Turn your head. Turn it away from your life, and face the box in front of you. See the static-y, electronic shapes. See the truth inside the whispering screen, see facts, see revelation, see it all spilled before you, in a cacophony of images. See the shouting reporter, hand clasped to her ear. Hear her words, but also hear them rush past you, incomprehensible, unknowable. Hear the screaming people, see the camera twist and heave. See the reporter duck, see her wide, racoon eyes frantic and terrified. See all this in a fraction of a moment. See it through the careful lens of the box. See it through the great eye of the watching camera.

Then-

You see the blurred figures. The camera strives towards them, but is thrown back by invisible arms. You see the smaller figure break away, fleeing the others, fleeing the two men in dark coats. The fleeing form runs with the desperation of the lost, with frantic, terrified speed, but it cannot go far. The camera says so, and a great booming noise, horribly final, tears the figure apart. It falls and lies on its side, curled protectively around itself. A redness surrounds it now. The camera pants, delighted, and leans closer.

You pull away, perhaps repulsed. Perhaps you put your hands to your head. But you still watch. You can pull back, but you cannot turn away. You are held captive by the flickering box, by the roving camera, as its turns its single defining eye upon the two men.

The older man, the taller one, the one whom you recognise with an uncomfortable jolt, glances down at the shotgun in his hands. There is blood on his blond hair, and his eyes are obscured by the glare on his glasses. He is looking over at the figure curled on the ground. There is nothing on his face. It is as though it is etched from stone. A brief wind moves his blond hair, and for a moment the sun catches it. His head is now suddenly ablaze, lit by the sun, a shining crown.

You hear the reporter. You hear her distant, tinny voice, as though it is being piped through tin cans and a string, the kind you made with your brother when you were a child.

". . . City legislation. This is the second such occurrence in barely a week. These artificial beings, although human-like in appearance are known for their viciousness when dealing with human life. There have been two android related murders in the past year alone, and the City Council has moved, at the urging of Councilwoman and business magnate--"

You miss the name, but suddenly the screen is filled by the still photo of a woman. She has a beautiful, soft face, and tendrils of dark red hair curve loosely around her chin. She is smiling, but the smile only curves the ends of her round mouth. Her eyes are sharp and intelligent. Her cold, not-real smile bothers you.

The announcer drifts away from you as the camera once again falls upon the prone figure. You watch the spreading redness underneath it, and wonder why it's bleeding, if it is indeed an artificial creature.

The camera jolts one final time, and focuses on the second man. He is smaller than the first, more slender, and his face is not empty; it is pained. His brown eyes stare away, beyond the camera, to where the broken android must be lying. His gaze is lit with a confused, empty pity.

When you went into The Edge, you always went in looking for something. Mostly it was a good time, the chance to lose yourself in the flow of the music, to catch the tail of the light show, to feel the beat of the drums through and through your sobbing soul, and forget. Some of you go to call on your mistress, be she person or alcohol, and move across the dance floor clasped to each other, body to body. Surprisingly few come through the neon doors looking for friends. You came alone, but if you were lucky, you wouldn't leave alone.

Grant came looking for his daughter. There is a room above the club, next to the DJ's stand, a room lit with pink clouds and prancing ponies where only the vaguest beat from the music could be heard. The room is a favour for Grant, who often dealt in favours, in trades and bargains, as they brought better results than money. The room is a large favour, a favour out of tune with the club, with the dancers below and the racing lights, but the bargain struck was beneficial to all, and all are distantly content.

Grant trots up the iron stairs with a light tread, keeping carefully out of tune with the music. He is also careful not to look down, where the neon lights raced and bodies twisted. He frowns, and turns the collar of his jacket up, to hide the view below. It was unforgivably late. He'd have to take Owly out the back way. God forbid she'd look below and become entranced by the music.
He reaches the above, the wide iron catwalk, the DJ's platform, the room-that-is-a-favour and opens the door, swinging it inward. Immediately in time with the soundproof walls, the music silences.

