Amy nodded. She must have heard this excuse any number of times, from any number of humans. He certainly offered it enough.
"This is a really cool ship, you know. You did a great job."
For a synthetic child, appeals to Amy's ego still worked fairly well. This time she did turn around. She twisted her wrist, and the display vanished. "Mom thought she saw one of her sisters last weekend," she said. "That's why she's being weird."
Jack nodded. He looked around for a cushion large enough to hold an adult, and sank into it. Amy joined him in his lap.
"Mom says our shell used to be popular."
"That's true," Jack said. "That's why she gets confused, sometimes. There are so many vN with your face running around, it's easy to make a mistake about seeing a clademate."
Amy nodded into his chest. "That's what she said, too." She fiddled with her assistant, sliding two fingers under the haptic bangle and wiggling them. "She said I'm not supposed to talk to them."
"You're not supposed to talk to any strangers, no matter who they look like."
Jack kept his voice light. No need to teach Amy his phobias. He knew other parents feared the same things: strangers, vans, promises of puppies. In their darkest moments they imagined their children kicking and screaming, wrestling against duct tape or blankets. What terrified Jack was the willingness with which Amy would allow herself to be taken by whatever human pervert came along. Her failsafe guaranteed that.
The angel investor supporting the development of von Neumann humanoids was not a military contractor, or a tech firm, or even a design giant. It was a church. A global megachurch named New Eden Ministries, Inc, that believed firmly that the Rapture was coming any minute now. It collected donations, bought real estate, and put the proceeds into programmable matter, natural language processing, and affect detection – all for the benefit of the few pitiful humans regrettably left behind to deal with God's wrath. They would need companions, after all. Helpmeets. And those helpmeets couldn't ever hurt humans. That was the Horsemen's job.
It all went to hell, of course. The pastor of New Eden Ministries, Jonah LeMarque, and many of his council members became the defendants in a class action suit brought by youth group members regarding the use of their bodies as models in a pornographic game. The church sold the licenses to vNrelated patents and API rights to finance the settlement. They had risen in value over the years that Pastor LeMarque spent in the appeals process, but LeMarque insisted on keeping the failsafe proprietary. He claimed that this way, the vN could never be used to hurt human beings. The judge who sentenced him was the first to remark on the irony of this particular opinion.
"How come Mom has sisters, but I don't?"
Jack blinked himself out of his thoughts. He kissed the top of Amy's head. "Because your mom and I got it right our first try, sweet pea. We don't need anybody else but you." He pulled back a little to peer at her. "Would you like to have a sister?"
Amy twisted her assistant around her wrist. "I don't know." She furrowed her pale brows at him. "She'd be just like me?"
"She'd look just like you. That doesn't mean she'd be just like you."
Amy nodded. "Would you keep her little, or would you feed her a lot so she caught up to me?"
Jack considered how to reframe his daughter's question. "Well, I guess she would grow at a human pace, just like you." He smiled. "Would you like a little baby to help take care of?"
Amy looked genuinely perplexed. Then her face resolved into mock accusation. "Aren't you late for work, Dad?"
He laughed. "I'm taking the day off work."
Amy perked up immediately. She twisted in his lap to face him fully. "Oh yeah? Can I take the day off school?"
He lifted her in his arms and stood. "What? You can't take today off school; you'll miss your party!"
Amy rolled her eyes. "The party's going to be stupid. I bet they forget that I can't eat the cookies, like last time."
"Then you'll need your breakfast, won't you?"
Jack turned. Charlotte stood in the door, armed with a wooden spoon still glittering with ionic gel. "Pancakes are ready," she said.
Amy slid out of his arms, briefly threw her arms around her mother, and bounded off to the kitchen. Jack heard the clatter of cutlery a moment later. His eyes locked with Charlotte's and he opened his arms. Pursing her lips, she stepped inside them. Seven years later, her body still felt the same. Engineers and artists and experts of all sorts had worked to sculpt this form for human use, but Charlotte still felt uniquely fitted to him when she let him hold her like this.
"Are we OK?" he asked now.
She nodded. "Sure." She pulled away to look at him. "You're taking the day off work?"
"I decided my girls needed me more, today."
Charlotte smiled. "Thank you." Her head tilted. "Do you believe that I love you, Jack?"