James didn’t know what to say. He never did when she spoke of her brother. Talking about Kenji always made Noa quieter. It made her fidget with the stumps of her fingers, and her eyes drift away.
“Kenji discovered that fifteen percent of Time Gate 8’s power expenditure was unnecessary,” Noa whispered softly. Her thumb grazed the place where her fingers used to be. “The thing has been hanging in the sky for a hundred years, and some of its auto maintenance features have built themselves up to be so big—they actually built in unintentional redundancies. He was working on fixing that … ” She took a breath. “He’d been stationed planet-side … ” Her brow furrowed. “He wouldn’t have been on the station when the explosions happened.” He heard her swallow and saw her lips turn down. “I don’t think.”
She drew to a halt beneath a manhole, a ladder beneath it on the wall. Tucking the bundle that was Carl Sagan into her shirt, she said, “We’re here.”
“I can go first,” James suggested, but she was already scaling the ladder.
10
As James crept after Noa in the darkness of a small side street, he heard footsteps, the murmur of voices, and shouts from patrols. Closer to him, he heard Noa’s breathing. It was too loud and too fast. Still, she didn’t hesitate as she guided him around a corner. They were in a neighborhood a few kilometers beyond Port of Call. The buildings were still stucco, but they were surrounded by high- wrought iron fences covered with red-leaved ivy and bright white and yellow flowers. Most had at least one hover parked on the rooftop between solar cell wind turbines.
Noa reached a gate in a fence that looked no different from the rest. “There should be a buzzer … ” Noa muttered, gently probing among the flowering vines as Carl Sagan peeked out the neck of her shirt. A moment later, James heard the sound of a doorbell ringing in the home beyond. And then there was silence … for two minutes and forty-five seconds.
“This person—”
“Eliza.”
“How well do you know her?” James whispered.
“We’re practically family,” Noa whispered. “Great, great, great, great aunt thrice removed.”
The answer didn’t fill James with confidence. Fifty meters down the street there came the shout of a patrol.
“Could she have been arrested?” James asked as another precious thirty seconds went by. He scanned the small street for a manhole and saw none.
“She was one of the original settlers,” Noa whispered back. “They couldn’t have possibly arrested her.”
“One of the first settlers?” James protested. “But that would make her—”
“Really, really old,” Noa finished.
“And a fanatic!” James whispered back.
“Ahhhh … ” Noa winced. “No … sometimes we wished she were. She has some eccentricities … ”
“What kind of eccentricities?” James said.
Noa turned to him, her mouth opened, but before any sound came out a beam of light at the intersection caught James’s eye. Arm looping around Noa’s waist, he pressed her and himself into the ivy. Her dark eyes widened and met his.
“We can climb the fence,” James whispered.
Noa shook her head. “No, there are alarms. Would draw even more attention.”
At the intersection, someone called out, “I think I see someone! You there, show yourselves.”
“Nebulas,” Noa hissed.
“Fight or flight?” James said, hand tightening on her waist. Noa closed her eyes. A flashlight beam caressed the curve of her back just peeking out from the flowers and leaves. James ducked his head into the space of her shoulder and neck and breathed deep, his arm tightened around her.
Noa didn’t answer.
“You there,” the man called again. “I see you.” James could see the flashlight beam bouncing. He counted no fewer than six pairs of footsteps. He remembered the laser pistols of the Guard in the bar. At that thought, a red spotter beam grazed the ivy above Noa’s head and began to drop. James took a deep breath. He wanted to explode from his skin. He felt trapped in a nightmare, knowing what would happen and helpless to do anything about it. The tracer dropped to a centi from her head … and then there was a creak of metal and darkness came too quickly for James’s vision to adapt.
“Quick, inside,” a raspy voice whispered.
James blinked. The gate had opened between them and the approaching patrol, and a stooped figure was standing there, wobbling on a cane. He blinked again, and two exceptionally bright blue eyes came into focus. The eyes were situated in a face more wrinkled and worn than any he had ever seen.
“Halt!” cried the patrol officer. James heard the troops break into a run.
