by J. S. Morin
Titters of laughter answered her.
Another shift was in order. Abby was better educated in history than a typical Oxford education was known for. They often skipped the messy side of history, as evidenced by the gaps in his own followers’ schooling.
“Look here,” Alex said. “I attended your little propaganda play the other night. I was curious. The production was quality, even if the message was mostly revisionist pap. But I didn’t interrupt you when you showed Eve14 singing and dancing instead of cowering as Charlie7 fought against unknown pursuers and her own naive recklessness to protect her. Your mother didn’t discover Creator’s name; your father had merely withheld it out of distrust until she’d been recaptured.”
That caught Abby off guard. She stiffened and backed a step away from Alex. Oh, the spectacle she’d have made by falling off the skyroamer. Alex took a step closer, hoping she’d maintain the gap.
But Abby didn’t back up. Or down for that matter.
“But I didn’t jump onto the stage and shout you down,” Alex continued. “I watched. I listened. I even clapped here and there. That’s a tribute to how I was raised. Now, if you wouldn’t mind…” He swept a hand out toward the crowd.
Abby fumed silently. However much history she’d studied, Alex suspected her knowledge was bird’s eye, not practical. Speeches were more than words on paper. Debates were more than point and counterpoint. Demeanor, mannerisms, and composure mattered.
His opponent didn’t belong on the stage with him, but it had nothing to do with this being Alex’s rally. Until Abby learned that it took more than pithy comebacks and comedy monologues to fight a political war, she was merely a distraction.
“Run along,” Alex called after her as Abby slipped through the crowd toward the skyroamer. “I hope you enjoyed your stunt. If you’ve got an apology for everyone for wasting their time, it might go a long way toward forgiving you for your rudeness.”
Most of the crowd was watching Alex up on stage. It was a good thing, because Abby lifted both hands, middle fingers extended, as she walked away with her back to him.
Chapter Forty
Abby breathed deep of the South Pacific air. Clear of the lingering scent of ion wash from her skyroamer, Easter Island was an olfactory paradise. The Atlantic had a rough, cold edge to it, at least along the shores of Normandy where she typically encountered it. There was a hard brine to that air, the kind that reminded one of barnacles and whaling ships and megalomaniacal sea captains.
She was as far from all that as a human could get. As far from any continental landmass as someone could be. So remote as to be easily forgotten.
Today was about remembering and reminding.
Ashley390 met Abby at the access road to the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins. None of the residents were around. For today’s purposes, the island was a backdrop. Abby wasn’t here to disrupt the sanctuary’s routine.
“You remind me of your mother with that shaved head of yours,” Ashley390 said as they shook hands. “I notice there’s no stubble. Considering keeping it short?”
“Considering, yeah. Jury’s out,” Abby said. “But it saves me about ten minutes a shower.” She realized how languid that made her sound, but she’d never been one to rush a hot shower. The best ideas came from showers.
“Didn’t realize you were that pressed for time,” Ashley390 observed mildly. “I must say, it’s odd that you’re campaigning for Eve in an election that’s not even guaranteed to happen.”
Abby stopped with an awkward half-stride that threw her off balance. “You think the Human Welfare Committee can just ignore all this?”
“Easily,” Ashley390 replied. “I don’t mind letting you in on a little of the back-channel chatter, but we’re thinking of sanctioning Alex Truman for his dangerous conduct, putting his own and others’ lives at risk. He’s making a lot of enemies.”
“Not among humans,” Abby said, shaking her head at what seemed to be obvious.
Ashley390 laid a hand on Abby’s back, and the two of them resumed walking. “That’s his mistake. He should have come at this from a committee perspective. All he has now are a mob of precocious children, many of whom are calling into question the wisdom of their emancipation. None of them are on any committees.”
“That’s kind of their primary grievance.”
Ashley390 chuckled. “Be that as it may. Women’s suffrage didn’t end because of women forming a club and voting. Those votes would have meant nothing. They worked long and hard, nagged at the conscience of the system, appealed to reason and moral right.”
“Do you really want to be on that side of history?” Abby asked.
“Do you know how many committee applications Alex and his little cadre of insiders have submitted?”
“I don’t see how that really—”
“Zero,” Ashley390 said firmly. “It’s all on official records. There are other humans on file as awaiting appointment to committees relevant to their interests. You’re well aware of most of the ones currently serving.”
