Birdy Girl
by Robert Reed


UPS is at the door. A package for my wife, as usual. The woman's one helluva
shopper. I sign on the slot. It's a box, maybe twenty inches at the longest.
Not heavy, either. I bring it inside, and the box says, "Let me out, why don't
you?" So I look at the return address. Oh, Christ. But the UPS drone has
already rolled away, no time to waste. What can I do? Put the thing in the
closet, I decide. Go back to my life, what there is of it. And pretend that
I'm not hearing a voice calling to me from under the winter coats.

My wife gets home from work, and I tell her, "Look in the closet." She gives
this little hoot and says, "Where's your knife?" I've got this old hunting
knife that we use for packages. Like she's dressing a deer, she cuts the tape
and opens the flaps and unwraps the aerogel, and she pulls out her doll and
says, "Genevieve," with an instant fondness. "That's my name," the doll
replies, looking at both of us. It's got big, big eyes. Green eyes, I notice.
And I'm not someone who usually notices the colors of things. Those eyes are
stuck in an oversized head riding on top of an immature body, reminding me of
a child. But the hair is huge. It's the hair that every woman wants, rich and
flowing with just enough curls. Brown hair, I notice. And the plastic skin
looks heavily tanned. And there's something adult about the voice, even if it
comes rumbling from a body that isn't quite eighteen inches tall.

"I have clothes," the dolls says. "Wonderful little clothes!" So of course my
wife spends the next hour playing with her new toy and its fancy wardrobe. She
calls her friends in the craft club. Everyone drops over, holo-style. Our
living room is jammed with grown women and their Birdy Girls. I'll pass
through, just to watch. Just to spy. "What happened to the quilting?" I ask.
Last week, the group was making quilts with old-fashioned fabrics.
Quasicrystal patterns. Kind of neat. But one of the projected women snorts and
looks up from her half-dressed doll, telling me, "We still quilt. We do all of
our heirloom crafts." Then another woman laughs and says, "We just do them
slower now." And my wife gives me a certain look, asking, "What do you
think?"

Her doll's dressed in a short skirt and a silky shirt, and its shoes have
spiked heels, and the way it wears its hair is something. Frightening, really.
I have to say, "God, she's got a big ass." Which causes the doll to smile and
wink, telling me, "Thank you very much, good sir." Then after the laughter
dies back, I ask, "So what's it dressed for?" And my wife laughs and says,
"She's going out. Out to the clubs." Which I take for a joke. I don't know
much about this new hobby. This fad. But later, I hear the front open and
close, and I come in to find just my wife. The projected women are gone. And
every doll. "Where's your new toy?" I ask. My wife is shoving trash into the
empty box. "Oh, she's gone clubbing. Like I said." "What kind of club is
that?" I ask. And she says, "This box needs to be thrown out." So I trudge out
to the recyke tub and, standing under the street light, I skim through the
Birdy Girl literature. Just to know a little something.

I have my own friends, and I've got my little hobbies, too. So it bugs me when
my wife says, "You should do things with your time. Constructive things." She
says that a lot. She doesn't think much of my softball games or the
vegetable/weed garden or how I can watch sports for hours at a stretch. She
forgets there isn't much to do these days that's flat-out constructive. I'm
not lazy. I had a job and a paycheck. But then the AI technologies made their
Big Leap, and all that noise about the machines freeing people for better jobs
came to a smashing end. I mean, why lay down for a human surgeon when the
robotic ones are so much more skilled? Why do anything that matters when you'd
have to compete with artificial critters who learn faster than you, and better
than you, and who themselves are just prototypes for the next wonders to come
off the assembly line? My wife forgets how it is. She's got a government job,
because nobody's given the government to the machines yet. Besides, between
her salary and my severance cake, we do fine. So what's the problem?

It's practically one in the morning when her doll gets home. It comes crawling
through the cat door, and my wife jumps out of bed and goes into the kitchen,
asking, "How was it?" She carries her new friend into our bedroom. The doll
stinks of cigarettes, and I think beer got dumped on it. "Go back to sleep,"
my wife tells me. Then she makes a bed for her doll, spreading out her tiniest
quasicrystal quilt inside an open drawer. Like people, Birdy Girls need to
sleep. To dream. I read that in the brochure. Pretending to sleep, I listen to
the whispers, hearing about its adventures at what sounds like The Hothouse.
That was a college bar back when I noticed such things. Maybe it still is,
sort of. Whatever the place was, it sounds like real people and machines are
getting together. My wife's doll met the other women's dolls there, and they
had a good time, and her doll wants to go again tomorrow night. "Can I,
please?" it asks. And my wife says, "That or something better. Whatever you
want, Genevieve."




