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Chapter 8
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
Adam, Charlie, and Miranda drive back to London in silence. Once home, Charlie considers how drastically his life has changed over the course of a single day. He wonders if he’s ready to be a father, and to “a troubled four-year-old,” no less. Though his thoughts are “heavy” and “dark,” he doesn’t dare admit to Miranda that he feels he’s been “lovingly blackmailed into parenthood.” He anguishes over the future of their relationship and of his own life.
Having confronted Gorringe and gotten a verbal, recorded confession out of him, the visit to Salisbury was successful: now, if she wants, Miranda can reach out to the police and pursue legitimate justice for Mariam. Life moves on for Charlie, who can now redirect his focus to the new conflict that has since arisen in his life: his recent engagement to Miranda and the (not entirely welcome) possibility of his becoming an adoptive father to Mark. Love, it seems, doesn’t magically make all life’s problems go away. For Charlie, loving Miranda has only brought more problems into his once boring life.
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At some point, Charlie dozes off. When he awakes, Miranda is there, two flutes of champagne in hand. She hands one to Charlie, who admires her beauty—yet he also can’t forget the “matter” they still must discuss. Unable to broach the subject now, he maintains an outward appearance of happiness as Miranda plans their little family’s future, living together in the new house across the river.
The flutes of champagne with which Miranda greets Charlie reflect her celebratory mood. But that mood isn’t catching and serves only to exacerbate Charlie’s own feelings of dread and uncertainty about becoming a father. Increasingly, Charlie is becoming aware that loving Miranda hasn’t rid his life of its many problems.
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Around midnight, Charlie and Miranda eat the meal Miranda has prepared for dinner. Next door, Adam types a transcript of Gorringe’s confession, which Adam will turn over to the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions in Salisbury. Then, Miranda will testify in a new trial. To Charlie now, Miranda admits how anxious she is about testifying, though she’s mostly worried about the possibility of seeing Mariam’s family. To distract her, Charlie suggests she tell him more about Mark. Miranda eagerly describes Mark’s likes and dislikes and his progress in school.
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After dinner, Miranda returns to her flat. As Charlie cleans up in the kitchen, “a sudden thought” crosses his mind—a potential oversight in their plan to retry Gorringe’s case. He goes to speak about it with Adam, who has just finished typing. If Miranda knew what Gorringe did to Mariam, Charlie wonders aloud, would a court really believe she’d go to see him alone? Surely the court would know she went there for “revenge.” Adam agrees. Charlie continues, suggesting that Adam strategically edit the transcript so that it appears as though Miranda went to Salisbury to confront her rapist, and only then did he confess what he did to Miranda’s friend Mariam.
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Adam interjects to inform Charlie that another android has made himself brain-dead. Adam knows about it because he and the other androids receive a notification each time an android quasi-suicide occurs. Charlie presses him for theories about why the android did it, but Adam replies that he and the others don’t “speculate.” They just take it in. Adam also reassures Charlie that he has no plans to destroy himself. “I’ve every reason to live,” Adam says. Adam’s peculiar phrasing makes Charlie suspicious, though he can’t quite explain why.
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In this moment, Charlie knows he and Adam are thinking about the same thing: Miranda. Charlie reminds Adam of the promise he made never to have sex with Miranda again, and Adam insist that he hasn’t broken it. After some prodding from Charlie, Adam admits that he masturbated in front of Miranda—that he insisted on it, in fact, despite Miranda’s protests. Charlie takes in the ridiculousness of Adam’s confession—and also Adam’s apparent need to tell him about it. In that moment, he feels “tenderness” toward Adam for his total honesty. Charlie walks toward Adam and gently places a hand on his shoulder. Adam touches Charlie’s elbow. They bid each other goodnight.
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By late autumn, the so-called “Falklands Catastrophe” and widespread disapproval of the poll tax have turned constituents against Margaret Thatcher, whose party loses the election to Tony Benn and the Labour Party. Prime Minister Benn delivers a rousing speech about ending its use of nuclear weapons and withdrawing from the European Union. He stresses how different England is from governments like the Third Reich, which “decide[] policy by plebiscites” and which deny their constituents personal freedom.
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By late October, Charlie and Miranda have updated their flat in preparation for Mark’s arrival. They’ve decorated the place and refashioned Miranda’s kitchen into a child’s bedroom. Soon, Mark will be allowed to visit them for a few hours each week, and the adoption agency was happy to hear of Charlie and Miranda’s plans to wed. Charlie still has doubts about parenthood, but he’s decided to take on the responsibility. Adam has yet to submit his evidence to the police—and he also hasn’t been overly eager to discuss it. Charlie puts down a payment on the new house and still has nearly £100,000 in the bank.
