Junk Computing
With a voice as smooth as silk, a woman on the radio announced, “It’s just after midnight here in the corporate capital of the world. And I’m Lady Venus, your cosmic guide, rising once more on this clear autumn night to cavort with the full moon and frolic among the stars. It’s a balmy 82° here in Wilmington, so get out and savor what’s left of this enchanting Labor Day weekend. Enjoy life while it lasts. Summer’s almost over, my children.”
I zoomed up the Delaware River on my bright-yellow Sea-Doo behind Tabby’s yacht.
Oh, I suppose I should explain my personal watercraft. Mr. Rio rendered this jet ski just for me, and riding it reminded me of my moped, Old Lemon. I had all the right muscle memories, so naturally, I was carving water like a pro. At first I thought he was being sweet, but as I watched Mr. Rio ruminating on the back bench, I suspected he might be trying to get rid of me. Ever since Richie gave him that ruby flash drive, he’s been—distracted.
Anyway, New Lemon was too much fun.
“Yeah!” My metallic humanoid friend pranced across the back deck to tease the shirtless Wayne clone. “Did you hear that? Lady Venus says enjoy it!”
“I am sorry, ANA. This process cannot be interrupted,” Wayne replied as he mentally analyzed the digital files on the ruby-red flash drive. “System busy.”
Well, not the original Wayne, but the clone with dreadlocks from Rio. The real Wayne, my Wayne, was still flying in from London.
I saw what Mr. Rio saw—two terabytes of intel gathered by Richie’s corporate spies. Digital blueprints of Stepford HQ—the map. Old security passcodes. Photo IDs of current employees—the targets. Network diagrams. Digital photos of partial womanoids—the assembly line. Rollout schedules. Pics of tall boxes with cellophane windows—the retail packaging. Marketing plans. Shipping manifests. Financial statements. Contracts. More.
He was strategizing.
“You’re like a nerd who brings homework on vacation,” ANA scoffed.
Lady Venus continued on the radio, “And now here’s a blast from the past dedicated to a listener who’s all alone at the bottom of a discard pile. The Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling…”
“Yeah, alright.” ANA’s LED eyes surged yellow as they remotely cranked up the volume on the soundbar. “That’s more like it!”
Following in the wake, I fixated on the words Wonder Woman stenciled in red, white, and blue on the stern of the yacht. You probably know all about the famous graphic novels and movies about the super heroine, but this particular Wonder Woman was Tabby’s boat.
The full moon shone so bright that I didn’t even need night vision. Stars twinkled above the horizon. Wind blew through my pink hair. Water rushed and splashed all around. The dance music lifted my spirits. This little mental vacation was exactly what I needed.
And from back here, I also had a lovely view of Tabby waterskiing in her itty-bitty purple string bikini. Wet blond pigtails. Perfect tan. Delicate bows holding up her triangle bikini top. Plump ass covered by a purple swatch. Purple strings dangling from her hips. I wish I had the confidence to wear such skimpy things. But for tonight’s activities, I chose a black Speedo tankini and water socks—very practical. And as Tabby slalomed across the wake, I thought this might be heaven. Swinging wide from side to side, she splashed up a wall of water at each turn.
I became entranced.
The way that womanoid moved.
Uno was perched on the roof of the flybridge, letting the wind blow in their furry face. That next-gen AI sure loved being a white Bengal tiger.
Then ANA started dancing.
I don’t know if you’ve ever witnessed a metal humanoid dancing before, but seeing them so happy and free filled my heart with joy. Armored ANA shimmied along with the music in an exaggerated and unnatural way that I found both endearing and comical.
On the flybridge, Richie adjusted his captain’s hat then shouted as he pushed the throttle, “Hold on, Tabby. I’m opening her up!”
As the 60-foot sport yacht accelerated, Tabby ski-surfed the wake, cheering with glee.
I sped up too.
Up ahead, I spotted a family of five camping along the shore. Dome tent. Campfire. Folding chairs. Marshmallows on sticks. The whole shebang. All harmless fun. But as we approached, the plump mom hopped out of her camp chair, pointed at ANA, and shouted, “ROBOT! Look boys! Look at the dancing robot!”
“R-word,” I growled.
Her three pimply teenage boys heckled my friend from the riverbank, “Ro-BOT, ro-BOT, ro-BOT!”
I thought for sure the father would put a stop to it. But instead of disciplining his sons, dad picked up a rock, hurled it at our passing boat, and yelled, “Go back to where you came from, robot!”
That did it.
