vN (28 page)

  Atsuko made her way to Sarton's chair. She wrapped her arms around him. His face pressed into her belly. Atsuko rubbed his back in gentle circles, but focused her gaze on Amy as she spoke. "He can't hurt you any longer, Daniel. He's locked up, far away."

  "Shit," Javier murmured. "Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry–"

  "Perhaps this Dr Singh person was lying. Or perhaps he was merely misinformed. But Amy simply must be wrong."

  "No, I'm not." Amy took a step closer to Sarton. She did her best to ignore Atsuko's heavy glare. "I don't know how he hurt you, Dr Sarton, and I'm sorry it happened. But he ordered someone to execute my mom. I watched her clademates – my aunts – eat her alive. I'm only alive because Javier escaped and found me."

  Sarton withdrew from the folds of Oxford cloth. "He did?" He straightened, leaned back a little, and examined Javier. "That's… unexpected."

  Javier rocked on his heels. "I'm full of surprises."

  "Tell me about LeMarque," Amy said.

  Sarton leaned back in his chair. He pulled his glasses off, cleaned them with the hem of his scarf, pinched his nose, and began speaking. "He was an awful man, obviously, on some levels." Sarton rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "But on others, he looked at innovative technology as a kind of ministry. He thought that better design would make a better world. He wanted humans to examine God's intelligent design, and emulate it in their own works. And more importantly, I think that he believed in the possibility of autonomous, realistic humanoids more firmly than any of the specialists working in the field at the time."

  Javier snorted. "I suppose we should feel grateful."

  "Of
course
we should. Without LeMarque, and without his followers, we wouldn't exist at all." Atsuko folded her arms. Despite wearing only a shirt and no underwear, she managed to maintain an intimidating posture. Amy wondered if she could ever stand that tall and proud while being naked. After her experience in the Cuddlebug, she rather doubted it.

  
You can do something she will never do
, Portia reminded her.
So she has wifi in her head. So she's still drinking New Eden's special Communion-Aid. Her mind will still fry if she even contemplates the things we take for granted.

  Dr Sarton cleared his throat. "Well. I didn't bring you here to air out the family laundry. I want to help you, Amy."

  He gestured at the tiny lights swarming across the darkness on the display.

  "When I left Redmond, I left a back door. This is a map of your mind taken during your in-game experience last week. That was its purpose – to evaluate which sectors of your memory activated to different stimuli. Each of those dots represents ten nanometres of your memory. I've filtered out some common to all vN; heuristics, locomotion protocols, things like that. I was looking for the failsafe. The organization of those bits is proprietary to the firms that designed each program, so they're easy to screen out. Those are the dim ones."

  Amy nodded. "OK. So what are the bright ones?"

  Dr Sarton made a pulling motion, like he was tightening a knot. The green dots jumped into focus. "As near as I can tell, this is Javier. I had to dig around to find which firms designed his add-ons, but once you figure out the patterns you can search them throughout the whole system. See how his information is distributed throughout various sectors? His markers are all over your systems; they're acting like patches, subtly altering your normal processes. It's probably because his particular clade is so specialized – originally, his model had none of the bells and whistles that you now share. The photosynthesis, the arboreal stuff, the tactility upgrade – all of that is very specific, very designer. Haute programming, if you will." Dr Sarton raised his eyebrows. "In other words, you have excellent taste."

  "Portia told me to bite him. I didn't know who he was."

  Dr Sarton clicked his tongue. "Well. Moving on." He vanished Javier's information, then pulled forward another set, these a sort of periwinkle blue. "These are your individual memories. This is where things get tricky. Each of your memories has a marker similar to the ones on Javier's add-ons; the firm that designed your mnemonic organization left a watermark. Unfortunately, Portia shares that watermark, so her memories also come up. And without screening them individually, there's no way I or anyone else can tell which is which."

