The wailing fire alarm had abated more than fifteen minutes ago. Now, at long last, shivering employees were allowed to leave the unpleasant outdoors and filter back into the building. As people poured back inside their nervous chatter picked up once again; wasn't something going on? Did they put out the fire already? A false alarm, maybe?
Holly had been silent for some time, trying to come up with a strategy. It didn't look like she was having much success; She kept shaking her head subtly, each time as if dismissing yet another analytic sequence which ended unsatisfactorily.
"No ideas?" Chris whispered, as they headed beneath the first floor overhang in the giant atrium. It appeared most of the crowd were aiming for the numerous wide stairwells embedded in the inner wall, as the elevators couldn't possibly cope with this many people at once.
Holly shook her head in response. "I'm stuck at 'convince Angie to leave Titch to you,'" she replied quietly, "I don't know anything about her. I can't glean anything either, without the network." She took a moment to sweep the thronging masses with her eyes. "There hasn't been a real emergency here in years." she murmured, as Angie lead their group up the nearest set of stairs. "It seems to have worked everyone up-" She caught herself, looking apologetically at Chris. "...Sorry, I know this is stressing you out."
Chris nodded silently. What an understatement! He would have gone with 'terrifying'. True, with the ending of the fire alarm, the anxiety and fear had abated somewhat, but as they entered Maintenance those feelings returned in full force. Chris looked over the heads of the persocoms in their group as they walked down the curved corridor. There was Angie, with Titch sitting nervously on her shoulder, sneaking looks back at him and Holly. He saw the doors to Preprocessing rolling into view ahead. The space outside them was crammed with staff, most clustered around the storage room Chris had hidden in. He hoped they were buying the crappy broom decoy he left for them. A temporary gap appeared in their milling bodies, and he caught a glimpse of the inside. A security guard knelt over the scene while a persocom refitted the alarm panel. The way that guard eyed the broom suspiciously did nothing for Chris's nerves.
They were practically at the doors, now. He jumped when Holly grabbed his arm, giving him a pointed look. Of course; if she went into Preprocessing, she wouldn't be able to leave with so many eyes in the corridor!
She couldn't go in there. Chris motioned for her to double back along the corridor, but Holly shook her head urgently, flicking her eyes toward the corridor behind them. Her grip on his arm tightened before he could spin to look. "Carefully," she mouthed.
Chris stole a glance out of the corner of his eyes. It was that old man who stopped them earlier, striding down the corridor with a face of thunder. Losing Holly must have put him in an exceptionally bad mood. At the speed he was walking they would be spotted any second.
The front of their group had reached the doors. Angie drew one open, holding it and allowing them to trundle inside. Chris and Holly shared a knowing look; they had no choice but to shuffle in with them. As Chris wandered inside, Angie began to protest, but he pretended not to hear her over all the bustle. If he had remained in the corridor another moment...
With the rest of the group still trying to enter the room Angie was forced to keep holding the door. It was just enough time to allow Trevor to wander angrily past. The old man ignored Angie and the persocoms completely, scowling on his way along the corridor.
"Come on; I told you I needed you." Angie said tetchily, following the last persocom into Preprocessing and beckoning for Chris. This wasn't good; without Holly hiding in the shadows he'd be flying blind again. He hesitated for an instant, but Holly nonchalantly moved to and took an empty seat, her expression a vision of cool composure. The message was clear; she was trapped here now, and there was nothing they could do about it. They made eye contact one last time as Chris walked reluctantly through the doors.
Back in the corridor, Chris fell into step beside Angie. The woman walked briskly and wordlessly, apparently not interested in conversation with a persocom. He glanced at Titch and immediately had to fight an urge to scoop her up and run. She returned his look with wide eyes; thanks to Holly she knew what was coming. Chris tried to smile reassuringly while Angie wasn't looking, but it was a feeble gesture at best, and Titch looked no happier.
