Back in the Rover, Amy said nothing. There was nothing much to say, and she doubted Javier wanted to listen to her complaints. Even if he did, it was probably because his programming told him to and not because of any individual desire on his part. Not that he felt any desire for her in the first place – he was just caught in some weird code loop that saw her as both too human to leave alone and not human enough to love. As with everything else, it came down to the failsafe. Until now, she had wanted to fix hers so that she could get rid of Portia, or at least protect people from Portia's madness. But if fixing the failsafe meant never having to feel this again – this empty hopeless ache for the impossible – she couldn't wait to find the next roboticist.
I've been telling you all along that you can't get rid of me. You refused to believe me, and look where it's gotten you.
Amy rested her head on her folded knees. She shut her eyes.
Your mother tried to run away from what she was, too. But we all know how that turned out.
Softly, Amy shook her head. She could handle most of Portia's taunts. But she drew the line at mocking her mother.
There is no line, Portia continued. We are one flesh. Everything about you that is strong or special or in any way unique is really just a hand-me-down from me. Before I came along you were just a carbon lattice of wasted potential. Why do you think I came for you that night?
Amy sat up a little straighter. Beside her, Javier frowned at her. She shook her head and held up a hand, so she could listen better.
Your mother was raising you to be something you were not, Portia said. She was pretending, hiding in plain sight, lying to your father and to you. She was always going to hold you back. I came to rescue you. I came to make you free.
"Then why did you have to murder someone?" Amy couldn't help asking aloud.
To test you, of course. I wouldn't waste my time on another of your mother's cripples.
"What's she saying?" Javier asked.
Amy looked up through the bubble. It was dim, but there was light up at the surface. They rose toward it slowly. She wondered where they would pop up. Would the tides have carried them somewhere entirely new? Or would they wind up right where they'd started?
"Amy?" Javier waved a hand between her eyes and the plastic. "Don't bluescreen on me now; we're almost home."
Amy shook her head. "I'm fine. Portia was just telling me why she came looking for me."
"You sure she's telling the truth?"
Amy shook her head. "I'm not sure it matters."
The bubble burst, and the water rushed in. Overhead, botflies chased each other, replacing the stars that the heavy clouds obscured. The city light reflected on their lumpy arc, casting them in purple and orange, and already Amy heard the sounds of the museum over the steady lapping of waves. The two of them seemed much smaller, surrounded by all that black and oily water, and for a moment Amy could imagine that the mistakes that had brought her here weren't so huge, that their ripples did not in fact extend into shadows she couldn't see or even imagine, and that someday she really would overcome them. Then a foghorn sounded, and Javier's foot nudged hers under the water, and together they swam for the city.
"This is dangerous! Let's swim home!"
Two dolphins, one a little larger than the other, were giving them a firm talking-to about the dangers of swimming in the waters of Elliott Bay. The fact that they were mecha dolphins – with brushed ceramic bodies and a single camera eye whose surface occasionally flashed emoticons – did nothing to hold them back from behaving in an utterly dolphin-like manner. They zigged and zagged around and between Amy and Javier's legs, and bumped them with their blunt, streamlined noses. Presently, the big one reared up in the water, exposing a belly etched with a TouristTrap? logo, and flapped his flippers. "This area is off limits! You could get hurt! Let's swim over that way!"
"I think they think we're humans," Amy called over to Javier, who had fallen a little behind her. She waved a hand before the little one's eye. "It's all right! We're OK! We can't really drown!"
"This swimmer is in distress!" The big dolphin slid up and under Javier. His eye flashed white and red, like an ambulance light. "Let's take you home! Your family is waiting for you!"
"Oh, shit," Javier managed to say before the dolphin launched itself across the water.
Amy slapped the little dolphin's flank. She pointed at the wake Javier and the big one had left behind. "Follow them!"