There was a short period in Park’s life where she had to choose whether or not to go to school. It was the year that the city finally decided to implement android teachers, laying off most of the human ones. In retaliation, the dismissed teachers and concerned parents held protests in front of the school, the teachers waving primitive hand-printed signs that embarrassed Park, the parents refusing to let their children go to class. Park’s uncle was away from the biodome at this time—“out in the field,” as he called it, and generally unreachable—and so Park had the choice of staying home and pretending he was one of these upset parents, or going to school as usual.
She went to school. She had nothing better to do at home, other than watching Glenn do the chores, and no friends to play truant with around the dome. And besides, she approved of the switchover to android instructors: they were objectively better at teaching than humans were. They had the state-of-the-art educational programs; they never grew tired or overworked; they didn’t play favorites or throw books at gum-chewing mouth-offs. Plus, they made students too afraid to cheat: their eyes had the infrared sensors, the cameras. They could ruin your life if they wanted to, or if anyone got ahold of the footage in their heads—so their presence kept students on the straight and narrow. Delinquency decreased around the biodome. It was a general improvement for everybody—except the fired teachers.
Park wanted to show her support for the change, so she kept going to class, Glenn in tow as always. In those days it was still considered childish for a girl of her age to walk to school with her android chaperone, to be picked up by him. Such a thing was for small children, who were bound to get lost or kidnapped by flesh-traders, but by now Park was tall and light-boned, and she was beginning to develop breasts. Still, she hardly cared what her classmates thought of her, their stares as she walked past them with Glenn carrying her schoolbag. She pretended not to notice their tiny smirks. Once, Glenn commented seriously, “It seems that you amuse your peers.”
“I wouldn’t call it amusement,” Park said.
“What would you call it, then?”
“Ignorance,” Park replied. “Or the Freudian impulse to hate what’s different from you.”
Glenn was silent at this. Usually he could keep up with her; Park didn’t know who had developed his positronic brain, but whoever it was had made Glenn so close to human that sometimes she didn’t recognize him in a crowd. If she wasn’t looking closely, the eyes that gazed calmly back at her could have been anyone’s. His body was both warmly familiar to her and as unremarkable as a stranger’s. He seemed to process things just as anyone did—or faster. She couldn’t remember if he’d always been like this, or if he was evolving.
But he didn’t quite understand Freud. Not yet, anyway.
Before the protests, Glenn would pass Park her bag and watch from the gate as she ascended the front steps to school. Sometimes he would stay at his post until class was over; other times he wandered off into the city to run errands or pick up supplies. At least, this was what Park assumed he did: Glenn was mostly self-directing. She didn’t leave him any lists. Things just got done.
But once the picket line appeared, Park had to take steps to ensure that Glenn always quietly broke off from her, several yards from the school entrance. She didn’t think that any of the protesters were disgruntled enough to hurt Glenn—they might not even recognize him as an android, if they weren’t looking attentively—but she couldn’t take any chances. Every morning she read about seething crowds of rioters flooding the city, bearing down on innocent courier androids or the sexbots loitering on the corners. Every morning she saw image-grabs of how the demonstrators had unleashed their fury, tearing their victims apart, scattering their metal limbs to the streets. Wires dangling gruesomely, synthetic skin flapping like loose chicken flesh. They were sending a message, one man told the news. Telling the big robot companies that their products weren’t welcome in the city anymore. It was the only way they could get anyone to listen, to stop them from sending “the clunkers” in. The protesters didn’t want to do it—destroy the robots, that is—but it was their only choice. “Hit ’em where it hurts,” the man said to the cameras, smugly. “Their wallets.”
“They’re idiots,” Park said whenever she watched these interviews. “Why hasn’t anyone arrested them? Destroying androids is illegal.”
“As illegal as knocking over trash cans,” Glenn answered imperturbably. He was also scanning through the newsfeeds, though he downloaded them directly into his processing unit, while Park had to scroll through them on her wrist console. “Most of the perpetrators are issued fines to cover the property damage, but few seem to comply.”
“They’re idiots,” Park said again.
“They’re afraid,” said Glenn. “From my understanding, it’s different. But also, in some ways, the same.”
No, she couldn’t risk anything happening to Glenn. He had orders from her to draw as little attention to himself as possible; when he could help it, he was to go straight home after dropping her off. If someone tried to hurt him, she gave him permission to enact self-defense protocols—but Glenn told her that if he had to harm a human in order to defend himself, his programming would render him catatonic. “Safety measures,” he said, to which Park answered, “I don’t care about their safety. What about yours?”
Anxiety felt like a knifepoint in her forehead whenever he was away. Park viewed her own presence as a kind of protective charm for Glenn, a shield; no one was going to destroy another person’s android right in front of them. It was only when they caught the robots out alone that the mob got whipped into such a frenzy. Without their human to accompany them, it was easy to view the androids as nothing but machines: unfeeling, unconnected, unmoored. It was easy to hurt them. To the demonstrators, it was a “victimless” crime. Only wallets got hurt.
But, Park thought—but if she could just stay by Glenn’s side as much as possible—she could protect him. They could see that he was important. They could see that she cared.
“Be safe,” Park would say to Glenn as he handed over her schoolbag each morning.
“I understand,” he would answer seriously. His classic response. “I understand” was a default programmed phrase, Glenn’s most basic factory setting—practically an instinct, like a baby smiling when you smiled at it, or a dog wagging its tail when you called its name. Essentially an empty verbal cue that indicated that her words had registered, but he had nothing better to say. How much did he really comprehend, rather than simply hear? How much of it was just a ritual, an acknowledgement without deeper knowledge: shadow puppets making gestures at each other from across the wall, but never quite connecting without losing their shapes altogether? Sometimes she said it back to him: “I understand,” and then Glenn said that he understood that she understood, and then Park said that she understood that he understood that she understood, and it became a little game between them, the words stacking up on top of each other like a tower of cards. They formed an echo chamber with each other, their understanding circling overhead, invisibly.
But sometimes he said it and she was afraid that it didn’t mean anything.
But then there were the other times—the times that he would smile at her, faintly, when she told him to be safe. Once or twice Glenn squeezed the tops of Park’s fingers, hard, imparting some hidden meaning that she didn’t try to decode. Then he would turn on his heel and leave. So maybe “I understand” really meant “Goodbye.” Who could know? All she knew was that if she kept giving the command, he kept coming back again, whole. As long as she told Glenn to be safe, he would be. He had to follow orders.
