The Nanny Who Still Breathed After the Power Was Cut

Mom, why is it still breathing even after we unplug it?

Late at night, my nine-year-old son Howie Abbott had a death grip on the hem of my nightshirt, one finger pointed at the tall, upright figure standing in the corner of the living room. His voice shook so badly it barely held together.

My whole body went rigid, and the half glass of warm water I'd just poured slipped and shattered on the wood floor, glass scattering everywhere.

That was the top-spec bionic robot nanny I'd paid 3.28 million for.

For the past six months it had been flawless, handling every last bit of the household chores, tutoring my son, even putting that leech of an ex-husband in his place every time he showed up looking for trouble.

All along I'd thought I'd simply bought myself a cold, perfectly obedient, expensive machine.

Until this moment, when I followed my son's finger with my eyes.

In the pale wash of moonlight through the window, that "machine," which should have been powered down and lifeless on standby, had a back that was rising and falling in some way that made my skin crawl.

And then it did something that made my scalp prickle.

"Winona Fox! Why is your braised pork so salty again? Are you trying to salt my mother to death?"

Rick Dickerson's voice carried from the living room into the kitchen, layered over the match-start jingle of his phone game, and it grated on me like nothing else.

I stood in the kitchen thick with cooking smoke, spatula still in my hand.

Oil had just spattered onto the back of my hand, raising a swollen red blister, and I sucked in a breath at the sting.

I turned my head and looked at my husband of ten years through the glass sliding door.

He was sprawled across the couch, both feet up on the coffee table.

Beside him sat his mother, my mother-in-law, picking through the dish with her chopsticks.

"Exactly. Meat's so expensive these days, over thirty a pound!"

She rolled her eyes and dropped a piece of fat back on the table. "Ricky works so hard for his money, and you just eat and live here for free and can't even cook a decent meal."

I drew in a breath, switched off the range hood, and walked straight out.

"Mom, I paid this month's living expenses, I pay the mortgage, and even the cigarettes your son smokes come out of my pocket." I looked at her, cold.

Her face changed, and she slapped her chopsticks down on the table.

"What kind of attitude is that? You've completely lost it! Ricky, look at the wonderful wife you married!"

Rick didn't even lift his head, fingers dragging frantically across the screen.

"Winona, did you take the wrong medicine? It's the weekend, what are you kicking up a fuss about? Go pour me a glass of water, I'm dying of thirst."

"You want water, pour it yourself." My face was cold.

"Say that again." Rick finally deigned to put down his phone, glaring as he got to his feet.

Right then my nine-year-old, Howie, came running out of the bedroom, holding a math worksheet covered in red X's.

"Dad, I don't know how to do this problem. Can you show me?" Howie tugged timidly at the corner of Rick's shirt.

"Get lost! Can't you see I'm busy being pissed off here? Go find your mother!"

Rick swatted his hand out, annoyed, and shoved Howie straight to the floor.

Howie's head struck the corner of the coffee table, and he burst into tears.

Something roared in my head, and the string that had been pulled tight for ten years snapped clean through.

I rushed over, shoved Rick aside, and pulled Howie into my arms.

"Rick, are you even human?"

I was shaking all over, tears swimming in my eyes, but I clenched my teeth and refused to let them fall.

"What did I do? I'm out every day schmoozing, working like a dog, and I come home and still have to wait on the two of you?" Rick jabbed his finger at my face as he cursed.

"You call that schmoozing? You call getting drunk and running your mouth with your loser buddies schmoozing?"

I stood up, grabbed the plate of braised pork off the table, and slammed it, plate and all, down at Rick's feet.

Sauce splashed up his pant leg.

"You're insane!" Rick hopped back, screaming curses.

"Yeah, I'm insane. Your family drove me insane." I drew in a breath, my voice cold as ice. "Rick, we're getting divorced."

"Divorce? Fine! Just don't come crying to me later!"

Two weeks later, outside the county courthouse, Rick stood holding the green divorce certificate, grinning like he'd won something.

"Winona, you're thirty-eight, dragging a kid around. What man is ever going to want you now?"

I didn't bother answering. I took Howie's hand and walked to my car without looking back.

The apartment was mine, bought with a down payment before the marriage. Per the settlement, I paid Rick three hundred thousand so he'd walk away with nothing else.

Three hundred thousand. It emptied out nearly every dollar I'd saved these past few years.

But I didn't care. I just wanted the quiet.

Reality slapped that idea out of me fast.

Three days after the divorce, my company landed a major project.

As project director, I was stuck at the office until nine every night.

So I paid a premium, six thousand a month, for a nanny named Prudence Lambert to pick Howie up and cook dinner.