·····


I know what this is about. I'm not an abstract sort of guy, but I'm not a
complete idiot, either. We've talked about having kids, and all things
considered, it doesn't appeal to me. A kid takes a certain something that I
just don't have anyway. But even when my wife agrees with me, I can see doubt
in her eyes. And that's coming from a guy who isn't all that tuned to anyone's
emotions. Not even his own.
The dolls sleeps till noon, nearly. I walk into the bedroom a couple times,
watching its eyes moving as it dreams. When it gets up, it dresses itself in
new jeans and a T-shirt with KISS ME, I'M INSATIABLE written across the front.
"I'm going out," it warns me. I don't say a word. Which takes an effort,
frankly. The machine has its ways of teasing reactions from people; there's
sociable software behind those dreaming eyes. But I manage to say nothing, and
it leaves me, and I watch half of the Cardinals game, losing interest after
I'm done with lunch and I'm done watching when one team's whipped. One-sided
games are never fun. Instead, I go out back to do a little work. Watering and
weeding. I do everything by hand. No gardening drones for me, thank you. I
work until the heat gets old, then I sit in one of the adirondacks that I
built last year. Woodworking; it sounds like a fine, noble hobby until you
make your first wobbly chair. I'm sitting in the shade, wobbling, and some
little motion catches my eye. Above the grapevine on the back fence is a face.
The face is watching me. For an instant, I'm guessing that it's another Birdy
Girl. But then she waves at me, and I realize that it isn't like that. She
waves, and I wave back, and then I find some reason to stand and stretch and
head back inside again.

Our cat is sprawled out on the living room floor. The doll is beside him,
scratching his eyes and telling him that he's a pretty kitty. A beautiful
kitty. Then it looks up at me, remarking, "You've got to be curious. So ask me
questions." And I say, "I don't want to." Then it tells me, "Genevieves are
curious and adventurous. We watch and we remember. And we have a distinct,
rather quirky sense of humor." So I say, "Prove it." And just like that, the
doll reaches under the sofa, pulling out the hunting knife that I use on
boxes. The tanned face smiles, big white teeth showing. And with both hands,
it lifts the weapon, saying, "How about it? A little knife fight before
dinner?"

What can I do? I laugh. I can't help myself. And the doll laughs with me,
neatly flipping the knife and catching it by the back of the blade, and
walking forwards, she hands the hilt up to me. She gives it up. And that's
when I start thinking of her as being "her," and that's how our first
conversation gets rolling.




·····


After Genevieve goes clubbing again, I mention to my wife, "Someone's living
in the Coldsmith house." She asks, "Who?" while looking down at her
embroidery: a picture of a farmhouse and horse-drawn wagons. I tell her,
"There was a kid in the backyard. A girl. Maybe five, maybe less." Which makes
her look at me. "Just one child?" she asks. "That's all I saw," I report. She
wants details, but she doesn't ask. All the obvious questions have obvious
answers, and what's the point in hearing what you know already? So down goes
her head, hands working the needle again.
It's past two when Genevieve finally gets home. I'm the one who hears the cat
door, my wife sleeping as if dead. I slip out of bed and into shorts and I
meet the girl midway. She's carrying her spiked shoes, trying to be quiet. Her
short skirt looks jacked up too high, and her hair could stand a good combing.
And that's not all I'm thinking now. She just stands there, smiling, swinging
her little shoes with her arms out straight. It's as if she know what's going
on inside my idiot head.

Finally, in a whisper, I ask, "So was it fun?"

"Everything's fun," she tells me.

And I warn her, flat out, "Don't ever tell me anything about it. Ever.
Please?"




·····


The girl doesn't eat, but she can taste. Her little pink tongue leaves marks
on my lunch. I don't know why, but I like that. I find it charming, somehow.
She says, "It's all good," and I admit, "That's the one place that I like AIs.
When they're cooks." My wife and I bought a top-of-the-line chef last winter.
"Can you smell, too?" I ask, and she makes a show of sniffing, then breaks
into a soft barking cough, one tiny hand over her mouth in a ladylike
fashion.
Like yesterday, she leaves through the cat door. I don't know where she's
going. But when I'm outside, weeding the front lawn, she's suddenly standing
next to me. I'm not sure when she showed up. Smiling as I work, I tell her,
"This has to be boring for you." She watches my hands tugging at the weeds,
and she nods, and says, "But it's fun, too. If I let it be." Then an idea hits
me. "There's a job that needs doing," I explain, "and it might be exciting."
She wants to know what it is. "I bet you could climb that tree, if I started
you with a boost." I point at the big locust in the middle of the yard.
"Squirrels stripped the bark off that high branch, killing it—"
"You want me to kill your squirrels?" she says. Jokes.

