Uncanny

by Sarah Fine

  “Oh. My. God! I don’t remember!” I am up on my feet, and my chair falls backward.

  Mom jerks back as I clutch the table. “Cora, I need you to calm down now,” she says, her voice low.

  “But no one listens to me or believes me! I’ve said it a thousand times, and you guys just ignore me. I don’t remember what happened, and the doctor said that made sense! You’re the ones driving me crazy!”

  Her hands are up in front of her chest. “Please take a step back. Breathe.”

  My hands are shaking, my fingers curled. “I hate you. I hate all of you.”

  She grimaces. “Please stop.” She slowly gets up. She spreads her arms, gesturing me toward her.

  I shuffle into her embrace, still trembling.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. There are tears in her voice, tears on her face that wet my cheek. “Look. We’re all dealing with losing Hannah. I don’t want it to tear us apart. But Gary is hurting more than anyone, and I totally get it—if I had lost you like that . . .” She sniffles loudly. “He just wants answers. Part of the reason he left was to take the pressure off you. He’s really struggling with this.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and hold on, spiraling in hopelessness before accepting that I have no other choice. “Okay! Okay. I’m sorry, too.” I’m not getting out anytime soon. Something in me grabs the inside of my rib cage and shrieks. But my bones are strong. They don’t break easily.

  I pull away from Mom. “I guess I’ll go find Rafiq and do some yoga.”

  Mom takes me by the shoulders. “This is serious, Cora. I can’t tell whether you’re pretending to be okay or if you’re in complete denial.”

  “Neither, Mom.” I meet her eyes. It isn’t easy. “I just . . . don’t want to let you guys down.”

  I know I’m failing; I know I’ve always failed, but it really is true.

  “You couldn’t possibly let us down, Cora,” she says gently.

  I know she wants that to be true so badly, and I also know it’s not actually true.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I whisper. Then I pull away and head back to my room.

  Rafiq is staring at the painting again. “Do you like it that much?” I ask as I approach.

  “I find it interesting,” he says. “There is much to ponder here.”

  “Do you actually ponder stuff, or do you just call up and organize information based on your parameters and protocols?”

  “What is pondering, then?”

  My gaze flicks to the painting. “It’s much messier. For me, at least.”

  “Have you been pondering something, Cora?”

  I laugh, dry like dead leaves. “Nope.” Then I laugh again.

  Today Rafiq is wearing jeans that look disturbingly good on him and a short-sleeved shirt with a collar. If he were walking the halls of Clinton Academy, all the girls would be drooling. “I have a present for you,” he says, as if this is the conversation we were going to have before I announced I was busy. “When you’re ready, we can go look at it. It’s outside.”

  I guess he knows I’m not busy after all. “Let me put some shoes on.” I trudge into my room and slide my feet into the first pair of shoes I come across, sigh as they self-adjust to the perfect size, then go back to the hall, where Rafiq finally moves his gaze from the painting.

  We head outside, me trying not to stare at his face and body. Wind ruffles my short hair, blowing it dry and probably undoing my earlier brushing. When we reach the edge of the patio, he leads me along a little stone path to the gardening shed. After he murmurs a request to Franka, the doors slide open. Rafiq gestures inside. “What do you think?”

  “Is that a kite?”

  He grins. “It is.”

  The thing is huge, a geometric flower of silky green-and-pink fabric stretched over a frame of splinter-thin bone-white plastic. Three lines of filament dangle from its bottom and join in one line, connected to a reel.

  “Is it drone lifted?” I haven’t seen a kite in years, not since my mom took me to the beach a few months after she told me my dad wasn’t coming back.

  “Wind powered. Want to try it?”

  I look around. We’re between the river and the house. “Here?”

  “Sure. The breeze is great today.”

  As if in agreement, a gust buffets me. Rafiq tilts his head. Slowly, he reaches over and smooths my hair down on top, and I freeze, goose bumps rippling over my skin. Touch me again, I think. But I don’t say it, because it is so freaking weird. He’s a canny.

