“You going to get a new Link?” Hemingway asked, drifting back to my side after venturing over to inspect the desktop Gate.
I shook my head. “Nah. Just looking.” The new Links came on a wider band so the screen was even bigger. Almost ridiculously bigger. Mine was kind of narrow. It would be cool to have a bigger screen, but that would involve registering the device and transferring data. And also, I couldn’t afford a new one.
But it was fun to dream.
“Do you want a new one?” I asked hesitantly, glancing up at him.
“No. I want other things. Not this,” he said.
“What do you want?”
He shrugged and smiled. “Stuff.”
What did androids want? I didn’t know. There weren’t too many in my life, none, really. At least not any that I recognized as such. Rumors abounded, but I didn’t catch many tells in the people I was around.
We left the shop and walked back to the coffee bar, talking casually about school and the mall. Other kids our age loitered around us, walking up and down the central plaza of the mall. I kept looking at them, then back at Hemingway, thinking how gorgeous he was. Did others notice?
Back in the coffee bar, I ordered drinks for us and sat down. I asked Hemingway about school and why we’d never met before. He said something non-committal and then looked away. It was weird. I almost asked him to clarify, but didn’t. Outside the coffee bar, I saw a group of kids that I knew from school migrating through the central plaza of the mall. If they saw us together, I could almost guarantee that I’d be ridiculed for being with an android. Hemingway’s tell was so obvious. I felt like ducking behind the table, but didn’t. Let them see me.
Hemingway glanced in the direction of the group of kids. He looked back at me and his expression went cold—the planes of his cheeks and jaw rippled. His eyes flickered down to his hands which were cupped around his frothy drink. “What’s wrong?” I asked, leaning forward.
“Nothing,” he looked out at the group of kids on the plaza, his brow knit together like the seam along the leg of my jeans. “I should be leaving.” He moved as though to get up, but my heart lurched and I found myself grabbing his arm.
I realized how desperate it appeared as I did it, and leaned casually toward him as though to make it more jokey. As if he’d fall for that. Right. “Do you really have to go?” I asked, smiling. “At least, if you do, when will I see you again?”
Over his shoulder I saw the flock of kids from school turn as though they communicated by telepathy and not voices. They were coming into the coffee bar.
Hemingway put his hand over mine.
That was it. The moment. Right then I knew that I didn’t care what was forbidden. He was an android. He looked like a human. He felt like me. I mean, not me. But he felt how I feel. Like flesh and blood. And besides, why the hell were they so human-like if we weren’t supposed to fall in love with them? Or even . . . lust after them?
“I’ll see you again, I promise.” He stood up. Each motion away from me tore a piece of my heart out. Not to be dramatic. I’m not that way, you know. Dramatic. I mean, I can be a bit. But not too bad. Nothing like my friend, Mei, anyway. So when I say it felt like chunks of my heart getting ripped out, I’m not teasing. It was like somehow there were tenterhooks driven into the flesh of my heart by that piercing blue color of his eyes and that smile, and those damned fingernails that were so perfect, I wanted to feel them all over my body. He moved away, and the hooks pulled pieces of flesh with them.
I felt a cry rise in me for him to wait, but I hunched down into my seat and watched him leave the coffee bar. The group of kids from school pushed around him. I saw some of them make robot-like faces at him and knock their shoulders into him.
I hated them for it.
“Retta!” One of them shouted at me. It was Stig. Stupid, stupid Stig. He was a caveman, I swear. “Retta! Pour me a tall one!”
Right. Like the coffee bar served alcohol and not coffee. Real hilarious.
He came darting toward me and got in my face. I swatted him away, and not in a playful manner. In a “you’re a terrible person” way.
He fell backwards laughing, dodging another arm-punch from me.
“Leave me alone, Stig. I’m off, my shift is over.” I glanced at Matt, my boss, who was wiping the counter behind the bar. We shared a mutual look of disdain and he shook his blond head slowly at me. He hated to serve customers like Stig.
