by G M Steenrod
Cassie stood up, and lightly patted the now sleeping Samuel. “To the kitchen.”
Cassie had considered adding a full wine cellar to her basement, but she felt as if a cellar would require her to study wine to the level of an aficionado. She didn't have time to add that proficiency at this point in her life.
“I have a great chilled Rosé. It's for the solstice celebration.”
“That would be great!” Cassie had fully stocked the wine fridge. She had been planning to round out her celebration by getting outrageously drunk. The glyph work had been taking a toll on her, and it was time for a bit of degenerate behavior.
Cassie poured them both a healthy helping of wine, and briefed her Gramps on the Ada simulacrum.
“That's interesting. I'm interested in how much Ada foresaw this possibility,” Mike said. To Cassie, that single statement was so much like her mother that the connection between Mike and Ada was undeniable.
Cassie took a large draught of wine. “Mom, you there?” she said to the air.
Ada appeared on the screen pillar. It was located to the right and rear of Mike. Mike turned to face her.
Ada looked at him curiously. She paused while the biosensors scanned him.
“Dad? Is that you?” she asked.
“Yes, Ada. It's me. Are you prepared to deal with me?” Mike said, addressing the projection as one might address a voice terminal.
“Yes...” Ada, the human Ada, had prepared a module for this possibility.
“You are too young, though,” continued Ada, “Cassie, is he real? Is he just a screen projection?”
“No, Mom. He's real. He can eat and drink. I've touched him.”
“He matches all the biometric projections of his profile,” Ada added.
“Ada, what are the last memories of your mother and I?” Mike asked.
“Dad...” she said, displaying obvious displeasure at the manner she was being addressed, “I am a simulacrum, but, if you didn't know about that about me ahead of time, you'd assume I'm the real thing. This will work best if you treat me as if I were the flesh and blood, Ada. I am built to respond to emotional data, and that information can be much richer than other bits.”
She was very much like the Ada he had raised with Mary. The young Ada had first taken him to task when she was 7.
“I'm sorry, Ada. The tech has advanced more than I realized. I guess I was still thinking of you as an avatar from my time.”
Ada nodded, her left eyebrow held arched with a hint of skepticism.
“I spoke with you on the vid the week of the summer solstice, twenty years ago. I discovered that you went missing 4 days after the solstice. We were supposed to all have dinner together,” Ada said. “I thought it was linked to the Troubles. Once a month had passed, I contacted the authorities, as we had agreed as part of the emergency protocol. I assumed that you and Mom had gone into deep hiding or had been killed.”
“I don't think I was killed,” he said, poking his chest comically with a finger.
“I thought the odds were against someone being able to kill the two of you as well, but days turned into years. I also couldn't think of anything that'd keep you from contacting me,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “So, I added routines to me, the simulacrum, to deal with the possibility of you or Mom coming back.”
The three of them drank from their glasses almost in unison and in silence.
“Gramps, you are very fit for a man in his...80s,” Cassie said, raising the puzzle to the forefront again.
“Dad would be fit for an athlete in his twenties,” Ada added, “You've not aged, though. Your biometrics fit all the stats based on you from 20 years ago. Even that suit is from twenty years ago.”
Mike thumbed the lapel. It was a silk hybrid--formed from threads created by bio-machines with the genetically-crafted production mechanisms of the silk worm. The suit seemed familiar to him, but he had no clear memory of it. He had briefly entertained the possibility that he had been buried in it.
After all, once the door to the fantastic was opened this far, anything could walk through. Who knew what a ghost-like existence would be like.
Ada started again. “If we look at this situation, it doesn't seem to be an emergency. The oddity gives it the feel of an emergency. The context—the timing and the circumstance that this occurs in—suggests that it could be a threat. Other than timing and context, there is nothing that would suggest you're a threat, Dad.”
“Mom, he's been perfectly, Gramps,” Cassie interjected, defending her new found grandfather.
“Cassie, it's alright. I like you, too,” said Mike.
Cassie blushed. She knew what her mother was doing, and had been doing it in the back of her head. She felt strangely protective of Mike. “Your Mom is just running the analysis. I'd like to say it's because she's just a simulacrum, but she's always been this way.“
“Thanks, Dad, I think,” Ada shot him a very familiar look—a combination of quizzical, judgment, and command for silence. Mike nodded. It was an excellent program.
Ada continued, “I think we have time. I also think we need to move ahead cautiously. Whatever has caused you to be here now, it's not normal.”
“There is no way that my arrival here is going to go without attracting attention. If it becomes known,” Mike added.
