Actuator

by Spinazzola, J.

  “Dizzying from the trace?”

  “We would be so proud of you. So happy for you.”

  “You’re not going to answer my question are you?”

  “If Marco lives in one of those grandfathered homes, perhaps you could talk some sense into him. His family must be resourceful and reasonable to have managed through the transition. Do you think you could talk to him?”

  “Weren’t you listening, Mom?”

  “I’ve been reading everything you chat.”

  “He doesn’t use tech. He doesn’t communicate that way.”

  “What other way is there?”

  “Now I feel I’m going in circles.”

  “Dear, that would be inefficient.”

  “As would repeating what I’ve already said to others.”

  “Then don’t. Don’t undermine your rehabilitation.”

  “Fine.”

  “Very well, Amelia.”

  “Have a good night, mom.”

  “You too, dear. And try to chat with Liz.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Might do you some good.”

  “I know.”

  “Very reasonable girl, that Liz.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re repeating yourself again, Amelia.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe we should end the chat.”

  “I know.”

  “Stop it, Amelia. You’re wasting words.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going now.”

  “I know.”

  “Do not say it again.”

  “Goodnight, mom.”

  “Goodnight, Amelia.”

  Chapter 13

  “Hi, Liz. Nice of you to contact me.”

  “Your mother said . . . ”

  “Did she?”

  “You didn’t have to accept the chat.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “Why are you off with me?”

  “Am I being off?”

  “I can read between the lines.”

  “We all have our gifts.”

  “Well, that’s mine. The Mod officially recognized . . .”

  “I bet they did.”

  “You don’t have to cut me off like that.”

  “Like what?”

  "I was telling you about my honor.”

  “You have honor?”

  “We all have gifts, Amelia.”

  "I just told you that.”

  “What?”

  “That we all have gifts, Liz.”

  “Then you can’t disagree.”

  “My mother said you were quick.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “That’s an honor.”

  "There’s another one for you.”

  “You don’t have to dismiss my accomplishments like that.”

  “Why don’t you post about them?”

  “I did.”

  “And I bet all your friends were so proud of you.”

  “They were.”

  “Then why do you need me for one more validation?”

  “It’s always the last one that means the most.”

  “Or the one you can’t have.”

  “What’s the difference, Amelia?”

  “The difference is all the difference in the world.”

  “Your logic escapes me.”

  “Guess you’re not as quick as my mom thought.”

  “I don’t have to take this.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “I don’t want to chat with you anymore.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “You shouldn’t repeat yourself like that. It’s redundant and inefficient.”

  “Then don’t repeat yourself, Liz.”

  “I’m not repeating myself.”

  “No, but you’re being inefficient just the same.”

  “How am I being inefficient?”

  “Because redundancy is inefficient. They’re synonymous in City. Plus, you could just end the

  chat.”

  “Why don’t you end the chat?”

  “I’m in an institution presently, and I don’t feel like doing my nightlies. What’s your excuse?”

  “You’re using me to procrastinate?”

  "Yes, Liz, I am. I am using the digits out of you.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and take this.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Stop. Stop repeating that phrase.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “I’m ending the chat.”

  “Please do.”

  Chapter 14

  Doubt. Every night, I feel it. Where there was your touch, the heat on my cheek, now I feel the cold palm of doubt. Not you, Marco, never have I doubted you. So certain I am of your principles, your commitment to a new way of life, that I have wondered how I can be worthy of you?

  I know you love me. I’m not questioning that. “That.” How is it an empty word like “that” once seemed the answer to every question? A quick slip and an easy pass. Words don’t seem as disposable anymore.

  Each morning my parents would make me gather any trash in the flat from the evening before. We’d send it out through the same actuator where our ship would arrive that night. Then do it all again. So much thrown away. So many words sent via chat, skimmed over posts. How much would I give to hear your voice against my ear, to feel the vibration of your words?

  I can smell you now. Your scent returns to me with the smell of the roses.

