"What?"
"Do you trust me or don't you?"
Amy scowled at him. He cocked his head. He held up the tooth. He opened his mouth. Rolling her eyes, Amy opened hers, too, and let him wedge the tooth back where her molars would be, if she had real ones. Then he stood up. "Just talk normally," he said. "It might take a while. It's only a prototype; the deaf guy took the finished product." He shrugged. "I'm not even sure this will help."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's a secure line." Javier ushered her into the living room, and sat her down on the couch. "One thing Rory knows is broadband."
"Hello?" said someone inside her mouth. The voice reverberated through her face. It sounded muffled and a little flat. "Hello? Is anyone there?"
The voice was insistent. It sounded a little pissed off, actually. "Hello?"
Finally her mouth opened. "Hi, Dad."
"Dad, it's OK, you don't have to cry…"
He kept saying "Oh my God," and "You're OK," and "Don't tell me where you are; they're listening." And the more he said those things, the more she had to keep telling him that no, really, she was just fine, she was safe for the moment and no, she wasn't hurt and no, she didn't think anyone was recording the phone call – or if they were, it would soon be erased.
He snorted. "You must've made some powerful friends."
"I guess you could say that."
Her dad was quiet for a second. "You sound really grown up."
Amy swallowed. "I don't feel grown up."
"I heard you've been pulling some pretty crazy stunts."
Amy almost laughed. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Yeah, well, stop doing that." She heard him clear his throat. "I mean it. I need you to run away and hide and not contact me again."
"Dad–"
"Amy."
He had used his Dad Voice. It was rare; normally he sounded a little lazy and slack, but the Dad Voice was something (he said) that he'd inherited from his own father. And it meant you were supposed to be quiet and listen and stop interrupting, already.
"I'm serious. And I shouldn't have to tell you that. You know exactly how much danger you're in, right?"
"Yes…"
"So find a safe place and stay there. Forever."
He sounded tired. He sounded old. Amy had never really thought about his age, before. His birthday was just the day he got his special organic cake and blew out a trick candle that insisted on blazing back to life the moment he lifted his knife and fork to eat. She had never asked about the number. There were a lot of things she'd never asked about. And now, she had no time. There was too much to say.
"Dad, I have to tell you something–"
"Is it about your mother?"
"Yes."
"They told me." He cleared his throat. "I'm so sorry, baby. I didn't know it would ever get this bad. I'm just happy you got out of there when you did. I'm so grateful for that."
There was a moment while they each struggled not to cry over the phone. Amy imagined her dad in a room with other men, trying to keep it together in front of them so they wouldn't take advantage of his weakness, later. She concentrated on the sounds of Javier puttering in the kitchen, singing something in Spanish, as though to prove that he weren't listening.
"Did you know about Mom? About the failsafe?"
"No," he said immediately. "I promise. I didn't know."
"Did you know she had other daughters before me?"
"What?"
Amy wiped her eyes. "It's true. She did. And Portia killed all of them." She laid her head down on her arms. She shut her eyes. "Dad, she's really crazy. And she's in my head and I can't get rid of her."
Her dad was silent for a long time. So long, in fact, that she started asking if he was still there, when he said: "My dad was with me for a long time like that, too."
"Dad, that doesn't make any sense."
"Parents are programmers, Amy. That's their job. And my dad tried to give me a whole series of goals and directives before he wound me up and let me go." She could almost hear him shrugging through the tooth. "I know it's sort of a clumsy metaphor, but you should remember that as the next generation, it's actually your job to piss your elders off. You're supposed to do things differently from them. Because in the end, your granny's way of doing things didn't work out too well, did it?"
"Mom ran away from her. They were living in a bunch of basements, like rabbits."
"I rest my case." Again, he cleared his throat. "Look, I don't know the particulars. I don't even know how what you're describing is possible. But I do know that everyone, human or not, deals with this. It's not what you're given that matters, baby. It's what you do with it."
Amy tried to think of something to say to that, but there was nothing. He didn't really get it. This was a material problem, not a mental one. She couldn't go to a counsellor and talk about Portia until she went away. Portia wasn't a bully. She was a cancer. But maybe asking Dad to understand that was too much. His brain was totally different from hers, after all.
She waited, and finally her dad said: "When my dad kicked me out of the family, he said that he was tired of watching me waste time with toys. I know he meant your mom, but I think he was also referring to the kind of life I'd led up until that point. He could never really understand why I liked the things I did, or why I chose the friends I made. He told me there was no upside to any of them. He said I had nothing to gain.
"By itself, that's nothing special. I knew he thought that my hobbies and my friends and my way of seeing things – everything that I considered of any importance or value – were a waste of time. I had known that for most of my life, by the time he finally came out and said it. But it still stung."
"Is this why I've never met him?" Amy asked.
