+J.M.J.+
Toys Out of the Attic
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
I hope this one hasn't turned anyone off; it's actually one of my earlier efforts (post-"Zenon Eyes" tryptych, pre-"Runnin' Loose…") which I rediscovered recently and decided it was high time to get it off my hard drive, so if the writing seems a little weak compared to more recent efforts (e.g., "You Killed Me First", "Shadows Between the Neon") that could explain it. WARNING: this second half is even more sentimental than the last, especially the last dozen paragraphs or so, which are told exclusively from the Nanny-Mecha's viewpoint. She's a very simple robot, of course.
Disclaimer:
See Part I
II
Abandoned
Babette stayed there under the tree all that day and into the night. She logicked that this might have something to do with the night Monsieur had hit her head, but she could not logic why this was so. Her pain receptors still fired under her scalp. Something was wrong, but she could not tell what precisely it was. A soft rain fell in the night; she sat under the tree, the drops that filtered through the branches felt cool on her skin receptors.
Maddy would arrive home after the sun rose: that much she knew. She had to go 'home' to be with her when Mademoiselle returned. The little one would be so 'sad' if she were not there.
Monsieur had ordered her to stay 'here', wherever 'here' was. Maddy's 'happiness' took more precedent over Monsieur's command. She got up and felt at the cloth Monsieur had tied about her eyes. She did not understand why he had put it there, but that did not matter now.
She took off the blindfold and looked around. Her eyes adjusted to night vision, a survival feature common to all Mecha. She looked around her, not knowing the way to go, seeing no clearly marked trails.
She walked straight ahead of her. She did not know where it lead, much less that it led into the center of the forest.
Night passed. The daylight returned. She kept walking tirelessly through the morning showers and mist. Her path lead her onto an old road, overgrown with bushes and vines, connecting the dead forgotten towns out in the wilds beyond the smug clumps of civilization. She followed this track, her feet noiseless on the moss and grass growing out of the cracks in the asphalt.
The sun broke through the clouds late in the day. Lizards that had crept out to sun themselves on the cracked pavement skittered away at her approach. An elderly gray possum trundling through the bushes snarled at her and waddled away into the undergrowth. On and on she walked, putting one foot in front of the other.
She walked till dusk and kept on walking even in the darkness. Animals approached her, but ignored her; to their noses, she smelled neither like a threat nor like prey. She smelled like nothing they knew.
She was alone but she did not feel loneliness; loneliness was something she had been constructed to alleviate, not sense. Her logic processors told her she had to return to Maddy. She heard movement rustle in the bushes, but she did not react. She would have only if Maddy was there.
Artemesia drove Maddy home from camp. Her little girl was as brown as an Indian and she seemed two inches taller. She chattered excitedly about everything she had done, all the friends she had made. She didn't mention Babette until they had almost reached the house.
"Babette will wanna hear about camp," Maddy said. "How is she?"
She couldn't tell her daughter about Emil hitting Babette. "Oh, she's been waiting for you." Artemesia changed the subject by telling her about how Daddy had got a new job nearby, so he wouldn't have to go away for years at a time, ever again.
Before Artemesia parked the cruiser in their driveway, Maddy had hit the switch for the door on her side; before Artemesia had switched off the motor, Maddy had bounced out onto the grass and ran up the path to the door. "Daddy! Babette! I'm home!"
Emil opened the front door and caught Maddy in his arms. "There's my big girl!" he cried. "Or are you some other girl who looks like her only taller?"
"Silly Daddy! It's me, it's Maddy." She wriggled from his arms and ran into the house. "Babette? Babette, I'm home!"
Maddy ran up the stairs and ran to the door of her room. "Babette?" she opened the door and ran into the room.
Babette's chair stood empty. Maddy ran to the bedroom. She wasn't there either. She ran to the bathroom. No Babette.
She ran down to the kitchen, nearly bumping into Mommy on the stairs. Maybe Babette was in the kitchen, helping Gussie the way she did sometimes.
She found Gussie patiently scrubbing the counters, but Babette was not there.
"Where's Babette?" Maddy asked.
Mommy came into the kitchen. "Maddy, have you seen Babette?" she asked.
"No, Mommy; I was gonna ask you."
Artemesia went to the study. Did Emil know anything about this? She found him typing on the ancient laptop he insisted on using.
