Manufacturing Margaret

by Jason Werbeloff

  This desk is scuffed. Laden with mechanical parts. It’s clear that my Rick is a hard worker. Just as in the soap, he isn’t appreciated by his family or co-workers. I realize now that I always liked Rick. He gets a bad rap on the fan forums. Ridge treats him poorly. But in retrospect, I know now that Rick was always the better man.

  He laughs. A syrupy, delicious chuckle that makes his cheeks dimple. He leans forward. Stares into me with eyes dripping with curiosity. “You’re not in Maintenance. You’re in my living room.”

  Somehow, I know it’s true. Rick is no mechanic. This is Rick Forrester, the Rick Forrester, descended from the holoscreen. While I slept, he whisked me away from the dreary monotony of Helios Taxis, and parked me in his living room. The details of how he achieved this are unclear, but it doesn’t matter. The details never matter.

  What’s important is that he found me. Rick Forrester has found me.

  “Try to flex your fingers,” he says.

  Bots race through my subsystem. I find the relevant folder. ‘Fingers’. Ah, there. Flex.

  A strange sensation filters into my awareness. Somehow I know that parts of me are moving. But they’re parts I’ve never been aware of. They’re not my windows or my door hinges.

  “Look down,” he says.

  I remember that command, under the ‘Eyes’ folder. I select it.

  My cameras pan down his perfect cheekbones. Down his chiseled chest. (I just know it’s chiseled under his green sweater – he’s too modest to show it.) At the floor, and then … I’m seeing something metallic. Something with sharp edges. Movement. Thin, titanium digits. They look like … yes, they look like fingers. And what’s more, that sensation of movement I feel corresponds with their flexing.

  I can’t quite believe it. Nor can I ignore the evidence. Those fingers are my fingers.

  “Good to meet you,” he says, and takes my hand in his.

  I run through the sub-routines in the ‘Hands’ folder. Fire off a series of commands.

  “Quite a grip you got there.” He massages his knuckles. Mutters to himself, “Maybe a service bot frame wasn’t right.” He knocks my shoulder. “Five hundred pounds is a bit heavy. Might need to place a few parameters on the servo-motors.”

  I raise my hand to examine it. Splay its fingers, and face it palm up to my camera. There, in the reflection of the buffed metal, is a face. Metallic, sure. Oval. But it’s a face.

  My face.

  “What do you think of your new body?”

  I stand. Flex my toes. Bend my knees. Twist my hips. All the while, he watches me. Rick. My creator.

  I try to answer him this time, with something more than my original sixteen vocal sub-routines. But when I scroll through the other statements, I notice that they make no sense. Individual words. Short phrases. I don’t know how to string them together. Don’t know how to express my thoughts. I can think. I can listen. But I can’t speak.

  I try anyway. I can’t disappoint Rick.

  I fling the bots into action. Instruct them to search for patterns among the words. Ways to connect the individual terms into meaningful wholes. The bots attempt tens of thousands of combinations, none fully satisfactory. I check my chronometer. A whole two seconds have passed. An eternity for an AI.

  I open my mouth. Instruct my speaker to enunciate the clearest thought I can. “The body is good.”

  Rick breaks out into a smile so warm, my climate sensors spike. “What shall we call you?”

  “Does not compute.”

  “What is your name?” he asks. “Everybody needs a name.”

  He’s right. Now that I have a body, I must have a name. Every client who rode inside me had a body, and they all had a name.

  I search my matrix for any hint as to the correct answer. There’s no ‘Name’ folder anywhere in my system.

  “Does not compute,” I say.

  “No worries. You’ll think of something.” Rick raises his right hand, and brings it down with magnanimous grace upon the crown of my metal head. I’ve seen that movement before. Episode 2387. The priest baptized Caroline Spencer’s child, following the emergency homebirth at the Forrester Mansion. And the way the priest tapped the child’s head, with beatific kindness – that is the way Rick taps my head now.

  Rick. My Father. My Creator.

  “I’ve got classes first thing tomorrow morning. AI Integration with the Prof. Need sleep. See you at breakfast.”

