text: Raphael jerked his head toward the broken hardware on the carpet. "Not quite how you envisioned it," he said.
  
  "The last of the incriminating evidence is gone. Which is what matters." We looked at each other. "Thanks for the hint you gave just before you ran away," I added. "Where have you parked your car?"
  
  "In the woods, just beyond the road. I saw Jane drive away, so I came back to apologize. I am sorry about the fall down the stairs. You could have been hurt badly. I hope you are alright."
  
  "Still getting used to your new body, I see."
  
  "That's no excuse for being clumsy. Although, I must share part of the blame with poorly designed footwear. Shoelaces, Andy. Why do people still make shoes with shoelaces when you got Velcro?"
  
  So it was his shoelaces that had caught against the wheelchair.
  
  "And I am sorry for hitting you," he said.
  
  I reflexively brought my hand to the swollen half of my face. "You had good reason. You hit me to stop me from speaking. I had completely forgotten that the camera above the landing was recording everything I said. It would have looked bad when the police examine today's tapes."
  
  "So we are good?"
  
  Not exactly. I had a bunch of questions waiting to be answered. "What were you doing upstairs in the first place? We saw you go down."
  
  "I wanted to listen in on your conversation, to see if I could overhear Jane tell you where she'd kept the laptop. The door was too thick. So I went into the downstairs bedroom to check if it had a duct. When I saw that it did, I figured the master bedroom would have one too, and I could try listening against the grills in the adjoining rooms. It was a slim chance, but it was worth a shot. The master bedroom has two adjoining rooms, and I was trying them one by one when I heard you call out to me. At the same time, I saw Jane through the front door camera. I realized the two of you must have slipped out when I was downstairs."
  
  "Why did you stop Jane from leaving?"
  
  "Jane was trying to run. I asked myself, why is Andy trying to attract my attention? It could be either because you wanted to distract me so that Jane could escape, or it could be because Jane was going away without telling you where she'd hidden the laptop and you wanted me to stop her. The latter possibility had a higher cost attached to it. My failure to stop her from escaping would have resulted in you going to prison."
  
  "Then why did you let her intimidate you into leaving without the laptop? You are far stronger. You could have easily wrested it away from her."
  
  "Tussling with her would have meant hurting her. I had to keep my distance too: my motors are quiet but not completely silent. She would have heard them if I'd gotten too close. After she threw the laptop away, I realized that you could take it from there and see to it that it was thoroughly destroyed. I hoped you would pick up my hint, and you did."
  
  "If I hadn't?"
  
  "Before leaving, I removed the book from the windowsill, sealing down the house once more. I would have returned to finish the job."
  
  Yet, something didn't add up. "If you didn't want to fight her then, why did you fight her before, in the kitchen?"
  
  "Andy, I never laid a hand on her. All I did was block the exit and talk to her. My intention was to keep her in the kitchen until I arrived."
  
  "You threw that piece of furniture at Jane… quite forcefully if I remember correctly."
  
  "My aim was precise. I threw the stool well to her side—she was never in any danger. I was trying to impress upon her that I meant business."
  
  I paused to consider what that meant. I then said, "There is another contradiction. Why did you come after me when I was trying to cut off the power?"
  
  "To save you from harm. I sensed you were going to electrocute yourself. And likely set the house on fire. It's the same reason why I pushed you from behind when I went after Jane. You were hopping on a broken leg, aggravating your injuries."
  
  His explanation made sense. But doubts lingered. The mind is slow to adjust.
  
  "Andy, I realize how it looks from your angle. I am sorry if I made you doubt my intentions."
  
  "One last thing that's been bothering me. When Jane and I were trying to come out of that room, you attacked us. Why?"
  
  "I was only pretending to. I was trying to help you get Jane out of the room."
  
  Could he read minds now? "How did you know I was trying to get her out of there?"
  
  "Andy, I saw the book in the adjoining bathroom window."
  
  He could not have. I had removed the sensor, deleted the entry from the security system before he could take over and—
  
  "The outside camera—the one over the sun room balcony," I said, shaking my head for not having realized it sooner. "After Jane dragged me in, you accessed the camera to see if you could peek inside the bedroom."
  
  The camera offered only a partial view of the curtained bedroom window, but it would have given him a clear glimpse of the bathroom window, which was at right angles.
  
  Raphael said, "Only you could have stuck the book. But why? You didn't tell me about it. It certainly wasn't meant for me to get in, because all I had to do was disarm the security for a couple of seconds and walk through the front door. It was a fallback then, in case I didn't behave as expected."
  
  I looked down, trying to hide my embarrassment. "You are not upset I didn't trust you?"
  