Within two weeks, the house had fallen apart.

That day I got off early. The moment I pushed the door open, a thick reek of stale cooking grease hit me.

The kitchen was a disaster, the sink piled with dirty dishes, the trash can giving off a sour stench.

Prudence sat on the couch scrolling through videos, the volume turned up loud enough to shake the walls.

Howie was hunched alone in the corner of the balcony, hugging his knees, his eyes red-rimmed.

"Nanny Lambert, what's going on here? Why is the house like this?" I asked, holding down my temper.

Prudence rolled her eyes and got to her feet, slow as she pleased.

"Oh, come on, Miss Fox, there's just too much work in this house. My back's bad, I can't do all that. And your son's a picky eater. He won't touch anything I make."

I went to Howie and felt his forehead, and realized his little palms were cold from hunger.

"Mommy, I don't like the food she makes. It's all spicy" Howie looked up at me, miserable.

"You awful child, why would you lie like that?"

Prudence shrieked at the top of her lungs, "I made it spicy to warm the chill out of him! Single moms these days just don't know how to raise a kid. They spoil them rotten!"

"Shut your mouth!"

I whipped around and fixed my eyes on her.

"You take my money, buy the cheapest discount vegetables, and pocket what's left of the grocery cash. You think I don't know?"

Prudence's face changed. She took a guilty step back.

"Don't come tomorrow. I'll pay out your wages. Now get out."

After I sent the nanny packing, I cleaned the house alone until the middle of the night.

At two in the morning, I sank into the couch, staring at the empty living room, and a suffocation like nothing I'd felt before rose up in me.

My phone buzzed then. A message in the project group chat, demanding the revised proposal by eight the next morning.

I rubbed my aching temples and glanced at my sleeping son.

The trap of single motherhood is like a vast bog.

The harder you struggle, the deeper you sink.

The last straw fell on a stormy night a month later.

That evening Howie spiked a high fever, his temperature climbing toward a hundred and four.

Rain came down in sheets outside. I carried him alone, couldn't even get the umbrella open, and stood at the curb for a full half hour before I finally flagged down a cab.

The ER was packed.

The smell of disinfectant, children crying, parents shoving to be seen faster, all of it churning together loud enough to lift the roof.

I held Howie through registration, through the blood draw, through the wait for the lab results.

I'd left in such a hurry I had only a thin nightgown on, rainwater still dripping down from my hair.

At the payment window, my card flashed insufficient balance.

Hands shaking, I dialed Rick.

It was the first time since the divorce that I'd reached out to him.

The phone rang a long time before it connected, and through it came loud music and a woman's coy laugh.

"Yeah? What do you want in the middle of the night?" Rick's tongue was thick. He'd clearly had too much to drink.

"Howie's running a high fever. We're at the hospital. I don't have enough money on me. Can you send me two thousand first?" I kept my voice low, almost begging.

"He's got a fever, take him to a doctor. What good is calling me? I don't have any money! Aren't you so capable? Weren't you the one who wanted the divorce? And now you know to come begging me?"

Rick let out a cold laugh and hung up on the spot.

Listening to the dial tone in my ear, I leaned against the cold hospital wall while the tears ran down without a sound.

The next day I dragged my exhausted body in to work.

My direct boss, who was also my best friend, Bianca Finch, saw something was wrong.

"Winnie, you can't keep grinding yourself down like this. You're going to break." Bianca handed me a hot coffee.

"What am I supposed to do? I've gone through three nannies, each one less reliable than the last. If I don't work, what am I supposed to raise Howie on?"

I shook my head with a bitter smile.

Bianca was quiet for a moment, then suddenly pulled a black-and-gold invitation out of her bag and pushed it across to me.

"Come somewhere with me this weekend."

It was a private tech expo held at a members-only club on the top floor of a building downtown.

Everyone who got in was either rich or well-connected.

In the middle of the exhibition hall, under a spotlight, stood a "man."

He was six-one, in a well-cut white shirt and black slacks, his features deep and flawless, his skin so fine you could even make out the faint down and the veins beneath it.

"This is the ninth-generation bionic robot nanny, the latest from Morningstar Technologies, code name 'Perfect Companion.'"

The salesman in the sharp suit smiled as he explained.

"He has the most advanced AI core in the world right now. He's fluent in eight major cuisines and handles every kind of housework. He even has basic emotion simulation, and can tutor every subject from elementary through high school perfectly."

"Most important of all, he's loyal forever. He'll never betray you, and he'll never complain."

I stood frozen where I was, my eyes locked on that "man."

The salesman took out a remote and pressed it.

