by Keith Silvas
Raymond stayed his anger enough to keep his blades tucked away: no need to kill this man. Instead he struck him across the face with a hand. The force of the blow sent the big man sprawling. Now he lay cowering before Raymond, in much the same position as he had put Maria in earlier. After a moment, the stun of the blow wore off and his surprise turned to rage.
“Who do you think you are?” he shouted, standing and glaring at Raymond. “Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t care who you are,” Raymond said coldly. “If you ever come here again, I will kill you.”
The man glanced at the door as if deciding whether to flee or not. Then his eyes flashed and he planted his feet and clenched his fists. He was obviously not used to his pride being wounded so, and could not bring himself to tuck tail and run so easily. “So the little whore has herself a pimp now?” he said, casting a look of contempt at Maria.
Raymond had had enough. He took hold of the back of the man’s belt, lifted him into the air, limbs flailing, and threw him out into the street. He slid a good distance, the pavement tearing his skin as he tumbled and rolled along. His flight ended in a heap of refuse and there he lay still for a moment. Raymond was almost afraid he had killed the man unintentionally, until he sprang up, road rashed and covered in filth. He spit at Raymond then turned and half-hobbled, half-ran away.
Raymond turned back to Maria who was getting dressed. She looked at him reproachfully. “You shouldn’t have done that Raymond,” she said. “That was my best client. He’s rich.”
“But he hit you.”
“I said something wrong.”
“What did you say?”
“He told me to talk dirty to him, so I called him a dirty old man. It must have made him mad, so he hit me.” A smile crept over her face. “It was pretty funny to see you give it back to him though. It’s not the first time he’s hit me. The look on his face…” She chuckled, then stopped herself. “No, I shouldn’t laugh. This is really bad Raymond. We need money to live.”
“Then I’ll get a job,” Raymond said. “Please Maria, will you quit your job if I find one?
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t want you to have to do this anymore.”
She looked at him skeptically, but sat down on the bed to think. The room was silent for what felt like eternity. Raymond watched her patiently for some time. As his master, whatever she decided, he would have to obey. He feared her answer. She shifted positions, lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling, and still said nothing. After two hours more of the silence, he decided to power down.
He awoke to her staring at him. “You were really out. I didn’t know androids slept.” He chose not to correct her choice of words, since powering down did share some similarities with human sleep. Maybe she would think him less strange if they had something like sleep in common. Recalling her pondering from the night before, Raymond looked at her expectantly.
“Did you really mean what you said about me quitting my job?” she asked.
“Of course. I will go find a job right now if you like.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then. Go find one.”
Chapter 7: The Cloths of Heaven
“You never said you were wanted!” Maria exclaimed, bursting through the curtain that was their front door.
“What do you mean?” Raymond asked.
“There are billboards up all over with your face and your metal body. They’re saying all kinds of things: malfunctioning android, possibly dangerous. spreading false information, bent on telling people to go outside the city. They’re offering a reward of one hundred thousand bits.” She smiled playfully. “I should turn you in myself for that kind of money!”
“They consider me a threat because of what I know,” Raymond mused.
“I thought the Boss just let you leave,” she said.
“No one tried to stop me.”
“Well they want you back now.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
“I don’t blame you. Anyway, you’re with me now, so they’re out of luck. Still, we’re gonna need to change your look. I’ve got enough problems already without Blackcoats coming here looking for you.”
They did just that. Raymond had never had a makeover before, and found it hard to accept that his hair would have to be cut, colored and styled differently. Maria explained that almost no one in Omega Seki kept their natural hair color. His brown hair had nearly the same effect as wearing a nametag that said “Raymond-tz48: escaped android”. Raymond didn’t realize until that point how vain he was. It bothered him to the depths of his core to lose his classic hairstyle. He liked to think the side part made him look like Cary Grant. Maria stared at him blankly as he told her this and simply repeated that it needed to go.
In the end, he accepted his fate and sat, arms folded, sulking as his locks were shorn and colored. At the very least, Maria allowed him to choose the color. He chose black, because it was the only natural color of the options she had given. When all was said and done, he sported a shorter cut, jet black and spiky. The look wasn’t terrible, he admitted after glimpsing himself in Maria’s piece of mirror glass, but it was no Cary Grant either.
∆∆∆
Raymond watched the small shaft of blue light shoot upwards and disappear through the canopy. It was similar to the column of golden light above Nexus’ Complex but much smaller. He and Maria had agreed to come to the city’s upper level after he got off work at the factory that day. He had brought her to the giant pipe waterfall so they could watch the children at the canal. “What is that light?” he asked.
“An Absolute Transmission,” Maria said wistfully.
“And what is that?”
“Someone just got lucky. Every so often, one of the gods wants a full life. I’ve heard that in Euphoria the invitation they send looks like a beam of light, kind of like that.” She pointed at the blue light, “You only have a few seconds to choose, but if you step into the light, you give your life to the gods. Your body dies, but the gods let your spirit stay in Euphoria forever.”
