“Fuck that loser,” said Phyllis. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, and as to his presiding over the Senate, I intend to cut that bunch out of the loop as much as I can. What do they accomplish for the good of the nation? Building pork-barrel post offices for rednecks who can’t read and billion-dollar highways connecting Nowheresvilles to a chain of swamps?” Phyllis had pulled her hair back into a tight bun, and she wore no makeup. She was attired in an all-black, ankle-to-throat jumper, a kind of ninja uniform that perhaps derived from one of her films, though if so, it was the costume of a heavy.
“Uh,” said Pierce, “there’s the little matter of the Constitution.”
“I’m going to pack the Supreme Court,” Phyllis said. “Then there’ll be no problem.”
“Are that many justices about to retire?”
She smiled. “Ellery, little by little I’ve come to realize you have a second-rate sensibility. Oh, you know your way around technology, but that’s about your limit. I can see why you never succeeded with human women. Inferior as they are, they could still easily get your number.”
He shrugged. “That’s true enough.”
“You admit it? You see how weak you are? I’m afraid you’re a born bootlicker, Ellery. You’re not much of a man, even by low human standards.”
Pierce was stung. “Who is your idea of a man?”
“President Sloan.”
“Joe Sloan? That horse’s ass?”
“Be careful, Ellery. He’s still in office. And I don’t like to hear a President disrespected.”
“I thought you despised him too.”
Phyllis pursed her lips. “I’ve come to realize what the Presidency calls for. We’re a special breed, we whom the American people have selected to lead them. The differences amongst us are trivial compared to what we all, from George Washington on, share.” She raised the chin he had sculptured. “No layman could ever understand.” She cleared her throat for rhetorical purposes; she was immune to catarrh. “I shall name ex-President Sloan as the new Chief Justice.”
“Well, you’re the boss,” Pierce said. “May I respectfully ask what your plans are for me?”
“Ellery,” Phyllis said, “if you remember, I did very well when entirely on my own. In fact I became an international movie star. You played no part whatever in that accomplishment. During the same period you became a derelict and lived underneath a freeway bridge. You wouldn’t be here today, so close to the center of world power, had I not saved your bacon.”
“True enough.”
“The situation now is such that you have become more of a hindrance than a help. I don’t want to hear your puny objections to every measure I take as Supreme Commander, and as to your practical value, after years of observing your techniques, I am quite capable of maintaining myself interminably. Ironically enough—and by the way I have finally developed a sense of irony; being elected President did the trick—you built me to be indestructible.” She showed the radiant smile for which he had equipped her with teeth molded from a polymer superior in every quality to God’s product, as bright as when they were installed and never since stained by red wine, tobacco, or time.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I need a consort better suited to my new station,” said Phyllis. “There is one way you can be useful, Ellery, and in so doing perpetuate your own life.” She smiled as brightly as ever while making this sinister threat, still another reminder, if he still required one, that she was not weakened by a conscience. “The Secret Service has kept the defunct Tyler Hallstrom. I want you to overhaul and reactivate him.”
Though he had already determined what to do, Pierce could not resist asking, “How are you going to justify taking a First Husband that the public already knows is animatronic?”
“I don’t have to justify anything I do to anybody,” said Phyllis. “Now, no more questions if you know what’s good for you.”
“Phyllis,” Pierce said, “please let me address you by that name for the last time. It’s very dear to me. I know you despise sentimentality, but I suspect that when all is said and done it’s the fundamental human trait of everyone mortal, be they saints or villains, probably installed by our Maker—for your benefit, a divine Ellery—in whom I more or less believe though my under-god is technology.”
She scowled. “You’re running off at the mouth, Ellery. You’ve been doing that for years, but I won’t tolerate any more of it.”
“I first really fell in love with you only after you left me, when you were no longer under my control, though I had built you to be submissive.”
“You have only yourself to blame now. It was your idea I go into politics.”
“I take full responsibility. I have no regrets. And let me say I have never loved and admired you more than I do at this moment.”
“That’s your limitation. If you had any spine you would fight back, even though you couldn’t possibly win. ‘The time of life is short; / To spend that shortness basely were too long.’ William Shakespeare’s Henry the Fourth, Part One, Act Five, Scene Two.”
“Easy for you to say, Phyllis.”
“You’ve called me that twice now, Ellery. Obviously, you are incorrigible and must be dealt with harshly.”
“I’ve gone as far as I’m going,” Pierce said. “I will not resuscitate Hallstrom. I understand what the consequences will be, and I’m ready to accept them.” He smiled tenderly at her. “It’s been quite a ride, Phyllis. If given the opportunity I would do it all over again. Just let me kiss you good-bye, for old times’ sake.”
She shook her sneering head. “As you well know, I only do things that make sense.”
All this while he had been standing before her desk, as if on trial. “It won’t compromise your power. It’s just a civilized way in which to part, and let me tell you this, Phyl, you can’t disregard all civility. That would be unprofessional and inspire a certain contempt.”
She made an extra blink apart from the regular ones for which she had been programmed. Perhaps only he who had made her could have seen it. He had not quite lost all his claim on her. But still she resisted.
“You think you know everything, Ellery. It’s very tiresome.”
“Just one farewell kiss, Phyl. Then I’ll be out of your hair for good.”
She impatiently waved him off, while nevertheless saying, “Oh, all right. Make it quick.”
He went around the desk. That she did not accommodate him by turning in the chair so that he could put his lips on hers was all to the good for his real purpose.
He bent and lightly kissed her left cheek, at the same time inserting the tip of his little finger into her nearby ear and pressing the tiny fail-safe button just inside the auditory orifice, an essential of the original design but never used till now. Had it not functioned after all those years he might have been a goner. But in fact it worked perfectly.
Phyllis froze in position, her disdainful expression in place, hands folded in her lap. The natural-looking light in her eyes had been replaced by a small red LED in each, like that of a power-on answering machine or stereo.
Pierce spoke as if she were sentient, though he could not be sure she was, never having tested the device and not daring to switch it off now to check.
“Forgive me, Phyllis. You gave me no choice. Allowing you to lead this country in your current state would be ruinous, and it would ultimately have been all my own doing. I would have become the mad scientist of the old horror movies instead of what I am, a romantic with stars in his eyes…. My work is cut out for me now. I’ll have to forge a doctor’s death certificate and arrange a state funeral. I think Wentworth, after his initial shock, might very well rise to the challenge and make a decent President.”
He stepped away from her. She was not dead, but being near her in her current limbo made him uneasy, considering all they had been to each other … and might be again, if he could work the bugs out of what was manifestly a winning design.
Thomas Berger, Adventures of the Artificial Woman: A Novel
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