I Heart Robot

by Suzanne Van Rooyen

  Asrid clears her throat and stamps her feet. “Think we could move this inside? You might not be human, but we are and we’re freezing.”

  Tyri nods and blinks snow from her eyelashes. I follow her inside and shrug out of my coat. The girls drift into the lounge leaving me alone with Rurik at the door.

  I lean back as his fist glances off my jaw. It feels like a love tap compared to the blows I received by the Z-bots. Rurik lets loose a string of expletives as he clutches his bruised knuckles. He’s lucky I had time to react or he’d be nursing a shattered hand.

  “Rurik, what are you doing?” Tyri stands open-mouthed behind him. He glares at me with a look full of hate and maybe … envy? My interpersonal skills mod must be malfunctioning.

  “You should put HealGel on that.” I gesture to his hand.

  “Screw you, tin—”

  “Rik, please.” Tyri glowers as Rurik continues his death stare.

  “We haven’t been formerly introduced.” He flexes his bruised fingers. “I’m Rurik Engelberger.”

  Engelberger. The name sets off blaring alarms inside my skull. I wonder if Tyri knows Rurik’s family was behind all of this.

  “I’m Quinn.” I offer him a handshake.

  “Don’t I know it.” He sneers.

  “I’ll get the HealGel.” Tyri disappears into the house.

  “I guess I should thank you for doing what you did for Tyri.” Rurik almost chokes on his words.

  “My pleasure.”

  “I thought you were dead,” he says.

  “So did I.”

  He gives me a strange look and lowers his voice. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you should know that I still love her despite what she is.”

  “Despite?” Now I want to plant my fist in his face. “I love her for who she is.”

  “Can you even love at all?”

  “Can you?”

  “Would you two drop the macho act and get inside already. You’re letting in the cold.” Asrid shouts from the lounge.

  Rurik glares an entire arsenal at me before stomping inside. He sits beside Tyri as she folds a pack of HealGel around his hand. I settle on the floor with Glitch in my lap.

  “We were discussing funeral arrangements,” Asrid says.

  “How are things going?” I ask. Rurik keeps his gaze on me, the hatred rolling off him in sizzling waves.

  “I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real.” Tyri shakes her head. “What am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to live with me,” Asrid says. “Dad’s already contacted our lawyer. Shouldn’t be a problem for us to assume guardianship.”

  “But Tyri’s an android.” My statement meets with stony silence.

  “Artificial human,” Asrid says.

  “Still essentially an android.”

  “So? I didn’t tell my dad. Besides, does it really matter?” Asrid fidgets with the threads on her pink leg warmers.

  “It will.”

  “Why?” Tyri frowns.

  “Because you’re the property of M-Tech.” I hate how that sounds.

  “I’m no one’s property,” Tyri says with vehemence.

  “M-Tech was obliterated.” Rurik loops an arm around Tyri. She shrugs away from him, and my circuits sizzle with a joy I don’t fully understand.

  “Robots are commodities.” At least for now. “Asrid might have to assume ownership, if they even allow their prototype to … ”

  “To what?” Rurik leans forward.

  I look down and bite my lip.

  “What aren’t you telling us Quinn?” Tyri wrings her hands.

  “You’re a prototype developed for a very specific purpose by powerful people.” I glance at Rurik. “Suffice it to say, they might not be willing to let you go so easily. What happened to M-Tech could be construed as an act of terrorism, if not an act of war. There are going to be serious repercussions.”

  “This is horrible,” Asrid says. “Ownership? Seriously?”

  “That’s reality.” I think carefully about my next words, chewing on the inside of my cheek before speaking. “We are not autonomous. Robots are either owned or go rogue.”

  “Tyri can file for emancipation.” Asrid sounds convinced.

  “Robots have no rights. There’s no autonomy for us no matter how human we seem.”

  “That’s not fair,” Asrid says.

  “Really? You didn’t seem to think much of Nana. Just a robot, remember?” Tyri scowls.

  “That’s different.”

  “Why, Sassa? Because it’s me? Because you don’t want to admit your best friend has been a rust bucket the entire time?”

