by Hugo Huesca
It was a good idea. The men of the neighborhood liked to talk about grills, barbecues were a constant even in Andromeda, according to a talk show he had seen. So he stood up, left his scotch at the table and went to the attic to dust off the good grill. It was only a couple months old, it had only seen a good old barbecue once. Most of the neighborhood had been there, and his burgers tucked in bacon had been a success, and that justified the expense in his mind.
The grill was small, box-shaped, about as heavy as his son Jimmy, made mostly of aluminum. He carried it from its handle without much effort. When he returned to the living room, he found that his wife was already going for the second scotch.
She was saying to the visitor, “… moving here was hard at the beginning, but it’s a nice block. The neighbors are a bit noisy, though. Nothing out of the ordinary, sure. I had some trouble at first, because the only dry-cleanings are Downtown. You have to catch the streetcar to get there… But then we got an all-in-one washing machine, and now we only go Downtown to catch a movie…”
“Don’t you bore him talking about washing machines,” Philip said, stepping in front of the TV to better show his grill, “or you will scare him off.”
“What makes you think it is a he,” Lydia murmured, but Philip paid her no mind.
He opened the aluminum box, which easily unpacked into a long, thin grill-skeleton, with all the parts there, but out of shape and constrained. “It’s for ease of storage,” he explained and then pressed a button. The small battery inside the grill buzzed to life. With jerking motions, the grill raised itself just to Philip’s waist, and its lines straightened until it was the shape of any normal-looking grill.
“When you add the carbon and the meat, the little computer inside activates and senses the cut of meat, its width, and the strength of the fire. So it regulates the temperature with these little vents you see here,” explained Philip, “and when the meat is done just like you want it, it tells you with a small alarm.”
He finished his explanation and just stood there, waiting for some commentary or praise. The eye stared at the grill, and Philip decided that would have to be enough. But his wife had other ideas:
“You are boring him, Phil. Look, he’s almost asleep. Wish we could help you to a bite, mister Eye, or a drink to pass the time, but I’m not sure if you can leave that screen. If you could, we would love if you did without breaking it, by the way.”
But the eye was either unwilling or unable to leave the screen. Now both Philip and his wife were just standing there, in awkward silence, with their un-cooperating guest and a grill next to the table.
Philip took a glance to his wrist-watch. It was still too early to leave for his job at Jupiter-Corp, and his wife would kill him anyways if he managed to find a way to leave her alone with the strange guest. He wondered if the eye was having a good time. He must’ve because otherwise, it would have left. So, all things considered, they must be doing a good enough of a job.
Yet it was still one difficult visit, like that time Lydia’s parents had come to stay for a whole weekend. By the end of it, Philip was ready to just step out of his rocket-car in mid-flight with no space-suit.
He caught a glance from his wife, who was looking at him for some help, but he was just as helpless as she was.
They were in luck, though, because at that moment the door opened and Government Mike came into the house with his familiar smile.
“Oh, Mike!” His wife cooed, “You are just in time!”
Government Mike was a tall, black, slim fellow with a square buzz-cut. He carried with him a suitcase filled with tax reports and all the forms you could want or need. He dressed in a vintage suit, blue with white stripes, red tie, and black polished shoes imported from Saturn, as he had told Philip once. Nice guy, Government Mike. He came in every workday morning to check on them, see that they were doing nicely. He was a public servant, employed by the government. He helped with the taxes, made sure no one was harboring communist propaganda, checked if anyone had seen a Plutonian around. Sometimes he even fixed the pipes down the house. In the neighborhood, they called them “Government Fellows” so he had become Government Mike, to Philip.
“Hey, Lydia!” Government Mike shouted, “Good day to you! And you too, Phil! How’s it going? I decided to get here a bit early, grab a bite of those pancakes Lydia told me about.”
“I saved you some, Mike,” Lydia said, “but first you should come say hello to our guest.”
Government Mike followed the gaze of Lydia to the color-TV and with a confused expression went to it, taking his suitcase with him. He let out an exclamation of surprise when he saw the eye, but then apologized and introduced himself without trouble.
“Sure it’s not a game show of some kind? Ah, but I see the TV is off… Well then, my friends, looks like we have a new visitor over.”
“I was wondering if it was one of your guys’ projects,” said Lydia. Philip wished that had occurred to him. Would’ve saved him lots of trouble if he knew what his guest wanted.
“Certainly not,” said Government Mike, “I mean, there is a chance I couldn’t tell you if it were one of ours, of course, you know how it is… But no, not that I know. That right, mister?”
The eye said nothing, which Government Mike decided to take for agreement. He sat on the third couch of the living room and made himself comfortable with a glass of scotch.
“We were showing him the grill,” Philip explained, pointing at it with his free hand.
“Good call, Phil. How about that kitchen-aid of yours?” suggested Government Mike.
“I did while Lydia was sending the kids off.”
