by S. W. Clarke
She and Sybil took a booth, ate their burgers in silence.
“I have a meeting with my Mother tomorrow,” Sybil said.
Veda’s stomach turned over. “midweek?”
“Strange, right? I don’t know what it’s about. Have you ever had a midweek with your Mother?”
Veda balled her burger wrapper in her hand. There wasn’t any question anymore as to what this meant. Even so, she didn’t want to admit it to the other service admin—or herself. “No.”
“Well, consider yourself lucky.” Sybil took a long, emptying sip from her drink, and they lapsed back into silence. Beside Veda, one of the kiosks let a charming trio of notes: an order was complete.
Two
Veda arrived at 5:59, her fist hovering over the door until the massive antique clock in the parlor tolled. She delivered three knocks, waited.
“Enter.” Even through the door, Mother’s voice was shot through with gravel; everyone suspected she was a reformed smoker. Her teacup clinked to its small platter when Veda entered her parlor. “Good morning, Veda.”
“Good morning, Mother.” Veda took slow steps to the guest chair, found the spot empty. She reached into space, feeling for the plush arm.
“I’ve removed it. Take the sofa, two steps left.”
She did as Mother instructed. Her knee touched the sofa’s edge, and she sat upright. The long-haired cat pooled into Veda’s lap, commenced a tectonic purr. She set one hand on its back, while on her left the clock sounded with metronomic precision.
“How are you?”
“Efficient. I’ve managed 98% accuracy over the past week.”
“You’ve always been a diligent one.”
The words encircled Veda with warmth. She hated that her cheeks had probably flushed. “Thank you, Mother.”
The tray clinked. Mother padded across the carpet and deposited it on the table beside Veda. “You reached five years of service last month.” The tea issued warm and fragrant from the pot.
“Yes, Mother.”
“We’ve been very pleased with you, Veda. That’s why I brought you in today.”
Her stomach turned again; this was a sleight of hand to calm her, to twist her one way and then the other. Mother knew about Malai. The cup touched Veda’s hand, and she lifted it, received the tiny handle. She might be seen as brash if she drank right off, and dismissive if she set it down, so she held the tea in front of her. “Thank you, Mother.”
The armchair wheezed as Mother sat. “Drink while it’s hot, girl.” The cat’s head raised, a hiccup in the purring before it resumed. Veda pressed the cup to her mouth. The tea came scalding over her lips, a barrier between her and Mother. “Now, Veda, you’ll be happy to know that Big Stax has entered its final phase of automation. It’s a great step for your employer.”
Veda froze, the cup still at her mouth. Steam moistened her nose. Mother didn’t know about Malai. Veda reoriented, focused on her words. Final phase. So it had happened: the last food service outlet still employing dupes had finally decided to automate. “Yes, Mother. I am happy.”
“Fully automated food service is a great step toward efficiency. Of course, this means we’ll have to make some choices.” Paper crinkled, and she sensed Mother putting on her reading glasses. Veda waited, the cup still held aloft. “The council has sent me a list of two options for a service admin such as yourself. Shall I read them off for you?”
“Please, Mother.”
“First, your employer has extended a generous offer. As you’ve maintained a very high level of efficiency through the years, you may fully integrate with their AI.”
Veda nearly dropped the cup. Full integration. Plugging in and never unplugging. It was functional death; her consciousness would remain only to service the Big Stax AI.
Mother paused, and when Veda didn’t respond, her voice bore a note of disappointment. “Second, Murger Ring has extended an offer to all Big Stax employees to integrate with their AI. It’s noted here that they offer a more seamless transition.”
Veda said nothing. The cup shook in her fingers and she set her other hand to it as a brace. Her mind darted, plumbed the blank corners. Full integration—a death knell. Mother wanted her to take the first option.
“Veda?” Mother said.
“Sorry, Mother. Aren’t there any other openings available for service admin that don’t involve integration?”
