by DeVere, Taya
He returns the smile and turns in his seat so he can see the woman better.
“There’s something we need to discuss.”
“Anything.” My gorgeous, divine doll. “If you’re wondering what we’ll be having for dinner, I’ve asked Jenny to fetch us some fresh salmon spring rolls from the Vertical-Farming-Center’s restaurant—”
“It’s not that, Texas,” Maria says, interrupting him. Another smile, this time more evident. “And I’ll eat anything you put under my nose, except rat meat and celery.”
He laughs, wishing their travels hadn’t come to an end so quickly. But then again, she’d stay. Sleep in his bed, eat breakfast in his kitchen—
“There has been a slight change in our living arrangement.”
Crap. What’s this now?
“You mean the tenants moving out? Jenny mentioned it.” Dennis waves his hand. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. They’ll come back the second the AR is turned back on. It’s the nicest building in the whole city. And those cheap bastards hardly pay what the apartments are worth—”
“It’s not the tenants we need to discuss.”
“No? What then?”
“The penthouse. Your home. You don’t live there anymore.”
He blinks, not quite understanding the words.
“I don’t?”
“No. Margaret needs the penthouse for other purposes.”
“Lewis lives in my apartment now?”
“No, that’s not what I said. Margaret is not here. She’s in Iceland with Iris.”
“What for?”
“Feeding dogs and horses.”
Dennis blinks again. “Umm… What now?”
Maria rests her elbows against her knees. “Don’t worry about Margaret. Or your apartment. Jenny’s made all the arrangements already in accordance with our instructions. There’ll be plenty of privacy for all of us while we figure this out.”
Dennis should ask what it is exactly that they’re figuring out. He should also point out that the penthouse is the only room in the building without cameras. Even he can’t tell who’s in there without actually entering the space. But his mind gets stuck on one of Maria’s words: privacy. That’s not what he wants. Not one bit.
“You won’t be living with me, then?” He curses himself in his mind. The words just escaped from his mouth before he could think. And the tone of his voice leaves nothing to the imagination. He’s desperate for Maria’s company.
“That’s also not what I said,” Maria says. The car comes to a full stop on the tile road. “You don’t think I’m a woman of my word?”
Dennis stares at her, not understanding. Maria pushes a green button, and the limo door opens. “I promised you I’d protect you. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” She steps out of the car, careful not to step on the green tiles. She heads to the other limos, waving for the rebels to hurry and run to the front door of Dennis’s building, where Jenny stands waiting. AR-glasses on her face, she waves happily at Dennis.
Sighing, Dennis gets out and stands next to the car, watching the group of strangers entering his home. He raises his hand to say hello to Jenny, not because he’s equally happy to see her, but to stop her frantic waving.
“Yes, yes, Jenny,” he mumbles. “I’m here. I’m home. Quit waving your AR-painted nails at me.” Why is she so happy right now? Why isn’t she afraid of the rebels? She must have a million questions about Dennis suddenly wanting to help the Unchipped folks. But no. She just waves, a shit-eating grin on her face.
He watches Jenny shake hands with the rebels. When it’s Sanna’s turn, Dennis’s assistant kneels down and points at the bump under Sanna’s sweater. The girl’s face brightens, and she pulls out something white and black—a rabbit. She lets Jenny hold the critter, and keeps petting its ears while Jenny presses the bunny against her chest.
“Son of a bitch…”
Something about it all seems familiar. Comforting. For some reason, it brings the memory of hummingbirds to his mind.
Once Kaarina, Yeti, Markus, Sanna, Jenny, and the bunny are safely inside the building, Maria leans on the door, keeping it open. Arms folded on her chest, she looks at Dennis nodding toward the building. She looks different. Lighter, in some way. Happy.
“Hurry up, old man!” she yells at him.
“All right, all right,” Dennis mumbles. “I’m coming.”
