by Sarah Zettel
“She needed to know, Chena,” said Aleph, and for a moment Chena was really afraid the thing had read her mind. “You are still hers, as well as mine.”
“I am not yours,” whispered Chena harshly. “I will never be yours.”
“No,” said Aleph. “Of course not. I misspoke.”
Chena’s fingernails dug into her palms. She could taste blood from where she’d bit down on her lip. “Are you going to let me talk to Sadia?”
“Not now, no.”
Chena couldn’t believe it. She could not believe it. This thing, these people, who did they think they were? God’s own gardeners? “So take me back to my damn cage, why don’t you?”
“It’s not a cage, Chena.”
“Of course not.” She bit the words off. “I misspoke, Mother Aleph. Forgive me.”
If Aleph understood sarcasm, it didn’t say anything. The arrow reappeared for her and Chena followed it, keeping her eyes pointed toward the floor and ignoring the world beyond the arrow and the tips of her shoes appearing and disappearing from her field of vision as she walked.
I don’t know what you think you’re doing, she thought to Aleph as she walked. But you don’t get to do it to me. I will figure you out, and then you will do what I say. You’re just a machine and I will figure you out.
That thought rang around her head all the way back to the maze.
Mom waited for her in the tiny common area that lay between their bedrooms.
“Mom,” said Chena as she walked over the arrow without waiting to see what it would do next. “I don’t know what that thing’s been telling you, but all I wanted to do—”
Mom put her fingers to her lips, signaling Chena to hush. Chena closed her mouth reluctantly. Mom smiled, just a little. She looked tired. Chena felt involuntary tears prickle her eyes. It wasn’t fair. They went and upset Mom over nothing, and now she was going to get one of the quiet talking-tos that were a thousand times worse than any shouting match could be.
But Mom just extended her hand. In her fingers, she held Chena’s comptroller.
Chena stared at the miniature computer for just a second. Then she clutched at it and looked up at Mom, her mouth open to say thank you. Mom made the hush gesture again and took Chena’s hand. She led them both into Chena’s little sleeping alcove and sat down on the bunk. Mom patted the mattress. Chena took the hint and sat.
Mom held out her hand and Chena put the comptroller into it. Mom’s face tightened as she worked the keys, crouching over them as if hiding the comptroller from somebody, but there was still a little smile playing around her mouth.
She held the comptroller out for Chena. Chena took it and scrolled back the message Mom had entered. Mom shaded the screen with her hand.
Yes, Chena read. Aleph has been talking to me, and I am ignoring it. You go ahead and do what you want to.
Then it dawned on Chena what her mother was doing. She was hiding the comptroller from somebody. Aleph. Chena smiled her understanding to her mother and hunched over the comptroller herself, working the keys carefully. She passed back to Mom, who cupped her hand around the screen and read Chena’s message.
How’d you get my comptroller back?
I told them I was upset by the fact you had absolutely no privacy, read the message Mom gave back to her. They do not want me upset. Stress will be bad for whatever they’re going to put inside me.
Chena did not want to think about the idea of something alien, someone alien, inside Mom. She squashed her thoughts and concentrated on keying in the next message. Funny, I used that to get them to let me see Sadia today.
I know, was Mom’s reply. But I think we’d better be careful how much we use that in the future. They might start splitting us up even more.
I didn’t know you noticed. Chena didn’t key that in, she just looked at her mother’s face. Mom nodded.
Chena ran her fingers lightly over the comptroller’s little screen before she keyed in a few words. Did you get Teal’s back too?
Again Mom nodded. Chena wiped the message, thought for a second, and then keyed in the important question. Before, Mom had wanted her to get along, had wanted her to behave in this new place and smile and be happy, just like Teal. What changed your mind about the hothousers?
Mom read the message and dropped her hands into her lap, staring at the bright oceans projected on the walls. Chena knew Mom was trying to decide how much to tell her. She wanted to yell, Everything! You tell me everything!
Mom keyed in some words and handed the comptroller to her. Chena read.
I don’t know, Supernova. Something is going on. When I find out what it is, I will tell you. The word “will” was highlighted.
We’ll find out what’s going on. Chena reached across and covered Mom’s hand with her own. We’ll get out of this, Chena promised her silently. As if she heard Chena’s thoughts, Mom wrapped her up in a tight embrace.
We will, Supernova, Chena knew her mother was thinking. Of course we will. I promise.
Lake Superior spread out at Dionte’s feet, as wide and black as the sky, reflecting the white light of the diamond-bright stars and the luminous sphere of the moon. It was a still night, with only a breath of frost-scented wind touching her cheeks and making tiny wavelets lap at the boardwalk’s posts.
“Guardian Dionte,” said a voice behind her.
Dionte turned. Silhouetted against the moon-silvered dunes stood a tall woman. In daylight her skin was probably golden. She wore her dark hair swept back and pinned under a kerchief. The sleeves of her tunic had been rolled up to expose her muscular forearms. As she folded those arms, Dionte noted her huge hands and their square-tipped fingers with the nails cut back all the way down to the quick.
“Lopera Qay,” replied Dionte, inclining her head. “If you’ll permit me to say so, you are very late.”
