Like Clockwork

by Patrick de Moss

  Had it stared at her after its performance? Had it been looking to see if she was safe?

  “Thank you,” she ventured. It didn’t reply. “For last night. For … for what you did. Thank you.” Nothing but whirs. Had he saved her? That little dance, the whole act that completely distracted Boston and his goons. Or was it … just something he did?

  “Is Miss Evie hungry?” it said, after a minute.

  “No no, it was … it was.” What? Noble? Gallant? Pathetic? “You were very …” but she couldn’t finish. She didn’t know how.

  It whirred and clicked, and it may have nodded, or it could only have adjusted its head. “Miss Evie must be hungry,” it said. “It is morning. Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children of all ages are generally hungry in the morning.”

  “Is it morning?” She yawned.

  There was a chime from somewhere within it. “The time is now 11:52,” it said in a different, more authoritative voice. Its head swiveled to face her again, and there was that smirk on its frozen mouth. “It is morning.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Right.” She frowned down into her coffee. “I’m ah … be honest, umm ….” She looked at it. “I don’t even know what you’re called. Who you are, I mean?”

  “Who it is ...” it said. And there was a long silence then. “It was called Adam,” it said. “When it was made.” And though the eyes were facing her, she thought it wasn’t seeing anything in the room at all. The whirs and clicks inside it when on for some time. Then the eyes seemed to come back to her. There was a chime. “The time is now 11:58,” it said.

  “Well, I’m not hungry,” she said.

  “Peculiar,” it said. “Ladies, Gentlemen and Children of all ages are generally hungry.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not.”

  “May it inquire as to – ”

  “I couldn’t eat a thing. Okay? I’m – ” she flushed, though she didn’t know why. “Just a wee bit hungover right now, Adam. Thank you, though.”

  There was a silence. “Ah,” it said, and she wanted to strangle it for that condescending tone, although there was no inflection. None at all. “That is unfortunate.”

  “Yes. Yes it is,” she snapped. “Thank you, though. For your concern.” Christ, now she was turning sarcastic and formal. ‘This thing’ was skating on very thin ice.

  “Perhaps a bromide?” it said, looking to her once more. “It is said they are quite helpful.”

  “That isn’t necessary. A little silence. That would be helpful.”

  She could feel those whirs and clicks. Just don’t know when to quit, do you? she asked it in her head, daring it to go on.

  “Perhaps, if it knew how much Miss Evie had imbibed last evening, this thing could perhaps – ”

  “Miss Evie had enough last night. Thank you, Mom.” She glared at it, and put down her coffee, stalking to the bedroom.

  “It is only trying to be helpful,” it called after her.

  “Fuck you,” she called back, helpfully, over her shoulder, grabbing a shirt and jeans from, well, whichever pile, on the floor in the hall.

  “This thing has served others who have had many hangovers,” it said. That flat tone seemed full of distaste.

  “Oh yeah?” She came back into the living room, throwing her nightshirt off. She heard a thump. “Captain Antilles? Was that your last master?” She saw the thing was standing now, staring pointedly out the window. “What. Huh? What?” The whirs it made were very quiet.

  “Would Miss Evie prefer to dress ... ” it said, “ ... more privately?”

  “Miss Evie is going out for coffee,” she said, throwing her shirt on savagely. “Miss Evie is going out shopping. Miss Evie,” she seethed, trying to get into her jeans and tripping a little, “is going out.” She glared at it. “And when she returns, Adam had best be gone.”

  It whirred and clicked, but Evie didn’t wait for it to reply. She slammed the door despite her pounding headache and made for the nearest Starbucks flushed and embarrassed, though she wasn’t quite sure why.

  There was no way it could be alive, she thought. When she looked at it that way, sipping on her coffee as she stared out at the rain from the Starbucks, it made a lot of sense. Adam really gave no sign of being alive-alive. He’d winced, yes, but that could very easily have been her imagination. Had he really blushed when she was changing (had she really just changed right in front of it?) Or was that just ... was it a program or ... she wasn’t sure.