Raymond looked at the shaft of light differently after hearing that. It now appeared to him like a terrible arrow, rising up to heaven, a promise of eternal paradise, but he knew the truth: it was tipped with death and the poison of a lie.
“It’s a lie,” he said. “When I first came to the city I was taken to the Boss: to Nexus. I was told about these Absolute Transmissions, although Nexus never called them that. There are no gods behind any of it, only people who have devised a scheme to make money by cheating others out of their lives.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “How could humans really make something as beautiful as Euphoria? Don’t you think it could be some gods, or even just one god, that we don’t know much about? Maybe Nexus lied to you.”
“Maybe so,” Raymond said. “But I doubt it very much.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a lie, maybe it isn’t. Still, I don’t know what I’d do if I ever saw that light in front of me.”
“I hope you would run from it,” he said protectively.
∆∆∆
Raymond watched Maria as she lay sobbing on the floor. The drone was flying away. Her time in Euphoria for the day was over. He resisted the urge to touch her. He didn’t think the gesture would be welcome. This time, however, he dared to ask why she cried after leaving Euphoria.
She didn’t answer, only shook her head.
After a long silence he asked, “Do you want to hear a story?” He had been telling her the stories he had memorized from the countless nights of reading to Dillon and Amanda before bed. Although Maria never said she enjoyed the stories, she had never asked him to stop.
“Not now,” She said, then looked at him curiously. “Raymond, you said my name was a song. Could you sing it for me?”
“I’ve never tried before, but I suppose I could,” he said.
She nestled into bed as he began to
sing. Raymond was surprised to find that his voice sounded good, different than the singer in the movie, but pleasant in its own way. He sang softly, and watched as her eyelids drooped then closed. By the time he had finished the song, she was breathing peacefully. He tucked her in and went to stand at his post by the door. He rarely powered down these days. He had taken to guarding her as she slept ever since three junkies tried to raid their home a couple of weeks before. He had given them a beating they wouldn’t soon forget, and they had not returned, but still he thought it better to be safe than sorry.
Raymond looked over at her sleeping form. He thought back over the long years spent alone. He was actually glad that he hadn’t left his city and come to Omega Seki even twenty years sooner. Had that been the case, he would have arrived before she was born. Then he might be serving someone else now and never have met Maria. In some strange way, he felt it had all worked out just right.
∆∆∆
“There is a tree out there,” Raymond insisted. “It’s in a canyon not more than a few kilometres from this city.” At an unconvinced look from Maria, his voice leaped to a defensive tenor. “Honestly it’s out there. Why would I lie to you?”
“I just don’t know Raymond. How can you know it’s safe out there?”
“It’s been safe for hundreds of years; the toxins are gone. I even saw real animals! This canyon I saw, I have to show it to you. It’s perfect, it’s like the Garden of Eden—I call it the Canyon of Eden!”
“What’s the Garden of Eden?” she asked.
“It was a beautiful place, perfect. I’ll tell you the story this eveni—before bed.” Raymond was trying hard to break the habit of using words like morning and evening. Omega Seki never slept, and Maria had no set schedule for sleeping hours either. Phrases like ‘bedtime’ and ‘when you wake up’ had become his companions in this, but sometimes he still slipped.
“So there is a tree out there. Let’s say we go look at it, then what?”
“We stay out there, away from this city. We could start a new life. I would build you a nice cottage out of stone and we could live happily ever after.” Raymond smiled, enjoying the reverie. He noticed her watching him, eyebrow raised in mistrust of his idealism. “Well we could invite others to come too. The point is, you don’t have to be bound to Omega Seki. It’s a lie that you’ll die if you leave.”
“But I wouldn’t have Euphoria out there.”
Raymond paused to consider this. He had not considered the possibility that Euphoria, and the idea of losing it, might make people resistant to leaving the city, even if they did know it was safe outside. The idea was baffling, but he wanted at least to try to understand why. “What is Euphoria like; what do you see when you go there?” he asked.
She didn’t immediately answer. It was almost as though she hadn’t heard him at all, although he knew she had. He was about to move on, assuming she didn’t want to talk about it when she said “It feels like flying, and you’re leaving sadness and loneliness behind. I go to a city that makes Omega Seki look like the a trash heap. My home is in the tallest high-rise overlooking it all. The colors are brighter there. The world is more alive and peaceful and so am I. It feels like my home there is built out of happiness. It sounds weird, but I can’t describe it any other way. It’s not the same as seeing with your eyes, it’s more like feelings or ideas in your mind.
“I have a family there: a husband and a daughter who love me. I miss them when I’m not there, but when I’m home, nothing can take us away from each other—except when it ends. That’s why I cry every time. I just want to be there with them.”
“Do you want to be married and to have a family?”
“Not now,” she said. “I used to hope it would happen as a little girl, but I’m not that naive anymore.”
“Hope isn’t just for the naive,” he said.
She scoffed.
