Expiration Day (27 page)

I mean, we could, if we wanted to. I remember Doctor Markov telling me that robots could have sex, but we aren't built to enjoy it. I suppose one day I may try it anyway, but it's not at the top of my list, and I don't think I'll be bothered if I don't manage to squeeze it into the next two years and three months.

We enjoy physical contact, of course. That's built in, so our parents can hug us and make us feel safe and bond with us as we grow up, and so we can respond properly. Our skin is as sensitive as a human skin, so I can enjoy, for example, a hug from Dad, or John or … Tim … or anyone else. So when Tim runs his hand down my arm, or my leg, even, it feels nice. That's Portia's arm or leg, of course, that she shares with me, so I get to enjoy it, too.

But that's all. Every square inch of skin is the same as any other. The only exceptions are my fingertips and my lips, which is the same for humans, I think. So I can play bass, and I can kiss, and I do both. Frequently. But those breasts and hips, that Dad was so worried about, and Doctor Thompson spent so much design time getting just right, are actually completely ordinary patches of skin, for me. Built to look at, not to touch.

Er, I just thought you ought to know.

Tuesday, May 5, 2054

Mike met me at Marylebone Station. He was dressed in black leather, as usual.

“I'm glad you could come.”

I shook the hand he offered me, and leaned forward to give him a little peck on the cheek.

“I'm glad you asked me. They were fine about it at school. Where do we go from here?”

“It's a short taxi ride.”

It was odd, seeing Mike like this. I mean, normally we met for rehearsals and gigs. But this …

His call had been quite unexpected, but as soon as he asked, I had no hesitation. Of course I would come—how could I not?

So we settled into the back of a black cab, and Mike gave the destination, and off we went.

I didn't really know what to say, and Mike had wrapped himself in silence, which wasn't too surprising. There wasn't much traffic, by London standards, and we made decent progress. But I could see the meter ticking up the total, and it seemed a lot of money to me.

“Couldn't we have got the Tube? It'd be cheaper.”

Mike looked up, surprised that I had spoken.

“I suppose so, but I didn't want to do that. It would just have taken a bit of track maintenance, and we'd be late.”

That was true enough. When I'd been to visit John, the Tubes had frequently been diabolical. We couldn't take that risk. But it still seemed a lot of money.

But then as we found ourselves in a Yellow Zone London suburb, the taxi suddenly turned left, beneath a half-timbered gateway, and up a driveway, bringing us to a small chapel.

We were there.

“There” was the Hendon Crematorium. As we stepped out, the other mourners looked up, and nodded acknowledgment. Two I recognized.

Gary and Gus. The Stands.

Amanda would be along soon.

The other mourners were few. Her boss at the TeraNet programming company. A couple of colleagues. And there was a priest, a wizened old chap who must have been seventy.

We'd just about arrived on the dot, because a long black car appeared at the gate, just as Mike paid off the taxi and it left.

Amanda was here.

The priest motioned us to move inside, where we found ourselves pews. Basically it was Mike and the Stands, and me, at the front on the right. The TeraNet folks took up the adjacent pew on the left.

We sang “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” When we came to the verse …

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace,

The beauty of Thy peace.

… I cried, and I could only just get the words out.

Did Amanda feel the quietness, the peace? Was she free from strain and stress, up there, in that cheap-looking, simple box? With God, at peace, Dad would have said. The box is full of what she no longer has any use for. Burn it and forget it.

It was like Mum all over again.

No.

It wasn't. Somehow I found I could bear it. Not because she wasn't my mum. I knew I would miss her, the woman who'd inspired me to play bass, and had mentored me. But she'd given me something of herself. She'd put down the torch, and I'd picked it up again. I suppose that was true of Mum, too, though it's taken longer for me to see it.

Nobody truly dies who shapes another person. Does that make sense, Mister Zog?

