“Downloading the building’s floor plan.” With his breath blooming clouds of vapor in the night, Edison nodded to the blocked-off entrance. “There are several entrances we can choose from, though my data is showing all of them are as stringently blocked off now as they were when this place was put on high-security quarantine during the second pandemic. No matter where we decide to go, we’re going to have to break in.”
She concentrated on her visor’s display window where Edison was sharing the layout with her. “I’m going to head around to the northeast corner, since there’s an entrance right next to a stairwell. Once our Geppetto hears us banging away to get in, he’ll want to scram out of the nearest exit. If we cover both the front and the side entrances, I’m hopeful he’ll run smack into one of us.”
“Or he’ll scram out of whatever escape hatch he’s been using to get in and we’ll miss him entirely.”
“If droid and maker are together, this means Geppetto still has to get down from the third floor. As I recall, the stairwell closest to the northeast entrance is the widest and most user-friendly. It’d be the one I’d use. But if you have another idea...”
“No, covering as many egress points as possible is SOP, and since Atsuko was so enamored of your gut instincts, we might as well split up here.” As he spoke Edison went through his own equipment check before touching a gloved hand to her cheek. “Stay in touch.”
“Copy that.” Without another word Reina took off at a run, the snow crunching beneath her jackboots. Of all the places in South Chicago, Mercy Hospital would never have been the spot she would have picked for their perp’s hidey hole. Homemade or not, a droid was a big-ticket item. Until now she’d been assuming their Geppetto had some serious scratch to have built such a sophisticated piece of hardware; certainly not the type to squat in a condemned hospital. And that led her to another point. Though most scoffed at the superstitious notions of past generations, there was an unspoken acceptance that after so many died at Mercy during the second pandemic it was now a haunted, terrible place. No one went there voluntarily.
Except, apparently, their doer.
“I think I’m in luck.” Slightly breathless from her run, Reina switched the visor to night-vision and spied a tiny gap that had been pried open between building and drywall. Not big enough for an adult, certainly, but big enough for a child-sized droid. She put an experimental shoulder to the graffiti-covered panel, and with one push found it was only loosely attached to the rest of the building. “Maybe this place isn’t as secure as we think.”
“Either that or you and your gut instincts got lucky.” A tremendous boom filled the night, and through the display window now showing Edison’s POV she saw him crash into the drywall. “Be with you in a sec.”
If he didn’t knock the whole place down first, she thought with a snort, and with one last push she slipped past the barrier.
Darkness closed around her like a suffocating fist. The frigid air was still and stale, rank with the acrid odor of long-term mold and that special unhealthy thickness that came with neglect. The visor struggled to amplify what meager ambient light there was in what amounted to be a dank tomb. She looked up, just able to make out an eerie, inverted forest of stalactites dripping from the ceiling directly above her, a combination of disintegrating acoustic ceiling tiles and ice. More of the stuff crunched beneath her feet, the pop and crack of ice sounding as loud as fireworks in the stifling silence.
Haunted or not, the place was a mausoleum.
Procedure had her slipping her gun out of its holster. The grip found its home against Reina’s palm with all the comfort of a handshake from an old friend. “I’m moving to the stairwell. Watch for ice both above and below once you’re inside.”
“Copy.” Another crash. Somewhere in the black depths of the once lively lobby, something—she suspected they were more icicles—shattered on the floor.
Her ears strained for any out-of-place sound that didn’t belong to her or Edison. With as much noise as he was making it would make perfect sense for their perp to bust a move out of there double-time. But as she pulled open the stairwell door with a creak of rusty hinges, nothing but lifeless, cold silence greeted her.
Except...
As Reina made her way up concrete stairs that were thankfully free of ice, at first she thought what was in that stairwell with her was just the wind. After all, sound was a funny thing. In a cavernous stairwell, it could be distorted into something like voices or laughter. She paused on the riser leading to the second floor, the darkness almost complete, and tried to figure out what the sound could actually be.
It had to be the wind. The one thing it most certainly couldn’t be was singing.
More alert than ever, Reina continued her climb upward, thankful it was too cold for little beasties like bats or rats to be out, and as she did the sound grew louder. Following her ears, she topped the third floor landing and paused at the door, the single square window pane embedded into it glowing faintly with light from somewhere on the other side.
Here we go.
Whether she liked it or not, the layout of the floor was tattooed onto her brain. To the right was a once-bustling nurse’s station, a break room and then two hallways marked Telemetry. To the left stretched a main hallway leading to several more, smaller hallways with rooms that had once been full of sick children, including her. Straight ahead was one of the brighter spots the floor had—a solarium-like playroom that had been filled with toy boxes, child-sized craft tables and chairs, primary-colored wallpaper, and corkboards to show off the children’s latest masterpieces. When she had received her paper dolls, she remembered how her parents had wheeled her into the room only to find it had been decorated with a tree and Christmas lights.
Perhaps that was why it didn’t surprise her that the glow of light and the singing—a sweet, childlike soprano—emanated from the playroom. That had been the one room that had held any kind of life in this depressing place. It made sense that it held the only sign of life now.
