" She looked up at me." She looked up at me. "Why?" "Because I was doing some design work, and I needed his help. I also needed to be as far away from the AI net as possible." I reached into the pocket of the robe I wore and handed her a rack of about thirty crystal-memory chips. "We came up with this." "What is it?" "It's the pointer specs for a Mephit girl. Looks exactly like you, has a neuron pattern that could support Rowan Majors' thought process." She looked at the box with wide, staring eyes for a second, then said, "You want me to go full organic." "You've been spending more time as Rowan the Mephit than you have as Rowan the AI. I had Hal send me statistics on downtime and interrupt time at Rhysh. I haven't seen numbers that ugly since we took down Luccas." She smiled wanly and said, "You really want it." "Paul's agreed to do the work. If I'm asking too much of you, it's okay to back out now. But Aaden and I agree on this. We don't want someone who's going to be in two places at once, and I can't stand the thought of you not being here for your children. I want you here, Rowan, not here and at Rhysh." She looked thoughtful for a second. "You said once that you either wanted someone who would bear your children and then never be heard from again, or someone who would stay and love them as you do. I didn't believe the first one." "You were smarter than I was," I replied. "I honestly thought I could get the first." "Not in your lifetime," she said. I laughed. "You're all agreed?" she asked. I nodded. "It'll mean that your project goes on hold for a while." "A year or so," I said. "Plus the learning time, all over again." She stared off at the wall behind me for a few minutes, then took the box in hand. "No turning back," she said. "Some people," I said, "believe they were born the wrong species or the wrong sex. You were born into the wrong element. |