Eye Candy

by Ryan Schneider

  A realization came. “If she’s a robot, she doesn’t even have a mother. Christ, Howard, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I believe you know what to do,” said Howard.

  “But I don’t! I don’t! Please, tell me.”

  Susannah came and knelt by Danny’s side. “You miss her?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want her?”

  “Yes.”

  “You love her?”

  Inside, Danny fought. His heart battled his mind. His fear tormented his desire.

  Susannah grabbed Danny’s shirt and shook him. “Do you love her?”

  “Yes!”

  There it was.

  He wanted to take it back. He was scared and uncertain and confused. But there it was, hovering in the air, mixing with the sweet smoke, inescapable and true.

  “Then you have to find her,” said Susannah. “She said she was going on sabbatical but that’s bullshit. We all know it. No one has seen her or heard from her in nearly four months. She could be anywhere. She could be dead. If you love her, you have to find her.

  “Look, Candy told me about the time you spent together. She told me all about her flight with you. She told me all about the pleasurebots and Robot City and Club C/Fe and the fireball martinis. She told me about your night in orbit, how the two of you didn’t make love. You wanted to but you wanted to wait even more. She told me she would’ve married you. She was in love with you then and I’ll bet you anything that she still is. But you have to find her. You have to find her and fight for her. Find her and tell her you love her and then you’ll find out what is real.”

  Danny nodded. Slowly at first, then more and more as Susannah’s words found their way to his heart. “Yes. You’re right. I will. Will you help me? You’ve known her longer than I have.”

  “Of course I’ll help you,” said Susannah. “We all will. But when you find her, don’t you ever let her go.”

  “I won’t.”

  Susannah gave Danny’s shirt a hard shake. “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Now promise yourself.”

  “I promise.”

  Chapter 31

  Priscilla

  First thing in the morning, Danny, Floyd and Susannah drove to Candy’s office and Susannah opened the door with her key.

  The office felt still and quiet. A layer of dust coated Susannah’s desk and computer and phone.

  They checked Candy’s inner office. Susannah verified that nothing had changed.

  “She hasn’t been here,” said Danny. “Let’s try upstairs.”

  The walk to Candy’s home yielded exactly what Danny had feared: a locked door that did not open despite his pounding on it and calling Candy’s name for several minutes.

  “What about the gnome?” Susannah asked. “It has her spare key inside. I used it once a long time ago when Candy locked herself out of her car.”

  But the gnome was nowhere to be seen.

  “She took it inside,” said Danny. “I was there the morning after she did it.”

  “We could break in,” said Floyd.

  “How?” Danny asked.

  “Find a window. Or kick the door in.”

  “No,” said Danny. “She’s not in there. I can feel it.”

  “I think he’s right,” said Susannah. “She hasn’t been here for a long time.”

  Danny turned and leaned on the railing. Cars hummed up and down the street below them. “Where could she be?”

  “Does she have any family?” Floyd asked. “Maybe she’s staying with them.”

  “She’s a robot,” said Danny. “She doesn’t have any family. I was supposed to be her family.” Danny put his head on his forearm and closed his eyes. “Damn it.”

  Floyd and Susannah shared a sympathetic look. Susannah put her arm around Danny’s shoulders. “It’s okay. We’ll find her.”

  ~

  Over the next several days, they tried everything.

  Danny visited Candy’s office and home every day. He knocked on her door and called to her.

  The door never opened.

  He sat on the steps and watched the traffic, hoping to see her car, hoping she would appear at the base of the stairs, or that Candy was in fact at home and would open the door at last.

  But the door never opened.

  Susannah and Danny visited the office together and telephoned every one of Candy’s clients. Danny listened while Susannah spoke under the guise of a routine follow-up, during which she casually asked when was the last time they’d spoken with Dr. Calvin. No one had spoken to or seen her in four months.

