RoboNomics

Chapter 46 - 2016

We're less successful looking for a place to stay than we were yesterday. As we cut across a half-empty parking lot, the sun sinks behind the tops of buildings. 

We dodge a rusted-out car with broken windows and step into an alley to get to the next street over.

"Austin, it's getting dark and I'm starved. I think we just have to start again tomorrow."

"You're really going to have to get used to dealing with hunger, Andrea," he says sharply. "We have to make the money last."

"Why are you being grumpy?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry. And, look, I'm sorry about earlier with Christine." 

He stops walking and turns to me. 

"She was just some silly girl at work I barely saw or thought about. I never mentioned her to you because she was a bit...forgettable."

He looks beyond me at a point above my head. I follow his gaze and twist to look down the long alley. 

A group of scruffy young men and women have materialized out of one of the backyards butting up against the lane. They are wearing robotic faces as hats. The plastic molds, with one eyebrow or half a smile missing, are plastered to their foreheads.

They head straight for us.

"You have money?" One of the men asks as they approach.

"No." Austin fibs with a straight face.

"I just heard you talking with her." The guy gestures at me. 

He has long, stringy hair that grows out from under the artificial face on his head. He's missing a front tooth. He probably lost it in a fistfight with a patrol bot. 

"You were talking about money. So hand it over and we won't hurt her."

Austin takes a long stride towards the group and opens his mouth. The man closest to him takes a sleek hand pistol from his pocket and points it at my head. I gasp before I can stop myself.

I've never actually seen a gun before. Not in real life. They used to be all over TV, and in cops' holsters. 

But cops had guns for my protection, so I never had a reason to have one. But this gun is real. It's drawn and it's pointed at me. Its silver barrel reflects the light from the fading sunlight.

"Austin." I grab his arm. "Just stop. I'll just give it to them." 

I slowly, carefully take off my backpack and extract the roll of cash. I hand it to my husband.

One of them grabs it from Austin's hand. Most of them run off down the lane except for the guy with the gun. 

"Okay, well. The Anti-Robotists thank you for your contribution to the cause, sister." 

He replaces the pistol in the back of his pants and takes off after the others. They laugh maniacally as they retreat down the alleyway.

#

As the day dies, I rack my brain for some place we can stay for the night. By the time we gain the next street, I know we only have one choice left. 

I clear my throat and glance at Austin's face. He's looking at the ground.

"Maybe we should try a shelter?" I ask, my voice low.

"No, Andrea. No. I can't subject you to that."

"Austin, we don't have any other choice."

"It makes no sense. We told them who we are. Every single time we got rushed out of there. Who else are they going to rent to? If a teacher and a neurosurgeon are no good, who else would rent those dumps? What -- they think some corporate executive is looking for a fucking flop house?"

"Ex-teacher, Austin," I say gently. "Ex-surgeon."

"Don't you think I know that?" Austin turns on the sidewalk to face me. "Why do you have to rub it in every time?"

"Because you won't admit it," I answer. "You won't just admit that our lives have changed. They won't go back to what they were. Maybe not ever."

He stares at the sidewalk in front of him. 

"They have to, Andrea. They have to eventually. Don't they?" 

I shrug. I have no assurances for him -- not anymore.

He's silent the rest of the walk. We go back to our neighborhood but not back to the building that, yesterday, was our home. 

When we get to College Street, it's filled with people who hustle past us in the dark. They haul scraps of copper ripped from roofs of public buildings or dug from the walls of a foreclosed house. 

Anti-Robotists, dressed in all black with the red embroidered emblem on their chest, patrol as if they're cops and stop to scrawl messages with spray paint on abandoned shop windows. 

We see several bunches of them dragging bots along the street. Some of them tear the machines apart. A couple of them lob the head of an android back and forth. One young man with a blood red bandanna over his mouth raises the bot's head like a trophy over his head. 

Austin and I scuttle past as quickly as we can. When we arrive outside the homeless shelter, we find a line that stretches for a block.

"Look, I'm sorry." Austin turns to me. "I just can't believe it's come to this. I can't believe that just because your protest failed, things will never be the same." 

He throws an arm over my shoulder.

"Maybe it would have helped if you'd been there." It isn't the first time I've said it.

Austin drops his arm. "I'm trying to apologize. Do you really think one person would have changed the outcome?"

"No. But maybe if you'd set an example, other doctors would have joined us. You know how it is. The news, the politicians -- everyone would have taken us more seriously if we'd had doctors there."

"Yeah, well. There a reason none of them would show."

"What's that? Snobbery?" I snipe.

"Professional ethics," he replies.

"So what, I don't have any?"

"You know I don't mean it that way. Come on, Andrea. Can't we just make the most out of this?"

"Out of what, Austin? Do you see where we are?" I raise an eyebrow towards the building.

"Well," he looks up at the crumbling stucco wall of the shelter. "At least we're together."

I look up at him as he smiles. I've never cheated on Austin and I never would. I've never even contemplated it before. I can count the number of men I've been with in my life on one hand. 

But being kissed by Chris made me wonder what it would be like if Austin and I had never met. What would my life be like now, if I'd met Chris instead?

Where would an elementary schoolteacher and a garbage collector meet anyhow? I think as we shuffle forward with the motion of the line. 

Randomly, like he met that girl Jen? It was an accident, then. It was something that wouldn't have happened if the world was the way it was supposed to be. My meeting Austin, on the other hand, was fate.

(Continued in Chapter 47...)

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