Chapter 7
X and Dr. Brockway entered the engineering room. Digital screens lined the gray walls and hovered over desks as human engineers touched them and manipulated data. Androids walked around the room with their bodies open and their electronic innards exposed for interfacing with the engineers. You could taste circuitry and silicon, and vents at the top of the room sucked the acrimonious smells out and replaced them with neutral, fresh air that smelled faintly like clean laundry and prevented headaches from long exposure to metal fumes.
Brockway’s black box sat on a table in the middle of the room. Fahrens and Shortcut were talking together when the doctor ran up to the table and fell to his knees.
“God, it’s true. He’s gone, isn’t he?”
Fahrens frowned. “We’re sorry, Dr. Brockway.
