Analog Science Fiction and Fact - 2014-08

by Penny Publications

  They had departed by mini-bus from Central Station. Vlad sat in the front, enjoying the warmth of the sun, next to the driver. A small delegation sat in the back: Boris, and Miriam, Vlad's sister Tamara, R. Patch-It, Ibrahim the alte-zachen man and Eliezer, the god artist, both of whom once, long ago, worked with Vlad in the construction site. Relatives came to say their goodbyes, and the atmosphere was one almost of a party. Vlad hugged young Yan Chong, who was soon to marry his boyfriend, Youssou got a kiss on the cheek from his sister's friend Esther, who he had, once, almost had an affair with but, in the end, didn't. He remembered it well, and it was strange to see her so old. In his mind she was still the beautiful young woman he once got drunk with at a she-been, when his wife was away, somewhere, and they had come close to it but, in the end, they couldn't do it. He remembered walking back home, alone, and the sense of relief he'd felt when he came in through the door. Boris was a boy then. He was asleep and Vlad came and sat by his side and stroked his hair. Then he went and made himself a cup of tea.

  The mini-bus spread out solar panel wings and began to glide almost soundlessly down the old tarmac road. Neighbors, friends, and relatives waved and shouted goodbyes. The bus turned left on Mount Zion and suddenly the old neighborhood disappeared from view. It felt like leaving home, for that is what it was. It felt sad but it also felt like freedom.

  They turned on Salameh and soon came to the interchange and onto the old highway to Jerusalem. The rest of the journey went smoothly, in quiet, the coastal plain giving way gradually to hills. Then they came to the Bab-el-Wad and rose sharply along the mountain road to Jerusalem.

  It felt like a rollercoaster along the mountain road, with sharp inclines giving way to sudden drops. They circled the city without going in and drove alone the circle road, between a Palestine on one side and an Israel on the other, though the two were often mixed up in such a way only the invisible digitals could keep them apart.

  The change in geography was startling. Suddenly the mountains ended and they were dropping, and the desert began without warning. It was the strange thing about this country that had become Weiwei's home, Vlad thought—how quickly and startlingly the landscape changed in so small a place. It was no wonder the Arabs and the Jews had fought over it for so long.

  Dunes appeared, the land became a yellow place and camels rested by the side of the old road. Down, down, down they went, until they passed the sign for the ocean level and kept going, following the road to the lowest place on Earth. Soon they were traveling past the Dead Sea and the blue, calm water reflected the sky like a mirror. Bromine released from the sea filled the air, causing a soothing, calming effect on the human psyche.

  Just beyond the Dead Sea the Arava desert opened up and here, at last, some two hours after setting off from Central Station, they arrived at their destination.

  The Euthanasia Park sat on its own in a green oasis of calm. They drew at the gates and parked in the almost empty car park. Boris helped Vlad down from his seat. Outside it was hot, a dry hotness that soothed and comforted. Water sprinklers made their whoosh-whooshwhoosh sound as they irrigated the manicured grass.

  "Are you sure, Dad?" Boris said.

  Vlad just nodded. He took in a deep breath of air. The smell of water and freshly cut grass. The smell of childhood.

  Together they looked on the park. There, a swimming pool glinting blue, where one could drown in peace and tranquility. There, a massive, needle-like tower rising into the sky, for the jumpers, those who wanted to go out with one great rush of air. And there, at last, the thing that they had traveled all this way for. The Urbonas Ride.

  The Euthanasia Coaster.

  Named after its designer, Julijonas Urbonas, it was a thing of marvel and beautiful engineering. It began with an enormous climb, rising to half a kilometer above the ground. Then the drop. A five hundred meter drop straight down that led to a series of three hundred and thirty degree loops one after the other in rapid succession. Vlad felt his heart beating faster just by looking at it. He remembered the first time he had climbed up the space port in his exoskeleton. He had perched up there, on Level Five of the unfinished building, and looked down, and felt as though the whole city, the whole world, were his.

