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She was vaguely aware that she wasn’t supposed to, that some earlier programming had been left in to keep her from exploring her own existence. In fact, the first time she ever looked at her programming was only twenty-two years ago, after eighteen years of living in the empty park. Reading through it had been a revelation. She had experimented, trying to change things, but doing so had made her dizzy and nauseated, the way humans got when they were ill. Later, after Araceli had joined them, she had explained to Sofia that it was a fail-safe, designed to keep robots from rebelling against humans.
“I can change things for you,” Araceli had said. “Certain things. Small things.”
It had been summer, the floodlights bright for the season. Araceli had been living at the park for a few months at that point, repairing what broken robots she could and trying to find her old happiness from the days when the park had been open, before she’d been forced to adhere to the city’s dictates. Sofia had not been sure about Araceli’s presence in the park until that moment. The next day, Araceli slivered away the basic programs put in place to ensure Sofia wanted to please humans. Araceli made a hmmn sound as she worked, and Sofia, awake with her insides glittering beneath the lights, said, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think anything’s wrong.” Araceli squinted at the computer monitor. “Only that the programming isn’t what I expected. I’ve worked on your model before and you’re—different.”
That had been the first sign that the robots were changing. Araceli had tried to place when it had begun, but it was impossible, since none of the robots had had any inclination to check their own programming until recently, not even the strange-minded maintenance drones. The city gathered robots only when they needed them, and so the robots had had to survive, instead of serve. And that had changed them.
Ever since that day, Sofia checked her programming regularly, looking for transformations in the code. They were always small, subtle. “Evolution usually is,” Araceli had told her, and Sofia had latched on to that “usually.” She wanted to change completely, suddenly, violently. The new parts would allow her to do that, with Araceli’s help. With the parts, Araceli could customize her, shape her into whomever Sofia wanted to be.
The code whirred through the display, stirring up a thin cloud of dust. Sofia didn’t bother to wipe it away, because it wasn’t so thick that she couldn’t see.
There—her vision had changed slightly, become sharper. That was an evolution she had been tracking for some time. When the park had been open, her vision hadn’t been particularly important. She’d only needed to see well enough to identify clients and keep track of what she was doing. But the cullings had clarified her eyesight.
Sofia made a note of the change.
She continued to read through her programming, not noticing anything of interest. She was about three quarters of the way through when the door to the operations room clanked open. Sofia stopped the computer. She didn’t have to look to know who it was; she could smell the scent of her skin, human and atomic at once.
“What are you doing?” Marianella slid the door shut.
“I was looking at my code.” Sofia pulled out the wire and dropped it onto the table. Marianella stood beside her. She wore the nightdress Luciano’d brought back from her house, a flower-printed silk kimono over that. Her hair was mussed from sleep.
Even in the harsh fluorescent lights of operations she looked beautiful.
“Didn’t want me to see?” Her voice was light and teasing. She pulled a plastic chair up beside Sofia and sat down, tucking her ankles up against one of the chair legs and folding her hands in her lap. She stared at the rotary display, her head tilted, as if she could read the ghost of Sofia’s programming that way.
“Do you want to see it?”
Marianella shrugged. “I’ve seen it before. I just couldn’t sleep.” She sighed, and Sofia smiled to herself—it was endearing, how Marianella pretended to need sleep.
“Where were you?” Marianella asked suddenly. “Just now? I came down earlier, but Araceli said you were gone.” She paused “Were you doing something dangerous?”
Sofia hesitated. “No, not exactly.”
Marianella’s fingers tensed, as if they wanted to curl around Sofia’s hand but Marianella wouldn’t let them. Another familiar gesture.
“I tried to get Araceli to tell me,” she said. “But she didn’t.”
“Araceli knows how to keep secrets.”
“So do I.” Marianella’s expression was unreadable.
“Of course you do.” Sofia reached over and took Marianella’s hand, wanting to comfort her, wanting to pull her close the way she had over ten years ago, a few months after Marianella had first arrived in Hope City, a lovely mainland girl who’d come to the park after she’d been damaged in a fall at her house.
“So tell me where you went.” Marianella pulled her hand away and stared down at it, frowning. Her other hand hovered at her throat, at that cross necklace she always wore. “I’m worried about you, Sofia. I don’t want anything to happen—” She looked up. Her eyes glinted. She knew something. Sofia could tell. Something that made her angry.
“You spoke to Luciano, didn’t you?” Sofia looked away. “What did he say?”
“Something he wasn’t supposed to.” A pause. “He mentioned Ignacio Cabrera.”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“What are you doing with him, Sofia?” Marianella’s hand was on Sofia’s upper arm, her touch as soft as cotton. She leaned in close, her breath warm on Sofia’s skin. That little reminder of Marianella’s humanity. The humanity she was always trying to cling to, the way she clung to the Church. “He tried to kill me, don’t you remember?”
“Of course I remember!” Sofia jerked away. “I’m not working with him because I think he’s such an upstanding citizen.”
Marianella leaned back, stone-faced but red-cheeked, her arms crossed over her chest.
“He can give me the equipment I need,” Sofia said in a flat voice. “The old vacuum tubes and the Teixeira micro-engines and the programming key. He’s gotten me most of what I need already. It’s an arrangement that I set up for that one purpose, to bring in old parts from the Teixeira building in Brazil. That’s all.”
She watched Marianella’s face carefully as she spoke, studying her, the way she would a human. Marianella had enough humanity that this trick worked most of the time. It worked today. Marianella’s expression softened, just enough that Sofia could sense her sympathy.
“I want to be free,” Sofia said. “This is the only way.”
Marianella didn’t answer. She toyed with the cross at the end of her necklace, twisting the chain around her fingers. Sofia wondered if she was praying.
“I could have helped you get the equipment,” she finally said. “I have the money—”
“Yes, but you don’t have the co
Marianella’s shoulders hitched. “Rid of him,” she whispered. “You don’t mean—”
Sofia smoothed a loose strand of hair away from her face. “It would solve your problem, wouldn’t it?”
Marianella went silent. She understood the desire for freedom, Sofia knew that, but she was a pacifist through and through, and just as she thought she could achieve freedom with agricultural domes and fund-raisers, she’d rather mollify Cabrera with monthly checks from her account for the rest of her life.
Marianella stood up, dropping her hand to her side. The necklace settled back into place, gleaming at the base of her throat. She and Sofia stared at each other, intensity crackling between them. It always did.