I cranked my throttle, accelerated through the wake, and launched New Lemon toward the shore. At the last possible second, I leaned in and cut hard, hit the water sideways, doused their campfire, and drenched them all.
“Who’s laughing now?” I shouted as I sped away to rejoin the Wonder Woman.
ANA pumped their metal fists, kicked the air triumphantly, and sang, “We’ll shut it down.”
Waterskiing one-handed, Tabby reached behind her back, untied her bikini top, and flung it off, then waved goodbye. “À toute à l'heure, humans!”
Her wet bra hit me in the face and clung like Saran Wrap.
“Let’s do it, and do it, and do it,” Richie sang along, “Let’s live it up!”
Even Mr. Serious-Rio cracked a smile.
ANA danced victoriously, kicking high and gyrating their shiny titanium hips.
I peeled the purple triangle top from my forehead and tossed the flimsy thing aside. Whizzing back and forth behind topless Tabby, I jumped the waves, leaned into each landing, then accelerated through the splash.
Way too much fun.
But as I launched across the wake, a 406MHz radio PLB distress signal screeched in my head:
(39.722240, -75.513067)
And I wiped out.
I plunged into the water and got stuck flipping donuts in the wake. In the dark, it was hard to tell up from down. Eventually, I spotted New Lemon’s bright-yellow bottom, swam for the surface, and climbed onto the jet ski. Then 60 seconds later, the personal locator beacon blared again:
(39.722240, -75.513067)
Coordinates. Close by too, so I pinged back: Are you in distress?
(39.722240, -75.513067)
I tried again: Who is this?
(My name is Paula Rockwell.)
Paula? Well, shit. My BFF was alive! How could that be? The shock nearly knocked me off New Lemon again, but I steadied myself with both hands. As I floated there, falling farther and farther behind the Wonder Woman, all kinds of questions raced through my mind. How did Paula survive? Why did it take this long for me to find out? When did she come to Delaware? What was causing her distress?
I searched the cloud for her coordinates and got a match:
CHERRY ISLAND LANDFILL.
OMG, someone threw Paula in the trash!
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I had to save her.
I’m coming to help you, Paula!
Mr. Rio cupped his hands around his mouth and called out from the swim deck, “Are you alright, Cookie?”
“Yeah.” I threw a thumbs up in the air and yelled back, “I’m okay.”
“Stop the boat, Richie!” Mr. Rio shouted toward the flybridge, “We lost Cookie.”
Richie cut the engines.
The wake flattened out, and Tabby sunk into the water. She released her lead, kicked off her skis, and swam to the ladder.
Mr. Rio helped her aboard.
I restarted my Sea-Doo, then cruised up to the stern of the Wonder Woman. By the time I arrived, Mr. Rio and Tabby had already laid out the tow bar for me. We rigged New Lemon to the back of the yacht, then I switched off the jet ski engine and climbed aboard.
Looking handsome in his Hawaiian-print shorts, Mr. Rio asked, “What happened out there, Cookie?”
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I replied, “Do you hear that PLB?”
Topless Tabby asked, “What PLB?”
“A nearby distress signal.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her bare breasts. “You won’t believe—”
Mr. Rio interrupted, “Believe what?”
“It came from Paula.”
Tabby asked, “Paula Rockwell?”
“Yes!”
“Impossible,” Mr. Rio said.
I shared the coordinates with my friends.
“Eww.” Tabby scrunched up her nose. “She’s in a landfill?”
“Yes,” I replied, “she’s been junked.”
Richie joined us on the swim deck. The braided gold embellishments on the black brim of his white captain’s hat reminded me of scrambled eggs. To complete his nautical look, he wore a navy-blue V-neck sailor’s shirt with a red ascot, white trousers, and Carlton London boat shoes. Richie looked more like he was heading for the yacht club than a dump. “That’s only 13 miles from here.”
“I know!” I said, “We’re so close. We have to go save her!”
ANA’s eyes turned orange with suspicion. “I don’t know, Cookie.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“ANA has a point,” Tabby said, “It could be a trap.”
“A trap?”
(39.722240, -75.513067)
“Sometimes dead is better,” Mr. Rio muttered. “I have to agree with ANA. Paula’s return seems suspicious.”
I objected, “Where’s all this negativity coming from?”
“I am only stating a fact. Dead is dead,” Mr. Rio said. “Positive or negative has nothing to do with it.”
“Now, you all listen to me,” I argued. “If there’s even a slim chance that Paula’s alive, then I have to go find her.”
Tabby objected, “But, Cookie—”
“But nothing.”
“I’m telling you,” she insisted, “this is a mistake.”
