"This again?" He tapped the skin between her eyes with a single finger. "You've been living with your crazy old granny for too long. You're starting to believe her bullshit."
It's not bullshit. You're a bad idea for everyone around you.
Amy rolled away so she wouldn't have to face him. "I asked Sarton to get you and Junior a visa, too. You said you'd always wanted to go. But it's OK if you don't want to come with me. Or if you want to split up once we get there. I just thought, since you're on the run anyway–"
"I'll go."
Amy twisted back to look at him. "You will?"
"Sure. Why not?" He stretched out on his back. "I can't believe you remembered that I'd wanted to go there."
"Of course I remembered! It's my failsafe that's faulty, not my memory!"
"Well, you can see how I would be confused, you being so hopelessly flawed and all–"
He jerked away when Amy poked him in the ribs. Then he rolled over and grabbed her wrist with one hand as he tickled her with the other. Amy shrieked. She had forgotten about tickling. She struggled to use her free hand to retaliate, but Javier had a very determined look about him and seemed intent on making her squirm.
"What the hell is going on with this bodysuit thing?" His fingers danced up her sides. "There's no zipper anywhere."
"Why would you need to find the zipper?"
"Please refrain from soiling the vehicle," the car said.
Javier rolled off her. He shut his eyes. "Home, Jeeves."
The car drove them north, into a neighbourhood called Laurelhurst, where the quake damage was less pronounced and where real reconstruction had clearly taken place. The car paused at an ancient-seeming stone fence, complete with ivy and wrought iron gates, blinked its headlights at the gates in sequence, then whispered through as they creaked open.
Beyond the gates were massive homes shrouded in the shade of gnarled oaks and maples, their windows leaded in diamond patterns that Amy recognized from Tudor dating sims. Noticing these details calmed Amy somewhat; if this were any other situation, she'd be scanning for posterity and looking to copy some of the designs in her next dollhouse or gamehome or other mock-up. Some of the houses had sustained deeper damage; she saw artful scaffolds holding up the homes overlooking Lake Washington and union Bay. These homes had abandoned the historical fiction look; they looked artfully smashed together, as though a well-funded preschool for gifted children had been tasked with their redesign. (Amy would know. She used to be one of those students). The car pulled up in front of one such home: its fence glowed greenly through multiple layers of what Amy soon realized were old PET bottles, their squared-off bottoms pulsing more brightly the nearer they came to a small wicketstyle gate under a stylized square arch. The car's doors came open, and they eased out – Javier with his arm under Amy's shoulder to steady her.
The gate swung open. Amy heard the tinkling of a glass wind-chime as a single light came on above the door of a low, broad house. Around them, frogs chirped. The car had already vanished. "Creepy," Amy said.
"Not creepy, automated." Javier gestured. "After you."
The front doors slid open before either of them could knock. From the ceiling, an image of a pair of shoes projected onto the floor with an arrow, indicating where they were to drop off their respective pairs. Apparently the car had pinged the house: they each found a pair of slippers sitting atop a folded robe, itself resting on a plush towel. At the furthest end of the room, a light exposed a spiral staircase that seemed to be folded from thick, pulpy paper.
When their feet hit the floor, the room began to glow. Light emanated from a large square table embedded in the floor and surrounded by cushions. It exposed a wall of windows viewing the lake (Amy couldn't remember which lake it was, exactly; the whole city seemed half-sunken), and a spotless kitchen. An empty rectangle gaped where a refrigerator would have stood.
"No humans live here," Amy said.
"Correct." The house spoke in the same voice as the car – the same voice as Atsuko. It was getting a little strange, how often that model kept popping up in her life. This version sounded younger and cuter, though. More like Rei and Yui, the networked models she'd met at the Sheep. "This house was originally occupied by an organic man with a congenital hearing problem. Thus all the affordances. But then he received an implant. He donated this place for our purposes!"
Amy frowned. "Are you Rory?"
"That's me!" A giggle echoed through the empty house. "I'm so glad to finally meet you, Amy. And I'm very proud to give you a place of refuge after all you've been through."