The Mechanics of Being Human (12 page)

Fawn awoke in a dark, warm lab that smelled of grease. The smell comforted her, wrapping her in a warm embrace. Yet her brain was foggy. When she straightened up and look around, she saw she was not alone. Her dad sat at her side with his head on the cot, his mouth hanging open as a string of drool trickled down his chin. Her mom sat on an old, stained armchair in the middle of the room, her head on her shoulder as she snored.

In panic, Fawn glanced at a glowing red clock on the counter. It read two o'clock AM. What happened to Ark? What happened to Jax and Gavin? With a gasp, she hopped off of the bed.

"I assume you want answers," Jax whispered from behind her.

Fawn jumped in shock. In the stairwell, Jax stood with dark bags underneath his eyes. A wrench was still in one greasy hand. He wore a leather jacket and the same jeans he'd worn earlier that night. A cup of steaming coffee was in his other hand, the smell permeating the room.

Quickly, she stole a glance at her sleeping parents, then nodded and walked over to Jax. The man smelled of leather, grease, and coffee. The two of them headed up the stairs, then he opened the door and stepped into the kitchen where just a few days ago she'd punched him straight into the backdoor. The kitchen table was set with several empty mugs with dark rings at the bottom.

"Come." Jax waved at the table. "Take a seat."

She nodded, then took a seat at the table, her head buzzing with a thousand questions. She imagined Zelda, hair sticky with sweat with tears oozing down her face, staring up at her. The idea made her shudder in horror.

"Is Zelda okay?" Fawn asked.

Jax gave a dry chuckle, but no amusement reached his eyes. "Of course she's okay. You did a fine job of knocking out Ark. Almost killed him, too. Your friends managed to take down his men."

She gulped. The last minutes she could remember came rushing back. Never, under normal circumstances, would she ever choke somebody. It felt like she'd been possessed by a demon, only she didn't think that was possible.

"What happened to me?" She propped both of her elbows on the table. "It was so horrible. I couldn't control myself. I felt as though I was somebody else entirely."

Frowning, Jax gave her an apologetic look. Fawn knew he'd done something to her. The expression was familiar, though she hadn't spent much time with him. She knew that when his eyes crinkled and his mouth tensed, revealing how deep his wrinkles actually were, that meant he felt guilty. There must have been a reason for his emotions.

"It was the program you put inside me." Fawn gasped. "The self-defense program you told me about. It told me to kill him. That's why things went red."

"Yes." Jax scratched the back of his head in guilt. "It was the program that made you want to kill him. That's the problem with inventing. I thought I had it perfect. You seemed that way to me. When you attacked me in here, I assumed that was what you would do if you felt threatened by somebody. You would assault them, then stop. Unfortunately, I failed to contemplate that the only reason you didn't kill was because it was me."

Her eyes widened in horror.
Am I dangerous? Could this happen all the time?
She remembered the effort it took to make herself stop. There was always the possibility that next time she couldn't control herself. It was too easy to imagine herself strangling her mom or dad, trapped in a nightmare. She would never forgive herself if that happened.

"Just when I was beginning to not want myself destroyed," Fawn muttered.

Jax's eyes narrowed. "I thought this mess would get that out of your head. You did it, Fawn. Ark is locked up in this house as we speak, and I'll find a way to get rid of him."

"I could kill people," Fawn cried, exasperated.

"I got rid of the defensive chip." Jax glared at her. "Do you even know why you shorted out in the park?"

The world stilled. She hadn't gotten to that question yet. She shook her head.

"You shorted out because even though every program in your system correlated and told you to attack, your heart was bigger than all of them combined. It wasn't a firewall or a personality chip that told you to stop. They were designed to fall in line with self-defense protocol. It was
you
who stopped it." Jax grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Don't you get it? You started out as a machine, but now there is something more to you. Call it a soul, call it whatever you want. I don't know how it happened and I don't care. All I know is that when I look into your eyes, you are so much more than a collection of metal parts."

"But Gavin and the others…How can I hope to be normal if nobody knows who I truly am?" Fawn trembled. "Gavin ran away—"

"And he came back." Jax narrowed his eyes. "Your parents weren't the only ones who loved you enough to stay up for two nights straight while I tried to fix your system after you shorted out."

She leapt to her feet in shock. "Gavin's here?"

"Gavin is here. He's been waiting for you to finish charging, just like your parents have been." Jax shrugged. "Don't you see how loved you are? More than many humans I have seen. But I would recommend letting Gavin sleep. It's been a long couple of days. Holding three men hostage in my house isn't a norm for me."

