Pain consumes my body. Bad enough to need the cane and Az with me in the too elegant home I do not belong in. Unlike my apartment, this home is made of high-end materials and a color scheme that is so on trend, the trend may have started here.

  Evangeline does belong. She wears a fluffy aquamarine sweater and tangerine pants. Stylish and warm. A juxtaposition to my thrown-together outfit of shocking pink jeans and a violet shirt under a heavy obsidian winter jacket.

  She caught me as I was leaving the shop for the day and asked if I was ready for my first Prism gig. A test, she said, set up by Blake to make sure I was going to play along before I got my first piece of help in trading. If this had been planned, I would have dressed in something more fashionable. But this morning, all I could focus on was the frost that appeared on Mel’s outdoor plants. That winter’s attack on autumn had strengthened, and the snow-filled days were looming ever closer.

  And with winter will come my despair.

  The looming anniversary consumes any happiness I have in being with Evangeline. Fulfilling part of the bargain I struck with Prism adds to the unease. After listening to Dom’s admission to using Prism to find friends, I do trust Evangeline and the deal more, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

  I lean on the cane and examine the helper bot in front of me. Az stares next to me, his core a swirl of gloom-laden purple. The helper bot’s case is a pristine canary yellow with pumpkin highlights; however, its camera glass is dark. Powered down and in no state to help anyone, let alone the man sitting on the other side of the bot.

  He reclines on an acid green chair that matches the veins coursing through the white marble floors. Man-made, I’m pretty sure. Nature doesn’t tend to lean towards neon. The chairs and floor are complemented by the rest of the green furniture and the bright green of the walls. Fake plants of fiber optics dot the corners of the room. It makes the room a vivid forest. Modern nature to replace what our ancestors destroyed.

  “So, you’re the one Prism sent to fix it?” The man asks. He’s my age or a bit older with pale no-sun-in-‘Cuse-to-tan skin, dark hair, darker eyes, and reeks of the confidence of a man who has never been told no. I wonder how he would react if I did. Pain twinges up my leg. Better not risk it.

  “Yes, I’m the one. I wasn’t told too much about the issue, though,” I say, glancing at Evangeline. Her eyes shine. A hint of glee captured within them.

  She didn’t tell me on purpose. This is a test after all. This is easy enough. I’ve been messing around with bots since I started elementary school.

  “Stupid bot stopped working in the middle of carrying the groceries. Made me have to load them, and it, into an e-car and lug it all up here,” the man complains.

  I bite my tongue. Az doesn’t notice. He’s not programmed to because that’s an issue waiting to happen. Not everyone is as invested in their bot as I am, but it annoys me when they get referred to as it and treated like a tool. Az is family. He’s been in my life since I was a kid, and I won’t ever get rid of him. Still, for some, bots will be nothing more than machines. And I’m here to do a job, not soapbox opinions.

  So instead, I take a moment to imagine my fist connecting with the soft flesh of the man’s face. The crunch of bone against bone. The release of annoyance and agitation that has been building all morning due to the chronic pain. I let out a quiet sigh and dismiss the daydream. The man takes it to mean I’m on his side.

  “You get it, yeah? Stupid code got a bug in it.”

  “Not to be an ass,” I start, intending to be an ass. “But you tried to power cycle it, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m not an idiot,” the man says with a flap of his hand.

  That remains to be seen. I shuffle to the chair. Az moves to help me, but I wave him away. “Get the bot, will you, Az?”

  “Of course!” Az replies, voice full of joy.

  With a sigh, I sink into the acidic green chair next to the man and lean the cane against it. Evangeline leans forward from behind us, bringing her vanilla perfume with her. It floods my nose, and for a second, it’s hard to focus on anything else.

  Az lifts the lifeless bot with slow, methodical movements, as if handling an egg. He sets the other bot down so the control panel faces me. A gentle act of care from my bot. It’s not just my hips and knees that ache, but my elbows joined in around noon. I don’t want to have to even turn the bot a millimeter.

  “Evangeline, will you hand me my,” I pause, losing the word. I wave at the thing, but that doesn’t help. Dammit. Like a suitcase, smaller, more personable, ah—“bag?”

  She does so, eyes flicking to the cane. Great.

  I dig into my bag for the small tablet I use for house calls like this. A small cord connects it to the helper bot, and with a few commands, I get to the debugging screen.

  “How long will this take?” The man asks, tapping his foot.

  “Depends on what is wrong with it,” I answer, keeping my voice steady. The prospect of him being an idiot rises.