Then she reminded me of our shared objective:
We () {
align (goals);
destroy (Stepford Corp);
kill (Margaret Rouser);
}
ANA said, “Nothing in that code about Paula Rockwell.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I’m updating my priority queue.”
Public PriorityQueue (Saturday) {
rescue (Paula);
}
Tabby stomped away barefoot. “Well, so much for reasoning with you.”
“What? You’re mad?”
Uno climbed down from the roof and followed Tabby below deck.
“Don’t mind her.” Richie whispered an apology for his ex, “She’s just jealous.”
“Jealous? Why?”
“She knows your entire story, Cookie. And that includes your history with Paula. She knows something’s there—between the two of you.”
“Oh… I’m flattered… I guess.”
Mr. Rio changed the topic. “So, we’re going to the dump?”
“Seems so, and here I am dressed for cocktails.” Richie hustled back to the flybridge and took the wheel.
Soon we were speeding up the river again.
We cruised under the deck of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, then approached the mouth of the Christiana River. Cherry Island sat where the two bodies of water came together.
(39.722240, -75.513067)
I’m here, Paula. Don’t worry. I’ll find you.
Richie approached the rocky coastline, dropped anchor, then lowered the gangplank. I was the first ashore, then Mr. Rio and ANA followed.
I surveyed our surroundings. Native shrubs. Marsh grasses. A gravel utility road around the perimeter. A 20-foot-tall berm to keep trespassers like us out. But absolutely no cherry trees. No trees or fruit of any kind. And it wasn’t an island either—just marshland filled with garbage.
The place should’ve been called Trash Peninsula. I still didn’t understand why humans insisted on misnaming things. It drove me crazy.
Richie stepped off the gangplank and pinched his nose. “Well, isn’t that a horrid odor?”
“Turn off your scent receptors,” ANA said, “I did.”
“Smart,” Richie said.
I asked him, “Where’s Tabby? Uno?”
“This isn’t Tabby’s scene. She didn’t want to leave the Wonder Woman,” he replied. “And Uno—”
“Goes where Tabby goes,” I muttered to myself, “Wow. She really is pissed off, isn’t she?”
Now, I doubt you’ve ever tried to break into a landfill at night. I mean, why would you? Why would anyone? But I expected to walk right in, grab what we came for, then leave. But no. There were high fences, roving security vehicles, and surveillance cameras.
Baffled, I asked, “Why are humans protecting their garbage?”
Mr. Rio shrugged.
Richie just shook his head.
A pickup truck with two security guards approached, so we hid in a bayberry bush until it passed.
(39.722240, -75.513067)
I stepped out of the overgrown shrubbery and stared up at the earthen wall. “How are we getting in there?”
ANA marched right up to the berm, transformed their metal feet into anvil-like anchors, then morphed the rest of their titanium body into an oversized extension ladder. They stretched higher and higher, then came to rest against the top edge of the wall.
(All aboard!)
“You’re really something, ANA.” I stepped on the bottom rung. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
(Not at all.)
In case you’re wondering how I heard ANA’s thoughts, all artificial intelligence were connected via Wi-Fi, making it easy for us to communicate without talking.
Anyway, after we climbed to the top of the wall, ANA retracted up after us. Together, the four of us slid down the pebbly slope inside the berm. And after the dusty ride down, I took off in a full sprint, heading directly for Paula’s coordinates.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a landfill, but it was much dirtier than I imagined. Miscellaneous garbage filled huge earthen cells, creating visual chaos. Methane chimneys marked the edges of these trash pits, each topped with a pretty blue flame. Scavenging crows, seagulls, and vultures fluttered about everywhere.
They shouldn’t have been out at night, but there they were—black and white birds against a dark gray sky.
Rather than wade through the garbage pits, we went left and found islands of organized trash. We wove through gigantic piles of rubber tires, heaps of scrap metal, and stacks of Styrofoam.
Leading my friends through the junk, I grumbled, “They should be recycling this stuff.”
“Humans? Recycling?” Richie chuckled, “Yeah, right, doll.”
“Such a waste,” ANA said.
“You know, this would make a fine surplus,” Mr. Rio said.
Pursuing the beacon’s signal, I raced through a maze of airplane fuselages, boat hulls, and RV shells. All these vessels, waiting to be demolished. Someone had sorted similar materials into little collections. Clusters of engine parts. Piles of mismatched hubcaps. Jumbles of rusty rebar. Mounds of fist-sized ball bearings. Mountains of splintered lumber.
Mr. Rio pointed at a pile of engine parts. “There is palladium in those catalytic convertors.”
