by Snow, Sheena
“And I wish, more than ever, I could give them to you. I wish I knew what was going on.” He gave a dramatic pause and his black hair fell over his forehead. “But I don’t.”
“That hardly seems to answer anything.” Dad slapped his fist into his palm.
Robotatouille’s jaw ticked.
Green Eyes shrugged. “It’s all I can give you.”
I don’t believe it for one second.
“Well, then.” Dad’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your plan? Where are you going to take her?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that either. I know,” he said. “I just don’t want anyone to find out. She’ll be in the best hands possible. We won’t rest until Vienna’s safe.”
“Why do you even care so much?” I blurted out. “I mean, I don’t even know what I’ve done, nor do I know why you even want to help me or save me from a robot crashing through my window and now that we’re asking for answers you’re all hush-hush but you have no problem carting me away to god-knows-where for god-knows-what-reason and I’m just supposed to go along with it? To stand here and blindly follow you.”
“Vienna!” Mom’s voice was sharp. “You of all people should be grateful.”
How. Dare. Mom! “I hardly think you can even under—”
“No.” Mom cut me off. “I won’t let you—”
“Won’t let me?” I retorted. “You’re hardly in a position—”
“Enough.” Green Eyes’ command rang through the room, slicing our words in half.
I gaped at him, mouth wide open.
“Excuse me?” Mom whispered.
“She’s coming with me.” His words hung in the air over all of us, filling up the room.
I crossed my arms. I’d rather be going with Robotatouille, thank you very much.
“You wouldn’t last two hours before they found you.” He stepped closer, and my heart thumped around in my chest. His scent wafted over me, like warm pinecones. “And all our hard work,” he continued. “All our time spent protecting you, would have been for nothing.”
My eyes caught on the white scar on his neck, following it until it disappeared under the collar of his shirt.
When I met his gaze again, his eyes narrowed, and I flushed.
He turned to my parents. “Are there any further questions?” Even though the tone in his voice said he wouldn’t be providing any further answers.
My eye twitched. He’d just dismissed us? Why that little, stupid, arrogant, son of—
“I have a question.” I raised my hand and stepped in front of him like a silly schoolgirl trying to usurp the teacher.
A smile touched the side of his mouth. “Did you have a question?”
A . . . a question? “Of course,” I said.
And I said the first thing that popped into my head.
“Um, your name?”
If tomatoes could turn any redder than their natural ripe color, I knew I was that color. Great question to put my foot down on. Way to go, Vienna.
His smile vanished, leaving his face with deep lines. “My name?” His voice dropped two decibels.
I bit my lip. Had I overstepped?
“I’m classified as HB-11-01.”
Oh.
He didn’t have a name. Way to go, Vienna. My shoulders sagged.
Dad shook his head, obviously not caring if he had a name or not. “How often will we be able to contact Vienna?”
“I’m sorry.” Green Eyes’ voice was deep and sullen. “But you won’t be able to contact Vienna. At all.”
I stilled.
Dad’s face whitened. “What . . .? What do you mean? How long before she’s safe? How long until we can contact her? Until she can come home?”
“We are working on it.” Green Eyes sighed. “And I promise, when this is all over, we will return her home.”
“I just . . . I just want you to understand.” Dad choked. “She’s my only child. The reason I work so hard is for her and her mother. Without them . . .” Dad’s voice broke, and he slumped onto the couch, his head buried in his hands.
“I understand,” Green Eyes whispered.
Oh, Dad. My heart squeezed.
“Is everyone ready?” Green Eyes asked, and my body froze.
I was leaving.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Green Eyes said. He scooped up my blue suitcase, and without missing a stride, signaled for Robotatouille to follow him out the door.
The three of us stared at the floor, not knowing how to interact with one another.
I played with my fingers.
“Dad, I—”
His head came up, revealing watery eyes and a pale face. The gray in his eyes was set off against the red lines, making them even more vibrant. I took a mental picture.
“Oh, Vienna,” Mom said, her eyes soft and blurry.
I wished those tears were because I was leaving. I wished those tears were for me. But I knew they weren’t. They were for the situation. Not me. What would Mom’s friends think about her after this?
“It’s going to be all right.” Dad clasped his hands in mine. “You’ll see. We’ll be together again.”
My hands shook in his. Dad’s arms came around me, holding me tight. I swallowed the knot forming in my throat. This was the second time today Dad hugged me.
I buried my face in his shirt.
“Vienna.” Mom slipped her clammy arms around me and I jerked, not expecting the touch.
“Vienna.” Mom bit her lip. “You know that—”
“Mom, it’s okay.” I didn’t want to hear her excuses. This might be our last hug, and I wanted to remember it being as positive as possible.
