Near + Far

by Cat Rambo

  "I don't know what I expected," my husband mutters as he drinks his coffee in hasty gulps. "That cat was never very smart for a cat." He glares at Raven as though blaming him for the failures of the world at large. The Vocobox (TM) is his own invention; his company hopes to market it this fall, and a promotion may hinge upon it. The last laurels my husband won are wearing thin; if the Vocobox (TM) is a success, he'll be able to rest a while longer.

  But when he first proposed installing it in the cat, he didn't say it was still experimental. "The kids are gone, and you need some company," he'd said. "The cat loves you best anyhow; now you can talk to him, and he'll talk back." He gave me a slight smirk and a raised eyebrow that implied that without him I'd be a dotty old cat lady, living in a studio apartment that smelled of pee and old newspapers.

  "I'll be late again tonight," he tells me now. "And when I'm concentrating, I've found leaving my cell off helps. If you need something, just leave a message. Or call the service, that's what we pay them for." He's out the front door before I can reply.

  Every morning seems the same nowadays. My husband's heels, exiting. The immaculate lawn outside. On Thursdays, the housekeeping service remotely activates the grass cutting robot. I see it out there, sweeping through the fresh spring grass that never grows high enough to hide it. A plastic sheep, six inches tall, sits atop its round metal case, someone's idea of creative marketing. But the robot is done within the hour and then things are the same again. Back in the box.

  I go into the living room, activate the wall viewer, and lose myself in reality television, where everyone has eventful lives. Soon Raven curls up on my lap. "Raven," he murmurs, and begins to purr.

  The mouths of the people on the screen move, but the words that come out are meaningless, so I hit the mute button. Now the figures collide and dance on the screen; every life is more interesting than my own.

  At noon, I push the cat off my lap and have a sandwich; at dinner time a hot meal appears in the oven. I take it out myself, pour a glass of Chardonnay, take the bottle to the table with me. When did I become this boring person? At college, I studied music, was going to sing opera. I sang in a few productions, fell in love, became a trophy wife, and produced two perfect trophy children who are out there now, perpetuating the cycle. All those voice lessons wasted.

  On the EBay channel that night I look for a hobby. There's knitting, gardening, glass-blowing, quilling ... too many to choose from. I remember quilling from my daughter's Bluebird days. We curled bits of paper, glued them down in decorative patterns on tiny wooden boxes. What was the point? I drink a little more wine before I go to sleep.

  When he comes to bed, my husband snuggles up, strokes my arm. He murmurs something inaudible, the tone conveying affection. This only happens when he feels guilty. From the recently showered smell of him, I know what he feels guilty about. This must be an assistant I haven't met yet.

  When I don't speak, he says, "What's the matter, cat got your voice box?" He chortles to himself at his clever joke before he lapses into sleep, not pursuing my silence. Out in the living room, I hear the cat wandering. "Raven."

  "You're like a cliché," my husband says at breakfast. "Desperate housewife. Can't you find something to do?"

  The cat's attention swivels between us, his green eyes wide and pellucid with curiosity. "Raven?" he says in an interrogative tone.

  I watch my husband's heels, the door closing behind them, the deliberately good-humored but loud click, once again.

  "Raven," the cat says as it looks up at me, its voice shaded with defiance.

  "Dora," I say to the cat. I'm tired and sore as though I'd been beaten. The room wavers with warmth and weariness.

  "Raven."

  "Dora."

  "Raven."

  "Dora."

  I can't help but laugh as he watches my face, but he is not amused as I am; his tail lashes from side to side although every other inch of him is still.

  Online, I look at the ads. Nannies, housekeepers, maids ... I am a cliché. I embrace my inanity. Desperate housewife indeed, being cheated on by an aging husband who isn't even clever enough to conceal it. This is my reality. But if I explain it, I start the avalanche down into divorce. I'll end up living in a box on the street, while my husband will remarry, keep living in this expensive, well-tended compound. I've seen it happen to other women.

