“Really.” Rob had the strangest feeling—a crawling, jangling sensation that felt like jealousy. Winter had a boyfriend, and he was jealous. He laughed out loud at the absurdity of that.
“What?”
“Nothing. Tell me about the guy. Nice guy?”
She made a face. “Old guy. Eighty, at least.” She scrunched her eyes closed for a second. “Dirty old guy. Wanted me to talk dirty to him.”
“Dirty old guy. Great.” Evidently there were a lot of them skulking around this place. “So what did you do?”
“Are you kidding? I was filthy. Absolutely filthy. I was afraid I was going to give him a stroke.”
Rob tried to contain his laughter before he got another warning to keep his voice down, as Winter added, “Naughty, naughty stuff.”
“What’s his name?”
“Redmond. Red.”
“Good old Red.”
“Good old Red,” she whispered, almost to herself. “He’s a smarmy know-it-all, but he has the means to revive me, if he decides to.”
“How do you know?”
“He showed me his account balance. You’ve never seen a number with so many digits.”
Rob glanced at the timer. He’d grown adept at judging how much time was passing, would have known he had about a minute left even if he hadn’t looked.
“Anyway, thanks.” She kept her voice matter-of-fact, but Rob knew it was meant to be heartfelt.
“It’s the least I could do.”
“The least you could do was run me over and go on with your life.”
He was so grateful he hadn’t, so thankful to his father for discovering that Winter was in this place. If she got out, they could be friends. They could take walks, have coffee. There would be no timer racing eagerly toward zero.
He checked the timer. “Twenty seconds.”
Winter looked disappointed, but maybe not terrified. Maybe she was getting used to dying. Rob didn’t want to ask.
“You’ll keep visiting, won’t you?” Winter asked.
Rob laughed. “I’d come every day if I could.”
“Good.” She closed her eyes, as if Rob had tucked her in and she was going to sleep. “Then I’m not afraid.”
On the way out, Rob mulled over his reaction to Winter’s “dates.” Had that really been jealousy? Falling in love with Winter would be pointless and masochistic, and more than a little weird. He reminded himself of his reaction to Nathan’s recordings, of seeing Winter out in the world, warts and all. Sure, seeing those flaws surprised him. But on balance, seeing her alive, laughing, walking fast, destroying buildings, made her even more endearing. More real. If that Winter in the recordings cut her finger, she bled.
When he thought he would never see her again, the words that had burst from the deepest part of him had been “I love you.” Had that been nothing but an outpouring of grief and sadness?
Whatever it was, it was out there, dangling between him and Winter. When he said it, he thought he’d never see Winter again, so he hadn’t considered the ramifications. It had just come out.
Even though he’d just seen her, he couldn’t wait to see her again. What if his anonymous benefactor didn’t send more money soon? It would be months before he could raise enough to see her from his pay alone. He couldn’t stand the thought of waiting that long.
The lobby smelled like wildflowers carried on a spring breeze. The scent made his chest tight, made him long for Winter. Though to be fair, the smell was engineered to make people feel that way.
He left the lobby, stepped through the exit into sunlight and the more mundane smell of Yonkers. Where he was walking was dominated by the smell of sausage, wafting from the IHOP across the busy street. The tightness was still there, and he was still thinking about Winter.
Rob stopped walking. He turned, propped a foot on a bench and looked up at the Cryogenic Dating Center, a shining bronze monolith with colorful piping resembling strips of stained glass. He closed his eyes, took a deep, slow breath. Time to get real. Winter was dead, and if through some miracle she ever stopped being dead, she’d be married. What he was feeling was absurd, and pointless.
He opened his eyes and continued toward the micro-T station. He’d try to let it go now. Who wouldn’t develop a crush on Winter after spending time with her? Besides Nathan, of course. It wasn’t helpful to fan those flames, though. Just let it go.
He wondered what Winter would say if he told her he was struggling with romantic feelings for her. She’d asked if he would keep visiting, and when he said he would, she’d said, “Then I’m not afraid.” Was she trying to tell him something?
Rob chuckled to himself. Yes, that she was scared, and it helped to know that someone with a familiar face would be back.
When he got home, he went to his room and played a recording of Winter from Nathan’s files. He watched Winter drink toasted-almond coffee. The sight of her, life-size, only a few feet away, made his stomach feel like he was in free fall.
He ran clips of her all night as he slept.
38
Veronika
Veronika stepped aside as bots passed in the hallway, transporting crates that had been delivered via tube to Lycan’s new digs. She was in high spirits. She had helped save a life, even if the life she’d helped save was someone who was not currently alive.
Lycan was pacing around his new apartment, directing bots where to put things. When he saw Veronika, he grinned, rushed over to greet her.
“So, what do you think?” He raised an arm toward the heights of the condo. It was an impressive space—opulent, and very modern. It was vertically oriented to the extreme, the ground floor maybe twenty feet square, but the highest point of the ceiling a dizzying hundred or more feet above. Rooms were perched at varying heights above, some walled off, others open platforms.
“It’s really something,” Veronika said. “I didn’t realize you were in this sort of income bracket.” She tried to banish thoughts of the lousy three grand Lycan had contributed to help Rob. His self-separating recycling system probably cost more than three thousand.
Lycan tried not to beam, but failed. “It’s just recently that I could afford something like this. The project I’ve been working on at Wooster is gaining traction, and I’m part owner in Wooster.”
“What is the project again?” He’d told her, but Veronika had only half listened (actually, she had probably one-eighth listened). Now she was curious again.
“I’m spoiling the surprise, but okay, that’s where I’m taking you—to see my project.”
Veronika tried to look enthused. They were going to Lycan’s office to see his work. Yay. “Great.”
They took a micro-T that ran right through the Wooster Physionica Building. Moving through the polished lobby, then down a dizzying open-air walk to his lab, Lycan’s step took on the strut of a guy in his element.
“This way.” He led her into a room with a glass wall that looked onto a series of enclosed spaces, where seated people were wearing systems connected to what looked like a network of vines that twisted and stretched haphazardly, clumping into knobby growths where three or more vines connected. Except that the growths weren’t vegetal, but rather slick, silvery-gray.
“What are those viney things? Are they organic?” Veronika asked.
“No,” Lycan said. “It’s an artificial neural network.”
That’s exactly what it looked like, she realized—big, interconnected neurons. Veronika considered the implications for a moment. “Are you trying to construct an artificial intelligence?”
“No, nothing that ambitious,” he chuckled. “That’s why I like you—you’re smart enough to make that sort of leap. We’re developing a means of directly communicating emotional experiences between people through their systems.”