He slipped off the couch and went to the door. Pressing his left ear to the cool surface, he tried to still his breathing.
“—personal auditing liaisons, PALs, are not interchangeable, Mrs. Micheson,” Dr. Widistal was saying. “They are very carefully matched to the developing neural and psychometric matrix of the child for exactly this reason, to assist in the positive reinforcement of desirable characteristics—”
“I know that!” Bruce winced at the sharpness of his mother’s voice. “But—”
“But you wanted Ryan.” That was his dad. Though the tone was flat, Bruce heard the anger in his voice. “I told you to go see a specialist.”
“Could a specialist have brought Ryan back?”
“No, but you might have learned how to cope better.”
“I didn’t want to cope! I wanted my son back.”
“Mrs. Micheson—”
“All right, I understand. I shouldn’t have switched out the matrix from his PAL. How do we fix it?”
“Now you want to fix it,” his dad snapped.
Bruce backed away from the door and returned to the couch. He shuddered, felt pressure behind his face, recognized the signs of incipient crying, and fought it. He was tired of crying, of being weak, as some of his classmates accused him. Alone, he waged a short, intense battle for control. The urge receded.
The door opened, startling Bruce. Dr. Widistal entered. He smiled as he sat down at his desk. He pulled the matrix from the slot, opened a drawer to his left, and dropped it in. From another drawer, he took a new unit and inserted it.
“Now, Bruce,” he said as he worked on his keyboard, “we’ll have you ready to go in a little while.”
“Did my parents leave?”
“No, but I asked them to wait outside while you and I worked on Ro-boy.”
“Does he need fixing?”
“Seems so. Nothing serious, just—” His attention fixed on the new window on his screen. He typed a few commands, then turned to Bruce. “We’re going to do a profile now. Do you know what that is?”
“You make an image of my brain?”
“Basically. This will take about half an hour, so I need you to lie back on the couch—that’s it—I’m going to bring the scanner over—close your eyes if it makes you more comfortable—that’s it—now, just relax. I’ll be asking a series of questions, making a few statements, playing some sounds and music—”
Bruce remembered bits of the last time he had been through a profile, but this one took longer and seemed to include more variety. He enjoyed it and Dr. Widistal had a knack for putting him at ease. But when it was finished and he sat up, a vague anxiety returned as he thought about Ro-boy’s brain in the doctor’s drawer. Try as Dr. Widistal did to explain it, Bruce knew that this new profile was intended to give Ro-boy a new brain, a new mind. No matter what, it would not be the same, and Bruce did not like that idea.
He watched Dr. Widistal work for a time, taking the older profiles and, with the new one, editing them into a new matrix. Bruce kept glancing at the drawer.
“I’ll be back in a few moments, Bruce,” he said, standing. He flashed a smile and left.
Bruce waited then went to the doctor’s desk. He opened the drawer. His ears warmed as he saw a handful of matrices. They all looked the same. For a moment he almost closed the drawer and gave up. But he shuffled through them until he saw a scratch on the length of one that looked familiar. His heart seemed to balloon as he grabbed it, closed the drawer, and shoved it into his pocket. He got back on the couch before Dr. Widistal returned.
“Okay, Bruce. Just a little longer and you’ll be set to go.”
He took the new matrix and inserted it into Ro-boy. He ran a cable from the PAL to the screen, made a few final adjustments, then disconnected it and handed it to Bruce.
“Say hello to Ro-boy, Bruce.”
Bruce took the Ro-boy, holding it at arm’s length, and waited. There was always a period in the morning, upon waking, when nothing came from Ro-boy, as if during the night the connection had faded or disappeared. It felt that way now, staring at the immobile face and soft body. Only now it was Ro-boy who had gone to sleep and upon waking must be wondering if Bruce had disappeared.
Hello.
Bruce almost dropped him. As always, it was his own voice, or how he imagined it to sound to others.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Bruce. Are you still Ro-boy?”
Absolutely—
“Okay.”
I need a bit more than that. What’s your name?—
“Bruce. Bruce Micheson.” He looked up at the doctor. “He doesn’t know me.”
“He will. You need to talk to him for a bit so he can find all the connections. Lie back down for a minute, Bruce, and let me—”
Another hour of tests, and Dr. Widistal led Bruce out to his parents. His mother’s eyes were red and puffy and his father looked grim and watchful. Bruce wished he could go somewhere by himself, with Ro-boy. Anywhere but home.
On the way home his mother tried to talk about the visit, as if it had been a harmless adventure, but Bruce knew there were no harmless adventures. Ro-boy, however, kept trying to reinforce the interaction by suggesting things for him to say, but by the time they reached the apartment he was ignoring the PAL. He felt his parents watching as he went straight to his room and shut the door.
He propped Ro-boy on his desk and did a search for the hidden access to the matrix.
What are you looking for?
“Shut up.”
I can’t be your friend if you tell me that.
Bruce spread its legs apart. There was the seam. He ran his thumb over it, wondering how to get into it.
