Stories of Hope

by Aussie Speculative Fiction

  It took Sandy less than a moment to reflect. What was she leaving behind? Darkness and pain and sad yearning. What would she gain? Freedom and friends that understood her. A new lease of life. Hope for a future.

  She shook her now feathered neck.

  “I thought so,” Serafeeka said.

  In a flurry of feathers, it was complete. Sandy was one of the birds, same as the lorikeets and king parrots, the cockatoos, and Serafeeka himself. She spread her green wings in astonishment, then with a squawk of excitement and pure joy, lifted herself off the ground.

  The last thing she saw as she flew into an air current was little Emma rushing outside to straighten the over-turned milk-crate, pudgy hands shading her eyes as she stared after Sandy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: MAUREEN Flynn lives on the East Coast of NSW with her partner and is an avid speculative fiction and crime lover, writer and fan. She has finally taken up part-time work so she can dedicate more hours of her day to working on novels and short stories. She has three other short story fantasy publications in publications by CSFG, Specul8 and Deadset Press (Aussie Speculative Fiction imprint). You can find her on twitter as @inkashling and on instagram as @maureen.flynn.author.

  Practice Child by Rebecca Bowyer

  “GOOD MORNING, MY NAME is Thuy and I am here to conduct a review of your Parenting Trial Period.” The lilting rhythm of Thuy’s speech suggested this was not the first time today she had delivered this introduction.

  Sofie blinked at her, hand trembling as she gripped her own front door knob.

  Thuy cleared her throat and raised a stylus to tap at the tablet she cradled. She tried to peer around the door, past Sofie and into the apartment.

  “You are Sofie Berger, are you not?”

  “Yes.” Sofie bit her lips and swallowed. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “And you are aware that your Parenting Trial Period has now ended and your custodian application is due for review?”

  Sofie nodded. She opened the door wide and stepped aside, gesturing for Thuy to enter. She watched as Thuy strode past her and settled herself on the stained, green corduroy couch.

  Sofie gently pushed the door shut and crept across the floorboards to join the social worker, lowering herself into the armchair opposite. She picked at the worn corrugated material of the arm, hoping that cleanliness would earn her more points than affluence.

  Thuy’s line of sight flickered around the small living room, taking inventory as she tapped at her tablet. Sofie followed her gaze to the toddler-sized table perfectly aligned with the toddler-sized chair, the row of a dozen fun but educational books arranged in height order on a low bookcase, the tiny pot on the window sill, out of which poked a small green shoot. Snow peas—fast-growing and nutritious.

  Sofie studied Thuy’s face each time her eyes snapped back to her screen, her fingers dancing over the surface. The woman’s expression gave nothing away. That creased brow could mean concentration or it could mean disapproval. Sofie fretted. Were there enough books? Too many toys? Had she mopped the floor thoroughly enough?

  “And where is the child?”

  “Aura,” Sofie called softly. A small child—perhaps sixteen months old—poked her red-gold mop of fuzzy hair out from behind the couch and giggled.

  Thuy and Sofie both looked at her and smiled. Thuy cleared her throat and straightened her mouth quickly. Sofie’s smile lingered in her eyes. Thuy’s did not.

  “Aurora, come out and sit next to me,” Thuy ordered. The child tipped her head to one side and blinked, but did not move. “Aurora . . .”

  “I’ve been calling her Aura,” Sofie explained. “It’s easier for her to say.”

  Aurora turned her head toward Sofie at the sound of her name. “Aura!” The little girl clapped her hands and rocked on her bottom excitedly.

  Thuy clucked her disapproval. “The child has been named Aurora. You mustn’t call her anything else, it could damage her conditioning. We’ve had enough problems with this generation without . . .” She huffed and shook her head briskly. “Very well, then. Aura, come. Sit.”

  Aurora tried to clamber up onto the couch. Thuy gave her bottom a gentle push to help her when she became stuck.

  “Aura, give me your finger,” said Thuy. Aurora stuck out her left arm, index finger straightened. Thuy placed her right hand over Aurora’s wrist and pressed her index finger firmly onto the screen.

