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With a pat on his belly, Father Royce reclined in his dining chair and exhaled. “That was a fine meal, as always,” he said. His eyes landed on 653’s face, and his usual friendly demeanor became a bit more solemn. “You didn’t eat much. You don’t like pork?”
653 concentrated on giving a more human-like response from the one in his head, the facts and figures about that particular cut of meat dominating his thinking. “It was good, but it’s been a long day.”
This seemed to be the right response because Father Royce nodded. “It has.”
“Father ...” Lexie began.
653 shifted his gaze to her face. Human emotions were stronger than he’d been told. Even now, whereas before he would have been empty of any thought in her regard, his mind was filled the taste of her lips and what he could only describe as hunger. He’d never felt that before either – a desire for anything – not food or events or a person. But right then, he craved her, and he shouldn’t. None of his handlers had told him how to deal with that.
“Father, tell us about the stone.”
653’s attention changed. The stone. There was something else he’d never known ... that he could think for himself. Protect Father Royce was what he was told, but Lexie believed he should go further than that and solve the mystery. But, that wasn’t his job, and what happened to his kind if he went against what he was programmed to do? Maybe it had already happened ... the change in what they, cyborgs, were ... because she was right. He wasn’t all machine, and the humanness in him seemed to grow stronger.
“The stone?” Father Royce asked, his brow furrowing.
“Yes, the one with the sun carving.” She wiped her lips with a cloth napkin and dropped it into her lap.
“Ah.” Father Royce seemed to warm to the subject. “That’s what I thought it was at first.”
“It isn’t?” she asked.
He shook his grizzled head. “No, it’s more like a lens into the future.”
“How can you know?” 653 startled at his own voice. He’d join her inquiry?
Father Royce shoved his chair away from the table. “Here, let’s adjourn to my study, and I’ll explain.” He didn’t wait on them to agree, but stood and plodded across the room.
His study was filled with books. Heavy wooden shelves running from floor to ceiling on three of the four walls simply overflowed with them. Papers spilled off the desk in every direction, most with the same even scrawl. 653 read them all in a second of time, their contents filing in his head.
“Here is the stone.” Father Royce waved to a black and white photograph on the left-hand wall. Set in an ornate frame against maroon wall hanging, it seemed out of place. “It’s deep in the Black Hills of Washington State. I discovered it after reading later writings about its existence. Was quite a hike to get there, took days of our time, and our small group was exhausted at the end.”
“You left it there?” Lexie asked.
“My dear, it weighs some two or three tons, if not more. There’s no moving it, and the carving itself is well over any man’s head.”
“What made you think it wasn’t a sun?” Lexie continued.
Father Royce walked over to the shelves. His fingers dusting along the book spines, he plucked one from the mix, and opening it, flipped several pages. He spun it around and handed it to her.
653 gazed over her shoulder. “This was written in 1873,” he said.
Father Royce smiled at him. “You’re well-read to know that.” Reversing his steps, he seated himself in a worn rolling chair, the hinges giving a loud protest. “Written by a scientist named Bartholomew Sydney. He included several drawings.” Father Royce pointed at the book.
There were three drawings – the first containing the sun symbol, the second and third, several other carvings of what appeared to be a man, and another a honeycomb. Beneath the third were a series of handwritten words.
“Rise of the sun?” Lexie asked. “What does that mean?”
Father Royce spun the book back around and dropped it onto the desk. “It’s a translation of the symbols, though more a direct one. It’s better read, ‘New creation.’”
“The new birth then. Salvation.”
“It could be, but I don’t believe so. You see, the symbols are too old for that. The sun carving in the Black Hills predates Christ. I believe it’s literal. There will be a new form of life.”
653 drank in Father Royce’s words, but didn’t comment. New life. Human life, or—
“In more recent years,” Father Royce continued, “there was a man named Elam Hedgewick. He had a book.”
“Elam? Have ... have you read it?” Lexie’s voice trembled with the emotion 653 recognized as fear.
Father Royce smiled. “No, but it contained a great deal of code, formulas and the like.”
“Contained?” she asked.
653 tilted his head, curious as to the Father’s answer. But he seemed finished with the topic.
Closing the book, the priest pushed to his feet. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go on to bed.”
Lexie, obediently, hooked her hand in the crook of his elbow and led him from the room. 653 followed, but took a left instead and headed for the kitchen, slipping into his bedroom. He seated himself on the bed. He’d been there only a few minutes when Lexie knocked at the door.
“You up?” She positioned herself in the doorway. “Don’t tell me you don’t sleep either? Do you bathe?”
“I bathe, though not as often. I rarely sweat. I do have to rest, but it’s less sleep and more ... recharging.”
