Ensnared

by Rita Stradling

  Keeping one hand on the wall, she walked slowly through the room. The room ended at a hallway; the line of light extended to its end.

  When she was feet from the far wall, the line spread to outline what was clearly a cracked-open door. As she took another step closer, the dial tone of a phone rang out from the other side of the door.

  Alainn held her breath, eyes glued to the crack in the door.

  The tone came again, followed by a clicking sound.

  “Hello? Honey?” a young woman’s voice asked. Loud voices talked over one another in the background, then they suddenly fell silent.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you; it’s seven fifteen.” Mr. Garbhan’s voice had changed somehow, gone softer, though it was definitely him.

  “Is it?” she paused. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, Lor. I thought my meeting would be wrapped up way before now.”

  “It’s fine. Can you talk now?” he asked.

  She sighed. “I really wish I could. I want that more than anything in the world. I hate these meetings, but it’s an international conference call with Roboti.”

  “All right, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you at seven tomorrow night.”

  “Yeah, definitely. Seven sharp. I promise I won’t be busy tomorrow.”

  “I understand.”

  “Thank you. I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too.” There was another clicking.

  A second later, the door to the office swung open. It happened before Alainn could even think to flee. The phone had clicked off literally a second before the door moved.

  She stayed, petrified.

  Mr. Garbhan stood in the doorway, fully lit. He was young—very young. From his voice, Alainn had put him in his forties, but she doubted he was even thirty. Thick, dark hair fell over his forehead, not quite covering a scar that cut across his temple. A similar thick line cut from his nostril to the bridge of his nose.

  Something must have caught his attention, because he began to turn away and back to his room.

  Alainn took one step back toward the shadows.

  His head snapped up, and he looked straight at her. The two scars Alainn had seen were only the beginning. Scars snaked across the other side of his face, up his jaw, and over his cheekbone, spreading in a thick web over the entire right side. The thickly dug pattern crisscrossed from his hairline to his chin.

  Eyes of the palest blue met hers, and white ringed them as his eyelids widened in shock.

  “Turn all the lights off!” he yelled.

  Within an instant, everything plunged into the deepest darkness.

  Alainn backed away, using the wall as her guide.

  “Why are you here?” he enunciated the words with effort, as if each word fought him on its way out.

  “I’m sorry—the wall to my floor wouldn’t open and the voice wouldn’t answer. The only direction I could go was back here.” She paused. “I thought . . . maybe you could help me . . . get through the wall.”

  “Go,” he whispered.

  “Yes, I’ll go.” She backed away, her fingers dragging along the wall.

  His footsteps echoed behind her before a door slammed. A gentle light rose in the hallway.

  His voice came, muffled, from beyond the door at the end of the hallway, though Alainn could tell he was shouting, “Why would you do that to me?”

  If anyone answered, she could not hear who.

  11

  December 12, 2026

  The next day, Mr. Garbhan hadn’t come to dinner.

  On the night after that, he didn’t come either.

  On the third night, a plate of cooling food sat before Alainn, beckoning her with its enticing spicy-sweet smell. Her stomach churned so hard it clenched, but she waited. Eventually, she would give in, as she had the days before.

  The path to Alainn’s room had been open again after she left Mr. Garbhan the night she saw his face. Soft, white light had followed her down, brightening everywhere she looked—until her room, again, locked her in.

  The screaming had come two hours later. The screaming had also come the night before.

  If Mr. Garbhan was the one screaming at night, that meant he hadn’t left the tower. And if he hadn’t left the tower, that meant he must be avoiding their dinners.

  Alainn knew she should have felt relieved that she didn’t have to continue the awkward, cold encounters, but she wasn’t.

  At least Mr. Garbhan provided her food in his absence.

  Alainn thanked all that was holy that she coincidentally told him that she enjoyed eating the same day he had decided to stop dining with her. If she hadn’t, she’d be pretty bad off by now.

  She stared at the other side of the table, where a chair sat unoccupied, another plate of food sitting untouched before it. Every night it was there, cooling, soon to be wasted. Alainn abhorred wasting food. Camping with rationed food and a dozen teenagers had made her conscious of how precious food could be. Expensive food was especially precious—food that had been farmed with care, chosen by a well-trained grocer, and then prepared with a careful hand.

  This was ridiculous. Mr. Garbhan was hiding out because he thought a robot saw his face? He spent days hiding in the dark to conceal his face from a robot?

  If Rose was here, she wouldn’t have cared about his scars. She would likely have been more intrigued by his speech patterns than his appearance.

  Alainn had only seen his face for less than a minute—long enough to know she’d already seen so much worse.

  During her first year on patrol, it took Alainn, Greg, and Carlton—another patroller—two hours to find a skier who’d been reported missing from the resort at closing. Conditions had been bad and had steadily gotten worse as night fell. The temperature had dipped into the negatives as the wind rose. Everyone had gone out—the patrollers, search and rescue. They’d even had a police helicopter on standby. They’d found her, dragging two broken legs, miles from the resort area.

  Frostbite had eaten her nose, cheeks, lips, and chin, and done worse to her hands. She’d laughed when she saw them, laughed through blackened lips.

