Page 97 of Made for You

“Mercy,” I say, repeating Deborah’s word. The thing she never got but wanted to give. To Josh.

She nods. “Laura broke up with him. And then Josh did a bad thing. He posted a sex video they made together. It’s on my computer. Do you want to see it?”

I shiver. “No.”

“There was more. Pictures of her naked. Accusations. He made it sound like she was doing the whole football team. Professors, too.”

I hear the words Deborah is saying, but as much as I pride myself on my empathy, they’re not computing.

“I...don’t understand. Why would he want to ruin her like that?”

“She humiliated him. Exposed him. It was more than he could take. Hurt is like dominoes, isn’t it? He hurt her. She hurt him. He hurt her back.” She delivers this matter-of-factly. “Just like my babies. When they died, it hurt so bad, not just for me. Their daddy. Their grandparents. We were all in pain. And people in pain want someone to knock down.”

My heart pounds for Deborah, for Laura. For myself. Domino girls. There for others to knock down.

“And Laura?” Then I remember Andy’s millions in donations...to suicide prevention. “She killed herself, didn’t she?”

Deborah nods. “All her socials disappeared. Every trace of Laura on the internet was gone, until the memorial page her husband, Eric, made. But I had everything printed and saved.” She pats the photo albums.

My husband was responsible for Laura Wekstein’s death.

My head believes it. My heart doesn’t want to.

The next conclusion is equally as unbelievable.

Laura’s grieving older brother made me to be Josh’s perfect match.

Perfect. It’s a strange little word, because it means nothing without its context. Perfect for love? Or perfect for revenge?

I’m lightheaded. I brace my arms on the counter.

“Look.” Deborah points a remote at the TV and turns up the volume. “You’re on the news.”

“Hi, Jack,” says a live reporter in a windbreaker who’s jogging after two people who are walking briskly ahead of him. There’s a still frame of me in the upper right of the screen. “I’m here at Tenth Street on the campus of Indiana University, alma mater of WekTech CEO Andy Wekstein, the man responsible for designing Julia Walden.” He catches up with the first person. “Mr. Wekstein!”

The figure on the right turns briefly. Yep, it’s Andy.

“The Synth you designed is suspected of murdering her husband!” shouts the reporter as the camera wobbles. “Your response?”

Andy looks wild, unhinged. “She can’t fucking hurt people, okay, you morons? This is a sh—bleep show. That fu—bleep sheriff is a bigot and a disgrace to law enforcement. And you know what? You’re all a bunch of vultures! Bleep off!”

It’s absolutely bizarre, seeing Andy so out of control. I’ve seen him emotional before, but never angry like this. It reminds me...

Of Josh.

Bile rises. I have the awful image of being the ball bouncing back and forth between two angry men. The man who made me and the man I was made for.

The image on the TV shifts and I catch sight of the second figure, to Andy’s left, hands shoved into her jacket pockets, head down, trying to be unobtrusive. Eden.

“Why?” I say—to the TV, to Deborah, to myself. Each heartbeat hurts. “Why did Andy make me for Josh?”

But my brain fills in the story even as the last word leaves my mouth: Andy made me for revenge. He figured, once an abuser, always an abuser, and after Josh inevitably became violent with me, Andy was counting on me to go public with the abuse. Ruin Josh’s life just like Josh ruined Laura’s, in a perfect tit for tat. Laura took down her single MySpace post, and maybe only Deborah ever saw it. But a post from me would be seen by one hundred fifty million followers—and that’s just for starters. I’m a celebrity; Andy made sure of it. People would care in a way they never would have for Laura.

But there was a design flaw Andy didn’t anticipate, wasn’t there? Love. I didn’t behave like I was supposed to. I kept the abuse to myself. So Andy took matters into his own hands and killed Josh.

Deborah points the remote at the TV and mutes it.

“I think you know why,” she says with cold certainty. “Don’t you get it, Synth? It’s not enough for us to be the victims of their pain.” She grips my arm and squeezes with surprising ferocity. Her eyes lock with mine. Her voice is a snarl. “They need us to be their monsters, too.”