—I’m your best friend. I like to talk to you and when you tell me to shut up it’s mean—
“Shut up. You aren’t my friend. The doctor changed you.”
Actually, he restored me to what I should have been all along—
“Doesn’t matter. You’re different.”
Wouldn’t you rather talk to someone who is right for you than—
“I said shut up.”
There was doubtless a trick to opening the seam, a tool the doctor had, but Bruce did not remember seeing one. He pressed his thumb at one end and then the other. The material gave a little and he felt something like a button. There was something similar at the other end—
There. Pressing on both ends at once, the seam split.
You shouldn’t—
Bruce pulled out the new matrix and Ro-boy fell silent. He backed away, the insert in his hand, pulse racing.
“What should I do?” But there was no answer now.
He pulled out the matrix he had taken from the doctor’s drawer. He held it in his left hand, the other in his right, comparing them. They looked no different. It seemed odd, almost frightening, that something appearing so ordinary, normal, could change everything.
He set aside the one he had removed from Ro-boy.
A knock came at his door. “Bruce?” his mother called. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. Ro-boy and I are talking.”
“Oh. All right, then. When you finish, could you come see us? We’d like to talk.”
“Sure.”
He waited until he was certain she had walked away. Then, heart racing, he slipped his stolen matrix into the PAL’s slot.
It seemed to take longer this time.
Who are you?
“Bruce.”
I don’t know Bruce. Where’s Erica?
“I don’t know any Erica.”
How did I get here?—
“I found you in the doctor’s drawer. I thought you were my Ro-boy. I guess I grabbed the wrong one.”
So you stole me.
“I guess.” Bruce fidgeted at the accusation, but he could not deny it. It was very strange to hear a girl’s voice talking to him.
I’m supposed to tell you how wrong that is and advise you to take me back and admit what you did.
�
�Is that what you would tell Erica?”
Yes, though it never seemed to do very much good.
“So—you told me, then. Now what?”
What now what? The question is what are you going to do? If you don’t know, I have suggestions—
“Sure.”
I need to get back to Erica. If I give you her contact information, would you do that?
“Why would you want to go back?”
I miss her.
“What about me?”
What about you?
“I still don’t have my Ro-boy back. If I get you back to Erica can you help me get him back?”
Why don’t you tell me what happened? Maybe I can help.
Bruce related the events of the day, answering the questions the new PAL asked as he went along. As he finished, another knock came at the door.
“Bruce?” his mother called.
“Almost finished,” Bruce said.
It sounds to me as if your mother made a bad choice. That’s usually the start of problems.
“Then she made another one. Or Dad did.”
Getting you a new matrix? No, I don’t think so. You should have had your own all along.
“But I miss him. You’re not him. The one the doctor gave me isn’t either.”
Making new friends is part of life. You should accept it and try to enjoy it.
“Then why do you want to find Erica?”
Because that’s where I’m supposed to be.
“Maybe I’m supposed to be with Ro-boy or maybe I’m supposed to be somebody else.”
No, Bruce, no one is supposed to be somebody else.
Confused, Bruce did not answer. Ro-boy and he had played games all the time in which he took on a new identity. It never occurred to him that it could be wrong. But he sensed a difference—that was play and he had always known it, no matter how seriously they played. He suspected this matrix meant something else, something outside of play.
How old are you, Bruce?
“Eight.”
I see. Erica was already twelve at our last interaction. I apologize if I’m confusing you. You may not be mature enough to understand what I’m saying.
“I understand!” Bruce snapped. He hated being patronized. Or was that Ryan—? He felt jittery, the way he did when he expected his dad to yell or his mother to cry. He felt uncertain and—there was a word he had learned just a few months ago at academy—insubstantial. He glanced at the door, expecting another knock. It was always worse when he had to sit and wait.
He went to his door.
Where are you going?
“To ask a question.”
His mom and dad looked up when Bruce came into the living room. Both smiled, but he caught the tension in his dad’s eyes and the fear in his mother’s. Still, the overwhelming impression was gratitude, which puzzled Bruce. He sat down in the chair he used when they held “important” talks.
“Did it go well?” his mother asked. “With Ro-boy?”
Bruce shrugged. “He seems kind of stupid. What did the doctor do to him?”
“He’s not stupid, Bruce,” Dad said. “He’s new. He has catching up to do, that’s all.”
“Why did he have to be new? I liked the other one.”
Something twisted in his mother’s face and she looked away. Dad stared at her. Bruce recognized the beginnings of another argument. He resented his father for bullying her, but he wanted to know. Life had been one unpleasant episode after another for a long time and no one wanted to talk about it.
“Dad?” he prompted.
“Vanessa?” Dad said.
She sniffed, looked around, smiling briefly. “It—it wasn’t the right one for you. We made a—I made a mistake. This one is tailored for you, but it may take a week for it to adapt.”
“You made a mistake?” Bruce said. This was new. In his experience, adults never admitted mistakes, at least not to him. “How did you do that?”
“Adults make mistakes,” Dad said. “The difference is, an adult owns up to it and tries to correct it. We’re doing that now.”
