“Make sense?” he finally asked.
“Oh yes.” I nodded fervently.
“Good.” He smiled. “Now what I need from you is to take notes when we meet with our new partners. There will be brainstorming sessions, and I’ll need someone to keep track of all the ideas and agreements. Can you handle that?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Bryan,” he reminded me. “Tomorrow morning. 8:30. Meeting in Auditorium A.”
“Yes. Bryan.” I was supposed to remember that. I stood and gathered my papers. The book I was reading at home slipped out from my bundle of papers and notebooks and fell to the floor. How did it get here?
“Here, let me help you,” he said and leaned over to pick up my book.
My face must’ve been as red as a tomato.
“Ah, 1984 by George Orwell; this is a good book! I wouldn’t have taken you for someone who reads sci-fi. Have you read Little Brother?”
“One of my favorites,” I said. “But then I read anything I can get my hands on.”
“Oh?”
He looked at me funny, as though horns grew out of my head, but I couldn’t help myself. I rattled off a list of authors, as if I was a database of books. “Shakespeare. Charles Dickens. Victor Hugo. Raymond Chandler. Jane Austen. Frank Herbert.”
“A girl who reads.” He grinned. “You are a rare specimen indeed.”
“Douglas Adams. Tom Clancy—”
“You? You read Adams? You don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor.”
“Of course I do.” I had laughed until I cried when I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a humorous adventure through space. Well, the first time I didn’t understand all of it, but I had decided to give it another try. Even now I couldn’t help laughing. Forty-two. The answer to The Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Maybe when I am forty-two, I will finally understand life and everything.
“I didn’t know you could smile,” he said.
He had an odd look in his eyes. It made me uncomfortable; I felt as though something was expected of me. But for the life of me, I didn’t know what. It was the first time I hadn’t understood something. He looked down at his notes and straightened them on his desk. “Well, perhaps we could discuss this over dinner tonight?”
What was I supposed to say? No one had ever asked me out before. I was the girl who watched all the other girls get dates in high school and college. I sat on the sidelines, clutching my books and spending Friday nights alone. The guys wanted girls who could laugh and bat their eyelashes, not ones who could think.
“So we will meet tomorrow morning?”
“The answer,” he said, taking my hand, “should be yes.”
“Tomorrow morning—”
“Say yes.”
“Y-yes.” My heart choked me. Did I just say what I thought I said?
“Good, I’ll pick you up at seven this evening.”
Donald leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling tile; anything to get his mind off the problem. He counted the pinsized holes, analyzed the shape, looked for patterns, and then did it all again with the next tile. There was a bug in his program—a problem he couldn’t solve—and sometimes it helped to empty his brain.
“Morning, Don,” John said, behind him. “How was your weekend?”
“Short. Too short.”
“I hear you.”
Donald glanced about the room and then lowered his voice. “Did you hear about what happened to Mike? He was escorted from the building last week. Got caught forwarding sensitive information.”
He hit the run button and then spoke louder so that the room could hear. It wouldn’t do to be caught whispering. “Take a look at this code. I’ve been trying to fix it all morning. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes…”
John leaned in as the code flashed across the screen. “I heard he tried to get the information to the press,” he whispered as he watched the screen, “but the dork printed the material from his own computer. Might as well announce to the whole building what he was doing.”
The script came to an end, and Donald hit the run button again. “This damn computer just won’t listen to me,” he grumbled.
“So what’re you working on?”
“It’s a new logic program I’ve added to monitor the test subject’s language for me—look for trigger words, you know— but I’m not getting any alerts.”
“Scoot over. Let me drive.”
Donald got out of the way and let John sit down at his desk.
As he studied the screen, John chewed his lip and pulled on his goatee. “You’re missing a tag here, you dork.”
“Thanks.” Don got back in his seat, fixed the code, and ran it again. He glanced back at the room full of developers, but no one paid any attention to them.
“Mike should’ve bounced the printout off the server. They’d never have known who did it.”
“Nah, they’d figure it out. You know that.”
“Oh, I know he should’ve—” The computer simulation stopped, flashing a warning. Donald jumped from his seat. “Oh shit—”
He raised his arm to wave down one of the suits on duty.
“Doctor,” he called, “you may want to see this.”
“What’s going on?”
“Test subject V-X14387 has completed Phase One of the experiment.”
“Good. Let me see the transcript.”
Donald handed the doctor the readout that spat from the printer on his desk. “Looks as though there are a few kinks in the programming.” He hit a few keys.
“Hmm,” the doctor muttered as he read. “Doesn’t know how to respond to the input and so resorts to familiar logic paths.”
“Yes, doctor. It rebooted.”
“Call it in for maintenance. Get this glitch patched by morning.”
“Will we be moving to Phase Two, now?”
“No, the connection has not yet been established.”
Donald sighed, relieved. He didn’t want to be here when they started Phase Two. But then he didn’t want to end up like Mike either. For the umpteenth time, he wished he’d never gotten this job.
The doctor’s face turned sour. “Don’t get too attached. Remember, you are just a technician, and this is just a robot.”
“But commanding it to murder, sir? She—I mean, the programming—will never recover.”
