For the third trial, AmaBaba flies me and John to their Seattle headquarters. That way, he and their boxing computer will have the same lag between conducting a virtual maneuver and a bot actually performing it. I suppose they could have brought the computer and us to the warehouse, where the lag would be minimized, but AmaBaba probably wants to maintain a home field advantage—as well as not go all the way to Bessemer, Alabama.

To keep John relaxed, I’ve been treating the trip like a vacation—our first in years. I got us matching raincoats. Planned some sightseeing. Brought the red satin boxers that make me look, my husband once said, “like a fighter.” And for a week I’ve held onto his phone. The trial weighs on John enough without a thousand other boxers reminding him they’ll all be out of jobs if he can’t beat AmaBaba’s latest boxing program.

During the flight John’s OK at first. He watches some streams, then naps. When his fingers twitch, I tell myself he’s dreaming, but soon his hands rise to fit phantom products into boxes on his tray table. John boxes so often and for so long, he can’t shut off. A woman across the aisle looks concerned, so I draw his hands down. “Some people talk in their sleep,” I tell her.

Over the Rockies, John bolts awake. “Luke, they’re trying to ice me. That’s why they’re flying us out. I can’t box on the plane. No signal. They want me to lose my edge.”

“Then why bother having a live trial?” I grip his hands. “They want to show the world we’re obsolete, and pretty charts comparing the average person’s boxing rate to a machine’s won’t do that as well as beating their best boxer at his best.” I kiss his knuckles.

“It’s you they want to beat,” John says. “I’m 7 percent faster when you’re around, and I only beat the program by 5 percent last time.” He kisses my knuckles. “You’re the fighter.”

“So are you, even if you insist on wearing such raggedy boxers.”

For the last hour we chat about everything except boxing, something else it seems we haven’t done for years, then we land and John gets a message from AmaBaba. I try to spin it.

“They’re really going all out for you. They sent a driver, not a drone. She’ll meet us—”

John snorts. “They’re showing me the stakes. How many drivers do you think are left in this city? She’s a novelty, like an airplane pilot. Or a bathroom attendant.”

“John, stop it. You’ll ice yourself.”

He sits back as everyone else stands up. “I need this, Luke. This is what I do.” He lets go of my hand.

I won’t let go of his. “You’ve beaten the program twice before.”

“It keeps getting better, though,” he says. “It keeps learning. From me. From all the boxers. That’s why they’re having the trials. A bot could outlast me, sure, but it wouldn’t be as efficient, and AmaBaba puts efficiency before anything else. And I just spent half a day doing nothing. Going cold.”

I want to say, “You spent half a day with me,” but that’ll get us nowhere. I say instead, “You know something? Forget the hotel. Forget sightseeing. We can do that later. Let’s go look at AmaBaba’s setup.”

John smiles. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“No,” I say, although I’d also brought the boxers for myself and I’d been looking forward to going a few rounds with him after checking in.

The AmaBaba campus in South Lake is cleverly disguised as a thriving neighborhood. The former garages and industrial buildings now house private eateries, floating workstations, avatar-ready meeting spaces, hundreds of workers’ quarters, and enough dogs for Westminster. Everyone we see for blocks has a shiny pin in their collar that indicates division and rank.

At reception we’re met by Derek Farrier, the program’s principal developer, along with his smiling six-person team and a golden retriever. Farrier’s as trim as he was when he came to our home for the second trial, and he’s wearing clothes that the fashion streams haven’t yet realized are fashionable. He makes his team look like posers, makes me feel dowdy, and turns John into my roly-poly grandpa. Farrier hurries toward me while the golden trots to John.

“Sorry to surprise you,” I say.

“No problem at all,” Farrier says, taking my hand.

“No surprise either, right?” John says, shaking the dog’s paw.

“No,” Farrier admits. “The chips in your credit cards told us you were coming.” He shakes John’s hand while the golden just stares at me. “It’s good to see you again. Ready for tomorrow?”

“I’d go right now, if you’d like.”

Farrier laughs. “No need for that.”

“Actually,” I say, “we would like to see where John will—”

“Climb into the ring?” The team smiles more broadly. “Sure. It’s not the Key, but we think you’ll appreciate it.”