  Amy nodded slowly. This visualization of her mind was surprisingly beautiful, and she couldn't help but stare. Until this moment she had expected that any scientist poking around inside her consciousness would find something as ugly and broken as Portia herself. But from this very distant view, it glowed like the night skies she had seen over the Sheep. It was deep and alive and real, and it could be cultivated and altered and experimented with.

  "How do I get rid of her memories?"

  "Years of cognitive therapy," Dr Sarton said. "If it were my project, you would play more games until Portia's memories could be isolated by carbon microscopy, and then we'd do controlled electroshock to erase those sectors. It would only take a few volts; writing and unwriting graphene takes a tiny amount of energy. But it would take a long time to find and clean each surface. Also, we don't know if she's set up mirror surfaces inside you. She may have cloned specific memories already. We wouldn't know until we started the cleanup."

  He gestured at the map. "But that's only
if
it were my project, and right now it can't be. I'm on some pretty serious watch lists because of my connection to my uncle. That means I can't buy the right equipment to help you."

  "Not without bringing a lot of unwanted attention on himself," Atsuko added.

  Sarton nodded. He flicked the map of Amy's mind off the display, and ushered in another image. This was a real city – the gridlines were too rigid for it to be anything else. "That's why I've worked with Rory to secure you a position in Mecha."

  
What did he just say?

  "Excuse me?" Amy looked from the map to Javier to Sarton. "Mecha?"

  "I'm assuming you know where it is, but if you don't, I can explain–"

  "I know where it is," Amy said. "I also know it's almost impossible to get a visa there, even when you're not wanted by the police. What's the catch?"

  "The rules are different in Mecha. The human population is always kept at a minimum, so you're less of a danger there. An organization of professional roboticists is sponsoring your Mechanese visa. They can do that for vN they find particularly intriguing, and naturally you qualify. But you would still have to keep Portia under control, and you would have to find work there within three months. What that probably means is either selling the rights to your life to a content delivery platform, or agreeing to become the subject of research. The latter option is how you might get rid of Portia."

  
It won't be that easy. I won't let it be.

  Amy looked at the office surrounding them. She thought of the water separating her from the light at the surface. She thought of the city slowly crumbling into it, brick by brick. She thought about her dad. Leaving the country would mean leaving him behind. But after what had happened to her mother, perhaps that was best. "I'd have to spend a few years there?"

  "It's much safer there than anywhere else. And the doctors there really know what they're doing." He hunched over in his chair. "Don't look so glum! It's great over there! You could have your own place, make new friends, do anything you want."

  "Except leave," Javier said.

  "With respect, Javier, it's not your decision," Dr Sarton said. "Besides, Amy, do you want to be on the run forever? Wouldn't you rather try to help yourself get better, and get your life back?"

  Amy looked at her hands. Get her life back? Her life as she knew it had ended the moment she decided to run up to that stage and attack Portia. It had ended the moment she escaped from the truck with Javier. It had ended when she ventured to the garbage dump to help him, and ended again the moment she decided that Junior was more important. It ended with Harold's fragile human wrists clenched in her titanium grasp. She could chart these moments in her life like points on the map of Mecha, as she wandered further and further away from the plans her parents had laid out and the dreams they must have had. It was unreachably far, now. Her mother was dead. Amy would never get that life back.

  "It's a very generous offer. Thank you. I'll think about it." She looked up. "But what about the failsafe? When they erase Portia, will I still have the flaw?"

  The hope evaporated from Dr Sarton's face. He looked at Atsuko. "Darling? Could you please let us discuss this in private?"

  Atsuko gave Amy and Javier what she must have thought was a gracious smile before she left. "I'll be just outside."

  When the door closed behind her, Sarton spoke up. "The answer is that I'm not sure. To be honest, I'm not even sure that you inherited the breakage from your grandmother."

  If this were a fairy tale, this would be the moment when the wise old wizard tells you that you were a magical princess all along, Amy thought.

