One of them struggled to get up, getting the hang of it now.

"If we get out of this," Cole told Walter, "I'm gonna make you practice your video games as part of your regular duties."

Walter hissed, ignoring him. His fingers tapped buttons in frustration. He had the Stanley in front of their door-they could even hear the damn thing banging against the wall outside-but swiping the card through the reader was infuriatingly difficult. The robot had already dropped the card once, and trying to pick it up off the floor gave Walter a new appreciation for everyday feats he took for granted. He had resorted to scooting the flat card across the floor with the robot's fingernails until it hit the wall, popping one edge off the ground. After that ordeal, he instructed the finger-grip servos to lock down and never loosen. The card would snap in half before he let it slide out again.

"I need the other hand," he moaned. He jammed Stanley's bad fingers behind the handle of a lower cabinet to steady the body, then he pressed the edge of the card against the wall with the other hand, adjusting its angle of attack. Cole kept crawling back and forth between the screen and the door, egging both him and the robot on-it was driving him absolutely crazy.

One more swipe, and Walter heard a beeping noise. He yelped with delight, trying to get the Stanley to grab the handle before the green light on the LCD went off. Reluctantly, he instructed the robot to drop the card so he could use the good hand. He guided the digits up to grasp the door handle and ordered a yank.

There was a pop. Light came in through a crack. The metal floor of their tiny cell jolted forward and both of them lost their balance, falling backwards.

Walter laughed with relief, then remembered that last sight of Molly-her body being loaded into a ship.

Cole jumped down from the platform first. Walter could see the Stanley hanging casually from the door's handle, the body lifeless. His jacket had been torn and his pants hung down around his thighs. Walter leaned over the edge and let Cole help him down.

"Can we use him?" Cole asked.

Walter shook his head. "I can't ssteer and walk at the ssame time." He watched as Cole picked up the dropped passcard from the ground.

"Which way to Parsona?"

"Through the hangarss," Walter said.

"Wrong Parsona," Cole told him, shaking his head. "We have something else to take care of down here."

Walter understood. He punched some keys and turned the screen so Cole could see it as well. Two hallways over, six side halls down on the left, compartment 3815.

"What about Molly?" he asked.

"We'll be quick," said Cole. "I promise. See if you can get our ship loaded in one of the hangars while we move."

Molly sat quietly beside her mother. Ahead of them, a perpetual fire danced across logs that seemed to neither diminish nor budge.

As her mother's voice droned incessantly, Molly nodded to feign interest. The visit had been a complete waste of time. Worse than a waste, actually. She had failed to prevent Byrne from having contact with her mom. She had learned nothing of her father, or what had taken place on Lok. And the dream of reuniting with her real mom had turned into a nightmare; dealing with her was like battling wills with a petulant child-god.

"-the third heaven. Earth just couldn't do it for me in the long run, much like in real life, so that's when I visited Lok. It was children, always the idea of having lots of children that-"

Molly watched her mom's lips move, felt the words enter her ears and bounce around, but they weren't her mother's ideas. They were the thoughts of something that hadn't felt pain for almost seventeen years. Hadn't known suffering. How could that not change a person?

While Parsona talked about the miracle of a natural childbirth, Molly thought about the last few weeks of her life. She had endured much hardship, even some severe bouts of sadness, but overall, the time had seemed . . . exciting, if not quite happy. The time had been full of reminders that her life was temporary, and somehow that gave it extra meaning.

Hadn't Cole mentioned something similar on Drenard, during that long shuttle ride? He'd said something about not being scared of death while he was around her. Molly didn't understand what that meant at the time, except that he loved her.

Now she knew.

She surveyed her mother's face, saw again how young she looked. Her skin positively glowed in the light of the lambent flame. In fact, she was probably only ten years or so older than Molly-her body frozen in time, remaining as old as she remembered herself.

Emotionally, however, her mother seemed to be aging in reverse, the product of a hedonistic fantasy world of her own creation. It was the sort of existence only young children got away with, and one that only unknowning adults could crave.

