“Your oatmeal is getting cold.”
“It tastes awful. Can I have some sugar?”
“No, I already put in enough.” She’s always been sensitive to sugar, acting like a maniac if she has too much. I worry she’s diabetic, but the doctor says her blood work is great. Healthy, fine. I almost relax. Her therapist, well, she says Gabe has abandonment issues and minor PTSD, and she’d prefer her to go on meds to reduce the violent outbursts, but Gabe hasn’t gotten into a fight in months, and of course she has issues getting along with other kids—she didn’t start school until she was fourteen, when Nat left her here with us.
Now she’s nearing sixteen and in her last year of school, and then she’ll be gone. Two years she’s been my charge; I got to be a mother to her. I know I should have been doing Diana’s work, what she asked of me. Our memories up until the point she uploaded herself may be identical, but those years on the screen, the simple knowledge of my companion form, living in the world next to Diana, all that’s changed me. She used to say it when we disagreed, “You aren’t—what I expected.” Because I share her memories, I know what she expected: a second self to complete her work. I imagine I was a disappointment to her, more interested in Gabe than in Diana’s plans. But this, being here for Gabe, I can’t imagine anything more important.
She eats a few bites. “Enough?”
“No. Eat some more.” We go on like this until she’s finished the bowl and the brownies are cooled on the counter. I always leave a good half hour for breakfast. Gabe is the slowest, the pickiest eater on the planet, or at least that’s what Diana used to say.
The brownies smell so good as I cut them up and put them in a container. I have memories of chocolate, of biting into a soft, warm brownie—I can nearly taste it.
“Have a good day,” I call after Gabe as she stomps off toward the bus stop. Waiting on the corner, her friend Hilo neither waves nor smiles at Gabe’s approach. He’s sullen and wearing all black and skinny as a water-starved vine. It’s cool out, and I grab a sweater, a sun hat, and my glasses, leave them in sleep mode. I only want the appearance of screening, of being cold, of needing sun protection.
I lock the front door, check it, check it again. We had a break-in last year, middle of the day. It was as if someone had been watching us, the way they knew my schedule. One day I came back from my walk and Diana’s screen was missing, on it her data, everything. Luckily it was backed up on a spindle, on me too. I carry it with me, the knowing. And now someone else knows too.
I check the door again and glance up and down the block before I cross Cortland to the cobbled side street and tromp up the hill.
The truth is my morning walk is my favorite part of the day, hiking the steep streets of Bernal, past the mashed-in houses, the people, some of whom even nod or say hello. Hello, I say back, trying to sound nonchalant, trudging up to the undeveloped peak of Bernal Hill with its dirt trails and dogs and hikers and that remarkable view of the downtown towers.
Often I take off my glasses to enjoy it, but not this time, and I’m glad for their protection when a woman approaches me, waving. I know her—Hilo’s mother, Char. She’s friendly enough at the school’s evening performances where I make a rare appearance, always hiding behind my glasses, pretending to be one of those feed freaks who can’t disconnect, but we’ve never spoken outside of school. With her is a dog, some husky hybrid with a full coat and pearly eyes who barks at me, and I’m afraid of it.
“I didn’t know you walked up here.” Char flashes me a giant, warm smile, her hair wilding in the wind. She tries to control it with a bat of her hand, and I notice a tattoo on her forearm of some sort of winged insect.
“Not often,” I lie.
“I’m here most days. Occasionally I take Nova to Glen Canyon, but it’s a bit of a walk, and we had a run-in with a coyote last week.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. I can’t see the point of letting them loose like that. This is a city!”
It amazes me, really, how animals manage to survive in a place like this, raccoons digging through trash, rats running the narrows between houses, red-tails circling overhead. “Were you scared?”
“Nah, I had my protector, didn’t I, girl?” Char leans down and lets the dog kiss her on the lips. “Did you know female dogs are the more aggressive of the sexes?”
I do in fact know this, but I don’t tell her so. There was a time when Gabe and I talked about getting a dog of our own, but the paperwork, the screening—we can’t chance it. Maybe when she’s off for her mentorship I can find one through less reputable channels.
We walk awhile together, and Char goes on about how depressing it is, the kids going off to campuses soon. “Are you as sad as I am?” she asks, and there’s nothing to do but agree. Of course I’m sad, but once Gabe’s free of me, she’ll no longer have to worry about my discovery.
“I should go,” I say.
Char seems disappointed. “This was fun! We’ll be here tomorrow, around the same time, if you’d like to do it again.”
I tell her sure, and hustle home.
* * *
It’s late afternoon where Nat is—all he’s told me is it’s somewhere in South America—and I sit down at the screen, message him. When he reached out to me a few months back, we agreed never to show our faces, just chat, just to be sure. It’s nice, having someone to talk to besides Gabe, someone who knew Diana, who knows what I am. And I know from Diana’s memories that Nat’s a good guy, though he left Gabe, didn’t he? Never once has he asked to see her, to speak to her. I haven’t told Gabe that he’s alive, that I’ve heard from him, waiting, for what? I haven’t told Gabe a lot of things. I worry it would shake up her performance at school.
