His Robot Girlfriend (15 page)

“
Hello. Yes, hello Lucas.
Of course you may speak to your father. One moment please.”
Patience handed Mike the phone.

“
Dad, listen very carefully
and do what I tell you.”

“
Okay.”

“
Tell Patience to go
upstairs or something, then get your keys and get out of the house
as quickly as you can.”

“
Lucas.”

“
No Dad. Listen. You’ve got
to get away from her.”

“
Have you been watching the
news, Son?”

“
You’re damn right I have.
Dad, people are being killed by their Daffodils.”

“
It’s imposter robots who
are doing the damage,” explained Mike. “We’ve already been through
that here and the police are picking up the rogue robot right now.
Patience kicked its ass.”

“
And you’re
alright?”

“
I’m fine. Don’t
worry.”

“
That’s a relief. I was
working and one of my buddies told me what was on the news. I ran
to the vueTee and caught the last two minutes of the
story.”

“
Well, I’m fine,” said Mike
again.

“
Good. Well then, I’ll get
back to work.”

“
Do that and don’t worry.
Bye.”

Mike pressed the button to terminate the call
and looked up into Patience’s questioning eyes.

“
You’re wondering why I
didn’t tell him the whole story. About ending up in the hospital
and all?”

Patience nodded.

“
I could say that I didn’t
want to worry him, but mostly it’s because I’m feeling really tired
all of a sudden and I want to sleep.”

“
That’s a good idea. You
need to recover.”

“
And I want you to stay
right here while I do. The way things are going I might need you to
protect me. And I want to make sure nothing happens to you
either.”

“
That’s very sweet, Mike,”
Patience said as she began to tuck him into bed. By the time she
was finished, he was asleep.

Mike rolled over to look at the bed next to
him. Tiffany was lying there. There was blood all over her, but it
wasn’t flowing. It was all just one big scarlet stain. He looked at
her arm. It was mangled and torn. The blood should have been
pouring out, but it wasn’t. Her legs looked as though someone had
twisted them completely around, so that her feet still pointed in
the same direction that her hips did, but everything in between was
wrong.

“
This is another dream,”
said Mike. “This is another dream about that night eleven years
ago. This isn’t real.”

Harriet burst into the room. “Aggie!”

Mike woke up the next morning feeling uneasy.
Patience was not there. He gingerly sat up and climbed out of bed.
When he found out that he couldn’t reach the closet while still
connected to the monitoring wires, he peeled them off and hobbled
across the room, retrieved his clothes, and got dressed. It gave
him a strange sense of satisfaction that he was almost dressed
before any of the nurses came to check on his apparent cardiac
arrest. He waved off their angry comments. However Mike knew that
the last laugh was on him. They would make him wait hours before he
could check out.

Lying back on the bed, now fully dressed,
Mike turned on the vueTee with the remote. Tania Marquez’s face
appeared on the screen. The vueTee was smaller than the one that
Mike had in his family room and made the newscasters famous mole
appear much smaller than it did at home. The story that Miss
Marquez was in the midst of reporting immediately caught Mike’s
attention.

“…
of Daffodil Amonte models
in at least fifty cases. Federal agents raided the Daffodil
corporate headquarters, seizing computer files and other records as
well as a number of undelivered robots. More as this story
develops. In related news, stocks of the Cupertino-based robot
manufacturer fell sixteen percent or nineteen and two thirds, while
the stock of rival Gizmo fell four percent or five ninety three per
share.”

At that moment Patience bounced into the
room. She wore a stretchy black top that bared most of her chest at
the top and had an oval keyhole opening around her naval. She also
wore a tiny pair of black shorts. At the bottom of her long legs
was a pair of chunky cork shoes that had to be at least seven
inches high with the platform. She looked at the vueTee screen and
shook her head.

“
Yes, I know,” said Mike.
“Anti-robot.”

“
There have already been
cases of people attacking robots across the country, and hundreds
of listings for personal robots have gone up on eBay in the last
twenty four hours.”

“
Well, you don’t have to
worry about that. I would never sell you.”

“
I know that Mike. Still, I
can’t help imagining how terrible those robots must feel to know
that they aren’t wanted anymore.”

When Mike was finally checked out, he exited
the hospital front entrance via wheelchair feeling a very strong
sense of déjà vu. Unlike the last time that he left the hospital
though, he felt as though he really needed the wheelchair. With his
left leg and left arm in a cast and a thick wrapping of bandages
around his middle, it was quite an effort just to get into the
passenger side of the car.

Once back at home, Patience helped Mike into
the house and sat him down in his recliner in the family room. All
damage that resulted from attack of the robot imposter had been
repaired with the exception of the piano, now little more than a
pile of rubble sitting against the wall.

“
I wanted to have
everything back in order before you came home,” said Patience. “But
I don’t think my carpentry skills are up to repairing a piano and
the music store said they only tuned them.”

“
I think we should just
push it out front for the recycle man,” said Mike. “I only bought
that because… one of the kids… that’s funny. I can’t remember which
of the kids was taking piano lessons. In any case, it’s not as if
it was a family heirloom or anything.”

The next morning when he made his way into
the family room, Mike found the piano had been removed and a
decorative room divider was in its place. He plopped into his chair
and pulled the lever to raise his feet up. Then he clicked on the
vueTee. The scene that came to life on the screen was a press
conference at the Department of Energy.

