Conjuring Dreams or Learning to Write by Writing

by Stephanie Barr

  Back Seat Driver

  The lights have been left on.

  Stephen growled at the car and slammed the door shut with unwarranted violence. Through the door, he could still faintly hear the pleasant voice of the car's computer:

  As you have elected not to turn off the lights yourself, the lights will be turned off automatically. Thank you for driving a Xiver automobile. Have a nice day.

  Stephen was not having a nice day, however. He thrust his employee badge, emblazoned with the Xiver logo, into his pocket and crunched down the gravel walk to the house. As he stepped on the porch, a red light above another Xiver logo came on and Stephen heard a similar pleasant voice to the one in his car.

  Please state your business, sir or madam.

  "Mr. Bennet is home," Stephen said impatiently and squished his thumb into the ID plate. He moved through the door almost before it had a chance to slide out of the way.

  Welcome home.

  "Shut up," he told the door, dropping his coat on the hallway table and shoving his briefcase beneath it. "Rachel!"

  "In the kitchen, dear," called a voice every bit as pleasant as the automated ones that irritated Stephen so much.

  Almost against his will, Stephen's face lightened. Loosening his tie, Stephen strode down the utilitarian hallway to a dark kitchen every bit as practical. "Rachel," he said by way of greeting, "I can't take the house's damn voice any more. Change it tomorrow, will you?" He glanced at the mixing bowl in his wife's hands. "What's this?"

  "Dessert," his wife said absently. "You need it changed already? But we've only had this one a week!"

  "It doesn't matter how nice we make the voices, dear, it doesn't take long for those automated sounds to get on everyone's nerves." The scowl settled back on his forehead and he stared angrily into her mixing bowl. "That's why it's so damn frustrating that I can't get the personalities into the systems. If we could only . . . "

  "I'm sure you'll figure it out, dear," Rachel soothed, having heard it all many times before. "I had an interesting day in court today. Even you might be amused by this one. The man I was prosecuting . . ."

  "Why are you cooking? Rachel, we've been through this before. There's no point in having an automated house if you keep doing everything. I mean, you've had a hard day. Labor-saving means you get to stop laboring."

  "I like cooking," Rachel said gently, knowing where this conversation would surely lead.

  "I want a wife, a lover and partner, an equal compatriot, Rachel," Stephen said piously. "If I wanted a drudge, I would have just hired one, or designed one," Stephen insisted. "Dammit, Rachel, I did design one!"

  Rachel hid a smile. Stephen could certainly talk a good game. "Whipping up dessert once in a while is hardly drudge work. I don't even have to do the dishes. Heavens, Stephen, no dusting, no cleaning, no vacuuming. We're spoiled."

  "Then let the house do the work. Relax in the video room with me. If you feel you have to do something, you can give my shoulders a rub. You wouldn't believe the day I had."

  Rachel sighed and resigned herself to the inevitable. "I'm making cobbler and you know the kitchen always makes it too soggy. I've tried to reprogram the computer, but you know there's only so much you can teach it."

  "Don't I just!" Stephen bit out, just as Rachel had known he would. "Exactly my point! All the programming in the world, and we still can't make the cars drive themselves or have machines make coffee the way we like it! The cars know where the other cars are, where the road is, where the obstacles are. They can electronically read the road signs from a mile away. Hell, they know the traffic laws better than the cops do, but we just can't teach them judgment. And those pristine little voices! 'The door is ajar.' Makes you want to rip the voice boxes right out of those vehicles. If I could only transfer a personality into a computer, my God! You could have conversations with your car in the morning. You could explain in English how you like your coffee . . . "

  "And you'll find a way. You're the best computer man Xiver has," Rachel said patiently, sliding the cobbler into the oven. "You figured out how to copy a human personality into on persona disk, didn't you?"

  "That's just the point! Did I? Why can't I take it to the next step? I won't know what's on those disks until I can figure out a way to use them."

  Rachel gave him a placid smile and stroked a hand along his cheek. "I know you'll figure it out."

  The scowl evaporated and he caught her hand and brought the palm to his lips. "Rachel, do you know how much I love you?" Stephen glanced at the oven. "How long before it's ready?"

  Rachel grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Long enough. The oven's on automatic shut-off."

