I Heart Robot (32 page)

“You look too much like you.”

“Asrid’s on her way to fix that.”

Glitch woofs and lopes toward the door as if on cue. The buzzer rings and Quinn answers.

“Don’t you look appropriately dour? Those eyes! You just dose up on H?” Asrid bustles into the lounge with Sara trailing behind.

“Last night.” Quinn surrenders to her ministrations.

“Oh, Tyri.” Sara puts her arm around me, giving me an awkward hug thanks to the violin on my back. There’s a flutter of hurt in my chest. I swallow hard and sink back into the numbness as Sara ends the hug to help Asrid. For once, the rainbow couple isn’t garbed in neon. I kind of wish they were. Seeing them in black only drives home the reality of how much has changed.

For the next fifteen minutes, I watch as Asrid takes scissors to Quinn’s hair, lopping off blond waves and straightening the remaining strands. Sara whips out her make-up kit and works on Quinn’s face as Asrid combs instant color through Quinn’s hair.

“Almost done.” Sara pulls out a plastic container holding colored contacts. Quinn endures in silence as Asrid shoves blue lenses into his eyes. He blinks and turns to me.

“How do I look?

The auburn streaks make it look as if autumn bled through his hair. His eyes are just as bright, only they burn blister blue instead of silver. Sara did a great job too, darkening the skin around his eyes to give him that black-eyed tired look an android would never have.

“You look amazing. Different.”

“Different enough?” he asks.

“I hope so.”

He gives me a wry smile before disappearing into the kitchen, only to emerge moments later with an enormous bouquet of lilies, pale pink with white edges. Mom’s favorite.

“When did you get these?”

“This morning.”

“They’re beautiful.” They smell like spring and sunshine.

“T.” Asrid pulls me into a hug. “I’m not going to ask if you’re okay because that’s an idiotic question. I hope you know we all feel for you. We know how terrible this day is and we all love you, okay?”

“No comment about my outfit then?”

Asrid shakes her head. “You look great.”

“I think I’m ready.” I square my shoulders and take a deep breath. I can do this. Maybe it’s because Quinn takes my hand, or because Sara offers me kind smiles as if she doesn’t even notice I’m not human, or maybe it’s because of the huge black and red sticker across the nose of Asrid’s bug.

“It’s not pink.” I drag my hand across the sticker.

“They only had them in one color.” She sighs.

“Sassa, why?” My hand rests on the garish red heart punctuating the sentence.

“Because, I mean it.”

I
♥
Robot. The numbness inside me cracks a little. Instead of a trickle of pain, there’s a trickle of something closer to joy warming me from the inside out.

***

If today were a song, it would be a requiem in e minor. Mom loved music in e minor. She didn’t even know it, but all her favorite songs were in the same key. Nana’s funeral was bleak, just a cardboard box and open dirt surrounded by five sad faces. There are over a hundred people standing around Mom’s marble tombstone draped in wreaths of flowers. Most are M-Tech employees. Then there’s the security detail, a bunch of humans wielding guns and wearing sunglasses despite the gray day. I’m not sure why they’re here. They haven’t done a very good job of keeping away the unwanted robot element considering Quinn and I are sitting front and center.

The urn containing Mom’s ashes sits atop the stone, waiting interment. M-Tech forked out for the funeral, the least they could do. Mom got the nicest urn, the best flowers, and a funeral director who seems sincere when he read the words, “From atoms to ashes, from stars to dust.”

Baldur City Cemetery isn’t crumbling into ruin like Svartkyrka either. All the tombstones here are neat and precisely etched, tidy little cubes holding dead people dust. There are no teetering crosses or broken angels to stand guard over the ghosts, only precision planted trees and shrubs dotted with pink and blue blossoms despite the slate gray sky. The epitaphs are all alike, names and dates—nothing more.

I’m expected to speak, to stand before this sea of strangers and wax lyrical about the woman who lied to me about everything that was important. I can’t do it. I can’t stand up there and pretend, not when Quinn, Asrid, Sara, and Rurik know the truth. Not that I’ve seen Rurik yet. If he is here, he doesn’t have the courage to face me, or maybe he couldn’t care less about broken synthetic heart.

Quinn squeezes my fingers—he’s been holding my hand the entire time—and Asrid pats my shoulder.

“It’s time,” she whispers.

