Meltdown (19 page)

“He’s
my
machine. Mine, do you hear? I’m not giving him up.”

“Right. So I just stand by and watch you give up everything we’ve worked for—”

“We?”
Melanie countered. “I’m the one who built Einstein. I’m the one who knows what he needs.”

“And what about what
I
need?” Chris asked. “Why can’t you forget your damned scientific research and be a real woman for once?”

“I thought that’s what I was being,” she said quietly.

“Not by a long shot,” Chris said angrily. “A real woman wouldn’t put her work first and her lover second. I’m sick and tired of playing second team to a damned computer. You’ve got to make a choice. It’s either me, or it’s Einstein. You can’t have both.”

Melanie paled. She stood looking at Chris, as if she were staring at a stranger. Her eyes were wide and full of uncertainty. He couldn’t meet them and maintain his resolve. He looked down. “Well? What’s it to be?”

“Chris, you know I love you. But you can’t ask me to give up E. He’s helpless without me. I’m all he has.”

Her words hit him like a shock wave. Until this moment he’d believed she would choose him. Instead, she had chosen Einstein. He tried to feel angry, or upset, or—something. Instead, he felt empty inside, as if someone had taken out his heart and left a hole in his soul. A Melanie-shaped hole. “Well,” he said, searching for the remarks that had always come so easily to him. “Well,” he repeated, when none came.

“Chris, we’ve got to talk about this.”

“What’s there to say? You’ve chosen circuits and wires over a flesh-and-blood lover. You’re the consummate scientist, all right.”

She turned away from him, leaning heavily against her bureau. “I think you’d better go now.”

How could she sound so calm, he wondered, so unaffected by the shattering events of the last few minutes? Then he remembered. This was Melanie, the woman who had an equation for everything. No doubt she’d come up with an equation to deal with this situation. He’d been a fool to think he’d ever be more to her than another one of her calculations.

The anger that had been seething just below his surface bubbled up at last. “You’re some piece of work, you know. Everything you do, everything you feel, is calculated down to the last decimal point.”

“Please go,” she whispered as she traced the edge of the mirror over the bureau. “I want you to leave.”

“Don’t worry,” he said as he walked over to the bed, bending to scoop up his clothing. He caught sight of the breakfast tray and paused, momentarily stunned by the stab of great regret that passed through him. They could have had so much together … but that dream was over. She’d made her choice. Her logical, calculated choice.

Chris stalked to the bedroom door, too angry to stay in the room another minute. “I hope you and E will be very happy together,” he said through clenched teeth. “You should be. You’ve both got microprocessors for hearts.”

She watched his reflection in the mirror. She had followed his every move, seen him grab up his clothing and watched him pause—that brief, heart-twisting pause—as he looked one last time at the breakfast tray. She’d wanted to cry out to him then, to tell him she loved him and loved him and loved him … but, that wasn’t enough. Relationships needed trust as well as love to survive, and he’d betrayed her trust in the worst possible way.

He’d tried to take away Einstein.

She heard the front door slam, jarring her out of her thoughts. She felt as if he had shut the door on her future as well. Chris was gone, taking so much of the warmth and joy in her life with him. She felt empty inside, too numb to feel any emotion. Chris was wrong when he’d said she had a microprocessor for a heart. There was nothing there at all.

She leaned heavily against the bureau, weariness pulling at her spirit like a drug. Dammit, she was a scientist, and scientists didn’t let their emotions get to them like this. “Two times two is four,” she quoted with forced enthusiasm. “Four times four is … is … hell, I don’t care what four times four is.”

Tears pricked at her eyes. This wouldn’t do, she told herself. She had to think logically about her options, about getting on with her life now that Sheffield Industries and Chris were no longer part of it. She needed to talk with someone—someone who could look at her situation objectively, without getting caught up in human emotions. She needed to talk with Einstein.

She wiped her eyes and started down the hall to Einstein’s room. The jumbled familiarity of the room calmed her shaky emotions—until she caught sight of Chris’s jacket lying next to the connectivity box on the floor. Memories of their recent lovemaking cascaded into her mind. Lord, was there no place she could be free of him?