“Your mom means to say that we love you and we only want the best for you,” Dad said.
Sure Mom did.
I nodded and pushed out of Mom’s embrace.
Dad’s fingers tightened into my shoulders. “We’ll get you back. I promise.”
Mom walked over to the window and scrunched the drapes in her fists. “Whoever is stalking you will pay. And believe me they will pay dearly.”
Mom didn’t need to make a scene for me.
“This isn’t goodbye,” Dad whispered, “this is only until we meet next time.”
“Of course,” I said.
“We’ll miss you,” Mom said.
I pressed my lips together. It was difficult to hear the things Mom was saying. It was almost making me think she cared.
I shook my head. Mom was probably glad to be getting rid of the child with the missing gene.
Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulders and we walked out into the frigid air. Sprinkles of snowflakes danced in the air and melted at our feet.
Robotatouille gestured to the black Dodge Charger sitting in our driveway with the engine running.
“Are you ready?” Robotatouille walked to the car door.
Dad’s arms drifted away from my shoulders as I headed toward the car. Robotatouille opened the door for me, and I saw my suitcase, pillow, blankets, and cans of food in the backseat.
“Safe journey.” Robotatouille nodded and then shut the door, locking me in.
I stared at Mom and Dad through the dark, tinted windows. Would I ever see them again?
They seemed to swim away from me as we pulled out of the driveway. As if suddenly realizing, Mom stumbled forward and said something, her lips moving.
I frowned.
What are you saying?
Mom placed her hands over her heart and mouthed it again. I squinted, trying to figure it out but her lips moved in strange ways.
What looked like tears were rolling down her face. Dad held her as we started down the street. I watched until gradually they becam
e smaller and smaller, until we turned the corner and I couldn’t see them at all.
And then it hit me. Like a rush of wind before a storm.
I knew what Mom had been trying to tell me. The way her lips moved, the way she placed her hands over her heart, the way tears rolled down her face, it was so obvious. How could I have missed it?
I played back the scene in my head. Mom’s lips moved in slow motion. The audio of her voice filled my ears. And I heard the words.
I love you.
Chapter 13
Bile rose in my throat.
How could Mom do this to me? How could Mom spring this on me at the last moment? Did she expect me to believe it? Had it been only for Dad to see?
I swallowed.
Or had it been real? Had Mom really meant it?
I bit my lip. Did Mom . . . Did Mom love me? The child she never wanted, the child she couldn’t share her deepest love with?
I pushed the thought away. I couldn’t deal with this now. And how could she? How could she do that to me? You don’t mouth something like that to your daughter for the first time, as she’s leaving, twenty feet away, in a car. You don’t mouth it, period. You tell her, out loud, to her face. You hold her. You love her. You hug her. And then you tell her you love her.
You let her know she’s loved. That she’s cherished.
You—
My head fell into my hands and I choked back a sob.
How could she?
“You all right?” A voice broke through my thoughts, followed by the scent of pinecones. I cringed. Of all people, I had to be in the car with Green Eyes, the commander. Oh no, sorry, HB-10-11-12 . . . or whatever his name was.
I ground my teeth together. “I’m fine.”
“She meant it,” he said.
“Meant what?” I crossed my arms. Just leave me alone.
“What she said.” His hand traced the steering wheel. “She loves you.”
I snorted. Right. “And how would you know that?”
The hum of the car filled the air between us.
“Some things.” He paused. “You just know.”
I closed my eyes and my heart throbbed in my chest, like someone was squeezing it between their fingers.
And some things you just don’t.
Mom was gone.
The things she’d said, or hadn’t said, gone.
I inhaled, allowing Green Eyes’ scent to drift through me and ease my tense muscles.
I watched the trees pass by out the window. One after another after another.
“You’re not alone.”
“What do you mean?” I tapped my foot on the floor of the car, trying to remove the different images and memories of Mom from my mind.
“You have us.”
“Us?” I repeated. I turned to face him. “Who’s us?”
The moon silhouetted his perfect nose and full lips. Shadows from the streetlights danced across his features, showing flickers of green when the lights passed over his eyes. A strand of hair curled above his forehead. And for some stupid reason, my fingers itched to run through his hair and to smooth the ruffled strand back in place.
I slumped back into the seat. I took another peek at him from the corner of my eye and saw his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
A robot. I had just been gazing at a robot!
I rubbed my head.
“We’re not that bad,” he said. “I promise.”
I closed my eyes. Great.
“It’s not that, it’s just you and your crew . . . you lied to me, to us, to my family. You never let us know the truth about”— my voice caught—“Robotatouille.”
And all that you really are.
He nodded. “But maybe, in time, you’ll see that we aren’t what you think.”