I can’t speak but I can play, Mom’s Elegy in E Minor. The walk from my chair to the podium seems an eternity. With the violin in my hands, everything else fades away. Nothing matters except the music. As I play, the walls around my heart start to crumble, and a flood of emotion rushes in. The music soars, pure and exquisite. I play until I’m spent, until I’ve poured everything into the music—all the anger, hurt, betrayal … It evaporates into the frigid air, leaving me empty, but oddly content.

There isn’t a dry eye in the crowd as I return to my seat. Sara holds Asrid as she weeps into pink tissues. Quinn sits in stoic silence, tears raking silver-blue trails down his face, ruining Sara’s make-up job. The funeral director uncorks the cylinder bored through the marble and pours Mom’s ashes from the urn into the stone. He tops up the opening with those pristine white lilies that smell of spring, destined to decay, before resealing the tomb. He offers me the empty urn, but I shake my head.

I pack up my violin and head toward Asrid’s bug, wanting to avoid as many condolences as I can.

“You could still make it to the audition,” Quinn says when he catches up to me.

“I don’t think I can do it.”

“But it’s what you’ve always wanted.” He frowns as Asrid and Sara crunch their way through snow-crusted leaves to join us.

“Seems almost trivial now.”

“But it was your dream,” Asrid says. “I can drive you over. We can make it if we leave now.”

“No, it’s just … there’s something else I need to do today.” I swing the violin off my shoulder and hand it to Quinn. “Sassa, will you take Quinn?”

“Won’t he get arrested?” Sara asks.

“I never told the police he played violin or that we met at the BPO. Who would’ve believed it anyway?” I say.

“Are you sure?” His arctic eyes meet mine as he wraps tentative fingers around the instrument case.

“Do this. For both of us.” I lean forward and kiss his lips.

“Ahem.” Someone right behind me clears his throat. Rurik. My thoughts and emotions collide
acciaccato.

“I will,” Quinn says and turns expectantly to Asrid.

“You want me to leave you here?” She casts Rurik a wary glance.

“I’ll be fine. Need to walk a bit.”

“Call me if you need a ride.” Asrid pulls me into a bone-crushing hug and tells me again how sorry she is and how much she loves me before scampering off after Quinn with Sara in tow.

“Did I interrupt?” Rurik leans against the gnarled trunk of an oak. He looks like he hasn’t slept for a week with dark circles under his eyes. He looks so dejected, broken almost, like the life’s been sucked out of him. Did I do that?

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

He nods. “That piece you played was beautiful. Who’s it by?”

“Me.” I stuff my hands into my jacket pockets, feeling naked without my violin.

“That’s amazing, T.”

His words still cause a flare of warmth inside me. He runs a hand through his hair and chews on his lip. “Look, I’m really sorry. No, sorry isn’t even the half of it.” He shakes his head and tries again. “I’ve been a complete asshole, nullhead, numbnut jerk. I know that. I thought I understood things.” He opens and closes his hand around air. “My dad taught us certain viewpoints; it’s what I grew up with. That isn’t an excuse, but it’s why I’m struggling so much.”

I don’t interrupt. Rurik needs to say whatever it is that’s on his mind and there’s no point getting in the way of that even if snow’s starting to fall, and the wind is making stalactites of my eyelashes.

“I always had this notion about robots, about androids. I was wrong, T. I was wrong about everything. These last few days, I’ve been thinking, a lot. About us, about everything.” He pauses, his gaze penetrating my very core. “You’ve been my best friend since we were in diapers. You were there every step of my life, through the good and bad, through all the stuff with my mom and dad, everything. You’ve never let me down. I’ve loved you forever, and I still do.”

“But I’m a robot.” The words pop out of my mouth before I can bite my tongue.

“That’s just the thing.” He steps closer and takes my hands. “I’ve been trying to hate you, trying to find a reason not to love you the way I always have, trying to work out how things have changed and why.”

“Things have changed.”

“Yes.” He tightens his grip on my fingers. “But not everything. Not how I feel about you even if you’re an android. I’m not going to lie; this feels weird. I feel weird. You … ” He stares at my hands and rubs his thumb across my knuckle. “I mean, I lost my virginity to a robot. That messes with a guy’s head, you know?”

“I can imagine.” I grin. I felt the same way when I found out about Quinn; the thought that I’d kissed an android horrified me.

“But … I love you.”

