Love and Robotics (23 page)

Josh nudged him. “That woman’s waving at you.”

“It must be somebody else.”

“I’m positive it’s you.”

Alfred zeroed in on the flapping figure. “Bloody hell. Vita Alconbury.”

“Isn’t she supposed to be dead?”

“Everyone’s entitled to a holiday. We’ll chase her down after the show.”

He wished he hadn’t seen her. He imagined her smirk as the story hurtled towards its climax. Where were they now? Anais the village bitch and her harpies, vowing revenge because Sidonie had ‘stolen’ their men. As her voice hit the ceiling in a coloratura screech, somebody tapped their box.

“Hello, Rusty.”

He wasn’t in the least surprised to see Vita. Hair like vines, intimidating teeth, sleepy voluptuous body. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?” she asked.

“Serafina Loretz.”

“You know, this is my first time? Give me the races any day.” She looked at Josh with lascivious interest. “Aren’t you going to introduce your friend?”

“Leave him alone.”

“Josh Foster,” the artificial said, holding out his hand.

“How are you finding the show, Josh?”

“It’s very romantic.”

“I’ll give you that. What’s with that mime, though? What’s wrong with showing them have a good old fuck?” She fanned herself with her libretto. “Watch yourself, young man. Twenty years ago you’d’ve been just Rusty’s type.”

Alfred was mortified. “Where are you staying?” Josh asked.

Bless the boy, he’d saved his skin. Vita must have noticed his relief. Casting sideways glances at Alfred -
Wait till I get you alone -
she described her itinerary, three days of abominable sickness, the local boy she’d picked up.

“He was meant to meet me,” she said. “I hung around in the lobby but he never showed. Ah, well. This place has to be crawling with gigolos, eh?”

The bell for Act Three rang. “Got to dash.” She darted Alfred a meaningful look before heading for her box.

The mob descend on Borkin’s. They whirl through the building and destroy everything in sight. The frenzy only stops when somebody finds the doctor’s corpse. He’s committed suicide, blaming Sidonie’s loose ways. A still more sensational discovery awaits: Sidonie, lifeless in a trunk.

Alfred felt Josh lean forward. Since he was too engrossed to speak, he gave his elbow a squeeze. A tremulous smile, warming his heart.

The men are down their local, listening to Aaron brag. They’re pulled out by Hans’s apprentice, who’d acted as the couple’s go between. They race to the house, just in time for Anais to parade Sidonie to the crowd. Hans launches himself at her, his love exposed for all to see. The villagers back away. Sidonie wakes. She sees Hans and begins to sing.

My Clockwork Heart
is the aria of arias. If Loretz had never written another line, she’d deserve a place in the canon for that. Alfred felt tears prick his eyes. It was beyond language or reason - it was every love, good and bad. Him and Josh, Vita and her date. Gwyn and Pip too, though she’d rather die than tell him.

Josh’s hand slipped into his. “Don’t cry.”

“They’re happy tears.”

“I don’t understand you sometimes.”

“Why should you?”

The crowd closes in on the lovers. A torch is knocked from somebody’s hand, consuming the cast. Each character reprises their theme. Hans wishes he’ll have an exciting life, Anais vows revenge, Aaron boasts. Even the ghostly voice of Borkin forbids his “daughter” other lovers. Sidonie is last, swearing her love. She too falls silent.

The last chords died. There was the hush you get when the audience takes it in, then the applause swelled, peaked.

Alfred wiped his eyes. It was the best production he’d seen in years. A good one to be Josh’s first –

Josh wasn’t clapping. Alfred thought he could categorise all his moods, but clearly not, because this quiet, inward expression was something else. “Are you alright?”

“I want to go home.”

His choice of words was lost on neither of them. Not where they were stopping that night, not even Chimera. Home. The flat in Redfern or CER.

Alfred tried to get lost in the post show traffic but underestimated Vita. “Rusty! Where’d you think you’re going?”

