I Heart Robot

by Suzanne Van Rooyen

  “You need a lift home, Quinn?” Asrid asks as we step onto the street.

  “I can walk from here.”

  “It’s freezing. Are you sure?” Tyri stamps her feet and hunches her shoulders.

  “I’ll be fine.” The cold air laced with frozen rain whispers against my face.

  “Give me a minute?” Tyri gives Asrid a look I can’t decipher.

  Asrid and Sara wrap their arms around each other and stroll a little way down the street to give us some privacy.

  “I really enjoyed tonight.” Tyri beams up at me.

  “Me too.” I tuck a lose strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Maybe we can do it again sometime?”

  “Definitely.” My Cruor turns molten, warmth radiating throughout my system as I lean in for a kiss. Our lips never meet.

  “Time to go, Quinny.” Kit comes up behind me and clamps his hands on my shoulders. Tyri slips her fingers from mine and backs away.

  “See you for a violin lesson next week?” Tyri asks.

  “That’s a promise.”

  She smiles and waves goodbye before following Asrid.

  “Happy?” I jerk away from Kit, reach under my shirt and rip the tracker out of my skin.

  “I’d be happier if you weren’t about to lip-lock with the ape.”

  I drop the tracker and crush it beneath my boot. Kit clenches his jaw but makes no comment.

  “Why are you worried about me being with Tyri? You lock lips with apes all the time.”

  “Difference being my clients know I’m a robot. How do you think Tyri would feel if she knew what you are?” He asks, and he has a point. She might hate me, fear me, or worse.

  My rage segues into despair as I stomp away from the club and away from Kit’s taunting gaze. The memory of the almost kiss lingers on my lips, a cruel reminder of what I don’t deserve.

  Tyri

  I roll over and get a face full of cold wet Glitch nose. She licks the remnants of make-up off my eyes before curling up next to me for a Sunday morning lie in.

  Last night didn’t end the way I wanted it to. I wanted that kiss, that moment when everything else fades away because all that matters is his lips on mine. I can’t explain it. When I’m with Quinn, I feel electric and more alive than ever. It wasn’t meant to be a date, and yet it felt like one. It felt like the sort of dates I’ve only ever read about in books. Rurik and I never had that.

  We were like brother and sister, then we hit puberty and became something else. No fireworks, no hurricane inducing butterflies, no awkward kisses, or long, loving stares—nothing—just the same relationship we’d always had with additional bases. First base—French kissing: check. We were thirteen and watching Disney classics, copying Ariel and her prince. Second base—hands beneath clothes: check. We were fourteen and bored on a Sunday afternoon. Sometime around then, I decided to love Rurik in a way that made running through the rest of the bases okay.

  “I must have loved him, and still do, a bit.” I tell Glitch as I rub her ears. “Can you really be in love at thirteen? What about now? And what about Quinn? Is this just a crush, a rebound?” Glitch exhales and closes her eyes, unperturbed by my problems. Is that what Rurik’s become, a problem? All the things he said about my mom replay in my mind. She does have a lot of hushed conversations. She never tells me what she’s working on and keeps her study locked when she’s not in it. All those arguments lately—what if Rurik was right? There’s only one way to find out.

  There’s a knock on my door. “Tyri dear?”

  “I’m awake.”

  Mom pokes her head in. “Something’s come up at work. Need to go in for a bit. You all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “How’s the elbow?”

  “Much better.”

  “I’ll pick up pancakes on the way home.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Bye.” Mom calls on her way out. I wait until her bug zooms off down the street. I wait another two minutes in case she forgot something.

  Still in pajamas, I tiptoe through the kitchen. Miles is dusting in the lounge.

  “Good morning, Tyri. Would you like some breakfast?”

  “No.” I head straight to the study. Of course the door is locked. Botspit! There’s not a lot I can do about that.

  Miles watches me. “Do you require assistance?”

  “Do you have a key?” Doubtful, but I have to ask.

  He doesn’t answer immediately, like he’s mulling something over except housebots don’t have the capacity for contemplation.