“I’m afraid not for your line of service, Veda. All remaining food service admin are being phased out along with you.” And Mother lifted her platter, took a loud sip as though they were discussing what kind of biscuits she ought to buy for dipping. She would continue on in this body, in this place, and Veda would not. She wondered how many dupes Mother had overseen in her time, how many she’d sent off to integration.
Stall. Stall, Veda. “May I have time to think about it?”
“Certainly.” Mother removed her glasses, closed them. She took a sip from her tea and replaced it on the platter. The clock ticked. The cat purred. And Veda, both hands still around the cup, was thinking of the note.
She had received it six months ago, as she returned from her job. A man’s footsteps sounded on the sidewalk ahead, and she stood in a wary stasis as they approached and then stopped before her. “I’m not going to hurt you.” A young man’s voice, unfamiliar. “I have something for you.” A moment later his hand settled on hers, eased the fist open. He placed something there, folded her fingers over it with a crinkle. And then he leaned close; the smell was of pine and musk. His voice sounded near her ear: “From Prairie.”
She carried it home in a tight fist pressed over her chest. Through the fold, Veda could feel the dots. A note from Prairie. Not the replacement—the real Prairie.
Veda didn’t allow herself to inspect it until she was in the apartment. In her pod she smelled the paper; only the faint pine and butter scent of the messenger. The lettering pressed divots so deep some had become holes. She could imagine Prairie driving the nib hard, circling so fast that it emerged out the other side. She must have been in a hurry.
Veda wasn’t. She didn’t want to read it, to unveil the mystery. Prairie was dead. She had been replaced. If the note said otherwise, that was a different story entirely. If she was alive, Veda would have to act. Actions were anomalous. But her body wouldn’t let her sleep. It was there on her back she held the note aloft, unfolded the two halves flat. Her fingertip traced the dots, and Veda found exactly what she should have expected. Mayday.
And then Veda folded it shut for six months.
Mother cleared her throat; she had waited too long.
Veda set the teacup and platter on the table. She laid both hands on the cat, burying her fingers into its warmth. “I’m grateful for this opportunity, Mother,” she began. This would be a delicate operation. “Before I choose, I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
Veda inhaled. “I believe Sicora Online is about to enter its final trial. My understanding is clones are permitted to attempt the preliminary.”
Ten days. Ten dynamic, unpredictable levels. All she had to do was survive an ever-shifting world, an AI that had been programmed to temper and stretch and shrink the game based on the personalities inside it. She would have to fight to survive, which was a far more appealing option than simply submitting.
“Your understanding is correct, Veda. What of it?”
Mother had given her an opportunity to back out of this course. Actions were anomalous. And every fiber inside Veda twitched for flight, to step away and leave the note folded forever. Even if she chose this path, she would probably be laughed out of the preliminary. And there was the final truth at the root of it all: Veda Powell was afraid. She’d been afraid so long that she had ignored the note from her own sister. So when the words came out of her mouth, she was in disbelief even as she spoke them: “I would like to visit Brand Stadium.”
“Veda,” Mother said with something like pity, “you’re a service administrator.”
/>
“All models are permitted to enter.”
“Yes, Veda, but I’m afraid that’s not an option for you.”
“But—”
Mother snapped her fingers, and Veda’s mouth closed. “Don’t embarrass yourself, child. I’ll choose for you.” The paper crinkled again. ”You will integrate with the Big Stax AI tomorrow morning.”
That was all. In her lap, the cat had commenced kneading Veda’s leg. And she relished the thorns; after tomorrow she wouldn’t feel pain.
“I’ve heard they do it fast,” Dairy said, her callused fingers clapping together so hard Veda flinched. “One insertion and you’re transferred over before you know it.”
“No way,” said Liss. “Remember when Ellery was integrated? She came back for a night in the middle of it. They took her in pieces.”
“Liss,” Dairy said, dropping her spoon into her bowl.
It was Veda’s last dinner. They’d done up something special for her, the fourteen of them, and the salmon sat before Veda uneaten. She’d never even eaten fish—their protein almost always came from the hydro-bars—and now she actually couldn’t; everything set her to gagging.
