Mango Porcupine Chapter 4

Just as the sun set, Shel sauntered up to The Royal Peregrine, one of the oldest institutions in the metro. He was promptly assaulted by cigarettes and sewage...

Just as the sun set, Shel sauntered up to The Royal Peregrine, one of the oldest institutions in the metro. He was promptly assaulted by cigarettes and sewage, two of the more notorious twenty-first century fragrances. It was rushing out of inconspicious fragrance portals on the sidewalk next to the automatic garden lights. Together they created that indescribale atmosphere of the weekend. Sewage fragrance always made him blanch, but cigarettes always made him feel invigorated and relaxed at the same time. He leaned down and took a deep breath at one of the cigarette fragrance portals, then went inside.

A jazzful rhumba was transitioning into a DJ driven club track. A prerecorded voice in the song said In a few moments you will have an experience which will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed to your conscious awareness. You have five seconds to terminate this tape. Five… four… three…

The resulting chill tempo beat buoyed Shel into the establishment and to the bar. The bartender was helping others in the crowded room so Shel turned around and rested his elbows on the leather bar. Looking out into the dim expanse, he spied yellow-gold lights and distant pinky piece projections illuminating intoxicated faces, like star clouds in the cosmos. The pinky piece device is a custom fit object that slides over the pinky nail, and projects in three dimensional space. It fullfills the functions and more of a twenty first century smart phone.

“What’ll’it be Shel?”

Dante the bartender was cleaning a glass, rag cooly thrown over one shoulder. Bartending was one of the few jobs still held by persons and not govermentally mandated to be done by bots.

“The usual.”

Dante gave him an easy finger salute and swaggered off.

“Speaking of the usual come talk to me.” 

A luxurious blonde in a flickering red dress smiled brightly at him. Dixie, or “The Patron.” Every bar had an assigned bot regular known as “The Patron.” In dives, an old silent veteran type. In clubs, an entrepenuer rising to the top, give you a card, type. In a pub, someone that had earned the title “Uncle” from you a long time ago. In an uptown, notorious well hidden speakeasy type like this, you had a Dixie.

“Hey Dix, how’ve you been?” Shel grabbed the seat next to her at the left end of the bar. Still surrounded by a swath of people at the watering hole, but somehow secluded.

She swirled her drink. “Same as always, almost as charmed as this Manhattan.” She had one of those faces that seemed to be, in a good way, perpetually winking. “How’s Sapph?”

“Oh she’s good. Been really getting into her arts and crafts lately. She made an engraved chair the other day inspired by nineteenth century antiques.”

“How swell! She’s too good for you. You know whenever she inevitably leaves you,” She walked two slender finger-legs up his knee and then tapped his nose affectionately, “I’ll always be here for you cutie.”

Shel laughed. Dante placed a condensated bottle of Hopsicon IPA in front of him. He took a swig as a relaxed remix version of It’s Cold Outside began to play.

“So what’s been happening here Dix? What are the stories?”

“Hmmm,” She put pouty red lipstick lips on her Manhattan, pondering.

“Oh have I got one for you! Was last Saturday. Petran and Cassia got drunk enough the other night to insist they wanted to have and raise a child.”

“What!”

“Yes!” She laughed glamorously. “Petran was going on and on and on about how he felt just the deepest love for Cassia and ‘No wonder!’ he shouted standing on a table ‘She is the most wonderful person I have ever met!’ and can’t blame ‘im, she really is cute as a button. She was all flushed and sweaty and nothing but eyes for Petran and arms hanging all over his neck the whole night-“

“When people don’t have an iBot they get so dramatic about love.”

“Oh I know isn’t it the truth? The things I’ve seen here Shel.” She laugh-shuddered. “But later into the night, after slow dancing three times, to the song they met  to playing on the jukebox-“

“Oh my gawwwsh! What was the song?”

“Thrillena’s rendition of  ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.’”

“I wasn’t even there and this is becoming a memory in my head.” Shel blanched and took a big gulp of beer.

“Oh relax hotshot! It was sweet. Although by the third dance the legs were so full of alcohol it was like two zombies sumo wrestling.”

Shel sniggered.

Her tone became more sympathetic, “But then… they came back to the bar and were holding each other for about thirty minutes talking about something, nose to nose. Then, Petran stood up and shouted that they were going to have a baby. Someone shouted ‘Where you gonna find one?’ and then Cassia, poor babe, stood up with him and said ‘We’re gonna make one!’ then they both said something along the lines that, they both believed the other was the most wonderful person in the world, and that their love knew no limits, and it would be selfish to keep it to themselves, so they were gonna get pregnant, and it would be a perfect blend of both of their best qualities, and that they would love it just as much as each other, and it would love them right back, and they would be a- Shel. They. Would be. A family.”

“Oof, that’s rich.”

