Cyborgia

by D. M. Darroch

  AC3.0 held the left tong stationary and scooped the salad toward it with the right tong. Clamping the tongs together in two hands, he was finally able to transfer a small bit of salad from the bowl to his plate.

  Next, AC3.0 watched Mrs. Clark wield the silverware. She held the knife in her right hand and cut a wedge of lasagna, then speared it with the fork held in her left hand before bringing it to her mouth. Mr. Clark dispensed with the knife entirely, using the side of his fork to cut the lasagna and scooping it neatly to his mouth with one left-handed motion. Remembering how difficult it had been to use two implements at once, AC3.0 quickly decided the most foolproof option would be to follow Mr. Clark’s example.

  He looked down at the steaming wedge of food. Having never experienced food before, he didn’t know the name of the melted mozzarella cheese oozing from the sides. He didn’t understand that it was the aroma of rich garlicky tomato that was tickling his nose. He examined the food from the side. He counted three distinct layers, but he didn’t comprehend that each one contained a sheet of pasta, creamy ricotta cheese, and a thick tomato-basil-oregano sauce that had simmered slowly all afternoon. Having never eaten food before, he didn’t understand that one bite of Mrs. Clark’s lasagna was about to awaken his dormant taste buds, open his sheltered mind, and rock his scientific world.

  AC3.0 picked up the fork in his left hand and attempted to cut the lasagna. The fork slid into the soft pasta and cheese easily. But when AC3.0 tried to scoop the lasagna as Mr. Clark had done, it evaded his fork. He chased the wedge around his plate until the food fell apart. He tried to scoop up each individual component, but they were more elusive separately than they had been together. He felt an unusual rumbling in his stomach and a sense of growing frustration.

  “Why are you eating with your left hand?” asked Mrs. Clark.

  AC3.0 looked up at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Angus, stop playing with your food. Eat your dinner,” said Mr. Clark.

  AC3.0 looked at his fork. Why not? He wasn’t having any luck with his left hand. He might achieve improved results with his right. He put the fork in his right hand and attempted to scoop the various foodstuffs smeared along his plate. His control was much improved, and he brought the fork to his mouth. There would be no going back after the first bite.

  He put the fork back on his plate, food uneaten.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Mrs. Clark taking a bite of salad.

  “I don’t think we should be eating this. It’s far too risky.”

  Mr. Clark laughed. “Local family dies of lasagna overdose. News at eleven.”

  “That’s not helpful,” Mrs. Clark glared at her husband. “What do you mean, Angus ... AC3.0? What’s too risky?”

  “Eating. Food. All of it. Did you know there are six pathotypes of E coli associated with diarrhea?”

  “Sweetheart, really. We’re eating.”

  “Trichinosis causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain and can last up to eight weeks. It’s caused by nematodes!”

  “Well, let’s be glad we’re not eating nematodes tonight,” said Mr. Clark. “Only lasagna.”

  “More than two hundred and fifty pathogens and toxins are known to cause foodborne illness!”

  “AC3.0 sweetie, is this because of the science project you’re working on with Ivy?” asked Mrs. Clark.

  “Angus, that’s enough. Now eat!” barked Mr. Clark.

  AC3.0 looked at the paternal figure. This was not someone to be disobeyed, but this was so foreign to his world, so against everything he’d been taught. “If one of us should become ill, what will happen?”

  “First of all, we won’t get sick. And second of all, if we did, which we won’t, there are doctors and medicines and hospitals. But we won’t need them. Because we won’t get sick,” said Mrs. Clark.

  “Will we die?”

  “Eventually. But not from this lasagna.” Mr. Clark popped another wedge into his mouth. “Delicious, Mother. Your best yet!”

  Mrs. Clark beamed happily. “Why don’t you try it, Sweetie?”

  “Eat. It,” growled Mr. Clark.

  AC3.0 gulped, picked up his laden fork, closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and popped in the food.

  His taste buds tingled, though he didn’t know he had them. The garlic gently pricked his tongue before the tomato coated it in a warm tang. The silky ricotta cheese and velvety pasta virtually melted in his mouth leaving behind a hint of salt. The sensation of eating was like none he’d ever experienced before.

