by J. S. Morin
“A good thing, yes,” Eve agreed. “Not an easy one. I spent the day examining the very building blocks of our own existence.”
“You’re overthinking it,” Phoebe assured her, strolling through the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. She took out a pitcher of wine and poured two glasses. “This is your job. We’re clones. There are going to be more clones. Natural reproduction isn’t viable with two genomes, one of which has more junk in its helix than a licorice twist that fell on the beach.”
“Strained,” Eve said, commenting on Phoebe’s attempted metaphor.
“Really?” Phoebe asked in a huff. “Ugh. I thought that one was excellent. It drew on both the visual and contamination elements at once.”
When her sister pressed one of the wine glasses into Eve’s hand, she accepted. Sniffing the contents, her nose crinkled. “How can you like this stuff when I don’t? Shouldn’t we have more similar tastes?”
“I actually hate the way it tastes,” Phoebe admitted. “But this place used to be known for culture, art, and wine. I feel like I need to understand Paris if I’m going to rebuild it.”
“This might be straining the intent of the Adolescent Human Emancipation Act,” Eve commented sourly. “The alcohol content could stunt cognitive development.”
“Local custom,” Phoebe countered. “Not taken to excess, there aren’t deleterious long-term effects. Ancient Parisians gave this to children.”
Eve looked out through the panoramic kitchen window at the view of Paris. Modern buildings dotted the landscape, islands of glass and steel amid a sea of wildflowers. Mixed in were restoration projects like Charlie7’s Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame. Of the millions that once called the city their home, none remained.
“False equivalence,” Phoebe argued. “The occasional glass of wine with a meal or for relaxation didn’t contribute to an alien invasion, and you know it.”
Eve sipped her wine. The burgundy liquid burned her tongue and left a bitter trail of fire down her throat. “Maybe new cultural norms are in order.”
Phoebe brightened. “That’s a wonderful segue. I think we need to discuss boyfriends.”
Startled by the sudden change in their conversation, Eve choked on her wine. “What did I say that made you think I wanted a boyfriend?”
All the girls were now familiar with the concept. Even if the robots had tried keeping all popular culture materials away from them, the Eves would have puzzled it out on their own eventually. But songs and movies were rife with love and romance, often tracing their origins to ages similar to those of Eve and Phoebe.
Phoebe reacted to Eve’s question with a look of incredulity. “We’re evolved for it. And part of crafting a new human culture is deciding on the cultural norms surrounding dating, procreation, and child-rearing. We’re in a unique position to get out ahead of patriarchal repression.”
“What have you been reading?” Eve asked with a narrowed gaze. She took another sip of wine as she awaited Phoebe’s answer.
“Nora109’s been helping me with historical context,” Phoebe admitted as she refilled her glass. “Most of recorded history is told from an androcentric viewpoint. But look at us now. You’re the representative for all humanity. I’m on the forefront of an architectural and cultural revolution. Olivia’s hoping to guide the repopulation of native species. Two of the three emancipated human men work for you.”
“Technically, Plato and Zeus work for Charlie7,” Eve said. “And he answers to… well, no one really but the Human Welfare Commission technically.”
Phoebe swished her wine around the bowl of her glass. “My point is… we can decide between us what—and more importantly whom—we want out of life. There’s no point arguing over men. There’s two of us and two of them.”
“Three each,” Eve countered.
Phoebe blew a sigh and rolled her eyes. “Olivia claims she doesn’t care. Plus, Triton has fish scales for skin. Ew.”
“That’s mean,” Eve scolded. “It’s not his fault how he was made.”
“Maybe not,” Phoebe allowed, draining her glass. She aimed a slightly wobbly finger in Eve’s direction. “But you’ve seen the mating videos. Is Triton what you want for a partner?”
Eve felt her cheeks warm, and it wasn’t the few sips of wine to blame. All the humans had been shown anatomical and instructional videos on the process of natural procreation as part of their schooling. “No.”