“Rich or not they we’re just having a good time and caught up in their feelings-“

“I mean they could but why would they? Child birth has been known to ravage a woman’s body.”

Dix tilted her head, “Well Shel no, they couldn’t.”

“Oh, they can’t?”

“No, of course not.”

“Wow,” he looked out over the people. “How’d they find that out I wonder?” he muttered to himself. Something caught his eye on the far end of the room, it looked like Gilbrett’s curly hair bouncing just above the crowd.

“Well Cassia said the family thing. I tried to play it down and called out ‘Aww that’s sweet!’ but then the jackass that shouted the first time yelled ‘You can’t have a baby. You’re an android just like the rest of us!’ and then the whole bar just started laughing at them. Cassia fell down… stricken, that’s the word for it. She started crying. And Petran started holding her like she’d been shot, aghast. Aghast, that’s the word for that. What the poor boy was.”

“Wait, they are androids?”

“Of course Shel, baby.”

“No way! I thought they were human!”

“Well not many people are these days…”

“Sure they are!”

“Like who!” Dix laughed.

“Well, I am! Me!”

“Oh I know you are, but who else?”

“And the uptown gentleman is up and about on the uptown being gentle and a man!” Gilbrett announced his presence explosively and clapped Shel on the back. He was two scotch in, which for Gilbrett, despite his size, meant drunk. Not a sleepy drunk, but a loudmouth drunk. He had his arm around his iBot, Heidi (a female version of Gilbrett in every way, minus a couple dozens of intelligence quotients.).

“And Gilbrett!” Shel exclaimed.

“And me what?”

“He thinks you’re human.”

“Thinks I’m what?”

“Human, baby.” Dix annunciated over a chopped and screwed version of White Christmas.

Gilbrett looked at Heidi, and then they burst out laughing as if it was the funniest thing they’d heard in awhile.

“That is the funniest thing I’ve heard in awhile!” Heidi redundized.

“I mean really Shel, I can’t remember the last time I met a human.” Dix supplied.

“I’m human!” Shel said indignantly.

“You’re what?!” Gilbrett blurted, not quite dropping the glass but spilling half his drink on the floor.

“He’s what?” Heidi said.

“You heard me!”

“Why Shel,” Gilbrett put a hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. “That’s fantastic.”

Shel was just about at the limit of something, he didn’t know what. “It’s not anything! It’s normal!”

Dix smiled the same sympathetic smile when she was talking about Petran and Cassia and wrapped an arm around his neck in a comforting manner.

“Well… Shel… uhh…” Gilbrett stared at the floor, confounded.

“Uhh…” Heidi locked spacey deer-eyes with Shel.

Then Gilbrett stood up on the foot ring of a bar stool, pointed at Shel and shouted, “He’s human!”

“Ayyyyyy!!!” The whole bar raised their drinks in approval. From the back some jackass shouted “I guess he can get pregnant then!” and everyone laughed, going back to their leisure.

Dix eyed Shel pityingly. She motioned to Dante, “Four shots. On my tab!”

“Oh good,” Gilbrett slurped the rest of his drink and slammed the empty glass on the bar. “Because I’m all dry. See Shel, even The Patron is grabbing you drinks, you can’t tell me you’re not special.”

“I haven’t felt special one day in my life.”

“Neither have I!” said Heidi jubilantly.

“Well neither have I Shel!” Gilbrett aired, “But that’s standard programming for our species. But you’re like, the original code my man.”

Dante showed up with the drinks. They clinked glasses and threw back. Heidi, teary eyed, as if having an epiphany decided to bring Dante in. She tossed a pointer back and forth between Shel and Dante, “He’s human!”

“Of course, seen him talking to his Tomi.” Gilbrett leaned a thick elbow on the bar, joining the cirle.

“What do you mean?” Shel turned to him.

“Oh you have a Tomi!” Gilbrett exclaimed.

“Of course, doesn’t everyone? And mine is called Tomi, she’s not a Tomi.”

“Oh, my bad. I wouldn’t know, I don’t have one.”

“What? How do you do… anything?!” Shel demanded.

“Shel, buddy,” Gilbrett sat on the next bar stool and put his hand around Shel’s neck, over Dix’s. They were now a commiserating troop, hot breath and alcohol. Or Shel’s drunken intervention. “Why would I need one? Why would I complicate my life with that?”

Heidi leaned forward like a school teacher explaining the basics, “He doesn’t need one. It would just complicate it.” She said, adding absolutley nothing to the conversation. She hopped onto the stool next to Gilbrett, heels dangling.

Dix raised her glass, “Whether biological or android, to being human!”

“Hear hear!” Gilbrett said.

“Here here!” Heidi said.

“Hear Hear.” from Shelden.

And they drank.

“But how do you remember to do things? How do you schedule things? What if you want to know something right away? Do you remember all your numbers and emails and handles?”

“Shel you know we are completely organic except for part of our brains, right?”

“Well, right?”

