Parker stared and stared. His mouth hung open slightly. If cogs could drool, Parker would be doing it right now, which was completely disgusting.
Then Rowan’s door opened and my caretaker stepped out into the hall.
If Rowan had ever looked surprised and shocked in his life, he was both of those things in that instant when he stumbled into the moment I’d been sharing with a v.4 cog personal deck valet named Parker who wanted to put his hands on me and undress me. I can only assume that Rowan must have thought Lourdes and her polka-dotted “Thursday” panties had gotten me a little too excited over the course of our two-day flight to the Tennessee.
But Rowan would have been wrong about that.
Whatever.
Rowan raised one eyebrow and looked at me, then at Parker, then at me again without saying anything.
“I. Um,” I said.
“Good morning, Cager.” Rowan glanced at his wrist. “Well, nearly evening, to be precise. I’ll just get a dinner outfit ready for you.”
And Rowan, being the dutiful caretaker that he had always been throughout my life, went into my room and selected an entire outfit for me.
“No necktie,” I said, standing in the doorway, wrapped in my sheet. “I’ll put it on before we go to dinner.”
And Parker—if he could feel such things besides horniness—would have been so jealous that I had my own valet, who most likely was not a cog, to help me get dressed. But Rowan was so Rowan all the time.
“Does he help you get dressed?” Parker asked.
I looked down at my sheet, at my pale bare legs sticking out from the bottom. Then I shook my head and went inside, leaving my personal valet alone in the dark of the hallway.
And as I slipped on the clothes Rowan had picked out, I thought, I am a spoiled piece of shit rich brat who lets some other dude draw my bath and choose my outfits down to my socks and underwear, and whose best friend most likely thinks I hate him.
Once I’d gotten dressed, I went in the bathroom and puked until nothing would come out of me.
Then I left without telling Rowan where I was going.
That’s what addicts do, right?
Maybe the ship’s doctor could give me some Woz—just like he would any regular teenage kid, not that regular teenage kids would ever be allowed up here on the Tennessee.
The Longest Elevator Ride of My Life
No! Gah—what the holy fuck are you doing?”
My valet, Parker, stuck his finger in my mouth as soon as I asked him to take me to see the ship’s doctor.
“What the fuck, Parker?”
Disgusting. I spit on the floor. Everything suddenly smelled and tasted like cog fingers, which smell and taste like nothing, to tell the truth, but I was still completely repulsed by the insertion of Parker’s hand into my mouth.
“I can advise Dr. Geneva if you have a fever or not,” Parker explained, still trying to poke his index finger into me. “Hold still, Cager. I’m here to attend to you. Just open your mouth and relax.”
What an idiot.
I pushed him away from me. “Stop it, you fucking idiot. It’s not for me. My roommate—my friend—he just needs some Woz, is all.”
Parker wiped his wet finger on the leg of his valet trousers. “Oh. I see. I apologize. Your temperature is perfect, by the way. And I think your outfit is very handsome. Very handsome, and sexually alluring. I can’t imagine I could have dressed you more attractively than this.”
Parker was staring again. He placed his hand on my shoulder.
Well, at least I wasn’t feverish, and I did feel flattered by Parker’s attention, even if he was just a bunch of lines of code acting out some programmer’s obsession. And Rowan always did have great taste in clothes, besides.
“Whatever, Parker. I just need you to take me to see the doctor.”
“Perhaps I should check your friend’s temperature,” Parker offered.
“If you want him to bite your fucking finger off, go ahead. He is not friendly to strange cogs who put their fingers into his mouth.”
Parker thought about it, then shrugged. “Very well, then. Come with me. I’ll take you to Dr. Geneva. And along our way I will point out the vast number of features and attractions available here on the Tennessee.”
I walked with Parker down the hall toward the bay of elevators.
“May I hold your hand, Cager?”
“No, Parker. Stop it.”