  Sofie sat on her hands to prevent herself from crying out as she watched Aurora’s eyelids flicker rapidly. The girl seemed to stare at a point just past Sofie’s shoulder.

  “The download should only take a moment, then the system will analyse the data.” Tap, tap, tap. Thuy pressed her lips together. Aurora’s eyelids continued to flicker, faster and faster. Thuy continued to tap her stylus against the tablet. Sofie dug her hands into the corduroy beneath her thighs.

  Thuy sighed, expelling the air from her lungs forcefully as the screen flashed. She picked up Aurora’s hand and dropped it in the child’s own lap. Aurora blinked once, then twice. Her eyes slowly focused until they found Sofie.

  “Mama?” she said softly, uncertainly, her lower lip trembling.

  Sofie looked to Thuy for her cue. Thuy was engrossed in the tablet on her lap, tapping and swiping. The child was forgotten. Sofie looked again at Aurora, her small face starting to crumple, her back arching, her toes pointing towards the ground, testing how far the drop was from the couch to the floor.

  Sofie nodded and held out her arms.

  Aurora let herself slither off the couch and launched herself at Sofie. Sofie pulled her up and seated her sideways across her lap. Aurora wrapped her arms around Sofie’s neck and buried her head into her shoulder.

  “Mama?” Aurora whispered loudly. “When that lady go? Aura tired now.”

  “We need to wait, baby girl, remember? The lady needs to check to see if I’ve been a good mama.”

  The little girl turned her head, peering at Thuy.

  “She good, my mama,” she announced. Aurora frowned when Thuy didn’t respond. “Lady, I say she good, my mama.”

  Thuy looked up then and gave Sofie a quizzical look. “It speaks?”

  Sofie nodded. “Yes, I . . .” She stopped and took a deep breath. Confident, assured, calm and in control, she told herself. “Yes. Aurora’s natural talent and apparent desire for early language development appeared strong, so I accelerated the standard curriculum.”

  “You’ve only had it for three months. It didn’t know a single word before that.”

  “No. But Aura liked to communicate, and would become frustrated when she wasn’t understood, so I made the decision to spend two hours per day on speech therapy.”

  “Speech therapy is not supposed to start for children until eighteen months of age. It’s in the approved schedule. This is most unorthodox. How am I supposed to assess your performance accurately if you haven’t followed the curriculum correctly?” Thuy closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Never mind. Let’s see what the analysis says.”

  “Mama? I need snack now.”

  “Shh, Aura. It’s nearly . . . over.” Sofie held the child more tightly to her, inhaling her musky baby scent. She stroked Aurora’s back and rocked her gently. Aurora started to sob. Sofie nearly stopped breathing in her effort to avoid crying herself.

  It didn’t matter what the outcome of the analysis was anymore, whether she passed or failed the parenting test. She didn’t want approval to raise just any child. She wanted permission to keep this one.

  This warm, funny little girl who had come to her three months ago as a frustrated, confused ball of furious energy. Who had tested her patience time and again, hurling toys at the wall and the floor—and at Sofie, herself—in her desperate attempts to be understood.

  Sofie’s training told her that she should put the child in ‘time out’, to calm the child and teach it self-control. Instead, Sofie had retrieved her deck of flash cards, meant for older children, and begun to give Aura the gift of
language.

  Slowly the number of words Aura could say had increased and her raging fits came further apart. Instead of swiping the blocks to one side in frustration she would howl, “Help Aura!” Instead of lying prostrate on the floor and wailing, she would toddle into the kitchen and slap the fridge. “Aura hungwy,” she would say.

  Thuy looked up from the tablet and stared at Sofie in horror.

  “It says here that you took it to your bed,” she said. “Every night.” She looked down at the screen again. “It never once slept in its own bed, except for the first night.”

  “I tried,” said Sofie. “I did what I was supposed to do, spacing out my visits more each time, but it wasn’t working. Aura was very distressed.”

