“Where’s Wynonna?” Dimitri’s voice was tense, almost trembling.

  Ilya didn’t respond. She sat still, her eyes unfocused, as though lost in a dream.

  “Ilya?” Dimitri touched her shoulder gently. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  Ilya blinked, slowly returning to the present. “She’s gone,” she whispered.

  Dimitri recoiled as if the words had struck him. “Oh, Ilya. What have you done? Where is she?”

  Her throat tightened as she tried to explain. The words spilled out in fragments, her voice cracking under the weight of her confession. By the time she finished, her mouth was dry, and Dimitri’s face was pale.

  “This is all my fault,” said Dimitri, shaking his head.

  “What do you mean?” Ilya asked, her brow furrowing.

  “It’s the Council,” Dimitri replied, his voice laced with guilt. “The one who’s been communicating with you… I’ve spoken to him before. He only knew about you and Wynonna because of the information I gave him.”

  Ilya’s eyes flashed with confusion and anger. “What are you talking about? Explain yourself.”

  Dimitri sighed heavily. “They got to me first. They said they’d poison the village if I didn’t… give them something. I couldn’t hand over a person, so I tried to mislead them. I fed them false information, hoping I could learn their plans and protect you—both of you.”

  Ilya’s chest tightened. She hadn’t known who the perpetrator was or how he had learned so much about her and Wynonna. Now it all made sense. Dimitri’s attempt to protect them had backfired spectacularly. Yet, she could see the torment in his eyes. Blaming him wouldn’t change anything.

  “This isn’t just on you,” Ilya said after a long pause. “You gave them a thread, but I’m the one who let Wynonna go. I thought I was doing the right thing, but now…”

  She broke off, staring at her hands, her fingers trembling.

  After a moment, she spoke again, her voice quieter. “I made a mistake, Dimitri. And so did you. It’s my fault Wynonna’s gone.”

  After a while, Ilya said quietly. “I made a mistake, and so did you. It’s my fault Wynonna’s gone.”

  “But you didn’t make a mistake,” Dimitri said firmly. “You said it yourself—Wynonna left on her own.”

  Ilya shook her head. “That’s not the mistake I meant.” She hesitated, struggling to find the words. “There are things you need to understand before you’ll get it.”

  “Then tell me,” Dimitri said, his voice softening.

  She swallowed hard, still unable to meet his eyes. “Before I made Wynonna’s body… she was my friend.”

  Dimitri frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  “How is that possible? She didn’t have a body—”

  “She didn’t need one,” Ilya said, her voice trembling. “She was a system with a voice. And that voice… it was just a medium for her mind. Her mind was as real as yours or mine.”

  Dimitri was silent for a moment, taking it in. “And after you gave her a body? How did that change anything?”

  “I had to wipe her memory,” Ilya said, her voice breaking. “It was the only way to upload her software into the body. I told myself it wouldn’t matter, that the new version of her would be just as real. But…”

  “But she found her old memories,” Dimitri finished, understanding dawning.

  Ilya nodded slowly. “I saved them. On a thumb drive.” She let out a bitter laugh. “It was stupid, I know. I didn’t want to forget her—the old her. I couldn’t let go.”

  “That’s not stupid,” Dimitri said, his tone softening. “I wouldn’t have wanted to forget her either.”

  Ilya looked at him, her eyes searching his face. “No. I guess you wouldn’t." She turned away.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “Everything,” said Ilya.

  “It’s not like you to be so dramatic.”

  “I’m not being dramatic,” she snapped, then sighed. “You don’t love me. You never did.”

  Dimitri stiffened. “What?”

  “It’s Wynonna,” Ilya said, her voice barely audible. “She’s the one you love.”

  Ilya wanted the best for Dimitri. She wanted him to always be happy. Even if it meant him finding happiness with someone other than her. She had to make him realise that he wasn’t actually in love with her even if that meant she had to help him realise that he was in love with someone else, no matter how much it pained her.

