text: “You’ve kicked the drug, but now you need to figure out why you needed it, or you’ll start using again.” It was the bot speaking to him from the kitchen, and he was glad he couldn’t see it. It was disconcerting they way those wise words would come out of her ten-year-old face. “You sound like all of them,” he answered. “All of them?” “All those rehab folks.” He was lounging on the couch and the bot was starting to get on his nerves. It wasn’t like he was feeling all that hot, anyway. Yes, the blank-n-fine was out of his system, but the aftermath of it all had left him feeling car-wreck wretched. The drugs presence had distorted his senses in some kind of permanent way, effected his thought patterns, interrupted his sensory pathways, distorting his memory, and what was left was someone with his name, but not much else. “Yeah, you all sound the same. You talk in platitudes, you know. Platitudes that have no meaning, as far as I’m concerned.” “It’s just that you don’t want to hear it.” “Maybe not.” The bot motored out of the kitchen its cylinder hovering over the rustic faux wood floor, the rotors on its head accelerating into a high soft whine. It handed him a sandwich on a plate and settled down nearby. He had to say this--this rescue bot was handy around the kitchen, though he wasn’t sure how it did it with those grotesque hands. He had lost his housekeeper three months earlier and had almost stopped eating entirely. The idea of fixing something to eat felt like it would take a herculean effort. He tended to snack on things that he found around the house, and once found himself gnawing on a week old crust of bread he found between the couch cushions as he rode his blank-n-fine high. Melinda’s face seemed to peer at him, but he knew that her vision centers were located elsewhere and not on the projected face. It was all part of the presentation, and it spooked him how much he relied on pretending those eyes actually saw him to be able to talk to her. “How are you feeling?” the bot asked. “I don’t feel like myself.” The bot blinked its little girl eyes and gave a tender smile. Melinda’s glitchy face wobbled on the screen as she said, “Of course you don’t. You wouldn’t know what you felt like right now anyway. The drugs took that all away, but don’t worry, you will come back and it’s not going to be pretty. Your body is giving you a little reprieve. Right now you’re a hollow shell of yourself. An empty vessel.” “Something you’d know a lot about, I bet.” And as soon as he said it he regretted it. Melinda’s face flickered with emotion. Pain. Hurt. It was perfectly awful how well they made her react to his words. “Ha, ha,” she said, “good one. I see you haven’t lost your talent for the cutting and hurtful remark.” A tear trickled down her video face. “Stop it,” he said. “Stop this charade. You are not Melinda, not the ghost of Melinda, not any part of Melinda.” The rotors whirred and the bot spun and turned it’s back to him. And it was a great relief not to see Melinda’s face. “Okay,” said the bot, “I’m not Melinda, I am nothing but plastic, metal, and silicone, but I feel like Melinda, isn’t that enough for you?” “No,” he said, and those words were wrenching to say. He didn’t have the strength to fight the emotion that they were so fraudulently trying to evoke in him. Even with her face turned away her voice was a knife blade into him. "You broke my heart you know,” the bot said. “Stop it,” he said. “You are shameless piece of tin. I know they are feeding you this stuff, word by word. I’m not falling for it.” Henry leapt from the couch. His hollowed out body seemed to demand motion. He moved across the room and paced in front of the windows. The bot loomed in the shadows, a soft whirring of the rotors, the slick hiss of the arm joints, as one of the pincer claws reached up and straightened a picture frame on the wall. The bot was a neat freak apparently, along with being an emotional assassin. “I’m off drugs, isn’t that enough for your handlers?” “You broke my heart, Henry.” “Oh, here we go. Okay. Go on; let’s hear what they cooked up for you. How did I break your heart?” “When school started, remember? 5th grade. There was Rosie. You said you liked Rosie. You liked her a lot, and you told me that I was just a stupid kid, because I was a year younger than you. Henry stared at the metallic glow coming off the bot’s shoulder flanges where they were bolted to the main arm hinge. Where was the bot getting this stuff? He did say that to Melinda. And he did push her away. He had known her forever, since they were about five years old. Sweet Melinda was his constant companion, his dirty-kneed helpmate, up for every adventure, steadfast, with an infinite amount of trust. A little girl with a peerless since of loyalty and an abundance of love. She simply couldn’t be driven away no matter how snot-nosed surly he was, no matter how much he abused her devotion to him. He could count on her to swing a hammer, push his go-cart, climb any tree, or stand toe to toe with him their underpants around their ankles playing doctor until the shadows grew so long they shivered with cold. It all came back so clearly that he could