Poetic Justice (Soft Robotics 2.0)

0.00(distance)

I should have run farther than Stanford. The moon, maybe. Any shitty crater could have been a fine enough place to settle down, silent and alone. Blissful. Somewhere in the multiverse, at this moment, there's another Dr. Juniper Grace Cunningham on the moon, content knowing she made the right choices. Her only meaningful contributions to science are the discovery of moon grapes and the process of fermenting them to make moon wine.

But that Grace isn't me. In my universe, I'm hiding behind the dull, beige sofa in my apartment, a glass of earth wine in my hand. I'm crouched down even though the curtains and blinds are both closed over my front window. There's more knocking on my door. "Grace? It's Steve."

Steve Rogers, specifically. There's no way I'm letting him in.

"I know it's been a long time," he says. "I just want to talk. It's important."

First of all, my place is a mess. Steve would be concerned for my emotional wellbeing if he came in here. There are computer parts scattered everywhere. It looks like I butchered a robot last night, because that's exactly what I did. It was scientifically motivated—more of a dissection, really. But Steve doesn't know that. And Steve would be put off by the assortment of half-assembled, homemade vibrators on my coffee table, too. (Abandoned project. I never did get the pressure just right.) Also, there's a huge oak armoire in front of the door, and if I wanted to let him in, I'd have to move it out of the way, which would mean I'd have to explain to Steve that I barricade myself into my apartment with an armoire every night.

Second of all, I'm a little drunk. Third of all, I'm not wearing a bra under my tee shirt. Fourth of all, I already know what he's here to tell me, but I can't tell him that I know, because it's information that I obtained through a series of cyber-felonies—but I also can't pretend that I don't know, because I'm a terrible liar.

"Grace?"

I slide a computer keyboard out from under the sofa and crawl toward the console table next to the front door. I move slowly and quietly, telling myself that Steve can't know for sure that I'm home, even though he has super-hearing, and even though I screamed in shock/terror the first time he knocked, and even though I was loud enough that he wouldn't need the super-hearing to know that I'm obviously fucking home.

"I know it's early," Steve says. "I thought you'd prefer I came early, though?"

He's right. It's 5:30AM. I love 5:30AM. It's my preferred meeting time. Steve is so considerate. I've missed him.

I reach up to the console table and grab Sylvia by the throat. Sylvia is a faceless, bald mannequin head that I found in a dumpster outside of Kohls. Now, she has a face, because I drew one for her, but she looks arguably worse with a deranged, toothy smile and dots for eyes in purple sharpie. I plug the keyboard into the stump of her neck and type.

"There's no Grace here," says Sylvia in her mild, friendly tone. "Go before I call the cops."

Steve sighs loud enough for me to hear it through the door. I type again.

"I have a gun," Sylvia says. "And I'm itching to use it."

She still sounds eerily friendly. I haven't gotten around to teaching her other tones of voice. She doesn't know how to lose her cool.

"What is that?" Steve asks. "A robot? You built a robot to send people away from your door?"

Sylvia answers automatically. "I am Sylvia, a neural text to speech generator. I synthesize human-like voice output from—"

She keeps talking even as I clap my hand over her mouth, so I lay on her, attempting to smother her voice. I knee her in the head, bending the plastic in, but she's still giving Steve her life story. Finally, I feel for the knife that I keep taped under my console table, stab a hole in her head, and dump my wine out into her circuitry. She smokes, glitches, and goes silent.