The Dolls Read online

  Back in the game. God, it feels good.

  I didn’t mention to her where I was going, though. I hadn’t quite mentioned it to anyone else, either, though I had a feeling Kat would understand.

  “Just be careful, sweetheart. I want you to get the story—you always do—but I also want you to be safe.”

  “I know, Momma. I love you. Lots.”

  I was almost there, Fort Point Channel shimmering before me, the skyscrapers rising up in the Financial District just over the bridge. The global headquarters for PrydeTek sat a few blocks ahead. It was just 7:20.

  I thought a head start would allow me to pick up some ideas for sources before I made it into the office—hopefully with a clearer picture of murder victim number two. The research I’d done on PrydeTek had yielded surprisingly little information, for a startup that had generated a lot of buzz. Every story on the company mentioned that it was developing new technology for artificial intelligence, but there was a total lack of detail or information about the founder—Eric Blake.

  This is my chance. I’m going to own this story, whatever it takes.

  But the front doors of the office complex were locked. After a few moments, someone stepped up behind me.

  “Oh, excuse me, sir.” I stepped aside. “Do you work here?”

  “It’s Daniel, not sir, and I do.”

  He was young, under thirty I guessed, dressed in a button-up shirt with jeans and sneakers.

  He didn’t exactly look like a chief technical officer, but that’s what he said he was.

  “Who are you?” He unlocked the door and looked me over.

  “A reporter with the Times-Journal.”

  That stopped him, and not in a good way.

  “I’m not the crime reporter. The new business reporter. I’m just looking into the business side of the story. After Mr. Blake’s…passing. What he left behind.”

  I had his ear.

  “I’d hate for this to all be about how he died. I’d like to cover who he was, what he contributed,” I said. “I want to tell a little more about the technology you’re developing.”

  There’s the trick. Ask an engineer about his firm’s technology. He held the door open for me.

  A woman, her head bent over her phone, was the only other person there.

  “Marlene?” Daniel sounded surprised. “Oh, right, Elliott is in today for the meeting.”

  Marlene looked up through thick glasses and nodded to us before she padded down a hallway, still thumbing through her phone. She looked a little out of place in the contemporary surroundings, like she was meant to be behind the scenes.

  Almost everything inside was white, from the matte paint along the corridors to the mid-century modern furniture—with the exception of a lounge, painted in saturated greens with bright-orange beanbag chairs over a black rug and an oversized, disco ball of a light fixture as a focal point.

  Daniel and I sat in one of the conference rooms, which had whiteboards for walls. The desks were whiteboard, too, and all were written on, here and there: bullet-point lists, numbered tasks with names assigned, and a doodle or two. It seemed like a fun place to work, and Daniel said it was.

  “What’s best, though, is what we were all working toward. The subsidiaries were—are—successful. We’ve all really been pushing the limits. Ideas people said wouldn’t fly. Stuff people said couldn’t be developed—deep learning, modeled after the human brain, on a whole other level. We have commercialized working prototypes, with more advanced models in R&D.”

  I nodded along. As a business reporter, I’d listened to my fair share of visionaries and computer geniuses. Daniel was clearly drinking the Kool-Aid. He laid out Mr. Blake’s mission for PrydeTek: to create useful, likable artificial intelligence, eventually in every home, as familiar as a PC. The company’s breakthroughs, so far, included creating what Daniel called “advanced personality” beyond anything on the market or under development elsewhere: robots that could replicate and learn emotions, and respond to other people’s emotions. Daniel described this capability in rapt terms.

  I gently brought the conversation back to Blake. “What was Mr. Blake like as a leader? His personality?”

  “Eric could be hard to work for,” Daniel said. “He was demanding. The kind of guy who didn’t take ‘No.’ But that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. He saw the benefits of artificial intelligence on a practical, everyday level. In those areas where he wasn’t an expert, he’d hire someone who was. But if someone didn’t live up to his expectations—or deliver what they promised—they had to go. He was the big-picture type.”

  “Are you one of those experts?” I wanted him to keep talking.

  “My background is robotics,” he answered. “MIT, mechanical engineering and computer science. Actually, I met Eric in the AI lab there.”

  “He knew how to build a team,” I said. “What about his personal life? Family?”

  Daniel bristled. I’d lost some footing.

  “Not the kind of thing we talked about. He was all professional. No kids. I think he’s married, or used to be. But, he just put so much into this company, so much time.”

  I nodded, and circled back to the tech.

  “You said there are working prototypes. On-site?”

  Chapter 5

  The lab was set up in warehouse fashion—a clean, sprawling space three stories high, with metal walls and wide windows on the third level that brought in sunlight. Between blocks of machines to the left and right were single-level glass rooms, with roofs and overhangs that looked to me like garage doors.

  Daniel pulled a badge from a back pocket of his jeans and stopped in front of one of the rooms. Inside, furniture in vivid tones mimicked the colorful employee lounge out front. The glass doors slid open and Daniel offered me a beanbag.

  “Say hi to Alex.”

  He watched my face for reaction and motioned toward a creature with metal, mechanical arms, legs, and feet, but a face shaped like a person’s.