"Emil, have you seen Babette?"
He only glanced up from his work. "Not lately."
"Why don't I believe you?" She bent down to his level to look him in the eye. "What do you know about this?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Where is Babette?"
"I have no idea." He turned back to the screen.
"You didn't just dump her somewhere, did you?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"You did."
"I suppose if I did, you'd bite my head off because she wasn't paid for."
Artemesia pointed out the door. "Your daughter Maddy is going to be frantic without Babette."
He turned to her. "Maddy or you? You never asked me about getting that robot. You never wanted to know what I thought about having my little girl tended by that…that machine."
"Well, your little girl loves that machine, and she'll be beside herself when she finds out Babette is gone."
"So what do you want with me about it?"
"I want you to help me look for Babette."
He looked her full in the face. "Well then, you'll just have to go look for her yourself."
Babette was not entirely alone. Other eyes less accustomed to the night watched her, trying to determine what she was, one of their kind or another being.
They tracked her in case she might prove to be one of them: perhaps they could get her to turn out her pockets if she wouldn't give them any spare Newbucks. Or if she turned out to be otherwise, she might prove useful or lucrative.
One of the elder trackers recognized her as a nanny-Mecha. That might be good for the women-folk, but what had brought it out here? Was some upper-class child missing and it had joined the search? They'd seen no other signs in the woods to indicate this. How did the thing get out here, so far from the civilized?
Whatever brought it here, it was walking straight into their territory.
In the distance she saw lights. Perhaps they came form Madame's house. Perhaps she had found the path back to where Maddy waited, 'anxious'. But she would soothe her with songs and caresses. She walked a little faster. Maddy could not be left waiting.
She walked toward a circle of shacks in the woods, old houses half-fallen in from neglect shore up with stones and rough timbers. A large campfire burned in the middle of the circle. She heard children's voices, women's voices, the voices of the elderly around it.
Suddenly a tall figure lunged out of the shadows, holding something like a long metal stick.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"My name is Babette. I am just walking this road to go home to my Madame's house," she replied.
He looked at her and lowered the stick. "Oh, one of those, eh?"
More men approached from the depths of the woods.
"What the h--- is that?"
"Must be the Mecha-thing we saw in the woods."
"Well, what's it doin' here?"
"She says she's lookin' for her Madame's house," the watchman said.
"Well, she's come way in the wrong direction, no Madames here!" Raucous laughter met this remark.
"Hey, you, Mecha. Follow me," the largest man of the group ordered. She stepped obediently behind him as he walked into the circle of firelight. He did not grab her arm or even touch her, but she had to obey the voice of the human.
He led her to a large structure of somewhat sturdier construction than the rest of the buildings. She logicked this must be a 'barn'. The big man grabbed the handle of the door and pushing his weight against it, pushed it open. He stepped inside. "Come on, come in here," he ordered, beckoning with a vast gesture of his hand. She walked in after him.
Inside were piled al a manner of boxes and barrels of things. She logicked this must be where they kept things until they were needed, like a 'closet', only much bigger.
He pointed to a dusty corner behind some piled sacks full of something. "There. Stay there until we decide what to do with you." His voice sounded harsh, but he did not seem to mean her any harm. Monsieur's voice had remained gentle even as he hit her. She stepped into the corner. The big man went away. She heard the door close.
She stayed here through the night, untiring. She could stand for hours on end without needing to sit down or 'sleep'. She barely knew time. She understood the cycle of light and dark that made a day, and the coming and going of seasons, but these did not affect her functions.
Artemesia posted a missing Mecha report with the police and on the 'Net, but the people who best knew the Mecha's whereabouts had little to do with the technology that formed the backbone of civilization, some by choice, most by default.
Weeks passed, but Babette hardly noticed their passing except for the rhythm of light and dark. The pain receptors in her head still fired, but there was little she could do about it.
At length, one day, the door opened and a girl about Maddy's age, clad in a dress made out of rough cloth stitched together and clumsy shoes with wooden soles came in. other children, dressed just as clumsily, followed her in.
"Okay, I'm 'it'," the first girl declared.
"You were 'it' the last time we played in here," said a tall girl, almost a woman to guess by her height. "I'll be 'it'."
"Oh, all right," the little girl grumbled.