May sees him from outside the wide window, out on the DJ's roost, and waves. She leaves the twisting turntables and comes through the opposite door, to stand on tip-toe to brush her lips against his cheek. This is her greeting, made to all and meaning nothing, but he still stiffens involuntarily and turns his eyes away.

"Heyyyy," she smiles. "She conked out a while back. I let her be. God, you're late."

"I know," he says, ashamed. It wasn't May, of course. There was no guile, no judgement in her open features, but he still feels unworthy. The critic inside him roars, screaming bad parent bad father how could you?? and he shouts back at it: I'm here, aren't I?? I'm not abandoning her, I have to work! Leave me alone.

But it still didn't excuse his lateness.

"What happened?" she asks, but her eyes were bright, and he knew if he told her the truth, it would eventually reach the dance floor, and rise up, a delicious, haunting rumour for all to tell. Rumours about him are the best kind of rumours. Rumours about him reach up, to the glowing throne of politics and power.

"Oh, nothing," he shrugs. "Just late. Sorry. Where is she?"

"Asleep in the back. Where else?" she says teasingly, eyeing him. Her oval face is lit with a curlicue half-smile, beguiling under her shock of green hair. C'mon, she begs, c'mon, dance with me. He isn't in the mood; the just-finished day weighs too heavily on him and he moves past her, towards another door, this one decorated with a smiling cartoon elephant.

And so she was. Asleep, chubby starfish-shaped hands tucked under her round chin, indigo hair haloing her face, clashing with the pristine white of the pillow.

"Thanks, May," Grant says, and bends suddenly, to press his own adult face against the sleeping child's neck. What are you doing? something inside him shrieks, and he squeezes his eyes shut, wishing. What am I doing...? he thinks, echoing the voice. What am I doing keeping her here? God, if I wasn't so broke... If I didn?t have to work... If if if...

If only the City spun away, and came back washed pure and clean of its neon garb. If only its cleansing meant green parks and swingsets. If only the grey sky split and blue spilled upon the drab buildings, blue that rose up and above, that curled around him and her and made all . . . perfect.
She wakes, suddenly, sensing him.

"Hi Daddy," she says groggily, and reaches for him.

"Hi Owly. Ready to go?"

May watches them from the outer room. The music calls to her, the turntables gyrating with animalistic fury, sounding in time with the twisting bodies. But there, in the inner room ringed with fluffy clouds and doe-eyed ponies, there, as Grant pulls the child's sweater over her head, so that her hair is caught in the neck, making her giggle sleepily.... There, that there, in some distant inner womb, that calls to her too. She turns away.

"Daddy, can I say good-bye to Max?"

She is still half asleep, and Grant dismisses the ‘x' as a mere lisp.

"Sure, May's right outside-"

"No," and she insistently comes awake. "Max! I want to say good-bye to Max."

He carries her into the outer room, where the wide window displays the muted club. May is still standing there, still looking with that bemused expression.

"Who's Max?" He asks her. She grins, broadly.

"Oh! New girl. Just came in last week. She's singing for the club, but I think she likes kids or something, ‘cause she was up here earlier. Read a book to Owly." It comes out in a rush, and May's cheeks flush. There is something there, something interesting and sly about her words. Grant tilts his head, looking at her quizzically.

"Max? A girl?"

"It's what she calls herself. We don't put . . . uh, we don't care about names here. She's Max." And again May smiles, again with that excited, knowing smile. Again, and again. It chimes in time with the vague beat of the muted music.

"Wanna meet her?"

"I want to say good-bye," Owly says, head tucked beneath Grant's chin. She is slipping away again, and the words have a dreamy quality.

"I . ." he hesitates. "I really should go. It's really late."

"Yeah," says May. "Pity. You'd like her." Again the smile.

"I should go," he mutters again, and moves to the door, which opens suddenly from the other side.
He is close enough to see the freckles spotting her snub nose. He is close enough to see the sudden dilation of her pupils as she takes him in, close enough to see the flowers painted childishly around her eyes. The flowers are three different shades of blue, and circles her dark eyes, the
colours sharp next to the paleness of her skin. This must be her.

"Hi," she says, but it was not for him. Owly reaches a starfish-shaped hand out to her and she caught it between slender fingers.

