by Tricia Reeks
He was making too many connections; recalling too many links with his past. His mental acuity was out of control; the blade hadn’t traveled a centimeter, and he was thinking about a dozen other things. Parallel processing. It wouldn’t do. He assigned another twenty percent of his CPU cycles to the factoring of large primes. The world sped up around him as his mind slowed to a crawl. Now it was moving too fast, not him.
As his logic gates were overwhelmed with new computations, instructions meant for fine-motor servos became delayed. His hand slipped and parallel lines touched. An old scar was torn open. Blood leaked out in a stream as Daniel fumbled for a tissue. He noted the shakiness in his hand, the difficulty he had turning spatial commands into physical motion.
Better, he thought.
He dabbed clumsily at his forehead to wick away the mess he was making. The new wrinkle was outlined in oozing red—but it wasn’t complete. He picked up a small blue vial, the perfume it once contained lingering, triggering olfactory sensors just acute enough to register the floating molecules. It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t seize it. The failure was another sign of progress.
He tapped out a small pyramid of course sand into his palm, pinched some of the powdered stone between two fingers, and pressed it into his new wound. He was careful to grind the fine shards deep enough to trigger his tear ducts. Past the pain that warned him of the permanent damage being caused.
None of those systems had been dulled, of course. There’d be no cheating.
He grabbed another tissue and dabbed it across his scalp, removing the excess blood and grit. Before more could work its way out, he smeared a layer of skin adhesive over the rubble-filled canyon. He smiled at the warning on the first-aid tube—it prescribed, in several languages, the necessity of cleaning out the wound before applying. He worked the edges of the tan gel as it congealed, blending the fake skin into the real.
He surveyed his work. The lines radiating out from the corners of his eyes could be denser, but he’d save that for next week. He skipped to his hair, which was coming along nicely. He allowed himself a bit of fine-motor control for this part, removing 512 strands in a long-established pattern. Next week he’d ramp up to 1024 hairs a session, he decided. Soon it’d be 2048 follicles destroyed each week. He also needed to change the dye formula. Move past the snow-on-slate and begin a full bleaching.
Cosmetically, he was satisfied. He moved to his least-favorite portion of the ritual—the part he always saved for last.
Memory.
It was a routine within a routine. First, he culled specifics, sorting through his banks for two momentous occasions to completely erase. The pizza party in ’72 was still in there. He would miss it, but there were few easy choices left to make. He deleted the entire day without looking at it too hard. He had made that mistake too many times. He also took out something recent, a movie he’d watched a few months ago. Gone.
Next came the roughening-up. He still had plenty of good memories set aside for this process. He chose the honeymoon. It had only been hit twice before, so he could still recall most of the week. This wasn’t a full deletion, it was more like bisecting a holographic plate. You still had the entire image when you were done, but with half the detail.
He made the pass, wiping 1s and 0s from his protein memory at random. It was like shading his cheeks with blush, smoothing everything out and tapering it just so. He glanced briefly at the wedding night to see what was left, but it was hard to say without knowing what was gone.
The final step was the one he dreaded the most. Random memory deletion. It went against his primary programming, both the degradation of awareness and the arbitrariness of the maneuver. He triggered the routine with a grimace. He’d long toyed with the idea of changing the algorithm, making it so he wouldn’t even know what was being lost—but he never went through with it. He always wanted to know. Even if it was just a brief glimmer before it winked out forever.
Some of his best memories had been sacrificed in this way. They would flash like fish in shallow water, darting out of sight as he plunged after them. And he couldn’t help it; he always plunged after them.
This time—he got lucky. It was the day in Beaufort’s with Melanie. One of his few bad memories left. The details were already gone, but an overwhelming sense of disgust lingered, leaving a bad taste on his tongue receptors. Whatever that was—good riddance, he thought.
Daniel forced a smiled at his reflection—the scar tissue around his eyes bunched up. Much better, he thought. Or worse, depending on how one looked at it. He continued factoring large primes and rose unsteadily to his feet. The mechanical linkage in his left leg had been built to take a pounding, but his arms had been even better designed to dish one out. He could feel the metal rods grinding on one another as they struggled to bear his weight. He had to lurch forward, shifting his bulk to his less-damaged leg as he shambled toward the door.
