“Unusual … like suddenly being able to see in color?”
She shakes her head. “Anything else?”
“Sleepwalking?”
“No, that would be…” More muttering. From what I recall, Kay never thinks out loud. She’s rubbing her right wrist too, like it pains her. She’s never done that before, either.
Concerned, I look to the graph again. I see the words HAPPINESS MOTIVATIONS running beneath the X axis. “I mean, like I was saying, living on the island hasn’t exactly been a blast, love. Maybe things got a little better with Hero around, but—”
“Who is this ‘Hero’？”
The sharpness of her voice startles me. “A—a boy.”
“A boy.” Kay’s gaze darkens. “Has he tried to hurt you, by any chance?”
The question prods at a memory of Kay telling me to be careful. She did that each time I went out. I smile. “Aw, love, I can take care of—”
“Cee. Tell me. Has this Hero ever tried to kill you?”
Kill.
I suddenly remember that we’re at the bottom of the sea, that I swam here after … after … he tried … and I did. Kill.
I killed him.
I didn’t mean to. And: “He didn’t mean to.” It sounds absurd, once I say it, but it’s true. The boy who tried to kill me didn’t recognize me, didn’t know me. He wasn’t Hero.
Kay sighs. “Well, you’re safe now.”
“So are you. You have no idea—” My voice breaks. No idea how hard I tried to find you. But words can’t convey that, so I violate my promise to give her space and lean in, through the holograph, and hug her.
She’s motionless under my arms. Then slowly, she pats my back.
“Cee,” she says when I pull back but keep my hands on her shoulders, marveling that she’s real and touchable and right in front of me. “Please. Have a seat.”
I plop back in the light-chair less warily this time. “Are we leaving now?” The room is cold and I’m not even the one sitting in goo.
“We are,” says Kay, then grips the sides of the casket. She pushes to her feet unsteadily. I reach out to help her, but my limbs won’t move. She steps one foot out of the pod, blue goo running down her leg and pooling on the ground, and my body stiffens. Her other foot joins the first, and my vision dims.
“Kay?” My voice sounds weak, weaker than it did after Hero choked me. Dread swirls in my stomach, gathering speed like it’s going through a drain. “What’s … happening…”
34
“… IT TERMINATES.”
The bot had found her. Once they refined the design, it’d do more than that. It’d take her out of stasis. Then it’d be up to Kasey, or whoever was designated as “re-habitator zero,” to wake everyone else up after confirming the habitability of outside conditions.
The bot’s job was done.
And so with a whir, it powered down.
||||?||||?||||?||||?||||?||||?||||
“CEE.” ALL MY OTHER SENSES are fading, but I can still hear her crystal clear. “You should understand by now.”
She takes a shaky step closer. My fingers and toes go numb, as if in response. I can’t move anything but the muscles in my face as she stops half a meter away and says, “You’re not really human.”
My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again—
“I know something happened to me.” Something that explains how I washed back ashore, alive, after rowing Hubert out for seven days, and how my eyeballs didn’t burst from the pressure of diving to the bottom of the sea. How Hero could have come back to life.
But none of that changes what Kay means to me.
“And I know I might not be…” human, not human “… like you,” I gasp, unable to choke out the words. I’m not like you. Not as smart as you. Not as strong as you. “But I’m still your sister, Kay.”
“My sister is Celia.” She doesn’t say it cruelly, just as a matter of fact. “And Celia died a long time ago.”
Died.
I swallow the obscene amount of saliva pooling in my mouth and almost gag as it slithers down my throat. “Then who am I?”
She glances over me, quiet. “You’re artificial intelligence prototype-C.” When I don’t react, she sighs, as if she was trying to spare me. “A bot.”
The words glance off me, missing the mark. I shake my head. I know what a bot is. A bot is U-me. I’m not U-me.
“When you couldn’t see in color,” says Kay, “that was because you hadn’t yet unlocked your next level of self-actualization. And once you saw in color, you felt a stronger pull to the sea, yes?”