“You forget yourself. You are not here to think.”
“Yes, sir.” Donald looked down at his shaking hands. They wouldn’t fire him. They’d just kill him if he balked now, he knew. “Forgive me.”
“We must put the programming to the test. Isn’t that our purpose: to see what it will choose, to love or to obey. Can a machine love?” The doctor turned to walk away. “Don’t forget to call it in for tweaking.”
The phone was ringing when I got home. Maybe Bryan was going to cancel. I wasn’t sure which I wanted more—the relief of a quiet evening or something new and exciting, an adventure. “Virginia, speaking,” I said into the receiver.
“This is the nurse at the Warren County Hospital, reminding you of your doctor’s appointment at six tomorrow morning.”
I didn’t have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I always remembered those things. “You must be mistaken—”
“Security code V-X14387.”
“Yes, I will be there before work.”
I hung up the phone. How strange. I never forget anything.
Writer’s Dream
Rita J Webb
Copyright © Rita J Webb 2009 Jason pulled into the drive and killed the engine. The house’s blank windows stared back, empty, forlorn. He should be excited, but he felt nothing, the same numbing hollowness that had gnawed at him.
“It’s going to be all right,” Trixie whispered. She squeezed his hand, and he turned to give her a lopsided smile. A tear trickled down her face, and he wiped it away with his hand.
“A fresh start,” he said. “That’s what we promised ourselves.” “Do you think—?
”
“Of course.” He forced the smile she needed. “Fresh country
air, lots of space to exercise. Before you know it, you’ll be healthy...”
“And then we’ll try again.”
He swallowed the heaviness welling up in his throat. “Yes, then we’ll try again.”
Turning away to hide his own tears, he swung open the car door. The for-sale sign, a sold sticker slapped brazenly on its side, stood in the center of the overgrown lawn, their memento to this new world. A tug and a push, and it slid out of the grass, mud caked to its legs.
They had dreamed of this—a place to call home, to raise their children. Our son. He would have been a year old now. She’d be getting him out of his car seat, and then he’d be toddling about. They would laugh and Trixie would smile like she used to.
Jason shook his head to clear the cobwebs clinging to the corners of his mind. Things were different now. They had a new home, an old rundown farmhouse with plenty of sunlight, fresh opportunities, and a chance at hope. He grabbed his laptop from the back of the car and went inside to find his wife opening windows in the kitchen.
“Oh, Jason, just look at this place!” Her face shone with a light he hadn’t seen since…since the day their boy was born. “I can just see it now,” she said, her voice so soft he could barely hear it. “Muslin curtains, a green tablecloth on the table, fresh flowers in a vase, a bowl of fresh apples on the counter, apples from our own tree, cookies in the oven—”
“Mmm, you’re making me hungry.” Jason put his arms around his wife and pulled her close. Her hair smelled of something flowery, as wonderful as the first time. Damn, her touch felt good, warm and refreshing. Trixie reached up and pulled his mouth down to hers. Her lips were soft and timid, the kiss shy, as if it was their first, but then, she hadn’t let him touch her in months. Tears trickled down his face and onto her hair. He hugged her as though he couldn’t get her close enough.
“Thank you,” she whispered, pulling away and looking up at him. For the first time, her smile reached her eyes despite the tears falling down her face.
A knock on the back door interrupted them. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, Trixie put on her best smile. “Our first neighbor,” she said. “Will you do the honors?”
Jason gave her a lopsided grin and offered his arm. “I would be delighted.”
On the other side of the door was an old man with a wrinkled face and an equally wrinkled jacket. He looked like the typical farmer with a straw hat, denim overalls, a blue striped shirt, and dirty boots.
“Howdy, mister. Ma’am,” he doffed his hat to Trixie. “I saw ya’ll drove up and thotcha might like a bit of homemade stew and fresh cornbread.”
“How marvelous,” Trixie said, taking the packages and setting them on the counter.
Jason stood back, watching her animated face, and smiled. This was the woman he remembered. This move was definitely for the best. They would settle in; he’d finish his manuscript and find a publisher, and she would finally find that joy she lost.
“My, you are a right pretty lady,” the farmer said. “Reminds me of my Suzie Mae, bless her soul, back when she was as young and bright as you are. She was all smiles and sweetness. Been dead now, nigh thirty years, but I still remember her laughter to this day.”
“Oh, you lost your wife?”
“No, ma’am, I have her in mah heart.” The man tapped his chest and smiled. “Still talk to her while I’m doing my chores, and some days, I hear her singing in the kitchen. She had a right cheerful voice though she couldn’t carry a tune.”
“We—we lost a son,” Trixie said, another tear trickling down her face. “He was just two days old, and there are times I forget. When I’m shopping and see baby clothes in blue…”
A jealous pang shot through Jason at how forthright Trixie was with this stranger. She had never wanted to talk about it with him.
Oh, at first, she had gone on and on until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d wanted to forget, not dredge up every painful memory. “Shut up about it,” he’d yelled.
She had shut her mouth, as he had told her to. For a month, she didn’t say a word.
