Time Was (11 page)

For now, anyway.

The warehouse that housed Invasion Prevention Systems resembled a kind of prison from outside. All the windows were covered with wire mesh. All the doors were slabs of reinforced steel. All the abandoned, stripped cars that squatted along the curb had smears of blood on the backseats.

Home Sweet, as the saying went.

The building was located in a section of the city called Cemetery Ridge by everyone except the people who lived there; the residents of this area probably didn't know that their street was unofficially named after one of the Civil Wars bloodiest battles, and even if they had known, odds were they wouldn't care. What they did know was that their neighborhood was the dividing line between one of the city's richest areas—Cinnamon Road—and one of its poorest. Depending on which side of the street you were standing on, you could either walk up the steps that entered the Taft Hotel—far and away the most expensive and exclusive of the city's hotels—or you could be dragged into an alley by any number of drug addicts, thieves, deviants, and murderers who preyed Shiloh Street. On several occasions, Killaine had watched as exquisitely dressed patrons of the Taft—with their jewels and furs and obscenely priced dinner jackets—stood along the large windows and stared at the shabby homeless people who roamed the other side of the street.

It always seemed to Killaine that the Taft people were smiling at the less fortunate ones only a few dozens yards away from them.

That made her angry.

Angry as hell.

It also made her feel both grateful and sad that she wasn't wholly human—but she never wished to be wholly robotic.

Human beings with their petty squabbles, their greed and avarice, their duplicities and lusts and perversions and—

—
stop it
, she thought.

This was a burden all of the I-Bots had to contend with, each in their own time, in their own way.

Neither wholly human nor wholly mechanical.

Outsiders, wherever they went.

Outsiders, forever.

But sometimes, when she watched the privileged at the Taft laugh at the hopeless denizens on Cemetery Ridge, Killaine thought that maybe, just maybe, being forever an outsider wasn't so bad, after all.

She was pulled from her thoughts by a sound coming from the morning shadows behind Zac's door.

A soft, sad sound.

Wet, full of grief.

She stepped up to Zac's door and gently, silently, pushed it open.

Just a tad.

Zac was sitting in an old kitchen chair, looking out the side window of his room.

He was crying.

Very quietly.

Killaine felt something stir deep in her core, and she suddenly thought about a line that the Tin Man had said in
The Wizard of Oz:
“I know I've got a heart now, because I can feel it breaking.”

He looked so alone and lonely.

And Killaine didn't quite know what to do.

Psy–4 had once told her: “I always know what his mood will be by where I find his chair in the morning. Front is good. The side . . . isn't.”

She never really understood that until now.

If he had been facing the front window—which looked out on the beautiful architecture of the glittering buildings of Cinnamon Road—then Zac had been thinking about the future, about Possibilities, Newness.

Even Hope.

But if he was looking out the side window—down onto the dirty, shabby, ruined Cemetery Ridge—then he'd been lost in the past, in Loss, Regret, Sadness, and—worst of all—Guilt.

“Zachary?” she whispered.

Zac started, nearly jumping to his feet.

“I'm sorry,” she said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her.

“I didn't mean to scare you.”

“You didn't,” he croaked hoarsely. “Well, not too much, anyway.”

He made no attempt to wipe his tear-streaked face.

After hesitating a moment, Killaine walked over, stood behind his chair, and softly placed her hands on his shoulders.

His muscles were rock-solid with tension.

“How long have you been awake?” she asked.

“Oh, I . . . I don't know. A while.”

She gave a small, melancholy laugh. “Perhaps I'd best rephrase the question then: Have you been to sleep at all?”

“Yes. For a little while.” He reached over to rub the back of his neck, but Killaine pushed his hand away and began to massage his shoulders.

“What wakened you?”

“A dream.”

“Was it a very bad one?”

Silence.

She felt his muscles tense under her fingers.

Then: “Yes, it was. I dreamed about Grandpa, and Dad . . . and Jean.”

“Jean,” repeated Killaine.

Jean Severn, the only woman Zac Robillard had ever loved.

Jean Severn, whose parents, along with James Creed and Benjamin Robillard, Zac's grandfather, had helped to lay the foundations for the science of Fundamental Robotics that eventually led to the creation of the robotic brain and, ultimately, the I-Bots themselves.

Jean Severn, killed in Bolivia by the same fanatics who had also killed Zac's grandfather.

Jean Severn, who was resurrected by her killers when her brain was placed in the body of the Iron Man, a robot programmed for destruction by those who still held to the twisted principles of the Third Reich; Iron Man, a robot Zac had helped destroy. And with Iron Man, he'd destroyed the last essence of the woman he'd loved.

I killed her again
, he'd once said to Killaine.
They killed her once; I killed her again.

But she asked you to
, she always told him.
She couldn't live that way.

And you think that makes it any easier to live with?
Zac would reply.

Jean.

So much history in that name, spoken so softly, so sadly:
Jean . . .

“What did you dream of her?” asked Killaine.

Zac took a deep breath, held it, tensed slightly, then released the breath slowly. “We were in Paris during some kind of festival. We were sitting at one of those little cafés where coffee is served at small wooden tables under colorful canopies. Somewhere nearby a band of street musicians began to play, and she asked me to dance with her. ‘It's almost midnight,' she said. ‘Dance the new day in with me.'” He leaned forward, rubbed his eyes, and sighed.

“Sit back,” said Killaine, her tone of voice making it clear she would hear no argument.

Zac did as he was told, and Killaine resumed her massaging of his back.

“So she asked that you dance the new day in with her . . .” Killaine prompted.

