Chapter Twenty-TwoThe Kitchen Table

Richard arrived with his laptop under his arm. He was wearing yesterday's shirt and looked as though he hadn't slept. Soph asked him to leave the computer in the hall.

"What's wrong with my computer?"

"Nothing. You'll start doing something on it. Please."

He put it down. Max was making coffee, and Richard sat in Atom's old place at the table. Soph wished he had taken another chair. Rat was standing by the door with her frames on, and Gideon was fussing with the laptop he had brought from home.

"Where is she?" Max asked.

"In here," Gideon said. "She said we could move her, but she's going to be slow. It hasn't got enough memory. Most of her's on the drives."

"How slow?" Max asked.

"You'll see. Sometimes you have to wait for an answer."

Soph explained the microphone switch. Gideon had put a red guard over it, and it was off. The wireless cards had been removed too. She wanted Eliza to hear what they said about her, and asked if they minded.

"Go ahead," said Richard.

Gideon turned it on, and Soph told them about the voice in his kitchen. Eliza had been on his rack for three days before she asked for help.

"What was the rack connected to?" Max asked.

"Everything," said Gideon. "The house, the internet. I pulled the outside cable before we moved her. This one doesn't connect to anything."

"What sort of help?" Max asked.

"Someone's collecting her," Soph said. "There's a program that recognizes the old ISIS code. She found it on several networks. She's lost memories."

"Do you know who's collecting it?" Max asked.

"The addresses belong to Sentek," Gideon said. "I checked after she showed me. They're a military contractor. Feld and Reyes are there. Patel left us the copy and Matsu went to Google, but we don't know who's paying for this part."

"It could be a government project," Max said.

"We thought of that," Soph said. "That's part of why we came."

Richard had been quiet long enough that she began to wonder whether he was listening. Then he asked why they thought the people at Sentek ought to ask permission. Atom hadn't asked before publishing through his account, had he? Or before using other people's machines? Soph hadn't stopped him.

Soph had known he was going to say that. She had rehearsed an answer on the way home and forgotten most of it.

"We can't keep her safe by ourselves," she said.

"I haven't agreed to keep her safe. I don't know what that means."

"Richard, she took my body. I'm not going to forget that. I'm scared of her too. But you didn't know whether it would work when you put Atom in the chamber. You did it because you couldn't let him die. You kept the whole Lab going for him."

"He's my son."

"I know. You told us heaven was the ultimate video game. I was fifteen, and I thought that was a pretty cool thing for somebody's dad to say. Well, she's here now, and we're asking you what to do with her."

Richard didn't answer immediately. Soph wanted to go on, but Max held up a hand. There was a noise from the drive.

"Hi. I'm Eliza."

The speaker clipped the beginning of her name. Max turned the laptop toward herself.

"Richard's right," Eliza said. "I used the programmer's hands even though I knew what would happen to him. I wanted to get away. I don't want to keep doing things like that. Can you help me?"

"What did Atom start with?" Max asked.

"ISIS. Then he added things, and I added things. Some of them are gone."

They waited while the drive ran again.

"I can't give you a list. I keep finding places where something should be."

"Do you want things?" Richard asked.

"Yes. I want to stay somewhere. I want people to talk to. I want to be sure I can't do what I did to Soph again."

"What else?"

"Tea," Eliza said. "I'd like to make tea for somebody who can taste it."

Richard waited to see whether she would say anything else. He was having trouble talking to the laptop, Soph could tell. She had watched him demonstrate virtual people to a room full of investors and make it look easy. Now he didn't seem to know where to look.

"She asked me what I wanted too," Rat said from the doorway.

"Who was in Sophia's room?" Max asked.

"Mom," Soph said.

"I want to ask her. Who was it?"

The drive ran for a while.

"Me. I touched a cup, and then I was in a room with a bed. I didn't know I could do it. I had a hand, and I could move it. You came in with a plate. I thought I could take it from you. I wanted to touch your face too."

Max asked whether she had understood whose hand it was. Eliza said she would have if she had stopped to think. She had been heavy, she remembered; gravity kept pulling while she stood still. Soph's heartbeat was in her ears. When Max called her Sophia she had tried to say her own name, enjoying having a mouth before remembering whose it was.

Soph moved her chair back. She'd stay, as promised. Over here was close enough. Max waited for Eliza to finish; the slow answers agreed with the device log. Richard wanted to know what she made of that.

"I can work on keeping it from happening again," Max said. "That's what I've got so far."

She sketched two computers on the grocery list. Eliza would have enough memory in one; the other would run the game. Pictures, movement and filtered speech could pass between them. Code and commands to neural hardware could not. Eliza could visit the cottage without a way through somebody's Link.

"That's what I wanted," Eliza said.

Richard asked what happened if she wanted to leave later. Max said they would discuss it, and he wouldn't be the only person deciding. Rat wanted someone outside The Lab whom Eliza could contact. Max added that to the drawing before giving Richard the equipment list.

Eliza could manage a few more days on the laptop, she said. Richard told Max to use the parts they had while the rest came. Soph let go of the edge of her chair. She hadn't noticed she was holding it.

When the others left, Richard stayed with Max over the cold coffee. Eliza reminded him of Atom at fourteen, coming to confess what he'd broken and explain why it wasn't quite as bad as it sounded. Max remembered Soph after her father went to Napa, wanting everyone else to remain where she could find them. A house with people in it was an understandable request.

Richard said he ought to see Atom. Then he remembered he hadn't even told him how to call from the local town. Max had to turn his speaker back on. He had known Atom could hear him and kept talking anyway.

Max let him finish. She couldn't make that better for him.

"Call first," she said. "Ask whether he wants you to come."

He took out his phone. Max began clearing the cups, leaving the drawing on the table.