More Human Than Human

by Neil Clarke

  I decided to take the high road and ignore the fact that they had shot us, changing the subject by stealing a cookie. The cookie became a rock in my stomach. We were returning to the place that had tasered us on purpose. No matter what the rest of me thought, my body didn’t like it.

  Aliss freshened her makeup and pulled on a clean blue shirt before we walked over, carrying her offering of cookies carefully.

  The silver garden-bot I’d often watched tending the flowers was outside raking up the few leaves that had dared to fall on the perfectly square lawn in front of the house and depositing them in a red plastic bucket. She straightened as we approached, clearly the sentry designed to watch for us. One of the guard-bots sat at her feet like a dog. The other two were nowhere to be seen. When the door opened, I expected Roberto.

  Instead, the girl herself opened the door. She was a head shorter than Aliss, and thin, but with muscle on her arms and legs. She was dressed in a schoolgirl uniform; dockers and a white shirt, green tennis shoes and green socks. The bow in her honey-wheat hair was green this morning. Her wide-set eyes were a startling blue flecked with gold and black. She looked poised for her age, which was probably eleven or twelve. She had the barest hint of hips and breasts, but was still more a promise of a woman than a real one. What mostly struck me, though, was that she had almost as much emotion as the robots.

  No kidding.

  The silver female holding the broom had on a welcoming smile and stood in a relaxed posture, one arm leaning on her rake. The girl at the door looked black. If I had to define a look on her face, I’d have said fear. But it was a ghost of fear, governed by control. The kind of look you see in executive’s eyes during a stock-fall, or a politician’s eyes on a tense election night.

  Aliss didn’t react to the fear, but held out the plate of cookies and she smiled. “Hi! I made you cookies. Can we come in?”

  The girl didn’t take the cookies. “Roberto asked me to guide you in.” With that, she turned lightly, pivoting on the balls of her feet, and led us through an open entryway lined with pictures of humans and up a wide set of wooden stairs to the kitchen. She didn’t look at us again until she sat at the kitchen table and tipped her hand toward us, as if asking us to sit. The kitchen felt warm and inviting in spite of her cool appraisal and the silver beings hovering by the sink. The walls were peach and brown with light charcoal accents, and the table was a polished cherry with small woven cream mats at each place. Our seats were obvious: there were three places with silverware and glasses already full of water, and the girl was already in one of them with her hands folded in her lap. Everything—the house, the girl, the robots—it all belonged in an upscale ’zine, and it all made me feel a bit like a visitor in a museum.

  Aliss set her tray of cookies down in the middle of the table, still fresh enough to give off a strong scent that made my mouth water. She looked at the girl, clearly yearning to say something to her, but she managed to hold off and just sit beside me, the two of us assigned to be opposite the girl and able to look up at our deck.

  A fembot handed Roberto a wooden tray with a sage-green clay pot and three small Japanese-style tea cups on it. She wore a white sundress and blue sweater that probably came from a Nordstrom catalog. Roberto nodded at her, said, “Thanks, Ruby,” and delivered tea and a small plate of pale, thin cookies to the table. He glanced at Aliss’s offering, her cookies fat and homey next to the robot’s cookies, and simply said, “Thank you.”

  The combination of feeling so out of place and the absurd thought that Roberto looked like a protocol ’droid from old movies almost made me burst out laughing, stopped really only by the sheer earnestness of the girl and her green bow.

  I curled my fingers around the tea cup and sipped slowly. Warm, but not too hot. Minty.

  Aliss succumbed to the girl’s silence and said, “Thank you for having us over. We’re pleased to meet you. My name is Aliss, and this is Paul.”

  “I know.” She swallowed, as if unsure how to talk to us.

  The silence stretched until Aliss filled it. “How was school? What are you studying?”

  One side of the girl’s mouth rose in a quirky grin. “Today’s physics topic was gauged supergravity.”

  It didn’t faze Aliss, who probably recognized the term about as much as I did—which was zero. She plowed forward. “What about English or art? Do you study those, too?”

