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0221
Philamachina, PA
—
“Oh, no, no thank you,” Dennis is saying, taking a graceful step back in the crowded room. Away from the tantalizing vape being waved in his face. He's not sure why he starts explaining himself, but he does, as if that will make his refusal seem any less odd. “See— See, I got a little bit too into femmeroids a while back. I don’t— Ha — I don’t do that shit anymore.”
The woman across from him — modified, but human, he always checks ID’s — tilts her head. Her gears click and whir; a visual representation of her struggling to think.
He’d back up another step, but that would take him away from the cold glass blue surface of the bar, and without it to hold onto he’s suddenly afraid he’ll fall.
“Weird,” the woman is saying. “I’ve never met anyone like you who refuses to— well, you know.”
“Someone like— Like me?" His chest aches. "I— I’m not a bot— Shit. You know, I have to go, actually, I—“
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t care so much about falling, anymore. Dennis weaves his way through the crowd, unsteady, wondering why he’d ever thought to come here.
More machines than people — femmebots and boydroids and all manner of laborers. Some laboring, some dancing, a slow grind on the dance floor against another metal body. He passes a human enough looking woman, except she’s not real, a goddamn femmebot trying to sneak her slender fingers into his pants.
He bursts out into the cold, red night, rounding the corner of track-cars parked in neat rows to get to the backlot. The Rover is a relic, but it’s his. There’s a freedom in the danger of not being connected to the track.
For a long moment, he just sits there, in the car, engine off. Breathing into the chill. His jacket’s too thin for the weather. He thinks, stupidly, that he’d been trying to impress in a less human way. Look at me. I am as beautiful as a femmebot and as impervious to cold.
By the time he realizes his mistake, it’s too late to change.
He starts the car, and takes off, down the trackless backroads left for the poorer crowd. The poorer crowd, and him.
A sentimental idiot who’s freezing in his too thin coat.
—
Mac gives him a look when he comes in. Half you’re back early and half what did you link to this time?
Dennis can only answer the latter confidently, so he does. Comes in and tosses his keys into the bowl and says, “I’m sober, asshole. Don’t need to look at me like that.”
“Come on, dude, don’t be like—“
Dennis shushes him, waving him down where he’s starting to stand. “I need a drink, Mac.”
Mac’s eyebrows furrow. So fucking human. How does he do it? “Are you sure you’re sober?”
“I had a drink or two. Struck out, alright? Just drop it.”
“You don’t normally strike out—“
“ What, Mac? What do you want from me? Are you— Shit. You’re watching boydroid porn again, aren’t you.”
“ What?! No, no— I—“
“Don’t deny it, jerknose.” Dennis flops onto the couch beside Mac, noticing the hasty way he’s covered his lap with a pillow. His whiskey sloshes around in his glass. “Go ahead. Put it back on.”
“…You want me to—“
“Sure. Why not. I told you, man, I struck out.” Outside, the 0300 lights blaze from the bulletin board. Green and purple and electric blue before they fade back to ambient red.
“Okay.” Mac looks twitchy about it, but Dennis doesn’t care right now. He wants to get off, and he doesn’t care if he has to watch boydroids to it — he’ll be watching Mac more, anyway. Mac, all bathed in ambient, nocturnal red. “Whatever you want,” Mac huffs, still stuck on it.
Mac switches the screen on, and Dennis’ eyes and ears are assaulted by the frantic sounds and neon colors of two boydroids going at it. Scratch that — three. And a human between them. The audience surrogate.
“Shit, sorry,” Mac says, blushing so hard Dennis can see it through the red light. He turns down the volume first, thank god, and the display second, until it becomes somewhat bearable to stay in the room. “Is that better?”
“Marginally,” Dennis murmurs, sipping his whiskey and watching the older model boydroid slick his fingers with something that looks deliberately like oil. Dark and iridescent. It’s almost beautiful when he smears the stuff between the human’s legs.
Dennis notices that the human is decidedly on bottom. When he looks back at Mac, Mac’s looking at the wall, chewing his thumbnail and avoiding Dennis’ eyes.