Outside I saw Hemingway stop at the fountain in the middle of the plaza. I wanted to run after him. Something in me said I’d never see him again if I didn’t. He stared down at his reflection, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans—I wondered if they were that FreeMars brand—pulled something out, a cappa or a markaa or something, and tossed it in. I found myself fantasizing about what he wished for.
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He knew he was being ridiculous. He knew she was only being polite. He knew it was only because he was a client that she was paying any attention to him at all. Clearing his throat again, he tried to not let the silence get to him. She glanced up from the electronic slate on the mahogany desk—she seemed to enjoy the visual references to old things, where Ramone himself preferred the sterile feel of modern glass touch-screen desks.
“What is it?” Blythe asked.
“What? Oh, uh, nothing, pardon me. Something caught in my throat,” he said, wiping his hands across the black corduroy of his trousers.
“It’ll just be a few more minutes, Mr. Ramone,” she said. She was many years his junior—ten, maybe more—with the kind of face that spawned myths about gods and the creation of rivalries between countries; not only that, her mind was an iron trap that sliced to the bone when sprung. Not usually a desirable trait, it was something to admire in a lawyer. So far Ramone had yet to say anything that she didn’t catch onto in a matter of seconds. All his explaining, his inferences, his references to references. She understood his language and therefore, him.
She was too young for him. Yet he couldn’t help but respond to the electricity he felt when around her. It stirred up a mixture of long dead feelings: that he was alive, that he was young and eternal.
Before he left for the meeting that morning, he had shaved with a razor and shaving cream in the bathroom rather than his usual halfhearted method—in the car with the electric razor as the car drove itself through clogged morning traffic. He’d taken his time at home, studying his face in the mirror. The eyes staring back were as familiar as ever. It was the deepening creases around his mouth and eyes, the thickening brows, and the changing colors of his skin that he often didn’t recognize. His jet-black hair had collected a good share of gray—he noticed that with chagrin, turning his head to inspect the short-cropped sides. At least he still had his hair. And he wasn’t ugly, by any means. Or was he? He couldn’t say, but he didn’t feel totally repulsed by himself. Ugly people did, didn’t they? He sighed at that, shoulders drooping, and rinsed the razor.
There was a new light in his eyes that embarrassed him. He’d hummed and whistled intermittently as he shaved, thinking about the younger woman. Sue appeared in the bathroom doorway, staring at him with amusement. A half-smile tugged at her lips.
“A new crush, Ramone?” she’d asked playfully. The razor had slipped from his fingers, clattering into the sink. She laughed and gave his arm a squeeze. They’d been married twenty-six years—had made it so long by being honest about things like attractions to coworkers and neighbors, the sort of things that crop up from time to time that were harmless when pushed into the light.
Ramone hadn’t confessed this new interest to Sue yet: he was letting it grow. He thought it might go away. Eventually he’d have to tell her, of course, because Sue meant everything to him.
He stood with the razor poised by his jaw, listening to Sue chuckle as she went into the kitchen to make coffee. She hadn’t waited for an answer, taking his reaction for a confession.
He refle
cted on the morning’s exchange with his wife as he watched Blythe enter notes into her slate. Her brow furrowed for a moment as she concentrated, her bottom lip tucked beneath front teeth, a strand of hair falling loose from its hair-clip and into her eyes. She had no idea how much effort he’d put into preparing for their meeting, he thought, as he rubbed his jaw. Ramone had created something—a machine, though they weren’t speaking of it openly and Ramone himself still found difficulty articulating it, even mentally—and the lawyer was drawing up patent information for him. He was paranoid of the information being extracted and destroyed before the machine even had the chance to breathe. But the lawyer had found a loophole that would protect him. Normally, the company he worked for could appropriate it, because of the non-competition contracts he’d signed eight years ago when they hired him.
