Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

by Judd Trichter

  Eliot looks for some hint of sarcasm in her expression, but there doesn’t seem to be any. Here she is being crucified, and all she expresses is a gratitude toward the employer and the labor provider who abused her.

  “I have to compensate you somehow,” says Eliot.

  “For what? All I ever asked for I received. I worked a good job for ten years findin’ parts for bots and recyclin’ the waste from ones who got hurt. I kept up efficiency and helped Green Valley succeed. Soon, I’ll be a piece of raw material myself going into dozens of new bots created from my remains. What better way is there for my soul to live on?”

  “Will you shut the Hell up?” says the thief on the next totem, no longer able to hold her disdain. “Just ’cause you’re hanged like him don’t make you Jesus Christ.”

  Titty Fat laughs. “I will miss my friends at Green Valley.”

  “Any one in particular?” Eliot pulls the leg from her hip. “Someone I could give some money to on your behalf?”

  “Give it to me,” says the thief.

  “Now, now.” Titty Fat smiles and shakes her head. “If he gave you money you’d spend it all in the saloon and get yourself in trouble again. I say bein’ on that pole is the only thing savin’ you from yourself.”

  “It’s the only thing saving me from kicking your Bible-thumping ass,” says the thief.

  Titty Fat laughs as if she just heard a compliment. None of the thief’s words seem to sting.

  “Rather than pay for the leg,” Titty Fat tells Eliot, “I’d just be tickled if you could give somethin’ to San Xavier. Just a few ingots if you don’t mind.”

  “To the church that had you arrested?”

  “To the orphans,” says Titty Fat. “But don’t tell the padre it has nothin’ to do with me. He may not accept it then, and I’d hate to think the children don’t get their toys on Christmas.”

  “Oh, he’ll accept it,” says the thief. “And he won’t give a shit where it came from.”

  Titty Fat laughs again. “Ain’t she a card?”

  At the vactrain station, Eliot checks the suitcase with the legs at the gate. He takes a sniff of drip in the bathroom and uses his pocketbrane to make a donation to San Xavier. Five hundred ingots. Why not? He is a man of his word.

  The train accelerates and Eliot settles into his seat. He checks his e-mails, returns a few business calls, and catches up on the news. Turns out the Web is afire with a fresh loop from Lorca, the first one she released since Edmund “Pink” Spenser was hacked to death allegedly by one of her crew. Eliot watches the loop and notices the old nannybot looks different: usually, the terror queen pins up her sleeve at the shoulder to cover her missing limb, but in this loop, she has both her arms. The new limb makes her seem like a different bot. Younger. More seductive. More beckoning. Even though the arm is the wrong color and too long for her little body.

  “We ask no charity from the heartbeats,” says Lorca. “We expect nothing but cruelty and abuse. We expect their government to pay lip service to reform while tightening the nooses around our necks. We expect to be enslaved and blamed for our enslavement. We expect to be divided and forced to fight. We expect to be swindled and exploited, caricatured in the media, denigrated in the classroom.…”

  But it isn’t her words that stir something in Eliot, nor her message that pulls him in. It’s that newly acquired arm drawing delicate circles in the air. There’s something graceful about it. He can neither look away nor articulate why he’s looking.

  “We won’t negotiate for our freedom. We won’t wait to win it in a vote. We will take our freedom by our own hands, not because it was given to us by a species we intend to replace. We will take our freedom when the manifestation of our freedom becomes too great for the heartbeats to deny. We will take our freedom, and the world will…”

  Eliot stops the loop as Lorca’s lithe hand rises with spread fingers and her palm facing the lens. He rotates the frame, magnifies the image, and zooms in.

  On closer inspection, Eliot can see that attached to Lorca’s shoulder is a slender, olive-colored arm and a hand with short and blackened nails. It is the hand of a young woman who works with metal. It is missing its pinky finger.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Chumash Resort and Casino

  Left Arm—Uchenna

  Right Pinky—Edmund “Pink” Spenser

  Head—Jillian Rose Models

  Legs—Tucson Metal Solutions

  Torso—Chief Shunu/Joshua Dominguez

  Eyes—Blumenthal Promotions

  Right arm—Lorca

  “The LAPD, the FBI, half the fuckin’ country is lookin’ for Lorca. You think you’re gonna find her?”

