We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  The back of Dataran’s hand brushed against Park’s. Stiffly, without speaking, Park pulled her hand away.

  “You’re feverish,” Dataran said, with real concern. “Maybe you should go home.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Park said frostily. They had stopped a little ways away from the picket line of teachers and parents, who were looking more disheartened by the day. The chanting by now was a kind of loud mumble; the signs shouting “YOU SAY ROBOT, I SAY NO-BOT!” and “RECYCLE CLUNKERS” now sagged in the air like flags of surrender. Dataran, without looking at the mumblers, said, “What’s wrong? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s different on Mars,” Park said. “I know. You don’t have anything to fear there. But here, sickness has a certain stigma to it. Contagions, whatever they are, are ruthlessly smothered, or else the whole ’dome is vulnerable. You don’t just go around saying people are ill.”

  “Mars?” Dataran echoed. “Why are you bringing up Mars?”

  Park stared at him. “Aren’t you from there?”

  His mouth quirked. “Who told you that?”

  “You seem space-born.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “Are you?”

  “No,” Park said. She could feel the sweat gathering in her hair, standing there with him on the street, the sun’s amplified rays falling down through the biodome in curtains of heat. What was she doing? Hadn’t she told herself not to engage with him? It wasn’t that she strongly disliked Dataran, necessarily—it was just that she sensed he wanted something from her, and she was reluctant to give anything up.

  “Where are you from, then?” Dataran pressed.

  “I’m from here,” Park answered grudgingly. “New Diego. I was born here.”

  “You don’t act like it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Dataran said. He was smiling a little again, as if at a private joke. “You don’t seem—at ease here. It’s like this is all new to you.”

  Park turned away from him. She felt deeply annoyed, both by his concern and his secret mirth; she felt as if he’d blindfolded her and told her he’d prepared a surprise, only to keep steering her into false corners and walls. “Anyway, I’m not sick,” she said. She sounded angry, despite herself. “Just tired. So don’t suggest it again.”

  “If you say so,” Dataran said. “But if you need my help—”

  “I won’t.”

  For a moment they just stood there, looking at the crowd of protesters, some of whom were sitting wearily on the school steps now. Park wondered how long it would take for them to finally give up, for the other students to come back to school. Did she prefer the hot, headachy press of them all, the howling pheromones, the garish displays—or was it better to be stuck alone with Dataran?

  “I wish they’d leave,” he said then, in an undertone. When Park looked at him sidelong, he met her eye.

  “They’re wasting their time,” he told her. “The anti-roboters. The firms are already working on the next generation of teaching androids. They’re not going to get their jobs back this way. Their time would be better spent looking for new jobs.”

  “They’re frustrated,” Park told him. “Which is understandable. And there are no new jobs. Not around here.”

  He turned to face her fully. “Does that make you afraid? For your future? What are you going to do when you’re done with school?”

  Park shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I only know that getting rid of robots wouldn’t help, regardless. We need them.” She felt the clenching feeling in her chest again.

  Dataran smiled. “You’re an odd one, Park,” he said. “But I like it.”

  Hearing him call her by her preferred name gave Park a little jolt. She hated anyone using her first name, except Glenn, but few people knew her well enough to know that. How long had Dataran actually been paying attention to her? Longer than she’d noticed, it seemed. Longer than the protests had been going on. She felt unsettled—and half-pleased.

  “Class is starting soon,” she said. “We should go in.” Together they worked their way past the picket line, and all the while Park watched Dataran more closely than she had before. He wasn’t so scrawny, she decided, only thin, malleable still, like a young reed. She looked at his rolled-up shirt sleeve, a summery white; the chalky paleness of his wrist; the browner skin of his hand. Why weren’t people staring? He suddenly seemed so noticeable—there was something hard and glittering about him, as if he had just come into focus for the first time. And yet no one even looked at him. The protesters parted and re-formed back around them like they were turtles slipping through a school of fish. As if there were a line of chalk around them that rendered them invisible.

  She continued to watch him as they settled in for class. This time, Dataran took the seat next to hers. The Ms. Allison unit instructed them to pull up the schoolbook programs on their desk-consoles as it began the day’s lecture. Park noticed that Dataran’s eyes barely moved when he read; instead, they glazed over, staring straight at the text in an unfocused way, though he scrolled through the pages as if he was reading along. Something about the look on his face felt familiar to Park; it was a look of both concentration and distant reverie. She was irritated by her own interest, and thought, I only notice because my mind wants distraction from other things.

  What other things? she asked herself then.

  The fact that her brain felt coated in peach fuzz, for one. The rest didn’t bear thinking about.

  Ms. Allison caught on to Park’s fever about halfway through the morning. The robot was sitting quietly at its desk while Park and Dataran read to themselves; while Park felt her head drooping on her neck like a sunflower bending under its own weight. Then she suddenly felt the force of Ms. Allison’s gaze on her, the sweep of its infrared regard. “Student Park,” it said, its hands clasped neatly on its desk. “Your biometrics are displaying abnormal temperatures.”

