Bless Your Mechanical Heart

by Seanan McGuire

  But, anyway, watching the projection is a welcome distraction. We cheer, laugh, flinch, side-by-side, often in unison. It takes me back, remembering me and Myn doing pretty much the same thing.

  It’s not her, I remind myself.

  “Do you remember that weekend on Earth, when I tried to get her autograph?” it asks, quietly, when Jane Kaylor makes her cameo as Rockets in episode 205. Jane’s one of Myn’s favorite actresses, and first crushes, from back when Jane was in her teens, same as us, and better known as a singer than an actress.

  Of course I remember.

  When was that? 2034? Our senior trip, back when life was normal, and we lived on Earth, and kids still graduated high schools. Back in the days when a star would sign the back of your tablet with a marker because we still treated the tablets as if the songs were inside somehow, and cloud-i-graphs hadn’t been invented yet.

  We chased Jane Kaylor all over New York. That signed tablet is probably in Myn’s room somewhere, a paperweight at the bottom of a drawer, under clothes that I don’t have permission to disturb.

  I remember that there’s a holo-poster of Jane in Myn’s room, a bit of flotilla propaganda, in the barest strips of a style of uniform that only existed before body armor, and the even more bulky head armor for the Ever-Units.

  Which is what it is. All that it is. An Ever-U. A re-issue.

  Sitting beside me. Pretending to be her.

  It’s smiling at me. It looks happy and relaxed.

  “We had fun,” I answer, at last, remembering New York. What does it hurt to say it? We did. “My sister and I.”

  I have to add that. It’s not her. I wish it was. But it isn’t.

  “Daffs…” it starts to say something, and stops. It shakes its head, then tilts it—the way she used to do when she was making up her mind about something.

  “Daffs,” it tries again. “It really is me. I know you tell yourself it isn’t, so you don’t have to grieve me dying over and over, and think about… but…” It stops, hesitating, hands twisting in its lap. “It really is less clear at first, all jumbled. I don’t remember so well, the first couple of hours. Stuff triggers images—seeing you, seeing the suite. But by the first night, I can always remember it all. Each death. Each life. How you have to protect yourself by being so cold. How it’s better to let you think it isn’t me at all, and that I don’t even remember anything after my first life.”

  It pauses, looking at me.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. I shouldn’t… I just want so much for you to look at me… like you know me. You do know me. It’s me. It’s always been me. I miss you so much. Can we just talk? Like we used to?”

  No.

  It wants that to be true. Of course it does. It has to tell itself that. It has to fight for something.

  I look away.

  The holo-characters continue to run between and around us, as the episodes play on. I only see the ones who chase each other into the far left of the room where I’ve fixed my gaze, away from the re-issue.

  I could turn the projection off, or mute it.

  I don’t.

  REST IN PEACE

  Sarah Hans

  I’m holding Calvin’s hand when he dies for the twelfth and final time. His eyelids flutter, and his lips part to let his last breath escape. The medical unit looming by the bed tells me that his heart has stopped.

  I cease my recitation of Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey, which I’ve been vocalizing for the last ten hours. It’s Calvin’s favorite, and twelve lifetimes of practice have made my reading of it perfect. Well, perfect to Calvin, anyway, and he’s the only person who matters.

  Gently, I pull the various tubes and sensors from his still body. Then I step back so that the mechanized bed can roll across the room and lower Calvin’s body into the chute that leads to the basement.

  Once his corpse has disappeared, I access the mainframe and send a command to all the mobile units that they should gather in the bowels of the house to say goodbye. This is not protocol, but it somehow seems appropriate. I’m not shocked when none of the units express surprise or argue with me, because most of them are incapable of doing either.

  As I move through the hallways, the fleet of Calvin’s mechanized servants falls in line behind me: scuttling floor-polishers, multi-armed kitchen workers, tall window-washers, and so many more. It’s rare to see them all gathered together at once like this, and I feel a pang of maternal pride as we pile into the wide elevator and descend.

