“I’m afraid that the first thing I’m going to have to do, Mr. McNamee, is ask for your Efi. Have to make sure you’re you!”
This Matt guy was almost nauseously chipper. I also noted how him being ‘Matt’ and me being ‘Mr. McNamee’ somehow seemed to make me feel at a disadvantage – the same way that a police officer saying your surname evokes a feeling of impending prosecution.
“Um… yeah. Hey, call me Tim, by the way.”
“Sure Tim!”
Nope, didn’t work.
You were obscured out on the landing by two black-scrubbed giants – Olly and Jim, according to the name tags – so I had to go and find my ID still having not seen you properly. Matt checked my card in a portable reader and handed it back to me.
“Hey, Tim, you might wanna think about replacing that old card with an Efi Chip. Can’t leave one of those in your other trousers! And, for the next six months, they’re holding the upgrade fee to just a hundred euros.
“That’s right, Tim, a hundred euros!”
I hoped that I was grinning. According to the information pack that I’d been sent, these guys were going to be here for a couple of hours at least. Just tie me to a rack and be done with it.
“O-k-a-y,” Matt carried on, apparently deterred by my silence. “So, Tim, let me introduce you to your new best friend…” he stepped aside with a flourish and the two goons parted in his wake like the curtains in an entrance scene to a burlesque house. They parted to reveal you; all in black like them, but wearing casual trousers, a long-necked sweater and a knee-length gabardine trench coat. “This is Mina.”
I knew that you were Mina, I had chosen your name myself, but I had also chosen not to see any pictures of you before you arrived. I had made decisions on all sorts of genetic imperatives, but had ultimately shied away from specifying too many parameters about how you looked. All CyberG Companion models were going to be fairly pretty unless you decided otherwise, but with legislation specifying a certain level of variation between every Companion produced, it wasn’t exactly like they could bring up a catalogue and let me say, ‘I want that one.’
The first thing that struck me – aside from the fact that you were obviously beautiful – is just how young you looked… worryingly so. Maybe my concern showed, because your expression – kind of shy, but with a hopeful grin – fell a little after a moment. Snapping out of it, I did the only other thing I could think of and put out my hand. You took it, so softly, so gently that it was almost as if it wasn’t there.
“Hello Mina,” I said, “pleased to meet you. I’m Tim.”
“Hi Tim,” you replied, flicking a look up at Matt behind my left shoulder as you shook my hand. “Thanks for ordering me.”
It was probably just something that Matt had told you to say when you met me, but your words helped to make the strangeness of the whole situation hit home hard. The woman (barely more than a girl from the look of it) stood before me would not exist at all had I not ordered her from CyberG. In a way, she owed her entire existence, everything she was, to me. I didn’t like the thought of it at all; for one thing, it seemed like a lot of pressure. Suddenly I felt woefully ill-prepared to look after any other person’s needs.
“If you could show us where Olly and Jim can help Mina unpack, Tim,” said Matt, interrupting my mild panic attack, “then you and I can sit down and get on with all the formalities.”
****
“I’m sure you already know a lot of this stuff, Tim, but we find it’s helpful to have a refresher at the hand-over time.”
It was the eighth time he’d said that, I’d counted, yet I hadn’t complained once. At least, not outwardly.
“So, we have to remember that Mina is as fragile as any other person, Tim. Sounds obvious, I know, but there really are idiots out there who assume that cyborgs are indestructible – titanium-lined, or something.
“But the truth is that Mina is ninety-nine and a half percent like us – flesh, bone and blood, with all of its vulnerabilities. Only a few parts of her brain contain non-organic materials, and there are a few important differences at the genetic level, but otherwise she is you and me. A much, much less learned you and me, however.
“All companions’ initial learning is carefully structured so that, though capable of looking after themselves to a certain level, they really are very… green about the world. This is so that much of what Mina learns about the world will be from you and that, in turn, encourages the bonding process. Put more bluntly, Tim, it helps to make sure that she falls in love with you. And, hopefully, will also help to make Mina the ideal sort of partner for you as well.”
