Lost Past

by Teresa McCullough

  “Zoo. Vigint City is a zoo.”

  This simultaneously shocked John and made sense. Katrine was wrong. She was an animal, not Linda, Cara, and Wilson. “With only one kind of animal?”

  “Yes. It can’t be called a farm, because the Plict don’t benefit from humans, or at least they don’t benefit from most humans.”

  “The exceptions being?”

  “You, of course,” Arthur replied. “They tried to benefit from Hernandez and his clones, but they brought back only a little information. They spent their time indulging in their proclivity for violence, rather than gathering information.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “You told me, John. You said that I should be careful of Hernandez and his clones because they were violent sociopaths. You also warned the Plict, but they thought they could control them.”

  John realized if he were as good a psychiatrist as people claimed, he would have reached accurate conclusions about Hernandez. The conclusions were confirmed when the airline passengers were sent to their deaths. He also understood why Hernandez was the unmistakable leader; the clones were never allowed to develop leadership skills, because Hernandez never let them. If one of them started to develop the skills, Hernandez would support the others against him.

  “Ever since I woke up with amnesia, people have told me how good a psychiatrist I am. Now I find that I am just the result of the genetics and training from the Plict. I can’t take any credit.” John was surprised to see Arthur smiling at that. “What?”

  “We’ve had this conversation before,” Arthur said gently. “I will tell you now what I told you then: We are all the product of our genes and our environment. Some quirk in genetics made me good in physics. My parents were both physics professors and they nurtured it. I can’t really take credit for the hours they spent with me outside of school or the genetic ability that made it easy for me to learn. The only thing I can take credit for is that I took advantage of my opportunity.”

  “Are your parents still alive?”

  “No, they both died in their eighties. They were near forty when I was born and made a project of raising me. They lived long enough to see me get the Nobel Prize. I’m grateful for that.” Arthur’s analysis was reasonable, but John wondered if the comparison to an accident of genetics and having the right parents could be compared to the deliberate manipulation by the Plict.

  While Arthur was writing a program for some theoretical calculation, John explored the building. He walked up and down all the corridors he could reach without opening any doors. It was partly for exercise, but he wanted to memorize the layout of the place. Through open doors, he saw a number of Plict working on computers, using sign language, which made computer entry a relatively active job. A Plict stopped him and signed, “What are you doing?”

  “Exercising.” It was at least partly true, and he felt guilty for not giving the complete truth.

  The Plict couldn’t frown without a mouth, but John felt he would have frowned if he had one. “Limit your exercising to the corridor near your room. Don’t go downstairs and don’t open any doors.” That meant there was a downstairs, but the entry must be behind a door. The Plict guided him back.

  Arthur asked him what he wanted to eat and showed him a cache of frozen, canned, and dried food. It was depressingly large. “They went to Earth and robbed a grocery store. Well, they left money, but I suspect the money will be held as evidence if it wasn’t stolen by the first person on the scene. We can’t eat their food.”

  “How did they get money?”

  “You gave it to them or Hernandez and company did. Years ago, you sold synthetic jewels and invested the profit. You requested your salary be in U.S. dollars, which really made Katrine mad.”

  “I left her unsupported?” That bothered John, because he didn’t like to think of himself shirking a responsibility, in spite of how horrible a person Katrine was.

  “She took all your money and slept around. You divorced her, but she thought she could get you back, and you told me she probably could have for several years if she behaved herself. You finally realized what an idiot you’d been.” Arthur reacted to John’s expression and said, “Your words. You were loyal to her. It’s not a fault.”

  John didn’t want to interrupt Arthur’s calculations and tried to use a vacant computer he found. The computer didn’t respond either to his sign language or his mouthing of words. Arthur was sympathetic and offered the use of his computer, but the computer didn’t respond to John. Arthur volunteered to input John’s commands on the computer, but John said, “I think I would not be tolerated as much if I kept you from your research.” Arthur shrugged and turned back to his calculations.

  John found a Bud and asked him for computer access, but it was politely denied. The next day, they took him to a room where a computer was set up to respond to him. It only gave him shows from Earth, but none were broadcast after John’s kidnapping. The Bud explained they had a satellite in orbit, which sent information to any Plict ship that came.

  After watching a Spanish language show, just to keep up on his Spanish, John went back to where Arthur was working again. Arthur took half hour breaks to exercise twice a day, but did it in his room.

  “I have a feed from Vigint City,” Arthur said. “There’s a flu epidemic and everyone is under quarantine. I programmed it to record any mention of Linda.” John realized Arthur wasn’t spending all of his time doing research; he was hacking.

  “Can you add Cara and Wilson to that?”

  “Sure.” Arthur stepped over to the computer and made the change. “We have something.”

  It was an amateur ad showing how to wash clothes. Linda came on and picked up a pair of pants, saying, “After the clothes have dried for several hours, reposition them so that the damp areas are exposed to air. It helps for them to be hanging free.” The camera zoomed in to show the damp areas on the inner legs and crotch of the pants. Linda then hung the pants on the edge of a bed with a cup of water weighting each leg so they couldn’t fall. “When you are not using it, you can hang it on your exercise equipment.”

