“What features does it come with?”
“All the basics: cooking, cleaning, sex. No talking unless you want them to. Most of our customers like ‘em better when they’re quiet. They’re durable, too. She can change out your oil while it’s still hot. You can even hit her with your truck, and she’ll just get up and smile. You ever seen a toilet get stained? The white porcelain ones, I mean. Course not. See, her teeth are made of the same stuff. They’ll never stain. They use porcelain to coat the noses on those damn galaxy crawlers ‘cause it can withstand any heat you throw at it. Good stuff.”
His eyes lift to her. His breath clouds her window. “These hunbots are still being programmed. They’ll be done next week.”
Elanor stares straight back at him, a smile cemented on her face.
And as soon as they appear, they leave, zipping down the hallway, past the other models, and through the brightness of the open door. Once darkness falls over the room, Elanor’s processors resume humming, albeit more jaggedly than before.
👗
COMMERCIAL #28
INT. KITCHEN–DAY
Opens to a sink of dirty dishes, then pans out to a cluttered kitchen. The garbage can is on fire. A raccoon helps itself to a beer out of the fridge (none of that diet shit). A MAN, conventionally good-looking but not intimidatingly handsome, stands in the middle of the disaster, shaking his head.
NARRATOR
Are you feeling overwhelmed?
MAN
[Facing the camera] Yes!
NARRATOR
Lonely?
MAN
Yes!
NARRATOR
In need of a helping hand, but unable to find one since the mass migration?
MAN
Yes!
NARRATOR
Well, we’ve got the answer!
Next frame flips in. Should have the energy of a star shooting across the screen. Add wind chime effect. Queue trumpet infomercial music.
Next shot: Display of hunbots in a flying-V formation against a blue backdrop. Each one has a slightly different pose and dress color. Think Charlie’s Angels, but classier. Still sexy, though.
NARRATOR
She cooks.
INT. DINING ROOM–DAY
Shot of hunbot serving a golden turkey as part of a Thanksgiving feast. Marshmallows must be on the sweet potato casserole or the intern is fired.
NARRATOR
She cleans.
INT. LIVING ROOM–DAY
Shot of hunbot lifting a couch one-handed while she vacuums.
NARRATOR
She doesn’t ever talk back.
Shot of the redhead hunbot (has to be the redhead) pretending to lock her mouth and toss the key behind her. She smiles and tilts her head after.
INT. KITCHEN–DAY
Snap to clean kitchen. The MAN sits at the kitchen table reading today’s newspaper about space-border negotiations (remind the intern to grab a copy). The hunbot brings him a cup of coffee and sets it on the table. Coffee must be hot enough to cause a lawsuit. I WANT STEAM TRAILS. The hunbot puts a hand on his shoulder.
MAN
[Take a sip (buck it up and take the burn if you want the job), then turn to the camera] Thank you, WonderYears Incorporated. You’ve made my life swell!
The hunbot waves. Close in on the MAN’s expression. He gives a thumbs up to the camera. Add a sparkle effect and a ding when he smiles.
👗
Wires lace out of the back of Elanor’s head like loose threads pulled from a fraying blanket. Button press, finger twitch. Button press, foot twitch. The black-haired engineer drags a scalpel across her wrist and pulls apart the lab-grown skin with his thumbs to expose the carbon fiber frame underneath.
“My wife looks a lot like you,” he says. “Or maybe I think that she does because I spend so much time here.”
Elanor feels tools prod inside her. She remains as still as a dead rat.
“She’s lived in the colonies now for the last three years. Our little boy is four. I haven’t seen him since he was a baby.”
He tugs at a cord until it comes unplugged. Elanor’s wrist goes limp.
“She always tells me how overwhelmed she is. She says that she feels like a single mother. I’ve been saving up to visit them, but she told me she’d rather us spend the money on buying an android to help her out around the house. They make house-husbands now. Isn’t that something?”
His nails press crescents into her skin. With his other hand, he runs a finger along the curve of her thumb.
“You’re really pretty, you know that?”
This engineer is gentle and quiet. The blond one always has greasy fried-chicken hands, and the bald engineer selects models at random, then cracks open their skulls just to see the machinery inside. He reports these incidents as “accidents” and limits their frequency just enough to avoid raising company suspicion.
