I Heart Robot (18 page)

“I want to go home.” I don’t want to be here, not if all I am is a pawn in Rurik’s political game.

“Are you serious? We just got here.”

“I want to go back to Baldur.” I can’t imagine spending a weekend sleeping next to Rurik now.

“You’re over reacting.”

Maybe I am but—”You accuse my mom of conspiracy, offer to pay me to spy on her, and then expect me to play nice and eat dinner with you and your brother? I thought I knew you.”

“You do.”

“The Rurik I know would never do something like this.”

“And the Tyri I know wouldn’t be throwing her future down the drain or cavorting with some random muso she just met.”

I bite my tongue, holding back bitter words. “Forget it. Forget everything. I’ll take the train.”

Rurik watches in silence as I gather my things. I’m heading out the door when he blocks my path with his arm.

“Please,” he says, sounding more wounded than ever. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We can fix this.”

“I’m not sure we can.” Everything I’ve been feeling recently—how we’re growing apart, how things are changing between us—explodes in my chest.

“Would you let me try?”

I look away from his eyes. If I don’t I’ll end up unpacking and throwing my arms around him. I take a shaky breath before answering.

“Maybe, but not here. I need some time. After everything with Mom, Erik, and now this.”

“So we’re not breaking up?”

The dreaded question, and I’m not sure of the answer. Rurik’s always been there. I can’t imagine a life without him. Maybe that’s the problem. He’s leaving me and going off to college anyway. Maybe we should break up before staying together gets too hard.

“I think so.” I finally manage to look at him. There’s anger and hurt on his face. He swallows and nods, dropping his arm to let me pass.

“I’ll take you to the train station.”

We travel in awkward silence. Am I over reacting? Maybe this isn’t such a big deal, and I just need to let it go. I love him, I do, but I don’t want to be with him any more.

“Is this because of the whole violin thing?” he asks when we pull into the station. The drizzle plays music marked
morendo
on the windshield
.
All he needs to do is say sorry and mean it. Then maybe we could still be friends. All I’ve ever wanted is for him to be on my side. All I need is for him to kiss my forehead and tell me he’s sorry for being a nullhead jerk, that he doesn’t think my mom is involved in anything remotely corrupt, and that he’ll support my dreams of being a musician. He doesn’t. He sits in silence waiting for an answer I don’t have.

“T, tell me. Is it something to do with this guy you can’t shut up about?”

“This isn’t about Quinn.” Not in the way he thinks. Quinn just made me realize what Rurik and I don’t have—what we don’t share but should.

“Tyri, I love you.” His face contorts, twisting from hurt, to angry, to an expressionless mask I can’t read. My heart breaks for him and for us. I love him too, but I can’t say it, not right now. I reach for his hand. He jerks away from me, and now I know how much that stings.

“You better go.” He stares at the drizzle cutting across the windshield. “Before you miss your train.”

Alan Turing believed that if a machine behaved like a human being, then it should be considered a human being. And as the father of artificial intelligence, according to the tome on AI courtesy of Örebrö’s university library, he should know. Turing’s biography scrolls across my retinas, his life passing before my eyes. The rain beats a constant accompaniment on the metal roof, and I read in tempo.

I shiver in my coat and hug my knees to my chest. The metal shell doesn’t provide much insulation and neither does the stacked cardboard I’ve been sitting on. With my fuel consumption escalating, I can’t risk burning more hydrogen to keep myself warm. Every trip to the fuel station is a huge risk. With Sal’s cash lining my pockets, the only thing stopping me from strolling into an uptown store and purchasing brand new bedding is the threat of being discovered. Uptown malls are sure to have sensors and robot’s equipped with scanners. It’s not worth the risk either. Besides, if the train depot addicts can find blankets, so can I.

I brave the midnight gloom and head off with a flashlight toward the alleys lined with overflowing dumpsters. The weather sours, the cold exploding in bursts of lemon on my tongue. Gritting my teeth against the chill, I begin trawling through the trash.

After an hour, I’m coated in ooze and muck, still without a blanket. The last dumpster in the row, isn’t a dumpster at all, but a charity bin. Not many Baldurians would come this far downtown to drop off unwanted goods for the less fortunate. The lid creeks open and darkness greets me. Flashlight clenched between my incisors, my hands probe the black and find a plastic bag.

