Page 28 of The Phoenix Code

  Then she lost her grip on life.

  *24*

  Reckoning

  The haze never changed. Megan had no sense of how time passed. Early on, Ander's face hovered above her. He spoke, terse and awkward, his voice breaking. Then he was gone.

  Raj came often. He sat out there in the mist and talked: Raj, an almost perfect replica of a man known for his in­ability to converse, a hardship the original Raj had be­queathed to his replica. Yet with her, he had never been that way.

  He told her wonderful things about the robots he had built as a child, about his hopes for a new era ushered in by computers and robots, bringing a prosperity that might someday extend to all peoples in all places. He talked about Raj's mother, a British musician who had met Sundar, Raj's father, at Oxford. Then he told her about Sundar's youth in India before the family came to America, weaving pictures both beautiful and heartbreak­ing of a country she had never seen.

  Her mind gradually unraveled his words, seeing the truths between his sentences. When he had told her at NEV-5 that his great-grandfather came to America from India, he had meant Raj's grandfather. He said "great-grandfather" because he would always think of Chandrarajan Sundaram as his father. Sundar, father to the human Raj, had been born in India and moved to America with his family when he was nine, just after World War II. This Raj thought of Sundar as his grandfather, though Sun­dar would never know. Yet the man sitting at her bedside fulfilled his purpose so well that after a while she wondered if any meaningful difference existed between him and the tormented genius who had created him.

  He spoke in subdued tones about being an only child, how he missed having siblings. His aching love for the parents he had adored as a small boy and barely known for the rest of his childhood came through in every word. Other times he talked about how he spent most of his childhood with computers, letting their cool comfort fill the gaps in his life.

  With unflinching candor, he told her about the injuries he had taken at the hands of the youths who beat him, hu­miliation inflicted because he looked and acted different, with his large intellect and small size. His shame kept him silent when he should have sought help. Instead he worked out with a single-minded drive. He ran in the mornings and lifted weights in the afternoon. And he grew, both in size and breadth, until he outmassed the boys who beat him. He began to fight back—and the day came when he left them in the same condition they had inflicted on him for so many years.

  That victory had felt like a validation of his worth. Yet he also considered it hollow, tainted, sought for in anger and vengeance. He lived with that contradiction, the prin­ciples of nonviolence he honored set against the gratifica­tion he had taken from acting against them.

  Never once did he refer to his other accomplishments in life with pride. His triumph over the inner demons of his childhood meant more to him than the fact that most people considered him one of the greatest geniuses of the modern era.

  He spoke with heartbreaking pain about watching the real Raj slip deeper into Alzheimer's disease, how he had arranged to care for him when Raj could no longer care for himself. Struggling with older memories, he described how that same disease had turned Sundar into a stranger who didn't recognize his own son, and how his mother had cried after the stroke paralyzed her and she could no longer hold her little boy. This Raj grappled with a double load of grief, carrying both his own and that of the man whose life he now lived. Listening, Megan heard a mira­cle: for all his coping mechanisms, Raj had survived that broken life with an incredible decency and strength of character.

  Finally he spoke about what happened in the van and the quadra field. He had killed. It didn't matter to him that the police called it self-defense, or that it had pre­vented a far greater evil. He would always struggle with his guilt, just as he would grapple with the knowledge that he had felt only fierce satisfaction when he shot the man who tried to murder Megan.

  She tried to offer him comfort, but no words came. Many times he entreated her to open her eyes, to speak, to let him know she lived. It made little sense to her. Didn't he know she could hear him? He kept her centered here, in the blurs of life. A tunnel waited for her, beckon­ing with white light at its end. She listened to Raj and the tunnel receded.

  He set his hand on hers, where it lay on the sheet. "I miss you." His voice had the sound of tears. "Would it horrify you if I said that I love you? "Would you think me too strange?"

  A drop of water fell on her hand. Megan opened her eyes and saw the moisture on his cheeks. She tried to close her fingers around his and just barely managed a squeeze.

