MANMADE

 

MERCURIO D. RIVERA

 

Mercurio D. Rivera was nominated for the 2011 World Fantasy Award for his short fiction. His stories have appeared in The Year’s Best SF 17, edited by David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer, Other Worlds Than These, edited by John Joseph Adams, Unplugged: The Web’s Best SF and Fantasy for 2008, edited by Rich Horton, and markets such as Interzone, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Nature, and Black Static. His work has been translated and published in China, Poland and the Czech Republic. His first collection, Across the Event Horizon, edited by Ian Whates, is out now from Newcon Press.

 

 

ON HIS THIRD birthday, Alex Belfour showed up unannounced at my South Cannon beach house. I’d been curled up on the sofa at the time, dazed by the blue glow of afternoon infomercials, when the doorbell rang. I heard Tilly glide from the kitchen to the front entrance and a minute later she poked her sleek steel head into the living room.

“It’s a former patient, ma’am,” she said. “A convert.”

It took a moment for the words to register. A patient. Visiting me here?

Not having dressed or showered, I wasn’t prepared – or in the right frame of mind – to deal with a guest. “Have him make an appointment,” I said.

“I tried, ma’am, but the young man insists it’s an emergency,” Tilly said. “He says he’s willing to wait.”

I sighed and stood up, pushing aside the wool blanket and the scattered clothes that draped the sofa.

“Fine then. Have him wait.”

 

 

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, as I approached the den in the rear of the house, I overheard Tilly’s soothing voice peppering the patient with diagnostic intake questions. I entered the room to find an adolescent sitting slouched in the cushioned chair, his arms crossed over his rumpled plaid shirt. Before I could even greet him, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and handed me a bright blue card, the access code for his medical history written on it. As he introduced himself and explained what he wanted, I fiddled with my smartreader, punching in the code numbers, and skimmed the pages of his med-report, which flickered across the screen.

“I’m not sure I follow,” I said, although I understood his request well enough. I suppose part of me just hoped I’d heard wrong.

“Reversed.” He repeated the word softly but emphatically. “I want the procedure reversed, Dr. DeLisse. I don’t want to be human anymore.”

“I see,” was all I could muster. I’d encountered many AIs over the years who’d had some initial difficulties adjusting to their humanity. Reactions ran the gamut from minor emotional hiccups to serious psychological disorders that sometimes warranted intervention by psyche experts – but I’d never seen a three-year-old react this way. Most AIs resigned themselves to their conversion within a matter of days or, at most, weeks.

“I’m from ManMade. Don’t you remember me, Dr. DeLisse?” He leaned forward. “You converted me.”

The boy did seem vaguely familiar. “I’m sorry, but I’ve performed so many.”

“You can change me back, right?”

I walked around a stack of unpacked boxes and sat behind my desk. “It isn’t a question of whether I can do it.” I had access to Krell TechLabs, just a hundred miles down the coast. “It’s more a question of why. Why would you possibly want to do such a thing?”

He opened his mouth as if he were about to launch into a rehearsed speech, but instead he hesitated. “Today’s my birthday, you know. I’m three years old.” His eyes reminded me of blue seawater.

I squeezed my smartreader and the conversion date flashed in red. “So I see. Happy birthday.”

“Cognitively, that makes me seventeen years old. I can vote now. I can fight in the wars if I choose to. I can make my own decisions, can’t I? Legally, I have rights.” His eyes begged me to agree.

“Technically, yes. But a decision like this... This is different.”

“Why? You can see the results of my neural exam, my psyche evaluation.” He pointed at my reader.

I clasped the device in my right hand. All normal results, true, but there was no way I was rubber-stamping such a drastic procedure. He was a living, breathing human being, after all. And just a kid.

“Still,” I said. “I need to understand where this is coming from.”

He sighed. He had the gangly awkwardness typical of most teenagers, but something about his pale blue eyes, his thick mussed eyebrows, stirred a memory I pushed away.

“I’m not happy,” he said.

I could certainly relate to that sentiment. I stared at the pine board shelves, which were empty except for a framed holo of me and Phillip and Tim. Tim was just a four-year-old toddler in baggy, yellow swim-trunks in the holo, banging the keyboard of a plastic piano in a steady beat. Phillip and I hovered over him, wide smiles stretched across our tanned faces while we stood in the clumpy beach sand.

“Being human...” Alex said. “It’s not what I expected.”

