Spare and Found Parts

by Sarah Maria Griffin

  I am coming for you. Please keep ticking. I will find you; I am listening for you. The night is truly down upon me now as the city gives way under neglect and dissolves into desolate countryside. The rain sounds like a million tiny stones thrown down all at once against my umbrella, a clatter, destruction. Like a broken television. Like a radio that does not work. Like the moment eggs begin to really sizzle on a frying pan.

  I will tell you all about televisions, Nell. I will tell you about radios. I will play you every song in my library with rainfall sampled in the music. I hope you will let me dance with you again.

  I am a hundred years older. I am rust under my long coat and gloves. I am afraid. How is it I learned so much from you, Nell, in so little time? How is it that my code can pulse this way? Why did your people make things like me, Nell, if only to teach them this agony?

  Then, over the rough drone of the weather, a sound. It is not your ticking. It is a gnarled, crunching wheeze. It is something broken, but it is at least in your rhythm, with your frequency. I’d know your heartbeat anywhere. Ten thousand songs, and it is still the most marvelous thing I have heard.

  Nell, I want to show you the words these songs have taught me. I want to say heartbreak, ecstasy, tragedy, forgiveness. Waterfall. I want to tell you I have heard all about Fridays. I can hear your body in the dark, and the sound will have to be the blue spot on the white map that I move toward. I know you are alive nearby.

  In the moonlight (I know a lot about moonlight, too), I see your body and bicycle against the silver and black and water. I am standing over you. You are so small, Nell, and your sound is a factory on fire.

  Your oak skin is gray, and I am glad of my gloves and that I cannot hurt you. I could hold twenty of you with my strong arms. I am sorry, I am leaving your bicycle. I can carry you and this umbrella, and that is all. I begin to walk east, back to the city.

  Your eyes flicker open, and you are frightened, then relieved; then your body tenses with pain. You cough, and there is blood on your lips. I run.

  You are gone again, asleep or worse, but still breathing, your chest still churning out that sound, that awful symphony, but at least it means life. At least you are here.

  I drop the umbrella once I am under the porch and hammer on the door with all I can, still holding your body, all limbs and sound and, I am sure, cold, but I cannot feel that through these gloves.

  Dr. Crane answers, Kodak sitting around his shoulders. “What took you so—” Then he sees you and swears. I tell him you are broken, and his voice darkens. “Bring her to the laboratory immediately, stupid child going so far out . . .”

  I don’t ask any questions. I bring you through the white room where you brought me to life, and he closes the door behind us.

  I am not a monster now. I can help.

  CHAPTER 8

  You are standing out at the edge of the lake, the water is lapping your feet, starving. Your hands are full of small stones, shining and black. You place them in the pockets of your nightshirt, then lean down to the shoreline and gather up some more. Your pockets are heavy. This is the only thing you can feel: the weight. Your chest is quiet, and the world is quiet. You are sure you can smell the rain, but it is just beyond your senses.

  Fistfuls of stones.

  The shirt pulls at your shoulders. Maybe it will rip. If it does, you will tie its white flannel arms around your naked waist, and it will be just as good for dragging you down when you walk into the water. You will walk into the water, and you will find her.

  She’ll be lying among the weeds and loaches, hair a vortex of curls, peaceful and safe from the hand of your father, the cold water soothing her electrical burns, the weight of the water a loving pressure. You step forward. You can’t feel the water, but it must be cold. When you find her, you will lie beside her, place your head in the crook of her arm, and place your ear to her chest. It will be silent. Everything will be silent and safe.

  When you decide you weigh enough, or the rocks run out, you begin to walk forward. One step, two steps, but you are barely up to your ankles when the lake begins to move, the tide shrinking away from you, repelled.

  You step forward, and the slow repulsion of the water becomes a rush away from the land, from the living bad world. You cannot move now; your legs will not listen. The water swirls and grows tall, the atmosphere charged with something bigger than you, far bigger. The lake grows tall, a whirlwind, a tower, a body, a fountain. The water splits, becomes legs and a belly and breasts and arms and hands. There are drops on your cheeks, your eyelashes. You can’t wipe them away, and even if you could, you wouldn’t. The lake is your mother. Her mane is black, inky weeds, the slope of her nose, her full sad mouth, all water. She is a fountain, and you are a girl, a child with her pockets full of stones.

