Mirror X

by Karri Thompson

  “A better place? How? Tell me.” I struggled to keep the panic from my voice.

  Michael bit his bottom lip and drew his hand away, making the game board teeter. “I can’t. I’ve already said too much, Cassie. I hadn’t planned to—”

  “What do you mean by too much?” I tossed my mini Liaison onto the bed and folded my arms. “Please, Michael. I want to know everything about this place—the people, the culture—everything.”

  He rubbed his chin, as if considering my request, took a deep breath, and tugged at his uniform collar, forcing the zipper to give an inch.

  I gave him my best imploring look.

  “Okay, but please, promise not to freak out or be weird or anything.”

  I nodded.

  The game board dropped into his hands. He folded it, placed it back in the box, and powered down the miniature Liaisons. Though they begged a good stretch, I kept my legs crossed, silently urging him to stay where he was instead of returning to the chair.

  “Well, six hundred years ago,” he said, taking my cue and remaining on the bed, “the planet was struck with a pneumonic epidemic, a plague, its airborne bacteria resistant to the strongest antibiotics known to man. Due to its four-week incubation period, the infection was worldwide before it was detected.” Through several fallen strands of hair on his forehead, I could see a vein pulse, and his voice shook as if the disease still lingered. “It killed over 50 percent of the Earth’s population.”

  “I already know about the plague. It’s been eradicated, right? Then why is it still such a big deal?”

  “Of course it’s been eliminated, and now there’s a vaccine to prevent it. The entire population is inoculated, including you, just in case. It’s considered a dead disease, but we want to make sure it stays that way.” Michael licked his lips. The vein on his forehead was no longer visible, but he was pale, and when he swallowed, I could hear it.

  “So then what happened?” I asked softly, keeping my uneasiness in check.

  “Then we recovered. The best we could. We adapted. We had to. The Earth is the only planet capable of sustaining life. Life doesn’t exist anywhere else except here. That’s why life is so precious.”

  “How do you know that we’re the only planet capable of sustaining life?” I countered as gently as I could.

  “Nothing was found to support those claims. Which is one of the reasons why we dropped our space program after the plague.”

  “No space program? You’ve got to be kidding.” Now that pissed me off.

  The idea of humans connecting with an alien race and sharing technology always fascinated me. Spending most of my life uncovering the past and hypothesizing about the world of the dinosaurs definitely kindled my curiosity about space travel and what it held for mankind. The thought of these prospects being abandoned made my stomach turn.

  “I know ancient fiction includes humans colonizing other planets, but it simply can’t be done. Humans visited every planet in this galaxy and found that we’re the only ones in this universe.”

  “Curiosity doesn’t exist in the thirty-first century? I know you don’t care about the past, but what about the future? Everybody keeps telling me to look forward and just forget about the past.” I didn’t bother to hide the anger in my voice.

  “Our curiosity didn’t die, it just shifted. Now we focus on what we still don’t know about the human race. Homo sapiens are the only intelligent life form that exists, so it’s our job to make sure that mankind continues to thrive. My life’s work is dedicated to this.” Michael squared his shoulders, forcing his tunic zipper to drop another inch, revealing the collar of a white undershirt.

  I’d obviously touched on a sore spot, but I couldn’t help myself. This world didn’t make any sense. “Dedicated to preventing another plague or bringing a girl back from the dead?” I asked, tightening my jaw. “What kind of hospital is this anyway?”

  “It’s a genetics hospital. The answer to your first question is both. If we were struck by another deadly disease, it could cut our population in half again—the recovery process was almost worse than the disease itself.” His eyes were serious and unblinking. “And it was very important for me to bring you back to life once you were discovered.” He released a breath, and his stiff body wilted.

  Calm down, Cassie. None of this is his fault. Don’t take it out on him. “What about spacecraft capable of traveling to other planets? Do they still exist?” I asked, my anger replaced with curiosity.

