Too, Too Solid Flesh

by Nick O'Donohoe

  She murmured in her sleep. He tucked the covers more closely around her and realized that, without knowing what was happening, his life was sliding into the Free Zone.

  18

  The lab hall was dark, as always when no humans were using it. The door to the stage, in its recessed niche, was shut, as were the doors to the lobby and the elevator door at the same end of the hall. None of the lab doors projected signs. Only the exit signs were lit.

  The autodoor to the breakfast room opened. Ophelia stepped out, her shadow outlined clearly on the hall wall. The door shut, leaving her in the dark.

  “Lights on,” she said, as Hamlet had told her to try. “Theater lights on. Lights, ho.”

  Nothing happened. She tried a command of her own. “Lights, please?” Nothing. The dark didn’t bother her; Hamlet wouldn’t send her anywhere he thought was dangerous.

  She leaned against the wall. Her fingers on the plastic, she counted her steps. “One, two, three…”

  At seventeen paces, the wall left her fingers. She stretched until she could touch it, then went forward again.

  “Eighteen—” Her fingers touched a doorjamb.

  She stepped back, counting backward. At sixteen, her fingers touched the doorjamb; the space between was a door.

  She thought, There’s the breakfast room, and a closet door, and the rear theater door—there’s no room here.

  She clapped her hands. “He’ll be so pleased.” She put her hand on the door, but it didn’t open.

  “Door open,” she said. “Autodoor open.” She thought of a story Hamlet had told her. “Open sesame.” Nothing.

  “Oh, well.” Ophelia stepped forward. “Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen—”

  She finished that wall and went down the other. Under the exit arrow, she found another door—this one twice as wide as the other. She backed up, counting again.

  A light flashed behind her in the hall.

  She turned. A silhouetted man was walking out of the wall from the door she had found before. The light, shining out of what still looked like solid wall, vanished, and the hall was dark again except for the exit signs.

  Ophelia knew he was another android, since the lights had not come on, but she could not imagine who it could be.

  She said, “Who is it?” He didn’t answer. His footsteps were slow and oddly clumsy. “Osric? Claudius?” She was sure, from the silhouette, that it was a man.

  The footsteps came nearer. She could hear his breathing, steady and deep.

  Ophelia said firmly, “Tell me who you are.”

  The man moved up to her and strode past her. His walk and his breathing never changed.

  “Please,” she said, “tell me who you are.” She reached out blindly.

  Her fingers brushed a lab coat.

  She ran after him, pulling on his shoulder. He kept walking, though he spun at an angle. She heard a soft hiss as he scraped the wall.

  She tugged at his coat. “Who are you? Are you all right?” She tentatively ran her hands up to his head, feeling for injuries, and pulled back when she struck a metal band circling his skull. She had bumped a slot in it; something had popped partly free.

  He stopped walking, then reached up stiffly and pulled on the side of the band. The lights came on. Doctor Goode stared around himself.

  “What went wrong?”

  Ophelia stepped in front of him. “Are you all right?”

  “Why am I here?” he said coldly. His fingers, in back of his ear, traced something sticking from a vertical slot.

  Ophelia watched his hand, but noticed that his other hand had something in it. “You were walking strangely. You didn’t know me or speak, until you said ‘What went wrong?’” She looked at him quizzically. “What did go wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked dazed. “I was in—” He cut off, looking back at the blank stretch of wall, and looked down at the metal headband he was holding, then at her. “I think I was testing something.” His eyes widened. “I remember—”

  He broke off. “What were you doing here?”

  Ophelia said desperately, “Walking.”

  He smiled without warmth. “So was I.” He raised the headband to show to her. “I was testing a piece of equipment and slipped it on my own head.” He laughed embarrassedly. “That was foolish, wasn’t it?”

  Ophelia said, “I do things like that.”

  “I must have turned it on. It’s a good thing you came along.” He raised the headband up for her to see. There was a biochip slot on one side, next to a touch-eject. “Would you like to see it?” He lifted it toward her head.

  Ophelia asked, “What did you just put in your pocket?”

  “Nothing, I’m sure.”

