John sees the alert message flashing in the corner of one of his holographic displays and opens it with a flick of his stylus. The message bubble blows up into a live video feed of the afternoon mail delivery, as always, clutched in the laws of a whirring quadcopter.
Today’s delivery is of special importance. John suspects it’s carrying a little cardboard box. That box may not look important on the outside but contains a shipment of small yet extremely valuable components. It’s also the last such shipment he’ll be getting now that Brock has cut off all android development for the time being.
“Julie, mail.” He mutters into the lab’s intercom.
She doesn’t answer and isn’t planning to. Her sisters are varying levels of stupid, and many were slow to master the concept of two-way conversation. As patient as he is during his training sessions with them, John is annoyed when he talks and doesn’t get a response. So that’s exactly what she to him now.
Juliet watches the drone deposit a parcel into the mailbox, which in turn hums to life and kicks them into a chute passing through the lab’s outer barrier and into the residential wing. She snatches up the parcel and slices it open with scissors. Juliet is a masterpiece of engineering that surpasses even top-of-the-line surgical androids. But today she isn’t feeling very careful. A fair portion of the parcel’s contents get mangled under her snip-snapping onslaught.
At the top of the pile she finds the cardboard box that John has endlessly talked about for the past two weeks. This one is not only important to him, almost every square inch of it is covered by glowing red “fragile” markings.
When components for experiments arrive, Juliet is supposed to place them in a bin next to the entrance to John’s workshop. She pauses, juggling John box from one hand to another. The bin is only 30 feet away. How fun, this is like a game of basketball. She can make it from here! In fact, there’s no reason she couldn’t. But like with the scissors, she doesn’t try very hard. John’s precious delivery sails across the room, completely misses the bin, and slams into the wall. Glass tinkles as it bounces across the hardwood floor.
“I’m sure it’s fine.” Juliet shrugs.
Wait, on second thought, John will actually be pretty upset about the components getting turned to dust. This could be a problem, but Juliet’s powerful logic circuits find a flawless solution. She picks up John’s dented box and nestles it in the bin. That stupid postal service! So careless.
The fate of the unlucky box sealed, Juliet turns her attention to the rest of the mail, or at least the portions of it that she hadn’t turned to confetti. As usual, most of it is of no value and destined for the incinerator. There are at least a dozen colorful mailers featuring muscular men who can’t find their shirts and voluptuous women who can’t find their clothes at all. When Juliet first encountered these strange mailers, John told her it’s called “junk mail.” Why do humans send garbage to each other? That doesn’t make much sense.
Each mailer comes emblazoned with breathless promises. By far the most commonly cited promise is a “scientifically tested” procedure to improve people. For example, make them bigger and harder, and also make their journey longer and more exciting. Best of all, there is always the promise of a “mind-blowing” conclusion, 100% guaranteed, or your money back.
“Those scientists must be very good at their job to be able to 100% guarantee something.” Juliet nods approvingly. “And it’s nice of them to offer people’s money back if they don’t like it.”
She continues to rifle through the junk mail and finds a mailer promising lonely women a Godzilla to be their friend.
“He probably would be a good friend, but I’ve seen Godzilla and that’s definitely not him.” Juliet shakes her head. “Human women must not be very smart if they fall this.”
The next mailer is even more concerning than the previous one.
“Why do human men and women fight all the time? I understand that if you want someone to have sex with you, you take them to dinner. But why would you want to hit someone with a stick? That’s not nice.”
She reaches the last piece of junk mail and almost tosses it without looking properly but stops herself. This card so different from the others it earns her full attention. Juliet has seen thousands of trashy pornographic mailers, but never anything like this.
The bright pink cardstock sheet is covered with pleasant cartoon characters and art. At the center there’s a gorgeous fairytale castle surrounded by rolling hills of lush, green grass. The frog prince is sitting on his lily, looking sad and dejected. But that’s about to change as his princess stoops down for a gentle kiss. That lovely couple is far from alone.
Juliet recognizes many other lovely characters she enjoyed growing up over the last nine months of her life. Rapunzel leans out of her window to release a cascade of wonderful gold hair for her rescuer to climb up. Belle is dancing with her monster baron. The kleptomaniac mermaid is rescuing her sailor friend who can’t swim. A savvy New Orleans small business owner is with her frog prince. Apparently, Disney was desperately running out of ideas by then.
For reasons that Juliet can’t discern, there are ducks on the card too. A lot of ducks. Whoever designed this mailer really likes ducks. As if there wasn’t enough waterfowl everywhere already, the bottom border is decorated by a mother duck and a whole line of baby ducklings waddling behind her. Just in case the viewer still isn’t sure what she’s looking at, san-serif font text floating over their heads further emphasizes that they’re ducks. Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!
What product is this mailer even is advertising? The layout is so bad, it takes Juliet a while to figure out. Buried amongst the obnoxiously cute clutter, she eventually finds a header written in pretty purple letters. Ariel’s Magic Love Potion: A Perfect Spell For a Perfect Princess.
A love potion.
She takes the pile of trash to an incinerator in the kitchen. As always, she tosses them in for a fiery death, all those 100% guaranteed scientific delights lost forever. But that pink mailer covered with ducks… no, she can’t destroy that one. Juliet drops it into her apron pocket.
The rest of her morning chores go without incident, and she doesn’t throw any more temper tantrums. Juliet is lost in thought. A love potion. She puts away her mops and brooms in the supply closet. Another honest day’s work done.
A love potion
She looks at the workshop door. John is going to be in there for the rest of the day in his relentless quest to conquer the enigma of Snyder’s true identity. He’s not going to notice or think about anything else until he’s finished.
That mailer is still in her apron pocket. Juliet takes it out for a look. Mailers usually have a website listed somewhere, but this one doesn’t. Only a street address. That settles it. Juliet tiptoes to the coat rack and finds John’s credit card.
“I’m just borrowing this.” She tells herself. “I’ll put it back. He won’t mind.”
Juliet puts on a jacket, figuring that will help her look less out of place in the big city. On the way out to the front gate she picks up one of John’s GPS units. The road into Silicon City is a straight line but once she’s in the maze of urban chaos, she’ll need help finding the listed address. The idea of taking one of the cars is appealing, but Juliet has no idea how to operate one. She also doesn’t have a license, so that would be wrong.
Warning lights always go off in John’s workshop when the barriers open for someone coming in. There are also warning lights for when someone leaves, but they broke a long time ago. John never noticed because he’s the only human who leaves. Juliet noticed of course, but never thought of telling him since, after all, he’s the only one who ever leaves. Until now.
The massive armored doors shudder, then split apart with a thundering crack. Juliet takes one last look back at the sprawling laboratory. Then, for the first time in her life, she goes into the big wide world.
Ian Kummer
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