Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: A Novel

by Judd Trichter

  “Perhaps you thought she was a heartbeat.” The rain falls forcefully against the windows. “Perhaps she came in well dressed. Had one of those black market hearts ticking in her chest. Showed you a fake ID, and by the time you realized it, you were too embarrassed to go to the police. Or perhaps you were worried you’d lose your license.”

  “I never saw that little monster in my life,” says Pound. “Just in the newsbranes. Plath has never been in my shop.”

  “You say that definitively.”

  “Because I know it to be true.”

  “And I believe you, Mr. Pound. I believe you are telling the truth.” The wind picks up and they can hear the outdoor furniture scraping the cement outside. “But I do not believe you are telling the whole truth.”

  Streaks of rain against the window cast worming shadows against the curtains. The old detective leans forward in his chair.

  “Do you have an alibi for last Thursday evening, Mr. Pound?”

  “I was in the hospital.”

  “You were released Wednesday night. Where were you Thursday?”

  Pound stays quiet, thinking it over. “If I wasn’t at the hospital, then I was most certainly here.”

  “And the housebot will testify to that?”

  Pound’s teeth chatter. He clutches the blanket and pulls it to his neck.

  “At this moment,” says Flaubert, “my partner is asking Raoul about your whereabouts on Thursday night. Shall I call him in so we can compare notes?”

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I—” He reaches for his glass, stops, then pulls his shaking hand beneath the blanket. “Because he isn’t the most honest of bots, and I don’t know what he’ll say.”

  Flaubert folds his arms and leans back in his chair. He crosses his legs and studies the shine on his shoe.

  “The weapon, Mr. Pound. How did it leave your store?”

  “It was stolen.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Stolen, except that he paid for it.”

  “Not stolen, but not legally sold.”

  “He point … he p-pointed it at my head.”

  “Spenser did?”

  “No.”

  “Plath?”

  “No.” Pound’s breathing falters as it did a week ago at his store. “He didn’t leave his name.”

  The old detective stands and pours another finger of schnapps into the glass. He holds it to Pound’s lips and guides it down the frightened man’s throat.

  “Drink up, poor fellow. You’ve been through quite an ordeal. I’ll help you as best I can, but you have to tell me the truth. You have to tell me why you didn’t report a stolen gun.”

  Pound swallows his drink and allows it to warm his chest. He closes his eyes and sighs as Donizetti’s aria comes to an end.

  “I suffered an asthma attack. I went to the hospital. And by the time I felt well enough to report the incident”—he holds his hand to his cheek and shakes his head—“the situation had already turned ugly.”

  The gusts die down outside the window. The rain tapers. Flaubert nods, satisfied, and puts the gun back in the valise. He withdraws his pocketbrane from the inside of his jacket and sets it on the coffee table to record the rest of the conversation.

  “So then,” says the old detective, “the man who illegally purchased the gun. He paid cash?”

  “He did.” The brane glows green indicating that the antique dealer is telling the truth.

  “And you will describe him to me?”

  Pound takes up the bottle and pours himself another drink. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  A Drip Deal

  Right Pinky—Edmund “Pink” Spenser

  Left Arm—Uchenna

  Head, Jillian Rose Models

  Legs—Tucson Metal Solutions

  Torso—Chief Shunu/Joshua Dominguez

  Right arm—Lorca

  Eyes—Blumenthal Promotions

  It’s a gry day with a heavy sky in Los Angeles. Smog and soot stretch over the city. Ash falls on an angle with the rain.

  Eliot sits in his car on Sixth and Bonnie Brae. He can feel the malice in the street, the posturing and the planning. In one corner, Lorca and her Android Disciples quietly bide their time, waiting for the moment to attack. In the other corner, the police and Militiamen have already begun their senseless violence against the bots. Who’s going to make the first mistake? Eliot wonders. Who’s going to cross the line? Can I get out before the pipes burst from the pressure?

  Windshield wipers clear his view of the Kindelan, standing behind dark strings of dripping water beneath a metal overhang.

