More Human Than Human

by Neil Clarke

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  In deep winter, their house was always cold. Icy wind curled through cracks in the insulation. Even the heater that abba had installed at the foot of Mara’s bed couldn’t keep her from dreaming of snow.

  Abba pulled a lace shawl that had once belonged to Mara’s ima from the back of her little wooden chair. He draped it across her shoulders. Fringe covered her ragged fingernails.

  As Mara rose from her bed, he tried to help with her crutches, but Mara fended him off. He gave her a worried look. “The gift is in my workshop,” he said. With a concerned backward glance, he moved ahead, allowing her the privacy to make her own way.

  Their white German Shepherd, Abel, met Mara as she shifted her weight onto her crutches. She paused to let him nuzzle her hand, tongue rough against her knuckles. At thirteen, all his other senses were fading, and so he tasted everything he could. He walked by her side until they reached the stairs, and then followed her down, tail thumping against the railing with every step.

  The door to abba’s workshop was painted red and stenciled with white flowers that Mara had helped ima paint when she was five. Inside, half-finished apparatuses sprawled across workbenches covered in sawdust and disassembled electronics. Hanging from the ceiling, a marionette stared blankly at Mara and Abel as they passed, the glint on its pupils moving back and forth as its strings swayed. A mechanical hand sprang to life, its motion sensor triggered by Abel’s tail. Abel whuffed at its palm and then hid behind Mara. The thing’s fingers grasped at Mara’s sleeve, leaving an impression of dusty, concentric whorls.

  Abba stood at the back of the workshop, next to a child-sized doll that sat on a metal stool. Its limbs fell in slack, uncomfortable positions. Its face looked like the one Mara still expected to see in the mirror: a broad forehead over flushed cheeks scattered with freckles. Skin peeled away in places, revealing wire streams.

  Mara moved to stand in front of the doll. It seemed even eerier, examined face to face, its expression a lifeless twin of hers. She reached out to touch its soft, brown hair. Her bald scalp tingled.

  Gently, abba took Mara’s hand and pressed her right palm against the doll’s. Apart from how thin Mara’s fingers had become over the past few months, they matched perfectly.

  Abba made a triumphant noise. “The shape is right.”

  Mara pulled her hand out of abba’s. She squinted at the doll’s imitation flesh. Horrifyingly, its palm shared each of the creases on hers, as if it, too, had spent twelve years dancing and reading books and learning to cook.

  Abel circled the doll. He sniffed its feet and ankles and then paused at the back of its knees, whuffing as if he’d expected to smell something that wasn’t there. After completing his circuit, he collapsed on the floor, equidistant from the three human-shaped figures.

  “What do you think of her?” abba asked.

  Goosebumps prickled Mara’s neck. “What is she?”

  Abba cradled the doll’s head in his hands. Its eyes rolled back, and the light highlighted its lashes, fair and short, just like Mara’s own. “She’s a prototype. Empty-headed. A friend of mine is working on new technology for the government—”

  “A prototype?” repeated Mara. “Of what?”

  “The body is simple mechanics. Anyone could build it. The technology in the mind is new. It takes pictures of the brain in motion, all three dimensions, and then creates schematics for artificial neural clusters that will function like the original biological matter—”

  Mara’s head ached. Her mouth was sore and her stomach hurt and she wanted to go back to bed even if she couldn’t sleep. She eyed the doll. The wires under its skin were vivid red and blue as if they were veins and arteries connecting to viscera.

  “The military will make use of the technology,” abba continued. “They wish to recreate soldiers with advanced training. They are not ready for human tests, not yet. They are still experimenting with animals. They’ve made rats with mechanical brains that can solve mazes the original rats were trained to run. Now they are working with chimpanzees.”

  Abba’s accent deepened as he continued, his gestures increasingly emphatic.