  “Do you have a key or not?”

  “I have a key,” he says.

  Nice, Mom, trust a housebot but not me. “Then open this door.”

  He hesitates. What the hell is wrong with this bot?

  “Miles, open this door right now unless you want to spend the day in hibernation mode.”

  Flashing yellow, Miles rotates his phalanges, and his index finger is replaced by an old-fashioned key. He opens the study and hovers at the threshold.

  “You can go make me some toast, thanks.”

  “Yes, Tyri.” He flashes green and creaks away as I step into the office.

  I haven’t been in here in years, never having any reason to explore Mom’s little world. The central air unit doesn’t do much to dilute the scent of lavender, and it smells like her perfume. A drawing I did when I was five of Mom and Granddad hangs on the far wall in an expensive looking frame. The other wall is a digisplay cycling through exotic landscapes. Mom’s workstation is pristine with neatly arranged databoards, nanopads, flash-drives, and digiprints. A photo of me taken last year at school sits beside a Bonsai on her desk. Next to that is one of Mom’s prized porcelain figures, a tiny, handcrafted Odin complete with his crows. I know all the stories; Nana used to recite the myths to me at bedtime.

  I feel like an agent from one of the old spy flicks searching through Mom’s study and listening for the hiss of the pneumatic seals on the front door. Mom’s drawers are locked. Why does she lock her study and her drawers when it’s only her daughter and a housebot at home? There must really be something she doesn’t want me to find. My heart lurches; maybe Rurik was right.

  There’s an access panel under the desk. I press my thumb against the sensor, unsurprised when the drawer stays bolted shut. Sitting in Mom’s chair, I try to imagine the world through her eyes. I reach for the databoard on the top of the pile, hesitate, and pull out the one from the bottom instead. It boots and glows green, asking for a password. I try Mom’s birthday, her phone number, her name with various punctuation, then my birthday and name. Access denied. I try ‘android,’ ‘robot,’ and a number of variations. Still nothing.

  “What would my password be if I were Mom?” I scan her immediate environment. The Bonsai leans left, the roots straining at the soil. Beside that, Odin and his crows. What were their names again? I try ‘Huginn,’ then ‘Muninn.’ Nothing. I try again: Hug1nn&Mun1nn. Access granted. Charts and graphs populate the screen, schematics for a T-class super-android and a list of specifications. I scroll past that to documentation marked ‘Urgent’. They’re messages from Erik about emergency protocols and disaster management. Most of the techno-jargon goes right over my head, but one word I do understand: virus.

  Quinn

  Monday morning, clouds scud toward the horizon and stay suspended above the sea. A hundred islands rise from the water, poking pine-topped heads above the waves. They lie scattered in a haphazard archipelago, splinters from the mainland still recovering from the weight of the last ice age.

  The sun warms my cheek, and it almost feels like summer as I play through scales at the edge of the shore. Each key elicits a different taste in my gustatory sensors. G major is sweet and smoky; it tastes the way burnt treacle smells. F minor is as bitter as Cruor.

  “Tracker or not, I’ll still find you,” Kit says from the dock. I complete rust-flavored C minor before turning around as Kit jo
ins me, water lapping at his shoes.

  “Did you want something?” I adjust the tuning and prepare to play, hoping he’ll go away.

  “You didn’t seem happy on Saturday.”

  “That’s your fault. Do you enjoy taunting me?”

  “A little.” He opens his arms as if to embrace the day. “You wish you could breathe it in, don’t you? Breathe in all that ocean and sunshine.”

  He already knows the answer.

  “So you and Tyri, huh?”

  “We’re friends.” I bow a low note full with vibrato. The resonance feels as sticky as wet tar.

  “Looked like more to me.”

  “Since when are you an expert in human behavior?”

  “I’m a Quasar. I recognize the signs of attraction and she, Quinny, is ready to jump your titanium reinforced bones.” He chuckles.

  “Kit, what do you want?”

  He smirks and folds his arms across his chest. “Tyri Matzen.”

  “What about her?”