  "Megan?" Raj stared at her. "Megan? My God!" He jumped to his feet. "Nurse! She's awake!"

  Megan sighed, or tried to. She had liked his soft talking far better than this yelling about for the nurse. She had never seen him so agitated. She would have slipped back into the soothing white light, except she really was tired of sleeping.

  People gathered around her bed, checking monitors, talking in words she didn't have the energy to decipher. Raj stood a few meters back, watching.

  Waiting.

  "You're a lucky woman," Deborah Norholt told Megan. The doctor closed the file she was holding, dousing the holos that floated over its surface. "The kind of 'luck' that comes from keeping yourself healthy."

  Megan was reclining against the raised back of her bed. It was hard to believe she had been out for three weeks. A continual low-level nausea plagued her and she was exhausted, but otherwise she felt reasonably comfort­able.

  Norholt spoke in a careful voice. "I understand you were with Dr. Sundaram most of the time you two were prisoners."

  Megan hesitated. Apparently she had been brought into a county hospital, then transferred to a military facil­ity under Major Kenrock's orders. The nurses had told her that Raj came every day, but since waking earlier today she had yet to see him alone. She didn't know the situation yet, who knew what about whom, and who had clearance to discuss the matter.

  "Megan?" Norholt asked.

  She tried to refocus her attention. "Yes?"

  "Chandrarajan Sundaram is outside, waiting to see you."

  A blend of relief, apprehension, and tenderness washed over her. "I'd like that."

  "We need to discuss something first."

  Did they know about Raj? Although she had heard him tell the medics the blood on his clothes was hers, eventually someone must have examined him. Or perhaps not; in all the commotion, Raj could have slipped away and made preliminary repairs on himself. He might even have hacked the hospital's computer and added records showirig a doctor had treated him. He could have com­pleted the repair job later, in private. She found it hard to believe they would have let him see her every day if they knew the truth. Ander had only been at her bedside once, the day they brought her into the hospital.

  "Megan?" the doctor repeated.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "Can I see Raj?"

  "Yes. Certainly. But you need to know something first." Norholt paused, watching her with a scrutiny that suggested more than simple concern. "I wasn't sure if you were ready."

  "Why?" Were her injuries worse than they had re­vealed? "I want to know."

  The doctor spoke quietly. "You're pregnant. It hap­pened during your abduction, probably on the third day."

  Megan gaped at her. She didn't know what she had ex­pected, but that wasn't it. "Are you sure?"

  "Very sure. I didn't know if you wanted Raj here when you found out."

  Megan sat absorbing the news. Pregnant. As if the situ­ation weren't already complicated enough. She managed a smile, though she felt its fragility. "I'd like to see him now."

  "You're sure you're up to it?" When Megan nodded, the doctor said, "All right. I'll bring him in."

  After Norholt left, Megan closed her eyes, trying to put this development in context. Whose DNA did Raj carry? The biological Raj Sundaram, she hoped.

  A click came from the door, accompanied by footsteps. Opening her eyes, she saw Raj ente
r, his face guarded. She started to greet him, then stopped when she realized who had come with him. Nicholas Graham.

  The general entered with a long stride. Crisp in his uni­form, taller than Raj, with a powerful physique and iron-gray hair, he filled the room with his presence. She wished she knew what Ander and Raj had revealed to him about themselves. Surely if Dr. Norholt knew Raj was an an­droid, she would have done a lot more than simply say, You're pregnant.

  Graham came over to the bed, his expression friendly but reserved. "Hello, Dr. O'Flannery. It's good to see you awake."

  She pulled herself up straighter. "Thank you, sir."

  "I won't stay long." He gave a dry smile. "Your doc­tors issued me warnings about not tiring you."

  "Ah, well." She managed a smile. "I'll be fine."

  Graham tilted his head at Raj, who stood at the foot of the bed watching them. "Dr. Sundaram told us what hap­pened. You can give your report when you're stronger."

  Dr. Sundaram? Then they didn't know? Raj had his hand on the silver rail that kept her from rolling off the bed. His face was calm, but he was gripping the rail so hard, his knuckles had turned white. Megan knew he was waiting to see if she would reveal him.

