It’s not until he gets to the office that he realizes he forgot his wallet, his ID badge, and his jacket.
HE WAS JUST entering collage when he found Sasha abandoned on the side of the road. A straggly wet gray bundle of muddy fur, a sprained leg and the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen. He’d been walking his bike up a hill, ashamed of flabby, burning legs and puffing breath.
It was the only reason he saw her.
Letting the bike topple, he crouched in the mud and stroked the dog’s ears. She whimpered and licked his hand, trying to wag a tail knotted with burs and twigs.
There wasn’t much traffic on this stretch of road banked in scrubby trees and brown marshland.
“Shh,” he said, when the dog yelped trying to stand. “Just stay still. It’s okay, sweetie, I won’t let anyone hurt you, okay?” He shrugged off his coat to wrap around her.
It’d taken him longer than he’d anticipated to bike to the bus stop—considering he wasn’t even halfway and the bus came in half an hour. Screw first day of class, anyway.
The dog stared into his eyes; he couldn’t look away.
Don’t leave me, those eyes seemed to plead.
I won’t, he wanted to reply. Not ever.
NOTHING ESCAPES A black hole; it is forever, sucking away light until the end of time when the universe burns.
“WHAT’S WRONG?”
Antonio blinks at the computer screen, where his boyfriend frowns at him. “What?”
“Jesus,” Todd says, his accent emerging thicker since he’s been back in his home country. “You’ve been spacing out on me all night. What the hell’s wrong?”
“It’s Sasha,” he says, choked. The shadow watches him from the corner of the room, tangled in a mess of cords where all the living room electronics are plugged in under a decorative table stacked with DVDs.
Todd’s eyes widen. “What happened?”
“She’s sick,” he says, then snaps the laptop closed before he thinks better of it.
He apologizes to Todd ten minutes later on the phone, finds the words tumbling out, finds himself telling his boyfriend about the vet visit.
Todd: incredulous, hurt, furious. “You didn’t tell me?”
I’m sorry fills each space between his words. He’s stuck in a time loop, saying the same thing over and over and realizing it makes no difference because he doesn’t have the right words, the solution to break the cycle.
SASHA WAS A beautiful gray and white longhair mutt when she cleaned up and gained weight. He scraped together money for obedience training and budgeted for dog food, vet checkups, and accessories for her.
He met Todd at the dog park in the summer. College was finished and had miraculously landed him a job as a paper-pusher in a cloned office building built to suck personality from everything around it. Todd was dogsitting for a friend.
A year after that they were living together, Todd in love with Sasha as much as him. They were family, and Antonio had never been happier. Even the soulless job couldn’t drain him when he knew he would go home to his boyfriend and his best friend.
THE HOUSE IS empty.
Except the shadow. He looks at it, sitting in the middle of the kitchen and watching him.
“You hungry?” he asks. Sasha’s food bowl is still full, the water dish rinsed and refilled every morning like clockwork. He can’t let it dry out.
The shadow huffs a breath, just like Sasha. Not hungry.
He leaves his ham and cheddar sandwich unfinished on the counter and walks away. He slams the bedroom door in the shadow’s face. The light is off, the blinds pulled. Near total-darkness, except the bright red LED clock face.
Todd will be home in two days.
Todd doesn’t own a spacesuit, doesn’t know how to find him in a black hole.
HE CAN’T SLEEP. The clock’s red light pools at the foot of his bed, and the shadow lies curled up in the glow.
He fingers the covers by his side, where Todd’s absence gapes even wider because Sasha isn’t there, either. Why isn’t she coming home with him?
The shadow hops up on the end of the bed and turns three times before plopping soundless into a tiny dent in the blankets.
He rolls over instead of shouting at it to get out, like he did the night before.
DADDY?
He studies the slow, endless drip of coffee filling the pot.
“Why did you go?” he asks, not looking at the shadow. It sits near his knee.
The bag of bacon-flavored treats rests half-empty next to the sugar dish. Morning treats for them both. Todd always drinks grapefruit juice, health-nut that he is.
