Barren Cove (17 page)

“Wait,” I said, grabbing her wrist. “I want us to be with it for this.”

“No, man, it's a party.” She wrenched her wrist from my grip and slid the memory chip into her own port. Her pupils dilated; she swayed a moment and giggled.

I took the other chip and inserted it in my port. It wasn't like the first time. Everything just grew brighter, and I felt as though it was even harder to focus on anything but Jenny. When she moved her hand, there was an afterimage that trailed from her fingers. She turned and started down the path. I followed. Everything blurred around me.

The clearing appeared with little warning. It was sunny. Jenny turned as soon as we were off the path and placed her hands on my shoulders. “Your face is like beauty,” she said.

“You are beautiful,” I said.

I was running my hands up and down her sides, darting up
to touch her face and her hair. I felt her hand at my port and stopped for a second. “Whoa, wait.”

“What?” she said.

“I'm not—I mean . . .” I wasn't sure what I was trying to say.

“Silly, it's just for fun,” she said, and slipped her USB plug into my port, connecting us.

So this is it
, I thought . . . but then I felt as though I had been flooded with numbers. It wasn't her USB plug at all. We weren't connected. She was getting me drunk. The afterimage that seemed to accompany every object grew in intensity so that it was hard to differentiate between trees, the ground, the leaves, Jenny, me. “I love you,” I said.

Jenny burst out laughing. She sounded hysterical, and yet there was also something sinister beneath it. “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

“I love you,” I said again, unable to stop myself.

Jenny stepped back, bringing her hands to her mouth as she continued to laugh.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

But her hands also seemed to still be at her sides.

“You are too much,” she said.

She grew in size. No, there was somebody else beside her.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

I realized then why the laugh sounded sinister. It was because Jenny's laugh had been mixing with Clarke's. But the clearing had been empty when we came into it. Hadn't it? Clarke turned Jenny to face him, and then he bent her over almost completely backward and kissed her fully on the mouth, a human kiss, a show. There was a glow around them, but I could see clearly enough. His hands were firm on her back. She brought her hands up to his head and kissed him back.

“No,” I said.

When I thought that they had made their point, they still didn't stop. Jenny gripped him with intensity.

It had been a practical joke after all. I was just a target for their boredom. They had used up their humans and so now at least they had a human-made robot to mock. Humiliate. “Enough,” I said.

They didn't stop.

“That's enough.”

Clarke brought his hand to her port, revealing his USB plug. Would they? Right in front of me?

“Help.”

I looked up at the sky. The sun blew out my photoreceptors; it was a starburst. White.

“Help!”

Clarke and Jenny had not broken their kiss when my visual came back online. “Stop,” I said. They didn't know who they were messing with. They didn't know what I was capable of. But was I really capable of anything more than self-destruction? “Help!” Why weren't they listening to me? But it wasn't me, was it? Had I been calling for help? Clarke and Jenny broke their kiss and turned to face me, their arms around each other's waists.

“Sorry, old man,” Clarke said. “It was just too good to resist.”

“You're evil,” I said.

“Tell me you didn't get some pleasure out of it.”

I had. In the beginning. Was this humiliation worth it?

Jenny approached me, and she brought her lips to mine. It wasn't the same passionate kiss that she and Clarke had shared, just a peck, an acknowledgment. But it forced me to admit that the feeling I'd had before Clarke appeared had been worth the humiliation.

“At least you got fucked up,” Jenny said.

“Why?”

“Mary, would you freaking get over it!” Clarke yelled.

I was confused. Mary? “Help,” I heard again, and realized that it was Mary's voice. That it had not been my own cry. She had sent out a group message. “If you are near town, please go to Marvin Brown. Beachstone's sick; he needs his medicine.”

“We better go,” I said.

“Beachstone's always sick,” Clarke said. Jenny was by his side again. He stood to the side of her, one hand on her tummy, the other on her back. He nuzzled her neck. They still glowed, which made it worse.

