Love and Robotics (10 page)

The door gusted open. “I saw that woman from CER - the one who looks like a bloke in a dress -”

“_____!”

Alfred cringed. “Sorry, madam. I didn’t see you.”

“Don’t ‘Madam’ me. I blame you for this. Josh doesn’t know the first thing about politics. Why the ___ would he?”

Alfred stared at her in distaste. “What do you want me to do?”

“
I’m
taking Josh home. You haven’t spoken to any reporters?”

“I don’t deal with the press.”

“Thank ___ for small mercies.”

“Can’t I collect my things?” Josh asked.

“Okay. But then we go.”

They didn’t speak until she had climbed into her vix and screeched around the corner.

“You’ve liked it, haven’t you?” Alfred asked. “You haven’t wanted to go home?”

Josh could have told him any number of things but settled for, “It’s been interesting.”

“Good.”

Past the equestrian statue with its mantle of pigeons, a craft decanting tourists. Alfred took Josh’s elbow as they descended, knowing his difficulty with stairs. Down they went into the shanty town of tents. Another ring of fires had been lit. Protestors were singing.

“I’m going to miss this,” Josh said. “It’s been the first time I’ve been with real people.”

“What do you work with, jelly fish?”

“They’re odd at CER. They live in an ivory tower.”

Josh had seen the resolve in Sienna’s eyes. CER wouldn’t rest until an investigation had taken place. He imagined Malik, her monotone jeer, and Fisk. The praying mantis would bite heads off in earnest.

For now they were together. He didn’t want to waste their remaining time -

“Get down!” As Alfred jabbed his fingers into his back, he banged his chin against a waste disposal unit.

“What are you doing?”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘Thanks’.”

A tank was rolling through the tents, squashing a food vendor flat. The gun spun and blasted through an outside toilet. Sewage sprayed ten feet into the air. The protestors stampeded.

“What damn fool’s driving that tank?”

“The army?”

“They’d never be that incompetent. Can you walk?”

“Think so.”

They raced through the puddles, Josh’s teeth chattering.

“Pack the tent up. I’ll see what this lunatic’s doing -”

The gun’s cross hairs lit their faces. Josh moved in front of Alfred, expecting to be shot any minute.

“Bet Nanny never foresaw this,” Alfred said.

“Any last words?”

“No. You?”

The turret corkscrewed. Out burst a shock of candyfloss hair. “Langton! Fancy seeing you!”

The corner of Alfred’s mouth jerked. Josh slipped his arm beneath his and gave him a warning squeeze.

“Hello, Jerry,” he managed.

              “The Mayor?” Josh whispered. “No wonder the country’s going to hell.”

“Isn’t she a beaut?” Jerry Etruscus jumped down and slapped the tank’s side. “Borrowed her from that old trout Gossington.”

“Why are you here?” Alfred’s voice was taut with tiredness.

“Some silly buggers were cluttering the place up. I thought I’d give it a spring clean. Who’s your friend?”

Realising they were clinging to each other, Alfred and Josh moved apart. “My name’s Josh Foster.”

Jerry’s face was all rainbows and delight. “The bot? This is
epic!
My PR crew’s coming along in a mo, do you mind having your picture taken? I’m a
huge
fan -”

Which is why, in a matter of hours, every newssheet carried an image of Josh having his arm enthusiastically pumped by the Mayor. Alfred groaned in the background with a hand over his face.

“Not a word, not a message. We were out of our minds!”

Josh was standing in the middle of Fisk’s office. She hadn’t stopped pacing for fifteen minutes.

“I was with Lord Langton -”

“See?” Malik was so short he hadn’t seen her over the top of the chair. “I told you that old soak’d lead him astray. Sienna found him in a gambling den -”

“It wasn’t a den, it was a betting shop.” Malik always rubbed him up the wrong way. “Besides, why was
she
there?”

“How our employees relax off duty is none of your concern -” Fisk began.

“I’m an employee, aren’t I?”

“It’s different for you. You’re -”

“The face of the company? Find yourself another face. I quit.”

Fisk shook her head wearily. “This is your first offence so we’ll overlook it. I need hardly say this isn’t the kind of behaviour we expect.”

Weren’t they listening to him?

“Are we friends?” the mantis demanded.

“I suppose so,” he muttered.