  He doesn’t look like a canny. I clear my throat, and the tiniest flicker of a smile crosses his face.

  “Um,” I say, “how do we do it? I’ve never flown a kite.”

  “Would you like me to try first?”

  I nod. “Need my help?”

  He leans into the shed and brings out the kite. “Hold this.”

  I take it. It feels fragile, too light. Suddenly I feel like I might accidentally snap its skinny bird bones if I hold it in the wrong place. Suddenly I want to crush it between my hands to see if I’m right. And then I want to tear its silky skin off to see what I’ve done.

  “Your facial expression suggests discomfort.”

  “I don’t want to break it.” Also, I want to break it. And then stomp on it.

  “You won’t, Cora. This will be easy.” He points to the wide strip of lawn between the edge of the patio and the riverbank. “We can do it right here. There’s plenty of room on either side.”

  I glance across the patio toward the bay window and see Mom standing inside, watching us. Rafiq notices, because he says, “You don’t wish to meet with me anymore.”

  I close my eyes. “It’s not that. I like you. But . . .” I feel unstable. Like everything might fall on me at once. Or worse, like everything might come pouring out. “I’m missing a lot of school.”

  “That is not the only reason.”

  “Okay, and I miss my friends.” Friend, really. The rest I could take or leave.

  “But school is the place you attempted to hurt yourself. Were your friends not there?”

  I open my eyes and glare at him. “Can we fly this thing already?”

  “Perhaps you were reminded of Hannah’s absence, and—”

  “Yes or no?” I say loudly. “Did you want to fly this?”

  He blinks at me. “Certainly.” He holds the reel and pushes the handle to cause the filament to release. Together, we walk toward the lawn, and I slowly increase the distance between us. The wind tugs at the flimsy structure in my hands, making its silky flanks bulge.

  “It wants to fly,” I murmur, lifting it over my head.

  “It was built for that purpose, and it seems wrong to hold it back,” says Rafiq, his eyes on the kite. Then he looks at me and nods. “I’m ready.”

  I let the kite go. The wind pulls the filament taut just a few feet over my head, and I hunch my shoulders and dodge to the side, imagining it wrapping around my neck. Rafiq steps back and continues to release the line, and the silk-and-bone flower slowly rises into the sky, shimmering under the late-summer sun. I shield my eyes to watch it soar. The filament is invisible now, and if I focus, it’s easy to pretend the flower is flying on its own, untethered, unmoored.

  I lower my hand from my face and turn to watch Rafiq. His gaze is on the kite as it swoops, and his hands cradle the reel, his touch light. He seems riveted.

  “What are you thinking right now?” I ask.

  “Freedom,” he says.

  “In an abstract way or a personal way?”

  He clears his throat. The kite dips and spirals in the air. Rafiq jerks the reel back and up. Then he blinks. “Oh.”

  I follow the trajectory of the kite as it crashes into the high fence surrounding the widow’s walk—the deck on the roof of the house—four stories up. My stomach drops.

  Rafiq looks down at the reel in his hand, then his gaze follows the thread of filament up to the walk. The kite is caught on one of the chimneys just over the railing. If we try to pull it
down, the string will snap. I peer at the bay window. Mom is gone.

  “Franka,” says Rafiq. “Is Gretchen available?”

  “No,” says Franka, her voice emanating from the patio. “She is currently in the master bedroom, cleaning it in advance of Dr. Dietrich’s return.”

  “We’ll have to get it ourselves,” Rafiq says. He locks the reel and sets it on the ground. After a few steps, he pauses. “Will you come with me?”

  I’m staring up there. “I don’t want to.”

  “Please? It might take two of us. I might be a machine, but I do not have superhuman agility or strength.”

  “Really?”

  “I was created with the musculature, reflexes, flexibility, agility, and strength of a human male with a similar physical structure to mine.”

  “I have so many questions,” I blurt out.

  “Accompany me up there to retrieve our kite, and I will answer as many as I can.”

  “You are so freaking tricky.”

  He smiles. “Shall we?” Then he continues heading across the patio to the door that leads through the back hall. It opens as Franka senses our approach. “I’ve never been up to that deck.”

