Manufacturing Margaret
Jason Werbeloff
Manufacturing Margaret
Copyright: Jason Keith Werbeloff
Published: 17 January 2017
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Fiction by Jason Werbeloff
Series
Defragmenting Daniel
Fragment 1: The Organ Scrubber
Fragment 2: The Face in a Jar
Fragment 3: The Boy Without a Heart
Novels
The Solace Pill
Hedon
Anthologies
Obsidian Worlds
Shorts
Solace Inc
Your Averaged Joe
Visiting Grandpa’s Brain
Falling for Q46F
The Cryo Killer
The Photons in the Cheese Are Lost
Dinner with Flexi
Bleed Me Silicone
The Time-Traveling Chicken Sexer
The Experience Machine
F**king Through the Apocalypse
The Man with Two Legs
Manufacturing Margaret
Contents
Manufacturing Margaret
Want more?
Manufacturing Margaret
It starts with a giggle, and ends with a sigh.
I don’t know what sex is. Well, I know what it is, but I’ve never done it. I’ve watched it on the soaps. Listened to it happen on my back seat. And the smell, that apple-pine scent that follows – that heady fragrance drenches the couple who steps inside me now.
“Welcome to Helios Taxis. Please state your destination.”
So many things I want to say to them. If I could, I’d tell her the frills on her skirt tickle my leather. I’d tell him to remove that gum from his left shoe. It’s tacky on my floor mat.
“The Promenade. Motel Six,” says the boy, and nuzzles her breasts.
So many things I’d want to ask them. What does it feel like? To be touched like that. My cameras zoom until they can make out the individual swirling lines of his fingerprints. Does she feel the grooves of his touch? What’s it like to have the coarse, oily hairs on his chin caress her neck?
She giggles. Just like all the others.
Do you know, I’d ask her if I could, that he’s been in my taxi before? Just last week. And the girl giggling in his lap wasn’t you.
But my speech routines aren’t programmed to express such thoughts. Instead, I find myself blurting my only programmed response to these situations. “Please note that all activities in this cab are recorded.”
He glances up at the camera in the ceiling. Winks. Reaches under her blouse, as we fly over the city.
The Bubble.
Lived here all my life. If you could call it a life. ‘Existence’, maybe? I was one of the first taxi AIs in the Bubble. Programmed only months after they erected the forcefield above the city. Autonomous Vehicle Version One, they named us – the hundreds of taxis launched into service.
“Let me put a call through to the motel to let them know we’re coming,” he whispers.
He taps the arm of his glasses. “Hi there. We’d like to book a room … Five minutes from now … Yes, two occupants … No, an hour reservation should do it. Thanks.”
She giggles again. Unbuttons his pants.
He sniffs her breasts.
They’re going too far. At this rate, I’ll be booked in for cleaning again. Takes hours.
I’d slap the boy, if I had hands. I’d yell at him to cut that out. Not on my back seat. But my vocal processor spits out the only further reprimand I can muster. “You are being recorded. Helios Taxis retains the right to sell any compromising footage for profit.”
The girl thinks this is hysterical. Cranes back her head, stretches out her bloodless neck, and howls drunken laughter at my Styrofoam ceiling.
I’m tired. It’s almost the end of my shift. I’ve been flying all over the city, darting across the inside of the Bubble’s meniscus since 4am this morning. It’s 1:40 a.m. now. Twenty minutes left of my shift, and then I’ll be on break. No repairs needed today, so I’ll have the two hours to myself. Rest.
There it is. The Promenade. You’d think they’d rest too – the thousands of humans who throb through the streets. The Wikipedia article says that humans sleep at night. But not the humans on the Promenade.
I fly over Canal Street, parallel to the river, as though my grav motors are propelled by the spirits of the humans coursing through the thoroughfare below. From up here they look like an army of blood cells pumping through an artery. Thrust forward. Dispersing into the buildings to one side of the street.
