by Lena Nguyen
Harry Bip jumped. Alexia squinted; Park had positioned herself so that the sun was at her back, glaring into their eyes if they tried to look at her. It was instinct, she supposed: her reptile brain positioning her on dominant ground. Alexia tried to smile and said, “Oh, Grace. We were just having a talk with your—friend.”
“You don’t need to talk to him. Whatever it is, you can ask me.” She looked at Glenn—bent all of her will into her gaze. Silently, he moved to her side.
“He’s a very advanced model,” Alexia remarked. “We were just admiring his specs.”
“Yeah,” Harry Bip rumbled. “He’s crash. Real lifelike.” A smile twitched on his face; Park looked at him and thought about how jangled and out of place his genes must be. A throwback, she thought; a figure beckoned out of an age that didn’t exist anymore. No wonder he preferred following Alexia’s lead; she knew his place, and told it to him with ease.
“So what do you do?” Alexia said to Glenn. “Now that she’s here, you can answer. Do you just follow Grace around all the time?”
“Leave him alone,” Park said, in clipped tones. She knew this was a tactic, meant to expose her vulnerabilities—but she hated the thought of anyone ridiculing Glenn, who couldn’t defend himself. It felt as if they’d come into her home without her knowing and rearranged the furniture; stolen her diary and passed it around, jeering. She had never known true anger like this before—frustration, yes, but not rage. How dare they? she thought. She felt as if there was a hot, weeping itch in her heart.
“Glenn, let’s go,” she said.
“You don’t have to be so protective,” Alexia said, still with the round-eyed look of innocence. “I was just trying to make conversation. No one’s going to steal your walking vibrator.”
Park turned to her icily and slapped her, open-handed. The force and suddenness of the blow surprised even Park, who felt as if someone had unhinged her own arm and moved it for her. There was a stunned silence, staring; even Glenn looked vaguely surprised. Alexia’s cheek reddened in the afternoon’s golden glow.
Then she said, “You bitch!” and wound her hand back. Harry Bip made a kind of hooting noise. Park tensed, and her mind leapt through several strategies, discarding them before the next instant had even passed. She wasn’t interested in diffusion or escape. More in overpowering Alexia, incapacitating her—teaching her not to do this again. How much could she hurt her, without veering into the domain of the criminal? And would Harry intervene? Park wouldn’t win if it was two against one . . .
She had no more time to think; here came Alexia’s hand blurring through the air. Park rounded her shoulder to fend off the blow and said against her will, “Stop!”
Glenn moved suddenly. His hand clamped down on Alexia’s wrist, catching it in midair. The contact made a hollow clapping sound. Then he looked at Alexia and said quietly, “I’m sorry, but I will not permit this. You will do no harm to Grace Park.”
Alexia gave a kind of scream, a horrible sound, like a train whistle in a movie. “Get off me!” she shouted. “Don’t touch me, you fucking clunker!”
At this, Harry Bip lunged forward and swung his open hand at Glenn’s head, roaring like a bear. How absurd, Park thought blurrily as she watched him stumble forward, pinwheeling his arms to maintain balance. It was like an old cartoon, all of them standing there, trading slaps. Glenn, who had faded backward with the blow, said, “That was dangerous. If I hadn’t moved, you could have damaged your hand.”
“Glenn,” Park said, and he released Alexia’s wrist smoothly.
“I apologize,” he said to the girl, who was clutching her wrist as if it was in danger of falling off. “I am first and foremost Grace Park’s guardian. My protection protocols—”
“Help!” she was shrieking. “Help! It’s attacking us!”
Some passersby had witnessed the altercation: two businessmen and another female student. Park saw that they were hurrying over. Whether they knew Glenn was an android, she didn’t know—perhaps all they’d seen was two young couples squabbling. But no, she thought. If they thought that, they wouldn’t bother interfering. She could see in the whiteness around their lips that they thought they knew what was going on. Rogue android, they were thinking. It’s finally happening. We’ve known it all along.