∆∆∆
It had been a month since Maria had changed her hair, cutting the long green tresses into a short bob that she colored pink. She had said it was time to get rid of Green; that person was gone. With the change of hair, Maria seemed to grow in confidence and her overall demeanor was less dreary as a whole, although she still had her times.
One particular day, after this change had taken place, Maria and Raymond were in the market together to buy food. They had taken to going out together most days for a walk before or sometimes after dinner. Strangely out of character, Maria took Raymond by the arm and directed him to a different food seller than the one from which they usually bought. Raymond wondered at this for a brief moment, before he noticed the young man behind the counter. He was handsome, with jet black hair cut short and spiky, much the same as Maria had styled Raymond’s hair. He had piercing blue eyes, a well-defined jaw, and nice white teeth that shone when he smiled. Raymond noticed only secondarily when the young man turned, that he had only one arm; his shirt was tailored at the shoulder to have no right sleeve.
Maria approached the counter smiling almost shyly and blushing slightly. Raymond had never seen her behave this way. He noticed her pupils, and those of the young man, dilating at once: a sure sign of human attraction. As Maria picked out food items and flirted, Raymond studied the young man more closely. He was probably around the same age as Maria, but he seemed younger. He did not know the cares of the world. He had not faced them yet, as she had. Still, his eyes were warm and there was something about him that Raymond instantly liked.
“And who is this?” the young man asked, gesturing to Raymond, but hardly breaking eye contact with Maria.
“He’s my dad,” Maria said, taking hold of Raymond’s arm.
The words touched Raymond in a way he didn’t fully understand, even if they weren’t true. “I’m Raymond,” he said, smiling at the young man.
“You look familiar, Raymond,” the young man said, smiling back. “I just can’t remember where I’ve seen you before.” After a moment of trying to place him, the young man gave up and turned his attention back to Maria. Raymond felt relief wash over him. He glanced up at the billboard in the square that boldly displayed his picture with the words “Reward: 100,000 bits” beneath.
They left soon after, but not before the young man had asked if Maria was free in a couple of hours to meet him for a drink after work. He had hurriedly turned to Raymond and explained that he meant a bubble tea and nothing more—that is, if her going was okay with Raymond. Raymond had been about to give his approval when Maria cut in and said she couldn’t. Soon they were leaving the shop with the young man calling after them to come back soon.
“Why didn’t you want to go with him? He clearly is interested in you and he seems nice.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’ll never happen. I just had to talk to him once, that’s all. It’s done now. Never again.”
“What do you mean? Why once and never again?”
She looked deeply annoyed by the question, but answered all the same. “I remember seeing him last year. I was trying to hustle rich guys in the square and I noticed him watching me, trying to pretend like he wasn’t. I watched him too. He was cute. I even thought about trying to make him a client, but it felt wrong. He never looked at me like other men did. He was kind, always smiling at people while he helped them.
“I never talked to him. I avoided him...until today. I only did it because I can be a different person with my hair like this. He didn’t recognize me. He probably doesn’t even remember that girl with green hair that he used to watch in the square.” She paused a moment, judging whether or not to share the next bit. “You want to know something really stupid? He’s the husband I imagine in Euphoria. Some boy whose name I don’t even know.”
Raymond cast a sidelong glance her way. “I’m sure he would tell you his name if you went out with him after work. I still think you should go. What's the harm?”
“Because it hurts to hope. He’s from up here, and I’m down below. We’re from different worlds, Raymond.”
“Why do you keep saying things like that?”
“Because it’s true! Why try to change it?”
“Because you dream of something better every day. It’s what you love about Euphoria. I’m telling you, those dreams aren’t out of reach; you can make them a reality.”
“Raymond, you’re always trying to change me, or make me better, or make me think like you. Why can’t you just accept, who I am—what I am?”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He didn’t think what she’d accused him of was true, but he didn’t want to argue, if that was how she felt. He was already walking a fine line with his interpretation of the laws of android respect and subservience. She started walking away from him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt that way,” he said finally. “I just want better for you.”
“That’s what you don’t understand. I can never have better.” She took off running. He followed her and finally she turned on him and shouted. “Maybe it worked like that back in your old world, but not here and not now! This is all you get. This is all I’ll ever be.” The anger died and her voice got quiet. Tears filled her eyes and she looked suddenly tired. “You should go Raymond, I set you free—or whatever you need me to say so you can go. Go find some rich family that you can take care of. You’ll be happy with them.”
“Unless that’s an order, I’m not leaving.” he said.
“Just leave me alone for a while alright?” She turned and walked away from him. He watched until she passed out of view behind a row of commercial buildings. She needed some time.
He returned to the market and moved along aimlessly through the crowd’s ceaseless current. He walked laps around the plaza until long after the young man had gone home from work. Finally, he turned for home. Maria would probably be asleep by now.
Raymond kept his eyes fixed on the curtain that was their front door. He thought he had seen it move. A draft, or was Maria still awake inside? He decided to chance upsetting her, by entering anyway. They had been separate for a few hours now, and he didn’t like leaving her alone that long.