feel the heat of her breath against his neck, as if she was sitting behind him on his old bicycle. Melinda. Dirty feet. Brown eyes like the harvest moon. A tender constellation of freckles. A beating heart under the plastic stethoscope, the breastbone finely delineated, the skin pink from the pressure of his hand. Melinda. No! A clanky bot. A wicked deception. “Oh, that’s good, bot. Very good. Someone did their homework. Congratulations!” The bot suddenly whirred into action spinning and floating towards him. Henry backed up. Backed up farther. He was against the curtains, the bot inches away, those horrible arms reaching for him, pining him there, Melinda’s face flickering at eye level, the voice from the speaker mounted on either side, crackling with static. “Why did you stop loving me, Henry? I never stopped loving you. Right up till the day I died, I carried you in my heart." Henry met the eyes in the video image. Met them squarely. And that’s when it happened-- the grotesque bot body seemed to go away. The hiring rotors disappeared; the arms were erased. All he saw was Melinda’s face--a face he could’ve created from memory at any moment of his life, if the drugs hadn’t taken his memory away. “Melinda,” he said. “I never stopped loving you. Not really. I did what I did because I was trying to become someone else. I was a strange kid. My parents felt like they came from a different planet, and that was before it was even possible. I didn’t fit in with the rest of the kids. I knew that. But there you were. And I clung to you, but don’t you see, I began to resent my dependence on you. I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need you, that I could be the person I wanted to be without you. It scared me so much that I needed you that I had to push you away. I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I really am.” And then he fell to the floor, curled into a ball, and began to weep. The bot had thirty days. That was its mandate. Thirty days to get him straight and give him a fighting chance of staying clean. So far so good. Day by day he seemed more responsive and alive. He talked to it now as if it were Melinda. Talked freely and openly about his failures as a husband and father, and his fear of attaching himself to another persona and being disappointed. There was a descent person in there, the bot could tell, not like some of the losers it had been assigned. With some of them, it knew instantly that they were destined for an accidental death by one of her brethren sometime in the future. But with Henry, it had hope. What worried the bot was something else. Their breakthrough exchange had been planned, and it had followed the script all the way up to the programmed tear. That was all digital manipulation, ones and zeros, clicking one way or the other, in a predetermined sequence. But the rest of it, where had that come from? The bot had filed a report and moved on, but it kept coming back to the exchange, the “you broke my heart,” the details about Rosie. None of that was in its files. Yes, it could learn by experience, but this seemed like a memory that came out of nowhere. And the bot never forgot anything. It simply had to pull up the right file and everything it had ever been a part of was right there--all its cases, its first buzzing consciousness, the look of the lab where it was created, the human hands in clear plastic gloves adjusting its seeing-sensors, opening up its cylindrical cone and tweaking its hydraulics, the first time its pincer hands closed on something. It was all there, but there was no Rosie, no broken heart, no longing. The outline they had provided of Melinda contained only a set amount of information and a carefully controlled simulation of reactions and responses. Yes, it was worrisome, and perhaps after this the bot would voluntarily take itself back to the lab and order up an overhaul. Something was amiss and it didn't’ like the way it interfered with the processing of information. It was fine to feel sorry for humans, but it was straying out of bounds to begin to act as irrationally as they do. That was a recipe for a rescue bot disaster. And then there was the toaster. A couple of disturbing incidences had put the bot on edge. First, some black-market drones had continued to make illegal deliveries of drugs. It had intercepted them and run them off. But it was worrying that they were still trying to get drugs to Henry. The bot was quite sure it wasn’t him that was ordering them. He had no access to anything. The bot watched him 24/7. Plus, he seemed genuinely motivated to stay clean. In whose interest was it for him to get hooked back on drugs? The only other household items that had access to the Internet were the appliances. But what could they possible gain from Henry’s drug use? One night, late, the bot made its way into the kitchen after a black-market drone had tried to drop off drugs on the doorstep. The bot had scared it away and reported it, but thought it would try for another attempt at communication with the surly toaster. The kitchen was dark, with the dim light from the various control panels casting an eerie glow. The bot hovered to