Gravity is Heartless

by Sarah Lahey

  “The Pod is on OneHub, an instinctive system with an automated interface, motion cookies, facial recognition, and total encryption.”

  Quinn taps the Band; still no response. “I have nothing.”

  “Thought processes activate the appliances and—”

  “Are you listening? It’s not working.”

  “Try turning it on and off,” Myra says dryly.

  Quinn hands it back. “I can’t access my data.”

  Myra refuses to take it. “It’s generic, key services only; it gets you in and out. Tells the time, controls the OneHub in the apartment, and links to the Fourth Estate, but no communication or data.”

  “No, you don’t understand, there are people I need to call. It’s been two months . . .”

  “Restricted access; you won’t receive full benefits until your sponsor approves. Someone like you, you’re lucky to be here. I wouldn’t complain too much. Everyone wants to be in here, no one wants to be out there, in Unus, in the heat. This is paradise. And, wait until you see it, but you have your own vertical herb garden on the balcony.”

  “I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want a fucking vertical herb garden on my balcony. I want to call my father, and I want to go home. I think I’ve made that very clear. So you can tell my sponsor that I won’t be staying, and . . .”

  The skylift doors open at level 180, and Myra strides ahead into the Pod, leaving Quinn alone in the skylift.

  Inside the Pod, OneHub initiates, preparing for their arrival; the lights spark, music hums, sunshades adjust, sliding into place, and tea brews in the food prep. “Welcome to your home, Quinn Buyers,” a voice says. “Please step forward and come inside.”

  Quinn reluctantly steps forward and enters the Pod.

  “Welcome. And Myra, always a pleasure to see you—and those boots! I love them. Tea is brewing, strong, medium, or mild, ready in one and a half minutes. Sweetener?”

  Two months ago, Quinn would have requested a little less light, a higher room temperature, and strong herbal tea, preferably ginger. Now she finds the melodic voice unnerving, the rise and fall inflected with pretense. She locates the OneHub controls on her Band, opens the settings, and shuts the system down—immediately, the music dies, the lights dip, and the sunshades retract—then locates the passcodes and messes with the presets. It’ll be a while before the system is up and running.

  Myra glares; another excellent impersonation of a python about to devour a mouse. “You can’t shut it down.” Myra taps at her Band. “Hello. Hello. Activate. Activate.” Nothing. The OneHub is conspicuously silent.

  Quinn leaves Myra anxiously tapping and shouting into her Band and orbits the apartment. She has 360-degree views and a balcony facing east. The walls are formed thermo-concrete, and the floor is checkerboard stone. The furniture is sparse: a sofa, some low chairs, a set of nesting tables, a cowhide on the floor. A large bookcase, housing the classics: Death by Black Hole, The Selfish Gene, Origin of Species. There are two well-thumbed copies of Excitons, Majoranas, and Weyl Fermions. Realistic Weather in the Arts is new, never been opened, and was given to Quinn by Lise. Her mother likes a hard copy; she appreciates the pleasure of holding the volume in her hand. All the books and furniture, the art and rugs, belong to Quinn. They’ve moved her. Harmonia is not for debriefing. Harmonia is home.

  She collapses onto the sofa and hugs a cushion. On the table next to her is a hand-carved vessel Matt gave her for graduation; she collects it and places it on the cushion in her lap. Then she adds a blue vase and a copy of Excitons, Majoranas, and Weyl Fermions to her collection of objects—she’s making a cuddle pile—and wraps her arms around her things. These are her possessions. She’d completely forgotten about them, and they don’t belong here. This is not her home, and she has no intension of staying.

  “You have a meeting with eMpower tomorrow, in Solidarity,” Myra says. “Take the Hyperloop, it’s free. Exit and reentry clearance are authorized.”

  “What day is it?”

  “Sunday. You’re registered as a resident. It’s an election year; you must vote. It’s compulsory. Reinstate New Fed. They’re our party, our people, and they’ll keep the status quo. Now, there’s a care package of supplies in the food prep. If you can’t cook, the scullery will prepare something for you. Don’t go outside the City without your suit, unless you want to die; heat stroke killed over a million last year. Restaurants and bars are on Basement6. There’s also a rain room—weather experience, really, but most people go for rain. Or snow. Or hail. Basement9. You’ll need to book.”

