Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here

by Anna Breslaw

  “So what are you saying? There are ten thousand silicone orphans now?”

  “Listen to me. Okay? Please, please list—”

  “No. Steve? No. Absolutely not. You really think it’d be better if some random . . . robot came in here and slept in her bed and wore her clothes?”

  “Nothing else has worked! We’re not in a good place! We haven’t been for years, Sheil. It’s been . . . just, no talking, no intimacy. Nothing.”

  Her face fell in horror.

  “Oh my God, are you using this to try to get a teenage sex robot into our house?”

  How could he explain it to her? Why he—vice president of the company, in charge of this new and highly scrutinized product development—irresponsibly tossed out valuable market research results and data and survey feedback on Miss Ordinarias from eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old men left and right. Why he recklessly deleted notes from the server like “pushiness didn’t score well” and “no crude language unless prompted” because all he could hear was his daughter’s unique snort-laugh after she told a “your mom” joke, and all he could see were her freckles and the weird way she drank through a straw, sticking it between her index and ring finger and sipping on it. He’d never get his daughter back, so he made her again, in small ways, by the thousands. Sheila would never forgive him.

  He dropped his fork with a clatter and put his head in his hands.

  Sheila’s voice was measured when she asked, “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  * * *

  What Steve didn’t know was that there was not actually that big of a surplus. Parents had started purchasing the wiped, refurbished Miss Ordinarias—not for their sons but for their friendless daughters. The blinding-white Miss Ordinaria rental places had become as accessible as any Apple Store, and it was unexpectedly lucrative. (There were rentals for one day, one week, one prom date, one school year, one four-year college roommate, one wedding. . . . )

  If you were a middle-class seventeen-year-old girl who was weird or different or had health issues, or even were just flat-out unlikable, it was highly likely your parents rented a robot slumber party friend for you that year. If you were upper-middle-class, maybe you kept one through high school. If you were rich, you got yourself a lifetime friendship.

  * * *

  Scarlett learned this when her father rented her one. His visit was an unexpected surprise. He lived pretty far away, with a whole new family. But as soon as she saw the large white box on the lawn, she knew.

  “I just wanted you to see how different you are from—that.” He looked encouragingly at Scarlett, and she winced inside thinking about her Ordinaria mom. “Just for a day! And then, if you like it, maybe I can swing a four-year college roommate rental for a graduation gift.”

  Scarlett looked down, her face burning with humiliation.

  “Besides,” he asked, “it’ll be nice to spend time with someone your own age, won’t it?”

  “Technically,” she said, trying not to let her voice waver, “she is, at the oldest, six.”

  He left, and Scarlett sat on the lawn with the unwrapped box and cried, like the biggest spoiled baby ever. Was she that big of a loser? And for that matter, which half of her was the loser—the Ordinaria half or the human half?

  She untied the ribbon and opened the white box. The girl inside it immediately sat up, with pale skin and thick straight hair the color of leaves in autumn. Scarlett recognized her from school: She’d belonged to Gideon. She was his eighteenth-birthday present, until his father used Gideon’s high profile (this year in TIME it was “heir to the Ordinaria Inc. fortune” and “young playboy,” a phrase that could not apply to Gideon less) to rent her out for astronomically high rates.

  “Hey!” said Ashbot.

  Scarlett realized that if Ashbot was a rental now, her memory had been wiped, and she had no idea who Scarlett or Gideon were anymore.

  “Um . . . hello.”

  “So, we’re hanging out today, I think, right?”

  Scarlett nodded, getting the vague sensation that this interaction wasn’t a one-way street: Ashbot was sizing her up too.

  “Wanna go to the bookstore?” suggested Ashbot. “Or—oh!—they’re playing that French subtitle movie in an art house movie theater in Hamilton; we could go there.”

  Scarlett wondered if Ashbot was programmed with some background info on Scarlett’s likes and dislikes . . . or if Ashbot was just into that stuff. She thought for a moment, bit her lip, and shrugged.