“Getting this one home -”

“Don’t be silly! Come to mine. We can have a few jars.”

He’d never been able to resist her in ebullient mood. “Why not?”

For a Vita party, it was small - but for one of her houses, it was small. Back home she lived in a lighthouse; this was her summer retreat. A converted barn, it was one up, one down, with views of the river and the neighbourhood’s cats roaming in and out. She introduced them to some stragglers - “Darling, have you met darlings?”- but they returned to whatever game or fornication they’d been engaged in.

There were no chairs, only cushions or barrels. She furnished them each with a glass of wine. Alfred was dismayed to see how quickly Josh’s vanished. If he was human, you’d accuse him of sulking.

Vita didn’t notice. Perhaps she thought they’d had a lover’s tiff. She dominated the discussion, as she dominated any room she was in. No, her boy hadn’t shown up. Well, there were compensations (she leered at Josh). In fact, didn’t this remind Rusty of the time ...?

She’d located Alfred’s weakness: stories of the days they were operatives. While he yo-yoed between Jerry and the royals, Vita had been a freelance, going where the money was. Without knowing it, he fell into the old patterns of speech, ways of thinking. Before he’d known Josh - before he’d been Gwyn’s guardian. That idle, feckless man who had slept his way across the globe and didn’t give a shit. The man Ken had loved, probably because his world view mirrored his own.

Morning. Alfred woke as promptly as though someone had flung freezing water in his face. He was lying across the bed in his underwear, covered by a draughty blanket. He licked the corners of his mouth. They tasted foul. He tried to get up but couldn’t. “What happened last night?” he asked the room.

Something he’d mistaken for a dress suit on the couch came to life. On closer inspection it was Josh. A grimly furious Josh.

“Have you
any
idea what you put me through last night?”

Alfred’s usual gestures were too much. He made a head toss that could mean anything.

“I got you here at half two - brought you myself, as no fly firm would have you. You yelled fit to wake the dead, spewed over the banisters - ”

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

“I should think you don’t!”

“I had a few drinks. It’s not a crime.”

“I’ve seen you drunk. I can cope with that. You turned into someone I didn’t like.”

              Alfred was in no state for this. He doubted he would be sober. “I was a different person before I knew you. Why d’you think CER didn’t want you to meet me?”

Josh’s voice broke. “I never believed it before.”

It was the closest their relationship came to crisis. No matter what happened later, Josh would think, “We got through that day after the opera. We can survive anything.”

He had been terrified. To see his friend helpless was the worst experience of his life. Alfred looked at Josh and couldn’t see him, or implored him to help him. A few times he said he loved him, though it was probably because he was so drunk.

Josh tried to pull him up the stairs. He was too big, slippery and awkward, sliding out of his hands and onto the floor. He couldn’t stop being sick - not the ordinary sick of hangovers but evil, toxic vomit.

“Help us!” Josh cried, knocking on the doors of the other flats. Everyone was out or ignoring him.

He’d seen Alfred in every shade of drunk: satirical, maudlin, comatose. On these occasions he’d prepare blankets and a hangover cure. No, it was the man who materialised in Vita’s lounge who frightened him. He looked like Alfred, spoke with his voice, but was cruel, hard and lustful. If he had met this man that first day at Chimera, he would never have gone back.

For the first time Josh followed the Code to the letter. He carried out his duties, fed and cleaned Alfred, asked for nothing in return. He didn’t offer his own opinion or give a firm rebuttal if he thought Alfred was talking nonsense. He hated it.

That evening he went into their room. Alfred was sitting up, looking much improved.

“Josh - ”

“Alfred -”

“I’m sorry,” they both said.

“I won’t be judgemental,” Josh said. “I know you had a life before me.”

“I won’t drink so much. Shouldn’t be too hard, remembering how I feel right now.”

They lay on the bed, Alfred’s head against his chest. It was the wrong way around but felt nice.

