Broken Things Read online

  “Hey Ted,” called the woman, “I think you took the chicken one!”

  The ranger, Ted, called back, “I didn’t see a chicken sandwich in there. I don’t think you got chicken today.”

  Josh quickly bit into the sandwich, hoping for chicken but getting ham and cheese instead. He didn’t say anything, but ate it quickly, before they had a mind to take it away from him to check for the woman’s chicken.

  As he ate, he glanced out the window. Beyond the parking lot the trees pressed almost nearly to the concrete. Josh couldn’t see too far into them but he knew the forest held secrets. Secrets like the thing in the bag in the truck. He knew what the man had found. His curiosity wanted him to go look while in the safety of the sunlight, to see what had attacked him. Could it really be dead? He hoped so, but monsters always had a way of coming back at night. He intended to be as far away from it as he could be when that happened. A few more hours, and he’d be home.

  11

  Time passed slowly, and Josh had nothing to do but stare at the dead animals. They stared back, impassively. It would be strange to decorate in dead things. Back in the city, the only usable animals to decorate with would be squirrels, cats, and dogs. Would his parents go for that? He smiled at the thought of his mother hanging an angry squirrel on the wall.

  The late morning turned to early afternoon and it too slipped away. He began to think he’d die of boredom. He’d gotten up to look around and maybe check out the animals but the woman had flown out of her office as though he had just broken something. Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore a black four-door sedan pulled up outside the station. He watched curiously as a lone woman climbed out and walked purposefully to the door.

  Her looks screamed business and out of place for the mountains. She wore a dark skirt, dark blazer, frighteningly high heels, and hair pulled into a tight bun. Her dark eyes quickly took in the room, including him as though he were one of the dead animals, and then approached the front desk. The female ranger emerged from her office as soon as she heard the door and greeted her.

  From the breast of her blazer pocket, she pulled out a business card and handed it to the woman. “Hello,” she said, “I’m Tamara Hart, from Kidsmith Reclamation.”

  The woman flashed Tamara back a tight-lipped smile as they exchanged false pleasantries. “I’m Cindy.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “Ted found him up on the mountain,” the ranger Cindy said, “We think his owners dumped him.”

  The woman nodded. “Is Ted here? I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

  Cindy nodded. “He’s in the office.”

  The woman, Tamara, disappeared into the office and closed the door. The ranger, Cindy, flashed him that same fake smile that her eyes didn’t match. Josh looked away. He’d rather stare at the marble eyes of a dead animal. They were friendlier.

  A few minutes later, Tamara exited the office, heels clicking loudly on the tile floor with the ranger Ted following close behind her. Josh watched as the ranger’s eyes remained on the lady’s butt when her back was turned. She walked over to Josh while Ted broke his stare to walk outside. “Hello there,” she said, “I’m Mrs. Hart. What can I call you?”

  “Josh.”

  She reached into her pocket and brought out a highlighter. “Okay, Josh, I need to do a test. Can I see your hand please?”

  He nodded and gave her his hand.

  “My,” she said, “You look a mess. I think there’s more dirt than boy here.”

  With the highlighter, she drew a fast line across the back of his hand. It instantly turned black. “I see,” she said, “Now we can proceed. Come with me, I’m going to take you with me back to Boise.”

  He stared at the mark for a moment and looked up at her. “I’m not from Boise,” he said, “I’m from Twin Falls. I want to go home.”

  “Don’t you worry, I’m here to take care of you,” she said. She turned toward the door as if expecting him to follow. He hopped up, hurrying to catch up with her. Outside, Ted waited with the bag on the ground behind her car. She popped the trunk, and he lifted it in with a grunt.

  “We’re taking that with us?” he asked, but he might as well not even have spoken. Josh crossed his arms and chewed on his bottom lip. Could adults just not hear him? If he ignored his dad he got thumped.

  Mrs. Hart unzipped the bag and stared at its contents, shaking her head in amazement. He didn’t want to see it.

  She slammed the trunk and opened the back door, motioning for him to get in. He hesitated, but not knowing what else to do, he obeyed. At least the bag was in the trunk. He’d rather walk home than deal with that. She slid in behind the wheel and locked the doors.

  “So where are we going?” he asked, “When are we going to see my parents?”

  “We’re going back to my office,” she explained, “And you won’t be seeing your parents again. You’re defective. Sometimes when kids break they’re thrown way. Sometimes parents do that. It’s not right, but it’s not illegal either. My job is to pick kids like you up and dispose of them properly. You’re bad for the environment. Could you imagine if everyone abandoned you things? We’d have broken children everywhere.”

  “They didn’t throw me away,” Josh said defiantly, “They were coming back. Just call them, you’ll see. I’ll wait for them if I need to.”

  “It’s their own fault,” she continued, “It looks like you’re falling apart. Did they play too rough with you? Did they slap you around?”

  “They never hurt me. I was in a crash.” He caught her eyes in the rear-view mirror and thought he detected a hint of loathing. He grabbed the door handle as she pulled away but it wouldn’t open. “Let me out!”

  “Child-protection door locks. Isn’t it great that they still include that feature in cars? There hasn’t been a real kid for years.” She laughed as though she had just made a joke.

