Re-Wired Read Free Page A

took him back home.
    “Thanks for hanging out with me today,” she said.
    He stood looking at her for another second before summoning the will to shift out of his frozen state. She was so beautiful and he found it hard to look away from her in that instance. It had only been a second but it felt like ten, and he knew that she would have read into his infatuation from him doing that. He was embarrassed, but it wasn’t the time to dwell on it and beat himself up.
    “No, Mika, thank you,” he said, and she leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek before backing out of his driveway and taking off.
    He stood on the stairs for a long time after that, wondering what had happened, and how he had managed to spend the day with one of the hottest girls he had ever shared a class with. He went inside and skipped his original plans to work on the android. It was a great night, so to celebrate he treated himself to a pizza and watched movies until he passed out on the couch.
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    The following week he sat next to Mika during class and tried to see if there were any signals for him to do something in order to advance their relationship. Should he touch her hand while she was reading? Should he send her a text that he missed her? No, that would be too forward and creepy , he thought. He struggled internally for the entire class, and when it was over he decided that he should just talk to her.
    “Mika, can you hold on a sec?”
    “Sure, Brad, what’s up?”
    “How’s the droid coming?”
    She almost smiled at his terrible attempt at small talk, but entertained it out of pity, even though he gave away his nervousness by wringing his hands uncontrollably. “It’s still a bit hard to put together, I could probably use your help one of these days.”
    “H-how about tonight? Since it’s like due soon and everything. I can help you—“
    “Oh, yeah, weren’t we supposed to hook up for that or something?”
    He was confused at her aloof attitude but chalked it up to her being tired and distracted. “Just, a suggestion. We don’t have t—“
    “No, it’s cool, let’s hook up and go out.” Did she really just say that? “I’ll come pick you up tonight and we can get some Italian, okay?”
    “Awesome!” he exclaimed before catching himself.
    But Mika was already gone, and if he’d been thinking clearly he would have noticed that she wasn’t too happy about it. In his mind she was interested, and helping her with the android would be the first step towards a beautiful romance. He floated out of the class and through the campus, determined to get through the remainder of his classes to get ready for Mika. When it was evening time and he got home, he showered, put on his best clothes, and then dialed her code in anticipation of a memorable night.
    “Hello, Mika?”
    “Who is this?”
    “Brad Barkley, from class. I was just seeing if we’re still on for the night and putti—“
    “Oh, never mind. Brad, my boyfriend showed up in town, so I may need to take a rain check for our study time, okay?”
    Brad couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What the hell is she talking about with the study time business? We were going out to eat . He was beside himself with disappointment as Mika’s confusing phone call came to an end.
    “Well, you know what? Screw you, Mika,” he said out loud after hanging up the phone and hopping onto his computer to work on his android’s restraint matrix.
    It was a bad time to work on something as delicate as setting the boundaries on what an intelligent computer could and couldn’t do; but Brad was distracted so he worked in anger, thinking that it was focus.
    After an hour had passed he heard the chime of his doorbell. He inhaled to calm himself and then marched over to the door. He slid it open, expecting to see Uriel or one of his other friends but a large man stood in front of him instead. His face reflected an annoyed aloofness which turned into a mocking smirk at the sight of