Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: A Novel Read online

  “Judas!” he screams. “Traitor!”

  “Death to the bot! Death to the bot!”

  A cop in riot gear pushes the protestors to join the other Militiamen behind the barricade. They’re a scary-looking crew. Fundamentalists drawn from the ranks of heartbeats who lost their jobs to bot labor. Former union men who lost their pensions. Conspiracy theorists and gun nuts. Religious wackos who see a coming apocalypse with the rise of android technology.

  “Blood is thicker than oil!”

  “God hates bots! God hates bots!”

  They wear camouflage pants with black shirts displaying the crosshairs logo of their movement. They hold branes on sticks with loops of heartbeat hostages decapitated by Android Disciples.

  “Boycott GAC! End the manufacture of bots!”

  Waiting at the red light, Eliot notices how the Militiamen’s anger seems to gain in intensity each day. Their numbers grow, their opinionaters gain currency in the news, their politicians get elected to office.

  “You’re goin’ to Hell, botlover! You’re gonna burn for this in Hell!”

  The light changes and Eliot glides away in his electric car, past the mob, down the street in a haze both real and perceived. The real haze comes from the smoke pulsing out of the illegal generators in bot cities all over L.A. The mayor outlawed the contraptions after a summer of fires burned out of control, but the bots figured out how to route the exhaust through a maze of pipes that disguises the whereabouts of the burners. The illegal juice diverts revenue away from the power companies and into the coffers of criminal gangs. The smoke and ash sicken heartbeats around the world. They say it lowers the birthrates. They say that’s why lifespans are down in all the major cities and why every heartbeat over forty gets the cough.

  The other haze, the perceived haze, is from the drip that veils Eliot’s reality with something cool and soft to the touch. No one knows who invented the stuff though the Android Disciples control its distribution. Processed from discarded plastics, drip has no effect on bots but functions as a highly addictive narcotic when heartbeats inhale it through a cloth. It allows Eliot to absorb the sights and sounds of his surroundings without having to suffer on emotional impact. It dulls the pain from the injury to his shoulder and the memory of the incident that caused it.

  Police floaters flock east overhead as the autodrive maneuvers Eliot’s car through the traffic. He allows the car to choose his route, the machine to tell him where to go. He turns on the radio to hear a warning of a “situation” in the bot city east of Hollywood. The report describes a hotel fire probably caused by an explosion at a drip lab. Police are blocking the press. Commuters are warned to avoid Beverly.

  It’s dark out by the time Eliot parks in front of the guest house off Beachwood Canyon where he has lived since graduating from college. It’s a small, modest home. Too small, he often thinks. Too little privacy. But the rent’s affordable, and the air’s better, too. Not as much smoke and ash as there is at the bottom of the hill. They say you live a few years longer if you’re high up or close to the water—maybe that’s why Eliot hasn’t moved in eight years. Or maybe it’s just inertia.

  The speakers on his deskbrane play a message from the Hairy Mole:

  “Eliot, did you run out without saying good-bye? Oh, boo! I wanted to see how the Monroe meeting went. Let’s grab a drink next week when I’m back in town.”

  He loads the Nutri-Ink into the 3-D printer.

  “Pastrami on rye,” he tells the machine before hitting PRINT. He empties his drip into a hanky and takes a bold sniff—the last of his stash. He’ll have to score more tonight unless he wants his weekend to be a nerve-shattering bout of terror-inducing withdrawal. For all the drip helps kill his emotions, when it wears off, the comedown is a killer. The feelings hit doubly hard, the pain becomes nonnegotiable.

  Seconds after he drops onto the couch, the drug kicks in and Eliot’s body tingles and drags into the soft bliss of the cushions. Everything feels all right again. The printer beeps, indicating his sandwich is ready, but Eliot has lost his apatite. He has all he needs now: a dark room, a comfy couch, some quiet. Too bad Iris is working ’til two at the Chug-Bot factory in Heron. How nice if she were here beside him. Her smile, her smell, that little red fleck in her eye. The way her head tilts side-to-side when she sketches on the floor of her apartment. The way she curls beside him like a cat, her heart spins, her breath rises and falls, the light outside changes and nothing else. Time stops when her lips brush against his ear.