“If you’ll permit me to say so, I wanted to make sure you were alone.”
Dionte cocked her head briefly to one side. “I suppose I cannot blame you for not taking my word.”
“Especially when your people have just arrested a friend of mine.”
Dionte held up one finger. “You mean a front man of yours.”
“I never said such a thing,” replied Lopera calmly, brushing at a stray wisp of hair that fluttered in the light breeze. “And I never would.”
“I’m sure you would not.” Dionte tucked her cold hands into the long sleeves of her robe. The chill had ceased to be refreshing about a half hour ago; now it was just annoying. She could not, however, afford to show that annoyance to this woman. “Nonetheless, I need your help.”
Lopera leaned her forearms on the boardwalk railing and looked out across the lake, seeming to examine the way the moonlight tipped the tiny ripples in the black water. “Do you?”
“Over an extended period of time.” Dionte found herself admiring the way this woman said nothing that, even taken out of context, could incriminate her in any way. “For possibly as long as fifteen years or so.”
Lopera rubbed the palms of her great hands slowly back and forth. “That is a long time for a single project.”
“I would not expect you to work exclusively on my project, of course.”
“Of course.” The breeze freshened, touching the back of Dionte’s neck and making her shiver.
“You would of course be compensated across the length of time, and the amount and type of pay are negotiable.” Dionte stepped right up to the woman’s side. “And you and your associates would be completely free from the usual hazards.”
Lopera nodded once, her mouth pursed as if she were carefully thinking over what she had heard. Dionte could not read the expression in Lopera’s eyes, and had to resist touching the woman to try to understand what was going on inside her mind. She had over these past weeks gotten so used to knowing what Basante was thinking, not being able to read someone for herself made her feel numb. It was becoming hard to understand the others sometimes. No, not understand, but to empathize with them. The understandi
ng that came through her implant was so strong that everything else felt washed out and simplified by comparison.
She needed to adjust her enhancements. Soon. Before the new feelings became too strong for her.
At last, Lopera said, “And what would this project be?”
Dionte relaxed her shoulders. Given the reticence of this woman beside her, such a question was surely very close to agreement. All other troubles could wait until later.
“I need you,” said Dionte, “to help raise a child.”
CHAPTER TEN
Theft
Chena woke without protest to Aleph’s reminder bell. She took her shower and dressed in the green shirt and black pants that were the style Aleph preferred for her.
Today. Today’s the day.
The thought made her grin. She was still grinning as she brushed her hair and Mom emerged from her sleeping alcove.
They had been in the hothouse for eight months now. Mom’s belly was tight and round under her nightshirt. She shuffled when she walked, and her face alternated between puffy and red, and drawn and tired.
Aleph had compromised far enough that Chena actually got to see her every morning without having to go in and wake her up. After all, that might startle her or stress her, and they couldn’t have that.
“Morning, Supernova.” Mom reached out carefully and gave her a hug.
“Morning.” Chena laid a hand on Mom’s belly, to see if she could feel the thing inside moving this morning. “How does it feel?”
“Like being pregnant.” Mom smiled. “A feeling I have had once or twice before.” She squeezed Chena’s shoulder. They had become very good at communicating without words. She was saying, Soon, soon. We will get out of here.
Chena smiled in silent answer. Mom didn’t know what was happening today. Chena would find a way to tell her if it worked.
“I’d better get going,” was all Chena said out loud. “I don’t want to be late.”
“Neither do I.” Mom gave her shoulder one more squeeze before she headed into the shower cubicle.
That last was all for Aleph, or at least for the portion of Aleph that kept an eye on their little set of alcoves. One of the things Chena had learned over the past few months was that Aleph was not everywhere all the time. Aleph was a collection of subsystems that memorized patterns of behavior and action and matched them up against a sort of ideal flow of events. If the actual patterns came close enough to the ideal, the main processor that was Aleph did not pay any attention to what was going on. It was when there were variants that it was alerted. If you could figure out what the parameters of your expected patterns were, you could keep Aleph from noticing you for… forever, Chena supposed.
According to the history lessons they were getting in school, Pandora’s founders had thought that the way to solve the perpetual shortsightedness that humans exhibited toward their environment was to give them a companion that could remind them of their long-term goals. Such a companion would have to be an independent intelligence capable of making its own judgments, and it would also have to become integral to the life of the city, otherwise it could just be switched off like an outmoded computer. So they came up with the city-minds.
The trick was that Aleph, like all genuine artificial intelligences, was a learning machine. In this case, that meant it was taught by its experiences through its subsystems. If you taught Aleph and its subsystems in small enough increments, you could expand your pattern without raising an alert. But if you made too many mistakes, you could also teach it you needed watching.
Chena, however, had been careful, and that care had paid off. For instance, she could now go into Teal’s sleeping alcove every morning and leave a message on her comptroller. It had taken her five months to get this worked into the morning routine. At first Aleph stopped her as soon as she reached for Teal’s comptroller. But then Chena began just pausing in Teal’s doorway before she went out for the day. Aleph allowed that. After that, Chena took three steps into Teal’s room, and then three more, and then three more. It became routine, and as long as she conformed for the rest of the day, nothing happened. No voice chided her, no person showed up suddenly to jolly her along.
