Amy looked at her hands. Get her life back? Her life as she knew it had ended the moment she decided to run up to that stage and attack Portia. It had ended the moment she escaped from the truck with Javier. It had ended when she ventured to the garbage dump to help him, and ended again the moment she decided that Junior was more important. It ended with Harold's fragile human wrists clenched in her titanium grasp. She could chart these moments in her life like points on the map of Mecha, as she wandered further and further away from the plans her parents had laid out and the dreams they must have had. It was unreachably far, now. Her mother was dead. Amy would never get that life back.
"It's a very generous offer. Thank you. I'll think about it." She looked up. "But what about the failsafe? When they erase Portia, will I still have the flaw?"
The hope evaporated from Dr Sarton's face. He looked at Atsuko. "Darling? Could you please let us discuss this in private?"
Atsuko gave Amy and Javier what she must have thought was a gracious smile before she left. "I'll be just outside."
When the door closed behind her, Sarton spoke up. "The answer is that I'm not sure. To be honest, I'm not even sure that you inherited the breakage from your grandmother."
If this were a fairy tale, this would be the moment when the wise old wizard tells you that you were a magical princess all along, Amy thought.
He pulled up another image, this one taken directly from a feed. The vague shape of human heads filled the display. They blurred, corrected themselves, resolved into children's bored faces. The camera drifted over all of them, before settling on a fat little girl with straight brown hair and red cheeks. Britt, her name was. Amy remembered her. She never did her worksheets and she was always yelling. Now Britt caught sight of the camera. She crossed her arms and looked away. She rocked back and forth in her chair aggressively, practically throwing herself against the chair as her legs swung out and back, out and back. She was kicking the leg of someone else's chair; Amy heard the tiny ting it made ringing through the hubbub of shrill momspeak.
Dr Sarton made a hook with one finger and pulled it to the right. The footage sped up. Amy watched her whole class stand up and dance. She watched her teacher get up and speak. At this speed, her constant swaying made her look like a toy hula dancer on somebody's dashboard. Then something blurred across the screen. Portia. Dr Sarton pulled his finger-hook sharply to the left, then released it. The footage reversed, then returned to normal speed. Portia hopped onstage. She beckoned to Amy. Amy refused. Then Nate tripped Portia.
"Close your eyes, Javier," Dr Sarton said.
But you're not a magical princess. You don't have the power to spin straw into gold. You have the power to kill human beings, Amy thought.
Portia picked Nate up by the ankle. The screaming started. His body flew and the camera followed it. It spun, his limbs flailing and his little hands grasping at empty air, and he landed on his head, the neck snapping and blood streaking across the floor as he skidded to a stop. The camera's view hit the floor. It jarred across tipping chairs and hurrying feet. Then it rose, first high to the ceiling and then down again, to the stage, where Amy's mother rocketed up to the piano.
Dr Sarton made a "time" gesture, the fingers of one hand intersecting with the other palm. The footage paused. Then he hooked the footage left again. He froze it in place. "BR-82."
The rest of the footage floated away, scattering like leaves in a breeze. Only a single image remained: Amy's watchful face, turned away from the stage and toward the audience. "Do you remember what you were looking at?" Dr Sarton asked.
Amy shook her head. "No."
Yes, you do.
"I only looked at Nate after I ate Portia," Amy said. "My failsafe still worked then; I didn't watch the grown-up human channels, I didn't play anything that was too violent or too real, my parents wouldn't let me."
"Exactly," Dr Sarton said. "Your parents wouldn't let you. So how would you have known?"
Amy backed away from the display. "Fine. If you're so sure, find my memory of that night. See if I really saw what you think I saw."
"You know I can't do that, Amy." He stood up. "And you should know that even if I could fix you – which I can't – I wouldn't. It would be wrong. It would be like destroying a masterpiece."
"What?" Amy's fists tightened. "This isn't a masterpiece, it's an accident. And it's hurt way too many people."
Dr Sarton's eyes played over her. "You ate your grandmother," he said. "Why did you do that?"
"Because! She was…"