  “T, I … ”

  “No, that’s what you’ve been saying. Both of you.” Tyri aims her anger at Rurik. “You’ve both been totally anti-robots, seeing them as nothing more than appliances, denying them rights, denying them a life.” She folds her arms, her face blushing with fury.

  “Remember what I said last night?” Rurik says.

  “Yes, I do.” Tyri looks so fierce. “But you can’t love me and hate robots. I am a robot.”

  “Not really. I mean, artificial human, right? You don’t act like a robot or look like one. It’s almost like you are human. No one has to know any different.” Rurik digs his own grave, and Tyri fumes.

  “You know what, Asrid? You can thank your dad for going to the lawyers and thank your mom for wanting to take me in, but I don’t need it.”

  “You’ll stay with me.” Rurik nods as if the decision is his to make.

  “Considering your family’s political stance, and you wanting to pretend I’m something I’m not, I hardly think that’s an option.”

  Rurik’s eyes narrow with displeasure. I’m relieved. Tyri shouldn’t be anywhere near Engelberger senior.

  “Mom taught me to be independent, so that’s what I’ll be, right here.”

  “Alone?” Asrid’s incredulous. “But what if there’s like, war, or something. You can’t stay alone.”

  “Quinn will help me figure out this whole android thing. Right?” Tyri pins me in place with a stare until I nod.

  “You’re choosing Quinn?” Rurik’s shoulders tense, and a muscle twitches along his jaw.

  “I’m choosing the only other android here.”

  Asrid throws her hands in the air. “Botballs, T. You’re still you. No need to go all feral. Unless Skandia declares some state of emergency, then you’ve got school tomorrow, auditions Saturday, and your whole life ahead of you. Don’t throw it all away just because of one small detail.”

  “One small detail.” Tyri laughs, the sound of shattering glass. “This one small detail changes everything.”

  “Like what?” Asrid asks.

  “Like the fact that I’m not even alive.” Tyri’s voice rises in pitch. “I can’t pretend things haven’t changed.”

  “Do you really want things to change?” Rurik asks, and there’s a myriad of emotions I can’t decipher splayed across his face.

  Tyri takes a long time answering. “I’ve always felt like there was a piece of the Tyri puzzle missing. Now, I’ve found it. But instead of completing the picture, it’s changed the whole image.”

  “I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now, but I’ll do what I can to help.” I’ve known all along I was a robot; my owners never hesitated to remind me. Knowing I wasn’t human hurt on a daily basis, but maybe it was better than believing a lie.

  “As if you can feel at all. Your emotions are just code.” Rurik sniggers then pales as he meets Tyri’s gaze.

  “If that’s really how you feel, you can leave.” Tyri points at the door.

  “T, I didn’t mean—”

  “Get. Out.”

  “Come on, T.” Asrid rolls her eyes.

  “Both of you. Get out!” Tyri yells.

  Asrid starts to protest, but Tyri shouts again and sends the humans scurrying for the door.

>   “You choose a machine over us?” Rurik points at me.

  “I’m a machine too, remember?” Her eyes blaze. She’s never looked more beautiful or more alive.

  Rurik glares at me, hands twitching at his side as if he wants to punch me again. He reconsiders and stalks to his hoverbug without another word.

  “T, please,” Asrid says. “We’re also processing. We all need some time. If I can help with anything … ”

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

  Asrid chews on a strawberry pink fingernail. “I’m sorry about everything I’ve ever said. Sorry about your mom.” Tears threaten her cheeks. “Call me, okay?”

  “I will.” Tyri gives her friend a quick hug before shutting the door. She holds it together until the bugs zoom off. Then she turns to me. “I don’t know what to do.” Tyri slides to the floor, reduced to a puddle of synthetic snot and saline. I gather her in my arms and hold her. I don’t know what to do either.

  ***

  Tyri spends a few hours making the necessary arrangements. According to the police, the Försvarsmakten have taken over. It’s not a war yet, but the situation is tense. I guess the defense force is biding its time, considering where to strike to take out the Solidarity.

