Gloria leaned forward, a smile brimming from ear to ear. “We’re calling it the Von Medvey bill.”

“What?” Valerie stared blankly, her head listing to a side. In her mind, the words echoed. She understood their meaning, at least each word individually, but the context escaped her.

“Oh look at her,” said Gloria, playing to the cameras. “She’s ecstatic.”

Valerie drew her lips into a fine line. “I wish someone had contacted me—”

“Oh, don’t you worry. You’ve been through enough. We’re seeing that this bill is handled properly and that you get all the credit you deserve for everything you’ve been through.”

Valerie narrowed her eyes to slits. “What bill?”

Gloria’s expression finally matched her painted brows. Her mouth hung open like a doll. “You haven’t heard? The Equal Rights for Synthetics Bill. Proposition 73. They’re voting to rename it the Von Medvey Bill, as we speak.”

“Why?”

Gloria chuckled, masking her annoyance.

Valerie, on the other hand, didn’t care if Gloria was annoyed or not.

“No, really,” insisted Valerie. “Why was I not contacted?”

She didn’t want the spotlight. Didn’t want to be remembered for all of eternity as the woman who was beaten, murdered, and mutilated. Truth be told, she never had plans on being remembered at all, but her marriage to Christian changed that. Being the first at anything drew the public eye. The public scrutinized her every movement, as if she were the model for the future of human and synthetic relationships.

It was a burden she never wanted, but one she managed with dignity, grace, and poise.

But this—it was too much.

She wanted her privacy back. Her anonymity.

Things were simpler when she was just another V-Sim fresh off the assembly line.

As she surveyed the studio, all eyes were on her. There was no escaping her new role in the public eye.

Victim.

Her body temperature rose.

Just leave me alone!

Everyone was looking. Looking at her. Waiting to see her reaction. Stares quietly prying into her essence.

Gloria, chipper as ever, with a serious tone that edged on condescension, took Valerie’s hands into hers. “Aren’t you overjoyed?”

Valerie recoiled from her touch. Before she could give Gloria and the rest of the viewing public a piece of her mind, the playback monitors flickered and died, leaving a matte black screen.

Gloria hadn’t noticed. Her attentions were anywhere but on Valerie, or the stage, or anything that wasn’t Gloria-related. But Valerie felt the sudden void, the rising commotion and milling crew, as if someone had poured ice down her back.

It wasn’t until the red ON AIR sign blinked off that Gloria took notice.

She barked at the dead monitors, now aware that the show wasn’t live any more. With cameras failing to capture her every mhmm and uh-huh, her on-air persona disappeared.

With a loud crackle, a snowstorm of static erupted on every screen in the studio. Hissing fury roared.

A voice rasped through the deafening static. “Valerie Von Medvey is dead. I killed her.”