Classics Mutilated (15 page)

She analyzed his words carefully, and found herself, as well as her painting, lacking. "So I have failed."

"No, not necessarily." The teacher studied the android for a moment, aware that she'd probably never been confronted with failure before.

"It just means you've got more to learn." He smiled gently. "That is what school is for." 

"Where do I start?"

Even Josie was struck by the earnest entreaty in the android's tone.

"Here and now," the teacher responded with a smile. "We've still got a half an hour of light."

The android sat down at her easel, unwilling to let the teacher know he had misunderstood her. She remembered what happened when the Supervisor at the factory had misunderstood her, and she didn't want to be sold again. She looked at her painting. 

Where do I start?

"Do you see Green Gables in the distance?" Diana whispered into Anne's ear, leaning over in her chair. Anne nodded. "That is not merely where you live, but it's your
home
. What do you
see
when you think of home?"

Diana watched Anne's eyes blink rapidly for a few seconds, and then flitter back and forth across the painting. She reached for her paints and brush, and started mixing colors.

Diana watched, fascinated, while Anne started applying paint to the canvas once more. Her speed belied her android heritage as an airship quickly took shape amongst the clouds in the painting's mauve sky.

When the flying vessel was complete, she dipped her brush in a combination of pots and leaned forward. For a minute Diana could only see the back of Anne's copper braid as the android painstakingly painted a candlelit window onto the silhouette of the cottage, but then she leaned back and dipped her brush into black pot. 

After considering the painting for a moment, the android started to paint a tiny profile of a human in the field closest to the cottage. When she also brushed in a little cattle dog beside the figure, Diana realized that it was Anne's depiction of Matthew returning to Green Gables after a hard day's work on the farm. 

The android's hand hesitated beside the image of the man, and Diana wondered if the android understood what a lovely—and homely—image she had just created: the light from the kitchen guiding the man home at night. 

But then the android's hand darted upwards, and another silhouette started to take shape at the bow of the airship. It appeared that the figure was looking down at the cottage, and when Diana saw that the silhouette wore her hair in a braid that was lifted by the wind, Diana started in shock.

Anne had drawn herself into the painting, and she was sailing on an airship, being guided home by the cottage light like a seafaring ship would a lighthouse. 

Who said androids couldn't have an imagination?
Diana thought triumphantly, looking at her new friend's painting with a smile on her face.
Anne might be a kindred spirit after all.

Matthew pulled out his timepiece and opened the case to see where the clock hands pointed. "It's time to leave for school, Anne," he said quietly, sure that she could hear him from across the barn.

She looked up, blinking in surprise. "Usually my internal clock alerts me before now."

Matthew nodded, bemused. One of the things that endeared him the most about the android was that she could often get so swept up in her enthusiasm and curiosity for the current project she was working on that it overrode her most basic mechanical functions, like her inbuilt alarm clock. He knew that Marilla and Anne's creators considered that a manufacturing flaw, but to Matthew it seemed like a very human characteristic.

He watched her methodically put his tools back in order, and then cover the machine.

"I was nearly finished!" she complained.

"So you will finish it tonight."

"I suppose that is an acceptable conclusion," she replied.

Matthew laughed.
Was the android pouting? "
Well, my dear Anne, if this contraption of yours truly works and I never have to milk a cow again with my bare hands, then I will have the time to start teaching you chess before school tomorrow morning." He smiled at her. "Is that also an acceptable conclusion?"

It appeared to him that her eyes lit up. "More than acceptable, Matthew." She tilted her head, considering him.

Matthew blushed under her scrutiny and busied himself with closing his timepiece and running his thumb lovingly over the initials ornately carved across the lid before moving to put it away. He felt the android's curiosity before she voiced it. "It was my father's," he said quietly. He hesitated a moment, then held it out to her.