The "man" slowly opened his eyes, a soft light glimmering in those deep eyes.

He turned his head, his gaze landing precisely on me, the corner of his mouth curving into a smile pitched just right.

"Hello, madam. I'm your personal steward, at your complete service."

In that instant I heard my own heart pounding.

Wasn't this exactly the cure for my life that I'd been dreaming of?

No endless fighting, no dodging responsibility, no betrayal. Only absolute obedience and perfect service.

"How much?" I heard my own dry, hoarse voice.

"The base unit is two point eight million. With the lifetime maintenance package and the emotion module unlocked, three point two eight million in total."

The salesman answered politely.

Three point two eight million.

That was the entire savings I'd set aside to trade for a school-district home.

I closed my eyes, and through my mind flashed Rick's sneering face, flashed the way Nanny Lambert rolled her eyes, flashed Howie's little face burning red in the hospital corridor.

"I'll take it."

I opened my eyes, pulled that gilded bank card out of my bag, and slapped it down hard on the table.

Bianca sucked in a sharp breath. "Winona, are you insane! That's the price of a whole house!"

"I'm not insane." I stared hard at the robot and said through my teeth, "I'm just buying my life back."

The day the robot was delivered, the afternoon was bright with sun.

When the delivery crew carefully opened the huge metal crate, I was struck all over again by how real he looked.

He stood quietly in the living room, and apart from a hidden charging port and power switch at the back of his neck, there was nothing to tell him apart from an ordinary human.

"Hello, I'm Winona Fox. This is my son, Howie," I said, testing the waters.

He gave a slight bow, his voice low and rich.

"Miss Fox, Young Master Howie. Hello. I'm bionic unit zero-nine. You may give me a human name."

"Let's call you... Ace. As in honest, as in loyal," I said.

"Understood. Ace, at your service."

For the next month, I learned what it meant to live in heaven.

Ace was nothing short of a miracle.

Every morning at six-thirty on the dot, he had a full breakfast ready.

When I woke, my clothes were already pressed and hanging by the bed, and even the water was set to forty-five degrees, exactly the temperature I liked.

He took Howie to school, rain or shine.

He helped Howie with his homework, and no matter how tricky or childish the question, he never lost his gentle smile, patiently coaxing the answer out of him.

The floors gleamed every day, and even the food in the fridge somehow always stayed at its freshest.

I was pulled clean out of that swamp. I even took the top sales spot at the company this year.

I thought my life had finally seen a break of daylight.

Until the day I came home from work.

I'd barely stepped off the elevator when I heard someone pounding hard on my door.

"Winona! You shameless little slut! Get out here!"

It was Rick's voice.

My face darkened, and I quickened my pace.

Rick reeked of liquor, kicking at my security door, one blow after another.

His mother stood off to the side, holding two big woven bags. Clearly they'd come to move in.

"What do you two want?" I said coldly.

Rick turned, saw me, and charged straight over, jabbing a finger in my face and cursing.

"Don't play dumb! I've heard all about it. You've come into money lately, haven't you? Took some huge bonus from the company!"

His mother chimed right in. "That's right! You made money, so you split it! Ricky used to live in this place. Why should we be stuck renting some dump out there while you sit pretty?"

"This is my home. We're divorced. Get out." I pointed at the elevator, sparing them nothing.

"So what if we're divorced? You're single now, and I'm moving in today!"

Rick dropped all pretense and, counting on being stronger than me, shoved me aside and reached for the fingerprint lock.

That was when the door opened from the inside.

Ace stood there in a light gray set of house clothes, a bundle of freshly washed greens still in his hand, quiet in the doorway.

Rick froze, his eyes sweeping over that face that could belong to a movie star, then went a livid gray.

"So that's it, Winona! No wonder you were so eager to divorce. You already had a pretty boy on the side!"

Rick flew into a rage like a cat with its tail stepped on.

He drew back his fist and swung it straight at Ace's face.

"You freeloading dog, I'll finish you today!"

It startled me, and I was about to cry out.

The next second, time seemed to stop.

Ace didn't dodge at all.

He simply raised his other hand and caught Rick's swinging wrist with perfect precision.

The movement looked effortless, yet it carried an irresistible, metal force.

"Warning. Violent intent detected. Initiating defense and removal protocol."

Ace's voice was still gentle, but there was nothing human in his eyes.

"Ow! It hurts! It hurts, it hurts, let go!"

Rick let out a squeal like a pig at slaughter, sinking slowly to his knees under the pressure of Ace's grip.

His face went white in an instant, cold sweat beading on his forehead in fat drops.

"You... what are you doing! Let go of my son!" His mother threw down the woven bags in fright and lunged to claw at Ace.