“Speaking of friends,” Fisk continued, “isn’t it a time you called it a day with Langton? You needn’t pretend to like him.”

“I’m not pretending.”

She faced him, fingers steepled. “If you write a nice letter thanking him for everything he’s done, but saying you don’t want to see him any more -”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I won’t write it because it’s not true. I want to see him and you can’t stop me.”

“I’m your handler.”

“So you keep saying. I don’t remember anyone asking if I wanted you.”

She started to cry, right in front of him. “After everything I’ve done! Just go.”

He wanted to say “With pleasure”, but decency prevented him. He tried not to look at her before stepping into the corridor.

“That was a turn up for the books,” a voice said at his elbow. “Does Langton mean that much to you?”

“When I’m with him, I feel real. I’m not a machine because he doesn’t see me as one.”

He’d never thought of Malik as having an expressive face. There was the look she wore in their sessions, professional deadpan, and her every day one, a supercilious smirk. This wasn’t ambiguous at all: shocked nausea.

“We’re due a session,” she said faintly. “When are you free?”

“Two days’ time.”

“Don’t forget. And don’t do anything stupid.”

She scuttled away. Peculiar woman. Yet
she
was supposed to analyse
him
.

                               The Century Games

As autumn turned into winter, Lila saw its worst storms in a decade. Spires poked from murky flood water, lowing cows were airlifted, grim faced villagers ranted to anyone who would listen. “When will the Prime Minister help us?” became the national catchphrase. Her approval rating dipped below 50% for the first time.

The dome that shielded Lux in times of crisis went up. Josh watched the rain sluice down, the traffic churn below. He had a devouring homesickness for Langton. He longed for rippling fields, murmuring firs, Chimera. Alfred.

“No way,” Sugar said. “Houses can be replaced. You can’t.”

Any other time he could have gritted his teeth and borne it. But everybody else was preparing for the Games. “Later, Josh,” or “Don’t bug me,” they snapped. So he returned to his suite and stared at the skyline, his books and paintings meaningless.

Alfred rang once a day. Their chats lasted at least an hour, usually longer, and kept him up to date: rescues from flooded shelters, the wet dog that skittered around Chimera.

“When are you coming up?” Josh tried not to sound too plaintive.

“Depends when I can get away.”

“I miss you.”

“Miss you too.” They’d spin out their goodbyes as long as they could, recalling a funny story or obscure fact they’d heard.

The fourth time, Josh heard something odd. Alfred had replaced his receiver, but somebody tutted before hanging up. Malik? But why would she listen to his calls?

Whatever Alfred felt, he felt violently. Typical boffins, to forget Josh when a project was underway. As soon as he could be spared, he would go to Lux and see what was what. A pretext came the next day. He’d just crossed the threshold when the tube in the library started to shriek. He picked it up.

“Lord Langton?” (He grunted “Good evening,” but went unheard). “I didn’t know who else to turn to -”

“Who is this?”

“Smedley. Neville Smedley. The Mayor’s secretary.”

A picture of sorts emerged. With inimitable timing Jerry Etruscus had chosen the month before the Games to cash in his cheques to sanity.

“He keeps asking for you,” Smedley said. “Won’t say anything else.”

Alfred and Gwyn set off for Lux, arriving after midnight. Following a conference with Smedley - the secretary had bolted himself in, there were crashes and yells in the background - he turned up at eight sharp the next morning.

Jerry operated out of a funny afterthought of a place, wedged between a printing press and a brewery. The timbers clashed with the plate glass and the roller floor, tended by wheezing functionals. Alfred went up a chipped marble staircase and down a corridor lined with Etruscuses. They looked so alike, you wondered if Jerry put on a wig to masquerade as another member of the clan. ‘Mr Mayor’ was emblazoned across the office door, with ‘Thinking: Do Not Disturb’ underneath.

Alfred knocked. Nothing. He pressed his ear to the door. There was definitely mumbling and the sound of something tinkling. He tried the handle. Unlocked.

Hand in his breast pocket, he stepped into the office. As he looked around, he understood Smedley’s fright. Furniture overturned, bins spewed, books tossed from the shelves. A smell that was animal, vegetable and mineral. “Up here!” came a feeble croak.