  “It was in your hand a moment ago. You put something in your pocket. It was gray, and shorter than my fingers—” Ophelia was vain about her long, slender hands. “And flat, and it was cased in plastic or something else clear.”

  “Let me check.” He rummaged in his pocket, then said, smiling, “Sorry. Nothing there. Did Hamlet send you here?”

  Ophelia, too startled even to lie, blushed. Goode patted her shoulder. “I knew he had. It was meant to be our secret.”

  “What kind of secret?” A veteran of tragedy, Ophelia did not entirely trust surprises.

  “I wanted to see you.” He put his left arm around her. “It’s silly of me, but I didn’t want Gertrude to know.”

  Suddenly she understood. “Oh.” She felt embarrassed and immensely flattered. Doctor Goode had never asked for anyone but Gertrude before.

  “I also,” he said, playing teasingly with her hair, “wanted to be sure that Hamlet didn’t mind. I know that’s silly, also, but he really is fond of you.”

  “He is? You can tell?” Ophelia was suddenly happy.

  “I can tell.” He steered her down the hall, then stopped. “I’m not sure we can go,” he said sadly. “Gertrude is in my quarters—”

  “Make her leave,” Ophelia said absently. She wondered how many people knew that Hamlet was fond of her.

  “I’d hate to hurt her feelings. I’d rather tell her I’m working late.”

  “That’s a good idea.” What a nice man he was. “We could go to my room—”

  He pursed his lips. “Gertrude would find out. Isn’t there anywhere else in the theater?”

  She thought hard and said shyly, “There’s one of the rooms we’re not supposed to know about.”

  He smiled at her delightedly. “How clever. Do all the androids know about those rooms?”

  Ophelia shook her head. “Just me, so far—”

  He steered her back toward the room he had left. “Do you know how I could tell that Hamlet liked you? There were several things—” He reached up to the EXIT arrow, moving his hand quickly several times. He ushered her into what looked like solid wall. The door shut behind them.

  The room was carpeted and quite ornate. Ophelia noticed nothing, listening to Goode. They talked about Hamlet, and about love, and about jealousy. They talked about attraction, and passion, and finally about seizing moments.

  It was well past dawn when Goode, who had not slept, pulled the biochip from where his lab coat hung on a piece of living branch coral and slid the chip carefully, neatly into the sleeping Ophelia’s neuroputty brain.

  He said quietly, “Access, is the hallway empty?”

  A surprisingly alert, lively Access said quietly, “Yes.”

  “You said that last night.”

  “It was, when you asked. Later it wasn’t.”

  Goode exited hastily, went to his own quarters to wake Gertrude and explain that he’d been working, and returned.

  Ophelia and her clothes were gone.

  Goode wasn’t terribly worried. By the time she reached the breakfast room, she’d be nearly inarticulate. He turned to the far wall, spoke a few quick words, and said angrily, “What in the hell were you doing? You had no right!”

  * * * * *

  At breakfast, Barnardo complai
ned about his teeth, which were falling out. He blamed it on the stage lighting, since, not long ago, he had been onstage alone when a malfunctioning flylight had flashed brightly enough to burn his skin and char his costume.

  The others cheerfully suggested less flattering, venereal causes of tooth decay—jokingly, since androids couldn’t catch diseases. Hamlet suggested that Barnardo had injured his mouth by swallowing the first line of the play, instead of projecting it.

  Barnardo swore at him, then winced and touched his jaw.

  The gossip was the usual:

  “—Said it was his mother’s. Said it would fit either of us…”

  “—The door opened and she had six friends…”

  “—Tickling. Just tickling, naked and with children’s toys in the room…”

  But Ophelia was missing, and Hamlet was restless.

  Gertrude leaned sideways and mussed Hamlet’s hair. “She’ll be here. Don’t tell me that my boy is jealous.” She sounded jealous herself.

  “Never, Mother.” He was serious. “Merely concerned.”

  She stroked his forehead and shot a sudden dark glance at Horatio. “Leave your worries to me.”

