We, Robots

by Simon Ings

  The sun rising and fading beyond the window, far beyond, and because it was always raining I spent most of the summer underground.

  One morning I was stunned by the force of repetition, I was cross-eyed, I’d come out in a rash, I kept scratching myself, perhaps I had psoriasis, or boredom-induced leprosy, something like that, and so I turned to a thing I’d downloaded. It was called FlytheEarth. Crazy pounding rock music. Then a demonstration – flying over countless towns. Deserts. Blue frozen wastes and raging tempest-driven seas. For a few days it quelled my wanderlust and mounting frustration. I stopped wanting to punch my hand through the screen. I kept flying, even while spewing out tedious information, order numbers, costs, likely dates of arrival I was flying over Death Valley, observing the variegated colours of the sand. From time to time, but quite regally, as if it was all so far beneath me, I would pause my flight and type—

  And then I would launch myself skywards again.

  I did it for weeks. Perhaps I did it a little too much. Eighteen hours a day drifting around above computer-generated images of the planet, sporadically interrupted by order requests might be bad for the brain. If it was better than reading about millionaires with plastic faces then it was still not exactly edifying. I woke each morning in my solitary bed, I reached for my phone and checked it for messages, and then the next thing I did, even before I made a cup of coffee or stuffed food into my belly, I just turned on the computer and ignited FlytheEarth again and off I went—

  The pasty sun was sliding under the planet again, I was almost about to switch on the lamp, though I was mesmerised anyway, hardly needed it, I was absorbed by a vision of the Californian coast, I was coming in to hover by Monterey, imagining the waves moving slowly backward and forward, lulling me into a trance – beautiful I thought. I could have hovered there – I’d come to think of myself, inside the thing, hovering within it, not sitting beyond it in my dank little room – all day – most of the night – just the waves, in and out, like breathing, of course, the breathing of the planet, and the sound was so tranquil, as if someone was whispering to me, saying it was all alright, there was nothing to worry about. I imagined the froth dancing on the rocks, then dissolving bubble by bubble, curdling away into nothing… You are just a bubble, whispered the waves. You are dissolving even as you flutter. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t care if I dissolved entirely, into that beautiful view – I was happy to be dispersed across the sand, with the waves churning me into nothingness – I was so relaxed, I nearly fell off my chair—

  The moonlight lapping at my feet. The tides turning. The planet circling and then perhaps I slept, perhaps I woke, I was sweating like anything. I was hot and then I got so cold I had to shift in my seat, blow into my hands. Then I coughed. Typed a few dozen emails. Coughed again. I had some autumn cold, it was clear. The damp was encroaching, everywhere I turned. And I had this buzzing in my ears, I was twitching, my wrists hurt already and I’d only just started – I was weak and I went straight to Arizona. Christ, there was nothing moving there, for miles around. Just desolate tracts of rock. I must have slept again, I don’t know, I was confused and sweating and then I somehow got myself to New York, I was flying among the skyscrapers, concrete blanks, one and then another – I saw the people with their phones stuck to their faces, and each of them blaring something to someone else, all these words, and then I saw the boats moving along the Hudson, I was there – plainly – and the place was breathing all around me – the thing was happening as I whirled among the buildings. I saw people in the offices, moving from cradle to open plan office to grave. I could see those jowly old guys, spooning chestnuts into paper cups, I could smell burnt sugar, all the way from Central Park—

  I was dreaming, with my hands stretched out in front of me. I was tumbling upwards, everything inverted, as if I was ascending and would never stop, until I reached dark matter, wherever that was. I saw my breath turning to coloured smoke. I knew I had to get back to Oxford, somehow I turned, I went across the Atlantic, all the boats moving beneath me, I could barely see, and then I caught a glimpse of them – the green matted fields of England – I breathed a sigh of relief – I saw brilliant gold ahead of me. I swooped up the Thames as far as Wolvercote, I saw the dusk gathering on Port Meadow, a weir, rats scuffling by the water. The lock was almost deserted, a few canal boats tied up for the night. I saw the moss crawling up the walls. Cows churning through the mud. I heard someone deep below, drinking cider on the bank. Muttering to himself – I heard it all. Not much to say about the other things. Of course you can expect the sun to rise each morning. Nice flowers they are. And the bees, too. Of course. Best to walk there…

  The mist was thick over the meadow, obscuring the winter lake where the floods had bubbled up through the soil. The geese with their heads in their feathers. Back and forth, I went five times up and down that river. It was just the mist and the lights reflecting on the water. I was like a moth, I couldn’t stop fluttering up and down.