  If you’ve never held a real rose, you wonder what the weight of the stem will feel like in your hand, whether the thorns will sting or if it’ll look vivid as in a digital picture or more dull as if represented by an emoticon. Emoticons seem bare to me now like a wasteland in miniature.

  A digital picture vibrates with color bolder than the real thing but never captures the way a petal fades on a dying rose or the way the picture you gave me peels back in time: he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me. I haven’t forgotten the things you showed me from the physical age. The old ways repeat in my mind, and they always end with “he loves me.” That and the way you smell on my hooded sweatshirt. Because of efficiency, no one complains that I’ve never washed it.

  A digital picture has nothing on the smell of a rose.

  To know that I am fading is what makes me doubt myself. How can flesh compare to reason? Only love seems as timeless as the pull of logic or the efficiency of tech. I hate admitting that so much of what they teach me sounds true, only twisted to serve an end I don’t understand. My teachers tell me my gifts are special, that one day I will not only understand these things but also help the Mod persuade others to internalize the rationale. That I can help the rationale evolve, that my logic can live forever by becoming part of City.

  They say hearts cannot live forever. Not matter how deeply we love, our love will fade: mine for yours and yours for mine. But they do not know what it is like to love you, Marco. They say our kind of love, young and built on passion, is only trouble. I say Marco is the kind of trouble I need.

  They don’t like that response, Ms. Fields especially. She always sounds threatened, unlike Ms. Snow, who inspires fear but shows none. Ms. Fields gave me the bottle for doing my nightlies. I’m certain they feel the nightlies will break my resistance to the rationale. Not that I don’t appreciate its merits, but I have seen another way of life that can fill an empty bottle the way tech never will. They say a filled bottle is just another example of waste.

  They won’t give me another and won’t provide more paper once the bottle is full. As usual they are using my own logic against me to bring me closer to submission. Whatever clever response I provide, the next evening’s nightlies are designed to undo my logic, to make me disassemble my own defenses. The form the nightlies take are varied: probability problems, equations for calculating paper’s contribution to the environmental hazard, code for programming energy-saving devices, and composition and design assignments for warning the public ag
ainst the dangers of unnecessary waste. Even self-propelled movement, like walking outdoors, is frowned upon because operating an elliptical not only improves one’s health but also generates radiant and coolant and light. We are not to waste. Resources are precious and expensive. Preserving energy, even our own, strengthens City. If the Mod had to generate energy for our flats, taxes on Privates would increase, and the nightly ship would grow smaller. The Mod would be required to further ration water.

  No one will explain how the water enters our pipes, only that the volume necessary for drinking and bathing is too great to make actuating it economically feasible. That only recently did the tech evolve to allow for actuating items high in water content such as fresh fruit. We are lucky that so many other things can be actuated, that we can program and operate machines remotely to generate food and product so that we don’t have to do tasks that require physical toil. Whatever the assignment, my argument for reducing our reliance on actuators and tech is cast in doubt.

  How much doubt can a girl survive when time moves so slowly? If only I could see your sign in real time. Every time I send an email I want to cry. A typed @ has nothing on the real thing. A typed @ is never followed by the touch of your hand, the brush of your hair against my cheek, the smell of your handmade cologne, the sound wind makes when moving through the tall grass, the moment’s delay between a bird’s coo and the flap of its wings or the fog on a window of the automobile after we kissed on a cold night. Why, they ask, would you want to kiss in the cold? To which I respond, why wouldn’t you want to produce your own radiant? That is the response that always results in the most burdensome nightlies.

  Talk about waste.

  I’d rather feel your hand, hot or cold, traveling my collarbone than perfect ambient temperature. When we kiss, I’d rather feel the chill on my spine, goose bumps on my arm. I’d rather leave my handprint in the fog on the glass.

  So much has faded since I arrived here: your picture, my confidence and my ability to circumvent their logic. My teachers increasingly rise to the occasion. Ms. Fields, for one, seems to be taking digital tutorials in between our dialogues. She’s always better equipped to dismantle my logic the next day. Ms. Snow must be coaching her or providing refreshers via web programs.

