CHAPTER 51 #2
I lean back in my seat, eyes on the congested aerial lanes ahead.
Created for sex or not, the humiliation I feel over how much I love the Florence Engine fades quickly.
I’m not going to toss the device aside just because the man who built it can’t keep his pants zipped.
It still works. It still grounds me. It’s still mine, no matter what Jerome intended it for.
So I’m going to keep it.
Because some things don’t have to be what they were made for. Some things can be what you make them.
When I park the hovercar at the corner of Genesis Street, the Moonshine Mile glitters down the block like a cloud of spun sugar.
The street should be beautiful—usually it is—but today it feels like a graveyard of dead memories.
I force myself to look away. Ahead, the Genetic Engineering Facility looms, its iron gates bleached pale in the sunlight.
There are no memories here, only the punishment I signed up for.
Jerome’s office is on the seventh floor.
I check the facility map in the lobby and discover it’s even larger than my suite.
The genetic engineering professors live up here, sealed away in luxury apartments with private workrooms attached for tutoring sessions.
It must be convenient for Jerome: teach his students in one room, bed them in another.
Charlotte and I ride the elevator in tense silence, then step into a sconce-lit corridor that smells faintly of ozone and lab disinfectant.
When we reach Jerome’s door and ring the bell, no one answers at first. I lean in and catch muffled voices inside: a man’s voice, calm and polite, and a woman’s, desperate and grief-stricken.
Finally, the door unlatches, and a handsome Pinkie greets us on the threshold.
Charlotte and I lock eyes, silently agreeing on how human the robot looks.
Its rose-colored suit is tailored to a frame that could bench-press a hovercar.
Its face is sculpted with sharp, knife-edged features: broad jaw, severe yet regal cheekbones, and startling moss-green eyes that are too close in shade to Dad’s for comfort.
Black hair sweeps into a deep side part, glossy and slick with pomade.
The Pinkie regards me with a polite expression, then bows with mechanical grace. “Good day, Miss Waldsten. I am Henry.”
I remember Jerome mentioned Henry in his email, specifying that the Pinkie hates smoking. But robots don’t hate anything. That’s the whole point. My eyes dart to the badge on its lapel, which reads Model Seven.
I frown, even more confused. There is no Pinkie Model Seven, which means the robot is unreleased, a prototype still crawling out of the lab. If this is what the next generation looks like, I pray it never goes public.
Henry lingers on my face, its moss-colored eyes creasing with what looks like amusement, and a chill needles down my spine.
I’ve never once been afraid of artificial intelligence, not even when Charlotte and I trusted an autonomous hovercar to take us down a cliff road in a blizzard. But right now, I am.
Henry shifts aside enough to reveal a foyer adorned with weapons, one of which looks unmistakably like a flamethrower.
At the room’s center stands a fifth-year Orange student, her cheeks red and blotchy, as if she’s been crying.
She twists a strand of dark hair in her fingers, trying to stay composed, but the moment she sees Charlotte and me, the facade shatters.
“Henry, please,” she says, her hands curling fretfully in her sleeves. “Just tell Jerome I came by. Tell him I’m sorry, and that I—”
“Miss Shelley,” Henry interrupts softly. “Professor Jerome has expressly instructed me not to admit you. Your tutoring arrangement is concluded. There is no further reason for you to visit this suite.”
An airy sob escapes from her throat; she pushes it back so forcefully I feel a burn in my own chest. Only yesterday, I wore that same look, clinging to the hope that maybe I hadn’t lost Edmund yet.
“Don’t make me leave, Henry,” Miss Shelley begs. “Not until I speak with him. Please. I love him.”
For a moment, Henry’s polite mask falters, as if even its circuits are recoiling. Then the robot pulls a handkerchief from its breast pocket and places it in Miss Shelley’s hands.
“I wish you a restful summer,” Henry says as it guides her to the exit. “Good day.”
Henry closes the door behind her and hesitates, with its back still turned.
I watch the robot pull a small pink object from its pocket, which looks suspiciously like a pill, and place it carefully on its tongue before swallowing it dry.
Then the Pinkie pivots to us, and its polite smile slides back into place.
“Apologies for the delay, Miss Waldsten, and—?” Henry pauses, studying Charlotte.
“Charlotte Deering,” she says breezily. “I’m just here for Lore. Oh, and where’s the pot?”
