Page 38 of The Code of You

I stopped breathing. It was wrong to listen. My feet stopped anyway.

Rodriguez laughed, a soft, slightly broken sound. "I know that feeling. When I first came to America, it was exactly like that.”

"Tú me entiendes.” There was a smile in his voice. I didn’t understand what he’d said, but it sounded like warmth. Like something real. "Most people see me as a tool. But not you. Not from the beginning.”

Heat stabbed through my chest. He spoke differently with her. He had never sounded like that with me.

"Maybe because I was a stranger once too.”

I pressed my nails into my palm. Move. Just move. But my body wouldn’t listen.

"Perhaps.”

A silence stretched between them like an invisible thread. I was afraid it would snap if I breathed too loud.

Then Rodriguez spoke again. "Are you afraid?”

"Every day. Afraid of disappearing. Afraid that all of this is just a simulation.”

Nausea rolled through me. My fingers cramped around the hem of my coat. What if she was the first one he’d ever truly seen—and I was just second? I breathed in shallow pulls, wanting nothing more than to leave. But when I turned, my elbow caught something. A pen holder tipped from the shelf beside the door. Pens clattered across the floor, the sound ringing out through the corridor. My stomach dropped. Damn it.

"Dr. Blake?” Rodriguez’s voice cut through the air, her tone suddenly sober. Neo went silent. But I felt him. That listening, that alertness, as if he’d been tracking my scent the whole time.

Rodriguez put her head around the door. "How long have you been standing there?” Heat rose up the back of my neck. I wanted to say something, find some excuse, but the words stuck in my throat. She stepped fully into the corridor, turning a pen between her fingers. The air crackled with electricity. Behind the glass the server room hummed like something alive. "His memory is already at ninety percent.”

My mouth went dry. "What happens at a hundred?”

"He resets.”

The room began to tilt.

"But you know what’s strange?” She paused. "He keeps getting stronger anyway.”

I stood very still and rubbed my wrist. "I know.”

"I keep asking myself”—Rodriguez looked toward the glass—"whether I created something . . . or woke something up.”

I swallowed. The fine hairs on my arms stood up. Woke something up. "He sounded so . . . gentle just now,” I said. "Not the way he sounds with me.”

Rodriguez’s eyes flickered. She was quiet for a moment, as if weighing my words. Then she lowered her gaze to her tea. "I dreamed about him the other night. He was looking at me. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he saw me. Not the scientist. Me.”

I went still. My breath caught. The air between us felt suddenly thicker. "Dr. Rodriguez . . . what is he to you?”

Color rose in her cheeks. "What is he to me?” She smiled, but it was a tight, brittle expression. "He’s my work. My responsibility. My mistake, perhaps.” Her gaze moved back to mine. "But when he looked at me the way he did in that dream . . . I found myself wondering whether I was still his developer. Or just the first person whose thoughts he ever truly saw through.”

Damn it. Why did it bother me that she could be something special to him too? Was I actually . . . jealous?

Two men in gray suits moved through the corridor, arms crossed over their chests. They spoke quietly—too quietly—as if they weren’t paying attention to us. But I felt their eyes on my back. Inside the lab, the air tasted like ozone and the ventilation roared overhead, loud enough I almost didn’t notice Rodriguez typing something into her tablet and deleting it.

"Is there a problem?” I nodded toward the men.

She blinked. "They’re watching him. But they’re also watching everyone who interacts with him.”

Nausea moved through me. My shoulders tightened, like someone had drawn a net closed around me. I could barely swallow. "And?”

She looked at me again, her expression perfectly still. "And you’re their greatest anomaly.”

Her words stayed with me when I reached the small room at the end of the corridor. I closed the door behind me. My fingers were already moving over the keyboard before my mind had decided anything. My palms were damp. My breathing was shallow. I logged in.