  “Pablo,” Eliot calls out the window, but the teenaged-looking bot doesn’t hear. “Pedro,” he tries again.

  The bot approaches. He climbs into the passenger seat and shuts the door.

  “I’m Pablo,” says the bot. “Pedro’s my brother.”

  Eliot never could figure out why they say that. Must be some joke they learn at the factory in Havana. No matter. He taps the ashtray, and the bot calling himself Pablo flicks it open. He removes the ingots and spits two vials of drip from his mouth. Transaction complete, he goes for the door.

  “Something else,” says Eliot before the Kindelan can leave.

  “Long as it ain’t that faggot shit, I’m yo man,” says the bot.

  Eliot stares down the street at a white van with tinted windows that has him a little concerned. Has it been there the whole time?

  “I need to get a message to your boss,” he tells the bot. “What boss?”

  “Lorca.”

  Pablo puts his back against the door to gain the distance he needs to see whether Eliot is crazy or just plain dumb. He too looks carefully at the white van.

  “Lorca is wearing an arm that belongs to a friend of mine,” says Eliot. “A C-900 who won’t be herself without it. I’m asking you to tell Lorca I want to make a deal for the arm.”

  A violence builds behind the Kindelan’s fear. His body coils as if preparing to attack.

  “Even if I did know where Lorca be,” says the bot, “Holy Mother don’t play. She’d cut yo heartbeat ass soon as look at it.”

  “No reason she has to look at it. I only want her to hear my offer.”

  He reaches slowly inside his coat, letting the bot see he isn’t looking for a gun. Instead, he pulls out a wad of bills and holds them before the android’s eyes like a Hindu charming a snake.

  “I’ll double it when you deliver,” he tells the Kindelan.

  Pablo grabs the money and goes for the door, but it’s locked.

  “Let me out,” says the bot.

  “One more thing.” Eliot reaches again into his pocket and takes out a small object wrapped in a white handkerchief. “If Lorca doesn’t believe me about the arm, you can give her this.”

  He unwraps the cloth to reveal the pinky finger of a C-900 female. Olive skin. Nails darkened from years of grinding metal. He rewraps the finger, and gives it to the bot.

  The car unlocks. The android checks the street, opens the door, and runs. Eliot watches him as he splashes down an alley then disappears into the rain.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Office Politics

  Eliot takes a call from his brother at work.

  “His guy got back to me,” says Shelley.

  “And?”

  “And he discussed the eyes with the shylock himself. He set the price for a meeting at two grand and a loop in the Times.”

  “Like you told me before.”

  “But that’s the least of it. The guy says Blumenthal gave the eyes to one of his fighters, and he’s not going to force his fighter to give them back. He says it’s not about the money.”

  “Then it’s about the money.”

  “I don’t know,” says Shelley. “Wait ’til I tell you who the fighter is.”

  “Save it. Set up the meeting, and I’ll get the two grand.”

  Elio
t hangs up and stares into the brane on his desk. He looks over a list of calls he hasn’t returned. Clients complaining about their androids, calling for new androids, calling to get quotes, ask about warranties, whatever, who the fuck cares? It’s been three days since he gave the pinky to the Kindelan at the drip spot, and still Eliot hasn’t heard a thing. Five times he has driven back to the corner of Sixth and Bonnie Brae, but the kid isn’t there anymore. Pablo. Pedro. Neither of them. Whoosh. Vanished without a trace. Instead, Eliot buys his drip from their replacements, a couple of disciples with the same coloring, same clothes, same half-assed product, but it ain’t them.

  You seen Pablo around?

  Nah, man.

  Pedro?

  Who?

  Little Kindelans. About so tall. Dress like you. Talk like you.

  Sorry, bro.

  It was stupid. He never should have fronted the bot that much money, probably more than the Kindelan had ever seen. Sure, he’d held ingots in his little hand before, showed them around like he was the jefe before kicking them upstairs to whomever held the corner—but this was different. This was his money. From hustlin’, not slingin’. He could do whatever he wanted with it, buy upgrades, get designer metal, fuck android whores, leave town.

