We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 69: Wake

Book 2: Chapter 69: Wake

Howard

January 2211

Vulcan

Okay, here goes. This was the third time I’d said that, but I still hadn’t opened the cargo bay door. Stage fright, for sure.

Manny would never be mistaken for human. He was a giant step down from Mr. Data, in fact. But I had told Bridget I would be there, and I was going to keep my promise.

I took a deep breath—Manny performed the motion, not that he needed oxygen—and commanded the door to open. I stepped out and looked around.

I had landed the cargo drone in the parking lot of the funeral home. A small crowd of people was gathered in front of the building entrance, watching. I guess they’d been waiting for me. I activated magnification for a moment and recognized several people, including Butterworth.

I walked toward the group, concentrating on not falling flat on my face. I’d practiced beforehand, but this was my first physical public appearance in almost two hundred years. Nervous didn’t even begin to cover it.

Butterworth nodded to me. “Not bad, Howard. I’m sure you’ll continue to improve the product.”

I nodded back. There wasn’t enough facial control to smile, yet, and I didn’t trust my voice right at that moment.

We stepped into the building, where Bridget was waiting. She smiled, and my heart was almost wrenched out of my chest at the sadness there. She’d been with Stéphane for eighteen years. She stepped up to me and said, “Howard. I’m glad you came. Can I hug you?”

“Yes, of course. Manny has full sensory input. It’ll be my first real hug since I, uh…” Died. Wow. Almost a total foot-in-mouth moment. “…since I became a replicant.”

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged, and I could feel every bit of it, from her head against my cheek, to her breasts against my chest, to her arms around my back. The moment lasted an eternity, and a fraction of a second. Bridget stepped back and looked into my eyes, and I tried to re-engage my brain.

I finally managed, “It’s good to see you.” A small, panicked corner of my mind wondered if Manny had faithfully rendered my imitation of a fish trying to breathe. I hoped not.

I looked towards the coffin. “I guess replication wasn’t an option?”

“Catholic, remember?” Bridget gave me a wan smile. “I don’t think the Archbishop would approve.”

I wanted to ask if she would reconsider it for herself, but this wasn’t the time or place.

This was the memorial. The funeral mass had already been held, and I hadn’t actually forgotten that Stéphane was Catholic. I would have been a distraction, to put it mildly. Bridget had been careful with who she invited to this event, to prevent any kind of awkwardness with yours truly.

We stood around and talked, compared memories. I met Bridget’s children, Rosie, Lianne, and Howard, who answered to Howie. He would have just turned thirteen by the old Earth calendar, and seemed uncomfortable with his height, as if he’d just been through a growth spurt.

Howie bombarded me with questions, while the two girls stood behind him and looked on with wide eyes. Turned out Stéphane had told stories about me.

I told Howie a few stories about his father. As I did, memories of our early days on Vulcan flooded back. Stéphane had always accepted me as just a guy he talked to on the phone a lot. There’d never been any awkwardness, any reserve. It hit me that he was the best friend I’d had since well before I died. I scheduled a good cry for later, when I was alone. ?Á?Ò??s

Bridget came over to stand beside me, a plate of food in her hand. I looked down at it: the usual mix of hors d’oeuvres, meat slices, and crackers. Bridget saw my glance and asked, “Can you eat?”

“Not yet. Bill’s going to engineer Manny to be as human-like as possible, eventually. He’s been distracted with the Others thing, though. I’ll eat something in VR.”

Bridget looked at her children, at her plate, everywhere but at me. I knew the conversation we’d had before I left Vulcan was still hanging there, between us. I sighed, and experienced a moment of panic when I realized that the sigh was audible.

“We’ll talk some other time. You’re not leaving right after the memorial, are you?” Bridget had a small smile on her face.

“Uh, well, physically I’m about nineteen light-years away, Bridget. SCUT remote capability is making distance mostly irrelevant. Manny will go into storage when I’m done with him. So there’s no leaving as such. I’ll always be around, whether by phone or in person. So to speak.”

I looked around. The two girls had wandered off, but Howie was glued to our conversation.

* * *

“How’d it go?” Bill’s posture reminded me of Bridget, the day we introduced our product to Butterworth.

I guess I should have expected it. This was a potentially watershed moment for the Bobs. Real physical contact would change all of our interactions.

Bill and Garfield had both popped in as soon as I came back to VR. Dexter was there, as resident Bob. And Bob-1 had shown up as well. I gathered from conversation that he’d been harassing Bill for years about the androids.

“It worked,” I said. “It was a controlled environment, and everyone there was expecting me, of course. I don’t know about going out in public.”

“But it’s a start. And a successful one.” Bob was nodding his head repeatedly. I wondered for a second if his avatar had gotten stuck in a loop. But no, that was just excitement.

I accepted the inevitable, and settled into my chair for the debriefing.

“But how did it feel?” Bill fairly glared at me with the intensity of his question.

I had a momentary image of him reaching down my throat and ripping the answer out of me. I snickered, which got me a couple of concerned looks. “Uh, compared to VR?” I looked up for a moment, organizing my thoughts. “It’s an order of magnitude more real. I don’t know how much of that is psychological, just from knowing that it is real. But I think the VR only provides the sensations we’ve programmed it to provide, while Manny gives us everything, expected or not, relevant or not, and not under our control. Think of it as the difference between trying to tickle yourself versus being tickled by someone else. It’s an entirely different, far more intense experience.”

“Yeah,” Bill responded. “I tried to get some of that back with the baseball games, but I think it still falls short.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Bill. It’s not like I expect us to all fall over and go crackers. The VR saved Bob-1, and it’s saved all of us. We all agree on that.” I shrugged. “But it’s not the full-on experience. We’ve forgotten what that’s like. Today just reminded me.”

I looked at Bob, who had finally gotten the head-bobbing under control but was now bouncing on his toes. An arched eyebrow made him blush and stop the motion.

“I think the Android Project should be bumped up in priority,” Bob said.

Bill rolled his eyes. “There’s a surprise. You willing to help? You have the free time, right?”

Bob looked abashed, and Bill winced at the unintentional cheap shot. “Sorry, buddy. Didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

Bob shrugged. “I get it. And yeah, I do have a lot of free time these days. Maybe this will help.”

Bill popped up the project notes and schematics, probably rushing to change the subject. Garfield moved in, and the conversation went all technoid.

I sighed, stood and waved to everyone, then popped back to my VR. I had some thinking of my own to do.