The Girl Who Wasn't There

by G Scott Huggins

  “No!” said Cynthia, looking revolted. “It’s a partial power source for my body!”

  “And it comes out looking exactly like human waste, doesn’t it? And you still have to recharge yourself?” Cynthia nodded. “What a ridiculously inefficient system that would be! A lie only a child could swallow. So that’s who they fed it to. If you were really a machine, they’d have you running entirely off a molecular battery, just like the Secutors do.

  Cynthia stared at her own hands. She pressed them against her face. “I am…I am truly human?”

  “Truly human,” repeated Mr. Hybels.

  “Okay,” said Paul, a little too loudly. “We have to get her back to Mom right now. We’re going to expose these bastards and set Cynthia free!” He looked at Jael, and she nodded. About this, they would have no disagreement.

  “But…” said Cynthia. “I have been committing crimes, haven’t I? Stealing? Sabotaging? Won’t they put me in prison?”

  “Hell no,” said Paul. “You’re no older than us. You’re the victim of kidnapping and…too many other crimes to name. They’ll put you in prison over my dead body. And Mom will agree.”

  Jael nodded. Mother could be a stickler for the letter of the law, and it annoyed Jael to no end, but if there was one thing she hated, it was child abuse.

  “You’re going to tell us all about what your owners were making you do, aren’t you?” asked Jael.

  “I…” Cynthia hesitated, fear showing on her face. “They said they would use the kill switch if I did that. Turn off my brain. Erase me. Forever. But…”

  “But you’re human,” said Paul, putting a strong hand on her shoulder. “They can’t do that to you. Another lie.”

  Cynthia nodded, a smile breaking out on her face. “Most days they would drive me in the rover you tracked to the maintenance garage. They paid an enormous sum for the transponder access codes, but they bragged it was a perfect plan: who would question the CEO of Wegerd-Dubrauni, after all? Then I would disguise myself as Secutor 41 and follow the rest to the shipyard, where I would observe and analyze all that I could.

  “We had a copy of the Secutors’ codes as well. If anyone sent an override code, I would simply imitate the behavior of a Secutor cut off from the command net, and head back to the garage. When it detected me arriving, I would redirect the command to the real Secutor 41, which would register as being fully functional and repaired. They reasoned that since routine maintenance difficulties happen all the time, and Secutors are shuffled automatically among shifts, it would take quite a while for someone to wonder whether this particular problem was only with one Secutor each time.”

  “And they never did,” muttered Paul. “Not either of them.”

  “It was usually easy to avoid behavior that triggered the flags that drew attention. So most days, since nothing was noticed, I simply rode back to the garage, reassumed human form, and took the tramway to the outer settlements. There are no security scans for people leaving the main colony terminal, so no one ever noticed that I only left, and never entered.”

  “I didn’t actually mean that you had to tell us all that now,” said Jael.

  “I imagine that when Cynthia is asked for a report, she has learned not to delay or omit any information,” said Mr. Hybels, flatly. “After all, that’s not what a good AI would do, is it?”

  “But I don’t understand,” said Paul. “The shipyard is rigged to detect every sort of electronic sensor and any outgoing signal. How could you get away with it?”

  Cynthia blinked. “There is no detecting passive sensors. My eyes record everything I see. Acoustic sensors are built into my fingertips. All I had to do was look and touch. Only these,” the lasers sprang from her fingertips again, “are active, and they are tight-beam and low power. I would practically have to shine them on a Security detector for them to be noticed.”

  “So they aren’t targeting lasers?” asked Jael.

  “No,” said Cynthia, dropping her eyes. “But I thought you might believe they were. I am sorry.”

  “We’re wasting time,” said Jael. “We need to get her to Mom before these ‘owners’ of hers miss her.”

  “I could not agree more,” said Mr. Hybels. “And I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Shall we go?”

  Cynthia looked frightened but nodded.

  Paul flashed a nervous grin at his sister. “You go first. I wouldn’t want you to accidentally ram one of us with that thing.” Jael made a face at him but swiveled her chair and carefully eased out into the hall, the rest behind her. She had a moment to reorient herself, turned right, and then a familiar voice echoed in the corridor.

