Cracking the Sky Read Online Free

place. Our seats were obvious: there were three places with silverware and glasses already full of water, and the girl was already in one of them with her hands folded in her lap. Everything—the house, the girl, the robots—it all belonged in an upscale ’zine, and it all made me feel a bit like a visitor in a museum.
    Aliss set her tray of cookies down in the middle of the table, still fresh enough to give off a strong scent that made my mouth water. She looked at the girl, clearly yearning to say something to her, but she managed to hold off and just sit beside me, the two of us assigned to be opposite the girl and able to look up at our deck.
    A fembot handed Roberto a wooden tray with a sage-green clay pot and three small Japanese-style tea cups on it. She wore a white sundress and blue sweater that probably came from a Nordstrom catalog. Roberto nodded at her, said, “Thanks, Ruby,” and delivered tea and a small plate of pale, thin cookies to the table. He glanced at Aliss’s offering, her cookies fat and homey next to the robot’s cookies, and simply said, “Thank you.”
    The combination of feeling so out of place and the absurd thought that Roberto looked like a protocol ’droid from old movies almost made me burst out laughing, stopped really only by the sheer earnestness of the girl and her green bow.
    I curled my fingers around the tea cup and sipped slowly. Warm, but not too hot. Minty.
    Aliss succumbed to the girls’ silence and said, “Thank you for having us over. We’re pleased to meet you. My name is Aliss, and this is Paul.”
    “I know.” She swallowed, as if unsure how to talk to us.
    The silence stretched until Aliss filled it. “How was school? What are you studying?”
    One side of the girl’s mouth rose in a quirky grin. “Today’s physics topic was gauged supergravity.”
    It didn’t faze Aliss, who probably recognized the term about as much as I did—which was zero. She plowed forward. “What about English or art? Do you study those, too?”
    The robot’s girl nodded. “Of course.” Then she stopped, and the fear came over her features again for a minute and was gone. “We didn’t invite you here to talk about me. I would like you to stop watching me.”
    I blinked and Aliss flinched.
    The girl continued. “I can see you from here. I am not happy there is a house there, or that you can see me from your deck. It makes me uncomfortable and I want you to stop.” She looked directly at us, her tea untouched. She hadn’t taken either kind of cookie.
    Aliss licked her lips and the ear-end of her jaw muscle jumped, but otherwise she looked smooth and unruffled, a trait she’d learned from dealing with irascible marketing clients. Probably that wasn’t much different than dealing with irascible pre-teens. She leaned forward. “We’re only watching you because you seem to be very alone. We don’t need to keep watching. But would you like to come over and see us some afternoon? We’d love to show someone our new house.”
    Roberto stiffened, if a robot can be said to stiffen. Emotion doesn’t really exist for them; they’re programmed to pretend. But he became a bit taller, and a bit more imperious.
    The girl glanced back at him as if asking for advice, and he inclined his head ever so much as if to say, go on, you’re doing fine .
    She looked back at Aliss and shook her head. “I really just want you to stop. Will you promise me?”
    Aliss chewed on her bottom lip.
    I couldn’t take it anymore, myself. The very air in the room had become awkward. This was a kid who didn’t want to be watched, and I got that, understood that maybe we’d seemed like voyeurs. Heat bloomed on my cheeks. I wanted to make her more comfortable. “All right. I’ll stop watching you.”
    Aliss shot me a look that said she wished I’d let her handle this, and I reached for one of the pale cookies and nibbled at the edges. Vanilla and sugar, with a touch of flour and egg to keep it all