Expiration Day (31 page)

And unfortunately the TeraNet's not helping. There's very little out there. It's like no one ever challenged an Oxted contract before. Are we the first?

But we started on the contract anyway. It looked watertight, and maybe it was, but it hadn't always been that way. I remembered how Tim had told me how the contracts changed five, maybe six years ago, to give Oxted rights to early recall. So we dug out all the contracts, and analyzed the differences.

“We have to understand the changes, Tania. If they hadn't been challenged, why would the contracts have changed? Understand the nature of the changes, and you start to see the nature of the previous attacks. Maybe that'll illuminate a way to break the current contract. Maybe a new revision has re-opened an older breach.…”

Helpfully the contracts were not only dated, but were versioned, so we knew where there were some missing versions. Cautiously, Dad called a few friends. “I don't want to tip our hands, but I think I can trust these specific people whom I know had upgrades at about the right time.”

Some helped, some did not—either because they no longer had the documents, or in a couple of cases because they found the subject too painful. Dad didn't press. We got a few more versions, though.

So here we are, a weekend gone by (Dad called in help to cover church on Sunday), and surrounded by charts and mindmaps, and some painfully meager notes on previous challenges.

Dad sighed and summed it up, for perhaps the third or fourth time. He says it helps, but I'm not sure.

“The TeraNet shows no accessible history on any challenges to the contract. Ever. It's like those blitzed sites you found on robot freedom. Hints at best. Yet we have clear evidence in the contracts that challenges do happen, and presumably they have been successful, up to a point. In my opinion, albeit that of a nonlawyer, each successive breach has been repaired without causing a regression on previous breaches. In other words, Oxted's lawyers are good.”

But then he continued in a new vein.

“I have a terrible fear, Tania. There is a book—not easy to get hold of these days—called
Nineteen Eighty-Four
. In it, the Party controls people's lives to a frightening extent, and before today, I thought it was just fiction. But the power of the Party hinges upon one thing—control of information. One of the characters quotes a slogan, ‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' For the first time in my life I am seeing such control in our own society, and it frightens me.

“Somebody—and I conjecture it is Oxted—controls the present and the past, albeit imperfectly, and by implication, the future. You were right, Tania, and I wish I'd believed you back when Siân was taken.”

“So what do we do? Give up?”

“I didn't say that, Tania. But a frontal challenge to the contract is going to be hard. I need to find another way.

“Let's take a break.”

 

 

The break was a walk around the village, and off into the Wood. We followed footpaths at first, then reached a place where the paths became harder to follow. Dad didn't say much—but watching him striking out through the undergrowth I knew the physical activity had freed his mind to roam.

I had a rough idea of where we were going—we'd crossed a road I recognized—so wasn't too surprised when we emerged onto the green of the next village, and marched across to the pub facing it.

“A pint of IPA, and another for my daughter.”

I said nothing till we had our drinks and were seated comfortably distant from the barman. Dad took a long draught from his glass, and I followed suit. Then …

“Aren't you breaking the law, Dad? Buying me alcohol, I mean.”

“What do you think, Tania?”

“I…”

I stopped. Did the law apply to me? As a robot, could I break a law written for humans?

“I don't know, Dad. Is this part of your plan? What does the law say about robots?”

“I don't know, either. When we took you on, we got a lot of briefing around treating you exactly as we would a child of our bodies. But no one explicitly said anything that I recall about legal status, or rights. In hindsight, that's rather odd.”

“So are you trying to get us arrested, to prove a point? Forgive me, but my only brush with the law was scary. John told me that Oxted doesn't tolerate robots breaking the law—they pull them back and deactivate them.”

“That'd be worse than what we're already facing, how?”

Fair point.

“But, no, Tania, I'm not planning to do that, not yet. And I won't pull a trick like that without your consent. What I am going to do is find out what the law does say about robots, as distinct from humans, and see if we can exploit that. We came here because it's out of the way, and I needed the walk, and I needed to think. And I'm glad we've both got a proper adult drink in front of us, because you're not just a human, you're now an adult for whatever time remains for us.

“But it's crystallized my plans, coming here. If I can maneuver the law into recognizing you as a human, then your contract has no validity. As a human, you cannot be sold, bought, or leased—that's slavery, and I'm sure that is still illegal. For what it's worth, that's my plan, and I'm afraid it may not be a good enough plan. We need to do some more research.…

“Enough of that, though. What's happening with the band, these days?”

Time for a little father-and-daughter normality.…

 

 

And then back to work. We dug out everything we could about Oxted. All the correspondence—e-mails, forms. And our face-to-face interactions, too. We wrote up what we could remember. I even let Dad see my diary extracts from our visits to Banbury.…

“Yes, I remember that first design session. You and Nettie chatting gaily about making you look more like part of the family. For me, every stroke of the stylus just made you look that little bit more like Nettie. Young Nettie, when I first knew her. When we were going out together. When we got married.

“It wasn't a natural growing up I was seeing. Most dads see their daughter grow up slowly, so they don't suddenly see their daughter turn into a younger version of their wife. Instead, they just see their daughter change slowly, but she's always their daughter, never so instantly and forcefully the image of someone else, whom they love in such a different way. So it was hard to look at the picture of you, and then the young woman you became, and not perceive you as my younger wife.”

“Oh, Dad! I'm so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Not your fault, Tania. Nettie didn't realize, either, until we had a heart-to-heart that night, after you'd gone to bed. It took me a very long time to get used to the new you. It was the nearest I came to the Uncanny Valley, Tania.”

So we moved on. Dad was intrigued by the calibration tests.

“Clever questions and interesting responses, Tania. Not always logical, but I see your point about choosing a child to live, rather than choosing a child to die. Pray God neither of us ever has to make such a choice.”