  Thuy clicked the stylus into the side of the tablet and slid it into her handbag. She placed her hands in her lap and straightened her back.

  “Well, then. I think you know what I’m going to say,” she began. “Quite frankly, I’ve never seen such wanton disregard for the proper care of a child. It’s clear to me, even without the official result of the Parenting Trial Period, that you are unfit to raise a child. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “I would like to keep Aura.”

  Thuy jumped up, stomping both her feet on the ground. “Absolutely not. That A.I. is government property.”

  Sofie was ready with the information she’d gleaned from a former boyfriend who worked for the law firm defending the company which had designed Aurora’s generation of practice children.

  “I understand Aurora and her cohort are . . . faulty.” It pained Sofie to say the word in front of her adopted daughter, but it was the only language the social worker would understand. “I understand that the programming of this generation of practice child has resulted in over forty per cent of the models achieving genuine sentience. And that they are to be decommissioned by the end of the year, anyway.”

  “Where did you hear that? That information is highly classified.” Thuy lunged forward and grabbed Aurora by the leg, lifting her upside down into the air. Sofie was so shocked at the sudden violence that she let go of the child, her arms outstretched. Aurora screamed, a long, piercing protest. “Quiet!” Thuy ordered. “This has gone far enough. You’re a disgrace to parenting candidates everywhere. Even a defective, fake child is too good for you.”

  Thuy laid Aurora out on the couch, face-down, and tugged her shirt down from the neck, exposing her upper back. Aurora made choking sounds as the shirt pulled taut at her throat. Thuy lifted a small, soft patch of skin between the child’s shoulder blades and punched in a code on the tiny keypad revealed underneath. She straightened and stood back, watching the child warily for a moment, as though to confirm she had just defused a dangerous bomb.

  Sofie fell to her knees next to the couch. She gently smoothed the panel of skin back down and straightened Aurora’s shirt.

  “It’s for the best,” said Thuy, her voice shaking slightly as she smoothed down her own rumpled skirt and tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

  “It won’t work,” said Sofie, her tone more hopeful than certain. She stroked Aurora’s hair; the little girl started to sob softly. “Thank god,” she whispered, then, “Shhh, little one, it’s okay, Mama’s here.”

  Thuy’s hand froze behind her ear as she stared at Aurora’s shaking shoulders. “What have you done to it?”

  Sofie pulled Aurora off the couch and onto her lap.

  The little girl cried into Sofie’s arms. “Aura not go. Aura home. Aura stay Mama,” she wailed.

  “Ssh, it’s okay Aura. You’re safe now, you’ll stay right here, at home with Mama.” Sofie looked up at Thuy. “I’ve had her reset and decommission functions permanently disabled. She’s a sentient being. Decommissioning her would be tantamount to murder.”

  Thuy’s eyes remained wide with horror as she stared from the little girl to Sofie and back again.

  “It’s a robot, it’s not even a real child, it’s been through thousands of resets. It’s only a practice child.”

  “I don’t care,” said Sofie. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s a gorgeous, feisty, loving individual and I will fight to keep her safe.” She rocked Aurora and hushed her as the girl’s sobs quietened. “You won’t be resetting her again.”

  “You haven’t heard the end of this. I’ll be making a full report and notifying the enforcement team.” Thuy snatched her handbag from the floor, pivoted on the balls of her feet and marched out the front door, slamming it behind her.

  Sofie smiled, relieved the ordeal was over. The lawyers would deal with the matter from here. She was hopeful that the government would eventually agree to terms which meant they could bury the truth about the first generation of practice children and Aura could stay where she belonged, in a loving home.

  “I can have snack now, Mama?”

  “Yes, Aura, you can have a snack now.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: REBECCA Bowyer is a Melbourne-based writer, digital strategist and parent. Her debut dystopian fiction novel, Maternal Instinct, is available worldwide.

