THE DOLL: Post Script

          When I came back to the States, I had plans to return to my place in upstate New York and roost up there over the winter, perhaps contemplate returning to bounty hunting again.  I had been stuck in a rut for so long that I had started to feel bad about existing on the money I made.  And now, everything that I had planned since I left Venice, I discarded. 

          I stood there, savoring Kai’s hands warming mine.  My chest was tight then –- filled with dread that this was some kind of reality that I had fabricated in my mind, and that once again he would be gone.  I remembered in vivid detail what he had looked like as he was taken away --  how much he had bled, even though I had to remind myself that he was a made-thing.

          “Do you want to come with me?” I asked.

          The smile on his face grew and he nodded.       

          We got into a cab and I told the driver to take us to the Waldorf-Astoria.  With the usual City traffic, by the time we reached the hotel, the day had faded into a bright gray.  It would probably snow soon.  I had always hated New York winters, but now somehow, everything felt right with the world.

          “I suppose I should have asked this before we got into the cab,” I said to him in the elevator as it carried us up toward our suite.  “Where were you staying?”

          He shrugged. “Dr. Moore had me stay with his cousins and their roommates in a small studio off Broadway,” he said.  “It’s a bit crowded and noisy, but they are very kind to me.”

          “And every day, you’ve been coming to the café to wait for me, for months since you sent me the note.”

          “Yes.”

          “You wouldn’t have had to wait so long if you’d signed your name,” I said.

          “I wanted you to come only if you wanted to,” he said.  “I didn’t want you to feel you had to.”

          “How would you’ve known what I wanted to do, if I wasn’t certain what was being offered?”

          He only smiled and the hand that clung to my coat sleeve tightened.

          The elevator slowed to a stop.  The doors opened to a richly decorated hall.  I took Kai by the hand and led him toward the gold placard that told us where our room was.  His fingers curled around mine, gripping tightly.  I would have done the same if I didn’t think I might break his delicate fingers.  I wasn’t in the best presence of mind.

          We said nothing, even after we went into our room and I had flung my bag into the corner by the door.  He let go of my hand and walked toward the panoramic window that was thinly veiled by translucent panels.  He pushed them aside and looked down at the city that had finally succumbed to night.

          “Are you hungry?” I asked. 

          He said no and continued to stare fixedly at something that caught his attention below.  I left him there and went to the bathroom to wash up.

          The harsh fluorescent lighting was rather unkind.  I looked tired and pale.  I ran the water until it turned hot and splashed it on my face.  As I washed, my mind started to grasp reality.  Or rather, I came to understand the fact that I knew nothing.  I didn’t know the meaning of Kai’s existence and why he had come back to me.  I didn’t know why the company that made him had ceased to exist.  I didn’t know why Crawford had taken his own life.

          By the time I had finished washing and was scrubbing my face with a towel, I was annoyed.  I was irritated by the fact that I had done something very unlike myself and took the situation as it was, without a thread of comprehension.  But then, being with Kai had made me become very unlike myself.

          I was relieved that Kai was still standing where I had left him and that he hadn’t evaporated into a thin wisp of smoke, like a terribly clichéd ghost story.  I looked at my watch.  It was nearly six.

          “Would you like to call Dr. Moore at least? Or inform your roommates not to file a missing person’s report when you don’t come home tonight?” I asked, as I sank into an extraordinarily comfortable red velvet armchair. 

          “No,” he said, finally looking away from whatever he had been watching.  “He will know you have come for me when I don’t return.”

          “That’s not a very good check-in system,” I said, letting out a sigh.  “I would think any random person could make off with you.”

          “I wouldn’t go with anyone but you,” he said.

          “That’s not exactly what I meant.” I gestured for him to come to me and he did, shedding his jacket first.  The jacket was left in an unkempt pile on the floor.  He stopped short of where I was, almost as if he was waiting for instructions.