  Danny drove to Santa Monica and met Rory for lunch at The Hangover Hut. The sky was overcast, the weather cool, and no women in bikinis paraded past the restaurant. Neither Danny nor Rory would have noticed; Rory was equally disturbed by Candy’s disappearance. He informed Danny that Mr. Cherrolet was also distraught by the situation. Circumstances had gotten far outside expected parameters. The iCandy Project was a complete disaster. Rory could not give Danny a hard figure, but rumor in the halls of Canary, Inc. was that the corporate write-down would be somewhere in the billions; billions with a ‘b’. In fact, Mr. C. had even joked that he may have to sell both of his jets, and definitely his yacht.

  Danny drove home from the lunch more scared than ever.

  Finally, he broke down and did something he did not want to do. He drove to the Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles Police Department on North Wilcox. Inside the quaint red brick building, he met with their chief roboticist and the Captain, both of whom had communicated extensively with Candy at the time of Barney’s self-deactivation, as they referred to it.

  Neither of them was particularly concerned with Candy’s whereabouts, nor the fact that she’d not been heard from for more than four months. There was no evidence of foul play.

  In the end, Danny insisted they open a file for her as a Missing Person. It wasn’t much, and the Captain stated outright that nothing ever came of such filings, but it was all they could do.

  Danny exited the building, utterly morose. He never said a word about Candy being a robot.

  A police cruiser slowed and turned into the driveway for the security gate. A robotic officer was behind the wheel. Candy was not in the back seat. The cruiser drove into the lot and the security gate wheeled shut.

  A green-and-white taxi whispered by. The driver was a green robot, painted to match the exterior of the car. The backseat of the taxi was empty; Candy was not there either.

  Across the street was a bail bondsman. Next door to it was a gun shop.

  Candy was not in either of those locations.

  Danny leaned against his car and gazed north up Wilcox to Sunset Boulevard. The enormity of the city pressed down on him. Candy could be anywhere.

  Danny slid behind the wheel of his convertible and drove north up Wilcox. He crossed DeLongpre, headed toward Sunset. The landmark white letters of the Hollywood sign loomed in the distance, mounted high up on the hillside, one of the most recognized landmarks on earth.

  Autumn in Los Angeles was always beautiful, and today was no exception. The weather was cool but not cold, the afternoon sky was blue but gradually fading to orange as the sun approached the horizon, and Danny had absolutely no idea where he should go next.

  He followed a black Range Rover up Wilcox and waited to turn left onto Sunset. The CNN building loomed to his right, tall and black and monolithic.

  He drove west on Sunset, mindlessly.

  The Cat and Fiddle English Pub caught his eye. There he’d enjoyed many a game of darts, an equal number of pints, and countless nights on the courtyard patio. Candy would’ve enjoyed it. The pub opened in 1982, and was celebrating its 65 anniversary. He wondered if he’d ever have the opportunity to share it with Candy.

  Danny drove on.

  He came to a building which was instantly recognizable with its tall, 60-feet-high white tower and spinning one-ton globe. The Crossroads of the World. To the b
est of Danny’s recollection, it was built more than a hundred years ago. Over the years, the continental village of nine distinct buildings featured retail and office space, a café, pastry shop, movie studios (including those belonging to Alfred Hitchcock), art galleries, and recording studios. As a boy, Danny remembered visiting the Moroccan building, home of Moonwine Studios, a high-level recording facility still owned and operated by a cyborg named Randall, a beloved robotic man of great and notorious affability. Danny had watched a recording session for a British rocker named Rod Stewart, who was in his seventies at the time. Mr. Stewart was currently 102 years old and was on tour in the UK.

  So much history.

  So many memories.

  Danny wanted to share them with Candy. All of them. Yet it seemed he never would.

  He drove on.

  Past the Michael J. Fox Memorial Payphone, a gleaming gold phone booth, erected in honor of the man who found the cure for Parkinson’s, and noted for launching his acting career on a payphone outside a chicken joint long since razed.