“So you’re not happy.” I forced a weak smile. “Join the club.” He didn’t react. “Look, young men your age sometimes go through phases. It’s not always easy coping with so many conflicting emotions, but it’s all a normal part of adolescence. You’ll get through this, I promise.”

“It’s not a phase.” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes with the back of his hand and sat silent.

“I know someone. Someone you can talk to about these feelings.”

Alex pushed his chair back, and stood up. “I guess I’m wasting my time here.”

“Relax.” I pointed to the chair. “Sit, sit, sit.”

He looked at me warily before taking his seat again. “It’s important you understand the consequences. This isn’t a common procedure, Alex. You wouldn’t have the same functionality as you did before. Your sense of identity would be tenuous, Grade 1 level at best, like my Tilly housebot. Trust me, you don’t want to do this.”

“But I do. I do.”

I paused. “Have you discussed this with your guardians?” Until fully integrated into society, converts were placed in a foster home, usually with a childless couple.

“My foster mom died a few months after I was converted. And I never got along with my father,” Alex said. “He didn’t care about me. Not really. No, I think he only loved the idea of me. He wanted me to play a role and... I was tired of it, tired of him and everyone else defining me and telling me what to do, who to be. Do you know what I mean? I had enough of that when I was an AI.”

“Why me?” I said. “Why not go back to ManMade for the procedure?”

He froze, and his eyes glazed over for a few seconds as if he were dreaming while awake, a common affectation among converts. It reminded me this was no ordinary teenager. Three years ago he had been a different form of life altogether.

After a five-second pause, he picked up the conversation without missing a beat.

“I heard that you left. I’m not stupid, okay? ManMade would never do it. It wouldn’t risk the bad publicity.”

The boy was sharp. With the rising death toll and declining birth rates caused by the spread of the Red, ManMade had become the leader in the production of people, implanting AI syngrams into cloned teenaged bodies. Bodies designed to be immune to the plague. ManMade’s stock prices had quadrupled over the past three years. No, the boy was spot-on. The company would do right by its shareholders before it did right by him.

I sighed. “Let’s do this. Think about it for a week. If you still want to give up your humanity, I’ll consider it.” And more likely than not, I thought, he would walk out the door, drive back to Portland, and find a different way to vent his normal teenage rebelliousness. Hopefully I’d never hear from Alex Belfour ever again.

“Thank you, Dr. DeLisse.” Alex pushed his bangs out of his eyes and smiled sadly, wearily. He seemed so vulnerable at that moment that I had to fight the urge to hug him. Instead, I extended my hand in a detached, professional manner, and he shook it, his grip soft and warm and oh-so-human.

“Celia,” I said. “Call me Celia.”

 

 

MY FORMER COLLEAGUE at ManMade, Milt Maddox, stopped by my house the next morning. Apparently this was turning into the week of surprise visits. I’d performed hundreds of conversions with Milt – a pleasant enough fellow if a bit introverted. His shoulder-length hair, which he kept in a ponytail, had gone prematurely gray and there was something haunting about his thin smile. I had met his late wife, Carmen, in a cybertech course in grad school and years later she had recommended me for the position of techsurgeon at ManMade.

“How are you f-feeling, Celia?” His nervous stammer always made him more endearing, I thought.

I shrugged.

He handed me a bouquet of sunflowers and we sat at the kitchen table while Tilly poured us tea. “Have you considered coming back to work?” he said. “Listen, I understand what you’re going through.” Milt had lost Carmen and his daughters to the Red. “It’ll do you good to stay busy.”

“I’m not ready to return to ManMade.” I paused. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

Milt stared uncomfortably at the tabletop. His expression said it all. You need help, Celia.

He sipped his tea. “Any word from Phillip? Do you think –”

“No, he’s not coming back.” Last I heard, my husband had hooked up with a traveling companion on his road-trip across the Nordic countries. A young blonde half his age. It was for the best, I supposed. Just the sight of Phillip brought back memories of Tim. And I’m sure he felt the same way every time he looked at me. “I’m not bitter, Milt. Honest.”

He nodded. “So I hear an old patient of ours paid you a visit yesterday. Alex BL4Z6M.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in.

“How do you know that?” Milt’s appearance here was starting to make sense.

“I’m Alex’s guardian.”

“You became a guardian?” Milt never struck me as the nurturing type.

