Supertoys: What Fun To Be Reborn

david's absession with being human would be neurotic--if he were human

Throwaway Town sprawled near the heart of the city. David made his way there, led by a large Fixer-Mixer. The Fixer-Mixer had many hands and arms of various dimensions snugged down on his rusty carapace. Walking on extensible spider legs, he towered above David.

As they went along, David asked, "Why are you so big?"

"The world's big, David. So I am big."

After a silence, the boy said, "The world has been big since my mommy died."

"Machines don't have mommies."

"I am not a machine."

Throwaway was down a steep slope, and partly hidden by a high wall of breeze-blocks. The road into this junk town was wide and easy. Everything inside was irregular. Strange shapes were the order of the day and many moved, or could move, or might move. Their colors were many, too, some sporting huge letters or numerals. Rusty brown was a favorite color. They specialized in scratches, huge dents, shattered glass, broken panels. They stood in puddles and leaked rust.

This was the land of the obsolete. To Throwaway came or were dumped all the old models of automatics, robots, androids and other machines that had ceased to be useful to busy mankind. Here was everything that had once worked in some way, from toasters and electric carving knives to derricks and computers that could count only up to infinity-minus-one. The poor Fixer-Mixer had lost (continued on page 178)Supertoys: Reborn(continued from page 99) one of its grabbers and would never again haul a ton of cement.

It was a community of a kind. Every junked object helped every other junked object. Every old-model pocket calculator could calculate something useful, if it was only how wide a lane should be left between two blocks of scrapped automobilities to allow passage for wheelies and motormowers.

A tired old supermarket servitor took David into his care. They shared the burnt-out shell of a refrigeration unit.

"You'll be OK with me till your transistors blow," the servitor said.

"You're very kind. I just wish I had Teddy with me," said David.

"What was so special about Teddy?"

"We used to play together, Teddy and me."

"Was he human?"

"He was like me."

"Just a machine, eh? Better forget him, then."

David thought to himself, Forget Teddy? I really loved Teddy. But it was quite cozy in the refrigeration unit.

One day the servitor asked, "Who kept you?"

"I had a daddy called Henry Swinton. But he was generally away on business."

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

Henry Swinton was away on business. Together with three associates, he was ensconced in a hotel on an island in the South Seas. The suite in which they were gathered looked out over golden sands to the ocean. Tamarisks grew below the window, their fronds waving slightly in a breeze that took the sting from the tropical heat.

The murmur of waves breaking on the beach did not penetrate the triple glazing.

Henry and his associates sat with bottles of mineral water and note-files in front of them. Henry's back was to the pleasant view.

Henry had fought his way up to Chief Executive of Worldsynth-Claws. He outranked the others at the table. Of the others, one in particular, Asda Dolorosaria, had elected herself to speak for the opposition.

"You've seen the figures, Henry. Your proposed Mars investment will not pay off in a century. Please be reasonable. Forget the crazy notion."

Henry said, "Reason is one thing, flair another, Asda. You know the amount of business we do in Central Asia. It's the area of the planet most like Mars. We have communications sewn up there. Not a single mech there that does not come from our factories. I bought into Central Asia when no one else would touch it. You have to trust me on Mars."

"Samsavvy is against your argument," said dry-voiced Mauree Shilverstein. Samsavvy was the Supersoftputer Mk.V that in effect ran Worldsynth-Claws. "Sorry. You're brilliant, but you know what Samsavvy says." She offered an imitation of a smile. "He says forget it."

Henry opened his hands and placed his fingers together so that they formed an arch of wisdom.

"OK. But Samsavvy doesn't have my intuition. I intuit that if we get our synthelp on Mars right now, they can run the atmosphere maker. In no time—well, in half a century, let's say—World synth will get to own the atmosphere. That's as good as owning Mars itself. All human activities are secondary to breathing, OK? Can't you people understand that?" He thumped the guaranteed real reconstituted wood table. "You got to have flair. I built this whole enterprise on flair."

Old Ainsworth Clawsinski had said nothing, contenting himself with an unwavering glare at Henry. He was the Claws of the company. The plug in his left ear indicated that he was in constant touch with Samsavvy. Now he spoke from the end of the table.

"Fuck your flair, Henry."

His colleagues, encouraged, came in, in chorus.

"Shareholders don't think in half-centuries, Henry," said Mauree Shilverstein. She was the one who had initially inclined toward Henry's argument.

"Mars has no investment value. It's been proved," said Asda Dolorosaria. "They've gotten in Tibetan labor. It's cheaper and it's expendable. Better forget about other planets, Henry, and concentrate that mind of yours on last year's two percent dip on this planet."

Henry went red.

"Forget about the past. You're dragging your heels, all three of you! Mars is the future. Ainsworth, with all due respect, you're too damned old to even think about the future! We will adjourn and meet again at 3:30. Be warned—I know what I'm doing. I want Mars on a plate."

Gathering his pad, he marched out of the room.