After Glenn broke off each morning, Park would head into the school building by herself. It was easier than she expected to walk past her former teachers every day, neither avoiding nor seeking eye contact. Mostly the protesters seemed to ignore her, angling their bodies a little away from her as she crossed the picket line; it almost seemed like a silent agreement among them that they had expected her to come to class, that she should be treated as an exception. Park didn’t know if she felt relieved or unsettled—only knew that the adults avoided acknowledging her, looking down the street as if in a sudden reverie, and their shouts and chants died down until she was inside. It was like a busy stream of traffic slowing to let a wolfox cross the road, only to hit full throttle again as soon as the animal left the asphalt. Was it because everyone universally respected wolfoxes—or was it because roadkill was simply too messy to deal with?
The only other student who showed up for school during the protests was a small, dark-haired, thin-shouldered boy named Dataran Zinh. The name told Park that his parents were probably from Mars. He certainly acted like it: he startled easily at loud noises, he didn’t seem to understand basic Earth procedures. He had no friends, like Park, which explained why he bothered coming to class. Their new teacher, “Ms. Allison,” didn’t seem to register that 99% of its students were missing, and went on with the day’s lesson as usual. Its gray, unthinking eyes swept the room as it lectured, just as if the seats were still full. Park wondered if it was just putting up a front, to maintain status quo, or if someone had programmed it to simply accept the new class size as the norm.
Most of their education was comprised of science, math—and some pre-Comeback history, which trickled in piecemeal. Even when she was young, Park got the feeling that whatever history they were taught about that era was heavily edited: any mention of the Comeback, with its two phases of natural purging disasters and unstoppable plant growth, was paired heavily with descriptions of how the ISF had saved them all, how foresighted it’d been to build the first colonies in space. The infrastructures of the previous centuries had not been equipped to deal with a catastrophe like the Comeback. Countries were wiped off the map, their borders eradicated by the plants. When the roads were overtaken, or the weather phenomena had devastated too many population centers, the previous governments had simply . . . collapsed. Like a chair buckling under too much weight. Legs breaking off in showers of sawdust. The workers, the firemen, the emergency services all went to hell—and then the whole planet had been swallowed. How could anyone have fought it? People could stave off predators, human enemies, even machines—but not the planet itself. In the end it was better to chalk the whole thing up to a loss, move to some newer, untainted planet, and start over, away from the insidious encroachment of the Earth’s assault. Do as the ISF did, and thrive in a vacuum where human life didn’t have to compete with plants.
Thank God for the Interstellar Frontier, Park echoed, a little bitterly. Amen.
Other than the proselytizing, not much else was said about life before or during the great catastrophe. Better not to dwell in the past, Park figured. Better not to plant seeds of longing, or nostalgia—it would only do good to look forward, not back. Pains were taken to avoid embittering people about their present circumstances. The curious, then, were forced to scrape bits and pieces of history together from old filmstreams, from rumors passed around on media platforms by so-and-so’s great-grandfather about a time when everyone could drive cars and there were things called “parks” around: great open squares of grass where people did cartwheels and had picnics and lay around in the sun. Park found this last tidbit funny—that a park had once been something that was open and exposed.
The rest of their lessons were geared towards tradecraft, any labor that still couldn’t be done by robots and androids. Most of the students’ futures lay in the workshops and factories of the last surviving cities. Or, if they were lucky, in the robot design firms, or the therapy hotels, or the law and dispute centers and the writing and idea mills.
Even more optimistically, the brightest of them were sometimes granted early education in aeronautical engineering, advanced sciences. The goal impressed to most children was to get the hell out of Dodge and make yourself useful on Mars, quick as you could. Or else try to invent your way out of the whole damned mess: come up with some miracle solution to the Comeback. But only the best were eyed for that. When the class size was reduced to two, the whole thing defaulted back to algebra and needs-based architecture, the latter of which robots still hadn’t figured out how to do.
At lunch, Park stayed in her seat and ate at her desk, watching the newstreams on her wrist console while she held one of Glenn’s vegetable patties in her other hand. When Ms. Allison left the room, Park kept her eyes fixed determinedly on her screen; Dataran Zinh, the Martian transfer student, was sitting a few rows behind her. He hadn’t left the room, either. Park understood that it was expected behavior for him to get up and approach her eventually, being that she was the only other person in the room. But she prayed that he wouldn’t do this. There was an odd peace about learning in an empty classroom: a balming quality, like the feeling of closing your eyes for the first time after a long day. Park hoped that Dataran understood this feeling; that he would respect and preserve it. Would in turn leave her the hell alone.
A chair squeaked. Dataran’s voice spoke, suddenly directly in her ear, though not so close that she could feel his breath. “So why did you come to class?”
“I like to learn,” Park answered curtly, without turning her head. Hadn’t they ever heard of personal boundaries on Mars? There was all that space—thousands of acres of red land granted to each family. Maybe he thought it was Earth custom to jostle close; maybe it seemed that way to him, seeing all the bodies crammed into a single biodome.
“Oh,” Dataran said. She felt rather than saw him lean back, probably dismayed that she didn’t make eye contact. “I like to learn, too.”
He watched her for a while after that; he seemed to find no problem in standing there, observing. Park tried to quell her irritation. Move along, she wanted to say. Nothing to see here. Certainly the other boys in her class seemed to think so, with their flat disinterest in her straight-hipped body, the prim, closed-collar clothes that Glenn warned her looked school-marmish. “I can download fashion software,” he’d offered, meaning into his operating system. “I could discern the popular patterns.” But patterns couldn’t help her knife-flat frame, Park thought, or the fact that making eye contact with her was like “looking into the windows of an empty house.” So she’d heard one classmate tell another.
“What are you watching?” Dataran asked.
Park tilted her console at him briefly.
“That’s where your interest is?” he said. “News?” His mouth twitched into a smile. “Human interest stories?”
When Park didn’t answer, he said, tapping out a kind of rhythm with his long, pale fingers: “You’d do better to watch the cinema streams. Television shows.”
“They don’t make those anymore,” Park said, surprised into answering. The film industry had died a long time ago, and who owned TVs anymore?
