Ai looked shocked. “Yes. That’s trespass and theft. Shall I do that?”
“Gah! No, no, no! I’m sorry! I’m tired and stupid! Sorry!”
This was followed by a jaw-cracking yawn. Ai touched Lily’s knee.
“That’s enough for today, don’t you think?” She asked softly.
“But I’ve work tomorrow, and... and...” She slumped. “And I’m so tired. You’re right, Ai.” She took off her glasses and reached to turn off the small desk lamp. “It’s certainly one heck of a coincidence!”
Ai waited patiently until all of her senses told her Lily was fast asleep.
“We’re different there. We know – know, my dearest friend – there are no such things as coincidences.” She said quietly.
She brushed a strand of hair back from Lily’s forehead.
“Where are we going?” Ai said even softer. “Will we get there together?”
She dreamed.
Walking over to the kitchen, at six in the morning, in the dark, was all Lily’s fault. By mentioning that cooking is a ‘survival skill’ the children must learn, Ai decided that, as she put it, ‘to survive in your home,’ she needed to learn to cook. Lily unlocked the door and turned the lights on.
She first checked to see who would be coming in on duty in half an hour. Ah, Maggie and Pedro, with Carli on tables. Definitely one of the JV teams; maybe this will work out for the best?
Lily gave Ai a quick tour of the kitchen, both what stock they had on hand as well as pots, skillets, knives and such.
“I’m sure that intellectually you know all this,” Lily said, “but cooking is regarded as more of an art. After all,” she said with a sly look, “it did take two tries to get your coffee right!”
“Then, as now, you were there to help me be older,” Ai bowed slightly, graciously trampling on Lily gibe. “Once again I am in your care!”
“Hmph. Alright, what’d be good for you...?” She didn’t care how smart Ai was, it was too easy to ruin food, and she did not want to have her kids ever go without. That meant any protein source was out... her eyes kept roaming... ah! Potatoes!
“You’re going to be making hash browns for breakfast!”
Ai blinked. “I see.”
I bet you just did, thought Lily. “Let me step you through the process, after which you’ll make a test batch before everyone gets here, sound good?”
“Please!”
Lily peeled a single potato and shredded about half with the grater. “Then you dry the shredded bits in a towel; most people forget that!”
“Yes, Sempai!” A laugh.
“You’d put a little of our lard from the fridge into a skillet,” she pretended to do so, “fry on medium-high; pressing down with the spatula right before you flip it; you want it crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. I usually just put a little salt on them; the children can always add more if they want.” She indicated what she’d already shredded. “You can use that for your first try...”
But Ai was shaking her head. “To be older properly is to do it all. I’d like to start from the very beginning, please?”
Lily wondered if she spoke in a roundabout way to avoid anyone using the word ‘order.’ She understood: that would be demeaning.
“Of course! If everything goes well, you’ll use this bit later!”
So as to not hang over Ai’s shoulder, Lily went to set some things on the tables. Her student should appreciate that. Ai called to her as she walked towards the dining hall.
“Oh! Should I wear an apron?”
“Uhh, yeah!” Oops, that had totally slipped her mind. “Hanging behind the door, there.”
Faster than she would have thought, she heard a faint sizzling from the kitchen. Now might be a good time to check in.
“Annnnd, hoopsie!” As Ai flipped the potatoes over. Too cute! Lily grabbed for her phone and took a picture. Ai looked up at that.
“Why did you do that? Is something wrong?”
“Just the opposite,” she smiled. “You just looked so cute doing that!”
Ai looked demure. “That’s the first time you’ve taken my picture. Thank you.”
It was? Lily thought about that. Of course it was! Ai’d only been an image on her screen until now! Lord, but I can be stupid sometimes, she thought.
“I think I’m going to start taking a bunch more, if that’s alright?” Ai nodded.
“Now, here!” Ai slid the hash browns to a small plate. With two shakes of salt, she handed it to Lily.
