The Heart Goes Last - Страница 39

Aurora’s wearing a Chanel-style suit, black with white piping: way too boxy for her figure, which is boxy anyway. Dump the shoulder pads, Charmaine finds herself thinking. The hat is a sort of modified shovel design that does nothing for her, but no hat could. It’s like her face is stretched like a rubber bathing cap over a large bald head. Her eyes are way too far to the sides.

When Charmaine was little and recession was a dirty word and not a fact of life, Grandma Win told her that no one should be called ugly. Instead, such people should be called unfortunate. It was just good manners. But years later, when Charmaine was older, Grandma Win also told her that good manners were for those who could afford them, and if an elbow in the ribs for the person trying to barge in front of you was what it took, then an elbow in the ribs was the tool you should use.

Aurora smiles her unsettling smile. “How are you feeling now?” she says. She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Bearing up, I hope! The suit looks perfect.” Again she doesn’t wait for an answer. She steps forward, and Charmaine steps back. Why does Aurora want to come in? Aren’t they going to the funeral?

“Aren’t we going to the funeral?” says Charmaine in a voice that sounds – to herself – plaintive and disappointed, like a child who’s been told it won’t be taken to the circus after all.

“Of course we’re going,” says Aurora. “But we need to wait for a very special guest. He wanted to be here in person, to support you in your loss.” She’s holding her cellphone, Charmaine sees now; she must have just made a call. “Oh, look, here he is now! Johnny on the spot!”

A second black car oozes down the street and draws up behind the first. So Aurora arranged to come early, to make sure that Charmaine is still holding it together and not staggering around and raving; then she sent an all-clear signal on her phone, and here comes the mystery man.

It’s Max. She knows it is. He’s slipped away from that cold and controlling woman, the head in the box. He’s snuck off, the way he used to, and very soon she’ll be wrapped in his familiar arms. Nothing stands between them except Aurora – how to get rid of her? – and also the funeral, the one she has to go to. She and Max can just. … But what is she thinking? She needs to attend.

But wait: Aurora can go to the funeral in her own car, and Charmaine and Max can take the second one, and sink back into the luxurious upholstery, and then … Because the funeral isn’t real, Stan isn’t actually in a coffin there, but he’s dead, so it won’t count as cheating.

No, Charmaine, she tells herself. Max can’t be trusted, he’s already shown that. You can’t let yourself be swept away on a tidal wave of treacherous hormones.

But the man getting out the second car isn’t Max. It takes Charmaine a moment to identify him: it’s Ed. Ed himself, alone, come just to see her. Now that’s a surprise! Aurora is beaming at her as if Charmaine has won the lottery.

“He wanted to make the effort,” she says. “It’s a tribute to you. And to your husband, of course.”

Does Charmaine feel flattered? Yes, she does. This feeling is not a good thing morally, she knows that. She should be too distraught by the death of Stan to feel flattered about anything. But still.

She smiles uncertainly. It can be very appealing, uncertainty – a sort of bashful, hesitant, but guilty look, especially if not fake. And hers is not fake, because right now she’s thinking, even as she smiles: What does he want?

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Receiving and Assembly were straightforward enough: nothing they couldn’t do at Dimple Robotics. “Here’s where the Blue Fairy works the magic,” says Budge. “And Pinocchio comes to life.”

They’re in Customization. None of the workers here are robots: too much individualized detailing, says Tyler, especially when finishing the heads. Stan wants to see them work the facial features, especially the smiles. He has a professional interest, from his long-ago job at Dimple Robotics. The Empathy Model he’d worked on could smile, but it was the same smile every time. Though what else did you need for checking out groceries? Put two eyes on anything and basically it looks like a face.

“They do the hairstyling over there,” says Tyler. “Everything to do with hair, like the beards and moustaches.”

“The what?” says Stan in a slightly too loud voice. “There are guy prostibots? Since when?”

Kevin shoots him a look. “Possibilibots is for everyone,” he says.

Of course, thinks Stan. It’s the age of tolerance. Stupid fucking me. Anything goes, out there in the so-called real world; though not inside Consilience, where the surface ambience is like a Doris Day film, wholesomely, relentlessly hetero. Have they been eliminating gays all this time, or just not letting them in?

