Chapter 10

"Are you going to charge him?" Through the monitors, Colonel Jerrik watched several angles of Holland Campbell sitting on the couch in the small apartment. He was staring blankly off into space.

"With what?" Special Agent Rendel snorted. "Falling in love with a robot?"

"Are you sure he wasn't an accomplice?"

"We don't know what he might have been an accomplice to." Rendel scanned the computer screen. "As near as we can tell, the robot didn't do anything illegal until your squad showed up to take it into custody. It worked at Neurodyne on some computer programs, but we can't find any trace of her accessing sensitive information. And since Neurodyne isn't a defense contractor, they don't have any classified data in their system."

"And you're sure Campbell and his people didn't know it was a robot?" Jerrik asked skeptically.

"Positively," the other man replied. "We've run them all through the sifter. They had no idea she wasn't human."

"How's that possible?"

"You remember Roy Granger? Used to be Undersecretary of State," the agent said. Jerrik shrugged. "He met and fell in love with a bot sent over here by the Saudis. He never knew until it tried to pass through one of the sensors at the Capitol. If Granger can be fooled by a bot that was about three generations behind this one, Campbell and his people didn't have a chance."

"So it's not illegal to fall in love with a robot?"

"Illegal? No. Creepy? Yes."

"Not a fan of human-robot love, Agent Rendel?"

He scoffed. "The programming of some of these advanced models almost gives them a personality. But they're still only machines. They don't have emotions. You can't love something that doesn't love you back."

No one spoke for a long moment. They all watched Holland through the monitor.

"So we're sure Campbell and his people pose no danger to the security of the country and they didn't know 'Miriam Garcia' was a robot."

Everyone in the room nodded in assent.

"Then let them go," Colonel Jerrik said. She should have sounded happier because one more of those things was off the street. What worried her was how many more were out there.