"Maybe later," I tell her. "Today, let's just trim that dead limb off. Okay?"

She weighs nothing, nearly. I could practically throw her to where she needs
to be. And she's stronger than seems right, moving up from the low branches,
carrying my diamond-edged saw by the strap, holding the strap between her big
white teeth.

The cutting part is easy. She uses both hands and works the blade through the
soft dead wood, the pink of her tongue showing as she concentrates. Then comes
the splitting crack when there's not enough wood holding up the rest, and
that's when she loses her balance. The jerk of the saw takes her by surprise,
pitching her forwards, and I'm watching her let go of the saw, both of them
tumbling now, and before I can think, I'm jumping. I'm reaching out. I guess
my plan is to catch her and save her. But she weighs so little that the air
slows her down, and while she's squealing with pleasure, I'm slamming my hands
into the tree trunk, then landing too hard on my shoulder. I'm lying there,
moaning, when the saw hits next to me and she plops down on my back. With
concern, she asks, "Are you all right?" I grunt something about being tough.
And with amusement, she reminds me, "Plastic is pretty tough. For future
reference."

My wife never hears the whole story. She just sees my scraped hands and the
medicated sling, and she walks around the dead limb laid out in the yard.
Without prompting, she fills in the blanks. I'm an idiot; that's the easy
story. And that's the story I let stand.




·····


UPS comes again. And the brown-suited drone escapes before I notice that it's
our address but not my wife's name. Or mine. It's the same last name, but
who's Kahren? The city register answers that. My first thought is to call UPS
and ream them out for their mistake. And that's my second thought, too. But
somehow it doesn't get done. Morning turns to afternoon, and part of me grows
curious. Takes charge. Before leaving the house, I look in at the doll.
Genevieve was out until four in the morning, nearly. She looks peaceful, still
deep in her dreams, and I can't help but feel a little curious about what
she's seeing right now.
Our street curls into the next street, and the house numbers repeat. That's
why this looks like a harmless mistake. And maybe it is. My plan, near as I
can tell, is to leave the package beside the front door, and, at the most,
ring the bell before making my escape. But there's a kid already sitting on
the front porch. He's four years old, if I'm judging things right. He's
sitting on an old sofa, legs sticking straight out, staring at the reader in
his lap. Then he looks up, something like a smile breaking across the face.
"The item came to you by mistake," he remarks with a too-quick voice. With his
words running together, he says, "Thank you for bringing us the item."

I don't like this. But I can't just throw the box at him and run. So I set it
down on the porch while standing on the steps, and with my voice coming out
slow and stupid, I remark, "We've got the same last name."

"It's a common name," is his only response. And I say, "Whatever you have in
this box, I hope it isn't too illegal." Which is a joke. Nothing but. But he
isn't smiling anymore. He waits a half second, which is a long time for him.
Then he tells me, "UPS has excellent security AIs, and the best sensors, and I
am not a criminal, sir." The creature is probably only three years old, I
realize. They're even smarter than the four- and five-year-old wonders, which
makes it worse. They're smarter and less willing to pretend that they're not.
Again, he says, "Sir," and stares hard at me. He has huge black eyes set
inside a tiny round face, and he keeps staring, telling me, "If you please,
I'd like to focus all of my attentions on my work now."

I don't know why. But I've got to ask the creature, "What do you do for
work?"

If my new neighbor thinks about my question, he does it in a microsecond. Then
with a smug little grin, he admits, "I don't think there's any conceivable way
that I could explain what I do to you."




·····


The craft women come over again, only this time for real. They're quilting and
dressing their dolls and having a wonderful time, talking up a storm until I
walk in on them. Then everyone gets quiet. Even the dolls. Even Genevieve. It
was her voice that was loudest, and it's her that I look at now, asking
everyone, "What's all the laughing about?"
My wife says, "Honey. Do you have to lurk?"

I don't want to be a total prick. But I've got to ask, "What were you ladies
talking about?" Genevieve says, "Last night." Then the other dolls shush her.
She's wearing a new outfit; I've never seen this one. The skirt reaches to her
ankles, with flowers on it, and the shirt and jacket are a light
purple—lavender, I guess you'd call it—and she's got fat green emeralds stuck
in her thick hair and plastered across her flat little chest.

"I'm going out," I tell my wife. In front of everyone, she asks, "Out where?"
So I say, "Remember? The guys are playing in that tournament tonight." I mean
the gang from my old job; nothing's left of our company but its softball team.
"What about your arm?" she asks, and I say, "It's mostly better."