The tall girl started counting. The smaller children scattered, finding hiding places among the boxes and bales. The small girl who had wanted to be 'it' scuttled into the corner where Babette sat.
The little girl stared at her. "Who are you?" she whispered.
"My name is Babette," she replied in a low voice. "What is your name, little girl?"
"I'm Sari, but you gotta be quiet."
"Ready or not, here I come!" the tall girl cried. She came around a stack of boxes and looked right at Babette.
"Who are you?" the girl demanded.
"I am Babette. What is your name?"
"I'm Charisse. How did you get here?"
"A man told me to sit here. I walked to this village after my master put me in a forest alone."
"You're Mecha."
Babette knew she was not the same as these children, but she could not fully process why there was a "troubled" sound in this girl's voice. "Does that make difference?"
"No, it's just that you're really not supposed to be here."
"Why am I not so?"
Charisse looked around. The other children rustled in their hiding places, clearly wondering what was taking so long.
"Because you're Mecha; we really don't use things like you."
"May I play with you and your friends?"
"Well," the girl looked around. "Yeah, but don't let the grown ups see you."
All that afternoon they played hide and seek in the barn, taking turns being 'it'. The younger ones loved it most when Babette was 'it': when she found them, she gave them a big, gentle hug.
They were just starting another game when a man walked in. the children knew him as Ryker, the head man of the village, but Babette knew him as the man who had sent her to stay in the barn.
"What's going on?" he demanded.
"We were just playing," Charisse said.
"All of you kids, out of here. You there, the Mecha, leave our kids alone," he snapped. The children filed out. Babette stayed in the spot where she stood.
"That was a little harsh. She wasn't doing anything to harm them," Serkin, Ryker's second in command said as they headed back to the shack where Ryker's family lived. He'd seen the whole incident from outside.
"We gotta keep the young 'uns from getting attached to that Mecha," Ryker said. "They gotta learn to be tough, not like them," meaning the folk in the towns and cities. "Besides, a Mecha like that could be worth something."
Serkin understood what Ryker meant. He himself had been unaccustomed to work before he came here. He might have come up in the ranks of the clan, but he would always be in some ways the soft-handed college dropout who had run away to the wilderness to evade the loan sharks he had gotten tangled with over his gambling debts.
"But they were out of trouble and it kept them out from underfoot for the womenfolk. She serves a purpose."
"Let the womenfolk handle that," Ryker snapped back. They'd had a bad day foraging and the kids playing with the Mecha was the last straw.
For the next few days, the children stayed away from the barn, but the little one, Sari, couldn't stop thinking of the strange lady she had found in the barn. And what was a Mecha?
She had to go to the barn and see who or what Babette was.
She found the strange lady sitting in the same corner where she had first found her.
"Hello, Sari," Babette said.
"Hi, Babette. I didn't want you to be lonely."
"I was not lonely; I had you to think of. Would you like to play?"
"No, I really shouldn't. I just wanted to be with you."
"Would you like me to tell you a story? I know many stories."
"Sure."
"Once upon a time…"
For the next hour, Sari sat in rapt attention at this strange creature's feet, listening to these wonders which her new friend revealed. In her life's daily struggle to stay alive, Sari had never heard of such things as princesses in castles or knights in shining armor coming to their rescue.
She sat so enraptured that she hardly heard the commotion outside.
"What is that sound?" Babette asked, becoming aware of it.
"I don't know," Sari said, scared, knowing what it was. She shrank against Babette.
The Mecha-woman drew the child close, into her corner, edging back behind a crate.
Someone threw open the door and stomped past them. They heard the stranger rummaging about. Sari peeked our from under Babette's arm without hardly moving. Someone stood before them, clad in strange green clothes. Sari knew it meant trouble. She sat absolutely still. The stranger went out.
"Anyone hiding in there?" asked a loud voice outside.
"No sir," someone replied.
The footsteps went away. Sari stayed still. Babette had not moved either. They did not move for quite some time.
But at length, Babette got up and peered out through a dingy window. She took Sari by the hand and led her out of the hiding place.
"Is it safe?" Sari asked.
"Yes, the bad men have gone." Babette led her outside.
The fire that burned in the center of the village had been stamped out and the half-charred logs scattered. The one street lay empty of all activity. Sari heard someone crying. She ran toward the sound, Babette following her.
