Page 145 of The Restoration Program
Except they didn’t.
They both lowered their guns.
The younger of the two rolled his eyes and gave a startled laugh. “Shit!”
The other, who had been ordering Ryan to open the door, shook his head as he eyed Nicole’s corpse. Stowing the gun, he spoke into his earpiece with considerable relief.
“False alarm. NüPrint. Deceased, by the looks of it. Contact Fairbourne and get a rep down here ASAP.” The officer cast an annoyed look at Darlene through the broken door. “You could’ve mentioned it was one of those damn prints.”
Darlene clutched the doorframe, her face white as a sheet as she gaped at Ryan. “No.” She said it so softly, he might have imagined it. Like the flip of a switch, wrath rose off her like howling flames. She lunged through the door to reach Ryan. “What did you do? What did youdo, you fucker? Nicole!”
“Ma’am!” The younger officer blocked her path and forced her back. “Ma’am, you need to calm down. Calmdown!”
Darlene fought him viciously, but with her hurt arm and blind rage, she was no match. Miraculously, her screams calmed into heavy breaths, and she only stared at Ryan, wide-eyed and full of silent malignance. There was a promise in that glare—one that he couldn’t fully process before she was pulled out of sight.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
He could only sit and stare at Nicole in his hands.
When Dr. Jenning and her team arrived, Ryan snapped his head up again.
He had settled into numbness. How long had it been? Thirty, maybe forty minutes? He didn’t remember moving to the couch. He had vaguely heard the cops trying to convince him to put the body down. Fruitless efforts.
Ryan barely recognized Dr. Jenning when she entered the living room. It was surreal to see her in civilian clothes. Her white-streaked blond hair had been hastily pinned back, flyaways framing a grim expression. The last time she’d been in their apartment, she’d been here to collect blood and tissue samples from Nicole for her regular check-in.
The hope he’d felt when they’d first met at the hospital resurfaced now, only to accentuate sickening grief and shame. Dr. Jenning stopped and looked at Ryan’s hunched form, then to his hands.
“It was an accident,” he croaked.
Her eyes shuttered and slid away. She murmured something to the man next to her, an assistant in simple, sterile clothes emblazoned with the Restoration Facility logo. The assistant provided latex gloves from the hefty bag slung over his shoulder, and Dr. Jenning donned them. As though acting on prior orders, the assistant spoke into an earpiece, voice muffled through a cloth face mask. He described the scene, the state of the body. It felt so clinical, Ryan grew nauseous.
“You good here, ma’am?” the younger officer sauntered back to them.
“Yes. My team will handle it from here,” Dr. Jenning said. “Thank you for your call. Please continue to pass my gratitude for your cooperation to Commissioner Lyons.”
“Wait,” Ryan croaked, staring wide-eyed at the officer as he began to turn away. “I’m… That’s it? I’m not under arrest?”
In the throes of his numbness, he had pictured his trial televised all over the nation. The sullied chosen ones of the Restoration Program. Would his parents show up? Would Cora and Emma be dragged into things as witnesses? Would it ruin Callahan’s business?
The officer gave him a funny look. “For that thing? No, buddy, you’re not under arrest.”
Ryan looked down at Nicole in his hands and nearly gagged again. The blood was caking and dried over her mouth and neck, crusting on the sage green of her sweater. The warmth of her was fading.
“It was an accident,” the police officer assured, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Try not to lose sleep over it.”
“N-no, I—Ihurther. I did this to her!”
“Hey, take it easy. You’re not the first, got it? These things are so fragile, it’s almost inevitable this would happen.” He looked sheepishly at Dr. Jenning. “No offense to you, ma’am, of course. Just don’t know what good it is to make them so lifelike when they’re notrealpeople.”
“I said we’d take it from here, officer,” Dr. Jenning said curtly.
Ryan glanced between them, noting the dullness in their expressions. He wondered suddenly how many of her other NüPrint patients Dr. Jenning has had to collect in body bags. How many from those fucked up support groups?
“What about her friend out here?” the officer asked.
“She doesn’t need to see this,” Dr. Jenning muttered.
