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so upset. It’s a stupid old code. It might not even mean what you think.”
    “Of course it does.” He spun and faced her. “What else would it mean? The code’s a way to shut me—all of us mechs—down if we get a little out of control or are no longer needed. Zip.” He snapped his fingers. “In an instant we’re all dead. Gone.”
    “But—”
    He towered over her now, anger pulsing through his circuitry as well as fear. “How would you like it, Samantha? If you were going along your daily life and ‘zap’ you’re dead? Not even a warning? No choice in the matter?”
    Her eyebrows squinched again in a most adorable way. He could almost forgive her for not understanding. “But, Everett, the same thing could happen to any of us. At any time.”
    He rolled his eyes. “It’s not the same.”
    “The hell it isn’t.” She put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chin. “Humans don’t know when they’re going to be hit by a hovercar or have their immune-guards fail and contract a deadly retro virus. We can die at any moment, Everett.”
    “Yeah, but not by someone else’s arbitrary choice.” He wasn’t letting this go. She needed to understand how horrible it felt to know that basically anybody with rudimentary programming skills could knock him off the face of the Earth at any time. And he had no control. Couldn’t she see the injustice?
    She wrapped her arms around herself and stared out over the city. “Oh yeah. That’s nothing like having someone chasing you down just because your dad was a genius.”
    She looked so vulnerable his anger deflated. He couldn’t resist putting his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled her sweet honey and cinnamon scent. He wanted to kiss her again. Wanted to make her his. “I’m sorry.”
    Samantha tilted her head back and looked at him. “Humans have been dying a lot longer than your type has even been around, you know. I think we’re the ones who should complain.”
    There it was. The reminder he’d always be only a mechanoid jabbed him in the ribs. He let his arms drop and took a step back. How could he tell her he had emotions, too? That she mattered to him and so did her opinion? Probably she wouldn’t believe him. A bleak, empty loneliness rushed through him. He hated this Emo upgrade. It twisted him up, made him suffer in ways he’d never known existed.
    She raised a hand to shade her eyes. “Hey, are those my cows down there on the lawn?”
    He zoomed in his opticals and double-checked. The bovine life forms were munching happily on Security Core grass. Relief temporarily flooded him. “Yes. I had them flown here while you were asleep so you could be reunited with them. I knew you were worried about their safety.”
    “Oh, Everett!” She jumped, threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. That’s so sweet.”
    He stiffly patted her on the back. “You’re welcome.”
    Her face flushed. “Can I go see them?”
    “Sure. Go right ahead.”
    She fled the rooftop, clearly caring more about her cows more than him, leaving him standing there alone again. This time with a stinging reminder being mechanoid would never be good enough in Samantha’s mind. He could think of only one option to quell the pain. He shoved his hands in his pockets and trudged down the stairs to the lab. With a sigh he pushed open the door.
    “I want the Emo chip removed,” he told Alex. “Now.”
     
     
    Samantha stopped petting Bessie and looked up to the rooftop, but Everett’s now familiar form had vanished. She frowned thinking she was truly alone for the first time in the last twenty four hours or so. The freedom felt nice but also nerve-wracking. She glanced at every figure walking by her wondering which one might shoot, kidnap or harm her. All for a stupid code she’d known nothing about.
    “I’m completely innocent,” she told Bessie, who blinked one of her big eyes and twitched her tail. Well it did no good to