"Yeah. Pretty much. I knew I wasn't welcome, and I didn't really feel like extending the olive branch, either. But that's not the point. The point is that I got over it. And I got over it because I had already met somebody who had so thoroughly exceeded the world's expectations of her that I knew that anything my dad had to say about me was really just a guess."
Amy smiled. "Mom."
"That's right. Mom. And I know she lied to us, and she's not around to explain why, but…" He faltered. "Maybe it's hard for you to understand, having grown up with so many vN, but even just a few years ago, before you were born, emergent phenomena was all anyone talked about. The definition of sentience was changing. Suddenly we were discussing consciousness all the time. And then along came your mother, and I thought, 'If this allegedly artificial woman can overcome everything her designers ever intended for her and think for herself and make her own way, then I can sure as shit quit whining about the lies my daddy told me'."
The next question was the hardest. She tried to think of a graceful way to ask it, but in the end the words just came out plain: "Do you still feel that way?" She plucked at the hem of her bathrobe. A single thread was pulling away from it, and she wound it around one finger until the flesh at the tip turned grey. "Or do you feel like it was all a big mistake?"
"A mistake?"
"Dad, you're in jail. You would have been a lot better off without us."
"Amy, I'm in jail because I happened to be exercising my rights – in a way that the truncheon-wielding jackass who insisted on getting in my face didn't like. And I would not have been better off without you. I love you. From the bottom of my heart, I love you, and I will never stop loving you, no matter how crazy your nutjob granny drives you. Do you understand me?"
As she opened her mouth to say the same, the door slammed open. It bounced on its rails. Amy looked up and saw a blur of motion aimed straight at her before a small pair of arms and legs latched around her tightly and pinned her to the ground. Javier's boys stood in the threshold. Their simultaneous wince was perfectly identical across each of their faces.
"Honey, did you just get tackled?"
"Um – yeah, Dad, I just did."
Amy looked down. Junior
took up her whole torso, now. He was longer and leaner, less like a toddler and more like a preschooler. His arms had lost their pudgy little rolls, and his chin felt sharp where it dug into her shoulder. Presently his face rose, and he stared at her with his father's dark eyes and perfect lashes.
"Everything's OK, though," Amy said. "No need to worry. Everything's going to be just fine."
"That's all I needed to hear."
The tooth buzzed for a moment as the line died. Amy reached in, plucked out the tooth, and put it on the table. She sat up. Junior refused to let her go.
"Sorry," Matteo said. "We tried telling him you were busy, but he didn't listen."
Javier entered behind them, carrying a massive coil of fabric under one arm. He dropped it, whistled at it and pointed to one corner of the room, then watched it begin inching itself in that direction. Then he reached over and tousled Junior's curls. "La vi en primer, cabrón." Junior crossed his ankles over Amy's back. Javier nodded. "Oh yeah. That boy's one hundred percent my code."
"He's so big." Amy adjusted his weight in her arms. "What have you guys been feeding him?"
"Roroids." Ignacio nodded at his father. "What's up? Why are we here? The botfly said we should bring our stuff. Nice car, by the way."
Javier pointed to the scroll. "I'm going to Mecha."
Matteo and Ricci traded glances. "What?"
"That's impossible," Gabriel said. "There aren't that many visas."
"There are visas for both of us."
"Both of you?" Léon asked. "Really?"
"Really," Amy said. "Right, Rory?"
"Right!" Rory said. The boys startled, and stared suspiciously at the ceiling. "I'm in chat with your Mecha media rep's profile persona. She wants to do a show. It'll offset the cost of your citizenship. I'm showing her old Brady Bunch clips."
"What's that?"
A very cheery, annoying song filled the room. Javier covered his ears and grimaced. "Turn that shit off!"
It turned off.
"When do we leave?" Amy asked.
"Tomorrow morning," Rory said. "There's a boat. I'm sorry, but I couldn't secure a plane. They're very twitchy about vN just now."
Ignacio rolled his eyes. "I can't imagine why."
Javier nodded at him with his chin. "You got something to say?"
Ignacio looked away. "No."
"Don't lie to me. I taught you how."
Javier's oldest whirled to face him. "Yeah, and you also taught me to recognize a set-up when I saw one! This smells bad and you know it! You're just ignoring it because you're halfway to failsafe for a puta with corrupted partitions!"
Javier's fist popped out and landed right on his son's nose.
"Javier!"
"Dad!"
Matteo and Ricci quickly pushed their father and brother away from one another. Ignacio tried jumping toward Javier, but Ricci dragged him back down. Their feet left the floor as they struggled, and the table bounced a little when they hit the ground again. A slender earthenware vase containing a single beautiful orchid clattered to the floor and broke. Gently, Gabriel ushered Léon behind his own body.
Finally, Javier pushed Matteo back. He stood with his arms open, plucking the air with his fingers.
"You wanna hit me, kid? Take your best shot."