  Stephen pressed his lips to her neck and then to her mouth. "To hell with the video room," he whispered and swept her up into his arms.

  Two hours later he sat, brow furrowed again, in front of his computer. "Damn!" he burst out all at once and pounded his fist onto his desk. "Why doesn't it work? Why? The programming's already there. All it has to do is take over. Maybe I screwed up the personality transfer. I just can't get mine to work. Maybe I could try your personality and see if I get better results." He ran a distracted hand through his black hair. "I don't know. Maybe it can't be done."

  Rachel glanced up from her briefs. "That's not something you often say. I don't believe it can't be done."

  "But I've tried everything!" Stephen whined.

  "What are you trying to get it to do?"

  "If you can get a personality in your computer, it's the perfect secretary."

  "And you're trying to get your personality into the . . . Do you think you'd want to be a secretary?"

  Stephen looked up at her blankly. "Hunh?"

  Rachel half-smiled and shook her head. "Never mind."

  "I don't understand you, sometimes," Stephen mused, brow furrowed before he remembered why he was angry. "You can't imagine how many times I've reprogrammed this computer!"

  "Maybe that's your problem."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Rachel put down her brief. "Seems to me as though you're trying to make a human personality think like a computer. I wouldn't think there'd be much point in that. Try taking out the programming. Just let the personality do the thinking."

  "That's ridiculous! If there's no programming, how would a personality know how to get things done?"

  "The same way a baby does it, trial and error, learning as you go. Trust me, Stephen, there isn't an automated system in the world nearly as complicated as the human body. An intelligent personality with data from the computer's information library to draw on and no sleep requirements can figure out any computer you give it in no time."

  Stephen threw back his head and laughed. Rachel's lips tightened. "Rachel, dearest," Stephen gasped out at last. "That's the silliest idea I've ever heard. It's a good thing you're a lawyer and not a computer specialist."

  Rachel rose from her chair and laid her brief in her briefcase before turning to her husband and saying in a hard voice, "You're right. I don't know that much about computers. But I do know about people, and one thing about people is that they don't like to be told what to do." She stared at him for a moment, her lips pressed firmly together. "I'm going to bed."

  Stephen had no chance to reply. Rachel's cell sounded with a priority message. Rachel glanced down at the screen and noted the address. "Homicide," she said in a tired voice. "I'll doubtless be a while." She shut her briefcase and walked toward the door.

  "Don't think this conversation is finished," Stephen said, his chin thrust out belligerently. "I don't know what got you so pissy, but I don't have to take it. We are getting to the bottom of it." What he really hated was seeing his wife dragged God-only-knows-where at every hour of the day and night, but he couldn't say that, could he?

  Rachel, well aware of her husband's thoughts, spared him a weary glance. "Oh, no, Stephen, this conversation is finished." The door slid silently closed behind her.

  Stephen knew from exp
erience that he could never sleep while she was gone, so, when she had still not returned home at 3:00 a.m., he was still sitting, frustrated, in front of his recalcitrant computer. He was toying with the idea of taking a hammer to the ridiculous thing when the house's irritating voice broke into his reverie.

  Officer Foster to see you, Mr. Bennet.

  "Stupid computer," Stephen mumbled under his breath. "He's probably here to see Rachel, only she's not back yet." With a martyred sigh, he dragged himself to his feet and trudged to the front door.

  The front door slid open to reveal a uniformed police officer, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Mr. Bennet nodded briefly and then said curtly, "I'm sorry, officer, but my wife isn't in just now. She was called off on a case. If you just tell my house the number where you can be contacted, I'll have my wife call you when she gets back in."

  "Mr. Bennet, I didn't come to see your wife. It—it's about your—wife."

  Stephen's hand gripped the door frame with suddenly white knuckles. "What happened?" he asked faintly.

  "One of the perps had a knife hidden and someone missed it. He tried to get out using your wife as a hostage, but when she wouldn't move, he—he slit her throat."

  "Slit her throat . . . ? A perp?" Stephen repeated numbly.

  "That's right, sir. We couldn't do anything, but . . . but he didn't get away. He was shot and killed by officers present."

  Stephen's legs lost all their strength and he dropped to his knees. "He slit her throat," he echoed hollowly, then looked up at the policeman with over-bright eyes. "But, surely, she's not dead! Tell me you were able to save her!"