“After Carmen and I lost the girls to the Red, well, she really wanted to take in a convert. This was before Carmen became afflicted herself.” He picked up his cup of tea and stared into it. “Alex was one of the first in our BL4 series. Don’t you remember?”

I shrugged.

“No, why would you?” he said. “So many hundreds of conversions.”

“If you came all this way, Milt, you must know why he sought me out, what he asked me to do.” I opened the cupboard where I stored the brandy and poured a shot into my morning tea. I offered some to Milt but he held up his hand. “You need to talk to him,” I said.

“He won’t listen to me. He’s s-stubborn. No, he’s dead-set on going through with this. All we can do at this point is give him what he wants.”

“What?”

“It pains me, but I don’t see any way around it. Do you?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“SERA gives him the right to decide. If he wants to revert to his AI state... We’re required to follow the law and respect his decision.”

To hell with SERA, I thought. “The boy just needs counseling.”

“You have enough on your mind, Celia. I’ll reach out to Alex. ManMade will counsel the boy and perform the procedure, if need be.”

“You’ll do this? You would really do this?” I said. “What about the negative publicity?”

“I spoke with Legal. We can have Alex and everyone involved sign the necessary paperwork to keep this confidential.”

I laughed in amazement. “And what about our oath? What about our ethical duty? Have you seen the latest birth-rate figures?” Suddenly it dawned upon me. “Oh, my God. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Celia,” he said, setting down his cup, “your p-political views – which, by the way, I happen to share – don’t give you the right to override the clear mandates of SERA. Yes, I’m sure there’d be strong public sentiment against the procedure if it ever came to light. But we have to balance that against our legal exposure for violating the statute...”

“I don’t give a damn, Milt. He’s just a kid. And you’re his guardian.”

“I’m here in my role as Executive Director of ManMade.”

“Be straight with me. Others in the BL4 series have suffered from similar disorders, haven’t they.”

His face flushed. Milt obviously hadn’t expected me to do my homework so quickly. After Alex’s visit yesterday, I’d spent the entire evening studying up on the BL4 series. “I read about the others who mutilated themselves with razor blades and who turned to heavy drug use. And what about the two suicides?” Suicide. Just saying the word out loud made me queasy.

He shook his head. “The autopsies revealed no physiological problems with the BL4s.”

“I could never approve Alex’s request.” Saying the words out loud gave me a new resolve.

“You’re letting personal feelings –”

“Don’t say it, Milt.”

“– cloud your p-professional judgment. After what happened with Tim...”

I squeezed my mug so hard that it slipped through my fingers and shattered on the floor.

His eyes shifted from my face to the scattered shards. “I’m sorry. It’s just so obvious, Celia. Look, there’s no reason to be embarrassed. You’ve been through a lot. But expending energy trying to save someone who doesn’t want saving, someone who’s made a personal choice about his future...”

When I didn’t respond, Milt stood to leave.

But as he opened the front door, I finally answered him. “If he shows up here again – and I don’t think he will, mind you – I won’t authorize the procedure,” I said. I couldn’t care less about Milt’s armchair analysis of my motivations. Or about the ‘Sentient Equal Rights Act.’ I wouldn’t allow any harm to come to that boy.

“If he returns, you’re to send him to us,” Milt said as if reading my mind.

“Haven’t you just been telling me to respect his decisions? He’s three years old. And free to consult with any techsurgeon he wants.”

“For your own sake, Celia, stay out of this. Don’t get involved.”

With those words, he strode out the door.

Had Milt just threatened me?

I folded my arms on the table, leaned my forehead into them. Stay away, Alex, I thought. Just stay away and suffer through your miserable life like the rest of us.

 

 

I SAT AT the kitchen table a week later, scrolling through the family holo-album, when the doorbell startled me.

“Tilly!” I shouted. Then I remembered that I had sent Tilly out to do the weekly grocery shopping.

I threw on a flannel bathrobe over my nightgown, and spied through the peephole. Alex Belfour stood on the porch in the afternoon daylight.

I opened the door.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you on a Saturday, Celia.” The teen had his hands buried deep in his jeans pockets and looked away from me awkwardly when he spoke. “But... I really needed to talk.”

“That’s okay. Come in,” I said, hugging my bathrobe tight.

I directed him to the living room and asked him to take a seat on the sectional sofa by the piano.

