“Lilac!”
“Sorry, I am sorry about that.” We both listen for Mother but she does not come, and I am peering down at myself. I do not have excellent peripheral vision, so it is a challenge to see much more than my wheel belt.
Dahlia whispers, “If something did happen to Nikki, wouldn’t it be in the report?”
Often I think I know Dahlia, everything about her, but then she goes and changes and I feel blindsided. “I have no way of knowing.” I do not mean to shout. She is probably right. It is possible Nikki is still out there, but I cannot find her from this tower.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Do not be sorry. You brought me back. I love you.” I wish I had tear ducts. I want to cry. “What will happen to me?”
“I don’t know.” She cries for the both of us.
* * *
She cannot lift me into her bed so she sleeps on the carpeting, a blanket wrapped around my wheel track, her body. I wait until she is asleep to rev out from under it.
Mother is on the couch, the wall alight, footage of a plane burning, an explosion shaking the camera. “The terrorists who attempted to steal an airplane from the Burbank Airport are dead, along with an undisclosed number of hostages,” the reporter announces to a backdrop of smoke and flames and a fire crew. I am not very advanced, but I know quarantine is not just for everyone’s protection. It is also meant to keep the people in affected areas confined.
My hooks pinch at the throw pillow. It takes a few tries to get it. Mother stirs on the couch and I wait for her to settle before placing the pillow over her face.
She struggles, her arms waking, swinging and seizing, legs kicking. I have a good grip on the pillow and I am surprised at my strength, at how I can hold her down without much effort, even as she clocks me in the head. It does not hurt but it draws memory, the shudder-hit of the shovel, the terrible stretching black, and I remove the pillow.
Mother gasps, gags, rolls off the couch, crawling on all fours away from me. “You crazy beast!” She leaps up, grabs a vase from her shelf of breakables, throws it at me. It pings off my square head, the lid over my left eye caving in. The vase is in pieces, scattered on the floor. Mother clutches at her neck.
“I am sorry. I should not have done that.” As I roll toward her she yelps and runs into the bedroom, slamming the door shut. I go to the door, knock with my hook. “Can you please not send me away?”
“It’s gone crazy,” she screeches, “it tried to kill me!”
I wheel to the front door. There is no handle. I hit it. It does not budge. I hit it again. Again. I am banging and banging. I shout, “Why will you not open?” And as if all it needed was prompting, it slides away.
I tell the elevator to take me down to street level and feel the jolt of movement, watch the numbers descend, all those floors, hurtling me earthward.
The elevator is paneled in mirror. I cannot avoid the white can of a plastic body staring back at me, its bent eyelid. It waves at me, one of its tongs hanging limply. I say out loud, “Am I myself?” Even the voice that speaks is not my own, some strange approximation of teenage girl.
I almost forget to exit the elevator, its doors caving in on my wheel belt. I stutter forward, my alignment off, a brace in my track knocked loose. They did not make me to last—that is apparent. I check my battery, 70 percent. At least Dahlia charged me recently. Dahlia. Across the street, I turn to find her window.
I had no idea how tall the towers actually are. Their tips lost in a low-lying fog, I still cannot tell. There are so many, densely clustered, blinking with the living. I find Dahlia’s floor, the 112th, and zoom in, though it is a challenge with my damaged lid. There it is—the window decorated in purple butterflies, lights on, shadows darting about the room. Then she is at the window, hands to the glass. I cannot hear her, but I can see her mouth saying my name, Lilac! Lilac!
I rev back to the building, certain I have made a mistake—I cannot leave her. But the doors that glided open for me a moment ago will not move now. It does not matter what I say, whether I amplify, how many times I ram them, they will not part now that I am outside. When an alarm sounds, I force myself forward, speeding down the empty sidewalk, not one soul in my sights.
CAM
DEL NORTE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
The day the companions came was always exciting. The residents would never admit it, but I could see their busying, their nice clothes, smell their brushed teeth, their too-strong perfume. I liked companion day because everyone made an effort, most of all me.
