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Geno was charging in the locker room when Sid got to the arena: slumped over at his stall, the flap open at the back of his neck, the long cord extending to the outlet near the door. His eyes were open and unseeing, fixed on a random point on the floor. Sid hated to see him like that, had always hated it, but it was worse now than it had been before. He didn’t need the reminder that Geno was a thing: an object. He knew.
By the time Sid had looked over his gear, the indicator light at Geno’s nape had turned from orange to green. This was Dana’s job, usually, but Sid knew what to do. There was no reason to go pry Dana out of the skate room.
He unplugged the cord from Geno’s neck and shut the flap, smoothing his fingers over the skin until the seams closed. Geno always felt hot when he had just finished charging, like a person running a high fever. Sid tugged up the hem of Geno’s shirt to expose his lower back and the activation button there, tucked beside his spine, where it was protected by his pants during a game. He pushed and held, and waited for the three beeps before he let go.
He stepped back. Geno blinked a few times, and then straightened from his slouch. His hands settled on his knees. He stared vacantly ahead of him, still booting up. Finally he blinked again and turned his head, looking around the room.
“You’re at the arena,” Sid told him. “It’s Thursday. We’re playing the Kings tonight. I just got here and I’m about to go tape my sticks.” It never took Geno long to reorient, but Sid didn’t see any reason to let him drift in confusion for even thirty seconds.
Geno nodded. “Thursday. Okay.” He nodded again. “Thanks, Sid.”
“No problem,” Sid said, and then forced himself to leave the room. Geno wasn’t his to care for any longer.
+ + +
Geno got into a fight with Williams early in the third. Sid didn’t see what started it, but by the time the whistle blew, Geno was on top of Williams on the ice, punching his head. Geno wasn’t much of a fighter; he hadn’t gotten in a single fight last season, and there had only been a handful in the years before that. But he was fighting now, and then he started glitching in the penalty box, the distinctive jerky hand to face motion that had the box attendant leaping to his feet and calling for a stoppage of play.
Stewie and the team’s bot tech were in the box with Geno for way longer than Sid would have liked, but Geno was upright when they emerged—sagging, but on his feet and skating between Stewie and Noah. The crowd clapped, the guys tapped their sticks against the boards, and Sid exhaled and sat down hard on the bench.
“The fuck’s wrong with Geno?” Kuni muttered to him, and Sid shook his head. He knew a fair amount about bot maintenance, but glitching wasn’t maintenance, it wasn’t common, and it meant that something was pretty wrong.
Geno didn’t come back to the bench, and he wasn’t in the locker room after the game. Sid talked to the press. Nobody asked him about Geno. They had shut out the Kings; it was a good game. Nobody even asked him about Geno’s fight.
When he was done, he went down the hall to the mech room. The door was closed, but when Sid tried the handle, it wasn’t locked. He let himself in.
Noah had Geno sprawled face-down on the exam table. The big panel of Geno’s back was hinged open, exposing the mess of wires. Geno’s feet twitched slightly, dangling over the end of the table.
Noah looked over at Sid and frowned. “You need something?”
“Who is it?” Geno asked, muffled. He was still powered up, then.
“It’s Sid,” Noah said. The league was pretty serious about bot rights. The door to the mech room stayed closed when they were being examined; they got to have their privacy. Noah was fiercely protective of Geno and Olli both, and he wouldn’t hesitate to tell Sid to fuck off if Geno didn’t want him there.
Geno didn’t respond for long enough that Sid’s heart sank. But then Geno grunted and said, “Sid is okay,” and Noah shrugged and went back to poking around in Geno’s back with his sensor, a slim metal rod like a knitting needle.
Sid pulled up a stool and sat at the head of the table. There was a cutout for Geno’s face, like a massage table. He couldn’t turn his head to look at Sid, but he reached out with one hand, and Sid brushed their fingertips together: hi, I’m here. It was the most they ever touched off the ice, these days.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
“Don’t know,” Geno said. “You know, it’s fight, maybe I’m angry. But I fight before and no problems. But then—”
“Yeah,” Sid said.
He sat quietly with Geno while Noah prodded and muttered. At last Noah sighed and returned his sensor to its charging stand. “I’ve gotta run full diagnostics on you. I’ll set the door so nobody else can get in, okay?”
Geno didn’t say anything as Noah closed and sealed his back panel. When he sat up, he was frowning. “Nobody?”
