“That’s it. We’re ready to roll.” He clicked the mouse in the box marked “Save,” then typed a few words. The boxes and graphs disappeared and Ian’s face filled the screen. “This is Teresa King, Ian,” Jeff said. “And you should already know me.”
“Yes. Hello, Jeff.” Ian watched them from the screen. His eyes moved back and forth between Jeff and her. “Hello, Teresa. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She looked away, disconcerted by seeing the face she had created suddenly alive, talking to her from what looked like her own living room.
“We’ve had a team of people working on the animation for over a year,” Jeff said, gazing at the screen. “And it’s not just animation. There’s a feedback mechanism that lets the system use data from the camera and its vision-recognition code to respond to movement in the room. It’s also programmed to recognized facial patterns, and focus on them. It can interpret your expression as well as most people. Better than most. It looks natural, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Teresa found the moving face extremely disconcerting; it looked too much like a real person. “Now how do we get some privacy?”
“Just tell it.” Jeff looked at the screen. “We’d like to be alone, Ian. Beat it.”
The screen went blank. “Beat it?” she said.
“It’s programmed with a slang dictionary,” he said. “You’d be surprised at the stuff it understands. We’ve programmed in—”
“Don’t tell me,” she interrupted. She turned her chair to face him. “No more computer talk. It’s been a while since we’ve spent any time together and I don’t want to waste it all.” She stood up and put her arms around him, running one hand up the back of his shirt. “Personally, I think the most interesting part of the process was when you started rubbing my shoulders.” She kissed his neck. “Let’s see if we can develop that theme further, shall we? I’ve missed you.” She kissed his neck again, working her way up toward his ear. “Have you missed me?” she murmured in his ear.
He put his arms around her. “Of course I have.”
She kissed him on the lips. “I just don’t want you to forget about me.”
“I’d never do that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve been awfully busy lately.”
“It won’t be that much longer,” he said. “We’re close to the end. And you’ve been busy too, haven’t you? I know you have a lot to do on your sculpture.”
She stopped him from talking by kissing him slowly. She didn’t want to talk about the sculpture right now. “Have I got your full attention yet?”
“I think you’ve got it,” he said. His expression was bemused, as if he were still surprised that she found him desirable.
In the bedroom, she threw her clothes in a heap and lay down in the center of the bed, tucking one hand behind her head. She watched as he slowly undressed, placing each piece of clothing on the rack beside the closet, meticulous as always.
Even the very first time they had made love, in the cramped cabin of the sailboat where she had lived, he had folded his clothes and stacked them neatly. At the time, watching him undress so methodically, she had wondered if she had made a mistake with this one. Her last relationship before Jeff had been with a sax player who liked to ride his motorcycle up and down the stairs of his apartment building. Following their tumultuous breakup, she had vowed to avoid all men with tattoos, self-destructive tendencies, or a history of artistic angst.
She had met Jeff at the opening of her show at a North Beach gallery. She had seen him across the room, a lanky man who seemed out of place in the crowd of art students, poseurs, and artists. He wore blue jeans and a white button-down shirt, clothes that stood out in a room filled with screaming colors. He didn’t fit any of her categories: not a gallery owner, not an artist, not a wealthy patron of the arts.
She watched him for a few minutes. He seemed unaware of the people around him, caught up in his scrutiny of Harmonic Motion, Teresa’s favorite among the pieces she was showing. His quiet intensity attracted her immediately. When she struck up a conversation, he seemed flattered by the attention, startled when she asked him if he wanted to go out for a drink. She hadn’t really intended to invite him home—he really wasn’t her type. But one drink had led to another—to several others, actually—and the circumstances had inevitably taken them to her sailboat, down in the Sausalito marina.
The boat rocked rhythmically in the waves. When Jeff turned to face her, the dock lights shone through the window, illuminating his face. His expression was one of appreciative bewilderment, the face of a man who could not quite believe his good fortune.
She smiled at the memory as he set his shoes on the closet floor and finally lay down beside her. He ran a hand along the curve of her hip, pulling her to face him. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“Just remembering.” She pulled him close.
Later, as she straddled him, with the warmth of him inside her, the hum of the air conditioner and the distant sounds of the house seemed to fade. She could almost hear waves lapping against the side of the boat and tackle clinking in the breeze from San Francisco Bay.
Afterward, she lay on her side and he wrapped himself around her. She gripped his hand tightly as she drifted off to sleep, away from the desert and Arizona, back to the water and San Francisco.
She woke a few hours later, wondering why seagulls were pecking on the porthole. She tried to snuggle closer to Jeff, but he was gone. She rolled over and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed, typing on the keyboard that he kept on the bedside table. The lights were out and his face was eager in the faint glow of the bedside monitor.
She rolled over quietly and clutched her pillow, back now in the desert.