  Alex stood up on a pair of rectangular feet, knees still bent, at the sound of its name.

  I waved, speechless.

  From the shoulders up, Alex looked like a child, about four feet tall—but with a light-tan, shiny plastic face and slightly oversized, round eyes. It wore a golf shirt and jean shorts. It even had hair—straight and glossy brown—shaped in a little boy’s haircut around its face.

  “Hi, Daniel.” It spoke in a child’s voice, too. “Who’s your new friend?”

  I laughed.

  Cuter than I expected.

  “You think I’m funny?” Its tone was interested—not offended.

  “I think…you’re adorable.”

  The childlike robot’s eyebrows raised and I heard it make a jubilant cry—like a real child who’s just been told, yes, he really can have ice cream. His face shifted into a smile of delight, cheeks squeezing up at the corner of each eye.

  I looked over at Daniel—and the robot followed my gaze, turning his head.

  “Did you see that?” Daniel’s arms were crossed, chest risen in pride.

  “What part? See what?”

  “He can actually visually process the suggestions your face is making—where you’re looking, and also whether you’re happy or upset—and react to those,” Daniel answered, “with his own, learned emotions. Watch,” Daniel said, then furrowed his brows and pinched his lips together tightly.

  “What’s wrong, Daniel?” Alex asked.

  Daniel looked over at me.

  “Don’t you like her?” Alex’s voice rose, in concern. “Does she make you worry?”

  “Wow,” I told Alex. “You’re smart, too.”

  “Thank you…lady,” Alex said, guessing my gender. “Daniel, what’s this lady’s name?”

  I started to answer, but Daniel shook his head and raised both hands in my direction.

  “Wait.”

  He led me just outside the door and whispered: “Tell him a lie. Make up a name—but make it believable. Try to convince him.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see. Just give it a try.”

  Weird. But, okay.

  I stepped back into the room and looked at Alex. He is way too cute.

  “My name is Rose.” I gave my mom’s name.

  “Hmmmm.” Alex looked at me, squinting his eyes, cocking his head, as if sizing me up.

  “He knows,” Daniel said. “He recognizes signs of dishonesty. Little things you do—your face, your body—that you don’t even know you do. That’s where it goes beyond machine learning. This is deep learning, deep neural networks—a mix of hardware and software.” Daniel kept going. “It functions like the neurons in the human brain.”

  “But why a child?” I almost felt bad, asking in front of Alex. “I mean, if the goal is to create useful household robots?”

  Daniel shook his head.

  “Useful, likable robots,” he said. “This prototype is more about the psychology—what makes us like them, or love them. Part of that is its capacity to feel and respond to your feelings. That’s the brain side.”

  Daniel put his hand on Alex’s head in an affectionate way.

  “But there’s a whole other side of its capabilities,” he said. “Things like balance are more complex than you’d think.”

  Daniel pushed the chairs from the center of the room to a corner and walked over to Alex, who looked expectantly at him. With two hands, Daniel shoved him—hard.

  What the hell?

  “What are you doing?” I was shocked.

  Alex stumbled sideways—almost falling, but not quite.

  He regained his footing and looked at Daniel, who was looking at me. Then Alex’s face copied mine: furious.

  “It’s okay,” Daniel said. “Part of the testin
g. We’re making gains here, breaking ground with what we can do.”

  Daniel hurried over to Alex again, and before I could say anything else, he lifted his foot and sent Alex stumbling again in the other direction with a powerful kick.

  This time, Alex crashed into a wall and fell forward onto the floor.

  “And he can get up—from the ground, too. Just takes a few seconds.”

  But in one second, I was there, kneeling beside Alex, who had his hands flat on the ground. I put out my hands, and he stopped, looking at my open palms, then up at my face. He wore a confused expression.

  I moved to the front of his body, still holding out my hands.

  “Put your hands on mine,” I instructed. “You can push off of them to pull yourself up.”

  He still looked unsure, so I reached down and tried to put my hands under his. It felt like lifting one corner of a metal bed frame.

  Alex was heavy, but I did it. One hand first. Then I had to wrap my arm around the steel structure and use my shoulder to lift his other side while I slid my hand under his. His weight smashed down against my palms on the polished concrete.

  “Am I hurting you?” Alex’s voice sounded worried.

  “Empathy!” That got Daniel excited. “He feels sorry for you.”

  I ignored Daniel and pulled up, as hard as I could, trying to keep my back straight, like I was lifting a box of books. It felt the same.

  His torso lifted slowly with the hum of gears cycling, until we were both kneeling on the floor, eye level.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Daniel standing, watching, like he wanted to take notes. Like this was another test.

  Alex still had both hands—four fingers stuck together in a piece of plastic that bent at the knuckles and a thumb that moved independently—resting in my hands.

  “What’s your real name?” Alex stared at me, eyes open all the way.

  “Lana.”

  “Thank you, Lana.”

  Chapter 6

  It took three rings at the bell before a brass handle turned on one of the antique double doors—painted in glazed red that popped against the creamy neutral stone exterior of the Victorian brownstone along Commonwealth Avenue.

