Kriegspiel [Sequel to The Turing Test]

20. Stay

"Ronnie."

Sven's voice pulls me from sleep, scraping against the back of his throat like sandpaper. He rolled back over during the night, and now he stares up at me, his eyes clearer and his breaths a little less labored than last night. The instinct to run coils my muscles, but I clench my fists and force myself to remain seated.

"You stayed," Sven whispers, then closes his eyes. "God, you're more than I deserve."

Yes, I am. I bite my lip as I repeat the words to myself. They were so easy to believe in Ayo's lab, surrounded by others like me—the used, the scorned, the cheated and dumped. And Davis, who is all of those things, too, but strong enough to know his own self-worth. His resiliency astounds me; of all the reasons machines should be superior, that one should be at the top of the list. But it's not. He is the strongest person—organic or inorganic—that I know.

But when Sven says those words, I want to tell him he's wrong. It's not a conscious thought, but an involuntary tug at my consciousness.

At the last second, I bite my tongue, and the words stay inside my mouth.

"You should have gone to a doctor," I say, trying to break the moment with a businesslike statement.

"Didn't think I needed one." He gives me a lopsided, upside-down grin. "And I was right."

"You're lucky you're not dead. Whatever that thing is, it's not something anyone's seen before. It came all the way from Antarctica."

He nods once. "Ayo?"

I only stare down at him, my lips sealed.

"And Ada," he infers.

I lean back, wary strain creeping back into my muscles.

Sven only smiles. "She really was—"

"A marvel of engineering?" I interrupt. "Just...something to brag about, to be proud of? To take her accomplishments as your own?"

I ask it like it's a preposterous notion, but I hate how close to the truth it is. Everything I've ever done, been proud of myself for, belongs to him. Him, and Ayo, and however many other humans collaborated to build me.

I belong to them.

Sven sits up slowly, giving himself time to adjust to each increment as if the smallest movement sets his head spinning. He reaches for the half-full glass of water still on the floor, leaning against the island as he takes a long gulp. Then he studies me, the desperate outpouring of love vanishing into thin air.

"Does God have the right to be proud of us?" he murmurs.

"Of you?" I return.

A grin flits across his face, and he nods in concession. "Of humanity," he clarifies.

I blink at him. My answer hasn't changed.

"I would be," he adds softly as he begins to pull at the top button of his shirt, still damp from sweat. I watch his fingers tremble for a moment before I take pity on him and help, popping three buttons and then returning to my spot near the doorframe. He can finish the rest himself. It hits a little too close to other things we used to do.

He watches me in silence, and I can't tell if his eyes are hooded from the sickness or because he's remembering those things, too. I don't ask. I don't want to know.

"It doesn't take away from anything we've done," Sven says, his stare piercing. "Because we're unpredictable. It's not like He controls us. It doesn't take away from everything that we've done, on our own. He could never have seen all this coming."