          “Let me see,” I said and pressed a hand over where I had shot him. His fingers worked nimbly on the buttons of his shirt, from top to bottom, until the shirt opened.

          I had expected the wound to be healed completely, with no trace of his death and what I had done to him.  I had expected him to be fixed with chemicals and bio matter that the laboratory made to give him life again.  Instead, there were two dimples where the bullet had gone through –- one next to the other.  It marred his perfect skin.  I traced the shapes with my fingertip, over and over again, without fully realizing what I was doing.

          “Do you still want me?” His voice was gentle, almost sad, as he asked me the question.  “I am damaged....”

          I wound my arms around his waist and pulled him toward me until the side of my face was pressed against his belly.

          “Don’t ever ask me that kind of ridiculous question again,” I said. 

          He apologized and looped his arms around my neck, holding me as I held him.  There was no sense of time then, as we remained in each other’s warmth.  The only reminders of our existence in the world came when there were occasional voices passing by in the hallway outside our door.

          I kissed the small dimples –- the slight dips were perhaps a quarter inch deep.  He let out a sigh and his fingers tightened on my shoulders, digging through the shirt and into my skin.  It felt good.

          “I want you,” I said, pulling him to me as I leaned back.  The weight of him in my arms  was reassuring that he was real and not some odd figment of my imagination.  “I will always want you.”

          He smiled and leaned in and kissed me. 

          “I will always love you,” he said.  “Even if the day comes when you don’t want me anymore.”

          I cupped his face and ran my thumbs over the smooth slopes of his cheeks.  The soft young skin that was ageless; a strange contrast against my own weathered skin.  In that fleeting moment, I was reminded of my own mortality and that the day would come when I could not be with him anymore.  The reality of it was suffocating.

          “Even when that day comes, I will still love you,” I said and kissed him.  I held him against me, pressing him against my chest.

          I was woken by an unfamiliar phone chime, an electronic version of Fur Elise.  Kai was curled up against me, almost buried completely under the duvet.  He was oblivious as I rolled out of bed to follow the sound.  I found the phone in Kai’s coat pocket.

          The clam-shell phone displayed “Moore” in the small screen.  I flipped it open and answered it.  For a moment, the caller was quiet, as if not sure if he should speak.

          “It’s Lynch,” I said.

          Then he spoke, letting out a sigh that was loud enough for me to hear.  “Then I am assured that Kai is with you.”

          “Yes,” I said.  I looked at the clock on the night stand.  It was past 2 A.M.  “Are you free to see me today?”

          “I can be.”

          I told him to meet me in Astoria’s Sir Harry’s Bar at 3 P.M.

          Moore looked the same, except his hair was thinner and whiter.  We asked for privacy and were shown to a quiet corner of the bar.  I asked for a Michelob in the bottle and he asked for a coffee. We didn’t talk shop until after the waitress came with our drinks and left us alone.

“Is he still a Doll?”

“Of course he is,” he said and looked down at his cup.  “He couldn’t exist, if he weren’t.”

“He seems different –- “

He shook his head and I stopped. 

“He is only different because you want him to be, Mr. Lynch.  He is still what he was, before his temporary death.  His memories are fractured.  Quite a bit of his programming’s undone.  It was unusual that he even remembered you.”

He stirred a packet of sugar into his coffee as he spoke, keeping an eye on it instead of looking at me.

“Mr. Crawford loved him very much.  I still can’t say if it was the kind of love you have for a brother –- even a brother you didn’t grow up with.  Or if he had genuine love for Kai in the way...” He plucked the spoon from the cup and lay it on the napkin carefully, buying himself a few seconds to think of what to say, speaking after he took a sip from the cup,  “...the way you do.” 

“Kai’s childhood memories can never be restored?”

“Why do his memories matter?” he asked, frowning. “They are meaningless, and will only hurt him.”

“Memories are not meaningless.”

