At forty-one, my brother appeared as handsome and fit as ever. The heavy stubble gave him a look of rugged masculinity, while his incisive eyes and unobtrusive smile added a welcome tenderness. The whole package.
“I’m so sorry you lost your baby,” he said.
“And so you sent me an Artificial?”
“You’re not married, you don’t have a partner, I thought—”
“Did you order it before you heard about Naiobi?”
“What?”
“Before or after you heard that she had died?”
“Before. I figured you could use some help with your baby when you brought her home and—”
“You know how I feel about Artificials.”
“Which is something I’ve never understood.” His voice had stiffened. “Really, Kestrel.”
“After what happened to Mom and Dad? You still don’t get it?”
“That was a fluke. Artificials back then were archaic compared to what we have today. Our current models can—”
“Save the sales pitch for someone else. I refused delivery.”
“What?”
“I don’t want an Artificial. You know that. We’ve been through this before.”
“It’s been a long time since we’ve talked. Since . . .” His voice trailed off. “I was hoping that by now you would—”
“I would what?”
“Have changed your views,” he said diplomatically.
“Uh-huh.”
“This is a tough time for you. I understand that.”
And then neither of us spoke. What was there to say? My daughter was dead. There was no comfort he could offer me.
As I thought of that, of Naiobi, a terrible, crushing sadness overwhelmed me and I looked away from the screen so Trevor wouldn’t see me tear up.
Keep it together, Kestrel.
Don’t cry.
And I did not.
As difficult as it was, I forced myself to hold the tears in.
“There was an attack,” he said, changing the subject, “there in Cincinnati, at our production plant earlier today.”
“Yes, I know.” I looked at him again. “I was there.”
He straightened up slightly. “You were?”
“I was on my way home from the hospital. I saw it happen.”
“Are you okay? I mean, you weren’t hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“My division is in charge of investigating it.”
“Okay.” I didn’t want to talk about the attack. “I just called so you’d know that I sent the Artificial back.”
“Did you see anything that could help us out?”
“I saw people die, Trevor. That’s what I remember. A truck drove through security. The explosion swallowed people up. I don’t know of anything else that might help you.”
“With some of our latest neural implants, there are promising breakthroughs in helping people recall details from traumatic events that they—”
“Trevor!”
“Sorry.” He was quiet, then asked, “Are you going to have a memorial service for Naiobi?”
“Tomorrow at two. But it’s not really a service. It’s just me saying goodbye.”
“Would you like me to come?”
“No, no. That’s okay.”
“Are you sure? I could fly in and—”
“No. But thanks.”
It seemed like a moment during which he might glance down to check the time or something, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Jordan is special.”
“Jordan?”
“The Artificial I sent you.”
I shook my head.
“Just . . . Listen, Kestrel, I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but this isn’t a time when you need to be alone, or shut people out.”
I was about to counter that, but paused.
A change had come over my brother. He had a look of deep concern that I never would’ve expected to see. “Just try him out,” he said. “Just for a few days. I promise you, if you decide you don’t want him after that, you can ship him back and I won’t pressure you anymore to get an Artificial. Not ever again. And if you want, I’ll stay out of your life. I won’t call. I’ll leave you alone. Just give Jordan a try.”
Why is this so important to him?
A soft buzz came from his end and he looked down toward what was no doubt an incoming call, but he tapped a button to decline it and peered at me from across his desk, waiting for me to reply.
I had no idea who might have been contacting him, but in truth it didn’t matter. He had plenty of people screening calls for him, so if one made it through, it was almost certainly something vital, an issue only he could deal with. A year ago he would have asked me to wait while he accepted the call. I was certain of that much.
“Alright,” I told him at last. “Have the company ship it back. I’ll accept delivery this time. Two days. I’ll give it two days and if I decide I don’t want it, I return it. And you won’t bring this up again.”
“Yes.”
I said nothing about his offer to refrain from contacting me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. As healthy as it might be for us to have a closer relationship, I didn’t know if that could ever happen again, or even exactly what it might look like if we did.
“Why does it mean so much to you that I have an Artificial?” I said.