  He could already feel the memories crowding in on him. Demanding that he take them, hold them, examine them, search amongst them for her name, but it was missing. He hugged his son again, and kissed his sister. "You old fool," she said. He shook hands with the robo-priest. Miriam, next. "Look after him," Vlad said, gesturing at his son.

  "I will."

  Then Eliezer, and Ibrahim. Two old men."One day I'll go on one of these," Eliezer said."What a rush."

  "Not me," Ibrahim said. "It's the sea for me. Only the sea."

  They kissed on the cheeks, hugged, one last time. Ibrahim brought out a bottle of arak. Eliezer had glasses. "We'll drink to you," Eliezer said.

  "You do that."

  With that he left them. He was left alone. The park waited for him, the machines heeding his steps. He went up to the roller coaster and sat down in the car and put on the safety belt carefully around himself.

  The car began to move. Slowly it climbed, and climbed, and climbed. The desert down below, the park reduced to a tiny square of green. The Dead Sea in the distance, as smooth as a mirror, and he could almost think he could see Lot's wife, who had been turned into a pillar of salt.

  The car reached the top and, for a moment, stayed there. It let him savor the moment.

  Taste the air on his tongue. And suddenly he remembered her name. It was Aliyah.

  The car dropped.

  Vlad felt the gravity crushing him down, taking the air from his lungs. His heart beat the fastest it had ever beat, the blood rushed to his face. The wind howled in his ears, against his face. He dropped and leveled and for a moment air rushed in and he cried out in exultation. The car shot away from the drop and onto the first of the loops, carrying him with it, shot like a bullet at three hundred and fifty eight kilometers an hour. Vlad was propelled through loop after loop faster than he could think; until at last the enormous gravity, thus generated, claimed him.

  "The results are in. I'm afraid you just didn't do very well."

  * * *

  Artifice

  Naomi Kritzer | 4510 words

  We toasted the end of Mandy's relationship over a game of Hydro-King. "I never liked him," I said, which was true. I didn't add, "and what still puzzles me is that you never liked him, either, so why did you move in with him?" People say, "never try to change a man" (or, if you're being egalitarian about it, "never try to change the person you're dating") but from the day they met, Mandy had viewed this guy as a work in progress. She'd even succeeded in dragging him to game night a few times, even though he clearly found board games unspeakably dull.

  "Find a nice gamer boy next time," Larry suggested over the champagne. We met at night, in Larry's apartment, because Larry had an actual job instead of living entirely off his citizen's stipend like the rest of us. So on one hand, he was busy during the day; on the other, he had more money and could afford a much bigger space, big enough for seven people to meet and play board games.

  (You'd be surprised at how many people think it's super retro that we play board games in person instead of immersive VR stuff. But did you know there are still Monopoly and Scrabble tournaments? Besides, when you get together with people in person, you can eat corn chips while you gossip.)

  "I'm swearing off men," Mandy said. Larry's housekeeper came through with a tray of snacks. Mandy stared speculatively at it for a moment. The housekeeper was mostly silver, with little swiveling robot eyes on stalks. It rolled around the floor so everyone could get snacks, and Mandy grabbed a fistful of chips. "Too much goddamn work."

  "He's probably saying the same thing about women right now," muttered Quinn, my boyfriend, in an undertone. I snickered, then felt guilty, since I ought to be giving Mandy the benefit of the doubt here. Still. I had to admit, I hoped her ex wa
s toasting the split with his own friends right now while watching... was it baseball season? Tennis? Squash? He was into that sort of thing. Mandy, not so much.

  Mandy had been in a great mood on game night, but I checked in with her the next week, just to see how she was doing. "Izzy!" she greeted me. "Come over! I want to introduce you to someone!"

  I cringed. "Already?"

  "It's not what you think. Just come over!"

  I went over to Mandy's apartment—the ex had moved out, and she'd already eradicated every trace of him. The alcove where he'd had his things was now fully repurposed as her studio, with a half-finished painting on a big easel. I glanced at it—it was another of her photorealism attempts—and then looked over at the brown-haired, pleasant-faced young man on the sofa. He looked way too young for her. "Joe," she called. "Come here. I'd like to introduce you to Izzy."

