How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

by J. C. Lillis

  “Screw your sensors!” I roll my eyes.

  “Mm. You’re not quite projecting ‘sexy desperation,’ but we’ll work on it. Hey, tell our fifteen fans where we’re headed.”

  “The Robot’s Bookshelf.”

  “Guys, we are seconds away from our pre-convention appearance at this sci-fi bookstore where they’re having an essential CastieCon geek gathering and Brandon’s going to talk to a B-O-Y, and‌—‌”

  “What?”

  “That’s your assignment tonight. You converse in public with a boy. You’ve heard of them, right? They’re like girls, but with penises?”

  Father Mike’s going to pepper my subconscious with Leviticus 18 in another second. I turn up the music and Sim myself steady. “Boys do not interest me, Captain.”

  “Right. Here, this could be you, are you ready?” He fumbles with his phone and reads off the screen. “Sim felt his steely resolve slowly melt away. He could taste the hot manly tang of the captain’s lips‌—‌”

  “Will you quit it?”

  “Running his nimble silver tongue over his perfect teeth, he‌—‌Hey!”

  I snap his camera shut. Abel blips the Cadsim fic off his phone’s little screen and thunks his boots up on my dashboard, grinning. His cheek is smudged with powdered sugar and Plastic Cadmus chins the rim of his jeans pocket, as if there are crumbs and sticky change in there and he’s desperate to escape.

  “Donut hole?” We stop at a red light. He wags the bag from the Donut Hut in Clarion. “You know you want one.”

  “No thanks.” I smell cinnamon. My mouth waters. “Why do you have to read that fic out loud?”

  “Um, because it’s hilarious?”

  “Huh-uh. There’s some deeper neurosis here.”

  “I love it, actually. It speaks to me.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Well, who doesn’t love a good mpreg?”

  “A what?”

  “Sim gets man-pregnant? Gives birth to twins during a tornado?”

  “I’ll pretend I never heard that.”

  “Here, I’ll read you the wedding one‌—‌”

  “NO.”

  “But Xaarg’s the minister!”

  “I will end you.”

  “Where’s your sense of humor?”

  “Zander took it.”

  He chugs some root beer and summons a massive belch. “You know what?” A smaller belch follows. “You could learn a lot from this android-learns-to-love fic.”

  “I’ve already loved. He dumped me for a‌—‌”

  “‌—‌bartender, and he was pre-med, and he read Ulysses for fun and caught salmon with his bare hands and played basketball with albino orphans‌—‌”

  “You’re just jealous ‘cause your boyfriend works at Sub Shack.”

  “He’s a sandwich technician. And at least he’s present tense.”

  “Whatever.” I craft an expert left-hand turn. “I’m not talking to a guy tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “I just‌…‌need more time.”

  “Brandon. This is dire. Don’t hold out for Mr. Candlelight Romance.” His cheeks bulge with donut. “You wait too long and soon you’ll be seventy-five and you’ll live all alone in a sad fourth-floor walkup that reeks of loneliness and takeout chow mein, and then you’ll wish you listened to me.”

  “What’s wrong with chow mein?”

  He lobs a donut hole at me.

  “I mean, I’d rather have moo shu pork, but‌—‌”

  “Can I punch you? Like for real?”

  Dad’s GPS breaks in: Arrive at destination. I wave Abel quiet and bump up into the bookstore parking lot, looking for a spot I can ease the Sunseeker into without breaking a sweat. I’ve got this swervy carsick feeling. It’s the Zander talk. Can Abel tell it’s a lie? He’s too smart to be fooled forever.

  “Whoa‌…‌” Abel says.

  My knuckles go white on the wheel. “What?”

  “A-plus park job.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “You did that one-handed.”

  “I did.”

  He toys with Plastic Cadmus. “I’ve been like, covertly admiring you all day. I’d crap my pants if I had to drive one of these.”

  I sneak a glance at him. It doesn’t compute, Abel scared of a thing that’s like walking for me. RV driving’s just geometry and physics; it’s Dad in the seat beside me with his tall can of BBQ chips, guiding me through highway merges and practice park jobs in empty lots. You get into a rhythm on a long straight road, and after a while you forget you’re hauling something huge and scary behind you.

  “It’s easy,” I shrug.

  “Really?”