  "Raven," the cat says with tender grace, interposing himself in front of the monitor. Facing me, he puts his forehead against the top of my chest, pressing firmly. "Raven," he whispers.

  Sunday, while my husband's out playing golf, the phone keeps ringing. "Caller's name undisclosed," the display says. And when I pick it up, there is only silence on the other end. The third time I say, "He's out playing golf and has his cell phone turned off, because it distracts him. Call back this evening." and hang up.

  He scuttles out in the evening after another of the calls, saying he needs to go into work, oversee a test run. Later that night, he curls against me, smelling of fresh soap. Outside the door, Raven is calling.

  "Another cat would take the implant better," my husband says. "I'll get a kitten and we'll try that."

  "No," I tell him. "He's too old to get used to a new kitten in the house. It will just upset him."

  "I'm trying to do something nice for you."

  "Buy the other woman a kitten," I say, even as dire predictions scream through my mind, commanding me to silence. "Buy her dozens. I'm sticking with this one."

  He rolls over, stunned and quiet. For the rest of the night, I lie there. Outside, the night continues, limitless. I pass the time imagining what I will do. Nannying is, I hear, pleasant work. I'll sing the babies lullabies.

  He's silent in the morning as well. In the light of day as we sit facing each other across the table, I reach down to extend my hand to the cat, who arches his back and rubs against my fingertips.

  "We need to talk," Lloyd finally demands.

  "Dora," I say.

  "What?"

  "Dora. Dora, Dora." I rise to my feet and stand glaring at him. If I had a tail, it would lash back and forth like an annoyed snake, but all my energy is focused on speaking to my husband.

  "Is that supposed to be funny?"

  "Dora. Dora. Dora." I almost sob the words out, as emotions clutch at my throat insistently, trying to mute me, but I force the words past the block, out into the open air. We stand like boxers, facing each other in the squareness of the ring.

  Lloyd moves to the door, almost backing away. His eyes are fixed on my lips; every time I say my name, his expression flickers, as though the word has surprised him anew.

  "We can talk about this later," he says. The door closes behind him with a click of finality.

  What can I do? I settle on the couch and the cat leaps up to claim my lap, butts his head against my chin. He lapses into loud purrs, so loud I can feel the vibration against my chest, quivering like unspoken words. He doesn't say anything, but I know exactly what he means.

  Afternotes

  This story was one of my first speculative fiction publications, and led to my first reading at Seattle area science fiction convention Norwescon. It grew out of a joke about a cat's intelligence and what one would say if actually given a voice.

  While the plot is straightforward and the ending uncomplicated, I'm fond of the relationship between Dora and her cat. I've included it in tribute to my own, dearly-loved cat, whose name is also Raven and who definitely appears in these pages.

  This piece originally appeared in Twisted Cat Tales, edited by Esther Schrader.

  LONG ENOUGH AND

  JUST SO LONG

  I'd never wanted to go to Earth until the doctor told me I couldn't, that my bones were too brittle. After that, it wasn't an obsession, just an edge to my days.

  Otherwise, my life's good.

  I run a courier ship between Earth, Luna, the space stations, Mars, and the Inner Gate. You need as little mass as possible to run a snipship, and due to what th
at doctor called my defects, I'm one of the smallest, fastest. Good pay, and most of the time I'm low-g, which is easiest on me.

  Freetime I slum around Luna, where my best girlfriend Pippi lives. Or she and I go prospecting out in the shadow of the Gate, like the dozens of other crazies, hoping to stumble on an alien artifact, make us all rich. Not too impossible a dream, though. It's happened before.

  I had a permanent cradle walker left at Luna, that's how much time I spent there. Pippi worked as a sportscaster for the biggest Moon channel, MBSA. Her name's not really Pippi, but she had orange braids and long legs and freckles everywhere, so what else could everyone call her?

  I'm used to my name getting distorted. My parents named me Podkayne after a girl in an old story about Mars. It becomes Poddy and Special K, usually Kayne.

