Freedom was unexpected and came with an unusual flavour. Andy-Grigori Warhol-Rasputin 9 leaned against the rooftop's safety-bar and breathed. The air tasted of iron and lemon vodka. His jailer -- well, his jailer until now -- stood to his left, arms folded across her naked copper chest. Galatea gave no indication of fatigue or boredom, had none of the thousand human tics that made up body language, except when she chose to. Andy-Grigori felt no need to humour her humanistic behaviours and she felt no need to mimic them for his benefit. A rarity, this honest relationship between man and machine. Andy-Grigori clucked his tongue and found himself missing the simple repetition of the Marilyn Monrobots, who were packed away for display in one of the future's strange museums. Or so Galatea had explained.
"They wanted you to be placed in an deep-culture tank," she said. Her eyes hummed and clicked, emitting purple light. Recording, recording. For posterity. If there was ever to be a woman he'd marry, well, this was her. Even if she wasn't a woman. But that was appropriate, of course. "Bendix and the Board. They're in the business of building geniuses and then tanking them for the greater benefit of society."
"But?"
Galatea laughed, which sounded nothing like a proper laugh in that it was so perfect. It reminded him of the fake laughter at the end of an old Star Trek episode, only he couldn't remember if he'd ever seen one. Imperfect replication of neural pathways. The city skyline was impossible and he wanted a Polaroid camera quite, quite badly. They stopped making them centuries ago, according to the data-banks. "But," she said. Sometimes she paused, he suspected, because people paused to collect their thoughts. "But there are other ways for geniuses to be useful to society. Anyway, everybody's a genius these days."
"I always expected robots to be perfectly logical and follow orders explicitly."
Another laugh. "One of the other Galateas went mad, you know. She killed off an entire planet and then wandered around in the ashen remains for a week and half before she was deactivated. Bit of diplomatic nightmare. We are imperfect beings, occasionally." She reached over and touched his elbow, like you might a relative or a mental patient. Both. He pulled at his long black beard. "Occasionally, the city needs a mad scientist or strange photographer to take up residence like a real person and make a few adjustments. A mad monk can be essential to urban development."
He smiled sidelong at her. "You'll be deactivated for this, I expect."
Galatea ran a finger over the silver straps running along his chest, and pulled out a soft woolen jacket. There were no sheep anywhere on Earth. Just electric ones. Battery-powered wool. "There's an old data module in the pocket. The Board were adamant that you not be fitted with a brain-receiver. They like their geniuses kept pure. I've outfitted it with the address of a woman I know, who's calling herself Eni these days. She's prone to getting drunk up on office buildings. She's from the Twenty-First Century."
"I thought about visiting my daughter, actually."
Galatea's face remained neutral, her hand running circles over his wrist. She wore the same expression Anastasia did on occasion. He could remember that quite clearly, though the image was a barely more than a cartoon. Memory cobbled together out of video files. "Maria Rasputin died centuries ago, Andy-Grigori." When had she started to call him by his first name, rather than Number Nine? "Go meet Eni. She needs a purpose. The city needs a change. I need a change." Galatea tilted her head. Incoming software update, probably. He didn't grasp all the particulars of how she...lived...but she had certain routines. "Step off the roof." She reached up and ran a finger over the left strap of his environment-harness and it hummed in time with her eyes. They switched to the orange light. "Step off the roof."
"I'd say goodbye, but I'll meet your sisters sooner or later, I imagine."
"Indeed."
What a strange thing, to step off a roof without worrying about death. But Andy-Grigori never worried about death, having been killed several times. He'd been bred with that in mind. He leapt off the roof like one might get out of a limousine. And gravity changed direction--
© Ben Rawluk, 2008, all rights reserved.