by Dima Zales
“That’s good to know.” Phoe makes the movie screen disappear and leans toward me. “I’m glad you saw through my ploy.” She flicks her fingers, and the movie theater chairs disappear. We’re suddenly sitting on a couch, surrounded by candles and that distinctly romantic music from the movies we watched. “As your reward for your cleverness, perhaps I’ll let you convince me to go to ‘second base.’”
Having just seen what that means from one of the movies, I reach for her, my heart beating faster than those times I almost died. We go at it for what feels like hours, and by the end, I have a renewed appreciation for what drove the ancients mad.
* * *
I fix my hair and my clothes as I walk back to the central part of the cave, where I appeared what feels like a month ago, back when I was innocent and pure.
Phoe follows me.
I reach the hologram and gaze at myself in the real world.
“Is that the forest on the Adult side?” I ask. He/we are surrounded by pines. It’s sundown, and I have to assume we’ve had sufficient time to get through the Youth’s pine forest, cross the Barrier, and enter the forest on the other side.
Phoe licks her lips. I catch myself staring at them. They look puffy after what we’ve done.
She catches me looking, winks, and says, “That’s correct. We should be able to get on with our quest soon, unless you want to hang out here while I fly the disk myself…”
“Fly a disk? You never mentioned we’d be flying.” I suppress a shudder. “Can I just walk?”
“Adults are still celebrating Birth Day.” Phoe gestures, and two chairs appear. “They have a big hoopla, just like Youths. Our chances of running into someone are greater on foot.”
I sit on my chair and say, “I think it might be worth the risk—”
“You don’t even have to be conscious of the flying.” Phoe drags her chair next to mine, sits down, and gives my arm a sympathetic pat. “We can stay here and hang out while I—my thread on the outside—do the flying.”
“No.” I notice my feet pointing away from the hologram as though I’m planning to run away. “I’ll do it. I need to get over my fear of heights.”
“As you wish.” Phoe crosses her legs. “You’ll have the option of letting me take over at any time.”
“How is your investigation progressing?” I ask, desperate to get my mind off the subject of heights. “Is Jeremiah still questioning people?”
“No, that finished hours ago. He and Fiona are actually almost back in the Elderly section. They flew on disks like the other Guards do when traveling outside the Youth section. And before you ask, they haven’t spoken about you or your neural scan since that terse conversation. I don’t know if that’s a good sign, since they haven’t spoken much at all. It’s clear they’re disappointed by the lack of information. I think they’re considering their options. Things should get interesting once Jeremiah discovers the video of Fiona, but he hasn’t yet. Which reminds me…” Phoe rubs her palms together excitedly. “There’s something I neglected to show you.”
I raise an eyebrow in question, and she brings up a huge Screen in front of us.
On the Screen is the Council meeting. The room looks identical to the one Phoe showed me earlier, the one where Fiona tried to quit the Council.
The camera zooms in on Jeremiah, who’s standing next to Fiona, like in the other videos.
Jeremiah’s features are the epitome of wrath. I cringe, realizing I’ve seen this expression on his face before, but I can’t recall exactly when.
“When he tortured you,” Phoe whispers and rubs my shoulder.
She might be right. In this scenario, his anger is focused on a new target: Fiona.
“You fucking bitch,” Jeremiah says with such venom that I move away, pressing into the back of my chair.
Fiona seems petrified as she watches Jeremiah raise his hand. The rest of the Council members’ faces are marble white.
The back of Jeremiah’s withered hand travels toward Fiona’s right cheek, almost in slow motion.
I hear a loud slap, and Fiona staggers backward, her hands protecting her head.
I can’t believe what I saw.
Jeremiah smacked Fiona in the face.
14
The Screen goes black.
I stare, completely dumbfounded.
Jeremiah may have done many terrible things, but these actions are beyond anything I expected to see. That an Elderly would break the vulgarity and violence taboos is unthinkable.
“You think I overdid it?” Phoe asks, her fingers in a steeple in front of her chest.
“What do you mean you overdid it?” I blink at my friend, who looks too happy given what we just saw.
“Oh, you thought that was real?” Phoe’s smile widens. “That’s excellent news. If you thought it was real, so will everyone else.”
“That wasn’t real?” I scratch the back of my head. “He didn’t smack her?”
“Remember when you said Fiona might accuse Jeremiah of faking that video I dug up? The one where she almost quit the Council? I replied that Jeremiah would say he couldn’t fake a video. Your question, however, gave me an idea. Since I can do something like that, why not create a video that would compromise Jeremiah? Why not depict him doing something he’d want the others to Forget? And if that action took place during a Council meeting, that would explain where the memory of that meeting went.” She leans forward in her chair. “So I did just that. It wasn’t even all that hard. Judging by your reaction, I take it that it looks pretty authentic. This should really help us divide and conquer them.”
I look at Phoe. Shaking my head, I say, “I’m glad you’re on my side. If the Elderly knew what you could do, I think they’d feel justified in having been afraid of AIs all this time.”
