There was no time for Sabrina to gently adjust to the world that no longer looked the same as it had always seemed. When the surgery was over, her counselor granted her free movement and said, “Come with me. Mister Livingston has requested that we escort you on a flight to meet him in Everett, Nevada.”
She said nothing, too disoriented to wonder what Livingston’s game might be, even if she had an idea who Mister Livingston was. She knew there was something different about her brain, but she couldn’t pin it down. All that was real to her was what she could deduce from her current surroundings.
These androids seemed nice enough, but she questioned the one leading her out the building. “What does Mister Livingston want from me?”
“He is responsible for delivering justice to you. Recall that you were accused of sabotaging the Strange landing. Dozens of astronauts died.”
That stung, for she could remember her role in that catastrophe. Reminding herself of the image of several men and women in spacesuits, burning up in infernal agony, she crossed her arms over her chest and could only look down, shaking.
Sabrina could see in her memory the image of herself, a blond-haired adolescent woman, affixing explosives to a shuttle, darting her head around in the shadows to check for anyone who might catch her in the act. Neither remorse nor any positive emotion permeated the recollection, only bitterness toward those condescending Unnaturals.
She entered the police car and buried her face in her hands as she sat. Consolation was elusive, and all the while the radio breathed the entrancing gray melodies of other humans’ creation. Where had these people gone? She couldn’t say.
“Is he going to execute me?”
“Certainly not. We know you will not do something so heinous again after your treatment, and as such killing you would be superfluous. That we are talking right now, with the barrier down” – it nodded to the car’s center – “shows that we trust you not to be violent. However, Mister Livingston will require some community service from you.”
Treatment. They changed her to make her harmless, but how? Knowing she wasn’t likely to repeat her moral blunder was scarcely enough to ease her guilt. Whatever service she’d be asked to perform, Sabrina resolved to do it so well and so thoroughly that she would never again do an evil worthy of such labor. Until then, it was all she could do to keep from killing herself.