I, Robot (7 page)

"I told you that our development helped humans understand themselves," Benny said.

Arturo pulled back. "You're a robot?"

"No," Natalie said. "No, of course not. Well, a little. Parts of me. Growing a body is slow. Parts of it, you build. But I'm mostly made of person."

Ada clung tight to Arturo now, and they both stepped back toward the jet.

"Dad?" Ada said.

He held her tight.

"Please, Arturo," Natalie, his dead, multiplicitous ex-wife said. "I know it's a lot to understand, but it's different here in Eurasia. Better, too. I don't expect you to come rushing back to my arms after all this time, but I'll help you if you'll let me. I owe you that much, no matter what happens between us. You too, Ada, I owe you a lifetime."

"How many are there of you?" he asked, not wanting to know the answer.

"I don't know exactly," she said.

"3,422," Benny said. "This morning it was 3,423."

Arturo rocked back in his boots and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

"Um," Natalie said. "More of me to love?"

He barked a laugh, and Natalie smiled and reached for him. He leaned back toward the jet, then stopped, defeated. Where would he go? He let her warm hand take his, and a moment later, Ada took her other hand and they stood facing each other, breathing in their smells.

"I've gotten you your own place," she said as she led them across the tarmac. "It's close to where I live, but far enough for you to have privacy."

"What will I do here?" he said. "Do they have coppers in Eurasia?"

"Not really," Natalie said.

"It's all robots?"

"No, there's not any crime."

"Oh."

Arturo put one foot in front of the other, not sure if the ground was actually spongy or if that was jetlag. Around him, the alien smells of Beijing and the robots that were a million times smarter than he. To his right, his wife, one of 3,422 versions of her.

To his left, his daughter, who would inherit this world.

He reached into his pocket and took out the tin soldiers there. They were old and their glaze was cracked like an oil painting, but they were little people that a real human had made, little people in human image, and they were older than robots. How long had humans been making people, striving to bring them to life? He looked at Ada — a little person he'd brought to life.

He gave her the tin soldiers.

"For you," he said. "Daddy-daughter present." She held them tightly, their tiny bayonets sticking out from between her fingers.

"Thanks, Dad," she said. She held them tightly and looked around, wide-eyed, at the schools of robots and the corkscrew towers.

A flock of Bennyslennys appeared before them, joined by their Benny.

"There are half a billion of them," she said. "And 3,422 of them," she said, pointing with a small bayonet at Natalie.

"But there's only one of you," Arturo said.

She craned her neck.

"Not for long!" she said, and broke away, skipping forward and whirling around to take it all in.

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