Edward "Eddie" Dodson

Edward "Eddie" William Dodson is one of the three founders of Lawrence-Dodson Enterprises, which launched in 2221 and has since become known as America's leader in near-human androids. Eddie is one of two surviving co-presidents of LDE since the murder of Damian Lawrence.

He was approached by Clarisse Mitchell in 2223 about creating an android prototype for the Division, a government organization that wanted to use androids as soldiers. Against the wishes of his business partners, Eddie created Mia for this purpose. During Mia's trial for the Division, she escaped and caused a traffic accident that killed Henry and Samantha Lawrence. Overwhelmed by guilt for the death of his best friends' parents, Eddie decommissioned Mia until 2232, when the Division requested he try again to perfect her. When Eddie learned that Damian had found out what Mia had done, he and Mia reprogrammed Lila, LDE's first creation, to kill Damian.

Early Life
Eddie was born on August 28, 2201 in southern Illinois. The only child of William and Nicole Dodson, he was close with both of his parents. He had aspirations of becoming a scientist from an early age, though the branch of science he wanted to enter fluctuated—some days chemistry, some days astrophysics, and some days, he wanted to explore space. When he was in third grade, his father struck oil on their land, which rocked their community, as oil had been considered long gone in that region. This discovery brought the Dodson family a vast amount of wealth, and while Eddie’s father maintained a business in their town to manage the oil he’d discovered, he moved his family to Manhattan.

Eddie was overwhelmed by his new life. He’d never lived anywhere with a population over 7,000, and now, he was in the middle of a city with too many people to ever meet. He started his first year of schooling in Manhattan in fourth grade, and he was shy, hiding behind his books instead of reaching out to introduce himself. But on his first day, he was approached by Damian Lawrence, who offered Eddie a seat at his lunch table before the two had even been introduced. Eddie and Damian became fast friends, and Eddie was quickly introduced to Damian’s brother Derek and his friend Ravenna, who were in the grade below theirs. Soon, Eddie became like another son to the Lawrence family, joining them on holidays and vacations and coming to consider Henry and Samantha like an extra set of parents.

When Ravenna came home one summer from her aunt’s in Washington, D.C., she told the boys excitedly about an android blueprint she’d seen in her aunt’s office. Eddie’s interest was piqued—he’d never considered robotics, but now that he thought about it, the field would be an excellent way to put his skill in science and mathematics to use. He didn’t realize Damian and Derek had been just as affected by the idea as he had until they showed him a sketch of an android they’d designed—“Lawrences’ Intelligent Living Android,” or Lila. Eddie tried to conceal his disappointment at being left out of the process of designing her, but Damian saw through his attempt. He quickly assured Eddie that they wanted his help if they were ever going to turn the sketch into a reality and that they couldn’t do it without him. They told him the name had been a placeholder and that it could be changed, but after considering how difficult it would be to find an acronym with both of their last names that functioned as a name in itself, he decided to leave Lila’s name as it was under the condition that his name would also appear in the one for their company, if they succeeded. The boys agreed, and the process of designing Lila in earnest and building her began.

Eddie was determined to prove himself integral to the process. He hadn't come from wealth originally, like the Lawrences had, but he wanted to show them that he was every bit as capable as they were. He devoured every book he could find on the subject of robotics, dedicating all his free time to learning how to code and how to build functioning firmware. He had a deep understanding of these things by the time he graduated high school, and he moved to Massachusetts a few months early to intern in a robotics lab at M.I.T., where he and Damian would start school in the fall. With the help of the Lawrence brothers, Eddie completed Lila on July 4, 2219. When she awoke for the first time, it became clear that their plans had succeeded—she had her own personality independent of anything the boys had designed, and she only grew more complex. She functioned just like a human, needing food and water and thinking in the same way anyone else did. She had been designed to look a few years older than the trio; they hoped that by the time they reached her “age,” they would be able to start their robotics business in earnest and the four of them could represent it together.

Eddie and Damian went on to study robotics together at M.I.T., and after their professors saw Lila and what she was capable of, they gave the boys permission to leave their dorm earlier than scheduled and move into an apartment so that Lila could have her own room. They were joined the following year by Derek. Ravenna, on the other hand, left New York after she graduated. She hadn’t seemed like herself since the accidental death of her brother a few years earlier, and despite Eddie’s attempts to keep her close, he’d felt distance growing between them for a long while.

