She had to stop and control her breathing, stop and fight the nausea that kept threatening to overwhelm her, stop and fight the grief.Michelle let her...head rest on her knee, her arms covering her bruised face. She listened as Marley talked, chattered on and on. In her head, she was praying. For herself, for them to get out of here. And for Nick. It hurt so much to think that she had found a love with him unlike anything she'd ever felt before. And now he was gone before that love even had been. She was a little leery of my proximity, I could see, and she sat about a foot from me."Yuki, what's bothering you?"Yuki said, "Sir, you have to punish me for what I did last night. What I did almost managed to get both of us recycled. Unless you punish me I might do it again. A good punishment will make that unlikely. I know myself. If you don't punish me I might do it again. Please punish me." Yuki, what happened was a reflex action. You've seen it all morning in the other girls. The AIs are. . your soulhad moved on." I'm ... dead?" The voice sounded incredulous at the news. "Maybethat's why it's so warm and happy, and I can eat all the ice cream Iwant and never get sick to my tummy like I did at Katie's party!" Shesounded confused. Then she sounded stern. "Who are you? Why are youhere?" I'm ... I'm Antonio Martinelli," I said. "You almost ran over me onthe sidewalk, and then you got hit by the car." Oh, yeah." She paused for a moment. "You're the mobster guy thatPeter told. An interplay began between her eyes and her mouth that fascinated me. As incredible as it was to believe given the context of our meeting, I could have sworn that she was flirting with me.I took inventory of her, the white hair, the ample bosom, green eyes, all of it adding up to a beautiful european woman that I had just defended from harm. The fact that she looked to be twice as old as me, at a minimum, didn’t bother me in the least.She approached me and gave me a quick hug as a reward for.