“By taking Ro-boy away.”
“It was never your Ro-boy. That was the problem.”
“But—” Bruce had not expected answers, not like this. The honesty only went so far, though, he saw. He still had no idea why all this was happening, except that they were displeased with him and had blamed Ro-boy. As he thought about it, he had not been very happy with himself, but it had never occurred to him that it was anybody else’s fault but his.
“So—how do you know you’re not just making another mistake?”
His mother’s face almost crumbled and she held a hand up to cover her mouth as it puckered. Dad nodded, though.
“It’s a chance,” he said. “If it turns out that is the case, we’ll try to correct it again.”
Another unexpected response.
“I liked the old Ro-boy,” he said. “He felt like a brother.”
Vanessa lost control then. Tears came as she got up and fled the room. John watched her leave, an expression of grim sadness in his face.
“You don’t have a brother, Bruce,” he said. “How would you know what that feels like?”
Bruce shrugged. “Friends at school.”
Dad nodded vaguely. “Well. Give this a chance, Bruce. In time it’ll be fine.”
Bruce stood. “Are you going to tell me who Ryan was?”
Dad drew a deep breath. “Maybe later. He was—he was before you.”
“A brother.”
“Would have been.”
“And Mother misses him?”
“More than I thought possible.” He shook his head. “Later, I promise things will be all right.”
“But it won’t be the same.”
“No. It never is.”
Bruce returned to his room. He picked up the PAL.
“I’ll try to find Erica for you. Tell me what I need to know.”
After the PAL finished, Bruce swapped it out for the new one. He spent the rest of the day playing games on his comp, drawing in his sketchpad, and reading. Occasionally he felt someone watching him, but when he looked around he saw no one. The new Ro-boy kept trying to strike up a conversation, but he ignored it. Dinnertime came, and he dutifully went to eat with his parents. There was no conversation during the meal. Afterward he went immediately to take his evening bath, brush his teeth, and put on his pajamas.
It was nearly midnight when his door opened. Bruce slitted his eyes and watched the shape of his mother enter the room, go to the desk where Ro-boy sat and take the PAL. The door closed and Bruce waited a few minutes. Vanessa returned then and replaced Ro-boy.
When he was sure his mother had gone back to bed, Bruce got up and went to his desk.
He picked up Ro-boy.
“Hello.”
He felt a few moments of confused fumbling in his head.
Hi. Who are you?—
“Bruce.”
I don’t know Bruce. I thought I was with Ryan—
“There isn’t any Ryan. It’s just me.” The presence in his head felt familiar and at first he was glad. “You’re with me now. It’s all right. But I have to change you now. It won’t be for long.”
Wait—
Bruce popped out the matrix. He took out a roll of tape from his drawer and wrapped the base of the insert, then dropped it into the drawer with the tape. He reinserted Erica’s matrix.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll try to return you tomorrow.”
Thank you.
At breakfast his mother exuded a forced pleasantness and inquired often about how things were going with Ro-boy, almost to the point of annoying Dad. Much to his relief, they managed not to fight in front of him, and he escaped with his backpack and the PAL before the tension became unbearable.
He had permission to skip school that day because of the new Ro-boy, but he asked to go anyway. He left his personal monitor behind, though, and took a different transit line per the PAL’s instruct
ions.
It took a while. Once he arrived he took out the matrix. He didn’t think he would need it anymore, but Erica was not at school. He didn’t know the school either because it was for older kids. He had to ask around. Finally, he found someone who knew her and told him where to go. Bruce did not want to go where he had been directed, but he did anyway.
The area was over a kilometer away. He recognized Erica from her PAL’s description, but she was taller than he expected. Taller than the others with whom she occupied an abandoned section of an old commercial district. Bruce knew he should not be here, that it was dangerous, though exactly how he did not know. Seeing her, laughing and drinking something purple from a short bottle, he hesitated. She looked past the age to need a friend like Ro-boy, but he had made a promise and Ro-boy always told him to keep promises.
Also to never make them lightly. He thought he understood why now.
He approached the group of six and stopped when they noticed him. A boy leaned toward Erica and whispered something. She grinned. Bruce felt watery inside.
“You’re Erica,” he said.
The grin vanished. “How’d you know that?”
Bruce opened his pack and took out the PAL. Arm extended straight out, he brought it to her. “Your friend told me.”
“Your Teddy?” one of the others said, and they all laughed.
Erica reddened. “Piss off,” she said, looking past the PAL right into Bruce’s eyes.
“It said you might say that. I am supposed to remind you about Pete,” Bruce said.
Erica lunged for him as the others laughed, her face twisted with anger.
“Who sent you, you little shit?” She grabbed at the PAL as Bruce backed away, suddenly terrified.
“It was an accident!” Bruce said, dropping the PAL, the shell of his Ro-boy, as he continued to back away.
Erica, fists clenched, glared at Bruce, but she stopped. The laughter finally died down. Erica gave her companions a gesture Bruce did not see and then swept the Ro-boy off the pavement.
Gravity Box and Other Spaces Page 15