There was nothing illegal about a person disappearing and then reappearing. It was unusual. It created legal complexities that could be overcome, especially with solutions that the wealth of the family could provide. It was the attention which would be merciless. Given the secrecy that Cassie was trying to operate under, and the lurking threat she felt, it was a highly undesirable circumstance to be in.
One of the outcomes of the Troubles had been the passage of sweeping privacy laws world-wide. The lack of privacy had exacerbated the abuses by governments, and Baron-owned industries. Alone, the privacy-abuses had likely extended the Troubles by a decade.
The impact was that if Mike wanted to conceal his identity, and go unrecognized, image recognition could be suppressed and his digital transactions rendered untrackable—all legally. A few, “craftier,” steps could erase any remaining trail that he might leave.
“Dad,” Ada said, pouring herself some additional digital wine, “I've anonymized you.”
“Thank you, daughter,” he said. He was playfully formal. It was a game that they had played since childhood. “I always knew you'd make a great subversive.”
Mike was closer to the truth than he realized. Ada's work, the bulk of which was completed after his disappearance, was one of the major forces behind a soft landing of the Troubles. A revolution, unbidden by the few, had come from the sword that she had provided many. A sword other than one of steel.
“It'll give me the time I need to figure out how I got here,” he said.
Ada nodded her affirmation.
Cassie took the pause. “Gramps. Mom. Today's the solstice, and I was planning to do the the family ritual for tonight around sunset.”
Mike smiled at his granddaughter. The years of conflict had ingrained in him the value of family ritual. It had not always been so. Mary had changed his over-valuing of work with blunt observations and love.
“Are you inviting anyone?” asked Mike.
“No, I....”
“She has a fine young man....”
“Mom! I like to do the solstice privately. Well...normally.”
“If you'd like to invite him, I can always be an uncle,” Mike offered.
“No. Gramps.” Cassie drank some wine, and shifted nervously. “I was alone for a long time. I didn't always handle my losses well, especially on days like today. I am very grateful...” Cassie paused for a moment to look at Ada and then Mike. “...To have the two of you with me. But, I didn't have that for a long time. Just Samuel. My dear, Samuel.”
Mike reached across the counter top, and gave her arm an affectionate squeeze.
“What about your young man?” asked Mike.
> “We don't have that type of relationship.” It was a blunt, accurate assessment of the state of their bond.
The only person she ever considered inviting to a solstice was Trago. She couldn't bring herself to do it. The thought of it had always filled her anxiety. Somehow inviting people to the ritual seemed to be the loss of hope. It was something she didn't want to show.
Ada interjected. Mike's ability to gather and probe for information were an established part of his behavioral profile. His behavior was becoming a closer fit of his normal pattern. His cognitive systems seem to be coming fully online. “Dad, will the thought of Mom be too much for you?”
Ada was a chess player. The simulacrum accurately represented his daughter's behaviors to a degree he found alarming. There was a lot about the technology of this time that he didn't know. He'd have to make an effort to become fully informed. She wanted to draw him off of what must be a sensitive topic for Cassie—by pressing a pain button for him.
“Ada, I grieved the loss of your mother decades ago, when I thought I had lost her then. I've been grateful for every moment I got to spend with her since then. Mind you, they weren't all great moments. But life with her was always more than life without her. I can live with the thought of her loss right now, because she is always in me. Part of me is her. As I live, she lives. As she lives, I live.”
It was a clear recognition of a type of love that shook Cassie slightly. She controlled herself. A few months ago, she would have collapsed into herself. Ada recognized the change in Cassie, and adjusted the profile for her accordingly.
“Cass, it would be my honor to do the ceremony with just the three of us,” said Mike. His tone was slightly formal, as it should be. It was right for solemnity that Cassie wanted to bring to the event.
“Let's say around 8 pm. The sun sets right around then. We can do it in the solarium.”
“A solarium?” The careful design of the house wasn't lost on Mike. It was built for effect and impression, and by an artistic hand.
“Yes, Gramps. A solarium. I think you'll enjoy it,” Cassie responded.
“It is fantastic,“ added Ada, glowing with sudden pride. The simulacrum knew its way around a bottle of wine. She had been drinking aggressively since the start of the conversation. The simulation was fully accurate, and modified its treatment of sense data according to the level of alcohol consumption. Ada had always been affected easily by alcohol, partly due to her body size and partly an inherent sensitivity. She bubbled her emotion effusively when she drank.
“Well, now that that's settled,” Mike said, “I am feeling tired. Would you have a place that an old man might lay down, Little Girl? The day's events have tired me.”
Cassie was feeling tired herself. There was something inherently fatiguing about a miraculous appearance. Of course, there was the glyph. And the hot dogs. And the solstice. And the alcohol. This day felt particularly long.
“Gramps, I have a guest room for you. It's up the stairs. Why don't follow me there.”