If these visits were designed to sell her an eternal life, they'd failed. She would never want this. Would the program run for millions of years? Billions? What would this "heaven" look like by then? Would her mother even remember the real life she'd once lived? What would her father represent to her in a few billion years? Which Molly would she know and love? The real one, or the thousands and thousands she sired virtually?

Molly pondered these things and felt an overwhelming sadness for her mom; she reached out a hand and placed it on her arm, squeezing it gently. Her mom broke off from her story and searched Molly's face.

"Sweetheart? You look sad. Do you need some more tea?"

Molly shook her head and fought back tears. She could reach out and touch her mother; it would feel very real, but her mother was long since dead.

"I want a hug, Mom."

Parsona beamed and reached out both hands. "Come sit on my lap, dear. Let me finish my story."

Molly got up and eased herself onto her mother's legs. She put an arm around her neck and rested her head on her shoulder.

Parsona continued her story, recounting the settling of a virtual Lok and how painless it had been to give birth there. One of her arms rubbed Molly's back while the other waved in the air, conducting the tale.

Molly settled in, smothered in sadness. One of her hands fell to her mother's round belly.

It was already larger than when she'd first arrived.

Cole knelt beside Parsona Fyde's body, the metal slab fully extended from a bottom drawer. He could see why loved ones would never be allowed to visit in person. Dozens of wires and tubes snaked out of every natural orifice-and some that'd been created. Parsona's scalp had been removed completely and replaced with a clear plastic shell. The edges of something similar extended out of her armpits, and long wispy hair on her thin legs suggested the purpose of these devices.

They made the quasi-living body easier to maintain.

A collar of metal ringed her forehead below the plastic shell, identical to the device Walter had used. Pale flesh, laced with bright capillaries, hung from her bones except where it was pinched by the straps crisscrossing her body. They seemed ludicrous to Cole; he didn't see how those muscles were capable of strenuous movement. The gentle rise and fall of her chest, ridged with bony ribs, provided the only clue that this thing was alive.

Still, despite the dehumanizing nature of the apparatus, he couldn't do it.

Walter paced nervously behind him while Cole berated himself for his inability to act.

"How're you coming with the other Parsona?" he asked Walter, trying to stall.

"About like you're doing with thiss one," Walter said. "Sship docking iss on another network. I can open and sshut the bayss, but I can't control the loaderss to move the sship." He stopped pacing and pointed his computer toward Parsona. "We're wassting time."

"It's her mom."

Walter bent over the pale, naked form. "Sshe lookss dead."

"I don't think I can do it," Cole finally admitted.

Walter shoved the computer in its holster and knelt beside Cole. One of his hands rested on Cole's shoulder, a gesture of support that filled Cole with hope for the boy. He was about to lay his own hand on the Palan's, reciprocating the rare contact from him, when Walter reached down with his other hand, grabbed a fistful of wires trailing off Parsona's torso, and yanked as hard as he could.

Cole reached for Walter's hand in shock, trying to stop him, but the boy moved fast-grabbing and tugging as calmly as if he were pulling weeds. Parsona made sucking noises when the tubes popped free of her nose and mouth; her chin came up; she gasped for air.

Fluids leaked out and puddled on the slab of metal; bony limbs jerked against the restraints; ribs heaved. All indications that this thing was alive.

Cole felt bile rise in his own throat, burning it. He swallowed it down and grabbed a hose, trying to remember where it went. He wanted to plug everything back in, to save her.

Parsona vibrated and gurgled.

Once again, he couldn't act.

Red lights descended from the ceiling and began flashing up and down the hallway as Cole felt overcome with shame and horror.

"Let'ss go!" Walter hissed, tugging on his shirt and pulling him backwards. "They'll be coming to ssave her."

Cole fought to regain his balance, physically and emotionally-he needed to focus on Molly. And Walter was right: they needed to get out of there. He turned away from the open drawer and the dying woman, running back to the main hall. He caught up with Walter, who tugged him to a halt. A Stanley could be seen beyond the glass partition at the end of the corridor, talking to a human couple.

"Sservicse elevator," Walter said, looking at his computer.

"That's our way out? Which way?"

"No, that'ss what'ss heading thiss way. We need to go that way," he said, pointing through the partition.