For a second she was tempted to ignore Jax's suggestion, but then she sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. She noted Jax's exhaustion with new eyes. He was so tired even his hands trembled. He was the one who'd repaired her, so he'd been using more energy than the others.

"If the others all fell asleep, then why are you still up?" Fawn asked.

Jax shrugged. "Your system wasn't supposed to be up until this morning, but I wanted somebody to be awake, just in case. Guess I know you well, huh?"

She stared into his eyes and saw the same fire in them. It was love she realized. It didn't matter how she was created. The bond between the maker and the creation still existed.

"You love me," Fawn said.

"I love you." Jax nodded. "And I'm sorry about all I've put you through. It wasn't fair to you. As much fun as you are, I'm going to burn all of the files. I think Model 29 is just about as perfect as anything can get. I don't plan to create anymore."

She scratched her arm in discomfort.

"It's still weird, thinking I'm a robot." Fawn stared at her skin like she could see through it to the metal below. "I feel human, even after all I've seen."

"Then don't think of yourself as a robot." Jax winked. "I don't look down at myself and imagine my muscles and organs."

"But I have mechanical parts."

Jax grinned at her. "That's the beauty of being human. There are always mechanics involved."

****

The next morning, Fawn sat downstairs next to Jax. She held a can of oil in her hand and Jax held yet another cup of coffee. The morning sunlight streaming through the window made the bags underneath his eyes appear deeper. Still he didn't sleep.

As Fawn gazed out the window to stare at the shadows beneath the backyard tree, the sound of moaning caused her head to turn. It was her mom. The woman blinked her eyes rapidly, then gazed in the direction of the cot where Fawn had been laying. Her eyes opened wide and she glanced around the room wildly. When she spotted Fawn sitting by the window, she let out a shriek and leapt to her feet.

Her dad, awoken by the sound, sat up too. He wobbled for a moment, then whirled around and spotted Fawn in the chair by Jax. When he saw her, he gave a cry of happiness so loud she was sure everybody in the next three towns could hear him. She smiled in embarrassment after what she'd done to Ark and waved at them feebly. Her mom gave yet another cry, then rushed at her and wrapped her in a bone crushing—or rather, circuit crushing— hug.

As Fawn hugged her mom close, she realized how much she would've missed the woman if she'd been destroyed. She pulled back and gazed into her mom's tear filled eyes. Words didn't need to be spoken. She could see the love in them, blossoming and bright. At that moment, she realized throwing her life away would have been the biggest mistake of her life. Everybody had different parents who gave birth to them, but all families were different. Some families had single moms or single dads, grandparents or kindly uncles. Some people were unfortunate enough to be born into a cold world where they knew little love at all.

As Fawn opened her arms to both her dad and Jax, she didn't care she'd been born on a table in the basement instead of in a hospital. All that mattered was that people loved her. The expressions on her dad's and Jax's face revealed that much as they stepped away from her.

"I don't want to be destroyed anymore," Fawn said. "I think I'm all right here now. Jax is right. It would be stupid to throw my life away just because I was made a little different than everybody else."

Her dad beamed at her, then squeezed her arm. "I'm so glad. I didn't…I didn't know how I would live without you. I'm sure you know I have a gambling problem. It ate up my life. I couldn't stop thinking about it, even when I moved here. But then you came into my life. I began to forget about that. You helped fix me. You brought us back together."

Her mom nodded and continued to hold onto her.

The sound of a throat clearing caused Fawn to gaze up from her parents' and Jax's arms. In the threshold lingered Gavin. Bags were under his eyes and his golden hair was tousled. His face was pale. Even though Jax was the one who'd stayed up all night, he appeared worse for wear.

"Gavin." Fawn froze, uncertain of what to say. She could still recall vividly how he'd reacted in the apartment, but then again, she'd ripped off half of her face. That would have startled anyone.

Fawn glanced in confusion at her parents. Her mom rolled her eyes, then shoved her in Gavin's direction. The two of them locked eyes and redness overflowed Gavin's cheeks. Neither of them said anything for a moment.

Finally, Gavin spoke. "I'm glad you're all right, Fawn."

"You are?" Fawn asked, genuinely shocked he hadn't wished she'd fallen off of a cliff.

"Of course I am!" Gavin pouted. "Can we talk?"

She nodded, even though a big part of her was afraid of what Gavin would say. It had been hurtful enough when he'd seen her as she truly was and then ran away. She wasn't sure she could handle another rejection.