  She went over that moment again and again, turning it this way and that. How he’d pretty much jumped to his feet, his eyes going to the window, all those furious clicks and whirs growing quieter.

  The memory came back, then, through the fog of her hangover, of stopping last night in the rain. She had been shivering, near tears, wanting to just give up on walking, her feet tired, and she had been soaked all the way through. Adam had been standing beside her, clicking, and then he’d ... he’d just reached down and put one arm around her knees, the other around her back, and she had felt the steady grip of those arms lifting her up and drawing her close to his (its? his?) bronze chest, and then he’d started walking again.

  “Just say where,” he’d said, in that warbling voice. “This thing will carry you. It does not tire.” And she’d started crying then, partly due to how tired she’d been, but also because she couldn’t stop shaking, the cold and what they’d done to him in the clearing still so fresh in her mind. Had his arms drawn her closer then? Had they held her even closer as she wept, her hand pressed to his chest as he stumped through the puddles in the rain?

  She’d fallen asleep at some point in the walk, she must have, because she remembered waking up to find those little copper balls staring down at her. It was funny, she thought, stepping out under the awning of the coffee shop, but she hadn’t felt so cold then. You’d think a thing made of metal would be cold, and maybe it was only her body heat warming it up, but she hadn’t really felt the chill at all. Maybe it was all those gears turning inside him, but she had felt so warm, and safe and ....

  She had bought a pack of cigarettes. She was smoking one now, apparently. Evie looked down at her fingers as if she was holding a snake. When did that happen? she thought. The fuck? You quit. We quit. “I thought we agreed on this,” she said to herself. Smoking again? Her mother’s voice chimed in, now sounding mildly mechanical and flat and clicky at the same time. That isn’t a good sign, my girl.

  “Shit,” she said out loud, under the awning, sucking back on it just to spite all of them.

  Hopefully, the thing (Adam? he or it?) was out. Was gone. She didn’t want to deal with all this.

  Smoking was a bad sign. It would be so much better if she hadn’t taken (him, it?) home, if she’d just left it there as a thing she would wonder about from time to time. Because, let’s be honest here, he (it? fuck) had done nothing but laugh at her that morning.

  Had he? (it? Jesus!) She lit another cigarette. It was just ... he was so ... she couldn’t think of a word to pin on him at first, but as she heard that flat, sardonic warble in her head, ‘pompous’ sprang to mind. Not bad, she thought, heading back to her apartment, cupping her smoke to keep off the rain. Pompous works. She should have thrown the smoke out, thrown the whole pack away, but ten dollars was a lot, and it’d be stupid to just throw them all away. Pompous, arrogant ... machine.

  She paced back and forth in front of her building. She glared at the cheery and helpful blue touch-screen beside the entrance that her Strata felt was somehow worth an extra god knows how much on her mortgage. Fucking machines. Fuck you too. She watched it. The screen burbled up nearby cafes, ice-cream shoppes, events-around-town with mindless good cheer at every chirrup and chime. Yeah, she said to it in her head. I’m chain smoking, you stupid touch screen motherfucker. Care to make something of it? That was when she shook her head and snorted at herself for being so wound up. She tossed the half finished smoke into a puddle, and then moaned that she had. Oh well, she thought, with one last glare at the touch-sc
reen bleeping in time to the cross-walk’s helpful burbling warble. At least that one’s out of my house. He’s gone. (Its. Shit) It doesn’t matter.

  But he wasn’t gone. He was actually still sitting on the couch when she opened the front door, as if he hadn’t moved since she had left. Parcifal was lounging on top of the couch against his back.

  “Miss Evie,” he said, standing up to let Lancelot off his lap. He turned with a click and a whir. “Miss Evie – ”

  “I thought I made it clear ... ” she said, throwing her floppy hat on the shoe rack and tossing her jacket on the floor beside it; “I thought I made it perfectly clear I wanted you to leave.” She planted her feet. “Did that not ... what, did that not like compute or something?” There was something wrong with the apartment. She could sense it. Right now, though, she would deal with this thing in her living room. It (if she was going to be pissed with it, it was an it, she thought) was staring at the floor in front of her.

