Robert Reed - Birdy Girl

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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,

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Robert Reed - Birdy Girl

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