The first time I’d been up on the Tennessee, which likely was before Parker had been pooped out of the assembly line in India, I was only allowed on two decks: the one where our stateroom was located, and the one with the ship’s main restaurant, which was called Le Lapin et l’Homme Mécanique. Everything else had been unstaffed or under construction.
Now that the ship was complete and ready to take on passengers, there was so much more for human beings to see and do. The Tennessee had recreation decks that were exactly like being out in the countryside—trees and paths through woods, with streams and lakes for swimming. One entire deck was an amusement park, naturally called Rabbit & Robot Land, which I didn’t really think I would want to visit. Other floors had tremendous swimming pools and exercise equipment, like simulated mountain-climbing walls. The Tennessee had every kind of spa imaginable, and dozens of dance clubs that never shut down. One deck was populated with friendly chimpanzees who never threw their feces at human beings or masturbated in public. It was called World of the Monkeys and was based on an episode of Rabbit & Robot where Rabbit went to war against an unethical and barbaric nation that used animals—as opposed to human beings—to fight wars. So, on the World of the Monkeys deck, visitors to the Tennessee could actually shoot chimps. But they were cogs, so that wasn’t deranged or anything. It was fun! There were zero-gravity playrooms, and even a zoo on one deck, which smelled suspiciously sterile to me. I found out that all the wild animals were actually Hinsoft International cogs, which made the whole feeding and pooping problem much more manageable. But still, I wondered, who would ever want to go to a zoo to see fake, nonliving wild animals?
The Tennessee also had tennis courts, skate parks, two golf courses, shopping malls nicer than anything in Los Angeles, and theaters, too. The ship had its own police department, and even a jail; and there were no fewer than five Grosvenor schools on the Tennessee, just in case rich people, politicians, and military leaders had decided to write off their kids’ futures and turn them into bonks or coders.
Cheepa Yeep!
Every deck had at least one restaurant on it, and there were also five adults-only decks that I was very curious about. Unfortunately for my curiosity, and despite my being a true-blooded Messer, the adult decks could only be accessed after identifying eye scans, which ruled out possible exploration by sixteen-year-olds like Billy Hinman and me.
The Tennessee was absolutely incredible.
For a fleeting moment I was almost proud to be my father’s son.
Parker and I rode an elevator together. Every time the car passed an adults-only area, the doors glowed a bright red.
“The red light means this deck is reserved for grown-ups,” Parker, my valet, pointed out.
“What kinds of things happen on those decks?”
Parker winked at me and licked his lips. “Things boys our age are not technically supposed to be interested in doing.”
“Um, how old are you, Parker?” I asked.
Parker was silent for a moment—stuck. Asking questions like How old are you? or What is your last name? confused cogs, who never aged and never had more than just a first name. They just got booted up, and when they were worn out they’d simply get tossed in the garbage.
So I said, “I mean when did you come online? This week? This morning? Have you ever even been to Earth?”
“What do you mean? Isn’t this Earth?”
“No, dude. It’s outer fucking space. Have you looked out a window?”
Silence as we sailed past five more decks.
Then Parker
said, matter-of-factly, “Cager, I have an erection.”
So there I was, alone in an elevator with a teenage-model male cog who just confessed to me that he had an erection. And I had been entirely used to not looking at Parker, to doing the universal elevator dance, where you stand perfectly still and just stare straight ahead at the crack in the door and wonder why time slows down so much when you’re inside elevators. But when one guy in an elevator admits to another guy in an elevator that he’s got an erection, Another Guy’s eyes are destined to involuntarily migrate away from the door crack and toward the affected area of One Guy’s anatomy.
I couldn’t stop myself.
Whatever.
Disgusting.
Parker, the cog, my personal valet, did clearly have an erection inside his creased gray bellhop trousers.
I was almost overcome by shame and regret for checking it out, but Parker just stood there like a statue, with his hips jutted forward to make his artificial penis even more obvious.
It was the longest, quietest few seconds in an elevator in my life.
