Trifecta

by Pam Richter

"Describe the animals that were hunted," Sabrina said.

  "Small furry animals. Like little rabbits, squirrels and some birds. But sometimes very large animals too. I think we hunted mammoths. But some things we did not hunt. The big scavengers were not good to eat. Like the big cats. And wolves. But deer and elk..." Eve nodded.

  "What was used to kill the animals, Eve?"

  "Big clubs. Sometimes rocks for the small animals. But the memory world is very different. Now there are roads, houses, telephone poles and big buildings. But my older memory does not contain these things. The world was not populated with many people. There were forests and fields and it was very green, not gray and brown. Water came directly from streams. There were huge mountains with white tops. The sky was a big empty circle around everything and it was endless. And the country was endless. It was...tranquil. Beautiful. Nice."

  Eve opened her eyes.

  Mark muttered, "Racial memories. You know, like that psychologist, Jung, postulated."

  "Maybe Eve has access to parts of the brain that are not available to most people," Sabrina said.

  "Eve," Mark said. "Sabrina and I want to go for a ride in the car, like we did last night. We'll be back soon."

  Sabrina was surprised and thought Mark was being very abrupt. She knew Mark would try to get her away from Eve again tonight.

  * * * * *

  EVE'S JOURNAL: Sabrina and Mark just went out for a drive. It is late and I should sleep. Sleeping frightens me, though, so I decided to write. I keep having dreams. It's scary because I remember the dreams and, from what I understand, humans do not. Dreams are so illogical that it is terrifying and I don't want to go to sleep until my body insists. Then I wake after an hour or two, so afraid, and I have to tell myself that I just had a dream and of course everything was unreal. But sometimes I have trouble telling what is real and what is not. I'm getting better at it, though. The locations change very rapidly in dreams. Dreams are like switching channels very fast on a television, living in one program for a little while and then suddenly being switched elsewhere. Another brain channel.

  Also, in reality, one has choices, but during a dream one is caught in dream circumstances, totally helpless, without a chance of getting away until it is over. My computer logic and genius can't help me.

  My thoughts are so fast that it is hard to move my hand and pen quickly enough, but maybe I will be able to understand what is happening to me better if I write it all down. There are great precedents. It is supposed to be a psychic brain catharsis.

  Ferd said he had me for five months before the growth hormones were injected. At the time, my eyes were turning brown. Now they are a very light blue, from the copy of Sabrina's eyes. That was a part of one dream. I saw enormous brown eyes turn a light blue suddenly and it was quite frightening. It is something I don't want to think about, but my mind keeps turning back to the visual memory.

  I wish was not the first of my kind so that I would better understand what is happening. In the beginning, (not in the biblical sense) everything was so interesting. I was learning so much, and I am still learning and that portion of my being alive is quite fulfilling. Ferd was teaching me to read and I read everything I could get my hands on, and I did not sleep and have dreams for a while. Or maybe I did sleep, but it was like being unconscious and I did not have dreams I remembered, although I must have slept sometimes, having once been a human baby.

  I don't think of myself as human now. And just as I am forgetting that I am human and think of myself as a live computer, I start getting these confusing emotions.

  Funny tonight. I could see that Mark was extremely repelled by me and I felt so bad. Sad. It was a very illogical emotion, but I felt so much that I wanted him to be my friend. I guess some of that comes from Sabrina's feelings for Mark. If Mark felt for Sabrina the way he feels about me it would totally devastate her. I want Mark to like me because of Sabrina's emotions that I have incorporated because of her memories and thoughts.

  I am trying to be good. I am trying to do what Ferd told me to do. I obey. I act like humans. I have found that if I don't blink for a long time my eyes do tend to get irritable and pink, so I am trying to remember to do that all the time. That is supposed to be an autonomic reflex and I wonder why it is not so for this computer. Which leads me to wondering about this body. I think parts of the experiment went wrong. The eyes not automatically blinking is just a symptom of many things that are wrong with the body.

