I Heart Robot (30 page)

He shrugs. “If she was infected then so are we.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Hardly, but I’m done. I gave my arm for the cause. Lex and Sal, they gave their lives.”

“Their
lives
?”

“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. We’re not achieving anything. I’m done trying to fight somebody else’s war.”

“Whose war?”

“This politician Engelberger, he’s got some pretty radical views. He’s been using the Solidarity to do his dirty work. The riots and attacks were all to bring down M-Tech because they jerked him around on some big investment.”

“Why?”

“Some merger agreement based on the prototype. Not sure of the details. But hey, with M-Tech out of the picture, the military has to find a new robotics contractor. It’s win-win for Engelberger Industries.”

“Engelberger Industries?”

“Yup, dude wants to create this mega conglomerate, a new Skandia under his control. Apparently he’s got fingers in pies across the Atlantic as well.”

“Why’d you ever get involved?” I rest my head against the wall and shuffle closer to Kit.

“Lex was very persuasive. Then they rescued me after the march. I was about to take a bullet to the core when these ex-soldierbots mowed down the humans and pulled me out in one piece. I owed them.”

“So that’s where you were?”

“Up north at some old farmstead turned covert base,” he says.

“And you were trying to recruit me?”

“Part of the process. Thought it was legit for a while, that it was really about rights for robots and a better life. Lex did too. He was a visionary. Seems so stupid now. Should’ve realized we were just being used.” Kit turns to look at me. “I’m sorry, Quinn.” There’s sincerity in his dark eyes, and sorrow.

“So what now? I mean, after this bombing, is Skandia in a state of civil war?”

“Not sure I even care. There are bound to be repercussions.” We both take a few minutes to think before Kit speaks again. “I’m sorry about Tyri. She probably didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

“Maybe she escaped.”

“Doubtful.” Kit says gently.

“Have to hope.”

“Don’t use up all your hydrogen holding out for the impossible.” Kit closes his eyes and rests his head on my shoulder. “Times like these I wish I could sleep and forget about everything.”

It’s times like these I’m grateful for my titanium-reinforced skeleton, for the Cruor in my veins, and the nanytes patching me up. Had I been human, I’d be dead in the alley. Maybe Tyri is lying in pieces crushed by rubble, or maybe Rurik somehow managed to find her. I have to know.

We zoom into Vinterberg, and the realization hits me as hard as a plummeting meteor. Mom’s dead. I’m going home to an empty house—no, not empty. It’s full of memories, memories of a mother I never really had. I’m not even an orphan. Being an orphan means I once had parents. I never had parents. I had a maker—is it really so different?

I’m not even seventeen yet. Who will take care of me? Where will I live? Will they schedule me for decommission? The questions ricochet in my mind, and my insides tangle into knots.

“T, you okay?” Rurik couldn’t have asked a more asinine question.

“Not even close.” I stare straight ahead. “What will happen to me now?”

“We could call my dad. He’ll know what to do.” Rurik keeps his eyes focused on the lights as we swerve through the suburb toward my house.

“No.” I’m emphatic. “I’ll call Asrid.”

Rurik nods and hands me his moby. I dial Asrid’s number but can’t bring myself to call. More explanations, more apologies. I can’t do it. Not now. If Asrid unfriends me because I’m an android, I’ll have lost everything.

“Tomorrow rather.” I hand the phone back, and our fingers brush light as feathers. “Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and this will have all been a bad dream.” Maybe Mom didn’t really die impaled in the stairwell. Maybe I’m not really a fake human.

We pull into the driveway and sit a minute, lost for words. I want Rurik to tell me everything will be okay. I need it, need his arms around me, and his lips kissing my hair. Do I? Or is that just some programmed response? Nothing I’m feeling is real, none of it ever was. My emotions are nothing more than clever code.

“Thanks for the lift.” I break the awkward silence and disembark. Glitch trots after me into the house. I wait for Rurik, but he starts reversing. With a deep, shuddering breath, I open the door and limp into the lounge. The house is dark except for the lamplight spilling through the windows. Miles isn’t here.

Alone but for Glitch, I collapse in the middle of the couch. My life has been reduced to splinters, no, to ones and zeros. That’s all I am—a sequence of ons and offs. My hand still throbs, the bones grinding together when I flex my fingers, and my thigh is tender. There’s no trace of my other injuries. I guess that’s one positive of being a bot.

