In the Lives of Puppets

Victor and his friends begin their long journey. When they make camp on the second night, Hap volunteers to stand guard while Victor bathes in a creek. While they’re alone, Hap confides to Victor that he doesn’t want to remember his past as HARP and reaffirms his promise not to harm the human. Victor wonders if Hap is capable of love as well as free will, but he doesn’t know how to ask him that. Hap makes Victor laugh, which causes the android to smile slightly. On the seventh day of their journey, they hear an electrical hum and follow it to the road. The path is designed for vehicles, and the current running through it will harm the companions if they attempt to walk on it. Hap demonstrates this by tossing a metal bar onto the road although he doesn’t remember how he knew about the danger. Victor and his friends decide to walk alongside the road because it will eventually lead them to the City of Electric Dreams.

Victor begins to carve a replacement heart for his father. Rambo hears music, and the group follows the sound to an enormous, bright red house hovering on the side of the road. As they discuss whether to investigate the house or avoid it altogether, their conversation is interrupted by a mustached android in a red tailcoat and a black top hat. The effervescent android introduces himself as the Coachman and claims that he and his floating home travel across the land bringing “happiness to those who need it most” (196). The Coachman raises Hap’s ire by referring to humanity’s eradication as a pest problem and by offering to alter the handsome android’s programming to make him a love machine. When the trusting Rambo blurts out that they’re traveling to the City of Electric Dreams, the Coachman offers to take them there in his house. Although this would make their journey much quicker, they refuse the unsettling android’s offer. The Coachman declares that he will add the four of them to his Museum of Human Curios and Curiosities, ensnares them with a net cannon, drags them back to his house, and renders them unconscious with a jolt of electricity.

When Victor and his friends awaken, they are trapped in separate cages. Thanks to Victor’s disguise, their captor remains unaware that he is a human, thinking him a poorly designed machine with no clear function instead. The Coachman notices how protective Hap and the robots are of Victor, and he threatens to take him apart piece by piece unless they do as he says. The Coachman is going to stage a show in five hours, and he expects their full compliance. After the Coachman leaves the room, Hap worriedly asks Victor if he’s hurt, and Nurse Ratched warns her friends that they’re being recorded. Hap takes Victor’s hand and promises to find a way to free them. Victor asks Hap to go along with the Coachman’s demands for the time being for his sake, and the android agrees.

Hours later, the Coachman informs his captives that they have reached Paese dei Balocchi, which means the Land of Toys. The desert town’s inhabitants, including robotic children, have already formed a long queue around the house. The Coachman leads a tour group of uninterested, silent machines over to the captives’ cages. Without saying a word, Hap somehow makes all of the robots in the tour group leave. Just as the incensed Coachman demands to know what Hap did, he receives an alert that the Authority has arrived.

The Coachman hides the captives in a dark recess and hurries away. Hap finds Victor’s hand in the darkness, and Nurse Ratched hacks into the house so they can see a live feed from the security cameras. Three androids like the ones who took Giovanni and a fourth who looks exactly like an intact Hap approach the house. The androids inform the Coachman that they’re looking for humans, ask if he’s heard of the Generalized Innovation Operative, and enter the house. After a short but tense search, the Authority androids leave. Nurse Ratched questions why the Authority speak of humans as though there no longer are any. Hap is shaken by the appearance of another HARP, but Victor assures him, “He looked like you, but he isn’t you. You’re here. You’re with us” (228). The Coachman restores the captives’ cages to their former position and charges at Hap with a cry of, “For humanity!” (229).

The Coachman tries to attack Hap, fearing that he is a HARP who will destroy his cherished collection of human artifacts. Hap seizes the Coachman by the throat and forces him to release them. Nurse Ratched noticed that the Coachman was lying when he told the Authority he didn’t know about Giovanni, and Victor tells the Coachman that Giovanni is his father. Awed, the Coachman touches Victor’s face and whispers, “That’s what he protected. That’s what he carried with him” (233). The Coachman enthusiastically asks Victor to demonstrate the proper use of various human artifacts before Hap pushes him away from Victor. The Coachman is dumbfounded that Hap can resist his programming and kneels in amazement when Hap shows him the heart that Victor gave him.

The Coachman explains that he smuggled Giovanni out of the City of Electric Dreams at the request of the Blue Fairy. The Coachman beseeches Victor to abandon his search for Giovanni and to find a safe place to hide “the last gasp of humanity” (236). The Coachman also warns Victor that his father lost all of his memories when he destroyed his heart and will see him as a threat to eliminate, not as his son. Rambo insists that the love they have for one another will help them bring Giovanni back, and Hap smiles at the vacuum. When Nurse Ratched asks why Victor is so important, the Coachman initially thinks she must be joking. He then explains that humans have been extinct for centuries and that Victor is the only one left.