Love and Robotics (79 page)

“The poor thing!” She moved towards him, wringing her hands. “Where did you find him?”

They’d hatched a story on the way down. “He was left on the tip. Hooligans must’ve set him on fire.”

His injuries were far older than that, but Mandy was too overcome to quibble. It only took him to open his eyes and ask, “Are you an angel?” for her heart to melt.

Pip, always sensitive to atmospheres, felt like an intruder. “Let’s get goin’,” she muttered.

They offered Mandy forty Q, which she declined. Both girls asked if they could look in on him every now and then.

They were back in Trudy, stunned by the night’s events. Gwyn had seen a new ugly side to life and sought comfort. As for Pip, she was riding an adrenaline rush.

“Of course this doesn’ mean -” Pip said after Gwyn kissed her.

“We mustn’t think this changes anything -” Gwyn as she pushed the seat back.

“We’ll carry on the same -” Pip as she parted Gwyn’s legs, slid her fingers in one by one.

“No, still friends -” as they bucked towards orgasm.

They lay beneath the travelling blanket, exhausted but satiated. “D’you think they have cams in these places?” Gwyn asked.

“We’ve given them a show if they have.” Pip blew their invisible audience a kiss, then snuggled against Gwyn’s breasts.

Gwyn could tell something was troubling her. “What’s the matter?”

“Fisk. Why’s she emptied her office? What’s she up to?”

Gwyn ended up staying the night at Pip’s. It was inevitable.

“Don’ read too much into this,” Pip said as she cooked breakfast. It had become a running joke; their relationship was very much back on.

Gwyn had to leave early. Pip was disappointed but didn’t persist - she knew her girlfriend had plenty on her mind. Gwyn drove for an hour before stopping at a playground and calling Captain Lucy. He answered so swiftly you’d think he had been sitting on it.

“Ms Wilding.”

Why hadn’t she noticed how oily he sounded? “I wanted to speak about Josh -”

“The artificial, yes.”

The Robot Graveyard had changed her opinion for good. Robots were people, there was no denying it. “I want to call it off.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard. I was going to give him up, but I’ve realised it’s wrong -”

“Oh, dear. It’s too late for second thoughts.”

“What?” She thought she had misheard, two boys were making a racket on the roundabout, but there was no mistake. “Surely if I say -”

“The law is not an attack dog you call on and off when it suits you. That widget belongs to us.”

“I’m recording this call, I’ll have you reported -”

“Stop it, you silly girl. You deliver up that robot or you will suffer the consequences.”

She was frightened but refused to show weakness. “Oh? What might they be?”

“Your average jail is fraught with danger, Ms Wilding. I’m sure you understand.”

She did. “Don’t hurt him!”

“That’s entirely up to you.” He hung up.

She sat on the swing, tears streaming down her face. The boys’ mother gave her a dirty look and hurried them away.

“Josh,” she whispered wretchedly, “when you find out what I’ve done, forgive me.”

***

Fisk hadn’t been out for weeks. She couldn’t. She could only sit in the twilight of her house, letting the post stack up and the plants die.

Her life was based on a lie.

She had found it while she was clearing out Joseph’s things. Perhaps fifteen years was a long time to leave it, but she had never had the strength. Then her nephew came to live with her and she hadn’t found the time. She’d spent so much energy defending Eric against the world. She didn’t believe half the things they said he had done.

A series of postcards, to and from a woman called H. Their writing entwined and mirrored each other, made promises. “I’ll leave J,” the last one said. “Meet you at the station tomorrow.”

The night Joseph died, he hadn’t been driving home. He was running away with another woman. It would explain the suitcase that sprang open, shedding clothes across the highway. She’d never understood it.

She called CER in a voice not her own, said she would be off indefinitely. She stayed at home, slept and wept, scratched her arms until they bled.

Josh. Joseph. How could she expect the artificial to love her if the original hadn’t?  If Josh had a different face - but it was his character she fell in love with, just like Joseph’s. Or so she had thought.

The third week she was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, when she heard something on the stairs. She found a razor on her bedside table and held it out in front of her. She set foot on the landing.

