The Obsoletes

by Simeon Mills

  She was five. This evening her door was unlocked.

  “Here you go, Ellie.” I set the filthy mess of guano, gears, and wires on one of the many tables in her work stall. But calling the room a “stall” did it no justice. Lighting was everywhere. Even the tables had glowing surfaces (created by Elecsandra) for her intricate work. She built new flooring too, made of electrified metal sheets that allowed her to charge up without plugging into a wall. She had no chairs. Only tables heaped with tools, wires, plastics, adhesives, circuitry boards, and a million other bits and pieces she kept organized within her processor. Looking at her workspace was like looking at a modern painting that appeared to be nothing but random shapes, lines, and colors, but the more you stared at it, the more you thought, There’s something amazing here, even if it’s beyond my grasp.

  She had her back to me, working on some minutiae at another table, but when I said her name she turned, grinning with mock annoyance. “What now, Darryl?”

  I knew, even as she faced me, that Elecsandra’s processor had not stopped working on the horse she was building at the back of her stall. Not a model but a full-size robotic horse. I’d seen her plans and even some pieces she’d already built. It was going to be a gift for her sister. Elecsandra made me promise I wouldn’t tell Brooke, because it was going to be a huge surprise. The horse would be the biggest, most complex thing the girl had ever built. So far, anyway. But her actual “job” on the farm was to repair windmill pieces, so for the moment that took priority.

  “The gears won’t spin,” I said, trying to be helpful.

  “Well, of course not.” She picked up the filthy piece of machinery and dropped it in the trash.

  See, Elecsandra didn’t fix things; she built them. Gadgets around the farm. Countless of her own body parts. And she was quick. I never got used to watching such a young robot work so deftly and confidently with such dangerous power tools, all while humming the theme song to her favorite cartoon, Pinky and the Brain. This was the same girl who’d been leaking oil the first year of her life. My singular purpose had been to fix her. I started with her left arm. My thinking was that it would be a practice piece of her, in case I made things worse instead of better. I knew a thing or two about getting by with just one arm. She’d be okay. But I was still working on that same left arm when she turned one and her vocabulary switched on. Immediately she had suggestions on how to better repair her arm. Together we got it done in two weeks. I showed her the manuals Dr. Murphio had left in his car. We read them, and her suggestions became direct orders. By the time she started operating on herself (at three years old), I was only there to fetch tools for her, or if she needed an extra hand to perform some basic task—“Hold this wire, Darryl”—or maybe a complicated one—“I said ‘strip’ the wire, not ‘snip’ it!”

  “Sorry, Elecsandra.”

  “It’s okay. Go fetch me another spool of 36-942.”

  After tiptoeing around the subject for fear of my feelings, Elecsandra finally said she’d like to build me a replacement right hand. I declined. I was used to working with the one I had, I told her, and I credited the hand for several secondary effects I’d been experiencing. First off, I was somewhat taller, five foot two, despite what Dr. Murphio had projected. And I was hairier all over, needing to shave my face and neck once a week if I wanted to look respectable. Then there was the laugh I’d grown into, which took over my entire body when I found something funny, causing every loose part of me to shake with abandon. Elecsandra described the laugh as “infectious” and “embarrassing” and “one of the things I love about Darryl.” But that wasn’t the real reason I didn’t want to give up my hand.

  The crackle. It was back. I didn’t hear the sound often, sometimes months passing without the faintest whisper of it, and I’d almost forget it existed . . . until I’d be alone inside a windmill, all the way at the top, and there it would surprise me. I’d hear it echoing from the base of the vertical chamber, signaling me to quickly turn off my flashlight, to hold tight to the ladder, to wait in the blackness for the buzz to infiltrate my skull. Time was impossible to gauge in the crackle. At some point sunlight would flash at the bottom of the tower, indicating the door had been opened. A shadow would step inside, then close the door behind it. I would feel the shadow climbing my ladder. I would hear the voice calling through the distortion: I just want to talk to you, the Ceiling Fan would say. Make some room up there for me, Darryl . . .

  I didn’t tell Elecsandra about the crackle because she’d feel obligated to tinker with whatever broken part of me was causing it. And she’d take the sound away for good. I couldn’t have that. I had to be ready for the Ceiling Fan if he ever did arrive here at the farm. He was out there, after all.

