Broken Things (2 page)

Josh had absorbed all of this within the span of but a few
seconds. When the man whipped the steering wheel from side to side the bike
slid off of the bumper taking the boy with it. A brief jolt of pain as the bike
shot away tore up his leg as the pedal raked across his calf. He caught one
last glimpse of the bike as it slipped beneath the tire of the truck. He hit
the ground rolling, seeing chrome and rubber pass within inches of his face.

The world spiraled. The road tore at him as he tumbled,
until he finally came to a brutal stop in the gutter, body slamming into the
curb. It took a minute for his head to stop spinning, to equilibrate with his
motionless body.

He blinked, bringing the blue sky with its few wisps of
clouds into focus, and with it came the pain. It radiated from everywhere,
inside and out. The pain in his arms and legs stung, and his back and head just
hurt.

What if the man came back? He had to get out of the street.
He had to get home. He rose up on his hands, fighting the vertigo that made him
want to lie back down. Had anyone seen what had happened? He turned his head
slowly, but everywhere looked peaceful and empty. The perfect image of a street
lined with perfect homes seemed strangely juxtaposed with the carnage of pieces
of twisted blue metal scattered down the street.

Josh turned his attention back to the stinging in his arms.
His elbow was nothing but bloody torn flesh, so deep he could see metal. The
gore made his stomach heave, threatening to bring up his breakfast. He picked
at the gravel embedded in his flesh, but it made his mouth fill with bile. His
knees looked much the same, though not as deep. He’d lost skin from both, and a
gash on the back of his calf from the pedal looked like he’d been clawed by a
giant cat.

The sound of a car approaching made his heart miss a beat.
He whipped his head around, nearly causing him to black out. It wasn’t the
truck. He sighed in relief and waved his arms as it approached. Being so close
to rescued, tears filled his eyes. He didn’t care if they saw him cry. He
deserved the respite, after being through a crash like that. He’d lived!

But the car didn’t slow. Through the side window, he caught
a glimpse of the driver’s face looking at him curiously, but no concern. The
driver even had to cross into the opposite lane to go around the scrap of his
bike!

He watched the car continue down the street until it
disappeared from his sight. It hadn’t stopped! Why hadn’t it stopped?

He propped himself up on the curb and forced himself to
ignore the pain, to get back on his feet. Someone had to help him. He walked on
trembling legs toward the nearest house. It looked safe, beckoning him with its
well-trimmed lawn and bright flower beds. It looked like a place that could
remove him from the nightmare he’d just experienced. They would call his
parents and everything would be okay. His parents would know what to do. They
always did. No matter how bad he’d been hurt, they’d always made it better.
Granted, he’d never been hit by a car before, but that was why they were
adults.

He managed five steps before his legs buckled. He dropped to
his knees in the cool green grass, thankful to be off of the pavement. He
dragged himself toward the house. He should’ve stayed home and watched
cartoons. He’d gotten up early to play video games, but his mother had been so
testy. So what if he’d played for three hours? His brain couldn’t rot, no
matter what they said. He’d told her so, but she’d made him go out and ride his
bike anyway. After this, she’d let him play video games any time he
wanted. 

The sounds of traffic slowly faded, drowned out by a new
noise. It sounded like a high pitched whine, seeming to come from everywhere at
once. It took a moment, but Josh realized it came from his head. Great, he
had
damaged his head. Not from the video games, but from the fresh air. You didn’t
get hit by cars sitting in your bedroom.

  He crawled toward the house, forcing himself to move
one limb at a time. He caught a flash of metallic blue hidden within a tuft of
grass. Even a part of his bike had been thrown up on the lawn. He made his way
past it, focusing on the porch steps.
Almost there
. But the world faded,
turning gray, then black.

4

Josh remained on the lawn, unaware, as the Saturday morning
turned to afternoon. The yard belonged to one Ted Gayer, an industrial roofer
trying to enjoy his weekend. His Saturday morning had been spent drinking
beers, and he had yet to accomplish his goal of two six packs before the day
slipped away from him.