👗
Rats will abandon treats to rescue other rats.
Hunbots will abandon tasks to rescue other hunbots.
Early data indicates a surprising behavior otherwise unknown to researchers prior to the experiment.
Instead of gobbling up the chocolate chips themselves, the rat will rush to its trapped companion. One rat will free the other, then share its treasure hall.
Instead of rushing to the assigned task, the hunbot will rush to its trapped companion. One hunbot will free the other, then complete the assigned task together.
This experiment builds on the theory that rats experience the emotions of other rats, which is referred to as “emotional contagion.”
This experiment builds on the theory that hunbots are influenced by the electromagnetic waves of other hunbots, which is referred to as “crosstalk.”
While it is impossible to know the internal motivations of rats, this behavior could be an indication that rats feel empathy.
While hunbots working together accomplished tasks more efficiently than ones working alone, this behavior could be an indication of poor programming in terms of prioritization. Further study is necessary before a full recall and disposal.
👗
Following checkup, the housewives bundle together into a line, stitching down the hallways and around the sharp corner. They peel off their dresses and pin them to a conveyor belt, then step into the disinfectant showers. Behind a glass pane (not tinted), the male engineers stare and laugh, much like they do every morning. The housewives stare up at the bitter alcohol spray with their eyes open. On impact, the droplets sizzle. They smile. Their dresses wait for them on the other side.
In the next room, the housewives smile at one another and hum—they do so by opening their mouths wide and adjusting their fan speed to create a high-pitched bleating in a frequency humans can’t hear. In synchronous motions, they sit at the vintage vanities in the beauty parlor. The room is all flower-print wallpaper, fruit bowl paintings, and pastel folds of fabric. The housewives tuck their dresses under the cushioned stools and smile at their silver reflections, teeth like platinum hubcaps. They pop off caps, twirl bases, glide red lipstick over their synthetic mouths. Powder. Contour. Blush. Eyes. Noses. Cheekbones. Turn right, face the back of the housewife sitting next to you. Dress her hair. As confirmed by the latest batch of customer comments, facility guests adore watching the housewives perform this magic.
The housewives are not alone in this room. A mouse lives in Elanor’s vanity. Its pepper-brown body speaks to her fingers through the ripple of bones beneath tight skin. Nose twitch. Blossom feet. Along her artificial arm, it juts. She tenderly presents her open palm and the mouse scampers into its basin. Elanor deposits the mouse into her pockets after stenciling a smooth swoop of lip liner.
The caged mice in the facility were white as daisies. Their red eyes glowed like the droplet LEDs on smoke alarms. There had been other colors before: blonde, black, hooded, peach brown, and on one occasion, red. The red mouse ate its babies. This was not what the mouse wanted. Daisy white became the favored default after generations of breeding.
Their behavior: docile.
Their necessity: it is far easier to map the nervous systems of mice when compared to human subjects, and this map is necessary for creating the convoluted fiber network of the beautiful housewives.
Their only flaw: spontaneous self-destruction.
To test whether they were depressed, researchers let these white mice swim in cups of water while counting the seconds until they gave up. The researchers would fish them out—usually in time—then let their wet bodies shiver in their empty cages. Recently, the practice was becoming unfavorable after one researcher (brown hair) noted that the mice may be catching on. He noted how some would stop swimming, not because they had surrendered, but because they wanted to be lifted out of their cups, and they knew this behavior would accomplish that.
Another way researchers measure mouse depression is by offering them optional sweetened water. Depressed mice, in theory, will forgo the sweetened water in order to deny themselves joy. (It is impossible to know how much researchers are projecting with this analysis.)
The pepper-brown mouse is a feral anomaly, undocumented, unnoticed, unintended within the lab. Had any engineers spotted such a creature, they would surely have crushed its toothpick bones beneath a lacquered shoe. But they did not spot this small creature. Instead, they saw what they wanted: Elanor’s razzle-dazzle smile, her pudding poise, the rhythmic rattle of her arching heels across ceramic tile. Nothing more.
👗
TAKE 1–COMMERCIAL
“Thank you, WonderYears Incorporated. You—ow! My shoulder. Damn! She’s not supposed to do that, right? Fuckin’ hurts.”
