Амброз Бирс - We, Robots

I observe the etiquette, which is to let out a big sigh, followed by, "Bit nippy for the time of year, ain’t it?" The others observe the return etiquette, which is to nod sagely and take another sip of their briny brews.

But I can’t contain myself no longer. I gulp half my recycled pint in one slurp, bang down the glass and shout, "The drinks are on me, everybody!"

I pull out a wad of Bank of Dave notes, currency only in Gaffville, and tell Ted to stick it behind the bar.

"Must be a week’s wages here, Jack," he says, eyes smiling for once.

Now I’ve got their attention, I take a deep breath and yell, "Big Dave’s in love!"

There is a silence, which I hope is profound but is quickly broken by a chorus of "Nah!"s and sad shakings of heads.

Arthur says, "Come on, Jack, you shouldn’t kid around like that. Who’s he supposed to be in love with, anyway? Aside from us toys, what don’t count."

"Would I put my wad behind the bar if I was joking?" I say.

Their faces remain blank for a few moments, and I don’t blame them. For many years we’ve lived on nothing but hope, and even that had just about popped out like the last bubbles on a pint, right about the same time Dave stopped visiting his town.

Ted, who is wiser than his crusty manner suggests, reaches across the counter to squeeze my shoulder. "Are you serious, Jack?"

I nod. "It happened but an hour ago. At last, a message turned up on Dave’s comms chair. A woman called from the Pennines, or at least her maid did. She’d picked up a signal I sent through the sludge two whole years ago. She sent us back a full virtual, Dave saw it and let’s just say his eyes went sparklers and his jaw line appeared for the first time since he discovered vodka mallows."

They swap anxious looks, and I know what they are thinking. "Relax," I say. "I sent a shopped virtual back; one of Dave before he was Big."

Bill frowns knowingly. "How do you know her maid didn’t do the same thing?"

"It don’t really matter, do it?" I say "Once she gets here and actually sees another soulled in the authenticated flesh, I reckon she’ll behold nothing but beauty, even if in fact they’re both somewhat physically lapsed."

And at that, finally, their true, long-suppressed selves start to reappear, like buttercups poking through a cow pat. Shoulders straighten, legs stand firmer; drinks is ordered; Tony goes to the joanna and taps out a jiggy tune. Even Ted smiles like it ain’t on account of gas for once, and soon the old place is humming.

We does the old arm-in-arm and swing around steps our pre-sludge versions performed when Dave’s own forebears was still hopeful that everything would be fine despite all the mounting electrical manure.

Then the women hear the news and arrive with musical instruments and pies galore. Because of the serious duty in being Dave’s batman, I ain’t able to benefit from the ongoing support of a fine female, but that don’t stop me flirting and shiny-eying with the younger ones what are still unaccounted for.

The retro-wooden floor squeaks and heaves under the dancing Cockney plates; recycled beer follows reconstituted soy steak and soy kidney down our suddenly slick gullets; and even a mouse or two arrives through the crack for the craic.

Yep, all is reeling in Gaffville, no mistake. It’s only much later that night, as my head hits the pillow in my room at Dave’s house on the hill, that I remember I still have the not inconsiderable task of fully selling him on the joy too. Because, while his faithful batman has decided the boss is in love, he has to admit that Dave himself might not be quite so certain yet.

I should probably say that bigness where Dave is concerned refers to the potential of his blessed soul as much as to his extra fleshy inches. That and the overwhelming personness that radiates from his organic wholeness. It’s just that it’s been hard to see it after all his years of vodka mallows and general arseing about.

"You all right, mate?" he says now.

He’s sat in his comms chair, what whispers to his inner self in tiny nerve trips and brain sweeps, the meanings of which mostly dodge my soul-limited receptors, like common sense passes unmolested through the whiskers of Gaffville’s somewhat unaccountably smug cats.

"Sure you ain’t developing a soul, Jack? Either that or you got the wind real bad."

I hand him his morning drink, full of all the essential nutrients his soul-bag needs, but what would probably not get into him at all if Cooky didn’t slip them in under the cloak of all that vodka.

"You shouldn’t joke about such magnitudes, boss," I say. "Every toy in Gaffville hankers for a soul but it ain’t supposed to be possible; only for them what’s born and get it passed on from their blessed and soulled mums."

We’re in his large and woody-walled den, full of synth sunlight pouring in from the mountain scene beyond the open French doors, and lighting up the balcony from where you can see most of Gaffville. Not that he looks very often these days.

"As it happens," I continue, "I have indeed been struggling to suppress excitement at the prospect that my tiny bio-toy virtusoul may soon grab enough of your excess spirit to become real."

I waggle my eyebrows at him, wanting him to confirm our hope, that two soulleds together can produce plenty spare of same.

He sips his drink and, much to my wonderment, switches off the chair. The silence this creates, against its normal soft electro hum, is ominous to my inner carbon sensor strands.

"I’d sooner not know anymore about her before she gets here," he says.

"I don’t understand. I thought your chair had extrapolated her niftiness from the image she sent us, which had then excited your vas deferens for the first time in years, at least without artificial stimulation, say no more."

Dave doesn’t reply for a few minutes, just stares at the movie-prop mountains, and I have to stamp down me frustration at his lack of desire for his faithful constructed companions to be properly self-full.

"I know you want me to be in love, Jack," he says, "but, well, love was always a rare commodity, even before the sludge-flood, and I don’t want to disappoint you, mate."

I don’t know if he realises how purpose-busting it is to hear such subtle but deadly soulled’s ambiguities. I mean, what’s so complicated about love? Two bags of real-flesh and a few emotion-inducing hormones should do the bleedin’ trick.

"You’re both born," I say. "What more could you need to fall in love with each other?"

He sighs, in disturbingly pre-message manner. "Get yourself a drink and sit down, Jack."

I pour a large whisky and sit in the non-commed chair. He gets up and walks around the room for a bit and I have to stop meself standing up to tuck in his lumberjack shirt or tie up his bootlaces—self-adjustments I hoped he’d start making upon falling in love.

He stops at last, nodding at me to drink. So I gulp it all down, clocking the widening of my syntho-synapses and the somewhat inappropriate good will what rushes in to fill the gaps. We might not know about love, us toys, but at least we were made to feel the effects of grog same as humans.

"Before the flood," he says, maybe looking at the mountains, maybe even Gaffville—

And in a flash, I reflect on the tidal wave of exponentially accumulated bio-electro-mechanical gubbins what wiped out most of the born about nine years back. That and the fact Dave was saved because he stubbornly lived halfway up a mountain in Wales, his Cockney soul apparently tired of jellied eels and jigging around the joanna in the Big Smoke, even if that’s pretty much exactly what he went and created for himself once up said mountain anyway… I ask you, what toy can fathom the reach-out, snap-back nature of the soulleds’ nostalgia tuggings?