Love and Robotics

by Eyre, Rachael

  The evening of the fourteenth day, the message came. Sugar had drawn the short straw. He spent the first page pontificating about new projects and recommended that Josh watch the moon landing that night. “Remember Steve and Carl? They’re the scouts!”

  Just as Josh wondered why functionals had names like builders, Sugar continued, “I know you’ve had fun, but we need you.” Another font, coloured poison green, chipped in - “Enough is enough.” He didn’t need to check the identity of the sender.

  He snapped the beebo shut and resolved not to think about it. This was his time.

  ***

  Robots don’t need to sleep, though Josh had got into the habit. The night of the moon landing, he couldn’t keep still. His book didn’t interest him, he kept comparing time pieces, he sighed so often Gwyn told him to pack it in. He didn’t know what had got into her. She wouldn’t leave him alone.

  Knowing Alfred was a fellow veteran of long nights, he went to join him in the library. He was shocked to find him snoring on the chaise longue, Puss at his feet. He shook him awake.

  “Whuh?” The clock chimed on the mantlepiece. “It’s two in the morning!”

  “If we go now, we’ll catch the satellite -”

  “What satellite?”

  “You’re hopeless! The one they’re sending to the moon. We can watch from the Observatory.”

  The Observatory was three hundred years old. Josh had wanted to see it as soon as he learned of its existence, but Alfred had always been reluctant, saying it was too cold and damp. He couldn’t refuse on a historic question.

  Alfred regarded him for a long moment, biting his knuckles. Josh was sure he’d say no. Finally he agreed to be carried up there if Josh dealt with the equipment.

  While Josh set the instruments spinning, marvelled at the working models and examined the star maps, Alfred was very quiet and still. The artificial turned to him, his eyes shining. “It’s fantastic! Why don’t you use it?”

  Alfred wore the same sullen expression as that time in the attic. His arms hung loose at his sides. He avoided looking at Josh. “My parents were the big star gazers. When they died it fell into disuse.” He trundled to the telescope and adjusted its coordinates.

  “When I move in I’ll make sure it’s used.”

  Alfred was jolted from his funk. “CER have got in touch, haven’t they?” He heaved himself onto the bench and bade Josh join him.

  “They want me to go back tomorrow.”

  “Can’t you -”

  “I’ve put it off long enough.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “How do you think I feel?”

  “I won’t know unless you tell me.”

  Josh took his hand. “Like they’re shoving me in a box I no longer fit.”

  “You’ll come back.”

  “I’ve a feeling something awful’s going to happen.”

  “I won’t let it.”

  “I wish you could buy me, then we could do what we liked. We wouldn’t be like Trini and Master Timothy.”

  A lock of hair had sprung loose. Alfred brushed it behind his ear. “No more ownership talk. We’re equals.”

  “Married people own each other, don’t they?”

  “Not the same way. There’s a ring and a certificate -”

  “Sounds like ownership to me.”

  Alfred shook his head. “You should’ve gone around with normal people.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Whatever Alfred pretended, Josh could hear his heartbeat, ready to hit light speed. He laid his hand over it. His friend groaned but didn’t take it away. Alfred placed his hand on Josh’s chest, starting when he felt an answering beat. He began to give an explanation, but Alfred tucked back his hair, traced his lips with his fingers -

  The hour struck. “The mission,” they chorused.

  It was extraordinary to think that by training a telescope in Langton, you picked up images from the Interplanetary Research Centre two hundred miles away. The satellite was a beautiful piece of work. With her tubular body and filmy wings, she had the freakish elegance of an insect.

  “She has cameras all over her body.” Josh had followed the story in the papers. “Do you think there’s life up there?”

  “Don’t see why not. They’re probably talking lizards or something. It’s only an accident humans look the way they do.”

  “It’s silly they make Thea look like a woman. I don’t know what she’d look like, but it wouldn’t be us.”

  “Us?”

  “You know what I mean. I only look like this because humans designed me.”

  They cheered as she went into orbit, blazing a luminous trail. They toasted the venture with Alfred’s hip flask.

  “To Irina!”

  “To life on the moon!”

  “Do you think they’d let robots go on a space mission?”

  “I haven’t spent the past year snatching you from peril only for you to get blown up in space!”

  “You could come too.”

  “Not bloody likely. That’s why Jerry sacked me. I wouldn’t front his space programme.”

  “You never said!”

  “I was in a bad way. The thought of months by myself -”

  “I thought you don’t get scared.”

  “I hate being alone. Always have.”

  Josh tugged Alfred’s hand: Irina blazed mauve against the sky. She was devoured in an instant, leaving only a trail of shivery stars.

  “I want to paint this,” Josh said. “Are you happy?”

  “Yes. I -” Alfred’s expression was so curious, a mixture of love and pain. He gestured helplessly. Josh thought he’d help out. “Funny name, Irina.”

  He seized the cue gratefully. “It’s a story from numerous mythologies. The Kyran one’s the best known. There was this inventor who was a bit full of himself -”

  “Aren’t they always?”

