Immortal Mistakes

only if you help me in return

Chloe and Henry snuggled under a thick feather doona in a bed made for at least two people. Ana had given them sleeping clothes and warmth seeped up from the floor below but it was still cold when they first slid between the sheets. Chloe pressed her body into Henry.

"I know how we can warm up," he said, his eyebrows jumping.

"Not now. Not here. I don't want them to hear us." She nuzzled her face into his shoulder. He was so warm. "How do you feel about your Dad and Ana?"

"He's not my dad, not really. I barely know him. It doesn't matter what he does."

***

Henry was still sleeping, bunched up in blankets, when Chloe woke. Soft grey light came in through the window. Chloe slipped out of bed and put on the robe and slippers Ana had given her. She tiptoed down the stairs, moving as quietly as she could so she didn't wake anyone. 

The smell of coffee filled the kitchen, greeting Chloe at the bottom of the stairs. David leant against the kitchen counter sipping at a cup of coffee. "Early riser?" he said.

"What are we doing here? Why did you bring us?"

"So you could have your baby in peace. That's what you want, isn't it? Octavia would never have let you have it."

"Why did you turn the 3D printers off?"

"To buy us some time so she didn't follow us here. I don't need her telling everyone they can be immortal if they port over to Australia. Don't worry, Felipe will have them back on by now."

David's face was worn, tired. Lines crept across his forehead and around his mouth but it was his eyes that looked most tired. Flat almost.

"Does Octavia know?"

He gripped his cup. "No. That's why I had you work on hiding memories. I didn't want her finding out when she cloned me."

"You? But I thought it was Octavia running the Network."

"I think we both had our reasons for wanting to hide memories or make fake ones. When you've been with someone for nearly 200 years, you're bound to disagree on a few things."

Ana's voice interrupted them, bright and chirpy. "You two are up early. Just as well, we've got a lot to do today. Now where's my coffee?" She swept past Chloe and leaned across David to pick up the coffee pot. She poured two cups and handed one to Chloe. Then she unhooked a fry pan from the overhead rack, pulled some food out of the fridge and started to fry it. The smell of whatever Ana was frying filled Chloe's mind. It smelled so good, her stomach clawed to get at it. 

Henry came up behind Chloe and put his arms around her waist, startling her. She hadn't heard him over the sizzling food.  "Morning," Henry said, putting his head on her shoulder. 

"Morning," Ana said. She cut some bread on a wooden board. David laid the table and Chloe and Henry stood together watching Ana cook.

***

Once they had eaten - chilaquiles Ana said - and dressed in day clothes, Ana herded them into her car and drove them up and down streets, some small and some with four lanes of traffic, leaving the houses behind and emerging in a suburb full of big, plain boxy buildings. Ana parked outside one of the largest. It was grey with a blue sign that said 'Regenerate Technologies.' The car park was empty apart from Ana's little white hatchback and a couple of ravens pecking at the carcass of a small animal. 

As soon as Chloe opened the car door, cool air rushed in, smelling of salt and car fumes and rotting meat. The cold and the meat smell made Chloe feel like she was back in the clinic, wheeling a body into the 3D printer. She zipped up her coat and followed the others to the front door. Ana pressed her index finger against a bioreader. The reader beeped and the door clicked open.

"You have bioreaders here?" Chloe said.

Ana held the door open and they filed into the warm sterile foyer, a box really, with a white lino floor, white walls and glaring overhead lights. "Of course," Ana said.

"We share technologies between the two communities," David said. "There's no point duplicating efforts and wasting resources."

Ana took them through another door, white and set into the wall. Chloe hadn't seen it before Ana pushed it open. They walked into a huge room with a concrete floor and a high ceiling covered in criss-crossing wires. There were no windows and Chloe felt trapped despite the size of the room. A flesh-coloured mannequin sat on a table in the middle of the room surrounded by pieces of mannequin body - an arm here, a leg there. The mannequin had brown eyes, a short nose and wide lips. She looked a lot like Ana. She held a second Ana-mannequin-head in her lap. 

Ana picked up a control panel off the table and pressed a few buttons. The Ana-mannequin moved her head to the side and said, "I'm so pleased to meet you Chloe and Henry. I've heard so much about you."

They had a lot of bots in the immortal world but they'd never tried to make them look human. Chloe glanced at Henry but she couldn't tell what he was thinking. She walked over and stood in front of the robot, waiting for her to say something else but she didn't. She sat with her head to one side, staring at Chloe. Chloe touched the robot's face, the skin was soft and smooth, without the lines the real Ana wore. She didn't respond to Chloe's touch.

"This is your answer?" Henry said.

"These bodies are made from self-healing material." Ana waved towards the back of the room. "There are many more in the store room. I can show you if you like. The oldest is over thirty and we haven't had to do any repairs. The problem is the mind. We've tried coding them to think like us, to remember what we remember but we're not even close. If we want to get this done in my lifetime, we need to try something else."

"That's where we come in," Chloe said. She turned to David, clenching her lips, trying to keep emotion out of her face. "You didn't bring me here for the baby, you brought me here for this."

"For both, Chloe. You know where the port dock is. You are free to leave at any time. You've seen how Octavia's solution doesn't work. I thought you might like to see another answer and make sure your life's work doesn't go to waste."

The robot stood up and tapped Chloe on the shoulder. "Let me show you what I can do."

She ran to a side wall and kept running up the wall, flipping over and landing on her feet. Then she flipped again, onto her hands, and hand-walked over back to them, somersaulting to land in front of David. She held David's face and kissed him, just as the real Ana had done last night in the kitchen, then sat back down on the table.

"You see?" Ana said. "She knows David is her husband and she knows she's supposed to kiss him but she doesn't know why. She doesn't feel a need for him deep inside her. If I'm going to give up this body for that one, I want her to understand what it is to be me. I don't want to let that go."

"Why not print yourself a new human body? You said you share our technology and you know that works." Chloe said.

Ana's mouth turned down, her lips frowning. "I've watched David's mind slip away after Octavia printed herself a new version and left the old one here. I've waited for the new one to remember and come back to me. I've seen the same thing happen to Henry. And I've watched you, Chloe, trying to dial up your pain meds as the tumour fills your head. Your bodies do not last. Here we are creating ones that do."

Chloe looked at Henry again. His jaw was tight. He gave her a quick nod. She looked back at Ana standing between David and the robot. "All right. I'll help you but only if you help me in return."