Droids And Bots

Chapter 8

Nora’s heart shriveled in on itself.

She couldn’t help herself. If she was going to catch it, she already had.

She fell to her knees, wrapping Greg up in both arms. Her tool belt dug into her hip, but she ignored it as Greg grasped at her T-shirt, sobs renewed.

“I’m so sorry. ”

“What will you tell Mom and Pearl?”

Nora bit her lips. “I don’t know. ” Then, “The truth, I guess. ”

Bile rose in her mouth. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe stomach sickness was a symptom. She looked down at her forearm, embracing Greg to her. Still no spots.

Greg shoved her away, scooting back in the dirt. “Stay away. You might not be sick yet. But they would take you. You have to get out of here. ”

Nora hesitated. She heard the crunch of treads over scattered aluminum and plastic. She didn’t want to leave Greg, but what if she really hadn’t caught it yet?

She sat back on her heels, then clambered to her feet.

Yellow lights were nearing them from the shadows.

Nora’s right hand was sweating in its glove. Her breathing had shallowed again.

“Greg…”

“Go! Go away!”

Nora stepped back. Back. Had the bleary sense to stop and pick up the folded magbelt. She moved toward the exit, her human leg as numb as the prosthesis. Greg’s sobs chased after her.

Three white androids met her around a corner. They had yellow sensors and red crosses painted on their heads and two were pushing a hovering gurney between them.

“Are you the letumosis victim?” one asked in a neutral voice, holding up an ID scanner.

Nora hid her wrist. “No. My sister, Sintia Greg. She-she’s that way, to the left. ”

The med-droids with the gurney wheeled away from her, down the path.

“Have you had direct contact with the victim in the past twelve hours?” the remaining android asked.

Nora opened her mouth, hesitated. Guilt and fear curdled in her gut.

She could lie. There was no proof she had it yet, but if they took her to the quarantines, she didn’t stand a chance.

But if she went home, she could infect everyone. Adri. Pearl. Those screeching, laughing children rushing through the hallways.

She could barely hear her own voice. “Yes. ”

“Are you showing symptoms?”

“N-no. I don’t know. I feel lightheaded, but not—” She stopped herself.

The med-droid neared her, its treads grating on the dirty ground. Nora stumbled away from it, but it said nothing, only inched closer until Nora’s calves were pressed against a rotting storage crate. It held up the ID scanner in one pronged hand, and then a third arm appeared from within its torso—a syringe in place of grippers.

Nora shuddered but didn’t resist as it grabbed her right wrist and inserted the needle. She flinched, watching as dark liquid, almost black in the android’s yellow light, was pulled up into the syringe. She was not afraid of needles, but the world began to tilt. The android removed it just in time for her to slump down onto the crate.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Initiating blood scan for letumosis-carrying pathogens. ” Nora heard a motor start up inside the android, faint beeps announcing each step. The android’s light dimmed as its power source was diverted.

She held her breath until her control panel kicked in and forced her lungs to contract.

“ID,” said the android, holding the scanner out to her

. A red light passed over her wrist and the scanner beeped. The android stashed it away in its hollow torso.

She wondered how long it would take for it to finish the scan and determine that she was a carrier, confirming that she was at fault. For everything.

The sound of treads approached along the path. Nora turned her head as the two androids appeared with Greg atop their gurney. She was sitting up with her hands wrapped around her knees. Swollen eyes wildly darted around the junkyard as if searching for an escape. As if she’d stumbled into a nightmare.

But she didn’t try to run. No one ever put up a fight when being taken to the quarantines.

Their eyes met. Nora opened her mouth but nothing came out. She tried to plead forgiveness with her eyes.

The faintest of smiles touched Greg’s lips. She raised a hand and waved with only her fingers.

Nora returned it, knowing it should be her.

She had already outlived fate once. She should be the one being carted away. She should be the one dying. It should be her.

It was about to be her.

She tried to speak, to tell Greg she would be right behind her. She wouldn’t be alone. But then the android beeped. “Scan complete. No letumosis-carrying pathogens detected. Subject is urged to stand fifty feet back from infected patient. ”

Nora blinked. Relief and dread both squirmed inside her.

She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t going to die.

She wasn’t going with Greg.

“We will alert you via comm when Sintia Greg enters the subsequent stages of the disease. Thank you for your cooperation. ”

Nora wrapped her arms around herself and watched Greg lay down as she was carted away, curling up like a child on the gurney.

Chapter Six

Nora SLINKED THROUGH THE BALMY NIGHT, THE SOUND of her boots shuffling across the concrete, as if both legs were made of steel. The empty night was a chorus of muted sounds in her head: the sandy crunching of Iko’s treads, the sputtering of street lamps above them, the constant hum of the magnetic superconductor beneath the street. With every step, the wrench inside Nora’s calf clanked. It all dulled in comparison to the video replaying in her mind.

Her interface did that sometimes—recording moments of strong emotion and replaying them over and over. Like déjà vu or when the last words of a conversation linger in the air long after silence has settled in. Usually, she could make the memory stop before it drove her crazy, but tonight she didn’t have the energy.

