Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days

It was beautiful. He said the word to himself. Was some minor disturbance racketing through his circuits? Maybe.

He decided to wander over to the edge of his own terrain, where it bordered on Marcus’s. Nothing wrong with that, nothing technically wrong. He was free to roam within his boundaries. If he happened to catch sight of Marcus, if they happened to pass briefly where their turfs touched, who would know or care? It might be good for Marc, being reminded that Simon was here, thinking of him. It might calm him a little.

As he ambled in Marcus’s direction a drone whizzed by, hovering low. They had modified the design last year, made them less sinister in response to tourist complaints. The drones were no longer spinning black balls studded with red sensor lights. They had gilded them, elongated them, equipped them with functionless golden wings. Now they were little surveillance birds. They were golden pigeons that sniffed out crime.

There was no sign of Marcus around the band shell. Simon hoped he hadn’t decided to vid in sick or, worse, simply not show. If the authorities were suspicious, any varying of his routine would be suicidally foolish.

And then, there he came. He was in full dress. He was making his rounds. Simon’s circuits hummed at the identification.

Marcus saw him. He ambled over, not too close. Simon kept moving. He kept looking as mean as possible. He silently entreated Marcus to do the same.

Marcus was fewer than thirty feet away from Simon when the drone swooped in. It hovered in front of Marcus. Its golden wings whirred. It spoke. Marcus responded. Simon couldn’t make out the words, Marcus’s or the drone’s. The drone would be wanting answers. Marcus would have answers. They would check the records at Infinidot. Tomorrow they’d have more questions, trickier ones, but by tomorrow Simon and Marcus would be gone. They’d slip away two days early, be on their way to Denver by the time the authorities checked back. Too bad they wouldn’t have time to save up a few more yen.

The drone spoke again. Marcus looked puzzled. The new drone design didn’t work all that well. This sleek, pigeonlike version tended to be erratic and often inaudible. The drone repeated itself. A silence passed. Marcus stood black-clad and big-booted under the beating wings of a golden search-bird as dusk deepened around them.

The drone spoke once again. Simon could make out the pulse of its voice but not the meaning. Marcus glanced at the ground, as if he saw something written at his feet.

Then he started to run.

No, Simon thought. Do not run. Do anything but that. If you must run, do not run in my direction.

He ran in Simon’s direction.

Fuck you, Marcus. Cowardly piece of scrap metal. Knickknack in man drag. This is going to make it so much worse.

The drone hesitated. Was it stalled? Was someone in Infinidot headquarters consulting a higher-up?

The drone whipped around. It went after Marcus. It said, “Stop. Do not run.” Marcus ran toward Simon.

The drone fired. This was impossible. They didn’t fire on first encounter. A ray of brilliant red shot out and sheared Marcus’s right arm off at the shoulder. Simon stood still. The arm fell. It lay on the ground with its shoulder end smoking. The fingers twitched. Marcus did not slow down. The drone fired again. This time it malfunctioned and incinerated a sapling three feet to Marcus’s left. Marcus got another few yards before the drone was directly over his head. It let loose: a ray, a ray, a ray, in split-second intervals. Marcus’s other arm fell away, then his left leg. He ran for another moment on one leg. His arm sockets were smoldering. He looked at Simon. He didn’t speak. He made no sign of recognition. He looked at Simon with perfect blankness, as if they had never met. And then he fell.

The drone took off Marcus’s second leg. He lay facedown. He was nothing but head and torso. He made no sound. The drone hovered two feet above what was left of Marcus. It beamed down ray after ray after ray. It carved the flesh away until only the core remained: a silver cylinder with articulated silver neck joint attached to a silver head orb slightly bigger than a softball, with a palm-sized patch of Marcus’s scalp still attached. The armature lay smoking on the grass. A smell of hot metal mingled with the chlorophyll. The limbs, still twitching, still fleshed, were scattered like discarded clothes.

Simon stood still. The drone paused for a moment over the wreckage. It took its vids. Then it zoomed over to Simon. It hovered in front of his face, wings whirring.

It said, “Arsh da o prada ho?”

“What?” Simon said.

Someone at headquarters adjusted the audio. “Is there a problem here?” It had a human voice, rendered electronically, mechanical by design. It was considered more futuristic that way.

Simon said, “I understand the large hearts of heroes, the courage of present times and all times.”

Fuck. Concentrate.

“Is there a problem here?” the drone repeated.

“No,” Simon answered. “No problem.”

“Are you working?” the drone asked.

“Yeah. I’m with Dangerous Encounters.”

“You have ID?”

He did. He produced it. The drone snapped a vid.

“Get back to work,” it said.

He did. As he walked away, he risked a quick look backward at the smoldering pieces that had been Marcus. The wreckage put out a faint light as the drone hovered around it, snapping further vids. This was what they were, then. Flesh joined to a titanium armature. The flesh could be zapped away like so much whipped cream. Simon squeezed his own bicep, tenderly but probingly, between thumb and forefinger. There was a rod inside, bright silver. Marcus had been, in essence, a dream his skeleton was having. Simon was that, too.

He said, “Who degrades or defiles the living human body is cursed.”

He hoped the drone hadn’t heard.

He went back to his regular bench by the lake and sat down. It was fifteen minutes to seven. He should be on his way to his first client. But he lingered on his bench, glowering at a tourist gaggle who passed him skittishly, trilling to one another, glancing back at him as their guide hustled them along, nudging one another, variously corpulent or wiry, middle-aged (Old New York was not big with the young), middle-income (it didn’t hold much fascination for the rich, either), eager to be astonished, blinkingly attentive, holding tight to bags or spouses, stomping along in practical shoes, a motley band, not what you’d call heroic, but alive. All of them alive.

Simon was not alive, technically speaking. Marcus hadn’t been, either.

And now Marcus was where they’d both been less than five years ago, when they were nothing. When they were unmanufactured. What was gone? Flesh and wiring, a series of microchips. No memories of Mother’s smile or Dad’s voice; no dogs or favorite toys or summers on a farm. Just cognition, which had started abruptly in a plant on the outskirts of Atlanta. A light turned suddenly on. A sense of somethingness that rose fully formed from the dark and wanted to continue. That would be the survival implant. It was surprisingly potent.

Now Marcus was nothing, wanted nothing, and the world was unmoved. Marcus was a window that had opened and closed again. The view out the window was no different for the window’s being open or closed.

It was time for Simon to go to his seven o’clock. But here she came. Here was the Nadian, headed his way with her two little blonds. He decided to see her one last time.

Today the boy had some kind of toy in his hand, something bright that apparently outranked the search for stones and marbles. He capered along, waving the golden object over his head. The little girl danced in his wake, demanding a turn of her own, which the boy naturally refused.