The Obsoletes

by Simeon Mills

  Dear brother, I thought, what has that lettuce done to you? No wonder Brooke had refused her mother’s salad.

  Thankfully, the game continued. Richardson tried to inbound the ball, and Kanga stood at the baseline performing jumping jacks, screaming, until the inbounder dropped the ball on his foot. Turnover. Hectorville ball. Kanga took the ball out-of-bounds. Mr. Belt was signaling for the give-and-go: Kanga would toss the ball in, it would come right back to him, and he would score. But when the ref handed Kanga the ball, my brother looked straight up. He shot the ball high into the ceiling lights—over the backboard—and swished it through the hoop.

  Four points in four seconds.

  If Kanga continued this pace for the rest of the first half, Hectorville would be up by a hundred points. He glanced at the scoreboard.

  Please, I begged Kanga. Just keep scoring and shut your damn mouth!

  But my brother yelled to his teammates: “Wŏmen jiàng zài bànchăng huòshèng!”

  This time Rye turned to James: “Did you understand what the heck he just said?”

  James just shook his head, brow furrowing.

  We are going to be winning by halftime! I could have translated, but held my tongue. I glanced at Dr. Murphio, who had two fingers pressed against his lips, a look of horror on his face. In a panic, I tried to transmit a radio signal to my brother: Speak English, Kanga! I concentrated on the words, sounding them out in my processor, feeling the radio waves emanate from my head: Cut the Mandarin! Act like a—

  No. I stopped myself. Kanga will be fine. He always came out on top. Hadn’t he biked to school this morning without touching the pavement? My brother didn’t need me. He was fine. Kanga would stop speaking Mandarin on his own, and everything would be fine.

  The referee deemed the over-the-backboard stunt an illegal play. No basket. But the game’s momentum had yo-yoed. The Richardson coach spilled his Gatorade. He grabbed Psych Ward by the jersey with a specific order: “Stop that kid.”

  But Kanga proceeded to score any way he pleased.

  He scooped it.

  He hooked it over Psych Ward’s quivering hands.

  He faked left, went right, elbow jumper.

  He bulldozed Psych Ward into the Cheerbirds.

  He palmed the dribble, swished it from half-court.

  “Zhè shì nĭ zuì hăo de fángshŏu ma?” Kanga said to Psych Ward. Is that the best defense you got, wussy?

  Psych Ward shuddered, trying to remove Kanga’s voice from his ears.

  “Those are big’uns, Livery!” cried Mr. Belt, concerned only with the score.

  Kanga’s nostrils flared, and even his teammates stood back. “Quán chăng jĭnbī!” he ordered. “Yídòng!” The boys shuffled in place. They had no idea Kanga had just told them to get into full-court press. They watched Kanga stalking the midcourt circle, his neck bent like a bird of prey. Hectorville was now down by one point with fourteen seconds left in the half. “Wŏmen fànguī le. Dāng tāmen pèng qiú, jiù shā sĭ tāmen!”

  We’re fouling When they touch the ball, just kill them.

  Richardson tossed the ball in near Rye. Rye’s opponent dribbled around while Rye moved with his palms up, shuffling his feet, exactly as the Ceiling Fan had taught him to play defense. In other words, Rye was doing everything he could not to foul. Four seconds died before Kanga ran over and intentionally fouled Rye’s opponent in order to stop the clock, which, in his processor, was exactly what he’d ordered Rye to do.

  “Foul!” said the ref. “Number thirty-two!”

  Kanga grabbed Rye’s shoulder. “Líkāi yóuxì.”

  “Come on, Kanga.” Rye tried to smile. “This is a joke, right? I can’t understand you.”

  “Chūqù.”

  “You’re scaring—”

  It was no joke. Kanga had just demanded that Rye leave the game. Get out. But when Rye just continued to stand there, Kanga ripped the goggles off his teammate’s face and pitched them high into the bleachers. “Chūqù.”

  Then I heard it. The crackle. All across the Cave, that horrible, barely perceptible crinkle of human brains wiring together through thin air. Each Homo sapien tilted his head in unison, aware something was wrong. Even those who had been oblivious to the game, daydreaming or reading the newspaper, now sat rigid, as if from hearing a gunshot. It was the crackle. “Almighty,” muttered an elderly man, and beside him a pod of chattering girls drew their heads inward, then swiveled their panicked faces to the basketball court.

