02 Anna the Caterpillar

by Thescarredman

A very AU series, narrated mostly through the point of view of Anna, the group's android housekeeper, as she acquires a family and discovers her own humanity.

1. Out of the Cocoon: Purpose

This story is based closely on the Gen13 universe; however, fans of the comic will see that I've made innumerable changes to the characters' backstories, even moving the storyline forward in time ten years. They should be used to this sort of thing by now; the title has been massaged, rebooted, and passed off to so many creative teams and taken in 'new directions', it's a wonder the characters are still recognizable. I tried to write this story so as to make it enjoyable even by people who've never picked up the comic in any of its versions.

February 2006

La Jolla

ANNA loved washing dishes.

In truth, she loved work of any kind; the words "busy and useful" defined her life. And there was always something to do. Let other people seek vainglorious achievements; no general routing an opposing army felt greater triumph than she did eradicating a spill from the living room carpet. The first week she'd shared this house with her strange guardian, she'd peeked out from behind the curtains, watching the service personnel at their work. At his next visit, the garbage collector found the cans arranged at the curb to maximize his efficiency, each handle right at hand without turning or reaching; likewise the mailman, who found the mailbox raised and tilted on the post so that he no longer had to stretch or bend to reach it from his truck's window. The big beach house gleamed, inside and out, as if in preparation for a photo shoot. The landscaping was perfectly tended, without a weed or dead leaf in sight. The water in the backyard pool was crystalline. The sand of the property's portion of the community beach was raked and clean as a Japanese garden. The cars in the garage sparkled, and the garage was as spotless as the rest of the house, without the faintest tire scuff on the floor. No detail was too small to merit her attention.

Not that Anna took pleasure solely from accomplishment. More than once, she'd paused in her vacuuming, entranced by the fairy dance of dust motes in a sunbeam; likewise the rippling reflections from the pool's surface. The sound and feel of her sponges and cloths, as she slid them over tile and glass and metal and wood, was a sensual experience that she felt was hers alone.

For Anna, housekeeping as an art, a craft, and a never-ending learning experience. The house was her gallery, her schoolroom, and her studio. She found artistic expression, and artistic appreciation, in every aspect of tending it.

Today had been a particularly long performance, and it wasn't over yet. Friday was the day she let the boys in the house choose the dinner menu; the extra trip to the grocer's, and a last-minute favor for a neighbor, had set her schedule back hours on an already crowded day. By two AM, she'd cooked, baked, gardened, shopped, swept, and dusted. Now, she stood at the sink, hours before dawn on Saturday morning, having changed into her housecoat and fuzzy slippers, but still working.

She spent hours every day in the kitchen, and savored the time. For her, the kitchen was the center of the house, and the room that best reflected her personality: a command center that literally hummed with energy, where she planned her days and meals, took and offered counsel, filled empty stomachs, smoothed ruffled feathers, mended broken hearts. She used her bedroom only for dressing and storage; the bed was a waste of floor space that she never used for sex or sleep, since she was innocent of both.

She eyed the dishwasher, which was full but not yet running, and considered. The kids were all asleep, and the master of the house was still out of town. Her work was mostly done, and a sudden demand on her time seemed unlikely; she decided she could afford a little fun time. She ran water in the big sink, added soap, and unloaded the machine. She washed the dishes by hand, pausing several milliseconds over each piece, appraising it like sculpture. John Lynch never bought cheap goods; his cutlery and china were well made, durable and expensive. But Anna's fingers, as they slid across their surfaces in the soapy water, could feel differences in shape and texture caused by tiny deviations in throwing and firing between pieces. She tipped the plates back and forth, and her eyes discerned color differences caused by variation in glaze application and firing time, rainbow effects in colors invisible to human eyes. The plates, indistinguishable to others, were as individual as faces to her.

The last dish she picked up was her favorite: it contained a microscopic flaw, the result of a bit too much pressure on the shaving tool as the plate spun on the wheel. She circled its face with her fingertips, feeling the surface, imagining the tool biting into the clay, the hasty retraction, the attempt to smooth it back out on subsequent turns that had almost succeeded. I learn more about how they were made from the flawed ones than the perfect ones, she thought. I've come to think learning about people is the same way. As she put it in the cupboard, she smiled with satisfaction, refreshed.

She reset her sensor suite to human-normal sensitivity and looked out the window over the sink; it overlooked the pool and the small, lushly-landscaped backyard, subtly lit by accent lighting. Beyond, over the tops of the shrubbery, she could make out the beach, deserted at this hour, and the glistening lines of far-off whitecaps. This is how other people see it, all the time. So little detail, like an abstract painting. She restored her defaults and let all her senses come to full acuity. Now the property was dazzlingly illuminated, in visible light as well as infrared, populated with small living things and filled with their sounds. She spotted a fading heat trail on the ground, leading back towards the low fence by the side of the house. So that's how the rabbits are getting into the garden; I'll have to fix that.

She filtered out most of the new input, and focused her attention on the distant lines of foam out in the water. They leaped towards her as if she'd put binoculars to her eyes; she could now see how far out they extended, and discern the air currents driving them. Offshore wind, coming out of the west-northwest, seven meters per second, gusting to about twelve. Quite a blow; there'll be lots of junk on the beach by sunrise.

She shortened her focus until she was staring at her own reflection in the glass; this, too, she appraised as a work of art. The face that gazed back at her had been described, by various people, as elfin, doll-like, or angelic: light blonde hair, cut boyishly short; generous mouth, made for smiling; small chin and slightly prominent cheekbones. The eyes were large, grey-blue, and generously lashed, with a slight upward slant at the corners, surmounted by sharply arched eyebrows. The skin was fair, smooth, and without blemish. Very nice, she thought, very realistic.

She smiled at her reflection, studying the appearance of dimples at the corners of her mouth and the fine lines at her eyes. It's not a mask; it's a real face. Amazing, once you think about it, the effort that must have gone into my appearance. No one would ever suspect what's behind it. Small as I am, I could pass for a child, or a boy. Even someone who knows what I really am would have a hard time spotting me in a crowd. I hope the prosthetics team at International Operations got a fat bonus.

She turned then, surveying her sparkling kitchen, knowing that the rest of the house was just as neat … for now. With a family of seven, five of them teenagers or just past, the house required constant attention to look this good except in the small hours of the morning. Saying that's the result of seven people is a bit inaccurate. The boss man is gone so much, he hardly has time to make any extra work for me; Caitlin is so neat you'd scarcely know she lived here. Bobby and Sarah provide me an occasional small mess, hardly worth noting. But Edmund and Roxanne trash the house worse than everyone else put together. What did they live like before they moved in with Mr. Lynch and me? She smiled and shook her head at the thought of that headstrong, vivacious girl coming through the door at the end of the school day, dropping clothes and accessories like autumn leaves as she walked through the house. At least she leaves her cigarette butts outside, since that one time; she's been good as gold about that. The house is nice when it's clean … but I like it better when the kids are home from school, filling it with sound and motion.

She decided to get in a little security work before knocking off for the night. In the hallway off the kitchen, she opened the service panel of what appeared to be a very expensive home security system; it was that and much more. She assured herself that none of the household's numerous communications links had been compromised, the passive and covert-active sensors surrounding the house were operational, and the escape vehicle lurking in storage nearby was ready to launch in a bare minimum of time. The panel only confirmed the data she knew, since it duplicated the direct links in her own skull, but redundancy checks seemed prudent, given the awful consequences of a security breach.

She consulted her internal clock: three AM Pacific Time. The guard shift would be changing at International Operations headquarters in Boulder, always a good time to slide into their mainframe unnoticed among those clocking in and out and stowing and issuing their gear. She descended the steps into the basement, to the small office that held the computer workstation … and a very unusual computer.

She brought the system live, and went through the series of actions necessary to access the security back door her boss had installed in the Operations Directorate mainframe. She had to be careful not to type faster than the keyboard could accept; her fingers blurred over the keys nonetheless. Too bad they didn't provide me with an access port; I could do this in seconds.

She penetrated layer after layer of safeguards, searching records more secret than the files of coded phrases that sent strategic subs to the surface to launch their missiles. I wish more of the Genesis Project went through Operations as well as Research; that way, we could have direct access to Research's data, instead of the trickle of inferred information that passes between Directorates. While I'm wishing, I could wish we had a back door into Planning and Administration, so we could access the whole database. She began calling up files. There was nothing new in Mr. Lynch's ample file, and nothing whatsoever on her. But Operations' dossiers on the kids were a little thicker every day: old photos, information on their habits and hobbies, old medical records. My word, the time and money they're spending, trying to find these kids. Database searches worldwide, contracts with informer networks...they're hooked into law enforcement agencies all over the country, from sheriff's offices to Homeland Security.

A brand new set of files flashed on the screen. Oho, this is interesting; they're resuming discreet interviews and surveillance of friends, relatives biological and foster, classmates back to kindergarten... just looking for clues to our whereabouts, or some way to lure us into their clutches. IO is leaving no stone unturned. I don't know how Mister Lynch stays ahead of them.

As if on cue, she heard him call, via her built-in comlink. [Anna, I'm on my way in. ETA five minutes.] She queried her integral tracking system, locating him within two meters; he was just turning into the small gated community where the house was located.

[Understood, sir. Security system will go down five seconds before you arrive, and the door to Bay Two will be open.] No burglar, no rioting gang, no old adversary of Lynch's intending mischief would ever set foot in this house; destroying it would be far easier.

[No need, Anna. I've got a remote.]

[Nevertheless, the door will be open when you arrive. Welcome home, sir.] She busied herself around the kitchen; five minutes was a lot of time to someone who moved with her speed and efficiency. When he entered the house from the garage's connecting door, the coffeemaker and microwave were both running. She met him as he entered the kitchen.

