Eye Candy (20 page)

“
A beer sounds . . . fine.”

“
And something for the misses?” asked Romeo.

“
A beer for me, too.”

“
A girl who drinks. I love it. Back in a flash, kids.” Romeo headed for the bar.

Danny scanned the restaurant.
“Part science and mathematics, part artistic expression. I like it.”

“
This place is famous for its–”

“
Waiters?”

“
No. Well, maybe. I was going to say vegetarian fish and chips.”

“
How can fish be vegetarian?”

“
I don’t know. It just is.”

Romeo returned carrying a tray with two bottles of beer and two glasses. He deftly flicked two coasters onto the table, set a tall beer tumbler on each, and then inserted a bottle of beer into each glass, with the beer bottle inverted and standing upright. Each bottle slowly emptied, filling the glass. When a rich, foamy head threatened to crest the lip
and spill over, Romeo carefully removed each empty bottle and placed it once more on his tray, leaving two perfectly-poured glasses of beer.

Candy and Danny stared at the glasses in amazement.

“No applause. Just throw money. It’s an old trick I learned years ago at bartending college. Would you kids like to hear the specials? Unless you already know what you want. And I’ll bet you do.” Romeo winked a coquettish holographic eye at them.

“
I hear the fish and chips is good,” said Danny.

“
It’s heavenly, honey. Two of those?”

“
Please.”

“
You got it.” Romeo marched away.

“
He doesn’t mess around,” said Danny.

“
I heard that!” Romeo called from the bar. “But it’s not true. Just kidding. But not really.”

Danny picked up his beer.
“A toast.”

Candy raised her beer as well.

“To Candy. The most beautiful woman in the room.”

Candy surveyed the empty restaurant.
“I’m the only woman in the room.”

“
Details.”

“
Smart ass.”

They drank.

“So,” said Danny, “do you want to talk about Barney?”

“
What’s to talk about? He’s dead.”

“
How did it happen?”

“
He shot himself.”

“
With what?”

“
Gun.”

“
Didn’t they relieve him of his weapon when they brought him to you?”

“
He had a backup weapon hidden in a compartment on his leg. He said that every good cop carries a backup piece.”

“
Where did he shoot himself? It’s not easy to disable a robocop.”

“
Under the chin. Blew his positronic brains out. They’re all over my ceiling. Susannah said she would have new ceiling tiles installed today. It won’t do to have a bullet hole and the rainbow spatter of positrons on the ceiling while clients are sitting in the waiting room. Any halfway intelligent robot built in the past eight years will take one look at that ceiling and have a melt-down right on the spot. My malpractice insurance is going to go through the roof. No pun intended.”

“
What happened to the body?”

“
LAPD Roboforensics came and got him in their van.”

“
Is the LAPD going to seek damages?”

“
Damages against me?”

“
Yeah.”

“
The Captain said he wasn’t. But once the departmental lawyers and the insurance company get involved, that will probably change.”

“
Don’t you have any protection? A contract or something?”

“
Sure. Every owner signs a contract when they bring their robot to me. This is hardly an exact science. There’s a certain amount of finesse to it, as there is with any mental health profession. I like to think I’m pretty good at it. At least I thought so before Barney killed himself.” Candy looked at the pink and green and blue smears still visible on her hands. She put her hands in her lap.

“
Of course you’re good at it. The LAPD wouldn’t be bringing you fruit-loop robocops if you didn’t have a certain professional credibility, a reputation.”

“
Let’s just hope that reputation will account for something when they call me downtown to give a deposition on the deactivation of their robot. A very expensive robot, which the taxpayers paid for, by the way.”

Romeo approached the table carrying two platters. He set one platter before Candy.
“Vegetarian fish and chips for the lady.” And the second before Danny. “And the same for the hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin’ love sitting beside her. Delicious. And the fish and chips is good, too. You kids holler if you need me and I’ll be back to check on you in a few.” Romeo marched away once more.

Danny and Candy dug into their fish and chips.

“This is amazing,” said Danny. “I can’t believe it’s not actually fish. It looks like fish. It smells like fish. It tastes like fish and even has the same texture as fish.” He picked up a French fry. “Are these actually potatoes?”

“
Yes, but they’re baked, not fried.”

He held the fry before Candy’s mou
th and she bit off its end. Danny finished the remainder.

The bright, glowing squares of light on the floor shifted to a new pattern.

Danny sipped his beer. “Think this place or whatever becomes of it will still be here in fourteen thousand years?”

“
No. This place will probably be buried under a glacier.”

“
I’d love to see what the world looks like fourteen thousand years from now.”

Candy squeezed lemon juice onto her fish. “
Hope you have a time machine.”

“
Or a potion for immortality.”

“
Why, do you want to live forever?”

“
I don’t know about forever, but I’d like to live five hundred years or so.”

“
Why?”

“
So I could see all the new technology. New forms of transportation. Space travel. Interstellar travel. We could take a space cruise, a three-week cruise from Earth to Jupiter and back.”