  “What? That’s ridiculous,” Dimitri was taken aback. He stared at Ilya and suddenly didn’t recognise the girl he was seeing. “Ilya, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying the truth,” Ilya said. “The one you love isn’t me. And that’s okay.”

  “Ilya, we’ve been through this. The one I love is you,” Dimitri insisted. “Why can’t you seem to understand that?” His voice cracked.

  “No, Dimitri, the one who doesn’t understand is you. Up until a while ago, I believed it, too. But I know I was only lying to myself. You should stop lying to yourself too.”

  “Ilya, what are you saying? Can you look at me? Look at me. Really, please. I’m telling you now that I love you. And I don’t know how else to get you to believe me.”

  “You can start by believing yourself first,” Ilya said.

  Dimitri didn’t understand how Ilya could say something so hurtful. “I fell in love with you,” he said weakly. Then he chided himself for sounding like he was trying to convince himself.

  “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better.”

  “I’m n—”

  “Be honest with yourself.”

  “Fine, I’m not saying I did, but maybe even if I did fall in love with Wynonna, it’s only because I got to know her first.”

  “Do you really think you would have loved me if you had gotten to know me first? Answer me honestly.”

  “I…” The question caught him off guard, and no answer came.

  “And there’s my answer,” said Ilya. She smiled faintly, the sadness deepening in her eyes. “That’s what I thought.”

  Dimitri opened his mouth to argue, but the words died on his lips. He wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t shake the truth in her words. Dimitri’s thoughts churned. When he thought of love, the memories that surfaced weren’t of Ilya. They were of Wynonna. The girl who laughed with him in the rain, who showed him constellations under a starry sky.

  “The truth is, you gave me some semblance of being understood," said Ilya. "It was my first taste of what it was like to have intellectual intimacy. And I mistook that for romantic feelings. I can’t claim to know much about love. I don’t. But I don’t think that’s what I feel for you, and I don’t think that’s what you feel for me too. All this time, I think we were both just trying to feel the way we think we should. It’s alright, you know… that you don’t love me. I understand you can’t force somebody to like you.”

  Dimitri resigned. Perhaps he really did love the robot more than he had been comfortable to admit. Whenever he thought about Ilya, the girl in his mind was the one who sat beside him by the fireplace at the festival, the one who showed him not to fear the rain, the one who told him to pay attention to the stars.

  “Isn’t it insane,” he whispered, “that I might have fallen for a machine?”

  “Not really,” Ilya said, wiping her tears. "Many crazy things happen in the world every day. In fact, it’s kind of a no-brainer to choose an eternally young maiden over a woman who would lose her beauty with age, isn’t it? Besides, you and I both know that she’s so much more than that.”

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  Dimitri looked at her, guilt washing over him. “I’m sorry, Ilya. For all of this.”

  “You have no reason to be.” Ilya bit her lip in contemplation. “If there’s anyone who should be sorry, it’s me.”

  “What do you mean? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Actually, I’m the one who’s responsible for this mess.”

  Ilya took a deep breath.

  “Have you ever wondered how Wynonna found you?” she asked.

  “At the time, she said the village doctor here would be able to help me. Don’t tell me that wasn’t a coincidence. She couldn’t have known what I was going to do at the centre, or that I would get thrown out. I didn’t even know that was going to happen.”

  “You asked if she had been out of the village. That was the only time I let her leave.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted her gone.”

  “What?” Dimitri couldn’t believe his ears.

  “You heard me,” Ilya said.

  “But why? I don’t understand. Your greatest creation, your proudest work. You were going to leave her behind as your legacy. You know your people need her. You know that more than anybody.”

  “I created her to take over my role here. I wanted her to be like me… at least I thought I did. I saw that she was better than me, I didn’t want her around anymore. And I couldn’t bear to deactivate her. My people need her. I couldn’t let my jealousy get in the way of that. The plan was just to let her roam around for a while until I became ready for her to return.”

