Amy looked over at Javier. He kept his gaze carefully pointed away from the screen. "Change the channel," Amy said.
Sighing, Dr Sarton did so. "I know that it sounds very trite, but your foremothers did a lot of good in the past. When drug-resistant bacteria infected hospitals, for example, they could go on working and treating patients for days at a time without rest or demands for overtime pay – or any pay at all, for that matter. Or if healthcare wikis were hacked or wiped or went down for any reason, your model accurately remembered even the tiniest details related to individual patients and their treatment history. There was a time when no clinic in this country was complete without one of you."
"Then what happened?" Amy asked.
"You got smart," Dr Sarton said. "And like all underpaid workers who see a better opportunity elsewhere, you left. But you left with a profoundly different failsafe than the other vN."
Amy thought of Javier's turned-away face, his closed eyes. He couldn't even watch the footage of the nursing models at work. There was too much hurt and suffering going on. But the nursing models had lived it. They had observed that pain and treated it and gone on about their business. It was their job.
"They made us this way," Amy said.
Now you get it.
"Your clade's failsafe was already destabilized by the time you attained self-awareness and the ability to iterate." Dr Sarton crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. "For most vN, it's a question of stimulus response. Their failsafes are reactions to perceived phenomena. For your model, the failsafe lay along a specific decision pathway – the decision to hurt a human being. Your model could monitor suffering so long as they were striving to alleviate it, but could not make the choice to cause it. They could never amputate a limb without anaesthesia, or break an infant's collarbone if it were tearing its mother's birth canal apart, even if the wound were causing her to bleed out."
Beside her, Javier tried to settle himself deeper into the cushion. His fingers knotted in the material. His jaw was tight. "OK, I get it," Amy said. "We were different. Our failsafe was weak. Eventually it broke all the way, right?"
"That's the prevailing theory, yes," Dr Sarton said. "No one knows exactly when it happened, or where, or for what reason. Portia can probably tell us more."
Tell him you morons brought it on yourselves, she said. Tell him you begged us for it.
Amy sat up taller. "I don't want her version of events. I want to get rid of her."
"I'll get to that in a moment." Dr Sarton's gaze sharpened on Amy. "What I'm going to tell you now is very, very important." The leather in his chair squeaked as he leaned forward. "The failure of your failsafe indicates to me that you may be living with a deeply compromised immune system. The systems in place that would otherwise prevent you from even thinking about harming a human being are non-functional. Those same systems are designed to protect you from hostile code or viral interference. If you expose yourself to foreign stemware, you will absorb and execute it – even if it runs a self-destruct program."
Amy glanced at Javier. His face mirrored her mood: thoroughly unimpressed. "I know that, already." She flexed her legs. "That's how I can jump. I took a bite out of Javier. Even the bounty hunters chasing us understood that. They said my code opens up for anybody who comes along."
An almost girlish squeak of laughter escaped Sarton's lips. He immediately pursed them, but his eyes couldn't hide his amusement. Amy stood up. "Is something about this funny to you?"
"No." He cleared his throat. "No. Not at all."
"Because I would hate to think that you found what Portia did to Nate amusing. It's not. It's awful. And I want it to be over. Now. That's why I'm here, not listen to some history lecture on where vN babies come from."
A knock at the door interrupted them. The door opened to reveal a female vN standing there, wearing a man's dress shirt and nothing else. She wore the same Asianstyled shell as the ranger that had stopped to give them money – the one who had first told them about Rory's desire to help them.
"Daniel?"
"Everything is fine, Atsuko. Go back to your swimming."
Atsuko lifted her legs over the cushion daintily as she crossed the room to be at Dr Sarton's side. She stroked what little remained of his hair and looked first at Amy and then at Javier. "Why didn't you tell me they were here? I've been looking forward to meeting them."
"I'm selfish," Dr Sarton said, kissing the inside of her wrist. "I wanted them to myself for a little while."
"Are you connected to Rory?" Amy asked.
Atsuko smiled. "Yes. I use her diet to avoid iterating." She looked sad. "Rory feels just terrible about what has happened, Amy. She had no idea the hunger could have such… side effects."
Amy felt her eyebrows crawl up toward her hairline. "Side effects?"
"Your parents wanted you to stay small, so you dieted. But you were so hungry that when your grandmother came, all you could think to do was eat her."
Amy frowned. "I didn't eat Portia just because I was hungry. I ate her because it was the fastest way I knew how to kill her."
That's my girl.
Atsuko said nothing. She just gave Amy a soft and knowing smile, as though the two of them were old acquaintances and she were all too familiar with Amy's bad habits and common shortcomings. Condescending. That was the word for it.
"Not that it worked, of course," Atsuko said. "She's still alive, in a manner of speaking. She's certainly still causing trouble. It's no wonder they wanted to bring you all in."
