The Girl Who Wasn't There

by G Scott Huggins

  “Come left nine degrees,” said Cynthia. Paul threw the E-rover into a right turn, which was more like a skid. “I said nine degrees!”

  “Most of us don’t have compasses built in, Cynthia,” said Jael.

  “You don’t?” Cynthia replied. “How disorienting.”

  “I see them!” yelled Jael.

  Paul looked up. There, in the far distance, he could see a half-dozen Secutors, insect small. But two of them were noticeably bigger. People on them. Paul twisted the wheel and drove right for them. The window clacked loudly, and Jael yelped.

  Paul looked over. A tungsten alloy flechette was buried a quarter of its length into the thick canopy. He slammed on the brakes. And cursed.

  He could see them. He could see their ship landing, balancing on its tail of blue fire. It cast hard-edged shadows like a setting star, hundreds of meters long. Cynthia’s former owners had stepped off their Secutor ferries. A second flechette hit the windscreen. Just to prove they’ve got us covered. There was nowhere on the flat lunar plain that they could shelter. No way to get between them and their escape ship. Nowhere to sneak up from. They’re going to get away. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

  Then an alarm sounded on Paul’s dashboard.

  “Cynthia, what are you doing?” He twisted around. She had popped the escape hatch in the canopy over her observation turret.

  “Give me your coilgun,” she said. Her voice was hard.

  “No way,” Paul said. “I know they’ve hurt you. I know I don’t know how they’ve hurt you. But I am not letting you risk yourself for them.”

  “I’m not,” Cynthia said, in a hard calm. “I promise I will not leave this canopy or even shoot at them, but I can stop them, now give me the gun!”

  Paul met her eyes through their helmets. “All right,” he said. He handed it over.

  Cynthia raised the coilgun and set it to maximum power. She angled it upward and fired six shots as fast as she could squeeze the trigger.

  For a moment, nothing changed. Then the actinic flare of the descending ship wavered, then lengthened…and began to rise.

  “What did you do?” Paul whispered.

  “I put six flechettes in a hexagonal pattern into the canopy of their lander,” said Cynthia calmly. “I couldn’t actually damage them, of course. But they don’t know it’s me. They have to believe you have bigger guns.”

  While Paul was digesting this, Jael said, “Paul? We have a radio signal coming in.”

  “Mom?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Jael. “I think it’s them.” She pointed out the window. The two figures were walking toward them, slowly, waving their hands as calmly as if they had been friends.

  Paul jabbed the commlink receiver. He was going to enjoy this, at least. “This is Deputy Paul Wardhey of Thunderhead Colonial Security. You will stop, throw down your weapons, and surrender. You are under arrest. Any resistance will be met with minimal effective force, up to and including lethal weapons.”

  The smooth voice that answered him was far less heavily-accented than the one he had expected but was without a doubt that of Cynthia’s male former owner.

  “Deputy Wardhey, this is Major Felipe Bilbao of the West European People’s Union. We are unarmed, have complied with your orders to stop and disarm. But you may not arrest or detain us, as we are attached to the People’s Union’s Colonial Consulate and have been granted diplomatic immunity under international law.”

  Paul felt his jaw drop.

  “Paul?” said Jael. “What does that mean?”

  Somehow, Paul found a voice. Numbly, he replied, “You will appreciate that we will need to transport you back to the colony to ascertain the truth of your claims.”

  “Of course, deputy,” the man’s voice made the title seem one for children. “We have plenty of oxygen. Take your time.”

  “That bastard,” said Paul. “It means this just got a lot more complicated. For all of us.”

  Chapter 10

  Moments of Truth, Days of Hope

  The VIP terminal at the Thunderhead Colony spaceport was deserted except for the Wardhey family, Cynthia, Mr. Hybels, who had said that he wouldn’t miss this for another century of life, and the Mayor. Its understated elegance did nothing to calm the tension that Jael was feeling, however, and she was grateful that she still had the excuse of sore muscles to allow her to sit in her wheelchair, as much as she hated it. If she were on crutches now, she thought she might collapse in a pile of nerves.

  The only person who could be feeling more nervous right now was Cynthia, but she just stood there in preternatural stillness. Her thin lips and blinking were the only signs that the waiting was putting any strain on her. Jael’s father kept looking at her with concern on his face.

  At last, the clouded glass doors to the terminal opened. Major Bilbao and his assistant, Captain Vong were shown in, flanked by four large miners deputized for the occasion.

  “Mayor Batur,” the Major said, “I must protest—again—that we have been detained contrary to all usage of international law.”

  “You’ve behaved contrary to all usages of international law, so I’d say we’re even,” said Mr. Hybels.

  “Mr. Hybels, please!” snapped the Mayor. He turned to the Major. “And I repeat, you have not been detained. You have been placed in protective custody until your ship could arrive to take you home.” He glanced over toward the embarkation ramp, where a Traffic Control employee was admitting a woman dressed in the uniform of the West European People’s Union. “Which it has now done.” Mayor Batur sounded extremely relieved.

