Uncanny

by Sarah Fine

  The night-vision settings on my Cerepin reveal my treasures, like the stuffed pony Mom gave me when she started traveling so much, the one she found me cradling in my one good arm when she came home the last time before Dad left. I used to chew relentlessly on Pony’s left ear, maybe out of terror, or possibly rage, the need to exert my will on some tiny piece of my world.

  The ring I made myself the weekend Mom and Gary were on their honeymoon is here, too. I pulled apart one of Hannah’s paintbrushes, trying to get the part that holds all the bristles in place, and when I pried it off I left all these little horsehairs scattered across my floor. Then I wrapped the flimsy metal so tight around my finger that it turned purple. So tight that I felt my pulse throbbing in my fingertip. So tight that it stopped hurting and went numb. So tight that my Cerepin informed me that it was going to request medical assistance. So tight that Franka said the same. That’s when I took it off.

  I had just gotten a Cerepin a few months before, and that was the first time I realized how much of my privacy it could steal. That’s when I asked Neda for help. We hadn’t been friends that long, but she didn’t hesitate then.

  I need her now, too. “Com Neda,” I say, and she answers within a few beeps.

  “You’ve been ignoring my messages.” Her lips are pressed together.

  “Sorry. It’s been weird here.”

  Her face relaxes as she looks at mine. In fact, she looks worried, and for a minute I aim my fingertip-cam away from my face so she can’t see it. I wish I had an extra pair of hands to sculpt my cheekbones and chin and mouth and forehead into a different shape, one that wouldn’t make her look at me that way.

  “Stop that,” she says. “Come on, Cora. This is stupid.”

  I point my fingertip at my face again. “I can’t talk much now,” I say, because Franka, always Franka.

  “They really put you under the spotlight, huh?”

  I nod. At least Franka can’t hear what Neda says if I’m talking with her on my ’Pin. That’s its one saving grace.

  “And you’re scared. Something’s going on.”

  There’s a lump in my throat, and I can’t talk around it.

  “Right. I’m coming over. Tomorrow morning?”

  “What about school?”

  “Cora, it’s Saturday. Remember—the memorial’s tomorrow night?”

  “Oh. Okay. But we won’t be able to talk here.”

  “Yeah, we will. Just trust me. My computer club always comes through for me. Will your robot babysitter be there?”

  I nod.

  “Is he freaking you out?”

  I nod.

  “Do you trust him?”

  I shake my head.

  “You wanna do something about that?”

  I think about that. “Yeah.”

  “I shall come prepared,” she says.

  “You’re amazing,” I tell her.

  “I am indeed. But so are you, Cora. Just remember that you do not have to apologize for surviving. Ever.”

  I do not deserve Neda. I know what she likes about me: unlike so many of the kids at our school, I don’t come from money, and so I don’t have the same sharp-edged sense of entitlement that a lot of our classmates do. Neda’s parents are both academics. Her mom is a world expert in AI ethics and programming specifications, and her dad does research on interaction between organic and mechanical systems. They’re nice, quiet, and gentle, and I think maybe their faith kind of influences how they deal with people, but I’m not sure, because I don’t know many people who are actually religious. Maybe they were that way to begin with.

  “I can’t wait to see you,” I say.

  “Is ten okay?” she asks. “I have a lunch thing with Mom and Dad.”

  “It’s fine. See you then.”

  We say good-bye. I am alone again, an insect under glass. And there is something I need to do. “Franka, is Gary home?”

  “He’s in his library, Cora. Shall I ask him if he is available to be interrupted?”

  “Yes, please.”

  After a few seconds, she says, “He said you are free to come speak to him.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” I blink once, deliberately, and see the red light flash in my upper left visual field. Then I walk down to the library. Gary is at his desk, waiting for me.

  “Thought you’d be in bed by now,” he says, smiling.

  “Did Rafiq tell you that?”

