She still looked fine. Normal. She kept eating. She nodded to herself.
“That’s not good,” she said. “They’re part of the island’s default defence mechanism. So I can understand why they would attack a human being, but not why they would be spending time together. They’re supposed to watch the kids, not each other.”
“About that,” Javier said, “what exactly is the island’s default defence mechanism?”
She frowned. “You really want to know?”
He nodded.
“You’re not going to like it.” She put the poison down. “But I guess, since we’re being so honest, I should tell you.” She picked up his hand and stroked it. “It’s Portia,” she said.
Jesus. Powell was right. He tried withdrawing his hand, but she held it tight.
“Please don’t run away,” she said. “It’s not like how you think. It’s not her. Not her as an individual. More like her priorities. Her decision-making process. And it only engages when I’m not around.”
The simulations started branching before he was even conscious of them. “If you’re not around?”
Amy nodded. “Yeah. If something happens to me. Or if my focus shifts. If I can’t devote as much attention to the island, because I’m hurt. That’s why I keep my bandwidth to the island so constant. So I don’t upset the balance.” She squeezed his hand. “I know it doesn’t make me the easiest person to be with, but…”
Her hand began to shake. It started out as a faint tremor, the kind elderly humans sometimes had, almost imperceptible, like the movement of a second hand on a very old watch. Then it intensified. Became palsy. It shuddered through her little wrist and up into her arm, jogging her elbow up and down. Then it was in her shoulder, and she whimpered, and her grip on his hand was so hard he wanted to pull away but couldn’t.
“What’s happening to me?” she asked.
“I’m sorry.”
Amy’s eyes were wide. “Is Portia coming back? Is she doing this to me?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Her eyes lit on the wrapper. “You–”
She crumpled. The words died inside her mouth. Her face slammed into the bed like someone had pushed it there. She flipped onto her back. She bounced and seized and twisted. And through it all her eyes remained on Javier.
“I’m so sorry.” It was Powell, he wanted to say. Powell made me. Powell failsafed me. But when the change was done, she’d know, and she’d kill Powell.
“It’s pain,” he said. “It’s organic pain. It’s an add-on, to give you a sense of organic pain.”
Her spine arched in a terribly perfect half-circle. He tried to help her down and she screamed, an awful high shivery sound that seemed like it could shatter the diamond tree outside. Her heels drummed the bed and the bed roiled, bubbled, became hot and soft and viscous like tar. Something was happening to the house. The walls peeled down. The beams fell away. Sunlight shot through the shredded roof and her screams continued unabated, constant, breathless. And as she suffered his vision changed, went old-fashioned, entered failsafe. A thousand tiny pixels registered her agony for him, each pinprick of light burning its way down through him, imploring him to stop it, begging him the way her lips no longer could.
“I love you,” he was saying. He was holding her hand, still. He was clenching it. Hers curled around his. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
The screaming stopped. His vision cleared. He looked down and she was staring at him. It was over. The pain was gone. They could figure it out, now. Move on to whatever came next. He would apologize and make it right. He would start with kissing her. He shut his eyes and bent down and she didn’t move, didn’t kiss back. When he pulled away and looked again, she was perfectly still. Eyes open, unseeing. Her hand was slack in his.
Amy was dead.
He touched her face. It rolled to one side. The breeze lifted her hair and rippled her dress. He let go of her hand and it dropped onto the bed, their bed, and began to sink into the gleaming black surface of it. The whole thing had lost its structural integrity, just like the house. Now she – her body, her shell – was sinking into it. Black goo seeped up around her face. It was at her lips before he moved, took her hand, tried to pull her free, but it was too late. Her body shifted in the muck. The weight differential changed. She was in quicksand. He tried to hold her hand, wrench her free, dig her out, but the island gulped her down. Her eyes were open. They were still open when she slipped beneath the surface. Her hair floated on it for a moment and then it too was gone. There was only black.
“Dad?”
Javier turned. Xavier stood there, watching him. When Javier stood up, he backed away. Javier raised his hands, palms open. Black mud dripped away from them.
Beneath their feet, the island shuddered.
“What did you do?” his youngest asked.