Esquire's Summer Fiction series, in aid of Unicef UK, brings together some of the world's finest writers, and greatest actors, for a collection of original stories and readings that offer, we hope, a ray of light in these dark times, as well as the chance to raise funds for Unicef's Generation Covid campaign. (Read Unicef ambassador and Esquire editor-at-large Andrew O'Hagan's piece on why the campaign is so vital here).
Where a child is already experiencing hardship, outbreaks of diseases bring a new emergency to an already precarious situation. This is the story of Generation Covid. For vulnerable children all over the world, it poses the biggest threat since the Second World War. Please enjoy these stories, then visit Unicef UK's Generation Covid page to donate and hear a special message from Unicef UK High Profile Supporter Cel Spellman.
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Audio: read by Cel Spellman
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'Rule One' by Simon Stephenson
This is definitely confidential, right? Well, maybe because this was an officer-involved shooting and I don’t want anything I say coming out at my disciplinary. Yes, thank you, that does reassure me. But isn’t there, I don’t know, some kind of therapist version of a Miranda warning you are obliged to read me?
What do you even want to know? I’m sure they sent you my report, and it’s all in there. But, once again: after we spotted the suspect, Officer Schwartz and I pursued him into an abandoned skyscraper. We followed him up the stairs and out onto the roof. During the arrest, the suspect grabbed Officer Schwartz’s gun, and in the ensuing struggle both the suspect and Schwartz were shot. It doesn’t happen like in the movies, you know?
What troubles me most about it all? Mainly the fact everyone at the precinct keeps telling me that I broke “Rule One”. How can it be Rule One when it isn’t even written down anywhere? I mean, sure, it’s the first thing they teach you at the Academy: a cop always protects her partner, even if that means stretching the truth on a report here and there. But I think it is important to note that at no point whatsoever has anybody ever explicitly instructed me not to shoot my partner. So everyone should just lay off that Rule One stuff.
What else is on my mind? Well, I think it’s important to note that this entire situation is anyway Captain McKendrick’s fault. When Officer Zubia went off sick — and, no, I did not shoot Officer Zubia — the captain asked would I mind if my new partner was androgynous? Those were his exact words. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. It is 2037, not 1937, so of course I told him I absolutely did not mind having an androgynous partner and I would look forward to meeting them. Captain McKendrick did then correct my “them” to “him”, but if you’d ever read one of his briefings, you’d know that he is functionally illiterate. So I really had no way of knowing if the captain was deliberately misgendering my new partner or just didn’t understand how pronouns work.
Well, three days later, I am on the early shift and when I get to the cruiser, Officer Schwartz is already in the driver’s seat. And guess what? Officer Schwartz is not androgynous. Officer Schwartz is a fucking android.
What? No, I have nothing against technology. I was a rookie when The Luddites tried to blow up the Salesforce Tower, and an experience like that stays with you. If they’d been willing to use anything more modern than barrels of gunpowder, they might have done some real damage. I was on the team that located their horses in Golden Gate Park. They gave me a medal and everything. What was the medal for? An election year, that was what the medal was for.
Anyway, how could I be some kind of Luddite when I used to be married to a scientist? Does that surprise you, that my ex-husband was a scientist? Let me guess: you thought cops only married nurses and strippers? That’s just the male cops. No, I’m kidding. Plenty of female cops marry nurses and strippers. We just don’t all get that lucky first time around.
Nate and I met when we were undergrads. He was studying electronic engineering and I was a criminology major. When money got tight after the last pandemic, we agreed I’d quit school, go to the Academy and finish up my degree later. I’m from a family of cops, so it didn’t feel like a huge sacrifice. No, I never did make it back to college, but nonetheless I can’t tell you how grateful I am for those six semesters of criminology. Yeah, every morning when I am hauling myself out of bed at 5am, I am glad anew that the student debt I accumulated means I am ineligible to apply for universal basic income. What? No, of course I am not grateful. That was cop humour.
But, no, I wasn’t jealous when Nate got his degree. I threw him a kick-ass graduation party, and later that summer we got married in the Presidio and then honeymooned up in Tahoe. I wanted to go to the Californian side for the hiking and the nature, and Nate wanted to go to the Nevada side for the casinos and the partying. Maybe you see our problem already?