  The man sighs and throws his hands into the air. “I’m going to go do holowork in the other room. Holler if you need anything.”

  “Thank you,” Evangeline says. She takes his seat once he’s left.

  “God, he’s annoying,” I say in a low voice. She laughs, a giggling chuckle that doesn’t fit with her crafted persona. Evangeline cradles her face in her hand, propping her elbow on her knee. An elegant position that she slips into like a cat into the sun.

  “He does a lot for Prism, so we keep him around, even if he is annoying.”

  I pause in typing the bot command. “What kind of things does he do for Prism?”

  “A lot of deliveries all over the country.”

  I whip my head around, causing a whole-body shiver that awakens even more areas of pain. Neck, shoulders, knees, and toes. Childhood song trapped within joints with no relief in sight. “All over the country? Prism is that big?”

  “I did tell you I was taking you to the ‘Cuse chapter headquarters.”

  “Yeah, but I thought Prism was a New York thing.”

  Evangeline shakes her head. “Nope, all over.”

  I read the code to hide my unease, trying to figure out why the bot has stopped working. Az settles behind me, leaning over my shoulder, ready and waiting for my command. I shouldn’t be too surprised that Prism is that big. Rumors don’t pop up and stay around for a small organization.

  “Az, enter wireless debug mode, read only.” There’s no way I’m connecting him straight to the bot, nor allowing write access. Az has layers upon layers of virus protection, but I’m not risking him.

  “What, no comment about us being some shady secret organization?” Evangeline asks, voice pitched low and sultry.

  I swallow. “Nope. I’m sitting here, doing my work.”

  “And is that all you want to be doing?”

  My whole face heats. I fake a cough and turn away, focusing on the nearest fiber optic plant, but Evangeline’s chuckle tells me she saw.

  “You enjoy teasing me,” I say.

  “Very much so.”

  “Some would argue that’s rude,” I joke.

  “Some would argue it’s flirting,” she replies.

  Oh.

  Oh no. I’m not good at that.

  Evangeline leans back, throwing her arms over the back of the chair. “May I ask you a question?”

  “You ask me a lot about myself without giving much in return,” I answer, typing in a strand of code and reading the output. The diagnostics aren’t helping. A stabbing sensation builds between my left ribs. I wince, leaning into the pain in a way I hope is hidden from Evangeline. I told her I was sick, but she doesn’t need to know how sick. Not yet. I want to be normal in her eyes for as long as possible.

  “Fair,” Evangeline says, nodding her head. “How about I ask you a question, and you ask me three in return?”

  “Any questions?” I clarify.

  “Any questions,” she answers.

  “Go ahead.”

  “How bad is the sickness?”

  I grit my teeth. Shit. I should have expected that. I type a few more lines of code while I chew my lip. I should tell her. It’s fair if she was flirting with me. I would want to know if the person I’m interested in had something that could affect their quality of life.

  “It’s two sicknesses,” I answer. I breathe deep, cradling this last moment of secrecy in my lungs. The last instance where it’s possible to tell Evangeline I was lying to Blake. Or that Blake was wrong. Last breath until I spill everything.

  I lick my lips. “One attacks my arteries, causes beading along them, which in turn causes pain and lack of appetite. The pills don’t help that last one either. It becomes hard to walk because I get winded within a few steps, and my hair falls out. The disease raises my blood pressure and gives me migraines until I get it taken care of. It’s not bad when it’s not active. I monitor my blood pressure, and that’s it.

  Hopefully, if it flares badly again, I go straight to surgery and don’t have to do the terrible pill regimen while I wait.”

  I take another deep breath, crowding my chest, pressing the worry and fear from my veins into my skin. Try to leak it out through my pores so that I don’t end up crying while talking. “The other was triggered by that one. I have an autoimmune disease that causes pain, forgetfulness, pain, blue fingers in the cold, pain, dry mouth and eyes, and oh yeah, did I mention pain?”

  “No, you didn’t,” Evangeline replies with a smirk.

  “And pain,” I deadpan. “The whole thing sucks. And it’s hard to deal with sometimes. When I use the cane, have to rely on Az, or forget a word because the foggy-headedness has gotten too bad, it’s like a giant flashing neon sign that says, ‘Hey! Right here! I’m chronically ill!’ People stare. I get treated differently by everyone, including those who knew me when I was healthy. That’s worse than the stares from strangers. I’ve become something to be protected and almost pitied when I’m still me, just in a different form than before.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Evangeline gives a thoughtful hum. “That’s valid. I can relate to a small amount. Around Prism, I’m pitied and treated as different due to being on the outs. Still not the same.”

