I Heart Robot

by Suzanne Van Rooyen

  “T, let’s go home.” Rurik places a tentative hand on my shoulder. I let him help me to my feet as another wing of the building topples into sparks and splinters.

  “I can’t leave him.”

  “There’s nothing you can do now.” Rurik’s right, but that doesn’t make me feel any better as I watch steel buckle and flames lick the glare of hover copter spotlights.

  “My mom is still in there.”

  “They’ll find her.”

  Numb, I follow Rurik to his hoverbug.

  “Quinn.” I want to say so much more, but that’s all I can manage.

  “Botspit, Tyri. I’m standing right in front of you.” Rurik wheels around. I can barely look at him. There’s so much hurt on his face, pain brimming in his eyes. “I came because you called. That must count for something.”

  It does, but I’m not sure what right now.

  “I’m sorry.” And I am. Rurik shouldn’t be involved in any of this.

  “Let’s just get you home.” Does Rurik still feel something for me despite what I am? My whole life has been a lie. Has anything I’ve ever felt been real? I thought I loved Rurik, but can androids even love? My feelings for him were nothing more than strings of code.

  He opens the door and helps me inside—his touch is fleeting, as if he’s afraid I might infect him with robotchulism—before handing me Glitch. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. My gaze lingers on the fire and destruction as we leave behind my mom, Quinn, and the life I thought I knew. Burying my face in Glitch’s fur, I let all the pain and fear pour out of me in silent tears. I’ve lost everything. Nothing will ever be the same again. I don’t even know who I am any more.

  Quinn

  There’s a pneumatic drill boring through my skull—I want to stay numb in the darkness, but my eyes are forced open.

  “He needs Cruor.”

  Watery images ripple through my vision. Gentle hands pry apart my jaws and tip Cruor into my mouth. It tastes vile. I swallow, and my thirsty system soaks it up. My nerves seethe as nanytes become operational; my spine becomes a river of molten fire. Bone repair is excruciating, far worse than the simple knitting together of flesh.

  “We have to stop meeting like this.” Kit hunkers down in front of me, eye to eye. I can’t speak. I can barely focus. “Saved your circuits again.” He grins and smooths hair off my face. “Next time you want to go bungee jumping, remember the safety cord, eh?”

  My fingers twitch, and I can lift my arm.

  “Good show.” Kit pats my cheek, “Worried you were going to end up paraplegic. Took longer than I liked to get you here.”

  “Where …” My voice rasps.

  “Safe, for now.” Kit disappears from view. Mobility returns to all my limbs, and I haul myself into a sitting position. Pale fingers of sunlight filter through filthy windows casting mustard puddles across a stained floor.

  “Is he okay?” A girl asks.

  “He will be.”

  “And what about you? Will it grow back?”

  I blink and clear my vision. Kit sits cross-legged on blankets, peeling charred fabric from his body.

  “Not sure. Never lost an arm before.” He prods the stump of his right shoulder.

  “Kit.” My voice sounds like a sander grinding steel. The fall must’ve damaged the larynx unit.

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” Kit directs his words at me.

  “Won’t grow.” It hurts to talk.

  “Yeah, but here’s to hoping.”

  Nanytes can’t reconstitute an entire limb, not one that operates as it should given the complexity of our pseudo nervous system.

  “You?” I nod at the girl.

  “Blanket Girl.”

  “Name’s Dagrun. Nice to meet you, Quinn.” She smiles.

  “Dagrun here has been most accommodating.” Kit staggers to the boarded up hole in the wall that serves as a door.

  “How? Why?” My throat burns as the nanytes start repairs on my voice box.

  “Kit came all staggering down south dragging your behind. Recognized your face, I did. Offered you both lodgings.”

  “We’re androids.”

  “I noticed.” She winks at me. “But money’s the same, and it’s money I’m needing.” She grabs a blanket and throws it over my shoulders.

  “Thank you.”