“I kept telling her that I was a klutz, a lousy dancer, but she didn't care. She jumped up from the table and grabbed my hand and dragged my fat butt out into the street, and we danced—oh, how we danced! She was so graceful, so beautiful. I felt like Fred Astaire his first time with Ginger Rogers. The music kept growing louder, more joyful, you know? And the other people who had been dancing, they saw us and slowly began to move away, forming a circle around us, watching, applauding. Jean was so . . .
luminous
under the streetlights.

“Then it began to rain, but she wouldn't stop dancing, and the band wouldn't stop playing, and the people surrounding us began to sing, and I realized then how very much I loved her, how very much I admired her, how much she completed me, and I remember thinking,
Please don't laugh, if you laugh, then I'll lose my heart forever; don't laugh or I'm done for.

“She laughed. It was the sound of bells, it was one of the most beautiful, purest things I'd ever heard. And then I was laughing with her and not giving a damn about our getting soaked. I was just lost—in her, in the music, in the singing, all of it. It was the most perfect moment of my life, dancing with the woman I loved under the glistening lights and the crystal rains at midnight in Paris.”

Killaine rubbed the sides of his neck. “What a wonderful memory to dream of. Why did it disturb you so?”

“That's just it,” said Zac, reaching back to stop her hands. “It wasn't a memory. It never happened. I always wanted to do that with her, but we never . . . never had the chance. And now”—his voice cracked—“we never will. And I hate it. I hate
this
—pulling up stakes every few months and running to another city before Annabelle can get to us, the constant worry, the tension, the uncertainty . . . but most of all, I hate waking up at three in the morning because I was dreaming about a memory of something that never happened.” He turned and looked over his shoulder at Killaine. “Does that make sense to you?”

“Indeed, it does, Zachary.” She touched his face, her thumb gently brushing away a fresh tear just now sliding slowly down his cheek. “From the little you've spoken of her, and from the little I actually know about her, I know that she must have been quite a remarkable person in order to capture your heart and bind its wings.”

“She was,” whispered Zac. “Remarkable. I . . . I didn't know her for very long, you know?”

“I know.”

He stared out the window. “Strange, isn't it? How you can spend years around some people and never feel close to them, and yet you meet another person who you know for only a few weeks and . . . and . . .”

“'Tisn't at all strange,” said Killaine.

“How so?”

She smiled at him. “Sometimes you see the soul and just fall in love and can't do anything about it.”

He stared at her.

For several long, silent moments.

It began to make her nervous.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Just odd to hear you mention the soul. That's something none of us have ever spoken about.”

“And for good reason.”

“What reason is that?”

“Itazura. You don't want to broach the subject with him.”

“Why?”

“Because he becomes a different being when he speaks of the soul and—and you're deliberately changing the subject. I'll not have it, Zachary Robillard.”

A slight grin. “You won't, eh?”

“No.”

He took both her hands in his. “Do you know how lovely you are, Killaine?”

“I'm aware that I've a certain appeal, yes.”

“Do you know why that is?”

She hesitated a moment. “I'm not sure I—”

Zac released her hands, then crossed to his dresser, opening a drawer.

He removed an old, small shoebox, then lifted its lid and rooted around the contents until he found a photograph.

“Look at this,” he said.

Killaine joined him and looked at the photo of Jean Severn.

She was one of the most beautiful women Killaine had ever seen—not just outwardly, but from within, as well. Her inner beauty shone in her eyes, in the curve of her smile, in the sharpness of her cheek and—

—and why did she suddenly seem so familiar?

“She was,” said Zac, “for me, the embodiment of what true beauty is: Time's gift of perfect humility.”

“I know her,” said Killaine. “I've—and I don't mean to sound like I've blown a fuse, Zachary, but I've
seen
her. Recently.”

He took the photo back. “Or maybe someone who looks a bit like her?”

“Yes!”

He put the photo back in the shoebox, replaced the lid, and returned his tattered treasure chest to its secret place. “That's because you see some of her face every time you look in a mirror. Or at Radiant.”

Killaine was too stunned to speak.

“Have you ever noticed, Killaine, how I sometimes have trouble looking directly at you and Radiant?”

“. . . yes . . .”

“Psy–4 is under the impression that he is the eldest I-Bot, but if the truth were to be told—and I expect this to be our little secret—he's the
second
oldest.”

“Who
is
the oldest, then?”

“Laraine.”

“Who?”

Zac returned to his chair and stared down at Cemetery Ridge, now made all the more dispirited by the incoming rain. “Laraine was the first I-Bot I designed when I was at WorldTech. I was still grieving for Jean, and without realizing it I fashioned Laraine's face after hers. When I realized what I had done, I redesigned Laraine's face into yours . . . and Radiant's. So I guess that, technically, you're the eldest.” He looked at her and tried to smile, didn't quite make it. “But don't tell Psy–4. Let him have his little delusion, all right?”

“Yes.”

“That's why, sometimes, I can't look at you and Radiant. Both of you have some part of Jean's face, and it . . . it hurts to see you. You're both so beautiful, so much like Jean. So please don't be offended at those times when—”

He couldn't finish.

Tears again.

He turned toward the window.

Killaine stood behind him, ran a hand through his hair, then leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “You're a fine man, Zachary, the best I've ever known. And I am honored more than I can say that you've chosen Radiant and me as vessels to keep some small part of your Jean alive.”

“Thank you,” he choked. “Now, if you don't mind, I . . . I need a few minutes.”

“Not too long. I've decided to make your favorite for breakfast.”

“Potato pancakes?”

“With real butter and maple syrup.”

“I'll be there soon. With bells on.”

Killaine laughed. “That I'd like to see.” She nearly laughed again, then wondered if her laugh sounded anything like Jean's had. And decided not to think about it.

“Not too long now,” she said from the doorway.

“I promise,” said Zac. Then: “Killaine?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“No, Zachary—thank
you.”

Even though she stood several feet away from him, Killaine had never felt so close to Zac as she did at this moment.