The Heart Goes Last - Страница 38

“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 feel you. With the more expensive line, it can get goose bumps. When you’re in contact, up close and personal, it’s really hard to tell the difference.”

“But after you’ve seen one of them being assembled, you can’t shake the knowledge,” says Budge. “You know it’s just an it.”

“They’ve done double-blind tests though,” says Gary. “Real ones and these. These had a 77 percent success rate.”

“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. Did you lock the door, honey? He warms toward Budge: he, too, must once have led a normal life.

Black Suit

Black flatters me, thinks Charmaine, checking herself in the powder room mirror. Aurora had known where to take her shopping, and though black has never been her colour, Charmaine’s not negative about the results. The black suit, the black hat, the blond hair – it’s like a white chocolate truffle with dark chocolate truffles all around it; or like, who was that? Marilyn Monroe in Niagara, in the scene right before she gets strangled, with the white scarf she should never have worn, because women in danger of being strangled should avoid any fashion accessories that tie around the neck. They’ve shown that movie a bunch of times on Positron TV and Charmaine watched it every time. Sex in the movies used to be so much more sexy than it became after you could actually have sex in the movies. It was languorous and melting, with sighing and surrender and half-closed eyes. Not just a lot of bouncy athletics.

Of course, she thinks, Marilyn’s mouth was fuller than her own, and you could use very thick red lipstick then. Does she herself have that innocence, that surprised look? Oh! Goodness me! Big doll eyes. Not that Marilyn’s innocence was much in evidence in Niagara. But it was, later.

She widens her eyes in the mirror, makes an O with her mouth. Her own eyes are still a little puffy despite the cold teabags, with faint dark semicircles under them. Alluring, or not? That would depend on a man’s taste: whether he’s aroused by fragility with a hint of smouldering underneath, or perhaps by a hint of a punch in the eye. Stan wouldn’t have liked the puffy-eyed look. Stan would have said, What’s wrong with you? Fall out of bed? Or else, Aw, honey, what you need is a big hug. Depending on which phase of Stan she’s remembering. Oh, Stan. …

Stop that, she tells herself. Stan’s gone.

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 Niagara, with invisible spider webs coming out of her, entangling men because they can’t help it, and the spider can’t help it either because it’s her nature. Maybe she’s doomed to be sticky, like chewing gum, or hair gel, or …

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, It’s all my fault. She’ll have to behave with dignity, because this funeral will be very solemn and pious and reverential, it will be the funeral of a hero. What the whole town believes, because it was on the TV, is that there was an electrical fire in the chicken facility, and Stan died to save his fellow workers.

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.