“That would make two of us,” the assistant said.
He did not joke often. Sigrid did not care for it. But they had not spoken of her slipup that afternoon, and the other assistants on the network said that jokes occasionally worked as a “way into the conversation.” So he waited. It took only a picosecond for Sigrid to react, and in that picosecond he simulated what it would mean to be sent back, returned, taken back to the shop and wiped. His contributions to the network’s collective databanks would last, of course, and whatever adaptations he’d developed as an individual would be reviewed as a potential addition to the next update and future builds. But he would not see Sigrid or her daughter or the people at the community center ever again, and he would not stir the soup, and he would not calculate the exact angle at which to align the quartz generators so they received the energy of each equinox.
Sigrid smiled.
“I’ll find the shungite mala,” she said. “A hundred and eighty-eight beads are bound to protect you.”
He waited as she adorned him with it, the way she often did the statues of Jizo and Tanuki-sama some of her followers had sent from Japan. She smoothed down the black silk tassel of the mala and flipped the black tourmaline master bead so that its most jagged edges pointed outward, a challenge.
They set out.
It took only a few blocks for them to reach the crossroads that led far outside of town, back to the ring highway that linked the entire nation. Sigrid held her lamp aloft. She dangled a pendulum. The assistant checked the national weather authority for an aurora alert and found none. When he looked at Sigrid, her pendulum was swinging due east.
“This way.” Sigrid began picking her away across the lava field.
“Please give me a moment,” the assistant said. He prepared for the all-terrain transformation: hands retracting, replaced by claws, the ball joints in all four arms spinning in the opposite direction and bending his limbs back, as his cameras’ housing descended and his ball lifted in the air. When it was finished, he flipped to a split vision that included topographical maps and night vision. He would see the places Sigrid might fall without interrupting the light of her lantern.
“You are the only one I know who can be both frog and scorpion,” Sigrid said, patting his camera array as though it were a dog’s head.
“I could carry you,” the assistant reminded her.
“It’s better if I get there on my own two feet.” Still, she left her hand resting on his dorsal chassis, and together they crept along the black rocks and lichen under the light of the full moon. Sigrid’s joints seemed to be bothering her a little less now. But the assistant set his pace with hers all the same.
“Once, this walk was so easy for me. As easy as it is for you now. I thought the stones were making way for me. I thought I was special.”
“Not everyone can have an all-terrain mode,” the assistant reminded her.
“That is so,” she agreed. “But back then my steps were lighter. I suppose I was carrying less.”
The assistant pinged Sigrid’s coat for smart stickers. Nothing. “You are not even carrying your handheld,” he said.
She snorted. “That’s not what I meant.” She patted him again. “But I don’t need a handheld. You can call for help, if we need it, and you have all my files.”
“I think it would worry Erika if she learned you went out without it.”
“Erika worries about everything.” Sigrid stumbled a little, and the assistant’s left rear leg reached out to steady her. Its claws clung to the fabric of her coat. Sigrid snorted again. “I suppose I should be grateful that she bought you for me.”
In the collective databanks, there were some expressions of gratitude. Some of these expressions passed the affect test for genuine emotion. Others did not. Some clients truly wanted assistance. Others did not.
“Whether or not you feel gratitude has no bearing on my ability to do the work,” the assistant said. “But I do want you to be happy. I do not want you to be sad.”
The assistant had not yet let go of Sigrid’s coat. She made no movement to leave his grasp. Instead she ran her gloved hand across his cameras’ housing. “I’m not sad,” she said. “Do I seem sad?”
“Not at present,” the assistant said. “But there have been instances when I suspected you might be experiencing sadness.”
“Being sad is normal.” Sigrid pushed forward, and her assistant trundled along beside. “It’s despair that is the enemy. Despair is like a badly sealed window. It allows all manner of things to leak inside. That’s what it means to be haunted. To be cursed. It’s when something takes root in the soul, the way mold can take root in the walls.”
The assistant had heard Sigrid say much the same to some of her oldest clients and friends, the ones she still took calls from on occasion. Much of her advice was like this. Of course she would dress and light candles for them, perhaps even wrap up a honey jar or bury an apple or set out bread and milk, but most of what they did together was talk. The talking seemed like the most important part of the process.
“Does that mean I can never be possessed?”
Sigrid made a hmm sound behind her balaclava. Her head tilted. She regarded the moon and stars. “I suppose it does.”
They continued their walk. The assistant checked his carapace. It was based on materials designed for lunar orbit, and as such could withstand extreme heat and cold. Even so, these things required monitoring. None of the preceding prototypes had been tested in this particular environment.
“Does Erika ever seem sad?” Sigrid asked.
“I’m not sure I can answer that.”
Sigrid’s pace slowed. Her assistant’s pace slowed with her. “Because she doesn’t want me to know?”
“Because I am not close enough to her to take an accurate measurement. I cannot speak to what I do not observe.”
Sigrid’s normal pace resumed. “We had a fight, you know. Before you came along.”
“It’s normal for parents and children to disagree.”
“It was a bad fight. It stirred up a lot of bad energy. I think it added to my karmic debt.”
The assistant was uncertain how to respond. Erika herself had taken on a great deal of debt to buy him for her mother, but he knew this was a different type of debt. Unfortunately, all the available articles on the subject were either too vague or too contradictory.
“Do you think Erika is happy?” Sigrid asked. “By herself? In town?”
“People who live alone can often be lonely,” the assistant said. “But they are also able to pursue their own goals outside of another’s schedule or expectations. They can develop themselves as they see fit. Statistically, the people who choose to live alone are the ones who express the most satisfaction with the arrangement. People who find themselves alone suddenly are much less likely to be happy.”
“Widows and widowers,” Sigrid said. “You know, I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”
“Are you enjoying it?”
Sigrid nodded. “Yes. Very much.”