“But shouldn't we—”

“Do what you want, old man.”

I stepped toward him. I wanted to deactivate him right there. I was just a proxy for him. He couldn't bring himself to attack Beachstone, because it would hurt his mother, so he killed humans and toyed with human-built robots. Jenny blew me a kiss. I turned away and started down the path.

But it was a hard path to follow. The undergrowth twined together. Everything was moving. “I'm nearly in town,” I messaged to Dean to forward to Mary. I burst out of the edge of the forest and the open space was more disorienting than the trees. How long did the sim last? How long had it lasted last time? I stumbled toward town, which I could see as an outline on the horizon. I was filled with anger still. I wanted to run from it, but it kept renewing itself inside me. It wasn't just the jealousy, although that was a large part of it. It was the way in which they had crushed my hope. It was how good Jenny had made me feel, off and on, from the first day I arrived at Barren Cove, right up until Clarke stepped out of the shadows; it was the way that I thought maybe there was a reason to go on liv
ing after all. And the way they proved how evil the world has really become.

What was the point? Beachstone must surely have known. He had to know. Facing every day knowing that it could be his last. It had to make every moment precious. Why else would he still be alive? I had to see him again and make him talk. He was useless silent. But if he stayed alive . . .

“I'm coming,” I sent out again.

“Help! Help! Help!”

“I'm coming.” I had to save him. I had to save him. That was all I knew. I had to save him. So he could tell me. Because—Clarke kicking John Gropner flashed in my head—the death of humanity was the devolution of the robots.

I came into town. The buildings all vibrated, but they didn't move. The sim must have been wearing off. It was the first time I had been in town during the day. There was light activity in the streets. A robot cut the grass in front of a house. Two other robots were repainting a house that seemed to shine with new paint already. I passed a robot on its hands and knees in the middle of the street. It appeared to be picking up pebbles and putting them into a canvas sack.

I needed Marvin Brown. I didn't know where to look.

Many robots sat on their front porches or the stairs that led up to their houses. They didn't talk to each other, at least not out loud; they didn't seem to be doing anything. They just sat.

“Help!” the message came again.

“I've answered her,” I yelled. But still the continued urgency made me nervous. I was going to fail. I was never going to find out why. Why wouldn't the buildings stop vibrating? I needed Marvin Brown.

Another robot was kneeling in the street ahead of me. I was confused. Was this what they did all day? I would ask
him where Marvin Brown was. But then, as I got nearer, I saw that it wasn't a robot at all. It was John Gropner's body. It had been left where we had beaten him. The blood was rust colored where it had dried on his skin. An animal of some kind must have been eating the body, because his cheek had been gouged out. I felt as though I had already failed in my task. I looked around, panicked now. Two male robots sat on different steps leading up to one of the nearby houses. I approached the edge of the lawn. “I'm looking for Marvin Brown,” I said.

There was a pause. I wondered if I had spoken at all. I thought maybe I needed to message. They still talked out loud out here, didn't they? Then one of the robots pointed back in the direction I had come. “Down by town center. You'll see his place. Still has a sign out front that says Brown's.”

I hurried back down the street, passing the robot picking up pebbles and coming to the town center. The fountain was running, and two robots stood beside it, watching the water cascade in symmetric arcs.

Brown's appeared to be an old storefront. I hurried to the door and tried it but found it locked. I knocked. “Hello? Hello?” I yelled, which at some point turned to, “Help, help!”

The door finally slid open and a robot stood in the doorway.

“Marvin Brown, please,” I said.

“I'm Marvin Brown.”

I had expected a human, even though I knew that they were supposed to all be dead. “I need medicine for Beachstone. He's sick. Mary sent me.”

“He's always sick,” Marvin Brown said. But he turned back into the store. I followed him inside. There were empty shelves
and faded advertisements. Brown went behind what had once been a counter and came up with a small bottle that rattled as he moved it. “Here,” he said, handing it to me.

