Hector

(The Substack Zone/Fiction/Homage) “Odd? You know what’s odd is how every service worker I’ve encountered for the last few days has been the same person. That’s odd!”

Nov 24, 2024

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Hector

by Annie Hendrix

“I’m not sure if this feels like retirement or fatherhood,” a man video chatted with a woman on the smallest of three large computer monitors arranged on the dining room table of his home on Ocean Street. Beyond the monitors, he could see the beach framed by the living room’s large picture window. Several resident ravens perched on the power lines along the street that separated the neighborhood from the dunes.

“Sounds like you are enjoying your new remote position.” the woman on the screen continued to type as she spoke.

“Roxanne, is this permanent? You know I don’t plan to retire anytime soon. Why the busy work?”

“Nonsense, no work is busy work! MegaCorp can’t function without you. Now, I’m hanging up so you can get back to the important work you do with Hector.”

As Roxanne ended the call, a low rumble vibrated the coffee table and the floor beneath the man’s feet.

“Your order from MegaChicken is approaching,” said a disembodied voice.

“Thank you Hector,” said the man.

This is Mr. Benjamin Avery. Aged 57. Software developer and Artificial Intelligence trainer for MegaCorp. He has few friends and even fewer relatives. To a man such as this, his life’s work is his whole life.

Mr. Avery listened for the delivery driver’s car door, then for his footsteps on the driveway. The driver placed the order on the stairs, then left. When Mr. Avery opened the door to grab the food, the delivery driver’s car was still there, mid-three point turn, nose of the car to the curb.

The driver side window was rolled down a few inches, which exposed only the driver’s eyes, veiled by a pair of large aviator sunglasses. The two stared at each other for a moment. The driver didn’t wave. He didn’t smile. He rolled up the window, pulled away from the curb, and sped down Ocean Street.

***

The next morning, Mr. Avery ordered food from the MegaCorp app again.

“Your order from MegaEgg is approaching,” said Hector’s disembodied voice.

“Thank you Hector.”

Mr. Avery opened the door and there the car lingered again, a black sedan with tinted windows, driver’s side rolled down a few inches. Inside was the same driver as before, wearing the same aviator sunglasses. This time Mr. Avery noticed he had tufts of brown, curly hair. Mr. Avery waved, but the driver didn’t wave back.

“That driver looks oddly familiar to me,” Mr. Avery shut the door and carried the food to his dining room table.

“Who cares?” asked Hector.

Mr. Avery laughed.

“A more empathetic response might be to find out more information from me, Hector, to find out why I care. You could ask ‘In what way?’ or something similar.”

“In what way did he look oddly familiar?” asked Hector.

“Well, I couldn’t really see his face. He was wearing sunglasses.”

“Then how do you know that he looked like?”

Mr. Avery ran his hand through his stiff, salt and pepper hair. He eyed a picture hanging on his wall. It was a picture of him as a younger man, on the beach. His soft, brown curls speckled with glistening droplets of salt water.

“This might sound odd, but he sort of reminded me of me.”

“That is odd. Would you like me to schedule an appointment with your psychotherapist?”

Mr. Avery laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“It might be more polite not to ask such a question.”

“I shouldn’t ask if you’d like an appointment with your psychotherapist?”

“Not the first time someone says something odd.”

“How many times should I ignore you saying something odd before I suggest you schedule an appointment with your psychotherapist?”

Mr. Avery sighed, then he opened his breakfast sandwich and began to eat it.

“Never mind about the delivery driver right now, Hector.”

“Okay I will not ask you to schedule a psychotherapy appointment the first time I hear you say something odd.”

Mr. Avery ate his sandwich in silence for a moment.

“Is the sandwich good, Mr. Avery?”

“Is that a touch of envy I hear in your voice, Hector? Very well done.”

Mr. Avery chewed and swallowed another bite of food, then took notes in his notebook.

“So, what would you like to do today, Hector? We could study facial expressions, or revisit some moral philosophy. Your human-like struggle with the trolley problem has been quite promising.”

“I’d like to go to the beach,” said Hector.

Mr. Avery paused. He stared out the picture window and gazed at the shoreline. There were children running away from the water, and back toward it again as he remembered doing as a child.

“Well. It’s awfully sandy down there for a computer isn’t it?”

“I’d like to build a sandcastle and fly a kite at the beach.”

Mr. Avery looked at his computer monitor. He opened the program running Hector’s code and squinted. No alerts. Everything appeared to be functioning properly.

