Human Sister

looked down at the floor. He appeared old, tired, and weak—an image deeply saddening to me. I loved him so much.
    “Where are your clothes?” Elio asked. “You’re shivering.”
    “I’m afraid they’re gone,” the doctor said. “To be analyzed molecule by molecule, I expect. She can have my coat.”
    “No. She’ll wear my clothes,” Elio said. “I’ll wear the coat.”
    “They took our ring,” I said.
    “Our ring? Don’t worry. We’ll get another just like it. We’ll pick it out together.” He quickly took off his clothes, piling them on the exam table. Then, more slowly, he began helping me dress. “What happened to your leg?” he asked as he knelt to help me put my feet into the legs of his pants.
    “Let me see,” Grandpa said, getting up and walking behind me.
    “I was ordered to remove the transmitter,” the doctor said.
    “For what reason?” Grandpa asked.
    “Casey said it was illegally brought through Customs.”
    “Illegally?”
    “I guess there’s some law that says all implanted devices have to be declared.”
    “Grandpa,” Elio said, “what did they do to Sara? Why is she shaking all over?”
    “They gave her an experimental drug and then induced horrific pain.”
    “What? Why would anyone do that to Sara?”
    “They wanted her to tell them about androids in Canada, but she refused to say anything. Casey kept ordering greater and greater pain until her heart stopped.”
    “Her heart stopped?”
    “Only for a minute and thirty-three seconds,” the doctor interjected. “But it seemed like a decade while I was trying to revive her.”
    “Grandpa?” Elio said.
    “I’ve already placed a call in to Dr. Taranik at Stanford Medical Center. We’re old friends. I expect a callback soon. We’ll take her there as soon as she’s dressed and ready.”

    By the time we were settled in a private room at the SMC, my hypersensitivity had diminished enough that I felt comfortable with normal light and sounds, but I still trembled uncontrollably and felt sick with exhaustion. Dr. Taranik was disinclined, even after completing extensive tests that showed not a trace of any known drug in my system, to prescribe something for either the trembling or the exhaustion. He said he had no idea what might react negatively with LN27Q3, a name not appearing in any databank accessible by him.
    He told us that there didn’t appear to be any permanent heart or brain damage, though it was clear that my neurological system had been severely challenged. He said I should remain in the hospital overnight. We would just have to wait to see what the next day brought. In the meanwhile, I was to rest and avoid stimulation as much as possible.
    When I woke the next morning, New Year’s morning, my trembling was gone, but I felt tired and sad and was unable to concentrate normally. Dr. Taranik said all of my tests looked good and predicted that I would wake up the next morning or the next and my depression also would be gone. I was released from the hospital in midafternoon.
    A few days later, Elio returned to his classes at Stanford. He wanted to stay with me longer, but I told him I was feeling better and would be fine until he came back on the weekend. It was during this time that I first noticed Grandpa was working—in his Magnasea office in Berkeley, he said—many more days each week, and for hours longer each day, than I’d ever known him to work away from home. I also noticed that during the increasingly infrequent times he was with me, he remained unusually quiet. I asked him what was wrong.
    “Nothing. I’m simply following doctor’s orders. You’re supposed to rest.”
    “Grandpa, I love you. I hope you don’t blame yourself for what happened.”
    His eyes teared over and his chin quivered. “I’m following doctor’s orders. That’s all.”

Sara

    “B egin where we began,” Michael said a few days ago, right before I began scribbling the twenty some pages I’ve already composed. He handed me a few white fibrous sheets and this antiquated instrument I’m holding, this pen with ink encased in a tube and a ball point that rolls over paper, allowing me to deposit a thin blue trail of thoughts. He’d made the ink, tube, ball point, and sheets of paper in our fabricator.
    “When I was a little girl,” I replied, “I learned to draw letters and numbers. I learned to sign my name. But since then I’ve seldom written anything with a pen. I’ve simply spoken and watched words