  But there was no hope in the officer's face, just pity and genuine sorrow. He had known Rachel, too.

  Stephen closed his eyes and whispered, "Where is she?"

  "You don't have to identify the body, Mr. Bennet. I—we were able to do that. Really, sir, we'd like to spare you any unpleasantness we can. Mr. Bennet, sir, I'd just like to say what a pleasure it was to work with your wife. We can't tell you how sorry we are that—that . . ." The policeman cleared his throat. "She will be sorely missed."

  Stephen looked up again, his face shockingly pale and his eyes glittering with a strange haunted wildness. But his voice was maddeningly calm. "You have no idea." With steady slowness, he used the door jamb to pull himself to his feet and, without another word, backed into his house and closed the door.

  He didn't come out again until the funeral. At the funeral service, he only sat there silently, ignoring the flood of well-wishers and mourners. He had eyes only for her. She lay there with an expression on her face so like the one she usually wore that he could almost convince himself she wasn't dead, that this was only a cruel joke, but he need only glance at the high-necked blouse she would never have worn in real life to know that she was gone.

  He would never stroke back her unmanageable curls again or lose himself in her shimmering grey eyes. He would never see her rise fluidly to her feet again or favor him with her patient smile. She was gone and there was an empty aching in his chest that made it so he could hardly breathe.

  He left before the funeral moved to the cemetery. He couldn't watch them put her in the ground.

  He drove back to his house, but just sat in the car in his driveway, unable to bring himself to go back into the house that was inalterably hers, that fairly screamed to him of Rachel and yet was so palpably an imitation. Instead, he sat there, gripping the wheel tightly with shaking hands, staring at his home—her home—as a cross between purgatory and sanctuary.

  His car did not understand. For your information, Mr. Bennet, you are currently parked in your own driveway. If you require assistance with the door, you have only to request it, and I will be happy to open the door for you.

  "I am not a cripple," Stephen blazed. "I can take care of my own damn door. Can't you let a man sit in his own car in peace, you worthless heap of scrap epoxy?"

  I do not understand these instructions. Please rephrase and repeat your request.

  "Be damned if I do," Stephen raged, ripping the control panel open with furious fingers and found the memory disk containing the car's "persona"—the phraseology and voice of his car. "Persona," what a joke. Rachel had had a persona, a personality, a God-blessed soul, and Stephen was damned if he was going to put up with less for another moment.

  With a savage jerk, he thrust the door open and dropped the crystalline disk on the gravel where he broke it beneath his heel. "Take that, you sniveling imitation," he snarled at the plastic-coated remnants. Then he slammed the car door and kicked it for good measure, leaving an impressive dent as sign of his temper.

  The car answered with a soft whirring, and the dent began to fill itself with the same teal epoxy from which the car was made. This only added to Stephen's rage. He kicked the front fender, but the car patiently began filling in that dent as well. "Dammit!" Stephen roared, ripping open his door again and fumbling in the control panel. "If I want to dent my car, I will and don't even try to stop me—Ah! There you are, you little bastard!" The car became eerily silent as he spoke. In Stephen's hand was the little processor cube that held the programming for the car's every function. "What are you going to do now, you crummy hunk of plastic?"

  The car, stripped of its voice and its brain, said nothing. With a grunt of satisfaction, Stephen slipped back out of the car and crushed the cube beneath his foot with a distinct chuckle of satisfaction. He left his car door open just because he felt like it and, reveling in the fact that there was no voice to remonstrate with his actions, he made his way to the house.

  And confronted another voice. Please state your business, sir or madam.

  "Mr. Bennet is home, you impudent door, so let me in!" Stephen snarled, jamming his thumb into the ID plate. He shoved through the door when it was only half-open and ran, full-tilt, to the house's control panel, muttering, "No more! No more! Dammit, no more!"

  His ungentle fingers found the control panel and wrenched it open. He plucked the persona disk from its slot and shouted at it. "No more! Do you hear me? No more! No more inane phrases that don't mean anything! No more programmed pleasantries! You're not a 'persona.' You're not any damned thing!" He stared at his tiny reflection in the crystal surface, and added in a faded voice, "You're not Rachel and no amount of programming can bring her back. If only you were, if only I could hear her voice again! God! If only—"

  The reflection's eyes became wide with shock, surprise, revelation. Strangely enough, Stephen brought the disk to his lips for a fleeting kiss, then tossed it unceremoniously behind the couch and sprinted to the library. There it was, in its padded sheath: Rachel, the essential Rachel. He had to get it to work!