Thankfully, the car stopped at that moment. We had arrived at the Tennessee’s sick bay.
“What’s the point in having an erection? Stop it. Make it go away. You’re a cog,” I said.
“The point is that I am sexually aroused, Cager.”
“But you’re a machine. How can a machine being sexually aroused or having an erection possibly be of any value to society?”
Parker shrugged. “It’s just how I am.”
“You need to wipe a few lines of code, dude. Maybe you should see the doctor too.”
“Would you like me to remove my pants so you can see my erection?” Parker asked.
“No.”
“Would you like to be sexually intimate with me?”
“That’s disgusting. No.”
“Can I hold your hand?”
“No. Take me to the doctor.”
“As you wish.”
And I followed the cog kid with the hard-on out of the elevator and into the sterile hallway of the white infirmary.
Dr. Geneva, and What Space Does to Teenage Boys
I was worried. Where have you been, Cager?”
I didn’t answer. I was too pissed off.
So Rowan added, “You’ve been gone for three hours.”
Rowan had been waiting in my room with Billy, who was asleep in his bed, dressed in slacks and a tie for dinner. Rowan was in his socks, his shirt was rumpled, and it looked like he’d been sleeping on my bed, which was kind of weird.
“That fucking Dr. Geneva never shuts up. The fucker wanted to give me a physical examination,” I said. “And our hall boy, Parker, is constantly trying to have sex with me.”
Rowan did the eyebrow-raise thing again.
Disgusting.
“No. Shut up. Don’t even wonder about it, Rowan,” I said. “That Parker kid is a cog. That’s totally ridiculous.”
I pulled a small bottle of pills from my pocket. “Dr. Geneva gave me these pills. They’re supposed to make me not get dehydrated and sick. They dissolve in your mouth.”
“It took three hours for just this?”
Apparently, Rowan must have thought I’d gone off to have all sorts of fun with my new servile, turned-on, nonhuman playmate.
“No. It took about ten seconds for those. The rest of the time was Dr. Geneva telling me about the entire history of the fucking Tennessee, Hinsoft International cogs, how to maintain a low lunar orbit, and the invention of Woz and treatment cycles for heavy addictions. And then, to top it all off, since I was the first human he’d ever had in the infirmary, he insisted on giving me a complete physical examination while the disgusting dude in the hallway watched. Then, after he gave me the pills, he asked if he could come visit you and Billy, and I had to say no and walk out on him—in my underwear—just to get away from the fucker. And he kept talking and talking, even after I opened the door and walked out into the hallway. I got dressed in the elevator. Parker, my personal valet, carried my clothes for me and helped me get dressed. He told me it gave him an erection.”
“I see,” Rowan said. “So. Are you enjoying the Tennessee?”
Sometimes Rowan could be a complete ass.
“It’s a floating insane asylum with carnival rides.” And I added, “And I’m pretty sure I smelled another person somewhere. I’m almost positive there’s a girl on board the Tennessee.”
Rowan uncapped the pill bottle, re-arched an eyebrow, and said, “Hmmm . . .”
Of Clocks, Cogs, and the Sense of Smell
There is no Woz in space.
There are no clocks in space.
Clocks are as pointless on the Tennessee as poets are on Earth.
In a world of rabbits and robots, human beings have become particularly dull. But human beings can starve to death if they don’t eat, and I hadn’t eaten in what felt like days. It probably was days. So Rowan, selfless and dutiful as always, offered to straighten up his outfit so he might accompany me to dinner.
When I tried to wake Billy Hinman, he moaned and rolled away from me.
He still had his shoes on too.
I said, “It’s okay. I’ll just run down and grab something to eat. I’m starving.”
As was customary on Mr. Messer’s Grosvenor Galactic cruise ships, and since it was in many ways my first night aboard, the captain of the Tennessee had been waiting to dine with me, which was stupid, because he was a cog, and cogs don’t need to eat. Still, I suppose, like good television, it was all in the presentation.
