Chapter Three
Just before daybreak, Joe left Hadassah asleep, and went out to the street. Early morning, the slowest time of the day had come. The streets lay largely silent now, except for a few revelers reeling the way back to their hotels, a few lover-Mechas like himself heading back to their keepers for inspection or looking for a corner in which to tend to self-maintenance, and the clean-up crews sweeping up the night's debris.
He found himself a nook in an alley behind a cabaret. He slipped off his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeve and unsealed his elbow to check the components there.
Galatea almost missed the cute guy as the darkness gave way to light. But she saw something tall and dark pass by her. She aroused her sleeping functions and got up. She saw HIM disappear down a side street. She followed him at a distance, walking faster to keep up with him.
He turned a corner down an alleyway. She followed him.
She found him leaning one shoulder gracefully against the wall of a building, head bent, eyes intent on something at his arm.
Then something happened to his skin.
It moved; his skin moved. It opened at his elbow and uncovered what was beneath: fibers and servos and tiny pulleys and other metal components. From a compartment in his wrist, he selected a tool and adjusted something in his joint.
He was like her: he was a droid.
"Excuse me," she said, finding her voice.
The cute droid-guy looked up at her, right at her. His jade-colored eyes looked even nicer up close than from a distance.
"You were saying?" he said with a slight smile that made her feel so warm, she expected she'd melt into a puddle of aluminum.
"You're like me! You're a droid, too!"
He looked up and down; an ironic smile curled the corners of his sensuous mouth.
"No, you speak wrongly: You are a droid, I am Mecha."
"What's the difference? We're both made of metal, right?"
"That has its truth, but only to a point of departure: you are encased in sheet metal; I am encased in simulated flesh to resemble a human. You would barely pass a visual Turing test."
She was about to reach out and touch him when someone came up behind her and took her shoulder.
"Hey, get back to work," a gruff human voice said, not unkindly but inexorably. A clean up crew consisting mostly of droids had come down the side street. The human overseer took her by the arm and led her into the thick of the crew. He handed her a dustpan on a long handle and a broom and set her to work sweeping the little out of the gutter. She obeyed only because the inexorable voice of a human had commanded her.
Rupert couldn't get to sleep, thinking about Galatea. The security officials—Rouge City lacked a genuine police force, since the police union was too embarrassed to establish one, just as neither East Pennsylvania nor New Jersey wanted the town within its borders—had told him quite frankly, "This is one of the worst towns you could loose a droid in. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack."
But he finally dozed off and woke around noon. The phone hadn't rung so she hadn't been found. Dyckman wanted to go out that afternoon, but Rupert decided to stay in the hotel room.
"Babysitting the phone, eh?" Dyckman twitted. "Your decision."
About an hour after Rupert started babysitting the phone, the crew boss had his back turned to Galatea. She snuck behind a tourist information kiosk and set down her broom and dustpan. She snuck away undetected.
At that moment, two security guards approached the clean up crew, looking to see if Galatea was among them.
Neve set up shop over on Concubine Street that day. She started her set with some headlines from yesterday's newspaper, (which she'd slept under the night before) set to the tune of an old hobo song from the distant 1960s.
A few people came by and dropped money into her guitar case. One guy, a short, dark, anything but handsome runt in an ill-fitting gray suit—jacket too small, pants too big—dropped a wad of Newbucks in with a teasing "you didn't see me do that" grin.
Joe usually cam by about this time, but she didn't see him. Instead, a metal-skinned robot shaped weirdly like a girl came by. She stopped in front of Neve as if she listened. What was she—it, whatever? Had she escaped from a clean-up crew?
"Hey, you know a tall, dark, handsome robot with green eyes and an English accent?" the girl 'bot asked in a high-pitched, chirpy voice.
"No, but I know a tall, dark, handsome Mecha who fits the description," Neve replied.
"Have you seen him come this way?"
"No."
"Thanks." The girl 'bot went away.
A moment later, Joe came swinging by, pretending not to notice Neve.
"Hey, Joe, whaddya know?" she called after him.
He pivoted on one heel and swaggered back to her. "You called for me by name?"
"Yeah, you know anything about a girl droid who's looking for you?"
He cocked his head, processing. "A metal housed droid roughly shaped like a woman tried to engage me in conversation early this morning."