It took a long time, of course, and you had to plan very carefully, but Chena had a long time. Despite the classes, and the games, and the entertainments, she had very little that really occupied her, other than trying to get around the hothouse’s AI watchdog.
The other trick, of course, was that you couldn’t take too long at whatever you were doing. Being late for a scheduled activity was a sure way to get noticed. Chena tiptoed into Teal’s alcove and lifted her comptroller out from under her pillow. Quickly she coded in News coming today.
As Chena replaced the comptroller, Teal peeled open one eye, but didn’t say anything. Chena grinned at her.
It had been Teal who found out the nature of Aleph’s architecture and had in turn showed Chena how the hothouse system might really be beaten.
From their very first day, Teal had constantly kissed up to every single hothouser, even while Chena was trying to resist Aleph and Aleph’s system by sheer willpower. She sat silently in the counselor’s office. She participated only reluctantly in classes. Teal, on the other hand, jumped right in, as if she couldn’t wait to see what was coming next. Chena yelled at her about it and got hauled off to the counselor’s office. Aleph rearranged her schedule so she didn’t see Teal for a week. Then, all at once, Teal bounced into the library where Chena was supposed to be looking up details of the first wave of interstellar colonization from Old Earth. In reality, Chena was sitting in the chair with her arms folded, waiting to see how long it would be before Aleph or one of the teachers came to talk to her about her un-cooperative attitude.
“Come on,” Teal said. “I got you off.” She grabbed Chena’s hand and dragged her away from the reader and its rig.
“What do you mean, you got me off?” Chena pulled her hand out of Teal’s.
Teal looked at her like she was completely deficient. “Do you want to sit here or do you want out? Come on!”
There was only one answer to that. Chena followed her sister out into the twisting hallways. Teal hurried through the maze without even stopping to read the signs. Chena felt her ears burning. Teal had obviously had a lot more freedom than she did, to have learned her way around so well.
They emerged into one of the park gardens that dotted the maze. The hothousers kept themselves entirely indoors, but they had brought a lot of the outdoors in with them. The place was full of small trees and plants with fruit you could eat. The floor was a carpet of grass and moss, and a stream ran into a fish pond and out again. It reminded Chena a lot of one of the roof gardens in Offshoot.
Teal rummaged through the grass, picked a strawberry, and tossed it to Chena. Chena caught the berry reflexively and stared at it.
“Do you remember what Dad used to tell us about machines?” said Teal, sitting herself comfortably into one of the low, spreading tree branches.
“Are you out of your mind? That thing is listening.” Chena threw the strawberry at her.
Teal caught it easily. “That thing is not listening.” She grinned at Chena. “That thing only listens if you say its name or if you’re doing something it doesn’t approve of.” Teal popped the strawberry into her mouth. “And I made sure that this was something it approved of. I told the teacher that I would do my best to socialize you.” She grinned wider as she chewed, and Chena saw the soft red pulp staining her teeth.
“What do you know about it?” Chena demanded, feeling in the back of her mind that she had really missed something here.
“More than you.” Teal was enjoying this, and the sight of her grinning just made Chena more angry.
“You don’t know anything!” Chena stepped forward, her fist clenched. She was going to smack that grinning face. Teal was trying to screw up everything.
“Keep it down,” ordered Teal, slipping off the branch and standing right up to her
. “If you yell, it’ll be told something’s wrong.”
“Told by who?” Chena took another step forward and Teal stopped smiling. “You going to tell on me now?”
“Not me, space head,” said Teal, holding her ground. “The subsystem.”
Chena felt her forehead wrinkle. “What?”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you?” Teal flung out both her arms. “While you’ve been busy sulking and getting counseled to death, I’ve been asking people how this place works. It goes a lot easier when they think you like them.”
Chena stepped back, startled. All that sweetness and light, it wasn’t just an act, it was cover?
Teal scowled. “You really do think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
“No, no,” Chena assured her, waving her hands. “I just… I didn’t know how smart you were.”
Teal seemed to accept that. Her face relaxed.
“This thing”—she made a wide circle with her finger, indicating the entire park alcove and the unseen and silent Aleph—“isn’t just one big thing. It’s a whole series of little subsystems and expert systems. They only alert the central brain when there’s something unexpected or out of order going on. Or if you’re here involuntarily. Which means you.” Teal’s grin came back. “Because you’re wandering around here like you’re looking for a way out. But me, they think I’m a volunteer. So I’m not watched as closely as you are. I went to our teacher, all weepy, and I said how much I missed you, and that if I could talk to you, I knew I could explain to you that this place is really okay and they’re going to take care of us here.” Her eyes went big and her face went slack and pleading. Chena snorted in both amazement and amusement.
Teal grinned, but this time the expression did not spark any anger inside Chena. “So, the teacher had a talk with the thing and the thing put this into its subsystem, and as long as you don’t do anything stupid, like yell, or make trouble, or say its name out loud, or try to go somewhere without me, the main brain won’t pay any attention to us.”