  Park looked up and hesitated. It wasn’t in her nature to lie, mostly because she was never placed in situations where she had to. Moreover, it was getting increasingly harder to fool androids, even prototype models like Ms. Allison: anything Park might say to a regular human teacher could not get past a heart-rate-monitoring, pupil-size-measuring interface. For the first time she regretted the switchover to android instructors. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her forehead like an oil slick.

  “It’s hot in here, Ms. Allison,” Dataran said then. Park looked at him; he was sitting with his chin propped in his hand, smiling gently at their teacher.

  Ms. Allison took a moment to consult its internal sensors. Before it could speak again, Dataran said, as if to a child: “Humans have different comfort thresholds. There is no real standard.”

  “The ambient temperature is well within acceptable ranges,” Ms. Allison said, a little uncertainly.

  Dataran shrugged. “Like I said,” he answered. “All humans are different. Park is just warm.” He turned and smiled at Park, glitteringly. “Aren’t you, Park?”

  “Yes,” she found herself saying. “I’m warm.”

  Then Dataran looked hard at Ms. Allison. After a moment, it said, “I understand,” and went back to sitting there with its hands clasped. Park turned in her seat to look at Dataran, but by the time she tried to meet his gaze, he had already gone back to his reading, his eyes still fixed at some faraway point. His fingers tapping out an unhearable tune. He didn’t acknowledge her, except with a faint crook at the corner of his mouth. Park felt a kind of squirming in her gut and angled her face away from him for the rest of the day.

  “Thank you,” she said later, awkwardly, when they were descending the steps of the school. She’d made it through the afternoon without further incident, though when she got to her feet she felt slightly as if she were swimming through the warm air. Dataran shrugged and said, “No need to thank me. I didn
’t do much.”

  “You didn’t have to say anything,” Park said. “I told you that I didn’t need help.”

  “I like you,” Dataran said again, amiably. “And I like to help. That’s all.”

  “I see,” Park said. She tried to think of the best way to ask him questions without indicating her own interest. “You’re used to androids,” she said. Which was a silly conjecture; of course he was used to androids. They were all over, on Mars—or wherever he’d come from. There were no human colonies that were devoid of robots of any kind.

  “So are you,” Dataran answered. He looked at her sidelong and laughed lightly. Park shivered, as if a cool wind had passed over her.

  Humor seemed to be his preferred method of deflection, she thought later. On any other day she might have pressed him; she had never seen anyone else handle an android so naturally, and his surprising thoughts on the protesters warranted more talk. But she was still feverish, and also a little afraid: she thought that her present physical condition made her more vulnerable than usual. Confused. Her defenses felt wide open, as if she had imbibed. If she opened up any further, there was no telling what might come out—so she kept her mouth shut.

  Glenn was waiting for her in the usual spot by the school gate. By that time of day, the picket line had dispersed; most passersby were still at work, meaning there was no one to chant at, and the fat, swollen sun was now being devoured by the gray sea. It was fall, and the grass of the schoolyard had turned hard and golden—despite the controlled climate of the biodome. Walking through it made a crunching sound, like someone biting into toast. Their shoes chomped into it as they approached Glenn. He watched their advance with a flat, inscrutable expression.

  Park expected Dataran to break away at this point, given his reaction to Glenn the day before. Instead he lagged behind her a little, hanging back; he scuffed his feet against the golden ground. Glenn looked at him and said neutrally, “Good afternoon.”

  “Hey,” said Dataran. Park said nothing—she concentrated instead on planting her feet and pretending she’d thrust roots into the ground. The air felt too moist and too still—the ground looked like it was swaying—but to give any of that away would submit Glenn to the kind of concern that only an android could feel over his precious charge. Luckily he was too focused on Dataran to notice: a current of meaning seemed to pass between them, static-like. It was like watching two animals of different species encounter each other for the first time, trying to puzzle each other out. A cat and a dolphin staring at each other. A raccoon and a frog.

  “This is Dataran,” Glenn said finally, factually.

  “Yes,” Park affirmed.

  “Will he be accompanying us home?”

  “No,” Dataran said. “Park is sick. You’ll need to look after her.”

  “I’m fine,” Park said, but even as she said it, she swayed a little; both Dataran and Glenn put out a hand to steady her. Suddenly Glenn looked up and said something to Dataran; Dataran said something back, but their voices seemed garbled, distorted. She heard Glenn say sharply, “I make no promises,” and then she shut her eyes, trying to quell her sudden nausea. There was the chomping sound of Dataran walking away. When Park opened her eyes again, he’d been swallowed by the chilly yellow sunset.

  Park felt Glenn draw close. She let him put his arm around her. He said reprovingly, “You’ve overtaxed yourself.”

  “I’m fine,” Park murmured. “Let’s just go home. What did you say to Dataran?”

  “He went home, as well,” Glenn said. She looked up into his face; his features looked like they were carved from marble, and his eyes seemed shuttered to her. She tried to wring a smile out of her face and said, “Are you jealous now?”

  “A little,” Glenn answered, unsmiling. “Though I don’t think I can tell you why.”