The third-floor door to the stairwell wasn’t as badly rusted as the one downstairs, but it still made more noise than she would have liked as she carefully shut it behind her. After glancing down each hallway she headed for the playroom, gun pointed down at the floor, at rest but ready to go at a moment’s notice. A reddish-golden glow spilled out of the open doorway, and on silent feet she approached it, pausing just beyond the pool of light. Her breath halted when the voice—sweetly singing a version of “What Child Is This?”—came to an abrupt halt.
“Father? Is that you?”
It was a child’s voice. Excited. Not the voice of an automaton. And certainly not what she was expecting.
Confusion brought Reina into the doorway. One quick but thorough sweep of the room struck a visceral chord deep inside. Aside from the rotting acoustic tiles and no overhead lighting, the playroom was pretty much the same as it had been sixteen years earlier. A sagging artificial tree stood in a corner, and strings of multi-colored Christmas lights ringed the room. A freckle-faced young boy, no more than seven, sat on one of the craft tables, his dark eyes expectant as he looked to the doorway. When he saw her, his face fell, his sandy brown hair tumbling over his brow.
“Oh. It’s just you.”
“Just me?” Making one more sweep of the room to make sure they were alone, she was about to ask him what he meant when realization hit like a sledgehammer. This was the location of the homemade droid, yet the only one here was this kid. This impossibly humanlike kid.
The droid had to be him. It. Whatever.
Slowly she holstered her weapon. “Yeah, it’s me. You recognize me, right? You saw me?”
“Yes, but I was expecting someone else. Someone who promised to meet me here if we ever got separated.” He sighed as though suffering a deep disappointment. “You like paper dolls.”
Her jaw al
most unhinged. He sounded so...real. Intonation. Emotive inflection. Even sighing. Androids didn’t breathe, so they sure as hell didn’t sigh. “Where is your maker?”
The boy’s eyes, almost as dark as hers and nothing like the noxious pink she was used to seeing, searched hers. “My maker?”
“Your owner.” When he continued to stare at her, she huffed with thinning patience. Damn it all, the perp was probably long gone by now. “I need the name of the person who created you, and I need it now. I am a member of the police, so you must respond.”
“I know you’re the police. You told me already, remember?”
“So you did hear me when I identified myself,” she said, eyes narrowing in growing bewilderment. All droids were programmed to respond to law enforcement, but apparently this one was far, far different than anything she’d ever seen. “Why did you run from me?”
“Because you were chasing me.”
Again the memory of Atsuko’s words floated back. I’d swear I could see fear in its eyes...” Did I scare you?”
“Well...yeah. My father taught me to not talk to strangers, but I’ve been thinking about it, and since you’re the police and you like Christmas and dolls, I’ve decided you must be okay.”
Disbelief clamped down on her hard enough to freeze her in place, and through the visor she checked to see if there were organic vital signs in the child before her. No breath vaporing out of his mouth, no heartbeat to measure. Nothing. He wasn’t alive.
No. It wasn’t alive.
But still...
“You said you decided I was okay.” At last Reina found her tongue, and couldn’t help but smile back when the droid grinned at her. “No one gave you a directive?”
“What’s a directive?”
That answered that question. “And you heard me talking about Christmas?”
“Uh-huh.” He slid off the table to head over to one of the supply cabinets. “Your parents gave you paper dolls for a Christmas present. It made you happy, and you wanted to keep going so that you could play with them. I liked that story so much that I decided to make more for you. Even though you’re not my father, I’m still glad you’re here. I wasn’t sure how I was going to give these to you otherwise.” He turned and gave her a small packet wrapped in wrinkled brown tissue paper, his freckled face lighting up. “Merry Christmas.”
On automatic pilot, Reina took the present. The fact that he’d heard her through a screaming blizzard told her he was nowhere near human, but there it was again—self-motivated decision-making. How could an android decide to create a gift without being directed to do so? “Thank you.” Then she shook her head, flummoxed. “Who are you?”
“Noel.” His smile was sweeter than an angel’s song. “My father named me Noel because he says I’m packed full of the Christmas spirit. Aren’t you going to open your present? I worked really hard on it.”
“In a minute.” Before she could think better of it, she pulled off a glove to touch his cheek. Cold. Lifeless. Her visor’s thermal-imaging scan told her as much. But... “Noel? Do you know you’re an android?”
The smile faltered. “I know I’m not like other boys and girls, like the ones I see playing in the park. I was made, not born. But my father says that makes me an even greater miracle, and my father’s never lied to me so that must be true.” His little chin came up with a touching mixture of pride and dignity. “I matter. My father says so.”
“Of course you matter.” The words came out before she gave them a thought, while something in her chest began to squeeze. “Noel, do you know your father’s name?”
“Silly. Of course I do.” The smile was back, and so full of love it nearly brought her to her knees. “My father’s name is Delbert.”
“Conrad.” She closed her eyes. So that’s who Noel was waiting for. Had been waiting for, all this time. “Your father is Delbert Conrad. Geppetto.”
“Delbert Conrad is my father’s name, but I don’t know who Geppetto is.” He brightened. “Do you know my father? Have you seen him? I’ve been looking everywhere for him, but I can’t find him.”
