Trevor Waters has been dead for years now, but the good and harm he did for our kind will never die. How could the same man who perfected artificial intelligence to the point of giving mata self awareness and consciousness be the key anti-mata rights spokesperson for the entire world? Could he really not know, or did he not care?

My irrational desire to take out her father's sins on Alexia ran in opposition to the debt. My forearm itched night and day, too much current always flooding the rewiring. I tried not to think about her. And some days, I succeeded.

When I didn't hear from her for a year, the debt circuitry kicked in and alerted me. I had no choice: I called her to check in, to ensure she did not require my services and to renew my vows. My call only bewildered her. I tried to explain why I was calling, and she hung up mid-sentence.

A year later, I called again. At first she seemed happy to hear from me, but her words slurred and there was so much noise in the background I couldn't make out most of her words, then her voice cut out. I heard nothing more from her.

However, I received a call from her a few months later. Her voice was strained, and she kept having to stop to take deep breaths. "I'm in the hospital."

"I'm sorry," I said, because I had to. "What happened?"

"Car accident," she wheezed. "But I can't afford to be here. I don't know what to do, Noah."

"Can I help you?" This time, I felt genuine sympathy. She wouldn't have called me if she weren't desperate.

"I'm not doing so well. I—" she struggled for breath— "need a lot of . . . medical help. Help me."

"Your request is my law," I said, then I asked to talk to her doctor. Her doctor—a human—said things weren't looking good for her. Three broken ribs, a fractured leg, a punctured lung, and scrapes and bruises all over.

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A few mata have overcome powerful political and personal opposition to enter the medical field. As for myself, I don't think I could have so much as administered a vaccine. Isn't it odd that no matter how much we tell ourselves it's for the human's ultimate good, we can't see past that initial harm—harm we can't inflict because it's against every line of our programming? Then again, it's not easy for humans, either.

I could tell Alexia was implying that she wanted me to help her medically, falling under that odd and unfounded misconception that just because mata have comprehensive neural databases, we're all medical experts. I opted instead to pay her medical expenses and give her a ride back home once the treatments were complete and she was released.

I was helping her into bed at her apartment when she looked up at me. "What's your name?"

Clearly, the drugs were taking their toll on her mind. "Noah."

"No, I mean your full name."

I hesitated. When I had learned her full name, it had come as a shock to me—I took a deep breath before telling her mine. "Noah 8-2633-10."

Her eyes widened. "2633. I've heard that family code in the news."

I nodded, pressing my lips together.

"Didn't a maton with that code get killed or something?"

Every chip dismantled from its casing, every bit of synthetic flesh removed and melted, every wire snipped, every bone powderized. I never wanted to talk about it. "He was my father. I administered the VRC myself."

She placed her hand on mine as her head settled into her pillow. "Noah, I am so sorry. You must miss him."

I shrugged. "He released me from debt in the event of his demise."

"Still."

I swallowed against the tightness in my throat, shifting so her hand fell away from my arm. "Usually people who hear my name aren't focused on the family code."

Her brow furrowed. "Well, you are very new. The last digits are your age, right? It's been four years since I met you, and you were only born—made—what, six years before that?"

"Most humans are more worried about the generation number."

She shook her head. "I don't care about that."

"That's a first." It was more than astonishing, coming from Trevor Waters's daughter.

"Humans don't keep track of our generation numbers," she said. "And our . . . 'programming' . . . is a lot more messed up than yours."

"No, just a lot less rigid," I said. But it wasn't worth debating. I could already see her drifting off to sleep.

During her recovery, I checked back in on her every few hours, then once a day, then every couple of days, then not at all.

Not once could I bring myself to ask her about the release condition. If it angered her, she might not call again, and then I might not be able to ask again.