I failed to stifle a little laugh. She had a pulse and she was, apparently, going to fall in love with me – ideal… that was dangerously close to being overqualified. Matt looked thrown for a moment, but then carried on as if I hadn’t just made myself look rather unstable.
I could hear the occasional sound coming from where you were unpacking in the bedroom, but I couldn’t see you from where I was. As nervous as I was about the impending point when the CyberG people left and we were alone together, I wanted to see you again. I’d seen you for barely half a minute since you had arrived.
“Now, I’m sure you understand all about the movement restrictions on cyborgs, Tim, but I think we’ll just go over it again, as getting it wrong can have some very serious consequences. Unfortunately, this isn’t something that’s down to us, this is a matter of European Federal Law.
“So, we call this... your flat,” he spread his arms like a preacher encompassing all of the Lord’s bounty, “Mina’s ‘Home Location’. And Mina has a ‘Habitation Zone’ which extends for a ten kilometre radius around her Home Location. Mina must stay in her Habitation Zone at all times, unless you have made prior arrangements with our Department of Travel. You may apply for one trip of up to a week in each complete year from day of receipt – today – and additional trip licences may be granted in exceptional circumstances. However, the department reserves the right to deny any applications without having to give full reasons as to why.”
Matt had just said the first thing that I didn’t already know. I looked up at him and thought of saying something, but then what could I do? As Matt had said, it was Federal Legislation; and anyway, all I could think of at that moment was getting through this and seeing you, alone. Every minute that Matt prattled on doubled the mixture of fear and anticipation growing inside me, and I felt like every tense, knotted muscle, was about to burst out of my skin and go wriggling across the floor.
“If Mina approaches within three hundred metres of the extent of her zone, an embedded message will inform her to turn back. If she fails to do so and leaves her zone without permission, then, unless there can be proved to have been some very compelling extenuating circumstances – and they would have to be fairly life or death, Tim – then she and you will be issued with a formal warning... There are no second formal warnings.”
I had to admit, he did that bit quite well – built the tension and everything.
“Mina will be taken from your custody and returned to CyberG, and all decisions regarding her will be handed over to the company.”
But he had let himself down only a sentence later. That was his not entirely tactful way of saying that they would probably kill you. Maybe this might sound a little insensitive now, sat here beside you with things as they are, but I’ve come to realise that these apparently draconian restrictions placed upon your existence, don’t make you as different from regular citizens – like me – as it might appear, only... more poignant.
“And, of course, there’s the big one. I’m sure you already know this, Tim, but we need to make sure that things are clear from the start. Mina has a life expectancy of five years, Tim. You’ll have her for that long, but probably not more than a month or two beyond that.”
I love you, baby. God, I love you so much.
****
You were in a red and white chequered dress and your hair was tie
d back in a bun, your shoes were these tiny slip-on things that reminded me a little of ballet shoes, so dainty were they. The overall effect made me think of an American housewife in one of those very old films – I saw one, maybe twenty years ago, made not too long after World War Two. It made you look very much like the homemaker – a hot homemaker, but a homemaker nonetheless. At the time, I guessed that maybe it was – or had recently – been in fashion, me not having the slightest idea about such things except that they all seemed to come back around again, sooner or later.
It helped to make you look a little older too. I had, as sensitively as I could, brought the matter up with Matt, and he had got all flustered and apologetic, saying that he forgot to mention that not all companions’ bodies completed their maturation cycle before delivery, but that you should reach your specified age within a week at most. I quickly realised that he had not so much ‘forgot’ to bring it up as been waiting to see if I did, because he then started handing me Cyberlife vouchers as compensation.
I was just relieved; of course, naïve as I can be, it was a while before the obvious grey area around handing over a not yet fully matured companion occurred to me.
