vN: The First Machine Dynasty

by Madeline Ashby

  She tried crawling away. Someone kicked her in the side. She flipped over. It was the truck driver. He carried what used to be the arm of a building bot – a massive steel arm with a fat cog for a shoulder on it, the sort only worn by the things that made cars. He swung the shoulder down at her head. She rolled away.

  "Should I shoot her, now?" the guard asked.

  "Nah, I want you to see this," the truck driver said. He pointed at Amy. "You're one of those special ones, huh? Gimme your best shot. Lay one on me, right here." He pointed at his mouth.

  Amy pushed herself to her feet. "All I want is that baby."

  The truck driver reached down and plucked Junior off the ground. "Which baby? This baby? This baby right here? You want this?" He shook Junior by his foot like a dog owner shaking a tennis ball. Junior's little arms flailed. He shook him harder, from side to side, the way her dad did when he was snapping a kitchen towel. "You want this?"

  "Yes," Amy said. She tried to step forward, but the truck driver took a step back. "Yes, I want him back. Please give him to me."

  He kept shaking Junior at the end of his arm. The child looked like a puppet, bouncing up and down and all around, wriggling helplessly. "How bad you want it?" the truck driver asked. "Real bad? You want it real bad?"

  "Yes!"

  "Go get it!"

  He threw Junior at the fence. His tiny body sparked once and clung, somehow, before falling to a limp heap on the ground. Junior didn't move. He didn't cry. Amy turned to look back at the trucker. For the length of a single computational cycle, she imagined throwing him on the fence, too. But she didn't. She ran to get Junior. Her hands were on him, holding him, when someone kicked her from behind and sent her straight into the fence.

  Her body filled with electricity. The fence's charge was larger and faster and sharper than anything she'd ever touched. Her fluids simmered; her layers of muscle rippled subtly in different directions before settling, re-patterned, into something stronger. For a moment she was pure diamond. Then her hands – glassy now, black and hard like obsidian – left the wires. She stood up. She turned around. The kid was there, all pimply and drooly and excited. His foot was still half-raised.

  Portia reached right through him, straight to his heart, and squeezed.

  "It's all right," she said. "It's over, now."

  Stop!

  The kid's mouth was already bubbling. He kept trying to take a deep breath, as though that would get rid of the fist inside his chest. "D-don't," he said. "P-please…"

  "Shh…" Portia's fingers slipped around the heart. It felt so strong, even now. Each chamber worked in perfect concert. They kept lub-dubbing, each time more rapidly than the last despite the massive hole in the kid's body. The muscle was so warm and smooth and pleasant to the touch. It felt like petting a whale at a zoo – all slick and alive and allegedly precious. She could smell the peanut butter from the kid's sandwich on his panting breath. His neck oozed sweat. "I know you want this," she said. "I know you wouldn't have done what you just did if you didn't."

  Don't do it, Amy pleaded. He doesn't know any better–

  Portia crushed his heart in her fist.

  Inside her, Amy screamed.

  Portia withdrew her hand. She opened her fingers and shook most of the blood away. She looked up at the truck driver. He looked like something had already been scooped out of him, too, as though a puff of air could scatter him like dead leaves. He ran.

  Let him go, Amy urged. Let him go, let him go, let him–

  Portia charged. After three steps her feet left the ground, and she sailed over a pile of garbage. It was almost absurdly delightful, the sense of increasing the void between her feet and the earth. She'd have to find Javier and thank him. He really was generous, to share his toys like that. She landed in front of the truck driver, who held up both the mech arm and the puke pistol.

  "Stay away," he said. He swung the arm. Portia smiled. She feinted back, hopping lightly. Doing so taxed her energy reserves, but her toes almost craved the bounce. She jumped backward as the trucker once again swung the arm at her middle. She laughed.

  "Get away from me!" He fired at her with the puke pistol; she leapt up high as his shooting arm came up, and landed behind him. He whirled, and tried swinging the mech arm, but Portia caught it and ripped it from his hand. She threw it far behind her. The gun came up, but she grabbed his wrist and twisted it completely around. He howled.

  "I'm sorry," he said, kneeling and cradling his wrist and crawling backward all at once.

  "I know," Portia said.

  You've hurt him, Amy said. You've punished him enough, you don't have to do anything else, you can let him go–

  "You wanted to kill him, too, Amy. I saw."

  That was wrong, I chose not to, I didn't do it–

  "You've got a real killer instinct, just like your dear old granny."

  No, I don't, I'm not like that, I don't like this, I want you to stop–

  "You can let me go," the trucker said. He shoved himself backward on his ass with just his feet, searching blindly behind him with his good hand. "I won't say anything, I won't tell anybody–"

  He shut up instantly as Portia bent down to look at him. She clasped her hands behind her back. "Of course you won't tell anybody," she said. "Why would you do that?"

  He tried to smile. "Right! Why would I? That would be stupid."

  "Yes. Yes it would."