She slanted her weigh against the door frame. “That’s something then. But ... but what I really wanted to say was about Father Royce. New creation, he said. What if ... what if that’s your kind?”
When 653 didn’t respond, she approached, stopping a couple feet away. “You didn’t think of that?”
“I did, but there’s no proof.”
“Maybe the proof’s in the book, the one by the dead guy.” A tremor shook her, and she curled her arms around herself. Her face paled.
“Your fear is great,” he said.
She gave him a faltering smile. “You always so clinical? You could tap into your human side right now and I’d feel better.”
Confused, he stared at her. Human women were so complex. “What would a man do?” he asked.
Her hands shaking, she reached for him and tugged him to his feet. Spreading his arms, she pressed her torso against him, her curves fitting themselves to the rigid muscles of his chest.
“Okay, now put your arms around me,” she said.
Uncertain, he did so, hovering his hands over her back before dropping them one at a time. Her relief was immediate, her body calming, her head drooping.
“This is nice. Isn’t it?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you feel nothing at all.”
What did he feel? Resting his chin on the top of her head, he turned his mind away from the facts and figures stored there, to a distant, abstract sensation rising in his gut, one different from what he’d felt kissing her. That had been searing, mind-altering. But this was comfortable, as if he was doing exactly what a human male was designed to do – hold a woman for the simple sake of holding her.
“I feel ... you,” he said.
“And?” she mumbled, her voice muffled by his shirt.
He tightened his grip. “And I’m glad you’re not frightened anymore.”
She pulled her head back, her eyes meeting his. “Glad? That’s an emotion.”
He nodded, and she smiled, the look fueling the enjoyment he had, standing there.
“What do we do next?” he asked. “Kiss?”
Her laughter rippled against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not funny, but you have such a long way to go.”
Poking his shovel into the soil, 653 lifted a heavy scoop and tossed it over his head, startling at the sound of a feminine squawk. Standing taller, he peered over the edge of the hole he was in and leaned his weight on the shovel.
Lexie, coated in a fine film of black soil, shook her arms, dusting it from her skin.
“I thought you were sleeping,” he said.
She tossed her head, sending her air puffing around her face. “I was, but now I’m not. We have no water inside.”
“I turned it off.”
Her expression asked why. However, stepping to the edge of the hole, she peered down and talked of something else entirely. “There’s a phone app,” she began, “that shows you where you’d come out on the other side of the earth should you dig all the way through.”
He wrinkled his brow. “That’s impossible. It’s 6,397 kilometers from the earth’s crust to the core at the poles, and that doesn’t take into account the fact the temperature is 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Her lips curved in amusement. “Should have known you’d know all that. I suppose you know where you’d come out on the other side without consulting the app?” She flapped her hand. “Never mind. I have to learn not to ask you questions without wanting the answers.”
653 blinked. Why wouldn’t she want the answers? That seemed odd.
“In any case,” she said, “we have no water. Why?”
“I’m fixing the plumbing.”
Again, her facial expression said a lot. Humans were notorious for giving away their thoughts.
“The gardener plants flowers, not fixes plumbing,” she said.
He kinked his head right. “It’s broken, and there’s no need to hire someone to fix it when I know how. This ‘saves cash,’ as you humans say.”
One of her hands found a place on her hip, and he stared long and hard. What was it about a woman’s shape that was so eye-pleasing to a male? Lexie’s was especially nice, made him think thoughts he’d never had before.
He’d struggled with those over the last couple days. Things had been rather mundane, Father Royce following a schedule written as deep in stone as the sun symbol. Boredom, an unusual emotion, had sent him out today to fix the plumbing.
“Is something on me?” she asked, glancing down.
653 raised his gaze. “No. I was simply thinking you’d look beautiful minus your clothing.”
Her eyebrows rose. “I don’t suppose anyone taught you not to say things like that to a woman?”
He adjusted his stance. “I was taught human etiquette, politeness, I think you call it, then told not to lie. But it seems to me those are contrary to each other. I have to lie to be polite because sometimes I don’t mean what I’m supposed to say.”
Her lips trembled. “That’s the best explanation I’ve ever heard, and thank you for the compliment. It proves to me what I’ve found out so far. There’s more human in you than you’ve realized. A machine wouldn’t care what I look like naked. And ...” She raised one hand, palm outward. “You are not supposed to ask if you can see me that way.”
This time he smiled. He hadn’t been going to ask. “I have an active imagination,” he replied instead.
“Back to the plumbing,” she said. “How long before it’s fixed?”
“Well, digging the hole will take me another two minutes and twenty-five seconds, then I have to retrieve the pipes and glue. That will take ...”
Again, the hand rose. “An estimate. I don’t need the science of it. I’m a woman.”
