Hemingway looked over my shoulder, his eyes narrowed and then, without warning, he scooped me up like a baby.
“What the—?” My protest was cut off as he pressed his hand over my mouth. What was he doing? I wondered if I should push him away and, well, try to be put down or something—however one accomplishes that. But I could feel his body against mine. He lifted me like I weighed nothing and beneath his clothes, I could feel his muscles working. He broke into a run.
“Hold on,” he breathed in my ear. I was carried along as he bolted. You would think it’d be a jostling and bumpy affair, but it was a surprisingly smooth ride. The city flashed by. I mean, we were going surprisingly fast considering he was carrying me. The dry wind whipped across my face as he rounded the corner and zipped down the street toward my building.
The thing is, you hear stories about what an android can do. But it’s not like they go around showing off their abilities. They want to blend in. So when you see it, it’s a unique experience, to say the least. I don’t even know all the things they’re capable of. It’s not like I’ve got a list. And I think it varies from android to android, but I don’t know, for sure. Hemingway was right—androids don’t come with a manual.
I’ve never been carried like that. It was strange to say the least. We outran whatever happened back there, thanks to Hemingway’s unusual ability to carry me and run at the same time. The colony is generally safe, but there are over seven hundred thousand people living in it—and that’s just New Helsinki. People from the other settlements arrive on train all the time. With numbers like that, not to mention strangers coming from elsewhere continually, there’s bound to be dangerous and bad situations cropping up.
I mean, you’d think with the inspiration of such an impossible civilization, the city would be this pristine, exquisite place devoid of crime, litter, and riffraff. Parts of it are completely amazing—beneath the city, there are pipes pumping heat from the geothermal vents, water from the underground aquifers, and electricity from the solar fields outside the dome, in the valleys—but in so many other ways, it’s not. There are weirdoes hanging around and I’ve started to see homeless people in the plazas and stuff. And there are rats and other rodents creeping about that somehow came along with the people who emigrated (honestly, how did that happen? Stowaways? Did people bring them secretly somehow? Like, were they smuggled?). People don’t take care of their property, they leave litter in the streets, and businesses sometimes leave their trash in the alleys before it’s picked up and sent to the sorting facility where it’s recycled or composted for soil replenishment.
Two hundred fifty years and New Helsinki is just like cities back on Earth. I’ve only been to one other settlement, Neuholland, up north by the ice-cap, where they’ve melted a portion of the glacier to create a more fertile farming region. It’s weird and amazing all at once.
My heart was racing as Hemingway put me down outside my building. I looked around. Everything felt strange after seeing that side of him, like when you wake up from a dream where you can fly and everything seems more possible upon waking.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
He laughed. He wasn’t even sweating. “If you’d seen what I saw, you’d be thanking me.”
“Fine,” I said, grudgingly. I loved being that close to him. But it was also disconcerting, similar to how it feels when you’re at a party and a guy wants you to sit on his knee and you do, but you tower like ten feet over everyone else. You stick out. And feel like a total idiot. “Thanks. So what’d you see?”
He shook his head. “Stuff.”
Honestly. It was infuriating. “What? What stuff?”
“Let’s go up to your apartment before your dad freaks out.” He offered me his hand.
“Oh, so now you give me a choice about how to proceed?” I teased.
He let his hand fall to his side. “Cool.”
I took his hand and gently interlaced his smooth fingers with mine. “I didn’t say I don’t want to hold your hand.”
“Funny. I thought that was exactly what you were saying.”
Inside my apartment, my dad was still awake, in the kitchen, reading something on a personal size Gate. “Five more minutes and I would have gone looking for you.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I said.
“Sorry,” Hemingway said. “I tried to get her back right at eleven but we hit some bumps on the way back.”
Was he trying to get on my dad’s good side or what?
“What happened?” my dad asked, his forehead wrinkling in concern. He folded his arms and sat back against the countertop.
“Someone vandalized the capitol building. And I think they were hanging around the area still, because the police came and we almost got caught up in a chase or maybe a fight. But we got out of there before that happened,” Hemingway explained.
So that’s what it was! Why didn’t he just tell me?
“I was just reading the news about a glut of defaced buildings—it’s been happening in all the colonies. Stuff about equal rights for androids and demands to be recognized as alive or some nonsense like that.”
Hemingway’s grip tightened on my hand when Dad said that. Did it take a genius? Why would my dad say something so stupid to Hemingway, an android? He might as well just call him a machine and really make his position clear. I thought again of Sonja, Hemingway’s mother and how she must view him, creating him, imbuing him with life, with spirit or something else so fine that we couldn’t see it.
“Well then, great. Glad to hear how you view it, Dad,” I said and coughed a little.
“What do you think about it, Hemingway?” he asked, now that he’d made clear what he thought about it, giving Hemingway little room to have an opinion without getting on Dad’s bad side.
“He doesn’t—” I began, then caught the expression on Hemingway’s face. He looked a stricken, like he was outraged that someone would say something so unfeeling to him, at least someone who knew him. I said, quietly to Hemingway, “You don’t have to talk to him. Don’t worry about it.”