  In college, though, they called me the Gimp. Most of the time it was affectionate. Pippi was my roommate, there from day one. She had eight siblings, ranging from twelve years to three months. A roomie with lower limb reduction syndrome didn't faze her. I'd come in with a chip pre-loaded on my shoulder, but I relaxed after a couple of weeks.

  Pippi was borderline Aspie, called it like it was, which caused her enough troubles on her own. You had to explain to her why you were angry or sad or whatever, but once she knew what was going on, she knew what sounds to make.

  The Aspiness makes her an excellent sportscaster. She knows every sports score for the last half century, and a lot of pre-Net stuff too. You can't come up with a trivia question that's lunar sports-related that she can't answer. That was the only thing she really got passionate about, and in a way that charmed the camera.

  We never hooked up. Both of us were wired straight. Pippi had a regular friend named Trevor who was usually away on business trips. I paid for it or went virtual every once in a while, and left things at that.

  We were both enjoying sunlight at our favorite park, two blocks away from Pippi's apartment complex. Sitting beside a sculpture there I've always loved, spindly rails of color tumbling taller than me like animation lines, edges glinting pink and blue and purple. The smell of tomato and basil and sage filled the air.

  Pippi had her face turned up to the light, soaking in the warmth. She had been indulging in tanners again. Her orange shirt and shorts were vibrant against the expanse of her brown skin.

  I was more cautious. I don't want skin tumors later on, so I keep a gauzy over-shirt and hat about me. Silvery sleeves to deflect the light were set over my arms, strapped into the walker's maneuvering legs. Underneath the sleeves, mercurial light played over my skin.

  We both saw him when he entered the park: tourist-new, still dressed in arrival shorts and paper shirt with "Be nice, I'm a newbie" printed on the back, which guaranteed him a 10% discount at any participating business.

  Pippi squinted over. "Is that ... "

  I followed her gaze. Dark glasses gave me the advantage. "Yep. It's an AI."

  "Not just any AI, though," she said, eyes watering. "Unless I'm wrong?"

  "Nope, it's a sexbot," I said.

  It was just after what the newsies were calling the Sexbot Scandal, when that Senator was caught traveling with an AI and had used the momentary notoriety to call for AI rights. Now the Senator's 'droid and several others of its kind had bought themselves free. I'd seen an interview with one while trapped in line picking up Chinese takeout the night before. Its plans for the next year were to travel with its friend, another of the bots. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

  The oldest human urge: Curiosity about who or what each other was fucking.

  He had the white plastic skin most AIs were affecting that year. On his head a slouched wool hat like a noir detective's.

  He looked up and saw us looking at him. He froze as though his battery had been removed. Then he moved again, almost impatient, flinging an arm up as though against us, although I realized a second later that it shielded his eyes from the dazzle of sunlight off the sculpture. Trapezoids of colored light danced over his tunic, glittered on the lenses that were his eyes.

  Pippi waved.

  He stepped backwards, ducked into the tunnel.

  Of course we went in pursuit.

  He took the West tunnel. Moving fast, dodging between walkers moving between stations, grabbing handholds to hurl himself along. It wasn't hard to follow him—I'm small, and mostly muscular in the chest and shoulders, so I can rocket along as far as anyone from handhold to handhold. Pippi slowed me down, kept hissing at me to wait up for her.

  We emerged in the most touristy of plazas, the complex of malls near the big hotels, the public gardens. I thought I'd seen the flicker of his tunic, his hat's crumpled feather, as he ducked into the Thai garden.

  The dome overhead admitted unadulterated sunlight. There were parrot flowers and bua pood, a waterfall, and a grove full of gibbons, safely behind mesh. Trails led off to discreet clothing and lifestyle boutiques, a restaurant, and a walkway to the next mall. I saw his hat bob through its glass confines and elbowed Pippi, pointing.

  She said, "He could be going anywhere from there. There's a tube stop in the middle of the mall."

  "Where would a sexbot go?"