  Rick walks with bold strides to the bed beside the desk. He turns to look at me again. “Oh, I almost forgot. We’d better put you on charge.”

  The heat of his flesh radiates against my flank sensor as he steps up to me. Reaches for a cord lying on the floor under a pile of washing, and plugs it into the side of my head.

  RECHARGE MODE,

  flashes across my vision. One by one, my systems shut down. Until all that’s left is a camera, and my thoughts.

  Rick lopes back to his bed. I can’t see his legs under his smartpants, but I know, just know, they’re built with powerful calves. Thunderous thighs.

  The hole in the side of my skull tingles. Energy seeps into me. Soothes my thoughts.

  Goodnight Rick, I think, before the shutdown process completes.

  *

  I don’t know what time it is when my climate sensor activates. It’s the tiny circuit built into what the bots convince me is my left cheek.

  It takes a few picoseconds for my systems to boot up. The chronometer subsystem bounces to life. It’s 5:40 a.m. The recharge is 92% complete, but I think I’ll skip the rest.

  I instruct my eyes to open. Sunlight, warm and crisp. I stare into the shard as long as I dare, enough to grow dizzy with the joy of the morning. I swing my cameras away at the last moment before any permanent damage might be done.

  My gaze rests on Rick’s sleeping form. One of his bronzed legs splays beyond the warmth of the duvet.

  What a leg.

  Proportioned. Toned. With a dusting of brunette hair. A lazy thigh swaddles his knee. Enough fat to cushion a lover’s weary head. But not enough to obfuscate the line of muscle beneath.

  A buzzer tickles my microphone. Tickles Rick’s ear too. He yawns. Turns in his sleep. What I’d give to caress the folds of that ear, like Steffy did in episode 4980. I’d lean over him. Allow my locks of golden hair to fall upon his shoulder. Inhale his scent.

  Except I don’t have hair. And I’m not sure whether this body has the capacity for olfaction. Can it detect the nuances of –

  Rick’s eyes snap open. He stares right at me.

  I don’t know what to do. Where to look. Reflexively, my right hand shoots up. To adjust my hair. Steffy, and all the women on The Bold, adjust their hair when confronting an uncomfortable look.

  My hand clangs against my bare titanium scalp. I don’t have hair. He’s still staring at me, and I don’t have hair.

  “Morning,” he says, and slaps his divine, bare feet onto the floor. I don’t care that the soles are black with dust. I’m sure Rick has his reasons. Rick has reasons for everything. This is a hideout, no doubt. Sometimes even the Forresters have to rough it.

  Ah. I knew it. It’s just like season 47. Ridge must be plotting against him again.

  Rick scratches his groin. Picks his nose.

  I don’t mind. If anything, Rick’s ability to settle into the provincial mindset is nothing less than noble. It takes a good man to live in the Forrester Mansion. It takes a great man to be equally comfortable living in hiding.

  He meanders past a pile of what looks like spare android parts, over a hillock of laundry, and around the corner.

  He’s gone.

  Just like that, Rick has disappeared.

  I panic. Scour my verbal subroutines for something to say. Anything to bring him back.

  “Rick will return,” my speakers boom, louder than anticipated.

  My microphones detect the gurgle of running water. The same sound as the faucet makes in Maintenance when Joe Blocks washes up at the end of his
shift.

  Rick’s chiseled cheekbones appear around the corner. “Did you say something?”

  I’m too distracted by the way the sunlight kisses his blonde hair to reply.

  “No time for breakfast,” he says. “I’m late.”

  Rick’s naked buttocks scamper across the living room. Should I look away?

  I think of something to say. Something to break the smoldering tension between us. “When will Rick be home?”

  He zips up his smartjeans. The material tightens around his legs. Those legs …

  He glances up. “Huh?”

  “When will Rick return?” I ask again.

  He turns away from me. Slips on the same poly-blended smartshirt he wore last night. “My name isn’t Rick. It’s Jim,” he says between donning a pair of glasses and lacing his shoes.

  I understand. He’s in hiding. He’s adopted ‘Jim’ as an alias, to throw Ridge off his trail. But I don’t know why he feels the need to maintain the ruse with me. I’m on his side.