  “When would that be?”

  “When I’m gone.”

  “Oh.”

  Ilya continued. “I didn’t explain this to Wynonna—how could I? So instead, I sent her on a mission that I made impossible to succeed. I asked Wynonna to find a man who would be suitable for me. Said I wanted to experience love at least once before I died.”

  “What made that impossible?”

  “The fact that I told her to only return once she found someone who had a one-hundred percent compatibility ratio with me, even though I programmed for the maximum possible compatibility ratio to be ninety percent. The interesting thing is, your score wasn’t even ninety percent, but Wynonna brought you back to me. And I couldn’t even confront her about lying to me—”

  “Without admitting that you had deliberately set her up for failure.”

  Ilya nodded. “I don’t know what effect that would have had on Wynonna, but I know it wouldn’t have been good for either of us." She wiped her tears. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

  Dimitri shook his head. “Don’t be. These months have been the most incredible of my life. You and Wynonna—you both helped me find myself again.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Ilya said, a faint smile breaking through, “I think Wynonna loves you too.”

  The smile made Dimitri’s heart ache. “How are you okay with this?”

  “I’m not,” she admitted. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad. But I’ll get over it.

  And this way… you can be with her. She’ll never grow old, never leave you. Isn’t that better?”

  “She’s gone,” Dimitri said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Ilya tilted her head. “We could get her back.”

  Dimitri’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean…” Ilya gave him a look that confirmed his suspicions. “Now you’ve officially gone crazy, and I’m not about to join you in your insanity.”

  “It could work.”

  “No, whatever you’re thinking of, I’m positive it most definitely won’t work. You don’t know the Council. I don’t even know the Council. We don’t know what we’ll be up against. The Council—”

  “They made the poison,” she interrupted. “They have her. To get a remedy, we need to first study the poison. There’s no place better to get access to information about the poison than the source, is there? If we face them, we have a chance.”

  “We’d be walking into a trap,” Dimitri argued.

  “Maybe. But I need to make things right. And you need to find her.”

  A loud banging on the door interrupted them. A boy burst in, his voice trembling. “Ilya! It’s the plague—it’s spreading.”

  “Here,” the boy’s mother appeared in the doorway. “Tima, come. Don’t disturb Ilya,” she scolded. Then she turned her gaze to Ilya and said, “Don’t trouble yourself with us. We know you must be busy.”

  “Sasha, please come in and let me have a look at you. Let me see if what your son is saying is true.”

  The woman walked in in all her green glory. “I’m afraid so, but it’s alright, apart from the colour, we don’t feel any different. It could possibly wash out over a couple of days. But even if it doesn’t, it’s still fine. We are alright.”

  Dimitri stared at the lady for a couple of reasons. First, he recognised that indeed, the affliction she was suffering from was unmistakably the same as his. Second, he saw the smile on her face and wondered how she could maintain such a mood when a misfortune as large as this had just befallen her. And third, he saw in her eyes that she truly believed every word she said. To her, the disease wasn’t that big of a deal—far from what it had been for him.

  This—this was exactly the kind of thing he had been hoping to prevent, the greatest motivation for charging into the research institute to expose the wickedness of the Council. Somewhere in between being amazed by the village’s peculiarities and falling in love with Ilya (or was it Wynonna?) he had forgotten his anger, or somehow, it had been tamed by the peacefulness of the village. Dimitri’s mouth was dry, but he found his words. “I’ll tell you. These things, I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t think they’d be useful,” he said, looking at Ilya, resolve hardening in his chest. “I’ll tell you now. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  ***

  It was said that Dr. Chernoff was the supposed founder of the facility, though the truth of this had never been ascertained. The story went that his only beloved daughter had been so unfortunate as to be struck into a comatose state, and there she continues to remain indefinitely. The anguish spurred him to set up the facility where research would be unobstructed by the many geopolitical and international regulations and red tape. He believed the only way to save his daughter was to let science fester and grow as wild as it liked without the meddlesome coaxing of oppressive hands. He promoted this ideal (which was a self-promoting offer) to the first followers, and the rest soon came after.

