Human Sister

by Jim Bainbridge

  I didn’t know then, in the tempest of emotions I was feeling, how to argue with him.

  “I don’t want it to be this way,” I cried.

  “Sara, a man my age has things to fear: not death, but the many forms of physical, especially mental, deterioration—the being forced to bow so low. A quick and painless death will for me be a culminating blessing to what has been a long and, until recently, a very fortunate life.”

  I knelt beside him and hugged him. I was nothing then, nothing but a vaguely conscious liquid, all tears and nasal rheum.

  Patting my back, he said, “Perhaps a hundred years from now—I hope after you and Elio have had happy, full lives together—you’ll understand what I feel now, what Bashō must have felt when he wrote his famous death haiku:

  fallen ill on a journey—

  my dreams wander

  over a withered field

  “I fondly remember a little girl taking me for walks, holding my hand, and telling me that she was part of this flower or that cloud or the shadows slowly crawling across the yard. She seemed to feel that she was a part of everything and everything was a part of her.”

  “You’re a big part of me, Grandpa. Don’t take that away.”

  “I confess I sometimes wondered whether that little girl was all there, so strange did she seem to me. Her life teased me, taunted me with this alternative worldview—that one could not help but be grateful, that one could not help but be a part of everything rather than nothing. But, alas, this worldview never really took in me—rather like a vaccine that failed to prime the core of my self against an invasion of nothingness. She was the voice that called out, ‘Everything matters.’ I was the echo: ‘Unless nothing does.’

  “Which view is correct? Both? Neither? I can only say I was much happier during those fleeting moments when I was able to emulate that dear little girl and feel a part of everything. Honey, between now and when the three of you are able to escape from here, hopefully no later than tomorrow night, I will try to be grateful, try to feel that I’m a part of the many wonderful things in the world. And what more can one want when facing death than to blossom?”

  “No, Grandpa! We need to think. We need to find a different way.”

  “You have never embarrassed me. Please don’t start now by tempting your old grandpa to be greedy and cling to a long life that is over. As Lucretius taught us, no one feels upset about being absent during the time that elapsed before his or her self emerged, and it is utter silliness to feel upset about being absent for any other period of time in which the self does not exist.”

  Silly or not, I cried and cried, feeling empty, dark, and cold; and as I did, Grandpa sat quietly, holding me. Finally, I took a deep breath and whispered, “I feel so alone.”

  “Honey, you’re not alone. Try to make your love for me a part of your love for Elio and Grandma and Michael.”

  “I do, Grandpa. Often, when I wake up in the middle of the night and Elio is wrapped around me, I say to myself, ‘Thank you, Grandpa and Grandma, for this precious moment.’”

  He grasped my head firmly to his chest, and I felt him cry.

  About a minute later, he cleared his throat and said, “I love you so much. You’ll find me everywhere, even if nowhere. Look at your hands, look at your eyes in the mirror, remember what I’ve taught you, what I’ve said, how I’ve loved you. Then you’ll know where I am.”

  I found Grandma still lying in bed with her eyes closed. I held her hand and kissed her cheek. “Grandma, you can’t give up. I need you. Please tell me you’ll be here for Elio and me.”

  “Yes, of course I will. I’m just tired now. Would you please finish preparing dinner? I’ll be up in a bit, when Elio comes home.”

  Even dinner, at a time like this, had to appear to proceed normally.

  When Elio arrived about a half-hour later, he said he thought he’d done well on his chemistry exam. I tried not to let on that anything was wrong. I had to be extra careful now—when out in the cage of the world. After congratulating Elio on his exam, I told him that Grandpa wanted to speak with him in our study.

  The table was set, the food was being kept warm, and Grandma and I were sitting silently together when Elio came back into the kitchen. His eyes were pink and puffy, but he moved with strength and purpose. I guessed that Grandpa had told him he had to be the man of the family now. Like Grandpa, Elio seemed to know what had to be done and adjusted his emotions accordingly.

