When Jane got to work the next day, there was a message on her desk from her boss: "What are you doing? Go check on your visitor." Grumbling to herself about people who only communicated via post-it note, and about the necessity of spending more time with that stuck-up, frigid, inhuman robot, Jane crumpled up the post-it and tossed it in the garbage on her way out the door.
The hospital was within walking distance of city hall, which was where Jane was working for now. It seemed strange to her, working in city hall, and not just because she still sometimes automatically drove to police headquarters in the morning. There was an improvised plaque on her door, and her office had a musty smell that told her it had recently been a storage room. The position of human-robot liaison had clearly not had a long existence. Jane had a sneaking suspicion that it had been created to keep her out of trouble, which was both insulting and baffling.
There was nobody, however, that she trusted enough to ask about the position's history, and her boss was unreachable, communicating through post-it notes when it was necessary to communicate at all. She'd only laid eyes on the man once, on her first day, when he'd come personally to show her around the building. It was an honor that had not been repeated. Jane had spent the month before this...situation with Dr. Isles had arisen bored and tense at the desk that was crammed awkwardly into her small office, or working off energy at the gym down the street, or discreetly putting in calls to her former colleagues at the PD.
After about a week, though, when it became clear that this change was not due to simple clerical error, the detectives had stopped filling her in on cases. A couple days later, the gym had closed down—because of the plague, Jane assumed—leaving her with no outlet for her mental or physical energy. It was almost nice to get outside after the weeks of stultifying boredom. (Although now that she actually had to interact with a robot she realized that there were hundreds of questions she wanted answered, questions she could have spent the previous weeks researching.) Jane stepped out of city hall into the frigid air.
It had stopped snowing in the night, and the sky was bright. The sun assaulted her eyes, bouncing off surfaces newly covered with snow, and Jane fumbled with a gloved hand for the sunglasses that had burrowed deep into an outside pocket of her coat. A plow truck rumbled down the street next to her, muffled by a layer of snow that had not yet melted into slush. Every time Jane saw an example of the still-functioning infrastructure of the city, she had to be thankful that the plague hadn't completely shut everything down yet.
There were, however, not very many people on the street. Those who had ventured out were wearing masks in addition to their winter coats and scarves, and they kept a wide berth from each other. The effect was almost inhuman, as if lumps of clothing had come to life and were drifting around Boston. Fear of infection, combined with the usual need for protection from the cold, combined to paint a picture of a populace that seemed increasingly inhuman and alienated from itself. It was a thought that made her think, oddly enough, of the doctor: her perfect assurance, her polished appearance. Her willingness to touch Jane; she wasn't afraid of the plague. Jane thought suddenly and with something like longing of the doctor's limbs entangled in hers the night before, when the doctor had stepped forward to open the stuck doors to the lab. It had been a long time since she had touched another person.
Jane was so lost in thought that she walked past the entrance of the hospital and had to double back. She presented her ID to a guard stationed by the stairs and waited as he crossed her name off some kind of list before heading up to the fourth floor, where she spent some time wandering around before she found the plague ward, its doors firmly locked and manned by a guard dressed in a Hazmat suit. He examined Jane's ID, then gave her a curt nod and unlocked the door.
She had been worried that she would be lost once she got there—she'd only spent half an hour on this floor, and most of it had been with the lights out—but to her surprise she remembered pretty well how to get to Dr. Isles' laboratory. The rest of the hospital had felt almost normal, if a little tense; there were doctors and nurses walking around, and a handful of people with what appeared to be ordinary ailments. The plague ward was eery. There was nobody to be seen in the halls, but every so often Jane passed rooms that appeared to be full to the brim with patients in varying stages of intense torment. The medical profession had been reduced to providing palliative care, and for the most part patients were sedated, giving the hall an eery silence. Every once in a while, though, there was a scream, or a moan, that reminded you of the pain just below the surface. Jane walked quickly, trying not to look around her, until she reached the lab.
The lights, through the frosted glass doors, appeared to be dim. She wondered for a moment whether Dr. Isles was asleep—resting—hibernating—whatever it was that she did at night. There were noises coming from within the lab, though, and it was her job to meet with Dr. Isles this morning. Taking a deep breath, Jane pushed the button to open the doors and entered the lab.
There was nobody there except for Dr. Isles, who at that moment appeared to be engaged in adjusting something that looked like a very large, very complicated microscope. Boxes lay open on the counters around her. Her hands, which had operated with such strength the night before, moved almost tenderly over the instrument. Jane stood looking at the doctor for a moment, admiring the skill that went into those almost-imperceptible movements, before some slight movement she made alerted the doctor to her presence. In a microsecond, Dr. Isles' hands left the microscope and she straightened up, with a look of surprise on her face that dissolved into her usual impassive expression when she recognized the detective.