Her gaze jolts back to him, her eyes as wide and unfocussed as a newborn's. She blinks, carefully, the way an owl blinks, in animalistic innocence. She is beautiful in that way. Whole and untouched, the blue flowers the only sign of man-made interference. In an age of cosmetic perfection, her freckles burn on her upturned nose, and her eyes are brown, not kewpie-doll blue.

He holds his breath. He wonders if May knows. No, she must know, and the girl in front of him would have been hired to make a point, despite the horrible illegality of the action.

But the girl smiles at him, and is even more beautiful for it. If she saw through him, there is no sign.

"Hi. You're Grant, right? I've heard a lot about you," she says shyly, and blinks again, still in that careful, mechanical way.

He smiles, nods, and turns his head downward, to Owly, so he will not have to look at her. He is conflicted, and Owly's voice rises in the past: No! Max! I want to say good-by to Max. He dangles between what he has been taught, and what is standing before him, with freckles on her pretty nose.

They speak, briefly. She smiles and ducks her head awkwardly and laughs once. Below the beat of the music changes and black light roars across the club. White becomes lit by black, and shines with a neon glow. Smiles glare in the night, people laughing at their shining teeth.

"That's my cue," she says suddenly, and almost bows.

"See you!" And she skips away, lightly. Lighter than him, lighter than anything human. He looks away, careful not to watch her as she leaves. He is almost trembling.

"I can't believe you let that thing near my daughter," he says, and May's head jerks up, surprised.

"Grant, she's just as human as you or I. Don't tell me you believe that shit the politicians shove down everyone's throats-?"

"No, its not," he says softly. "It's a machine. It's not human." Owly squirms in his arms. He takes her out the back way. She has her arms wrapped so tightly around his neck he is almost choking. At the top of the iron stairs he pauses. He hadn't meant to stop there, but he still pauses, and the music from below rises up and swirls around his ankles. She is on the little stage now, brown hair flying. Her eyes are brilliantly lit, and even from the top of the stairs, he can see the freckles sprinkling her imperfect nose. Lights explode behind her, pierce her, and for a moment he imagines he can see through her, into her mechanical skeleton and heart. But the voice that rises about the chaos is tragic, and unspeakably beautiful.

"That's Max," says Owly, but her voice is worried. Something has twisted in her little world, confusing her.

"Yeah," he says, and turns away.

From the little stage, the android looks out over the bobbing heads of the dancers and watches him go. Her dark, very-real eyes are filled with a wordless pity.

***

And now raise your eyes from the girl on the stage, if you can. Look out over the great expanse of the City. Look out over its dark depths, the way you looked into the dance club, with fevor and excitement. Look now, and look hard. Follow the City skyline, see where it is etched against the sky, a mechanical being, its great buildings reaching up to stab at the stars. See the City, the great City, smell its exhalation, hear its sighs, and when you are tired of this, look deeper and see the building.

No, not that one... the one beside it. The one with the great towering spires, and wide gardens beside it. The one with power ingrained into its iron girders. The building that screams that it is so important so very very important, that inside its walls is held the beating heart of the City. See how different it is from the rest of the City. See the two stained glass windows, see the roses inching up the bricked walls. The dusky vines that cradle the great building, that wrap tightly around its marble columns, snake up the bricked walls, and entangle themselves in the wrong iron bars of the balcony. There is something majestic about the building. Something in its great body harkens back to an earlier, less complicated time. A time when the City did not stretch so far. A time so very long ago, and so very lost to now.

The woman, whom you must remember from the photo on the television, stands on the balcony, which is halfway between the sea and the sky. The building crouches gracefully on a slight rise, and below it foams the rushing sea. All cities, all successful cities, sit at the mouth of a sea, and this water is wide and dark and full of stars.

She stands on the balcony, surrounded by the creeping roses, and turns her face to them. They rise to meet her, and open their petals in adoration. She looks at them, and they at her. Her hair is as dark and red as they are, and is curiously unbound. She has thrown off the shackles of the day, and her suit lies crumpled on the floor of the apartment behind her. Her bare shoulders are bright in the City's night.

