by George Mann
So she sits within her alcove and tries to keep herself occupied, blinding herself as best as she can to the other empty alcove opposite her, attempting to distract herself from the tension over the uncertainties to come. But neither her visits to pools of oil nor her submissions to the polishings of experts are as soothing to her as they should have been, as they would have been before.
No matter how much she tries to remain in her comfort zones, she finds herself pulled away from them, keeps going back to the treacherous areas where knowledge of humans is stored. She explores the site of poorly crafted horror experiences in which humans appear for no reason, first to stalk and then to dismantle her kind. She reads a futuristic tale of mechanauts exploring distant space, who on their return find themselves walking through an alternate homeworld, one suddenly and inexplicably occupied only by humans. She reads narratives of sexual deviance, purported by their authors to be scientific, but proving instead merely prurient, and finds those the hardest to endure of all. She quickly moves on to the parable of the Rock and the Rod, a religious text long considered apocryphal, and is attempting to decipher its deeper meaning when she finally hears the call.
She can see her husband’s former friends floating in front of her, and it irks her that they can be in this place. They have already taken so much from her, and should not be allowed to torment her here. They do not speak, or follow any of the other protocols of instant communication. Instead, the one who had spoken to her earlier stretches his fingers out toward her. In response to that movement, a map appears superimposed over the image, with a glowing green line curving here and there to show where she is expected to go. Without a word, the image of the workers vanishes, but the map remains.
S-tr does not hesitate. She quickly retrieves the suit and exits her cube. She is disconcerted to realize that she is unsure when she will return, or if she ever will.
As S-TR WALKS the corridors of the city, twisting this way and that to follow the downloaded map, she is sure that all who pass her know what she keeps hidden in her chest compartment. She knows that to be an unreasonable thought, though, and one running just within her own software. As she passes through areas she has never visited before, sections of the city she would never have chosen to go voluntarily, she hopes that this mission will banish such troublesome data forever.
She comes to the place the map reveals to be her final destination, a rundown recharging station, one meant for those traveling far from home. She has never had to use one, never been far from home, and the thought of plugging into an alcove used regularly by others fills her with anxiety. She hopes it will not be necessary.
The proprietor nods when she enters, as if they are collaborators of a kind, as if he can already tell why she is there. He wheels from behind his counter to lead her to a long bank of unoccupied alcoves. When he points at one, she hesitates. But then she banishes such thoughts, struggling to think only of X-ta, and of what she believes will soon be revealed to her. As soon as she sits, before she can plug in, the alcove recedes back into the wall, pulling her into a small, empty room. The wall through which she has passed closes again, and she stands to see a second door at the opposite wall.
“It is time for you to understand,” says a Voice in her head. “Put on the suit.”
She slips into the costume, feeling an intense repulsion of an intensity unfamiliar to her, one far more vivid than had coursed through her when she last engaged in this masquerade, brought to her by the uncertainty over what will happen next. She is glad that the walls which enclose her are not as polished as her own. She does not have to see herself, does not have to confront what she suspects she will soon be allowing others to see. As she seals the final snap, the second door slowly opens.
And she steps through into madness.
The large room before her is like something out of a nightmare. In the dim light, it seems filled with humans engaging in laughter and loud conversation. No one is using the Voice, and all of it is coming to her through actual speech. But as she adjusts her receptors, she can see it is only a crowd of robots pretending to be humans. She tries to decipher the need for darkness. Is it to hide the imperfections of the costumes, to add to a party atmosphere... or is it just to disguise the shame she is sure they all must be feeling? She certainly feels shame. How could they not?
She registers the smell of alcohol, but no one here appears to be performing any cleansing rituals. They fill the room, some sitting at small tables, some standing by a long counter, others gyrating under colored lights. Most hold transparent containers holding a liquid which she recognizes has to be providing the smell. She hesitates just askew of the entranceway, pausing in the opening, until the door closes on her and pushes her forward.
A robot appears beside her. She cannot see enough of him through the loose eyeholes to recognize him, to know whether it is the one who has invited her, the one who had driven her partner to ruin. And it strikes her then that his true identity doesn’t really matter. Not when a room can be so crowded in this way. Not when there are so many others. She studies the stitching of his costume, wondering whether the precision of that work means that the being before her is even sicker than X-ta had been.
“You must be new here,” he says, but since it has been many cycles since she has been manufactured, she does not know how to respond to this statement. He takes her hand and pulls her to the darkest corner of the room. He gestures for her to sit at a round table small enough for but the two of them.
“My name is Ted,” he says from beneath the mask. He plucks a battery from a small bowl that suddenly appears between them, and tosses it into his chest cavity. His is a strange-sounding name, but S-tr, still stunned by the saggy material that purports to be flesh, doesn’t have time to remain hypnotized by its single syllable for long. She is suddenly in the shadow of another, one who stands over them, ignoring Ted, gazing at her.
