“I guess it’s unanimous, then?” Lex asked, looking around the circle at everyone smiling and nodding back at her. “I’ll go get the realtor and let her know we’ll buy the place, then.”
About a week after they’d moved into the new house, Riss called everyone together that happened to be home. On that day, an early Saturday afternoon, it had turned warm, so they’d opened many of the windows to let in the scent of the flowers that had begun to bloom in the garden below as people gathered in the living room. They had added some furniture since their move—two large couches and an end table—but they were still working to pick out all of the pieces they wanted for the house, so Casey and Lou made themselves comfortable on the floor. Kate and Victor sat on one couch and Lex and Mr. Chen took the second. Lily and Ron had gone out shopping, so Lex looked expectantly at Riss once everyone had assembled, as did all the other people in the room.
Since Riss kept so much below the surface, most people missed any upset she might have, but to Lex’s eye her friend looked nervous. “I mentioned this to Lex a while ago, so I finally decided to stop putting off talking to all of you. I have someone I’d like all of you to meet,” Riss said, turning the laptop in her hands to face the assembled group.
Lex saw a picture on the screen of a set of continuously shrinking and expanding bars that moved smoothly, changing colors and bouncing off the sides. After a moment of silence, a voice came from the speakers.
“Hello. It’s very nice to finally meet you, Casey, Lou, Kate, Victor, and Lex. Mr. Chen, I haven’t seen you before, but I have heard of you and it is nice to meet you, as well.”
Lex thought as she listened that the voice sounded typically automated, but as she continued paying attention, she felt she could begin to hear some expression in it. Riss flashed the screen a rather cryptic look as the voice finished speaking, before pulling the end table out and setting the laptop on it so that the screen faced the group. “This is Art, everyone. And yes, he’s usually this honest. What he means by that is that he’s ‘seen’ all of you through the cameras on my laptops,” Riss said, pointing to the tiny lens over the laptop screen. “I set up all of my laptops a while ago so that Art can use them to ‘see.’ As you can guess, that means he’s been with us a long time. As long as I’ve known all of you, actually.”
She paused a moment to let that sink in, looking around to see many pairs of curious eyes directed back at her. Finally, Lex said, “This isn’t exactly what I expected. So, Art is…”
Trailing off, she looked back at Art, then at Riss. Her friend sighed and started to speak again. “He began as one of the first programs I ever wrote to go out and find me information I needed.” As Lex watched out of the corner of her eye, she could see the lines on the screen oscillate a little faster in a mostly square pattern and turn a rich green. “Over the years, I worked with him more to be able to get him to learn how to find everything I wanted, and before I really realized it, we started actually talking together. I think I finally understood that he’d become more than he started out as when he started continually asking me questions about the world and people and everything else.”
Riss looked over at the laptop then with the ghost of a smile, and it responded by oscillating into complex interlocking triangles of a royal blue. She took a deep breath and looked back out at the rest of her friends before continuing.
“The reason that I’m telling you now, along with the fact that Art has been bugging me to forever, is that we’re going to need your help. Art wants a body. And not just any body,” Riss said, pausing to take a breath, “he wants it to be like any other man’s, because we want to be able to be together in the physical.”
“I want to be able to–” Art began saying, only to be cut off by Riss.
“Art, we agreed that you’d let me talk about this part of it,” she said quickly, and Lex could detect the embarrassment in her friend’s usually smooth, calm voice.
“Yes, Riss,” Art agreed, and it seemed to Lex that she heard some disappointment in his voice.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lex could see Kate with her hand in front of her mouth, looking as if she might laugh, and Lex quickly turned to subtly shake her head to get Kate not to. By the time Riss had turned back to face everyone, both women had faced forward again, Lex attempting a bland expression.
“The thing is, I know it will cost a lot of money. I’ve talked to Victor and emailed Luke, the robotics guy who was End of the Road’s roommate, about it without letting them know why I’d asked,” Riss continued, glancing at Victor.
He nodded in return and spoke up. “It might not end up being as expensive as you think. Now that I know what you have in mind, we can really start making a design,” Victor said, a grin on his face as he anticipated the challenge.