With effort, I drag it out of the bin and spill the contents across the cobbled alley, the rainbow intestines of a cotton-blend beast. Women’s summer attire. No blanket, but there’s a shawl. That’ll do.

“Find something good, did you?” A bedraggled human approaches me. She’s young and bundled up in rags. I stuff the shawl into my jacket and say nothing. The sooner I get away the better.

“Can I take a look?”

“Be my guest.” I nudge the sack of clothing toward her.

“Cold, isn’t it?” She starts sorting through the garments. “Already shivery and it ain’t even winter yet.”

“There’s a shelter—”

“Not for skaggers.”

“Ah.” I back away. She might not be alone. I don’t feel like taking another pipe to the head or being robbed by humans.

“What you searching for here anyways?”

“A blanket.” I increase the distance between us.

“You got cash?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I got blankets.”

“Where?”

“Follow me.” She gathers up the clothes and bundles them against her chest. Warily, I follow her to the depot.

After a minute, we join a huddled group gathered in the warmth of an oil-drum fire. The stench of gasoline stains my vision noxious yellow, but the warmth is worth enduring the odor. My gaze scans the depot. A garish new tag stands out in acid green on a crumbling wall, another anti-human slogan just like those splashed in neon across shop windows and empty walls. I’m not sure what my brethren are hoping to achieve with their graffiti. Beside the freshly painted vitriol, fliers flap in the breeze announcing a downtown gig, promising acoustic instruments. It might be worth sneaking into.

“Where are the blankets?” I ask.

Her gaze darts over her shoulder to a gap in the wall behind us.

We duck through the slit in the boards, and the girl pulls back her hood revealing a snarl of tangled hair.

“Thirty an hour,” she says. Her dirty fingers are already undoing the buttons of her coat.

“I only want the blankets.” I fish a roll of bills from my pocket.

“Serious like?” She stares at me with jaundiced eyes.

“Here’s a hundred. Blanket only.” I
enunciate.

She raises an eyebrow and takes the money. “Take your pick.” She gestures toward a makeshift bed swaddled in tatty quilts. Most are stained and moth eaten, others are peppered with mold. I select the two least hazardous and drape them over my shoulders.

“For a hundred krona, I could still warm your bones, if you want?” She grins and reveals jagged teeth.

“No, thank you.” I pause before ducking back into the cold. “You should buy something to eat.”

She smiles and shakes her head. I wonder how much skag you can buy for a hundred krona.

***

I’m naked and waist deep in frigid waves taking a much needed bath when I receive a call from an unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Quinn.” Tyri pauses, an awkward silence stretches. She sniffs and takes a deep breath. “Um, how are you?”

Before I can answer, an electronic voice echoes in the background announcing a station stop. I rub my filthy skin and scrub stains from my clothes. On second thought, I drench the blankets and shawl as well. One more night wet and cold will be worth having less rancid blankets.

“You’re on a train.” I splash my way back to the shore as the rain worsens.

“Yeah, leaving Osholm. I’m calling from the train’s public comms. I don’t have a new number yet.”

“Why are you leaving?” Maybe there’s been another riot, more violence perpetrated by robots against humans. Maybe Kit is one of the ringleaders, goading fellow androids to turn more human skulls into mulch.

She sniffs some more. It takes another moment for me to realize she’s crying.

“You okay?”

“No.” Her voice breaks. The sound of her tears feels like nails driving into the tips of my fingers. “I tried calling Asrid, but she didn’t answer. I’m sorry for calling so late,” she whispers.

“It’s fine. What happened?”

Another shaky breath.

“Actually, we don’t have to talk about it,” I say.

“Thanks.”

It’s not much warmer inside the crate, but at least I have dry clothes. Still sticky with brine, I struggle into them. Huddling beneath Sal’s army jacket, I tuck my hands under my armpits wishing I had breath with which to warm my fingers. I’ve been using the flashlight like a candle, but the batteries are failing. I switch it off and sit in the dark with Tyri’s voice inside my head.

“Coming to rehearsal tomorrow?” I ask.

“Hadn’t thought about it.”