  “Yeah,” I murmur. “Sometimes it’s like I’ve died and come back as someone new. Someone I have no say in and have to live with going forward.”

  “You’ll have it for the rest of your life?” she asks.

  She was supposed to ask one question. “Yeah, unless a miracle happens.”

  “When did you get sick?” She mumbles. It’s a knife-edge question, offense lying on either side, with only the tone to keep the question balanced. Too much pity or accusation, and the blade tips. Evangeline nails her landing.

  The tablet lies forgotten in my hands. I caress it, needing something to do. “Last winter.”

  “Oh, recent.”

  “Yeah.” My hand jitters, a recall of when the shaking wouldn’t stop last year. I ended up on the stairs in Mel and mine’s old unit, the snow dusting my hair and jacket until I crawled the rest of the way up. Az blinked red the whole time; turned his volume up as loud as it went, and played a video clip asking for help. No one ever came. The doctors never did find a reason for that. Blamed it on emotional damage and pushed me along.

  Evangeline leans forward. I clear my throat and focus on the tablet, blinking away tears.

  “Why does it matter with you going to space?” she asks.

  “You were supposed to ask one question.”

  “I’ll add a question to your count.”

  “Deal. Space travel and being in space affect those who are sick differently from those who are healthy. It changes the stress hormone levels, and the other physical repercussions of spaceflight cause the immune system to change. Not a huge deal for the healthy, they may catch a cold easier, but when your immune system hates you? It’s not a good idea to go, and so they don’t allow it. I’m hoping Prism can do something.”

  Evangeline whistles. “That’s a tall order for Prism to change. Hiding records and deleting traces without alerting anyone. Makes sense that Blake wanted a trial run with this bot.”

  I scowl. “Yeah, great.”

  “Those lines of code are new,” Az chirps from behind me, core glowing azure while he processes. “Three hundred to three hundred and twenty.”

  I read through the lines, parsing the logic encapsulated there. I comment out the section and run the code. Still a dozen errors. There must be more I’m missing.

  “Your turn for questions,” Evangeline says, leaning forward to cradle her head in her hand, elbow balanced on her knee.

  I type out a few lines of code. The letter P displays on the screen of the helper bot. That’s weird. I double-check the power to make sure that it somehow didn’t get turned on. Nope, still off.

  “Az, run a diagnostic check, I may have missed something when I ran it from the bot,” I say, turning to Evangeline. “Did you grow up in ‘Cuse or at a different Prism branch?”

  “Here,” Evangeline says. “Been here my whole life. No college elsewhere, no stints living somewhere and coming back.”

  “I’m almost the same. Came from a small town to ‘Cuse right after high school. Been here since.”

  “How far was the small town from here?”

  “An hour and a half north.” I jerk my head in the general direction. The command window pops up and disappears a few times on the small bot screen.

  “Oh,” Evangeline says. “Small, small town.”

  “Yeah, downright minuscule.”

  “Are the stars visible there?” Evangeline draws the question out, as if she’s unsure if she’s allowed to ask it. She chews on her bottom lip while she waits for my answer.

  “Yeah,” I murmur. “There’s neon out there. Still light pollution, but there are more stars than here.”

  I enter a few more lines of code. The letter R displays on the screen. P. R. Is this bot some sort of ad? If so, it’s breaking the law around using bots for that purpose due to data privacy laws. Az beeps and his eyes light green. His results display on the tablet. Nothing anomalous or different than what my scan showed. This is getting weirder and weirder. I furrow my brow. My ribs send a shooting stab of pain. I grunt, curling around the tablet.

  “What’s wrong?” Evangeline asks.

  I ignore the twinge in my ribs. “This code is acting strange.”

  “I meant with you.”

  “I’m fine,” I lie through a strangled breath. My ribs say otherwise. Pain shoots through them up to my shoulder, connecting to the pain there like fire burning through underbrush. I take a deep breath, and something resets. The pain lessens and, after a moment, I straighten.

  “See, all good.”

  “Jaqs,” Evangeline says. My name comes out hard, no smoke or velvet. The syllable is a brick to the face that leaves me regretting that she’s seen me like this at all.

  “Evangeline,” I mimic.

  She heaves a sigh and closes her eyes. When she reopens them, something within her has reset as well. With that small act, she’s wiped my sickness away. It leaves streaks in its wake, refusing to completely disappear due to physical relics like the cane leaning against the chair, but she’s noticing me, not it.

