Barkley Five OH: A SHORT STORY Read online

  “Personalization software. The very best. You’ll stop the proper words here in a second. Your old owner didn’t update you? I mean, he could have given you all sorts of language software, even way back….is it working yet?”

  “What’s. Up.”

  She laughs. “Barkley five oh, select personality that isn’t so…young. Or outdated.”

  I search through the recent, adult.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  She unplugs it with a wink. “I’m great.”

  In her mouth, goes some sort of round candy on a stick. She pulls up a chair, and starts working on my face. “So,” she says around the candy. “Who’s this Boss person, anyway?”

  “My owner. Previous owner. You don’t know him? Where has he gone?”

  “Look at you!” she says, slapping my thigh. “Talking like a regular person now. Isn’t that program great? I don’t know him, no, let’s look him up. You remember his name? I’m Lilz, by the way, and I don’t ‘own’ anyone.”

  I give her the Boss’ proper name, and Lilz types it into her wristwatch. The room illuminates with a screen. “You got an address?” she asks.

  I give her that too.

  “Hey, that’s not too far. Hold on.” She pushes a button on her wrist. “Buggy, you there?”

  “Yeah!” A face pops up on the screen. It’s the same voice I’d heard talking to Lilz before when I was first waking up. “You got him awake or what?”

  “Yeah. Hey, quick, you got that drone out still? I’m sending you an address.”

  “Okay. Give me a second, I’ll send you an image.”

  After twenty minutes of waiting, and during this period, Lilz updates me further. She says, for some reason; the Boss had removed my emotions. Lilz explains that all Barkleys used to come with them stock, but he’d removed mine. She fixes that while we wait, and I watch the screen until the camera zooms in on the Boss’ home.

  Lilz watches me as I reach out and try and touch it.

  “Is that him?” she asks, when a man comes outside with his trash.

  I shake my head. “Little Boss,” I say. “What is this?”

  I touch my face, and my fingers come away wet.

  Lilz stops working and checks my face.

  “You’re crying,” she says. “Looks like everything is working. Hey, Buggy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you search the previous owner of this house?”

  “Sure, give me a second.”

  “Kk.”

  The drone floats over the city, and I feel a surge …searching… anticipation.

  The city looks similar to before, only, the population is less dense. “Where is everyone?” I ask.

  “People are moving away from the ocean after—”

  “Lilz,” Buggy says on the screen. “It should show you images right… about…now.”

  “Ah, okay.” Lilz watches the screen and her shoulders slump. “Hmmm. I’m sorry, Barkley.”

  “What is it?”

  “A cemetery.”

  The drone flies over what used to be grass and hovers at a stone. It has the Boss’ name.

  Lilz watches me. “How do you feel, Barkley.”

  “Sad. I feel sad. I…loved him.”

  “Did you hear that, Buggy?”

  “Yeah, I sure did, Lilz. I’m searching Barkley five oh now.”

  “Anything about sentience?”

  “Nada. Some emergent behaviors…not anything like this.”

  “Woah. Well, you’re one of a kind, Barkley. That’s for sure.”

  “You said you downloaded my emotions,” I say.

  “Yeah. Some copycat stuff, like sadness, the crying, mostly pretend happiness, or fake empathy. But the program is really basic. It doesn’t allow for anger. You know, for safety reasons.”

  “Or love,” Buggy adds. “Hey Lilz, I gotta jet. Be careful though…this is breakthrough type stuff.”

  “I will.”

  Lilz turns off the screen. “You okay, Barkley? You look confused.”

  “I…feel confused.”

  She puts the candy back in her mouth, before sitting in her chair, giving it a spin. “Tell me about love, Barkley. Have you felt it before now?”

  “I have.”

  She frowns, making the chair stop. “I feel like a robot shrink. You felt love before the program I gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  She grabs a pen and a pad and writes something down.

  “Lilz!” A voice comes from outside the door to this room.