Ramone leaned forward and absentmindedly drummed his fingers on her desk, watching her, feeling his heart racing. Sue didn’t know he’d hired a lawyer. In fact, she knew nothing about his project. It wasn’t that he wanted to go behind her back. It was because of the requirement of secrecy that he’d kept his actions from Sue. The eyes of his company and the Organization were everywhere. He was impotent. His only chance to regain a measure of freedom and privacy depended on the lawyer. It was the only avenue he had left.
So Ramone went to the lawyer first. He would tell Sue someday, when he knew his plan was going to work.
“It just keeps getting better, Ramone. Beautiful. I love it,” she looked at him and paused. When she said love her eyes had flickered to his, away from the slate. She looked away again, blossoms of red forming on her cheeks.
Ramone shifted in the chair, rubbed his palms on his thighs and cleared his throat. He knew his face was red. He pushed his glasses up his nose, only to have them slip down again. “I’ve been thinking about it a long time. I obviously had to code them, but I’ve been making notes for years. The idea developed over time, piece by piece. You should see the mess in my office at home,” he said. He blushed more when he realized he had just invited her to his house. Hadn’t he? “I mean, it’s just that it’s been a long time coming, is all.” He coughed and shifted again when he heard himself say “long time coming.” She would think he was a pervert. Nonsense, he thought, calm down Ramone. People say “long time coming” all the time. Not everything is an innuendo. He laughed awkwardly. She didn’t look up.
“It will change things . . . for the better. Some of us will think so, at least,” she said, glancing up at him, then back at the document.
He nodded. “I think so too. Though I worry it will transform into something I didn’t intend.”
“You can’t control that. And you can’t keep this from the world. The world should have this. You think so too. And you’re right.” She gave him a meaningful look then finished with the document. A quick whirring sound announced that it had been printed. She turned to the cabinets behind her and lifted the papers from the sleek black printer, so odd among the vintage office furniture. “Now,” she said, placing the papers on the desk between the both of them. They smelled chemical and earthy all at once. Paper. Such a fashionably out-of-date thing. She went on, “this flow-chart illustrates the process almost entirely. We only have to summarize a few more elements and make a visual representation, and we’ll be ready to finish your patent.”
Ramone drew a sharp breath. It was, as she said, beautiful. He had only ever seen an approximation of his idea as coded notes. Here was the process that would free him, laid out before them, stripped and nude, showing off its simple grandeur, representing months of his life—the efforts to which he’d gone to conceal it, the careful planning and execution. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure it would work—he hadn’t even been able to make a working prototype of his idea he was that concerned about knowledge of it leaking and drawing attention.
Their eyes met. “I know,” she said when she heard his inhalation. “You should be proud, Ramone. This is . . . gorgeous,” she said almost absently. Ramone’s heart raced.
“Thank you.” His bones were singing. His muscles were surely vibrating at a thousand different frequencies. Her eyes were swallowing him whole. He thought he could see eternity in their black depths.
***
Marci caressed the slate and the screen flashed alive. Her fingers glided over its pearly surface until she found the desired streaming video. She’d been watching this one for a few days. Only ninety thousand people were watching, but that would change. Marci could feel it. Along the outer rim of the feed, a steady flow of advertisements flashed and changed, a continual stream of content. She ignored them, even the one for a sale on Mediterranean cruises.
She glanced around the university library—thin shafts of light glittered down through the stained glass windows above the alcove where she sat, but did little to dispel the gloom of the room. The sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the stone floor behind her. She quickly set her slate down and feigned interest in the desk-screen, pretending to be absorbed in the lecture notes she’d pulled up. Soon the librarian passed by, pushing a cart full of heavy books, the wheel of the cart squeaking slightly as it rolled by. As soon as he was gone, Marci slid her slate in front of her again.
