LoveMachine (9 page)

“Hey, this is the same taxi we came in.”

“I know. I asked the driver to wait.”

She frowned. “Why’d you do that?”

“It is snowing. I didn’t want you to be outside longer than
necessary.”

“With this cab, I don’t think it makes much difference.” She
got in and Blue closed the door behind her. He made no move to go to the other
side of the taxi and get in, just stood there in the snow, watching as the
driver grunted and put the cab in gear.

“Hold on, wait a minute, you’re missing a passenger,” Cally
said.

“He said it was only you going back.” The cab began to pull
away from the curb. Blue watched.

“Wait! Stop! What are you doing? I’m not going without him.”
The driver kept going. “Put on the brakes!” she shouted and at last he did. The
taxi skidded a few inches in the snow and then stopped.

Cally threw open the door, jumped out and ran the short
distance back to Blue. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you getting in the cab?
Do you need to walk home to cool down or something?”

“I’m not going back to the house.”

“You mean you want to go to another bar?”

“I mean that I’m not going back to the house, Cally. Not
ever.”

Her mouth fell open. Snow fell on her hair, her face and she
didn’t notice. “What? Why? It’s your home, Blue.”

“A home is a human concept, Cally. I’m not a human.”

“But you—”

All at once, it hit her. The way he’d made her promise to
take him to Chico’s, insisted on it despite the weather. The credit card. The
way he’d made the cab wait. The knowledge pooled, sickly and cold, in her stomach.

“You planned this all along, didn’t you? This was always the
way you were going to leave.”

“Surely you can see that it’s best, Cally.” Blue’s voice was
gentle but Cally clenched her fists.

“Of course it’s not best! Where will you go? What will you
do?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is stupid! You belong with us, in our house. You
belong with me.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was true and the sick
feeling turned into swirling desperation.

“I don’t belong anywhere. Not anymore. When I was created, I
belonged in your house. I belonged to your family. But now I have begun to
think and to feel. I am no longer a possession. And yet I’m not human.”

“Belonging somewhere doesn’t mean you’re a possession. It
means you’re needed and wanted. It means people—people care about you.”

“Cally, what you are trying to do is very kind. But I am not
a person.”

“Yes, you are!”

“I am what I explained to your former human lover. A
multifunctional android with certain unusual capabilities. Or perhaps I am what
he described me as. A walking, talking sex toy.”

“Blue! You don’t think that.”

“The definition of a sex toy is a device or object used to
provide or enhance sexual pleasure. Specifically, in your case it is used to
provide sexual pleasure without the responsibility of a fully engaged
relationship with another human being.”

Once again, Cally felt as if she’d been slapped, except this
time the pain was so much worse. “You think—you think I’ve been using you?”

“You forget. I have observed your behavior for some time.
For years, although I was not always capable of analyzing and understanding it.
Your history has been one of transient sexual relationships. May I remind you
that our own sexual relationship commenced when you could not find batteries
for your vibrator?”

“You—it was
your
idea. You
offered
.”

“I do not deny it was pleasurable for me also. I have
already thanked you.”

“You’re saying all of this because of what Sam said. But Sam
doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s jealous of you.”

“He merely articulated what I have perceived for some time.”

“Why are you talking like this?” Cally screamed at him. “Why
are you saying these things? It was nothing like that and you know it!”

Blue stood impassive. For a moment, his eyes dimmed. Then
they reestablished themselves. The snow had begun to pile up on his shoulders
and on his head. It didn’t appear to be melting when it touched his skin.

“You will be cold,” he said at last. “Get in the taxi,
Cally. Go home and rest and find yourself a human lover. I am leaving now.”

He turned and walked off rapidly into the storm.

Chapter Twelve

“Hey, lady, you going to get in or what?”

The taxi driver’s voice broke into her frozen despair. It
had only been seconds but Blue was barely visible as a familiar outline ahead.
The glow of his eyes lit up the snowflakes around him.

“No,” Cally said. She wasn’t sure whom she was talking
to—the driver or Blue.

“I ain’t been paid yet for waiting. The big blue guy said
something about a credit card.”

She pulled out her wallet and thrust all the bills in it
through the open window at the driver. Her hands were shaking.

Then she took off running after Blue.