He let that remark go. “Half an hour.”
“Very well. That’s half an hour I have to wait to use the restroom.” Turning her back on him, she headed toward the house, but a few steps in, glanced back. “What are you looking at now?” she asked.
He smiled again. “I think I’d better not tell you, since that seems to be how a man acts.”
With a laugh, she disappeared from view, and he returned to his digging.
Thirty minutes later, he dumped the last of the dirt in the hole and tamped it down. He returned inside and stepped into the kitchen.
Lexie let out yet another squeak. “No, you don’t! You’re not coming in here looking like that.”
He glanced downward. “It’s only a little dirt.”
“Only a little? It’s half the yard.” Go out and rinse off first.”
653 revolved. Unsure what she meant by “rinse off,” he decided to take her literally. Turning on the water hose, he plunged his head beneath the cold spray and stood there until he was soaked through. Slogging back to the door, water dripping from his limbs, he tugged it open, and Lexie, now cooking breakfast, spun her eyes wide.
“I’m ‘rinsed off’ now,” he said. “Can I come in?”
She gave a slight cough. “I’d better ... get you ... a towel.” Her face shaded red, she removed the skillet from the burner, leaving the stove on, and scooted from the room. She returned with a large, blue bath towel. She folded it around him.
653 grasped hold of the edges, a new emotion rising, one he didn’t like. Disappointment. Women were so confusing. He’d done what she said, only now, she looked like he shouldn’t have. “Have I messed up?” he asked.
She coughed again. “No. It’s my error. I need to learn to explain things better. You ... you only did exactly what you were told.”
“That’s how it works. Correct?” he asked. “Obedience is the first key to a successful life.”
Her eyebrows arched. “That come from a book? Because typically men don’t obey women, at least not without complaining.”
He made a face. “A man who complains has other issues besides obedience.”
This brought her smile back. She ran the towel over him, pausing, one hand on his arm. “If I were a machine ...” She paused, briefly. “If I were a machine and going to speak literally, as you seem to do, I’d say ...”
“Are you well?” he asked. “You seem ... uncomfortable.”
Lexie gave a crooked smile. “I’m fine. I’m just embarrassed.”
“You’ve done something wrong?”
Her laugh echoed through the space. Bowing her head to his chest, she muffled it in the towel. But he couldn’t see what was so funny, and his confusion returned.
“I was going to say,” she continued, calming herself, “that if I were you, I’d say you’d look nice minus your clothes.”
She pulled her face back, and he drank in her expression. She wasn’t smiling now, but entirely serious.
“And no, don’t show me. I’ve seen enough.” With that, she tightened the towel around him and revolved.
However, he snagged her before she could walk away. “Question?”
She nodded, and he lowered his hand.
“When are a man and a woman allowed to see each other naked?”
It was an innocent question, and one he really wanted an answer to. But her face was a mixture of things.
“You are always asking,” she said, “and I don’t mind. But that one makes me have some of my own ... some I’m not sure I should ask yet.”
“You may ask whatever you like,” he replied.
She hesitated. “Make you a deal?”
He nodded.
“After breakfast, we’ll talk. I’ll ask what’s bugging me and give you a reply. That okay?”
It sounded entirely fair. He inclined his head.
She waved one hand toward him. “Dry yourself off and go put on something clean. Then, bring me those, and I’ll wash them.”
Ducking his head, he ran the towel over his hair. In his bedroom, he shed his clothes, making a pile by the door.
He sat on the end of the bed and at himself in the mirror over the dresser. What was there to be embarrassed about? Also, what reason would hold them back? He admired her. She admired him. That seemed basic. Society had rules about clothing in public, he acknowledged those, but behind closed doors, what they did or didn’t do seemed like their business entirely. Yet, she’d said she was embarrassed. He couldn’t see as there was any embarrassment, unless there was another unwritten human rule of behavior he hadn’t learned.
“Too many,” he mumbled to himself.
There were simply too many rules that he hadn’t been taught and too many things he didn’t know about the human-side of himself. He’d been instructed in the science of it, taught his DNA, how he was molecularly formed, knew the intricacies of the machine in him good enough to make minor repairs. But it was as if they didn’t want him to associate with something that made up a great part of who he was. Why? And if he did so anyway, what happened?
The logical part of his brain said he should let the issue go and remain the mindless servant he’d been created as. However, a new part of his brain, one barely tapped, told him he should do this, should go forward and learn and grow and experience things, that doing so was as right for him as the other, maybe more so.
But, that created a new emotion, one worse than confusion. Fear. Because delving into the unknown changed the future, probably irreparably, and that scared him near to death.
