A steel plate mounted to one side of his heart says COIN-OP FRIEND! LOYAL FAITHFUL COMPANION AND CONFIDANT. NEED HELP WITH GROCERIES? CAN LIFT UP TO ONE TON. KNOWS 30 CARD GAMES, SPEAKS ALL LANGUAGES, KEEPS SECRETS. A TOKEN FOR 30 MINUTES OF ABSOLUTE DEVOTION. GIRLS: LEARN HOW TO KISS FROM A PERFECT GENTLEMAN WHO WILL TELL NO TALES. BOYS: PRACTICE THE ANCIENT ART OF PUGILISM ON HIS ALMOST INDESTRUCTIBLE SHELL! THIS CLOCKWORK NOT RATED FOR ADULT/MATURE USE. Someone has scratched a cartoon penis below this last sentence.

Iris has not played with a Clockwork since she was small, not since Talk-to-Me-Tabitha, her childhood beloved, and Tabitha was perhaps a century more advanced. This thing is an antique, one of the novelties from the shuttered store directly behind him, likely planted on the street as an advertisement. A moldie-oldie from the days of Google and chunky VR headsets and Florida.

No one could steal him. His back is pressed to a magnetic charge plate installed in the brick wall. Iris is no longer sure he intentionally stopped the aquaball, suspects his foot was just there and halting her runaway mermaid was only a lucky accident. Or unlucky accident; a lucky accident would’ve been if it had imploded under the razorwheels of the hansom.

Iris turns her back on him and looks despairingly at the Monowheel she still has to push another half mile. The thought of steering it along the road makes her unpleasantly aware of the sweater sticking to her sweaty back.

Need help with groceries? Can lift up to one ton.

She swivels back, digs out her tokens—she has exactly two—and pushes first one, then the other into the slot on the Clockwork’s chest. Silver credits clatter into the enormous pile of tokens in his stomach.

The vaporware heart in his chest expands and contracts with an audible thud. The numbers above the chrome plate on his chest make a ratcheting noise and roll over with a series of rapid clicks, to read 00:59:59.

And the seconds begin to tick down.

5.

He knew she would pay long before she dropped her tokens, knew when her back was still turned to him, just from the way she looked at her Monowheel and how her shoulders slumped at the sight of it. Body language says more than words ever do. And his processor, which is lethargic by the standards of modern computing, is still fast enough to complete two million clock cycles before she can get her hand out of her pocket with the coins in them. That’s enough time to read and reread the complete works of Dickens.

Her body temperature is elevated, and she’s sweating from labor but also from a frayed mood. The command line, which fills him always like breath, compels him to supply comfort with a bit of easy cleverness.