Wham!

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “Bitch!” declared Trent, yanking open the door before she could give it a peck.

  “Oh!” he gasped. “Sorry. Not you...”

  “Dinner, if you'd like,” said Tess, turning square about and taking her seat at the table.

  “What are we having?” said Trent as he pulled back a chair.

  “I'll cook this week,” said Tess as she poured a cup from her pot with the broken spout. “And you choose who does next week. Let's rotate, and each one takes a week. All right?” She glanced at the skinny and thought that it might be good to be making their commitments in front of it.

  “We've got a better teapot,” said Jasmine.

  “Good,” said Tess. “But I don't want anything happening to this one. It reminds me of Mom and Dad.”

  “Because it's bu'sted?” said Jasmine.

  Tess looked at her peas and made no reply. She saw that Trent was being painfully polite, but was not going to be caught looking at him. Soon he and Jasmine were trading barbs and smoldering small talk, mercifully ignoring her altogether. After a time, she began gathering up dirty dishes to wash.

  “I'll do that,” said Trent, suddenly seeing what she was doing. “I mean, you cooked.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she put dishes into the sink. “I'll do it this time. You all need to get your things unpacked and put away.”

  Jasmine had already closed her door. Trent bobbed his head as he stepped back, turned about and went to his room.

  “House-piggies,” thought Tess as she poured her kettle of scalding water over the dishes. “Good name. It'll be the pit, living with them, too. So did Children and Family push them on me for punishment?” She dried and put away the dishes, went to her room and used her inhaler. She sat on her bed with a bounce and lay back to rest for a moment and think about everything which had come to pass so far that day. She fell asleep instead.

  “So what!” shouted Trent from the other side of her door. “Stick it in your ear, Jazz!” A door to one of the other bedrooms slammed.

  Tess woke with a start and sat up. “Wow!” she said. “It's nearly evening.” She went to the kitchen and fixed a cup. Jasmine and Trent were fussing in her old room. She went back to her new room, carefully folded one of her mother's nineteenth century novels into a towel so that the skinnies couldn't see and locked herself in the bathroom for a nice hot soak and a good long read. “I know! I'm going to celebrate the new house- piggies by being an ass. I'm going to use up all the hot water and make them pee in the back garden.”

  Once more Tess awoke suddenly. “The Book!” she gasped, thrashing about looking for it in the tepid water. “Thank the Fates! There it is on the floor instead of ruined in the tub.” She looked at her white puckered fingers and climbed out onto a towel. The house seemed strangely quiet by the time she had dressed, so she reckoned that the Warrens had gone somewhere.

  At that very moment, a yellow spray plane swooped down over the quays with a roar, turning loose a swath of choking white fog as it flew inland above the rooves of the houses.

  “Drake?” she said as she picked up the kitchen skinny and sat at the table.

  “Tess?” said Drake, showing up after a pause in the swirling colors of her ball.

  “How'd it go? Did they get moved in all right?”

  “They did. And I'm so excited to have...”

  “Airplane!” he said, dashing away from his ball. “I'll be right back.”

  “What was that?” she said when he returned.

  “A spray plane! Right over the houses! And my bedroom window was open. Guess I'll be sleeping on the cot. Do you know what they're spraying the houses for?”

  “Wow! I hear the plane. I'm going to get my window. Be right back,” she said, dropping her ball to roll away on the floor as she ran to her bedroom.

  “Well?” he said as she picked up her skinny from in front of the cupboard. “Did you get it closed in time?”

  “I think so.”

  “What's it for?”

  “Our safety, some way. But I haven't heard.”

  “Oh our safety for sure, but I just wondered why. So how did it go with Jasmine and Trent?”

  “Perfect,” she said. “And we're anxious for you to come 'round and have a cup with us.”

  “Good! Let me know if anything comes up. See you.”

  Tess had no more than set her skinny in the storage jar lid by the toaster when Trent and Jasmine came banging in through the kitchen door, gagging and coughing. They immediately dashed to their rooms for their inhalers.

