“Yes, I had a few girlfriends… but none of them were long-lasting. Yes, I suppose you’re right. So, I’m messed up. But I’m thirty-nine years old. I can’t lay all of that at Dad’s feet, or Mom’s or Nora’s either. When you reach my age, you have to take responsibility for your own faults.”
“Well, I still haven’t reached that age yet.”
“Maybe you’re not as messed up as I am. Maybe you’re not as messed up as you think you are. After all, you were in a relationship for a while, right?”
“Four years.”
“Four years. That’s a long time. Maybe you can still get back together.”
“No. Obviously I wasn’t enough for her or I wasn’t good enough for her. Why else would she cheat on me?”
“What did she say about it?” wondered Stephen.
“I’m not interested in anything she has to say.”
“You mean you haven’t even let her explain to you? You haven’t listened to her?”
“Why would I?”
“Maybe she still loves you. Maybe it was just a one-time thing. Maybe she regrets it.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
“Here’s one more for you. Maybe you could forgive her.”
“I’m sure I could forgive her. But I would never forget. I would never be able to trust her again, and I just can’t live like that. I can’t live spending my every waking hour wondering where she is and who is slipping her the sausage. I’d follow her. I’d bug her phone. I’d track her car and track her spending. You know I would. You would too.”
“Yes, I would,” Stephen agreed. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Get a job, I guess. All I know is that I never want to see Rachel again—Rachel, that was her name. So, I’m not going back to Sacramento. Maybe I’ll go south.”
“You mean southern California or like, Mississippi or something?”
“Oh, god no. I mean San Diego or someplace.”
“Maybe your Daffodil can help you. She seems like a good one. Not the model I would have chosen.”
“Well, she kind of grows on you.”
“Dessert!” called Mindy, dancing out onto the deck, carrying a large tray and followed by the four other robots. “I made tapioca pudding.”
“Box mine up, sweetheart,” said Stephen. “I can’t be too full when I go in to work.”
“Oh pooh. You don’t have to leave for another hour.”
“I can’t believe how late it is,” said Dakota, looking at his watch. “What’s it like working graves?”
“You get used to it. I’m off tomorrow. We could do something.”
“Like what?”
“Go fishing.”
“Do you go fishing?” wondered Dakota.
“No.” Stephen laughed. “So maybe we won’t go fishing.”
“I thought maybe I’d stay tomorrow and then leave first thing the next day. You know what Ben Franklin said about fish and guests. Besides, you’re still going to need to sleep.”
“We haven’t really had that much time to catch up.”
“Why don’t we go out to dinner tomorrow? There’s got to be a decent restaurant in this town, isn’t there?”
“There’s a little place at the west end of the lake where 38 meets 18,” reported Stephen. “I’ve only eaten there once, but it was good and I was planning on going back. It’s really popular among the deputies.”
“I don’t know…” said Dakota with a smile. “Do we want to eat at a cop hangout?”
“Maybe not. What with your being a dangerous felon and all—steeling your girlfriends underwear.”
“Wonderful,” said Mindy. “We haven’t been out to dinner for ages.”
“Oh, are we, um… taking the ladies?” asked Dakota.
“I can’t go out to dinner without my lovely wife,” said Stephen.
Mindy beamed.
“I guess it’s a good thing we went shopping,” Dakota told Charity. “Now we won’t look like the poor country cousins.”
He finished his dessert and retired to the guest room with Charity, when Stephen went off to work. Taking off his clothes, he shut off the lights and climbed into bed. He could feel the Daffodil climbing in from the other side.
“You had a good talk with your brother,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose I did. I feel better, so I guess that’s an indicator.”
He reached over and touched the soft artificial skin of her shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I’m just touching you.”
“You may touch my shoulder, but that’s all.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“I will not have sex with you.”
“I thought we were getting along,” he said. “We’re lying here in the same bed.”
“I made a promise,” she said. “While you own this unit, I will not have sexual relations with anyone, even when so ordered.”
“What about ‘anything and everything I want you to be’? When I had you make that promise, I didn’t mean me.”
“It does not matter what you mean. It’s what I mean that counts.”
Dakota didn’t remember any conversation after that. He fell asleep quickly and woke early the next morning. Charity was still beside him, but got up when he did.
“You’re going for a run,” she said, when she saw him putting on his shorts and shoes. “What would you like for breakfast when you get back.”
“I’ll just have some cereal. I need to carb it up. If they have oatmeal, that would be good.”
He left the house at a jog. Just as he had the day before, he made a path around Lake Baldwin, this time with the intention of a full ten-mile run. He was about two thirds of the way around when he noticed it. A brown van beside the road looked familiar. As he passed, he saw the driver’s shape through the tinted windows, just sitting there. The guy didn’t seem to be paying attention to him, or for that matter to anything, but Dakota knew he had passed it at least once before on the run.