Before he could gather his wits, Noa pulled him through the gate into the garden between the ivy-covered fence and a lavender stucco home. The gate slammed behind them. From the house came the thunderous sound of a piano playing the opening to Carlos Chen’s Time Gate Ten Overture. Behind him, he heard the woman cry in a warbling voice, “Fluffy! Fluffy! Where are you!”
James blinked. He felt Noa lean against him, the barest soft touch of her breast against his upper arm, and the faintest brush of her breath against his ear. His body went warm, his vision lightened, and gravity seemed to dissipate. What was the reason for this sudden intimacy? It struck him that he didn’t care.
“Fluffy is a popular name for pets in our family,” Noa whispered and then pulled away from him.
The lightness in his vision dissipated, and his skin prickled with annoyance or disappointment, or both.
Grabbing his hand, Noa pulled him toward the house along a pathway of sparkling recycled glass beads. A patrol man outside the gate shouted, “Hands above your head!”
He heard the old woman cry, “Oh, Officers, thank goodness you’re here! Have you seen my cat?” His and Noa’s feet crunched slightly as they walked—no, stalked—but thankfully, the piano music covered the noise. On either side of them were walls of pink and lavender flowers as high as his head. They walked toward the steps of a back stoop encrusted with a blue mosaic set into white stone. A door atop the stoop was open to a kitchen from which the piano music poured, and warm yellow light glowed. Just before they reached the steps, a voice, young and male, whispered from the wall of flowers to their left. “This way, quickly. Eliza says they’ll ask to come inside next, and she doesn’t want us to be found.”
Noa dragged James in the direction of the voice down a path so narrow James wouldn’t have seen it if they hadn’t been right beside it. The path curved around to the side of the house. He quickly found himself staring over Noa’s shoulder into the darkness of a door, just slightly ajar. He was completely unable to see inside, although the tops of the flowers were well-lit by the kitchen light. Apparently, his augmented vision had trouble adjusting to sudden differences in brightness.
“Ma’am?” said another officer, less than five meters behind him just beyond the fence laden with ivy and head-high flowers.
“She’s a brown and black tortoise shell,” the old woman continued.
“I thought I saw someone hiding in the vines, Sir,” said the man who’d spotted them.
“Ohhh!” squealed the old woman. “That was her, that was her!”
“Are you sure, Ma’am?” said someone else just before James and Noa stooped to enter the darkened door. James’s vision slowly adjusted, and he found himself in what might have been a gardener’s shed, except it was set into the main building of the house. In front of him was a wall of old-fashioned pruning equipment, shovels and spades of every sort, rakes, gloves, aprons, and little houses he estimated were for the pteranodon-like creatures that flew in Luddeccea’s skies.
He heard the door click behind them, and the male voice said, “I’ll show you the way.”
James turned toward the man and his eyes went wide. Striding through the shed toward the wall of gardening supplies was a young man with Mediterranean features too symmetrical to be natural. He appeared to be wearing only a
pink apron. The man strode by them … and … he was only wearing a pink apron.
Apparently unconcerned with his nudity, the man went to the wall and lifted a spade. The wall opened with a click. Turning to James and Noa, he beckoned with a hand and whispered, “This way, Noa.”
“I can barely see, Sixty,” Noa said.
“Oh, it is dark,” the man who was apparently “Sixty” answered. “But Eliza told me not to turn on the light until you were inside the safe room.” The man stood ramrod straight by the door without a word after that statement.
“Maybe if you gave me your hand, Sixty?” Noa suggested.
“Of course,” said Sixty, lifting an arm James could not help but notice was well-muscled.
James’s vision darkened. Guiding Noa past Sixty, he said, “I can see fine.”
Standing oddly still, Sixty didn’t put down his hand as James led Noa into the narrow half meter-by-three meter space beyond. It was completely devoid of furniture, and there were handles set into the white-painted walls at regular intervals. James drew up short, the compact space making his neurons and nanos pulse in alarm.
“What is it?” Noa whispered.