Sari ran to the house her family shared with another. She found Mama and Aunt Vestia crying, holding each other.
"What happened? Why is everyone crying?" Sari asked.
Mama looked up. "Sari! Oh, thank God! Where were you?" she let go of the crying older woman and clasped Sari to her heart.
"I was in the barn with Babette."
Sari's mother, Iline looked up at the Mecha. "You hid her?"
"Oui, Madame. We heard the bad men coming, so I hid Sari."
Iline reached out and clasped the Mecha's hand. "You just saved my youngest child. Thank you."
"I did what she needed to have done for her."
Iline let the Mecha stay in the house. Ryker wouldn't like it, but she had to reward her—it?—for protecting Sari. If it wasn't for her, the population controllers would have confiscated Sari.
After Ryker and his men had come back from their foraging expedition, the word spread that the Mecha had saved his daughter.
Ryker was infuriated about the raid: their cover was blown; they'd have to move to the next shantytown. But his daughter had survived thanks, of all things, to the Mecha he'd picked up in the woods.
"It can stay. It can go where we go," he declared with resignation.
Babette helped the women pack their few bundles. She had packed bags before, when Maddy had gone to camp, so she relied on this data.
They left late at night, the older children carrying the few younger ones remaining. She carried Sari and a bundle while the men pulled a wagon containing the supplies for the journey.
They walked in single file over trails only the leaders at the head and foot of the column knew well.
At dawn they stopped and camped under the trees. During the day the adults took turns watching over the camp. At nightfall they set off again, avoiding populated areas and large roads.
After a week of this, they came to another cluster of small houses. The men of the group went in to see that no one had taken up lodging there in their absence. Fortunately, the only inhabitants were animals, which the men killed for the meat. But they also drove out other creatures, strange things like people with metal limbs. Some had faces like her own, but they were cracked and damaged. These departed at the men's orders, going deeper into the woods.
Babette helped the women resettle. She minded the few little ones left while their mothers cleaned out the shacks and set up housekeeping in them. The children quickly grew fond of Babette. After all, she had saved Sari; there had to be something good about her.
Even Ryker grew fond of Babette in a grudging way. His wife, Iline, didn't look so harried after a day of shooing the kids out from underfoot while she and the other women tried to make the shacks inhabitable.
Winter came. The older children had to help the men shore up the shacks against the rain and the snow between working in the nearby towns when they could get work.
Serkin, who had worked with Mechas as a student, tried to scare up spare energy cells for Babette. He knew she couldn't go on forever. Her skin was starting to weather from working outside. Her white dress was already in dingy rags that she herself mended when she was not tending the little ones. She wouldn't last, not without maintenance, any more than a human could last without proper care. He scrounged around in scrap heaps, hunting up damaged Mechas, looking for the right parts for her.
He took Babette's care into his own hands. Ryker snorted at the younger man's meticulous attention to the Mecha, and at times he coarsely teased Serkin about it. "More trinkets for your silicon sweetie?" he'd ask when Serkin brought back some working parts, but he left Serkin to his own devices.
Winter's snows passed into spring's soft rains. Between tending Babette, Serkin taught the children the basics of reading and math, the least they needed to get by in the world. Babette told them her stories, which counted as literature after a fashion.
In the summer, they moved again, heading into West Pennsylvania. Babette traveled with them. Ryker tried to sell her in one of the towns more than once, but Iline wouldn't hear of it and the kids put up such a racket that he was obliged to let the Mecha stay.
Babette's dress had long since fallen to shreds and she was obliged to wear a gray sacking dress like the women of the clan. Serkin found out the cause of her pain receptors' constant firing in her scalp: one of the titanium plates in her scalp had cracked and it cut into her skin. He tried to stitch the rend closed, but it only made it worse.
Her scalp gradually tore loose and the cracked plate fell off. He tried to find another scalp for her, but they were almost in the heart of civilization and good parts were hard to find. The Mecha factories in the area were careful about recycling components.
Over the next few years, Babette's skin started to come off in flakes, revealing the pulleys and metal infrastructure underneath. Only her face and hands survived, possibly made of tougher stuff. But the children loved her just the same, like a battered doll they could not give up. In essence, that was what she was. But she had become more than that. To the women, she was the ideal helper, giving them the time to rest or to hunt for food when the menfolk were busy, or to find the occasional odd job in the villages.