Jerry Etruscus wasn’t the daintiest of men. An appalling diet washed down with booze meant he was dumpling shaped, with a bum like a barrage balloon. It was this Alfred could see, wedged in the twinkling chandelier. Worse was his face: putty coloured, runny eyed, wiped of its idiot bonhomie. Alfred snatched him under the armpits and dumped him in his chair.

“Somebody’s trying to kill me,” the Mayor whispered. Alfred would have laughed if it hadn’t been for the terror in his eyes.

“What do you want me to do?”

Josh was listening to the network. At CER it was restricted to three channels: Technology, Shopping and Current Affairs. As Technology was the current he swam in and Shopping mainly consumers griping, it was tuned to News.

The sound of the Summer Temple bells, followed by the cultured tones of a female artificial. “We turn to one of the most pressing issues of our time: Clones.”

He got up to make coffee. A human voice took over, clipped and efficient.

“Intended as a solution to the fertility crisis, it gradually became apparent that clones were unstable, immoral and aged at an unprecedented rate. When the adoption process was phased out - the catalyst is believed to have been the destruction of Marwood, Lila’s largest compound - alternatives were sought. Clones were enlisted in the armed forces, assimilated into workplaces -”

Did this mean that before their experiments with robots, Lux’s scientists diced with human lives? Clones were predominantly male, the disposable sex, and even once the compounds were broken up had been herded into tenements.

At least his life had been given a price by the government. True, no clones had been produced since 2155, but there must be thousands out there.

A knock at the door. “Hello? I’m not receiving visitors -”

“If a monkey can throw a tea party, so can you,” a familiar voice said gruffly.

Josh pulled on his dressing gown, crimson with a dragon on the back, and slid the door open. “Why did you knock? You’ve got a card.”

“I wasn’t born in a barn.”

“Would you like coffee? It’s instant but not too bad.”

“Nice dragon,” Alfred said, as he turned his back. Pointing at the set, he asked, “Mind if I switch over? They’re talking about nothing else at the Forum.”

They chatted about this and that - Jerry’s breakdown, a similar lapse a few years ago when his daughter ran off with a waiter.

“You should’ve seen him,” Alfred chuckled. “Galumphing around in his pants, bellowing: ‘Is there any man in Lux who has
not
slept with my daughter?’ Some wag yelled, ‘I haven’t.’ Jerry roared, ‘Would you like to?’”

“Is the Forum always like that?”

“Sleazes and scuzzballs – and that’s just the women. So how
is
life in the great green pickle?”

“The same. I know it’s a year since I was switched on, but -”

Alfred stared. “Today’s your birthday?”

“Birthday?” Josh repeated blankly.

“For the love of Zara! Presents. Parties! Doesn’t this convey
any
thing?”

Josh shrugged.

“This is not on. You’re having a proper birthday, whether you like it or not.”

Josh thought afterwards that if Fisk had been around, the answer would have been no. Luckily she had succumbed to the mystery illness that flared up every few months.

“You can’t miss Lux in the festive season,” Alfred said. “It’s crass, commercial and glorious.”

The Feast of St Jude had come round again. Every shopping centre had a Morwenna’s grotto, brass bands ground out
A Heavenly Daughter
. Alfred loved everything about the festival: the songs, the food, the decorations. Josh demanded to hear the story.

“When Lady Thea decided she wanted a daughter, she challenged the princes of the world to a contest. The prize was her hand in marriage. Intellectuals sharpened their wits, athletes oiled their muscles. Imagine their amazement when she chose Jude, a bonny but not terribly bright prince from one of the smaller nations.

She informed him of his great purpose. He rose to the task magnificently. Because the baby was half god, half mortal, it was a difficult pregnancy; they retired to a grotto in the snowy wastes. Only Morwenna (Thea’s nursemaid) and Bartleby (Jude’s jester) could wait on the Heavenly family. It was here Zara was born, immediately reaching for her mother’s helmet. ‘She will be a mighty warrior,’ Morwenna sighed. She had the gift of second sight and foreknowledge made her sad.”

They were eating lunch at a fascinating new restaurant. Spider shaped robots launched meals down a melee of tunnels. “Religion’s a lot of twaddle, isn’t it?” Josh said suddenly.

“Got it in one.” Alfred looked around to see how the other diners took it. One drew herself up, outraged.

“It’s like they’re making it up as they go along.”

