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“I do need sleep.”
“Not as much as you pretend.”
Marianella didn’t respond. When Sofia glanced over at her, she was pouting—a
They walked downstairs, Sofia bright with anticipation, Marianella slow and soft-footed, like she was still waking up. An affectation, Sofia knew. A cyborg was either resting or awake. There was no in-between, as with humans.
“Really, Sofia, I wish you would just tell me what’s going on.” They were downstairs now, in the great vaulted hallway filled with glowing stained-glass windows. The floor was crisscrossed with shattered color. “I don’t see the point in keeping secrets, with everything that’s happened.”
Sofia stopped. She was where she wanted to be—the entrance to the ballroom. She cocked out her hip and shrugged and said, “It wouldn’t be a secret if you paid attention.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you notice the difference?” Sofia doubted that Marianella would, since Marianella never gave her instructions. But she liked playing this game. Flirtation because she wanted to.
“I’m half-asleep. So, no.”
“You’re not half-asleep.” Sofia really was enjoying herself, for the first time since she could remember. Removing her programming had changed her completely. She took Marianella by the hand and led her into the vast, empty ballroom. The moonlight shone in through the windows, casting everything in silver and shadows.
Marianella looked around the room, blinking. “Sofia, I don’t—” She stopped, staring straight ahead, at the theremin set up in the center of the dance floor.
“Remember when you played it for me before?” Sofia asked. “All those years ago?”
“You dragged me out of bed to play the theremin for you?”
“Go look at the sheet music.”
Marianella looked at her. A moment passed. Then Marianella whispered, “Mother of God,” and Sofia knew then that she understood what had happened.
“Go on,” Sofia said.
Marianella walked across the room, her footsteps echoing in all that empty space. Sofia didn’t follow her, only stood in place and watched as she stopped at the theremin and picked up the music. It was a dangerous song, one that Marianella had asked to play for Sofia before Marianella had understood about the music.
Marianella lifted her head. She stared across the ballroom at Sofia. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
In the darkness, Marianella was too far away for even Sofia to read her expression. She set the sheet music back into place and switched on the theremin. It buzzed and whined. Her hands hung at her sides.
Music swelled.
It was a sad song, and sadder still on a theremin. The music sounded like starlight. Sofia stood very still, watching Marianella sway, her eyes closed, her hands unmoving. It was a neat trick, to play a theremin with her own thoughts. A trick that could get her deported, if she performed it for the wrong people.
Sofia did not want the song to end, and when it did, she filled the silence with applause, her claps bouncing off the walls. She realized that she enjoyed the music not just because of Marianella but because of the music itself, because it was beautiful and haunting and sad. She had never thought that could be possible.
Marianella opened her eyes.
“Beautiful!” Sofia cried. “Wonderful!” She bounded over to the theremin, where Marianella smiled at her.
“It didn’t hurt you,” she said.
“Of course not.”
They looked at each other across the theremin, the memory of the music still lingering on the air. Marianella looked brighter now, like she was carved out of light. All Sofia wanted was to touch her.
“I have records,” Sofia said. “Over in the corner.” She wheeled the theremin off to the side. “Wait here.” Then she rushed away, across the dusty polished floors. Araceli’s record player was set up in the corner.
Sofia switched on the speakers, and the vibrations from their feedback skittered across her skin. A whole stack of records sat on the floor beside the player. Dangerous no more.
Sofia selected one of the records and dropped the needle. There was an immense novelty to that one simple act, the act of control. That was how she’d always thought of it before, when it had been a tool designed to enslave her.
Music poured out of the speakers, a tango, the music driving and fierce. And although this was a song that had once compelled her to dance, her programming didn’t even jump.
She stood up and turned around in one silken motion.
Marianella stood at the far end of the room, surrounded by silver light, staring at her. She really was quite beautiful, in the human sense. And Sofia had seen her code, and knew she was beautiful in the machine sense too.
“I used to have to dance to this song,” Sofia said into the gap between them. “I don’t have to anymore.”
Sofia glided across the floor, her feet moving in those familiar sliding steps. The room spun around. She closed her eyes, let the music wash over her.
And then she caught Marianella in her arms.
Marianella yelped with surprise, fumbling against Sofia’s grip. But as Sofia guided her back into the dance, Marianella laughed and fell easily into the steps. Sofia had been tangoing alone all night, and for the first time in her entire existence she was dancing with a partner she wanted. Marianella’s laughter faded, and her face became serious, intense with concentration. Sofia whirled her around, and Marianella moved exactly as she should. Their bodies clicked into place together like the gears of a clock. Marianella’s breath quickened, her skin flushed—Sofia could feel the intoxicating heat of it.
Dancing, like this, with Marianella, Sofia felt as if she could lose herself completely. And for the first time the notion wasn’t terrifying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DIEGO
Diego tapped his hands against the steering wheel, anxious. A cigarette dangled from his swollen bottom lip. He’d been smoking nonstop since he’d gotten out of the hospital two days ago. The tobacco burning its way through his lungs was the only thing that could keep him from thinking on everything that had happened. That and the painkillers.
Marianella Luna kicking the shit out of him in an alley beside that glitzy hotel.
Mr. Cabrera roaring with fury, in his office afterward, that Luna had gotten away again.
And Eliana.
Diego sucked hard on his cigarette, yanked it out of his mouth to ash it out the window. The car cruised down the street, headlights on, illuminating the cracked sidewalks, the stoops of the tenement buildings. An address lay on the seat beside him, curling up at the edges. Mr. Cabrera had given it to him when he’d handed him the keys to his car.
“I want to know if Sofia’s done what I asked her,” Mr. Cabrera had said. “Because if she hasn’t, we’ll need to bring her in. I’ve got the AFF sniffing around, trying to make a deal.”
“You don’t want to take it, sir?”
“What, with the AFF? Absolutely not. They’re up to something, and I’d rather just see the bitch gone.”
Diego didn’t say anything to that.
Mr. Cabrera nodded at the address. “Girl’s name is Maria. Got word from one of my contacts she was seen speaking to Marianella yesterday. And the other one. Eliana. Doesn’t look good for our friend Sofia.”
Diego’s response had been to light a cigarette. That had been his response to everything these last few days.
Maria lived on the outskirts of Snowy Heights, a neighborhood populated almost entirely by secretaries and other office girls, since the housing was cheap despite its proximity to the buildings downtown. It was nice enough, even in the dark, rows of brick apartment buildings with reflective glass windows. Maria lived in one called the Hibiscus. Someone had planted a couple of shrubs next to the sign, like that could make the place seem nicer.