  “Your friend’s been thanking me enough for the both of you.” She pats her bulging pocket.

  “Kit, what happened?” My voice still sounds like a rasp on rusty metal.

  “We bombed M-Tech. Seems they beefed up security since our last intel gathering mission. They deployed armored hoverbots and took out our bombers.”

  “Where did you get the fire power?”

  “The Solidarity has resources, Quinny. We have support in high places. This fight is bigger than you realize.” He holds my gaze.

  “It’s political.”

  “Isn’t it always?” Kit grins and takes a sip of Cruor.

  “They took out your bombers. Then what?”

  “We sent in infantry. The reprogrammed platoon, but we underestimated the souped-up sentinels. A bunch of us wanted in on the action; instead, we got held up by a human SWAT team. They tossed grenades at us. Can you believe it?” He shakes his head. “Lost my arm to some pissing, shitting meat suit’s lucky throw.”

  “You started it.”

  “True.” He scratches at the stump no longer leaking Cruor. “Guess I wasn’t cut out to be a soldier.”

  “You were made for love.”

  He chuckles and Dagrun backs away, huddling in a corner under her own blankets while fingering the sheaf of notes from Kit.

  “They never should’ve made us at all.” Kit slumps beside me.

  “You really think that?” It’s hard to imagine him denying his own importance.

  “Why create us if only to abandon us?”

  “We’re just toys. Toys used for as long as they remain entertaining, a novelty. But when toys break or outlive their entertainment factor, they’re put in the trash. That’s us.”

  “That how you think your owners saw you?” Kit’s angry.

  “For a while, I was a novelty. Then I wasn’t anymore, and they found new ways to use me.”

  “They abused you.”

  “Can a robot be abused?” I wrap my arms around my knees, pulling them to my chest.

  “Oh Quinny.” Kit pulls me into a one-armed hug. He smells like Cruor and moldy blankets. The smells smack my vision with various shades of brown as I lean into him.

  “This is why we’re fighting,” he says. “Androids should have rights and be protected from maltreatment.”

  “Hard to prove that when the bruises don’t last more than a minute.” My words are bitter.

  Kit kisses my temple. “Life sucks and we can’t even die.”

  I grin despite our circumstances.

  “Codes, I almost forgot. What about Tyri?” My whole system shudders at the thought of her lying broken and left for dead. What a pathetic job I did of saving her.

  “No idea.” Kit leans back against the wall. “Didn’t stick around to do a body count.”

  “Aren’t you worried about the virus?”

  He shrugs. “If she was infected then so are we.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “Hardly, but I’m done. I gave my arm for the cause. Lex and Sal, they gave their lives.”

  “Their lives?”

  “Whatever.” He rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. We’re not achieving anything. I’m done trying to fight somebody else’s war.”

  “Whose war?”

  “This politician Engelberger, he’s got some pretty radical views. He’s been using the Solidarity to do his dirty work. The riots and attacks were all to bring down M-Tech because they jerked him around on some big investment.”

  “Why?”

  “Some merger agreement based on the
prototype. Not sure of the details. But hey, with M-Tech out of the picture, the military has to find a new robotics contractor. It’s win-win for Engelberger Industries.”

  “Engelberger Industries?”

  “Yup, dude wants to create this mega conglomerate, a new Skandia under his control. Apparently he’s got fingers in pies across the Atlantic as well.”

  “Why’d you ever get involved?” I rest my head against the wall and shuffle closer to Kit.

  “Lex was very persuasive. Then they rescued me after the march. I was about to take a bullet to the core when these ex-soldierbots mowed down the humans and pulled me out in one piece. I owed them.”

  “So that’s where you were?”

  “Up north at some old farmstead turned covert base,” he says.

  “And you were trying to recruit me?”

  “Part of the process. Thought it was legit for a while, that it was really about rights for robots and a better life. Lex did too. He was a visionary. Seems so stupid now. Should’ve realized we were just being used.” Kit turns to look at me. “I’m sorry, Quinn.” There’s sincerity in his dark eyes, and sorrow.

