for? Garilia was self-sustaining, more or less, but once it had gained provisional status with BOFA, that opened up a universe of stuff that the xana apparently wanted more than isolation and tranquility.
The universe, aside from a few pockets, ran on credits, not kindness.
Dr. Lywin was a born salesman, Eva had to admit. She’d seen her own father play this game often enough to know when someone had the knack for it. Presumably that was why Lywin had been rolled out to chat with the guests, instead of being locked up in the lab with the Miles Erck brand of asswipe.
And thankfully, the alarm on her commlink sounded, so Eva didn’t have to keep listening to his pitch anymore. Now she just had to find the last target and the psychic imprints would be complete. The resistance could break into the labs, do their thing, and Eva could hopefully finish her mission as well.
Except she was barely closer to finding Josh than she had been before. All she had was the hope that he was in the lab, too, and that she’d be able to drag his ass out without damaging it. Because based on what Dr. Tob-Or had said, she didn’t think he would be leaving voluntarily unless Sue did a really, really good job of convincing him it was important.
“Were you also responsible for the introduction of the evolutionary capabilities, and the storage containers?” someone asked. Vakar, though he’d done a good job of masking where the question had come from, since Dr. Lywin seemed to be searching the crowd for its source. He didn’t look pleased.
“That was one of my colleagues,” Dr. Lywin said. “I was integrally involved, of course.”
“Dr. Zafone?” Eva asked quietly.
“Indeed.” His smile vanished altogether.
“He’s not here, is he?” Eva asked. “I’ve heard he’s somewhat elusive.” She hadn’t, but it sounded like something one might hear.
Before Dr. Lywin could answer, his color shifted entirely to a pale purple as he stared at someone behind her. Around her neck, Mala once again tensed, her fur spiking.