Kriegspiel [Sequel to The Turing Test]

22. Immortality

I wake in a familiar wash of white, the harsh light from above pounding down on me like the midday sun in a desert. This time, though, wind whips my hair in dizzying spirals, tearing at my clothes and stealing the breath right out of my nostrils.

Still, my heart leaps. I know this place.

"Carlos!" I shout at the indefinable sky. "Carlos, I need help!"

"Ronnie?"

Something between laughter and tears burbles up from my throat, torn away by the wind. Thank god.

"Ronnie, I can barely hear you. Where—?"

Carlos's voice, already faint over the rushing air, cuts out of existence for a second.

"Where are you?" he repeats, louder this time.

"I'm at—"

I stop. The last thing I remember is fighting Sven in the kitchen, but how do I know I'm still there? I hit my head on the way down...what is Sven doing with me right this second?

I fall to my knees, a shiver rippling down my spine. "I don't know," I whisper. "I don't know, but he's not—he's not who I—"

The roar of wind dulls as my breaths echo loudly in my own ears, muting the world around. The familiar spasm in my throat chokes me. My lungs fill with lead, but I gasp anyway and—

"Ronnie."

At the sound of Davis's voice, everything stops. A calm eerie enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck pricks the suddenly still air, and then the breeze whispers to me that one word I said to Sven.

Maybe.

It's not an always, or a forever. It's not even "I love you." All those things between Davis and me—we don't have them. We only have maybe.

Is that enough?

"Ronnie, I need you to tell me where you are."

His steadiness calms me, loosening my throat and letting fresh air slip into my lungs. "I don't know," I repeat. "I'm in my head. I don't know what Sven is—what he's doing...."

"Were you alone with him?"

The question balloons in the infinite distance between us. Alone with him? Yes. In a way that Davis should be jealous of?

I reach for the spot under my jaw, where I know a bruise must be forming from the assault of Sven's mouth. I press and feel no pain; my injuries never follow me here. But it exists in the real world, and it will look exactly like what it is—like what Davis will think it is.

Suddenly I don't know if I want him to find me anymore.

"Okay." He takes my silence for an answer, and I can't blame him. "It's okay, Ronnie. Where were you?"

I take a trembling breath, trying to anchor myself to his voice, but it comes from everywhere at once. He is everywhere, and he has been ever since he kissed me the first time. Is that love? I used to think so, because I used to feel this way about Sven—but with Sven it was different. I thought of him because I had nothing else to think of, but now, even when I have a million life-or-death matters to concentrate on, all I see is Davis.

"Where were you?" he asks again.

I imagine him in Ayo's lab, leaning over a table as he speaks to an empty room like I'm there with him. Is he even strong enough to stand? I left him sick and alone in the hands of machines who are divided at best on the treatment of humans.

"In our kitchen," I finally answer, and for the first time I hear the mechanical quality of my voice. It comes from far away, faintly, as though someone else is forcing the words from my lips, only they can't quite do a good enough job. Then I remember who I'm talking to, and correct myself. "His kitchen."