  Mr. H had explained about “diplomatic immunity” to them all, and why it meant that Bilbao and Vong couldn’t simply be tried like ordinary—make that extraordinary, Jael thought—criminals. “You start arresting diplomats, no matter how justifiably,” he’d said, “and it doesn’t take long for hostile nations to start “arresting” diplomats for “crimes” they haven’t committed, and suddenly you don’t have embassies and diplomacy anymore. Instead you’ve got an exchange of hostages.

  “I must insist,” the Major said, “that you return our minor citizen to us. Our papers clearly show that she is a ward of the state under our custody.”

  “What they don’t show,” put in Security Chief Wardhey, “is why two foreign agents have a minor child in their custody. Didn’t you find her an impediment?”

  “That is an internal affair of my government,” said the major, blandly. “And none of your business.”

  “I thought you told her she was an Artificial Intelligence,” said their mother, radiating barely leashed rage. “That’s certainly what she told me. That you had controlled her for years by telling her that she was your illegal property, to be used and destroyed as convenient.”

  He shrugged. “She is brilliant, but given the traumas she suffered early in life, a bit delusional. No matter; she is our responsibility, and she has the right to return to the Union with us. You will be fortunate not to face charges for violating her rights.”

  “And you’ll be fortunate not to end up facing a trial for crimes against humanity for creating and harboring an artificial intelligence.”

  Major Bilbao sighed. “First, you say she is a child, then an AI. Is it possible that our technological superiority makes you that nervous, that you believe she might be telling the truth? But please, Chief Wardhey. Make up your mind. If she is an AI, destroy her. If she is a child, she has the right to return home.”

  “Well, she does have that right,” said Chief Wardhey. “Unless she requests asylum, of course.” She turned to Cynthia. “Cynthia, would you—”

  “I request asylum in the Thunderhead Colony.”

  Major Bilbao shrugged. “Well, then, there is nothing more we can do for you.” He beckoned Captain Vong to follow him, then smiled smugly. “I hope they don’t dissect—or disassemble—you to see whether one of us is lying.”

  Mr. Hybels snorted. “And I hope your own government d
oesn’t do the same to you for botching your mission this badly.”

  Major Bilbao glanced sharply at him, and for a moment his smile slipped. But it was back in place in an instant. “If your imagination of such things makes the short rest of your long life easier to bear, what of it.” He gave them a little wave. “Farewell.” And they were gone.

  Jael’s mother turned to the mayor. “Thank you, Aizehar, for backing us up on this.”

  The Mayor scowled. “You’re welcome. Although it shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. We can’t ever let something like this happen again.” Some of his old bluster returned. “Erevis, why did it take so long for you to run this down?”

  “It’s all in my report, but if you want the short version, it’s because, as I’ve been telling you since I arrived here, that I am understaffed and under-budgeted for my mission of keeping the colony and the shipyard secure. You’ve been relying on machines that are cheap and easy to manipulate to do a job that has to be done by capable human minds. So those machines were manipulated, and we were all fooled.” She gestured to Cynthia, who looked nervous.

  “I’m not blaming you,” Mother said, her voice softening. “But Aizehar, I need more people to rely on than just my son, though God knows, he did better for you in this case than I did.”

  Jael felt resentment swell at this, but then her mother said, “And so did my daughter, who perhaps should be my second deputy.” She sighed. “What do you say, Jael? I foresee that working together might be a challenge for both of us, but you’ve certainly earned the job offer, with this.”

  Jael sat stunned. She never had thought to hear her mother say that, and she wasn’t absolutely sure she wanted it, now that she’d heard it. “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course.” Their mother turned back to the Mayor. “In case I hadn’t made it clear before, sir, my son and daughter, while their methods were unorthodox, to say the least, are the ones who foiled this plot. I’m very proud of them. You owe them a debt of thanks.”

  The Mayor looked at Paul, and then at Jael. He seemed to be one of those men who were especially troubled by the presence of children, even ones approaching adulthood, but he gave them a bow and said, “Indeed. We shall have to see about doing something for them. As to your funding and personnel, your point is taken.” He looked back at the departing shuttle and shuddered. “Well taken. Now, Erevis, I have many things to see to. Until later.” He bustled off.

  “And now,” said Mother, “it’s time to discuss matters of real importance. Like what to do with you, Cynthia.”

  Paul’s stomach churned as he watched Cynthia’s face close up. She seemed to shrink, but said, emotionlessly, “This is a matter of importance.”

  “You are a matter of extreme importance,” their mother went on. “Although according to everything you and my own children have told me, you have never been treated that way. So before we leave this convenient place to talk, I thought we might use it.” She gestured them all to sit. Cynthia did so, warily.

  “You told me that you don’t remember any sort of life before your owners,” Mother continued. “No time when you were…” she stumbled, at a loss for words, “different than you are now?”