  “Miss Evie,” it began again; “This thing. It has displeased.”

  “Goddamn right you did,” she said, “This Miss Evie is quite displeased. Don’t you dare judge me in my own house. Who does that?”

  “It acted – ” a series of clicks. “It was ....” Evie folded her arms across her chest.

  “Go on,” she said, very softly, dangerously. “I’m waiting.”

  “This thing behaved ... in an ungentlemanly fashion.” It looked up at her then, and back to the floor once more. “Miss Evie was kind enough to offer it shelter, and .... ” It stopped. It clicked.

  “And ... wait.” She looked over his shoulder, putting it together now. “Did you ... did you clean?”

  Adam nodded, still looking at her feet. “It would like to make amends,” it said. “This thing’s behavior was very ....” It stopped. “Untowards.”

  “You touched my stuff,” Evie said, stalking past him down the now pile-free hallway. “You touched my stuff.” Adam turned with her; the whirs and clicks coming from it got quite loud once again.

  “It begs your pardon?”

  “You cleaned my house?” She opened the bedroom door. All of her dirty, slightly dirty, clean but ugly piles, and the rest were gone. “You went into my bedroom? The fuck is wrong with you?”

  “It is sorry,” it said, clicking rather audibly. “It seems to have offended you.” It paused, and with a creak of gears straightened its back, looking her right in the eye. “Yet again. However ....” It stumped one step forward. “It thought, perhaps, an overture of .... ” It clicked. She could feel it bite its tongue. “Kindness. A favor. Would help set things to rights. Apparently ....” The words, she could tell, were stressed by that whir and click of gears, so furious within it. “It has misjudged. Yet again.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t ask you to clean ....”

  “Miss Evie did not ask to be carried home intoxicated last evening either, as this thing recollects.”

  “Oh, we’re going to start with that again are we ...?”

  “This thing did not ask to be taken home by her. Or to be – ”

  “What? Hmm? To be what? Huh?”

  The clicking subsided.

  “Please,” it said. “Please. This thing is truly grateful for your hospitality. Truly, it only wished to make amends. It is sorry it has offended. It did not mean any harm, or disrespect.”

  She opened the bathroom door.

  “You cleaned ... you cleaned the sink,” she said.

  “Please,” it said. “It is lost. It does not know this place. This – ” it looked around, its shoulders slumping with a creak; “it is all terribly confusing. It – ” a sigh of gears as he slumped a little more; “it desperately needs assistance, and would be truly grateful for Miss Evie’s help.”

  She looked at Adam then, and something in the way he stood reminded her of how she’d found him, forlorn and frozen in the woods, a statue, god knows how old. The house was spotless. She folded her arms.

  “How long?”

  “Pardon?”

  “How long will you need to stay?”

  “It is looking for a Mr. Stephen Shepherd. Once it has found him, this thing will go.” Adam looked at her from out of the corner of his rolling round eye, lowering his head slightly, before those copper balls clicked to look at the floor once again.

  “It will do its utmost to not become an – ” he clicked. “An inconvenience.”

  She heard a few soft whirs and clicks, very muffled.

  “A week,” she said at last. “One week, and then you’re out of here.” She’d been through couch-surfers before. She knew if she gave him longer, he’d just ... always be there.

  “A week,” he said, and clicked for a moment. “Miss Evie, forgive this thing, but, what day is it?”

  “Saturday,” she said. “You’ve got until Sunday to find this Stephen guy.” Shit. She’d just gone and given him one more day.

  “Ah,” he said. There was a long pause. “And. Forgive it, but ... what year is it?” She stared at him, and yet somehow she wasn’t surprised. There had been weeds and vines growing up all around him in that clearing.

  “It’s ... it’s 2012,” she said, softly.

  “Ah,” he said. “It ... please forgive. It had set its clock by Miss Evie’s – ” he gestured, somehow loosely, despite it being a tight wind of gears and cogs. Something about him seemed quite undone. “It was ... it did not know how much time had actually passed.” Evie took a step towards him, her hand reaching out to touch his shoulder (its) and then dropped again.