A smirk and a twinkle in her eye marked Phoebe’s conversational victory. “Well, that leaves just Plato and Zeus. I’m presuming that you’ll choose Plato due to your prior affections? Good. That leaves Zeus for me.”
“But—”
“You can’t have them both,” Phoebe insisted, raising a finger. “If you want Zeus, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
Eve set down her wine and picked an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. “That’s the marriage ceremony. We’re not talking about marriage.”
“Aren’t we?” Phoebe asked. “There was an old saying, ‘there’s plenty of fish in the sea.’ Well, there aren’t. The one extra fish in the sea, we just agreed neither of us wants. All the Plato clones are a little off, and Plato and Zeus are the closest we’ve got to the men in the movies. Yours is the size of a polar bear. Mine had a robotic crystal for a brain. Neither is perfect, but I think once we make our choice, it’s going to be for life.”
“For life?” Eve asked. Even in the Human Era, relationships could be reevaluated and altered over the course of a lifetime if they didn’t work out.
Phoebe crossed her arms. “I’m fourteen years old. You were just in a lab today visiting the next eligible bachelors to be born on Earth. How long are you willing to wait?”
Eve’s skin crawled at the thought that those tiny floating specks in green soup might one day grow into someone she’d love intimately.
But Phoebe was right. There weren’t many options.
“What if they pick differently from us?”
Phoebe waggled her eyebrows. “That’s what I meant about cultural norms. I say we seize the initiative. Establish precedent. Go call Plato. Right now.”
Eve tried to form an argument, but Phoebe had put too much planning into this conversation. She needed time to formulate counter arguments, plan rebuttals, and decide what she wanted out of life. Seizing the initiative was all well and good, but Eve didn’t want to get seized right along with it.
On one count, however, she agreed with her little sister.
Eve wanted an excuse to call Plato.
Chapter Three
Eve’s home office was on the fourth floor of her house. Most of the middle floors had such specific purposes that she hardly bothered visiting them. The game room, the movie room, the spa, the craft room, and the art studio were spaces that Paul208 built in, just in case. There was no luxury of kings and sultans that the robots spared for the Earth’s scant few human inhabitants.
The office, however, Eve found extensively useful. Parked in front of a data terminal, her own eyewear overlaying a secondary user interface, Eve pored over and sorted news, blast-broadcast communications, and a few personally directed messages.
Nothing urgent.
The urgent items Eve kept carefully pruned and took care of every issue the instant she heard about it. For now, the Human Welfare Committee was satisfied. The Genetic Ethics Committee was still deliberating her application as an advisory member. She’d been invited to two plays, a classical music concert, and a chance to witness the activation of James271.
There was still a formal report to file in the wake of her inspection tour of Cindy14’s laboratory facilities, but half of that had been written by the time she landed her skyroamer. The rest would be finished soon enough.
Now, Eve twitched her fingers, and sensor-laden gloves read the movements. The personal computer she wore interfaced with the desktop console. She entered in Plato’s public ID and opened a secure channel.
Plato responded in an instant. “Hey, Eve.
How’s it going?”
The big, goofy grin on his face made Eve smile in kind.
“I was messaging you to ask the same,” she replied. “How’d the lead in Paraguay turn out?”
The goofy smile sagged. “Dead end. There was a lab down there, but it was abandoned. Can’t say how recent. This geneticist-hunting gig was easier when they didn’t know I was coming.”
“Sorry,” Eve said. She reclined in her chair and instructed the video panel in the desk to angle up to match, allowing her an easy view of the screen. “One of the hazards of legitimacy. The good guys don’t get to lurk in the shadows like criminals.”
He returned the grin. “Tell that to Batman. Hey… how come I gotta look at you through those robot eyes?”
It wasn’t even worth arguing about anymore. Eve had grown so used to wearing the data-display goggles that she often forgot they were there. Phoebe never mentioned them. They didn’t seem to bother any of the robots. Aside from showering, Eve wore them all the time—except around Plato.
