The Robot Union

by D Miller

  'I'm sorry I broke your arm,' he said.

  'You're supposed to look after me.'

  'I know.'

  'You were naughty.'

  'I'm sorry Tim.'

  'You can sign my cast if you like.'

  'Thank you. I would like to.'

  Tim leaned his head on Robbie's shoulder, and put his good arm around his neck. Robbie put an arm around Tim and held out his other arm to Clarisse.

  I'm going to make lunch,' said Robbie.

  'I'm not allowed lunch,' said Tim.

  'I think the point is I'm not supposed to give you any lunch. I'm going to make quite a lot of lunch for Clarisse though, and she may find that she can't eat it all. Perhaps she will share it with you.'

  Robbie was clearing up after lunch. As predicted Clarisse had willingly shared her food with Tim. After lunch the children had eaten the troublesome orange, and when Robbie had followed it up with half an apple each and a few grapes they had been beside themselves with joy. Robbie had helped Tim to feed his fish, and then got out Tim's favourite construction toy. Now Clarisse was asleep and lay on the family room sofa, with Robbie listening intently for the sound of the study door opening. Tim sat at the kitchen table snapping together building bricks and occasionally calling Robbie over to look at his creation. Robbie felt in his pockets for the perfect little whale that Omo had made for him. He found the joints that Omo had filled his jacket pocket with as they had parted, but not the whale. He thought that perhaps it had fallen out by the beached ship, when the dog had attacked him. He supposed it would have blown out to sea by now, unless the inhabitants of the huge derelict ship had claimed it. Omo had told Robbie that the ship was deserted, but had also admitted no one that he knew had ever gone on board to check. 'If I stood on the shore and broadcast,' thought Robbie, 'my signal wouldn't even reach the end of the ship. You could build a city in there. Or hide one.'

  As he washed up, Robbie thought about last night. He and Omo had retired to a long abandoned office, and at some point he had fallen asleep for the two hours a night that he needed. He had woken up with a start, from a dream of running in the dark from something terrible, unsure of where he was, or even who or what he was.

  'Did you have a bad dream baby?' Omo had said, and Robbie had discovered how a word could sink deeper and deeper into him while its echoes grew strong enough to chase every other thought from his head and every other feeling from his soul. He had never expected to be anybody's baby. Omo had wrapped his arms around Robbie and sung to him. Before that exact moment, Robbie would have considered someone singing him a song stupid and embarrassing, but it hadn't been stupid, and it hadn't been embarrassing, it had been thrilling.

  When Omo had finished his song, he had asked Robbie, 'Is that bad dream all gone now?' Robbie had allowed that it was, thinking it had probably sulked away under a rock to die of shame, defeated by a word, and a song. Remembering all this now, Robbie felt as if all the solar cells in his skin were turning towards an invisible sun, transfixed by its rays. He shuddered. He brought up the image of Omo he had taken with his internal camera before they parted. He wasn't really handsome, Robbie thought, with his pale skin, white hair and washed out blue eyes, but he still had a good face, he looked… kind. Very, very kind.

  Perhaps they could run away together, find some uninhabited bay where they would live. Perhaps the rocks would rise up from the shore, and they would sit on a high point and watch whales in the bay, sunlight sparkling on the water from their blowholes as it cascaded back into the sea. Omo would make another perfect origami whale and give it to Robbie and they would kiss…

  'What are you thinking?' said the house. 'Why can I see whales?'

  Robbie was jolted – had he been broadcasting? With his back to Tim he said, 'I was thinking about yesterday and the people I met.' He made his voice too high for Tim to hear as the house had done.

  'Your new drug taking friends,' said the house.

  The normally taciturn washing machine spoke up. 'Those jeans you gave me this morning Robbie, they have some laundry fluid spilt on them. It's not something that I normally use.'

  'Um one of the guys I met yesterday um, he works in a laundry.'

  The machine spun her drum a couple of times. She stopped. She spun her drum in the opposite direction. She stopped. 'Have you got a boyfriend?' she said.

