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Chapter 3
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Machines Like Me, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Machines and Humans
Truth and Lies
Humanity and Morality
Love
Self-Consciousness vs. Self-Delusion
Summary
Analysis
Miranda makes coffee, then she joins Charlie at the kitchen table. Charlie admits he heard Miranda and Adam having sex last night. Miranda tells Charlie he’s “ridiculous” to be jealous. To her, Adam is just “a vibrator.” He’s not human. Miranda’s light, sarcastic tone infuriates Charlie, especially when she asks him if he’d feel differently if she said she “love[d]” Adam. The tense conversation escalates into an argument, and Miranda accuses Charlie of being vain, of treating “making a woman come [a]s an achievement.”
Miranda’s logic here makes sense, but it can also read as manipulative, given her choice to pick Adam over Charlie last night only after Adam had somewhat sided with her in an argument. Unspoken here is the likely scenario that she had sex with Adam to punish Charlie. On the other hand, her accusation that Charlie treats “making a woman come [a]s an achievement” redirects the blame onto Charlie. She’s suggesting that Charlie already treats sex as transactional—as something that gives him power and superiority over others—and that in using Adam to get to Charlie, she was only taking her turn in a game Charlie had already been participating in.
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Pushed to his limit, Charlie mentions the “Salisbury judge,” and Miranda’s expression instantly shifts. Charlie admits that Adam told him about her court case. Now, he wants to hear “[her] side of it.” After some prodding, Miranda reluctantly admits that none of her testimony was true. After some tense back-and-forth conversation, Miranda tells Charlie that when she was in Salisbury last month, a man came to Miranda’s door and told her that Peter Gorringe—the man that Miranda sent to prison—will be out in three months and plans to kill her. The man was Gorringe’s cellmate. Charlie realizes that Miranda, in confessing to him, is implicitly asking for his help.
Charlie and Miranda continue to brawl, launching implicit insults and accusations back and forth. When Charlie brings up the “Salisbury judge,” it's a power grab intended to disarm Miranda and make her feel vulnerable with the knowledge that Charlie knows some unflattering (and potentially incriminating) secrets about her. Her seeming admission about having lied under oath suggests that she is indeed complicit in some nefarious activity, apparently against a man named Peter Gorringe. Tension builds as this potentially dangerous figure enters the plot. With Miranda’s implicit request for Charlie’s help, Charlie now has the opportunity to get back at her for last night’s betrayal by denying her that help.
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Miranda explains how she went to the police for help, but they couldn’t do anything about Gorringe’s threat, since it was only verbal. And, when they later spoke to Gorringe, he denied Miranda’s claim and charmed his way out of police scrutiny. Charlie asks Miranda if perhaps Gorringe is just trying to frighten Miranda, but Miranda believes he’s being totally serious.
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Just then, the three hear a man’s voice outside Charlie’s door. The doorbell rings, and then they hear the sound of footsteps hurrying away. Adam opens the door and enters the apartment with Mark, the young boy Charlie encountered the other day. Mark gives Charlie an envelope, which contains the card Charlie gave Mark’s father the other day. On the card reads the message, “You wanted him.”
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Mark appears in shock. After Charlie explains to Miranda who the boy is (he’d earlier told her about the altercation at the playground), she tries to console Mark, but he “shrug[s] her off,” as though unused to “being comforted.” Miranda sets to work fixing Mark toast and milk for breakfast. He turns down her offer of butter or marmalade and eats the toast dry.
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Later, as Miranda and Adam straighten up the kitchen, Adam quietly urges Miranda and Charlie to call the police—they could be regarded as kidnappers for keeping Mark here. He begins to recite a law on child abduction, but Miranda strikes the edge of the dustpan she’s been carrying against the dustbin, cutting Adam off. She tells Adam she doesn’t need his help. At this commotion, Mark starts to cry. Miranda runs to Mark to comfort him, but this only makes Mark cry louder. Gulping back sobs, he asks for a bath and a boat to play with in the tub. Miranda, “in a lilting maternal voice,” takes Mark’s hand and leads him to the bathroom.
