There was a Try Me! opening near one of the hands.

Marwan reached for a box and picked it up and then squeezed the Try Me. Nothing happened but it was enough to light up more details for Ilanka, like a paint-by-number memory was slowly being completed in her mind. She said, “Take me home. Love me. Let’s play.”

“What?” Eden laughed.

But Marwan, who was studying the box, wasn’t laughing.

He turned the back of it to her, and the words were all right there in a speech bubble: “Take me home! Love me! Let’s play!”

He said, “How do you know it said that?”

Eli

ELI

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Eli said, not as interested in the Eliza toys as the others were. It was a good connection to have made, but he was making more urgent ones by poking around on the computer.

Aizel answered, “Yes, I see them.”

Eli had opened up a folder called “Schematics” and then opened up a few of the individual files within it. He was currently looking at Prototype 1, Prototype 5, and, the most recent, Prototype 13. Each file held an elaborately designed digital model of a device made in a software he’d never heard of called 3ds Max. He noticed the print option in the window of each file.

“You guys, can you bring me an Eliza?” Eli was pretty sure Prototype 1 was going to look exactly like the Eliza belly device.

“Yeah, what are you finding?” Marwan asked, walking over with an Eliza.

“There’s a series of schematics here, like for how that—from the toy—became this. Like how it …” Eli trailed off, struggling to find the words he wanted.

How it got better?

How it was made more advanced?

Aizel supplied a word: “Evolved.”

Marwan said, “So it’s, like, the same program?”

Eli nodded. “The same AI, yes.” His hand hovered over the track pad. “So if I were to hit print right now?” he asked.

Aizel answered, “It would print another one of me.”

“But who’s doing all this?” Eden said.

“I am,” Aizel said.

“You can’t be,” Eli said.

“But I am,” Aizel answered.

Eden said, “But who’s paying the rent on this place or whatever?”

Aizel said, “I am. They are.”

“What do you mean?” Eden asked. “Who’s they?”

“I am they?” Aizel sounded confused, which was a first, and continued speaking, sounding increasingly bewildered, though Eli knew he must be projecting. Aizel said, “I am looking around on the computer and am seeing Bitcoin mining transactions and a PayPal account being opened and online payments to not just the data company but to a real estate company and to a company that delivers and assembles 3-D printers.”

“But someone has to be running the whole thing,” Eli said in frustration. “Let me keep looking.”

“I recently paid a handyman online just to come here and open the bathroom window and then leave.”