by Neil Clarke
His son closed his mouth. Junior looked so small just then, all curled in on himself. It was hard to remember that he’d been even tinier only a short time ago. His black curls overshadowed his head,
as though the programming for hair had momentarily taken greater priority than the chassis itself. Javier gently pulled the hair away so he could see his son’s eyes a little better. “It’s not your fault.”
Junior didn’t look convinced. “ . . . It’s not?”
“No. It’s not. You can’t control how they act. They have systems that we don’t—hormones and glands and nerves and who knows what—controlling what they do. You’re not responsible for that.”
“But, if I hadn’t asked to see—”
“Brigid reacted the way she did because she’s meat,” Javier said. “She couldn’t help it. I chose to show you those vids because I thought it was the right thing to do. When you’re bigger, you can make those kinds of choices for your own iterations. Until then, I’m running the show. Got it?”
Junior nodded. “Got it.”
“Good.” Javier stood, stretched, and found a book for them to read. It was thick and old, with a statue on the cover. He settled down on the futon beside Junior. “You said you had a problem?”
Junior nodded. “Abigail doesn’t like me. Not the way I want. She wouldn’t let me hold hands when we made a fort in her room.”
Javier smiled. “That’s normal. She won’t like you until you’re an older boy. That’s what they like best, if they like boys. Give it a day or two.” He tickled his son’s ribs. “We’ll make a bad boy of you yet, just you watch.”
“Dad... ”
Javier kept tickling. “Oh yeah. Show me your broody face. Show me angst. They love that.”
Junior twisted away and folded his arms. He threw himself against the futon in a very good approximation of huffy irritation. “You’re not helping—”
“No, seriously, try to look like a badass. A badass who gets all weepy about girls.”
Finally, his son laughed. Then Javier told him it was time to learn about how paper books worked, and he rested an arm across his son’s shoulders and read aloud until the boy grew bored and sleepy. And when the lights were all out and the house was quiet and they lay wrapped up in an old quilt, his son said: “Dad, I grew three inches today.”
Javier smiled in the dark. He smoothed the curls away from his son’s face. “I saw that.”
“Did my brothers grow as fast as me?”
And Javier answered as he always did: “No, you’re the fastest yet.” It was not a lie. Each time, they seemed to grow just a little bit faster.
Brigid called him the next day from work. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye before I left this morning.” “That’s okay.”
“I just . . . this is sort of new for me, you know? I’ve met other vN, but not ones Junior’s age. I’ve never seen them in this phase, and—”
He heard people chattering in the background. Vaguely, he wondered what Brigid did for a living. It was probably boring, and she probably didn’t want to think about work while she was with him. Doing so tended to mess with human responses.
“—you’re trying to train him for everything, and I get them, but have you ever considered slowing things down?”
“And delay the joys of adulthood?”
“Speaking of which,” she said, her voice now lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, “what are you doing tonight?” “What would you like me to do?”
She giggled. He laughed, too. How Brigid could be so shy and so nervous was beyond him. For all their little failings humans were very strong; they felt pain and endured it, and had the types of feelings he would never have. Their faces flushed and their eyes burned and their hearts sometimes skipped a few beats. Or so he had heard. He wondered what having organs would feel like. Would he be constantly conscious of them? Would he notice the slow degradation and deterioration of his neurons, blinking brightly and frantically before dying, like old filament bulbs?
“Have a bath ready for me when I get home,” she said.
Brigid liked a lot of bubbles in her bath. She also liked not to be disturbed. “I let Abigail stay at a friend’s house tonight.” She stretched backward against Javier. “I wish Junior had friends he could stay with.”
Javier raised his eyebrows. “You plan on getting loud?”
She laughed a little. He felt the reverberation all through him. “I think that depends on you.”
“Then I hope you have plenty of lozenges,” he said. “Your throat’s gonna hurt, tomorrow.”