  AC3.0 eagerly cut another slice of the lasagna and chewed. Another and another, faster and faster. “May I have some more, please?” he asked through a half-chewed mouthful.

  “Hungry tonight, aren’t you?” said Mr. Clark as Mrs. Clark dished up seconds.

  “It is one of my better lasagnas,” agreed Mrs. Clark.

  “Don’t forget me,” said Mr. Clark pushing his plate forward.

  Three helpings of lasagna and two plates of salad later, AC3.0 never wanted to trade a potentially bacteria-laden meal for a nutrition capsule again, even if such meals did leave unfortunate red splotches all over his previously white lab coat.

  “Is there a cleaning ritual next?” he asked.

  “A cleaning ritual?” said Mr. Clark with raised eyebrows. Mrs. Clark glared at her husband.

  “Oh, thank you, honey. You know, your dad and I will do this if you could clean up after the cat. I never did get around to cleaning his litter box today.”

  Litter box? A box of litter? That’s right, AC3.0 remembered. In the olden times, humanity wrote on paper, and they called used paper “litter”. The litter box was the receptacle for all that used paper. Easy. But where would he find it? “Where is the litter box again, Mother?”

  Mrs. Clark stared at him. “In the downstairs bathroom, of course.”

  “I told you we needed to talk to someone,” muttered Mr. Clark. “This appointment can’t come soon enough.”

  The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar. AC3.0 turned on the light. This room was four times the size of bathrooms in his world, and there were so many things in here. A small and a large basin, a porcelain chair, rugs, baskets, and other objects that would capture every type of bacteria imaginable. A most unsanitary place. And in the corner, a plastic box. The fat orange cat was squatting in it, watching him warily. It stood up, scratched at some sand in the box, and trotted off, leaving behind a most foul scent ... of excrement?

  AC3.0 wrinkled his nose and gagged. What kind of indecent robot was this?

  “Mother!” he called. “Mother!”

  Mrs. Clark came running. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “The cat. It’s the cat. Look what it’s done!” AC3.0 pointed at the vulgar pile.

  “Yes. He usually has to go after he’s eaten his dinner. Is there something wrong with it?” She bent down and peered at it. “He did tell me he’s had a bit of diarrhea lately.”

  “E coli!” shouted AC3.0.

  “No. Only diet food. He’s fine.” She calmly left the room.

  She fed the robot? This made no sense whatsoever. Foodstuffs would corrode the machinery.

  “Mother!” he yelled again.

  “What is it? I’m trying to wash the dishes,” she called from the kitchen.

  “Why do you feed it?”

  “Why do I feed it? Why do I feed Sir Schnortle? You mean because he’s fat? I couldn’t stop feeding him. He’d die. We can only feed him less caloric meals,” she answered.

  AC3.0 sat on the porcelain chair and stared at the pile. He thought for a moment. She feeds it so it won’t die. One doesn’t feed robots. Robots don’t die. So if you feed it because it might die otherwise, that means it’s not a robot. This cat, it was not a robot like the ones in his world. This was an actual cat. These people had an animal, a real live animal, a real live animal that had fleas and ticks, carried parasites and zoonotic diseases—living in their house? Leaving its feces in their bathroom? This was outrageous
, dangerous, and deadly. And he’d been worried about eating the food when something worse had been lingering in this bathroom the entire time.

  He needed to get the feces out of here, and quickly, before the bacteria infected them all. He looked around for a receptacle to put it in, perhaps a furnace to burn it in? There was nothing in this room except the two basins, a basket, and this chair. He leaned backwards, and his elbow nudged a metal latch. He stood up and examined it. It moved slightly beneath his finger; in fact, it appeared to be some sort of levered device. He pushed it with his finger tip and a whooshing roar resounded from within the chair.

  And then he noticed that the chair opened. He pushed up the top of the chair and saw a whirlpool of water cascading down into a funnel. Aha! This was one of those primitive toilets he’d read about. Ancient peoples rested their buttocks on them and ... no matter. This was the perfect place to deposit the cat’s excrement. If only he had some protective gloves.