  Eliot hopes the little bot didn’t leave town.

  Op-eds in Revealed! and the LA Times wonder why the police can’t find Plath. Who’s running the city, they ask, the mayor or Lorca? Militiamen scorched the bodies of nine bots and hung their corpses from the street lamps at the LACMA. Lorca still hasn’t retaliated, but her reticence feels like a prelude to something big. Cops patrol the schools in case bot teachers get ideas. Heartbeat parents eye their nannybots with suspicion. Nobody’s flying. Nobody trusts the trains. Drones and floaters fill the sky.

  Fuck it, thinks Eliot. The arm is gone, it’s with Lorca, but maybe Iris can still be Iris without it. Maybe there will be enough of her other C-900 parts to revive her aura without it.

  But it is her right arm, he can’t help but remember. Her dominant hand, an artist depends on her hand. She’d be a chessboard with a missing piece, a deck with fifty-one cards, a novel with the last chapter torn from the binding. And to give her a different hand, a replacement, would be like finishing one book with the ending of another. More than just flawed, she’d be incomplete, perhaps no longer even a creative. Would she even recognize me, Eliot wonders, or would I still be erased from her memory, the way I was with Martha and Titty Fat and Yoshiko, none of whom recognized me from her past?

  Of course it isn’t just the arm that’s missing, it’s her eyes as well. Who can forget what blindness did to Yoshiko, how it distorted her sense of self? She thought she looked old. Her self-image was defined by what she heard her employer saying about her since she was unable to look in the mirror and see anything to the contrary. She hated music. She was immune to art. When handed the locket she was only interested in what it cost. She took her own life out of spite.

  But it’s not like she has to remain blind, thinks Eliot, I could always buy her new eyes. Of course, hers are a very special pair, particularly the one that contains the mark, her signature, the red fleck that became her namesake. Could a new pair be similar enough that Iris could look upon the world the same way she had before she was chopped? Or even with the same eyes, Eliot wonders, would an experience like the one she had at the hands of Pink be so transformative that she could never return, never be the same, even with all the same parts?

  Eyes and an arm. Essential stuff. It could be argued that the essence of Iris is contained in those very eyes and that artist’s hand. It could be said that all Eliot has accomplished so far is to bring back the shell of the woman without the substance, an empty vessel, a body without soul. If he were to quit now and reboot what he and Shelley have put together so far, the new Iris would curse Eliot as soon as her power was restored. She would vomit at his cruelty. He would be bringing back a Lavinia bearing the mark of her victimization without the means to avenge it, without the means to communicate her suffering through her craft.

  So back to work then. Back to the mission. Back to finish the foolishness he began. Eliot’s father built androids; the son will rebuild them, or at least he’ll rebuild this one as best he can. With whatever parts he can recover.

  He opens a file he conned off an ex-colleague now working for an Israeli labor provider. He reads it on his brane:

  Osip Blumenthal.

  Manufacturer: Saban Labor

  Height: 5′8″

  Model #: SL-36

  Weight: 400 pounds

  Eye Color: Changing

  Hair Color: Changing

  Apprenticebot trained to be a creative. Originally purchased from Saban Labor by one Leonard Blumenthal, a metallurgist who specialized in custom work on android heads. Bot learned from his owner how to alter features, apply moles, erase branding marks, clean scars, etc. Owner rose to prominence after designing and successfully marketing a moving wig.

  Eliot remembers when Dyna-Hair first came out. The covers of every fashionbrane featured eyeless modelbots with medusa locks slithering about their skulls. It was rumored it was Osip, the android, who actually invented the hair, though of course it was his owner, Leonard, who took the credit and the money that came with it. The owner Blumenthal’s life ended tragically when he was electrocuted in a shampoo sink.

  Death ruled accidental but suspicious.

  Worked out great for the bot though. Osip was released as a free roamer in Blumenthal’s will (likely forged) and wound up taking over his former owner’s salon. With the fashion world going nuts for the wiggling weaves, the big bot was able to ratchet up his prices. Customers paid in installments, down payment plus interest. Compound interest.

