Nate’s closeness muffled Monterey’s response. “Can’t break him. He’s a robot; he can’t die.”
Susan felt a smidgen of guilt for her deceit, but she had no intention of correcting the misconception she had started. If believing Nate indestructible spurred Monterey to talk, Susan would not disabuse her of the notion.
Monterey finally pulled away. “Thank you,” she said.
Nate merely smiled. “For the hug? I give those away to anyone who wants them.”
Sharicka cut in. “She means for fixing her. For helping her start talking again.”
Susan realized Sharicka might become a problem for Monterey. Like a well-meaning older sister who did all the talking for a toddler, she might delay Monterey’s verbal development.
“Is that what you mean, Monterey?” Nate asked.
Monterey nodded briskly.
Nate dropped to crouch at her level. “Because I didn’t do anything, really. You fixed yourself, Monterey. We just reminded you of your problem, and you worked through it.”
Susan could not take her gaze from the interaction, though she could feel Sharicka staring directly at her.
“I wanted to see you again,” Monterey explained. “Can you . . . take me to a park, sometime? With . . . Mommy?”
Susan considered Monterey’s words, expressing so much more than they said. Her use of the term “Mommy” instead of “Mom” or “Mother” or the trendier “Mym” that came from shortening “my mom” in text messages suggested she operated at a level far younger than her actual age. She had stopped speaking, and mostly interacting, at six. Passive exposure to movies, maturation of her brain and body, and the conversations from her mother and the medical staff would probably help her catch up quickly. But, for now, it made sense she might befriend a precocious four-year-old rather than another preteen. It also confirmed that her issues stemmed from her feelings about her father and their relationship to the accident.
Nate shook his head. “I’m sorry, Monterey, but I’m not allowed outside the hospital.”
The look on Monterey’s face showed more than disappointment. She looked scandalized. “Why not?”
Nate sighed. His gaze trickled upward from Monterey to Susan. “I’m not human, Monterey.”
“I know that.”
Susan thought she detected some defensive anger. This was not going to go well.
“I’m a tool, created to perform a service, like an MRI scanner. My work is inside the hospital. I’m not comfortable outside; and, worse, people are not comfortable with me.”
“I am.”
Nate grinned. “And I’m so glad you are.”
Susan intervened. It was easy to forget Nate had no actual training when it came to handling children or psychiatric cases. “Monterey, visiting Nate is a special reward you’ll get when you work hard at getting back to a normal life. We need to work on your relationship with your mother.”
Monterey froze in place. Sharicka stared at her, as if hypnotized by what the older girl might do next. Susan suspected she might actually lapse back into silence or, perhaps, fling an explosive temper tantrum. It surprised Susan to realize that she preferred the latter. In Monterey’s case, it seemed the healthier response.
But Monterey only turned Susan a partially suppressed smile. “I have to learn to sass her and slam doors?”
Susan could not help laughing as the words of their first meeting came back to haunt her. “You were listening.” That boded well. If Monterey had not completely shut out the world during her extended silences, she might have matured mentally during her six years of self-imposed isolation.
The girls spent the next hour romping with Nate and plying him with questions. The interaction amazed Susan, even though she knew how much like a normal human Nate generally acted. He could easily have passed for their uncle, tirelessly providing them with horseback rides, startling them with a sudden ankle-grab that sent them tumbling, or allowing them to catch their breath in the crook of his all-too-human lap. Had Susan not kept reminding herself, she would have forgotten he had no childhood of his own, that he never aged, that he had no precedent on which to base his play and answers other than what he had read or watched. According to her father, the programming for positronic brains was minimal, a language chip, the Three Laws, and a basic idea of primary function. All else came to Nate from personal learning.
The hour ended too soon for everyone. Susan had a scheduled meeting with Goldman and Peters, and she wanted to make sure she handled any potential issues on the PIPU before she left. Better to address things that might never need her input than to leave them festering and risk getting called away. “All right. Fun time’s over. We need to get back to the unit.”
The girls made loud, disappointed noises.
Susan explained without apology. “Nate needs to go back to work, so he doesn’t get in trouble.” She suspected assisting a doctor with two psychiatric patients counted as part of his job, but the girls did not need to know that. An hour of playtime with two unrelated youngsters was enough for any adult. “And we need to get back to the unit before your nurses and parents start worrying I kidnapped you.”
“No one will miss me,” Sharicka said, almost proudly. “I could stay all day.”
Susan ushered the girls toward the door. “That won’t work for the rest of us.” She opened the door and gestured them through it, watching Sharicka closely, still worried the child might try to break for freedom. Without taking her eyes from the girl, she threw a friendly wave back over her shoulder toward Nate. She would get together with him later to compare notes; but, for now, she dared not remove her gaze from Sharicka.
Monterey fairly skipped the whole way back, though she lapsed into silence. Sharicka took the same dense interest in everything she had on the way to Nate. She studied the details of the walls and floors, the locks and keys, with a fanaticism that bothered Susan, though she could not quite say why. In the end, both of the girls hugged and thanked her, then trotted off together to the television room.
When the nurses pressed her, Susan had to admit the whole affair had gone off well.
When Susan arrived at room 713 on the seventh floor of Hassenfeld Research Tower, she found Ari Goldman pacing furiously between the metal desks and his own, clutching a pencil in his hand, the eraser savagely chewed. The willowy Cody Peters sat in one of the chairs, head clamped beneath his long arms. They both looked up as Susan entered, and Ari stopped in his tracks. “He’s not here,” he grumped.
Susan let the door spring closed behind her with a faint whoosh. Having no idea what Ari meant, she glanced at Cody, whose presence was obvious. “Who’s not here?” Alarm trickled through her. Is he upset about Nate? Was he supposed to be here instead of cavorting with my patients?
Cody’s answer put her mind at ease for a moment. “Payton Flowers. Our first subject.”
Discomfort flared anew. “The schizophrenic patient?” Susan remembered his parents’ anguish at losing their brilliant future attorney to madness. She knew every subject had a check-in routine, but she did not know all the details. Goldman and Peters involved her as much as possible but tried to accommodate her ward schedule as well.
Cody explained, “He was supposed to be here an hour ago. We called his family. They don’t know where he’s gone, either. He took off during the night, apparently.”
Susan could feel her heart hammering in her chest. A man with schizophrenia wandering off was not usually a frightening or terrifying event. People with psychoses who took their medicines as prescribed posed no threat, and even those who skipped doses or went undiagnosed rarely caused problems that required concern. The media played up those one-in-a-hundred-thousand cases where a patient with paranoid schizophrenia murdered someone he mistook for the devil.