Closing her eyes to avoid the twinge of vertigo switching to natural lighting, Eve wiggled the goggles off. Technically, there was nothing holding them on except a couple straps around and over her head, but sweat and pressure had stuck them in place, leaving shallow red imprints around her eyes and over her ears.
“That’s more like it,” Plato said.
“Glad you like it,” Eve replied, blinking at the glare from all the glossy surfaces catching the sunlight. “I feel like I just half-blinded myself.”
“Well, at least now I know I have your undivided attention,” Plato countered. The view swung away from his face and swept the inside of a cavernous underground complex, webbed with steel supports and bolstered with concrete pillars. “This place was something else. Can’t imagine what got done in here. Still, means we’ve got ‘em on the run. Won’t be long before we catch someone in the act.”
Ever the optimist.
Eve wished she could see things the way Plato did. The world was so simple his way. There were good robots and bad ones. Eve had to attend meetings with robots she knew or suspected had conflicting agendas with hers, often for no more nefarious a reason than an honest difference of opinion.
Yet for those committee-room clashes, those robots were her enemies. The next day, they might support her on an unrelated initiative.
That was the key. Plato was out to hunt and destroy the enemies of humanity. Eve had become, through no fault of her own, a politician.
“Well, keep at it,” she told Plato.
The image in the video spun crazily until it focused on Plato’s face once more.
“Will do,” he assured Eve with a wink.
There was a long pause.
It was Eve’s turn to speak. The conversation was poised on the brink of a parting exchange, followed by closing the link. All Eve had to do was bid Plato farewell.
Phoebe’s commandment hung over Eve like a summer storm cloud, heavy with rain but holding it in for a sudden downpour. There was no way she could think of to ease into a conversation of lifelong romantic commitment forged on the altar of “there aren’t really many options.” Blurting seemed best. Eve knew how to blurt. But the words were bottled up inside her.
“How are Zeus and Charlie doing?” she asked instead.
Plato’s face grew comically incredulous. “I dunno. Been busy down here. Weather’s nice, and the place is cleared out pretty good. I was thinking of signing out a few automatons and making a little vacation place. Think about it: land isn’t going to be free for the taking forever.”
Free for the taking? The robots had owned the Earth so long and with so few of them that they didn’t have money. Yet, money had been the lifeblood of the Human Era. Sooner or later, there wouldn’t be enough for everyone, and there would need to be some means of controlling distribution.
Eve swiveled in her chair to gaze out at the city of Paris. Her house and the manicured lawn surrounding it. Charlie’s arch. Paul316’s cathedral. Phoebe’s new tram. Eve had seen the pictures of a Paris so packed with buildings that only strips of pavement were left between, just wide enough for cars to travel in both directions.
“Earth to Eve,” Plato’s voice snapped Eve from her musings on market economics and pre-post-scarcity humanity. “You in there?”
“Sorry,” Eve muttered. “Yeah. I went back into my head. It’s been a weird day.”
“You can make ‘em stop, you know,” Plato said. “We’re the humans, remember? They can’t decide the fate of our species for us. If you’re not comfortable with how they’re—”
“It’s not that,” Eve interjected before Plato got onto one of his rants. “It’s just… not natural. I mean, that’s how we were made. But humans aren’t supposed to be things. We’re supposed to occur though natural biological processes that—”
“Yup,” Plato cut in quickly. “Saw the video. Don’t need a refresher.”
Eve twitched a smile. “I’ll… uh… check in with Charlie and see how he’s doing.”
Chapter Four
Eve watched the blank video screen, still picturing Plato’s face in her mind. A held breath leaked out of her and with it the tension she’d held inside. The image wasn’t fading.
Rubbing her eyes, Eve remembered the data-display goggles. This was a hazard of being under-stimulated mentally. Pulling them on and shrugging and squirming until the fiber cables ran comfortably down to the computer at her belt, she sighed in relief.
