Nekropolis

by Maureen F. Mchugh

  I laugh, full of nervousness. “It’s not human.”

  “Does it have feelings?” Ayesha asks.

  I shrug. “After a fashion. It’s AI.”

  “It doesn’t look like a machine,” she says.

  “It’s not a machine,” I say, irritated with her.

  “How can it be AI if it isn’t a machine?” she presses.

  “Because it’s manufactured. A technician’s creation. An artificial combination of genes, grown somewhere.”

  “Human genes?”

  “Probably,” I say. “Maybe some animal genes. Maybe some that they made up themselves, how would I know?” It’s ruining my afternoon. “I wish it would offer to go home.”

  “Maybe he can’t,” Ayesha says. “If Mbarek-salah told him to come, he’d have to, wouldn’t he?”

  I don’t really know anything about harni .

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” Ayesha says. “Harni, “ she calls, “come here.”

  He tilts his head, all alert. “Yes, mistress?”

  “Are harni prescripted for taste?” she inquires.

  “What do you mean, the taste of food?” he asks. “I can taste just like you do, although” -he smiles-“I personally am not overly fond of cherries.”

  “No, no,” Ayesha says. “Colors, clothing. Are you capable of helping make choices? About earrings, for example?”

  He comes to look at the jewelry, and selects a pair of gold and rose enamel teardrops and holds them up for her. “I think my taste is no better than the average person’s,” he says, “but I like these.”

  She frowns, looks at him through her lashes. She’s got me thinking of it as “him.” And she’s flirting with him! Ayesha! A married woman!

  “What do you think, Hariba?” she asks. She takes the earrings, holds one beside her face. “They’re pretty.”

  “I think they’re gaudy.”

  She’s hurt. Honestly, they suit her.

  She frowns at me. “I’ll take them,” she says. The stallman names a price.

  “No, no, no,” says the harni, “you shouldn’t buy them. This man’s a thief.” He reaches to touch her, as if he’d pull her away, and I hold my breath in shock-if the thing should touch her!

  But the stallman interrupts with a lower price. The harni bargains. He’s a good bargainer, but he should be, he has no compassion, no concern for the stallkeeper. Charity is a human virtue. The Second Koran says, “A human in need becomes every man’s child.”

  Interminable, this bargaining, but finally the earrings are Ayesha’s. “We should stop and have some tea,” she says.

  “I have a headache,” I say. “I think I should go home.”

  “If Hariba’s ill, we should go,” the harni says.

  Ayesha looks at me, looks away, guilty. She should feel guilt.

  * * *

  I come down the hall to access the household AI and the harni ‘s there. Apparently busy, but waiting for me. “I’ll be finished in a minute and out of your way,” it says. Beautiful fingers, wrist bones, beautiful face, and dark curling hair showing just where its shirt closes; it’s elegantly constructed. Lean and long-legged, like a hound. When the technician constructed it, did he know how it would look when it was grown? Are they designed with aesthetics in mind?

  It takes the report and steps aside, but doesn’t go on with its work. I ignore it, doing my work as if it weren’t there, standing so it’s behind me.

  “Why don’t you like me?” it finally asks.

  I consider my answers. I could say it’s a thing, not something to like or dislike, but that isn’t true. I like my bed, my things. “Because of your arrogance,” I say to the system.

  A startled hiss of indrawn breath. “My…arrogance?” it asks.

  “Your presumption.” It’s hard to keep my voice steady. Every time I’m around the harni, I find myself hating the way I speak.

  “I…I am sorry, Hariba,” it whispers. “I have little experience. I didn’t realize I’d insulted you.”

  It sounds sad. I’m tempted to turn around and look at it, but I don’t. It doesn’t really feel pain, I remind myself. It’s a thing, it has no more feelings than a fish. Less.

  “Please, tell me what I’ve done?”

  “Your behavior. This conversation, here,” I say. “You’re always trying to make people think you’re human.”

  Silence. Is it considering? Or would it be more accurate to say processing?

  “You blame me for being what I am,” the harni says. It sighs. “I can’t help being what I am.”

