Callme and Mink by Brenda Cooper (Clarkesworld, October 2020) starts with Julie killing a chicken and feeding her two dogs, Callme and Mink. After this she gets ready to take the dogs out, and we get an early indication that matters are more complicated (or futuristic) than they first seem when “she [closes the] clothing over her joints to keep the sand out.” Then, when she drops down on all fours, and runs alongside the dogs, it becomes apparent that Julie is a robot.
Once she gets to town (they pass a couple of lesser utility robots on the way) Julie talks to a man called Jack, who tells her he has a family wanting to adopt one of her dogs. Later, after Julie and the dogs go home, the family—a woman, her son, and an adopted daughter (who has the Wasting Disease)—turn up. They talk, and the family decide to stay so Julie can teach them how to look after Mink. During this period the impression of a post-collapse situation becomes more stark:
Julie watched them all settle into bed and then took her place by the door, sorting through the synapses in her head. Five of ten evaluation flags had flipped to green. If two more flipped, she would watch the family walk away. It was likely.
She didn’t like the direction they were going. If a human reaches a different conclusion than you do, find another opinion.
[. . .]
No matter which direction they went, the girl would not survive. The woman and the boy might, and if so, Mink would love them and protect them. She slapped her thigh softly, signaling Callme to her, and then dropped to all fours, leading the border collie outside.
The night air smelled of sea salt and overripe apples from a tree in the backyard of an empty house. No threats. Her eyes showed the heat of squirrels and rabbits, of a solitary and slow cat, and of birds roosting in the darkness. She and Callme walked side by side, slow, circling the block. Julie’s head ran through the routines of snipping what she didn’t need, what no one needed. She caught herself with an image of Mink [. . .] as a puppy, two days after she found him. He looked round and soft and vulnerable. Maybe ten weeks old. The little sharp baby teeth had just been pushed free by his adult teeth, and his smile was still slightly lopsided. Do not become attached to more than one animal. Dogs are to help human hearts.
What a strange phrase to be in her programming.
The rest of the story shows Julie training the family to look after Mink—this seems to be what Julie does, rear and train guard dogs for humans—but her responses to the people she meets throughout the story show her as ambivalent at best, and possibly entirely dispassionate. That said, Julie tries to convince the family not to go South, a region she knows is unsafe. She is not successful, however, and they eventually leave.
This is a pretty good read, a slow burn with a good setting, and I liked seeing the way Julie thinks. I would have rated it higher but it peters out somewhat at the end. Hopefully the first of a series.
*** (Good). 4,300 words. Story link.