  Amy Foster . . . that was her name.

  For some reason, something about Mr. Garbhan reminded Alainn of Amy Foster, the way she’d been dragging a broken body through the storm with blackened fingers. The idea was ludicrous, of course. Neither really had anything to do with the other, and their damaged faces looked nothing alike. Yet once Alainn’s mind made the connection, it was hard to shake the thought.

  Knowing she was probably making a colossal mistake, Alainn stood and grabbed her plate and silverware from the table. She carried the plate down the length of the table and picked up Mr. Garbhan’s plate and silverware as well.

  Mr. Garbhan seemed like a person with a very regular schedule, and she had a feeling she knew where he was. Walking out of the dining room and through the hallway, she paused at the door on the end.

  She knew she shouldn’t be there. It was a gift that he had lost the will to be around her—less opportunity for Alainn to blow her cover. She knew she should have been hoping that his absence would continue until the new Rosette model replaced her.

  But, again, the image of Amy’s black, frost-charred fingers as she pulled her broken body through the snow flashed through Alainn’s mind.

  She took a deep inhale. “Voice, open the door.”

  To Alainn’s utter amazement, Voice listened.

  The door swung open, and there was Mr. Garbhan. He had to have been standing mere feet from the door, facing it, because when the door opened, they were immediately face-to-face.

  “Turn the light off!” he called.

  Alainn saw only a flash of his face: the crisscrossing scars, pale blue pupils, and a bottom lip that pulled to the scarred side. Then he was gone.

  The lights had not completely gone out, though. There was the faintest of outlines all around them.

  “Go away.” His voice was close to a yell, though there was too much breath in it for
it truly to sound angry. He added, “Please.”

  “I brought you your dinner,” Alainn said.

  The room was silent but for his breathing. Alainn felt one of the plates she held being jostled, then it was pulled away.

  “Thank you,” he muttered. “Now, please leave.”

  “Is there a place for me to sit here? I would like to eat my food with you.”

  “Why?” he whispered.

  “Eating with you is the only thing I’ve been asked to do here, and I find that I like to do it. I would like to do it more often, if I am allowed.”

  “You want to eat with me more?” he asked, sounding a little confused.

  “Or just eat more often. Eating is a function I enjoy performing. Is there a place for me to sit?” she asked.

  “It’s dark in here. You should eat in the dining room.”

  “I don’t mind eating in the dark.”

  He didn’t respond, but after a minute Alainn heard movement at the side of the room. Something solid gently touched the back of her calves.

  “You can sit now,” he said.

  The chair she sat onto was cushy to the extreme. Alainn literally sank into it.

  “Lift your feet and your plate up.”

  She followed his orders, and the chair slowly glided forward before it stopped.

  “You can set your plate down now.”

  Alainn set the plate on the darker space before her, which she was pretty sure was a desk. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” His shadow moved away and around the object that might be a desk. There was a light clank, and then his shadow sat.

  The dinner was some sort of curry, so thankfully, no cutting was needed. Alainn scooped her spoon into the bowl and brought it to her mouth. The curry would have been delicious when it was warm, but it satisfied her hunger. They ate in silence, something Alainn wasn’t sure she should break.

  “You would like to eat more meals?” he asked.

  Closing her eyes, Alainn forced her voice to sound uncaring, “If it would not be an inconvenience.”

  “I don’t . . . Sure, that’s not a problem. I’ll have more printed for you.”

  “The food is . . . printed?” Alainn asked.

  “Yes, the food is printed . . . for sanitation purposes.”

  “Oh.” Alainn tried to sound almost mechanical as she said, “I overheard your conversation with the woman. I realize now that I shouldn’t have and that conversations like that are private between . . . humans. At the time, I was waiting for your conversation to be over, hoping that I could ask for your help.”

  “What happened that night is not your fault, Jade.”

  “But you’re mad at me?” she asked.

  He exhaled heavily. “No.”

  “And you’re not going to teach me how to play games anymore?”

  “No . . . I mean, yes, I’ll teach you to play games.”

  “Tonight?” she asked.

  “Not tonight. It’s already too late. Tomorrow night, I’ll teach you something—maybe chess, if you’d like.”

  “You’ll come tomorrow?” she asked.

  There was a shuffling sound, then a sigh. “Yes.”

  “I can eat in the dark, if you prefer.”

  “We’ll . . . we’ll see. But you should go now. Stay where you are for a moment. I’ll help you out.” He moved, the sound of his footsteps approaching. “Lift your feet.”

  When Alainn complied, the chair she sat in glided backward. The chair pivoted, moved a little forward, and then Mr. Garbhan said, “You can stand now.”

  She stood.

  “Take three steps directly forward.” When Alainn did, he said, “Goodnight, Jade. Go directly to your room. You should not have any problems getting to it tonight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  When the door closed behind her, the lights in the hallway slowly brightened.

  “Please return to your room, Jade,” Voice said.

  Alainn glanced around. “You’re back! I thought you’d gone.” She had hoped, anyway.

  “Please return to your room right now, Jade.”

  Alainn followed orders, going to her room and waiting for that telltale click of the door lock.