The riots never really went away, Park thought.
“We need to go,” she said to Glenn. She touched his sleeve.
“Where?” His voice was flat and calm; she could see the sensors in his eyes spinning, analyzing the situation. “They are blocking the only exit from the schoolyard.”
“Into the school,” Park said. “Wait it out. Until things calm down.”
But Glenn was shaking his head. “It would not be strategically sound to trap ourselves in a building,” he said. “Particularly one occupied solely by other synthetics.”
They’d quietly edged back from the center of the commotion by now. Harry Bip was holding the sobbing Alexia as if she might fall to pieces without his embrace to hold her together. The female student was recording the goings-on with her wrist console, smirking in a tight, nervous way. The two businessmen were listening to Alexia’s story, looking over at Glenn and Park suspiciously; one of them was calling someone on their teletooth.
“You,” the one who wasn’t calling said to Glenn. “Come here.”
“Stay,” Park said. Glenn gave no sign that he had heard the businessman address him.
“Is that your bot?” the man asked. He was young, not that much older than she: a recent college grad, she would have guessed. His arms were too thin for his clear vinyl business suit. “She said it just attacked her.”
“She attacked me,” Park answered coldly. “My android just prevented further violence. It’s in his programming.”
“I think it’s going to have to be taken in.”
She felt as if someone had injected lead into her spine. “I’ll see to that,” she said. “Who are you?”
“We run a robot repair firm,” he said, gesturing to himself and the other businessman, who was still on the phone. “We handle problem bots. Malfunctioners.”
“Great,” Park said. She suddenly realized that she couldn’t unclench her fists.
“You should turn it over to us. We’ll take a look at it and repair whatever’s going on in its head. We saw the whole thing. That’s not programming.”
“It is.”
“It’s not. Look—we’ll give you the receipt. You can come pick it up in a day or two.” When Park didn’t answer, the angle of the man’s shoulders sharpened; all she could read was anger and fear in the lines of his body. He swayed, as if preparing to charge. “You really need to turn it over. If not to us, then to somebody. Defective chapdroids can be a real menace if they’re let loose without corrective programming.”
“I am not defective,” Glenn said tonelessly. “My systems are operating at optimal capacity.”
The man didn’t look at him. “It wouldn’t know if it was defective,” he said to Park. “That’s the whole point. The part that should know it’s malfunctioning is malfunctioning itself.”
“He’s fine,” Park snapped. “Leave us alone. Unless you’re the police—”
“Get the police!” This was Alexia, from amidst the storm of her tears. “It hit me!”
God damn you, Park thought, but before she could reply she saw the younger businessman nod to the older one, who was now off the phone. There was a crowd of people in the schoolyard, now: students who hadn’t gone far and who had returned when they’d heard the commotion, excited laborers and office workers on their routes home from work. Someone said, “Turn it off, the switch is in its throat,” and Park could feel her body drifting in front of Glenn’s, stiff, solid, as if she were a glacier. Glenn said quietly, “What is the usual procedure in such a case?”
“I don’t know,” Park said. She couldn’t
turn to look at him. People were approaching them, hesitantly, trying to see how to move her neatly out of the way.
“Self-defense is required,” Glenn said, prompting.
“Yes,” Park said. “It always is.”
Glenn stepped out from behind her then. There was suddenly something small and black in his hand; Park couldn’t see it clearly from her periphery. He said calmly, “Please let us exit peacefully. Now.”
That was all he said. But everyone stopped. A kind of hard, frozen silence fell over the crowd. No one moved. Even Alexia stopped crying; she only stared at Glenn, then Park, with that classic round-eyed look, like a startled infant. Glenn put his hand on Park’s back, with infinite gentleness, and said, “Thank you. We will leave now.”
And then they left. The crowd parted for them like water flowing around a rock. Park could feel her shoulders tensing as they passed through, expecting a surprise blow to the face, a hot flash of pain in the back. But there was nothing. No one even turned to watch them go.
