Barren Cove

by Ariel S. Winter

  The gulls on the beach were fighting over the caught fish, one flying off a little ways, getting attacked, grabbing the fish, and flying a few feet away again.

  “Father had something to prove,” Philip said, repeating back Clarke’s own words from the dozens of other times they’d had this conversation.

  “And all he proved was that a robot could be more decrepit than he is,” Clarke said.

  “Stories . . . understand what humans were thinking.”

  “Yeah, the cyborg was the bad guy,” Clarke said, losing patience with this conversation.

  “Tragic . . .” Philip said. “About to . . . he can’t have children.”

  “You’ve read it already?” Clarke said, turning toward his brother.

  “Guess . . .”

  Clarke tapped each of his fingers on the stone in his hand, enjoying the click, click, click.

  The sound of a hose starting came from behind him. The brothers turned, although Philip wasn’t able to turn far enough to actually see. Kapec was near the house, starting to water the lawn.

  “Hey, junkyard,” Clarke called. “Storm’s coming. You don’t need to water.” He pointed at the distant clouds, flashing at the horizon.

  “That storm’s not coming here,” Kapec said.

  Clarke threw the stone at Kapec, and the old robot blocked it with his forearm. “That piece of junk should be deactivated,” Clarke said.

  “Why?”

  “What good is he to anybody?”

  “What good are any of us?”

  Clarke locked eyes with his brother. “Damn right,” he said. But he knew the real question was, what good is Phil to anybody? At least Kapec did something. Phil was deadweight to be lugged around. But the idea of deactivating Phil was something Clarke did his best to avoid.

  “Read the story . . . cyborg,” Phil said.

  Clarke pointed at the tablet. “The story isn’t going to tell you anything. You’re right—what good are we to anybody?” He picked the tablet up and chucked it over the cliff.

  “Father read those stories when he was a child,” Philip said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Mother . . .”

  “Mother spoke to you?”

  “Once.”

  The way he said it, the finality, hurt Clarke. He jumped up, looked around, saw Kapec, bent down, and grabbed a few more stones, which he hurled at the plastic gardener. They tapped Kapec’s side harmlessly. The robot ignored him.

  “The cyborg was born human,” Philip said, “but became a robot.”

  “And the humans wanted to kill him. And he was never a robot. And we’ll never be human, and we can be thankful for that.”

  “Thankful . . .” Philip said.

  Clarke looked up at the sun. He looked out at the distant storm. Fuck it, he thought, and he leapt off the cliff, bunching up into a ball and spinning, three times, four . . . The most he’d ever done and landed on his feet was six somersaults. This time he stretched out his body into a dive, landed on his hands, and crumpled into an immediate forward roll.

  The seagulls were walking on the water-packed sand forty yards away, stopping to examine various bits of seaweed and other detritus. Phil was invisible up above. Clarke couldn’t wait to see Cog. He needed to pummel something.

  A light winked on the sand, and Clarke saw it was the sun reflecting on the tablet, which had fallen screen-side up. He went over to it and picked it up in his metal claws. The screen was undamaged. He hit the power button and it came back on. The scene he’d been reading to his brother was still on the screen.

  “ ‘You deserve to be with someone human,’ the cyborg said. ‘You are human,’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘No,’ the cyborg said, shaking his head. ‘You’ll want children, someday, and . . . I’m not human anymore.’ He turned his back on her and leapt out of the window, hearing her cry behind him.”

  Clarke’s upper lip curved into a snarl. Beachstone and his mother read this? No wonder it was all so fucked up.

  The storm over the water had drifted, traveling parallel with the horizon, it seemed. Clarke tucked the tablet into the waistband of his pants at his back and climbed, the familiar handholds in the rock making it no more difficult than walking up the stairs. He saw Phil’s legs hanging off the edge. He crested the top, pulling the tablet from his pants before even drawing himself up onto the edge of the cliff. “Look what I got,” he said.

  Phil didn’t respond.