  “How long have you been out there?”

  He looked at her then, those copper eyes and frozen face hidden, closed.

  “Quite some time,” he said. “Quite a long time.” And that was all.

  “Yeah. Well ....” She stepped back. “Right. One week.”

  “Yes, Miss Evie. It thanks you.”

  She turned away, digging into her pocket for the now crushed pack of cigarettes. “Mmmm,” she said, pulling one out and opening the front door. “I’ll be right back.” She turned to stare at him, but he was still looking at the space in the hall where she had been. “Don’t clean anything.”

  “Yes, Miss Evie,” he said, still staring at that spot, alone in the apartment once more.

  She flew down the stairs to the front door, lighting the cigarette before she even remembered the infuriating “No smoking! Our children have a right to breathe too!” signs some asshole had plastered all over the halls of the condo building. She sucked in the smoke, and held it in until she was outside, puffing and pacing under the awning in the rain. She looked up at the building, and saw Adam standing at the window. He wasn’t looking down. He was still, a statue of bronze and copper once more, looking out across the skyscrapers and condos of False Creek, the blinking lights of the Science Expo dome as it flickered blue to green to white as the sun set below a long dark blanket of grey clouds. She had to light another cigarette because she found, somehow, there was a part of her that was shocked at how she’d talked to him. Part of her, some weird, weird part of her wanted him to stay.

  It’s not because he’s handsome ... she thought to herself the next day while she sipped her coffee, watching him. He was sitting at her living room table, pouring over archives and god knows what else, looking for his Shepherd.

  He wasn’t much to look at, at all. His head was an oval, almost shaped like an egg, really, with those round eyes and frozen features. To be honest, he looked ... well ... goofy. Built to be cute and entertain, a circus toy. But then she’d think of how he’d looked standing in the window the night before, seeing the world that had risen up around him while he slept. Even as she came back inside after her cigarette, he hadn’t moved, he’d just stared at the lonely electronic horizon.

  Or how he had seen her to bed, standing at the door to her room with a rusty bow that would have been ridiculous except for his sonorous and grave “Good Evening, Miss Evie. It thanks you. Until tomorrow.”

  Or how his eyes had loo
ked away when she’d stood in front of him, half naked, changing, furious. Or how he had carried her. Or –

  “If you please, Miss Evie.” Adam said, looking up from her laptop. “It needs to find a record of its circus.”

  Lancelot was sitting on his shoulder, and from time to time he would reach up with a bronze and copper hand that looked like it could crush her keyboard or her cat, and absently scritch under Lance’s little chin.

  She got up and went around the table with a sigh to show him (again. I mean, she was trying to be patient and all but he was worse than her mother. How did he NOT understand how Wikipedia worked?) how to search once more.

  “I honestly don’t think you’ll find him,” she said, as those copper balls seemed to look at the side of her neck – she could almost feel them – and then went back to the screen. She stepped closer to him, close to that whirring and clicking sound until she realized she was almost leaning into him, and stepped back.

  “This thing is not worried, Miss Evie. Not in the least. Shepherd is not the kind who hides.” He gingerly took the mouse in his oversized sausage-shaped fingers, and scrolled down the page on Shepherd’s Cavalcade, dissolved in 1902, and said, as if to himself, “He only changes his name when he gets bored of the old one.”

  “That’s not ... that’s not what I meant,” she said, going back to her coffee and sitting. She leaned across the table and touched his (his) arm gently. “It’s ... Adam .... ” He looked up then, and then down to her hand. She took it away, quickly, flushing (Blushing. Jesus.). “It’s been ... it’s been –” she was an accountant for god’s sake – do the math – why was it so hard to do the simple math? “A hundred and – ”

  “Thirty years,” Adam said. His eyes were locked on hers. “One hundred and thirty years, Miss Evie.” He looked away then, back to the screen. “More or less.”

  “How?” She swallowed. “How could anyone live so long?” She could feel that sad sardonic smirk again, the whirl of his gears.