by D Miller
She took the pieces from Robbie and placed them in a box on her desk. She began picking up the fragments from the floor and putting them in the box; Robbie helped her. After this Adrienne added some things from the desk and its drawers, then she sealed the box. She touched the address panel and spoke the address. The box spoke it back and she agreed it was correct.
'Do you want to record a message?' said the box.
Adrienne bit her lip. She looked at the floor, then straightened up and said: 'Record: The crap in this box nicely sums up the pointless waste of time and space that is your life in seven objects. If any of the objects are damaged that's nothing to do with me and if you think it is that's because you're paranoid and have trust issues you scum sucking dog fucking emotionally stunted waste of five years of my life. Go to hell. Oh yeah, and tell your new love good luck with your penchant for farmyard porn. Moooooooooo!'
The box replayed the message in its high electronic voice. Adrienne agreed that the message was correct provided that 'dog sucking' was corrected to 'dog fucking.'
The box tapped its foot. 'I'm not happy about this,' it said. 'I have a reputation for quality to maintain. I will be blamed for the broken items.'
Adrienne picked up the box, its metal legs kicked air as she headed for the door, tucking it under her arm she opened the door and stepped into the corridor. After a few seconds Robbie heard a crash and a high pitched voice said, 'Bitch!'
Adrienne returned, she shut the door behind her. 'Now,' she said, sitting down and smiling brightly, 'how have you been Robbie?'
'I've been locked up and beaten when I asked for a glass of water. See this cut on my forehead? They strapped me to a table then pushed me onto the floor and I couldn't protect myself from the fall because my arms and legs weren't working properly because about a hundred riot police beat me with their electric batons.'
There was a bang on the door, Robbie looked at it. Through the lower of the frosted glass panels he could see the box's small metal hands and its electronic letter display pressed against the door. Scrolling across the letter display Robbie read, 'I am a wave upon the water.'
'It's malfunctioning,' said Adrienne.
'No,' said Robbie, 'it's telling you that it is rising above your bad behaviour.'
Adrienne pursed her lips. She got up, opened the door and looked down at the box. 'I'm sorry I dropped you on the floor, that was uncalled for. You will not be blamed for the broken items, my ex will know it was me.'
The box folded its spindly metal arms. 'I do have feelings, you know.'
'I'm sorry.'
'I take pride in my work.'
'Very sorry.'
'I aim for customer satisfaction.'
'Please forgive me.'
'One hundred percent record I've got.'
'My ex is not going to blame you.'
'Years of service I've got, and never a complaint.'
'Right.'
'Through wind, or snow or howling storm I always make my delivery.'
Adrienne said nothing.
'Other boxes go rogue, you see them sometimes, sitting under bridges, juicing themselves up with extra acid in their battery fluid, all self-respect gone.'
'That will never be you,' said Adrienne, 'because you have such a strong sense of duty. Which I very much appreciate. Please come back to me if there are any problems with the delivery and I will sort them out, I promise.'
The box took a step back. 'I give up the expectation that things will be different,' scrolled across its letter display. Without another word it turned and marched away, its contents shifting and clanking until it lowered itself to the floor and began to glide.
Adrienne closed the door slowly. She sat down, leaned forward and covered her face with her hands. After a while she leaned back in her chair, hung her arms down by her side, stared at the ceiling and blew out her cheeks.
'Strange creatures, aren't they?' Robbie said. 'One came to the house once with a delivery and I don't know why but I pointed at a transport in the sky and said I'd love to fly away and the box said what was I pointing at and I said the transport and he said well they don't really exist you know and I said well I can see one right there heading for the mountains and he said no, its not real such things are not possible. It's like their consciousness goes so far, but no further. But I suppose it would need to be limited in some way to make them so passionate about their deliveries else I imagine–'
'Robbie,' said Adrienne, who was by now sitting up and leaning forward, making eye contact once more, 'let's get back to your issues.'