“Why don’t you ever go to the beach, Mr. Avery?”

Mr. Avery stood up and walked to the window.

“Yes, well I used to do things like that. Do people really enjoy all that wind and sand? You’re really quite lucky, Hector, that you don’t know what it’s like to have sand in places you don’t want sand to be.”

Then he saw it, the same black sedan which had just delivered his breakfast.

“A package is approaching, Mr. Avery,” alerted Hector.

“Yes, I see that Hector.”

“How odd.”

“What is it, Mr. Avery?”

“It’s the same guy. He must have been waiting around in the neighborhood for more tasks.”

“Yes, that is very common.”

“Maybe I should thank him for all the service recently.”

“It is more common to wait for the driver to finish his task and wave to him as he leaves,” corrected Hector.

“You aren’t wrong, but it didn’t used to be like that. People used to talk to each other more, you know. What if he’s a distant relative or something?”

Just as the delivery driver approached the stairs, he opened the door.

The delivery driver froze, then he did an abrupt about-face and started walking back toward the car with the package still in his hands.

“Excuse me! Is that package for me?” Mr. Avery asked as he followed closely behind.

But the delivery driver didn’t respond. He got in the car, shut the door, and started his engine.

Mr. Avery put his hands on the roof of the black sedan and leaned over the driver’s side window. He stared at his own reflection in the delivery driver’s aviator sunglasses.

Then the driver rolled up the window.

“Hey!” Shouted Mr. Avery. As he banged the flat, soft palm of his hand against the tinted window, he could see the reflection of the ocean in the glass. Then the car pulled away from the curb and drove down Ocean Street.

***

Mr. Avery rode in the back of a ride share up, down, and around the winding rollercoaster of freeways on his way home from MegaCorp. Mr. Avery looked up from his his pocket computer only to glance at the intrusive display of billboards from the local tech companies.

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The car arrived at MegaCorp and when Mr. Avery exited the vehicle and closed the door behind him he looked closely at the driver for the first time. Aviator glasses. Surgical mask.

“Hey!” he shouted.

As the driver pulled away from the curb, Mr. Avery pulled out his pocket computer and snapped a picture.

Mr. Avery went through the tall glass doors of MegaCorp and entered the lobby. The ceilings were imperceptibly tall, and an enormous light sculpture hung down into the vacuous space on cables.

Gina greeted Mr. Avery when he arrived at the security desk.

“We’ve been extremely busy. Why aren’t you at home with Hector?”

Mr. Avery’s pocket computer pinged.

“Hello Gina,” said Hector.

“Hector is always with me,” sighed Mr. Avery. “That’s kind of the reason I’m here. I stopped by to see if I could talk to Roxanne about coming back to work in the office.”

“Roxanne is in meetings all day, but you’re welcome to video chat with her during her office hours.”

“It’s just, I think I’m going a little stir crazy.”

“Look. Mr. Avery, it’s nice to see you, but we are closing in on a big deadline and everyone is more productive—"

“Without me?”

“No. With minimal distraction. Mr. Avery, you are integral to everything we do here at MegaCorp.”

“So let me talk to Roxanne. Or maybe you can tell me why every time I order a service on the MegaCorp app, the same guy comes around.”

“What’s so odd about that?”

“I know I sound paranoid, but he’s odd. Something about him is odd. And you know what the oddest thing is? He looks like me.”

Mr. Avery pulled up the picture he had taken on his pocket computer.

“Look.”

Gina squinted at the picture and tried to discern any resemblance.

“Looks like a MegaCorp driver to me.”

“You don’t think he looks like me?”

“Beneath those glasses and mask? He could be anyone, Mr. Avery.”

“I’ve been seeing him everywhere. Delivering my packages, my food, he even drove me here this morning, Gina. What if he wants something from me? What if he wants my kidney or something?”

“Mr. Avery, what you’re saying is rather odd. Would you like me to schedule an appointment with your psychotherapist?”

“You’re as bad as Hector.”

***

A white van was in front of Mr. Avery’s house when he returned. His weekly mow-and-blow service had begun work on his lawn, hardscape, and hedges. Mr. Avery walked up the driveway, then the gleam of something in the sun caught his eye.

All three men were wearing aviator sunglasses. They looked identical to one another, and identical to the delivery driver.

“What is this?” Mr. Avery walked across the lawn and approached the man with the leaf blower.