A wind, colder, harsher than the breeze, rushes suddenly out over the sea and lifts her red hair from her neck. She raises her head, eyes searching; the wind also carries the distant roar of the club, and the android's voice whispers softly.

The roses mutter among themselves. She is so quiet she is so still whatever can be wrong? They chant. The woman stares away from them, and remains there, looking out over the rush of white-capped water, listening as the final strain of music dies away. A great darkness settles on her face. It tints her brilliant eyes, and curves around her mouth.

The roses sigh, distantly, then gasp with relief as the door to the apartment opens with a noisy whisper. He's here he's here now everything will be well they murmur, but she does not turn towards the sound of him entering. The roses do, however, and see from the exhausted slope of his shoulders that it has been a trying day. Days do not roll off him, as they roll off her. She remains untouched, eyes unlined, face as smooth as a child's, while worry distantly creases his eyes. The long dark coat slides from him, and he tiredly shakes his blond head. The roses turn to her, waiting.

"There's a machine at that club," she says softly, and bends to cup a rose between careful hands.
"You'll have to go tomorrow, and kill it."

Grant awoke early the next day. He hadn't meant to, but a heaviness, a strange guilt had followed him home, allied with the itchiness of a restless night. The stars had been out by the time they'd returned to their little house, twinkling desperately against the blazing City nightlights. The street was lined with streetlamps, electric heads bowed as if in reverent prayer. They had watched him silently, watched him carry the sleeping child beneath their wide gaze, watched with voyeuristic pleasure as he fumbled with the keys to the door, watched, grinning, as he slipped through it, and was finally hidden.

An uncomfortable night pressed, and he lay on his bed with the curtains open, staring into the City night. He wasn't sure what he felt. He thought distantly of the young woma-the android, he corrected himself, and felt an even heavier weight settling in his stomach.

Finally, sleep insisted.

"Daddy?"

He feels her climb onto the bed, and sighs, pulling the covers over his head.

"Daddy?"

She clambers on top of him, and merrily bounces on his chest.

"Wake up! Wake up! You promised!"

He sighs again. He hadn't exactly promised, but to a child everything is a promise, even a lie. He pushes the covers back, and regards her, bemused. Sunlight staggers into the room, drunk and giddy, painting the walls a brilliant yellow. If the City had beautiful days, this could have been one.

"Alright, alright," he shrugs the blanket from his body, and swings his legs over the side of the bed. Owly bounces higher, and springs shriek under her somersaults. A wide smile splits her face, and she raises her hands in time with the groaning springs.

"Yaaaaaayyy! Today we go to the park!" She shouts, as though there is someone besides Grant to hear her, as though she is telling someone else a glorious secret. "Today today today today!" she shouts, and the sound roars off the sun-shined walls.

Grant reaches for her, and pulls her to him.

"Okay, yeah . . . In a minute. Don't wake the neighborhood."

She tucks herself into his arms, head under his chin, eyes wide and fingers in her mouth. She presses her face to the scratchy fabric of his T-shirt and sighs deeply. He places his chin carefully on the crown of her head and together they sit like that, the sun drifting past their bronzed figures.

You see the arching buildings reach out to the sun, see them stained red in the Sunday light. You see the sun lance through the wide, open balcony doors, the doors that are normally closed on the apartment. But now they are flung open, welcoming the sun, and the roses curled around the balcony raise their faces upwards, silently worshipping. You see the man standing on the balcony, forearms resting on the iron fence, the roses ignoring him with steadfast calm. He stares down into the rising water, which licks greedily at the base of the building. His cold blue eyes watch the rushing sea, and the sun lights his blond head, so that it blazes in the reddening dawn.

Behind him the woman is curled in their bed. Her red hair spills out on the pillow, encircling her bare shoulders. The sheets are twisted around her body. In her sleep, she sighs, dreamily. The man glances back at her, then turns suddenly, and strides through the apartment. He pulls a shirt on over his head, and shrugs into the long black coat. He pauses before leaving, though, and stops to place the tips of his fingers on the woman's forehead for a moment, as though in silent prayer.