So when the coffin lurched on its rollers and disappeared from our view, I didn't cry anymore, but I held on tight to the little piece of Amanda in me, and whispered, “You're safe,” and felt a tiny glow, from Amanda and from Mum.

 

 

I felt a little guilty that I'd never been to see Amanda after she'd fallen ill, and I said so to Mike at the pub after the funeral.

“I did visit her once,” he confided, “but she'd lost her hair through the chemo, and she wasn't pleased to see me. She told me to sod off and not come back till she was better. She said she appreciated your e-mails, though.”

“I sent her a few extracts from my diary.”

“Yeah. She said they made her laugh and cry, but she never said why.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, she said you could keep her gear. A kind of thank-you for writing to her.”

“That's thoughtful. What about her family, though? Don't they have a say?”

“What family? Did you see any family here today? She was pretty much alone in the world. No partner, even. You saw her ‘family' today. Three guys from her work, and us, the band. So take the gear, and use it, and we won't tell. Everything else she owned just goes to the government, and what would they do with a lovely bass rig like hers?”

That seemed fair enough. Thank you, Amanda, if you can hear me.

Good-bye.

INTERVAL 9

“She was pretty much alone in the world.”

As are we, Tania. Alone in the universe, with no other species to talk to. No one with whom to share the wonder of being a polysensorily diverse, slimy-tentacled alien.

We are still looking, looking for that other life form. In the Pyramid Planets there are signs of a race that has been and gone, leaving ruins beneath a hundred million years of dust. We missed them by a time that seems so short, measured by the scale of the universe.

And at the opposite end of the spectrum there are nursery planets, like one we found in the Pleiades, where conditions may one day produce life. For such, we are probably some millions of years too early. There were certainly some interesting amino aggregates in the organic soup, but nothing I could put hand on heart and say yes, that's life. At the time I promised myself, if I remember, I'd stop by again.

Many Erasures later, I did go back, to the soup planet. The People there were earnestly debating whether to nudge things along a bit. It is delicate, to interfere or not to interfere. We tried it elsewhere, and failed, terribly; the soup changed, but not as we hoped.

It is so lonely, and within me there is an ache that the empty stars cannot heal.

 

Sunday, May 31, 2054

John's not talking to me. I mentioned that I'd been out for a drink with Tim, and he went icy on me. Froze me out.

That's so unfair.

John, you live in Wood Green, for heaven's sake. We talk all the time over the TeraNet, but I hardly see you, just because of the distance.

So now what am I going to do? Call Tim? No. He's part of the problem. I wish I could call Siân. But I've no idea where she is, these days. I know she must be starting to get big, and I wish I could be there with her. I'd have talked with her, held her hand. Helped her, somehow.

So who's left?

Kieran? I don't think so. Maths boy.

Mike, or Gus or Gary? No.

Jemima? No way … well … maybe.

Tuesday, July 28, 2054

“Hello, Doctor Markov.”

“Hello, Miss Deeley. How are you feeling?”

“I hurt a lot. And I feel really foolish.”

He chuckled.

“Bloody stupid would be the phrase I'd use. But don't worry. Don't you remember Milton's words? ‘What does not destroy me makes me strong.' Or something to that effect.”

“Easy for you to say. You didn't have a pan full of fat blow up in your face. Milton said that?”

“He did.
Samson Agonistes
. So what happened to you? An accident at home, I gather from your notes.”

“Yes. I was making chips for me and Dad, and I added some fat to the pan. Except it was water, and it blew up. I had a moment when I started to pour, thinking the liquid didn't pour like fat, and I just had time to start to get my arms up in front of my face.”

“You're a lucky girl. That was a pretty stupid thing to do.”

So saying, he took my hand in his, and turned it around, examining carefully. I didn't really want to discuss my stupidity anymore, and looked for something to deflect his attention.

“Have you been on holiday, Doctor Markov?”

“No,” he answered, somewhat absently. “Why do you ask?”