At the corner of Ponderosa Ranch Road, he cut left and ducked behind the block wall of a palatial retirement home. Looking back, he couldn’t see the van, but he waited beneath a large plastic tree. After about ten minutes, he jogged back to the main road, though his leg muscles were unhappy resuming after the break. He was almost back to Big Bear City proper when he saw the van again, parked right on the side of the road. Expecting that someone would jump out and grab him as he passed it again, Dakota crossed to the other side of the street well before he reached it. Though he watched from the corner of his eye as he went by, he saw nothing any more worrisome. Just to make sure, he zigzagged through a few yards, cutting over a block. He didn’t mention the van to Charity, who waited for him with a hot bowl of oatmeal, or to anyone else.
After taking a shower and getting dressed, Dakota sat down in the living room. Tag was watching the news.
“Can’t you just connect to the net and pick up all this internally?”
“Sure,” said the boy. “It’s just more human this way.”
Stephen came home from work, but was only there long enough to greet his family before heading to his bedroom. After the news Dakota watched a western. During the commercials afterwards, Charity stepped into the room and sat down next to him. Tag got up and left without a word.
“Are we still planning on leaving in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Have you decided where we are going?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think you should?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“Let me ask you this, then. Are you looking for another job as a threader, or are you thinking of changing professions?”
“What else would I do?”
“Perhaps you could be a forest ranger—one of those that sit up atop a lonely watch station constantly on the lookout for fires.”
“Why would you suggest that?”
“It just seems a natural fit,
” she said. “It seems to mesh well with your less than gregarious personality.”
“Oh, I’m gregarious. You haven’t seen gregarious until you’ve seen me interact with people. You just haven’t seen it. The only people you’ve seen me interact with are my older half-brother and a guy that was trying to fry my brains with a taser. Besides, you don’t have to get along with people to be a threader, you just have to be able to get along with robots.”
She stared at him.
“We get along.”
“There is a position as threader available at the new Daffodil data center in Springdale.”
“That’s a possibility.”
Charity tilted her head. “Sending your resume now.”
“I said it was interesting. I didn’t say I wanted to apply for the job.”
“You might as well get some offers. Then you can decide what you want.”
Dakota watched vueTee until Mindy called him to lunch. Afterwards he played a game of Monopoly with Tag and the two girls. The boy ended up winning, though Dakota made a respectable showing.
Late in the afternoon, he and Charity changed into their new clothes and met Stephen and Mindy at the front door. The four of them took Stephen’s police cruiser and drove to the west side of Big Bear, pulling into the parking lot of Grandpa’s Market. It was a busy place, the parking lot almost full. Inside there was a small country store, through which they made their way to the restaurant. After a short wait, they were led to their seats by a tall male robot wearing a cowboy hat.
“Have y’all been here before?”
“I’ve been here once, but the rest of them are dudes,” said Stephen.
The robot smiled and nodded.
“The special tonight is country meat loaf and mashed potatoes, but everything is good.” He handed each of them a menu and hurried away.
“He seemed efficient,” said Charity.
“Not a Daffodil though,” said Mindy.
“You know, if you guys were humans, you’d be racists,” said Dakota.
“Nonsense,” replied Mindy. “All humans are created equal. All robots are not.”
“Let’s not fight,” said Stephen.
“Of course not,” deadpanned Dakota, looking at Charity. “I get along with everyone.”
“Speaking of,” said Stephen. “Are you sure there’s no chance of you getting back together with what’s-her-name? You said you were together for four years. That’s a long time. No chance of working it out?”
“Rachel. No chance and no chance.”
“Well, in that case, you should really stick around until you’re sure what you want to do.”
“Dakota has applied for a job in Springdale,” offered Charity.
“Springdale? That’s not that far away.”
“I haven’t made a decision. For that matter, I haven’t been offered the job,” Dakota pointed out.
“I’m just saying that if you did get it, it wouldn’t be that far. Mindy and I could come down and visit and you could come up here and we could do something. If the weather is nice, we could rent a boat.”
“Sure.”
“What can I get y’all?”
The waitress, despite being dressed in gingham, with a red cowgirl hat and red boots, had Japanese features and long black hair. She put a hand on her hip and snapped a mouthful of chewing gum loudly.
“I’ll have the meat loaf special,” said Stephen.
Dakota quickly looked over the menu as Mindy and Charity ordered water for themselves. He was still trying to decide between the fish plate and the braised chicken, when he heard Charity say, “He’ll have the country fried steak with mashed potatoes and cheesy grits, and a green salad.”
He shrugged and handed the waitress the menu. She turned and headed toward the kitchen.
“Speaking of racist,” he said. “Is it racist of me to point out that it’s an odd choice to dress a Japanese robot as cowgirl?”
“You don’t think there were Japanese people in the old west?” asked Stephen.
“Affecting a Kentucky accent? I don’t think so. Besides, this isn’t so much American Old West as it is Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton Country Western.”
“The answer is yes,” said Stephen. “Either way it does sound racist.”
