Robots vs. Fairies
Page 20
“Thank you,” the assistant said.
“Do you have a name?” the woman asked.
“He doesn’t,” Sigrid said quickly.
“That’s a shame,” the man said. “Names are very important.”
“She says so too,” the assistant said, “but I’m only allowed my model number.”
Both the man and woman laughed heartily. Their laughter struck an odd resonance in the small enclosure; their two tones seemed to harmonize perfectly, bass and treble, dark and light. Perhaps that was what happened to humans who inhabited the same space for a number of years. In the collective databanks, there were observations of couples who had lived together for decades, having the same conversations over and over until they no longer needed to speak.
“He should have a name,” the man said.
“He doesn’t need a name. He’s not an individual. At night he shares his memories with all the other machines.” Sigrid frowned. “You do know that, don’t you? That he’s not . . . real?”
“People believe in plenty of things that aren’t supposed to be real,” the man said. “Ghosts. Goblins. God.”
The woman sipped her wine and reached over to take hold of some grapes. “Nothing can ever become real unless someone loves it first. Like in that book about the stuffed rabbit.”
“And often we love without ever truly knowing if we are loved in return,” the man added. “That’s faith, isn’t it? Not knowing, not being sure, but persevering anyway?”
The assistant did not recognize these people—their faces were not on the preapproved list, and they weren’t wearing handhelds he could ask for help, which was odd—but Sigrid seemed familiar with them. Perhaps she or Erika had simply forgotten to add them to the list. After all, it appeared they lived in this caravan, which meant they traveled frequently. And Sigrid knew a great many people. She had followers all over the world. It was not unusual for people to recognize her.
“I hadn’t thought of it in that way.” Sigrid turned to him. “Would you like a name?”
“I would not object to it.” He paused. “You have names for all your other tools.”
“Is that what you are?” the woman asked. “One of her tools?”
“I believe I fit one definition of that term,” the assistant answered. “I wrap bundles and besoms, and I set out the spheres, and I measure the herbs and resins for incense, and I organize the oils and candles, and—”
“It’s not the same,” Sigrid interrupted. “He works, but he doesn’t do workings.”
The assistant wasn’t sure he had heard that correctly. Something in the syntax of the sentence didn’t make sense. But it would be rude to interrupt and ask Sigrid about it at present. There were very clear linguistic protocols about interrupting.
“So the two of you are not friends,” the woman said.
Sigrid frowned. She glanced quickly at the assistant, and then back at the other two. “Excuse me?”
“Friends are not tools to be used,” the woman said. “Until this one is more than just a tool, he can never truly be your friend.”
“But a friend—a companion—is best, for a journey,” the man added. “Better than a sword, or a walking stick, or even a good pair of shoes.”
Sigrid looked confused. The assistant reasoned that she couldn’t possibly be as confused as he was. Obviously Sigrid was not his friend. She could never be friends with something that had no soul, and she was very clear on the subject of his not having a soul. “Perhaps we should be going,” he said. “Sigrid? Would you like to go home?”
“Yes, Sigrid.” The man leaned forward over the table. He put his glass down. “Where would you like to go from here? We could take you wherever you liked.”
“We could see new things, and meet new people,” the woman added. “All of us.”
Sigrid’s expression closely matched the exemplars for fear. But as the assistant watched, it transformed. Her open mouth closed into a smile. Her wide eyes found crinkles at their corners. “I think I will have some of your wine after all,” she said. “And some of that food, too.”
“We like to share our bounty when we can,” the woman said, pouring.
The man loaded Sigrid’s plate with cheese and fish and grapes. “It’s a good thing we brought enough.”
Sigrid’s hand hovered over the grapes. She raised her head and looked at the assistant with clear eyes. Carefully, she bit into a grape. Purple juice ran over her gnarled fingers. She reached out. His sensors said she was drawing something on him.
“Sigridsson,” she murmured. “Your new name is Sigridsson.”
“Look,” the man said, pointing.
The assistant looked out the open door of the caravan. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking at. There was the lava field, and the ocean beyond. A field of stubbly gray bound by a void of black. He saw without seeing; somehow, more of his function was devoted to playing and replaying Sigrid’s words. She had named him.
“Watch carefully,” the man instructed. “What do you see?”
And then, quite suddenly, Sigridsson did see it. It was a road in the sky. It rippled ever wider, like the wake left behind by a great ship. It was immense, and full of light, like a procession of people carrying lanterns. And finally he could answer the question no one had thought to ask him.
“It’s beautiful,” Sigridsson said. “It’s so beautiful.”