“If you’re not gonna do it,” he grumbles, downing the rest of his drink and unzipping his pants.
It’s nothing new, jerking off next to Mac, but there’s always a little thrill. Dennis, watching Mac’s face openly, as Mac pretends he isn’t looking at Dennis’ crotch. Neither of them are really thinking about the porn, even as the human guy is fed a synthetic dick, inch by inch, and a warbling machine moan rings out.
Mac’s eyes are downturned at the corners. As Dennis fists his dick, throwing his head back, watching, Mac has to turn his head to see, dark eyes settling on where Dennis’ thumb swipes across his tip.
The red light outside wavers. An ad in the bulletin, or an emergency announcement. In the dimness, Mac gets bolder, and by the time the thirty seconds or so are up, he’s turned fully, eyes wide, mouth parted.
Tinny moans are still coming from the screen. Dennis gives into the pleasure of being watched and being touched, even if the hand is his own, cold hand.
He bucks up, friction boarding on painful, but it’s the good kind of pain. The however many cocktails and a glass of whiskey down kind of pain. The Mac’s watching kind of pain. He fucks into his fist a little crueler, just to feel it again.
The bordering on unbearable.
The way Mac’s eyes widen.
One of the boydroids on screen cums. It’s one of those cheap sites; Dennis can tell by the way an ad pops up in the corner the second the bot starts whining. It catches his eye, the ad, but he resists. Stays looking at Mac as he gets very close to cumming himself, very quickly.
And then, as the light outside dims again — emergency, must be, with the double announcement — Mac gets even bolder.
Bolder than he’s supposed to get.
He reaches over, into Dennis’ lap, and covers Dennis’ hand with his own.
It’s not skin-to-skin on his dick, but the contact jars him — together they jerk him off three more times and then he’s cumming, surprised at himself, too drunk to be embarrassed and too sober to forget.
Mac takes his hand back, staring at it like it’s burned him.
The ambient light resumes its brightness.
The boydroids finish in the human.
Mac licks his fingers clean.
—
Dennis wakes in the late morning, when the pale yellow bulletin is just transitioning to a solid blue. 1100 hours, then.
He thinks of the woman at the bar, who’d thought he was a bot himself. At the time he’d been offended. Terrified and skittish, like someone might sneak up behind him and brand an ID number into his neck.
Now, in the blue light of day, he thinks he might have overreacted. Who cares if a woman thinks he’s a bot? He can take a slide down the social scale if it means he’s beautiful and indestructible and getting laid.
That brings him back to Mac.
Mac, and Mac’s eyes, and Mac’s mouth around Mac’s fingers dripping with cum.
He shakes his head.
That didn’t happen. Not tonight, and not two weeks ago, and not three months ago, when he’d come home high on femmeroids and looking for something like love in Mac’s big, brown, human eyes.
Dennis resolves to go out again tonight.
He sits up in bed, hearing Mac banging around in the kitchen.
Mac knocks, coffee in hand as a peace offering, and Dennis smiles as he tells him to come in.
—
Paddy’s Pub is an old fashioned establishment. It makes Dennis’ Rover look like state of the art tech. It’s gross, and grimy, and there’s only one real screen in the whole place, way back in the corner, twelve generations out of date.
Dennis loves it.
It’s not a relic, it’s a replica, but still, it reminds him of better days before he was even born; before artificial people took over the city, and you started having to check ID’s to make sure the woman you’re about to bang isn’t made of synthetic materials. That there isn’t a line of code telling her when to moan.
There’s an appeal to it all, sure, but they’re not really people. Paddy’s reminds him of that. It makes him feel a little bit more human, in a way.
He parks his trackless car outside on the trackless road, and together him and Mac cross, hopping up the high curb to get to the bar.
Inside, Dee’s newest obsession blares from the jukebox. The flickering screen shows the girl-group that’s singing as Dee sways along, looking at her phone.
“Stupid bitch! Turn it down, Dee, ” Mac huffs, stomping in, and Dennis appreciates him taking the blowback for what is, ultimately, a thing only Dennis can’t stand.
