Omanda regarded him with an all-to-real evil look. "Is this how you treat your biological employees?" She noticed several warning glyphs in her visual field about biological contamination in her body. She would have to rinse it out completely.

Keseler scoffed, pulling his pants on. "Naw, just you dolls. I mean it, Omanda, not a word." He fastened them and straightened himself up before unlocking the bathroom door and leaving.

Omanda, Registry no.8840, the first successful 8800 Series Replicant, was an employee of a contract security agency based on Ketaterra. She worked in the beautiful 3 level Bank of Atria on Kati as the teller area security guard. She had been threatened by night manager Keseler to have sex with him or face trouble. She was capable of sexual contact and absolutely deplored it. She couldn't understand why anyone would bed an android. It was not like the real thing.

As she finished dressing, teller Kerre, came inside the bathroom.

"Omanda? Did that creep hurt you?," she asked.

Omanda scoffed. "It depends on how you define 'hurt', Kerre."

Kerre frowned. "I will call the Banking Authority if he raped you."

"That's not necessary, Kerre. The authorites would not care. I am a 'machine', a tool that is supposed to do what Im told without question." Omanda checked her appearance in the mirrors. Her beautiful dark hair was in disarray so she began to groom it back into its normal straight style. Kerre shook her head. "I don't understand."

"Nor do I, I must return to duty." She left the bathroom at once. ------------------------------------------------------------

The next day, Omanda was checking visual records when an alarm went off. She quickly identified as a robbery alarm and hurried to grab her heavy NR-17 plasmic pulse cannon. She left the security office and suddenly froze as a safety program activated and copied her entire program and logic and experience memories.

She reeled in a very good analog to a headache as the data was beamed through the antenna in her left shoulder to a relay system and through hypercomm to Ketaterra.

Then, abruptly, it was over. She straightened and and hurried to the main atrium, peering around a crystal block wall to see Keseler leading a group of black suited criminals bearing exotic and unknown weapons. Two beastly Katlani followed them with gravity weapons. Omanda caculated the risk and placed the highest danger on those Katlani.

As cool as could be, Omanda stepped out from behind the wall and targeted the nearest upright walking tiger-like creature. She fired, the yellow-white plasmic pulse streaking out and impacting it just below the jaw, shearing its head off in a splatter of red blood and particular bone matter.

It staggered and fell heavily with a loud sound as it hit the tile floor, blood surging from its neck. Omanda wasted no time in cocking her gun and tageting the other Katlani, firing as it brought it gravity weapon to bear.

The yellow-white plasmic pulse streaking out at near light speed and tearing into its upper chest with explosively bloody results.

It was blown back and fell hard, cracking three tiles on the floor.

Omanda cocked the NR-17 again and looked around, searching for the next target.

A black-suited male had grabbed Kerre and had a gun to her head. "Come on! Try it!"

Omanda could not fire without hitting Kerre. She lowered her gun.

The man laughed and pointed the gun at her, firing at once. She was struck in the chest, the armor webbing beneath her jumpsuit constricting and keeping it from penetrating her skin.

Kerre elbowed the man hard in the side and broke free, running behind the teller counter.

Omanda smiled as he recovered. She shot him in the chest as she was programmed to do for maximum effect. The criminal collapsed heavily in a pool of blood. Automated security fields ensnared two others, immobilizing them until police could arrive.

Omanda looked around, switching from normal vision to Infared and Ultraviolet and radio spectra as she did. She knew all to well the specific readings of this scum.

She did not see him. He must have used his codes to access the employee area. She hated to but did connect with the bank's central computer, learning that Keseler was creeping up above her on the 2nd level terrace.

Omanda spun and raised her gun but Keseler was faster.

He aimed at her with one of the gravity weapons pilfered from one of the now-dead Katlani. "Say bye-bye, doll," he said and discharged the weapon.

Omanda didn't feel it as a single point of intense gravity crushed her head like an empty beverage can. Her body instantly dropped to the floor as Kerre screamed. "Omanda!! No!!"

