vN The First Machine Dynasty(96)

"I just promised the other vN that I wouldn't, that's all." She shrugged, as though it couldn't be helped. "You're human. The children might fall in love with you."





"I have this rule about drinking alone," Jack said later that night, when he stopped by Javier's room.



"I've heard that one, before." Javier rolled his reader shut and edged along his bed to make room. A sunflower lamp unfurled as Jack entered the room; human eyes required more light. Jack sat down with a grunt and brought out a flask. He'd brought his own food, not knowing that Amy had obtained MREs and other rations from the last pirate visit. Xavier liked watching Jack eat it, had watched him eagerly until Ignacio told Xavier to quit staring.



The house had grown again; Amy had asked his boys to stay the night. Javier heard them now, knocking around and accusing one another of cheating at some game or another. "I hope the noise doesn't bother you," Javier said now.



"Not after being where I've been." Jack crossed his ankles and tried to look casual. "Thirteen boys," he said. "Must have been rough."



"Not really. I'm a terrible father."



Jack smiled tightly. "We all just do the best we can."



Javier picked up a fab-rubber ball from the floor and bounced it against the wall. It described a perfect triangle before re-entering his hand. "I thought you came here to get a pep talk, not give one."



Jack picked up the ball on its second bounce. "I don't need a fucking pep talk." He bounced the ball against his bicep, fumbled it, and bent down to the floor as he reached for it. "I just thought that we could, you know, get to know each other."



"I'm not banging her, Jack."



Jack grabbed the ball and sat up. The high points of his cheeks had pinked. "This isn't about that!" He rolled the ball in a circle over his palm with his thumb. "This is about you being doomed to fail. Maybe you can forget about the rest of the world here on your Island of Misfit Toys or whatever this place is, but it's out there, and it doesn't like you."



"You're afraid," Javier said.



"You're damn right I am! And with good reason! The whole world wants to take you out before you get too uppity, and you're sitting here playing house!" Jack's chest rose and fell lightly with his excited breath. He blinked. "Wow. It felt really good to say that aloud."



"Only because you haven't said it to her, yet."

Jack sighed. His shoulders slumped. It was a classic Amy gesture, and seeing it in her father, Javier felt a wedge of tenderness slip in between his frustration and contempt.



"Maybe." Jack passed him the ball. "She looks just like my wife. The spitting image."



"What was she like?"



"My wife?"



Javier shook his head. "Amy. Before."



Jack shrugged and sat against the wall. "The same as she is now, I guess. More innocent, of course." He lifted his hands. "At least, I thought so. And then I watched her eat her grandmother. She just–" he skimmed his palms together with a sharp clap, to indicate speed "–took off like a shot, trying to save her mom. I didn't teach her that. Nobody taught her that. That was all her."



"Yeah," Javier said. "I know how that goes."



Maybe Amy's dad had a point. Javier dribbled the ball a little bit between his hands. What if Portia had only augmented what was already there? Her threats, her strategy, the lengths she was willing to go – maybe they came in the original packaging. Maybe he wasn't afraid of Portia hiding inside of Amy so much as he was of Amy, the real Amy, who she'd always been and who she'd always be.



Jack knocked on the wall behind him. "But I can tell you that what she's doing now is what she loved to do then. She has a mighty big sandbox to play in."



Javier remembered another sandbox, on another night, under another sunflower lamp. It felt like years ago. "You've got that right."



"What was she like after that?"



"Excuse me?"



"I know what happened with the island, Javier. I know she rebuilt herself." Jack tried to smile. "I guess I just want to know what the 1.5 edition was like."



"You mean when she had Portia with her." Javier looked at his hands. "She was scared. And she kept trying to–" The words snagged in his mouth. "She made some pretty dangerous choices. Most of them for me. Us. Me and Xavier." He rubbed the invisible seam in his belly. "She helped me iterate him, you know? I was out of my mind, simulating the worst possibilities, but when she touched me it just…"