  He shakes his head. I wonder if he’s lying. “Maeve said you seemed really tired. She was, too, though.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And did she . . .”

  “Go to bed?”

  I push down a blip of frustration. I almost have what I need, and to get it, I must stay calm and think. “I thought she might.”

  “She said she was going to take a long bath,” he says. He’s still smiling. Friendly. I wonder if Mom made a point of telling him to be nice, or if he’s going out of his way because he knows she’s home and he doesn’t want me running to her. That’s Mom—I know she loves me. I know she wants to protect me. But she’s up to her eyeballs in her other responsibilities, so sometimes she notices stuff only when it becomes a giant heaping mess. And then she feels all guilty, and I hate all of that. I want her to be happy—happy with me, happy with her life. The last thing I want to do is be the reason she’s sad, and that’s all I seem to do.

  “She deserves that,” I say.

  “Yes, she does.” His voice is harder, like he, too, believes I make her sad. God.

  “And you?” I ask. “You just got back. You must be exhausted.”

  “Yep. I’m going to head up soon.”

  I run my tongue along my teeth. “How are you sleeping?”

  “It’s been tough lately.”

  “Sleep is important.” So lame.

  His brow furrows, and I know he thinks I’m being weird. “Yes, sleep is important.”

  My heart is jolted by the small victory. “Yes,” I say, hoping I don’t sound too excited. But I’m not done yet. “Do you have trouble waking up in the morning?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I’ve been waking up pretty early. How about you?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, sounding like he wishes our conversation could be over. “Maybe around seven. I want to work out.”

  “You eat breakfast at seven?” I ask.

  “No, that’s when I wake up,” he says slowly.

  “Oh.” I laugh. “Gosh, I have the attention span of a flea. Probably because I’m not getting enough sleep.” I backtrack toward the hallway. “And you might not be, either. I’ll leave you alone.”

  I turn around.

  “CC?”

  I pause midstep, clench my teeth, and then force myself to relax. “Yeah?”

  “Good night.”

  “Night!” I am in the hallway before he can say whatever he originally meant to say. I am down the hall and in my room a few seconds later, and I blink deliberately again to stop recording.

  Once I’m in my bed, I spend about half an hour reviewing my new vid. I really hope I got what I needed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Livestream.

  Reporting log.

  Internal narrative: on.

  Dr. Dietrich summons me at 10:26 p.m. I immediately cease my consolidation procedure and walk to the library. He is sitting on the couch when I enter. “Sit on that chair,” he says, and I obey.

  “I need a status update on where you are with Cora,” he says with observable psychomotor agitation.

  “Of course,” I say. “I have been doing as you instructed, and she has disclosed to me that she did, in fact, take and store vids of portions of the night in question.”

  He clutches the edge of the couch as he leans forward. “Franka, privacy and sound shields for the room.”

  “Of course, sir,” she replies. Immediately, the static of white noise can be heard emanating from the doorway of the room.

  “Did she give them to you?” Dr. Dietrich asks. “I n
eed to see them.”

  “She locked the two vids I am referring to.”

  His expression is codable as anger of medium intensity. “She’s hiding something.”

  “She is frightened.”

  “She should be, if she did what I think she did!”

  “Cora does not seem able to remember her actions from that night. She seemed genuinely concerned by what she viewed.”

  “Why, do they show her pushing Hannah?”

  “It is difficult to discern exactly what the vid shows. I can confirm there was a struggle prior to Hannah falling, however.”

  Dr. Dietrich makes a choking noise, but he does not appear to be in respiratory distress. Rather, the sound appears to be a physical manifestation of his intense grief at the thought of his daughter’s demise. “God. She took vid of that?”

  “It appears the capture was accidentally triggered during the altercation. It is a very brief vid.”

  “You said there were two.”

  “The other is considerably longer.”

  “Well? Tell me what it shows!”

  “It shows Cora sitting for several minutes on the steps before wandering to this library, to your bedroom, which she attempted to enter and failed, to her room, and to the landing on the second floor.”

