Solomon
By J. T. Pearson
COPYRIGHT 2013 Joseph Pearson
CONTENTS
Prologue
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
About the author
More short stories by JT Pearson
Contact
Prologue
1959
Lydia has turned her sheets into knots while attempting to wake herself from a nightmare. She feels eyes on her as she sleeps. Someone is present in her bedroom and looking down on her. She wants nothing more than to break free from the dream and grab the specialized weapon from under her bed, a rifle that fires supercharged electric slugs that the security rep from Galactic Enterprises gave her for home defense. Then she is awake. She rubs frantically at her eyes and waits for her vision to adjust to the darkness of the room. Her heart pounds uncontrollably and her breathing is frantic. She lunges over the edge of the bed and grabs the rifle and then bolts back up, turning the bedside lamp on simultaneously. Light floods the room. There is no one. Just another bad dream. She takes a deep breath and leans back against the headboard.
The counselor that Galactic Enterprises had provided for Lydia and her son had told her that sleepless nights would be quite normal for some time. Some time had now eclipsed two years. At first the company had posted round the clock guards to protect her and her son, but company budgets have no conscience and soon the guards made less frequent rounds past their home. When Lydia pled for the Port Bay authorities to intervene they conceded authority to jurisdiction, a convenient patsy to blame for leaving a mother and her son completely helpless.
Just as Lydia bent over the bed to return the rifle she heard her son scream from the other room.
Part 1
1957
Two years previous to Lydia’s sleepless nights.
The salesman stopped before knocking on the door, grabbed his ankle, and examined the bottom of his wingtip for dog shit. The homes of the women that he had visited so far during his stay in Port Bay had been immaculate. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, after all. He knocked on the door and thirty seconds after, he was smiling at a woman who was not smiling back.
“Hey, doll, mind if I talk with you for a moment?”
“Eisenhower says you got the right. It’s a free country.”
“Can I please have a moment of your time?”
“See that, you’re here less than a minute and you already want something.”
The door was only half open but his shoe had already pitched base camp on the threshold. Long hours already logged that morning had done nothing to dampen the man’s indomitable spirit.
“My name is Roger Longley.” He extended his hand but she didn’t take it. “And your name, ma’am?”
“Lydia Meyer, but that doesn’t mean you can use it. You’re still a stranger.”
“Stranger than what?” He chuckled and adjusted his lapel but she didn’t laugh with him. “Just a joke, ma’am.”
“I know what it was supposed to be.”
In the background the television pitched breakfast cereal to a vacant room.
“Hey, let’s take a minute and meet Clark Kent, the star of Superman.
Chief, believe me you’re in for a treat, just as soon as Jimmy gets back here.
Great Caesar’s ghost! What’s holding him up? You know I can’t work without a good breakfast!
Chief, Jimmy’s bringing a box of Kellogg’s-“
The woman blocking his entry was still relatively young. Longley’d try playing this one hip and flirty.
“What’s the tale, nightingale? You going let me in? I’m just trying to put you in fat city. If you aren’t happy inside of five, you can tell me to get bent and I’ll cut out without a fuss, dig?”
“The only way that I know to get a salesman to leave without a fuss is with a Colt 45.” Her shapely hip stuck firm behind the edge of the door. She swore she heard him quietly grunt as he tried unsuccessfully to widen the opening by pressing his knee against the maple, all the while his smile never going AWOL. “Either spit out your business or get yourself a Trojan horse because my wazoo isn’t going to budge until I know what you want.”
“Certainly, ma’am.” He produced a red hanky, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and returned it to his breast pocket with the dexterity of a magician. “Frankly, ma’am, I’ve been clued in by particular friends of yours that you’ve got a little ankle biter but you ain’t circled no more.”
“Well, now I’m certain you’re a shuck cause I ain’t got no friends that would associate with a slick hipster looking for brass like you.”
“Just give me a moment, miss, and I promise things will be righto.”
“Here comes the royal shaft. I should just close this door right now.”
“Ma’am, I’m here to help. Just let me chirp.”
“Fine,” she said folding her arms. “Go ahead, razz my berries. But do it from out there.”