He steps on the tiles, their green light bright but soft in his eyes. Smiling, he makes his way toward Maria. He looks at the woman of his dreams, the one with scarred skin and a frightening mouth, wondering how he suddenly got this lucky. Maybe tonight, he could make them two cups of hot chocolate, hear her life story by the fake fire. No, not the AR-fire, her head wouldn’t like that, but the… What is this, now? What’s wrong? Maria’s whole body stiffens, and she steps away from the door and toward Dennis, her hand pointing at something behind him.
“Dennis, watch out!”
He ducks down just as the gun fires. Maria’s warning wasn’t a second too early. A woman runs toward them, firing her gun into the green glow ahead. Dennis crawls on the tile road, all the way back to his limo. Once inside the car, he presses the button, the door slides shut, and the car takes off.
“Wait! Stop the car!” Dennis yells, but the car refuses to cooperate. “Hey! I didn’t say go. Stop the car!”
CANCEL EMERGENCY OVERRIDE?
The bullets clank against the limo’s bulletproof windows. Out of breath and blurry-eyed, Dennis watches a young woman, lean and tall, running on the green tiles and pointing a gun at his getaway vehicle.
“Never mind, no cancel! Just drive, go!”
ACCEPT EMERGENCY OVERRIDE AND GIVE ALL ACCESS TO JENNY ROWAN?
“Yes, yes, just go!” Then the thought enters his mind. “No, wait! We need to fetch Maria first! Go back! No, no, no!”
The car takes off and slides away from the building.
Of course this is Jenny’s doing. She must have activated the emergency override from the building. Dennis mutters a little thank you to himself, for not firing the girl like he’s been tempted to do about a hundred times.
Maria’s nowhere to be seen. But she wouldn’t be able to follow them down the road on foot, the green light of the AR-tiles would shock her body and fill her head with extreme pain. Dennis taps his chest pocket to find his AR-glasses, but the pocket’s empty. The glasses must have fallen when he took that nosedive by the building.
The limo keeps going at a maximum speed that can’t be more than fifty miles per hour. It seems to be headed toward the Chip-Center.
“Jenny, you clever girl…”
Once he gets to the Chip-Center, there will be guards, passcodes, and an entire staff of people working for Dennis, ready to help him. One assassin, no matter how relentless and trained, won’t stand a chance. Once he’s inside the Chip-Center’s protective walls, he’ll send one of the guards to pick up Maria and bring her to safety. Who knows, maybe this heroic gesture will—
The car bounces up and back down, like the tile road is suddenly filled with rocks and roots. A screeching sound makes Dennis cover his ears. The limo comes to a full stop, far away from the Chip-Center rising in the distance. He looks back and sees a black self-driving car stop by the side of the road. A woman who looks like a ninja climbs out. Her eyes lock onto Dennis’s limo. No longer running, the woman with a child-like face and tight black clothes moves closer and closer to Dennis.
“Oh lordy… oh goodness…”
He sits still. Staring at the ninja-woman. Holding his breath. Scared shitless. She must have stopped the car with her mind. What else can she do? Is she even human?
The car doors click, but stay locked.
“What the fuck happened to the emergency override? Go, speed, drive!”
SYSTEM FAILURE. CALL MAINTENANCE.
“Oh, you stupid piece of junk!”
The assassin stops on the road, only fifteen feet away. Oddly sharp but empty eyes fixat
e on Dennis’s, giving him the chills. Something’s off with this woman. It’s like she’s not from this world. Like her whole existence is out of place, no matter where she goes.
“Lewis? Lewis, are you there? This would be a great time for your little brain-hacking party trick, Lewis!”
But Margaret is not with him. His AR-glasses are not with him. His self-driving limo is not co-operating. He’s all alone, staring straight into his approaching death.
Smooth but somehow mechanical steps bring the robot of a woman to the car. She leans closer, her palm pressed against the tinted glass. Her eyes glimmer with a strange light. Not like Maria’s eyes while she was under Solomon’s control back at the winery. This glow is more subtle than that. But it’s there. Why isn’t she wearing sunglasses? AR-glasses? To hide the fact that she’s partly a machine?
