David Ring III - Stanley Duncan's Robot

As they walked in, Dan — shirtless — was placing a stack of burritos onto the table. The muscles of his ripped body flexed as he bent over.

“Oh,” said Glenda, scanning Dan.

“Where’s your shirt?” scolded Stanley. “We have a guest!”

“In the hamper,” said Dan, his face mimicking Stanley’s by folding itself into thick wrinkles and frowning deeply. “The burritos are ready.”

“Why is it in the hamper?”

“Because that is where dirty clothes go,” said Dan, his face matching Stanley’s frustration.

Dan sighed as he looked at Glenda.

“My husband was the same way when we fought,” said Glenda. “Never a straight answer.”

But they weren’t fighting , Stanley wanted to say. Dan was acting according to his programming. He really shouldn’t have been upset with him, either, for none of this was his fault, his moral blunder. Yet it was so easy to forget his innocence and assign blame to him.

“Dan, did something happen to your shirt?” asked Stanley.

“Yes. Oil from the pan splattered on it,” he said, pointing to a red burn on his arm.

Stanley rushed to the freezer, grabbed some ice and pressed it against the irritated skin. “You poor thing. How did that happen?”

“I was tired, and the onions slipped out of my fingers.”

Stanley leaned against him, speaking to Glenda from over Dan’s shoulder. “We were up late last night experimenting with some new methods.” When he had a programming problem, Stanley had trouble resting until it was solved.

Glenda leered. “Okay, that’s — I think I’ll be going now.”

“What?” said Stanley. “This is the first time my condo has had so many friends. Please don’t go.” He couldn’t understand Glenda’s haste.

She stared down at the plate of food.

He pulled out two seats. “I can open a window if the smell is too strong.”

She sat down, reluctantly, without saying a word.

Stanley beamed with happiness for the whole ninety seconds it took her to park herself in the seat. He managed to grab plates and drinks for everyone before she’d made her full descent. “Glenda, this is Dan; Dan, Glenda.”

Dan bowed.

“Hello,” said Glenda.

Stanley glowed as he talked about Dan. Like a parent describing his child’s first steps, Stanley excitedly told Glenda about all the little things Dan had been learning to do. His heart was full of love at this moment. The two people dearest to him in the world were meeting for the first time. He imagined Dan cooking premium cat food for Mittens and Boots at some future dinner party for all five of them. Craziness!

Glenda’s mouth opened wide. “A cyborg? But he looks so real. So human.”

“Getting more real every day,” he said, beaming at Dan.

“The ones I’ve seen at the supermarket look like machines. Not like us at all.”

“Those must be androids,” he said, never having been to the supermarket himself. “They’re based on an older technology, nothing like Dan. He’s a state-of-the-art combination of biological tissue and electronic components. Sometimes I forget he isn’t human. The way he moves his body blows my mind.”

Glenda shook her head. “I never would have guessed you were into this sort of thing.” The bulging blue veins under her wrinkled, translucent hands were gnarled like a climbing vine. She rooted them around the burrito. “I didn’t even know it was legal.”

“As long as I don’t do anything that hurts him,” said Stanley.

“What you two do together is none of my business.” Her frail hands wrapped around the burrito. “But I’m sure you’ll take good care of him.”

“I sure will,” said Stanley, taking a massive bite of his burrito and then swallowing hard. “I’ve kept him inside ever since he got here.”

“Is he an indoor cyborg? Does he ever try to escape?”

“It’s not like that. Dan’s free.” Stanley paused, unhappy with the word choice. “I mean, he can do whatever he wants. If he chose to get up and go, that would be fine by me. I want him to be happy.” Stanley rested his hand against his head. He was having trouble believing his own words. Dan would never leave him. He was programmed to be loyal. But what if he happened, especially with his new programming, to want to explore the outside world? Or to leave and never come back?

“Well, you be sure he doesn’t leave. Especially not at night. Some folks around here don’t take kindly to their kind, calling them abominations .”

Stanley didn’t need anyone to tell him how cruel the world was. “I’ll do everything I can to keep Dan safe.”

“You do that.”

Stanley noticed Dan still didn’t have a shirt, so he sent him off to put one on. “It’s the little things,” said Stanley, shaking his head.

“It always is,” replied Glenda.

When Dan was out of earshot, Stanley leaned in toward Glenda, lowering his voice. “I don’t get it, though. How can anyone despise them so much?”

“What I learn about people continues to surprise me.” She glanced over at Dan, who was buttoning up a black, collared shirt as he walked in.

“Maybe it’s best not to know.”

“That’s why so many people have fused out. The world isn’t worth living in.”

“Yet we’re both here,” said Stanley.

“I have my cats, and that’s good enough for me.”

Anxiety consumed Stanley as he thought about his own reasons, so he quickly distracted himself. “Has the world really changed so much?”

“You watch the news, don’t you, Stanley?”

Stanley shrugged. He had lost interest in reality a long time ago. Why bother? He stayed in his cave all day and didn’t need anything outside of it. Why deal with all the stress? He tapped his hand against his pocket. No cigarettes. Glenda’s words rang through him. The world hadn’t changed; rather, a remedy to the human condition had been created. “The population’s dwindling. The smart people are moving to the city to join Ellen Mask in creating RaceX, the only viable path to not being made obsolete — even extinct — by technology, leaving the rest of the population to screw around on the Basic Guaranteed Income (BGI) with nothing to do but get high on fuse. No jobs, no reason to get an education, and a magic potion to make all your worries go away.”

“Except the all-human police force,” she said. “They still have their jobs. Bunch of rotten, nasty people making our lives miserable. They have a special hatred for anything high-tech, including androids and cyborgs. It’s horrible. Violent crime is up, and the police are the ones behind it. If I were you, I wouldn’t let Dan outside for even a minute.”

Stanley nodded. The police were one of the only organizations that still were completely staffed by humans, and they fiercely fought off any change in the status quo. If they caught word of what Dan was becoming, who knows what horrible things they might do?

Stanley watched Dan take his place at the table, his movements innocent and childlike. He knew that, as long as he lived, he would take care of Dan, never letting anyone hurt him. “Don’t you think that is a little excessive?” Not that Stanley had any plans to go outside. He could get whatever he wanted delivered, including tobacco and fuse — should he ever dare to fuse out. But if Dan did have the urge to leave, Stanley wouldn’t stop him. Yet, even as this thought transpired, a deep and powerful force from within him seemed to wrap it’s claws around those words and disavow them.

Glenda’s face paled. “Stanley, believe me: Marshfield is dangerous. When you see someone you love—” She sighed and placed her hand against her head. “This is a bit too much for me, Stanley. I have to get back to my cats.”