While the boys were still in college, they launched their company, Lawrence-Dodson Enterprises, into the mainstream. They built android models based on Lila, and, following the business model of the existing robotics company Genesis Tech, sold their androids into an array of lines of work. The androids performed jobs they were more capable of handling than humans, whether that was because of their superhuman strength or their durability. Eddie was never completely comfortable with the idea of selling the androids. The process was often spun to potential buyers as “paying to hire” them, which would save the buyers money in the long run, as the androids would work more efficiently than the typical human employee. Buyers were also expected to provide a comparable salary to their android employees to what they would give humans. LDE was stringent when it came to the treatment of their androids—the company frequently visited them and checked on their welfare, ensuring that they were treated well. If an android’s employment ended, they were monitored less heavily as they assimilated into society, though LDE still checked on them whenever possible. Lila remained the face of the company, which flourished. By 2223, LDE had made its first billion dollars.

Mia
In late 2223, Eddie was approached by Clarisse Mitchell, Ravenna’s aunt and the head of the Perfect Soldier Division. She asked him to consider designing android soldiers for the U.S. military and explained that doing so could save human lives. He brought the idea to Damian and Derek, who didn’t want their work weaponized. Still, Eddie believed this could be an opportunity to help the world at large, and he was determined to do so, even if he had to do it alone.

Following some of the plans for Lila, Eddie designed Mia—the “Military Intelligence Android”—for Clarisse and the Division. There were several major changes, in hr design, however. While Lila held a human moral code, Mia’s was altered slightly to make her more willing to follow orders, no matter how objectionable those might be. Eddie brought her to the testing facility in Albany, where he was escorted to a viewing area behind a bulletproof two-way mirror. Unbeknownst to Eddie, he could still be seen by the politicians gathered in the next viewing room, which included his friends’ father, Senator Henry Lawrence. After observing the work Eddie had done at LDE, Henry had recommended Eddie to Clarisse for the project. When Mia entered the testing room, things started off according to plan. She deflected plasma bolts from the soldiers’ guns and moved quickly enough to dodge the shots they fired, but when she turned one of the guns on its owner and shot him, the demonstration went off the rails. The soldiers attempted to contain Mia, and she fought her way out through them, killing others as she escaped the building. The politicians were rushed out, and Eddie begged Clarisse to be allowed to follow Mia himself. He caught up to her outside the building, but only after she had run into traffic and had caused a van to swerve into the wrong lane, destroying the car containing Henry and his wife Samantha. Eddie was devastated and overwhelmed by guilt. Mia attempted to apologize for what she’d done, but Eddie couldn’t stand to look at her. When they returned to the LDE warehouse, he decommissioned her, placing her in cryogenic stasis in a hidden vault that only he, Damian, and Derek had the level of access to enter. Without the knowledge of her existence, the others had no reason to look for her.

July 2232
Over the years he spent with their family, Eddie developed feelings for the Lawrences’ younger sister, Desi. He was afraid to act on those feelings both because of the guilt he carried for the death of her parents and because he wasn’t sure her brothers would approve and he feared jeopardizing their friendship. He often wondered whether she felt the same way; when Desi had been a teenager, Eddie had heard her family tease her about having a crush on him, and as the two of them had grown older, she’d spoken to him more often, though she’d always seemed to want to keep him at a distance. On July 4, 2232, after a birthday party for Lila at Eddie’s home, Desi stayed when everyone else had gone home. The two of them talked until late that night, and the tension between them grew until Eddie finally decided to kiss her. To his relief, Desi seemed to share his feelings—they slept together, and Eddie finally allowed himself to hope that he might pursue a relationship with her. But early the next morning, he woke to Desi dressing quietly and attempting to leave before he noticed. She saw that he was awake and apologized, telling him “We can’t do this.”

Eddie didn’t give up. He held out hope that Desi loved him back. When he was sent by Damian to retrieve her from the police station the night she was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, he listened to her frustrations about her brothers caring more about their work than about her as he drove her home. He attempted to discuss the night they had spent together, but Desi refused.