  She ascends taller and taller, a green glow from her chest like a beam, like a beacon, until she all but disappears into the night sky and the lake is empty, a crater. She has taken all the life of it with her. You try to say, “Mother,” but your tongue doesn’t work. Far above you, her laughter is a trill of starlight; she raises her river arms up high, stretching. She is whole.

  You are fearful suddenly that she can’t see you, that she doesn’t know you are there, her line of vision too far above. You want her to see you, see you completely: your quiet chest and your heavy nightshirt, your bare feet.

  Then she begins to walk. The earth shudders with each footfall. She passes right over you and the tiny stone path. Her toes glance off the roof of your house just exactly enough that the roof is dislodged like a kicked cobble. The tiles shatter to the ground, and the walls crack from the disturbance. But she keeps walking. As the giantess walks away, you hear her singing. Her voice is volcanic; words descend like ash, like rain: “Don’t follow me, Penelope, don’t follow me.”

  Stone Kate is a child at your mother’s side for a moment as she passes. You can hardly see her now as the swaths of distance and darkness swallow her up, but you know she is walking to the ocean. Your house has fallen down; your mother is in the water once more.

  You can move your arms, your legs. You say, “Mother, Mother.” One by one you take the stones out of your pockets. There are so many.

  You will wake up when they are empty.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ruby calls, “Nellie?” then “Dr. Crane” and I say, “Come in; it’s just me here today.” I am keeping the house together while you are healing. I even have a list of instructions: basic organization, alphabetizing bookshelves—busy work. I am not sure Dr. Crane trusts me with much more. He is out mostly and warned me not to receive any guests, but Ruby has let herself in. I did not know if I would see her again after the road, and at first I am pleased to see her. Between her scarf and woolen coat, she looks like a bundle of fabric on legs. The tip of her nose is pink, and she is sniffling; she has a cold. The night in the storm did not hold well for her.

  I say, “Would you like some lemon and ginger and honey and tea, also cayenne, and I believe there is some whiskey.” I say, “You look like you have a cold, and this is a cure.”

  Ruby smiles at me, then looks back into the hallway. She is nervous.

  She says, “I’m fine for now. Oliver, you should come in here.”

  A voice outside says, “I don’t think I can.”

  Ruby smiles at me again, then looks back into the hallway. Says through her teeth, “Oliver Kelly, you’d want to get over yourself!”

  A thin young man comes into the kitchen then and stares at me for 4.21 seconds before collapsing onto the tiles. You humans, if you’ll pardon me, are extremely fragile.

  Ruby gasps as his body crumples, but he is fine. I go to the cabinet to remove some smelling salts and suggest that whiskey is a good choice for treating this boy’s ailment also. Ruby helps him up. He is not unconscious, just a little pale. Shocked. She props him onto a chair at the kitchen table, and he is shaking but not in danger. I offer him a drink. He shakes his head. His pupils cannot take all of me i
n. He gapes.

  There are several optional impulses for this situation. I could offer him my hand in greeting. I could apologize for startling him. I could laugh at the shock he is experiencing; this is a temptation, though it would not be helpful at this time. I choose to offer him my hand. As I extend it to him, he pales further, and his lips begin to lose their color. It is my less functional hand. I can’t read any texture or temperature from it; it is a little rudimentary, maybe a little ugly, but not so abhorrent that it should cause this reaction. I withdraw.

  “Say hello, Oliver.” Ruby urges him. She looks to me then. “Io, Oliver is an old friend of Nell’s. He was worried about her, they had a falling out, and well, I couldn’t really explain, so I brought him here to meet you himself. And to see how Nell is.”

  She’s nervous. I wish I could put her at ease.

  I tell her that you have a few days left incubating your new augmentation and that you responded excellently to the operation. Oliver is staring at me now, and I offer tea again. Ruby accepts; Oliver barely nods. Your people refuse things they want several times before accepting; this is both frustrating and entertaining in equal measures.