  I did inherit the fear of death. I don't want this body to fail me and to die, and on the other hand I am so afraid sometimes that I think it would be nice to be in the state of oblivion. When I try to think of how to kill this body, I don't think it would be as hard as Ferd thought it would be. I would hurt the body very badly and then not take any sustenance for a while. I would probably have to hurt it repeatedly for a while. Even the word hurting does not fit me, because I don't hurt. But I don't think it would take very long because my body needs lots of fuel in the form of any type of calories, but especially fuel that my body can use immediately. So I think I could hurt myself and then starve pretty easily, if I decided to do so. Death might be just like fainting. Or losing consciousness when there was not enough energy to keep the brain functioning.

  On the other hand, Ferd says not to hurt the body or the computer, and I really don't want to. I don't think so yet, anyway. And there is the awful thought that maybe the computer would be alive after the body was dead.

  I keep using the word I. I am Sabrina.

  I am starting to understand humans better now from the hormones I am receiving from Sabrina's body. When I hurt myself with the knife to show Mark how I healed and Sabrina cried I did not understand it. Now I do. Which is also irrational. Why should I care what she thinks of me? But if Sabrina hurt herself I would be sad because she seems to like me and I don't think anyone else does. Maybe Ferd did when I was a baby, and now he is proud of my intellect. I don't understand why Sabrina would like me, but she does. I know that it's just emotions, and the whole reason for having them seems terribly unreasonable. I mean, what is the point? They upset the body and the mind and make people do silly and strange things. But it is also something pretty wonderful that humans have. The way they care about each other, and take care of each other.

  When I read about human behavior in novels it always seems that humans are doing things because uncontrollable emotions take over. They get angry and want revenge and a lot of people tend to get killed. Or they fall in love for some unknown reason, probably because the bodies attract, or some such nonsense, and they always seem attracted to the wrong people. They get married and are miserable and make other people miserable. Or, the ultimate derangement, they fight for some cause, and again, lots of people get killed.

  But I guess without emotions the race would die out because why tend to babies if they are not loved. They are an awful lot of trouble, evidently. When Ferd told me about how he took care of me, it seemed staggering that he would go to so much trouble for a small person who could not converse intelligently or provide any kind of brain stimulation. He said I was cute, but is that any reason to go through all that labor?

  And even I contemplated getting revenge for Sabrina because that awful family threw her out of their home at the age of six. She was so sad. I haven't decided whether I will do anything about that. Now it seems rather pointless. There is no equation. No equals to equal another equal. In other words, I can't think of a proper revenge. Or that it would benefit Sabrina, now, in any way.

  Breaking the bones of the two men with Ferd was a good revenge for their intention to kill Sabrina. But it was only temporary. Killing them would be better. But then Ferd would be sad because they are his sons, and evidently Sad is very painful and he said not to hurt. It seems hurting has to do with emotions as much as it has to do with the physical body, and I do not understand yet which is worse. Physical pain or emotional pain. The problem is that I don't know if I will ever understand. I can't feel physical pain a
nd I don't understand emotional pain.

  I have to learn to use the computer. I want it to automatically take over human behaviors so I don't have to worry all the time if I am acting properly. Ferd told me that if I am polite I can probably get through any situation. That means I must learn to be courteous, well mannered and respectful. As opposed to rude, discourteous and insulting.

  Ferd told me that soap operas do not teach this, because I was studying TV behavior. Seems people do an awful lot of arguing, disagreeing and being unhappy on soap operas, which is not terribly polite or even very typical of human behavior from what I understand now.

  It seems people try to hide their emotions as much as possible in real life, so maybe it won't be so hard for me, since I don't tend to have many yet anyway. Except in my dreams.

  If that's what I have to look forward to, I would rather not.

  CHAPTER 11

  As Sabrina approached her bed in the darkened room she could see a lump in it, facing away from her. She jostled the bed a bit, purposely. Mark had never gone to sleep facing away from her before. He had never gone to sleep without kissing her good-night, and had certainly never before worn pajamas. He was pretending to be asleep.