“Now we’ve done the churches, tried the culture - ” Alfred began.

“Yes?”

“How do you feel about ruins?”

“I like anything old - ”

“Must be why you like me.”

“Don’t push your luck!”

He’d been right to stay. Nothing could be better than this.

Digging up the Past

History had been one of Josh’s great discoveries. To put this into perspective, you have to understand Lilan culture in general, and that of Lux in particular. The country didn’t protect buildings and artefacts; there were few places in the capital over twenty years old. When an item had outlived its usefulness, it was disposed with. Emphasis was on the new: new technologies, new fashions, new movements. Josh might have been the last word in robotics, but he too had a sell by date, and it ticked ever closer.

As a result, history wasn’t high on the Lilans’ agenda. It wasn’t compulsory in schools and taught in such an abstract way, children considered it a waste of time. There were sites scattered around the country but they received little funding. Enthusiasts indulged in secret, having meetings in backrooms or clandestine trips to battle fields.

Josh loved history. Let loose in the Chimera library, he was amazed to learn the world hadn’t always looked as it did now: that there was a time when parts of the map were unknown, when men hadn’t had the vote, when Lila had been untouched by technology. Robotics had begun in that very house. The same genes that produced Alfred had, with a twist, given him and all other artificials life.

He read every book about history he could lay his hands on. Although he liked Lilan history best, other cultures captured his imagination, and none more than the ancient Farvans. It awed him that a nomadic people could settle in an area, become the most powerful civilisation in the world, and - in a comparatively short time - be wiped out.

Their fourth day in Farva, they plotted their course. Josh wouldn’t go anywhere a murder had been committed. Not only did he believe there would be unpleasant vibes, he thought it was a lazy way to make yourself famous. It must be an area of solid historical interest or he didn’t want to know. After an afternoon’s bickering and balls whizzing into the wastepaper basket, they had an itinerary.

Alfred held it at arm’s length. “Why Augustin’s Wall?”

“It was defensive rather than offensive and there’s little room for doubt.”

“You’re a difficult man to please, Josh.”

They allowed themselves three days to walk the Wall’s length, camping in the woods at night. Both missed sleeping under canvas. Somehow it gave you a sense of communion with a country that staying in a hotel couldn’t touch. They stocked up on groceries, kit and suitable clothes. They were ready.

Climbing the Wall seemed like a good idea in the morning. It was jaunty for the first ten miles, taking a break to picnic on bread and goat’s cheese. It was only as the sun climbed in the sky, the stones grew sharper and meaner, that Alfred wished they’d picked a less ambitious undertaking.

“Rest?”

“Please,” Josh said feelingly.

Having found the one shady spot for a mile, a grotto with a listless olive tree, they weren’t about to give it up. “Any water?”

“Only gin.”

Josh didn’t scold him. He lay on the tufty grass and sipped from the hipflask. “Look how this tree frames the sky.”

“Should’ve brought the camera.”

“I don’t need it.”

It would go towards a work Josh often talked about: an album of paintings he planned to do when they returned to Lila. It hurt when he mentioned it so casually.

It was the height of the afternoon, nobody was about. “Only robots go out at noon.” Alfred remembered the proverb.

“And explorers ... What’s
that
?”

“Where?”

“In that ivy.”

Josh went to investigate. He worked swiftly, tongue out, worried the least tug would bring the structure down. Alfred helped.

“What if we find something?” the artificial asked.

“Unlikely. People trek through here all the time.”

“They might be walking on top of it and never know. We’re not going to unleash any curses, are we?”

“I’ve told you before, curses don’t exist. Hello!”

The ivy had fallen away to reveal a marble head. Erosion aside, it was a handsome young man, full lipped and melancholy. Not your average Farvan - they tended to be fat with multiple chins or bald and beady eyed. Josh laughed. “He looks like me.”