  They all stared at Kanga.

  Rye, having been blinded, stumbled to the bench.

  “Hey.” The Ceiling Fan stood up, yelling above the crackle. “Hey. That’s your teammate.”

  “Lái ba,” said Kanga. “Wŏmen zhĭ guăn dă lánqiú.”

  “What is that crap?” said the Ceiling Fan.

  “Kanga,” said Mr. Belt. “You need an orange slice or something?”

  My brother stared at them, confused. Let’s just play basketball, he’d said, but neither coach responded, so he turned angrily to the referee: “Wŏmen zhĭ guăn dă lánqiú!”

  “That’s enough of that, son.” The referee stepped back. “Hash this out with your coaches. Official’s time-out!” He blew the whistle.

  But the crackle didn’t take time-outs.

  “Hey!” shouted a Richardson fan. “Something’s wrong with that kid!”

  Kanga had assumed a mannequin stillness at center court. His teammates and opponents had fled to their respective benches. He was utterly alone in the Cave.

  “What language is he speaking?”

  “Why’s he just standing there like that?”

  “Where are his parents?”

  A Cheerbird whispered to Staci Miles: “I told you he was weird!”

  The Cave, thinking with its one crackling brain, began moving its thousands of lips, murmuring the possible explanations for Kanga’s speech: Russian. Chinese. Alien. Spanish. Lebanese. Chinese. Iraqi. Japanese. Chinese. Chinese. Chinese! But my eyes were drawn to James Botty, who was whispering to the Ceiling Fan: “—this book over at his place. The Directions. Had all these pictures of robots. The insides of their bodies. Pictures of how they work. It was all about him . . .”

  I looked at Dr. Murphio. He was scouting the Cave exits. His crackled mind had painted a picture of what was about to happen, and he seemed to have no appetite to witness it.

  My brother was held in place by the glares and shouts of the spectators. He knew enough to refrain from speaking in his own defense; opening his mouth had gotten him into this trouble, he realized, even if he didn’t understand why.

  The voices in the bleachers quieted. The Ceiling Fan stepped onto the court.

  “Cù!” shouted Kanga at the sight of his assistant coach. “Cù!” he pleaded, Vinegar! “Cù!” he screamed, to the only person who could possibly rescue him.

  • • •

  Back in fourth grade, just before I called Detroit on my parents, I was alone in the kitchenette with Mom. I asked her, “What happens when we die?”

  We both knew what The Directions said, that we get a choice to have our parts remade into something beautiful or useful, a pink flamingo, for example, or a toilet seat. But Mom just grinned upward. “God takes your processor and puts it in a bird. He fills you with the most delicious electricity you’ve ever tasted. He opens his hands and you fly away.”

  “Forever?”

  “No, honey.” She gave me a dry kiss on the forehead. “When your battery runs out, you’ll fall to earth. Then an animal will eat you, and the poison inside your processor will kill that animal. Then another animal will eat that animal, and you’ll kill it too. Your processor will kill many animals that way, until all the poison is gone.”

  I was filled with poison now, watching the Ceiling Fan advance on Kanga. My brother had called for help, and now the choice was mine. Watching him get destroyed at the hands of a robophobic maniac—would that rid me of my poison? Because hadn’t Kanga been the source of this
poison my entire life? All I needed now was to be free of him. Free of the burden to protect him. Free of the burden to hide his identity, which he never understood himself and probably still didn’t. Free of the burden to love him, whatever that meant. Love was nothing more than a program. And while the Ceiling Fan annihilated my defenseless brother, I was sure to be offered a chance to escape: to flock to the Cave exits, just as Dr. Murphio would be doing, and start a brand-new life with Brooke. Hadn’t this been my entire plan? Kanga said it himself; I was the obsolete brother. What could I do now to alter his inevitable fate?

  There’s gonna come a time when it’s you or Kanga, Dad had said. You’ll have to choose.

  The thing Dad hadn’t realized was that I’d already made my decision.

  Kanga. My brother. It wasn’t him or me.

  It was him and me.

  “I’M THE ROBOT!”

  The Cave came to a halt. The Ceiling Fan turned, along with all the spectators, toward the shouter.

  Toward me.

  My mouth hung open, trembling.

