Rebel Without a Clue

by Kerrie Noor

  Of course, everyone forgot that he would age, forgot that the last generation of men, made useless by technology, would shrivel like a balloon in the back of a car once their talents for procreating, storytelling, and wrestling were no longer “required.”

  The footman coughed again as he began to clear the table.

  “Ma’am,” he said to Vegas, “is it not time for your foot rub?”

  Chapter Two—The Mission

  “ORDERS ARE ORDERS EXCEPT when served by a footman.” —an ex-footman

  The Voted In, as instructed by Beryl, had issued Mex her orders. A week before Mex was sent to Earth, a meeting was held . . . while Mex was blissfully watching Pete water her patio hedge, Beryl was instigating plans.

  Beryl marched into the room with a view and barked off to the screen, which was playing a sitcom extra loud in accents unknown and with words as unfathomable as “cannae,” “ween,” and “minging.” Deciphering British lingo was a fulfilling pastime for many—discovering that a brolley was not actually a trolley misspelled had been one of the highlights of the week.

  The screen continued to play.

  “Off. Now,” snapped Beryl.

  The screen crackled a ma’am and slid back into a slit in the ceiling. The Voted In sighed. Watching reruns was the best part of their job; so far they had trolled most of the BBC and had moved on to other, lesser channels in search of a programme to keep the masses happy. They watched the programmes to reassure themselves that getting rid of men was the best thing ever, and that the threat of Earth invading them was as laughable as a footman trying to run and as believable as Beryl’s insistence that her beehive hairstyle actually came from real hair. So far they had plugged away through a variety of sci-fi series, Star Trek being one of the favorites, as Captain Kirk was a brilliant example of how men being in control were anything but in control. And sitcoms—Men Behaving Badly being another favorite. It explained the complexities of a man far better than any schooling could.

  “Start with the usual,” said Beryl.

  What?

  “A messenger to Mex—pronto.”

  Mex. The mood in the room shifted.

  Beryl talked about the need for security, efficiency, and perhaps spending more than their usual budget.

  The Voted In muttered quietly.

  Haven’t we done enough for our planet?

  Mex on Earth—the cost?

  Does this mean less coffee?

  More spiced tea?

  Beryl talked about the threat Identities posed: “They are onto us,” she said, “and soon they’ll be building spaceships, making contact.” She looked around the room; no one met her gaze. “And it’s your duty to put an end to such a threat.”

  Beryl continued reminding all about how the Identities could mind read—ESP—like a pro, calling it a “rare talent that could lead to many things,” which many thought was a poor argument, as Beryl neglected to explain exactly what many things could be.

  The Voted Ins continued to mutter.

  Beryl, exasperated by the lack of enthusiasm, put on her sermon voice, her voice used to impress the masses. She pulled herself up to her full five-foot-and-three-quarter-inch height and began. The trick was to slowly increase the volume with an impressive turn of phrase.

  “It is of the utmost importance that the issues on Earth—a planet as useful as an egg in a shoe—must be addressed.” She looked about with her best menacing stare and increased her volume. “And suppressed! God knows what that smog-infested planet hypnotized by Sky Sports could do.”

  “We must be in great peril,” muttered a voice from the back.

  A few snickered.

  “Yes,” said Beryl while implementing her one-to-one glare. “Times are hard.”

  The women shifted about in their chairs uncomfortably; they didn’t take to being stared at. A few coughed, but no one argued. Instead they stared at their beloved room with a view. They had plans for more coordination; they had set aside a budget. Now they had to cut back, thanks to some ridiculous Beryl whim about Identities getting curious and discovering the existence of Planet Hy Man? Many muttered under their breath. For years the Voted In had been watching the antics of the Identities and had seen nothing to suggest they were a threat—and now suddenly a mission, warranting a messenger?