  Smoke from the streets wafts up the canyon through the blinds on his windows. The buzz of drones descends from the hill. Their sirens stir the coyotes to a howl.

  It’s an autoimmune response, thinks Eliot, caused by some wound in the city. The “situation” he heard about on the radio is expressing itself. It’s gaining momentum, approaching the condition of an “event.” Will the fire spread to the neighboring streets, past the freeways and farther as the web scatters its embers to other bot cities across the globe? Is this the price we pay for being connected? No event is local. One small spark and the whole world goes up in flames.

  He turns on the liquid screen on his wall to check the news. A reporter in a flak jacket says that snipers from the Android Disciples attacked first responders who raced to the scene.

  “Police were forced to protect themselves,” says the flak. “They fired from SWAT trucks and tore down a building the disciples were using as a bunker.”

  Every channel carries the same report. Flames burning out of control. Civilians injured in the crossfire. Bots killed, too, Eliot assumes, but the news would never report it. Can’t say a bot was killed because that would imply he once lived, and Standards and Practices insists that something cannot die that was never alive. They can be DBR’ed but never killed. All forms of oppression carry their own semantics.

  “Breaking News” flashes across the bottom of the screen. It’s a video loop from Lorca, the right sleeve of her sweater pinned up to conceal the stump of her missing arm. She speaks from a living room lit by a fireplace out of frame. The large chair diminishes her, makes her look less threatening. Good production value for an insurrectionist drug gang.

  “The heartbeats do nothing to police our neighborhoods,” says Lorca. “They do nothing to insure our homes are safe from terror. They wage war against us, using fire to murder our brothers and sisters. Our sons and daughters. Our old and infirm.”

  Eliot marvels at this little Latina android, this one armed nannybot who is the most feared insurgent in the Southwest. Everything about her exudes motherhood and love. Sweet and kind on the surface, she reminds wealthy heartbeats of the bots who raised them, who picked them up from school and cooked quesadillas when they got home. That’s how she won over the college crowd. Her sermons played to wealthy post-adolescents like the whispered readings of forbidden fairy tales.

  “And when our streets burn, when our houses burn, when our bodies burn in the flames of their destruction, the heartbeats have the audacity to blame us for our own burning.”

  But Eliot never bought into Lorca’s marketing or the romance of her revolutionary image. He’s too cynical for that, too removed from the political debate. Especially when it’s alleged she killed his father and his sister. When it’s alleged it was she who blew off his arm.

  A pounding on the door precedes his brother’s voice.

  “Open up, ya mopey prick!”

  Oh, yeah, Eliot remembers. A night with Shelley. Some unlikely plan to sucker him out of his boat so I can escape with Iris to Avernus. Now even more important after blowing the deal with Monroe.

  “Stop jerkin’ off and answer the door!”

  Eliot lowers the volume and calls out the location of the spare key. It gives him enough time to hide the empty vial and the drip rag. He’s fresh as a daisy, seated at his desk, by the time Shelley bursts in holding a suit.

  “Put this on, ya mopey prick. We got plans.”

  “What plans?”

 
“You see this piece of goods?” Shelley pulls the plastic off the suit. “You wouldn’t believe what it cost.”

  A small man, Eliot’s brother, short and stocky, but he tends to get his way.

  “Take a shower,” he orders Eliot. “I’m not letting you put on a beautiful shmata like this until you’re clean.”

  Eliot does as he’s told. It’s easier this way. He washes and puts on the suit, a nice suit, too. Vintage. It fits well and must have cost an arm and a leg.

  “Where we going?” Eliot asks.

  “Art show. Down at the Brewery. Real cultural event.”

  “Seriously.”

  “To a pit fight! Wear a coat so you don’t get oil on your new suit. And lend me a few bucks, will ya?”

  “For what?”

  “For the suit!”

  Eliot drives. His brother talks. They keep the radio on to stay apprised of any road closings from the situation. Shelley lights a joint in the passenger seat and ashes wherever he wants.

  “Take the freeway … Drive faster … Jesus, pay attention.”