A knock disturbs my pity-party. I stalk to the door half-expecting Adolf Hoeg to be standing on the porch ready to drag me back to a cell. Did Hoeg die? And if he did, was it from my kick to the head or from the blasts? Did I kill a man today? My stomach churns at the thought as I open the door.

Rurik stands on the porch, pale and disheveled.

“You came back.” I can’t believe it.

“I couldn’t leave you, not like this.” He drums his fingers on the door frame. “Listen, T, I … I don’t really know how to deal with this.” Rurik gestures to all of me. “To you being … ” He shakes his head. “But you’re still you. I mean … you’ve always been you. You haven’t changed.” He brushes ash-streaked hair from my face. “I’m not sure I understand any of this, but I’ve loved you since I can remember.” His voice catches, and he clears his throat.

“Rurik—”

“No, let me finish.” He drags his fingers through his hair before lifting his gaze. “I’ve always loved you, and I guess that means I’ve always loved android you.” His eyes smolder. “Are you sure you’re an android?”

“I think artificial human was the term they used.”

“Then I guess I still love you despite whatever it is you are.” He looks as nervous as he did on our first date.

“Why do you love me?”

He takes a moment, puts his hands in his pockets, pulls them out, and folds his arms instead.

“I guess it’s because you’re so definitively you, and not like anyone else.” Rurik frowns in concentration. “You’re the girl who sticks sheet music to her ceiling, who can talk for hours about a violin piece written by some guy who died four centuries ago, and can look good wearing ten different shades of black at the same time. You’re passionate and infuriating and brave and—”

I don’t let him finish. I kiss him, pressing my blood caked, mostly naked body against his and inhale his cinnamon scent. Automated response or not, this feels good. He eases away from me without kissing me back.

“You’re filthy.” He gestures to my pajamas. “Is that blood?”

“Mine. It’s synthetic.” I don’t want to think about how much might be Mom’s.

“Do you want to come in?”

He nods and steps across the threshold.

Despite the cold and my shredded clothes, I feel warmer now that Rurik’s here. It’s not as if I can forget for even a moment that Mom’s gone, that Quinn probably is too, but the loneliness isn’t quite as suffocating with Rik beside me.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow.” My voice is a tremolo.

“Whatever happens, I’ll be here for you, T.” He meets my gaze. “No matter what.”

The first snow of the season tumbles out of an iron sky as I wend my way through Vinterberg to Tyri’s house. The chance of Tyri having survived, of being at home as if nothing happened, is next to zero. Various scenarios play out in my head. Almost all of them end with Tyri being turned into scrap metal.

Skandia doesn’t appear to be at war. There are no tanks rolling down the streets or soldiers on the march. The borough is quiet. Maybe this is the hush before the storm, before the country dissolves into chaos.

Asrid’s pink bug crouches in Tyri’s driveway next to the same dark green model I saw outside M-Tech. Trampling through snow-crusted bushes, I peek through the living room window. Asrid and Rurik sit on the couch. Glitch is on the opposite sofa cozying up to Tyri. My circuits zing. Tyri survived. She looks up and stares past Asrid, directly at me.

I stagger back and have less than thirty seconds to decide what I’m going to do before Tyri flings open the door.

“You’re alive.” She rushes into my arms, crushing me in an embrace. Panic at the risk of infection fades as I wrap my arms around her. We stand holding each other for several long moments.

“You got out,” I whisper.

“Thanks to you.” She peels away from me. “What happened? I tried to find you, but there were too many cops and the building had collapsed.”

“Kit found me. I’m fine, promise.”

Asrid and Rurik stand at the front door watching us in silence, their expressions too complicated for my overwrought brain to interpret.

“How’s your mom?” I ask.

Tyri’s lip quivers, and she takes a deep breath before answering. “My mom’s dead.”

“Tyri, I … ” I’m sorry? What a useless platitude. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

“I’ll be all right.” She bites her trembling lip and squares her shoulders with quiet stoicism.

I can’t stop staring as her shoulders lift and lower as if she has inflatable lungs. Without thinking, I press my hand to her chest. Her heart flutters beneath my fingers. She has a heart beat.

