Well, that explained some things. Javier pushed aside the milk and orange juice cartons and found the remainder of the vN food. Best to be as nonchalant with the girl as she’d been with him. “What kind of model? This other vN, I mean.”
“I don’t know about the clade, but the model was used for nursing in Japan.”
He nodded. “They had a problem with old people, there.”
“Did you know that Japan has a whole city just for robots? It’s called Mecha. Like that place that Muslim people go to sometimes, but with an H instead of a C.”
Javier set about preparing a plate for Junior. He made sure the kid got the biggest chunks of rofu. “I know about Mecha,” he said. “It’s in Nagasaki Harbour. It’s the same spot they put the white folks a long time ago. Bigger now, though.”
Abigail nodded. “My daddy sent me pictures. He’s on a trip there right now. That’s why I’m here all week.” She quickly sketched a command into her reader with her finger, then shoved the scroll his way. Floating on its soft surface, Javier saw a Japanese-style vN standing beside a curvy white reception-bot with a happy LCD smile and braids sculpted from plastic and enamel. They were both in old-fashioned clothes, the smart robot and the stupid one: the vN wore a lavender kimono with a pink sash, and the receptionist wore “wooden” clogs.
“Don’t you think she’s pretty?” Abigail asked. “Everybody always says how pretty she is, when I show them the pictures.”
“She’s all right. She’s a vN.”
Abigail smiled. “You think my mom is prettier?”
“Your mom is human. Of course I do.”
“So you like humans the best?”
She said it like he had a choice. Like he could just shut it off, if he wanted. Which he couldn’t. Ever.
“Yeah, I like humans the best.”
Abigail’s feet stopped swinging. She sipped her orange juice delicately through a curlicued kiddie straw until only bubbles came. “Maybe my daddy should try being a robot.”
It wasn’t until Brigid and Abigail were gone that Javier decided to debrief his son on what had happened in the park. He had felt sick, he explained, because they were designed to respond quickly to violence against humans. The longer they avoided responding, the worse they felt. It was like an allergy, he said, to human suffering.
Javier made sure to explain this while they watched a channel meant for adult humans. A little clockwork eye kept popping up in the top right corner of the screen just before the violent parts, warning them not to look. “But it’s not real,” Junior said, in English. “Can’t our brains tell the difference?”
“Most of the time. But better safe than sorry.”
“So I can’t watch TV for grown-ups?”
“Sometimes. You can watch all the cartoon violence you want. It doesn’t fall in the Valley at all; there was no human response to simulate when they coded our stems.” He slugged electrolytes. While on her lunch break, Brigid had ordered a special delivery of vN groceries. She clearly intended him to stay awhile. “You can still watch porn, though. I mean, they’d never have built us in the first if we couldn’t pass
“Porn?”
“Well. Vanilla porn. Not the rough stuff. No blood. Not unless it’s a vN getting roughed up. Then you can go to town.”
“How will I know the difference?”
“You’ll know.”
“
“If it’s a human getting hurt, your cognition will start to jag. You’ll stutter.”
“Like when somebody tried to hurt Abigail?”
“Like that, yeah.”
Junior blinked. “I need to see an example.”
Javier nodded. “Sure thing. Hand me that remote.”
They found some content. A nice sampler, Javier thought. Javier paused the feed frequently. There was some slang to learn and explain, and some anatomy. He was always careful to give his boys a little lesson on how to find the clitoris. The mega-church whose members had tithed to fund the development of their OS didn’t want them hurting any of the sinners left behind to endure God’s wrath after the Rapture. Fucking them was still okay.
He had just finished explaining this little feat of theology when Brigid came home early. She shrieked and covered her daughter’s eyes. Then she hit Javier. He lay on the couch, unfazed, as she slapped him and called him names. He wondered, briefly, what it would be like to be able to defend himself.
“He’s a child!”
“Yeah, he’s
Brigid folded her arms and paced across the bedroom to retrieve her drink. She’d had the scotch locked up way high in the kitchen and he’d watched her stand on tiptoes on a slender little dining room chair just to get it, her calves doing all sorts of interesting things as she stretched.
“I suppose you show all your children pornography?” She tipped back more of her drink.
“Every last one.”
“How many is that?”
“This Junior is the twelfth.”
“