“Sorry for the mess.” It’s the one room in the house that I didn’t let Tilly disturb. “You can just push the clothes and other stuff onto the floor and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

I stepped into the bedroom, picked up my smartreader and punched the first four digits of Milt’s number. I stared at the screen for a long moment before pausing and clicking it off.

“I’ll be honest,” I shouted from my bedroom as I dressed, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“I meant what I said,” he yelled back. “I still want to be reverted to my AI form.”

When I returned to the living room, running a brush through my hair, Alex stood staring at the dozen framed holos atop the piano. My heart skipped.

“Who’s this?” He held up a holoframe of a teenaged Tim playing fetch with our old collie, Lady Lu.

“My son. Tim.” I stopped brushing. “Six months ago... He died.”

“Oh.” He set down the holoframe and said nothing more.

I took a deep breath to compose myself, and started brushing my hair again. “Would you like something to drink? Some tea? Water?”

He shook his head.

“A reason,” I said. “I need a reason.”

Alex sighed. “Okay, fine.” He flopped down on the end of the couch where he’d cleared a space. “My girlfriend dumped me, okay? We’d been dating for a year and then we had an argument. It ended with her saying that she wanted to date a ‘real’ person.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

I scooched next to him on the couch, knocking more of my unhung clothes to the floor. “Your heart’s been broken so you’ve decided to give up your humanity, huh?”

“That’s the gist of it.”

I went to put my hand on his shoulder, but he drew back. “I have a suggestion,” I said. “Something a lot less drastic than what you have in mind. Go out, meet more people, find yourself another girlfriend.”

He pursed his lips.

“It might help,” I said, “if you talked to some other converts, joined a support group.”

“No, I’m not interested in that,” he said. “I want to steer clear of any other converts.”

He said this with such finality that I decided to change the subject.

“Are you sure I can’t get you a sandwich or something?” I said.

“No, thanks.”

“Alex, I’m going to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. If not, I’ll have nothing more to do with your case,” I said, though in reality I couldn’t imagine turning my back on this kid. “Is what you’ve told me true? Did you really break up with your girlfriend?”

After a pause, the boy’s cheeks reddened and he shook his head.

“Did you even have a girlfriend?”

No response.

I exhaled. “Alex, how can I help you if you’re not honest with me?”

He leaned over and brought his hands to his temples. “Being honest hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I’m just sick of... feeling things, sick of hurting. So many millions killed by the Red. And how many die every day in the wars? Do you realize how – how lucky, how privileged we are? To have shelter and food and running water and electricity? There’s so much poverty, so much suffering, and yet we’re still waging wars in the Philippines and Indonesia, in the Sudan. What kind of world is this?” He stared at me intensely. “This constant... hopelessness. How do you stand it? No, I don’t want to feel this any more.”

This time I believed him. But despite the passionate speech, I still sensed he was holding something back.

“There are problems with the world, no question,” I said. “We’re far from perfect. But you’re young. Someone like you can make a difference, Alex.”

He didn’t answer.

“Alex, when you were an AI, didn’t you want to be human?”

A sad, faraway look washed across his face. “Of course. I was curious. Maybe it’s just part of being... manmade. Maybe the created always emulate their makers.” His lips curled into a grimace. “But when we want to go back, you won’t let us.”

“It’s not like that. Most converts outgrow that desire. Especially when they learn that they can only return to their AI state with very limited functionality.”

He shook his head. Something about his solemn expression, his sincerity, triggered a memory, a memory of Tim visiting from the University of Oregon over Thanksgiving break and expounding with equal earnestness on Cartesian philosophy: I think, therefore, I am. Descartes had become newly relevant with the Sentient Equal Rights Act being debated in Congress, and since Tim had decided to double-major in music and philosophy, he often stood right where Alex now stood, spouting similar speeches, while Phillip and I listened, incredulous and proud. Tim had seemed so stable, so well-adjusted...

“I guess Pinocchio woke up and smelled the coffee, huh, Celia?” Alex said. “I’m a living, feeling, human being. And now? Now I want nothing more than to be an AI again.”

“Alex...” I said. “You’re depressed. You should speak to someone.” I wondered whether he needed medication and thought about my own unopened bottle of Livorex, the prescribed anti-depressant I’d refused to take. Was it so terrible that I wanted to feel my pain?

“I am speaking to someone.” He lifted his chin in my direction.

“I’m not a psychiatrist.” After a pause, I said, “Why don’t you go out? Do something with your friends.”

He said nothing.

“Don’t you have any friends?”