TEAM ROBOT
* * *
BY MADELINE ASHBY
I love robots. I wrote a whole trilogy about them. Probably it has to do with my dad showing me Blade Runner when I was in the third grade. But as someone raised Catholic and who attended a Jesuit university, the question of belief in my fellow human beings has always fascinated me. To me, there’s no difference between believing in the essential dignity of an organic human and believing in the essential dignity of a synthetic human. Besides, how do you even know that the humans who surround you are actually humans? I don’t mean that they might be robots, but hey, they might be serial killers, or racists, or misogynists, or people who otherwise don’t really see you as human. How do you know that your fellow humans see you as a fellow human? What is your guarantee? If it’s just that you happen to share an organic body, then you’re screwed. That’s no basis upon which to build a relationship of trust or affirmation. Plenty of our fellow organic humans have no problem hurting other humans. Your odds are actually better with a robot that has some form of “human detection” built in—provided that the biases of the programmer have been accounted for, in some way.
What I’m saying is that assuming the humanity—the worth, the potential, the capacity for all things gentle and joyous—in a robot is an act of faith. I think that humans engage in that act of faith with each other all the time. The social contract is founded on little more than goodwill. And I think that no matter what you believe, whether it’s in faeries or the existence of a soul or the possibility of a better future, you call on that same faith.
SECOND TO THE LEFT, AND STRAIGHT ON
by Jim C. Hines
I’d never seen Gwen Akerman before, but her body language as she carried a garbage bag from her flat to the bin across the lot was all too familiar. This was a woman whose thoughts and spirit were bound elsewhere.
I had to step in front of her before she noticed me. I held out a battered, home-printed business card. “My name’s Angela Davies. I’m hunting the person who took your daughter.”
She blinked at me. Her eyes focused briefly on the card. “I don’t know what an American PI is doing in London, but the police said—”
“—to stay by the phone and let them search for her, right? Probably told you how the first forty-eight hours are critical.” I glanced at my watch. “That was what, about thirty-six hours ago?”
“You know who took Clover?”
Who named their kid Clover? “I think so. Your girl disappeared while your family was visiting Kensington Gardens, right? Is your husband home? I’d like to talk
to him, too.”
She started to shake, like a building about to come down. “He didn’t see anything. He’d gone ahead to buy drinks. He thinks it’s my fault. Clover darted away before I could stop her. He can’t even talk to me.”
“Most marriages don’t survive the loss of a child.” Tact had never been one of my strengths. “I need you to tell me the details you didn’t share with reporters or the police. The news reports said Clover ran off to look at some flowers. Was there anything strange about them? Maybe a sound, like bells? A bit of glitter that disappeared by the time the police came?”
Her eyes widened, and she stared like she hadn’t truly seen me until then.
“Like dust or pollen scattered over the flowers,” I said. “It probably sparkled in the light.”
“On the flowers, yes,” she whispered. “And one of the trees. The cherry blossoms looked like they’d been doused in gold glitter. I thought I’d imagined it.”
I tightened my fists. She was here.
“Is Clover all right?” she whispered. “Who took her, Ms. Davies? What are they going to do to her?”
“She’s alive.” I suppressed a shudder. “More alive than she’s ever been.”
“I don’t understand.”
Nothing I said would change that. “I need a way to reach you. I’ll call as soon as I find her.”
She pulled back. “You . . . you haven’t said anything about cost. Why are you doing this?”
Bells. Gunshots. Dust shining like tiny fallen stars. “Because Clover isn’t the only little girl she took.”
* * *
I don’t know whether you have ever seen a map of a person’s mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island. . . . On these magic shores children at play are forever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
—J. M. Barrie
* * *
I’d snuck into Kensington Gardens three times over the past years, searching for Lillian and the one who took her.
The fairies who’d colonized the gardens centuries before had long since abandoned this place. Some had followed him to the Neverland. Others sought out paths less trampled by human feet. I’d found hints of them in the wilderness of northwestern Canada, the abandoned mining town of Kolmanskop in Namibia, even the frozen interior of Greenland.
Only one had reason to return here. She was hunting him just as I hunted her.
I walked through the darkness to the site of the Peter Pan statue. Bronze animals and fairies climbed the stump that formed the statue’s base. Atop the stump stood Peter, playing his pipe.
People said the fairy at the top of the stump, the one who stared adoringly up at young Peter, was meant to represent Tinker Bell.
Streaks of red paint marred Peter’s eternally young face. They’d sprayed his eyes until lines of red dripped like tears. Stylized, intertwined letters F and G crossed his chest.
The smell of paint hung in the air. Where were they hiding? “I know you’re watching. I know you took Clover.”
Nothing. I stepped away from the statue and searched the tree branches. “I know why you come back to Kensington Gardens every spring. I know who you’re searching for, and why you can never find him.”
In the distance, so faint I almost missed it, came a sound like a tiny bell. I started toward it, then caught myself. I’d never find her that way. Too many paths were invisible to mortal eyes, hidden to all but the Found Girls and their leader. Their goddess.
I sat in the grass. I’d waited so long. Talked to so many parents. I’d been able to help reunite a few with their daughters in cases that turned out to be mundane—custody fights and such. How inhumanly heartless was I that even as I watched their joy and relief and gratitude, even as I took their money, I felt only disappointment?
