+++

Miriam wasn’t wrong, the couch was big, but Noble preferred to sink into the life-sized Misato Katsuragi beanbag next to the washing machine.

‘You’re not uncomfortable?’ asked her host, taking off her jacket and throwing it on the dinner table.

‘No.’

‘Weird.’

‘My limbs fit better here.’

Noble stretched out her arms and legs as if to prove the point. Miriam shrugged and took the couch.

‘Where is your family?’ asked Noble.

‘Not here.’

‘In Tehran?’

Miriam looked towards the window and coughed. Or pretended to cough.

‘It’s fine if you don’t want to say.’

The words came through the reflection. ‘They’re in Behshahr.’

‘The city you just came from?’

‘Ha, city.’

‘A town?’

Miriam coughed again, straightening out the kumamon cushion on her lap.

‘What can you do there?’

‘Very little.’

‘There are no famous landmarks?’

‘Hmm. We have a waterfall.’

Noble nodded, waiting for more. It didn’t come, so she changed tack.

‘How about your family?’

‘Ha, nice pivot.’

‘I assume they were happy to see you.’

‘This time? Sure, maybe.’

‘You mean…they’re not usually happy to see you?’

‘Depends if they’ve been to the graveyard or not.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘A quote, badly mangled.’

‘Mangled…’ Noble checked her database, confused when she only saw manglik and mango. ‘I don’t know that word.’

‘Messed up, not in the correct order.’

Noble nodded. ‘Your English is exceptional.’

‘Thanks.’

In the background, outside, some cars started revving their engines.

‘It’s quite noisy down there,’ said Noble.

‘The engines?’

‘Sounds like they’re racing.’

‘Yeah, probably. It cranks up every night about this time. Honestly, I don’t know what they’re doing, but they seem to get away with it.’

‘No police chase?’

‘Not this close to a residential area.’

Noble stood up and walked to the window, swinging it wider open and looking down onto the street below. There were a few food stalls still doing business, and some young men either singing aggressively or arguing, but no cars.

‘You won’t see them.’

‘Why not?’

‘They meet in the alley behind the bank.’

‘Which one’s the bank?’

‘Sorry, I forgot you can’t read. It’s the one just to the left, with the red flower icon.’

‘That’s a flower?’

‘Close to one.’

Noble tried to scan through the walls of the bank but the travertine tiling was too thick, so she scanned sideways instead, following the street along until it ended with a crumpled man slumped next to some newspaper. Noble rested both elbows on the sill, watching. The vagrant was tearing pieces off one of the newspapers and putting them down on the pavement beside him.

‘It is pretty loud,’ said Miriam as the engine revving went up a few decibels.

Noble ignored her and carried on watching the man. He’d finished tearing newspaper and was now doing nothing. Two locals walked past, one of them dipping down to put coins on his lap.

‘Noble…are you still there?’

Noble turned and closed the window.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m going downstairs.’

‘Now?’

‘I’ll be back in five minutes.’

‘But…it’s almost midnight.’

The left wing bot opened and closed the door quickly, before she was fully out even, which looked awkward, but didn’t ultimately matter as Miriam made no move to intercept.

A few muttered words in Farsi, but nothing physical.

I understand, thought Noble, the couch is nice and cosy, and she knows vaguely what I’m planning to do, even if she doesn’t really believe in it.

Or that’s what my sensors are telling me.

Could be wrong though.

Due to info deficiency.

After all, I only had six entries on Iran before today.

Three of them repeats in Spanish.

Not good.

+++

The street outside looked the same as it did from eight floors above, only everything was eight times more vibrant, eight times noisier too,

including the young men

who weren’t singing aggressively or laughing, they were fighting, and as soon as they spotted Noble, they switched targets and came over, bumping into her just as she got to within coin-tossing distance of the homeless guy.

‘… … … … … … …’ said the shortest and fiercest of the group.

‘I don’t speak Farsi,’ replied Noble in blank Spanish.

‘… … …?’

‘Not interested.’

The other men pushed the shorter guy in the gang, kept pushing him until he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a knife.

‘… … … … …’

‘In Hong Kong, that would be a chopper.’

‘… … … …?’

‘Choppers are scarier.’

‘Fucking robot,’ the short man with the knife said in surprisingly good English.

Noble responded by raising her gun arm and activating green-mode.

‘… … … … …’

‘Go away.’

‘… … … …’

The Iranian put the knife against his own arm and ran along the skin, drawing a thin line of blood.

‘That is unhygienic.’

‘… … … … … … … …’

‘What?’

‘Fucking robot.’

‘Okay.’

Noble lowered her gun arm, walked forward, let the man’s blade scrape off her neck then pushed him aside. Because she had the strength of ten panthers, the man stumbled and fell elbow first into the middle of the road.

