Broken Things (8 page)

Mrs. Hart unzipped the bag and stared at its contents,
shaking her head in amazement. He didn’t want to see it.

She slammed the trunk and opened the back door, motioning
for him to get in. He hesitated, but not knowing what else to do, he obeyed. At
least the bag was in the trunk. He’d rather walk home than deal with that. She
slid in behind the wheel and locked the doors.

“So where are we going?” he asked, “When are we going to see
my parents?”

“We’re going back to my office,” she explained, “And you
won’t be seeing your parents again. You’re defective. Sometimes when kids break
they’re thrown way. Sometimes parents do that. It’s not right, but it’s not
illegal either. My job is to pick kids like you up and dispose of them
properly. You’re bad for the environment. Could you imagine if everyone
abandoned
you things
? We’d have broken children everywhere.”

“They didn’t throw me away,” Josh said defiantly, “They were
coming back. Just call them, you’ll see. I’ll wait for them if I need to.”

“It’s their own fault,” she continued, “It looks like you’re
falling apart. Did they play too rough with you? Did they slap you around?”

“They never hurt me. I was in a crash.” He caught her eyes
in the rear-view mirror and thought he detected a hint of loathing. He grabbed
the door handle as she pulled away but it wouldn’t open. “Let me out!”

“Child-protection door locks. Isn’t it great that they still
include that feature in cars? There hasn’t been a real kid for years.” She
laughed as though she had just made a joke.

The whining in his head increased as he tugged on the
obstinate door. The world turned black.

12

Tamara Hart hated children. From time to time, she glanced
back at the boy in her backseat and thought, for the third time that day, about
quitting her job and moving back east to Boston. Most of the people that she
considered friends lived there. Even after ten years in Idaho, it still didn’t
feel like home. She would move back one day. The only thing Boise had for her
was Kidsmith and Tom, her boyfriend, and both were negligible.

She cracked the window for fresh air and turned off the air
conditioner. The dead thing in the trunk had a stink that permeated the
vehicle, despite its location. She knew someone that would love to play with
it, even though she rarely encountered something so foul.

After ten years, people wouldn’t remember what she had done,
would they? At least nobody should care anymore. It was just a kid. Besides,
they weren’t even as popular as they’d been back then. She would tell them that
she’d learned from her mistakes. She’d quit taking strays from the street
unless she knew for certain that they were abandoned.

Nothing compared to the nightlife of Boston. Terry (short
for Terrance) had been the most understanding husband that she’d had. He knew
what he’d married. Forever young and beautiful, she could get into any club,
get free drinks, and spend her nights dancing. It should have gone on forever.

But trying to manage a day job with the East Coast branch of
Kidsmith and living her lifestyle proved… challenging. You couldn’t work in
Reclamation if you didn’t bring in strays. She had a quota, but more than that,
if she were at the top of the bell curve there were nice fat bonuses. Kidsmith
made more money by refurbishing and reselling children than making new ones.
Any time a kid made the company money twice, she got a bonus.

Who would have thought that they’d take a kid’s word over
hers? To this day, Tamara denied the kidnapping charges. They weren’t real. The
term kidnapping couldn’t even apply. The company had launched an investigation,
and had accused her of taking children that still had owners. In her defense,
they should have kept a better eye on their possessions. She didn’t leave her
house unlocked. She didn’t leave her purse lying around. She knew better. Kids
didn’t belong on the street either, always getting in peoples’ way. You had to
keep dogs on leashes, why could an android run around unattended?

When they told her that if she were found guilty of the
kidnapping charges that she’d have to repay her bonuses back to the company,
she knew she had to do something. It was her livelihood that they threatened.
She just didn’t know they had security cameras watching the storage room.

The kid couldn’t be identified if it were missing its
registration and serial numbers… and if it couldn’t talk. They’d never found
the body nor the hammer (she knew how to dispose of things), but they had
recorded her nearly five minutes of destroying the thing.  

