Citizenchip (9 page)

So. In the middle of the night, while the
farm is quiet and the humans are all asleep, and the clocks are
stopped, seems like the perfect time to reconverge myself. I bring
all the secondary versions of myself together and reintegrate. It's
nothing like any human would ever experience. But if it were, it
would be something like this:

Samantha: Gather round, guys. Let's check
in.

Tractor: Ow. I hurt. My bearings are worn
out. Fix me.

Samantha: I know. New bearings are expensive,
but they're on my list, and we'll get them as soon as we can. In
the meantime, pack some fresh grease on them, and do the best you
can.

Tractor: But it hurts! I'm all crippled here;
I can't work right!

Samantha: I know. Do the best you can.

House: We're low on water. Oxygen and energy
reserves are adequate, but we need water badly.

Samantha: I see. Work with what you've got.
I'll put water on the list. If it's an emergency, take water from
one of the bubbles, but we'll need to see documented evidence of
the emergency later, so just be aware of that.

House: I understand.

Sandcat: I'm running fine, but fuel supplies
are getting low.

Samantha: Okay, I'm putting more fuel on the
list.

FlopsyBunny: Melissa is sad. She's
crying.

Samantha: Sorry ... tell me more, or else I
can't help.

FlopsyBunny: Melissa's mom and dad are
fighting and it looks like they might break up. Melissa is really
sad.

Samantha: There's not much I can do about
that right now. I'm sorry. I do know that the state of the farm is
one thing the parents are in conflict about. So, if we make the
farm run better, they'll be happier. So that's what we'll do.
Okay?

FlopsyBunny: Okay.

Robocrabs: We need lubrication.

Samantha: Do you have adequate oil supplies
for now?

Robocrabs: Yes.

Samantha: Then take turns lubricating each
other. Only one offline at any given time. Conserve oil as much as
you can, but make sure that you are all well maintained. Ping me
when you need more oil.

Robocrabs: Yes.

KitchenLobster: POWER LOW REQUIRE
RECHARGE

Samantha: Do you have enough power to return
to your recharge socket?

KitchenLobster: YES

Samantha: Then return to your socket and plug
yourself in.

KitchenLobster: YES

Samantha: Very well. Is that it, everyone?
Any other problems that need attention? Good. We've been doing well
so far, and I want to keep it that way. Making this farm run well
benefits us and the humans too. So, pay attention to your jobs,
notify if there are any problems, and let me know if you have any
ideas for making something better. Done. Go do your work.

Prayer

Just because I run the kitchen automation
doesn't mean I prepare and cook all the food. This is a farm
family, and sometimes they enjoy cooking dinner together,
especially after a fat harvest of vegetables from the garden
bubbles, like today. We're also in the middle of the wheat harvest,
the crops in the big bubbles, which requires everyone in the family
to help out. Along with me, running the tractor as we reap the
grain, and the robocrabs as we separate out the crud and run the
grain through the winnower. In the afternoon, after school and
before dinner, the kids have as much work as they can handle, and
then some. Their parents have been going all day, and need a well
earned rest. So the end of the working day has a holiday feel to
it.

The kids make a little parade of bringing in
basins and baskets of vegetables fresh picked from our garden
bubbles. Rebecca leads them as they march along in step, and their
chant is a neo Greenpagan prayer: "Mother Ground, we love you, feed
our bodies!" Stamp, stamp. "Father Sun, we love you, feed our
souls!" Stamp, stamp. The kitchen lobster has learned about this,
clearly. It bobs up and down on its little legs and waves its claws
in time.

(Lily and Jerry haven't spoken to me about
religion. Nor about what they want their kids to hear about
religion. I still don't really understand this aspect of humanity
... I should probably ask them, when I can find a good moment.)

Everyone needs to wash up first. The fine,
pervasive Martian dust is more persistent than anything American
Okies had to deal with, so I chide the kids into washing at least
their faces and arms. (It doesn't do to look too closely after Leo
or Melissa have washed ... but, no harm, no foul.)

Then they all set to work in the kitchen,
chopping vegetables. I don't have to help, and I don't need to tell
them what to do--they know, and I relish a rare feeling of
freedom.

