Portable Curiosities (16 page)

Next up was a montage of hurricanes and tsunamis and scandals and elections and parades from the year that was, a few clips of 2030's hottest hits, and then the nine o'clock family fireworks, accompanied by a medley of Wagner and uberpop.

As they had been for a number of years, the fireworks were pre-programmed graphics superimposed on microdrone footage of Sydney's landmarks. According to the government, these were cheaper and safer than actual fireworks, and kept citizens from milling around in dangerously large groups at vantage points across the city's foreshore.

The musical accompaniment and fireworks combinations varied each year, to keep the mix fresh. This time, the display opened with millions of shimmering rainbow pinwheels and dancing monkeys. Eleven cricketers in green and gold walked across the sky. A fleet of eleven silver ships sailed in the opposite direction. The smell of gunpowder wafted through the vision's olfactor.

When the last of the virtual nine o'clock fireworks had spun out over Sydney Harbour and poured golden from the Harbour Bridge, Orla turned off the vision, twisted earplugs into her ears, and went to sleep.

*

It was quiet in the CBD the morning after, as Orla made her way to her next session with the Sister Company.

Just like the week before, she took the lift.

The doors opened onto the second floor. A gangly blond woman in a sky blue dress rushed in, bumping into her.

‘Fuck, sorry,' she said.

‘No worries,' said Orla, stepping out.

The woman's eyes were red and puffy. She held a tissue to her nose, sniffling.

‘You know how it is,' she said as the doors closed. ‘Therapy dredges up the worst. But they say I'll be functional again soon.'

Orla sat in the waiting room. For a while, she watched Rhonda pottering around – refilling the business card holder, adjusting the height of her swivel chair, flicking through documents and licking her index finger now and then. Orla bowed her head and stared into her lap.

‘Orla?' a woman said, in a voice that sounded precisely like her own.

‘Yes?'

Orla looked up. The first thing she noticed was her therapist's black flats. They were identical to Orla's, with little shiny bows at the top. Then Orla saw the black trousers and polka-dot shirt. The therapist was wearing the exact same outfit that Orla had worn to the pre-session.

‘Hola, Orla,' said the therapist. ‘Happy New Year.'

The other strange thing was that the woman's face looked exactly like Orla's, minus the chubbiness. Overall, the woman was slimmer than Orla, with clearer skin. Her hair was also ash brown but without the black roots. In fact, everything that Orla hated about her own body – the fat in weird places, the heavy arms, the forearm freckles – was gone.

‘How did …' Orla took a moment to think. ‘You're an android.'

‘I am. My name's Kabuki.'

‘As in kabuki theatre?'

‘I'm Japanese tech, Australianised. The Sydney development team thought it'd be cute to name me after words they pulled out of a Tokyo guidebook. Initially I saw your name and thought you were going to be Irish.'

‘I'm Chinese, Australianised. My parents named me after a brand of kitchen sponge.'

Kabuki smiled, nodding.

They shook hands. Kabuki's was surprisingly warm. It felt like real flesh and blood.

Kabuki ushered her down the corridor and into a consultation room. A bookshelf lined one wall. The shelves were mostly empty, except for three antique paperbacks, stress balls in assorted shapes and colours, a series of frosted blue vases, and a cactus in a terracotta pot.

‘Don't be too overwhelmed by how realistic I appear,' said Kabuki. ‘Our receptionist, Rhonda, is an earlier model. Artificially intelligent but nothing more.'

‘I didn't know technology was so far along,' said Orla. ‘They still can't even get the train timetable right.'

They sat down opposite each other.

‘The public isn't always aware of the latest technological advancements,' Kabuki said. ‘It's a matter of priorities. With money and commitment, you can make anything happen.'

She crossed her legs and clasped her hands, resting them on one knee.

‘So what we're beginning today is a program of individualised therapy, which we call Integrational Realignment – a sort of early intervention with a personal touch.

‘The edge I have over regular and holotherapy is that I can completely identify with your particular situation. As you recall, in the pre-session we monitored your brain activity as you recounted emotions you felt during past trauma.'

