The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (53 page)

“You'll do fine,” he says. “And if you need help, I know just the guy to ask.”

“Who?”

“Want to meet my boyfriend?”

Necessary questions to ask your boyfriend's new boyfriend (a former army engineer of robotics):

1. You've been following the development of cyborg bodies, so you ask him if he agrees with the estimates that replacement of all organic tissue sans brain and spinal cord with inorganic machinery is still ten years out, at best. Some scientists predict longer. Some predict never, but you don't believe them. (He'll answer that the best the field can offer right now are limbs and some artificial organs.)
   

2. Ask him how to upload human consciousness into a robot body. (He'll tell you there is no feasible way to do this yet, and the technology is still twenty years out.)
   

3. Do not tell him you cannot wait that long. (You cannot last forever.)
   

4. Instead, ask him if he can get you parts you need to fix the robot.
   

Bernardo—six inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than Jonathan, tattooed neck to ankles, always smelling of cigarettes—is part robot. He lost his right arm at the shoulder socket in an accident and now wears the cybernetic prosthetic. It has limited sensory perception, but he says it's not as good as his old hand.

I like him. I tell Jonathan this, and my boyfriend beams.

“They really gut these things,” Bernardo says when he drops off the power cell.

(I want to ask him how much I owe him. But when he says nothing about repayment, I stay quiet. I can't afford it. Maybe he knows that.)

We put the robot in the spare bedroom in my apartment, which Jonathan wanted to turn into an office, but never organized himself enough to do so. I liked the empty room, but now it's the robot's home. I hid the late payment notices and overdue bills in a drawer before Jonathan saw them.

“Getting a new arm might be tricky, but I have a buddy who works a scrap yard out in Maine,” Bernardo says. “Bet she could dig up the right model parts.”

“Thank you.”

I'm going to reconstruct the old personality and programming pathways. There are subsystems, “nerve clusters,” that serve as redundant processing. Personality modules get routed through functionality programs, and vestiges of the robot's personality build up in subsystems. Newer models are completely wiped, but they usually don't bother with old ones.

Bernardo rubs his shaved head. “You realize this won't be a quick and easy fix, right? Might take weeks. Hell, it might not even work.”

I trace a finger through the air in front of the robot's dark LED screen. I have not been able to ask the robot if I have permission to touch the robot. It bothers me that I have to handle parts and repairs without the robot's consent. Does that make it wrong? To fix the robot without knowing if the robot wishes to be fixed?

Will the robot hate me if I succeed?

“I know,” I whisper. “But I need to save the robot.”

How to tell your pretend-boyfriend and his real boyfriend that your internal processors are failing:

1. The biological term is
   depression
   , but you don't have an official diagnostic (diagnosis) and it's a hard word to say. It feels heavy and stings your mouth. Like when you tried to eat a battery when you were small and your parents got upset.
   

2. Instead, you try to hide the feeling. But the dark stain has already spilled across your hardwiring and clogged your processor. You don't have access to any working help files to fix this. Tech support is unavailable for your model. (No extended warranty exists.)
   

3. Pretend the reason you have no energy is because you're sick with a generic bug.
   

4. You have time to sleep. Your job is canceling out many of your functions; robots can perform cleaning and maintenance in hotels for much better wage investment, and since you are not (yet) a robot, you know you will be replaced soon.
   

5. The literal translation of the word depression: you are broken and devalued and have no further use.
   

6. No one refurbishes broken robots.
   

7. Please self-terminate.
   

I work on the robot during my spare time. I have lots of it now. Working on the robot is the only reason I have to wake up.

I need to repair the robot's destroyed servos and piece together the robot's memory and function programming from what the computer recovered.

There are subroutine lists in my head that are getting bigger and bigger:

• You will not be able to fix the robot.
  

• You do not have enough money to fix the robot.
  

• You do not have the skill to fix the robot.
  

• The robot will hate you.
  

• You are not a robot.
  

Bernardo and Jonathan are in the kitchen. They laugh and joke while making stir fry. I'm not hungry.

I haven't been hungry for a few days now.

“You should just buy a new core, Tesla,” Bernardo says. “Would save you a lot of headaches.”

I don't need a blank, programmable core. What I want is the robot who worked in the Purple Bean. The robot who asked for my order, like the robot did every customer. But the moment I knew I could love this robot was when the robot asked what I would like to be called. “Tesla,” I said, and the blue LED smiley face in the upper corner of the robot's screen flickered in a shy smile.

Everyone knows robots are not people.

There's silence in the kitchen. Then Jonathan says, quietly, “Tesla, what's this?”

I assume he's found the eviction notice.

Reasons why you want to self-terminate (a partial list):

1. Your weekly visit to your parents' house in the suburbs brings the inevitable question about when you will marry your boyfriend, settle down (so you can pop out babies), and raise a family.
   

2. You don't tell them you just lost your job.
   

3. You make the mistake of mentioning that you're going to your best friend Melinda's wedding next weekend. You're happy for her: she's finally marrying her longtime girlfriend, Kimberly.
   

4. That sets your dad off on another rant about the evils of gay people and how they all deserve to die.
   

5. (You've heard this all your life. You thought you escaped it when you were eighteen and moved out. But you never do escape, do you? There is no escape.)
   

6. You make a second mistake and talk back. You've never done that; it's safer to say nothing. But you're too stressed to play safe, so you tell him he's wrong and that it's hurting you when he says that.
   

7. That makes him paranoid, and he demands that you tell him you aren't one of those fags, too.
   

8. You don't tell your parents you're probably asexual and you really want to be a robot because robots are never condemned because of who they love.
   

9. You stop listening as he gets louder and louder, angrier and angrier, until you're afraid he will reach for the rifle in the gun cabinet.
   