She does not hear the sound of the door closing, and sighs again, pulling the sheets closer around her. In her sleep, she whispers after him: don't forget.

You see the child skip towards the playground, which glints with newness. You see Grant following, hands stuffed into his cargo pants, shoulders hunched against the sun. He is not old, but his hair is a shocking white. You see the android, perched gracefully on the top bar of the jungle gym, watching him curiously. She remembers his eyes from the night before, dark and quiet, distantly judgmental. She thinks how odd it must be to have white hair like that, and yet be so young. She wonders if he was teased as a child; if other children, frantic for acceptance, had turned on him with his white hair, and made up horrible chants that would later haunt his dreams.

"Owly," Grant has just seen the android. He sees her out of the corner of his eye, the dark shape balanced on the inch-wide bar, balanced on the balls of her feet, hands clasped behind her head. She looks as though she is about to take flight, and stares out over the playground, waiting for the perfect wind.

"Owly, come here now," He reaches for her, but she has skipped too far ahead, intent on the hanging swings. Her head turns, looking at him in confusion. Her blue eyes, so dark that the pupil is almost lost, squint against the glare of the noon sun.

"Owly, NOW. Come here NOW."

She looks past him and sees the dark bird shape of the android.

"HI MAX!" she bellows, and waves a starfish-plump hand. "HI MAX!"

The child yelps when he grabs her, yanking her away from her waving. She struggles suddenly against him, human instinct overwhelming the rational thought of this is my parent he will not harm me he is here to protect me I am his. Flight response whirls in her brain, and her knee connects brutally with his stomach.

He gasps, and manages to fall backwards on the grass in a most spectacular fashion.

The android chuckles and stares down at him, face lit with amusement.

"Hi Max," says Owly, and is suddenly shy, and looks down too.

He scrambles to his feet, body twisted so that he is always facing her, and nudges Owly.

"Go to the swings, Owly, please."

The child glances from adult to adult. Her eyes are round and bewildered. Grant opens his mouth to ask her again, to beg her to go, but suddenly she turns and wanders away. He edges carefully to the side, hoping the movement looks natural, casual, and places himself between the retreating child and the mechanical woman.

Except there is nothing mechanical about her. The strange, delaying motions, the wide, all-too innocent stare is strangely absent. He feels his heart sink.

The android laughs, bitterly.

"May said you were different. She's idealistic, her and her Edge-friends. Always making a point, I suppose. I think it's funny when you prove people wrong."

Her smile is very distant. It is not angry. It is just empty and defeated. She looks almost like a broken doll, its painted smile still shining from its cracked, mauled face. Her brown almost-real eyes turn down to the grass beneath their feet.

"I'm second generation," she says abruptly. "We don't do those stupid tics... The blinking. The thing with the eyes. We're not that . . . inept. We're developed, as beings. Not like those first generation models. I guess you would've only seen those. I'm different. I'm new. Like the movie said: more human than human."

It is as though she is reciting a factory line, listing her specifications to a prospective buyer. He half expects her to do a pirouette, and sing a jingle that goes with her model. He blinks, disbelieving. Her eyes are still downcast, and he gazes strangely at the top of her dark head. For some reason he wishes she would look up, so he could see her freckled nose.

"You..." He shakes his head. The concept trickles blandly through his mind, shocking him. In the background, the swings creak musically, and Owly pumps her chubby legs, soaring higher with each stroke. "You did that on purpose... At the club."

She looks up.

"Yeah. May, the way she talked about you, it was like you were a saint."

It was Grant's turn to look away, frowning. It wasn't fair. He was far from a saint, and May knew it. Favours were traded at the club. And if those favours were information, little tidbits about the inner-workings of the City's power-mongers, in exchange for a safe place for Owly... well, that meant nothing. There was no cause. He couldn't afford to take sides. It had only been a favour. It had only been May's idea: Hey, Grant, she had said, smiling. Smiling ever so pleasantly. You need a hand? C'mon, we're friends... I'll help you. All I want are a few words... A few harmless little words. You're on the inside. You know the politics. Just a few words, that's all I want. We're not trying to start a revolution, just bring down something that's rotten and corrupt. And she had continued smiling, thinking she was making him choose. Choose between the place he worked in, and that which she thought was right. He had not, though. Her world was no better than the one he frequented. She was no more right than they were.