“Why?” Park said, when they’d made it a block or two away. She looked behind them, but no one was following; the streets were now empty. She hadn’t realized how fast her blood had been thudding that entire time; she could feel her heartbeat in her fingertips. Glenn’s left hand was still on her back.
“It was this,” he said, and he showed her his right hand briefly. Park felt the blood drain out of her head. Glenn was holding an electrolaser gun.
“Where,” she asked after a moment, through stiff lips, “did you get that?”
“Here,” Glenn said, and dropped it into her hand. Park nearly yelped, not from fear, but from the surprise of feeling how light it was. She turned it over in her hands, felt the rough grooves and fixtures.
“It’s fake,” she said, after a moment.
“A prop,” Glenn said mildly. “Little better than a toy, though convincing enough at a distance. You can order them easily enough online.”
She looked at him with wonder. “When did you get it?”
Glenn gave her an indecipherable look. “A long time ago,” he said. “During the worst of the riots. The day Dataran approached you.”
He’d been late that day, she remembered—she’d run over the sequence of those few days many times in her mind. So that was where he’d gone. To get a fake gun. “To protect yourself,” she said aloud.
Glenn’s eyes flicked to her then, and Park jolted, as if he’d pricked her with a knife. “No,” he said coolly. “To protect you.”
It frightened her a little, to think that Glenn had such foresight—and agency. He had never mentioned or shown her the gun. But in other ways it comforted her deeply. She could trust him; he could take care of himself. She did not have to bear the responsibility of keeping him safe.
She put her hand on his arm, silently. Glenn put the fake gun away and the two of them walked together in a kind of reverie, the streets completely silent, the air drowsy with pollen and salt, the sun falling down on them in waves of delicious warmth. Park said, “There will be trouble.”
“No,” Glenn answered. “I reviewed the protocols. I examined the law. There is nothing that addresses this; it wasn’t illegal. Not for me. I was within my rights.”
His rights, she thought. His laws. Again that feeling of fright, and comfort; she did believe him. Glenn was, if nothing else, thorough in all things.
“There will be no trouble,” he said.
“Still,” Park said. “If not legal trouble—retribution.” She paused, thinking. “Maybe we change your appearance. Or have you hide at home every day—until we leave for college. I’ll tell everyone you were recycled. Then, when it’s time, you’ll come with me. You’ll be out of danger then.”
“This seems like a reasonable course of action,” Glenn said. Then he frowned. “But who will protect you when you go out?”
“I can protect myself, Glenn,” she said. Despite herself, she smiled. “At least for these few weeks.”
He was shaking his head. “My processors must be flawed. I did not anticipate this outcome.”
Neither had she, Park thought—but at least this gave her an excuse to get Glenn out of the city. Her uncle couldn’t refuse her now: not with Glenn in danger of being destroyed. He’d have to let her take him—and let him get an android of his own.
She looked at Glenn sidelong, feeling a swell of gratitude and warmth toward him. He was so unheeding of his own danger—both from people like Alexia and from her uncle, who still hadn’t told Glenn his plans. She squeezed his arm a little, but Glenn didn’t look around; he was concentrating on looking out for other threats, attackers that might charge down a side street to surprise them. Park felt a tremor like a sob move through her chest. His flesh was so hard, so dense. She sometimes felt that he must be the strongest being in the world. That he could lift cars, mountains, if he wanted to. But why would he want to? He’d asked her that when she questioned the limits of his strength.
“Lifting a car would most likely incur property damage,” Glenn had said at the time.
“But you could do it,” Park said. “If you wanted.”
“I can’t predict a scenario where I would want to.”
“What do you want?” Park had asked.
“To guard you,” Glenn had answered, simply.
No wonder she felt so safe with him. She’d thought then that he could stop a bullet. She thought that now, walking with him.