  “I don’t have to find her. I just need her to hear my offer.”

  “What offer?”

  “To buy her a new arm in exchange for the one she has. The one that belongs to Iris.”

  “That used to belong to Iris.”

  They travel north at night on 154. Shelley wears a plaid shirt with khakis and a lacrosse cap. Eliot rides shotgun in blue jeans and a knit sweater. They look like a couple of college kids on a road trip up the coast. At least that’s the disguise.

  “Lorca never wore a replacement arm before, and it ain’t like she can’t afford one. If she’s wearing one now,” says Eliot, “it’s an attempt to communicate.”

  “With who?”

  “With the guy who killed Pink.”

  “Bullshit. For all you know one of her scavengers pulled it out of the trash.”

  A sign reads, WELCOME TO CHUMASH TRIBAL TERRITORY. The car crosses the white line that separates the reservation from the state.

  “She killed Dad,” says Shelley. “She killed Mitzi. She almost killed you.”

  “The Militiamen were more against Pop than she was. And Lorca never claimed the attack.”

  “She didn’t deny it, either.”

  The road twists through the forest until the casino rises up before them. The sandstone walls are thick with dirt. Half the windows are busted. Others have wet laundry hanging from the sills.

  “Yoshiko and Titty Fat both wanted, on some level, to return Iris’s parts. It’s like Iris was speaking through them because her parts want to be together. So even if Lorca doesn’t realize it, once she put on that arm, the limb began using her for its purpose.”

  “I’m not buying it,” says Shelley. “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Then I fail.”

  “And Lorca chops off your head.”

  They park in the near-empty lot. Eliot pulls an oversized camping pack from the trunk and straps it over his shoulders. It’s as big as a duffel bag but only filled with towels. Walking to the casino, he points to a puddle of vomit so Shelley won’t step in it. They watch as a pair of securitybots ejects an unruly android through the front door. Patrons steal his winnings as the guards bounce batons off the android’s skull.

  “Jesus,” says Shelley, snapping a loop of the action with his cam. “This is a place for animals.”

  “You’ll fit right in.”

  Inside the casino, it’s a rough, desperate clientele, the kind who earn their livings by shaking vending machines and picking up the loose change from the floor. Eliot and Shelley settle on a small table near the bar. A cocktailbot with a baby arm brings them their drinks.

  “If Iris were family,” says Shelley, “shit, if she were a heartbeat, I could understand. But risking your head for an android? For a reproducible thing?”

  “Iris isn’t reproducible. I mean, yeah, sure, I could make a bot who looks like her, but it wouldn’t be her. She wouldn’t be the same, any more than a replica of Dad or Mitzi would be the same.”

  Eliot scans the floor looking for Chief Shunu. He checks the mug loops on his pocketbrane. An early one shows a frightened, young scofflaw wearing a yellowed tank top and a silver cross around his neck. He looks like the fat kid who lost his inhaler to the schoolyard bully. Later loops show the same luckless face, albeit older, wearing bolo ties
and thick gold chains. His tank top is of a whiter hue.

  “It’s not worth getting yourself killed.”

  “It is to me.”

  “If you get killed I’ll be alone.” Shelley sips his drink then spits it back in the glass. He wipes his tongue with a napkin. “Have you thought about that?”

  “You can always go to Avernus and live with Mom if you get lonely.”

  “Avernus would bore the shit out of me. I like California. I’m invested here. I like the ass and the danger. Besides”—he takes a hold of his cam—“I’m just starting to get somewhere with my loops.”

  It’s Eliot’s assumption that Shunu is pimping again to make a living. It’s not like fleeing to the reservation would make him turn over a new leaf. And if he is out looking for johns, what better place than the casino, where the money is and the tourists looking to lose it?

  “That reminds me,” says Shelley. “I couldn’t get Blumenthal on the phone to talk about the eyes, but I did speak to his guy. He said his boss is willing to meet provided I pitch a fluff piece about him to Revealed! The fat bastard’s a fight promoter now. Or at least that’s how he’s washing the money he makes as a shy.”

