Never much went for sport. Nothing involving hand-eye coordination, anyway. I was always better at games requiring agility. Or endurance.
So even once upon a time, before, I wouldn't have been interested in joining their game. Even if they'd invited me.
I've occasionally, after, felt a strange sensation-almost as if I were a person, with a life. It's an illusion, of course, but an illusion that can sustain over time. Over hours, even. Distraction, that's the key. Distraction of a highly physical nature. To feel alive. I can float for an afternoon in a manic haze of witty banter and skillful caffeination. Run all evening through the dark, chasing boogeymen out of the rift, hunting weevils, wearing out my limbs and lungs past exhaustion and out the other side, to peace.
And then I come home, to her.
The worst part is how very *there* she is, when she is. On a good night, we can have a real conversation. Pretend like nothing's changed.
Yes, she is unconscious more often than not.
Yes, her speech patterns are different. Of course I would notice.
The other night she said something about "after the upgrade is complete".
I know she means, after I can save enough to hire Dr. Tanizaki. So he can bring her the rest of the way back.
She is the victim of an unimaginable crime. Her body, taken and destroyed so casually, not by someone who wished her harm, but by someone who saw her as one more expendable tool in a ghastly battle. To whom she didn't even matter. No wonder she's confused.
She doesn't need me to poke at her. Correct her. Ask her stupid questions. She needs two things from me right now: to keep her tied into the power grid to maintain her physical functions. And to keep her anchored. In real life.
Whether she's conscious or not, I end our nights together with a gentle, unintrusive kiss. (She still tastes the same.) And then, dawn cracking sixteen stories above, I sneak upstairs. The most complicated part is trying to avoid Him. Of course, he's trying to avoid the rest of us, which helps.
He lives in the office. And not in the way that you'd joke about your workaholic boss living in the office. He actually lives there. And he wants it kept secret. And I know, not just because I'm the assistant and it's my job to know everything, but because I know.
He and I, both there ahead of everyone else every morning. Both there after everyone else has left at night. No questions between us. No lies.