  Tess waited for them to finish dosing themselves. “Hey, I'm glad to see you two,” she said, making each of them stop short with dumbfounded looks. “There's a nasty leak in one of the pipes under the sink in the bathroom. And I'd really like for you all to have a look and see if the three of us can't fix it. I can't imagine having enough money for a plumber amongst the three of us. Right in here, if you don't mind terribly.”

  Jasmine and Trent shared looks and followed.

  “Don't get excited,” she said as she closed the bathroom door behind them. “There's no leaky pipe. And keep your voices down so we aren't overhead from outside. This is the only room without a skinny. And outside's just been sprayed.”

  “Like to strangled us out on the steps,” said Trent. “And damn near hit the roof when they went over. What the pit are they doing?”

  “Either of you had your windows open?” said Tess.

  “It's not safe to have your windows open after dark if you live on the ground floor of our old barrack,” said Jasmine. “We just run our fans at night.”

  “And shower in the morning,” said Trent.

  “And that disappoints you?” said Jasmine, looking at Tess with one eye.

  “You misread me, I'm afraid,” said Tess.

  “So why are they spraying the stinking place?” said Jasmine as if Tess might be responsible.

  “To kill our stinking hind ends,” said Trent.

  “To keep us inside, is what I hear...” said Tess.

  “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” cried Jasmine.

  “What?” chorused Tess and Trent.

  Jasmine clapped her hands to her face and sat down hard on the edge of the tub.

  “Damn it!” she wailed out with a bitter sob. “I've got a Fates' forsaken migraine! Another stinking migraine from no more spray than what we got dashing inside. I'm not even over the last one. I've got sparkly rings in my vision already. Ice pick in my head! Vomit, vomit, vomit! I can't even enjoy being alive any more with all their stinking spray.”

  Chapter 13

  Nia stayed by Jill's hospital bed for two days and now she was terribly worried.

  “Come on,” she said, gently squeezing her hand. “Please wake up.” She heard the door. It was Sam with a tray.

  “Pot o' tea and a strawberry scone apiece,” said Sam, scooting aside things on the bedside table. “And I just heard your stomach, so don't say you're not hungry.”

  “She's been unconscious better than the forty-eight hours.”

  “Which is how long it's been since you've had a meal or a night's sleep. And a piece of sweet bread and a piddly cup o' tea is neither. Getting run-down and picking up some vile illness won't help Jill.”

  “Very well,” said Nia. “When we finish these, they surely have pie and ice cream downstairs. And in the morning, I'll actually go out for a real breakfast.”

  “Which I'm going to make certain I watch you eat.”

  “That did go down fast,” said Nia as she wiped her mouth. “I'm ready when you are. For pie, that is.”

  In short order they were enjoying ice cream and cherry pie in the hospital cafeteria. “I'm glad you kept after me,” said Nia. “That was good. I'm getting another if you don't mind.”

  “Is there a Miss Samantha Bodine here?” called out the cashier. “Skinweler.”

  “Right here,” said Sam, standing up.

  “Want me to get you one?” said Nia.

  Sam shook her
head and was shown to the ball in a small room off the kitchen.

  Nia was just starting on her second piece of pie when she returned. “What was that?” she said with a swallow.

  Sam gave a little shrug.

  “Did it have anything to do with me?” said Nia, pausing to look her over.

  “It's not Jill or anything, so I thought I'd let you eat,” said Sam with a sigh.

  “The potentate. Has to be.”

  “She's expecting you at eight.”

  “That's only three hours and I haven't bathed for two days,” said Nia bolting down her pie. “And how will I know about Jill?”

  “There's time. I'll help you get ready and then take you to Orbis Terrae. My car's right outside. And I'll come right back here and sit with Jill. If anything happens, anything at all, I'll get you with the skinweler.”

  “At the potentate's? Won't that upset her?”

  “Don't worry about it. I'm certain it will be fine.”

  “Guess we'd better hurry.”

  “We've enough time to stop by Jill's room on our way,” she said, giving Nia's hand a pat.