  “Does he have the eyes?”

  “Who knows with a gonif like him?”

  There’s an old Indian hunched over a blackjack table in the middle of the room. He wears cheap bling over leather. His posture mumbles of defeat.

  “Of course, the fluff piece only gets us the meeting. It doesn’t get you the eyes. For that Blumenthal’s gonna make you pay.”

  From a distance, the old Indian barely resembles the guy from the mug-loops, but he does look like a poor man trying to look rich, a loser posing as a winner. The very act of pretending gives him away.

  “You got to play this Blumenthal thing smart,” says Shelley. “Bot like him knows he has something of value, he’ll bilk us for everything we got.”

  “In your expert opinion,” Eliot interrupts, “is the fellow over your shoulder a procurer of women?”

  Shelley turns and recognizes at once the man to whom Eliot refers. “That man is a pimp. And not at the top of his game.”

  Eliot stands and puts the straps of the backpack over his shoulders. “You missed your calling.”

  “Don’t spend too much on this,” Shelley warns. “Remember, they sold Manhattan for twenty bucks and a leaf.”

  Eliot drops a few ingots on the table for the drinks. “Keep your brane on in case I need you.”

  He crosses the casino en route to the blackjack table. He passes roulette wheels, crap chutes, and rows of busted slots. He passes the video poker machines and a Wheel of Fortune that hangs on a tilt. An auto-vac moves back and forth over the same yard of torn carpet where it repeatedly misses a spilled bag of nuts.

  “Two thousand,” says Eliot as he lays his ingots on the table. He sits beside the Indian and rests his backpack by his feet.

  The amount grabs the old Indian’s attention. “I should warn you,” he says with a nod toward the dealer. “This thief has been stealing from me all night.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “Keep your eye on your money. It’s the only thing he wants.”

  Says the dealer, “Let me know if this fool is bothering you. I’ll have security remove his scalp.”

  Eliot wagers a few chips before the deal. The cards come; the old Indian sticks on a nine and a face. There is just a small stack of chips and a room key beside his cards.

  “Been playing long?” Eliot asks.

  “To which game do you refer?”

  “The one at hand.”

  “Long enough to know the house will get the better of me.”

  “Then why keep playing?”

  The old Indian pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt and secures a half-smoked butt. “The theory that leaving won’t change the cards.”

  The dealer busts and the players win a modest sum.

  “My name’s Sam,” says Eliot.

  “Mine Joshua. But my friends call me Chief.”

  Eliot ups his bet. “Pleased to meet you, Chief.”

  “Perhaps.” The old Indian turns to light his tobacco. “But you strike me as a man of great evil.”

  The dealer gives him a face, and the old Indian busts. Eliot stays on eighteen and wins. He collects his chips, but he’s bothered by what the Indian said. Eliot always considered himself the good guy. Other than his drip arrests, he stayed out of trouble, cared for his family, and in his work, he advocated for the safety of his bots even when it hurt his commissions to do so. Sure, he sent many to some tough neighborhoods, some frozen wastelands in the solar system—he isn’t claiming to be a saint—but with every sale, every order, he brought more androids into the world, and therefore added life. At least that’s the way he justified it to himself (not that anyone demanded justification). And in his attempt to recover Iris, Eliot has only taken a head from a bot who committed suicide, an arm no one was using, and a leg from a bot who was happy to give it away. So what about him would make anyone think he was a man of great evil?

  “I’m not evil,” Eliot insists. “I’m just a student traveling the coast.”

  “I meant no offense,” says the chief. “As a matter of fact, I traffic in great evil.”

  “We call him Chief Complains-A-Lot,” says the dealer. “From the Whining Tribe.”

  The old Indian shakes his head. “The young have no respect.”

  He takes a hit on twelve and busts. Eliot stays. The dealer turns a six and busts with another face.

  “What is it that you study?” the old Indian asks.

  “Lately women.”

  “A subject every man is destined to fail.”