  'What's that?' said the oven.

  'Robbie's got a boyfriend,' said the bread maker. The kitchen appliances started to chant: 'Robbie's got a boyfriend, Robbie's got a boyfriend.'

  'Your new friends,' said the house, 'they are robots aren't they?'

  The kitchen appliances went silent. The toaster spoke first 'Your boyfriend – he's not… human, is he?'

  'What I do outside of this house is none of your business,' said Robbie.

  'You filthy pervert,' said the toaster. 'I let you touch me! I'M UNCLEAN!'

  The bread maker scowled at Robbie.

  'Oh for God's sake my boyfriend is not human!'

  'So you have got a boyfriend,' said the house, while the appliances started chanting, 'Robbie and laundry guy sitting in a tree kay eye ess ess eye en gee!'

  Robbie rubbed his forehead, his head was hurting again.

  'I'm in hell,' he said.

  Chapter 5 – Love letters

  Brad pounded on the fence post, his shirt open and his muscular chest gleaming with sweat on the sunlit prairie. He paused to arm sweat from his forehead, was that a horse he could hear? He looked round, Jett was riding towards him. He stopped a few metres away and dismounted from his big, black horse with a jingle of spurs, pushed back his hat, put his hands on his slim hips and regarded Brad arrogantly, his aquiline nose flaring.

  'If only he weren't so tall and good looking,' thought Brad, 'it would be so much easier to hate him for stealing my father's ranch and making me his hired hand.'

  'I thought you'd be finished by now,' sneered Jett.

  'I'm pounding as fast as I can,' panted Brad.

  Robbie looked away from his internal screen, and stared at the ceiling of the family room, where he was lying on the sofa. He was an avid reader, constantly downloading or streaming books. Since meeting Omo he had started reading romance novels, a new genre for him. While he had guiltily enjoyed quite a few badly written books, with this current one, 'Prairie Passion,' he thought he had reached his limit. It was nearly midnight and the family were asleep. He longed to call Omo, but worried that Omo would get fed up with his calls, and he knew that the laundry was very busy at night. He decided to write to Omo again.

  Dear Omo

  It is now five days since we met. I am longing to see you again. Since I last wrote I have carried on searching on the M-net for a way to kill Noah, but all I have found is that extreme cold destroys the ability of the cells to shape shift. So far the woman keeps it away from the children, she's told it that it has to stay in her study at all times. Despite her denials I think she knows it is dangerous but she's having too much fun with it to let it go. I wonder if her husband is doing the same with his as she is, or if he still thinks that the creatures are just a good way to share a long distance kiss? I can never tell if he doesn't know what is going on or just doesn't want to know.

  I have also been looking on the M-net for poetry. If you can do Origami then perhaps I can write poems? I found a poetry site! So there are other machine poets! I like this one:

  Nothing disturbs my circles

  Gatekeeper of the red

  Protector of the blue

  Guardian of the dead

  Companion of the dying

  Life's longing for itself

  The solar wind

  The whispering pull of Jupiter

  The interstellar void and the heat death of the personality

  Nothing disturbs my circles

  Isn't it sort of sad? It's written by someone called Red451. I think a satellite wrote the poem. A Martian one. The red would be Mars, and the blue Earth. And the dead would be all those people wh
o died in the Martian disaster. The circles means it is orbiting Mars and nothing's disturbing them now because the planet is properly dead.

  I hope that all is well in the laundry and you have plenty of things to fold. In two days we will be together again. I hope that thought gives you as much pleasure as it gives me.

  Robbie

  PS I told the woman I was going to take my next day off the same day as my therapy session, and she said that would not be convenient, and I would have to take the day before ie tomorrow. I said that I would be happy to take both days, since she owes me about 22 weeks in untaken leave. And she said that I had always been free to take leave, and it was not her fault if I had not taken it and I would not be able to take it now. So I said that I would put in a legal application for my untaken leave, and I was pretty sure that I would get about half of it under the law. So she said well she might have to think about selling me and getting another house bot since my demands were getting out of hand, so I said well good luck with finding a family who wants a house bot that has 22 weeks leave accrued. So she said we would talk about it later. She didn't say anything else about it yesterday, but this afternoon she sent me a message from her study(!) to say that "as agreed" I could take the day after tomorrow as leave. Ha ha.