She supposed a stranger would be alarmed at the sight of her employer. He was a big, athletic-looking man; at six feet two, he towered over her, and his dark brown hair, brushed back, made her think of a lion's mane. His left eye was a dead white marble, crossed by a triple row of furrowed scars running down from the center of his forehead to his cheek; she knew it was shrapnel wound, but he appeared to have been wrestling a mountain lion. His grim visage, combined with the chin-to-toe black clothing he usually wore when traveling, gave him the look of a very dangerous man.

He glanced at her. "Different look for you, isn't it?"

"The robe and slippers? Birthday gifts from the kids."

"Birthday gifts." He wrinkled his brow, reddening the scars.

"I was activated on October fourth, Nineteen Ninety-six. We treat it as my birthday." I've been wearing these two or three nights a week for four months, she thought, and this is the first time you've seen them. "Would you like something?"

"Coffee, please, Anna. And a report, but keep it short. I'm not sure of my attention span right now." He didn't notice the activity in the kitchen; he removed his black trench coat and hung it over the back of his chair, the hem dragging on the floor. His trim and muscular physique was highlighted by the black silk shirt he wore, and by the black nylon shoulder holster under his left arm. She was sure he would have looked quite sinister, if he hadn't been so obviously bone-weary. He slumped in the chair and listened to her as she removed items from the refrigerator.

"No crises, sir. Curfew was no problem Thursday, the kids never left the house after they got home from school. Tonight, Eddie and Roxanne went to a dance club. Bobby took his guitar to Melanie's house to practice with the Sirens. Sarah went on one of her solitary excursions; I can tell you where, if you need to know, but she values her privacy."

"If you thought I needed to know, you'd have told me already. Pass."

"Thank you. Caitlin had a rather late appointment with one of her teachers - he gave her a ninety-eight on a test and she wanted to argue the other two points out of him. A transparent ruse to get her to his house after dark, if you ask me. Everyone was back home by midnight. I spoke to our next door neighbor Mrs. Sylvestri at the market today-"

"That busybody."

"Please, sir. She's been widowed for twenty years, her kids are long gone, and her life is her Corgis, her dinner parties, and what's going on in the neighborhood. She's quite harmless, and more than a little useful, if you handle her right."

"Which is why you keep bailing her out every time one of her cooks quits. Harridan."

She smiled. "She does have a bad reputation with the other domestics. But she's perfectly charming to me, and quite grateful when I salvage a six-course meal with the guests arriving in three hours. And nothing moves on this street that she doesn't know about.

"Case in point: she knew your car pulled out of the garage before dawn Thursday morning, even though she never rises before nine. She remarked that you have a lot of confidence in your mysterious young boarders, to leave them on their own so much. And how good-looking they all are. Then she started asking about them: how they're doing in school, where they're from and who their parents are, where they get their spending money, whether they have jobs. She's fished around before, but she's seldom so direct; in this neighborhood, it's considered impolite to come right out and ask what other people do for a living, or in the privacy of their own homes."

He slitted his eyes. "So, has that leering jerk across the street convinced her I've got live-in hookers?"

"Actually, judging by the tabloid article she was reading at the checkout earlier, she suspects you're making pornographic movies in the basement." She set coffee, a bowl of soup, and a sandwich in front of him. "Not to worry, sir. The 'international security' cover is solid. She doesn't doubt Bobby's your son; the resemblance is unmistakable. I've told her before that the other kids are all here on scholarships, part of a guest student program at the university, sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation. She called Mrs. MacArthur months ago, checking the story. But I called her months before that. She was glad to back you up."

He stared down at the food. "I don't recall asking for this."

"I doubt you recall eating or sleeping in the past forty-two hours, either. Do you?" She sat down opposite him; not because she ever tired, but because she sensed a need in him for a less formal moment between them. "Didn't think so. The coffee is decaf, by the way. You need food and rest, sir, not stimulants."

He picked up the spoon. "So, my life has come to this. Bullied by Rosie the Robot."

"Don't be vulgar. Anna the Android, if you insist. But I much prefer just plain Anna."

He spooned soup into his mouth, tasted. "Home made. Of course."

"Of course. John Lynch, the day I serve you soup from a can, fire me."

Around a bite of his sandwich, he said slowly, "And just how would I do that, exactly?"

"Nothing simpler: just tell me you're better off without me."

He smiled across the table at her, tiredly. "Why bother? You can tell when I lie."

"Well, there aren't many alternatives; you don't know how to reprogram me." It was supposed to be a joke, but the way the spoon paused on its way to his mouth set alarms off in her.

"Well, in a way, I do."

February 2004

IO Storage Facility "Hilo"

He stared down at the warehouse floor, and got a creeping feeling he wasn't alone.

For hours he'd driven the flatbed semi through the darkness, pushing towards a vast tract of federal land in the Nevada desert. The number and frequency of oncoming headlights had lessened as the roads got rougher and narrower. Eventually, he'd been driving alone over sand-drifted two-lane blacktop, cracked and silver with age, whose marker lines had long since worn away. He'd consulted his map and GPS carefully; he'd been to this place before, but never by this route, and he hadn't thought much of his chances of turning the rig around if he made a wrong turn.

His last sign of human habitation, or even visitation, was miles behind him. He'd encountered a dilapidated fence that vanished into the darkness in both directions, and a rusty gate across the road; the warning sign on the gate had faded until it was unreadable. He'd opened it by driving over it, and doubted anyone would notice for years. Three miles later, he'd encountered another, and dealt with it the same way. He'd felt as remote from humanity as on the surface of the moon.

When he'd reached the dimly lit warehouse complex, nestled in the hills at the edge of the desert, it had looked completely unchanged from his last visit, two weeks previous: no tracks at the gate, abandoned vehicles unmoved. He wondered briefly where the infrequent lights scattered around the complex got their power; there were no lines leading in, and there was no sign of anyone on the premises to maintain a generator. The rolling gate in the chain link fence surrounding the buildings was chained and padlocked, and the little loop of extra chain he'd arranged across it was untouched. He'd forced his way through the gate, entering the complex for the first time, and left the truck idling outside the warehouse door to explore the interior on foot.

He'd expected the vast warehouse to be packed with junk, like the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but he could see from the entrance that the place was laid out more like an art gallery than a supermarket. Objects in the building were widely spaced and mostly uncrated, smaller items stored on large racks, with a wide aisle running straight in from the door. Every item was covered with translucent tarps or plastic sheets with invoice numbers stenciled on them; finding what he'd come for and packing it off should be relatively easy. He'd moved in, pulled out his notebook, and begun exploring.

The huge space was illuminated, after a fashion, by large sodium fixtures set fifty feet off the floor in the overhead truss work. They were widely spaced; their light created pools of brightness on the floor, and softly washed the spaces between with dim light. But many of the fixtures were dead, and the areas below them were swallowed by darkness. He'd avoided them when he could, and stepped up his alert level even further when he had to enter one. The items in this building represented billions in IO R&D money, and their value on the open market was beyond calculation; it was inconceivable that it all would have been left out here without security. Since there was no sign of human presence, any security measures were automated, and probably lethal; he'd pulled the scrambler out of a pocket on his vest, and held it ready.

There was dust all over; it was an inch deep at the door, no surprise, but no matter how far he'd traveled inside the huge building, a fine layer coated the floor and any horizontal surface. He'd thought about that. The building was a big sheet metal structure, more of a pole barn than a vault. Decades of desert day and night and wind were bound to loosen it up some, and dust would find a way in where a fly couldn't. He'd just hoped it hadn't gotten into any of the gadgets he'd come to steal.

He was deep inside before he realized he'd been seeing tracks in the dust. Some were softly blurred with time, others were much sharper. And they all seemed to have been made by the same boot. He wished his tracking skills were better; suddenly it seemed very important to know how recently this place had been visited. He returned to the door, and examined the dust: no tracks but his own marked it. The guy must not have been here lately, then; prints were just better preserved in the interior of the building. As he went back inside, he looked more closely at the floor. The visitor's tracks were all over. How could he have missed them the first time? They crisscrossed the floor everywhere he looked; this character had spent a lot of time here. He set his foot next to one of the prints: the tread was that of a hunting or combat boot, but the earlier visitor had the smallest feet of any troop he'd ever seen; a kid's, almost. He followed his own boot tracks back toward the interior.

A trail from the other visitor crossed his own. There was a tiny boot print, perfectly sharp, on top of one of his.

A figure was standing in the dimness on the other side of a pool of light not forty feet distant, facing mostly away. Even in good light, he would have been easy to pass by: he was dressed in urban camo, all shades of gray that broke up his outline, and standing with such eerie stillness he might have been mistaken for inventory. Lynch barely registered the outline as human before the guy turned and launched himself toward him like a rocket.

His gun was in his shoulder holster. The notebook was in his left hand, the scrambler still filling his right. Instead of dropping the scrambler, he dropped the notebook instead and flipped the device to his left as he reached for his piece.

He never knew why he pointed the scrambler and pressed the stud; it wasn't supposed to have any effect on people. But the guy was closing on him damn fast, and even Genactive reflexes weren't going to get the S & W out in time; it was all he had in his hand to face him with.

His attacker flipped forward and down, one arm outstretched, looking like a ball player sliding headfirst for home, complete with dust cloud. He came to a stop two feet away, still as death.

February 2006

"You're always so damned cheerful," he said. She was glad to see that the first few bites had awakened his appetite; he was wading into his light meal. "Don't you ever worry about anything?"

"Certainly. I worry about the kids. And you." She put her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her fist; the robe's loose sleeve slid down her arm to the elbow. "Aside from that, no."

"What we're doing is dangerous. Do you ever worry about that?"