  “What, me worry?” Polonius said. “Don’t borrow trouble. Worry makes you old before your time. Don’t fuss about what you can’t change.” He searched for another idea, found none, gave up and bit into a muffin.

  “Still,” Gertrude said, “where can she be? She was always punctual before.”

  Laertes thumped the table. “Where can she be?” His concern for Ophelia, slow to waken, was nonetheless passionate.

  There was a loud, unsteady thump at the automatic door and a soprano “Oh!” from the other side.

  Hamlet sighed. “But soft, the fair Ophelia.” He reset the mechanism. Ophelia, who had been leaning on the door, fell in as it opened.

  As the door shut behind her, she said brightly to Hamlet, “How does your honor for this many a day?”

  “Fine, thanks.” He sat again. “We’re not doing the play just now, sweet.”

  “My lord,” she said uncertainly, “I have remembrances of yours.” She leaned against the door, tottering as it opened behind her.

  Hamlet drummed his fingers. “Can’t you make up new phrases?” He waved his arms, overacting intentionally. “Where are my remembrances, or did you forget them already?”

  Ophelia opened her mouth and shut it. Finally she asked hopefully, “Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?”

  Gertrude replied on cue, “How now, Ophelia?”

  Hamlet muttered, “You’ll only encourage her.”

  And he seemed right, for Ophelia crouched suddenly before the queen and sang intently:

  “How should I your true-love know

  From another one?”

  Gertrude, startled, drew back. Laertes clapped. Osric followed suit, tentatively and lightly.

  “Nice,” Hamlet admitted. “We can work it in.”

  Ophelia only repeated her last lines. Gertrude pulled back further. Ophelia grabbed her wrist and repeated again, “How should I your true-love know—”

  “You entered speaking a different scene.” Hamlet was on his feet. “Now you’re doing Act Four, scene five. Why?”

  Ophelia, crooning tonelessly, dropped Gertrude’s hand. Gertrude, apropos for once, said anxiously, “Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?”

  Hamlet added, “Are you all right?”

  Ophelia regarded him sadly and sang:

  “Then up he rose,

  And donn’d his clo’es,

  And dupp’d the chamber-door,

  Let in the maid, that out a maid

  Never departed more.”

  Horatio snickered in spite of himself. Hamlet whirled on him, saying:

  “Shall I grow red?

  You’d see mistaken blushes,

  False colors, lying in burlesque of blood.

  For all of me she’s chaste, Horatio.”

  Horatio stared. Hamlet went on:

  “What parody of passion could there be,

  What iron embraces in our icy arms,

  For lovers of our mettle—”

  He caught himself and said, “We never loved.”

  “I was the more deceiv’d,” Ophelia said promptly, and seemed relieved at saying it. With every moment she looked less aware and more innocent, though no happier.

  “Stop quoting.” Hamlet was annoyed. “We need to talk.”

  “I was the more deceiv’d—”

  “Speak to me.” He grabbed her shoulders.

  “I was—”

  “What in God’s name is wrong with you?” He shook her.

  She burst out, “O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!”

  He stared at her and let go. She sank to the floor, a rumpled figure on unscuffable white plastic.

  Gertrude said sadly, “Still the play.”

  Hamlet said, “No,” his lips tight. “Not the play.”

  Ophelia wept into the spotless floor. “And I, of ladies most deject and wretched—”

  “In Act Three, scene one, she says that about me.”

  “—That suck’d the honey of his music vows—”

  “Here she means herself.” Hamlet knelt and took her chin in his hand, staring into her eyes.

  She looked at him through tears, continuing:

  “—Now see that noble and most sovereign reason

  That unmatch’d form and stature of blown youth

  Blasted with ecstasy.”

  “Why?” Hamlet spoke quietly. “Why did it happen?”

  She shook her head and finished the speech:

  “Oh, woe is me,

  T’have seen what I have seen,

  see what I see!”

  Her tears were already drying, and she smiled at him, face pleasantly blank. She was forgetting her own distress.

  He turned away, his own eyes flooding. “Oh, God. She barely sees me now, yet I see all.”

