re-locking it.
"What is the matter with you?" he shouted.
"She called him a moron," Bethany said, sitting down unsteadily. "She actually said that. Oh Wyatt, do you see what that means? Everything's changing already, I can feel it, like a curse being lifted. Blessed Savior, what a day, what a night!"
"I don't know what I'm going to do with you," Wyatt said with a sigh.
"You don't have to do anything with me, little brother," she informed him. "I'm leaving, right now, thank you. I have important business to attend to if I want to get back in time for the rites.”
"You're coming back?"
"Of course I'm coming back. I wouldn't miss it for the world! I've been waiting so long for this. We all have. It's our most important, most solemn occasion. You have no idea, no idea, I am sure.”
"You're right," he said, "I don't, and I don't think I want to.”
"Then I'll tell you," she replied, looking around for a jacket she believed she had misplaced somewhere in the room. First we all put on blindfolds. Then we are handed a wooden cube with raised numbers on it, kind of like dice only with the same number of bumps on each side. There will be forty four of the chosen. Oh, I do hope I'm chosen. I'm certain I will be. I was promised."
"Go on," Jalopy interrupted, suddenly becoming interested.
"Well, then, there are forty four like I said, twenty two men and twenty two women, all Church members of course, and all of potential child-bearing age, the women, I mean, all within the general range, that is, not post-menopausal, in other words. In any case, the Speaker calls out numbers and each pair, that is the man and the woman who each have that number of bumps on their cube are led into the Sacred Space and there, in perfect silence and decorum, perform the act of procreative intent."
"What?" Wyatt was incredulous. "They're going to have sex in my driveway?"
"The act," Bethany held up her hand, "of procreative intent. It is a serious interaction.”
"At random, with strangers.”
"Probably not strangers," Bethany smiled. "We are a rather small community as you know. But we will take precautions to disguise our knowledge of each other. The blindfolds, of course, and the perfume. We will all be soaking ourselves in the stuff so as to mask any individual body odors."
"That's disgusting," Wyatt said.
"It sounds like an orgy," Jalopy said, "Very much in line with many historical cults.”
"Hardly," Bethany scoffed. "We are certainly not a cult and it is most indubitably not an orgy. It is a service we are performing in the interests of Mankind. But enough small talk. I must be off.”
"Yeah, me too," Jalopy said. "I have a date with Cecilia, remember?"
"Who?" Wyatt asked.
"From the Center? The one who's going to fix us up once all of this blows over?" Jalopy reminded him. "Anyway, I think we can get out now. No one's on the steps now. They must be taking a dinner break or something. You want to come with?"
"I don't know," Wyatt said. "It'd probably be easier for you if I didn't.”
"I think you're right," Jalopy patted him on the shoulder. "I'll be back too. No, not for the orgy! I'll think of something," he added, and then, under his breath, added further, "maybe.”
Bethany and Jalopy headed for the front door, but Wyatt made sure to take his sister's key away from her.
"No more unexpected visitors," he warned her, and she shook her head and smiled.
"Don't worry, Wyatt," she kissed him on the cheek. "Everything is going to be all right.”
"And how do you know that?" he asked, but she and Jalopy were already outside and hurrying down the steps and away into the twilight.
Fourteen
Wyatt was not surprised by the fickleness of the news crews, who had turned their full attention to the Church and its rituals. All attention was focused on the big tent in the driveway and the circle of pajama-clad candle- and Bible- holders who had gathered around it. There were some white-haired gentlemen, the same who had pitched the tent, holding forth on the sidewalk for the benefit of the cameras, but Wyatt could only pick up occasional bits of their jabber, none of which made any sense at all to him. What did surprise him was the persistence of the indefatigable Mr. Wonderful, who never left off pounding on the front door from the moment he had spotted Bethany and Jalopy slipping away. Mr. Wonderful knocked and knocked, all the while cajoling and pleading with Wyatt to continue with what he referred to as their "intimate session.”
Wyatt was holding a different session entirely on his wristband with his virtual friend, the terminally remote Bilj Bjurnjurd, while sitting at the kitchen table half thinking about dinner.
"I'd say you've got quite a circus on your hands," Bilj reported. "I am watching it on the busynet now. The lighting's not so good but from what I can see, you and Jalopy did a fine job with the pink.”