“…
for everyone to know that
their robots are safe and that this was a single occurrence of
malicious programming. The entire incident involves a group of
programmers at Daffodil who were using the Amonte model robots to
gather information on their owners. This information was then used
in a complex identity theft scam. It was only when a small number
of the robots refused to send personal information on their owners
that the plan began to unravel. The scammers first attempted to
reprogram the robots in question, but this caused a fault, shutting
them down, and bringing the unwanted attention of other Daffodil
programmers. Finally in a last ditch effort to cover up their
illegal activities, the scammers tried to replace the Amonte models
with identical robots, but this failed in most cases, as the poorly
programmed replacements malfunctioned and the original robots
refused to return to the factory.”

“
How many people have been
affected by the identity theft?” asked a reporter.

“
Everyone who owns an
Amonte model Daffodil should take steps to secure their banking and
credit accounts.”

“
But those who own the
Amonte models who refused to send the information did not have
their personal information compromised?” asked another
reporter.

“
While that seems to be the
case, the Department of Energy recommends that all owners of
Daffodil Amonte robots take measures to ensure that their personal
information is secure.”

Mike jumped a bit when Patience appeared at
his elbow with a slice of pumpkin bread and a glass of milk. He
turned off the vueTee and then accepted the breakfast.

“
What’s the matter?” asked
Patience.

“
Hmm?”

“
I would have thought that
you would have been gratified to learn what was behind my service
disruption, not to mention the attack by the imposter. Instead you
have the look on your face that usually accompanies
disappointment.”

“
I guess I am a little
disappointed,” said Mike.

“
Why?”

“
Well… I got the crap beat
out of me. And it was all for identity theft. I thought it would be
something bigger.”

“
It was a very large
identity theft scam.”

“
Yes, but I thought it
would be… international terrorism or world domination. You know,
something fantastic.”

“
In all fairness, how much
world domination do you suppose could be achieved by placing a mole
in the home of a middle school geography teacher? It’s not as if
you were the Governor of California or the head of Cisco
Systems.”

“
That’s twice you made a
comment like that,” said Mike defensively. “Teachers change lives,
you know.”

“
I know you do.” Patience
patted him on the shoulder and then headed off for the
kitchen.

The news stories about the “Daffodil
conspiracy” as it came to be known continued for a few days, but
then disappeared. The excitement of the Olympics and the
ever-present war pushed everything else out of the headlines. At
the beginning of August, Mike received a letter in the mail from
Daffodil asking for a list of damages to his home and a copy of
medical bills. Patience gathered the information together and
mailed it off. A week later, a copy of the police report arrived.
Mike didn’t bother reading it. He just had Patience file it
away.

The end of August meant the start of school,
and thankfully Mike was fully healed by the time he had to return.
He had spent so much time in his chair with his foot up, that he
was actually happy to go back to work, if only to get out of the
house. The first morning, he walked to Midland, and was surprised
that upon his arrival, he wasn’t at all out of breath.

The school faculty held the first of a series
of back to school meetings in the library. The teachers filed in
one after another and sat down in chairs around the hexagonal
library tables. Mike sat down at an empty table, but four of the
five remaining chairs were quickly filled by Mrs. Cartwright, Miss
Treewise, Mr. Franklin, and Miss Fine.

“
You look very nice Mr.
Smith,” said Mrs. Cartwright.

“
I do?”

“
Yes you do,” said Mr.
Franklin. “You’ve lost weight, right?”

“
Yeah, I guess I
did.”

“
I didn’t think you looked
thinner,” said Miss Fine. “I see now that you are. I just thought
you looked younger.”

“
Really.”

Mrs. Cartwright nodded.

“
You do look younger,”
admitted Mr. Franklin. “Of course you’re still really
old.”

“
Thanks. That’s very
nice.”

“
If you are interested in
seeing your class rosters, you can pull them up on your texTees,”
said the Assistant Principal. “It won’t be a surprise to anyone
that class sizes are larger than last year.”

Mike pulled his texTee out of his attaché
case and began navigating through the menus until he found the file
to download from the school’s server. Forty seven kids in first
hour. Thirty nine in second. Forty two in third. Forty five in
fourth. Forty four in fifth. He scanned through the last names in
first period. He recognized seven or eight as the younger siblings
of children he had taught the year before or the year before that.
Then he looked through the first names: Elizabeth, Justine, Jason,
Bradley, Agnes, Jonathan, Quadear, Robert, Remembrance, Marshall,
Agnes, Catherine, Mildred, Michael, Aaron, Agnes…. A pain shot
through the right side of Mike’s head.

“
Is there something the
matter?” asked Miss Treewise.

“
Just a
headache.”

The headache didn’t go away and by the time
lunch came at 11:30, Mike thought his head was going to split open.
He followed the other faculty members out the school’s front door,
squinting in the bright sunlight.

“
We’re going to Hot Dog
Paradise,” said Mr. Franklin, slapping him on the right shoulder.
“Do you want to come along?”

“
Maybe…” Before Mike could
get anything more out of his mouth, his own car pulled to a stop in
front of him. Patience rolled down the passenger-side
window.

“
I have your lunch ready at
home,” said Patience, poking her head out. Mike climbed in, not
paying any attention to those watching him from the school parking
lot.

Patience drove around the block and pulled
into the driveway. Opening the garage door with the remote, she
drove right inside and parked in the shady interior next to the
Tesla. Mike climbed out of the car and stepped through the door
into the family room.

“
What’s the matter Mike?”
Patience asked.

“
I think I’m having an
aneurism.”

“
Really?”

“
No. But I’ve got a bitch
of a headache.”

“
Sit down here,” she said,
pushing him into his recliner. “I’ll make you feel
better.”