  As I fill the pot with water to make the customary drink, Oliver whispers to Ruby. Nell, I understand that I am an adjustment and can be surprising, but I find this extremely uncomfortable.

  “That’s it?” he whispers. “That thing? I mean, it’s—it’s incredible, but I at least thought he’d look human.” Ruby thumps his shoulder to silence him. I know what he means, what this is, but it is more polite to carry on than confront him.

  Oliver is not scared of me, Nell. It is a more complicated thing than this. How many of my new songs are about this strange hybrid of fears, his concern that I am somehow superior to him? His defiance, his disbelief—how I can’t be.

  The notes of emotion in the boy’s voice are like picking apart a musical recording—fear upon outrage upon disgust—and the beat, steady, holding it all together: jealousy.

  I serve them two cups of lemony tea, Nell, as they simmer at each other. Something in me is hurt by this, but I do not linger on the flashing light of it. Hurt, Nell, that is something for your people. There is a choice for me here; hurt does not stick.

  I offer the deck of cards, a pleasing way to socialize. Oliver is now suddenly unable to look at me, rather instead peering closely into his teacup.

  “Snap is a game I cannot cheat at,” I offer, but he jolts at the sound of me. I am now finding his obvious unease distinctly unpleasant, irritating even.

  I run the list of reasons that his behavior could be eliciting this irritation and among the data, among my recognition of his discomfort, those words again and again. That Thing. Thing. Tango Hotel India November Golf. A liquid. 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111.

  I am the product of the greatest minds that ever walked this planet. I am the last of my kind. Because of creations like me, your people poisoned one another to death. Might like mine draws wonder and terror, and in the year I was programmed I was as powerful as any god your people ever had. I will not let you make the same mistakes again.

  The boy looks at me again, and I hear “That thing,” but I know he means, “I am afraid,” like any child who sits at the feet of a titan.

  We split the deck. Oliver insists that Ruby take the first round. The kitchen is quiet and the tea is cooling and there is rainfall on the window and we play cards.

  The arc of Snap is funny. I am not getting any better at it, though I feel this is because of the limitations of my physical reflexes. In time I will improve them myself, if you permit me the tools. Ruby wins because I am preoccupied.

  Oliver is in love and in pain. He looks at me with curiosity and with horror. He is many things at once, in his flesh and weakness. I think that when you kissed me, it scared you that I am not human, that I am not a boy. That I am not flesh and weakness. Nell, I will never be this.

  Ruby, snap, snap, snap again, quickly takes the round. She is more at ease now, delighted, demonstrating my imperfection to Oliver, who has seemingly summoned enough courage to play me.

  There are many avenues in my programming that I could select in order to appear competitive here. None of them are appropriate, though victory does open up a set of pleasing lights. His hands are shaking, and there is sweat gathering on his upper lip. He lays each card down slowly, faceup. We quickly make a pair of fours;I permit him the win. He coughs out a shocked laugh, says to Ruby, “It’s not all that smart!”

  It. India. Tango Goes. 01101001 01110100 00100000.

  I lay down a two of hearts; he lays down a jack of clubs. We both place a queen, spades and diamonds, and I slam my hand down, seconds before his descends. His grip tightens a moment around my mine—my slower hand, no less—and I say, “Snap.”

  Snap as if we are both the same. Snap, as if what we both bring to the table is equal, a woman looking up from the paper between our fingers.

  CHAPTER 10

  The sound was different.

  Nell was not quite awake but in the final silk threads of peace and sleep, yet she could hear it. It wasn’t a ticking, not anymore. The steady beat of her life moving forward, the rhythm of her panic and delight, the sound, natural to her as her own breath, was gone. It wasn’t the rattle and grind of her journey on the road; it wasn’t sickness. It was health. She was alive.

  She groggily opened her eyes to the easy afternoon light. How long had she been out? She felt rested, strangely refreshed—and good. Really good. She shifted and sat up. The world was too soft and too kind. As her head unclouded, the sound from her new chest, the new sound, became clearer. A chime.