The black splotch on Greg’s skin. Her scream. The med-droid’s syringe dragging Nora’s blood from the flesh of her elbow. Greg, small and trembling on the gurney. Already dying.

She stopped, clutching her stomach as nausea roiled up. Iko paused a few paces ahead, shining her spotlight on Nora’s scrunched face.

“Are you all right?”The light darted down the length of Nora’s body, and she was sure Iko was searching for bruise-like rings even though the med-droid had said she wasn’t infected.

Instead of answering, Nora peeled off her gloves and shoved them into her back pocket. Her faintness passing, she leaned her shoulder against a street lamp and drank in the humid air. They’d made it home, almost. The Phoenix Tower apartments stood on the next corner, only the top floor catching the faint light from the crescent moon, the rest of the building cast in shadow. The windows were black but for a handful of lights and some bluish white glares from flickering netscreens. Nora counted floors, finding the windows to the kitchen and Adri’s bedroom.

Though dim, a light was still on somewhere in the apartment. Adri wasn’t a night person, but perhaps she’d discovered that Greg was still out. Or perhaps Pearl was awake, working on a school project or comming friends late into the night.

It was probably better this way. She didn’t want to have to wake them.

“What am I going to tell them?”

Iko’s sensor was on the apartment building for a moment, then the ground, picking up the shuffled debris across the sidewalk.

Nora rubbed her sweaty palm on her pants and forced herself onward. Try as she might, suitable words would not come to her. Explanations, excuses. How do you tell a woman her daughter is dying?

She swiped her ID and entered through the main door this time. The gray lobby was decorated only with a netscreen that held announcements for the residents—a rise in maintenance fees, a petition for a new ID scanner at the front door, a lost cat. Then the elevator, loud with the clunking of old machinery. The hallway was empty, save the man from apartment 1807 snoozing on his doorstep. Nora had to tuck in his splayed arm so Iko wouldn’t crush it. Heavy breathing and the sweet aroma of rice wine wafted up.

She hesitated in front of apartment 1820, heart pounding. She couldn’t recall when the video of Greg had stopped repeating in her head, eclipsed by her harsh nerves.

What was she going to say?

Nora bit her lip and held up her wrist for the scanner. The small light switched to green. She opened the door as quietly as possible.

Brightness from the living room spilled into the dark hallway. Nora caught a glimpse of the netscreen, still showing footage of the market from earlier that day, the baker’s booth going up in flames again and again. The screen was muted.

Nora entered the room, but halted mid-step. Iko bumped against her leg.

Facing her from the middle of the living room were three androids with red crosses painted on their spherical heads. Emergency med-droids.

Behind them, Adri in her silk bathrobe stood against the mantel although the holographic fire was turned off. Pearl was still fully clothed, sitting on the sofa with her knees pulled up to her chin. They were both holding dry washcloths over their noses and eyeing Nora with a mixture of repulsion and fear.

Nora’s stomach clenched. She drew a half step back into the hallway, wondering which of them was sick, but she quickly realized that neither of them could be. The androids would have taken them immediately. They wouldn’t be protecting their breath. The entire building would be on lockdown.

She noticed a small bandage on Adri’s elbow. They’d already been tested.

Nora shifted her messenger bag, setting it on the ground, but kept the magbelt.

Adri cleared her throat and lowered the cloth to her sternum. She looked like a skeleton in the pale lighting, mealy skin and jutting bones. Without makeup, dark circles swelled beneath her bloodshot eyes. She’d been crying, but now her lips were set in a stiff line.

“I received a comm an hour ago,” she said once the silence had congealed in the room. “It informed me that Greg was picked up in the Taihang District junkyard and taken—” Her voice broke. She dropped her gaze, and when she looked up again, her eyes were flashing. “But you know that already, don’t you?”

Nora shifted, trying not to look at the med-droids.

Without waiting for Nora’s answer, Adri said, “Iko, you can begin disposing of Greg’s things. Anything she wore in the past week can go into waste collection—but take it to the alley yourself, I don’t want it clogging up the chutes. I suppose everything else can be sold at the market. ” Her voice was sharp and steady, as if this list had been repeating in her head from the moment she’d received the news.

“Yes, Sintia-ji,” said Iko, wheeling back into the hallway. Nora stayed, frozen, both hands clutching the magbelt like a shield. Though the android was incapable of ignoring Adri’s commands, it was clear from her slowness that she didn’t want to leave Nora alone so long as the med-droids were watching with their hollow yellow sensors.

“Why,” said Adri, wringing the washcloth, “was my youngest daughter at the Taihang District junkyard this evening?”

Nora drew the magbelt against her, lining it up from shoulder to toe. Made of the same steel as her hand and equally tarnished, it felt like an extension of her. “She came with me to look for a magbelt. ” She drew in a heavy breath. Her tongue felt swollen, her throat closing in. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I saw the spots, and I called the emergency hover. I didn’t know what to do. ”

Tears puddled in Adri’s eyes, briefly, before she blinked them away. She dropped her head,