  Even Scarlett surprised herself when she asked, “Want to go see that stupid Nicholas Sparks movie?”

  “Okay.”

  After the movie, they sat on a rusty set of kids’ swings overlooking the white behemoth of Ordinaria Inc., and together they watched it become dusk. Scarlett felt odd, maybe even a little nauseated. Something was shifting inside her, like someone had put braces on her worldview.

  “Do you . . . feel stuff?” asked Scarlett. She was sure the Miss Ordinarias started out uncannily human in the first place . . . but they gained more unique personalities and speech patterns only over time.

  Ashbot shrugged and looked away. “Not really.”

  But it sounded less like a robot’s answer and more like the answer of a girl who doesn’t want to admit that she does, in fact, have feelings.

  “Did you feel stuff today?”

  Ashbot thought about it. “Today right before your dad came in, four girls were rented as bridesmaids, for the same bride, because she seemed awful and I guess nobody wanted to be in her wedding party, and I felt, maybe angry? And I didn’t want to be angry! Only creepy guys rent the angry ones.” She shuddered, then looked thoughtful. “I think we sort of feel like . . . always the second-best thing. Like our roles are already decided for us when we’re rented, even if it’s just for a day.”

  Scarlett had been so very wrong. She had been wrong from top to bottom, left to right, her wrongness splattering everywhere like a Pollock painting.

  “I’m sorry,” Scarlett said.

  “For what?” Ashbot asked.

  “I, um . . .”

  . . . Militarized an angry mob to chase you off the Pembrooke campus and probably short-circuit you if they had the chance. Underestimated your worth.

  “I just . . . I wasn’t very nice to you.” Scarlett stared out into the sunset and said softly, “It was just because parts of me are like you. And I didn’t like those parts of myself. You know?”

  “It’s okay.” Ashbot nodded. “There are parts of myself I don’t like either.”

  * * *

  Scarlett banged on Gideon’s door until his father answered. His face immediately curdled.

  “My son is busy,” he snapped and attempted to shut the door in her face. But it was too late—Gideon was already running down the stairs. He pushed past his father, and he and Scarlett ran to his car. They got in, shut the door, and peeled off.

  “What’s going on?!” Gideon asked, alarmed, as he turned out of the gated community and onto the main road.

  “Do you want Ashbot back?”

  “What are you . . . what?”

  “Do you want Ashbot back? She’s at my house.”

  “What? No,” Gideon snapped, not entirely convincingly. She just looked at him. Finally, he relented: “I don’t know.”

  Scarlett felt the tears spring to the surface but tried to keep breathing.

  “Were you upset when your dad took her away?”

  Gideon’s face indicated that he was more than just upset. He pressed his lips together angrily as he stared out at the road. “My whole life, I swore I’d never be one of those guys who buys an Ordinaria, and now I’m one of them. I’m such a scumbag.”

  Scarlett shook her head adamantly, and one tear fell—ricocheted, really. A selfish part of her wished she could agree with him that Ashb
ot was just a machine, that being with Scarlett was way more worthwhile. But it had clearly become a false binary.

  “They’re not just robots like they used to be. They’re different. They’re, like . . . real. I don’t know how they have feelings, but . . . you didn’t do anything wrong. You like a real girl.”

  “But I like you too.” He kept his eyes on the road, refusing to look at her.

  She blushed. “Yeah . . . but . . . I mean, we’re half 1.0s. Which is just half, but a much older model. Ashbot is a 2.0. Cutting-edge.”

  They sat there for a minute, both thinking the same thing, until finally she said it in a tiny voice:

  “Maybe she’s more human than we are.”

  Gideon didn’t respond—he just turned off the main road and merged onto the highway, heading to Scarlett’s house.

  When they arrived at Scarlett’s, though, Ashbot was nowhere to be found.

  “At the very least, the rental place is gonna charge my dad a small fortune,” Scarlett said, glancing frantically under the sofa’s dust ruffle.