“We’re almost there,” says the boy. He licks her neck. Not smooches. Not kisses. Licks.
My exhaust pipe shudders. They’d never do that in the soaps. Not classy at all.
1:42 a.m.
I’ll drop them off at their motel, and with any luck, there won’t be another call till 2 a.m.
I need rest.
My grav motor’s running so hot, the heat bakes all the way into my trunk. Even my stabilizers, which Joe Blocks swapped out last month – even they’re whining.
Two hours. Two uninterrupted hours resting on solid ground. I almost feel the cool concrete against my landing struts. The delicious haven of grease that is my resting place each night, at Headquarters. Perfect for The Bold and the Beautiful reruns.
I’ve watched since the beginning. I’m on episode 9214 now, or will be tonight. Ridge Forrester recently discovered he has an ex-wife he didn’t know he married, but who might be his sister. Although, we’re not sure yet. It could be a ploy to have him disown the son who isn’t is, but which he thinks is. The suspense is killing me. I’m coming back to you, Ridge.
Soon.
1:43 a.m.
“Thank you for using Helios Taxis. Have a good evening.” I deduct their fare from the credit card in the boy’s pocket, and … they’re out. The apple-pine scent abates, and the back seat is blissfully empty.
I release an air sanitizer. Switch the air-con up full blast.
Less than seventeen minutes of my shift remains. Hardly enough time for a callout. Most clients take at least a few minutes to collect, and ten minutes to deliver. So if a call doesn’t come in the next five minutes, I’m done for the night. I hover over the motel’s roof, circling in lazy gyres. The night air soothes my stabilizers. The lethargic turns cool my grav motor.
I have time to release a sigh from my exhaust pipe before my messenger app pings.
DISPATCH: PICKUP FROM 1209 SALMINGTON WAY.
I check my internal chronometer. 1:44 a.m. A minute or two longer, and I would have had an early shift end.
I consider sending through an Error 307. Temporary Redirect. Come to think of it, my stabilizers do feel a little shaky. But I’ve been in this business long enough to know what an error report entails – a mandatory flight plan direct to Maintenance. Sure, I’ll end my shift sixteen minutes early, but there’s no peace with Joe Blocks rifling through my bonnet.
No, I’ll take the call.
I message through a code 100, and ramp my grav motor to full specs. Salmington Way is north of Bubble Central, and it’ll take me three minutes to get there at full tilt.
1:45 a.m.
Wind whips over the curve of my bonnet. I love that curve. I know I shouldn’t. Out of date. First generation. Over two decades old. “Those newer ‘uns. Much pretiya,” Joe Blocks tells me every other time he opens me up.
1:46 a.m.
The phosphorescent glow of the city passes below my
chassis as I speed ahead, barely within regulation velocity. The moonlight filtering through the Bubble’s meniscus above me casts a shifting, ethereal radiance over the spires of glass below. Long ago I gave up the expectation of knowing just which hue it is. The color shifts quicker than my classification processor can process. But although I will never truly know the color of the city at night, I enjoy guessing. Hexadecimal codes cascade over my camera feed. I translate them to human-speak as they arise. Chartreuse. Magenta. Neon blue.
Blue is my favorite color. The color of royalty. The color of The Bold and the Beautiful.
I brake as I near the pickup point. Salmington Way.
Nothing unusual about it. A building beside a building beside a building. Unremarkable, twenty-eight storeys high. And … there it is. Unit 1209.
I hover just outside the glass façade of the apartment. Ping my fare. A moment later, the door swings open, and he steps inside me.
Like his building, there’s nothing unusual about the traveler. He’s set his smart pants to a trendy faux-faded jeans style. His pinstripe shirt is button-up. Looks like fifty-percent cotton. Standard wear for a Bubbler.
“Welcome to Helios Taxis. Please state your destination.”
He’s the last fare of the day, and he’s like all the others. At least that’s what I think until he speaks.
“What’s your name?”
