but then Tom opened his eyes and Danny shuddered, seeing his
face melting from misery and pain. Tom was sobbing, shivering,
choking on his tears, trying to say something.
‘Hey,’ was all Danny could say. ‘Hey.’ He would have held him
against his shoulder, but not in front of Zoe, now silent. Danny
didn’t look at her, couldn’t look at her, felt the position of her face
just out of his vision and blushed at the necessity not to look at her.
Tom was suddenly six years old, waking from a nightmare about
dead people who ate his arms, leaving him with hands on his shoulders like stunted wings. Danny had caught the dream from the description, and had a much nastier version.
Tom ran out of the room.
Danny stayed on the floor, not looking at Zoe, listening to Tom
throwing up. Zoe touched his shoulder, and his spine tingled. He
stood up.
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I think Tom was pretty worried about how
you’d take it. I told him a hundred times that you wouldn’t mind,
but he’s got himself all worked up into a nervous state. I’m glad you
came home early, otherwise he might not have told you for months.’
Danny turned to face her. ‘It’s not funny. How old are you, anyway? Does your father know you’re screwing my son? W here does he think you are now? Are you on the pill? How many other boys
are you screwing? How do I know you haven’t got VD? How old are
you, anyway? Do you know it’s a crime to seduce a minor? You slut,
why couldn’t you leave him alone, he’s just a kid, can’t you tell? Just
because he’s six feet tall. He’s emotionally immature. He never had
a mother. Oh, you slut. How old are you?’
‘I’m six months old.’ Zoe took her head off and placed it on the
kitchen table. Danny curled up and started whimpering. Tom
walked in and yelled, ‘Put it back on!’
Danny closed his eyes, and remembered curling up on the
kitchen floor when he was four or five. His mother had screamed at
him for some reason. Everybody else in the family had gone into
the lounge room to watch television; they’d closed the door and
they’d turned off the kitchen light. The floor was cold. Danny had
known that nobody was watching him, that he could uncurl, stand
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Greg Egan
up, and go and lie in his warm bed, or even swallow his pride and
join the others in the lounge room, where there was a fire. But he
had stayed curled up on the cold floor in the dark, planning to sleep
there, to stay there on the floor with his eyes shut forever. He
planned to die there, and even after death to refuse to uncurl, to
refuse to move. His parents would have to explain the dead body in
the kitchen to anybody who visited, and his mother would have
trouble mopping the floor properly.
His cat had walked up to him and licked his eyes, making him
giggle, spoiling his stasis. He’d fed the cat, gone to bed, and woken
the next m orning, very early, very happy with life. He remembered
waking up to birdsong.
‘Dad. Get up. Please.’
Danny opened his eyes and stood up. Zoe had her head back on.
‘I didn’t know they could make them so life-like.’
Tom beamed with pride. ‘I worked out the face myself. First on a
CAD system, then I did a couple of experimental heads. Isn’t it
great?’
‘You built her yourself?’
‘From a kit, except for the face.’
‘A kit? Robots from kits? How much did it cost?’
‘Ninety thousand dollars. I don’t own her, Dad. We built her at
the Uni, me and a whole lot of other guys. This company in Japan
sells the kits, but only to Universities and research places, they’re
not really commercially available yet. Because the Cybernetics
Club has a University post-office box, we conned them into thinking we were part of the Computing Science Department.’
‘And do all the other guys fuck her?’
‘Dad!’
‘Well, do they?’
‘No. She’s in love with me.’
‘Oh, crap. She! It’s a machine.’
‘She’s in love with me.’
Zoe said, ‘It’s true. I love Tom and he loves me.’
‘It’s just programmed to say that. I might not know' much about
computers, but I know you can program them to say anything.
Don’t kid yourself. You know how they work a million times better
than I do. Either you programmed her to say it, or the Japanese
did, but either way it’s just a machine.’
‘I love Tom.’
‘Switch it off, will you, it keeps interrupting.’
The way she smiles, the things she says
59
‘Don’t talk about her like that.’
‘I’m taking you to a psychiatrist first thing in the morning.’
‘Don’t say things like that. Why can’t you just be cool about it.
Everybody else just accepts it.’
‘Everybody else?’
‘The other guys who built her don’t even mind.’
‘You’re all a bunch of lunatics.’
‘She loves me because I gave her her face. Because I made it
special. I loved it before she was even born.’
‘Born?’
‘Powered up.’
‘Exactly. Powered up. Like the recording equipment at work.
W hat do you want to go fucking a machine for? There’s nothing
wrong with you. You could get real girls.’
‘I’ve had real girls.’
‘Bullshit. When?’
‘Since I was twelve years old, Daddy.’
‘Bullshit. Who? When?’
‘I haven’t got a list on me right now.’