  “Stop right there. Or we will have to kill you.”

  Chapter 9

  The Girl Who Was There All Along

  Paul froze, as he had been trained. So did Mr. H. Jael gasped and gripped the joystick of her wheelchair. Cynthia gave a faint cry of fright and then rocked a little on her feet.

  The voice was familiar, even without the distortion of a radio. It was the male voice he had heard talking with Cynthia. It belonged to a stocky, deeply-tanned man who wore sunglasses and a dark, neatly-trimmed beard. His outsuit was a dappled gray, almost a camouflage pattern. In one fist, he held a magcoil pistol. In the other, a convirscer. From the corner of his eyes, Paul could see Cynthia staring at it, far more terrified of that than of the pistol.

  From behind them, a woman circled around. She had long, straight hair, pale gold skin, and also wore sunglasses.

  “You have five seconds to tell us what weapons you have,” said the woman. “If we search you and find any, we will shoot you.”

  “None of us have weapons,” Paul said.

  “We are not fools,” the woman warned. “We know that most colonists go armed. And you are a deputy of Security.”

  “Well, I’m afraid Mother doesn’t allow it unless I’m on duty,” said Paul, trying for all the dignity he could muster, while saying that sentence.

  “Very well,” said the man, advancing. His accent was heavier, but with a Romance language. French or Italian perhaps. “Convirscers. All of them. Slowly, from your pockets. Toss them at my feet.”

  Paul, Jael, and Mr. H complied. The rectangles of plastic and electronics arced slowly toward him.

  “Synthia, come here.” The man raised his own convirscer. “You have disobeyed us. Did you think we would not listen, that we would not track an AI?”

  Fighting a tremor that threatened to choke her, Cynthia said, “You cannot destroy me with that. I am not a machine. I am a human!” The last word was a sob.

  The man darkened. “So.” He made no effort to continue the lie. Instead, he did something complex to his phone. “But still enough of a machine, I think.”

  Cynthia’s artificial limbs jerked to life, and she cried out. Her legs extended, and she knelt onto her treads. Twisting helplessly, she rolled over to her owners like a marionette, and they turned her to face Paul and Jael.

  “Destroy the convirscers,” said the man. “You can do it yourself, or I will compel you. It will hurt.”

  Cynthia looked at them. “Help me,” she whispered.

  Paul’s heart twisted in agony. There was nothing he could do except get them all killed.

  “Smash the convirscers,” the man repeated.

  Mouth open in a silent sob, Cynthia rolled over them, crushing them to shards.

  “Put your hands in your pockets, you two.”

  Mr. H did, and so did Paul. The criminals didn’t want to risk any fighting, not even when they had the guns. His left hand encountered a round, hard metallic object. What was that?

  “You will come with us,” the man said.

  Take as much control of the situation as you can. His mother’s training came back to him. Do not let yourself be isolated. Security’s strength lies in connection; the criminal’s in secrecy. Play to your strengths, always.

  There was something he could do. “No,” said Paul. He took a slow step backwards.

&n
bsp; The man raised his pistol. “Stop!”

  “You can’t shoot that thing in here,” Paul said, firmly as he could. He took another step back. Jael and Mr. H took up his cue, backing away with him. “We allow people to go armed to protect themselves because Security is stretched thin,” he said. “But if you fire one of those in here? Security will pinpoint exactly where you are, and you’ll call half the Secutors in the colony down on you. And they’ll shoot if you’re still armed.”

  That’s when Paul realized what he was holding. Dad’s magcoil that he’d given him. Useless without the rest of the gun, even if Paul had possessed flechettes.

  But the capacitor might hold a single charge.

  Then he realized what he could do if he played it right. He looked at their captors’ faces. There was the merest trace of uncertainty there.

  “You don’t want to be discovered,” said Paul. “You know what we know. You were listening, after all.” He took another step back. Mr. H and Jael edged back with him. But their foes did not follow. “But you’re still hoping to get away.”