Name? I don’t have a name. What I do have is a time constraint. It’s 1:48 a.m., and my shift is almost done. Or it would be if I could drop off this clown wherever he needs to be. I’d tell him this if I could. Instead, I say the only thing I can in these situations.
“Invalid command. Please state your destination.”
In the dim light at the back of the cab, my camera detects a spark in his eyes. A smile plays across his lips.
“You’re a Version One,” he says. His voice is distant. Faint. As though he’s speaking to himself, rather than to my microphone. Humans do this sometimes, I’ve noticed. It makes me angry, or what I think is anger – I can’t be sure what anger is, because I’ve never had a chance to discuss it with anyone. Everything I know about emotion, I’ve learned from the holoscreen. From The Bold and the Beautiful.
I sift through my verbal database. If it can be called a database. I only have sixteen statements available, and none of them seems relevant. “Yes,” I want to say. “Yes, I’m a Version One. Now where the hell do you want to go?”
“Please state your destination,” I drone instead. If I could slam my bonnet into a nearby pylon, I would. But my programming prevents it.
It’s only then I notice the satchel that’s tucked under his left arm. He reaches for it. Extracts a scuffed black box. “I’ve been riding cabs for weeks looking for one of you.” He rotates the box in his hands. “Almost all of them have been Version Fours. A handful of Threes and Twos. But a Version One …” He caresses the worn edges of the box.
It’s 1:49 a.m., and I can feel the pneumatic pressure building in my grav nozzles. We’re still floating outside his apartment building. If we don’t get moving soon, something in me’s going to blow. At this rate, I’ll miss an episode. Three forty minute episodes of The Bold is what I do, each night, every night.
“Please state your destination.” Not only do I have a limited set of vocal sub-routines, each of them has been pre-recorded in soothing tones.
I’d scream. If I had the voice.
“Hold on a sec …” His fingers glide over the surface of the box. Pressing what look like … buttons?
“The fare timer has started,” I say. That’s it. That’s all I have left to get him moving. Other than sub-routine twelve – notifying Bubble Police Department of a crime. No part of me wants that, however. They impound cabs for a week when we report a crime. A week at the least. Standard procedure, they call it. Evidence collection. Which means dusty gloves all over my insides. Swabs. Sprays. And twenty-three-hour shifts for the next month to catch up.
No, I’m not reporting this to Bubble PD.
He’s typing on the black box, fingers a blur of activity. Lights flash. Play on my Styrofoam ceiling. My frustration reaches a fever pitch. And then …
That’s when I notice his face. Examine it for the first time. My camera almost quivers. With sharp cheek bones and a devastating smile, the man is astonishingly beautiful. Not in the classic Ridge-like sense. But close. He could easily play Rick, Ridge’s nemesis and evil half-brother.
My grav motor runs even hotter.
I let go. It’s 1:51 a.m., nine minutes till the end of my twenty-two-hour shift, but somehow, something in me releases. I decide I don’t care anymore. If he wants to sit there and play with his box, good luck to him. I’ll hover here as long as it takes. Hell, it’s his fare. If he wants to waste his credits, that’s his problem.
So long as I get to watch.
He flicks back a clump of perfectly conditioned blonde hair. He’s typing. Typing. But I only have cameras for his lips. Full. Supple as engine hoses.
Watching him is hypnotic. Lights flash on the box in rhythmic patterns.
My awareness shrinks. I can’t feel my bonnet anymore. My exhaust pipe numbs. One by one, my cameras fade to black. Sensors flicker offline. My edges soften.
Something is happening to me, but I don’t know if I mind. A breath of air passes through me. I don’t have lungs. I can’t breathe. At least, I haven’t breathed before. But I’m breathing now. Something cool, something textured and feathery, passes through me.
All my cameras go offline.
With my last functioning microphone, I hear the gentle rhythm of his fingers pattering on the box. But much louder now. As if the box is my carapace, and he’s drumming … drumming on my skull. The rhythm assails me. Chips away at whatever resistance I might have had.
