The Mad Scientist's Daughter (19 page)

  She picked up her dirty wine glass and let herself back inside, where the air-conditioning swallowed up the heat and the bright lights swallowed up the darkness. She could not stop shaking.

 

Just after the summer storms started up Cat drove Richard down to her father's house. It was the first time she had seen her father (or Finn) since she'd accepted Richard's proposal, and the drive seemed to take longer than usual. At one point Cat reached over to switch on her music but Richard asked her to turn it off.

  "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I really need to concentrate." The light from his comm slate reflected two white pinpricks in the center of his pupils. He tapped the screen, glanced up at her, and smiled.

  "What are you doing? Are you talking to Ella?"

  "We've got this huge deployment two weeks from Tuesday. Huge. World-changing."

  He talked about all his business ventures that way –
world-changing
. Cat didn't say anything. They drove in silence for a few minutes longer, the sound of the tires spinning against the asphalt pulling Cat into a fugue state.

  Then: "Don't you want to know what we're deploying?"

  "What?"

  "You never ask about what I do."

  "I thought you were bus–"

  "It's a fully automated housekeeping system."

  "They already have those."

  "Not like this. It's a house. A sentient house, sort of. We think we've found the sweet spot between sentience and autonomy – so you can have the benefits of sentience without worrying about exploiting a robot or whatever."

  Cat stared at the road disappearing to a point in front of her. Richard tapped against his screen.

  A few hours later the car pulled into the gravel-lined driveway of her childhood home. It had been too long since she'd come back. Everything was unfamiliar. An arabesque pattern she swore she had never seen before twisted around the porch railing.

  They climbed out of the car. Cat smelled the rainstorms on the horizon and she was jolted with the shock of nostalgia, thrown back to the time right before she started high school, slipping across the muddy banks of the river, her hands pressed against the damp cypress trees for balance–

  "Kitty Cat! You made it!"

  A trio of bangs from the front porch: the screen door slapping against the frame. Cat's father leaned over the railing and waved. The sunlight slanting through the trees made him glow like an X-ray. He looked different. Thinner.

  Cat waved back, and when she dropped her hand to her side, Richard took it up in his own. Cat shifted her weight from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable.

  "So I hear you proposed." Cat's father strolled across the yard, his hands tucked into his pockets. His clothes hung loose on him. He squinted up at Richard, flicked his eyes over to Cat. Back to Richard. "Never thought anybody'd be able to convince my little girl to take the plunge."

  Richard beamed, threw his arm around Cat's shoulder. "Definitely looking forward to our merger here." Richard laughed.

  Cat looked down at her feet. The grass was still crackly and golden from the recent drought, although a tinge of green grew up from the roots. The storms.

  "Well, I managed to whip up something to eat – and by whipped up I mean bought. You like fried chicken?"

  Richard nodded, though Cat knew he didn't eat fried foods.

  Her father turned and trudged back to the house.

  "Jesus," said Richard. "He's looking pretty rough."

  "He's fine."

  "Sure hope so. I'd hate to think he'd miss the wedding. Plus I wanted to hear his thoughts on our deployment."

  A strong damp wind pushed through the trees in the woods, picking up the dried-out leaves. The sky was gunmetal gray and hung lower than normal, like the oppressive ceiling of an old office.

  "Please," said Cat. "Let's not talk about work."

 

The storm rumbled in while they all sat down at the dusty table in the dining room, a box of fried chicken from the run-down restaurant in town propped open like a centerpiece, buttery yellow biscuits piled up beside it.

  "Sorry I didn't cook." Cat's father pried the cap off a beer. "But, you know. Never learned."

  "You look like you haven't been eating at all," said Cat.

  "This is fine." Richard picked up a piece of fried chicken, dabbed the grease off with one of the flimsy napkins. "Looks great."

  At the other end of the table, next to Cat's father, Finn sat with his hands folded in his lap.