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

Throwaway had a We Mend You workshop. Through the maze of rusty alleyways David went, until he came to the workshop, situated in a static watertank, turned upside down, with an entrance cut in its side by a welder. Inside this echoing shelter, industrious little machines worked and patched and sawed and rejoined. Still-valid circuits were cannibalized, motors regenerated, the old made less old, the antiquated merely old.

And there David had his broken face repaired.

There, too, he met the Dancing Devlins. A socket in the male Devlin's leg had become displaced. Consumer society had scrapped him: He and his female machine, with their rapid dancing act, had become passé. They were junked.

The socket was replaced. Batteries were recharged. Now Devlin (M) could dance again with Devlin (F). They took David with them to their tiny hovel. There they performed their lightning dance over and over. David watched and watched. He never tired of the routine.

"Aren't we wonderful, dear?" said Devlin (F).

"I would like it even more if Teddy could watch with me."

"It's the same dance, lad, whether Teddy is here or not."

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

The sand was yielding underfoot. Henry Swinton kicked off his shoes and left them lying on the beach. He had walked on the margins of the ocean. He was in a state of despair. He had fallen from the high cliff of success.

After the dismal outcome of the morning's meeting, Henry had gone to the residents' bar to enjoy a long, slow vodkamilk, the Drink of the Year. "Vodka-milk—Smooth as Silk." His associates had given him a wide berth. He had then taken an elevator up to his penthouse.

Peaches had gone. Her cases were gone.

Her fragrance lingered, not yet wiped out by the air-conditioning.

On the mirror she had scrawled in lipstick, Read Your Ambient! Sorry and Goodbye! P.

"She's being funny," thought Henry, aloud. He knew she was not. Peaches was never funny.

The Ambient was already tuned to the private Worldsynth channel. Henry crossed to the globe and turned it on.

SS MV.V Message to Henry Swinton. Your Mars Gamble Not Acceptable To Shareholders. Your Project's Surplus To Our Future Plans.

PleasE Accept Thanks And Instant Retirement Herewith. Open To Negotiation On Final Handshake Value If No Argument Forthcoming. See Employment Act 21066A Clauses 16-21. Farewell.

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

The ocean that had looked so bright and pure from the hotel had spewed plastic bottles along the shoreline, together with dead fish. Henry flung himself down on the sand, exhausted. From his low view, the hotel presented a rakish aspect. It had been built on sand. One end was sinking, so that the structure resembled a vast concrete ship in trouble in a sepia sea.

Henry endured a rage of hatred against everyone he knew, everyone who had crossed his path from the beginning. The low rumble of plastic bottle bumping against plastic bottle played an accompaniment to his anger. Eventually the anger turned against himself.

"But what have I done? What have I been? What's been in my mind? A big success! Empty success. ... Yes, empty. I've just sold things. I'm a salesman, nothing more. Or I was a salesman. Buying and selling. My God, I wanted to buy Mars. A whole planet. ... I have been mad with greed. I am mad. I'm sick, mortally sick. What did I ever care about?

"I have never been creative. I imagined I was creative. I've never been a scientist. I'm just a smartass. What do I really understand about the mechs I sell? Oh God, what a failure I am, a desperate failure. Now I've gone too far. Why didn't I see? Why did I neglect Monica? Monica, my darling ... Monica, I did love you. And I fobbed you off with a toy kid. Kids. David and Teddy.

"Huh! Well, at least David loved you. David. Poor little David.

"My God, whatever happened to David? Maybe——"

Seagulls screamed overhead.

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

A council truck came slowly down the wide road into Throwaway Town. Once inside the gates, it turned its massive nose left, entering Dump Place.

Automatics began slowly to tip the rear platform. A number of obsolete robots that once worked in the subway system slid from the back of the truck and crashed to the ground. The truck scraped the last robot, still clinging to the rear board, off into the dump.

Two of the robots had been broken in the fall. One lay on its face, helplessly waving an arm, until another mech helped it up. Together they made off into the depths of the rusty aisles.

David ran to see the excitement. The Dancing Devlins ceased their dance to follow him.

One robot remained. It sat in the dirt shooting its arms back and forth in a prescribed pattern.

Going as close as he dared, David asked the mech why it did that.

"I still work, don't I? Don't I still work? I can work in the dark but my lamp is broken. My lamp will not work. I hit my lamp on a girder overhead. There was a girder overhead. I hit my lamp on it. The chief computer sent me here. I still work."

"What did you do? Were you on the subway?"

"I worked. I worked well since I was built. I still work."

"I never worked. I played with Teddy. Teddy was my friend."

"Have you any instructions? I work still, don't I?"

At that point, a sleek black limousine entered Throwaway. A man was sitting in the front seat. Spinning the limo window down, he stuck his head out and asked, "David? Are you David Swinton?"

David went over to the auto. "Daddy? Oh, Daddy, have you really come for me? I don't really belong here in Throwaway."

"Climb in, David. We'll get you cleaned up for Monica's sake."