He did. Alfred had always thought his friend’s beauty belonged to the ancient world, but it was unnerving to see it confirmed. Was Josh an archetype floating in the ether, waiting for a sculptor to bring him to life?

Josh patted the head. “I wonder who he was. A few looked like him in Aurelina.”

Alfred sat down heavily. He’d taught the artificial many concepts, some of which prompted a bewildered, “Why?” They’d never affected him personally. This
was
personal. Painfully so. He didn’t know how Josh would react.

“He’s probably Aurelius, the Emperor Augustin’s - lover.” He let the word disappear into his beard.

He thought he’d got away with it when Josh, with the high pitched voice that accompanied things he found especially bizarre (parking tickets, marriage) said, “Augustin was a
man
, wasn’t he?”

“Let me explain.” After a fortifying gulp of gin, he did.

“The year was AZ 62. The Farvans ruled half the world. Augustin was monarch of everything the sun touched, had everything a man could desire. But he was lonely.

He’d been married at an early age to Sabina, the loveliest woman in the Empire. She’d never had to cultivate a personality, so she was jealous and conniving - a spoilt brat. He didn’t consider her a threat. She was too inferior.”

Here came the tricky part. How would he get out of this one?

“There are men who ... like men. Only want to be with, only fall in love with men. Yes, he’d married Sabina, but Augustin’s relationships were with men. As Emperor he had his pick of the prettiest faces, the finest minds. He wanted a perfect love, the kind the bards sang about, but nothing came close. His power was always an obstacle.

Once a year he spent three months touring the Empire. They were lavish productions, sparing no expense: cooks, entertainers, bodyguards, servants. His entourage followed him wherever he went. How he gave them the slip, nobody knows, but one afternoon he took off his imperial robes and vanished.

For two days he wandered through the hills of Bith. He slept in the open, he foraged for food. The third day, disaster struck. He was rambling through the woods - Ancient Kyran forests were denser and wilder than we can imagine - when a great cat leapt out at him. After two months of being on tour he was out of condition. He prayed for a swift death. A dart shuddered into the beast’s spine, killing it outright. ‘A close one,
domi
.’

              We know what he said. Augustin recorded his thoughts for posterity, vain man. Even if the boy had been nothing to write home about, the Emperor would’ve been grateful. But he was the most beautiful thing Augustin had ever seen.

Aurelius. The most famous face in the ancient world, with the most hushed up story. He was sixteen, Augustin was forty. It didn’t matter. As everybody admits, even the historians who gave him a drubbing for it, the attraction was instant, and mutual.

The head of the Empire, falling in love with a goat herd. You couldn’t make it up. For a further two days he stayed with Aurelius. They ate together, swam together, went hunting. The second night they made love, Aurelius taking charge. This would’ve horrified the Farvans. Sex between men was only acceptable if one was a slave. A gentleman
never
received.”

How much of this does he understand?
Say
something!

“The next day Augustin returned to camp. He’d decided life was meaningless without the boy and the gods couldn’t part them. When Aurelius realised who his lover was, he begged Augustin to reconsider. The Emperor insisted he would only go back to Farva with Aurelius at his side.

‘Won’t the queen be angry?’ Aurelius asked.

‘Sabina doesn’t care if I live or die.’

So Aurelius went with his Emperor, sensing enemies in every corner. He was a bright lad.

Three years of comradeship and ardent love. Augustin finished Aurelius’s education and displayed him as his consort. The gossip spread abroad: ‘The Farvan Emperor has taken a male commoner as a lover! And his wife does nothing!’

Sabina did far from nothing. She watched and waited, made a phony show of friendship. Though suspicious, Aurelius wanted to believe. He was very ordinary despite his beauty. Cracks began to appear. Sabina started a campaign of whispers, closing in on Aurelius. The Emperor was fickle. You know that young man who had swallowed poison berries? He had been his favourite. The one who disappeared? Him too. Her husband liked his favourites to be young, soft, docile. Forgive her for mentioning it, but he was growing body hair and he’d soon be as tall as Augustin. She meant this as friendly advice, nothing more.