But she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t lose her dignity. She’d resolved after she left the midweek with Mother that she wouldn’t wail in her pod as Ellery had done that night. She remembered, of course—they all did, except Dairy, who wasn’t even a part of their lives. Ellery, a transportation admin, had returned for a single sleep with the consciousness of a four-year-old, all her faculties reduced to conveying her needs through crying and a vague, simple speech. She didn’t even recognize the others.
Now, here in the mess with the fourteen clones around her, she understood that integration was the worst thing that could happen to her. It was so deep a fear that she hadn’t processed it, and now—this jagged reality ahead of her—she sat like a prop at the table while the others speculated. She felt almost dissociated from herself, floating above.
Veda wished she didn’t have to wait. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, anyway.
“Take a bite,” Dairy said.
Veda straightened. “I’m letting it cool.”
“It’s practically back in the ocean it’s so cold,” Liss said.
Veda lifted her fork, speared the filet. She took a bite, and it was good. It was delicious. She lowered her head over the plate and soon Dairy’s hands were on her and she was saying, “It’s okay.” She was pulling Veda up from the table, leading her back to the sleeping pods. And because her touch was so familiar, almost the same as Prairie’s, Veda leant into her as Dairy led her back to her own pod. The seal chimed as it opened, and the two slipped in together.
Dairy’s arms wrapped around her, enfolding Veda with her whole body. She pressed the hair and wetness from Veda’s temples and, instead of shushing her, began telling her the story of her day.
She had been on patrol for the residence of the Chilean ambassador. This was a simple post, quiet, the family coming and going in the mornings and evenings. Maybe that was why she hadn’t noticed the man scaling the fencing until he was already atop the iron wrought points, caught there like a deer. His pants had snagged on one of the spears, and he’d lost his balance, dangled with his arms above his head. He yelled in Spanish. And when Dairy came to him, her pistol raised, he’d begged in broken English to be cut loose on account that his caught pants were digging into his circulation.
By now Veda had broken into a silent laugh, more a small convulsion of her chest. She couldn’t help it. And then, as Dairy described freeing the intruder—who still tried to fight her, his pant leg ripping like a rag—Veda wasn’t silent anymore. They’d grappled in the yard, and because his leg had fallen asleep, Dairy pinned him in less than a minute.
“Dupe, please,” Dairy recited, describing his refrain as she restrained him, “Dupe please. Dupe stop. Please dupe.”
“And what happened at the end?”
“I said, ‘Sorry, friend. We don’t stop.’ Then I lifted him with his pants dragging all the way out the front gates.”
And Veda, who by now had stopped laughing, clasped Dairy’s fingers under her own. For the first time, she thought: maybe she’s all right.
Maybe she should have given this Prairie more of a chance.
In the morning she arrived at the Big Stax integration facility on a transport with fifty of her model, rounded up from the northeast quadrant of Columbia. Sybil might be somewhere in this crowd. A man called them off the transport. “Step down, step down,” he said in an old, bored baritone. They were told to set a hand to another’s shoulders, to walk in a line as they entered, and Veda walked somewhere in the middle of that line, her hand on an identical shoulder, an identical hand on hers. Her model tended to be quiet, thoughtful, and any conversation between the fifty of them occurred in muted fragments, condolences and sympathy.
No dupe wanted full integration. Not even a blind model.
They stumbled into sunlight and just as quickly were led under an overhang in their long line, through a doorway and into a warm building that hummed with electronic life. She smelled plastic, hard edges, cabling and wires. All fifty inside, the door echoed shut and bored baritone said, “Follow the girl in front of you.”
So Veda stood. Every minute she took a few steps forward, and she felt her life, vicious and sweet, in the hand on her shoulder, in her fingers on the girl’s shoulder ahead. It lay in the eternal software hum and the lack of dust in her nose. Ahead of them, gaining definition as they neared, came a thump sounding at thirty second intervals, and a woman’s voice: “Sit. Face forward. Don’t move.” The same five words, unchanged in pace and intonation.