  I could never repeat to Elecsandra what he said to me at the top of the tower. What he begged me to do. Grab my throat, toaster, if you got any guts. Finish me. You’re persistent; I’ll give you that. Working yourself to the bone out here on this farm—and for who? Humans. They’re laughing at you. You realize that, right? Grab my neck and pretend I’m one of those owners. Let your dumb hand do what it was made for. Nobody’s gotta know, Darryl. Kill me. The girl doesn’t gotta know. Take my neck, toaster, and squeeze . . .

  What Elecsandra didn’t understand about my life was exactly what I loved about her. Her whole generation, I hoped. Those new robots were the reason I clung to my ladder in the darkness, pleading with myself that I wasn’t a killer. And those new robots were my first thought in the deafening calm that followed.

  • • •

  As she got older, there came a day when she wanted to replace her body parts on her own. In privacy. Without my help.

  I didn’t put up a fuss. Not with Elecsandra, anyway.

  Brooke listened to my complaints impassively. “You need a new hobby,” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re just slowing Elecsandra down. Get a new hobby, or I’ll call Detroit on you.” She said this with the patented Brooke death smirk.

  Fair enough. I started writing again. The old-fashioned way, with a pen in my rubber hand and a stack of lined paper on the picnic table. Stories didn’t come to me easily, science fiction or otherwise, so I took a stab at memoir. Brooke’s old genre, though not anymore. Her computer wasn’t among the things in her backpack when we’d left Hectorville, and she didn’t seem to miss it once we got here. She expressed no interest in reading my memoir either, though she was glad it kept me busy.

  “Fine,” I told her, “I’m not writing it for you anyway.” Though I wasn’t really sure who would want to read it. A story about two robot brothers and basketball and—

  Maybe it was only for me.

  But writing was never my favorite part of the day. It was right now: watching Elecsandra build me a new piece of machinery, her hands a blur, like the hands of that robot from Sierra Leone who broke the world record for solving a Rubik’s Cube.

  “Done.” She handed me the new windmill piece. “Anything else?”

  I wasn’t her mom. I wasn’t her dad. And sometimes I felt as obsolete as two parents put together. There were worse things than that. Dr. Murphio had said he wanted to become “happily obsolete,” watching generation after generation improve themselves into eternity. That sounded about right. Great Falls wouldn’t be the end of the line for Elecsandra Noon. It was just the starting point. And wherever she chose to go from here, it would likely be without me and Brooke. First grade? MIT? NASA? I’d already given her the talk; she knew she wasn’t required to say good-bye to us. She could just leave. In the meantime, I was happy she had a whole horse to build first.

  “That was the only broken windmill piece today, Ellie,” I said. “Thank you. You can get back to work now.”

  “Maybe you can stick around and give me a hand?”

  I pretended I had to think about it. “I’ve got two hands for you.”

  • • •

  Brooke was gone well past sunset, but that wasn’t ne
w. Every day she left the barn before sunrise, and when she returned it was dark. In both cases, she was on horseback. Brooke was just doing her job, working out the owners’ steeds. But nobody did it like Brooke. When she rode one horse, the rest followed in the V formation of a flock of birds. Throughout her ride, she gave various horses a turn taking the lead, though Brooke was always up front on her saddle. Where did she take them? The horses wouldn’t tell me, and I knew better than to ask Brooke. Some people think horses sleep standing up. Not these horses. They were so beat after a ride they crashed to the hay and snored into the rafters—until Brooke whistled them awake the next morning. There was nothing like seeing them spring to their hooves in unison, then disappear.

  She’d never been on a horse before Great Falls.

  And I’d never seen her so still as after a ride. Not frozen, but tranquil. Tonight I watched her through the open gate of the horse shower stall, through the steam, as she rinsed herself off (Brooke always had first dibs, ahead of the horses), her hips barely swaying as if there were still an animal beneath her, her head rocking in counterbalance, four slight wobbles for each imaginary hoof hitting the earth.

  One of my odd jobs was to gather Brooke’s clothes from where she dropped them in the corridor and load them into the industrial washer. I hugged that greasy heap to my chest. Grass. Twigs. Burdocks. Horse. Her cowboy boots crisscrossing on top—that sour smell as strong as an electrical current.

  “What happened to your leg?” I called into the shower.

  She stopped swaying. “My what?” She looked down, noticing for the first time a pink gash running across her shin. A loop of gray wire had been snagged inside her and pulled through the opening. “Huh,” she said. “Must’ve been that tree branch. I don’t know.” She got back to showering. “Or that bear.”

  “Better have your sister fix it up.”