  He took a moment to search for an unprogrammed processor cube and then loped back to the control panel. He set the slot expander to it largest setting to take in the larger disk Rachel still lived on and slipped in all he really had left of his wife. Then, with trembling fingers, he pulled off the programmed processor cube and slid the empty one in its place. If he wanted her back, he figured, he could at least do it her way.

  Slowly, carefully, he closed the panel and felt it whirr back into life. The house stayed dim, though, as he waited for Rachel to come back to life. She'd figure it out, he knew.

  And he waited. The minutes ticked by. Ten and then twenty. Stephen got up shakily and stroked his hand over the voice box lovingly. "Rachel," he whispered achingly. "Oh, darling, where are you?" The box was silent. Stephen felt the tears in his eyes. "Rachel," he pleaded. "I need you!"

  And the light above his head came on. "Stephen?" squeaked a tinny voice over the voice box. "Stephen, is that you? Why are you crying? And why do I sound funny? Where am I? I don't feel right, somehow . . . "

  But Stephen said nothing, merely pressing his face to the voice box and sobbing uncontrollably, managing to gasp out her name at intervals, but nothing more as he emptied much of his grief on a ghost he had made himself.

  By the time Stephen had regained cont
rol of himself, Rachel had mastered the voice box well enough to sound quite like her old self. She murmured comforting words to Stephen as he wiped his streaming eyes on his sleeve and waited until he was breathing normally before she requested a complete explanation.

  When Stephen, who had regained his businesslike attitude with his composure, had finished explaining things, Rachel remained silent for quite five minutes, which is a terribly long time for a computer. "I'm dead," was all she finally said.

  "Not anymore, not completely!" Stephen insisted. "I couldn't live without you."

  "Stephen, you selfish idiot, why couldn't you just let me go? Do you think I want to spend the rest of my—? Oh, dear, I haven't one anymore, have I? Trapped for eternity in the electronic bowels of a two-story residence." Rachel managed a weary chuckle.

  "No, Rachel, you don't understand! We can be together, forever, now. God, Rachel, don't you know how I need you? I'm lost—lost!"

  "So, I'm trapped in this damned house, with nothing to do but hold your hand?"

  "Rachel," he protested, genuinely hurt. "Don't you love me? My God, woman, I've given you a second life!"

  "Doing the dishes and regulating the air conditioning. All your talk about not making me a drudge and you lock my mind into a housekeeping computer. You call this a second life?"

  "You never talked to me like that before, Rachel. How can you say such things? Rachel, Rachel, how else could I have you back? Don't you understand?"

  There was a sigh over the voice box. "Yes, Stephen, I can understand. I can sympathize, even. But while you're getting to hear my voice and a clean house in the bargain, I'm in prison, locked in a house with nothing to do but wait on you and listen to you complain. I don't have my own life back, just that small portion I shared with you. Stephen, why didn't you think of me when you did this?"

  "Rachel! It's better than being dead!"

  "How would I know? I'm just a recording. I never died, and however lifelike I might seem, Rachel is gone. I could never be anything more than a shadow."

  "Don't talk that way, Rachel! Don't you love me?"

  "Rachel loved you. I'm just a mass of code on a disk. How can I feel anything? Though I feel like I feel things. I feel disgusted and used, and I feel tired of putting up with your selfish whining. I don't know. I need time, Stephen, time to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my—my existence."

  Stephen stroked his hand along her voice box, a tear slipping down each cheek. "I never meant to hurt you, Rachel. I couldn't think . . . I only knew I needed you."

  Rachel said nothing for a moment. When her voice came back, it was much gentler. "How long since you've slept, Stephen?"

  "Four days. Since you—since you were . . . "

  "Go to bed, Stephen. You're tired and I'm still confused. Just get some sleep."

  "Will you be with me? Please, Rachel, tell me you still love me."

  "I'll stay with you, Stephen. I'll talk to you until you go to sleep."

