by KT McColl
Whatever your station, however unattractive, compromised, or unlovable you might be, they made you the center of their universe.
With the Jessie, women, the flesh and blood kind, had become largely redundant.
I remember asking Sol one day why there were no male robots. There were, he told me, but never in great numbers, certainly not enough to make men worry. It didn't make any sense to me. Didn't women have needs too? I asked him. Sure, he said, but why would you want a hulking, six foot, 180 pound robot when nine inches and several ounces of VR-enhanced synthskin would do?
I didn't believe him, didn't want to believe him. It sounded cynical and bitter, but what did I know? I was a kid then.
Opening my mouth, I was about to launch into the official story, but I closed it again. For some reason, I trusted my incomplete memories of those times more than the re-education that I and countless orphaned boys had to go through after the Enlightenment. My memories had the ring of truth, as irrelevant as that was, while my education at the hands of the Sorority was supported by enough vindictive, righteous anger to prevent me from trusting it completely.
I was at a loss. What version should I tell? She'd just woken up, after all, and I wasn't sure I wanted to saddle her with the sordid details so soon. It was too much even for me to think about now that I was in the same room as a fembot.
Was she even programmed for guilt? I had no idea. Was collective guilt a thing for machines as it seemed to be for everyone with a cock?
Jessie was still waiting for an answer. Her head was turned to me, hazel eyes blinking. What happened?
"Let's just say this isn't the world you remember."
She appeared to accept that.
"Are you okay?" I asked, wanting to change the subject. "I mean, you haven't moved at all."
"My energy is low. Moving is a little beyond me right now. I should be okay in a few hours. Just keep me in the light."
"Okay," I said, not understanding.
"My batteries," she said. "They need the light."
Jessie appeared to go dormant or whatever the fembot equivalent of sleep was.
I took the opportunity to leave because I could easily have stayed, just watching her. I hurried to the cellar and grabbed an armload of cans, returned to the kitchen and added them to my stash there.
When I'd accumulated enough of a pile, I ventured back to the bedroom. Jessie was awake, or at least her eyes were open.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"I don't know. It's entirely up to you."
She frowned, apparently unsatisfied with my response. "Diagnostics," she said finally.
"What?"
"I'm going to run diagnostics. Later..."
"Fine. Whatever makes you happy."
Jessie smiled uncertainly and with a convincing approximation of sleepiness.
"I have to go," I said.
"Where? You don't live here?"
"No. Lowville. I live in Lowville."
"Oh. I don't know where that is." She paused for a moment and then her hand stretched out and touched my forearm. "Please..."
That was all it took. A touch and my thoughts spun off in all kinds of unwanted directions. "What?" I asked irritably.
"Come back. Don't leave me."
Leaving her, forgetting about her, had been in the back of my mind. Had been, right up until she uttered those words in a whisper so plaintive that it wrenched my heart. The Sorority was right -- this was the face of evil.
I took a step back, just out of her reach. My skin tingled where she'd touched me, and for an instant, I remembered what such an unconscious touch could mean.
"Jude?"
In the end, it was a blink that tipped me over the edge. She didn't have to but she did. A slow blink. I remembered the last time I'd even noticed something as simple as a blink, back when they took Abigail...
"I'll be back," I said, surprising myself. "Get your energy up or whatever you need to do and I'll tell you what happened then. I can't come back until next week though."
"Okay."
"If anyone comes, hide."
"Why?"
"Just do it."
I left her lying on the bed in the abandoned house.
Chapter 5
I returned to Lowville, my pack weighing heavily on my back. I tried to put Jessie out of my mind, yet she weighed on me as well, as did my promise to return to her. What had I been thinking? I certainly hadn't been using my head, or at least the one that normally kept me out of trouble. I wanted to think that the other one hadn't come into play either, but that was a lie. Still, I was dismayed that I'd allowed myself to be swayed by the very same beguiling evil that had overcome my father and had caused such upheaval. I was, I realized with some disappointment, my father's son. It was weakness, pure and simple. The right thing to do was to report the existence of Jessie to the Sorority. If not that, then I could just forget the entire episode and never return. There were other houses, after all. Even if I never went back, I had nonetheless unwittingly loosed an evil on the world. What would Jessie do once her batteries were recharged? Would she wait for me or follow her programming and seek someone else out?
And if she was going to seek someone out, why not me?
That thought gave me pause. Maybe the Mothers were right all along -- that men were inherently compromised, untrustworthy, and uniquely susceptible to sin.
And that was just it.... It wasn't only that Jessie was a fembot, the personification of the forbidden, it was what she had awakened. It was a cliché, but it fit. I didn't want to admit it, but somewhere in the seldom-visited recesses of my mind, Jessie had awakened a possibility. I really didn't want to go there, but once I'd acknowledge that there was a there, I couldn't help but to think about it.
She was beautiful. She represented the pinnacle of engineering, and I couldn't help but be awed by it. In the gray world I inhabited, she represented the possibility of color, of beauty. Happiness. Abandon.... Sex. Maybe that was my unconscious motivation for promising to go back, discovering the kind of possibility that I didn't dare explore with anyone in Lowville.