On July 25, the day Damian was scheduled to return to Manhattan from a business trip, he called Eddie to confront him about a message he’d received from Kat Seward, a Division agent. According to Damian, Kat had told him about Mia, whom Eddie had recently upgraded at the request of the Division’s new president, Rachel Hartley. Eddie had sent Mia to another trial, hoping that the adjustments he’d made to her would make her less dangerous to the wrong people, but he didn’t go with her this time. Mia didn’t return from her trial until July 25, and Eddie, panicked at the thought that Damian had learned what the two of them had done, explained the situation to Mia. She persuaded him that Damian would ruin him—would expose his secrets and take away everything he’d spent his life building at LDE, as well as his chances with Desi. Mia persuaded him that the solution was to kill Damian, or rather to program Lila to kill him and then wipe her memory. Eddie protested, telling Mia there were other ways to handle the situation, but in the end, his fear of what Damian could do to him won.

Under the pretense of installing upgrades, Eddie brought Lila to the lab at LDE’s headquarters and reprogrammed her to obey his command to kill Damian. Eddie had asked Damian to meet him at LDE to talk about what the Division had told him, and when Damian arrived, he was ambushed by Eddie and Lila, who had no choice but to fire the plasma gun she’d been given at him. Damian fled the lab, trying to leave through the front doors, but Eddie put the building on lockdown, preventing Damian from escaping. Damian used the gun from the security desk to try to shoot his way out, but he was shot twice by Lila, dying after the second shot. Eddie retrieved Lila from the lobby and wiped her memory, releasing her into Manhattan afterward.

The next morning, Derek returned to LDE to find Damian’s body. He notified Eddie and the police, and when Eddie arrived, he told Derek he should go home and rest. Derek asked where Lila was, as she hadn’t come to the office that day, and Eddie said he hadn’t seen her.

He ran into Desi at a restaurant the following day and approached her to talk. The friends she was eating with left them alone, and Eddie told Desi he’d wanted to see if she was all right. She insisted that she was, and he told her that if she wanted to talk about he loss of Damian or anything else, he would be glad to listen. She didn’t understand why he cared how she felt, and to convey the answer, he kissed her. For a moment, she seemed like she wanted to open up to him, but then she rushed away, clearly embarrassed. Eddie apologized, and Desi told him not to.

Derek informed him about the security video that the police had found implicating Lila in Damian’s murder. Mia had tampered with the files in LDE’s computer system to cut out the portion of the video showing that Eddie had been present at the scene, and Eddie was relieved when Derek appeared to have no idea. At a press conference outside LDE, when asked by an audience member about whether they had any leads, Eddie revealed to the media that Lila was the killer, eager to throw suspicion off of himself. He also told security officer (and Division spy) Andrew Stark on two occasions that he didn’t need to worry about coming in to work while the investigation was going on, as business wouldn’t be operating as usual.

One night, Desi called Eddie to come over to her apartment so she could talk with him about her feelings of guilt for treating Damian badly the last time they’d spoken. Eddie assured her that Damian had never thought ill of her and that he would want her to forgive herself. When she called Derek to attempt to persuade him to stop his search for Lila, who hadn’t surfaced, both Desi and Eddie were surprised to learn that Derek and located her and was bringing her back to his apartment to protect her until he could figure out the truth. Derek insisted that he’d seen a shadow at the back of the video and that someone else had been present the night of Damian’s death. After Desi and Derek argued, Eddie confronted Desi, telling her he was proud of how she’d handled the situation and embracing her. He told her he would always be there when she needed help, and when she asked why he felt the way he did for her, he explained that he loved how passionate she was about everything in her life and that she cared with her whole heart even when she tried to pretend she didn’t. She kissed him, and after several moments, she pulled back, saying that they both needed rest. Eddie told her he would go home, but Desi insisted he stay, telling him she didn’t want him to drive so late when it wasn’t safe.

He slept on her sofa, and the next morning, she went with him to LDE to keep him company while he worked. They were joined by Derek, who was surprised to see them spending time together and who insisted during a few moments alone with Eddie that he didn’t believe Lila was capable of murder and that something else must have happened. Eddie told him she didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, but he agreed not to say anything else to the media or police about Lila until Derek had had time to investigate. After Derek left, Desi asked Eddie whether he thought they were doing the right thing by not telling her brother about their relationship, and Eddie told her they were, as Derek didn’t need anything else to worry about at the moment.