  Grandpa soon followed, appearing chipper and stating that he was hungry. Over our last dinner together, while Grandma and I tearfully attempted to choke down some food, Grandpa told of recent advances in the storage of antimatter and talked with Elio about some of the questions on his combinatorial chemistry exam.

  Back in our study after dinner, Grandpa was all business, compressing into a few minutes everything regarding Anzen that he hadn’t yet covered. When his time to go arrived, he said he’d already told Michael that he might have to make his life permanently under the sea because Grandpa would no longer be around to protect him.

  Grandpa handed Michael the chips to pilot the submersibles to Anzen. “You might have the burden of a great responsibility. I have faith in you, and I love you dearly. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Grandpa,” Michael said. “I love you.”

  Then Grandpa hugged Elio and said, “I’m proud of you and love you with all my heart. Please take good care of Sara and Michael.”

  “I will, Grandpa. I love you, too. I’ll take good care of them. I promise.”

  “And please forgive me. I’ve told many lies, made many mistakes.”

  Elio nodded. I could see that he was fighting back tears.

  “Thank you,” Grandpa said.

  Then Grandpa turned to me. I thought he would say something to me, too, but he just smiled lovingly and embraced me. My lips touched, then kissed his cheek. This is the last time I’ll ever kiss your soft, wrinkled face, I thought. And I cried.

  Grandpa took a deep breath, held both of my arms in his hands, and pushed away. Silently, he turned and walked toward Gatekeeper, then disappeared forever behind the antechamber wall.

  Sara

  Before he left, Grandpa programmed Gatekeeper 3 to permit entrance into Michael’s area of the supplies we had procured for Anzen and the cables we needed to power our laser cutter. We hadn’t even begun cutting through the bedroom wall when we realized that in the emotional turmoil of Grandpa’s leaving, we had overlooked an important link in our new plan: How were we going to get from the vineyard above the house to Bodega Bay unnoticed? The only vehicles we had access to were Grandpa and Grandma’s car, Elio’s car, and the winery’s pickup. Both of the cars were in the garage and a guard was stationed right outside the house, so there was no way we could get to either of them unnoticed. We also felt that there was a very good chance we would be noticed if we tried to take the pickup, which was usually parked behind the wine tasting room.

  We decided that we would cut through the wall first and then try to sleep. The next morning, unless I was stopped, I would take Lily for a ride in the pickup. My story for the guard would be that I wanted to take her for a walk along a back road bordering our vineyard. Assuming the guard didn’t object, I would park the pickup on the back road and start walking toward home with Lily. When we neared the winery, I would call Elio and say that Lily appeared too tired to walk back to the pickup, so she and I would walk the rest of the way home. He would offer to take Grandma to go get the pickup, but I would say that Lily had enjoyed the scenery along this new walk, so she and I would take it again that evening, retracing our path back to the pickup.

  We made it through the wall shortly after midnight and then lay down to rest. My mind swirled with memories of Grandpa. It also began questioning and searching for answers. Was there no other way? How had we ended up in such a mess? Had Grandpa made a mistake by creating androids, by creating Michael, before society had matured enough to accept them? Had he, under the circumstances,
been justified in deceiving me about what he’d been doing and about what had been done to me?

  In the midst of these questions, I remembered that Epictetus had written that difficulties are things that show us what we are. Perhaps he should have added that in their extreme forms, difficulties are things that leave innocent no one who encounters them. In any case, how could I both love and judge?

  Eventually, Elio woke and found me crying. For a while, he tried to comfort me. Then he insisted I put Grandpa temporarily out of my mind and sleep, for we had to be alert and operate mistake-free in the coming hours and days. I agreed, quieted, remembered Grandpa’s once telling me that we can never understand what we have done, for we are ignorant of the future, and fell asleep.

  Elio was still sleeping when I woke early the next morning, ready to set our escape plan in motion. I carefully unlaced myself from him, then dressed and stepped in front of the outside Gatekeeper. It opened: crisp January air; arborway wet with dew; eastern sky suffused with a luminous pink-hued flush of dawn that set hoarfrost on the grass glistening and lit the flowers and trees, the vines sleeping in the gentle breeze, the fog covering a distant valley in fleecy stillness: that beautiful world I loved this last morning that I lived at home.

