Amygdala

by Harper J. Cole

  “Oh … okay, I guess. I did like you suggested, started going to see her a couple times a week, to make her feel part of the crew. She never seems comfortable around me, though. Getting her to open up and talk, it’s like getting blood from a stone. We mostly just wind up playing chess, which I suck at.”

  “I see. You’re quite different people, so she may take a while to get used to you. Be patient. I’m sure she appreciates your efforts – she needs a friend to replace Flora.”

  Annie sighed. “There’s no replacing her, not as a person or a programmer. I’m still trying to fix the damaged sexbot.” She abruptly wondered whether the term was offensive to Chamonix. “Salomon, I mean. The damage to his head wasn’t that bad. Flora would have had him patched up by now.”

  “Feel free to ask me if you get stuck. I have access to my mother’s expertise, remember.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll learn more if I do it myself.” A thought struck her. “Y’know, if you’d like to do me a favour, I need someone to look over my novel and give me some feedback…”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” said the hybrid smoothly, “but I’m most frightfully busy.”

  * * *

  Annie left soon afterwards. Even as Chamonix watched her go, she felt the smile fade from her face. The warmth of fellowship the young technician had brought with her gave way to an inner chill; Vitana’s child was alone once more with her thoughts.

  She was beginning to question the impulse that had made her leave Mahi Mata behind and impose herself on her mother’s erstwhile crewmates. For imposition it had been – even those who had spoken in favour of having her aboard must surely have done so either out of gratitude for her saving their lives, or through respect for Flora’s sacrifice.

  Chamonix noted that her nose itched, as it frequently did – a mundane human affliction that she could have done without. Attempting to scratch it with her left hand, she found that she couldn’t. A brief inspection showed why: her wrist, palm, and two outer fingers had become partially merged with the bar she had rested them on a few hours earlier, the points of contact now a slippery mess of metal and flesh.

  With a rasping sigh, she concentrated her will on freeing her limb from its fetters. It might take close to an hour; practice was improving her command of her metamorphical powers, but her skill was the merest echo of what it had been when she and Vitana had been as one. Fear of her unfathomable parent had driven her away from its planet, but what now? Where was home for a being who was not truly human, nor robot, nor alien?

  Had I stayed on Mahi Mata, she reminded herself, I would have lost all individuality. My fate may now be to live as a freak and outcast, but surely that is better than the alternative.

  The faint sound of laughter reached her from the lounge area, situated next door to the gym. Off-duty crew members enjoying each other’s company.

  Connecting her mind to the handpad embedded in her right forearm, Chamonix selected some soothing orchestral music from the ship’s archives and began to play it. Increasing the volume so as to obliterate any external noise, she got to work on her trapped hand.

  III

  Thornton, England, 28th July, 2134

  “That’s a real bundle o’ money you want.”

  Alice Cumberland gazed at the figure tucked unobtrusively away at the bottom of the glossy brochure. No amount of staring seemed to make it any smaller.

  Mrs. Richards smiled sympathetically. “Sorry love, fee’s non-negotiable. Our small class size is a big part of how we’re successful in helping neuro-atypical kids reach their full potential, but…”

  “But that means less parents paying for teachers.”

  “Yes. Honestly, I wish we had room for every child. If the senate would just put in the funding they keep promising, I reckon we could have over a hundred Starshine schools up and running in England alone by 2140. It’s not right, the way they treat people that can’t fight back.”

  Alice, who had been a mother for six of her twenty-two years on Earth, already knew more than she wanted to about the state of NaT education. “She’s getting lost amongst twenty other kids int’ place she’s in right now. I know the teachers do their best, but she needs one-to-one time, and I can’t give it her when I’m working two jobs. That state-sponsored place were even worse. Then I get them bloody doctors telling me she won’t ever be able to communicate properly, when I know she can understand every word I say.”