  “Well, I’m kind of amazing.”

  “Confidence. Excellent.” He stands up and stretches like a cat. “Just what you need tonight.”

  “Okay, but I swear I’m not‌—‌”

  He kicks the Sunseeker door open, like in the pilot episode where Cadmus breaks into StarPort 38’s android-storage locker and steals Sim from his charging dock. He turns to me, holds out his hand with a grave stage-glare. Bec watches, grinning, shrugging on my Phillies sweatshirt. Abel’s got on a candy-striped polo shirt and his new truck-stop hat with Punxsutawney Phil on it, and right above the fly of his dark designer jeans is a big ironic belt buckle that shouts PRAISE THE LORD.

  “C’mon, shake your circuits, android,” Abel quotes. “Your freedom is waiting.”

  ***

  To enter The Robot’s Bookshelf, the three of us duck under a droopy Welcome CastieCon Attendees! banner and squeeze through an archway wound with silver garland and blue plastic lights shaped like spaceships and stars. The owners are huge Castaway Planet geeks, you can tell. Dr. Zara Lagarde’s favorite album is playing (Janis Joplin, Pearl), they’ve got the snack bar stocked with Cadmus’s favorite jellybeans (cinnamon), and the backdrop to the small stage is this giant blown-up photo of sunflowers, like the ones in Cadmus’s visions of his Earth childhood.

  “Sim scanned the room, rusty heart creaking in his plastic chest,” Abel narrates, reading off his phone. “Before him, men flirted in the shadows, their nuances painfully foreign‌—‌”

  “What is that?” I know I’m blushing. I’ve read this one at least three times.

  “’Sex and the Single Droid’ by cavegrrl94. It’s relevant.” He exchanges five dollars for a packet of jellybeans. “Carry on.”

  “Let’s find a table,” I tell Bec.

  “As he roamed the crowded room, he realized he was ill-equipped to choose a man for himself, at least from the selection before him. He turned to Captain James Cadmus, who blazed with raw masculinity in his tight black t-shirt and aviator shades.”

  I tilt my head at Abel. He slams back a fistful of jellybeans.

  “’Captain,’ Sim said. ‘Help me choose a male with whom to converse.’” He pecks my shoulder with his index finger. “That’s your cue, Tin Man.”

  I pick a table in the corner made from parts of a theme-park rocketship, painted retro-aqua to look like the U.S.S. Starsetter. There’s no chance I’m talking to a guy, but I scan the room to humor him. Few dozen AV-club types, some with gawky girlfriends. Castaway Planet is supposed to have a big gay following, but none of them seem to be here tonight.

  “Captain: clarification.” I eyebrow him. “I should flirt with a random straight guy?”

  “No! No flirting. Just talking. I mean, look at these sweet untainted boys, they sleep on Star Wars sheets. What could be less intimidating?” He elbows Bec. “Rebecca: can he handle it? Yea or nay?”

  “I’m pulling for him.”

  “All right, Mr. Roboto.” He bangs Plastic Cadmus on the table like a gavel. “Put your antenna up.”

  My stomach crackles.

  “You find an appropriate specimen,” I stall, “and I may oblige.”

  Abel surveys. Disgustingly, he cracks an ice cube between his teeth. “Him,” he points. “With the blue Chucks.”

  “Unacceptable
.”

  “Pourquoi?”

  “He’s barn owl-y.”

  “Fine. Inkblot T-Shirt?”

  “Pretentious.”

  “So? I love pretentious people!”

  “Why?”

  “They try so hard to be interesting, you don’t have to do any work.”

  “Next.”

  “Argh! Fine. Mr. Sensitive Ponytail. Reading Ender’s Game.”

  “He looks weird.”

  “He looks awesome. Go talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  “Keep it show-related. Talk Season 5 rumors. Bitch about the cliffhanger. Bet he thinks Cadmus is really dead.”

  I shoot Bec a save me look. She shrugs.

  “All right,” I say. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Abel brightens, until he sees where I’m pointing. The guy’s got on polyester pants the color of gravy, glasses thick as a telescope lens, and a baggy blue t-shirt with the Castaway Planet logo on it. I’d put his age at sixty, maybe sixty-five.

  “Outstanding,” Abel says. “You think you’re funny? Grandpa it is.”