  “I’m not going to let her be rented out,” said Gideon. “I’m just not going to. I don’t know if I want to keep her forever, but—”

  At that moment, Scarlett’s Ordinaria mom came home. She was an older model but a classic bleach-blonde, round-faced and buxom, her fan whirring loudly from overwork—a sound that used to bug Scarlett, but now she didn’t mind it. She passed Scarlett and Gideon and sprawled on the sofa. Her battery, as usual, was at 10 percent.

  “Are you two talking about that beautiful Miss Ordinaria? Red hair?”

  “Yes,” they said in unison.

  “Oh, yeah, she was with me for a bit, and then she left. I guess your dad thought you needed a friend.” Scarlett’s mom rolled her eyes, then nudged Scarlett and side-eyed Gideon. “But clearly as long as you’re running around with this hunk of man . . .”

  “Mom, do not.”

  She turned to Gideon fondly. “I remember you when you were just a little toddler playing in the backyard kiddie pool naked, waving your—”

  “Okay, thanks, Mom. Do you know where she went?” asked Scarlett.

  She shook her head.

  * * *

  Sheila answered the door to find an exquisitely beautiful redheaded teenage girl on her stoop, playing with her hair.

  “I’m really sorry,” said the girl, “but I was hoping I could use your phone? Mine is dead, and I need to call my rental place.”

  “Um . . . where’d you park, sweetie? Do you need to get triple A?”

  “No, I mean, I’m the rental.”

  And then she laughed exactly like her. Exactly.

  Sheila felt her face tingle and got dizzy and placed her palms flat on her thighs while bending over slightly, something she’d been taught to do in the frequent moments she felt she might faint. The girl went on.

  “’Cause, I think I want to quit, but I don’t know if they’ll let me. I don’t like being a rental anymore.”

  Stunned, Sheila let her in.

  “Do you want me to get you some water?” the girl asked. “I’m really sorry if I did something.”

  “You didn’t.”

  The girl anxiously filled a glass from the tap and handed it to Sheila.

  “Why would you come here just to use a phone?”

  “Oh.” The girl points to her head. “We have a chip in here with an address, for emergencies. Steve Mullen, VP of Ordinaria Inc., 428 Donovan Lane—”

  “Would you like anything to drink?” Sheila asked faintly. “Please help yourself.”

  The girl smiled and nodded, then got herself a Diet Coke from the fridge. “Thank you.”

  “So—you’re a Miss Ordinaria rental?” asked Sheila.

  The girl nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  She opened her mouth, then cringed. “I don’t like it.”

  “Can’t you just ask for a new one?”

  The girl shook her head. “I’m lucky I even have one, even if it’s dumb. Most of us just have a product ID. Hey, d’you have a straw?”

  Sheila handed her one from the junk drawer and watched as the girl sipped from the straw just like her daughter had—an odd quirk everybody used to make fun of her for. This girl looked nothing like her daughter, but she just was her, somehow, in a way Sheila couldn’t quite grasp.

  Sheila took a deep breath. She couldn’t help herself.

  “How do you feel about Megan?”

  * * *

  Once Scarlett and Gideon managed to break into his dad’s records, Ashbot was easy to track down. She had been purchased by Steve Mullen, the VP of Ordinaria Inc., and his wife, Sheila.

  “Whoa.” Scarlett made a yikes face. “Is that like, ‘rich dude and his wife get a teen sex slave’?”

  Gideon suddenly remembered that Steve’s daughter’s funeral had been around this time of year.

  “Oh, shit.”

  * * *

  “So what’d you do today?” Sheila asked through a mouthful of bruschetta. The pasta was still boiling, but they’d already all sat down to eat. Steve was on his computer, as usual.

  “Put that away!” Sheila nudged him. His glasses slid down his nose as he reluctantly complied, crunching into his bread in silence. Sheila smiled.

  Megan shrugged. “Uhh, I went to class. Soccer practice. We got pizza after.”

  “What!?” Sheila spread her arms wide. “But I made all this.”

