Love and Robotics

by Eyre, Rachael

  He arrived in Clockwork City a few hours later, burnt and red eyed. He haggled with an officious pair of securibots, wanted a drink but could only get Formula 40. Gods! He hated this place.

  Fatigue made him clumsy. He didn’t get the apartment door open until the third attempt. He stood on the threshold, the room jarringly different the way rooms are after an absence, and called. “Josh?”

  “Hello, Alfred.” He might have been a clerk in a store. “Do you need anything?”

  Alfred was too exhausted to be polite. “A drink, a shower and bed.” As he sank onto the sofa the last few days caught up with him. “I’ve been busy.”

  “I noticed.”

  Say what you liked, he’d accomplished something and wouldn’t hear it trashed. “What would you prefer? I let that bastard kill thousands more people? You’re just pissed off I didn’t tell you.”

  Josh set down the whisky he had been pouring. “Yes. I am. Do you want to know why?”

  “Wouldn’t that break the Code?”

  “Gods, you’re arrogant! You breeze in here, expecting to be treated like a conquering hero, and for what? You put away some crook? Big deal! People do that all the time and don’t expect a standing ovation. But you’re Alfred Wilding, the man without fear! You know better!”

  Alfred stared. He hadn’t known Josh could get this angry. He had never wanted him more.

  “Do you know what I think?” the artificial went on. “Deep down you’re a coward. You’re scared of what really matters.”

  During this speech Alfred had moved closer to Josh. They were only a few feet apart. “And what’s that?”

  Josh shook his head and turned away. “We both know what it is. Until you’re brave enough to stop caring what everyone else thinks and admit it, I can’t stay with you.”

  Alfred had thought of severing ties an hour ago. Now he found he couldn’t do it. “Where will you go?”

  Josh shrugged. “We’re expected home in a few months. Let’s view it as an experiment that didn’t work out.”

  He filled a holdall with clothes, his sketchpad and camera. Any help was refused. As he heard Josh’s feet retreat down the staircase, Alfred buried his face in his hands.

  ***

  The days that followed were unbearable. Alfred tried Josh’s beebo but it was off, and remained off. He didn’t want to be found.

  The first day he succumbed to gloomy, nightmare tinged sleep. He woke, reached for Josh and beat the pillows when he realised his friend wasn’t there. He was too depressed to drink. He made cups of coffee that curdled and attracted flies; he lit matches and watched them burn to the head. Every sound in the street brought him to the window.

  The second day he swallowed his pride and rang Sugar. He must have interrupted the doctor’s lunch.

  “Hello? Who? Oh, Lord Langton!” Thunderous crunch as he finished chewing. “What can I do for you?”

  “Josh is gone.”

  “What?”

  Alfred gave a rough outline of what he had been doing.

  “What?”

  He explained Josh had given him an ultimatum - leaving out the crux of it, of course.

  “What?!!!!”

  Noah Sugar hadn’t sworn for ten years. Moira said it was bad for your blood pressure and he heeded her advice. His good intentions came crashing down in an avalanche.

  “Now, your lordship, you’re not budging from Toy Town till you bring Josh back. Your visits will be heavily circumscribed from now on! Got me?”

  “He doesn’t want to be found -”

  “Neither would I if you were looking for me! Explorer my arse!”

  He slammed the speakertube. Alfred, chastised, thought he’d better start searching.

  Josh walked to the crossroads with one purpose in mind. He wanted to get out of this soulless, saccharine city. He’d take everything modern life had to throw at him: the stink, graffiti, traffic and disorder. He wouldn’t hitch. How could you depend on the kindness of strangers when the one you loved best let you down? He’d wait for a third class nought to rattle by.

  The last nought had just been so he was forced to wait for seventy five minutes. He was on his second to last ice cube when one bore down on him, braking an inch from the kerb.

  “Wh’thw?”

  “I’m sorry?” Josh was mesmerised by the amount of metal in the man’s face, as though somebody had roughed up a functional. He was human alright: body odour and whisky rolled off him in waves.