“We broke up, Rik.” It’s not like finding out I’m a robot has fixed what was broken about us to begin with.

“Are you sure? I mean, you said everything has changed.” He searches my face, his dark eyes etched with pain and confusion.

“I can’t do this. Not on top of everything else.” I hang onto his hands when he tries to pull away. “Before we dated, we were best friends. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is real or code, but I know I need a friend.”

“Just friends?” He asks.

“I know that’s a lot to ask.”

“Losing my girlfriend is one thing.” He sighs. “But losing the only friend I’ve had my entire life even if she’s a robot—” He gulps down a mouthful of cold air and shakes his head.

“You haven’t lost me.”

“Haven’t I?” He frowns, his eyes glittering from wind-induced tears. “I thought the thing with Quinn … I shouldn’t have hit him, but … ”

“I’ve lost everything, Rik. If I lose you, it’ll be like losing the last shred of me, the last bit of the person I thought I was.” Fresh tears ambush me, trailing down my cheeks.

Rurik stops one of my tears with his fingertip and puts it in his mouth. “Tastes real.”

“They are real. I’m really hurting.” Hurting more than I ever imagined possible. Hurting more than mere code could account for. Maybe everything we think we know about androids is wrong.

He gathers me up in his arms, crushing me to his chest. I close my eyes, shutting out the stares from funeral-goers as Rurik and I cling to each other and snow frosts our hair.

Eventually, Rurik shivers and I pull away. He jumps up and down on the spot, trying to get warm.

“You really want to be my friend and support my … transition?”

“Absolutely.” His cheeks are turning pink in the wind.

“Could you take me to the nearest tattoo parlor?”

“Why?” He lifts a single eyebrow.

“There’s something I’m missing, something I should have.”

“Sure.” He offers me his hand and a smile.

“You clean up real good.” Dagrun fixes my bow tie with deft fingers. The tux is mandatory, supplied courtesy of the BPO for this auspicious occasion. I feel like a trussed up penguin about to be fed to killer whales. So I wasn’t arrested at the audition or rehearsal, but I was deliberately hiding my lack of humanness. That won’t be the case tonight.

“You don’t look bad yourself.” Kit leans against the wall admiring Dagrun’s reflection in the dressing room mirror.

“Why, thank you.” She curtsies, her skirt a hand-sewn bouquet of scraps and thrift store oddments. Draped in layers of velvet and taffeta, she looks less like a homeless junkie. Her eyes still sparkle with skag, but Kit’s new mission is to get Dagrun clean, to wean her off the drug and onto him.

“You sure you want to do this?” Kit asks.

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my existence.” Considering the political precipice Skandia is perched on, this Independence Day celebration might be the most important national holiday of the century.

“For Sal.” Kit places his hand on my shoulder.

“For all of us.”

“Five minutes.” A girl with a databoard leans into the dressing room. “Guests please take their seats.”

I nod and pick up Tyri’s violin. “Are you sure
you
want to do this?”

Kit smiles. “Only arm I’ve got left. Might as well put it to good use. Not like we could make the situation worse than it already is.” He offers Dagrun his hand, and she accepts it with a wink.

“I was hoping we’d make it better.”

“We can try.” His expression is earnest. “On your signal, Quinny.” They slip out of the dressing room as the audience erupts into applause. Official speeches over, it’s almost time for me to take the stage. My circuits zing as Cruor thrums through my veins, making every individual atom sing, a grand chorus telling me everything will be okay.

“Quinn!” Tyri rushes down the narrow corridor. She’s dressed in electric green, a color that makes her eyes sparkle. “Glad I caught you.” She passes me a silver brooch of a treble clef, the same one she wore to that first BPO rehearsal. “For good luck. Not that you’ll need it.”

“There’s still time to swap places.”

“No, this is your moment.” She leans on tiptoes and kisses my cheek. I catch her wrist and trace the ink pricked into her skin: T-Y-R-1. She’s tagged now, like the rest of us.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely.” Our fingers entwine.

“
Thou scatter’st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom
.” Baudelaire’s words slip from my lips, an omen perhaps, one I’m going to ignore.

“We’ll scatter them together.” She squeezes my fingers, and I suddenly don’t care about the doom part while my circuits sizzle with joy. “Break a leg, Quinn.” Tyri scampers back up the corridor and slips through a side door into the hall.