Atwood Margaret - The Heart Goes Last

“I don’t look like Elvis,” says Stan.

“You will when we add the outfit and the finishing touches,” says Budge. “And it’s not the real Elvis you need to resemble, it’s the imitation Elvises. Not hard to look like one of them.”

“What do I do when I get there?” says Stan.

“We’re sending a guide out with you,” says Budge. “She’ll help you.”

“She?” says Stan. “The only women I’ve seen in here have been plastic.”

“The prostibots are only one of the solutions Possibilibots is marketing,” says Budge. “There’s something even more advanced. Come on, I’ll show you.”

They go out into the hallway, turn a corner, then another corner. More framed pictures of fruits: a mango, a kumquat. The fruit, he notes, is getting more exotic.

“Bots can’t hold a real conversation,” says Budge. “Even the best of them.

Today’s tech isn’t there. But higher up the income scale, the customers want something they can show off to their friends; something less like, less like –”

“Less like a brain-dead trashbunny,” says Stan. What’s he leading up to?

“Let me put it to you,” says Budge. “Suppose you could customize a human being through a brain procedure.”

“How do you mean” says Stan.

“They use lasers,” says Budge. “They can wipe your attachment to anyone previous. When the subject wakes up she imprints on whoever’s there. It’s like ducklings.”

“Holy crap,” says Stan.

“So, shorthand: choose a babe, give her the operation, stick yourself in front of her when she’s waking up, and she’s yours forever, always compliant, always ready, no matter what you do. That way nobody feels exploited.”

“Wait a minute,” says Stan. “Nobody’s exploited?”

“I said nobody feels exploited,” says Budge. “Different thing.”

“Women sign up for this?” says Stan. “For the brain op?”

“Not sign up, exactly,” says Budge. “Wake up is more like it. That way there’s more freedom of selection. The clients wouldn’t likely want anyone desperate enough to sign up of their own accord.”

“So, they fucking kidnap people?” says Stan.

“That’s not to say I’m endorsing it,” says Budge.

“That’s …” Stan doesn’t know whether to say evil or brilliant .“Don’t they – don’t these women care about their earlier lives? Don’t they resent –”

“Not if it’s done professionally,” says Budge. “But it’s still experimental. It hasn’t been entirely perfected. Some clients have been willing to take the chance anyway, but mistakes have occurred.”

“Like what?” says Stan.

“You’ll see when you meet your guide,” says Budge. “She didn’t turn out the way she was supposed to. That was one very pissed-off client! But he’d signed the terms and conditions, he knew the risks.”

“What went wrong?” Stan asks. He’s already imagining. She wants to hump dead people, or dogs, or what?

“Timing,” says Budge. “But it makes her an ideal operative, because she can never be distracted by a man.”

“Who can she be distracted by?” Stan asks.

Budge stops in front of a door, knocks on it, opens it with his card. “After you,” he says.

Sacrifice

The funeral chapel is one size fits all. No crosses or whatnot, but there’s a giant pair of praying hands and a picture of a sunrise. The colour scheme is powder blue and white, like the Wedgewood-style teacups Grandma Win used to have. There are huge banks of white flowers: they’ve really gone all out.

The chapel is filled to overflowing. The women from the bakery where Charmaine works when she’s not in prison are here, and so are the knitting groups – her original group and that other group she hardly knows at all. They must have let these women out of Positron on passes for the funeral. Quite a few are wearing black hats – berets, pancake shapes, modified cloches – so she’s made the right choice hatwise.

There are a number of Stan’s fellow workers from the scooter shop. They nod at her deferentially because she’s the widow, but there’s an extra layer of deference as well. It must be the presence of Ed, who has tucked her arm within his and who is leading her up the aisle carefully, respectfully. He places her in the front pew, then sits down beside her, his thigh not touching hers, thank goodness, but still too close.

Aurora is on the other side of her, and on the other side of Ed is Jocelyn from Surveillance, wearing a pillbox hat. She looks a bit like Jackie Kennedy.

And on the other side of Jocelyn is Max. She can feel a thin filament of superheated air stretching between them, like the inside of an old light bulb: incandescent. He feels it too. He must feel it.

Ignore this, she tells herself. It’s an illusion. You’re in mourning.

The chapel has fold-down pews in case any dead person has a kneeling family. Charmaine wasn’t brought up as a kneeler, but she’d like to be able to kneel right now – put her hands on the back of the pew in front, then place her forehead on those hands as if in despair. That way she could just zone out, which would help her get through this bogus funeral. Or she could spend the time thinking about what in heck she’s going to do if Ed makes a move on her, such as putting his hand on her thigh. But she can’t do any kneeling, because she’s in the front row. She has to sit up straight and act noble. She squares her shoulders.

Now they’re playing organ music, some kind of hymn. If they play “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” like in some of the Consilience TV funerals, she doesn’t know if she can stand it. She is walking alone, she always will be. Here comes a tear.

Toughen up. Just pretend you’re at the hairdresser’s, says the little voice.

The coffin is closed, due to the hideous burns that Stan is supposed to have suffered as he threw himself upon the defective main switch, then frizzled as the current shot through him. That’s what it said on the TV news, but really the coffin is closed because Stan isn’t in it. She wonders what they’ve done with him and what they’ve put into the coffin instead. Most likely some old cabbages or bags of lawn clippings: something of the right weight and sogginess. But why have anything in there at all? No one’s going to look inside.

What if she called their bluff? Said, I want to see my darling Stan one more time. Made a scene, threw herself on the coffin, demanded they wrench off the lid. Then, when they refuse, she could turn to the congregation and tell them what’s really going on: Innocent people are being killed! Like Sandi! Like Stan! And there must be dozens of others … But they’d surround her in a minute and haul her away to calm her down, because after all she’s out of her mind with grief. Then she’d be erased, just like Stan. Oh, Stan …

Dang it, more tears. Aurora squeezes her hand to show support. Ed is going pat pat, and in one more minute he’s going to snake his arm around her. There’s black on her white hanky: the mascara. “I’m all right,” she manages to gasp in a half-whisper.

Now there’s a soloist, a woman from Charmaine’s knitting group, the second one. She’s got that solemn soprano expression on her face, she’s inflating her lungs and sticking out her black frilly boobs and opening her mouth, and this will be awful, because Charmaine recognizes the organ-music tune: “Cry Me a River.” The woman’s way off key. Charmaine covers her face with her gloved hands, because she might laugh. No hysteria, she tells herself firmly.

The soprano’s done, thank heavens. After the rustling and coughs die down, one of Stan’s scooter co-workers delivers a message from what he calls Stan’s Team. Bowed head, foot shuffling. Great guy, Stan; stepped up to the mark, proud of him, made the sacrifice for all of us, miss him. Charmaine feels sorry for the speaker, because he’s been deceived. Like everyone else.