  Beryl looked at the clock on the wall above a footman’s head, its gold-plated Georgian frame exaggerating the tired appearance of the elderly man. But Beryl didn’t notice any of that; in fact, no one did. The only thing the women noticed was the time and how long it would be before Beryl’s sermon finished. Beryl watched the elaborate second hand as it ticked away. Twenty minutes, that’s all it took to plant a seed—Well done, now exit and leave them shuffling—and as the door closed behind her with an expensive swish, the women looked at each other, confused and speechless.

  Legless had left more offspring on Earth than a turtle lays eggs on a beach, and up till now his offspring were considered as harmless as the said turtle eggs. Earth was full of them, and as the Voted In had watched them grow and breed, they had laughingly called them the Identities—because on Earth they had to frequently make up an identity to avoid any unwanted attention.

  “All they do is meet up,” said one Voted In.

  “Hardly a threat,” muttered another.

  “They just ESP each other . . .” said a voice from the back.

  “Absolutely.”

  “So true.”

  “ . . . about women,” continued the voice from the back, “who they have met and who they will meet, and what they are going to do when they do meet.”

  “Meetings.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The situation hardly calls for a messenger.”

  “That’s no reason for us to fork out for a H-Pad . . .”

  “Just to satisfy Beryl’s need for leadership and her fantasies.”

  Vegas tried to calm things down, suggesting that maybe Hilda could “sort things out.”

  The room fell silent, as it always did when everyone agreed. Messengers were rarely used because they always led to the use of an H-Pad, and an H-Pad cost at least a month’s worth of caffeine. The H-Pad was inspired by Earth’s iPad, the only difference being that shouting at an H-Pad worked as well as any keypad. Women on Planet Hy Man loved shouting at things.

  The group began to grumble until the voice from the back pointed out that the mission involved getting rid of Mex: “she that makes a drama out of the past, who won’t let it lie. We won’t have to listen to her and that fraternity droning on about how much they saved the planet.”

  A few of the Voted In chuckled.

  “Isn’t that a bonus?”

  Again, silence fell over the room as one woman looked to another until the voice from the back spoke up again. “Of course, once Hilda hears, who knows what will happen.”

  WHEN BERYL LEFT THE room with a view, she decided to wait. She stood at the reception desk and asked the footman for a glass of sparkly, and when he turned to the cooler, she slipped into the stationary cupboard by the desk. Which, with its back to the room with a view, enabled her to not only hear every word but take down notes as well.

  With her ear to the wall, she listened, and as they talked of Hilda—she cursed; she had forgotten about her, the proverbial fly in the cream—Beryl pulled her portable calendar from her pocket with a jolt and hit her head against the wall. She breathed another curse and then counted the days; hopefully her timing had saved her. Bossing the Voted In into accepting her mission was doable, but Hilda . . . it would be as easy as watering a garden in a hurricane.

  THE NEXT MORNING, MEX had been abruptly woken in the morning by insistent knocking on her door. She had opened the door to find a knackered-looking footman leaning against the wall and panting. He was oblivious to the “Out of Office” sign on her door; running with glasses was not practical. In fact, running in the getup footmen were forced to wear was about as practical as wearing thermals to the gym. The only good th
ing about a runner’s assignment was the sheer bliss of a cupcake once finished, with no fear of a tight waistband.

  The footman pulled a lace handkerchief from his breast pocket and attempted to wipe the sweat from his brow. Mex, taking pity on her floor, handed him a wet wipe (left by the door by Pete for just such an occasion). The footman finally got his breath back and reverently accepted a glass of chilled water. And then, with the walk of someone whose shoes had no respect for his bunions, he headed back to headquarters.

  Mex mulled over the footman’s “this is top secret and there’s more in it for you” speech and then headed back into her upwardly mobile pad. She turned the messenger she’d been given over in her hand; it was not a good sign. Messengers were a prelude to more messengers and finally an H-Pad. And an H-Pad meant a mission of travel, interception, and excessive video contact with Beryl . . .

  She held out the messenger to Pete, who stared at the envelope, which looked misleadingly easy to open.

  “Tell me your thoughts,” she said.

