The Heart Goes Last: Positron, Episode Four by Margaret Atwood

Author:Margaret Atwood [Atwood, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781614520818
Publisher: Byliner Inc.
Published: 2013-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

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Quality Control is where they put the assembled bodies through their paces before they attach the heads and activate the voices. It’s to test the mechanical and the digital, says Kevin, especially the writhing and the grinding and the smoothness of the pelvic action. The space is filled with the motion of thighs and abdomens, like some grotesque art installation; there’s a soft pulsing sound, and a smell of plastic.

“Waldo, you want a ride round the block on one of these?” says Derek. Stan reflects that, come right down to it, nothing turns him on less than the sight of a dozen headless, naked plastic bodies miming the act of copulation, however realistically. There’s something insect-like about it.

“I’ll take a rain check,” he says. They all laugh.

“Yeah, right, we didn’t want to, either,” says Tyler.

“They fix that smell later on,” says Gary. “They add pheromones, and then there’s a choice of vanilla, orange blossom, rose, ylang-ylang, chocolate pudding, or Old Spice.”

“I’d say you need the head, at the very minimum,” says Budge. “They meld the heads on after the bodies have checked out affirmative. It’s tricky, getting the heads on right, and all that fiddly stuff would be wasted if the body’s defective in the first place.” Stan looks down the line, to the far side of the room: it’s like an operating theater over there. Bright overhead lights, the grids of air purifiers … They’re even wearing full caps, and masks.

“You don’t want any hairs or dust getting into those heads,” says Derek. “It can screw up the reaction time.”

They proceed to Wardrobe and Accessories. Finally, Stan thinks, it’s getting more human. Racks of clothes stand ready—ordinary street clothing, business suits, leather outfits, feathers and sequins and gaudy costumes; also rolling shelves, with many different wigs. Movie sets must have looked like this, back in the days of Technicolor musicals.

“That’s the Marilyn section,” says Derek. “You can have five different hairstyles, and in the outfits you get a choice too, depending on what movie. That’s from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the pink dress; there’s the black suit from Niagara, the one she gets throttled in, and over there is the all-girl jazz-band one from Some Like It Hot …”

“Here are the Oprahs,” says Kevin. “And the Princess Dianas. Those are the Bill Clintons, and that’s the Elvis aisle. It’s mostly the white jumpsuit they go for, with the studs and spangles, but there’s other choices. The black with gold embroidery, that’s popular. Not with the old ladies, though; they want the white.”

“Where are these headed for?” says Stan. “Are they that into Oprah in Holland?”

“You name it, someone’s gonna be fetishistic about it,” says Derek.

“Our biggest customers are the casino operations,” says Gary. “The ones in Oklahoma, but they can be puritanical there. Even though these aren’t real women and so forth. Whereas Vegas, heck. The rust-bucket stuff never hit it.”

“Not in the upmarket areas, anyway,” says Budge. “Shedloads of foreign tourists, big spenders. Your Russians, your Indians, your Brazilians.

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