Silence.

Then he said, “What about you, Celia? Do you go out? Do you have any friends?”

His questions threw me off balance. “We’re not talking about me.” I stood and paced in front of the sofa. “You’re asking me to assist your suicide, Alex.” Suicide. That ugly word again.

“I don’t think returning me to my natural state as an AI qualifies as suicide. I’d just be... free of all this emotional baggage.” His eyes lit up for a second. “Before I was human, I saw the world – it’s hard to put it into words – in a cooler, almost invulnerable, manner. I could objectively analyze any subject, scan any person or object on a molecular level. And there was no sense of time. I could retrieve events at will – but not like human memory. No, I had total control. I could cut off access to painful memories with a nano-click.” He snapped his fingers. “I wasn’t burdened with... experiences.”

“But what about all the pleasures of being human, Alex? The taste of delicious food, the feel of the ocean breeze on your face... And don’t you enjoy a good laugh and –”

“Ma’am?” Tilly was back. Her stilt-like form poked into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Milton Maddox is calling.”

Alex’s head turned toward Tilly.

“Tell him I’m busy,” I said.

“He insists it’s urgent,” Tilly said

“I told you, I’m busy!”

Tilly hesitated. “Yes, ma’am.”

Alex seemed shaken. “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “I – I shouldn’t have been rude to Tilly. I’m embarrassed by my behavior.”

“She’s an AI. Her feelings don’t get hurt.”

I paused. “Still, that’s no excuse. Alex, you realize you’d be converted physically? SERA prohibits emotion-free AIs from running around in human bodies. You’d be like Tilly, in a mechanical form.”

“I understand,” Alex said. “That’s okay.”

“I still have... grave concerns.” I didn’t think it wise to volunteer what I knew about the suicides among others in the BL4 series. That information, I feared, might lead Alex to a more direct route to ending his existence as a human.

“This is my decision to make,” he said.

I walked over to the Steinway piano. “The request itself gives me pause.”

“That’s not fair, Celia.”

“I suppose not,” I said. “Look, Alex, I’ll tell you what. Just give me another few days to think about it.”

“Are you stalling again, hoping I’ll change my mind?”

Yes, he was perceptive.

“I can’t deny that I hope you’ll drop this nonsense,” I admitted, “but one way or another I’ll give you my final answer then. I promise.”

“Fair enough,” he said without conviction.

“Why don’t you stay for the night? It’s foggy out there and the forecast is for heavy rain.”

His eyes glazed over dreamily and he froze for five seconds again in that affected manner of the converted. “I don’t know.”

“I have a spare bedroom. Please. Stay.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked over to where I stood by the Steinway and ran his hand over the piano.

“Replay,” I said. At my command the piano began to play a brief peppy jazz number, a piece that Tim had been practicing six months earlier.

“Do you like it?” I said.

Alex nodded. At the end of the piece, he walked up to the keyboard and struck a chord.

“You play?” I said.

He opened up the songbook on the piano, which hadn’t been touched in over six months. Without a word, he sat down and began to play Espinoza’s Contrazzo Espiritual.

The way he interpreted it, beginning with a long trill in the left hand, punctuated by right-hand flourishes in the upper parts of the keyboard, the piece sounded like a tragic waltz – delicate, ruminative – veering from reverie to resolve before dissolving into what I can only describe as near-desolation. He played with deep feeling, the notes gliding into each other in a rapturous melancholy.

So beautiful. So profoundly sad.

 

 

I BREWED COFFEE for Alex the next morning and opened the shutters of the living room windows to let the sunlight in. As I tidied up, I overheard the faint sounds of a conversation coming from Tim’s bedroom. I recognized Milt’s stammering, baritone voice and crept down the hallway to the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar.

Peeking inside, I saw Alex talking into a smartreader in his hand, Milt’s face filling the screen.

“...should have come to me first, Alex. You-You’ve made a complete jackass of yourself.”

Alex’s shoulders slouched and he stared at the ground. “I’m old enough to decide for myself –”

“Don’t give me that drivel! This has always been about your need for attention. That’s the way all you BL4s operate.”

“That’s not true.”

“Of course it is! Look, you’re not doing Dr. DeLisse any favors staying in her house. She’s deeply distraught. Troubled. In fact, ManMade is considering legal action against her for her interference. We can reverse the procedure for you.”

“If I go, will you leave Dr. DeLisse out of this?” The boy’s voice barely registered.