A perfectly optimized interface greeted her, showing Eve everything she might need to know at a glance. The uplink to the house’s security network let her peer in on Phoebe, still down in the kitchen trying her hand at cooking—better to make a mess of Eve’s kitchen than go back to her own. Her talk with Plato moved from recent calls to her archived conversations. Sunset was in fifty-five minutes, giving Eve plenty of time to get to the rooftop observation deck to watch.
In one corner of Eve’s display, a warning light blinked. Elevated heart rate had been detected without corresponding physical exertion. With a few finger twitches, Eve dismissed the warning. She understood quite well what had caused it and didn’t know a cure. Maybe she could write a subroutine for disabling the heartbeat monitor during and immediately following interactions with Plato.
A green indicator blinked. She had an incoming request for real-time communication. Sender: Charlie7.
“Hi, Charlie,” Eve said as she gestured to open her end of the conversation.
“Hey, kid,” Charlie replied. She was getting used to the imposing Version 70.2 chassis with its matte black finish. It no longer made her jump every time it sprang to life in her goggles’ display. “I hear you’re looking for good news.”
Eve brightened. “You have some?”
“No,” Charlie admitted. “But I may have an idea to help you quit worrying.”
Initially disappointed by Charlie’s ‘no,’ Eve found her hoped buoyed once more. She got the impression of being a yo-yo, though the curious angular momentum toy was harder to operate than it appeared.
“Can you stop breaking up your statements into teasing bits?” Eve asked.
Charlie cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am! The problem we’re having here is the Privacy Committee guidelines on digitally invasive searches. Back in the Human Era, there were keystroke sniffer laws. It took a court order, but it was damned effective in catching suspects in… well, everything but cybercrime. Those sorts knew better than to get caught by a keylogger. Point is, we’ve got nothing like that. If I have a suspect, I have to sit somewhere and wait for them to make a mistake. It’s like watching shadows on a cave wall without being allowed to see what cast them.”
“You have a suspect?”
The image in Charlie’s transmission shifted. Unlike Plato’s treatment of the transmitter like a movie camera, Charlie interposed his as a concurrent digital stream. It showed an orbital view of Earth. Cloud cover over Western Europe appeared consistent with today’s weather. “
Yeah. Right there.”
“That’s Earth.”
“Good eye,” Charlie commented dryly.
“So, you don’t have any suspects.” It was an inference, not a question.
“Everyone’s a suspect,” Charlie clarified. “If we start making assumptions, we’re going to let the smarter criminals slip past. Darwinian criminal theory would have us picking off the weakest in the herd while the ones who go free get better and better at their craft. I’d rather catch the smartest ones and let the whole sordid system crumble.”
“Arthur19 won’t like it,” Eve warned. Neophyte though she might have been, Charlie’s suggestion ran counter to everything the powerful Privacy Committee stood for. As its chairman, Arthur19 was the champion of robotic personal freedom.
The image in her goggles shifted back to Charlie just in time to catch him laughing. “Never said he would. Your job, as Human Welfare Committee chairwoman, is to convince him to give us enough leeway to get our job done. Make it clear that if the Human Protection Agency doesn’t start seeing results, blame is going to fall on Arthur19 and his band of obstructionists.”
“Can’t you… you know… blackmail him?” Eve asked. Not to put too fine a point on it, but much of Charlie7’s political career seemed to be built on knowing things other robots didn’t want revealed publicly.
“Legitimacy,” Charlie reminded her. “That was the idea when we put this task force together. If we were just vigilantes, this pizza would have very different toppings.”
“Weak,” Eve commented. “Your food-related metaphors are a nice attempt at relating. The problem is that you don’t remember what they taste like, and I only tried pizza once.”
“I remember liking it,” Charlie replied. “But I do have a thousand years of memories more recent than my last taste.”
“I parse your colloquial robotic expressions more easily. The system-level analogies make logical sense.”
“Fine,” Charlie agreed with a huff. “If we wanted to be vigilantes, we’d skip the circuit breakers and plug this operation directly into the power source.”