“I mean, the fire department has override access if the place starts burning down,” Noah said. “But nobody else. I’ll boot you up first thing when I get here in the morning.”
“Okay,” Geno said begrudgingly. He was paranoid now about powering down overnight anywhere except his own house. Nobody blamed him, not after what had happened to him.
“Come on, let’s get you in the dock,” Noah said.
That was Sid’s cue to leave. “See you tomorrow, G,” he said, rising to his feet, and Geno gave him an absent wave.
Sid went home. There was a dock for Geno in his bedroom, but it hadn’t been used in months. Maybe it didn’t even work anymore.
+ + +
Geno was fine for a few games, and then they went on the road and he glitched out while they were playing the Wild, pretty horribly, twitching and spasming on the ice near the net. The arena went silent as Stewie and Noah rushed out. Geno looked and acted so human that it was easy to forget he wasn’t, and this was the real uncanny valley shit, watching him move in a way that no human could.
“That’s bad,” Olli said.
Sid glanced at him. “You know something?”
Olli shrugged. Even if he knew, he wouldn’t tell Sid. He and Geno had been thick as thieves before the Olympics, and it hadn’t taken them long to get close again afterward. Bot solidarity.
Geno couldn’t skate off, this time. He left the ice on a stretcher.
Somehow they won that game. Sid phoned it in with the press. Nobody asked him about Geno, but one of the local beats said, when they were wrapping up, “Really hope Geno’s going to be okay,” and everyone murmured agreement.
“He’s a tough guy,” Sid said, and what he meant was, Me, too.
He went to check on Geno when he was done. The Wild didn’t have any bots, and they didn’t have a designated mech room, so Geno was face-down on a table in the trainers’ room, getting his innards poked through while Stewie worked on Tanger’s hamstring.
Geno was powered down, limp and unresponsive. His arms were raised above his head and crossed at the wrists. Sid touched his shoulder, where Noah couldn’t see. “Is he, uh.”
“I’m working,” Noah said tightly, without looking away from Geno’s back.
“Okay,” Sid said.
Geno wasn’t on the bus back to the hotel that night, but he was on the flight to Winnipeg in the morning. He seemed fine. He played cards the way he always did. Sid could worry about him, but it had to be the worry of a captain for his alternate, and Sid couldn’t remember what that felt like. After more than six months, his feelings were as fresh and raw as they had been the day they all boarded the flight to Sochi.
+ + +
The game against the Jets was physical and wild. Even fucking Flower took a slashing penalty. They won in overtime, and the locker room was in giddy turmoil afterward. Geno was grinning and jumping around with Suttsy: dancing. Back to his new self.
The next day was a travel day, with a late morning flight. It was inevitable that they would go out. Sid didn’t care where they went as long as he could order a steak.
There was steak, and also shots. Sid sat next to Flower and watched Geno across the table, laughing with Olli, neither of them eating or drinking anything, but out with the team nonetheless, to celebrate.
Sid drank steadily. Flower’s frown deepened, and after Sid’s fifth shot, he said, “You’re going to regret that in the morning.”
“Probably,” Sid said.
“I know you’re worried,” Flower said, “but—”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Sid said. He was riding a hard buzz. He knew he should stop, but he wasn’t going to.
“Not with me, no,” Flower said. “Maybe you should talk with him.”
Geno balled up a napkin and threw it down the table at Suttsy. It uncrumpled in mid-flight and landed on Desi’s plate. Sid said, “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Flower sighed. “Sid—”
“He doesn’t remember,” Sid said.
“Maybe he will, if you tell him,” Flower said. “You know. Like you forget about something until someone reminds you.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Sid said. “It’s gone.”
“Fine,” Flower said. “Okay. Keep making yourself miserable.”
“Glad you approve,” Sid said, and reached for another shot.
The Russian national team hadn’t wanted any conflicted loyalties, in Sochi. They had done a soft wipe: not a hard reset to Geno’s factory settings, but a wipe to his base personality. He came back from the Olympics as the guy he had been as a rookie: shy, volatile, unable to speak English. He still liked animals and McDonald’s, but he had forgotten the team and everything that had happened to him since he came to the NHL.
The Penguins had a personality backup, of course. But backups were expensive, time-consuming, and infrequent. Geno’s was a year out of date, and there was stuff he would never get back. The brutal playoffs sweep by the Bruins. The birth of Max’s daughter. His entire relationship with Sid.