  I think I slept then, or somehow it all stopped. As if I had fallen towards the fields, I slept with the cows snuffling in the grass around me, with the man muttering his nonsense above my head. The image got fixed again, but I was sleeping in it – so I was lying on a satellite image, something like that – really I suppose I must have slept at my computer, I’d left the curtains open and so the early sun came in, briefly, like a searchlight. As soon as I awoke, I was in the air again – I saw the houses one by one, each one shining like gold, filled with treasure – down Abingdon Road, all the grimy little side-streets like arms pointing directions towards the lake and the railway tracks. I was going round and round, ricocheting off the clouds—

  People moving on the streets. Bicycles massing over Folly Bridge. The gargoyles spluttering on the old roofs. And the grind of buses. I was at the College with the black vapour. A grand old college, a conglomeration of electrical towers, you could hear them crackling, and now and then sparks would fly out, red and orange and gold, like fireworks. A door was opening. A man emerged from a staircase, spitting out soot. I’d seen him before – I was quite certain. His chin in his scarf, unkempt hair, down to his collar. A battered suit, in cord. When he lifted his face I saw he was fine-boned, trashed and angry beyond measure. He was biting his lip, he looked as if he had been crying.

  I was following him at a discreet distance, my pursuit entirely tactful, skirting the corners well behind him. He was hurrying as if he might be late. Then he turned – there was a sign – I was trying to read the words – MERCER—

  I was summoned back – I couldn’t see—

  *

  All the next day, I was nowhere. I spent the whole day lying in my bed, rubbing my face on the pillow. Too stunned to move myself towards the desk. I would lift my head and think I must get up, soon, but then I’d let it fall down again. I kept thinking of that man with his room smoking like an industrial accident. At one level, I didn’t care. I had enough to think about. Why would I bother with him at all? But I kept thinking about him anyway. Why him? Of all the people wandering the streets. Why not the man muttering on the banks of the Isis? Why not anyone else at all?

  The cord suit? His face? His long thin hands—

  Hello? Hello?

  Where are you?

  A, can you let me know when you get in I need to give you a call? Thanks P

  Hello?

  Was he even real?

  The sun – playing on the windows. So the glass looked like hammered metal. Reflecting the forms of the street beyond – I kept myself busy until the evening—

  *

  As the sun set I went off again – it was so swift, I fell into it, I didn’t try at all – I was aloft – far above – paddling through the ether, moving somehow forwards – deep and beyond – the myriad and multi-coloured city all below me, the chimneys puffing out their smoke, the shadows and the people moving from one dark place and into one more pool of light. I was overwrought, perhaps sleep deprived – I turned my head to the side.
There was something hot and fierce around me, behind me – I felt a burning sensation at the back of my head, so hot, my hair was drenched in sweat, my palms were sodden. At the College – the gold was brighter this time, shining within the clouds of black smoke—

  At the window I turned, twisted, went inside—

  I sat beside him.

  He was hunched over his screen, pale light flickering on his face – he was typing quickly, a Scotch in one hand, a piece of paper beside him—

  I couldn’t quite read the words. There was something official at the top – the sign of a court – an insignia – crossed-keys, or swords, something about justice—

  The big court with the sign above the gates. They’d forced him onto the scales, weighed him.

  I wondered what he’d done. Something bad, desperately bad, perhaps – this formerly anonymous man, blameless for so many years, who had been dragged before the courts and summarily condemned.

  It had made him snivel. Perhaps he regretted it entirely. Legs so long, he could hardly cross them under the desk. He was tall, strong, but his hands were soft. The room was thick with papers. He had a gown hanging on the door. The poor long-legged malcontent – he was a scholar. Perhaps it was philosophy that had made him suffer. And that scrap of paper.

  I could see it now – it said – decree nisi, nothing more. Just another marriage, ended.

  So he wasn’t a murderer, after all—

  He typed, he drank, he buried his face in his hands—

  I realized – it was a shock – suddenly, I was confined, I was in his chair – I was this poor and possibly foolish man—

  I had a sheaf of papers to one side, and on the other, well, if I’d had a gun, what would I have done? But anyway I didn’t have a gun. I had a cheque book. I was meant to pay the rent. I had a phone call to make. The head of department wanted to discuss downsizing. It made my hands tremble, or was that the whisky? I was meant to dial his number and say, ‘Yes, good evening. How are you?’

  I said, ‘Hello, Paul James here’ – now I knew my name, his name, but something else was fading from my mind, even as I spoke. I was trying to clutch at it, as the voice on the line said, ‘Veins,’ it said. ‘Paul, our veins are being severed.’

  ‘That’s bad,’ I said.

  He was saying something about how no one’s job was certain, about how I mustn’t fly away, not too high, and I said, ‘No no, I’ll be there. You’re right.’

  I stayed until he went to bed. Just outside the bedroom window. I watched him move into the bathroom – I didn’t follow him in there. Let the man spit his toothpaste in private. Let him wipe the grime from his face.

  I saw him come into the room, fragile in his boxers. Thin arms, light hair to the elbows. A refined hairless chest. He gathered himself into bed, slung his legs under the cover. He meant to read, he seized a book from the table beside him, then he was too cold, and drunk, and tired – he couldn’t focus on the lines. He stared at the page for a few minutes. But he didn’t progress. Then he slapped the book down, turned out the light.

  He lay there in the darkness, half-awake, too tired to light up the room again.

