The Last Job

by Scott Barnes

conclusion

I assured her I knew what I was doing.

I rushed to Bots-4-U and purchased a mechanical bunny. The toy-maker scanned a photo of Henry and made an exact replica for $1348.99 — pocket change. I thought about beautiful Blinky and Amy the android and Marla and her piercing blues. I hated to be rushed and now everyone demanded that I rush. I was out of my element.

The note was an address and the message: ‘If you want to work, come immediately.’

I hurried to my flat and threw the mechanical bunny into Henry’s cage. “Come on big guy, they will never know I skipped out if I let my favorite bunny-wunny starve to death. They’ll think I was murdered or something.” I scooped him up. His heart beat pitter pat. I loved the way he smelled of musty furniture. The robot bunny would starve after a few days; the verisimilitude was that good.

My contacts, Charles and Vijay, met me inside the Geary Street Laundromat. There were brief introductions, then Charles asked me to follow him to the fifth machine on the left. His Oxford accent added to the feeling that it was an international conspiracy, making me feel safer. I’ve always loved conspiracies. There’s something comforting in believing that the whole world is in on something.

Charles grabbed Kenmore number five and rocked it from side to side, straining. “Well, come on, lend a hand.”

“Don’t you have a sliding wall or something, like the Bat-cave?”

“Can’t have anything on the grid,” Charles replied. “Everything has to be done manually.”

Straining together we slid the washing machine out of the way. It hummed to life and asked what was wrong, and we replied that some change had fallen in the crack. “Just don’t manhandle me,” it warned. “I go out of balance easily.”

Charles lifted a trapdoor. “In you go,” he said. “Vijay will stay here to put the washing machine back in place.” A dirt crawlway spiraled down. We descended at least four stories on hands and knees. My back was killing me.

A bright light shone ahead.

I whispered, “I thought you said nothing on the grid?”

“Solar,” Charles replied, with his British lilt.

We arrived at a brightly lit room. Sterile, metal furniture lined the walls, but the most striking feature was a freestanding device resembling a giant salad shooter, big enough to shred pumpkins. A beautiful girl wearing lavender jeans, a tank top and dangling, silver earrings awaited me.

“Blinky!” I exclaimed.

“Are you surprised?”

I thought for a second. She was dynamic, intelligent, outgoing, courteous... “I’m surprised you’re not an android.”

“Trust me, I’m not an android.”

I frowned. There was no way to know an android from a human, short of dissection, but Blinky was too perfect. “Why are you doing this?”

“I love my career,” Blinky replied. “I love working. The bots are killing us, as surely, as unintentionally as AIDS. With Charles, Vijay and a few others, we’ve formed an Underground Railroad to get like-minded people out. There are still places on earth where inefficient labor is appreciated.”

Charles interrupted, “Yes, well, you can’t leave jolly US of A like this. Let’s get you out of your clothes.”

“What? If this some kind of publicity stunt for the holo-vid...!”

“No, Doug,” Blinky said. “Charles is right, you can’t leave like this.”

“Like what?”

“You’re wearing nano-fibers. They detect your heart rate, perspiration, temperature, all sorts of things. Micro-capsules release antiperspirant as needed, flex-fibers increase or decrease breathability. Everything gets fed into the central computer, including your location.”

This was getting weird, but I didn’t see as I had any choice. I had come too far. Besides, like I said, conspiracies are in my blood. I call it informed paranoia.

I handed Blinky my black beret. Into the shredder it went, ripping with a sound like AM static. A fur-ball plopped into the remains receptacle, and Blinky poked it with a stick. It had a surprising blue tinge.

“Nano-fibers,” she said. “Just as I thought. Now the rest, pretty boy.”

A chill settled on my stomach. “But they know I’ve come here. They will find your hideout.”

“No chance,” Charles said, pulling a device from his shirt pocket. “I’ve been blocking your signals with this Wave-Jammer. We’re safe until someone finds you’ve gone missing. By then, you’ll be across the pond.”

“Take it all off, Doug.” Blinky smiled. “I’m watching.”

Right then, I wished I’d spent more time with Brad at the gym.

Most of my clothes had nano-fibers, but not the skivvies, which somehow made me feel better.

“Now the rabbit,” Blinky said.

“Huh?”

“The rabbit. It’s not real.”

His leg twitched. Henry, not real? I’d had him spayed at the vet. I’d sprayed his boo-boos with yellow disinfectant. He never asked me to rush, not once. Henry was my best friend. I allowed Blinky to take him from me.

“They are more and more real, aren’t they?” She stroked his ears, then flipped him in the shredder. He ground like carrots in a disposal. Blinky poked in the receptacle.

“Right, well, we’re off.”

I looked at the bloody pulp, but could detect nothing blue.

“Where are the nano-fibers?”

“So I was wrong.”