  “Wow!” thought Nia. “Sam's my friend, too. She really, really is.”

  * * *

  Sam was so definite, pulling things off the hangers in the wardrobe, that Nia wondered if the stiletto heeled military boots, olive-drab jeans, camouflage silk blouse, spiked leather choker and black beret were a specific request from the potentate. Tired as she was, she found herself in the car instead of managing to ask about it. Just as before, they drove into the basement of Orbis Terrae, but this time Sam stayed in the car, leaving her to take the grand sweeping escalator up to the polished oak doors of the potentate's residence.

  The android in the fencing mask let her in with a dignified bow. When he turned to lead the way, she was astonished to see that he was not only carrying a book, but that he was keeping a place in it with the forefinger of his plastic gauntlet hand. “You have a book,” she said.

  “The History of Sam Wilde, a Foundling,” he said politely, pausing to glance at the cover. “Henry Markham wrote it several centuries ago...”

  “You're reading it?”

  “Oh, I suppose that it would make sense that I should merely be fetching it for the potentate, but I am indeed reading it.”

  “You're getting something out of it?”

  “My word! Why else would I bother reading it?”

  “Then I'm ashamed of my remark. I just thought...”

  “Please don't be,” he said. “Not everyone is accustomed to androform robots.

  What I am getting out of this book, since you asked, is that everything was very different all those centuries ago, whilst human nature seems not to have changed at all. And since you arrived on time (speaking of it), it would be best if I delivered you that way.”

  “Oh,” said Nia. “Yes, by all means.”

  “Right this way then,” he said, resuming his ushering.

  Now she found herself obliged to be polite. “How long did it take you to learn to read?” she said as she followed.

  “Oh I didn't learn in the manner which I understand you must,” he said over his shoulder. “When I expressed an interest in reading, they merely uploaded a reading program.”

  “All at once, then,” she said. “I reckon you didn't have to take time to grow up, either. You know, go from little to big.”

  “Well I have changed as well. Before I was this size and form, I existed as an idea.”

  “An idea?”

  “Certainly. Before you were conscious, your idea was encoded in the deoxyribonucleic acid of your zygote, don't you know. Before I was conscious, the idea of me existed as a three dimensional blueprint in silicon chip data storage. We are much more alike than you are likely to realize.”

  “I see.”

  This time he led her through a different bedroom and onto a broad balcony to an umbrella covered table by a heart-shaped pool. “Please make yourself comfortable,” he said with a deep nod. “The potentate will be with you directly.” And with that, he walked out.

  The balcony gave a grand panorama overlooking the buildings and trees of Atlantis west of the Orbis in the orange pink light cast by the beacons in the furthest western reaches of the great dome, suggesting a sunset seen from atop a bluff.

  Nia stared at the pool as she found a chair at the table. She wondered what its heart shape could possibly mean to the potentate. “Icy blue and stone cold might well fit what she makes of the heart,” she thought. She gave an eye watering yawn which she cut short at the sound of the bedroom's sliding glass doors.

  Here came the potentate, barefoot and robed in black silk, her long black hair loose about her shoulders. “There you are, my yummy little Fairy,” she said with the smile of a shark. “I've been looking forward to seeing you again.”

  A shudder shot up Nia's spine. “I'm honored, Potentate,” she said without quite meeting her eyes.

  The potentate gave her hands a clap. “You are such a delight!” she squealed as she drew back a chair.

  “It'll be just the two of us this evening, Nia. I thought we should take a little time to get to know each other.”

  “I'm afraid I've not been very interesting until just lately.”

  “We'll see,” said the potentate. “Now I think it's time you started calling me Pandora. Potentate in public of course, but not here.”

  “If that's what you wish. Pandora then.”

  “Relax my lovely. This evening is meant for enjoyment. And play. You are much too formal and tense.”

  “I'm sorry,” said Nia, “I'm afraid it's been a rough few days and I'm very worried about my friend Jill.”