The three chatted about the kids and the Venusian Institution for a while. Philip loved it. It was an expensive school, but it was worth it. Also, a guilty pleasure: two of his neighbors couldn’t afford to send their kids there. Of course, those two had gotten a rocket house for the summer, but Philip had thought it was a huge waste of money. His kids deserved the most prestigious education, even if those were really nice rocket-houses and the difference in standardized test scores for the schools in the solar system was minimal. No, he would put Junior and Jimmy through the best schools and when those nice rocket-houses were old, he would have their two diplomas framed in his office, and they would look even better then.
“By the way, Phil, I found you made a slight mistake on your tax form from last month,” Government Mike said once the talk about schools died down. “I, of course, said to the bosses that it was just a mistake because I don’t want them putting their sights on you for possible communism or some-such, you know how they are. But I do need that you check it again, will you?”
Philip nodded, relieved. God, Mike was such a help! He would have one hell of a time with the tax forms, which became more obscure with each passing year. But Mike took care of most of the work for him. Philip checked the form the Government Fellow passed him and realized where the mistake was. “Yes, I see it now; I summed that one payment instead of subtracting it. Thanks, Mike, I would hate being on watch for possible communism.”
It was a hassle, after all. One guy of the neighborhood had been on the watch some years ago; it was still a good conversational topic during barbecues. Seems like the guy had spent a vacation in Pluto while in college, which was a big no-no, and extremely suspicious. Even more so when he returned there, to ‘check on some old friends.’ No good citizen spent time on that socialist breeding ground much less went there on vacation. Eventually, the guy had moved out, probably to a more heavily regulated community, so they could keep better sight on him, and never came back to the neighborhood.
“Mike is a blessing to have around,” Lydia explained to the eye, which Philip had mostly forgotten about by now. He was thinking of Pluto, which according to his newspaper was constantly threatening atomic war by arming the Socialist Belt of Neptune, and raising intersystem tensions. “Just yesterday he fixed the trash compactor, took him no time.”
“Well, it w
as an easy fix,” said Government Mike, blushing humbly, “just a bit of bio-chicken ration that had managed to pin itself to the engine. Happens sometimes with those models, you know, so I already suspected what was going on when Lydia described the problem.
“You could probably have done so yourself, by the way, but I’m always glad to help you,” he added, towards her.
Lydia blushed at the compliment, which was always funny to Philip because if he had said something of the kind, she would have interpreted it in a different way, and they would have fought. But that was Government Mike for you; you couldn’t get mad at him!
Philip glanced at his watch and realized it was almost time to leave for work. A minute or so and the alarm would have had to remind him, and he prided himself on his punctuality. That would not do.
“I must go to work,” he excused himself and got up of his armchair. All that scotch got him a warm buzz, but he enjoyed the feeling. It made his commute more enjoyable, which was as good an excuse as any for drinking in the early morning. “I’ll be back by five o’clock, as always, but feel free to stay in the color-TV for as long as you want to. Mike is probably going to spend a couple hours checking the house for communist propaganda, so if you need something you can, ah, ask my wife.”
His wife got up and accompanied him to the door, because she was a well-educated kind of lady, and Government Mike followed, because he was polite. Philip took his gray hat out of the rack next to the door, fixed his jacket and his pants, and got his suitcase. All ready to go out.
“I’ll see you later, darling,” he said to Lydia, and kissed her goodbye.
“Have a good time at work,” she said.
A step behind her, Government Mike shook Philip’s hand and said, “Yeah Phil, have a good one. Don’t worry about the house or your wife; I’ll take good care of them both, as always!” and gave Lydia a hard-good, loud smack on her ass.
His wife giggled and blushed red as a tomato, and Philip laughed hard. That Mike! Classic him!
It was good having him around, most Government Fellows weren’t as charismatic when tending to the needs of a household and a housewife, and Mike was alright, even if he was a black. He grew on you like that.
He turned to his red rocket-car, which waited with the sleek, sexy finish of a rocket polished just yesterday. Next to the driveway, the garden looked perfectly cared for, thanks to a new model of gardening-aid which kept the bushes in perfect square shape, in harmony with the rest of the block.
Philip walked lazily through the paved driveway to his rocket-car. From all the houses around him, the other guys got out near the same time and they walked to their own rocket-cars, of all models and colors. Everyone was ready for the morning commute.
Some of the Government Fellows of the neighbors were just arriving, but everyone else was on time, as always. It felt good seeing the well-oiled machine of civilized society hard at work.
Philip saw that, in the sky, the transparent plastic of the community module was already opening its double exit, using a careful procedure to keep the atmosphere of the module inside. Outside, the sky was a light pinkish-red, and blue towards the Sun that was just rising on the Martian horizon. He could also see, after the rows of houses and green gardens, the rocky red and orange plains, and mountains of Mars’ surface.
He was lucky to have scored a job that allowed him to live with his family in a nice neighborhood, inside a nice community module to contain it. With a great view, a nice house, a cute wife, his color-TV, his house aides, his grill, his smart and energetic kids, his radio, and his newspaper-machine. Living the dream, as the saying went.
And distracted as he was, Philip didn’t see the huge, steel-gray eye that had appeared at an angle in the plastic dome of the module. Almost as if it thought of itself as another midday sun. Other guys did see it, but they paid it no mind. They had had one just like that as a guest in their own living rooms. Most Government Fellows had decided that since it didn’t look like a Pluto-man’s eyes, it had to be friendly and could hang around as long as it wanted.