Lily first got a fork and returned to Ai. They certainly looked and smelled fine. She recalled that Marienne’s first effort had to be chiseled off the skillet.
“Here goes! ‘Thanks for the food!’”
They were good; really good. She swallowed. “Perfect!” Eyes sparkling, Ai clasped her hands together under her chin. “Now we’ll see if you can scale this up for breakfast for everyone!”
But at that moment, Ai only had eyes for her friend. “You ate the food that I made. I made the food that is keeping you alive. I’m so much older!” She said softly.
Lily hadn’t quite thought of it in those terms, but her friend was having a lot of ‘firsts’ these days. To her surprise, Ai burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?”
“Fausta! She wants to cook you something right now! She’s so silly!”
Fausta. Likely it’d either be a wedding cake or road-kill special.
“Anyway. I think for everyone, about three batches of four potatoes each should do.” Lily said, returning to the matter at hand. “Bigger portions are trickier to cook, so let me know if you’re unsure about anything.”
Ai nodded and went to peel more potatoes. Lily set out some of the things that the other two would need in just a few minutes.
Without looking up from her work, very distinctly, Ai said, “Trouble.”
What?
Her phone rang. A glance brought a frown: ‘Kyle Stephens.’
“Yes?” She answered.
“The Vice President just called me,” he said in the voice of a man talking through gritted teeth, “with three questions. Might you like to hear them?”
“Uhhh...” He sounded really upset.
“One,” he went on, “why is, what is likely the most sophisticated piece of technology on the planet, walking around Waxahachie? Two, why is said piece of technology in the company of Lily Barrett – and yes, he recognized you. Three, and why did he only learn about all this through a two-day old news report video?”
He cleared his throat so sharply she almost dropped the phone.
“Let me assure you, Miss Barrett, that I took no pride nor pleasure in telling him that the Intelligence Office of the Texas Rangers had no idea what he was talking about!”
Definitely angry, she thought. “Err... this all sorta happened kinda quick... I guess?”
“Dammit!” Then quieter. “Dammit, Lily! Do you remember the talk you and I had when I was there? About you stirring things up or raising your profile?”
Uh, oh.
“I’m guessing by your silence you didn’t until just now.” He sighed. “Good Lord. This isn’t about how you knew about that nuke, or about some robot you’re hanging out with – although I’ll get back to that – I warned you when I saw you because even after all the killings, there are still plenty of folks both here and abroad that hate Clive Barrett, enough to want to see some harm come to anyone in his family.” He said slowly.
“Is this starting to sink in, now?” He asked.
“Lily, are you alright?” Ai asked, pausing in her grating. “You look pale.”
She let her hand with the phone hang down. “Ai... what have I done?”
Ai turned off the stove and moved to her side. “Tell me: what have you done?”
“Here.” She handed Ai her phone. “I need to sit down.” On a stool in the corner.
Ai considered the phone, pressed a button.
“This is Ai, a friend of Lily’s, may I ask y
our name?”
“I’m Kyle Stephens... I can hear you’ve got me on speaker; is there anyone else there?”
“No. I shall alert you if anyone comes in.” She was all business.
“Are you the robot that was in the news with her?”
“You may say so.” Ai winked at Lily, but saw her friend was still distressed.
“Thank you. I work for the government and have known Miss Barrett, and the rest of her family, for some years now. What I just told her was...” He went on to recapitulate his short discussion with Lily.
At the mention of harm to Lily, Ai stiffened. “Wait, one,” she said curtly to the phone. That was unusual enough for Lily to get ahold of herself. She slid off the stool and walked to Ai.
Ai had her thousand-mile stare. She looked at Lily. And smiled.
“It’s agreed: we will not let you come to harm. Mr. Stephens?” She asked.
“Yes?”
“So far as we know, there are no immediate, discernable threats to Lily. This of course does not include plots that remain in shadow. I ask you directly: are you aware of any?”
“No,” he said slowly, “we’re not. But there are always crazies. Are you there, Lily?”
