The next day Megan made up her mind, and finally took the initiative herself. Late in the afternoon, after her first half day of office work she walked to the Square bar hoping to find Michael and finally talk to him. The only person she could find there was Angela though. She was using the bar for self-study with a pile of old books, some even from before Nation-time.

‘Eliza said you’ve been seeing him regularly recently. Is he here today?’ she asked, and even without a name Angela knew who the male pronoun referred to.

‘Yes, I think he’s here, but he’s still mostly doing dish-washing in the kitchen. He says it’s because he’s unrated now but it looks like he’s just afraid to see people and refuses to come out. He was shy to me too, and he disappeared in the kitchen for most of the night last time I was here. I only saw him for half an hour, and then at the end of his shift.’

‘He’s hiding from you too?’

‘From everyone. Eliza was right that they’ve broken him in jail. He’s depressed half of the time and feels unworthy to be seen by any of us. You almost need to take him by the hand to get him out of his shell. Or distract him with a trip to see a Ghost Town leader.’ She chuckled. There were other things that Angela wasn’t able to talk about to Megan now, but that was probably enough, and Megan had her own issues with him too.

‘Do you think he doesn’t want to see me again? He still hasn’t even tried to contact me after he got out of that cell.’

Angela shrugged. ‘Don’t overthink it. He hasn’t contacted anyone by himself since the incident. Eliza has imposed herself on him every time they met, and I’ve been waiting at the bar for several days for him to come out the first time. If you want to see him you’ll have to hunt him down I’m afraid.’

‘But, wouldn’t that give a wrong signal? I don’t even know what our relationship is right now. I can’t be his Wife when he’s married to a robot. Everything is over. Do I still mean anything to him at all?’

Angela sipped from a cold Nation-coffee.

‘And that’s exactly what he’s thinking too. Before that whole police cell thing you both were acting like your friendship was more important than the whole Wife School fiancee thing and all, but now he’s confused about that too. You still shouldn’t doubt that he sees you as an important friend.’

‘So you don’t think he wants to go back to our engagement, impossible or not?’

‘He can’t, you said it yourself. He’s married to a robot. Romance is out of the picture.’

‘He’s a bit slow sometimes. I don’t want him to cling to a forced engagement that doesn’t exist anymore. He could do that, you know, once he’s loyal he’s extremely loyal. I don’t want that.’

‘So you’re not going to claim him if someone else falls in love with him? As long as you’re going to be friends like you were?’

Megan frowned. ‘Him? In love? He can do whatever he wants, but he should not forget that he promised that we’d be friends. And I’m not letting him weasel out of that because of his stupid complexes and depression. We’ve all lost more than we can live without.’

‘Oh, he’ll be back. He just needs time. And he’s still too attached to you to start something with another girl, believe me.’ Angela said, hoping that she wouldn’t have to explain that. ‘And if you say you don’t want him romantically anymore, you’ll probably need to close that chapter off personally. Or he’ll remain confused and faithful to a ghost of a forced engagement.’

Megan looked up. ‘Where did you get so much relationship wisdom lately, Angela?’

‘Oh, I’ve talked to him and I’ve been reading some of Eliza’s books? I don’t know.’

She sighed. She wasn’t sure at all of anything, and she was afraid of her own feelings and instincts after what had happened two nights ago.

‘Come, we’ll wait together for him, if they didn’t change his hours his shift is over for today in half an hour. Let’s ask Tom for more coffee.’

Angela waved at Tom, who’d just arrived from the kitchen.

*

At the same moment in an Alphaville villa in another part of Seventh City Maria ordered Rita the maidbot to clean the kitchen, and felt like something had shot right through her heart. Looking at the robot she suddenly felt very old and very lonely and useless. She used to pride herself on not using any robot for help in the household, but after Michael’s disappearance all of her work had felt rote, and she wasn’t able anymore to put her heart in it. What good did it do to do anything if it was taken for granted but never appreciated by her husband, who didn’t even look at anything and would only notice what he didn’t like. There was no reason then to not let a robot do it indeed.