  They arrive at the Brewery before nine and sit in press row amid a crowd of drunken heartbeats. It’s a loud, raucous arena that fits no more than a thousand. The intimacy and darkness intrigue the competition with an air of illegality and chaos.

  “Get on with it,” shouts a fan, waving a flask in one hand and a cigar in the other. Shelley dons a derby with his credentials tucked into his hatband. He clicks away with his loop-cam as the first dog, a rabid husky, charges full steam across the pit. The shirtless fighter times a kick perfectly against the dog’s jaw and sends its teeth flying across the pit. The audience boos.

  “What’s with the poodles, ref?”

  “Undulay, undulay!”

  “Get on with it!”

  The husky whimpers until the fighter stomps it, three times, crushing the dog’s skull. A beer bottle smashes against the fence. The crowd shouts for vengeance against the bot.

  “You talk to Mom?” Eliot asks.

  “A week ago.”

  “How’d she sound?”

  “Like a lobotomized yogi.”

  Down in the pit, the handlers unmuzzle a pair of gen-modded wolves with tough, wiry manes. The sharps of their teeth extend past their lips. The crowd cheers as the mutant dogs attack. With his back against the fence, the fighter kicks one wolf away and flings the other into the crowd. There are snarls and growls as the animal attacks at random. The wolf clamps down on a drunkard’s leg until a gunshot, fired by a spectator, puts the animal to sleep.

  “What makes you say that?” Eliot asks.

  “Oh, it’s the Admiral this and the Admiral that,” says Shelley. “It’s like she worships the guy. Talks about him like he’s some kind of prophet, like he can part the Red Sea.”

  “Maybe they’re dating.”

  “Aw come off it, Eliot. It’s a fucking cult.”

  The handlers release another wolf into the pit. As the fighter fends it off, the first dog takes a hold of his ankle. It’s jaws rip and jerk until oil spews from the fighter’s foot. Then the second dog leaps into the air and snatches the wounded bot’s throat. Circuits fall from his neck. His wires are exposed. The crowd roars its approval.

  “If it makes her happy,” says Eliot. “If she found herself there…”

  “The problem is she’s not living in reality.”

  “This reality?” Eliot gestures to the competition below. “Can you blame her for trying something different?”

  The dogs plunge their oil-wet snouts into the bot’s torso. They tear his synthetic flesh as the fighter’s limbs flutter about the pit. The crowd cheers. Spectators jump to their feet as the handlers coax the surviving dogs back to their cages.

  “Come on,” says Shelley. “I want to show you something.”

  He leads Eliot into the basement to get a better look at the headliner, a giant android scheduled to fight five bots at once in the evening’s main event.

  “His name is Slugger Davydenko,” Shelley explains. “Best pit fighter in the city. His promoter bought him off a Russian commando unit last year.” They walk the tunnels beneath the arena where the wolves and pit bulls howl from their kennels. The stink of dog piss saturates the air. “He served in Dagestan” Sats Shelley “Once took out an entire village in an hour.”

  Shelley shows his credentials and a guard lets them pass.

  “The thing is he’s never really the same bot twice, His promoter is constantly upgrading his parts with top-of-the-line metal. They have to balance his aggression with intelligence in order to make him a more effective killer.”

  Another guard lets them into the dressing room where they hear the thud of punches on a heavy bag then see the giant Russian wailing away. Cauliflower ears and a shored head. Eyes too blue for comfort. A bot cord runs from the wall to his navel filling Slugger with the juice he’ll need for the fight.

  “He’s got Kevlock skin, titanium bones, and tetrafiber muscles,” says Shelley. “They wrapped his engine in lead and buried it in his torso where it can’t be pierced.”

  A trainer monitors the Russian’s technique as Slugger steps fluidly to the side, swings on a hinge, and lands with a crack. Each punch splits and tears at the bag. The assembled heartbeats watch in frightened awe.

  “You can shoot the fucker with an RPG, and he won’t stop coming.”

  The photographers lower their loop-cams. A reporter turns away and laughs. The punches slap forth like the drums of an army on the march. You are no match for us, say his fists. You can’t compete. You are weak, evolutionary trash, and I am the future of man.