Abby rolled her eyes. Her family tree was more like a lawn, identical little blades of grass all lined up. “Yeah. My aunts and mom. A couple of my uncles.”
“Age before ambition,” Ashley390 said as if it were a quote Abby ought to have known. “Alex Truman was our biggest mistake. He won’t go see Dr. Ashley.” A twitch of a smile crossed the administrator’s face at the mention of her progenitor-turned-therapist. “But she’s mentioned suspecting him of antisocial personality disorder.”
“Oh, he’s plenty social,” Abby protested. “His little clique follows him around like a pack of puppies whenever he snaps his fingers.”
“I don't think they’re really a clique. They’re co-conspirators,” Ashley390 said. “Each of them has a stake in this. Everyone is using everyone else, Alex most of all. He learned from a master manipulator, and they’re using him as their front man.”
“And don’t you see how dangerous that makes him?”
Ashley 390 smiled. “I understand how destructive it might make him. Don’t confuse the two. The world has gotten by for a thousand years without Alex Truman. It can survive a few months with him.”
“A few months?” Abby asked incredulously. “He’s looking for a foothold. Once he’s in, you’ll never get him out. That's why I have to stop him.”
Abby had hoped that Ashley390 would have understood the danger that Alex posed. Perhaps this was her window into how the robots viewed this nascent uprising. Humans were children to them. All humans, not just the younger generation. Eve might have been the lone exception—maybe Phoebe and Rachel too. The likes of Abby and Alex were lumped in with the schoolchildren at Oxford.
The rest of the way to the Rocky outcropping where she would hold her rally, Abby maintained her silence. Ashley390 wordlessly agreed that their differences would remain unresolved for now. It was enough that Ashley390 was allowing her the use of the island as a backdrop. With a view overlooking the Spanish mission-style conclave, Abby could address her audience without disturbing the residents. It wouldn’t do for Abby to come in and disrupt the lives of everyone on the island to discuss their well-being.
There was neither podium nor sound system. There was no seating. Was it pessimism or practicality? Abby didn’t anticipate a large group arriving anytime soon. Should she have prepared a larger venue? Possibly. But that wouldn’t have been the rally she was hoping to hold.
After what seemed like an impossibly long wait that actually lasted no more than five minutes, the first of her audience arrived. It was Nigel, accompanied by Rosa. Not exactly the harshest critics. Some scared portion of Abby’s brain worried that she would have to discuss politics one-on-one with her critics. At least now, if one of them showed up she would have friends to lean on. Unlike Alex, Abby felt that that was one of her strengths.
She was willing to involve her friends.
Rosa gave her a hug. “I see we’re the first ones here.”
Nigel grinned lo
psidedly. “Nah, Billy’s coming. He’s just fashionably late, as usual.”
What was fashionable about a political rally? Abby left the question aside for now as she had more important worries. Others were arriving. Their skyroamers collected on the landing pad near where Abby had parked. Faces, both familiar and unfamiliar, formed a steady stream of pilgrims making the trek up to the outcropping where Abby waited for them.
“Welcome, everyone,” Abby announced once the crowd had gathered. If stragglers came, they would have to deal with missing the beginning. Already she could sense the bubbling unrest as the dozens gathered fidgeted and shifted as Abby delayed. “Thank you for coming down to this island paradise today.”
Nervous chuckles told Abby that they’d picked up on her mild sarcasm. Despite its climate and unspoiled beauty, Easter Island in the year 3111 was anything but a vacation spot.
“I brought you here because the Sanctuary of Scientific Sins is a place often forgotten,” Abby continued. “It was built here because of its remoteness, its isolation. If ever there were a place meant to be forgotten by its creators, you see it right over there.” She swept a hand out toward the main complex where the whitewashed walls and red clay tile roofs stood quiet and distant. “I could have held this gathering at the sanctuary itself, but that would have been contrary to my message today: compassion. The men and women who live here did not come into this world as did you and I. They were experiments, test subjects even before they were born. None of them benefited from the genetic technology we’ve already begun to take for granted.”
Abby judged her audience. It was something she wasn’t used to doing on stage, but she understood that there was no waiting for the news feeds the following day to read her critics. Her pause for effect was as much to size up the reaction of the onlookers as to allow them time to absorb her words.
“Today, if we had come in numbers and invaded the only home they’ve known most of their lives, the residents here would have been frightened. That is not my intent. So, we visit from afar. We remember. What we were meant to forget is that without vigilance, humanity is a fragile victim. We who are strong, armed of mind and able of body, have a duty to look after those who cannot look after themselves. It is the core of the mission my mother has undertaken her entire career.”