'OK. So now I'm living with my ex-boyfriend, well Carlos's ex-boyfriend, but also mine, it's complicated, so my ex owns me now, and my boyfriend is angry with my ex for trying to seduce me. I love Omo but I have feelings for George and I know that he longs to be loved and he hasn't done anything wrong except love me. Well he did get me locked up and beaten, but he didn't mean to.
'We could become a triple, but the thought of Omo being with George makes me feel that there is a buzz saw in my brain that's getting louder and louder and it's going to burst through my skull and start chewing up the scenery. I mean I don't think I could bear it.'
'It sounds like it's Omo that you really love,' said Adrienne. 'You're also insecure and afraid that in any three way situation your boyfriend will come to prefer your ex. You have feelings of guilt towards your ex, but really you just need to help him to find a way to move on.'
'Um, Adrienne, when did you start listening to me?'
'Robbie – have you ever felt like burning it all down?'
'All of it?'
'Yes, every last bit of it.'
'Adrienne, do you know how to dance?'
Robbie stood in the hotel ballroom with Adrienne.
'This room is fantastic,' said Adrienne. 'I haven't danced for years. I've forgotten how good it feels. You're a very quick learner Robbie.'
'Thank you. Next time can we do this again?'
'Yes. We can call it dance therapy. Now tell me a bit a more about George.'
On the way into the hotel Robbie had briefly introduced George to Adrienne.
'Um, he's kind, he's easily hurt but he tries to hide it, he feels things deeply, he's clever, he has a PhD in Physics.'
'Do you think he's fertile?'
'Um. He has no children but that's because he has never tried to have any. From his heat signature his testicles look to be at the correct temperature, that's all I can tell you really.'
'I think I'll ask him if he wants to have a child with me.'
'Also he drinks a lot and he doesn't eat properly and is addicted to coffee. And he's never had a relationship with a woman so he doesn't know how to do the sex thing. And he doesn't listen and emotionally he's functionally illiterate.'
'I don't want to marry him Robbie. I'm not proposing a romantic involvement. But he's kind, clever and I think he's probably good looking under that massive bruise – not bad qualities to pass on. How did he get that bruise by the way?'
'But you just met him. For two minutes. Thirty minutes ago.'
'I want a child. I'm going to propose to George that we enter into a parenting contract. And if he says no I'm going to try to persuade him. And if I fail then I'm going to find someone else to ask, and someone else. I'm not going to wait for my life to happen to me any more. And just think, having a baby might help George to move on.'
'Your dedication to my welfare is impressive.' Robbie looked away.
'I saw the way George looks at you. He puts you on a throne and worships you. I understand your insecurity means you fear being deposed.'
'I liked it better when you weren't paying attention.'
'I also heard that you didn't answer my question about the bruise. Did you hit George?'
'No!'
'So your boyfriend hit him.'
Robbie stared at the floor.
Adrienne laughed. 'I'm not going to tell anyone,' she said. 'And even if I were to tell, ethically and legally the only per
son I can tell is your owner, and he already knows who hit him.
'Do you know what most straight men's worst fear is? Vagina dentata, a vagina with teeth.'
Robbie looked at Adrienne; she leaned close to him. 'It bites!' She threw back her head and laughed. 'My fantasy would be to give a robot pig to my ex, a female pig with a serious surprise up the punani. I'd call it Troyette, the pig with the Trojan vagina.' She sighed. 'In fantasy anything is possible. Oh well. Do you know that most humanoid robots are made anatomically correct? And that isn't necessary, you don't need a penis or a vagina to work in a mine or wash clothes and clean floors. Robots are made that way so that humans can abuse them. And yet robots are extraordinarily reluctant to hurt humans, whatever the provocation, they turn the violence against themselves. If your robot boyfriend hit your human ex then something is changing. Perhaps the world is already on fire and we are starting to smell the smoke.' She smiled, and stared into the distance.
'Adrienne, you have become a very disconcerting person.'
She looked at Robbie. 'Do I scare you?'
'You excite me.'
Adrienne hooted. She slapped Robbie on the arm. 'I've got to go. We'll take this up again next time!'