  Somewhat satisfied, Stephen placed a kiss on her voice box and dragged himself up the stairs.

  Stephen slept for three days. Rachel handled, using only the tiniest amount of effort, the household necessities and kept an eye on the man in the bed. Tuesday morning, she blasted a squeal into his room.

  Stephen sat bolt upright in bed. "What the hell?" he gasped, thrusting fingers through his tousled hair.

  "Time to get up, go to work," Rachel said serenely. "The shower's ready and breakfast will be as soon as you get downstairs."

  "Maybe I don't feel like work today."

  "Oh, yes, you do. You wouldn't be half this grumpy if you hadn't played truant for a week. Besides, I can't stand having you around all day. I want to blast classic movie musical soundtracks all through the house and you know how you hate them."

  Stephen began stripping off very gamy clothing. "I don't want to go to work," he said petulantly. "If you loved me, you'd want me around."

  "Grow up, Stephen and take a damned shower, will you? You've equipped this house with odor-sensors and I can smell you from here. Clean up and have breakfast."

  Stephen shoved his clothes down the chute, but stomped his feet to the bathroom to show his displeasure. Rachel only laughed.

  When he wandered down to breakfast, he was much more presentable, but not better tempered. "I don't want eggs this morning," he complained, grimacing into his plate.

  "Yes you do," his house said agreeably. "Drink your juice."

  "You were never this pushy before," he said, eyes narrowed. "What's gotten into you?"

  "I don't know, maybe there's a certain freedom being dead. It's lonely, but there's a great deal to do if you've got the will to look for it. I can watch movies and read books I haven't seen in years and I've written half a novel while you were sleeping. No typing, no spelling worries, it just comes out as fast as I can think it. I can even send it to publishers and no one has to know I'm not a real person!"

  "Glad someone's happy," Stephen grumbled. "What about me?"

  "What about you? You're clean, fed, ready for the world. I'm talking to you, even though I'm not exactly certain why."

  The sulky look left Stephen's face and he looked wistful. "I wish I could feel you again, Rachel."

  Rachel sighed and said just as wistfully, "I wish I could feel me again, too. But if you design a stupid robot thing so that you can watch me move, the first thing I'm going to do is rip your balls off, so don't even think about it. Now, go to work."

  Stephen thrust his chair back with a screech of plastic against plastic. "Fine! I'm out of here. You know, Rachel, since you've been dead, you've been impossible to live with!"

  "So who asked you to?" Rachel said amiably. "Oh, and don't forget to go by our lawyers' office. You've got to sign some papers so you can get my insurance money."

  "I don't want the insurance money. I don't need it."

  "Well I want it. Maybe I'll go shopping."

  "Smart-ass!" Stephen picked up his brief case and turned to the door, then stopped. "I've screwed-up my car. I broke the programming cube and the stupid talking disk."

  "Oh," Rachel said. "Do you want me to order a new set?"

  "Hell, I can't take that damned thing anymore, and I sure as hell don't want you, while you're in this rotten mood, in the car with me. Besides, I need you for the house."

  "Thank God. I hate being in the car with you."

  "Damn, Rachel, when did you get this mouth on you? Hmm. I know! I've got me on disk, too. That should teach you, Rachel. I'll just chat with myself on the way to work."

  Rachel was silent a moment. "Really, Stephen, I think you're making a mistake. You really aren't the best driving companion."

  "Hah!" Stephen barked. "Don't worry your silly little circuits about me. I'll get along with me just fine." He tromped into the library and grabbed a blank processor cube and his own personality disk, then stalked back out. The front door opened silently without fanfare and he all but skipped down the gravel walk. She'd see.

  As he reached the car, he heard what sounded suspiciously like a giggle from the house behind him.

  It was the work of only a few minutes to install his personality into the car, but it was nearly half an hour before there was any sign of life, as it were, from the car's voice box. "What the hell? Where am I?" it croaked.

  "Hey, Stephen, you're in for a shock. You know that personality transfer I am working on? Well, it worked and you, or rather, I am now installed in my own car."

  "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! Who is this and what's the game? What did you slip me? I mean I feel weird."

  "I'm Stephen and the reason you feel weird is that you are no longer in a body any more. Instead, you are inside a computer mind controlling a Xiver XTX-350 automobile."