“Well all that hardware,” his pointer gestured all around Shel’s head, “Why not put that all in the mechanical part of our brains? Direct link to all of this?” His fingers waved wildly above their heads at the ‘cloud.’

“But what about when you need to set a reminder?”

“I set one in my brain, and then it pops into my head when I told it to.”

“It pops, Shel.” Heidi’s fingers opened and closed a tulip shape.

“Thank you Baby,” Gilbrett smiled warmly and kissed her on the cheek.

“How have I not talked about this with anyone?” Shel asked no one in particular. “Did you know this Dante?”

Gilbrett laughed, “Well, of course.”

Dante smirked ruefully.

“No…” Shel said.

“Yeah buddy, I’m android too, but it doesn’t really matter. We’re people, we’re all persons. Brothers and sisters and all that.”

Gilbrett conceded that limply, “Well yeah, of course. It doesn’t really matter my guy. We’re all having the human experience. We all live in a human society. My relationship with you is just as valid as with my android friends- Gosh!” Gilbrett ‘ha-HAH!’-ed and slapped his knee, “This is just the reverse of when android citizens were created Shel, you know what I mean? Right, Dixie? In the twenty-third century?”

Dixie laughed, “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Apt observation Gil.”

“Apt honey!” Heidi squeezed his gargantuan bicep with pride.

“Thank you Baby,” Gilbrett kissed her warmly on the cheek. “But seriously… not that it matters- we’re like this-” (he twisted his fingers together) “but do you have human friends?”

“Yeah…of course.”

“Who?” Dix said.

“Well…”

“That you know are human.” Gilbrett said.

“That you know.” Heidi said.

“Very good Baby.”

Heidi giggled and kissed him on the cheek.

“That I know…” he wracked his brain. That he knew. Shel dug deep into memories years back that he had not taken much care to store and remember details of before. When he was a child being raised by Tomi didn’t she teach him about humans and androids? And some statistics on them?

“If you can think of one, I will get your drinks until the end of the year.”

“I got it Gil. Give me a second.”

“And if not you get mine.”

“Okay, Gil.”

What he kept remembering of those days was sitting cross legged on the carpeted floor of his condo, five years old. It was afternoon, a yellow shaft of sunlight illuminated dust suspended in the air. He was alone except for Tomi. She went through his school material. Didn’t she take him on other play dates with kids? Was it ever only human? Not that he could remember, and then again, it wouldn’t even matter. What about his parents? He went to their condo a few times before they died, but they weren’t very interested in talking anyway. And they probably wouldn’t count, being his parents.

And then it hit him:

Ping pong.

Fred.

The fourteenth.

Fred the Fourteenth Fallibly Human.

“Fred the Fourteenth!”

Dixie laughed. She was on her fifth drink. Gilbrett spluttered, “Is that a name?”

“Yes!”

“How do you know he’s human?”

“When we would play ping pong and he would miss, he would always say, ‘I am fallibly human.’”

“Yeah, but I say that.” Gilbrett was unconvinced.

“He does say that,” Heidi existed.

Gilbrett folded his hands kindly, “I’m sorry man but I just don’t think that counts.”

“This doesn’t even matter.” Dante said.

“It doesn’t even matter, but it’s just for fun. You have to know, Shel.”

Dix gave him a pity pat and a sympathetic kiss on the cheek. “It’s okay Shel, let’s talk about something else.”

“His name was Fred the Fourteenth!”

“So?”

“So his father was Fred, and his father’s father was Fred and his father’s father’s father was Fred-“

“We get it.”

“He told me that his dad and other ancestors couldn’t be bothered to think up new names. Also thought it would be good for someone to continue going on being a ‘Fred’ in the world, so that type of person would always exist, or Freds would always be represented.”

“That’s beautiful.” Heidi was moved.

“Eww, no baby. That’s a weird patriarchal-matriarchal, ancestorial, thing of the past. At least when androids are made it’s always someone new and they don’t have to worry about being psychologically molded after an ancestor whether by being raised or their genes.”

This hurt Shel in some way. Gilbrett saw.

“But that does it, you know another human. Dante, two more drinks over here!”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll make sure you never run out. Anyway, bet works out for me it being Christmas Eve.”

Shel suddenly remembered, it was Christmas Eve. He projected his home window from his pinky: ten-forty-one p.m. and thirty-nine voicemails from Saphh.

“I gotta go guys. Gonna spend the rest of the night with Saphh.”

“Aww come on, at least finish your drink!” Gilbrett said.

“At least!” Heidi said.

“Nah. I gotta go. Thanks though.”

Dixie gave him a drink-in-one-hand hug, “See you next time honey.”

“See you…” Shel mumbled as he shoved off the bar. A newcomer took his place and said, “Hey Dante! The usual.”

As he walked off he heard Dixie saying to the newcomer, “Speaking of the usual come talk to me…”

---