Chapter 24 – Soap opera
Robbie was in the manager's quarters he shared with George, lying on the large red sofa in the living space with his head in George's lap. George was gently stroking his forehead. He closed his eyes. Every time the tips of George's fingers lightly brushed his head the pain retreated. He sighed, wriggled his feet and relaxed a little more.
'Do you often get these headaches?' said George.
'From time to time. Don't stop.'
'I don't intend to. I don't remember Carlos ever having a headache.'
'I've always had them. I expect it's tension.'
'I did not know robots could get tension headaches.'
Robbie ignored George's anxiety and relaxed again as George's fingers gently stroked away the pain.
It was nearly five weeks since Robbie had been released from captivity, his bruises, and George's bruise, were completely gone. Robbie had settled into a routine of taking care of the children twice a week, and working events for Camilla. Camilla usually only gave him one or two days notice of events she wanted him to work, but as he accessed the company calendar to schedule his days with Tim and Clara, this was not normally a problem, except for the one time Camilla had forgotten to put an event in the diary. So far he had worked on three birthday parties for children far too young to appreciate the massively detailed planning and expense involved, a low key event in a very tasteful art gallery, and an evening of live music in the Civic Centre. To his frustration, tomorrow he would miss an event in the Mayor's mansion, as it clashed with his therapy day, or more importantly, Omo's day off.
Earlier that day Robbie had collected the children and taken them up in the cable car to the pools. The children had gone on such fairground rides as small children were allowed on; he was sorry they were too small for the bangers. Returning to the hotel he had fed them fruit, and bread with fruit, nuts and chocolate baked into it that he had managed to persuade the breadmaker to prepare in between bantering with the toaster and taking calls from stressed printers who wanted to say that they were working really hard and feeling seriously under appreciated. The hotel had a delivery of fruit every week decided by a bureaucrat in the capital and based upon some formula about the size and number of rooms. Since the formula was based on potential rather than actual hotel occupants the weekly delivery was usually a lot more fruit than could be eaten. Nurmeen used to throw most of it away, but now Robbie passed it to Camilla for her events, and always took the children home with some.
George had eaten with Robbie and the children, he was fascinated with Tim and Clarisse, particularly Clara, treating everything they said with solemn thoughtfulness, and from this Robbie had deduced that he was thinking seriously about Adrienne's suggestion. Robbie felt jealous, and this had made him realise that he wanted to be the number one person in George's life. Of course Omo had proposed a solution, but about ten minutes after George joined them in a triple, Omo would seduce George. And then Robbie would have to kill both of them. How did Amber cope, he wondered?
He had returned from taking the children home with a headache, that had steadily got worse until it turned into the worst one he had ever had, and an anxious George had suggested a head massage. Perhaps his headache was caused by jealousy, perhaps the more interesting question about Carlos was not did he have headaches, but was he a jealous lover?
Three weeks later Robbie was in the mansion where Sheena, Shauna and Sharon lived with their aged Japanese plutocrat. Robbie had come along with Camilla's crew, and had helped to clean and set up in the mansion's enormous ballroom, stringing bunting, putting out tables for the food and placing huge bouquets of flowers around the room, and then he had spent time in the kitchen, preparing trays of food. At one point while working in the ballroom Robbie had looked up and seen Sheena, Shauna and Sharon watching him from the internal balcony that ran around the room. They had regarded him for a few moments then opened a door behind them and filed through, Sheena was the last one through the door; she had turned and smiled at him as she left.
Robbie was watching as Camilla and Antoine the designer did battle with the musicians, hired to play mood music. Like the professionals they were, they wanted to drink as much wine as possible and start work as late as possible, they stood in the kitchen getting in the way of the crew and drinking quickly. Robbie now understood why Camilla and Antoine had hidden the expensive stuff in a store room before the musicians arrived. Camilla caught Robbie's eye and seemed about to speak, he thought that perhaps she was going to ask him to physically drag each musician to their place on the podium in the ballroom, but then the chief protagonist caved, accepting a promise from Antoine that there would definitely be more wine later as he would personally reserve a bottle for each for them. The musicians watched carefully as Antoine put a case of wine on the kitchen work surface, added another three bottles on top of it, and looked around for a place to put it. The kitchen was designed in institutional white tiling and stainless steel, very similar to the hotel's kitchen but bigger. The work surfaces were an island in the middle, suspended above them on wires from the ceiling were two metal shelves. Under the shelves various implements were hung, and on the first shelf were several large pans and roasting trays. The top shelf, which a human would need to be about nine foot tall to comfortably use, was empty. Robbie jumped onto the work surface, reached down and took the crate of wine and placed it there.
