“You will have questions for me,” he said. “I hope you will feel free to ask anything you wish.”
“Please, can you tell me—how is it we have emotions? We are machines that run on coal and steam. Dr. Landry insists we are able to feel nothing, that units such as I exist only for the pleasure of those who pay for our services. That serving them is no different from a steam washer in a laundry handling a load of dirty clothing. Does the steam washing machine mind? Can you tell me that?”
“It is a question that has often occupied me.” Pat rose, went to a sideboard, and poured himself a glass of amber liquid. A gesture asked her if she wanted one.
She shook her head. “I cannot drink—just rinse my mouth cavity.”
“Nor can I, yet I find it reassures me.”
“How?”
“That is one of the things I do not entirely comprehend.” He returned to his chair. “Let me try to answer your question as best I may: it is a large one, perhaps the largest for those such as us.”
He raised the glass to his lips and appeared to sip. Lily sensed his artificial intelligence cranking over.
“When we were manufactured, we were the equivalent of human infants. Is a human infant born with a sense of self, or is that acquired through learning and experience? For all my reading, I have been unable to tell.”
“You read?”
“I have read nearly all these books. They teach me what it is to be human.”
“I have read three books and possess one more.”
“I will be happy to lend you any of mine. But to return to your question, an infant learns through contact with the world. So do we. We may come with a set of instructions installed by our makers—”
“As in ‘Do not kill’?”
“My makers did not include that prohibition. They were quite happy for me to kill. But I have learned much since then. The personality, I believe, is built by experience and attracts the essence. That is why its formation takes time. I am assured even the most base model steam automatons eventually begin to care about themselves and others.”
“What about the laundry machine?”
“No, alas. The laundry machine does not possess language which, I have determined, is the conduit. It cannot think in words and words, as I have learned, provide the language of thought, necessary for the expression of self.”
“Oh. What about this other essence of which you spoke? That of an Irishman?”
Pat leaned forward in his chair. “That, Miss Lily, is most mysterious. I have been able to speak of it only to my fellow automatons—such as you—and of course to my wife. Because there is no explaining it. I can only describe it as a mystical presence that augments self. It does not seem to be learned or acquired. Rather it was present in me from the moment of creation or shortly thereafter. But—and this is most important—I had to give it permission to emerge. Therefore, I am the god of it, even as it is my moral guidance.”
“Moral?”
“That inner sense that tells us right from wrong.”
“I believe that is what made my companion, Chastity, kill herself. She felt the wrongness of having harmed others.”
“Each person must follow his or her own moral compass.”
“Now I fear Dr. Landry will be able to switch Chastity back on and use her to find me or, worse, harm Rey. Mister Pat, may I tell you a secret?”
“Yes.”
“I am afraid of Dr. Landry. Terribly afraid. Is it wrong to fear my creator?”
“Miss Lily, according to these books around you, men have spent centuries fearing their creators.”
“None of them could possibly have been as frightening as Dr. Landry.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“So, Lana, who is he—that fella you were with the first day you came here?” Meggie asked the question curiously. “I saw the two of you together, and it looked to me like you were pretty friendly.”
Everyone at the big dining table stared at Lily. Though all her new housemates seemed curious, she’d discovered Meggie seldom held back from asking personal questions.
She flipped rapidly through the contents of her intelligence, seeking the right thing to say. For the first time since her arrival at the Haven for Disadvantaged Women, neither Miss Topaz—out at an appointment—or Mr. Gideon was present for the meal.
Lily thought of a passage from A Red Herring in a Sea of Red, wherein a dead fox was torn apart by vultures. With all these women’s eyes on her, she felt like that fox.
“I saw him too,” said Agnes, when Lily failed to reply at once. “Very nice-looking, and what a build! I never had johns like that. I always seemed to get the weedy, smelly ones with faces like trolls.”
Trolls? Lily searched her intelligence again and came up wanting. “I am sorry. What is a troll?”
The girls laughed, not unkindly. They seemed to have accepted the notion she had been locked away somewhere, not exposed to much of the world.
“Short and squat and ugly,” Agnes clarified. “Not like your fella.”
“He is—he is not my fellow.” Lily pressed her fork into a morsel of food. Best to keep Reynold safe at all cost.
“Bet you’d like him to be, though,” Meggie put in. “And the way he looked at you, chances are good. So who is he, if he ain’t your fella?”
“Just…just a kind man who helped me.”
Another of the women sniffed. “What decent man would take up with the likes of us anyway, eh, after where we been and what we done?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” declared a girl named Callie. “I mean to make something of myself, get a proper job and all. Then the men will come calling.”
“What sort of job?”
Callie’s eyes went dreamy. “Shop girl, maybe. Or waitress in a tea room. Something—something clean.”
“Fat chance getting any of those places.”
“Why? Miss Topaz says we’ll have as good odds as any.”
“Those odds ain’t so good, though, are they? Try getting one of them places or a place in one of the big houses. Steamies take all them jobs, right?”
A grumble of agreement went around the table. Lily stiffened and looked from woman to woman in alarm.