But working less gave her more time to think about her loneliness. Why always those distances? She felt completely alone now. Even her housewife friends didn’t seem to understand her sorrows, and her husband felt further away than ever. Whenever he talked to her, she just zoned out lately. It was as if her brain didn’t want to deal with him anymore, so she just obeyed on automatic pilot and kept her distance whenever needed. Luckily David didn’t even pretend anymore to be interested in sex all the time, as men had been brainwashed to do for unclear reasons, so he hardly made any contact at all anymore. He didn’t care at all whether she met his other wifely needs in the house by doing them by herself or commanding robots to do them, as long as the house was tidy and there was food and stuff like that he didn’t even say a word to her anymore, but the second something wasn’t right he might yell at her. Plus she still had to look good enough for a trophy wife, evidently. His mood hadn’t improved after Michael’s disappearance either, and he’d even thrown tantrums for very stupid things lately. And then they said women were too emotional and men were the rational ones… To be honest, the distance with David was the one she minded least. The less she saw of him the better.

But there were so many distances in this Nation, too much of them to be livable. It was only now that she realised how Michael had tried to overcome them, but she hadn’t seen it for what it was. She hadn’t appreciated it at all. And now he was gone, probably forever. She hadn’t dared to talk to him when he’d come to take his stuff. Oh, Michael, her son… He surely would resent her now, rightfully even. She wasn’t worth being called a mother at all. Suddenly she remembered a discussion that Michael had had with his father, about visiting Anne in Wife School. She had never dared to propose such a thing herself, and David had hated the idea, but her son, who was after all a man too, would have done it. But alas, before anyone could have visited he had been deleted, and disappeared from their life as if he’d never existed. No-one really knew what had happened with him it seemed but it was whispered that he’d gone feral, and had joined the outlaws. Terrible pictures had formed in her mind when she’d first heard that, half-human yahoos strolling through the wilderness with clubs, fighting with each other and with all kinds of animals. And then at night her old nightmare of Michael being shot by Sam came back regularly.

She pushed the pictures away, and focused on the memory of what he’d said about Anne. His idea hadn’t been bad, had it? The biggest thing that had kept her from contacting her daughter now was her shame, but wasn’t it time to get over that too? They weren’t getting any younger, and it was clear that every moment things could happen that made the situation worse. Sure there were two more years before there was a chance that she’d be chosen as a fiancée, and end up even further out of reach, but for now she could technically visit her. No-one could stop her, especially as an Alpha-wife. She just had to fill in the right papers and show up. It shouldn’t be so hard.

She looked around, and saw how the maidbot did her job better that she could ever have done, and made her resolution: tomorrow she’d call John Manfred’s Wife School, and ask what the exact procedure was to arrange a visit. It was time to be a mother again to what was left of her children. It was not like Sam was ever even going to treat her as a person again, but her daughter was still there, somewhere, and as a Wife School student Anne would certainly like a family visit. They were so rare…

*

At the same moment Shirley fell on her bed in a dorm on the E-floor of Seventh City Wife Factory. After her first meet-up with her new fiancée in the visitation room she was beyond crying now. As much as she had appreciated how she had been on the same side of the glass as Eliza the last time she had been in that room, she had been relieved now that she had been on the other side of it, away from him. With every thing he’s said and done the Dave dude had turned out even worse than she had imagined to be possible. He hadn’t used the infamous list of questions at all, but his first remark had been that it was a pity that she wasn’t wearing the bikini from the ceremony. After that it had only become worse. How had she ever been able to believe that a man should be respected no matter what? She cursed herself for every time she’d been saying things like that to her friends.

The worst point of the meet-up was when he’d made an incoherent rant about what he wanted from her, which was mainly about sex and household chores, and about how happy he was that he still had been able to find such a quality wife like her with his low ranking. Whatever she had tried to say had been ignored, and she was sure that he hadn’t even noticed how uncomfortable she had been all the time. It had been one long and terrifying monologue about their future together, which would certainly be hell on Earth for her. Only the idea of him being electrocuted by a wife-o-matic 2.1 at every inappropriate remark or gaze had kept her from breaking down, but that was just a silly fantasy.