  “I’M THE ROBOT!” I repeated, and found my legs carrying me onto the court. “IT’S ME! EVERYONE LOOK!” I stopped a distance from Kanga, drawing the attention away from him. “LOOK AT THIS!” I yanked my shirtsleeve up to the elbow, and lifted my new rubber hand for all to see. “THIS IS FAKE! WATCH WHAT I CAN—” I knelt and set my hand on the floor, then stepped on it with all my weight. My body tensed up, summoning its Incredible Hulk strength to yank my arm away from my new hand, separating them, like an angry gardener uprooting a weed. But the rod connecting my hand to my forearm proved too robust for me to fracture. Wrist intact, I stood up and pleaded with the crowd. “I AM A ROBOT! A TOASTER! COME OUT HERE AND GET ME!”

  The Cave crackled with confusion. Why was that crazy kid stepping on his hand? They were not yet convinced.

  The putty. That new patch of wrist Betsy had so carefully formed into place. It was only there for show, a structural weakness. It was my only chance.

  Sorry, Betsy.

  I heard the collective gasp as my fingers scooped into my wrist as though breaking through frosting on a birthday cake. I lifted a handful of the artificial, skin-colored stuff away, holding it aloft for the basketball fans to judge. And judge it they did.

  “It’s a—”

  “Ahhh!”

  “—a—”

  “ROBOT!”

  “No!”

  “A ROBOT!”

  “Get it!”

  “Kill it!”

  The Ceiling Fan was between me and Kanga now, unable to make his decision.

  “Rip it apart!”

  “KANGA!” I called. “RUN! GET OUT OF HERE. YOU CAN STILL—”

  The floor rumbled as spectators piled down from the bleachers. I thought I saw Dr. Murphio dashing toward Kanga, but it could have been a different man in a Birds T-shirt. The Ceiling Fan stepped toward me, but a throng enwrapped me first. I felt my forearm getting pulled on, but the rod seemed too strong for them, and my new hand remained on my body.

  “GO FOR THE HEAD!” they screamed.

  Another group was pointing toward the basketball hoop, shouting:

  “There it is!”

  “How’d it get up there?”

  “Jumped!”

  “Just flew up there!”

  “Goddamn robot can jump!”

  Through a haze of human activity, I made out Kanga’s supple form. He was perched on the basketball rim, balancing. I heard him shout “Lí wŏ gē yuăn diăn!”

  Leave my brother alone!

  “Shitting robot!”

  “How do we get it down?”

  “Quick! It’s on the move!”

  “Where’d it—”

  I glimpsed Kanga leap toward the nearest Cave exit before hands covered my eyes, then more hands, until I was wearing a gallows hood of hands, blocking out the fluorescent lights. Thumbs hooked into my nose and mouth, the spongy flesh beneath my chin. I heard a muffled count to three. You’re welcome, brother. The hands pulled—

  25

  THE SHORTEST CHAPTER in The Directions was titled “Purpose,” and it was a one-question quiz:

  What is your purpose on Earth?

  A: To take it over

  B: To serve it

  There was no upside-down answer key at the bottom of the page. We were supposed to have a family discussion, I think, but Mom flipped to the next page, saying, “Buh. Boys, the answer is buh.” She had trouble with individual letters when her battery was low. And the following chapter was her favorite: “How to Be Happy.” It was a list, and Mom loved those. Twenty-four pages of things like “Pick up garbage from the sidewalk,” “Get a cat,” and “Don’t pour your used grease down the kitchen drain.” Mom began to read slowly, expressionlessly, performing each item on the list in her imagination as she read it aloud. She didn’t notice when Kanga wandered off to watch TV. She just kept reading the list: “Stand outdoors for seven minutes . . . Vacuum the living room . . . Put on a clean pair of socks . . .”

  I was still stuck on “Purpose.” The answer couldn’t be as simple as ah or buh. I didn’t want to take over the world, not exactly, but nor did I desire an eternity of taking orders from humans in middle management. Mom had nineteen pages to go: “. . . Buy a box of crayons from the store . . . Open the box of crayons and smell them . . . Pick three of your favorite colors and draw—”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  Mom crawled out of her processor. She blinked at me.

  “I am going to take over the world,” I announced. “Starting now. Starting with you. Shut up about how to be happy!” And I realized it was the truth. I wanted to take over everything. I wanted to change everyone: Mom, Dad, Kanga, myself. “Do you hear me, Mom? I’m going to take over the—”

  “Go plug in, Darryl,” she said, almost in a whisper. She closed The Directions. “We’ll keep reading tomorrow night.”

