“To expend resources on such a venture would be futile,” Glenn said. “There is no trying. Not for this. There is only fact, and programming, and code.” He opened his hands a little; not an android gesture, Park thought, a human one, a kind of beseeching shrug of helplessness. “These are my protocols,” he said. “This is my nature. I am not self-modifying. I cannot circumvent it. Do you understand?”

He wanted her to say the words—the old, familiar affirmation they’d always given each other. She wouldn’t do it, Park thought. She wouldn’t give him that.

She looked at him. Suddenly it felt as if he were a stranger to her—had his voice always been so cold, so formal? Had his eyes always looked so liquidly distant? She wanted to embrace him; she wanted to hear the hyper-fast whirring of his heart.

“You’re different,” she told him. He reached out, moved her a little; without her noticing she had begun to be buffeted by other passengers who were tired of her standing in the hangar’s threshold.

“I’m sorry,” Glenn said, stone-eyed. “I am not.”

“You are,” Park insisted. Dimly she was aware of her voice rising, like a child’s. “You’ve always been different—from the others. I would know.”

He shook his head again, jerkily, like a marionette being yanked on a string. “Personality algorithms,” he said. “Mine are extremely advanced. Every synthetic, even those of the same model, has their personality randomized with unique quirks, so that each unit is slightly different from its peers—”

“Stop it,” Park said abruptly, her tone wilder now. “You’re not like that. You’re not some machine—”

“I am, Grace,” Glenn said firmly. “My algorithms are advanced, yes. They’ve compiled data. Processed experiences. Shaped themselves over the years. But they still don’t override the core.”

The core, she thought, leaning back as if he was threatening to strike her. What core? What did he mean by that? What did he envision when he talked about himself? What did he think was at the core of her—and how did their cores differ?

There was a crackle of white noise somewhere, the cool liquid tones of the port announcer saying something about departure. Glenn said, without looking away from her: “They are boarding now.”

“I love you,” Park said, desperately. When he didn’t seem to react, she took his cool, dry palm and placed it against her cheek. “I love you,” she said again, in case he hadn’t heard. She tried to smile, to make sure he understood that it was a good thing, even though—without knowing when she’d started—she had begun to cry.

“I love you,” she said a third time, over the screaming wind.

Glenn looked straight into her eyes. His expression didn’t change.

“I understand,” he said.

That was all.

Park never saw him again.

—