  The camera turned to Wilson, showing him removing a shirt hanging from the exercise machine and putting it on. Cara’s voice said, “If you have flu symptoms, don’t wear damp clothes, but clothes will dry faster if you wear them.”

  Wilson started exercising and said, “They are pleasant to wear while exercising because they keep you cooler, but they are harder to put on than dry clothes.”

  “She’s fine,” Arthur said, with relief.

  For an instant John thought Arthur was talking about Cara, but realized Arthur may not even have recognized her voice. John wondered when Cara became more important to him than Linda.

  CHAPTER 14

  “You realize that half the time, they are going to spill the water,” Wilson told Linda.

  “Yes, but these rooms have nothing that works like a clothesline and nothing that’s movable and heavy,” Linda said.

  “We’ve taught them to wash their hands, cover their coughs, and blow their noses. What else do we need to teach them?

  “I don’t know, but we should deliver more handkerchiefs tomorrow,” Cara said.

  Linda groaned. She programmed the machines, normally used to make clothing, to cut the bolts of cloth into handkerchief-sized pieces and hem the edges. When they decided it was impractical to deliver them to each room, Wilson went upstairs and outside and brought down a few of the small machines that picked strawberries. Linda reprogrammed them to deliver handkerchiefs. Although most of the process was automated, Linda couldn’t figure out how to get the handkerchiefs from the cutting machine to a place the strawberry pickers could reach. The cutting machine was in a cage designed for safety. Someone could lean over the side and pick up the handkerchiefs, but the strawberry pickers’ arms couldn’t reach.

  It seemed so easy at first, but she was not used to physical labor, even the labor of moving a pile of handkerchiefs from inside the
cage to a pile on the floor. She did it for nine hours yesterday and somehow the muscles that she used were not accustomed to the movement, even in the exercise program.

  Fortunately, the strawberry pickers, or small-scale industrial multipurpose machines, as the manual called them, were versatile and easy to program. She translated the name into English and called them SCIMMs. When Wilson described SCIMMs pollinating flowers, she realized the machines must have highly sophisticated software, along with flexible hardware.

  “I’ll do the handkerchiefs,” Cara said. “Really. I’m almost well, and if I get too tired, I’ll stop.” Linda didn’t think she would, but didn’t comment.

  “Could the machines go up a ramp? Do their arms work going downwards?” Wilson asked.

  “Yes to both, but the ramp can’t be more than twenty-three degrees, according to the manual. There isn’t enough space to put one in the room.”

  “What about if it zigzags?”

  “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that,” Linda said. “There’s a shop that makes furniture in—” she turned to the computer, “—AJ53.” Linda showed him the map.

  “So the two of you make a ramp, and I do the handkerchiefs tomorrow,” said Cara.

  “No, you help me with the ramp. If it works, none of us will need to do the handkerchiefs,” Wilson said.

  “Linda is more mechanical,” Cara said.

  “She may be, but she is way better with the computer. I want her to spend the day snooping. Someday, they may discover how much computer access we have and limit it.”

  Warned by Wilson’s comment, Linda decided to implement the program she worked on since she got computer access. The security was laughable, once she was in. As usual, when she was working with computers, she lost track of the time. When Wilson came to tell her the ramp was finished, she resented the interruption, although it was the work of only a few minutes to program the SCIMMs to use the ramp. A simple subroutine kept them from using the ramp simultaneously. The non-automated efforts with the handkerchiefs would be confined to bringing bolts of fabric to an automatic feeder periodically. Linda estimated it needed to be done every hour.

  “I’ll stay here and do it,” she volunteered. “There’s a computer here and I’ve work to do.”

  Wilson took some fabric and made up a bed for her on the floor. “Get some sleep,” he said before he left.

  She didn’t. She programmed the computer to remind her whenever the machine needed attention. Although she knew it was good for her to move periodically, she was annoyed every time her attention was called to the machine. Knowing her own inability to switch tasks easily, she programmed the computer to give her a reminder, and then, a minute later, minimize the window she was working on.

  Fortunately, the computers had a good AI system. The first step was to write a program that hid in the background and monitored whether she was actively on the computer. If she weren’t on the computer at least every third day, it would activate. It would activate earlier if the news shows said she was imprisoned. In consideration of the possibility that the Vigintees would keep their word, the program wouldn’t activate if it were reported that the three of them were returned to Earth, although if later reports denied this, it would activate.

  She decided she might need information about other things too. If Hernandez or any of his clones were released, there would be a thirteen-second failure of the lights, repeated three times. She also arranged signals for other events, although she knew she couldn’t anticipate everything.

  Worried that she wouldn’t be given another chance, she tried to figure out what else she could do. She already had a feel for the geography of the city. It was a bit more than a mile in diameter and had three levels. The top was the truck garden, where people almost never went. The city was on a single level, and the basement was sometimes accessed for plumbing problems. The water purifying plant was too big, in Linda’s opinion. Although she knew comparable Earth structures were big, she thought the Plict would be able to streamline the process to something smaller.

