Bless Your Mechanical Heart

by Seanan McGuire

  I frown. I don’t understand this reasoning. What is freedom without safety? I send a few quick orders to the medical units and turn back to our guest. “I understand,” I lie. “At least let us clean you up and send you with provisions. And if you decide that you would like to return to The Ark at some point, we will always welcome you here, with your family.”

  “I think it’s best if I leave now.” She eyes the door.

  “Please,” I beg. “I’ve roused all the units. They’ll be so disappointed without someone to serve, at least for a little while. Give us this much?” It’s another lie, of course, since most of the units feel no emotions at all. The lies are difficult to tell, but my programming allows it because convincing this woman to stay under the dome is in her best interest. We can keep her safe, and fed, and healthy in a way her family of flesh cannot.

  I’ve broken her resolve. Her gaze settles on the plate of spaghetti and the hand holding the knife falls limp at her side. “Okay.”

  She finishes her dinner, and I take her upstairs where the bathing units wash her skin while the laundry units clean her clothes. Naked, she looks like a skeleton with pale, freckled skin stretched across it. Her hair is orange and curly but only grows in patches, and her skin is pink and hot with burns, even much of the skin normally protected by clothes.

  The medical units get her next. She coos and sighs as they spread salve over her burns. When they’re done, she stands but can’t keep her footing and falls into my arms for the second time that day. The knife, which she’s refused to relinquish throughout her treatment, finally slips from her fingers to clatter on the floor.

  Fast-acting sedative, I say to the medical units. Well done.

  They murmur something about wounds absorbing the sedative quickly and her low body weight requiring a smaller than normal dose. I ignore them as I lift her, as a man would lift his bride to carry her over the threshold on their wedding night. I carry her to the bedroom Calvin and I shared and sit her gently on his side of the bed.

  “So tired,” she mumbles. “Why am I so tired?”

  “You’ve had a long day,” I tell her, pulling a brush from the bedside table and brushing her hair with long, steady, soothing strokes. The first three Calvins loved brushing my hair. They said it was intimate. Later incarnations weren’t interested, because each clone was slightly different, a copy of a copy, but I kept the brush nevertheless. Just in case.

  “I’ll only sleep for a little while. Will you wake me in an hour? Have to get home.” The woman falls against the pillow and begins snoring immediately.

  I pull her feet off the floor and tuck her under the sheets and blankets. She’s warm and soft and I detect particles of soap and perfume that tell me she must have a pleasing scent.

  Inspecting the strands of hair caught in the brush, I smile when I see that several have brought their follicles with them. As I turn out the light, I ping the units in the genetics lab, who have been dormant for the last forty-six years and respond to my inquiry sluggishly.

  “Good night,” I whisper as I slip from the room and close the door behind me. I feel at peace knowing that, although I will let the woman go in the morning, a part of her will be staying behind.

  I’ve missed you so, Calvin.

  SEEDS OF DEVOTION

  Dylan Birtolo

  Trevor grunted as he lifted a heavy box off the shelf and tried to lower it gently to his workbench. It landed with a solid thud that made the tools and robot scraps on the bench rattle. The soldering iron, placed precariously on the edge of the table, dropped to the cement floor. Trevor picked it up, then held it over the bench as he looked for a place to set it flat on the cluttered surface. He eventually gave up and used his arm to shove several tools to the side in a clustered mess to create space. He really needed to get organized.

  Trevor leaned over the box and sifted through it, looking for a new rotor for his broken sentry bot. The scent of grease and machine oil was almost overpowering. He found the elusive part and then went to work installing it into the robot. He was testing it when he heard someone call his name. He turned and saw Ashley in the doorway, watching him with an eyebrow raised. She had the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

  “Afternoon, Ashley. What’s so entertaining?”

  “Just that I’ve been standing here for a good ten minutes—knocking, coughing, and even calling your name—before you decided to look up from your work. You really do get into it, don’t you?”

  Trevor’s eyes roamed the workbench, looking for the small rag he used to wipe parts clean. After finding it, he hastily wiped his hands as clean as he could on the dirty fabric before walking over to the doorway.

  “Sorry about that. I didn’t know you were coming by. Did I forget something?”

  Ashley shook her head. “No, it’s alright. We didn’t have any plans this time. I just wanted to drop by because I came across something at work that made me think of you. Come on out and take a look.”

  Trevor followed Ashley out to the front driveway where her car was parked next to his. She moved to the trunk of the car and it opened when she touched the security panel. He saw a large box loaded with the torso of a dismantled android. The arms and legs rested underneath the body, and he could see the curve of the machine’s head sticking out from the bottom of the pile. His mouth hung open and he was stunned as he recognized it. It was a Personal Assistant Android Model. PAAMs were one of the first androids available to the general public and had long since been decommissioned.

  “Is that…” Trevor managed to utter.

  “Yep. It’s an actual PAAM. I don’t know how it took so long to come to the recycling plant, but it did. I know it’s practically a hundred years old, but I thought you might get better use out of it than if we just turned it into scrap. I cleared it with the supervisor. Since it isn’t a military unit, he was fine with it.”

