Kriegspiel [Sequel to The Turing Test]

16. Uncertainty

I sit beside Davis's bed, my eyes fixed on his face as I will him to wake up and start laughing, like everything is just one giant joke, and I can scold him for scaring me and we can go back to what we were before.

What we were. My hands tighten around the sheets, crumpling segments of them into wrinkly puckers. His three words swell between us like a balloon, not bringing us together but pushing us apart. And I know eventually it will pop, and we'll collide—but whether it will hurt or heal, I don't know.

I hate not knowing.

And the other three words. I wrote this. All this time, I've directed my anger toward Sven for creating me. What does that make Davis? A contributor without his consent, but a contributor nonetheless.

A faint groan from behind me makes me swing around. Ayo, surrounded by the remainder of our group, blinks and squints into the harsh lights overhead.

She blinks hard, keeping her eyes shut for far too long, and mutters something that sounds a lot like, "Shit."

"What happened?" Maven asks. Her bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired; the only hint of emotion behind her question is the frown on her face.

Ayo sinks back against her pillows. "Terrible time for the flu."

"It's not the flu," another woman says. I recognize her from Sven's prison, as the one who reached into Darwin's cell to position him so that I could look into his eyes. Ada, Maven had called her. "It's something else. Something I've never seen before."

Ayo seems to shrink, withering into the mattress. "Antarctica."

Darwin rises, his huge frame shading out half the lights above. "What does Antarctica have to with this?"

"It's where I was before...before...." She pauses to cough, then waves her hand at me.

"Are you telling me you brought back some centuries-dormant unknown disease? Or is that still just the beginning of a dystopian sci-fi novel?"

They stare at each other for a moment before she sighs. "I don't know."

"Why weren't you quarantined?"

"Sven pulled some strings. He needed Ronnie fixed, and I did it."

The screech of my chair across the floor turns everybody's attention to me. My heart pounds as it splits, beating down two separate paths. I open my mouth, close it again, and then blurt, "You touched him, too."

Silence. Only stares greet my declaration.

"You touched Sven. You probably infected him."

Maven speaks first, her face pinched with disgust and a tiny wrinkle in her nose. "So?"

"So!" I goldfish at them for several seconds, realizing that none of them will care about Sven. I don't blame them; I don't even know why I care, except that he's a little piece of legacy code stuck inside a single block somewhere—a line I haven't yet been able to overwrite. But the problem is bigger than him, anyway. "Who knows how many people have been exposed by now!"

Images flash through my head, of standing beside Sven while we watch a battle begin on the empty street below. The possible beginning of an apocalypse. What was that? Some kind of predictive programming? I know seeing the future is impossible, but it felt so real, and I can't shake the need to keep moving, just so that it doesn't catch up to me again. I will do anything to make sure it doesn't happen, but....

I hug myself. Would I do this? If Sven is infected with some Antarctic supervirus with no known cure, then he can't wrap his arms around me and force me to watch with him while he...while he....