  What if some of the area supposedly used for water purifying was used for something else? There were stories she watched earlier. What was it? Everyone went once every couple of years for treatment, whatever that was. They never showed the treatment, but it was considered an acceptable excuse to avoid anything. In one case, a notice went out saying a certain person was due for treatment and he was currently in a purple room, whose location was given.

  That meant whoever gave the treatment knew the location of people. There must be a signal, and it must be read. There was always the possibility that whoever read the signals never opened their computers to the Vigintees. She remembered her mentor, Takeuti, telling her that if you wanted a completely secure system, there should be no connections to the outside. There was a story about a virus getting into Defense Department computers because someone on an aircraft carrier wired his computer both to a secure system and to the Internet. She suspected someone was watching the computer she used. That would mean there would be an opening to get into the watchers’ computers.

  INTERLUDE 3

  “She’s good,” signed Jorxt Bud IX. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the skills to completely follow what she’s doing.”

  Jorxt considered the possibility of hiring someone to look into it, but didn’t think he could trust anyone. A bet that the Vigintees’ computers would be disrupted wouldn’t be a good idea. If he suspected they would be disrupted, he should stop the disruption rather than bet on it.

  The betting wasn’t as appealing as it was before. He was now financially secure, between his Buds’ income and his winnings. He’d won. His Buds weren’t doing dangerous jobs, which meant they would be likely to produce income for many years. Perhaps if he just budded regularly, he could retire. It wasn’t as if he had to save up for a budding permit anymore.

  On the other hand, he was enjoying his svelte self. Carrying all that extra bulk was awkward. If he wanted to do something different, he could have a child. Saxant would be a good genetic match. No, he’d probably want to parent. Jorxt didn’t want to share the parenting; he wanted to do things his way. Saxant would spend too much time on moral training, and not enough time on what was important. Jorxt would enjoy teaching a child how to take advantage of opportunities. Few Plict were as good at working the system as Jorxt was.

  Jorxt Bud IX left while Jorxt went through the list of a number of other possible parents. Realizing his Bud was left to his own devices, Jorxt called him back. “Learn as much as you can about computers. That may be your new job when you leave.”

  It was tempting to just let a Bud be a servant for the first few months when they were loyal, but they had the ability to learn quickly, and Jorxt insisted that they use it. A well-trained Bud could earn more. If IX became a computer expert, so much the better. There was no point in being nice and giving a Bud free time. Recreation or even service wasted the narrow window when a Bud learned easily. The Buds wouldn’t remain loyal no matter how nicely they were treated, which meant all their free time should be spent learning, since a quarter of their incomes would go to their progenitors.

  Jorxt turned to the computer to try to find out what Linda Saunders was doing. It promised to be more interesting than learning more computer skills. Also, he was beginning to think he might learn something from her.

  Chapter 15

  “Sleep,” Wilson said.

  Linda looked at him, not understanding.

  “You didn’t sleep. You’re going to do so now.”

  “What gives you the right to order me around?” Linda asked. The bed of cloth was just as Wilson left it, which explained how he knew she didn’t sleep.

  “Your lack of common sense. Staying up all night isn’t good.”

  “You said we might be denied access. I had to make sure we still had it.”

  “Did you?”

  “I think so. I programmed a backdoor.” Among other things.

  Wilson took her hand
and pulled her to a standing position. Unresisting, she let him lead her back to their shared room. She allowed herself to collapse and sleep.

  When she woke up, she grabbed a meal bar while checking her computer, which showed one of her traps paid off. Someone is watching us, she realized. It didn’t take her long to figure out where the cameras were in their apartment. She had a whiteboard marker in her purse and covered the mirrored wall with a large spot. She watched the computer screen with satisfaction as the room disappeared behind the blue mark. Five cameras for their small apartment seemed excessive, but she covered each one.

  Considering the observation of her, she wasn’t sure she should check the website she set up hoping her father would find, but she couldn’t resist. The message she received was brief and to the point: “captive in bunker on island nature preserve John with me coordinate numbers 455402 305541” The coding was simple, one for A, two for B and so on, with space and base six digits following the alphabet.

  Dad was alive! So was John! Her father tried to teach her not to agonize over things beyond her control, but she couldn’t control her worry. She may have hidden it from herself, but it was there, as demonstrated by the surge of relief she felt. She stretched and enjoyed the happy rush of feelings and then went back to work.

  Vigintees’ computers had almost no information about the world outside Vigint City. She needed to tap into a Plict computer to do that. It was risky, because she suspected that the Plict were much more careful about security on their computers than on Vigintees’ computers. Her father obviously had limited access to a computer. Probably they were allowing him to view things, but not send messages. She was glad things worked similarly to the Internet on Earth. Every request for information sent out information and came back with information. There were enough external requests for information in the Vigintees’ computers that she was able to get her program onto their Internet. It set up a webpage she named Linda, in the same code her father sent a message. If he had unlimited access, he could send her a detailed message. He didn’t. He sent her a short message that was hidden in a request for something else on her webpage.