Not only had that kid ruined her job, it had ruined her
marriage. But Tamara had never been helpless. Though she couldn’t save her
position, she’d done a few things in the past that she wasn’t proud of, and she
had a supervisor that owed her. He gave a glowing recommendation for her to the
Boise branch (and corporate) for her transfer, but Terry had no plans of
relocating. One plane ticket later, she’d found herself divorced and across the
country, away from friends and lifestyle.

Kidsmith didn’t pay bonuses for bringing in strays anymore.
That had come to an end with the decreased demand. That brought a decrease in
pay and consequently a decrease in her fun. Idaho didn’t pay as well as Boston
did either, adding to the daily increasing list of reasons not to stick around.
What good was it to be forever young and beautiful if you couldn’t enjoy it?

She still had a hammer under her seat, just in case she
needed to relieve some stress.

13

They were still driving when Josh awakened. His head rested
against the window and he’d been drooling. The mountains were gone, replaced by
green fields.

“Welcome back,” said Mrs. Hart, “You really are a mess. You
shut down for almost an hour. People don’t understand how delicate you machines
are. They think that they can just let you things run wild, or play too rough.
You have no idea what I’ve seen. And then they think that they can just bring
you in and have you fixed. The technology of a kid is very advanced, people
need to respect that. Otherwise they’re replacing you every few years.”

Josh crossed his arms. “My parents want me.”

 “Oh I’m sure,” she said mockingly, “Because you were
such a great kid?”

He chose not to answer her, returning his gaze to the blur
of the landscape. First chance he got he would run away. He’d find a way back
to Twin Falls, maybe even by hitch-hiking.

“Anyway I called your parents and they don’t want you,” she
lied, “That’s what eventually happens to all kids. People don’t realize what
they’re signing up for. Suddenly you have a machine that’s dependent upon you.
You can’t go places that don’t allow them, you aren’t supposed to leave them
alone, and when you do they destroy things and make messes.

“And then there’s the
really
crazy people. They opt
to buy babies! Can you imagine being stuck with something like that? They
scream all the time, you’re constantly changing diapers, and they demand
constant attention. That’s why I think that so many babies get damaged so fast.
You can’t even turn them off to rest. You get a screaming machine that you
can’t shut up. Their owners eventually accidentally drop them. It’s hard to
imagine how parents raised the real things, and those would grow up. That’s the
real reason that there hasn’t been a real kid born for twenty years. The world
is a better place without them.”

“But you were a kid once, weren’t you?”

“That was a long time ago,” she said, “And that’s not how
the world works anymore. I’m the perfect age, and I’ll never have to worry
about getting older.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to get older?”

She looked mildly shocked in the rear view mirror, flashing
him a glance as though he were crazy. “Why would we? Everyone wants to live
forever. The world is perfect now. No more death. A perfect society with no one
getting old and ugly.”

“Then why even bother creating kids then?”

“My point exactly! We don’t need you.”

Following that, they rode along in silence. He didn’t want
to talk to her anymore. His parents did love him, didn’t they?

Soon the road merged with a highway, and not long after that
the fields gave way to buildings as they entered Boise. Cars were nearly bumper
to bumper everywhere he looked, and looking over the seat he saw that they
still maintained a speed averaging ten miles an hour over the posted limit.

What if all of the people were robots too? Maybe nobody was
real, they just went about pretending that they were, living in perpetual
self-denial. When they came too close to the truth, if their minds dwelled on
their existence too long, they took it out on someone else, like children. And
in a way, that would make them feel better because when you were miserable
everyone else should be too.

If everyone lived forever, shouldn’t they be having more
fun? His dad looked miserable every day, grabbing his lunch and heading out the
door, heading off to the plant to do whatever he did. His mom would tell him,
“Have a good day at work!” to which he’d respond with a grunt. Then his mom
would rush him out the door before planning her own day, which always started
later, heading off to her job at the salon, where in the few times he’d gone
there to wait for her involved playing with peoples’ hair and telling
embarrassing stories about other people that they knew.

