Impossible Miracles

Chapter 4
Fading Hope

"Brother, what would you like me to do?"

"Just sit still over there, Rin. I'm almost done."

"Yes, Brother."

The mechanical tone coming from the girl's mouth caused the boy scientist to flinch.

She had never spoken with a monotone before. She was supposed to be full of life and energy.

But the moment he accepted the fact that this robot, this girl, was a mere imitation of who she was supposed to be was the moment he gave up.

He coughed a little into his hand as he finished scrawling his notes on with the other. He narrowed his eyes in slight disgust at the flecks of red on his palm, but he just took out his handkerchief and wiped it away. He put the pen down and turned his chair around.

She was still sitting there, her hands folded neatly in her lap, feet placed firm on the floor, back straight and tall. It was so proper it was unnatural.

The room was cleared away. The wires were cleared away, and the bed was pushed to a corner of the room (with the girl's help, because metal limbs were stronger than those of flesh even when one was newly born). The papers were stacked in a pile at another corner. About the only piece of equipment that hadn't moved was the computer with its many screens.

The center of the room was empty but for two chairs and an easel. A bookshelf had been installed in the back, filled with novels that he had dug from the attic and from the empty room that stood next to his. He had had to dust them off, as they hadn't been touched since the inhabitant had left them behind.

He could not go in to that room until today. It was hers and she'd always chased him out on account of it being "girl property." And it was too quiet in there. So quiet that he'd start hearing and seeing people that weren't there.

There were no parents. They had disappeared long ago. He didn't even remember their faces. There was one portrait over the sitting room, but to Len, the two rooms that existed were his bedroom and the laboratory.

From the start, it had just been the two of them.

And now there was one.

(The robot… She was not Rin until the most important aspect – what made Rin Rin – was there. Until then, she was just "the girl.")

He settled himself into the chair opposite where she sat. He could feel her eyes on him. They were always on him, watching his every move, as though waiting for his instructions. It made him slightly sick; he had known when he'd developed the program that this would happen – it was an unfortunate side effect to the learning process and hopefully she'd "outgrow" it – but that didn't mean he was any more accepting of the behavior.

She was never this dependent.

He was always the dependent one.

And just programming her to say "Brother" instead of calling him by his name or, God forbid, "Master" didn't make anything any more natural.

It ended up just making everything worse.

With a deep breath as Len gathered his nerves, he opened his mouth.

"I'm done. Let's start with your first lesson."

"Yes, Brother.