by Graeme Hurry
A little less vital is the constant trade in rubbish, used rubbish and rubbish that looks good enough to sell for a higher than usual price. Selling crap is an ancient tradition with a specific purpose. It ensures that folks keep trading and swapping cash, whether the commodities are critical or not. It ensures that there is a continuous circuit of items flowing between the towns, mostly the same stuff over and over again, rather like a recycled fruitcake that keeps making the rounds at Christmas. I heard a story about one that was mailed around for nearly forty years before some fool ate it.
Once I sold a sofa at a yard sale, regretted it and found it again a week later for sale in a town miles down the road. I got it back on the cheap and it was none the worse for wear. I resold it the next summer. Later I went to visit my aunt who lives in distant Harmony, and there it was again, proudly displayed as her living room centerpiece. I slept on it the whole weekend. Before I left she offered to sell it to me.
Other items regularly sold at the ever present and depressing junk markets include similacra, sometimes charmingly referred in the old vernacular as robots. But similacra are not robots. They are synthetic copies of human beings developed from carefully nurtured, lab-grown blastocysts.
I had to look up “blastocyst” when I first heard the word. I’m a curious person and sometimes that isn’t a good thing. A blastocyst is a fully fertilized pre-embryonic structure formed during the earliest stages of gestation in a living vertebrate, or in a petri dish. It is no longer an egg. It is not an embryo. It’s something… in-between. Given the proper conditions, it could turn out to be many things, a fish, a giant shrew, a crocodile or even a human being.
You can buy blastocysts in any lab supply store. They come vacuum-packed in science kits for kids. A kid could build a dog if he wanted to, up to a point. At a certain stage in the development of an organism, one has to find a living host or rent some very expensive lab space in order to complete the enormously complex and dicey gestation cycle. It’s virtually impossible for a child with a dish of blastocysts to produce a living breathing puppy. It’s about as likely as building a rocket and flying to the moon with the materials found in a store-bought kit.
But little boys and girls do grow up and sometimes become scientists, fertility specialists or businessmen with access to that equipment. Some of them never lose the curiosity that playing with blastocysts seems to inspire.
The manufacturing of clones has been illegal for two hundred years. Similacra, on the other hand, are quite common and about as acceptable as sofas. They’re vat-grown and mostly plastic, but they do possess a human spinal column and nervous system linked to a living brain. They even have a primitive circulatory system that recycles synthetic blood. They don’t have a heart or other functional organs.
Similacra look like human beings. They’re usually extraordinarily formed and lovely. They can even carry out simple tasks, but they’re really about as bright as a sofa. Their limited brains can manage low-level functions like maintaining balance, responding to touch and visually processing obstructions in an environment, but that’s about it. Scientists have long puzzled over the disconnect between similacra brains and intelligence. Almost all of them emerge from the vats with low IQs. They simply can’t grow a decent one that functions with a high level of acuity.
Similacra don’t aspire to work or write books or live on their own. They can talk and communicate, barely, and they’ll fetch things if you explain what you want, very carefully. Honestly, my dog Pansy is a lot brighter than any similacron I ever met.
What they’re good for, mostly, is sex. For lonely men and women like me, similacra are a small, guiltless miracle. They take the edge off. They follow basic instructions without questions or complaints, and they’re quite nice to look at. Bio-plastics are amazingly lifelike these days, so much so that they can fool you. It feels great. There’s certainly no passion involved but I never regret a trip to O-City. Never.
Like sofas and lamps, similacra make the rounds of the markets. You have to try not to think about the fact that your latest purchase may have been entertaining old Miss Beasely down the street for a while. You just clean him up and press on smartly.
If I could buy new, I would. But barely anyone can afford new. Last year’s model is just fine with me, or the year before that, or as far back as five years. But that’s about my limit. They start to break down at that point, especially when they’re been heavily used. On a lonely planet like Bellepheron, they get used plenty. To me, advanced age in a similacron has all the sex appeal of a dirty restroom.
It was a Saturday, I remember. I pulled off the road to buy potato tacos for lunch. I don’t like them but they were everywhere that year. It had been an unusually good season for potatoes. Everyone knew if we didn’t eat them we’d be seeing the damn things for years to come. ‘Eat more Potatoes’ notices were posted everywhere and the airwaves were filled with encouragement to ‘help out the spud farmers’ by ‘bringing home a sack, or even two’. The cooking shows featured so many potato recipes that I would rather have strangled myself with a fistful of French fries than willingly watch another one. But I’m a team player. I’ll eat potato tacos if that’s what it takes to make them stop.
I picked up lunch from a sweating vendor and wandered next door to the all-day flea market. I was combing through a tableful of hairpins and barrettes when I saw him. He had a quizzical look that I found oddly appealing. He was a hairy-chested Brava. His owner, exhibiting unusual consideration, had dressed him in a pair of black yoga pants. But he was bare from the hips up.
He was standing by a crate of old automobile parts, immobile and probably sleeping. When not used or interacted with for a while, a similacron will doze. They don’t have power issues or finite batteries, but they do require rest. They have brains, however low-functioning, and these organs demand periodic shutdowns for reasons that are still unknown to science. Good old science. Only the men and women of that esteemed profession would presume to build a brain and expect it to work without fully understanding how it functions or exactly what it really does.