10. You run from the house and are almost hit by a truck. Horns blare and slushy snow sprays your face as you reach the safety of the opposite sidewalk.
    

11. You wish you were three seconds slower so the bumper wouldn't have missed you. It was a big truck.
    

12. You start making another list.
    

“Why didn't you tell me?” Jonathan asks, more concerned than angry. “I would've helped out.”

I shrug.

The subroutine list boots up:

• You are not an adult if you cannot exist independently at all times.
  

• Therefore, logically, you are a nonoperational drone.
  

• You will be a burden on everyone.
  

• You already are.
  

• Self-terminate.
  

“I thought I could manage,” I say. The robot's LED screen is still cracked and dark. I wonder what the robot dreams about.

Bernardo is quiet in the kitchen, giving us privacy.

Jonathan rubs his eyes. “Okay. Look. You're always welcome to stay with me and Bern. We'll figure it out, Tesla. Don't we always?”

I know how small his apartment is. Bernardo has just moved in with him; there's no space left.

“What about the robot?” I ask.

How to self-destruct: a robot's guide.

1. Water damage. Large bodies of water will short-circuit internal machinery. In biological entities, this is referred to as 
   drowning.
   There are several bridges nearby, and the rivers are deep.
   

2. Overload. Tapping into a power source far beyond what your circuits can handle, such as an industrial-grade electric fence. There is one at the Gates-MacDowell recycle plant.
   

3. Complete power drain. Biologically this is known as blood loss. There are plenty of shaving razors in the bathroom.
   

4. Substantial physical damage. Explosives or crushing via industrial recycling machines will be sufficient. Option: stand in front of a train.
   

5. Impact from substantial height; a fall. You live in a very high apartment complex.
   

6. Corrupt your internal systems by ingesting industrial-grade chemicals. Acid is known to damage organic and inorganic tissue alike.
   

7. Fill in the blank. (Tip: use the Internet.)
   

Bernardo's family owns a rental garage, and he uses one of the units for rebuilding his custom motorcycle. He says I can store the robot there, until another unit opens up.

Jonathan has moved his Budweiser memorabilia collection into storage so the small room he kept it in is now an unofficial bedroom. He shows it to me and says I can move in anytime I want. He and Bernardo are sharing his bedroom.

I don't know what to do.

I have no operating procedures for accepting help.

I should self-destruct and spare them all. That would be easier, wouldn't it? Better for them?

But the robot isn't finished.

I don't know what to do.

How to have awkward conversations about your relationship with your boyfriend and your boyfriend's boyfriend:

1. Agree to move in with them. Temporarily. (You feel like you are intruding. Try not to notice that they both are genuinely happy to have you live with them.)
   

2. Order pizza and watch the Futurama marathon on TV.
   

3. Your boyfriend says, “I'm going to come out to my family. I've written an FB update, and I just have to hit Send.”
   

4. Your boyfriend's boyfriend kisses him, and you fist-bump them both in celebration.
   

5. You tell him you're proud of him. You will be the first to like his status.
   

6. He posts the message to his wall. You immediately like the update.
   

7. (You don't know what this means for your facade of boyfriend/girlfriend.)
   

8. Your boyfriend says, “Tesla, we need to talk. About us. About all three of us.” You know what he means. Where do you fit in now?
   

9. You say, “Okay.”
   

10. “I'm entirely cool with you being part of this relationship, Tesla,” your boyfriend's boyfriend says. “Who gives a fuck what other people think? But it's up to you, totally.”
    

11. “What he said,” your boyfriend says. “Hell, you can bring the robot in, too. It's not like any of us object to robots as part of the family.” He pats his boyfriend's cybernetic arm. “We'll make it work.”
    

12. You don't say, “I can be a robot, and that's okay?” Instead, you tell them you'll think about it.
    

I write another list.

I write down all the lists. In order. In detail.

Then I print them out and give them to Jonathan and Bernardo.

The cover page has four letters on it: H-E-L-P.

Reasons why you should avoid self-termination (right now):

1. Jonathan says, “If you ever need to talk, I'll listen.”
   

2. Bernardo says, “It'll get better. I promise it does. I've been there, where you're at, thinking there's nothing more than the world fucking with you. I was in hell my whole childhood and through high school.” He'll show you the scars on his wrists and throat, his tattoos never covering them up. “I know it fucking hurts. But there's people who love you and we're willing to help you survive. You're strong enough to make it.”
   

3. Your best friend Melinda says, “Who else is going to write me snarky texts while I'm at work or go to horror movies with me (you know my wife hates them) or come camping with us every summer like we've done since we were ten?” And she'll hold her hands out and say, “You deserve to be happy. Please don't leave.”
   

4. You will get another job.
   

5. You will function again, if you give yourself time and let your friends help. And they will. They already do.
   

6. The robot needs you.
   

7. Because if you self-terminate, you won't have a chance to become a robot in the future.
   

“Hey, Tesla,” Jonathan says, poking his head around the garage-workshop door. “Bern and I are going over to his parents' for dinner. Want to come?”

“Hey, I'll come for you anytime,” Bernardo calls from the parking lot.

Jonathan rolls his eyes, his goofy smile wider than ever.

I shake my head. The robot is almost finished. “You guys have fun. Say hi for me.”

“You bet.”

The garage is silent. Ready.

I sit by the power grid. I've unplugged all the other devices, powered down the phone and the data hub. I carefully hid Bernardo's bike behind a plastic privacy wall he used to divide the garage so we each have a workspace.

We're alone, the robot and I.

I rig up a secondary external power core and keep the dedicated computer running the diagnostic.

The robot stands motionless, the LED screen blank. It's still cracked, but it will function.