  “Good morning!” I cheerily announced to the military guard, who was petting Lily. He asked where I was going, what I was going to do, when I would be back. He ran a scanner over me, smiled, and wished Lily and me a pleasant walk.

  I drove Lily out to the back road, parked the pickup, and began walking home. Because I couldn’t be seen crying while out walking on a beautiful morning—I might have been questioned as to why—I tried not to think about Grandpa and that the next day would be his last; tried not to think about how he might do it, tried not to think of his turning away, disappearing, leaving not even a shadow to follow. But in moments of weakness, I was unable to filter out those thoughts, and each time they squeezed through, they brought with them the heavy emptiness of memory, grief, and fear.

  When Lily and I returned home, the guard said he understood that Lily had “pooped out.” As expected, the people watching us had monitored my phone conversation with Elio and, we hoped, would think they knew why I’d left our pickup parked on the back road.

  During the rest of the day, Michael, Elio, and I prepared to leave. We quietly dug through sandy soil to within two meters of the surface of the vineyard and carefully checked and packed the supplies we would be taking: two nutriosynthesizers, two fabricators, two recyclers, seeds for plants, three fuel cells, and our library of nanodesigns, music, and books. Not until days later would I find out that Michael had also packed plans and some crucial parts for the artificial human wombs Grandpa had entrusted to him.

  About a half-hour before sundown, I went out to take Lily for her walk. I told the guard we would be retracing our steps of the morning to the pickup. But about a quarter of the way there, Lily and I turned back toward home. The guard asked what had happened. I told him about Lily’s cancer and arthritis, that she had started whining as if in pain, so I decided not to take her all the way to the back road. We would try to do that again the following morning.

  He knelt down and petted her. “Poor old girl.”

  I looked up toward the west. By darkening degrees sallow dusk was settling in.

  Following tearful farewells with Grandma, Elio, Michael, and I broke through to the surface of the vineyard above the house at midnight, a time, we thought, when none of the vineyard workers or neighbors would be awake to notice us pull ourselves and our supplies up from a hole between two rows of chardonnay vines, then walk nearly one kilometer through thick fog to the pickup. Elio drove carefully, stopping fully at each stop and maintaining a speed under the relevant limits, so as not to draw the attention of any law enforcement that might have been operating in the middle of the night. The drive to Bodega Bay, the loading of our supplies onto the Lefcort cruiser, and our trip out to within 10 kilometers of Anzen went without a hitch. Our plan was still for Michael to take one of the subs down to Anzen to check things out. If all went well, he would return in four hours to this same location on the surface of the ocean to rendezvous with Elio and me. Elio and I would then climb aboard the second sub and follow Michael to our underwater hideaway.

  The ocean was relatively calm where we stopped to launch the sub. Elio had gone below about a half-hour before to help Michael pack. I remained up top in the cabin, monitoring the pilot computer.

  The designated time to launch Michael’s submersible came and went, but the computer showed no sign that Michael had, as yet, even sealed himself inside the sub. What were they doing? Was something wrong?

  I looked for options on the computer and found “Video Monitor: Hold,” which I clicked. On the computer screen appeared Elio and Michael, hugging each other and kissing. Michael was standing half in, half above the submersible. All of the supplies we had placed beside the sub were packed, so everything appeared ready for launch. Then, through the monitor, I heard a buzzer sound in the hold, perhaps signaling that the launch was running behind schedule. I saw their lips part, their arms release each other.

  “You’re my human brother,” Michael said. He appeared distraught, the outer edges of his mouth turned down, the integumentin between his eyebrows tightened into tiny folds.

  “Ja,” Elio said. “I’m happy we’re brothers—and lovers.”

  The buzzer sounded again, and again they hugged. This time I saw their tongues meet as they kissed.

