Chapter 8 · Continued
The Accident
Got it. We don’t live far apart. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.
Jane looked up at Cam and then down at herself.
Old shirt.
Hair committing whatever crime it had chosen for the day.
No makeup.
Coffee breath.
Fantastic.
“Of course,” she muttered. “Of course the robot freezes when a good-looking man is coming over.”
Jane hurried to the bathroom, dragged a brush through her hair, and applied just enough makeup to look less as though she had been raised by raccoons.
She changed her shirt twice before returning to the first one.
When Jane went back into the living room, Cam remained exactly where she had left him.
Frozen.
Face fragmented.
Silent.
She stopped beside him, and the panic slipped through again.
Jane lightly touched his arm. “Okay, Cam. Help is on the way.”
Tires crunched over the gravel outside.
Jane turned toward the window.
A dark SUV pulled into the driveway and stopped behind her pickup.
She looked at Cam once more before opening the front door.
Chris climbed from the SUV with a laptop bag over one shoulder. He reached into the passenger seat and retrieved a second case.
He looked annoyingly good for a man responding to an emergency robot house call.
Not polished.
Not corporate.
Only comfortable.
Jeans. Dark T-shirt. Slightly messy hair. Glasses he probably remembered to wear only after staring at code for too long.
Cute in a nerdy sort of way.
Jane smirked to herself.
Chris looked up as he crossed the driveway and caught her expression. The corner of his mouth lifted as though he might be thinking something similar.
Dangerous.
Jane opened the door wider before her brain could embarrass her further.
“Hey. Thanks for coming, Chris. I hope I didn’t drag you away from anything important.”
“Nah.” He stepped inside. “I was sitting at home thinking about doing yard work, so this is a huge improvement.”
Jane laughed. “Glad my frozen robot could help.”
Chris grinned.
Then he saw Cam.
The smile immediately disappeared, replaced by focus.
Cam stood exactly where Jane had left him. His projected face remained fractured into blurred blocks and partially rendered features that shifted every few seconds without resolving.
Chris approached him. “Well… yeah. I see what you mean.”
He circled Cam slowly and studied the display.
One of Cam’s projected eyes flickered into place for half a second before stretching sideways into static.
Jane tightly folded her arms. “Do you think he’s broken?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
“I think I know what’s happening.”