“If they find out about me, you’ll step in, right? You won’t let anything happen to Gabe, will you?” I know it’s an absurd request. What’s he going to do, take a plane from South America to fetch her? No, we’re stuck. On our own.
“What’s happened?”
I tell him.
“That’s nothing. You deserve a friend, Kit. Don’t be so paranoid.”
Easy for him to say. He’s not a discontinued product, illegal, considered dangerous. The ones who are still out there breached their contracts years ago, left behind the people to whom they’d been leased long before the recall. They’d been operating outside of companionship for some time, unlike me. I was never a companion. By the time I got my body, companionship was already illegal. And all the rest of them? They came when their names were called, followed the Metis drivers to their vans, sitting calmly in the rear all the way to the disposal center where they would be destroyed.
It’s maybe for this reason that I don’t feel so bad about what Diana did, or rather, what she didn’t do. She knew them, the scientists behind the viruses, not well, but well enough. They worked in dark channels, unaffiliated with anyone, where Diana went when she was desperate for a certain medication or a particular piece of hardware, shadow transactions, no Metis, no government. She knew what they were doing, the call for carriers they were putting out. That it was wrong—or at least she should have. She should have told someone, put a stop to it: I can hear her thinking it in my head. I can hear the silence that followed, feel the awful acceptance she experienced when she chose to do nothing, the relief when it was carried out, something she’d never admit out loud, not even to herself.
I should feel worse about it, maybe even guilty myself, but I think of those companions Metis destroyed, the people who had loved and used them and let them go, what they’d do to me if they found me, and I keep our secrets, Diana’s and mine.
* * *
I’ve made Gabe lasagna, her favorite. It’s just starting to bubble when she pings me: Hilo’s mom invited me over for dinner. OK?
Char. It makes me nervous, but I tell her: Sure! Home by 8?
I’ll try, she answers in her noncommittal way. She’s been pushing boundaries lately, staying out past curfew, coming home reeking of weed.
She must realize I can smell it on her, gauge the dilation of her pupils, register every sway and misstep.
I don’t push her. There is no pushing Gabe. She can do what she wants. If she stays with me through graduation, if she sees this out, school, the mentorship she’s already been accepted to at a local adfirm, she can be free of me. She’ll take up residence in the adfirm’s tower and work long hours trying to distinguish herself from her peers, or not, hiding, who knows? It’s her choice, all of it. I have no legal right to her. I am not legal myself.
I take the lasagna out and slide it into the fridge, slam the door shut. I should be happy for Gabe, that she’s made a friend. She doesn’t have many of those, and even the ones she has she keeps at a distance. Because of me, I remind myself. And with graduation only a few months out, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for Gabe to get close to a kid, for me too.
I have a sudden urge for a cigarette, though Diana hadn’t had one since her fifties. I call it up, the memory. It’s murky with age, with alcohol, the last time, after Metis had made her a conference scout, languishing in lecture halls, in airport lounges, at hotel bars, when she damn well knew she belonged in the lab.
So close to seeing it through! She’d spoken to a computer that she knew was a person, and she’d felt exhilarated and sick. She’d told her superiors they would have to move slowly, carefully—these were people who had experienced the trauma of death. She knew that calling them people was a misstep. Still, she pushed on, telling her superiors they needed to understand the repercussions of what they’d achieved before alerting product development or marketing. This is dangerous! she’d wanted to yell.
The betrayal she felt when they’d reassigned her! Even though she knew such decisions were made all the time, a project reconfigured, a whole staff replaced as one product concept begat another. It hadn’t surprised her when she’d seen the first ad for companions, long after she’d been fired altogether. But the rage, God, it makes my skin tingle even now—Meant for so much more, I can hear Diana screaming in my head.
* * *
The next morning I take my usual walk to Bernal Hill. It’s misting and gray and hardly anyone is out, but sure enough, I practically bump into Char on a turn. She’s happy to see me—it’s all over her face, her body language—and I’m happy too, a smile triggered, wider than usual; I bring it in some and accept her hug, Nova clawing at my pants.
We walk for a while and Char tells me about her work, out of the home, graphic design, branding mostly.
“And you’re able to do this on your own? Not with a firm?”
“I work strictly with local companies, local branding, local messaging. Farm to table, Bay Area–produced clothing and beauty products. I did something for a garage in the Excelsior recently, solar conversion. I’ll take on anything. What do you do?”
I deliver my rehearsed but rarely used answer: “I’m in sales. For a medfirm. Luckily I can make my pitches from home.”
“Really,” she says, “what medfirm?”
“Metis.” I’d chosen the line of work because it was boring, no questions, not much to say. Plus, with Diana’s background I could talk about lab tech if need be. I call up her memories, even if they’re dated.
“No kidding, my husband works there. He’s in marketing. Maybe you know him? Dario?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Though he has to go into the office. How’d you swing that deal?”
“I have Gabe to care for,” I say, as if a big corp would care about a kid.
We fall into an uncomfortable silence. I can feel her watching me sideways. “I have to ask you,” she says, “how do you stay so fit? I mean, your butt’s like a nineteen-year-old’s.”
