Machina Viva (5 page)

After shopping around for a while, she approached an employee on the sales floor, one of the ones that had been pretending not to stare. As soon as she turned to face her, the employee turned away and started adjusting some of the clothes hanging near her.

“Excuse me? Can I ask you something?” said Eve.

The employee turned toward Eve, her eyes wide as if Eve were accusing her of something. After a second of awkward silence, though, she saw the innocent look on Eve’s face and reverted to professional parrot mode. “Yes? How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a more loose-fitting outfit, but all of these are really tight-looking.”

“Well, this section of the store has a lot of higher-end fashions from Fullerton. That’s way down in the thickest part of the vapor, of course, down in the middle, so it’s a zero-gravity environment. You can’t really wear anything down there that isn’t tight-fitting, or else it’ll float around in ways it’s not supposed to, so all their fashion designs are pretty figure-hugging. And of course since Fullerton is so culturally diverse, all the most trend-setting fashion designers are based there.”

“Ah, I see.” In fact, Eve didn’t see a thing, but it seemed to be the thing to say to keep the conversation moving. Although, Eve wasn’t sure she wanted to continue a conversation that included the word “fashion” so many times. She obviously knew the meaning of the word “fashion,” but the now friendly mechanized sales girl must have bought a different dictionary whose definition of “fashion” likened it to some kind of sport with constantly changing rules, no referee, conditions for victory that depend primarily on the people you’re playing with, and no option whatsoever to sit on the sidelines. Well, at least the other robot didn’t seem so nervous anymore. She seemed to have settled into an attitude of satisfied “fashion” superiority that, admittedly, didn’t really distinguish her from any of the other employees in the tight clothing section.

Eventually, Eve got the girl to point her toward the looser-fitting and more affordable clothing she had been seeking out in the first place, and she found the clothing and swimwear she had been looking for. She took her purchases from the store and made her way to her ultimate goal for the day: the lake at the park. The artificial beaches were well populated with bathers and frolicking children at the middle of the day, flanked by some of the most picturesque buildings in Tetropolis and brilliantly lit by the glowing panels, known as
Zeitgebers
, built into the struts above them. At the entrance proper to the swimming and reclining area, Eve found a vacant booth and changed into her new swimsuit. Thus equipped, she stepped out into the midday light and prepared herself for her first swim.

The water was not terribly crowded. Many of the children playing on the beach that day occupied the special zone set aside for them, and many of the loungers were sitting on the sand, with only a few on small rafts out on the water. However, Eve never reached the water, because as she approached the edge of the lake, she was nearly overcome by a tantalizing smell. She looked around for the source of the smell, but it seemed to be all around her. The scent seemed to be vaguely stronger at the water’s edge, but hints of it, now that she came to notice, were everywhere. She ran along the beach in a near frenzy, trying to determine if the scent was getting stronger one way or another. The sensation of being so close to the thing she craved yet unable to find it and sate herself was so central to her attention, in fact, that in her mania she failed to notice the slight lip in the sand in front of her. Her foot failed to find purchase on the ground in front of her, and she fell sprawling face-first in the sand.

If she thought the smell had been enjoyable before, the sensation that now accosted her was simply ecstatic. It was as if every pleasurable event she had ever experienced or had described to her had been combined into a single moment that stretched out before her with no end in sight. And when she got a bit of sand in her mouth, she almost went blind with delight. She had little concept of taste, being a robot, but she intellectually understood the basic concept of the human sense of taste as an adjunct of smell. If that was the case, then it certainly explained the wonderful smell of the beach along the lake. Some part of her mind acknowledged the effect of the lake water on the sand, possibly allowing some part of the sand crystal to particulate and form a vapor, thus enhancing the smell, but the rest of her mind told that part to shut up and enjoy itself.

