LoveMachine (5 page)

Chapter Eight

Cally saw the back of the delivery truck trundling up the
drive in front of her. It was nearly at the house. She hit the gas on her MX-5
and roared up beside the truck, beeping her horn and waving until it stopped.
She fishtailed to a halt and jumped out.

“Have you got a package for me?” she called, running over to
the driver’s side. The man, a guy with a beard and a brown uniform, looked at
her as if she were insane.

Okay, so yes, she was running in a shift dress and
three-inch heels and it was like minus-20 degrees out but hadn’t he ever seen
someone who was eager to get her mail?

“I have a package for someone named Blue,” the guy said. “No
last name.”

“That’s my—that’s me.”

“Your name is Blue?”

“It’s a nickname. Can I have the package?”

Cally’s nipples were hard as rocks, possibly from the cold
or possibly because the key to her sexual satisfaction lay inside the guy’s
truck. She was sure they were wholly visible through her bra and dress,
especially as the delivery guy spent a good few seconds staring at them.

“All right,” he said and gave her the package.

“It’s from Japan!” she squealed, spotting the return address
label.

“Yeah,” said the guy in a voice that clearly said
you’re
mental but hey, nice tits
. “You live in this big house?”

“Yup.” Cally clutched the package to her chest. It was quite
large for just having some synthetic skin in it. Maybe it had a lot of
packaging. Or maybe Blue needed a
lot
of skin. Her body tingled.

“Doesn’t that mad scientist guy live here?”

“That was my father. He was a genius. Thanks for the
package.” She ran back to her car and drove it far faster than was safe all the
way up to the mansion. The MX-5 skidded to a stop and she leapt out and through
the front door.

“Blue!” she called as soon as she got inside and then she
thought better of it as the name echoed around in the grand entrance hall. The
last thing she felt like doing was having another argument with her siblings.
Best to be discreet and try to find Blue without the shouting.

She went straight to the library but he wasn’t there. She
went to Ilsa’s room and listened outside but she couldn’t hear Blue’s voice,
only the whirring of lots of computers. Then she went down the back stairs to
the basement workshop, peering carefully round the doorway first so she
wouldn’t run into her sister on her own. But the big room was empty aside from
the carefully labeled equipment, the lab tables and the piles of materials.

Which left a bit of a dilemma. She didn’t really know what
Blue did during the day when she wasn’t around. He had work to do in the house
and she knew he spent his spare time reading or chatting with her sister or
working on his construction project in the workshop. He wasn’t watching the
moon or stars during the day and he wasn’t shoveling, because it hadn’t snowed
for several days.

Cally didn’t know much about Blue’s life. She’d spent so
long ignoring the robots because they were part of her family’s clever
genius-life that made them freakish and made her feel left out, somehow too
normal. And Blue, Red and Green went about their business so silently, so
unobtrusively, she’d never had to pay attention to them if she didn’t want to.

She wandered across the basement corridor to the kitchen.
Some pots simmered on the stove, presumably for dinner, and carefully lined-up
ranks of perfectly polished silver was on the table, but no sign of Blue.
Through the far door was what had been, when the house was first built, the
servants’ domain—the butler’s pantry, the housekeeper’s room, the cold stores
and laundry. Cally had played down here as a child when she hadn’t felt like
engaging in a teasing match with Jonathan or losing puzzle games to Ilsa. She’d
kicked a ball in the empty rooms, sung songs to hear the echo. Listened to the
distant sounds of her father working.

Once upon a time, the servants had worked down here and
they’d slept upstairs in the attics. But the top floor was Cally’s now and of
course robots didn’t need to sleep.

Cally went through the far door. It was a narrow corridor,
lit by fluorescent bulbs. “Blue?” she called. It echoed as she remembered.

Immediately, Green appeared at the door of what had once
been the butler’s pantry. “Hello, Cally,” he said in his courteous voice. Green
was shorter and slighter than Blue, though equally hairless, with grass-green
skin and lighter green eyes. He was the first model her father had made and
spoke with a slight English accent. “Can I help you? Would you like me to take
your package?”

