Near + Far (41 page)

It was nice out on the Plaza, but crowded all the time. Which is why it took me a while to notice the Kali skulking around near the soya on a stick vendors. But no matter where I looked, the Kali seemed to be, its mechanical eyes coated in that half glaze that usually indicated they're set on binocular—and always pointed in my direction. I finally gave up and went over to where the Kali was pretending to pick through a recycling bin.

"What do you want?" I said.

The Kali turned, acting as though it had noticed me for the first time.

"Oh hey," she said. "Aren't you that woman from this morning?"

"Yeah. Addie Andrews. Ever find your mythical screw?"

Mimsy took me off guard by readily copping to the accusation. "Yeah, I wasn't looking for that," she said. "Honestly, I was looking for a servo."

"Your servo?"

"Sort of. It's my uncle's. It likes to hang around on that block a lot."

"And you thought it was in my booth?"

"Er, no," she said. "I just thought you looked interesting. Hey, is that a zeppelin?"

We both paused to watch the zeppelin float by overhead. Like the rest of the fleet circling the city in preparation for the Hyperbowl, its silvery flanks bore advertising insignias. This one was marked in scarlet and white, advertising Retro-New Old Coke, and by the time I turned back to look at her, the Kali was gone.

Back at the office, I increased the efficiency of my algorithm by another ten hearsts. The editor, Mikka, kept hovering over my shoulder and asking when I expected to be able to deliver, until I finally turned around and snapped, "You're not speeding things up any by asking every five minutes!"

Mikka's faceplate projected his hurt facial expression, but on the rounded cylinder surrounding his head, with a grainy quality reminiscent of an old-time black and white movie. It was a look that those labeling themselves "literary" seem drawn to. He blinked lugubriously at me.

"You seem touchy today, Addie," he said.

"You know goddamn well I won't be able to give you this manuscript until I get the last kinks worked out," I snarled. "And then I'll hand it to you, you'll rip the heart and soul out of it, and then it'll go out in four standard editions: male/female, female/male, male/male, and female/female, because Fitz still thinks we should stick to the classic markets, and refuses to believe that there are more than two sexes. I'll make an appearance at a few malls, and then it's back in the office, working on the next set of parameters."

I was pretty sure I had strayed away from the subject of my original rant, but I continued, going with the flow.

"And then on, and on, and at some point I'll switch either to the geriatric lines or kids' books, and then from there it's a long slow slide into a nursing Body, so I'll be capable of feeding myself and wiping my own ass. And then death, a small but tasteful funeral, and my ashes scattered illicitly in the San Juans."

He kept blinking at me. "You want your ashes scattered in the San Juans?"

"It's in my will," I said. "Hey, I'm tired and hungry, and ready to go home. You hear what I'm saying? Give me a few more days fiddling the numbers before you ask me again. Lila's got her Regency Robots almost ready; go breathe down her neck for a change."

Mikka blinked a final time, then nodded and lumbered away.

When I got home, there was a small and shabby servo huddled by my doorway. I don't like the trend of making robots look human, and so I was prepared to dislike this one, with its Emmett Kelly air of bedraggled dignity superimposed over a smiling cartoon face.

"Excuse me, ma'am," it said. "Would you be Adelaide Andrews?"

"Depends on who's asking," I said.

It didn't have much of a humor lobe, because it just looked at me. I relented.

"Yeah, I am," I told it. "What do you want?"

"I'm so pleased, ma'am, to meet the author of
Thor's Hammer
and
The Eight Legs of Sleipnir
. Your programming style is as lean and taut as the stomachs of your protagonists, and moves with the grace of a Valkyrie aloft."

"Uh," I said. I'd never had a fan appear at my house before, and this one was a servo, to boot. Then I thought of something. "Hey, you don't belong to a woman who wears a Kali suit, do you?"

It glanced up and down the street, antenna poised warily. "No, no, ma'am. Of course not. I belong to ... " There was a pause as it performed a search. "Mr. and Mrs. John Doe of ... " Another pause. "101 Pleasant Street."

"Ooookay," I said. "Look, I'm tired and hungry, and I'd like to go in."

"Let us go in at once, and I will prepare grilled cheese sandwiches."

"What?"

"Mr. and Mrs ... John Doe have sent me to express their appreciation for your writing. I will cook, clean, and tend to your needs. So you may focus on writing."

"Hey, I'm not about to let a strange robot into my house," I said. "You could be programmed to do anything. Murder me in my sleep. Or steal my silverware."

The antenna drooped. "I assure you, ma'am, I mean you no harm."

"I listen to public service announcements," I said. "I know the score."

It must have analyzed my voice and found resolve there, because it didn't put up any argument after that—just trudged off down the street. I watched it till it was out of sight, then punched in my door code and went inside.

My apartment was one of the larger ones in the building: three rooms painted in a tasteful off-white, and photos on the walls from Sally's senior year trip to Paris. IKEA's "Kludge" line had furnished the blue sofa and chairs, along with a few shelves for readers and some replicas of seashells. A sisal-colored carpet that stopped a few centimeters short of the walls. And not much else.

The sour mood that had seized me when scolding Mikka still lingered in the corners of my mind as I looked around the place. What exactly had I done with my life? I'd had promising grades in school and teachers praising my talents, and then I'd used them to become just another gear in the machine pumping out dreck to keep the masses who felt they were too cool for video amused. Was this what I really wanted?

