Human Sister

news your new friend has brought you.”
    The news consisted of a password to be memorized by me that would access on the computer in Michael’s area several one-time pad encryption keys. These keys would be used by the pigeonoid in delivering messages to, or taking messages from, me. There was also a request for a promise, which I reluctantly gave, never to reveal to Grandpa, or to anyone else except Michael and Elio, the contents of any of the messages it might bring.

    It was a few hours later on the flight home from Calgary that I met Agent Smith and was interrogated by Casey and his pain-inducing “inquisitor,” which overloaded my nervous system and for a time resulted in my suffering deep depression. But by the middle of January, Dr. Taranik decided that I had recuperated enough to resume normal activities, which, to me, meant I was free to resume brainjoining with Michael, an activity Grandpa had prohibited until I was fully recovered. Though I’d told Michael what had happened both when Second Brother broke my finger and when Casey interrogated me, Michael nevertheless seemed unprepared for the terrible memories he discovered in my mind. He began first with Casey’s interrogation, and though he found the roar now silent, the heat now gone, in the memory contrail of my experience, merely the detailed knowledge of what had happened made his eyes sad, like February clouds pouring out tears, and his voice heartrending, with the uh, uh, uh ’s of his special staccato crying.
    But it wasn’t until we revisited Second Brother in room B9 of the Alberta Robotics lab that Michael’s hand swept up over his face. I felt his searching cease. Never before had Michael hidden while we were connected.
    The braincord was still in place—one end in the back of his head, the other end up inside my nose—so I couldn’t move far. I decided to wait a few minutes for him to come out of hiding. If he didn’t, I would press on the trepan door in the back of his head, and the cord would disengage from me.
    He sat perfectly still, his face eclipsed by his hands. How like Second Brother he appeared on the surface—the cool, smooth skin; the short, soft black hair neatly parted on the left; the Asian facial features—but how very different he was inside. And how dearly I loved him.
    Sitting there quietly while he hid, I felt certain I knew what he was hiding from. It wasn’t from the memory he’d found of the pain of my broken finger—that, after all, had been trivial compared with the pain I’d endured during Casey’s interrogation. Rather, it was that someone appearing so similar to him had inflicted the pain on me. Michael was frightened and appalled to think that some part of him might be capable of doing what Second Brother had done. He was hiding, perhaps for the first time, from himself.
    I tried with all my might to project my thoughts and feelings through the braincord: first, that I loved him and was grateful for his life; and second, that though he had the potential to hurt others, I was certain he would never use that potential unless absolutely necessary.
    He leaned toward me, his hands still covering his face. I felt his sadness pouring through the braincord into my mind, and I hugged him and caressed him, and we both cried.

    A few days later, Grandpa came in to examine how well my broken finger was mending. I’d just removed it from the soft interior of the finger-sized, sonic bone-mending chamber, which sounded and felt like a purring cat. He looked at the finger, then said, “Your mother told me you were playing—sticking your fingers into the holes of a scanner frame, she said—when you slipped and broke your finger.”
    “It was embarrassing. I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “I don’t like it when people lie to me.”
    “I’m not lying, Grandpa. It really was embarrassing.”
    “You’re not telling the whole truth; your mother lied to me. You had three distinct bruises, one on each side of the break on the right side of your finger, and one in line with the break on the left side of your finger. Tell me how that configuration of bruises is possible from getting your finger caught in a hole in a metal frame and slipping on powdered graphite.”
    “I promised not to tell you. Please don’t ask me to break my promise.”
    “Who asked you not to tell me?”
    “Grandpa, please, drop this. It doesn’t matter. The finger doesn’t hurt, and it’ll heal perfectly. Please do me this