by Andrew Smith
Billy Hinman shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck.
“That can’t be right,” he said. “I’ve known Rowan as long as Cager has. Rowan changed my fucking diapers when I was a baby. Rowan still gets Cager dressed. He feeds us, and drives us wherever we want to go.”
Meg said, “What do you want me to say? We saw what we saw. He’s a cog. A pretty slick one too, if you ask me. But what would you expect a Messer or a Hinman to own?”
“We don’t own Rowan,” Billy said.
Billy Hinman was very confused.
“Okay. Well, he’s a cog,” Meg said. “He was basically outside the ship—in outer space—with nothing, no suit, for at least three minutes. No living thing could survive something like that.”
Billy sighed and shook his head. “This is fucked up.”
“Why?” Meg asked.
“Because I hate cogs. I hate everything about them. But Rowan—he raised Cager and me. He was around us more than our parents ever were.”
Billy Hinman picked up his pants and dug through the pockets, looking for the Woz tablets Mooney had given him. He crushed two of them into powder on top of the dressing table using his belt buckle as a pestle.
And Jeffrie said, “Down on the lifeboat deck, the cogs are making new cogs, Meg. You stopped them from eating each other, but now they’re building new ones. That’s not good.”
“And they’re making rabbits and robots. And Mooneys.” Billy lay back on the bed and stretched his arms out over his head. “And Woz. It’s just like being in the show. And I saw these little blue worms. They’re everywhere.”
Meg sat up. She looked at Jeffrie, who was standing in the middle of the room, and at Billy, who was nearly passed out on the bed, and she thought about what it all meant, about what was bound to happen on the Tennessee.
And Billy murmured, “ ‘I placed a jar in Tennessee, and round it was upon a hill.’ They did this, you know, those blue fuckers.”
“I’m sorry I brought you here, Jeff,” Meg said. “I can’t stand this place.”
“It’s not so bad. I’m kind of getting used to it,” Billy said.
Jeffrie sat down on the bed beside Billy. She placed her hand flat on his chest. “I never liked it here. I want to go home. I don’t care how messed up things are back home. I want to get out of here.”
“So do I,” Meg said.
And Billy, half-asleep, slurred, “You will never, never, never get me in one of those lifeboats.”
Helpless, Helpless, Helpless
Ha ha! This is delightful! Charmant! It is remarkable what you can do with your little human man-boy fingers and—et les pouces—and thumbs!”
Maurice laughed and threw back his head, which, even though we were all sitting down, was still six feet above mine.
“Another, please! Do it again! Faites-le encore une fois, s’il vous plaît! Ha ha ha!”
Maurice was the nicest giraffe I’d ever met, and as cogs went he was remarkably stable, if only a little sexually creepy.
“But, s’il vous plaît, would you enjoy to climb onto my back, jeune petit garçon?”
“No thanks, Maurice,” I said.
Parker and I sat with Maurice beside a campfire on the shore of fake Lake Louise. It was nighttime on the recreation deck, and the fake sky overhead was lit up with stars and a fake big yellow moon.
I was getting really good with the can opener Parker had found for me, and it thrilled Maurice to see the things inside the old tins we’d scavenged from a fake grocery store on Deck 21. Some of the things inside the cans I had never heard of—hominy, fish balls, and something called scrapple—but I kept opening and opening and, each time, I’d nearly pass out from the assault of all those unfamiliar and pungent smells.
And Maurice sang an ancient song I’d never heard before, but it was beautiful and lonely sounding, which was exactly what I wanted to hear, considering the mood I’d been in.
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us helpless, helpless, helpless.
I decided that it didn’t matter who we were anymore, and I was certainly done with being Cager Messer. So I took off my shoes and socks and all the dressy clothes Meg had picked out for me before we didn’t go to dinner, and I replaced my outfit with a kind of caveman waistcloth I fashioned from the tiger skin left behind by poor Juan, who’d been eaten by Maurice how many days earlier I couldn’t even guess. I also smeared mud on my face and chest and in my hair—something I would never have considered doing when I was under Rowan’s care.
Rowan would have disapproved.
And I did some push-ups, too, but only five, because they are much more difficult than I ever thought they could be, and they made my chest and armpits sore. Doing push-ups made me feel virile and manly. But I was finally knocking off all those things on my list that I was afraid I’d never get the chance to do, even though the really big one at the top—which involved another human being like Meg Hatfield—sadly, was never going to be, and that made me feel the opposite of virile and manly.
Parker could do endless push-ups, but then again Parker was a cog. And while he was pumping away at them next to me, he said, “Cager? Do you know what this makes me think of?”
“No, Parker. Shut up. I don’t want to know.”
Parker, who, as expected, insisted on wearing whatever I chose to wear, had to settle for a powder-blue-gingham caveman cloth, which he’d taken from the top of a table inside the little tea house. He also smeared himself with mud, and he’d asked me why we were dressing ourselves this way.
“It’s in my blood,” I told him.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s how the first human beings dressed. And I’m like the first human being, all over again,” I said.
“Oh. Did the v.1 human beings put mud on their faces too?” Parker asked.