Babette watched the older children grow up and start families of their own. She helped tend the old and the ailing. She saw members of the tribe "die", this strange cessation of function that struck the Orgas and left an unseen hurt on the survivors. She helped the women tend the expectant mothers and with the birthing of the new little ones.
The younger children never knew Babette as she had looked when she first came to the clan. As they grew, they thought nothing of her increasingly less human-like appearance. They learned, with time, that she was utterly different from them, that she was "Mecha", but it made little difference to them.
Ryker led the tribe further east, closer to where the pickings were better but cautiously avoiding the more populous centers. They moved across West Pennsylvania into East Pennsylvania and across a river into a place called New Jersey.
Then one day in winter, Serkin went into town to find work, but he never returned. Ryker told the clan Serkin had probably run off with some rich woman who had promised the young man an easier life, but he used this as a scrim for what probably had happened: the police had probably caught up with him.
Babette found this news puzzling. She knew he would not be with them any longer and that he was no longer there to help "fix" her, but no matter. She could manage somehow.
Spring returned. The days grew longer and warmer and the nights shorter. They could hear more activity in the town beyond the trees. The scavengers reported that something was going on, a carnival or something called a Flesh Fair.
This meant nothing to Babette. "Flesh" had to do with Orgas, and "Fair" could mean a carnival, but there was precious little room for "fun things" in the life of the shantytown dwellers. She did not question their "poverty" any more than she had questioned Madame's "wealth".
The daylight left the sky, and the dark took its place. Babette helped Iline cook supper for her grandchildren, no easy task for the Mecha-woman now since she had lost an arm recently.
Ryker came in, his face 'tired' after a long day trying to sell the junk he had collected in the woods. He eyed Babette a little oddly, but she knew better than to question the way he looked at her.
The night deepened. Babette put the little ones to bed. Saskia, the youngest, begged for "Cinderella", even though the older ones said it was "a baby story".
Once the little ones were asleep, Babette kept watch just outside the door to the nook the children shared.
Ryker sat outside the door to the shack, smoking his pipe and watching the sky above, the shadows below. He'd heard from the leader of another clan that the kid-catchers were around.
The sky grew lighter toward the east. Too fast. The moon never rose that fast. Ryker stood up.
It looked too big and it shone too bright. It wasn't the right shape, either: it looked too round, not like the slightly curved disk that it usually resembled. What the…?
Whatever it was, it was coming right for them. He'd heard other clan leaders tell of this thing, but he'd never believed them.
A round metal platform hung from the bottom of the glowing sphere of the false moon, bristling with spotlights and equipment manned by a cluster of men. Below that hung a metal basket like a large cage.
"Any old iron?" a voice with a thick brogue boomed through a tinny loudspeaker. "Any old iron? …Render your Mecha…Purge yourself of artificiality!"
That didn't sound like the Feds and the bounty hunters wouldn't use such wild equipment. It had to be the Flesh Fair. He'd heard tell of shantytowns that had been turned upside down and torn apart by the Hounds, the out-riders who rounded up any stray Mechas they found. And he'd heard talk of a man, a wanderer like himself, who fallen afoul of the hellhounds and been captured.
He looked at Babette. The thing didn't stand a chance here and he couldn't risk his family.
"John, what's that outside?" Iline asked, coming to his side.
"It's the Flesh Fair," he said. "They're looking for junk Mechas." He looked at Babette.
Iline set her mouth in a straight line. "You can't send her out there."
"She can't stay in here, they'll tear the place apart. Besides, she's falling to pieces."
At that point, Saskia came out of the sleeping nook at the rear of the shack. "Daddy, what's all the bright lights?" she asked.
What timing. "Sassi, go back to bed; it's just…just the moon."
"It's too bright; it's keeping me awake."
Babette got up and knelt down to Saskia. "May I take you back to bed?"
"No, Babette, you can't." He'd heard motors revving and roaring in the near distance outside. Dang, here come the hounds. "Iline, take Saskia to bed."
"No, I want Babette!" Saskia insisted.
Iline intervened. "Daddy has to take care of Babette for a minute."
"Okay." Saskia put her hand in her mother's.
