Andy has the gall to look wrong-footed. “You said I could use the scans for my project.”
“I didn’t mean you could make me into a gay sex robot!”
“Well, you never said that. How was I supposed to know?”
“A gay sex robot!”
“I take your point,” says Andy. “But technically it could be used by straight people, too. I just think you hold greater appeal to the homosexual market.”
“You did not take my point.”
Andy crosses his arms. “Well, what is your point?”
“I just—” He doesn’t know how to explain this to somehow who doesn’t find the problem self-evident. “Why would you make that?”
“There was a demand.”
“How do you even know?”
“The internet is a powerful friend.”
“Oh god, remind me to never look at your search history.” Mark covers his eyes so he doesn't have to see the screen anymore. “But seriously… why couldn’t it be a… I don’t know, a normal, like, child-care support android, or for cleaning or something?”
“It could be,” Andy says. “It will be. I’m just focusing my initial marketing efforts on the sex industry because people are willing to dish out for that, and developing this wasn’t cheap! I have years’ worth of loans to repay before I can even think about making a profit. It’s a luxury good right now. Limited availability. That’s the angle.”
Mark can't believe what he's hearing. Of all the terrible ideas... “You borrowed money for this?!”
“I had a vision!”
“A vision of me as a gay sex robot?!”
Andy squints at him. “I didn’t think the gay part would be a problem. Aren’t you gay?”
“I am. You’re right. The gay part doesn’t really matter.” He doesn’t know why he kept repeating it. “But, seriously… couldn’t you have hired a model?”
“That would be a waste of funding! I thought you’d do well enough. I didn’t really want someone super attractive, you know? My research indicates that people prefer to project, and you’re good for that because you don’t have any features that stick out—good or bad. Your whole face is just kind of… whatever.”
“Thanks.”
“Except maybe your eyebrows. They’re kind of thin. I gave Mark 1.0 more eyebrow hair.”
“Wait, Mark? You didn’t even change my name?”
“Why would I?” Andy asks, evidently genuinely baffled. “Mark is good. Very bland, typical American. Anyone could be named Mark.”
“You missed the point again.”
Andy stares for a minute with his eyebrows pinched before he seems to catch on. “Oh!” he exclaims, pointing at Mark emphatically. “No, you don’t have to worry about identity theft. I did change all your fingerprints! And I did a few things to your eyes that should hopefully throw off retinal scans, so no one should be able to steal your identity.”
“What about general facial recognition? Or the fact that I’m literally going to look exactly like everybody’s sex robot!”
“First off, ‘everybody’ might be a bit optimistic. Mark isn’t that popular. And you won’t look exactly alike. I got rid of a few things… like that weird mole on your hip.”
Mark really isn’t self-conscious, but he can’t help but put a hand over the spot where he knows the mole is. He frowns at Andy as another thought occurs to him. “Why didn’t you just use yourself?”
“I considered it,” Andy says without a hitch, “but my research indicated that the market for my phenotypic profile would be slimmer.”
Mark figures that this is Andy’s roundabout way of saying that American society is still demonstrably both colorist and anti-Semitic. Andy has deeply tan skin and one of the densest Jew-fros Mark has ever seen. And now Mark just feels tired again. It’s hard to stay angry at Andy; it’s hard to stay angry at anything when he’s been angry for weeks.
“I hate people,” he says.
Andy nods absently, but evidently doesn’t want to unpack it any further because the next thing he says is, “But… since now you’re already the model for a line of adult androids, don’t you at least want to be a high-quality one?”
“Or you could recall the existing line,” Mark points out.
“But my loans…” Andy says, and the rest of his defense might be bullshit, but this Mark understands.
“I want you to know that I hate you,” Mark says, “and after this you are going to let me live in your closet forever if that’s what I choose to do, and I will never again owe you anything.”
Andy’s eyes light up. “You’re going to do it?”
“Agree to the terms,” says Mark.
“Of course,” says Andy, already back to clacking away at his keyboard. “I’ll have this set up in no time. You can strip.”
“You mean, ‘Please, Mark, my dearest friend, would you do me the honor of removing your clothing,’” Mark says… and then immediately reconsiders. “Wow, ignore me; that’s, like, five times worse.”
The scanning process is much the same as last time. It involves copying a bunch of seemingly senseless moves like Mark is playing Just Dance and Andy is the little computer person, and then there are a couple of skin scans that they didn’t do last time.