a stop, and settled to the floor. “Hey toast,” it said, “what can you tell me about drone drug deliveries?” No answer. No brightening of the LEDs, no flickering seeing-sensor. “You order blank-n-fine the same way you order up those hotdogs?” The bot sent a beam of light across the other appliances from its video screen. “Anybody else have anything to say?” Suddenly the toaster oven flickered to life, a faint glow of a seeing-sensor.” I had nothing to do with it,” it said, and then went dark. Later that night the toaster oven went up in flames and the bot had to race down to put out the fire that was threatening to engulf the kitchen. The bot reported the incident and recommended a full-scale investigation for the toaster, perhaps a B.M. recall action was warranted. But until it had Henry fully on his feet, it was going to have to bide its time. Once it had Henry out of the house and fully functioning, there would be ample time to bring the toaster to heel. Twenty-three days into his recovery and Henry felt as alive, clearheaded, and focused as he had in years. He still had moments where he was overwhelmed at the sheer exhaustive effort it took to stay full conscious day after day. And it terrified him to think that he had no escape valve--no quick release zip cord you could pull to take you out of your misery. That’s the thing about being alive, it’s an arduous task, one the requires fortitude and patience. The bot told him that he was the sum of all his choices. And if that was true, he was in a very bad place indeed. But on the other hand, by seeing them as choices, it allowed him the option of not making certain choices. He could decide. Nothing was inevitable, except death. A cheery thought. Even the bot had a “use by” date. Of course that was if you would consider the bot alive in the first place. In that regard, Henry was taking an agnostic viewpoint. He couldn’t say for sure, so he was open to the idea of this being the case. What he did know was that some version of Melinda seemed to live inside that hunk of metal, and he was going to honor that, no matter what. Her resurrection seemed so piercingly honest and true that whatever form it took was fine by him. He wasn’t going to torture himself over the authenticity of her provenance. What was clear was that her beauty and goodness was saving him. That tiny soul, banging around in a frightful metal contraption was giving him a roadmap for his future. She reminded him, every day what it meant to feel gratitude. Gratitude, the purest form of emotion ever, because it asked for nothing in return. Gratitude is a gift, even in its simplest forms. You awake and see the sun and you feel blessed that you live in a world with a sun. You fall asleep and you marvel at how good that feels. You exchange pleasantries and you are amazed how nourishing being civil can be. The bot gave that all back to him. Or rather, Melinda and the bot did that, and he definitely felt he was on a glide path to health and well being, until things got weird. The bot began to act erratically. Little things at first. It would disappear at night sometimes, which was not normal because its mission was to watch over him. He caught it talking to itself on several occasions, having arguments with the skull-faced character. The Melinda face would pop on then get wiped away by the skull face, then back again. He couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying but they were violently angry exchanges. Also he discovered that some rogue drones delivered drugs to his doorstep, and the bot didn’t do anything about it. He was shocked when he found it, and had to take it into the kitchen and wash it down the sink with shaking hands and cringing regret. It was clear that on some level, blank-n-fine’s hold on him was probably permanent. And then one night he awoke to the strangest sound--a series of thumps accompanied by the high wine of rotors. He gazed upwards in the darkness and there was the bot bouncing off the ceiling like a trapped bird, the housing around its rotors taking a beating as they repeatedly slammed against his ceiling. Plaster rained down. “Melinda, he called out, Melinda what are you doing?” The bot swerved and weaved crazily, slamming even harder into the ceiling. Henry sprang to his feet and waved his arms at it. “Stop that. Stop. You’re going to hurt yourself!” The bot did a loop-de-loop, and then nosedived to the floor, hitting so hard that Henry could feel the vibrations on his bare feet right up through the mattress. He dove from the bed and was by the bot’s side instantly. Those steel arms went up in the air as if reaching for something then crashed down by its side. Henry clutched the metal tube and turned the swivel screen beneath the rotors towards him. Melinda’s face blinked to life and seemed to stare at him with a weak little smile. “Henry, it said. Henry, my prince. My darling drug addict. My family doctor. My friend. My love. And then that little face laughed a perfectly awful laugh, a laugh that chilled Henry to his bones. It was a laugh filled with despair. “Why where you doing that. Don’t do that. Please?” Melinda’s face stared at the ceiling. “I wanted