  Old Guy weaves between tables with two white cups on a red plastic tray. He sets it carefully on the two-top in the corner, where a white-haired lady in a matching Castaway shirt waits for him. The little gold cross around her neck glints in the red light of the bookstore’s OPEN sign. He pours two creamers in one cup, stirs it, and presents it to her with a flourish. They smile at each other. Their smiles are the same. They look like my parents will in about twenty years.

  That’s what a real marriage looks like, says Father Mike.

  “Aww. Ancient fandom geeks.” Abel melts, clutching his heart. “I shall name them Lester annnnd‌…‌”

  “Gladys,” Bec says.

  “Perfect. Lester and Gladys.” Abel shakes his head. “Wow. That’s what I want someday. Don’t you guys?”

  Yes yes yes, I want to say. The yeses gather thick in my throat; I swallow them down and blink up at a string of stuttering star-lights.

  “Not really,” I shrug.

  “Look at them! They’re like little salt and pepper shakers. One breaks and the other’s useless.”

  “’Scuse me.” Bec hates soulmate talk; has since her dad left. She gets up from the table. “Bathroom.”

  “Brandon‌—‌”

  “Shh! Look.”

  I point to the stage. Someone’s at the mike: this doughy college-age guy with kind apologetic eyes, thinning blond hair, and a black t-shirt printed with constellations. He looks familiar. I don’t like to stereotype since I’m probably a bigger Castaway Planet nerd than half the room, but I can almost see his high school notebooks, and the margins are filled with sketches of supergirls in metal bikinis.

  “Hey there, Casties.” Sheepish nice-guy wave. “I’m Bill. Welcome to the CastieCon Kickoff Party.”

  We clap. Abel kicks me under the table.

  “So‌—‌ah.” He takes out some inkstained index cards and clears his throat. I flash back to traumatic oral book reports in grade school. “Four seasons ago, a crew of misfits on the run crashed their spaceship on a tiny unknown planet and became the unwilling lab rats of a merciless and childish omnipotent being known only as Xaarg. Since then, Castaway Planet has captured our imagination and sparked debate week after week. From the rash bravery and grim humor of Captain Cadmus to the, um, deeply human struggles of the elegant android Sim, these characters have become our second family. Good thing we don’t have to spend Thanksgiving with them, though. Right?” He looks up like he expects a laugh. When he doesn’t get one, he clears his throat again and shuffles the cards.

  “He’s kind of adorbs,” Abel whispers. “Don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  “C’mon, he’s all awkward-turtle.”

  “Sh.”

  “Like he just won a tech award at the Oscars‌—‌”

  “I’m trying to listen.”

  “So anyway, guys,” Bill taps the last index card. “There’s a trivia contest in twenty minutes, 30% off DVD sets and novelizations, and don’t forget to partake of the goodies at the snack bar or we’ll have to, ah, cast them away. Any questions, I’m your go-to guy. Yes? You sir.”

  He’s calling on Abel.

  “Can you come to our table? We have a question.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I smack his arm. “What’re you doing?”

  “Talk. Just chat a little. You need your wheels greased.”

  “I told you‌—‌”

  “Heyyy, Bill!”

  Abel makes introductions. Bill smiles and shakes his hand. I hide mine under the table; they’re already slick with sweat.

  “What can I do for ya?” he says.

  “Brandon, tell him your question.” He whispers to Bill across the table. “It’s a really good one. We wanted a Castaway expert to weigh in.”

  “Wow! Well, I’m flattered. Shoot.”

  Bill turns his postcard-pool eyes on me. I get that hot sick feeling I got at Abel’s birthday party in March, when his spinning bottle stopped at me and I feigned a speck in my contact lens. I know who he reminds me of. Ryan Dervitz. Sci-Fi Club treasurer, Timbrewolves tenor, my first and only near-kiss. I see him in his sweaty white dress shirt and khakis, behind our school after we sang “Life Is a Highway” for Parents’ Night. One second he was smiling like normal, flicking a lightning bug off my collar, and the next he was filling my whole field of vision with his pale freckled moonface. His lips only made it to the corner of my mouth before I shoved him away, leaving him limp and baffled against the brick wall while I booked it down the street and shut myself in the Dairy Queen men’s room, Father Mike muttering in my ears the whole way.