  I’m trapped. No data, no Coin, and no way out. This changes everything.

  “Also, no pets, no littering, no smoking, no alcohol or music in pubic spaces, no worshiping, no protesting, no random picking of greenery that doesn’t belong to you, and no wheels.”

  “No wheels?”

  “No, transport’s free. Take the Loop round the city if you need.”

  “Hovers?”

  “I fucking hate those things. Restricted to above ground, city perimeter. I swear, they’ll be illegal by the end of the year.”

  Good lordt, we agree on something. Quinn’s collided with inexperienced Hover riders many times.

  Myra slithers away.

  In the food prep, a couple of mini Bots play on the bench: retro designs with angular bodies, both wearing red shoes and matching hats. One has a daisy print on its torso and the other has a set of gears, the symbol for old Tech. Both have large, adorable blue eyes. They play hide and seek around the cabinets. She collects them and drops them into the skylift, then heads out onto the balcony.

  Gazing over winding streets and parks of Harmonia, she sees a calculated network of circular buildings, paths, and greenery, organically shaped public spaces, and abstract buildings sliced, angled and twisted to fit together. “They’ve done away with the square.”

  Beyond this is the vast metropolis of Unus, shimmering in a haze of heat, but the vista is smog free. Heat vapor lingers over the city, but there’s no pollution. Carbon towers filter the air, sucking in VOC particles, the nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon.

  Past the city towers and residential blocks of housing is the cornflower blue sea of the harbor—Tig’s harbor.

  Quinn turns and heads back inside.

  Twenty-Three

  There is a bar.

  THERE IS A BAR—which means there is alcohol, which means Quinn could get her hands on something long and cool and escape the clarity of reality for a few hours. This erroneous fantasy of a city cannot possibly be her new home. A decent amount of alcohol will kill the past two months, anaesthetize the present, and snuff out her fear of the future. She’d love a drink—actually, she’d love ten. Unfortunately, she has no access to her Coin.

  Maybe someone will buy me a drink—not a ridiculous idea. She formulates a plan: She’ll go for a walk, check out the Climate City—those giant geothermal earth tubes look interesting—then swing back past Basement6 (etched in her memory), find a bar, and get herself a drink or two. Now that’s a plan.

  ***

  Entertainment is underground, beneath the Habitats, a sprawling network of water gardens and contemplative spaces connected by bridges and walkways and littered with restaurants, tea houses, cafés, and bars. There’s a daylight capture system that channels sunlight underground, ensuring the cool cavities below the surface are flooded with natural light so it doesn’t look or feel artificial. Precipitation gathered from the waterfalls creates a self-sustaining microclimate that keeps greenery healthy and the place super hydrated.

  Every person Quinn passes looks perfect, oddly fabulous and faultless. Enhanced by the diffused halo of natural light, their complexions glow, their hair bounces and shines, and it appears they’ve made an enormous effort with both hair and grooming—and yet it also appears to be their reality. This is exactly who they are and how they live. They are also united by communal vanity—the desire to appear younger than they are. And they do. All the inh
abitants look under thirty; certainly, no one appears older than forty. Fashion trends thrive here, clearly, and this year’s fad is elbow-length gloves and pants that morph into boots.

  Quinn circumnavigates the first bar she sees on Basement6. It’s called Jpeg and it has a rustic High-Tech vibe: cobblestone floors and natural granite walls cut straight into the stratums under Harmonia, reflective chairs and furniture—polished silver and copper mirrors—and bioluminescent lighting sculptures shaped like fungus. She makes her way to the bar and scans the cocktail menu; their specialty is alcoholic shakes with fake flavors named after the Climate Cities— Harmonia, Accord, Solidarity, Amity, Serenity. Today’s special, however, is the Dirac Devine, a ginger and mint tea infusion with a double shot of gin, and that’s Quinn’s pick. She can already taste it.

  There’s a moderate crowd about. She figures she needs to start a conversation and get someone’s attention, so she feigns interest in the decorative light sculptures, watching them slowly drift past. Then she walks from one side of the bar to the other, twice, and reads the bar menu again. No one makes eye contact.

  Across the room she spies Myra, nestled in a booth with a group of friends. Myra also sees her. Tilting her serpent-like head in Quinn’s direction, she makes a comment to her allies, and all eyes are directed at Quinn. A mutual snicker rises from the clique.