  "So, Dr Novak." Richard peeled the battered skin off his chicken and draped it over the edge of his plate. "You working on anything exciting? SynLodge has got something really spectacular lined up." He grinned. "It's a secret."

  Cat sighed.

  "What?" said Richard. "I was just asking."

  Cat's father took a swig of beer. "I'm doing work on the lunar station."

  Richard's eyes widened. "The lunar station!" His mouth opened and closed like a fish. "The one STL is funding?"

  Cat's father nodded.

  "Ho-lee shit." Richard crossed his arms and looked at Cat's father in the casually appraising way he used when sizing up potential rivals. "Robotics, I'm assuming?"

  Cat's father set down his piece of chicken and wiped his hands on his napkin. "No," he said. "I don't do work with robotics anymore."

  Cat went numb.

  "May I ask why not?" Richard glanced at Finn. Only for a second.

  "Politics," said Cat's father.

  Silence. Richard nodded. Cat's father picked up a biscuit. "I'm just working as a contractor," he said. "Developing a circuit for the shuttle – just a tiny thing, an offshoot of what we made for the Mars landing."

  "We?"

  Cat's father nodded. "Finn and I."

  Richard peeled more skin off his chicken. Outside, the wind picked up, and the tree branches tapped against the windows.

  "I didn't know that," said Cat. "That you were both working on the lunar station." When she spoke, she spoke to Finn.

  "I didn't think you were interested," said Finn.

  "So what do you think of those activist groups out on the coast?" Richard leaned toward Cat's father. "I'm guessing that's why you got out of the field. I don't blame you. Lot of tension."

  "Yes. Tension."

  The windows illuminated and went dark.

  "Is the storm going to be a bad one?" Cat tugged at the greasy napkin lying in her lap. She was still looking at Finn.

  "Yeah," said Richard. "I mean, I mostly agree with them, but some of the wording in that legislation is pretty strong."

  Cat wound her napkin around her fingers. She said Richard's name so softly it was nothing but an exhalation.

  "Take Finn here," Richard said. "He helps you out, but you can't pay him."

  "Right," said Cat's father. "Finn's my lab assistant, yes…"

  Richard grinned so wide he showed all his teeth, and outside the trees beat against the walls of the house. The rain still hadn't started.

  "Exactly! You don't have to pay him, you don't have to worry about him getting hurt…"

  Finn stared at Cat from across the table.

  "Where are you going with this?" Cat's father wrapped his hand around the neck of his beer bottle.

  "All I'm saying is, there are benefits to having a bot do a human's job, yeah? But those activist groups are saying it's slavery, right, so you gotta find a way around the whole sentience question." He glanced at Finn. "I'm sorry to phrase it that way. I really don't want to suggest–"

  "Richard," said Cat. Finn was still staring at her, his eyes refracting silver. "Richard, please, let's talk about something else–"

  "No," said Cat's father. "I'm curious what he's building up to."

  Richard laughed. "This is what SynLodge's been working on. That sweet spot between intelligence and sentience. You can have one without the other. Then you can get around that moral question of whether or not it's slavery. Plus, those laws are all going to pass eventually, so you get around them, too."

  For the first time all dinner, Finn's eyes moved off Cat. He stared at Richard, unblinking, unmoving.

  Cat's father sipped his beer. "I certainly hope they pass."

  "So do I," Richard said.

  "I do offer Finn recompense," Cat's father said. "Not that it's any of your business."

  Richard paused. "I'm sorry." He sounded sincere. "I would never suggest enslaving
sentient
bots is a good thing. I'm just saying, maybe there are some problems with sentience. Not always, but sometimes." He leaned back in his chair. "You know, like what happened with Ishiguro and McHugh–"

  "I'm familiar with the case," said Cat's father.

  "As am I," said Finn. "There were extenuating circumstances."

  Richard grinned and threw out one arm toward Finn. "Look at that! That's exactly what I'm talking about."

  "I don't understand," said Finn.

  "Neither do I," said Cat.

  "That's because you're an artist, sweetheart," said Richard.