He said nothing and took a few more sips from his cup.  I finished my beer and no sooner had the empty bottle settled on the cardboard coaster than the attentive waitress came by to ask me if I wanted another.  I did.  She left to fetch me one and took away the empty bottle.  The service is worthy of the Astoria’s price tag.

“The scant memories of his childhood do not make Kai what he is,” he finally said.  “You want him to be human, and giving him memories, even his own, will not make him one.”

The waitress came back and set the new bottle down on a fresh coaster bearing the logo of another beer brand.  After asking again if we wanted anything else, she left. 

“Do you want him to be human for yourself or for him?”

I took a pull from the new bottle.

 “I want him to have a will,” I said.  “I want him to disagree with me.  I want him to be angry with me when I’m being an asshole.  I want him to be able to call me an asshole because he wants to.  I want him to be able to say no.”

“Do you expect your appliances to have disagreements with you?”

“Only if the day comes when I want to stick my cock in my toaster.”

 He smiled. 

“I adore Kai, but I don’t ever forget what he is.  And I think for you to be happy with him, you shouldn’t either.  Wishing for him to be more than he is, would be like wishing for that toaster to be able to tell you how much it liked your cock.”

He picked up his coffee and took a tentative sip.  He set it down and added two more packets of sugar to it.

“Kai will outlive me,” he continued,  “and he will outlive you.  And then he will be alone again. He might be confused for a while until someone gives him a purpose, then he will be with that person until he outlives him as well.  That is what he is.  An enduring product of great value.  Is that a human trait? To defy death or at least, not to even comprehend the fear of it?" 

“I’ll take him to my grave when it’s time for me to go,” I said.

“See,” he said, picking up his coffee cup and draining it.  “That kind of selfishness is human.  If you’re able to teach Kai how to be selfish in your lifetime, then maybe he can change.”

          The early dinner crowd had started to trickle in and the noise level came with it, as the tables and booths started filling up.  I finished half the beer and pushed it aside. 

          “We can finish somewhere else,” I said.  I fished a fifty out of my wallet and left it on the table.

          Moore followed me out of the restaurant and into a quieter lobby of the hotel.  We picked a desolate corner and sat on the pale leather sofas.  He was looking at his watch.  I resisted asking him if he had somewhere more interesting to go.  He’d probably say yes and ask to leave.  I wasn’t done talking to him yet.

          “What happened to all the other Dolls?”

          “Why do you care?”

          “Just wondering if my theory about Alexi was correct,” I said. 

          “What? Who’s Alexi?”

          “Summary of what I know so far,” I said.  “Crawford pooled a lot of money to work on what I can assume was Kai.  He sold everything to Gen-Tech.  One day, he was just a mention in a very small blurb in a newspaper.”

          “Yes,” he said and shrugged.

          “What became of the inventory?  Who is Gen-Tech?  Why did Crawford take his own life after he accomplished what he did? Why is Kai left out of the inventory?”

          He was quiet, contemplating my questions.

          “Is there a reason why you want to know?” he asked.  “You got what you wanted.”

          “I did. But too easily,” I said.  “A multi-million dollar company changed hands over one Doll.  I almost feel like I’m being set up.”

          He looked at his watch again, and this time he looked agitated. 

“Kai was rehabilitated six months before Mr. Crawford passed.  He wasn’t returned to the lab or the DOLL program,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.  “There were a lot of goings-on that I wasn’t privy to.” 

He let out a sigh and raked his fingers through his hair.  I was quiet, giving him time to collect his thoughts.  It took him awhile and a lot of fidgeting.

“Kai was given to me a month before Mr. Crawford died,” he said.  “I was told specifically to take care of him out of the laboratory.  Hide him if I needed to because major changes would come soon.  Then I was dismissed from service with quite a severance  package.  I asked no questions and did as he asked.”

“Was he in financial trouble?”