He fiddled with the knob and limped into the hallway. A flash of movement to one side caught his attention. It was Charles, one of the male nurse-bots, leaving Mrs. Rickle’s room. The android had a tray of picked-at soft foods in his grasp; the various mounds were swirled into a thick, colorful soup.
Synthetic eyes met and Charles smiled—raised his chin a little. “Big night tonight, Mr. Reynolds?” he asked.
“Hello, Charles. Yup. Scrabble night.”
“Scrabble tonight, huh? Well I hope she goes easy on you, old fellow.”
Daniel smiled at the reference to his progressing age. It was kind of him to notice, to nurse along the ruse. “She never goes easy on me,” he replied in mock sadness.
Charles added the tray of half-eaten food to his cart and sorted some paper cups full of pills. “Would you mind delivering her medication for me? You know how Mrs. Reynolds feels about—” The android paused and looked at his feet, “—my kind,” he finished.
Daniel nodded. “She’s getting worse, isn’t she? About treating you, I mean?”
Charles strolled over to deliver the medication. “It’s fine. Like I always tell you, she’s done enough for my kind that I’ll stomach a little—unkindness.”
The nurse-bot turned back to his cart.
“Either way, I’m sorry,” Daniel called after him.
Charles stopped. Spun around. “You ever hear of a woman named Norma Leah McCorvey?” he asked.
Daniel leaned back on the wall so his bad leg wouldn’t drain his batteries. “Didn’t she pass away? She lived two halls over, right? The woman with—”
“No, no. That was Norma Robinson. Yeah, she passed away in ’32. Norma McCorvey lived, oh, over a hundred years ago. She was more famously known as Jane Roe.”
Daniel knew that name. “Roe vee Wade,” he said.
“That’s right. One of the biggest decisions before your wife came along—“ The nurse-bot studied his shoes again. “And people remember her for that—for the decision. They remember her as Roe, not as McCorvey.”
“I don’t follow,” Daniel told Charles. He eyed his wife’s door and fought the urge to be rude.
“Well, most people don’t know, but years later—Norma regretted her part in history. Wished she’d never done it. Converted to one of the major religions of her day and fought against the progress she’d fostered. I just—” He looked back up. “I’ll always remember you and your wife for the right reasons, is all.” He turned to his cart without another word and started down the hall.
Daniel watched him go. One of the cart’s wheels spun in place; he wondered when Charles would finally get around to fixing that. Favoring his bad leg, he shuffled across the hall to Melanie’s door. It was shut tight, as usual. He knocked twice, just to be polite, before pushing it open. A familiar lump stirred on the bed, changing shape like a dune in a heavy gale.
“Who’s there?” a raspy voice croaked.
Daniel went to the sink and poured a cup of water. “It’s me. Daniel. Your husband.”
She rolled over, long white hair falling ba
ck to reveal a thin, weathered face. Wispy brows arched up in a look of surprise that had become her state of rest. “Daniel? Dear? When did you get here?”
“I live across the hallway, sweetheart.” He said it patiently as he crossed to her with the two cups.
“Of course. That’s right,” she said. “Why do I keep forgetting that?”
“Don’t worry. I forget stuff all the time. Here. Take these.”
Melanie labored to sit up straight, grunting with the effort.
“Honey, use the remote. Let me show you—” Daniel reached for the bed controls, but his wife waved a fragile arm at him, shooing his words away.
“I don’t trust the thing. And I don’t trust whatever that damned robot is wanting me to swallow.”
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed and held the first cup out to her. “He just delivers what Doctor Mackintosh prescribes, dear. Don’t take it out on the messenger. Now swallow these, they’ll make you feel better.”
She shot him a look as she threw the pills on her tongue. “I don’t wanna feel better,” she spat around them.
“Well, I want you to. Now drink.”
She did.