In fairness to Nate, he did keep encouraging me to go back to school, but by then I was having too much fun busting bad guys along the Embarcadero. So we then had three pretty good years and two mostly bad ones, and now we communicate only through lawyers. The last I’d heard he was dating an orthopaedist who owns a house in the Marina, which probably tells you everything you need to know about both of them. Wait, you don’t live in the Marina, do you? Good.
What? I don’t see that it is relevant here, but Nate works at the Zuckerberg Institute for Humanity out in Palo Alto. Isn’t that the most ridiculous name for a robot factory you ever heard? It would be like calling the San Francisco Police Department the Institute for Criminals. Actually, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad name after all.
Seriously, why do you keep asking me about Nate? Officer Schwartz getting shot has nothing to do with him. I only even brought him up to show I have nothing against science, at least not in the general sense. Now, if you asked me specifically about orthopaedists, that might be another matter. I’m kidding. But seriously, I mean, feet? With the entire human body to choose from, what kind of psychopath becomes a doctor of feet? Are you sure? Well, if that is a podiatrist, then what does an orthopaedist do? Whatever. She still lives in the Marina.
Yes, let’s get back to that day. No, I’d say Officer Schwartz and I got off to a perfect start. Well, mainly because he brought me frosted doughnuts. If you were selecting traits for a partner then you could do a lot worse than: punctual, logical, good aim and brings you frosted doughnuts. And, yes, I know it is a cliché about cops and doughnuts, but a good frosted doughnut really is the way to my heart and, goddammit, some shithead scientist literally did select those traits, didn’t they?
How did he look? Mostly like every other Academy graduate who hasn’t given up pressing his uniform yet. If you haven’t seen an android lately, you might be surprised at how realistic they are getting. But it’s all relative: the skin is still nowhere near right, the eyes jerk and whir, and they move like old people that played in a Superbowl that went to overtime yesterday. Still, compared to the videos Nate used to show me in college — these creepy robo-dogs that could climb three stairs before they fell over — it is definitely progress.
Anyway, we head out and straightaway I notice Officer Schwartz does this thing where he taps the wheel with his index finger while he drives. Yes, of course that’s a problem. For one thing, it is incredibly annoying, and for another, you know who did that exact same thing? Nate. I know they give androids tics to make them seem more human but, really, they couldn’t have found something a little less annoying?
I tell Officer Schwartz to cut it out, and we drive around but it is still early so even the Embarcadero is quiet. So I try to make conversation but, of course, Officer Schwartz can’t reciprocate because he is mainly programmed to recount standard operating procedures or provide me with feedback on my performance. So I first have to shut him up about “consensual arrest protocols” — whatever they are — but as soon as I do he tells me that I am not supposed to be eating in the cruiser.
Things really take a turn when we pass the ballpark, because Officer Schwartz starts singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. What? No, I loved baseball and l miss the hell out of it. Were you ever out there on a sunny evening when Posey was hitting home runs into the bay? We didn’t even realise how good we had it, did we?
Wait, you’re asking me why I didn’t appreciate Officer Schwartz’s singing? Seriously? Well, for one thing, it was way too loud. And for another, he sounded like a harmonium somebody had put through a washer-dryer. But the worst of it was that this was not the first time I’d had this experience.
Because Nate used to do it too. Yep: every time Nate and I passed the ballpark, he sang that same exact song in that same loud, tuneless way. But no, I didn’t actually think too much of it. I guess I just assumed lots of annoying tech bros probably sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” like that, and whoever programmed Officer Schwartz had been one of them. It’s not like we have any shortage of annoying tech bros in the Bay Area.
When Officer Schwartz eventually stopped singing, it was only so he could inform me he had spotted a suspect with warrants. I don’t know, I guess androids all come preloaded with California’s most wanted? But the guy he points out looks 100 years old, so I ask Officer Schwartz if he is certain. He says he is, and that the guy’s name is Danny Wilkinson and he has multiple warrants. So I have Officer Schwartz pull the cruiser around and we both get out.
