Chapter 6:
Stargazing
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Even now, I'm still amazed at how completely my relationship with my parents changed after that night - and, more importantly, how much their relationship with Chi improved.
Not that all our problems were solved overnight. The next morning, even though everybody had come to accept the idea that Chi was a real girl, Dad still pointed out that, being a persocom, she would never be able to have children; we'd never be able to raise a family of our own.
Then Mom said three words that knocked everyone else flat:
"What about adoption?"
Looking back, I should have thought of it a lot sooner. I mean, it's not as though Chi and I are the only infertile couple on the planet. Even if most adoption agencies wouldn't recognize Chi as a potential parent, we could always perform the adoption under my name, then raise our child together.
And, besides, there's always one other option ...
All it took was a look into my fiancee's eyes, and it was decided.
Someday - probably soon - we will have a child of our own.
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The rest of the week went by much too quickly. If I hadn't promised my boss that I'd be back at work on Monday, Chi and I would have probably spent the rest of the month at my parents' farm.
Aki, of course, was overjoyed that things had worked out so well with Chi and our parents. When we weren't helping Dad with the cows or doing other chores, I spent as much time with my little brother as I could. He even challenged us to a "championship" match on his new XBox. Though he only had two controllers, we discovered that Chi could plug herself right into the console - and that she's a lot better than me at videogames.
Meanwhile, Chi and I were having the time of our lives. I gave Chi her first driving lesson on Dad's old farm tractor, and we just rode around the barnyard, bumping over rocks and ruts and laughing like crazy.
Chi especially loved learning about all the different kinds of plants and animals; we don't have nearly as much wildlife back home in Tokyo. As Chi and I spent hours crouching down and talking about how people grow corn and wheat, I remembered our first trip to the beach when I was in prep school, when we would walk along the sands and Ms. Shimizu would tell Chi all about the different types of shells we found. Now, though, I was the one teaching Chi, and as always, she listened with eager eyes and a warm smile.
I think Mom had liked Chi from the beginning, but now that she knew that Chi was also her future daughter-in-law, it was as though she was finally able to drop some kind of barrier that had been between them, and for the rest of the week, when she wasn't busy hanging out with Aki or me, I sometimes caught sight of Chi and my mother sitting out on the porch swing, just sitting and talking. Sometimes, their conversations led to Mom asking some awkward questions at the dinner table, but I didn't mind. As long as Chi and Mom were enjoying themselves, I could weather a little parental prying.
Perhaps the most amazing thing, though, was just how completely my dad's opinion of Chi shifted after that one night. I could tell that he was still a little uncomfortable with the idea of his eldest son marrying a persocom, but he did his best to treat Chi as a person, and I could tell that he was working hard to make up for how he'd yelled at her on Wednesday. Not that Chi seemed to mind it much; as far as she was concerned, the fact that he'd finally acknowledged that she was real meant more to Chi than his initial dislike for her.
The night before Chi and I left for home, Dad asked me to come out on the porch with him. I kissed Chi and let her know that I'd be up to bed later, then followed my father out to the main house. We just stood there in a kind of awkward silence, with Dad looking up at the night sky.
Finally, he spoke. "You know," he said, "when I was your age, your grandpa and I would spend whole nights like this - just watching the stars and the moon moving across the sky. There used to be a lot more of them, you know. Back before they started building up all these big cities, you could see half the stars in the Milky Way, and your grandfather knew a lot of 'em like they were on a first-name basis. Nowadays, though, there's so much damn light pollution that you can barely even make out some of the constellations, let alone the softer, dimmer stuff."
We stood there for a while longer as he tried to get out what he wanted to tell me.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is, doesn't it worry you? Don't get me wrong, now; it's good that you and Chi love each other. But what does that mean for the rest of us? It's just like the stars: yes, it's nice that we've got big cities where people can drive fast cars and buy whatever they need from some guy down the block, but we're losing the stars. There's trade-offs for everything.
"I mean, if persocoms can feel things like love and curiosity, what the hell won't they be able to do? Sooner or later, there'll be persocoms that can do everything humans can. Hell, some of 'em are already stronger or smarter than we are. What if, some time down the line, they're not just doing the work of farmhands? What if, someday, they'll be the ones running the grocery stores? Writing new stories? What if they're so perfect that humans would rather be with then than with each other?"
I shrugged. "You know, Dad, I've never been able to figure out an answer to that. Persocoms are designed to do a lot of things that humans can't; I'll never really understand what it feels like for Chi when she connects to other persocoms, or what it's like to be able to download information straight from the internet into your own head. She'll never get sick or grow old. And, now that they can think and feel the way we can, persocoms will be able to be just as creative as we are."
"But, like you said, there are trade-offs, even for persocoms. I'm not sure if Chi will ever know what it's like to taste one of the cookies she bakes. There are some things they can't do, and there are some thing we can't; it's just like how you're a lot stronger than I am, or how Mom can cook better than anyone else on the planet.
"Actually, I have a friend who's been married twice. His first wife was a persocom, but she was killed in a traffic accident."
"And, let me guess," Dad said, "the next day he went to the shop and bought another persocom?"
"Actually, no. He stayed single for a while after that, but eventually he married one of my co-workers. She's not a persocom; she can't read him his e-mail, and she's got just as many flaws as the next girl. But she's unique, and in the end, I think that's why they fell in love - because they each loved who the other was inside, not just what kind of capabilities the other person had."
Dad chuckled. "So, you're saying there's hope for us poor, human saps yet?"
I gave a shrug. "I guess so, yeah. It's not like persocoms are better than humans, or the other way around. We're just ... different. I didn't fall in love with Chi just because she's a persocom; I fell in love with her as a person. Even if she'd been born in a human body, I don't think I'd have been any less crazy about her than I am now."
"So, you aren't marrying her for her body?" said Dad teasingly.
"Of course not!" I exclaimed. "Although ... well, it doesn't hurt that she's good-looking, you know?"
"Of course not," Dad replied, giving me a hearty thump on the back. "My son, city-slicker or not, you're still a Motosuwa at heart."
"I ... thanks, Dad."
"Any time," he said, then walked back inside, leaving me to walk over to the guest house.
As I crossed the yard, I stopped to look at the stars one more time. It was hard to imagine that any more would have fit up there; compared to the sky over Tokyo, the one over my family's farm was chock-full of twinkling white lights. As I watched, a couple of them moved faster than the others; probably jets, or maybe even a few of the new space shuttles.
I smiled, then headed back to the guest house, where I knew Chi was probably waiting for me. It really is too bad that you can't see quite as many as grandpa did, I thought, but maybe the trade-off is worth it, if we can make new, brighter ones for ourselves.
And maybe, someday, we'll go out and visit all those old ones, too.
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