  I lie on Tyri’s bed with Glitch curled against my ribs. My gaze follows the overlapping sheets of music tacked to the ceiling: Beethoven and Berlioz, Schubert and Brahms, Vivaldi, Mozart and Stravinsky. As my vision traces the notes, the music plays in my head, the juxtapositions of styles, eras, keys, and time signatures a cacophonous rendition of all the music Tyri loves. She slumps on the bed beside me, flexing the fingers of her right hand.

  “They said there wasn’t a lot to recover from the wreckage.” Her voice is devoid of emotion. “They say I can try to identify the remains they do have … ” She takes several deep breaths. “Or I can burn an empty coffin.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I can’t leave bits of her lying in some city morgue. But what if I can’t tell?”

  “You’ll know. She was your mother.” I hope my words are comforting, but Tyri responds in anger.

  “She was not my mother.” She turns to face me, her eyes burning. “Why did she do this to me? Why did she pretend and let me believe I was human? I’m a prototype. A substitute, Mom said.”

  “Maybe it was part of the project that you needed to believe you were human to make you seem more real.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  “No more cruel than being reminded every day that you’re not human.”

  Tyri takes my hand and slowly rolls up my left sleeve, revealing my tag. “Q-I-ninety-nine. Quinn. That’s cute.” A smile flits across her lips as she traces the black lettering in my flesh. Chills march up my spine, sending a tide of delightful tingles rippling through my circuits. Tyri’s hand meanders from my arm to my chest and rests above my fuel-cell. It takes an enormous amount of energy to over-ride the default settings of my Quasar code and not react to Tyri’s proximity.

  “No heartbeat.” She frowns.

  “I run on hydrogen.” Do. Not. React. The last thing Tyri needs right now is a robot kissing her.

  “And me?”

  “According to the schematics, you process food like a human being. That combined with the shots of synthetic enzymes you’ve been taking converts organic compounds into fuel. That’s how you grow. Your processes are remarkably human.”

  “Enzymes?” She raises an eyebrow, her hand still resting on my chest. The warmth of her fingers permeates my flesh even through a layer of wool, sending my system into overdrive.

  “Not exactly a platelet issue.”

  “Another lie.” She bites her lip, and the frown lines become canyons across her forehead. I sit up and lean forward, brushing my fingertips across the scrunched up freckle constellations dusting her face. I want to crush her to me, to kiss her and love her with every atom of my circuitry. Her expression softens, and we stare at each other. Looking into Tyri’s eyes, I’d never guess she wasn’t human. Perhaps the color is a little too bright, perhaps the fractal patterns in her irises are a little too perfect, but there’s more behind those hazel eyes than wires and an advanced computer chip. Tyri must have a soul.

  “Now that I know you’re an android, I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.” She brushes hair off my face, and my Cruor fizzes.

  “We see what we want to see.”

  “I think I was falling in love with you.”

  “Was?” Whatever I’ve been feeling for Tyri has just been extinguished by her casual use of the past tense.

  She lowers her gaze and tucks her hands into her lap. “Now … now, I don’t even know if what I’m feeling is real, if it’s me or some predetermined code, you know?”

  “It’s real. It doesn’t matter why you feel it, whether it’s a chemical reaction in an organic brain or a complex line of code in an acuitron core. What matters is that you feel at all.”

  “Playing violin, that was real. Feeling the music like that. No way that was some synthetic production.” She looks at her injured hand again, the bones not quite properly knit together yet.

  Violin. The concert. It seems rather trivial in light of recent events, and yet my circuits ache knowing that my place within the BPO has been lost. Kit never had my violin. The Z-bots must’ve taken it. I don’t have the energy to be angry with Kit anymore. What’s done is done, and there’s no changing the past.

  “You still going to audition on Saturday?” I ask.

  “Doubtful.” She wiggles her stiff fingers. “What’s the point anyway?” Tyri pushes off the bed and starts pacing around her bedroom. “I wish Mom had told me more, that I understood my purpose, if I even have one.”

  I can’t help chuckling.

  “What’s so funny?” Her face is flushed.

  “You’re having an existential crisis. That’s very human of you.”

