They are so pushy. All of them. At least Pai, it seems, know enough to realize when she goes too far, such as grabbing Graf by the throat in the last segment or demanding he marry her.
Nonetheless, it was still funny she took him to bed so fast. Hey: I don’t care what her claims are, if a cute girl wanted 17-year-old me? I would not even have asked my parents. In the Breakup/Change, families matter more than in our time, and even more for the Winsteads, what with their loss.
Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!
For the twenty miles over old, broken roads to Madison, Graf had his walking staff, two canteens, and some jerky and hard cheese in his backpack. He also carried a .38 Special revolver, knife, and snake bite kit. The girl? The thing next to him, back in coveralls and boots, carried a happy smile and a wave for everyone they saw.
“Thinking me ‘a thing’ is not very nice, Newest Friend.” She looked at his gait. “You are walking funny. You never had sexual intercourse before last night?”
Must we have this convo? Must you keep reading my mind, as I discovered last night?
“Yes and yes. In fact, here’s an upgrade: I’ll call you Boyfriend, now. Makes it slightly less likely Mom kills you.”
They had cleared the remains of the bridge over the river where they had met yesterday, now only stable enough for horse cart traffic, and were on the old two-lane highway due east. More horse carts and just people on horseback. Many slowed to look at the obvious outsider but no one caused trouble.
“Polite Midwesterners were a cliché from a hundred years ago,” Pai noted. “So much so, you lost to foreign invaders. That was stupid.”
“Aren’t you the polite one,” he groused, hating his aching crotch. And wanting her all the more.
Her data-dump at dinner had them listening more than eating. Seeing that, she said she would shut up until they finished. Moved into the living room, Pai sat entirely too close to Graf on the loveseat – a laugh – with his father and sister opposite on the ratty couch.
“Your son was kind enough to share about his family after my fall and walk here,” she had begun. “Let me do also. My mother and father are…”
She tried to make them older about Thinking Machines, but it was more 19th than 20th century where the Winstead’s lived, not the 22nd of her family. If the imperium, Canada, and Russia were just rumors, what possibly could they know about the Change?
Still, she tried, backtracking often for Mindy, as Mister Winstead said next to nothing. Sensing the increasing tension of her newest friend, she thought perhaps leaning into him would calm him down? Nope.
“Please go on with your story, Pai,” he said, getting up to get water for himself and his family. After her “android” comment at dinner, no one had come close to mentioning that again. So, of course, she had to.
“This form is a Mark XV, from Somi Corporation in Osaka, Japan. They make the best in the world,” she smiled across the coffee table with the three glasses of water. “I will not confuse you as to the totality of my consciousness, but this form is most functional.”
She took Graf’s hands into hers.
“Mister Winstead? May I sleep with your son tonight? I cannot be made pregnant, but he was in the right place at the right time to help me. I would care to thank him, in a special way.”
Mindy made a little squeal and ran from the room. I wonder if Dad is going to throw her out.
“Is this,” the older man rumbled more than spoke, “how they do things in Russia?”
“No. My kind is different. And appreciate this, please, sir: we are fanatically loyal. Please note fanatically.”
“So if I say no…”
“I will obey.” She took her hands away. “Your family, your rules. That is why I asked.”
“My boy, here,” he said, leaning back and making that side of the old couch give an ominous creak, “has only had one girlfriend, last year. Fell apart when his mother, my wife, died. And you suggest that a Russian robot, who, from you two’s stories, fell out of the sky, wants to be with my son?”
“Correct, sir.” She cautiously just moved one hand to his this time.
“Like most here about,” his father now stood, taking his glass of water and looking out the front window, “we are Lutherans. Not good at it. Christmas. Easter. That kind of thing.”
Neither youngster moved.
“I was not all that a good kid, myself, when I was my boy’s age,” his father admitted to the glass window. “But I was, as you just said, loyal to my late wife once married.”
He turned about. “What is my son to you?”
“He is my friend. The Greek word is philia. I seek to see if I can be older, ah, that is, know more.” She stood and walked to where her flat chest was nearly touching his over muscled.
“Will you take him away? We need him here,” the man demanded, over nearly a foot height in difference.
“I ask, after tonight, he escort me to this town of Madison,” Pai said, carefully, for once. “Following that, I must seek new instructions. It may – I emphasize may – be that we come to some sort of relationship. Such between humans and my kind are fraught with difficulty.”
“Humans,” he father muttered, finishing his glass and leaving the room.
“Was that a ‘yes’?” she turned to ask me.
“Yes.” She put her hand out, and like a stupid, horny kid, I took it.
“About your gait?” she returned to the subject as they plodded east along the poor road.
“As you so kindly laughed at me,” he replied, face red, “no, I had never done it before. Why you thought that meant we had to go for two more…”
“Mark XV bodies supply all kinds of interesting data to the host’s quantum mind, dear Graf! Oh! Promoted again!” Was there any end to her cheerfulness? “Your sister had her head under a pillow from all the noise and I think your father might want to discuss a lasting relationship with us once I return.”
“So,” he stopped. “You will come back?”
“Depends on how you define ‘you,’ my dear!”
“Androids,” he breathed, “Something Machines…”
“Thinking.”
“Demi-humans down south…and a hundred thousand people living on Mars? Right now?” he demanded.
“Under Autokrator Áris, Alicia? Yes.” She pushed her lips to his and let her eyes blaze red fire. “Come change worlds with me!”
“You never even said you love me,” he muttered.
“More than my own life. More enough to anger the most dangerous person on this planet: my mother,” her smile never failed. “There is a data point of an android attaching herself to a demi-human, for life; another had a dalliance with two of your kind – not permanent. There is nothing like this: what I am and what you are. So, not just change worlds: will you be my part of the Change, beloved Graf?”
“Did you just propose to me?” he asked, continuing their walk.
“Yes.”
“Thought the guy was supposed to do that.”
“Then I retract my question and will wait for you.”
Miles went by.
“How long?” he asked.
“As long as it takes,” she said, sliding her hand into his. “We have time enough, and worlds without end.”
machciv 