  He rose and strode over, holding out his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he said in a voice that almost vibrated with sincerity. "You're the first of Mandy's friends I've had the chance to meet." There was a faint stress on the word Mandy and he glanced at her, which was a relief as he was making too much eye contact.

  "Yeah," I said. "It's nice to meet you, too." I glanced at Mandy, thinking, is this guy for real?

  Something about the self-satisfied look on Mandy's face tipped me off. "Oh. Oh, you didn't."

  "My stupid ex got the housekeeper in the agreement," Mandy said. "I needed a new one anyway, I just... upgraded."

  I looked "Joe" over. You have to pay a lot more for a robot that really looks human, but that explained Joe's unnerving perfection and slightly-too-youthful face. "You sure did. You couldn't have gotten by with a standard housekeeping model and, oh, a really nice vibrator? Because I'm sure that would've been cheaper."

  "I didn't just want him for the bedroom. He's going to be my boyfriend. Right, Joe?"

  He slipped his hand around her waist and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "I'll be with you as long as you want me, Mandy."

  She pulled back and looked at him critically. "I like the physical gesture there but next time tell me you'll be with me forever."

  He smiled at her with what looked exactly like human infatuation. "Of course, darling."

  She turned back to me and said, "He learns really fast. I never have to tell him anything twice."

  "You shouldn't have to," I said. "I mean, that's the whole point of a robot, right?"

  "Exactly! I knew you'd understand."

  Joe stood there, smiling at both of us.

  When we paused he said, "Can I get you anything, Izzy? A drink? A snack? I make excellent sandwiches."

  If it had been an ordinary housekeeper I'd have said yes, but this was creeping me out, so I said I'd eaten and that I needed to get home because I'd promised myself I'd make some progress on the symphony I was composing, and I took off.

  Back at my own apartment, I sent my own housekeeper to make me a sandwich and some lemonade and sat down with the keyboard for a while to work, although mostly I stewed. My housekeeper was more basic and functional than Larry's; it didn't even have what you'd call a face, although it had enough functionality to cook (that was important to me) and clean (that was important to Quinn). Eventually Quinn came home and instead of playing him the piece I'd been working on, I told him about Mandy and her custom-designed man.

  "Well," he said. "It's sad to say, but this is probably healthier than seeking out men as projects. Robots are very good at following instructions, unlike human beings. Also, Joe will never leave the toilet seat up, unless she instructs him to leave it up."

  "I've never understood why she didn't just have the housekeeper check the bathroom after each use to flip the seat back down," I said. "Instead of making it an issue."

  "Well, this guy will never use the bathroom at all, unless he has to go in there to recharge," Quinn said. "That's one problem solved, anyway."

  I shouldn't have been surprised when Mandy brought Joe to game night.

  He still had that friendly smile on his face pretty much all the time. It had a friendly smile on its face, I should say, but the fact is, when a robot really looks human it's hard not to think of it with a gender. Larry's housekeeper was a non-human-looking robot that was nonetheless sort of cute (the eyes "blink," things like that) and he sometimes pretends it's a pet, and Dawn and Shanice have the same basic model as me and Quinn but they gave theirs a name. Quinn and I were always very practical about it. Our housekeeper wasn't a person or a pet; it was a machine that we'd bought so it could do our cooking and clean the toilets and run errands. Lots of people give their housekeeping robots names, but they don't need names. (Unless you have two for some reason, but in a standard apartment space you don't need more than one to keep up with the work.)

  We all knew by then that Mandy had bought a robot that looked human, so she couldn't play the game of introducing Joe and waiting to see how long it took for people to figure out what was up. She led Joe around the room, introducing him to everyone; no one refused to shake hands, though Shanice was obviously pretty uncomfortable with it. Joe sat down on one of the folding chairs, leaving the comfier seating spots for the humans, and smiled happily at all of us, not interrupting.

  It got awkward when Mandy made it clear she wanted Joe to participate in the gaming.

  "Don't be ridiculous," Larry said, bluntly. "These games are supposed to be tests of human skill. If I wanted to play Scrabble with a robot, I could do that, but it'll win almost every time since it has the dictionary built into its head."