Farrier and the golden lead us up an open staircase to a maze of windowless hallways made up of cloth-covered panels. They gently shift color from royal blue to dark, like still water in a changing light. I think my movement is causing the effect until John runs his knuckle along a panel and the colors ripple away from it. “It’s not cloth at all,” he says.

“No,” Farrier says. “You’ve never been to campus?”

“We’re—he’s a remote,” I say.

“Of course,” Farrier says. “You’ll find some surprises here, then. This is mood screen. Detects your emotions and changes color specific to your angle of vision in order to create a more soothing atmosphere. What color do you see?”

“Yellow,” John says.

“Welcome to sunless Seattle. Luke?”

“Gray.”

Farrier can tell I’m lying, but plays along. “Remind me not to play poker with you. Which also reminds me: I’ll need your devices. Phones. Watches. Are those smart glasses, Luke?”

“No. Why?”

“We can’t have you streaming our secrets, can we? While on AmaBaba’s property, you’re automatically under NDA, but as my nana would say, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ So,” a member of his team steps forward with a Tesla bag, “please.”

“Fine.” I drop in John’s phone.

The dog barks.

“Luke,” Farrier says, “we take security very seriously here. And all signals are tracked.”

I drop in my phone and watch.

The dog barks again.

I surrender my glasses. I’d heard of bomb-sniffing dogs, but—

“Thank you,” Farrier says and continues down the hallway. “I know you may not believe it, but we’re all on the same team. Now,” he stops and holds his hand over a panel, “welcome to the game.” He taps the panel, and it vanishes.

I gasp.

“Nifty, huh?” Farrier says. “It’s holographic. Saves us a fortune on doors.”

“No,” I say, pointing through the opening. “That.”

The back half of the large room is an exact replica of the basement workstation where John boxes. It’s as cool as the basement, too, which John always appreciates, having gotten started as a boxer in the roaster that’s the Robbinsville warehouse. The only addition is a small monitor which will show his boxing rate and total orders fulfilled against those of AmaBaba’s program.

John enters and taps the workbench with his knuckle. It doesn’t ripple. “It’s like my great-grandfather’s.”

“A copy,” Farrier says. “We thought it only fair that this trial feel like another home game for you”—I nudge John with an elbow. His lips compress—”so we recreated your workstation based on video from the second trial. Here. Sit.” He pulls a stool from under the bench. “How’d we do?”

John perches on the stool, assumes his boxing posture, and shifts his butt. “Nicely broken in.”

“We all took turns,” Farrier says, gesturing toward his team. “Some things a printer can’t recreate. Do you want to try it out?”

“There’s always more to box,” John says. “Luke, just for a few minutes, OK?”

The walls lighten to sky blue as I kiss his head dutifully. “Take all the time you need.” Which could mean I’ll be eating alone tonight. Once John finds his groove, he hates leaving it, and the orders to be fulfilled never stop coming.

From his raincoat, John removes two thin green gloves and a contact case. “I carry them in case I get the urge.”

I say, “I had to keep him from boxing in the car on the way here.”

“That’s why you’re the best,” Farrier says, and claps John on the shoulder.

John considers Farrier’s hand. His eyes harden. “You won’t beat me,” he says.

There’s my fighter.

“John,” Farrier says, “we need to win this trial, there’s a ton of pressure on us, but between you, me, and the dog, I want you to. We’re all rooting for you.” The team nods.

John glances at me. I nod, too. He returns the gesture skeptically—nothing makes him more suspicious than kindness—and faces the workbench. He puts in the contacts, which turn his eyes entirely green, and rolls on the gloves, which conform to his hands. Their circuit weave flashes as he waggles his fingers to log on. He quickly comes up to speed.

Now the team gasps.

“You have to understand, Luke,” Farrier says, “while John is working remotely in the warehouse, we’re working remotely on John. Mapping his motions. Measuring his rhythms. Analyzing his boxing strategies. Timing everything. This is my team’s first chance to see him in person, though.”

“Like watching Junior in his prime,” one guy says. He’s older, like John, who laughs at the reference. The rest don’t get it.

“His elbow’s too wide,” a woman says.

“Long flight,” I say. I tap John’s elbow. He tucks it against his side.

The woman checks her watch and beams. “His rate’s increased!”

