She’d messed up on the subject of Max too. She shouldn’t have let on she knew him at all, much less making those pathetic demands. But it was too stupid, him claiming his name was Phil. Phil! She could never have flung herself into the arms of a man called Phil. Phils were pharmacists, they were never in the daytime-TV shows, they had no inner shadows and banked-up flames of desire. And Max did, even in that ugly driver’s uniform he was wearing. She knew he longed for her; she’s sensitive, she has an instinct for knowing that.
Then she got it: she should act dumb, because they were messing with her head. She’d seen movies like that: people disguising themselves as other people and pretending not to know you; then, when you accused them of doing it, they’d say you were crazy. So it’s safer to go along with whatever made-up version of themselves they want to put out there.
Though if she could corner Max alone, and make him kiss her, and get a firm grip on his belt buckle – a familiar buckle, one she could undo in her sleep – then his cover story would smoke and burn and turn to ash, like the flammable thing it is.
After they’d driven her back from the clinic and she’d crawled into bed, Charmaine kept as quiet as a mouse. She couldn’t even pace the floor or wail because Aurora had insisted on sleeping in the guest bedroom. Someone needed to stay with Charmaine, said Aurora. Considering the shock of the chicken facility tragedy, Charmaine might do some rash thing that Aurora was obviously dying to spell out.
“We wouldn’t want to lose you too,” she said in her falsely considerate voice, the one she used to demote people. The dark-haired woman – who’d showed her badge, she was from Surveillance – had backed Aurora up.
“How do the trucks get in?” asks Stan, keeping his voice neutral. “I never saw any big trucks driving through the streets of Consilience.” It’s a scooter town; even cars are a rarity, reserved for Surveillance and the top brass.
“They don’t come through the town,” says Budge casually. “This place is an extension, built onto the back of Positron Prison. The back portway of Receiving opens onto the outside. ’Course, we don’t let any of those truckers come in here. No information exchange, that’s the policy– no gawkers, no leakers. As far as they know they’re delivering plumbing fixtures.”
Now that’s interesting, Stan thinks. An outside portal. How can he wangle a job in Receiving without appearing overly eager about it?
“Plumbing fixtures,” he says with a chortle. “That’s good.” Budge grins happily.
“The boxes have only the parts,” says Kevin. “Made in China like everything else, but it doesn’t pay to assemble them over there and ship the bots here. Not enough quality control.”
“Plus there would be breakage,” says Gary. “Too much breakage.”
“So they come in units,” says Budge. “Arms, legs, torsos, basically the exoskeleton. Standard heads, though we do the customizing and skinning here. There’s a lot of special orders. Some of the end users are very specific in their requirements.”
“Fetishists,” says Kevin.
“Stalkers,” says Tyler. “They’ll get one made with the face of someone they’re hot for but can’t have, such as rock stars, or cheerleaders, or maybe their high school English teacher.”
“It can get sleazy,” says Budge. “We get some demand for female relatives. We even had a great-aunt once.”
“That was a gross-out,” says Kevin.
“Hey. Everyone’s different,” says Derek.
“But some are more different than others,” says Budge, and they all laugh.
“The info storage chips are already installed, and the voice elements, but we have to 3-D-print some of the neural connections,” says Gary. “On the custom jobs.”
“We put the skin on last,” says Tyler. “That’s a skilled operation. The skin’s got sensors, it can actually
“But after you’ve seen one of them being assembled, you can’t shake the knowledge,” says Budge. “You know it’s just an
“They’re aiming for 100 percent,” says Kevin, “but no way they’ll ever get there.”
“No way,” Budge echoes. “You can’t program the little things. The unexpecteds.”
“Though there’s these settings on them,” says Kevin. “You can push Random and get a surprise.”
“Yeah,” says Tyler. “She says, ‘Not tonight, I’ve got a headache.’ ”
“That’s no surprise,” says Kevin, and they laugh some more.
I need to come up with some jokes, Stan thinks. But not yet: they haven’t accepted me completely. They’re still reserving judgment.
“Up ahead we’re coming to Assembly,” says Budge. “Have a look, but we don’t need to go in. Remember car factories?”
“Who remembers those?” says Tyler.
“Okay, movies of them. This guy does nothing but this, that guy does nothing but that. Specialized. Boring as hell. No latitude for error.”