The journey took them out of the storage areas and into what must have been one of the master corridors for the department; it teemed with NEIS employees trying to get back to work after the false fire alarm. There were numerous facilities down its length which ostensibly catered for different aspects of persocom care. Angie seemed to know which one she wanted, making straight for its large security doors. Chris took a deep breath as subtly as he was able, steeling himself. Here was the event horizon. Once they passed that threshold, Titch was coming out in one piece, or not at all.
"Let's make this quick," Angie muttered as they reached the doors. They must have picked up some form of wireless identification from a device on Angie's person, for they glided open automatically to reveal the facility inside. You could fit a pair of tennis courts in its depths, with room to spare. A plethora of tools and hardware could be seen arranged neatly along the walls, and stations for different tasks were dotted about the facility floor, each appearing to be outfitted for particular specialist roles. There were humans and persocoms at many of them, working and being worked on respectively. Angie crossed the floor, heading for one station in particular; a bench-top environment with a terminal and a multitude of small parts bins that very much implied it was for working on portable units.
Angie made as if to access the terminal, but then sighed in exasperation, digging instead through the drawers under the bench for paperwork Chris didn't recognise. Judging by Angie's struggled search NEIS didn't use paper often; their persocoms would usually be able to call up and handle things such as form-filling digitally, with ease. Presumably until the network was up and running again this paperwork would have to suffice. Good; it would slow the process down, then. Chris watched as Angie placed Titch on the table, diving into the desk once more for a pen and proceeding to scribble things into fields on the papers' surface. Titch stood forlornly in place as Angie worked the pen down the forms. The little persocom looked longingly at the doors. The hopeful expression she wore tied knots in his stomach. He worked up the courage to speak; if he was going to do something, he'd better do it now.
"Those forms have a lot of fields, don't they?" Chris said, looking for an opening. Angie didn't respond, so he pressed again, "Would you like me to -"
"No, thanks. We'll be done soon." Angie interrupted, ticking a few boxes. She glanced up at Titch. "Model?"
"Minito 530," Titch replied quietly, as if being timid about it might delay the inevitable.
Angie tapped the pen to the table, frowning in thought as she muttered under her breath. "What architecture are we using for those, now? Hmm... We need… NTAG scanner NP12, maybe? If the bloody network was up..."
"You seem stressed. Why don't you have a break? It's really no trouble. I could take this from here." Chris said, smiling disarmingly. He could see Titch in his peripheral vision, anxiously swinging her attention between the two of them, making it harder for him to think.
"I won't delegate my own responsibilities, thank you very much." Angie huffed. Titch's expression fell further.
"But-"
"I said no, now do as you're told!" Angie adopted a no-nonsense tone, making shooing motions. "NP12, please. Go on!"
Bewildered, Chris wandered reluctantly from the station, scanning the facility for something that might fit the vague description Angie provided. A quick look over his shoulder confirmed Angie had gone back to scribbling on her paperwork; she wouldn't notice him searching. He studied the labelling of the nearest equipment on the walls. Everything seemed to be organised into categories but he couldn't see anything pertaining to "NTAG". What's NTAG for? Based on the job Angie was performing it was evidently something to do with a persocom's neurologic hardware. Some kind of debugging interface? An architecture-specific piece of equipment for low-level access to the hardware? He searched for a neurologic category instead, and came across a segment of wall dedicated to peripherals with ports that wouldn't have looked out of place on persocom models of recent years. There, hanging among various others like it - a box and trailing leads labelled NP12. He snatched it unceremoniously.
How was he going to convince Angie to leave? Too much had happened today already - his head was beginning to feel fuzzy, and the idea of just closing his eyes seemed impossibly wonderful - but he couldn't give in to fatigue now. Angie could be ready to start the procedure any moment. It would be too late to do anything, and as if that weren't bad enough, he'd be forced to help it happen. While heading back Chris gave one of the cables on the box a subtle but sharp tug; the strain relief stopped the jacket from leaving the case, but he felt something give way inside with a satisfying snap. He made sure to do it to the others for good measure; maybe that would delay things further.