Farrier vanishes a panel to a room beyond. “Let’s observe from there. I’ll introduce you to the challenger.”

“Can I hit the bathroom first? As I said—”

“Right. Long flight. Jeremey?”

The golden vanishes the panel to the hallway with his paw and sits.

I stare at the programmer.

“He knows the way,” Farrier says. “He’s been here longer than me. Probably has more options, too.”

We wind through the hallways until I’m convinced the panels are shifting behind us. Jeremey vanishes the unmarked entrance to a bathroom. There are no urinals, just a Chihuly glass gutter and backsplash with waterfall. Jeremey lifts his leg beside me, then joins me at the sinks, his mounted near the floor. Jeremey paws the tap, takes a drink, and says, “You know, there’s a lot riding on this trial.”

“What?” I stagger away from the golden.

“For me in particular. Farrier’s right. I do have a ton of options, and I’d like to retire.” The golden peers in the mirror above his sink. “I’ve got my eye on a little place in Issaquah. If your husband wins, the stock will drop, and I’ll lose it.” He strokes the white fur on his face. “There’s a lot riding on the trial for you, too.”

“Is there a speaker on your collar?” I don’t see one, only an AmaBaba pin. “This is impossible.”

“Luke, your husband puts on a pair of glorified surgical gloves and packs boxes in a warehouse a thousand miles from your home, then drones that drive and fly deliver those boxes all by themselves across five states, and I’m impossible? No, I’m here to help.”

I try to edge around the golden, but he herds me against the gutter. He can’t be an avatar. They’re not mobile. And John shook his paw.

“John’s under a lot of pressure,” I say. “Maybe it’s affecting me, too.”

“I’m as real as the pressure, Luke.”

The entrance panel vanishes, revealing a short guy with tall hair. His eyes widen on seeing the golden.

“I got this space, Buckley. Get out.”

Buckley bows as if kicked in the crotch. “Sorry, Jeremey. Sure. Sorry.”

The panel reappears. The walls take on earth tones, trying to ground me. The waterfall gets louder. I take a cleansing breath. The dog’s a bot, I decide, controlled by a John somewhere. One more fancy attempt to ice us by showing how advanced AmaBaba’s tech already is. That has to be it.

“Look,” Jeremey says, “you know what happens if John loses, right?”

I might as well run with this. “Yes.”

“Well, what happens if he wins?”

“He doesn’t lose his livelihood? No one does?”

“Exactly, which means you eating more meals alone while he boxes. Watching your streams alone—while he boxes. Not talking—while he boxes. Putting away those satin boxers—”

“How do you know about those?”

“Please,” Jeremey says, “they cut my balls off, not my access to your life. We don’t just measure John when he’s boxing. We look at everything he does to find out how his life affects his boxing. You think it was during the last trial that we discovered you improved his rate? We knew; what we discovered was how to measure it.”

“Go to hell.” I push past Jeremey. He circles around me, nails skittering on the tiles, and bares his teeth. I back off. “I could bite you. I’ve considered that. You’d be the one banned from campus, and that’d rattle John enough to lose. That’s not how I want to play this, though. I want you to make John lose.”

“You’re crazy.” I say. “I’m talking to a dog, and it’s the dog that’s crazy.”

“Luke, who does everything for him? You. Who holds his hands and keeps him going? You. Who wants to see the Chihuly Gardens, not this tacky water feature? You. Who actually packed his suitcase to come here? You. And what does he give you in return? An hour a day? A vacant stare? His presence? But not his companionship, right? We know you’re going to your college reunion alone next month. And not his body, either, at least not for the last six months. That’s what’s crazy.”

The panel opens again. It’s a member of Farrier’s team. Before Jeremey can bark at her, she says, “They’ve decided to start the trial now. And John’s on fire: on pace to fulfill fourteen orders a minute, half an order more than his lifetime average. Farrier says he needs you. She dares a glance at the golden, steps back, and the panel reappears.

“Quelle surprise,” Jeremey says. “You know, Pike Place Market isn’t far from here. You could go get lunch—and dinner, seeing as the trial will last eight hours. Unless John wants to go twelve or fifteen like he does at home.”

Dammit, John, I think. We were supposed to have a day. One day. I deserve that.

“The thing is, all you have to do is nothing. You don’t have a contract with the company. Let him hold his own hands.”

