“Where’s Byrne?” she asked, her tongue and jaw aching from the effort.
“Now, dear, let’s not get into any more unpleasantries. Mr. Byrne said he needed to go and that he would come and visit me soon. Why don’t we finish our tea?”
Just like that, the dentist office vanished. Molly’s spit-encrusted bib was replaced with a new dress. Only the pain in her jaw, something that didn’t seem to affect her mom’s happiness, remained.
Parsona sat down in the swing and patted the wood slats beside her. Molly remained standing. She worked her mouth open and closed a few times, then asked her mom: “What did you guys talk about?”
“No more talk of Mr. Byrne, Mollie. I mean it.”
Fine, Molly thought. This has been a waste of time, anyway.
She started to say goodbye, but no longer cared. There had been plenty of time to think about the horror of this place while the dentist did his work—and he had been wrong. She gave her mother one last, sad look and realized there were plenty of cavities here. All created by too much sweetness.
Without a word, she ran and leapt down the stairs leading from the porch. She ignored the laughter and chatter in the commons as she ran up to the door she’d entered. She heard her mother calling for her as she flung it open and jumped through, back to the real world—
But it was just a room. A room identical to the one in the other cabin, only with two chairs instead of three. Parsona sat in one and patted the other.
Molly felt absolutely certain that she’d been under for more than three hours.
••••
Stanley #8427 was walking down hallway 8C, looking for their missing guests—when his legs went goofy. His right foot slammed into the back of his left calf, sending him sprawling forward toward the floor. Automatic arm routines tried to compensate, but something went wrong with them as well. A hand flew out in front, fingers straight, and the weight of his gear-filled body crashed down.
Several metacarpal joints snapped back and injury codes flashed red in his vision.
He flopped around on the ground for a few moments, one of his legs kicking a containment drawer noisily.
Gradually, some semblance of coordination returned. He used his undamaged hand to push himself to his knees; he looked purposefully at the handle of the nearest drawer and grabbed at it. His timing was off, but he managed to hook two fingers around the steel.
Stanley pulled himself to his feet.
He took a few experimental steps while he kept one hand on the wall beside him. Stanley #8427 turned around and stumbled back the way he had come.
He was on the wrong hall.
••••
“You wrecked him!” Cole complained.
“Sshut up. I’m getting it.”
“It looks like he’s having a seizure.”
The camera was sideways. On the ground, vibrating.
“Thiss sstupid computer only hass one analog sstick.”
“I thought you were good at these things.”
“You wanna try?”
Cole watched him work the controls and the small keyboard at the same time. The camera gradually made its way off the floor. He shook his head. “How long until he gets here?”
“I don’t know. He’ss one hall over from here. Uh, oh. Another Sstanley.”
••••
“Greetings, Stanley. Any luck?”
The other Stanley didn’t say anything. It just waved a ruined hand awkwardly.
“You should have that looked at. Should I call maintenance?”
The mute Stanley staggered, its shoulder brushing the doors on its right side.
“Hold still. I’ll call maintenance.”
The helpful Stanley walked over, graceful as a cat. It reached out to steady the other android.
The hurt Stanley didn’t have the dexterity of the approaching robot, but it also lacked its compassion. The mangled hand spun around as fast as its servos could move it, brutal strength moving with no control.
It caught the nice Stanley on the temple, nearly taking its head off at the fragile neck-joint.
Both Stanleys went down from the blow.
One of them struggled to get up, getting the hang of it now.
••••
“If we get out of this,” Cole told Walter, “I’m gonna make you practice your video games as part of your regular duties.”
Walter hissed, ignoring him. His fingers tapped buttons in frustration. He had the Stanley in front of their door—they could even hear the damn thing banging against the wall outside—but swiping the card through the reader was infuriatingly difficult. The robot had already dropped the card once, and trying to pick it up off the floor gave Walter a new appreciation for everyday feats he took for granted. He had resorted to scooting the flat card across the floor with the robot’s fingernails until it hit the wall, popping one edge off the ground. After that ordeal, he instructed the finger-grip servos to lock down and never loosen. The card would snap in half before he let it slide out again.
“I need the other hand,” he moaned. He jammed Stanley’s bad fingers behind the handle of a lower cabinet to steady the body, then he pressed the edge of the card against the wall with the other hand, adjusting its angle of attack. Cole kept crawling back and forth between the screen and the door, egging both him and the robot on—it was driving him absolutely crazy.
One more swipe, and Walter heard a beeping noise. He yelped with delight, trying to get the Stanley to grab the handle before the green light on the LCD went off. Reluctantly, he instructed the robot to drop the card so he could use the good hand. He guided the digits up to grasp the door handle and ordered a yank.
There was a pop. Light came in through a crack. The metal floor of their tiny cell jolted forward and both of them lost their balance, falling backwards.
Walter laughed with relief, then remembered that last sight of Molly—her body being loaded into a ship.
Cole jumped down from the platform first. Walter could see the Stanley hanging casually from the door’s handle, the body lifeless. His jacket had been torn and his pants hung down around his thighs. Walter leaned over the edge and let Cole help him down.“Can we use him?” Cole asked.
Walter shook his head. “I can’t ssteer and walk at the ssame time.” He watched as Cole picked up the dropped passcard from the ground.
“Which way to Parsona?”
“Through the hangarss,” Walter said.
“Wrong Parsona,” Cole told him, shaking his head. “We have something else to take care of down here.”
Walter understood. He punched some keys and turned the screen so Cole could see it as well. Two hallways over, six side halls down on the left, compartment 3815.
“What about Molly?” he asked.
“We’ll be quick,” said Cole. “I promise. See if you can get our ship loaded in one of the hangars while we move.”
••••
Molly sat quietly beside her mother. Ahead of them, a perpetual fire danced across logs that seemed to neither diminish nor budge.