  “No!” I screamed. “We’ll never read it again! I hate The Directions! I hate—”

  Mom’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. She dragged me across the room and jammed my fingers into my outlet. She repeated, “We’ll keep reading tomorrow night.”

  I did as she ordered. I sat on the floor and charged up, and it became clear to me that the answer was ah. Even for Mom. Ah. We were all trying to take over the world. One room at a time. Mom had won this battle. The living room belonged to her. For now.

  • • •

  My eyes blinked open.

  A brown blur was all I could discern of my surroundings. Was this robotic death? Obsolescence? Was I inside a coffin? Was I being shipped back to China? And why did it smell like leather?

  I was in the back seat of a car. And I wasn’t alone.

  “Look at me, Darryl. Refocus your eyes, my son. Look at your father.”

  Dr. Murphio’s face eclipsed the dim overhead light. I could smell his laundry detergent, Mom’s laundry detergent, mixed with the sharp scent of his sweat. Dr. Murphio’s forehead was glistening. He breathed through his nose. We were sitting in the back seat of a car.

  “Your processor has been down for about an hour, but I’ve repaired you as best I can. Try to move your body.”

  I moved my hands—the regular one and the rubber one with a divot taken out of the wrist. They succeeded in dragging their fingernails across the smooth leather car seat. Then I wiggled my toes, looking down to see my sneakers nodding slightly at the ends of my legs. Sneakers? Hadn’t I been wearing black dress shoes earlier this afternoon in the Cave?

  The Cave. It all came back to me.

  “Kanga!” I blurted, and a fountain of sparks sprayed from my neck, singeing the bottom of my chin and sizzling the leather all around me.

  “No talking!” cried Dr. Murphio, wiping out the tiny flames. “Your neck still needs work.” The doctor began digging through his toolbox on the seat between us.

  I brought a hand to my neck, feeling where the skin and sponging had been ripped due to my head getting tu
g-o-warred off my body. I found a three-inch gap where I could reach inside my neck and tap the new plastic tubes connecting my head to my shoulders. These tubes must have been replacements from Dr. Murphio’s toolbox. I could taste their crispness in the back of my throat, like air filtered through a new vacuum cleaner bag. My fingertip accidentally brushed a hot wire—

  “Ow!”

  Dr. Murphio leaned away from the shower of sparks. “Darryl, please!” He reached toward my neck, as if to strangle me, but instead began spinning black electrical tape around the entire gash, forming a protective choker. “Try speaking now.”

  “Kanga—” I rasped, the back of my throat burnt and sore. “What happened to Kanga?”

  “He escaped. Thanks to you, Darryl. Your brave efforts to intervene allowed Kanga enough time to break through the exit doors. The crowd nearly grabbed him, but . . .” Dr. Murphio closed his eyes, recalling the scene. “I have no idea where he’s gone. That’s where you come in, son. Together, we’re going to locate Kanga. You’re going to locate him. Think! Where is your brother right now?”

  “Our apartment?”

  “Blast it, son, we’re at the apartment. I’ve already checked upstairs, and Kanga didn’t come home. He must be somewhere else. Tell me where.”

  I glanced out the car window. We were parked at Shimmering Terraces, near the dumpster. The building itself seemed to be asleep with nearly all its windows darkened. It occurred to me: Dr. Murphio had repaired me only after checking our apartment. What if he’d found Kanga upstairs chugging a gallon of milk? Would he have still been motivated to fix me? Which begged another question: “How did I escape the Cave?”

  “We don’t have time for this, Darryl. Tell me where—”

  “How?”

  “After decapitating you and dumping your body in a garbage can, those monsters went after Kanga. The chaos followed your brother through the doors. I thought it best to collect your remains while I had the chance. Nobody seemed to notice when I dragged you out to my car. They probably figured I was just cleaning up the mess.”

  I was a ghost. The people of Hectorville assumed me dead, but here I was. Risen again. Haunting a house was the last thing I wanted to do, except maybe our own apartment. A memory stung my processor: sitting in that comfy spot behind the orange chair, my fingers plugged into the wall, paging through Computerworld, sipping a jug of vinegar. I looked at our building. There was our living room window! But Dr. Murphio would never allow it. My purpose was to do his bidding. To help him find the only robot he really cared about.