The Gift
At the first intersection, Joe 59 turned down the hill. Before him lay the waterfront and the bay just blocks away; if he jumped into the salt water it might short circuit the device. If nothing else, submerging the bomb would dampen the force of its explosion. But then he noticed a pedestrian huffing up the street toward him, and with a quick visual zoom he realized that it was Mr. Kilmer returning from his morning inspection of the Embankment. He didn’t dare bring the explosive device any closer to a valued customer, particularly to one who was quite possibly the city’s last line of defense against a disastrous earthquake.
Instead, he saw an alley nearby and dashed into it. A large trash dumpster was pushed against the wall. And beside it was a hulking scarlet figure. Luca’s sleeve was pulled back and she was consulting an old-fashioned wristwatch when she looked up and locked eyes with Joe 59. At first, her eyes went wide with recognition and dawning fear, but within a split moment the eyes narrowed and a snarl had formed on her lips.
Joe 59’s cogware was beyond coping. He stood frozen, his ALPs caught in decision loops with no possible best outcome. To retreat would threaten Mr. Kilmer. To stay would threaten Luca. He had planned on jumping into the dumpster with the bomb and wrapping himself around it to help dampen the explosion. Perhaps he could throw it far down the alley and drag Luca behind the dumpster to shield her from the blast.
But before he could act, she charged at him, her head down like a linebacker on a holy goal line stand against the Devil’s 11, then she tackled him with more force than he thought possible. He hit the ground flat on his back, her mass pinning the bomb to his chest.
“You silly bastard!” she spat, lying on his chest and grinning. “You think this is revenge? This only means that I’ve won! You can kill thousands like me and it wouldn’t matter, but I’ve got you!” And with that she wrapped her powerful arms around him and squeezed. Her breath was in his face and her words were in his ears. She had suspected him on that very first visit to the shop—that crack about the boots. “No simple mechanical would give a damn about my boots,” she crowed. “The data on the mainframe confirmed it. None of the other Joes received complaints from customers.”
“Complaints!” Joe 59 couldn’t believe it. How could there be complaints?
“Hundreds of them, dating back decades. The corporate big wigs knew about it, but they wanted to find out what made you different. Fortunately, they still don’t have a clue, which means that we’re still in time.”
“But, what sort of complaints?” Joe 59 asked. As a machine, his own existence meant nothing, of course, but to discover that he had been living a fraud all these years was impossible to reconcile with his memories.
“People thought something was wrong with you, or they thought you were some sort of test model. You knew too much about them. You shared too much. No other Joe behaved like you did. That’s what gave you away, you evil thing.”
