Chapter 36 #2
“That’ll kill her!” Norman snapped. “When Regina was planning to unplug her, she was preparing for a days-long process. Sprite’s brain has never operated her body, and it never developed the necessary structures for doing so. If you disconnect her abruptly, she’ll die.”
“I don’t think he’s bluffing,” Sprite said.
“So we get some doctors in here to do it,” Jason said. “However long it takes.”
“There’s no time. In a few minutes, I won’t be me anymore.”
“You can stop the drugs, at least,” Dunne-Carr said urgently. “Find the IV lines.”
Jason reached into the core and pulled several needles out of the girl’s arms. The medical machines set up an angry beeping in protest.
“The drugs are already inside me,” Sprite said. “I feel them.” Her voice was like a recording played at half speed.
“Now disconnect that memory imaging system he talked about!” Dunne-Carr said.
Norman said, “Those wires run through the same interfaces as everything else. Good luck singling them out.”
“Phreak!” Jason swore. “What do we do?”
“Ghost,” Sprite said, “unplug me. Chloe: Run.”
Norman started to say something, but his chat window blinked out. Dunne-Carr was just casting Norman an alarmed look when she disappeared, too, leaving Jason alone with Sprite.
He tried to think against a choking fog of panic. “We can find another way,” he said. But it was as if he were watching the car barrel down on Mia in slow motion, knowing he couldn’t stop it, knowing he had, again and always, failed.
“There’s no time,” Sprite said. “The drugs are working.” Every so often her image flickered as if she were losing track of where it was projected. “Any moment now the brainwashing will start. Unplug me. Please.”
He looked from Sprite to her body. It was strange to think that they were one and the same.
The girl showed far less life, the rise and fall of her chest and the slowing, drug-laden beep of her heart rate its only markers.
“All the time I’ve known you, you’ve managed to make me do what you want,” he growled. “Not this time. Don’t even try.”
Sprite’s eyes narrowed. “You think I want this? You think I wouldn’t choose another option if I had one? I’m still connected to the most powerful computer array ever. I’ve run the math, and I can tell you: This is the only path. You’re the only thing standing between me and the world.”
“The world never cared about me,” Jason said. “Now I’m supposed to start caring about it?”
“Then care about me,” Sprite said. “I’m not asking you to kill me. I’m asking you to free me.”
“Comes to the same thing.” She wanted him to be the car, choosing to hit an innocent girl so the greater number of people could live.
“Let me be me,” Sprite said. “Me alone—no computers, no machines. No Andrew Norman. For once in my life, for one moment at least, let me be free.”
He looked at her avatar, at the dark eyes fixed on his.
How many times had he let those eyes affect him?
How many times had he been fooled by the emotions she chose to show him?
But she hadn’t been fooling, he now knew.
Oh, she’d deceived him, many times, despite never outright lying.
But more dangerous had been when, with her fake eyes, she’d told the truth.
That was how she’d gotten him to do what she wanted.
That was how she was doing it again.
Sprite’s image flickered and jumped. “I can’t fight this much longer. I’m already so tired.” She reached for Jason’s hand, and he let her unfelt touch guide it to the wires coming from the girl’s head. “A couple good yanks.”
He touched the wires, gripped them, his fingers wrapping around a fat bundle, their rubber cool and springy in his fist. But he couldn’t pull.
He sank to his knees, his hand still gripping the wires. Sprite’s image flickered again. She knelt in front of him and took his head in her hands. “Ghost,” she whispered.
“I can’t lose you too.”
“If you don’t do this, you’ll lose me anyway.” He looked down, avoiding her eyes, so she bent and leaned her forehead against his. “I choose this. Choosing this is what makes me me. Don’t take that away.”
“I can’t.” Jason hadn’t cried since Mia had died. Something in him had broken then, and weeping had been one of the functions he’d lost. So he was distantly surprised to see tiny, watery starbursts in the dust by his knees.
“You must,” Sprite whispered. Her tears joined his, their splashes disturbing no dust. “Let me go.”
He knelt for a long moment, imagining the drug invading her body, preceding the greater invasion that was Norman’s brainwashing, the fake memories overtaking her mind, a virus that would turn her into his slave.
He squeezed the wires. He told his muscles to pull.
Nothing happened.
“Ghost.”
His vision swam as he stood. “I can’t.” He let go of the wires.
“No,” Sprite said. “Ghost. Please.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sprite screamed. The girl’s body spasmed, her back arching. Sprite’s scream went on and on. Her eyes were dark pits, her mouth a gaping hole. But her eyes never left his, and they were filled with betrayal.
Mid-scream, with no flicker or warning, she disappeared.
Jason knew he should run. Instead, he walked around the core, placing it between himself and the silent dogbot, and sat with his back against it. He pulled up his smartspace and brought up his text history with Sprite, found the link he was looking for, and clicked it.