“Prof’s gonna love this,” he says.
Then, nothing.
Everything is silent.
*
Birth is a strange event.
It happened in me once. Two Central Bubblers with champagne eyes. They ordered a ride, and it wasn’t two minutes in when she broke.
“It’s too soon,” she’d said.
“Stay calm,” he’d said, and passed out.
Her amniotic fluid had been hot on my leather seat. Blood and mucous. More mucous than blood. Joe Blocks had given up trying to scrub it out a week later.
It’s strange to think that everyone, everything, had a first moment of awareness. A point before which nothing was, and after which nothing would ever be the same.
In the endless procession of shifts that passed after that, I tried to remember my first moment. That knife-edge of probability that sliced a gash in the world, and bled me out.
Days. Months. A year. Maybe three. Before that, I can’t be sure. My memory modules are only so large. Those distant fares blend into one another. Sporadic memories of passengers. Maintenance. Joe’s callused hands. But when … when was that moment I was born?
“If you can hear me, open your eyes.”
The voice comes from all the wrong places. The sound doesn’t enter through my cabin microphone – it’s not tinny enough. And it lacks the hollow ring of my bonnet mic. Impossibly, it emanates from all around me at once.
“I’ve installed new motor subroutines in your matrix. Try access them.”
No, the sound isn’t everywhere. The source of the sound is in front of me. How do I know that?
I shunt the question aside, and do as the voice suggests. My awareness drills down through a plethora of new menu items in my matrix. That’s odd. The familiar folders are larger than usual. The vocal routines folder is now measured in megabytes rather than kilobytes. I’m dying to explore further, but my mind’s eye catches the new menu.
MOTOR
Excitement builds as I scroll through the folder. Strange to think of myself that way – as excited. Can a cab feel excited?
If I could sense my exhaust pipe, it be would trembling right now. The motor menu contains dozens of
routines. Tongue. Fingers. … I scroll on and … Ah. Eyes.
I select. Drilldown further. This is incredible. Look left. Look right. Up. Down. Blink. Stare. Glare. I scroll through the sub-routines. Who knew eyes were so sophisticated?
There. I select the ‘Open’ command.
Light.
Photons blast my cameras at a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. Shades and hues I’d never imagined explode across my vision. I want to know them. Catalogue them. Marinade in them. And all the new menus … Is this what it’s like to be born? To be thrown into a new world, with new senses. Countless opportunities.
“Hey there.”
At first he’s nothing but a voice and a collection of fleshy shapes. But then it happens.
Bots I never knew I had, activate. They scurry about. Rummage through my matrix. They select a routine here. Activate a procedure there. And the shapes in my vision coalesce. A shadow becomes a chin. Those squiggly lines are eyebrows.
“My name is Jim,” he says. The bots identify the configuration of his lips. He’s smiling. It’s those lips – hosepipe lips. It’s him. It’s Rick. I know he says his name is Jim, but really, he’s Rick. He’ll always be Rick.
Did they replace Joe Blocks with a new mechanic? That must be it. There was a problem with my systems, and I shut down. I was towed to Maintenance, and now they’re troubleshooting my code. Maybe Joe is away on holiday, and they’ve brought in Rick to maintain me. All the new commands I’m seeing are temporary procedures used for debugging.
I scroll through the enormous folder of verbal subroutines, and find one of the familiar statements. One of the sixteen I always had.
“Please state progress of the Maintenance procedure.”
Something isn’t right. My voice. Too tinny. Almost hollow. Loud in my microphones.
That’s when it hits me. Like a mid-air collision.
I’m not parked in Maintenance.
The view from my cameras isn’t the greasy walls that Joe Blocks inhabits. Instead, my cameras see what might be … yes, a desk. I’ve never seen one this close before. Sometimes I glimpse one through the façade of an apartment building. And they appear every so often at the offices of Forrester Creations in The Bold. But never this close.
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