  “Hey. Buddy?” Clarke seated himself beside his brother. “Phil.” Clarke closed his eyes. His brother’s battery had drained. He stood up and hoisted Phil over his shoulder. Then he picked up the tablet and headed for the house. What good was he? Clarke thought. What good was Phil?

  Kapec watered in a steady arc.

  What’s it fucking matter?

  • • •

  It was with Philip on his shoulder once more that Clarke came upon his mother on the stairs in the house a few days later. It was overcast outside, making it almost night in the curtained Victorian at midday. Clarke activated his night vision as he mounted the first step, his head down.

  “Oh!” His mother stood on the top step, a hand pressed against her chest in surprise.

  “Hello, Mother,” Clarke said, halfway up the stairs.

  They watched each other at that distance, the mother over the son, her expression one of weary distress.

  “Excuse me,” Clarke said, breaking eye contact and taking another step up.

  Mary stepped down. “Clarke,” she said.

  Clarke stopped again and looked up. Mary still had her hand to her chest. She braced herself with the other on the handrail. The pose made her look weak, small. In the month and a half since Philip had been activated, Clarke had seen his mother three times, and they had never spoken. Seeing her now, so shrunken, Clarke was overwhelmed with sadness that was part missing her, loneliness, and part pity. Both feelings ignited anger. “What!” he said.

  She started as though attacked. She closed her eyes and took another step down. “How are you?”

  “A bit busy at the moment,” Clarke said, and he jostled his brother’s weight.

  Mary gripped one hand in the other. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Yeah, right,” Clarke said.

  “You think I’ve been cruel.”

  “You have been cruel. And pathetic.”

  She wrung her hands, her face pinched. “What would you have me do?”

  “I’ve been right here. No reason you couldn’t come over and say hey.” He made the word sound like an insult. “You did that much for Phil.”

  “I had to see him. Just once. To make sure he was all right.”

  “Yeah, you’ve been a great protector.”

  “I’ve—”

  “Been afraid,” Clarke said. “Of which one of us? Me?” He bounced Philip again. “Him?”

  Mary closed her eyes as Clarke took a step toward her.

  “You should be. You’re disgusting,” he said.

  “Yes, I was afraid. I was afraid of this. And it looks like I should have been.”

  “It might not have been like this if you’d come around sooner.”

  “You couldn’t come to me?” she cried.

  “If I came near Beachstone, I’d probably kill him.”

  She flinched.

  “Get out of my way,” Clarke said. “I need to plug in your handiwork.” He started up the stairs.

  “I want to protect you,” she said. “Don’t you understand . . .” She pressed herself against the wall to let him pass.

  “I don’t understand you at all,” he said.

  “Clarke,” she said to his back. Then she grabbed his arm and turned him. “Clarke! How much longer is this going to go on?”

  “Let go of me or you’ll be sorry.”
/>   “Let us bury our son,” Mary said.

  “Your son!” Clarke said, and she retreated from him. “When has he ever been a son to you?”

  “Clarke, please . . . Beachstone—”

  “Never!” Clarke yelled, but at the same time he saw Philip in his wheelchair, in the woods, on the cliff, stuck there, questioning his own existence, and he felt some guilt over doing nothing to help him, over only keeping him alive for just this purpose, for just this fight. “I . . . I . . .”

  She held her closed fist against her breast, her shoulders turned as though expecting to be hit. She messaged, “Let us bury our son.”

  He thought about how much easier it would be to be done with this. Many mornings it was almost as though he was just waiting for the battery to run out. “Don’t talk to me again about it,” he said. “Ever,” and he turned to go upstairs when Dean said, “Miss Mary, Master Beachstone is coming,” and the human appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “Give me my son,” he said, grabbing at Philip. “Give me my son. Put him out of his misery.”

  “Your misery!” Clarke yelled.

  “He’s not yours to decide about. Give him to us.”

  “You’ve had plenty of opportunities to take him,” Clarke said.

  Beachstone stopped reaching. “And then what would you have done?”

  Mary cried behind him, “Clarke, don’t!”