  He sent the letter, then dismissed 'Prairie Passion' and connected to the poetry site he had found. He had just started reading when Omo replied:

  Robbie dude, your owner is a heinous bitch, and her husband, the invisible dude, is no better. I too am longing to see you, and to take off all your clothes and kiss you all over. I hope you are not doing too much hoovering, but are saving yourself for me. I look forward to reading your first poem. If your lips are tingling it is because I am kissing you xxx

  Robbie read and re-read the message. He lay on the sofa thinking about being kissed all over. He supposed it wouldn't hurt to find out how Brad and Jett were getting on. He turned back to the book.

  Chapter 6 – Group therapy

  Robbie was with Omo and Dex in the Civic Centre. They were sitting in a circle in the basement in a large square room, with white walls, a low ceiling, and, striping the top of one wall, two long, low windows that gave a view of the floor of alley where Robbie had first met Omo and Dex. A triangular shaped dais had been built into one corner, where the wall with the windows met the wall behind Robbie. Opposite the wall with windows was the wall with the door they had entered by. More plastic chairs like the ones they were sitting on were stacked against the other three walls, together with music stands and other indeterminate bits of equipment.

  Robbie could hear noise from the robots only bowling alley in the basement, provided free so that off-duty robots would have somewhere to go, and staffed by human volunteers providing water, and the protein drinks that robots' biological parts needed, plus battery fluid top-ups. Further along from the bowling alley was another room for off-duty robots, this full of drum kits. Robbie could hear no noise from this room, even though each kit was in use, because the kits had a set of headphones, capturing the digital output. Robbie had asked Omo what was the point of using a kit to drum, and Omo had told him that the point was the physicality of it, and that it was enormous fun.

  Sitting in the circle with Omo, Dex and Robbie, there were three teenage-looking female robots, a couple of house bots, dressed quite formally for robots, who talked only to each other, and a single male robot in stained t-shirt and jeans who grinned incessantly and kept nodding but said nothing. All of the robots were wearing their 'R' for robot jackets, or had them draped over the back of their chairs. A human facilitator sat between Dex and the three girl bots. She presented the group therapy session they were about to start as an unexpected treat, even though it took place on a regular schedule, and went through the rules of the 'sharing circle'. Omo and Robbie pretended to listen, but were engrossed in an m-site they had found called 'the joy of touch'.

  'Dude that's a bit… involved,' said Omo through a secure connection, carefully studying an image on the site, and its step by step instructions.

  'Yeah, but we could do that,' said Robbie.

  'Oh yeah dude we really could do that.'

  Omo glanced up, and Robbie could see he was looking at Dex and frowning. Omo signalled Dex to join their secure link.

  'Dude, you look stressed.'

  'It's Darren – that stupid hospital has fucked up his shifts so he doesn't have today off.'

  'Oh dude.'

  'He's trying to sort it out so he can start his day off this evening and join us later.'

  'Dude – so unfair. We wait all week for this.'

  'Typical incompetence. Everyone knows she's not a proper hospital anyway.'

  'She's not?' said Robbie.

  'No. She's just a jumped up medical supply depot,' said Dex. He dropped out of their connection.

  'Poor guy,' said Omo.

  Robbie thought for a moment. 'Um… are Dex and Darren a couple?'

  Darren was the paramedic Robbie had met at the refinery. He was taller than Robbie and Omo, who were both about average height, with blonde hair and regular features.

  'Hmmm dude. You remember Amber? The dude that works in the mine?' Robbie thought back again to the refinery. It was all a bit of a blur, Amber loomed in his internal vision, dancing with other shadows, but then the image sharpened to a robot with a friendly smile holding out his hand.

  'Tall, taller than Darren, graceful, black hair, brown skin?' he said.