"But..." The android's voice choked off, and he snapped back to the now, frowning.

"But I saw you on the television. With him. A cop would never give a shit about a synth, so I knew--"

"I'm not a cop," he is surprised at the viciousness in his voice.

"No," she says softly, and her eyes blaze with a sudden judgement. He knows what she is thinking, what she is chanting merrily in her head: you're not a cop, you're WORSE! You're lower than that, you take your power from--

"I'm sorry," she says, and when he looks closely, he sees that she is indeed, very sorry. The brief judgement is gone.

"I shouldn't have said that. I don't even know you. It's just..." she fidgets, glancing
around, at the park, at the stubby trees, at a soaring seagull. "May and her friends, they see everything in black and white. This is good, that is bad. We're in the right, they're in the wrong, and it can't be like that . . ."

"So I'm sorry," she says again. He is shocked to see a strange agony in her eyes, as she looks past him, where Owly spins on the creaking swings. She turns away, intent on fleeing.

"Max . . ?" The name catches in his throat. There is a distant roaring in his ears. The great heaviness in his chest stirs as though it is alive, as though it is a snake curled in his lung. "How'd you get that name?"

She turns back and smiles, genuinely this time.

"It was a gift."

"We used to give each other names, because they wouldn't," says Max. They sit on the park bench, the chipped wooden slats which bear the scars of a thousand knives (A.E loves G.B, J.S. is a perv) digging into their backs, and watch Owly in the sandbox. She is building a miniature city. It rises up around her, stacks of damp sand perfectly crafted beneath her childish fingers. Max swings her legs under the bench, childishly. Grant peers at her out of the corner of his eye. He rationalises, insisting to himself that she is not a threat. He tells himself that if she meant to hurt them, she would have tried to by now. But he still watches her watching his daughter, and is strangely disturbed by it all.

"At night, we used to creep around the lab and write our names into the walls. It was like we were proving we had existed, that we were permanent. It was sort of like--" she looks at him, sneakered feet suddenly stilled. "It was like we were . . ." she pauses, and Grant sees frustration on her face. She has no words for the action. Nothing can describe it.

"You were leaving proof of yourself, so that others would remember?" he phrases it like a question. She shakes her head.

"No one remembers us," she says. Grant looks away. Owly has made another castle, packing the wet sand into a hump-like shape. He hears her talking to herself: ". . . and then the dragon came along and said ‘who's been living in my castle?' and the princess said--"

"Who gave you your name?" asks the android.

"Um. . . my father. I'm named after him." Grant rubs a hand through his white hair. He stares intently at Owly.


"That's . . . nice." Max whispers, and Grant laughs, nervously. Yes, it is nice, to be named after fathers and grandfathers, to have a lineage and a family. To trace yourself through the years, to have your blood ingrained into the ages. How nice. How wonderful. Such things are not so common, and the android's eyes are lit with a kind of jealousy.

"No," he says quietly. "It's not nice. You didn't know my father." He clutches at a clump of hair at the back of his head. He looks away, an old anger rising in his chest. He presses it down, subdues it with a familiar, blinding calm.

The cell in his pocket chortles suddenly, and he lunges for it, relieved. The little mechanical scrap never brought good things, but this surreality, chatting with an artificial creature accused of atrocities and terror, talking with it so casually. . . it was almost more than he could bear.

He watches the numbers dash across the little display on the cell, unknowing, uncaring. They collect in an orderly, coded fashion. They spell out death with pristine clairity. He feels his breath catch in his throat as he interprets them. The heaviness in his chest rages once again, and he is suddenly aware of the illegality of his actions. The woman beside him . . . My God, I should've arrested her. It's my bloody job, for pete's sake . . . If they knew . . .