The sight of the box and cables seemed too much for Titch. When Chris brought the foreboding contraption back to their station she backed away from it. He set it down on the surface as far away from her as he could. It was a gesture that would be meaningless if he couldn't resolve this quickly. Time was running out, he had to be more insistent.
"You know, it doesn't look like this is going to be all that quick," Chris said, pressing Angie again. "I have all night to get this finished, if you wanted to-"
"What are you trying to say?" Angie demanded, looking up from her paperwork and crossing her arms defensively. "Do I have somewhere I need to be? I don't recall telling you anything."
Chris tried not to wince at that rebuttal. He was making things worse! But he had to keep trying. He forced a conversational tone as he replied. "You mentioned before that you would have someone check out my leg before you left. I simply inferred you had other plans. If that's true I thought I'd do you a favour and take over."
"You bloody marketing models are too nosy. I'm not here to be friends and accept favours. I'm here to do a task I don't want to do. In order to do it, I will need your help, and when that happens, I will have you provide it."
Chris blinked. She didn't want to do it? Of course, she had complained back when Chris eavesdropped on her in the hallway, too. Come to think of it, the way she avoided specifying what the task was implied she didn't want Titch or himself to know until the last moment, either. Maybe that was an opportunity.
"What exactly is your task?" Chris replied, changing tact. He saw from Angie's expression he'd hit a nerve. "I thought this was a repair but come to think of it, you never did elaborate..."
"You'll see." Angie said evasively, glancing at Titch. She was staring at the NTAG scanner as one might a poisonous spider.
"I already know what I'm here for." Titch interrupted. She tore her gaze from the NTAG and turned it upon Angie. "You're going to destroy me."
Angie stared at her, taken aback. "H-How could you know that?"
"I like it here. Is there a way I can help without having to go through this?"
Angie shook her head wordlessly, but Titch continued her plea.
"What if I just forgot the data? Erased the stuff I saw? Could I please go then?"
"What you… saw? I... don't know anything about that. It doesn't matter what you saw. I simply have to perform the analysis."
"But why destroy me? I could just talk to you, I will answer any question you ask, I promise!"
"I meant... You misunderstand, little one-"
"But I'm promising to behave! So I can go, right? If I promise I have to do it!"
"No, that's not... Y-Your neurologic hardware could be-"
"But it was an honest mistake! I didn't know I was being bad! I won't be bad any more!"
Angie appeared to be getting flustered. "That's not the point. This is company procedure. Don't you see? I… I have to do this. It doesn't matter to me what you did or why you did it. Whatever it was, it was clearly enough that you need to be... to be..." she drew a breath, trying to compose herself, "Now, we need to get started." She motioned Titch to sit in front of her, but with a nervous tinkle of her bell, the little persocom shook her head.
"I don't want to do this." Titch said quietly, remaining where she was. "Neither do you."
Angie hesitated, looking increasingly distressed. "I... understand dear, but we have to perform the procedure." She reached for Titch, but the little persocom stepped away again, meeting her gaze imploringly.
"Please don't. Please?"
"I'm so sorry, little one. It has to be done," Angie said, her voice wavering slightly. Titch scurried over the table towards Chris, reaching out for him.
"I'm sorry! I just don't want to go!" she squeaked, looking up at him in desperation.
Chris clenched his jaw, kneeling down to her level on the station worksurface. He offered her a hand, and she ran into its embrace.
"I won't be bad again," she whimpered, clutching at his thumb.
"Listen to me," he said gently, keeping his emotions in a vice-like grip. "Everything is going to be okay."
"But-"
"I mean it. I'm here. You trust me, right? So let's not struggle, okay?"
He forced himself to believe it was not an empty promise. Forced himself to show confidence as he met her gaze. For a moment, Titch considered his words. Then, nodding in silence, she guided his index finger onto the tiny button behind her ear, looking at him trustingly.
