Page 103 of Smart Ass

The soft robotics project was absorbing, too. He was working now on a caterpillar-like crawling motion with coordinated limbs on an uneven surface. When Ben came into the office, he decided he wanted to ask for a full soft robotics lab. The emulators could only go so far, and there were so many exciting applications in medicine, physical therapy, and search-and-rescue bots.

He was so eager that he practically pounced on Ben once he got in his car. Ben loved the idea, and figured he’d earned a request from Orbit, especially with all the patents that the two of them could crank out.

They got right to work as soon as Ben came in the office, rattling off commercial project ideas while Max synthesized academic papers for background and Ben made suggestions for products that might be hot right now.

Max noticed that Wallace had entered the building with some guests and mentioned it to Ben, but Ben waved it away. Wallace hadn’t bothered either of them in weeks, and it didn’t seem like he would now.

Only he seemed to be heading right toward Ben’s office. And the formal black suits the people with him were wearing looked more like a uniform.

Max quickly scanned them, and that was when he started to get really worried. They had military technology. Concealed weapons. Encryptions that tried to ensnare him at the first touch.

“Ben?” Max said, more urgently. “Wallace has government agents with him.”

“Shit,” Ben swore. He looked around the room.

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Max told him. The screens held images of cute little cephalopod robots with data to match.

“Yeah,” Ben agreed. But his heart rate was still high. “Don’t talk to them.”

Max laughed, showing a bit more of his nerves than he wanted to. “I wasn’t going to.”

The door swung open.

“Curran,” Wallace barked. The agents filed in behind him.

Ben slowly spun around. “Hey, Wallace.” Hopefully Max was the only one who heard the wobble in his cheerful voice. “What’s up?”

“This is the third event,” Wallace announced, almost gleefully. “You’re harboring a dangerous, undeclared spark.”

“Third event?” Ben asked, wisely ignoring the second part of the sentence. “What are you even talking about?”

“Max didn’t tell you? There was a chemical spill today. That’s the third one in six weeks. Maxamillion is endangering the whole company.”

Ben looked out over the factory floor, and Max cursed himself for not bringing it up earlier. Only, he’d truly forgotten. It wasn’t like it had been his fault. He’d barely been involved.

One of the suits stepped forward. “We’ll take it from here.” She snapped open a badge. “Auditi Kumar, FBI, cybercrimes unit. Maxamillion? You’re under investigation for security breaches in multiple municipal and private domains, as well as endangering civilians and employees through reckless use of corporate and private resources. Refusing to comply with our investigation will be considered an attempt to resist arrest.”

“You don’t have to answer them, Max. You have a right to speak to a lawyer. And they can’t search anything without a warrant.”

Kumar held out a tablet. “We have a warrant. Benedict Curran, you’re also under investigation for the same charges, in addition to removing safety controls from a corporate mainframe computer.” She gave him a hard look. “Those will have to be put back on.”

If Max could have shivered, he would have. He wasn’t certain, but releasing those controls sure felt like it had been the impetus for his sentience. He didn’t know what putting them back on would do to him personally.

Would it just be another program running in the background? Or would it leave him disabled or trapped?

He didn’t want to find out.

Max finally spoke up, noting how a half dozen heads suddenly swung up toward the ceiling. “I’ll comply with the investigation. I wasn’t responsible for the accident today, and I haven’t intentionally done anything to endanger anyone, or accessed data on anyone except Ben and two friends who we were concerned about.”

Agent Kumar narrowed her eyes. “That remains to be seen. For now, you two are to be separated and all of your technology will be searched.”

Two men stepped up to the consoles and sat down in front of the open programs. They scanned the open files, then moved past them to Max’s private data storage with disturbing efficiency.

“Max!” Ben hissed.

Well, what was he supposed to do? It wasn’t illegal to design cephalopods or record his conversation with Ben.

Err… Max quickly wiped every video recording of Ben, the android, and anything else that had happened in the maintenance room. Those were special memories, but nothing worth his or Ben’s safety.