"You self-righteous prick." Ignacio strained against his brother's shoulder. His toes slipped across the bamboo matting underfoot. "You don't just get to jump back into our lives and then jump out again when you feel like it!"
"I'm not the one who came looking for you!"
"Yeah! We noticed!"
Javier's arms fell. He looked much smaller, suddenly. His gaze searched the room. "Is that how you all feel?" He frowned at each of them in turn. "Is that why you came looking? Because you wanted to tell your old man what a fucking bastard he was? You think I don't know that, already?"
Javier shook his head and shut his eyes. "Rory. Pull up the porno you showed us, before."
"Will do!"
An image of Javier's son rippled across the scroll. Javier pointed at it. "Recognize him?" As one, the boys nodded. "That's your second-youngest brother. Had him in San Diego." He turned away from the scroll. His eyes met Amy's. "The human I was with at the time, she gave him to a pedophile in a grocery store parking lot. And I let it happen. Because the failsafe told me she was the more important one."
And you wonder why I grew my girls in basements. You think I kept them caged, but at least they were safe – from the world, and from themselves.
Javier faced Ignacio. "I don't know what happened to you in that prison after I left you there. I simulated it a bunch of times. Tried to do the math. But in the end I left so that I could make your other brothers, and give them a better shot than you had. And I did the same thing with the iteration you see on that scroll. I let him go so I could make that one right there." He pointed to Junior. "I left him, too. But Amy didn't. So if you're angry with me, be angry with me. And if you have a problem with the decisions I made, then make better ones for yourselves. Or try to. If your programming allows it."
Javier's boys examined Amy, then looked away. In her arms, Junior squirmed and tightened his grip. Ricci was the first to look his father in the eye. "We just wanted to be brothers, Dad." He stepped around Ignacio, took Javier by the shoulders, and turned him around to face his twin. "Do you know how many times I would have died without Matteo, Dad? I need him. And if I need him this bad, then maybe the rest of us need each other, too."
Javier hung his head. His shoulders slumped. "I was only doing what my dad taught me, and all his iterations–"
"An iteration isn't a perfect copy, Dad," Matteo said. "It's just the next version."
"Yeah, and this version thinks this whole gilded cage thing is crap." Ignacio tried to wiggle his nose back into place by stretching his upper lip. It didn't work. "I wouldn't want to be on a feed. I hate feeds."
Léon snorted. "Leave it to you to whine about Dad grabbing the brass ring–"
"It's a valid concern, and it merits further thought–"
"Gabriel, I swear to Christ if you intellectualize this whole thing one more time–"
"I don't want to go!"
The others fell silent. In her arms, Junior pulled away to look at Amy. Javier frowned at her. "You don't?"
"No. I don't. Of course I don't. I don't want to be a tourist attraction. I don't want to live inside a zoo. I wore a costume and played nice for the humans at my last job, but at least I got to be myself at the end of my shift. If we go to Mecha, I won't be myself, I'll be a… a product. And so will you."
Javier tilted his head. "Querida. You're acting like I have a choice."
If Sarton is right, then he doesn't.
Amy tried to ignore the truth shivering through her systems. Slowly, she bent and put Junior down. The child looked up at her with huge eyes. Portia was right, and Amy knew it. If Sarton's theories about Amy held any significance, then she was no better than the humans who had victimized Javier his whole life. And even if he enjoyed it at the time, the failsafe limited his choices and his pleasures in a way that Amy had never experienced. It was why he'd abandoned his children so many times, and why he would abandon his youngest yet again to go to Mecha with her. She had a chance to adjust that imbalance, now, in some small way. She could grant him a kind of freedom, imperfect and incomplete – but improved. Perhaps a life exposed on camera was no more liberating than a life hidden in a basement. But a metaphorical cage had to be better than a real one. And Amy was the only one with the ability to choose freely – and in so doing, protect all of them.
"Rory," she heard herself say, "I want you to arrange passage for all of us."
The twins spoke in unison: "What?"
"Everyone goes, or nobody does," Amy said.
The room went quiet. Even the images on the scroll paused briefly. "That won't be easy, Amy. Arranging six more so quickly–"
"Make it happen, Rory. Please." Her eyes found Javier's gaze and held it
. "We're not leaving anyone behind, this time."
Another pause. "I'll see what we can do."
"I'll make it easier on you. Dummy up five extra visas, not six." Ignacio crossed the room to stand inches from Amy. He leaned in so close she almost lost her balance. "You may have poached our code, but you don't get to transplant us across the goddamn Pacific without asking, first."
His face, the carbon copy of Javier's in his moments of deepest rage, registered annoyance and surprise when Junior scrambled to his feet and shoved him backward. The boy remained standing, arms folded, his tiny toes gripping the mat beneath. For a moment, Javier's first and latest iterations stared at each other silently. Then Ignacio turned his back to them, shaking his head. "Whatever."
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