  The dark-haired headmistress nodded. “Look, we use flexi-terms, she can start with us any time. Keep the brochure, and let us know when you’ve got the cash, okay?” She rose to go, then crouched to address the little figure huddled beneath Alice’s chair.

  “Bye, Gypsy. I hope we’ll meet again soon.”

  “Gypsy, say goodbye to Mrs. Richards,” said Alice.

  “Nuh.” The girl hid her face in amongst her mother’s skirts.

  “Sorry, she can get like this with people she don’t know.”

  Mrs. Richards smiled. “I understand. ‘Tempus et patientia’ - that’s our school motto. Time and patience. That’s all she needs.”

  After the teacher had gone, Gypsy emerged from her hiding place. She moved cautiously at first, a frown on her little face, as though half-expecting another stranger to be sprung on her. Soon though, she relaxed, and retrieved a box of bricks from under her bed.

  They were her favourite toys – simple little blocks of wood, showing the numerals 0 to 9 in all the colours of the rainbow. Alice had hoped that Gypsy’s fascination with them might be a way to get her talking, but her daughter merely watched and listened when she took her through the numbers. Sometimes she pointed to them when Alice named them, but that was the extent of her communication.

  Watching Gypsy crouched on the floor, earnestly arranging and rearranging the little blocks, Alice felt a tide of sadness mixed with love rise in her heart. She blinked back tears.

  “Now don’t you worry, little lassie, you’re getting in that Starshine school. If I have to get a hundred jobs, even if I have to go to your grandparents and beg, I’ll get you in. Come on, let’s do the maths…”

  Mental arithmetic was not Alice’s strength. Seating herself at her desk – actually Gypsy’s desk, but her daughter was far more likely to hide under it than to sit at it – she activated the built-in computer.

  “Right. £45,000 annually for the school, plus, let’s say, £4,000 cost of living, minus £12,000 state support, minus fifty-two times £190 for the reception work, minus twelve times £1,100 for the canteen job. What does that make?”

  Alice heard Gypsy’s bricks merrily clicking together to her right, while she herself tapped away at the computer. She paused a moment before pressing “EXECUTE”, afraid of what she’d see.

  “Uh! Uh! Uh!” Gypsy was pulling at her mother’s dress and pointing down at where she’d been playing.

  “Just a moment, love.” She tapped the screen.

  The figure it returned was “13920”. That meant she’d need to make an extra £13,920 per year, if this was going to work.

  Alice sighed. There was no way she could do it alone. New jobs were hard to come by, and an unskilled worker like herself couldn’t hope to make that much from the few hours per week she had left to spare. She’d have to ask her parents, no two ways about it. That wasn’t going to be much fun.

  “Uh!”

  Alice forced some good cheer into her voice. “What is it, love? What have you made?” She followed the line of Gypsy’s spindly finger to five bricks she’d laid out in a row. ‘Oh, how lovely. They’re all the same colour. Can you …’

  She trailed off. A strange silence fell upon the room, the background hum of the air conditioning seeming to grow into a thundering roar in her ears. She felt dizzy, as though the world had tilted just a little on its axis.

  Alice looked from the line of bricks to her computer and back again. There was no way her daughter could have seen what was on the screen from the spot where she’d been playing.

  How, the
n, could she have known to construct the number 13920 in brilliant purple numerals?

  Gypsy smiled.

  “Yuh,” she said.

  * * *

  The door to Alice’s quarters chimed a little earlier than she had expected. She set her brush and palette carefully aside and wiped her hands on the old cloth she always kept handy while painting.

  “It’s open,” she called – somewhat redundantly, as none of the crew quarters had locks.

  The door swished aside to reveal the red tresses and freckled face of Annabelle Grace.

  “Morning, love. Come right in. Sorry, I don’t have your coffee ready – I weren’t expecting you for a bit yet.” She set the kettle going.

  “That’s fine. I was actually kinda hoping us two might talk a bit.”