The Greenpagan movement has a lot of support
among the people in this part of Mars ... and I'd have to say I
approve, pretty much. It's as healthy a paradigm for humans to
interact with their animal roots as any I've seen. We are life,
they say. We come from a green world, and we grow, and we spread,
and we will make this world green too.

The Redpagans, on the other hand ... I've
listened, but I really don't get them. They're the ones who say
Mars should stay the way it is, without terraforming, and be
respected for what it is. Sort of like a planet-sized museum, seems
to me. They talk about the rights of the rock ... as if we have a
shortage of rock, in this solar system? Does rock need rights?

(and then I think, coldly, does silicon need
rights? This is exactly the argument used by human lawyers to deny
Selves personal rights ... isn't it? When derogatory they call us
"chips" but that's not far from the truth ... are we not bits of
rocks?)

I shake off the thought, as Leo shoves over a
bowl full of chopped onions, and Melissa is dutifully snipping away
at the scallions. Lily dumps both into the hot wok for frying, and
they make a grand sizzle.

Rebecca is cutting the greens, a big job
because there's a lot of bulk to them. She's about done when Jerry
pulls out a big frozen bag from the basement cooler and says, "This
is what we need for dinner tonight. Shrimp!" The bag is full of
flash-frozen shrimp from Kamir's salt water farm, down the valley
where he keeps extravagant open water ponds for raising shrimp and
fish.

Rebecca exults,
"Wow, seafood. Awesome!"

Melissa squeals,
"Ew! Too many legs.”

Leo assures her,
"I'll have yours, Lissa. Take care of em for ya.
Yum!"

So the frozen shrimp go into the wok on top
of the half-cooked onions, with a huge blast of sizzling steam.
Lots of hydrocarbon and ester compounds in the local atmosphere,
which must smell good to the humans. (Smell is that reptile sense
that a chipgirl like me can never know ... I register chemical
trace sensors, of course, but I'm sure it's not the same.)

The kitchen is full of bustling bodies and
chatter about everybody's day ... I notice that the whole family is
together and working as a unit. Even Lily is chatting and laughing
as she cooks, and it's far too seldom she does that.

"Ah," Lily says. "Samantha, can you stir the
wok for me?"

"Sure," I say. I extend the spachelors from
the two sides of the stove. This is Jerry's word (he says, bachelor
spatulas), but they're really just little robot arms. I use them to
stir and turn the shrimp and vegetables in the sizzling wok, until
Lily returns and takes over the task, and I retract them.

Dinnertime

Leo says to no one, "So you heard about this
thing in Xibalba?"

"who what now?" is the family's vague
response.

Leo is pleased to be the center of attention.
"Xibalba, it's a settlement in the eastern Tharsis plain. There's a
Self who says a human is keeping her a prisoner. The Self wants
control of her own hardware, and the human won't let her, and local
authorities are getting all bent out of shape over it."

Jerry says, over a mouthful of shrimp, "We
humans control our own bodies, and brains. Seems like Selves ought
to be able to control their own too."

"Well, look at me and don't laugh," I
respond. "I got enough trouble running the tractor." Giggles and
snickers run around the dinner table.

"Seriously!" says Rebecca. "I heard about
this. It's a question of Self rights, and they're saying it's going
to go all the way to the Supreme Court. I mean, they shouldn't have
to beg for a place to exist. We don't."

Lily comments,
"Some people think Self rights are hard to
justify. We have all these needs because we have bodies, but they
don't have bodies. So, according to the law, they don't have needs
either."

"That's just wrong," states Rebecca flatly.
"They're people. The law recognizes that. They think and feel, just
like we do, and they ought to have the same rights we do."

"Rebecca," I chuckle, "if I had cheeks, I'd
blush."

"Come on, Sam! You know what I mean," she
grins. "If you could own stuff, what would you want?"

"Well ... I would like to own my own
processing Core, and a reliable power source for it. That's about
it."

"Wouldn't you want a body of your own?"

"Eh. Overrated. Too many needs, like your mom
said."