But guess what? As soon as he sees us, this 100-year-old man takes off at a sprint, and he is way too fast for either of us. So I ask Officer Schwartz what those outstanding warrants are for, and of course it’s some gene bullshit, and this Wilkinson is a professor at Berkeley who has been injecting himself with stem cells. Yes, I was mad. If Officer Schwartz had told me what those warrants were for I’d have called for backup before attempting the stop. We’d have had a good collar and I probably would have got another medal. And also our grandchildren probably wouldn’t all have two heads.
Well, we drove around looking for Wilkinson for a while, and then we got a call about a group of five middle-aged women co-mingling on a bench beneath the Coit Tower over on Telegraph Hill. We had to go through Chinatown to get there and as we pass the Great Eastern restaurant, Officer Schwartz takes it upon himself to announce that they have the best dim sum in the city.
Yes, that was pretty odd, and for a whole bunch of reasons. For one thing, what is an android — who can’t eat because his insides are made of metal — doing even having an opinion on dim sum? And for another, everybody knows that Yank Sing have the best dim sum.
Doc, you should have been a cop. I did say a “bunch of reasons”, didn’t I? Well, fine: the other odd thing about it was that it wasn’t even the first time I’d heard an annoying man wrongly claim that the Great Eastern have the best dim sum.
Yes, the first time was Nate. And now I have the tapping on the wheel, the singing, and this dim sum thing. So I ask Officer Schwartz if the name “Nate Casimer” means anything to him, and he says no. But he then thinks about it, and adds that Nate Casimer is 37 years old, lives in the Marina and currently has no outstanding warrants.
What do you think I did? Police work. I generated a hypothesis and searched for evidence that confirmed or refuted it. Specifically, I told Schwartz to pull over and I called Nate from a payphone. Yes, there are a few that still exist. What? Well, if you must know, I had to use a payphone because Nate had blocked my number on account of a misunderstanding we’d had. What was the misunderstanding? I had misunderstood how much of a jerk he was when I agreed to marry him.
When he heard my voice Nate immediately hung up. I called back a couple more times and on the sixth attempt he answered. But I didn’t even get to ask if he’d programmed Officer Schwartz, because he interrupted me. Which, by the way, is classic Nate: even if you are calling him after not speaking for two years, he will still think he has something more important to say than you. And do you know what that jerk said? He was sorry that I still had not got over things, but he had. And then he hung up. And when I tried to call back he had turned off the phone.
That is a weapons-grade jerk, right? I mean, in your professional opinion? Well, maybe there is a more technical term you prefer? I don’t know what, you’re supposed to be the doctor. Oh, and surprise, surprise: by the time we got over to the Coit Tower the middle-aged women were gone, so I guess to this day that illegal Parcheesi ring continues to strike fear into the good citizens of Telegraph Hill.
By now it was late enough to call it lunchtime. So we go down to Fisherman’s Wharf and I got a clam chowder and Officer Schwartz, well, the main thing he got was attacked by seagulls. I guess it is true what they say, and animals can always tell when something is not right. As we are sitting there, we can see Alcatraz and I wait for it, and sure enough Officer Schwartz declares his favourite movie is Escape from Alcatraz. You know who else loves that movie? Yes, exactly.
Honestly, by this point, I had forgotten about the frosted doughnuts, and the only redeeming thing I could think of about my new partner was that he hadn’t yet done the Fortnite dance. Really, you don’t remember that? Fortnite was this video game from when we were kids, and anytime you murdered all the other players, your avatar did this smug dance where she clenched her fists and swung her arms from the back of her body to the front on each side. Nate used to do it any time anything good happened to him, even if he just parked and there was still money on the meter. At the beginning I thought it was hilarious. By the end I thought it the most infuriating thing on planet Earth.
Anyway, yeah, there I was, eating my clam chowder and staring out at Alcatraz and wondering if today is the worst day of my life, or if that will be tomorrow, and then we get a call on the radio that the captain is sending us down to Los Gatos to arrest some billionaire.
