Broken Things (15 page)

“I won’t go back to Kidsmith.”

“Okay, I can take you home.”

For the first time the boy’s eyes showed a promise of hope,
even if only briefly. “My home?”

“Maybe,” he said, “I’ll have to talk to them first and see
what they say. I can’t promise that though.”

Just like that, the hope disappeared. “That’s what everyone
says. But they won’t let me talk to them.”

“Well, come home with me. Please. You can meet my wife and
daughter. And I’ll see about fixing you.”

Josh took another glance both ways down the street, as
though considering running again. Then the boy’s shoulders slouched as he
resigned himself to whatever fate James offered. He climbed in the truck and
pulled the door shut.

“Thank you for trusting me,” James said. He got his first
good look at the boy. Scars and bruises covered his arms and legs. Nobody would
want this kid back… unless it was to finish what they started.  

“I hope you can stop the monster,” Josh replied, “Otherwise
it will probably kill you too.”

10

They pulled up in front of James’ house, a beautiful
two-story home in a nicer neighborhood than the other ones he’d visited so far.
It rested up in the foothills on the outskirts of the city, and as the world
grew darker, they had a tremendous view of the lights of Boise spreading out
below them as far as the eye could see.

“I don’t think bringing me here was such a great idea,” Josh
said. He didn’t take his eyes off of the lights. “I don’t want it to hurt your
family because of me.”

“Nonsense. It can’t hurt you now, or my family. We’ll cut
through the house and tell Laura I’m home, and then I’ll take you to my shop.
We’ll see what we can do for you.”

Josh followed sullenly as they cut through the house. James
gave his wife a quick kiss on the lips, while a little girl peaked sheepishly
around her mother at him. She had big brown eyes that studied him curiously.

“Daddy, do I got a brother?” she asked.

“No, he’s a boy I need to help.”

“What’s wrong with him? Is he broken?”

“Daddy’s going to find out. His name is Josh.”

The girl extended her hand. “Hi Josh, I’m Kylie.”

Josh shook it. He couldn’t help but smile. It seemed she had
a happy home. Maybe James wasn’t so bad after all.

“Come on, Josh,” James said.

He led him out the back of the house to a large shed. As
they walked, a small white dog with a large brown spot over each eye and ear
bounced along beside them. Josh reached down and let it lick his good hand.
“What’s his name?” Josh asked.

“That’s Sparks. He’s a Jack Russell terrier.”

“We couldn’t have a dog. Mom doesn’t like animals.”

Sparks followed them into the shed, a well-lit workshop with
tools everywhere. “Your file said that you have an internal head injury.”

“No, I got that fixed.”

James turned, looking him over from head to toe. “And how
did you manage that?”

“I met a guy. He said he could upgrade me so I wouldn’t
break down anymore. He said he’d make me like Neil.”

“Neil… that’s the boy you left with?”

Josh nodded. “He said he’ll last forever.” He glanced around
the shop and added, “Do you know how to do that?”

“That’s not something you should let others do to you,” he
said, “There’s a good chance that he could ruin you permanently.”

“He was better than the people where you’re from. They said
they didn’t think they could fix me at all. That they would take my parts and
throw the rest of me away.”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t know. Some guy. I don’t remember.”

“Huh.”

“So can you fix my arm?”

“Let me see it.” As he touched it, Josh winced and jerked
away. “It hurts?”

Josh managed to nod, and sniffed.

“Would it be better if I turned you off?”

“No,” he said, and shook his head for emphasis. “I don’t
want to be shut down anymore.”

“Well, it’s going to hurt a lot more then. Can you be
tough?”

“I’ll try.” True to his word, Josh didn’t pull away as James
took the arm, feeling from his wrist to his shoulder. “Is it broken?”

“No. You just have a dislocated shoulder. Your bones are
made of titanium, it’s almost unheard of for a kid to have a broken bone. The
bigger risks are to all of the internal organs. They’re made out of plastics to
mimic the real thing, and of course then there’s your brain. That’s basically a
computer. Since your bones are designed to imitate real bones, this type of
injury is a bit more common. Owners like to jerk their kids by the arm. I’ve
seen quite a bit of that. I’m going to pop it back into place. Ready?”