There was another one nearby, a female Koenig. She was also sleeping. She was pretty beaten up and her hair was falling out. The fellas tended to be rough and demanding so their toys didn’t last as long. She was dressed in a fluffy bathrobe and an empty coffee cup was clutched in one of her stiff hands. Clearly, she could still serve coffee but her sexy days were done. She would have been a real bargain if I was looking to buy a coffee server who required a wig to cover her balding noodle. According to her tag, the robe was extra.
According to the male’s tag, he was “best offer”. I was immediately suspicious and ran a hand down his chest. He was solid. There wasn’t a mark on him. He looked brand new. Of course I wondered what was wrong with him. He was a top-shelf model and should have fetched a bundle. Even the battered Koenig with bald patches was fifty long.
“Afternoon, young miss,” said a friendly voice. “You want some iced tea? I just brewed a batch.”
An old woman was standing at the screened entrance to the shop, her hair piled up in a bun, a dirty apron girdling her thighs. She looked serene but her pits were sweating and her forehead was shiny with perspiration. Everyone was hot. It was just awful.
“I’d like that,” I said. “I think some tea would go nicely with this…” I looked at the oozing half eaten taco in my hand.
The old woman laughed. “It will go better instead, I think. I wouldn’t eat those things on a bet. I know Arnie too well.”
I laughed. “He’s not a very good cook, is he?”
“No. He’s the worst. But he thinks he’s the best and he doesn’t like it when anyone tells him different. You didn’t tell him…”
I shook my head adamantly.
“Good. The name’s Ida Gould. You?”
“Anna Meadows. I’m from Dogtown. I was just driving by and I saw your place.”
Ida nodded sweetly. “Pretty little car. I think I recognize it. Did y
ou buy it from Jack Beehan?”
I was surprised but I shouldn’t have been. “I did. I know him through the school. He fixes our buses.”
The woman laughed. “It used to be Arnie’s. Does it still have that shudder when you get it up around 90 kilometres?”
“It does.”
“Well, come sit on the stoop in the shade here. I’ll get your tea.” She went inside and the little bells on the door tinkled, announcing her departure with a comic flourish.
I sat and waited patiently. But my eyes were drawn again and again to the similacron. There was something in the Brava that called to me on a deep level. I’d never felt a real attraction to one before. After all, they were toys. They were no more alive than a hairbrush. I had read somewhere that it happens now and again; people form real emotional attachments to the dolls. Some even require treatment. I wondered if I was losing my mind. The bright, erotic thrill I usually felt upon choosing a new toy was missing. My rising emotions had nothing to do with the bubbling urges and physical loneliness that often plagued me. I wanted to talk to the damn thing and get to know it.
Ida returned with a glass for me and one for her. She sat beside me and we gazed at the nearly empty flea market grounds. The ceaseless wind kicked up whorls of dust. A pair of bored vendors gazed at us listlessly.
“Tuesday,” she commented. “Things really pick up around here on Saturday.”
I doubted that was true.
She took a sip. “Did you hear about the plant in Bordertown?”
I nodded. “Awful. First the accident and then the fire. A lot of people are going to be out of work.”
She glanced at the sky. “Seventeen dead. What were you looking at over there?”
I hoped she hadn’t noticed my weird and disturbing attraction to the sim. “I was looking at those barrettes. The turquoise one with the seahorse…”
She glanced at me ruefully. “You lost someone.” “Yeah,” I said, discomfited by the sudden insight. Did it show? Was it written on my forehead? Did everyone know? “My husband… Scotty. It’s been a year. It’s okay now.”
She took a sip of tea. “It’s never okay. You deal with it better, learn to stop picking at the scab. But it’s always there.”
I wondered, cynically, if she was just a sharp salesman capitalizing on my weakness, preparing to sell me the Brava at a “deep discount” because she “felt my pain”.
Her next words made me feel foolish.
“I’ve outlived two husbands and three children. I lost my oldest boy a month ago. He did it to himself, lost his job, started drinking, got pissed off. His wife walked out on him and he killed himself. He was such a happy kid. I hate it when life wears them down, sucks all the hope and good nature out of them. It isn’t right.”
I laid a hand on her shoulder. A shudder ran through her. It was no sales pitch. “I’m sorry,” I said. I meant it.
She smiled bitterly. “I’m sorry for you. Shouldn’t go on and on about my troubles. The barrette… if you like it just take it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” I objected.
“You can. I’m not sorry to let it go for free because everything on this damn planet comes around again. It’ll be back here in a year and I’ll sell it just like before. Used to be mine. It was my favorite. But I don’t wear barrettes anymore. Here’s to ya, kid. You should stay a kid.” She raised her glass and clinked it against mine.
Since politeness demanded I answer the toast I said, “Here’s hoping the heat breaks soon.”
She gazed at the chalk-white sky. “Hasn’t broken in my 49 years here. You should wish for something else.”