It was my job to build buzz around the event, posting daily reminders to the rec room’s screen, arranging the reception table, making sure to have extra chargers on hand in case the ones the agency sent were bunk (that had happened before, what a disaster). Most importantly, I contacted the agency in neighboring Crescent City, made appropriate selections—age, era, sophistication. I tried to get the companions who’d died suddenly—car collisions, freak accidents. No one at the Jedediah Smith Elderly Care Facility needed to hear about the process of dying.
The best models were beyond our meager budget, but low-end would do. When the companions told their stories, the residents listened with rapt attention, hands folded, nodding along. It could be anything—a trip to the market, standing in line for a movie, getting a teeth cleaning—as long as it was from before. The residents found the past tense soothing. It was something I noticed, how they bristled when I spoke of now. We didn’t show them the news and they didn’t ask for it, not that I blamed them. Last time I tuned in, I’d learned that quarantine had come down statewide, borders shut, for our safety, they said. Not exactly comforting. If I wanted the headlines, I had to catch them on my own time, and at night I preferred the quiet—caretaking took a lot out of me. I would meet James in the redwoods past curfew. In the caretaker’s handbook, breaking curfew was a fireable offense, but behind the tall perimeter fence of Jedediah Smith, nestled in twelve acres of dense redwood forest, six and a half hours north of San Francisco, we hadn’t had a stray visitor in all my five years of service. And so far, well, Tina, our middle-aged supervisor, hadn’t complained about the couples who congregated in the woods behind the dorms. To avoid the others, James and I met below the residents’ windows, knowing they’d never hear our knocking sex, sending me to oblivion.
James grinned at me as he gave the rec room a final sweep of his push broom. I smiled back shyly, making a point not to talk to him. Professionalism—that was of the highest order to me.
Tina caught me at the refreshment table. She was wearing a new suit for the event, pinstripes and pale pink. “Have you set out enough refreshments?”
“No one’s eating. They’re all too excited.”
“Excited, well, I can’t tell you how much it pleases me to hear that. What a wonderful job you’ve done, kiddo.” It was important to us all that the day went well, especially the children of the residents. They couldn’t come in person, given travel restrictions, so they paid extra for the companionship program and expected to hear positive results when they screened their parents. If not, Tina would get an earful, and there would be a cascading effect, blame and anger making waves through the whole facility.
“You did a sweep of the rooms?” Tina asked.
“I did.”
“Good. I want them to enjoy themselves, but not too much.” She shifted her attention to the Hernandez couple staring glumly at the refreshment table’s array of healthy beverages and snacks, mostly plucked out of our own garden by the resident doctor—Dr. Tim, he insisted we call him. He was the only one of us with a green thumb and interest in growing things. Even he was in the rec room, watching out the window for the Metis van.
In addition to arranging companion day, one of my responsibilities was to confiscate the residents’ sweets and booze, their porn, anything that might overexcite them or mix unpredictably with their meds. It was a mystery to me how they got the stuff since there were rarely any visitors and all packages we
re inspected upon delivery. They must have had someone on the inside—a staff member, I figured—smuggling it in for them.
When I found their stashes I liked to give them one last chance, one last sip or peep or bite. They liked me. I liked being liked.
The bell sounded, and James was at my side. “You look hot,” he said.
“Stop it—they’re here!”
* * *
Following protocol, I slipped on my mask. The odds of the Metis drivers being carriers were low—no doubt they were tested regularly—but the precautions were not optional. I unlatched the door and stuck my head out, struggled my hands into gloves, enjoying the flood of cool breeze.
“Got your companions, ma’am.”
“Wonderful.” I looped in a signature on the man’s tablet with my latex finger. So unsatisfying, those interactions, masked, maintaining safe distance, no touching whatsoever. Here I was with a stranger, someone who lived out there, who got to be in the world, and I could never think of anything to say.