  "What's wrong?" Sabrina whispered.

  "Nothing."

  "Come on."

  "I don't like whispering and knowing she can hear us through the walls."

  "She's probably asleep by now."

  "Just like me."

  "I'll check and see." Sabrina threw back the covers.

  Mark put his hand on her arm, stopping her, "It's okay. I just don't feel like doing anything."

  Sabrina lay down on her back next to Mark and sighed. It was going to be a long night. He wasn't being fair about Eve at all. Sabrina could tell Eve was trying to behave, trying to act like a real person. After all, she was only a few weeks old.

  "I keep seeing your face, and it's eating gory, bloody meat. Then crunching on that enormous bone."

  Sabrina turned over and reached for the bedside lamp. She threw back the covers. "Look at me."

  "Why?"

  "My face is up here." She waited until he was looking in her eyes. "Eve doesn't look that much like me."

  "Oh, come on! She's an exact duplicate of you. Even your expressions. She's got them down pat."

  "No really, Mark. When you look closely at Eve, she looks like she wasn't finished. She has no wrinkles. None."

  "Right. And you're a wrinkled old crone."

  "She looks like a younger version of me."

  "That's really not the point," Mark said.

  "What is?"

  "I don't know. Even with the black hair she looks exactly like you, to me. But maybe you're right, because I never do look directly at her. Because she stares so much. She's creepy."

  "She was trying to be nice to you tonight. Giving you her wine."

  "How does she know I like wine?"

  "She even knows when I have to go to the bathroom."

  "She gave it to me because she didn't like it."

  "No. She knew."

  "How do you know?"

  "She even tried to smile at you. And she never smiles."

  "Did you see how much she ate?"

  "She has to. And she was very polite about it. She really is trying, Mark. And she probably knows you don't like her."

  Mark pushed his black hair off of his forehead, frowning. "She freaks me out. I don't know if I don't like her. I do know that I don't want to be around her."

  "It seems that you, as a journalist, would want to know all about her."

  "What if she gets hungry tonight. What if she decides she needs more raw meat?"

  Sabrina threw back her head and laughed. Mark must have fantasies about Eve stalking them with the butcher knife so that she could satisfy some kind of blood lust.

  "It's not funny, Sabrina. I don't think she was totally satisfied with the amount she consumed."

  Sabrina made a great effort to be serious. "When I got her ready for bed, I told her to go ahead and eat anything she wanted if she got hungry."

  "I hope you mentioned she get it from the kitchen."

  "Mark!"

  "And did you see her face when she talked about the exhilaration of eating her kill. She began, at first, like it was a memory. But after a while she was saying 'we' hunted small animals. And 'we' hunted mammoths. Like she had been there, in actual fact. Very strange, Sabrina."

  "Maybe she does have racial memories, Mark." Sabrina leaned over to turn off the light.

  "Leave it on." He reached over and pulled her next to him. "I'm going to memorize every tiny wrinkle on your face."

  Sometime later, Sabrina and Mark were suddenly torn awake by a disturbance coming from the living room. They had fallen asleep with the light still on, and they looked at each other in startled panic. It sounded like someone being painfully tortured and slowly killed. Mark leaped to his feet beside the bed.

  "It's Eve," Sabrina said, jumping up and rushing out the door.

  "Wait," Mark said, but Sabrina was gone. He followed her into the living room, briefly wondering why women never listened to him.

  Sabrina turned on the light beside the couch and saw Eve shaking and crying, but obviously asleep. She had stopped screaming, but was sobbing and clutching her pillow.

  "Poor thing, she must be having a terrible nightmare."

  "Scared me to death," Mark said. He was still panting from the eerie thrill of waking to blood curdling screams.

  "We have to wake her," Sabrina said. "I'll get some syrup." She hurried into the kitchen.

  Mark knelt by the side of the couch. Eve really looked a little pathetic, crying like that. He reached out and tentatively touched her shoulder. He could feel the sobs vibrating through her body and he rubbed her shoulder and said, "Shh, Shh. You're fine. Everything is all right."

