Cain presses a cuff on Nora’s ankle, and it illuminates a bright green. Following this, the contraptions on her legs uncoil, until they are no more uncomfortable than a pair of jeans. A few moments pass and Nora starts to feel the blood circulating again.

“Try to stand,” says her father.

Nora is perplexed, but she follows his command. She pushes up with her arms, tries to make her legs move, and before she knows it, she is on her feet.

“Now, walk.”

She strains to put one leg after the other, then with little effort on her end, the mechanics move for her. Her walk becomes a run. When she attempts to skip, the bands around her legs propel her six feet in the air and she lands gracefully.

She laughs in excitement and awe, then shrinks by the reminder of the sickness. “I shouldn’t have done that. It could be too much on me.” Then it hits her. It is not the only thing that could be too much on her. “Dad, I have to get to an Allagi! Outside of one, the sickness will begin to kill me. We have to hurry! We have to–”

“We have to do no such thing,” Cain interjects. He puts a hand on her shoulder and smiles patiently. “I’ve contained it. You are not entirely well–you may in fact never be–but you are no longer limited to Allagis.”

Clara remembers that dark, cold operation room, and that look on her father’s face when she was dying.

“The surgery went well?”

She tests the words hopefully, but something about them seems unfounded. That little voice in the back of her head says it only once, as if by accident, as if the words narrowly slip through it. No, it didn’t.

Cain opens his mouth to speak, but no words come. He smiles, and instinctively Nora hugs him tightly.

“No more Allagis?” she asks in disbelief.

“No more Allagis,” he says.

Nora begins to laugh and cry. Seven of her fifteen years spent in pain and loneliness, shifting between surgeries and Allagis, had taught her to appreciate the good in her life. “Thank you, Dad. Thank you so much for never giving up on me.”

They hold their warm embrace for a full minute, then when they both regain their composure, Cain speaks. “This is a good day, the first of many won battles against the sickness. Now, let us make a good day even better. You may want to check your room again, Nora.”

...

Nora surveys the room with more thoroughness, knowing not what she is looking for.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Cain says.

The girl rummages first through her shelves, then the drawers of the desk. After this, she inspects the contraptions her father made her and she sees it. It is an old, run-down hunk of metal, but she still loves it. It had been with her through thick and thin. It had been a friend to cheer her up whenever she was sad, a protector, and something to care for, to love. And for too long, she had been without it. She thinks back to the day her father presented it to her.

Nora’s disease, though rare, was quite contagious. Naturally, it was made noninfectious by her father’s efforts, and yet not before the little puppy Nora owned, Puck, came down with it. The dainty young Saint Bernard became worse and worse until his body could take it no more. But Puck did not die.

Nora was seven years of age at this time. She was in her bedroom in the old family house, sitting on the frame of her bed. Her father had told her to wait, and so wait she did. When he returned, the rustic automaton was in his hands. It had a copper tint to it and a few gears and wires poked through parts of it, boasting of its unliving nature. Four evenly proportionate limbs hung from it, each with a smooth robotic paw. And on its face–was that a snout?

Cain gave Nora the machine, instructing, “Just click the button on his chest, and Puck will be with us once more.”

She obeyed, and what happened next was chaotic, to say the least. The synthetic dog jumped, quite literally, into the drywall of the ceiling. A light blue flame emanated from its paws and it flew through the air, making countless laps around the room. It hopped onto the ground and began tugging on Nora’s shoe with its cute round jaws. Puck always loved to do that.

“Daddy, how… How did you–” Nora began.

“While the human brain has several billion neurons, the brain of a dog has only a few million. Life is quite sustainable when the brain requires less. His mind–it’s in there.”

Nora eyed the creature hesitantly.

“Don’t worry, Nora, he is still Puck. Just think of these little upgrades–the body, the flight, the strength–as making him your protector and friend.”

Nora obeyed, as she would continue to do in the years to come. Puck was, from then on, her protector and friend. That is, until the Allagi tore them apart.

“Nora, you know what to do,” says Cain triumphantly as Nora gapes at her mechanical pet.

The girl presses the button on Puck’s chest. First, nothing happens. Next, the dog leaps toward her and gives her the driest and most metallic lick in the world.

“Stop it, Puck! Stop it!” she chuckles.

The dog jumps down and stares up at her, prompting.

“You want to play, boy? How about fetch?”

Puck crawls under the girl’s bed. A few seconds pass, there is a “snap,” then the cyborg dog emerges with a torn part of the bedframe in his mouth, his tail wagging with naive expectancy as if to say, “Let’s play!”

“The old dog is back,” Cain laughs fondly. “But that is only the beginning of today’s great jubilance. Come, Nora. Allow me to show you the depository of your new world.”