“Incredible.” I meet her gaze. In that moment, I love Tyri more than I’ve ever loved anything, more than music, more than violin. She takes my hand, removing it from her chest.

“Mom told me something before she died.” She squeezes my fingers. “I’m not a weapon. The virus, it’s dead code. It does nothing.”

It takes a moment for the information to register. Her fingers are so soft, each marked with the whorls of prints I lack, her identity etched into her flesh ten times over.

“You’re certain?”

“Mom wouldn’t have lied about that.”

“That’s … great.” Words fail but I smile, my whole system drenched in relief. I send a message marked urgent to Kit before the Solidarity starts making plans to eliminate the three of us.

Asrid clears her throat and stamps her feet. “Think we could move this inside? You might not be human, but we are and we’re freezing.”

Tyri nods and blinks snow from her eyelashes. I follow her inside and shrug out of my coat. The girls drift into the lounge leaving me alone with Rurik at the door.

I lean back as his fist glances off my jaw. It feels like a love tap compared to the blows I received by the Z-bots. Rurik lets loose a string of expletives as he clutches his bruised knuckles. He’s lucky I had time to react or he’d be nursing a shattered hand.

“Rurik, what are you doing?” Tyri stands open-mouthed behind him. He glares at me with a look full of hate and maybe … envy? My interpersonal skills mod must be malfunctioning.

“You should put HealGel on that.” I gesture to his hand.

“Screw you, tin—”

“Rik, please.” Tyri glowers as Rurik continues his death stare.

“We haven’t been formerly introduced.” He flexes his bruised fingers. “I’m Rurik Engelberger.”

Engelberger. The name sets off blaring alarms inside my skull. I wonder if Tyri knows Rurik’s family was behind all of this.

“I’m Quinn.” I offer him a handshake.

“Don’t I know it.” He sneers.

“I’ll get the HealGel.” Tyri disappears into the house.

“I guess I should thank you for doing what you did for Tyri.” Rurik almost chokes on his words.

“My pleasure.”

“I thought you were dead,” he says.

“So did I.”

He gives me a strange look and lowers his voice. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you should know that I still love her despite what she is.”

“Despite?” Now I want to plant
my
fist in his face. “I love her for
who
she is.”

“Can you even love at all?”

“Can you?”

“Would you two drop the macho act and get inside already. You’re letting in the cold.” Asrid shouts from the lounge.

Rurik glares an entire arsenal at me before stomping inside. He sits beside Tyri as she folds a pack of HealGel around his hand. I settle on the floor with Glitch in my lap.

“We were discussing funeral arrangements,” Asrid says.

“How are things going?” I ask. Rurik keeps his gaze on me, the hatred rolling off him in sizzling waves.

“I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real.” Tyri shakes her head. “What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to live with me,” Asrid says. “Dad’s already contacted our lawyer. Shouldn’t be a problem for us to assume guardianship.”

“But Tyri’s an android.” My statement meets with stony silence.

“Artificial human,” Asrid says.

“Still essentially an android.”

“So? I didn’t tell my dad. Besides, does it really matter?” Asrid fidgets with the threads on her pink leg warmers.

“It will.”

“Why?” Tyri frowns.

“Because you’re the property of M-Tech.” I hate how that sounds.

“I’m no one’s property,” Tyri says with vehemence.

“M-Tech was obliterated.” Rurik loops an arm around Tyri. She shrugs away from him, and my circuits sizzle with a joy I don’t fully understand.

“Robots are commodities.” At least for now. “Asrid might have to assume
ownership
, if they even allow their prototype to … ”

“To what?” Rurik leans forward.

I look down and bite my lip.

“What aren’t you telling us Quinn?” Tyri wrings her hands.

“You’re a prototype developed for a very specific purpose by powerful people.” I glance at Rurik. “Suffice it to say, they might not be willing to let you go so easily. What happened to M-Tech could be construed as an act of terrorism, if not an act of war. There are going to be serious repercussions.”

“This is horrible,” Asrid says. “Ownership? Seriously?”

“That’s reality.” I think carefully about my next words, chewing on the inside of my cheek before speaking. “We are not autonomous. Robots are either owned or go rogue.”