“There’s money in the safe downstairs,” she said. “I’ll give you the combination. Please don’t take anything else.”

She screamed when she saw him. He was wearing a woollen helmet, covering the worst of it, but she could still see the puckered scars, half the skin boiled away. And the eyes - so pale. Eyes she knew before he spoke.

“Eric?”

She burst into noisy sobs, even while he held her. “Ssh, auntie.”

“They said such terrible things - I thought you’d killed yourself - ”

He kissed her forehead. “Your Tiger always comes back. Anyway -” the scar down the side of his face rippled like a second smile - “you must call me Nick now.”

Dark Days

Alfred had never given prison much thought. If it crossed his mind it was in terms of dripping cells, rabid rats, miscreants with a penchant for buggery. All this horror would be housed in a dismal, draughty keep with bars on the windows and imaginatively placed trapdoors.

His present surroundings couldn’t have been more different. The Lux Rehabilitation Centre was white and blocky like expensive chocolate. Its programme stressed the importance of wholesome food, regular exercise and talking through your issues. ‘Guests’ kept their minds active and hands busy. It was difficult to keep a straight face as hardened criminals wove fussy baskets and painted twee landscapes.

These measures were the brainchild of the new governor, an unlikable, diminutive woman called Esther Breakwell. She always gave the impression of having been marinated in vinegar from her blonde chignon to her spiky heels. She came to inspect the guests each morning.

“Never forget,” she declaimed, “you’re privileged to be in this forward thinking institution. You’re the symptoms of a disease, which it’s our duty to cure. Society!” she cried, smacking her left breast. The more sex starved inmates twitched.

It was doomed to failure. The guards scoffed at what they called ‘namby pamby eyewash’ and carried on in their old brutal fashion. It didn’t help that Breakwell was passionately in love with Captain Lucy, quivering throughout his visits. There was no accounting for taste.

Alfred was called for a “sort of review” with her his first week. A guard came to collect him, cracking feeble robo jokes. He feigned deafness. The numbskull grew bored and resorted to prodding him down the corridors instead.

Breakwell was playing with her beebo as he was shown into her office. If you believed the men she never did anything else. “Langton. Sit.” 

He resisted the temptation to bark. She put the beebo away. “How are you finding your stay?”

“Room service’s on the surly side. Otherwise top marks.”

“Are you trying to be funny? Considering the nature of your offence, you’re lucky to have been placed in such an enlightened institution. If I had my way -”

“Castrate them and throw away the key?”

“If you can’t be civil -”

“Forgive me, governor. I will show you the respect you are due.”

She seemed mollified. “Are you settling in? Making friends?”

Breakwell was either naive or a sadistic bitch. She should have known that every society has a hierarchy, and prison - even a trendy one - can’t function without it. Alfred had learned early on he was at the bottom of the food chain. Comments. Spit in his food. Obscene drawings chalked on his cell door. He couldn’t appeal to the guards, they’d only join in. Anybody who cried, “Backs to the wall, Langton’s coming!” or made crude gestures with a mechanical device was backslapped.

He’d assumed their attitudes were due to homophobia. Didn’t Crispin Clay and his like claim gay people were a threat to society? Yet going by the moans and groans at night, several guests were similarly inclined, or at least gay for the stay. It was love they viewed as an abomination.

The worst two, in different ways, were his neighbours. The first was Charlie ‘Pervert’ Prosser, nicknamed Wank Hands. Nobody knew the exact nature of his offence but it was rumoured to involve a goat and a dwarf dressed as a nun. He’d launch into salivating monologues for Alfred’s benefit.

“I don’t blame you, Lord Langton. I’ve always liked machines. Bet it was hot and hard and moist. One time I stuck a plug up my -”

Alfred covered his ears.

His neighbour to the right was Ivan ‘Shiv’ Brunowski, head of the Lux mob. Breakwell had sweet talked him off drugs and onto religion. He had gouged a crony’s eye out for blasphemy; he wouldn’t be thrilled to have a Deviant on the other side of the wall.