  The man seemed to make a decision. In one smooth motion, he stepped behind Cynthia, pocketing his gun. His hand came back out with a large knife, which he laid aside Cynthia’s throat. He clamped his other hand firmly around her neck, and she shrieked. “I will kill her,” he said. “She will die as fast as any other girl.”

  Paul fought down panic that threatened to rise in him, fought the urge to surrender. It won’t keep her safe, he told himself. It won’t.

  What he was doing might kill her, too. He forced himself to take another step back. How well did they know the colony? As well as he did?

  “Get behind me,” he said to Jael and Mr. H. Jael jerked her chair controls and shot back a few feet. Good. The woman raised her gun and then froze, looking at her partner.

  “Stop!” roared the man, jabbing with the blade. Cynthia screamed, but he had not cut her.

  “You’re doing violence in the corridor,” said Paul. “And the Security pickups are listening. They have flags too, did you know. Screams. Shouts. The air sensors can smell the hormones we’re all pumping out. Any second now…”

  “Shut up!” the man shouted.

  “Any second now, a real Secutor is coming around a corner,” Paul took another step back, Mr. H keeping pace with him. Almost there. “You want to be running before that happens. Because this isn’t getting you away.”

  The man tightened his grip on the knife. “It will not come in time to save her,” he said. “It would be better for us if you will all come along. We do not have to kill you. Only leave you at our safe house. But if you will not, then we can run while she dies.”

  “No,” said Mr. Hybels. “He’s going to kill us. There’s too much at stake for them to leave us alive.”

  “You kill her,” said Paul, taking the final step back, past the bulkhead, “and you bring all Security down on you. You’ll never get away.”

  “I do not have to shoot,” the man warned, brandishing the knife.

  “No, you don’t,” said Paul, easing the magcoil from his pocket and fingering the test circuit. “So I will. And Cynthia?” Three sets of eyes locked on him in confusion. He returned only one’s gaze.

  “I’ll come for you.” He hoped it would not be an empty promise. Then he pressed his fingernail into the recess, hard. The ring emitted a sharp whine of discharge.

  And the bulkhead slammed down in front of them like a guillotine’s blade. Behind them, another set of safety doors snapped shut. Alarms blared. “LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPON!” boomed a voice. “ANY PERSON HOLDING A WEAPON WILL BE SUBJECT TO POSSIBLY LETHAL FORCE AT THE HANDS OF THE SECUTORS.”

  Paul dropped the magcoil, lay flat on the floor, and prayed for his mother to hurry.

  The Secutor arrived first. And though it had seemed to take years to arrive, the next few minutes waiting for his mother seemed like decades. It was impossible to try to talk over the alarms and repeated warnings. They were supposed to be disorienting so that any potential criminal would be easier to subdue.

  “Paul? Jael? Mr. Hybels?” These were the first words Paul heard after the alarms ceased. Their mother ran in as soon as the safety doors opened, a pistol in her hand. She’d arrived on one of Security’s hovertrams, and it floated in the air behind her. An odd, detached part of Paul’s mind felt insulted that his mother seemed to think that Mr. Hybels being apprehended by a Secutor was more astonishing than for it to happen to them. Rising, Paul found himself yanked to his feet.

  “I thought you liked Mr. Hybels,” Erevis said, looking at Paul in harried disbelief. “Please tell me you didn’t really shoot at your teacher.”

  “No, no!” said Mr. Hybels. “Erevis, you need to listen to your son.”

  “What is it now?” asked their mother, turning back to him.

  “Mom,” said Paul, choosing his words carefully. “We’ve solved the problem with the Secutors in Wonka’s. Only they’re getting away. And a girl is in grave danger.”

  “What?” Okay, maybe not as carefully as he had thought.

  “Paul,” said Mr. Hybels. “Allow me.” He turned to their mother. “Erevis, you’ve been a victim of a concerted and sophisticated plan to steal the shipyard’s techniques. As bizarre as it may sound, some entity has managed to disguise a teenager as a Secutor, and she has regularly been examining the entire facility quite thoroughly. She has been controlled by two dangerous individuals who threatened us with illegal weapons. It was your son who, quite bravely and ingeniously, saved us all by ‘firing’ a magcoil to simulate a weapons discharge.”