  “Don’t let him fool you,” says the dealer. “In his day, the chief was chair of the department.”

  “But never granted tenure.”

  “He’s being modest. That’s why we call him Sitting Bullshit.”

  Shunu looks annoyed by the young dealer’s ribbing. “Don’t listen to that thief. He wouldn’t know the truth if it farted in his face.”

  Eliot lays five hundred on a hand. The old Indian hums with envy. He seems ashamed to place his own meager bet on the same table. He taps the felt to get a card; he busts and stomps his foot. Eliot wins another hand.

  “Damn thief.” Down to his last chip, the old Indian seems reluctant to risk it. The dealer asks if he’s in.

  Eliot cuts his own stack and pushes a small pillar to Chief Shunu’s side. “More fun to gamble,” he says, “when you have the chips.”

  The old Indian looks on Eliot’s charity with suspicion. He takes a drag off his cigarette and peers at the young man from the corner of his eye.

  “What’s that for?”

  Eliot watches the dealer shuffle. “Your reputation precedes you.”

  “Ah.” He nods to indicate the dark of the evening’s woods are becoming a trifle better lit. He smiles as he eases into his pitch. “I warn you, young heartbeat, what I have now isn’t much to look at. Old parts mixed with new and only three heads. She has a good engine though, and the lesson is in her. She could teach a young heartbeat like you. Impress you with her technique if not her appearance. She has taught me”—he takes a long pull of his tobacco—“and this at a time when I thought there was nothing more to learn.”

  The old Indian rolls his lone chip between his fingers and loses himself in a private reverie about a lifetime of regrets.

  “Is she available for office hours?”

  “Not tonight.” He pushes Eliot’s chips away.

  The gesture is an obvious bluff from a man with plenty of experience at overplaying his hand. He wagers his last chip in silence.

  The dealer hands the chief a face and a three while Eliot receives two eights. The house shows a seven. The chief hits and busts. He bangs the table with his fist.

  Eliot splits his cards and draws a face and a four. The dealer shows a five as his hole. He busts, and Eliot wins the split.
/>   “Well played,” says the old Indian. The dealer agrees, and Eliot collects his winnings.

  “I might be young,” he says, pushing his entire stack over to Chief Shunu, “but I have respect.”

  The chips represent more money than the old Indian can refuse. And yet, as Eliot knows, there isn’t much he can spend it on. Not much to buy on the reservation, and if he puts one foot over the painted border, Chief Shunu is risking a life sentence at Pelican Bay.

  The old Indian sighs wearily and speaks to the chips as if they can hear. “The Chumash tribe used to control half the California Coast,” he says, “Santa Barbara to San Diego and all the mountains to the east. Best real estate in the world, and it was all ours.”

  He takes his glass and swallows a pull from his drink. Goes down easy, but it’s never enough.

  “You in this hand?” asks the dealer.

  “Why the Hell not?” He takes two of the chips and tosses them over as a bet. He slides his room key over to Eliot in exchange. Eliot reaches for it, and the old Indian covers his hand. His palm is soft like a woman’s.

  “Be gentle, young heartbeat.” His voice cracks with emotion. “Martha is all I have left.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Martha

  Backpack on his shoulders, Eliot stands alone in the elevator and sniffs a teaspoon’s worth of drip. He folds the hanky into his pocket and notices the display is stuck between the tenth and eleven floors. He waits, but the doors don’t budge. He tries a few buttons and looks for an alarm, but there is none. No regulations on the reservation. He wedges his fingers into the door and pulls it open to reveal the elevator’s stuck between floors. He pushes the backpack out first. He climbs up and rolls out quickly so the elevator doesn’t drop and slice him in half.

  Cigarette smoke hangs across the sporadically lit corridor. The wallpaper peels. The floor shows its ass through the more walked-on stretches of carpet. Chief Shunu’s key reads 1114, but no sign indicates the way to the room. Some of the doors have numbers, some don’t, their arrangement follows no order Eliot can decipher. He hears fucking in one room, fighting in the next, liquid screen too loud in a third. On one door, the faded number reads 111 with a missing digit covered by a gold star. Twentieth-century ska plays within.