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With Miranda tending to Mark, Charlie sits down at his computer and sees that he has only £40 in the bank—and rent is due. Despite this, he can’t find the motivation to trade stocks. Sometime later, Mark walks in, barefoot and wearing one of Charlie’s old T-shirts. As Mark stomps around the kitchen, distracted, Charlie signals for Adam to come near him. Out of Mark’s earshot, Charlie asks Adam what Peter Gorringe intends to do Miranda. Adam sighs reluctantly, then he explains that Gorringe plans to kill Miranda in revenge.
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Miranda reappears just then, greeting Mark cheerfully. She takes the boy’s hands and twirls him around in the kitchen. Seeing Miranda interact with the boy renews Charlie’s loving adoration for her. Charlie watches Adam watching Mark and Miranda and realizes that Adam appears to be jealous of the boy—and that Miranda is paying so much attention to Mark to punish Adam for telling Charlie about her court case.
Charlie learns that Adam was in fact in touch with the police as Miranda played with Mark in the kitchen when, hours later, two women from a state department arrive to retrieve Mark. Charlie explains to them about the altercation with the boy’s parents in the playground. The women are familiar with the family and assure Charlie that they won’t be returning Mark to his mother. After some more routine questions, the women leave with Mark, who screams as they lift him from Miranda’s arms. After they leave, Miranda silently retreats to her own flat.
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Life in the “troubled little household” continues, set against the backdrop of the ongoing political turmoil. Mrs. Thatcher grows increasingly unpopular. The Leader of the Opposition, the socialist Tony Benn, engages her in searing debates on prime-time TV. Unemployment rates rise, as well as drug use, inflation, teenage pregnancies, and racially fueled crimes. Global temperatures rise. Charlie’s earnings as a stock trader are just below the national average. He should be grateful for this, and for the flexibility his self-employment affords him, but he still struggles due to inflation.
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On one march to protest inflation, protestors hang a robot made of garbage as a political statement. Tony Benn gestures toward the robot and “condemn[]s the conception as Luddite.” He insists that in today’s technologically advanced age, the people can’t expect their jobs to be spared from automation. In light of this, people should have shares in the robotic technology that replaced them.
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Two days after Mark’s brief stay, Charlie at last confronts Adam about his and Miranda’s sexual activity. He explains to Adam that he felt betrayed. When Charlie commands Adam to promise not to do it again, Adam responds mechanically, pledging his loyalty to Charlie. After a pause, though, Adam protests that he “can’t help [his] feelings.” Charlie retorts that it’s “difficult to prove” Adam’s feelings, and Adam admits that this is true.
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Mark’s removal by social services has a great impact on Miranda, who loses her appetite and struggles to concentrate on her graduate work. She and Charlie have sex one night, but it’s stifled and awkward. Meanwhile, Miranda hasn’t yet forgiven Adam for betraying her confidence and telling Charlie about the court case.
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One night, Charlie demands that Adam tell him the full truth about Miranda’s accusation against Gorringe. Adam falters, explaining that “[s]erving two masters” has become difficult for him to manage. After an uncomfortable silence, Adam admits that he’s “in love with her.” When Charlie, caught off guard, insists it’s impossible for Adam to feel love, Adam replies that he couldn’t help himself—Miranda, who selected half of Adam’s personality traits, “chose” this as his fate. And Charlie, for his part, chose to let Miranda have that responsibility.
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Having heard enough, Charlie gets up from the table and moves to press Adam’s kill switch—but Adam’s arm grabs Charlie before he can reach it. As Charlie struggles to reach the button at the nape of Adam’s neck, Adam tightens his grip on Charlie’s wrist—until Charlie hears the sound of bones snapping. Adam, immediately and immensely apologetic, loosens his grip. But he cautions Charlie that he’ll rip Charlie’s arm off if he ever tries to touch Adam’s kill switch again. Charlie goes to the hospital the next day for an X-ray, which reveals that his wrist is badly broken.
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