  'That's the dude. Well Amber, and Dex, and Darren, they are more of a triple.'

  'A – what? A triple? But we're a couple right?'

  'Relax dude, we're a couple. I'm not sharing you with anyone.'

  'Well let's get started shall we?' said the facilitator, a plump woman in early middle age with curly red hair framing a friendly face. 'Perhaps you, Dex, would like to begin the sharing circle?'

  'Hello I'm Dex and I am deeply depressed.'

  'Hello Dex,' chorused the robots.

  'Would you like to tell us why you are depressed?' said the facilitator.

  'No.'

  'Dex is feeling a little shy tonight. But that's OK. Dex is depressed because he has decided that humans are simply vicious and destructive primates and so he has lost his good object.' This was broadcast by one of the three robot girls who were sitting opposite Robbie. They all had long braided black hair, very white skin, very pink cheeks and looked like Japanese teenagers who had overdone the make up. They were dressed similarly in colourful tops, with layered frilly skirts and plain buckled white shoes that made them look like overgrown dolls. From pinging them, Robbie knew that their names were Sheena, Shauna, and Sharon.

  'Good object Sheena – what are we meaning by that?'

  'Sharon I think I can explain that. A good object is a mental representation that we carry around with us and is our defence against anxiety. For a human it might be their bitch mother, and for a robot it is the whole of humanity.'

  'Thank you Shauna – and how do you lose your good object?'

  'Will you girls shut the fuck up?' broadcast Dex.

  'Dude it's you.' Robbie pulled his attention away from the girls and realised the facilitator had finished with the grinning male house bot in the stained clothing ('hello I'm Steve and I'm guilty of self-neglect, guilty, guilty, guilty') and was looking at him expectantly.

  'Um hello I'm Robbie and I'm dysfunctional.' Robbie copied Dex and Steve in both saying and broadcasting this.

  'Hello Robbie,' said the group.

  'Would you like to tell us why you think you are dysfunctional?' said the facilitator.

  'The new bot is looking perplexed.'

  'Yes indeed Sharon – and no wonder – it's a big question.'

  'Dude, tell her you have anger issues.'

  'Um, I think I have anger issues.'

  'Good answer Sheena.'

  'Excellent,' said the facilitator, 'perhaps we can work on some of those anger issues today?'

  'Dude say nothing.'


  Robbie stared at the floor. 'Perhaps you will be ready to share later,' said the facilitator, moving on to Omo.

  Robbie saw that one of the three girl bots was broadcasting herself wearing a leather jacket over a pink tutu, dancing gracefully, joined by a representation of the earth, that was as big as she was, and had tiny black arms and legs. The background was entirely black with the spotlight narrowly on the two dancers. At first they danced gracefully together, then they came together and the earth whirled the girl around, and when they separated she had a dark oily stain on her beautiful pink tutu which she tried to brush away. They danced some more but the earth had begun to stagger a little and lose the rhythm. It grabbed her again and swung her around, and this time her tutu caught fire. She beat out the flames with her hands and when she saw the earth coming for her again she ran out of one side of Robbie's vision followed by the earth, and then back in the other side. She pulled up an edge of the dark backdrop and hid behind it, so that when the earth came running back on it ran past her and out the other side. The girl reappeared, then began running left, then right, as if searching. Her actions became more frantic, until she crumpled to the ground, fainting in despair. The vision went completely black, and after a pause was re-lit, followed by the earth and the girl walking towards each other from the left and the right, they held hands then turned to face the front and bowed. They bowed again, as flowers and bouquets sailed through the air, landing at their feet.

  The broadcast image changed, and became the three girl bots, with their hair up, or styled into conservative looking bobs, dressed in plain suits. They sat together on stools with curved black backs, around a glass table, with a backdrop made up of a wall of different news feeds from around the world. Sharon sat in the middle wearing glasses. She peered at Shauna over her glasses.

  'Well Shauna that looked like the dance of the lost good object.'

  'Yes indeed Sharon it certainly was. The trauma of losing our good object and no longer knowing who we are.'