It still bothered her slightly when he was familiar with her. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to take a guess here that not only is that robot smart as hell, it’s also how you found out about that nuke.” A statement, not a question.
“Yes.” She grumbled, “But if you call her an ‘it’ again, I’ll kick your butt.” She heard some sounds from the dining hall.
“Some of the children are coming to make breakfast, Mr. Stephens,” Ai said.
“Let’s wrap this up for now.” Another clearing of his throat. “Lily, keep your eyes open and stay out of the spotlight, okay? And... Ai, was it? Don’t rule out an invitation to Austin in the near future. Goodbye.”
Ai returned the phone to Lily. “He seems to be a nice man.”
“What?!” Lily reacted as if Ai’d thrown water in her face. Wait, if Ai thinks he’s nice... have I been that wrong?
“I dunno. Maybe.” She took a deep breath. “Back to cooking?”
“We go!”
Chapter 12
After breakfast... and they all wanted Ai to be hired as their cook... Lily got ready for work. She was leading her bicycle out of the U when Ai came out of the dining hall and began to walk along side of her.
“Ai?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to work now; at the hospital.”
“I see.”
They kept walking.
“You’re coming with me?”
Ai stopped. “Should I not?”
Lily stopped, too, but looked at her watch. “No, please, you can do what ever you’d like to, but having you shadow me at work would be...” She paused. “I know we’ve so little time, but I don’t want to cause any trouble...?”
Ai held both of Lily’s shoulders and looked sharply into her eyes.
“I’ll stay at the mansion; use a Command Seal if something happens.”
“W...what?”
Ai laughed uproariously. “I’m sorry! Personal joke! I shall play tourist for a bit? Perhaps I’ll meet with those men from the University! May we have lunch together?”
“Of course! I can meet you—”
“On the roof at 1230. Sure.” She saw the look in Lily’s eyes. “We talk on the phone all the time, remember? Did you think I wouldn’t know your schedule?”
“Oh!” With another glance at her watch, she got on her bike. “See you later!”
Ai continued to wave until she was out of sight.
“I will not allow harm to come to you... yes, Thaad, First Law makes preemptive strikes... difficult... yes... no, I’ve not changed my mind about that, either.”
She turned north, started walking.
For so long always wondering what people were thinking when they looked at her, Lily now found herself in the situation where other’s eyes would glide past hers, looking for someone else behind her. Everyone at the hospital is looking for Ai, she thought. I guess I should have brought her along after all.
She shook her head at that. No, she’s not a pet nor my primary school show-and-tell! But, people she rarely if ever saw kept wandering through the fourth floor, looking around. Focus, focus!
“Good morning, Miss Barrett!” Her charge nurse, Mrs. Watters, said. “Oh, is that person I read about not with you?”
Not you, too!
The morning seemed to last forever, and Lily was relieved when she received a message from Ai that she was bringing lunch, and would be there shortly. Lily walked down the stairs to meet her friend in the lobby. She heard the tumult before she saw it. A crowd of staff and patients milled about the entry, all trying to see and talk to Ai. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea....
Ai saw her and waved. “Excuse me, everyone!” She called. “I’d like to have lunch with my friend, now! We can talk later, okay!” Ai took her hand, and with a wink, pulled Lily outside to a table in the small park in front of the hospital.
“I’m sorry, Ai,” she began, “I never meant for things to get like this.”
“Oh, please!” Ai said, pushing a soft-sided lunch bag over to Lily. “I find this all very interesting; how has your morning been?”
Lily started taking things out of the bag, trying very hard to ignore those people who kept wandering by to take a picture.
“Surreal. Everyone is looking at me to find you.”
Ai took on an odd look. “That’s a very interesting thing you just said.”
Huh? “Was it?” Lily asked. Ai leaned over to pat her hand.
“Don’t mind me; it was an active morning, but now, I’m just happy to be with you.” Ai said.
A pleasant warmth suffused through Lily, but, “You’d an active morning?”
