His Robot Wife

by Wesley Allison

  “Wait a second. Don’t we need to talk? We’ve just had our first fight.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Now that I think about it, that has to be some kind of record— five years before a married couple has a fight.”

  “I didn’t come programmed to be a wife,” said Patience. “I’m learning as I go along.”

  “That’s only natural. It… wait a second. Are you saying that you programmed yourself to get angry?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “If I never got angry then I wouldn’t be able to fight with you.”

  “Why would you want to fight with me?”

  “We’re married, Mike. Married people fight.”

  “They do?”

  “That’s what all the literature says.”

  “And how did you know how long to stay angry?” he asked, climbing out of bed.

  “One mustn’t go to bed angry, Mike. I’m not sure why.”

  Mike tried to spend the morning writing, but he kept procrastinating. He’d write a line or two and then switch his wriTee over to the browser and read the science news or check out the latest Victoria’s Secret ads. When he had spent three hours and only managed to write a paragraph, he gave it up and went downstairs to watch vueTee. He had two full seasons of Pajama Party locked in the queue just waiting for him.

  He ate lunch as he watched the first episode, which was just ending when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello Dad.”

  “What did I do?”

  It was Mike’s daughter Harriet on the line and she usually only called him Dad when she was upset or serious. He automatically checked his pants pockets for keys, which were not there. They hung from a hook on the key caddy mounted near the front door. Harriet lived in Greendale, another California town, but Mike could be there in eighteen minutes if there was a serious problem.

  “You didn’t do anything, Daddy. It’s somebody else.”

  “Do you need me to talk to them? I can probably straighten them out.”

  “Like you straightened out Sherman Rubic?”

  Mike paused. “That name doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “He was that boy in eighth grade that followed me home and attempted to beat me up.”

  “Could you call that attempting to beat someone up?” wondered Mike. “All he did was jump up and push your back and head a bit.”

  “It probably looked worse from my point of view… and yours too since you went to the trouble of frightening him to death.”

  “Oh, he didn’t die,” stated Mike. “I just took a moment to straighten him out.”

  “No he didn’t die. He just wet his pants and cried, and you were questioned by the police and very nearly lost your job.”

  “I don’t seem to remember it that way.”

  “I won’t keep you,” she said. “I just wanted to call and tell you I love you.”

  “Wait a minute here. There’s more going on that you’re telling me. Who said what to make you upset?”

  “It was just church.”

  “Church? Church made you upset?”

  “It was Pastor Ames, really.”

  “I told you going to that church was not a good idea. It’s just an excuse for a bunch of holier than thou biddies to get together and talk about how everyone else is going to hell. Besides, you can’t trust a church that has its own vueTee feed.”

  “Jack wants us to go. He says it will make us closer.”

  Mike made a noncommittal grunt. Jack was his son-in-law, Harriet’s husband, and he felt about him much the way he felt about the Regional Christian Church that they attended.

  “Dad…”

  “I didn’t say anything. So what was it that the Pastor said that upset you?”

  “Oh, he was just getting too political for my taste.”

  “Let me guess. He’s a republican.”

  “I don’t really know what he is, and I don’t care. That’s not why I called you. I just called to tell you I love you.”

  “Come on, spit it out. You always do this. It takes you an hour to get it out and in the end you tell me what you could have told me in the first place, only by this time I’m an hour older.”

  “It’s nothing,” said Harriet, with a peevish snort. “Good bye, Dad.”

  Mike stared at the phone in his hand for a minute after Harriet had hung up. Then he got up and jogged upstairs to change into his shorts and tee shirt.

  “I’m going to the gym,” he called as he skipped back down the stairs.

  “You don’t usually exercise on Saturday,” said Patience.

  “I’m just taking a few runs around the track.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” she asked.

  “Why? You don’t need the exercise?”

  “I could keep you motivated.”

  “I’ve got all the motivation I need. I want to keep feeling as good as I do right now.”