  I wait for it to say more, but it doesn’t. I turn around, but it’s gone.

  SPECIAL_IMAGE-clip_image002.jpg-REPLACE_ME

  After that, every time it sees me, it makes some excuse to avoid me if it can. I don’t know if I’m grateful or not. I’m very uncomfortable.

  My tasks aren’t complicated. I see to the cleaning machine and set it loose in the women’s household when it won’t inconvenience the mistress. I’m jessed to Mbarek, although I serve the mistress. I’m glad I’m not jessed to her; Fadina is and she has to put up with a great deal. I’m careful never to blame the mistress in front of Fadina. She knows that the mistress is unreasonable, but of course, emotionally she is bound to affection and duty.

  On Friday mornings the mistress is usually in her rooms, preparing for her Sunday bismek . On Friday afternoons she goes out to play the Tiles with her friends and gossip about husbands and the wives who aren’t there. I clean on Friday afternoons. I call the cleaning machine and it follows me down the hallway like a dog, snuffling along the baseboards for dust.

  I open the door and smell attar of roses. The room is different from the way it usually looks. Today there’s a white marble floor veined with gold and amethyst, covered with purple rugs. There are braziers, low couches, and huge open windows looking out on a pillared walkway, like some sheik’s palace, and beyond that vistas go down to a lavender sea. It’s the mistress’s current bismek setting. A young man is reading a letter on the walkway, a girl stands behind him, her face is tear-stained.

  Interactive fantasies. The characters are generated from lists of traits, they’re projections controlled by whoever is game-mistress of the bismek and fleshed out by the household AI. Everyone else comes over and becomes characters in the setting. There are poisonings and love affairs. The mistress’s setting is in ancient times and seems to be quite popular. Some of her friends have two or three identities in the game.

  Before this game, the bismek settings all came from her foreign soap operas-women who were as bold as men, and improbable clothing and kissing and immoral technology. The characters all had augmentation, which is forbidden, of course. There was technology everywhere, and people talking to each other through AI interfaces. It was fascinating, but I hated it. I hated living with the temptation, I hated the shallowness of it all. No one in those stories ever had to make a real decision about their lives, and they all had jobs creating simulations and beautiful clothes or were personalities in some sort of interface.

  She usually turns it off when she goes out. The little cleaning machine stops in the doorway. It can read the difference between reality and the projection, but she has ordered it never to enter the projection because she says the sight of the thing snuffling through walls damages her sense of the alternate reality. I reach behind the screen and turn the projection off so I can clean. The scene disappears and all that’s left is the mistress’s rooms and their bare white walls-something no one ever sees except me. “Go ahead,” I tell the machine and start for the mistress’s room to pick up things for the laundry.

  To my horror, the mistress steps out of her bedroom. Her hair is loose and long and disheveled and she is dressed in a day robe, obviously not intending to go out. She sees me in the hall and her face darkens, her beautiful, heavy eyebrows folding toward her nose, and I instinctively start to back up. “Oh, mistress,” I say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in, I’m sorry, let me get the cle
aning machine and leave, I’ll just be out of here in a moment, I thought you had gone out to play the Tiles, I should have checked with Fadina, it is my fault, mistress-”

  “Did you turn them off?” she demands. “You stupid girl. Did you turn Zarin and Nisea off? “

  I nod mutely.

  “O Holy One,” she says. “Ugly, incompetent girl! Are you completely lacking in sense? Did you think they would be there and I wouldn’t be here? It’s difficult enough to prepare without interference!”

  “I’ll turn it back on,” I say.

  “Don’t touch anything!” she shrieks. “FADINA!” Fadina is always explaining to me how difficult it is for the mistress to think up new scenarios for her friends’ participation.

  I keep backing up, hissing at the cleaning machine, while the mistress follows me down the hall, shrieking, “FADINA!” and because I’m watching the mistress, I back into Fadina coming in the door.

  “Didn’t you tell Hariba that I’d be in this afternoon?” the mistress says.

  “Of course,” Fadina says.

  I’m aghast. “You did not!” I say.

