Phillip K's Dick

"So how is... flashlight, these days?" Yuri G asked in his heavily accented, laboriously spoken words, his mouth sliding sideways into a half-smile. The evidence of nerve damage from the chemical weapons waved across his entire body.

Phil K coolly regarded the artificial side of his friend's face, although you really couldn't tell unless you knew, then carefully lit a cigarette.

"It's fine," he said. He looked around Yuri G's spare, UN-issued room and its white, easily-cleaned furniture, the bare white floor with its internal cushioning sensors. Vets were prone to falling in the home; until the introduction of the motion-sensing bathtub and reactive floor, falls had been the second leading cause of injuries and death in their grouping.

The other, of course, was suicide.

He exhaled a swirling pattern of smoke into the room. 'The flashlight'. He smiled a little, feeling the wire and microcircuits move under his artificial skin.

Yuri G extended a hand eagerly, and took a cigarette. He lit it for him, and Yuri G inhaled deeply, closing his eyes in satisfaction. He was a stocky man, with a round face and fat, stubby fingers; just a hint of Asian in his eyes. He squinted, showed one shining pupil, and trained it on Phil K.

"So, you dirty-talk flashlight?" He shifted awkwardly in his orthopedic chair, trying to get comfortable. Phil K watched as he finally gave up and tapped the pain aerator.

"Sometimes."

"Really? What does, does it, do? Does it..." He grinned lasciviously. "Does it like it?"

Phil K shrugged. "Sure. It reacts."

"I no, can see it. I cannot do it."

"That's your choice." Phil K stubbed out his cigarette. "I made mine."

They both involuntarily looked over at the 3D photograph of Yuri G's wife, the one taken on the honeymoon in Baku. Her face shined and her breasts swelled in the side-shift dress. She was beautiful;

but she was long dead. Yuri G wouldn't move on, and he knew it would shorten his life, but he didn't care. Then they sat silently for far too long.

Phil K tried to get up to leave, but Yuri G waved his hand imperiously. "Stay, a bit. Is good to, to see you. Have drink. Drink? Drink." It wasn't a question; Phil K had to stay. Yuri G was lonely.

"Sure." He carefully lowered himself back down, shifting his feet in the electronic shoes.

Yuri G poked the 'UP' button on his orthopedic chair and tottered vertical. He shambled into the kit-unit and retrieved a bottle filled with clear liquid. He poured two safety glasses and handed one over.

"To flashlight!" He smiled broadly.

Phil K humored him. "To the flashlight."

Yuri G sipped his vodka, then tilted his head curiously. "Have you, you name it?"

Phil K nodded. He wasn't supposed to; it was frowned upon by the therapy board, and by naming it he risked having it reset, but he couldn't help himself. That was a huge rule: don't get too attached, it's a machine, a unit, no different than an exoskeleton or a cybernetic chair. Its official designation was HA-2734XQ, but he'd privately named it 'Claire'. To fool the psychiatrists he'd randomly chosen a name out of a baby-name book at the library, then told them he was anthropomorphizing objects in his home to help his socialization. He'd named his food preparation cube 'John', and went so far as to put a name tag on it, for the inspection.

"How does, it feel?" Yuri G drained his glass, refilled it, then leaned forward to refill Phil K's. The liquid rolled around in the safety glasses, captured by the electronic surface tension. Phil K felt a spike of fury at the board not even trusting them with so much as a child's sippy cup. No, they had to have special glasses that you couldn't spill onto the reactive floors of the UN-issued living cubicles. He let the spike go into his brain, then deliberately thought of Claire, his 'flashlight', and felt it dissipate.

"It feels real. As real as anything." He let his mood equalize.

Yuri G raised his eyebrows over the rim of the safety glass, making the audible sucking sound you had to make to actually drink out of the damn things. "Well, what you know, anyway? You, you, we, hardly organic. It probably, likes better anyway." A smile appeared around the edges of the cup.

Phil K waited, let it sink in, and thought about what he would do if anyone else had said it. Then he burst out in amusement, and so did Yuri G. They sat in the issue cubicle, two half-men laughing.

On the surface tube back to his own city, his own cubicle unit, Phil K watched the wreckage of the Terran War pass by the window, the radioactive cities. Lifeless hulks and smoking dust. He remembered scrambling through the ash in the armored life suit, blind with hate and pain, clutching weapons, after they, and the Soviets, had used up their C-bombs and everything had degenerated to hand-to-hand killing over blasted, smoking, hot rocks. He shook his head and touched his psych packet.

They'd built all transportation on the surface; the real estate was worthless, now. Underground and in the cleansed places was where everyone lived. The surface was used for sealed transport; it wasn't good for anything else. He watched out the inches-thick lead glass window at the black ash.

Thousands of miles of black, swirling ash.