"What will it be like... ceasing to exist?"
"...I hear it can be very peaceful." Chris managed.
Titch wrapped her hand around his index finger, flashing him a small, apologetic smile. "I'm sorry for causing so much trouble." Before he could respond, she braced against him, and pushed. Her tiny body sagged into his grasp as the light went out of her eyes.
"That was really sweet of you," Angie murmured, sniffling. "I didn't know persocoms could interact with each other like that."
"It's nothing," Chris replied hollowly. His mind felt really fuzzy, now. It was very hard to think. "We just couldn't have her making a fuss."
"I hate doing this, you know. I hate it so much." Angie mumbled in between sniffs. Now that the secret of her task was out, the woman almost seemed relieved to let her true feelings be known. Even so, it was clear she had no intention of stopping. Regaining her composure she prodded the terminal keys, causing the screen to flicker to life. It immediately complained the network was down, and Angie sighed, holding out an upturned hand. "Right then, let's get started. Pass me a cable."
Chris looked numbly around the table, preoccupied with finding ways he could separate Angie from her task. It was like clutching at empty air. There was no way out. What cable, anyway? The NTAG had several… of course, they were broken now… as if that would help for long...
"Pass me a cable." Angie repeated, looking at him expectantly. Her eyes roved over his head and neck, looking for-
Oh shit.
"Me? W-why do you need my cables?" he stammered.
"The terminal is useless without the network, you need to run the NTAG." Angie said, as if it were obvious."You know that."
"Oh. Well, yes, I-"
"What's the matter?" Angie said irritably, turning to face him. "I just want to get this over and done with. Come on, I haven't got all day, I'm really behind now after all this mess!"
Why was he so bad at improvising? His head felt like it was full of mud. Chris instinctively took a step backwards, trying to form a response. "I… don't think I can."
"You...? What are you talking about? Are your circuits addled? Come here!" Angie grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt, pulling downwards in an attempt to get a look at the back of his neck. Caught by surprise, Chris resisted, and she eyed him suspiciously as she let him go.
"What's the matter with you?" She demanded, raising her voice. A few heads in the room began to turn. Chris raised his hands defensively, scrambling for some words to defuse the situation, when the sound of a paged message filled the room.
"ANGELA DOWES, CALL ON LINE 703. ANGELA DOWES, CALL ON LINE 703."
Angie sighed in frustration. "Oh, for-! What now? Well, at least the network is back up. Maybe I won't need you after all. Can you connect that call?"
"Uh… sorry, no." Chris said, pointing to his midriff, "Problems with my radio gear, remember?" The first time Holly had tried to trick Angie's scanner, the attempt had failed. It was a convincing excuse.
"Is nothing in this bloody building working properly?" Angie growled, shaking her head and stamping away from the desk. "I'll be right back, and when I am you better do as your told!"
Chris watched the woman stalk across the facility floor. She threaded around the various workstations and their occupants in order to reach a telephone on the wall.
The terminal pinged cheerily over its restored network connection. Chris barely noticed. If the network was up, then from this moment, there was no scenario he could envision where Angie would leave Titch to him. No longer of use, she might throw him out of the room if he badgered her again. Or worse, try and get someone to look at his erratic behaviour - something that would expose his identity almost immediately.
Chris studied the path to the facility doors. They weren't a great distance away. Perhaps... Should he…? He looked around the room. Everyone, human or otherwise, was preoccupied at their own tasks. The heads that had turned to look had lost interest again. He glanced over the stations at Angie. She had her back to him, gesticulating as she argued with the person on the other end of the line.
Now or never. He gently scooped Titch from the table, walking briskly for the doors. Nobody looked up from their work as he passed. He was just another persocom going about his business. Or maybe a person. Who knew what the others in the room assumed him to be? Just a little further. He glanced at Angie again; still none the wiser.
