‘I feel no different.’ Azrael refused to let her change the channel from the shopping network. He had a serious thing for special-occasion jewellery. Shiny stuff was giving him a hard-on. Well, not literally. She didn’t think. He was sitting on the floor close to the TV, and every time the ads were done he ignored her. She got it. That sparkly shit was so damn pretty, Kira was seriously considering buying a tiara; but what she really wanted was to keep talking. She sat down beside him, plate in hand.
‘So the words thing,’ Kira said. ‘What’s with that? Did you like pull the knowledge out of my brain or something? Some kind of synaptic connection that means you know all the words I know. Sorry, dude, you are going to know a lot of really fucked up words.’
She laughed. Azrael did not. A rebellious egg fleck made a break for it down her throat, and Kira’s giggle turned into a cough and choke. Azrael’s gaze didn’t leave the screen.
‘I believe I could always speak,’ he said. ‘The knowledge was mine, not yours.’
‘Fine. Then why have you been a boring mute since you . . .’ Since you got here? Since you were born? Since you were made? She couldn’t choose one, so she let it slide.
For the first time in about thirty minutes, he looked away from the TV. She was sitting very close to him; if she were to lean ever so slightly, her knee would touch his leg.
‘It was as though the words could not make it to this tongue.’ He peered at her as if the answer were in her irises somewhere. ‘I don’t understand. I do not know why it was difficult, only that it is not now. I have done this before. I am certain.’
She had a mouthful of cold sloshy egg, but it seemed the wrong time to swallow. Wrong time to move at all. She’d taken the faux skin off her limb, but the metal was nowhere near him. So what was with her belly flipping? The egg demanded to be swallowed. Kira looked away, trying hard not to gag on the sliminess. It was the egg and champers, that was the culprit. It was making her breathe a little weird, too.
‘You said you don’t know who you are.’ She waved a piece of toast towards him.
‘I do not.’
‘I thought you were a robot.’ Kira screwed up her face. ‘Fucked if I know now though. You’re kind of confusing.’
‘A robot.’ Blank stare. ‘My name is Azrael. Is that a robot name?’
Kira shrugged. ‘Blake just called you that. The others kept calling you gallu. Dumb-ass name, it seemed more like your, I dunno . . . your breed or something.’
Azrael the gallu was distracted by a dazzling bracelet set. Conversation over. Good chat.
A knock at the door interrupted Kira’s attempt to stuff a whole piece of toast into her mouth. Azrael glanced up from the sale on chandelier earrings, but she shook her head.
‘Nope. Not me, I didn’t order anything. I never want to see another bubble again.’ She burped to prove the point and got to her feet in a graceless move that saw the toast slide off the plate and land butter-side down on the rug. Whatever. She’d paid a shit-tonne for this room; the cleaners could deal with that.
The cool of the tiled floor snapped at her bare feet. She probably should have put the faux skin back on her arm before she answered the door, but again, whatever. Two female room attendants stood outside, a cart between them, a white cloth covering its contents. They didn’t say anything. Just stood there with grins about as genuine as Azrael’s first attempt had been.
‘I didn’t order anything else,’ Kira said.
‘Complimentary.’ The word kind of burst from the nearest woman. She had not a blonde hair out of place and make-up a supermodel would be proud of. The two of them pushed the cart towards Kira, and she stepped out of the way. It was either that or have her bare toes squished. The second woman, with creamy caramel skin and dark hair wound in an intricate braid, closed the door behind her.
‘Guys, I said I didn’t order anything.’ Kira moved to block their path, but the meals-on-wheels team had other ideas.
Braidy-lady shoved the cart forward. It slammed into Kira, knocking her off her feet. Her butt hit the marble floor, and she slid across the polished surface like a failed ice skater. The women turned their attention to Azrael.
‘Jesus, Az,’ Kira shouted at him. ‘Turn the hell around.’
He still had his eyes fixed on the TV, and they were almost on him by the time he reacted. Kira learned a valuable lesson in that instant. Azrael the gallu could get drunk. He stood up and turned, clearly trying to face the attack that came at him from behind the couch, and clearly failing. Like someone who’d just been on a merry-go-round too long, his legs went one way while his top half went the other. He tripped over his own feet and fell backwards. The coffee table didn’t stand a chance, shattering beneath him and littering the mauve rug with midnight-black shards. He must have landed on the remote, because suddenly the shopping channel was being shouted at them.
‘You are kidding me!’ Kira cried.
The only advantage of Azrael’s inability to stand on his own two feet was that the two woman were as surprised by it as he was. They faltered, Braidy-lady still behind the couch, Supermodel Susie halfway around the shorter edge of the L-shape. Kira pushed herself to her feet. The cart had a small bain-marie and a couple of dinner plates on it. Judging by the smear of tomato sauce and clinging bow-tie pasta, this was the remnants of someone’s dinner. Grabbing one of the plates, Kira flung it, Frisbee style. Her artificial arm was strong. It could make things move like a
