Building Baby Brother (continued)

Later that night, I returned to my workshop. I had been unable to sleep. My mind refused to quiet; my thoughts kept cycling back to the events of the evening. It didn’t seem to be interruption in the routine of our lives that disturbed me the most. There was something else—something that flickered just beyond the edge of my awareness.

I stared at the activity logs that scrolled across some of the displays. Like any other evening, Gavin seemed to be gathering data. Despite my initial concerns after connecting to the outside world, he had not yet filled his new storage drives to capacity. I found this mildly surprising, considering how quickly he had reached the limits of his original ones.

I’d left his body in Josh’s room, deciding that we could skip any kind of hardware maintenance for one night. None of his systems showed any warning signs that indicated possible failure.

I switched on the microphone and waited, trying to figure out how to begin.

“Gavin,” I said, trying to sound casual. “What have you been up to?”

“During which time period?”

It was a reasonable enough question. Still, I felt more than a faint urge to smack him for being deliberately obtuse. Not that I really could. His physical body wouldn’t feel it even if I did.

“During the past few days,” I told him. “Particularly anything that might involve the local police department.”

There was a brief pause before he replied.

“I’ve been learning about laws.”