+J.M.J.+

Conversations with a Mecha Named Joe

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

This one's back (Thanks to some egg nog and a fresh coat of snow on my lawn)! There aren't many specifically themed Christmas/December holiday "A.I." fics out there. To my knowledge, the only one that sort of qualifies is Bryan Harrison/pazu7's "Here Comes Another One", a dark little tale involving one of David's siblings, available through Laurie E. Smith's "Clear and Haunting Visions". For those who'd like a lighter story (especially for those who, like Yours Truly, would looovvve to find Joe under their tree…), here's my little offering.

Disclaimer:

See chapter I

Chapter V: White, Gold, Green…and Rouge

Right when I thought there couldn't be any more loud lighting in this town, the day after Thanksgiving, the service droids are at work putting up strings of Christmas lights in the trees, and the Christmas displays go up in the windows of the shops downstairs. The female lover-Mechas start wearing red and green get-ups, ranging from red babydolls trimmed with white marabou to red and green bikinis with little flashing red and green lights on 'em. Others are dressed like Santa's elves; still others are clad in thin white chemises spangled with silver and gold stars, which make them look as if they were wrapped in tissue paper. Yikes.

Vautrin told me one snowy morning that things tend to die down in the City from Thanksgiving to perhaps the second week of December, then it picks up again.

"Christmas shopping," he explained, as we stood near the coffee kiosk where we often meet. "Nobody got time to buy the commodity we specialize in. Oh, that and people tryin' to be good for Santy Claus. But about the fifteenth, it picks up again."

"Why then?" I asked, leaning the brim of my hat over my cup of green tea, trying to keep the falling snowflakes out.

"Stress. Drives 'em here like mad. Oh, that and people getting vouchers at office parties, or the college kids going north or east sneaking in here before they go home for the holidays."

I love Christmas, even the crazy things that seem to get in the way of the real Reason for the Season. I think the All Mighty allows this kind of stuff so we'll be even more drawn toward seeking Him out, just to get away from it all; granted, some people use the stress for an excuse to go the other way, but I know I do the same things myself in different ways. I love waiting in line at the checkout when I'm doing my shopping. Eavesdropping is a major part of gathering ideas for my fiction, so I tend to peer surreptitiously into the shopping carts of the people ahead of me. This way, you get to find out what everybody else is getting for Christmas. But you have to be careful in this town: some of the stuff I've spotted I wish I hadn't seen. Don't expect many Teddy Supertoys here.

I wasn't sure if it would snow much this far south, and coming from western Massachusetts, I'm used to piles of snow on the ground. But one morning, I got up to find the city white with snow, the rooftops of the buildings fringed in white, the black polymer pavement blanketed in white. And it kept snowing all day.

I went out for a walk that evening in the Ridge Garden which surrounds the city. The sky overhead had turned the color of a light café au lait except where the neon lighting and the rainbow-hued holographic advertisements gleamed off the clouds.

I found I wasn't the only one who'd gone for a walk in the Ridge: I followed two sets of footprints, possible a man's (The strides were longer) and a woman's, walking closely side by side. They strayed off the path, although it was a little hard to tell the edges of the path from the edges of the lawns since the snow had buried everything. The woman's tracks—the smaller pair—separated from the man's and ran ahead (the tracks got wider apart). The man gave chase, his tracks consistently parallel with hers—who runs that straight except a Mecha? I followed them carefully for some distance. The man caught up with the woman. They both fell to the snowy ground in each other's arms: the prints of their bodies showed on the surface, growing confused, melded together. One of them wore a wide-skirted coat which, when opened, had swept wide over the surface of the virgin snow.

They got up and took their leave; they may have kissed for a few moments: deep prints faced each other toe to toe. Then they parted, going their separate ways. A romantic interlude written in the snow…

I followed the man's tracks almost to the foot of a tree with spreading limbs, now bare except for a few snow blossoms. He must have vaulted up into the branches. In fact he was still sitting there…

"You found me," said a suave voice.

I looked up and spotted Joe sitting in the crotch of the tree, smiling down on me.

I glanced at the tracks on the ground. "You're keeping busy: I'd think the cold would be bad for your business."