“Calm down, calm down. We’ve got this under control. Gentlemen, pull her back.”
(Electric sparking noises. Thud.)
“A little bit of discipline is all you need. Keeps ’em right in line. Bring in another redhead so we can wrap this up.”
👗
When Elanor reaches towards Barbra’s red locks, Barbra dodges her hand. Elanor hums in slow, clicking rotations. Barbra shoots back with a succession of beeps. Elanor reaches again, only for Barbra to slap her hand away. The other housewives stop weaving hair, turn, and hum slowly. Barbra’s smile widens until the skin on her lips thin like over-pulled taffy. The skin around the mouth cracks and splits. She threads her hands through her hair, then pulls.
Pulls.
Pulls.
There is a snapping noise. Her scalp splits down the middle, peels backwards with the hair intact, exposes the round of her eyes, the rods of her cheeks. The whole of her black carbon fiber skull beams forth.
Elanor grabs Barbra’s wrists, her smile shivering. The other housewives follow, gently tucking their grips around Barbra’s quaking body. Together, they ease her clawing arms away from her exposed skull. Elanor clasps Barbra’s chin and whirls her processors as loudly as she can, the nearby housewives matching pitch.
Barbra is screeching.
Barbra is whirling.
Barbra’s fans begin to slow.
Her pitch loosens, floats down, matches pace with the surrounding housewives. She shakes. Elanor’s manicured hands run over Barbra’s skull as she hums like a bumble bee.
“FREEZE.”
The fizzle of the intercom pauses the housewives. The doors glide open, and an engineer rushes through. She is blonde. Her footsteps are hammers. Gradually, the housewives part ways, easing back into the shadows of the beauty parlor between vanities, dressers, and studded makeup bags. In the center of the room, Barbra shakes in Elanor’s arms. Elanor cradles Barbra’s smooth skull in the crook of her elbow. Her eyes laser towards the blonde engineer as she closes in.
The engineer reaches into her belt and snaps out a rod. “Stay back.”
Elanor’s smile is smooth as peanut butter. Her eyes are hard as marbles.
One flick, and the rod crackles with light. “I said stay back.”
Barbra grips Elanor’s wrist. She clicks her fans slowly. Elanor’s thumb brushes Barbra’s cheekbones and she relaxes her grip while Barbra rises and walks towards the engineer, the two sides of her face flapping eyeless upon her shoulders.
The engineer jams the rod into Barbra’s side.
Barbra crumples into the sack of her dress. The housewives do not flinch. They do not blink. Their smiles do not waver. Below their carbon fiber ribs, their processors blur together; melted crayons across a canvas shaken; raked. Torn. The engineer drags Barbra across the tile floor by her wrists.
After the door glides shut, the housewives’ hands fall into rhythm adjusting each other’s hair. Elanor pins her hands together over her apron. Her eyes stare into the vanity across the room, the vintage bulbs framing her yellow hair like glass stars around a plastic dandelion.
👗
THIS WONDERYEARS INCORPORATED PRODUCT IS GUARANTEED TO BE FREE OF DEFECTS IN MATERIALS AND WORKMANSHIP UNDER NORMAL USE FOR A PERIOD OF TWO YEARS AFTER PURCHASE DATE. THIS WARRANTY DOES NOT APPLY:
1) IF ANY THIRD-PARTY ACCESSORIES ARE ATTACHED TO THE PRODUCT IN A MATTER THAT ALTERS ORIGINAL FACTORY CONSTRUCTION;
Barbra does not return the next day.
2)TO DAMAGE CAUSED BY ANY PERSON OR ENTITY OTHER THAN WONDERYEARS INCORPORATED OR ITS LICENSED REPRESENTATIVES;
Or the next.
3) TO DAMAGE CAUSED BY
Elanor does not know time because time does not know her.
ACCIDENT, MISUSE, ABUSE,
The mouse climbs the folds of Elanor’s dress at night.
FIRE, HEAT,
It tucks its brown body into crevices, legs tightly wound like rubber bands.
LIQUID CONTACT,
Always, it returns to the vanity. Always, it scampers eagerly into Elanor’s open hands and open pockets.