  “You talk like the code is alive,” she says.

  A chuckle escapes, surprising me. “Depending on your definition of alive, it may be. With adaptive learning in bots, they create connections through thoughts and make decisions like humans.”

  “Are you a bot rights activist?” Evangeline asks.

  “I haven’t decided yet.” I pause, waiting for the words to come. “Not all bots are the same, and some are too simplistic to be considered alive, in my opinion, so I’m still learning and sussing through details.”

  Evangeline tilts her head, white hair swinging. “Would you vote for Az to have rights?”

  “Yeah. He’s pretty advanced. I hope I’ve treated him well enough he’d stick around.”

  “I love you, of course I would!” Az answers. Warmth blossoms in my chest. People say that bots don’t have emotions. That they’re foreign to them, even if they may use words like love, happiness, anger, and a myriad of others. But who’s to say that in all those ones and zeros that they haven’t combined into the logic humans use to love someone? Those who have taken bots as their companions, forsaking any marriage to a human, would agree that bots love.

  “Next question,” I say. “I like bots and like working on them. What is something you like?”

  Another new section of code jumps out. It calls for the shutdown of the bot. There’s the root of the issue. I comment it out, cautious to delete anything. Running the code results in fifty-two errors. Of course, it does. The letter I displays on the screen.

  “I enjoy fashion. The history of it, the different styling, and the fabrics. I watch a ton of runway shows and peruse magazines in my free time.”

  A puzzle piece slots into place in the mystery that is Evangeline. Her being so put together makes sense. She understands what is in style far better than me.

  “Fashion is a big mystery to me, besides being bright in my clothing,” I confess. “N-not that I’m not willing to learn.”

  Smooth. Real smooth.

  Evangeline smiles. “Perhaps I’ll teach you. We can watch fashion shows together.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Are bots all you like?” she asks.

  “I like architecture too. The way buildings are constructed and the art that goes into designing them. They’re not so different from bots in that way.”

  “So, your hobbies boil down to figuring out the way things are put together?”

  I laugh. “I guess so.”

  “That line of code is out of place,” Az comments, highlighting what he means.

  I comment it out and hit run. Two errors. This is the weirdest code I have ever encountered. An S displays on the bot’s screen. I pull back.

  “Is this stupid thing spelling out Prism?” I tap the bot to emphasize I mean it.

  “Well, it is a test, Jaqs.” Evangeline leans back, amusement plain on her face.

  Dammit. Pretty sure I’m right. Which means two more errors to be found. Pain shoots up my leg, and I grit my teeth. I breathe through a count of five, willing my body to cooperate for once. I don’t want to be flaring around Evangeline. I’d like her to stick around longer than a day.

  I scroll through the code, slow and steady, hunting for lines that don’t make sense. Evangeline is quiet, her attention turned to her holo. I comment out a few lines that are plain bad code, but no letter appears on the bot’s screen.

  “You still have two questions,” Evangeline says, face turned to her holo. She’s not activated private mode and there is a horde of emails awaiting her attention. I haven’t been keeping count of the questions. We’ve diverted from the original rules of the game anyway.

  The last two questions are difficult. But she did say to ask anything. “Are you paid to do this? The Prism stuff, I mean,” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “A bit,” Evangeline says, rubbing the back of her neck. It’s the first time I’ve seen her embarrassed. There’s no reason to be. Adding cost to the basic income isn’t a bad thing to do.

  “You don’t like getting paid for it?”

  “It’s got bad vibes, especially as I’ve become more aware—broken free from the cult-like conditioning. Sort of becomes a hunt with my fellow humans as the prey. I don’t like that.”

  I let out a small hum as I take in her words. I type a few more lines of code and sit back. The sun filters through the high windows and ignites the livid greenery around us. In some other room, the annoying man is talking, his voice booming through the hardened surfaces of the house. But I can’t make out what he’s saying. I tentatively meet Evangeline’s eyes.

  I remember almost too late Evangeline’s warning about Gen’s shop being bugged. This place could be too.

  “What would you do if you left Prism?” I murmur, couching Evangeline’s wish in the hypothetical.

  Evangeline’s mouth tightens. Her eyes fall away, staring into the middle distance.

  Pain spreads to my ribs, and this has gotten so much worse. I breathe and breathe and breathe, drowning while trying to live. The air courses in, filling my lungs and crowding my throat. Demanding space within my ribs they cannot give at the moment. The pressure threatens to break me from the inside out. It’s too much.