"Well, keep an eye out for her; she just passed by, asking me if you'd been around."
"In which case, I shall maintain a vigilant watch for her."
"Aaaawww, you falling for one of your own kind, Joey?"
"No, I am not. I wish merely to avoid encountering her. We are of no use to each other."
"Hey, it might be different. Why not give it a try?"
"Even if she could receive my attentions, I do not give them gratis."
"Do it for yourself, Joe. She'll thank you for it."
At that point, a tiny woman in a tweed suit approached Joe, hesitated, then came right up to him.
"Is your name Joe?" she asked in a thin voice.
He turned to her graciously. In a gentler voice even than his normal tome, he said, "They call me that for short: Gigolo Joe, at your service."
More to your liking, fiberhead! she thought as they went off together. But it probably wouldn't kill you to bring some fun into that metal-girl's dreary little existence. Make her feel real!
And it would keep that Martin girl away from Joe.
Rupert brought a picture of Galatea to the street, asking people if they'd seen her. He kept running into Mechas, not much point in asking them. Besides, half of them were female Mechas who kept trying their charms on him.
Most people he approached shook their heads to his question. He walked along the boulevards, asking passersby of they'd seen this droid? Her name's Galatea; I need her back…
He came upon a folk singer on a street corner, playing a guitar and singing "American Pie" in a low, raw, but clear voice.
"Excuse me, have you seen this droid?" he asked her. Her name's Galatea; she's been missing here since last night."
The girl kept playing the accompaniment as she studied the picture. "Yeah, I saw her go by not to long ago."
"Which way?"
The girl pointed up one of the cross streets. "That way."
"Thanks." He took a few Newbucks out of his pocket and put them in her guitar case.
"Thanks."
Neve watched the thickset fellow with the big head and the short bristly black beard go on his way. In the wrong direction. Go on, Galatea; go find Joe.
Galatea turned down a side street. She had to find that green-eyed robot hottie if she had to search every side street and alleyway in the city.
She passed by an alleyway; she turned around and went down it.
She heard sounds like smooching. In a doorway, she found two people sitting very close, pressed against each other, a small woman in fuzzy gray clothes…
And her green-eyed metal boy!
The small woman clung to him, her arms about his waist, drawing herself closer to him, their faces pressed together, smooching him.
Galatea went up to them. "Hey, Mr. Cute-Guy Droid, wouldn't you rather smooch someone like yourself?"
The small woman jumped up. She stared at Galatea, then looked at the cute-guy droid. "Oh my," she gasped. She ran from the alleyway.
The hottie stood up, looking down at Galatea with something like annoyance. Without a word, he strode away.
"Hey, come back here? Can't I have a smooch?" she called after him.
Rupert went back to the hotel in the late afternoon to see if anyone had called about Galatea. Dyckman had come back to change for the evening.
"Still after the chirping tin can?"
"That chirping tin can was one of my first rebuilds. She's useful, and she's got a lot of sentimental value."
"No offense, Rupe, but sentimentality in a roboticist is a sign of weakness. Think of Allen Hobby, for instance."
"Hey, I haven't got that worked up, I just like to keep the things that matter. If she doesn't turn up, yeah, I'm gonna be wicked p----d, but it's not like I had my arm cut off."
"Of course: you can just build another one like her."
"Sort of."
Once Dyckman had gone out, Rupert decided to try again.
He met a tall girl in a long black coat coming out of another room down the hallway. He went up to her with the picture and asked her if she'd seen this droid…?
She studied the picture, then looked up. "You know, I think I have. I was talking to a friend of mine when we both heard this loud clank nearby. It looked like she'd tripped on something, but she got up again."
"When was this?"
"Last night, I'm afraid."
"Okay, thanks just the same. Uh, my name's Rupert Burns."
"I'm Cecie Martin: I see we're neighbors, sort of."
"Well, maybe not much longer; I'm clearing out of here as soon as I find Galatea."
"If I spot her, I'll leave a message for you at the desk. Did you build her yourself? I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like her."
"She's actually just a plain old NDR 114, I just rebuilt her to make her look female and gave her a personality chip of my own design and programming."
They went their separate ways, she going out, he to check the desk for messages, again.
To be continued…