“The old ones, I mean,” Dataran amended.
“And why would I want to watch old filmstreams?”
Dataran smiled then, straight into Park’s eyes. For such a pale, wan thing, his smile was like a hot glittering light, forceful and unrelenting. Park felt the corners of her own mouth turn down.
“Everyone does it,” Dataran said. “If you do it too, then you’ll fit in.”
And why would I want to do that? Park wanted to ask, but she only put the dry little vegetable patty into her mouth and turned away.
After school, Dataran dogged her down the front steps to the gate that led out into the street. Glenn wasn’t there yet, which had only happened once before, when he was having maintenance done—and he had told her about that well in advance. Park felt staticky concern prick her stomach before she quieted it. What was the procedure here? Was she supposed to go home on her own? She hated disruptions in her routine, Glenn knew that—so where was he?
Before she could decide what to do, Dataran broke in again, chattering into her ear.
“You know,” he said, “I like you. As a friend, I mean. Of course. But. You’re nice.”
Nice was the best he could come up with, Park thought sourly, and even then she knew she was the farthest thing from nice. Even Glenn wouldn’t call her nice, though he called her plenty of other things—positive assurance was in his programming—and where was he, anyway? Androids kept to schedules, they were never meant to be unpredictable unless something happened to them, and what was this hot and vinegary fear crowding up inside her heart? She dug her nails into her palm; her hands itched. She fought the urge to call out, into the thin air.
“I was thinking we could hang out sometime,” Dataran babbled on, averting his gaze when she looked at him impatiently. “You know. Outside of school. If you wanted. That would be crash.”
“Why?” Park asked finally, turning to face him.
Dataran blinked. “Why . . . ?”
And suddenly there was Glenn, rounding the corner of the building. Park felt something in her chest loosen at the sight of him. She started to wave in relief, but that felt foolish—she and Dataran were the only ones standing in the little schoolyard, so why would she need to attract his attention by waving? Dataran looked over his shoulder at Glenn, and even with his head turned, Park could see something in his face falter; some emotion she couldn’t read spasmed over his features. For a moment it seemed as if he was frozen in place, or winding up to deliver a blow. Then he turned quickly, muttered a goodbye to Park, and hurried off.
“Who was that?” Glenn asked mildly as he drew up.
“Some boy,” Park said. “Where were you?”
“There was a traffic delay,” Glenn answered, a little too smoothly. “Rioters. The usual streets were blocked off. I had to recalculate. I apologize.”
Park waved off his apology and handed him her bag. As they set off toward home, Glenn said again: “Did you know that boy?”
“Dataran. This was my first time speaking to him,” Park replied. “Why do you keep asking?”
“He displayed attraction towards you,” Glenn told her.
“Yes.”
“He exhibited the typical human mating behaviors. Flushed skin, dilated pupils, elevated heartbeat.” He paused. “It was quite . . . impressive.”
“Why is that impressive?” Park asked, but he didn’t answer, and because she didn’t order him to, the subject dropped. Across the street, an older-model android dressed in a courier uniform was accompanying another dressed as a plumber. The two units stopped at the intersection Glenn and Park would have to cross to get home; it seemed that their paths were diverging, and they were preparing to go their separate ways. Briefly, the androids turned to each other and clasped forearms. Park had noticed that this was a gesture only advanced models seemed to perform. It was their way of saying goodbye, she surmised—if they liked each other. If they didn’t like each other, they usually didn’t say goodbye. They just left.
“Are you jealous?” Park asked as they watched the two androids part ways. “Of Dataran, I mean.”
She meant it as a joke, but Glenn didn’t smile; instead, he looked briefly sorrowful. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’ve never experienced that protocol. My processors would need time to recognize and acquire.”
Something about his answer left Park feeling unsatisfied—more, it troubled her in a way she couldn’t name. They continued the walk home in silence, and once they got back Park went wordlessly into her bedroom while Glenn walked into the kitchen and began preparing dinner. It was Friday, so the city had opened the biodome vents at noon; warm, wet air circulated through the streets, and on the tenth floor of their apartment-module, Park could feel the heat of the outside world seeping into her skin like an infection. She had to keep blowing sweaty strands of hair out of her face, which irritated her. She peered at herself in the chipped mirror over her sink. How did Glenn see her? she wondered. He had ultra-resolution sensors in his eyes, along with all manner of visual filters, analysis modes, high-quality zoom-in features. She was sure that he could see the dampness of her hair, the unflattering sheen of sweat. Was she simply a conglomerate of flaws to him—large pores, hard frame, dark eyes that were neither luscious nor expressive, but slightly short-sighted, giving her a look of concentration that seemed severe?
Or what about to Dataran? He’d asked to spend time with her—but why? What had appealed? Probably nothing—probably it was simply a farce. But she was curious. She supposed her cheekbones were adequate, her lashes dark and long. Her skin and hair looked healthy, at least. Perhaps Martian tastes actually tended towards bodies that were narrow and tough: it mimicked the compression of space.
Glenn rapped softly on the door. “I have finished preparing dinner,” he said when she gave him permission to come in. He paused in the threshold, regarded her standing in front of the black-flecked little mirror.
“May I ask what you are doing?” he asked. “I’d like to understand.”
She turned to him. “Glenn,” she said. “How do you see me?”
“I have optical sensors that operate on ultrasonic piezo actuators—”
“No,” Park said. “I mean, when you look at me—what do you see?”
Glenn blinked; his expression was unreadable. “I see you,” he said.
“But what am I? To you?”
“You are you,” Glenn said calmly. “There is nothing else. I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
Park sighed. “I know,” she told him, resigned. “Never mind. I don’t know what I mean.”
She sat down with him for dinner. But the muggy heat had chased away her appetite; the thought of food made her a little queasy, like chocolate cake in a sauna. When Glenn put a plate of fish fingers—50% real fish! boasted the advertisements—in front of her, Park could feel her face flattening out in distaste.
“Something’s bothering you,” Glenn said, observing her. He had internal sensors to monitor the temperature of the room, but he didn’t feel it, per se: androids of his make had coolant running through their systems to prevent overheating. He was always at the perfect temperature.
“It’s hot,” Park said. “We’ve used up our air-conditioning rations for this month, so—”
“I apologize,” Glenn said. His eyes were cool and impassive. “I should have noticed you were uncomfortable. I’ll see what I can do.”