“I use my power for good.” Phoe puts her hands behind her head and beams at me. “And I try to use it as little as possible. I thought you were worried about Fiona and what will happen once Jeremiah sees the video that compromises her. This way, as soon as she gets into trouble, I can make sure she comes across this video. It’ll give her ammunition against Jeremiah’s accusations.”
“So long as no one focuses on the two of us, I say you did the right thing,” I subvocalize. Then I remember I can speak freely in my cave and say out loud, “It’s just a little creepy, that’s all, him smacking her like that.”
“Should I change his actions? I could show him projectile vomiting and thrashing around the room, like a scene from The Exorcist.” Phoe stands and makes her eyes go white as she extends her arms like a zombie. “I bet that’s how many of the Elderly picture insanity.”
“No.” I suppress a wave of nausea. “Or if you do create a video like that, please make it a point to not show me.”
“Spoilsport.” Phoe’s eyes return to normal, and she sits down. “I think I’ll stick with this version of the video. Now, I just have to tell you this one last thing…” She stops. “Actually, since you brought up scary powers and all that, perhaps it can wait.”
“What is it?” I narrow my eyes. “Why do I have a feeling you’re about to tell me something I really won’t like?”
“It’s about the Test.” Phoe brings her knees closer together. “I’ve been unable to hack into the place where the Test runs, which means my only way in is physical—when you access it.”
“Right. Wasn’t that the plan from the get-go?”
“I was hoping I could learn something about the Test first.” She shrugs. “But I couldn’t, apart from the instructions every person who’s about to take the Test receives.”
I catch her gaze. “So what’s the problem? Spit it out already.”
“Okay, here’s the thing.” Phoe gives me an uncomfortable look. “Our best bet is to use a Trojan ploy.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“The Greeks built a giant wooden horse that housed soldiers, and the greedy Trojans pulled it into their sieged city.” She sees my
eyes glaze over and says, “Never mind. Forget the Trojans. I’m talking about a subterfuge where, by giving you access to the Test, the Test will also, inadvertently, be giving me a way inside it.”
“That sounds like a great idea. What won’t I like about it? The Test should have a problem with this, not me.”
“Well, see, since it will be your mind that gains entry into the Test, the backdoor, or the Trojan horse, or whatever we want to call it, has to be part of your mind,” Phoe says. “That’s what you might not like.”
“What?” I turn my chair so we’re sitting opposite each other. “Explain.”
“It’s not that bad,” she says quickly. “I just need to plant a memory into your mind. A memory that wouldn’t be unpleasant.”
“Plant a memory?” I slide my chair away from her. “You mean you’d create a fake memory in my head, kind of like that video?”
“Nothing so disturbing as that video, but yeah. Though ‘fake’ is such a negative word. It would be a tiny alteration of an existing memory. Something that didn’t happen to you, per se, but could have.”
I cross my arms. “What’s the memory?”
“Oh, nothing terrible. You’ll just remember having done an incredible feat of memorization.” She raises her hand to postpone my follow-up questions. “You will remember having memorized the constant Pi.”
“You mean Pi, as in 3.14-something? The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter? Like from Instructor George’s class?” My forehead furrows in confusion. “Is that because it’s a Greek letter and the Trojan thing—”
“No. I chose Pi because some people do take the time to memorize its digits. And because the digits of that number are probably random and go on forever, I can plant a super-long string of digits into your mind without it looking suspicious, at least not to a casual scan like that of the Test. Of course, only the first hundred digits of the number in your head will match the ones from the famous constant. After that cut-off point, the digits won’t be from Pi. They’ll be from Phoe.” She chuckles at her own joke. “They’ll serve their true purpose, which is creating a boot-strapping binary code of devilish design that will—”
“Yes,” I interrupt. “Plant the memory if that means you’ll stop explaining this.”
“Okay,” Phoe says and then looks like she’s concentrating. She momentarily goes ghostly, the way she did in the real world after I got her the resources from the Zoo. Then she’s back to normal and triumphantly says, “Done.”
I look at her in shock. I don’t feel any different.
“But you do recall memorizing the number Pi?” Her gaze is piercing, as if she’s looking inside my head. “Think far back, to ten days ago, when you pretended to be sick. You were sitting in the nurse’s office—”
“Wow,” I say and stand up. With a sense reminiscent of déjà vu, I recall sitting at the office, bringing up rows and rows of digits on my Screen to memorize them.
“What you really did was play chess with me on your Screen, and you lost so many times you vowed to never play chess with me again.”
“Shut up for a second,” I say, my voice raised. “Is this a trick?”
Now that the weird feeling is gone, I’m convinced that I chose to study Pi ten days ago at the nurse’s office. The idea that I actually played chess with Phoe is so wrong I can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s simply not what happened. I did memorize that stupid number, but I didn’t recall it until she reminded me. The memory can’t be fake.
“How did you expect a false memory to feel?” Phoe gets up and comes toward me. “If you like, we can play a quick game of chess. You’ll lose—badly. You couldn’t beat me when I had almost no resources.”