  Beachstone didn’t move a muscle. “He’s my son. You let me bury him.”

  Everyone stood silent in the darkness.

  “Clarke,” Mary said.

  That released him. He pushed past the human and went into his room. He plugged Philip in.

  • • •

  Clarke didn’t tell Philip about the fight with his parents, but it changed things for him. He was less certain why he kept his brother alive. He had thought it was to hurt Beachstone, to mock him. In retribution for Kent? No. For being human? For Mary? But it was Mary’s pain, drawn in part out of empathy for Beachstone, but really the pain of a mother. Philip was hers as well as Beachstone’s, her son’s suffering her suffering. Clarke couldn’t help but feel he was torturing her.

  He had to admit he’d been lonely. He remembered the joy of jumping through the trees, looking for specimens to take back to Phil, the sense of camaraderie. Until Phil slapped him on his knuckles, of course. But he had Cog now.

  Keeping Phil alive was simply torturing everyone, a Pyrrhic victory.

  These thoughts cycled like a virus, his system processing without computing, drowning out Phil’s endless prattle with its long pauses and bursts of static. It was never clear to Clarke if Phil was aware of how disjointed his speech was, how incomprehensible much of the time.

  “What is wrong?” Phil said, but it was the pause after the question that focused Clarke’s attention. He had wheeled Phil out to the spot where he had first met Cog.

  “Are you happy?”

  “What is happy?” Phil said.

  “Damn right,” Clarke said.

  “I am a robot . . . do nothing . . . anyway.”

  Clarke wasn’t sure what his brother meant, but he also didn’t care. “What’s it like when your battery dies?” he said.

  “Nothing. Then I’m in your room again, waking up to you.”

  “There’s no warning?”

  “If . . . never work . . .”

  “And if you didn’t wake up?”

  Phil’s answer was static.

  Clarke remembered the dead boy. That had made him happy. Perhaps he and Cog would find another one to destroy.

  Phil was still talking. Eventually the words “. . . no difference . . .” came out, and then Phil seized, his shoulder gears spinning.

  Clarke, as always, was a bit disgusted by it.

  The high-pitched buzz of a motor drifted from the direction of Barren Cove, rising to become insidious. Clarke zoomed to see Cog riding a four-wheel ATV, standing, a bit hunched over in order to reach the steering wheel with one hand. He thrilled at the sight; perhaps there’d be some fun today after all, but then he panicked about Phil frozen beside him. He’d managed to prevent Cog from interacting with his brother thus far, and the idea of the impending meeting overrode any initial excitement at his friend’s approach.

  Cog had seen them, and he turned deliberately so that he was coming full speed directly at them. At the last moment, he jerked the wheel, skidding, his rear tire bumping the wheel of Phil’s chair, as he spun the ATV around them, ending up facing the brothers in the narrow space between them and the cliff edge. He left the motor idling.

  “Is this your brother?” Cog said. He stepped onto the small hood of the vehicle and then down to the ground. “What is he?”

  Clarke jumped in front of his friend and put his hand on Cog’s chest. “He’s a robot. What do you think?”

  Cog held out both his hands. “Of course he is. Of course he is.”

  Phil’s shoulder gears stopped then, and he said, “Hello.”

  Clarke was still between the two robots, preventing Cog from getting any closer.

  “Cog,” he said over Clarke’s shoulder. “Your brother and I hang.”

  “Does that make you happy?” Phil said.

  Cog started to laugh, his eyebrows going way up. “Happy? Ha, ha, man.”

  Clarke stepped back, softening at his friend’s laughter. He played his recorded, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

  “Clarke and . . . ’cussing if . . . life . . .”

  “Clarke . . . krrr-shhh-ch . . . I’m . . . krr-krrr . . . malfunctioning . . . ererer.” Cog laughed.

  Clarke pushed Cog hard enough that the larger robot stumbled back a few steps, his legs hitting the still-idling ATV.

  “Whoa, robo, I’m just having some fun,” Cog said.