  “It’s called a widow’s walk.”

  He is quiet for a moment. “What a sad connotation. The structures were put atop coastal homes and were named after the idea that a woman would wait for her husband to come home from the sea, something that did not always happen.”

  I am walking behind him but can tell by the tilt of his head that he has a question. “What?”

  “We are near a river but not an ocean. Why does this mansion have a widow’s walk?”

  “You’ll see,” I mutter. My heart is beating fast, but Rafiq hasn’t called me on it, and I’m happy to pretend that it’s because we’re now climbing the stairs. “Ugh,” I say, making a show of breathing hard, “I’m out of shape.” Which reminds me of all those questions I want to ask. The more he talks about himself, the less he can talk about me. “I’ve been wondering—do you breathe?”

  “I have a heat-diffusion system that is vented through my nose.”

  “So . . . no? You just blow hot air?”

  He glances down at me, one hand on the banister. We’re between the second and third floors. Pictures of Hannah and her mom decorate this wide back staircase, hanging in a diagonal line that ascends the wall above the railing. “Your tone suggests that is a feature that is ripe for humor.”

  I put my hands up. “You said you don’t eat. So how do you get energy? You must use a lot of it.”

  “I am equipped with nanowire batteries that require recharging once every two years. I am also very efficient.”

  “I guess we’ve already talked about sleeping, too.”

  He reaches the landing on the third floor and waits. “And dreaming.”

  “Okay, what about . . .” And, oh my god, I can’t help it, I glance down at his crotch.

  He follows my eyes. “You are wondering about my anatomy.”

  “Is this the moment where you clear your throat again?”

  He raises his head, and his eyes hold mine. “I have a male configuration.”

  “Okay, but can you . . .” My cheeks are on fire. “Sorry. This is too personal.”

  “Am I a person to you, Cora?”

  I look up the final flight of stairs. Looking into his eyes makes me feel wobbly and confused and awkward. “Do you want to be?”

  “Want.”

  “That one really trips you up, doesn’t it?”

  He begins walking up the steps to the fourth floor.

  “Whoa,” I continue. “It really does. If it helps, it’s not always so easy for humans, either.”

  He pauses for a moment. Stops right there on the steps, looking upward. “My neurocortex is a prototype, and my face is a novel configuration chosen by my architect, but my body is a mass-produced casing.” His voice is quiet, level. “It was designed for use in the personal-companion industry and is capable of performing all the functions necessary to please and satisfy a human client.” Then he continues the walk, leaving me behind to sort out all the crazy sensations inside my body as the meaning of what he just said sinks in.

  When I catch up with him on the fourth-floor landing, I lead him over to the little spiral staircase below the walk. The closer I get, the sicker I feel.

  Rafiq climbs the first few steps and looks up. “Franka, please open the door.”

  “Please note this is a safety hazard,” she says.

  “She’s right,” I say, clutching the railing.

  “Please note I am supervising my client,” Rafiq replies. “I am clear on my directives.”

  Franka goes quiet. The trapdoor at the top of the steps slides open, letting the sunshine stream down. When it hits my face, I shudder. My voice is shriller than I want as I ask, “And what are your directives, exactly?”

  Rafiq climbs up onto the widow’s walk and reaches down, offering me his hand. I climb up by myself, my heart threatening to explode.

  The last time I was up here . . .

  “You’re pale, Cora,” Rafiq says, “and you’re sweating.”

  “I just climbed four flights of stairs—what do you expect?”

  For a moment, he stands there, maybe listening to my heartbeat. “How should we try to retrieve our kite?” he finally asks, turning to look up at the flower, which is three feet out of the reach of his upstretched arms and waggling fingers. “I can’t do it by myself.”

  Distant booms echo in my ears, and I sway. Memory or my heartbeat, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t. Matter. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. You’re taller than I am.”

  “You could sit on my shoulders,” he suggests.

  “You’re joking.” Boom. Boom. Boom.

  “It would be the most efficient way to retrieve the kite.”

