He nodded. “There were.”
She tried to grin. “Hey, shouldn’t I be in a hospital?”
“Definitely not. Hospitals are some of the most dangerous places for contamination. I was afraid you might have an immune reaction that could affect your transplant. We’ve turned your bedroom into a clean room. You have a full medical staff, and I take daily blood tests to be sure that I wasn’t contaminated in the time I was exposed.”
“Huh.” Her brain took a minute to catch up. “Did you say transplant?”
“Even though I was exposed for longer, your body suffered extensive damage from the anemic hypoxia caused by the carbon monoxide exposure. The medical automatons calculated that the cause was likely your running—and the fight.” He closed his eyes. “Rose 76GF or Rosette 82GF choked you while your blood was already deprived of oxygen—that wasn’t especially helpful, either.”
She met his gaze. “You know about Rose and Rosette?”
“I’ve had accounts of what happened from multiple sources: your father and brother, Shelly, and Rosebud.” He smiled, his thumb again brushing against her temple. “When you can tell me, I’d like to hear the story from you.”
She nodded before swallowing heavily. “So, what part of me did they replace?” Though she had hoped to make the question sound flippant, it didn’t.
His piercing gaze again met hers, and she knew she wasn’t going to like what was coming. “Your heart failed.”
“My heart?”
“They printed you a new one—a synthetic heart. It’s functioning normally, but you also have a bio-battery to cover the very small chance that it will also fail.”
“So I guess I am kind of like a robot after all.” A lone tear tickled her cheek as it slowly trickled down.
Lorccan reached out and wiped the tear away. “You’re going to recover, and then you’ll be able to do all the things you love to do.”
“If you say so.” She sniffed. Her energy was already spent, so her eyelids forced their way closed. Sleep pulled her under for short spurts, letting her glance up to check that Lorccan was still there before pulling her under again.
He slept beside her with his suit on, rumpled and dead asleep, head on her pillow.
Needing to be closer, needing to know that he was real, she pulled taut her tubes and folded herself flush against him. As she slipped her fingers under his jacket, she inhaled his clean, disinfectant scent—now her favorite scent. She ran her nose up the skin of his neck, feeling the beginnings of bristles forming there.
His hand came up, slowly caressing her arm. “You’re going to pull out your IV.”
“It’s your fault for lying so far away,” she murmured into his neck.
Grabbing her by the waist, Lorccan lifted Alainn slightly and scooted their bodies across the bed closer to where her tubes led.
“How’d you know about my mountain?” she asked when he settled them deeper into the bed.
“Your friends in the ski patrol filmed this. They said that it was the last snow of the year. You’ll see them later, right there—” He pointed across the room. “Do you want to see it now?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Let’s prop you up a little.”
He moved a couple of pillows to help her sit up, which was way tougher than she remembered it being.
When she managed to almost stay up, Lorccan looked up and called, “Rosebud, can you fast-forward to that part of the recording?”
The bleached sun that had been climbing the cloudy sky quickly rose, moving overhead and behind them. As the room darkened to evening, a group of skiers, all in the familiar red coats of the ski patrol, came off the ski lift in pairs and made their way over to where the camera must have been mounted for an entire day.
Alainn laughed as the whole crew—forty-eight patrollers, three snow dogs, and Riley the automaton dog—formed in a half circle around the camera.
“Can you turn on the sound?” Lorccan asked.
All the patrollers started whistling and cheering. “We love you, Alainn!” several of them called.
“Get better soon!” Greg hollered through cupped hands.
“Real or fake, we know you’re nothing but heart!” Terry called with a big grin before Sandy smacked him, shaking her head.
Alainn laughed.
“Greg says you’ll have a job waiting for you next season, if you’re cleared to work by a doctor,” Lorccan set his arm around her, but above the pillow.
She shifted forward. “You think I will be?”
He paused, seeming to think about it. “Yes, if you want to. But will you stay here with me for now, while you recover? I want to help you. A couple of months . . .” He trailed off when Alainn touched his lips.
“I just got you back. I don’t even want to think about leaving again.”
His eyes closed. “Thank you.”
In the recording, Greg skied forward, reaching toward the camera, his figure growing big, hand disappearing. His figure blinked into a new location, though he was still reaching. All of the other patrollers had vanished as the light brightened. A pale sun rose over Alainn’s mountains. Greg stepped back, waved. “Hey there, crazy.” He pointed at the camera. “Don’t you ever almost die on me again; only so many times your best friend can handle it.” He pointed to his heart. “I’ll be coming up here every day at least once, even when the snow melts, praying to the universe that you get better. So give me a call right away when you’re better so I can stop, right?” And, he skied away, a single red figure on a white expanse.
“I’ll call and update him,” Lorccan said.
“Thanks,” she whispered. After a minute, she curled into Lorccan, her hand going under his suit jacket to wrap around his side. “This is my favorite place in the world.”
As she said the words, she intended to mean the mountain, but after the words slipped from her lips, she realized she meant exactly where she was.
As if maybe he knew, Lorccan said, “Mine, too.”