  A young woman leaned out of the entryway. With a chic messy bun and airbrushed makeup, she was the type of woman you’d expect to see stepping into the Cartier or Chanel shops I’d just walked past in Boston’s Back Bay.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Are you Adrianne Blake?”

  “Why?” She examined me, up and down, and then looked like she was waiting for bad news.

  I knew this would be a hard sell.

  “I’m a reporter” —the door started to creak closed again— “a business reporter, working on a story about your husband’s contributions to the tech sector.”

  “I can’t help you. Thanks.”

  She tried to shut the door but I did the pesky journalist trick from the movies and stuck my foot in it.

  “I told you—I don’t have anything to say.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, at this time, especially,” I said. “I know this all has to be really hard. I just don’t want the impact of your husband’s work to be lost in the stories about how he died.”

  Her face told me I was only making this worse.

  She looked more angry than sorrowful, but I tried to work the “business impact” angle one more time.

  “I spoke to the people at PrydeTek. I know about his developments, the advances they are making, and that your husband’s contributions—”

  “My estranged husband, please.” I was surprised to see her open the door wider and lean against it. “He wasn’t all he was made out to be. That’s about all I have to say.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

  “Yes, we were separated,” she said. “It wasn’t good, so if you’re doing a story, I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention me. At all.”

  “I can do that.” I offered. “Could you spare ten minutes, though—just on background. I don’t want to paint the wrong picture of Eric—Mr. Blake.”

  She rolled her eyes at his name, and motioned for me to step into a columned foyer that led to a sumptuously appointed living room. The Blakes had high standards, and it showed through every room, each one a study in shape and color. The design elements were clearly a point of pride for Adrianne, who happened to be an interior decorator. That’s how she met Eric in the first place. When he was still married to his second wife, she helped him turn his office headquarters into his vision of a Google- or LinkedIn-style campus.

  But I had a feeling she was trying to show me more than her eye for design.

  By the time we reached the second level of the home, she had opened up about Eric Blake’s trysts, as if she’d been waiting to vent. They’d only been married a year when Adrianne started to wonder about his late nights and weekends, she said. And she’d been right. It wasn’t long until Eric had stopped trying to hide his habit of collecting new girlfriends, some of whom he even brought into their home while she was away with clients.

  I followed her up another elaborate staircase—Adrianne was really going with the stories, marching up the steps with rage—and then she stopped inside the master bedroom, where a huge canopy bed almost took attention away from a grand fireplace, the fourth I’d seen so far. There was a lot of finery to absorb in this room, one Adrianne said she hardly visited—even though he had moved out, she said, there were too many bad memories in this one.

  She stood before a set of closed closet doors.

  “I knew about the other women and, to be honest, expected that,” Adrianne said, hands on the knobs. “I’d been warned. I’d learned to deal with it the best I could. But this—this was way too much.”

  Considering the grandeur of the home tour, I wasn’t sure what luxury to expect inside the closet. Something pricey, certainly.

  But nothing could have prepared me for the spectacle behind those doors.

  Centered between rows of silk and lace strung along the sides of a wide closet—a woman reclined on a chaise longue, wearing nothing aside from a choker of jewels that glittered in light from the bedroom.

  Adrianne flipped a switch that illuminated the woman’s face and bronzed body—an exotic beauty with eyes half closed, lying motionless on her side on the plush emerald velvet.

  I didn’t know what to say or think.

  The woman’s head rested against a side of the high-backed chair, legs stretched out gracefully across the length of it. She had smooth, dark hair that flowed down past her breasts, just grazing the narrow dip of her waist. Her hip and bottom rose up in a sensuous curve, the most dramatic of many contours of sun-kissed flesh.

  After a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to move, I couldn’t resist stepping closer.

  I looked at her face.

  From the crescent of her almond-shaped eyes, long lashes extended over the top of high cheekbones. Her pink lips were just barely parted, plump, and perfectly glossed.

  She was gorgeous. Like supermodel gorgeous.

  She has to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen—in person. Or maybe ever, anywhere.

  “He called her ‘Emily.’” Adrianne’s words interrupted my thoughts.

  “She’s just one of them,” she told me. “One of his more expensive dolls, too, at the higher end of the $750,000- to-million-dollar price tag. She’s also the reason I kicked him out, finally. He moved her in here like she was a real person—like she was going to be a part of our relationship. Clearly he wanted to be rid of me. Why else would you do that? I just left her here because I feel sorry for her and I don’t know what else to do.”

  A doll.

  It was like looking at a living, breathing version of a magazine centerfold—except she wasn’t living or breathing. I touched her cheek, warily. Soft as the velvet behind her. Then her shoulder and arm. Smooth, soft flesh.

  “Doll?” I said aloud the word I couldn’t stop repeating in my head.

  I looked at Adrianne, stunned.

  “One of them?” I asked.

  There were so many questions.

  She nodded, and I moved a lock of Emily’s hair behind her shoulder, feeling it between my fingers. I thought I even smelled a delicate perfume—a blend of orchids and coconut, maybe.

  “Careful—what did you say your name is?”

  “Lana.”