  "Cat understands the nature of consciousness," said Finn. "I read her thesis."

  "You did?" Cat's breath caught in her throat. She and Finn stared at each other from across the table. She could feel Richard watching her. Finn nodded.

  "When?"

  "I'm sure it was a brilliant paper," said Richard. "But it's not what I'm talking about. Nobody's denying Finn has consciousness, or saying he shouldn't have rights because of it. What I'm saying is – people don't
want
consciousness in a bot. That's really the basis for all the protests, right? I mean, those bot-rights activists still want intelligent com puters. I'm just saying, you get rid of sentience, you get rid of the whole slavery issue entirely."

  "Richard," said Cat. "Please shut up."

  She was answered by a trio of clicks, then a long, low
whomp
as though the house had sighed. The lights flickered once and went dark.

  Cat's father cursed.

  The silvery glow in Finn's eyes brightened, casting enough light that Cat could see the outline of his fingers pressing against the table. "I can fix this," he said. His illuminated eyes pushed backward and then rose up.

  "That really isn't necessary," said Cat's father. "We can wait till the storm's over at least. Cat, there are still some candles left over from last year–"

  "It's no problem," said Finn. "I don't mind."

  Lightning flickered across the windows, and in that sudden flash of whiteness Cat saw Richard scowling. She pushed away from the table in disgust and felt her way out of the dining room and into the kitchen. Trees thrashed against the window above the sink, water sluicing over the glass. Finn followed her, cutting across the kitchen to the screened door.

  "Finn, I'm sorry."

  But he was already outside.

  Cat opened and then slammed shut one drawer after another until she found a pair of half-melted orange-scented candles and an old disposable lighter. She lit both candles and carried them into the dining room. In the gloomy light, Richard and her father sat at their seats, not looking at each other. Cat sat down beside Richard, pushed aside her uneaten fried chicken, and watched the candle flames dance and hop in the darkness, the spicy scent of orange curling into the air.

  Five minutes passed. Cat's father sipped his beer. Richard drummed his fingers against the table. Cat tried very hard not to think about anything in particular.

  The lights came back on.

  "You can thank Finn for that," Cat's father said.

  "I really am sorry. I know I can get worked up sometimes, and I shouldn't have…" But Richard's apology was met with a glare.

  Cat didn't bother to blow out the candles. She waited for Finn to come slamming through the kitchen door, water dripping off his clothes and his hair. She wanted to ask him when he had read her thesis. How he'd read it. She wanted to apologize on behalf of Richard, again.

  But the storm raged on and Finn never came back inside.

 

Cat wheeled her old bicycle out of the storage shed. The world glimmered silvery wet from the storm, which had passed through as Cat and her father and Richard sat eating the last of the congealing chicken. Now dinner was over and the sun was setting behind the leftover storm clouds. After he had helped her dump the chicken bones in the trash, Richard disappeared upstairs to take a video conference with Ella Halfast on his computer: Cat could see his silhouette in the window, pacing back and forth across the square of yellow light, hands gesturing wildly.

  For a moment, she stood on the driveway and leaned on her bicycle, watching him. Her anger with him had faded; he was like a little kid sometimes, getting so excited about his work that he didn't understand when he was putting off the people around him. And she knew he really was trying to help people with SynLodge. She knew he found the idea of exploiting sentient robots distasteful, even if he wasn't the best at getting his point across.

  Besides, his views lined up with the rest of the world's. He was the normal one here. Not her, not her father.

  Cat rode her bike down the muddy road to the cemetery where her mother was buried, the breeze cool across her face. She jumped off the bike and left it lying in a patch of damp grass next to the gate. She hadn't been back to her mother's grave for so long. She used to come regularly, every few months, whenever the stress of faking normalcy became too much of a burden. Every few months she'd drive down to her father's house, she'd collapse into the comfort of Finn's arms, she'd ride her bike to the cemetery.

  "Mom," she said when she walked up to the sleek black gravestone, glistening with rainwater. "Mom, I'm engaged."