“And?”
“Noah himself didn’t understand the nanobots. They were sort of ‘lit up’ when this weird thing happened with the network in 2034 — something unexpected that spread through the old Internet, eventually Crossbrace, and now The Beam, like bees spreading pollen. Noah knew that ‘pollination’ had happened and was concerned by it, but realized too late that the same ‘phantom intelligence’ was what lit up some of Quark’s back-burner projects. Like the Agile Four.” Alexa shook her head. “In a way, those were operating as if they had a ghost inside them, doing things even their creators didn’t understand.”
“Such as?”
“They were intuitive. Quark knew it; that’s why they marketed the nanos as being able to ‘give you what pleases you most.’ They just didn’t realize how good they were at their job — how intuitive those old nanobots really were.”
“You’re talking in circles, Alexa. What does any of this ‘injection’ business between Clive and Nicole have to do with Chloe Shaw?”
Alexa crossed her legs. She sipped her drink and smirked.
“What? What’s so damned funny?”
“Just answer one question, Parker. We’ve talked about this for hours and hours. You know the story. You tell me: more than anything, what did Nicole Shaw want?”
“Stronger orgasms. For Clive’s dick to be bigger.”
Alexa shook her head.
A light entered Parker’s eyes. “A baby.”
Alexa nodded. “A baby that Nicole’s body would be able to carry naturally if given two things: a cell that delivered a father’s half of that child’s genetic code—”
“The nanobots made sperm?”
“Just one,” Alexa said. “One single cell that didn’t have to fight to survive among millions of competitors, but was instead delivered directly to where it was needed: to pair with one of Nicole’s eggs, which were still in her ovaries after her hysterectomy. A single artificial sperm whose genetic code was built to match the code the nanos knew best because its sequence was inside Quark’s system.”
“Noah’s. You’re saying the nanobots needed to make the fake sperm using someone’s DNA, so they read Noah’s sequence from the database?”
Alexa nodded again. “The nanobots Clive injected into Nicole intuited her greatest desire: to have a child. So they made a fatherly half for that child using Noah West’s DNA and carried it off to fertilize one of Nicole’s eggs. And they built the child a home to grow in, too: a fully functional uterus, hand-built by the nanos the way construction workers build a skyscraper. After that, Nicole’s natural systems were able to take over. Once implanted on the uterine wall, Chloe grew like any other child — until she was born and the uterus was no longer needed, at which point the organ could be shed, leaving her as barren as before.”
“Chloe grew like any other child” Parker repeated the words as if he didn’t believe them.
“Any other child built by intuitive nanobots. Any child who grew up learning about The Beam from its own AI, the way most kids learn from teachers, parents, and nannies.”
Something in Parker’s body language changed. It was barely perceptible, but Alexa saw it all the same: a sharpening, a rising to new levels of unease.
“The other day, when our feed watching Chloe glitched,” Parker said, his voice alarmed, somehow urgent. “When that happened, the tech said it looked like a sentient presence within The Beam was causing the problem. Like The Beam itself was watching us watch Chloe, pushing back and saying, Get your hands off her.”
Alexa took a slow breath. “You see the problem. You see why we have to keep Chloe from finding all of this out, including the years we’ve spent looking for someone — something — exactly like her.”
Sarah materialized, standing between Parker and Alexa, smiling — something Alexa had never seen the porter do before.
“Your visitor is here, Miss,” Sarah said.
At first Alexa, didn’t know how to reply, but then there was a sound: an ordinary mechanical sound divorced from the electronics of Crossbrace. That’s when Alexa realized Sarah was supposed to be off, that the physical linkage between the network and this apartment was supposed to have been severed.
Parker looked at Alexa. Alexa looked at Parker. Then both of their heads followed the sound to Alexa’s front door.
The door opened.
Chloe entered.
“We need to talk,” she said. “Right fucking now.”
WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The Future of Sex continues in The Future of Love
The Agile Four Page 7