“I didn’t think so.  Even without Kai, the Doll program still existed.  We still had over a thousand functional Dolls in the inventory.  Most have very basic functions, but they are functional enough to bring in billions –- if they were placed on the market.  We still had exclusive, wealthy clients who leased these Dolls.”

“Who is Gen-Tech then?”

He shrugged.

“To be honest, I’d never heard of them until I read in the newspapers that they bought out the company and the laboratory.  Mr. Crawford didn’t talk about those things to me.  Maybe Oshihara knows something, but he and I are not exactly friends.”

“None of this makes sense.”

“When Mr. Crawford was found with a fatal gunshot wound to his head in his office,” he began, dropping his voice and leaning forward,  “I asked my friend who was one of the city coroners for details.  Mr. Crawford...I believe, was murdered.”

“Oh?”

“There was no gun powder residue on his fingers and there were some injuries-- bruises on his face and torso -- that weren’t consistent with the expected gunshot wound.  In spite of the suspicious manner of his death, it was still ruled a suicide and the case was closed.  Ten days later, Gen-Tech’s top man, David Wade, made the announcement about the buy-out.  As far as I know, most of the employees stayed -- just a different signature on their paychecks.”

“You don’t know what became of the Dolls?”

He shook his head. 

“All of my colleagues were told they would not only lose their jobs, but have a severe lawsuit waiting for them if they talked about their work.  They were not even allowed to tell their spouses.”

“If I had to take a wild-ass guess, I’d say the Dolls were being leased out.”

One of Moore’s eyebrows arched up.

“Until Gen-Tech has the means to step up the Doll program, I’d imagine all they have is a warehouse full of very beautiful Dolls that know only how to fuck, at the most basic level.”

“If that’s true, then....”

 “Crawford predicted his eventual demise and had you take Kai.  He would be needed to accelerate the Doll program.  Kai’s probably not on the master inventory list or else they would’ve probably picked him up as soon as he decided to camp out at that café across the street to wait for me.”

He looked shocked, as if he had come to a sudden realization.

“That’s why...” he said softly,  “that’s why...Kai told me to find you for him so he could send you a letter.  It had been an instruction from Mr. Crawford himself, before Kai was surrendered to me.  Mr. Crawford asked him to send the letter and wait for you at the café.  No matter how long it took, he was to wait until you came and claimed him.”

We were both quiet then, immersed in the information that came together too much and too quickly.  Inside me, a different kind of anxiety had started to build, twisting in my belly. 

“How many people knew Kai was rehabilitated?” I asked.

“A small team,” he said.  “Four of us worked with Kai for almost a year.”

“Can you trust the other three not to spill the beans?”

“They won’t say anything, if Mr. Crawford asked them not to. 

“Kai will not be returning to your cousin’s place.”

He nodded.

 “And you may never see him again after today.”

He nodded again.  This time, his eyes were slightly rimmed with red.

“I understand,” he said.  He stood up.  I did, too.  He offered me his hand and I took it.  “Please take care of him....”

We shook hands, offering each other only nods as good-byes.

          He was lying on the bed, on his stomach as he leafed through the hotel’s information guide.  He was wearing one of my shirts as his pajama top and it barely covered half of his ass.  Not that I minded.  CNN business news was on TV, but he didn’t pay it any attention.  The room service I had ordered for him was half eaten.

          “You are back,” he said, looking up and over at me with a smile.  He closed the magazine and shoved it to the side.  I came over to him and sat down on the bed.  I ran a hand over the gentle slope of his ass and down his thigh.

          “I just met with Dr. Moore,” I told him.  “He asked me to take care of you.”

          He beamed. 

          “Would you like to live with me?” I asked him.  “Not here in United States.  Somewhere very quiet in Europe.  Maybe Normandy or Germany?”

          “I will go wherever you go,” he said. 

          He raised himself up to his knees and hooked his arms around my neck.

          “As long as you will have me and love me,” he said.

          I kissed him and told him that I would, even if he didn’t want me to.

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