Page 35 of Even Robots Die
She takes an entire minute to follow me to the center of the room, as if my leaving so fast spooked her and she doesn’t know how to act next towards me.
But then she looks around and I can see in her eyes that she likes what she’s seeing—at least way more than the first lab—and yet it’s like any other lab. It’s even similar to the other one in this castle.
But I can understand why this first one can be unsettling for some, even if for me it only exists as a reminder that if they managed to change my brain through science once, I can’t give up on having it changed back.
I might be completely wrong, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.
Or, to be exact, from making Florentine try.
Except for the pictures on the wall I don’t really see any difference, but I‘m not the one who set the room. I’m the one who ordered it be turned into a medical room and a nerd haven, but to be honest I’m not exactly sure what I ordered. I just know I spent a small fortune in holo-puters that I can’t even see in the room. I know they’re here, built inside the wood of the desk that’s at the back of the room, though.
“Do you like it?” I ask Florentine to break the silence.
She’s looking at everything with wide eyes and I have no idea what it means.
Still without answering me, she walks up to the desk and swipes her finger on the surface. It lights up and a holographic screen materializes against the entire wall.
Florentine types on the holo keyboard and a dozen documents appear on the screen.
“Milton, upload the infernal device files on this computer,” she says out loud, and I realize she does it for me, because I’ve already seen her converse with her AI without needing to talk at all. Her outburst last time was proof of that.
Wait.
The infernal device?
Does she mean the machine the birds used on my brain to change it?
I find it … almost endearing.
I’m not about to tell her, though.
She touches another part of the desk and a voice answers her, “All set, Miss F.”
“This is so much better than having to work directly on the infernal device,” Florentine says to no one in particular before sitting in front of the desk.
I almost feel like I’m intruding now that she is hitting the keys, typing pages and pages of text I don’t understand.
“I’ll get the machine,” I tell her. I don’t think she hears or pays attention to me, though.
Five minutes later, I’m back and put it at the right side of the desk and then I take a couple of steps away.
“Thanks,” she says out loud and then mumbles to herself—and probably her AI too—things I don’t understand.
I back against the wall, next to the door, but I don’t leave.
She’s so absorbed by what she’s doing and by the new holo-puter that she forgets all about what’s around her. And for the first time since she arrived, I can actually observe her without needing to hide.
22
Brice
Idon’t know what is wrong with that woman.
After I leave to pick up dinner and bring it to her in the new lab—because it looked like she wasn’t planning to eat at all—I stay watching over her for part of the night.
Until she finally decides to get up and go to her room.
I go to mine and try to sleep until I hear movement and a door opening and closing.