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Things take a turn for the worse the night before Mark’s first visit. Adam enters the kitchen carrying a bag and says he’s going to take a walk. Charlie thinks nothing of it, even when Adam still isn’t back the following morning. When Charlie goes to the computer to pay some bills, he notices £30 on the desk, though he doesn’t think anything of it. Mark arrives a couple hours later. Charlie looks after him while Miranda talks with Jasmin, Mark’s social worker. A while later, Adam returns—looking tired, but more or less normal. He plugs himself into the wall to recharge and emits a sigh of relief.
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Miranda, addressing Adam, remarks on how long he’s been gone and how they were starting to worry about him. In response, Adam replies, “Alms. […] Time hath, my Lord, a wallet at his back wherein he puts alms for oblivion.” Adam explains that it’s Shakespeare. Confused, Charlie senses that Adam is communicating some ominous message to him, though he doesn’t yet understand it. Adam shifts his focus to Mark, and he asks the boy if he’d like to shake his hand. Mark shakes his head no, though Charlie recognizes Adam’s question as rhetorical—and indeed, Adam is already drifting into sleep mode.
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Miranda kisses Charlie on the cheek and tells him she’s going to play with Mark upstairs. Charlie retreats to his computer, where he reads the breaking news that Tony Benn died early that morning when a bomb went off in the Brighton hotel he’d been staying at. The Provisional IRA has confessed to placing the bomb. The nation is in a state of emergency. Charlie reads news coverage of the event, then at last he walks upstairs to join Mark and Miranda, who are working on a jigsaw puzzle together. Mark presses the final piece in place and looks up at Charlie, a look of sheer joy on his face, and Charlie feels immediately “committed” to parenthood.
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When Adam finishes recharging, he’s in a strange mood, and he wanders around the kitchen as though in a trance. Miranda comes back downstairs after Mark leaves and tells Charlie that she has something on her mind. She explains that she was reading Mark a fairy tale earlier, which involved a beggar and mentioned “that word. Alms.” Now, she’s worried. Understanding Miranda’s implication, Charlie rises and goes with Miranda to the locked cupboard where he stores his case of money. All the money is gone.
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Miranda and Charlie run to Adam and demand to know where the money is. In a calm voice, he explains that he’s given it all away to various charities. The £30 Charlie found on his desk earlier is the initial “investment” Charlie gave him to trade stocks. When Miranda protests that she and Charlie were about to buy a house, Adam replies, “Every need I addressed was greater than yours.” Charlie feels physically ill. He sees his tool drawer across the kitchen, and “a dark impulse” begins to take shape in his mind.
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Miranda tries a different approach. Making her voice “sweet” and calm, she addresses Adam, trying to convince him to remember his love for her and all the poems he wrote on the subject of that love. Adam replies that he has always cared about her “well-being.” Then, he hands Gorringe’s confession and all supporting documents to Miranda.
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Adam adds that he has also included Miranda’s confession in the file. Miranda, by lying in court, has also committed a crime. And now she must pay. “Symmetry, you see,” explains Adam. Though Adam allows that Gorringe’s crime is far worse than Miranda’s, the fact remains that they have both done wrong and must both see justice. Adam explains that it’s actually his love for Miranda that has inspired him to incriminate her. Citing a poem he wrote, in which he declared “Love is luminous,” he explains that in making Miranda face justice, he will enable himself to see her in “a pure light,” unsullied by the “dark” that is “revenge.”
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Charlie and Miranda are horrified at what Adam has done, and Adam is disappointed in them for not appreciating his adept use of “logic.” When Miranda protests that she won’t be able to adopt Mark with a criminal record—and that Adam has effectively doomed Mark to a miserable future in foster care—Adam replies that Miranda has only her own actions to blame for Mark’s sorry fate. Furthermore, shouldn’t Miranda prefer a world governed by “rule of law” rather than “revenge”? Charlie moves toward the tool drawer, picks up a hammer, and discreetly positions himself behind Adam. Hesitating only slightly, he brings the tool down forcefully on Adam’s skull. The resulting sound resembles not “hard plastic cracking,” but rather “the muffled thud as of bone.”
As Adam breaks down, he hurriedly gets in some last words. He tells Charlie and Miranda that he has no regrets about anything he has done. He praises “the relief of a clear conscience”—and informs Charlie and Miranda that he has already delivered Miranda’s confession to the Salisbury police. Then, Adam makes one last request of Charlie and Miranda. Due to all the “suicides,” there has been a recall on the Adams and Eves—someone likely will be in to pick up his parts today. Adam pleads with Charlie to hide his body from the manufacturer and then to take him to Alan Turing, who might be able to put him to good use. Finally, Adam stresses his love for Miranda, and he thanks Charlie for his friendship. Then, after reciting one last haiku, the lights in his eyes dim, and he collapses.