  "Do you think he's for hire?" she said.

  The interview had said only a few sexbots had chosen to keep their professions. Most of the others had made enough to fund other careers. Many had become solo-miners or explorer pilots.

  "It can't be the first time he's been asked the question," Pippi said.

  I hesitated. I could talk her into asking. Could machines feel embarrassment? What was the etiquette of communication? Was a sexbot, like a human, capable of being flattered by a flirtatious or even directly admiring question?

  Gibbons hooted overhead. A long-billed bird clung upside down to the other side of the mesh. If we stayed here much longer, we'd have a park fee added to our monthly taxes. Two parks in a single day was way too extravagant.

  We went home.

  I had a run to the Gate the next morning, so I got up early, let myself out. Took the West tunnel to the tube stop. Grabbed a mushroom roll on the way and ate it on the platform, peering into shop windows at orange and blue scarves and fake ferns and a whole window wall's worth of animate Muffs, the latest wearable animals. The sign said they lived off air impurities. They had no eyes, which to some people made them cute, I guess, but to me just looked sad.

  Tourists going past in bright shirts and arcs of perfect white teeth. Demi-gods, powered by cash.

  A feather reflected in the window. Behind me stood the sexbot.

  This time I followed at a distance. Got in the train car at the opposite end, but kept an eye on him. Luckily for me he was getting out at the port. I don't know what I would have done if it'd looked as though he was going further.

  Maybe followed him.

  Why? I don't know. There was something charming about the way he held himself. And I was curious—who wouldn't be?—about the experience of someone made for sex, someone for whom sex was his entire rationale for existence. What would it have been like for him (it?) awakening to that?

  The port platform straddled the Dundee cliffs, overlooking the Sea of Tranquility. He was there at that flickering curtain of energy and I remembered what it did to constructs—shorted them out, wiped them clean. He had his hand outstretched, and I'm the last to deny anyone their choices, but even so I shouted, "Hey."

  He turned, his hand dropping.

  I caught up to him. I was in the cradle walker because I was being lazy that day. I could see him taking it in, the metal spidering my lower body, the bulge where my flesh ended, where legs might have been on someone else, the nubs of my left hand—two but as useful as three of your fingers, I swear.

  I said, "Want to get a cup of tea and talk about it?"

  So cliché, like something you might have seen in a cheap-D. But he said, "Okay," and his voice sounded as sincere as a mechanical voice can.

  The café was half-deserted, just a couple of kids drinking coffee near
the main window. We were between main shifts, and I was late for my pick-up, but I thumbed a don't-bother-me code, knowing I was one of the most reliable usually. They'd curse me but let it slide.

  It's weird, talking to a mechanical. Half the time your mind's supplying all the little body movements, so you feel like you're talking to a person. Then half the time you've got a self-conscious feeling, like you were talking to your toaster in front of your grandmother.

  Maybe it was just as strange for him. There's a lot of Gimps up here—lower gravity has its advantages, and in a lot of spaces, like my rig, the less your mass the better. Plus times are lean—less elective surgery. Here he was in the land of the unbeautiful, the people who didn't care as much about their appearance. Strange, when he was beautiful in every single inch, every graceful, economical move.

  We didn't say a word about any of that.

  I told him the best places to sightsee, and where he could take tours. I thought maybe he had some advantages—did he need to breathe, after all? Could he walk Outside just as he was?

  The big casinos are worth seeing, particularly Atlantis and Spin City. I sketched out a map on my cell and shot it to him.

  "Where do you like to go?" he said.

  I'm not much for shopping, and I said so. I liked to take the mega-rail between Luna and the Cluster—cheap and you could stare out the window at the landscape.

  "Let's do that," he said.

  The Cluster used to be a fundamentalist-founded station that ended up selling its space to private concerns in order to fund itself. The remnants of the church were there. They ran the greenhouses that grew food for Luna, where most of the water got processed too. The stuff at the market there was always fresh and good and cheaper than in stores.