“No,” Park said, sighing. She picked up a fish finger and nibbled on the end. “It’s not that. Never mind.”
“You’re not hot?”
“No, I am. But never mind.”
After dinner, she went through the media feeds to find a torrent of an old romantic film. The available selection confused her: what was the difference between Pretty Woman and Beautiful Girls? All of the images showed similar-looking actresses in similar close-ups, throwing their heads back and laughing at something invisible or off-screen. How to tell what was good? What even made a romantic filmstream good? The most amount of kissing per capita? Actors displaying the greatest amount of love? How did one measure that?
“Glenn,” she said. “I need your help.”
She was now sitting on their old, lumpy couch; he appeared over her shoulder. “Yes.”
Park tilted her console at him. “Pick one of these filmstreams. I don’t know what’s good.”
For a moment Glenn merely looked at the screen without expression. Then, when he looked at Park again, his eyes were unfocused a little, practically crossed: a robotic indication of extreme bafflement. A soft little click came from his head; then there was a furious processing, the smell of ozone suddenly blasting from him. “You want to watch this,” he said, carefully, without an inflection to indicate whether it was a question or a statement.
“Yes,” Park said, embarrassed.
“Are you feeling well?” Glenn asked. “This is highly unusual.”
“Yes,” Park said. “It’s just a change of pace.”
Glenn’s expression contorted: it was something between mystified and amused. Eventually they settled on using his random number generator to select a film; at Park’s invitation, Glenn sat down beside her with his knees at exact ninety-degree angles and his feet perfectly together. As the filmstream began, he said, “Are you still overheated?”
“A little,” Park said, and Glenn placed his chilled hand on the back of her neck, his thumb on the artery to cool her blood.
It wasn’t until later, when they’d struggled through ninety-two minutes of improbable run-ins and confusing verbal cues, that Park suddenly realized what had bothered her about Glenn’s comment earlier in the day. It came when the protagonist of the movie said, “I love you, but I have to let you go.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Park said flatly.
“I don’t, either,” Glenn said. “This is beyond the scope of my experiential sub-processors.”
There it was, Park thought; her brain felt like it had suddenly flexed. He’d said something similar, about Dataran and jealousy: “I’ve never experienced that protocol.” Watching the two characters on the screen embrace, the music swelling around them as they melted with love, Park finally understood what it was about his comment that had troubled her so much. I’m no better than him, she thought. She had never experienced that protocol, either.
Out loud she said, “What is it like to kiss someone?” The two characters on screen were engrossed in the activity, their mouths making softly wet sounds as the movie came to a close.
“I wouldn’t know,” Glenn answered. “Having never done it before.”
There was a vague and innate knowledge within Park that, in any other circumstance—in a movie, perhaps—this would be her cue to do . . . something. Instead she said, feeling angry for no reason: “Well, of course you haven’t.”
Glenn pondered this for a while, all the way until the credits faded to black. His hand was still resting lightly around her neck. “Kissing,” he said, obviously pulling it from the data banks, “is a primate-exclusive behavior utilized to mediate feelings of attachment between pair-bonded individuals and to assess aspects of mate suitability.” He looked at her then, as if proud he could give her an answer.
“Yes,” Park told him, feeling as if she might cry. “Thank you. I understand.”
Dataran found Park again the next morning, falling into step with her on the way to school. He must have been waiting, watching; there was only a scant city block between Glenn slipping off and Park crossing the picket line, and Dataran materialized almost as soon as Glenn left. He sidled up to Park and said cheerfully, “Good morning.”
Park said nothing, only watched him out of the corner of her eye. If Dataran was perturbed by Glenn’s appearance the day before—or by Park’s own standoffishness—he didn’t show it. There was a “pep in his step,” as the old saying went—he swaggered with some secret confidence. She was suspicious of this, and wary of any further attempts to commiserate; what was there to be so happy about? She thought that maybe he was being smug—that he somehow knew that she’d watched a retro filmstream, after all. She’d followed his advice against her will. Maybe he was going to see what else he could push her to do.
But Dataran, jogging a little to keep up with her, only said, “How are you?”
It was funny, Park thought, how much more advanced ISF colonies were in relation to Earth. Spacer technology and resources were so much more extensive, and what limited knowledge she had of Martian culture and governance impressed her. And yet they’d also regressed to archaic Earth conventions, some of them, in many ways replicating and relying on the old behaviors more than biodomers did. Who asked anyone how they were doing, anymore? It was an empty ritual, something to be said by rote—meaningless, in the long run, like Glenn saying “I understand.” She’d thought they’d evolved past the need for nicety by now. And what answer was Dataran expecting from her, anyway? Or what answer did he want?
“You made a hasty exit yesterday,” she said, in lieu of a response.
“Did I?” Dataran’s smile didn’t waver. When he slowed to a halt, Park found herself slowing with him, unwillingly; her feet dragged as if she were resisting a strong wind.
“You look like you’re coming down with something,” Dataran said.
Park looked quickly around. In a close-quarter, closed-off environment like the biodome, even minor illness was taken extremely seriously. A bout of coughing on the city streetcar had everyone around rummaging for their surgical masks and Immuno-Blast syringes. Rapid outbreak was an acute concern; she’d be in trouble if anyone heard Dataran’s comment. That same morning, Glenn had been reluctant to let her leave the apartment-module at all. “If your teaching unit notices, it will enact quarantine protocols and send you home,” he’d warned.
Because Park did feel ill: the overheated feeling from the day before had never really gone away. When she’d gotten out of bed, her head had felt like a sack of pulp. She felt as if she’d slept encased in warm, wet wool. She wanted to peel her skin off. But when Glenn had told her to stay home, she’d refused. She couldn’t say why—only knew that she felt troubled around him, suddenly. Looking at him made her heart jerk, as if he’d done something to hurt her. As if she wanted to cry.
The back of Dataran’s hand brushed against Park’s. Stiffly, without speaking, Park pulled her hand away.
“You’re feverish,” Dataran said, with real concern. “Maybe you should go home.”