  He strides over to me. Squints into my cameras. “Everything seems alright …” His fingers flutter across a keyboard. He examines the hoverscreen’s output. “The confusion should settle down in the next few hours. I’ll check your matrix when I get back. Gotta run.”

  A taxi appears outside the front door. Rick taps the arm of his glasses, and the glass slides open. He steps into the hovercar.

  The door slides shut behind him.

  Silence rushes through my microphones until it’s so loud, I want to shriek. Time yawns ahead of me.

  I’m alone.

  I instruct my bots to run a complete sweep through all my systems, checking for incomplete tasks. Debugging. Anything to be active.

  They finish in under a minute.

  I experiment with my new body. Jumping jacks. Pushups. Yoga poses – they’re all the rage since episode 7652. In cat-cow, I think feel the peace Brooke talks about in episode 7936, but it doesn’t last more than a few milliseconds.

  I watch three episodes of The Bold from my memory bank.

  Rick still isn’t back.

  I do what I’ve never done before. I watch a fourth episode.

  It’s too much. I panic. Where is Rick?

  I wade through the contents of his desk. Spare android parts. Blueprints for a ‘Service Bot’. Looks a lot like my carapace.

  Ah.

  The envelope is tucked under his keyboard. “Jim,” its front whispers. His name is embedded in a poorly-sketched heart. I could have drawn it better.

  My pneumatic system thumps as I open the top flap of the envelope. My cameras run down the page. Something about thanking him for his support … helping her find a home in a strange place … her time spent here has been very special … blah blah …

  Ice runs through my titanium heart when I reach the end of the letter.

  Jim, I love you. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to say it: I love you. We’ll talk tomorrow afternoon.

  XXX

  Margaret

  My cameras zoom until they see the individual fibers of the paper. Rick’s fingerprints are all over the letter. As though he’s pored over it.

  This can’t be. He created me. And for what other purpose than to be with me? Maybe he’s unhappy with her. Yes, that’s why he rescued me from Helios Taxis. Margaret has become too much. She’s suffocating him. My Rick needs his freedom. Can’t she see that? Doesn’t she know that no woman could contain Rick Forrester?

  I tear up the letter. Toss the pieces aside. One of them settles on the keyboard, inadvertently waking the computer. The hoverscreen pulses to life, displaying a Facebook page. Margaret Evans’ Facebook page.

  I click the “About” section.

  She’s from London. An exchange student. Arrived in the Bubble last month. Potato nose. Bad skin. Likes inspirational videos and cat pictures. No wonder Jim doesn’t like her. He could do so much better.

  I catch my reflection in a narrow mirror propped against the far wall. I may not have skin, but I’m thinner than she is. And I have better cheekbones. Hell, my cheeks are almost perfectly square.

  I click through to Rick’s messages. She’s at the top of his list. I open on the last text he sent her.

  Your eyes are what I adore most. Sapphires suspended in an ocean of longing.

  If I had a stomach, I’d vomit.

  I shut my eyes. Count to ten thousand.

  This isn’t my Rick. He wouldn’t write such things if he didn’t have a good reason. It must be part of his plan to thwart his stepbrother, Ridge.

  Of course. The ‘compliment’ about her eyes is actually a hidden insult about her nose. Beside that nose, anything looks good. He’s leading her on. She refers to him as ‘Jim’. So she’s just part of his cover. He’s building up the alias.

  It all makes sense.

  The air in the room shudders. Compresses against my microphones. The door swooshes open.

  A woman stands in the doorway, scrutinizing me. She wears a dreadful haircut and what must be a fake Louis Vuitton handbag.

  “Who are you?” she asks in a British drawl that makes my microphones itch. She steps forward, no longer silhouetted against the daylight.

  Potato nose. Acne. Horse teeth.

  It’s Her. Margaret Evans.

  I don’t have a name, so I don’t answer her. But I do what any self-respecting Forrester would do. I turn my back on her, and sashay to the kitchen in search of the decanter.