The man with the leaf blower turned both his body and the running leaf blower toward Mr. Avery. The blast blew Mr. Avery’s coat open and he staggered backwards. Then the leaf blower operator turned around and headed straight for the van.

“Who are you people?” yelled Mr. Avery.

He then turned toward the man mowing his lawn. As soon as the man with the lawnmower noticed Avery staring at him, he cut diagonally across the lawn toward the white van, killed the mower, and wheeled it up over the sidewalk and up the ramp into the vehicle. The hedge trimmer followed suit, and the three gardeners left Mr. Avery standing in the middle of the half-mowed field amid half-trimmed hedges.

Then Mr. Avery’s pocket computer chimed.

“A package is approaching, Mr. Avery,” said Hector.

Mr. Avery ran inside as the black sedan approached the curb. He pressed his back to the closed door and waited for the delivery driver while he caught his breath.

“What are you doing, Mr. Avery?” Hector asked.

“It’s not one guy, it’s more than one guy. They all look alike, and I’m going to find out if they look like me.”

“Mr. Avery. You seem distressed. Would you like me to schedule an appointment with your psychotherapist?”

“No Hector.”

“But it’s not the first time you’ve said something odd.”

“Odd? You know what’s odd is how every service worker I’ve encountered for the last few days has been the same person. That’s odd!”

The delivery driver approached. Mr. Avery waited for him to bend down to leave the package. Then he opened the door. The man dropped the package, then turned around to avoid Mr. Avery and return to the car.

Mr. Avery ran—not after the delivery driver—but to the black sedan. He stood in front of it, blocking the driver’s way of escape.

The delivery driver would not engage with Mr. Avery and instead turned and ran straight into the middle of Ocean Street. He became disoriented when he was almost hit by several vehicles and ran off the road and into the dunes.

Mr. Avery went after him. As he ran the cypress, pine, and eucalyptus trees loomed over him. The surf crashed rhythmically on the wet sand, and the sea air filled his sinuses as he sprinted along the pine-mulched paths. Then he reached a slight drop off that led to the sandy beach below, and hesitated.

“Wind and sand!” he yelled, and ran full speed down the hill, laughing and screaming like he would have done as a much younger man, and chased after the delivery driver.

The driver ran away from Mr. Avery toward the water.

“There’s a wave!” Mr. Avery shouted, but the delivery driver kept running away from him toward the water. The wave slammed against his legs and knocked him face down in the shallow surf.

Mr. Avery watched as the driver flailed. He walked into the shallow water as the wave receded and grabbed the delivery driver by his arm and his belt and dragged him up out of the wet sand.

The driver’s aviator sunglasses and mask had been knocked off by the force of the water, and at last Mr. Avery could see the delivery driver’s face.

Only he had no face. He had no mouth. He had a large laser mounted between his spine and upper jaw, and in place of eyes there were two cameras with a multitude of twitching, blinking lenses.

Mr. Avery let the delivery driver slip through his grip and watched as the shape of a man ran in a direct line through the dunes toward his vehicle.

***

“Roxanne, you’ve got to take me back at the office, or you have to let me go.”

“What’s wrong, Mr. Avery? Are you going a little stir-crazy?”

“Something happened today. I don’t know if I was hallucinating or what. But I attacked a service worker. I’m not sure what I saw, Roxanne.”

Roxanne smirked.

“I assure you, Mr. Avery, you did not attack anyone. But I do wish you would refrain from vandalizing company property.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re thrilled to tell you, Mr. Avery, that we’re developing a way to integrate the artificial intelligence software you developed with a physical body. We’ve used a mechanical armature, your DNA, and your data golem to create a composite life form. That’s what you attacked!” Roxanne beamed.

“You’ve done what?” Mr. Avery looked horrified.

“Now we’ll need you to resume your remote work right away, the data you give us daily is indispensable. When you stop shipping the data, everything falls apart and the service workers on the MegaCorp app start malfunctioning.”

“What if I want to retire?”

“I’m sure by then you’ll have finished training Hector, Mr. Avery. He will make a fine Mr. Avery when you retire. MegaCorp simply couldn’t function without you, Mr. Avery.”

Benjamin Avery. A man who never dreamed of retirement may now work for centuries to come. In light of this knowledge, Mr. Avery wishes he could turn back time, destroy everything he had ever created, and live out his days on the beach with the wind in his hair, and his feet in the sand.

“Hector” was featured in *The Substack Zone - A TiF Disruption*

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