  The robot’s girl nodded. “Of course.” Then she stopped, and the fear came over her features again for a minute and was gone. “We didn’t invite you here to talk about me. I would like you to stop watching me.”

  I blinked and Aliss flinched.

  The girl continued. “I can see you from here. I am not happy there is a house there, or that you can see me from your deck. It makes me uncomfortable and I want you to stop.” She looked directly at us, her tea untouched. She hadn’t taken either kind of cookie.

  Aliss licked her lips and the ear-end of her jaw muscle jumped, but otherwise she looked smooth and unruffled, a trait she’d learned from dealing with irascible marketing clients. Probably that wasn’t much different than dealing with irascible pre-teens. She leaned forward. “We’re only watching you because you seem to be very alone. We don’t need to keep watching. But would you like to come over and see us some afternoon? We’d love to show someone our new house.”

  Roberto stiffened, if a robot can be said to stiffen. Emotion doesn’t really exist for them; they’re programmed to pretend. But he became a bit taller, and a bit more imperious.

  The girl glanced back at him as if asking for advice, and he inclined his head ever so much as if to say, go on, you’re doing fine.

  She looked back and Aliss and shook her head. “I really just want you to stop. Will you promise me?”

  Alice chewed on her bottom lip.

  I couldn’t take it anymore, myself. The very air in the room had become awkward. This was a kid who didn’t want to be watched, and I got that, understood that maybe we’d seemed like voyeurs. Heat bloomed on my cheeks. I wanted to make her more comfortable. “All right. I’ll stop watching you.”

  Aliss shot me a look that said she wished I’d let her handle this, and I reached for one of the pale cookies and nibbled at the edges. Vanilla and sugar, with a touch of flour and egg to keep it all together. It melted in my mouth.

  I looked back at the girl, who nodded at me, her humorless eyes fixed on my face. She reminded me of a doll. I wanted—needed—to see her smile. “I’m sorry if we upset you. We didn’t mean to.” I paused, and when she didn’t say anything, I asked, “Would you tell us your name?”

  She closed her mouth and glanced back at Roberto, and then at

  Ruby.

  Apparently neither of the robots were willing or able to guide her here. She looked down at the table and mumbled, “Caroline.”

  “Pleased to meet you Caroline. Would you like to try one of Aliss’s cookies? They are my favorites.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t eat things that strangers make.” She stood up, raising her voice for the first time. “Go now, please. Please go.”

  Aliss flinched, as if Caroline’s words were little darts.

  I stood and took her hand, whispering, “It’s okay.” Then I looked at Caroline and said, “We would very much like to talk with you again soon. We don’t mean any harm, we’re just used to knowing our neighbors.” A flat-out lie, but how would she know?

  Caroline nodded and spoke to Roberto in a quite commanding voice. “Please see them out.” She turned again, her back to us, gliding gracefully out of the room and down the stairs, while Aliss and I watched her, openmouthed.

  Ruby followed her.

  Roberto nodded at us. “I will lead you to the door.”

  Aliss picked up her teacup and mine and walked to the sink very deliberately, setting the cups down. She turned and said, “Thank you for your hospitality.” Then she smiled very sweetly at Roberto and winked at me. “Can I leave her a few cookies? I can leave an e
xtra one so you can test it for poison.”

  “That really won’t be necessary.”

  Aliss sounded human and hurt, a little snitty, and Roberto sounded even and quite sane; not human at all. I picked up the plate of cookies, shocked silent and deep in thought. As Roberto opened the door and stood to the side, clearly waiting for us to pass through, I asked him, “Were you hoping we would be good for her, or that she would chase us off herself?”

  His silver mouth stayed in a tight, firm line, but then he winked at me. Because he had seen Alice wink? Because he meant yes to one of my questions? Because he had something in his eye? I didn’t think we’d get back here easily, but I also clearly didn’t speak robot, so I led Aliss out and we walked carefully down the stairs. Even though I turned to look at the banisters and the corners, to get one more glimpse of the art and the too-perfect warmth of the place, there was no evidence of Caroline at all. Outside, we passed all three of the ugly little grey guard-bots with too many feet. I finally got a count—seven legs each. Not quite spiderlike.