  “I guess.” Her scowl rearranges itself into a smile. “Still wish I knew what the end game of this project was.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I could tell her about Engelberger’s involvement, but what would that achieve? More hatred for Rurik maybe. Would it change how she feels about me? “What matters is that you exist. You should make this life your own.” I continue. “You should do what makes you happy. Enjoy life and follow your heart.”

  “Even if I don’t have one?” She looks so broken and woebegone.

  In two strides, I cover the distance between us and pull her into my arms. “But you do, Tyri, and you should use it.”

  She lets me hug her for a minute, my lips hovering above hers. I’d give anything to kiss her.

  “I’m sorry, Quinn.” She breaks away.

  “What for?” I stand against the wall as she slumps on the bed again and starts stroking Glitch.

  “For everything. But … ” She averts her gaze. “I’m so confused right now. I don’t think I can be with you. You know, like that.”

  “That’s okay.” It’s anything but okay. Kit’s voice singsongs ‘I told you so’ inside my head.

  “This is so messed up.” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes.

  “It won’t always be.” I hesitate at her bedroom door wanting nothing more than to curl around Tyri and listen to her heartbeat all night. “I’ll be in the lounge if you need me.”

  “I can make up a bed for you.”

  “I don’t sleep.”

  Her eyes widen. “What will you do all night?”

  “Read. Think. A lot’s happened. Some time to process it all might not be a bad thing.”

  “Thank you for being so understanding.”

  “Sweet dreams, Tyri.” The door closes behind me with a soft click. If I were wise, maybe I’d be half way to Finland by now, avoiding the Skandia authorities and escaping my feelings for Tyri. I’d take Kit and get far away from the Solidarity. But I can’t leave her, not now. Not when she’s so alone, as alone as I
was still hurting from invisible cigarette burns when Sal found me wandering the streets. I’ll stay and help Tyri come to terms with being an android. She’s already taught me how to be more human.

  Tyri

  Saturday morning I wake up to Glitch licking my eyes. For a moment, it’s like any other Saturday, a day to lie in till Mom wakes me for breakfast.

  There’s a knock on my door, and my heart lurches. Maybe it was a bad dream, and the past few days never happened. Maybe I’m still human. I hold my breath and pray to whatever gods might still linger over Skandia that it’s Mom standing in the hallway.

  “Tyri?” It’s Quinn’s quiet voice. “We’ve got to be at the cemetery in an hour.”

  With a groan, I heave myself out of bed and drape myself in black lace—the same attire I wore to Nana’s funeral. I tug a brush through my hair and administer my morning dose of happy-android serum. There’s only enough for six more weeks. After that, who knows what’ll happen to me. But that’s not today’s problem. Today I’m interring Mom’s ashes. It doesn’t seem right that an entire life can be reduced to a single urn of dust. Mom was everything to me. A tear sneaks out of my eye and cuts a trail down my cheek before I bat it away. I’m done crying. Tears aren’t going to make today any easier. They won’t bring my mom back, and they won’t help me make sense of the mess my life has become.

  It should hurt, but I’m numb. Maybe something inside me is broken or misfiring, perhaps a circuit has tripped or a fuse has blown. The wound from where Mom was gouged out of my life coupled with the injury of realizing I’m not human has left a big, black, gaping nothing inside me. They never found Adolf Hoeg’s body. I hope he got obliterated in a bomb blast. It’s his fault Mom’s gone.

  “Tyri?” Quinn cracks open the door. He’s dressed in somber gray, his hair combed, and his eyes dazzling silver. I wouldn’t have survived these last few days without Quinn spending his nights on the couch—without him reminding me there’s a reason to live.

  “I’m ready.” I’m so not ready. I don’t want to face Mom’s colleagues, and I definitely don’t want to face Rurik who I haven’t spoken to since I kicked him out the house. I shoulder my violin and smooth down my hair. Asrid’s picking us up. For all her previous mouthing off about robots, at least she’s trying and hasn’t run screaming to the cops about Quinn and I being rogue droids. Who knows what’ll happen when the lawyers manage to untangle all the paperwork and figure out that an android can’t actually inherit a house or Mom’s life insurance. Quinn and I could run away and live in a place like Fragheim, or maybe I can play human and register him as mine.