  He pulled up another image, this one taken directly from a feed. The vague shape of human heads filled the display. They blurred, corrected themselves, resolved into children's bored faces. The camera drifted over all of them, before settling on a fat little girl with straight brown hair and red cheeks. Britt, her name was. Amy remembered her. She never did her worksheets and she was always yelling. Now Britt caught sight of the camera. She crossed her arms and looked away. She rocked back and forth in her chair aggressively, practically throwing herself against the chair as her legs swung out and back, out and back. She was kicking the leg of someone else's chair; Amy heard the tiny
ting
it made ringing through the hubbub of shrill momspeak.

  Dr Sarton made a hook with one finger and pulled it to the right. The footage sped up. Amy watched her whole class stand up and dance. She watched her teacher get up and speak. At this speed, her constant swaying made her look like a toy hula dancer on somebody's dashboard. Then something blurred across the screen. Portia. Dr Sarton pulled his finger-hook sharply to the left, then released it. The footage reversed, then returned to normal speed. Portia hopped onstage. She beckoned to Amy. Amy refused. Then Nate tripped Portia.

  "Close your eyes, Javier," Dr Sarton said.

  But you're not a magical princess. You don't have the power to spin straw into gold. You have the power to kill human beings, Amy thought.

  Portia picked Nate up by the ankle. The screaming started. His body flew and the camera followed it. It spun, his limbs flailing and his little hands grasping at empty air, and he landed on his head, the neck snapping and blood streaking across the floor as he skidded to a stop. The camera's view hit the floor. It jarred across tipping chairs and hurrying feet. Then it rose, first high to the ceiling and then down again, to the stage, where Amy's mother rocketed up to the piano.

  Dr Sarton made a "time" gesture, the fingers of one hand intersecting with the other palm. The footage paused. Then he hooked the footage left again. He froze it in place. "BR-82."

  The rest of the footage floated away, scattering like leaves in a breeze. Only a single image remained: Amy's watchful face, turned away from the stage and toward the audience. "Do you remember what you were looking at?" Dr Sarton asked.

  Amy shook her head. "No."

  
Yes, you do.

  "I only looked at Nate
after
I ate Portia," Amy said. "My failsafe still worked then; I didn't watch the grown-up human channels, I didn't play anything that was too violent or too real, my parents wouldn't let me."

  "Exactly," Dr Sarton said. "Your parents wouldn't let you. So how would you have known?"

  Amy backed away from the display. "Fine. If you're so sure, find my memory of that night. See if I really saw what you think I saw."

  "You know I can't do that, Amy." He stood up. "And you should know that even if I
could
fix you – which I can't – I wouldn't. It would be wrong. It would be like destroying a masterpiece."

  
"What?"
Amy's fists tightened. "This isn't a masterpiece, it's an
accident
. And it's hurt way too many people."

  Dr Sarton's eyes played over her. "You ate your grandmother," he said. "Why did you do that?"

  "Because! She was…"

  Amy paused. Why
had
she done it, really? She hadn't paused to think about it in the moment. Her feet had started moving and she had known what to do. There had been no doubt in her mind that it was the right thing. She knew now that it was a mistake – a huge, epic, terrible mistake that had destroyed the lives of too many people, organic and synthetic both. But in the beginning, she had just been trying to help.

  
We all know what happens when you try to help.

  "I did it because Portia was hurting people," Amy said.

  "Hurting
people
, or hurting your mother?" Dr Sarton stood. "You didn't tell the
people
to run, Amy. You didn't stand between Portia and your
father
. You ran right up those stairs and you pounced on the woman who was hurting your mother."

  "She killed Nate! She was going to kill my mom!"

  "Did she have any peroxidase with her? Did she have a taser?"

  "No, but–"

  "Did your mother look like she was in pain? Had she suddenly gained the ability to suffer, while you were busy accepting your little diploma?"

  "I don't know! But I couldn't just let Portia keep hitting her, she was my
mom
, and I
loved
her–"

  "Yes! Exactly!" Dr Sarton snapped his fingers and grabbed her by the shoulders. "You loved her. You loved her more than you loved anybody else in that room. More than your friends or your teacher or even your father. You chose your
mother,
your fellow
robot
, over them."