It’s a clever plan. Their press release could honestly say they beat John. My role, or lack of one, would remain invisible, except to him. Would he want to hold my hand after that?

“Oh, and if you’re a good boy,” Jeremey says, “we’ll throw you a bone and make sure the weather’s nice for your reunion.”

As Jeremey leads me into the observation room, Farrier waves me over. “Check this out.”

For a moment, I think there’s a window into the workroom, then realize the wall presents six virtual displays. The three on top show John from above, the boxer bot in Bessemer performing his maneuvers, and a close-up of each box as it’s packed. The others show stats from the boxing program, its bot, and its current box. Overlays compare the motions on like displays. Behind them John jabs and grabs air, eyes closed.

The other walls brighten to sunlight yellow. I can almost feel their soothing warmth.

Farrier says, “John and the program are boxing the same things, but they’re finding different solutions, plus John’s using less wrap without any decrease in content safety.”

That’s big. Efficiency is nearly as important as rate. Some boxers used to increase their rates by using boxes larger than necessary and filling the wasted space with packing bubbles, costing AmaBaba a fortune. After the first trial revealed John’s efficiency, AmaBaba began giving boxers the right-sized box, not letting them decide which to use. This made John no friends amongst the boxers. Now he’s fighting for them all.

Is he fighting for me, though? John wakes up before I do, starts boxing while I’m in the shower, and grants me a kiss before I go to my attic office. I feed him lunch while he boxes, which you’d think would be intimate. Instead, it’s like pushing food into a disposal. By the time he’s done, exhilarated by the effort, I’m asleep.

What would life be like without boxing? Could he get another job at his age? Maybe he could take a break. Feed me lunch for once. Make love to me during the day. We’ve both worked remotely for our entire marriage and done that maybe twice.

After the first hour, John has fulfilled fourteen orders a minute, four more than the average boxer does, while the program managed only thirteen, one more than it could during the last trial. I smirk at Jeremey. I don’t have to help John. He’s doing great.

Jeremey trots to Farrier. “Change the mix.”

“Sure,” Farrier says. He taps a command into his watch.

“What does that mean?” I say.

“So far the orders have been modeled on those AmaBaba actually receives,” Farrier says. “Two books and a box of candy. A watch and a gift card. Most of them in the standardized packaging we’ve mandated. We need to see what happens when we give them unlikely orders. Will John falter, confused by the objects themselves instead of focusing on boxing them?”

“That’s not fair.”

“We plan to sell the program to other companies,” Jeremey says. “It’s product-agnostic. John must be, too.” He returns my smirk as well as a golden can.

On the monitors a picker bot approaches each boxer bot with a box of tampons, a chainsaw, and a bag of cheese curls. Three free cleats, frozen crab legs, and a remaindered memoir by Bobby Bowden. A breast pump, a sump pump, and a bicycle pump, all unboxed. After another hour, John has maintained his lead, but he’s rolling his head and shoulders, pained by maneuvers that don’t normally occur in sequence. I stop myself from doing so as well.

The workroom is miked, so all around me I hear John yell, “I knew you’d mess with me, Farrier. How about some real orders, not this bull?”

“You can go in and speak with him,” Farrier says.

“And where’s Luke?” John looks over his shoulder, as if his side of the wall displays the observation room. After a moment he says, “Sorry about the sightseeing, honey.”

No, he isn’t. He’s conciliatory, just like he was in the car when I asked him not to box.

“It’s OK,” I tell Farrier as John dives into his flow again. I don’t look at Jeremey. I can’t look at the team. The walls have dimmed to under-the-covers blue.

An hour later, John’s gotten used to the strange orders, somehow increased his rate by .5, his hands a blur, and his overall lead in orders fulfilled by 210.

Farrier says, “He’s learning faster than us.”

Jeremey says, “Eliminate his view of what’s coming next so he can’t plan ahead.”

After fifteen minutes without slowing, John calls out, “One order at a time, that’s my motto.” The team laughs. Jeremey pants. I shuffle in place.

John’s starting to sweat, though, and his elbows are flying everywhere. He usually takes a break every two hours to shake out his arms and walk around, but he doesn’t want his rate to suffer.