Danny slapped his face. ‘Bullshit. You liar.’
Tom stared at the floor. ‘I don’t care what you believe. I don’t care
what you think. You’re nothing, you don’t matter. You’re just
stupid. Your fucking mixing console is ten times smarter than you
are. You’re just old and stupid.’
Danny slapped his face again.
‘I know where you’ve been tonight. I bet you think they’re all
hum an, don’t you? Well they’re not. I bet you’ve fucked a robot
every single time, and you couldn’t even tell the difference.’
Danny slapped him. Tom punched him in the cheek and
knocked him over.
‘I’m sorry. Dad, I’m sorry.’
‘Switch it off.’ Danny tasted blood, but at least his teeth were still
anchored. He wanted to go to bed and wake up, definitely childless,
possibly one or two years younger. Not too young, though.
‘How can I switch her off? I love her.’
‘Why do you love her?’
‘The way she smiles. The things she says. T hat’s why people love
other people. What difference does it make if she’s a robot? She
smiles. She says things just like any person would say.’
‘And drinks Milo?’
Zoe said, ‘Eating and drinking are necessary for a complete
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Greg Egan
capacity for social interaction.’
‘No person would say that. Switch it off.’
‘Dad, you haven’t had time to get to know' her. She shouldn’t have
told you so soon, but she’s very honest. If you’d known her for a
wh
ile before you found out, you’d think differently.’
‘I bet it’s illegal. You can’t have robots walking around looking
like people. They might do anything, they might run amok.’
‘People run amok all the time.’
‘Switch it off.’
‘Don’t spoil everything! Why do you have to spoil it?’
Danny walked into the dark lounge room and sat dowrn. You
realise you can win if you want to, you can force him to get rid of
her: you’re still his father, he’s not prepared to defy you absolutely,
he won’t leave home, he has no money, he isn’t ready. All you need
is stubborn insistence, stamina. He’ll complain, or stay silent, or
stomp about the house or something, but he really wants you to get
rid of her. Her? It. It. Concentrate, please! That look on his face
when he stopped laughing: he wasn’t just worried about your reaction, he was torn up inside, he wants to get out of the mess he’s in, but he can’t do it himself, he needs you to say no for him.
Danny thought about Tom’s mother, recalled her face as best he
could. She’d very rarely smiled, and when she had it was a pretty
sickening sight. Everything she’d said to him had been a sarcastic
put-down of one kind or another, or so it seemed. Selfish bitch. He
wanted her to be sitting beside him in the dark room, more than
anything else in the world. Simply sitting there in the dark, not
touching him, not speaking a word, invisible. He w-anted that very
badly. He felt sure that her silent, intangible, invisible presence
would have made everything immediately all right, calm and solid.
Tom stood in the doorway.
‘Dad. I’ve switched her off.’
‘For eood?’
‘No.’
‘Come in here. I want to talk to you.’
‘I promise not to bring her here again. It’s your house.’
‘Okay. Come in here and sit down for a second.’
‘I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ve got to get up for school.’
‘You can miss school for one day. Just come in for a second.
Please.’
‘Goodnight.’
Danny fell asleep, and dream t that someone sat beside him, but
The way she smiles, the things she says
61
he couldn’t figure out if it was Tom or Tom’s mother. When the sun
rose and he woke to the sound of birdsong, he remembered waking
that way as a child.
M r Lockwood’s narrative
©
YVONNE ROUSSEAU
At this point of the housekeeper’s story, she chanced to glance
towards the timepiece over the chimney; and was in amazement on
seeing the minute-hand measure half-past one. She would not hear
of staying a second longer; in truth, I felt rather disposed to defer
the sequel of her narrative myself.
Mr Lockwood, in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
1801 — The hearth gave out so grateful a warmth that I did not trouble with yawning and nodding in my chair; it seems I fell straight into sleep, as into a well of molten lava. How else explain the abrupt dream
I had? of sudden release, as if from one of the dampening snowdrifts
of Thrushcross park that I had blundered into so freely yesterday
morning — except that this drift was hot, and myself emerging u n scalded, like a salamander! In the same instant, I was dizzied with beholding an impossible multitude of images from my life, seemingly simultaneous — in babyhood, in boyhood, in manhood; purposing
this, performing that; at the seaside, in St James’s Street, as an infant
on my dear mother’s knee. A revelation, surely! It blazed forth — it
sank and was gone. I now knew myself to be asleep, and my memories
lay quiet, too, all in their proper order, but my sleep grew dark and
disagreeable. I thought that I lay helpless while somebody inserted me
into all the garments which I somehow lacked, even the most intimate
ones. Then I thought there was a trundling sound beneath me, as if
I were wheeled along on a truckle-bed. The sound stopped after a
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M r Lockwood’s narrative
63
weary while; I felt myself being tumbled into a chair; the trundling
sound resumed, and steadily retreated into silence. I dreamed on, but
drearily, as if sleep were an allotted task or a judge’s sentence, to be endured with no diversion of incident or colour, without a m oment’s remission. No end in prospect; yet suddenly, in the most arbitrary
fashion, I seemed to wake.