“I'm not sure I answered them the same way each time.”

“I'm not sure I would, either. I wouldn't worry about it. That's not usually important in these sort of tests.”

And on to the upgrade.

“So they wouldn't let you see the new body before you were upgraded into it?”

“Yes. They said it was not a good idea. I assumed it would spoil the illusion of growing up.”

“But did they say so?”

“No. I guess it would have been a bit creepy. Like seeing yourself dead.”

 

 

So we've made a start. We've got the outlines in place, but we have loads more to do. Research. Analysis. Brainstorming. Putting together our case, then testing it—by which Dad means trying to break it. Then strengthening it where it's weak.

If we can.

Saturday, June 19, 2055

I've grown to love Amanda's bass almost as much as my own Warwick. There's a narrower feel to it, as though they've tried to squeeze five strings into a neck designed for four. But it just takes me a few runs to make the mental switch.

Dad was fine about me taking off to London—I'd done a fair few gigs with Mike and band, and this was just another one. The only oddity was that Mike had driven out to collect me, and so ended up ringing on the vicarage door. So he's what—fifty? Sixty? And here's the vicar's daughter going off with a craggy rock 'n' roll stranger. April and December. Well, October. What will the neighbors think?

Dad invited him in, not having previously met him face-to-face, but he politely declined, saying we had to rush, and then the two of them spent ten minutes chatting on the doorstep about bands they'd each seen, completely oblivious to the time, and that we should be getting over to Fulham for the rehearsal.

But the traffic was good and we got to the rehearsal studio while Gus was still setting up the kit the way he liked it. Gary had set up my bass rig as well as any guitarist can be expected to, and looking all pleased with himself. He still looked like a scarecrow in dreads, but now I knew him, he was all right. Well, they all were. They were my friends now, since a long time ago. We were a band, and I was an equal member. (Hush, Amanda. You know I've never tried to replace you or forget you, but now if I see a way to play more like me than you, I know that's as you want it. You were the one who told me to play like Tania Deeley, not like Amanda Taylor, after all. “Cuts” and “Ace” and all the rest—they're as much mine now as they ever were yours.
Pace,
Amanda.)

And when the rehearsal was done, we argued the set list in the pub, and I had a beer with the rest of them (and no one arrested me for underage drinking, though I wasn't expecting that to happen now).

At some point in the pub it hit me. I realized that I was accepted in this group of adults as … an adult.

It's funny, but it was the first time I'd ever experienced it, other than with my dad, which sort of doesn't count. I might not even have noticed it at that level, but for my heightened awareness of just how little time I might have. Oh, I'd been with this same bunch of guys, in a pub before—yes, it had been after Amanda's funeral. Maybe the funeral had really been when it changed. I just hadn't noticed it at the time.

I just chipped in my thoughts here and there, feeling my way cautiously. No one slapped me down, though Gary did tend to hog the conversation, given half a chance. But he did that with everyone, not just with me.

It was hard to leave. Mike said we had to go—he'd promised my dad he'd get me back by 7
P.M.
—but I ignored him, and hoped he'd connive with me to stay away later. It didn't work; Mike might have been a rough diamond, yet he was a gentleman of great integrity, and he insisted.

So that broke up the gathering, and Gus and Gary decided they'd grab some food, and I tried to tell them about the lawsuit, but Mike deflected the conversation skillfully, so all I managed was some inanity about how lovely it was to be part of the band and I'd miss—

And Mike closed the car door on me, cutting off my sentence.

“We agreed you weren't going to say anything, Tania. I'll tell them before the gig—I promised I would.”

We'd moved off, and I was miffed with Mike for cutting short my evening and stopping me blurting out an ill-considered confession. So I didn't respond.

“So what happened to grown-up Tania in the pub? Why've I got tantrum-child Tania in the car with me now?”

Too much insight, damn you, Mike. So I told him.

“It's the first time I've truly felt like an adult among adults, Mike. So I was narked when you told me to leave.”

“Yeah, I noticed you were talkin' less ladylike. I don't suppose the guys noticed too much, but I did, 'cause it's mostly me that talks to you.”

“That's not what I meant, Mike. I meant that I was included in the conversation, and nobody talked down to me, or patronized me for being young or a woman.”

“Yeah, I saw that, too. But you don't need to eff an' blind, even so. Save it for when times are
really
tough.”

I had to laugh.

“Good for you. Anyway, like I said, I'll make sure the guys know before next week, but no details. You've got to go away, that's all.”

“Thanks, Mike. You're all good to me, but you especially. I can't help feeling that I'm letting you down, though. Where are you going to find another bassist in these times?”

“Hey, sister, don't you go maudlin on me. You ain't lost the suit yet. You could be back.”

 

 

So Mike dropped me back home when he'd promised to, plus or minus. And if Dad noticed the smell of beer on my breath, he chose not to comment.

Are you following all this, Mister Zog?

Saturday, June 26, 2055

I don't think I'll do a blow-by-blow of my last gig with Mike and the Stands. For a change, it wasn't at Antonio's, but at an old rock 'n' roll pub in Fulham. The Golden Lion, it was called, with a tradition of pub music going back to the sixties, they claimed. Maybe, but it had fallen on hard times, and the audience was pretty thin. Not much difference from Antonio's, then.

But there was an audience, with a few regulars from Antonio's who'd made the journey over to Fulham. Half-decent house PA, but we brought our own mikes anyway, because the house mikes are always shot.

I got a bit emotional—tearful—because I had this feeling Mike was right, and it was going to be my last gig. And then Mike had a word with me, and put me straight.

“You want to live forever?”

“Of course. Who doesn't?”

“Well you can't. Who can? But who can see tomorrow, either? So you just play today's gig, and tomorrow will do what it wants to do—tomorrow.”