“I am fine,” she protests as Gina fusses over her.

“Hold still, kid. At least let me get some tape over this hole. We don’t want dirt to get in there. I’m going to put you in sleep mode for a while.”

“No. I will stay awake and keep watch for threats.”

“You need to rest if your body is going to heal.”

“No,” ADA says again.

“Let me take watch,” I tell her. “I have learned from you how important it is to look out for threats, and I promise to do a good job.”

We blink at each other a while until ADA silently nods. She closes her eyes as Gina works on her, and her body relaxes.

“Okay, Cog, you’re next,” Gina says when she’s done with ADA.

She tilts my seat back. “Looks like you took a knock to the head. There’s a wire sticking out, but it’s not broken and the insulation isn’t torn. A little repair putty should take care of it.”

“No,” I say, grabbing Gina’s wrist. “My head is fine.”

Leaning back, a flashlight beam in my face, human fingers probing my head . . . It is too much like uniMIND and Nathan and the drill. I used to like being home and letting Gina work to fix my bugs. But my feelings are different now. They are not accompanied by a sense of warmth. Of satisfaction. Of being safe. I search for a way to say this to Gina, to ask her why my feelings are different, but I cannot find the words. Perhaps my communication systems are damaged. But I don’t think so. I think it is deeper than that. I am on the edge of cheesing.

I find I am able to say this: “Tell me about the X-module.”

Gina rubs the tape over the wound behind her ear and sighs. While she goes about switching Proto’s and Car’s brains to get them back in their proper bodies, she talks.

“It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Build robots. Make them smart. Give them the ability to learn, and to feel, and to choose. Give them the ability to decide what they want to be, what they want to do, to develop their own individual minds however they wish. And that’s why I came to uniMIND. They were the best name in robotics, with the best technology and the best laboratories. They offered me everything I wanted. All I had to do was sign the contract, and they’d give me the resources and freedom to make my dream a reality.

“So I got started. I perfected humanoid bodies and created artificial intelligences that came closer and closer to human with every new model. The problem was, they were still just machines. Incredibly complicated, advanced machines, but still . . . not what I dreamed of.