He left, and Scarlett sat on the lawn with the unwrapped box and cried, like the biggest spoiled baby ever. Was she that big of a loser? And for that matter, which half of her was the loser—the Ordinaria half or the human half?
She untied the ribbon and opened the white box. The girl inside it immediately sat up, with pale skin and thick straight hair the color of leaves in autumn. Scarlett recognized her from school: She’d belonged to Gideon. She was his eighteenth-birthday present, until his father used Gideon’s high profile (this year in TIME it was “heir to the Ordinaria Inc. fortune” and “young playboy,” a phrase that could not apply to Gideon less) to rent her out for astronomically high rates.
“Hey!” said Ashbot.
Scarlett realized that if Ashbot was a rental now, her memory had been wiped, and she had no idea who Scarlett or Gideon were anymore.
“Um . . . hello.”
“So, we’re hanging out today, I think, right?”
Scarlett nodded, getting the vague sensation that this interaction wasn’t a one-way street: Ashbot was sizing her up too.
“Wanna go to the bookstore?” suggested Ashbot. “Or—oh!—they’re playing that French subtitle movie in an art house movie theater in Hamilton; we could go there.”
Scarlett wondered if Ashbot was programmed with some background info on Scarlett’s likes and dislikes . . . or if Ashbot was just into that stuff. She thought for a moment, bit her lip, and shrugged.
Even Scarlett surprised herself when she asked, “Want to go see that stupid Nicholas Sparks movie?”
“Okay.”
After the movie, they sat on a rusty set of kids’ swings overlooking the white behemoth of Ordinaria Inc., and together they watched it become dusk. Scarlett felt odd, maybe even a little nauseated. Something was shifting inside her, like someone had put braces on her worldview.
“Do you . . . feel stuff?” asked Scarlett. She was sure the Miss Ordinarias started out uncannily human in the first place . . . but they gained more unique personalities and speech patterns only over time.
Ashbot shrugged and looked away. “Not really.”
But it sounded less like a robot’s answer and more like the answer of a girl who doesn’t want to admit that she does, in fact, have feelings.
“Did you feel stuff today?”
Ashbot thought about it. “Today right before your dad came in, four girls were rented as bridesmaids, for the same bride, because she seemed awful and I guess nobody wanted to be in her wedding party, and I felt, maybe angry? And I didn’t want to be angry! Only creepy guys rent the angry ones.” She shuddered, then looked thoughtful. “I think we sort of feel like . . . always the second-best thing. Like our roles are already decided for us when we’re rented, even if it’s just for a day.”
Scarlett had been so very wrong. She had been wrong from top to bottom, left to right, her wrongness splattering everywhere like a Pollock painting.
“I’m sorry,” Scarlett said.
“For what?” Ashbot asked.
“I, um . . .”
. . . Militarized an angry mob to chase you off the Pembrooke campus and probably short-circuit you if they had the chance. Underestimated your worth.
“I just . . . I wasn’t very nice to you.” Scarlett stared out into the sunset and said softly, “It was just because parts of me are like you. And I didn’t like those parts of myself. You know?”
“It’s okay.” Ashbot nodded. “There are parts of myself I don’t like either.”
*
Scarlett banged on Gideon’s door until his father answered. His face immediately curdled.
“My son is busy,” he snapped and attempted to shut the door in her face. But it was too late—Gideon was already running down the stairs. He pushed past his father, and he and Scarlett ran to his car. They got in, shut the door, and peeled off.
“What’s going on?!” Gideon asked, alarmed, as he turned out of the gated community and onto the main road.
“Do you want Ashbot back?”
“What are you . . . what?”
“Do you want Ashbot back? She’s at my house.”
“What? No,” Gideon snapped, not entirely convincingly. She just looked at him. Finally, he relented: “I don’t know.”
Scarlett felt the tears spring to the surface but tried to keep breathing.
“Were you upset when your dad took her away?”
Gideon’s face indicated that he was more than just upset. He pressed his lips together angrily as he stared out at the road. “My whole life, I swore I’d never be one of those guys who buys an Ordinaria, and now I’m one of them. I’m such a scumbag.”
Scarlett shook her head adamantly, and one tear fell—ricocheted, really. A selfish part of her wished she could agree with him that Ashbot was just a machine, that being with Scarlett was way more worthwhile. But it had clearly become a false binary.
“They’re not just robots like they used to be. They’re different. They’re, like . . . real. I don’t know how they have feelings, but . . . you didn’t do anything wrong. You like a real girl.”