"Quite to the contrary: on these cold nights, many lonely women seek out the warmth of my company…and of my arms," he replied. He swung down from his perch, his coattails swirling. I noticed he wore a different coat than usual, the same gleaming black techno-Victorian frock coat only slightly heavier, with a velvet collar.

I reached out and took his hand in mine for a comparison. Even through the heavy knit of my gloves, I could feel his warmth.

"My, you're toasty," I said.

"If you so desire, you could discover how warm I could make this arctic night for you," he said, with a hint of suggestion.

"Just as far as the door of the Graceley," I said, letting him take my arm.

I made up my Christmas shopping list that night, and of course I added Joe's name to it. But the very next day, I realized something: I had no idea what to get him. And what do you get for someone who's technically a something? That's one thing that makes him no different from an Orga male.

In one store, I found a black cashmere dress scarf shot with silver and gold threads, ideal for him: flashy but genteel.

The cold continued through the next week and a half, right up to Christmas Eve. I kept Joe's package in my satchel, in case I should spot him on his own—and of course that didn't happen until I went out for midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

The streets were strangely quiet; the usual crowds had dispersed and gone home to their families, or the lonely folk who'd come here to escape their solitude during this season had found their night's company. The usual raucous jazz blaring from the clubs had died away, and from the near distance I could hear holiday music playing from a blues club. A light snow had started to fall, the tiny flakes glinting rainbow hues in the neon.

As I came out of Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart chapel, a shadow stepped out of the glowing darkness, his steps squeaking on the snow. Joe stepped into the light, a high black silk hat with a red band tilted back on his head. Except for the over-glossiness of his face and garments and the brilliance of his unblinking eyes, he looked like something out of a Dickens Christmas story.

"Hey, Joe, whaddya know?" I said. "Merry Christmas."

"And a Merry Christmas to you in kind," he said, tipping his hat and bowing low to me.

"How many Christmases have you seen?" I asked.

"This is but the second Christmas I have seen," he replied, setting his hat back on his head.

I reached into my satchel. "So you probably know about the Orga custom of exchanging presents at this time of year."

"Indeed I know of it: at times I have had a part in that," his eyes gleamed with mischief and barely veiled delight.

I imagined that he had, but I didn't want to think about it

"Well, here's something just for you," I said, pulling the package out of my satchel and handing it to him.

He cocked his head looking down at it, then looked up at me before he took it.

"This is for me?" he asked.

"Yes."

He carefully inserted the tip of one finger under the flap at one end and deftly pulled back the tape without even scratching the paper. He drew out the scarf, handing the paper back to me, and unfolded it.

"You gave this to me?" he asked, with awe in his voice.

"I did."

"No one has ever given me a gift at Christmas."

"Not your owner."

"He has not."

I felt a little pang at this. I could tell that whoever owned Joe took good care of him, but I couldn't help the little ache of sorrow in the depths of my chest.

"All the more reason for me to give you this," I said.

He took my hand in his and kissed it. "Thank you, Cecie," he said.

"You're welcome."

He slung the scarf around his shoulders. I helped him straighten it and loop it back so the ends hung behind him.

"And why did you choose to go to all this trouble?"

"I just wanted to," I said. "That's one of the things Christmas is all about: giving to others not just because you have to, but because you want to."

His eyes grew slightly troubled. "But I have little I can give to you." The gleam returned and he edged a little closer. "Unless of course…"

I put my hand out and kept him at bay. "Thanks, Joe, but just be my friend."

More yet…

Afterword:

If you'd like more sci-fi with a Christmas theme, check out Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis. It's "mad cool" in the words of my friend "fom4life"; the stories tend to be gleefully dark, humorous with a touch of menace, the kind of stuff I drool over. For "normal" holiday fiction, I also recommend John Grisham's Skipping Christmas, which actually cured me of not wanting to bother much with Christmas last year; it which makes a case for the importance of all the crazy stuff that's gotten tacked onto celebrating the birthday of the King (It would also make a hilarious movie: I hear the film version is in the works, and I'm hoping the producers have the foresight to cast William Hurt [Dr. Hobby to us Mecha-huggers] as Luther Krank, the put-upon protagonist who doesn't know what he's getting into when he and his wife try to side-step the holiday hoopla.).