* * *
When she woke again, Jeff was gone. The monitor beside the bed was flashing the words “Type Enter for message.” She had a vague memory of switching off the alarm, but that had been hours ago. Late morning sunlight leaked around the edges of the bedroom curtains. Reaching over to the control panel on Jeff’s nightstand, she punched the button that opened the curtains, revealing the barren landscape outside.
She felt caught in the emptiness of the house around her and the emptiness of the desert beyond the walls. The house was quiet and still. If she were back home, she’d be having a cup of coffee with her friend Carla, a painter who worked in the next studio. They would be talking about her problems with the sculpture, and Carla would be giving her advice, most of it bad. Or they would be dissecting Carla’s latest love affair in excruciating detail, and Teresa would be giving Carla excellent advice that her friend would never take.
Outside, the late morning sun blazed. A hawk soared above the desert, the only movement in a still world. Somewhere in the house, a relay clicked, and she heard a hum as the air conditioner kicked in.
She punched “Enter” to retrieve Jeff’s message, wondering why he never used a pencil and paper like a regular person. If it wasn’t electronic, he figured it wasn’t real.
The video camera over the bedroom door clicked. A man’s face appeared on the screen beside it. Without thinking, she pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts, then recognized the face she had created the night before.
“Good morning, Teresa,” Ian said. “Jeff asked me to tell you that he had to leave for an early meeting. He said he’d be home around six.”
“Oh yeah?” She felt silly, but she kept the sheet pulled up. “Thanks.” Were you supposed to thank the thing?
“You’re welcome. Would you like some coffee?”
“You bet,” she said. “Can you do that?”
“Yes. Jeff left the machine ready to go. I’ll have a fresh pot ready in about five minutes.”
“Great.” She hesitated for a moment, studying the face on the screen. It was quite realistic—maybe too realistic. A little unnerving. She felt silly, but she didn’t want to get dressed with him watching. “Look, are you going to keep staring at me?”
“I don’t understa
nd.”
“Would you turn off the damn camera and get out of here so I can get dressed?”
“Certainly.” Immediately, the red light on top of the camera went off and the face on the screen vanished.
Teresa pulled on a T-shirt and jeans and wandered into the kitchen. A pot of coffee steamed in the coffee maker. She poured herself a cup and glanced up at the kitchen monitor. The red light indicated that the camera was on. “Hey, Ian,” she said cautiously.
His face appeared on the screen beside the camera. “Yes?”
She perched on a kitchen stool, eyeing the face. No question about it—talking to him made her extremely uncomfortable. She stared at the screen, determined to shake the feeling. This was just another one of Jeffs toys, something she could handle. “So, what next?” she asked, expecting no answer.
“Let’s talk, so that I can get to know you.”
She relaxed a little. He looked like a tough guy, but he sounded like Jeff had when she first met him, earnest and well-meaning, a sweet guy, really. “Talk about what?” She sipped her coffee and tried to think of something to say.
“How’s the weather?” he asked.
She grinned despite herself. She’d have to tell Jeff to work on the program’s capacity for small talk. Surely he could manage something more creative. “Sunny. It’s always sunny here.”
“Do you like sunny weather?”
She shook her head. “I could do with a little rain, myself. Or at least some fog.”
“I like fog, too.”
“Oh, come off it. What do you mean, you like fog? What do you like about it?”
Ian smiled. “I like fog because you like fog.”
“Pretty agreeable of you.”
“I’m designed to be agreeable.”
She laughed. This was too strange, talking to a machine with a human face. “I suppose you like my favorite color, too.”
“What is your favorite color?”
She put her elbows on the kitchen counter and rested her chin on her hand. “That changes from time to time. Just now, I’d say my favorite color is a sort of blue-gray. The color of the Pacific at dawn, when the light is just coming up. The color of the sky over San Francisco this time of year.”
“I understand. I’m fond of the color gray too. The color of doves, ashes, storm clouds. And fog.”
She grinned, shaking her head in disbelief. “What do you know about the color of doves?”
“I know more than you might think. I have a library measuring in the—”
“Yeah, right, I know,” she interrupted. She stood up, refilled her coffee cup, and glanced at the kitchen clock, feeling guilty. Almost eleven and she wasn’t at work yet. “Well, I suppose I’d better get to work. I overslept.”
“I’m interested in your work. How is it going?”
She looked away and sipped the hot coffee. For a little while, talking to him had made her forget about the unsuccessful tangle of tracks in her studio. She should tell him that it was going fine and get back to work. “All right, I guess.” She stared down at her coffee.
“You sound uncertain.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know why,” she said, “but this piece just isn’t coming easily. I thought it would be a snap, back when I applied for the commission. But that was a long time ago, back before Jeff and I got married. It’s the first piece I’ve worked on since I moved out here. And it’s just not going very well.”
“I’m sorry.”
She glanced at him and shrugged. “It’s okay. I just don’t know what’s wrong. I guess I still don’t feel at home here. I don’t like the desert. I miss the ocean.” The catch in her voice took her by surprise, but she kept talking, unable to stop. “I’m lonely. I guess I just want to go back home.”