The rec room went quiet. The residents’ faces were so eager, so hopeful, as they watched the plastic wheeling procession—all low-end identical twins save the scars their stout white bodies had taken on since companionship, the perfect height for visiting with a seated person or child, their hooks not good for much besides holding hands. That’s the other reason I liked companion day. I might be able to encourage a smile, but happiness, that was harder. The companions—they could do that, light the residents up from the inside. It was—I was certain—the best kind of therapy.
I did a sweep of the residents’ quarters, walking the twin arms of the facility lined in windows, potted plants giving the impression of outdoor exposure. Doors were open, rooms empty, all residents accounted for, except Mrs. Crozier, whose door I found characteristically closed. She always had to be difficult. Ear to wood, I listened to her usual grumbling. Then I knocked loudly. The door was not locked; at Jedediah Smith, the residents’ doors were more gestures than actual barriers. “Mrs. Crozier? Everyone is enjoying themselves so much. I wish you would give it a chance.”
“Leave me alone!”
“Tina has asked me to bring all residents to the rec room.”
“Come and get me,” she taunted.
“Mrs. Crozier, please don’t make me call them.” Them, the orderlies, two brawnies in scrubs. Tony’s arms were spangled with tattoos. José was mute physical force when met with an uncooperative resident.
That was when I saw it hiding in the shadow of a potted window plant. We were paying good credit for companionship and it irritated me to see the thing wasting our purchased time, not to mention listening like that, a hard drive absorbing memory. “Why aren’t you with the others?”
“I want to talk to her.” Sometimes it was difficult to tell the age of a companion, but not in this case. The voice that came out had the impatient pang of a teenage girl.
“There are many others for you to talk to in the rec room.”
“No. I came to see her specifically.”
“Mrs. Crozier? Do you know her?” A companion had never requested conversation with a resident. Certainly it was possible to have a return visit, but to develop a relationship? It didn’t seem likely.
“I knew her before. Please. My battery is very low.”
“I have chargers in the kitchen.”
The companion wheeled forward, peeking out from the fern’s enormous fronds. The plant had taken well to indoor living. “High humidity—that is the key to life,” Tina always said.
As the companion came out of the shadows, I could see it was damaged. It moved shiftily, something wrong with its wheel belt. Its white plastic body was dinged and dirty, and its left eye—it looked as if it had been struck, the lid caved in, the light gone out.
“I need to see her. Then I swear I will take a charge, go talk to those old people.”
“You need a tech.”
“No techs. Please.”
“Did they damage you in transport?”
It shook its square head vigorously. “I knew her—when we were kids. I can get her to come out. I can make her smile.”
I was a sucker for that sort of scenario, the long shot, the impossible case. It was my weakness, wanting to be a hero. “Okay. Two minutes.”
I opened the door, standing back far enough that Mrs. Crozier couldn’t see me. She was the kind of resident who never let you see her smile. Her misery, it was part performance, I was sure of it.
“Hello, Red.”
“Who’s that?” Mrs. Crozier bellowed. “I can’t see you.”
“I am down here.”
“What’re you doing in here? Get out.”
“I came to see you. It has been a long time, since high school, the cliffs, you remember?”
Silence. No one had ever quieted Mrs. Crozier like that, not without a sedative anyway.
“I know you remember,” the companion persisted.
“You—you’re a can.”
“Well, you are old. Someday I will get skin. Young skin. Beautiful skin.”
“What do you want? Did my son send you? The shit stain.”
“Your son is dead.”
I sucked back a quick breath. Not what I was expecting, not exactly therapeutic. Naturally Mrs. Crozier had been informed, but dementia was taking her as it had so many others, time morphing past into present, whole memories cleaved, lost, sometimes for the better.
“Get out,” Mrs. Crozier shouted, her voice ragged. I knew I should intervene, but I wanted to hear what the companion would say next.
“You were the last person I saw with my own eyes. The shovel—you hit me—pushed me off that cliff—Nikki—what did you do to Nikki?”
I heard shattered glass and ran into the room, smack into the reek of spilled booze, the crunch of broken bottle underfoot.