  "So… can I just get going? Can we just forget all this?"

  Portia smiled. "You have to do me one favour first. You have to lie down."

  If possible, he whitened even further. But he lay down. He even reached for his belt buckle, but Portia toed his fingers away with one boot. He lay there, panting, eyes rolling around inside his skull, watching as she knelt down beside him. Portia ran a bloodied finger over the bright blue Redmond Centre logo embroidered in his shirt. His chest felt so soft, almost feminine, and only the hairs springing out from under his collar told her skin differently.

  Portia tapped her non-existent heart. "You know, I have this inner child who's still very innocent, and who still enjoys the simple things in life."

  He swallowed. "That's… nice."

  Portia stood. "One thing she really likes? Jumping in puddles."

  Sudden tears filled his eyes. "No. No no no no–"

  She was already in flight. Her body flipped over in the air, lazily, gracefully, her feet drawn inexorably back to earth and straight into the trucker's gut. He splashed. His hips creaked beneath her feet. Again, Portia clasped her hands behind her back and leaned down. "Are you resting comfortably?"

  He coughed blood.

  "I'm sorry I missed. I'll be more accurate next time. These new legs, you know."

  Stop. Please, please, please stop.

  Portia ground his ribs under one heel. They had a surprising springiness to them. They were so flexible. It was strange to think that thousands of years of population bottleneck had contributed to the kind of architecture any good designer would have intuited in minutes. Finally the rib snapped, and she was in the air. She didn't flip this time. This time, she tucked her knees in close and watched with glee as his head crunched under her feet. Blood hit her in the face, hot and quick and sticky. She wiped it away with the heel of her hand, and scraped the heels of her boots in the spongy material below. She rolled her shoulders and her neck.

  Inside her, Amy wept.

  "You know, I think I'm feeling a little hungry," Portia said. She walked back toward the bluescreen barrow. The camelbot shambled its way up to her as she did. It was so slow; it had only just now gotten here. It seemed to sniff her for a moment before letting her pass. She patted its industrial yellow flank as it shuffled along. The other bots here were so nice; they hadn't raised the slightest fuss. She paused to admire the sight of the glittering botflies hovering delicately over the glistening heaps of filth. Some were already buzzing over the human body behind her, sampling the fluids with their beautifully articulated feet bef
ore determining them to be useless and flying away.

  "I used to raid places like these all the time, when I was your age." She wiggled a stubborn speck of brain off one boot. "I would steal feedstock from the garbageman, like Peter Rabbit taking carrots from the gardener. I would crawl under the fence, just like in the story."

  Her granddaughter had such interesting memories of things that had never happened. It was amazing, the amount of space she devoted to complete and utter fictions. "Maybe that's why you thought to go under the fence. They say our evolution is somewhat Lamarckian, that way."

  Amy said nothing.

  "I know your mother told you that I iterated her in a place like this and then abandoned her, but I loved your mother very much. She was my most perfect iteration." Portia found the bluescreen barrow. She inspected some of the bodies on the pile, checking their mouths and eyes before tossing them aside. Their provenance was impossible to determine, and as such they were potentially dangerous, as well as mostly useless. "But despite that, she was weak, and she's passed that weakness on to you."

  Portia turned back to the fence. The little one's body was still there. And it was just as motionless as it had been the moment it hit the fence. Not, of course, that any evidence of awareness would have stopped her.

  No!

  "Their whole clade has really been a good luck charm for us, Amy," Portia said. She picked Javier's iteration up by one foot and shook him a little. "I think that fence really did this one in, though."

  Put him down! Now!

  Portia shook her head. "This little piggy went to market," she said, snapping off the littlest toe. She popped it in her mouth. "This little piggy stayed home." The toe worked free like a pea leaving the pod. She spoke with her mouth full: "This little piggy had roast beef! And this little–"

  Portia's right arm jerked forward, groping for the fence. "There you are," Portia said through gritted teeth. She tried hopping backward, but a sudden stiffness had overtaken her legs. Exhaustion seeped up into her shoulders and her neck.

  I'll kill us, Amy said from within. If you don't let go right now, I'll fry us both.

  Portia worked to shake the head and shift the tongue. "What is this, Amy? If at first you don't succeed: try, try again?"

  I'd rather die than let you hurt someone else.

  The arm trembled with effort. Portia stared at it, as though her glance would be enough to subdue the rebellious limb. It shuddered heavily, as though it carried a terrible weight. Portia devoted more of her focus to it. Her awareness started at the shoulder and moved down along the arm to the elbow and the wrist and finally the fingers. She was the better pilot – older, more experienced, and smarter. She deserved this body. Slight tingling returned to the fingertips. Slowly, she curled the fingers into a fist and clenched it.

  "I knew you didn't have it in you."

  Her other hand, the one holding the iteration, flew open and reached decisively for the fence.

  If I let you live, I really am worthless.