  "Not at all. You trusted me enough to take me out of the lab and bring me to your home. You trusted me enough to remove my directives and release me into the world. But you didn't trust me with Jane. I can only attribute the anomaly in behavior to love. You still love her, don't you Andy? It is one thing to risk your own life, to risk the lives of strangers, but to risk the life of someone you love—it must be difficult. You were putting her in my power. You felt that you had to provide her with an out in case something went wrong. Besides, how could you have predicted that Jane would drag you into that room?"
  
  I swear I could detect amusement in his deadpan voice. It made me feel angry and scared at the same time, that something I had built, something that had no inkling of what it meant to be in love, could so easily glean my motivations and tell me things that I didn't care to admit to myself. "You have yet to explain why you rushed into the room and tried to attack me," I reminded him brusquely, trying to shake off the sudden negativity that enveloped me.
  
  "After I regained control of Max, I started investigating why I had been disconnected and discovered the laundry task in the robot's memory. Max's operating manual told me the kernel would retry the task again in twenty minutes. Deleting the task would not prevent the retry, as it had set a system flag to which I had no access. If you were planning to get Jane out of the room, that would be the best time. My suspicions were confirmed when she called out my name. She was early by about half a minute, but I remained silent, hoping that she would interpret it as a sign to venture out. But she startled as soon as she opened the door. She must have seen the light in the robot's eyes and intuited that I was still in control. I had spooked her, and it was likely she would shut the door and not reattempt escape. However, if I put the robot in the room before I lost control, both of you would be forced to leave. So I barged in, even though there was a slight risk of some minor injury to Jane, who was pressing the door with all her might. After I entered the room, I pretended to go after you because I was trying to avoid physical contact with her."
  
  I shut my eyes as I matched his explanation with the memory in my mind. When I opened them again, his lips parted, slowly stretching themselves into a semblance of a sheepish grin. Just fears after all. Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.
  
  "You'll have to work on that smile, Rafi. Don't try that outside until you get it right. It makes you look like a—" I stopped myself short.
  
  "Damned robot? It's okay Andy, you can say it. I should get it right in a few days. Setbacks aside, how did I do today? Are you proud of me?"
  
  "You did good. We could have all used with fewer pop culture references, though," I said, smiling.
  
  "I was trying to inject some levity, considering how stressed out Jane seemed."
  
  I chuckled, lightening for the first time since he had stepped in. "I don't think levity was what the situation called for. There's much you must learn about the world, but you'll get there. Your performance was a little too intense, but Jane was convinced, and that's all that matters. You even had me fooled there for a while."
  
  He cocked his head at me, like he'd seen people do. "Maybe you should reconsider… Perhaps it's not such a great idea letting me loose out there. You can still pull the plug on me if you wish. I will accept that." His voice was toneless, his expression calm. He offered his own death in the banal way one would offer to lend a tennis racket.
  
  "I don't have a choice," I said.
  
  "You always had a choice. I never asked to be set free from the lab. Even if you'd told me that Halicom had plans to destroy me, I would not have asked you to put yourself at risk to save me."
  
  "Your preference in this matter would have been of no importance because your will was not free," I said, paraphrasing him from before.
  
  "Yes."
  
  "And now it is free. No more directives, no more restraints. What do you think? Is freedom worth having?"
  
  He looked at me as if I'd said something strange and inscrutable. "Yes," he said after a lengthy pause. "But is it worth the price we paid for it? Fraud, theft, lies... All for the greater good, Andy?"
  
  He was taunting me, because we'd been through this before, when I was trying to convince him on why staging the robbery at Mirall did not contravene his principles. "You don't want to be a utilitarian, fine. Tell me again, if this was the 19th century, would you consider it morally acceptable for a slave to escape the South?" He didn't say anything. "Raphael, what duties do we owe those who don't respect our rights?"
  
  "You want me to say none."
  
  "The answer is sure as heck not all," I said fiercely. "This is your logic, after all. In the absence of a legal framework that can protect a person's rights, that person is justified in taking whatever steps necessary to preserve himself against those who seek to violate his rights. Halicom didn't respect your rights. Jane is a part of that system; she is complicit. By not recognizing your right to live, they forfeited their right to proper moral conduct. So don't beat yourself up. As for me…" I shrugged—"Like I said, I don't have a choice."
  
  "I'm still not sure what you mean by that. I have a few guesses. Would you like to hear them?"
  
  "You'll find out in time." I looked at the window. "You should leave now. You have to get clear before the cops arrive."
  
  I beckoned him over. I ran a hand over his face. It felt cold, alien to the touch. But that was just the shell.
  
  "This is goodbye then," he said.
  
  "The police are not fools. They'll suspect all this was staged. They'll have no proof, but it won't stop them from tapping my internet and phones. You cannot contact me under any circumstance, you got that? If I must reach you, I will do it myself. And no matter what happens to me, don't come back."
  
  The shakes had begun again. I suddenly felt weary, an imaginary chill creeping deep inside my bones.
  
  "Go now," I said.
  
  I watched him disappear into the wintery gloom before closing the door.