  Bill smiles politely. “So‌…‌ah, what’s your question?”

  I can’t talk. My clothes feel see-through.

  “It was about Sim.” Abel jumps in, shooting me death rays. “We’re debating if he should’ve stayed human after he got his evolution chip in Episode 2-14.”

  “Whoo, excellent question. Hmm.” He bongos the table. “What do you think, Brandon?”

  Ryan never looked me in the eye again. We used to talk baseball and debate classic X-Files episodes in sixth-period study hall, but he suddenly had reams of algebra homework that required total concentration. I’d watch him scritch his pencil nub across his notebook, factoring quadratic trinomials with dark broody passion. I never knew I wanted to kiss him back until it was way too late.

  “Brandon.” Abel kicks my shoe.

  I know what’s happening. Red splotches spreading, one on each cheek. I want to vanish.

  Abel glares. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he says. “I think when Sim was ‘human’ it was one freaking excuse after another. That whole arc was one long whine about how inconvenient feelings are and how it sucks to know you’ll never know everything, like, we get it. Stop being so emo about it and get on with things, you know?”

  “I guess,” Bill says. “I thought it was sad, though. How he went back to being‌—‌”

  “A total bore?” Abel stiffens his shoulders and tilts his head. “Captain Cadmus, might I suggest some seventeenth-century poetry to distract your mind from existential torment?”

  His robot voice is still dumb, but the dim lights here contour his face in Simlike angles and shadows. I get this quick fanfic flash: his strong hands gripping my wrists, slamming me up against a spider-cave wall.

  Put on the Brakes!, Chapter Five: Ask God for the strength you need to flee temptation. And then don’t walk away‌—‌run!

  I try to shoo the words away. They scuttle into unreachable corners of my mind, prodding me with tiny sharp claws.

  Don’t run, I tell myself. You idiot. Don’t listen.

  My chair’s already screeching back.

  “Brandon?”

  Abel charges after me. Grabs my arm by the bakery case. He does it like it’s nothing, like he doesn’t even realize his hand is there, and meanwhile my arm is zapping hot pani
cked messages to my brain: he’s touching me I’m being touched don’t move don’t breathe act normal be Sim.

  “What is with you?” says Abel. “You can’t string two words together?”

  “I‌—‌”

  “Practice! You need practice!” He shakes my shoulders. “What happens when we’re at the Castaway Ball and you see a flawless guy in a Sim suit and he starts walking over? What then?”

  “I run from the weirdo.”

  Abel gives me a why-must-you-be-you sigh. Whatever. Used to those. I got them a lot from my parents after The Talk: Why him? Makes no sense. He likes the Phillies. He can tie twenty-six different kinds of knots.

  “We’ll get you back in the saddle. You may require more intensive intervention than anticipated.” Abel plucks a free lanyard from the basket on the bakery case and hangs it around my neck ceremonially, like we’re in a Hawaiian airport. “By nerd prom night, you’ll be ready for greatness again. Trust me.”

  He gives me a kiss on one cheek and goes for the other but I jump back. I can’t help it.

  His eyes narrow.

  “You okay?” he says.

  “I‌—‌You smell weird.”

  “I do?” He sniffs his pits and shrugs. “I like it.”

  Across the room, Bill drums the table and drifts away, probably wondering what kind of curricular adaptations I needed to graduate high school. I touch the spot where Abel’s lips brushed my cheek.

  Careful, says Father Mike.

  Then I see Bec.

  She’s standing by the DVD display, holding up her phone and giving me The Look‌—‌the same one she gave me the night her sister and mine got in a parking lot catfight at the DQ. Teeth clenched together, eyebrows bunched. Our standard code for something’s really wrong.

  Chapter Four

  Bec pulls us down a quiet aisle. My insides rumble. What if Dad looked up Castaway Planet and found our vlog? He’d know Abel was here. He’d know I lied, and he’d flip in that scary-calm way I can’t handle at all. Bec’s dad used to roar like a chainsaw; mine makes tiny snips that bleed you so slowly you don’t notice until you’re weak.

  I picture him on the deck he and Mom built together, adjusting his brown plastic eyeglass frames and depositing guilt in my voicemail. Lying, huh? You know, you might not believe this anymore, but there’s actually this crazy thing called ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’”