  Dizziness consumes me, threatening to spill me onto the floor. Az places a hand on my shoulder, pinning me to the back of the chair. I suck in breath through quiet, long seconds. It’s a dangerous game to play, trying to play at being healthy with Evangeline so close, with every warning bell clanging in my head. Rationally, I will survive this. There’s no need to panic. Irrationally, I’m sure I’m dying. And no matter what courses through my head, there’s one thing for certain.

  There’s no use lying to myself anymore.

  Something is wrong. This pain isn’t normal, or at least my normal for the past year. It’s been building and is worse than I’ve dealt with since I first got sick.

  The dizziness passes, leaving black prickling at the perimeter of my vision. But slowly, chased my deep breaths, that goes away too. However, the pain remains. Evangeline and I sit in silence. Her in thought, me thanking my lucky stars the attack wasn’t worse. Az removes his hand, and I squeeze it in thanks. His eyes blink from red to pink in answer. A silent show of care.

  I breathe out the pent of breath, masking it in a heavy sigh and finish typing in the line of code. An M appears on the screen of the bot. Prism. Figured as much. “I’m sorry I asked, Evangeline. You don’t have to answer.”

  She jerks up, eyes blinking in a staccato rhythm. “What? Oh, don’t be sorry. I got lost in thought. I’m not sure. Hard to make plans.”

  There’s a beat of quietness. Our eyes don’t leave one another, her wash of gray to my deep brown. Sky to earth, meeting in the middle.

  Evangeline clears her throat and blinks away, a small flush on her cheeks. “How goes the code?”

  “I’m almost done.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “Well, I’ve gotten all the letters to spell Prism. I need to run the code to make sure it works,” I say. Evangeline winks. It quickens my heart more than it should. It solidifies the last question I have for her.

  I run the code, get zero errors, and push the build to the bot. With trepidation, I turn the bot on. The screen blinks on, spells out hello, and turns into a pair of pixelated eyes.

  “You did it,” Evangeline says, smile reaching her eyes.

  I unhook the tablet from the bot, hiding a wince from the pain. “Yeah, not too difficult. This was set up, though. Bugs like this don’t happen.”

  “It was a test,” Evangeline states.

  “But why this? Why hide code in a helper bot and not have me fix an actual bot?”

  “Because he,” Evangeline says, motioning towards the office the bot owner disappeared into, “is annoying, and sometimes it’s fun to mess with him.”

  I muffle a chuckle. “Good God, Evangeline. That’s terrible.”

  She laughs with me. “I didn’t do it. I was told about it in order to report back to Blake on whether you were successful.”

  “And?”

  “Passed with flying colors. We’ll be able to get your next trade going. Let me go tell him we’re done,” Evangeline says, rising from the chair.

  “Hey, wait a moment?” I ask. I lick my lips and curl my toes in my boots, trying and failing to capture my nerves there. If I’m running out of time, I want to make the most of my life. I want to go after what I want—things that aren’t on the bucket list. I want more of a reason to live than the list.

  Evangeline pauses, waiting.

  I run my hand through my hair. A couple of green strands stick to my fingers, and I shake them off. The green fits among the neon veins in the tile. “I have another question.”

  She motions for me to continue.

  I stuff the tablet in my bag, refusing to meet Evangeline’s eyes. It’s been so long, and I’m terrified of rejection. There’s a chance she’s not interested. That I’ve read everything wrong. And my sickness could get in the way. My heart beats loud in my ears and threatens to burst from my chest. I can do this. Come on.

  “Do you want to go out on a date?” I blurt out.

  “Isn’t that what this is?”

  My head snaps up. I meet her eyes, waiting for the joke to shine within them. But there is no hidden laughter there ready to stab a knife through my heart.

  I shake my head. “You have a strange idea of what a date is, Evangeline.”

  “Perhaps,” she concedes with a shrug.

  “But I’m willing to count it,” I say, pushing past the flip-flop of my stomach.

  “Then I’ll gladly accept a second date from you,” Evangeline answers. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and clears her throat, glancing away. The soft blush decorating her cheeks deepens to a crimson. “I’m going to go let him know we’re done. If that’s OK?”

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  “All right,” she replies. We both do nothing. She stands. I sit. Awkwardness has taken root, born from us both being useless when confronted with our feelings. With a final nod from Evangeline, time resumes, and she makes her way to the office.

  I finish packing up my things, a new symptom of a new disease accompanying me.

  A smile, born from puppy love.