== Trigger warning: ==

This chapter contains: mentions of illicit drugs.

==================

“Mom, I’m home,” I called once I walked inside the apartment. “We have a guest.”

My mother walked into the living room, then stopped once she saw Helena standing by my side.

“Mom, this is Helena, the friend who helped me out the other day. Helena, this is my mother, Regina.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Oliveira,” said Helena.

My mother, who was not at all used to formalities (especially not coming from a friend of mine), was probably surprised with Helena’s manners. She raised her eyebrows, and nodded in an approving manner. This did not, however, stop her from asking the awkward question she asks whenever I bring a girl over:

“So, Helena, what’s your relationship with my daughter?”

“Mom!” I yelled in protest.

“What?” she retorted. “I’m your mother, I need to know.”

No you don’t! I thought about saying, but decided against. In my experience, the more I tried to argue with mom, the less she would hear me out. Beside me, Helena was smiling, and she seemed to find this situation somewhat amusing.

“Lucia and I are just friends, Mrs. Oliveira,” she told my mom.

I have to say, hearing Helena say that did hurt me a little, even if it was nothing but the truth. We’d been on a date together (two, if you count us meeting at the coffee shop), but that was it. We weren’t officially dating, or anything. Maybe Helena preferred it that way. Maybe it would be better if I never asked her out. Hell, I’m overthinking this again, aren’t I?

My mother’s eyes fell on me, and I could tell that she didn’t believe what Helena had told her.

“It’s true,” I said, trying not to sound sad. “By the way, mom, is Freddie’s cage in your room? I wanna show him to Helena.”

“In the balcony,” she informed me, before diving back into the kitchen. “You know I can’t sleep with all the noise he makes.”

I crossed the living room and went to open the balcony door. There I found Freddie asleep on the charging pod.

“Hello, little guy,” I called, but it wasn’t until I had opened his cage and petted the top of his head that Freddie reacted to me. He woke up, and started sniffing the air around him, wriggling his whiskers (“whisking”) as he did so.

“So this is Freddie,” said Helena, joining me on the balcony.

“Yep,” I said, taking Freddie in my hands. “You wanna hold him?”

“May I?” she asked. I nodded, then handed her the four kilogram mouse replica that I had in my hands. “Why is he so big?” she asked. She was right, Freddie was at least five times the size of a regular mouse.

“Cheaper hardware,” I explained. “The smaller you want something to be, the more expensive it gets. And it was easier for me to work with the inputs and outputs. You have no idea how many tiny robotic muscles this thing has.”

“That makes sense,” said Helena, as she patted Freddie, who, in turn, seemed to be enjoying this very much. “Hello, Freddie, how are you?”

She put the mouse back on the cage, and locked it. Freddie scratched his ear with a hind leg, then climbed into the exercise wheel and started running.

“This is incredible, you know that?” said Helena. “I can’t believe you were thirteen when you did this. I’m kinda jealous.”

“That’s not fair,” I told her. “You know my father was one of the head researchers in the human replica project. It wasn’t hard for him to get in touch with people who studied mice connectomes. In the end, dad just got me everything I needed and taught me how to build it.”

Freddie stopped running, climbed off the exercise wheel, then dashed back to the charging pod.

“How does he know?” Helena asked. “I don’t suppose it’s natural for mice to sleep on charging pods.”

“Back when I was building him,” I said, “dad asked me what I would do to make sure Freddie never ran out of battery. At first, I thought we could just wait for the battery to die, then replace the battery or place him on the charging pod ourselves. I remember how shocked I was when dad explained that every time his battery died, Freddie himself would die as well.”

Helena nodded. “Then, how did you solve this?”

“I suppose you can say we cheated nature,” I told her. “At first I suggested that we use recharging as a synonym for food, but it turns out that this doesn’t work in practice. People had tried this before, and the mice just died, they couldn’t associate the pod with food. So dad taught me how to do something a bit different. First off, when Freddie’s low on energy, we send a grelin signal to his connectome. Grelin is a sort of hunger hormone, so you can just say that when he’s low on energy, he feels hungry. Then we added a bit of custom code to his connectome, so that every time Freddie is hungry and steps onto the charging pod, he gets a small positive stimulus to the VTA. Then all we had to do was wait, and Freddie learned to charge all by himself.”

“By ‘VTA’, you mean?”

“Ventral Tegmental Area,” I explained. “It’s part of the dopamine reward circuit.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Helena. “You’re giving Freddie what’s essentially cocaine for stepping on the charging pod?”

“It’s not cocaine, Jesus! It’s just a tiny bit of reward stimulus. Just enough that he would learn to associate hunger with the charging pod.”

“By Pavlov conditioning?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Feeling hungry, get on the pod, get a reward. Except that instead of giving him treats, we send the signal straight into his connectome. It works. Freddie’s over four years old, and he’s still alive. The only downside is that his battery is not very good, so he spends most of the day on the pod.”

“And you learned to do all of this at age thirteen?”

I felt myself blush with embarrassment. “Like I said, dad told me what to do.”

“It’s still impressive that you did it.”

I turned to look into Helena’s eyes, and smiled. “Thanks,” I told her. Helena said nothing. We just kept still, looking at each other’s eyes, for a moment which was maybe too long. I wanted to kiss her. I’m almost sure we would have kissed again, if just then my mother hadn’t called for me, asking for help.

“I’m coming!” I yelled back. I got up, opened the balcony door, and walked back into the living room with Helena. “So,” I said to her, “my room is upstairs. Do you mind waiting for me? I’m just going to see what my mother wants.”