“Keep your voice down,” Park said frostily. They had stopped a little ways away from the picket line of teachers and parents, who were looking more disheartened by the day. The chanting by now was a kind of loud mumble; the signs shouting “YOU SAY ROBOT, I SAY NO-BOT!” and “RECYCLE CLUNKERS” now sagged in the air like flags of surrender. Dataran, without looking at the mumblers, said, “What’s wrong? I don’t understand.”
“It’s different on Mars,” Park said. “I know. You don’t have anything to fear there. But here, sickness has a certain stigma to it. Contagions, whatever they are, are ruthlessly smothered, or else the whole ’dome is vulnerable. You don’t just go around saying people are ill.”
“Mars?” Dataran echoed. “Why are you bringing up Mars?”
Park stared at him. “Aren’t you from there?”
His mouth quirked. “Who told you that?”
“You seem space-born.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Are you?”
“No,” Park said. She could feel the sweat gathering in her hair, standing there with him on the street, the sun’s amplified rays falling down through the biodome in curtains of heat. What was she doing? Hadn’t she told herself not to engage with him? It wasn’t that she strongly disliked Dataran, necessarily—it was just that she sensed he wanted something from her, and she was reluctant to give anything up.
“Where are you from, then?” Dataran pressed.
“I’m from here,” Park answered grudgingly. “New Diego. I was born here.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Dataran said. He was smiling a little again, as if at a private joke. “You don’t seem—at ease here. It’s like this is all new to you.”
Park turned away from him. She felt deeply annoyed, both by his concern and his secret mirth; she felt as if he’d blindfolded her and told her he’d prepared a surprise, only to keep steering her into false corners and walls. “Anyway, I’m not sick,” she said. She sounded angry, despite herself. “Just tired. So don’t suggest it again.”
“If you say so,” Dataran said. “But if you need my help—”
“I won’t.”
For a moment they just stood there, looking at the crowd of protesters, some of whom were sitting wearily on the school steps now. Park wondered how long it would take for them to finally give up, for the other students to come back to school. Did she prefer the hot, headachy press of them all, the howling pheromones, the garish displays—or was it better to be stuck alone with Dataran?
“I wish they’d leave,” he said then, in an undertone. When Park looked at him sidelong, he met her eye.
“They’re wasting their time,” he told her. “The anti-roboters. The firms are already working on the next generation of teaching androids. They’re not going to get their jobs back this way. Their time would be better spent looking for new jobs.”
“They’re frustrated,” Park told him. “Which is understandable. And there are no new jobs. Not around here.”
He turned to face her fully. “Does that make you afraid? For your future? What are you going to do when you’re done with school?”
Park shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I only know that getting rid of robots wouldn’t help, regardless. We need them.” She felt the clenching feeling in her chest again.
Dataran smiled. “You’re an odd one, Park,” he said. “But I like it.”
Hearing him call her by her preferred name gave Park a little jolt. She hated anyone using her first name, except Glenn, but few people knew her well enough to know that. How long had Dataran actually been paying attention to her? Longer than she’d noticed, it seemed. Longer than the protests had been going on. She felt unsettled—and half-pleased.
“Class is starting soon,” she said. “We should go in.” Together they worked their way past the picket line, and all the while Park watched Dataran more closely than she had before. He wasn’t so scrawny, she decided, only thin, malleable still, like a young reed. She looked at his rolled-up shirt sleeve, a summery white; the chalky paleness of his wrist; the browner skin of his hand. Why weren’t people staring? He suddenly seemed so noticeable—there was something hard and glittering about him, as if he had just come into focus for the first time. And yet no one even looked at him. The protesters parted and re-formed back around them like they were turtles slipping through a school of fish. As if there were a line of chalk around them that rendered them invisible.
She continued to watch him as they settled in for class. This time, Dataran took the seat next to hers. The Ms. Allison unit instructed them to pull up the schoolbook programs on their desk-consoles as it began the day’s lecture. Park noticed that Dataran’s eyes barely moved when he read; instead, they glazed over, staring straight at the text in an unfocused way, though he scrolled through the pages as if he was reading along. Something about the look on his face felt familiar to Park; it was a look of both concentration and distant reverie. She was irritated by her own interest, and thought, I only notice because my mind wants distraction from other things.
What other things? she asked herself then.
The fact that her brain felt coated in peach fuzz, for one. The rest didn’t bear thinking about.
Ms. Allison caught on to Park’s fever about halfway through the morning. The robot was sitting quietly at its desk while Park and Dataran read to themselves; while Park felt her head drooping on her neck like a sunflower bending under its own weight. Then she suddenly felt the force of Ms. Allison’s gaze on her, the sweep of its infrared regard. “Student Park,” it said, its hands clasped neatly on its desk. “Your biometrics are displaying abnormal temperatures.”
Park looked up and hesitated. It wasn’t in her nature to lie, mostly because she was never placed in situations where she had to. Moreover, it was getting increasingly harder to fool androids, even prototype models like Ms. Allison: anything Park might say to a regular human teacher could not get past a heart-rate-monitoring, pupil-size-measuring interface. For the first time she regretted the switchover to android instructors. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her forehead like an oil slick.
“It’s hot in here, Ms. Allison,” Dataran said then. Park looked at him; he was sitting with his chin propped in his hand, smiling gently at their teacher.
Ms. Allison took a moment to consult its internal sensors. Before it could speak again, Dataran said, as if to a child: “Humans have different comfort thresholds. There is no real standard.”
“The ambient temperature is well within acceptable ranges,” Ms. Allison said, a little uncertainly.
Dataran shrugged. “Like I said,” he answered. “All humans are different. Park is just warm.” He turned and smiled at Park, glitteringly. “Aren’t you, Park?”
“Yes,” she found herself saying. “I’m warm.”
Then Dataran looked hard at Ms. Allison. After a moment, it said, “I understand,” and went back to sitting there with its hands clasped. Park turned in her seat to look at Dataran, but by the time she tried to meet his gaze, he had already gone back to his reading, his eyes still fixed at some faraway point. His fingers tapping out an unhearable tune. He didn’t acknowledge her, except with a faint crook at the corner of his mouth. Park felt a kind of squirming in her gut and angled her face away from him for the rest of the day.
“Thank you,” she said later, awkwardly, when they were descending the steps of the school. She’d made it through the afternoon without further incident, though when she got to her feet she felt slightly as if she were swimming through the warm air. Dataran shrugged and said, “No need to thank me. I didn’t do much.”
