There was no time for us to change into Uphill uniforms. I typed in Father’s number with Penny next to me. She picked at her nail polish, leaving little clusters of glittery pink polymer around the keyboard.
I almost hoped that Father wouldn’t pick up. My nerves continued to fray as we waited.
The screen remained blank. He hadn’t connected yet.
“Maybe we should go find Anna,” Penny whispered. “We could try to convince her not to say anything? Or maybe hold her off for a little while and buy some time.”
Penny’s computer speakers continued to ring. For a wild moment, I thought maybe it was Hugo’s Cog, tricking us. Maybe the line wasn’t getting through at all. Maybe it was the Cog that controlled the computer, not us.
Maybe this was Clyde’s revenge. Something like karma.
The wet pink wire trembled with each resounding reverberation. Behind the computer, Hugo’s Cog was doing the same. The ringing echoed through it. Shaking the table. Shaking the glass. I could feel the tremor in my fingers and in my spine.
And then, when I thought it was too late, Father finally picked up on the other side.
“Marietta?” he asked, his video finally materializing on the screen. He did not sound pleased. “What are you wearing?”
“It’s Helga,” I spat back, feeling mutinous.
“Doctor, there’s no time. Someone knows about Helga … a Cog PR intern. She’s probably on her way to tell her boss now,” Penny said in a long rush. “We need your help.”
Father became so still that I wondered if the screen had frozen. He looked like a static picture in his neat beige trench coat and white button-up. His expression revealed nothing at all.
I wanted him to ask me if I was okay, but he didn’t.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said after a long pause.
“Thank you,” Penny breathed.
“Is there anything else?” Father asked crisply. “My flight will be boarding soon. There’s a lot of work I must do, it seems.”
“Look at me,” I said.
Father did not seem to comprehend. “Pardon?” Even with the unstable connection, his expression was unmistakably patronizing. “If there’s nothing useful you can add, I think our conversation is done here.”
Penny put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I swatted it away.
“I don’t have time for this,” Father told me, shaking his head stiffly. “We can talk when I get back.”
He wouldn’t let me in, ever. The barrier was up. It even spanned continents. If the Mandarin module didn’t help, then I really was at a loss for how to get through to him.
“You suck,” I finally said, fed up.
“Oh boy,” Penny said.
It wasn’t even an exaggeration, though. Right after I’d been born, Father had immediately departed on a business trip, leaving me to fend for myself with Penny’s help. Penny, who he was certainly overworking and underpaying. Penny, who he even surveilled through her work phone.
It was astounding that he didn’t do the same to me when I knew he had the technological capacity to. This uncharacteristically lenient gesture made me think that maybe he wasn’t so bad. It made me think maybe, just maybe, we could have a relationship that wasn’t just based on me performing the exact actions he wanted.
Father’s face was turning red. I didn’t even think it was possible for him to express any emotion outside of disappointment. “You aren’t what I had pictured …” he started, which immediately deflated my hopes.
“I DON’T CARE,” I screamed. “I’m still here, even when your picture doesn’t fit. And I’m becoming who I am with no thanks to you. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been raising myself.”
It felt so good to get it out.
“I gave you the right foundation,” Father said. Only the slightest tremble in his voice betrayed his irritation. “I gave you everything you needed to succeed in life.”
“Honestly, she has a point, Doctor.” Finally, Penny chimed in. She narrowed her eyes, looking at Father through the screen. “You should’ve been here to take care of her. I’ve been doing the work of, like, three people.”
“And you’ve never said one nice thing about me.” I scowled. “Everything I’ve done well, you’ve attributed to yourself!”
“I can see I’ve made a mistake,” Father said.
“YES,” I shouted.
“My mistake was hiring someone as underprepared as Penelope to assist me with such an important task. It was a favor to my former classmate, her uncle. But I see I should have gone with a more qualified candidate.”
I was about to throw a shoe at the screen. “Penny has been amazing. She’s doing the best she can. She rocks,” I seethed.
Next to me, Penny was shaking. Her hands were curled into fists, knuckles whitening. “Screw you, Doctor,” she said, her voice tight.
Father rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. “We can talk about the terms of your employment later, Penelope. I have a flight to catch, and I have a lot of work to do, undoing all the damage the two of you have wrought.”
He truly did not comprehend that he was both a terrible father and a terrible boss. Maybe all he really cared about was being a famous and revered scientist. Penny wasn’t even a person to him, just his assistant.
Of course the Institute had turned to him for the Marietta Project. At the end of the day, maybe that’s what he really wanted out of a daughter—an automaton. But it was hard for me to believe that he could truly be so callous. He was still my Father. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
“What about the song?” I blurted out. “There’s this song in my head that’s in Mandarin. Why did you put it there?”
“What song?” Father looked perplexed. “I never put any—”
“So it was an unconscious decision,” I mumbled. Naive of me to think that it was something shared between us. A family tradition being passed down to me.
This also meant that Father wasn’t as methodical as he wanted to be. Things could still slip through the cracks and into my Cog. I wasn’t perfect because he wasn’t perfect. If only he could recognize that.
I remembered the file I found on the computer. The note Father had left to himself. Progress can only be made going forward. At what cost?
Even though he made mistakes, maybe there was a way to close this gap between us. And he’d even had doubts about the direction of the project. Maybe he cared about me more than he cared about his own reputation.
“The song,” Father said. I could see realization finally dawning on him. A flash of hesitancy rippled across his expression, so brief I wondered if I’d only imagined it. Then his expression hardened. “I was like you a long time ago. But I gave up those childish dreams and took responsibility. It’s time for you to do the same, Marietta. You must do what we expect of you.”
We. The pronoun he used wasn’t lost on me. Father equivocated himself with the Institute. They were one and the same. He’d given up his dreams, even his language, for this hostile world.