I cursed myself as I marched back to town. Cursed my thoughts and the callously indifferent power that had put me in that house at that time with that abandoned bot. Cursed how effortlessly she was able to derail me from the monkish abstinence that I had wrapped myself in after Abigail.
I hadn't trusted myself with anyone after Abigail. How long had it been? Two decades perhaps? It was too long, but evidently not long enough if my thoughts could so easily turn to the possibility of lust fulfilled. Or maybe two decades was why they turned to lust. Jessie just reminded me of it when no one else could.
Was it only the absence of opportunity that kept a virtuous man from vice?
I shifted the pack on my shoulders. Jessie was none of my concern right now. Abigail was. As the distant lights of Lowville came into view, I remembered when I first saw her....
I'd been helping Sol with a mare that was in the middle of a difficult birth. Helping was a bit of an overstatement -- I was watching, squeamish, while Sol worked with a bunch of other men.
A young Sister stood opposite me, also watching and evidently less squeamish. From the minute I noticed her, the mare and her travails fell away. I tried not to stare, but whenever I looked at her, our eyes met and I would look away. After a few times, she grinned.
She was pretty, but that wasn't the reason. Her face was open and inviting. Guileless. I'd never seen anything like it. People in Lowville tended to be guarded, at least until you got to know them. And even then, you could never be sure. Hardship made people unpredictable sometimes.
The Sister wore the customary white bonnet and white dress. Unlike the robes worn by the Lozen who loitered around or the rough shifts favored by the women of Lowville, the dress was anything but shapeless. A wide belt cinched her waist and I marveled at the effect. I'd heard of an hourglass figure but until then, I hadn't seen one. It was striking.
The mare made an anguished noise, and the men gathered around her muttered something I couldn't make out.
"This might take a while. Let's go for a walk." I looked up and saw that the Sister had approached without me noticing.
I couldn't refuse a Sister and yet I was reluctant to go. "I'm helping..."
"You're standing around looking sick. Let's go."
She turned and left, and I followed.
Once we were beyond the noise of the mare's labor, she grinned at me and said, "I'm Abigail."
"Jude."
"Pleased to meet you, Jude."
I mumbled something and Abigail smiled. Two minutes in and she already had my measure. She held out her hand and I was forced to take it. It felt small and delicate in mine, like a bird's wing, and I was gentle, not wanting to crush it in my rough hand. It didn't help that I was unnerved. You didn't touch Sisters. Ever.
"I like coming out here," she said.
Living here, I failed to see the attraction and said so.
"I find it reassuring," she said.
I didn't understand.
"Women and men working together. Making things. Everyone seems so..." She searched for the word. "Strong. Self-reliant."
"I guess we're that," I conceded. The other stuff, I thought, was romantic bullshit. Life in Lowville was hard.
"So it's reassuring," she said again, "seeing men who are capable and independent, not at all like men in the city. Don't tell anyone I said so, but it seems like this is the way men were meant to be. Like you."
I stopped, stunned. Beyond the wistfulness, there was something else I couldn't put my finger on. Never had I heard anyone from the city say anything of the sort. To my mind, it sounded almost blasphemous. Those of Lowville, women and men alike, but particularly men, were painted as inveterate sinners, useful for the strength they possessed and little more. A sad, unreliable demographic that could turn against the Mother at any time given the opportunity. "Surely there are men like that in the city."
"Have you been to the city?" she asked, bewildered. "No, you’re nothing like the men in the city."
I had no idea what men in the city were like.
"You’re free," she said.
I scoffed. It sounded stunningly naïve, even to me. "You don't get out of the city much, do you?"
"Enough to know what I'm talking about. Just because we have freemen in the city doesn't mean they are."
Something in the way she said it made me feel uncomfortable, like the rube I probably was.
We walked a little more while I frantically thought about what I might say that wouldn't sound stupid. Nothing came to me.
"So, what do you do, Jude of Lowville?"
"Um... farm work mostly."
"That would explain how fit you are."
"I suppose."
"You're not used to speaking with women, are you?"
"Women are fine," I lied. "Sisters are something else."
"I think I've been insulted," she said with mock horror, though I wasn't sure about the mock part.
"No!" I protested. "It's just..."
She waited and then burst out laughing. "Oh no, I've embarrassed you."
I could feel my face reddening and hoped she didn't notice. "No, I'm fine."
"I'm so sorry, Jude. I didn't mean to."
"It's okay."
"I feel terrible. Mother always says that I have no sense of decorum at all."
"Your mother is wrong."
"Not my mother, Jude. Mother."
I'd just stepped in it. "Superior?"
She nodded. "Not that I don't appreciate your vote of confidence. I happen to think decorum is overrated."
At some point during the exchange, her hand had landed on my forearm. I looked at it and then at her. Her hand didn't move. Nor did I.
At that moment, a farmhand approached. "Sister, the foal has been born."
Her eyes widened and she squeezed my arm. It wasn't an accident. She knew what she was doing. "I missed it."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Why? Your company was far more entertaining."
