The Heart Goes Last - Страница 47

“I’ll try,” says Charmaine. Then she just has to ask, because why else is she doing all this: “Where’s Stan? When can I see him?”

“Not yet,” says Jocelyn. “You’ve got a few cards to play for us first. But he’s safe enough, don’t worry.”

Aurora comes in with the tray and three mugs of coffee. “Now, about your new job,” she says. “Here’s what we want you to wear.” They’ve been through her clothes, they’ve added a couple more outfits; they’ve got it all planned out.

Aurora makes her nervous. Why is she in cahoots with Jocelyn? Why would she risk her job? Has she done some criminal thing Jocelyn knows about? Charmaine can’t imagine what.

For her first day as Ed’s personal assistant, Charmaine has on a black suit with white trim and a high collar. There’s a white blouse underneath; it has a frilly white bow at the neck, a cross between angel feathers and underpants. She sits at a desk outside Ed’s office and does nothing much. She has a computer on which she’s supposed to keep track of Ed’s appointments, but his onscreen calendar seems to run itself and he adds things to it without consulting her. Still, she has a good idea of his whereabouts most of the time, for whatever that’s worth. He asks her to email a few people and tell them he can’t see them because he has prior commitments; he asks her to look in his address files for some contact numbers in Las Vegas. One of them is at a casino, one seems to be a doctor’s office, but one is at the new Ruby Slippers headquarters they’ve opened there after buying into the chain, which makes her go all nostalgic. If only she still had her old job, in the Ruby Slippers local branch where she’d been so content, before they closed that one down.

Or she’d been content enough. Being nice to the residents and planning special entertainment events for them wasn’t what some people would call exciting, but it was rewarding to be able to shine a ray of happiness into people’s lives, and she was good at that, and she’d felt appreciated.

Ed walks past her desk, says, “How’s it going,” goes into his office, shuts the door. A trained dog could do this job, she thinks. It isn’t really a job, it’s an excuse. He wants me where he can get his hands on me.

But he doesn’t get his hands on her. He doesn’t take her to lunch, or make any moves on her at all, apart from some benign smiling and an assurance that she’ll soon get used to things. He doesn’t even ask her to go into his office except to bring him coffee. She’s had a little daydream – a little nightmare – of Ed cornering her in there, and then locking the door and advancing on her with a leer. But that doesn’t happen.

What’s in the drawers of her own desk? Only some pens and paper clips, that kind of thing. Nothing to report there.

There’s one other thing, she tells Jocelyn, who’s come over in the evening to debrief her. There’s a map on the wall behind Ed’s desk, with pins in it. Orange pins are the Positron Prisons that are going up. Ed has told her it’s now a franchise: there’s a basic plan, there are instructions; it’s like hamburger chains, only with prisons. Red pins are for the Ruby Slippers branches. There are more of those, but that company has been going longer.

Ed seems very proud of the map. He made sure she was watching him the day he stuck a new pin into it, near Orlando.

On the fifth day of her job, three state governors called and Ed got quite excited. “They want one in their state,” Charmaine heard him saying on his phone. “The model’s proving itself! We’re cooking with gas!”

At the end of the week he went to Washington for a meeting with the president – Charmaine arranged the tickets and booked the hotel – but although he seemed pleased when he came back, he didn’t tell her what happened.

“Did you go into his office while he was away?” asks Aurora.

“It’s bugged,” says Charmaine. “He told me that.”

“I’m in charge of the bugging, remember?” says Jocelyn. “That’s how I know your house is clean. Next time go in. Have a look around. Not on his computer, though. He’d know about that.”

In the middle of the second week, Charmaine says, “I don’t get it. According to both of you, he’s mad for me …”

“Oh, he is,” says Aurora. “He’s at the moping stage.”

“But he hardly looks at me, and he hasn’t asked me out again. And the job’s a nothing. Why does he want me there?”

“So nobody else can get you,” says Jocelyn. “He’s asked me to shadow you to and from work, and to report anyone – any man – who visits you at home. Needless to say I don’t report myself. Aurora, yes, I report her. She’s supposed to be doing grief therapy with you.”