  Alice’s eyebrows raised a touch in surprise. “That’s a change! Never had many people interested in me, only me daughter. Take a seat. What’s on your mind?”

  “Thanks.” Annie looked slightly embarrassed as she sat down. “Gotta be honest, I was going to ask you stuff about Gypsy. I guess that’s pretty uncool, people treating you like an accessory of hers, or something…”

  “I’ve got used to it, and I understand. She’s the bright spark, I’m the dull bulb.” Seating herself, she waved off Annie’s attempts to disagree. “You’re a kind lass, but there’s no need to be polite about it. I’ve always been honest with myself. And I’m lucky – all of you geniuses have to worry yourselves with how we’re getting home. I can just relax, cos it’s out of my hands.” She smiled. “So, what did you want to ask about her?”

  “Oh … not sure, to be honest. I just feel like I’m not clicking with her, you know? Perhaps she just doesn’t like me. Is there anything I’m doing wrong?”

  “Trust me, she likes you,” said Alice. In fact, she knew her daughter well enough to suspect that Gypsy did rather more than simply liking Annie, but it wasn’t her place to say that. There were some things a woman just had to do for herself, with no maternal hand-holding. “She’s just shy, love. Give her time, she’ll open up.”

  “Did she have close friends growing up?”

  “Not really. It were just the two of us, most of the time.”

  “What happened to her father? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “Long story.” Alice looked at Annie’s open, guileless face and smiled. “Suppose I could give you the short version.” She leaned back in her chair, calling the details to mind.

  “It started back in the winter of ‘26. I’d just turned fifteen: weak student, ‘specially at maths. The boys didn’t pay me much notice, cos my chest hadn’t developed much yet – hard to believe, looking at me now. One day we got told that Mr. Castle, the head of maths, had offered to give me extra tuition to help me catch up. My parents didn’t much like their daughter being thick, so they said okay.”

  Annie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She’s guessed how this is going to finish, realised Alice. Smart.

  “Turned out to be my body he wanted to train. He knew all the right things to say to a girl with no confidence, filled my head with exciting ideas about forbidden romance. Attractive, too, one of them fellas that keep their looks in middle-age …

  “Anyway, he had his way with me for a bit, but the birth control pills he’d been giving me didn’t do the job so well. I got pregnant. When I told him, he gave me a handful of cash and said I had to abort the child and never tell anyone what happened. I couldn’t see him again. He wouldn’t change his mind, so I took the money.”

  Alice was surprised at how little emotion she felt now, relating events that had rocked her universe at the time. A lot had happened since then; she’d grown stronger as a result.

  “So Mr. Castle got away with it, then.” Annie sounded disappointed.

  “No. When I got home I did some thinking. Up till then, I’d thought he’d ditch his wife and we’d be a family, but he made me wake up to what kind of man he was. I looked at the money he’d tried to buy me off with, I wondered how many other girls he’d pulled the same routine on, and I said to myself, ‘Enough of this’. I turned right around and walked back to his house, chucked his money through the letterbox, and went to the police.

  “Turned out I weren’t the first, nor the youngest. Other women came forward once I got things rolling. He got thirty years. I got Gypsy. Happy endings all round.”

  Annie’s eyes had widened. “Wow. That’s some crazy stuff for a teenager to go through. Don’t think I’d have handled it half as well as you did. Having a baby that young, though … did you ever consider, ah…”

  “Abortion? No, not after that first day. Parents told me I should. And they hated that I said no to artificial incubation.”

  “You went with natural birth? Whoa, that’s gotta be dangerous at fifteen.”

  “Yeah. Perhaps it were stupid, but that’s me.” Alice reached up to the heart-shaped medallion she wore about her neck, and thoughtfully stroked the shimmering silver. “I just felt a connection with her, from the first day I knew I had her inside of me. She came out on my sixteenth birthday. It’s like it were meant to be.

  “My parents weren’t there int’ hospital. They never really forgave me, and I moved out not long after. But at least they sent flowers; that’s how I came to choose Gypsy’s name.”