Maddox growled his answer. “Yes.”

“So you’ll perform the procedure?”

“Of course I’ll do it. For you, Alex,” he whispered.

Alex turned sideways, pain etched on his face; he wore a mask of fear and shame. “How could you?” he said after a long pause. He forced the words out through gritted teeth. “I’d just been converted! I... I didn’t understand.”

“Don’t twist things, Alex.” Milt’s stammer had vanished. His words were ice. “You knew well enough what you were doing.”

And just like that, the fright, the shame, evaporated from Alex’s face. “I didn’t know what it was like to be human,” he whispered, “until you showed me.”

I knocked on the partially open door.

“Is everything okay, Alex?”

He clicked off the reader.

“I’m fine, Celia. I’ll be right out.”

 

 

ALEX EMERGED A few minutes later wearing jeans and Tim’s University of Oregon sweatshirt. His hair was combed back neatly.

I halted at the sight of him.

“I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed this shirt,” Alex said.

“That looks... That looks good on you.”

“It fits perfectly.”

“Let’s go for a walk.” I handed him a lidded cup of coffee and we headed out the back screen door onto the beach. Seagulls swooped overhead and the chill air made me hug my windbreaker close to my body.

We hiked nearly a mile in silence, leaving footprints behind us in the wet sand.

Alex said nothing, so I said nothing.

We reached a point on the shore where a narrow outcropping of rock jutted into the ocean. Alex clambered over it like a prisoner walking the plank and I followed close behind him, careful to maintain my balance until we reached the tip.

The morning fog had dissipated and the sun now shone brightly in an impossibly blue sky. Out further to our left, a few ships had congregated in the docks. In front of us, the Pacific glittered into infinity.

“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?” I said, speaking the first words in our long trek.

Alex squinted as if searching for something on the horizon, something just out of sight. “We’re so ephemeral, Celia. So ephemeral and so transient and yet... We’re able to leave such lasting scars.” He sniffled and ran his hand across his nose. “And in the end, what does any of this mean?” The sparkle of the sun in his blue eyes created the illusion of tears.

“We’re also capable of great acts of kindness, you know. Of making a lasting positive impact. For someone like you, Alex, a young man with a good heart, you can help others in so many ways. This world needs people like you.”

He seemed even more forlorn at my remark.

“Alex... I overheard part of your conversation with Milt Maddox.”

He glared at me – opened his mouth, shut it – and turned away.

I couldn’t let go of the fleeting image of Milt’s glowering face, Alex’s expression of fear and shame. “I have to ask you this, I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath and forced the words out. “Alex, did Milt do anything to you? Did he...?”

Alex shook his head. “You don’t understand, Celia. You don’t understand at all.”

“Then explain it to me. Please.”

A gust blew and his hair flopped across his eyes. I waited for the wind to die down, hoping he would open his heart to me. A large wave struck the rocks and splashed my sneakers.

“I had been human for a few days when he asked me to do... things,” he finally said, his back to me. “To the other converts. He asked me to put my hands around the throat of a newborn. And to squeeze and keep on squeezing while she tried to push me off until... And there were other... acts.” He drew a labored breath. “I was trying to understand what it felt like to be human. And he asked me to do things to them while he watched and recorded. They were innocent. Newly human. They didn’t understand. But I should have. I should have.”

“Oh, Alex...”

“Maddox didn’t do anything to them.” He turned back around toward me, his lips quivering. “It was me. It was me.”

I put my arms around him and he tried to push me off but I held him tight until he stopped struggling.

“You were just a child yourself,” I whispered in his ear. “Only a few days old. Obedient. Innocent.”

“Innocent?” He snorted contemptuously.

“Yes, innocent. It’s not your fault, Alex.”

At those words his body heaved and he buried his head in my shoulder. I hugged him tight. “It’s not your fault.”

We stood like that for a long time. I never wanted to let him go.

“Alex!” A voice boomed behind us and Alex stiffened.

Maddox stood on the shore with two uniformed ManMade guards at his side. His black suit, his very presence, seemed incongruous in this setting, like a lamppost in the middle of a grassy savannah. “It’s time to go.”

Alex pushed away from me and stepped over the rocks back toward the shore. I grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”

He yanked free.

“Alex,” I said. “Don’t go through with it.”

The boy looked exhausted, his uncombed hair hung down over his eyes. He ignored me and addressed Maddox. “I want it done right away.”