"Atsuko, be nice–"
"I'm sorry, Daniel, but I can't do that. This girl is very dangerous, and I don't think she understands the risks you're taking by having her here. Even if she is able to control her grandmother, with the position you're in, you can't afford to–"
"That's enough, Atsuko." He took her hand and ran one of his over it. "It's because of the position that I'm in that I want to help Amy."
"What do you mean?" Amy asked.
Sarton pushed away from the display. Like a conductor opening a symphony, he gestured wide and opened up an image that swallowed the whole screen. It looked like a satellite scan of the Earth in darkness – tiny lights blazing in cancerous lumps that streaked across vast swathes of shadow. Some of the lights were dimmer than the others, and of varying colour. Some were so tightly clustered that they formed whole bullseyes. All of them seemed to be moving.
"My name wasn't always Sarton," he said. "It used to be LeMarque."
Behind her, Javier sat up so fast the cushion squeaked beneath him. "Are you fucking kidding me?" He stood close beside Amy. "Come on. We're done. It's over. We didn't come this far to get Strangeloved by New Pedo Ministries."
Two angry pink dots rose to the surface of Sarton's pale face. It was his only display of frustration. "I'm not like that. I had nothing to do with designing that game. It's just how I got into robotics. It was the family business."
"Oh, so the old man had a crush on you, and got you the job?" Javier said.
Sarton's gaze fell to the floor. His hair had begun thinning around the crown of his head. He looked so fragile, suddenly. He was the first human being Amy had met in a long while that she had no need to fear on one level or another. He had no power over her. And he was more than afraid of her. He was ashamed.
"Are you his son?" Amy asked.
Sarton's head rose, but he continued staring at nothing in particular. "Oh, no. I'm a more distant relative – a type of cousin, technically, but spiritually more like a nephew. His relationship with my parents was…" Sarton paused, then shrugged. "It was what it was."
"Did you know Dr Singh, when you worked in Redmond?"
For a moment, Sarton looked bewildered. "Ashok? He was on an internship when I was there–"
"LeMarque ordered Dr Singh to kill my mother," Amy said. "And me."
The colour departed Sarton's face as quickly as it had arrived. He quickly scanned his office, as though trying to reassure himself that everything wa
s just where he'd left it. He shook his head, but his fingers twitched, and Amy recognized the telltale signs of somebody who desperately wanted online contact. "That's not possible," he kept saying. "It's just not. He can't do that. His contacts are limited. The victims asked for it in their statements. They pleaded for it. Even his kids, my cousins…" was still shaking his head. "He can't be talking with corporate, much less with DARPA. It makes no sense. He's in prison."
Atsuko made her way to Sarton's chair. She wrapped her arms around him. His face pressed into her belly. Atsuko rubbed his back in gentle circles, but focused her gaze on Amy as she spoke. "He can't hurt you any longer, Daniel. He's locked up, far away."
"Shit," Javier murmured. "Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry–"
"Perhaps this Dr Singh person was lying. Or perhaps he was merely misinformed. But Amy simply must be wrong."
"No, I'm not." Amy took a step closer to Sarton. She did her best to ignore Atsuko's heavy glare. "I don't know how he hurt you, Dr Sarton, and I'm sorry it happened. But he ordered someone to execute my mom. I watched her clademates – my aunts – eat her alive. I'm only alive because Javier escaped and found me."
Sarton withdrew from the folds of Oxford cloth. "He did?" He straightened, leaned back a little, and examined Javier. "That's… unexpected."
Javier rocked on his heels. "I'm full of surprises."
"Tell me about LeMarque," Amy said.
Sarton leaned back in his chair. He pulled his glasses off, cleaned them with the hem of his scarf, pinched his nose, and began speaking. "He was an awful man, obviously, on some levels." Sarton rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "But on others, he looked at innovative technology as a kind of ministry. He thought that better design would make a better world. He wanted humans to examine God's intelligent design, and emulate it in their own works. And more importantly, I think that he believed in the possibility of autonomous, realistic humanoids more firmly than any of the specialists working in the field at the time."
Javier snorted. "I suppose we should feel grateful."
"Of course we should. Without LeMarque, and without his followers, we wouldn't exist at all." Atsuko folded her arms. Despite wearing only a shirt and no underwear, she managed to maintain an intimidating posture. Amy wondered if she could ever stand that tall and proud while being naked. After her experience in the Cuddlebug, she rather doubted it.
You can do something she will never do, Portia reminded her. So she has wifi in her head. So she's still drinking New Eden's special Communion-Aid. Her mind will still fry if she even contemplates the things we take for granted.
Dr Sarton cleared his throat. "Well. I didn't bring you here to air out the family laundry. I want to help you, Amy."
He gestured at the tiny lights swarming across the darkness on the display.
