Human Sister

by Jim Bainbridge

  Elio led as we ran between rows of vines, down the hill guarded by the old oak tree, and up a slope to the drive. There, under the archway of locust trees, Elio ran beside me and panted: “I didn’t know there were androids on the moon.”

  “I didn’t either.”

  “Your parents were going to some conference, weren’t they?”

  “Yes. I said good-bye to them last night. It’s a conference on space medicine. They go every year.”

  “Do you think they helped the androids hijack the plane?”

  “I don’t know. I just hope they’re safe.”

  My mind raced: government agents, search warrants, Michael, interrogations, Mom and Dad on a hijacked plane. By the time we got to the arborway leading to the house entrance, my legs felt heavy, and I was out of breath.

  “We’d better get in,” Elio said, pointing toward the throbbing whir of helicopters in the distance.

  We found Grandma in her bedroom watching WNN. I glanced at aerial scenes of lunar resorts resembling giant upside-down fishbowls packed with fantastic buildings of organic architectural designs.

  “What’s going on?” Elio asked, charging ahead of me.

  “They’re just showing the same scenes over and over,” Grandma answered. “Apparently, all transmissions from the moon have been cut.”

  “What about Mom and Dad?” I asked.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, holding out her arms for me and bursting into tears. “The FBI told Grandpa the lunar plane they were on was hijacked at the same time the attacks on the moon began. Lynh was there, too.”

  “What?” Elio gasped.

  “Yes, dear. I’m so sorry.”

  “But she was supposed to be on a plane to Amsterdam this morning.”

  “That’s all I know, honey. That’s what the FBI told Grandpa.”

  “Where is Grandpa?” I asked.

  “On a conference call with Senator Franklin, the FBI—I don’t know who all. The door is locked, but just ring the bell. He said he wants to talk with you right away.”

  Elio and I rang the bell to the communications room. Grandpa peeked out. “I’m on a conference call. Go to your study. I’ll be right there.”

  We found that Michael and all evidence of his existence had already been immured. I hoped Grandpa and Grandma hadn’t frightened him, for now I couldn’t even communicate with him to let him know Elio and I had returned safely.

  After about five minutes, Grandpa entered. “You saw the news,” he said. “I don’t have much to add to that. Not yet, anyway. I’m trying to negotiate a deal. The FBI and some other government people want to talk with both of you. They think you may know something, since Sara’s parents—and perhaps your mother, too, Elio—seem to be involved. Now is no time for playing games. I have to get back to my call right away. I must know whether either of you knew or even had a hint of this hijacking or of the attacks on the moon. Sara?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever hear your parents talk about hijacking a plane, even hypothetically?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever hear them talking about the moon?”

  “Just that they were going to the annual medical conference.”

  “Did they say anything that seemed special or peculiar about this conference?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea what their plans are?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know how androids got to the moon?”

  “I didn’t even know there were any on the moon.”

  “Good. So you wouldn’t mind if Mr. Casey asks you these and related questions?”

  “Casey? But he—”

  “It would only involve questions about what you knew beforehand about these matters and what you know about their plans. If you satisfy them that you know nothing about what’s going on, they won’t pursue other questions. At least, that’s what I’m trying to negotiate with the help of Senator Franklin and my attorney, Jane Copley.”

  “Are you sure they’ll only ask me about Mom and Dad? What about questions that might lead to Michael?”

  “I can’t be sure of anything. They need to quickly find out whatever they can about the attacks on their military bases and about the taking of several thousand hostages. Evidently, there are three members of Congress and four U.S. senators on the moon right now—some conference about space sovereignty—plus similar dignitaries from other countries. The authorities know they can’t make you talk, Sara, so they seem willing to deal.”

  “Do I have to do this? You said one question leads to the next.”

  “Yes, you do. There’s no other way.” He looked at me sternly for a moment, then turned to Elio. “Did you have any hint that something like this might happen?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know your mother was going with Sara’s parents?”

  “No. She told me she was going home this morning.”

  “So you’ll be comfortable with answering the same questions as I discussed with Sara?”

  “I suppose—if, as Sara said, the questions don’t lead back to Michael.”

  “I’ll do my best. Stay put.”

  As soon as Grandpa left, Elio said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to do this. How can I protect Michael if they use that algetor thing?”

  His words shocked me out of my own thoughts about whether I was up to another interrogation by Casey. "Don’t worry," I said. “Just concentrate on answering the questions carefully. Casey won’t use the algetor on us because Senator Franklin and Jane Copley will be involved. Grandpa says the intelligence agencies use it only when they can deny using it.”

  Grandpa returned a few minutes later. “They’ve agreed to ask questions only about what we know about the hijacking of the plane and about the disturbances on the moon. To keep them to their word, Copley will be there with you in person as the questions are asked. General Renner, Senator Franklin, and a few others who were parties to our agreement will be watching and participating remotely. Some agents are outside right now, waiting to take the four of us to the Federal Office Building in San Francisco for questioning. Are you ready?”

  “Not Grandma,” I said.

  “I objected, but they said your father is her son, too, and he might have confided in her.”

  “But no one will be here,” Elio said. “What if they search the place? What about Michael?”