“Oh, sure, no problem,” said the redhead.

Inside the kitchen, my mom was cutting carrots.

“Could you wash these greens?” she asked me. I nodded, and went to pick up the vegetables by her side. “So,” she said as we worked, “just a friend, is she?”

“Uh, yes,” I said, hesitantly.

“And is that all you want to be for her?”

That irritated me. I never knew my mom to be so meddlesome. It was my love life, not hers.

“Why the heck are you interested?” I said as I tossed the lettuce in a bowl a little more forcefully than necessary. “What difference does it make in your life to know who I relate to?”

“It matters,” said mom, still working on the carrots, with her back turned to me. “Because the last time you brought home a girl who said she was just your friend, you ended up crying in your room for a week.” She put down the knife and turned to look at me. “I just want,” she said, “to make sure my only child is not making yet another mistake.”

I felt my face heat up in embarrassment. I turned away from her and continued washing the kale.

“It’s different,” I told her, not turning to look, “I can take care of myself.”

“Can you, now?” she asked. But I did not give her a reply, nor did she ask me for one. We worked in silence for a while.

My mother’s words actually had an effect on me. Was it really different, this time? How was I to know if Helena wasn’t just using me for her amusement, something that’s just for fun and no strings attached? And how would I feel about it, if it turns out that’s all we have between us? Would I be okay with it? Wasn’t it me who said from the beginning that I didn’t want to get involved? Why is it that right now the idea of letting go of Helena felt so painful?

“Is there anything else you need me to do?” I asked, once I was done.

“Go ask your friend if she’ll join us for supper,” she told me, “it should be done soon.”

I nodded, before leaving the kitchen.

Upstairs, I found Helena sitting on my bed with legs crossed and reading one of my comic books. I chuckled.

“Oh, hey,” she said when she saw me standing under the doorframe. “I found these in your stuff, you don’t mind me reading them, do you?”

I shook my head, negatively, then went to sit beside her on the bed.

“Are you sure these are to your taste?” I asked her, when I noticed just which comic book she had taken. This one was a thriller about seven people locked into a haunted cabin in the woods.

Helena giggled. “What do you mean?” she asked me.

“Well,” this was awkward. “I mean, I haven’t seen any comic books in your place. Much less anything with ghosts and such.”

“These are interesting,” she told me, pointing at the volumes beside her. “But you’re right, I don’t usually read this stuff. It’s just that I saw them on your desk and it piqued my interest. I want to know what kind of stories you like.”

“Oh, okay,” I said.

Inside, I was freaking out.

So, Helena wanted to know more about me, did this mean what I think it means, or is it that I just wanted it to mean that, and she was actually just being nice? Bloody heck, we kissed, we had dates, why is it so hard to take another step?

Maybe my mother was right, and this was a mistake. Maybe I’d get my heart broken and spend the following week crying in my bed unable to get up and go to school. On the other hand, what good would it be just giving up now? I would still feel like crap either way. I have to try, right? Ok, here it goes. One, two…

“Hey, Helena…”

“Uh? Yeah?” she said, closing the comic book and turning to look me in the eyes. “What is it?”

Breathe, Lucia, you can do this.

Or maybe not.

“My mother asked if you’d like to stay with us for lunch.”

I saw Helena tilt her head sideways and stare into the ceiling.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Have you told her I’m a replica, yet?”

“Not… yet, no,” I admitted.

“Then I’d better not,” she decided. “It would just be awkward,” I saw Helena get up and pick up her bag. “Is it okay if I borrow these? I wanna know how it ends.”

What?

Oh, the comic books.

“Uh, sure, I don’t mind,” I said.

“Great! Thanks!”

Helena leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the lips. Then she took my hands and pulled me to my feet.

“It’s better if I go, now,” she said.

“Right!” I said, snapping out of a daze. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll… walk you to the door.”

We left the room in silence, then went down the stairs. I opened the living room door for Helena, we said our goodbyes (hers was a “see you later”), and I watched grimly while she waited for the elevator to come. It came, she walked in, then—

God I must really be crazy if I’m going to do this.

I held the elevator door half-a-second before it was too late. Helena stared at me with surprise and smiled.

“Déjà vu?” she said. I chuckled, embarrassed. It’s true that I have done something similar, that day under the rain. Why is it that I always wait until almost too late to say the things that are on my mind?

“I… look, Helena, I need to ask you something. Do you… Would you… I mean, look, I wanna be your girlfriend, is that okay?”

Helena’s smile broadened. She leaned back against the elevator mirror, held her face with one hand, and looked at me with caring eyes.

“I was wondering when would be the right time to ask you that,” is what she told me.

Hearing that was so surprising that I almost forgot to breathe.

“Seriously?” I asked, baffled. “I mean… wow, is that a yes?”

Helena nodded, smiling. Then she walked back to me, hugged me gently, placed one hand behind my head and pulled me closer for a kiss. Suddenly it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and in its place I began to feel some warmth growing inside me, irradiating through my whole body. I was ecstatic. I hugged her back, pulling her into an embrace with was almost too intimate. I realized I was smiling through the kisses, but I couldn’t help it, that’s just how happy and realized I felt.

Then we heard a voice coming from somewhere above us.

“Please release the elevator doors,” said the voice from the speakers.

We both started laughing.

“Okay, I really should be going now,” said Helena, gently caressing my face. “Will I see you soon?” she asked, looking into my eyes with a beautiful smile on her face.

“Sure,” I told her.