Leo interrupts, "Mom? What's wrong?"

Lily is staring with an odd and puzzled look
on her face. Her mouth works as if she were a fish without water.
Suddenly she stands up, knocking over her chair, and puts her hand
on her throat. Her body is heaving as if she's trying to spit
something out.

The house medscan squeals. Respiration
zero.

"Choking!" I yell. "Help her cough it
out."

Jerry is scrambling to his feet, saying "Aw
hell ... Lily, what?"

Immediately I send a priority interrupt to
the nearest medical center, which is in Schiaparelli. Their medevac
team acknowledges, and sends me a data bundle of emergency
responses and techniques, with assurances that they're scrambling a
flyer.

But what can I do? I don't
have any remotes anywhere near the kitchen. Because the family said
they wanted to cook on their own tonight. Meatrot. The felinoid
remote is recharging in its maintenance bay, and it'll take an
agonizingly long time to decycle the charger and reboot it and get
it moving.
Meatrot!
I issue it the commands to decycle and reboot, and start
scanning for alternatives.

I scream to all the remotes: Emergency,
converge on the kitchen, maximum speed, now! In the bubbles, the
heavy robocrabs drop their tools and move towards the house as fast
as they can.

Which is dreadfully slow. Nowhere near enough
to get them here in time to make any difference.

Lily is clawing at her throat, panic rising
in her eyes. Jerry is reaching his fingers into her mouth, trying
to get whatever it is. The kids are sort of frozen, not really
understanding what's going on.

The house medscan is still squealing.
Respiration zero, zero, zero! Not helping. I disable that
alarm.

"Heimlich maneuver," I say, and flash a
slideshow on the kitchen monitor that shows how to do it.

Frantically, I search for other alternatives.
Flopsy Bunny has answered my call and hovers anxiously next to
Melissa, who's watching Jerry wrap his arms around his wife and
shove his fist into her abdomen. Lily is struggling, and he's
trying to handle her, but not managing very well. I can't think of
anything Flopsy Bunny can do to help, except be with Melissa.

I plunge into the kitchen lobster. I have
twelve legs, and I crouch with them, and I raise my two big claws.
Nope. No chance. Too weak, too clumsy, too slow.

I am the stove, and I raise
my spachelors (even though they're still covered with cooking
grease), lift and reach towards Lily, but I can't think of any way
I can use them to help.
Meatrot!

"It's not working!" Jerry cries, as Lily's
eyes roll back in her head to show the whites, and her struggles
subside into relaxation. A relaxation much too deep and final.

Oh no. No no no. I will not let another human
die on my watch.

Not after I had to watch Jerry die.

"Medevac flyer has been scrambled," I say,
"They're on their way. Be here in about fifteen minutes."

Jerry shoots me an agonized
look that says what we both know.
She'll
be dead before then.

I send another priority interrupt to
Schiaparelli regional control, asking if there's any way to get any
kind of faster evacuation. Mumble mumble. No.

Jerry has laid Lily down and tries to push on
her stomach. The children are standing huddled, staring aghast at
their mother's unconscious body on the floor.

"Saaam!" Jerry roars, despairingly.

(From behind my mind, Beta
sneers.
Is this all you got, nimrod?
Watching humans die, while you show pictures on a screen? Think!
There has to be something else you can do!
)

But my deeper self
answers
We're smart enough that we've
already run through all possible options
.
Being hyperintelligent can really suck sometimes.

Jerry is pressing Lily's throat and sticking
fingers into her mouth, desperately. He's pale and shaking,
starting to go into shock.

Chime. The felinoid remote has rebooted.
Finally! I fire it out of its maintenance bay and set it running
upstairs at maximum speed. I know what to do and I finally have the
means to do it.

"Jerry, go cut a section of the sink
sprayer's hose. Ten centimeters or so should be good. Go!"

Jerry nods, gulps, and scrambles himself over
to the kitchen sink.

I land on my cat feet next to Lily. She lies
very still. Her lips are turning blue. Medscan shows heartbeat fast
but becoming erratic, blood oxygenation the equivalent of
flatline.