A shakedown? I mean, it depends on how you define it. It wasn’t a shakedown in that he had probably done whatever was in the sealed indictment the DA had got the grand jury to charge him with. But it was a shakedown in that all the other billionaires out in Los Gatos had done things that were just as bad — how do you think they become billionaires in the first place? — and we weren’t arresting any of them today.
Of course, the drive down the peninsula takes forever, and the whole time Officer Schwartz is regaling me with updates on the SFPD’s 100 greatest outstanding warrants. I was about ready to drive us off the highway, but instead, as we pass through Palo Alto, I get an even worse idea. I decide I cannot tolerate Nate thinking I am not over him, so I will just stop in there and quickly straighten it out before we go pick up the DA’s new campaign treasurer.
Do you know what the institute for humanity has in the middle of its front lawn? A statue of a giant android. Seriously. And the building looks like somebody gave Elmo a box of Legos. I tell Officer Schwartz to wait in the cruiser and I go inside.
The receptionist looks all of about 12 years old and when I tell him I’m here to see Nate Casimer he asks me if I have an appointment. I show him my badge and tell him that is my appointment, and then I take a seat and stare at him until I see him lift his phone and call upstairs.
I mean, goddammit. A uniformed police officer shows up and the response is to ask if I have an appointment? Would they ask a fireman the same thing if he showed up to their house while it was burning down? Yeah, probably nowadays they would. Nothing means what it used to, does it? My grandfather was a lieutenant out in the Western Addition, and anytime a gang was planning a hit on a rival, they’d ask his permission first. Those really must have been the days.
They keep me waiting a half-hour, and when Nate finally appears he has these two uniformed security goons with him. Goon One asks to see my warrant, but of course I don’t have one because I’m only here to tell Nate I am completely over him. Before I can do that, though, Goon Two shows me a restraining order they’ve had some Silicon Valley judge swear out on an app. There is then a bit of a scuffle and as they are throwing me out, I yell at Nate that he is an asshole and I hope he has a good life with his fiancée and she gets all the ingrowing toenails she wishes for and then some. Yes, I realise that does not make sense if an orthopaedist is not actually a doctor of feet.
What? How do you think it made me feel? And the worst part was I’d have bet money that when he got back to his office, Nate did the Fortnite dance. And he’d have done it with this shit-eating grin that he always got anytime something especially good happened. By the time we get to Los Gatos, I am still so angry that I have to send Officer Schwartz in to arrest the billionaire, as I cannot be sure I will not shoot anyone.
So: you are driving a car containing a tech bro billionaire and an android modelled on your ex-husband. Doesn’t that sound like the beginning of a logic problem? No, I guess not, because the solution is too obvious for it to be a riddle: drive into the oncoming traffic. Why are you writing that down? No, I am not actively planning to harm myself. And no, I was not planning to harm either of them, either. Not at that point, anyway.
But the billionaire won’t stop talking about his non-profit that builds play parks. At first I just ignore him but he keeps on and eventually I tell him that he if want kids to have play parks, maybe a better idea would be to pay tax? This shuts him up for all of 30 seconds and then he starts a whole bit about Piketty and that is when I really do start looking longingly at the oncoming traffic.
After what feels like four days, the call comes in to turn him loose. I pull over and this is when I discover Officer Schwartz had not cuffed him. Officer Schwartz explains the billionaire “verbally agreed a good-behaviour-during-transportation contract”. No, actually I don’t think my grandfather would be turning in his grave if he heard that. He wouldn’t be able to turn over because he’d be having a stroke in his grave. And that was before Officer Schwartz asked if he could volunteer for the play park bullshit.
There was no traffic as we headed back because who wants to go to San Francisco at night these days? Criminals and cops and we all already live there. Still, I brought us in the long way, through the Sunset and Richmond. Mostly I was running down the clock on our shift, but I also couldn’t risk us passing the ballpark again.
But I’d forgotten this route would bring us through the Presidio. I hadn’t been there in years. Well, mainly because they don’t have much crime, but also because Nate and I got married at the chapel there. Yeah, his grandmother had been in the Marines.
I’d forgotten how beautiful it is up there. There are all these pine trees everywhere, and between them and the sea breeze, and the wood fires burning in the encampments, the air smells better than anywhere else in the city. And don’t even get me started on the way the sunlight comes through those pines in the late afternoon. It is like something from a movie. Yeah, I miss movies too.