The girl-group, with one ambuloid vocalist, becomes more bearable turned down to a reasonable human level. Not fun to listen to at 1200 in the afternoon, but reasonable enough. Charlie scurries past, already hard at work fixing some problem Dennis is sure doesn’t even matter.
Another thing he enjoys about their bar? There’s usually no one in it.
He recognizes the incongruity within himself, as he does really love money, but the crowd isn’t worth it. Not when they have Frank, who’s taken to walking around with his VR headset, making money for them and, presumably, banging.
At least, he’s either banging digital whores, or he’s decided that humping the air is a fun pass-time.
So Dennis enjoys the relative quiet of their bar, beyond Dee’s female pop groups and Charlie’s anxious rambling and Frank’s chattering, swearing, and moaning — there are some things he’s really never needed to hear.
And then there’s Mac, who — after a loud argument with Dee that ends in her storming off — takes his place dutifully watching the door for possible threats, allowing Dennis to somewhat securely begin unlocking the bar cabinets.
They have to keep everything locked up, from liquor to links like the one Dennis had narrowly turned down last night.
See, a long time ago — according to Frank, who remembers being a kid and watching the first model of femmebots roll onto the streets — the point was to make a better person. Not a replacement — no, the news was very clear about that — but still.
The point was for these human shaped machines, each cradling an engine and a computer and a clever nervous system, to be better.
Artificial blood, muscle, and bone.
The news had skirted the obvious by saying within their limited capacity. Laborers stronger than ten men, and able to work with only a weekly scheduled break. Servers who never spill a drink. Whores who never sleep and never feel pain. Never succumb to vices or illness or disease. Never cry unless you pay them to.
Better at working. Better at serving humanity. Better at sex.
Supposedly.
But then there’s the laborer’s dulled senses. Strength, sure, but shit reflexes. Poor vision. Poor hearing. Only good for picking up and carrying.
Servers, flitting around and doing tasks and never ceasing. Minds always finding solutions to problems that don’t yet exist. A refill of your drink before you’ve finished the last drop.
Femmebots and boydroids who only want one thing. Pleasure. Despite the assurances otherwise, it doesn’t seem to matter what kind. Despite the slogans — Your pleasure is our pleasure — Dennis has seen artificial whores get high and refuse sex. High just for the fun of it.
Senses all turned up to a million just to make them better at giving and receiving and getting very high in the bathroom of anywhere they’re allowed in.
There are supposed to be failsafes. The laborer’s dull senses and the whore’s heightened ones. The servers with their minds that never stop computing.
But the machines, like all human shaped things, wanted more. That’s how you end up with dance floors littered with plastic people. That’s why you learn to check ID’s.
The carefully constructed boundaries meant to keep them in line barely manage to keep them from appearing totally human. Just the backs of their necks, branded with barcodes. Just their machine innards and ID’s.
Not like he’s racist, or whatever the newest PC term for discrimination against the not-technically-alive is called nowadays. He’s tried it, once or twice or ten times, like all self respecting men.
He just hasn’t liked it very much.
He’s not bigoted. Just careful.
The first time he’d done it, with a redhead. Giant tits. Paid in full by Frank, who hadn't grasped the concept of an age appropriate gift. The last time he’d done it, with a slim brunette. Big brown eyes. Absolutely giant tits.
He’d cried both times, afterward, for reasons he’s never been able to understand. Sent the machine woman away and pulled the covers over his head and tried to breathe as tears slipped over the bridge of his nose.
So, he’s careful. In Frank’s terms, he’s picky about what he sticks his dick into. A crass little piece of poetry that always cracks Frank up.
All that to say, sometimes laborers ten times stronger than men come into the bar, persistent in looking for drinks or ‘roids or any other back alley uplink, and, typically, the gang only consists of five.
(Dennis, privately, considers them equivalent to perhaps three men.)
(On a good day.)
So, they lock up their shit. It’s illegal to sell directly to non-organic beings; a human has to buy it for them.
Another little injustice , Dennis thinks, because he is a good person who cares about treating people fairly, even when those people are, by definition, less than people.
It’s not his fault they’re not human.