“No, it’s OK,” Hemingway said to me. “I’ll tell him, if he wants to hear me.”
“Come in, come in,” Dad said, urging us to get out of the entryway and sit on the couch.
I moved, reluctantly, into the room and sat down on the edge of the couch, not really settling in, and Hemingway did the same. We never let our hands separate as we walked. Dad took a seat across from us. I was having flashbacks of the first time we’d been in this position. This wasn’t going much better, I could tell.
“So, go on,” Dad said. I wondered if he sincerely thought that Hemingway was going to side with him or with anyone else who saw androids as second class citizens or as less than what we are: human. It hardly made sense to me to view them as something other than alive. I barely understood the full concept of the android: how they were put together so well, how their minds worked so perfectly, how they could be so completely beautiful, how they were conscious and aware. But even I felt that they were just like me. How could my dad pretend they weren’t?
“I agree with them,” Hemingway said without pausing. “Maybe whoever is doing this isn’t going about making their point clear in the best way possible. But I don’t know another way that would work.”
“You can’t possibly think that you’re not regarded as alive. Can you? You live among humans. You eat with us. You talk with us. You do everything with us.” Dad blinked a few times in surprise and sat perfectly straight in response to this shocker.
I put my hand on Hemingway’s back. His skin was hot beneath his shirt. Every muscle in his back was taut with anxiety.
“You speak as though this is an us/them situation. That’s the point. As soon as an android’s tell is deciphered, he or she is no longer seen as us. That android is seen as a them. And there are plenty of people willing to point that out to him or her in a variety of cruel and sometimes painfully creative ways. Would I ask you to condone anyone tre
ating you or Retta badly? That’s what you’re asking me to do about what androids want: to say it’s OK that some faction of humans want to keep androids in their place. What does that even mean?”
“But you are androids. You’re not human. There’s no changing that,” Dad said, hitting one hand into the other to emphasize.
“‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’” Hemingway asked.
“What—what is that? A quote? Or are you really asking me, because yes, you bleed. I get that.”
“It’s a quote. From The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare. It’s about how Jews were treated as something less than human.”
“That old windbag,” Dad laughed, raising an eyebrow to emphasize his disdain for the ancient playwright. “But you are—less than human. You’re androids,” Dad repeated.
I sighed and shook my head. This was just pissing me off. Here was this guy that I was maybe growing to love—I mean, I wanted to wrap myself up in him and breathe him, so is that love? I don’t know, but I felt so much for him. And here was my Dad, being a total jerk to him. Making him feel like a non-entity. And it was making me feel terrible.
“We bleed. We love. We remember our pasts.” Hemingway took a deep breath. “And we can procreate.”
“You replicate,” Dad returned. “That’s different.”
“Different from what your DNA does?”
“Splitting hairs,” Dad said.
Hemingway stood up, shaking his head, “Thanks for the conversation, but I better be going.”
“Giving up so easily?” Dad grinned triumphantly.
“For you it’s an argument. An idea. A philosophy. For me it’s a question of my life. My existence. My future.”
“Thanks Dad! I love bringing my friends back to the house. You make everyone feel so welcome.” I stood and walked with Hemingway to the door.
“I’ll see you later. At school,” Hemingway said, somewhat coolly.
“Um, OK,” I said. He pulled his hand away. And I let his fingers slip away reluctantly. I wanted to lean in and kiss him, but his mannerisms had become so distant. I was afraid he’d reject me.
He left quickly. I stood there, my hand on the outside of the doorway, leaning slightly into it, feeling cold and bereft.
“He’s an android, Retta,” Dad said from behind me, emphasizing android. He’d come into the entry foyer and was standing behind me.
I closed my eyes slowly, opened them, and relaxed my jaw. “Dad, really? Is that all you see in him?”
“Well, yes, frankly. And you’d be wise to see that too.”
“Didn’t meeting Sonja do anything for you?”
“After you left, we talked. She’s crazy. She thinks he’s real.” Dad waved his hand flippantly and went into the kitchen. I followed him. “I mean, the woman actually quit her position at the research and development company because they began encouraging euthanasia for some deviant androids.”
“Euthan-what?”
“Euthanasia. When they humanely kill something. Like putting it to sleep. A suffering animal, a mentally unstable android.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, raising my voice. A wave of sickness washed over me.
“Some androids have gotten off-track. You know, all this graffiti is probably being done by the androids that would benefit from being put down. Rebooted. Or something.”
“You make absolutely no sense, Dad. Hemingway is real. You don’t bring something to life and then kill it when it does something you don’t like. Or reboot it. They’re not computers. They’re alive! Would you like to put me down too? Am I getting off your preferred track?” I was seriously livid.
“Retta, you and Marta are human,” he said. The look in his eye was fierce like he resented the comparison or he was disgusted with the idea of hurting me for doing something he didn't like. Well. Good. I wanted him to think about the horrible nature of what he was suggesting. “I would never, never want you to be hurt. I would protect you with my own life, if necessary.” He leaned across the counter toward me and took my hand in his, a little bit rougher than I would have liked. “Do you hear me? Look at me in the eyes, Retta. I would die for you if I had to. Your life and Marta’s life are completely different from Hemingway’s life.”