Josh nodded. James bent the boy’s arm at a ninety-degree
angle and brought it to his chest. The boy closed his eyes and gritted his
teeth. With one hand on his shoulder, he rotated the arm outward and pushed in
on the shoulder. It went back into place with a pop.

Josh gasped. “It’s better!”

“Easier than the real thing,” James said. “I’ve done this
many times.”

He continued to stare at his arm in amazement, wiggling his
fingers as though he still couldn’t believe he’d been fixed so easily. “Thank
you,” he said.

“Now are you ready to help me?”

Josh eyed him warily, but the man had proven his good
intentions. “You want to catch the monster.”

“Yes. What’s your connection to it?”

“I don’t know,” He stood up and Sparks ran over to him,
dropping a ball at his feet. He kicked it away, the dog chasing after it
eagerly. “It just seems to be following me. It’s found me everywhere, in the
mountains, at Kidsmith, then at that man’s house. I don’t know what else to
tell you about it. I saw it tear apart someone. Just before you found me.”

“So you don’t have any way to find it?”

“Not really.”

James rubbed his chin, thinking. “Tell me about the other
boy, the one you ran away with.”

“Neil? I don’t know much about him. He’s the one that broke
my arm. I don’t want to see him again.”

“Does he have a connection to the… your monster?”

“No, he didn’t believe me. I think the monster’s just after
me. That’s why I think it’s a mistake to have brought me back here. Can I call
my parents now?”

“Not just yet. You help me find the monster and I’ll let you
call them. I promise.”

Josh slowly shook his head. “He’ll find us.”

11

Angel sat in a corner among the piles of what she considered
junk, reading a book on existentialism and religion. The author, obviously,
hadn’t had androids in mind when he wrote it. Who would write a book for an
android anyway? And androids didn’t write books either, so she was stuck with
what she got. It was but one book of many that Cody had stacked throughout the
house, and she knew he hadn’t read even close to half of them. Even living
forever, he still wouldn’t read them all, whatever his intentions.

The whole concept of “I think, therefore I am” made her
pause. She didn’t see a difference in the way that she thought, as compared to
Cody. She learned from her experiences, she formed thoughts of her own. The
only difference was that she had a purpose. Cody had already gone to bed
tonight, without her. By the logic of her design she didn’t have a purpose
except to wait for the next time she was needed.

She didn’t like Cody. It almost bordered on loathing. She
hated living amongst his crap and feeling like a part of it. She waited on him
hand and foot, saw to his every need, and did whatever he asked, and never
complained… unless he wanted her to. She didn’t clean up after him though, with
the exception of the dishes. He didn’t like people going through his stuff. He
had a system, or so he claimed.

Existentialist authors went either way with religion, either
believing in the higher power or denying it.  How could two different
beliefs even fit the same philosophy? She needed someone to argue with. Cody
didn’t believe in God, and on one of the brief times she’d even heard him bring
up religion he claimed it only existed for those that had a fear of death.

Despite natural disasters, terrorists, end of the world
cults, and lack of environmental responsibility, everyone pushed death to the
back of their mind.  

 Officially, nobody grew old. Cody had celebrated his
seventy-fourth birthday in April, and still looked like someone in his forties.
However that was true the world over.
Everyone
in their seventies looked
like they were still forty. Those in their eighties looked fifty. Not many
people looked older than that. You couldn’t be too old when they halted the
aging process, otherwise there would’ve been too many people needing assisted
living. She suspected that the human species had somehow managed to be
selective, and only found a cure for everything after the elderly had all died
out, at least those that didn’t have the money to buy the at one-time expensive
treatments.

 She understood how it worked. They only ate
genetically modified foods processed with preservatives that changed their
actual cellular structure to halt aging. This was combined with required
medications and vaccinations. In the end they had successfully sterilized the
human race.

