Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(66)
The little logika tilted his head. A tremor of anger hissing in his voice.
“You think the only reason I stick with you is programming, huh? And part of you wonders, if I was given the option, I’d turn on you, maybe? Like they did?” He shook his head. “You’ve been hanging around these murderbots too long, Evie.”
“Crick, that’s not what I meant… .”
The little logika hopped off the bench. And bristling with indignity, head wobbling, he marched out the door. Eve sighed, rubbing at her itching optic. Headachy and just plain tired. The world was moving too fast. Upside down and all the way backward.
“He’ll be okay, Riotgrrl,” Lemon murmured. “Easy on the take it.”
Eve looked at the cylinder of thermex in Kaiser’s chest. At the door Cricket had just left by. It was true, what she’d said. Every word of it. Maybe being around Ezekiel had opened her eyes to it. Maybe it was memories of Raph. Or Hope. Ana’s voice inside her head. Probably all of it. But whatever the reason, she’d had enough.
Picking up her screwdriver, she unfastened the explosives, removed them from the blitzhund’s chassis. She rigged the detonator with a makeshift pin and trigger, Kaiser taking note, watching carefully all the while. They’d still have some boom if that bounty hunter tracked them down again. It just wouldn’t be bolted inside her dog, was all.
She leaned down, planted a kiss on Kaiser’s pitted metal brow. The blitzhund licked her hand with his heat-sink tongue.
Free to choose.
She bolted Kaiser’s chassis closed, engaged his ambulation systems. The blitzhund sat on the bench, snuffling the air and looking uncertain. Eve backed off, clapped her hands against her knees. “Come here, boy. Come on.”
Kaiser looked to his back legs, gingerly testing them. As he realized he could move again, his tail began wagging furiously, beating against his hull with a series of dull clangclangclangs. He bounded down off the bench, running in circles and barking.
“Clever boy!” Lemon jumped to the floor, clapped her hands. “Come here, Kais!”
The blitzhund did a few laps of the workshop, metal claws skittering on the deck, wuffing for joy. Eve patted him on the head, opened the workshop door and let him loose into the ministry proper. Kaiser went bolting through the room, bounding over the cots and beds, the younger children watching, wide-eyed. He pranced among them, rolling over onto his back to let the more adventurous scratch his metal tummy, back legs kicking.
Lemon gave Eve a squeeze. “Good work, Riotgrrl.”
Eve stuffed the thermex grenade into a satchel, along with her surprise for Ezekiel. The girls walked out into the main room, Eve forgetting her hurts and smiling wide as she watched Kaiser rolling with the sprogs. Trying to savor her tiny victory. See the beauty in a moment, even if it was something as simple as watching her dog play with children.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Lemon declared. “About whether your past makes you what you are. That’s all our memories are, right? The pieces of our yesterdays that make us who we are today?”
Eve thought about it for a while, finally nodded. “Sounds right.”
“So you’ve had some bad days, no doubt,” Lemon said. “But I figure, instead of letting your yesterdays bring you down, maybe you can concentrate on building some happier memories today. And that way you’ll have them for tomorrow?”
Eve chewed on that for a spell. Wondering if she was missing something. Maybe it was true what Lemon was saying. Her memories told her story, but only she could decide who she was going to be because of them. Did all the hurt and shadow in her past really matter? Or could she decide to not let it define her? She didn’t have to deny it. Maybe she just had to accept it. Maybe it was time to acknowledge who she’d been yesterday, and decide who she wanted to be tomorrow.
Eve looked at her friend sidelong and smiled.
“You’re one of the good ones, Lemon Fresh.”
“Well, don’t tell anyone. I got a rep as a gorgeous good-for-nothin’ to maintain.”
Eve put her arm around her bestest’s shoulder, and the girls sauntered on into the ministry’s heart. The kids playing with Kaiser were a motley mix of different ages. Daniella, Hope’s assistant, was teaching a small clutch of young ’uns with a makeshift chalkboard. Eve spied Ezekiel sitting at a battered table in a corner, playing cards with a group of sprogs. His tiny stack of bottle caps told Eve that for all his merits, the lifelike wasn’t much of a gambler. But he was smiling and joking, laughing aloud when a skinny gutter girl caught him trying to filch a few of her bottle caps on the sly.
“That’s cheeeeeating!” she cried.
“You got me,” he grinned.
Eve wandered over with a smile, hands in pockets.
“You should quit while you’re behind. They’ll have your shirt soon.”
“I just got it, too.” The lifelike pushed the skinny girl his remaining bottle caps. “Don’t spend them all at once.”
He’d changed out of his high-tech flight suit, found some battered old jeans and a black T-shirt that was a little too tight. The sleeve where his right arm should have been was filled out better than she’d expected. Rummaging in her satchel, she pulled out her gift, dropped it in his lap.
“Present for you.”
“What is it?”