As her mother’s voice droned incessantly, Molly nodded to feign interest. The visit had been a complete waste of time. Worse than a waste, actually. She had failed to prevent Byrne from having contact with her mom. She had learned nothing of her father, or what had taken place on Lok. And the dream of reuniting with her real mom had turned into a nightmare; dealing with her was like battling wills with a petulant child-god.
“—the third heaven. Earth just couldn’t do it for me in the long run, much like in real life, so that’s when I visited Lok. It was children, always the idea of having lots of children that—”
Molly watched her mom’s lips move, felt the words enter her ears and bounce around, but they weren’t her mother’s ideas. They were the thoughts of something that hadn’t felt pain for almost seventeen years. Hadn’t known suffering. How could that not change a person?
While Parsona talked about the miracle of a natural childbirth, Molly thought about the last few weeks of her life. She had endured much hardship, even some severe bouts of sadness, but overall, the time had seemed . . . exciting, if not quite happy. The time had been full of reminders that her life was temporary, and somehow that gave it extra meaning.
Hadn’t Cole mentioned something similar on Drenard, during that long shuttle ride? He’d said something about not being scared of death while he was around her. Molly didn’t understand what that meant at the time, except that he loved her.
Now she knew.
She surveyed her mother’s face, saw again how young she looked. Her skin positively glowed in the light of the lambent flame. In fact, she was probably only ten years or so older than Molly—her body frozen in time, remaining as old as she remembered herself.
Emotionally, however, her mother seemed to be aging in reverse, the product of a hedonistic fantasy world of her own creation. It was the sort of existence only young children got away with, and one that only unknowning adults could crave.
If these visits were designed to sell her an eternal life, they’d failed. She would never want this. Would the program run for millions of years? Billions? What would this “heaven” look like by then? Would her mother even remember the real life she’d once lived? What would her father represent to her in a few billion years? Which Molly would she know and love? The real one, or the thousands and thousands she sired virtually?
Molly pondered these things and felt an overwhelming sadness for her mom; she reached out a hand and placed it on her arm, squeezing it gently. Her mom broke off from her story and searched Molly’s face.
“Sweetheart? You look sad. Do you need some more tea?”
Molly shook her head and fought back tears. She could reach out and touch her mother; it would feel very real, but her mother was long since dead.
“I want a hug, Mom.”
Parsona beamed and reached out both hands. “Come sit on my lap, dear. Let me finish my story.”
Molly got up and eased herself onto her mother’s legs. She put an arm around her neck and rested her head on her shoulder.
Parsona continued her story, recounting the settling of a virtual Lok and how painless it had been to give birth there. One of her arms rubbed Molly’s back while the other waved in the air, conducting the tale.
Molly settled in, smothered in sadness. One of her hands fell to her mother’s round belly.
It was already larger than when she’d first arrived.
••••
Cole knelt beside Parsona Fyde’s body, the metal slab fully extended from a bottom drawer. He could see why loved ones would never be allowed to visit in person. Dozens of wires and tubes snaked out of every natural orifice—and some that’d been created. Parsona’s scalp had been removed completely and replaced with a clear plastic shell. The edges of something similar extended out of her armpits, and long wispy hair on her thin legs suggested the purpose of these devices.
They made the quasi-living body easier to maintain.
A collar of metal ringed her forehead below the plastic shell, identical to the device Walter had used. Pale flesh, laced with bright capillaries, hung from her bones except where it was pinched by the straps crisscrossing her body. They seemed ludicrous to Cole; he didn’t see how those muscles were capable of strenuous movement. The gentle rise and fall of her chest, ridged with bony ribs, provided the only clue that this thing was alive.
Still, despite the dehumanizing nature of the apparatus, he couldn’t do it.
Walter paced nervously behind him while Cole berated himself for his inability to act.
“How’re you coming with the other Parsona?” he asked Walter, trying to stall.
“About like you’re doing with thiss one,” Walter said. “Sship docking iss on another network. I can open and sshut the bayss, but I can’t control the loaderss to move the sship.” He stopped pacing and pointed his computer toward Parsona. “We’re wassting time.”
“It’s her mom.”
Walter bent over the pale, naked form. “Sshe lookss dead.”
“I don’t think I can do it,” Cole finally admitted.
Walter shoved the computer in its holster and knelt beside Cole. One of his hands rested on Cole’s shoulder, a gesture of support that filled Cole with hope for the boy. He was about to lay his own hand on the Palan’s, reciprocating the rare contact from him, when Walter reached down with his other hand, grabbed a fistful of wires trailing off Parsona’s torso, and yanked as hard as he could.
Cole reached for Walter’s hand in shock, trying to stop him, but the boy moved fast—grabbing and tugging as calmly as if he were pulling weeds. Parsona made sucking noises when the tubes popped free of her nose and mouth; her chin came up; she gasped for air.
Fluids leaked out and puddled on the slab of metal; bony limbs jerked against the restraints; ribs heaved. All indications that this thing was alive.
Cole felt bile rise in his own throat, burning it. He swallowed it down and grabbed a hose, trying to remember where it went. He wanted to plug everything back in, to save her.
Parsona vibrated and gurgled.
Once again, he couldn’t act.
Red lights descended from the ceiling and began flashing up and down the hallway as Cole felt overcome with shame and horror.
“Let’ss go!” Walter hissed, tugging on his shirt and pulling him backwards. “They’ll be coming to ssave her.”
Cole fought to regain his balance, physically and emotionally—he needed to focus on Molly. And Walter was right: they needed to get out of there. He turned away from the open drawer and the dying woman, running back to the main hall. He caught up with Walter, who tugged him to a halt. A Stanley could be seen beyond the glass partition at the end of the corridor, talking to a human couple.