David looked around. The Dancing Devlins stood nearby. They were not dancing. David called out a goodbye to them. The Dancing Devlins simply stood where they were. They had not been programmed to say goodbye. It was not quite the same as taking a bow.

As David climbed into his father's car, the Devlins began to dance. It was their favorite dance, a dance they had performed a hundred thousand times before.

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

Henry Swinton was no longer rich. He no longer had a career. He no longer had women around. He no longer had ambition.

But he had time.

He sat in a cheap apartment on Riverside, talking to David. The apartment was old and worn. One of the walls had developed a stammer. Sometimes it showed a false view of the river, where the water was blue and old-fashioned paddle steamers bedecked with flags plied up and down. And sometimes it showed a commercial for Preservanex, where a couple in their early 100s went through rickety copulation movements.

"How can I not be human, Daddy? I'm not like the Dancing Devlins or the other people I met in Throwaway. I feel happy or sad. I love people. Therefore I am human. Isn't that so?"

"You won't understand this, David, but I'm a broken man. I've fouled up my whole life. The way people do."

"My life was nice when we lived in that house with Mommy."

"I said you wouldn't understand."

"I do understand, Daddy. Can we go back there?"

Henry gazed mournfully at the child standing before him, a half-smile on his scarred face. "There's never any going back."

"We could go back in the limo."

Henry seized the boy and held him tightly, arms wrapped around him.

"David, you were an early product of my first mech company, Synthank. You have been superceded. You only think you are happy or sad. You only think you loved Teddy or Monica."

"Did you love Monica, Daddy?"

Henry sighed heavily. "I thought I did."

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

Henry put David in the limo, telling him that his obsession with being human would count as a neurosis if he were human. There were humans who imagined they were machines.

From the ruins of Henry Swinton's career, little remained. One thing, however, did remain. There still survived, out in a rundown suburb between city and boonies, the production unit of Synthank, Henry's first enterprise. He had retained financial control of Synthank. Nor had its products been destroyed. They survived on a low level of production, supervised by Henry's old friend, Ivan Shiggle. Synthank's products were exported to undeveloped countries overseas where they were welcomed as additional labor.

"We could insert better brains in them. Then they would be more up-to-date. But why go to the expense?" said Henry, as they turned into the unit's yard.

"Because they might like to have better brains," David suggested. Henry laughed.

Shiggle came out to meet them. Shaking hands with Henry, he looked down on David. "An early model," he remarked. "What did Monica think of it?"

Henry took his time responding. As they entered the building, he said deliberately, "You know, Monica was rather a cold woman."

Shooting him a sympathetic glance, Shiggle said, "But you married her." Lights flashed on as they walked along a corridor and through a swinging glass door.

"Oh yes, I loved Monica. Not well enough. Perhaps she didn't love me well enough. I don't know. My ambition got the better of me—she must have found me hard to live with. Now she's dead—through my neglect. My life is a complete cock-up, Ivan."

"You're not the only one."

Henry clapped him on the shoulder. "You've been a good friend. You have never cheated me or turned against me."

"There's time yet," said Shiggle, and both men laughed.

They had come to the production floor, where the product stood ready for packaging and exporting. David stared, his eyes wide.

He confronted 1000 Davids. All looking alike. All dressed alike. All standing alert and alike. All silent, staring ahead. A thousand replicas of himself. Unliving.

For the first time, David really understood.

He was a product. A product. His mouth fell open. He froze. He could not move. The gyroscope inside him stopped. He fell backward to the floor.

•#x2022;#x2022;#x2022;

On the afternoon of the following day, Shiggle and Henry stood in their shirtsleeves. They grinned at each other and shook hands.

"Amazing, Ivan! There's hope for me yet."

"Come back and work here. We'd get on Ok together. Provided the neural brain still works."

David lay on the bench between them, still connected by a cable, awaiting rebirth. His clothes had been renewed from stock, his face had been properly remolded. And the later, up-to-date brain had been inserted, infused with his earlier memories, a brain many times more diverse in its powers than his old one.

The two men paused over the prostrate body. Henry turned to the figure standing by their side, its arms wide in the eternal gesture of love and welcome.

"Are you ready for this, Teddy?"

"Yes, I am very excited to play with David again," said the bear. He was one of a stock of bears held in the production unit. "I missed him very much. David and I used to have such fun together, once."

"That's good. Well, then, let's bring David back to life, shall we?"

Yet still the men hesitated. They had done manually what was generally performed automatically.

Teddy beamed. "Hooray! Where we lived before it was always summer. Until the end. Then it was winter."

"Well, it's spring now," said Shiggle. Henry hit the charge button. David's slight figure jerked. His right hand automatically pulled away the connecting cable. He opened his eyes.

He sat up. His hands went up to his head. His expression was one of amazement. "Daddy! What a strange dream I had. I never had a dream before——"

"Welcome back, David, my boy," said Henry.

Embracing the child, he lifted David off the bench. David and Teddy stared at each other in wonder. Then they fell into each other's arms.

It was almost human.

He and his female machine, with their rapid dancing act, had become passé. They were junked.