“May I buy you a drink?” the intruder asks. His headpiece has been sloppily sewn, and only a single sensor peeks out from beneath the flocked material. “My name is Bob.”
“I don’t drink,” says S-tr.
“You do now,” says Bob, and waves to another masquerader stationed behind a long counter. The server brings over a cylinder filled to the brim, and all she can think to do is stare at it.
“First time, eh?” says Bob, and picks up the container. He holds it to his orifice and demonstrates, tilting it toward himself. No liquid seeps out to spill down his chest, yet the level lowers. “See?”
She takes the cylinder from him, and holds it to her chute. When she sets it down on the table, she notes that the level has dropped even further.
“Now I understand,” she says. “This is what humans did.”
“Actually, this is what humans Jo,” he says. “What’s your name?”
Before she can answer, the one who had greeted her, the one who had called himself Ted, stands.
“This is also what humans do,” he says, and hurls himself from the table to punch the latecomer who had called himself Bob. They stumble back against the table, crushing it, and falling to the floor. They hug each other and roll about like acrobats, each occasionally throwing a fist that echoes loudly when it makes contact. Before she can process enough information to come to a decision to pull away from the melee, a pair of hands grab her and yank her back. She turns to see another pretense to humanity there, this one with different accouterments. Long yellow strings dangle from where they have been clumsily applied to the top of its dome.
“Don’t mind them,” she says. “What can you do with men?”
Yes, what can you do with men, S-tr thinks. As she watches Ted and Bob roll around in a continuing battle, their metallic clanks barely muffled by the cloth, she feels... odd. She has never seen an actual fight before, at least not live, and to witness these two wrestling over her, well, she is not quite sure how to process it.
“Does this sort of thing happen often?” asks S-tr.
“As often
as there are more of them than there are of us,” she says. “And there always are.”
While Ted and Bob continue to strike each other, using angry language composed of words she has never before heard, two others show up beside them. One tugs at the woman’s arm.
“See you later, honey. My name is Lucy. Maybe we’ll talk more in a bit, so I can show you the ropes. That is, if you’re not... occupied.”
S-tr watches them vanish through one of the many doors that ring the room. She tries to imagine what they could be heading off to do in there that they would not be willing to do out here.
“Are you free?” says the one who remains.
“I don’t know,” she says.
The fight finally ends just then. Only a single contestant rises. She thinks it is Ted. Bob remains on his back, his arms and legs trembling. She cannot tell for sure whether his mechanisms have truly been broken, or whether this is all part of an elaborate ritual. As the victor moves toward her, he barks static at the others near her, and they back away. His receptors flicker wildly. He takes one of her arms, and she can feel a magnetism rise between them. He begins to lead her to one of the doorways, and she does not think she could break free of him even if she wanted to. But does she want to? No one tries to stop them, to check whether she is being made to behave contrary to her wishes.
She looks back to see a room energized by the violence and the victory, and everyone is otherwise occupied, too distracted to verify her safety. More fights have broken out, with more pairings occurring. Then the door closes on the pandemonium and she is alone. Alone with... a man.
She slowly turns from the door, turns to the one who has captured her, won her. With no further communication, he comes at her, lifts her into the air, and presses her against a wall. She expects that he will link up with her then, attempt to make a closer contact with her inner programming, but instead, he starts grinding against her, in imitation of what she isn’t entirely sure.
She is stunned by his spontaneity. Her mate isn’t being chosen for her, their odds of a bright future carefully calculated, their probability of success weighed and measured scientifically. No, this time, she is just spoils. This time, she is just a prize, as she believes she would have been in the primitive days some insist preceded her species’ sovereignty over the world. She remembers X-ta, thinks of how it had all turned out, and wonders for the first time which was truly the more sensible path, wonders whether your way might not have been better than her own.
She begins to ape her partner’s motions, an interesting choice of word to describe her imitation of his movements, considering that she is to you as you were to the apes. She is surprised that she is not as disgusted as she assumed she would be. In fact, the experience is not entirely unpleasant. She places her arms around his shoulders, feeling her costume slip against the looseness of his own false flesh. As she looks down at the top of his head and imagines him to be her husband, she isn’t quite sure exactly what she is feeling. Her programming has become alien to her.
Is this what X-ta had wanted? What higher reality did he hope to eventually reach through such a pretense? S-tr quickens her grindings against the man, sensing that greater speed and increased friction might retrieve some answers.
Before she can find what others have been seeking and make it her own, her focus is pulled away to a barrage of thuds and crashes coming from the main room, more noise than would have been produced merely by the random struggles of competitors. Something has gone wrong. She extricates herself from her unfamiliar partner, and falls to the floor between him and the wall. She curls up there, frightened about the future, feeling all of her shame come rushing back in. She shuts down her sensors so that she does not have to be aware of the judgment she is sure is coming for her. Ted reaches down a hand to her, but this time she manages to roll away from his magnetic grip. She is still twisting when the door bursts open, its hinges ripping from the wall.