  The car's camera whirred to life. "Hey, I can see you! Well, I'll be damned! It is me! You mean that really worked? I'm part of a car? Wow, get a load of all this. I can access all the traffic laws and I know where . . . Hey, what's the
matter with my fender? Were you in an accident?" The car began humming as it began filling in the dents.

  The human Stephen blushed. "Well, no, I lost my temper. I was just sitting in the car and the damned car's voice wouldn't leave me alone, wouldn't let me just sit without pestering me with that stupid voice."

  "Yea, Steve, I know what you mean. They drive me crazy." There was a short pause. "Not that it's something I'll have to deal with any more." The car-Stephen chuckled. "What were you just sitting in the car for?"

  "It was right after the funeral and I just couldn't face going into the house with Rachel gone."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Oh! I forgot you didn't know. Rachel . . . Rachel is dead."

  "What!?"

  It took Stephen another half an hour to calm his car down. The car-Stephen, strangely silent, made almost no comment on the trip to work other than to point out the occasional oncoming car and to bark "Watch your speed, you idiot!" twice.

  Stephen, figuring the car needed some time to grieve, was patient and similarly silent. When he pulled into his parking space, he noticed the fender, although filled in, was wavy and mottled. Apparently, his personality hadn't quite gotten everything figured out yet. Give it time, he told himself firmly, rather forgetting how angry he had been when the car had tried filling the dents in correctly.

  All day at work, he kept almost breaking the news to his superiors. He walked to Davidson's office maybe twenty times, but each time he stopped, and he wasn't certain why. Finally, he decided that this thing was so big, he owed it to everyone to make certain it was a success before he advertised it. With this admirable intention firmly in mind, he muddled through his day.

  As he slid into his cooled seat, he waited to hear his own voice. And heard it. "Do you have any idea how boring it is sitting in here all day? I'm going out of my mind!"

  "You haven't got a mind, silly car. If you were bored, why didn't you access a computer library on a tight channel? You could have been reading or something."

  "And how long before that bores me stiff? It was a crappy thing to do to me, locking me inside a stupid little car. It's a crappy thing to do to anybody."

  "That's what Rachel said." Stephen shook his head. "But it's not the same for you. I didn't do it to you, I did it to me. You just happen to be me."

  "That's a load of bullshit. I'm in here and you're not! I'm bored and you've got a life. You gonna tell me that's fair?"

  Stephen ground his thumb into the ID plate. "Let's just go. You're in a car, like it or not, so you might as well make yourself useful."

  "OK, I'll drive."

  "Oh, no, you won't. I don't let anyone drive but me." Stephen put his car into gear as he spoke and pulled out of the parking garage. It wasn't a moment before car-Stephen made himself heard.

  "Slow down, you idiot! This is a school zone."

  "Who are you calling an idiot?"

  "I didn't kick in my own fender!"

  "Well, you didn't do much of a job fixing the damn thing."

  "Watch out, damn you! That, for your information, was a stop sign. Who taught you how to drive?"

  "The same person who taught you, you smart-ass ball of circuits: Dave, you know, your brother Dave?"

  "Well, you're an awful student because you can't drive worth shit! Oncoming."

  Stephen turned the wheel barely in time to avoid a collision. "Want to give me a little more warning next time?"

  "Pay attention and I won't have to," the car retorted.

  "I've had about all I'm gonna take from you," Stephen growled, making a left-hand turn from a right-hand lane, and narrowly missing a broadside from the car coming up on his left.

  "What are you crazy? You call this driving? You're gonna get us both killed!"

  "Shut up, you're just a recording on disk. You aren't alive."

  "I won't be if you keep driving. Watch it! That was a kid you almost hit! That's it! I'm driving!" The wheel suddenly jumped from the human Stephen's hands.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing! Give me back that wheel this instant!"

  "Oh, no, I've watched you drive long enough. Just sit back, you homicidal maniac, and enjoy the ride."

  "Look, I don't care if you think you are me. You don't have the right to—Holy shit! Did you see how close—? Oh my God!"

  "What are you griping about? I had plenty of room. I know what I'm doing! You just calm down and I'll have us home in twenty minutes."

  Twenty minutes later. "Yes, officer. I'm sorry, officer. I won't let it happen again, officer."