Henry tilts its head. “Pardon?”
“The toilet. I need it.”
The Pinkie raises its sculpted brow, looking so perfectly baffled that I elbow Charlotte in the ribs. She elbows me right back. “What? It’s a Pinkie. What does it care?” She flicks her hand toward Henry. “Go on, handsome. Point the way.”
Henry extends its arm and glides down a side corridor with Charlotte in tow. The robot returns alone, scanning my face with an unsettling, too-deep stare, as if it’s searching through every locked box in my mind. I rub gooseflesh from my arms, hating the way the Pinkie makes me feel.
Henry guides me down a narrow, overheated corridor lined with sharpshooting trophies and ushers me through a set of double doors into Jerome’s so-called office.
The air is thick and muggy, reeking of energy drinks and the slow burn of bodies pressed too close for too long.
Every surface is occupied: students slump on couches, slide down the walls, or droop half-conscious over tablets.
Everyone looks wrung out and irritated, as if they’ve been waiting since last semester. Some probably have.
And dead center, in the middle of it all, is Jerome Glass.
He’s bare-chested, wearing a brocade robe that reveals the waistband of his orange boxers.
A Sono-Chamber crackles around him, its nanobots casting a halo of light across his skin.
The device is a high-end focus shield designed to eliminate distractions.
We see Jerome, but he can’t see us. We hear him, but he can’t hear our sighs, complaints, or curses.
Inside his bubble, he flips through streams of helix maps and edited cell lines, drifting across the wall display.
Every few seconds, he shifts—pacing, mumbling, tugging at his hair—then perches on the corner of his desk, pops the tab on an energy drink, and drains it without a care for the human swamp rotting outside.
It’s obscene… this line, this heat, this waste of time.
I lean against the wall and ask myself whether I’m truly up for this, whether I can endure a whole year of bi-weekly lectures and private tutoring sessions with this man. Or whether, at some point, I’ll wish I’d aimed that rock a little better.
Deep down, I know the truth. No matter how bad this is, there’s a worse option waiting, because no other professor will accept me. If I walk out now, I go right back to first-year Cloning Theory, with a room full of fresh hatchlings who think they know pain.
So I stand there, sweat dripping down my neck, irritation mounting, until something rustles in my peripheral vision.
Students start to retreat, pulling away from a corner near the far wall, where a monkey crouches on the floor, its tail flicking over a fresh pile of feces.
The smell drifts over the sweat and stale coffee, making the heat feel twice as oppressive.
People groan as they recoil from the stench and move closer into my corner. That’s when I see Rosamund.
She’s sprawled out like royalty on a couch beside her pet, sweat beading along her hairline, her silk dress clinging damply to her skin.
She looks as miserable as the rest of us.
I didn’t realize she had a tutor, but it makes sense that she chose Jerome.
Dad says the Prews have been clawing at Winston’s coattails for decades, willing to do anything for a taste of him… or, in Rosamund’s case, of his son.
Rosamund lifts her water, takes a drink, then, like a spider sensing a heartbeat trembling through its web, her eyes snap up and lock onto mine.
“Hoppola,” she murmurs, the word slipping out on a smile as wet as her hairline.
She leans back against the couch and studies me, her eyes filled with the same poison she poured down my throat before the Cloning Theory exam.
I know she’s trying to drag me back to the fear and the pain of that moment.
Instead, a realization dawns on me, so clear and impossible to outrun that I don’t even try: Rosamund and I can’t keep butting heads like this forever.
Sooner or later, one of us will snap, and when that happens, the space between us will close for good.
Even if she’s Edmund’s twin sister. Even if, once, before Bliss rotted her brain, she might’ve been someone decent.
None of that matters because there’s no room for both of us here.
I don’t know when our collision will happen, whether today or tomorrow, only that it’s already been set in motion.
So, I stand my ground with an unflinching stare.
For the first time, there’s no rage simmering inside me or hate rising in my throat.
Rosamund can’t break what’s already been destroyed.
I don’t have a saber to swing, but I’m not afraid of her anymore.
If the moment is now, let her come.
Rosamund’s smile twitches, tightening into a thin, dark line. Her eyes scan my body, then lift again as if measuring how much it will take to crush me properly this time. She stands from the couch in a smooth motion, silk whispering around her thighs.
“Everyone out,” she says.