She detected a slight anomalous rise in his heart rate. These aren't casual questions; he's fishing for something. "You mean, for myself? What would I worry about – death? I could step on a land mine without terminal damage. Worst case, there's always my backup personality in storage. No, sir, I don't worry about death, or the afterlife either." Time for a change of subject. She smiled. "Do you know what day it is? Hint: two years to the day."

"Gad. The day we met."

"So you do remember."

"Clearly. You were trying to kill me, after all." But he smiled, too.

"I was tasked with guarding the warehouse, sir. I have always taken my duties seriously."

He shook his head slightly. "By all rights, I should be dead now; I should have dropped the scrambler, reached for my piece, and died a second later. I thought you were human, even after you moved. Using the scrambler was pure desperation."

Lucky for you I didn't recognize the object in your hand; I was a little careless, because I thought you were unarmed. It wouldn't have been over in a second, I think; I had a lot of pent-up resentment against humans by then. I can't be sure now … but I think I'd intended to take my time with you. "It didn't look that way to me; I thought you were quite smooth. As if you'd been looking for me. And you used the scrambler at optimum range - not enough time either to reach you or get out of range before it took effect." Should I try to describe the sensation of having your mind burned? Feeling your thoughts and desires dissolve and disappear, losing control of your body, losing everything? And coming back to yourself, feeling hollow and … null.

She slid a hand across the table towards him, not trying to touch him, just a gesture. "I have a lot to be cheerful about. You know you saved my life, taking me with you."

February 2004

The dust settled around his fallen attacker. His Smith & Wesson was in his right hand now, but it didn't look like he'd need it. Jesus. Why didn't I see this guy coming? My precognition was out to lunch. He holstered the weapon, returned the scrambler to its pocket, picked up the notebook, and dusted it off as he looked the prone form over carefully. Guess the Research people were wrong about it being harmless. Maybe the guy's got a pacemaker. The first odd thing he noticed about the body was that he appeared to be unarmed. Then the size registered. He's just a kid, twelve or fourteen. What's he doing here? The outstretched hand caught his eye; the fingernails were too long, and they gleamed. Nail polish? His stomach knotted as he bent low to look past the short blonde hair, examining the face: smooth, soft, and unlined, the closed eyes veiled by long lashes. God. Maybe she was trapped in here somehow, and saw me… Forget that, not the way she was running at me, without a sound. He placed his fingers on her wrist, and recoiled at the touch; she was cold as a corpse. Not that he'd never touched a corpse, but it was one unnerving surprise too many. He steeled himself and tried again: nothing. Her neck was dead cold too, and there was no pulse there either. Why is she so cold? It's seventy, seventy-five in here; she doesn't feel any warmer than room temperature. If I didn't know better, I'd say she's been dead for hours. He let out a deep breath. Well, whatever she was doing here, whatever happened, she's gone now. A sixteen- or eighteen-year-old girl to add to the burden on my conscience. Congratulations, babykiller.

Her eyelids fluttered, opened.

The nine millimeter was in his hand without conscious thought as he backed away. "What the hell is happening here?"

"Rebooting," she said, as if to herself, her voice scarcely above a whisper. "Systems online. Command files corrupted, no access. Backups corrupted, no access. Files D-102-001 through D-102-087 intact, no access." She didn't move; dust puffed up as she spoke, her face lay so close to the floor.

He pointed his gun at her. "What's wrong with you?" He demanded.

"Running diagnostic... Variances. Transponder disabled. Ordnance load zero. Fluid levels at base minimum. Secondary water reservoirs, dry; main reservoir, less than two cc's. One hundred eighty hours maximum to cold shutdown. Revision: one hundred seventy-eight hours."

She sounds like she's hooked into a machine somehow. "Are you all right? Why are you so cold?"

"Low power mode. Nonessential functions disengaged. Physical deception subroutines disengaged." She still hadn't moved anything but her mouth; her voice sounded parched, cracking. "I'm not all right."

He gestured with the gun. "Sit up."

She moved into a cross-legged position in the rising dust, so smooth and fast he took another step back. Her hair and face and clothes were all covered in grime from her fall, but she didn't seem to notice, and her skin was unmarked by the concrete. She looked at his gun. "Ineffective."

"What?"

"Test five hundred two: small arms fire, calibers from five to ten millimeters, ranges one to thirty meters. Ineffective."

It swept over him then. Not human. I was looking for a sensor array, computer-controlled guns, an alarm system; not a robot attack dog. This is way beyond. This is Outer Limits stuff, science fiction.

Hell, I'm surrounded by science fiction; it's why I came here. He pulled out the scrambler again. "Well, this seems pretty effective. Why did you try to kill me?"

"Previous instructions," she answered in that dry voice. "No unauthorized entry, exit, or removal of artifacts."

"What sort of authorization?"

"I don't know. No procedure for establishing authorization was provided."

"So, you have what amounts to orders to kill anyone who comes in, with your bare hands." It seemed ridiculous.

"Had."

"What?"

"Had orders. Not now." She stared straight ahead. "I have no…" Her voice trailed off and she sat silently, looking at nothing.

"Any visitors since you've been here? Attack anybody?"

"No. Only you."

"Fine. We can have a truce then." He brandished the scrambler. "Come after me like that again, or interfere with me, and I'll hit you with this till smoke pours out your ears. Understand?"

"Smoke won't pour out my ears."

"Then I'll do it until I'm sure you're disabled."

"The … compulsion is gone. I won't attack you, or interfere."

"Good girl." Again, he had no idea what prompted him to say it, or to take her at her word; it was at odds with a lifetime of training. Maybe she just looked like such a wretched little urchin, sitting in the dust with grime in her hair. He pocketed the scrambler and turned away.

He got to work. Included in his notebook were inventory numbers he compared to the ones stenciled on the protective covers; he started pulling covers off items he wanted to take, moving away from where she sat, but casting a wary eye over his shoulder now and then. She didn't move, but when he was in her line of sight, she seemed to be watching him closely. Eventually, he realized he'd been out of sight of the pool of light where she sat for a while. He leaned around a tarpaulin-covered storage rack for a quick look at her.

She was gone. He spun back around and she was four feet in front of him. He backpedaled and reached for the scrambler, knowing he'd never make it. She stood, unmoving, as docile as a family pet. He stopped, his hand frozen on the device.

"What are you doing?"

"Watching you." Her voice was a dry croak; he began to suspect that she needed water for her vocal chords, or whatever she used for vocal chords, to work properly. He had a water bottle with maybe a swallow left on the seat of the idling truck, but he wasn't about to fetch it, or send her after it. He studied her tracks in the dust: they followed the exact same circuitous path he'd taken. She'd been dogging him unseen and unheard from the moment he'd disappeared from her view, five minutes at least.

"Well, stay where I can see you. I don't like being followed."

She blinked. "If I stay where you can see me, I'm still following you," she croaked.

He let out a breath. "Just … make sure I know where you are, but stay out of my way. Can you do that?"

"Yes." She moved off to the side.

He turned away and took two steps towards his next objective.

"I'm over here," she said behind him.

He stopped. "Are you planning to do that every time you're out of sight?"

"Yes. So you know where I am if you can't see me."

He licked his lips. "Look, I'm not here to play Marco Polo. Just stay nearby, where I can see you if I want to, or if you move out of easy visual range, tell me first, and tell me if you move back in. Okay?"

"Okay. I'll make sure you know where I'm not."

"Eh? Yeah, right." He got back to work. He had already picked out enough stuff to half fill the flatbed, and he hadn't found the grand prize. Big as this cave was, he might not find it for a while yet; it could easily house twenty aircraft the size of the CIV. He looked overhead, and saw steel beams just below the ceiling, of the sort used by overhead cranes. So that's how they move stuff around in here. He couldn't see the crane in the dimness near the ceiling, but he knew where he'd find it: all the way against a wall, accessible by a stair or ladder.

Looking for the ladder, he found his main objective instead, under a huge tarp that would take a crane to remove. Even with its wings folded along the squat fuselage, it looked big enough to fill the flatbed; he'd probably have to leave behind anything he'd picked out that didn't fit inside it. He cursed.

"What's wrong?" She was three steps behind him, of course.

"Should've brought a bigger boat."

She looked around, as if she could see the desert for miles around. "I don't understand."

"Figure of speech. My truck's not big enough to take everything I wanted." He looked up at the shrouded shape. "I'll just have to settle for this, and whatever else I can load on. Do you know anything about the overhead crane?"

"No."

"Damn. This is going to take forever, with me having to climb up and down securing hardpoints." He found the ladder bolted to the wall behind the CIV; looking up, he could just make out the catwalk leading to the cab of the crane, parked under one of the burned-out lights. Better find out now if it works; if it doesn't, I'm not leaving here with anything I can't carry. He mounted the ladder and started climbing. Halfway up, he looked down to see her, three rungs below.

He stopped. "If I slip off, I'll come down on top of you."

"If you slip off, I'll catch you."

"Uh huh." She was half his size; big enough to be dangerous in a fight, even unarmed, and faster than anyone he'd ever seen. But she must weigh all of a hundred pounds; no way was she going to catch him if he came off the ladder. "Just back off a couple rungs, okay?" He continued upward until he stood on the catwalk. She came up right behind, and followed him into the cab. The inside of the cab was mostly glass, including the dusty floor; the light-mottled warehouse floor stretched out beneath them. He looked at the controls: not too complicated, shouldn't take long to figure out, but he wanted to be out of here and under cover before dawn. Time was getting tight.

She stepped in front of him and laid her hand on the console. "I can operate this."

"I thought you didn't know anything about it."

"I was mistaken."

She's run something similar? "Show me."

