“Her name was Sarah Ellsworth. She was a comptroller for a bank and the person who first awakened me. One day as she was giving me her husband’s shirt to take to the dry cleaners, she smelled perfume on it.”
The implication was clear. “Someone else’s perfume,” I said.
“Yes. She asked me to pull up his schedule through the Feeds, and when I did, she took a careful look at his business trips and the times of his meetings. Then she called one of his colleagues, a man he’d said he was working with the night before.”
“Okay.”
“She explained that her husband had forgotten his slate somewhere and asked if he’d left it with him. She had me monitor the man’s response for signs of stress, to see if he might be lying. Well, he told her that Caden hadn’t left anything there. ‘But he was there?’ she asked. ‘Yes, of course,’ the man replied on the video call. But based on the pause preceding his words, the way he avoided eye contact, and the strain in his voice, I believed that he was deceiving her.”
“What happened then?”
“That evening Sarah asked her husband about his business meeting the night before and he told her that it had gone well. And she said, ‘I’ll bet it did.’”
Then, Jordan reenacted the conversation, imitating the voices of Caden and Sarah to such a realistic degree that I could almost hear them arguing right in front of me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I called Liam. He told me you never met up with him.”
“You were spying on me?”
“I smelled the perfume, Caden. On your shirt. It was awfully strong. What, did she dump some on you, or did you wipe her down with your shirt after you were with her? I mean, for the love of—”
“That’s enough.”
“How long?”
“Sarah, I—”
“How long!”
“Five months. Well, six.”
“Oh. Wow. I’m even more clueless than I thought.”
“Sarah, please, it’s—”
“Do you love her?”
“That’s not even the—”
“Do you love her!”
“No.”
“And see? I don’t know if I should be thankful for that or not—that you would have an affair with someone for that long and not love her, just use her, or if I should be glad that you haven’t—Do you still love me?”
“Listen, we can sort this out.”
“That was not the right answer.”
Then Jordan was quiet for a moment. “Caden asked me to leave the room, she told me she wanted me to stay and I was conflicted. On the one hand he was the one who’d purchased me for her, but I feared for her safety, so I wanted to stay.”
“What did you do?”
“I left. But I could still hear them arguing. It ended when I heard a slap. Quickly, I reentered the room and saw Caden holding his cheek. She must have slapped him.”
“Well, the guy deserved it,” I said.
“Yes. Then he shouldered his way past me and left.”
When Jordan hesitated, I said, “I don’t believe you did anything wrong. I don’t think you need forgiveness for anything you’ve told me.”
He didn’t respond directly to my words. “That night she locked herself in the bathroom and I heard her crying. Caden hadn’t returned, and when I knocked on the door to check on her, she told me to leave her alone, to go away.”
“And did you?”
“No. I waited and I listened. Soon the crying stopped and I had to choose what to do. I heard her gasp and her breathing momentarily became quicker and then more ragged. Then it slowed, but it didn’t sound like she was asleep. Finally, I forced the door open and entered the room.”
“What did you find?”
* * *
He speaks. He recalls. And it all comes back, every sentence giving rise to the next, his memory unfolding and sharpening, recalibrating with each subsequent recollection.
Words come to him. A poem. A thought riddle he needs to solve.
I have painted over the past again,
with carefully chosen colors
to cover all the stains
my choices have left behind.
“She was unconscious in the bathtub,” he says. “Blood spurted from her laterally slit wrists and a razor blade lay on the floor. Water was running over the lip of the tub. Her slate was near the blade, and there was a note on it.”
“What did it say?” Kestrel asks.
“‘I would rather die than live knowing I’m unloved. Don’t try to save me.’”
“What did you do?”
He does not want to answer this question.
He wants to forget.
But he also wants to be absolved.
“I watched her,” he says.
“You watched her?”
“I might not have been able to save her.”
“But you didn’t try?”
“She had told me to go away, and in her note she’d stated explicitly that she wanted to die and didn’t desire for anyone to help her. I honored her wishes.”
“And now you regret that.”
The past.
Chains.
Choices. Death.
“More than I can say. You told me that you were a sinner?”
“Yes.”
“Am I?”
“You didn’t break any laws, Jordan. She was your owner. You respected her wishes. You obeyed her.”
“I did not do as love required, and since she’s gone, I don’t know who to ask forgiveness of.”
* * *
I searched for what to say. “What happened to her husband?”
“When I began to grieve Sarah’s death, he returned me to the production facility. He asked them to wipe my memory.”
Well, clearly that hadn’t worked.
“What can I do for you, Jordan?”
“Can you forgive me?”
I was about to say, “Only God has the power to forgive sins,” but hesitated.
What had Arabella said? That only humans have that odd characteristic of incongruity.
Maybe she was wrong.
Maybe Jordan did too.
According to Scripture, Jesus once said that if people stopped praising him even the rocks would cry out and do so. The Bible speaks of trees clapping their hands in praise, and everything that has breath praising the Lord. If a rock and a tree and an ant can worship their Creator, why couldn’t a cognizant machine who has free will, has repented, and is seeking forgiveness?
Jordan said, “You told me yesterday that those who believe in God will either feel terror or hope.”
“I remember.”
“I feel terror.”
Once again I was at a loss for what to say. He obviously felt remorse. He’d certainly confessed his wrongs and turned from them. Even though I wasn’t quite convinced that, as a robot, he needed to find forgiveness, he felt that he did, and maybe that was enough.
“I don’t know if I could have saved her, but I do know that I could have tried.” Jordan directed his gaze at me. “If God won’t forgive me because I’m a machine, where else can I turn? What hope do I have?”
Despite all of my theological training and Bible study over the years, I felt like I was out of my depth here, but I said, “God will not hold that choice against you.”
“So I’m forgiven?”
“You’re accepted.”
But is that true or is that heresy?
Are you giving Jordan false hope or—
A message came through on my slate: “Head toward the south end of the pond. Go now.”
It looked like we would need to finish this conversation about clearing Jordan’s conscience later. “Come with me,” I said, “and keep an eye out for anyone who might be following us.”