I went home after that. My spirit of adventure was gone, overwhelmed by memories of Scotty and the old woman’s pain. I got busy with schoolwork. I forgot all about the similacron and my brief compulsion to bond with it. So it was a shock to me when the thing “came around again”, reentering my life a week later.
It appeared in the form of a sweating, hawk-faced detective from the Piney Glen district. There are no pine trees on Bellepheron. They’re hardy but they can’t grow here. Only human beings insist on living in environments that can’t sustain a simple tree.
The deeply tanned and dark-eyed gentleman on my porch stoop was uncomfortable. He identified himself as Sergeant Gurnsback and flashed his badge. He explained that he worked petty theft and he was following up some leads.
“Why don’t you come in,” I said politely. I wondered immediately if the old woman, in some senior moment, had forgotten she offered the barrette to me for free. Had she accused me of stealing it? I didn’t have much of a defense in that case. I couldn’t hide the evidence. I was wearing it.
He shook his head. “I’m fine, ma’am. Just a couple of questions and I’ll be out of your hair.”
I touched the barrette unconsciously.
He glanced at my hand and I must have looked guilty. Apparently, I don’t have much of a poker face.
He said, “I don’t think you’re a thief, Miss Meadows. Ida gives things away all the time. But she’s sharp. She doesn’t get confused like other people. And she didn’t accuse you of stealing anything.”
He was sharp too, very sharp for a man who worked petty theft. He tucked a notebook into his jacket pocket and glanced at the bright sun. “Have you seen anyone unusual around here lately? Maybe a bare-chested fella in yoga pants?”
I laughed suddenly, guiltily. “No. The sim from the flea market. I remember seeing him. Was he stolen?”
He shrugged. “Walked away, I think. Ida mentioned you were looking him over. Sometimes, when they’re old, breaking down, they get confused. He might have followed you back here, thinking you’re his owner. I just need to find him and get him recycled. I want to make sure he doesn’t get into a pickle.”
“A pickle?”
“A mess of his own making. When they reach the end of their life cycle they forget and get things wrong. They can step in front of cars or scare people. They stop making sense.”
I gazed behind him, at the empty cul de sac and the rutted dirt road. Something about the conversation struck me as wrong. I wasn’t able to lay a finger on it then. Later I would remember that the sim at the flea market wasn’t old at all. It was virtually new. “I thought they had an expiry switch.”
He grunted, considering. “They do. But sometimes it doesn’t kick in, especially if they’ve been treated rough. I’m not much of a mechanical man but I know one thing for sure; anything humans build can and will go haywire. You okay, Miss Meadows? You look a little flushed.”
My poker face really sucked. Thoughts of Scott were all mixed up with the guilty pleasure I’d felt upon touching the thing at the flea market. I never would have gotten such a thrill if it was old. As I said before, I don’t care for old things.
“Honestly, I’m a little creeped out by this. I haven’t seen him. If I do, you’ll be the first one I call. Do you have a card?”
He smiled reassuringly and handed me a small glass rectangle inscribed with his tele, badge number and name, Lemuel Gurnsback. What a name. “No need to worry,” he said brightly. They can’t hurt people.”
“But you said things go haywire.”
“Not that thing. That’s never happened. Don’t lose sleep over it… Anna. Can I call you Anna?”
“Of course,” I answered at once. I liked him.
He said, “Call me if you’re worried. I’m a good talker.”
He was angular and hard but worn down by time and weather, just like the rest of us. Still, I found him attractive. He was a comforting presence. I believe comfort is the thing we seek most in a partner. Love erodes. The complex contracts of trust become irrelevant. The necessary daily reassurances and demonstrations of faith cease, and your soul-mate’s continued presence becomes a vessel of trust in the only way that matters. At the end, when you’re unsure, unsteady and feeble, the comfort and reassurance of your mate is all that counts, if you have one of course, if he doesn’t die at 29 from a perfectly treat
able bacterial infection.
Antibiotics are always in short supply on remote worlds like Bellepheron. So are doctors. The failures of the medical system are so numerous that real fear of physicians and hospitals now exists. Hospitals are no longer thought of in a positive light. They long ago ceased being healing sanctuaries. Now they’re dying places.
We exchanged a few more pleasantries then he departed. He waved once, stooped to pet a passing cat, then hurried on to his gray sedan. It was the last time I would see him alive.
That night I woke to the sounds of shouts and things breaking. I heard Pansy barking. The little mutt was terrified but she was standing her ground.
I threw on a robe and hurried down the stairs with a torch in my hand.
In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do. I should have grabbed my tele and called the police. But I had very little experience with violence. While the society around me was clearly breaking down, eroded by byzantine bureaucracy and mounting self-inflicted wounds, it had always been very orderly.
Crime was rarely personal. It was usually related to corruption, money or desperate poverty. People stole food or something that might give them momentary pleasure. But they were always civil to one another. The Continuum leadership was removed and distant, a thousand light years away and thoroughly incapable of governing a far-flung empire of disconnected stars. But they did one thing repetitively and consistently. They demanded politeness and enforced it without surcease throughout every level and strata of society. The Continuum was an extraordinarily peaceful and polite empire. It was not called ‘The Civil Society’ for nothing.