teeth.
The more human they try to make androids look, the more they just remind me of death.
I’ve only seen death once. But at the funeral, when I peered down at my father, I remember thinking that although the body looked like Dad, it wasn’t, not really. The thing in the casket wore his face, but not his life.
That’s what androids remind me of. Something with a face, but nothing behind it.
“I was about to have Rosie give your mother a reverie,” Ms. White says. “I’ve already programmed her to use the machinery.”
I expect Mom to protest—reveries are expensive to create, and we’re such a new business that she always insists we can’t afford it—but instead Mom sighs. “That would be nice,” she says.
My heart sinks. The news from the doctor must have been really bad.
Ms. White stands, but I jump to Mom’s side. “I’ll do it!” I say quickly. I don’t want to be replaced by a robot.
Ms. White walks with us to the lift, and, after Mom gets on, touches my elbow to hold me back.
“Was it—?” I ask
Ms. White nods. “The nanobots are in complete remission,” she says. “They’re failing, one by one. And Dr. Simpa confirmed—your mother can’t have any more. She’s at max—over max, actually.”
When she sees my face, she pushes me onto the lift. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “We’ll figure something out.”
Mom chats as we descend, and I realize why she’s had such a forced cheerfulness lately.
She knows something’s wrong.
She’s trying to keep it from me, to make me think it’s not as bad as it is. I shut my eyes briefly, weighing my options. When I open them, I smear a grin across my face. If she wants me to pretend everything is fine, I can pretend. For her, I can pretend.
seven
Mom breathes a deep sigh when we reach the reverie chamber and she settles into the plush cushions of the chair. She runs her fingers over the armrest, tracing patterns in the fibers. I lower the hood over her head—a large, half-globe helmet that will emit sonic flashes that she won’t feel or hear, but that will spark the memories in her mind. Mom shudders as I press the cool electrodes onto her forehead.
Before I do anything else, I connect Mom’s cuff to the reverie chair, checking her health stats. I have to swallow back a gasp of surprise—I’ve never seen her with such bad stats. Dangerously low blood pressure and heart rate, low oxygen, vitamin deficiency, constant dialysis pumps… how has she hidden how bad off she is from me for so long?
“Ella?” Mom asks when she notices that I’ve frozen, my eyes glued to her stats.
I force a watery grin on my face. “Ready?” I ask.
Mom nods and I turn my focus to the neurostimulator and adjust the dials, setting a low direct current of electricity to her brain. In moments, Mom’s slipped into sleep.
I take this moment to look at Mom, and try to ingrain her image into my memory. This image. The lines on her face smooth, and a small smile twitches the corners of her mouth. She looks peaceful now. Like she’s not even sick at all.
My fingers glide over the controls in the room. Every single thing—from the automatically dimming lights to the reverie chair itself—was designed by Mom. People had theorized that reveries were possible, but it was Mom who made the system. It’s Mom who’s changing the world with it.
Reveries are a state of controlled lucid memory recall. When you’re in the reverie chair, you experience a memory—your best memory, the time when you were happiest—just as if it were all happening again. On a purely theoretical level, reveries are easy—a dose of a specially designed drug plus transcranial direct current stimulation equals a state of lucid dreaming based on a pre-existing memory.
Reveries enable you to retreat into your own mind. Ms. White works with the government so she can funnel grant money into Mom’s research, and she’s experimented with having scientists