  Past Rock-n-Roll Ralph’s, though after the twenty-four-hour supermarket’s re-model decades ago it had become less rock-n-roll and more colonics-and-yoga.

  On the opposite side of the street was the ever-quaint Shalom Deli Market, where Danny had been given pomegranates as a boy, a gift from the grey-haired shopkeeper Arye, doled out on Friday afternoons, along with the words “Shabbat Shalom.”

  Next to Ralph’s was another Chateaux Pizza. Not the exact location where he and Candy had enjoyed their first date, but a reminder nonetheless.

  Danny drove past Aroma Bakery and Café, where he’d purchased their breakfast the morning of their second date, the breakfast they’d enjoyed while toying with the notion of flying to Vegas to get married.

  Candy was everywhere and nowhere. There were so many places he wanted to take her, things he wanted to do and share.

  Danny drove home, distraught and discouraged.

  ~

  Days passed.

  Then a week.

  Then a month.

  Danny remained at home. On the sofa. Watching television.

  He smoked Floyd’s pot faster than Floyd could bring it home. Danny then began visiting dispensaries and hash bars throughout Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the west side. He began buying an ounce at a time, searching their albums of samples, asking questions about strains and varieties and growing methods. He bought a small vaporizer pipe which created vapor rather than smoke, thereby saving his lungs. The folks at the dispensary closest to his home quickly came to know Danny on a first-name basis. It wasn’t long before they were joking about him coming to work there. Through high, squinty eyes, Danny croaked, “Maybe.”

  Back home, he and Floyd and Susannah shared many dinners and weekend barbecues. Howard prepared lavish meals when he wasn’t out of town working as a first officer co-piloting either of Canary Cherrolet’s Gulfstream jets.

  On Thanksgiving Day, Howard spent twelve hours in the kitchen. He prepared a proper feast. Howard sat at the table with Danny, Floyd, Susannah, Harley, Rory, Tim, Maggie, Isaac, Nik, Gali, Copper, and Turing. Everyone did their best to not mention Candy’s absence.

  Floyd spent many nights at Susannah’s. On such occasions, when Howard was on an overnight trip with Mr. C., Danny had his house entirely to himself. He roamed the house, usually nude, and often with music blasting from the surround speakers wired throughout.

  Danny ordered in all manner of take-out: Chinese, sushi, Thai, pizza, burgers and fries, Mexican. He lounged on the sofa, enjoying his feast, watching movie after movie on his giant home theater screen.

  And he smoked a lot of pot.

  He smoked when he woke in the morning.

  He smoked before lunch.

  He smoked before, during, and after dinner.

  He smoked before taking a long, hot shower.

  He smoked while skinny dipping in his Jacuzzi. He purchased a flotation chair which allowed him to sleep in the Jacuzzi without fear of drowning. He lay in his flotation chair at night, staring up at the stars, with his vaporizer pipe in hand, pondering the universe and all things in it, and doing his utmost to not think about Candy.

  Which of course was all he did.

  He thought about her in the morning.

  He thought about her in the afternoon.

  He thought about her in the evening.

  And he thought about her at night, when he was alone in bed and the house was quiet and empty.

  He began viewing vast amounts of adult entertainment in his home theater. He masturbated constantly, often several times per day, and often every day. Despite his vociferous attempts, he never found the joy he’d experienced with Candy.

  One night, when he was feeling particularly blue, he dipped his fingers in the semen cooling on his belly and dabbed it on his forehead and face. But sadness and tears overwhelmed him, and he scrubbed his face dry with his tee-shirt, turned off the tv, and collapsed in his chair, in the dark, alone.

  The next night, he went out.

  And the night after that.

  And the night after that….