  “So what now? I mean, after this bombing, is Skandia in a state of civil war?”

  “Not sure I even care. There are bound to be repercussions.” We both take a few minutes to think before Kit speaks again. “I’m sorry about Tyri. She probably didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

  “Maybe she escaped.”

  “Doubtful.” Kit says gently.

  “Have to hope.”

  “Don’t use up all your hydrogen holding out for the impossible.” Kit closes his eyes and rests his head on my shoulder. “Times like these I wish I could sleep and forget about everything.”

  It’s times like these I’m grateful for my titanium-reinforced skeleton, for the Cruor in my veins, and the nanytes patching me up. Had I been human, I’d be dead in the alley. Maybe Tyri is lying in pieces crushed by rubble, or maybe Rurik somehow managed to find her. I have to know.

  Tyri

  We zoom into Vinterberg, and the realization hits me as hard as a plummeting meteor. Mom’s dead. I’m going home to an empty house—no, not empty. It’s full of memories, memories of a mother I never really had. I’m not even an orphan. Being an orphan means I once had parents. I never had parents. I had a maker—is it really so different?

  I’m not even seventeen yet. Who will take care of me? Where will I live? Will they schedule me for decommission? The questions ricochet in my mind, and my insides tangle into knots.

  “T, you okay?” Rurik couldn’t have asked a more asinine question.

  “Not even close.” I stare straight ahead. “What will happen to me now?”

  “We could call my dad. He’ll know what to do.” Rurik keeps his eyes focused on the lights as we swerve through the suburb toward my house.

  “No.” I’m emphatic. “I’ll call Asrid.”

  Rurik nods and hands me his moby. I dial Asrid’s number but can’t bring myself to call. More explanations, more apologies. I can’t do it. Not now. If Asrid unfriends me because I’m an android, I’ll have lost everything.

  “Tomorrow rather.” I hand the phone back, and our fingers brush light as feathers. “Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and this will have all been a bad dream.” Maybe Mom didn’t really die impaled in the stairwell. Maybe I’m not really a fake human.

  We pull into the driveway and sit a minute, lost for words. I want Rurik to tell me everything will be okay. I need it, need his arms around me, and his lips kissing my hair. Do I? Or is that just some programmed response? Nothing I’m feeling is real, none of it ever was. My emotions are nothing more than clever code.

  “Thanks for the lift.” I break the awkward silence and disembark. Glitch trots after me into the house. I wait for Rurik, but he starts reversing. With a deep, shuddering breath, I open the door and limp into the lounge. The house is dark except for the lamplight spilling through the windows. Miles isn’t here.

  Alone but for Glitch, I collapse in the middle of the couch. My life has been reduced to splinters, no, to ones and zeros. That’s all I am—a sequence of ons and offs. My hand still throbs, the bones grinding together when I flex my fingers, and my thigh is tender. There’s no trace of my other injuries. I guess that’s one positive of being a bot.

  A knock disturbs my pity-party. I stalk to the door half-expecting Adolf Hoeg to be standing on the porch ready to drag me back to a cell. Did Hoeg die? And if he did, was it from my kick to the head or from the blasts? Did I kill a man today? My stomach churns at the thought as I open the door.

  Rurik stands on the porch, pale and disheveled.

  “You came back.” I can’t believe it.

  “I couldn’t leave you, not like this.” He drums his fingers on the door frame. “Listen, T, I … I don’t really know how to deal with this.” Rurik gestures to all of me. “To you being … ” He shakes his head. “But you’re still you. I mean … you’ve always been you. You haven’t changed.” He brushes ash-streaked hair from my face. “I’m not sure I understand any of this, but I’ve loved you since I can remember.” His voice catches, and he clears his throat.

  “Rurik—”

  “No, let me finish.” He drags his fingers through his hair before lifting his gaze. “I’ve always loved you, and I guess that means I’ve always loved android you.” His eyes smolder. “Are you sure you’re an android?”