  “I said,” specking Josh with tobacco and phlegm, “which way you goin’, sonny?”

  “Somewhere you can’t see Clockwork City.”

  The driver put on a high pitched voice. “Somewhere you can’t see Clockwork City! Them nasty ol’ bots frighten little ol’ you?”

  Josh made his unimpressed face. Once glimpsed, it was never forgotten. The driver wheezed, tobacco going the wrong way. “Go on, young, young uh -”

  Josh went down the aisle, squeezing between a dancing dog and an incontinent goat. He got off at Gill Forest, two and a half hours from Clockwork City. The residents lived in converted pig sties and played banjos on their porches. Everybody introduced themselves as ‘creative’. Alfred would loathe it.

  He walked a mile looking for the right house. Eventually he found a former church advertising Rooms to Rent. The owner scrutinised him over horned spectacles. She reminded him of a tipsy owl.

  “I don’t normally rent to arties, but anyone’s welcome so long as they pick up after themselves. Whatcha usin’ it for?”

  He thought he’d establish himself as who he wanted to be. “I’m an artist. I’ll use it as a studio.”

  “How funny! I’m sorta artistic myself. You can move in today.”

  Josh had never spent a more productive time than his fortnight in Gill Forest. He made glass instruments that played bewitching tunes, a heart that pumped quicksilver instead of blood, an archetypal robot with hyper-realistic human organs. To his thinking these were no more than clever toys and he couldn’t understand why the villagers were so excited.

  “You should hold an exhibition,” Ms Kerrigan said. “Charge entry.”

  “Who would want to see it?”

  “Anyone! Everyone!”

  She had gone from indifference to admiration, bringing him cups of tea and materials. The downside to this generosity was he had to look over her projects - melted pots, hastily rhymed poems, splashy watercolours of sunsets.

  She was always trying to suss him out. In an unguarded moment he revealed that his “cute accent” didn’t sound Lilan, it was Lilan. Since then he’d been more reserved, despite her regaling him with her past (two ex husbands, a few lovers and a woman friend - “To see what it was like”) and inviting him to skinny dip in the mill pond.

  All this activity was an excuse. He’d sit in the belfry of the ruined chapel, the only person awake for miles. He’d end up shutting down amongst the rafters, his dreams a continuation of his conscious thoughts. Alfred would be there, would say all the things he was too stubborn to admit in real life, and there would be joy. Joy of a kind he couldn’t name, but he knew it was higher than Trini and Timothy or Ms Kerrigan throwing off her clothes. He’d wake to find his mechanical heart humming, his groin hard.

  The morning after a particularly vivid dream, where Alfred had lain naked upon his heart, Josh started to paint a mural on the ceiling. It belonged to a different class from the pieces on show in the park. It was intended only for him, though as a memorial or icon he couldn’t say. It showed Alfred - Alfred in his dream landscape. His smile was the wistful one only he had seen; his eyes had lost their tired, bitter look. He was pictured standing at a window, the sun and moon circling beneath.

  Ms Kerrigan came in with a cup of tea. She noticed the mural straight away. “Who is he?”

  Josh refused to be drawn. “Somebody I used to know.”

  ***

  It took Cora to shake Alfred out of his self pitying rut.

  He was roaming the precincts o
ne afternoon. Since artificials shut down between fourteen and fifteen, no one was about. He followed a pretty ersatz wood to its limits; it petered out so you could see the miles of road. He was going to turn back, reasoning he had gone far enough for one day, when he saw a figure in a mustard coat up ahead.

  It could only be a robot. Since an artie on its own showed freakish independence, he moved towards it. He wasn’t surprised to find it was Cora.

  She’d tried to see him after Josh first left but he hadn’t been in the mood. Now he gazed at her guiltily. All was not well with her, and it was his fault. Remembering Josh’s suicidal tendencies in times past, he drew her back from the edge.

  “Thanks,” she said. “But I was just looking, not jumping. How are you?”

