Robots vs. Fairies(39)

He knew and he understood. It was expensive to keep him alive.

It was how it was.

*

It was so twisted that he had once raised a hand to God and sworn an oath to protect America from all threats, foreign and domestic—and now he was here, losing a fight to sickness and bills. In a way he was the enemy, because his bills were dragging everyone else down.

The only thing that made Duke feel better was knowing that pretty soon he wouldn’t be there to hurt anyone.

Outside the first birds of spring sang in the trees.

Duke swallowed the last pill and washed it down with a gulp of water. Christmas, he thought. Or maybe a little after.

Sooner, if God wasn’t going to be a total dick.





-2-




* * *



“Duke,” she called, “you feel up to chores today?”

He smiled at that. Grandma never came right out and asked him if he felt sick or weak. She asked if he felt up to doing chores. As if he was ten years old.

If he said no, she’d come down and take his vitals and brew a special tea and set him on the couch with a blanket and a book. If he said yes, she’d actually give him something to do. Nothing heavy. He couldn’t drag the trash can outside anymore, and he couldn’t chop wood or milk cows. Most of his chores were things he could do sitting down. Rewiring one of the nutrient sensors they used to test the soil, or rebuilding the little feederbot that took seeds out to the henhouse. Duke liked fixing things, so that was all right. He loved machines of all kinds, and according to Grandma, they loved him. More times than he could count, Duke had repaired something Gramps had given up on. Before the last surgery Duke had even fixed the solar cells on Gramps’s car, which saved them all about two thousand dollars. Grandma had cried and Gramps hugged him until he couldn’t breathe.

“Sure, I can do some chores,” said Duke. He was only half telling the truth, because he didn’t feel great. The cough had come back, and twice he’d spit up a little blood. Not much, just a couple of drops. Enough, though, so that he didn’t dare tell his grandparents, because they would take him straight to the hospital.

Apart from the cough, though, he felt okay. Good enough to walk around the farm if he didn’t go too far. Good enough to use some tools. He’d been working on Farmboy off and on and still felt he could fix the big old bugger.

“Come to the stairs,” called Grandma, and Duke got up and walked into the living room. Grandma stood at the top of the long flight of stairs and peered down through the gloom at Duke. He held his arms out to the side and turned around, keeping a grin on his face the whole time.

“See?” he said. “Right as rain.”

He couldn’t see her eyes from that distance, but her mouth was pursed and puckered the way it was when she was thinking hard.

“What was your blood pressure this morning?”

He told her. And his weight, blood sugar, and temperature. They’d all be entered into the med-pad, which meant she could access them from her tablet upstairs, but Grandma seemed to like it better when he told her the numbers.

“The lawn mower stopped working again,” she said.

He shrugged. “The drive circuit pops loose if it hits a rock. I can fix it.”

Grandma nodded. “It’s in the barn.”

“Okay.”

“Your grandfather just took Farmboy in, too.”

“I saw.”

“Don’t mess with it if you’re too tired.”

“Okay.” He actually wanted to open the old bot up and take a look. Maybe he could conjure up some of Dad’s old bot whisperer mojo and get it on its feet again. That would be nice. That would make him feel like he was contributing something around here. Apply a little blood, sweat, and tears, Dad used to say. And wishful thinking, too, mused Duke.

“Wear a sweater,” she said. “It’s still cold.”

He smiled. “I will.”

He turned to go, but Grandma said, “I love you, Lyle.”

She was the only one who ever called him by his real name. He was Duke to everyone. He used to be Big Duke, but the “big” kind of fell off with the weight he’d shed since the transplant. Duke hated his name. Lyle.

Grandma had a special pass, though. On that and everything else. If there was a real “ironheart” in their family, it was her. Powerful in the way some women are. Not with muscle or knuckles, but with wisdom and heart and tolerance.

There was so much sadness in her voice that Duke didn’t dare look up at her. “Love you, too.”

He put on a sweater and went outside.





-3-




* * *



The barn was a big, red monstrosity. The paint was peeling and the boards looked weary. It was taller and longer than the house and nearly twice as wide. Back when it was built, nearly a hundred and forty years ago, it housed four tractors, a combine harvester, a cultivator, a chisel plow, a harrower, and other old-fashioned farm equipment. Over the years, Duke knew, those machines had been gradually replaced by newer models. Gas engines gave way to solar power, drivers had been replaced by autonomous drive systems and GPS, and then those had been replaced by robots. Farmboy, Plowboy, Tillerman, SeedMonkey. Even the old VetMech, which could do anything from delivering a breeched calf to repairing a ruptured bowel on a mule. All kinds. Duke always loved to hear them all going clankity-clank out in the fields. Giants of metal and graphene, wires and flashing lights. Clankity-clank as they tilled the fields, clankity-clank as they harvested the crops. Sometimes, when he was little, he’d lie awake at night and hear them clanking out in the field, working around the clock because they didn’t need to sleep and they didn’t need daylight.