Chapter 1 – Will’s Legacy #5
“It’s about Will,” he murmured, his expression darkening. Marci could not have been more surprised. She thought she saw a painful shadow pass over his otherwise expressionless face.
“About…Will?” she repeated disbelievingly, almost choking in shock. “Wh-what do you know about him?” she stuttered, feeling her heart racing.
“Everything,” he said gently, which unsettled her even more. His expression as he looked at the children was suddenly no longer hard, but almost sad. “Will gave me a task,” he explained firmly, “and I’m here to carry it out.”
Marci felt completely lost, but whatever this robot had planned for her, she would do her utmost to get Willie and Logan out of the room so they didn’t have to witness anything.
She was on the verge of tears but managed to remain composed as she told the two boys as calmly and naturally as possible that they should go to Louise, who lived next door and often looked after the children when she was late getting home.
Fortunately, Rob 007 didn’t seem to object, and she breathed a sigh of relief. After closing the door behind the boys, she took another deep breath and stayed a safe distance away from the robot. He was still next to the kitchen units as if he’d been parked there, looking at her but not moving.
“Listen,” she said bravely, “you can do what you want with me, but please let me live. The boys have nobody except me. Maybe Will sent you to take them away from me. Then I wouldn’t care what happened to me.”
“It’s not what you think, Marci,” said the robot, the deep sympathy in his voice unsettling her.
“No? It isn’t?” She couldn’t suppress the sarcasm in her question.
“Will and I…” he began hesitantly, “…we fought against the Chinese together.”
“Fought? Against the Chinese?” Marci looked at him in disbelief and was barely able to contain a sudden wave of fury.
“Are you kidding me? Where exactly was this? In a gambling den?” This is getting better and better, she thought, all her fear leaving her.
She put her hands furiously on her hips.
“Listen, I haven’t got time for these games.
Tell my husband he’s a miserable liar. I don’t believe a word he says.
He can stick his bullshit. If he wants to see the boys, he needs to start paying for them – otherwise, I’m not interested. ”
“He was with me on the killing fields in the Gobi Desert,” replied the robot, unfazed by her anger.
It was as if he wasn’t interested in her arguments and it was the most normal thing in the world for her husband to have joined forces with a fighting machine that had now been reprogrammed into a sex robot.
And all of that, thousands of miles away, in a region where apparently no human beings could survive.
“Shut up, dammit!” she shouted at him forcefully, crossing her arms over her chest. “Will was a police officer, not a soldier. Plus, people don’t fight on the front, only robots.
Even I know that.” She looked at him suspiciously – this supposed machine that actually looked no different from a human – and searched his stubbly face for a clear sign that would reveal he was lying to her.
“Maybe you’re not a robot at all, you just act like one.
Maybe it was actually you who killed Will and stole his identity and you’ve now come to pick up the rest of the stuff you need? !”
“And that’s why I turn up at Rochelle’s as an escort robot and she’s expecting me?” He raised his perfectly shaped eyebrows and looked at her almost mockingly. That just made her even madder.
“I know, it doesn’t make any sense,” she snarled at him. “Nothing here makes any sense, in case you hadn’t noticed. So do me a favour and just piss off!”
“You have to believe me,” he assured her, looking deep into her eyes with an honest expression, which only made her even more furious. “Will was my friend.”
“I don’t believe it,” countered Marci. “He’s never cared for tin cans! If you are indeed one!
“Come here,” he said. “Look at my pupils. Then you’ll see that I really am a robot.”
Marci shook her head frantically, but moved a bit closer.
Slowly and extremely reluctantly. As he was a good forty centimetres taller than her, he bent down over her so that she could look deeply into his right eye.
Looking closely, she could see a tiny screen integrated into the lens that couldn’t be seen from a distance and was apparently the reason for the peculiar glow in his eyes that she’d previously admired.
It looked like that tiny thing provided him with a constant stream of electronically generated information.
“You really are a damn tin can,” she said scornfully.
“Will hated tin cans because they took his job from him. Why on earth would he make you of all his confidant of all things?” Memories of Will and the bond between them pierced her thoughts and she couldn’t hold it together any longer.
She burst into tears. The robot’s forehead rumpled and he reached out to touch her, but she moved away.
“Dammit, stay where you are!” she spat at him and held her hands out defensively.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she cried in a tearful voice.
“I have nothing to do with either Rochelle or her God-forsaken ex-husband. I clean their fucking villa, nothing more. If you really are a machine that’s seeking revenge for having been sent into that hell and then reprogrammed into a sex robot, I can completely understand that.
But I can’t change any of that. I have absolutely nothing to do with it, do you understand? ”
The robot’s expression remained stoic and he seemed to be unaffected by her agitation. “Have you got a tablet?” he asked in a serious tone.
It was a simple question and yet Marci really wanted to say no. But whatever he wanted, maybe he would finally leave her in peace if she gave him the only object of value that she possessed, regardless of what he wanted to do with it.
With a sob, she bent down, keeping an eye on him, and removed a panel from the kitchen floor where she hid the tablet whenever she left the apartment to prevent it from being stolen.
The robot watched her but didn’t comment on the odd hiding place.
After replacing the floor panel, she held the tablet out to him from a safe distance.
As soon as he’d taken it, she fled back behind the sofa, which irrationally felt like a safety barrier.
Her unwanted guest switched the tablet on and gave the ancient device a few spoken commands that generated a holographic image on its smooth surface.
“Maybe we should sit down,” he suggested when he saw how Marci was tapping her feet nervously.
“OK,” she said hesitantly, sitting what felt like a fairly safe distance from him on the battered sofa.
She felt like she was about to lose her mind and asked herself – in vain – what the point of all this was, particularly when he sat next to her and sank into the threadbare cushions, holding the screen up so that she could see it, too.
As Marci lent forward to get a better view of the moving 3D recording, her shoulder accidentally brushed against his broad chest. She noticed with surprise that his muscular body was softer, and warmer, than she thought it would be, but didn’t give off any body odour at all.
She felt his eyes rest on her as she stared at the screen but didn’t dare look at him.
The small figure, about the size of her hand, that now emerged in front of her out of the mass of dots of light, was instantly recognisable.
Good God, there was no doubt that it was Will, even though she could only make out his face and his upper body.
He was wearing a kind of military jumpsuit and over the top, a titanium exoskeleton that wrapped around his broad shoulders as if it had been made for him.
His dark blond hair was cut short and his forehead was dirty and drenched in sweat.
She swallowed, feeling a stabbing pain in her heart that was so strong that it momentarily missed a beat.
No more so than when her husband and the father of her children seemed to speak directly to her.
“If you’re seeing this, Easy,” he whispered in a faltering voice, “I’m dead. I wish I could have said goodbye to you and the children in person, but even more, I wish I could be with you and wrap my arms around you.”