  As soon as we returned safely to our own property, Aliss sagged against me. I had expected her to be spitting mad, but instead she had tears on her cheeks and she whispered, “Poor kid,” a few times before letting me kiss the tears away and lead her up to the house. We stayed in our room that night, polishing off two bottles of Syrah and then making rather intense and distracted love that left us tangled in a sweaty mess on the big bed.

  Near dawn, I woke up to find her sitting upright and naked, with her back to me, staring out the dark window, the only light a thin sliver of moon that hung between two tree branches. Her chest and shoulders heaved as she sobbed softly. When I reached for her, she wouldn’t turn over and face me. I rubbed my thumb and forefinger along the sides of her spine, making small circles on her back until I fell asleep again.

  The next morning, I woke to the smell of fresh coffee. Aliss sat at the kitchen table scowling. “Now I feel like I can’t even go out on our own deck, and like I need to—to make sure Caroline’s all right.”

  I poured my own cup of dark delight and stared out the window. We couldn’t see the robot’s house from here, but there were three fat squirrels jumping about in the trees. “She wasn’t very nice,” I said.

  “It’s just the age—I know—my sisters both went through it.”

  I was an only child, and didn’t remember being very surly at all. “Did you?”

  “Probably.” She sipped her coffee. “But I don’t think you remember your own stupid years as much as the ones you get to watch. I thought my sisters had lost their minds. My mom used to say we needed her the most when we were teenagers. I think she was right.”

  “I don’t see what we can do about it,” I muttered.

  “Caroline didn’t say anything about parents. She must have some.”

  I walked up to the frig, waited for the door to slide open, and rummaged for some bread to toast. “I have an idea.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Do you care what I do with the rest of the old robos?” Half had worked when we packed them, up, and most of the rest needed simple things like batteries or new wheel casings or new brain chips, some of which I’d planned on scavenging from the oldest and most broken. “I mean, now we really need to save for a real house-bot, right?”

  She threw her napkin at me. It didn’t even come close, just fluttered to the floor. She frowned.

  “Does that mean I can use them all for parts?” “You can throw them all in the river, for all I care.”

  “The queen of eco wants to pollute the pristine waters of East King County?”

  It took less than an hour for her to come down and start helping me. We opened the garage doors to let in a slight breeze and the pale light of a cloudy afternoon. We used the two bots I’d rejected this morning—one industrial red and one silver. I stuck a post in between them, and we picked off arms from garden-bots to attach for roboarms and legs. The head was easy; I had a round bot with colored lights that was born to be part of a martial arts game, and already had a chain attached to the top. Aliss wound the chain around to be hair. As I looked on and winced, she glued the chain down. I hadn’t played the game since I’d met her anyway. But I had liked it.

  Just before supper, we heaved the bones of our screwed-together bot up two flights of stairs and positioned it on the end of the deck, in one of the Adirondack chairs. I crossed one leg over the other and balanced a colored plastic glass on the shear that served at the bot’s right hand. Aliss positioned some old augmented reality glasses on its head and played with the cameras until she had them tilted just the right way. Aliss tapped it softly on its game-ball head and spoke solemnly. “I dub thee Frankenbot.”

  “Good choice.”

  She cocked her hip like a pleased teenaged girl and looked down at our ungainly multi-colored creation. “Do you think we need two?”

  I winced. It had been my idea in the first place, but that hadn’t made it easy. “Let’s watch for a week or two. If we need another one, we can go to the junkyard then and get more parts. Let’s see how she reacts.”

  We went down to the kitchen and switched the kitchen computer to show Frankenbot’s view of the robot house while we played a word game at the kitchen table.

  The next two days life went on like it always had, except we went to the kitchen instead of the deck, and drank our coffee in companionable silence, flipping between the news, the weather, and the neighbor’s kitchen. We would have creeped me out, except I’d seen the flash of fear in Caroline’s eyes, and I had to do something about that. Stopping a little kid from being scared wasn’t creepy, even if part of what they were scared of was you.