“That was a fine breakfast, Lexie. I’m going to be in my study for an hour, reading, if you need me,” Father Royce said, rising from the table.
Lexie nodded, catching Kent’s eyes as she stood. She’d tried to push the image of him soaking wet from her brain, but it’d pasted itself there like glue. He was well made, but whether that was his humanness showing through or the design of his creators, she had no idea. Did they want him to look so beautiful? Or was that the luck of the draw like everyone else?
Gathering the plates, she made her way into the kitchen and set them in the sink. On a second trip to gather dishes, she faced Kent. “Give me time to clean up, and we’ll have that talk.”
He nodded, and she returned to the kitchen.
She was some twenty minutes finishing. Drying her hands on a dish towel, she did a search for him and located him in a rocker on the front porch. He looked up at her, and the picture of him returned again.
Beautiful was not a word she’d ever thought she’d use to describe a man, but from a strictly aesthetic point of view, he had no flaws. But then, why would he? He’d been created to be perfect, so he was perfect. The difference was, he had no idea. Where the average male would have worked hard to get into that physical shape and been eaten up with ego, Kent was distinctly lacking any. To a girl, that was a huge turn on, but to him, she suspected, it was him being the only way he knew how.
He lacked guile. What he said was exactly what he meant. What you said was interpreted exactly how you said it. Both of which meant his question about a man and a woman being naked together should be taken at face value. In his mind, why wouldn’t they?
“There, now, I found you,” she said, taking a seat nearby.
He angled himself in the rocker.
“Been thinking about what you asked,” she said, “and, as in all things human, it’s complicated. But you expected that.”
He nodded, sharp.
“It made me have a few questions as well, and I want to preface them by saying, ordinarily, a woman such as me wouldn’t ask them to a man she’s only just met. You understand that?”
Again, he gave a nod.
“But, being as you’re always so logical, I’m going to ask them anyway.” She inhaled. “Okay, here goes. A man and a woman never see each other naked unless they’re in a relationship and it’s progressed to the point they choose to be together. You understand what I mean by that?”
He tilted his head. “Marriage?”
She smiled. “Yes, in the church, marriage is the only reason a man and woman would be together naked. Outside the church, people choose to do it all the time.”
“Why?”
Lexie leaned her head against the seat back, her gaze on his face. “That goes to feelings. It could be they simply want to feel good. Or it could be they’re in love. Those are two separate things. You don’t have to be in love for it to feel good, but in God’s eyes, you should be, and also, be committed to each other.”
“Reproduction,” he said. “But that’s only a method of producing offspring.”
She laughed, light. “Goodness. Sometimes ...” Her voice trailed away. She gathered her thoughts. “Yes, you’re right, but that’s clinical. People do choose to have children, but sometimes, a couple will be together simply because they can.”
His expression changed then, growing curious. “For no reason?”
“None, except he makes her feel good and she does the same for him. But they ought to be married ... according to the church.”
He looked away from her, and it was as if she heard the wheels clicking in his head. “Love, you said,” he replied. “Is that how I felt when I kissed you?”
A tingle swept through Lexie’s head, and she drew in a breath. “Well ... how ... how did you feel?”
She had to stay logical. It was how he thought, and to take anything he said in an emotional way would only cause a misunderstanding. It was childlike really. He was a boy, age twelve, just hitting puberty, only he wasn’t when you looked at him.
“Hungry,” he said, “like I couldn’t satisfy it.”
“Okay, that was from here.” She tapped his head. “Love comes from here.” Reaching across, she laid her hand over his heart. “It’s intangible, not necessarily a physical sensation, but one from way deep inside. True love,” she said, “affects everything you do. A mother will go to the end of the earth for her child. You said you ... didn’t have a mother?”
He shook his head.
“A shame because that’s one of the best things a woman can ever become, a mom. ‘Children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.’”
“Psalm one twenty-seven, verse three,” he replied.
She smiled. “Which brings me to my question for you ...” Nervous, she wadded her hands in her lap. “Understanding, again, that I would never ask this to a human man?”
Never ask and could not believe she was about to ask. But her curiosity was simply too much, and her need to know overwhelming everything else. She rolled her question over in her head, letting it sit on her tongue for a good while, then steeled herself.
His face said he couldn’t comprehend her reluctance, but then, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t know how looking at him made her heart beat faster, how he’d begun to affect the way she thought and talked. He wouldn’t know how his answer to this question seemed like a ten-ton weight hanging about her neck, or how she didn’t understand why it did.
He was naturally devoid of emotions, and she was eternally full of them. That made this question huge and his answer somehow either relief or agony.
Wiping one hand down her pants leg, Lexie trained her eyes on his face, and let the question fall out. “Can you have children?”