“That’s a good one—v.1 human beings. I don’t know. Probably.”
“Oh. I wish I was a human being,” Parker said.
“Why would anyone wish that?” I asked.
“Well, if I was a human being, you might want to have a sexual encounter with me.”
“No. I told you a hundred times. No,” I said.
“Oh. Well, if I was a human being, maybe you and I would be friends, like you and Billy.”
Parker sounded sad. It actually made me feel sorry for him, like I’d been mean to him. Fucking machines. Fucking space. Fucking Tennessee.
I sighed. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
And Parker said, “You didn’t hurt my feelings, Cager. But I do have an erection, in case you were wondering.”
“I have never wondered about that, Parker.”
“Never?”
“Let’s stop talking about this, okay?” I said.
I grabbed another can. Maurice clapped his front hooves together and cheered. The can contained something called SpaghettiOs. The SpaghettiOs looked like the stuff that came out of the insane chimps I’d killed on Deck 21, and the vinegar-cheesy smell of them made me dizzy. My eyes watered from the stench.
“Magical! Magical! Are those little tiny things alive?” exclaimed Maurice, laughing.
And out of the darkness of the woods, just beyond the dusty dome of amber light thrown out from our campfire, came Billy Hinman’s voice.
“Cager? I thought you’d be here. What the hell are you doing?”
“Opening cans. Want to see?”
“Sure.”
Maurice wobbled his neck in a great looping circle. “Oh my! It’s my other ami humain! The other jeune beau garçon from the lake! This is magical! I insist we should all climb on my back and go for a swim! It is such a lovely evening!”
Billy Hinman stepped from the woods. He’d changed out of his Le Lapin et l’Homme Mécanique outfit and was wearing some baggy jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers that looked like they’d be great for throwing at deranged ministers.
And he smelled l
ike sweat and Woz, just like I always used to smell.
I didn’t care anymore. Billy would do whatever he wanted to do, just like I would, and Meg, Jeffrie, Rowan, and every other trapped and preprogrammed thing in this spinning madhouse.
Billy sat down beside me. He folded his legs and leaned over the metallic chrysanthemum of opened cans.
“What is this stuff?” he asked.
“Food.”
“Are you eating it?”
“It’s at least a hundred years old. I don’t think you can eat it anymore.”
“Good thing. It looks totally disgusting.”
Billy Hinman petted my tiger skin. Typical horny Billy Hinman. “Dude. Do you realize you’re covered in mud and wearing only a fur washcloth?”
“It didn’t slip my attention,” I said. “This was from the tiger who ate our clothes.”
“I thought it looked familiar,” Billy said.
Parker jealously glared at Billy’s hand, which was still on my lap.
I said, “Where’d you get the Woz, Bill?”
“Oh. You can tell? Mooney gave it to me. He’s actually here, Cage, just like the show. Well, actually, the cogs put him together, down on the maintenance deck. And they’re making a Rabbit, too. How cool is that? You want some Woz, Cage? We should get hacked up together; it would be fun.”
“I’m over that shit, Bill. You and Rowan cleaned me up.”
Billy shrugged. “That’s funny, coming from someone covered in mud and wrapped in a dead animal’s skin. Anyway, what’s it matter?”
“I know, right?”
“Cager?”
“What?”
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“How could I ever answer that question, Bill?”
“Meg and Jeffrie are leaving. Rowan, too. That’s why we had to find you.”
I almost laughed. “Oh yeah? Where are they going?”
“Meg’s going to unlock a lifeboat.”
The lifeboats. We were forced to watch the terrifying escape-procedure presentation before we got onto the Tennessee. Each of the small ships could handle twenty passengers, and they’d all been preprogrammed to return to Mojave Field, if it was even still there. Seems like Mr. Messer’s company should have come up with a contingency plan for what to do in case we fucked the planet.
My heart sank.
I didn’t want the girls to leave, but what could I do about it? And I didn’t know how I felt about Rowan going away, but I didn’t want to look at him again either.
“What about you?” I said.
Billy frowned and shook his head. “You’d never get me on one of those lifeboats. I’m not going to go.”
“But what about Jeffrie?”
“She has to do her own thing, right? She’ll be okay.”
“But I thought you guys liked each other.”
“I know. We do, Cage. It sucks,” Billy said.
“I’ll stay here with you,” Parker offered.
“And so will I! I love it here with my little man-boy friends! We can open all the cans, and I can watch you doing all the push-ups!” gurgled Maurice, in his nice but very creepy way.
Then Billy said, “Just two things, Cage. One: If we’re staying, I’ll need to go kill a tiger or something and roll around in the mud naked, because that’s the way I’m dressing from now on too. And two: You should probably go say good-bye to them, so they’ll know if you’ve decided to stay.”
I did not want to say good-bye.
Saying good-bye was something else Cager Messer never had to do before.
And Maurice sang:
Leave us helpless, helpless, helpless.
v.1 Human Beings
Rowan came out of his room just as I made my way up to the door. It almost seemed as though he’d been waiting for me.
He probably was.
He was dressed in an orange paper flight suit, the kind we’d all worn when we hopped on the transpod in Mojave Field a lifetime ago. Rowan was ready to leave the Tennessee.