“That would be good,” Riss responded with a sigh of relief. “I’m also thinking that if we do decide to put money towards this project that we could probably recoup it later on by putting designs out for prostheses, advanced robotics, that sort of thing. I’m sure someone could turn what we make to bad ends, though, so I guess we’d have to think about that, as well.”
The group then started discussions about what to do next. When they’d arrived in Europe, the rest of the group had explained to the Chens how they’d set their money up: pooling it and investing half, paying all expenses out of the same account. The group now discussed whether they should change this, since part of the original reason for doing it that way had been to conserve what they had until they could decide what to do next, as well as to make it harder to trace the money back to its initial source and have a large amount readily available for emergencies. However, everyone decided they only wanted to raise the amount each of them could spend at their own discretion to three-quarters of their salary amounts, with the rest going to investments. All of the money that came in from the band endeavors would continue to be added to the joint and investment accounts as it always had been. The Chens agreed that they would add their money to the joint accounts as well.
“As you can see from the report,” Riss continued, passing some printed pages to everyone, “the amount we have in ready cash would last us almost a year right now, even with no new money coming in. Our investments have grown about 5% since last year, just looking at the returns. Music sales are currently around $3,000 a month.”
Silence reigned for a short time while a number of people paged through Riss’ summary, and Lex could see surprise on several of her friends’ faces as she looked back up. “Well, I guess we picked the right person to look after our money,” Kate muttered, shooting Riss a smile.
Riss turned her head in Lex’s direction, so Lex got to see the slight smile her friend had been trying to hide.
“I’d like to propose something,” Victor said, then paused as people turned his way. “Our music is a group project, so I think we should look on building Art’s body the same way. Since it would be a group project, I propose using the money that comes in from the music sales to fund it.”
“I like that; I think that could work,” Casey commented, and Lou nodded beside her.
“Since we’ve discussed that spending to three-quarters of our salary is discretionary, I want to potentially include that amount as well,” Riss added.
Heads nodded around the room in response, and Kate leaned over to ask Victor, “When do you think you’ll have some idea of the full cost?”
“Probably not for a couple of months, but Riss and I can give reports when we all meet in the meantime.”
After a few seconds of silence, Lex said, “I propose that we go forward with this and that as long as the costs aren’t more than the music sales we’re making and Riss’ salary portion, it doesn’t need further approval. What do you think?”
Hands flew up around the room to vote for the idea until everyone had given their consent. Lex nodded and smiled as they did.
“Riss,” Lex continued, turning towards her friend, “there is something else I wanted to suggest. Do you think you could set up a laptop in the front hall or the living room so that Art can get involved with what goes on in the house? He might feel more at home once he gets a body if you can do that, and everyone can get used to having him around.”
“I’d like that,” Art jumped in, speaking from the laptop in Riss’ hand.
“I guess it’s settled then,” Riss said as she smiled a tiny smile at the laptop screen.
A week later, Lex found herself in her room, sitting in front of the mirror she’d bought not long before, while Casey, Kate, and Serena, who’d just arrived minutes previously, discussed her hair. Riss sat somewhat removed from the others, but she’d perched Art’s laptop on the bed so that it faced in the direction of the other three women.
“Would you three stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Lex said, a little irritably. “I think my hair looks just fine.”
“Oh, come on, Lex! I could make it look even better than it does now,” Serena said, gesturing to the hair products she’d brought along with her.
Finally, Lex gave in and allowed Serena to shape her short hair just a bit to give it some more lift. She looked in the mirror once Serena finished and smiled at the result; it lay parted to one side now, her bangs seemed more defined, and the blood red color shone.
“Thanks, Serena,” she said quietly. “It does look really good.”
“I don’t know why you always fight me on these things,” Serena replied, shaking her head in mock sadness while a mischievous glint lit her eyes. “Now, let’s do some makeup for you.”
“Not too much,” Lex said, looking at her friend out of the corner of her eyes. “You know I don’t usually wear any.”