Afghanistan: the last haven. I won’t bother telling you how I got there. It involved being sealed in shipping containers and defecating in plastic bags. Blinky didn’t come, or I would have had something to talk about. That girl was something else. She, Charles and Vijay stayed back to supervise the Underground Railroad.

I would have liked to become a caravaner herding camels over the centuries-old trade routes. Or an archeologist, digging the Buddhist bones of Tepe Maranjan. Instead, I was stuck in Kabul cooking the favorite local dish Pilau: lamb with yellow rice, carrots and raisins. Poor Afghanistan didn’t have the standardized ingredients we had in San Francisco. Despite my best efforts, the taste, my patrons said, was always different. I loved it.

Except for one thing — it was always the same crowd ordering the same thing. After eight months, I still had not ventured beyond the city limits. A 30-foot wall surrounded Kabul. Fighting raged outside, apparently, warlord against warlord, opium grower against mullah. Curfew was 8 pm, and if I worked late, I slept on the counter in the restaurant.

In Chez Maman East, two young men waited tables. One day, not a big surprise, neither showed and I bussed them myself, grumbling about human reliability. Although hygiene was not the highest priority in Kabul (they still ate community-style from the same bowl with their right hands), I insisted on napkins. Scribbled on one, I found a place and a time. My heart nearly stopped. I dashed outside to see who had left it, but the patrons were roaring off in a rickety bus. Was that jet black hair I saw behind the filthy window? Had Blinky finally come?

Shor Bazaar, 8:30 a.m. Crowds of burka-draped wraiths glided from stall to stall, gossiping and haggling. The Muslim men wore turbans or fezzes and wool coats called chapans, beards waggling amongst themselves, never in a hurry. The bazaar smelled of musty wool, sweat and saffron. The Koh-i-Baba and Hindu Kush mountains frowned down at Kabul from west and north, disapproving.

I waited impatiently, on the lookout for Blinky or some other European-type. Kabul housed thousands of Westerners who had escaped the shackles of productivity. We reveled in our shoddy, homegrown products. Beggars didn’t fare well; we wanted to see them, to remind ourselves of our humanity. I unfolded the napkin for the umpteenth time, checked to be sure I was at the correct bench. A burka approached.

“Put the napkin away.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Don’t say my name, don’t speak aloud. You’ve attracted way too much attention already. Follow me.”

She led me in silence to a dingy hotel, up a spiral staircase to her room. The door closed, I blurted. “Marla! Where’s Brad?”

“Brad is dead.”

I let that sink in. “You followed me.”

“It was not easy getting in here,” she said.

“Well you’re here now, you are safe.”

“Kiss me, Doug.”

She was naked under the burka. She didn’t care about my paunch, my spindly chest-hairs or flabby arms. Blinky had awakened a sensuality in me and I awakened it in Marla and sent her screaming off the edge.

Lying on the bed later, I said, “You’re safe, Marla.” I liked the sound of her name. Her hair had grown to shoulder length and felt like silk. She hadn’t been in Kabul long, with its hard water and lard-soap. She smelled of lavender.

Her piercing blues came to sudden focus. “Doug,” she said urgently, “we can get out. The bots don’t know I’m here, I’m carrying a Wave-Jammer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve got transportation, a hovercraft.”

“We’re not going anywhere, why should we?”

“You mean you really don’t know?”

I shook my head, admiring her widely spaced breasts.

“You’re incarcerated Doug. You’ve been convicted of Inefficiency, condemned to life in prison.”

“How can that be? I never went to trial.”

“You don’t need to go to trial. The AI’s can calculate guilt in nanoseconds. You had a good defense attorney, he made three appeals, but the evidence was clear. You confessed your guilt, shredded your clothes, your rabbit... Blinky set you up, Doug. I saw it on the holo-vid.” She stood and began to rummage in her purse next to the dirty wash-stand.

I didn’t like to rush big decisions, and this seemed like one of the biggies. I lit up a cigarette, took a long, slow drag and held it until my lungs nearly burst. Finally, “I don’t want to get out. Marla, I’m happy here. I can cook, I can work. My life matters.”

She leaned against the sink, deflated. “They’ll find out you’ve been talking to me. They’ll learn about the resistance. I know you think you’re making a difference, but you’re not.” Her pretty shoulders trembled. “Don’t you understand? The patrons are all androids. They don’t appreciate your cuisine. They return to their hovels and turn themselves off. There is no love, no appreciation.”

She sniffed and started rummaging around in her purse again. “They’ll be on to us soon.” Her naked backside was perfectly formed, with little dimples beneath her buns. The soft, window light shone on her oyster skin. I wanted to make love to her again.

“You just got here,” I said. “You’ll like it. It’s just the stress from fleeing. ‘Cabin fever’ they used to call it.”

“Are you coming with me, Doug?” she asked.

“No, Marla. You’re staying with me. We’re going to be happy!”

She turned and trained the pistol on my forehead. “Brad told me that you would say that.”

I barely felt the laser enter my skull.