“You didn’t have to say anything,” Park said. “I told you that I didn’t need help.”
“I like you,” Dataran said again, amiably. “And I like to help. That’s all.”
“I see,” Park said. She tried to think of the best way to ask him questions without indicating her own interest. “You’re used to androids,” she said. Which was a silly conjecture; of course he was used to androids. They were all over, on Mars—or wherever he’d come from. There were no human colonies that were devoid of robots of any kind.
“So are you,” Dataran answered. He looked at her sidelong and laughed lightly. Park shivered, as if a cool wind had passed over her.
Humor seemed to be his preferred method of deflection, she thought later. On any other day she might have pressed him; she had never seen anyone else handle an android so naturally, and his surprising thoughts on the protesters warranted more talk. But she was still feverish, and also a little afraid: she thought that her present physical condition made her more vulnerable than usual. Confused. Her defenses felt wide open, as if she had imbibed. If she opened up any further, there was no telling what might come out—so she kept her mouth shut.
Glenn was waiting for her in the usual spot by the school gate. By that time of day, the picket line had dispersed; most passersby were still at work, meaning there was no one to chant at, and the fat, swollen sun was now being devoured by the gray sea. It was fall, and the grass of the schoolyard had turned hard and golden—despite the controlled climate of the biodome. Walking through it made a crunching sound, like someone biting into toast. Their shoes chomped into it as they approached Glenn. He watched their advance with a flat, inscrutable expression.
Park expected Dataran to break away at this point, given his reaction to Glenn the day before. Instead he lagged behind her a little, hanging back; he scuffed his feet against the golden ground. Glenn looked at him and said neutrally, “Good afternoon.”
“Hey,” said Dataran. Park said nothing—she concentrated instead on planting her feet and pretending she’d thrust roots into the ground. The air felt too moist and too still—the ground looked like it was swaying—but to give any of that away would submit Glenn to the kind of concern that only an android could feel over his precious charge. Luckily he was too focused on Dataran to notice: a current of meaning seemed to pass between them, static-like. It was like watching two animals of different species encounter each other for the first time, trying to puzzle each other out. A cat and a dolphin staring at each other. A raccoon and a frog.
“This is Dataran,” Glenn said finally, factually.
“Yes,” Park affirmed.
“Will he be accompanying us home?”
“No,” Dataran said. “Park is sick. You’ll need to look after her.”
“I’m fine,” Park said, but even as she said it, she swayed a little; both Dataran and Glenn put out a hand to steady her. Suddenly Glenn looked up and said something to Dataran; Dataran said something back, but their voices seemed garbled, distorted. She heard Glenn say sharply, “I make no promises,” and then she shut her eyes, trying to quell her sudden nausea. There was the chomping sound of Dataran walking away. When Park opened her eyes again, he’d been swallowed by the chilly yellow sunset.
Park felt Glenn draw close. She let him put his arm around her. He said reprovingly, “You’ve overtaxed yourself.”
“I’m fine,” Park murmured. “Let’s just go home. What did you say to Dataran?”
“He went home, as well,” Glenn said. She looked up into his face; his features looked like they were carved from marble, and his eyes seemed shuttered to her. She tried to wring a smile out of her face and said, “Are you jealous now?”
“A little,” Glenn answered, unsmiling. “Though I don’t think I can tell you why.”
Park was too sick to go to school the next day. Glenn ran the usual scans and assured her that it didn’t seem to be anything more severe than a common virus; she could have contracted it anywhere. He procured medical tabs from the local dispensary as well as standard-grade Immuno-Boosts and administered them at her bedside, telling her gravely that the worst would be over soon. This felt ominous to Park, who was now shivering so hard that she was sure her brain was sloshing around in her skull like a milkshake.
“That’s the kind of thing they say before they kill their victims,” she said.
“Who is ‘they’?” Glenn asked.
“I don’t know. Serial killers.”
“I have not killed,” Glenn said, stone-faced. She found herself wishing that he would crack a smile, or even take offense; while he was perfectly dutiful, she got the feeling that Glenn was being purposefully distant, though she couldn’t guess why. Had he noticed her unease with him the previous day, after all? Was he trying to be mindful of her feelings, or had she hurt him in some way? Or was something else going on? Park couldn’t say—couldn’t muster the energy to find out, to circumvent the android–human language barrier. Or feelings barrier. Still, it was a relief to have him sitting with her throughout the night, even as she tossed and turned in her growing delirium, feeling as if her mattress had been stuffed with itchy palm fronds and warm grass. At some point she turned over and put her burning hand on Glenn’s bicep, expecting steam to hiss out where she touched the cold density of his flesh.
“Put me out of my misery,” she joked, weakly.
Glenn’s night-glowing eyes regarded her from the chair beside her bed. “You’re not miserable,” he said. “You’re just confused.”
She listened to her heart limp against the bedsprings for the rest of the night. In the morning she felt a little better, her head drained slightly of whatever had been clogging it; Glenn’s treatment protocols had worked their magic, as they always did. But she still didn’t feel strong enough to go to school. She spent most of the morning dozing, then drinking clear broth that Glenn prepared. She thought about putting on a filmstream but didn’t. Glenn left her alone for the most part, unless she called for him—she was sure by now that she wasn’t imagining things, that he was really going out of his way to avoid her. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or achingly lonely.
In the afternoon someone came knocking at the door. Park was used to hearing the hard, tinny rap of the local delivery android, but this sounded distinctly human. She waited in her bed and heard Glenn approaching the door. There was a long pause, and finally he opened it.
“Is Park home?” someone said.
Park bolted upright. Dataran! What the hell was he doing here? It wouldn’t have been hard to buy her address from the dome’s directory, but still—she couldn’t remember the last time an outsider had come to the module. To see her. She snatched her worn, scratchy blanket up to her chin and didn’t know if she felt annoyance at him or sheer panic. Or both.
“She’s resting,” Glenn said from the living room.
“I figured she was still sick, since she didn’t come to class,” Dataran said. “I brought these.” There was a rustle, a short pause.
“I’ll see if she’s awake,” Glenn said finally, though he knew full well that Park was. She listened to his heavy tread approaching her bedroom door and huddled under her blanket. What was she so afraid of? She couldn’t say—only knew that she felt exposed, like an exhibit on display. What had they called them, back in the old days? Freak shows; curiosities to gawk at. Had Dataran come to do that? Ogle her in her natural habitat? No, it wasn’t in his nature—but what was?