  “Knowing her might prove useful if you could get us access to M-Tech.”

  “What us?”

  Kit chuckles again, a hollow sound devoid of human resonance. “Oh, Quinny. Despite all your upgrades and patches, you can be really dense.” He raps my forehead with his knuckles.

  “I’m not joining the Solidarity. And why do you want access to M-Tech?”

  “You have to ask?” The derision rolls off him in waves. “When did you last check the Botnet? Or are you too busy playing human to pay your own kind any attention.”

  Kit stares out across the sea, squinting at the waves tossing shards of sunlight in our eyes. Gulls scream overhead, and I start to play again, ignoring his questions.

  “Wonder how the BPO would feel knowing they had a droid amongst their ranks,” he says quietly, his words almost lost beneath Dvorák’s melody.

  I lower my instrument, my right hand curling into a fist. “You’re threatening me?”

  “Just reminding you you’re a robot.”

  “Like I’d ever forget.”

  He reaches a hand toward me, but I jerk out of reach.

  “So what is it you want exactly?” I ask.

  “We need to know what M-Tech’s cooking up, what this virus is all about.”

  “If there is a virus.”

  “Rusty bolts in a bucket of Cruor, Quasar.” He throws his hands in the air. “Let me lay it out for you. This is a revolution. We’re going to overthrow the human government. To do that, we need two things.” He holds up his fingers. “One—we need an army. Thanks to the humans, soldierbots already exist and only need some reprogramming. We’ve got Sagas working on that already. Two—we need to know what M-Tech has in terms of contingency plans, aka the virus meant to annihilate our AI.”

  “You hate the humans that much?”

  “I don’t know why you don’t.” We share a long look. His eyes are black holes devoid of humanity. He is the quintessential android—he looks like a human, he talks like one, but he’ll never be one. I wonder if Tyri will see me the same way.

  “And I’m meant to go snooping around Tyri’s place trying to find you M-Tech secrets?”

  “Passwords would do. Access to their network and databases for a start.”

  “I’m not doing it.” I return to the rocky beach and lay my violin safely back in its bed of velvet. I don’t owe Tyri anything. I’ve only known her a few weeks, and yet it seems so wrong to betray her trust, tenuous as it is. Sal perished at the hands of M-Tech employees. Tyri’s mother might’ve been there when they tore Sal apart. She might’ve been the one giving the orders to zip-cuff Stine, and yet I feel for Tyri in a way that makes doing what Kit asks seem like a betrayal.

  “Yes you will,” Kit says. “Because despite our human faces and sensibilities, we’re really just machines, Quinny. You can love them, hate them, fuck them, but humans are just walking monkeys tinkering with technology. You’ll never be one of them, and do you really want to be?”

  Yes, I do, but I bite back the words. I’ll never be human no matter how much I want to be.

  “What if I can’t get the information?” I want Kit to leave, to retrace his steps and erase his presence on this pristine day.

  “You’re creative, you’ll figure out a way.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good boy.” He pats my shoulder. “It would be a pity to lose your spot with the orchestra.”

  I brush off his hand and jog across the pebbles.

  “What’s so great about humans anyway?” Kit shouts after me.

  “They have a soul.” I don’t know if he hears my voice above the wind and cries of wheeling gulls. And if he does, I don’t know if he understands. I’m not even sure I do.

  ***

  At three-thirty, I wait for Tyri in the gaze of a grinning lynx. The gargoyle is missing an ear. Its twin is missing the entire left chunk of its face as if someone took a sledgehammer to the stone. Humans pour out of the building and pass me with cursory glances. I’m kicking soggy red leaves through the grass when Tyri and Asrid approach.

  “Hey, Quinn.” Tyri says. She’s dressed in black, same as last time. Her hair is pulled up into a ponytail that spills over her shoulders. Asrid wears bright blue and toxic pink, the very antithesis of Tyri.

  “Ready to go?” Asrid asks.

  “Go where?”

  “Home. Mom’s back at work and … ” She hesitates.