"Good morning, Ms. Rizzoli," she said coolly. "Can I help you with something today?"
Jane cleared her throat, unconsciously wringing her hands together. "Dr. Isles. Just checking in. I wanted to make sure...you'd settled in..." she winced internally, but there was no way around the awkwardness of asking a robot whether it—she—was comfortable.
"I am very well, thank you," said Dr. Isles, turning back towards the microscope as though she wanted to return to making adjustments. Ten minutes ago, Jane would have said she was only looking forward to getting out of the robot's presence, and it was true that every interaction they'd had so far—including this one—had been hopelessly awkward. Furthermore, she still found the idea of a chunk of silicon and wires walking around and talking slightly strange, even one that was as articulate and good-looking as this one. And yet she found herself wanting to prolong her contact with the robot.
"Have you received all the supplies you need?"
The robot turned slowly from her position looking down into the microscope, a blank look on her face. She turned her face toward Jane's, and now there was a small, chilly smile on her face, as if she were trying to get rid of a difficult guest.
It suddenly struck Jane that she was annoying and confusing the robot as much as the robot had annoyed and confused her. At the same moment, she realized that she'd never seen the robot truly smile. She was seized by the overwhelming desire to see Dr. Isles smile like she meant it.
The next second, she had dismissed this reflection. Robots were incapable of true emotion and therefore incapable of "truly smiling." The second after that, she had snapped back to attention as Dr. Isles proceeded to answer her question.
"I am still lacking the cord that allows me to interface with the photomultiplier tube in my GFAA setup. Perhaps you could procure one for me?"
"Oh, sure...I'll...um, I'll go talk to the director, I guess?" She had turned to leave—she had pushed the button to open the door—when Dr. Isles spoke again.
"What are you trying to do, Ms. Rizzoli?" When Jane turned back around to face the robot, Dr. Isles had her hand on her hip, and was looking—if Jane read her expression correctly—slightly exasperated. "I am perfectly capable of obtaining all the materials I need. The cord I mentioned, for instance, can easily be fashioned out by splicing an ordinary micro-USB cord with one of the standard attachments I brought with me. It would take a matter of minutes." The robot's brown eyes locked onto her own. She was no longer smiling; she looked intense, as if she were trying to figure something out.
"The inquiries you make are not particularly useful, and you seem not only incredibly awkward but also rather unenthusiastic about making them. This whole time, for instance," she paused, scanning the distance between herself and Jane, "you have remained at that distance of nearly seven yards, much closer to the door than to me."
"You haven't moved either," blurted Jane. "You could have come closer if you wanted to."
Dr. Isles looked amused. "Yes, but I have a reason to be where I am. I was working here when you interrupted me. You, on the other hand, are here to talk to me, not to the door—if I read your intentions correctly?"
Jane blushed furiously, and took four big steps forward until she was standing quite close to the robot. At this distance, Dr. Isles' eyes appeared to be more hazel than brown. Jane swallowed, her blush increasing. "Is that better?"
Dr. Isles looked impassive. "It doesn't change the fact that you came here to welcome me and you are doing very little to be welcoming. You don't seem to know anything about what I need. All you seem capable of is making awkward suggestions and invading my personal space."
"Hey, I can be welcoming! I'll be so welcoming you'll hardly remember you left home." Jane protested. "Let me take you to dinner tonight and prove it to you. 7 PM at the...Dirty Robber, okay? I'll meet you there." It was the longest speech she'd ever made to Dr. Isles, and as soon as she stopped talking she was overwhelmed with doubt. Robots didn't even need to eat! She had no idea what Dr. Isles' home life was like! And Dr. Isles was right; she was not a very welcoming person at the best of times, and she was even less so with regard to Dr. Isles. She felt hopelessly awkward in the face of the doctor's...perfection. And she hated being obliged to be nice to people. But before she could open her mouth to take it back, Dr. Isles was speaking.
"That sounds very nice, Ms. Rizzoli," she said calmly. "I would be delighted to join you this evening. The...'Dirty Robber,' you say?" Jane nodded mutely. "I will see you there." And then Dr. Isles smiled, a tiny, reserved smile that nevertheless appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, genuine.
"Great," Jane said roughly. "I'll...um, I'll see you then, I guess." She did her own rough approximation of a smile, and then she fled, covering the ground between herself and the door in something approaching a jog. Once outside the sliding glass doors to the lab, though, she couldn't resist looking back: Dr. Isles was still turned toward her, although her smile had disappeared, replaced by an expression that Jane couldn't read. She raised her hand briefly, as though to wave goodbye. Jane didn't respond to this gesture, although it haunted her for the rest of the afternoon, that and the peculiar smile that, for ten seconds, took up residence on Dr. Isles' face.