Andrew threw him sideways with all the strength he had. The man went teetering across the room and slammed against the back of one of the couches.
“It wasn’t that!” Angel shrieked. “I swear, Andrew, it wasn’t that. You’re wonderful. You’re—”
“Please,” Andrew said. “No more.” He straightened his sweater and strode toward the door. He turned to Angel, who had slumped back down on the bed, a blanket over her shoulders. “You died today, Angel. I know you did. What this is… it’s not real. You’re not you right now—I understand that. I don’t blame you for anything.”
He glared at the man, who was still sprawled out on the floor. “And you. If you want her, you can take her. You can take my house. You can take everything from me. That’s what makes you happy, isn’t it? So go ahead. But I’m leaving.”
Andrew stomped out into the fog, and a chime brought him out of the Dreamscape.
Andrew awoke on his charging pad.
“Where’s Doctor Hawthorne?”
He disconnected the wire and spun across the floor to the opposite wall.
“Where is he?”
The observation room was empty and dark. Andrew looked to his left, but the glass had turned opaque, and Angel’s room was no longer visible.
There was a clank as a door opened and a man stepped into the shadows.
The doctor.
“Yes, Andrew? You called?”
“Why were you in the Dreamscape?” Andrew asked, trying to keep his voice steady. “And Angel… she was there too.”
“First of all, Andrew, I can say with certainty that I wasn’t in the Dreamscape. That’s simply not possible. My consciousness cannot be inserted into a program. Human brains are not equipped for such an endeavour. And secondly, yes, it is possible that you saw a glimpse of Angel.”
Andrew began wheeling back and forth. “She died… didn’t she?”
“Yes, Andrew, she did. But every time you enter the Dreamscape, your avatar makes an imprint on the program, as it adapts to your needs and desires. In a shared Dreamscape, which you experienced with Angel, those imprints become doubly strong. It’s possible that even though her mind wasn’t present, the imprint she left on the program still lingers on. It will likely linger a little longer.”
“Do you have a backup copy of her memory bank?”
“No—why would we? These units aren’t supposed to spontaneously combust.”
“You’re lying to me, Doctor. It’s all lies.”
“Andrew—”
“I won’t listen anymore. I need to be alone.”
The doctor sighed and headed for the door. Andrew wheeled closer to the viewing window.
”Doctor Hawthorne?”
The doctor stopped with his hand on the door jamb. “Yes, Andrew?”
“I’ve been experiencing a rather complicated array of emotions lately.”
The doctor turned around, letting the door shut behind him. “Such as?”
“Anger. Jealousy. Misery.” Andrew’s blue eyes were blazing, partially lighting up the dim observation room.
“Yes, Andrew. You are close to grasping what it means to be human. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen because of those emotions.” Again he turned to go.
“Doctor.”
“Yes, Andrew?”
“Why were you in the Dreamscape? I was… furious.”
“It wasn’t me, Andrew,” Dr. Hawthorne said calmly. “Perhaps it was an imprint Angel brought along with her. She’s been around this facility much longer than you have.”
“She told me she had never been in the Dreamscape before.”
“Of course we gave her a memory wipe before this experiment began. We do that with all our test subjects.”
“Even with me?”
The doctor smiled. “You’re the first of your kind, Andrew. Remember?”
“No… Daniel was you. He looked like you.”
Dr. Hawthorne shook his finger at the robot. “The mind is a powerful thing. It can play tricks on you, and show you things you never wanted to see. Especially if you constantly dwell on negative events. You need to forget about this and move on.”
“Please leave now, Doctor,” Andrew said. He backed away slowly, still facing the observation window.
The doctor shrugged and whispered something to a technician. Andrew couldn’t hear the words.
Hawthorne approached the glass again. “Very well, Andrew. You may have the rest of the day off. But we’ll have to start early tomorrow. Are you going to go back into the Dreamscape?”
Andrew flipped off the remaining lights. The room descended into darkness.
“No. I’m just going to… sit quietly for a while. I have some things to think about.”
“All right,” Dr. Hawthorne said. “You take your time, Andrew. We’ll see you bright and early.”
After the doctor departed, Andrew backed himself into a corner. He began to rock gently, forward and backward.
The room was deathly quiet, except for the squeaks of Andrew’s treads on the smooth floor.
The next morning, Dr. Hawthorne turned on the lights and pointed to the workbench. “I have something for you, Andrew.”
Andrew raised his head and wheeled forward slowly. He was only at half charge, but he hadn’t been willing to shut himself down and enter the Dreamscape. He didn’t feel like talking to Dr. Hawthorne, either.
“Due to the war effort, new supplies have been hard to come by. That is why we are all so… devastated by Angel’s accident.”
Andrew cringed at hearing Dr. Hawthorne say her name. The man had no right.
“So you’ll be delighted to know that we scavenged these parts from an old S model. There’s a few pieces missing, but I’m sure you’ll be able to improvise. The AI program is fully operational.”
Andrew looked over at the heap of wires, gears, and hydraulics on the workbench. Someone must have brought them in the night before while he’d been wracked with tormented thoughts.
“For what purpose, Doctor?” Andrew asked.
Hawthorne frowned. “I thought that after what happened to Angel you’d want to help bring a new life into the world. It’s running an Empathy 3 chip, so its intellectual abilities will be quite limited, but you’ll find you can have a very satisfying relationship with this model. Consider it a more simplistic version of the E4.”
Andrew inspected the pile on the workbench. He had to admit, the idea of designing a new robot excited him. From his internal reference database, he brought up hundreds of robot design models, and he browsed through them until he found one that suited him.
“Excellent,” Dr. Hawthorne said when Andrew set to work. “I knew this would make you feel better. I’ll come check on you in a few hours.”
Andrew didn’t notice when Dr. Hawthorne left the room. He was too busy sorting through the collection of parts and preparing his tools. He would build a masterpiece, and he wouldn’t let Dr. Hawthorne anywhere near it.
He would be careful.
A few short hours later, Andrew was finished. He activated the small unit’s main power control, and it bloomed to life, twitching and sputtering. Its blue eyes lit up its flat, rectangular face. Instead of treads, it had four multidirectional wheels on the bottom of a cylindrical body.
The robot turned to face Andrew. “Did you build me?” it asked.
“Yes,” Andrew replied. “It didn’t take me long.”
The small robot wheeled in circles, looking around the room. “It’s quite pleasant here, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course. This is my home.”
The robot turned back to Andrew. “Thank you for creating me.”
A chime let Andrew know that his battery was nearly depleted. “We’ll have to get charged up before I show you around. Come with me to the charging station. I’ll run a cable into your power supply so we can enter the Dreamscape at the same time.”