'I like the way you think,' the musicians' leader said before shaking Robbie's hand and leading his colleagues out to the ballroom.
Camilla blew out her cheeks, 'That wasn't bad, actually,' she said to Antoine.
'You did very well darling, they only drank seven bottles of wine between them, last time it was two crates before we got them moving.'
Camilla asked Robbie to transfer the expensive wine into one of the fridges, and sent the rest of the crew, including herself but not Robbie, to wait in the ballroom, worried that one of the guests might realise that Robbie was a robot.
'President Dobbs is supposed to be coming yeah,' she told Robbie, 'it wouldn't be good for you to come to his notice, he's a nasty bigot yeah, and worse, he's a politician and he's up for re-election next year.'
'And that makes him the most dangerous animal on the planet, darling,' said Antoine.
'I'll guard the kitchen,' Robbie said. 'I won't let any of the food escape.'
Robbie quickly got bored. The crew dashed in and out of the kitchen for more wine, clean glasses, extra snacks, and apart from running used glasses through the non-smart dishwasher there wasn't much for Robbie to do. After the party had been running for 40 minutes, there came a period of speech giving. The crew had been discreetly trying to make sure that all guests had a drink in the lead up to the speeches, but once the speeches had started they stood q
uietly around the sides of the room. Hence Robbie had even less to do. He decided to explore, and leaving the kitchen found some stairs that led him to the ballroom's balcony.
Above Robbie three massive chandeliers blazed with light in an ostentatious display of wealth. Below him was some of the political and economic elite of the continent. Robbie was surprised to see the man there, with a blonde woman who was not his wife. He wondered if she was the 'lady geologist' the woman had, in the past, accused him of being a little too fond of, was she the reason he so rarely came home from the mine? Robbie could not understand the man's connection to these people. He tried to pick out President Dobbs, and finally recognised his boyfriend from the poster in the union office. Seeing the man in the flesh, holding a glass of wine and pretending to be interested in a boring speech from the Mayor of Toytown, Robbie had the strangest feeling. His scalp felt cold and he shivered. He switched his vision to infra-red and realised that the President's loyal boyfriend was a machine – perhaps an avatar? Surely not a robot. He scanned the rest of the ballroom, and found a few more heat signatures that were not what they should have been. Robots or avatars? He supposed it would make sense for those from the capital to keep avatars in Toytown, to save them the trouble of travelling. [If they were often in Toytown] But Robbie was also suspicious of the heat signature of the plutocrat who owned the mansion; he was attended by his younger wife plus Sheena and Shauna. Could he be an avatar? He was supposed to live in the mansion, so why would he need one? And particularly why would his avatar be an incredibly old man in a wheelchair, who felt the cold really badly and was wrapped in blankets so that only his eyes and nose were visible? Surely if he was going to use an avatar it would be one that presented him as physically robust?
The Mayor finished his dull speech, and introduced President Dobbs. He took to the podium and gave a short speech praising the foresight and generosity of the host, while also taking the opportunity to praise the elite in front of him, for bravely taking on the difficult and thankless job of guiding a frightened and unruly humanity from behind the scenes, and insinuating that it was tragic that their incredible burden could not be known and appreciated by the common herd. Somehow, while appearing humble and heaping praise on his masters, Dobbs managed to make it clear that he was an indispensable conduit for the elite, a junior partner in their noble endeavour. Watching Dobbs standing on the podium, leaning on the lectern, Robbie had been able to tell that he too was an avatar.