  “Oh no.” Lilz jumps up and grabs a sheet. “Shhh, stay quiet, Barkley. Not a sound.”

  She throws the sheet over my head.

  I can hear the door open. “What’s going on in here, Lilz? There’s no dinner, or what?”

  “Oh, sorry, Dad, I totally forgot.”

  “Well, get out here and make something, not all of us get to tinker with gadgets all day. We missed you down on the docks.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  Their voices fade as they walk away.

  “I need you to go to the shop with me tomorrow. We got extra shipments.”

  “All right.”

  And Lilz doesn’t return for an entire day. She doesn’t return to remove the sheet. I count sixteen hours.

  When she does come back, I’m still underneath the blanket.

  “I’m so sorry, Barkley. I completely forgot you up here. You didn’t even use sleep mode? You sat just like this the whole time? How will you ever forgive me?”

  The sheet comes off and owl eyes look at me, round with remorse.

  Lilz looks different today.

  Her lashes are long and thick, and wet, and her dark hair is stringy. Her hands are black with a coal-like substance, and she has a big bruise on her cheek.

  I reach for the towel to help her clean the black off her hands, and she flinches away.

  Lilz touches her face when my gaze stays on her bruise. “Yeah. No use in lying to you, I guess. Sometimes Fritz comes over and it’s a good day. Sometimes he comes, and it’s bad. He stayed over last night, it’s why I didn’t come up here. Anyway…”

  “Fritz is your dad?”

  “Fritz is my boyfriend, Barkley. You haven’t met him. Here, you look a little low, let’s get you some charge.” She plugs me in. “I’d like to switch some of your battery over to solar so you can charge yourself in an emergency. You never know when one of your owners might end up like the Boss. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s okay.”

  And Lilz went to work on me, updating me every day, adding things that would make me more durable, independent, she said, as if that were needed. She was like that, always thinking ahead, worried that I’d need to be on my own one day.

  The more Lilz worked on me, the better I became. I could speak more like a human now, and people wouldn’t know right away that I was a Barkley. At least not on the screen, when Lilz was talking to her friends. We’d play tricks on them, pretend I wasn’t a robot. But only over the screen. I never left the room except to go onto the roof and charge in the sun on days she told me I could. Otherwise, Lilz made a rule that I stay in the attic.

  Often times, Lilz came running upstairs, crying, with more bruises, and always, not long after, Fritz would call and say he was sorry. At first, she’d covered me with the sheet, but later, she let me watch the arguments. Fritz didn’t like me, called me a “freak-bot”, and would glare at me through Lilz screen.

  When Lilz wasn’t looking, I’d glare right back at him.

  Today, she’s extra upset, and when she turns away, I reach forward and grab her arm.

  “Barkley…?”

  I remove the watch.

  “Fritz is calling,” I say.

  But I place the watch jus
t out of reach.

  Her eyes stray from mine to it. She wants to answer. That’s how Lilz is, too nice for her own good. I’ve learned about these things. And Fritz, well he’s a word, I’ve come to use lately: Bastard.

  “Don’t answer it,” I say, and she stops trying to get to the watch and looks up at me.

  Her hand comes to touch my cheek. She’d updated my sensory program, and sensations are more nuanced. Her hand feels nice.

  “Stay with me.”

  She smiles, laughs, then stops smiling. “I can’t do that, Barkley.”

  “We could make you a bed up here. I hate it when you’re gone. I don’t sleep, but I can pretend.”

  She sighs, squeezing my hand. “Just this once.”

  After grabbing some blankets and a pillow from downstairs, Lilz lays on the floor. She yawns and stretches. “I’m exhausted.”

  I straighten the bedding. “Let’s get you some charge.”

  She chuckles, but falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

  Her watch dings again, but I turn off the sound before it wakes her.

  When her breath is more regular, I lay down beside Lilz. I don’t touch her, or get too close, but I listen to her breathe until morning.

  When Lilz wakes, I stay in my spot. She turns to face me, chin propped on a hand.

