THE BLADE RUNNER AMENDMENT (12 page)

Some connection between this latter-day Machiavelli and his own inquiries of Chloé had underlain her question, but Virgil had chosen to keep the subject in reserve. Who knows, if he allowed it to fester, what its putrescent light might reveal? He had an odd sense that this was what Chloé ultimately intended of him on the basis of her comment that she was “not capable of indulging in conspiracy theories,” added as an aside. “If you wish to teach me, I am willing to learn,” she had concluded. For the time at least, he did not. As for her initiative in volunteering this information, Virgil counted himself as secularly blessed not to have a conspiracy hound by his side.

He drove undisturbed to the airport – no suspicious vehicle insistently occupied his rear view mirror – although somewhat deflated at the absence of interest in him and managed to buy two tickets for the next flight back to New York. As with their departure for Washington, Chloé aroused the security who eyeballed her as human before she went through the detectors. Nothing was said, but eyes narrowed. There was a pause before they waved her through. She flew with him rather than in the packed humanoid compartment where she might be damaged and difficult later to repair or so he justified the extra cost. Who knows what infection she might receive? Other passengers had their own reasons for doing the same.

“This is thoughtful of you, Virgil.”

“That’s okay,” he acknowledged as they took their seats. She was programmed to be human, wasn’t she? And yet she was more than human. So much more. For instance, on the simplest level, after being served his coffee, he’d already expunged the features of the flight attendant – although he’d recognize her the moment she reappeared – while Chloé would retain their stamp without interruption for her entire lifespan.

Would he relinquish his human incapacities when he knew that strength – previously unknown strengths – came out of them? His drive compensated for his weakness and made something of it. He became more than he was and fulfilled himself in unforeseen manners. Chloé would never teach herself to be an artist as a response to some inner void. Or was he mistaken and Humphrey had managed to design her to model this human quality?

Rather than avail himself of Chloé’s conversational resources he took out his humble reader instead. Plane and clouds appeared to keep pace with each other both cocooned in light-filled blue. He chose one of the literary titans of the previous century and perhaps its greatest – Cormac McCarthy, who was his frequent recourse and whose masterworks, in Virgil’s judgment, were the
Border Trilogy
and
Blood Meridian
although his other writings matched these in their consistent revelation of language’s glorious capacities whatever the narrative’s circumstances. Structurally and thematically these two came out ahead. He opened up
All The Pretty Horses
, the first in the trilogy. McCarthy had been a writer manifestly uncomfortable with his age, ever seeking instances of existential redemption, ever steadfast in mirroring secular damnation. He could turn any polluted detritus into high literary art while showing it exactly as it was. His seamless depictions never caused the reader’s mind to disconnect from the world that McCarthy fully occupied and recorded with infinite subtlety.

Would this writer have bothered to ‘lift up his pen’ today? Yes. And what would a Shakespeare do? Certainly not write plays, probably conduct himself similar to McCarthy, who had never given interviews. Somehow this sounded like the Bard. What, after all, is known about the songbird of Avon’s social stance more than his residing at some reclusive distance from his theatrical business? A refusal of personal display said something about Cormac and his regard for the world and his sense of a writer’s identity. There were others of like mind – Rejean Ducharme, for one –
Les Avalées Des Avalées (The Swallowed of the Swallowed)
among the rest of his work. The humiliations of Shakespeare’s hero Coriolanus provide an object lesson for what might befall those who do not keep themselves apart.

Virgil managed to steep himself in a few sufficient pages before the plane began performing its vertical descent. Restorative verbal arts and his own meditations had combined to make him content. He could easily have endured an extended flight.

From LaGuardia, their taxi joined a silent stream of traffic, not that they were themselves in silence with the driver’s radio sounding relentless enthusiasms about the new Mars colony. Virgil especially couldn’t stomach the word ‘beautiful’ mindlessly applied to desolate planets simply because humanity had succeeded in placing a foot there. Where were trees and water in that endless barren landscape without hope? The Earth was beautiful. Anything less was less. He could recognize a species of hell when he saw it. Would artificial life systems – the malls, sports stadiums, biospheres developed over time on this benign planet – really cut it on Mars? If that’s the sole environment people wanted, why didn’t they settle the Antarctic – a far more pleasant wilderness and not so distant? Or the depths of the ocean? If these interplanetary pioneers survived their disregard of the inescapable importance of ‘location’, it would be no more than a ‘beautiful’ achievement. Space promised more to Virgil.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

Their driver focused on Chloé in his rearview.

Breaching all protocol, she took it upon herself to respond.

“Technologically speaking, you’re right. Without a moon, however, the planet cannot have seasons, and there’s no reason, therefore, to believe it can ever sustain life on its own.”

Virgil didn’t recognize the accent she adopted but Tibetan streams no longer sounded in his ear, something more in harmony with their driver’s fleshy echo chamber.

Give him credit, he wasn’t slow on the uptake, inspired no doubt by his female passenger’s attractions.

“I always figured there was another agenda. Had to be.”

He spoke with some satisfaction as he continued to study Chloé. The slight laconic drawl she’d given to her speech was a possible mating signal.

“You’re such a wet blanket,” Virgil intervened.

She took his lead.

“Just the way I’m made.”

Then surprised him by leaning her head on his shoulder and, to their driver’s consternation, commenced to whistle the last bars of the Star-spangled Banner along with the radio. The fellow surrendered to the unfathomable mysteries of New York City and its denizens and focused on the road with no more heard from him.

