Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

by Judd Trichter

  “Should we be indifferent to the suffering of those who serve us?” Eliot asks. “Why not treat them with dignity and respect?”

  “But how much dignity and respect? So much that they drive us to extinction?” Flaubert wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. In his tattered coat and tie, he looks more like a rumpled professor tutoring after hours than a detective pushing for a confession. “Listen to my lungs,” he says between breaths. “Look at the ash in the sky and the rioting in the street. Look at the newsbranes and what’s happened to your own family. They’re killing us, and you want to help them?”

  “Not them,” says Eliot. “Her.” He nods toward the curtain to indicate the body behind it as opposed to the abstraction about which the old detective speaks. A siren approaches. Pain sears into Eliot’s shoulder and swells across his back. The sound gets louder then diminishes, promising Eliot a little more time.

  “After I’m arrested,” he asks the detective, “what will you do with her?”

  The old detective squints an eye and shrugs. “The evidence room, I suppose. Then after your trial, those parts that were stolen will be returned. The rest will be given to Green Valley or sold off as scrap.”

  “And that serves your process?” Eliot asks. “That’s fair to her even though she has done nothing wrong?”

  “It’s a great tragedy that there will always be victims. The state can enforce laws or regulations. It can settle disputes. It can prevent some tragedies, but certainly not all.”

  “But why not save a victim? If it costs you nothing—why not? All you’d have to do is give her her eyes back.”

  “And take them out again when I have to return her parts to their rightful owners.”

  “Or let her go.”

  “I need her body for evidence.”

  “Not if I confess.”

  Through the window, a shaft of light from a street lamp crosses the galley. The old detective sighs and shakes his head. “Eliot, this is not a negotiation. You have no leverage, and I don’t require your confession. Sure, it would make things simpler; one might say you owe it to the city for the suffering you’ve caused. But as for any weakness in my case, make no mistake”—he gestures to Pink’s laptop, to the eyes, to the C-900 behind the curtain—“I have you. Dead to rights. And I have no interest in aiding or abetting your perverse objective, which I advised against the night we met.”

  The feint cry of a siren sounds in the distance. The old detective checks his watch and guesses that the timing’s right: this should be his men now coming to take the suspect away.

  Eliot slouches on the couch as a sense of defeat drags down his chin and lowers his gaze to the floor. He sees Flaubert’s shoes are covered with dust instead of their usual shine. He looks at his own shoes, too, and sees that red stain he picked up from the alley beside the maquiladora where Iris once worked. The stain is there from when the Disciples dragged him to the basement with Ochoa. Eliot remembers the smell, the block in Heron that Lorca must have chosen as a hiding place while she was affected by Iris’s arm. He remembers how the security bot Uchenna said that smell was distinct to that street in Heron: No block in Heron smell anything like it.

  And in that red stain on his shoe, in that sticky splash of color that reminds him of the flaw in Iris’s eye, Eliot recognizes one last remaining chance to see his lover again—one last haymaker he can throw before quitting on his stool. To see her, hear her voice, bask in her aura one last time before the long humiliation of his trial and imminent sentence. His chin rises. His eyes are clear as he looks at the pocketbrane glowing on the table and softens to the old detective’s gaze.

  “What if I tell you where your partner is?” Eliot asks.

  The curtain billows. The siren outside gets louder as it nears.

  “My partner’s dead,” Flaubert responds.

  “I know,” says Eliot. “I was there when it happened.”

  The old detective glances at the pocketbrane and sees it’s glowing green. So he was there with Plath and the others during the execution. Perhaps he also knew about the plan to bomb the precinct. A worse fellow than I imagined, thinks Flaubert. No court on the continent will show him mercy now.

  “And what if I tell you where Lorca is?” Eliot asks.

  Flaubert inhales, unimpressed, until he looks again toward the pocketbrane and sees it’s still glowing green.

  Hm.