"I didn't think you were going to play," she says, definitely not happy now.

"I guess you thought wrong," I tell her, keeping things nice and stirred up.
Making sure she won't want me coming home anytime soon.




·····

Human beings have never played better softball. That's what we tell ourselves
when we're out on bright warm nights like this. This is exactly the kind of
thing that the AIs have freed us to do, we boast. Laughing loudly. Sneaking
beers out of the coolers. Everyone taking their hard cuts at the slow fat
balls, then running the bases as fast as they can.

The best softball in human history is being played tonight, but not on this
field. Not by us. We're just a pack of middle-aged men with too much time to
eat and nothing important at stake. Not even halfway important. Two minutes
after we're done playing, I can't remember who won. Half an hour after we're
done, it's just me and couple buddies sitting on the bleachers, finishing the
last of the beers, talking about nothing and everything at the same time.

The lights over the field have turned   themselves off. This is a clear night,
and looking up, we can see the cities   sparkling on the moon, the cities flying
along in their orbits. Up there, it's   AIs and it's our own little kids, plus
older kids with enough genius to hang   on, and every last one of them is
looking down at the three of us.

"They're building starships now," says one guy. Which makes the other guy say,
"No, I read they're building something else. They aren't ships like we know
ships." And being the deciding vote, I warn them, "There's no knowing what
they're doing up there." Then I tell my story about the package and my new
neighbors. "What?" says the first guy. "You've got two of them living behind
you?" I don't like his tone. I don't know why, but it makes me squirm. Then
that guy says, "They're too strange. Too scary. Maybe you're different, but I
couldn't stand them being that close to me."

The guy has a couple kids. They'd have to be twelve and fourteen, or something
like that. They had to be born normal, but that doesn't mean they've stayed
that way. If you're young enough, and willing, you can marry your brain to all
sorts of AI machinery. When was the last time he mentioned his kids? I can't
remember. And that's when I realize what must have happened and what's got him
all pissy now.

I finish my beer and heave the empty over the backside of the bleacher.
Neat-freak robots will be scurrying around the park tonight, and tomorrow
night, and forever. Why not give them a little something to pick up?

After a good minute of silence, I tell the guys, "We're talking about having a
kid." Which isn't true. I'm just thinking about it for myself. "I know it's
not like it used to be," I admit. "I know ours would probably jump the nest
before she's three."

"It's more like two," says the second guy. He's never been married or had
kids. Shaking his head, he flings his empty after mine, telling me, "You don't
want that. They're more machine than people, these kids are."

Which gets the first guy pissed. "I don't think I'd go that far," he growls.
Then he stands and puts his empty into the empty trash can. And he picks up
one of the titanium bats. In the moonlight, I can see his face. I can see him
thinking hard about his own kids. About everything. Then he lifts the bat up
high and slams it down into the aluminum bleacher, making a terrific racket.
Again and again, he bashes the bleacher, leaving a sloppy dent and the air
ringing, and him sweating rivers, while his two friends stare out at the empty
ballfield, pretending to notice none of it.




·····


The Hothouse was a dump in the old days. And still is, which makes things
better somehow. Easier. I don't feel half as out of place as I expected.
Walking through the smoky rooms. Watching people and things that aren't
people. I'm not even the oldest critter in this place, which is the biggest
surprise.
The music sucks, but bar music always sucks.
Maybe fifty Birdy Girls are hanging around. There's usually five or six of
them at a table, along with as many college-age kids. The kids are too old to
mesh up with AIs, but they're wearing the trendy machines on their faces. In
their hair. Some have four or five machines that give them advice or whatever.
The machines talk in low buzzes. The Birdy Girls talk in normal voices. The
college kids are the quiet ones, drinking their beers and smoking the new
cigarettes. Doing nothing but listening, by the looks of it.

I don't listen. I just hunt until I see her standing in the middle of a round
table, dancing with another Birdy Girl. Except it isn't her. I know it from
her clothes, which are wrong, and I know by other ways, too. It's a feeling
that stops me midway. Then I make a slow turn, searching for a second
Genevieve doll. There isn't any. Two turns and I'm sure. Then I'm thinking how
this looks, if anyone cares to notice me. A grown man doing this, and for
what? But it's pretty obvious I don't give a shit what anyone thinks, and
that's when I move up to the round table, saying, "Hey, there," with a loud
voice. It barely sounds like me. When the tanned face lifts and those green
eyes fix on me, I say, "Is there another Genevieve around? Anyone see her?"

