35
April 11, 2027
The pain in Lorccan’s jaw almost matched the agony in his face. The hard, harsh breaths he drew in through his nose echoed in the large hallway, but he knew better than to unclench his jaw lest he cry out. The newest raised welt pulsated against his hand in time with his heartbeat—pain, agony, pain, agony. Over and over.
His mother’s words echoed through his mind. “You can’t leave!” she had shouted at him.
“I wasn’t saying that, Mom. I don’t want to leave.” Lorccan had held up his hands, trying to calm her.
Instead of starting to calm down, her whole body shook so violently, strands of graying hair flew loose from her tight bun. “But, you want to . . . you think I can’t read between the lines to know what you really are asking for? Go get the hypertrophic switch.” She’d closed her eyes as she said the words.
“No, Mom, please. Please—”
“I don’t want to do this. You’re making me do this. You can’t leave—ever. If you leave, you die. If I have to make you so hideous you’ll never try to escape, that is a price I’m willing to pay to keep you alive.”
He didn’t have a choice. If he hadn’t gone for the switch then, she would have hit him twice.
He’d thought the years would lessen the pain, thought that now, at thirteen, the pain would be less than it had been at six, but it was worse. At thirteen, her strikes were only harder.
“Son!” Lorccan’s father called as he rushed into the long hallway. “Oh, my son, what did you do?”
Lorccan turned his face away but didn’t unclench his jaw enough to answer.
His father’s face came into view as he crouched down beside Lorccan. They had recently begun to look very similar, he and his father. Tall, with a strong brow and chin. They had the same dark eyes and hair.
Pain scored across his father’s features as he looked into the left side of Lorccan’s face. “My son,” he whispered.
“I’m fine, Father,” Lorccan gritted out.
“What did you do this time?” his father asked again, concern heavy in his voice.
Lorccan did not answer at first, knowing that his father’s expression would change from concern to disappointment. But eventually he moved his lips enough to say, “I would like a dog.”
His father’s eyelids widened. He shook his head. “No, Lorccan. No, never.”
Lorccan closed his eyes.
His father’s voice came to him anyway, “Dogs are very, very dangerous, my son. Dogs commonly give people pinworms, tapeworms, roundworms, hookworms, rabies, Pasteurella, Lyme disease, and even plague. Oh, son.” He reached out and touched Lorccan’s arm, the lightest of touches. “What about Barks and Ruby?”
“They’re automatons.”
They sat in silence for several minutes while Lorccan mastered the throbbing that shot a line between his ear and temple. He was stronger than the pain; he’d proved that time and time again. He just needed to wait the pain out, and he would win.
“You should go see your mother,” his father said in a low voice. “I am sure she’s as upset as you are.”
“I’m not ready,” Lorccan said.
“Son, she’s trying to keep you alive. It might not feel like it on days like this, but your mother loves you and just wants to keep you safe. And I also want to keep you safe. We just show it differently.” He gave one more soft touch before his hand pulled back. “Go to your mother, and don’t let her see your scars. It hurts her too much.”
Lorccan protested the only way he knew how. He didn’t go to his mother. Instead, he stayed kneeling in the middle of the hallway. Eventually, his father gave him a look of sad disappointment and left to return to his office.
Lorccan raised his head to look down the long hall of digitized paintings, his gaze moving from scene to scene. There were always three in their family, always three smiles on their faces.
His father was correct, of course. Lorccan had not thought about the different parasites and bacteria a dog could bring in. He’d considered Lyme disease and rabies as something that could be discovered in a blood test before the dog was brought in, but he hadn’t completely thought the request through.
“Lorccan?” his mother called.
His father was correct, again. His mother was upset. Usually she would wait much longer before calling him to her. “Son? Can you come speak to me, please?” Her voice shook as she called out from her room.
Lorccan gazed down the length of the hall that separated him and the door to his mother’s sitting room.
“Lorccan? Can you come to my sitting room please?” Her voice now echoed through the speaker system, meaning he only had a minute before he definitely would have to go in. Exhaling a pent-up breath, Lorccan climbed to his feet.
With his gaze on his mother’s door and his hand still covering his face, Lorccan trudged forward.
Lorccan woke screaming in his bed. Just as in his dream, his hand clutched his cheek, the pain echoing through the years and into his temple.
Barely having the energy to hold his own body weight, Lorccan collapsed forward onto his pillow. His stomach roiled as the room swam around him. His heavy eyelids slid back closed.
Who would have known that his mother was right in everything she’d said?
One plant—one peace lily—was killing him.
He should have never brought it in for Jade. The moment he had the thought, though, he remembered her expression as she turned to thank him, sparking with joy and excitement. He revised his thought. He was glad he bought the plant; he just shouldn’t have started to care for the plant himself.
Yet, when the monkeys had told him that Jade had ignored it to the point where the leaves were yellowing, he’d needed to tend the plant back to health himself.
From the symptoms, he had to have caught Sporotrichosis.
The fungus was affecting his lungs, joints, and central nervous system. Though he had not read about the nausea. Nausea must be a symptom that he had because he had a lowered immune system. A lifetime of never facing an illness was, in the end, playing a part in his demise. The illness had arrived suddenly an hour or so ago; perhaps it would pass.
“Rosebud,” he rasped out.
“Yes, Mr. Garbhan?” Rosebud 03AF said in her pleasant, calming voice.
“Is that medical automaton on his way?”
“Yes, he is on his way. You should sleep, Mr. Garbhan. He will be here soon.”
“Thank you,” Lorccan whispered.
Lorccan had never wanted to die. For as long as he could remember, all he had ever wanted was to live, to truly live. And now, more than ever, Lorccan wanted to survive this.
If he died, so would Jade. No one else would fight to bring her back. She would simply cease to exist, a file deleted and irretrievable. But no file was irretrievable—if it once existed in her, it was still there.
He wouldn’t let the pain that racked his body defeat him. He had always outmatched pain. Pain was an impatient opponent; if you waited him out, he always folded.
“What is Jade doing? Is she all right?” he asked.
“Jade is fine. She is watching a movie. She says she remembers the movie,” Rosebud 03AF replied.
“Good. That’s good,” he whispered. Lorccan looked down to his hand and the ring shining out in the low light. It was not how he thought his wedding to Jade would be, with him exhausted and her sitting across the room, lit by the computer screen. She’d put both their rings on, one after the other.
Yet, it was the first time she’d showed an interest in being “his” Jade since the malfunction. He’d fallen asleep minutes later, and sleep was returning for him now.
Lorccan’s stomach flipped rapidly, though he did not have the energy to make it to the restroom. Eyes closing, he called to Rose, “Please send the medical automaton up as soon as he is decontaminated.”
“Yes, Mr. Garbhan.”
Lorccan wished he could dream of his Jade, dream of hands entwining and laughter on tender lips, but he knew what was coming. Lorccan was heading directly back to his mother’s sitting room.