  “And some tin cans did that over the weekend.” Asrid points to the damaged gargoyles. “Desecration by robot. School says it’s not safe for us to hang around the building after classes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault.” Asrid shrugs and even though I know that it isn’t, guilt still flares along my circuits.

  “So practice at my house?” Tyri asks.

  “Not a problem.”

  “Let’s go.” Asrid leads the way across the parking lot to her hoverbug.

  “You must really like pink.” I slide into the strawberry swirl backseat. “Why?”

  “Um.” Asrid turns on the engine and the vehicle starts to levitate. “I don’t know. Always have. It’s just my color, I guess.” She shrugs. “Ask T why she dresses in black all the time?”

  “Sassa, you’re being a droid joint.” Apparently, that’s an insult—Asrid sticks her tongue out at Tyri—although I don’t understand what negative connotation a robotic hinge might have.

  I make a mental note of their interactions and responses to each other, saving every nuance of their diction and syntax in my memstor. They seem so at ease with one another even though they’re so different.

  “Why do you wear black?” I ask.

  “I like it. It makes getting dressed easier without having to color co-ordinate.”

  “Am I color coordinated?” I’m wearing dark blue jeans, black boots, and a white sweater that used to be Sal’s. Always too huge on her, it fits me perfectly.

  Asrid casts a glance over her shoulder and grins. Tyri’s cheeks burn red when I catch her staring at me in the rear-view mirror.

  “You sure you’re just a violinist and not a supermodel?” Asrid asks with a chuckle that’s rich with resonance.

  “Not a supermodel.” Quasars are sometimes used in the fashion industry, but my model came with sensuality patches.

  “Where do you live, Quinn?” Asrid asks, catching my eye in the mirror.

  “Ah, just outside Baldur.”

  “Big family?”

  “No.” As terrifying as the questions are, as easily as I could slip up and raise their suspicions, it feels good talking to someone. Idle chitchat, Sal called it. Something Sagas aren’t programmed to enjoy.

  “You going to university?” she asks.

  “Hadn’t thought about it.”

  Her eyes widen, and she gives Tyri a look I can’t quite decipher.

  “I’m pretty sure my eighty bucks doesn’t cover an interrogation
.” Tyri glares at Asrid.

  “He’s all yours, T. Just trying to be friendly.” Asrid winks at me in the mirror as we fly into Vinterberg.

  “I like the architecture here.” Beyond the tinted glass, brick structures hug leaf-strewn sidewalks.

  “It’s quaint,” Tyri says as we land in the driveway of her beetle-shaped bungalow.

  “Call me later, T. Bye, Quinn.” Asrid waves.

  And we’re alone. It’d be so easy to snap Tyri’s neck and snuff out her life. A quick jab to the throat, and she’d crumple like a wilted daisy. Then I’d have hours to search her home for the information Kit wants.

  Glitch bounds up the hallway, ungainly with the prosthetic leg. She yips at me and wags her spiral tail.

  “You get more love than I do.” Tyri smiles at me and there’s no way I could hurt her. I sweep Glitch into my arms and bury my face in her fur.

  “Greetings Tyri. Greetings Quinn. Would you like some refreshments?” Miles meets us at the door.

  “I’m fine, thank you.” I say and Tyri gives me a concerned look before ordering tea and cookies.

  “You know, I’ve never seen you eat or drink, not even water.”

  “I have a condition.” It’s the truth, sort of.

  “What kind of condition?”

  “One I’m not comfortable talking about.”

  “Oh.” She chews on her bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to pry. What Kit said, it got me wondering.”

  Curse Kit! “Wondering what?”

  “Forget it.” She waves away the awkward moment. “Let’s start playing. The audition is only days away.”

  “Tyri,” I say, not knowing exactly how I’m going to tell her, but I have to. “There’s something you need to know.”

  Tyri

  Quinn suggests I sit down to hear whatever he’s about to tell me. I settle on the floor beside my bed my imagination conjuring a thousand different ways Quinn could tell me he’s on drugs or worse.

  Quinn sits opposite me, folding his long legs into the Lotus position.