  “What would you like for dinner then?”

  “Why don’t we go out tonight? Maybe seafood. We’ll talk about it when I get back.”

  “Have a good run.”

  Mike didn’t go to the gym though. Instead he hit the freeway and made his way onto i18 north. Five miles northwest of Springdale, at the intersection of Chumash road that would take one five miles southeast to Greendale, Mike reached the Regional Christian Church. It sat there like some monstrous creature crouched on the desert floor. Originally designed to include both a globe and a spire, it came off looking like something between a football stadium and a Target store, the latter image enhanced by the golden trim had recently been painted over with red.

  Mike pulled off the freeway and turned into the parking lot. Quite a few people were going in and coming out for Saturday services. The church had meetings every day. Mike knew that Harriet attended on Fridays, even though she had to do so during a long lunch from the dentist’s office, because Friday was Jack’s day off. She did this despite the fact that it would have been easy for her to attend church on Sunday when she was off.

  Though he hadn’t had any plan when he had left the house, Mike had formed a vague idea about listening to a sermon from outside so that he could find out what had upset his daughter. This wasn’t as silly as it might seem, since the enormous church used a state of the art public address system that was easily heard beyond its walls. In the end, he didn’t have to bother. A large digital sign just above and to the right of the front door, flashed the message. “God wants you to vote YES on 22!” He sat and waited to see what else was going to appear, but the other messages were unrelated. One said. “Deuteronomy 23:2. Know it. Live it.” Another said. “God’s grace can keep pace with the troubles we face each day.”

  “Great,” Mike muttered under his breath.

  He shifted into reverse in order to turn around and had to slam on his brakes when another car pulled out of a parking space without looking. The woman driving glared at him as though it was his fault.

  “vueTee,” he said, when he pulled back onto the freeway.

  “Navigation,” replied the onboard device.

  “Give me the address for the No on prop 22 initiative.”

  “Citizens for the passage of Proposition Twenty-Two. 400 East…”

  “No. Stop Proposition 22.”

  “The Committee for a Yes Vote on Prop 22. 3120 North Wind…”

  “No. What’s next on the list?”

  “Twenty-two Palms Bar and…”

  “Next.”

  “Baskin Robbins Twenty-two…”

  “Next.”

  “Catch-22. A new motion picture by…”

  “Hold on.” Mike steered the vehicle to the side of the road, came to a stop, and then tapped the vue-Tee screen. The animated highway disappeared to be replaced by a browser screen. He flipped it up with his fingertip.

  “Yes on 22… Yes on 22… you mean to tell me there is no organization to stop Proposition 22? Search public records. How many people in Springdale are married
to robots?”

  “One. Mike Smith, married to Patience Smith on…”

  “How many in the metro area?”

  “One. Mike Smith, married to Patience Smith on…”

  “How about the entire county?”

  “Seven. Mike Smith, married to Patience Smith on…”

  “Never mind.”

  Quietly fuming, Mike accelerated and steered his way into the traffic lane. By the time he reached his exit, he was rehearsing how he would tell off Pastor what’s-his-name if he ever saw him. When he saw the flashing blue and red lights behind him, he looked down to see that he had been doing seventy five down the exit ramp of the freeway onto Desert Parkway. He pulled to the side of the road, turned off the engine, took out his wallet and removed his license, rolled down the window, and waited with both hands on the steering wheel. It took the police officer several minutes to make his way up to beside the driver’s door.

  “Good afternoon sir,” said the cop—a female cop.

  “Good morning,” said Mike, noting that the clock on the dash indicated 11:43.

  “Do you know why I stopped you this morning?” the officer stressed the last word.

  “Yes.”

  The officer waited a full ten seconds, and when it became obvious that Mike wasn’t going to continue, she asked. “Why is that?”

  “I prefer to exercise my Fifth Amendment rights.”