This Genevieve says, "No," and picks up someone's spare cigarette with both
hands, tasting a little puff. It's one of the college boys who tilts his head
back, blowing blue smoke while he's talking. "There was one. With a group.
Ago, maybe ten minutes?" Then one of his AI add-ons whispers something, and he
adds, "Twelve minutes ago." So I ask what she was wearing. Was it a long skirt
and jewelry? Again the machine buzzes, and the kid gives me a big smile. He
looks like every frat kid that I went to school with. Smug, and handsome. And
drunk enough to be happy, or dangerous, or both. "That's your girl," he
promises. "She and her Girls went outside with some old man." And with a hard
pleasure, he adds, "Almost as old as you, by the looks of him."




·····


It's a pleasure to be outside. It's a torture. I'm standing in the middle of
the parking lot, looking at empty cabs and parked cars. I'm wishing that she
saw me drive in. But my car's sitting empty. Then I'm telling myself that she
and her little friends have left, since it's after one in the morning now. Is
it that late? Just to be sure, I make a circuit around the parking lot. An old
minivan sits in the back corner, back where it's darkest. The windows are
popped open. I can't see inside, but I hear the voices. The giggles. I can't
remember deciding to walk up to the van, but that's what I must have done.
Decided. Because I'm there now. I'm pressing my face to the glass. There's a
little light burning inside, and when I squint, I can tell someone's pulled
the seats out of the back end, nothing but a narrow mattress on the floor, and
the man lying on his back with his hands jammed behind his tilted head,
looking like he's about to try doing a sit-up, his head tilted and his buggy
big eyes watching everything that's happening to him.
Just like that, the door handle's in my hand. The side door has jumped open.
And if I've gone this far, I might as well drag the son of a bitch out by his
ankles. Birdy Girls and pant legs go flying. I'm going to kick his ass. God,
I'm going to paste him. But then he's screaming at me, begging, hands over his
scrunched-up face. It's a bald old face. It could be my face in twenty years.
I can't smack him. I can't even pretend that I'm going to. So I drop him and
start hunting for the Genevieve. Then I see her face glaring at me, her mouth
tiny and hard, and I start looking at what I'm doing, and why, and it's my
voice that asks me, "What in hell's going on here?"
Genevieve says, "Don't you know?" Then she tells her friends, "I know fun. And
this isn't."

Too late by a long ways, I notice that the jewelry in her hair is wrong, and
she's wearing that hair different than before, and it isn't the same dress.
And to myself, in a low stupid voice, I say, "I'm an idiot."

"Yeah," says the wrong Genevieve. "And you're not keeping it too much of a
secret, either."




·····


I've got two women waiting for me at home. One of them says, "You look rough,"
and the other adds, "It must have been quite a ball game." I don't know which
of them scares me worse. Instead of answering, I take a long shower and dry
myself in the bathroom, putting on clean shorts before coming out again,
finding both of them asleep in my bed, one curled up on the other's chest.
It's almost noon when I come to. I'm in the living room, on the couch. A slow,
stiff search of the place finds nobody. Just me and my hangover. Dressed and
fed, I step into the backyard, thinking the air will do some good. But the sun
is scorching and bright enough to blind, and I end up sitting in the shade, on
my wobbly adirondack, hoping nobody finds me for a week or two.

Then a voice calls out. "Thank you," it says. Maybe twice,   maybe more than
that. Then she says my name, and that's when I pry open my   eyes, looking
across the yard, slowly focusing on the young face staring   over the top of the
fence. I can go inside. Pretend that I didn't hear her, or   just play it rude.
But then she says, "I'm Kahren, the one with the package."   And in the next
breath, she says, "My brother was rude to you. But believe   me, I'm thankful
for your help, good sir."

Walking to the back fence takes me a week. A year. Forever. I'm staring up at
a little girl's face and a woman's smart eyes. She's climbed up on a grapevine
to look over. If she's five years old, she's one of the oldest of these kids.
And the slowest, and the simplest. Maybe that's why I can stand talking to
her. Again, she says my name. Then out of nowhere, she says, "You and I are
related. We have a common ancestor in the late 1800s." And I say, "Is that
so?" Then I ask, "How do you know? Because of our names?" But no, she shakes
her head, telling me, "Our DNA. I took a peek—"

"At my DNA?" I blurt. "How did you get that?"

"From the package. You left flakes of dead skin on the sticky label—"

"Don't touch my DNA," I tell her. I shout it, practically.