Alfred grinned. Knowing how to rub salt in the wound, he produced his most fragrant cigars and smoked them ostentatiously. As the woman did an affected cough, he said, “Forgive me, I’m being rude,” and whipped out his War Pipe. His own creation, it was a pipe the size of a cornet, flanked by long handled cigarettes like cannons. If you blew down it, it gave off a wall of smoke.

The woman realised she had lost. She gathered her shopping and left.

“I was upsetting her, wasn’t I?” Josh asked.

“You’ll always meet people who don’t like you. Screw them, it’s their loss. I think you’re fantastic.”

Buying a Bartleby toy. Playing skittles. Going to the Planetarium and History Museums. “This is what it’s about,” Alfred enthused. “The way they teach it in schools is rubbish. Gwyn had to write daft essays: ‘You are a soldier on the eve of battle, how do you feel?’ or ‘You are Queen Barbarina, about to neck a phial of poison. How do you
feel
?’”

“Fed up, I should think,” Josh said. He didn’t know why Alfred laughed so much.

He wouldn’t let Josh choose his present on impulse: “You’ll spend the rest of the year kicking yourself. It’s got to be something you want as well as need.”

              After trekking through junk shops and boutiques, they spotted it. “
Alfred
,” Josh said, clutching his arm. It was an old fashioned music player, its mother of pearl speaker like a lotus. You could change its settings to orchestra or opera, record and pick up different stations.

“Let’s get some music,” Alfred said. “You can’t have a machine like that and listen to dross.”

Dinner was in a terrifying restaurant with human waiters. Josh was convinced he would do or say the wrong thing. When he realised Alfred only used the knife he carried with him and had his elbows on the table, he stopped worrying.

Gwyn joined them. He’d never seen her so happy and unselfconscious. When the waiters wheeled out a cake shaped like an easel, crowned by sparklers, she was as delighted as him.

“That’s the best day I’ve had,” Josh said when Alfred escorted him to his rooms.

“That was the idea. What do you want to do tomorrow?”

Three days after Josh’s birthday, Alfred’s mind was made up. He couldn’t stand by and let his friend be treated like this. Perhaps he should have booked an appointment, but that would only give them the chance to wriggle out of it. He arrived at CER at half eleven, unannounced; he asked Pip not to buzz ahead. Remembering the route from the old days, he arrived at the main conference room and stood in the doorway.

The doctors were holding a meeting. Sugar was tetchy, sweat spreading from his armpits; Malik’s drone went on and on. Fisk was physically there but mentally absent. They looked up.

“Lord Langton!” Sugar exclaimed, and “What are
you
doing here?” from Fisk. “Can’t you
read
?” Malik added a beat later.

Alfred waved. “Hello, visiting, enough to get the racing scores.”

A flush mottled Fisk’s neck. Sugar remembered his manners and fixed drinks. Alfred took a few sips and a bite of biscuit before enlightening them. “Josh’s birthday was last week.”

“Birthday?” Malik snorted. “That can’t be right,” Sugar said. Fisk did calculations on her fingers. “Yes. It must’ve been.”

“Didn’t you know?”

“We’ve been busy.” Sugar tugged at his braces. “It slipped our minds.”

“We’re working on a project of the utmost importance,” Malik said. “We haven’t got
time
to hang out with robots and play show tunes.”

Alfred ignored her and finished his coffee. “You’re handling him all wrong.”

“I think
I’m
the best judge -” Fisk began.

“You’re like kids with a new toy. When you first had Josh you couldn’t wait to show him off. As soon as he stopped being new you left him to moulder away.”

Fisk’s cup rattled alarmingly.

“Am I near the mark?” he asked innocently.

“What would
you
do?” Malik intended to be sarcastic - not that her voice had any other setting - but he nodded.

“Stop treating him like a child. He’s a man with thoughts and feelings. He should be allowed to discover who he is.”

Sugar actually seemed to be listening. “What did you have in mind?”

“He should be allowed his own flat and a salary.”

              The room couldn’t contain the questions:
where
would this flat be?
What
would he spend a salary on?
How
would they keep an eye on him?

“I don’t mind paying. You decide on the amount - enough for clothes, books, entertainment. Enough to give him autonomy. It’s just -” he’d got this far, he should roll with it - “he isn’t happy.”