  Now, this he did not expect. If true, this changes his calculus a bit. But it can’t be true, can it?

  The waves lap against the hull of the boat. The nearing siren suddenly feels more like a threat than a rescue. The old detective could use another minute to sort this new development out.

  “Let me and Iris go,” says Eliot, “and I’ll tell you where Lorca is.”

  Is it possible, Flaubert wonders as he watches the brane glow green, that here at the end of my career, after all the near misses and bum leads, on the night the city tears itself to shreds—is it possible that this turns out to be the big one?

  The volume of the approaching siren increases. The boat rocks in the water. The old detective asks himself, why not this one? Haven’t I always preached you work the file that comes to your desk? Small fish lead to bigger fish, shoe leather pays off? Why not this case, and why shouldn’t it be me who brings it home?

  “It’s not in my authority to release you,” says the detective. “But when my superiors arrive.…”

  “Your superiors won’t release me.”

  No, they won’t, Flaubert agrees. Not after what happened to Ochoa. Not after the explosion at the precinct and the riot spreading from downtown. His tip will get lost in the hierarchy, or worse, in a rush to claim credit, someone will leak it to the newsbranes, the Disciples, or the Militiamen. The raid will be compromised, and once again, the terror queen will escape.

  The boat sways in the current. The sirens stall. The old detective rubs the burnt stubble on his chin. He knows it should be he who brings her in; he’d do it right, even with his broken leg and his cough. And what a payoff for years of solid police work, what a legacy to the department, what a validation he thought would never come. He could tell Ochoa’s children their father died for a reason, turn their daddy into a hero, strike a blow against the enemy, quell the rage on the street—but is the suspect telling the truth?

  “She’s in Heron,” says Eliot, anticipating the question. Again, the pocketbrane glows green.

  Flaubert taps his finger against his lip. He looks to the curtain then the eyes in the bag laying by his side. The young man’s posture reveals the weight of his conscience. Lazar isn’t looking to go free. He knows what he’s done and the price he should pay. But it did all come from a place of love, did it not? As twisted and misplaced as his feelings were, from the beginning, all the young man wanted was the girl. Nothing more. And what a small price that is to pay for a prize as big as Lorca.

  “If I put the eyes back in your girlfriend’s head,” Flaubert asks, “will you tell me then where Lorca is hiding?”

  “I will,” says Eliot, and the pocketbrane glows green.

  The old detective inhales a big, thick lungful of sea salt air, and for the first time in years, the breath courses through his lungs without choking him at all.

  “Well played,” he whispers more to himself than to the suspect across the room. “Well played indeed.”

  So I’ll see her one last time, thinks Eliot. I won’t be able to spend the rest of my life with her, but at least for a brief moment our eyes will meet again. Like Orpheus before me, I will have my final glimpse, my last moment of love before an eternity of solitude.

  The old detective picks up the bag containing Iris’s eyes. He struggles to his feet and crosses to where he expects to find an android sleeping in a bed. But pulling back the curtain, Flaubert finds instead a blind foamer standing at the threshold with a flathead screwdriver in her fist.

  “No!” Eliot yells, but with Lorca’s arm protecting her, the raging bot stabs the screwdri
ver into the old detective’s gut. The eyes drop to the floor as Flaubert reaches for his weapon. With a feral cry, the android stabs again and again until gunshots blast her atop the bed.

  “Oh, God, no,” Eliot yells as he passes the cuffs beneath his feet.

  Oil and blood splatter the galley. Flaubert’s body slumps to the floor. His lungs whistle as he strains to pull the weapon from his ribs.

  Eliot seizes the bag from beneath the old detective. He pounces on top of the bot fluttering on the bed like a wounded bird. Oil gurgles from where the bullets struck. She swings her arms and bites. She claws at her own face as Eliot struggles to force her eyes into their sockets.

  “Iris,” he says as he pins her to the bed. He holds her face as the sirens near. “Iris, look at me.”

