How to Repair a Mechanical Heart - By J. C. Lillis Page 0,8
lot from this android-learns-to-love fic.”
“I’ve already loved. He dumped me for a—”
“—bartender, and he was pre-med, and he read Ulysses for fun and caught salmon with his bare hands and played basketball with albino orphans—”
“You’re just jealous ‘cause your boyfriend works at Sub Shack.”
“He’s a sandwich technician. And at least he’s present tense.”
“Whatever.” I craft an expert left-hand turn. “I’m not talking to a guy tonight.”
“Why?”
“I just…need more time.”
“Brandon. This is dire. Don’t hold out for Mr. Candlelight Romance.” His cheeks bulge with donut. “You wait too long and soon you’ll be seventy-five and you’ll live all alone in a sad fourth-floor walkup that reeks of loneliness and takeout chow mein, and then you’ll wish you listened to me.”
“What’s wrong with chow mein?”
He lobs a donut hole at me.
“I mean, I’d rather have moo shu pork, but—”
“Can I punch you? Like for real?”
Dad’s GPS breaks in: Arrive at destination. I wave Abel quiet and bump up into the bookstore parking lot, looking for a spot I can ease the Sunseeker into without breaking a sweat. I’ve got this swervy carsick feeling. It’s the Zander talk. Can Abel tell it’s a lie? He’s too smart to be fooled forever.
“Whoa…” Abel says.
My knuckles go white on the wheel. “What?”
“A-plus park job.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“You did that one-handed.”
“I did.”
He toys with Plastic Cadmus. “I’ve been like, covertly admiring you all day. I’d crap my pants if I had to drive one of these.”
I sneak a glance at him. It doesn’t compute, Abel scared of a thing that’s like walking for me. RV driving’s just geometry and physics; it’s Dad in the seat beside me with his tall can of BBQ chips, guiding me through highway merges and practice park jobs in empty lots. You get into a rhythm on a long straight road, and after a while you forget you’re hauling something huge and scary behind you.
“It’s easy,” I shrug.
“Really?”
“Well, I’m kind of amazing.”
“Confidence. Excellent.” He stands up and stretches like a cat. “Just what you need tonight.”
“Okay, but I swear I’m not—”
He kicks the Sunseeker door open, like in the pilot episode where Cadmus breaks into StarPort 38’s android-storage locker and steals Sim from his charging dock. He turns to me, holds out his hand with a grave stage-glare. Bec watches, grinning, shrugging on my Phillies sweatshirt. Abel’s got on a candy-striped polo shirt and his new truck-stop hat with Punxsutawney Phil on it, and right above the fly of his dark designer jeans is a big ironic belt buckle that shouts PRAISE THE LORD.
“C’mon, shake your circuits, android,” Abel quotes. “Your freedom is waiting.”
***
To enter The Robot’s Bookshelf, the three of us duck under a droopy Welcome CastieCon Attendees! banner and squeeze through an archway wound with silver garland and blue plastic lights shaped like spaceships and stars. The owners are huge Castaway Planet geeks, you can tell. Dr. Zara Lagarde’s favorite album is playing (Janis Joplin, Pearl), they’ve got the snack bar stocked with Cadmus’s favorite jellybeans (cinnamon), and the backdrop to the small stage is this giant blown-up photo of sunflowers, like the ones in Cadmus’s visions of his Earth childhood.
“Sim scanned the room, rusty heart creaking in his plastic chest,” Abel narrates, reading off his phone. “Before him, men flirted in the shadows, their nuances painfully foreign—”
“What is that?” I know I’m blushing. I’ve read this one at least three times.
“’Sex and the Single Droid’ by cavegrrl94. It’s relevant.” He exchanges five dollars for a packet of jellybeans. “Carry on.”
“Let’s find a table,” I tell Bec.
“As he roamed the crowded room, he realized he was ill-equipped to choose a man for himself, at least from the selection before him. He turned to Captain James Cadmus, who blazed with raw masculinity in his tight black t-shirt and aviator shades.”
I tilt my head at Abel. He slams back a fistful of jellybeans.
“’Captain,’ Sim said. ‘Help me choose a male with whom to converse.’” He pecks my shoulder with his index finger. “That’s your cue, Tin Man.”
I pick a table in the corner made from parts of a theme-park rocketship, painted retro-aqua to look like the U.S.S. Starsetter. There’s no chance I’m talking to a guy, but I scan the room to humor him. Few dozen AV-club types, some with gawky girlfriends. Castaway Planet is supposed to have a big gay following, but none of them seem to be here tonight.
“Captain: clarification.” I eyebrow him. “I should flirt with a random straight guy?”
“No! No flirting. Just talking. I mean, look at these sweet