“Ma’am?” He motioned to his foot that was already inside her doorway. She sighed and opened it the rest of the way. He stepped in and removed his hat and shoes. He followed her into the living room and she pressed the knob on the big Zenith and they watched the picture turn into a tiny comet before fading away. She motioned him to a modest couch where they sat down. She was barely past twenty-six but a rough start in life had given her the skepticism usually reserved for a woman twice that age. She sat as far away from him as possible on her cushy daisy pattern davenport with her elbows locked firmly in front of her femininity. The couch was so soft that it seemed like it might just swallow him up at any moment. He struggled with several positions before giving in to the behemoth that smelled heavily of apple-scented soap and settled into the corner. He drew a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and flipped one up into his mouth.
“Not in my house.”
“What’s the big problem?”
“I’ve heard those things are bad for you. Make you sick.”
“Flu ain’t ever killed nobody.” He proceeded to light it. Her eyebrows rose. “What? You serious? There’s nothing better for ya.” He shook his head in disgust and put the cigarettes away.
“And no more hipster slick talk. It feels like you’ve already got your hands in my pockets.”
“Good enough.”
“Well?”
“Is there something else, ma’am? You want me to sit on the floor?”
“There’s no need for that. Keep talking like that and you’ll find yourself outside on the steps again before you can say free, white and twenty one.”
He nodded and cleared his throat. “Is it one child or more that you need someone to look after, ma’am? Single parenting is tough business. Is the man of the house coming back any time soon? “
“You writing a book? You sure got a lot of questions. And who told you that I’m looking for somebody to look after my boy?”
“You’ve got a babysitter that lives down the block but she only mentioned the one child.”
“Mrs. Larson,” she shook her head in disgust, “that old cow can sing.”
“She mentioned that you sometimes have difficulty finding a sitter.”
“You’ve got a long thin nose. Perfect for sticking into other people’s business.”
“I prefer the slope of the neck, actually.”
She gave him a disapproving stare. His bawdy attempt at humor had stained the already awkward mood in the room even further.
“Sometimes I allow a quip to escape before entirely thinking it through.” Longley cleared his throat. “That sounded quite different in my mind.”
“Probably where it should’ve stayed and died.”
“I agree, and I apologize for my buffoonish and crude comment. I be
lieve we were talking about your boy.”
“Is this some kind of shakedown? If I don’t buy some encyclopedias or a new vacuum you give Social Services a call?”
“Not at all, ma’am.”
“You may call me miss.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You keep calling me ma’am. Do I already look old enough to be a ma’am?”
“Right. Miss it is.” He dabbed perspiration from his brow again and returned the handkerchief to his pocket.
“Well, get on with it then.”
“Certainly, I’ll get right to the point. Two years ago Livinfine Enterprises moved on from the business of selling home cleaning products and joined the efforts of Galactic Enterprises. Are you familiar with Galactic Enterprises?”
“How could I not be? It’s all that anybody talks about anymore. Their new gizmos and doodads,” she shook her head in disgust.
“Good. Then I’ll proceed.”
He produced a glossy brochure seemingly from nowhere. “Are you familiar with the new d-10 series personal robots we sell – also known as Solomon? Some of your friends may already have them.” He set the advertisement in her lap and she brushed it back to him like he’d just offered her a handful of worms.
“Yeah. They stumble around houses like zombies doing a poor job of cleaning and cooking. Last fall, one of them burned every pair of Cousin Myrna’s underpants while she was enjoying a soak.”
“During a soak, you say?”
“That’s right.”
“Better than if she was in them.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“No. You’re certainly not.” He hid his growing disdain for her. “He was disposing them for her, I take it?”
“No, bright eyes! He was just supposed to iron them. She got out of her bath just to find that she didn’t have a single pair of knickers to put on.”
“Oh dear, what did she do for underpants that day?”
Lydia raised her eyebrows disapprovingly. “Wouldn’t you just love to know?”
“Right. That was a bit fresh. I beg your pardon.”
“It’s her knickers you’re dreaming about.”
He nodded respectfully and forged on.
“The robot your cousin had would’ve been a d-9. The d-10s are new.”
“You sure about that, because I thought it was a d-10?”
“I’m certain.”
“You may be right.”