  “No, not anymore. There are high flyers, but they’re limited to the Earth’s orbit.”

  “And apparently, exploring the past is limited, too,” I said, deflated, dropping my chin to my chest.

  “Like I said before, our focus is on this point in time and in the future. We only examine the past if it’s relevant to what we’re doing now.” His licked his dry lips and the softness in his expression returned. “I know this must be hard for you to hear, especially since you grew up surrounded by people whose livelihood depended upon the past. And I respect that. I do.”

  His gaze met mine with a fervor that made my heart sail, sending another pleasant shiver through me despite my frustration with his world.

  I sat forward against my propped-up pillow, my anger softening, yet I still felt hollow.

  “Our ideologies have changed, Cassie,” he continued, “but this is also a safe, clean, and nurturing world. Think about it. For someone like you, living in the year 3025 will be like finding and exploring a lost world. There’s so much for you to see, and so many people here who care about you and appreciate you, and—”

  “And I appreciate you, too,” I said, narrowing the distance between us by lifting my back from my pillow. “But—”

  Michael straightened. “You asked me to explain why the plague’s still a big deal.” Sweat formed on his brow. “The human race survived the plague but it left us…scarred. Right now we’re continuing to cope with these losses with the work that’s being performed right here at this hospital,” he said with a hint of pride.

  Scarred? Did he mean physically, mentally, or maybe both? I sucked in a deep breath, ready to push him for more, but he glanced at his L-Band and rose from the bed.

  “I-I’m sorry, but I need to go. There’s somewhere I need to be right now.”

  “What? You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, slapping my palms against the mattress. “You can’t go. Not yet. What do you mean by scarred?”

  He put away the game and picked up the box. “I shouldn’t be the one to tell you anyway. It’s not part of the plan.”

  “What plan?” I screamed through my teeth. “Wait. I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” he said, lifting his head. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “For what?”

  But he was out the door before I’d finished shouting my question.

  Why was it a geneticist’s responsibility to wake me from the dead?

  The whole thing just didn’t make any sense, which made me more determined than ever to figure it out.

  Chapter Four

  “Good morning, Cassie,” Dr. Love said when she entered my room the next day.

  It wasn’t a good morning. I’d spent most of the night thinking about my mom, my grandfather, and of course, Michael—replaying our conversation in my head, back and forth, his turn, my turn, like a game of Ascendancy, and wondering exactly how the plague left these people scarred.

  So far, nobody I met looked scarred in any physical way, so what exactly was he talking about? There was no point asking Dr. Love about it. If Michael couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me, she wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me, either, and there was no sense getting mad about it all over again or getting him in trouble for mentioning it in the first place.

  Dr. Love gave me a considering look, like she could sense my bad mood. “You’re getting a massage this afternoon.”

  I immediately thought of Michael and drew in a quick breath. “By who?”


  “A public-service bot.”

  “Oh, you mean a robot?” Robots? Cool. Besides a hot doctor, at least there were some good things about this world.

  “Yes, we’ve shielded you from them until now. But Dr. Bennett thinks you’re ready to experience your first bot.” She set a tray of food, a meat dish with noodles, on my lap.

  As she handed me my fork, I noticed a peculiar ring on her finger. The metal was soft and silvery, shining like a muted crystal. At the top of the band where one would expect a gem, there was a perfectly shaped bird’s egg in miniature. Its surface was lightly frosted, giving it a matte appearance that glistened as she moved. “Your ring is so beautiful. And so unusual.”

  “Thank you. Eggs are so lovely, so perfect. It’s almost a shame to crack one open.”

  “Oh, I don’t have a problem with that. They taste way too good.”

  Dr. Love’s bottom lip stiffened.

  “So, um, what other kinds of patients are here?”

  “Mainly organ transplant patients, no one whose circumstances are as unique as yours.” She never stopped smiling, which was kind of creepy. “We’ve been cloning organs now for hundreds of years, but when it comes to genetics, there’s still a lot we don’t know.”

