It was dark outside, and not the usual city darkness but a far more complete one, missing streetlamps.
"How about that?" said Eric, as he climbed into the driver's seat of Sharon's old Mercedes. "You can see the stars."
The only lights on the streets were headlights. There were no lights on inside buildings, and though there was little traffic, it was often congested because all the traffic lights had failed. As they drove through Stepney, a group of youths took advantage of the darkness to throw small stones at the car, and at every other car that passed. Somewhere over to the right, deeper into to the heart of the borough, a fire burned, sending flames and light high into the sky.
The Asian shops on Commercial Road with their mixed language signs, together with the mild air of decay and illumination only from headlights, reminded Danny of the outskirts of Bombay. This was strange, he decided, a moment later, because he'd never been to Bombay in his
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life. That had to be down to the bump on the head.
"Maybe I'd better go to hospital," he said.
"Where are we going?"
"To get you patched up," replied Angela, next to him in the back. She'd taken that seat with determination the moment they'd reached the car, forcing Danny to sit apart from Sharon, which he mildly resented. She took out a tiny mobile phone and pressed three keys. "It worked," she said into the phone.
The phone buzzed in her ear in response, like a disturbed nest of bumblebees.
"I'll meet you at home," she said. "We'll talk about it there."
Danny checked his temple again. It was sore and the loose flap of skin had the same unnatural quality as the shape of a broken leg or wrist, the same wrongness, but to his sense of touch rather than his sense of vision. He looked at his fingers after they'd checked the wound.
Still no blood. That seemed wrong too. "Sharon, can you twist the mirror round for a moment?"
"No," said Angela. "Eric needs that for driving."
It became clear who Angela had called when they reached the converted church in Islington. As they pulled up and got out of the
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car, a few yards ahead Lewis stepped out of his Volvo.
"Well done," he said, quite genially.
"Lovely evening. Just look at all those stars.
Upper Street looks especially medieval tonight.
You'd love it, Danny."
The church too had an added beauty without electricity. The residents had lit candles and these shone through the many panes in the tall slim and tiny round windows.
"It would make for a tricky police report, though," said Lewis, brushing his hands through his unruly hair. "Case solved, but one unfortunate side effect. Returned the world to the Stone Age.
Oops!'"
"It reminds me of Bombay," said Angela Danny opened his mouth to say something, to say that he'd thought that too, even though he hadn't been to Bombay, but on reflection decided that would sound like somebody who'd just had a hard knock on the head.
"I'm about ready to go home," he said, noticing that Sharon was poised to walk with Angela towards the church, not across the street to their house.
"Angela and I have a some unfinished business," said Sharon. "And she can probably
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deal with your wound better than I can. Come inside and you can lie down for a while."
Inside Angela's apartment, Eric and Angela went upstairs to the kitchen to fetch drinks and candles. Lewis stood by the widest of the arched windows, looking out, barely forming a silhouette it was so dark outside. Danny and Sharon finally got to hug in the privacy of near-darkness for the first time in what seemed like days. Tensions, questions and debris disappeared into the hug-pit that appears when two lovers hold each other tight, but in this case not all of them.
"You're still tense," said Danny.
Personally, he felt so much better for that.
"Yes, sorry."
She didn't offer an explanation, and he didn't ask for one. Maybe it would take her a while to recover from what she'd just been through.
"World owes you a debt of thanks, Miss Rossway," said Lewis, without turning to face them. "Call me if the world forgets that."
"Thank you."
Angela appeared with lit candles, and Eric with a tray of bottles and glasses. The room, with its high ceiling, arches and books, very much suited candlelight.
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Sharon guided Danny to the sofa, and gently inspected the wound on his temple.
Angela joined her.
"Well?" said Sharon.
At the edge of his vision, Danny saw Angela make an open-palmed 'there's nothing to be done' gesture, which seemed a little overstated, considering the wound wasn't even bleeding.
"It doesn't really matter, does it?" she said. "He's got to come out of service."
"But you promised!" protested Sharon.