Kabuki reached behind her left ear and pulled out a microchip the size of a pea.

‘The program in this chip replicates that unique mix of emotion and experience. It functions as an overlay for my essential system. It's like having a brain that can run on two tracks simultaneously. On one layer I have your lived experience, which provides me with the ability to feel exactly as you have felt. Underlying that layer is in-depth therapeutic knowhow, which I'll use to help you nurture your positive thinking. In short, what I can offer you is exceptionally tailored coaching and companionship that will help you become functional again.'

‘So you understand why I made the appointment,' said Orla.

Kabuki reinserted the chip, nodding.

Orla was relieved. If Kabuki really did have full emotional capabilities, then she knew how it all felt. The weekends of interminable crying, the inordinate weight gain, the sheen disappearing from every new acquaintance and wedding and party and barbecue. She knew about Orla having no family left. About all the good friends who'd upped and moved away without bothering to leave forwarding addresses. About the guys Orla had dated who'd dropped off the radar and never called again. She literally felt how Orla felt, watching everyone around her just following the crowd, procreating, and marking time with gins on Friday nights and lattes at weekend brunches.

Kabuki smiled. ‘You've lived in Sydney your whole life but you don't have much to show for it. You wonder if this is all an illusion, a nightmare. You wonder if this is a holding city, where you're just waiting to die. You're slowing down but the days are speeding up and blending into each other.'

‘Shouldn't you have worse existential anxieties than I do?' asked Orla.

‘I'm the therapist here,' Kabuki laughed. ‘So out of the two of us I'm clearly dealing all right.'

‘How do you think I should fix it?'

‘You already know how,' said Kabuki. ‘There's no new path to happiness. It's a choice.'

‘Well, I know what people say will fix it. But I don't think it will work.'

‘Tell me anyway. But let's start off with two of the more common solutions. First, a little bit of Vitamin D for mood elevation. Second, exercise. So let's walk.'

Suddenly, Kabuki was up off her seat and out the door.

Orla followed Kabuki up Hunter Street.

It was near empty – a few people wandered around, lost and hung-over. Orla noticed Kabuki had the same slight lag in the feet as Rhonda did, but that was the only sign she wasn't human.

‘Are sudden walks part of the therapy?' Orla asked. ‘It feels unusual.'

‘I take a flexible approach,' said Kabuki. She took a deep breath through her nostrils and looked to the darkening sky. ‘I smell a storm coming.'

‘Are you sure you want to keep going?'

‘No time like the present. I love the drama of a thunderstorm.'

‘What if you get struck by lightning?'

‘Zapped, schmapped.'

Orla was already panting on the uphill ascent. Kabuki was practically power walking.

‘So,' said Kabuki, ‘tell me how you're going to make yourself better.'

‘Well,' said Orla. ‘I've been reading a lot of self-help and all of it says I should socialise even when I don't feel like it.'

‘Good start.'

‘Also, my mind apparently shapes my own reality. So constant rumination isn't healthy.'

‘Correct.'

‘But don't you think it's weird, tricking myself that things are good when they aren't?'

‘It's a matter of distorted perspective. The melancholic mind tends to remember the negative and discount the positive.'

‘But what if I'm sad because I can see things clearly?'

‘Some of the most intelligent people in the world experience negative events and yet choose happiness. But,' Kabuki continued, ‘we're getting ahead of ourselves. I want you to start with the basics. Like, pick up a hobby.'

‘A hobby?'

‘Pick anything.'

‘What would I do? Do you have a hobby?'

‘I act in my spare time.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeah. I like the idea of total immersion. Understanding human motivation at its deepest levels. People even say I have the charisma of De Niro in his
Taxi Driver
years.'

‘But De Niro's a guy.'

‘I guess I have cross-over appeal.'

The sky cracked and rain gushed. It got into Orla's flats, and streamed down the gutters. The wind picked up and blew Orla's hair across her face.

Kabuki strode on unconcerned.

‘Isn't it a treat to be alive!'

By the time they reached the Royal Botanic Garden, Orla was drenched through. Kabuki showed no signs of wanting to turn back.