  Quinn is impressed; she didn’t think Myra could do humor. But she knows why they are laughing. Her self-awareness hasn’t vanished; two months alone, no makeup, no grooming, wearing a dirty yellow climate suit—she must look a wreck. She steps sideways and views her mottled likeness in a reflective panel behind the bar. I’ve aged ten years in two months. What’s that on my neck, some sort of rash? And my hair, good lordt, it’s one fibrous knot.

  Quinn’s hankering for alcohol diminishes. This place is not for her, and she retreats back to the skylift. A man hurriedly slips in behind her. He balances a module on the palm of his hand.

  “Useless piece of shit.” He waves a futile hand over the device. “We’ve militarized the Moon and here I am, still trying to sync Tech.”

  “Turn it on and off, reset your preferences.” Seriously, does no one understand basic Tech anymore?

  “Really?”

  Yes, really. “Extensions, networks, accounts, disable, then resync. Here, give it to me.”

  He hesitates. He’s reluctant, and that’s fair enough; she wouldn’t be handing over her module to a stranger with bird’s net hair wearing a disgusting climate suit. Her left hand swipes his Module. Then it swipes his pass codes, which are stored in one folder with no security, and transfers them to her Band, and then it resets his codes and syncs the Module. Too obvious. Looked like he was waiting for me. No, I’m paranoid. Shit, what’s happened to me?

  She hands back the Module. “I’m Quinn. I’m . . . new.”

  “Hitch. Thanks. Appreciate it. Been here three years. If you need anything?”

  “A drink. I’d really like a drink. Been a long . . . time.”

  “There’s a bar just—”

  “Coin issues.”

  He considers her, and then his grin softens, “You like beer?”

  “Yes. I love beer.” Doesn’t everyone love beer? Isn’t beer just the best drink in the whole world?

  ***

  Hitch is standing at Quinn’s door, clutching a bag. “Home brew. No hops. But engineered yeast gives it a floral, slightly bitter flavor. Think orange blossom.”

  Brewing ale in this climate must be tough. Temperature is the key to successful fermentation, and controlling temperature in this heat is complicated. But now she has three cold bottles. What a nice man. Maybe she’ll delete his security codes. Then again, maybe not.

  Despite the proliferation of greenery in the streets and gardens of Harmonia, there is nothing fresh in her food prep. The cupboards are stocked with dehydrated goods. Dinner is a toss-up between Country Inspired Baked Root Vegetable with Mixed Herbs and Classic Style Country Cuisine Spaghetti with Tasty Chili Crumbs. She selects spaghetti and knocks the top off her first home brew. It’s delicious: hoppy, with orange blossom undertones. When the bottle is empty, she opens another.

  ***

  Quinn opens her eyes. It’s morning and she’s on the sofa, which is where she passed out last night. One hoppy home brew turned into three. Her head hurts; she’s lost her tolerance for alcohol and should have checked the alcoholic content before recklessly sculling three bottles.

  More sleep is what she needs. She closes her eyes. A few more hours and she’ll be fine. Her left hand gently strokes the side of her face, and it’s comforting. Yes, just a few more hours of sleep is all she needs. The hand pats a little harder, until it’s no longer a pat. Now it’s a slap.

  She opens her eyes. Fuck, this has got to stop. She pushes the hand deep into her pocket.

  It pops out. She puts it back.

  “Stay.”

  It pops out again.

  Now she’s awake and nauseous. She scurries to the bathing zone and pukes. It helps. As she rinses her mouth, she looks up and scrutinizes her face in the glass. The rash circling her neck has subsided—a positive outcome—but otherwise, her physical appearance is startling; she doesn’t look like herself anymore. Soft, downy hair flourishes around her jawline and a light moustache shadows her upper lip. A feathery mane covers her legs and has sprouted under her arms. Even her toes are hairy. I don’t look human. A few weeks ago, Tig said I was beautiful. Clearly, he couldn’t see what I really look like.

  She staggers into the food prep to boil water. Outside, it’s 42 degrees. The sunshades automatically adjust themselves over the balcony. She picks some leaves from the vertical herb garden—mint, basil, chamomile—throws them into the hot water, and rests in the shade. Her head hurts. Never drinking again. She watches her left hand write out a word in the cloudy film on the tabletop; it says eMpower meeting.