Turning on the wall screen in the kitchen, I let my favorite cooking show, "Juan's Mesa", guide me through a meal. Juan Estrella, a vivacious, elderly chef, was sponsored by a coffee company, so every meal ended with a cup, but I ignored that and focused on the braised seitan and black-eyed peas that seemed to be a rehash of a show I'd seen last year. "I could have been a chef," I thought, watching him pour and mix and hold a steaming strip of seitan up to the camera so the audience could see its browned surface. "I could have been anything."

I took a sleeping pill and went to bed.

The next morning seemed brighter in the way that only a good night's sleep can accomplish. Out on my doorstep was a small basket of freshly baked muffins and a double latte in my favorite proportions. The servo from yesterday was lurking near the mailboxes. I chose to ignore its hopeful looks and took the offerings inside.

A few minutes later, after tasting the muffin, I went back to the door and let the servo in. It bustled around with profuse thanks, lights flashing in what I assumed what the robotic equivalent of happiness. Growing up, I hadn't been around many robots, and down deep in my soul memories lingered of high school stories of robots gone wild, massacring baby sitters and poodles. But I wasn't going to look a gift horse that could bake a chocolate chip cream cheese muffin that melted away with every bite in the mouth.

I was halfway to work, a basket of muffins accompanying me, when the Kali swooped down, wings extended, and grabbed me under the arms in a carry maneuver. I freely admit, I react slowly—we were thirty meters up in the air in a highly illegal flight path, the muffins lying in a sad little trail below us, before I could think to start shouting.

"Kidnapper!" I yelled. "Abductor! Thief! Fraud! Litterer!"

"I just want to talk," the Kali said.

"Anarchist! Arsonist! Rapist! Pillagist!"

"Just ten minutes," she pleaded.

"Okay, but make it quick."

We landed on top of a zeppelin. Yeah, it's an odd detail, but I remember it well because the city was full of them that week, getting ready for the HyperBowl. Landing on one was about as illegal as it gets.

"This isn't where I want to talk," I said. Over the slippery, rounded side of the zeppelin, I could see the city laid out in very distant strips of steel and concrete. It made me nervous.

The Kali advanced on me, shaking a finger on three different hands for emphasis. "You have my servo, Ticky."

"My name's not Ticky, it's Adelaide."

"The servo's name is Ticky. I hate you people who think just because you're all competent and professional, everything can make sense. All I want is my servo back."

"Listen, I don't have any control over your servo, which you already said wasn't yours, but your uncle's. It came up, said a few nice things, then started baking me muffins. Plus it says it belongs to Mr. and Mrs. John Doe."

"Ticky," the Kali sighed. "Ever since Grandfather tried reprogramming him, he's been odd. He has ... ambitions."

"Ambitions of being a cook?"

"Nothing as practical as that." Fumbling in her waist pack, she handed me a business card that read, in bright fuchsia letters,
Mimsy Star. Body and Web design.
"I guess you can keep him for a while if you like, but call me if he starts showing any further signs."

"Any further signs of what?" I demanded. But Mimsy had already executed a showy backwards flip off the zeppelin, leaving me standing there.

I didn't have wings built into my suit—just gliders, and it looked far enough down that I didn't want to trust them. Instead I waited for the cops to show, and then insisted I'd been abducted. They were willing to chalk it up to pre-HyperBowl hijinks, but dutifully dusted me and the zeppelin for fingerprints, and one was kind enough to give me a lift back down to the surface, sticking to the regular, approved flight paths.

The office was bustling with life. "What's happening?" I said to Daisy.

"Someone's coming through, and might be buying the place," Daisy said.

"Buying the office, or the business?"

"The business," Daisy said. "I'm hoping they'll want to expand."

Panicked and bewildered, I made my way into Fitz's office. "What's going on?"

Fitz was standing staring out the window. The sunlight that day was bright and brassy, painful to the eye, and gleamed on the back of the two zeppelins circling the HyperDome a few blocks away.

"I woke up this morning to a horde of credit collectors on my doorstep," he said. "I just can't do it any more, Addie. This outfit's offering 12 mill—not a lot, but enough to pay off my debts and hold my head up again. I had to sell my cookbook collection last month."

"You sold the collection?" I said, astonished. Fitz's collection of 20th century cookbooks, each signed by their respective author or chef, had been passed down to him by his grandfather, a noted gourmand, and had been his pride and joy. Every Christmas, everyone in the office went round to his place in order to drink strange punches from the old books and slightly illegal treats laden with contraband cane sugar.

"Most of them," Fitz admitted. "There's still a few that I couldn't bear to part with."

I looked out the doorway and saw a group of three men in gunmetal gray Bodys, each arm laden like a Swiss Army knife with the paraphernalia of office living, walking around the desks while Daisy looked on with a brightly bland smile.

"Who's trying to buy us?" I asked.

The skin of Fitz's helmet pinked. "General Emotions," he said.

"Fitz! I've heard of their takeovers! They'll get rid of all of us and outsource the production to Mars!"

"You're all bright and talented people," Fitz said. "Even if you had to find new jobs, which they've promised won't happen, you'd find new ones."

"Fitz, do you have to make a decision today?"

"No," he admitted. "I figured I'd ponder it a few days and announce it at the office party this Sunday at the HyperBowl. One of the reasons they want this place is our box, but I figured we'd make use of it one last time."