G. Wright - Broken Things

“Josh.”

She reached into her pocket and brought out a highlighter. “Okay, Josh, I need to do a test. Can I see your hand please?”

He nodded and gave her his hand.

“My,” she said, “You look a mess. I think there’s more dirt than boy here.”

With the highlighter, she drew a fast line across the back of his hand. It instantly turned black. “I see,” she said, “Now we can proceed. Come with me, I’m going to take you with me back to Boise.”

He stared at the mark for a moment and looked up at her. “I’m not from Boise,” he said, “I’m from Twin Falls. I want to go home.”

“Don’t you worry, I’m here to take care of you,” she said. She turned toward the door as if expecting him to follow. He hopped up, hurrying to catch up with her. Outside, Ted waited with the bag on the ground behind her car. She popped the trunk, and he lifted it in with a grunt.

“We’re taking that with us?” he asked, but he might as well not even have spoken. Josh crossed his arms and chewed on his bottom lip. Could adults just not hear him? If he ignored his dad he got thumped.

Mrs. Hart unzipped the bag and stared at its contents, shaking her head in amazement. He didn’t want to see it.

She slammed the trunk and opened the back door, motioning for him to get in. He hesitated, but not knowing what else to do, he obeyed. At least the bag was in the trunk. He’d rather walk home than deal with that. She slid in behind the wheel and locked the doors.

“So where are we going?” he asked, “When are we going to see my parents?”

“We’re going back to my office,” she explained, “And you won’t be seeing your parents again. You’re defective. Sometimes when kids break they’re thrown way. Sometimes parents do that. It’s not right, but it’s not illegal either. My job is to pick kids like you up and dispose of them properly. You’re bad for the environment. Could you imagine if everyone abandoned you things ? We’d have broken children everywhere.”

“They didn’t throw me away,” Josh said defiantly, “They were coming back. Just call them, you’ll see. I’ll wait for them if I need to.”

“It’s their own fault,” she continued, “It looks like you’re falling apart. Did they play too rough with you? Did they slap you around?”

“They never hurt me. I was in a crash.” He caught her eyes in the rear-view mirror and thought he detected a hint of loathing. He grabbed the door handle as she pulled away but it wouldn’t open. “Let me out!”

“Child-protection door locks. Isn’t it great that they still include that feature in cars? There hasn’t been a real kid for years.” She laughed as though she had just made a joke.

The whining in his head increased as he tugged on the obstinate door. The world turned black.

Tamara Hart hated children. From time to time, she glanced back at the boy in her backseat and thought, for the third time that day, about quitting her job and moving back east to Boston. Most of the people that she considered friends lived there. Even after ten years in Idaho, it still didn’t feel like home. She would move back one day. The only thing Boise had for her was Kidsmith and Tom, her boyfriend, and both were negligible.

She cracked the window for fresh air and turned off the air conditioner. The dead thing in the trunk had a stink that permeated the vehicle, despite its location. She knew someone that would love to play with it, even though she rarely encountered something so foul.

After ten years, people wouldn’t remember what she had done, would they? At least nobody should care anymore. It was just a kid. Besides, they weren’t even as popular as they’d been back then. She would tell them that she’d learned from her mistakes. She’d quit taking strays from the street unless she knew for certain that they were abandoned.

Nothing compared to the nightlife of Boston. Terry (short for Terrance) had been the most understanding husband that she’d had. He knew what he’d married. Forever young and beautiful, she could get into any club, get free drinks, and spend her nights dancing. It should have gone on forever.

But trying to manage a day job with the East Coast branch of Kidsmith and living her lifestyle proved… challenging. You couldn’t work in Reclamation if you didn’t bring in strays. She had a quota, but more than that, if she were at the top of the bell curve there were nice fat bonuses. Kidsmith made more money by refurbishing and reselling children than making new ones. Any time a kid made the company money twice, she got a bonus.

Who would have thought that they’d take a kid’s word over hers? To this day, Tamara denied the kidnapping charges. They weren’t real. The term kidnapping couldn’t even apply. The company had launched an investigation, and had accused her of taking children that still had owners. In her defense, they should have kept a better eye on their possessions. She didn’t leave her house unlocked. She didn’t leave her purse lying around. She knew better. Kids didn’t belong on the street either, always getting in peoples’ way. You had to keep dogs on leashes, why could an android run around unattended?

When they told her that if she were found guilty of the kidnapping charges that she’d have to repay her bonuses back to the company, she knew she had to do something. It was her livelihood that they threatened. She just didn’t know they had security cameras watching the storage room.

The kid couldn’t be identified if it were missing its registration and serial numbers… and if it couldn’t talk. They’d never found the body nor the hammer (she knew how to dispose of things), but they had recorded her nearly five minutes of destroying the thing.

Not only had that kid ruined her job, it had ruined her marriage. But Tamara had never been helpless. Though she couldn’t save her position, she’d done a few things in the past that she wasn’t proud of, and she had a supervisor that owed her. He gave a glowing recommendation for her to the Boise branch (and corporate) for her transfer, but Terry had no plans of relocating. One plane ticket later, she’d found herself divorced and across the country, away from friends and lifestyle.

Kidsmith didn’t pay bonuses for bringing in strays anymore. That had come to an end with the decreased demand. That brought a decrease in pay and consequently a decrease in her fun. Idaho didn’t pay as well as Boston did either, adding to the daily increasing list of reasons not to stick around. What good was it to be forever young and beautiful if you couldn’t enjoy it?

She still had a hammer under her seat, just in case she needed to relieve some stress.

They were still driving when Josh awakened. His head rested against the window and he’d been drooling. The mountains were gone, replaced by green fields.

“Welcome back,” said Mrs. Hart, “You really are a mess. You shut down for almost an hour. People don’t understand how delicate you machines are. They think that they can just let you things run wild, or play too rough. You have no idea what I’ve seen. And then they think that they can just bring you in and have you fixed. The technology of a kid is very advanced, people need to respect that. Otherwise they’re replacing you every few years.”

Josh crossed his arms. “My parents want me.”

“Oh I’m sure,” she said mockingly, “Because you were such a great kid?”

He chose not to answer her, returning his gaze to the blur of the landscape. First chance he got he would run away. He’d find a way back to Twin Falls, maybe even by hitch-hiking.

“Anyway I called your parents and they don’t want you,” she lied, “That’s what eventually happens to all kids. People don’t realize what they’re signing up for. Suddenly you have a machine that’s dependent upon you. You can’t go places that don’t allow them, you aren’t supposed to leave them alone, and when you do they destroy things and make messes.