LITRO

"No, Litro. An-droid. An-droi-duh."

"Drua!" spouted little Litro as he pointed at the android his father helped design. "Drua!"

Ultimately, his parents conceded and they adopted "drua" when speaking with him. And they introduced it to their coworkers at Troan Android Manufacturing where they worked as design engineers. Before long, "drua" spread though out the company.

When Litro grew older and "drua" was quickly supplanting "android" culture-wide in everyday speech, he told his friends that he was the first to use the word "drua". They scoffed. So Litro quit telling the story. Even growing skeptical of it. Eventually, it slipped from his retrievable memory.

While in his early thirties, Litro spoke at a political rally championing the benefits of druas in the labor force. At the point in his speech when he was speculating on the the "free lunch" epoch when druas would do all the work, a man and a woman in the audience stood with pistols and started shooting. But not before Litro's bodyguards sprang into action.

These new warrior druas from his brother's factories detected and indentified the danger split seconds before the shooting began. Coordinating their actions at radio frequencies, one dru-guard bodily intercepted an accurate shot from the man while another drua knocked Litro down and the two other dru-guards leaped over audience members, absorbing bullets before closing in and killing one and incapacitating the other.

The next day, Litro received a concerned call from Choi, a young lady and Boyanskian that he met about a year earlier.

As they spoke, Litro pictured the tiny young woman with her black hair pulled tight around her head. She had an intense voice and an incisive mind and he had admired her contribution to the discussion that introduced him to the Boyanski Perspective.

Litro told her, "I’m a Boyanskian now thanks primarily to you. Do you remember your statement – the one you made at Madelaine’s house?"

"I think I do."

"Now I have the opt to thank you."

"You’re welcome. I think."

"It’s something I need to thank you for. Can we meet somewhere to talk?"

That began a series of stimulating encounters over a four-week period. With each one, Litro’s assessment of Choi’s appeal improved. Eventually, Litro invited her to his opulent house hidden among the trees on his spacious plot of land in the middle of the city.

After a quick tour, he lead the wide-eyed Choi down a low-ceilinged hallway into a kitchen with a capacious robo-chef in the center and a small dining table and two dru-guards at the periphery.

"Where are the beautiful, naked women?" Choi asked as she sat down at the counter bordering the robo-chef.

Litro walked behind the counter and washed his hands. "Oh, I have one over once in a while, just for chuckles. But they're usually yawners. All seduction, just for a wedding contract."

"Are you trying to say that beautiful woman are shallow?" she asked teasingly.

"Only the ones that I meet."

"So, I’m a change of pace."

"A change for the much better." He turned to the robo-chef monitor and began selecting recipes.

"You didn't like me at first. I know. I’m just a plain girl-lawyer. One of the Boyanskian characters at Madelaine’s house that day. So. How’d you happen to meet Madelaine?"

"Thru Father Tomei."

"Oh, that dude. You bate him a lot, don’t you? Realism versus religion?"

"We’re good friends, actually. He’s grounded and honest." Litro poured some vino for Choi. "He even admits that religiosity is waning. In fact, it was when he said that the Boyanskians would outnumber the religious that I said, ‘What’s that?’"

"So that's when he introduced you to Madelaine, huh? And she got that group of us together to talk to you that day."

"It was very enlightening."

"I didn’t think you were convinced when you left."

"I wasn’t. Billions of years of survival instinct. That’s hard to overcome." Litro fed flour and eggs still in their shells to robo-chef. "But I kept hearing your voice saying – what was it – that you don’t have to be a pawn in Nature’s game of evolution. You have free will."

Choi was about to take a sip of vino but quickly lowered her glass. "Yes! Number 3 on my list of Life Slogans! Rather than being a pawn of Nature and having a child that will experience both the joy and the hardships of life, I choose instead to have a null child who will not miss the joy and will be spared the hardships."

Litro nodded. "That's it. In the end, you won the case, counselor."

"And this is my payment."

Somehow Litro knew at that moment that she would be receptive. He bent torward to her beaming upturned face and softly kissed her lips. She moulded her lips to his. The intensity of the warm sensation that flooded thru him surprised him.

"We’re being eyed," Choi said.

"The dru-guards? Don’t worry. They don’t scandalize easily." Litro deposited a small loaf of ground beef in robo-chef.

"These are from your brother’s factory, aren’t they?"

"Ya."

"Your whole family started in drua manufacturing, didn’t they?"

"My parents were engineers both. Da helped design the brains. Ma helped design the flesh. They met when the teams got together to work on the interfaces."

"What did you do?"

"Energy sources. And my bro worked on the fiber compounds that make up their skeletons. See? We are a rounded drua knowbase." He added whole vegetables into another opening of robo-chef, disposing and replacing those which the device ejected because they failed the taste test.

"And you started your own businesses. Your parents producing infant druas. Your bro, warrior druas."

"Don't you think drua infants would majorly substitute for Boyanskians who feel the need for children without actually having one?"

"I know of some Boyanskians who plan to adopt one. Still, pets are very useful, too."

"Cheaper, too."

