Hope Peaches

Eleven forty pm, and the new woman hadn’t once looked up from the blush of peaches rolling along the conveyor belt in an endless tide. Or perhaps she had, and Dandy hadn’t noticed—his own scrutiny of damaged product was sketchy, and his gritty, worn-out eyes were struggling to focus.

Because Hope Peaches’ workflow was automated, there was little need for real beating hearts, but the old woman who owned the company was cynical about robotics and insisted that a few “proper” people be included in the inspection process. Occasionally, a peach evaded the fault detection system, so it was up to him and the new long-haired beauty in front of him to identify any defective ones.

It wasn’t glamorous work, and bad peaches were rare. But if one did get past him, he knew he’d be evaluated, retrained, examined, and advised that if he continued to disappoint, ejected. HEAM, the Human Evaluation and Management software, was politely generous with warnings, and an accumulation of three meant summary dismissal. With two warnings already on record in the two months he’d been there, the margin for error was tight. Though he thought the employment terms unfair (long hours, low pay, no leave), he’d willingly signed the contract as human work was scarce, and opportunities were few.

The recess siren wailed, and the line shuddered to a stop. As he stirred coffee in the breakroom, the new woman wandered over and picked up a cup.

“Be careful of using that one,” said Dandy, in what he hoped was a cool but friendly tone.

She looked down at the mug and back up at him. Her eyes, the same smooth grey of a gloomy ocean, were clear and calm, and he snapped his jaws together when he realized he was staring. If she noticed, she never let on and instead held up the cup. I Can’t Adult Today, it said, in wobbly, childish writing.

“Brian’s,” said Dandy.

She surveyed the empty room.

“He was let go,” he said, “but he’ll probably fetch it any minute.”

In fact, Brian was not likely to collect his mug at all, and Dandy had no idea why he’d said so. Small talk foxed him—the interesting chit-chat he strove for often came out as bizarre jabber, and her puzzled frown said as much.

She put it down.

“Here, have mine.” He thrust his own in her direction, and the hot coffee slopped onto her arm. Horrified, he tried to dab at it with the cuff of his coverall. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she said, trying to pull away from his zealous blotting, but he carried on attacking the damp spot until eventually she smacked his hand away.

He looked up with a start. As usual, he’d gone too far and only realised it afterwards. He gave her a weak smile, not knowing what else to do. “I’m Dandy, by the way.”

Forehead creased, she looked like she was about to say something and instead took a breath. “Mija.”

The rest of the night passed without event. Whenever he could, he would steal glimpses of her, but her enticing eyes never lifted from the infinity of peaches moving past. When the siren sounded for the shift’s end, Dandy tried to catch up to her. But HEAM had cornered him on a private channel to remind him about peach scab, and by the time he got outside, she was gone.

A few nights later, he saw Mija sitting in the far corner of the breakroom. He hadn’t summoned the courage to talk to her after the coffee debacle but had tried to catch her eye on the peach line, without success.

Resolved he would have to do something, he took a deep breath, marched over, and landed his lanky six-foot-four frame directly in front of her with as much confidence as he could muster. When her eyes widened, he guessed his proximity bordered on creepy and stepped back.

“You’ve brought your own then,” he said.

They both regarded her plain white porcelain cup, and he suddenly wished his own wasn’t such a globular pink.

“Yes.”

“So, how are you finding the work? Just peachy, isn’t it?”

As it tumbled out of his mouth, he felt his face heat—regrettable because he was unusually pale-skinned, so blushing was a conspicuous business. He had practised, “How's your first week going?” in the mirror countless times, so it was absurd that he hadn’t remembered his own tutorial.

“I’m just here to observe. I’m from tech.”

“Really? What are you observing?”

“Nothing much,” she shrugged. “Just doing what I’m told.”

“I know all about that. I’ve got a master’s degree in English literature, but all I can do is what I’m told.”

She cocked her head.

“Had dreams of being a professor, writing books and whatnot,” he blundered on. “If only I knew an app would eventually write better than I ever would.”

She didn’t comment, and he wished he hadn’t said anything. Anyway, he’d gotten used to his mundane existence. Peach work, apples before that, and his first job at a web-based IT company after he left university was the total of all his work experience. The IT job hadn’t been bad: the focus was on feeding data into an AI tool on the intricacies of writing emotion in prose. But after only a few months, they made the position redundant because they had “fulfilled the objective”.

He had few friends, and his parents had passed away years ago. In darker moments, he felt there wasn’t much he could do except wait to die—or quicken toward that end if he could ever summon the courage. Advanced algorithms and strict policies had addressed all the old human woes—disease, overpopulation, and pollution. Because he’d been sterilized at birth like everyone else, he couldn’t even look forward to having a family. There were rumours of an underground movement where people reproduced and lived different lives, but he didn’t know anyone who knew them and had no idea how to find them. Perhaps it was a lie. How could it not be?

Mija stood up and patted his shoulder. Surprised at her sudden, brief warmth, he wondered if he was finally making headway.