  “Mother! Can I have some sanitary gloves?” he yelled.

  “What will he need next,” came Mr. Clark’s voice followed by heavy trudging footsteps. “Here.” Mr. Clark threw some clear plastic disposable gloves on the bathroom floor. “Clean the litterbox.” He trudged away.

  AC3.0 pulled on the gloves, took a deep breath, and grabbed the plastic box. He upended it slowly over the toilet tipping the contents into the toilet bowl. Feces, clumps of urine, and an entire litterbox full of litter splashed into the toilet. AC3.0 closed the toilet lid and pushed the lever.

  The resulting explosion of excrement and litter clumps was bad. The filthy toilet water pouring over the toilet bowl and flooding the bathroom was worse. But having to mop up the mess while a severe, glaring Mr. Clark watched was the worst of all.

  11

  Gray

  Angus’s mind was racing, his skin was on fire, his ears tingled, and his heart pounded. He was positively gleeful. It had worked! He had deduced the coordinates, trusted himself, and taken a chance, and it had worked! He had programmed his World Jumper to follow Ivy into another world, and here he was. No sign of Ivy yet, but he knew he would find her. At this moment, he felt like there was nothing he couldn’t do.

  He was in a gray room. The walls were gray, the floor was gray, the chairs were gray, a long bench, or perhaps it was a bed, was gray. Though there were no sheets, no comforters, and no pillows in this room, he knew it was a bedroom. He saw no door, no windows, and no lamps. There was nothing superfluous in this room—it was simply gray. He pushed his goggles to his forehead, making his hair stick up. He looked up; the ceiling glowed coolly.

  He walked across the floor, and the grayness buoyed him. He stomped a foot and rocked back and forth; the grayness met his efforts, responded to his movements. The grayness was firm, yet pliable. He zipped his World Jumper into his backpack and dumped it on the floor. It landed softly, silently.

  He climbed on to a chair and jumped as hard as he could on to the floor. The grayness caught him, sank slightly beneath his weight, and pushed him gently upward. There was no abruptness in his landing, no jolting in his knees. Neither did he bounce. He threw himself forward as though he had tripped, and the grayness softened and cradled his fall. He pushed himself upright and the floor seemed to anticipate his movements and guided him upward.

  Next, he decided to try the bed-thing. It was a simple gray slab built into the gray wall. He lay back on it and the grayness shifted to conform to the contours of his body while the light in the room softened. The grayness molded itself to support the curve of his lower back, rose to lift his head ever so slightly, and cradled his neck. The backs of his knees were supported; his feet tipped gently to the side, and the bed responded. It knew how to make him comfortable. The bed grew warmer, heating his body from the inside out. He began to feel slightly overwarm, and the bed responded with a minute change in temperature.

  If he stayed here, he was likely to fall asleep. He’d told Billy he’d be back in a couple of hours; he needed to find Ivy first. But it would be so nice to sleep on this wonderful gray bed. He closed his eyes ... but, no. He pushed himself out of the grayness and stood. The room brightened. With no door and no windows, how was he going to get out of this room?

  There must be a door here somewhere, otherwise this room couldn’t have been built. It was logical. Of course, any gray door in a gray room would disappear into the grayness. He’d have to look for the doorknob. But as he scanned the walls, Angus realized that there was no doorknob. Next, he ran his hands along the smooth gray surface of the walls. If he couldn’t see the door, certainly he’d be able to feel it. The walls responded to his fingers, the grayness undulating gently beneath his touch. There was no separation in the wall anywhere. The grayness was a continuous, unbroken façade.

  “Help!” he called. “Let me out!” Silence. He pressed his ear against the wall in several places, and heard ... nothing. Was he all alone here? Was this gray room, this cell of grayness, the entire world? If so, where was Ivy? “Ivy! Where are you? Ivy!” Silence.

  Angus clutched the World Jumper to his chest. At least he could go home. He really didn’t want to leave until he found Ivy, though. He paced back and forth, absently running a hand through his hair.

  “If only I could find the door!” he said. He heard a sound. Not silence. It had been a plop, the sound stones made when he’d tossed them into the pond back when he was a little kid, when his parents still took him camping.

