The only fault you have tonight is shutting down so cold till I break in.
There are words John has attempted to remove from his vocabulary, at least when he's talking to Allison. Glitch is one of them. Chip is another. Alloy, machine, from the future.
They were all codes. Part of a larger one, granted, verbal cues that were intended to help Allison push herself back into the mode of thought that allowed her to be what John now thought of as "Sarah's machine". Tin Man, his mother called her on occasion, and there were times when it really bothered him. One way or another, Allison had a heart.
Every day, he remembers a little more. The time that Allison had gone to the store alone, blacked out, and ended up arrested. By the time John had tracked her down, she didn't recognize him, didn't remember him or Sarah or any of it.
Sometimes John wonders if it might have been best to not find her at all. If she could have been happy that way. He's not really sure. He knows that he wouldn't have been able to just leave her. Abandon her. He doesn't know what triggered it, that time. But he remembers the panic in his chest when some random guy in the grocery store told him "some girl flipped out", when he got to the police station minutes too late.
Learning that Sarah wanted to abandon Allison somewhere was not a surprise. He wonders how she thought she was going to manage it, how she thought she could convince him something happened to Allison, or that she didn't exist. He's still angry about it. He probably won't stop being angry about it anytime soon.
He remembers helping with reprogramming. The words, the phrases. Allison laying unresponsive. He remembers a brief time period when she was obsessed or interested (he's not sure which) with suicide.
There aren't words for how much that worried him. How much it still worries him.
But he remembers the catch phrases, the hand movements. The reprogramming techniques. And he's trying to forget them all.
They were all codes. Part of a larger one, granted, verbal cues that were intended to help Allison push herself back into the mode of thought that allowed her to be what John now thought of as "Sarah's machine". Tin Man, his mother called her on occasion, and there were times when it really bothered him. One way or another, Allison had a heart.
Every day, he remembers a little more. The time that Allison had gone to the store alone, blacked out, and ended up arrested. By the time John had tracked her down, she didn't recognize him, didn't remember him or Sarah or any of it.
Sometimes John wonders if it might have been best to not find her at all. If she could have been happy that way. He's not really sure. He knows that he wouldn't have been able to just leave her. Abandon her. He doesn't know what triggered it, that time. But he remembers the panic in his chest when some random guy in the grocery store told him "some girl flipped out", when he got to the police station minutes too late.
Learning that Sarah wanted to abandon Allison somewhere was not a surprise. He wonders how she thought she was going to manage it, how she thought she could convince him something happened to Allison, or that she didn't exist. He's still angry about it. He probably won't stop being angry about it anytime soon.
He remembers helping with reprogramming. The words, the phrases. Allison laying unresponsive. He remembers a brief time period when she was obsessed or interested (he's not sure which) with suicide.
There aren't words for how much that worried him. How much it still worries him.
But he remembers the catch phrases, the hand movements. The reprogramming techniques. And he's trying to forget them all.