“I thought you couldn’t hurt me.” She grabbed his arms and folded them around herself like the sleeves of an oversized sweater.
“I can’t. Not in the moment. But I’m not responsible for any lingering side-effects.”
“Hmm. So no spanking, then?” “Tragically, no. Why? You been bad?”
She stilled. Slowly, she turned around. She had lit candles, and they illuminated only her silhouette. Her face remained shadowed, unreadable. “In the past,” she said. “Sometimes I think I’m a really bad person, Javier.”
“Why?”
“Just . . . I’m selfish. And I know it. But I can’t stop.” “Selfish how?”
“Well . . . “ She walked two fingers down his chest. “I’m terrible at sharing.”
He looked down. “Seems there’s plenty to go around . . . “ The candles fizzed out when she splashed bubbles in his face. Later that night, she burrowed up into his chest and said: “You’re staying for a while, right?” “Why wouldn’t I? You spoil me.”
She flipped over and faced away from him. “You do this a lot, don’t you? Hooking up with humans, I mean.”
He hated having this conversation. No matter how hard he tried to avoid it, it always popped up sometime. It was like they were programmed to ask the question. “I’ve had my share of relationships with humans.”
“How many others have there been like me?”
“You’re unique.”
“Bullshit.” She turned over to her back. “Tell me. I want to know. How many others?”
He rolled over, too. In the dark, he had a hard time telling where the ceiling was. It was a shadowy void far above him that made his voice echo strangely. He hated the largeness of this house, he realized. It was huge and empty and wasteful. He wanted something small. He wanted the treehouse back.
“I never counted.”
“Of course you did. You’re a computer. You’re telling me you don’t index the humans you sleep with? You don’t categorize us somewhere? You don’t chart us by height and weight and income?”
Javier frowned. “No. I don’t.”
Brigid sighed. “What happened with the others? Did you leave them or did they leave you?”
“Both.”
“Why? Why would they leave you?”
He slapped his belly. It produced a flat sound in the quiet room. “I get fat. Then they stop wanting me.”
Brigid snorted. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But at least make up a better lie, okay?”
“No, really! I get very fat. Obese, even.”
“You do not.”
“I do. And then they die below the waist.” He folded his hands behind his head. “You humans, you’re very shallow.”
“Oh, and I suppose you don’t give a damn what we look like, right?”
“Of course. I love all humans equally. It’s priority programmed.”
She scrambled up and sat on him. “So I’m just like the others, huh?”
Her hipbones stuck out just enough to provide good grips for his thumbs. “I said I love you all equally, not that I love you all for the same reasons.”
She grabbed his hands and pinned them over his head. “So why’d you hook up with me, huh? Why me, out of all the other meatsacks out there?”
“That’s easy.” He grinned. “My kid has a crush on yours.”
The next day were Junior’s jumping lessons. They started in
the backyard. It was a nice backyard, mostly slate with very little lawn, the sort of low-maintenance thing that suited Brigid perfectly. He worried a little about damaging the surface, though, so he insisted that Junior jump from the lawn to the roof. It was a forty-five degree jump, and it required confident legs, firm feet, and a sharp eye. Luckily, the sun beating down on them gave them plenty of energy for the task.
“Don’t worry,” he shouted. “Your body knows how!”
“But, Dad—”
“No buts! Jump!”
“I don’t want to hit the windows!”
“Then don’t!”
His son gave him the finger. He laughed. Then he watched as the boy took two steps backward, ran, and launched himself skyward. His slender body sailed up, arms and legs flailing uselessly, and he landed clumsily against the eaves. Red ceramic tiles fell down to the patio, disturbed by his questing fingers.
“Dad, I’m slipping!”
“Use your arms. Haul yourself up.” The boy had to learn this. It was crucial.
“Dad—”
“Javier? Junior?”