“Get it wrong and they can have a spasm,” says Kevin. “Flail around. That’s not pretty.”
“Bits can come off,” says Gary. “I mean bits of you.”
“One guy got clamped. He was stuck like a trapped rat for fifteen minutes, only it was more like a gyroscope. It took an electrician and three digital techs to unplug him, and after that his dick was shaped like a corkscrew for the rest of his life,” says Derek.
They laugh again, looking at Stan to see if he believes this. “You’re a sicko,” Tyler says to Derek affectionately.
“Think of the upside,” says Kevin. “No condoms. No pregnancy woes.”
“No animal was harmed in the testing of this product,” says Derek.
“Except Gary,” says Kevin. More chuckles.
“This is it, in here,” says Budge. “Assembly.” He uses his card key to open a double door, with a notice on it warning against dust and digital devices, these last to be turned firmly off, because, as the sign says, delicate electronic circuits are being activated.
Assembly lines are what Stan would expect to see, and that’s what he does see. Most of the work is being done by robotics – attaching one thing to another, robots making other robots, just like the assembly at Dimple Robotics – though there’s a scattering of human overseers. There are moving belts conveying thighs, hip joints, torsos; there are trays of hands, left and right. These body parts are man-made, they’re not corpse portions, but nonetheless the effect is ghoulish. Squint and you’re in a morgue, he thinks; or else a slaughterhouse. Except there’s no blood.
“How flammable are they?” he asks Budge. “The bodies.” It’s Budge who seems to have the authority. And the card key for the doors: Stan must take note of which pocket he keeps it in. He wonders what other doors that key can open.
“Flammable?” says Budge.
“Supposing a guy is smoking,” says Stan. “Like, a customer.”
“Oh, I don’t think they’ll be smoking,” says Tyler dismissively.
“Can’t walk and chew gum at the same time,” says Derek.
“Some guys like a smoke, though,” says Stan. “Afterwards. And maybe some talking, just a few words, like ‘That was awesome.’ ”
“At the Platinum level it’s an option,” says Tyler. “The lower-tech models can’t make small talk.”
“Fancy language costs extra,” says Gary.
“There’s a plus though, they can’t pester you, like, did you lock the door, did you take the garbage out, all of that,” says Budge.
A married man then, Stan thinks. He’s overcome with a wave of nostalgia: it smells like orange juice, like fireplaces, like leather slippers. Charmaine once said things like that to him, in bed
Niagara
Oh! Goodness me!
Oh, Stan. …
Am I shallow? she asks the mirror. Yes, I am shallow. The sun shines on the ripples where it’s shallow. Deep is too dark.
She considers the black hat, a small round hat with a little brim – sort of like a schoolgirl hat – that Aurora said was just right for a funeral. But does he have to wear a hat? Everyone did, once; then hats disappeared. But now, inside Consilience, they’re appearing again. Everything in this town is retro, which accounts for the large supply of black vintage items in Accessories. The past is so much safer, because whatever’s in it has already happened. It can’t be changed; so, in a way, there’s nothing to dread.
She once felt so secure inside this house. Her and Stan’s house, their warm cocoon, their shelter from the dangerous outside world, nestled inside a larger cocoon. First the town wall, like an outside shell; then, Consilience, like the soft white part of an egg. And inside Consilience, Positron Prison: the core, the heart, the meaning of it all.
And somewhere inside Positron, right now, is Stan. Or what used to be Stan. If only she hadn’t … what if, instead … Maybe she herself is a kind of fatal woman, like Marilyn in
Because look what she’s done without meaning to. She’s caused Stan’s funeral, and now she has to go to it. But she can’t reveal her guilt at the funeral, she can’t cry and say,
And to save the chickens, of course. And he did save them: no chicken had perished. That fact has been emphasized in the news story as making Stan even more truly heroic than if he’d saved just people. Or maybe not more heroic, only more touching. Sort of like saving babies: chickens were little and helpless too, though not so cute. Nothing with a beak can be truly cute, in Charmaine’s opinion. But why is she even thinking about Stan saving chickens? That fire was made up, it had not in any way happened.
Stop dithering, Charmaine, she tells herself. Get back to reality, whatever that turns out to be.
The doorbell’s chiming. She teeters down the hall on her black high heels: it’s Aurora, who slipped out earlier to change into her funeral outfit. Behind her, waiting by the curb, is a long dark car.