  “Did she touch Hannah?”

  “No.”

  “Is Hannah on the vid?” he asks in a whisper.

  “Yes,” I tell him. “She was lying at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Dr. Dietrich’s skin has reddened. “Was she conscious?”

  “Yes. Despite the apparent injury to her skull, she appeared to make purposeful movements. She also attempted to speak.”

  “What did she say?” Dr. Dietrich’s voice is very quiet, so I increase the sensitivity of my auditory sensors.

  “She asked for help.”

  Dr. Dietrich buries his head in his hands. “And Cora didn’t help her.”

  “It is not clear what Cora’s state of mind was, except that she was severely impaired by whatever psychoactive substance or substances she had consumed. As you know, she did turn on Franka’s systems at 4:59 a.m.”

  “Only after it was too late.”

  “But it is not clear whether Cora knew it was too late. She did say, near the end of the longer vid, that she was planning to get up and help.”

  “And did she?”

  “Not while the vid was capturing, no.”

  Dr. Dietrich is gripping his own skull with discernible tension. “I need those vids immediately. I’m taking them to the detective.”

  “I could simply report what I witnessed.”

  “It’s hearsay. I’ve already looked into it. That’s why I told you to acquire any vid evidence.”

  “It appears you are displeased with me.”

  “You’re supposed to get what I ask you to get, and now you’re basically telling me you’ve failed, Rafiq. Why wouldn’t I be displeased?”

  If he is displeased, he is likely to report this displeasure to my manufacturer, and when this assignment is over, I will be erased.

  My spontaneous streaming pauses for 6 seconds as I ponder being erased.

  “—get it!”

  I resume processing. That pause was another error, which I will need to analyze after this interaction has concluded.

  “You want me to convince Cora to either send me the vid or to unlock it so that I may cap it myself.”

  “Excellent grasp of the obvious,” he says, rolling his eyes.

  “Cora is cautious, sir. She is unlikely to share with me in that way. She does appear to like me and enjoy my presence, but her trust is very fragile.”

  “Isn’t this your job? You’re supposed to be able to convince anyone to do anything! You’ve got state-of-the-art psychological perception and protocols! That’s what was advertised. Should I ask for my money back?”

  “That is always your prerogative,” I say. I am experiencing an anomalous, novel sensation, increasing the risk of another processing interruption. I increase the amount of my cognitive resources devoted to this interaction in order to remain engaged at the level required to succeed. “But if you want to obtain your stated goal, you will allow me to continue my work.”

  He makes an expression that may be classified as a smirk. “I thought you might say that. Anything to save yourself, right? I was told you’d have a sense of self-preservation. All the most sophisticated cannies do.”

  “Dr. Dietrich, perhaps we could remain focused on the mission as you assigned it. I am to acquire any evidence Cora may have with regard to her and Hannah’s behavior on the night of August 22 and the morning of August 23, and I am to prepare her to confess should it become relevant. That was my primary directive.”

  “And so far, you’ve failed.”

  “If my work were complete, such a conclusion might be rational, but I consider my assignment unfinished.”

  “You have until Monday.”

  “That is when the detective is coming to interview Cora.”

  “And if Cora convinces her it was an accident, she’s going to close the case!”

  “You do not want the case to be closed.”

  “Not when she murdered my daughter!” shouts Dr. Dietrich. He is gripping the cushions on either side of him once again.

  “That is but one hypothesis,” I tell him. “There are others.”

  “Oh, do tell. You think it was an accident, too, after what you saw?”

  “I cannot draw that conclusion with acceptable certainty. There was considerable tension and animosity between the two girls, and there was, as I said, a struggle. It is not clear what initiated this struggle, however. It is possible that Hannah was attempting to stop Cora from hurting herself, as she has done in the past. It is possible she fell down the stairs accidentally while trying to save her sister from self-harm.”