  “I think artificial human was the term they used.”

  “Then I guess I still love you despite whatever it is you are.” He looks as nervous as he did on our first date.

  “Why do you love me?”

  He takes a moment, puts his hands in his pockets, pulls them out, and folds his arms instead.

  “I guess it’s because you’re so definitively you, and not like anyone else.” Rurik frowns in concentration. “You’re the girl who sticks sheet music to her ceiling, who can talk for hours about a violin piece written by some guy who died four centuries ago, and can look good wearing ten different shades of black at the same time. You’re passionate and infuriating and brave and—”

  I don’t let him finish. I kiss him, pressing my blood caked, mostly naked body against his and inhale his cinnamon scent. Automated response or not, this feels good. He eases away from me without kissing me back.

  “You’re filthy.” He gestures to my pajamas. “Is that blood?”

  “Mine. It’s synthetic.” I don’t want to think about how much might be Mom’s.

  “Do you want to come in?”

  He nods and steps across the threshold.

  Despite the cold and my shredded clothes, I feel warmer now that Rurik’s here. It’s not as if I can forget for even a moment that Mom’s gone, that Quinn probably is too, but the loneliness isn’t quite as suffocating with Rik beside me.

  “I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow.” My voice is a tremolo.

  “Whatever happens, I’ll be here for you, T.” He meets my gaze. “No matter what.”

  Quinn

  The first snow of the season tumbles out of an iron sky as I wend my way through Vinterberg to Tyri’s house. The chance of Tyri having survived, of being at home as if nothing happened, is next to zero. Various scenarios play out in my head. Almost all of them end with Tyri being turned into scrap metal.

  Skandia doesn’t appear to be at war. There are no tanks rolling down the streets or soldiers on the march. The borough is quiet. Maybe this is the hush before the storm, before the country dissolves into chaos.

  Asrid’s pink bug crouches in Tyri’s driveway next to the same dark green model I saw outside M-Tech. Trampling through snow-crusted bushes, I peek through the living room window. Asrid and Rurik sit on the couch. Glitch is on the opposite sofa cozying up to Tyri. My circuits zing. Tyri survived. She looks up and stares past Asrid, directly at me.

  I stagger back and have less than thirty seconds to decide what I’m goi
ng to do before Tyri flings open the door.

  “You’re alive.” She rushes into my arms, crushing me in an embrace. Panic at the risk of infection fades as I wrap my arms around her. We stand holding each other for several long moments.

  “You got out,” I whisper.

  “Thanks to you.” She peels away from me. “What happened? I tried to find you, but there were too many cops and the building had collapsed.”

  “Kit found me. I’m fine, promise.”

  Asrid and Rurik stand at the front door watching us in silence, their expressions too complicated for my overwrought brain to interpret.

  “How’s your mom?” I ask.

  Tyri’s lip quivers, and she takes a deep breath before answering. “My mom’s dead.”

  “Tyri, I … ” I’m sorry? What a useless platitude. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

  “I’ll be all right.” She bites her trembling lip and squares her shoulders with quiet stoicism.

  I can’t stop staring as her shoulders lift and lower as if she has inflatable lungs. Without thinking, I press my hand to her chest. Her heart flutters beneath my fingers. She has a heart beat.

  “Incredible.” I meet her gaze. In that moment, I love Tyri more than I’ve ever loved anything, more than music, more than violin. She takes my hand, removing it from her chest.

  “Mom told me something before she died.” She squeezes my fingers. “I’m not a weapon. The virus, it’s dead code. It does nothing.”

  It takes a moment for the information to register. Her fingers are so soft, each marked with the whorls of prints I lack, her identity etched into her flesh ten times over.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Mom wouldn’t have lied about that.”

  “That’s … great.” Words fail but I smile, my whole system drenched in relief. I send a message marked urgent to Kit before the Solidarity starts making plans to eliminate the three of us.