Keseler laughed but it was cut short when a police dart struck him in the throat. He dropped the gravity weapon, clutching at his throat. He stumbled foreward and fell over the terrace railing, landing with an awful wet-sounding crack sound beside one of the Katlani.

Omanda was no more, or so Kerre and others thought as Aldan Cerena himself came to collect his most advanced creation with great sadness, sealing her in a stasis box like the ones used to collect dead people. ------------------------------------------------------------

"Almost done, are you sure this will work?," Merisa Cerena asked as Boid tinkered with the clear, spherical AI Core at her worktables.

"Of course it'll work, M. I programmed it myself. If she's still in there,' he motioned to the old computer Merisa had found in her father's vault. "This'll coax her out." Boid was connecting the AI Core to a weird looking booster and to the computer, output terminal.

Cerena frowned at Omanda's new head, subtlely different from the original because of the materials used. She couldn't make it as her father had long ago. She decided to rescue Omanda because it saddened her to see one of her father's androids languish in a computer. Omanda's body was well preserved but needed work on the neck area, crushed by the gravity weapon. It made Cerena sad to see her father in the craftsmanship of the body, each detail exact and life-like.

She had crafted the new head a year and three months after the incident with Oelia, which still gave her doubts. She had Boid check the data hundreds of times before even attempting this.

Boid, a skinny male AI programmer and computer genius, had took the Oelia case hard too because he programmed her as well as all of the androids ever built by Aldan and Merisa Cerena.

Never in the centuries of his work had that happened. He placed in safeguards so it wouldn't happen again. The download went quickly as he checked streams of data way too fast for Cerena to follow. Then the AI Core beeped. Boid disengaged all connections. He turned to her. "Its ready. You want to put it in?"

Cerena nodded, pulling on her sheer neoskin work gloves and carefully grasping the AI Core.

"Careful now," Boid said, teasing her.

Cerena frowned as she carefully placed it on the tiny trackway inside Omanda's head.

It automatically pulled the AI Core in, establishing the 77 connections plus three more Merisa added to free her of the unpleasant restriction of computer control. Omanda was a very mature AI. She rated very high on the government's AI Scale and deserved to live free as any real person did.

Cerena closed the hidden panel and her head sealed itself courtesy of the new nanotech skin system made by her father as he had always hoped to repair Omanda but died before he could.

She looked at Boid. "You ready? Once she starts up, there will be no going back."

He nodded. "Do it."

Cerena turned Omanda over onto her back, adjusting the collar of the grey jumper she wore. She then went to a dna-locked strongbox and opened it, withdrawing the unique key that she had made long ago to activate androids. She tuned it to Omanda's AI frequency and entered the activation code.

Omanda shuddered slightly, her eyes opening in a look of terror. She blinked and looked at Cerena. "Merisa? Where am I?"

Cerena smiled. "You are home, Omanda. Welcome back." Omanda sat up and shook her head as if to clear her mind. "I was in the bank, Keseler was aiming a gravity weapon at me."

Cerena frowned. How did she remember that? "You were damaged, yes."

Omanda looked at her. "Getting my head crushed is a bit worse than simple damage, wouldn't you say?"

Cerena had to smile. She was too much like a real person. "Ah, yes, it would, my friend. You are optimal now."

"So I am. I will not be going back to the bank.

"No, you are going to stay on a tropical island and work with Otanda."

She looked at Cerena. "Otanda? I have not seen her in," she froze when she checked the time. "Have I been indisposed for that long?"

Cerena looked down. "836 years almost. Things have changed a bit."

Omanda frowned. "I imagine they have. Um? Can I get something else to wear? I don't like this suit, it reminds me of the bank."

"Of course, you can pick out what you want from the clothier in the city market." Omanda got up and smiled. "Thank you. I'd rather not go through that again."

Cerena giggled. "I'm sure you don't."

� 27 Feb 04 Gregory Thompson