Джей Кристофф - Lifel1k3 (Lifelike)

“This is impossible.” Lemon looked at her in horror. “Riotgrrl is…an android?”

“YES. THE THIRTEENTH MODEL IN THE LIFELIKE SERIES.”

No…

Cricket glanced at the body of his maker, cold and still on the gantry behind him.

“How the hell do you know all this?” he growled.

“I ASSISTED WITH MOST OF IT. THE REST, SILAS TOLD ME IN HIS CELL.”

“But…” Ezekiel shook his head in bewilderment. “Why would Silas lie? Why wouldn’t he tell…Ana…what she was?”

“I ASKED HIM THE SAME. HE SAID SHE HAD SUFFERED ENOUGH. HE WANTED TO GIVE HER A NEW LIFE, AWAY FROM ALL OF THIS. AND IF HE SUCCEEDED, SHE WOULD BE THE CULMINATION OF EVERYTHING THE LIFELIKE PROGRAM HAD BEEN MEANT TO ACHIEVE. SILAS WOULD HAVE CREATED A MACHINE WITH NO UNDERSTANDING THAT IT WAS A MACHINE. A NEW FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS. A NEW FORM OF LIFE. AND TO THAT END, HE NAMED HER EVE.”

The holograph regarded the girl, wings rippling in a breeze only it could feel.

“ADDITIONALLY, THERE IS A VERY REAL RISK THE REVELATION WILL DRIVE HER MAD.”

“No,” Ana breathed.

“YES,” Myriad replied.

“NO!”

“Ana—” Ezekiel began.

“No, stay away from me!”

She backed away across the landing, hand up to ward them away.

“This is insane. This is insane !”

Oh, you poor girl….

A barrage of images. A storm of sound bites. A kaleidoscope of moments strobing in her mind’s eye.

One after another after another.

Oh, you poor girl.

What has he been telling you?

I don’t know what it was for you, but for me, it was real.

And you’re the girl who made me real.

BLOOD SCAN COMPLETED. IDENTITY: UNKNOWN.

You look wonderful for a dead girl.

You are polluted. You and all your kind.

Lies.

It’s you, me, Crick and Kaiser. No matter what.

Stronger together, together forever. Right?

Upon lies.

So just be straight with me from now on, okay?

That’s all I’m asking.

I’d never do anything to hurt you.

I tried to tell you so many times….

I’m so sorry.

What has he been telling you?

Upon lies.

I was made for you.

All I am.

All I do,

I do for you.

And I cup his cheeks and draw him back up to look at me, and as we sink toward another long, aching kiss, just before our lips meet, he whispers it.

He whispers my name.

“Ana…”

No.

No, my name is…

…What

is

my

name?

What do you think, Princess?

Father’s going to save us.

He’s going to save the world one day.

Of all the mistakes I made, I think you were my favorite.

And we still have so much work to do.

Most people don’t get a happy ending in real life.

Rage bubbling up and spilling over her lips as she raised her hand and screamed.

And screamed.

AND SCREAMED.

Pinocchio wouldn’t ever get to be a real boy if his story were actually true.

“No,” Raphael says softly. “No, he wouldn’t.”

I love you, Ana.

Oh, you poor girl.

You poor, poor girl…

This is not my life.

This is not my home.

I am not me.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR OWN.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

YOUR MIND IS NOT YOUR OWN.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN.

What has he been telling you?

A not-girl knelt at the heart of a broken tower. Staring at the not-blood on her hands. Replaying the not-life she hadn’t lived over and over in her mind. The not-truths that had brought her here, ringing in her skull like footfalls at a funeral march.

Not her life.

Not her home.

Not her at all.

The not-girl gritted her teeth and looked to the hidden sky, blood-soaked blond hanging about her eyes. Her optic was itching, hateful tears waiting in the wings. Sorrow and rage for a life lost. A life she’d never even lived. A life foisted upon her, pushed into her, empty stare and empty lungs and she was only a dead girl, a puppet, a marionette with severed strings ever dancing to a grieving father’s tune, a construct, a thing just like the rest of them, a life spent on her knees, a life spent drenched in lie after lie after lie and this was the last of them, THIS WAS THE LAST.

So who would she be now?

Nothing they’d wanted her to be, that much was certain.

More human than human than human than human than…

She closed her eyes. Took a deep, shuddering breath. And she grasped her sorrow by the throat and set it aflame with her rage. She watched it burn. She let it warm her. Let it scorch her. Let it take the girl she’d been and never been at all and swallow the Ana inside her whole. Ashes in her mouth. Goose bumps on her skin.

Unmaking herself and beginning again.

Washed clean in the cinders.

But your friends…

Were never my friends.

But your life…

Was never my life.

My body was not my own.

My mind was not my own.

My life was not my own.

“I’m just like them,” she whispered.

“Ana…”

“That’s not my name.”

“Evie, please…”

“I’m not your mistress.”

“Ana,” Ezekiel pleaded.

“…Get out.”

“…What?”

She turned on the almost-boy. The almost-boy she’d only been told she loved.

She’d never had a choice.

But even slaves have a choice.

Rising to her feet. Dragging blood-soaked blond from her eyes. Hands in fists.

“Get. Out.”

“Ana, I love you….”

“That’s not my name!” she yelled. “I’m not her! I never was! I’m not the Ana you loved or who loved you back. I’m not the princess trapped in her tower or the girl you spent your life searching for or any of it! I’m not ! She’s been dead and buried for two years!”

“INCORRECT.”

The quartet all looked toward that spinning angel, etched in flickering light.

“I’ve known you for all of five minutes,” Cricket growled, “and I don’t like anything about you. You just told us Ana Monrova was dead.”

“ERRONEOUS. I STATED ANA MONROVA SUFFERED BRAIN DEATH AFTER THE EXPLOSION THAT DESTROYED GRACE. I ALSO SAID HER FATHER MAINTAINED HER VITALS VIA LIFE SUPPORT. AT NO POINT DID I STATE ANA MONROVA WAS ACTUALLY DECEASED. LET ALONE BURIED.”

“You’re saying she’s still alive?” Ezekiel’s eyes were wide. “Where is she?”

“I WILL NOT TELL YOU. MY PRIORITY IS TO PROTECT NICHOLAS MONROVA AND HIS FAMILY. INFORMING YOU OF ANA’S WHEREABOUTS PLACES HER IN UNNECESSARY JEOPARDY.”

“I tried to save Nicholas Monrova and his family, Myriad.”

“AND YOU FAILED, EZEKIEL.”

Ezekiel bristled with anger, his voice soft and dangerous. “Where is she?”