  “I’ll have the security staff watch over things. I’ve already instructed Gatekeeper to allow entrance to everyone and everything.” He looked at me silently for a moment. “I did the best I could, Sara. I felt that the worst thing I could have done under the circumstances would have been to indicate we have something to hide here in the house.”

  The interrogation room was small; the ceiling, low; the table, gunmetal gray and bolted to the floor; the chairs, metal, unpadded, cold, and also bolted to the floor; the walls, white and bare, like at home, though at home the walls were familiar, comfortable, bare and white to protect Grandpa’s secrets, my secrets, Michael. Here, the stark barrenness appeared imposing, frightening, one of the props of a place constructed to flay one of one’s humanity, of one’s secrets.

  Casey, wearing the same dark gray suit, adjusted a helmet, undoubtedly a brain scanner, around my head and attached a thick glove to my right hand. Intellectually, I was confident that with Jane Copley sitting beside me, I wouldn’t be tortured. My heart, however, seemed to possess a visceral memory of its own and beat hard and fast, frantic to escape.

  Casey began with routine questions: What was my name? What day was it? How old was I? At three separate times, he told me to answer his question falsely.

  After a few more preliminary questions, he asked me to describe everything I knew about Mom and Dad’s plans regarding their trip to the medical conference. After I completed my statement, he returned to each detail I’d mentioned: Did I have any information about their taking weapons with them? No. Had they ever discussed living on the moon for an extended per
iod of time? No. Had they ever discussed the possibility of living anywhere for an extended period of time other than on Earth? Yes. Where? Mars, asteroids, Jupiter’s moons, other planets in other solar systems, but I’d never had the impression they were actually planning on doing so themselves. The discussions had been speculative. Several times they’d expressed disappointment that we had given up on terraforming and colonizing Mars.

  Next, he asked, “Do you have any reason to believe that the androids will harm their hostages?”

  “No.”

  For a moment Casey seemed to stare through me, attentive only to a communication coming to him through his earphone. Then I remembered my broken finger.

  Casey’s eyebrows rose, and his eyes focused on me.

  “I’m going to ask you that last question one more time. Do you have any reason to believe that the androids might harm their human hostages?”

  “No.”

  He drew in a deep breath while seeming to listen to the earphone; then he growled, “You’re lying! Our agreement was that you’d tell the truth. When was the last time you saw any of the Sentirens?”

  “Don’t answer that!” Copley interjected. “Mr. Casey, we have an agreement as to the scope of this inquiry. If Sara has seen any Sentirens—and I am not saying she has—I’m saying that if she has seen any Sentirens during the statute of limitations period of the last seven years and not reported it, then she might be subject to criminal prosecution, and I’m not going to let her answer questions that might incriminate her. Nor am I going to permit any further deviations from our agreed scope of inquiry.”

  “Ms. Copley, may I remind you that there are over three thousand people, some of them very important people, being held hostage by those… things! Those terrorists.”

  “So, ask Sara what she knows that might help you resolve this crisis. Whether she saw Sentirens last Christmas or seven Christmases ago is irrelevant.”

  “I asked her whether she had any reason to believe those things will harm the hostages, and she lied. Our agreement was that she would tell the truth. She’s the one who broke the agreement. Perhaps we need to resort to more effective methods of interrogation on her. And on the rest of them.”

  My heart began galloping again as my thoughts raced back to what had happened a few months before.

  “I understand that you didn’t get far with your more effective methods the last time you tried them on her and nearly killed her," Copley said. "Believe me when I swear that I will not hesitate to go to the district attorney on my own initiative—even if my client orders me not to—if anything even remotely similar happens again.”

  “Why, Ms. Copley, from the sincere sound of your voice, I could almost for an instant think I’m listening to a seasoned criminal attorney who hasn’t yet learned she can’t believe a single word her clients tell her.”

  “Dead bodies of what were perfectly healthy sixteen-year-old young women don’t lie, Mr. Casey. Nor do they tell you anything that might be helpful to your lunar mess. So why don’t we just continue as agreed?”

  Casey listened to his earphone. “All right. We’ll give you one last chance, Sara. The last time you saw the Sentirens, whenever that was, did they give you any reason to believe that they or other androids might harm humans?”

  “I want to speak with Ms. Copley privately,” I said.

  Casey again paused to listen to silent interlocutors, then stood up. “We’ll take a break. A short break. I’ll be waiting just outside the door.”

  Copley lifted her case onto the table and opened it, revealing what appeared to be two heavily shielded goggles and bands of sensors much like the bands Grandpa had used with his algetor. She explained that with the use of this device, we could carry on a secure conversation. The bands would cover our lips, cheeks, and throat, and would transmit information through a cable to the goggles covering our eyes. She said that once the device was properly adjusted, we could distinctly subvocalize words—silently think them just to the point that our lips and tongues twitched slightly but no further—and the words so subvocalized would be projected onto our retinas.