  Pete was in the middle of quietly pruning the hedge on the balcony. He placed his hedging implement back in its holder and took the messenger from Mex, or Her Leathership, as he liked to call her.

  A messenger wasn’t the easiest of things to open. Messenger was a posh word for an envelope so securely fastened with Beryl’s “proceed at your own peril” seal that many wouldn’t open at all. And it required long fingernails, not something a 33 Robot had, but Pete fumbled with elegance until Mex couldn’t take any more. She flicked open the messenger and the blank paper slid out into the air while unfolding. They waited for the words to appear.

  Pete read the list of orders as they appeared on the paper. “Intercept the Identities and propose—sorry, dispose.” Pete looked up at his mistress. “Then come back here, ma’am, where a promotion and that nice hedge-less villa on the coast await.”

  Mex pulled the list from her assistant. “It’s more complicated than that. Look, your mission is top secret . . .”

  “My lips, ma’am, are sealed,” said Pete.

  “You need to establish control over the Identities; they must be kept in the dark at all costs.”

  “Dark, ma’am?”

  Mex stared at the instructions. Beryl was always talking about darkness and “keeping a lid on things; one must be frugal with the truth,” and this time Mex was confused. Was Beryl being frugal with her?

  Knowledge of Identities on Planet Hy Man was sparse, mainly because no one was interested. Identities were seen as large, ugly, way too full of themselves to be worth talking about, and way too stupid to worry about. However, Beryl had begun to talk to Mex of a hoard of invading Identities running amok and “stripping our energy dry,” and Mex up till now had ignored her. She just assumed Beryl’s rants were an age thing. She had no faith in Beryl’s logic; she, like everyone else on Planet Hy Man, believed in the “men think with their appendages” theory, and the idea of Identities invading Planet Hy Man was as laughable as Beryl’s hairdo.

  “I’m not comfortable with this,” she finally muttered. “There is more to this mission than keeping things in the dark.”

  Pete let out another sigh. “I tell you, a piece of cupcake.”

  “Cake? Cake? They are sending me down to Earth; the only thing decent about that place is the food.”

  “Breakfasts to die for, ma’am.”

  Mex looked at Pete. He had obviously been taking instruction from Beryl. And when he started to talk about Beryl’s “good taste,” Mex knew he had been coached. Beryl, like all women with a fondness for wearing black, had no taste, just a distaste for laundry bills.

  “But look what happened to Legless—he went down and never returned. He died lost, alone, and shriveled like a pickled walnut.”

  “Ma’am, he is but a male, mere testicles on legs . . .”

  “A pair of testicles which are now pushing up daisies; I don’t want to be the next Story told.”

  “ . . . whereas you, ma’am, are as hormonal as a dried tomato.”

  “Thanks, Pete, that’s a big help,” said Mex as she thrust the list into his face. “And there is no mention of a villa, you made that up.”

  “It’s a given, ma’am,” said Pete. He sniffed, then walked inside as she followed, waving the messenger in the air, a habit Pete found irritating at the best of times.

  “I’m not ready for this, Pete!” said Mex. “I am a man spy, not a reporter of foreign affairs. What do I know of the ways of Earth, let alone men? I just wrap them and pack them.”

  “Ma’am, wrapping and packing men is a mere turn of phrase that went out with two-way mirrors and”—he sighed—“a man spy is but a distant memory from the past.”

  “I mean, I was born to lead, here, on this planet,” said Mex. “Not explore over there.”

  Mex tossed the messenger into the air in disgust and with a poof it burst into confetti, fluttered to the ground, and disintegrated, leaving not a trace on Mex’s shag pile. Here she was, the greatest man spy Planet Hy Man had ever seen, being asked—told—to go to Earth. A woman who, when she was barely out of braces, no more than a teenager, had risen to the challenge of hunting down every man in hiding and bringing them to their rightful place.

  “I am a hero,” she said. “I saved this planet for what—to be sent on a find-out-and-report mission?”

  She watched Pete pull out one of Mex’s leather suits and a tub of Betty’s Best oil for leather and began to rub with vigor—like he was sanding a floor.