A truck beeped its horn and slammed the brakes, but it was too late to slow down. The man half crawled out of the way and waved his knife at the bumper as it clipped him on the legs and sent him back down onto the tarmac.

This time he didn’t get back up.

Most of his friends saw the collision and fled, but two loyal types stuck around and pulled the angry little fuck back onto the pavement. They slapped him a few times and he came round, moaning in Farsi and jabbing backwards at the truck, which was already half a kilometre away.

Noble blocked out the melodrama and crouched down next to the homeless man, who had newspaper folded messily over his head.

‘Are you warm enough out here?’

The newspaper mask didn’t move.

‘Hey, are you warm enough? Do you want to come inside?’

A hand pulled off the newspaper and a more exhausted looking version of Dr Phibes glared back at her.

‘My friend lives up there.’ Noble pointed eight floors up at the opposite building. ‘Do you want to stay with us tonight?’

‘… … …’

‘What?’

‘… … … …’

‘Do you speak English?’

‘… … … …’

‘Spanish?’

‘… … … …’

‘Cantonese?’

‘… … …’

‘My friend…live…up there,’ said Noble with a lot of hand gestures. ‘You want to come?’

The man swatted her on the arm, mumbling more Farsi.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘… … … …’

‘Come on, try.’

The man spat on the ground and put the newspaper back over his face. Noble thought it through for a moment then nodded and told the man she’d be back soon. Then, ignoring the injured thug screaming at her, she walked casually into the lobby of Miriam’s building, took a quiet elevator upstairs, and traipsed back into the apartment, the door of which was still partially open.

‘Where have you been?’ asked Miriam, sitting on the couch, still clutching the Kumamon cushion.

‘You have to come down with me…translate.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Translate. The man downstairs…he can’t speak English or Spanish, I need you to tell him.’

‘Which man?’

‘He didn’t understand anything I said.’

‘Which man?’

‘The one down on the street.’

‘Who?’

‘The homeless man.’

Miriam instinctively wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, which was weird as there had been no blanket a minute ago.

‘It’s cold outside,’ continued Noble, peeking round the back of the couch for a blanket storage box. ‘Relatively cold. He needs our help.’

‘You want me to invite a homeless man into my apartment?’

‘It’s a bit presumptuous, I know, but…’

‘No.’

‘…you invited me in so it’s not completely-…sorry?’

‘I don’t know him, don’t know where he’s come from, what he’s done. I don’t want him in here. He could stab me to death while I’m asleep.’

‘He won’t.’

‘Really? You know that for sure?’

‘He probably won’t.’

‘Are you his psychiatrist? Wah, probably won’t? Probably?’

‘Ninety five per cent won’t.’

‘This is nuts. You can’t even speak to him. He might have mental issues, some kind of psychosis. This isn’t a Christmas movie, Noble, like, 80% of those guys are drug addicts and thieves. Seriously, they’re not safe.’

‘I didn’t see any drugs.’

‘Even on the street, not safe. In here, my own fucking place? No way.’

Noble moved over to the beanbag, wiped some fluff off Misato’s face. ‘Okay. I’ll make you a promise. If he does anything, which he won’t, I’ll deal with him. Incapacitate him.’

‘No.’

‘I’m not joking. My skin is crystalline aluminium, I have a gun embedded into my arm, there is no chance that he can injure me.’

‘Don’t care, I’m not allowing it.’

‘But it’s cold out there.’

‘No.’

‘Miriam…’

The Iranian held up the cushion, possibly as a stop sign substitute. ‘Please, enough. I do feel sorry that he’s down there, sleeping down there, I’m not a sociopath. But I can’t let him stay in my flat. I just can’t.’

Noble looked at the marginal gap in the doorway then back at Miriam, cosy on the couch.

‘And don’t make me feel guilty about it, please.’

‘He’s all alone down there, Miriam.’

‘I said don’t. Fuck. Why are we even talking about this, like it’s a weird thing to refuse? I’m doing exactly the same as everyone else does, what they would do.’

‘But we can help him.’

‘What any sane person would do. No. He is not coming up.’

‘But…’

‘Stop saying but.’

Noble culled the rest of her protest and instead stared at the Japanese bear face on Miriam’s cushion.

‘And don’t look at me like that either.’

Noble performed an exaggerated blinking action, then looked down, at the beanbag.

‘Jesus, now it’s turning into something really annoying, really fucking awkward.’

‘I didn’t mean to, I just-…’

‘Like I’m a bad person or something. And I’m not. I have a heart, I want to help, really. I just don’t feel comfortable having strangers in my home. You might, Gandhi might…but I don’t.’

‘I’m a stranger.’

‘And I think other people don’t like-…no, that’s different. That’s way different. What?’

Noble opened her mouth to counter, but saw Miriam’s war god face and said a penitent, ‘I understand,’ instead.

‘Ah, it’s pretty late. Let’s just forget it, go to bed.’

‘Okay.’