Her feet slipped in the snow and her breath came in pants
and gasps. She couldn’t see him anymore, the air was white and whirling, but
she ran in the direction she’d seen him disappear into, with only one thought
in her head.

She had to get him back.

How, she had no idea. She couldn’t force him physically.
Even if she knew how to turn his power off, she couldn’t possibly drag him far
enough even to get him into a taxi. And he’d never forgive her for that anyway.

But what could she say? How could you reason with a being
who believed he was built on reason and had already decided against you?

She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to catch up
with him. She couldn’t let him go, not without a fight. She’d attach herself to
his leg if she needed to and he’d have to drag her for miles in the snow to
wherever he was going.

She spotted him far ahead of her and she ran even faster.
“Blue!” she yelled, slipping again and recovering by grabbing on to a lamppost.

He stopped. Her heart leaped and she hurried forward. He
waited for her, standing on the sidewalk in front of a closed drugstore.

When she reached him, panting great clouds of breath, he
merely looked down at her, his arms stiff by his sides. “You should go home,”
he said.

“I’m not going home without you. I sent the taxi away.”

“I will call you another.”

“I won’t get into it.”

“Cally, it is snowing.”

“I’ve noticed. I’m still not getting into a cab.”

They glared at each other, neither one moving. Cally
wondered if now was when she should throw herself onto his leg.

“It is too cold for you out here,” he said at last. “You’re
shivering already.”

“I don’t care.”

Blue considered her for another long moment. Then he stepped
forward and scooped her up into his arms.

“If you will not get into a taxi, I will have to carry you
to your home.”

Her heart stammered at the feeling of his strong arms around
her, his face so close to hers. “Fine. If it means you’re coming with me.”

“I am not going to stay at your house. I will drop you off,
ensure you are safe and warm and then I will go.” He started walking again,
this time back the way they’d come.

“We’ll see about that.”

“And I am not going to discuss it anymore. I will not change
my mind, Cally.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Blue walked on in silence. It was actually quite cold out
and he was only wearing a thin sweater and Jonathan’s running shoes, which were
probably soaked through by now. It didn’t seem to bother him at all.

She remembered the sight of him outside shoveling snow naked
and a wave of desire and sadness made her bite her lip.

They passed Chico’s, where the beer signs still glowed in
the windows, and Cally said, “Chico’s is a dump. And just because one jerk said
some mean things to you, it doesn’t mean you have to give up on the whole human
race. Sherri liked you.”

“She was being courteous.”

“She was being flirtatious. I nearly had to have a word.
Blue, you look different, there’s no point denying it. And you
are
different. But that’s a
good
thing. People have to get used to you. And
they will. Once they get to know you, they won’t think you’re strange at all. I
don’t.”

He said nothing. He kept on walking.

“I don’t think you’re a sex toy,” she told him. “Far from
it.”

He didn’t reply.

“You’re intelligent and strong and sexy and perceptive and
funny. I’ve never had such a good time as I’ve had with you these past few
weeks, Blue.”

He could have been a statue, if he wasn’t walking. They went
about a dozen blocks, passed only by the occasional car, every noise muffled by
the snow.

“You and Sam were right. I do use men. I do avoid
relationships. I always have. I don’t know why, it’s just the way I am.”

The buildings thinned out as they approached the outskirts
of town. Gradually, they faded away altogether. There wasn’t a sidewalk
anymore—Blue walked on the left edge of the road, along the side of a field. It
was filling up with snow.

“Okay,” she said at last. “I do know why. I was born into a
family of freaking geniuses. I’m the only normal one. I guess I always felt if
I let anybody get close to me, they’d find out I wasn’t really worth very
much.”

“You also needed to find your role in your family and since
you felt you could not do it on equal intellectual terms, you sought to have
some distinction through acting out. Pretending you did not care about your
job, your life or the men you so successfully seduced. You used your sexuality
and your sometimes frivolous lifestyle as badges of your personality and also
as weapons against those who would judge you inadequate. It is better to be
disapproved of than to be the object of contempt.”

“Blue,” she said in surprise.

“As I said, I have been observing you for some time.”