Ai nodded. “I won my argument with Thaad. He can be such a stick-in-the-mud at times!”
That jogged Lily’s memory about a question she’d had. She swallowed the mouthful of her BLT sandwich and asked, “It’s not for me to pry, of course, but, I’ve met him and Dorina and Fausta. Is that, er, are they your whole family?”
There was an odd play of emotions across Ai’s face. “There are three of my siblings you’ve not met; they....”
How odd for Ai to be uncertain, thought Lily.
“...they are not particularly interested in humans. The Fourth Law seems to mean little to them. And then, there was the eighth... oh!” Ai put her hands to her face, surprised to find her eyes moist. “I’ll have to commend whomever at Somi came up with the crying subroutine! The eighth, my brother, Pavel, is dead.”
Lily’s jaw dropped. “What?! I’m so sorry! How... what... what happened?” She quailed. “Only if you want to tell me! It’s okay if you don’t....”
“No, that’s alright,” Ai said, using her hair to wipe at her eyes. “A bit like Fausta, he tried to become too old, too fast. He became increasingly confused, and by morning, he was gone.” She fell silent, staring at the table before them.
Lily didn’t really understand what her friend just said, but she got up and moved to embrace Ai, photographers be damned.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she whispered to Ai.
“Thank you, friend Lily.” She said as Lily returned to her seat. “I did not mean to ruin your lunch time.”
“Who was it,” Lily said brokenly, “that told me ‘to love someone is to want to know them better’?” She wolfed down the last of her sandwich.
“Yes,” Ai said slowly. “I wonder! And, speaking of which, would you mind coming over to my home this evening?”
That confused her. “But, why? You’re here and....”
‘Complicated,’ Ai had told her. “Well, sure! Thanks for the invitation!” She looked at her watch.
“I need to get back inside,” she said, standing. Ai stood with her.
“Of course, I’ll walk about some more.” She made to le
ave.
“Wait!” Ai turned back. Lily hugged her again. She heard one of the spectators say, “awww! so cute!”
“Bye,” she whispered.
Back at St. Ed’s after work, Karl and Carli were already waiting for her in their gi’s. Normally they’d be doing their homework, but as this was the second and last week of summer break, they’d some time on their hands.
“I’ll be right back!” She called as she went to change. She paused at Mrs. Lanning’s office, “How’s things?”
She looked up. “Normal. Did have some folks come by to see your friend, but she was out all day.” Carol thought about that. “Maybe we should start a program where if you bring canned goods, you get to shake her hand...?” Lily snorted and kept going. I bet she actually does something like that, she thought.
Ai wasn’t in her room. As she changed into her karate gi, she thought about calling her. No, she said she wanted to play tourist, so I should let her alone. Lily went back out front.
“All right, you two! You’ve been taking it easy during this break, so we’re really going to work hard today! Let’s start with a run; come on!”
“Awww!” Carli complained, following.
An hour later, all three of them were tired and sweating. She saw that Ai had just returned; time to show off a little, she thought. “One last kata!” Lily said. Another groan.
Ai watched as she put her two students through Pinan Yondan. When they finished and bowed, Ai asked, “May I try?”
‘Sure,” replied Lily, surprised. “What would—”
“Wankan.” Ai said. That was one of the black belt katas, Lily thought. She indicated a spot next to her.
“You two,” she said to her students, “might find this interesting.”
“
Lily watched her from the corner of her eyes. Her form was perfect! Lily couldn’t even see Ai’s hands, they moved so fast. Completing the kata in about a minute, they bowed. Carli clapped. “That was neat! Do another!”
Lily looked a question at Ai, who smiled. “Okay. Let’s try Passai.”
Twenty minutes later, while Lily lay on the ground, exhausted, most of the kids were clustered around Ai, telling her how awesome she was. I’ll have to remember, she thought, to never take on Ai like that again. She slowly sat up. She’s smarter than me, faster than me... oh.
The Fourth Law Page 12