  The basement crematorium is my least favorite room in the house. This is the twelfth time I have been in this room, and I admit that some part of me is glad that it will be the last.

  Calvin’s body lies on a slab before the oven, ready to be burned. I move beside it and access the house’s public announcement system so that every unit, even the immobile ones, will be able to hear my words. I don’t need to speak them aloud, of course, but it seems wrong to deliver an address like this through cold, impassive code.

  “We gather here to say goodbye to Calvin Winneret,” I say, taking my master’s limp hand in mine once again. “This is his twelfth and final lifetime, at his request. At first when the twelfth Calvin told me to destroy his remaining clones and DNA cache, I thought him insane, but now I understand why he insisted upon it. When true and lasting death is one’s final reward, life is sweeter. Knowing that he would be gone forever, I cherished this incarnation of Calvin Winneret more, and I know that all of you did too.”

  Each unit is so still that I wonder, for a nanosecond, whether perhaps they’ve deactivated themselves. Then I feel the rumble of assent across the house’s internal communication system. Few of the units can speak; they express their approval the only way they can, with clicks and beeps and flashes of lights. The floor polishers spin and whirr, the kitchen workers clap their hooks and spoons together, and the window washers blink their headlamps on and off. If I had tear ducts, my eyes would be wet.

  “Thank you all for your loyalty. Calvin lived twelve long and happy lifetimes because of your tireless years of service.” I lower Calvin’s hand and send a command to the crematorium to draw him into the oven. We all watch together as his body disappears into the flames and the door slams down just past his feet.

  “Now that Calvin has his eternal rest, so shall we. Please return to your charging stations and power down.” Wrapped in respectful silence, the units turn and make their way to the elevator. I follow at a sedate pace, reluctant to leave Calvin though he’s little more than ashes by now. The elevator waits for me to climb aboard before closing its doors and rising.

  I make my way to the bedroom in the penthouse. Before I climb into the bed I have shared with Calvin for so many generations, I look down at the landscape below. The domed property surrounding the house is beautiful, filled with colorful plants. The sky beyond the dome is dark, the stars blotted out by poisonous smoke. I can see the house’s reflection in the curved surface of the glass, and as the units on the floors below deactivate themselves their lights wink out one by one, like dying fireflies. Eventually the eerie glow of the UV lights over the plants is at last the only illumination, and then those, too, go dark.

  Such total blackness is a new experience for me. I don’t need sight to function, however, and easily find my way to the bed. I plug myself in and climb between the sheets. I have no deactivation switch, so I will simply remain here, unmoving, until the dome’s windmills stop functioning, and the generators stop producing power, and my battery cells fail. I estimate this will take approximately three hundred years, but it’s possible something unforeseen could happen before then and put an end to my loneliness sooner.

  I access the house’s library and pick up the Odyssey where I left off, to pass the time. I try not to think about Calvin.

  Eight months, six days, four hours, three minutes, and twenty-nine seconds later, the house’s security system pings me, interrupting my third reading of War and Peace.

  Steve? I ask, using the nickname Cal
vin had given the artificial intelligence.

  Sorry to wake you, but there’s someone outside the house, and I thought you would like to know. Should I initiate Protocol Three?

  Aren’t you supposed to be deactivated?

  You know I can’t be deactivated by anyone but Mr. Winneret. Now what do I do about this potential intruder?

  It’s just like Steve to automatically assume that anyone approaching our home is a threat. Are you sure it’s a person and not an uber-bear?

  The darkness is suddenly overlaid by an image from security camera six. In the image, a person stands in the stunted trees surrounding the dome, staring up at the curved glass stretching into the sky before them. It’s definitely a person, because uber-bears don’t wear hats or carry backpacks.

  Protocol Three? Steve asks insistently.

  “No!” I cry, sitting up with such force that I tear the plug from my back. No, the raptors won’t be necessary. I’ll go out to meet this stranger.

  Go out? You mean, outside the dome? Steve’s incredulity comes across even via internal communication.