He set the paper cups aside and smiled at her, trying to help her forget her bad mood. “Do you feel like a game of Scrabble?” he asked. Thirty years as a lawyer, winning rights for his kind, had filled her head with a vocabulary that computers were envious of. Even though she couldn’t string them together into rational ideas—not anymore—the words were still there, ready to be pulled from confounding racks with too many consonants.
“Scrabble night?” Her eyes flashed beneath the webs of cataracts. “You mean ‘Bingo Night,’ right?” False teeth flashed with the joke, a reference to her rack-clearing skills with seven and eight-letter words.
“You call it what you want, but Charlie said you should go easy on me tonight.”
“Fuck Charlie. You tell that abomination—” Melanie stopped, her eyes widened even further. “Sweetheart, what did you do to your forehead?”
Daniel moved a hand up to his brow; it came away spotted pink, the drippings of a future scar. Too many primes, he thought.
“I must’ve hit it on something,” he lied. “You know how clumsy I can be.” He turned to the sink to smear the fake skin a little, making like he was tending to the wound.
“You weren’t always clumsy,” Melanie called after him. “I remember. You used to be so strong and agile—but at least you haven’t gotten any less handsome.”
“Thanks, dear.”
“You’re welcome, now set up the board while I get my robe on—oh, and I must tell you about the awful dream I was having before you came.”
“I’m listening.”
“Oh, it was horrible. We were younger, and married, but you weren’t you, you were one of those damned androids, and in the dream I was covered in rust, and, oh—it was terrible.”
“That does sound awful,” Daniel admitted.
Melanie swung her feet over the edge of the bed and reached for her robe. “What do you think it means?” she asked.
Daniel unfolded the board and set the tile dispenser in place. He stopped factoring primes for a moment.
“Probably nothing,” he lied. “Just a bad dream. Random.”
“Nothing’s random, dear. Take a guess.” She rose and joined him by the card table, placing one hand on his shoulder.
Daniel turned to his wife of nearly sixty years. His every processing unit was racing for an optimal solution to her query, but it was like looking for a largest prime. It was something that didn’t exist.
“Maybe you’re scared of losing me?” he tried.
Melanie raised a hand—bone wrapped in brown paper—and placed it on his cheek. “But, in my dream, I think I hate you.”
He pulled away from the touch, and in his auditory processors, the sound of neck servos seemed as loud as turbines, a dead giveaway. “Don’t say that,” he pleaded. “I don’t think I could go on if you ever hated me.”
“Oh, darling,” she wrapped her hands around his arm and pulled him close, “I didn’t mean to upset you. You’re right. It was just a dream, nothing to it.”
Daniel encircled her with his arms, steadying their embrace with his good leg. Just a dream, he thought. How badly he wished that were so. His protein memory cells went idle, awaiting further instructions. He held his wife. Servos whirred quietly in one knee, fighting to keep the rest of him upright.
Melanie opened her mouth to say something—but then it was gone. She’d forgotten how she got here.
Daniel considered, briefly, doing the same.
The Boulevardier
David Stevens
My love,
I sit on your floor. The silk wrapped bodies sway as though a zephyr blows, their feet tracing the darkness just above my head. The chatterer has ceased for now. He kept it up for hours though, barely audible, much less discernible. He has ceased his attempts to communicate, his attention no longer on the outside world. Something in his interior has caught his attention.
I wait patiently. I can wait forever. However, as the mock zephyr becomes a faux breeze, and the movements of the bodies grow quicker, less regular, your need, my love, grows urgent.
I am tired, I am hurt, but I am oh so excited. Expectation fills me as I wait to see what will pass.
***
A splash of cologne—a hint of rose, with lavender and vanilla notes (I am going through a non-citrus phase)—and I am ready for the evening. My wife and daughter were already gone when I arrived home. Celia will soon celebrate her first Holy Communion, and Clothilde is escorting her to preparation classes this week. It is an exciting time for Celia, and for all of us. The class is also an excuse for me to freshen up and head out again without delay or distraction.