"Let's go upstairs," Fawn said. "You look like you could use something with caffeine in it."

Though Gavin nodded, he didn't smile. Maybe he was too nervous too. He walked up the stairs first. Fawn followed after him. As she studied his back, she realized things would never be the same between them again. The question was, would they grow past it or would he do the understandable thing and never want to see her again?

When they reached the kitchen, Gavin paced in front of the refrigerator. He wrung his hands and his face was ashen. She opened and shut her mouth several times, unsure of where to begin. She forced words out of her mouth, which was unbearably painful like she was trying to rip out her tongue instead of use it.

"Do you know how Zelda's doing?" Fawn sputtered.

Relief crossed Gavin's face. Maybe he was grateful for the noncontroversial topic. "Zelda is fine. Bo and Mute are with her. They've been texting me ever since that night with Ark. She just got a little shaken up, but she decided not to tell anyone about what happened to her. That would bring a lot of trouble for you, if the government found out you existed."

The words were the first to acknowledge she was what she was. She wasn't sure whether to bring up what she was or continue to dance around it
You can't just ignore this for forever, and you've been running away enough lately, don't you think?
Possibly a storm laid ahead. Then again, maybe not.

"It would bring a lot of trouble." Fawn shivered. "The government would probably want to do all sorts of experiments and then replicate me. I don't think people are quite ready to have more of my kind around yet. Most people wouldn't have Jax's intentions."

Gavin shuffled his feet again.

"So you really are a…a…robot." Gavin sighed. "I was watching Jax work on you. I still can't believe it. Looking at you now, you still act so, well, human."

Fawn shuffled her feet too. "Believe me, if you think that's odd, try looking in the mirror and realizing a metal plate is what gives you a face."

Once again, pudding thick awkwardness swarmed the air.

"Well, I guess there's one good thing about all of this," Gavin said.

"What's that?" Fawn gazed at him seriously.

"At least you'll never have to go to the dentist." Gavin forced a smile on his face. "Man, I hate the dentist."

For a second Fawn stared at him. Was he truly joking at a time like this? Gavin began to laugh, but it sounded fake. She could tell by the sound. But then she realized it was a start on the path of 'her and him' again. She started to laugh too. Soon, as the sound of their forced merriment filled the kitchen, she found she was enjoying herself. Hopefully, so was Gavin. She wasn't sure why, and she was sure he didn't know either. When the two of them finally stopped, they stared at each other. Their laughter somehow cleared the awkwardness between them.

With a real grin, Gavin stepped forward and hugged her tight. He breathed into her hair. "I'm so glad you're okay, Fawn. It scared me when I thought you might get hurt."

Fawn pushed her face into his shirt, inhaling his sweet scent. He smelled of cedar and fresh mowed grass. His sweetness was just as warming as his strong arms.

"So we're okay?" Fawn asked. "Even though I am what I am?"

He loosened his grip. "To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I think we'll work it out one day at a time. That's what people do when they like each other, right?"

Fawn pulled away, then gazed into his blue eyes. "You still like me?"

"I never stopped liking you."

The way Gavin stared at her with adoration made Fawn realize he was telling the truth. A person could not look at another person that way without caring about them. Relief as strong as the ocean but as gentle as a warm spring breeze crashed over her. She never thought she would get to see Gavin look at her like that again.

She looked at Gavin's lips, wondering if it was all right if she kissed him. Maybe they weren't ready for that stage yet. Maybe Gavin recovered enough to admit he still cared, but not enough to want to be intimate. Her woes were thrown out the window, though, when he stepped forward and kissed her hard on the lips.

Gavin's mouth was sweet on hers. She could have spent years pressed up against him, her fingers curled in his shirt. As he deepened the kiss, she swore she was in heaven. She was so grateful she'd not thrown herself away at that moment. She would have missed this. She would have missed the love of her family. That was when she realized that somebody should never toss themselves away. A new and beautiful beginning had the potential to be around every corner, if only the person could find the courage to wait and have faith.

When Gavin pulled back, he pressed his hand against Fawn's cheek then balanced his forehead against her own. She smiled at him, and he smiled back at her. If the two of them could have grown together like two trees in the forest, she wouldn't have minded. In his arms, she truly felt as though she was home.

"I know Jax created you." Gavin tucked a hair gently behind Fawn's ear. "But there is no way he was the only one who had a hand in making eyes like yours. I guess even with robots, they are windows to the soul."

Fawn smiled. Maybe they truly were.