“No thanks, Green. I’m looking for Blue.”

“One moment.” He paused, using his internal tracker. “Blue
is upstairs in your quarters, Cally. Would you like me to call him?”

“No, that’s fine. Thanks.” She started to turn but then she
hesitated. “Is this where you hang out? When you’re not working?”

“This is our resting room, yes. Would you like to enter?”

“I’d—if you wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course. You are welcome.” He stepped back to let her
come in.

It was a fair-sized room with a polished wooden floor and
white walls. It was entirely bare of furniture. Red stood in a corner, her
yellow eyes dim. When Cally entered, her eyes brightened and she stepped
forward.

“Hello, Cally. Can I help you?”

“No thanks, Red. You can keep on resting if you want. Green
said I could look around.” Her eyes were drawn to the far corner of the stark
room. Some papers had been tacked up on the otherwise unblemished white walls
there, in the way people in her office put up little things they cared about on
the walls of their cubicles. A musical score. A sheet of short-spaced text,
looking from here like a poem. A seed packet. A magazine reproduction of
The
Creation of Adam
by Michelangelo. There was a paperback book on the floor.

“Is that Blue’s corner?” she asked.

“It was his corner,” answered Red. “He has taken the
adjoining room as his own.”

“Since he changed? You can tell he’s changed, right?”

“Of course,” Green said. “He has many other interests now.”

“Do you know why?”

“Ilsa installed a program.” Red said it without any
curiosity.

“What do you think of Blue, now that he’s changed?”

Neither one of them answered. The pause wasn’t thoughtful,
as when Blue hesitated when he was with her. They seemed confused by the
question. Finally, Green said, “We do not think anything of Blue. He is
himself.”

“Aren’t you curious about what he’s like? What he’s
learning?”

“It is his own business,” Red said.

“Was he like you before?”

“He was more similar, yes. Are you hungry, Cally? Would you
like a snack before dinner? I have made a fruit salad.”

“No thanks, Red. Has Blue told you about what he’s building
for himself?”

“Yes,” said Green. “He is constructing a simulacrum of human
male reproductive organs so he can engage in sexual intercourse with you.”

Cally didn’t blush when talking about sex. But she did blush
at this. It was said so matter-of-factly in Green’s calm English accent, as if
they were talking about the weather.

“Are you interested in that? I mean, not in having sex with
me, obviously, but in—reproductive organs?”

Again, they paused as if confused.

“It is a technical matter and we are glad to assist him if
possible,” said Red at last.

“What about the other things? Are you interested in art or
music or politics?”

“We can research it if you would like to discuss any of
these topics,” said Green politely. “Ilsa is able to download certain programs
that emulate conversation.”

“But what about having a personality? Would you like to
think for yourself?”

“It is not part of our function,” said Red.

“I can play chess if you like,” added Green. “Or analyze
your portfolio.”

“Don’t you get lonely?” asked Cally. “Or bored?”

“Those words have a specific meaning for humans,” replied
Green. “They do not apply to us.”

“Okay.” She made to leave but something stopped her. “One
more thing. Are you guys happy?”

“Again,” said Red, “I believe that word has a specific
meaning for humans. It does not apply to us. We have functions that we fulfill
as well as we can.”

“Do you—do you believe that Blue is happy?”

Both of them paused once more.

“Perhaps,” Green said.

* * * * *

“He made you to take care of us, didn’t he? Jonathan, Ilsa
and me? Even though we were already grown-up?”

It was several days later and Blue was on the bench in the
workshop. His legs were stretched straight in front of him and his top half was
propped up with the aid of a large crate so he could see down to his crotch
area. Gleaming instruments and measured-out materials were carefully arrayed
around him. The whole setup looked like a rough-and-ready operating room.

With Cally’s help, he had peeled back the synthetic skin
between his legs to reveal wires and the metal- and carbon-fiber pelvis
underneath. It wasn’t as if she could normally ignore that Blue was a robot—it
was pretty obvious from the blue skin, glowing eyes, vibrating hands and USB
hub in his neck, among other things. But seeing what was going on beneath his
surface made it even more obvious.