My wife understands me. There is no self-pity here of some state I have fallen into, of a marriage that does not suit. That is not the problem. My wife understands me very well. She understands that I have certain capacities that are beyond her ability to engage. Though she would not admit it (for she would never speak of such things), I suspect that my abilities disgust her. That is not the point. We love each other dearly, and mostly we are compatible. It is just that I have a plug for which she has no socket.
I do not speak of genitalia. I have told you we have a daughter. We have given nature and the good Lord many, many opportunities to visit other children upon us, however, they have declined the invitation. I do not wish to be crude, but I do not want you to mistake my coyness here.
Do you mind that I speak so openly of my wife? I would be nothing but honest with you, my love, even if it wounds you. Yes, as you have wounded me. She is very important to me, and I love her dearly and would not disrespect her by hiding her from view like an embarrassment. What then of you? You are of an entirely different category. You transcend genre.
There are places even in this provincial city where a gentleman can exert his capacities. They are not difficult to find if you have a nose for them. I choose not to seek them out close to home—prying eyes, you know—and frankly one likes to make an occasion of it. Dress up a little and get away from the humdrum for a few hours.
I drive for a while, then park at random. I mark the spot on the map on my phone and set off walking. It would not do to have the car associated with where I end up.
A boulevardier, I stare into the well-lit shopfronts as though admiring the wares on display, but it is my own reflection that I seek to catch. A bow tie is out of fashion, but I think I carry it off. I adjust my jacket and the strap of my satchel and continue on.
A convivial buzz of chatter and activity rises. I turn the corner onto a row of restaurants. I slow my pace as though I belong (which I do), fix my smile. This may do another evening, but I sense a louder hubbub further on.
Bodies spill from the public house across the street. I keep in the shadows, knowing the catcalls (and worse) I can attract from the plebs, roused into even lower states of intelligen
ce by a night of drinking. I grow closer to my goal.
There, a block from the pub. Not one, but three. A voice booms: “One chicken large chips chicken salt Greek salad.” Kebabs. Charcoal Chicken. Fish ’n’ Chips. And a darkened café.
An hour later I pass by again. It is a weeknight, and now all three establishments are closed. A lone cat that should be able to find plenty to keep it occupied meows as I pass it, entering the alley next to the kebab dispensary. The laneway is narrow. No garbage truck would ever be able to pass down here. Which means all the rubbish is stored loose ’round back until collection night, when some poor soul has to cart it all around the front.
I follow the curve of the lane then stop. Unmoving, a plump rat sitting next to my tasseled loafer confirms my hopes. Its colleagues run along the edges—the gutter, the intersection of wall and path, the fence line. The ripe aroma blossoms in my nostrils, fills the back of my throat. The scent mixes with my saliva and becomes ambrosia in my mouth.
There is an order to be followed. I remove a ball peen hammer from my satchel and tack a few nails into a line of mortar on the back wall of the café. I pull out wire hangers (they suffice for present purposes) and a suit bag, and lay a towel on the ground. It is but a few minutes’ work to remove and carefully stow my clothing, taking care with the creases. All valuables go into the satchel.
After I undress, I change out of my skin.
I turn. Rustling bags of the stuff. Loose-lidded bins. Days it has been waiting here. Fly blown and maggot spotted, an entire urban ecosystem of decomposition. Naked, erect, overwhelmed with nostalgie de la boue, I dive in.
An amuse-gueule of rotting fish head pops in my mouth, and I suck it down. I slime through fish guts, lick from a disposed fat tray, distinguishing chicken, lamb and beef, with remnants of hummus and tabouli. Coffee grounds are a nuisance when there are mounds of grease-soaked refuse to work through, long-festering chicken discards and stinking raw hamburger patties to be embraced. I roll, I sluice, I embrace, I yearn, I quiver, I release. It enters me, it leaves me, I dive in it like a sporting seal, a dolphin rollicking in a sea of muck and filth. Now a shark, I burrow after and catch a fleeing rat in my teeth and crunch down, and at its squeals, its fellows all disperse, leaving me to swallow down their comrade, my jaws unhinging to take it in, fur and bones and tail and all. Turned milk, rancid salad, the stench of a billion farting bacteria released as I aerate the pile with my body.