“No!” Susan screamed again. She sprang for Sharicka, missing the girl but catching a handful of sweater. As the girl ran, the sweater slid down her arms, revealing the tangled coils of wires. Susan twisted, using the fabric to imprison Sharicka’s arms. “Bomb!” she shouted, certain the guards would turn their attention to the appropriate target.
But, fully focused on wrestling Remington, the guards paid Sharicka no heed. She could see Remington fumbling for his gun, the guard pinioning his hand. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw the second security guard pull his own weapon and swing it toward Remington.
“The girl!” Susan shrieked, clinging frantically to the sweater. “The girl has the bomb!” The fabric tore in Susan’s grip. Abruptly released, Sharicka staggered wildly forward, tripped, and skidded across the floor. Her hand swung toward the button again, and Susan saw no possible way to stop her. Another scream ripped from her throat, this one without intention or direction.
Remington shouted, “Run, Susan!” Clearly fueled by adrenaline, he landed a desperate blow to the side of the guard’s head that finally gained him his freedom. He flew toward Sharicka. Susan dove for the other guard, frantic to reach him before he pulled the trigger. She crashed into the man so hard, it rattled every tooth in her head. The blast of the gun deafened her left ear. Pain shocked through every part of her. For an instant, she thought he had shot her; then she realized it all stemmed from the force of the impact. The man toppled, and she tumbled over him, sprawling into the exit.
“Run!” Remington managed again.
Susan turned her wild momentum into long-strided running steps, charging out the exit. The pavement whirled in front of her, open. Everyone else had a head start, using it to take as many steps as possible away from Sharicka Anson. She listened for Remington’s footsteps; and, when she didn’t hear them, she dared to glance backward as she ran.
The guard Remington had struck lay still on the floor. The other was scrambling to his feet. Remington had wrapped himself around Sharicka, covering her like a carpet, using his own body to shield them all from the terrible might of the coming explosion.
“No!” Susan shouted again. She tried to turn, tripped, and sprawled, rolling across the concrete. She could feel the skin sloughing off her hands, the fabric of her pants abrading from her knees. Then, suddenly, a roar reverberated through her head. A wall of heat slammed her against the building with bruising force, and she could feel small, hard objects raining down around her. Fire washed over her. It felt as if it burned every part of of her, through her clothing and skin, into her internal organs. The taste of gasoline filled her mouth like physical pain. Then, cold air gripped her, quenching the fire. She raised her head, bashing it against brick. Pain shot through her skull; then black oblivion descended upon her.
Susan Calvin awakened to the familiar sounds of a hospital room: the steady beep of a monitored bed, the rumble of the central air system, and the muffled sounds of distant conversation. She sat up too quickly. Dizziness swam down on her, and the room disappeared in a swirl of tiny black and white spots. She sank back to what she now recognized as a bed. Her vision gradually returned, first as a fine blur, then as distinct shapes. A screen traced her heart rate, breathing, and oxygenation. Someone tall slumped in a chair in a far corner of the room, his head clamped firmly between his hands.
“Dad?” Susan guessed, sitting up more carefully. “Is that you?”
The figure in the chair straightened. It was indeed John Calvin who rose to his full six feet eight inches and hurried to Susan’s bedside. “You’re awake.”
“Only just,” she admitted, pulling her hands from under the covers. They felt enormous and awkward, and she realized they were swathed in bandages. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Two days, in and out. We’ve had this conversation before. Don’t you remember?” He tapped a button on his Vox.
Susan shook her head. I don’t remember anything after —” Terror shot through her. “Remy?” She gave her father a desperate, hopeful look.
John Calvin shook his head with slow and weary sadness. He had that same, broken stance he assumed whenever the topic of Susan’s mother arose. “He died a hero. If he hadn’t thrown himself over the bomb, you certainly would have been killed. And, probably, several more innocents.”
Susan felt as if the air had suddenly been sucked from the room. Instantly, tears filled her eyes, splashing down her cheeks, and sobs racked her mercilessly. She could not breathe, wasn’t sure she wanted to ever again.
Gingerly, John wrapped his arms around his daughter.
Susan barely noticed. She felt cocooned in the depths of unbearable grief, an emotion that seemed destined to overwhelm her for eternity. No longer hearing the steady blips of the monitor, she was certain her heart had solidified into an unreachable boulder.
They remained enfolded together for what seemed like hours, until Susan’s eyes felt on fire and her muscles became exhausted from the spasms. Lost and hopeless, she lay still in her father’s strong arms and dared not contemplate the future.
John seemed to sense when she could hear him again. Either that, or she had simply missed everything he had said until that moment. “Susan, it wasn’t supposed to go like this. The idea was to shield you and Remy from danger, to place the burden on the corporation.”
The words seemed nonsensical to Susan, but she found herself unable to voice any opinion. Her throat felt raw with sorrow.
“When you suggested a smallish mall far from the downtown area, Lawrence deliberately sent you there to keep you busy and out of harm’s way. None of us believed she would go there. We were sure the programming would send her to a larger, more newsworthy target.”
Susan could only nod. The employees of USR had relied on logic and science. She alone had believed in the power of the psyche of a tiny sociopath; this time, she had not underestimated Sharicka Anson. Lawrence had done a stellar job convincing Susan he trusted her idea. She supposed the fact that he should have done so made the task simpler.
“I’m sorry, Susan.” John’s voice hoarsened. “I’m so very, very sorry.”
Now, it was Susan’s turn to comfort her father. She did not blame him for Remington’s death. To fault anyone else was to belittle his sacrifice, to lessen the courage it had taken for him to forfeit his life to save so many others. “Dad, I’m not religious enough to believe everything happens for a reason, but I am scientific enough to know things that have happened cannot be undone.” She remembered Remington’s words at USR, the ones he used to soothe her while she blamed herself for Misty Anson’s death. “Life is full of hard choices. When they’re made intelligently and with all the best intentions, we must accept the results, whether or not they’re what we expect, what we want, or something entirely different.”
“But I feel responsible for Remy’s death, for your suffering. If I hadn’t convinced you not to call —”
Susan did not allow him to finish. “People still would have died, many more of them. I don’t believe law enforcement could have acted any quicker than we did, and no one would have thought of going to Knickerbocker Mall. With the pressure off me and on the police, I know I wouldn’t have. You’d probably be in jail, along with several other blameless scientists, and robotic technology would have been set back fifty years, a century, maybe indefinitely.” Susan’s words reached home, as comforting to her as to her father. “Nate would have been erased, and hundreds of people at the mall would have died needlessly instead of . . .” She paused. “What was the actual death count?”