The ironic thing was also that she had finally received a letter from Robert yesterday. She, Shirley, had received a letter from a boy, a friendly boy. A normal letter, completely innocent, a Pen Pal letter from a shy boy who just wanted to do written small talk to get to know each other better. But it was much too late now to develop any normal friendship with a boy now, wasn’t it? The trajectory of writing through the pen pal project until you knew each other well enough, and then acting all innocent if your pen pal chose you at the ceremony of partner choice was out of the question for her now. It would probably save other girls from bad marriages in the future, like her friend Iris, but her story would be different, and needed drastic solutions before it turned into utter hell. Unlike a wife-o-matic robot she was a person with feelings who could feel pain, and pain is what he’d give her in so many ways, even though he didn’t seem to have the capacities to understand the problem even.

Girls had to learn so much about how boys worked, but boys were just kept clueless about how girls worked. Even Michael had said such a thing, that they had just said that he’d get a Wife and like it and kept it at that, while they were studying men and how to please them for endless courses.

Ironically Michael, and his Wifebot would be her way out now, even if she still didn’t really know what Eliza was planning to do with her after the weird escape plan. A Wife School runaway couldn’t just live in a woman house or any state apartment at all. But Eliza had hinted at the Ghost Town, and if that was the case, boys were completely out of the question anyway for her from then on. Maybe not for pen pal conversations, but still for meeting them if she’d live in a closed all-female community. Plus she’d be unmarriable anyway, running away from Wife School meant giving up your identity and official existence. Not that she ever wanted to marry anyone ever anymore. It was clear that even Miss Hunter herself wasn’t really happy in her marriage, and she was the one giving the please-your-husband classes. She might boast about it, but she talked as if she was not much more than a slave who was proud of her own slavery, and who idolised the man who abused her. Eliza had said they used to call such a thing Stockholm syndrome in the old days, like falling in love with your kidnapper, but even with all the empty words she couldn’t believe Miss Hunter had ever been in love with him. She had just done her duty, and accepted everything that came her way, and now she was teaching a new generation of young women to do the same.

Well, she wouldn’t be fooled again by her words, but that meant that she also needed a small miracle now to escape being used by the Dave as his personal sex doll on their next date within a few weeks. He had been clear that his intentions weren’t a stroll in the park to have philosophical discussions with the chaperone, no, this guy wanted to “try” her as soon as possible. Unconsciously her hand went to her shoulder, where her ancom-chip made sure that whatever happened she certainly would never get pregnant from it, but she had made the resolution that no such thing would ever happen. No matter if she would become a non-Wife, lose her name, and had to only see women for the rest of her life. It wouldn’t happen, Dave could go to hell, but wouldn’t take her there too. She was her own person, even without a personal Free Person-badge.

She had to send the next letter to Eliza as soon as possible. And it was a pity but she wasn’t able to send Robert a Pen Pal response now. It just didn’t feel right.

*

Michael looked at the dishes and cursed them. On the one hand he hated them and he wished he’d never have to touch dishwater again and do a job that his robowife could do better, on the other hand this was still better than seeing people for him now. Whatever Angela’s intentions had been, he felt even more guilty towards Megan than ever. He knew it wasn’t rational, but right now he didn’t want to see anyone, not even Angela, or Eliza, or even Tom. The recent visit of Robert had also triggered him afterwards. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see him, or Rafael or maybe William back, but to see someone from the male world that had spit him out so blatantly had been harder than he had anticipated in retrospect.

And then there had been Lady Martha. She’d been civil, and was clearly interested in him. She had treated him with respect, and praised him for all his supposed accomplishments that he now felt completely detached from. It felt as if everything had been completely wrong, and everything was mistaken about him. Sure, he was mostly harmless, but he wasn’t worth all the praises she’d given him, and he could never be the revolutionary leader that the people saw in him.

The negative spiral of his thoughts and feelings went deeper and deeper while he kept on working, until someone suddenly tapped him on his shoulder. When he looked he saw Bert. ‘Hey, dude, your shift ended ten minutes ago already, and I wouldn’t let the girls wait much longer if I were you.’