Discovery was inevitable. His fourth night he was woken by what sounded like somebody taking a running jump at the wall. No sooner had he turned on his lamp and felt around the bed than a deep, unearthly voice intoned, “Langton!”

“Yes?”

“You thought you could hide. I know what you are.”

Couldn’t he pack it in and let him sleep? But Brunowski hadn’t finished. “Get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. A power mightier than I will mete out justice. You won’t be so hot for your mechanical lover when you’re burning.”

This had become routine, with soliloquies and homilies sounding either side. You could yell at them to shut up but it wouldn’t do any good.

“How are your sessions with Dr Neal?”

The little man arrived at sixteen sharp every few days. He’d sit with his file on his knee, clasp his ankle. He reminded Alfred of Michael Derkins.

“How are you getting on?”

“Nobody’s threatened to kill me today. That’s a plus.”

Nanny’s voice warned: “He’s just another trick cyclist. Give nothing away.” To which Alfred would say: how am I supposed to get my point of view across if I bottle everything up? People used to look down on gay relationships - well, they still do, but never mind. If I prove I’m rational, they’ll have to accept our relationship is valid.

He’d explain this, with Neal going, “Hmm-hmm,” and asking the occasional question.

“You say you knew he was the one. How did you know?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

Alfred expected a ‘Yes’ answer. Come on, he was wearing a wedding band. Instead Neal sighed and said, “I used to think so. I don’t know.”

“I can only call it an epiphany. I remember exactly where I was: being driven home by my niece. You meet someone, get to know them, and one day it’s there. You think, ‘Of course it’s you. It could never have been anyone else.’”

“Have you felt like that before?”

“No. Ken seduced me before I was old enough to know better. You confuse sex with love at that age. With Josh it’s the genuine article. - I must come across as a crazy old man settling.”

Neal took off his glasses and polished them with his tie. “No, not at all.”

Josh’s actions and feelings were more problematic. Neal asked, like a bright child correcting a dozy teacher, “If CER wiped Josh’s memory, how could he remember - what happened between you?”

“I can’t explain it. I thought - still think - he’s broken his programming.”

Neal didn’t like this but wrote it down. He let Alfred continue uninterrupted until they reached Gala Night, where his pen shot into the air. “Josh started it? Even with no memory?”

“Humans and robots aren’t as different as we think. If you lost your memory tomorrow, wouldn’t you act like you?”

Neal wasn’t sure. He supposed so.

“There’s no reason why a modified Josh would make the moves on me, so we can only assume part of him remained. That part loved me no matter what.”

They shook hands at the end of each session. Alfred felt lighter, however temporarily. Then guilt and despair gathered around him again.

The last day of that month was one of the worst of Alfred’s life. It might have been the worst if there weren’t so many contenders.

He’d been adopted by one of the other ‘guests’, an old timer called Darvish. Darvish must have been seventy odd, with the grizzled beard and bulging eye of a mad prophet, but he had the wits and reflexes of a man half his age. He lived in a battered, stinking coat he never took off and had horrible personal habits, but you overlooked this if you wanted to get by. He wore a patch over his right eye and had so many tattoos his greying skin looked blue.

As Alfred walked into the dining room that morning, there were the predictable coughs of  “Widget fucker!” Darvish looked at the culprits in weary disgust.

“Pathetic,” he spat. “Langton, there’s a space if you want it.” He gestured to the seat beside him.

Cat calls, mocking kisses. “Beardy love!” somebody cried. The others hooted and banged the tables.

“Ignore them,” Darvish hissed. Raising his voice, “You think you’re better than Langton, eh? You, Jacques, who did in his ma for the insurance money? You, Illsley, who flashed his prick at kids?”

Illsley tried to hide behind his tray. Jacques was suitably cowed.

“Maybe bots are like us, maybe they ain’t. I don’t give a preacher’s piss. I’ve been in and out of brigs forty years and I ain’t never seen a sorrier shower.” 

Alfred pushed his tray away. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

Darvish bared a grisly smile. “No fear, boyo. They won’t hassle you again.”