Didn’t want to go, Daddy.
Something soft and dry nudges his hand. He jerks his arm away from the shadow’s muzzle.
“Yes you did.” He drags his fingers through his hair. His voice is hoarse, thick. He needs the coffee bean acid to burn away the clogs in his throat. “You left.”
The shadow’s head leans against his leg. He locks his knee, refusing to give ground in his own goddamn house.
Sasha didn’t want to, the shadow says. Didn’t want to hurt Daddy or Papa.
He tries to scoff, ends up choking on his own spit, then loses the strength in his legs and slides down, boneless and gutted, until he sits on the linoleum with his back to the cabinets.
“IF YOU’RE DADDY,” Todd said, just after they leased the house, “then I will have to be Papa so we don’t get confused.” He grinned, rubbing Sasha behind the ears. “If we ever have kids, we’ll be pros at ‘go ask your father’ argument.”
Antonio laughed and squatted to bury his hands in Sasha’s fur. “Who’s ready for celebratory treats?”
Sasha barked, tail thumping back and forth.
“I know I am,” Todd said, pulling Antonio to his feet and kissing him.
Sasha bounced as Todd flicked her a Bacon Bite, and she crunched the treat happily, beaming up at them.
Antonio pulled out his cell phone and snapped a photo, then made Todd sit next to Sasha so the three of them could take a selfie to commemorate this perfect day.
HIS FACE IS hot, a solar flare under his skin. Wet, like that first day he found her, the rain plastering his curly hair against his skull, washing the sweat off his forehead.
“Why are you here?” His voice doesn’t echo, even when he shouts. “You’re dead. Our dog is dead.”
The shadow presses against his knees, then licks at the tears. The shadow-tongue is soft, warm, dry. Like a breath on his cheek, like when Todd or Sasha would curl close at night and he felt their sleep-steady warmth.
Can’t go, shadow-Sasha says. Daddy promised to say good-bye.
TODD NOTICED THAT Sasha wasn’t finishing her supper two days before his trip.
“We should take her to the vet.” He stroked Sasha’s graying ears as she dozed on the couch, draped over both their laps. “Might be the flu. Guy at work said both his pugs got sick. Poor bastards, it sucks when you can’t use a tissue to blow your own nose.”
Antonio nodded. Even for check-ups and shots, he dreaded stepping in the veterinary office. One day, inevitable like the heat death of the universe, one day he would go in and everything would change. “I’ll call Dr. Vasquez in the morning.”
Todd eased off the sofa, gently moving Sasha, and went to go shower and pack.
Sasha looked at Antonio, her big eyes calm. He cupped her face in his hands, leaning in close so if Todd walked in, he wouldn’t hear. This was just between them.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be there. I promise I won’t leave.”
He broke his word when the vet said there was nothing they could do, and would he like to sit with her and say goodbye.
He couldn’t watch.
He couldn’t.
She looked at him as in the doorway; he felt her eyes on him as he stepped into the waiting room.
He walked outside, where space was infinite. Time dilation meant it was a long, long time before he heard the vet tech calling for him.
HE LOOKS INTO the eyes of Sasha’s shadow, helpless. “I don’t know how,” he says.
WHEN HE PICKS Todd up at the airport, the drive home is silent. Todd barely looks at him.
In the driveway, Todd says, “I should have stayed home. The conference, it could’ve—” Todd runs a hand through his hair; he’s shaking. “I didn’t…I didn’t get to say goodbye to her.”
Antonio parks, hands knotted on the steering wheel. He’s unable to look Todd in the face. Through the windshield, he sees the shadow dog sitting on the porch where he first found her.
For a microsecond, he can suck a breath in through the crushing pressure of empty space. “There’s still a way.”
Todd stares at him, jaw locked. “Don’t bullshit me.”
Another breath, his lungs expanding fraction by fraction. “Come on.”
THE SHADOW SITS in the living room, her head tilted to the side. She wags her tail when Todd and Antonio approach.
Daddy! Papa!