Once they had gone, Ryker took Babette by her one arm and led her outside, away from the shacks and disused railroad cars, deep into the woods.
"What do you want of me, Monsieur?" Babette asked.
"Just go," he ordered, his voice shaking. "Go, Babette! They'll get us if you don't GO!"
"As you wish."
He pushed her toward the trees and ran back to the shacks.
She looked about her and started walking deeper into the shadows.
She heard footsteps around her, running. Shadowy figures hurried past her through the gloom. She wondered where they were going. Why were they running? She followed them, running as well, trying to catch up with them.
At length they came to another clearing near the remains of an old rail station. She stopped running, paused, looked about. She walked slowly, scanning about her.
Motors whirred and snarled; she saw strange forms rushing through the underbrush. She looked about for shelter and spied a tumbledown shed. She ran toward it.
She found that others had taken shelter there, other people, but she soon realized they were like her, metal people, some missing hands and arms and legs, one lacked part of the whole left side of his head.
Lights played over the building, shining through the cracks and gaps in the old walls. She stepped back among the others, out of the reach of the beams of light.
A little boy ran into the shelter, a Teddy Supertoy at his side. The boy seemed lost. She saw fear on his small face. He ran into the shadow and brushed against her. He started back, looking up at her.
"What's your name, little boy?" she asked.
"My name is David," he replied, some of the fear leaving his face.
"Hello, David," she said. "How old are you?"
"I don't know."
He was "shy" she guessed. Perhaps, like the children of the shanties, he had never had a "birthday".
She leaned down to his level. "Do you need someone to take care of you? Like a nanny? I have many good references."
He looked up at her, his eyes growing excited. "Do you know where the Blue Fairy lives?" he asked.
She knew a fairy tale about a little wooden boy and a blue fairy who made him into a real, live boy. She was ready to tell him the story, but the lights pierced the wall.
Something on wheels no taller than a man broke through the flimsy wall. A huge net fell over them. Other things on wheels with men riding on their backs poured into the shack. They bundled the ends of the net together and pulled.
The metal people fell against her. She held David with her one arm, covering him as the nasty men dragged the net from the shack.
The net suddenly rose, but not before the little bear lunged and clung to the mesh. David clutched at the bear's little paw. But she saw the little creature drop. She soothed David, singing to him the lullaby Maddy had loved to hear.
"Do, do, l'enfant, do," Sleep, sleep. Sleep, my child… He settled against her arm but she still felt fear stiffen his small spine.
At length, the net stopped moving; they hung over an open place surrounded by tiers of benches, like a 'circus' without the tent to cover it. The net lowered to the ground with a hard bump. David let out a small cry; Babette held him. Not to fear, little one.
The net fell away from them. Perhaps the bad men would let them go. Perhaps they had made a mistake.
Instead, tall men in black shirts and pants grabbed Babette and David from the cluster of metal people. They dragged them toward a large structure all of black metal bars like a cage. The men unlocked a door in it and led them inside, down a corridor of metal bars to a room made all of the same black metal bars. David clung to her hand even though the men tried to pull them apart.
"Let go of him!" one of the men ordered, hitting her arm. Her grip released, but David clung to her arm with both hands.
The bad men dragged the other metal people into the cage. They meant little to her, but she saw one figure she recognized.
He looked like the handsome stranger who had spoken to her gently the night Monsieur Emil had struck her over the head, but perhaps this stranger merely looked like the kind one. But no, his eyes were the same, just as bright, so bright that they almost lit the dark of the cage.
A tall, heavy-set man with a floppy-brimmed black hat on his head approached the cage, outside the bars. He looked in at them with small, cold eyes. One of the men in black accompanied him.
"We only got maybe a dozen, give or take a few. And that's including the lover model," the man in the black shirt said.
"Slim pickin's this toime, and we have a good crowd waitin' outsoide," the man in the black hat said. "But there's ways to make even a little go a lawng way."
The two men moved on. Other men in strange black and silver costumes had climbed onto the clear ceiling of the cage. They started playing strange noise instruments. Was that music?
Outside, people had started to gather on the tiers of seats. They shouted and threw things at the cage. What naughty people, she thought; they must never have been disciplined well.
At length the "music" stopped overhead. The man in the black hat walked to the center of the ring and spoke to the crowd in a loud voice that carried all throughout the space.