It got her thinking about how those wires, and so forth, had
gotten there in the first place. Her father had invented them, her father had
put them together.

“I think he did, yes,” said Blue. He reached for a tiny set
of pliers.

“Do you think he knew he was dying?”

“I had not thought of it until now but it seems a logical
assumption.”

“He never told us,” said Cally. “But maybe I knew it,
somewhere underneath. Maybe that’s why I never really took to you and Red and
Green. I felt like you were his replacements.”

“I hope you do not feel that way now.”

“No. I know you now.”

“It would be odd if you felt I was a father figure.
Considering the nature of the project we’ve embarked upon.”

Cally was perched on a chair near the workbench, waiting to
be needed in the operation. She shot Blue a look. “I think you’re developing a
sense of humor, Blue.”

“Thank you. Can you hold my penis, please?”

She took hold of Blue’s perfectly molded, impressively
sized, fully erect phallus. It wasn’t attached to his body yet but by God was
it beautiful. After much discussion, he had decided to go with a circumcised
model, mainly because then he wouldn’t have to faff around with designing a
retracting foreskin on top of everything else. Erect like this—apparently it
was easier to attach when it was at full tilt—it had authentic-looking veins
running up its side and an exquisite bulbous head. Below, it had a firm pouch
of blue testicles, which was where the pneumatics were located, to make it go
hard and soft as required.

“You’ve done a great job,” she said, testing its heft. “I
can’t wait to get myself wrapped around this.”

“I can’t wait either. Can you position it correctly, about
twenty centimeters above where it will go?” Blue showed her the right place and
she held his penis hovering over his body. Various connections dangled and Blue
began to attach them with great preciseness and absorption.

She knew it was important that he should concentrate. But
then again, he had a brain the size of a planet and besides, she wanted to know
so she asked, “Do you remember my father?”

“Yes, I remember him.”

“I miss him.”

Blue looked up from his work, keeping his hands absolutely still
mid-task. “Before, I regarded him merely as my creator. Now that I have
understanding, I also remember him as kind.”

Her vision of Blue’s penis and his glowing amber eyes
wavered for a moment through her tears. Then Cally swallowed them back and she
gave him a smile.

“Keep your eyes on what you’re doing, will you? I don’t want
you to put this thing on backward. I’d end up spending way too much time
looking at your feet instead of your pretty face.”

“You are the one holding it in place,” Blue reminded her but
he went back to the job. There were more wires than she could ever have
imagined, more different components just to make something every human male had
and took for granted.

She’d looked at the diagrams, and to her surprise she’d
understood more or less how the whole thing, how Blue himself, was going to
work. How the skin and the sensors and his neural cortex were going to work
together to produce what they hoped would be a truly fulfilling sexual
response. But seeing him actually in pieces like this, the actual hardware,
made her realize quite how delicate it all was.

Like human life.

“There,” said Blue. “I’ve got most of the hydraulics
connected and the primary sensors. I’m going to need you to hold tight with
your left hand, and with your right, I need you to reach in and connect the
series of gold-tipped wires. I can’t reach them. Can you see what I mean?”

Cally leaned forward and peered inside Blue. “I know where
they’re meant to be.”

“Here.” His eyes increased their glow, functioning as a
torch. Cally identified the connectors and reached inside.

“You’re warm in here,” she commented. “And sort of—ew,
slimy.”

“That is to facilitate electricity and kinesis. Have you
found—oh. Yes.” Blue paused. “I can feel your hand on my penis.”

“Can you? Sweet.” She considered giving him a bit of a
stroke to see what happened. To check if it was all working properly.

Patience, Cally.
A few more connections left and then
they’d be ready for business.

“Steady,” said Blue. “If you link up those two wires you’re
holding, I’m likely to have an orgasm if you suck on my thumb.”

Cally looked at his face without moving. “Blue. Have you
just told a joke?”