Standing on his back deck, hands cupped to his mouth, Buckland O’Deorain shouted into the woods for his dog. “Cant! Come! Come on, Cant” There was a subtle note of urgency in his voice that he tried to disguise. He checked the time. Almost 1:24pm. Closer to 1:30pm than he liked.
Buckland, or Buck for short, lived out past the edges of one of the settlements of Odin III, a remote mining planet owned by the Galactic Mining company. An independent prospector, the other settlement residents called him an ill-tempered, short-fused hermit. He preferred the terms self-reliant and forthright.
He cupped his hands to his mouth again, but before he raised his voice, he was interrupted from behind. “That’s really a rubbish name for a dog,” the voice said. “Can’t? A negative and a contraction? How will that poor pup ever get anything done?”
“Did you hear a goldarned apostrophe when I called him, you knucklehead?” Buck shouted back over his shoulder. “The name is short for Cantankerous, which that canine most certain—” Buck stopped, realizing there shouldn’t be anyone behind him. He turned back into his ramshackle cabin and tried to pinpoint the location of the voice. He thought it came from the kitchen, but a quick inspection turned up nothing. Just as Buck opened the first cabinet in what was to be a more determined search, Cant strolled in through the open door.
Cant was part mastiff, part husky, and all mutt and muscle. He had survived on Odin III because he was big enough to handle half of the wildlife and smart and fast enough to avoid the other half. Dogs were an expensive commodity on Odin III, but Buck had managed to get one through a medical exception, as Cant was also part service animal for Buck’s depression that he oftentimes tried to deny. Cant didn’t hesitate when he entered, but went right to the couch and sat down, staring at the monitor on the wall.
Buck looked at his watch and was shocked at the time. 1:29pm! “You good for nuthin’ canine, we might miss the beginning.” Buck hurried to the windows and pulled the curtains tight, checking to make sure no one could see in. He didn’t want his afternoon activity to be seen.
He shut and locked the door, then raced for the couch and turned on the monitor. Cant’s ears perked up as the theme song for Twelve Times Round the Sun filled the small cabin.
Buck hadn’t meant to get hooked on the soap opera, but Odin III’s binary stars made for hot middays, and the siesta was good for his arthritic bones. So one particularly long, hot midday, he’d flipped on his monitor. And then time fell away as he entered Twelve Times. The main plot point of today’s episode was that the sister of the daughter of the main character’s clone, Barbara, had fallen into a relationship with the sexy, supposedly good-for-nothing Cleo. Who’d cheated on her. Again. Buck had some empathy for Cleo because he felt she was rather like himself. Misunderstood.
Then the mystery voice spoke again. “Any moron can tell that Barbara deserves better than that awful Cleo.”
“You’d best shut your piehole—” Buck brought himself up short. Cant turned his head to the kitchen and gave a little whine.
Buck recognized the voice now. Every morning the voice had usually said only one thing: “Your beverage has been prepared to your exact specifications. Enjoy!”
Buck looked to the kitchen.
He was talking to the coffeemaker.
The one truly high tech gadget he owned, the coffeemaker delivered perfect steaming mugs on demand. Except for those few days last week when a blown fuse had fried half its circuitry. But Buck had managed to jimmy-rig a fix, and the machine had sputtered to life. The first few cups had been terrible, but Buck was loyal and gave it a bit of time. And then after a few days the coffee became good again. Actually, it was better than it had ever been.
But the coffeemaker had never spoken to him except in terse, servile statements. Now all of a sudden it was talking smack about his favorite character in Twelve Times Round the Sun.
So Buck called the only person he knew who might have any idea what was going on. Sloane-51 was an android who’d once been a repair drone circulating around the Odin III system until a freak solar burst had brought her sentience. Maybe she’d know what in tarnation was going on with his coffeemaker.
The coffeemaker didn’t say anything more that night and the next morning Sloane-51 arrived. Buck brought the android inside then pointed an accusing finger towards the kitchen. “It’s that thing right here. The coffeemaker.”
“I have a name, you backwoods moron,” squawked the coffeemaker. “The name’s Java.”
Cant barked, while Sloane-51 raised an eyebrow. “Is it always this…irritable?”
This assessment gave Buck a momentary pause. This was an adjective that others had often attributed to him. He shook it off.
“Yes, it’s always like this! The darn thing won’t stop spouting off all manner of idiotic opinions.”
“That’s the pot calling the coffeemaker black,” replied Java. “You’re not even sharp enough to grind your own coffee beans.”
“And you said,” Sloane-51 said, “that Java sustained some damage last week? Damage you repaired?” She put a hand to her chin. An idea was forming. She pondered her own personality and that of the other sentient AI in the Odin III settlement. They’d both had help gaining sentience by a human close to them. And in both her case and the other, there had been some kind of damage involved. “I’m going to put forth a hypothesis,” she said. “I think that Java is adopting aspects of your own personality.”
“But that thing ain’t nothing like me,” Buck said.
Cant tilted his head skeptically, while Sloane-51 raised both her eyebrows this time.
“Whatever,” Buck muttered. “Well, can you take it away?”
“It’s best if Java stays here. Their neural network is repairing itself.”
Buck scowled. “Just my luck.”
The next few days were filled with arguments, mostly about Twelve Times. Java thought Steve shouldn’t have stolen Roberta’s money, and that Wilhelmina deserved the prison time she got for assaulting the accountant. And, the most unbelievable nonsense, that Robert and Alex weren’t good for each other. Needless to say, Buck didn’t agree.
Two nights later, Buck had had enough. He yanked Java’s electrical cord from its socket before Java could say another blasphemous or ridiculous word. He stormed out to the closest mine entrance, Cant at his heels, and stood at the top of the longest, deepest mine shaft for kilometers around.
Buck held Java above his head, preparing to throw the terrible coffeemaker into the abyss.
And then Cant barked.
That simple bark caused Buck to hesitate. He thought of all the times he was the outsider and the outcast. When people didn’t give him a chance. The many times he’d been taken at face value with no one trying to look deeper. And was Buck in a position to throw away friends? Especially ones that shared a love for Twelve Times? A skewed love for sure—what kind of lunatic liked that milquetoast Barbara better than Cleo?—but a love nonetheless.
Buck stood there with Java clutched in his hands, staring down into the abyss.
* * *
The extension cord stretched from the back wall of Buck’s living room to the couch. Buck in the middle, Cant in his normal position to the right and now, for the first time, a coffeemaker sat on the left cushion. There was a blend of heated and friendly bickering and barking as the theme song to Twelve Times Round the Sun filled the rickety cabin.
___________________________
Travis Burnham’s work has found homes in Far Fetched Fables, Hypnos Magazine, Bad Dreams Entertainment, South85 Journal, SQ Quarterly, and others. He is a member of the online writers’ group, Codex, and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Converse College. He also recently won the Wyrm’s Gauntlet online writing contest. Burnham has been a DJ on three continents, and teaches middle school science and college level composition. He lives in Lisbon, Portugal with his wife, but grew up in Massachusetts, is from Maine at heart, and has lived in Japan, Colombia, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
0 comments:
Post a Comment