I tried to pull my hand away, but he wouldn’t let me. So I looked him straight in the eye and tried to push all of my feelings into my face, into my stare. “That’s not how his mother, Sonja feels. And it’s not how I feel. Sonja would die for Hemingway. That speaks as much for his human-ness as anything else, Dad. Having someone who loves you that much. That makes you as human as anything.” With one last jerk, I pulled my hand away and hurried to my room.
9: Breaking
I threw myself onto my bed and buried my face in my pillow. I cried. Yes. I know. Tough, old Retta doesn’t cry. Well, that’s completely not true. I cry a lot. I cried the most when my mom died. Since then, not as much. But there are times when a girl just needs to cry. Like when Stig was a major jerk and said to me, “I just think we’ve taken us as far as we can go. We’re going in different directions. I need someone who’s going in my direction.” Translation: you won’t have sex with me, so I’m going to find someone who will.
Yeah. A good cry. Times like that.
The conversation with my dad really bothered me. How could he not see it the way I did?
Is it me? Am I a complete fool? Are the androids one hundred percent different from humans? Are their souls lies?
Sometimes it was really inconvenient having to use my Gate as a phone, since I was always, you know, seen. In the old days, if you wanted to communicate with someone, it was almost instantaneous. Just press a button by your ear and boom, on the phone. Then there was a rash of brain cancers from the implants and the wireless signals, so everyone reverted to not having phones near their brains.
Makes sense. A brain is way more important than a phone. I guess humans weren’t meant to be part cyborg after all. And anyway, when it became evident that robots were getting really humanlike, people didn’t want to be cyborgs. Well, some of them did. But the sane people were afraid to lose what made them human. It’s a big mess, really, the blue hearts and the humans and all the confusion over being a machine or being a soft, fleshy human with a red heart.
So I wanted to call Hemingway on my Gate, but I looked like a bad mug shot from crying. My blue eyes were all puffy and my pale cheeks were red and blotchy. Did that matter? I was completely worried about him. My dad can be such a total jerk that it surprises me sometimes. I don’t know why, though. I’ve lived with him my whole life, I should just expect that by now. I guess I’m always holding out hope that he’ll warm up, drop the scientist vibe just a bit, and be friendly. It got worse after mom died, if that can be believed. One would think something so transforming would cause him to soften up. Nope. Not my dad.
I went to the mirror against the wall and pressed the puffy parts of my eyes down. That didn’t work. So I put my hair up into a bun and adjusted the strands that wouldn’t stay in. I went to my small bathroom and splashed cold water over my face then hurried back into my room. I could hear my dad in the kitchen making toast or something. I seethed for a moment. How can he have an appetite at a time like this? He ruins my life and then makes a snack.
I set the lights to a more flattering level and made the call, which I was doing solely out of concern for Hemingway.
“Hey,” he said almost immediately, his face appearing before me.
“Hey.” I leaned back and began playing with a strand of hair.
He smiled a bit, but there was a look of sorrow in his eyes.
Neither of us said anything. “You alright?” I asked at last.
He shrugged. “Well enough.”
“My dad is a jerk, OK, don’t let him get to you. What he thinks doesn’t even matter.”
“Thanks, but the truth is, he represents most of the population. Not enough people think like you, Retta.”
“They’ll come around,” I said
encouragingly.
“They will? It’s been over two hundred years. If they can’t change in that time, when will they?”
“Soon. There’s obviously something happening, you know, out in the world. The graffiti and whatnot. It will help,” I said, twisting the strand of hair really tight around my finger.
“It will be stifled. Just wait. There’s too much fear.”
“You can’t give up hope. Change is inevitable and if enough people like me care about androids, we can show the world that we’re the same—humans and androids.”
He shook his head and put his face into his hands, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm. “You’re amazing. And beautiful. And I’m really into you.” He said finally, looking at me and reaching his hand toward the Gate like he was touching my face on his end of the call. My heart responded to the words and I began to smile. “But I can’t drag you through this, Retta. You deserve something normal. A man that’s accepted by the rest of society as a man. Not an android. Not someone who’s very nature will create a maelstrom of vitriol around you.”
“What—what—no—” I stuttered, feeling a black well of panic open up in my chest. “What? Don’t say those things, Hemingway. You can’t!”
He nodded sadly, his steel blue eyes suddenly seemed to burn with a thousand sparks. “It’s for the best, Retta. I love you too much to let anything happen to you.”
“No! Hemingway, no! This is wrong. You can’t do this to me!” I fell toward the Gate as though I could reach through and grab hold of him. New tears were bursting into my eyes. I couldn’t see.
His face was turned down, his eyes averted, like he couldn’t watch me floundering. Then he vanished.
I crumpled into a heap on my bed, my Gate fading into a clear piece of glass, devoid of warmth and the light of Hemingway’s face. Sobbing into my pillow, I barely heard a soft knocking on my bedroom door. It creaked open.
“Retta?” Came my dad’s voice. “Is everything alright? I heard shout—” he broke off.
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