Cole looked down the hallway at the glass door. "Can you stop the service elevator? No point in what you-what we did if they get here in time."

Walter nodded.

"While you're at it, call a single elevator to this floor and send the rest down to the center of the moon." Cole placed a hand on Walter's elbow. "And walk while you're doing it. We need to get close to that partition."

Molly had her ear pressed to her mother's collarbone, listening to the distant thrum of her mom's voice as it resonated through her body. She spaced out again, not really hearing what her mom said, but rather marveling at how real her lap, their embrace, seemed.

And yet, the illusion remained incomplete.

It wasn't her real mother she embraced, but a nostalgic recollection of her. This felt more like the comfort of a stranger, perhaps consoling a child for the loss of a parent.

Molly felt saddened by the irony of it all. A massive gulf had formed between she and her mom in such a short time. And while they were pressed close together- And then the world went blank.

White light.

Everything was white light.

She had no eyes, and yet the searing brightness filled her vision. It was so intense, it made a sound, as if ocular neurons bled over to auditory ones. The result was something between a drone and a hiss. And her world smelled like an electrical fire, or rubber burning. Molly could taste it, but she had no mouth.

Her body floated, but not in some painful void-her body was the void.

She tried to scream or call out, but the agonizing hiss that filled her universe could not be modulated nor reduced. She was trapped in the center of a star, hot, white, burning, blinding, noisy.

And yet, her body was unwilling to melt away and end the torture.

It went on forever.

Unyielding.

28.

Two elevator doors stood open on the other side of the glass partition. A Stanley, its back to Cole and Walter, faced the open doors, surveying the curious behavior from its less-evolved mechanical brethren. To one side, the human couple stood and conferred, going back and forth as if considering the purchase of a new spaceship.

"Now," Cole whispered.

Walter swiped his passcard and the glass slid away. Cole pushed off the tiled floor like a sprinter. The sound of him coming made the Stanley turn around; its eyes locked onto the source of the squeaks just as Cole went airborne.

Slamming into the Stanley felt like tackling a refrigerator. Cole's air rushed out of him as the Stanley flew backwards, skidding into the elevator he'd been peering into. Walter ran past, entering the other elevator door. Cole paused to regain his breath, but the Stanley had no such requirement. The android shoved off the floor of the elevator and rose with an unnatural power. Cole scrambled on all fours into the other elevator.

"Shut it!" he yelled, before his feet even crossed the threshold.

Walter swiped his stolen passcard and the doors began to move, the mechanical slabs closing with an agonizing slowness.

Nothing at all like the speed the Stanley used to dash between them just before they sealed tight.

"Hi," Cole said. "We've lost our tour guide, perhaps you've-"

It happened so quickly, it felt like teleportation. One moment, Cole was kneeling in the center of the elevator, trying to smooth talk the android. The next, he found himself pinned against the rear video wall, his feet off the ground, metal vises around his neck. The Stanley had both hands around his throat; the android began squeezing the life out of him.

Cole kicked his legs in the air, looking for something to support himself on, but unforgiving metal formed walls on both sides. He twisted his head to look for Walter, saw the boy frozen by the elevator controls. Cole tried to mouth a plea, but all he could manage was a grimace.

Walter sneered back at him.

Time did not elapse in the buzzing, scorching, droning whiteness. It had gone on forever, or it had been a mere moment. There was no difference.

Then it stopped, replaced with the dentist chair scene once more. Molly found herself strapped down as someone hovered over her. She blinked him into focus. It wasn't the dentist-it was a Stanley.

She worked her jaw, trying to ignore the residual hiss in her head as she regained her senses. She could barely hear herself ask if her three hours were up. The Stanley nodded. Something else swayed in her vision. A clear bag of fluids. The IV.

She looked past it and the Stanley to the metal panels above her. This isn't the visitation room, she realized.

"Where am I?"

The Stanley ignored her. He tightened one of the straps across her chest before packing away various electrical gear. When he pulled the contraption from her head, he did it so roughly that it took clumps of her hair with it.

"Ow!" she complained. "Hey, loosen the straps, and I'll help you."