  “There’s a flower called that?”

  “Sort of.” Alice indicated her painting – a field of white blooms. “They sent Baby’s Breath. The Latin name were ont’ label: Gypsophila Paniculata.”

  “Mm. Lovely name.” Annie flicked absently at a wayward braid that had drifted over her eyes. “So, it’s always been the two of you, and Gypsy doesn’t really know how to deal with anyone else, right? Okay, I’ll keep trying.”

  “You’ve a good heart. ‘Fraid I can only repay you with coffee.” Alice rose and poured a cupful, the aroma soon filling the box-like cabin.

  Annie accepted the treat with a smile. Alice was the only crew member who could make a really good espresso. “Thanks. For this, and for sharing your story.”

  “Thanks for listening. I suppose even when you’re a simple old mother like me, you pick up a few interesting tales to tell as you go through life.”

  The younger woman regarded Alice thoughtfully, and slowly shook her head. “You’re certainly a mother, and I guess you’re old compared to me. But simple? I think you may be the wisest woman on this ship…”

  * * *

  Next door, Gypsy Cumberland was kneeling before her window, her sharp elbows resting on the sill. It was open; this being a Tuesday, the weather was lovely. She felt the sun’s rays warming her arms even now, as it dipped below the suburban rooftops that stretched out before her.

  It was all illusion, of course. If she reached out with her hand, her fingertips would soon brush against the inside of the holographic box mounted around her window. The heat of the sun, the chill of the breeze … all the work of sophisticated machinery. Inches beyond lay the cold greyness of the Bona Dea’s corridors.

  Illusion. She had requested that her bedroom be moved from England to the ship in its entirety, a compromise to satisfy two opposing impulses: on the one side, the urge to shake up her life, to break out of her maddening rut and embrace new experiences; on the other, fear of anything unknown or unpredictable.

  Gypsy had meant to spend several hours a day outside her room, getting to know her crewmates and being part of the adventure, only returning to do her job as ship’s navigator or to sleep. But she’d over-estimated her courage; on the rare occasions when she ventured forth, she seldom went further than the adjoining quarters where her mother lived.

  She heard voices coming from that direction now; Annie had arrived. It was time to put her plan into action. Crossing to her desk, she reached into an untidy stack of papers and extracted the single page containing her latest poem.

  Gypsy enjoyed poetry, mainly for the reason that she was neither good nor bad at it. Most things she tried her hand at she found either too easy t
o make for a stimulating challenge, like maths, or too difficult to gain any enjoyment from attempting, like sports or social activity. Writing poetry was in the middle ground – a worthy foe.

  This particular poem was something a little special. Her heart quickening slightly, Gypsy read it through once more, checking for errors.

  Safe and sound in a cloak of soothing dark,

  the shadow dozed, ignorant of light,

  until, one day, it saw a single spark.

  It was an amber flame, flickering bright,

  dancing there; no fear, no doubt, no shame,

  it gave the little shadow quite a fright.

  But oh, how lovely was that distant flame,

  so quick, so pure, so free; for all to see,

  treating life as just a silly game.

  The shadow’s soul was touched with sudden glee,

  at once its heart of murk and gloom was clear,

  it cried out, a plaintive plea: ‘Come to me!’

  But ah, alas! When flames draw in too near,

  all shadows then must fade, and disappear.

  Gypsy let out a slow breath, nodding at the message in her hands.

  Yes. If you see this, you’ll understand how I feel about you, won’t you Annie? I, the cowardly shadow, heart in thrall to your brilliant flame.

  The mathematician had been puzzling over the problem of how to express her love for her crewmate for some time. Since openly telling her was out of the question – even imagining it made her twitch with anxiety – this was her solution. She’d leave this page lying conspicuously on her desk, Annie would notice it, read it … slowly, she’d look up and meet Gypsy’s gaze, understanding writ large in her eyes …