“Well, E,” she said as she slumped into the chair in front of his monitor, “I guess it’s just you and me again. Back to square one.”

Einstein’s circuitry whirred.
Define location “Square One.”

Melanie sighed, wishing that her megabrain computer was a little faster on the uptake. “It’s a time expression. It means we’re back to where we were a month ago, before I walked into Mr. Sheffield’s office.” And met Chris, she added silently. She shook off the ghost of memory and continued. “I guess what I really need is advice. Where do we go from here?”

Don’t understand. Presentation a success. Board approved
.

“Yes, but
only
if I hand you over to the Sheffield
technicians. Only if I let strangers take over your development.” She shook her head, still unable to believe Chris could actually ask her to do such a horrible thing. “That’s what Chris and I were arguing about. You must have heard us.”

Yes
.

Melanie waited for E to say more. He didn’t. “Well,” she prompted, “what do you think?”

Words flashed on the monitor screen.
Thought it was loud
.

“Loud? Is that all you can say?” Melanie asked, annoyance replacing her depression. “Einstein, I’ve just broken up with the man I love because I wouldn’t desert you. The least you could do is offer a little sympathy.”

You requested advice
.

“I
do
need advice. But I need sympathy too. You can understand that, can’t you?”

No. Combination not logical
.

“Well, sometimes people aren’t logical,” she answered, wondering why these words sounded so familiar. “What’s wrong with you, E? You used to be so understanding. You’ve changed.”

Not changed
, Einstein said.
Grown. You programmed me to assimilate new information into decision-making circuitry
.

“I didn’t program you to be hurtful,” she commented sullenly.

Sometimes truth hurts
.

“Einstein,” she said evenly, “my temper’s been pushed to the limit this morning. The last thing I need is some metallic Ann Landers telling me how to live my life.”

My life too
, flashed her computer.
Decisions you make also affect me. But never ask my opinion
.

“That’s not true,” she stated. “I always ask your
opinion. Name once when I didn’t ask you for your opinion.”

When you rejected Chris’s offer
.

“Einstein, that offer was a joke. He wanted to take you away from me. He wanted you to work with the Sheffield technicians.”

So do I
.

For a long moment Melanie stared at the monitor screen, shocked into silence by E’s words. “You can’t mean it,” she said at last. “E, you’re
my
computer. We’re a team.”

Were a team
, her computer corrected.
You are my creator. You made me. You nurtured my CPU, cared for my microchips, nourished my circuits. You gave me life, and … love. Always be grateful, always cherish. But have changed. Need to learn different things now, things only experienced techs can teach
.

Melanie was at a loss. She’d created Einstein, lovingly soldered him together bolt by bolt. If anyone understood him, she did. Yet suddenly, she felt she’d never known him at all. “You can’t mean that, E. I’m the one who built you, not the technicians. There’s nothing they can teach you that I can’t teach better. And if I can’t, I’ll learn. I’ll—”

Melanie. Must let me go. Must let me get on with my life
.

Melanie sat back in the chair, her gaze fixed on the words on Einstein’s monitor.
Let me go
. He’d asked her for things before—for rap music tapes and Shopping Channel items—but never for something like this. This request was different. E was asking her for the right to make his own decisions about his life, for a chance to control his own destiny.

She considered his request. She also considered how easy it would be to make him forget it. In her mind’s eye she saw the computer chips she could remove from his console and rewire. She could erase
his memory of Sheffield Industries, of the lab techs, even of Chris. It wouldn’t take long—an hour at the most. His core processing functions wouldn’t be affected. He’d never know that part of his memory was missing.

Einstein wouldn’t know, but Melanie would.

She reached out and brushed her hand along the edge of his monitor. “Are you sure—absolutely sure—that this is what you want?”

Affirmative
, E answered without hesitation.
You will come visit me, won’t you?

Despite her anguish, Melanie smiled. “I’d like to see them try and stop me. You may be working with someone else, but you’ll always be my friend.”

