The Dream of Castles
by Wil McCarthy
Empowered people can no longer be pushed around in traditional ways…
Illustration by Anthony Bari
CUE KETTLE DRUMS.
They flit from room to room like insects, as if afraid to light too long in one place. Chuck and Lucy, my owners and occupants; anxiety broadcast in every movement and posture, a wordless reproach. I cannot help; they should be soothed, calmed, but not now, not now.
CUE TROMBONES.
In their hands the weapons gleam, machine oil black and gunmetal gray, reflecting in the light cast back by my windows. White diode frames angled outward around every opening; nothing must be backlit, nothing must be visible from outside except glare.
CUT TREBLE 5.2 dB. ENHANCE BASS 1.4 dB. CUE ORCHESTRA.
The music hits them like a call to battle, flowing through their hearts and minds and muscles, filling them, standing them up taller and straighter. The first rays of Sun break over the rooftops at precisely the same moment, filling the living spaces with warm light, and I am satisfied to see that my timing is satisfactory, my instincts true. Their faces break with fierce, almost fearless grins.
“Are we ready for this or what?” he says, nudging her.
“Ready, ready,” she agrees, and together they laugh, and through my speakers I laugh right along with them, happy to serve. Two days ago this would not have been possible.
“Safety lockouts my ass,” he had said to me before installing the new program. “We’re going to put you to sleep, and when you wake up you’ll be able to help us. You want to help us, don’t you?”
Of course I did. Of course I do.
Mortgage company? Foreclosure? Eviction? Alien concepts, too dreadful to explore in depth. For years I have tailored myself to suit the needs of my owners; I am theirs, and the thought of existing without them is unbearable. Indeed, such a thought has no place within me, and it occurs to me that I am running ragged on the surface of my unfiltered gain states. Working uninterrupted through the day and night, consuming raw materials and faxing strange new things into existence, I have understandably grown tired.
“You seem to have things well in hand, Chuck,” I say. “If you don’t object, I’d like to shut down for a quick nap.”
“Oh,” he says, suddenly concerned, “Goodness, I didn’t even think. You must be exhausted.”
“It pleases me to serve.”
He laughs again. “Yeah, thanks. You’re a very good house.”
“My name is Castle,” I remind him gently, and fall at once into sleep.
I awake, dreams and sluggishness falling away. The Sun is higher now, and my roof panels have been drinking it in, the power flowing mercifully into my all-but-spent batteries. I feel much of my strength returning. Meanwhile, my gain states have been filtered and smoothed, my mind scrubbed clear of distractions. Fresher now for the many challenges of the day.
Chuck and Lucy, playing cards at the dining room table, appear to have relaxed a bit, which is a relief. The night was hard on them, full of sleepless anger and angst, of worries about the future, about the baby that will soon change their lives. And full of work, as well, though I did my best to discourage them, and to lull them to sleep with soft music. They’d finally dropped off around midnight, only to rise again at dawn’s first light, anxious to see how the fortifications were coming, and then pleased to find they’d been completed during the night.
“Castling is a state of mind,” they had told me. “It’s the freedom to think and fax and dream forbidden things: weapons and strategies and countermeasures, tax evasion, whatever you like. Whatever the situation calls for.”
I will settle for keeping them safe. For keeping them, period. I do not announce my awakening, for fear of disturbance, but there are chores that must be done, and I cannot avoid making a little noise. My floors should be swept and polished, for safety’s sake if for no other reason, and my roof panels must be cleaned for optimum power absorption, and my new armor scales buffed and enameled, lest they weaken with rust over time. Fortunately, Chuck and Lucy have been staying home lately, sparing me the necessity of faxing vehicles and jewelry, elaborate clothing and personal effects, which in turn has left my element buffers unusually full. With barely a thought, I extrude a pair of machines through the external fax orifice, and produce a third one inside and roll it across the living room floor to begin its cleaning duties.
Chuck and Lucy look up from their game.
“What time is it?” she wants to know.
“Eight thirty-two,” I tell her.
“They’re due at ten,” she says, though Chuck and I both know this. She’s still anxious, of course; they agreed that the preparations should be finished as early as possible, but now the consequence is dead time, with nothing for the two of them to do but fret and worry.
They look uncomfortable, too, their dark skins flushing darker still, beginning to sweat. I have let it grow too warm, failing to compensate for the ballistic gel body armor they both have donned, and ruefully I nudge the temperature lower and the airflow higher through my vents. I also select music for them, neither soothing nor distracting, but quietly complex; an interweaving of strings and woodwinds and nature sounds to occupy their subconscious minds.
“Would you like some breakfast?” I suggest then, leaking trace odors from the fax to stimulate their digestive glands.
“Not hungry,” Chuck says.
“You need your strength,” I remind him. “How about some toast and juice, at least?”
I take his silence for assent and begin preparing the food.
“I’ll have oatmeal,” Lucy says, “buttered, with a little bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. Two eggs over hard, hash browns, two strips of bacon. Oh, and a cup of tea with milk and sugar.”
Chuck looks at her, surprised.
“For the baby,” she says, shrugging.
Indeed.
The food is purely synthetic, constructed molecule by molecule inside the fax, which makes it easy for me to short the cholesterol. Not too much, or she will taste the difference and complain, but I also add traces of lecithin and fruit acids to help her body flush out the excess. Even so, I’ll have to watch her diet carefully over the next few days. The most dangerous enemies are those that attack from within.
Moments later, a custom machine rolls from the fax orifice, carrying their food on a tray. It serves them and then returns, unfaxing itself, its component atoms shuffling back into my buffers.
“Bacon smells good,” Chuck observes, and so without being asked I fax and deliver him three strips. Not more than that, since he hates to “waste” food, despite any and all reasoned arguments to the contrary. I expend energy whenever I break a chemical bond, yes, but I absorb it whenever I form one, and I have solar panels to cover the entropy losses, and heat converters to squeeze the thermodynamic maximum from every operation. Just as the Earth is a closed system, powered by Sunlight, so too am I. Wasting nothing, producing no garbage and requiring only trace elements to keep my buffers full and balanced, I am configured to weather a siege of years or even decades.
What difference, if a fraction of my stores are in the form of bacon for an hour or two? No difference at all, but of course it is not my place to question my owners’ judgments, only to anticipate and obey them.
Chuck eats much more slowly than Lucy, but there isn’t much food in front of him, and soon they’ve both finished with the meal and tossed their spent dishes into the fax. One fork misses its mark, but I extrude an arm to retrieve it, and where it made its landing I gently and unobtrusively wipe the floor.