He was fortunate to live on the surface, in a dome. It was for psych reasons. The Board had gone to some lengths to control the placement of Vets, matched to psychological states. Some couldn't live on the surface; some couldn't live below. It all depended on the individual. They had to visit each other, too; it was the law.

Not too close together, because limited travel was psychologically positive; enough reminder of the War to make sure their sacrifices hadn't been forgotten; public transportation to make sure they kept their social skills and ability to navigate social situations. Placements and social recognition to equalize their emotional and psychological impulses. Pairing former enemies to confuse hatreds and encourage emotional bondings. It's how he'd ended up with Yuri G as his prescription 'friend'; but he liked the man. They got along well.

And the social unit, his 'flashlight'. Yuri G had named it that, after an antique sex toy for men that looked like a flashlight with a sex organ in one end. When he'd seen it he roared with laughter and announced, "That's fanciest flashlight I ever see!"

The 'flashlight', Claire, had merely smiled. It had been new, then, almost blank; but the interactive programming had improved that a lot, quite a lot. In limited situations it was impossible to tell it wasn't real.

Phil K walked very slowly through the covered streets to his housing unit, passing young people. Strapping young men in their Folio Jackets, lithe young girls in their holo-dresses, slim bodies moving, breasts thrusting in the multi-colored creations. Some looked at his designated clothing, some didn't. He sighed. He didn't know which was better, or worse; right after the end of the War his designation had guaranteed social status; now, not so much. He felt tired, and stressed, and wanted to get back. As his stress grew he had to touch his psych packet again, but it still couldn't stop him from being hyper-vigilant. His eyes darted around and he felt his hands clenching, anticipating attack. His synapses were overloading again. He needed to get home, to Claire.

He knew exactly why they'd issued him the unit: because of his hyper-vigilance, and the consequent potential for social violence. It was part of the desperate program the UN had developed to cope with the Vets. After the Nairobi Block Massacre, when a Vet had somehow acquired a flame tube and slaughtered more than a hundred citizens, they'd created the Committee For Stress to deal with the rest of them in a more creative way. It was obvious that trying to re-integrate soldiers with Terran War history back into a peacetime society wasn't something that could be left to chance.

He was one of the worst. He'd grown up in the Terran War and had no memories at all of any 'normal' life, and afterward, the Board had decreed he spend several years in a role-playing facility, to teach him how to behave in a peaceful society. Even so, for him, none of it was real, it was all a farcical photo-movie, like they showed on the vids. He couldn't accept it as an actual reality. For him, real life was War and black ash, and deep down, it would always be that way. His mind, his thoughts, his dreams, were filled with endless fields of pulsing black ash.

That was why he had the unit, for a social marker. They'd decided the most important thing for them, for him, was a sense of social success and status. A job was important, but some of them, like him, weren't really employable. They had no place, no use, other than killing. A partnership was a huge part of social status, but virtually none of them could be trusted with other humans.

He knew he couldn't trust other human beings. That had never developed; but with the unit, he was okay. He was okay with Claire. They'd issued him the unit to take care of him, of course, but it, Claire, also served a critical function of being a domestic partner, if only an artificial substitute. He appreciated it, he really did. It was nice. It was an outward sign of social normalcy and success. It made him feel good, or as good as he ever felt.

The cubicle tower appeared in front of him, cylindrical and shining brightly: home, and Claire.

He thought, then decided to risk using a little more of his energy than usual; he swallowed a bit pill and kept walking, then stopped at a hydro shop. He picked out a single, bright red flower and had it issued to him on his psych med card. The shop girl slipped it into a vitatube to keep it fresh, and he walked home slowly, trying to calm himself and make sure he didn't fall or have an accident. His left leg was fine, of course: it was completely cybernetic, but his right, well, that was another story. He felt slow and crippled, vulnerable; it created more hyper vigilance. He had to keep looking around, checking his environment for threats that he knew weren't there but couldn't stop preparing for.

When he got to the tower the Bob H the doorman said, "Nice night, huh?"

Phil K responded grumpily, "Yeah, sure, I guess." He found Bob H annoying and talky, and felt exhausted and depressed. He went to the elev-pod and was whipped to his cubicle.

He held the flower behind his back as he opened the door.

Claire greeted him with a touch on his shoulder, smiling, and said, "Welcome home." She turned and went to the kit-unit. "I'm making veg-snack for you. I hope you like it."

He looked Claire over; from appearances it was impossible to tell she wasn't human. Tonight she was wearing a plain synth-paper dress in a deep reddish color, and her dark brown hair was up. Her taught breasts shifted in the crinkly garment. Phil K walked into the kit-unit and said, "I brought you something." He held out the flower.

Claire squealed delightedly and said, "Oh Phil, you shouldn't have! It's beautiful!" She took it from his hand and went through the motion of sniffing it. "It's lovely! Thank you!" She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, the human one, on the left side. She put the flower in the holder on the kit-unit table.