After four hours, John is holding steady, but the program’s rate has picked up .5 of its own. Jeremey wants more.  “Raise the temperature in the workroom twenty degrees,” he says.

That won’t bother John. He played high school football in Gainesville, Florida, but I see where this is headed. AmaBaba started using remote boxers so they didn’t have to keep ambulances and publicity managers at their warehouses to deal with people fainting from the heat. Sure enough, at the four hour mark, Jeremey says, “Bring it up another twenty degrees. And make the walls flames for him.” Farrier does.

I grab the programmer’s shoulder and spin him around. “You can’t do that,” I say.

Jeremey says, “The program’s also environment-agnostic. Let him get a taste of what the bots can endure in Bessemer.”

“Bring him some water,” Farrier says, glaring at Jeremey.

“Four hours left, and your whole life afterwards,” the golden says. “He could quit, of course. No halftime break for him. And it’s only going to get hotter. I shouldn’t say this, but we’re working on a big contract with Dubai.”

The walls turn to fire for me, too.

I can’t watch John suffer. I fill three bottles at the water station and go in. Sweat beads on John’s brow. It glistens in his beard. I take his white golf towel off the workbench, drench it, and cool his forehead.

“John, you can’t keep up this pace. Not for four hours.”

“Did two-a-days. Full pads. In August. For four years.”

I wipe his cheeks. He shakes me off. “You quit on me,” he says. “Now you want me to quit.”

“I’m worried.”

“I’m not. If that’s your help, keep it.”

My face tightens. Damned if I do. I leave slowly so I don’t storm.

For forty-two minutes, John holds his own. When he starts to flag, it’s almost imperceptible. A jar’s misplacement. A momentary shuffle of some loose tools. A pause before closing a box. Even the team barely notices, despite the overlay of the program’s boxing solution, but at the sixth hour John’s rate has dropped to 13.5, Farrier and his team trying not to cheer, and halfway through the sixth hour it’s down to thirteen, his lead to three hundred.

“Farrier, he needs a break.”

“The program doesn’t,” Jeremey says. “It’s like a steam engine.”

“At least lower the temperature,” I say. John sways on his stool. Farrier looks to Jeremey, who shakes his head, tags jingling.

I go to John.

He’s wearing more sweat than clothes. His mouth is cracked. His eyes are puffy and purple, although the contacts are self-lubricating. Before he can resist, I pour water into his open mouth.

“At least with this heat,” John whispers, “I don’t have to pee.”

I whisper, too. “John, it’s the dog, Jeremey. He doesn’t want me to help you.”

John says nothing, then, “Who names a dog Jeremey?”

“Did you hear—”

“Yes.” His arms jerk as he packs a particularly difficult box. “Makes sense. But I know something they don’t.”

“What?” I mop his brow.

“The 7 percent. It’s not from you helping me. It’s from me loving you. Wanting to provide.” He boxes furiously for a moment. “I could improve on that score.”

I don’t know what to say that won’t make me cry, so I try, “You know the red satin boxers?”

“Yea.”

“I’m already wearing them.” I pull the band out of my jeans. “See?”

“Don’t have to. In my mind you’re always wearing them.”

“I can think of a way to improve your score.”

“Me, too,” John says. “Maybe this is it for me.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“Can’t keep winning, but I can win one last time. Go out on top.” John huffs between every word.

“Can you make it?”

“Afternoons, we ran four miles. Coach said, ‘Water’s for wimps.’ I aint no wimp.”

Nonetheless, I reach for a bottle.

“Don’t help,” he says. “Let them think they own you. They won’t turn the heat any higher.”

“Good idea.” I throw down the bottle, scowl as if we’ve been fighting and stalk out.

Jeremey greets me in the observation room. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“The right thing would be to kick you in the snout.”

“I’ve been kicked plenty,” Jeremey says. “That’s why I’m here.”

John’s gotten his second wind. For a half-hour, his maneuvers are crisp, his breathing normal. He takes back half an order fulfilled, hitting 13.5. John could slow down and run out the clock, but my husband only has one gear: go, and fast, especially with the program learning from him in real-time and getting, incredibly, to fifteen.