“You’re a good person. You don’t deserve to be alone.”
I have the Lord, I thought. I have my faith. But I didn’t say that. Trevor was an avowed atheist. He’d given up any semblance of faith in a higher power after our parents died.
Well, died wasn’t exactly the right word to describe what happened to them. It didn’t come close to doing justice to describing the brutal way their lives ended.
Shot.
Slaughtered.
Gunned down.
Any of those descriptions would’ve been a lot more on the right track.
I didn’t respond to his comment about me not deserving to be alone because I wasn’t so sure I had the Lord, or my own faith, anymore and I didn’t want to mislead him.
“Is there anything else I can do?” Trevor said. “Do you need money for—”
“I don’t need money.”
“Okay.”
The Artificial was his way of showing he cared, and so was the offer of money—I understood that—but the fracture between us was deep, and it wasn’t going to be healed by the gift of a robot or a credit transfer to my account.
“Let me know if you have any questions about Jordan,” he offered.
“Right.”
And then, after fumbling through our awkward goodbyes, we ended the call.
Obviously the recovery time after giving birth varies for different women. It depends on how long you’re in labor and how big your baby is, in addition to any number of medical issues or complications that might arise. And I had to admit that even though I was emotionally devastated, physically I was feeling far better than I would’ve expected.
However, my milk had come in and my breasts hurt and it was a terrible kind of pain. My mind knew that my baby was dead, but my body was reacting as if she were still alive. I’d never felt so lonely in my life.
According to the articles on the Feeds, I should avoid pumping since it might keep the milk from drying up. Still, I found it necessary and so I did.
Later in the evening, the droid returned, delivering the adult-sized box to my living room.
My brother had told me that Jordan was special.
We would see about that.
You have two days, I thought. Starting from when I power you up tomorrow. Then I’m sending you back.
A message came in from the hospital offering me counseling services along with information on working through the stages of grief. “We’re here to assist you. To listen. To help you heal,” it read.
I filed it to respond to later.
Trevor’s question regarding a memorial service stuck in my mind, but I couldn’t bear the thought of going through saying goodbye to my baby with an audience around me. It would just be too traumatic, too difficult, so I decided not to post the time on the Feeds. I would have a private visitation without drawing undo attention to myself or my loss.
The Pollyannaish idea that Naiobi would live on in my heart brought me no comfort. No, the dead do not live on in our hearts. We remember them, of course, but that’s of little comfort, or none at all. In fact, I’d often seen that when people were grieving, the lingering memories of their loved ones actually made it more difficult to move on.
The dead don’t live on in our hearts.
They’re gone.
I gave the box a wide berth as I passed it on the way to my bedroom.
* * *
“What do we know about her?” Special Agent Nick Vernon paused as he scrolled through a series of images on the screen in front of him.
The woman appeared to be about his age. She had a gentle-looking, attractive face, but also an intensity about her that made her appear to be someone who could stand up for herself.
“She’s a Methodist minister,” Agent Ripley Carlisle, his associate, said. “Wrote anti-technology blogs while she was at seminary.”
Nick had worked with Ripley for the last six months. Bald, wiry, and strong, the man had a presence about him that seemed almost serpentine.
The two men were in Nick’s office in the National Counterterrorism Bureau suite at the federal building in downtown Cincinnati. The cramped and quiet room stood in sharp contrast to the frenzied activity in the unit’s expansive control center down the hall.
“And now?” Nick said.
“She was one of the first responders at the scene of the bombing. And her purchase history includes hundreds of paper-bound books.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“I’m not looking for proof yet, sir, just connections.”
A touch of silence. “Your report says she offered assistance to one of the victims.”
“Yes. A Terabyne security officer named Ethan Bolderson.”
“And?”
“And?”
“Did he make it?”
“He did. He’s at the hospital, still sedated, but in stable condition.”
“Start with him before you talk with her. As soon as he’s awake find out what she said to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And contact the plant’s security office. I want a copy of the surveillance camera footage of her arrival.” Then he added, “And pull up those articles that she wrote. I want to read them for myself.”