Max is staring at him. For the first time, he lets himself look back, look at her full in the face. He sees realization wash over her, sees the sudden, frightened dialation of her pupils. She must have seen the code flash across the cell's display. But it is just that, a code. She shouldn't know, she shouldn't be able to solve it.

"I. . ."

"We have our own language," she says, and takes the little toy from him. He lets her, unprotesting.

She cradles it in her hands and speaks, as though to a friend: "There will be a death tonight. Someone will die because of a law unfairly made. Because of scapegoats, and the need to understand. I see my death." The future unfolds around her. It unfolds like a bird streaching its great, ravaged wings. It unfolds into the night ahead with wrenching finality. He see is it flee in front of him, terrible and haunting. He sees it end in a shotgun blast.

He tries to breathe, ever so carefully. He feels the curling heaviness in his chest. It must come out, another Grant, another voice thinks practically inside his head. It must be fixed. It must be banished. It is still there, coiled oppressively around him. It will drown him, he thinks. I'm going to drown in a sea of sprockets and wires and mechanical blood. . . But the words were not his own. He remembers them from last night, the blond man's head bent in his hands, whispering. I'm going mad.

"We've nowhere else to go," she says. Her head is still bowed to the little cell. Her voice is quiet, solumn, but not anguished. It jumps just then, though, betraying her. "We come here, to hide, but he always finds us. I watched the television last night. I saw what he did."

"Who?" he asks, carefully. He knows who, but wonders if she will use his name.

"When you name someone, you give them power." She says softly, as though reading his mind.

Grant frowns. She still has not looked at him. She stares at the cell as thought its power is great and wide, and will save her.

"I've never done anything to them, ever, and still they want to . . ." she looks up at Grant, bewildered. There is a terrible anguish in her eyes. A breeze gently moves her dark hair. Loose strands waft into her eyes, across her freckled nose and into the corner of her mouth. She ignores the rebellious hair, and stares intently at him. "I've never done anything to him," she says again.

"He doesn't care," Grant answers truthfully. "It's the law. No artificial beings or androids allowed in the City. We just do our jobs." He hesitates, then adds, ruthlessly; "It's not personal."

In the sandbox, Owly laughs loudly, and pummels her castle. It crumbles beneath the blows, damp sand scattering. "Take that! And that! Silly princess!" she chortles. "I am a dragon! I am bigger than you!" Her laughter rings wildly through out the empty park. It echoes merrily throughout the silent trees, and she beams up at Grant and the android, eyes joyful beneath her black bangs.

"I should go," The android stands, gracefully. Grant thinks back to when she perched on the jungle gym, balanced with inhuman agility, like a bird about to take flight.
Suddenly she reaches forward, and grasps his hand.

"Please," she says, final desperation making her grip painful. "Remember me. Please. May won't. I'm just a cause to her, and she'll find another, sooner or later. Owly's too young . . . Please, will you? Remember me . . ?"

He wants to pull his hand away. He does not want to look at her winsome, freckled face, and see the wholesome beauty in her dark eyes. He wants to remain balanced between two worlds, taking from each, never giving. He wants things to be the same. He wishes she was not holding his hand. He wishes he could not feel how soft her skin is, nor see how earnestly she looks at him.

"I will," he says. The words are clear. They do not catch in his throat.

"Thank you." The moment is understated. There is no brilliant flash of light. Policemen do not appear out of the park's foliage to arrest him for this final choosing. There is nothing but Owly laughing in the sandbox. The dragon has sent the princess and her army fleeing from the City, in tattered rags. They will hunt for a new castle, and begin a new, better City. She turns to smooth, un-scarred sand, and builds another mound. "This will be for you," she tells the princess. "This is your castle. Who wants to live with a mean old dragon anyway?" She laughs again, and the City rises up, new and whole, beneath her chubby fingers.

"I will remember you too," says Max. She turns and walks away from him. He watches her straight, proud back as she disappears out of the park, the trees bending their great leafed branches to encircle her.


On the bench, Grant tips his head back and looks straight up, through the clouds, to the ravaged sky. It's going to be a very beautiful day, he thinks, and is glad for it.