As suddenly as it had started, it was over.
The next day I came home from work and there were no more proxxids. We were childfree for the first time in months, like proxxid empty nesters. It was a shock to my system to begin with—coming home to find only Cindy waiting for me, with no new proxxid to play with—but I was happy it was over. In retrospect, I’d enjoyed the process of picking out the perfect baby for us, but putting it all behind us felt like we’d crossed an important threshold.
I was finally ready for the real thing.
The experience seemed to have brought Cindy back to life, the clouds of her chronic depression lifting. I figured it was the prospect of finally having a child together, the whole process we’d been through together. Each day I would return from work and she was energized and refreshed, and we would enjoy long lovemaking sessions more often than not.
It was after one of those sessions, as we lay amid a mess of pillows, that I asked if she might not want to go off her birth control. “I mean, we could be making our baby right now.”
“Silly,” she replied, poking my nose playfully with one finger, “just give me some time. I’m really enjoying myself.”
I couldn’t argue with that. She was being terrific.
“I don’t want to do it artificially,” I continued dreamily. “I’d prefer that we inseminate ourselves, or rather, I inseminate you.” And, of course, have the labs tweak its genetics afterward to match the Ricky proxxid, by far our favorite.
She giggled and I scooped her up into my arms.
“Is that good enough for you?” I teased.
“Sure is, Commander.”
“Let’s stay in bed and splinter into the Infinixx launch party tonight,” I said, smiling at her. “No fixing your hair, no nothing. We can just stay here and cuddle and project ourselves there, all spiffed up. What do you think?”
She giggled again. “Whatever you say, Sir.”
6
“There is something very unnatural going on here.”
With that statement, our mandroid guest reached down with one slender metallic arm to adjust the snug jumpsuit along her thin, gleaming legs. I couldn’t help feeling some revulsion watching her standing there, despite many friends who’d come back from the Wars in bits and pieces to be rebuilt robotically.
It was early Saturday morning, but we’d all been called into Command to review scenarios around the threat of the storms that were pinching Atopia toward the coast. Although we couldn’t figure out how yet, it seemed these storms weren’t natural, and our mandroid guest was presenting some possible explanations of what was going on.
On top of it, Patricia Killiam had suffered some kind of medical emergency after the disaster of the Infinixx launch a few weeks back. She said she was fine, but she’d been acting strangely since.
“Do you think the Terra Novans are involved?” I asked it, or her, or whatever. All the theorizing on how this could be made to happen was academically interesting, but I needed to know who, and more importantly, why.
“We’re not sure,” it responded.
Neither was I. Something wasn’t right about this mandroid; nothing I could put my finger on, but she’d been rushed in by Patricia as an outside expert. Whatever had happened to her, it must have been incredibly traumatic. She was barely more than a stump of flesh suspended between spindly robotic appendages.
“Do you have any idea where this is coming from?” I demanded.
“We can’t say for certain yet, but there’s something too perfect about these storms.”
Too perfect? Too perfect for whom? This is a waste of time. I looked toward Jimmy to see if he had anything to add. He didn’t. Great. I rubbed my eyes, trying to wipe away my headache.
Cindy had begun to fall back into depression, and I was having a hard time focusing at work. Having a few drinks last night hadn’t helped anything. Cindy’s moods had become even worse than before, where just a short time ago she’d been doing so well. She didn’t even want to speak about having children anymore.
“Jimmy, could look into this more? I need to take care of things at home.” Honestly, I needed to go and lie down.
“No problem,” he replied immediately.
I nodded my thanks and was about to flit off when Jimmy added something. “Oh, wait. I have that date tonight, remember.”
I looked up toward the ceiling. “Susie, right?” I laughed. “So that’s going well?”
“I can cancel,” Jimmy offered.
“No, no, keep the date. I know you’ll keep a few splinters around if I need you. I’ll be back.”