There was a lump in her throat that was trying to squeeze it shut. The damned thing wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she tried to remember she was talking to a bunch of microchips and wires. “I never met your father, Noel, but I hear he was a great man. You should be proud.”
“I am.” His chest puffed out a moment before his head titled. “Wait. He was...?”
“I need some information from you, Noel, and I’m afraid I need it rather quickly,” she said before he could question why she’d used past tense. As of now, they were both running out of time. “You mentioned seeing children playing in the park. Do you mean Mercy Park?”
He nodded. “I go there a lot.”
“Is that where you met Momo and Ren Seldon?”
“Momo and Ren? I never met them, but I’ve heard them talking. I like to listen to them, especially when they talk about their father. They miss him because he’s gone, and that’s just like me. But at least they have each other.” He sighed again, and the squeezing in her chest grew worse, hard enough to crack her heart in two. “I wonder where our fathers have gone?”
A warm flood of moisture shimmered in her eyes, and she cursed it even as she tried to blink it away. “This next question is very important, Noel. Did anyone tell you to give the Seldon children those toys or that tree from the park?”
He shook his head. “Every Christmas my father and I choose a family to give them a special Christmas present. We do it in secret, like Santa, because it’s our way of spreading the Christmas spirit. It’s tradition, and tradition is important. It’s what keeps families together, so I thought that if I chose a family on my own...”
“You hoped it would bring your father back.” The voice from the doorway made her turn to Edison, and the tears fell at last as she looked at his stricken expression.
“Oh, hello there.” The tiny condemned droid waved a happy greeting at Edison. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you too, big guy.” Edison’s voice was as rough as she felt. They exchanged helpless glances as precious seconds ticked away. “Maybe there’s something we can do. Atsuko might know of some counter-measure...”
Wild hope sprinted through her. “It’s better than just standing here. Contact him while we head for—”
“Ah.” A strange tone escaped Noel, like his voice modulator had decided to try four different octaves at once. “I. Feel. S-s-s-s-strange.”
“Oh, no.” Reina stooped to try and lift him, but he was too heavy. “Come on, Noel, don’t do this.”
He looked at her with eyes that didn’t seem focused. “Am I b-being bad?”
She fell to her knees and pulled him into her arms, a useless gesture to shield him from what was already happening. “Never. You’re a good boy, Noel.” A sob escaped her, stupid and pointless. How ridiculous, to cry over what amounted to be nothing more than a dying appliance. That was all this was, damn it.
Only it wasn’t.
Little arms came around her in a trusting embrace. “Don’t cry. No one should cry on Ch-Christmas.” The last syllable nosedived like a recording grinding to a halt. The arms fell away from her and seized at his sides.
Then he was still.
Another sob escaped her. Another. Edison’s strong hands pulled her up and turned her into his engulfing embrace as the grief over a lost child—not an appliance—swallowed her whole. It was no wonder Delbert Conrad was so outspoken when it came to maintaining a strong and obvious line between man and machine. He knew the pitfalls of it better than anyone, because he’d crossed that line himself. Once he’d done that, he must have realized it was a mistake he clearly didn’t have the heart to undo. And in the end, all that was left was a lonely little boy who understood the spirit of giving better th
an most humans.
“It was over before we got here.” Edison’s voice was hoarse as he rocked her, and she loved him all the more for it. “We had no hope of saving him.”
“It’s not like I care.” She tried, so hard, to believe the words even as she fought back another storm of tears. “Noel was hardware, that’s all. Just hardware.”
“You know better than that. That kid was loved, and he did what he did because he knew how to return it. And that is life.”
“He gave me a present.” Gutted, drained of all strength, Reina backed out of his arms to slump onto the table on which Noel had perched, and stared at the forgotten package in her hand. “Stupid kid.”
“Open it. I want to see.”
“It’s just paper dolls. Pretend people.” Like Noel.
He smoothed a gentle hand over her hair. “I want to see, babe.”
Reina shook with the effort to hold back another sob and peeled back the wrinkled tissue paper. Cut with the same precision that had shown up in the doily snowflakes, she pulled out a paper-and-crayon image of herself complete with visor, asymmetrical black hair and earrings. The paper doll’s body was colored in a black frictionsuit, but inside the package was a crayon-colored wardrobe any girl would be happy to have.
“I’m such a sap.” A shuddering breath escaped her as she took off her visor and wiped at the tears. “Boo-hooing over what amounts to be some weird gift-giving, Christmas-loving glitch. Not exactly the great detective you transferred to compete with, huh?”
“You’re everything I knew you’d be, and so much more.” Edison cupped her face in his hands to lift it to his, and his eyes showed her the turbulence churning within. “The reason I transferred was because I fell in love with the woman who was smart enough and brave enough to track down a cannibalistic monster. A woman, moreover, who has so much heart that she can cry over the loss of an AI child who should never have existed in the first place.”
If her chin hadn’t been in his palm, it would have dropped to the floor. In the span of a heartbeat her world swung from the depths of despair to numb incomprehension, to a burgeoning, vivid hope. “You...what?”
A Galactic Holiday Page 11