  Alfred poked him - “and wouldn’t settle down. He didn’t think the local women were good enough. Or the men. He was Kyran after all. The gods weren’t pleased. See them as a heavenly CER: they could sin with impunity, but if mortals did it ... They thought he should be punished.

  He thought he’d make a machine representing everything he loathed about women. He selected the best metals, crafted it with more care than anything he’d done before -”

  “I can see where this is going.”

  “How did you guess? He fell in love with her, worshipped her like a god. He named her: Irina. He was the most miserable man alive. He’d found an object worthy of his love but she would never love him.

  Kyrans believed the gods granted one wish a year, provided you observed the rituals. He fasted, sacrificed a black ram, genuflected at the altar. ‘Make Irina love me,’ he said. Three flames shot up, the sign a prayer had been answered.

  He hurried home. He ran into his workshop, up to the pedestal. She was a woman, but more than woman. Her skin was bronze, her hair and lashes silver. But in touch, scent and taste, a woman. He flung himself upon her, kissed her hands. But he’d miscalculated. Yes, she could think, speak and move, but a mortal man is no match for a woman of bronze. She returned his caresses - and crushed him to death.”

  “Robots never have happy endings, do they?”

  “I think the moral’s more along the lines of ‘Don’t be a conceited prick’”-

  “And keep your hands off the copperware,” Josh finished. “Do you know what happened when you went missing?”

  Alfred started guiltily.

  “Logic told me you were dead. If you hadn’t died in the fire, you’d been taken somewhere and shot. I knew you were alive. The nearer I came -” He placed a hand on his chest. “It’s a pain, here. Like somebody’s stuck a hook in and twisted. I found you, and -”

  Alfred made a strangled noise. He hadn’t finished.

  “That happened. I know you’ve changed your mind, but you’re my somebody. I’m yours if you want me.”

  Alfred
was fighting tears. “I can’t be your boyfriend. You know that. If things were different -”

  Josh shook his head. “It’s four hours before I go. Put your arms around me -”

  “What about the chair?”

  “I’ll fetch it in the morning. This doesn’t make you uncomfortable, does it?”

  “It does seem a little weird -”Alfred began, as Josh lifted him into his arms.

  “I won’t drop you.”

  Carrying him over the threshold, tucking him in. Alfred stared as he got in. “Josh, why -”

  “You don’t need to buy me. I’m yours.”

  Feeling his friend beneath him, his hands on his back, the past two weeks seemed such a waste. He couldn’t be too energetic, Alfred was still in a great deal of pain, but they kissed and moved together until daybreak.

  The morning was shattered by Josh’s beebo. “Do you want to throw something?” he asked.

  “Your turn. Nothing breakable.”

  Josh picked out the smallest cushion. He put it back. “I don’t think I can.”

  “Is that the line?” Alfred asked, amused.

  “I can’t feel rage for the sake of it. Yes, it’s annoying, but it isn’t a catastrophe.”

  Awkwardness fell. Alfred knew Josh was recreating last night, as he was. “I drank a bit,” the artificial said, as though that excused the whispers and touches.

  “I drank a lot. Nothing new.”

  Josh picked up the hipflask. “Promise you won’t unless I’m here. Why did you start in the first place?”

  “Long story. And you’ve -” Alfred consulted the clock - “thirty minutes before you go.”

  Tuneless humming in the shower. Josh emerged in twills and a white shirt. “Won’t you get -” Alfred stopped the idiotic question. “Look after yourself.”

  “I’ll call you asap.” He winced. “Why do humans abbreviate things?”

  Alfred watched him go. He knew what Josh meant about the hook. As long as his love was away he’d feel the stretch, the lack. The artificial was back in his arms, kissing, keening. “I can’t bear it.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  The last kiss was over his heart. Alfred sagged in his chair, wrung out. “Oh, gods,” he sighed.

  “An understatement, don’t you think?”

  Gwyn was glaring as though she’d never seen anything so reprehensible in her life.

  “I can explain -”

  Gwyn steamed through the grounds. He pedalled after her, cursing as the wheels caught. She slammed into the stable, her old refuge. Bill took one look at them and ducked out.

  Hands on hips, striding up and down, she looked just like Gussy. “Is it okay to fuck a robot -”

  “Do you have to be vulgar?”

  “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing to your little friend?”

  “He slept in my room because -”

  “You’ve even come up with a lame story! ‘Sorry, Gwynnie, he needed to recharge his batteries’”-

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Never mind he’s a robot and you’re the founder’s frigging brother! That it’s illegal, irreligious - is that everything? Do you know what would happen if this got out?”

  “More than you do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Gwynnie -”

  “All my life I’ve had people bail on me. Mum, my father, Uncle Ken.” She shook her head. “You were the good one. The one who stayed.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “How could you? After everything robots have done to this family?”

  “We’re friends.”

  “I don’t tongue my friends. Or screw them.”

  “Have you any idea what my life’s been like? For thirteen years I was practically dead. It goes against everything I believe in, but it doesn’t matter. I love him.”

  “Have you gone together?”

  “Yes.”

  In horrified fascination, “What’s it like?”

