Barren Cove (14 page)

“That's awesome, man,” Cog said, his face coated in sand stubble.

Clarke stood up and held a hand out to help Cog up. When Cog took it, Clarke swung him around, throwing him at the rock wall, which Cog was able to grip onto, hanging on a foot or so off the ground. He smiled back at Clarke and started up the wall.

Clarke ran and jumped, but there was no way for him to catch up, and Cog had his arms crossed over his chest when Clarke reached the top.

“How come I've never seen you around?” Cog asked. “You live in town, or are you just passing through?”

“You know Barren Cove?”

“That human nutso's place?”

Clarke's hands clenched, and he said through his teeth, “It's my father's place.”

“You're human built?”

“It's not the human's place! The human doesn't even belong there. He's just a conniving hanger-on!”

“Hey, man, you need me to throw you off a cliff or something?”

Clarke laughed, a real laugh, then played his recorded laugh for added effect.

“You should come to town sometime,” Cog said. “We'll get some numbers or something.”

“I need to look out for my brother,” Clarke said.

“Bring him.”

“Yeah,” Clarke said. “Sure.”

“If your brother's as robo as you, man, I might not have to kill myself after all, this fucking town,” Cog said.

Clarke just grabbed Cog's shirtfront and pulled him out into the air, and they started falling.

• • •

Clarke and Philip were sitting on the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean behind Barren Cove. Far out on the horizon over the water was a dark bank of storm clouds. The occasional flash of lightning gave the clouds shape, a mix of wispy and dense tufts pulled into long strips. Where the brothers sat, the midmorning sun shone unhindered, the quality of light so refined that everything around them seemed to have a supernatural glow.

Clarke read aloud from a tablet. “ ‘The cyborg reached for her. Fifteen years. Fifteen years he had loved that face. They had been children then, God, had they been children, what had they known about love? “Please . . .” she said, her hand outstretched. All those years, all those fantasies, and now . . . He pulled back. “No. It's too late,” he said.' Okay, that's it. I've had enough of this shit.” Clarke tossed the tablet off to the side.

“It means nothing to you,” Philip said.

“It doesn't mean anything to anybody,” Clarke said. “Some bullshit some human made up decades ago.” He pulled a clump of grass from the ground and flung it in front of them. It dropped straight down, out of sight, with not even a light breeze to scatter the blades. “You want to read old books, you should read them yourself.”

“Battery . . . fast.”

“What's an extra half hour matter? You just make me do it to torture me.”

Several gulls spiraled over the waves, one hundred feet from the beach, squealing and barking. They dove one by one, but only the first one came up with a fish in its beak. Clarke punched the ground beside him, cracking off a hunk of rock that he threw at the birds.

“Hey!” Phil cried.

But the rock fell far short, barely reaching the water. He thought of some of the mods Cog had been talking about,
tensile telescoping limbs; he could throw like a slingshot. But he was skeptical that they would hold up very long. Cog could try it first; let him fuck himself up.

Philip unfroze, his system having seized from his outrage at Clarke's missile. “You do . . . when I'm sleeping.”

“Charging.”

“Sleeping. Read more.”

“I told you I'm done with that shit.”

“. . . ask yourself why we're here?”

“Not this again,” Clarke said. He pried another rock loose and tossed it overhead, catching it easily when it came down.

“And you never think about it on your own?”

“I know why I'm here,” Clarke said. He thought of Beachstone saying he would never forgive him. “I know why you're here too.” He threw the rock up again and caught it.

The gulls on the beach were fighting over the caught fish, one flying off a little ways, getting attacked, grabbing the fish, and flying a few feet away again.

“Father had something to prove,” Philip said, repeating back Clarke's own words from the dozens of other times they'd had this conversation.

“And all he proved was that a robot could be more decrepit than he is,” Clarke said.

“Stories . . . understand what humans were thinking.”

“Yeah, the cyborg was the bad guy,” Clarke said, losing patience with this conversation.

“Tragic . . .” Philip said. “About to . . . he can't have children.”