I found myself alone, not in the study but in an unfamiliar chair,
and in a room dimly lit, not by any hearth but by an entire wall of windows. My instinctive survey revealed, through the glass, a brighter apartment whose own window was open, not upon the darkness of
Yorkshire’s snowy moor, but on what seemed a summer garden, where
golden butterflies sported about a bush spread with vivid purple blossoms. Five chairs and a sofa were all the furniture; five young women were the occupants.
At the centre stood a veritable goddess, instantly enchaining my
susceptible heart! She alone was modishly dressed, her gown being a
polonaise, the overskirt very elegantly bunched behind, and opening
at the front upon the most ornamental of petticoats. H er face and
form were of the most smiting beauty, only heightened by the
awakened sensibility which parted her coral lips and deepened the exquisite blue of her eyes — for she seemed to feel a wonder at her situation, equal to that under which I was struggling. Her gloved fingers crept about a gold cross, pendent on her neck; most unwillingly, my
eyes left that bewitching countenance, and sought the object of her
gaze.
A pair of nether limbs! as high even as the knee, clad only in some
diaphanous hose, with a glancing sheen! No stays, either; a gown, very
plain, in some silver fabric; a garment of thick fur, trailing negligently
from one arm; jewels, and a silvery reticule. Every other creature
appeared to have risen to her feet, in affright, but this young woman
sat, her face expressing a tolerant boredom — perhaps the merest suggestion that she could have wished her memory more clear. She showed no wonder at the costumes around her; at the long-waisted
Spanish farthingale (as in an Elizabethan portrait), whose blonde,
very youthful wearer stood blanched and rigid; at the lady, very tightly
laced, and dressed in hues more brilliant than I could have believed
possible, who now tottered to the sofa and laid herself down, taking
care that her voluminous petticoats and enormous sleeves were
elegantly disposed. Closing her eyes, she held a small vial, unstoppered, to her nostrils; venturing to peep, and discovering the same scene, she applied the vial once more, and again closed her eyes, with
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Yvonne Rousseau
a somewhat pathetically hopeful air.
The fifth young woman had heavy-lidded eyes, and a consequential air, strangely sweetened by the most delicately straight of noses —
the very perfection of that straightness investing her whole person with
an interesting air of fragili ty. Dressed as if for a portrait from Charles
the Second’s reign, she had at first clapped an oval mask to her face,
and ostentatiously displayed an open fan; now, however, she took a
more extensive survey of her companions, whom she plainly considered dowdies and frights. I might have guessed
, from their air, that all of these women had just awoken (as I thought myself to have done)
into an unaccountable situation; but this lady suppressed the appearance of bewilderment more rigorously than any of the others, and behaved as if she thought herself at a masquerade, where the gentlemen were tardy.
With purest alarm, I now beheld her advancing straight towards
me; and not advancing straightforwardly, but curtseying as she came,
flirting with her fan, making enormous play with her eyes, displaying
all m anner of surging motions and attitudes, while yet she never
looked me in the countenance, conveying by her regardless m anner
that my insignificance descended even beneath invisibility.
I blushed hotly, and started back from the window, instantly
recalled to a sense, both of my hatlessness, and of my ill-bred
behaviour in standing and staring as I had done.
A voice spoke behind me. ‘She can’t see you, M r Lockwood. Those
windows are only looking-glasses, if you view them from the other
room.’
I faced about; and the speaker, having closed the door behind him,
advanced, dark-haired and wearing dark clothes, into the sombre
room. A complete stranger! of my own height, but of very slight build,
and with no trace of whisker on cheek or chin. His face was careworn,
yet eager; he moved with a quick, nervous stride, and spoke unexpectedly high — yet the pitch seemed native, not the result of any access of emotion or weakness. His dress was very plain, and the cloth only
some kind of jean — a short jacket, such as country fellows wear, with
slim trousers, over which were worn a kind of boots, rather like
Hessians; but from top to bottom of his jacket-front there ran a curious strip of metallic braid, resembling a ladder; similar strips decorated the sides of his boots; even his trousers seemed furnished not with falls, but with another metallic strip, almost concealed by overlapping fabric. These were unaccountable embellishments!
‘They can’t hear us, either; and we can hear them only if I throw this
M r Lockwood’s narrative
65
switch.’ He made a gesture as meaningless as his words; he carried no
switch, nor any other kind of whip.
Uncertain whether he was menial or master, I bowed slightly, and
Strange Attractors (1985) Page 8