Choi contemplatively pressed her finger on the countertop before saying, "Tideman says – you remember Tideman from Madelaine’s meeting?"

"The creepy dude with the dark circles under his eyes?" Litro placed a plate in a hollow in Robo-chef.

"That’s him. He's turned sidewalk evangelist now. Preaching the Boyanski Perspective and insulting anyone with children who walk by. Anyway, Tideman says that druas are the worst thing to happen to humanhood since – well, since droughts or – or locusts! They'll take away all our jobs. Humans will starve."

"Aw, that’s been the complaint since the first time-saving invention." The plate emerged from robo-chef with pasta and meat sauce and salad neatly arranged. "Historically what has happened is the displaced workforce shifts to new areas. In this case, to the drua manufacturing industry."

"But not without a shock."

"Just one of many shocks we experience in our lifetimes." Litro placed a second plate in the hollow. "Loss of loved ones. Loss of youth. Loss of a job. Humans have met these hurdles for as long as they've been human. Those are the things I was going to mention in my speech when those people tried to hole me. I’d wish they’d listened first."

"I suppose they’d heard it all before," Choi said, shrugging.

"What an way to deal with someone who has a different opinion." A second epicurean platefull emerged.

"If they felt the dude were politically powerful, they might have felt it necessary."

"You’re scaring me, counselor."

"I’m sorry." She chuckled softly. "I’m just a shy used to playing devil’s advocate.

Litro held up his finger to indicate a pause. "Drua Eight, set the table."

Choi waited a moment. "People do wonder how good a drua workforce will be for humanity."

"Me too. But, have you ever wondered about the effect Boyanskian principles will have on humanity?"

Choi grinned. "Overpopulation won’t be a problem."

A drua walked in with candles and a bottle of wine, which he placed on the dining table.

Choi looked surprised and delighted. "Candles? I warrant candles?"

The drua then set the table with utensils, glasses, napkins, condiments and sauces from the nearby shelves. Then he stood nearby at attention.

"Take a seat." Litro personally placed the plates on the table.

Afterwards, drinks in hand, they strolled thru the hallway behind a drua to the sunken living room. Choi sat in a couch opposite the roaring fire. Litro snuggled close to her as if they had been intimate for years. Choi rested her head on his shoulder. Litro’s lips and tongue played along her neck and earlobe.

"This is very relaxing," Choi said.

"This?" Litro said as his lips continued along the side of her face until his lips arrived at hers.

"No," she said between kisses. "That isn’t. But that’s alright."

He took his time. He lingered over kisses. He stroked her lightly.

He was breathing heavily when Choi stopped and said, "I can’t. Not with them…."

Two dru-guards stood motionless at the edges of the room, staring around in their unblinking fashion.

Litro motioned with his head for Choi to follow him. He led her up a ramp and to his bedroom. The two druas followed them.

As he closed the door on them, he said, "Druas, stay unless called."

They spent the night in the large, soft bed. Unattended.

The next morning, he embraced her at the front door, told her he loved her, and reluctantly let her go about her daily business.

That evening, Choi returned and, with eager eyes, grabbed Litro’s hand and dragged him to the bedroom. With the door closed and the dru-guards once again standing outside, she revealed that all it took for her to become totally nude was the removal of her coat and her shift. She reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a long and narrow gift-wrapped package. She stood there, naked, holding the gift in front of her, saying, "I’ve got a present for you."

Enthralled, Litro walked towards her. As he neared, she said in a hushed voice, "Close your eyes."

He closed his eyes. She popped open one end of the package and expertly drew out a knife and sliced the side of Litro’s neck then immediately plunged the knife beneath his sternum. As blood splurted out, she screamed something that he was too stunned to comprehend.

Litro staggered to the door uttering a croaking cry. He was knocked down by the dru-guards breaking into the room. They had heard Choi’s scream of "No more drua scabs!" and Litro’s cry.

They saw Litro writhing on the floor in pooling blood and the naked Choi splattered with blood, with the knife held in both her hands, the blade aimed at her heart.

One dru-guard knelt down over Litro. The other started towards Choi an instant before she spoke.

"Help me. I killed him. You may kill me."

The dru-guard recognized her facial expression as one of agony and the posture with the knife as one disposed to suicide. Because this assassination occurred outside the sensory horizon of everyone, the situation’s principles commanded him to subdue the likely assailant for human interrogation and trial.

The dru-guard’s right fist flashed out at Choi’s chin while his left hand extracted the knife from her hands. Choi crumpled to the ground unconscious.

The drua kneeling by Litro had already summoned an ambulance. He began applying emergency aid under the remote guidance of a doctor.

Litro lay unaware of the dru-guard aiding him. Of the girl lying nearby. He knew he was dying but he couldn’t remember how or why. He heard other voices. The voices of his parents. And the word "drua". For the first time, as an adult, he analyzed the story his parents told him about how he coined the term, and he came to the conclusion that it was plausible. After all, he trusted his parent’s integrity. Then he wondered if that linguistic invention was going to be his primary legacy. These thoughts streamed instantly thru his mind. And they played over and over in his mind until his brain died.

Copyright 2003, 2008 by John A. Eyon