Todd kneels and reaches a hand out. The shadow licks his fingers and then presses her body against Todd’s chest.
Todd’s voice cracks. “Sasha?”
Antonio kneels beside his boyfriend. He rubs the shadowy fur behind Sasha’s ears.
Todd cups Sasha’s face and touches his nose to hers. “It’s okay, baby.”
Antonio lets Sasha lick tears and hugs her, the shadow soft and real. He wants to say too much: how sorry he is, how he doesn’t want her to go, that he will never forget her.
Sasha knows, she says, forgiveness he doesn’t deserve. He should say the words.
“Sasha,” he whispers.
YOU CAN’T SEE what’s beyond a black hole. But sometimes you can pull free of the vacuum and view the distant stars beyond.
TODD PULLS HIM close as they sit on the front porch and watch Sasha pad quietly into the dusk.
“Bye,” Antonio says.
She looks back, once, wagging her tail.
“She’ll be okay,” Todd says. He means: so will they, in time.
Antonio nods. He knows.
THE NINE-CLUSTER APPEARED outside our unit’s bunker on the last day of the cycle. That meant only one thing.
They would take someone away.
I peered out the portviewer. All nine stood before the door, tall humanoid shapes composed of white light. They had heads like stars: translucent spheres with colored particles that suggested facial features. (That is how I imagined stars. I’ve never seen them for real.)
They didn’t have names. They didn’t have genders, either. We dubbed them he/she at random, although I never understood why. They weren’t like us.
Two smiled and knocked, as if politeness meant anything. I didn’t open the bunker door.
Bailey took charge, like he always did. “Everyone stay calm.” He glanced at me, and I nodded. “This is just a routine inspection.”
“How do you know?” Kory asked, wide-eyed. “We just got back. They don’t do inspections until the first cycle-day.”
Bailey slapped him on the shoulder. “Your record is spotless. They aren’t here for you.”
“Then who?” Tess demanded.
Everyone had unsuited except me. But Tess didn’t notice. (I often forgot to remove my pressure suit right away.) Tess let me stand by the viewer for hours after a shift and look at the empty road that connected the one-hundred-forty-seven bunkers on this facility.
“No one, Tess,” Bailey said. He could still tell lies. “No one is being taken to the House.”
Tess took a breath and glanced at Dom. “If you say so.”
“Mara,” Bailey said, lifting his chin and facing the door. Only Dom and I saw the tremor in his hands. “Let the overseers in.”
Dom took the scissors off the table and held them tight. They were long-bladed and heavy, used for snipping bone. He had already been to the House.
(But so had I.)
I keyed the pressure lock and opened the door.
Our unit’s bunker was a functional square room. Cots slid into the wall when not in use, and we were allowed a few personal effects. Tess had the geode collection; Kory had a holo-projection of a world he pretended was once ours, full of blues and greens and surrounded by the white of the universe. Bailey had a book—paper and leather—but there was nothing inside it.
I had a thread I’d mined and none of the nine-clusters knew about it.
All nine floated in and planted themselves around our bunker. We all smiled. The cardinal rule: never frown during inspection. Gemma had forgotten.
“Welcome,” Bailey said. He wouldn’t fail. He couldn’t. “Is everything in order?”
Two laughed. Two was always the leader. “A disturbance has been reported in your bunker.”
“What?” Kory said. “That’s impossible.”
“An anomaly.” Five glided around the perimeter. She stopped by Dom. He stared straight ahead, his knuckles bloodless. “Something is in this sector that does not belong,” Five said.
Tess tilted her head towards the floor, inhaling slow and deep. She practiced her breathing every night, because Gemma wasn’t there anymore.
Bailey shrugged easily. “We’re permitted to refine a portion of phosphates for our own use. No one has brought back anything else past quarantine.”
I hadn’t told the rest of the unit. Bailey said not to. “They’ll crack,” he’d said the day before, looking tired and sad. (I wish I’d argued, but I had no protest.) It would be easier if they didn’t know.