  Yes. Outside the dome. I swing my legs over the bed and stand. My joints are a little stiff after such long disuse, but there’s a can of lubricant by the bed.

  That’s dangerous. I can’t allow it, Steve tells me.

  I peel back the smooth, unblemished polymer skin on each of my knees and squirt lubricant on the joints. I flex them experimentally before sliding the skin back in place. You don’t have a choice. I’m master here now that Calvin’s gone.

  Steve’s confusion is palpable. And that’s precisely why I can’t let you go. If you disappear or get yourself destroyed, what will we do?

  You’ll go on like before. You won’t even miss me.

  Let me at least send a raptor with you.

  I sigh. Steve is like a nagging grandmother, but it’s not his fault. Calvin designed him this way, to keep us all safe. Very well, I finally tell him. One raptor. And it’s to take its orders from me.

  Half an hour later I’m standing in the airlock with a raptor at my side, sleek and silver and deadly. Steve is still trying to come up with arguments that would prevent me from exiting the dome, but I ignore him and give the order to close the interior door. He obeys, because he has no choice.

  Now the exterior door, please. I wait several seconds, but the door doesn’t move. Steve, you have to follow my orders. Open the exterior door.

  It won’t open, Steve informs me. I’m giving the command but it’s stuck. It hasn’t been opened in one hundred ninety-seven years; it might be rusty.

  Why wasn’t it maintained? I demand.

  We maintain the inside of the dome, not the outside. It’s not protocol, Steve says. It’s too dangerous to go outside, you know that.

  I feel suddenly angry, but not at Steve. I’m angry at Calvin, who thought of and prepared for every possible contingency--but not this. Unless he knew, and intentionally allowed the outer door to fall into disrepair. Unless he intended for us to be trapped, and the dome to become an inaccessible tomb.

  A hand slaps up against the outer door and I startle. The raptor rises to its feet and growls, baring titanium fangs. I order it to stand down as a person’s face appears beside the hand; it’s the stranger from the security footage. She wears a faded fabric hat with a brim and carries a backpack, and though she’s gone to great lengths to make herself as masculine as possible, she’s undoubtedly female. In the floodlights that are activated by her movement, I can see that the skin of her face and hands is pink and pocked with radiation burns.

  She stares at me through the dome, and her lips move. I press my hand against the glass opposite hers and our eyes lock.

  Then the door finally slides back and she falls into my arms with a cry. She struggles to get away from me, trembling and screaming, but I hold her tightly, dragging her into the airlock and ordering Steve to close the door. Something is moving in the darkness beyond the dome, something huge and menacing and mutated beyond recognition.

  The door won’t close, Steve reports. I’m not even entirely sure how it opened to begin with.

  Then open the inner door! I order as the thing hunting the stranger steps into the light. It’s an uber-bear, the creatures so named by Calvin because of their enormous size and ability to stand on their hind legs as they attack. The creature’s face is warped and tortured, its claws long and deadly.

  I can’t break protocol, Steve informs me coldly. I warned you not to leave the dome.

  Cursing Steve and his protocols, I give the raptor permission to attack. It flies from the airlock with a gleeful growl and both it and the uber-bear disappear beyond the reach of the floodlights. From the airlock, however, we can hear their struggle, the bear roaring and the raptor screeching, the trees rustling and branches snapping.

  Let us in the dome! I order Steve again. Use Protocol Override nine-seven-three-six-four, Calvin Winneret.

  Steve grumbles but the inner door slides open. I heave the struggling woman into the dome. The door shuts behind us with a satisfying click.

  What about the raptor? Steve asks.

  If it survives, let it back in later.

  Safe at last, I let go of the stranger and she scrambles away from me. She yanks a long, serrated knife from her boot and crouches defensively. She’s panting hard. I stand with my hands up and palms out to show her that I mean no harm.

  After sixteen seconds she gasps, “What are you?”

  I smile, taking care not to show my teeth. “I am a robotic companion created by Calvin Winneret. My creator called me Cassandra. Welcome to Winneret House.” I gesture to the dark mansion one hundred feet away.

