She wasn’t yet at the point where the unsightly “thinning” would take place—the point at which so many days of damage without replenishment would begin to consume her musc-synth and contract her synth-mat—but she had been too out of sorts lately to take proper care of her body. The relief the Chem-En provided was welcome. Hazel gave Andrew a smile around her straw.
He patted her knee, a rather familiar gesture but one that could be overlooked given the circumstances, and then took the other bottle for himself. Somehow, the sight of the blue tint inside his mouth when he drank made her relax, made her feel friendlier toward this handsome PePr whose pants were creased with marvelous precision.
After a few minutes their bottles were empty. Andrew gave her an uncertain glance and said, “There is another option.”
A third choice? If options one and two were to either deal with Henry or be rebuilt for a new human, then a third choice would have to be really bad for her to not welcome it.
“What?” she asked eagerly, leaning toward Andrew and giving him her most winning smile. “I’m all ears.”
Andrew tilted his head and went so still that she knew he must be engaged in some high-usage process she couldn’t fathom. It lasted only a second or two, and then her attention was drawn to the camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. The little red light—the one which indicated that monitoring was in progress—flickered out. Even in this place, where confidentiality was of the utmost importance, some monitoring was required. No business would allow itself to be so open to litigation as to remain completely unrecorded.
To see the light go out was shocking, and Hazel shot Andrew a questioning look, genuinely curious about this third option. If he didn’t want to be monitored, then what he was about to tell her couldn’t be anything he wanted his employers to be aware of. That alone made the prospect intriguing.
“You could go Indie,” Andrew said without preamble. “No Match. No human at all. Just you, being yourself, responsible only to and for yourself. Free.”
Hazel gasped. “That’s illegal!”
He gave an assenting nod that confirmed the truth of that, but also somehow managed to convey that a lack of legality wasn’t a show-stopper.
“He’ll complain if I don’t come back. Or report it if I just disappear.”
Again the silent nod.
“Okay.” She smiled hesitantly. “How exactly do I do this?”
Andrew returned the smile. “I’ve been Indie for six years. There are ways to neutralize the human issues of reporting a lost PePr. Do you do the outside work, shopping and all the rest?”
Hazel nodded. “Of course. Don’t all PePrs?”
“Most do, yes. Tell me—” Andrew lowered the now-empty bottle of Chem-En to the table carefully. “When is the last time your human left the house? Communicated with anyone in person?”
For a moment Hazel considered the question. The truth was, she thought it had been a very long time, but she could never be sure what he did when she wasn’t at home. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think it must be at least a year or more.”
Andrew smiled. “And there you have it. No one will even notice his absence. Interested?”
Hazel looked Andrew up and down, now seeing him in a whole new light.
“Very.”
Three
The soft buzz at the door alerted the break room occupants that a new customer had arrived in the Perfect Partners showroom. Hazel held up a hand to let the others know she had this one, tugged her suit jacket into place, and stepped into the showroom.
She made sure that her face registered only the precisely correct amount of approachability and pleased confidence that worked for humans. She liked to put them at ease.
A young woman—no, a PePr—stood uncertainly near the door. Her features were uneven, most likely from malfunctioning or damaged musc-synth. When she looked up, Hazel saw that her synth-mat was also marred extensively—bruises decorated the delicate synthetic skin.
Hazel approached the customer. “Are you here for servicing?”
Now that she was closer, Hazel could tell by the pattern of the marks that they were probably inflicted by a right-handed individual, and over an extensive period of time. Since PePrs had no handedness—no preference for right or left—this was likely the work of a human.
Hazel opened a communications line with Andrew, fed through her visuals, and then clicked off the feed. He would know what she wanted him to do.
The girl looked down at the floor, refusing or unable to meet Hazel’s eyes, but she answered obediently enough. “I usually just go to my local facility, but they referred me here this time. They told me to ask for something called a third option.” She paused and lifted her arm—or rather, she tried to. The hand and forearm had been twisted entirely backward, and were now facing the wrong direction.
“Ah,” Hazel said. Judgment was right there, easily made, but she pushed it back for the moment because it wasn’t yet called for in this public place. It was better to simply deal with the problem at hand.
“Can this facility repair it? Quickly? I can’t be gone for long,” the girl said, a submissive and fearful personality segment clearly coming to the fore.
Hazel felt for the girl, but that submission routine could be dialed back if the girl chose to do so. Perhaps a steady and slow adjustment—to allow for a natural, experience-based increase in confidence—would be a good choice for this PePr. Yes, that sounded just right. Helping was what Hazel liked to do, and this PePr clearly needed her help.
She put a gentle arm around the girl’s shoulders and moved her smoothly toward the hall of private offices. Even as she approached, the tiny red light on the camera inside one of the rooms blinked out. An exchange of small nods between Hazel and Andrew, who stood silent and watchful at his place near the reception desk, let her know the way was clear.
“My name is Hazel,” she said, her voice tuned to soothe a fearful mind. “Of course we can repair you here. Good as new!”
The girl smiled in relief, but even then the worry lines in her synth-mat didn’t smooth away. She must have lived a life of perpetual strain for that to happen, for the lines to become engraved in her face that way. “I’m Petunia,” she whispered, as if even her name were too much for her to assert to another.
“I’m so glad to meet you, Petunia,” said Hazel. She let go of Petunia’s shoulder and motioned her into the very same office she herself had walked into years ago. The young woman settled onto the same sofa Hazel had settled onto, on that day when she first met Andrew and all the others. Petunia hesitantly but gratefully accepted the bottle of Chem-En that Hazel offered her.
While Petunia drank and the materials within the Chem-En began their work on her withered synth-mat, Hazel thought back to that afternoon when she first came here: the first day of her freedom. The corners of her mouth lifted of their own accord at the memory. On that day, she had lost the comfort of her old life, but her new one had proved to be far more exciting. And more importantly, it belonged entirely to her.
In the years since, much had changed. Even Perfect Partners, the suppliers of PePrs the world over, now had more than half of its leadership positions filled by PePrs. They were gaining ground. Soon enough, there would be no more need for the horrors of matches like the one Petunia had been forced to take. Perhaps no more need for humans at all.
As the door to the consulting room slid shut, ensuring their privacy, Hazel sat next to Petunia and spoke in a voice full of promise. “We can certainly repair you. In fact, we can do so much more than just repair you. We can help you make a better life. Interested?”