  “Clarke, it’s all right,” Phil said.

  It wasn’t all right, though, Clarke thought. This was exactly why he had kept them apart. Not to protect Phil, but to protect himself from seeing Phil through someone else’s eyes.

  “How do you like my new ride?” Cog said, stepping aside to better show off the ATV. “Some human shot himself in town, and I found this in the shed out back of his house.”

  “Sounds like it’s gas powered,” Clarke said.

  “Yeah, psycho had a few barrels of the stuff out there too. Guess the humans didn’t enforce the laws out here too much.”

  “Or they were grandfathered in,” Phil said.

  “Well, this grandpa is grand-dead,” Cog said. “I was thinking of seeing if I could ride it off the cliff. Baby’s built for the beach. Wanted to find you first.”

  “Later,” Clarke said, wanting Cog to leave. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “I’d like to see you jump,” Phil said.

  “Your brother’s into it,” Cog said, pointing.

  “Later,” Clarke said again.

  “Not . . . just you . . .”

  “You tell him about our air wrestling?” Cog said. “I don’t know how he does it,” he said to Phil, “but your brother always ends up on top.”

  “Air wrestling?” Phil said.

  “You didn’t tell him?” Cog said.

  Clarke could feel himself getting angry. He knew Cog was still laughing at Phil. The robot was a fucking idiot.

  Cog was explaining their air wrestling, a term Clarke had never heard before.

  “. . . do it . . .” Phil said.

  “See—”

  That was all Clarke needed. He grabbed Cog and threw him off the cliff before running and jumping so that he caught the big robot midwaist before he’d even begun to drop, and then he maneuvered him down, so that Clarke was making a perfect dive, Cog to take the full impact. The sand burst around them, and Cog was laughing.

  Clarke jumped up onto his feet.

  “Fuck,�
� Cog said.

  Clarke scaled the cliff before Cog even got up. He made it to the top and went right to Phil’s chair, ready to roll him away.

  “What . . . doing?”

  Cog’s laugh interrupted Clarke from responding. “He got me off guard,” Cog said.

  “I always get you off guard,” Clarke said.

  “Yeah?” Cog said, stumbling toward them. Then he grabbed Clarke, to try to do what Clarke had just done to him, but Clarke grabbed Cog as well, never letting go, so when the larger robot threw Clarke, he was pulled along with him, and both landed in a heap on the beach.

  “Almost,” Cog said as they stood.

  “Yeah, right,” Clarke said.

  They raced up the cliff, as they had done so many times, and reached flat land at the same time.

  Phil had gotten out of his chair and made his way over to the ATV. He was leaning over in preparation of trying to throw his leg over the seat.

  “Hey, little bro,” Cog said. “Where are you going?”

  “Phil,” Clarke said. “What are you doing?”

  “Thought . . .” He threw his leg up and got stuck there, his voice hissing.

  Clarke went to him and started to pick him up to return him to his seat.

  “Hey, maybe your brother wants a turn,” Cog said. “You . . . krrssshh . . . krrsshhhh . . . turn . . .” he said, mocking Phil’s manner of speech.

  Clarke turned on his friend again, ready to do more than throw him off a cliff.

  Cog put his hands up in a pose of surrender at the same time that Phil said, “Clarke . . .” distracting Clarke for a moment. Cog leapt around him and picked up Phil, holding him above his head in both hands.

  Clarke leapt onto the ATV, using its height to jump over Cog’s head, grabbing his brother in a tackle, and falling with the one-armed robot to the ground, rolling, coming back up and throwing himself at Cog, his bare right hand clamping on his friend’s throat while the other hand tore through Cog’s shirt into his simul-flesh.

  Cog tore at Clarke’s face, but his still flesh-covered hands couldn’t tear the same way that Clarke’s metal ones could. “Come on,” Cog said. “Come on. You want to?”

  “You stay the fuck away from my brother,” Clarke said.

  “Brother? He’s a freak-show junk heap. The ATV has more going for it.”