Winter approached. He dreaded the months without work. Not only would he have to watch every penny, but he wouldn’t see Mija each day. Despite what he practised in the mirror, he stumbled headfirst into all his interactions with her. Mostly, she regarded him with the curiosity of someone staring at a specimen jar with something unusual inside, but a few times, her mouth twitched up at the corners and gave him hope.

One night, a little while before the factory was about to close for the season, he swallowed his nerves. He’d managed to glean that she wasn’t involved with anyone, so he decided to take his chance.

“Mija,” he announced rather than said. “I would like to take you for a drink.”

Her beauty and strange, quiet aloofness were all he could think about. Who was she? Did she have family? What books did she like, and what were her hobbies? There had to be something inside her—a spark—and all he had to do was ignite it. He must be brave, he told himself, because if he didn’t at least try, what else would he do?

She looked up at him, with her clear, pale eyes—she was the most astonishing woman he had ever seen.

“Do you think that’s a good idea? We work together. It’s not permitted.”

“Isn’t it? Where does it say that?”

She scowled. “It’s in your contract.”

“Oh,” he said, unable to recall any such thing. But she was probably right. No one ever allowed anything.

Without another word, she got up and left.

The next day, HEAM summoned Dandy to a meeting after work.

He’d worried about it all night, thinking back to the peaches he’d let through inspection that he probably shouldn’t have.

“Is something the matter?” Mija asked at break.

Surprised at the attention, he explained his anxiety.

“Oh,” she said with her usual cool expression. “Well, I suppose it’s not going to be good news then.”

“Maybe I’m just not right for the job.”

“You’ll know soon enough,” she deadpanned.

Later, sweaty and nauseous, he entered the sterile, glass-walled meeting room and sat on the shiny steel chair at its centre. When HEAM’s voice came through the ceiling PA system, he jolted. While HEAM didn’t have a physical form, Dandy imagined that if it did, he would be a weedy bald man with rheumy eyes.

“Mr Fordyce,” its tinny register said, “someone informed us that you approached a co-worker for a recreational engagement. As you know, that is not permitted.”

Dandy’s jaw dropped. “Wha…?”

“Ms Mija Poonsamy reported it. I’m afraid that it's your third offence here at Hope Peaches and the end of the road. Your dismissal papers are in your locker. Good luck.”

Before he could say anything, the room went dark.

Over a year later, Dandy was picking through a garbage bin, looking for something useful, when he glanced up and saw Mija. She was as stunning as ever, hair as shiny as polished onyx, mystical grey eyes and skin like cream. He looked down at his shabby clothes. He must be a sorry sight dressed in rags, his face haggard and unshaven. She wouldn’t recognize him, which was for the best. Though he didn’t think about her or what she’d done anymore, he still didn’t want to open any wounds. His anger had become disappointment and then acceptance, which was a relief as he had enough worries. He’d never been able to get work after Hope Peaches, so when his savings were gone, he made use of the city’s shelters and food repositories to live.

He continued rooting through the piles of rubbish.

“Dandy.”

He hadn’t expected her to stop, so it was only when he saw shoes planted in his field of vision that he paid any attention. Her broad smile lit up her face like a beacon in a dark sea, and the loveliness of it momentarily floored him—he’d never seen her wear such a radiant expression.

“I thought it was you. You’re hard to miss, being so tall.”

“Hi,” he said, pulling his dirty anorak down to hide the greasy stains on his trousers.

“I’ve left Hope Peaches,” she rushed, her cheeks pinking up. “Pure Electronics seconded me to research.”

Though he hadn’t asked, he nodded anyway.

“We’re working on interface bots, refining emotional register, that sort of thing.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s great, you’re doing well, but I’ll just –”

He backed away and picked up the old shopper he’d put down moments before, and regretted the gamey smell coming from the old clothes neatly folded within.

She grabbed his arm and held on. “What I want to say is…oh dear... what I wanted to ask… is whether you will forgive me? For what I did? I’m learning all the time. The program allows me to—”

He didn’t hear the rest.

With one sweep of a hand over the metaphorical fogged mirror that was his life, he understood how blind he had been. Stunning Mija, the most desirable person he’d ever seen, was not human. The eureka moment was nothing short of deafening. How could he not have realised? His ignorance of the signs was prodigal: her automaton nature, her impassivity—she hadn’t even expressed pain at the hot coffee scalding her skin. He’d read about such prototype progress for years, and they’d said it was only a matter of time before they’d get better at being human.

“…so now I understand what I did to you wasn’t right. And I see how it negatively affected your life.”

His attention returned, and he wasn’t sure how to respond.

Her grey gaze strayed over his tatty clothes. “I simply didn’t know better,” she said with a sad frown.

Yes, he thought, she had learned a lot since he’d last seen her. She couldn’t emote before; now she could do it with ease.

“I forgive you,” he said before he could stop himself.

Her face lit up once again, promising all the hope in the world to a drowning man. The release of tension in her jaw and shoulders was perfectly executed, if a little quick, and the tenderness of her hand was soft and careful. “Thank you, Dandy.”

“It’s ok.”

She released his arm, said goodbye, and Dandy stood motionless as she walked away, her treacly hair swinging at her waist. Then he touched the place where her hand had been and wondered how long it had taken to code her regret.