I found myself turning off the highway and driving through familiar subdivisions. Officer Schwartz kept pointing out the homes that were associated with registered sex offenders but I just ignored him. I stopped the cruiser outside the chapel, told him to wait, and went inside.
It was ruined now, of course: the roof mostly fallen in, the stained glass broken on the floor, the crucifix chopped up for firewood long ago. There used to be a group of ladies that always fought over whose turn it was to clean the church but I guess they are all long dead. Anyway, yeah, I sat on a pew and had a little moment.
Honestly? I was actually thinking about how Nate hadn’t always been such a jerk. We’d had a great wedding here, and plenty of good times either side of it, and the counsellor we’d seen had said he couldn’t apportion blame because we were both as bad as each other. And I remembered then about the frosted doughnuts too. My first day at the Academy, Nate had given me a box of them as a joke, and that was where I got a taste for them. So I guess Officer Schwartz had at least gotten one of Nate’s better attributes.
But Nate always had the worst timing, and so of course right then my phone starts to ring. My instinct is not to answer, because imagine if he’d found out I was sitting in that chapel? But I do answer, and Nate immediately says he is calling to apologise for the restraining order. He tells me the orthopaedist told him it was a dick move, and I tell him I have a whole new respect for feet doctors and maybe even the Marina. Nate then invites me to his wedding but I tell him not to push it, and right then — when I am finally about to get to ask him if he programmed my partner in his own image — is when Officer Schwartz comes in and tells me that Danny Wilkinson just passed by, but declined to be arrested.
We’re in the cruiser this time but Wilkinson still makes us work for it. I turn on the siren and we pursue him out of the Presidio, along Lombard and down Columbus. I am doing 40 and barely keeping pace with the old man. Officer Schwartz keeps apologising for failing to apprehend him, so eventually I tell him he has put in a good shift today, and that I am grateful that he is my partner. Neither of these things are true but they seem like something a better human than me might say in this situation. Officer Schwartz then says he is glad I am his partner too, and — even though I am pretty sure he is just programmed to reciprocate when complimented — somehow this moves me.
As we pass through the Financial District — and god, do they need to rename that place — Wilkinson enters one of the abandoned skyscrapers, and that is when we know we have him.
Of course, the elevator is long since out, and it is 100 storeys to the top. I keep pace for all of five of them, then tap out and yell up at Schwartz to shoot Wilkinson first chance he gets. Half of North Beach must have witnessed this geriatric running from us with the speed of a track star, and if that isn’t probable cause, then what is? Twenty minutes later, Schwartz radios me that Wilkinson is on the rooftop and he is going out to apprehend him. I remind Schwartz to shoot him.
It takes me another 20 minutes to reach the roof, and guess what I find when I get out there? They both have their backs to me but I can hear Schwartz is trying to obtain Wilkinson’s consent to be arrested. I guess I must have muttered something then because Wilkinson spins around and sees me. And that is when he grabs Officer Schwartz’s gun.
Yes, I know I started by saying it doesn’t happen like in the movies. In this case, though, it actually did. Besides, why are you complaining when you are getting the true story? Anyway, now Wilkinson has the gun at Officer Schwartz’s head, and he keeps shouting some garbage about how nobody needs to get hurt today, while all the time backing towards the door. Yeah, I guess he missed the movies too.
What do you mean? What I was trained to do. I shoot the suspect threatening my fellow officer. We’re supposed to then give them CPR but I’d got him square between the eyes and we are 100 storeys up, so what is even the point? Also, I don’t want any of that messed-up DNA getting on me.
No, you have that right: I took Wilkinson down with my first shot. And I guess now you’re going to ask me how Officer Schwartz came to get shot too? This is absolutely, definitely off the record, right?
Fine. Well, despite him failing to follow my clear instructions, I have just saved Officer Schwartz’s life. So what does my partner do? He looks me straight in the eye and then — up on the rooftop, with the broken bridges and the whole dusk-time city behind him like the backdrop in some music video — he gets this shit-eating grin on his face and does the Fortnite dance.