“Oh, I’ll only put enough on to show off how beautiful you are,” Serena responded, smiling at her friend in the mirror. “Now someone, tell me about this guy!”
Kate and Casey alternated, filling Serena in on how they’d met Rolf and the part he’d played in their eventual decision to join the special forces and become European citizens, while Lex watched Serena carefully work her magic with makeup, enhancing all Lex’s best features and hiding any flaws. Lex almost felt she was looking at someone else once Serena was done.
“Now, for the little finishing touches,” Serena said as she dug into another bag she’d brought.
When Serena seemed satisfied, she gestured for Lex to get up and see the final effect. Lex studied herself in the mirror, looking at her perfect hair and makeup and at the clingy, short black dress that Serena had picked out for her earlier that day when they’d gone shopping. The dress had short sleeves and a v-neck that didn’t fall too low (much to Serena’s disappointment), but it made Lex feel comfortable in the heat that had begun unseasonably early that year. Serena had added a silver ankh necklace because she felt it matched the ankle-height black boots she’d chosen for Lex that night. They had about an inch-and-a-half heel and straps that wound around Lex’s ankles twice, terminating in a silver-capped end piece that fastened through a silver buckle. Serena had finished the whole outfit with a long, skinny silk scarf in rainbow watercolors that she’d looped several times around Lex’s waist and then tied so that the ends flowed freely.
“As usual, Serena, you made me look great somehow,” Lex said, grinning at the reflection of her friend.
Serena laughed. “It’s not hard when you have great material to begin with,” she replied, grinning back.
At that moment, they both turned as they heard noises out in the hall, and Lex smiled as she saw Ron’s head appear around the doorframe, peeking into her room.
“Ron,” Lily’s voice came a moment later as she and her son both appeared at the door, “you know it’s rude to just look into someone’s room like that without knocking or anything.”
“I’m sorry,” Ron said a bit shyly. “I just wanted to see what Auntie Lex looked like now that she’s dressed up for her date.”
Lex blushed at that while Serena laughed. It had been almost a month since the end of the tour, but various things—such as house shopping, moving, and a conference Rolf had to attend—had interfered with Lex and Rolf’s planned dinner. Until now. Of course, that had allowed word of the event to go so far that Serena had heard about it when she’d popped over to see the new house, and she’d insisted on coming by later to get Lex ready.
“I think she looks beautiful,” Art said from his perch on the bed, his colors oscillating from deep green to deep blue as the bars danced and bounced across the screen.
“Me, too,” Ron replied, smiling as he stood by his mom.
“Thanks, you guys,” Lex said, blushing deeper now.
Casey chuckled. “Yeah, you’ll knock him dead.”
Silence descended for a moment as everyone looked at Lex and Lex stared at the floor, but movement started up in the room again as the sound of a knock on the front door floated up to them. Lex felt like a spooked deer, while Riss shot her a small smile.
“Sounds like he’s here,” Riss said, eyes briefly looking up to meet Lex’s as her fingers continued moving on the keyboard of the computer in her lap.
“OK, Ron, let’s go and get you ready for bed,” Lily said, smiling at the other women as she turned for the door, holding her son’s hand.
“Oh, Mom,” he said, sounding disappointed, but he went along with her.
“I should go downstairs,” Lex said, but Serena grabbed her hand and put her back in the chair in front of the mirror.
“No, let me finish looking at you,” Serena said, smiling mischievously as she looked closely at Lex’s face and made a few swipes with a makeup brush.
“But he’s here,” Lex replied in some annoyance, but Serena brushed at the lines that had appeared between her friend’s eyebrows.
“Hey, the guys have it downstairs,” Serena reminded her. “Besides, you should always make them wait a little on the first date. It’s tradition, really.”
Lex rolled her eyes while Casey chuckled and Riss smiled without bringing her eyes away from her screen, but Lex continued to sit until Serena nodded. When Lex got up to go a moment later, all of the other women in the room rose as well, Riss grabbing Art’s laptop and stacking it on top of the closed one that she’d been working on.