  “I don’t.” Gertrude put a protective arm around Ophelia. “Why was this done to her? How, and by whom?”

  “Good questions, all. Foul answers.” Hamlet turned to Horatio. “Check her.”

  “Me?” Horatio was lost, swimming. He had no automatic dialogue to fall back on, and he was no natural poet like Hamlet. “Why not somebody else?”

  Hamlet grimaced at him. “There is no one else.” Hamlet moved Ophelia out from under Gertrude’s arm and, seemingly by accident, away from everyone but Horatio. “See what else she might do—walk behind us in the park, for example.”

  “Oh. Right.” Horatio probed carefully behind her ear, nearly jumping when the chip popped out. Hamlet passed him a napkin. He wrapped the chip and pocketed it.

  Horatio snapped his fingers by Ophelia’s ear, picked up her arm and let it fall, moved her lower lip with a finger. Her reactions were slow in all cases, but still evident.

  Horatio said, “She wasn’t being told to do anything.”

  Hamlet said, “Then why did she recite play lines?”

  Horatio said, “Probably they’re all she has.”

  Hamlet shut his eyes tightly. The others stared at Horatio, who went on, “The chip is wet with dematrix—it’s a liquid you can use with a chip. That and the chip selectively erased her mind. The play lines are such a deep part of—” He nearly said ‘of androids.’ “—Of us, that they go last.”

  Ophelia smiled and stared down at Horatio’s finger. He quickly took it off her lower lip.

  Horatio looked at the others and shivered; they had all stepped in closer, staring at Ophelia. Even in their grief they seemed to be on the edge of pleasure.

  Gertrude said in a strange voice, “Will she die?”

  Horatio pulled Ophelia farther from them and stepped in front of her. He raised his voice. “Nobody’s dying.”

  The mood passed as suddenly as it had come, and they were back to looking horrified and compassionate. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern held each other; Claudius stood frozen, tears running down hi
s wrinkled cheeks. Only Horatio remembered the mood of the moment before.

  Osric said, all affectation gone, “Who would have done such an awful thing?”

  Laertes said loudly, “And who thinks he’ll get away with it? I’ll find him, and I’ll kill him.” He raised his clenched fist. “I don’t care if it’s Doctor Goode—”

  “Alan.” Gertrude put a manicured hand to her ruby mouth. “She was talking about Alan Goode. All those songs she quoted about my lover, and a man—”

  “And a man taking her, yes.” At the look in Hamlet’s eyes, Horatio stepped back. “A man. Clever, lusty, lying flesh. He took her, and he gave damned little back. Why?”

  They jumped as Ophelia recited, “I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him in the cold ground.”

  “Who?” Horatio put his hands toward her. Gertrude, dashing back between him and Ophelia, brushed them away. “Lay who in the ground?”

  “My lord.” Her delivery was exactly as she had said it in Act Three, scene one.

  Hamlet said, “He asked you—wait. Your lord. Me.” He walked away from her and stared at the empty wall as though it were a window with a wretched view. “She was in the hall last night, late, on an errand. Goode was going to erase me, and erased her instead.”

  Horatio said, “Or possibly she thought it was Goode.”

  “It was.” Hamlet pounded his own leg with his fist. “And I sent her to meet him. My fault. My guilt.” He added with a catch to his throat, “My heart.”

  Horatio put a hand on his shoulder. Hamlet drew away, and Horatio let the hand fall, saying, “What will you do?”

  “Think.” Hamlet made thinking sound dangerous.

  Claudius remarked, “As always. Will you ever act?” Even he looked profoundly shaken.

  “Eventually.” Hamlet turned to the others. “Go to your quarters, each of you. Remember this.” He finished bitterly, “If anyone will let you.”

  “And Ophelia?” Gertrude was untangling the girl’s hair, straightening her dress, stroking her unpuckered forehead.

  Hamlet helped the queen up. “Go, Mother. She’ll be as happy here as she can be anywhere.” Hamlet bent suddenly and kissed her cheek. “And where are my remembrances, or did you forget them already? I did love you once.”

  Ophelia said quickly, in answer to his quote, “Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.”