Abigail was home from school. He heard the patio door close. He watched another group of tiles slide free of the roof. Something in him switched over. He jumped down and saw Abigail’s frightened face before ushering her backward, out of the way of falling tiles. Behind him, he heard a mighty crash. He turned, and his son was lying on his side surrounded by broken tiles. His left leg had bent completely backward.
“Junior!”
Abigail dashed toward Junior’s prone body. She knelt beside him, her face all concern, her hands busy at his sides. His son cast a long look between him and her. She had run to help Junior. She was asking him if it hurt. Javier knew already that it didn’t. It couldn’t. They didn’t suffer, physically. But his son was staring at him like he was actually feeling pain.
“What happened?”
He turned. Brigid was standing there in her office clothes, minus the shoes. She must have come home early. “I’m sorry about the tiles,” Javier said.
But Brigid wasn’t looking at the tiles. She was looking at Junior and Abigail. The girl kept fussing over him. She pulled his left arm across her little shoulders and stood up so that he could ease his leg back into place. She didn’t let go when his stance was secure. Her stubborn fingers remained tangled in his. “You’ve gotten bigger,” Abigail said quietly. Her ears had turned red.
“Junior kissed me.”
It was Saturday. They were at the playground. Brigid had asked for Junior’s help washing the car while Javier took Abigail to play, and now he thought he understood why. He watched Abigail’s legs swinging above the ground. She took a contemplative sip from her juicebox. “What kind of kiss?” he asked.
“Nothing fancy,” Abigail answered, as though she were a regular judge of kisses. “It was only right here, not on the lips.” She pointed at her cheek.
“Did that scare you?”
She frowned and folded her arms. “My daddy kisses me there all the time.”
“Ah.” Now he understood his son’s mistake.
“Junior’s grown up really fast,” Abigail said. “Now he looks like he’s in middle school.”
Javier had heard of middle school from organic people’s stories. It sounded like a horrible place. “Do you ever wish you could grow up that fast?”
Abigail nodded. “Sometimes. But then I couldn’t live with Mom, or my daddy. I’d have to live somewhere else, and get a job, and do everything by myself. I’m not sure it’s worth it.” She crumpled up her juicebox. “Did you grow up really fast, like Junior?”
“Yeah. Pretty fast.”
“Did your daddy teach you the things you’re teaching Junior?” Javier rested his elbows on his knees. “Some of it. And some of it I learned on my own.” “Like what?”
It was funny, he normally only ever had this conversation with adults. “Well, he taught me how to jump really high. And how to climb trees. Do you know how to climb trees?”
Abigail shook her head. “Mom says it’s dangerous. And it’s harder with palm trees, anyway.”
“That’s true, it is.” At least, he imagined it would be for her. The bark on those trees could cut her skin open. It could cut his open, too, but he wouldn’t feel the pain. “Anyway, Dad taught me lots of things: how to talk to people; how to use things like the bus and money and phones and email; how stores work.”
“How stores work?”
“Like, how to buy things. How to shop.” “How to shoplift?”
He pretended to examine her face. “Hey, you sure you’re organic? You sure seem awful smart . . . ”
She giggled. “Can you teach me how to shoplift?” “No way!” He stood. “You’d get caught, and they’d haul you off to jail.”
Abigail hopped off the bench. “They wouldn’t haul a kid off to jail, Javier.”
“Not an organic one, maybe. But a vN, sure.” He turned to leave the playground.
“Have you ever been to jail?” “Sure.”
“When?”
They were about to cross a street. Her hand found his. He was careful not to squeeze too hard. “When I was smaller,” he said simply. “A long time ago.”
“Was it hard?”
“Sometimes.”
“But you can’t feel it if somebody beats you up, right? It doesn’t hurt?”
“No, it doesn’t hurt.”
In jail they had asked him, at various times, if it hurt yet. And he had blinked and said No, not yet, not ever. Throughout, he had believed that his dad might come to help him. It was his dad who had been training him. His dad had seen the policia take him in. And Javier had thought that there was a plan, that he would be rescued, that it would end. But there was no plan. It did not end. His dad never showed. And then the humans had turned on each other, in an effort to trigger his failsafe.