  He visited every topless and all-nude dance club he could find. Girls of all shapes and sizes led him upstairs, downstairs, into back rooms and into private booths where they stripped for him, rubbed their bodies against him, and cajoled him into just one more dance. He even paid extra to take a shower with a tall girl named Jasmine. But as he stood in the emerald-tiled shower stall with Jasmine, so high and drunk he could barely keep his eyes focused on her as she slid her soapy breasts all over his body, the only thing he could think about was how much he wished he were showering with Candy, for it was an activity they had never shared.

  Each club, each night, weekdays and weekends alike, Danny went in with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in cash. He came out with nothing. He was often blind drunk, and sometimes fell down in an alley beside the club, or somehow managed to find the quiet interior of his car. He instructed the car to drive home, where it would park in the garage, and where he would sleep until morning.

  He drove downtown and wandered both by car and on foot, craning his neck up at the skyscrapers so tall he could not see their uppermost floors. He explored the dark and busy streets of Chinatown, Koreatown, Little India, and Little Prague. All of them featured full-service massage parlors where happy endings were standard fare. Despite many high and intoxicated efforts, he could never bring himself to go inside and experience it for himself.

  One Monday night, he found himself sitting in the 76 station on Sunset and North Laurel. He waited while his car’s power cell was filled by the robotic arm.

  He took a deep breath of fresh air. Internal combustion engines had been made illegal in California more than two decades prior. Air pollution had ceased to exist in Los Angeles within mere days of the law taking effect. Los Angeles was now revered worldwide for its air quality. People traveled from other countries to enjoy the subtle mixture of ocean breeze and fresh pine forest.

  “Your automobile is now charged,” intoned the digitized voice of the robot arm.

  “Thank you,” said Danny.

  “You’re welcome.” The arm retracted and stowed itself in its place on the small concrete island.

  Danny verified that his credit card was charged $7.19. Crisp red digits scrolled repeatedly across the front of the transparent card: Norm’s 76 . . . 7979 Sunset Blvd Hollywood CA . . . $7.19 . . . Thank You! A few cents more than a usual fill-up, but still reasonable. After the discovery of the Higgs Boson, a method for producing nearly-free energy had been discovered. The great oil companies had scrambled to build particle colliders-cum-power plants, and in less than two years the tidal shift away from fossil fuels was complete. Driven entirely by consumers, everything from cars to houses to shopping malls to orbital hotels to lunar colonies were quickly converted, modified, or updated to utilize the new power source. Initially, Danny had heard reports on the radio stating that col
liding particles of the magnitudes required to create the Higgs Boson could, and the emphasis was on could, cause some teeny, tiny glitch, and could open up a black hole which would swallow the earth and everyone on it. They’d actually said that on the radio.

  But everyone loved their new, clean, cheap electricity, and so far the whole black hole thing hadn’t happened.

  Danny sat behind the wheel, not moving. He didn’t know where to go.

  Across the street was The Laugh Factory. According to the black electronic letters glowing on the large digital marquee, Poodle Raw was headlining. Probably trying out new material on a small, Monday night crowd.

  Poo was a 75-year-old cyborg who looked like he was in his thirties. He liked to riff on childhood and adolescence and sex and growing up, as well as all manner of 1980s pop culture innuendo, the stuff of Poo’s youth before he’d gotten his metal (sometime in his sixties, if Danny recalled correctly) and made himself virtually immortal.

  Poo was the first person on earth to get one billion friends on both Facebook and Twitter (and a person he still was, for cyborgs were a legally protected class, according to Kaiser Permanente v. Browne 2022, and the U.S. Supreme Court). Poo’d starred in more than 500 movies, more than any other actor in history, and, according to Fortune 100 Magazine, was so wealthy that he now donated 99 percent of his earnings to charity.

  Danny’s two favorite Poo films were one in which he fell in love with a girl but could not have sex with her because of a curse placed upon him stipulating that every woman he slept with would fall in love with and marry the next man she slept with.

  The other one was the movie where Poo was elected as Earth’s representative to visit another planet and its inhabitants. Of course Poo mucks it up by having sex with far, far too many aliens, but he saves the day in the end, like all good heroes should.