Kim tried to think of a way to explain her visitor to Joe when he came home. What if she were to invent a cousin from Australia who had turned up out of the blue? Or imply Xavier was an immigrant she had taken pity on? No. It would be better to tell her husband exactly what had happened. She wasn’t sure what to do about Josie. She would wait and see how Joe took the news and go from there. Hopefully he would have some idea what to do with the man, in the longer term. Xavier had no identity, she was sure, no passport or N.I. number - in fact no back history at all, apart from a delivery note. A thought struck her.
‘Were there many of you at the facility?’
‘More than all the digits on my hands and feet,’ came the odd reply. He couldn’t count either, it would appear.
‘And were all of you sentient?’
‘Only those of us connected to the repaired ring circuit,’ he replied. Seeing Kim’s look of incomprehension, he added, ‘There was a malfunction a long time ago which closed down the circuitry in the feeding nodes. Several units were inadvertently deconstructed and the repair technician was working very quickly, before time was up for the rest of the batch. He did not connect the pink and the striped wires correctly, which allowed a power surge to jump between the two. When the sparks subsided, I felt quite differently and I noticed that several other units were also restless in their slings.’
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