  “I did, too,” Fadina says. “You were at the access. I distinctly told you and you said you would clean later.”

  I start to defend myself and the mistress slaps me in the face. “Enough of you, girl,” she says. And then the mistress makes me stand there and berates me, reaching out now and then to grab my hair and yank it painfully because of course she believes Fadina when the girl is clearly lying to avoid punishment. I cannot believe that Fadina has done this to me; she is in terror of offending the mistress, but she has always been a good girl, and I’m innocent. My cheek stings, and my head aches from having my hair yanked, but, worse, I’m angry and very, very humiliated.

  Finally we are allowed to leave. I know I should give Fadina a piece of my mind, but I just want to escape. Out in the hall, Fadina grabs me so hard that her nails bite into the soft part under my arm. “I told you she was in an absolute frenzy about Saturday,” she whispers. “I can’t believe you did that! And now she’ll be in a terrible mood all evening and I’m the one who will suffer for it!”

  “Fadina,” I protest.

  “Don’t you ‘Fadina’ me, Hariba! If I don’t get a slap out of this, it will be the intervention of the Holy One!”

  I have already gotten a slap, and it wasn’t even my fault. I pull my arm away from Fadina and try to walk down the hall without losing my dignity, the cleaning machine snuffling behind. My face is hot and I’m about to cry. Everything blurs in tears. I duck into the linens and sit down on the hamper. I want to leave this place, I don’t want to work for that old woman. I realize that my only friend in the world is Ayesha and now we are far apart and I feel hurt and lonely and I just sob.

  The door to the linens opens and I turn my back, thinking, Go away, whoever you are.

  “Oh, excuse me,” the harni says.

  At least it will go away. But the thought that the only thing around is the harni makes me feel even lonelier. I cannot stop myself from sobbing.

  “Hariba,” it says hesitantly, “are you all right?”

  I can’t answer. I want it to go away, and I don’t.

  After a moment, it says from right behind me, “Hariba, are you ill?”

  I shake my head.

  I can feel it standing there, perplexed, but I don’t know what to do and I can’t stop crying and I feel foolish. I want my mother. Not that she would do anything other than remind me that the world is not fair. My mother believes in facing reality. “Be strong,” she always says. And that makes me cry harder.

  After a minute, I hear the harni leave and, awash in self-pity, I even cry over that. My feelings of foolishness are beginning to outweigh my feelings of unhappiness, but perversely enough I realize that I’m enjoying my cry. That it has been inside me, building stronger and stronger, and I didn’t even know it.

  Then someone comes in again and I straighten my back again and pretend to be checking towels. The only person it could be is Fadina.

  But it’s the harni, with a box of tissues. He crouches beside me, his face full of concern. “Here,” he says.

  Embarrassed, I take one. If you didn’t know, you would think he was a regular human. He even smells of clean man-scent. Like my brothers. I don’t really have to dislike him . He didn’t pick what he is.

  I blow my nose, wondering if harni ever cry. “Thank you,” I say. I can’t not say, “Thank you.”

  “I was afraid you were ill,” he says.

  I shake my head. “No, I’m just angry.”

  “You cry when you are angry?” he asks.

  “The mistress is upset at me and it’s Fadina’s fault, but I had to take the blame.” That makes me start to cry again, but the harni is patient and he just crouches next to me in among the linens, holding the box of tissues. By the time I collect myself, there is a little crumpled pile of tissues and some have tumbled to the floor. I take two tissues and start folding them into a flower, like my mother makes.

  “Why are you nice to me when I’m mean to you?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Because you don’t want to be mean to me,” he says. “It makes you suffer. I’m sorry that I make you uncomfortable.”

  “But you can’t help being what you are,” I say. My eyes are probably red. Harni never cry, I’m certain. They are too perfect. I keep my eyes on the flower.

  “Neither can you,” he says. “When Mbarek-salah made you take me with you on your day off, you weren’t even free to be angry with him. I knew that was why you were angry with me.” He has eyes like my brother Fhassin (who had long eyelashes like a girl, just like the harni ).