“
What would we do on a space ship for three weeks?”

“
Guess.”

Candy smiled.

“There’s a smile,” said Danny. “Finally. I was getting worried.”

“
You don’t need to worry about me. I’m a big girl.”

“
I know you are. But letting me worry about you is not a referendum on your status as an adult and an experienced professional, or on your ability to manage your life.”

“
Then what is it?”

“
Love.”

“
Worrying is a form of love?”

“
Of course. When you love someone, they become important to you. Their well being takes precedence over your own. Or becomes at least equal, anyway. If you love something, or someone, it’s natural that you’ll be fearful of losing it.”

“
Barney was afraid. That’s why he shot himself.”

Danny sipped his beer.
“I’m trying to cheer you up. If you’re determined to be depressed, let me know, so I can be depressed with you.”

“
I don’t want you to be depressed.”

“
I don’t want me to be depressed, either. Nor do I want you to be depressed.”

“
I’m not.”

“
You sound like it.”

“
I know. I’m sorry. I just feel like I failed him. He was looking to me for help and I couldn’t help him.”

“
What could you have done differently?”

Candy considered it, gobbling French fries as she did so.
“I don’t know. Nothing. Intellectually I know that. But it still hurts.”

“
Give it time.”

Romeo approached the table
.

“I sensed a bit of tension over here so I thought I’d make nuisance of myself.
How’s the fish?”

“
Delicious,” said Danny. “What’s it made from?”

“
Honey, if I knew the answer to that question I’d open a fish taco stand in Okinawa because I am just a fool for a man in a uniform. A couple of months ago the
Enterprise
came into port down in Long Beach and this whole city was crawling with sailors. We had a whole mess of them in here and they all wanted Vegetarian Fish and Chips. I was hotter than a two-dollar pistol. My microfusion reactor certainly hit critical mass, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

Candy burst out laughing, followed by Danny.

Romeo patted Danny on the shoulder and marched away.

Candy and Danny finished eating, paid the tab, and exchanged hugs with Romeo.
“I shall bid you a fond farewell,” Romeo declared. “I hate goodbyes so you two kids take care of yourselves and come again soon.
Mi casa es su casa.
” Romeo winked once more. As Candy and Danny passed through the front door, Romeo called out “
Ciao!
” He was oblivious to the other guests who had begun to fill the restaurant.

Out in the courtyard, Candy took hold of Danny’s hand and they strolled between the buildings. The sun was nearly setting and the shops had activated their nighttime illumination.

Candy and Danny strolled hand in hand, window shopping here and there. Danny grinned inwardly each time he noticed other guys checking out Candy. One of them strolled with a woman. The man casually turned his head and looked over his shoulder as Candy walked by. The woman beside him made a fist and punched his shoulder. Hard.

Danny and Candy
paused before
Pacific Coast Artifactories.
The store window displayed many impressive woodworks: tables and chairs and plates and bowls and flatware for eating, and everything made entirely from wood.
Real
wood, too, based on the small hand-written price tags attached to the beautiful pieces, all of which had been hand crafted by robots.

“What made you want to become a robopsychologist?” Danny asked.

“When I was a little girl, one day my friends and I decided to set up a lemonade stand. We spent all morning making lemonade and gathering cups and a pitcher to put it in.”

“Did you make a sign?”

“Yes, we had a very nice sign free of typos or dyslexia. We set up shop on the sidewalk in front of my house and before we sold a single cup of lemonade, a robocop shows up and asks if we have a business license.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not kidding. It was our first day of business, our first hour of business. And we were eight years old. What was I supposed to do, whip out my articles of incorporation?”

Danny laughed. “So what happened?”

“The robocop said we could not sell lemonade without a license, and he would have to cite us. My friend and I both began to cry, the robot began to apologize, and then it froze.”

“It froze?”

“Like an ice cube,” said Candy. “Obviously it didn’t want to hurt two little girls, but our lemonade stand was illegal. It had a dilemma it couldn’t reconcile. So it froze. I never forgot the look on its face right before the red light went out of its eyes. It was the first year facial animatronics had been introduced. They only allowed for about a dozen facial expressions, but it was obvious that the poor robocop didn’t like his job. I felt bad for him. I never forgot him.”

“So you went on to become a prestigious robopsychologist capable of helping troubled robots all across the land?”

“Something like that.”

“Makes sense.”

“What about you? How did you get into the field?”

Danny sighed. “I don’t remember.”

“How can you not remember? I just poured my heart out regaling you with the tragic tale of a little girl’s lemonade stand gone wrong and you can’t remember what made you want to be a roboticist?”

“Your story was very touching. All I can tell you is that for as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in robots and how they function, and how they function in society. The difference between the robot mind and the human mind. A few decades ago the difference was as great as night and day. But today’s robots are far superior to the old ones. Take Howard, for example. He’s so smart, all he’s missing is a human body and you would never know he had positrons rolling around in his head instead of neurons and meninges and whatnot.”

“Barney was smart, too,” said Candy. “Smart enough not to want to go on suffering.”