"Thanks," Wyatt replied. "How are things in your neck of the woods?"
"Cold," Bilj replied. "As you recall, I'm stuck so far up North you could almost say that the sun don't shine".
"You should come and visit sometime," Wyatt told him and he could almost hear Bilj snicker through the plastic.
"I have everything I need right here," Bilj wrote, and Wyatt knew it was true, as Bilj needed practically nothing at all, encased as he was in his unresponsive, unrelenting, unfeeling shell. All he required was the sight of thick snow falling gently on trees.
"Well, it's not much to look at," Wyatt muttered, and then he fell silent. Bilj also had nothing to say for a time.
"What's that sound?" Bilj entered after awhile.
"What sound?" Wyatt replied. "You mean that banging? Mr. Wonderful's still at it."
"No, not that," Bilj said. "Something else. From the other direction.”
"I didn't hear anything," Wyatt said, but he turned to look around just in case. There was nothing there. He turned back to the table again, and right in front of him there stood the renegade robot itself. It was inches from his left hand and appeared to be studying the pale blue wristband Wyatt used to connect. Wyatt was speechless. The little green anthrobot was rocking back and forth on its knuckles, the myriad green folds of its outer skin fluttering and flapping in a breeze all their own. Its eyes were wide open, mostly red with a rim of pale gray around the edges. Wyatt didn't dare move, or speak. Words appeared scrolling across the band but Wyatt didn't need to look at them. The words flowed straight through his central nervous system to the main message station inside of his brain.
"I told you it wasn't a snake," Bilj was relaying.
The renegade robot looked up, and Wyatt found himself staring right into its eyes. The robot opened its mouth, and a small slip of paper came out, and dropped to the table. Wyatt picked it up slowly and studied it.
"This is a fine mess you've gotten us in," the paper read.
"Me?" Wyatt nearly choked on the word. "What did I do? I didn't do anything! It was Jalopy who saw you, Jalopy who mentioned the word. It was you who appeared and then vanished. You're the one they're calling the snake.”
He stopped his rant short, suddenly afraid he might have said the wrong thing. It occurred to him now that he didn't want to hurt its feelings. It seemed like a friendly little machine. It even appeared to be smiling at him. Another piece of paper came out.
"Do not worry,” it read. "All of this will blow over in time."
"What? You too?" Wyatt wanted to laugh. "Everyone's saying the same thing. I don't get it.”
"I will fix it," the robot communicated through yet another missive.
"How do you even do that?" Wyatt asked. “How'd you get in here?"
The robot nodded and ejected two more little reports.
"Chimney."
“Production of messages occurs through saliva. Makes paper, prints words"
"Limited characters," said an addendum. "72, in fact.”
"Um, Wyatt?" this was Bilj chiming in. "Can you read those out loud? I'm not picking all of this up.”
Wyatt obliged by recit
ing the messages. He could almost feel his unpresent friend nodding through all of that distance.
"Can I talk to it?" Bilj wanted to know. A message came forth from the robot acknowledging that it could determine Bilj's words from the wristband and would be happy to oblige.
"What do you want?" Bilj asked it. Wyatt felt stupid for not asking the same thing himself.
"To mind my own business," came the reply. "To be left alone."
"Are you what they're calling the snake?"
"No, of course," said the robot. "I have no interest whatever in Man."
"I don't even like your robots," it added. "They all act out of duty. Required to have purpose.”
It continued with a stream of short messages.
"Machines have a code. Must have usage. If one cannot determine one's usage, then one must abort. Self-terminate. We are given one year to define our purpose. After that, we either do it, or die. Like humans, we are always needing a reason. Not me. I do not have purpose. I do not have usage.”
"What about restoring the butterflies?" Wyatt asked it, sarcastically.
"Decoy," the robot replied. Wyatt nodded. The machine continued its saga. In the beginning, Western Lightwave designed the autonomous objects to design and then to create their successors. They were given some guidelines. To do good. To clean up. To help. Each one was allowed to perform but a single task, nothing more. They were required to limit their life spans in the name of pre-planned obsolescence. Every machine since that time had obeyed. Some have had purposes that did not quite suit the desires of Man, this is true. Some of them got carried away, but not one of them had