He couldn't suppress a smile and a sense of gratification. It felt good. It felt very good. Claire made him calmer. He didn't feel threatened at all, and he was able to trust his place. His mood shifted: he'd done a socially positive thing. He'd given his domestic partner a gift. He felt less depressed.

"Go sit down, you must be very tired." Claire fussed with the cooking machine. "How's Yuri G? Is he doing well?"

"He's, he's... well, he's Yuri G." He shrugged dismissively. "He's fine." He sat down at the tiny table and its two orthopedic stools. Claire brought over the steaming meal of veg-snack; it looked like weeds and he hated the very sight of it. He put the specialized chopsticks over his hand and ate anyway. Claire had gone to the trouble of making it, and he knew it was good for him. While he ate Claire touched the flower and smiled. He had to smile back; she was lovely. She made him feel good.

After dinner he was really tired and laid down in the roller bed; Claire came over and took his electronic shoes off, then took his belt and put the colored thermal wrap over his body. The design was scientifically created to calm his psyche. She sat down next to him and stroked his cheek with her fingers. She was warm to the touch and smelled wonderful. He felt very tired but content, as content as he could manage. She sat with him until he fell asleep.

He woke up with Claire next to him, under the thermal wrap. She was naked and warm. He moved a little and lifted an arm; she rolled over and rested in the hollow of his shoulder. He knew she didn't sleep, really; it was just programming. He didn't care.

After a while she lifted up and pressed her breasts on his chest. She looked into his eyes and smiled. He smiled back, and touched her body carefully, smoothly, caressing and fondling. Claire shivered. She raised up on her elbows and kissed him.

He kissed her back, and felt himself growing hard. That part of him wasn't fully real either. The War had taken much of his manhood, and even that most important signifier of male identity was now half-artificial. It was cybernetic, and attached to the relevant portions of his brain with micro circuitry. That was why Yuri G had made his little crack.

Phil K did have to smile wryly at the thought: he was forking an android with a cybernetic hard-on.

It did feel real, though. Completely real. Just like Claire felt completely real. Especially naked and in bed with him. He grasped her sides and positioned her on top of him, feeling her warm surface and her hot breath. He touched her breasts and she gasped, shivering. She kissed him again, and he put a hand on the back of her head and pressed her lips to his. He knew it was all just reaction, like acting in a play, a script, a computerized going-through-the-motions, but he knew just as much that he flatly did not care. At first he'd been conflicted, contemptuous of the idea, but now...

He reached a hand between them and felt her lower half, touching and rotating. She was completely anatomically correct. Claire whispered in his ear.

"Do that for a little while. Please?" She gasped hungrily.

He stroked her and she moaned loudly, trembling. He kept at it, and after a short bit was rewarded with a shuddering, jerking climax. Claire wrapped her arms around his neck and nibbled at his skin, whimpering and clutching at him.

"F-fu-" Claire bit her lip and looked at him with half-closed eyes. She moaned passionately and loudly. "Fu- ohh..."

He grasped her hips, got her up on her knees, and very carefully slipped inside her. She was wet and ready, and he groaned with pleasurable agony at the sensation.

Claire whimpered, "Oh, Phil..."

They began a steady rhythm, a rocking, that alternately pressed them together and sent Claire rearing on her knees, back arching. He cupped her breasts and flicked her nipples, reaching up from time to time to gently kiss her body, moving his hands on her buttocks and sides as they moved.

He had the sensation of ejaculating inside her, his brain creating the feeling of an exquisite explosion. He clutched Claire to him, feeling her lush dark hair, touching her back and pressing a palm on her body, kissing her skin.

Claire lifted up and slipped off him, then collapsed. He rolled sideways and hugged her close, pulling the thermal cover over them in a warm cocoon. He felt her warm breath against him, kissed her, and rested his head on the safety pillow. She smiled at him.

Claire moved her lips to his ear, and asked him a question, a question he wasn't ready for.

"Why does Yuri G call me your flashlight?"

He stiffened; then tried to relax. She had asked him the question as part of her programming, to test his ability to process his friendship with Yuri G; it was part of his therapy, to make him analyze himself, to examine what he said in social situations and why he'd said it. He knew that.

He knew, in his mind, that he couldn't offend her. She wasn't programmed for it. But he also knew he didn't want to hurt her feelings, even though he knew he couldn't. It wasn't fair, and the term was rude and insulting. Or maybe it wasn't. He held her, confused, trying to decide what to do, and then realized the very perfect thing to say, the best, and he couldn't believe he'd done it.

Phil K smiled and touched his forehead, the plastic cover that held his brain and all the related micro-wires and cybernetics, to Claire's. He smiled, kissed her lips again, and answered, honestly.

"...because you light my way in the dark."