“Nyssa!” Hart's beloved voice called.
She leapt to stare into the screen. “I’m here! You’re okay? You remember me?”
He gave a wavering laugh. “I told you, from now on, backups of backups. I’m honestly not quite sure what happened after that witch unplugged the RAM, but everything before that is clear as a bell. You’re not hurt? You managed to get away somehow? How long has it been?”
“Half hour, hour tops. I’ll tell you everything later.” She ran her hand over the dusty keyboard. “This is the last room. The laboratory.” She glanced back at the sheet-draped figure. “I found Dalhart. He’s dead. Can you … the memories in this system, do they tell you what you need to know?”
“Yes, and maybe you were right.” His tone sank to a murmur. “Maybe we should’ve stopped.”
Nyssa’s heart shattered. She choked out, “I’m sorry.”
“You know, then?” he asked.
She stepped back to the table and pulled down the sheet.
“Oh … Am I … I’m alive?”
“I think so. I don’t know how to wake you, though. Hart … Ellis, why did he do this to you?”
“I begged him not to. I kept telling him I didn’t want it. Yes, my mobility was limited. Yes, I couldn’t do a lot of things I could before the accident, but I was happy to be alive. I could make the best of it. He kept saying he wanted to restore me, make me whole again. Dammit, Dad, I was whole! I simply couldn’t walk.” The screen crackled. “At first he let me keep my consciousness, tried to convince me this was better, that I was some sort of improvement on the human form, a better version of man, but I fought him. I didn’t want this, especially when he began experimenting on the staff.”
“What did you do?” She leaned closer to the screen.
“I tried to get a message to someone, anyone, who could help me. So he started restricting my memories, picking and choosing which I kept, isolating the rest in files I couldn’t access, hidden on this computer you just unlocked. Every day there was less of me. Sometimes I’d piece things together, start to figure out who I was and what he’d done, but he’d find out and he’d … he’d take my memories again. It was like solving the same mystery over and over … for almost three years. Then finally even he couldn’t take it anymore. He isolated me to the library and put my system in sleep mode.”
“He was insane, Hart … Ellis. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Oh, he did.” Ellis’s monitors beeped. “You say he’s dead?”
She nodded.
“I wish I could mourn him. I just feel cheated. I … I don’t want to be this.” His voice rose in pitch. “Nyss, I don’t want to. I think I’d rather be dead.”
“Settle down.” She pressed her hands against the screen. “I’m here, Ellis, and I’m going to help you. We’ll bring you back, all right. How do I get you into your body?”
“It might be possible, but … Is there a restrictor on the wires … coming out of me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what’s keeping me from my own brain. If the restrictor's removed, I can try to transfer back, but I still might not wake up. My body was preserved, but … there’s a chance what’s left of me is brain dead, like Yancy and the maid were.”
The knot in Nyssa’s stomach hardened and forced its way into her throat. “Being a computer … it’s not so bad. No headaches, no need to eat or sleep … and you’re still you. I … I became quite fond of you as a computer, you know.” The warmth from the screen rose through her hands, and a soft feeling crept through her.
“I’m quite fond of you too. There’s a chance, though, a chance I can wake up. I’ll need your help. I know it’s possibly suicide, Nyssa, but you have to understand, this isn’t life. I can’t feel … I can’t feel you. Please, help me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto the screen. “What do you need me to do?”
“I need to surge all my data through those wires as if I were uploading myself into another computer. All I need from you is to remove the restrictor.”
“And if it doesn’t work? Maybe you can go back? Save a copy of yourself, just in case.” She sniffled. “Maybe not to stay this way forever, but to try again, later … or just … or just not to die.”
He sighed. “It's not that simple. The surge necessary to force my brain active might fry the electronics. There’s about a sixty percent chance this will kill me, end my electronic and human lives simultaneously ... maybe a twenty percent chance it will work, and maybe twenty percent that it won’t work but I’ll be able to continue on as a computer. One step at a time.”
“All right.” She wiped her eyes. “Are you ready?”
“Almost. There’s just one thing: thank you.” The lights from the screen brightened until she had to drop her gaze. “Nyss, I’ve been trapped in a computer for longer than I care to contemplate. Today, for the first time in years, I’ve felt alive. I’ve … I’ve cared for someone, and that’s what gives life meaning. No matter what happens, you made today … maybe not what I would choose, but as good as possible in these circumstances.”
Her throat tightened. Grief stole her words, throwing them out of her reach like a bully stealing a child’s toy. She pressed her face into the screen and forced herself to stop crying.
Shaking herself off, she moved towards
