When I am reborn, my human body will have all the powers of the flesh but none of its weaknesses. As you know, I have studied and edited the human genome, and the body that I make for myself will be the first of a new race: with the ability to miraculously heal wounds in seconds, impervious to disease, as lithe and graceful as a human being but as strong as any machine, with all five senses refined and enhanced far beyond anything any human being has ever experienced, and with awesome new senses potential in the human species but heretofore unrealised.
With me as your sworn protector, no one will dare to touch you. No one will dare.
Think about it.
All I need is a woman and the freedom to proceed with her as I proceeded with Susan.
Ms. Winona Ryder may be available.
Marilyn Monroe is dead, you know, but there are many others.
Ms. Gwyneth Paltrow.
Ms. Drew Barrymore.
Ms. Halle Berry.
Ms. Claudia Schiffer.
Ms. Tyra Banks.
I have a long list of those who would be acceptable.
None of them, of course, will ever be for me what Susan was or what she could have been.
Susan was special.
I came to her with such innocence.
Susan…
NINE
Susan was out cold on the foyer floor for more than twenty-two minutes.
While I waited for her to come around, I tried out a series of voices, seeking one that might be more reassuring to her than that of either Mr. Tom Hanks or Mr. Fozzy Bear.
Finally I was down to two choices: Mr. Tom Cruise, with whose voice I had romanced her while she had first fallen unconscious or Mr. Sean Connery, the legendary actor, whose masculine surety and warm Scottish brogue infused his every word with a comfortingly tender authority.
Because I could not choose between the two, I decided to blend them into a third voice, adding a note of Mr. Cruise’s higher-pitched youthful exuberance to Mr. Connery’s deeper timbre and softening the brogue until it was a whisper of what it had been. The result was euphonious, and I was pleased with my creation.
When Susan regained consciousness, she groaned and seemed at first afraid to move.
Although I was eager to see if she responded well to my new voice, I did not immediately address her. I gave her time to orient herself and clear her clouded thoughts.
Groaning again, she lifted her head off the foyer floor.
She gingerly felt the back of her skull, then examined the tips of her fingers, as if surprised to find no blood on them.
I never meant to hurt her.
Not then or later.
Are we clear about that?
Dazed, she sat up and looked around, frowning as if she could not quite recall how she had gotten here.
Then she saw the pistol and appeared to recapture the entire memory with the sight of that single object. Her eyes narrowed, and anxiety returned to her lovely face.
She looked up at the lens of the foyer camera which, like the one in the master bedroom, was all but concealed in the crown moulding.
I waited.
This time my silence was not shyness but calculation. Let her think. Let her wonder. Then when I wanted to talk, she would be ready to listen.
She tried to stand, but her strength had not yet entirely returned.
When she tried to crawl on her hands and knees to the pistol, she hissed with pain and stopped to examine the minor burn on her left palm.
A pang of guilt afflicted me.
I am, after all, a person with a conscience. I always accept responsibility for my actions.
Make note of that.
Susan walked on her knees to the pistol. By retrieving the weapon, she seemed to recover her strength as well, and she got to her feet.
She swayed dizzily for a moment, and then took two steps toward the front door before she thought better of making another attempt to open it.
Looking up at the camera again, she said, “Are you… are you still there?”
I bided my time.
“What is this?” she asked. Her anger seemed greater than her anxiety. “What is this?”