They walked towards the harbour and ended up at the water, the Harbour Bridge visible in the distance.

On the grass to the right of a large tree, a few dozen white wooden chairs had been set up in two sections. An aisle of pink and white rose petals ran between them. Here and there, petals skipped in the wind. Women clutching white umbrellas kissed hello, holding their billowing silk dresses down at the sides. Two tourists in shorts stood by, cameras ready.

‘A wedding!' said Kabuki. ‘I love weddings.'

‘Who gets married on New Year's Day?' Orla muttered.

‘Let's be wedding guests.'

Kabuki grabbed Orla's hand. They sidled up to stand behind the white folding chairs, next to small children in clear rain ponchos hiding behind their fathers' legs. The children rubbed their eyes and howled at the wind.

‘Don't you think it's a bit sociopathic?' said Orla. ‘Joining a stranger's wedding?'

‘We're not discussing me. You're the one in therapy.'

The wedding photographer raced up and stuck a lens in Orla's face.

‘Twins?' she asked.

‘She's my—'

‘Sister,' said Kabuki, and hugged Orla's shoulder.

‘Beautiful,' said the photographer, snapping away. ‘Just beautiful. How do you know the bride?'

‘We're colleagues, actually,' said Kabuki. ‘She's stunning, isn't she? Just stunning.'

Orla watched the bridal party approach. The bride beamed, even though she was nearly lost in a dress made of infinite layers of fluff. Three bridesmaids in aqua followed. Each pulled along a gigantic round white balloon, tail adorned with coloured paper tassels. The balloons were acting up, trying to pull themselves free at every moment.

Everyone stood for the bride. A quartet began to play. But the music could barely be heard over a sudden gust of wind that blew the bride's dress up above her head and kept it there. She let out a bloodcurdling scream. She wasn't wearing underwear – just a triangular patch of blond hair.

The bridesmaids shrieked and let go of their balloons. They rushed to pull the dress down, battling the layers.

The dress stayed up for what seemed to Orla to be a glorious eternity. The photographer's camera fluttered. Guests sighed in sympathy. Parents clapped their hands over the eyes of their small children, who squealed in anger. The wedding celebrant, in a voice of rising panic, asked for calm.

Orla watched the balloons escape up and over the harbour, disappearing into the sky, tassels streaming. She looked from the vagina to the balloons and back to the vagina again.

She laughed and laughed and laughed.

They walked back to Wynyard.

‘I was right, wasn't I?' said Kabuki. ‘Crashing a wedding – fantastic.'

‘Best start to the year ever. I feel bad about laughing.'

‘You know, life's about meaningful experience,' said Kabuki. ‘You need to be out in the world connecting with that. And you need to be eating right. Are you eating right? Lots of leafy greens?'

‘Can't really afford them,' said Orla. ‘But I'll try.'

Orla felt like things were looking up. She would go home and make a salad and get on the stationary bike and take up a hobby – maybe cross-stitch.

Behind the reception desk, Kabuki printed her off some material.

‘These are worksheets on perfectionism,' said Kabuki. ‘They'll help you improve your tolerance when the world falls short of your expectations, as well as your ability to accept the state of things when you can't change them.'

Orla looked at the worksheets.

‘Are these spelling mistakes deliberate?'

Kabuki laughed. ‘Time's up. Next week it's down to serious business. We'll discuss some medication options, and map your life across six domains to make sure you're on the optimal path for success.'

‘Sounds good,' said Orla.

Kabuki shook her hand. ‘I'll leave you with Rhonda to make our next appointment. One week from today should be fine.'

Orla was about to exit through the glass doors downstairs when she remembered the client drinks for
Rising Tide
. They clashed with the appointment she'd just made.

She took the lift back up to the office and found Rhonda slumped over her desk, unconscious.

‘Oh my God. Rhonda?'

She shook Rhonda's shoulders but got no response. Rhonda's body felt rigid, like she was locked into place. Orla put two fingers on Rhonda's neck to check for a pulse, then remembered that Rhonda was a robot.