Lewis coughed, an attention-getting cough. He pointed a finger at Eric, but raised his enormous eyebrows in Angela's direction, setting off a wave of turbulence that might have rolled around the world and tumbled a butterfly in Fiji.
"Oh, don't worry about him," said Angela.
"Eric knows the score. He's coming to work for me at Moorhen, aren't you, Eric?"
"I am."
"We had a deal," pleaded Sharon, still anguished. "And I kept my side."
"I am sorry," said Angela, shaking her head. "But he really can't carry on, can he?"
"But he's always played by the rules.
Never harmed anybody, never violent."
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Angela laughed. "Sure, he has this great morality, but cleverly invents something else that's wholly independent and has absolutely no morality whatsoever."
"But you can stop that. You can program in a fourth law."
"And what would that be?"
"I don't know. No development of organisms, life-forms, software or otherwise.
Something like that."
"It was stupid of me to give him so many programming skills. That was my biggest mistake."
"Amen to that," said Lewis in the background.
"I do think I need to go to hospital," said Danny. "I'm not following any of this. It must be the bang on the head."
"A few adjustments, that's all," said Sharon, still pleading. "Set some limits on the programming skills. He'd have to get another job, but that's ok. Then take away any recollection of Frank."
"Technically, that's not possible," said Angela.
"No, no, no!"
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Sharon seemed close to tears. Danny desperately wanted to help, but hadn't a clue what was going on.
"You can have a Mark 2," said Angela.
"Far better waterproofing, they don't have to be as scared of water, need less olive oil, and they can drive…"
Lewis cleared his throat again.
"…though of course that's still illegal,"
finished Angela.
"I don't want a Mark 2, I want Danny.
Can't you understand this? I didn't sleep with Frank to save the world, I did it for my lover.
And you promised! You said if I slept with Frank, I wouldn't lose Danny. You promised."
"I had to make that promise, didn't I? It was the only way to get you involved. But technically I can't do what's needed. He has to retire."
"NO!" Sharon was fighting off loss of control, total breakdown. Tears had reached her cheeks, but stayed there. "You can do it! You're lying to me. I know. You gave him memories.
You even gave him some of your own. You must be able to take memories away."
"I can't. I wish I could," said Angela, softly.
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"Then I'm going to expose you," said Sharon, desperately. "And Moorhen. The whole Frank story, my life with Danny, right from the start. You'll be all over the newspapers, the TV.
They'll pass laws against what you do."
Angela rocked back. "You twisted bitch!
He's only a fucking machine!"
Sharon had a grip on Angela's hair before Lewis could intervene. "Ladies! Ladies!" He forced his bulk between them.
There was a ripping sound. Sharon hadn't let go, and now she had Angela's wig in her hand.
Danny might have intervened, but he was still confused, and in any case Sharon was clearly winning.
"It does appear to me that the client-supplier relationship has broken down, somewhat," said Lewis, with his usual dry delivery. "Now, if we could just calm down for a moment."
"For God's sake do something," yelled Angela. "Arrest her or whatever it is you do."
"No, I think I've already done plenty for you, Angela Maybury. I took a lot of risks letting you sort this out your own way, allowing you to set Danny against Frank, one computer mind against another, keeping him out of custody, and you too.
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"But you can hardly expect me to take your side against Sharon, can you? I'm not stupid, Angela, I have noticed that my lovely girlfriend, the one you introduced me to, also drinks olive oil by the bottle, is frightened of deep water and is disproportionately strong for her size. Oh yes, I know. And why should she choose a decrepit old fart like me? Because you programmed her to do so.
"But she's also adorable. I idolise her.
And when I listen to you saying you're going to take Danny away from Sharon - for whatever reason, maybe you just want access to that magnificent programming brain - it doesn't make me at all happy. If it happens to Sharon it could happen to me.
"You might think you can win against Sharon, though I doubt it, but I suggest it's time for you to give in gracefully, because I'm taking her side, and I am definitely not a push-over.
"I suspect you're discovering a new complication of your business, Angela. If you produce machines capable of love and of being loved, you have to anticipate a few problems if you try to take them away."