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"You're an asshole," Sam sneered.
"And you're a thing," Damon returned.
Sam grabbed him, and shook him, hard. She had never done that before, and the intensity of her eyes, of her anger nearly undid Damon.
"I'm not a thing!"
He woke from the dream with a start, the words echoing in his ears. Had he really been so cruel to Sam?
A force shook his shoulder. Out of dream-land, he flailed at the unexpected touch.
"What the hell?"
"Shhhh."
In the moonlight half-filling the bedroom, Damon hazily made out Ty's face. A sickly sweet smell emanated from him.
"Are you...drunk?"
"Shhhhhhh," Ty repeated, finger held up to Damon's mouth, which he slapped away. "I need your," hiccup, "help."
Damon propped up on his elbows. "What are you talking about? What time is it?"
"Sam."
With that, Ty grabbed Damon. Not as forcefully as had occurred in his dream, but enough of a parallel to shake him to his core.
He gathered the sense to wrestle free of his brother. Then, rubbing his eyes, he said, "I know."
Even in the peek-a-boo shadows thrown out by the moonlight, Damon could see tears shining in Ty's eyes.
"We have to."
The sentence needed no more than that, because Damon knew the rest of it:
Save her.
He patted Ty on the arm awkwardly and nodded. He was too tired and Ty was too drunk for him to explain how the process had already begun.
YOU ARE READING
Obsolution ✔
Fiksi IlmiahTy, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