“We could do something afterward maybe. Something to cheer you up.” The words leave my mouth before I’ve given them proper consideration.

“Like what?”

“There’s a gig tomorrow night. You could join me.” A queasy feeling takes up residence in the hollow of my abdomen. I want her to say yes, and I’m simultaneously afraid that she will.

“What kind of gig?”

“Neo-acoustic. Real guitars and vintage synths.”

“Okay.”

“You want to go?” My fuel-cell shudders beneath my ribs.

“Sure.”

I’m smiling and don’t know why. Spending more time with Tyri is dangerous, something to fear not eagerly anticipate.

“I’ll see you at rehearsal tomorrow?”

“I think so.”

I don’t know what else to say and saying goodbye doesn’t seem appropriate just yet.

“Whatever it is, Tyri, it’s going to be okay.” I tell her what I wish Sal was still around to say to me.

She takes a long moment to respond. “Thank you, Quinn. I needed that.”

“Sometimes we all do.”

“Glad to see you decided to join us Miss Matzen,” Maestro Ahlgren says before a grueling 90 minute rehearsal. Quinn and I share an awkward ‘hi’ before tuning, stealing glances at each other between movements. I’m not sure what to say to him. Should I apologize for calling him so late? Is he truly okay with it and if he is, what does that mean? That we’re friends even though we hardly know each other? Was last night really the end of my relationship with Rurik?

My tumultuous thoughts hamper my playing, and I make a mess of the Mahler.

“Are you okay?” Quinn asks in that whisper voice of his while Ahlgren’s attention is on the woodwinds.

“I will be.” This time we share a smile and I can almost forget the storm clouds and question marks dangling above me.

At the end of rehearsal, Ahlgren makes an announcement.

“Next week after rehearsal, solo candidates for the gala performance will attend an audition in the main auditorium. Brun, Dahl, Haga, Homstad, Soarsen, and … ” She turns her hawk eyes on me. “Matzen. Be prepared to astound me.”

One out of six. Not bad odds except we stand no chance against Quinn. These auditions are just a formality.

“Congratulations,” Quinn strokes his violin before shutting the case.

“She should get it over with and announce you as soloist already.”

“How can you be so sure she’ll choose me?”

“You’re actually going to make me say it?”

Quinn cocks his head the same way Glitch does when she pretends she doesn’t know why she’s in trouble.

“You’re brilliant Quinn. The best in this orchestra.”

“You really think so?” There’s surprise on his face, not arrogance.

“Yeah, I know so.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.” He clutches his violin to his chest like it’s all he has in the world.

“What time does the gig start?” I ask as we head out of the opera house.

“Not until seven.”

We have a full three hours of blank space in the day. I’ve never been more relieved to not have my moby vibrating in my pocket. No messages from Rurik. No call from Asrid. Just quiet-spoken Quinn, feral viola player and violin prodigy.

“What we going to do until then?” I ask.

Quinn shrugs. “What would you like to do?”

“Get into something more gig appropriate and have some dinner. You want to come back to my place?” There, I asked. No turning back now. “We’ll have to take the bus, but—”

“Okay.” Quinn looks as if he’s just made some bigger, life altering decision than whether or not to come home with me. We stroll through falling leaves and puddles reflecting sunshine toward the bus stop.

***

“Welcome to my humble home.” I open the door for Quinn.

“It’s lovely.” He steps into the hallway at the same time Miles lurches out of the kitchen. Quinn’s eyes go wide.

“Miles is a simple model.” The words come out in a rush. “He wasn’t involved in the riot or anything.” I step between them. “Nothing right now, Miles. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“As you wish, Tyri.” The housebot’s green digisplay eyes pass over Quinn before he leaves us.

“You named it?” he asks.

“Why not?” I shrug. “Glitch, where are you girl?” I kick off my shoes as Glitch comes trotting down the hall. “This is Glitch.” She licks my face as I scoop her into my arms.

“What happened to her leg?” Quinn approaches with caution. Glitch sniffs him warily.

“She was born with a bad leg. They were going to put her down, but Mom thought it’d be a good opportunity to test out some M-Tech gear.”

“Does it hurt her?” He trails his fingers across the seam where flesh meets metal. Glitch doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.