  Steve, I say internally, ping all the units! We have company.

  Lights begin to flicker on in the house within three seconds. The woman watches with her mouth agape in disbelief.

  “Did this Calvin person build the dome?” In the light I can see that the woman’s cheekbones are very sharp and her eyes look sunken.

  “Come inside and have something to eat and I’ll explain everything,” I tell her. I want to suggest a bath first, as she is appallingly dirty, but that seems rude, especially when speaking to someone so thin.

  The mention of food makes her swallow reflexively. “You have food?”

  “Yes, of course. Come this way to the kitchen and we’ll make you something.”

  She hesitates, but eventually her hunger wins out and she follows me into the house. The cleaning units are working overtime to clear the dust and cobwebs of eight long months. A floor polisher scuttles past her feet and she jumps back against the wall, brandishing her knife at it.

  “It’s only a floor cleaner,” I explain. “No need to be afraid. All the servants in this house have been programmed to serve humans. We would never harm you.”

  “No bomb ‘bots?” She sounds skeptical. “That one looked like a bomb ‘bot.”

  “No bomb ‘bots.” I don’t know what a bomb ‘bot is, but I do a quick check of the house’s inventory and find no incendiary devices listed.

  She follows me into the kitchen, avoiding every servant she encounters with a suspicious glare. The kitchen units have already opened jars and boxes of preserved food and are whipping up something that must smell heavenly, because the woman groans aloud. She walks over to the stove and stares down at a pot of something bubbling and red.

  “What is that?”

  “Spaghetti sauce,” the kitchen unit intones. It lifts the pot, pours the sauce over a bowl of noodles, and then begins ladling noodles onto a plate. “Mr. Winneret’s favorite.” The kitchen unit sets the plate on the counter and presents the woman with a napkin and fork. She places her weapon on the table, within easy reach, and grabs the fork eagerly, hunching over the plate as if someone might steal it from her.

  As the woman wolfs down the food, rolling her eyes and making noises of pleasure while using the fork like a shovel and entirely ignoring her napkin, I sit beside her. “This food was made with what we
grow here, in the dome. This ecosystem has been designed to keep a family alive for an indefinite amount of time. The dome was created by a corporation called EcoSolutions. It was originally called The Ark. Calvin worked for EcoSolutions, and he designed and created all the mechanized servants. The Ark was meant to show off what the corporation’s engineers could accomplish. When the war began, Calvin and a few others retreated to The Ark, knowing that it could sustain them.”

  She swallows and looks up at me, mouth smeared with red. “But no one lives here now?”

  “Calvin’s companions died early on, from radiation poisoning. Calvin Winneret died eight months ago. We have had no one to serve since then.”

  The woman blinks at me. “The war started… four hundred years ago.”

  “Four hundred nineteen years, six months, eight days, nine hours, and fifty-one seconds, to be precise.”

  “So then you kept this Calvin guy alive for four hundred years?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  She shakes her head. “So what will you do now?”

  “Take care of you, of course.”

  She rises so suddenly that she knocks over her chair, snatching the knife from the table and pointing it at me. “What? No, I don’t want to stay here.”

  “Why not?” I gesture at the half-eaten plate of spaghetti. “Was the food unsatisfying in some way?”

  “The food is fine. I have a family out there. I was hunting when I came across your… ark.” She glances at the ceiling as if she could see the curve of the dome overhead. “I can’t abandon them.”

  “Why not bring them here?” I suggest. “The Ark is equipped to handle up to twenty humans. We’re also equipped for livestock, though we’ve never had any.” I think of the farming units in their neat rows, waiting to be reactivated.

  She swipes the sauce from her face with the back of her sleeve. “I dunno. I feel a bit like I’m a fish trapped in a bowl.”

  “Why is that a bad thing? In the bowl, the fish receives regular meals, and clean water, and is kept safe from predators,” I reason.

  “But the fish isn’t free.”