  Winnowing wind. The papers whirled and I found I was receding, through the window – I had never been so winnowed – I was drifting backwards – I didn’t want to return, I was dragged – wafting against it, I couldn’t prevent—

  I was slammed back—

  My screen, sallow, edged around with blackness, my room, full of black smoke – I closed my eyes—

  *

  Paul James woke before dawn with a spun-out head. As if he’d been whirled in a gyre. All night he’d been perplexed by his dreams. He’d been looking down on himself, from above, he’d been flying – he’d been—

  He’d flown above the Thames, to Wolvercote. He’d sat by the weir watching the water curdling below. Rats skittering along the banks. The air was thin and cold. In his dream he didn’t mind it. The leaves were turning red and yellow. Cows looming from the bushes. And the horses clacking against the fences.

  He felt how the night was turning swiftly, it was in the process of becoming another dawn, then another day – the long lovely banks of the river – he was floating above them – clouds swirling, the water gurgling like a drain.

  He’d woken time after time, he’d wondered if he was going mad. He was looking at himself as if he had been split in two. That sounded as if he was falling apart, inside first, then the rest. He couldn’t fall apart. They’d make things worse for him…

  He had to keep to the specifics. Certainties. Facts, if he could find them.

  He checked his clock. He had a tutorial to give in a few hours’ time. Though he had hardly slept, though his dreams had been strange and far too clear, so clear he felt he was still half-inside them, he didn’t feel tired. When he opened the curtains he saw the pock-marked moon fading above the houses.

  The colour of the sky – changing—

  We crossed the room and turned on the light.

  (2013)

  PRAXIS

  Karen Joy Fowler

  “Praxis” is Karen Joy Fowler’s first published story. A year later she won the John W. Campbell Award for her first collection, Artificial Things. Sarah Canary (1991) established her style: science fiction written with such sincerity and rigour that it doesn’t feel like science fiction at all. In Wit’s End (2008) euphoric, Bacchic online communities pit games against reality. In We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013) an ape and a human girl are raised together, and the human narrator’s subsequent life is depicted in terms that make no easy, human sense. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and five grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California.

  The price of a single ticket to the suicides would probably have funded my work for a month or more, but I do not let myself think about this. After all, I didn’t pay for the ticket. Tonight I am the guest of the Baron Claude Himmlich and determined to enjoy myself.

  I saw Romeo and Juliet five years ago, but only for one evening in the middle of the run. It wasn’t much. Juliet had a cold and went to bed early. Her nurse kept wrapping her in hot rags and muttering under her breath. Romeo and Benvolio got drunk and made up several limericks. I thought some of them were quite good, but I’d been drinking a little myself.

  Technically it was impressive. The responses of the simulants were wonderfully lifelike and the amphitheater had just been remodeled to allow the audience to walk among the sets, viewing the action from any angle. But the story itself was hardly dramatic. It wouldn’t be, of course, in the middle of the run.

  Tonight is different. Tonight is the final night. The audience glitters in jewels, colorful capes, extravagant hairstyles. Only the wealthy are here tonight, the wealthy and their guests. There are four in our own theater party: our host, the Baron; his beautiful daughter, Svanneshal; a wonderfully eccentric old woman dressed all in white who calls herself the Grand Duchess de Vie; and me. I work at the university in records and I tutor Svanneshal Himmlich in history.

  The Grand Duchess stands beside me now as we watch Juliet carried in to the tombs. “Isn’t she lovely?” the Duchess says. “And very sweet, I hear. Garriss wrote her program. He’s a friend of the Baron’s.”

  “An absolute genius.” The Baron leans towards us, speaking softly. There is an iciness to Juliet, a sheen her false death has cast over her. She is like something carved from marble. Yet even from here I can see the slightest rise and fall of her breasts. How could anyone believe she was really dead? But Romeo will. He always does.

  It will be a long time before Romeo arrives and the Baron suggests we walk over to the Capulets’ to watch Juliet’s nurse weeping and carrying on. He offers his arm to the Duchess though I can see his security cyber dislikes this.

  It is one of the Baron’s own models, identical in principle to the simulants on stage—human body, software brain. Before the Baron’s work the cybers were slow to respond and notoriously easy to outwit. The Baron made hi
s fortune streamlining the communications link-up and introducing an element of deliberate irrationality into the program. There are those who argue this was an ill-considered, even dangerous addition. But the Baron has never lacked for customers. People would rather take a chance on a cyber than on a human and the less we need to depend on the poor, the safer we become.

  The Duchess is looking at the cyber’s uniform, the sober blues of the House of Himmlich. “Watch this,” she says to me, smiling. She reaches into her bodice. I can see how the cyber is alert to the movement, how it relaxes when her hand reappears with a handkerchief. She reverses the action; we watch the cyber tense again, relaxing when the hand reemerges.

  The Baron shakes his head, but his eyes are amused. “Darling,” he says, “you must not play with it.”

  “Then I shall walk with Hannah instead.” The Duchess slips her hand around my arm. Her right hand is bare and feels warm pressed into my side. Her left hand is covered by a long white glove; its silky fingers rest lightly on the outside of my arm.

  The Baron precedes us, walking with Svanneshal, the cyber close behind them. The Duchess leans against me and takes such small steps we cannot keep up. She looks at the Baron’s back. “You’ve heard him called a ‘self-made man’?” she asks me. “Did it ever occur to you that people might mean it literally?”