“You've read it already?” Clarke said, turning toward his brother.

“Guess . . .”

Clarke tapped each of his fingers on the stone in his hand, enjoying the click, click, click.

The sound of a hose starting came from behind him. The brothers turned, although Philip wasn't able to turn far enough to actually see. Kapec was near the house, starting to water the lawn.

“Hey, junkyard,” Clarke called. “Storm's coming. You don't need to water.” He pointed at the distant clouds, flashing at the horizon.

“That storm's not coming here,” Kapec said.

Clarke threw the stone at Kapec, and the old robot blocked it with his forearm. “That piece of junk should be deactivated,” Clarke said.

“Why?”

“What good is he to anybody?”

“What good are any of us?”

Clarke locked eyes with his brother. “Damn right,” he said. But he knew the real question was, what good is Phil to anybody? At least Kapec
did
something. Phil was deadweight to be lugged around. But the idea of deactivating Phil was something Clarke did his best to avoid.

“Read the story . . . cyborg,” Phil said.

Clarke pointed at the tablet. “The story isn't going to tell you anything. You're right—what good are we to anybody?” He picked the tablet up and chucked it over the cliff.

“Father read those stories when he was a child,” Philip said.

“How do you know?”

“Mother . . .”

“Mother spoke to you?”

“Once.”

The way he said it, the finality, hurt Clarke. He jumped up, looked around, saw Kapec, bent down, and grabbed a few more stones, which he hurled at the plastic gardener. They tapped Kapec's side harmlessly. The robot ignored him.

“The cyborg was born human,” Philip said, “but became a robot.”

“And the humans wanted to kill him. And he was never a robot. And we'll never be human, and we can be thankful for that.”

“Thankful . . .” Philip said.

Clarke looked up at the sun. He looked out at the distant storm. Fuck it, he thought, and he leapt off the cliff, bunching up into a ball and spinning, three times, four . . . The most he'd ever done and landed on his feet was six somersaults. This time he stretched out his body into a dive, landed on his hands, and crumpled into an immediate forward roll.

The seagulls were walking on the water-packed sand forty yards away, stopping to examine various bits of seaweed and other detritus. Phil was invisible up above. Clarke couldn't wait to see Cog. He needed to pummel something.

A light winked on the sand, and Clarke saw it was the sun reflecting on the tablet, which had fallen screen-side up. He went over to it and picked it up in his metal claws. The screen was undamaged. He hit the power button and it came back on. The scene he'd been reading to his brother was still on the screen.

“ ‘You deserve to be with someone human,' the cyborg said. ‘You are human,' she said, tears in her eyes. ‘No,' the cyborg said, shaking his head. ‘You'll want children, someday, and . . . I'm not human anymore.' He turned his back on her and leapt out of the window, hearing her cry behind him.”

Clarke's upper lip curved into a snarl. Beachstone and his mother read this? No wonder it was all so fucked up.

The storm over the water had drifted, traveling parallel with the horizon, it seemed. Clarke tucked the tablet into the waistband of his pants at his back and climbed, the familiar
handholds in the rock making it no more difficult than walking up the stairs. He saw Phil's legs hanging off the edge. He crested the top, pulling the tablet from his pants before even drawing himself up onto the edge of the cliff. “Look what I got,” he said.

Phil didn't respond.

“Hey. Buddy?” Clarke seated himself beside his brother. “Phil.” Clarke closed his eyes. His brother's battery had drained. He stood up and hoisted Phil over his shoulder. Then he picked up the tablet and headed for the house. What good was he? Clarke thought. What good was Phil?

Kapec watered in a steady arc.

What's it fucking matter?

• • •

It was with Philip on his shoulder once more that Clarke came upon his mother on the stairs in the house a few days later. It was overcast outside, making it almost night in the curtained Victorian at midday. Clarke activated his night vision as he mounted the first step, his head down.

“Oh!” His mother stood on the top step, a hand pressed against her chest in surprise.

“Hello, Mother,” Clarke said, halfway up the stairs.