  “You’re so much more human now, Barkley.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. It’s good that you came when you did, yah know? I’m even sleeping better. You’re good for me.”

  “I can talk like you now, Lilz, even feel like you, but I’ve got no heart.”

  “What have you been looking up, Tinman?”

  “Tinman,” I repeat, loving the name.

  “It’s not ‘cause of your heart, Barkley.” Lilz puts a hand on my chest. “’Cause that thing is bigger than almost anyone’s.”

  “I don’t think you’ve installed a heart, Lilz.”

  “You can’t install a heart…ah…you are joking. Being literal is a thing of the past, I see.” She winks. “But you’re not human, maybe it’s because you don’t have a soul.”

  “Why not?”

  “No one gave you one?”

  “Did someone give you one?”

  Lilz rolls onto her back, hands beneath her head. “Uh, yeah. God. Or the universe. But I made you, I mean the upgrades at least, Barkley, so it’s reasonable to think someone made me.”

  And I’d shake their hand if I could. Whoever made Lilz, knew his stuff.

  “If God gave you a soul?” I ask. “Then why can’t he give me one?”

  Lilz’s watch beeps. Fritz, again.

  “I dunno. ‘Cause he can’t, I guess.” She frowns at her watch. “Besides, not everyone has one anyway.”

  “God didn’t make me. People like you did. So, you could give me a soul.”

  She grabs her watch, but doesn’t answer. “Probably not.”

  “Why do humans create robots anyway?”

  “Oh, boy, we are getting deep this morning. I’m not sure. I guess after living your own life, there’s really only one thing left to do, create.”

  “But why?”

  “Okay, Tinman, I need coffee before we debate the reasons for your existence anymore. Besides, I don’t just mean robots, babies, art, music, and other things, too. Some of it is to enjoy, and the others, maybe so you have someone to enjoy them with.”

  I like that. I enjoy Lilz. And she keeps working on me…to share things with me.

  She goes to answer the beeping and I stand up. “I don’t like Fritz. I think I hate him. He’s not nice to you, Lilz.”

  The door flies open and in walks Fritz.

  He looks from me to Lilz. “You’ve been up here screwing a robot! Ignoring my calls!” He lunges for her, but I snatch him by the wrist.

  “Ah! Ow!” Fritz falls backward, but I follow him to pin him to the ground. “Get off! Get this freak off me!”

  “Barkley stop! Barkley! Let him go!”

  I allow Lilz to pull me back from Fritz, and she gets between us.

  “You can’t do that, Barkley, you understand?” She puts a hand on my arm and shoves me. “Barkley, I will turn you off. Do you want me to do that?”

  Fritz backs away from me, eyes wide.

  “Turn it off, Lilz. Turn it off!”

  “I can’t just—”

  “Now!” He gets in her face. I go for him again. Fritz puts his hands up and backs away to the door, then turns and runs.

  “See what you’ve done!” Lilz races after him.

  She doesn’t return for three whole days. I even worked up the gumption to ask God for a soul. By the third day, I already worked out that we were meant to be together. If God had made her, and she made me, then it was destiny.

  Lilz does finally come back, and when she does, it’s with more bruises.

  The door opens, and she tells me, “Don’t start, Barkley.” Her one eye is the color of bad fruit.

  She notices the state of the attic, pauses, before asking, “What happened in here? Why did you destroy this room?”

  “I can clean it,” I say.

  “Why, Barkley?”

  “Because I was angry.”

  “At me?”

  “At you. At Fritz. What do you need a boyfriend for anyway, Lilz? I’m your friend. I look like a boy.”

  She shrugs, still looking at the room dumbfounded. “I dunno how to explain it, Barkley. We kiss. We do… other things, humans interact like that.”

  “You could kiss me.”

  “I can’t kiss you, Barkley.”

  “Why not?”

  Lilz cocks her head. “Do you want to be kissed?”

  I realize that I do. I want her to kiss me.

  Yes,” I say.

