The Midnight Men and Other Stories by Lee Moan Read Free Book Online Page B

pressed against my own fleshy pink one. “You think my love isn’t real?” she whispered. “You think because I am not flesh and blood like you, that I don’t have emotions?” She faltered then, and an oddly human misty glaze came over her eyes. “Way down at the bottom of the sea, with my inhibitor chip gone, I had a lot of time to work out how I really felt about you. And, do you know what, David? I realised I do love you. Even after all.”
    “Gloria, stop this,” I said, knocking the wooden spoon out of her hand. “This has to end. Today. Now.”
    She shook her head slowly. “No, David, this is the beginning for us. A true beginning. No inhibitor chip. No programming. Just you and me.”
    I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “But I love another woman, Gloria! A real woman!”
    Gloria’s ruined face pulled into an ugly snarl. “What, that slut, Kathy Bedford? The whore who came to service me and ended up servicing you?” I was so stunned, I fell back against the refrigerator. Gloria poked me in the chest with her metal forefinger. “Don’t think I didn’t know what was going on. And what’s really ironic, honey-dear, is that I was prepared to turn a blind eye to your little affair. But not now. Oh no. That little fling of yours is over!”
    “Gloria?” I said, the words trembling on my lips, “where’s Kathy? What have you done to her?”
    She turned away from me, her eyes settling on something outside. Following the path of her gaze, I stumbled across the kitchen to the open window.
    The heated swimming pool!
    All I could see was a mass of raven-dark hair spreading out like a fan in the centre of the pool. Ice water flooded into my veins. I rushed out through the door, and without hesitation, I dived into the crystal blue water. When I raised my eyes to the surface, I found my worst fears come true. It was Kathy staring down at me, her pale features frozen in a mask of shock.
    I dragged her naked body to the poolside and wrapped it in the ridiculous, frilly bathrobe I’d been wearing. Holding her there, lost in grief and stroking her dead skin, I forgot, momentarily, the monster that had invaded my home.
    Moments later, I was reminded, as the sound of shuffle-clank-shuffle-clank came over the tiles and stopped behind me.
    “Poor Kathy,” she said. “She just couldn’t hold her breath as long as me.”
    I said nothing, containing my rage, silently plotting a more permanent end to this fiendish bitch.
    Then she said: “Kathy said an awful lot before she died. She told me some very interesting things about the RSA.”
    She had my interest, and I hated her for that, too. I half-turned towards her.
    “Did you know, for instance, that all replicant spouse units are fitted with a sort of black box flight recorder, like they have on aeroplanes?” She paused, letting me soak up the information. “Yes, you see they were worried that some of their products would get abused, so they had these little recorders put in which log everything that happens to each unit. You can’t erase it, and you can’t destroy the box. It’s very clever.” She looked down at Kathy with a feigned expression of pity. “The only time it doesn’t record, she said, is during the recharge period, so Kathy’s plan was almost perfect. Sadly, she didn’t know that I came to at the last minute. Spoiled everything.
    “I think Kathy told me all that to try and stop me drowning her, but I couldn’t stop myself by then. So that’s all up here.” She tapped the exposed metal plate at her temple. “Anyone who downloads my black box will know I’ve been very naughty.”
    She giggled like a schoolgirl. The sound sent a shiver up my spine.
    “But,” she went on, her voice returning to its cold, emotionless state, “it also recorded everything you did to me, David. Every . . . little . . . thing.”
    I looked back down at Kathy and smoothed a few strands of hair from her face. “So where does that leave us,