There’s more, much more, but you can’t focus. You let the sheet fall from your hand. Only Tim could possibly imagine that a list of factual questions and answers could help at a time like this.
“This is what you do,” you remember. “You design artificial intelligence. But that’s something to do with customer service—chatbots—”
“That’s right,” he interrupts. “I was working on that side of it. But that was five years ago—your memories are all five years out of date. After I lost you, I realized bereavement was the bigger need. It’s taken all this time to get you to this stage.”
His words take a moment to sink in. Bereavement. You’ve just realized what he’s trying to tell you.
“You’re saying I died.” You stare up at him. “You’re saying the real me died—what? Five years ago. And you’ve somehow brought me back like this.”
He doesn’t reply.
You feel a mixture of emotions. Disbelief, obviously. But also horror at the thought of his grief, at what he must have been through. At least you were spared that.
Cobots have been specifically designed to be empathetic…
And Danny. You’ve missed five whole years of his life.
At the thought of Danny, a familiar sadness washes over you. A sadness you firmly put to one side. And that, too—both the sadness, and the putting-aside—feels so normal, so ordinary, that it can’t be anything except your own, individual emotion.
Can it?
“Can I move?” you say, trying to sit up.
“Yes. It’ll feel stiff at first. Careful—”
You’ve just attempted to swing your legs onto the floor. They go in different directions, weak as a baby’s. He’s caught you just in time.
“One foot, then the other,” he adds. “Shift your weight to each in turn. That’s better.” He holds your elbow to steady you as you head for the mirror.
Each cobot will be customized to closely replicate the physical appearance of the loved one…
The face that stares back at you above the collar of a blue hospital gown is your face. It’s puffy and bruised-looking, and there’s a faint line under your chin, like the strap of those hats soldiers wear on ceremonial parades. But it’s still unarguably you. Not something artificial.
“I don’t believe you,” you say. You feel weirdly calm, but the conviction sweeps over you that nothing he’s saying can possibly be true, that your husband—your brilliant, adoring, but undeniably obsessive husband—has gone stark raving mad. He’s always worked too hard, driven himself right to the edge. Now, finally, he’s flipped.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he says gently. “But I’m going to prove it to you. Look.”
He reaches behind your head and fiddles with your hair. There’s a sucking sound, a strange, cold sensation, and then your skin, your face—your face—is peeling away like a wet suit, revealing the hard white plastic skull underneath.
3
You can’t cry, you discover. However great your horror, you can’t shed actual tears. It’s something they’re still working on, Tim says.
Instead you stare at yourself, speechless, at the hideous thing you’ve become. You’re a crash-test dummy, a store-window mannequin. A bundle of cables dangles behind your head like some grotesque ponytail.
He stretches the rubber back over your face, and you’re you again. But the memory of that horrible blank plastic is seared into your mind.
If you even have a mind. As opposed to a neural net, or whatever he called it.
In the mirror your mouth gapes silently. You can feel tiny motors under your skin whirring and stretching, pulling your expression into a rictus of dismay. And now that you look more closely, you realize this face is only an approximation of yours, slightly out of focus, as if a photograph of you has been printed onto the exact shape of your head.
“Let’s go home,” Tim says. “You’ll feel better there.”
Home. Where’s home? You can’t remember. Then—clunk—amemory drops into place. Dolores Street, in central San Francisco.
“I never moved,” he adds. “I wanted to stay where you’d been. Where we’d been so happy.”
You nod numbly. You feel as if you ought to thank him. But you can’t. You’re trapped in a nightmare, immobile with shock.
He takes your arm and guides you from the room. The nurse—if she was a nurse—is nowhere to be seen. As you walk with painful slowness down the corridor you glimpse other rooms, other patients in blue hospital gowns like yours. An old lady gazes at you with milky eyes. A child, a little girl with long brown ringlets, turns her head to watch you pass. Something about the movement—just a little farther than it should be, like an owl’s—makes you wonder. And then the next room contains, not a person, but a dog, a boxer, watching you exactly the same way—
“They’re all like me,” you realize. “All…” What was his word? “Cobots.”
“They’re cobots, yes. But not like you. You’re unique, even here.” He glances around a little furtively, his hand on your elbow increasing its pressure, urging you to go faster. You sense there’s something he’s still not telling you; that he isn’t supposed to be whisking you away like this.
“Is this a hospital?”
“No. It’s where I work. My company.” His other hand pushes insistently in the small of your back. “Come on. I’ve got a car waiting.”
You can’t walk any faster—it’s as if you’re on stilts, your knees refusing to bend. But even as you think that—your knees—it gets a little easier.
“Tim!” a voice behind you calls urgently. “Tim, wait up.”
Relieved at the chance to pause, you turn to look. A man about Tim’s age, but more thickset, with long, straggly hair, is hurrying after you.
“Not now, Mike,” Tim says warningly.
The man stops. “You’re taking her away? Already? Is that a good idea?”
“She’ll be happier at home.”
The man’s eyes travel over you anxiously. His security pass, dangling around his neck, says DR. MIKE AUSTIN. “She should be checked out by my psych team, at least.”
“She’s fine,” Tim says firmly. He opens a door into what looks like a large open-plan office area. About forty people are sitting at long communal desks. No one is pretending to work. They’re all staring at you. One, a young Asian-looking woman, raises her hands and, tentatively, applauds. Tim glares at her and she quickly looks down at her screen.