Then the men in black clothes came into the cage. They took one of the other metal people, one with a dark face.
"Hey, I didn't know it was my turn to go first," the metal man said as the men in black carried him out
The crowd of people got noisier, then suddenly there was an awful sound, like an explosion.
Something on fire hit the bars of the cage, stuck there for a moment, then slowly slid down the bars. It was the dark face of the metal man.
David let go of Babette's skirt. She couldn't reach for him since he was on the side where she lacked an arm. His hand reached out and grasped the hand of the bright-eyed stranger. The other looked down at David, his eyes puzzled, but she smiled at them both.
The noisy music started up again above them, then after too long a time, it stopped. She heard a woman shouting something to the crowd, something about "life" and a "human future". The crowd started shouting again.
Something small and furry crept up to the cage. David let go of the bright-eyed stranger's hand and reached out to the furry thing, his Teddy, Babette realized, but a little girl ran up and grabbed it. Perhaps it was hers and it had gotten away. David clung to Babette's one arm again.
The little girl looked up at David for a long moment, then she went away. Perhaps she would get help and get David out of this place.
The nasty men came back again and took away another of the metal people. One of them grabbed at David.
"Not that one!" someone yelled outside the cage. The man holding David let him go; David grabbed the hand of the bright-eyed one again. Babette did not mind. She knew this one.
Another man in a plaid-patterned shirt came to the cage, holding something in his hand. The little girl was with him. Good girl! Babette thought. She had got help.
The man turned the thing on and ran a light over David's face and body. Babette noticed a change: she could see his inside under his skin. She had seen pictures once of the inside of the arm of the child of a family she had worked for long ago, but David's inside looked nothing like this. He looked like the Teddy in the little girl's arms did.
He was like her…
The man with the scanning thing went away. Some time later, when the crowd was getting noisier again, he came back with the man in the black hat. She heard them talking, but there was too much noise for her to make out the words. Perhaps they were going to get David out of that awful place. As they came in, she stepped forward, trying to tell them to take David away and find his home.
But the men in the black clothes came into the cage behind them. They took her by the one arm and started to lead her away, Babette reached out to David, who smiled up at her.
"Let her go," the man in the plaid shirt told her.
"Goodbye, David," she said.
She smiled gently at David even as the men in black led her out of the cage. She looked back in reassurance as they dragged her to the sawdust ring. He stared after her, his little face a wide-eyed knot of fear and confusion and sadness as he clung to the bars, the two men still arguing over him. She smiled at him, still watching him. His hands went slack on the bars; one hand groped around and gripped the first larger hand it found, the hand of the bright-eyed stranger. Yes, David would be safe with him: the bright-eyed one knew "kindness".
He smile faded a little as the men in black chained her to a round metal disk with white lights around the edge. But she looked at David and smiled to him. Don't be afraid, these men will soon see their mistake, she wanted to say. They will let you go.
The crowd began to hurl little red things, like beanbags, at the lighted targets around her head. She glanced up trying to find what was the meaning of this. But she looked back to the little one.
And then something wet fell over her, something that ate into what remained of her silicon flesh and into the metal frame underneath. Most of her pain receptors had failed long ago, so she hardly felt it.
Even as her awareness snapped and shorted out, she still smiled to David, reassuring him. The last image on her visual matrix was of David, clinging to the arm of the bright-eyed one…
The End
Afterword:
I hope that wasn't too much of a downer ending. I'm inviting all the other Mecha-huggers out there to take part in an online anthology of fanfictions dealing with different supporting characters and aspects of the "A.I." universe; I may even create a web page classing all pre-existing fanfics according to characters/themes/etc (As soon as I figure out how to build web pages!). This is my offering thus far. I may do more, but please, folks, I'm only one person; I need you to help me out by posting 'em here on ff.n for now.
Literary Easter Eggs:
"moss and grass growing out of the cracks in the asphalt."—Swiped this detail from Walker Percy's excellent post-apocalyptic novel Love in the Ruins, in which much of America has given way to wasteland, and humanity lives teetering on the edge of moral bankruptcy, but not the kind of bankruptcy you may be thinking of...
The raid in the shantytown by the kid-catchers—I based this on the ghetto massacre in Schindler's List.