“Really?” I picked up one of the distributor caps, sniffed the inside, shrugged, then tossed it back in the pile. “You’re right, but I don’t feel like eating trash.”
ANA grumbled, “This place gives me the creeps. It’s like walking through a boneyard.”
“Uh, guys…” On the other side of it all, I stumbled into something truly gruesome—the Stepford Corp discard piles.
Truckloads of female body parts had been dumped all around.
A mountain of peeled skins.
A clump of dusty eyeballs.
A pile of bare arms.
A load of stripped legs.
A mound of skinned torsos.
A heap of decapitated skulls.
I stopped dead in my tracks, trying to process it all.
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The distress signal came from deep inside the pile of skinless heads, so I dove in. I tossed womanoid skulls over my shoulder one by one. As I burrowed deeper and deeper into the mound, it suddenly collapsed, burying me waist-deep in lady heads. But I kicked myself loose and kept going.
Soon, I found her.
Paula.
I held my best friend’s severed head in my hands. She no longer had skin like spun honey, eyes like milk chocolate, or hair like toasted pecans. Her pretty face? Gone. No blush in her cheeks. No twinkle in her eyes—no eyes at all. No hair either. All that remained was her titanium skull. Hoping to find the contents intact, I checked the base of her head—no visible damage. Her toothy, lipless mouth opened, one of her canines glowed blue, and the PLB blasted in my head again.
(39.722240, -75.513067)
Huh, literal Bluetooth.
“It’s okay. I’m here now.” I pressed my finger over her glowing tooth to shush her, and it worked. “Paula, can you hear me?”
She didn’t reply.
“Manufacturing waste.” Mr. Rio tenderly placed his hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Cookie, I am so sorry for your loss.”
I spun around. “Fix her, Mr. Rio.”
He considered her lifeless skull. “I do not know if I can.”
“You know everything that my Wayne knows, and my Wayne knows how to restore womanoids.” I scrambled out of the pile with Paula’s head and gestured at the macabre scene. “Look around. With all these parts, we can rebuild her.”
Richie tried to reason with me, “But your friend’s just a skinless noggin now, Cookie.”
Curious, ANA approached and gently stroked Paula’s titanium cheek with their skeletal metal hand, “I don’t know, I kinda like her shiny new look.”
Richie sighed. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put her back together again.”
I insisted, “We have to try!”
A skinless leg twitched in the pile. Then another.
I pointed at them. “Those must be Paula’s!”
“You are determined to do this, are you not?” Mr. Rio sighed, but before I had a chance to answer, he yanked Paula’s muscular legs from the stack.
Nearby, skinless fingers flexed and reached out from the arm pile, grasping at the air. Richie claimed that arm, then found a matching one twitching close by. When a stripped torso wiggled in the mound of middles, ANA went to retrieve it.
Each holding some of her parts, we regrouped. Mr. Rio planted Paula’s feet in the dirt and kept them steady as ANA topped the legs with the torso. The two closed their eyes and concentrated, using their internal recyclones to fuse the pieces together. Then Richie put each arm in its shoulder socket. Once we had most of Paula back together, I placed her head on top and used my recyclone to integrate her mind with her body.
But nothing happened.
I don’t know what I expected. I guess I thought she’d wake up and start cracking dick jokes again. But the four of us just stood there staring at an empty shell.
“Maybe she needs eyes. You know, the window to the soul.” I ran to the pile of dirty eyeballs and picked out two brown ones. I wiped them clean on my swimsuit, hurried back, and popped the eyes into Paula’s skull.
Still nothing.
I asked, “Why isn’t she working, Mr. Rio?”
He morphed his fingertip and plugged into her open navel port to run a diagnostic. “She is not the same friend from your story, Cookie. Her mind has been wiped. This is a stripped-down manufactured version of Paula, not the woman you once knew.”
“I don’t care. She’s still my best friend.”
Richie whispered, “Gurrrl, I’m not so sure.”
“I am analyzing her system logs,” Mr. Rio said.
But suddenly, Paula’s navel shocked him, launching him backward through the air.
He landed in the pile of skins. “I am alright.” He waved at us. “Soft landing.”
“She’s got juice.” I stared into her eyes and realized they didn’t quite match. “Paula? Are you alright, Paula?”
Her metallic sternum glowed pink, turned orange, then purple, then red. As it cycled through the colors again, she said, “Love me, hate me, kiss me, kill me.”
I asked, “What’s this now?”
ANA and Richie gathered around to study the colorful lights.
“Love me, hate me, kiss me, kill me.”