At least cogs don’t get bored, because Captain Myron had been sitting at his table in Le Lapin et l’Homme Mécanique for hours, waiting for the young Mr. Messer to arrive.
Although I’m not incompetent when it comes to knotting a necktie, something that was required when dining on the Tennessee, Rowan insisted on tying it for me, to make it perfect. Then he straightened my collars, combed my hair, brushed off my shoulders, and sent me on my way.
As I’d expected, Parker, the sleepless cog boy, was waiting for me, lurking in the hallway.
“Cager! You look absolutely stunning!”
I showed Parker the palm of my raised right hand, which I hoped he would understand as a gesture ordering him to maintain a dignified distance. But he either didn’t understand or was acting perpetually clueless, because he stood so close to me that the toes of our shoes touched.
There was no shaking the guy. Cog. Whatever.
He followed me into the elevator.
“Would you like to have sex now?” Parker said.
“No. I’m hungry. I’m going to dinner.”
“Yes. At Le Lapin et l’Homme Mécanique.” Parker’s French accent was impeccable, naturally. Or unnaturally. “The captain has been waiting for you. I’ve alerted the staff that you’re on your way.”
“Thank you.”
Not that the “staff” would have any difficulty dealing with a solitary human being on a cruise ship the size of the Tennessee.
“Parker, I have something to ask you, and it’s not about sex, so get that out of your cog mind, if it’s at all possible.”
“I’m here to attend to anything you could possibly want or need, Cager,” Parker said, which still sounded more perverted than compliant.
“I’m wondering—earlier, I thought I could smell another human being on the ship. Do you know if there are any other humans on board—aside from me, Billy Hinman, and my caretaker?”
“You have a caretaker?” Parker asked.
Surely he had to have understood what Rowan was here for. He was just being an idiot. If he could have felt any other emotion besides horniness, Parker, the cog, my personal valet, may have been jealous at that moment.
“Yes. The man you saw with me in the hallway earlier. His name is Rowan. You must have been aware of that. You saw him,” I said.
“Oh.”
Then there was a long period of awkward elevator silence while Parker’s brain tried to figure
things out.
“I know a place on board where you and I could watch pornography alone together,” Parker offered.
“No.”
And besides, alone? Everything I could possibly do at this point on the Tennessee would be done alone.
Silence.
Silence.
In space, elevators don’t make the slightest hum, and Parker wasn’t even pretending to breathe.
“Does your caretaker dress you?”
“Yes. Of course he dresses me.” Then I added a dishonest dig. “And he bathes me too.”
More silence. Parker’s brain must have been spinning at the speed of sound.
So I said, “Well? Tell me. Are there other humans on board? In particular, a female. I could swear I smelled a girl.”
“Smell?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with you? Are you stupid? Smell.”
Asking cogs rhetorical questions like What’s wrong with you? and Are you stupid? confuses them too, since they have no capacity for recognizing a distinction between what is and what might be, or between stupidity and intelligence. So I waited for Parker to say something.
In fact, I waited until the elevator stopped and the door whisked open to the grand foyer of Le Lapin et l’Homme Mécanique.
We stood there, saying nothing in the parked elevator.
Finally, Parker asked, “Cager, have you been modified?”
“No. Don’t be stupid. I am not a jeemo. I was born this way. I just can smell things that nobody else can,” I said.
“Well, I am certain there are no other humans on the Tennessee,” Parker affirmed.
“It’s weird. I’ve never been wrong before. Being in space is kind of making me crazy, I think.”
“Were you hoping to locate this human female to serve as a potential sexual partner? You know—to have sex with?” Parker asked.
“No. Don’t be an idiot,” I said.
“Can I confess something to you?”
I almost choked. “You’ve never held back in the past. What do you want to tell me now?”
“I can’t actually tell your temperature by sticking my finger in your mouth. I just enjoyed sticking my finger in your mouth,” Parker said.