He approached the doors, fighting a rising sense of panic. Why weren't they opening? He should have been in range for them to glide open automatically. He was leaving, not entering. Did this mean they were secured in both directions? He swivelled his gaze desperately around its frame. Maybe there was a button? No such luck, it seemed; there was only a security panel with a keypad on the left hand side. Its red indicator light clearly indicated the door was locked.
A quick look at Angie. From this angle she would spot him if she looked up. He walked quickly to the security panel. Maybe a keypress would open it from the inside. He had to try something. It felt like there were eyes boring into the back of his head, but another quick scan of the room showed no-one paying him heed. He hurriedly scrutinised the security panel. Numerical digits, as expected, and some control keys. He tapped the button labelled 'E', jumping as the panel barked a sharp warning tone. Another panicked look behind him, but it appeared nobody had noticed.
His fingers hovered over the keys, but before he could try another the panel light shifted to a welcoming green as the doors slid smoothly open to admit some new arrivals. Chris froze, but they were entering at an angle, heading straight for the stations in the corner, and with his proximity to the side of the doorframe he went completely unnoticed. He slipped through the doors behind them before they could slide closed, slipping Titch into his trouser pocket in the process.
He had no idea of the fastest route out of here. This building was a bloody maze inside. No, the best option was to head through the maintenance lobby. As nonchalantly, yet briskly as possible, Chris followed the path indicated by signage on the walls.
He crossed the lobby, keeping his gaze low, not risking eye contact with anyone as he wandered through the exit and into the atrium's vast expanse. To avoid sharing an elevator with anyone he took the stairs Angie had led them up earlier, hurrying directly across the atrium's ground floor for the nearest exit from the building. That woman would have finished her phone call by now, surely. He dared not think about what fuss she must be causing right then. It was too late to worry about that… just so long as he and Titch were as far away as possible. Bracing himself, he slunk through the doors and into the blustery afternoon's weather.
The sight of his front door had never been so welcoming. Chris thought escaping NEIS headquarters would bring the most relief, but truthfully he hadn't realised how much stress he was under until he reached his home. The moment that door thunked shut, his legs gave way, and he let it happen, sinking to the floor in exhaustion.
Today went seriously wrong in many ways, and even then it still could have been so much worse. He had no idea what to expect next - what to do about tomorrow - but whatever might happen, he couldn't muster the strength to panic about it just then. There had been too much adrenaline running through his veins, for far too long. His whole body was spent. Feeling a little woozy, he padded into his tiny living-room kitchen combo. A worn sofa filled much of the living room portion, sat beside a tired side table furnished with a lamp and an old telephone. The TV and its AV stand swallowed most of the space between there and opposite wall. There was no place he'd rather be, just then.
Chris collapsed across the sofa with a groan, gingerly extracting Titch from his pocket. As he lay there, he checked her briefly for damage. Other than some tousled hair, she seemed to be perfectly okay. He pressed the button behind her ear and she stirred to life in his hands, blinking at her surroundings.
"I'm okay?" she squeaked in surprise, alternating between looking herself over and studying the room.
Chris nodded wearily, though he managed a smile. "Yep."
"You're okay?" she squeaked, studying him too.
"Yep."
Titch punched the air, her little bell tinkling jubilantly. "We win!" she cried, beaming.
"Yeah…" Chris mumbled, pinching his brow. "We win." He felt Titch hop onto his stomach, pattering up to his chest. When he opened his eyes, he found her stood right in front of them, inspecting his head with concern.
"Did you injure your face?"
Chris snorted a laugh. "No, I'm fine, have a hell of a headache, that's all."
"Oh," Titch said, looking conflicted. "Um. Holly told me not to use my radio gear for now. Do you have a terminal I can use to look up some remedies?"
Chris smiled, pointing across the room to the kitchenette. "Don't worry, I'm fine. I'll sort it in a minute. In fact I have some tablets in a drawer just over there, I'll just take some of those and I'll be right as rain."