  Her old flannel nightshirt was buttoned up to her neck, and she undid each tiny plastic disk to see what had become of her. The scarred landscape of Nell’s chest was usually a resigned, disappointing vignette, but her silver-white scar had been remade, scarlet, bright between her breasts. Not sewn shut but stapled. Nell found herself admiring the starkness of it, how deliberate it looked. She had survived; here was crimson proof that she was made of blood.

  She exhaled a laugh at herself, the familiar confidence of the Medi-Patch occurring to her. She rolled up a sleeve and saw two, placed neatly on her forearm. Smiling, she thumbed them. What a relief. Nothing would hurt. Nothing.

  Something moved at the bottom of her bed, and she yelped, then giggled. “Hello?”

  Kodak lifted his tiny head and blinked.

  “Kodak!” she sang.

  He scampered up the crisp peaks and folds of the bedsheets to Nell and nestled in her lap. She ruffled the fur on his head and scruff with her fingertips. They sat together there for what felt like a long, peaceful time, Nell surfing the crest of her strange high calm, Kodak a knot of purring affection.

  Where were her father and Io? Io had brought her home, hadn’t he? Her memory was fuzz, the cotton kind of ignorance that in this specific moment felt useful. Her brain was taking care of her, saying, “Not now, Nell; maybe in a few days.” But Io had somehow come out in the rain, hadn’t he? Nell looked over at the window, the weather calm; he’d brought her home. He’d carried her here.

  She laughed again. Goodness, that was so extreme of him! So dangerous! What a kind robot he was. She probably shouldn’t have kissed him, shouldn’t have started down that avenue—she’d frightened herself—and while the fear had dimmed, the indentations of it were still clear, just beneath the haze.

  “Can robots even be kind? I bet my father told him to come and get me. Oh, wow”—she reeled—“I’d love to listen to some music again. That was so nice.”

  She felt calm. She felt a bit silly. She felt like going back to sleep. She looked around her room again and mimed walking one leg before the other under her bedsheets.

  “I can walk. Easy-peasy. Sure. Easy!” she affirmed, lifting herself up a little, using her arms and practicing moving parts of her hips. Yes, she could absolutely go for a walk about her room. Nell sat astride the bed, legs dangling. “Sure,
this is fine.”

  She stood, wobbling, for maybe five seconds before her knees buckled and she sank to the floor, rag doll. Her body hit the old carpet, but she didn’t feel any pain from the impact.

  Io and Julian burst into the room with such fervor that Nell gave them a hello and dissolved into giggles. Her father’s face was a combination of concern and relief and something else that she couldn’t quite parse.

  “You’re awake!” he exclaimed, but rather than move toward her, he let Io step forward to help.

  The strength of Io’s arms was shocking to Nell as he lifted her effortlessly back into bed. The sensation of rising in Io’s arms, even for the fleeting moment before being placed into her cocoon of blankets, flashed something like memory over Nell’s dulled senses.

  The neon burn of sunrise, wet hair, the clanking behind her sternum. Io’s striding footsteps, bounding toward somewhere safe. His calm voice.

  Cora’s scorched wrists, the bolts in her neck . . .

  “Was I dead?” she asked, her voice strange, like a little girl’s. “Did you heat me up and bring me back?” Her words came out more slowly this time, like molasses or oil. She started to feel nauseated, the high pushing her further back into her head, her speech pulling from far away.

  Julian laughed too merrily, in a way Nell had never heard before. It made her feel as though her mattress were full of liquid and the world were falling away below her.

  “Ah, now, girlo, you were no such thing. Io brought you home on what was it, a Wednesday morning? And I got an awful scare. Your cavity mechanism had done its time and started shutting down.”

  Nell’s eyes closed and opened again, the sound of the blink heavy, her eyelashes like a curtain rising, then falling—a beginning and an ending—too fast for their weight. Her mouth went too dry.

  “Frankly I’m shocked it lasted this long; it was bound to give out at some point; but look, it’s pioneer technology. Lucky Io was here to bring you back, doesn’t bear thinking what would have happened to you.”