I didn't know whether that was meant as a joke and couldn't ask, for Abigail had hurried off with the hand to see the new arrival.
It was dark by the time I returned to Lowville and the streets were quiet. The Sabbath was drawing to a close and Monday would bring the kind of work that would make you regret not having slept enough.
I knocked on Abigail's door and entered to the sound of her voice.
She was sitting by a gas lamp with a pile of mending on her lap. It saddened me that the vivacious young woman that I'd known would be reduced to mending other people's scraps. Had she been able to work in the fields, she might have been slightly better off. I'd offered her some light duty, but she'd always demurred. "I'm content," she'd said.
In the dim light, I could see the marks on her forehead beneath her wispy bangs. She usually wore a headscarf when she was out during the day. She smiled a greeting.
I emptied most of my pack, stacking cans on the table. I kept a few for myself -- the peaches that I'd developed a taste for now that I knew they didn't cause hallucinations and some canned sausages that I picked up without thinking. They disgusted me because some things should never be canned.
"You did well today," she said.
I didn't reply. Besides the supplies, I wasn't sure how well I'd done.
I noticed then that she wore makeup. Just a modest amount -- some eyeliner and pale lipstick. I'd missed it at first. I looked down at my meager offering and something inside me withered. Did I really think that a few cans of food every week or so would be enough?
My fingers touched fabric in my pack and I hesitated a moment before pulling out the yellow dress. I carried it to her. "I found this for you too."
Her fingers traced the flowers in the pattern and a wistful smile played on her lips. I realized then that the dress was too fine a garment, too delicate and bright for this place. I looked away, realizing too that the dress and its flowers were the only splash of color in her spartan home. I'd let my own fantasies get away with me. I'd imagined Abigail in the dress, imagined us in a meadow or something, in sunlight, carefree. What had I been thinking?
"It's lovely," she said quietly.
"I didn't realize until now how impractical..."
"No, Jude. Really, I love it."
She gave me a look. I knew it well. It was a look that said, anywhere else, any other time, in different circumstances...
I nodded. "How's Rabbit?" I asked.
"He left."
"He went home?"
Abigail nodded. "He's broken."
She didn't mean his body. I shrugged. There wasn't much I could do beyond shrugging. We all were broken to some extent.
She got up and poured some tea made from the herbs she collected on weekends and we sat for a while at the kitchen table in companionable silence as we might have had the world been different. Her hand lay on the table, begging to be touched. I felt like touching something human at that moment, but I kept my hand curled around the cup instead.
I was tempted to tell her of Jessie. In spite of everything, we were friends and we shared some things. A lot of things, we didn't. Compassion dictated that some things had to remain unspoken. I felt that Jessie, for the time being, had to be one of them. Words had consequences and I wasn't sure where this admission might go. A secret was only a secret if it remained unspoken, and I had a feeling that divulging Jessie's existence, even to Abigail, was one small step away from telling the wolves where they might find a helpless newborn. It wasn't fair to Abigail to know such a thing, nor would it be fair to Jessie.
"Thanks for taking care of him," I said.
She looked at the cuckoo clock that I'd found for her a few years ago. The cuckoo never came out, but a clack inside the clock announced hourly that perhaps it wanted to, but had forgotten how. The clock made that noise. "You have to go," she said.
I didn't want to. It was pl
easant, just sitting here with her and our respective secrets. I imagined that I didn't have to leave, that we were enjoying tea before turning in for the night, and though our bed didn't have a skylight and a view of the stars, we could at least lie there together.
I wondered whether she imagined these things too, but I knew I would never ask. Some things you never did.
"Really, Jude. I appreciate the supplies, but it's time."
I sighed.
"Alright."
I opened the door to a large, scruffy man who was standing on the doorstep.
"I heard voices," he said, explaining why he hadn't knocked.
I recognized him from one of the other crews. Adams, I think his name was. I didn't know if he was good or bad, would treat Abigail well or not. It wasn't my business anyway. Abigail could take care of herself. I certainly couldn't, so I really had nothing to say about how she chose to survive. Besides, the scars on her forehead testified to the lasting mark I'd left on her, so I really had little more to contribute.
I nodded at the man and hesitated in the doorway. I knew what he was here for, and the fact that I was making way for him, enabling him, was just too much. For the briefest of moments, I wanted to hit him, turn that half-apologetic, half-hopeful face into a bloody pulp. While it might have done nothing to secure my claim on Abigail, it would have made me feel slightly better, but a light touch on my arm took the fight out of me. The man recognized the gesture and his features resolved into a sneer. I glanced back and saw Abigail's imploring look.
Without a word, I lifted the near empty pack to my shoulder and left.
That night, I sat on my small porch on a wooden chair, sipping a single malt from the stash I'd inherited when Sol died. He'd been a scavenger too, right at the beginning of the Enlightenment when there'd been worthwhile stuff to scavenge for. One day he'd found the mother lode of booze and over the course of weeks had assembled the biggest secret stash in Lowville. I'd been with him a few years already when he trusted me enough to show me. Case upon case hidden beneath the floorboards of the hut -- Canadian rye, bourbon, scotch.