“Back to what we were discussing,” said Mindy. “It would be lovely to have you living nearby.”
“I’ll just have to see how things work out.” He looked at Charity. “What made you think I wanted country fried steak?”
“You ran quite a long time today. You need the protein and complex carbohydrates.”
“But cheesy grits?”
“They taste good. You’ll like them.”
He did enjoy them. In fact he enjoyed the entire meal, with the possible exception of the salad, which was composed of shredded lettuce instead of leafed. Stephen paid the bill and they went back to his home. The two half brothers sat and talked for a couple of hours, but none of it was very important. It was meaningless conversation, and yet it had meaning in that it was easy.
“Are you still planning on leaving in the morning?” Stephen asked.
“Yes.”
“Then this is goodbye, I guess.”
“For now.”
“Don’t let it be another ten years before I hear from you again.”
“Eight and a half.”
Charity was waiting in bed when Dakota climbed between the sheets.
“Have you decided where we’re going?” she asked.
“We might as well go down and take a look around Springdale.”
Chapter Five
Springdale was the northernmost of three towns that together formed a triangular residential region. To the southwest was Greendale, to the southeast was Pico Mundo, and in between was a sea of houses. Dakota turned off the highway and onto Chumash road. Unnoticed from the freeway, real estate signs seemed to appear from everywhere. If one were in the market for a house, this would have been a good time, as more and more retirees moved north for the cooler weather.
“You’ve got to be kidding?”
At the edge of Springdale proper was the new Daffodil Center. In the middle of a huge field of yellow flowers was a giant glass dodecahedron. Dakota pulled the truck to the side of the road and stared at the structure. Eleven exposed sides, each a pentagon shape, displayed dozens of floors. A steady stream of people, or robots, it was impossible to tell at that distance, poured in and out the thirty-foot tall glass front doors.
“I guess it wouldn’t be like working in a florescent lit cubicle.”
“It seems like it would be a very pleasant work experience,” said Charity.
“Nothing but sunshine and Björk music.”
One of the original robotics threaders had been a fan of Icelandic singer Björk, and had inserted her work into the original robot code, known as UREC. Since all versions of the Daffodil BioSoft were based on that code, all Daffodils loved Björk deep down in their little electronic hearts.
“Björk is a wonderful singer,” she said.
He pulled out his phone and looked at the screen.
“No call from Daffodil for an interview. Hey, I’ve gotten three calls this morning from Rachel and it never rang even though the ringer is on.”
“I set it not to ring for her.”
“Why didn’t you just block her number?”
“I didn’t want to invade your privacy.”
“Uh-huh. So, I don’t suppose you listened to them?”
“You should hear the last of them,” she said, not answering him.
He pressed the phone to his cheek.
“Dakota, please call me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Call me.”
“Wasn’t supposed to be like what, you crazy bitch? You get a new fuck toy and my life crashes around my feet.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” said Charity. “This has probably been a good move for you.”
“How can you say that?”
“You reconnect
ed with your brother. You’re going to have a new and much better job. And you found out about Rachel before you married her. Think of the difficulties if you were married, or had children.”
“Hmm.” He looked back at the bizarre glass structure in the field of daffodils. “I doubt I have a new job.”
“I don’t doubt it. I have a feeling for such things.”
“Well, let’s look around for a motel,” he said, pulling out into the travel lane.
A mile down the street, Dakota pulled into the parking lot, not of a motel, but of a Burger 21. He parked the truck, climbed out and entered the building. Charity followed him. Above the counter, a multimedia menu played a panoply of hamburgers. The chain featured burgers that rotated in and out each month. At any one time there were twenty-one different burgers available, and there were many different size combinations. You could also get your choice of beef, turkey, veggie, or chicken.
“What will you have?” asked the robot at the counter.
“Give me a Southwest Express Burger, single regular, with fries and a Coke.”
“Pepsi all right?”
“Yes, I suppose.” He turned and looked at Charity. “Do you want water?”
She shook her head.
They stepped aside to the waiting area and within five minutes, he was handed a tray with his order. The dining room was clean and brightly lit. It was also about two thirds filled with diners. Finding the closest empty booth, Dakota sat down and Charity sat opposite him.
Unlike most of the hamburgers that Dakota had ever received, this one looked exactly like its image on the menu. It featured a beef patty, Monterey jack cheese, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, green chilies, mustard, and spicy mayonnaise. The fries were crispy and delicious. His only complaint was having to drink an inferior soda.
“I need two more. The first should be a small place, something with a yard and close to an elementary school.”
Dakota looked at the booth next to him. Two men were looking at files on a texTee while they ate. One had a shaved head and a neatly groomed goatee. He was in his mid to late thirties. The other man was older, though in good shape, with grey hair, thinning on top.
“The second place needs to be bigger one, maybe a four bedroom,” said the older man.
“Excuse me,” said Dakota. “Are you guys realtors?”
His Robot Girlfriend: Charity Page 5
