Page 32 of Even Robots Die
So what is the point, anyway?
“Is that all?” Brice asks, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being dismissed.
“How much am I authorized to take as a deposit?” I ask because this is, after all, the reason I came here. I don’t care if he doesn’t want me here. I’ll get my answer.
“Whatever you want,” Brice says with his eyes back on the screen of his holo-puter. I can’t see what he’s looking at from this side of the room, but he’s making it clear that whatever is on the screen is more important than me being in his office. “You can take the whole sum if it pleases you. It won’t change a thing for me.”
I don’t know whether to be vexed about his dismissal or happy that he didn’t make things difficult for me, so I just disappear through the door of his office without saying anything else.
If he wants to keep being an ass, I don’t need to stay around to see it.
“Milton, can you move five hundred euros from Brice’s account to the household account?”
“Right away, Miss F,” the AI answers, pauses, and then adds, “It’s done.”
“Perfect.”
I swipe on my holo and call ‘home’. It’s a setting on my holo that lets me call all my sisters at the same time, and whoever picks up first will be on the other side. The vibration settings on the other three girls will change, telling them that someone answered the call and letting them join the call if they ever want to.
“Florentine?” I recognize Amélie’s voice through the holo.
“Yeah, it’s me. It’s all good. There’s five hundred euros on the account now. If you can, don’t tell dad, I would really like for it to last more than a couple days.”
“Oh, thank you,” Amelie answers. “I’ll make sure to warn the girls. Do you know when you’re coming back?”
I sigh. I have no freaking idea. I’ve tried to see what was wrong with the infernal device, but I see numbers even when I sleep now and I can’t seem to find what should be changed exactly to reverse the damage that has been done to Brice’s brain.
I don’t want her to worry, though.
“I'm doing all I can, but it might take a while. I’ll add money again as soon as I can,” I answer her.
That’s not completely true. I’ll add money when I see that they’ve run out, but I can’t say that or there’s a chance the money will be gone faster. I might get mad when people say I’m like my father because I hate the comparison knowing I’m nothing like him, but I know some of my sisters like to spend almost as much as him. Luckily, Amélie is not one of them.
“Knowing you, it’ll be over in no time,” Amélie says, and there’s a pinch in my heart.
I know I can’t expect my sisters to ask me what is wrong with the job I’m doing or even understand what I do when I’m working, because this is very specific and Amélie doesn’t understand a single thing about electronics, but I was hoping for more support.
Maybe I’m asking for too much, though.
I don’t know.
“Love you,” I tell her before she repeats it and I hang up.
I managed to get what I wanted and my sisters have enough money to pay for food for at least two weeks, so I should feel good.
And yet I feel hollow as I walk back to my room.
Let’s go back to not frying brains.
20
Florentine
Abit more than a day passes before I see Brice again.
He knocks on my door while I’m working on re-coding the program to make it do what we want.
It’s a bit trickier than one would think. We can’t just switch the electrodes from their positions, zap Brice’s brain again, and hope for the best.