  “Before Major Bilbao, I had other owners,” she said. “On Earth. Who programmed me. Or trained me.”

  “But no family? No childhood?”

  Cynthia shook her head, then said, “I remember being turned on. Nine years ago.”

  “Turned on?” Dad looked horrified, though his voice was gentle. Paul blinked. Was it possible that Cynthia really was an AI?

  “Yes,” she said. “They told me my name and what I had been built for.”

  Their father said a word that Paul had never imagined him saying.

  “How is that possible?” Jael asked, obviously thinking the same thing as Paul.

  “Memories can be erased,” said Mr. Hybels. “If you’re willing to use techniques that count as criminal abuse in every nation on Earth.”

  Their mother resumed speaking. “Cynthia, whether you remember it or not, I can assure you that you were born, not built. The time we spent getting you checked out in Medical yesterday confirmed that. You are fully human.”

  “As soon as we can be sure that we will not do you more harm than good,” put in their father, “We’ll run a full analysis of your software that runs your cybernetic parts, so we know that it’s not making you ‘see things’ that aren’t really there. Like telling you your blood is some kind of artificial fluid.”

  Paul was sure he had never seen his father angrier.

  “Unfortunately,” said their mother, “what was done to you means that you have no fingerprints or retinal scans, so we have been unable to locate any of your family on Earth. And gene scans, while reliable, are not available for most people. So it may be some time—if ever—before we can track down any relatives.”

  Cynthia nodded. She seemed completely unaffected by this. But then, thought Paul, why should she? She’s never known what having a family means. He felt a great pity for her, but also a relief that she wasn’t going to be shipped back to that family on Earth right away. He’d just gotten to know this strange, brave girl, and he didn’t want her to go.

  “But besides being a human, you’re also a child,” said their mother. “For at least two more years, and while I know you need a home, our family simply doesn’t have the space to give you one.”

  Paul turned to his mother, ready to face her down. That would be even worse than losing Cynthia to her own family. “Mom, you can’t just ship her back to Earth to some state institution or something. Surely we can…” His mother held up a hand.

  “Paul, please hear me out. Your father and I considered it. Deeply. But we can’t afford bigger quarters, no matter how we stretch things.”

  “But I can,” said Mr. Hybels.

  Paul, Jael, and Cynthia all stared at him.

  Mr. H looked Cynthia in the eyes. “I’ve raised children before. My grandchildren are grown, and my great-grandchildren will either find their way up here to visit when they are able, or they’ll get on with seeing me over a vidscreen. I’ve got money I’m not going to live to need to spend, so I’d be honored to spend it where I can do some good. I know it won’t necessarily be fun living with an old man, but if you want to, I’d be glad to have you.”

  Paul could tell that the adults had discussed this beforehand, but right now, all eyes were on Cynthia. She looked confused.

  “You would be… like a father? To me?” She blinked.

  “Probably more like a grandfather,” he said. “And occasionally a cranky one. But at least I can promise you decent schooling.”

  Paul was surprised when she turned to him. “I…I don’t know what it’s like to be a…child.” She spoke the word as if it were from another language. “But you do. And you,” she turned to Jael. “And you are the ones who saved me. Would you…do this? I think I…” she chose her words carefully, “like him. But I know,” she gave a sound that was part laugh, part sob. “I know almost nothing.”

  “Live with Mr. H?” said Jael before Paul could find words. “If I were you? In a heartbeat. He’s sweet. Just don’t turn in assignments late.”

  Cynthia looked at him, and Paul felt a warmth run through him. “I don’t know anyone who knows more about what it’s like to be human than Mr. H,” he said. “And you’ll never be far from us, either.”

  “And you would like that?” asked Cynthia.

  “Yes,” said Paul, for the first time in a long time feeling like everything was going to be okay. “I’d like that a lot.”

  The End

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  About the Author

  G. Scott Huggins grew up and lives in Wichita, Kansas. Growing up, he fell in love with the worlds of Pern, Tran-Ky-Ky, We Made It, and many more. He studied all around the world and speaks both German and Russian. He is a graduate of the Clarion Writing Workshop (1997) and sold his first story in 1999.

  When he is not writing science-fiction and fantasy, Huggins teaches history at The Independent School. With his wife, he is in the process of raising children and tolerating cats. His favorite authors include G.K. Chesterton, Dan Simmons, C.S. Lewis, Lois McMaster Bujold, Larry Niven, and Terry Pratchett.

  Visit his Amazon author page at: https://www.amazon.com/G-Scott-Huggins/e/B015JQF3K6

  Copyright

  The Girl Who Wasn’t There - Moon 2095 (Book 1)

  Written by G. Scott Huggins

  Edited by S. Kay Nash

  Executive Editor: Michael A. Wills

  This story is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, locations, and events portrayed in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination, fictitious, or used fictitiously. No claim to the trademark, copyright, or intellectual property of any identifiable company, organization, product, or public name is made. Any character resembling an actual person, living or dead, would be coincidental and quite remarkable.