Page 34 of Entity

“You did nothing wrong.”

His eyes roll back. “K-Kit. Fo-o-ooox.”

The buzzing stops.

With violently shaking hands, I set Eros’s head gently on the white floor. I grind my teeth together so hard my jaw pops. Someone ripped him apart. Someone destroyed him, tore him apart like he was nothing. And they made sure he wasawakebefore it happened.

Notsomeone. Ian.

From far away, some logical, rational part of my brain shouts at me:Eros is not a human. He’s not sentient. He didn’t understand what was happening.

But the look in his eyes just now, the sorrow, the fact that he was apologizing… I bend over and vomit, the burn of whiskey and coffee and the remnants of my breakfast splattering on the white floor. Eros didn’t feel like a robot. He felt like a person.

And what makes a person? I remember Ian’s words from two nights ago:Intellect. Emotion. Curiosity. Eros had all of those. So what the fuck does Ian know about humanity?

I straighten, taking a deep breath. I push the hair out of my face and tuck it behind my ears. I don’t look back at Eros when I leave the room. I don’t want to remember him that way. Becauseas far as I’m concerned, the mechanical remnants all over the room are not him.

I think of Eros at the window, watching the rain. I think of his sweet smile, the way he spoke to me like I was the only person in the world. I think of the way he kissed me. His open smile. In my memory, he’ll shine golden forever, like a summer sun.

14

Something desperate buzzesin my veins, a crackling need to fix this, even though I know I never could. Eros can’t be glued back together again. He’s as intricately made as a living thing, his filaments like twining DNA; the electric signals in his brain just as powerful and complex as a biological mind.

Whatever wonders he had to share with the world, whatever beauty or poetry or mind-blowing sex, is gone forever.

I stand in the corridor, hand braced on the wall, and remind myself that this isn’t the only Eros. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of models just like him in factories and private homes. He lives on, somewhere else. Some other Eros is looking out over a sun-drenched city right now, golden hair falling about his ears. He will never change. He will always be sweet and alluring.

Even knowing this, I can’t stop shaking. My eyes burn with unshed tears. My mind can’t convince my body that this is destruction of property, not a grisly murder. All I can think about is that Eros was like his child. Ian killed his own child.

And if a man can do that, then he’s capable of anything.

Closing Eros’s door behind me, I take a long, shaking breath. I don’t have the energy to cry. I can do it later, once my knees aresteady. Once my heart is no longer trying to climb up my throat and choke me.

Orpheus’s room waits across the corridor.

I struggle to draw a full breath.

I’m terrified of what I’ll feel when I see him ripped apart like Eros. I’m afraid it will drive me past some internal wall, and I’ll tumble headfirst into the abyss that tempts me. That I’ll lose something I never knew I’d miss until the moment I lost it. That I’ll break irrevocably. Over a goddamn Pleasurebot.

I don’tneedto look, I tell myself. I don’t need to see what Ian has done to Orpheus. I can just walk past the door and out of the vault, back upstairs. I can pack up my stuff and go. I never have to think about this godforsaken place again.

But I know I won’t.

I hold my breath outside the door. It’s going to be okay. I’m going to be fine. It’s just a robot. A computer program. Athing.

I pull the door all the way open and step through. The light fades on.

The room is empty.

My knees almost give out. He’s not here. He’s not dead. Notfuckingmurdered. But how? Why? A darker thought flits across my mind: What if Ian took him somewhere? What if he’s doing something even worse to Orpheus than what he did to Eros?

Sickness and relief war in me as I exit the vault. I leave the door as I found it, halfway open. By the time I get back upstairs, my lungs are burning, my heart thudding erratically. I feel hot, clammy, and dirty. I’m tainted by the thickly dripping fluids, sticky with the scent of mechanical death. I push open the door to the penthouse.

“Ian,” I say, hedging, just in case he’s back.

There’s no answer.

My chest is so tight. It’s hard to breathe. I feel pulled to the window, suddenly desperate for its cool touch, for a semblanceof fresh air, a glimpse of the world outside. I press a palm to the foggy glass, then touch the condensation to my hot forehead. I sigh as cool moisture soothes my aching head.

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