The venom did its work. Aurelius flinched from Augustin’s touch. He was convinced he had other lovers and accused him of showing undue favouritism to a page. Augustin publicly struck him and took the page back to his room. He made sure Aurelius heard every sound.

Not long afterwards they went on tour. Their relationship remained stormy - they were still in love but the trust had gone. A month into the progress, Augustin fell prey to the sweating sickness. Victims died twenty four hours after the initial symptoms. Farva itself tossed and wheezed. The three around the bed - Aurelius, Sabina, Augustin’s nephew Titus - had everything to lose. Sabina would retire to a villa, her influence gone. Titus was a mere boy. As for Aurelius, he couldn’t imagine a life without Augustin. He looked into the future and saw darkness.

Nobody knows if Titus was in on it. He made such a spineless Emperor, probably not. It was that bitch Sabina. ‘I heard,’ she murmured, ‘the surest way to cure somebody is for the person they love to sacrifice themselves.’ To us it’s laughable. Yet the Farvans believed such rot. Killing babies would give you a good harvest. Adulterers should be walled up and left to die. Aurelius was a foreigner - it was no crazier than other things he’d seen. Who did Augustin love if not him?

The instant Aurelius landed in the water, Augustin jumped out of bed. When he raced down to the river and saw his beloved’s lifeless body, he wept.

Augustin wasn’t the first Emperor to take a man for a lover and he certainly wasn’t the last. It would have been quickly forgotten but for this: he
mourned
. From the day he found Aurelius to his own death three years later, he never stopped. He built cities, dedicated temples to his love. He surrounded himself with Aurelius’s image. He even - the ultimate blasphemy - deified him, an honour granted no other civilian. When a new star appeared in the heavens it was named Aurelius.

There are many things not to like about Augustin. He was rash, paranoid and cruel. His persecution of minorities was appalling. Once you’d fallen from his favour you had an enemy for life. But you can’t deny how much he loved Aurelius.”

The shadow of the branches fell across Josh’s face. “There’s something I don’t get -”

Alfred’s heartbeat was unnaturally loud. “Yes?”

“What can a man get from a man that he can’t from a woman?”

Alfred would always remember this moment beneath the pitiless sun. It was like he’d missed his footing going downstairs. Rather than being a blunder he could correct, he would go on falling.

“Passion and understanding.” His face felt like granite.

The artificial flinched. “You mean -
you -
”

“Leave me alone.”

Alfred hitched his pack onto his shoulder and struck out into the blazing sun. Leaving Josh with no map, no supplies, nothing.

It took Josh half an hour to understand he had been deserted. The heat was interfering with his reasoning, to say nothing of the shock. Such a lot had happened since morning!

He struggled with this latest revelation. He knew Alfred wasn’t like other men, but had always assumed his friend was too peculiar for a woman to love. He supposed it made sense. He remembered that remark in the library, puzzling at the time: “Women do nothing for me.” Did that mean men did?

Why did this bother him? He’d never given the ghostly woman friend a face. Now a parade of beastly men appeared. A languid man with a moustache, exclaiming, “Darling, is this your bot? How
fascinating
!” A handsome lunk head, flexing muscles like hubcaps.  A youth with crazed eyes and a cowlick. The thought of Alfred wanting these creatures filled him with rage!

After ten minutes he realised that not only had Alfred not come back, he was unlikely to. Artificial he might be, but he wasn’t obtuse. It must have taken courage to tell him something so personal, but Josh had pushed him away.

He put Aurelius back before he left. It felt like the right thing to do. Knotting his jacket around his waist, he started the long, arduous trek over the Wall.

Kicking up dust, turning words over in his head, he didn’t notice a dip. He had time to throw his arms out but the damage was done. His ankle twisted, his right wrist snapped. He let out a string of Alfred’s choicest swearwords.