  “But I am better. I can make it work in humans now, without more experiments.” Urgently, he lowered his voice. “My friend was not supposed to send me the schematics. I paid him much money, but his reason for helping is that I have promised him that when I fix the problems, I will show him the solution and he can take the credit. This technology is not for civilians. No one else will be able to do this. We are very fortunate.”

  Abba touched the doll’s shoulder so lightly that only his fingertips brushed her.

  “I will need you to sit for some scans so that I can make the images that will preserve you. They will be painless. I can set up when you sleep.” Quietly, he added, “She is my gift to you. She will hold you and keep you . . . if the worst . . . “ His voice faded, and he swallowed twice, three times, before beginning again. “She will protect you.”

  Mara’s voice came out hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You needed to see her when she was complete.”

  Her throat constricted. “I wish I’d never seen her at all!”

  From the cradle, Mara had been even-tempered. Now, at twelve, she shouted and cried. Abba said it was only what happened to children as they grew older, but they both knew that wasn’t why.

  Neither was used to her new temper. The lash of her shout startled them both. Abba’s expression turned stricken.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “You made a new daughter!”

  “No, no.” Abba held up his hands to protect himself from her accusation. “She is made for you.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be a better daughter than I am,” Mara said bitterly.

  She grabbed a hank of the doll’s hair. Its head tilted toward her in a parody of curiosity. She pushed it away. The thing tumbled to the floor, limbs awkwardly splayed.

  Abba glanced toward the doll, but did not move to see if it was broken. “I—No, Marale—You don’t—” His face grew drawn with sudden resolution. He pulled a hammer off of one of the work benches. “Then I will smash her to pieces.”

  There had been a time when, with the hammer in his hand and a determined expression on his face, he’d have looked like a smith from old legends. Now he’d lost so much weight that his skin hung loosely from his enormous frame as if he were a giant coat suspended from a hanger. Tears sprang to Mara’s eyes.

  She slapped at his hands and the hammer in them. “Stop it!”

  “If you want her to—”

  “Stop it! Stop it!” she shouted.

  Abba released the hammer. It fell against the cement with a hollow, mournful sound.

  Guilt shot through her, at his confusion, at his fear. What should she do, let him destroy this thing he’d made? What should she do, let the hammer blow strike, watch herself be shattered?

  Sawdust billowed where the hammer hit. Abel whined and fled the room, tail between his legs.

  Softly, abba said, “I don’t know what else to give.”

  Abba had always been the emotional heart of the family, even when ima was alive. His anger flared; his tears flowed; his laughter roared from his gut. Mara rested her head on his chest until his tears slowed, and then walked with him upstairs.

  The house was too small for Mara to fight with abba for long, especially during winters when they both spent every hour together in the house, Mara home-schooling via her attic space program while abba tinkered in his workshop. Even on good days, the house felt claustrophobic with two people trapped inside. Sometimes one of them would tug on a coat and ski cap and trudge across the hard-packed snow, but even the outdoors provided minimal escape. Their house sat alone at the end of a mile-long driveway that wound through bare-branched woods before reaching the lonely road that eventually led to their neighbors. Weather permitting, in winter it took an hour and a half to get the truck running and drive
into town.

  It was dawn by the time they had made their way upstairs, still drained from the scene in the basement. Mara went to lie down on her bed so she could try for the illusion of privacy. Through the closed door, she heard her father venting his frustration on the cabinets. Pans clanged. Drawers slammed. She thought she could hear the quiet, gulping sound of him beginning to weep again under the cacophony.

  She waited until he was engrossed in his cooking and then crept out of her bedroom. She made her way down the hallway, taking each step slowly and carefully so as to minimize the clicking of her crutches against the floor.

  Ima’s dance studio was the only room in the house where abba never went. It faced east; at dawn, rose- and peach-colored light shimmered across the full-length mirrors and polished hardwood. An old television hung on the southern wall, its antiquated technology jury-rigged to connect with the household AI.