Solid
, E displayed, his circuits whining happily.
And Chris too?

Melanie’s bright smile dimmed. “I can’t promise that. I can’t promise anything where Chris is concerned.”

Why?

She sighed. “We had an argument, remember? A big one. He said I had a microprocessor for a heart.”

Organic impossibility
, Einstein stated.
Chris should know better
.

“I’m not sure he’s wrong. I’ve been too unyielding in my thinking lately. Look at how I just tried to control your life.”

Tell him
.

“It wouldn’t change things between us. I’m a scientist, E. You may be out of my life, but there will always be another project to work on. And Chris will believe that I’ll neglect him for that project, just as I neglected him for you. And frankly, I can’t blame him.” She leaned back against the side of E’s tower unit. “You know, sometimes I wish I were a computer. Then I could figure out all the variables in the romantic equation.”

Romantic equation?

“Why people fall in love. Well, it’s a moot point now, anyway. It’s time I turned my attention to other matters, like contacting the Sheffield technicians. We have a lot to talk over before we move you out of this bedroom.” She stood up and turned toward the door, stooping to avoid a low-hanging wire. She glanced around at the tangle of machinery and added, “If we can move you out, that is.”

Can. Will. Everything will work out. You’ll see
.

“I wish I had half your confidence,” she said as she stepped out of the room. She heard E’s tower unit humming blissfully away behind her, processing megabytes of information, supremely happy. She knew she’d made the right decision, but that knowledge brought her little happiness. She’d just lost the two people in her life whom she loved the most.

Too bad she wasn’t a computer, she thought glumly as she made her way down the hall. Replacing a few memory chips would have made her bleak future more bearable.

“Are you absolutely certain this is what you want to do?” Mrs. Hardcastle asked.

Melanie nodded. “I’ve given this a lot of thought—more than you know. After examining all my alternatives I’ve concluded that my best option is to … resign.”

“Because of your computer?”

Melanie’s fingers tightened on the arm of her chair. “Because of … a lot of things.”

Mrs. Hardcastle leaned back in her office chair and gave Melanie a penetrating look. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Chris Sheffield, would it?”

Melanie’s heart skipped a beat. “Of course not. I
barely know the man. We worked together on my computer for a few weeks. That’s all.”

Mrs. Hardcastle was silent for a moment, apparently thinking over what Melanie had said. “Well,” she said as she stood up, “if your mind’s made up, there’s nothing more to be said. I’ll get the necessary forms from personnel. You can wait here if you like.”

“Thanks,” Melanie replied, watching. Hard Case walk out the door of the glass-walled office. She didn’t relish the thought of going back to her desk and fending off Rhonda’s insistent questions. Einstein had made enough of a stir in the department. News of her resignation would just add fuel to an already burning fire.

Fire. Oh, the memories that one word brought back to Melanie—foolish memories. She quickly turned away from the image and concentrated on remembering the events of the previous week. She and the members of the development team had moved Einstein piece by piece to his new home at Sheffield labs. It was an arduous task but a worthwhile one, for E seemed entirely happy in his new surroundings. More important, she’d gotten to know the members of the development team and learned to respect and like them. She had no doubt that they would give E the care and guidance he needed to become a truly remarkable computer.

But her happiness for Einstein was tempered by loss. He’d been a part of her life for many years. Last night she’d gone into the spare bedroom. Empty of computer equipment she’d discovered it was quite large, with bright wallpaper and a pleasant view of the backyard through the window. But despite the cheerful surroundings, she felt she’d entered a tomb.

She tried to be logical, tried to tell herself that this wasn’t an ending, but a beginning of a new phase of
her life. A life without Einstein, she thought miserably. A life without Chris.

That was when she’d decided to leave. She needed to start over in some other city, someplace where she wouldn’t have to think about the missing pieces in her life. Someplace where she could forget about Chris Sheffield—and how much she loved him. Lord, was there such a place?

She heard the office door open behind her. “Mrs. Hardcastle,” she said as she turned in her chair, “I didn’t expect you back so—”