Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Two days later, the fly met its end in the Benning household.
Ty batted it away as Helia had when it buzzed in his face while he was shaving. When it lingered, he waited until it landed on the bathroom mirror. Between the mirror and his palm, he squished it.
"Killed your bug!" Ty yelled for Damon's benefit.
"Huh?" Jennifer inquired from the kitchen.
"Talkin' to Damon, sweetie."
"What do you want?" Damon called back.
Ty rinsed the bug guts off his hand. "Killed your fly!"
He heard rummaging and footsteps. Damon left his cave after a long hiatus. His face was scruffy with a week's worth of beard growth, and he sported the same crinkled Ramone's t-shirt he had for days.
"What'd you say?"
Ty was mockingly stern. "Had to get you into the bathroom somehow, didn't I? When's the last time you showered?"
"Oh, ha-ha."
"It's no laughing matter when you smell as bad as you do."
Damon walked off with slumped shoulders. "Go fuck yourself."
"Don't have to. I've got a wife, nerd!" Ty called after him.
"I heard that, you pig!" Jennifer chimed in.
"Piggies!" Helia contributed.
Ty smiled and finished shaving. On his way to the kitchen, he passed his brother's room. The door was open, revealing a grungy Damon clacking away at the computer. Perched on the top shelf of his desk rested the glass case from a few nights before. Yet, it wasn't empty. The fly Ty assumed he had murdered buzzed around inside.
"One of those things got loose, ya know," he said.
Damon cross-checked written notes against code he input on the computer screen. "One of what things?"
With his left hand, Ty picked up the small case, using his right hand to tap the surface. "One of your bugs got loose."
Damon shook his head and continued typing. "Bug's in your hand. You're not making any sense."
Except things started making sense for Ty. The bug he had squished had to have come from outside, because there was no other logical explanation for its existence. He told Damon as much. Damon reluctantly agreed, but the rush of awareness in his eyes said the opposite. He rose from his chair to put on a fresh t-shirt, sharing his theory.
"I don't think the second fly came from outside."
Cynicism wrought Ty's face. "Nothing printed that night. We would've seen it."
"Or would we?" Damon moved back to the computer.
He lifted one arm to sniff and check the damage. Smelling like raw garbage didn't seem to offend him, and he shrugged it off.
Ty grimaced. "You're disgusting."
"Geniuses don't have time to bathe."
"Don't make excuses for lazy."
Behind him, Helia tugged at his shirt. "Up, peaze."
Ty ruffled his hand through her dark curls. "Come up here with Dad." He scopped her into his arms.
Helia scrutinized Damon from the security of her father's arms. "Demon," she said.
"It's 'Damon', with an 'a'," he corrected her.
"Demon," Helia repeated.
Ty smirked. "I'd say she's found your true name."
"More like Dr. Frankenstein."
To demonstrate, Damon pressed the enter key, enacting the latest updates. The printer lit up and began constructing a composite. Lasers moved back and forth on the metal plate, stacking matter on top of matter, culminating into the final product.
A fly.
No movement. He was sure Damon had printed out a plastic toy, but then its wings fluttered.
Bzzzz.
The fly flew off the plate, zooming around the bedroom.
"Bug!" Helia screamed.
Damon screamed too. He let loose hoots of joy, with Helia joining in the party. She bounced in Ty's arms.
Ty was the only person not celebrating. Inside, his logical side acknowledged the amazing event. Another baser side of him stared at his daughter. She was a creation too, and he imagined her on the plate, first nothing there and then a crying child. Suddenly, the fly landed on his arm, and just as suddenly, he smashed it.
All the cheering stopped. Helia lifted his hands, and when she saw the dead fly, she whined.
"Daddy, no bug."
Across the room, Damon looked on in shock.
"Why the hell did you do that?" His young voice cracked on "hell".
Ty wiped the dead fly off onto the wall. "You can just print out another one, right?"
Damon said nothing. He shook his head and picked up his journal. He kept a science journal, but from the furious scratch of the pen, Ty thought what he was writing must have been unflattering.
"What's all the noise?" Jennifer asked in Ty's ear.
In answer, he deposited a sniffling Helia into her arms. "I'll be late for work."
~*~
A/N: Dedicated to one of my coolest Wattpad friends, JesseSprague
Make sure and read the latest in her sci-fi series, Spider's Gamble (book 3). She melds too many awesome elements to name them all, but for fans of space operas mixed with horror, her novel is a must.