  “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone out there? I’m looking for the door!” There was that sound again, that plop. He looked around the room, around the grayness, and there in the corner he saw it. A doorknob! How had he missed it before? He grabbed the knob and pulled, and the grayness separated, pulled back, and revealed an opening in the wall—a doorway.

  Angus peeked his head through and saw more gray, nothing but gray, as far as he could see. He stepped into the bedroom again and closed the door. Instantly, the wall grew up around it and sealed off the opening. The knob receded into the grayness and disappeared.

  Angus cleared his throat and said, “Door.” The knob pushed out of the grayness with a plop. He pulled on the knob, and the doorway appeared. “Coool,” he breathed.

  He turned around and said, “Window”. He heard a plop, and a handle popped out of the opposite wall. Angus raced to it, the floor cushioning his feet, and pulled. The wall opened, revealing a transparent material. He pressed his finger against it; like the grayness, the transparent material moved beneath his touch. Not glass then.

  Angus pressed his nose against the not-glass, and it conformed to his face and bent outward. He laughed. He was sticking his head out the window, but it was technically still inside the room. He looked outside. More gray. Gray ground. Gray buildings. No green lawns. No flowers. No trees. The only color besides gray was the sickly green and yellow of a few intrepid weeds and the bright blue of the cloudless sky. He pulled his head back and the face impression remained for a moment before receding with a sucking noise.

  “Awesome!” Angus laughed out loud. A wicked smile crossed his face.

  Giggling to himself, Angus dragged the chair toward the window. The floor rippled in his wake. He stood on the chair and turned his back to the window. Bending forward, he jutted his rear end into the not-glass for a few moments, and then retreated quickly and turned around. The impression of his behind stayed in the not-glass for a moment. When the window reverted to its normal shape, Angus climbed on the chair again and repeated his bum impression. He laughed even harder, imagining what could be seen from outdoors. As he climbed up on the chair for the third time, the gray wall popped and the door opened.

  “AC! Whatever are you doing? I heard the alarm and thought it must be a malfunction. No way is my son doing anything so dangerous! Get off that chair right now!”

  Angus stared in disbelief at the woman glaring at him. She resembled his mom, so he assumed he was in his alter’s house. But this mother’s eyes were jutting out of her head like a cartoon char
acter gone wrong. Similar to a slug’s eyes, her eyes were affixed to the ends of stalks—shiny, aluminum stalks.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” asked the mother.

  “Ummm ... your eyes ...” stuttered Angus. “They’re ... ummm ...” He jumped off the chair and approached her. As he watched, her eyes retreated back into their sockets.

  “Well, what do you expect? When you scare me like that!”

  “I’m sorry ... Mom. I was playing with the window. I didn’t think I would fall out.”

  “Fall out?” The crazy mom-eyes spun around in their sockets. “Of course you wouldn’t fall out. The window polymer is tremendously flexible and nearly indestructible. I was afraid you’d fall off the chair.”

  “Fall off the chair?” asked Angus. “It’s barely two feet off the ground. And even if I did, this floor ...”

  “The floor is gray polymer, not clear. It’s not as flexible as the window. You know that it’s embedded with cross-linked polymers to give it strength. Between that and the integrated circuits, it’s hard. You could have bumped your knee or your head.”

  Angus recalled that word: “polymer.” That was the chapter he was supposed to read for his science experiment.

  “Father needs a knee upgrade and Grandmother has some new fingers on order. We don’t have the money right now for you to injure yourself. Our family can’t afford any new implants right now. So enough of that. Did you take your supplement?”

  Angus didn’t like the sound of that, so he said, “Yes.”

  The monster eyes poked out of the mother’s head again and examined him. “No, you didn’t. Come downstairs and we’ll take your reading.”

  When she uttered the word downstairs, the gray surface outside the door molded itself into a stairway and sprouted a railing. Angus followed the mother down into another gray room, as utilitarian as the bedroom, but even smaller. Four chairs surrounded a table. The centerpiece of the table was a one-foot square box with a computer touchscreen and a chute not unlike that found on a bubblegum machine.