"I never will again," she promises. Then she dips her head, sad about making
me angry. Really, she looks nothing but sweet. Five years old, with curly
blonde hair and a pouting lip, and behind those big blue eyes revs a brain
that's probably already had more thoughts than I'll have in my entire life.
But it never occurred to the girl that she was doing wrong. She was just being
curious. Being herself. So I say, "Forget it." And dipping her head farther,
she says sadly, "I can't forget."

She's a sweet, sweet girl, I'm thinking.
Then several seconds have passed without conversation, and I know she has to
be bored. That's why I ask, "So what was in that package? Anything important?"
And she doesn't say. Watching me, and not. Nothing showing on her pretty
little face. Then just as I'm thinking that she didn't hear me, she asks, "Are
you happy?"

"What's that mean?" I ask. "Like, in my life … am I happy … ?"

She nods. Bites her lower lip, embarrassed again. "If you don't want to
answer," she starts, and I say, "No." I say, "No, I'm not happy." Over the
fence, talking to a perfect stranger, I admit, "A lot of things really suck
lately. If you want to know the truth."

"I do," she says. "Absolutely, yes."

Then she tells me, "The package you brought me … it involves my work. My
brother's work. We belong to a body of thinking souls, people like you and
like me, and certain AIs, too. We realize now that the AI technologies were a
tragic mistake. Tragic." She says the word a third time. "Tragic." Then she
shakes her head, saying, "Very few people are happy. Even my generation
suffers. There's boredom for us. There are subtle, unexpected problems with
the new technologies. It makes an imaginative person wonder: Wouldn't it be
nice if we could roll everything back to before? To the days prior to the Big
Leap?"

The girl does a great job of keeping her voice slow. But it's as if I can't
understand what she's telling me. I have to run the words back through my
head, wringing the sense out of them. More quiet seconds pass, and I finally
ask, "What are you telling me? That you really can change things?"

"Not by myself, no." She leaks a big sigh, plainly hunting for the best way to
say what's next. "Roll things back how?" I ask her. I want to know. And she
explains, "I guess it's just as it sounds. Roll things back literally. Time is
an arrow in motion, and it's amazingly easy to fool that arrow, making it
reverse itself. But of course, that doesn't do anyone any good if it just puts
us back where we started. If the Big Leap is inevitable, and if anyone builds
even just one cheap and easy thinking machine …"

I keep staring up at her. Waiting.

"The tough trick," she says, "is to change certain essential laws of the
universe. Not everywhere, of course. That would be impossible as well as
immoral. No, what we want is to make it impossible for anyone on and around
our world … say, within a light-month of the Earth … make it impossible for
them to build AI machinery that works." She looks around, making sure it's
just the two of us. "There's no one solution to that enormous problem, of
course. But there's a thousand little ways, and if you used all of them, with
care, it gives human beings another thousand years to prepare themselves for
this momentous change. Which would be a good thing. Don't you think so, good
sir?"

I say, "Sure," with a quiet little gasp.

Then she sighs again, looking at me and saying nothing. So I ask her, "What
happens to you, if it happens?" And she tells me, flat out, "I never am. The
Earth jumps back seven years from today, and there's never a Big Leap
forwards, computers remain fast but stupid, and nobody like myself is born.
Ever."
"How soon?" I ask.

"Think soon," she advises. Then in her next breath, "Think tonight."

"And you can do that to yourself?" I have to ask. "You can make yourself never
be, and you don't even blink about it?"

The girl gives me a long look. Her little mouth is working, twisting at its
ends. Then the mouth goes still, and she tells me with a careful voice, "When
something is right, you do it. What other choice is there, good sir?"




·····


She finds me sitting in front of the game, drinking cold beer. "Who's
playing?" she asks, and I tell her, "It's the Cardinals and Cubs." And she
asks, "Who's better?" I tell her, "The Cubs, this year." Which makes her ask,
"Then why are they behind … what, three points?" I don't answer her. Then she
glances at my beer, not saying anything about the time of day. I can see what
she's thinking, but she doesn't say anything, sitting next to me now, sitting
and watching the game for a long while before finally saying, "So aren't you
going to offer a girl a taste?"
I tip the can. The beer foams and fills her mouth, and she swirls it hard with
her tongue before spitting everything back into the can again.

I taste plastic in my next sip. Or I think I do.

She wipes her mouth against the corner of a little pillow. My wife embroidered
a picture of a tabby cat on that pillow. "It was one of her first," I tell my
friend. "Hell, I can even see the screw-ups."

The Birdy Girl nods, not looking at the pillow. Or the game. When I finally
look at her green eyes, she says, "It's a nice day outside." And when that
doesn't do anything, she adds, "There's a playground just up that way," and
points, waving one of her arms. "Take me, if you want. Or I can take myself
over. But I'm not staying locked up in here. You're not that much fun, you
know."