  Mara closed the door most of the way, enough to muffle any sound, but not enough to make the telltale thump that would attract her father’s attention. She walked up to the television so that she could speak softly and still be heard by its implanted AI sensors. She’d long ago mastered the trick of enunciating clearly enough for the AI to understand her even when she was whispering. “I’d like to access a DVD of ima’s performances.”

  The AI whirred. “Okay, Mara,” said its genial, masculine voice. “Which one would you like to view?”

  “Giselle.”

  More clicks and whirs. The television blinked on, showing the backs of several rows of red velvet seats. Well-dressed figures navigated the aisles, careful not to wrinkle expensive suits and dresses. Before them, a curtain hid the stage from view, the house lights emphasizing its sumptuous folds.

  Mara sat carefully on the floor near the ballet barre so that she would be able to use it like a lever when she wanted to stand again. She crossed the crutches at her feet. On the television screen, the lights dimmed as the overture began.

  Sitting alone in this place where no one else went, watching things that no one else watched, she felt as if she were somewhere safe. A mouse in its hole, a bird in its nest—a shelter built precisely for her body, neither too large nor too small.

  The curtain fluttered. The overture began. Mara felt her breath flowing more easily as the tension eased from her shoulders. She could forget about abba and his weeping for a moment, just allow herself to enter the ballet.

  Even as an infant, Mara had adored the rich, satiny colors on ima’s old DVDs. She watched the tragedies, but her heart belonged to the comedies. Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pineapple Poll. Ashton’s choreography of Prokofiev’s Cinderella. Madcap Coppélia in which a peasant boy lost his heart to a clockwork doll.

  When Mara was small, ima would sit with her while she watched the dancers, her expression half-wistful and half-jaded. When the dancers had sketched their bows, ima would stand, shaking her head, and say, “Ballet is not a good life.”

  At first, ima did not want to give Mara ballet lessons, but Mara insisted at the age of two, three, four, until ima finally gave in. During the afternoons while abba was in his workshop, Mara and ima would dance together in the studio until ima grew tired and sat with her back against the mirror, hands wrapped around her knees, watching Mara spin and spin.

  After ima died, Mara had wanted to ask her father to sign her up for dance school. But she hated the melancholia that overtook him whenever they discussed ballet. Before getting sick, she’d danced on her own instead, accompanying the dancers on ima’s tapes. She didn’t dance every afternoon as she had when ima was alive. She was older; she had other things to do—books to read, study hours with the AI, lessons and play dates in attic space. She danced just enough to maintain her flexibility and retain what ima had taught her, and even sometimes managed to learn new things from watching the dancers on film.

  Then last year, while dancing with the Mouse King to The Nutcracker, the pain she’d been feeling for months in her right knee suddenly intensified. She heard the snap of bone before she felt it. She collapsed suddenly to the floor, confused and in pain, her head ringing with the echoes of the household’s alarms. As the AI wailed for help, Mara found a single thought repeating in her head. Legs don’t shatter just because you’re dancing. Something is very wrong.

  On the television screen, the filmed version of Mara’s mother entered, dancing a coy Giselle in blue tulle. Her gaze slanted shyly downward as she flirted with the dancers playing Albrecht and Hilarion. One by one, she plucked petals from a prop daisy. He loves me, he loves me not.

  Mara heard footsteps starting down the hall. She rushed to speak before abba could make it into the room—”AI, switch off—”

  Abba arrived before she could finish. He stood in the doorway with his shoulders hunched, his eyes averted from the image of his dead wife. “Breakfast is ready,” he said. He lingered for a moment before turning away.

  After breakfast, abba went outside to scrape ice off of the truck.

  They drove into town once a week for supplies. Until last year, they’d always gone on Sundays, after Shabbat. Now they went on

  Fridays before Mara’s appointments and then hurried to get home before sunset.