“Are you sure this won’t give me cancer?” Mark asks as the weird, metallic implement that Andy has pressed to his forearm beeps ominously.
“Everything gives you cancer,” Andy says, which Mark doesn’t find terribly comforting.
When the scanner stops beeping and Andy has tapped several more things into his computer, he takes out one of those plastic ball-throwers for people to play fetch with their dogs and tells Mark to follow it with his eyes as he waves it overhead.
It is during this exercise that a voice echoes down from the staircase.
“Hello,” it says, and Mark looks away from the ball-thrower to find Dave standing about five steps up from the basement floor.
His head is pointed their way, but it’s impossible to tell where he’s actually looking with the blinding glare off his glasses. He clearly hasn’t dished out for an anti-reflective coating; the lenses look like truck headlights.
“Hey, Dave!” says Andy.
“Hi,” says Mark. “Sorry for the abrupt dose of nudity.”
“One should never apologize for nudity,” Dave says in a voice so devoid of feeling that Mark really has no idea how to interpret it.
“Right,” he says.
“We’re almost done,” says Andy, scurrying over to one of the screens on the opposite side of the room, “but feel free to stay and watch!”
Mark tries to feel indignant, but he can’t manage it. Too many things have already gone wrong today.
Andy, however, seems to realize at least half of what was wrong with what he said. “I mean, it’s your room,” he tells Dave. “So of course you can stay. Really, we’re almost done.”
“That’s probably good,” says Dave. “There are two strange people waiting upstairs for Mark.”
“Uh… they’re not going to come down, right?” Mark checks. He has no idea who would be looking for him today, but he can be fairly sure that, no matter who they are, he doesn’t want them to walk into the basement right now.
“They’re in the kitchen,” says Dave. “Jay offered them pretzels.”
“Cool,” says Mark. “Did they say who they were?”
“Not in my hearing.” This is evidently all that Dave has to contribute on the subject because he plods down the last few steps and crosses to a dim corner, where he all but disappears into the shadows.
“Thanks for the heads up,” Mark tells the corner.
Dave provides no response, and the neon red blur of the ball-thrower in Mark’s peripheral vision calls his attention back to Andy.
“Make sure to blink while you’re doing it this time,” Andy instructs, “but not too intentionally. Natural blinking.”
Mark thinks this is a lot like telling him not to think about an elephant, but he settles for scowling at Andy.
There’s one more exercise after that, and then Andy releases him with a satisfied nod. “I’ll let you know if I need more.”
“Sure,” says Mark, since he really has used up his store of indignation. He pulls his clothes back on and tromps up to the kitchen.
The kitchen is a small and much-neglected room, separated from the dining room and living room only by a bar-like counter. Mark has long suspected that, of the house’s current occupants, he is the only one who ventures beyond the cabinet-fridge-microwave trifecta. Everyone else seems to think that the purpose of the stove is to stack the dirty dishes that won’t fit in the sink.
To Jay’s credit, though, he at least seems to have realized that the kitchen isn’t the best place to entertain guests, since he’s set Mark’s two visitors up on the dining-room side of the counter. There’s a glass bowl full of garlic-flavored pretzels between them, but Jay, who took the kitchen side, seems to be the only one eating them.
“Mark!” Jay waves when he spots him heading over. “These guys say they need to talk to you.” He points to the guests, who spin around at Mark’s name.
Mark doesn’t recognize them. They’re in their thirties at least, and they don’t even look like the kind of people Mark would know. They look like the kind of people who beat you up after you cheat at poker. Not that Mark has personal experience, but the matching buzzcuts and oversized Hawaiian shirts fit his mental image.
“Mark Atkins?” the broader of the two says as they both stand up. Their movements are coordinated, like they’ve done this a lot, and Mark thinks this would probably be the situation to say, “Nope, wrong Mark, sorry,” and back away, except that Jay beats him to it.
“Yep, that’s Mark!” he says as he slips around the counter. “I have to duck out to go put Cory back in place, but it’s been nice chatting. Eat as many pretzels as you want!”
He claps Mark on the shoulder as he passes.
Mark supposes this is par for the course. Every day things just go from bad to worse. Why should today be any different?
“Hi,” he tries with what probably comes off as a really pathetic smile. “I, uh… don’t think we’ve met.”
Comments (0)
See all