  “Hey, Slugger,” Shelley calls out. “Over here!”

  The giant android stops his assault and turns to see who’s calling.

  “Whaddya think?” asks Shelley, clicking away with his loop-cam. “More than one round tonight?”

  The bot’s anger briefly finds a new target. The room looks toward Shelley until the fighter returns again to his preparation.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Pleased with his shot, Shelley smirks and shows the brane to his brother. It’s a clean loop of the fighter’s pissed-off face looking directly into the lens.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  FOUR

  Camilla’s Brothel

  They shoot pool under a sign that reads NO HEARTBEAT, NO SERVICE. They sip scotch and stretch the fibers of their suits. A botress sells Shelley a loose joint. The brane on her shirt advertises Electric Kush and Metal Herer. Shelley selects a sativa-dominant hybrid then pats her ass as he sends her away.

  “What’s the matter with you? You got Slugger Davydenko murdering five bots at once, and you hardly made a peep.”

  It’s true. Eliot tuned out after the Russian dug his hand into a bot’s thigh and ripped off a leg. The drip was wearing thin, and he couldn’t help feeling a pang of empathy.

  “I mean you’ve always been a mopey prick,” says Shelley, “but how you can’t appreciate beauty like that is beyond me.”

  Eliot sees an angle on the nine ball and lines up his shot.

  “I’ve been thinking about visiting Mom,” he tells his brother.

  “On Avernus?” Shelley asks. “How you gonna do that?”

  “I was hoping I could take your boat.” He touches the stripe into a side pocket, sips his drink, and looks for his next angle.

  Shelley stares at the table grappling with the configuration of the balls. “My understanding is the Admiral doesn’t like tourists. Calls them capitalist missionaries. He seizes their boats and turns them into communal property.”

  “I wouldn’t be going as a tourist.” Eliot misses an easy corner and stands apart from the table.

  Shelley lowers his sights and bangs in a solid. He plays better stoned. He moves around the table and takes another hit off his joint. “You want to join a cult?”

  “I prefer to think of it as a commune.”

  “And w
hy would you want to join a commune?”

  “So I can get clean.” Eliot doesn’t mention Iris because he knows his brother won’t accept it. Shelley won’t understand or accept love as a reason for abandoning him in L.A., especially not love for a bot. But for health reasons, for reasons having to do with survival—a good salesman knows his prospect is heart.

  The younger brother backs away from the table recognizing that all his solids are blocked by stripes. He had been seeing himself as ahead in the game, but now the status is reversed. “You’re using again?”

  “I never stopped.”

  “What about rehab?”

  “You think the third time was the charm?”

  “And twelve-step?”

  “Talk about a cult.”

  Shelley hesitates toward a bank shot but the angle seems off. He sighs and taps his cue against the floor. “What if there’s drip on Avernus?”

  “Then I’ll use it. But if there isn’t, I’ll have no choice but to get clean.”

  Shelley chalks the tip of his stick. He runs a solid behind the eight to make sure Eliot won’t have a shot on his next turn. “Why can’t you buy your own fucking boat?”

  “The money seems to disappear before I ever have enough.”

  “Where’s it go?”

  “Half to the drip. The rest to you.”

  Shelley orders another drink from the botress. He changes the subject and talks about his career. He says there’s an opportunity to get a better paying gig at another newsbrane, but he won’t say which one.

  “You give me the boat, I’ll give you my apartment and every ingot I’ve saved,” says Eliot. “I don’t need money on Avernus. I need a different way to live. The way I’m living here is killing me.”

  The pool hall closes, and they let the car auto-drive them to Camilla’s Brothel east of the LA river. It’s Shelley’s idea to go. Many of his evenings end at Camilla’s. Many of them begin there as well.

  “Sheldon, you pay upfront this time.” The fat, lusty madam points with her cane. “No bullshit tonight.”

  Big Momma Camilla keeps a clean stable of high-end bots ready for whatever abuse a heartbeat (heartbeats only) wishes to perform. She demands a standard of decorum in her establishment that her clients are required to obey. Somehow, Shelley eschews that standard.