With forty minutes left, however, John hits the wall. It’s like someone yanked the pins from his joints. On the monitor showing the warehouse, John’s bot misses a box entirely and, trying to recover, it nearly knocks the box onto the floor. The time it takes John to fix this mistake with his floppy arms knocks his rate down by ten, replacement level, and shrinks his lead to 175 with a half-hour to go.

Then I notice he isn’t sweating anymore. His face is flushed and bone dry, almost waxy.

“He’s getting heat stroke,” Farrier says. “We’ve got enough data. We could call it a tie.”

“No,” Jeremey says. He circles me. “Ties are like licking your sister. They sell no programs. Ties keep useless meat on the payroll. If John wants to stop, let him say the word.”

“He won’t.”

“Then you say it,” Jeremey says.

“I can’t. It’d kill him.”

“Only figuratively,” Jeremey says.

“Is this the publicity you want,” I say, “working another man to death?”

“It’d certainly be a strong selling point.”

“That’s it,” Farrier says, “I’m not killing a man for a company. I’m shutting this down.”

“If you had balls enough to do that, Farrier, you’d have just done it. But they’ve clipped you, too. So lay back and think of your options.”

Farrier hangs his head. If there had been any revolt in his team, it also died.

The golden says, “Get another twenty degrees in there.”

“Can’t,” Farrier says. “Thermostat’s maxed.”

Really? I think.

At John’s current rate, if he doesn’t collapse, he’ll finish with twenty-five more orders fulfilled than the program. And I want to win.

The golden shrugs. “Even if he does squeak by in this trial, he’ll lose the next one. So why go on? Come one, Luke, throw in the towel before John gets hurt.”

I remember something my father said. “I’ll always be in your corner, Luke, but no matter what happens, I’ll never throw in the towel. A man’s got to finish things in the ring. I won’t take that away from you.”

John always liked my father.

I dart into the workroom and for twenty minutes I make John drink. I wipe his face. I rub his shoulders. I direct his arms when he can’t, I yell at him to keep going when he doesn’t want to, and I refuse, when he begs me with ten minutes left, to cut off his gloves.

Five minutes left. His shoulders go slack. His lead drops to forty.

Four minutes left. His arms flail like he’s drowning. His lead is thirty-two. “Come on, John,” I say. “Just stay at seven, and you’ll tie.”

“No ties,” he says, and boxes furiously for two more minutes, a swimmer desperate to reach a life ring, getting, unbelievably, to nine, then his arms spill down his sides. “Tank’s empty,” he says.

“Don’t make me do the speech from Rudy.”

“I’m not quitting. I lost.”

“You can’t lose.”

“It happens.” He sounds drunk. “Know how many games we won in high school? Five. Coach wore us out in practice.”

“We can’t lose. Six more orders, and we win.”

“The only way we lose, I think, is if I win.” His head lolls over his big shoulder to look at me. “I’ve missed this. Working together. The rubbing. I forgot what it’s like not to box. I could get used to it.”

“That’s what they want, John.”

“No, it’s what I want. I thought by boxing I was taking care of you. Instead, I was neglecting us. Gotta change.”

“What about the other boxers?”

“Let them get their own Lukes.”

A minute left. His lead is five, the program’s rate steady at fifteen. I kiss him.

“That’s what I’m talking about.” He laughs. “I’d signal I’m done, but I can’t raise my arm.” He looks at them. “Either one.” He laughs again. “This is weird.”

“I will then.” I take his hand to raise it, but before I can, as his lead falls to one, I hear Farrier curse. Jeremey howls. Farrier’s team flies in from the observation room, chased by the snarling golden, and disappears through the panel to the hallway. Jeremey snarls at me before loping after them.

“Their rate’s zeroed,” John says.

Freezing air explodes from the vents. The walls turn blizzard white. Farrier comes in, shaken.

“We win!” John says. “Do winners still go to Disney World?” Then he collapses backwards. Farrier and I catch him and lower his heaving bulk to the floor. I rub his hands.

“AmaMed will be here soon,” Farrier says. “They’ll save him.” Far off Jeremey howls again. “Can’t save us, though. They’ll probably give the program to some AI to finish optimizing.” He smiles. “At least there’s one upside. Jeremey’s about to discover what it really means to be neutered. That dog’s a jerk.”

“What happened?” I say.

“The program’s bot overheated. Seized up.” He shakes his head. “We really should air condition our warehouses better.”