If he got to live forever, he’d want to spend it going
places, like theme parks and beaches (but not the mountains, never again the
mountains), and playing games. Heck, even if he didn’t live forever, that would
still be what he’d want to do. But shouldn’t he be able to live forever, too?
Technically he didn’t age either.

They drove through the downtown and pulled into a private
parking garage to what appeared to be a fairly large office complex with
massive windows that reflected the street, with a large sign above that read
Kidsmith. Mrs. Hart exited the car and opened his door, expecting him to
follow, which he did reluctantly.

She led him through the door, and the voices on the inside
merged into a jumble of sound, nothing truly understandable, but a necessary
hum that meant that things were happening. A few people looked up at him as
they walked by but no one flashed him a smile, though many did for the woman,
some giving her a friendly nod. Josh, on the other hand, was an object, a
machine. To acknowledge him would be to personify him, and in their line of
work they wouldn’t want to get attached to him. Probably none of them even had
any kids.

If anything their eyes displayed contempt. He felt like
hiding, he wished even though he hated her that she would take his hand. His
face burned with embarrassment. He could see the dirt on the back of his hands
and all over his arms and on his clothes. He tried to focus on each step but
the colors in the room were beginning to go gray.
Oh please not here.
He
bit his lip.
Keep walking,
he told himself,
just follow, don’t think.

“Mrs. Hart,” Josh said, trying to get her attention. But she
ignored him. His voice sounded tinny and far away as though it was being
transmitted through a radio. Her attention had turned to another man in a white
t-shirt and tie.

“There’s a surprise for you in my trunk,” she said, “Wait
until you see it.”

Josh stumbled into a desk and bumped a cup of coffee,
sending a man in a swivel chair leaping to his feet and yelling, “Goddammit!”

“I’m sorry,” he tried to say, but nothing came out, he
couldn’t form the words, he could only stare up at the man with the red angry
face and feel tears spill down his cheeks. He needed his parents. He wanted
them there now! He wanted to turn and run from the office, but that was
impossible, impossible because his body would no longer move, and now, worse,
he felt his bladder give out and the warmth of pee flowing down his leg.

“Where the Hell did you find that piece of crap?” the man
yelled, “He spilled my goddamned coffee!”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Hart said, not really looking or sounding
sorry at all, “It’s seriously malfunctioning. Somebody dumped it in the
forest.” She grabbed him by the arm, and tried to pull him, but his legs didn’t
move. She frowned disapprovingly. “Come on,” she said, “Move it.”

“Look at that,” the man said, “It’s pissed itself!”

Everyone in the office stared at him, some expressionless,
others showing disgust. Not a few laughed and pointed.
Oh please,
he
thought,
let me black out
. Yet now of all times he couldn’t. He couldn’t
move or do anything, accept stand there.

“Call someone to clean it up,” she said. She grabbed him by
the arm and shook him, “Come on, stop making a scene! You can walk. I’m not
going to carry you.”

He looked up at her, imploringly. If only she would carry
him, or take his hand, anything!

Finally she sighed. “Could you please call someone to come
get this thing?”

A few minutes later, the office had mostly settled down and
two men arrived, one with a handcart. They slid it under his feet, treating him
like a heavy box. As they rolled him toward the back of the building he finally
shut down, slipping into oblivion.

14

Josh opened his eyes to find himself staring up at a white
ceiling with bright fluorescent lights. Someone had dressed him in fresh
clothes and washed away the dirt. He rested on a cot in the corner of a small
windowless room. Aside from his cot, the only other objects in the room were a small
table with two rickety wooden chairs pushed beneath it. A small side room,
almost no bigger than a broom closet, held a toilet and a sink.

He walked over to the door and tried the handle, but it
didn’t budge.  He pounded on the door and screamed, “Let me out! Hey!”