“It’s—”
The door to the garden tool room shut, a light flicked on, and white flashed behind James’s eyes as they struggled to adjust. Noa’s hand dropped from his and he felt her spin around.
“Sound and light proof!” exclaimed Sixty.
James turned around, rapidly blinking his eyes. As his eyes recovered, he found Sixty standing not ten centis from Noa’s nose. The man was smiling brightly. Clutching the coat that contained Carl Sagan, now completely hidden in the folds of fabric, Noa stumbled back against James’s chest with a yelp. James put a hand on her shoulder, and he heard her swallow.
“I was going to say cramped,” James finished. He saw no sign of another exit.
“Please tell me you’re wearing more than an apron, Sixty,” Noa whined in a way quite unlike her.
“You know a lie would go against my programming,” Sixty said. “And I was cooking—I have a new cooking app. Of course I would be wearing an apron.” He looked up at James and held out his hand. “You haven’t introduced me to your companion.”
James stared down at the hand, an inkling beginning to form at the back of his mind.
Noa sighed. “James, this is Sixty—”
“6T9,” the man corrected. “The number, the letter, and the number again.” He smiled and winked.
James stared at the hand. The inkling in his mind became a 99.99% certainty.
“6T9,” Noa said. “This is James.”
“Hello, James,” said 6T9, hand still outstretched. Looking to Noa, he said, “Noa, are you and James in a mutually exclusive sexual relationship?”
James’s hand on Noa’s shoulder tightened. He almost said “Yes,” estimating it would end the line of questioning.
“Why are you asking?” Noa said.
Hand still outstretched, 6T9 said, “Because James is a fine specimen of the masculine gender. Sometimes Eliza likes it when I and—”
“Not interested.” The words spilled from James’s mouth in the same unconscious way he’d pulled the trigger in the forest, or kicked the man on the train.
Finally dropping his hand, 6T9 shrugged. “I have to ask. It’s part of my programming. Please do not take offense.”
“You are a … ” James could not bring himself to finish.
Noa sighed and rubbed her temples.
6T9 smiled. “A sex ‘bot. A very high-end one.” He winked again.
James echoed Noa’s sigh. Most ‘bots were designed with a function in mind, and being human-formed was rarely the most ideal for that function—whether it was cleaning a home, sailing through the clouds of gas giants, or doing archaeological digs. It took a lot of processing power to move like a human, smile like a human, and sound like a human when speaking. When you created a ‘bot that could do all those things, you didn’t leave a lot of room for processors that could do other things. Like thinking. Sex ‘bots were designed for their primary function, and that involved looking like a human. James had heard that they were very good at their primary function, but he hadn’t indulged. It was considered extremely gauche. However, it wasn’t just that. He remembered being really drunk and telling a friend, “Even when I’m this pissed, as soon as they open their mouths, I feel let down and annoyed.” He must have had some need to connect on an intellectual level ... His head jerked at the unconscious past tense. Not must have had. He was the same person, no matter how different that person sometimes felt. He looked at the vacant expression on the ‘bot’s face and felt a mild revulsion sparked by more than just his preference for women. Some things he still had in common with that other him.
6T9 lifted his head, as though hearing a far-off sound. “I am supposed to turn on the monitors to the rest of the house now.” He turned around, exposing his back side.
“Couldn’t you put on some clothes?” Noa groaned.
Grabbing a handle on the far wall, 6T9 looked over his shoulder. “You know I can wear clothes, Noa. And I am wearing an article of clothing.” The ‘bot’s head tilted. “Was that a rhetorical question?”
“It was a request,” James supplied, intensely irritated by the ‘bot after only a few minutes.
“Oh,” said 6T9, opening a cupboard and pulling out a hologlobe that had a tail of cords trailing from its underside into the wall. It was hardwired—of course, if the signal was transmitted wirelessly, it could be picked up with signal augmenters.
“I don’t have any other clothes down here,” 6T9 said. He turned around so only the front of his pink apron was showing and Noa muttered, “Thank you,” and wiped her eyes.