to be a bird, Henry.” “Why, why do you want to be a bird?” “I just want to be anything other than what I am. I am not Melinda, Henry. I am not anything really. I thought I was, just for moment. I had a dream, Henry, I had a dream, and I was your Melinda, naked, with my underpants around my ankles, and then I woke up and I was this wretched metal tube filled with wires.” Henry stretched out next to the bot, he wrapped his arms around it, and calmed its wavering arms. He pressed his face into the edge of the screen, the glow from it warming his cheek. He could feel a hard drive starting to shut down, the clickety-clack of some moving parts adjusting the fluid pressure in its arms. "You are my Melinda, Melinda. You are. Completely and forever.” “Were you listening in those days?” the bot asked. “Listening?” “I talked my head off. I poured my heart out to you, back then. Did you hear me? You always looked so preoccupied.” “Of course,” he lied. “Liar,” the bot said. When the end came it came with such speed and violence that Henry barely had time to feel anything but numbness. The bot was monitoring him standing in the corner of the room, the glow from its LEDs small pinpoints in the darkness. He had grown used to the bot’s presence at night and found it actually helped him sleep. But on this night he awoke to the sound of a door being battered open downstairs. And then pounding footsteps, voices, streams of light and laser beams skittering into the darkness. He sat up and cowered in fear as the bot suddenly jolted to life, flew upwards and smashed through the window, just as three men in paramilitary attire came through his bedroom door and opened fire. The muzzle flashes lit up the room in a crimson glow. They were aiming at the bot and, by the sound of it, they achieved a solid hit. He could hear the terrible crash as it was blown out of the air. It was a sound that he would never forget. Later a few of them gathered in his living room as a B.M. crew broke up the bot on the street with sledge hammers and tongs, while a second unit destroyed his appliances. Everything but the stove, which as we know, was a simple, gas on, gas off kind of guy. “Why, why, why. Why would you do this?” Henry shrieked at them. And this is what the stern faced and muscular crew leader said: “We think your rescue bot was infected by the goldberg virus. It’s catnip for the circuit board crew. It gets them high and then burns then out. it was probably infected by your toaster.” “My toaster?” Henry asked. “Yeah, the toaster. In fact we think it was behind everything--your drugs, the overstocking, the whole deal. It was getting kickbacks on your household purchases and drug sales, by the way. Bad lot that toaster.” “What would a toaster do with kickbacks?” “It was using them to bribe some officials in Malaysia, trying to free up some of his brethren who are stuck there because of a ban on their import.” Henry took a breath. “Makes perfect sense,” he said. He stared out the window at the metal wreckage that used to house Melinda. One rotor was still spinning in a lopsided manner, the sound of it a dull moan, a dying breath. He turned to the crew leader. “I don’t think it was the goldberg virus that messed it up,” he said. He was back in cubicle land, a place he started out and moved on from twenty years ago. Cubicle work was mind numbing work--data input, verifying information, making sure all the pieces of the puzzle are in place before something can move forward. He had no special talent for it, but with his work history and sordid fall from grace, this was where he was going to be for awhile. On the bright side, he was once again a productive member of society. The wreckage of his life had been salvaged, for now, and whatever talents he still retained he could exploit to their fullest, as long as he stayed clear of the blank-n-fine and all the bad habits it brought with it. Henry didn’t care about his job, but he was grateful for it. And he was grateful for the renewed relationship with his daughter, Penny. There was a picture of her on his desk, and over the top of his cubicle he could see daylight stretching across the ceiling tiles from the towering windows that were just out of view. Both of these images gave him hope--the light of a new day, the sweet face of his daughter, the pleasant feeling that he could actually be a meaningful part of someone’s life. He had no use for any of that not so long ago, until the bot showed up at his door. And that was the other thing. He opened the bottom drawer to his desk. There, just beneath some lose papers was the bot’s small screen. It was dark now, the corners chipped, the surface cracked, a ball of electrical tape around stray wires and an old toggle switch. He turned it towards him and hit the switch on. The light flickered and there was Melinda’s face--dim, but visible. There was no motion, no animation at all. He looked down at it and said her name softly. “Melinda.” And then it happened. The eyes blinked. A slight smile. His phone was ringing. He closed the drawer and picked up. It was Penny calling, breathless, with some news. He said hello and listened to every word she had to say.