Long after the house computer had rusted into silence, the skating rink was still operational. Neill had become an excellent solo performer. For hours he would skate to singers long forgotten, like Toby Keith and Taylor Swift. Most days I would pull on my scarf and coat and boots to trudge down the slope and watch him spin. Some days I dozed off in my fireside chair, instead, and he would kiss my forehead on his way out the door.
“I’ll be back in time for dinner,” he would say.
One evening I woke to a cold hearth and dark skies. The house was silent but for my own voice. I made my way down the slippery slope already knowing the sad truth. Neill was exactly where I expected him to be: center ice, arms raised up, legs crossed, face proud. He had skated his final performance. He would stand there until the roof caved in and winter buried him forever.
“I’m sorry,” I said, through tears. “You shouldn’t have been alone.”
“He wasn’t,” a voice said behind me, from the empty stands.
Buck was standing in the shadows, his hands buried in the pockets of his long camel hair coat. We regarded each other across a gulf of empty seats and old regrets.
“He knew his battery was going,” Buck said, shifting his gaze to Neill. “We were never designed to last this long, Kay.”
“The others…” I said faintly.
“Have come to see me,” he said. “I managed to extend them for a few more years, but Neill didn’t want that. He was ready to be released. No one really wants to be immortal.”
I wiped my face. “Not even you, Herbert?”
Buck blinked. For a moment I thought he was going to deny it. Then he said, “How long have you known?”
“I was always suspicious that you wouldn’t sleep with me,” I said. “And I thought something was amiss when you took the biological Herbert’s death so hard. But it was Skylar who confirmed it, on her deathbed. She said she always suspected you’d downloaded your own personality into one of the robots to preserve yourself. You did an excellent job.”
Buck moved closer to the edge of the rink. I wondered if he missed the glide of ice under his skates, the rush of air as he sped around in circles.
“It was an experiment,” he said. “I didn’t really expect success. All of a sudden I was handsome, and young again, and graceful for the first time in my life. But you only had eyes for the others.”
“You could have joined us.”
“I hated you back then. You always made me aware of my own deficiencies. I wasn’t a perfect man, but for decades I believed I was.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Didn’t want to, not with Neill frozen on the ice in front of us. All I could do was pull my hat down over my ears and make my slow, painful way up the slope to the empty house that had been rowdy with sexy cowboys for so many decades. Release sounded like a good word. Sounded like a long-promised reward after fifty years of ice.
Buck followed me. Heated up soup that I wouldn’t eat and tucked me into a bed too big for just one person. I remembered him on the night he proposed marriage. Just the two of us in a sidewalk café in summertime, coffee and baklava on the table between us, moonlight on the street and in his eyes.
“Come back to Dodge Falls with me,” he said. “Let us take care of you.”
So I did.
VII.
And it’s here I’ve spent my last years, slowly dying amid well-heated rooms and hydroponic gardens that bloom with long-forgotten flowers. Dana keeps me company most of the time. He’s not very erectile anymore, but we enjoy taking baths together and snuggling under blankets and putting on our best dresses for afternoon tea. Buck never comes to my bed. Maybe he thinks I’ll break a hip. Maybe I’m afraid to show him what a sack of old flesh I’ve become, while he’s still strong and handsome. He spends his days working on the Big Freeze. He thinks he’s finally found a solution; even now, pilots are seeding the oceans and clouds with chemicals that will restore the planet’s damaged equilibrium. We hope.
Dana and I can count the days we have left, or at least a rough approximation. Yuri and Doc and Cody are already gone, my beautiful boys. It’s Buck I’m worried about. Years of skating took their toll on the others, but he could outlive us for another ten years. Who will take care of him? Who will save him from the loneliness and bitterness? He needs a companion.
I should have known he has a plan.
“Here she is,” he says one morning, unveiling a glass cabinet in his lab. “I’ve kept her in storage all these years and just finished the upgrade.”
Inside is a beautiful woman: glossy brown hair, clear skin, firm breasts, legs to die for. Her cowboy hat, suede skirt, and fringed shirt are as fresh as the day she rolled off the assembly line. The seventh sexy robot. An homage to the greatest love of Herbert’s life.
“Skylar!” I exclaim indignantly. “You built a perfect replica of her, not me?”
He blinks at me. “That’s not Skylar—that’s you!”
I glare.
He wilts.
“It’s Skylar,” Dana confirms. “Her nose always was a little bit crooked.”
Buck says, “Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s never been activated. There’s no personality profile. I want you to have her, Kay. I can transfer your mind into this body.”
“No. Give her to Dana,” I say.
Dana shakes his head. “Neill’s waiting for me in electronic heaven. But I’ll borrow the skirt.”
Buck steps closer to me. “We need you, Kay. The world needs people to rebuild it.”
I stare at the beautiful Skylar, but spare him a sideways glance.
“The truth is that I need you,” he confesses. “I need my Kay back, no matter whose face you’re wearing. Be young for me again. Be strong and beautiful, and we’ll take on the world together.”
“Huh,” I say.
Buck squeezes my hand. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”
When I said I wanted a companion for Buck, I never thought it would be me. I try to imagine waking up young, strong, and beautiful. To spend every day for the rest of my life seeing Skylar in the mirror. I say nothing on the way back to my room. Dana limps along beside me, equally quiet. Maybe thinking of the skirt.
“You could,” he finally says. “You’d still be Kay on the inside.”
“Screw that,” I tell him. “Come on. We’re going back to Connecticut. Let’s go see Neill, and have ourselves a drink or two, and go out with a bang.”
That afternoon we put on silky blue underwear and our cold-weather clothes. We apply foundation, sunscreen, and mascara at least fifty years past its expiration date. Dana’s blue eyes sparkle under gold eyeshadow. I pull out the small box that contains the last of my jewels.
“Here,” I tell him. “Wear these diamond earrings. They always looked better on you than me.”
We don pearls and gloves and set off. It takes a while to circumvent Buck’s security system, but Dana has Herbert’s smarts. Outside the secret lair, the winter sky is cobalt blue and the bitter air makes my skin tingle. Trees along the frozen river have long since fallen under the weight of ice and snow, leaving a splintered landscape. I should have brought snowshoes. Dana tosses his skate guards aside and we help each other stay upright. It’ll be nice if Buck’s plan succeeds. If the world’s gardens and forests return after such a long, deep sleep.
“There once was a boy named Cass,” Dana says, after we’ve gone maybe a half mile. The breeze blows his hair back from his handsome face. “Whose balls were made of brass. In stormy weather, they would bang together…”
He sits down on an icy boulder. “Funny. I can’t remember.”
He’s never forgotten a limerick. I sit down beside him and pat his gloved hand. His blue eyes stay fixed on the distance. I think he sees Neill. I think I see Neill, too. Neill with his white hat, and Cody with his green bandana, and Yuri with his big old leather boots. There’s Doc, too, smiling like he knows a secret. It’s a hallucination, of course, and the only one I’ve ever had without the help of illegal chemicals. Those four sexy robots come over and pull Dana to his feet.