39

She saved the last rose for Arthur, a beautiful cream-white bud. She thought about plucking the thorns from the stem, but Arthur would never have liked that. He wanted the whole object, the good parts together with the bad, the way nature had intended.

After tucking the flower at the bottom of her basket, she completed her delivery rounds through buildings, lobbies, and open-air markets. When she reached their usual fountain, however, she did not find the old man watching the water dance over the geometric shapes and flint mirrors.

Teresa sat holding the creamy rose, waiting for him. She had arranged a special surprise for Arthur. Garth had given her passes to see his FRUSTRATION exhibit, and that afternoon she would take Arthur through the wonderful maze of experiential art. The old man had helped Teresa to understand so much about her inner workings, and she wanted to share back with him.

She couldn’t help smiling in anticipation. Her eyes flicked from person to person as she stared at passing businessmen, shoppers, young couples. She paced the square, peering down side streets and alleys. Expectant, she waited the better part of an hour. Arthur had never missed an appointment before. With growing alarm, she knew that it would not have slipped his mind.

Feeling a tug of urgency, Teresa didn’t know where to look. The old man had no home that she knew of. He simply stayed wherever he liked. But she knew he’d been sick the last time they were together.

She went first to the automated cafeteria where they had planned to eat, hoping that Arthur had just confused their plans. When she saw no sign of him there, she moved to other places where the two of them had talked, shops and stores they sometimes visited. Teresa hurried down side streets, went to parks and other fountains, looked under trees and playground equipment.

But Arthur wasn’t there.

Finally, she remembered Arthur’s delight when he’d taken her through the maintenance corridors of the skyscraper where he had once worked. He had seemed so alive and excited that day.

Dodging pedestrians, Teresa ran until she found the maintenance access door Arthur had used. When she reached the rear of the building by the heating systems and air ducts, she let herself in with the simple code she’d seen him use.

She wandered the passages, following water and electrical conduits, squeezing into the tiny spaces between walls. She couldn’t remember the exact route Arthur had taken when he’d showed her this place, but she was determined to look everywhere if she needed to.

“Arthur!” The sound echoed among the pipes. Rodents and insects stirred in the shadows, but she heard no answer, only her own voice thundering in the confined space. Its loudness frightened her. She hurried onward.

Suddenly she saw a pale object at the bottom of a steep stairwell. She rushed forward to see the heavy book, Gray’s Anatomy with its cover open, facedown on the syncrete floor. Arthur must have dropped the book from above . . . but this was his most prized possession. He would never have just abandoned it.

“Arthur!” she called. “Oh, Arthur, are you up there?”

She thought she heard a sound and raced up the stairs, grabbing the metal rails. Her legs worked like pistons as she pumped up one floor after another, paralleling the elevator shaft.

She found the old man collapsed on the fourth landing, huddled in a corner and unable to get up. He gazed at her with dull eyes and tried to sit straighter. “Teresa, you found me. I must have led you . . . on quite a chase.” She knelt next to him, grasping his bony shoulders. Arthur was clearly dying. “Didn’t mean to be so difficult,” he gasped.

“You always told me I should welcome challenges,” Teresa said. “Here, let me help. I need to get you to a medical center.”

He just smiled up at her. The skin on his face looked like a leather wrapping, slowly sagging. “I’m not sure that’ll do any good. We’re probably too late.” He forced a brief chuckle that degenerated into a wheezing cough. “You know how often I’ve told you about the complexity of the human body. Okay, the problem with a system so complicated is that too many little unexpected things can go wrong.”

Frantic, Teresa hauled the old man to his feet. Though she was not very muscular, she found the strength to lift him. “I’ve got to get you out of here. You can’t die yet.”

He leaned on her and coughed again. “I’m afraid I don’t have much choice in the matter.”

Teresa refused to give up. Slipping an arm around his waist, she wrapped one of his bony arms around her shoulder. “Let’s get you down these stairs.”

Arthur struggled to assist her, but he was helpless. “That’s too much trouble, Teresa. My only real request is for you to get me outside again.” His cracked lips curved upward. “I’d rather die surrounded by sunshine than walls and shadows.”

She struggled to haul him down one narrow metal step at a time. Her waifish body was small and weak. At any moment she feared she might drop him, letting the frail man tumble downstairs with a crack and a snap of bones. Teresa wished she had somehow managed to keep her home-body, that she had not let the Sharetakers blur her mind as she swapped from person to person. As someone else, maybe she could have helped Arthur more now.

Regrets. It was much too late for such regrets.

Halfway down the stairs, Arthur gasped and Teresa felt him slump into unconsciousness. Limp, he was actually easier to carry, since the stuttering movements of his trembling limbs hadn’t helped her much anyway. She just prayed that he hadn’t already died.

Finally she wrestled the old man to a maintenance exit. She popped open the metal door on the mezzanine level and dragged Arthur outside. She slumped with him onto the concrete and loose pebbles of a hovercraft loading dock that overlooked the square.

The fresh air seemed to revive the old man. He took a deep breath and shook his head. Yellow-gray hair lay around his skull like dirty straw. Teresa propped him up, resting his bony shoulders against her chest. She hugged him. “Arthur, please fight. Please stay alive.”

“My, but you’re demanding,” he said weakly, then coughed again. She saw blood on his lips. The whites of his eyes had hemorrhaged, turning a deep crimson. His whole body shuddered.

As Teresa held him, she knew he was slipping away. Leaving her. She would be alone and adrift again. She swallowed hard and decided to try one last time. “Oh, Arthur, please hopscotch with me. You don’t need to die.”

He shook his head and groaned.

“I mean it, Arthur. This is my only way to thank you.”

He shook his head, blinked his watering eyes.

“Look, if we swap, I don’t plan to give up and die,” Teresa continued. “I’m sure I can survive long enough in your body to reach help. You’re totally worn out. You must have been fighting this for years. But I’m strong. I can take care of your body just long enough to reach the medical center. It’s your last chance.”

“No,” Arthur said, his voice hoarse and husky.

“I can save you! But only if you let me.”

She needed Arthur to stay alive, to keep teaching her, even if it meant he had to give up his stubborn principles and switch bodies. Even if she couldn’t survive in his fading body, Teresa decided that his life was worth more than hers, because he understood so much more about it.

But as he stared at the bright blue sky, Arthur seemed disappointed that she would even suggest such a thing. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

Teresa held him. He clung to his principles to the end, and she felt ashamed that she had tried to convince him otherwise. Arthur gazed into the sun, then his eyes stopped blinking. The bright light reflected from his face, and he died.

She stared at his face, looked at the air around him, hoping she could somehow watch the soul leave his body, much as she had witnessed during Soft Stone’s upload into COM so long ago.

But she saw nothing, no spirit, no angels, no wondrous passage. Arthur was gone, his old body empty. A lifeless husk.

She held his lifeless form on the landing, silently sobbing.