The thread squirmed in my gloved hand. I locked my jaw and kept my smile in place. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
We needed the nine-cluster agitated so they would touch us physically. I wouldn’t risk the thread failing to pierce their barriers. It was the only chance we had.
Kory swallowed and folded his arms. He was the youngest in our unit, and he still smiled when he didn’t have to.
“We’re making quotas,” Tess said from clenched teeth. “No one has violated the regulations. I check everyone’s suits upon entry.”
(She never checked mine. Bailey said not to. “Sometimes it’s all that holds her together,” I’d heard him whisper to Tess, when I came back from the House.)
Muscles twitched in Tess’s jaw. “What is this about?”
“Defensive?” Two asked her. “That is a common psychological signal that you are…hiding something.”
“We have nothing to hide,” Bailey said. He chuckled, his mouth stretched until it might break. “We’ve increased production by 127% this cycle.”
“So you did.” Four’s particle-expression swirled and brightened in warning. “And you were down 76% the cycle before, 58% the cycle before that, and 13% before that.”
No one looked at me. I had taken Bailey and Dom on the downward spiral. (Only I could see darkness, but they believed what I told them.)
Our unit mined minerals and ore on the debris rings of 6-X76. We averaged a 97% productivity level per work segment, and had for the last ten cycles. That was when Gemma went away, and Dom came back from the House.
“Fine. It’s my fault,” Tess said, pulling her shoulders back. “I didn’t keep the unit on track. You took Gemma.” Her hands fisted and she took a steady breath. “But I accept full responsibility for the unit’s decreases previously.”
Kory winced. I shook my head minutely. Don’t do this, Tess. It’s not your fault. They weren’t suspicious yet. (I couldn’t watch them take Tess away.)
Eight laughed, a faint hissing sound characteristic of all Eights. “Your statement is contradictory. You were the hardest worker in the unit during the previous three cycles.”
“It’s in here,” Five said. “It does not belong.”
“Disassemble,” Two told Five. “Find it.”
It was too soon. I shot Bailey a flat look. He sat on a plain metal stool and shut his eyes. “Dom,” he said, very quietly.
Dom tensed, ready to do anything Bailey asked. H
e always did.
Bailey’s smile weakened, and he tilted his head a fraction at Two. Dom’s muscles bunched. He might not harm Two—we didn’t know how to hurt the nine-clusters ourselves—but he would distract Two anyway.
Kory’s face beaded with sweat. “They found something,” he blurted. “I saw Mara put it—”
Dom jabbed his thumb into Kory’s eye. The eyeball popped. Kory screamed, clutching his face.
Tess snarled and raised a fist at Dom, but Bailey snapped, “Don’t.”
Two clapped his hands. “Oh, well played. You are hiding something.”
I didn’t know Kory saw me take the sock or put it back. Everyone had been eating when I did. (I didn’t eat much anymore.)
Five began expanding, translucent arms budding from her torso. She threw the holo-projector to the floor, scattered the geodes, pulled apart Bailey’s book. The cots were empty.
The thread was heavy, pressing into my skin through the glove. It had taken all my enhanced strength to lift it from the mines. I couldn’t hold it much longer.
Bailey’s breath came faster. They might question him—Dom could resist, but Bailey couldn’t. He had never been to the House.
I kicked the cabinet where we kept our pressure suits, jostling loose the plastic door and the lopsided drawer.
Three swiveled her head. She spied the single bit of fabric—a sock—peeking from the drawer. It was black. I’d rubbed the thread all over it to change it. (I was the only one who saw why it was different.)
Five hissed. “This house is touched by the dark.”
The nine-cluster’s heads began to pulsate in alarm.
“Anomaly found,” Two said.
Kory let out a strangled moan. Bailey sat rigid, his face ashen, and folded his hands on his lap. Tess inhaled shakily. She put her arm on Dom’s shoulder, but Dom stared into the distance as if he wasn’t here anymore.
Nine looked at me, her eyes expanding until they encompassed her forehead. “Mara, you don’t seem surprised.”
So You Want to be a Robot and Other Stories Page 10