  I loaded her clothes into the washer and set the dial to HEAVY DUTY. I locked the barn doors for the night. Then I went to our stall. It was technically Elecsandra’s too, but she got antsy away from her work, so we cut the pretense of making her hang out with us for no good reason. Our stall had five outlets, more electricity than two robots could ever need, thanks to the windmills, though Brooke insisted on no TV in there. (I snuck a TV into the feed room, which was how I watched Kanga’s games.) We had a portrait of Elvis. A dartboard. We had the same wood floors that came with the place, full of splinters. Brooke found some dim lamps, like she’d had at her house in Hectorville. And a bed, which she claimed she needed for a good night’s rest. King-size, which I thought a little ostentatious. But after lying on that bed for a few nights, I understood why she and Kanga charged up in this fashion: staring at the ceiling as the fresh juice flowed through you, letting your processor drift where it may, wondering what the person next to you was wondering about. It was my job to make the bed every morning.

  After her shower, Brooke entered the stall wearing her pajamas: an oversize T-shirt with mismatched soccer shorts. She was barefoot, and the cut on her shin was still gushing pink jelly, which had trickled down her leg, causing pink footprints on the wood floor. Who’s going to clean that up, Brooke? I didn’t dare ask aloud. The loop of wire was still flopping from her wound.

  “Your leg.” I was sitting on the side of the bed. “Didn’t Elecsandra fix it?”

  Brooke strode toward me, lifted her foot, and placed it on my knee, smudging my jeans with pink lubricant. Her wound was just inches from my face. She flexed her ankle, causing the loop of wire to flick my nose like a tongue. Even the inside of her smelled like a horse.

  Right then, of all moments, I became a mom again, certain that Kanga was in the barn with me, within sprinting distance should I hear the word cù—

  “You fix me,” Brooke said. Her eyebrows did a funny little dance, settling in a furrow.

  “Me?” My fan clicked on, and the moment of motherhood passed. “I’ll have to grab my toolbox.”

  “Fix me now, Darryl.”

  This was going to get messy. But we had all the time in the world.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Julie Stevenson, who first saw potential in my novel years ago and worked with me through countless drafts to better it. The Obsoletes wouldn’t exist without your patience, kindness, and insight. And thank you to Mike Braff, who helped me discover new secrets about my characters and their world, even as we put the finishing touches on the book.

  I am indebted to the following people who read drafts of my novel and shared their wisdom and ideas. Each of you made The Obsoletes a better book: Jeremy Smith, Rob Schlegel, Sharma Shields, J. Robert Lennon, Shann Ray, Caroline Zancan, Seth Fishman, Jhanteigh Kupihea, Sarah Ruppert, Elaine Madigan, Tim Greenup, Matt Furst, and Dominick Montalto.

  It took eighteen years to finish this book. During that span (and beforehand), many people helped me grow as a writer. Thank you to the University of Montana MFA Program, Deirdre McNamer, Jean Eddington-Shipman, Sigrid Nunez, Dani Shapiro, Mako Yoshikawa, Alex Shapiro, Jess Walter, and Adam Phillips. And a special thanks to my mom, Elaine Madigan, who was my first editor and my biggest role model. You taught me to love grammar and language; for that you are the opposite of obsolete. I wouldn’t have become a writer without you.

  I have been so fortunate to have the support of the following people in my life as I wrote this novel. Thank you to Paul and Sharma Shields, Andy and Eusebia Anderson, the staff and students at Garry Middle School, Joe Zeman, Forrest Formsma, Christophe Gillet, Daniel Gritzer, and the AMBC.

  Last, thank you to my kids, Henry and Louise, who have an open invitation to spin on the chair in my office. Every day you teach me something new about adventure, mischief, and love. And thank you to my wife, Sharma. I am in awe of your endless creativity and fighting spirit. You are my partner in every sense. Let’s keep doing this.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Simeon Mills is a writer, cartoonist, and middle school teacher. He majored in architecture at Columbia University and holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Montana. His first book was the graphic novel Butcher Paper. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his wife and two children. Visit SimeonMills.com.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Simeon Mills

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  Interior design by Laura Levatino

  Jacket design by Will Staehle

  Author photograph © Rajah Bose

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mills, Simeon, author.

  Title: The obsoletes : a novel / Simeon Mills.

  Description: New York : Skybound Books, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018046484 (print) | LCCN 2018048851 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501198359 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501198335 (hardback)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / General. | FICTION / Alternative History. | GSAFD: Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.I56985 (ebook) | LCC PS3613.I56985 O27 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046484

  ISBN 978-1-5011-9833-5

  ISBN 978-1-5011-9835-9 (ebook)