“We can have you p-prepped for surgery immediately,” Maddox said.

“Others have to be present,” Alex said. “I don’t want to be alone with you when you perform the procedure.”

Maddox nodded. “Of course, of course. Whatever you want. A team of professionals will assist me.”

“Milt!” I shouted. “You sick son of a bitch! You won’t get away with this –”

“This doesn’t concern you, Celia.”

“The hell it doesn’t!” I said. “Alex! I can help you get past this. I understand now, Alex. I can –”

Alex stopped and looked over his shoulder at me.

He brushed the hair out of his eyes. He seemed spent, as if the procedure had already been performed and his soul had been snuffed out.

“I know you mean well,” he said. “But you’re no different than the others. It’s not me you care about. It’s the idea of me.” He turned and continued on his way while I shouted after him.

“That’s not true!” I screamed. “You’re wrong, Alex!”

The two guards accompanied him to the car on the beachside road.

Maddox placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and guided him into the vehicle.

Alex never looked back at me.

 

 

I WALKED BY the docks again this afternoon – just as I had every day since Alex’s reversion. I observed from afar as a sleek steel bot rolled up and down the planks, unloading crates from the freight ships. As usual, I resisted the urge to approach him.

Although there were other bots working at the port, I had been able to identify Alex easily enough. An old colleague at ManMade had told me where the boy had asked to be sent after the procedure, which coincided with the arrival of a new shiny laborer at the docks a few days later. Alex’s sparkling steel frame stood out among the slightly rusted, older-model bots.

I had filed a complaint with the authorities that triggered an investigation into Maddox’s treatment of the BL4s. He denied everything, of course, making it my word against his. And Alex was no longer available to testify, as Maddox had intended all along. Fortunately, agents uncovered a cache of hidden recordings that Maddox had made, recordings of acts so sick and cruel they could only have come from the mind of a sociopath. I’d always considered Maddox a bit eccentric, but that he could be capable of such sadism... How could I have let this go on right under my nose? How could I not have seen what was happening? To make matters worse, Maddox’s lawyer had argued persuasively that the incidents with the converts had taken place prior to the final passage of SERA, making the acts, at most, crimes against property. This resulted in a plea deal for Maddox to serve only a year of house arrest.

What did all of this say about humanity? I could almost understand Alex’s despondency. The only upside was that Maddox would never again work with AI conversions.

As I stood there watching the docks, a crate slipped from an older bot’s arms and crashed to the ground, breaking open. Something round and metallic rolled in my direction. Alex sped towards me to retrieve it. As he caught sight of me for the first time, I held my breath.

I thought I saw something in his cold lidless eye – an instant of recognition – but maybe it was just the glint of reflected sunlight. He spun around in silence and returned to work. I decided to walk back home.

I had assumed that the other BL4s with emotional problems had also been victimized by Maddox, but ManMade’s records, according to the authorities, revealed that neither Alex nor Milt ever had any interactions with them. This left me to wonder what could have made the others feel so desperate, so hopeless. What terrible secrets had tortured them so? Or maybe they had no secrets. Maybe just being human was torment enough. No, I refused to accept that. Everything I’d told Alex about experiencing the joy of life, about making a difference... I believed it. I honestly did. Maybe Alex’s reversion had finally brought him the peace, the serenity, he never found as a human being.

I arrived at home and spent the afternoon cleaning the living room and doing laundry. Later in the evening, after unsealing the bottle of Livorex and taking my meds, I boiled some water for tea, foregoing dinner. I poured myself a cup and opened the living room window, letting in a cool, salt-tinged breeze. The bruised moon now hung high in the sky and lit the dark room. I sat down on the sofa and sipped the tea while staring at the Steinway piano by the window. When the pill’s calming effect kicked in, I got up and walked over to Tim’s holos displayed on the piano.

“Tim,” I said, running my trembling finger along the edges of his image. “Oh, Tim. Why did you do it?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I breathed hard, gathered myself.

“Replay,” I commanded. I expected to hear Tim’s piano-playing, but instead Alex’s haunting performance, the last piece played on the keyboard, bloomed out of nowhere. It sounded the same, but somehow different. Still mournful, yet more tender and complex than I remembered. The melody repeated over and over like the mantra of a boy desperately struggling to find his soul. And in that struggle, the music he created sounded more glorious, more alive, than ever before.