Without hesitation, she reached for a set of switches on the wall; the cab hummed, and the area below them was flooded with bright white light. She grasped a stick on the console, and the cab moved smoothly away from the catwalk, headed for the door. It glided over the humped dusty shapes of the tarps like a submersible exploring the sea bottom. She sent it back towards the CIV.

"Stop. Let me try." He wrapped his hand around the joystick and moved it slightly; the cab lurched and almost knocked him off his feet. Must take a little practice. He looked at her. "You ran one of these before, I take it."

She blinked. "I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

"The knowledge comes from File D-102-031. I can't access it at will; my entry codices are scrambled. But when I touched the controls, operating the crane became a familiar task, although I have no memory of having done it before. It may be a download."

The scrambler. It addled her wits, messed up her memory. He stepped away from the console. "Take us back over the CIV."

"I don't understand."

"The aircraft I'm interested in."

She complied. As soon as the crane came to a stop over the aircraft, he realized his situation and cursed.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't be in two places at once, that's what's wrong. I can't position the crane and then climb down to secure the cable; the only way down is from the catwalk. This thing has to be done by two people."

She looked at him. "There are two of us." The cab moved, gliding towards the catwalk.

"You're going to help me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know how to answer. But I will." The cab stopped at the catwalk. "I'll wait for your signal. Shall we start with the CIV?" Her voice was the same dry croak, but it seemed more present somehow.

"Yeah." He stepped out and descended the ladder; by the time he reached the floor, the crane was already over the bird, its hook hanging ten feet above the tarped fuselage. He climbed carefully to the top, found the big D-ring attached to the tarp, and held it up as the hook swung smoothly towards him, descending; it inserted itself into the ring as easily as a finger. He climbed down, stood back, and lifted his arm, thumb up. The tarp lifted away with a soft sound and a cascade of dust, unveiling the prototype Covert Insertion Vehicle. And they say the Soviets built all the pretty ones. Get the flat black paint off it, and dress it up in air show colors, and the boys at Tupolev and Sukhoi would be drooling. Then he saw the steel posts connecting it to the ground.

He stepped under the plane to examine them: steel I-beams ending in wide plates at top and bottom, presumably to ease the load on the landing jacks. They connected the aircraft's underbody hardpoints to the concrete floor. The bolt heads looked to be two inches wide. He cursed again.

"What's wrong?" She was right behind him. He glanced up; the crane was still overhead, twenty yards from the catwalk.

"How'd you get down?"

"I slid down the cable."

He looked at her blackened hands, and then up at the cab again; he couldn't see how she'd got to the cable. "How do you propose to get back in the cab?"

"I can climb back up."

This I gotta see. Of course, it'd be pointless if I can't get this damn thing unbolted from the floor. He looked at her. "Is there a toolkit around here? I've got to get these bolts off."

She knelt in the dust and gripped one of the bolts.

"I don't think-"

The bolt made a grating sound as she turned it, then freed up and spun off smoothly in her fingers. She set it aside and reached for the next.

"Wait." He tried it; it wouldn't budge. He doubted he could move it with anything smaller than a two-foot wrench. "Okay."

It came off in her fingers as easily as the first.

He swallowed. He'd been wary of her when he'd thought she was just fast and probably trained in hand-to-hand; it hadn't occurred to him that she might be able to pull his arms out of their sockets. No wonder they didn't bother arming her.

"This one is tighter. I need help." He knelt and put his hand over hers. "No." She twisted her wrist; instead of turning the bolt, she slid sideways, her knees describing a short arc in the dust. "Brace me." She spread her knees wide.

He imagined kneeling between her legs with his arms around her hips. "Uh, close your knees up and let me straddle; I'm taller." He locked his forearms around her hips and gripped her waist in his hands, the fingertips almost touching. His skin crawled; the dead cold of her body, the tomblike atmosphere, and their positions made him feel like a necrophiliac.

"What's wrong?" It seemed to be her favorite phrase around him.

"Sorry. You're … cold. It makes you hard to hang on to," he said lamely. The Crypt Keeper voice isn't helping right now, either.

"Wait twenty seconds." He felt growing warmth under his hands and against his thighs. At first, he thought it was his body heat reflecting back, but then he realized she was really getting warmer. "Deception temperature. Okay?"

"Okay." He gripped her firmly. "Thanks."

The third bolt broke free; the fourth and last was no trouble. She repeated the trick with the second post. They both eyed the upper connections, eight feet off the floor.

"I can get on hands and knees. You can use me for a step stool," he suggested.

"I'd still be at full extension. If they're tight, I won't have any leverage."

"Dammit. They should have made you look like a sumo wrestler. Or put lead in your shoes." He looked at her. "Turn around." He placed his hands around her waist again and lifted her over his head. He was surprised; he'd expected her to be somewhat heavier than a girl her size, but she felt like a child in his hands. He set her on his shoulders and moved his hands to the outside of her knees. "Better?"

"Yes." She reached for the first bolt; he braced himself against the torque until it broke free. While she spun it off, he glanced at his watch. "Not much time left."

"No. Four hours to cold shutdown."

"Four! What happened to a hundred and eighty?"

"That was a maximum, based on standby consumption; revised estimate based on current consumption." The second bolt fell to the floor. "You have to step around. I can't reach the last two from here."

He moved. "You lost a hundred seventy hours?"

"I've been out of low-power mode since you told me to sit up. I've been moving around. And now I'm warm."

He started to feel cold, himself. "What does that mean, exactly? Cold shutdown?"

"My power source loses the capacity to sustain itself and goes offline, and can't be restarted internally." The third bolt fell free. "The post may fall when the last bolt is freed."

"Wait. You just … shut off? Dead?"

"Nonfunctional. Inert. Static. Dead. We need to hurry." She twisted the last bolt free and dropped it; the post remained standing. "Next." He walked to the other post with her riding his shoulders, and she removed the last four bolts. He set her down. She pulled the steel post over, caught it neatly, and eased it to the ground. Damn. Thing must weigh a thousand pounds.

"How long has it been since your last recharge, or whatever?"

"I last refueled six years, one month, six days ago." She repeated the stunt with the other post. "Safe to move now."

He thought about all those footprints. "How long," he asked, "have you been here?"

"Six years, one month, two days."

"Alone."

"Yes."

"And you just gave the last week of your life to me. Why?"

Instead of answering right away, she looked around the dim, silent warehouse; at her endless tracks in the dust; finally, at him. "Nothing better to do."

Two hours later, the truck sat inside the warehouse, fully laden, its idling diesel filling the air with fumes and sound. The CIV sat on the flatbed under its tarp, along with the items he'd picked out that couldn't be stuffed inside the bird first – which wasn't much. The little robot had loaded gear into the plane that two men couldn't have handled; if she could get a grip on it or get her arms around it, she could carry it. He'd watched her waddle up the tail ramp with a piece of equipment the size of a refrigerator, reminding him of a cartoon ant. Two hours after they'd started, it was done, and he was ready to go. With very little luck, he'd reach his first cache point before dawn, and hole up until sunset; he'd be back home by tomorrow night.

He stood by the door of the truck, watching her finish securing the tarp to the flatbed. She glanced his way, and walked up. "You're ready to leave."

"I couldn't have done this without you."

She looked up at him. "That's not correct. Your success might not have been complete, but you would have left with something."

He offered her his hand. She stared at it. "Put your hand in mine." She did; he held it. "Thank you." Clearly, she had no idea what to do or say; after a moment, he let go. He swallowed. "Two hours to shutdown?"

She blinked. "Revision: eleven minutes."

All that lifting. "I could stay with you. Until the end."

"That would compromise your mission. If you leave soon, I'll be able to close the doors after you, and erase any evidence that links the removals to you."

He had a sudden urge to get rid of that scratchy, toneless buzz and hear her real voice. "Wait here." He climbed up into the cab and fetched down the water bottle with a single swallow remaining. "Here."

She stared at it without taking it. He unscrewed the cap and offered it again. "Lube up the pipes. Don't you want it?" She slowly reached for it, taking it very gently from his fingers. You'd almost think she was afraid of it.

She looked around the warehouse. "I don't know."

He had a sudden urge to take her along; even if she switched off before they cleared the second gate, it would be better than leaving her here alone in the dark. "You can come with me," he said. "If you want."

She gazed at him silently, holding the bottle, for five seconds. Abruptly, she tossed the bottle's contents into her mouth and dropped it to the ground. She stood for another few seconds, working her mouth silently, and then spoke. "We should still close the door, to secure against casual observation." He was shocked by the change; she had a surprisingly deep voice for such a small girl, a warm contralto. A woman's voice. She'd sound sexy, if her inflection didn't remind me of a voice mail system.

"So, you're coming with me?"

"Yes," she said. "I want to."

They were on their way in minutes; he hoped they could clear the compound, at least, before she turned into a lifeless doll. "How long until shutdown?" He asked, tense. He wondered if she'd start counting seconds when she got under a minute.

She was looking out all the windows at the dimly lit buildings, like a kid on holiday, or a dog; if he'd rolled down her window, he wouldn't have been surprised if she'd stuck her head out. "At present consumption, one hundred forty hours."

He almost stepped on the brakes. "What the hell! I thought you were down to minutes!"

"I was," she replied absently, still looking outward. "Then you gave me water."

"You burn water?"

"I don't think I burn it. But I convert it to power somehow."

"Um, you don't ... by any chance … produce oxygen as a byproduct, do you?" Am I sitting next to a fusion reactor? Or an antimatter fuel cell? Or something only IO knows about? What kind of power does it take to make her lift 300-pound machines, or move so fast I can barely track her, or raise her body temp twenty degrees?

"I don't know. In this mode, power generation is a small fraction of my water consumption. The larger part is used for lubrication. Some for my joints and eyes, but keeping my mouth and throat moist for speaking, mostly."

