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y-daughter night. "Dammit, Ada, what *have* you done to your hair?" Her straight, mousy hair now hung in jet-black ringlets.
He sat up, holding his head and the day's events came rushing back to him. He groaned and climbed unsteadily to his feet.
"Easy there, Pop," Ada said, taking his hand. "Steady." He rocked on his heels. "Whoa! Sit down, OK? You don't look so good."
He sat heavily and propped his chin on his hands, his elbows on his knees.
The room was a middle-class bedroom in a modern apartment block. They were some storeys up, judging from the scrap of unfamiliar skyline visible through the crack in the blinds. The furniture was more Swedish flatpack, the taupe carpet recently vacuumed with robot precision, the nap all laying down in one direction. He patted his pockets and found them empty.
"Dad, over here, OK?" Ada said, waving her hand before his face. Then it hit him: wherever he was, he was with Ada, and she was OK, albeit with a stupid hairdo. He took her warm little hand and gathered her into his arms, burying his face in her hair. She squirmed at first and then relaxed.
"Oh, Dad," she said.
"I love you, Ada," he said, giving her one more squeeze.
"Oh, Dad."
He let her get away. He felt a little nauseated, but his headache was receding. Something about the light and the street-sounds told him they weren't in Toronto anymore, but he didn't know what -- he was soaked in Toronto's subconscious cues and they were missing.
"Ottawa," Ada said. "Mom brought us here. It's a safe-house. She's taking us back to Beijing."
He swallowed. "The robot --"
"That's not Mom. She's got a few of those, they can change their faces when they need to. Configurable matter. Mom has been here, mostly, and at the CAFTA embassy. I only met her for the first time two weeks ago, but she's nice, Dad. I don't want you to go all copper on her, OK? She's my mom, OK?"
He took her hand in his and patted it, then climbed to his feet again and head