  The whining in his head increased as he tugged on the obstinate door. The world turned black.

  12

  Tamara Hart hated children. From time to time, she glanced back at the boy in her backseat and thought, for the third time that day, about quitting her job and moving back east to Boston. Most of the people that she considered friends lived there. Even after ten years in Idaho, it still didn’t feel like home. She would move back one day. The only thing Boise had for her was Kidsmith and Tom, her boyfriend, and both were negligible.

  She cracked the window for fresh air and turned off the air conditioner. The dead thing in the trunk had a stink that permeated the vehicle, despite its location. She knew someone that would love to play with it, even though she rarely encountered something so foul.

  After ten years, people wouldn’t remember what she had done, would they? At least nobody should care anymore. It was just a kid. Besides, they weren’t even as popular as they’d been back then. She would tell them that she’d learned from her mistakes. She’d quit taking strays from the street unless she knew for certain that they were abandoned.

  Nothing compared to the nightlife of Boston. Terry (short for Terrance) had been the most understanding husband that she’d had. He knew what he’d married. Forever young and beautiful, she could get into any club, get free drinks, and spend her nights dancing. It should have gone on forever.

  But trying to manage a day job with the East Coast branch of Kidsmith and living her lifestyle proved… challenging. You couldn’t work in Reclamation if you didn’t bring in strays. She had a quota, but more than that, if she were at the top of the bell curve there were nice fat bonuses. Kidsmith made more money by refurbishing and reselling children than making new ones. Any time a kid made the company money twice, she got a bonus.

  Who would have thought that they’d take a kid’s word over hers? To this day, Tamara denied the kidnapping charges. They weren’t real. The term kidnapping couldn’t even apply. The company had launched an investigation, and had accused her of taking children that still had owners. In her defense, the
y should have kept a better eye on their possessions. She didn’t leave her house unlocked. She didn’t leave her purse lying around. She knew better. Kids didn’t belong on the street either, always getting in peoples’ way. You had to keep dogs on leashes, why could an android run around unattended?

  When they told her that if she were found guilty of the kidnapping charges that she’d have to repay her bonuses back to the company, she knew she had to do something. It was her livelihood that they threatened. She just didn’t know they had security cameras watching the storage room.

  The kid couldn’t be identified if it were missing its registration and serial numbers… and if it couldn’t talk. They’d never found the body nor the hammer (she knew how to dispose of things), but they had recorded her nearly five minutes of destroying the thing.

  Not only had that kid ruined her job, it had ruined her marriage. But Tamara had never been helpless. Though she couldn’t save her position, she’d done a few things in the past that she wasn’t proud of, and she had a supervisor that owed her. He gave a glowing recommendation for her to the Boise branch (and corporate) for her transfer, but Terry had no plans of relocating. One plane ticket later, she’d found herself divorced and across the country, away from friends and lifestyle.

  Kidsmith didn’t pay bonuses for bringing in strays anymore. That had come to an end with the decreased demand. That brought a decrease in pay and consequently a decrease in her fun. Idaho didn’t pay as well as Boston did either, adding to the daily increasing list of reasons not to stick around. What good was it to be forever young and beautiful if you couldn’t enjoy it?

  She still had a hammer under her seat, just in case she needed to relieve some stress.

  13

  They were still driving when Josh awakened. His head rested against the window and he’d been drooling. The mountains were gone, replaced by green fields.

  “Welcome back,” said Mrs. Hart, “You really are a mess. You shut down for almost an hour. People don’t understand how delicate you machines are. They think that they can just let you things run wild, or play too rough. You have no idea what I’ve seen. And then they think that they can just bring you in and have you fixed. The technology of a kid is very advanced, people need to respect that. Otherwise they’re replacing you every few years.”

  Josh crossed his arms. “My parents want me.”

  “Oh I’m sure,” she said mockingly, “Because you were such a great kid?”

  He chose not to answer her, returning his gaze to the blur of the landscape. First chance he got he would run away. He’d find a way back to Twin Falls, maybe even by hitch-hiking.

  “Anyway I called your parents and they don’t want you,” she lied, “That’s what eventually happens to all kids. People don’t realize what they’re signing up for. Suddenly you have a machine that’s dependent upon you. You can’t go places that don’t allow them, you aren’t supposed to leave them alone, and when you do they destroy things and make messes.

  “And then there’s the really crazy people. They opt to buy babies! Can you imagine being stuck with something like that? They scream all the time, you’re constantly changing diapers, and they demand constant attention. That’s why I think that so many babies get damaged so fast. You can’t even turn them off to rest. You get a screaming machine that you can’t shut up. Their owners eventually accidentally drop them. It’s hard to imagine how parents raised the real things, and those would grow up. That’s the real reason that there hasn’t been a real kid born for twenty years. The world is a better place without them.”

  “But you were a kid once, weren’t you?”

  “That was a long time ago,” she said, “And that’s not how the world works anymore. I’m the perfect age, and I’ll never have to worry about getting older.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to get older?”