  “Cloning organs? That’s amazing.”

  She glanced at the table floating next to my bed. “Those flowers sure brighten the room,” she said. An arrangement of white, red, purple, pink, and yellow flowers burst from a triangular container, and in the center of blossomy goodness lay one perfect, creamy magnolia bud carefully positioned like a badge on a uniform.

  “Yeah, they do. They were here when I woke up. Do you know who brought them?” Please say Michael. My chest inflated.

  “I think Ella did.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed.

  “I saw her speaking to a GROW, a gardener bot, before she went home yesterday.” Her red lips parted into a smile. “Would you like to see a robot now, or do you want to wait until your massage?”

  “Oh, I’d love to see one now. When my grandfather retired, he became a self-taught roboteer. He made robots with spikes, daggers, rockets, and other surprise weapons and entered them in local robot-war competitions.”

  “Robots with exposed weapons and rockets?” She clapped her hand against her chest. “That sounds dangerous and expensive.”

  “Not really. When I say ‘robot,’ I’m talking about a remote-controlled metal box with wheels, weighing less than twenty-five pounds. I’m sure our robots were nothing like yours.”

  “I’ll go find a JAN for you now. I can’t signal the janitor bot from here. Facility keepers are the only ones with active remotes on their bands.”

  Dr. Love returned minutes later with a robot in tow. Its arms and legs were made from metal, but when it moved its jointed limbs and fingers, it was graceful instead of clunky. Its face, neck, and torso were covered with thick, peach skin. Overall, it bore a basic human shape without a lot of detail—definitely made for efficiency.

  “This is JAN. It’s actually one of our more primitive bots. Like GROW, it’s a limited-service bot programmed to complete a variety of specific tasks, and that’s it. There’re also public-service bots like RELAX, the massage and therapy bot you’ll see today. Because RELAX interacts with people, it looks more like a human. But robots will never be able to reason. We’re the only beings capable of advanced thought processes. That’s why life is so precious.”

  Dr. Love patted the bot on top of the head like it was a dog, and I dared to poke its rubbery cheek with my finger.

  So artificial intelligence was another thing the human race had abandoned.

  “Life is precious. I’ve been hearing that a lot,” I said after giving the bot’s face another poke and watching the spongy material bounce back into place.

  “That’s because it’s true.” There was an almost defensive tone in Dr. Love’s voice.

  It was true. So why did these people feel the need to repeat it like they were afraid they’d forget? Weird.

  Dr. Love’s smile reappeared when I nodded in agreement. “RELAX will be here soon. Enjoy your massage.”

  Just after Dr. Love left with JAN, a heavy knock and a ding echoed through my room. I straightened my back and brushed my fingers through my hair, hoping for Michael, but when the door slid open, a young guy carrying a small box entered instead.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” I said, trying not to look disappointed as I pulled my blanket up to my chest.

  “I’m Magnum, technician, tier two. I’m here to activate your L-Band. No bots until you’re L-Banded.” Magnum had a big, schoolboy grin, so he looked close to my age. It was impossible not to smile back at him.

  His facial features were small—small nose, small eyes, thin lips, but his smile was wide. He was five-foot-nine or ten, and very masculine in a boyish way.

  He pulled back the cuff of his navy uniform sleeve to expose the thick black band encircling his wrist. It was about an inch-and-a-half thick and looked almost spongy to the touch. “This is an L-Band, or Liaison Band. You’ve probably seen one before. Everybody wears one.”

  “Yeah. What exactly does it do?” I asked with a hesitant smile.

  “Oh, many, many things.” Magnum lifted the lid to the lacquered box he was holding and pulled out my L-Band. “First of all, and most importantly, it’s a communication device. You can talk to anyone in the world using this. You can view written text, diagrams, photographs, movies, the list goes on, and link to any database. Oh, and it’s also a locator.” He lifted his eyebrows and smiled. “You can find anyone in this building, and they can find you.”