42
May 10, 2027
Colby Murphy gazed down at Lorccan Garbhan’s scarred face from the magazine cover laid out next to his laptop. Thick black script blocked the unscarred half of his face.
The headline read: “Billionaire Commissions Murderous Robot Wife.”
That, unfortunately, did not count as libel. It was yet another sensational magazine cover depicting Lorccan Garbhan as some sort of lecher.
Unfortunately, his sister would want to know about it.
As if the thought produced her, Alainn appeared on his laptop screen. She sat at a frilly looking desk beside a flowering houseplant. One of her hands lazily scooped dirt from the planter and let it fall. Her surroundings appeared exactly as they always did during their nightly video calls—Alainn alone, surrounded by tall, evening-dark windows. After four weeks of recovery, she still had not gained all of her weight back.
Colby’s heart had broken three specific times in his life—two of those times had been when he thought he lost his younger sister. When the medical automaton told Colby that Alainn’s heart had failed, he made a desperate plan to sell his father’s private AI files to the fastest bidder.
After the mess his family was in because of the whole thing, he was glad he hadn’t needed to.
He pushed his glasses up and looked back to the magazine cover.
“Uh-oh,” Alainn said.
Colby squinted and leaned into the laptop. “What? Is there something the matter?”
She had poor color, though it was hard to tell over his older-model laptop. He definitely needed an upgrade, but this was by far his most secure machine.
“No, I’m fine. Well . . . you know.” Alainn cracked a grin, though it didn’t have much energy or vivacity. “But you were obviously waiting for me to call. Whenever I do, you look like you want to hang up before even saying hello.” Leaning her head on her hand, she raised her eyebrows. “So what’s the damage?”
Colby held up the magazine so she coul
d see it.
To his amazement, Alainn laughed. Her hands came up to cover her mouth, eyes widening. Lowering her hands, she said, “Oh, my god. That’s not funny! I shouldn’t have laughed.”
“Well, I guess if anyone is allowed to laugh, it’s you and Mr. Garbhan—Lor, I mean. It just worries me that public opinion is so ready to vilify him.” Colby peered down at the picture. “I suppose it doesn’t help that he looks the part.”
Alainn’s voice changed from rueful to genuinely upset. “Shut up, Colby. He doesn’t look like a villain. That’s screwed up.”
Colby looked over at the computers that lined the side of his father’s workshop. In his mind, he’d attempted to isolate the insult in his comment. The man had a disfigurement that had for the last century been a distinct indicator of villainous characters.
He knew that Mr. Garbhan wasn’t iniquitous, and that should be obvious to her since Colby trusted him with her health and safety.
“It’s fine, Colby.” Alainn sighed, the harsh edge draining from her voice. “I just don’t like hearing that, but I know you don’t mean it that way. So, do you have any updates about Dad?”
“Unfortunately.” Colby straightened his posture in his chair, feeling a long pain stretch from his back to his neck, probably from sitting in one place for most of the day. “It looks like TechniHealth plans to take Father to court.”
Alainn closed her eyes. It seemed as though his words were weights being tied to her. “See? Lorccan refuses to tell me this stuff.”
“Because of the effects on your health?” Colby asked, considering.
“Trust me, worrying about it and not knowing what’s happening is going to affect my health worse.” Her hand balled into a fist around a clump of dirt and then opened to let small bits fall. “They really won’t let Lorccan buy out Rose’s patent purchase price? Maybe we could offer more. I know Lorccan would do it. If that serum gets out . . .” Her hand clenched into a fist again.
Colby shook his head. “Legally, Dad owns the patent. Since the patent wasn’t Rose’s to sell at the time she sold it and Mr. Garbhan was willing to repay them, the judge didn’t approve the hearing.”
Her brow furrowed. “So it’s not going to court?”
“It is. They’re taking him to trial—and are willing to take it to the Supreme Court.”
If possible, Alainn seemed to grow more pale. “You’re not serious?”
“It was announced today. It’s in national headlines. They plan to have a case determining whether or not Rose 76GF should be treated as a human with human autonomy. The argument is that she should have rights over those things she created of her own volition. I’m sure it doesn’t help that she looks and acts so much like a human.”
“If Rose were treated as a human, she’d be in prison instead of some high-security research facility.”
“It’s likely she will be sentenced to prison if the court rules in their favor.” He looked away. “Though I doubt that any facility could truly hold her now that she has a secondary, glucose-based bio-battery system.”
Alainn gesticulated wildly. “What about a virus that does irreparable brain damage do these psychos not understand? It’s a robotic lobotomy.”
“They call it a miracle cure. They’ve done test studies. People with serious mental disorders have had sudden turnarounds—”
“Isn’t it contagious?” Alainn’s hands covered her forehead, smearing dirt there.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. On his screen, a recorded video loop of Shelly’s tentative smile played. He muttered, “They . . . uh, think they can suppress that. Alainn, let’s talk about this tomorrow?”
“Who’s calling you?”
“The . . . university.”
Alainn glared at him, though she seemed to sag a little from the effort. “Really, Colby? What’s more important than talking about this?”
