B27C4/3 - Lift Erek

"Marco, pick him up," Jake said.

Marco grabbed Erek around the waist and, using his tremendous gorilla strength, shoved arms into sleeves.

<Underwear?> Marco said. <You bought him designer underwear? Excuse me, he's an android!>

"We've gone through that, okay?" Erek said.

(...)

Meanwhile, as this slightly idiotic conversation was going on, I was dressing my first android. I had guessed right on every size.

"I am the goddess of shopping," I said, feeling satisfied.

The clerk groaned.

"We need to hurry," Jake said. "Pick a face: Gingrich or Clinton?"

A minute later a gorilla wearing a sandwich board sign for a misspelled movie carried a very trendily dressed Bill Clinton over his shoulder out of the mall.

Fortunately, there was a big sale on at the department store, so not that many people noticed.

At least, that was my explanation then.

(Earlier...)

Erek had stopped walking. He didn't move. Frowned. Steel and ivory plates flashed.

"Sorry," he apologized.

It was bizarre. Watching him was like wearing X-ray glasses and being able to see his bones right through his skin.

"Come on," I ground out.

He moved his leg. Sloooowly.

"Erek, please," Cassie whispered. "You have to hurry!"

"Oh, really?" he said, taking another slow-motion step. "You know, the seriousness of the situation had totally escaped me."

"You can't walk, but you can be sarcastic?" Cassie demanded.

Then Erek froze stiff.

Cassie and I looked at each other. She took one arm. I took the other.

Somehow we hauled him down the aisle to the back of the store without anybody noticing us, but it was not easy. Erek was a hundred pounds or more of concrete. We propped him up in the corner between a stack of Star Wars posters and a life-sized replica of the alien from the movie Alien.