  “And I’ll eat all this. And so will Dad.”

  Steve’s head shot up with a split-second expression of extreme distress, but it immediately disappeared. He nodded assent.

  “Yup,” he said. “And we can eat the leftovers all week, babe, so don’t sweat it.”

  Sheila put her hand on his arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Ewww, stop,” said Megan.

  The doorbell rang, and Megan jumped up and ran toward the living room, her long hair—now dyed brown—streaming behind her. “Comiiiiiing!”

  Megan opened the door and found Scarlett and Gideon standing on the stoop, looking incredibly concerned.

  “Hey, can we help you with something?” she asked quizzically.

  “We’ve been looking all over for you, Ashbot!” said Scarlett. Megan winced.

  “That’s not my name anymore. It’s Megan.” She shifted uncomfortably. “And my family and I are kind of in the middle of having dinner, so . . .”

  “You don’t want to do this,” Gideon pleaded. “They don’t really want you—you’re just a replacement. You’re gonna have to live in somebody else’s shadow.”

  Megan shook her head, determined.

  “I don’t care what the reason is. They’re nice to me. They act like I’m their actual daughter. They’re good people, and they were good parents, and what happened to them was unfair. It’s not like when I was a rental, when everybody who hired me was some loser who had no friends because they were making the choice to be a shitty person, even though they wouldn’t admit it.”

  Gideon looked at her for a long time, stunned at the level of critical thinking she was able to do. He couldn’t deny it; she did seem happier.

  “Are you sure?” he whispered.

  Megan nodded. Gideon paused, not knowing what to do next. So he just hugged her. “Okay,” he mumbled into her hair.

  She nodded a farewell to Scarlett and went back inside the warm, bright house where her parents were waiting. She shut the door.

  Scarlett and Gideon began to walk back to his car.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  They smiled at each other.

  “I guess . . . whatever we want.”

  Chapter 26

  IMAGINARY DETECTIVES IS NO LYCANTHROPE HIGH, BUT IT’S pretty damn good: Two rogue P.I.s team up to solve c
rimes that the real cops don’t care enough about. Davis is a tall, handsome family man who always follows the rules, and Nickerson is an insanely hot brooding guy who drinks too much, and they’re “partners,” like in the detective way but also the “as overtly in love as possible on homophobic network television” way. They’re so different, but they silently understand each other. My Tumblr is full of gifs of them right now.

  When I’m not gushing with Loup about them, I’m hanging out IRL with the Girl Geniuses. I used to think they were just mouth breathers, but Leslie is actually kind of awesome and shockingly vulgar once you get to know her better, and Mike is surprisingly sweet and has random hidden hobbies like building crazy things out of Legos and designing kites. I get why Avery likes him—he’s a really nice guy.

  But mostly I sit in Ruth’s garden. Sometimes I work on it, even though real estate agents will probably be by to show the house any day now. It’s looking good. Gardening is a profession, right? Maybe I’ll get into that. I like the harmlessness of it, spending your days growing flowers.

  As I yank some weeds out of the ground, I suddenly hear a baa. Not a distant baa. One that almost literally is in my ear.

  “Hey.”

  Gideon is standing at the perimeter of the garden, holding a leash. He looks tentative, which is a strange expression to see on a guy who just walked a sheep down the side of a highway. The sheep’s expression is vacant, and I think it’s drooling.

  “Is that . . . what the fuck, is that a sheep?”

  Even as I say it, I know full well that I am staring at a sheep. On a leash.

  “Yeah, get it?” he asks, looking absurdly pleased with himself. “You called me a sheep.”

  “Where did you even get it?”

  “Around.”

  “Oh! Around.” That clears everything up.

  “Anyway, so, this is an apology. For being . . . you know.”

  I take a deep breath. “Yeah, look, I—”

  The sheep stares dumbly at me. I start laughing.

  “I don’t mean to look a gift sheep in the mouth, but, um . . . why did you think this was a good plan? Four legs good, two legs bad?”