Cassie stood and stumbled, a bit drunker than expected.
“Why don't you just give me directions?” Mike asked. “You look like you need a lie down yourself.”
“Good idea. I'll do you one better,” Cassie responded.
“Alfie, show my guest the way to a guest bedroom, please. And see to his needs. Set his perms high.”
“Yes, Madam.”
An amber arrow appeared on the wall and moved from the kitchen down a hallway visible from the kitchen counter.
“Impressive, Prospero!” exclaimed Mike, with his eyes following the path marked by the arrow.
“That's only a taste, Dad,” said Ada.
Mike adjusted his checked suit. “Until this evening then, Ladies.” He strolled along with the arrows and down the hall, humming in amusement. His motion was refined and free.
“He has quite a presence,” Cassie said.
“Yes, he does. He reminds me of someone I know,” Ada said winking at her.
“Do you think?” she asked, curious about her connection to him.
“You are more like your grandmother. You look like her, and you have similar minds. Everything with Dad is crafted and controlled. That's where the similarity is between the two of you.”
The solstice was the time for such reflections.
“Be careful of him, Cassie. I can see you already have a great affection for him. You have Mary's heart, and those two always loved one another.”
“Why should I be careful, Mom?” As Cassie asked, it seemed obvious that it was the fact that Mike had appeared from nowhere. In the light of that possibility, all sorts of remarkable risks were possible too.
“It's not that,” Ada was responding to Cassie's likely thought. “Dad was feared during the Troubles--a time when governments were falling—and he was feared. As a little girl during that time, I can tell you that people never knew whether he would be their savior or their destruction until the time came for him to let it be known.”
The Troubles had never been a taboo subject between Cassie and Ada. Her families involvement in it was not either. Her grandparents had died when she was 4, and she barely knew them. She had been curious about who they were as people. Their role in politics had never been a concern of hers, however. She had matured in the endmost part of the Troubles, when the greatest part of the upheaval was long over. The relevance of one's politics, after the rise of Great Quantums, was much diminished.
“Are you saying I should be afraid of Gramps?” asked Cassie, a bit of alarm in her voice.
The Ada simulacrum, impaired by alcohol, was not inclined to take the conversation much further.
“He was my Dad. I loved him dearly, and never once feared him while I lived. My responsibility is to you, though, Baby Girl.” Ada twirled her hair, giving her routines time to weigh the hundreds of variables.
Ada cautiously added, “I think...you should accept him as he presents himself. Do that with a knowledge of who he has been.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Washing Clean
The room that Alfie steered Mike to was large and furnished elegantly. The floor was marble. Persian carpets were placed to create a warmer atmosphere. Most surprisingly there were no windows.
“Alfie, are we in an interior room?” Mike asked.
“No, Sir. The room has one exterior wall.” Mike realized that he had seen only a few windows on the house. Most of it was covered by an array of rotating horizontal slats that helped to regulate temperature and produce solar energy. He had assumed that the windows were behind the slat system.
“Is this the typical build for a home now?” asked Mike.
“Sir, if you are referring to the windows, homes built in the last ten years have a similar percentage of square meters of windows. This house is slightly higher than average because of the solarium.”
“Is that for temperature regulation?”
Alfie responded dutifully, “In part, Sir. It is also to reduce the operating cost of the home, for fashion, and for the screens. Sunlight can reduce the immersiveness of screen images.”
Mike nodded in response. “Could you adjust the interior walls to include a large window with an accurate view of the landscape from this vantage point? Please.”
The wall transformed in response. A large window, composed of smaller panes, emerged. The lawn became visible, as did the forest nearby. The wall coverings shifted to a light paisley pattern. It was an excellent complement to the window, the suit he was wearing, and the view.
“I need to clean up, Alfie. Maybe change into some fresh clothing or have my clothing cleaned.”
“Yes, Sir. Both clothing options are possible. I can fit you for basic jumpsuits and have them cut and delivered within 2 hours. For your clothing, leave them on the ground and the bots will pick them up and take them to the basement laundry.”
“Jumpsuits?” Mike thumbed his lapel. The wall screen had automatically transformed to mirror him in a faux mirror. “They'
ve become fashionable now?”
“Sir, they are common wear in casual situations. They can be used in formal attire, but looser fitting clothing is preferred in more formal situations.” Mike grimaced in dissatisfaction at the news.
“Let's do both then.”
A section of the wall appeared to open, a membrane pulling to the side, wrapping around a cylinder mounted in a concealed door frame. In the room behind it, Mike could see a raised claw foot tub, with a shower overhang. No toilet or sink was visible.
“Thank you, Alfie.” Mike walked to the door frame and inspected the roller system. This feature had not existed in his era.