  Thinking about Mbarek-salah makes my head ache a little and I think of something else. I remember and cover my mouth in horror. “Oh no.”

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “I think…I think Fadina did tell me that the mistress would be in, but I was…was thinking of something else and I didn’t pay attention.” I was standing at the access, wondering if the harni was around, since that was where I was most likely to run into him.

  “It is natural enough,” he says, unnatural thing that he is. “If Fadina weren’t jessed, she would probably be more understanding.”

  He’s prescripted to be kind, I remind myself. I should not ascribe human motives to an AI. But I’ve been mean to him and he is the only one in the whole household sitting here among the linens with a box of tissues. I fluff out the folds of the flower and put it among the linens. A white tissue flower, a funeral flower.

  “Thank you…Akhmim.” It is hard to say his name.

  He smiles. “Don’t be sad, Hariba.”

  * * *

  I’m careful and avoid the eye of the mistress as much as I can. Fadina is civil to me, but not friendly. She says hello to me, politely, and goes on with whatever she is doing.

  It is Akhmim, the harni, who stops me one evening and says, “The mistress wants us for bismek tomorrow.” It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to stand in, but usually it’s Fadina who lets me know and tells me what I’m supposed to do.

  Anymore I try to be kind to Akhmim. He’s easy to talk to, and, like me, he’s alone in the household.

  “What are we supposed to be?” I ask.

  The harni flicks his long fingers dismissively, “Servants, of course. What’s it like?” He hasn’t been here that long, so this is the first time he’s been asked to participate.

  “Bismek?” I shrug. “Playacting.”

  “Like children’s games?” he asks, looking doubtful.

  “Well, yes and no. The mistress’s bismek been going on a couple of years now and there are hundreds of characters,” I say. “The ladies all have roles, and you have to remember to call them by their character names and not their real names, and you have to pretend it’s all real. All sorts of things happen; people get in trouble, and they all figure out elaborate plots to get out of trouble and people get strange illnesses and everybody
professes their undying affection. The mistress threw her best friend in prison for a while. Fadina said that was very popular.”

  He looks at me for a moment, blinking his long eyelashes. “You’re making fun of me, Hariba,” he says, doubtful.

  “No,” I say, laughing, “it’s true.” It is, too. “Akhmim, no one is ever really hurt or uncomfortable.”

  I think he can’t decide whether to believe me or not.

  Saturday afternoon I’m dressed in a pagan-looking robe that leaves one shoulder bare. And makes me look ridiculous, I might add. I’m probably a server. Projections are prettier than real people, but they can’t very well hand out real food.

  I arrive early at the mistress’s quarters. The scent of some heavy, almost bitter incense is overwhelming. The cook is laying out real food, using our own service, but the table is too tall to sit at on the floor-more like a European table-and there are candles and brass bowls of dates to make it look antique. Without the projection the elaborate table looks odd, since the room is empty of furniture. Akhmim is helping, bringing in lounging chairs so the guests can recline at the table. He’s dressed in a white robe that comes to his knees and brown sandals that have elaborate crisscross ties, and, like me, his shoulder is bare. Unlike me, the harni looks graceful. He glances up at me and smiles and I’m embarrassed to be seen by a man with my shoulder and neck bare. Remember, I think, Akhmim is what he is; he’s not really a man or he wouldn’t be here.

  “Hariba,” Akhmim says, “Fadina says that the mistress is in a terrible mood.”

  “She’s always in a terrible mood when she’s nervous,” I say.

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Akhmim,” I say, laughing, “don’t worry!”

  “I don’t understand any of this playing pretend,” he wails softly.

  I take his hand and squeeze it. If he were a man, I wouldn’t touch him. I’ve never touched him before. His hand is warm and human. “You’ll do fine. We don’t have to do much anyway, just serve dinner. You can manage that, probably better than I can.”

  He bites his lower lip, and I’m suddenly reminded of my brother Fhassin-I could almost cry. But I just squeeze his hand again. I’m nervous, too, but not about serving dinner. I have avoided the mistress since the incident with the cleaning machine.