  She looked mildly shocked in the rear view mirror, flashing him a glance as though he were crazy. “Why would we? Everyone wants to live forever. The world is perfect now. No more death. A perfect society with no one getting old and ugly.”

  “Then why even bother creating kids then?”

  “My point exactly! We don’t need you.”

  Following that, they rode along in silence. He didn’t want to talk to her anymore. His parents did love him, didn’t they?

  Soon the road merged with a highway, and not long after that the fields gave way to buildings as they entered Boise. Cars were nearly bumper to bumper everywhere he looked, and looking over the seat he saw that they still maintained a speed averaging ten miles an hour over the posted limit.

  What if all of the people were robots too? Maybe nobody was real, they just went about pretending that they were, living in perpetual self-denial. When they came too close to the truth, if their minds dwelled on their existence too long, they took it out on someone else, like children. And in a way, that would make them feel better because when you were miserable everyone else should be too.

  If everyone lived forever, shouldn’t they be having more fun? His dad looked miserable every day, grabbing his lunch and heading out the door, heading off to the plant to do whatever he did. His mom would tell him, “Have a good day at work!” to which he’d respond with a grunt. Then his mom would rush him out the door before planning her own day, which always started later, heading off to her job at the salon, where in the few times he’d gone there to wait for her involved playing with peoples’ hair and telling embarrassing stories about other people that they knew.

  If he got to live forever, he’d want to spend it going places, like theme parks and beaches (but not the mountains, never again the mountains), and playing games. Heck, even if he didn’t live forever, that would still be what he’d want to do. But shouldn’t he be able to live forever, too? Technically he didn’t age either.

  They drove through the downtown and pulled into a private parking garage to what appeared to be a fairly large office complex with massive windows that reflected the street, with a large sign above that read Kidsmith. Mrs. Hart exited the car and opened his door, expecting him to follow, which he did reluctantly.

  She led him through the door, and the voices on the inside merged into a jumble of sound, nothing truly understandable, but a necessary hum that meant that things were happening. A few people looked up at him as they walked by but no one flashed him a smile, though many did for the woman, some giving her a friendly nod. Josh, on the other hand, was an object, a machine. To acknowledge him would be to personify him, and in their line of work they wouldn’t want to get attached to him. Probably none of them even had any kids.

  If anything their eyes displayed contempt. He felt like hiding, he wished even though he hated her that she would take his hand. His face burned with embarrassment. He could see the dirt on the back of his hands and all over his arms and on his clothes. He tried to focus on each step but the colors in the room were beginning to go gray. Oh please not here. He bit his lip. Keep walking, he told himself, just follow, don’t think.

  “Mrs. Hart,” Josh said, trying to get her attention. But she ignored him. His voice sounded tinny and far away as though it was being transmitted through a radio. Her attention had turned to another man in a white t-shirt and tie.

  “There’s a surprise for you in my trunk,” she said, “Wait until you see it.”

  Josh stumbled into a desk and bumped a cup of coffee, sending a man in a swivel chair leaping to his feet and yelling, “Goddammit!”

  “I’m sorry,” he tried to say, but nothing came out, he couldn’t form the words, he could only stare up at the man with the red angry face and feel tears spill down his cheeks. He needed his parents. He wanted them there now! He wanted to turn and run from the office, but that was impossible, impossible because his body would no longer move, and now, worse, he felt his bladder give out and the warmth of pee flowing down his leg.

  “Where the Hell did you find that piece of crap?” the man yelled, “He spilled my goddamned coffee!”


  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Hart said, not really looking or sounding sorry at all, “It’s seriously malfunctioning. Somebody dumped it in the forest.” She grabbed him by the arm, and tried to pull him, but his legs didn’t move. She frowned disapprovingly. “Come on,” she said, “Move it.”

  “Look at that,” the man said, “It’s pissed itself!”

  Everyone in the office stared at him, some expressionless, others showing disgust. Not a few laughed and pointed. Oh please, he thought, let me black out. Yet now of all times he couldn’t. He couldn’t move or do anything, accept stand there.

  “Call someone to clean it up,” she said. She grabbed him by the arm and shook him, “Come on, stop making a scene! You can walk. I’m not going to carry you.”

  He looked up at her, imploringly. If only she would carry him, or take his hand, anything!

  Finally she sighed. “Could you please call someone to come get this thing?”

  A few minutes later, the office had mostly settled down and two men arrived, one with a handcart. They slid it under his feet, treating him like a heavy box. As they rolled him toward the back of the building he finally shut down, slipping into oblivion.

  14

  Josh opened his eyes to find himself staring up at a white ceiling with bright fluorescent lights. Someone had dressed him in fresh clothes and washed away the dirt. He rested on a cot in the corner of a small windowless room. Aside from his cot, the only other objects in the room were a small table with two rickety wooden chairs pushed beneath it. A small side room, almost no bigger than a broom closet, held a toilet and a sink.

  He walked over to the door and tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. He pounded on the door and screamed, “Let me out! Hey!”

  He pounded for a few minutes until finally he heard the click of the lock. He stepped back as it opened, and a nearly bald man poked his head in and said, “Hey, Keep it down. People are trying to work here.”