She slapped him hard across the face.

Without a word, he dropped his chin to his chest. He knew that the blow he had struck her, this whole situation, had cut deep.

The damage would take a very long time to heal. But he had to have her forgiveness, because without her he would never get through this.

"Kate, please. I don't know what we'll do," he said. "But please don't leave me. I need you."

Dr. Chen appeared from around the corner. "Mr. Jones?" he said.

He looked at Kate and gestured politely for her to sit down. Then he led Peter away, around the bend in the corridor. They sat down.

"Mr. Jones, we need for you to name your daughter."

No name. Their baby girl had no name. This thought seemed to be the final blow to drain him of his last ounce of energy. It was real, and final. His life was changed now and forever. Somehow the knapsack fell from his hands, its contents spilling onto the floor. Kate. He had to ask her.

"Wait," he said to the doctor. He jumped to his feet and ran around the corner, calling out her name. But she was gone.

His shoulders slackened and he went back to the doctor, who was collecting the contents that had spilled out of the knapsack.

Peter bent down to take over. He was overcome by a wave of dizziness and the nausea. Then, just as abruptly, the spinning halted and the sickness retreated, forced back by a keening sound that arose in his throat.

There, among the clutter of notes and pens and the little black box with its exposed circuits and wires, he found, written in her mother's own hand across the label of the topmost disk, their baby's name.

"Isle," he whispered.

"Mr. Jones?" the doctor said, not sure he had heard correctly.

"I said, Isle," Peter said, louder this time, taking the disks in his hand. "My daughter's name is Isle."

PART IV

Chapter 17

"That's a good girl," Peter said, cradling the tiny Isle in his arms. He checked her bottle. "Almost done."

For one and a half months she had been home with Peter, deemed well enough leave the hospital after a touch-and-go stay for the same length of time. She weighed a scant six and a quarter pounds. Her eyes were curious and alert, just like her mother's.

Peter longed for her eyes to keep the clear sapphire color, a glittering reflection of Ivy. Isle's hair was beginning to outcrop in satiny brown whorls, the same color as her father's.

"Your little jewel," Grace said all smiles as she came into the living room. "Go ahead, I'll finish up with her."

"Okay, shrimp, over to Grace," Peter said, handing over the little pink bundle.

Peter stood beaming at his infant in Grace's lap, her tiny mouth puckering the nipple of the bottle, tiny hands clutching and uncurling, tiny stocking feet kicking. So fragile, yet strong.

"Petey!" Byron boomed from elsewhere in the house. "Let's go!"

"Better hurry before the bear comes out of his cave looking for you."

"Coming," Peter called, and hurriedly kissed Isle's fuzzy head.

Having temporarily moved into Peter's California mansion since they had come back from Maine after Isle's birth, the Holmeses had been a G.o.dsend. Grace was all too happy to help out with Isle, and Byron and Peter had resumed their project. He had still not seen or heard from Ivy, and she had refused his calls at the detoxification clinic where she was recovering.

Byron and Peter and their small team worked all hours of the day on the design they had settled on. The day Isle was born, Ivy had provided him with the missing link, the distinct component that he had been seeking. With the ISLE interface, they now had a model from which to refine the hardware, honing its design to provide the ultimate platform, the perfect stage upon which Ivy's invention could perform.

"Come here," Byron said enthusiastically, "Get a look at this."

He was standing before a Joey Plus computer. It was connected to a small, open black box filled with a convolution of wires, circuits, and components. Peter stood beside his mentor in the makeshift part.i.tioned lab they had set up in one of the large bedrooms.

"We've got the agent tied in to the speech recognizer and it's working like a charm. Here," Byron said, handing Peter a small microphone, "tell it you want to make a date."

Peter cleared his throat. "Computer," he said, the keyword that the ISLE speech recognizer listened for to carry out spoken commands, "lunch with Byron on Friday."

On the screen, a small month-view calendar opened and the upcoming Friday flashed. A moment later "12:00PM Byron Holmes / Lunch" appeared in the date box.

The Joey Plus's built-in speaker came to life with a robotic voice. "Lunch with Byron Holmes, noon, confirmed. Is there an agenda?"

Peter grinned and looked at Byron, who lowered his voice. "A little something we threw in this morning."

Peter spoke into the microphone. "Yes. Discuss computer enhancements and - "

"Computer," the Joey said, interrupting Peter, "is unrecognized."

Peter gave Byron a puzzled look. "What happened?"

Byron was scratching his head. "Well how do you like that. We never considered that. I mean, that if we call the computer 'computer,' then we can't use that word once it's listening to whatever we tell it."

"Ah," Peter said. "Right. Hmm." He thought about this for a second, then sat down before the Joey and started typing.

"What are you doing?" Byron said.

"Well," Peter said, lifting the microphone, "since the word computer won't compute, all we need to do is give it a unique name that we wouldn't normally use in an everyday context."

"Of course," Byron said. "Good thinking."

Peter pressed a key and the Joey spoke: "Please say my name so that I know who I am."

"Pip," Peter said, loud and clear.

"Please repeat my name again, faster this time."

Peter said the name faster. The Joey Plus asked him to repeat it once more, slowly this time, so that it knew three slight variations on of its own name, thereby making recognition more accurate.

"Pip?" Byron asked.

"Sure," Peter said. "Pip. Like in d.i.c.ken's "Great Expectations."

One of my all-time favorite characters."

"Then Pip it is," Byron laughed. "Let's give it a try."