“They murder me,” Geno had said, cold with fury, and that was the clip that made the rounds on every news channel for a week, until the next scandal hit and people lost interest.
All Sid had left was a few pictures, and the unused dock in his bedroom. Otherwise he might have thought he invented the whole thing.
The night went on. Sid didn’t feel too drunk until he got up to hit the washroom, but his head spun profoundly as he stood at the urinal, and he knew he would regret everything. His chest hurt. He needed to leave.
“I gotta go,” he said to Flower, when he got back to the table.
“Good plan,” Flower said. “Hey! Geno!”
“No,” Sid said, but it was too late: Geno had looked over, and then he and Flower were talking, and Sid drained his water glass and waited for someone to tell him what to do. Everything was fuzzy. He wanted to lie down.
“Come on, Sid,” Geno said, there beside his chair, one hand on Sid’s shoulder, and Sid stood up and pulled his coat on with clumsy hands. It was cold outside: Manitoba in November.
They walked for a while. The hotel could have been two blocks away or twenty. Sid could walk mostly in a straight line. He didn’t know where he was going. It was good that Geno was there with him, to keep him from getting lost.
“You’re glitching,” he said.
Geno glanced at him. “Not right now.”
“You know what I mean,” Sid said. “I’m so fucking worried about you.”
“You drink too much,” Geno said.
“Yeah,” Sid said. “Oh, God. I really did.”
“You drink water, get in bed,” Geno said, and then the hotel was there, or at least Geno was steering him into a lobby, and then into an elevator. Sid slumped against the wall as Geno pushed a button. Sid didn’t remember which floor he was staying on. He didn’t know if he had a room key. Did he have his wallet? He patted his pockets a few times.
“Here,” Geno said. He reached into Sid’s coat pocket and extracted his wallet, and pulled out his key card. Geno had everything under control. He wasn’t drunk. He was a bot, and his memory was perfect, except for the things that had been erased from him.
Sid blindly followed Geno down the hall. Geno opened a door, and herded Sid inside. That was Sid’s bag on the end of the bed. This was Sid’s room.
“Get undress,” Geno said, and went into the washroom.
Sid fumbled out of his clothes. He left his underwear on, because he didn’t get naked with Geno anymore. He sat on the bed. Geno came out of the washroom with Sid’s water bottle, filled with nasty hotel tap water that Sid didn’t want to drink. Geno put the bottle in his hand, and Sid drank.
“Good,” Geno said.
“I drank too much,” Sid said.
“I know,” Geno said gently. “Sid, why you do this? It’s not like you.”
“I don’t know,” Sid said. “I don’t know. I still miss you. I’m sorry. I still love you. I tried to stop. I don’t know how.” He took another sip of water. His throat hurt. “I’m sorry.”
“Sid,” Geno said, and Sid glanced up. Geno had a weird look on his face. He was so handsome. The pain in Sid’s chest and his throat squeezed tight, merging together into something that felt shameful. He was going to embarrass himself. He probably already had.
“Sorry,” Sid said.
“You—love?” Geno said.
“When they wiped you,” Sid said. “You don’t remember me. Noah said—it would confuse you. So I tried not to—but I miss you. I’m so sorry.” He raised one hand to his face. His skin felt hot and tight.
“Sid,” Geno said. He moved in close and put his arms around Sid. He smelled the same. He was a little too warm to be human. Sid hadn’t been so close to him since before the Olympics. Sid leaned against him and closed his eyes.
“I know you don’t remember,” Sid said.
“Okay,” Geno said. “I stay here tonight. Okay? Wake you up, make you drink more water. Then you plug me in. We talk in morning.”
“You need your cord,” Sid said.
“Yes, I go get,” Geno said. “Tell Olli what I do. Then I come back.” He pulled away slightly and cupped Sid’s face in his hands. Sid was too drunk to interpret Geno’s expression, but it made him feel sick and scared and hopeful all at once.
“I didn’t mean to,” Sid said, and he didn’t even really know what he was talking about.
“It’s okay,” Geno said. His hands were still on Sid’s face. “You get in bed. I come back soon.”
“Okay,” Sid said. Geno pulled back the covers, and Sid swung his legs up onto the mattress and lay down. He tugged the blankets up around his shoulders. He was so tired. He was going to pass out right away.
“You sleep,” Geno said, and ducked down to brush a gentle, earth-shattering kiss against Sid’s cheek.