After several minutes, she suddenly looked up from where she lay, half in and half out of the water. Everyone within her immediate view was looking at her as if she’d just fallen from the top of a building. She looked back at them in confusion, wondering what it was about her that was so odd, when she noted the full sensation in her abdomen and the small bit of beach sand that still clung to her lips, at which point she realized that she had just gobbled down at least a kilogram of sand right in front of all of them. She could distinctly hear a young boy asking, “How come she’s eating the sand?” before he was quickly shushed by, apparently, some sort of parental figure.

Her earlier enthusiasm for the scent of the sand was matched by her current panic at her sudden centrality of attention. She immediately sprang for the changing sheds with her original clothes and new purchase in hand, but on her way she just shrugged her clothes on in mid-run and ran right out of the park. Her departure took her past the vast bulk of the beach’s occupants, and she could feel the gaze of what felt like the entire population of Tetropolis on her as she fled.

The one gaze she didn’t feel was from the robot at the end of the beach, sitting in a state of utter tranquility and satisfaction, the sand around him drawn into perfectly parallel lines and gently rolling curves.

10

Across cultures and species, no breed of creature is subject to quite so many stereotyped expectations as the engineer. Bookish and bespectacled, the engineer is, according to legend, endowed with single-minded devotion to the active project, neglecting such minor distractions as grooming, hygiene, and the time of day. This mythological creature, however, has never been observed in any known windowless laboratory or workroom, believed to be its natural habitat. Instead, its ecological niche is occupied by a creature that goes to sleep at a reasonable hour, prefers to keep its hair in some sort of order, and bathes at least once every couple of days or so, because the smell of rotting cheese eventually proves to be quite the attention-grabber.

By this standard, Dr. Philip Abrams was well on his way to legendary status. Compared to the man who was first summoned to the office of the Security chair over a week before, the man who now entered looked like some sort of feral man-beast. He hadn’t been given access to a razor during his assignment, and the oil in his hair had managed to wrest control of his entire scalp. He walked into Security’s office and slumped into the padded chair, fighting off the urge to fall immediately asleep.

“Good morning, Dr. Abrams,” said the Security chair. “I understand you have arrived at some valuable conclusions.”

“Some,” said Dr. Abrams. “I’ve sent you what results I was able to generate. To be honest, I didn’t think I would be able to make so much progress so quickly. I had no idea you had access to so much computing capability.”

The Security chair brought up Dr. Abrams’s files on his workstation. “This is not very much information to work with, Doctor. You know more about Eve than anyone. I would have thought you would be able to provide more input about her behavior.” Security turned away from his screen and looked Abrams in the eye. It usually took a new robot a few days to learn that constant eye contact made people uncomfortable, but the Security chair had taken as much time to learn the significant negotiating advantage that discomfort could convey.

Abrams stared right back at him, trying not to let Security intimidate him. “If you think that’s true, we could go talk to the Robot Production chair and ask him what makes you tick.”

“I actually doubt that Production deals personally with every individual that comes out of his department. You, on the other hand, created Eve with your own two hands, and yet you tell me that you know no details about her thought processes.”

“The only thing about Eve that’s new is her essential construction. The design philosophy behind her HPU is the same one that’s gone into every robot since Stelios. Her exact thought processes are as unobservable as anyone else’s. The only way to know what she’s thinking would essentially be to ask her.”

Security raised an eyebrow. He gave a tight little smile, and Dr. Abrams suddenly wished that he could undo the last five seconds of his life.

“Excellent. I appreciate all you’ve done for us, Dr. Abrams. If you’d like to take a moment to get yourself cleaned up, Officer Hancock here can take you to one of our hospitality suites.”

Dr. Abrams turned around and saw a Security officer standing right behind his chair. He appeared to be human, but that hadn’t kept him from sidling into the office less noticeably than the air.

“Please follow me, Dr. Abrams,” said Hancock. “Is there anything else you need from me, Chief?”

“No, Hancock. That will be all.” The Security chair kept his gaze on Dr. Abrams until he left his line of sight.

Officer Hancock led Dr. Abrams down several corridors to what looked like an elevator. They stepped inside, and Dr. Abrams waited for the capsule to move up or down, but the first movement was straight forward. This was clearly no ordinary elevator.

