RoboNomics

Chapter 5

"Huh," I say aloud before I can stop myself. I look around, feeling awkward as I slip my paper thin FlexPhone from the giant black work purse hanging from my shoulder. I hold up my phone and pinch the air between the screen and the paper sign. The poster appears on my tiny device. I put it back in my purse and hurry down the street towards home. Something about considering an inquiry into a protest group seems wrong. I feel as though I've just done something shameful and step quickly up the street, away from the stop sign.

By the time our long, thin Victorian bay-and-gable home comes into view, I am sweaty and tired. I feel the grime of the city on me, the sun deepening the lines on my forehead with its heat. It took me almost an hour to get here. The walk was supposed to give me some perspective about the events of the day, but I still don't know what to do. I don't really want to do anything else but sit on the couch with my feet up.

Just when I'm about to head up the walkway and disappear into our house, Lilly appears from behind a bush and straightens up. She's been tending her ornate front garden. Her iTronics brand HomeBot, the answer to RoboNomics' Domestic Support Units, sways by her side.

I stifle a groan. Lilly is comfortably ensconced in her forties with a teapot body and a short, perfunctory hairdo that is streaked with orange and blonde highlights. She has a brood of boys and a husband who alternates between being considerate and a pain. When my husband Austin is on thirty hour on-call shifts at the hospital, Lilly's husband Andre offers to cut the grass or take out the garbage or do other small chores considered by Lilly to be male duties. These are things I could easily do myself, so I suspect that Lilly sends Andre over to the house as her spy. It makes me anxious to raise our voices above a whisper even in our own bedroom.

"Andrea!" she calls when she sees me. I don't want to tell her about losing my job to a bot. It's too humiliating. There would be no way to avoid the look of inevitable disappointment that will come into her eyes.

"Hi, Lilly," I try to hide my distress. I adjust my facial expression to neutral. Her bot's puppy ears perk on its humanoid head. It stands looking at us with round, empty eyes. Lilly starts towards me and the bot stands still, holding the garden shears.

"How are you?" Lilly asks.

"Just fine. How about you?" The niceties decide me. There is no way I'm going to tell her I've lost my job.

"Good, good."

"Okay, well," I point at the house. "I guess I'd better -- "

"You're home early for a school day, aren't you?" She interrupts my attempt to end the conversation.

"Yeah, I guess I am. I just...I just wasn't feeling very well."

"Oh, you're not getting a stomach bug, are you? Half of Clint's class are out with that weird new flu strain. Clint's has been dragging on for months and even the doctors aren't quite sure what it is. But there's all these superbugs around nowadays, you know? Well, anyways, I hope we didn't give it to you."

Before I can answer, Austin's steel sedan flashes into view as it parks across the street.

"Well, you should ask your husband about it, he'd know," Lilly concludes.

"Yeah, I guess he will."

"Let me know if there's anything we can do to help." She beams. "You take good care of your wife, Dr. Clarke," she calls to Austin as he crosses the street towards us. "Make sure she asks you about this new virus."

I always lose track of time when he is at the hospital for so long. Was it yesterday morning when I last saw him? Or the evening before last? The strange passage of time that occurs when he's away is the most difficult part of our relationship. Events and friends and places are categorized into "with Austin" and "without Austin". Often the two categories become confused in my head and I'll accidentally refer to things and people and places that he has not experienced.

"New virus?" He asks as we squeeze together into our tiny front hall. I can smell the hospital lingering around him. The familiarity of it makes me so relieved to have him here. His lanky tallness, long face, and red hair are so comforting that I almost believe it's going to turn out right. I want to blurt out the events of the day right now.

"Yeah, I..." I check my impulse and wonder what I should tell him. How I should explain. "I just...I just wasn't feeling well today. That's why I'm home from work now."

"Home now?"

"Yes. Austin, it's barely noon."

"Oh, right. I guess school's still in. Sorry, it's just I've been working --"

"Yeah, I know."

Shoes off, he heads upstairs to the bedroom. This is our ritual: If I'm home when he comes back from work, I'll follow him to the master bedroom on the third floor with its sloped ceiling and square gable. I'll watch him change from the requisite stuffed shirt and dress pants of his profession into jogging pants and a t-shirt. He'll talk about his day. The foibles of the new iTronics CareBots: the mechanical nurses that have replaced their human counterparts. He'll tell me about the state of his patients and intra-hospital politics. He'll talk until he's nude and I'll pull him to me, wrap my arms around his middle as I sit on the bed, and bury my face in his torso. Sometimes we'll collapse on the bed, sometimes head downstairs to talk about the lost time.

But today I don't do either. He bends to pull on a sock, then stands at the door and peers at me. He nods slightly towards the door.

"Austin," I begin. "There's a reason I'm not feeling well today."

"Yeah, you told me. Upset stomach. No big deal, right? That's what sick days and substitutes are for."

"Yeah, but there's a reason my stomach was upset. And a substitute hasn't replaced me."

His eyes widen and brows furrow. He comes to the bed and sits beside me. "What do you mean? Who's with your class, then?"

"It's..." I can hear my breath coming fast. I turn to him and cross my legs over the thin summer blankets. "It's a machine."

Austin opens his mouth but for a moment doesn't say anything. His violet eyes examine mine. "What?" he finally asks.

"A robot, Austin. An android. They replaced me with an android."

"But when --"

"Just today. I guess it was supposed to be at the beginning of the school year but they just got the thing today."

"So what happens now?" I tell him about the contract and my refusal to sign it. "Why didn't you take it?" he asks.

I stand up and start pacing around the room. "How could I have taken it? I don't want to sit around watching some...thing doing my job. I want to do my job."

"So you...what? You don't have a job now?"

"No, I don't," I say gently. I stop pacing and look at him.

He drops his gaze to the floor. "Andrea, I don't know if that was the right move. We can't afford --"

"Don't you think I know that? Look, this will be fine."

"I guess I just wish..." He says as he looks up at me. "I wish you signed that contract. You really shouldn't pass up any opportunity you get now."

"I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I just -- I can't go back there. But I don't know what else to do. I guess...I just have to talk to the union rep --"

"Ok, well, let's go do that," he says as he heads for the door and walks with his characteristic nervous energy across the hall.

"What, now?" I follow him down the thin staircase.

"When else?"

"Can't I just have a day to process this? I was planning on calling first thing tomorrow morning." He stops short in the narrow hallway that leads to the kitchen and I nearly bump into him. He spins to face me, the light from the massive patio doors spilling down the hall and around his head like a halo. It lights up his short auburn curls so that they look bright red.

"I don't think we should leave it even a day. You know we have way too much to worry about. We can't hesitate."

My shoulders drop, weighted down by the severity of our financial situation if my income ceases. "Yeah, I guess so."

His arms suddenly surround me. "This is all happening really fast," he tells me as I bury my face in his chest. "I know it's a lot. But we have to deal with it quickly. If there's a way to get your job back, we have to figure it out."

I sigh and look up at him. "Yeah, okay, okay. I'll call. But I can't promise anything."

"Good enough for me." He releases me. I go to the front hall to find my phone in the cavernous recesses of my work purse. When I tap it, the screen flashes on with a white glow. On its screen is the poster from the lamp post. Austin's words echo in my head: If there's a way to get your job back, we have to figure it out.