They came close, the noise growing rich, more resonant. This must be plugging in. The stranger’s fingers on Veda’s shoulder began to shake, and her left hand went up, set over those fingers. “Sit. Face forward. Don’t move.”
The stranger’s shoulder under Veda’s hand began to shake. The girl let a low sob and still she stepped forward and the words came: “Sit. Face forward. Don’t move.” The thump came, and the sobbing stopped. Maybe Dairy had been right—maybe it would be quick.
Veda’s body felt light; she knew it was the adrenaline. She breathed fast. “Sit. Face forward. Don’t move.” This time, the woman meant her. And she thought of her life, eighteen years, how it was and how it would be. Her consciousness would continue on in some form. She could endure this in the same way she’d endured everything: persisting, each day and each moment. They took her sister away and she persisted. But when the note came, she had been too afraid for too long. Mayday, she’d said, mayday. Their word for ten years, and only Veda had used it before the note. Mayday, Prairie, she’d say when Mother came down too hard. Mayday she’d say when she had trouble in formatory. Mayday when she couldn’t sleep. And her sister had always come, always helped, always fixed it.
Veda sat. She faced forward. She didn’t move. Her last thought was of Prairie—her real sister—and the note that still sat in Veda’s pocket. She reached her hand there, felt the paper. I’m sorry, she thought. She had moved.
The thump came anyway.
Three
“Congratulations, Veda Powell.” This was a different woman’s voice, sweet and impassive. “You’ve passed the preliminary.”
Her voice came from inside Veda—from the familiar, comforting space of her own mind. Was she integrated now? Are you the Big Stax super-AI?
“Oh no.” Did Veda sense amusement in those words? “I’m Sicora. Your short-term memories have been suppressed to allow for full immersion. I’m returning those to you now.”
What followed was a tinny, high sound, as though a thin stream of helium was being passed into a balloon. Then Veda was tugged—pulled—yanked right through the memory suppression until her consciousness appeared on the other side.
On the other side was color. She saw in bursts, the miraculous shades—how could she have forgotten Sicora’s visual training module?—of people, creatures, t
all and low and tumbling landscapes. She could read language, identify letters and understand how they formed words. All of it came to her in flashbulb brilliance; her synapses must have looked like fireworks.
Veda remembered now: Sicora Online interfaced with the visual cortex so that even the blind could see inside the game. Of course, a lifetime of blindness needed a prepper course in visuals. And for Veda, who had been designed for ultra-speedy interfacing with AI, the whole introduction to sight had taken 12 minutes and 43 seconds.
She knew what red was. She knew what it all looked like.
Her memories unspooled backward, rewound. Before the module was the sensation of her body melting as she sank into the game. Except this time Veda unmelted, came whole atop the memory foam. The capsule hummed as it unsealed and the pins and needles seeped out of Veda’s body, the cold sting as the needle was removed and Veda sat up, swung her legs off the side. Anya—the Pyro employee—had a hard, nordic voice that echoed. “Lie down,” she said.
And then Veda was out the door and down a hallway. She sat in waiting rooms in Brand Stadium and talked with Amy Park—Prairie’s Amy had come back to the game—and before that Veda stood in lines and signed a massive NDA.
There was more.
Veda took a transport. She was at the apartment. She spent a long and restless night in her pod. Alone. She had been completely alone, no Dairy with her, comforting her with stories. And then Veda was with Mother. She sat in the parlor, the long-haired cat kneading her thigh. And Mother informed her of the automation—so that was true, that had happened—and Veda had slid her hand into her pocket where the note sat. Six months. Mayday.
“You may integrate fully with the Big Stax AI,” Mother had offered.
“Are there other options?” Veda asked.
And as in the preliminary, Mother had offered her the option to integrate with Murger Ring’s AI.
But Veda had chosen a third option. “I’d like to become a tester for the Sicora Online AI,” she said. Had she really been so daring?