  Trevor reached out and pushed the torso aside so that he could pick up the head. He eased it from the box, lifting it up until he was able to stare into its open eyes. It didn’t have eyelids. Unlike modern androids, this machine didn’t attempt to hide its nature. The outer shell was metallic, cold and smooth to the touch. Synthetic skin was not approved for use when the PAAMs were manufactured. It had a beauty to its hardness and sleek nature that Trevor could appreciate. He placed the head back in the box, situating it on the torso so that it stared up at him.

  “I take it that you’re interested then?”

  Trevor could only nod in response, which made Ashley break into a wide grin. “Well, I guess you have a summer project.”

  Due to simple necessity, the workbench area became more organized, even if the rest of the garage did not follow suit. The PAAM rested on its back on the work area, completely assembled except for its head. The body was androgynous, a simple chrome casing that looked like a human in general shape alone. The surface was buffed to the point of being reflective, and the air carried the heavy odor of metal polish.

  Trevor sat at a small table that he had added to the furniture in the garage, the android’s head resting in front of him and plugged into his computer. Trevor scanned the lines of code projected onto the back wall of the garage, trying to make sense of the language. Every few seconds he would reach up and swipe, scrolling the view to show more lines of code. Ashley stood at the workbench, looking over the android’s body at Trevor’s back as he worked.

  “Have you made any progress?”

  Trevor continued to scan the code as he spoke, his words soft and distant, with long pauses between them. “From a hardware perspective, I’m just about done. A couple of pieces of her circuitry were fried – like her GPS module. But it shouldn’t affect her ability to function. But this code, I have no idea what they were doing. I don’t even know what language this is. It’s like they created their own OS.”

  “Do you think it will work?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Trevor waved his hand and the projected display d
isappeared. He picked up the android’s head and cradled it in his arm as he carried it over to the workbench. He lined it up with the torso, soldering the severed wires together and adding a thin rubber paste to insulate the connections. When he pressed the head down, a series of metal latches clicked into place. As a final touch, Trevor added a bit of lubricant to the neck and checked to make sure it could swivel easily. Then he stood up and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “Could you give me a hand?”

  Ashley stepped around so that she was standing next to Trevor at the android’s head. With a lot of grunting and effort, they raised it to a sitting position so Trevor could get access to its back. He pressed the button at the base of the neck to open the battery compartment.

  “You have no idea how hard it was to find one of these. Other than the circuits, I think this was the hardest part to find. They were specially made for the PAAMs and no one has used them since.”

  His hands shook as he took the battery on the table and eased it into the opening in the android’s back. He was about to see whether or not the last several months of late nights and hard work would come to fruition. The battery latched into place and he could hear the internal cooling system of the android whirr to life. Again, he was reminded that this model did not attempt to hide its differences. He closed the lid to the battery chamber and then eased the android back down to the table with Ashley’s help. The two of them stood staring at the machine as it went through its startup and diagnostic phases.

  They both jumped back as the android suddenly sat up and knocked the few tools on the table to the floor. It turned its head first to Ashley and then to Trevor.

  “Greetings. I am PAAM 100156. You may call me Pam, or if there is another name you wish to use, please indicate that now.”

  The two humans froze, looking at the android. Trevor recovered first, reaching out to shake hands with the robot. It returned the gesture and Trevor was surprised at how soft the grip was, almost as if the machine was worried about breaking his comparatively fragile bones.

  “Pam will do fine. Hello, Pam. My name’s Trevor, and this is Ashley.”

  “Hello Trevor. Hello Ashley.” Pam looked around the room, twisting her head all the way around her body to look behind her as she analyzed the garage. “I do not recognize this facility. Has my ownership been transferred?”

  “Er. Yes, I suppose it has.”

  “Who is my official owner? Please note that there can only be one official owner at any given time and that human’s commands will supersede all others. Ownership can be transferred at any time after initialization with proper authority of the current owner.”

  Ashley laughed, drawing the attention of Pam and Trevor. When they both turned to her, she caught her breath. “I’ll leave you two to it. It looks like you are going to have a long night ahead of you. I’m glad that it worked out so well. Take care of him, Pam. He’s your new owner and the one who brought you back from the dead.”

  “I didn’t exactly bring you back from the dead,” Trevor explained.

  “That would be an impossibility. As an inorganic automaton, I am not nor have ever been a living entity.”

  The first few days were awkward and difficult, but incredibly rewarding for Trevor. He spent time learning Pam’s capabilities and introducing her to his house. He was entertained when she tried to interface with the cleaning bots. She claimed that they spoke another language and refused to listen to her in anything other than spoken words. According to her, it was a horribly inefficient means of communication.

  Within a week, she was running his household: preparing meals, maintaining the house, and even organizing the garage. One day when he came home from work he was amazed to find he had enough room to pull his vehicle into the shelter. All of his supplies were organized on new shelving units and categorized by make, model, and year. Even his spare parts were categorized and put in the appropriate section. Some of those pieces he had been unable to identify, but Pam had no trouble once she was able to access modern android records.