  I felt—I don’t know how I felt. Stunned, I guess. I’m not sure if it was then or minutes later that an acidic mixture of anger, disbelief, and the wild bottomless imaginings of jealousy—all the intimate things they might have done together—began corroding my insides.

  “Michael, listen to me,” Elio said. “Sara and I will be back here to this very spot, on time. I love you. We both love you. We’ll be back, and we’ll go with you to Anzen.”

  Michael blinked, and I saw a tear fall from one of his eyes.

  “We’ll be back,” Elio said. “You just be sure you’re here when we get here. I promise, we’ll be back.”

  Michael scooted down into the submersible’s pilot seat. The transparent hatch above him closed and sealed with a hermetic sigh. Their eyes fixed on each other; the hold beneath the submersible opened; swirling bubbles and the metallic edge of the hold sliced away their views of each other; and they parted quietly, going their separate ways, into the unknown future that swallows every good-bye.

  As soon as the sub was launched, our boat resumed making its way through fog and light rain along a path that would have taken us, had we continued on it, to Magnasea’s mining platform. Elio came up from the hold and reported that the launch had gone well. I didn’t say anything, just nodded. Appearing sad, he walked to the starboard window and peered out into the gray blankness enveloping us. Was he worried about Michael’s safety? Was he worried about how he was going to keep his and Michael’s love a secret from me in the cramped quarters of Anzen? Was he rehearsing what to say to me when I found out? Would he assert that I had told him I was glad that they’d become best friends? That they loved each other? Would he remind me that I had let Michael feel my desires, had even let him participate in one of my masturbations?

  And what would I say in response? Yes, that’s all true, but… But what?

  Elio turned toward me from the window. “You think he’ll be all right?”

  You promised never to keep secrets from me, I thought, but I said, “Yes. He knows the systems of the sub and of Anzen better than either of us. He’ll be fine.”

  Elio nodded, then turned back toward the window, and the sour silence between us continued. I tried to remember: Had I seen any signs? I had often observed them hugging. And kissing, yes, but Michael kissed everyone and everything, it seemed, even the leaves of his plants. But not with his tongue. And they had held hands. Michael couldn’t help touching and caressing everything within reach. He’d often held Grandma’s
and Grandpa’s hands, too. There was that one time, just a few days earlier, when during the discussion of Bashō’s frog haiku, they’d leaned their heads together and I’d thought: If I didn’t know better I’d think those two were lovers.

  “It is memory that keeps each moment from being alone,” Michael had said.

  For me, here in Anzen, each moment is haunted by memory.

  Our boat proceeded on course, but Elio and I didn’t speak further, remaining locked like prisoners inside ourselves, holding fast our separate thoughts and secrets, unaware that we were wasting precious last moments. At the two-hour mark, we turned and headed back. Everything was going smoothly and we were nearing the rendezvous coordinates, when we were startled by the ringing of a bell that announced an incoming call to the boat’s phone. One ring, two rings, three—Elio and I stared at each other; then Elio pressed the Accept Audio Only button on the cabin wall.

  “Hello,” Elio said.

  “This is Casey. Remember me?”

  I don’t know whether Elio did, but I remembered that voice. Elio didn’t answer. Perhaps he was too frightened.

  “Listen, you perverse little shit,” Casey said. “You stop that boat right now, or we’ll stop you for good, just like we did your mother, on Mars.”

  Elio looked at me. For an instant, I imagined him lying naked with Michael; then I nodded for him to respond.

  “I’ve got to speak with Sara first,” Elio finally said. “She’s down below. Call me back in ten minutes.”

  “No. Stop the boat right now.”

  “We’re in the middle of the ocean, for Christ’s sake. Where do you think we’re going in ten minutes?”

  There was a pause for about thirty seconds on Casey’s end. “You’ve got five minutes. That’s it.”

  Elio pressed the End button, then nodded toward the cabin door. I followed him out onto the deck. He grabbed hold of the railing and peered out into the cold fog and drizzle, his hair flying in the wind of our motion. I leaned into the lee of his body and hugged him. I didn’t want to lose him, not to Michael, not to my anger or jealousy.