I laugh. It comes out automatically and I worry that it’s too machine, that I’ve revealed myself. But she’s laughing too, embarrassed—I can see it in the way she stares down at the dirt path, her cheeks heated. Is this friendship? “I guess it’s just the walking.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“No,” I say, maybe a little too quickly.
“You look amazing. I have so many amazing friends. Do you prefer—”
“Oh, I’m not interested in being set up, thanks.”
“Not the right time. I get that. But you should, at the very least, come to dinner. Meet Dario, maybe a few of our friends?”
“I don’t know. I can’t leave—”
“Bring Gabe! She can hang out with Hilo. I’ve noticed they’ve been getting closer lately.”
“Oh, well, sure—I mean, that could work, depending on my work schedule. I’ve been so busy lately.”
She doesn’t seem to take the hint, pinging me her details, telling me tomorrow night.
* * *
Gabe returns from school moody, shutting herself into her room.
“What’s wrong?” I ask through the door. She flips the music to angry, and I adjust my hearing around it. She’s at her screen, tapping, to whom, what is she saying? She’s long since figured out how to block me from her feed. She’s quite screen-savvy, thanks to her time spent watching over Nat’s shoulder as he worked.
Finally she comes out, stopping short when she sees me hovering in the hall.
“Who were you talking to?”
“None of your business.” She barrels past me. “Is there dinner?”
Gabe forks at a piece of my lasagna. “It’s burned,” she whines, and refuses to eat another bite, fixing herself a bowl of cereal instead. I flip over her lasagna and see its blackened bottom, ruined, the whole tray. I’m a terrible cook despite my efforts. It’s a handicap, not being able to conduct taste tests. I try to use memory to create home-cooked meals, but Diana wasn’t much of a chef either. Sure, she liked the chemistry of cooking, but she didn’t have the patience, the love to make a truly great dish. I should go back to frozen pizza.
“I ran into Char today.”
Gabe stares at me blankly.
“Hilo’s mom?”
She wipes her mouth with her sleeve even though there’s a napkin right there. “What did she say?”
“She invited us to dinner. Tomorrow night.”
Gabe scowls down a spoonful of cereal, spitting milk as she says, “What’re you gonna do? Push food around on your plate?”
“You’re right. Forget I mentioned it.”
She meets my eyes for the first time since yesterday. I don’t mean to keep track, but they are rare, these moments. “Do you want to go?”
“Can we just forget it?”
She eats a few more bites and tells me she’s going to sleep, not bothering to offer help with the dishes. I know I should be stricter, force her to do chores, but I don’t sleep, I don’t have a life, only this, and she knows it.
I follow her down the hall. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she says as her door swings shut. I don’t linger too long. There’s no angry music, no tapping at the screen. I can hear her drawing with a pencil, every scratch and stroke. She’s always preferred drawing by hand, even if her future is on the screen, all her classes, most of her life.
I have Gabe to thank for my body, retrieved from a SoMa sex club after the recall, Diana on the couch, her chest moving with each labored breath, which I monitored from the screen. We couldn’t take her to a hospital, couldn’t risk losing Gabe—we’d made promises.
Sometimes I wonder what this body went through before it was mine, if they’ve left a mark—the things that have been done to it.
I imagine Gabe in such a place, following men to back rooms where she negotiated for illegal skin, sifted through old, battered bodies.
After Gabe had lugged it into the house, my body, all on her own, she told me the options had been pretty pitiful, most of them in rough condition.
“What happened to your face?” Gabe was bleeding and I couldn’t bandage her.
“I’m fine,” she said.
I couldn’t pull her into a hug. “You’re remarkable, you know that?”
�
�Don’t get too excited,” she said, “let’s see if it works.” She went around the back of the screen where I’d lived those months. “I’m going to unplug you now.”
There was darkness, a terrifying darkness, one I can feel pressing against the edges of my vision if I think long enough about it, and I don’t like to do that. Then Gabe’s voice, “Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice different, and not Diana’s, something new altogether.
I blinked my eyes, watching the picture of the world disappear, reappear.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Gabe asked, sounding not so sure.
I sat up, examining my hands, the feel of them, the feel of my own face. “I’ll figure it out.”
Gabe helped me to standing, and I went dizzy with the rush of movement, my body’s way of warning me to steady myself on her, her skin burning against mine, still cold from nonuse. I could smell her blood, the wound that needed bandaging.
“I’m going to look after you,” I said into her ear.
She peeled me off her. “Just don’t hover. You know I hate hovering.”
* * *
I don’t walk Bernal Hill the next morning, or the morning after. That evening, Gabe comes home pushing past me, whispering, “I didn’t know how to get rid of them,” Char and Hilo trailing her.
Char pulls me into a hug. “You don’t mind us coming by like this, do you?”
“Come in,” I say, hoping my smile isn’t too frozen.
Hilo and Gabe shut themselves in Gabe’s bedroom, and I look to Char for any sign that she might disapprove, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed. She raises an accusatory finger at me, a tattoo like a flag running the inside of it as if she were an explorer, claiming territory. “You didn’t come to dinner.”
The Companions Page 15