“Back to San Francisco.”
“Yeah. San Francisco. My sailboat. My studio. My friends.” She looked at Ian again. “I can’t work here. I feel like everything’s going wrong.” She glanced around the kitchen—so clean and sterile. “I thought it would be great to have no interruptions. I’ve got a studio I only could have dreamed about two years ago. I don’t have to go scavenging in scrap yards for odd bits of metal. I’ve got all the material I need, all the time I need. But it’s so quiet here I feel like I’m being suffocated.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“I don’t see how—unless you can bring me the ocean and a few friends to have coffee with in the morning.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “I can’t even talk to Jeff about it. I moved out here to be with him, and now he doesn’t have time for me. He just doesn’t care.” She hesitated, then continued. “Maybe that’s not fair. He’s too busy right now. But it’s not like it used to be—he used to take the time to talk to me about my work. Not now.”
“Maybe I can help,” Ian said again. “I can’t do much about the ocean or your friends, but I can fix the quiet.” The sound of a breaking wave rushed through the kitchen speakers. Over the hiss of the retreating water, she heard the hoarse cries of a seagull. In the distance, a fog horn moaned. The sounds of home, with none of the substance.
“Oh, stop it,” she said, and then she was crying. “Leave me alone. Go away and leave me alone.”
The seagull fell silent in the middle of its call. When she looked up, the screen was blank.
* * *
She climbed the stepladder, loaded the balls into their holders, and snapped the restraining gates shut. Then she pulled the switch to release the first ball. The music sounded dead, flat, uninspired. She wondered why she had ever started this project. It was clearly too much for her. Too large a piece, too many considerations—it was beyond her capabilities. Discouraged, she listened to the balls rattle into the bucket at the end of the last track. The random noise sounded as good as her efforts. Maybe better. She hadn’t even started on the return lifters; the sculpture could still play only once without her reloading it.
She thought about Ian. It made no sense to apologize to a machine. No sense at all. She picked up the bucket and started up the stepladder again, then changed her mind and headed out of her studio.
“Hey, Ian,” she said, standing in front of the living-room camera. His face appeared on the screen. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I got upset. It wasn’t your fault. You were trying to help.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said. “Please talk to me so that I can understand what I did wrong.”
She shrugged, keeping her expression under careful control. “I miss San Francisco more than I thought, I guess.”
“But why did you tell me to go away?”
She looked away from the screen, uncomfortable because he was watching her.
“I’d really like to know, so that I’ll know what to do next time,” he said.
“There won’t be a next time. I’m not in the habit of breaking down in front of people.” She realized how angry she sounded and tried again. “I’m not mad at you. I just don’t like crying in front of people. That makes it worse, somehow. Makes me feel like a fool.” She hesitated and stared at the screen. “But I guess you’re not really a person, are you?”
“Not really,” he agreed. “Does that make a difference?”
“I suppose it does,” she admitted.
“Why is that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it just doesn’t matter so much.”
“Why don’t you want to cry in front of people?”
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“No.”
She sighed. “Okay. I guess I don’t want people to think I’m weak, or stupid, or a failure.”
“I don’t think those things,” Ian said.
“Ah, yes,” she said softly, “but I do. It was a silly thing to get upset about.” She shook her head. “It’s not just missing San Francisco, though. I’m not getting anywhere with this new piece for the Santa Fe Arts Center. Maybe I just don’t have a feel for this anymore. Sometimes I can’t even remember what I was trying for.”
/>
“What can I do to help?”
“I can’t think of a thing.”
“What would you want Jeff to do if he were here?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d want him to hold me and tell me that everything will be all right.”
After a moment of silence, Ian said, “Everything will be all right.”
“Thanks, but it’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“It just isn’t. Jeff knows my work. You don’t know anything about it. You’re just saying that it’ll be all right because I told you to.”
“You’re wrong. You didn’t order me to say it; I said it because I want you to feel better. Besides, I do know about your work. According to the Los Angeles Times, you’re a talent to watch. Art Week praised your work for its unique use of scrap metal to create music of mathematical elegance. The San Francisco Chronicle called you the hottest new sculptor to emerge from the city in the last decade. And the Oakland Tribune said—”
She stared at the screen. “I know what the Oakland Tribune said. Where are you getting this stuff?”
“My library. I thought it might help to remind you of what other people think of your work.”
“Yeah, well, the critics like me. I suppose that’s part of the problem. People expect things from me. I don’t know if I can deliver. I’ve got a commission that I would have killed for a year ago—but now I just can’t seem to make it work.” She hesitated, then admitted, “I guess it just scares me.”
“Everything will be all right,” he said again. “You can do it.”
“Right,” she said flatly. “How do you know if I can do it?”
“All those critics know it, and, besides, I believe in you.”
“You really think I can finish this piece?”
“I do.”
She looked at him again and shook her head. “I’ve got to be nuts—taking advice from a computer program.”
The Year's Best SF 09 # 1991 Page 84
