She thrust her feet out against the wall and sat back. I felt her weight and began belaying the rope, lowering her slowly to the ground. Daiyu kicked off the wall a little along the way, laughing the entire time. When her feet touched the ground, her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. Our eyes met and she gave me the most joyous smiles I’d ever seen. My heart seized for a moment. Breaking our locked gazes, I stepped forward and busied myself with her harness. The belaybot rolled over and offered her a towel.

“You’re what I imagine Meg Murry might be like a few years older,” I said, speaking the character’s name in English.

“Meg Murry?” she asked.

“From A Wrinkle in Time.” I straightened and smiled at her. “Meg was stubborn and willful. You’re more daring—but she comes into her own. She’s one of my favorite novel heroines.”

“Ah. A literary allusion?” she asked.

I shrugged as I took off my own harness. “I was a world lit major. I can’t help but think in books.” The first statement was a lie, but the second was true enough. Books were my escapism, my retreat. They were how I related to this senseless world we lived in.

“And who would you be, then?” she asked, crossing her arms, a bemused expression on her face.

“It depends. Anyone from Liu Bei to Edmond Dantès to that poor bastard from ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ Ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum.” I tapped against the bot’s metal body for emphasis. “Awful business.”

The belaybot rolled away, but not before spouting two indignant beeps.

“I see you tend toward the dramatic.” She laughed. “I’ve read Poe in my lit class, but Dantès?”

“The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas,” I said. “The hero, Dantès, poses as a rich count and takes years to exact his plans of retribution and revenge.” I realized too late how ironic that statement was, and how close to the truth to my own current situation. But our exchanges couldn’t be built entirely on lies. And if I were to be sincere about anything, it would be in the books that I’d read and enjoyed.

“Between a paranoid murderer going mad and one disguised as someone else to seek vengeance—I’m not sure what to make of you, Jason.” She brought her hand to her chin and narrowed her eyes, gauging me, and I returned her look, until she burst into laughter. “The climb was amazing,” she said as she rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and stepped out of the harness. And for a brief moment, I wondered who was playing whom here. “Thank you. You’re a good teacher.”

The bot rolled over, skirting around me, and took her harness.