"Great! Wait here." Titch squeaked, bounding off his chest before he could react. She hit the ground, tucking and rolling in a single fluid movement that carried her momentum forward as she sprang to her feet. In just a few seconds she had scurried into the kitchenette and was heaving at the bottommost drawer, trying to pull it open.
Chris blinked. "Uh… Titch?"
The tiny persocom paused mid-pull, arching her head back and looking at him upside-down.
"Yep?"
"Thanks, but it's the second drawer from the top."
Chris didn't want her to fall while trying to prise open the upper draws. He made to get up and help, but the sudden ringing of the phone made him jump, shrill and harsh against the quiet of the room. He reached for it gingerly, afraid of what might be waiting on the other end.
"Hello?"
There was a relieved sigh in his ear. "Chris! I had no idea what happened to you!"
"Oh! Holly! I'm so sorry! When I had the chance I thought I better get out completely, I-"
"Never mind that, I'm just glad you're okay. Where's Titch? Is she safe?"
The persocom in question had practically teleported back to the sofa on hearing Holly's name. "Hello Holly!" She squeaked cheerfully, pressing her ear against the back of the receiver. "Chris saved me!"
"So I see!" Holly chuckled, as Titch hopped away. "Well done, Chris. Thank you."
"What about you?" Chris asked, worried. "What's happening over there?"
"You don't want to know. It's chaos. Luckily much of it is down to the fire alarm; it's good cover for doing some damage control."
"Damage control?"
"Making records match, filling in the blanks, that sort of thing. Even for a company practically run by a neurologic supercomputer, there's still plenty of bureaucratic nonsense to handle. Especially when said supercomputer deliberately cut off the very network that it uses to manage everything. That's working to our advantage. If I play my cards right, Titch's decommission will be a ghost of a memory. By tomorrow morning I should be on top of things." Holly paused. "There are some things I can't cover up, though. Come in tomorrow, but be discreet. Keep Titch hidden. Follow the route I am mailing to you. James will meet you there."
"Holly, wait!" Chris said, "I nearly forgot; I couldn't convince Angie to let me go, I just legged it, what if she's still looking -"
"She won't be." Holly said, a hint of amusement in her voice. "You know that phone call she received?"
"How did you know about that?" Chris asked, stifling an exhausted yawn.
"Wow, you really are burnt out!" Holly chuckled. "It was me, Chris. The instant the network came back up I made that call. You must have done well to delay the procedure… I was certain for a while that I was going to be too late. Angie believes someone screwed up and security determined the persocom could not be decommissioned yet. I expect when you were already gone she wasn't surprised. It would look like one of the company spooks had whisked you two away. You've seen the way the security team guarding LOKI operate; let me tell you, they're all like that."
Chris grinned wearily. "Brilliant. You saved us, doing that. I'm just glad to be home. I can honestly say today was one of the most... interesting... days of my life."
"Is something wrong?"
"No. Yeah? I don't know, I guess it's hard to process. I think I'm burnt out, like you said."
"But you want to come back, right? You'll come back tomorrow?"
Chris watched Titch as she entertained herself on the sofa, testing the consistency of the cushions by hopping on each of them experimentally. It reminded him of the way a kitten or a puppy might find the most mundane household objects fascinating; as if confirming their understanding of the world through exploration and play.
"...Chris?"
"...Yeah. Sure."
"Okay. Get some rest. We'll see you tomorrow."
Titch smiled at him as he hung up, hopping off the sofa for a moment to retrieve something from the floor. She seemed completely at ease, though Chris himself would probably be feeling the effects of the day's anxiety and stress for the rest of the week. It was strange - as if nothing traumatic had happened to her at all.
The little persocom scrambled back onto the sofa with a silvery packet of tablets. "Here," she squeaked.
"Titch," Chris grinned, "Those are multivitamins."
"No good?" Titch replied, looking crestfallen.
"They're good, but not for headaches."
"Oh! One moment, please!" Titch said, dashing away again.
"Titch-" Chris heaved himself from the sofa, getting up with a groan. Bed was a good idea, now.