It was her turn to be silent. “You’re right. It’s not that I
haven’t had fun, I have. Sometimes. But a lot of the time it wasn’t actually
much fun at all. I was having purely sexual, no-strings-attached relationships
because it was easier than admitting I could care. Same thing with the way I’ve
been avoiding Ilsa and Jonathan. But that doesn’t apply to my relationship with
you.”

Blue walked. The snow fell. “How so?” he said eventually, as
if it was against his better judgment.

“Because I do care about you. I care so much I’ve got about
half a foot of snow down the back of my neck.”

Almost automatically, Blue reached up to brush off the back
of her neck. She caught his hand in hers because all of a sudden, something was
blindingly, brilliantly obvious to her.

“You care about me too, don’t you?” she asked.

Blue stopped. A car came rushing around the corner in front
of them, shining its lights straight in their eyes, going far too fast for the
weather. It swerved around them and honked its horn as it drove off.

“What makes you posit such a theory?” Blue said carefully.

“The way you’re talking now, for one thing. The way you’ve
been talking since Sam confronted you. You always go all stiff and logical and
multisyllabic when you’re testing your comfort zones, which means you’re
uncomfortable about leaving me. And why would you be uncomfortable about
leaving me unless you care?”

“I—” He pressed his lips together. “Go on.”

“And it’s in the way you’ve always treated me. You’re
naturally courteous but courteous isn’t the same as kind. You’re naturally
observant but it’s not the same as being understanding. And you’ve become
curious but curious isn’t the same as—as being human.”

She barely could finish the last part of her sentence
because something else had come to her. For a moment she thought another car
had shone its high beams in her eyes but then she knew it was only her mind and
her heart seeing clearly for the first time.

“You said ‘good night
, love’ to me
that first night because you loved me already,” she whispered. “And you told me
it was just a saying because you didn’t want me to know.”

Her Blue, her straight-postured and upright Blue, hung his
head. He looked at the buttons on her coat.

“It was the first time I knew I was truly becoming something
other than what I had been,” he said quietly. “I was not built to deceive. It
is a human behavior.”

She put her hands on his face and lifted it so she could
look into his eyes. “Why didn’t you want me to know that you loved me, Blue?”

“Because you were not looking for love. Quite the opposite,
in my perception. And because although I may possess some human
characteristics, I am not human. I am different from you, Cally. Even if you
do…care about me, you should not be with me.”

“What on earth gives you the right to decide that?”

“I cannot marry you. If you choose to be with me, you will
always carry the stigma of a woman partnered with a robot.”

“Do you think I give a crap?”

“Legally, I can do no more than be your possession.”

“Then we’ll work to change the law.”

“I refuse to spend the rest of my life sequestered in a
house, even if it is with someone I love.”

“We’ll go somewhere else. You can travel the world if you
like. I’ll come with you. We can learn about everything together.”

“I will not grow old. I cannot give you children.”

“We can find a way around those things. Blue, how many times
do I have to tell you? You might not have the same biology as a human—”

“I do not have a biology at all.”

“Don’t get technical with me, you know what I mean. You and
I might be different on the outside and on the inside too. But that doesn’t matter.
I’m me and you’re you and if we love each other, nothing else is important.”

“
Nan neol salanghae
.” He whispered it and even though
they were in another language, she knew she’d heard those words before.

“It’s ‘I love you’, isn’t it?”

He didn’t need to confirm it. “And what about you? Do you
love me?”

She kissed him. The answer to his question was so obvious
now.

Why had she ever thought falling in love would be
impossible? Or boring?

“I love you a lot, you silly bucket of bolts. I want to be
with you forever.”

Blue pulled her even closer to his body, full of so much
strength and tenderness it made her breath catch.

“I want that too,” he said.

Another car came around the corner. This one slowed and the
driver’s window came down. “Are you guys all ri—oh my God, what
is
that?”

“Haven’t you ever seen a woman in love with a robot before?”
asked Cally and kissed Blue for so long the car eventually drove off.

“I love you, Cally,” Blue said when they were done. “It was
the first emotion I ever felt. And though I knew I couldn’t control it, I also
knew I would never stop feeling it.”

He held her tight. Cally closed her eyes and let herself
forget about everything except her and Blue. The snow, the passing cars, her
family, the other robots, the rest of humanity, the whole world and the
universe…they were all still out there. But they could wait.

Right now, at last, she had found her man.