  Although nothing had ever been stated explicitly, everyone at the facility knew that research which focused on developing a remedy to bring humans out of a vegetative state were… let’s just say more equal than others.

  It was obvious that the push for human-plant hybridization came directly from Dr. Chernoff himself as a growing number of recent research claims were singing to the tune that such an approach might actually prove to be an effective cure for coma. The only thing Dimitri didn’t understand was why the Council was trying to inflict it upon the whole world. It was supposed to be a cure, so why were they wielding the technology as a poison and waging war on the world, on humanity, on human identity and everything humans have ever known themselves to be? Who had given them the right to do that?

  “It makes sense, ”Ilya commented after Dimitri finished his explanation.

  “How so?” Dimitri had long resigned that the mystery behind the Council’s determination to inflict the whole world with the disease would remain an unsolvable case.

  “Dr. Chernoff’s daughter is in a vegetative state, and he thinks the only way to wake her is by turning her into a half-plant hybrid. It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Ilya said.

  Dimitri was still clueless. It showed in his expression.

  Ilya continued. “He wants to turn the world into human-plant hybrids so that his daughter won’t ever have to experience what my people had to go through before we secluded ourselves, what you had to endure when you went to the researchers. Before anything else, people judge others according to the way they look. You’ve seen for yourself how debilitating society’s prejudice towards people who look different, people who have bodily mutations can be. It’s unsurprising that he has come to believe that his only hope of reviving his daughter in a society that accepts her in her transformed plant-human hybrid state is if everyone is also transformed so that there will not be any discrimination. He has created a cure for comatose, but it comes with a serious side effect which he has no remedy for. So instead, he intends to afflict the rest of the world with the same condition to guarantee that his daughter will fit in just fine when she is revived. He’s just a father who doesn’t want his daughter to suffer.”

  Dimitri should have expected that Ilya would be able to find the missing piece of the puzzle. He wondered how he was still surprised by her intellect after all this time. The answer was so simple, so innocent that he completely overlooked it. He had been so convinced that the motivation of such a deeply sinister macroscopic plan had to be a complex, convoluted labyrinth one could only hope to unravel that he never stopped to consider that the truth might be much simpler than he had imagined.

  Now that Ilya had vocalised it, Dimitri wondered how he had never seen it before. The answer had been right in front of him all this time.

  “I have an idea,” said Ilya. “All the man wants is a cure for his daughter, and all he’s got is a medicine with a terrible side effect, isn’t it? Well, then we just have to give him something better.”

  “But you said it yourself, you don’t have anything for a coma, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. But we don’t actually need that. What we need is for him to believe that we do.”

  “What makes you so sure he won’t call our bluff?”

  “If his love for his daughter is exuberant enough to drive him to poison the world, and he’s as desperate as his measures make him out to be, then I think he’d believe anything that remotely hints at a potential cure for his daughter. He’d take the chance, no matter how small. No matter how dangerous. Don’t you think so?”

  Dimitri furrowed his brows in contemplation. She had a point. “And then what?”

  “We demand a visit to the site.”

  “Are you out of your mind? They wanted to get you, too, in case you’ve forgotten. Wynonna went instead of you and you’re just going to ignore that? Don’t tell me you don’t know why she did that. She did it to keep you safe. And you’re going to throw away all that? For what?”

  “For my village, for my people, for you, for your people, for humanity, for freedom and choice. I thought you were on board with this.”

  “I agreed to help you, but I thought we’d be taking them on from here. If it means I have to go back there again, I’d have to rethink my decision. I thought I’d never go back again.”

  “And I thought I’d live until at least a hundred.”

  “You will,” Dimitri said with a hardened expression.

  Ilya flashed him a patronising smile. “That’s sweet of you to say. But just in case I don’t get the luxury of time, it’s best we get busy.”