  It seemed so long since he had heard a sympathetic voice, tears came to his eyes. He would have been ashamed to break down in front of a human, but somehow knew Cora wouldn’t judge. She soothed him as Nanny might have. With that simple act, any remaining prejudice again robots crumbled. A friend was a friend, whether they were organic or mechanical.

  “I must’ve needed that.”

  “No problem, big fella.”

  “What about you? How’s everything?”

  “I’m a social pariah. The other arties guessed I was behind what happened to Nick. Sam organised an intervention.”

  Cora had gone out to her own poolside to find twenty robots sitting there. Glen was on her favourite lounger, stinking of booze. Finn hovered sheepishly in the background.

  Sam rapped for attention.“Cora. We need to talk.”

  “I don’t need to listen. Can y’all get off my property?”

  She tried to leave but Sam’s fingers closed on her arm like a vice. “You’re not going anywhere till you hear what we’ve got to say. It concerns the whole community.”

  Cora decided that if she was going to be harangued, she might as well be comfortable, and shoved Glen from her lounger. He giggled inanely, unable to get up. “Make it snappy.”

  A few of the robots seemed unhappy, as though they didn’t care for their errand. Sam knew no such shame. “Don’t play innocent with us. We know you set your handler up.”

  “You need proof before you make allegations like that.”

  “Believe me, we’ll find it.”

  Cora wouldn’t be intimidated. “Where’s Darce, Sam? Shouldn’t you be waiting on him?”

  Sam pretended she hadn’t heard. “He let you go, didn’t he?” Cora persisted. “Before you lecture me, why don’t you sort out your own life?”

  Some of the robots sidled away, as though Sam’s luck was contagious. “She’s got a point,” one said, in that special robotic whisper that carried.

  Sam had fallen so far in the past few weeks, she didn’t fear consequences. Her pompadour was dull and flat, her skin looked tarnished. She straightened her spine. You could hear it creak. “This is a compound for law abiding, loyal robots. You no longer have the right to be here.”

  Cora was enraged. “I own this goddamn place!”

  Sam aimed a book at her chest. “Clockwork City Council sees it differently. Check page two hundred, paragraph four.”

  It was true. Cora read the paragraph again but its meaning remained the same. “A robot that betrays its creator/s is an unperson with no right to residency ...”

  “If you’re lucky,” Sam went on, “you could stand under a lamppost till some bum picks you up. As a matter of fact - Glen. You had a thing for her once, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t go with traitors,” Glen mumbled. Eyes shutting, he rolled into the pool. The robots glanced at him, saw he was floating and returned to their conference.

  Cora saw there was no hope. Finn mouthed, “I’m sorry,” at her, signalled he’d keep in touch, but such cowardly friendship meant nothing. She hadn’t seen the point of going up and collecting her things.

  “So there you are,” she sighed. “All I own are the clothes I’m standing up in. What goes around comes around, huh?”

  “You could stay with me.” Alfred hadn’t known he was going to say it but saw it was the only solution.

  “The Langton Home for Hopeless Cases?” she teased. She gave his arm a playful thump. Like most robots she didn’t know her own strength.

  “Careful. I might change my mind.”

  “I’ll be the best roomie ever! I’ll cook, help you find Josh -”

  “If he wants to be found.”

  “Gee, how dumb are you? He’s waiting for you to go get him, you dope!”

  Cora proved as invaluable a “roomie” as she had promised. She tidied up (“You fellas! You want your socks to walk off by themselves!”), cooked within a limited range, understood when he needed his space and chipped in when he didn’t. Nick must have been hard to please.

  It was with the search for Josh she showed her worth. “You’ve been doing this wrong. Josh hasn’t stuck around, that’s for sure. I bet he got the first nought out of here.”

  “He could be anywhere!” Alfred groaned.

  “What did he say the night he left?” Not waiting for an answer, “He was willing to sit it out till you went home. He can’t be far from a hub base.”

  “But he doesn’t like cities. He’d choose somewhere quiet where he can keep his head down.” Alfred pulled on his jacket and started looking for the bag of tokens all residents used as currency.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To buy a map!”