The presence of two humanoids had superfluously crowded the apartment. They would communicate with each other when instructed to do so; beyond this no exchanges passed between them. Not knowing what technical issues might arise, Virgil hadn’t wished to experiment and, besides, he saw no benefit in giving them the liberty to form a humanoid friendship and, possibly, a
ménage à deux
plus him.

Having two of something inevitably results in a state of disuse for one although, in this instance, Molly kept to her role as a drudge and he fitted Chloé into that of companion as he tried to understand the reason why she had come into his life. Despite this peaceful and harmonious arrangement, it took him time to accommodate to the role of Sultan in his tiny New York harem. He found himself divided between these entities, with a feeling of betrayal toward Molly whose possible services he had never fully explored. Meanwhile he doubted if he should congratulate himself for being a one-humanoid man.

In short time, the presence of two female humanoids had the effect on him of a single human female. The air filled at times with implicit demands, but the solution to this minor discomfort – ridding himself of Molly who had long been an obsolete model – would have jarred him too much. Did he suffer from attachment issues? Having no tendency to collect or hoard, the dilute Buddhist preferred to characterize himself as loyal. He could countenance attachment to an entity that renders service and where exists a constant state of understanding of the suspended humanoid variety when it comes to one’s needs, one’s interests, and desires, an understanding that is ready to respond. If this be self-deception, he was not prepared to relinquish it, certainly not as it might apply to Chloé, as he considered her substantial charms.

Arrived from the airport, Virgil pushed open the door of the apartment, and the scene within spectacularly solved the problem of overcrowding once he had the mess cleaned up, that is. Gentleman that he was and quite in the throes of the pathetic fallacy, he had Chloé precede him and remarked her coming to a stop as she assessed what she herself couldn’t have foreseen: the human-like figure fallen back across the couch that occupied the centre of the living room and that blocked one’s straight passage through it. He swallowed the appropriate expletive. Let the scene speak for itself: someone had come into his private domain and had their way with Molly.

His gaze locked onto the humanoid’s crumpled face. It hadn’t bounced back and swelled from whatever blow it had received and he couldn’t recognize the inverted features. He knelt down to examine the damage. The force of the attack seemed unnecessary and heartless, for she wouldn’t have resisted, but she would in some manner have experienced the shattering of her technological being – there would have been a response to what was happening even as she accepted it unable to do otherwise. The most callow vandals know what they are doing.

Someone had entered his apartment and destroyed what Virgil had depended upon as one depends upon a person or an extension of oneself. It wasn’t the same as setting his couch on fire although it might as well be in criminal terms. If the perpetrator were to be caught, the penalty would be minor. The law didn’t recognize the degree of this violation. It was a destruction of property, that was all – not a hanging offence.

He processed the scene in the nuanced ways that did justice to his emotional response and then went back to the apartment door and examined it. There was no evidence of a forced entry on the heavy oak, the handle, or lock. The French door to the little garden also appeared intact. He went outside and found that the heavily boarded door to the back lane remained locked and bolted.

He stood for a moment under the great oak – his tree – looking through the open French doors into the shadowed apartment. Bereft, but not shattered, not broken – not having to question the nature of existence or mistrust all of humanity. He hadn’t to grieve over Molly’s soul, for she had none. She had been without aspirations. Hope hadn’t entered into her useful and tidy life. Neither had resignation. She had been faithful because she couldn’t be otherwise, and dependable. Her loyalty had been technological. He would miss their times together, or he would remember them with fondness even while knowing she could never have felt the same or anything at all, and so he shook off her destruction. Its effects swiftly faded, and he ended his eulogizing and reentered the apartment.

Should he call the police? Their deputies would take a report and not bother themselves with fingerprints and such. They would look dubious at the mystery he felt it to be and discount the significance of the crime. Vandalism. As a preemptive lowering of pressure to act further, they might even speak the word.

He questioned Chloé, who had all the while stood in the spot where she’d first registered the image of Molly flung back on the couch. She might provide him with some guidance.

“What do you think happened?”

At first she didn’t reply. She did raise her eyebrows and then responded with a question of her own.

“Are you asking what my conclusions are?”

“Yes, I am.”

He tried imagining the rapid calculations – if they were human-like in the form of possible scenarios – as she formulated her humanoid ideas. Did she weigh odds?

The answer that came was simple.

“Whoever did this either wanted to send you a warning or believed incorrectly that Molly was me. The latter is possible but not probable considering her dated look. You can be confident that there is a connection with what happened to Humphrey Martinfield.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and felt glad for her company.

At the same time it was refreshing that Chloé didn’t assume a certain catty tone in her comment upon Molly’s appearance compared to hers. Remembering her recent interaction with their cab driver, he wouldn’t exclude this response from her repertoire.

Differing in no way from his own, her conclusions brought them into sharper focus and that was a benefit. Still, he hid his disappointment that she had nothing further to add, and then asked himself why did he? Why behave himself in front of her? He wanted her to perceive him in a certain way, that was the reason, and himself to receive the treatment that resulted or ‘flowed’ from these perceptions. He wished her to analyze him as he wanted to be. For now, he set aside his concerns, and prodded some more.

“What is the connection with you?”

“I don’t know,” she flatly responded.

He looked suspiciously at her. They were in the woods and this sophisticated humanoid was trying to make fire with two wet sticks.

“Can you speculate?”

Exasperated and thirsty, he asked her to hold that thought while he made a coffee, although he could have instructed Chloé to do the task for him. Only, it was just too confusing – Molly lying there, Chloé doing detective work. Would he be gumming himself up or her? Somehow it was psychologically easier to go to the kitchen under a purely illusory semblance of control.