  Sabrina came back with the syrup and watched Mark. He kept talking to Eve and patting her shoulder. It seemed to help because Eve sighed, and her crying gradually subsided. She was still shivering uncontrollably.

  Eve finally opened her eyes, shook her head sharply, and focused on Mark. "I'm not used to dreams."

  "They can be frightening," Mark said.

  "Would you like some syrup?" Sabrina asked. It seemed silly now, like offering a baby a bottle to quiet it down.

  "Yes," Eve said. She sat up and reached for the syrup.

  "The dream will go away soon," Mark said, and watched Eve gulp from the pour spout.

  "I have a computer. I don't forget dreams. I remember all of my dreams from last night, perfectly. Tonight's also."

  Sabrina shuddered at the thought. She'd had some dreadful nightmares herself.

  "I guess I will have to get used to it. It's a part of the human condition."

  "Must have been plenty disturbing, the way you were screaming," Mark commented.

  "The best way to get rid of the scary ones is to think up a happy ending. Why don't you do that, Eve," Sabrina said.

  "I don't have an imagination. I will have to tape my mouth closed."

  Mark smiled and shook his head, "No."

  "Maybe adhesive tape."

  "Too uncomfortable," Sabrina said. "Tell us about the dream and we'll think of a good ending for you."

  "Do you want to be scared?" Eve asked, quite seriously.

  Sabrina nodded and did not smile. It was a yes sign, and Eve always obeyed, so she started talking.

  "I was thinking, but everything was black. I could not see. All blackness, even though I knew my eyes were open. Then I was trying to move my legs, but they would not budge. Same thing happened with my arms. I had never known existence like this. My sense of direction said that I was lying down and that I could not see because there was no light. Then I realized I was dead. I was buried and the computer was still working. I was hoping that the computer would cease functioning because it was too horrible to be dead with nothing but computer thoughts to repeat endlessly. A total vacuum that would go on forever.
I had a panic attack, frantically trying to move all my muscles, but they wouldn't even twitch."

  As Sabrina watched Eve, she was sure that Eve was horrified by the dream, but there was absolutely no expression on her face. She recited the dream as though it was a rather uninteresting documentary.

  "It dawned on me that I would never see or hear or....and then I realized that I loved to live. I was not breathing and knew it was true. The body was dead. And the brain was dead too. All the thoughts were repeats. From my life before the death. No happy surprise thoughts. No Sabrina Thoughts. Then I was experiencing the emotion of sadness. All alone forever.

  "Then suddenly I was walking in a forest. A dream change. There were trees that had such thick, dark green tops, that you could only see a little sky through the foliage. Like a rain forest. It was such a relief from the previous dream, but I did not know where I was. I walked around a tree trunk and that's when I saw the creature. It was standing on its hind legs, hunched over me. I had almost bumped right into it, and I was so close I could feel the big, hot exhales blast me. I felt compelled to look up at its face, but first I saw the arms and hands. Tiny in comparison to the size of thing. And it had thick course hairs on the arms. The body was shiny brown and hairless and segmented in three pieces, with each part nipped in very skinny. There were six legs. The bottom two were very large and I realized that the thing was actually sitting because the knees came up past the arms and were also covered with course hair, as thick as one of my fingers. But the face..."

  Here Eve stopped and took a big breath.

  "It was revolting. The head was on a long thin neck, so scrawny that it looked too delicate to support the large head. It had a big lantern mandible. Antennae were sticking out of the top of it's head and they were twitching. But the eyes were the worse, because when I looked into them I could see absolutely nothing...like there was positively no intelligence. Just a hungry killer. They glittered black and protruded on stalks which moved down to look at me. The eyes were long and slanted upward, composed of hundreds of tiny lenses. Very shiny black and very alien and so frightening. I don't know why I was scared because I know about all types of insects. And usually they don't harm you. Oh some can hurt you, like scorpions and some spiders. Even mosquitoes, which suck blood and can pass diseases like malaria. But this thing terrified me.