  Yeah, but was that a good thing, or a bad thing?

  “You need to wear this in order to interact with bots. If RELAX came in right now, it would see you as another object in the room, something it couldn’t interact with. With this on, you can speak to any robot, and it will even recognize you by name. I just need your right wrist.” Magnum held the L-Band like a prize, delicately and with pride.

  I hesitated and then lifted my arm. “But what if…?”

  With one quick movement, Magnum fastened the L-Band to my wrist. The material shrank, drawing itself in until it was snug against my skin, and I gasped, pulling my hand from his loose grip.

  “Each L-Band is specific to its wearer,” continued Magnum, oblivious to my half-question and rising panic. “This L-Band has been programmed with all of your personal information, including medical records, and it’s automatically updated when new information is added to the main database.”

  I turned my hand back and forth, trying to find the place where the two ends joined but couldn’t find it. “How do you take it off?”

  “You don’t.” He smiled, but his tone was serious.

  “Why not?” The flat, square surface embedded in the fabric stayed perfectly still when I moved, but the material around it flexed and stretched.

  “There’s no reason to take it off. You can’t function in our society without one.”

  “But—”

  “I know you’re not used to maintaining a constant interpersonal connection with a regional network, but believe me, there are more advantages than disadvantages, and there’s no getting around it. Once you’re banded, you’re banded, and there are no exemptions—not even for our presidents. Everyone wears an L-Band.”

  I had to wear it, but I didn’t have to like it. “How do I make it work?”

  “It’s not activated, yet. Here.” Magnum tapped his L-Band. “I’m the only one who can do this.” He beamed with pride, his stubble-free cheeks dimpled, and he squeezed his eyes almost shut. He was not in charge of waking the dead or fighting a plague, but he obviously enjoyed the power he had when it came to Liaison Bands.

  The sound of a soft beep and a short vibration, and then a flash of color stimulated the muscles in my wrist as the L-Band sparked to life.

  “Do you want the sound on or o
ff?”

  “Ah…on is fine, I guess.”

  “Well, there you go. Your L-Band has limited functions at the moment, but it’ll eventually be expanded. In the meantime, go ahead and explore. You can’t break it, and you can’t accidentally call me at three in the morning or hack into confidential records.” Magnum grinned.

  “Um, actually, I probably won’t be calling anybody.” I sighed. Who the heck would I call? “Besides, I’d rather explore this hospital. Now that I’m banded, I can leave my room. Show me how to request a wheelchair.” A light tap to my L-Band’s screen made it glow a soft, rippling blue.

  “Now hold on.” Magnum laughed. “I know you must be anxious to leave this room, but to do so, you’ll need more than an active L-Band. You’ll also need permission from someone a lot higher up than me.”

  “Who? Michael—Dr. Bennett? I’ll call him right now.” Did I dare? Yeah, why not? He promised to take me to the botanical garden when I was ready.

  Magnum searched the walls like he was looking for obscuras and took a short breath before he spoke. “Actually, it goes beyond Dr. Bennett.”

  “To who?” Michael was my doctor. He should’ve been able to make that call.

  “You’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, if you have any questions about how to use your L-Band, just touch the screen and say my name.” He glanced at his own band and smiled. “Hey, your bot’s here, right on time.”

  There was a double ding as the door slid open to reveal RELAX. It walked forward and froze at the side of the bed, its rubbery body clothed in a tight-fitting, gray jumpsuit.

  “Good morning, Cassie. I am RELAX, a massage and therapy robot. I have been programmed to aid in your rehabilitation,” it said in a voice that could almost be mistaken for a human.

  Great. I hoped I’d enjoy this. I needed something to make me forget I was now tethered to a supposedly scarred world with robots, spying obscuras, and a master computer that recorded my every move. This was way too 1984 for me. I had to find out what was up with this world. And that’s what I planned to do once I regained my strength.