“No thanks on the chess, and you’re right. I guess this is how it should feel, like I really did memorize that number.”
“Please recite the digits for me,” Phoe says, her expression turning more serious. She brings up a Screen.
“Three point one four one,” I begin. Phoe’s Screen shows a large counter that increases by one every time I say another digit.
“That’s your position within Pi,” Phoe explains. “Keep going.”
I recite the digits faster and faster. When the Screen tells us I’ve reached the hundredth digit in Pi, Phoe listens intently, and after another few hundred digits, she says, “Okay. It clearly worked.”
“What now?” I ask. “Besides me having a dubious new talent.”
“Now you return to your body and go take the Test.”
“No, I mean, do I have to recite this number when I’m inside the Test? My throat is hoarse from saying the first few hundred numbers, and I probably would—”
“Your throat is not real here, nor will it be during the Test.” Despite her words, Phoe gestures for a glass of water and hands it to me. After I take a sip, she goes on. “But don’t worry, you don’t need to recite it. You can think of this number as a small part of me. Meaning that where you go, a tiny sliver of me goes with you. Once you’re in the Test, or anywhere else that I can’t reach, this number will open a backdoor for more of me to join you.”
“Okay,” I say and drink down the rest of the water. “You got me thinking, though. If the Test scans my brain for memories, won’t it see the memory of you?”
“I doubt it’ll scan you so thoroughly. And even if it did, I doubt it would care. The only danger in that scenario would be exposure, but I doubt the Test communicates anything but your score to the outside world. The main reason I even bothered making the numbers in your head look like a natural memory is because the Test might have an internal anti-intrusion algorithm. We don’t want to trigger something like that by planting obvious malware in your head, but a subtle memory like this should go unnoticed.”
“I see.” I rub my eyes. “I think this is the last time I agree to let you mess with my memories. It’s too creepy. I remember memorizing those digits so clearly. As boring as losing at chess must’ve been, it’s what really happened, and now that small part of me is gone and it feels wrong.”
“I understand,” Phoe says, giving me an earnest look. “And I only did it because I had to. Desperate times and all that.”
I try to push away my unease and ask, “So what now?”
“Now we should head toward the Elderly section.” Phoe emphasizes her suggestion with the double-middle-finger gesture she wants me to make—no doubt a deliberate attempt to shock me out of my anxiety.
Looking at her extended fingers, I realize I’ve become desensitized to taboos of all sorts. The gesture is nothing compared to what we did on that couch, and I now know that ‘second base’ is only a glimmer of the things we might do one day. What’s even more unfathomable is that I can’t wait to go further.
Realizing Phoe probably just read my mind, I flush and hurry to make the necessary gesture to get back to reality.
15
After the usual psychedelic whiteness, I find myself back in the real world.
I’m standing in a little meadow, surrounded by forest on all sides. Dusk has settled, and the first stars are visible above the Dome.
Phoe is already standing on a disk, floating about a foot above the ground.
Next to my feet is my own disk.
I step on it, taken aback by my Guard-issue white pants and boots, since in the cave I was dressed in jeans and sneakers.
“You know the drill,” Phoe says and aims her palm upward. Responding to her signal, her disk hovers a few inches higher off the ground.
I tilt my palm at the slightest angle I can get away with, and my disk floats up.
Phoe zips up faster, and in a second, she’s as far up as the tips of the tallest pines.
“Come on, join me,” she says as a thought in my head. “Or do you need me to literally force your hand?”
I adjust my palm so the disk rises at a steeper angle, while also making a slight forward motion. The only reason my hand isn’t shaking is the knowledge that any tiny motion will be translated into mov
ements of the disk, and flying smoothly is terrifying enough.
“There you go,” Phoe says when I catch up with her. “You’re doing much better.”
As though her words jinxed me, I look down. The treetops look like a solid blurry green patch, reminiscent of grass. I can’t make out the frightening spaces between the trees.
“That’s because I’m taking liberties with Augmented Reality,” Phoe admits. “Unless you need to see something below, I figured I’d spare you the adrenaline spike by blurring your view.”
“Thanks,” I whisper. “Can we fly close to the treetops for now?”
“Sure,” she says. “Catch up.”
She does something that looks almost like a karate chop from a martial arts movie, and her disk rushes forward so fast I suspect the only reason she doesn’t fall off is because she’s an AR avatar.
“I’m simulating what would happen with the disk exactly,” she says as a disembodied, grumpy voice to my left. “If I were flying for real, this is exactly how it would look.”
I push my palm forward as though I’m about to plunge it into boiling water. My disk understands the command as an invitation to go at least ten breathtaking miles per hour.
“Slowpoke,” Phoe says once I’ve caught up to her, a few feet away from the edge of the forest.
“I have a strong sense of self-preservation,” I mumble. “Is it safe to fly above more populated areas?”
“It should be in three, two—” Phoe looks at the starry sky. “Now.”
I follow her gaze.