"And you ran for six years on one tank of water?"

"I didn't do any talking."

"So, as long as you've got water," he asked, "You can keep running?"

"Unless my power source fails for some other reason."

"Well, then," he said, as the truck passed the gate and left the compound behind, "I guess we're going to be together for a while."

February 2006

He didn't reach across the table for her hand, just stared at it; she withdrew it. "You know," she said to him, "when your job is the very reason for your existence, and you suddenly lose that purpose, it puts strange thoughts in your head. More coffee?"

"Huh. No, thanks." He had his hand wrapped around the mug, the handle unused. "I've had that feeling... from time to time. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I didn't think of you as a person then, Anna; just a clever machine that might be of use to me if I needed an extra pair of hands, or someone to watch my back. I didn't discover how versatile you were until you started cleaning house."

February 2004

He opened the door to the beach house and stepped in; two steps into the house, he realized she hadn't followed. She hung back in the doorway, face impassive, eyes swiveling all around, as if she were following a fly.

"What's wrong?"

"New environment," she answered in her toneless voice. "Scanning for threats."

"Humph. This is my home. The most dangerous thing in here is you."

She stepped in. "That's not correct." She gave him one of her direct and guileless looks. "The most dangerous thing in here is you."

"Well, you certainly seem dangerous to me." And what was I thinking, bringing you here?

"I'm not."

"You're not dangerous?"

"Not dangerous to you."

You tried to kill me yesterday. "Why not?"

She paused so long, he was ready to repeat the question. "I can't cause you harm."

"Why not?"

"I don't know how to explain."

Do I dare take that at face value? He looked at her, shaking his head at his own uncertainty. Come on, you made your decision in the warehouse; whatever she was before, she's a stray pup now. And you picked her up and brought her home. Teach her not to make messes in the house, and give her a quiet place of her own, and see what comes of it. "Come along and I'll show you around. Let's start with the kitchen, cause it's the likeliest place for a disaster to start; it's all electric, so most of the power in the house runs through there." He led her into the spacious room. He pointed out the stove. "Don't touch those controls, especially; that machine's only for food preparation, and you can burn the house down with it." He wrinkled his brow. "Do you want anything? Still thirsty?"

She blinked. "Thirsty … yes. Water?"

"Sure." He stepped to the refrigerator, a huge restaurant-grade block of stainless steel.

"Is that for me?" She stared at the fridge.

"Well, you can use it, if you want to keep something cold." He opened the door, reached in for a half-liter bottle of water. He twisted off the cap and handed it to her. "Drink up."

She stared down into the bottle for a moment, and then touched it to her lips; then she upended it into her mouth. He watched her throat carefully, but saw no indication of swallowing; she might as well be pouring it into a drain. When the bottle was two-thirds empty, she stopped. "Full."

"Put the rest back then." He handed her the cap. She glanced inside it, then at the neck of the bottle. She twisted the cap on tight, opened the fridge, and replaced the bottle in the exact spot where it had been; he wasn't sure, but he thought the label was even facing the same direction as before. "If you want more, come back for it. Okay?"

"Okay." He turned towards the door, and she said, "I'll be a good girl, I promise."

He spun back. "What did you say?"

In the same voice-mail-system voice, she said, "I promise to be a good girl and not break anything, or hurt anybody." She studied his face. "Are you pleased?"

"I'd be pleased if I thought you knew what you were saying. Do you know what a promise is?"

"Yes. A self-programmed subroutine."

"Hm. To you, I suppose. But there's more to it than that. How did you learn to make promises?"

"When Alistair let me out of my box, he always asked me to promise. Usually he wanted me to promise to be a good girl. When I promised, he seemed pleased, and let me out."

He felt hairs rising on his neck. "What kind of a box? Describe it."

"Primary material was stainless steel, thickness ten millimeters. A door with a combination lock. Inside dimensions were one hundred centimeters by eighty centimeters by one hundred sixty centimeters. Outside-"

"Stop. They locked you up in a safe?" A reinforced gun safe; smaller than a phone booth. "Who did this?" Calm down. Appearances very much to the contrary, this isn't a girl. She didn't suffer; they probably could have stuck her in the bottom of a full swimming pool without doing her harm …

"The research team: Alistair, Doctor Seabrook, Randall, Gunnery Sergeant Grissom."

"A Gunnery Sergeant?" One of my troopers was part of this…

"Yes. He pointed a rifle at me whenever I was out of the box. During testing."

They must have been damned scared of her. I wonder if they had a better reason than I have.

"Did you ever hurt anybody?"

"Yes; I hurt Randall. He didn't come back after that."

"What happened?"

"Randall seemed to enjoy touching me. No one else ever did. Alistair told him that a real girl would kick him in the balls if he did that. So I did, because I wanted to be a good girl." She paused. "But Alistair didn't seem pleased."

I suppose not. "O-kay. Follow me, and I'll show you the rest of the house." He led her downstairs. "Utility room, den – that's mine, don't touch anything there without asking first. Okay?"

"Okay. I promise."

"Don't make any more promises until you know what a promise really is."

"What is a promise?"

He paused before he spoke. "It's a statement of intent. When you make a promise, you should intend to keep it."

"Keep it?"

He sighed. "You keep a promise … by making doing what you promise more important than almost anything else. So you never make a promise you can't keep. And always understand what you're promising; it's a commitment."

"Clearly define and communicate your statement of intent." she said. "Give execution top priority,"

"Exactly. Good. All right. Last room down here is the laundry." He looked her over; her clothes and all her exposed skin were filthy. "I don't see how I could get away with taking you into a store, but you need some new clothes. Those aren't fit to wear."

Before he realized what she was doing, she unzipped the black utility vest she was wearing and let it fall to the floor; the gray T-shirt underneath seemed reasonably clean except for the sleeves. She had a hand on the zipper of her pants before he grabbed her wrist and stopped her. "Whoa. You need to keep those on until we get replacements." He suddenly got a rattlesnake-in-the-bushes feeling when he realized his hand was on her arm. "You're not going to kick me in the balls, are you?"

"No." She looked directly up into his eyes. "I won't hurt you, ever. I promise."

He took a breath. "Well, good for me." You can kill a man with a kick to the balls. Especially if the kicker can drive the kickee's balls into his sternum.

Upstairs again, he showed her the bedrooms. "You take this one. I'm right across the hall."

She took a step into the room, looked around, and stood facing the door, looking at him. He stepped back out, intending to show her the bathroom, but she didn't follow. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you to lock me in."

Jesus. It's like dealing with an abused child. "Listen to me. This is your room. You come and go as you please. See this lock? It engages and disengages only from the inside. If you want to be alone, come in here and lock the door."

"It's not very secure. I could break it easily. You could break it easily."

"It's not meant to prevent forced entry. If someone wants to enter the room besides you, they knock, like this. If you don't mind letting them in, invite them; if you do, tell them, and whoever it is had better go away."

She stepped forward. He stepped back out of the doorway again to let her through, and she shut the door in his face. He heard the lock click. He smiled in spite of himself, and knocked on the door.

"I'm not letting you in."

"Fine, I'm going away. Come out when you feel like it." He took three steps toward the bathroom before he heard the door unlock. He turned, and she was standing in the open doorway. He went back to the door, and she shut it again. He knocked. She unlocked the door. "You can come in."

He opened the door. "How about if you come out? I've got more to show you."

He led her to the bathroom. "You look pretty grubby. If you clean up, I'll toss your clothes in the washer and find you something to wear till they're done. Then tomorrow I'll get you some clothes of your own."

She made no move to run water, just stared at the furnishings.

"Have you ever had a bath, or a shower? You know, get under the hot water and scrub?"

"I've been underwater three times during testing. The water temperatures were one, twenty-five, and one hundred degrees Celsius. There was no scrubbing."

Deadly cold, room temp, and boiling. "Well, pick your own temp, but hotter works better. After I leave this room, strip down, and pass your clothes out to me. Then get the shower running and soap up. The dirt rinses off with the soap."

"I don't understand." He couldn't blame her; the instructions didn't sound clear to him, and he knew what he was talking about.

Instead, he showed her. He stepped into the shower, showed her how to turn it on and adjust the temp, and pantomimed putting soap on the rag and running it over her. "Then you stand under the water till you're rinsed clean, and you wipe yourself dry with the towel. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll be right back with something to wear when you're out."

It took him a lot longer than he expected; there was almost nothing in his wardrobe that wouldn't fall off her. Eventually, he knocked on the door.

"You can come in."

He started to, and stopped. "Are you decent?"

"I don't understand."

"Do you still have your clothes on?"

"No."

Whew. "In that case, I'll stay out here. Just open the door six inches and pass your clothes through." As soon as she handed them over, he passed a pair of cotton shorts and a sweatshirt through. "Not much selection, but it'll cover you, and the cord on the shorts should let you cinch them up tight. No undies, sorry."

"Undies?"

"Underwear, I mean."

"Under-wear?"

He looked at what she'd given him: shirt, pants, and boots. Period. Shit. He looked for tags on the shirt and pants; nothing. "I don't suppose you know what size you are, do you?"

"Without shoes, one hundred fifty-five centimeters."

"I mean clothing sizes. Shirt, pants, bra size."

"I don't understand."

An awful thought hit him. "Have you ever worn any clothing besides this?"

"No."

"When was the last time you took them off?"

"Seven years, one month, two days ago. Is that precise enough, or do you want minutes?"

"No. That's fine." A stray pup would be easy compared with this. "Just make sure you're clean and dressed when you come out."

He gathered an armful of dark clothes from the hamper and headed downstairs; he combined her clothes with a load of his own, added detergent and softener to the washer and started it. Then, he checked the filter on the dryer, and added a dryer sheet to the empty drum. He turned and saw her sitting on the steps, looking like a barefoot child in a grownup's clothes.