And still they kept the world going. The population could
only dwindle, but there were enough of them that they would never have to worry
about that. It would still be many years before it would even be detectable.
The world had reached a point of over-population anyway.

She set the book down and rubbed her eyes. She thought about
going to bed, maybe sleeping on the couch. Her mind kept wandering away from
her reading material anyway. It only raised questions. Should she consider her
god to be some CEO? Did she have a pantheon of blue collar working class gods,
each seeing to a part of her creation? Could she even consider anything else?

Her ponderings on creation were disturbed by a knock on the
garage door. Only Neil came in that way, the sneaky little thing. Cody wouldn’t
answer the door once asleep, but he placed value on the boy. She stretched,
putting on one of Cody’s extra-large BSU jerseys, and made her way to the door.

She opened it to find him alone. He brushed past her with
barely a nod.

“Where’s Josh?” she asked, “Did you get the parts?”

“What? No. He wouldn’t go through with it. We went our
separate ways.”

Angel tried to catch his eye, but he made his way to the
living room and flopped onto the couch, grabbing the remote.

“Well did he find a way home?”

“I don’t know what he did,” he said as he turned on the TV, “We
didn’t see eye to eye.”

“Did you just ditch him?”

“I said we went our separate ways. I don’t care where he
went, okay?”

“Fine. Whatever.” From her brief encounter with him, that
didn’t sound like Josh at all, unless he found someone else to help him. The
problem was that she didn’t trust Neil. She’d heard him bragging about how he
acquired his parts. Josh didn’t seem like the kid who could do that. In a way,
that made her feel better. She didn’t want to see the innocence erased from his
eyes.

What am I thinking?
She walked down the hallway
toward Cody’s room. She needed a little perspective. Josh was an android, it
wouldn’t be innocence. It was ignorance. Still, wasn’t that sacred in children?
Even robot ones?
We’re all built with purpose
, she reminded herself.

She walked into the spare bedroom. It held more of Cody’s
clutter, mainly computer parts, and it was where he worked. Yet she had easy
access to the closet. Of all the room, it held some importance to her.

Angel hated the closet. She hated what it represented, and
she knew it was her future. Her hand shook as she reached for the knob. She
didn’t want to open it but she needed the reminder. Her mind, her programming,
reminded her of her purpose. Her purpose left her fulfilled. It gave her existence
meaning. If she ignored it, what would she have left?

“You can do this,” she said softly. She turned the handle
and flipped on the light.

The contents always made her shudder. Six pairs of beautiful
but empty eyes stared back at her. Despite the lack of life these women were
her sisters. All were adult with the appearance of age between twenty to
thirty. They were six women that had preceded her, all of which Cody had grown
tired of. They weren’t broken, only powered off. They’d served their purpose, one
similar to hers. Every now and then Cody would bring one out and power her on
for whatever fantasy he wanted played out. But he never left them on for long.

She stepped in with them, touching their cheeks one by one.
She knew all of their names. The one closest to the door was Megan. She’d
shared the house with them when Angel had first arrived. Within the week, he
had her shut down and put in here. Next to Megan rested Jodi. Jodi had fiery
red hair and freckles everywhere. There was Alexis, the blond with the
beautiful blue eyes.

She pushed in deeper, gently squeezing between the other
women: Laura, Jenny, and Michelle. She’d never spent more than a night with any
of them, as they relived their purpose for one more night. She felt their soft
flesh press against her own, imagining what it would be like to one day join
them.

They didn’t deserve this, but it was their purpose. They
were there for when they were needed. They didn’t exist otherwise. She knew it
wouldn’t be long before she shared this… this tomb. Cody wanted her less and
less. She already suspected he was looking into another purchase.

 Technically all seven of them were as immortal as the
humans. They would be around forever, if taken care of. Yet here they were,
spending eternity turned off, living in a dreamless sleep, waiting on the whim
of one man.

Angel reached between the girls in front and pulled the door
closed far enough that she could barely see a trim of light breaking the almost
absolute darkness. This is what their eyes saw. Day after day of darkness.