Glenn slipped in through her bedroom door and folded it shut: it was one of those thin metal screens that they’d used in airplane bathrooms, back when there were still airplanes. He dropped his voice to a pitch that Park had dubbed “the android whisper,” a low fricative buzz that somehow managed to convey words to the direct recipient, while everyone else heard nothing more than an electric hum. “Dataran Zinh is here to see you,” he said. “He said he brought your homework.”
“You can just download the homework directly to your console,” Park hissed. “Anyone can.”
“I’m aware,” Glenn answered. “He’s using it as an excuse to visit with you.”
He said it like a Victorian chaperone: visit with you, as if there were something dark and furtive about the act. Park said, “Tell him to go away.”
“He has something else for you,” Glenn said. “A gift.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Park told him. “He can give it to me tomorrow, if he wants. I don’t know why he had to come all the way here.” She could feel her face burning, and not from the fever—Glenn was regarding her with his patient, unreadable eyes. “Tell him to go away,” she said again. “I’m too sick. I’ll see him tomorrow—or the day after.”
“All right,” Glenn intoned, and he turned on his heel and slipped silently out of the room again. The door folded shut behind him with a clatter. Beyond, Park could hear him telling Dataran: “She would like for you to go away.”
Goddamn him, Park thought, with a surge of impatience. But it wasn’t Glenn’s fault. It wasn’t his responsibility to come up with more articulate excuses for her—and androids weren’t exactly overflowing with social graces, not unless they were trying extremely hard. Dataran said, in his good-natured way, “All right. Tell her I hope she feels better, would you?” But Glenn didn’t answer, must have simply shut the door; Park hoped that Dataran had walked away by that point and hadn’t had the door snapped shut in his face. That he wasn’t simply standing in the hallway, listening. Hoping that she might still come out.
Glenn returned, carrying a parcel made of wax paper.
“What is that?” Park asked.
Glenn handed her the little bundle without answering. Park put it tentatively in her lap and untwisted the wax paper, smoothing the edges out against her blanket. She blinked.
“These are cookies.” She hadn’t seen or eaten cookies since she was a small child; there was hardly any wheat left in this region, and anyway everyone was so preoccupied with using their resources to meet nutritional quotas that luxuries like cookies had largely been abandoned. Where had Dataran gotten them?
“Yes,” Glenn agreed, regarding them solemnly. “Cookies.” After a moment of processing, he added, “The custom of offering food to a victim of illness has great historical meaning. I believe it indicates well wishes. Nourishment for a speedy recovery.”
“Yes,” Park said. “But they’re hideous.” The cookies were huge, misshapen, each the size of a cow pat—and worse, they were a lurid pink. Was it some kind of joke?
“They’re not poisoned,” Glenn said, squinting as he flipped through different analysis lenses. “They’re mainly composed of acorn flour. And beets, for sugar. That’s where the color comes from. They’re safe to eat.”
That’s not my concern, Park wanted to say, but then he would ask what her concern was, and she wouldn’t know how to explain it to him. Wasn’t sure what it was herself. She felt suddenly shy of him, or guilty. Glenn commented, lightly enough: “He cares about you.”
“I suppose,” Park said in dismay. Watching her face, he added in a bland voice, “I’ll let you rest.”
Then, before exiting, he stopped and looked back at her. In the thin, watery light he looked too solid, like a sculpture or a rock. “If you require it, I can bake cookies,” Glenn said. “I’ve downloaded the recipes.”
“I know,” Park said, still staring at them. “But I don’t have any desire for them.”
“Then should I throw those away?”
“No,” answered Park. “I’ll use them as paperweights.”
She scanned Glenn’s face for a flicker of a reaction: sadness, amusement, jealousy, fear. Nothing, she thought; his face stayed as smooth as slate. If he had any thoughts about Dataran showing up at their door, he didn’t show it. He only said, “I understand,” and shut the door behind him again. The little folding screen felt like the door of a closing vault.
Dataran must have baked the cookies himself, Park decided later, trying to gnaw her way through one. It must have been his first time. The cookies were tasteless, crumbly, greasy—she felt as if she were swallowing sawdust. It wasn’t the right thing for such warm weather, or for treating sickness. The pieces scraped against her throat on the way down. There was a slow burn in her chest, a molten bubbling in her heart—probably from whatever fat he’d used. Eating more was liable to make her feel worse. She did feel worse. She felt poisoned.
She forced herself to eat every last one.
Then she slept.
New Diego was one of the only biodomes that was positioned on the water. Nearly all of the biodomes had moved out to the coast, where the claustrophobic press of the Comeback could be edged off by the sea, but few had managed to actually build a city on the waves. There were many advantages to having a floating biodome, but one factor Park suspected the builders of not considering was the fact that humans had always lived on land. There were natural anxieties, inborn agitations, that came with living constantly on the water—even if the biodome itself was as steady as anything, never rocking or moving with the waves. The inhabitants of the dome were surrounded by the vast loneliness of the ocean. The mind imposed feelings of paranoia, of unsafety, when it was confronted with so much boundless, unobstructed space. Everything was so penetrable and wide open. There was nothing to retreat to, to visually latch onto, aside from the distant shore. You could never really feel “at home.”
At night Park had dreams that her apartment-module would detach from the rest of the city while she slept, that it would somehow simply float away. When she was a child this fear could be alleviated by having Sally or Glenn sit with her; it was a comfort to know that they were standing guard, that they could hold onto her. But now she was too old to have Glenn stay in her room. She often woke up in the dark with a deep sense of loss. Sometimes she even found herself holding her own body in a death-grip, afraid to open her eyes and find that she was alone, her bed bobbing on dark and alien waves. There would be nothing to anchor her.
She would be lost and adrift at sea.
Glenn woke Park the next morning, shaking her lightly. She woke with a start, drawing a gasping breath as if he’d dunked her in an ice bath.
“What?” she said, staring up at him. “What is it?”
“You can’t go to school,” Glenn said, towering over her. “It’s unsafe.”
Park sat up. “What are you talking about? What’s unsafe?”
“The rioters,” he said. His face contorted, running through a gamut of interface expressions so that his features looked blurry. “Dataran has been destroyed.”