Ted had no problem with the kid sitting in his yard all day.
Kids did their own thing, and in Ted’s mind, it was always best to ignore them.
You could never tell how they were going to respond. To Ted’s credit, he
couldn’t remember being a child, and beyond the fact that he knew he’d once
been one, they weren’t on the top of his list of things to think about, except
maybe to be thankful that his wife, Rose, hadn’t asked for one, at least not
for a few years. He supposed that the novelty of children had started to wear
off. He’d told her years ago that they were a fad. Robots weren’t a replacement
for the real thing and never would be, like a Christmas present that everyone
had to have, but forgotten the following year.

He’d heard the impact. Impressive, too. He’d rushed to the
window, wondering what kind of crash had made such a noise. People always drove
down his street too quickly anyway. He hadn’t expected to see a kid. He
couldn’t believe to see the thing in one piece, but as it turned out, the thing
was pretty damned durable. He’d even managed to drag himself out of the street,
all of his limbs still attached. He never thought they’d be built so tough.
Over the course of the day he peered out the window, just to see if the kid was
still there. He thought about telling it to get off his lawn, but then again,
that brought him back to actually have to interact with the thing. 

Rose, on the other hand, not wanting to say anything to Ted,
felt that her husband should get off his ass and do something about the kid on
their lawn, but she put up with it so as not to ruin his Saturday. After all,
he worked so hard all week. By dinnertime though, after Ted had checked on him
for the hundredth time, she finally spoke up.

“Are you going to take care of that or not?” she demanded.

“Nope,” he replied, cracking open another beer, “It’ll go
away on its own.” He pointedly made a show of kicking back in his recliner. It
groaned in response.

“Are you kidding me, Theodore? It’s busted to pieces. Aren’t
they supposed to have their owner’s name on them or something?”

“I reckon.” Ted sighed and sat his beer down, missing the
coaster on the side table put there for that purpose. “Don’t touch my beer.”

She scowled and moved his beer to the coaster, watching him
stalk across the living room and out the door. She gave him a ten second head
start, and then went to watch from the doorway. Both her living room and craft
room (once originally intended to be a spare bedroom) was full of glass hutches
displaying her modest collection of dolls. She had just passed sixty of them,
and had her eye on a few others. Their perfect porcelain skin, unblinking eyes,
and beautiful little dresses and suits brought her happiness. Those robot kids
were messy, although once she’d considered getting one, but she considered
herself to be of an old school mentality. She couldn’t lock one in a hutch.
Dolls weren’t meant to move.

Ted knelt down next to the boy and looked him over. “Where’s
the owner name on these things? I don’t want to touch it. It’s all… bloody and
nasty.” He wiped his hands on his jeans as though being near the boy had soiled
them.

“I don’t know,” Rose said from the house, “Maybe on his clothes
or something?”

“I’m not touching the thing’s dang clothes,” he mumbled,
“Maybe there’s something on the bike.”

Ted got back to his feet with an ‘oof’ brought on by his
ample beer gut and grabbed the bike scrap, turning it about. “Look at this
thing,” he said in admiration, tilting it toward the house, “It’s torn up worse
than the kid. I thought they made these things tougher than that. It’s probably
made in goddamned China.” Ted liked to blame China for many things, and though
often wrong, this time he wasn’t too far off. The bike had come from Taiwan.

Despite his vocal protests, he walked down the sidewalk to
where the largest piece of the bike’s frame had come to rest. The broken chain
dropped and swung like a pendulum as he picked it up, still hooked on a gear.
“Sumbitch,” he muttered under his breath, “They wrote the phone number on the
bike. Probably thought the kid would lose it or something.”

He pulled out his cell phone and five minutes later, the
Nortons arrived to pick up their boy and the bike. Mr. Norton walked the street
gathering up the bike, all the while muttering under his breath while Mrs.
Norton knelt next to Josh and shook him, trying to get a response. Finally,
they packed him into the back of their SUV, squeezing the mangled bike in next
to him. Neither of the Gayers came out to help. They’d already shut their
curtains.