Anne appeared to understand the privilege she was being given. She took the pocket watch from Matthew with evident care, turning it around in her dainty hands to look at the initials, almost imperceptible on the old tarnished metal. She popped the lid open, and her eyes grew wide. She had never seen such a tiny machine. Behind the ornately carved brass hands, she could see the intricate wheels turn, and despite the discoloration of age, she thought it beautiful.

Matthew let the android hold his timepiece the entire way to school, the light reflecting off Anne's brass nails as she tinkered with it, drawing his attention to the advancement of her construction in comparison to his beloved pocket watch. The 19th century had seen a huge evolution in machines, and he wondered what the next century would bring if Anne was the pinnacle of this one. 

The buggy started rocking more than usual, with Samuel having to navigate more ruts as a result of the storm the previous night, but when Matthew briefly glanced over at Anne he saw the pocket watch clutched protectively in her tiny hand. 

She seemed almost reluctant to give it up when they reached the school, but then she heard Diana calling and she quickly handed it over, leaping out of the buggy with her usual enthusiasm and grace. She turned to Matthew to say goodbye, and he told her he'd be there at three to pick her up.

"No need, Matthew," she said. "Gilbert Blythe said he'd walk me to the bend, and I wanted to see the new flowers that have come out since the last rain."

Matthew smiled as he watched her rush off to greet Diana, wondering if she realized how human she sounded.

He shook his head at his folly.
Of course she knows. She doesn't see herself as a machine!

He laughed as Samuel pulled the buggy away from school, and he returned home with a smile still on his face.

"What time do you call this, Matthew Cuthbert?" Marilla asked when he walked into the kitchen to share a pot of tea with his wife before going back to work on the farm.

He didn't know why, but by Marilla's clock he was always late. He pulled out his pocket watch to check—and discovered it was no longer working. 

His heart sank in his chest. His pocket watch had never failed him until today, and it was his last tangible memory of his father. 

He looked at it closely and he could see that part of the clock mechanism appeared dislodged behind the face, and when he shook it gently, he could hear something metallic rattle around. It appeared that an irreplaceable component was broken in his beloved timepiece.

Marilla saw the look on his face and asked him what was wrong. After he told her, she asked, "What, if anything, did you do differently with the pocket watch today?" 

He thought back on his morning. "Nothing, really. I gave it to Anne to look at, and then let her hold it while we travelled through some storm-created ruts on the way to school." He paused, considering. "Come to think of it, those ruts really were pretty rough going. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was what did it."

Marilla wasn't convinced. "Did you watch Anne the entire time she had your timepiece, Matthew?"

"I can't say as I did," he replied, wondering what his wife was getting at. "I had to concentrate on the road on account of those bothersome ruts."

Marilla was silent for a long moment, and then she asked, "Do you think the android could have tinkered with it? She seems fascinated with the inner workings of machinery." 

"Anne
was fascinated by the intricacy of my pocket watch," he admitted. "But...."

"Think about it, Matthew," Marilla interrupted. "My theory makes sense. The pocket watch had never broken down in your lifetime, or your Dad's,
until
the day you let Anne play with it."

He couldn't find any fault with her logic, but deep down in his heart he knew it wasn't true.

When Anne came home that afternoon from her walk with Gilbert Blythe, a posy of wildflowers in her hand, Marilla confronted her. "Did you fiddle with the mechanism in Matthew's pocket watch?"

Anne noted the agitated tone in her voice, and became concerned. "What's wrong with it?"

Marilla took that as an admission of a kind. "So you
know
something is wrong with it!"

"No, Marilla," Anne replied. "I honestly didn't." She looked at Matthew, who was quietly sitting in the kitchen chair, watching the exchange. He gave her a gentle smile of encouragement.

"I need a truthful answer from you, Anne," said Marilla. "Did you play with Matthew's watch until you broke it?" 

"No, Marilla," said Anne truthfully, since she had no idea when it broke.

"Then who did?" demanded Marilla.

Anne simply stared at her. She'd been taught never to guess when she didn't know the answer.