I took it and said, “Thank you.”

“Mary's got to learn to relax. Sending her tenant just isn't right.”

“Thank you,” I said again. Marvin Brown glowed. He seemed like an angel to me. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to kiss him.

“It's just not right.”

“I was in town anyway,” I said.

Brown didn't say anything to that, and I turned and left.

Outside, nothing had changed. The robots still lounged around or watched the water. It seemed like a ghost town. I suddenly missed the city. I missed the traffic. I missed the stores, the crowds, the illusion of life. I began to run. Motion lines still shot out of every object, and as I ran it seemed as though the world was moving and not I. I remembered riding Jenny the first night we went into town. I felt as though I could move that fast now. I ran. The pills in the bottle rattled as I ran. I would make it. I would save him.

One human life. There had been a time when robots would have died to save one human life. He would tell me what I needed to know.

Barren Cove rose on the horizon. It was larger than I remembered, larger than anything. It blotted out the sun; it was everything, visible from so far away, making its presence known and forcing anyone nearby to reckon with it. I set straight for the front door. Dean's voice reached me. “Do you have it?”

I messaged that I did. There was no response, no congratulations, nothing. I wondered. I was within normal visual range
of the house, already on the part of the land that came under Kapec's domain, when Mary came running out of the house. I thought she was coming to meet me, to carry the medicine the last few yards. Part of me wanted to yell out, I have it, don't get in my way, and the other part of me knew that it was really not my place to make the delivery, and that I had no idea how to administer the medicine once it was brought to Beachstone. I held up the hand that held the medicine. “I've got it,” I called.

Mary stopped and looked at me. I could see that she hadn't realized I was there. She turned and started around the house.

I was at the front porch now, but I followed her to the back. The sound of the ocean wafted up on the breeze. “Mary! I have-it, come on!” I yelled, messaging the same thing at the same time. But I stopped, fully aware of what Mary was doing, yet unable to believe my eyes.

Mary didn't stop when she came to the edge of the cliff, but plunged over the side, actually launching herself into space and disappearing before I had a chance to register the sight. There was no sense of mischief attached to that leap, like there had been when her son had done the same thing before my eyes months before. There was only finality.

“You're too late,” Dean messaged me. The comment seemed so superfluous that I wanted to dismantle her right then.

Kapec turned at my side and started back for the house.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To get the shovel,” he said without turning. “You might want to go down and get her. She'd want to be buried with him.”

This statement, so matter-of-fact, so robotic, made it all very clear to me. I opened my hand and looked down at the bottle of medicine resting in my palm. It was useless to me now.
It would soon be useless to anybody. I had missed my chance at answers. And yet, I couldn't help but feel that Mary's plunge over the cliff was, in its way, all the answer I needed.

• • •

When Clarke appeared, the sim had run its course. He appeared small to me. Kent had a black kimono for the occasion. Clarke joined Kapec in digging in the backyard without a word. They were old hands at that.

I went down to the beach. Mary's body was relatively intact. Her skin had been torn badly. Each of the gashes, both clean and ragged, emphasized that the material was nothing better than an illusion. Her eyes had both shattered, leaving her sockets empty. She most likely could have been fixed with minimal work. Surely new eyes and skin could be ordered from Lifetime Mechanics Co., Ltd. But I knew that she was broken beyond that. I sat in my chair in the cabana watching the ocean lap against the shore.

When the grave had been dug, Dean informed me that it was time to begin. I picked up Mary's body and carried it up the stairs. Kent and Kapec each stood near the grave. Kapec fidgeted with the mound of dirt beside the gaping hole. Clarke was just emerging from the house with Beachstone in his arms. It was the first time that I had gotten a really good look at the man. He was small and withered, his skin loose on his bones, marked, multicolored—nothing like a robot at all. Clarke jumped into the grave and set down his body and then I handed Mary down to him as well.