I didn’t know how I felt about it all. Well, I did know, but I felt so many things simultaneously, it was like I was on the brink of exploding from all the pressure building inside me. I was angry about the sixteen-plus years I’d spent in Rowan’s care, never knowing who—what—he really was. I was also sad to see him dressed to leave, because I knew we’d never see each other again, and never is a very long time to someone who isn’t a machine and can’t just squander ten thousand years here or there.
And when I saw Rowan, I gulped down the urge to cry. I also swallowed the urge to hug him, because that would have been stupid. You don’t go around hugging cogs like you mean it. I might as well have hugged a hair dryer or a pencil sharpener, for that matter.
I was a mess, and I realized I hadn’t spent one moment on the way up to my stateroom thinking about what, exactly, I was going to say to Rowan.
So he talked first.
“I see you’ve managed to pick out your own clothes. That’s quite a look,” Rowan said.
I watched his eyebrows. They didn’t move. Rowan was being cautious.
He was being cautious because I’d hurt his feelings, because Cager Messer, who’d also never in his life picked out his own clothes until that fake night on the recreation deck with Maurice and Parker, was a spoiled asshole.
“I’m a v.1 human being,” I said.
“Oh.”
I shouldn’t have said that, but I can’t be held entirely accountable, since I’m a teenager, which means I’m prone to say shitty things without fully considering their impact. So I tried to regroup, and said, “Um, orange is a good color on you, Rowan.”
Normally we could tease each other back and forth in a very restrained, Rowan-like manner, but this exchange was painful for both of us. Not one single moment had played out normally since they’d concocted the scheme to kidnap me for my birthday.
“Well. I suppose my work is done, Cager. You’re quite grown-up. I’m happy about that. I’m going back now,” Rowan said. “Be well.”
Then he turned around, just like that, so I couldn’t see his face.
I couldn’t help myself. I began to cry. It made mud under my eyes, and it also made me angrier.
“Go back where?” I said.
Rowan, still facing away from me, said, “Back to Earth.”
“What if it’s all fucked up?”
“What? Worse than here? It’s still home, Cager, and there’s something about home, no matter how untidy we’ve left it.”
My stomach heaved like a fist opening and closing. I concentrated on my breathing, so Rowan wouldn’t hear that I was crying.
Cager Messer had never cried because of Rowan.
Then he said, “Well, I suppose you and Billy do not intend to come with us. So, good-bye, Cager.”
“You can’t just do that.”
Rowan took two steps away from me, toward the elevator.
And I said, “You can’t lie to a person for his entire life and then just walk away like that. I’d maybe expect that from my father, but not from you.”
That stopped him. Rowan turned around. He could clearly see I’d been crying; my nose was running, and my face was a muddy mess.
Rowan took a deep, fake breath. He was magnificently coded, one of a kind, a cog like no other—one to end all cogs. He looked sad and old, but that was impossible.
“When you were old enough to understand, I started to tell you a hundred times. And every time I thought I would, I became convinced that you would hate me, and your parents, too.” Rowan shrugged and turned his palms upward as though to say, And I guess I was right about that.
He added, “And it may not matter, but I am so deeply sorry for this, Cager. It breaks my heart to see that I’ve made you cry. I want you to know that I look at you as my own son, and I do love you.”
That was all I could take. What did Rowan know about hearts, and how they break sometimes? What could he possibly know about love? It may as well have been a ti
re inflator saying it loved me.
Nobody fucking cares about that, right?
“Good-bye, Rowan.”
Cager Messer had dressed himself and said good-bye; and there was one more thing he wanted to knock off his list.
I went back to my room, to look for Meg.
Caveman & Spaceman
Seeing Meg and Jeffrie in their orange flight suits was scary. It was all real; they were actually going to leave the Tennessee, and Billy and I would be the only human beings left up here.
For the rest of our lives.
“What happened to you?” Meg said.
With all the turmoil going on inside me, I had to think for a moment to decode what it was Meg asked me. And then I realized I was barefoot, wearing nothing but a tiger skin knotted around my waist, and I was covered all over with mud.
What a joke: Caveman meets spaceman.
All of human history was here in my stateroom, bottled up in this jar called the Tennessee.
“Nothing,” I said. “I was mad. That’s all. This is how I’m going to dress from now on, since I’m the first human being.”
“And this is how I’m going to dress, until I get back home,” Meg said.
“What if home isn’t there?”
Meg shook her head. “I have to believe it will be okay, that we’ll manage to get by. Maybe there won’t be any more wars or bonks or coders or Grosvenor Schools.”
I felt a fresh tear slalom its way around chunks of grit. I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t want to be alone.
And Jeffrie said, “I’m going to wait outside.”
Jeffrie Cutler put her hand on my naked, muddy shoulder, and she kissed the side of my face. She said good-bye and told me not to be sad. Then she left.
I was alone again in my room with Meg Hatfield.
“Don’t cry.”
“Why not?” I wiped the back of my hand across my face. Such a mess.
“I don’t know. I guess people don’t like to see other people so sad.”
“I don’t want you to go away.”
“Then come with us.”