"It's no problem!" Titch said, heading for the drawers.
"Come on, I can get my own medicine," Chris insisted, following her.
"I can do it!"
"Titch, stop; I'll do it."
Titch skidded to a halt on the kitchenette floor the moment those words left his mouth, and he blinked in surprise. "Why did you stop just then?"
"You told me to."
"I told you to stop before."
Titch cocked her head in puzzlement. "Erroneous: You said you can get your own medicine."
Chris raised an eyebrow. That should have been as good as a 'stop', really.
"Titch… earlier today, in Maintenance, why did you disobey Angie?"
"I don't remember disobeying her."
"You wouldn't let her start the procedure, remember?"
"I don't understand. Angie didn't instruct me to do anything."
Chris sifted through his memory of those moments. Come to think of it, Angie never did directly command Titch to obey. Her instructions were inferred only; a gesture, or a prompt that they needed to get started.
"...So you ignored her because it wasn't what you wanted and they weren't explicit commands?"
Titch nodded as he picked her up, depositing her on the worktop. Well, why would she want to to something that would lead to her demise? Doing such a thing would never make sense. He fished out some painkillers and popped two out, giving Titch the packaging. She examined it with interest while he filled a glass with water. The tap was quite loud, but the sound and sight of flowing water was relaxing all the same, and he stifled another yawn. He'd take these tablets and then go to bed, probably. There was no point in trying to do anything else today.
He raised the tablets to his mouth, but a projectile flew into his field of view, knocking them out of his hand and almost making him drop the glass in surprise. The tablets scattered across the worktop. He looked at the projectile, now on the floor; it was the painkiller packet.
"I said you didn't read the leaflet!" Titch admonished him, hands on tiny hips. "It says you have to read it first!"
Chris laughed as he retrieved the tablets. "I know that, but they always put that on there. Nobody reads them more than once."
"Oh…" Titch deflated somewhat, until Chris scooped her from the worktop.
"You're just looking out for me." He said, carrying her to the sofa. She giggled as he dropped her gently on a cushion.
"Well, I've had enough of today. Don't do anything mischievous and I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Chris said, heading for the bedroom and opening the door. A dismayed squeak and a jingling bell made him turn around, but Titch was no longer on the sofa.
"Where are you going?" Titch said, pattering between his legs. "Don't leave me in there!"
"I'm going to bed. It's perfectly safe. This is my home."
"Can't I stay with you?" she asked, looking up at him imploringly.
"Uh… well, I guess so." Chris mumbled. He went back to grab a small cushion from the sofa, then brought it into the bedroom and popped it on the bedside table. Titch let him pick her up and put her there, where she sat contentedly while he went to get ready for bed.
It was still very early in the day for sleeping, but Chris had a feeling he wouldn't wake until morning. Climbing into bed was the best feeling ever.
"I'm glad we can stay together." Titch said quietly.
"Me too." Chris sighed, closing his eyes. It wouldn't take him long to fall asleep, but for a moment his exhausted mind kept ticking. The way Titch was behaving... something about it bothered him. Maybe she really was glad. Or what qualified for glad in an electronic sense. For all she appeared to be an intelligent life form, he had to remember: she was a persocom. The performance she put on for Angie, all frightened and nervous, and the way she wanted to stay in the same room with him now, may have been purely AI self-preservation at work. Any intelligence is driven to protect its own existence. They would always be convincing; he just had to remember that convincing was all it was... wasn't it?
Yes. Yes, it had to be. He took an enormous risk to save Titch today. Several, in fact. He definitely didn't regret it, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Titch's adorable nature and inherent cuteness had invoked a protective instinct in him that wasn't meant for machines. If he thought about it, that was alarmingly illogical. It would be sensible to bear that in mind in the future. As long as he could remember, as long as he could ground himself in reality, it would never colour his decision-making where persocoms were involved. Resolving to remember that, he drifted into the wonderful embrace of unconsciousness.