  His voice cracked. “Perfect.”

  The door swung in the breeze. Gone. He wasn’t surprised to see Bill polishing the horse brasses, chewing his interminable baccy.

  “She’ll get over it,” the groom said.

  “Lulu, huh?”

  “I have eyes.” He gave his glass one a jiggle.

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Make it up as you go. Isn’t that what you usually do?”

  Dilemma

  Noah Sugar was a conflicted man.

  He’d faced ethical questions before. You couldn’t avoid it in his line of work, building life forms with human intelligence but none of the rights. Whether to pay them. Whether children should be left in their care. If they had the right to demolish a robot, should its files become corrupted. If it should be rescued in a disaster. Now this.

  He’d never listened to the girls’ reservations. Malik was a malcontent, obsessed with sex - no wonder she’d gone into psychology. Fisk was like every joke about mothers he’d heard. Her beloved “son” spending time with a reprobate? No way!

  If the boys liked each other he didn’t see what the big deal was. Josh used to be so mixed up and angry - since they’d been friends, he’d blossomed. And Langton hadn’t been arrested for over a year. All was well in the state of robotics. Until -

  Dropping Josh off in Talos, something niggled. It’s not normal to fling yourself on your male friends if you’ve only been apart a fortnight. That summons in the middle of the night, Langton beside himself. His insistence he stayed. Doubts piling, ready to collapse. All they needed was a good shove. That came when he’d finished Josh’s surgery. Almost every part of him was wrapped in bandages; Sugar practically carried him. They went into the corridor and fell over Langton, asleep with his hat over his eyes.

  “Gods, that man’s stubborn,” he’d said. “I told him there was no need, but would he listen?”

  Sugar stopped, struck by the artificial’s expression. One he’d seen before, though never on a face of Josh’s shape. It wasn’t so much the elephant as the whole flipping circus in the room: He’s mine. He crouched beside the sleeping man, spoke softly. “Hello, you.”

  Langton opened his eyes, looked at Josh - and damn it if he wasn’t gazing at him in the exact same way!

  Sugar wasn’t naive. He knew these things went on. But it still shocked him to think big, strapping Langton was like that. Though hadn’t there been rumours, thirteen years ago - ?

  He’d give the earl the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proven guilty. Sighing, he picked up his case and set off for work.

  Ozols was in her office, kicking her heels. She hid her cigarette as Sugar came in.

  “Don’t set yourself on fire.”

  She shrugged. “I thought you were Aidy.”

  “How’s your swain?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  Without preamble, “I need your advice. I don’t want Myleen going ‘I told you so’ or Julia hitting the roof. You’re my only hope.”

  “Sounds ominous.” She looked at her calendar. “Hang on, isn’t today -”

  “The day a certain blond bloke returns.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Josh has - there’s no easy way to put it -” Sugar continued in dumb show.

  Ozol’s mouth fell open. “No!” Smoke gushed from her nostrils as she laughed.

  “I’m glad you find it funny. If this gets out -”

  “Has anything happened?”

  “No idea. We should avert trouble before it starts.”

  “There’s always corrective therapy -”

  “It was outlawed for a reason.”

  “Just a suggestion.” She flicked her ash into the bin. “Langton, eh? Go, Josh. I always fancied him.”

  “What is it with women? If you’re nice and normal, they ignore you. If you’re a thug who wrestles bears, you’re gorgeous.”

  “He’s so, you know. Rugged.”

  “Rugged men don’t fancy
pretty boys. Robots. Jeez, is there any part of this that isn’t screwed up?”

  Sugar couldn’t focus. He was supposed to be inspecting the latest robotic dog. Stieg Olsen ran through its properties - lasts longer, non allergenic, doesn’t need to be taken to the vet - but it washed over him. “Are you alright, doctor?” Stieg asked accusingly.

  “Headache. Let’s take a break.”

  When he looked out of the window, the first thing he saw was Josh tethering his z-bike. He was actually whistling, throwing his key card up into the air and catching it.

  Forgive me. It’s for your own good.

  He lost track of the artificial for a few hours. He drank a flask of black coffee and pulled his puzzle cube to bits. First Malik stuck her head around the door and cried, “Ha!”, scuttling down the corridor. Next a tearful Fisk materialised in the middle of his rug. “What are we going to do?” she cried.

  “Take it you’ve heard.”

  “He told me himself.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I asked if he was alright. He said never better, though he was worried about Cora Keel. Fair enough, but then he went, ‘I thought you should know. I’m moving out.’ I thought he was coming back here, but no! ‘I’m moving in with Lord Langton.’ He wouldn’t stop talking about him, like an infatuated schoolgirl -”

  “It’s mutual. I noticed in Talos.”

  “Why didn’t you say?”

  “I hoped I was wrong.”

  “What a fucking mess.”

  She didn’t normally swear. He tried to pat her shoulder - difficult, she was half a foot taller than him. It was like comforting a block of wood. “Be careful what you wish for, eh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve been trying to make a robot with the capacity for love for years. Now we’ve done it and he hasn’t got the decency to be straight.”

  “What caused it? A corrupted file?”