Dennis leans forward, still afraid, but also mesmerized by this creature's face. A tic makes her nose twitch. Her lips pout slightly like she’s a sullen child, about to burst into tears. But her eyes are a million years old. Sharp and deadly.
Her knuckles graze the tinted window. “Mister?”
Dennis holds his breath. It’s the first time ever he’s realized that though his limo may be strong enough to stop bullets, it’s not sound-proof. Strangely, this makes him feel vulnerable. Like the woman can still see him somehow. But she can’t. And she won’t be able to get in. There’s no way. Right?
A loud knock on the window. “Mister Jenkins?”
Her voice is like her lips, pouting, and determined. It belongs to a five-year-old, not a thirty-something ninja like the one Dennis is staring at in horror.
He clears his throat. “Yes, miss? How can I help you?”
If he wasn’t so scared, he’d laugh. Did he really just ask her that?
“Can you come out?”
A brief chuckle escapes Dennis’s lips. “You’re asking me to get out of the car?”
“Yes, please.”
“So you can kill me?”
“Yes, good Mister.”
The eyes stare straight into Dennis, never mind the non-see-through glass.
“What’s your name, doll?”
“It’s Owena. My name is Owena, and I want you to come out.”
A sharp inhale makes Dennis dizzy. He needs to calm down. Cool his nerves. Buy some time.
“Why is it that you want me dead, Owena?”
“Oh, I don’t want you to die, Mister.”
“You don’t?”
Her pout becomes more vivid. When she shakes her head for no, a wreath of light brown, baby-fine hair dangles around her face.
“If you don’t want me dead, doll, why don’t you just walk away?”
She tilts her head a bit, bites her lower lip. “Where would I go?”
“Anywhere.” Sweat drips off his forehead. “Is this your first time in the green city?”
“It is.”
“You can do anything here, Owena. Go anywhere you want. Nobody works in this city. They just have fun and enjoy life. Why don’t you do the same?”
She steps back from the car, her arms hanging by her muscled body. Belts, buckles, and bullets around her waist, she looks like a bomb about to go off. Maybe she is.
“Have you been to the dinosaur park, Owena? It’s the biggest one in the whole world. We also have the best ice cream flavors you can find on the planet. All four-thousand, three hundred, and fifty flavors, just one click away.”
Her head tilts the other way. “What’s ice cream, Mister?”
A strange mixture of pity and fear for his life pushes him over some sort of a mental edge. “How can you not know what ice cream is?” A ringing sound fills his ears. He sits tall, making his breath as even as he can.
“Owena?”
“Mister?”
“Do you have a father? Or a mother? Someone who takes care of you?”
She bites her lip for a while before answering. “At night time. In the lab. The nice nurse reads me a book until I fall asleep in my glass box. Does that mean she’s my mother?”
Oh, lordy. Oh, no.
“Nurse Saarinen is not your mother, sweetie. Listen, kid.” Dennis shakes his head to stay focused, fighting the sudden image of a wooden bowl of guacamole on a fridge shelf. “You don’t have to do this, Owena. I can help you. Listen…” Dennis moves closer to the window, his ears ringing louder. “I’m a very powerful man, Owena. I don’t just rule this city and its people; I rule the whole world. All the cities. Do you know who Doctor Solomon was?”
Her face brightens a bit. “Yes. Doctor Solomon was a lady who invented me and stole a rabbit from the small glass boxes. She was the lady who bossed people around in the lab, until she went bonkers.”
“Bonkers?”
“Mm-hm. That’s what my nurse said.”
“I see.” Dennis clears his throat. “Did your nurse also say why you want me dead?”
“I don’t want you dead, Mister.” Her voice sounds flustered. “I told you that already.”
“My bad, sweetie. Did Nurse Saarinen tell you why she wants me killed?”
“Nurse Saarinen?”
“Yes, Owena. That’s your nurse’s name.”
“She reads me bedtime stories.”
“She does.”
“And lets me see the snake.”
“Okay then.”
“But she’s never let me drink ice cream.”
“You don’t drink ice—okay. Let’s refocus here. Did your nurse tell you why she sent you here to kill me?”