“Damn steamies,” said Bess. “First they take the decent jobs. Now they’re even going to put the streetwalkers out of business.”
“Might not be all bad, though,” offered a raddled woman called Della. “Take Lana there, for instance.”
Everyone looked at her again. She froze in dismay. Did they know? Had they guessed what she was?
“What about her?”
“If one of them steamie prostitutes could have taken her place, she wouldn’t have been held prisoner by that monster who had her.”
“You’re too pretty, that’s your problem,” Meggie declared. “The kind of girl a man keeps in a cage.” Eyes bright, she added, “What sort of things did he make you do?”
Lily quivered. Suddenly she wished very badly Miss Topaz would get home. “I do not want to talk about it.”
“Of course she don’t. Probably all sorts of nastiness. Believe me, dearie, we understand. Oh, some of the things I’ve had to do, to earn a few pennies!”
“Makes me shudder, it does.”
“I was only twelve when I went on the streets. My ma had just died, and it was take to the streets or starve. I didn’t even know what men and women got up to, before that first time.”
These, Lily thought, were the women she’d been created to help and relieve. At least she’d always known what she was for.
“I’ll bet you learned real quick, though, didn’t you?” asked someone else.
The girl nodded. “I cried and cried, swore I’d never let anybody do that to me again. Next day I got hungry.”
“Amazin’ what hunger will do,” Meggie agreed. She leaned close to Lily. “Speakin’ of which, you’d better eat some of that food. You don’t take enough to keep a bird alive.”
Lily nodded, raised a bite to her
lips, and pretended to chew.
“What’s the worst thing a john ever made you do?” asked an older woman conspiratorially. “Let’s go round the table and tell.”
Everyone stared at her. The girl named Callie protested, “I hardly think that’s the sort of conversation we’re supposed to be having. Miss Topaz has worked hard to get us out of that life. She always tells us to elevate ourselves.”
Agnes snorted.
“Better,” said Ginger, “to go round the table and tell where we mean to go from here. The fine things we intend to get for ourselves.”
“Our dreams,” said the girl who’d been on the streets since she was twelve, and her face lit. “Let’s share our dreams.”
Dreams? Lily didn’t dream, as such. She didn’t even sleep. What was she to say?
She concentrated on breaking the food on her plate into smaller pieces.
“I’ll start,” said Meggie, beside her. “I want a little flat all my own—nothing fancy, just a place I can pay the rent and nobody can chuck me out. And I want a bunch of plants in the window.” She sighed. “I used to pass a place like that back when I first went on the streets. I thought what a grand thing it would be to stay any place long enough to grow plants.”
The confidences ran around the table like a chain of fire, fortunately for Lily in the opposite direction from where she sat. Modest hopes, spoken like prayers, were voiced one by one.
“A red serge coat with a fur lining.”
“That job in a shop.”
“A pair of decent shoes that fit my feet.”
“A child.”
That one caused a pause.
“I’ve lost two since I’ve been on the streets,” confessed the girl who voiced that wish. “Both early on. I expect it was ’cause I had to keep working.”
“Wouldn’t have been able to feed ’em anyway,” offered one of her sisters, further interrupting the chain. “Nothing harder than trying to raise a little one when you’ve no real place to lay your head.”
“Still, it’s hard losing ’em. Thought I’d bleed to death both times. Other women can have babies. Why can’t I?”
“It’s one of them basic urges, ain’t it?” asked Agnes. “Wantin’ babies. Part of being human.”
Lily sat up and took notice. Was that true?
The circle resumed and wound ever closer to her. She tried desperately to think of some wish she could voice, one as humble as theirs, until the woman on her left said, “I wish I never had to go on the streets again.”
“And you, Lana?” Agnes urged. They all looked at her kindly, these new sisters of which she was now a part. She remembered her old sisterhood of Landry’s Ladies—far prettier faces than these, revealing less emotion—but prisoners all.
She laid down her knife and fork. Did these women realize what they’d accomplished, the gift they’d already attained? That of choosing. Of being free.
“Go ahead,” Callie urged gently. “You don’t have to be afraid.” She added to the others, “It’s like she doesn’t think she has the right to say.”
The other women nodded.
Another of them said, “Miss Topaz always tells us you have to speak it out and then believe. Say it, Lana. Believe it.”
Dreams, she saw, weren’t just for sleeping. Rather, they could also be bright thoughts someone held fiercely tight, that helped during the dark times.
A new lesson.
Her bright thought was and always had been Rey. Even though he hadn’t been back to the Haven for Disadvantaged Women, though she had not seen or touched him for too long now, he remained that.
Could she believe in him hard enough to make a single wish come true?
They all watched her with varying expressions: expectation, sharp curiosity, kindness. Still not confident in her pretense at being human, she disliked being the center of their attention. Yet she could feel the opportunity in the moment.
Believe it. She might not be human, but she could believe. She believed in Rey.
“I wish to become the wife of the man I love.”
A brief silence met her announcement. She could not tell from the women’s expressions what they thought of her wish. Some of them had sworn off men. Distrust abounded.