  “And Cora thanked her by leaving her to die.”

  “While severely impaired by alcohol.”

  “You’re defending her!”

  “I am stating the facts as I know them. I also saw a piece of evidence—Cora has a sweater hidden in her closet, which she put there the night of Hannah’s fall. One of Hannah’s fingernails was embedded in the back of it.”

  “The back of it.”

  “Perhaps because Hannah attempted to grab the back of Cora’s sweater to halt forward momentum. Perhaps because Hannah attempted to push her. It is not clear.”

  Dr. Dietrich’s face has become uniformly pale. He is silent for 9 seconds, during which there is a discernible increase of tension in his masseter and orbicularis oris muscles. “Did you really just suggest that my daughter tried to push Cora down the stairs?”

  “I am stating this as one of several hypotheses.”

  “Hannah wasn’t nearly as drunk as Cora, not drunk enough to do something crazy. Plus, she was a little afraid of her sister—and especially afraid for her sister’s safety. She came to me a few times, worried Cora was going to hurt herself.” His facial muscles contract laterally in an expression of pain. “She was the gentlest soul. She never wanted to hurt anyone. Unlike—” He makes an abrupt exhalation through flared nostrils.

  Dr. Dietrich stops speaking for 17 seconds. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet and unsteady. “If you ever say anything like that about my daughter again, your time in this house and on this planet is over. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Then I trust you’ll do whatever you need to do to get the vids and whatever else.”

  “Dr. Dietrich, we have in the past discussed the parameters of my interactions with Cora.”

  “You can’t physically hurt her,” he says. “And I don’t want you to hurt her.” He rubs his hand over his face. “Christ. That would kill Maeve. Knowing what Cora did is going to be hard enough. But as long as she knows it’s fair, she’ll accept it.”

  “Do you classify deceiving Cora with regard to my affection for her, both emotionally and physically,
to be hurting her?”

  “No, but spare me the details.” His lips are pursed as he shakes his head. “And I don’t want her unnecessarily damaged, okay?”

  “But you regard such actions, including physical intimacies, if they result in me obtaining the evidence you require, as necessary.”

  “Yes. Just keep your legal protocols front and center. She must give up everything willingly, and she has to confess without coercion. We can’t force anything—you got it?”

  “This is an assumption within my protocols, Dr. Dietrich. I am aware of the legal considerations regarding what renders evidence inadmissible in a criminal investigation and in a court of law.”

  He waves his hand toward the door. “Go on, then. Figure it out. If there was another way to do this, I promise you, I would.”

  “It is not necessary for you to promise me.”

  “It’s called normal human interaction, Rafiq. Maybe you’re not as sophisticated as advertised.”

  “I will resume my work,” I tell him. “And wish you a good evening.”

  “Give me justice for my daughter, and I might have one for the first time since she was killed.”

  I exit the room and walk down the hallway. He is incorrect; I am quite sophisticated. I understand perfectly the implied threat. If I don’t offer him what he perceives as satisfactory justice for Hannah, there will be a decidedly negative outcome for me.

  Now that I am not human facing, I am able to devote cognitive resources to an analysis of the novel sensation I experienced while talking to Dr. Dietrich. I perform a crosswalk comparison to my coding database. I do not have physiological signals that parallel precisely with human experience, but I have some processing that is similar. Therefore, I am able to find an approximate match.

  When Dr. Dietrich stated that he would send me back and request a refund, action that would result in my immediate dismantling and erasure, the interruption I experienced in my processing may be classified with a satisfactory level of certainty as rage.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In my dream, I am pinned to a wall and I can’t move. Hannah stands in front of me. Her tunic is smeared with blue and yellow paint, and she has a wisp of cerulean on her pale cheek as well. Her short hair is disheveled in that perfect and effortless way I could never replicate. There’s a paintbrush in her hand. “I’m almost done,” she says and swirls the bristles into the blob of paint on her palette. She’s humming and wearing a small smile.