“Isn’t Mr. Garbhan going to show up any second now?” Shelly always called Colby a minute after she and Mr. Garbhan finished with their nightly calls.
Alainn blinked heavily; her eyes looked like they wanted to stay closed. “What time is it?” She peered over her shoulder, obviously hearing something. “Oh, you’re right. He’s on his way.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow at seven. I like that we now can keep a standing appointment for once. Goodnight.” He began to turn away when Alainn leaned in toward the screen.
“Colby, if this gets bad, I think maybe we’re going to have to figure this one out, just you and me—and maybe some of your old friends.” She regarded him levelly until something grabbed her attention on the other side of the room.
Colby leaned back in his chair. His immediate reaction was to say yes, this was a cause worth risking his freedom and, perhaps, even his future career in academia for—but he hesitated. Hospital beds and the blurry image of medical automatons sped through his mind.
Alainn looked back at him, brown eyes alight with excitement. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” he asked as he rubbed the sore ridge of his nose under his glasses.
A spark of her old self shone in his sister’s too-thin face. “Rosebud says she already has a plan, and it involves both of us.”
43
July 3, 2027
A streetlight guttered as they passed. Its low light shone an ellipse onto a building’s clean white facade.
“What city are we in?” Alainn asked as she laid her head against Lorccan’s arm.
Lorccan entwined his hand with hers, fingers threading through fingers.
Buildings rose high above them on both sides as a compact car streamed past, headlights skipping over a cobblestone road. The gabled facades contrasted from their neighbors only in slight variations of earth tones—reds, tans, and sandy white. Lights blinked down from scattered windows as the small lines of sky darkened to dusk.
Lorccan pointed to a dark, sharp shadow piercing the sky in the distance—a church steeple. “Berlin.”
“Oh, nice.”
He smirked down.
Alainn bumped her shoulder into his arm. “What? I like it. It’s really nice. I’ve never been to Berlin.”
He just gave her an amused look like she wasn’t fooling him.
Looking away, he asked, “Rosebud, could you?”
The Berlin street disappeared and in its place shifting schools of colorful fish circled. Alainn and Lorccan stood in a cathedral of living walls. Purple, white, and orange sea anemones waved from every color of coral.
Alainn laughed as she craned her neck to track a shark passing above. The surface of the water twinkled with light thirty feet overhead. They walked down a sandy bar surrounded on all sides with darting fish and eels.
“A sea cave!” She hopped a little as she pointed to a small archway in the coral.
“Careful,” Lorccan said as his hand released hers to go around her back, like she might fall off the slowly moving sidewalk they were on.
If she did fall off, absolutely nothing would happen, but Lorccan held onto her like they stood at a cliff’s edge.
She smiled up into his worried face. “Is this a recording, or is it happening right now?”
“A recording.” He grinned back. “I had to get special permission for this one.”
“Oh, okay.” A sudden wave of exhaustion doused Alainn’s enthusiasm and she leaned into his arm. The sidewalk under them halted its slow slide.
“Alainn, we should cancel tomorrow. You can give your testimony via video interview,” Lorccan said as he pulled her in toward him. He supported the majority of her weight, hands going around her waist.
“Lorccan, I’m fine.” She laughed as she snuggled in close to his chest, his shirt muffling her voice.
“Obviously you’re not, if you can’t finish your exercise routine. We’ve only walked a half mile, and you haven’t done any of your arm exercises. It’s already five-thirty and we need to be eating by six to keep to your regular schedule.”
She rol
led her eyes, but knew Lorccan couldn’t see her do it. “I think that one day slightly off schedule will be fine.”
“Alainn, you are always slightly off schedule.”
“Hmm. We could partake in a different form of exercise.” Looking up into his worried face, she gave him an exaggerated wink.
“The health consequences of being completely off your routine tomorrow could be serious. I just don’t see the point. There are serious risks with the many toxins and viruses you’ll be exposed to.”
“Yep.” She pointed her toes into the ground, making him sway back and forth.
“I don’t like this,” he said for about the millionth time.
“I know.” She kissed his neck since it was right there to kiss. “You could always come with me?”
Leaning back, she peered up into his face. She already knew the answer.
But you never know. Maybe the world would flip upside down in a moment—it had before.
“I can’t.” He closed his eyes. “You’ll be back before dinner?”
She reached up and touched both sides of his face. “And Colby will be with me every minute.”
“Colby isn’t a doctor, nor is he a particularly clean or healthy person,” he said, making her laugh a little. Lorccan’s hands moved to lift her so she could wrap her legs around his waist.
They fit perfectly together. She molded to him.
The scarred side of his face rested against hers, before he switched cheeks. “A man from one of my companies told me that there are treatments I could do for my scars that don’t require me leaving home.”
She leaned back to look at his full face, the face of the man she was absolutely in love with.
Gently, she kissed him on the lips before saying, “If you want to. But then we won’t match anymore.” She trailed her hand over the top of the scar on her chest, where a thin red line peeked out of her shirt. It was a scar Alainn had no plans to rid herself of, ever.
He raised his chin, meeting her lips as he slowly turned in place. Colorful fish streamed around them on all sides as they spun.
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