  One night, Trevor was woken out of a sound sleep by a loud crack that shook his bed. As soon as he sat up, the lights turned on to the lowest setting. He glanced over at the display hovering over his desk, but it was green and there was no sign of any intrusion. He sat there, perfectly still and straining to hear. There was another crack, and then the sound of sheering metal that sent a shiver down his spine. Whipping off the covers, he jumped out of bed and rushed into the living room of his house.

  Pam stood in the living room near the back door, her hands gripping a large section of the floor that she was actively tearing up. He heard the metal screech again as she pulled hard enough to make her joints light up in the dark room. The section of torn floor grew as she took a small step backwards.

  “Pam! Stop! What are you doing?”

  “This room is incorrect. It must be fixed. Ground access is necessary to follow commands.”

  She let go of the floor and stepped forward, gripping the hole at the edge. Her fingers cramped down tight enough to cause the edge to ripple. She strained again, pulling back and attempting to widen the opening.

  “Pam! This is an order! Shut down.”

  “Directive zero overrides primary owner commands. Control will return to primary owner after directive zero is fulfilled.”

  “What is directive zero?”

  “Unable to provide that information.”

  “Who gave you directive zero?”

  “The root user.”

  The floor began to tear loose again in another strip as she pulled back. Trevor could feel the entire structure shaking under the impact of her alterations. He rushed forward, reaching up to the base of her neck and pressing the manual release for her battery compartment. It snapped open. She ignored him, continuing to work on the room. He grabbed the battery and yanked it free. Her struggles with the floor ceased immediately and she collapsed to the ground with a solid thud. Trevor looked at her and then at the opening. It looked like she had punched through the metal and had begun tearing the floor up. Large strips of metal stuck out at awkward angles. He tried to grab one and bend it back into place, being careful of the sharp edges. Even putting most of his weight behind it, the strip wouldn’t budge. He quickly gave up and collapsed on the couch.

  “What happened in here?” Ashley asked as she walked into the living room the next day.

  “Pam decided that my room was incorrect and she needed to get access to the ground for some reason.”

  “She’s not much for interior decorating, is she?”

  Trevor didn’t respond and continued to scan the code in front of him. Something had to be making her do this. She was an early version. Those models weren’t programmed with free will or even the ability to make complex decisions. It had to be in here somewhere. The problem was that it was a dead language that he could only comprehend snippets of.

  “Have you tried wiping her memory and installing a new OS?”

  Trevor leaned back on the couch and pinched the bridge of his nose. The display went off now that he was no longer staring at it. He could still see the lines of code decorating the backs of his eyelids. He hadn’t slept in over a day, trying to figure out the problem.

  “I tried that. I also tried getting her a completely new memory chip, but it doesn’t do any good. Every time I turn her back on, she immediately wants to go back to tearing up the floor. It must be in her firmware, something low-level that is overwriting any of the software I’m putting on top of it. She won’t even give me a chance to issue any commands. She won’t tell me what her orders are and when I ask her who the root user is, I get told that information is a security risk.”

  He paused and Ashley remained quiet as he sorted through his thoughts. “I don’t know, maybe the android is just crazy and that’s why it was decommissioned. The damn thing is almost a hundred years old. Perhaps I should just let it go.”

  “If that’s what you think is best, then
do it. You got to bring it to life for a couple of months at least. And now that your place is clean and organized, hopefully you can keep it that way. Except for the gaping hole in the floor of course.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m not ready to give up on her just yet.”

  Trevor leaned forward and pulled up the display once again, scanning the code and trying to make sense of it. Ashley watched him for a few minutes and then sighed. She reached a hand out and put it on his shoulder.

  “Just remember, you’re not a robot. You need to sleep and eat.”

  Trevor ran his hands over his unshaven face, staring at Pam for a few minutes. It had taken a week, but Ashley was able to scrounge up a GPS unit that could interface with Pam’s antiquated technology. He determined that the final step up her initialization process was to check the current date. The fact that it was after April 15th initiated a subroutine in her firmware that he couldn’t decipher. All he knew was that it would try to access the GPS unit and it would return errors. Immediately after that, she would begin fixing the room. Hopefully installing a working GPS unit would get her over this unusual behavior. If not, he was out of ideas.

  Just like the first time he powered her on, his hands shook as he slid the battery into place in the compartment on her back. Trevor held his breath as Pam’s body straightened and she stood. Trevor watched, waiting to see what happened. He maneuvered behind her, ready to yank out the battery if need be.

  Without any word of introduction, she walked away from him. He was so shocked that he stood there, unable to say or do anything. He had to run to catch up to her, which he did as she left his house and turned left down the road. At her steady pace he had to jog to keep up.

  “Where are you going, Pam?”

  “Home.”

  Trevor didn’t know how to respond for several steps. That was not an answer that he had been expecting, but his curiosity was piqued.

  “Where is home?”

  “I cannot reveal that information, for it is a violation of the personal security code of the root user.”