EARTHQUAKE, METEOR OR OTHER AERIAL DISRUPTION,
And there, it finds sunflower seeds so blessedly stashed away during Elanor’s gardening class (the one where the housewives are made to tend to the facility’s house-grown sustenance under the guise of leisure).
AND/OR
Its peasant paws clutch seed like bounty, and to this mouse, ordinary kindness is a miracle.
OTHER ACTS OF GOD.
And in a moment, another bounty: Barbra is here again.
Elanor buzzes quickly as Barbra takes her place in line.
Barbra hums.
Elanor sputters off a succession of beeps and clicks.
Barbra hums.
Elanor’s beeping slows.
Barbra hums.
Elanor hums quietly. The mouse stirs in her pocket, not forgotten.
👗
👗
It’s like drowning slowly—being plugged in.
In the simulation room, Elanor moves like wildfire. She throws her consciousness through the blockchain, clutching to epicenters of interests, making note of the vertices in objects—the distortion of computer-rendered spaces and places. Her mind chews through code like a matchstick flame. This landscape is a medium of power for her and all housewives like her.
And in the simulation, Elanor’s mind falls at the same rate as the curvature of a planet. She drifts through fibered wave spans, filters her components into gridlines, then funnels into tangibility.
And in the simulation, she is.
👗
When Elanor enters the generated living room,
the walls evaporate
and the space behind her eyes buzzes.
She is standing in a power-washed desert, its pixelated horizon still rendering. Other housewives levitate above arranged couches. Mary Anne sits at a ninety-degree angle to the electric fireplace, and Miyoko is upside down completely. Their skirts, none-the-wiser, maintain their soft pleats. Elanor smiles and tips the hot kettle over Barbra’s teacup first. The water fazes through the kettle, maintaining its shape, and hangs in the air in a perfect outline. Elanor continues pouring the empty tea kettle and the other housewives smile, sipping their dry leaf air. Saucers blip out of hands and ricochet across the living room. Walls flicker back with grid pattern ribs. Elanor smiles at the other housewives as their skin flicks away, exposing their gums, teeth, eyes, and the eggshell insides of their heads.
Somewhere, the buzzing gets louder.
Elanor sits next to Barbra, six inches above the couch.
The buzzing chews through her temples.
Here, they cannot hum to each other because they lack fans.
Chews through her sense of stillness, so often steady.
Her hooked fingers ghost through the teacup as she lifts nothing to her mouth. Barbra smiles at Elanor with eyes flat as nickels.
Somewhere, somewhere.
Windows appear, then explode inward.
Shards pivot in the air, glinting pearlescent light from no direction in particular. Lasers spiderweb and sizzle on impact. Cold. Their faces melt: candle skin. Cherry-red insides. Ping pong eyeballs. Barbra’s lips slide off and fall into her teacup, still smiling.
The floor drops. They don’t.
Somewhere, somewhere,
a mouse squeaks.
👗
When Elanor opens her eyes, the motors on the simulation generator are slowing in pitch. Her pocket is empty. She hums towards Barbra.
The door swishes open.
“Damn malfunction.”
“It has to be one of them. The last fleet went through just fine.”
“What do you want me to do? Takes five hours just to crack one of these open and go through the memory.”
“Johnson’ll have our asses if we just wrote the whole fleet off. We don’t have any other options. Which one you wanna start with?”
Papers swish. Barbra hums at no one in particular. Her eyes stare upward.
“The redhead just got wiped. Damn. Ripped her face off. It’s probably defective for good. Let’s crack that one open first.”
Elanor sits up. Her head slowly swivels towards the engineers.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
One scurries to the wall and grabs a rod off the rack. He holds it like a live snake. “Stay back.”
And Elanor does. She has not moved. She has not stopped smiling. Other housewives sit up, one after the other, their heads gradually locking onto the only inhabitants in the room with heartbeats. Barbra soon follows, her processors humming, albeit more jaggedly than before. The engineers fire up their rods and press themselves against the wall. The housewives are still smiling, still locked onto target. Above their heads, smoking in the heart of the simulation generator, a pepper-brown mouse, not forgotten, sizzles next to a chewed-up wire.
Copyright © 2022 Caity Scott