Outside, the ambient afternoon-blue glows a little fainter. Dennis peeks out, past Mac’s head, at the headline he’s always expecting, these days.
Any model of Femmebot ™ can look human. Vendors must check ID’s.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles. “We know. So goddamn human they probably can’t even tell the difference themselves.”
—
Dennis ignores Mac telling him that it’s a bad idea to go out again.
You struck out last night, dude, just stay home.
The with me part of that sentence goes unsaid.
Dennis can’t have him getting too attached.
So he goes out, and he drives all backroads until it’s track from there on out. He’s avoiding the club he went to last night, but that’s the only one he can actually take the Rover to.
He parks under an overpass and walks the rest of the way.
It’s fucking freezing. He’s wearing Mac’s coat on accident. Grabbed it in a hurry, mid argument about how I’m worried you’ll get on the femmeroids again, and you know how you get—
It’s making him angry, how Mac’s coat is so much warmer than his had been. Less flattering by a mile, but warm.
Dennis walks until he gets to a club that’s flashing a bright pink neon sign in the shape of a jointed, older model boydroid leg. It’s kitschy, how the lights blink to make it look like the leg is kicking.
He goes in anyway.
Shows his ID, flirts with the bouncer, and makes sure Mac’s jacket is off the back of his neck as he walks by. Totally human. Exotic to be human, the way the bots were exciting, once. Now, they’re just… here. Here and fighting for their ‘rights’ as if they ever had any to begin with.
He feels eyes on him as he makes his way to the bar, ordering whatever their stupid, colorful cocktail of the week is.
It tastes like lime. Makes sense, for it being nuclear waste green.
He scans the crowd. Eliminates a few non-human options, smiles at a guy who raises his drink to him, and relaxes back in his seat, content to let someone come to him.
He just wants a good fuck. No preferences, beyond human. Something to drive him out of his skull for a while without driving him out of his skull forever.
It’s not just him trying to appease Mac; he’d really rather not go back on femmeroids or anything else that makes him feel so—
Animal isn’t the right word.
Machine.
Either way, inhuman.
—
Dennis wakes up slowly, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. There’s a screen embedded in it. He vaguely remembers it being set to mirror the bed, sometime last night. An image of his own red face and gripping hands. Now, the screen is showing a lazy weather report alongside the morning news.
Forecast: High of 41. Low of 28. Precipitation likely in the evening.
Below that, the ticker scrolls faster than he can read while hungover. He catches bits and pieces as he tries to adjust to being conscious.
— Twelve dead in trackless vehicle accident—
—Bill to be passed to decommission dangerous vehicles—
—New ‘Human-Adjacent’ model to be unveiled at the EXPO PA this coming Fall—
—Promising improvements to prevent ID fraud—
—Increasing unrest in the machine district—
—Senator [REDACTED] under investigation for aiding in newly discovered birth certificate forgeries—
—Fines increasing in certain districts for illegal sale of—
He sits up, letting the endless stream of news continue on without him viewing. He ignores the protests from his bedmate — apparently, he’d promised a round three in the morning. They’re decommissioning dangerous —
Dennis leaves the cool, sterile, tiled hotel room, ending up on the street in the harsh yellow of early morning. The sun has risen, and the sky, where he can see it, is a pale, pale blue. It’s not until he’s out of the way of all the bulletin boards and billboards and ad reads and artificial sun-cycles that he can feel it.
He cuts through the small, dirty outcropping of woods to get back to his car. They’re decommissioning—
The Rover is right where he’d left it. He gets in, a sick pit in his stomach that has nothing to do with the other sick pit in his stomach from getting drunk and getting fucked.
He’s still limping.
They’re going to decommission his car.
He screams, as close to alone as he can get beneath the overpass, and he bashes his hands against the wheel.
He screams and screams and hits the wheel until he hits the horn.
By the time he calms down, he can tell that he’s been crying.
A stupid part of him wonders if the guy he’d fucked last night had been a carefully constructed femmebot.
They’re going to decommission—
—
Mac’s seen the news by the time Dennis collects himself enough to get home.