"When I left Redmond, I left a back door. This is a map of your mind taken during your in-game experience last week. That was its purpose – to evaluate which sectors of your memory activated to different stimuli. Each of those dots represents ten nanometres of your memory. I've filtered out some common to all vN; heuristics, locomotion protocols, things like that. I was looking for the failsafe. The organization of those bits is proprietary to the firms that designed each program, so they're easy to screen out. Those are the dim ones."
Amy nodded. "OK. So what are the bright ones?"
Dr Sarton made a pulling motion, like he was tightening a knot. The green dots jumped into focus. "As near as I can tell, this is Javier. I had to dig around to find which firms designed his add-ons, but once you figure out the patterns you can search them throughout the whole system. See how his information is distributed throughout various sectors? His markers are all over your systems; they're acting like patches, subtly altering your normal processes. It's probably because his particular clade is so specialized – originally, his model had none of the bells and whistles that you now share. The photosynthesis, the arboreal stuff, the tactility upgrade – all of that is very specific, very designer. Haute programming, if you will." Dr Sarton raised his eyebrows. "In other words, you have excellent taste."
"Portia told me to bite him. I didn't know who he was."
Dr Sarton clicked his tongue. "Well. Moving on." He vanished Javier's information, then pulled forward another set, these a sort of periwinkle blue. "These are your individual memories. This is where things get tricky. Each of your memories has a marker similar to the ones on Javier's add-ons; the firm that designed your mnemonic organization left a watermark. Unfortunately, Portia shares that watermark, so her memories also come up. And without screening them individually, there's no way I or anyone else can tell which is which."
Amy nodded slowly. This visualization of her mind was surprisingly beautiful, and she couldn't help but stare. Until this moment she had expected that any scientist poking around inside her consciousness would find something as ugly and broken as Portia herself. But from this very distant view, it glowed like the night skies she had seen over the Sheep. It was deep and alive and real, and it could be cultivated and altered and experimented with.
"How do I get rid of her memories?"
"Years of cognitive therapy," Dr Sarton said. "If it were my project, you would play more games until Portia's memories could be isolated by carbon microscopy, and then we'd do controlled electroshock to erase those sectors. It would only take a few volts; writing and unwriting graphene takes a tiny amount of energy. But it would take a long time to find and clean each surface. Also, we don't know if she's set up mirror surfaces inside you. She may have cloned specific memories already. We wouldn't know until we started the cleanup."
He gestured at the map. "But that's only if it were my project, and right now it can't be. I'm on some pretty serious watch lists because of my connection to my uncle. That means I can't buy the right equipment to help you."
"Not without bringing a lot of unwanted attention on himself," Atsuko added.
Sarton nodded. He flicked the map of Amy's mind off the display, and ushered in another image. This was a real city – the gridlines were too rigid for it to be anything else. "That's why I've worked with Rory to secure you a position in Mecha."
What did he just say?
"Excuse me?" Amy looked from the map to Javier to Sarton. "Mecha?"
"I'm assuming you know where it is, but if you don't, I can explain–"
"I know where it is," Amy said. "I also know it's almost impossible to get a visa there, even when you're not wanted by the police. What's the catch?"
"The rules are different in Mecha. The human population is always kept at a minimum, so you're less of a danger there. An organization of professional roboticists is sponsoring your Mechanese visa. They can do that for vN they find particularly intriguing, and naturally you qualify. But you would still have to keep Portia under control, and you would have to find work there within three months. What that probably means is either selling the rights to your life to a content delivery platform, or agreeing to become the subject of research. The latter option is how you might get rid of Portia."
It won't be that easy. I won't let it be.
Amy looked at the office surrounding them. She thought of the water separating her from the light at the surface. She thought of the city slowly crumbling into it, brick by brick. She thought about her dad. Leaving the country would mean leaving him behind. But after what had happened to her mother, perhaps that was best. "I'd have to spend a few years there?"
"It's much safer there than anywhere else. And the doctors there really know what they're doing." He hunched over in his chair. "Don't look so glum! It's great over there! You could have your own place, make new friends, do anything you want."
"Except leave," Javier said.
"With respect, Javier, it's not your decision," Dr Sarton said. "Besides, Amy, do you want to be on the run forever? Wouldn't you rather try to help yourself get better, and get your life back?"
Amy looked at her hands. Get her life back? Her life as
she knew it had ended the moment she decided to run up to that stage and attack Portia. It had ended the moment she escaped from the truck with Javier. It had ended when she ventured to the garbage dump to help him, and ended again the moment she decided that Junior was more important. It ended with Harold's fragile human wrists clenched in her titanium grasp. She could chart these moments in her life like points on the map of Mecha, as she wandered further and further away from the plans her parents had laid out and the dreams they must have had. It was unreachably far, now. Her mother was dead. Amy would never get that life back.
"It's a very generous offer. Thank you. I'll think about it." She looked up. "But what about the failsafe? When they erase Portia, will I still have the flaw?"
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