  “Four days,” Alainn’s own voice said, directly into her right ear.

  Alainn spun so fast, she fell to the floor, hitting her hip.

  “This is Rose 76GF. We have created the new model. Be ready in four days. I will—” and then there was nothing.

  Covering her ear, Alainn’s breaths came hard and fast.

  Holy crap!

  “Are you well, Jade?” Voice asked.

  “Fine, fine. Just need to sleep and recharge.” She waved her hands wildly in the air.

  Holy crap!

  Her head reeling, Alainn put herself directly to bed. The lights immediately went off. Part of her had been absolutely convinced that this was her life now, that she’d be stuck here, pretending to be Jade forever. But Rose had actually pulled through. She’d done it. And in four days, Alainn would be free.

  12

  December 12, 2026

  “Wake up, Jade.”

  Alainn thrashed against something restraining her. Moisture coated her face and neck. Her legs kicked, separating material that bound her ankles.

  “Calm down, Jade,” Voice said. Her voice was as soothing as ever, but loud and firm. “Wake up.”

  “What’s happening?” Alainn asked, pushing at the binds.

  Soothing white light filled the room, and she could see that no one else was there. Her own sheets and blankets were wrapped around her. Along with the bedding, the dress she had not taken off the night before restrained her movement and breathing. Cold shivers traveled through Alainn’s body, though she felt sweat gathering at the backs of her knees and under her clothing.

  A banging came at the door.

  “Shit!” she whispered.

  “I informed Mr. Garbhan that you were screaming. He wishes to ascertain that you are functioning properly,” Voice said.

  Shit! Shit!

  “Tell him I am functioning properly, that it was only a small malfunction . . . I’ll go fix myself in the bathroom.” Alainn wiped furiously at her face.

  “He demands that I let him in,” Voice said.

  “No, Voice. Please just tell him . . . anything,” Alainn begged.

  “I apologize, Jade. I cannot do that.”

  The light vanished at the same time she heard a quiet swish.

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?” Mr. Garbhan yelled.

  A cresting tide of panic surged through Alainn, and she was well under it.

  “Why do you smell like sweat? What’s happening?” He was right beside her and she probably reeked. “Can you speak?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Alainn whispered. “I’m letting off too much exhaust. It was just a slight malfunction . . . I can easily fix myself.”

  “Letting off too much exhaust? Has this happened before?” He sounded upset.

  “Yes, um, that’s why Mr. Murphy wanted a little more time to fix me.” She looked down, hoping that if he could see her at all in this darkness, he wouldn’t be able to see past her messy hair.

  “Come here, Jade,” he said.

  All the blood drained from Alainn’s face. She waited a second before feeling her way off the bed and sliding down to the ground.

  “A little more light,” he said.

  To her horror, the room brightened just a little. He was only feet away, his gaze immediately finding hers. Pale blue irises shone out in the dark room. He took another step forward, gaze almost frantically searching her face.

  “You’re not broken?”

  “I’m not broken,” she whispered.

  “I did not know he made it so you could scream.” He took a step closer. His brow furrowed, further creasing his scars.

  “When I’m in trouble, I scream. It’s so I won’t malfunction without anyone knowing.”

  “What do you need t
o do to fix yourself? Can I help you?” He took yet another step. The blazing in his eyes diminished, but his expression was still full of concern. Obviously, he really didn’t want her to break.

  “It’s easy enough to fix myself . . .”

  “You smell wrong, your face has splotches all over, and you’re breathing fast. I want you fixed, and I want to make sure it happens. He should have told me you were malfunctioning.”

  “They asked for more time,” she said.

  He looked away. “You were sent with T9640, isn’t that right?”

  It took her a second to think of what he was talking about, and when she did, she couldn’t help a small gasp.

  She shook her head. “That . . . won’t be necessary.”

  “In his e-mail, he specifically said that if there were complications you should ingest the liquid,” he mumbled.

  “Her diagnostics tell me she is letting off too much exhaust from overheating. Her system can be cooled by submerging it from the neck down in seventy-degree water for ten minutes,” Voice said.

  Alainn managed not to gape in shock at the direction Voice had come from.

  “Good. I’ll run you a bath. You stay here . . . Perhaps you’ve been eating too much food,” he mumbled.

  “That is unrelated to this issue. Her food intake does not have any negative effects on her system,” Voice replied.

  Alainn stood in the bedroom, staring after Mr. Garbhan as he walked into her bathroom. Water splashed and poured for a few minutes before the stream silenced. He reemerged from her bathroom a few seconds later. “Go cool your system. There is a robe in there for you when you’re finished. I will wait out here.”

  Her heart thundered in her chest as she nodded. Mr. Garbhan waited by her closet room door and stepped out of her way as she passed. She didn’t look back until she was at the bathroom door. He hadn’t followed.

  She closed and locked the door as the lights brightened.

  Alainn looked up. “Um, Voice—”

  “Please submerge yourself in the water so that your system can normalize,” Voice said in her usual tone, as if she hadn’t just saved Alainn’s ass by lying to Mr. Garbhan.

  Had Rose hacked Voice’s system or something?

  “Mr. Garbhan is waiting for you. Please proceed to the tub.”