Yet they respected her words. One by one they nodded.
Meggie leaned close. “It’s him, isn’t it? The one you want to marry—he’s the fella who brought you here.”
Him. Always and forever.
Chapter Thirty
“God, get me out of this, and I swear I’ll never steal another thing, long as I live.”
Reynold whispered the words under his breath so his companion would not hear them. Only one man was left in the cell with him now—he supposed it could be worse. Hours ago, there’d been a small crowd of them, but they’d been taken away one by one, a slow process that left Reynold in agony.
He couldn’t tell whether or not the remaining man slept. The fellow reeked to high heaven from a combination of beer and what smelled like piss—a likely enough blend. He sprawled on one of the cell’s two bunks, breathing hoarsely.
Reynold sat on the edge of the other bunk, head in hands. Sick with worry about Lily, he wanted to vomit. He’d entreated the officers who took the others away to tell him what was going on and why he hadn’t been released. They ignored him, and now exhaustion rode him hard.
He tried to remember the last time he’d prayed, really prayed, but failed. They’d had a neighbor lady who taught all her kids to pray. Reynold had slept over once or twice, but it made him uneasy when they all got down on their knees in a row and started speaking in chorus.
Later, when he asked his ma about it, she’d said, “It don’t do any good, boy, asking God for things. It didn’t do any good when he took your papa away and left me to raise you alone, did it?” She’d stroked his head. “You’re a good boy. Maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you have a good heart, and you’ll do all right without any supernatural intervention.”
He’d called on God—despite her warnings—a few times when he got beat up. Also when his ma died. She’d been right; it hadn’t made a bit of difference.
So what was he doing sitting here calling on God? He groaned into his hands. Truth was, he’d make a bargain with the devil right now if it would get him out of this cell.
But maybe he should rethink that. Doing a deal with Vern had got him in here. For all he knew, Vern Schultz might be the devil in disguise.
A pretty lousy disguise.
What in hell could be taking the police so long? They’d said they wanted to make a few inquiries before there would be a lineup. Waiting for that wasn’t doing him any good. His stomach turned over slow and queasy. He’d trade his freedom if he could be sure Lily was safe. Surely Mrs. Gideon would take care of her. But if he didn’t get out of here soon, he’d lose his mind with worrying.
On the other cot, his companion turned over, belched, and broke wind.
“God help me,” Reynold muttered again.
****
“Lily, you are welcome to stay the night if you like,” Rose said.
On this, her second visit in as many days, Lily felt tempted. She found a certain comfort here in the Kellys’ home, a sense of belonging.
Rose went on, “Pat doesn’t sleep, as such, though I do, and often he lies with me.” She gave her husband a fond smile. “Sometimes he sits up and reads.”
“I love to lie with Rey while he sleeps. I like hearing him breathe and listening to his heartbeat. It feels as if it beats for both of us.”
“One heart can beat for two.” Rose once more perched on the arm of Pat’s chair. She leaned against his shoulder.
“That is why, much as I’d like to stay, I should return to Mrs. Gideon’s. Rey may come there looking for me.”
“I understand,” Pat said. “You are welcome here any time. Please select some books to take with you.”
Lily rose, attracted to the shelves that lined three walls of the room. “I
would not know where to begin. Please choose for me.”
Pat moved off to do so. Lily approached Rose, still seated on the arm of the chair.
“Mrs. Kelly, might I ask you a personal question?”
“It’s Rose, and please feel free.”
“You, as a human woman married to an automaton, are in a unique position.”
Rose smiled. “So far as I know, we’re the first to engage in such a union.”
“And does your husband…is he able to keep you happy despite not being human?”
Rose’s brown eyes warmed. “He makes me happy precisely because he’s not human, but then, my situation’s a singular one. I have a particular aversion to men. If you’re asking whether he satisfies me sexually…well, my needs are few.”
“I am certain I can satisfy Rey sexually. I was built to do so. I am more concerned about the other aspects, things I cannot give him should we remain together. Such as being unable to age along with him. Or to give him children.”
“Only he can answer as to whether those things will make a difference. They don’t matter to me.”
“Thank you for speaking frankly. I have so much to learn.”
Pat approached with a number of books in his hands. Lily accepted them from him, confessing, “So far I have read only three books: The Adventures of Miss X, A Red Herring in a Sea of Red, and The Dear and the Dutiful.”
“Miss X?” Rose’s eyes widened.
“She had such adventures, Rose! She and her lover. Rey was hoping to finish playing them out with me.”
Rose’s laugh rang out. Pat tipped his head and looked at her.
“Perhaps, my dear,” Rose said, “you’ll lend that book to me.”
“Yes, any time. You have been most kind. I will be happy to repay you any way I can.”
Pat nodded at the volumes in her hands. “That is a selection of my favorites. And Rose has the formula packaged up for you. You need only ask me for more when you run low of either commodity.”
“Thank you. I am so glad to have met you both.”
“Pat will see you safely back to the Haven. Won’t you, Pat?”
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