  “I am more than a story from the past,” she muttered.

  Pete’s usual reverence for polishing seemed to evaporate with each stroke. He was rubbing the leather like there was no tomorrow. Normally Pete took time with his waxing—oozing the thick layers across whatever he could find, occasionally stopping to admire the shine like a craftsman. Not today. He was grunting like a hog in a trough, and Mex had a pretty good idea why. It was the same every year . . . and every year she had to make some sort of cringeworthy apology.

  Well, not this year; this year she was heading for testosterone-pumped Earth and he could stuff his apology . . .

  “Pete,” she finally said. “Have you taken your lubrication today?”

  Pete remained silent.

  She sighed. “It’s just that with this Earth mission I haven’t got time for your . . . what do you call it again?”

  Pete stopped and looked at his mistress. “Anniversary, ma’am, and may I add that lubrications are for the production robots on production lines. As I have said before, oils for someone of my caliber are as necessary as it would seem anniversary cards are to yourself.”

  Mex watched as Pete continued with his robust rubbing. She needed her leather intact for the mission.

  “Look, I know a card is customary, but I have a lot on my mind.”

  Pete continued to rub.

  She sighed. “Must we go through this again? It is just a card!”

  “Absolutely right, ma’am. Three years of service; nothing to write home about.”

  Chapter Three—Pete

  “THE POWER OF TEFLON has been greatly overrated.” —Mex

  Pete sat on his yoga mat and tried to contemplate his navel. Her Leathership would be indisposed for . . . how long, he had no idea, just as he had no idea what would happen to him. As a robot he had no choice, he just followed orders.

  He knew he couldn’t stay in Mex’s penthouse deadheading the patio plants. And as for canceling her appointments, how long would that take him—a morning? She had written in three talks about “the great days of men rustling” for the WRI, Women’s Revenue from Income Tax, and two weeks of visits to the food-hygiene plants investigating the illegal dairy trade. Some footmen still remembered the getting-milk-from-animals process and, according to Mex, some women still had a taste for it.

  Also according the Mex, bribing a footman was “as easy as shouting at an H-Pad.”

  “They have nothing,” she said. “They don’t even own their own u
niforms.”

  She was relaxing on the patio after one of Pete’s famous vegan ratatouilles at the time, talking about how every morning the footmen scrambled for a uniform “like the Voted In at the coffee maker. I mean, with just the mere promise of a hot water bottle they would give away any secret, yogurt, custard, even cheese sauce.” Pete watched Mex’s face glaze over as it always did with the mention of cheese.

  “Ma’am?” Pete muttered.

  “Yes, Pete, keeping a planet vegan is a lot easier on paper than in reality and pretty boring to instill, I can tell you.”

  “You still have your cauliflower, ma’am.”

  “But without the cheese, Pete, what is a cauliflower? It’s like a man spy without her whip—it’s just not the same.”

  Pete rolled up his yoga mat and slotted it back into its shelf. He liked looking after the penthouse. It was high above the smells of the city and streamlined as befitting a woman of Mex’s stature. It had all the mode cons that made his life easy—apart from the hedge cutter; telling that thing what to do was like trying to remind Mex of their anniversary. He had put in a request for the latest sculpting equipment, but Mex didn’t have an artistic bone in her body, and she didn’t even look at it; his vision of beauty, like his loyalty, was completely wasted on the likes of her.

  He sighed. Where would they send him? After all, he was an experiment, a new breed of robot made from Teflon, giving him the ability to adapt, think, and create pretty things. A good idea at the time, thought many, until the Teflon-ic robots started to suggest things. In the end they were nicknamed 33s because it took at least thirty-three times to tell them to shut up before they did. Beryl put up with Pete for a week, then convinced Mex that her life would not be complete without such a companion. “He’s so artistic it’s laughable,” she said. Mex knew her choices were limited to yes, okay, and what a great idea. Pete and Mex had rubbed along ever since.