Eddie and Desi made lunch plans, and though he feared she wouldn’t show up, she did. At their table, they were approached by Ben McNaire, son of President Ethan McNaire, who wanted to give them his card in case they needed legal help with Damian’s case. Eddie was shocked to see Mia with Ben—he hadn’t known than in the weeks she’d disappeared, she had taken a job as a secretary at his law firm. Eddie avoided looking at Mia. After the other pair left, Desi revealed that she’d noticed Mia staring at Eddie and seemed jealous, and Eddie assured her that Mia wasn’t his type, and he’d only found one person who was. He gave her a diamond solitaire necklace that he’d bought for her last birthday but had been afraid to give her, as he’d thought it would reveal too much about how he felt about her. When Desi asked him exactly how he felt, he told her he loved her, and she returned the sentiment.

That night, Desi called him to her apartment again. While he was there and she was changing out of the dress she’d worn out, Eddie received a call from Andrew, who told him that the wall of Derek’s office had been destroyed in a fight between Lila and an unidentified android. Andrew thought Eddie should see the security footage, but Eddie told him to let the police handle it. When Desi returned to the living room, Eddie told her he felt overdressed in his suit, and she offered him one of his t-shirts, which had been with her things when she’d left his bedroom the night they had slept together. She apologized for leaving so abruptly and doing so without talking with him about what had happened between them. She said she didn’t deserve him, and he insisted that she was the only one he wanted to be with. They kissed passionately.

At Damian’s visitation and public funeral service, Eddie spent the evening with Desi, trying to comfort her. He held her hand during the service except when each of them spoke, and he delivered a speech about how grateful he was for everything Damian had done to make him feel like part of his family. After the service, he went to work at the LDE warehouse on Fifth Street, where he met up with Mia. He received a call from Desi a while later; she said she was having trouble holding herself together and needed to see him. He offered to come to her, but she wanted to join him at the warehouse.

When she arrived, he was startled to see that she’d brought a gun. He learned that she had seen the full security video—the version that was supposed to have been deleted, which proved that he had been the one to order Lila to kill Damian. Desi demanded to know why he’d done it, and while Eddie initially tried to convince her that she was mistaken, he eventually snapped and told her that he’d done it because Damian was a threat who had planned to make sure he suffered for the sins his creation (Mia) had committed. He tried to take the gun from Desi, and after a struggle, the gun went off, destroying the window to the large room below. Eddie and Desi tumbled through the window, each of them sustaining cuts from the glass on the way down the three stories to the floor below. As they fell, Eddie reflected on how he had gotten here—the initial meeting with Clarisse, his panic and regret when he’d realized Mia had killed Henry and Samantha, and the phone call with Damian the day of his death, when he’d only said that he’d known about Mia. Eddie hadn’t asked how much he’d known.

He shifted in the air to ensure he hit the ground before Desi and broke her fall, and he was dazed for several moments as she stumbled off into the warehouse, also injured. He pursued her, and when he heard Derek’s voice and knew that he also knew the truth, Eddie panicked. He tackled Desi and took the gun from her, holding it to her head and demanding Derek let him go in exchange for his sister’s safety. He didn’t count on Ravenna being present, as well. She shot him in the knee, and he dropped Desi and the gun. Ravenna planned to shoot him again, but Mia returned from fighting Lila in time to stop her and carry Eddie out of the warehouse. When he woke again, he found himself in an unfamiliar bed with his leg bandaged. A man with a long scar on his face entered the room and introduced himself as a friend of Mia’s named Osiris.

Appearances

 * Lacrimosa (narrator)
 * Veritas (narrator)
 * Shadows of the Mind (short story collection)
 * "Broken" (narrator)
 * "Division" (mentioned)
 * "Fated"
 * "Shattered"
 * "Trauma"'
 * "Duality" (narrator)
 * "Convergence" (mentioned)
 * "Vessel" (mentioned)
 * "Goddess"
 * "Mother" (mentioned)


 * other short stories
 * "Inheritance"

* In the Shadows of the Mind podcast and the short audio story "Inheritance," which won the Missouri Review 's Miller Audio Prize in Prose, Eddie is played by Nick Pennington.
 * Shadows of the Mind (podcast)*
 * "The Co-President" (narrator)
 * "Until Proven Guilty"
 * "Line of Fire"
 * "Proximity"
 * "Surrender" (narrator)
 * "I'm You"
 * "Lacrimosa" (narrator)
 * "Convergence" (narrator)