When at last the chime signaled the end of the work day, it was a relief to unhook from the computer. It felt good to stand up and get moving again. Another day of work done. Another paycheck earned.
Gemma and Inga suggested a stop somewhere for a chat on the way home, which, Hazel knew, just meant they wanted to persuade her to lodge a complaint with PePr. But she understood their concern and knew it was sincere, and if it would make them feel better, feel like they had done their duty as friends, then she really was obliged to let them. Besides, some part of her wanted them to persuade her, to help her overcome her qualms about returning to PePr in defeat.
They chose a bench in the park for their talk, a favorite place of Hazel’s, with a clear view of the gardens. An endless number of shops and parking lots had once stood in that spot, but now it was all native plant life. Not so exciting when compared with the lush greenery of a wetter, cooler climate, perhaps, but still beautiful in its own wild way.
Gemma, always the most forward of the three, spoke up without delay, barely allowing enough time for a modest arranging of their skirts in the brisk wind.
“Hazel, this is getting serious. Tell us everything that happened this morning. Leave out no detail! Otherwise, we’ll be left to imagine something worse. You know we only want to help.”
Looking at the peaceful garden, a thousand shades of dusty green dancing in the breeze, Hazel felt herself succumbing to the temptation to be utterly honest, despite the appearance of having been derelict in her responsibilities that might come from such honesty.
She nodded to let Gemma know that she had heard her and only needed a moment to collect her thoughts. “It didn’t really start this morning. It just sort of carried over from last night,” Hazel began, then paused.
She was about to go into personal territory that was meant to be entirely private. To some, what she was about to say might even be seen as a little salacious. She didn’t see it that way, but others might.
Perfect Partners were designed to be just that: perfect for each human partner. And that meant—at least in theory—that each Partner would reflect the inclinations of their human. They weren’t dependent in any way—they had all their own thoughts and initiatives, doing whatever they needed or wanted to do when alone—but in general, they mirrored the needs of their human. And that was that.
But for some reason, the behaviors Hazel was encountering at home weren’t remotely aligned with her own preferences or inclinations. Not only was this unexpected, it was embarrassing—and Hazel found it uncomfortable to share it with others, even her closest friends.
“Well, he wanted for us to eat together last night. Again,” Hazel finally admitted.
“Again?” Gemma asked, frustration at Hazel’s predicament clear in her tone. “Really, what a mess. And there was no special occasion or anything?”
Hazel nodded, then shook her head as if to say that Gemma was right and there was no special occasion. Even Inga, the most accepting of the three, gave a snort of disgust.
“Cleaning afterward?” Gemma prodded.
And that was the real issue. PePrs weren’t entirely perfect simulacra of humans. It was possible for them to eat, of course—Perfect Partners liked to advertise that a Match was “almost indistinguishable from a human during the courtship”—and sharing a meal with someone was an essential part of any courtship. Even Hazel had to admit that simple truth. People relaxed more when they ate, were more open, and were certainly more amenable to establishing a bond. Hadn’t the same happened with her and Henry? Hadn’t she bonded to him over a plate of eggplant parmesan and a glass of good red wine?
But PePrs weren’t human and couldn’t digest food. The cleanup was onerous: a burdensome and messy task that involved de-seaming a perfectly seamed skin, washing out hoses, all sorts of mess. And a PePr couldn’t do it very well on their own. Most would go to the nearest PePr facility and log in for a wash before anything inside started to rot or smell.
But not Henry. Since he began acting odd, he’d seemed fixated on eating. It had become almost an obsession with him. He’d spend all day cooking elaborate meals, waiting for Hazel to get home. And when they ate, he’d take one careful bite for each of hers, until at last she pushed away her plate, full to bursting, though always careful to compliment his hard work and cooking skill.
Even then, he’d present yet another dish, beautiful and tempting, and ask if she might have room for just a taste.
It was creepy. And it should have been her cue that something was going terribly wrong with him. She should have marched into PePr the very first time he insisted they clean up the mess together, his face expectant, his eyes watching her keenly while she cleaned out the muck.
“Yes,” Hazel admitted with a sigh. “He wanted to do it together. I tried to convince him that a stop at the twenty-four-hour PePr wash would be quicker and more efficient, but he wouldn’t hear it.”
“That is just not normal,” Inga said with a definitive shake of her head. “He’s broken.”
“And what about you going to work this morning?” Gemma asked, ignoring Inga’s pronouncement.
“It was the same as last week. I explained that I had to go to work, that going to work was how I supported him, paid for our apartment, and…” She paused.
“And?” Inga prompted.
“And how I paid for all the food he wasted by shoving it into a holding tank,” Hazel finished, her words coming out in an embarrassed rush.
Inga gasped at that. It was a terribly rude thing for her to have said. Definitely gasp-worthy.
Hazel shrugged it off. “I was running out of sensible things to say. It just sort of… popped out.”
She paused again, watching a pair of walkers stroll through the gardens. It struck her that she couldn’t tell which was the PePr and which was the human. So perfect was the liquid logic that ran their minds and the synth-mat self-healing flesh that covered them, they completely looked and acted the part. The latest musc-synth fiber muscles were so exquisite that even that last vestige of clunky mechanical support had now been eliminated. With all these technical achievements, they appeared in no way different from any other human. And really, what was the difference if no one could see it or sense it?
She sighed heavily and thought of Henry again. “There’s something else. Two things, really,” she confessed.
Her friends leaned in closer, anticipating something new and horrible.
“Uh-oh, what else could possibly go wrong?” Gemma asked.
“He’s been talking about a baby.”
There was no response. Or rather, no response that indicated they truly understood what that meant. She hadn’t been clear.
“I mean, he’s been talking about our baby. Having one together,” Hazel clarified.
That sent both friends into an uproar, exclamations running atop one another in their haste to express disbelief, disgust, or just plain shock.
“He’s demented. Like Inga said, he’s broken. You have to go to PePr! You shouldn’t even go home. That’s just crazy talk. Doesn’t he understand that a human and a PePr can’t have a baby? Doesn’t he understand the biology?” asked Gemma. Her questions were almost rhetorical, they were so obvious and forcefully asked.
It was true that almost all children were born into couples made up of a PePr and a human, if for no other reason than that almost all couples were made up of a PePr and a human. But every child’s true parents were both—of necessity—human.
No PePr would undertake to usurp that. A matched set of donors or an approved friend pair would be the parents, with all their rights as such guaranteed. A PePr functioned as a nanny, confidant, and caregiver. What else could there be?