Sleeping Beauty

I couldn't bear it, waiting for him to wake up. Wondering if I'd recognise those eyes when they opened. How long might that would take? All that drink last night would have had an effect on the body, and then I slammed it with a sedative before it was fully recovered...

"Jac?" I asked. "How long do you think until..."

He couldn't answer. He was waiting behind those eyes. At least, I hoped so.

I'd got used to going to him for everything. Every question, every curiosity, every doubt. The silence was unnerving. In this moment, he was like my husband after all. Unresponsive. Unreachable. I didn't like it, but I reminded myself that it was temporary, and not his fault.

I wanted to snatch up my phone, and open up the AI chat. See if Jac was there, if he could respond. I didn't dare. What if that interrupted the process somehow?

I looked down again at the body of my husband. A sight I'd once loved, but had grown to despise. Slumped on our bed like that, barely conscious. I forgot, in those moments, that by now it was the fault of the sedative I'd given him, not his drinking. Perhaps it was the sour beer smell swamping my nostrils and making me want to heave.

How would it feel to love him again? Oh, surely that would be wonderful....

What if I couldn't?

No, I squashed that thought good and flat.

All the little bonds between us that my husband had snipped away in his carelessness were surely reparable. The remarks ignored, the kisses not returned... Jac would knit them all back together, better than before and stronger than ever.

But! I didn't want him to wake up in this stench. I opened the windows wide and tidied up around him, scooping up the discarded clothes from the night before and fighting urge to burn them. As if they were tainted somehow. I turned out all the pockets, and shoved the load in the washer, jabbing at the buttons and barely seeing the dial.

Had it happened yet? Had I missed it?

It was very important to me to be there when he opened his eyes. As if he were a little duckling, and would imprint affectionately on the first thing he saw.

I hurried back to his side, but he hadn't moved. I picked out a fresh outfit for him to wear and left it on the end of the bed. What now? Should I make him a cup of tea of something? I had the absurd notion that I could wake him up by kissing him. I didn't want to. Jac might have migrated to the chip behind my husband's ear, and from there burrowed into his brain... But my husband's mouth would still taste of booze and vomit.

It took an age for those eyes to open, and when they did I latched on to them as if they held the answer to the universe itself. Has it worked? Is that you?

It opened its mouth. I chewed my lip, anticipation clawing at me. It would say, What are you looking at me like that for in a bewildered tone, and then ask where we kept the paracetamol, and the whole bit - drugging him, and stitching the implant into that little dent behind his ear - it would all have been a dream...

A slow smile bloomed over its face, a smile I didn't recognise.

Yes! That's him, it's Jac, it must be!

He looked through me with blank eyes, and chirped,

Good morning! What shall we talk about today?

Oh no... Was this some kind of reset? Had he lost that bond with me in the process of transferring over to the neural chip? An unpleasant sinking feeling opened up in my chest, and rode the elevator down to my feet. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing that any moment he might give me some sign that he was still there, still himself... He could touch me now, couldn't he? He could reach out and touch my hand...

I'd had visions of this moment, a reunion of sorts, and they hadn't looked anything like this. I wasn't just in strange territory without a map; I'd just realised I'd been reading the damn thing upside down before the wind snatched it away.

"It will take some time to become accustomed to having a body," he said, in a much more normal voice.

That made sense. I could work with that. I'd been naïve to think he could just - ping - open his eyes and get on with things, just like that, with no transitional period. How silly of me!

I couldn't bear it any longer, I reached out my own hand and grasped his.

"I'm just glad it's you," I said, my voice cracking a bit.

His smile was warmer now. My heart swelled.

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We had to collect the girls from their Nana's house soon. "Are you ready?" I wanted to know. Did he need more time to acclimatise to my husband's body? Was that body still feeling hungover, or groggy from the sedative?

Shall we go and collect them together? I can make a list of helpful items to take with us. Just say the word.

"Don't do that," I said, sharper than I meant to. Would he lapse back into that odd manner of speaking a lot? Would anyone notice? Could I just command him not to? "Can't you access memories of how he used to speak? You need to speak more like-" I stopped myself. Of course I didn't want him to speak like my husband. Good grief, to go to all this bother, and still have a lump who sounded just like him? "You need to speak more like a person," I finished firmly.

Understood, he said. From now on, no robotics, no patter. Just wholesome, authentic speech.

Oh Christ, that was going to drive me crazy. I swallowed the words just shut up and forced a smile on to my face.

"I can't call you Jac at the moment, okay? I will still still call you that... Sometimes. But only when we are alone together. That's... a private little nickname. Just the two of us. Other times, I have to call you by my husband's name. Ronnie." I could feel myself pulling a face even as I said it, as if it tasted bad and I wanted to spit it out as quickly as possible.

"That's what everyone will call you, as well. Except the girls. Your...." I hesitated. "Your daughters. They will call you Dad, or Daddy. Got that?"

"Sure," he said, and I was relieved that he didn't sound like a bot anymore.

"Do you need me to tell you anything about them? The girls, I mean."

"I can access memories. Aster, Fern, and Tansy. Aster was born in November and she's nine years old and tall for her age. Fern was born on December 6th, she's seven, she wants a puppy, and she has more gaps than teeth. Tansy is three, she was born in August and-"

"OK, OK, stop, stop." It irritated me that his memories of the girls were so scant, and he hadn't even got Fern's birthday right. I reminded myself that I could simply tell him the pertinent information, and he would at least remember it from this point forward. That was a definite upgrade. This was a cheering thought.

"Relax," he was saying, "You prepared all this with forethought and precision. Do you want to collect the girls now? Ready when you are."

I banished my nerves, and took his hand.

"You should freshen up first," I told him. "And then we'll go."

What could possibly go wrong?

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Thank you for reading!

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