  The red-flecked eye connects with her brain. Her body calms. She blinks and takes a faltering breath.

  “Eliot?” she asks as she looks at the bandage on his head. “Eliot, are you hurt?”

  She looks down at her body and her wounds. She looks around the cabin, confused about where she is.

  “My brother’s boat,” he tells her as he wipes the saliva from her lips.

  The sirens near. A tear magnifies the little red fleck in her eye.

  “Is this real?” she asks, her fingers touching his face. “Is this a dream or am I really here?”

  “You’re here,” he tells her.

  “And we’re going to Avernus?”

  “We are.”

  “And you’ve quit using drip?”

  “Yes,” he tells her even though it isn’t true.

  Red lights flash from the shore as a swell rocks the boat in the canal.

  “Oh, Eliot, I’m so proud of you,” says the bot dripping oil on the bed. “You did good.”

  EPILOGUE

  Avernus

  Eliot stands on the bridge maneuvering the ship out of the canal and into San Pedro Bay. It’ll be an hour’s journey before they reach the Catalina shoals, after which he has to clear San Clemente and San Nicholas Islands before he’s past any threat from a patrol boat looking to haul him in.

  “Eliot,” her voice calls from the cabin. “I’m still bleeding.”

  “I’ll help you once we’re out of the harbor.”

  If the oil leaks into her works, it’ll short her engine and she’ll be damaged beyond repair. He has the tools to patch her up, but first he has to steer the boat out to sea. It’s too risky to help her now. The police were at the dock as he was pulling out, and it’s certain they’ve radioed ahead. He’ll need to sail in the shadow of a tanker if he’s going to sneak past the harbor police and the Coast Guard after that.

  “I need you,” she yells again.

  “In a minute.”

  Who is this woman in the cabin of his brother’s boat?

  She was Iris first, then several other bots: a beauty, a martyr, a whore, a mother, a child, a murderer. Somewhere along the line she caught a virus that spread through her limbs. It must have been the foaming mouth that caused her to reboot and automatically power on. Thus it was a virus that saved me, thinks Eliot, that saved us both, but the fact that there’s no antidote onboard means this is a problem that can’t be remedied until we get to Avernus, if we get to Avernus. And who knows how they’ll deal with it there? It’s a week’s time sailing and Eliot needs Iris as a shipmate, but a few more days of the foam expressing itself and the bot will be more dangerous than the sea. Eliot will have to pull her apart, drain her juice, and wait to reconstruct her when her system’s clean. In other words, he has to kill her again just to save her.

  “Sweetie, I need you.”

  “Can you hang on a little longer?” he calls back.

  Orpheus never married. He never knew the day-to-day of a long commitment, only the fantasy of what life could have been with his deceased fiancée. If he had not looked back who knows what kind of husband he would have been, what kind of marriage they would have had, what kind of lives they would have lead? Would he have stayed faithful or run off with one of the goddesses that liked to sweep down from Olympus every now and then to fuck a mortal? Did Eurydice love him as much he loved her? The myth doesn’t say.

  “How you doing back there?”

  “I’m trying to stitch myself up, but I could really use your help.”

  Who is this woman he’s going to marry?

  A pair of jets flies overhead on their way downtown. Could be posturing or it could be an actual bombing run. Hard to say how bad, how out of hand the riot is that he started. Will the city change after this? Is this a turning point or just another in a long line of incidents that will be subsumed by the status quo?

  A line of ships heads west into the horizon. The radar shows light rain to the north. Flaubert’s corpse lays in the galley where it fell. Eliot wants to give it a burial at sea. Make up a prayer and allow the man his dignity, he was a loyal servant who believed in the integrity of the state. It wasn’t his fault the plates were shifting beneath him, and the man was too old and sick to adapt.

  “Turns out you can bring back the dead,” Eliot says to the corpse.

  “Who are you talking to?” Iris calls from the cabin.