The elevator moved in so many different directions that Dr. Abrams quickly lost track of where he was in the Security building. Eventually, the door opened, and Officer Hancock led Dr. Abrams into a rather nice suite of rooms. The officer stood at the entrance while Dr. Abrams acquainted himself with the fixtures, and especially the washroom. When Dr. Abrams turned back to ask a question, though, the officer had just closed the door behind him. There was the sound of large pieces of metal sliding into place. Probably magnetized steel bolts, thought Dr. Abrams, if not something more durable still. If inescapability had a sound track, that would have been it.

Dr. Abrams dejectedly headed for the washroom to mow his beard.
Hmph. Hospitality suite. He could have just come out and said, “We still don’t trust you, so we’re locking you away until we do.” Manipulative pain in the ass.

11

Another week went by at the restaurant. Eve managed to get by without creating any more situations that she needed to flee while hurriedly changing clothes. In fact, the only thing of note had been a minor burn on her upper arm earlier that day from a stray spatter of grease in the kitchen. One of the other robot wait staff had referred her to a good skin repair service. The one thing she had been worried about, though, was that the damage would be visible under her new blouse. She had tickets to the theater that night, and she didn’t want a patch of sealant on her arm to spoil the look. Fortunately, her clothing hid the patch adequately, and she was able to attend the theater without the danger of standing out again.

In a perfectly ordinary transit station, a completely unremarkable train sat waiting for passengers. Traffic was light at this time of day, and no one was in any real rush.

A small plastic card drifted down through the support structures of the city and landed on the roof of the train. As it landed, it drew itself tightly against the skin of the train and stuck with a barely audible click. A small light on the card began to blink erratically for a few seconds, and then, with another click, the light went out and the card unstuck itself from the top of the train.

As the train closed its doors and moved along to the next station, the card drifted onto the track and mingled with the rest of what anyone else would call garbage.

The show that night was a performance of a classic epic tale by a Gens Vapori troupe renowned throughout the vapor. They would be performing the piece in Scintilla, their native language, but the theater provided an earpiece with a private translation for those who wanted it. Most connoisseurs, though, preferred to experience the story in its pure form, without the need to put words to it.

Of all the interspecies encounters undertaken by the original human pioneers, the encounter with the Gens Vapori was the most recent, and also the most complicated. They were sort of like sapient amoebas, and they lived in the very deep vapor. At the high pressures of the center of the vapor, it took on a bluish-green color, and most of the Gens Vapori were the same color. A few of them were of a more red or violet color, and these were witnessed by some of the people overseeing the construction of Fullerton. Having been in the deep vapor for possibly too long, the construction overseers started attributing all sorts of explanations to the strange blobs of color floating around the construction site. The most popular theory was some sort of shade of red that had gained sentience and was stalking them somehow. The blobs certainly seemed curious enough. The robots actually doing most of the construction work didn’t bother with crazy theories about sentient colors. They just put it down to pockets of some kind of chemical and got back to work.

During the Fullerton construction project, the Gens Vapori had plenty of time to study the humans and learn all about them, starting with their language. Their own language consisted of combinations of colored flashes in specific areas of their body that conveyed a surprisingly intricate range of emotions and intentions. Human language stymied them for quite a while. It took them over three months to figure out that the humans were using sound to communicate in the first place.

By the time they had figured out human communication and synthesized a mechanism for replicating it to the best of their understanding, Fullerton had already been established as the civic, cultural, and literal center of the entire vapor. The Fullerton diplomatic corps, then, was more or less prepared for the visitors that presented themselves as they drifted into the office. They weren’t quite prepared for their opening remarks of “Sincerest respectful greetings befitting a first historical encounter,” however. Since the Gens Vapori language only served to convey emotions and intentions, they hadn’t figured out how to talk in actual sentences. Casual conversation with them was awkward but doable, but talking with them about anything technical was nearly impossible. The people who could manage it tended to be very good at crossword puzzles.