  The kitchen table became their campaign headquarters. They bought a map of North Arkan and honed in on the likeliest areas. Josh couldn’t have gone farther than four hours’ drive if he wanted to access a hub base. Cora was able to break into her old garage and steal her Comet, the one possession Sam hadn’t seized. “Comets obey one owner,” she beamed. “Way more faithful than arties.”

  They would spend the first few hours of each morning reading the newspapers, trawling them for suspicious stories. “Josh gets himself noticed,” Alfred explained. “He doesn’t mean to but it’ll happen eventually. He likes people too much.”

  “Rather him than me,” Cora said.

  The rest of the day they followed leads. These invariably ended in disappointment: a lookalike would be human, an act with Josh written all over it was an arbitrary piece of heroism. Alfred tried Josh’s beebo but he had let it run out.

  “What about CER?” Cora suggested. “Might he have told them?”

  Alfred was so desperate, he made the call, but was defeated by their switchboard. Whatever number he chose kicked him out. Sugar seemed to have dematerialised.

  “Shit fuck wank bollocks.” Alfred banged his head on the Comet’s control panel.

  “Will you stop beating up my vix? Home, methinks.”

  That evening they were held up by an accident. Alfred argued with a securibot for ten minutes before he was allowed into the city, Cora crouching on the floor of the vix. It was so long since he had driven, he wobbled to the wrong side of the road before instinct took over. He’d never seen a securibot gawp before. “That was close,” he sighed.

  “Move over.” Cora somersaulted into the front. “You really think I’d let you drive her?”

  They were comparing impressions, agreeing that Josh wasn’t on a ranch somewhere, when Cora whistled. “Got some consolation, buddy?”

  A slender young man was standing outside the apartment, caught in the act of pressing the bell. Alfred’s heart gave a painful leap but it wasn’t Josh.

  “What do you take me for? I don’t go ordering floozies -”

  The man shielded his eyes against the vix lights. Within seconds he was running towards them.

  “Sure you don’t want him? I’ll take him off your hands.”

  Alfred’s eyes narrowed. “Of course!” He got out and slammed the door. “Esteban! What are you doing here?”

  The robot gave a small, precise shrug. “The Tripitaka became too hot for me. You said something about a job, so I thought I’d seek you out.”

  The
door closed quietly the other side. Alfred didn’t need to follow Esteban’s line of vision to know what he was looking at or why he was reacting like this. It was how he had felt the first time he saw Josh. That heightened awareness, as though a voice in your ear has murmured, “Yes.” You know this person would mean something to you, you know your life has been leading up to this moment.

  “Cora, this is Esteban. Esteban, Cora.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she beamed. He said the equivalent in his language.

  Esteban was an asset to the investigation. Whereas Alfred jumped to conclusions and Cora was slapdash, he was logical and meticulous. They saved a great deal of engine oil and heartache by listening to him.

  Cora was smitten. If it had been someone like Glen she would have snapped him up, but she sensed ordinary tactics wouldn’t work. “You guys, eh?” Alfred prompted on the rare occasion he was elsewhere.

  She pretended to bash her head against the table. “He’s really making me work!” But he’d given her something she had never dared hope for: a reason to live.

  They practised shooting while he was away. Revolutionary ideals aside, she didn’t think Esteban would approve. In time a dummy Nick was festooned with bullet holes.

  The breakthrough was on an ingratiatingly sunny day, exactly like the ones preceding it. They breakfasted, started on their stack of newspapers. Cora gasped. A puddle of Formula 40 spread across the table.

  “What is it?” Esteban asked. She pushed the newspaper at Alfred. He took it from her indulgently, but when he had read halfway down the page, he too was excited. “This is it!”

  A small artisan’s village was displaying surpassingly beautiful artworks on the green. It wasn’t so much the quality as the ingenuity that struck Alfred. The creator refused to be pictured or named. His landlord - a louche redhead called Trixie Kerrigan - did the talking. “I love watchin’ him work, I never know what he’s gonna do next,” she gushed.

  “Do you think -” Esteban began. “Yes,” exclaimed the other two.