  She regarded the general. "Where is Ander?"

  "We took him back to NEV-5."

  "Is he well?" She hesitated to ask for details. Although she was cleared to discuss the project with Graham, she wasn't sure about here in the hospital. She doubted he would have referred to NEV-5, though, if they weren't in a secured area.

  "He's fine," Graham assured her. "We're keeping him there until we decide what to do next."

  What would they do? If they arrested him for kidnap­ping, applying human laws to his behavior, then as far as she was concerned, they had to grant him the rights and privileges of a human too.

  "He saved my life," she said. "Several times."

  "Yes. Dr. Sundaram told us." Graham considered her. "Ander wants us to continue with the Everest Project."

  "I think we should."

  "It will depend on the recommendations of the com­mittee Major Kenrock has formed to look into the proj­ect."

  Oh, well. From Megan's experience, once a committee got hold of something, you could turn into a fossil before they had results.

  "Did you catch the people who kidnapped us?" she asked.

  "Not yet," Graham said. "However, we have the van you drove into the quadra. Its computer is a gold mine of information."

  Megan wanted to ask more, but she didn't have the en­ergy. Already she felt drained. Then another thought came to her, one that made her feel as if the proverbial butterflies danced in her stomach. Perhaps some of her fa­tigue came from the baby.

  "Well," Graham said. "Perhaps you and Dr. Sundaram would like a chance to talk." On that discreet note, he said his farewell and left the room.

  Raj visibly relaxed. Then he released the rail and rubbed his hand.

  Megan suddenly felt painfully self-conscious. "Hi."

  "Hi." He looked uncertain.

  "Would you like to come up here?" She lowered the rail, then scooted over on the bed.

  He came over and sat on the edge of the mattress, mak­ing it sink with his weight. "Hey, swan."

  "Hey." She tried to absorb the truth, that this man who so stirred her heart wasn't human.

  "Are you tired?" Raj asked.

  "A little." She took his hand in hers. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome." He squinted at her. "What did I do?"

  "I heard you talking. Every day." Softly she said, "You kept me here. In life. Like an anchor."

  Moisture gleamed in his eyes. "They didn't think you were going to make it. I couldn't accept that."

  "I'm glad." She took a breath. "I have something to tell you."

  He tensed. "The praying mantis doesn't talk."

  Praying mantis? It took her a few moments to figure out what he meant. Praying mantis. Insect. Bug. Of course. Her room was almost certainly being monitored. If she said anything now about his real identity, it would give him away. And "praying." He was asking her not to reveal him.

  "I don't think this should wait," she said.

  His hand tightened on hers. "Are you sure?"

  She started to speak, stopped, then said, "It's difficult."

  "We can talk later."

  "No. Raj ... it has to do with my condition."

  "What? No! Do you have complications?"

  "Yes. Sort of."

  "Tell me."

  Just say it, she thought. So she did. "I'm pregnant."

  At first he stared at her. Then relief washed over his face. Given the nature of her announcement, it puzzled her, until she realized he had feared she would reveal the truth about him. Hard on the heels of his relief, he showed shock, then alarm, then confusion.

  "You're going to have a baby?" he asked. "You're sure?"

  "That's the same question I asked the doctor. She said 'Very sure.' It happened on the third day of our abduc­tion."

  Raj sat absorbing that. "We're in a hospital. That should make getting blood tests easy."

  "To check for paternity?" Perhaps he didn't know whose DNA he carried.

  He spoke with an unexpected tenderness. "I've no doubt it's mine. Your child will continue the Sundaram line."

  She almost said, "That's not what I meant." Then she realized how strange it would sound to any observers. He had answered her anyway, when he said "continue the Sundaram line."

  So why did he ask about blood tests? She hesitated, knowing that the law had changed several times in the past two decades. "I'm not sure about this, so I may be about to make a fool of myself—but did you just offer to marry me?"

  She expected another oblique answer. Instead he said, simply, "Yes."

