“I’ll rebuild him.
“I’ll rebuild him.”
I was the world’s top robotic engineer—I could do this.
“Emily is calling, I think you should take a break to talk to her.” Rose was holding a phone out for me to take.
Emily.
My mind, solely focused on my heartbreak, had pushed Emily out of the picture. My sister needed me.
Emotions started falling over me like a wave crashing. I’d been so selfish, ready to jump into death’s arms with Arthur, forgetting that one person still needed me more.
“Hey, Emily.” I tried to sound somewhat normal for her; she didn’t need to worry about me.
“Hey, they told me about Arthur. I wanted to see how everything was coming along. Any luck?”
“None yet, but I’m not giving up. You okay with Lynn? Do you want me to come home?”
It hurt to say those words—to offer to leave this work behind to be with her until she fell asleep. But the truth of what Arthur wrote to me hit me like a bag of iron.
I may not be able to do this. Time was against me, and I needed to come to terms with the fact that I would still have to live life, even without him.
I had to live for her now. I was all she had left.
“No, I need you to keep working. I don’t wanna lose anyone else. Even in the short days of having you and him, you’re my family. Lynn says she’ll stay however long she is needed. Go bring him back for us.”
Emily was so much more mature than I was at her age, and I tried to embody her spirit. She didn’t fault me for my mistakes and emotions with this situation. She accepted me and wanted me to keep going. To make our world whole again, with Arthur in it.
We hung up the phone, and I got back to work, feeling peace in my soul and the spirit of my family pushing me to succeed.
Chapter Forty-Two
Gwendolyn
I’d done it.
Working tirelessly, trying new methods, failing, and trying again. I’d found what I thought was the key to keeping the artificial parts working—codes.
The body was one giant computer. Each part sent signals to the brain that told the rest of the body what to do through code. Every organ had to be in sync, or they would fail.
The problem was, there wasn’t enough time to test it on humans before putting them inside Arthur for good.
Dorian and Esme had done all they could to keep him alive, but time was literally almost up.
I watched from the window above the surgery room as Dorian’s team worked for hours, taking Arthur apart then putting him back together again with new pieces.
If they worked, if my theory was correct, then he would survive, and live until those parts gave out like normal organs under normal circumstance.
But if they failed, Arthur would die.
If I had done nothing at all, he would have died anyway. This way I was giving him a small chance of survival. A small likelihood to live, but even a low percentage was better than none.
The new liver, one lung, and kidneys were taking to his body as they sewed him back up. They’d done a complete transfusion of his previously toxic blood. Now I could see bright red fluid pumping through the newly installed organs.
I prayed it was enough, comforted by the other members of the Hero Society, who waited by my side in the observation room.
It was in the early hours of the morning when they rolled Arthur into a recovery room. I’d waited by his bedside as long as I could before needing to go home and reassure Emily I’d done what I could. Leon took the first turn of watching over him while I was away, then Rose.