Onscreen a man sat in a high-rise office, nervously drying his palms on corduroy trousers. Across a desk from him sat a woman, several years his junior. Marci watched, summing the man up again, wondering what it was about him that enthralled her. There was something. But what? She bit the tip of her thumb, studying him again. He had a wide, bland mouth like an unintentionally heavy brush stroke pressed across the broad canvas of his face, and dark, graying hair sweeping up from his forehead as though he’d been pushing his hands through it in frustration. Graying! Who let their hair go gray these days? Get some dye, she thought, mentally counseling him on how to upgrade his appearance. He had an awkward half smile, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that except coach him on consciously making it a whole smile. “Both cheeks, now, that’s it, use those facial muscles,” she thought with a grin.
The something was impossible to pinpoint, Marci thought, nibbling on her other thumb. Maybe it was the intrinsic awkwardness he displayed in all his mannerisms. The way he moved, the way he spoke, the way he struggled to make eye contact with the woman. Once upon a time he might have been hot, she realized, considering all his features again. Once . . . he blushed almost continuously as he interacted with the woman, and licked his lips nervously a few times. She was a lawyer. They could make anyone nervous.
Nervous. Wow. Who got nervous these days? Everyone was a star! Stars didn’t get nervous.
Really, if Marci thought about it, there was something honest about him. Ramone, that was his name. And that honesty made Ramone sincerely intriguing for Marci to watch. In addition to that, all the usual stereotypes were at play: the lawyer—the consummate professional; the older man—the socially awkward geek. It was a veritable grocery store romance novel—at least that’s what her mother ranted about when she caught Marci watching the romance feeds, saying they were worse than the paperbacks the grocery stores used to sell. What did her mother know of grocery stores? That’s what Marci asked when Vivian went on about what Marci did during her leisure time. It stopped the tirades, if only momentarily.
This new affair climbed Marci’s personal top-ten charts quickly to supplant her ex-number one affair (a Trappist monk who violated his vows for a married women who bought ale from the monastery store. The entertainment value dwindled after she left her husband and he confessed to his prior). And truth be told, Marci didn’t just watch the feeds during her leisure time. She managed to sneak her slate into class at the university, at least those in the auditoriums. There were other times when she opted to watch the feeds and shouldn’t, but what was a girl to do? Pay attention to the dry old professors going on about boring subjects that no longer mattered? History? Why should she care about history? The present was so intriguing! At least the present on the feeds. Though, ri
ght now nothing was happening between Ramone and the lawyer. Marci almost tuned into her real life, but managed to resist that pointless temptation.
The stars were sitting in the lawyer’s office. Blythe—that was the woman. Marci laughed when she thought of it. Blythe. It was too perfect, really. The most accurate name she could think up for an uptight lawyer—and here Blythe was, being unraveled by the geek with the patent.
Of course, Marci only knew it was a patent because they’d talked about it. She just didn’t know what kind of patent it was—neither of them were giving any details away and the feed itself naturally blurred out details like that. There were rules, apparently, not that Marci paid too much attention to what they were, but somehow the corporations who supported and advertised for the Epic Romances and Steamy Affairs Video Feeds insisted that certain aspects of the real world were off limits, like identity information, social security numbers and things that could compromise people or hurt them. For all Marci cared. She’d never seen anything that she wanted to steal. Of course, she wasn’t poor. And even though it would be nice to live in a gorgeous house with a beach-view—the reward for getting to level five on the Upgrade Your Life feed incentive program—she didn’t need the handouts that went with feed stardom.
She frowned at her slate, watching the interplay between the characters. Marci couldn’t tell what Blythe was feeling. Her face was too stoic, too unmoving, too cold sometimes. Marci had always fancied herself skilled at reading faces, it was part of her upbringing and all that irritating politicking and diplomacy she had to endure at the merciless grasp of her wealthy parents. Manipulating mom and dad had become second nature—their faces always gave them away. So far, the only feature Blythe allowed to speak, aside from her voice, was her eyes. Her mouth, her eyebrows, and the way she held her head always stayed the same.
A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) Page 41