vN The First Machine Dynasty(8)

"Don't," he said. "It's good for him. Raw materials. Growth medium." He pushed at the flabby skin of his belly, trying to close the wound. It oozed out all over his hands. He curled in on himself like a human boy who'd just been kicked. "He needs the sun. Find a clear spot."



Amy looked down at the baby in her arms. He had his father's perfect eyelashes and head of shiny black hair. The goo had already dried into a fine crust there, and it crackled all over Amy's arms and hands. He regarded her with calm, still eyes. "Don't you want to hold him?"



"No. Go. Now." When she didn't move, Javier slit one eye open. "Please. Just gimme a minute. I'll be there."



"Are you sure? Because–"



"Will you get going, already?"



Amy stepped back. "Fine. Sorry." She turned and started walking.



"Hey."



She whirled. "Now what is it?"



"You're OK, right?" Javier swallowed. "You were sounding a little crazy, before."



"Excuse me?"



"Talking in your sleep," Javier said. "After we crashed." He tapped his temple. "Thought you were booting wrong."



Amy frowned. "I'm fine. And I don't talk in my sleep."



Javer grinned. "How would you know?"



Rolling her eyes, she carried Javier's son into a little empty place where she could watch the sky paling into blue from an old stump. She and Javier must have crawled further away than she'd originally estimated, because from here she couldn't see the wake of destruction their stolen car must have left behind. When dawn finally came, she saw how alone they were – the trees stretched on for miles, their progress broken only by jagged lumps of rock. Water streamed between a few of them, forming dark ribbons that whispered down a mountainside ringed by other, lower mountains, all blanketed in a patchwork of alternating bald earth and spindly pines. Amy had never been anyplace this green before. There were fewer resources for vN in out-of-the-way places, her dad had told her. Cities were better. More shops sold vN food and the humans were friendlier, less afraid. It was safer, he said, to stay urban. Now they were lost in the middle of nowhere.



The baby grabbed her hair insistently. "I've never seen anybody give birth, before, especially not a boy," Amy told him. "At least, not in real life."



She had seen it happen a lot in dramas. They always got humans to play the part of vN. The actors always glowed with real sweat and real tears and they always tried really hard to make it look like they had only a handful of facial expressions, until the baby came and the actor got to look human for a few minutes while he smiled tiredly into the camera. Her mother used to say that it was a little unfair how humans won awards for playing robots, but robots never won anything for playing humans. Amy hadn't really understood what she meant at the time. She had asked about it, but they were in the middle of Friday movie night at home and her mother had said something about getting the vN pizza out of the oven. Amy had gone to follow her, but then her dad decided to play tickle monster and soon they were rolling around on the floor. Amy wished she had told him the truth: that it wasn't his dancing fingers that made her laugh, but his smiling face. Maybe other vN were ticklish, but not her. It wasn't in her model's original programming. She wondered if her dad knew. She wondered where he was.



Again, Javier's baby tugged her hair. Javier had said that stress made the baby come early. Maybe she had triggered it somehow; maybe she had seriously injured him when she drove the car into the dumpster. "I didn't know," she told his son. "Honestly, I swear, I didn't know. I was just trying to help."



Look what happened the last time you tried helping, a voice inside said.



"I'm sorry." Amy no longer knew whom she was saying it to. She shut her eyes and held the baby tight. "I'm really, really sorry. I'll try to be more careful next time–"



"He can't understand you, you know." Amy flinched. She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned around. Javier had shed his shirt, and his fat had melted back inside him, leaving only vague hints of itself in loose skin that hung over his suddenly-baggy shorts. His belt curled away from him, now, cinched tight enough to leave slack. When Amy squinted, she saw the shining scar across his stomach. Already, it had begun to fade. Javier threw himself to the grass at her feet. "All my kids default to Spanish." He tickled the air with his fingers. "Give him to me."



Amy handed the baby to Javier. He proceeded to unwind him from the sweater and check his hands, his feet, and between his legs. He nodded once, satisfied. "All mine." He laid the child stomach-down on his chest.