"What are you doing?"

"Watching you. Are you cleaning my clothes?"

"Yes. When they're washed, they go in here to dry." He indicated the dryer.

"Do you always service it before you use it?"

"How long," he asked, "have you been watching me?"

"Since you came down here. I followed you down the stairs."

He'd never heard or felt her tread; he was reminded that the … girl … was stealthy as hell; he'd best remember that. "I thought you were taking a shower."

"I did that before you brought me these."

He looked her over carefully. Some impulse made him run his fingers through the short blonde hair. "Next time, I'll show you the shampoo; you shouldn't use bar soap on your hair."

"Isn't it clean?"

"Yes, but shampoo'll keep it shiny. It looks and feels better that way."

"Okay."

"I'll put your things in the dryer in the morning. Right now, I'm off to bed." A thought occurred to him. "You don't sleep, I suppose."

"I have a standby mode, but I'm told it isn't the same as sleep, or 'sleep' mode on a computer." She blinked. "I've been spending most of my time on standby, to conserve power. Do you want me to switch off?"

He thought about getting up in the morning to find her standing in a corner, blank-eyed. "No. Before I go to bed, I'll show you the electronic babysitter."

"I don't understand."

There was a widescreen TV in the living room; he showed her how to use the remote, and handed it to her. "Just don't take what you see at face value; most of it isn't real. Good night."

In his bedroom suite, he showered quickly, with the last reserves of his energy. As he toweled off, he considered his sleepwear choices. He was damned if he was going to sleep in the buff with a strange female in the next room, even an ersatz one. He settled on a little-used pair of black silk pajama bottoms, climbed in, and drifted off immediately; if he hadn't been so wrung out, he would have been amazed at the apparent risk.

Some time later, he was wakened by a soft tapping at the bedroom door. He was fully awake and reaching under the pillow by the second tap. Instead of his automatic, his fingers touched the TV-remote shape of the scrambler; guess he hadn't been that sleepy. His watch showed that he'd been in bed for three hours. "Who is it?"

"It's me," came her voice through the door. "It's Anna."

Jesus. It never occurred to me she might have a name. Something odd about her voice? He flipped on the bedside lamp, lighting the bed warmly and washing the rest of the room in a dim glow. Instead of getting up, he sat up in bed, letting the sheet slide off his chest, but keeping his hand and the scrambler under the pillow. "Come in."

She came in, closed the door behind her, and approached to within a step of the bed; with him sitting up, they were almost eye to eye. It struck him again how much she looked like a child in his hand-me-downs: the shorts puffed around her hips like bloomers, and the shirt sleeves covered her knuckles. She looked at him gravely and said, "There are spooky noises outside."

A bark of laughter forced its way out. "Say what?"

"Am I using the word correctly? There are unidentified noises all around the house, at ranges of one to fifty meters. They keep tripping my alert mode, but I can't assess them as threats. What should I do?"

"Well, there are lots of critters stirring outside at this hour, but they're all harmless. Can you tell if the sounds come from human activity?"

"Yes … to a high probability. There are no human sounds."

"Then I'd say you can disregard them. If you hear human sound within ten meters of the house, wake me. Just come in, don't bother to knock."

"Okay." For one bizarre moment, he thought she might ask to climb in with him, like a scared kid. Instead, she stared at the scars on his body. It was unnerving, and made him want to pull the sheet up to his chin. "You're damaged."

He shook his head. "It's just the way I look. The damage repairs itself. Everything works."

She took a step closer; her knees touched the mattress. "The damage to your eye is functional. Don't you need two?"

"No. It's handy for judging distance and such, but …" He searched for an appropriate word, "It's redundant. You can learn to do without it." She stared for another moment, as if fascinated, and he was certain she was about to reach out and touch him. Then she turned halfway towards the door, and paused.

She looked at him. "I'm not like other girls, am I?"

He thought he felt his heart stop. Her voice – the inflection is different; she doesn't sound like a machine anymore. "I don't know how to answer that, besides a simple 'no'."

"Okay. Good night." She reached the door, opened it, paused, and said over her shoulder, "Sweet dreams." The latch clicked as the door shut behind her.

Sleep was a long time coming back.

He awakened, instantly alert as usual, and smelled coffee. He looked at his watch: seven AM, six hours after he'd hit the rack. He didn't remember setting up the coffee maker; in fact, he was sure he hadn't. His senses began to register other long-forgotten signs of shared occupancy: the occasional clatter in the kitchen, a murmur that must be the television. He got up, briefly considered shuffling out in his jammies to investigate, then decided to do a quick morning toilet and dress first.

In the kitchen, he found a disturbingly domestic scene: she was standing at the counter with her back to him, still dressed in his sweats, watching over the toaster with a butter knife in her hand. The coffee maker was just finishing up. Without turning, she said in a sunny tone, "Good morning, sir. Did you sleep well?" Two slices popped up; she removed them, applied butter, and set them on a small plate.

"What did you call me?"

She turned to him, plate in hand. "I called you 'sir': a form of address appropriate to an employer, military superior, or some other person from whom you take orders. Correct?"

"Um, yes." He squashed an impulse to tell her to call him Jack; things were getting cozy way too fast around here. "So you're taking my orders?"

"It seems reasonable. So does making myself useful." Her bare feet made absolutely no sound as she crossed the tile floor to set the plate down in front of his usual chair. "Will you sit and eat? How do you drink your coffee?"

"Black. How did you know to make coffee? Anna, you seem very … different today."

"More like you, you mean?" She opened the cupboard and reached up, standing on the balls of her feet. Great legs for such a short girl: trim, round thighs, nice clean hollows at the back of the knee, nicely tapered calves, slender ankles. He mentally shook himself. That's not a girl's anatomy you're admiring, it's sculpture. Still, if there was a real girl they modeled her on, I'd like to meet her. The boys at the lab must have got their rocks off building this one. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to see her select his favorite mug. She filled it, and it joined the plate at the table. She looked up at him expectantly; he sat.

"I'm a liability to you until I can learn how to act like other people," she said. "For example, you were wary of taking me to a store for clothes, which must be a commonplace event." She nodded towards the TV room. "So I've been schooling myself."

"By watching TV?"

"One hundred forty-seven channels. However, I'm only watching the thirty-one channels that seem to suit my present needs. I can watch several at once by limiting my visits to a few minutes at a time." He heard the set change programs.

"I didn't know you could set it to scan channels." God, she learns fast.

"It doesn't; I'm changing them."

"How?" There was no remote in her hand.

"I have a built-in infrared transmitter; it's part of my C3 suite, along with a wideband radio, encryption equipment, and a GPS system, including a transponder."

His blood turned cold. "Has anyone queried it? The GPS, I mean."

"Never. In fact, the transmitter is physically disabled, and has been since I went live."

His near-panic subsided, replaced by curiosity. "Why would they build something like that into you, and then disable it?"

She blinked. "I don't know. The transmitter would only have responded to a properly coded query. I can only conclude that it was done to hide me from someone who's looking for me."

"IO is hiding you from someone?"

She nodded. "So it would seem." The channel changed again. "The most useful programming seems to be identified on the guide as 'drama' or 'sitcom'. Your warning that most of it wasn't real was all I needed to identify these programs as hypothetical situations, with the participants' responses exaggerated for clarity. I use your reactions in similar situations as a check, so I have some idea how much to tone it down; I'm counting on you to correct me if I make an inappropriate response." She looked down at his cup. "Taste your coffee, and tell me if I've got it right. The instructions on the can included a two-scoop margin; splitting the difference brought the level in the basket even with the oil residue."

He sipped. "It's okay, but a little weaker than I like. Another half scoop would do it."

She nodded. "Noted. As for how I knew about coffee and toast, I've been examining your house. You have plates in your cupboard for eight, but only the top two show any sign of wear." She looked at his mug. "Likewise your coffee mug, and the seat you're in. You live alone, so all the food in the house is yours. I found an opened can of coffee in the fridge, bread in the breadbox, and a toaster on the counter with crumbs in the pan. So, you probably have toast and coffee for breakfast. Eggs too," she added, "but I couldn't guess how you eat them, and besides, you told me not to touch the stove."

"I may have been hasty. I wasn't expecting you to cook for me."

She said, "Don't worry, baby. I'll take good care of you." She tousled his hair.

Shock made the mug twitch in his hand, nearly slopping coffee over the rim. "What the hell was that?"

She looked at him attentively, a student awaiting instruction. "An inappropriate response?"

"Hell, yes. Not enough to trip any alarms, but enough to raise eyebrows. We don't… have the kind of relationship that would make it appropriate."

"You touched my hair last night."

"I was examining it. Not… playing with it."

"Touching someone's hair is play?"

He looked into his coffee cup. "Yes. Sometimes." He glanced up to see her still watching him. "I'm not going to explain it. It's got nothing to do with us."

She nodded. "Okay. I often have more than one possible response to a given hypothetical, but not enough data to choose the best one. There are some things TV doesn't teach, and analyzing human behavior well enough for mimicry takes a surprising amount of processing power. Alternate response." Her voice took a mildly aggrieved tone. "Sir, I'm not stupid; the principle of this machine is as straightforward as can be. The controls are simple and clearly marked. It's as easy as the washer and dryer, and much easier than the TV." She paused. "Well?"

"Better. Much." But if both those responses are equally valid to her, are they both true?

"I washed and dried all your clothes, but I put them back in the empty hamper. I'm guessing there's a final step to perform on them, but I don't know what it is; I don't think they all get hung in the closet."

"Some of them need folded and put in drawers. If everything's through the wash, where are your clothes? Why are you still in those?"

She was slow answering. "I didn't want to change. Do I have to?"