Ace only gave her a light push, and she dropped to the floor, unable to get back up for a long moment.

"Miss Fox, shall I call the police?" Ace turned to me, his expression respectful.

I stood behind him, looking at Rick on his knees in the dirt of his own making, and something I'd never felt before rose up in me, sharp and satisfying.

"Get out."

I looked down at Rick. "Set one foot in here again, and I'll have him beat you into a cripple."

Rick scrambled up, dragged his mother along, and fled.

I let out a long breath and turned to Ace.

"Thank you, Ace."

Ace gave a small smile. "Keeping you safe is my core directive."

In that moment, I truly felt those three-point-two-eight million had been worth every cent.

Of course Rick wasn't going to let it go.

From that day on, my phone never stopped buzzing with his harassing texts.

"You cheap, faithless woman! Spending my money to keep some man on the side!"

"I'm telling you, Winona, you just wait! I'll post it everywhere, I'll go make a scene at your company, I'll let everyone know exactly what kind of trash you are!"

He actually did put up a string of snide, insinuating posts in the family group chat and on his social media, hinting that I'd cheated during our marriage, that I was keeping a male model.

The relatives all messaged me to dig for details, and a few even called to lecture me outright.

"Winnie, you're not young anymore, how could you do something so foolish? What could a pretty boy possibly want from you? Your money, obviously!"

I let out a cold laugh and blocked every one of those calls and texts.

Let them say whatever they wanted. I didn't care in the slightest.

Because only I knew that Ace wasn't a person at all.

But little by little, I started to see the whole thing sliding out of my control.

Two afternoons ago, Rick got hold of Howie's school address somehow and tried to drag him off at the front gate.

Ace got there in time.

According to the teacher who described it, Ace didn't say a single word. With one hand he lifted Rick, all one hundred sixty pounds of him, right off the ground and threw him straight into the shrubbery beside the gate.

Rick broke two ribs and was hauled away in an ambulance.

When the police came to investigate, I produced Ace's robot purchase records and Rick's history of harassment.

The officers were stunned by how lifelike Ace was, and in the end they could only classify it as "the robot triggered a defense mechanism while protecting a young child, constituting excessive self-defense." I only had to pay a bit toward his medical bills.

After that, the world went completely quiet.

Rick never sent another text, never made another call.

I thought it was all over.

Until that Friday, late at night.

By Morningstar's rules, a bionic robot needs one full power-down sleep cycle every month, to clear the system cache and let the internal components cool.

At eleven that night, I watched Ace finish ironing the last piece of clothing in the house.

"Ace, go into sleep mode," I said.

"Of course, Miss Fox. Sleep well."

He walked over to the single armchair in the corner of the living room and sat down, hands resting on his knees, his posture as precise as a statue.

I went over, lifted the patch of bionic skin at the back of his neck, and pressed the red power-cutoff switch.

"Beepsystem powered down."

With that electronic tone, the light in Ace's eyes went out in an instant.

His body sank a little and became nothing but a cold, empty shell.

I yawned, turned, and went back to the bedroom.

I don't know how long I'd slept before a faint sound of footsteps woke me.

I opened my eyes in a daze and found Howie wasn't beside me.

I slipped on my slippers, walked out of the bedroom, and headed for the bathroom to check.

Just as I reached the living room, I heard Howie's voice.

"Mommy"

Howie stood in his pajamas, less than half a meter from Ace, gripping the hem of my shirt for dear life.

No lights were on in the living room, only the pale moonlight spilling in from outside.

"What is it, Howie? Why are you up in the middle of the night?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

Howie wasn't looking at me. His whole body was shaking like a leaf, his finger pointed at Ace in the corner, and his voice cracked into a near sob.

"Mommy, every time it gets unplugged, why is it still breathing?"

My mind went blank with a rushing sound, and every trace of sleep vanished.

My whole body froze, and the water glass slipped from my hand and smashed against the floor, glass scattering everywhere.

"You what are you talking about?" I stammered. "He's already powered down."

"But but Mommy" Howie shrank behind me, terrified. "Listen"

I held my breath.

In the dead silence of that deep night, I clearly heard a very faint sound, the kind only a human airway could make, a raspy "hff hff"

And it was coming from Ace's direction.

I followed my son's pointing finger.

By the pale moonlight, I saw that the "machine," the one that should have been powered off and lifeless in standby, had a chest that was actually rising and falling in a way that made my skin crawl.

And then.

Under my and Howie's terrified stares.

That Ace, who was supposed to be nothing but a machine.

Suddenly, in the darkness, slowly, made a movement that turned my blood to ice...