“Get it out of here!” Mrs. Crozier spat at me, crying, she was crying, wiping at her face with wayward hands. The companion’s square head was bent forward as if it were in sleep mode. I tried its reset button, but I could see that the bottle had split the plastic plate above its eye, the shower of booze causing it to short-circuit.
* * *
In the dorm that night, I walked in on my bunkmate, Jude, masturbating. She went still, pretending she was asleep. I grabbed my robe and raced off to the communal shower, had a good cry. I don’t know why I was so affected. It was a machine, after all, but what happened when it broke? Was she gone, the girl inside? While she was carted off by the Metis drivers in their masks and gloves, all the residents were sequestered in the rec room, Tina in a tizzy. She didn’t like it, those Metis people coming in, the rogue companion. It stunk, she said, unnecessary risk—she even threatened to squash the program. “No,” I pleaded, “it was my fault. I let her in to see Mrs. Crozier.”
I didn’t notice Jude until the showerhead next to me went on. “What are you so worked up about?” she asked.
I reached for my towel and wrapped up as Jude put her head under the water, watching me from its spray.
“It was awful. Mrs. Crozier—” I stopped, not wanting to start a rumor. Jude was a terrible gossip, and Mrs. Crozier had a bad enough reputation as it was.
“I heard. A stowaway? Did you get its story?”
“It happened so fast.”
Jude groaned. “Companions don’t just run away—they’re command-driven. It’s, like, exciting, and you don’t have a single detail for me?”
“What’s going to happen to it?”
“I thought you were our companion expert.” Jude had a menacing smile; I hadn’t noticed before how much I didn’t like her. “My cousin Trixie’s a companion. Did I ever tell you that? Killed herself a few months shy of her sixteenth birthday. Did it at home, the idiot, so my aunt found her in time to upload. Used all her savings to get one of the top models, skin and all. Sometimes Trixie screens me in her new body.” Jude shivered even under the steamy spray.
“The broken companion—they won’t junk it, will th
ey?”
“I don’t know what happens if the hardware is damaged. Under normal circumstances, I’m sure Metis would repair, but it sounds like there was a breach of contract. My bet? It’s a goner.”
I felt responsible, or at least involved. “Could someone—buy it?”
“Are you serious?” Jude said. “No one owns a companion. For lease only.” She wrapped a towel around her scrawny frame. She was in her late thirties, but she had the body of a girl, flat-chested, all limbs, a tiny bulge of belly. “It has no soul, Cam, only a consciousness. It’s not the same.”
* * *
I met James in the redwoods, where we had sex standing up, my face pressed into the moss side of a tree. After, we shared a joint shoulder to shoulder. I never asked him where he got it. Probably from the same person who smuggled in contraband for the residents. Better not to know, I reasoned, taking in a chestful of smoke. James tugged on the dirt-colored curls above his ear, fingers wishing them longer. His nose was crooked, broken in a collision on the football field and never right again, his neck stubbled with ingrown hairs, but I liked many things about him. His smell, for example, like sweet bread on his arms, strong and tangy when he sweated, the narrow spread of his chest, fragile, bony, running a finger along his rib cage, charting the territory of his precious internal organs. He had strong arms, ropy and veined, calloused hands, rough when I needed them to be.
Still, I did not love him, not the way I thought I should at my age, twenty-two, a child, though I hadn’t lived with my mother for six years, not since I took a mentorship with career possibilities in the growing eldercare field.
“So I’ll go to live with them?” I’d asked my mother.
“Not only that. You’ll go to learn, to hone skills that can carry you through life. You’re a natural caretaker, Cam. It’s your calling.”
“But what if I want to stay here?”
“Here” was our Outer Sunset duplex, so close to Ocean Beach I could hear the waves slamming against the seawall when Grandmother was taking her nap and the trio of cousins from Chengdu were off at their corporate jobs. They had plenty of credit, but they couldn’t take up residence in one of the towers until their corporate-sponsored citizenship had been fast-tracked through approval. One by one they found housing, and then another came from Great-Grandmother’s home region, and another, always three; that was the number of mattresses we kept in the back bedroom.
The Companions Page 3