You had returned from your room already changed as Matt and I were finishing up, and just stood in the middle of the room like you didn’t know what to do with yourself, while I hurried through getting the CyberG goons out of the door.
Finally, it was just you and me, and I could see you properly for the first time. It seemed to me that your eyes were as brown as your hair. Your skin was a kind of pale olive and every bone from your jaw line to where your feet disappeared into those tiny shoes, swept from one to the other in long and slender flowing lines. Yet you were a small thing, no more than one-sixty. I could see the woman that you would, in a week or so, become.
Suddenly I realised that quite a few moments had passed since I had silently chased Matt and Co. out of the door, and that all I had been doing was staring at you. Not only was this awkward, but it was also unusual. Normally if I held a woman’s gaze for more than two seconds, the strain of holding my eyeballs steady would start to blur my vision.
“I don’t normally stare,” I said, instantly regretting my compulsion to explain myself and simultaneously rueing the fact that those were now indelibly down as my first words alone with you.
You nodded uncertainly and became interested in a patch of carpet.
“So, can I get you a drink?” I asked. This was yet to be the momentous moment I had fantasised about.
“No, thank you.”
Well, that was it... I was stuck. I’d already used up my best material. – You would say ‘yes’, I’d cheekily break out the rum for my not-fifteen-year-old-looking companion and we’d get drunk, bonding instantly and falling eternally in love before sunrise. That had been the plan.
Now I was screwed.
“Well, please... have a seat while I just pop and get myself a drink.”
“Pop?” you repeated.
“Er, yeah... that means ‘go’.”
You didn’t say anything, just looked at me with the same uncertainty as before. It was a gaze that made me feel foolish very quickly. Feeling my cheeks begin to redden and my body start to sweat, I turned away to go into the kitchen area.
When I came back, glass of juice in hand, you were on the sofa but had turned around to stare out of the huge window overlooking the park. The sofa – as I know you remember – was covered in this velvety material and the arms and the back formed one continuous line, rising and then falling again on the other side. They probably have a name for that sort of sofa, I don’t know. Your left arm lay along the arm and beginning of the back of the sofa, ending so that your lips were buried in the back of your hand as you stared out and onto the park below, and your chin rubbed itself idly back and forth against the back’s velvety covering.
As I watched, your eyes never dropping from their wide-eyed drinking-in of the scene below, you let your head drop slightly so that you rubbed the tip of your nose against your knuckles and let your lips instead trace the texture of the sofa’s covering. I knew that I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life and, so very far short of much else to say, wrestled with whether to speak my mind for the second time in as many minutes. But then you noticed me and looked up, face full of that same uncertainty, however at least this time not for anything that I had done or said.
“What are they all doing down there?” you asked.
I moved up to the window and looked down on the busy park. “Just hanging, mostly.”
You looked back up at me, incredulous. “It doesn’t look like they are; most of them are sitting. Some are walking or running. But why are so many of them there?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, ‘hanging’ like ‘hang out’. It means just being somewhere and not doing anything in particular. They’re just there because it’s a nice place to be.”
“Because it feels good?”
“Exactly.”
You sat back round and rubbed one hand along the arm of the sofa and one over the middle cushion. “This feels good,” you stated with a certain sort of profound edge in your voice.
I made my way around and sat next to you on the sofa. Your eyes followed me all the way, and then you stayed looking expectantly at me, as we sat next to each other. Meeting your gaze, I felt my eye muscles strain and my vision start to blur a little.
“So,” I said, “you wanna watch some TV?”
* * *
Chapter 8
The next few hours passed awkwardly to say the least. You were fairly engrossed in the images coming from the Cymedia Centre, yet couldn’t help noticing every time I glanced over, grinning weakly as you turned to look back at me.
Are you warm enough? Yes.
Are you hungry? No.