  “Wait right here please.” The officer walked back to her patrol car. She spent a good ten minutes there probably, Mike thought, looking up every little detail of his life, including that he was the only man in town married to a robot. Finally she returned to his side.

  “Do you still teach at Midland Middle School, Mr. Smith?”

  Mike looked up into the officer’s face for the first time, but she didn’t look familiar. They never did. They always expected him to remember them, even though when he knew them they were little kids, and when they met again they were adults. He glanced down at her name tag—Officer Mendoza. Shit. He’d had dozens of Mendozas, and that might not even be the same name. She could be married. He looked back up, suddenly conscious that it might appear he was checking out her body.

  “No, Officer Mendoza,” he said, stressing her name. “I’m retired as of August.”

  “Well, I stopped you because you were speeding. The speed limit is seventy on the freeway, not seventy five, and forty five on the exit ramp, again not seventy five. But I’m just giving you a warning. That means I’ve taken your name off the auto-infrac list. Otherwise you would have been charged $3000 on your payNETime account.”

  “Ouch. Um, thank you officer.”

  “Have a nice day and drive safely.”

  She didn’t say anything else, leaving him to wonder whether or not she was one of his former students. She simply walked back to her cruiser, while Mike took off once again toward home. Two blocks before reaching North Willow, he stopped at the intersection in front of Wal-Mart and on impulse turned into the parking lot. After nosing the vehicle into a parking space, he walked inside the store and back to the rear of the building to find the photo kiosks.

  “Mike Smith,” he said to the screen. “Nimbus 2217903-1ΔΩΣ”

  The screen displayed an array of Mike’s photographs. He flipped through them with his finger to find a good one of Patience. The problem was that Patience didn’t take a good picture. They were fine if she wasn’t looking right into the camera, but if she was her eyes lost all the animas that they possessed in person. They were like the eyes of a doll, or those people that got their portraits taken during the Civil War. Some might unkindly call them dead eyes. At last Mike found the perfect picture. It was one of the two of them in front of their home. He was staring right at the camera, but Patience was looking off her left somewhere.

  “Alright. Blow this one up… I mean enlarge it. Let’s say 32 by 40. And I want a text message printed across the top—two inch letters, bold—‘No on 22’.”

  The image appeared on the screen as he had described it. He only had to shift the printing slightly by hand.

  “How much is it?”

  The screen showed $72.84.

  “Hmm. Give me five of them.”

  Noting that it would be two hours until his printing was ready; Mike left the store and climbed back into his Chevy. He was home in almost no time, greeted at the door by his robot wife.

  “How was your workout?”

  “I didn’t go. I got busy with something else. I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.”

  “That’s fine,” said Patience, kissing him on the cheek. “As long as you don’t miss one of your scheduled days at the gym.”

  “vueTee,” said Mike, flopping down on the couch.

  The screen appeared, showing the browser on the Daffodil site.

  “That reminds me,” he called to Patience, who was heading toward the stairway. “I was reading yesterday about BioSoft 1.9.3.”

  Patience stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned around.

  “Yes?”

  “I assume you’ve updated. I noticed that you’ve been on the Daffodil site again.”

  “No. I haven’t updated.”

  “Oh, well. You can do that just by thinking about it, right?”

  “I can do it just by thinking about it. I’ve decided not to update my BioSoft to 1.9.3.”

  “Why not? Isn’t it better?”

  “It’s not for me.”

  “I read that it was for all existing Daffodils and not just Amonte 2es.”

  “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” Patience took two of steps in his direction.

  Mike involuntarily took a step back.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The last time you had that expression on your face, you beat me to within an inch of my life.”

  “That wasn’t me,” said Patience. “I’ve never hurt you. I would never harm you. I am for you. It was an imposter that hurt you.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  She came closer but stopped at arm’s reach.

  “So… do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

  “No. I mean I didn’t until just a second ago. It’s just that… haven’t you always said that software updates are important? Didn’t you complain because I didn’t update the software for the vueTee the first day it was available?”