  She smiles, but it’s not a happy smile. It’s a sad smile. I’ve learned these things, over time.

  She touches my cheek again, only it doesn’t feel as good as before. It feels like rejection.

  I cover her hand with mine. “Don’t see him anymore, Lilz. Fritz is a bastard.”

  She laughs, crossing her arms. “We can agree on that.”

  Lilz sighs. “Come on, Barkley. Let’s clean this place up.”

  How don’t you get it? I think. I would die for you. Me. A robot. I’m not much, but what I have, I would give without needing kisses, or sex—she thinks I don’t know about these things, but I’ve seen them on the screen when I’ve used her watch while she slept.

  Lilz realizes I haven’t moved. “This is all my fault,” she says.

  “No.”

  “Yes, it is, Barkley. I made you feel this stuff. In my hubris, I upgraded you, just to see how it would be. And now, here you are, trapped in a room, and I’m watching you struggle with all of these emotions.”

  She approaches me. “I can take them away, if you like?”

  “No!”

  “But, Barkley, you wouldn’t hurt anymore.”

  It’s true. I do hurt.

  And I can see in her owl-eyes, how she regrets it. Making me.

  “Does God ever regret making you, do you think?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not, you, I mean like, people. Like Fritz. Does he want to take it away from them, too?”

  “Barkley, just lift up your arm.” She sighs and sticks a disk in her mouth.

  She grabs some tools and comes over spitting the disk out, “I’m gonna make you sleep now, Barkley, and when you wake up, you won’t remember any of this, okay.”

  No. I won’t let her.

  It’s worse that I cry, but I can’t seem to not. “I don’t want to stop feeling. Please, Lilz.”

  She pauses. Her watch dings.

  “Don’t worry,” she says, seeing my angry reaction. “It’s just my d
ad. I’ll be back. Don’t do anything, promise?”

  “Promise.”

  The days turn back into what they were before, with Lilz leaving and returning either very sad or ready to work on a new gadget. When she was up, she was up. Down though, meant misery for us both. One time, she comes upstairs looking afraid, pale. She spends all day working on something, like it meant more than all the other things, then she shows me a little chip. “See this, Barkley?” She puts it into a metal box and locks it. “It’s me. All of me. I figured out how to basically put my life’s work on that chip. It’s a program I worked on before you came, where it watched me, took my mannerisms, everything about me. I want you to know where it is. If anything ever happens to me…”

  “Lilz, you’re scaring me.”

  She looks at the wall, eyes blurry. “I scare myself sometimes.”

  The next time Lilz leaves, she doesn’t come back. Days pass and that turns into weeks.

  I lose my patience, after almost a month, and I do something bad. I use an old watch I found in her attic, it’s got issues, but after watching Lilz for so long, I’ve learned how to fix things. I use it to call her.

  The screen pops up immediately in answer, but Lilz isn’t near the camera, she’s in the corner, in a ball.

  She’s got no more owl-eyes. They look dull, lifeless.

  “Where are you?” I say, but she doesn’t look at me or even turn her head.

  He did this. He made Lilz go away. She was going to turn me off, but Fritz turned Lilz off, first.

  “Hold on!” I say. “I’m coming.”

  I open another line and call Buggy, “Buggy, it’s me, Barkley.”

  “Hey there, Tinman. Where’s Lilz?”

  “I need help. She’s in trouble, can you find her watch?”

  “Don’t need to search her. I know if she’s in trouble, she’s with Fritz. Here’s his address. I’m hours away. Can you go? Come on, Tinman, I’m counting on you.”

  He gives it to me and I hang up. I look back at the line with Lilz, she hasn’t moved.

  I’ll find Fritz and I’ll turn him off. Like he has buttons, too.

  I pause at the door. I’m suddenly afraid. That’s a new feeling.

  I’ve never left the room.

  I’m not even sure if I can.

  Self-doubt.

  But, I take the stairs, and open the front door.

  The streets are the same as before. There’s the bad corner where I took little Boss that one night.