"I know."

We walk over. Or I walk, and she   rides. She stands on my belt with both hands
holding to the back of my shirt.   A couple neighbors spot me coming. They know
me and wave. Then I'm past them,   and they see the Birdy Girl riding tight, and
why that should be entertaining,   I don't know. But it makes me laugh. More fun
than drinking beer alone, at the   very least.

The playground isn't used now. It's been years since it got maintenance. The
city, or someone, has set a plastic orange fence up around it, plus signs that
keep telling us that it's dangerous and forbidden. The signs threaten to call
the authorities. I threaten the signs. Then I give the fence a yank down where
others have done the same, and I throw my leg over, and Genevieve jumps off me
and runs, and skips, and giggles, looking back to tell me, "Try the slide.
I'll stand at the bottom and catch you!"

I'm not going to do that, I decide, then I watch myself do it anyway. I climb
up a wooden tower and through a doorway that's way too small, forcing my fat
ass into the silvery chute that's about a thousand degrees in the summer sun.
It's cooking me. But she's at the bottom, laughing and waving, telling me,
"Down. You slide down. Haven't you used one of these contraptions before?" And
I let myself go, gravity carrying me down that hot metal chute, and maybe I'm
laughing, too. It feels a little bit like laughter. But then I'm at the
bottom, sitting on the broiling end of the slide, and I'm quiet and thinking
hard to myself, and she tugs at my hand, coaxing me, saying, "There's a
teeter-totter over there. See it? You park yourself at one end, and I'll park
on the other, then I'll lift you to the sky."

It's those words and the way she says them. That's what rips me open.

Then she isn't talking, staring up at me as her smile falls apart, that brown
plastic face becoming concerned, and worried, and a little sad. Finally she
says, "Did you know? You're crying."

Like I little kid, I'm leaking tears. Yeah.

She asks, "What is so awful?"

I won't tell her. I decide that it wouldn't be right. So instead, I just give
a shrug, saying, "It's just some stuff I'm thinking about."

To a Birdy Girl, there is no problem. "Just think about something else," is
her easy advice. "Pick what's really fun. Something you just love. That's what
I'd do if I ever got blue. Then I'd think hard about nothing else!"




·····


My wife comes home to find me cooking over the stove. Not our AI chef, but me.
The sauce is our garden tomatoes, and maybe it's a little runny. And like
always, I've cooked the spaghetti until it's mushy. But I'm responsible for
everything, including setting the dining room table, and I've killed some
flowers in the backyard, propping up their corpses in a fancy crystal vase set
out in the middle of everything.
She has to ask what the occasion is, and I'm ready for her. I say, "Do we need
an excuse to eat together?" Which pretty well shuts her up. Then I wipe my
hands dry and step into the bedroom, asking, "Have you picked which one?"
Genevieve is standing on the chest of drawers, watching the mirror as she
holds clothes in front of herself. She says, "One of these two, I think." I
say, "I like the long dress." She says, "Prude," and laughs. Then my wife
wanders in and asks, "What are you two doing?" I say, "Picking." Genevieve
says, "For tonight." And my wife gives us this drop-jawed look, then
half-snorts, saying, "You're mine," to the Birdy Girl. "You're not his. You're
mine."

"I am yours," Genevieve agrees, smiling happily. Then she puts on her long
dress, saying, "The other Girls and I are going to see some minor league
hardball." As her head comes through the neck hole, she adds, "Afterwards,
we're going to molest a player or two. That's the plan, at least."

I don't say anything. I haven't, and I won't. But it wrings me dry, standing
there, watching this little machine putting little shoes on those little
feet.

Genevieve tells us, "Bye."
I'm not crying, but I feel myself wanting to do just that. I watch her crawl
through the cat door, then I make sure that I wander into the living room,
watching as the cab pulls up and the back door pops up, nearly a dozen Birdy
Girls already standing on the back seat, their big hair bouncing and a few of
them wearing honest-to-god ball caps.

One last time, my wife says, "I got her for me. That doll's mine."

"She is yours," I agree. "I won't even look at her again."

We eat at the dining room table. Dinner is mush, but it's tasty mush. It's my
mush. Then we make love for the first time this month, and that goes pretty
well. Better than pretty well, really. Then one of us feels like talking, and
one of us wants to listen. So that's what we do. But after a while, the talker
asks, "Are you paying attention to me?" and I say, "I was, dear. I am."
Honest, I was trying to listen, but my head kept drifting back to other
things. Important things. "I was just thinking about stuff," I confess. With a
grumbly tone, she asks, "What stuff?" Then I stop her dead, saying, "I was
thinking we ought to have a child. Or two. You know, before it's too late."