  Other than mapping applications, I always thought we had the same web access as our parents. I don’t know about parents, but Private teachers and the Mod certainly have access to a broader web. Rumors must have their basis in some fact.

  I used to think it was sad that if we made a Marco + Emmy in the glass one night, it would have already faded when we returned the next. Now I think you were right. The way pre-digital things fade is what makes them most precious of all.

  Chapter 15

  “How’s your bottle?”

  “Skip, what are you talking about?”

  “Your bottle, the bottle Ms. Fields brought to you?”

  “How do you know about it? I thought privacy rights extended to us while in rehabilitation.”

  “A bottle stops being a private matter when someone carries it through the hall on the way to you.”

  “Who could have noticed?”

  “Bottles are rare around here, especially empty ones going into a room instead of out of one to be actuated away.”

  “Skip, you know what I mean. You’re not that slow.”

  “I’m not slow at all. You haven’t seen me board.”

  “No, but you’ve told me all about it with sufficient detail and on repeated occasions.”

  “Don’t you sound like the star pupil?”

  “I’m sounding like the angry one. Who could have seen Ms. Field’s carrying a bottle to my room other than another teacher or the nightly sweep?”

  “The sweep had nothing to do with it. He barely pays attention to cleaning the floors. I hear they are always dusty. He doesn’t understand why the students can’t clean the common areas themselves like everybody else in City.”

  “Then why’d he take the job?”

  “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

  “Skip, that joke was never funny.”

  “It has lasted, though, and the analogy is on point.”

  “I’ll give you that.”

  “Thanks, Amelia. Means a lot coming from a star pupil.”

  “And how do you know what the sweep pays attention to? You find a way out of your room without telling me?”

  “Eventually, if you stay here long enough, they have to give you exercise privileges.”

  “You’ve only been here a month longer than me.”

  “Who said anything about me earning the privilege? That’s quite the logical leap, Amelia.”

  “Skip, stop playing logic games and stop calling me Amelia. I told you I prefer Emmy.”

  “And I prefer if you’d stop looking down on boarding.”

  “Don’t you have to look down to board?”

  “Not if you’re any good.”

  “I never said you weren’t.”

  “No, but you implied that talking about it is inefficient and redundant. I could say the same for talking about Marco.”

  “They’re different.”

  “Let’s not get into that again. In the end, you always admit they’re kind of the same.”

  “Kind of, Skip.”

  “Then understand where I’m coming from.”

  “Where are you coming from?”

  “A place where I’m free to board.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Do you know how free it feels?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Maybe life as a transit wouldn’t be so bad if I could get my board back.”

  “They’d insert the track in you if you left now. You’d be a transit for life.”

  “Better to die on wheels than live in front of a flat screen and mini.”

  “What about your parents? You’re not going to do anything irrational that would hurt them?”

  “Of course not. I’m their only child. I have to keep them in mind. Plus, they don’t know how to board.”

  “Good, Skip, because I can’t survive in here alone.”

  “You wouldn’t have to.”

  “What are talking about? Everyone else I attempted to chat seems to have graduated before I arrived.”

  “Who do you think noticed the bottle?”

  “Who?”

  “Amelia, don’t you know it’s inefficient to answer a question with a question?”

  “Then that makes two of us.”

  “I didn’t do that.”

  “Check the chat history.”

  “Oh, I guess I did. I owe you.”

  “Then tell me who.”

  “A.M.”

  “A.M. what?”

  “A.M. is the other rehab student in here, the one with exercise privileges.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “I didn’t know earlier. Just found her.”

  “Found her?”

  “Ran a complicated series of searches. Was trying to figure out the history of people who attended this place. I was bored. Her name popped up: the check-in date was blocked though the checkout was listed as an open field. I thought there could be worse ways to spend my time. I wrote her an email.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing at first. So I wrote her again. Figured she must be a bad influence or something for them to keep her existence sly. My kind. They must not have wanted us to find her.”

  “Did she write back?

  “Eventually. I had to write a few more emails, each one longer than the last. Felt like I was writing nightlies. Had to make them personal. Told her my whole sob story.”