There’s no hurry. I’m not a pint of half-and-half about to expire. I can wait until I meet the right person.

You mean the perfect person. The flawless person. That person doesn’t exist.

We drop Aislin. I beckon her to my window, and in a loud whisper that Maddox, to his credit, pretends not to hear, I tell her to come straight to Spiker and stay with me. I beg and plead and know I’m wasting my time.

I watch Aislin and Maddox head inside. She waves wanly before closing the door.

I slam The Leg against the dashboard. “Oh, she drives me crazy sometimes.”

“Your leg doesn’t seem to be bothering you at all,” Solo notes.

“What?” He’s right. I’d forgotten all about it. “Yeah, well, that’s not my main worry right now.”

He holds my gaze as if waiting for something. I have the sudden, bizarre thought that he might be thinking about kissing me.

“Not even,” I say. “I didn’t suddenly turn vulnerable to your charm.”

His eyebrows rise. “Oh, you thought I was going to make a move on you?”

“I didn’t—” I start to say, retreating.

“Stop projecting your feelings on me,” Solo says.

It’s a breathtakingly effective put-down.

I can’t think of a single thing to say in response, although I’m pretty sure I’ll have something in about three hours, when it’s too late to matter.

“No, I thought maybe things were starting to connect for you, that was all,” Solo says as he pulls the car out. “Of course, if you insist on throwing yourself at me, I guess I could play along.”

“There will be no throwing.”

“Well, it’s going to have to come from you,” he says. “You’re the boss’s daughter. You’ll have to make the first move.”

“Then consider yourself safe,” I say.

I turn on the radio.

Loud.

– 17 –

Sneaking back in is easier than I imagined. Still, the whole thing’s left me feeling agitated, tired, confused.

Solo rolls me to the clinic, where they’ve apparently been a bit frantic, what with having misplaced the boss’s daughter. Fortunately, my mother’s been at the spa all day. She is unreachable when she’s being detoxified, rejuvenated, or antiaged.

“I was just touring the place,” I assure Dr. Anderson.

“You should be in bed,” he chides. “You are in no condition to be touring.”

Or chasing down gangbangers, I add silently.

Once the staff is properly reassured, Solo wheels me to the workstation where Project 88715 is set up. I’ve begun to think of it as “my” workstation. My project.

The overhead lights are dimmed, but the twinkle lights on the giant ficus are lit. No one’s around.

I clear my throat. “Thanks,” I say. “For helping with Aislin.”

“No problem.” Solo shoves his hands in his pockets. “Hey, you hungry? I can run down to the cafeteria, see what’s lying around.”

“No, I’m good. Too wired.”

“You think Aislin will show up?”

“No,” I say. “I can’t compete with Maddox’s allure.”

Solo laughs, stares at his shoes. “You’re all right. But you’re no Maddox.”

The tension in the car seems to have passed. Good. We can pretend it never happened.

I sign in, tap a few keys, and suddenly, a giant pair of blue eyes—Solo’s eyes—float before us. “Adam awaits,” I say.

“Adam, huh?”

“That’s what Aislin named him. Could be Steve, though. Work in progress.”

Solo locks my wheelchair into place. “Okay, then,” he says. “Night.”

“Night. And thanks again.”

I feel strangely alone when he’s gone. Various machines hum softly, but otherwise, it’s utterly quiet.

The eyes throb gently, casting a blue moon glow over my desk.

I should probably work on the rest of Adam’s face. Those eyes need a home, after all.

I consult the screen, scanning my options. The software gives me a little flexibility. After a few minutes of hesitation, I click “hands.”

I don’t know why. I tell myself it’s because opposable thumbs are so important to Homo sapiens. Tool use and all that.

It sounds profound in my head.

The face? That’s just cosmetics, really. Hands, though, well, hands do things. Hands create.

I’m getting pretty good with the software now. When it flashes a warning to me about blood supply, I remember how to hook the virtual hands to the temporary virtual blood supply. The software shifts view subtly, just as it did with the eyes, and the hands assume an eerie reality.

Hands. With tubes streaming blood back and forth.

Hands, floating in a medium of some sort, approximately two and a half feet below the eyes which, likewise, float in nothingness.

I have hands. Nice hands. And a pair of eyeballs. Nice eyeballs.

All that’s left is a face, legs, arms, shoulders, chest, back, and a brain.

Yes. That’s all of it. Or him.

I fidget a little. Why am I reluctant to give him a face?

Because, really, how do you do a face? That’s why. That’s part of it, anyway.

There’s something else, though. Once you have a face you have a person. A specific individual.

Adam won’t be Adam until he has a face.