  Oh, Lord. What made it surreal was that he was the first man she could see herself spending her life with, a companion as well as a lover. He understood her passion for her work. They had similar dispositions. She loved to touch and be touched by him. He wouldn't care that she was a homebody. She liked his eccentricities. They were well matched. Except, of course, for one little problem. What could she say? Excuse me, but you're an android.

  "Ah, Raj." She didn't know what to do.

  He picked up her hand and pressed it against her ab­domen. "My parents and I missed so many years. As adults we've come to know each other, and I will always love them. But nothing can give us back what we lost." His voice softened. "I want those years with my son or daughter."

  She brought his hand to her lips and kissed his knuck­les. He had asked her a great deal more than a proposal. If they married, she could never reveal the truth about him. He was asking if she would guard his secret. Forever.

  Megan remembered the quadra field, the van, the motel, the lonely, late nights in NEV-5. She thought of wanting him. Then she thought of what he represented to humanity and what she would be taking from the rest of the world if she kept his secret.

  That decision isn't yours to make. It's his. And he had already chosen.

  "Yes," she said. "I will be your wife."

  Epilogue

  Megan sat on the hill next to Raj, savoring the sunshine. The extensive grounds of the Pearl Estate spread around them: rolling hills, lush trees, flowers in vibrant colors. The mansion itself was visible only as a turret lift­ing above distant trees. She gave a silent thanks to the donor who, twenty years ago, had left this estate to MindSim as a research institute. It provided a far more pleasant site for the Everest Project than NEV-5.

  About half a kilometer down the slope, a lake shim­mered, blue and silver in the sunshine. Ander was jogging on the path that circled it, a twenty-kilometer run. He loped along in an easy stride, the sun bright on his gold hair.

  Megan felt a debt of gratitude to Major Kenrock's committee for giving them a second chance with Ander. Arizonix had been less fortunate with Grayton, the Phoenix android. Although they had tried to salvage as much as possible, in the end they'd had to wipe out his code an
d redesign most of his body.

  "I haven't seen Ander stumble once," Raj said.

  "He's doing well," Megan said. Ander's progress in the past six months had gone better than expected. MindSim attributed it to the work she and Raj were doing with him, but Megan suspected another cause as well.

  She thought back to her childhood, when she had sworn loyalty to her best friend. They had nicked their thumbs and mixed their blood while vowing eternal friendship. Blood sisters, blood brothers.

  So Raj and Ander had joined, in a field of grain, when they thought their lives might soon be destroyed. Instead of blood, they had mingled knowledge, each downloading the code that defined his essence into the mind of the other.

  Raj had given Ander the Phoenix Code, and it forever changed the golden-haired android. He became more con­templative, less disconnected from his emotions. In taking the Phoenix Code, he absorbed how Raj felt about his life. So he kept Raj's secret. It had become his own. Ander would never be human, but he was complete within him­self.

  The therapist described him as a marginal autistic, be­cause he still sometimes lacked full emotions, he tended to hold himself aloof, and he avoided physical contact, never having come to understand why humans liked to touch. But Megan doubted the diagnosis. It assumed a human standard applied to Ander. And it didn't. He defined him­self.

  Unlike Ander, Raj didn't simply incorporate his brother's code. He first did an extensive rewrite, to blend it with his own personality and desires. Because of that, it changed him less than the Phoenix Code changed Ander. But Megan still saw differences. Raj's already intense emotions deepened even more. It surprised her at first, given Ander's lack of affect. Then she realized that in coming to understand Ander, Raj better understood him­self. He and Ander had different views of what it meant to exist. Raj wanted to be human and took every measure to preserve his identity. Ander didn't care.

  Ander never contemplated his emotions. He just wanted to exist on his terms. It meant no spy work, no pretending he was human, no pledges. The ethics board convened by MindSim and the DOD agreed he had a right to make that choice, as a sentient being. But they could take no chances with him or his safety. In the end, they found a compromise Ander could accept; he could live as he wished—but he could never leave the grounds of the Pearl Estate.