  Outside, snowflakes whispered onto the hard-pack. Mara pulled her knit hat over her ears, but her cheeks still smarted from the cold. She rubbed her gloved hands together for warmth before attaching Abel’s leash. The old dog seemed to understand what her crutches were. Since she’d started using them, he’d broken his lifelong habit of yanking on the strap and learned to walk daintily instead, placing each paw with care.

  Abba opened the passenger door so that Abel could clamor into the back of the cab. He fretted while Mara leaned her crutches on the side of the truck and pulled herself into the seat. He wanted to help, she knew, but he was stopping himself. He knew she hated being reminded of her helplessness.

  He collected her crutches when she was done and slung them into the back with Abel before taking his place in the driver’s seat. Mara stared silently forward as he turned the truck around and started down the narrow driveway. The four-wheel drive jolted over uneven snow, shooting pain through Mara’s bad leg.

  “Need to fix the suspension,” abba grumbled.

  Because abba was a tinkerer, everything was always broken. Before Mara was born, he’d worked for the government. These days, he consulted on refining manufacturing processes. He felt that commercial products were shoddily designed and so he was constantly trying to improve their household electronics, leaving his dozens of half-finished home projects disassembled for months while all the time swearing to take on new ones.

  The pavement smoothed out as they turned onto a county-maintained road. Piles of dirty snow lined its sides. Bony trees dotted the landscape, interspersed with pines still wearing red bows from Christmas.

  Mara felt as though the world were caught in a frozen moment, preserved beneath the snow. Nothing would ever change. No ice would melt. No birds would return to the branches. There would be nothing but blizzards and long, dark nights and snow-covered pines.

  Mara wasn’t sure she believed in G-d, but on her better days, she felt at peace with the idea of pausing, as if she were one of the dancers on ima’s DVDs, halted mid-leap.

  Except she wouldn’t pause. She’d be replaced by that thing. That doll.

  She glanced at her father. He stared fixedly at the road, grumbling under his breath in a blend of languages. He hadn’t bought new clothes since losing so much weight, and the fabric of his coat fell in voluminous folds across the seat.

  He glanced sideways at Mara watching him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Mara muttered, looking away.

  Abel pushed his nose into her shoulder. She turned in her seat to scratch between his ears. His tail thumped, tick, tock, like a metronome.

  They parked beside the grocery. The small building’s densely packed shelves were reassuringly the same year in and year out except for the special display mounted at
the front of the store. This week it showcased red-wrapped sausages, marked with a cheerful, handwritten sign.

  Gerry stood on a ladder in the center aisle, restocking cereals. He beamed as they walked in.

  “Ten-thirty to the minute!” he called. “Good morning, my punctual Jewish friends!”

  Gerry had been slipping down the slope called being hard of hearing for years now. He pitched his voice as if he were shouting across a football field.

  “How is my little adult?” he asked Mara. “Are you forty today, or is it fifty?”

  “Sixty-five,” Mara said. “Seventy tomorrow.”

  “Such an old child,” Gerry said, shaking his head. “Are you sure you didn’t steal that body?”

  Abba didn’t like those kinds of jokes. He used to worry that they would make her self-conscious; now he hated them for bringing up the subject of aging. Flatly, he replied, “Children in our family are like that. There is nothing wrong with her.”

  Mara shared an eye roll with the grocer.

  “Never said there was,” Gerry said. Changing the subject, he gestured at Mara’s crutches with a box of cornflakes. “You’re an athlete on those. I bet there’s nothing you can’t do with them.”

  Mara forced a smile. “They’re no good for dancing.”

  He shrugged. “I used to know a guy in a wheelchair. Out-danced everyone.”

  “Not ballet, though.”

  “True,” Gerry admitted, descending the ladder. “Come to the counter. I’ve got something for you.”

  Gerry had hardly finished speaking before Abel forgot about being gentle with Mara’s crutches. He knew what Gerry’s gifts meant. The lead wrenched out of Mara’s hand. She chased after him, crutches clicking, but even with his aging joints, the dog reached the front counter before Mara was halfway across the store.