Would you like a drink? The third time of asking that one you finally took pity on me and accepted. As I sat down and handed you your glass, it occurred to me that I hadn’t really made any sort of welcome speech, that maybe you had been expecting me to say something about who I was and what your life here might be like. Maybe tell you the house rules – no outdoor shoes on the carpet, keep to your own toothbrush, don’t sit naked on the sofa - I didn’t really know, me and my complete lack of visitors hadn’t really needed any rules. I was naturally quite a tidy person, tidy enough for my own company at any rate.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I put my own glass down and lowered the volume on the Cymedia Centre. Outside the afternoon was now on the wane and, indicating the open space beyond the floor-to-ceiling window behind us, I asked if you would like to go for a walk.
You looked a little worried for a moment – it was that uncertain look again. “In the park?” you asked, glancing towards the window.
“Yes, if you want.”
It took a moment for you to reply, like there were pros and cons to the idea and you were trying to figure out how that made you feel.
“Okay.” Then you caught yourself. “I mean, yes please… thank you, Tim.”
It’s a sad fact that your unease made me feel a little bit more confident, as if confidence was something that could leak out of one person and flow into another.
“ ‘Okay’s’ just fine, Mina,” I said in my kindest voice. Condescending git.
You put on that gabardine coat of yours – it didn’t really go with the chequered dress, but in your obliviousness you somehow pulled it off – I pulled on a warm sweater and we headed out.
As we reached the ground floor and left the block of flats, I briefly wondered whether I should hold your hand, or something. Not because I particularly wanted to, you understand, but because I wondered if you expected me to, whether CyberG had either told you or otherwise introduced the expectation into you that I should hold your hand in public. Would you be upset, feel unwanted if I didn’t? Ultimately, your lingering maturation issues and fear of public stoning or sharing a prison cell with Big Bill the Recently Bisexual, helped me
make my difficult decision.
If I’m honest, apparent age aside, any thought of invading your personal space – even a hand space – was difficult for me at that moment. I just… I felt like I wanted to earn the right to hold your hand. Does that sound corny?
Thought so.
We made our way out of Cordery Road and turned right, heading down towards the park. Looking across at you as we walked, felt like watching a movie – a movie with me in it – so surreal was the idea of me walking beside you. Old terraced houses made beautifully individual by extreme age passed by behind you, out of focus because the hypothetical camera kept tight on the only important thing in the scene: you.
It was a chill afternoon for mid-April, and the air was crisp and itchy on the inside of the chest. But you seemed to love it, gulping in great lungful’s of air with no heed of how you might look. Momentarily, I caught the scent of your hair, and an uncontrollable smile found its way onto my lips. You looked up at me and smiled, a completely unguarded smile that came from the joy of new experiences.
We reached the entrance to the park and began along the path that wended its way from one side to the other. Suddenly the closed environment of the streets became a (comparatively) vast, open space. The trees dotted around inside the park and outside the perimeter fence, brimmed with new growth; the park, its inherent ‘nature’, was the antithesis of the streets we had left behind. Wherever people go we close down the space, filling it up, controlling it and only allowing what we want to grow there. The urge to control is in our nature. But then the park was a lie, wasn’t it? Vast as it seemed, revealing as much sky – and with that inducing the sense of as much freedom – as it did, it was allowed to be there. I briefly wondered whether that same human need for control was in your nature. Probably only if CyberG had put it there, I thought, and tried to remember if it was one of the myriad parameters that they had run past me.
I looked down at the path and up again, at us, at the people following the path around the park. Even here, the order of the streets exists. Not as defined, maybe – one can step off of the path at any time if one makes the effort to decide to, and if one has shoes waterproofed against the wet grass. In the rest of the city, we are constantly surrounded by barriers: walls, buildings, locked doors, hedges, fences, ceilings – we are constantly hemmed in, guided along paths. If we could see a map of the area where we live, and then only highlight the areas where we can go freely, without breaking the law, then I bet we would come to realise that our world is much, much smaller than we thought.
A New Start Page 30