To test you, of course. I wouldn't waste my time on another of your mother's cripples.
"What's she saying?" Javier asked.
Amy looked up through the bubble. It was dim, but there was light up at the surface. They rose toward it slowly. She wondered where they would pop up. Would the tides have carried them somewhere entirely new? Or would they wind up right where they'd started?
"Amy?" Javier waved a hand between her eyes and the plastic. "Don't bluescreen on me now; we're almost home."
Amy shook her head. "I'm fine. Portia was just telling me why she came looking for me."
"You sure she's telling the truth?"
Amy shook her head. "I'm not sure it matters."
The bubble burst, and the water rushed in. Overhead, botflies chased each other, replacing the stars that the heavy clouds obscured. The city light reflected on their lumpy arc, casting them in purple and orange, and already Amy heard the sounds of the museum over the steady lapping of waves. The two of them seemed much smaller, surrounded by all that black and oily water, and for a moment Amy could imagine that the mistakes that had brought her here weren't so huge, that their ripples did not in fact extend into shadows she couldn't see or even imagine, and that someday she really would overcome them. Then a foghorn sounded, and Javier's foot nudged hers under the water, and together they swam for the city.
"This is dangerous! Let's swim home!"
Two dolphins, one a little larger than the other, were giving them a firm talking-to about the dangers of swimming in the waters of Elliott Bay. The fact that they were mecha dolphins – with brushed ceramic bodies and a single camera eye whose surface occasionally flashed emoticons – did nothing to hold them back from behaving in an utterly dolphin-like manner. They zigged and zagged around and between Amy and Javier's legs, and bumped them with their blunt, streamlined noses. Presently, the big one reared up in the water, exposing a belly etched with a TouristTrap™ logo, and flapped his flippers. "This area is off limits! You could get hurt! Let's swim over that way!"
"I think they think we're humans," Amy called over to Javier, who had fallen a little behind her. She waved a hand before the little one's eye. "It's all right! We're OK! We can't really drown!"
"This swimmer is in distress!" The big dolphin slid up and under Javier. His eye flashed white and red, like an ambulance light. "Let's take you home! Your family is waiting for you!"
"Oh, shit," Javier managed to say before the dolphin launched itself across the water.
Amy slapped the little dolphin's flank. She pointed at the wake Javier and the big one had left behind. "Follow them!"
The dolphins brought them to a marina. The car Dr Sarton had promised was there waiting. It flashed a cheery greeting at them before twitching to one side, exposing the seam between two exoskeletal panels and allowing them to slip through. The car had no driver, and no proper seats or windows, either. From the inside, the whole thing was tinted glass and the plush foam floor pulsed warmly like Dr Sarton's living cushion. Amy felt like Snow White in her very royal, very creepy glass coffin. The car spoke with the same voice as Atsuko: "Please relax and enjoy these towels."
Pieces of the velvety ceiling above them peeled off, instantly hot and yuzu-scented, as though the car itself had a very organic scent gland tucked away for the sole purpose of attracting potential passengers. Javier took the strips of ceiling and handed one to Amy. She squeezed her hair with it and wrapped it around her neck. Then she stretched out. Javier did the same. They were silent as the car started up and rolled away.
"What is it with us and the backs of cars, huh?" he asked, finally.
Amy turned to him. He was already watching her. "Technically, we met in the back of one," she said. "I guess it started a pattern."
Javier rolled onto his side and stared down at her. "Are you OK?"
Amy shook her head softly.
"How are you, then?"
She searched for the right word. "Broken."
He surveyed her. "You're all in one piece as far as I can tell." When she frowned, he said: "OK, bad joke. But you're here. You're alive. You're still Amy. That's good, right?"
"Is it?" She gripped both ends of the towel around her neck, instead of hugging herself. "What if Sarton is right? What if I've always been… flawed?"
"Everybody's flawed."
"But other people's flaws don't kill little kids!" She tried digging herself deeper into the plush of the floor. "This whole thing started out with me thinking I could save my mom. And then I thought I could save Junior. And I thought I could save you, too. I think I can save everybody, and it turns out everybody should be running in the other direction."