Have you had an opportunity to enjoy any of our other Galactic products in the past couple of years?”
“Enjoy is an interesting choice of word.”
“I gather that you weren’t pleased with one of our products?”
“I made the mistake of purchasing that micron baker or whatever you guys called it.
“The microwave oven.”
“Right. And it didn’t work like my regular gas oven at all. Sometimes when the dryer’s on the fritz I dry a few things on the low setting of my oven. That micron baker couldn’t dry out my socks. And it did unspeakable things to beef, gave it the texture of a pair of galoshes. And when you left a fork on a plate in that thing it looked like the fourth of July with all the fireworks I could see through that little window. I thought it was going to blow up the house.”
“Yes. Those microwave ovens are difficult to get familiar with.”
“To be honest with you, I’ve been thinking about it lately and I don’t know if I’m comfortable with all the business you boys have been doing with the space people.”
“Why’s that, Lydia?”
“There’s just something wrong about it, okay?” she said defensively.
“And I don’t understand why some folks are meeting the new technology with such resistance, Lydia.”
“We don’t know anything about them or any of the stuff their trading us. We don’t even understand how half of the doodads that the sky people have given us work? That doesn’t bother you at all?”
“I don’t tend to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“That’s a sure way to do in the whole stable.”
“Much of the technology that we’ve received is starting to make sense to our scientists now. In a matter of time we’ll be able to replicate much of it ourselves. Our galactic neighbors haven’t shown any signs of malice.”
“You say galactic but we don’t even know that. When Cronkite pressed them they didn’t come clean about where they were from. A light comes down from the sky and suddenly they’re just standing there with a bunch of shiny new toys for us. Why? At some point they’re going to want something more in return than the dirt they mine here. You’d better believe it.”
“As for where they’re from, Lydia, they look just like us. My uncle works for a think tank that belongs to NASA. He says that many of his colleagues believe that these folks are from here, just living in another dimension.”
“You lost me with all the brain babble.”
“Either from the future, or possibly even a parallel universe to our own, existing in the same space without interfering with us. That is, until they made contact.”
“You still didn’t answer my other question.”
“What they want?”
She nodded.
“Maybe they just want to help.”
“You’re a salesman. I can’t believe that you can possibly fathom the concept of something for nothing.”
“Any other problems with our line of products or our partners before I go on?”
“Laziness,”
“I beg your pardon.”
“The gizmos they keep giving us are promoting laziness, especially among our youth. Teenagers are always trying to find an easy way out of a little work as it is. Now these gizmos are making everything easier for them.”
“People have been saying that about their teenagers since man discovered fire and tried to send their kids in search of kindling.”
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
He sighed and his enthusiasm finally faded. “I can see that I’m going to get nowhere today,” He started to get up. “Lydia, I think I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re really just going to give up that easily?” She put her hand on his knee and pressed him back to the couch. “I can see that you’re thin but it’s a mystery that you haven’t already starved to death with that work ethic. I said that I’d let you make your pitch and I’ a woman of my word so if you still want to give it a shot, go ahead and finish.” Somehow, by the expression in her eyes, it seemed as though he’d been the one that had insulted her for the past ten minutes.
“Fine.” He dabbed his forehead again with the ever reappearing hankie and returned to the matter at hand. “Getting back to our new product, some people think the d-9 series did a very good job of cleaning and other household tasks, but you are the customer, so I won’t argue with your opinion. The new series, the d-10, the Solomons, are much better in every way.”
“Do I have to buy batteries for it all the time?”
“No. The d-10s have an advanced energy system that draws its source from our oxygen. Completely self reliant and efficient.”
“Those d-9s sure were ugly.”
“Some people did find the d-9s to lack aesthetics. I don’t actually find their appearance offensive. Unfortunately, I can’t say that for all of our customers.” He chuckled.
“You can lose the Henny Youngman routine.” Lydia was already back in form.
His smile faded.
“You’ll be happy with the look of the new d-10s. They look much more like real people. Some people even have trouble telling them apart, until dusk that is – when their eyes glow a little bit.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t need a machine to help me clean.”
“Do you have a washing machine, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“A vacuum?”
“Yes.”
“A sewing machine?”
“Your point?”
“You already have several. Th
is machine is just far superior.”