5

Unfortunately for Josh, being the weekend, his parents
couldn’t do anything for him until Monday morning. Mrs. Norton wanted to bring
him inside, but her husband talked her out of it. They’d just have to tote him
back out again. He spent two nights in the SUV, never regaining power.

Late Monday morning they took him in to Magic Valley
Androids, a service and repair center for kids. When he awakened, he wished he
hadn’t. His five senses came back on all at once, overwhelming him with bright
lights and pain
, pain from everywhere
.

His body seized uncontrollably and he heard a new voice,
that of the tech, ordering Mr. Norton to “Hold him down!” Josh didn’t know it
but the tech had little experience working on kids. They were just another type
machine. Between his father and the tech, they pinned him down until he
regained control of his body. The tech glared at him as though his seizure had
been on purpose. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

Josh glared back, but he couldn’t really focus. Everything
hurt, and though he didn’t know it, most of his scrapes were infected. His
parents had only superficially cleaned his injuries and now they were filled
with puss. The tech didn’t even try to hide his disgust as he sewed him up. The
needle became another source of inescapable pain.

“Dad?” he looked up at his father, standing opposite of the
tech.

“Quiet Josh, let the man work.” His father stood back with
arms crossed, watching the tech work. Though his father wore his poker face,
Josh knew his every expression. He’d imprinted everything he could of his dad
into his memory and right now he radiated with displeasure.

He looked about intently, trying to focus on anything other
than the tech. It looked much like his father’s garage, with tools scattered
all over workbenches that lined the room. The only difference was the presence
of several antiquated computer monitors with numerous wires and attachments.
Next to his metal bed the tech had placed a cart with other more torturous
tools, such as scalpels and clamps. The walls were covered with posters of
children and child anatomy. Though he couldn’t say why, he found them
unsettling and looked away.

“Please sit still,” pleaded the man. His name tag on his
white smock read
Mark
. Mark had only been working with androids for
three months and saw it more as a punishment. At one time it had seemed like
the perfect career. Everyone wanted kids. A few community college classes had
prepped him for this exciting new career, just to find out that he’d missed the
real opportunity by a few years, and wages in android repair had decreased.
Though he hadn’t voiced it to anyone yet, he was strongly considering going
back into automotive mechanics. At least people still needed cars. They didn’t
cry and wiggle.

“Why’s he whining like that?” Mr. Norton asked. He adjusted
his horn-rimmed glasses that were ever sliding down his nose as he leaned over
Josh. He scrutinized the boy as though trying to troubleshoot an engine. Josh
had seen his father do just that, and the last thing he wanted was his dad
trying to repair him.

“All kids whine,” the tech replied testily.

“No, not that, that high pitch sound.”

“Oh that… yeah it’s something in his head. Probably a
cooling fan going out. Maybe bad bearings. He definitely feels feverish.”

Josh hadn’t realized that they could hear it too. “I think
it’s my ears ringing,” he said helpfully.

“You’ll fix that?” Mr. Norton asked.

“Sure, that’s not a big deal. Once I’ve stitched these
lacerations, I’ll hook him up to the diagnostics computer and see what else is
going on in there.”

Josh looked down at the needle going in and out of his
flesh, guiding the thread through what looked like an impossibly large tear in
his arm. He still had his other arm and both legs to go. “Stop, it hurts,” he
begged, tears filling his eyes, “Please!”

“Do you think you can get him to stop yelling or do you want
me to turn him back off?”

“Josh, stop crying.”

Josh obediently stopped sobbing, but couldn’t completely
stop the tears. He didn’t want to cry in front of his father, he knew how much
he hated it. He expected Josh to be tough. He tried hard to block out the pain,
but it hurt beyond anything he’d ever felt before. Turning his head, he focused
on his dad’s face for comfort. He could always depend on his father. His
mother’s absence only made him all the more thankful for his presence.

The stitches took forever. Every now and then, the tech
would grab tweezers to dig out a rock, or scrape dirt from the wound. It seemed
that time had slowed to allow him more time to be tortured. Finally, he
finished on the last leg and pulled a monitor behind Josh.