“She told me. Yes.”
Dennis takes a deep breath. Talking with Owena 2.0 is strangely similar to talking with Jenny. “And why is that? Why does she want me dead?”
“She said that you have the same virus that drove Doctor Solomon bonkers. That you hurt people, and that’s not very nice at all, is it, Mister?”
Oh, good lord. Oh, good heavens. This is the end. There’s no way he can talk himself out of this one. No way to escape this scene. Dive into the AR-rooms, have a drink with Pearl, and call it a night. He should never have left the AR. Never have taken those glasses off. Never have opened the door when Maria came knocking.
Maria. The angel of death. Sweet, precious Maria. She’s the only good thing that has ever happened to Dennis, after he failed his wife and killed his only son. That night at the mansion should have been his last. He didn’t deserve this second chance, or the second reality he’s been living in ever since his family was slaughtered and left to rot at the San Diego cemetery.
This serves him right. Owena, killing him. It’s long overdue.
“Okay, Owena.” Dennis takes a deep breath. “I’ll come out now.”
Her eyes shine a bit brighter. “You will?”
“I will. But I need you to promise me something.” Dennis watches the girl nod enthusiastically. “Once this is done and dealt with. Once I’m dead on the ground, and your job is done…. Do you see that building in the distance? The one-floor box-looking thing, next to the Chip-Center?”
Owena spins around, looking around the city. The gun seems to become a part of her hand and arm and body. That’s how naturally it fits her moves.
“I see the box, Mister.”
“Okay, good. Once we’re done here, I want you to go and order yourself a large serving of raspberry-licorice ice cream.”
“From the box building?”
“Yes, from the box building. Can you do that for me, Owena?”
She stares at the building for a moment longer, then takes a step back and raises her gun. “Raspberry-licorice ice cream. Promise. I’ll drink one once you’ve come out of the car.”
Dennis’s hand hovers on the button that opens the limo's door. “It’s not a drink—"
The sound comes out of nowhere; an object clacks against the tile road and stops under the limo. The limo shakes violently. A bright light blinds Dennis, making him duck down on his seat. Owena’s scream fills his ears, and for a split second, he’s filled with a powerful urge
to leave the vehicle and go help the girl.
Some sort of a grenade, that’s what has hit the limo. The ringing in his ears is overwhelming. Blinking his eyes, Dennis sits up in his seat and looks around him, but all he can see is a white glimmer. The car door opens, someone reaches for his arm and starts pulling him out.
He lets the hands grab him.
“Texas, you okay?”
The voice of an angel.
“Texas, snap out of it!”
He looks around, eyes still adjusting after the blast.
“Where is she?”
“Don’t worry about her,” Maria says, slightly out of breath. “You’re safe now.”
“Is she dead? Did you kill Owena?”
“It’s not Owena, Texas. Just a clone of her mind. Parts of her mind.”
He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but the shock makes him frantic. “Is she dead or not, Maria?”
Her hands come off him. When Dennis’s eyes finally adjust to the daylight, he sees Maria kneeling next to him on the concrete. The blast has moved the limousine off the tile road, causing it to slam into Owena and knock her out cold. He looks over his shoulder and sees Owena 2.0 lying on the green tiles, lifeless but in one piece. A small puddle of blood has started to spread next to her face.
“She’s not dead, Dennis. It was never my job to kill her. My job was to keep you safe—”
“I don’t want you to kill her.” Dennis tries to get up, but the green surroundings start to spin around him, making him dizzy and nauseated. “Go back to the building and wait with the others. You can’t stay here, out in the open.”
“I can deal with the pain—”
“No, they can’t see you running around. Nurse Saarinen must have eyes everywhere. Just go. Let me take care of Owena.”
For the first time since Dennis first met Maria, he sees surprise on her face. Unsure what to do or say, she starts to back off, her eyes flickering between the motionless assassin and Dennis. Then she stops, something stopping her from leaving. Doubt spreads across her beautiful face. Before she has time to say anything out loud, Dennis waves her off.