What did that even mean?
“How many are like your kind, er, like you?” I stared at the floor, hoping he didn’t catch that slip.
This was all so confusing.
Were they more like humans or robots? And I should be mad at them or sad for them or angry for them? Or anything?
I rubbed my forehead again.
I was being brought into a whole new world, or more like feeling lost in an uncovered world.
He played with the radio knobs. “Some are. I can only tell from what I’ve experienced.” An oldies song came on the radio. “But this can’t leave your lips. Not ever. No one, and I mean no one, can know. I have no idea what would happen if this information was leaked.” His jaw tightened. “And the public, they aren’t . . . they aren’t ready for it.”
“And whose decision is that to make?” My fingers tapped on the seat. “Saying what we are or aren’t ready for? Maybe people deserve to know what they’re living with.”
“Be honest,” he said. “When you figured it out about Robotatouille, did you panic? Did you go into shock?”
I crossed my arms. “I think that’s what normally happens when you uncover a secret.”
“Fair enough.” He tapped the wheel. “Fair enough.”
“How can you sit here and think it’s fair that robots are so much more than what we’ve been led to believe. That you’re practically”—I gestured to all of him—“human?”
“You’re right. It’s not.”
I dropped back against the seat, wishing I hadn’t won, wishing I could take all of my feelings out on him, and wishing everything in the world would just be right again and that I wasn’t stuck with this huge lie—this huge burden—to carry around.
“I want to blame you,” I whispered in my palms. “I want to say that this is all your fault.”
“It’s no one’s fault. You are who you are.” His voice lowered. “No matter what you are.”
I buried my face into my palms even further. His melancholy words. His melancholy voice. So human.
“Vienna, you need to know the truth about us. The whole truth.”
I gave a hysterical laugh. “There-There’s more? How much more could there possibly be?”
“All half-human robots have emotions, but more importantly we have free will. We’re sovereign over our own mind and body. And the robot that attacked you.” He took a breath. “Was like us. From what I can tell, all of the robots that work for the government, are like us.”
My giggles turned into hiccups. “So you don’t even know how many half-human robots of you there are?”
“No. Not really.”
I started rocking in the seat. “This is the weirdest crap I have ever heard. I knew something was off. But holy cow. This is insane.” My boot tapped against the floor. “This-This is worse than them even creating an army because you can choose, you can make choices.”
Horrific. That’s what this was. Absolutely horrific. There could be hundreds, thousands of these half-human robots infiltrating society, running around as humans with the super talents, with their own will, their own mind—and who knows what else.
“How do they keep you in line? They have to have some type of power over you,” I said.
“They do. GPS.” He pulled back the flap of his ear and a bright fresh scar showed on his hairline.
“Don’t they know where you are then?”
And that you’re with me?
I tugged at the door handle. It was locked. My heart pummeled against my chest just as my body wanted to pummel against the car door and out of this car.
Breathe. Breathe.
“The hardest part is knowing where they put the GPS,” he said. “Once you know, it’s easy to remove.”
“So you removed yours?” I asked, on the edge of my seat, practically glued to the door.
“I removed everyone’s in my unit.”
Oh, thank goodne
ss.
I leaned back. I didn’t know if I should be laughing or crying or sobbing hysterically.
“Th-This.” I rubbed my eyes. “It’s just so much to wrap my head around.”
The news would have a field day with this story. “Who-Who’s the person or robot you report to? Who tells you what to do?” My voice caught on the last word.
“The government.”
“The R.I.A.?” I whispered, turning to face him. The streetlights danced across his eyes, making them wild, alive, making the green turn and shift color . . . like . . . like a human’s eyes would.
But he’s not.
“I believe the R.I.A. is behind everything,” he said.
“Do they know you’re helping me?” I asked, turning away from him.
“Why do you think I took our GPS out?”
Right.
I shut my eyes. “But the one that attacked me.” I pressed my lips together. “He still had his GPS in him?”
“My unit flushed it down the toilet before they started dismembering him.”
My stomach heaved, and my throat closed.
Oh, please stop, please stop.
The memories swam back.
Robotatouille. Choking. Robotatouille flopping around on the floor. The splatter of his boots as they floundered in the soaked carpet. The robot above him smirking, watching. Robotatouille thrashing under him. Robotatouille’s hands prying the elbow away from his throat—
“Vienna!”
I gasped, ice trickling down through my arms.
“Vienna?” the voice said in my ear.
I buried my head into his shoulder and choked on gasps of air.
“It’s okay,” he said and smoothed my hair along my back. My fingers tightened around the fabric of his shirt. “I’m right here. I’ve got you. We’re safe. Nothing’s going to get you.”