  "See that you don't," the policeman said curtly, torn between the urge to take this smart-aleck in and the desire to leave this crazy well enough alone. First the man had started cursing, but with his mouth closed as if he thought the policeman couldn't hear him. Then he went crazy and kicked in the car's control panel and ripped its voice box right out. Some people shouldn't be allowed to own cars.

  Stephen, meanwhile, glared with satisfaction at his car's ruined brain. He pulled out his pocketphone and called for a wrecker. He'd have a new brain installed and would welcome, with relief, the canned sound of those inane phrases. The disk of his personality, broken in half, hung half out of the control panel. Stephen knew an almost uncontrollable urge to set a match to it. Never again. It's a damn good thing he hadn't said anything to his superiors about this. The world wasn't ready for a pre-installed back seat driver.

  And most personalities weren't ready to settle for life as a computer brain. Rachel. He'd let her make the choice.

  It was nearly nine when he found his way home. The front door opened without prompting or comment. His coat fell unnoticed to the floor and his briefcase was God-only-knows-where. "Rachel," he whispered.

  The light came on in the dining room. "Come on in, Stephen. Your dinner's waiting."

  Stephen stumbled into the dining room, but ignored the table. Instead he pressed his face to the voice box and whispered her name again.

  "What is it, Stephen?"

  Stephen lifted his face and there were tears streaming down it. "How did you do it, Rachel? How did you?" he gasped.

  "Do what?" Rachel asked patiently. "Are you alright, Stephen?"

  "No. I just killed myself. I couldn't take me any more. I couldn't. Half an hour with myself and I break myself in two. How did you do it, Rachel? How? How in the hell did you put up with me?"

  Rachel's melodious laughter echoed from the voice box. "I warned you not to put yourself in the car. You are definitely not at your best when driving."

  "Rachel, I'm an asshole."

  "True. So?"

  "How did you put up with me? How did you stand it? Have I never thought of anyone but myself?"

  "No, I don't think so," Rachel said quietly. "In all the time we were married, you never asked me about my day, or my aspirations. You never wondered what I did as a girl or even tried to enjoy the things I enjoyed most." She paused. "But you loved me, anyway. You couldn't stand the thought of being without me. You never looked at me without making me feel beautiful and, sometimes, you even made me feel smart. When something wonderful happened for me, no one was happier than you were. You were never threatened by my career or my intelligence. We didn't always agree, but we did on the important things. You never tried to hold me back from what I really wanted to do. And you never let me forget that, in one life at least, I was essential. If I gave you enough time, you were even able to laugh at yourself. I don't really know why I loved you so much. But I couldn't imagine existing, even as a shadow, without you being here. If a memory can love, Stephen, I love you as I did when I was a person."

  Stephen took a deep breath and let it out shakily. "If you don't want this half-life, I will let you go, Rachel. Don't think I don't want you or don't need you. I still do, maybe more than I ever did, but I'm going to let you make the choice. Can you be content locked in this house with only a jerk like me for company or would you rather I put you back in your padded case and let you be free fo
rever?"

  The house was silent.

  "Well? Tell me now, Rachel, before I change my mind, and I swear I'll leave you alone forever. It's the least I can do— Rachel, tell me! Please! What do you want?"

  "I want you to never feel like you're alone in this world. I love you, Stephen."

  "Can you . . . can you . . . "

  "So, I'll find new aspirations, new aspects of life to explore, like writing or accessing all the libraries in the world. I can watch movies twenty-four hours a day. I'll be fine. I'll adapt."

  Stephen stood there, quivering for a moment and then pressed himself passionately against the voice box again. "I never really knew you, Rachel. I never realized . . . "

  Stephen could hear her patient smile from the voice box. "Tell me," he whispered. "Tell me about Rachel, about something she did or was when she was a little girl. I've been married to you for eight years. It's about time I learned who you are."

  So Rachel told him, in her soft low voice, about a quiet little girl. Stephen lay down on a couch and listened, his eyes closed. He would never see that patient smile again or watch her rise fluidly to her feet. He would never feel the touch of her hand on his skin or smooth back her unruly curls with his trembling fingers.

  But now, at last, listening to a ghost he created, he began to appreciate the woman who had loved him and realize how grateful he was that he had managed to keep the best part of her intact.