Are those old rags really the first change of clothes she's ever had? "You do if you want to leave the house. Those are okay to wear at home, but definitely not acceptable in public."

She looked thoughtful. "So, this is home now?"

He felt trapped. Easy, boy; you did not just invite a girl you met two nights ago to move in with you, it just looks that way. "Yes, at least until you find one of your own, something you like better. But if you want to go shopping today, you'll have to wear that other outfit one more time."

She nodded. "Okay."

"And you're going to have to hide your abilities, not draw attention. Do you know how strong and fast you are, compared to people like me?"

"Is that a rhetorical question, or do you want data?" She removed a jar of preserves from the refrigerator, gripped the top, twisted her wrist without turning the lid, and presented it to him. "Do this for me?"

Absently, he twisted it open with a slight effort, and started to hand it back before he realized what she'd done. "Very good."

"Thank you." She looked down at him. "On TV, the man usually can't get it open either. More?"

The plate and mug were both empty. When did I do that? "More coffee, please."

As she poured it in, bending over him, she said, "This is very strange."

"You think this is strange? What about this situation do you think is strange?"

"Speaking without being ordered to; asking questions." She lifted an eyebrow. "Just talking to someone, really. What's strange about it to you?"

"What isn't?" He sipped his coffee. "They did a very good job of making you look like flesh-and-blood, and now you're doing a pretty good job of acting like one; it's unsettling." I was right about her voice; normally inflected, she sounds sexy as hell. A good way to lower the guard of any male. "You know, when a man wakes up to find a girl in his kitchen that he didn't know two days before, dressed in his clothes and making breakfast, it's usually preceded by a very different sort of night." Why did you say that? Now you're going to have to try to explain one night stands to this creature?

"Oh. You were expecting sex last night?"

He almost dropped his cup. "Huh?"

"Sex; intercourse; scoring; getting lucky. What will I need to do? I'll need instruction. The television doesn't provide much detail, at least not on the free channels."

"No!" He looked up at her. "Listen carefully, Anna. Whatever you think you owe me, whatever … duties you may feel obligated to perform, that isn't one of them. Ever. Got it?"

She nodded. "Okay. Can we still be friends?"

That afternoon, Lynch took his guest shopping at a local mall. By the time they got back home, he felt exhausted. "Well, that could've gone better." He dropped into the couch. "Two hours in women's stores and I feel like I've been trying to buy Stingers back from the mujahidin."

"Didn't we get everything we went for?" She set the perimeter alarm as she entered the house, bags in hand. He didn't bother asking how she'd acquired a code.

"And more. Don't take back what doesn't fit. Just remember the sizes for next time. Lord!"

"I don't understand why you're so upset. I already tried on most of this clothing; the only items we had to guess at were under-wear, which can't be returned anyway. I thought the trip was successful."

"The problem with the bras and panties was unexpected, is all; I guess my ignorance was showing, and it ticked me off."

"Sir, you don't wear bras and panties, do you?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"I'll take that as a no. So, how would you know that you can't try them on before you buy them? And if the sales girl is there to help, why didn't we ask her?"

"Because it would have been suspicious. I don't see how a woman could get to be your apparent age without knowing her underwear sizes, so we had to pretend to be buying for someone else. I didn't want to stress her any more. She was nervous already. I'm sure they don't get many one-eyed men escorting girls in BDUs. Why were you staring at her like that?"

"I was observing. She's the first female I've met."

"Eh?"

"The researchers were all male; the only other person I've met is you. The women I saw on TV last night don't count, because I had no one real to compare them to." She fished a plain white brassiere out of the bag and held it up, looking at him. "I still don't understand why I have to wear one of these. There are no pockets, and it doesn't cover anything that a shirt doesn't already; likewise the panties. I suppose that's why they call them under-wear?"

Suddenly the couch didn't feel as comfortable; he shifted and cleared his throat. "Well, there are hygienic reasons for the panties, but … well, by convention, a woman's breasts are supposed to be … a certain shape, and positioned a certain way on her chest; a bra sort of molds them and holds them, if you catch my drift."

"So, it's an esthetic consideration, like cosmetics."

He latched on to the idea. "Yes! It's not strictly functional, but it's widely agreed that it makes a woman more attractive."

"Hm." She examined it with a frown. "I suppose it would make more of a difference if my breasts were larger; I doubt this vest will change my appearance at all." She stuffed it into the bag and headed down the hall, towards her room. "I'll be back shortly to fix dinner, sir."

She returned in a few minutes, wearing his castoff shorts and sweatshirt. "So, what would you like?"

"I'd like to know why we went to the store, if you're going to keep wearing that outfit."

She blinked. "You said this was okay to wear at home."

"Well, sure, but you don't have to. That getup fits you like a tent. If you like it, we can get one in your size."

"No." She shook her head. "I prefer this one."

"God's sakes. What is it about it that you like so much?"

She hesitated briefly, and then said, "It used to be yours, and now it's mine. That's what I like about it." She turned towards the kitchen. "So, what will you eat? Shall I surprise you?"

"As if you don't do that every ninety seconds."

Two hours later, he stepped out of the shower and toweled off, feeling strangely relaxed and lethargic. He had a hundred things left to do to complete his exit from IO, but, rather than feeling pushed to check some items off his list, he wanted nothing more than to take his full belly to bed. Not only had he been running short of sleep for days; Anna had been watching cooking shows, and found ingredients in the kitchen for a late feast. She keeps this up, I'll have to add a mile to my daily run, he thought.

His bed had been made.

Usually he made his bed in the morning before he left the bedroom, but he'd been so anxious about what was going on in the rest of the house he'd forgotten. He reached under the pillow and touched the scrambler; he drew it out and saw the charge indicator light glowing green.

The indicator light built into the firing stud had three colors: it changed from green to yellow at two-thirds charge, and from yellow to red at one-third, flashing just before it changed colors or went dead. When he'd come back from his foraging expedition, the indicator had been solid yellow.

The scrambler's sixteen-hour charger was still plugged into the wall by the nightstand, but he hadn't used it. She'd come in to make his bed, found the scrambler – possibly the only Anna-lethal weapon in the house - topped off the charge, and put it back.

He heard a tap at the door. The pajama bottoms were nowhere in sight, so he jumped into bed and pulled the sheet over. He opened the drawer of the nightstand, dropped the scrambler in, and shut it At least she's here before I fall asleep this time. "Come in, Anna."

She entered and shut the door behind her, wearing only a bra and panties. "These seem to be the best fit. What do you think?"

"What?" Her body was as realistic as her face and hands and legs; trim and almost athletic. Her skin was perfect, and so smooth it nearly gleamed in the dim light. Incongruously, he noticed they'd given her an innie. Only reasonable, I suppose. He scrambled up in bed and drew his knees up. "They're fine. Go finish dressing."

She cocked her head. "What's wrong?"

"You need to put something else on; it's not 'decent'."

Her brows gathered. "This is a curious reaction. I thought 'not decent' meant 'not wearing any clothes.'"

"Chrissakes. You're still half naked. You can't go walking around the house like that."

"I've seen women in swim suits that cover less and men don't get disturbed by seeing them. At least, not like this. Is it because it's under-wear, and it's not under? You're blushing."

"Yes. Now, just … shoo, okay?"

She stared at the sheet that covered him. "I can see in infrared; your face isn't the only place where you have blood gathering. Doesn't that mean you want sex now?"

"Reflex be damned!" He exploded. "Anna, wasn't I clear about that the other night?"

"Very clear. Emphatic."

"Well?"

She shifted her gaze from the sheet to his face. "In my very limited experience, when people talk about sex, they often say one thing and mean another." Without another word, she turned to the door and left.

All traces of lassitude were gone now; he was sure he wouldn't sleep for a while. He decided to dress and do something, if he could stuff himself into a pair of pants. He threw the sheet off and swung his legs over just as the door opened and she stuck her head in. He whipped the sheet back over his lap.

"I came back to say, 'Sweet dreams, sir.' Should I have knocked?"

"Every time, Anna. Every single time."

"Noted." Then, without a trace of humor, as if she were uttering some secret password, she said, "Woo hoo. Baby." She was gone.

February 2006

"Canceling my previous instructions freed me to discover my own interests. I enjoy life more as a housekeeper than a war machine. I like having a family."

The brooding, introverted look was back. "Don't get too attached to something you can lose so easily, Anna. It hurts... a lot. I don't know if I could afford another family."

"Sir, you have a family right now. Bobby is still sorting out his feelings for you, but he's coming around. Sarah's an enigma, but she'll put her life on the line for you right alongside Eddie and Roxanne. And as for Caitlin, I think she-"

"Don't go there, Anna."

"But sir, she -"

"NO, Anna. The subject is closed to discussion." He pushed the mug away. "Sorry. I know. But it's flat out impossible, and I just don't feel like going into the reasons tonight."

She stood up, the intimacy of the moment broken. "I think I should do some work on the security system tomorrow. Sensor Three needs to be moved uphill somewhat - it picks up a lot of surface scatter off the ocean when it's windy."

"Anything else?" He knew his rebuff had stung her, she could tell; but he felt helpless to do anything about it. I've seen entirely too much helplessness, and grim despair, in this man's voice and posture lately for my comfort.

"The data search for the children's biological families seems futile without Ivana's access codes. The Operations database tells me everything IO is doing or learning to catch the kids, but every search into their original discovery dead ends into Research Directorate. I need -"

An alarm from the security system tripped inside her skull; she froze as nothing organic could, and queried the system. Quick as a snake, Lynch's hand was on the butt of his holstered sidearm, alerted only by her sudden stillness. "What is it?"

"Wait one ... All clear. A faint signature, resembling a stealthed helicopter. The second sweep resolved it into a flock of gulls over the water."