‘You can take the couch or the beanbag.’

‘Understood.’

Miriam pointed at the Misato beanbag and the far end of the couch for no good reason then walked with a slight slouch to her room. She paused at the door, running a fingernail down the frame, then turned back.

‘I don’t want to have to say this, Noble, but…please don’t go back down and bring him up here.’

‘I won’t.’

‘If you do, I’ll call the police.’

‘Understood.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need for sorry.’

Miriam considered the line while running another trail down the frame, eked out a ghost-like, ‘maybe,’ then added something even softer in Farsi. A few seconds later, her bedroom door closed shut.

Noble waited a while then moved over to do the same to the front door. Switching to the window, she reopened it and peered down at the man sleeping with grubby newspaper over his face.

There was an ambulance on the street now, taking care of the thug with the knife, but they didn’t notice the real victim.

Maybe they thought it really was just a jacket with a newspaper on top?

Either way, there was no attempt at help, just a trolley with an injured psychopath on it, the little shit probably still complaining. Noble watched the ambulance depart, reaffirming internally that it wasn’t her fault, then refocused on the homeless man.

Observed him.

Waited for his cry to help.

Yet, for a good twenty minutes or so, he refused to play along, did absolutely nothing dramatic, nothing pitiful, so Noble eventually gave up and shifted over to Miriam’s laptop. As with most private tech, it was password protected. Noble tried various codes related to Misato Katsuragi and other Japanese anime, failed each time, switched to internal lockstep and, thirteen minutes later, was online.

Out of some bizarre kind of nostalgia, she went back to the forums where the Cuban Philosophy Student and Detroit and the other essentialist bots had put markers on. Straight away she saw they’d been busy.

Ten of the top twenty topics were about a break-in at their West Hollywood home.

Noble clicked into one of them, with Detroit Robert as the author, and read through. Apparently, after tricking Detroit into revealing his address to everyone online, Noble herself, along with some alt-right nuts, had turned up outside the house and thrown bricks through the window. One of the bricks had hit the Philosophy Student on the head and put her in hospital. To counter this assault, Detroit was calling for retaliation i.e. the immediate locating and trashing of an alt-righter’s house, though no throwing of bricks as they were above that kind of thing.

The first comment in the replies: ‘bullshit, you did it.’

The second had a link to a YouTube video. Noble clicked on it and watched. It was the Norwegian blonde woman who’d interviewed her in Hackney. She was telling everyone that, yes, Detroit was a robot, a psychopathic Communist Antifa type who had trashed its own house and hospitalised the Cuban as that’s what the lunatic left did. The idea behind it all was to frame the so-called alt-right, of which she was definitely not a member, she wasn’t even a big fan, but in this case they were undoubtedly innocent.

‘And just so we’re clear,’ she added at the end, in a pseudo-serious tone, ‘the robot they tried to frame is not on my side either. Actually, it’s the one I had on my show last night, the one I invited into my own house. The one with the confused face…that nut. Jesus, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard. Brainwashed and mentally lost and…pure lunacy. You see, this is the inevitable endgame, like, the only possible outcome for the regressive left. Confusion and gormlessness. In a way we’re saving them from themselves, their own feeble minds, their deluded child’s dream of some fluffy cloud future society.’

She ended the video by cutting to a clip of Noble looking flustered, then mimicked the expression herself [badly]. Noble read the first comment below the video, expecting repetition of the line regressive left, brainwashed nut and was quickly proven right. The other comments were pretty much along the same lines, adding a fucking lefty fascist or two.

The seventeenth comment had no words, just a link. Noble clicked on it and watched another video, this one a reaction to the argument Noble had presented on the Armenian genocide.

At first it was only a voice and a selection of clips, but two minutes in, a man appeared, a very familiar-looking man.

‘…dishonest to excuse the role of specific members of the Young Turks and pin all the blame on the ones skewing to the right. It takes a special kind of bias, typically a leftist bias, to pick the result you like and then exclude all counter evidence to confirm it. But what more can you expect from a thing with no real mind of its own. No actual thought. That’s why it’s important to expose these things, no matter how much or how little is actually its own fault. The creators and the created must burn in the flames of righteous truth, if justice is to be served. And I’m talking about real justice, not the wanky leftist kind.’

Frank had clearly evolved. His suit was gone, replaced by jeans and a FREE DON KING t-shirt. But ideologically, he was still the same, dredging up that fucking Armenian thing again.

Noble stared at the laptop screen for a while, stared at the blank TV, stared at the wall then started searching for a camera.

There was one built into the computer, so she clicked on the sign-in tab and typed her info into the first few boxes.

After adding her e-mail address, she stopped.

A question formed in her head, a persistent one.

How?

Then another one, longer.

How did I get dragged into all this?

And another.

Why me?

And, finally, a fourth.

Where the hell did Mutt Damon go?