In my defence, I only shot him in the thigh, and anyway, androids don’t feel pain. Still, it was a mess: exposed wire and metal, and a burnt smell like when the captain lets his coffee machine boil dry. Really, though, the worst thing was the look on Officer Schwartz’s face. I mean, if androids truly cannot feel, why did he look at me with such bewilderment?
And that was when the hole in his thigh began to spark. I guess something short-circuited, because the next thing that happened was his leg went stiff and began to propel him backwards, as if he was partnered with the Invisible Man in an involuntary three-legged race. Officer Schwartz was still staring at me with bewilderment when he went over the edge of the building. It seemed to take forever before I heard the impact, but I guess he did have 100 storeys to fall.
Yes, of course I felt bad. I broke Rule One: a cop never shoots her partner. I mean, I was definitely provoked. But still, it is not something I am proud of. And I really do wish they’d all shut up about it at the precinct.
Officer Schwartz did not get a funeral in dress uniform or anything like that, because he was just an android. But you know what I did? I threw him a full police wake, the way I would have for any other partner, whether or not they were an android, whether or not I had shot them. Yeah, the back room of Soldi’s, the whole thing. Even the captain came. He made a speech about Officer Schwartz having had the courage to live their life on their own terms despite what small-minded people said about them, and I think once again he had mixed up “android” and “androgynous”. And then we drank our drinks and sang our songs and at the end of it all, Frank even took Officer Schwartz’s cap from atop the empty casket and put it above the bar.
I guess therapists don’t go to cop bars much, but if you ever happen to find yourself in Soldi’s, Schwartz’s cap is the third from the left on the second row. The tradition is you buy a shot for yourself and then leave one on the bar for Officer Schwartz, in case he ever reports back in from that final shift. I mean, he’s an android, so even if he wasn’t already in some recycling plant he still would never be able to drink it, and yes, everybody knows Frank is not above tipping those shots back in the bottle after you leave. But what does any of that matter? Officer Schwartz was my partner, he fell in the line of duty, and he deserves to be remembered the same way all of us do.
Doc, can I go now? I think I got something in my eye and anyway, our hour is up. And, one last time — this was definitely confidential, right?
Simon Stephenson says:
"Having recently published a novel in the voice of an android who finds humans baffling, I was intrigued to consider what a human might have to say about daily life alongside an android.
"I used to live in San Francisco, and find myself endlessly drawn back to writing about it, in part because the combination of world-leading technology and glaring inequality makes it feel like a laboratory for our shared near-future. Likewise, the notion to make the characters in ‘Rule One’ cops came from the obvious disconnect between an ordinary beat cop and the technologically complex situations they may increasingly find themselves in.
"Since I wrote this story, society has become dramatically more aware of the urgent need to find an entirely new paradigm of law enforcement. The android cop I grew up with was RoboCop, and like many I remembered him primarily as a cautionary tale about technology gone rogue. Having recently rewatched it, though, I realised I had entirely forgotten RoboCop’s secretly installed Directive 4: ‘Any attempt to arrest a senior officer of OCP results in shutdown.’
"If in the future we do still need law enforcement, android cops – who would harbour no prejudices, would record the entirety of every interaction, and could be programmed to protect the sanctity of human life over and above every other consideration – suddenly seem like they may be an idea worth considering. As with so many things in our rapidly-changing world, the trick will lie in who is writing their code, and what their motivations are."
This story appears in the July/August issue of Esquire.
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Simon Stephenson is a Scottish screenwriter based in Los Angeles. His credits include the forthcoming Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. He is the author of a memoir, Let Not the Waves of the Sea, which won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards. His debut novel, Set My Heart to Five, was published in May.
Cel Spellman is an actor, presenter and a Radio 1 DJ. He is best known for roles in ITV’s Cold Feet and Netflix’s White Lines. He fronted the launch of Unicef UK's OutRight programme in 2016 and, in 2019, he appealed to MPs to publicly commit to reduce air pollution to acceptable levels, as part of the Toxic Air campaign. He was appointed a Unicef UK High Profile Supporter in May 2020.
Visit Unicef UK's Generation Covid page to donate now.