  I half-expected Casey to come storming in at any moment, but we were left undisturbed to communicate in this private and surprisingly simple and effective way. She asked whether I had lied. I told her no, that I didn’t believe the androids would harm anyone, except to defend themselves or Mom or Dad, but that I’d had a negative experience with Second Brother that, at the time, had resulted in my having concerns. I told her about my broken finger and about my desire to keep the incident secret. I also told her about my conversations with Mom regarding Second Brother’s actions.

  After we completed our private conversation and took a bathroom break, Casey rejoined us. Copley told him I’d had contact with a Sentiren when I was a young girl. Whether I’d had contact with Sentirens or other androids within the past seven years would not be answered, nor would any questions be answered if the answers might lead one to conclude that I might have had such contact.

  “I will, however,” she continued, “relay certain facts to you regarding your question as to whether Sara has any reason to be concerned that the androids might harm their hostages. When I’ve completed my statement of these facts, you may question Sara as to the genuineness of the facts I relay, and then you may ask her whether there are any other facts that give her concern about android intentions toward humans. My understanding is that her answer will be an honest no, which, of course, you may verify, and that should satisfy all of your concerns regarding this issue.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Copley, for telling me what my job is and how I may perform it. Why don’t we just begin by having you tell us why it is she thinks the androids will harm their hostages, and I’ll take it from there.”

  “I did not say that Sara thinks the androids will harm any humans, Mr. Casey, and I resent your twisting my words. I was led to believe that we were trying to find the truth here tonight. Perhaps I was mistaken, and you have a different agenda.”

  “Just tell me what you have to say.”

  “Very well. At some time or times in the past, Sara was disappointed with what she perceived as the Sentirens’ lack of interest in her and, similarly, with their lack of emotional response to her. Additionally, at some time in the past, she participated in tests with one Sentiren during which one of her fingers was hurt. Sara believes that the Sentiren intentionally hurt her finger as part of the test. We will not answer questions regarding which finger was hurt or the nature of the harm because answers to those questions might lead one to speculate as to the date of the incident. Other than her natural unease resulting from the facts I’ve just told you, Sara has no reason to believe that the androids will harm any human on the moon or elsewhere—except, of course, in self-defense.”

  Casey listened to his earphone. He scowled, seeming to disagree with what he was hearing, then stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

  I checked my teleband. It was already eight minutes past midnight. I worried about Elio and Grandpa and Grandma—especially Grandma. There was nothing hard or machinating about her. She was truly out of her element in the depths of this government fortress. And I worried about Mom and Dad. Were they behind the hijacking and the taking of hostages? Had they created and trained my brothers for this? How could they escape the military might of the United States? And of China, which had tourist resorts and military bases on the moon, too?

  Copley took my hand in hers and smiled encouragingly.

  Casey returned and asked questions to verify what Copley had said. Evidently, he became convinced that I harbored no other concerns about android intentions toward humans, for he moved on to state that there was concern the androids might use biologic agents against their hostages or against anyone attempting to rescue them. He said he had requested a doctor come and take a blood sample and a tissue sample of a lymph gland under my arm.

  Copley asked to see the warrant.

  “Ms. Copley,” he replied, “I’v
e already told you we’re concerned about biological weapons. If the androids had plans to use such weapons, they might have secretly induced some protective immunologic response in her.”

  I considered how little I trusted Casey to use samples of my body only for the purposes he stated. But if I objected, Casey and others would want to know why, and I dared not provoke a line of questions related to the taking of tissue samples from me because branching off somewhere along that line of inquiry lay knowledge of the creation of Michael.

  “I have no objection to the taking of samples,” I said. “I understand your concerns, though I believe they are totally unfounded. Please take from me whatever you feel might be helpful in your investigation.”

  The samples were taken, and my interrogation was over, subject, Casey said, to my being recalled following the interrogations of Grandpa, Grandma, and Elio.

  I was taken to a room in which the only window was a small one in the door. I sat alone until nearly 0530 when a guard came and asked me to follow him. He escorted me to an elevator that let us out in a room with clear glass walls at the top of the building. Outside, above the city beginning to brighten to dawn, crouched a slate-black government helicopter on its circular pad.

  Within minutes Grandpa, Grandma, and Elio joined me, and we were ushered onto the helicopter, where, with early morning sun glaring at us through side windows and with unspoken though palpable anxiety about Michael filling the cabin, the four of us, shoulders and legs pressed together, held on to each other’s hands as we rode home.

  Sara

  The security personnel who met us at the winery helicopter pad reported an uneventful evening. There had been no searches of the house.

  Grandpa, Grandma, Elio, and I immediately went to Michael’s area to talk. I was anxious to set Michael free from his enclosure in my bedroom wall, but Grandpa said he first had to determine whether anything had been said that might have directed suspicion toward our house or Michael. He asked Grandma to go first so she could get to bed as soon as possible. She appeared exhausted, her fleshy cheeks and chin sagging more than usual, and unruly strands of her hair drifted over her face. In a weak, trembling voice she said that nothing during her interrogation had indicated there was any suspicion about what we were doing in the house. Grandpa was unsatisfied with this general assessment; he wanted the exact wording, as close as she could remember, of each question and each answer. She began to cry. I was afraid she was about to confess to something awful having happened, but instead, between sobs she said she was so tired that she couldn’t remember a single specific thing she’d been asked.