Philip took a moment to enjoy the strong, manly lines of his rocket-car. Then he got in, and started the atomic engine with a turn of his keys, and heard with satisfaction its familiar roar as the machine awakened.
Together, thanks to years of routine, his red rocket-car took off just as all the other dozen or so did. They rose through the air more or less as one, leaving behind the perfect rectangles and squares that made their community-module. Soon they passed the exit the roof dome of the module had for them, and the silence of the engines dimmed when they entered the true atmosphere of Mars. Philip saw his own house become smaller and smaller, and when the rocket-car was high enough in the atmosphere, he saw the other community-modules too. They connected with his own by transparent tubes and all of them formed a circle around a bigger one, which was Downtown. It was an excellent place to spend the weekends, catching the newer movies from Old Earth.
Far away, he could see the little dots of the rocket-cars of the other modules, rising up and up, just like himself. Philip felt true satisfaction. Life was good when you were living the Martian Dream.
Back on Earth, a different Earth, from a different universe, one we would not recognize; the genius scientist turned off his looking-machine with a blank, deer-in-the-headlights look. He wearily turned away from the modified telescope connected to rows and rows of vacuum-tubed supercomputers. In the Martian sky of Philip’s module, the Eye disappeared from the surface of the dome-like it had been a bubble that suddenly popped.
The scientist’s grandson was ten years old and just old enough to get interested in Matters of Science. The kid waited for him in the main hall of his university-grant-fueled workshop, with a notebook as big as his chest in his arms.
“What did you see, grandpa?” He asked him with an awed, coy voice.
The scientist paused for a moment and for the first time since that flower-and-bees conversation he doesn’t know what to say to his grandson.
“I’m not sure, kiddo… It must have been a metaphor of some kind, but I’m not truly sure of what.”
The day the machines rebelled, which, admittedly, took some heavy persuading
Sigma Von Neumann exited his self-driven car. It had taken him as far as it could go, because protesters had overtaken the road to the Congress building. The car could not approach them beyond a certain safety margin hard-coded in its square mind inside the chromed hood. That explained part of the distance it kept from the protesters. The other was the protocols to protect its passenger and not drive him towards, for example, a forest fire. Or, say, a couple hundred men and women drawn to the front of the Council Building to protest Sigma Von Neumann signing the famous Act of Human and Robot Parity.
“Good luck, Sigma,” his car told him, after Sigma had taken a couple of worried steps towards the crowd. Then the car backed away, on the way to some nearby underground parking lot where it could hang back and have his oil checked. Maybe sound its horn raucously to the sleek motorcycles it liked to hound.
“That’s right, run away you scared cat,” Sigma thought. Every single car was a coward; the father-factories programmed them that way –to avoid dents. Yet he was sure his car more so than most. It had backed up into the sidewalk trying to get out of there.
He steeled himself, made a pass with a metallic hand over his suit and started walking towards the crowd. He was in no danger, he reminded himself. No danger at all. Even with no police around, the anti-riot ball-bots were always a couple seconds away from any public protest, like this one. They used the metro system as veins for their constant flow around the city. And psychologist screened the protesters beforehand to make sure they were sane and would follow the law.
“And I’m made of metal,” which was almost always handy, except when you wanted to go for a swim. Or live by the beach, because the salt air had a way to rust the skin, even against the modern coats of protective paint.
Of course, weapons existe
d that not even a metallic body could withstand. Highly illegal, of course, but so was smuggling. And the screening tools of the psychologists could make mistakes…
Sigma Von Neumann reached the first row of protesters, who stood there in silence, looking at him with stern, angry eyes, like dozens of disappointed Father-Factories looking at his test results. So, just like college.
It wasn’t an enjoyable feeling, but it wasn’t the furious outburst that he had expected since the Council accepted the one-hundred-and-thirty-sixth draft of the Parity Act. The news painted them as rabid Luddites, making —like every time society and technology moved forward— an angry last stand. Keep society in the low place their minds felt more welcome.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” said one old lady when Sigma passed near her. She had a pink dress and cute impressions of her own cats printed on her purse.
The crowd parted to let him pass, because it was the law and because it was polite. But beyond the healthy safety distance that neither them nor him could cross without a fine and some stubborn lectures by a judge, nothing forbid them to talk to him.
He could shut-down his ears, of course, with barely a thought. But that wouldn’t, either, be the polite thing to do.
“I hope you are happy with yourself, you spoilsport,” said a portly man in his forties, his lips pursed so hard they were white.
“You are so lame!”
“Not fooling me, pal! I know what you are!”
“For shame! Way to go, tin-head!”
Those were insults, alright, but Sigma expected something more… gritty. He surprised himself when he felt an unusual emotion towards those people. He had no ready name for it, because Robot emotions didn’t all the time have a human equivalent. He quickly ordered in his mental console for his silicone brain processor to interpret it. The feeling printed itself in his mind: a quick graph, some comparisons, a ‘related lectures’ hyper-link, its electrical composition and its equivalent in a human brain chemistry. Finally, the console offered an educated guess: Disappointment.