  Right now, I’d do just about anything to be down off this roof. “Okay. Sure. Let’s get it done.” I can barely hear my own voice. The noise in my head is so loud.

  He approaches me and kneels. “Climb up.”

  I stare at his smooth hairline. There are even fine little hairs on the back of his neck, so real looking. Focusing hard on them, I put one hand on the chimney column and another on his shoulder, and I heave myself up. My hands walk up the wall, rough brick under my palms, as he rises to his feet. I look right into the sun and let the flashing brightness alerts in my visual field keep me here and now so I won’t focus on that night when I clung to this brick and counted every breath.

  “Cora? The kite?”

  “Oh.” Squinting and half-blind, I reach up and clumsily pull at the kite. Rafiq’s hands are tight over my calves. My thighs on either side of his face feel huge, like two seals lying on a beach. I concentrate on the kite and do my best not to break its bones.

  When it slides clear, Rafiq turns around quickly. The view from the walk is breathtaking and devastating. The skyscrapers, the skyway, the Washington Monument, Hannah’s angry-scared face, Mei’s look of fear and horror, Lara’s sneer, and the entire sky exploding. The kite falls from my hands. It hits the deck with a snap. My arms are reeling. I’m going to fall. My bones, my bones.

  I know what it sounds like when they break.

  “Cora?” Rafiq says, but I’m in the grip of it, trying my best not to throw up all over the top of his head. He sinks quickly to his knees, then sinks even lower to duck out from between my legs. He catches me before I fall on my numb feet. “What’s happening?” His arms close around me. I am against his chest. “Your heart . . .”

  I throw my arms around his waist and twist my fingers in his shirt. I am gasping, stars bursting in front of my eyes. Rafiq takes my face in his hands, tilting my chin up so he can look down at me. “I’m here. Please talk to me.”

  “I c-can’t,” I whisper. My teeth chatter. More explosions.

  “Please, Cora.”

  It comes up from me like liquid under pressure, a geyser, champagne shooting a cork, uncontrolled rele
ase. “Sometimes I hated her,” I choke out. “Sometimes I wanted her to die.”

  Chapter Ten

  Data review.

  Internal narrative: on.

  9:54 p.m., July 4, 2069

  Hannah is walking down the hallway toward the foyer. Her footsteps are rapid, the sound suggesting hard heels with a small area of contact. Her gaze shifts right, and there is another girl, black hair, brown eyes, small frame. Cross-reference with the facial-recognition database indicates that this girl is Mei Yang.

  Mei Yang (hereafter referred to as Mei) smiles. “I don’t think we need sweaters,” she says. Her gaze moves away from Hannah, her focus out of the frame. Hannah looks to the left, and her perspective takes in 2 additional girls. One is Cora. She is wearing a loose, bulky front-buttoning sweater. Next to her is a girl of similar age, with long brown hair parted in the middle. This girl is taller than the other 3, with blue eyes and what appears to be a diamond-dust tattoo on her temple surrounding her Cerepin nodule. Cross-reference with the facial-recognition database indicates that this girl is Lara Perry (hereafter referred to as Lara). Mei and Lara completed 11th grade at Clinton Academy, making them classmates of Cora and Hannah.

  Lara glances at Cora, puts her hand up to shield her face from Cora’s view, and rolls her eyes. Hannah giggles and slaps the girl’s arm.

  “This is our tradition,” Hannah says, seemingly to Cora. “It’s so much better than watching the show with the commoners.”

  “I’m a commoner,” says Cora.

  “Not anymore,” says Mei. “Now you’re a Dietrich.”

  “Only because my mom made me change my name,” Cora mutters.

  “Okay, wow,” says Hannah.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” says Lara. She laughs, but tonal analysis suggests that it is more derisive than humorous. “Mei, have you heard from Neda?”

  Hannah looks over at the black-haired girl. “No,” Mei says. “I haven’t—”

  “She can’t come,” Cora says. She is frowning. “Her family leaves early tomorrow for their vacation.”

  “Since when does she communicate only with you?” asks Mei.