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  Wings by S.F. Flanigan

  I DON’T THINK THINGS sparkle for humans like they do for me. Because they’re not drawn to this hat shop like I am. I can sit here for hours, just admiring the window displays. Right now all the hats have little wings and flowers, and the colours are bright, but natural, and there’s something about it all that just . . . sparkles. I’m carried away on daydreams of warm, sunny days in an emerald forest. I can dream, at least; dream that the world is good, that the future is bright. Sometimes I even imagine that I’m one of the pretty humans that enter and leave the shop, wearing those sparkly hats. What a life it must be. I would be so pretty . . .

  A loud gurgle from my belly breaks me from my reveries, and then the hunger pangs kick in. They always do.

  I glance out from where I hide between two trashcans. Nothing in the drab street sparkles. The people all look grey and washed out, and none of them look at me, which is better than the alternative.

  I suppose I must go eat . . .

  I climb to my feet and wander away, keeping close to the wall so that I avoid people’s legs as well as their gazes. I weave through a deserted alley and come to the first usual trash pile. I search through, but I don’t find anything that doesn’t smell rank, so I continue on.

  The next place only has mouldy food too, so I go round the corner to the pie place. Its bin is always full of (more or less) fresh pies. The problem is the pies normally splatter when they’re thrown in and all that’s left is splattered whatever.

  I’m just tall enough to peer over into the trashcan, and it seems I’m finally in luck; on top is an apple pie that’s only half broken. Half a pie is plenty! Sometimes the only pies on top are meat pies. I tried eating one once and was sick in a gutter for days. Nobody came to help. Someone actually kicked me on their way past.

  But I love fruit so I cram my face full of pie. It tastes like it might only be a few hours old! Today is turning out to be a lucky day. I used to be so lucky, and so hopeful. Now all I hope for is food that doesn’t make me sick, and I don’t always get it.

  “Look! An imp!” Echoes a voice from the alleyway entrance.

  My eyes fly up. It’s a couple of human children, but they’re both taller than me. I don’t know how old they are: I struggle to tell human ages. They’re all so young.

  “What, again?” Cries a voice, and then the shop’s owner pokes his head around the corner. “I’ve told you before, imp, get outta my trash! You’ll scare off my customers!”

  He brandishes a rolling pin but doesn’t come after me.

  It’s the kids who do.

  “We’ll get rid of it for you!” They run forwards and I drop the pie with a splat and race along the alleyway. I hear them gaining on me. My little legs can’t move faster than theirs!

  “Come back, bin rat!”

>   I burst out of the alleyway and race across the street, ducking between legs and cart wheels. There’s an occasional gasp as people are forced to actually acknowledge my presence, but then something hard connects with my side and I go flying, my body flailing uselessly in the air for terrible moments as the part of me missing pretends to flutter. Phantom feelings.

  Then I hit the ground hard and my body tumbles around until I come to a stop. The kick hurt more than the fall. I don’t know if it was intentional or just someone walking into me, but I don’t have time to figure it out. The boys are coming across the street after me, not having as much success at ducking and dodging as me. I sprint off again, heading for an alleyway opposite, my hip and shoulder aching.

  In the alley, I know they’ll catch up to me quickly. I’ll have to do something else. I glance up. Once, I could’ve just gone into that sky . . .

  I’m still lighter than they are though. I can climb.

  I find a drain pipe and begin to shimmy up as the boys race into the alley.

  “Quick, it’s getting away!”

  Faster. I have to be faster.

  Bad things happen when I don’t go fast enough.

  What if I don’t make it in time again—

  The boys reach the drain pipe below me and jump up, but their hands pass through open air. I made it in time. For once.

  I’m relieved, but I don’t stop for a second. Up the pipe, higher, higher. Never high enough, but soon my hand reaches over the guttering and I haul myself onto the roof. I peer down, then fall back in shock.

  The height! The world below is reeling!

  I’ve never been troubled by heights before. Never! But now I’m a ground animal, like the boys I see hauling their way up the pipes after me.

  Think. Think.

  I glance around. Nowhere to run or hide up here. Just a gabled roof and smoking chimneys.

  Hmmm . . .

  Down below there’s a trash pile. What kind of trash is it? Something that will stab me, or break my fall?