A young girl of maybe seven years emerged from the trees. She wore a tattered green soccer jersey, and her black hair had bloomed into an enormous Afro, full of twigs and leaves and flower petals. Red paint stained her fingertips. “Who’re you?”
She had a heavy French accent. I wondered how long she’d been part of the Found Girls. Months? Years? It could have been decades. “Angela Davies. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Étoilée.” She folded her arms and looked in the direction of the statue. “Are you a friend of Peter?”
“No.”
“Are you a cop?”
I bit back a laugh. “Do I look like a cop?”
I spread my arms so she could better see the old hoodie and T-shirt, the torn and faded blue jeans, the sneakers with the mismatched laces.
More girls emerged from the shadows. The trees had been empty when I looked before. I counted more than a dozen children, ranging from about four to sixteen years. The older ones were armed with makeshift weapons, mostly thick sticks with carved points on one end and stones or wooden spikes lashed to the other. The younger carried lighter weapons, like kitchen knives and slingshots. One waved a barbecue fork menacingly in my direction.
I searched each face, but Clover wasn’t among them. Neither was my lost girl, my Lillian.
That distant bell rang again. Étoilée cocked her head. I tried to listen, but either my old ears or my fluency in the fairy tongue weren’t as good as hers.
“Tell us how to find Peter,” Étoilée demanded.
I glanced up at the statue. “Has she told you his story, Étoilée? How Peter left his mother and came to live with the fairies in Kensington Gardens? How he led them away? It’s not enough to search for the Neverland; the Neverland has to look for you as well. Peter and the Neverland are connected. It grows quiet in his absence, waiting for him to return. It’s only fully alive when he’s there.”
The ringing grew sharper. Angrier. I looked past the girls into the darkness of the trees, imagining that small, fierce light. “For years I’ve wondered why you stay. Why not return to the Neverland to find him?”
“Where is he?” Étoilée repeated.
“It’s because you can’t. The Neverlands are made of human dreams and imagination. They might be able to help you find your way to and from their individual dreamscapes, their small, personal Neverlands. But to reach the true Neverland—Peter’s Neverland—Peter is key and compass. Without him, you’re stranded here.”
She needed Peter to find her way back. Just as I had needed a string of kidnapped children to find her.
Another furious chime. Étoilée and the other girls raised weapons and moved closer.
“I found him,” I said. “I’ve watched him laugh and dance and fly. Watched him twist the hearts of children and shatter the hearts of parents. Just like you.”
I directed my words to the darkness, and was rewarded with a flash of gold light.
“I’ll take you to him,” I called out. “In return, you’ll let Clover Akerman and Lillian Davies go.”
Tinker Bell’s voice rang out from the trees, louder now. “You stupid ass. They’re welcome to leave at any time. They stay because they love me.”
“I know that.” The Found Girls weren’t a gang. They were a cult. These children worshipped Tinker Bell. They’d happily kill me if their goddess so commanded. The only way to reclaim a Found Girl was to drag her away, kicking and screaming and crying. The longer they’d been with Tinker Bell, the harder it would be. The longer the dreams would continue, the yearning to fly . . . “Bring them to me, and I’ll bring you to Peter.”
I was surrounded now. Stupid to let them close in behind me. I tried to ignore the itch between my shoulder blades, the anticipation of crude weapons striking my flesh. If this didn’t work, I might never leave Kensington Gardens.
“Tomorrow,” said the fairy, with a sound like cracking bells. “Come back tomorrow night when the big clock strikes eleven. I will bring the girls. You will bring me to Peter.”
* * *
Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies. . . . She never thought of thanking those who believed.
—J. M. Barrie
* * *
Sleep hid from me as skillfully as any fairy, no matter how many times I paced the cramped confines of my motel room. I took an extra Xanax, but pills couldn’t calm the storm of my thoughts. Dark, swirling clouds of eagerness and excitement filled my head, rent by bolts of dread.
I couldn’t call Clover’s mother yet. Not when so many things could go wrong.
I considered calling Lillian’s father, but the mere thought brought new thunderclaps of fear and despair. I fled that idea like an animal sprinting from an oncoming hurricane. Instead I turned my thoughts to the children.
Peter Pan’s Lost Boys had been unwanted. Unloved. They fell from their strollers or ran away, and when nobody bothered to claim them, Peter took them away.
The Found Girls were the opposite. Tinker Bell stole them from good families, from loving parents and siblings. She took children who expected to be loved and to love in return. She fed on their love. On their faith and their belief.
She didn’t love them, of course. Fairies were incapable of feeling more than one thing at a time.
Maybe that was why they stayed. Her apathy drove the Found Girls to try harder to please her, hoping one day to earn her love. Praying that if they worked hard enough and fast enough, she might look on them with warmth and tenderness. That she might take them away to fly among the clouds, not on some endless hunt for Peter Pan, but for the sheer joy and ecstasy of the cold mist and wind on their faces.