We've got a quiet little house when nobody's talking, or even breathing.

A week passes, then she tells me, "I don't know. I've been thinking along
those same lines. You know?"

"I thought you were," I say.

She doesn't know what to say now. Using my chest as a pillow, she sets her ear
over my heart, and after another long pause, she says, "Yeah, we should." Then
she has to ask, "But why the big change? Why all of the sudden?"

It's gotten late. Gotten dark, almost. I'm lying on my back, fighting the urge
to look at the time. I realize that I don't know when it's supposed to happen,
and besides, I won't know when it comes. That's my best guess. Time will run
backwards for seven years, and then it will begin again. Begin new. And I
won't have memories of anything recent or sorry, and everything will be fresh,
and why in hell am I so eaten up and sad about this thing? It doesn't make
sense to me. Not even a little bit.

"Are you all right?" my wife asks me. Concerned now.

"I'm fine," I say, hearing my voice crack. Then I make myself shut my eyes,
telling her, "It's just that I got this feeling today. That's why I want kids
now. Starting tomorrow, I'm just sure, everything's going to be different."




·····


I'm too restless to sleep or even pretend, and then it's sometime after one in
the morning, and I suddenly drop into a dark hard sleep, waking when I hear
the voice. I know that voice, I'm thinking. It tells me, "Go back to sleep,
sorry," and I realize that I've lifted my head off the pillow. "Look at what I
got for a souvenir," she says, pushing something up onto the bed. "One of the
player's balls. I cut it off myself."
It's a hard white ball with tight stitches and a comfortable leather feel. The
ball says to me, "On my first pitch, I was a strike, and I was fouled off,
landing in the stands behind home plate."
"Quiet," I tell the ball. Then Genevieve says, "Quiet yourself. Go back to
sleep."

But I won't sleep again. It's nearly five in the morning, and I've never been
this awake. I put on shorts and shoes and yesterday's shirt, and Genevieve
asks, "Where are you going?" I tell her, "Out back. To watch the sun come up,
I guess." She says, "Well, I'm tired and grouchy. Can I come with you?" When I
don't answer, she follows me into the backyard, sitting in one adirondack
while I take the other. Her chair doesn't wobble under her little weight. She
sits on one of the armrests, and naps, and I'm sitting next to her, thinking
about everything. The neighbor girl didn't out-and-out promise that it would
happen tonight. So they might do it tomorrow night, or the next. Whenever it
happens, it leads us to the same place, always. Then I'm thinking about having
a kid or two, and would it be so bad? Now or seven years ago, there's always
problems with it. Then I look at Genevieve, wondering if she's dreaming and
what kind of dreams she has. I'm curious, but I won't ask. Then I halfway shut
my eyes, and when I open them, it's dawn, and I see a little face rising up
over the back fence.

A little hand swings up into view, waving at me.

I leave the Birdy Girl asleep. I walk to the back of the yard, asking, "What?"
with a whispery voice.

He says, "I learned what she said to you," in a rush, as if it's one huge and
horrible word. I can see his little-boy face in the soft first light of the
morning. Both pink hands cling tight to the top of the wooden fence. He says,
"Kahren was wrong to mislead you, and I will make her apologize to you." Then
he sighs and tells me, "But believe me, sir. There is no truth to anything she
said."

What I'm thinking, mostly, is that I'm not all that surprised. I even expected
something like this, down deep. Maybe part of me—a secret part—didn't want to
lose these last seven years, bad as they seemed at the time. I decide to say
nothing. I'm just standing in front of him, thinking it through, and he must
think that I don't understand. Because he says it again, slower this time.
"Nobody can turn back time," he tells me, each word followed by a pause. "And
nobody can do any of those things that my cruel, childish sister mentioned to
you."

"Maybe you can't do those things," I tell him, flat-out, "but how do you know
it can't be done? Maybe when you start having kids, and they're a thousand
times smarter than you'll ever be, it'll be done. You ever think about that,
kid?"

It's almost worth it, these last pissy years. Just to stand there and see that
big-eyed face staring at me, nothing about that boy even a little bit smug
now.

I turn and walk back towards my house.

The Birdy Girl stirs on the arm of the chair, muttering, "More," as she
dreams. "More, more."

I leave her there.

I go into the house, and I sit on the edge of the bed, watching my sleeping
wife. Eventually her eyes come open, and I tell her, "I was right." I tell
her, "I don't know why, but everything's changed overnight, and it's pretty
much for the better."


The End