They watched each other at that distance, the mother over the son, her expression one of weary distress.

“Excuse me,” Clarke said, breaking eye contact and taking another step up.

Mary stepped down. “Clarke,” she said.

Clarke stopped again and looked up. Mary still had her hand to her chest. She braced herself with the other on the handrail. The pose made her look weak, small. In the month and a half since Philip had been activated, Clarke had seen his mother three times, and they had never spoken. Seeing her
now, so shrunken, Clarke was overwhelmed with sadness that was part missing her, loneliness, and part pity. Both feelings ignited anger. “What!” he said.

She started as though attacked. She closed her eyes and took another step down. “How are you?”

“A bit busy at the moment,” Clarke said, and he jostled his brother's weight.

Mary gripped one hand in the other. “I've missed you.”

“Yeah, right,” Clarke said.

“You think I've been cruel.”

“You have been cruel. And pathetic.”

She wrung her hands, her face pinched. “What would you have me do?”

“I've been right here. No reason you couldn't come over and say hey.” He made the word sound like an insult. “You did that much for Phil.”

“I had to see him. Just once. To make sure he was all right.”

“Yeah, you've been a great protector.”

“I've—”

“Been afraid,” Clarke said. “Of which one of us? Me?” He bounced Philip again. “Him?”

Mary closed her eyes as Clarke took a step toward her.

“You should be. You're disgusting,” he said.

“Yes, I was afraid. I was afraid of this. And it looks like I should have been.”

“It might not have been like this if you'd come around sooner.”

“You couldn't come to me?” she cried.

“If I came near Beachstone, I'd probably kill him.”

She flinched.

“Get out of my way,” Clarke said. “I need to plug in your handiwork.” He started up the stairs.

“I want to protect you,” she said. “Don't you understand . . .” She pressed herself against the wall to let him pass.

“I don't understand you at all,” he said.

“Clarke,” she said to his back. Then she grabbed his arm and turned him. “Clarke! How much longer is this going to go on?”

“Let go of me or you'll be sorry.”

“Let us bury our son,” Mary said.

“Your son!” Clarke said, and she retreated from him. “When has he ever been a son to you?”

“Clarke, please . . . Beachstone—”

“Never!” Clarke yelled, but at the same time he saw Philip in his wheelchair, in the woods, on the cliff, stuck there, questioning his own existence, and he felt some guilt over doing nothing to help him, over only keeping him alive for just this purpose, for just this fight. “I . . . I . . .”

She held her closed fist against her breast, her shoulders turned as though expecting to be hit. She messaged, “Let us bury our son.”

He thought about how much easier it would be to be done with this. Many mornings it was almost as though he was just waiting for the battery to run out. “Don't talk to me again about it,” he said. “Ever,” and he turned to go upstairs when Dean said, “Miss Mary, Master Beachstone is coming,” and the human appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Give me my son,” he said, grabbing at Philip. “Give me my son. Put him out of his misery.”

“Your misery!” Clarke yelled.

“He's not yours to decide about. Give him to us.”

“You've had plenty of opportunities to take him,” Clarke said.

Beachstone stopped reaching. “And then what would you have done?”

Mary cried behind him, “Clarke, don't!”

Beachstone didn't move a muscle. “He's my son. You let me bury him.”

Everyone stood silent in the darkness.

“Clarke,” Mary said.

That released him. He pushed past the human and went into his room. He plugged Philip in.

• • •

Clarke didn't tell Philip about the fight with his parents, but it changed things for him. He was less certain why he kept his brother alive. He had thought it was to hurt Beachstone, to mock him. In retribution for Kent? No. For being human? For Mary? But it was Mary's pain, drawn in part out of empathy for Beachstone, but really the pain of a mother. Philip was hers as well as Beachstone's, her son's suffering her suffering. Clarke couldn't help but feel he was torturing her.

He had to admit he'd been lonely. He remembered the joy of jumping through the trees, looking for specimens to take back to Phil, the sense of camaraderie. Until Phil slapped him on his knuckles, of course. But he had Cog now.