During the aggro a streak of tobacco swilled spit had landed in Alfred’s beard. He wiped it away but still felt dirty. There was nothing for it but to take a shower.

The showers were one of the few things they’d got right. Clean, spacious, a powerful jet that blasted the dinge. Alfred rubbed shampoo into his beard and began to sing.

The latch on the cubicle door lifted - he heard the sound through the spray. He glanced over his shoulder. He caught the glint of a shiv, wickedly sharp. It slashed towards him, aiming for his throat.

Alfred blocked the weapon. He wrapped his arm around his assailant and slammed them into the wall. There was a sickening sound like ice breaking up. As the body slumped, the shiv clattered to the floor. He switched off the jet and crouched to examine the body.

Ivan Brunowski sprawled across the tiles, naked apart from a towel. Alfred checked his pulse. Nothing could be done for him. He closed the gangster’s eyes, his suspicion turning to certainty. This wasn’t a motiveless prison attack. This had been a hit. What was more, he knew who had ordered it.

***

Alfred was relieved when Neal came to his cell later that day.

“Doc, this shit’s got real. Brunowski tried to off me in the shower.”

“Whoa. Slow down.” Neal hadn’t taken off his jacket. “Tell me everything.”

It came out in a confused mess, starting with Brunowski’s campaign and winding up with the mobster dead at his feet.

“He was a nut but he believed. Somebody’s got to him. I know this will be dismissed as paranoid -”

“Off the record, who do you think it was?”

Alfred thought about holding back, but what did he stand to lose? “Captain Lucy. He’s always had it in for me. He roughed me up my first day - remember my nose?”

“These are serious accusations.”

“I know. But if I’m going down, I want to drag every rat bastard with me. He’s the worst.”

“It won’t be easy. Lucy has friends in high places. He could make life difficult for you.”

“Oh, and it’s so peachy now.”

Neal tried not to smile. “Sarcasm, Alfred. I’ve warned you before.”

An officious tap at the door. Alfred raised his voice and said, “We’re not finished. Come back later.”

No response. He assumed they had gone away. The door slid open. Breakwell in one of her prissy twinsets, nostrils twitching. Behind her, cracking his knuckles and gloating, was Captain Lucy. He went to Neal and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Nice work, Neal. This should be all the evidence we need.”

Alfred willed it not to be true. Neal shrugged. With that simple movement the familiarity vanished. He didn’t look like Michael at all. He looked what he was, a plant by Perversion Prevention.

He started to shout and swear. Breakwell exclaimed: “Language!” while Lucy smirked. Neal lowered his eyes and said, “Your defending barrister will visit tomorrow. Her name is Salome Feist.” He followed his employers from the room.

Alfred threw himself down on his bunk. He was furious with himself. To think he’d been taken in by the oldest trick in the book! Now he looked back, there had been signs, but he’d been so lonely and desperate he’d disregarded them.

“Don’t cry, Alfred.”

It was official. He had lost it. Yet the voice sounded real, and close. “Where are you?”

“At Chimera, though transmitting my thoughts,” Josh said. “I can’t explain any more clearly, I’m afraid.”

“Thank gods you can. I might’ve done myself a mischief.”

“One thing - could you address me inside your head? If somebody heard you -”

“They think I’m loopy anyway, but I see your point.”

He told Josh everything. Neal’s betrayal, the hit, the emptiness of his days. “I hate it here. If I have to spend the rest of my life in this place -”

“Be strong. I’m sure it’ll work out.”

Josh had plenty of stories about the Artificial Emancipation Association: how Hector insisted on drinking tea even though his workings reacted against it, how Cora got stuck halfway down the banister, the feud between Puss and Tutu. “They’re constantly chasing each other. He starts it - he’s an insufferable little git.”

Alfred laughed for the first time in days. “Can we do this every night while I’m here? It’d be so much better having someone to talk to.”

“Of course. I tried before but there was a block. I’m thinking of you every moment.”

“I love you, Josh.”

“I love you too.”

That evening Gwyn received a call. She’d come to dread the appearance of ‘8888’ on her beebo screen. She opened it, sick at heart. “Hello?”