“Not interested.”
“What about for your boy?”
“My boy does his own chores.”
“I don’t mean for cleaning. I’m talking about companionship.”
“You don’t know my boy. One Christmas, my boy got a toy robot that walked and talked and even had flashing lights and it only lasted him till the New Year before he was tired of it and ripped its arms off. My boy gets bored of toys.”
“Not this one, Lydia. This one is the toy to end all toys. Your boy will never get bored with Solomon. Solomon’s the toy that lasts forever.”
“I hear you yapping but it doesn’t make it gospel.”
“I promise on that gospel of yours that he won’t get tired of Solomon, miss.”
“Watch yourself that you don’t blaspheme in my house.”
“I beg your forgiveness, Lydia. I don’t mean to blaspheme. I just really believe in our product. Our earlier models were designed with an incredible bank of knowledge that allowed them to be informative in regard to nearly every topic a child could raise in their hungry imaginations and-”
“You have no idea what kind of questions my Daniel can ask.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I do. I’ve spent years studying child psychology and adolescent tendencies and I have a pretty good idea of what interest children, including your Daniel.”
“My child doesn’t bother to listen to his teacher. Why is he going to listen to a robot?”
“Because the robot is going to be his friend.”
“Oh, come on now!”
“We actually reduced the amount of information in our d-10 series and-“
“My boy doesn’t need friends so bad that I have to buy him a robot.”
“You promised to hear me out, Lydia.” He held his hand up. “We implanted him with a learning chip so he can learn along with your son. According to our studies, shared learning experiences are the cornerstone of bonding among children between the ages of six and twelve. He’ll teach your child some things. Your child will teach him others. And they’ll learn some things together.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Children, all children, absolutely love Solomon, Lydia.”
“Listen, Longley, I wasn’t going to bring this up right away and embarrass you but I heard about what happened in Ohio. I heard about that robot in Ohio that killed seventeen people, including two patrol men – ripping limbs right from their sockets – clubbing other people to death – a bloody mess – a nightmare. My sister said they couldn’t even bring the thing down with a regular gun. Somebody from your company had to kill it with some special kind of electricity rifle. Frankly, I’m scared to death of your robots.”
“That was actually not a Galactic Enterprises product. It was a HooberBot. A family took their HooberBot Christmas shopping with them and with all of the commotion of the crowd, their robot got hit by a car in the parking lot which activated a home defense mode. The HooberBot was simply responding as if the family were under attack. Our home bots don’t even have that mode incorporated into their systems. HooberBot should have been forced to go out of business after that disaster. The entire market took a step back last year. Our models have a morals directive built right into the control center so that our home bots will never do anything to harm anyone. I assure you that they are as safe as having your grandmother watch the boy.”
“She’s dead.”
“I apologize.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
He could tell that he was on the edge of closing the sale. “Lydia, you might even find that our d-10 is a pleasant companion for you when evenings tend to draw out and the night can seem even longer for a single woman.”
“What in heaven’s name are you insinuating, Mr. Longley?”
“Insinuating? That’s not what I meant. It’s just that your neighbors said that your husband has been gone for better than a year and-“
“And nothing! If you’re trying to suggest that I would have a machine be my boyfriend-“
“No, Lydia. I’m not saying anything like that. Please.”
“My husband is coming back!” She folded her arms. “Maybe you should leave.”
“I’m sorry, Lydia. I think you may have misunderstood me and I’m positively certain that it was my fault. I simply meant that our d-10 could share some of your passions like great books, cooking, needlepoint – things that are personal to you – things that you care about. He could help stimulate your mind as well as the boy’s. I certainly didn’t mean to indicate that your husband was not coming back and that you needed male company.”
“That’s quite enough for today, Mr. Longley,” she said, curtly.
“Lydia, I hope you can find it in your heart to accept my humble apology and consider the rest of what we talked about with a clear mind.”
When Longley left, he thought he had blown the deal. It sounded like he was trying to pitch her a common sex bot – like sailors and perverts purchased – not a sophisticated life mate.
Then to his surprise, three days later, Lydia Meyer made the call to Galactic Enterprises and set up an appointment with Doctor Aldiss to build her custom order d-10.
*