  “Ah!” said Pandora, shifting to a better position in her chair. “The girl who was beaten by the police. Yes. Sam told me about that. She's one of the girls who went through orientation with you, isn't she?”

  “She did. And we've become good friends. And now she may die. And she never should've been injured by those police at all...” said Nia, suddenly seeing that she might be getting herself to trouble. “I'm sorry. But it is true. They only had to wait for the autopsy to see that Jill was blameless. So without waiting, they tried to beat her into confessing to a crime she never committed.”

  “You do know that she injured one of those officers badly enough that he may not live, don't you? Assault of a police officer is punishable by death, Nia.”

  “Yes. Sam told me. But he'd never have been injured at all, had he not been beating her. She was only defending herself. And he should've waited.”

  “You're as fiery as you are sweet, aren't you?” said Pandora. “You left quite an impression on my dear cousin, don't you know. I suspect you weren't nearly as impressed with him, though. Am I right?”

  “I think Alex is in love with Alex,” said Nia.

  “Wonderful!” laughed Pandora. “You are truly delightful, my dear. And most astute. Cousin Alex is indeed full of himself. Now then. I hope you've not eaten, since I've had a supper prepared, which should be out here directly.”

  “Actually I've not.”

  “Good. So tell me. Just how close are you to Jill Macintire?”

  “She's my best friend here.”

  “Just a friend?”

  “A very good friend. But yes. Just a friend.”

  “Your loyalty to your friends is impressive, Nia,” said Pandora, looking far away beyond the pool. “I've never actually had a friend.”

  Nia wondered if she knew that she had said that aloud. “I'm sorry to hear that,” she said before she had thought better of it.

  Pandora snapped to with a sudden laugh. “You really meant that, didn't you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You are just too sweet,” she said, turning crosswise in her chair to look right at her. “Perhaps you could be my friend, Nia. And show me the same kind of loyalty you show Jill. Such devotion would be well rewarded. I could stop her execution. I might even hold those police officers accountabl
e.” She gave a sly smile. “Of course I'd be a friend with special benefits.” She reached for a tress of Nia's hair.

  Nia gave a silent gasp to stem the shudder up her spine. And she was determined to do so from now on, for this was an open door to the very plan Sam and she had agreed to. “That does sound good,” she said, even managing a smile. “So tell me about you.”

  “I shall have to a little bit at a time, or I'm sure you'll never believe me.”

  “I'm fascinated,” said Nia. “Try me.”

  “And here's our supper,” said Pandora as the android came onto the balcony with a trolley. “Perhaps we could trade our stories as we have supper.”

  The android served salsify and parsley soup, honeyed baked chicken and pineapple on brown and wild rice with steamed turnip greens and young carrots, hot amaranth bread and tea. He bowed to Pandora and turned about to leave.

  “Benjamin,” said Pandora. “Please fetch me a skinweler.”

  “Yes Potentate,” he said, looking them over for a moment before leaving.

  “Androids are much better servants than humans, don't you know,” said Pandora “They do exactly what you tell them and they do it every time without question. They never eavesdrop and their loyalty is absolute.”

  “That would make sense,” said Nia. “And his name. I was so surprised to find out he could read when he was seeing me out here, that I never thought to ask his name.”

  “Oh he would be every bit as gracious, answering to a number instead of a name,” she said, addressing her soup. “But I'm glad I named him, since he is more intelligent than most humans.”

  “But you say he does everything you ask of him without question.”

  “Of course. You're implying a problem with his intelligence?”

  “Well. They always made it sound like, you know, that if machines got more intelligent than we are, they'd take the world away from us.”

  “Ah! I see. Well the mistake here is that 'taking the world away,' as you put it, is not the ultimate product of intelligence but of primal passion. Robots aren't programmed with that. Intelligence simply makes him know better. Benjamin is no risk at all. And the people who worry about this seem to be the very ones who fail to see that machines actually took over the world centuries ago. And authority has always prevailed. Now please try your food and let me know if it's acceptable. I can easily have something else prepared. We have all evening, and I don't yet know your favorites.”