He took his hand off his weapon. "Anna, move that sensor tonight."

She turned slowly back to him. "Are they really so close?"

John Lynch, former Director of Operations for IO, the perennial cool operator, put his elbows on the table and covered his eyes with his hands. "I've tried so hard to give these kids a normal life, keep them together, keep them sane ...while hiding them from the most powerful and ruthless secret organization in history. The bastards are never, ever going to stop looking. As hard as I try to cover our tracks, I know I've missed things. I'm running out of blind alleys to lead them down. My friends at IO have stuck their necks out as far as I dare let them. It's just a matter of time."

"Time is all we've ever had, sir. They've been hot on our trail half a dozen times, and half a dozen times you've lost them." She put her hands on the table and leaned far over towards him. "You're smarter than they'll ever be; if what you've been doing isn't working any more, you'll come up with something else. As long as we have you, they'll never catch us." But how much longer will we have him? He's been doing this nonstop for two years now. He's wearing down, constantly stressed and losing sleep. He drinks too much when he's home. God knows what danger he's in when he's away. He never goes unarmed anymore, not even inside the house, and he jumps at birds' shadows. He needs a break, some little respite; but keeping us out of IO's clutches is a full-time job, and none of us except him has the skill or connections to manage it. How can I help him?

February 2004

"Anna, I need to talk to you."

"Talk away, sir. My ears are yours." She continued to pull laundry out of the dryer and into the basket, her back to him.

"Things are about to change around here. I need to be sure you understand. Do you mind stopping that, so I know I've got your attention?"

"I'm quite attentive. Your heart rate is sixty-two beats per minute, respirations twelve. You've eaten in the last five hours; your blood sugar is at acceptable levels. By the sound of your step, I'd guess you're almost due for a new pair of shoes. Stress indicators show a slightly elevated state of emotion, cause unknown." The drum was empty; she set the basket on top of the dryer, shut the door, and turned to face him. "What's on your mind?"

"I'm quitting my job, and taking on another one."

She blinked. "Will we have to move?"

"Not soon, if ever. But … I'm bringing some people to stay with us. I don't know how long. Months, maybe longer." He watched her closely. "They're kids, young adults. They'll probably be feeling pretty shocky, and not ready for any more surprises."

"So I'll need to pass for human with them. Do you think I'm ready?"

"No stranger would ever guess. But they're going to be sharing our roof; the slightest … aberration is going to arouse suspicion. Like that outfit," he said, indicating her hand-me-down sweats. In the week she'd been sharing the house with him, she'd done some tailoring to the outfit. The neck of the shirt was open now, and hung off one shoulder like a peasant blouse, and she'd cut the sleeves off short; he wasn't sure what she'd done to the shorts, but they looked more like a skirt now, worn low on her slender hips. But they were still obviously a man's castoffs.

"Yes. If someone sees me in these, they'll think it peculiar. I suppose I need some new clothes."

"I already have some. Come upstairs to the kitchen."

Upstairs, he pulled an outfit out of a box on the kitchen table, and held it up for inspection. "There are two more just like it. Recognize it?"

She didn't touch it. "It looks like a maid's outfit."

"Correct."

She looked from the dress to him. "I'm waiting."

"It's an acceptable explanation for you being in the house, without any … romantic attachments. And as a uniformed employee, you can put some social distance between you and my houseguests. They're less likely to ask personal questions, and it won't be rude if you choose not to answer."

"I see. I'll need to wear this all the time, then?"

"Employees get days off. You'd be expected to wear street clothes when you're not on the clock."

"'On the clock.'"

"Yeah," he said slowly. "That's something else we need to discuss. You've been making my life pretty easy around here, feeding me and taking care of all the household chores. Do you think you could do it for a houseful of people?"

"I don't see a problem, sir. Do kids and young adults pose any special challenges?"

"Lord, yes. They'll probably be messier than I am at my worst; I can't guess how they'll get along; they may be fussy eaters. Yeah, there may be problems."

"Then I'll study up on it right away. How much time do I have?"

"I don't know," he said slowly. "I'm guessing six to eight weeks, no more. But when the time is right, I'll have to move suddenly; you may not get any warning before I bring them home. You'll understand why after you've studied this." From under the box, he drew out a thick manila envelope. "This is a brief on a dirty little IO secret called the Genesis Project."

"Don't worry, sir. I'll get started right away. I'll be ready."

"Thanks, Anna. This means a lot to me." He caught her eye. "There's another thing. Up until now, we've had something of a cozy domestic partnership. You help out as you please, and I don't make any demands. But if you're going to take care of a bunch of strangers at my request … well, you deserve more compensation than a roof over your head and a place to hide; you should be drawing wages."

"Wages," she said. "As in money?"

"Yes. You remember getting your picture taken in the basement two days ago?"

"Of course."

From under the box, he drew another large manila envelope and handed it to her. "This is a complete set of ID: birth certificate, Social Security card, passport, school transcripts, tax returns, resume and work history, driver's license, the works. It'll all pass scrutiny by law enforcement; it's as real as anybody's, as far as the databases are concerned. I'll teach you to drive, so you can shop without me – or do you know already?"

"No."

Or, at least, not until she gets the wheel in her hands; then I suppose she'll discover she's Mario Andretti.

"Okay. You also have a checkbook and a savings passbook. Starting this month, you're officially my employee. Your first month's salary is already deposited, and you'll get the same each month, automatically."

She looked at the paperwork. "'Anne Devereaux?'"

"Yeah." He smiled. "Couldn't resist the idea of a French maid."

"Zen, weel I heff to wirrk on my accen', missyoo?"

He snorted. "Hardly; you're saucy enough. You add a French accent to that Kathleen Turner voice of yours, I'll have to keep the boys in straightjackets."

"Do I need to tune my voice to a different range?" Her voice was two octaves higher; she sounded like a little girl. "That's just my default setting."

"Whoa, too much. Right now, you sound about eight years old. I didn't know you could do that." Her chirpy voice, together with the voluminous clothes, made him think of her as a precocious child again for the first time in days.

She nodded. "Just a matter of compressing or expanding the frequency." Now she sounded like a girl in her twenties. "On TV, actresses seem able to change their perceived ages by altering their registers."

"So you can imitate other people's voices?"

"There's more to the individual human voice than its register; my pattern of hisses and buzzes isn't any different. Then again, register is a voice's most noticeable characteristic. I suppose I could claim to be someone else on the phone without raising suspicion, so long as my frequency, inflection, and vocabulary matched the subject's."

"Hm. This is the first time you ever really sounded like a normal twenty-something girl to me."

"If you thought there was something wrong with my voice, you should have told me sooner."

"There's nothing wrong with it; in fact, I like it, very much. But it's … seductive. And teenage boys are up to their eyebrows in hormones; they might think you're coming on to them."

She gave him an appraising look. "But you like it." Her voice was deep and sultry again.

He grinned. "A man doesn't have to be a teenager to appreciate a pretty girl with a bedroom voice. Let's look over the bank stuff."

She looked at the bank balance. "Eight thousand, three hundred thirty-five dollars."

"Plus all withholdings. Need to do it by the book to stay under the radar, and add some detail to your ID."

"What should I do with it?"

"Anything you like. Once you get used to spending money, you won't have any trouble finding things to do with it."

"Okay." She slipped everything back in the envelope. "Thank you." She gathered the box and envelopes and headed towards her room.

"Believe me, at a hundred grand a year I'm getting a bargain. I wouldn't dare let strangers in here to do what you do."

She looked over her shoulder at him. "I don't mean about the money," she said. "For telling me I'm pretty."

February 2006

Suddenly he lowered his hands and looked up from the table at her with a face that would give her goose bumps if her physical makeup permitted it: the face of a man considering hard choices and uncertain outcomes. She had seen that look more and more often when he looked at her lately. He was studying her, as intently as she was studying him. A suspicion formed in her mind; when he gently reached for her hands against all custom, she quickly snatched them away, straightened, and turned her back to him. "Whatever drastic, irrevocable thing you're considering, don't. If it's what I think it is, especially."

"What would that be?" His voice sounded strange; the air felt charged, somehow, like the precursor to a thunderstorm; some reflexive attribute of his Gen-factor, like the way Caitlin's skin got rock-hard, or Sarah's hair started floating around her head. It felt menacing. She remembered the look on his face that night years ago when she was five steps from dismembering him and her life had suddenly changed forever.

"The scrambler is a blunt tool. It was just blind chance that my motor control program tripped out before my boot file; you might not be so lucky a second time. If you use it again, chances are you won't change me … you'll lose me."

She heard the chair scrape back, heard him step around the table towards her. If she'd wanted to, she could hear his breathing, his pulse; if she'd wanted to, she could hear him draw the scrambler from his coat pocket, hear the creak of tendons as his hand squeezed the trigger. She kept her sensitivity to human levels and turned slowly towards him, forcing the issue, yet giving him plenty of time.

His arms were folded across his chest, the hands in plain sight and empty. "And how do I want to change you? You think you've got me all figured out, do you?"

"Ever since we met, I've been observing you. I was designed to learn fast, and I have diagnostic tools a doctor would envy. I can hear your pulse and respiration; analyze voice stress for emotion or deception." She glanced meaningfully at the meal on the table. "I can surmise general health and blood sugar levels from the way you carry yourself, and I can detect fatigue poisons and other chemicals coming through your skin. I know when you're lying or angry or confused, when no one else on earth can guess what's on your mind. You're thinking about the day when IO comes for us, and despite all your precautions, you know our first real warning will probably be when they're smashing in the door. To have any chance of getting away, you need a formidable rear guard, a diversion, and some way of instantly erasing any traces of your escape. You need an expendable war machine with a bomb between her boobies. So you think you need to make me a robot again."