  In the Greek’s day it was impossible, but now mortality is conquered in the same way flight was conquered two centuries ago. Man never did learn to fly himself, but he built a machine that could carry him. In the same way, we have not learned to be immortal, but we have built machines that can carry life further into time than our fragile DNA would allow.

  “A few more minutes,” he yells toward Iris in the aft of the boat. “Then I’ll come down and help, okay?”

  “Okay,” she replies quietly, in a way that expresses her frustration.

  Who is this woman he’s taking to Avernus?

  Most of his description of the island was made up. He told her what she wanted to hear, but he has no idea what actually awaits them once they arrive. Will there be a place for them there, will they learn to fit in? He doesn’t know. And their marriage, too, will depend on secrets. He won’t ask how Pink came to be in her apartment that night, whether she was looking for work or something else. And why does she have to know about Martha and Titty Fat and the girl?

  His head smarts, the pain in his shoulder is back. He sneaks another hit of drip. The clouds behind him reflect the fire across Los Angeles. Lives and fates welded together, metal contending with flesh, in a war against extinction. Eliot stands on the bridge adjusting the throttle and the angle of the rudder. Once he’s in the open water he can allow the computer to navigate. He can put his faith in the machine, but first he has to steer out of port and select his destination.

  The old detective did have a point, thinks Eliot. It’s hard to argue I didn’t transgress. The Universe speeds toward a greater complexity and our morality struggles to keep pace, but that’s no excuse for not doing the work to figure out right from wrong. I have to redeem myself, thinks Eliot. I have to find the good and create new life from this flawed union that it might find a foothold in the sands of Avernus. I have to forge a new myth to replace the one that no longer applies.

  “Eliot, I need you,” she calls sharply from the cabin.

  “All right.” He looks back now that they’re almost out of the harbor. “I’m coming.”

  Acknowledgments

  A couple of years ago, I was incapacitated by a painful injury in my lower back. Thankfully, my mother was kind enough to fly out to Los Angeles and look after me for the months it would take to recover. While bedridden, when I was unable even to pick up my head and see the screen on my laptop as it rested on my stomach, I somehow, through a fog of painkillers, typed out the first few drafts of this story. Without my mother’s help, I never would have been able to manage the ordeal of my injury, let alone write a novel during that time.

  Others were also extremely helpful in getting me back on my feet, especially Andrew McGlothin, Megan McGrath, Blake Lindsley, Christine Stauber, Dr. David Schechter, Arnold Bloch, Jake Goldberger,
Jordan Ramer, Sandra Hoffman, Sagiv Rosano, Vanessa Coifman, the Schnur family, and my brother Jonathan. My ex-girlfriend Christina Blazek visited with her daughter Mekenna and their dog to cheer me up. My manager, John Tomko, read the initial drafts and showed confidence in the material. My agent, Ethan Ellenberg, gave invaluable advice as to how to bring the story home.

  I’d also like to thank my editor, Brendan Deneen, for granting me this opportunity. Thanks to my copy editor, Jane Liddle; Nicole Sohl at Thomas Dunne Books; Shari Smiley; my attorney, Kim Jaime; and my secret weapons, Andy Nordvall and Marat Bokov. I thank my family and all my friends and hope this humble achievement is worthy of their love and support.

  About the Author

  JUDD TRICHTER is an alumnus of Yale University and the Horace Mann School in the Bronx. Born and raised in New York City, he was a child actor who performed into his adulthood before transitioning into a writer. Judd currently lives in Los Angeles, where he enjoys drinking scotch, listening to the blues, and watching every prizefight he possibly can. Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is his first novel.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  LOVE IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION. Copyright © 2015 by Judd Trichter. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  www.stmartins.com

  Excerpt here from The Metamorphoses of Ovid, translated by Allen Mandelbaum (Harcourt Brace and Co., 1993).

  Cover design by Rob Grom