  * * *

  —

  Park was too sick to go to school the next day. Glenn ran the usual scans and assured her that it didn’t seem to be anything more severe than a common virus; she could have contracted it anywhere. He procured medical tabs from the local dispensary as well as standard-grade Immuno-Boosts and administered them at her bedside, telling her gravely that the worst would be over soon. This felt ominous to Park, who was now shivering so hard that she was sure her brain was sloshing around in her skull like a milkshake.

  “That’s the kind of thing they say before they kill their victims,” she said.

  “Who is ‘they’?” Glenn asked.

  “I don’t know. Serial killers.”

  “I have not killed,” Glenn said, stone-faced. She found herself wishing that he would crack a smile, or even take offense; while he was perfectly dutiful, she got the feeling that Glenn was being purposefully distant, though she couldn’t guess why. Had he noticed her unease with him the previous day, after all? Was he trying to be mindful of her feelings, or had she hurt him in some way? Or was something else going on? Park couldn’t say—couldn’t muster the energy to find out, to circumvent the android–human language barrier. Or feelings barrier. Still, it was a relief to have him sitting with her throughout the night, even as she tossed and turned in her growing delirium, feeling as if her mattress had been stuffed with itchy palm fronds and warm grass. At some point she turned over and put her burning hand on Glenn’s bicep, expecting steam to hiss out where she touched the cold density of his flesh.

  “Put me out of my misery,” she joked, weakly.

  Glenn’s night-glowing eyes regarded her from the chair beside her bed. “You’re not miserable,” he said. “You’re just confused.”

  She listened to her heart limp against the bedsprings for the rest of the night. In the morning she felt a little better, her head drained slightly of whatever had been clogging it; Glenn’s treatment protocols had worked their magic, as they always did. But she still didn’t feel strong enough to go to school. She spent most of the morning dozing, then drinking clear broth that Glenn prepared. She thought about putting on a filmstream but didn’t. Glenn left her alone for the most part, unless she called for him—she was sure by now that she wasn’t imagining things, that he was really going out of his way to avoid her. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or achingly lonely.

  In the afternoon someone came knocking at the door. Park was used to hearing the hard, tinny rap of the local delivery android, but this sounded distinctly human. She waited in her bed and heard Glenn approaching the door. There was a long pause, and finally he opened it.

  “Is Park home?” someone said.

  Park bolted upright. Dataran! What the hell was he doing here? It wouldn’t have been hard to buy her address from the dome’s directory, but still—she couldn’t remember the last time an outsider had come to the module. To see her. She snatched her worn, scratchy blanket up to her chin and didn’t know if she felt annoyance at him or sheer panic. Or both.

  “She’s resting,” Glenn said from the living room.

  “I figured she was still sick, since she didn’t come to class,” Dataran said. “I brought these.” There was a rustle, a short pause.

  “I’ll see if she’s awake,” Glenn said finally, though he knew full well that Park was. She listened to his heavy tread approaching her bedroom door and huddled under her blanket. What was she so afraid of? She couldn’t say—only knew that she felt exposed, like an exhibit on display. What had they called them, back in the old days? Freak shows; curiosities to gawk at. Had Dataran come to do that? Ogle her in her natural habitat? No, it wasn’t in his nature—but what was?

  Glenn slipped in through her bedroom door and folded it shut: it was one of those thin metal screens that they’d used in airplane bathrooms, back when there were still airplanes. He dropped his voice to a pitch that Park had dubbed “the android whisper,” a low fricative buzz that somehow managed to convey words to the direct recipient, while everyone else heard nothing more than an electric hum. �
�Dataran Zinh is here to see you,” he said. “He said he brought your homework.”

  “You can just download the homework directly to your console,” Park hissed. “Anyone can.”

  “I’m aware,” Glenn answered. “He’s using it as an excuse to visit with you.”

  He said it like a Victorian chaperone: visit with you, as if there were something dark and furtive about the act. Park said, “Tell him to go away.”

  “He has something else for you,” Glenn said. “A gift.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Park told him. “He can give it to me tomorrow, if he wants. I don’t know why he had to come all the way here.” She could feel her face burning, and not from the fever—Glenn was regarding her with his patient, unreadable eyes. “Tell him to go away,” she said again. “I’m too sick. I’ll see him tomorrow—or the day after.”

  “All right,” Glenn intoned, and he turned on his heel and slipped silently out of the room again. The door folded shut behind him with a clatter. Beyond, Park could hear him telling Dataran: “She would like for you to go away.”

  Goddamn him, Park thought, with a surge of impatience. But it wasn’t Glenn’s fault. It wasn’t his responsibility to come up with more articulate excuses for her—and androids weren’t exactly overflowing with social graces, not unless they were trying extremely hard. Dataran said, in his good-natured way, “All right. Tell her I hope she feels better, would you?” But Glenn didn’t answer, must have simply shut the door; Park hoped that Dataran had walked away by that point and hadn’t had the door snapped shut in his face. That he wasn’t simply standing in the hallway, listening. Hoping that she might still come out.

  Glenn returned, carrying a parcel made of wax paper.

  “What is that?” Park asked.

  Glenn handed her the little bundle without answering. Park put it tentatively in her lap and untwisted the wax paper, smoothing the edges out against her blanket. She blinked.