“See you later,” I told him, and hung up abruptly.
“Nice,” Penny said, nodding in approval. She looked toward the steel locker in the back of the lab. “Now let’s finish this bad boy up.”
We worked long into the night, fueled by pettiness, rage, and beef noodle soup.
Father was certainly on the plane by now. He’d come in tomorrow, which meant Hugo had to be up and out of the lab by then. But there was still one pending question Penny and I continued to deliberate.
“Really think about it, Helga,” Penny urged me, between slurps of savory noodle broth. “We only get one shot at this, so we have to get it right.”
She was asking me to consider system intent, to remove the possibility of Hugo going haywire. System intent would allow me to dictate his actions and tailor them around my needs. It could help ensure that he really would be my perfect soul mate.
Adding system intent was tempting. The way the Cog had spoken to me was deeply unnerving. And even though Hugo followed my own schematics, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
He would do everything exactly as I wanted. The only thing was, I wasn’t so sure that was a great idea.
I took a long sip of blackberry soda and stared at his body. There was no time to make additional modifications. Hugo would look pretty much exactly like Clyde except for his hair, style, and personality.
Maybe those distinctions were enough.
Maybe they weren’t.
Thunder rumbled against the building. The unusually pleasant weather from this morning had finally gone to crap as usual. It made being in the lab feel even eerier. The computers sputtered from unusual amounts of energy use—processing multiple languages at the same time must’ve been a step beyond their usual capacity. Lights dimmed and flickered.
Penny and I seemed to be the only ones left in the building.
It was just us and Hugo.
Fresh organs had been transplanted. Penny had even surgically added the skin flap to the base of Hugo’s neck. All that was left was finalizing his Cog and plugging it in.
“It’s okay to add system intent,” Penny said softly. “I know it’s not ideal … but it’s better than things turning out wrong.”
I squirmed with the decision. It was all up to me. System intent, or free will?
Could I let Hugo make his own decisions?
“It’s risky,” Penny whispered.
We were both quiet. The gravity of the situation was fully apparent. Every second we waited, the harder it’d be for Hugo. For me. For Penny too.
Things could go very, very wrong.
“The timing,” Penny said, like I needed any reminder of it. “If we wait too long, the doctor might come back before Hugo’s complete. Or even Anna. Then we’re truly screwed.”
My insides were roiling. I thought about the automatic kiosks. I thought about the buses—one of which had crashed into poor Clyde. This is what the Marietta Project was supposed to have turned me into. An object, not a person.
I knew I could never make Hugo into an object. I was different from the Institute and Father. I wanted Hugo to choose me, on his own initiative. I didn’t want to make him choose me.
We had such similar Cogs. I’d invested so much thought and heart into this project. This project was born out of my love. Surely that was enough.
“No system intent,” I said with finality.
Penny grinned. “Badass. I love it.”
The poetry libraries had finished downloading. A few minutes left, and finally the Mandarin module would be finished too.
Against the walls, beakers and anatomy books trembled.
“Holy shit,” Penny said. “We’re really doing this.”
He would love me. He would have to love me.
Even though I didn’t add system intent, Hugo would certainly be thrilled to be at my side. We were so alike. We were two of a kind.
Then why wouldn’t my hands stop shaking?
A message flashed across the computer screen: Hugo’s Cog was finally complete.
Penny unplugged the wet pink wire from both computer and Cog. Thank god, his Cog was quiet now. It wasn’t even gurgling like the other ones. It lay at the bottom of the vat. Perfectly docile.
“Do you want to grab it?” Penny said. She snapped on blue rubber gloves and walked over to Hugo’s body. “Actually, come over here first, would you?”
Why did my legs feel so wobbly? I trod over to Penny as evenly as I could manage. Hugo’s pale face was smirking at me. The Clyde-ness was still visible beneath his changed appearance.
It would go away; it would have to go away. For Hugo was a romantic. His smirk would fade into the gentlest of smiles.
“Help me flip him over,” Penny said. Her voice was shaky too.
Together, we turned his body face down onto the steel surgical table. His arm flopped against me. Pure dead weight. Hugo’s skin felt rubbery. He did not seem human at all.
At the base of his neck was the skin flap. Penny peeled it open, revealing a small hole underneath the skin. All we had to do was insert the Cog, and he’d come alive.
“I can add it,” I told her. Penny seemed relieved by my offer.
Hugo was ultimately my responsibility. I was his maker and his future soul mate. The least I could do was put the Cog in myself.
I walked back toward the Cog side of the lab. Time was passing so slowly and quickly. Every step felt like sinking into quicksand.
“We don’t have to do this,” Penny said while I scooped up the Cog from the vat. Cold liquid dribbled down my arms. I suppressed an urge to shudder. There was no reason for my heart to be beating this fast.
I had once been inanimate too. I myself had a Cog. So what was the big deal?
Penny sat beside the downturned body, looking very much like she was about to throw up.
The Cog fit perfectly into the palm of my hand. It was surprisingly pliant, especially compared to how stiff his body felt. I ran my thumb over its many grooves, admiringly. At its base was a small circular button. Grayish pink, like the rest of the Cog.
“Just insert the Cog and push it in,” Penny said. “Then we’re all finished.”
I was suddenly at Hugo’s side. Somehow, I’d crossed over from the other side of the lab without even realizing it. It was all happening. I was here. He was waiting for the kiss of life.
Where had all the time gone?
I leaned over the cold surgical table and slipped the Cog in at the base of Hugo’s neck. There was a satisfied clicking sound. Of course, it was the perfect fit.
His skin flap covered the Cog. One press, and it would be over.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I pressed against the skin flap, and then Hugo began to shake.