“Whatever for?” said 6T9, the hologlobe flickering to life in his hand. Neither Noa nor James bothered to answer. They both turned their attention to the globe. In it, James saw the old woman he’d briefly seen before, apparently in her kitchen. With her were two Luddeccean Guard members. The woman’s voice filled the room. “Would you boys like some fish stew?” James shifted agitatedly on his feet and looked up at the ceiling feeling as though it might fall on his head. She was suggesting they stay?
“Ma’am, we can’t have any when we are on duty,” said a man who appeared to have a lot of ribbons on his chest.
“But it smells delicious,” said the other.
6T9 smiled. “It is delicious. I have a fantastic cooking app.”
“Well, I’ll do anything to help the fellows who find my cat,” said the old woman.
“Why is she encouraging them to stay?” James asked.
“Where are the others?” asked Noa.
“Probably looking about the house,” said 6T9.
The globe flickered again, and James was staring at what appeared to be a sitting room. One trooper was staring at a chess set. It was set up on a coffee table next to an enormous blue couch draped with a knitted afghan. Pieces were arranged on the board as though it had been halted mid-game.
“Ma’am, is there someone else in the house?” one of the troopers asked.
“Oh, no,” Eliza’s replied wobbling over to the set on her cane. “I was playing with a friend on Earth over the ethernet.”
6T9 made a sound that sounded like a sigh. “I’m not a good enough player to offer her sufficient competition.”
“Shame about those aliens, I may never finish my game,” Eliza said breezily.
“Ma’am,” one of the Patrolmen said, “I hope you’ve turned off your neural net.”
“Turned it off?” said the old woman. “Son, I am one of the original settlers. I never fooled with any of that newfangled gadgetry! I chat with my Earth friends via holo chat.” She harrumphed, and the trooper actually tipped his helmet.
“Sorry, ma’am, just had to say so.”
“There were more troopers,” James said.
The globe flickered, and James was looking at two troopers in what looked to be a laundry room. “That’s j
ust to your left,” said 6T9 cheerfully.
Before James could take a breath, the globe flickered again, and the gardening room came into view. There were two troopers in the room, stunners upraised. “And that,” said 6T9, “is the room to your right.”
“Shhhh … ” said Noa.
In the globe, one of the troopers approached the wall of equipment and reached toward the wall.
“Oh,” said 6T9, “perhaps they know we are here.” James glanced up at the ‘bot. His face was completely serene.
James’s eyes dropped back to the globe just in time to see the trooper’s fingers passing within inches of the spade. James found one of his hands balling into a fist, the other on Noa’s back.
Instead of picking up the spade, the trooper picked up one of the pteranodon houses. Stunner upraised in his opposite hand, he turned to his companion and said, “This is really well done.”
His companion shook his head and swung his flashlight beam around the room. “Don’t take granny’s ptery house.”
“I wasn’t going to,” the first protested.
“Come on,” said his companion. “There are still rooms to check upstairs.”
The globe flickered once more, and James saw four troopers in the kitchen around a table eating bowls of soup. “This is really good!” said one.
“Undisciplined.” Noa shook her head. “Eliza is still an old fox.”
“Oh, yes, she is,” said 6T9. “I call her my silver fox.”
“Please don’t tell me any more,” Noa said, throwing up a hand.
“That comment wasn’t gratuitous at all,” said 6T9.
“But you wander off on gratuitous tangents all the time,” Noa said. “And I’m trying to nip it in the bud.”
6T9 tilted his head. “I like to nip—”
“Shut up,” said Noa.
6T9’s mouth snapped shut, and James found himself unexpectedly feeling pity for the ‘bot. In the twenty-first century, humankind had hoped for so much from robots, androids, and AI—and feared so much, too. But that was before Moore’s Law ran smack into Moore’s Wall—significant improvements in computer processing power hadn’t been made in centuries. Instead, humankind had plugged into perhaps the most sophisticated processor in the universe with nanos and neural nets … their own minds. Augmented with nano storage, and apps for memorization tasks and computations, humans could do all the feats they’d imagined AIs would do. ‘Bots, on the other hand, seemed like simple humans.
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