  On day three, we took our usual lunch-time walk past the robo-house. A soaking drizzle had come to town, so I wore blue wet weather gear, and Aliss was togged in a red cap and yellow rain-poncho made of new nano-stuff so slick the water collected in beads and rolled off, dripping off the end and landing on the toes of Aliss’s shoes.

  As we passed the robot’s house, the silvery garden girl-bot slid up to the very edge of their driveway. We ignored her and kept going, walking the half-mile to normalcy and then turning around.

  The bot still waited for us. As we came by, I waved at her cheerily. “Good day.”

  She spoke. “Caroline says no fair.”

  Aliss smiled sweetly at her. “We just admired you all so much, we decided we wanted a robot, too.”

  “That’s not a robot.” She was as shiny and perfect as Roberto or Ruby, but she moved a little less smoothly and she squeaked a bit when she turned her head right. Still, compared to her, our Frankenbot was sad.

  Aliss cocked her head at the garden bot. “Would you like to come visit?”

  The bot shook her head. “I have work to do here, and besides, Caroline would never let me go.”

  It felt a little bit like progress. We walked back home and jumped in the car and went into Seattle for a rare steak dinner. Over dinner we tried to decide if Caroline was raising the robots or if they were raising her. It didn’t seem entirely clear.

  Nothing else happened for a few weeks, except we watched her through Frankenbot’s eyes and she watched us back, sometimes, and ignored us completely other times. Once, just as we came home, we caught sight of a black limousine that might have been pulling out from the robot house. But nothing seemed different that night, so we decided it had belonged to a different neighbor.

  The stock market entered a period of steady growth with particular strength in nano-materials, genetics, and animal cloning, so I had some free time (clients don’t need as much when they’re making money). I tinkered with the Frankenbot in my free time, until one day Aliss found me there and stood staring at me for a long time before she said, “I’ve had it with robots. It’s time for something with a heart.”

  We picked out a pound-puppy, a lab mix with a yellow splotch on the tip of its tail and one yellow foot. It did a lot for the house, giving us poop and paw
prints and puppy fur, making the place feel more lived in and noisier. We named him Bear.

  Bear changed the nagging game of catch Caroline’s fancy we were playing. After two days of walking the awkward and adorable Bear past the house, I spotted her peering through the window. She stood still, even when she saw me watching her, neither turning away nor waving. Two days later, in a patch of cool sunshine, she and Roberto tossed a blue ball back and forth on the front lawn while the garden-bot watched. They were there before we went by, and stayed out just until we passed back on our way in. Caroline pretended not to notice us, but she stood at the right angle to catch glimpses of us.

  So began the ritual of us walking and them playing, always at the same time each day, just as the sun was highest and day warmest. We waved in greeting the first time we saw them every day. The rest of the walk, we carefully focused entirely on each other and on Bear.

  No parents showed up.

  When Caroline was outside, the garden-bot and Roberto were always there. When she did her homework, Ruby was always there. Ruby brushed her hair every night.

  After a day so rainy and windy that the idea of a metal man and a girl playing together in the rain made no sense at all (but they did it anyway), Aliss looked up at me while she was toweling off Bear’s thick fur. “I think she’s starting to trust us, but even Bear isn’t enough to do the trick.”

  Bear licked Aliss’s damp face dry with his wide, pink tongue. “I know,” Aliss teased him, “It’s not your fault you’re not quite cute enough. I don’t think anybody would be. I know you want to talk to her, too.” She looked back at me. “We need to think of something she’ll want to come over here to see. We have money.”

  I skipped my planned afternoon of deep market analysis and spent a few hours on the web, looking for a clever idea. I hadn’t found one yet when Aliss called me down for our ritual watching of the night settling over the forest. We’d grown used to stopping work for half an hour and letting the day fade from view. We had a glassed-in first floor porch with a swing that was just the right size for the two of us and Bear. The window revealed the base of trees, and about twenty yards of clearing we’d built by giving blood to blackberry vines as we chopped and tugged and sawed at them. The resultant clear spot often produced rabbits, squirrels, possums, deer, and once, a lone,