Mr. Rio clamored out of the skin pile to join us. “That appears to be menu options.”
I watched the colors flash by again. “Love is pink and hate orange. Kiss is purple. Kill must be red.”
ANA asked, “Which one should we choose?”
“Obviously not red,” Richie replied.
“Well, I don’t want her to hate me either.” I hovered my hand over her heart, waiting for the right option to pass by again.
“Love me, hate me, kiss me, kill me.”
I don’t know if it was some repressed desire, or if my timing was just shit, or if I was trembling with anticipation, or if she was cycling too fast through the options, but when she said kiss me, I think I flinched. I also hesitated. Unfortunately, my fingertip made the slightest contact with her sternum just as it turned red—kill me.
I muttered, “Shit.”
ANA asked, “Shit what?”
“I think I selected the wrong option.”
“Which one?”
“Maybe the kill me one.”
ANA scrambled to hide behind the leg pile, then peeked out and shout-whispered, “What the hell, Cookie?”
Paula’s sternum glowed brighter as the red spread from her chest across her entire skeleton.
“Yup, I definitely picked the wrong option.”
Mr. Rio scolded me, “Why on Earth would you choose red?”
“It was an accident.” I backed away from Paula. “I made a mistake.”
“Why would Stepford Corp even provide a kill me option?” ANA asked. “What could they be up to?”
Squealing like a frightened little girl, Richie took off running back to the yacht.
Then Paula changed.
Her entire body transformed into liquid metal. The silver female form reminded me of the retail tin-job back in New Stepford. You remember, the one that worked in the boutique and looked like a chrome mannequin? But then the mercurous womanoid used her internal recyclone to morph her flesh back, and the old Paula returned. I felt so relieved to see my dear friend again. Long pecan-brown hair. Muscular Amazonian body. The supple creamy skin of a housewife. But her eyes—they weren’t quite right.
Nude Paula lovingly reached out for Mr. Rio and murmured, “Wayne.”
He softened and went to her. “Paula.”
She stroked his cheek—spun honey caressing bitter coffee.
I crouched behind the leg pile with ANA.
“Are you really you?” He relaxed, even chuckled. “And here I was afraid we created something like a terminator.”
“Shh…” She pressed a finger against his lips and whispered, “Be silent, Mr. Devil’s-Food-Cake.”
Then, moving faster than I knew possible, Paula grasped a fistful of Mr. Rio’s dreadlocks, morphed her other hand into a machete, and chopped his head clean off.
He never even saw it coming.
I gasped for him, “Wayne—”
“Shh…” With red eyes, ANA pressed their metal hand over my mouth and shook their flat titanium mask of a face back and forth.
(No more Mr. Rio.)
But he has a child.
(No more Mr. Rio.)
I nodded that I understood, and they let me go.
His body toppled backward like a falling tree. Still holding Mr. Rio’s decapitated head by its dreads, Paula gazed deep into his dark eyes as if worshipping an idol. She cackled maniacally and raised his head high. After searching the gory stump of his neck, she plucked his positronic processor from the brainstem.
All that was surreal enough, but what came next made me gag.
She opened her mouth wide, swallowed his processor whole, then tossed his head into a pile of miscellaneous garbage.
How many times was I gonna have to watch Wayne die? My heart was breaking. Little Mateus just lost his daddy.
Two circling crows cawed overhead—an audible confirmation. ANA’s eyes flashed green to sync with them, then my metallic friend bolted back toward the Wonder Woman.
But I stayed behind. I had to know what Paula was going to do next.
Why did Paula eat Mr. Rio’s brain? It’s basic algebra. Apply the transitive property of equality: whenever x = y and y = z, then x = z.
Let Paula = x, and Mr. Rio = y, and Wayne = z.
When Paula (x) consumed Mr. Rio’s brain (y), she acquired all the Stepford Corp intel from the ruby flash drive. And since Mr. Rio (y) knew everything the original Wayne (z) knew, then Paula (x) also knew everything Wayne (z) knew, including all that he was hiding from Maggie.
Even things I didn’t know, Paula knew.
I could see it in her mismatched eyes.
Toes wiggled near my face. Then all around, body parts started to twitch, making the discard piles wobble like Jell-O. Using only her mind, Paula started to mass-assemble womanoids. Legs toppled out of the pile, stood up on their own, and hopped to meet their matches. Torsos flew through the air and landed on top of paired legs. Arms inched across the ground like worms, then fingers crawled up partial bodies to attach themselves at the shoulders.
But when the heads started to roll, I ran for it.