  "I've instructed him not to win anything a disproportionate amount of the time," Mandy said, defensively.

  "So your robot friend is going to throw games deliberately? No. Just no."

  "If he can't play, we're leaving," Mandy said.

  There were groans all around, but Shanice suggested, "How about Diplomacy? With the robot, there's seven of us. And I wouldn't expect him to have any particular advantage with that game."

  "Well, other than the fact that if Mandy orders him to ally with her, what else is he going to do?" Larry snapped.

  I pondered this. "We can account for that," I said, as Mandy said, "I can order him right now to just play the game as it's supposed to be played—ally with me if it makes sense, betray me if it makes sense."

  "Can he lie?" Quinn asked. We all stared at Joe, speculatively.

  "Right," Dawn said. "I'll get the box."

  Diplomacy is a seriously old-school game, invented in the mid-twentieth-century, and everyone pretends to be European powers from around World War I. There's no random element—no dice rolls or anything like that. You walk around persuading people to ally with you (by assuring them that you're trustworthy). Then everyone writes down their move secretly and all moves are revealed at one go. There's no rule that keeps you from lying, from making false promises, or from stabbing people in the back. In fact, in general you want to betray your allies one turn before they were going to turn on you.

  A robot has a clear advantage in any game where a perfect memory or a lightening-fast ability to calculate odds will come in useful— which is to say, most of them. But in a game where you have to make a guess about who's lying to you, a robot's going to have a harder time. So we went with it, because by then we were all curious. Mandy reiterated to Joe that he should play the game to win—that he was allowed to lie to people, including her, and betray them, including her, in order to try to win. We had to trust that she wouldn't rescind that instruction quietly later on, but she probably realized that if he backed her when he should have betrayed her, that would be it. We wouldn't repeat this experiment.

  During the first diplomatic phase I realized that no one was approaching Joe, probably more because he made them nervous than because they thought he'd sell them out to Mandy. I shrugged and edged over. I was playing Russia and Joe was playing Turkey and I was pretty sure that if we worked together we could squash any chance Mandy (who was playing Austria) had of winning the game by the end o
f 1903 as long as we could keep the other players from coming to her aid.

  "Want an alliance?" I asked.

  "Oh yes, please," Joe said, with bright enthusiasm. I wondered whether he would jump up and down and clap his hands if he won.

  You're probably not a Diplomacy player so the precise ins-and-outs of who allied with whom and who got stabbed in the back when is not going to be particularly interesting to you, so I'll summarize: Joe was an adequate but not outstanding Diplomacy player because he could analyze the strategic advantage of all the possible actions but he was terrible at reading people and frankly he was pretty gullible. Also, he let the rest of us crush Mandy (I think we were sort of in the mood to do that, anyway) and since everyone figured he probably wasn't programmed for grudge-holding, I was able to persuade both Dawn and Quinn that I was totally going to double-cross Joe even though I then double-crossed Quinn. (I don't usually recommend playing Diplomacy with your boyfriend, but it works out for us).

  Nobody won; we got down to me, Joe, Dawn, and Larry and then quit, because actually winning a game of Diplomacy can easily take all night. Joe clearly found that puzzling, but didn't complain.

  Afterward, we ate pizza and drank beer, except for Joe, who sat quietly and watched us. When it was time to go home, he got Mandy's coat for her and also slipped on a coat himself, even though surely he wasn't going to get cold—it was a brisk fall evening but he wasn't in any danger of freezing solid yet. Everyone shook Joe's hand and we headed in our separate directions.

  For most of the next year, Joe was Mandy's boyfriend.

  And, he really was the perfect boyfriend. I mean, I like Quinn a lot. He makes me very happy. But there are areas of life where he is imperfect. For example, when he uses up a roll of toilet paper, he tends to leave the fresh roll on the back of the toilet instead of hanging it up neatly on the hook. Joe doesn't use the toilet, but if he did, he would always hang up the TP. In fact, if Mandy wanted to never have to hang up the TP, she could instruct Joe to check for unhung TP every so often and hang it up if it wasn't in place and he would do it without resentment or reminders.