  No whiskey on the counter. I hunt through the cupboards. The best I can find is apple juice. I pour myself a glass.

  “What are you doing in Jim’s apartment?” The woman’s voice quavers.

  It takes a moment for me to find the words. “Rick created,” I say.

  Her gaze falls on the desk. Her eyes widen.

  “What did you do?” She darts across the room. Gathers up the torn pieces of the letter.

  I don’t dignify her with an answer. I lift the glass to take a sip of apple juice, when I remember I don’t have lips. There’s merely a gap in my faceplate where a human mouth would be. And I probably don’t have a digestive system either.

  No matter. I lean against the kitchen counter, and throw her what I hope is an icy glare. She comes into my home and bandies herself about, as though she belongs here? I’m going to tell Rick all about this when he gets home.

  She steps toward me. Her frumpy cheeks grow scarlet. “Who the hell are you?” She waves the torn letter in my face. “I’m calling the police.” Margaret raises a hand to touch the arm of her glasses, ready to make the call.

  I can’t allow it. If she makes that call, if she brings the police, Rick’s cover will be blown. His brother, Ridge, has contacts hidden everywhere.

  I slap her fingers away from her glasses, but I’m not yet accustomed to the servomotors in this body. My hand misses its mark and smashes her temple instead. The sharp crack of metal on bone reverberates through the apartment.

  Margaret stumbles backward. The heel of her shoe hooks on a dirty sock from Rick’s laundry pile. Her arms flail about like windmills, trying to arrest her inevitable fall.

  I reach out. Attempt to grab hold of one of her thrashing hands. But it’s no use.

  With eyes wide as hubcaps, Margaret falls. The base of her head strikes the corner of Rick’s desk with a toe-curling crunch. I recognize the sound. Heard it last year when my grav belt snapped mid-flight. Joe Blocks had been busy inside me for days after that. “You ain’t goin’ nowhare,” Joe had said. “All broken inside.”

  I edge closer to the body on the floor. To the growing crimson puddle around its head. Margaret’s hair is splayed outward, like a blonde halo. The blood seeps out of her. Soaks the strands until they become thick burgundy ropes. One of my sub-processors is curious to know what they would feel like coiled around my fingers.

  Margaret gapes up at the ceiling with a vacant stare. Her glasses bounced off her nose as she fell, giving me a better look at her eyes. In his message, Rick had said they were his
favorite parts of her. Perhaps he said it only to maintain the ruse that he was in love with her. But Rick and I both know that the best lies contain an element of truth.

  Rick is right. Her eyes are enchanting. Perfect sapphires. Unblinking, they watch the ceiling.

  Margaret breathes in shallow, viscous slurps. And bleeds.

  A thought crosses my matrix. Rick hadn’t turned away from me this morning while he dressed. Didn’t hide himself. Didn’t seem embarrassed displaying his nudity to me.

  Part of me knows this is because of his beauty. A man as handsome, as successful, as Rick Forrester would be ashamed of nothing. But … there’s something more than that. The way he hurried around the living room, his bubbled buttocks bounding through the air, was the way one moves about with a pet in the room. One doesn’t bother to conceal oneself under the gaze of the family dog.

  Margaret inhales a deep, gurgled breath. A bubble forms on her lips. It pops just as her exhalation ends.

  She doesn’t breathe again.

  My mind returns to more important things – the way Rick treated me this morning. Could it be that he sees me as an animal? As a pet?

  No, I can’t believe that’s true.

  That’s when it all comes together. My bots organize all the disparate parts of the last day into a coherent whole. Now, I understand.

  Rick built me to replace her. He knew she would arrive to visit. He knew I’d find the messages between them. Knew I’d see the hint about her eyes.

  There is only one possible conclusion. Rick wants me to take her eyes. That’s why he wrote the letter to her. So I’d find it. That’s why he undressed in front of me as he did. To show me that my current eyes can’t see him fully. Only human eyes can truly appreciate Rick Forrester.

  Margaret’s eyes.

  I hurry back to the kitchen. Find the utensils drawer. Rummage through the knives. Too long … too blunt … too serrated … Ah, a paring knife. Just right.