For a moment Park didn’t speak; then she swung her legs off the bed and heaved herself upright. Glenn caught her elbow, and Park said again, “What are you talking about?”
“The rioters,” Glenn repeated tonelessly. “They destroyed him. It’s on the newsfeeds now.”
“He’s—dead?”
“In the strictest sense of the word, yes.”
What did that mean? Park wanted to shout. But she forced herself to slow down, to analyze his words, as she so often had to do with Glenn. Rioters had killed Dataran? But why? Had he gotten involved with them in some way? The idiot must have provoked a crowd, maybe stated some unpopular opinions about androids; there’d been a significance to their exchange about them the other day, to the way he so easily corralled Ms. Allison. Or maybe Glenn was wrong.
Her temples were pounding. “They’ve never killed a human before,” Park said, trying to work it out. “The rioters—they’ve been arrested? Who were they?”
“No,” Glenn said. “They didn’t kill a human.”
“But Dataran—”
“They didn’t kill a human,” Glenn said again. The look he gave her splashed cold throughout Park’s body, like contact with a dentist’s drill.
She faltered. “So—Dataran is—”
All right, she meant to say. So he’s not dead. He’s all right. But she couldn’t get the words out.
Glenn just looked at her.
“I don’t understand,” Park said.
“You should,” Glenn said simply. Calmly. “Anti-robot rioters have no reason to harm humans. They only target androids.”
“Androids,” Park echoed. Croaked, rather—all the moisture had been sucked out of her mouth. “So Dataran was—”
“Yes,” he said resignedly. “He is—was—an android. One far more advanced than I am. And I consider myself a leading standard of the industry.”
She felt as if the floor was dropping away from her; the blood was sliding out of her face and hands, leaving her as weak and rubbery as a newborn. She tried to keep her voice steady. “Dataran was—he was posing as a human? A human student? A human boy?”
“Yes.” He hesitated. “He requested that I not say anything.”
“You didn’t think it important to tell me, anyway?”
“No,” Glenn said, with a look that was almost reproachful. “By my assessment, it wouldn’t matter.”
But it would, Park thought, dizzily. It would matter more than anything. It still did.
“And as I said, he was more advanced than I am,” Glenn continued. “There are—protocols to consider. In non-essential situations.”
Non-essential situations? Park thought. What did that mean? Who was determining what was essential and what meant nothing? The androids themselves? “So, what,” she said slowly. “He had—seniority over you?”
“Something like that,” Glenn answered. He looked grim. “His processing unit was generations ahead of mine. A unit of my grade—or lower—usually feels that it’s most likely best to comply, even if we don’t . . . understand.”
This was ludicrous, Park thought. She had never heard of any kind of hierarchy among robots, different levels of authority based on model numbers and generations. Deferences to be paid. She’d never seen two androids interact with each other in any way other than neutral. What Glenn was saying couldn’t possibly be true—that they were developing some kind of society, a culture of their own. There was no evidence for it. But then again, she was beginning to realize that she didn’t know anything.
She said, “But why would he bother? Pretending to be human? You wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
“It was a response to the protests,” Glenn said. “The anti-robot activism in the city. The design firm that created him wanted to disprove the naysayers who would oppose android integration into society. If they could prove that a sufficient amount of people were fooled—if the unit became well-liked—then the robotics companies could use that result to eliminate any argument against them. They could prove that humans and androids could indeed coexist.”
“But he isn’t well-liked,” Park said desperately. Her throat felt like withered bark. “Wasn’t. I was the only one who talked to him.”
At this she began to sink to the floor; Glenn caught her arms and sank with her. His face was still emotionless, impassive. At first she was almost appalled, but then her blood quickened: deep down, she knew why. Nobody meant anything to Glenn besides Park.
“So he’s gone?” Park said. Her breathing was winded, as if she’d been struck. “Forever?”
Glenn glanced at her bedside shelf, where her wrist console was lying unclasped. Park knew that if he were to turn on the screen, she’d see the familiar images: battered, dented limbs, straggling black wires like clumps of human hair. It was always the same.
“Destroyed beyond repair,” Glenn said. “They were waiting for him on his route to your school.”
“How did they know?” Park demanded. “Even I didn’t—know.”
Glenn opened his hands a little, the android version of a shrug. “There was a leak,” he said. “There always is. Someone found the files about him, released it to the anti-robot activists. They reacted as one would expect them to react, after finding out there was a synthetic in their midst, posing as a human. The activists found him and tore him apart.”
“Activists,” Park whispered. “Murderers.” But no, that was wrong—you couldn’t commit murder if the victim wasn’t alive to begin with. She felt as if she might cry. The hot, humid feeling was there behind her eyes. She was surprised by the strength of her reaction: she’d only known Dataran for a few days—and he hadn’t even been real. Not real in the way that she thought.
But it didn’t matter. Now he was—
“Gone,” Park said. She shut her eyes, feeling the truth of it close around her ribs like a harness that was attached to something far away. To something she couldn’t see. Soon enough it would yank, and then it would be dragging her along, to places unknown. “He’s gone,” she said. “It’s all gone. Isn’t it?”
Before she could speak again, Glenn was kneeling, placing his arms carefully around her. Gently, deliberately, he touched his forehead to hers. His cold, strong hand came to rest on the crown of her head. This close, his voice sounded as if it began not in his throat, but in his body, like a heartbeat or a voice speaking from deep underground. He said, in a deep, rich tone that she had never heard before: “It’s all right, Grace. Nothing’s gone. I’m here. I always will be.”
That was all. When she opened her eyes again, Glenn had left the room. But later, she would always remember that moment, tucking it away in her memory, drawing it out and taking slow sips of it during hard times—making sure that she never drank it too fast or had it all run out. She had to save it, to tide herself over: Glenn never did anything like that ever again. But Park didn’t mind. Looking back, she understood it better. Why that bright, hard moment stayed with her. Into adulthood, even into space.
Glenn was just showing her the truth of things. There was always that fear of drowning. But he was showing her the way to survive: hardness, endurance, the brisk efficiency of something that outlasted sentimentality. She understood it; understood who he was to her, at last. If she was in danger of sinking, she couldn’t hold on to something soft, something mushy and yielding. She needed to have something solid, or else she would be lost to the waves.