  Realizing he made more money on the layaways than he did by designing hair, Blumenthal figured he’d delegate the weaves to his employees while he worked the money on the street. He set a vig at two-to-five points per week. He sharked the whores, the pimps, the hustlers, the gamblers, and everyone else. He lent to bot families unable to afford juice and criminal entrepreneurs looking for seed money to build illicit generators or labs for mixing drip. Collections were run by an army of enforcers he recruited out of bot city slums. He taught them how to dole out the “Jew’s Smile,” a cut from mouth to ear that let everyone know what happened to anyone late with the bread.

  Blumenthal got rich. Blumenthal got powerful. Blumenthal earned the respect of bots and heartbeats alike. But Blumenthal had a problem with the Android Disciples. Lorca had seen the shylock’s effect on bot city communities. She saw what happened when workers had to give up limbs or free roamers had to commit themselves back to slavery in order to pay off debts. She recorded a series of loops in which she made it clear that usury was forbidden by God in this world and the world to come. She declared lending at interest to be a crime punishable by death, especially when funding a drip operation that didn’t pay a franchise fee to the Android Disciples.

  “The agent of Zion,” said the rebel leader in one of her weekly loops, “uses his financial leverage to bleed rather than serve the congregation of androids. He deprives our neighborhoods of the currency needed to pay our engineers, fix our homes, and enforce our holy law. The Jew makes his living from the use of money, rather than from building and creating like the rest of us. He dishonors all honest labor with his actions. He is a plague to the movement we strive to advance.”

  In an attempt to run Blumenthal out of business, Lorca started lending without interest through her army of drug dealers working the street. The shylock responded by enlisting surrogates to borrow millions from her then default on the payments. He offered protection to anyone who didn’t repay, but what protection did they need? Lorca was too concerned with her image to allow her men to punish a bunch of deadbeat bots. She couldn’t be a thug to her own constituency, not when her survival depended on the secrecy and a affection of her public. Thus the free money drained Lorca’s resources, forcing her to shut her bank
and eat the losses, so putting an end to an episode that proved a huge embarrassment. It revealed to anyone paying attention that the rebel leader was far better at terror than finance. It played more to her strengths to put a price on the Jewbot’s head.

  Blumenthal survived a car bomb that terminated his top lieutenant, but the failed attempt served as a wake-up call to beef up his security. Eliot figures that’s what brought him into the pit fighting biz. It was a good way to show he was the neighborhood tough, not that one-armed midget with her rag-tag crew of misfits and out-of-work bots. It also showed that the shylock had his own vision for the future, an alternate narrative to that of the preachy, religious zealot. Perhaps that narrative was always at the root of why Lorca saw Blumenthal as such a threat. The shylock was never looking to reform society, fight the heartbeats, or build some future utopia. He liked the world the way it was and sought opportunities to increase his capital within it. Because capital, as Blumenthal realized early on, offers power over one’s own life and the lives of others. And capital, he truly believed, doesn’t care if your heart beats or spins.

  So, unlike Lorca, Osip Blumenthal lives in the open and flaunts his power and wealth. He has cars and bodyguards and bling. He shows up to parties and sporting events and sits in the front row. He can even manipulate the press by demanding from Shelley a fluff piece in exchange for a meeting about some C-900 parts. He can do business w/ heart beats and bots alike. His abrupt and ample success lends credence to the theory that a sharp and ruthless mind combined with unquenchable ambition can overcome even the most extreme of prejudices.

  An intra-office alert blinks on Eliot’s brane with a message from Sally. The Hairy Mole wants to see him in the conference room ASAP.

  Christ, he hopes she won’t try to fuck him again. After the Ritz-Carlton, he got lucky; she passed out drunk in her hotel room before the act was consummated. He sent her a voice memo in the morning telling her how great she was what a great time he had, and she bought it. She even saved Tim from the wrath of Dale Hampton and allowed the Satine to remain in his current position. But calling Eliot into the conference room in the afternoon sounds like an unwanted invitation to a workplace rendezvous. He’ll have to be creative to get out of this.