“But what … I don’t see where this is going,” says Charmaine.

“I don’t exactly myself,” says Jocelyn. “But he’s got his double of you almost finished. Have a look.”

She brings up a window on her PosiPad: grainy footage of a corridor, Ed walking along it. He goes in through a door. “Surveillance footage,” she says. “Sorry about the quality. This is over at Possibilibots, where they’re making sex robots.” Charmaine remembers Stan saying something about that, but she hadn’t paid much attention, she’d been too preoccupied with Max. Real sex with him was so, was so … Divine isn’t the word. But if you could have that, why bother with a robot?

Inside the room, bright light. A couple of men are there, one with glasses, one without. They have green smocks on. There are a lot of wires and gizmos.

“How’s she coming?” Ed asks the two men.

“Almost ready for a trial run,” they say. “Just the standard prostibody for now, with the regular action. We can’t make the custom body without the measurements, and some photos for detail.”

“That’ll come later,” says Ed. “Let’s have a look.”

Segue across to a table, or is it a bed? A flower-patterned sheet over a body shape. Ed turns down the corner of the sheet.

There’s Charmaine’s head, her very own head, with her very own hair on it, slightly dishevelled. She’s sleeping. She looks so lifelike, so alive: Charmaine would swear she can see the rise and fall of the upper torso.

“Oh my god!” she says. “It’s me! That is so …” She feels a chill of terror. On the other hand, it’s thrilling in a strange way. Another one of her! What will happen to her?

Ed leans over, strokes the cheek gently. The eyes open, widen in alarm.

“Perfect,” says Ed. “Did you program the voice yet?”

“Just put your hands around her neck,” says one of the men, the one with the glasses. “Give a tender squeeze.”

Ed does so. “No! Don’t touch me!” says Charmaine’s head. The eyes close, the head is thrown back in an attitude of surrender.

“Now kiss her neck,” says the man without glasses. “A small bite is okay, but don’t bite too hard.”

“You wouldn’t want to break the skin,” says the other. “You could get a short. Malfunction.”

“Those can be ugly,” says the one without glasses.

“Okay, here goes,” says Ed as if he’s about to jump into a swimming pool. His head goes down. The camera sees two white arms come up, encircle him. There’s a moan from underneath Ed.

“You hit it out of the park,” says the one with glasses.

“The moan means you’re on target,” says the other. “Wait till you try the main action.”

“Genius,” says Ed. “Exactly to spec. You guys deserve a medal. When can I take delivery?”

“Tomorrow,” says the one with glasses. “If you’re willing to go with this iteration. There’s only a couple more deets.”

“You don’t want to wait for the custom body?” says the other.

“This one will do for now,” says Ed. “When I’ve got the stats and the pics I’ll send it back to you for the replacement.” He bends over the head, which is sleeping again. “Goodnight, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I’ll see you very soon.”

The film ends. Charmaine feels dizzy. “He’s going to have sex with her?” She feels strangely protective of her fabricated self.

“That’s the idea,” says Jocelyn.

“Why doesn’t he just … I mean, he could ask me instead. He could practically force me to do it.“

“He’s afraid of rejection,” says Aurora. “A lot of people are. This way, he’ll never be rejected by you.”

“By the way, heads-up,” says Jocelyn. “He’s asked me to plant some cameras in your bathroom, to take the pictures for the custom body.”

“But you won’t do it,” says Charmaine. “Will you?” Displaying herself for an unseen camera, pretending she doesn’t know it’s there … that’s the kind of thing Max might have asked her to do. Did ask. Turn this way. Raise your arms. Bend over. The joke was that there really were cameras.

“It’s my job,” says Jocelyn. “If I don’t do it he’ll know something’s wrong.”

“Fine. I just won’t have any baths,” says Charmaine. “Or showers,” she adds.

“I wouldn’t take that attitude if I were you,” says Aurora. “It’s not helpful. Think of it like acting. We want him to go through with his plan.”

“It’s partly business,” says Jocelyn. “You’re like a demonstration model. Can you imagine what a market demand there would be for customized robots like this, once they’ve got all the kinks worked out of the process?”