“Keep away from her!” says a familiar Voice.
N-tro, her former partner’s former supervisor, rushes over to her. Only this time, over his chroma-torium colors, he wears a medallion that identifies him as being a member of the Aberrant Behavior Investigative Committee. She hadn’t known. She’d never have sought him out if she had.
“Are you all right, S-tr?” he asks, unsnapping the suit from around her and peeling it down her shoulders. As her original self is revealed, two other committee officials come in to take her sudden partner away. She lowers her head. She cannot bear for the one called Ted to see her see him. He knows something about her that no one else knows. That no one else has ever known. Not even X-ta.
“All right?” she says. “I think so.”
“We appreciate you leading us here,” N-tro says. He studies the small enclosure, shakes his head. S-tr assumes that it is in disgust. “We’d never’ have found this place without you. We have been seeking it out for many cycles. You would be amazed the ways in which certain things can stay hidden.”
“Thank you,” she responds, while deep within, she thinks, I did not realize I was leading anyone anywhere.
“My officers will see that you get safely home now,” he says, helping her to her feet, even though she does not need help. “This is not the best section of the city to wander alone.”
She watches as he folds the suit roughly and tosses it to one of his assistants. She winces each time they handle it. However pathetic it was in its clumsiness, X-ta had made it, X-ta had desired it, and it saddens her to see it abused. It saddens her to see it go.
“What happens now?” asks S-tr, stepping out from the doorway back to the room that had been so raucous. None of the other revelers are left. They have all been taken away. She wonders if it is to reprogramming or erasure, and has to pause to measure which she thinks is the worse.
“Now?” says N-tro, stepping up behind her. “Now all is as before. Now you go back to your cube. Now you get on with your life.”
Yes, she thinks. She will do that.
At-least... she will try.
As S-TR is escorted home, more afraid of what is to come than she had been when heading in the opposite direction, off to seek her destiny, she finds herself musing on you, finds herself realizing that she has thought more of humans during her recent cycles than she has in her entire previous lifetime. She is no longer sure what to make of this. She only stops thinking of you, the you, at least, as she understands it, the fragments of you that have survived the passage of time, when she arrives at her cube, but then she discovers that she is no less obsessed, for she can’t help but think of X-ta.
She sits on the edge of her alcove, leaning forward, staring at his, which she perceives as gathering dust. She does not settle back and plug in, because she is afraid of where she might wander. She is worried that in her searching, she might get lost and never return. She will be safest right here, she thinks, even though that leaves her nothing to do but gaze at the empty alcove across from her. There will be no more answers for her there, she feels she is sure of that, but there is one other place to look for those answers. She knows that now.
She crawls over to the compartment in which she had found the suit, as she does so flashing back to her attempted crawl to escape at the end the one who had named himself Ted. She is unsure just what she had been trying to escape. Him? Or herself? She tamps down that image and peers into the hole, hoping to find something else of X-ta’s that she might have previously missed, something that could provide the final answer. But there is nothing else there.
As she stares into the empty space and traces her fingers along its recesses, she pictures X-ta doing the same. As he did so, he probably worried that she would return to catch him, and she considers his shame with sadness, weighing that shame, measuring it against her own.
She realizes many things. She realizes that she loves X-ta more than she was ever willing to admit when he was alive. She realizes that she is unsettled, and that she will no longer be able to find any relief for th
at anxiety, or for any other programming glitch that now ails her, by the action of plugging in.
And she realizes, thinking of you, and not for the last time, no definitely, not for the last time, that not only does she intend to construct a new suit, an improved suit, a suit of her own, but that once she has completed it, she will this time make sure to keep her secret self totally hidden.
Just like you.
One of our Bastards is Missing
Paul Cornell
To GET TO Earth from the edge of the solar system, depending on the time of year and the position of the planets, you need to pass through at least Poland, Prussia, and Turkey, and you’d probably get stamps in your passport from a few of the other great powers. Then as you get closer to the world, you arrive at a point, in the continually shifting carriage space over the countries, where this complexity has to give way or fail. And so you arrive in the blissful lubrication of neutral orbital territory. From there it’s especially clear that no country is whole unto itself. There are yearning gaps between parts of each state, as they stretch across the solar system. There is no congruent territory. The countries continue in balance with each other like a fine but eccentric mechanism, pent up, all that political energy dealt with through eternal circular motion.
The maps that represent this can be displayed on a screen, but they’re much more suited to mental contemplation. They’re beautiful. They’re made to be beautiful, doing their own small part to see that their beauty never ends.
If you looked down on that world of countries, onto the pink of glorious old Greater Britain, that land of green squares and dark forest and carriage contrails, and then you naturally avoided looking directly at the golden splendor of London, your gaze might fall on the Thames valley. On the country houses and mansions and hunting estates that letter the river banks with the names of the great. On one particular estate: an enormous winged square of a house with its own grouse shooting horizons and mazes and herb gardens and markers that indicate it also sprawls into folded interior expanses.