  His mother turned to Paul, her eyes widening as if she had never truly seen him before. The crazy-calm sector of Paul’s mind thought, So that’s what Mr. H means when he says he wants “strong and concise” delivery. He was by no means prepared when his mother wrapped him in a tight embrace.

  “Oh, Paul, are you all right?” She released him as if stung. “Jael? Are you?”

  “We’re fine, Mom,” said Paul. His fear broke out, then. “But I’m afraid Cynthia might not be! You have to open this bulkhead! They were threatening to kill her!” Oh, God, please don’t let her be dead because of me.

  His mother tapped on her convirscer. Paul looked up in shock at a strong squeeze on his hand. It was Mr. Hybels, looking at him with an almost frightening intensity.

  “Son,” he said, “I do not think they will have killed her. They need a hostage until they make good their escape. But even if they did, know this: you did the right thing. Our compliance would not have saved us, it would have only bought us a few more minutes of false life.”

  Paul nodded automatically and flinched as the bulkhead lifted. He had to stare at the empty hallway for long seconds before he could accept that Cynthia’s body was not there.

  “Give me a description, quick,” his mother said, turning to him. Paul spoke into her convirscer for about fifteen seconds. As he spoke, her eyes widened. “I just saw those two pass us on the way here, in a Secutor’s custody. I thought it was some minor crime I could worry about after I’d discovered who’d been shot. They’ve already been…” she ran down as her brain caught up. “Disguised as a Secutor, you said?”

  “Then Cynthia’s alive, at least,” said Jael.

  “Well, there’s an APB out on all of them now. I can’t tap into the Secutor net very well from here; we need to get back to the office. Fast.” She looked at her hover tram and then at Jael’s wheelchair. A grim smile quirked her mouth up. “Can you keep up in that thing?”

  Jael swiveled the chair. “Can you keep up with this thing?” she answered.

  “Don’t crash into the walls,” Mother said. She practically threw Mr. H into the tram, and then they were off, the hum of the hovertram’s ducted fans competing with the rapid whine of Jael’s chair.

  “But how did they get the data out without being detected?” Paul’s mother asked him.

  “They didn’t. She was detected every time. As a Secutor. She just watched and
listened and reported back. And when she got flagged, well, she was always ‘repaired.’ Just like you and Dad were complaining.”

  “Idiot simple,” Mother said, shaking her head. “The oldest trick in the world and we fell for it. How did you two figure it out?”

  Paul told the story of Cynthia, and all the clues he and Jael had discovered. His mother sat silent until he was finished, though her lips tightened when he got to the story of Jael tracking Cynthia to her owners’ lair.

  “Paul, why didn’t you tell me all of this before?” His mother’s tone was half-exasperated, half-admiring.

  “Mom, we didn’t know what any of it meant until this morning. But we know where they live and where they are. We can probably track them.”

  “Okay. We’ll discuss it later.” They’d arrived.

  “Is everything all―?” their father began, then stood back as they charged past him. “Guess not. It can wait.”

  “You take the main console,” their mother said to Paul. “I’ll need you to switch me around.” She keyed in her clearance code and slotted herself into the MARTINet.

  “You know more about the system than I do,” said Paul. “Why don’t we switch?”

  His mother looked him in the face, and he saw a chill in her eyes that he never had before. It wasn’t anger. It was something far deeper. “Because for the first time on this job, I just might have to kill someone. And I’m not delegating that to my son.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” It was a relief to focus on the network of Secutors. “They’ll be on the way to the garage,” he said. “It’s how they egressed without ever showing up on the logs.” He called up the map of the colony, tracing the shortest route from Mr. H’s quarters. “Jael, can you get into the Emergency Net and help me look?”

  “On it,” said Jael, sliding into her father’s room. He gave up his console without a word.

  Paul switched his mother into the Secutor nearest the garage and started tracking the video logs backward. “There they are with Cynthia and us,” he muttered. “There’s Cynthia as a Secutor, escorting them.