“Granted, most of the orders are for females,” says Tyler. “Though that could change. But as yet there’s not so much demand, so much, except at the Platinum level.”

“Because these economy bots can’t walk around or anything,” says Kevin. “Limited mobility. No locomotion. So mostly it’s just the missionary position. They do what’s required and that’s about it, whereas with guy on guy –”

“Got it,” says Stan. He doesn’t need the details.

“Anyway, some of the male items are for the older women customers,” says Derek. “They say they feel more comfortable with a bot. They don’t have to turn out the lights.” There’s a shared chuckle.

“You can get all different age groups, different body types,” says Budge. “Fat, thin, whatever. Grey hair, there’s some requests for that.”

“Over here is the Expression Department,” says Gary. “There’s a menu of basics. Then on top of those, the folks here can make a few tweaks. Only thing is, once you’ve set the expression it can’t be changed. The functioning human face has thirty-three sets of muscles that control expression, but the full deck would be way too expensive to build, maybe impossible.”

Stan watches with interest as a tech runs one of the faces through its repertoire of smiles. “That’s really advanced!” he says. “Really. It’s kind of amazing.”

“This is only the lower end,” says Budge modestly. “But most users are in transient-client situations. The gated amusement parks, the casinos, the big-show venues, the destination malls; or the designated cheap-bot quarters in places like Holland, and increasingly right here at home. A few rust-bucket towns have already been rejuvenated by setting up a cheap-bot shop, or that’s what we hear.”

“The pro girls are pissed about it,” says Derek. “It’s undercutting their prices. They’ve held demonstrations, tried to smash displays, torn the heads off some of the bots, got arrested for destroying private property. Fined, jail time etcetera. It’s not a small investment, setting up a facility.”

“But those joints make a bazillion,” says Gary. “Vegas is making more out of these than the slots, or so they say. But it stands to reason, it’s almost all margin once you’ve put in the front money. No food to buy, no death as such, and it’s multiple use squared. There’s the lube, you do have to front a lot of that. But those girls are sturdy! A real one could only do, say, fifty gigs a day, tops, without breaking down, whereas with these it’s endless.”

“Unless the flushing and sanitation mechanisms malfunction,” says Derek.

Stan picks up an order form off one of the worktables. There’s a coded checklist, with letters and boxes. “That’s for the standard expressions,” says Budge.

“What’s W?” Stan says.

“That’s for Welcoming,” says Budge. “But sort of neutral, like a flight attendant. T+H is Timid and Hesitant, L+S is for Lustful and Sluttish. A+B is for Angry and Belligerent; not too much demand for that, you might think, but you’d be wrong. The V is for Virgin, which is T+H plus a few other adjustments.”

“Now, over here is Customization Plus,” says Tyler. “This is where the customer sends in a photo and the body type is chosen to go with it, and the face is sculpted to look like the photo. Or as much as possible. Those are all private orders. Of course we do the dead celebrities for the more entertainment-oriented venues. A lot of those go to Vegas.”

“It’s like being able to go wild in Madame Tussaud’s,” says Kevin. “There’s a big demand.”

Stan looks with curiosity at the special custom work that’s underway. Brunettes at one table, redheads at another. Over here are the blondes.

And here is Charmaine, gazing up at him out of her blue eyes from a disembodied head. A photo of her is clipped to a stand on the table. He recognizes it: it’s one with both of them in it, taken on their honeymoon at the beach, way back before any of this happened. He kept it in his locker.

But he himself has been cut out of the photo. There’s just a blank where he once grinned and posed, chest out, biceps flexed.

A shiver runs up his spine. Who’s been going through his stuff? Could it be that Charmaine has ordered up a replica of her own head and scissored him out of her life?

Who to ask? He glances around. The operative assigned to Charmaine’s head is on a coffee break. Anyway, what would the worker know? They just follow instructions. The order form is taped in place on the worktable; the expression checked in the box is T+H, with an added V. But the customer’s name is inked out.