It’s still on, actually, when he angrily strips out of Mac’s coat. At least he’d managed to keep the coat in the blackout that was last night. He can’t seem to find his phone, or his lip balm, and he’s not sure which one he’s more upset about, right now.
Mac’s in the kitchen as Dennis kicks off one boot. Rolls his eyes when he sees him. Looks pointedly to the screen.
“I’ve seen it. Don’t—“ He grunts, struggling with the other boot. “Don’t talk to me right now.”
“I—“
“No, I swear to god, Mac, I can’t take it—“
“Dennis—“
“I will hurt you—“
“Dennis, shut up!” Mac’s staring, frightened, now, at the screen. “Look.”
Dennis looks.
— Breaking News: Senator [REDACTED] found guilty of aiding and abetting the forgery of hundreds of false birth certificates throughout Philamachina and Pennsylvania—
He tears his attention away from the crawl to watch the news anchor spell it out. No uncertain terms.
In a historic 218/217 vote, the identities of these non-human individuals to be made public—
—House of Representatives has never seen such a split decision—
—Many wonder, if no one’s noticed them walking around for so many years, what good will it do to reveal them now?
—Foreseeing a potential impending disaster amongst families torn apart by the revelation that their loved one is not human—
—Uproar in the mechanical districts, with a sudden call to arms for sentient rights, both human and artificial—
—Mass protests—
—Identities still to be released on schedule—
—Many individuals and families can be expecting a visit from the police within the next few days in response to this information.
Do not be alarmed.
She repeats that last part. A cheerful face twisted into a human approximation of neutrality.
These checkins will be for your own safety, she says. Do not be alarmed.
And Dennis knows.
He knows.
He looks up at Mac, and Mac looks down at him where he’s on his ass trying to get his goddamn boot off, and he knows.
“Mac, I—“
The knock at the door startles them both. Dennis is halfway across the room, one boot on, looking for a way to escape the inevitable.
Mac’s put himself between Dennis and the door.
Another knock.
“It’s me, assholes, let me in!”
Dee.
“Let her in,” Dennis says, unashamed to be hiding behind him. “Let her in, you dick.”
“I—“ Mac hesitates. He hesitates, and Dennis knows, then, that he’ll never forgive him for that hesitation. For what it means.
But Mac lets her in anyway, and she’s not alone, and together, in the burning orange bulletin light announcing dusk, the five of them sit in their living room.
Quiet.
Outside, it starts to snow.
“What are we going to do?” Of course it’s Dee, who breaks the silence, because she would. “What are we going to do, Dennis?!”
“Shut up,” he says, standing from couch beside Mac and pacing, up and down, in the orange light. “Shut up, all of you.”
“Uh… No one else was talking.”
“Well you just did, Charlie, so my point stands.”
Charlie makes a deeply frustrated noise. “I mean, it’s not my fault I’m not, like, a real person, or whatever.”
The whole room goes still. A different kind of silence. Dennis turns on his heel, staring at Charlie where he’s sitting in the chair.
“What?”
“…It’s me, dude, I’m the femmebot or whatever. My mom told me, like, forever ago, dude.”
Mac stands. “What do you mean—?!”
“She wanted a kid, but like, it wasn’t working, or something. So, she got me.”
“You’re not real?! I can’t believe that!” Dee’s up now too, leaving only Frank sitting. Staring off into space. The news behind Dennis keeps scrolling on and on and on; he’s glad it’s on mute.
“Well, believe it, Dee, because I—“
Mac’s whining, “Charlie, I’m your best friend, how could you not tell me—“
“Enough!” Dennis quiets the room again, staring back at the tiny outline of Frank: unplugged. “Who— Who in this room,” he starts, delicate, unable to look away from the man he’d called a father, once. A long time ago now. “Who in this room,” Dennis asks, “is human.”
The others seem to know who he’s asking, because they all shut up. All staring. The snow is getting heavier.
Frank blinks at the screen behind Dennis. The orange of dusk slowly slides into burning red of night.
In a gesture that seems so small, so insignificant, so normal, Frank raises one hand.
One finger.
And he points it at himself.