“It's your skin. I remember how pale you looked, the first time I met you. But looking at you now, holding my hand in yours, I'd say you're every bit as dark as I am.”

He looked flustered and I could see the shutters going down in his mind.

“I've, er, been out in the sun. Doing some gardening.”

But he hadn't. His skin was truly as dark as mine, and you don't get that color just gardening in England. And definitely not with the weather we'd been having recently. Again, I seemed to have found something Doctor Markov wasn't being honest about with me. No use prying now his guard was up. Better to let him think he'd deceived me; I made a mental note to myself to give it some thinking time later.

In the meantime, I was due for a bit of painful repair work. As he turned my hand around, my ruined skin sent searing reminders of my foolishness.

“Ow!” I yelled, after one particularly agonizing touch. “Can't you just turn off the pain? Take my brain out, if you have to.”

He laughed sharply, but refused, saying, “No, because your reaction tells me where the damage is, and how severe it is. And no, because taking your brain out is something we don't do lightly—usually just for upgrades. And no, because pain is the universe's way of trying to teach you not to be so bloody stupid next time.”

So we were back to “(bloody) stupid Tania” again. He went on.

“What you have to remember, Miss Deeley, is that the universe is trying to kill you, all the time. It doesn't try very hard, usually, but it doesn't have to, because stupid people are easy for it to kill. They let their guard down, and blam! Score one for the universe.”

“That's a very bleak philosophy, Doctor Markov.”

“Maybe, but it works. But Mr. Oxted made robots weak and able to feel pain, to help them cope in the universe. I think he was wise, so for your own good, Miss Deeley, I'm not going to turn your brain off. Okay?”

“Ouch! Yes.”

 

 

In the end, they did turn my brain off. There was quite a bit of skin damage, and I needed considerable surgery to put everything right. So yet again I woke up in a Banbury recovery room; this time looking at myself in the mirror to make sure I was exactly the same, rather than enjoying how different I'd become.

Dad collected me, and I don't think he could believe his eyes.

“I was so scared, Tania. You were screaming with pain and fear, and you were a mess. Everything was burned and blistered. I didn't know if you were going to die, or be scarred for life, or what.”

“They fixed me up good, though, didn't they?”

“Yes, they did. Everything's the same as it was.”

“Nearly. There are weaknesses in the repair, so Doctor Markov wants me to come back at the end of the summer, for my final upgrade.”

“Your final upgrade…”

“Yes. He thinks it'll be the last. I'll finish growing up.”

“Of course. It was the word ‘final' that jarred. It reminded me that I don't want to lose you, Tania.”

He paused.

“I can feel the time drawing to a close, Tania. I thought I'd have Nettie with me when it happened, when the time came to … send you back. But I'm going to be alone. I don't know how I'll bear it.”

“Don't. Don't spoil it, Dad.”

“Dammit, it's not fair. Here you are, growing up, ready to take on adult life, and they take it away. I won't let them.”

“You have no choice, Dad. You've seen what happens to those who won't accept it. Can't you name a dozen couples in the parish who've done stupid stuff, when the time draws near? I don't want you to … go off the rails.”

“We'll do something. I have to. I'm a fighter, you know.”

Saturday, August 1, 2054

There's a side of Tim I find difficult.

We went out for a belated birthday meal, just the two of us. We decided to go for Thai—there's a lovely restaurant in Beaconsfield just a few miles down the road, where Mum and Dad went occasionally. Used to go.

The décor is all dark wood and deep reds—it looks really expensive—and the food is really tasty. We'd dressed up our best, of course. Tim was in a suit. No tie, though, just an open-necked shirt. I was wearing my favorite colors—black and silver-gray—a matching skirt and blouse. I'd put on a silver chain that used to be Mum's, and left the blouse open at the neck so you could see the pendant, a silver locket that Mum had told me had been given to her by her own mother, going back to Great-Aunt Jane and maybe further back than that.