How naïve she was, Park would think later. She had never stopped to consider the dangers that such strength posed. How easily it could destroy as well as protect.
* * *
—
“You’re late,” Park’s uncle said when she arrived back home.
Park didn’t hesitate. “I was busy at school.”
“Busy threatening people with a gun?”
She paused, processing. Glenn had gone somewhere else in the building, presumably to hide his prop gun. “It was fake,” she said eventually. No use questioning how he’d found out so quickly.
“I’m aware,” her uncle said. “And you’re lucky the police arrived at that conclusion just by watching the footage. Still. That’s terrorism. Disorderly conduct, at the least.”
“Not if it’s done by an android.”
Park’s uncle was shaking his head. “Grace. Come on. Even if there were no legal complications—and they’ve told me we still might be facing a fine, if that’s what the legal counsel decides—come on. Even you don’t have to be told what happens when a robot waves a gun around in public. You remember the riots?”
“I was here for them,” Park said coldly. “You weren’t.” She felt the heat of the door at her back; she wondered if he would chase her if she bolted without another word. She said, gritting it out: “You won’t do anything to him.” I won’t let you.
Her uncle paused, watching her—as if he knew her desire to run. Maybe that was the feral side of her, Park thought, looking at her reflection in his glasses—an old-school vanity he still allowed himself. Maybe she got it from her mother.
“You see why I want to keep him?” her uncle asked. He spoke softly, slowly, as if not to spook her; but behind his papery voice Park sensed a thundering rage. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed, Grace—your dependence on him. It’s unhealthy. Damaging. It wouldn’t be right for him to go with you to school.”
I thought you said I was independent, Park thought. Self-sufficient. I don’t need you.
Her uncle shook his head. “More than that—you can see what’s happened to his wiring after years of being allowed to run wild with you. His algorithms and protocols are all degraded. He’s got too much agency, not enough discipline. There’s problem behavior.”
“He’s not a dog,” Park said. Through the door to their module she could hear Glenn’s steady tread moving up the hallway stairs.
“No,” her uncle
answered. “He’s dumber than a dog. He shouldn’t have the freedom to misbehave in the first place. Like I said—his head’s all scrambled, now.”
Park could feel the vibrations of Glenn’s footsteps moving up the soles of her feet. She braced her back against the door, as if to bar him from entering; she could sense him waiting on the other side, pausing, looking at her with his dark patient infrared eyes. Run, she thought at him, almost screaming it. Go somewhere else, somewhere safe. I’ll find you.
Of course, not even he could read minds. But Glenn did wait there, perhaps puzzled, or even afraid; Park could hear, faintly, the smooth whirring of his heart through the door. Park’s uncle said, “I won’t have him reset, if that makes you feel better. But he stays here.”
You can’t keep him safe, Park thought. “You don’t even care about him,” she said.
The reflection in her uncle’s glasses shifted slightly, as if they were full of water. As if there was nothing behind his eyes but cold and empty sea. “No,” he said. “But I care about you.”
But did he really? Park never quite knew, even after he was dead. Did anyone really have the capacity to care—truly care—beyond the instinct to ally, fuck, and raise their young to breeding age? Were there any decisions guided by pure selflessness? Not in humans, she supposed—in androids, yes. It was too bad no one else could see the beauty in that. Even Park forgot it, sometimes. By the time she was an adult, she had to be more aware of her reputation, of how it looked when others saw her interacting with robots. She lost her way a little, there. And by the time she was on the Deucalion, bound for the stars, with no idea of when she would return—there was no one, human or android, left on Earth to care.
17.
Park woke with a gurgling gasp, gulping for air as if she were surfacing after a long period underwater. To her choking panic, she realized she couldn’t move her limbs: only her neck was able to move, lolling around on her rag doll of a body. It felt as if someone had disconnected her brain from the rest of her, pulling some vital wire; for a brief moment she wondered if she’d fallen somehow and been paralyzed.