  Fuck, what day is it?

  Twenty-Four

  Herostratic, do you know what it means?

  SOLIDARITY IS FIFTY KILOMETERS west of Harmonia. At Myra’s suggestion, Quinn takes the Hyperloop; it’s fast, free, and the journey takes only seven minutes. It took her longer to navigate the underground platforms.

  eMpower’s offices are located in dense parkland a kilometer north of the city center, so she walks. Every step brings her closer to confronting Niels: Mori’s brother, the CEO of eMpower, the man who kept her confined for two months on a lonely atoll. He had her charged with 1,962 counts of murder, and then he moved her here, still a prisoner, with no access to her data, no communication. She’s apoplectically angry—so angry that when she arrives at the eMpower complex her vision blurs and she can’t see anything. Nothing, no cluster of buildings, just empty parkland. Then an auto arrives and disappears underground. A drone hovers overhead, and then berths. Segway security guards linger in the gardens. Of course, she realizes, it’s invisible. Cloaked with reflectors and echo sonar, the structure blends into the surrounding parkland. She can just make out the hard-edged, linear outline, but the body of the building is a shimmering mirage of conifers and woodland—a surreal vision. She supposes that’s the metaphysical point—how do you know what’s real and what’s not? Where does reality stop and technology begin? Senses are deceiving. She scoffs; she doesn’t need a mega-rich corporation serving up philosophical ideologies along with their data plan.

  As she approaches the invisible building, a mantra begins to solidify: Remain rational at all times. Say nothing. Smile and nod. Nodding is good. Let him do all the talking. Let him explain himself; let him tell her why she’s here and what he wants.

  Quinn enters the building just as her friend Jin exits the skylift. They pause, considering one another, taking in each other’s shabby facades. Jin’s smile beams across the foyer, but Quinn sees beneath the feigned expression. Her friend is pale and tired; FF got its teeth into her DNA, and it’s a long and difficult recovery.

  Jin is impatient and she breaks into a littl
e skip, lessening the distance between them, but the exercise is too much and she pulls up, coughing and gasping. Quinn notes the telltale signs of hard work: Jin’s yellow bob hangs limp, her clothes are crumpled (she’s been sleeping in her office), and her eyeliner is smudged (she hasn’t washed for days). Focused on a special project, Jin works continuously for days and weeks, which is great for eMpower, but not so good for her health; her immune system is impaired, and Quinn blames Jin’s parents for this. Her mother worked two jobs, laboring at More Than Meat during the day to produce synthetic meat proteins and in the evenings at Organ-Farm, 3D-printing human transplants. Her father was a space traffic controller who worked seventy hours a week, so he was never home.

  An AI called Salt raised Jin. Salt was gendered female, one of the first generation of robots to feel pain—or, as Quinn endlessly corrects, “simulate the feeling of pain; they can’t fucking feel anything.” Salt greeted Jin when she came home from school, helped her study, read her stories before bed, and cooked and cleaned for her. She was parent, sibling, and best friend to Jin, and Jin loved her as much as any child loves her parent. Salt did everything for her and, as a result, taught her nothing about life and zilch about how to get on in the world—the world outside the apartment Pod. Jin resided in a homogenized, spotless environment with limited contact to bacteria, and the isolation impaired her immune system.

  It wasn’t Jin’s fault; Salt preferred to entertain her indoors. It wasn’t Salt’s fault; how can an AI take the blame? Jin graduated with a science scholarship, a double degree, and a PhD before she turned twenty-five. Her parents applauded themselves; she was a success, and they’d done a fine job with their only child. She just had a perpetual cold.

  Jin is a remarkable human, Quinn will concede that. Her intellectual capacity is astonishing and her memory is acute; she can read and absorb journals and books in hours. She’ll quote formulas and the fundamental Laws of Science word for word, and she’ll multiply sequences of numbers before Quinn has entered them into a Module. Her life skills, however, fall at the opposite end of the abilities scale. At the age of twenty-five, she didn’t know how to make a cup of tea or use a heat plate. Today, she still struggles with clothes and shoes, buttons and laces. She falls over her own feet, constantly bumps into people, furniture, and doors. She can’t wash or clean or cook for herself. But she succeeds at work, and she’s now the head of Robotics at eMpower, coding AI that she believes will one day live in harmony with human kind.