That first day home, he packed up the crib. If it wasn’t there to remind him, it never happened. Life could go on as it had before. But then he found her that night, like a ghost wandering in the nursery. She wailed, standing where the crib had been.
Everyday, she grew colder, burying her heart from the world, from him. But now this old man put his arms around her, and Trixie sobbed in his shoulder. He patted her hair like a father consoling a daughter, not saying a word, just letting her cry. That’s my job. Get your grubby hands off her.
“There,” the man said when Trixie had calmed down. “There, now. Better?”
“Yes.”
Her smile was so open, at peace; Jason wanted to hit the man.
Then Trixie moved away from the door. “Where are my manners? Please come in.”
“Thanks, but I’m fixing to milk the cows. Come for dinner tomorrow?”
“That would be an honor,” Trixie said.
Jason pursed his lips and crossed his arms. She should have consulted with him. Couldn’t she see he didn’t like the guy?
“Just through the back pasture and out past the old pond.” He doffed his hat and turned to go.
“Wait, I didn’t catch your name,” Trixie called.
“Farmer Tuck, but call me Fred.” And with a wave of his hand, he was gone.
“Farmer Fred?” Trixie called, a bit too cheerfully for Jason’s liking. Months had passed, Trixie’s cheeks had become rosy, her appetite had grown, and she no longer looked like a walking skeleton.
A picture of health, the doctor had said. She smiled; she laughed; she danced about the kitchen. All because of this old farmer who pretended to be the father Trixie never had.
A log cabin lay nestled among the trees, and just beyond was a barn, old but sturdy, certainly well tended. Chickens strutted through the yard, clucking and pecking in the dirt; the baaing of sheep and the music of the cows could be heard from the other side of the barn. In the field, corn sprouted in neat little rows, not quite as high as the top of Jason’s boot.
The old man poked his head out from behind an antique tractor and waved. “Howdy, ya’ll. Glad you made it.”
“I brought cookies, fresh from the oven.” She practically sang the words.
“You sure know the way to a man’s heart, ma’am.”
She beamed. Jason grumbled under his breath.
“Well,” Trixie said, “we have something special to celebrate.”
“It’s ‘bout time,” the old man said. The words buzzed in Jason’s ears, not making any sense. Fred came around the tractor and enclosed Trixie in a hug, then shook Jason’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder.
“What’s this all about?” Jason demanded.
“We’re going to have a baby!” Trixie smiled and gave him a hug.
He just stared at her. They were going to have another baby? She should have told him first. This was personal. It was supposed to be something special. A surprise, like she did the last time. She had dinner ready for him, and a little present beside his seat. He unwrapped it to find a pacifier inside.
A baby. He wasn’t ready for this. It was too soon.
Jason kicked at every stone and stick on the path as he beat his way toward the pond, hidden in the back acres of their land. Slung over his shoulder was his backpack, holding his laptop and notes for the book he had been working on for three years.
Trixie, the bitch, wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace. “Honey, please paint the baby’s room.” “Honey, I need you to carry the laundry basket upstairs.” “What do you think we should name the baby?” “Oh, the baby moved. Put your hand right here so you can feel it.” “Can you believe we are going to have a little girl?”
“The baby, my ass,” he said with a grumble. He’d gotten all excited last time, even helped pick out t
he boy’s name and painted the room blue. And then he selected the tiny white casket and sent out the invitations to the memorial service. He shook the spectators’ hands, saw their mouths moving— probably saying they were sorry when they should have been saying congratulations, but he wasn’t sure; he couldn’t hear a thing—he nodded, grunted, tried to thank them for their sympathy, not sure if anything that came out of his mouth was even audible.
Now, he had a deadline a few weeks away, a stack of edits requested by his first publisher, and an empty whiskey bottle hidden in his desk drawer. But his wife wouldn’t leave him the hell alone. Jason kicked another rock before turning the bend and finding himself at the fishing hole.
Farmer Fred—that sweet little name Trixie called him—was already there, sitting under a tree, scribbling with a tiny nib of a pencil, and watching the line on his fishing pole; so much for being alone.
Trixie loved the old man, and to him, she was the daughter that died in the fire at his wife’s side, years ago. She’d become a blooming flower, beautiful, teeming with life, bubbling with joy. And this old man had fanned the flame; he did those things that Jason was supposed to do. Well, he appreciated it at first— Trixie needed him—but now the more Farmer Fred came around, the more Jason hid in his office, nipping his bottle when Trixie didn’t notice. One swallow could drown out so much pain.
“It’s a good day for fishin’,” Farmer Fred said. “Got an extra pole here.”
“No.”
The man just nodded and smiled. “Not ready to let go of your pain yet, are ya, boy?”
“I have work to do.” Jason tried to make his voice civil, but it still sounded as flat and empty as he felt. “Just need to finish the last few chapters,” he attempted again.
That was better, he thought, satisfied. Sitting down, he pulled out the laptop and started reviewing his notes.
“Suzie Mae loved to fish,” Farmer Fred interrupted.
Jason sighed in annoyance, hoping Fred would get the hint, but if the old man noticed, he gave no sign. “Used to come out together on days like this. Leave off working and have us a picnic right here by this tree. She made me balance work and life. When she died in the fire…”
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