  Charge flooded the body. Portia's awareness split into a thousand pieces, each alerting her separately to the havoc Amy now wreaked on the charring skin, the gritting teeth, the muscles turning to stone. The girl refused to let go. Her stubborn hand clung with all its might. Raw black bone scorched on the wire. Portia smelled burning sugar – the scent of her own body's destruction and her own powerlessness to stop it.

  And like that, the last of Portia's control snapped and she drifted back into the shadows of Amy's awareness like an untethered boat.

  Amy stumbled away from the wire, clutching her hand. Her knees folded. She stared at her blackened hand. Through her open wound, she watched the bones slowly grinding into their joints. If she were human, she realized, there would be screaming and vomiting and crying. But there was nothing: no tears, no nausea, no shock, just the empty buzz of the botflies around her, and the dull sound of the compiler tirelessly annealing trash and forming it into food. Exhaustion ruled her: her body sagged with it, her head bowing slowly until it touched the ground. From here on the spongy floor of the garbage dump, she could peer into Junior's lifeless face.

  "I'm sorry." With her good hand, Amy reached over to close his eyes. Under her skin, his flesh remained warm.

  Are you sure he's dead?

  Amy shut her eyes. "Stop it."

  You don't know how deep his damage goes. Perhaps a specialist could repair him.

  Amy shook her head. Even that small movement was terribly difficult. "You're only playing for more time."

  And if you kill us both, then you're abandoning that child in this junkyard just to spite me.

  Portia had lived in Amy's head for too long. She knew just what to say to get what she wanted. And although Amy knew this, she could not stop herself from reaching for Junior and standing up to leave, any more than she could silence Portia's wheedling. Portia had left Amy's mother in a place just like this one, and Amy was not going to do the same. They might have shared the same body, but they were very different, and if Amy had to let Portia live just a little while longer to prove that, then she would. Portia had already ruined enough lives; Amy could not allow her to destroy another. Junior was broken, and it was her job to make sure someone fixed him. Home would have to wait.

  She started walking.

  6

  Amy Alone

  The sign on the door read: PORTIA'S WANTED. Amy's teacher had let her skip ahead to the third grade unit on contractions and possessives, but she remained uncertain whether the sign was a joke or just a typo.

  Amy had not eaten in five days. She saw everything in greyscale, now, even the maps on Rick's reader. She had searched frantically for news about her parents before the battery died. Both were in jail. No one said where. It was difficult to query further, with only one good hand. The jumps were harder, too. Well, the landings were the truly hard part. The index fingernail of her good hand popped off during a particularly nasty slide down a tree.

  She did not see Rick and Melissa's RV when she sprinted back down the access road. Javier was gone. His son had not woken up. He had not so much as moved. The fabric of Melissa's old sweatshirt now pressed him against her body, silent and still as the bluescreens in the barrow.

  Aren't you too big for dolls?

  "He's alive. He just needs repair."

  How do you know?

  Amy didn't know. She admitted that. Junior's body was limp and cool and occasionally his eyes would fall open when she didn't carry him right. But somewhere there were bluescreen specialists. That meant they could be fixed. That had to count for something. She'd make it count for something.

  She hid her mangled hand up her sleeve. She needed food. Desperately. And she needed money. Money could get her to her parents, once she found out where they were. Her mom would know what to do. Her dad would hug her and throw a vN pizza in the toaster oven and blow the dust off his old Fruits Basket discs and make it seem like no time had passed. Her mom would drill her, like she did every after day after school: whom had Amy seen? Where? Her dad always knew how to make her feel safe. Her mom knew how to keep her safe.

  Your mother was always rather good at that sort of operation.

  Portia had taken to doing that over the past couple of days. Teasing Amy about her mother. Things she knew that Amy didn't. Memories she had, and that she revealed only fleetingly and during defragmentation. Something scanned briefly and then quarantined to some deeply buried chunk of Amy's memory coral. Junkyards. Garbagemen. Fences and dogs and miles of desert adorned only by the scattered emeralds of well-kept lawns.

  Amy focused on the trees surrounding her. She examined the scabs of bark in the pine she currently inhabited. They interlocked like tiles or armour plating. The tree felt solid and strong. She had grown used to its not-silences. The first night, alone in the rain with her maimed hand and the motionless infant, the woods had seemed bereft of all sound. After a few hours, Amy realized it was only human sounds they lacked. At night the woods had a different vo
ice, huge and dry and ceaseless, not unlike a sample clip of "static" her dad once showed her. It was white noise. It put her to sleep.

  Portia always woke her up.

  This can't possibly go well, you realize.

  "I didn't ask you," Amy said. She crossed the street.

  In her greyscale vision, the Electric Sheep was a series of fineand coarse-grained shadows interrupted by the flickering glow of hot tables displaying menu items: steaming slices of cherry pie, mashed potatoes oozing butter, feedstock curled into perfect golden halos of calamari. The restaurant probably bought feed from the garbage dump, Amy realized. The guy who worked the nightshift might even have been a regular. Now he was dead.