Marilla glared at the android, trying to keep her temper in check. "Now listen to me carefully, Anne," she said at last, ominously enunciating every syllable. "If you don't admit that you've done wrong, and that you just lied to me, you will not be allowed to go to Diana's birthday airship flight next month." 

Anne's mind quickly considered the possibilities and the consequences. If she did not admit to purposely breaking the watch, Marilla would not believe her and she would not be permitted to ride on the exotic airship. On the other hand, if she lied and admitted to breaking it, Marilla almost certainly
would
believe her and she would be allowed to go. It was very confusing: if she lied she would be rewarded, and if she told the truth she would be punished.

Which was worse—to lie and be believed, or to tell the truth and be doubted? In the end it was not the airship that was the deciding factor, but a desire to please Marilla by telling her what Anne assumed she wanted to hear, and what she obviously already believed.

"I broke the watch while I was playing with it," she said at last.

Marilla stared at her a long time before speaking. Finally she said, "All right, Anne. Cuthberts always keep their word, so you will be allowed to go on the airship."

"Thank you," said Anne.

"I'm not finished yet," said Marilla harshly. "As I said, Cuthberts don't lie. You just admitted that you lied to me. Therefore, you are not and never will be a Cuthbert. I'm going to have a serious talk with Matthew after you're in bed tonight. I think we're going to return you and get our money back. You are
not
what we were promised."

Anne was still staring at the empty space where Marilla had stood long after Marilla had turned and walked away. 

Deep down Anne had known she was different from everyone else in Avonlea, and that she had the means to repair the pocket watch if she only just acknowledged it. She didn't know if she had refused to accept the truth about herself and had blocked it from her mind, or if she had simply been programmed to not think about it, but she had to confront it now if she was to ever help fix the damage she had inadvertently caused.

She pulled out her carpet bag, and for the first time since she'd arrived at Green Gables she opened it up.

Inside was a batch of tools, some of them not unlike those she was using to create Matthew's milking machine, only finer in construction.

Her delicate hand reached in and sorted through them until she felt the one she needed and pulled it out, looking at it for a long moment. 

She hesitated, then unlaced the top of her nightgown, looking down at the barely perceptible panel outlined on the left side of her chest. Her right hand hovered above it, implement in hand, knowing instinctively what she had to do, but unable to take the next step. Then she thought of the pain she saw in Matthew's eyes when Marilla had decreed she had to be returned to the factory, and she steeled herself, placing the implement along one side of the panel and pressing it in, hearing a tiny whir as three micro-latches started turning. A section of her popped out, and she looked at it for a long moment before carefully hooking the brass nail of her thumb into the tiny crevice and pulling it open.

I'm a machine.

The realization struck her like a punch to the stomach as she stood staring at what she had revealed, unable to process anything for some time. Although deep down she had always known, it was still a shock to see tiny brass cogs, wheels, screws, and copper wires so intricately interconnected to a circuit board buried within her chest. It was a wonder to behold, even for the android. 

She realized how primitive the pocket watch was in comparison, and yet she also understood its importance to Matthew, and her determination to repair it for him increased tenfold. She closed her eyes and tuned into the sounds her body made.

Tick, tick, tick, tick...

Her eyes sprung open, and she instinctively moved a bundle of copper wires that were covering the specific mechanism she needed to find. She analyzed the individual components, recognizing that some were similar to those in the pocket watch.

Tick, tick, tick, tick...

She rustled around in her carpet bag and pulled out a tiny toolbox, opening it to reveal delicate jewellery-grade tools. She selected one and used it to sever the connection between the tiny mechanism and her main circuit board without a second thought.

The ticking stopped. 

The android's hand froze. She felt a strong sense of loss, and she couldn't focus. She had no idea how long it took her to adjust to the change in her body, because she literally lost track of time, but she finally was able to block out the feeling that she had lost something fundamental to her being when she realized how much more she'd lose if she had to leave Green Gables.