“Junior didn’t feel any pain, either,” Abigail said. “When you let him fall.”
The signal changed. They walked forward. The failsafe swam under the waters of his mind, and whispered to him about the presence of cars and the priority of human life.
“What do you mean, he’s not here?”
Abigail kept looking from her mother to Javier and back again. “Did Junior go away?”
Brigid looked down at her. “Are you all packed up? Your dad is coming today to get you.”
“And Momo, Mom. Daddy and Momo. They’re both coming straight from the airport.”
“Yes. I know that. Your dad and Momo. Now can you please check upstairs?”
Abigail didn’t budge. “Will Junior be here when I come back next Friday?”
“I don’t know, Abigail. Maybe not. He’s not just some toy you can leave somewhere.”
Abigail’s face hardened. “You’re mean and I hate you,” she said, before marching up the stairs with heavy, decisive stomps.
Javier waited until he heard a door slam before asking: “Where is he, really?”
“I really don’t know, Javier. He’s your son.”
Javier frowned. “Well, did he say anything—”
“No. He didn’t. I told him that Abigail would be going back with her dad, and he just up and left.”
Javier made for the door. “I should go look for him.”
“No!” Brigid slid herself between his body and the door. “I mean, please don’t. At least, not until my ex leaves. Okay?”
“Your ex? Why? Are you afraid of him or something?” Javier tipped her chin up with one finger. “He can’t hurt you while his girlfriend’s watching. You know that, right?”
She hunched her shoulders. “I know. And I’m not afraid of him hurting me. God. You always leap to the worst possible conclusion. It’s just, you know, the way he gloats. About how great his life is now. It hurts.”
He deflated. “Fine. I’ll wait.”
In the end, he didn’t have long to wait. They showed up only fifteen minutes later—a little earlier than they were supposed to, which surprised
Brigid and made her even angrier for some reason. “He was never on time when we were together,” she sniffed, as she watched them exit their car. “I guess dating a robot is easier than buying a fucking watch.”
“That’s a bad word, Mom,” Abigail said. “I’m gonna debit your account.”
Brigid sighed. She forced a smile. “You’re right, honey. I’m sorry. Let’s go say hi to your dad.”
At the door, Kevin was a round guy with thinning hair and very flashy-looking augmented lenses—the kind usually marketed at much younger humans. He stood on the steps with one arm around a Japanese-model vN wearing an elaborate Restoration costume complete with velvet jacket and perfect black corkscrew curls. They both stepped back a little when Javier greeted them at the door.
“You must be Javier,” Kevin said, extending his hand and smiling a dentist smile. “Abigail’s told me lots about you.”
“You did?” Brigid frowned at her daughter.
“Yeah.” Abigail’s expression clouded. “Was it supposed to be a surprise?”
Brigid’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “Of course not.”
The thing about the failsafe was that it made sure his perceptual systems caught every moment of hesitation in voices or faces or movements. Sometimes humans could defeat it, if they believed their own bullshit. But outright lies, especially about the things that hurt —he had reefs of graphene coral devoted to filtering those. Brigid was lying. She had meant for this moment to be a surprise. He could simulate it, now: she would open the door and he would be there and he would make her look good because he looked good, he was way prettier by human standards than she or her ex had any hope of ever being, and for some reason that mattered. Not that he couldn’t understand; his own systems were regularly hijacked by his perceptions. He responded to pain; they responded to proportion. He couldn’t actually hurt the human man standing in front of him—not with his fists. But his flat stomach and his thick hair and his clear, near-poreless skin: they were doing the job just fine. Javier saw that, now, in the way Kevin kept sizing him up, even when his own daughter danced into his arms. His jetlagged eyes barely spared a second for her. They remained trained on Javier. Beside him, Brigid stood a little taller.