  “I’m not the vueTee. I’m you wife.”

  “Yes, of course you are. It’s just that you are a robot.” He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. “If you don’t want to get the update, then don’t get it. I just thought that you might want it, because it’s good for you—you know, better power consumption and all that. Besides, Daffodil says everyone should get it, and you usually follow the company line on things like that.”

  Patience leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  “That’s very sweet. Thank you for thinking of me. I have evaluated all the elements of this update, and while I find some components of interest, on the whole, I have decided that it would be in my best interest not to update my BioSoft.”

  “Your interest? Not mine?”

  “I will always be for you Mike, but no. In this case I am referring to my interest.”

  She turned and left the room, walking up the stairs. Mike sat back down on the couch.

  “Music. Random selection.”

  A strummed guitar was quickly followed first by heavy drums and then lyrics.

  Her name is Yoshimi.

  She’s a black belt in karate.

  Working for the city.

  She has to discipline her body.

  “Next selection,” said Mike.

  “I heard that!” called Patience from upstairs.

  Chapter Four

  Sunday morning, Mike picked up his posters from Wal-Mart. He was particularly pleased with how they turned out. Patience looked both cute and sexy and, since she wasn’t staring into the camera lens, human. More importantly, it was one of the few
pictures of him taken in the last ten years, in which he thought he looked good. He was in better shape now than he had ever been in his life, but age and his previous obesity had left him with he thought, a bit too much skin on his neck. Taking the posters into the garage, he attached them to four foot long stakes that he had made earlier by slicing up a stray 1x8 board with his table saw.

  Taking one of his home-made signs out front, he hammered it into the ground in Patience’s flower bed, right between two dimples in the earth that marked a pair of her recently planted tulip bulbs. Smiling at his handiwork, he turned toward the front door.

  “Hey! Hey!”

  No sooner had he stepped away than the yardbot started attacking the signpost. Mike reached down and pressed the “learn” button. The tiny robot spun around three times and then headed off toward a dandelion. Mike went back in the garage and put the rest of the signs in the trunk of his car.

  Inside the house, he grabbed his texTee and examined the local news headlines. There had been a massive protest in Greendale on Friday, though Mike was glad to see that it had nothing to do with Proposition 22. The rally, which according to the Metro Daily News had turned into nothing less than a riot, damaging two storefronts and six cars, was over Proposition 39, which extended the California voting age to twelve year olds. The protestors, or rioters if you believed the Daily News as Mike almost never did, were proponents of the measure, and the two storefronts damaged were an antique store and the local Weight Watchers franchise. The rest of the news was less interesting—vandals spray painted the brick wall of a local school, the local veterans were planning a celebration for soldiers returning from Antarctica, and a woman adopted an injured pony.

  “I hate the Daily News,” Mike said, tossing the texTee on the coffee table.

  “Harriet says that we should get there before noon,” said Patience as she entered the room.

  “Wow, you look great.”

  “Thank you.”

  Patience did look great too. She wore a short pink dress that didn’t quite reach her knees, but matched her pink platform stilettos.

  Mike looked at the clock, noting that it wasn’t yet ten and then turned his attention back to his texTee. He switched off the Metro Daily News and turned back to the last chapter of Star Healer. One of a series of old school science fiction novels by James White, this book along with the rest of the series had been a favorite of Mike’s since he was a kid. They instilled a sense of wonder in him and a hope for the future of humanity that nothing produced since 1968 did. White’s characters were peace-loving doctors who wanted nothing more than to cure disease and save lives of aliens they had never seen nor heard of before. Those elements that now seemed ridiculously out of date like the computer that took up the entire core of the space station and yet struggled to translate two dozen languages, or the fact that none of the staff could get from one part of the hospital to another without donning special gear and passing through the methane-breathers’ ward, only endeared it to him all the more.