As Abby spoke, latecomers continued to join the back of the crowd. She tried not to allow them to distract her. A growing crowd was better than a shrinking one, after all.
“These are the lucky ones, if you can believe it,” Abby said. “We only have one geneticist’s records to go by, but we know that many, many more early humans were quietly disposed of in horrific fashion. This is a fact. The Human Welfare Committee has gone to great lengths to ensure that never happens again. While we can never prove a negative, there hasn’t been a documented case of unauthorized human genetics since the Dale2 incident.”
“Convenient, isn’t it?” someone at the back of the crowd shouted back. Abby’s blood chilled despite the balmy breeze. Scanning the crowd, she picked out Wendy Chang, one of Alex’s supporters. A week ago, Abby might also have called her Alex’s girlfriend, except that he’d come to Birth of a Human with Leslie de Saito by his side. Whatever their relationship, it had been naive of Abby not to assume her audience would all be supportive. “They found a group of cloners operating independently, shut them down, then disbanded the Human Protection Agency.”
Abby pursed her lips. Was she prepared to go off message to explain modern history to someone who no-doubt knew it all too well? Yes. Yes, she was. “The Human Protection Agency was called into question when its head was found to be Dr. Charlie instead of an actual mixed robot.” The crowd sucked in a collective breath. No one called Charlie7 that. The ancient robot spoke little publicly since his secret had come out, but on those few occasions, he’d made it clear that he’d earned whatever designation he chose. A thread of fear held taut across all society kept people from calling him Dr. Charlie publicly. “With their primary mission of hunting the brain recycling conspiracy wrapped up and the agency director disgraced, it seemed like the prudent course.”
“Couldn’t let Plato run it, I suppose,” Wendy shot back from the rear of the crowd.
Abby’s cheeks warmed.
She knew the popular opinion. The HPA had been a collection of thugs. Charlie7 was the mastermind. Zeus had been a double-agent for the conspiracy. Dad was a loose cannon and more of a threat to innocent robots than the guilty.
“Eve Fourteen has always been our true protector,” Abby continued, pivoting back to her original point. She felt a swell of pride for keeping her calm and not driving this speech off a cliff. “Say what you will about her, but Eve has overseen the births of all of us present—except you, of course, Uncle Triton.” Abby offered a brief wave to Dad’s fish-scaled brother. “The emancipation we all enjoy? Eve’s doing. If not for her, we’d probably all have been raised in sterile white prisons, utterly safe from evil cloners, non-optimized foods, and anything resembling freedom. They’d have had us painting landscapes for their walls and drinking from handmade teacups we’d sculpted.”
“Robots don’t drink,” Alex Truman said loudly from so close that Abby jumped.
How had she missed him? And, for that matter, how had she allowed her metaphors to run so far off the mark. She’d memorized this speech. The robots were supposed to admire the sculptures, not drink from teacups. And who sculpted teacups?
Wrong time for improv.
“Thanks for the anatomy lesson,” Abby said dryly. “Did anyone else think the robots were really drinking from teacups?” She looked out into the crowd, nominally for raised hands, but actually in search of Alex Truman groupies mixed in among those who’d come to hear her speech for its own merits.
“You know this place is as much your mother’s shame as it is the robots’, don’t you?” Alex asked, looking Abby’s way but with a voice modulated to the size of the crowd. “There have been twelve new additions to the sanctuary on her watch.”
“Alive and happy,” Abby countered. “Eve had a hard choice to make, and she chose life.”
Alex scoffed. “Ha! Hard choice? She chose to do nothing. Same choice an automaton would have made.”
Abby stepped back and spread her arms. Would he walk right into this mess? “By all means, enlighten us. Lay out the groundwork for your master plan to shut down this sanctuary.”
Demagogues never had a plan. Abby could feel in her bones that Alex’s phony speeches were just designed to throw Eve into a bad light. It was clearly a Vaudeville act, minus the wink-and-a-nod humor. He took the limelight and made sure the shadow fell on his opponent. No one could be so relentlessly contrarian. If Abby backed away and left him by himself, eventually the public would catch on.
Alex cocked his head. “Why, thank you. I admire a woman who can step aside when she knows she’s been bested. Of course, I have a plan. Gene therapy. I am a man of science. We live in a world created by science in the image of the one first made by God. If we can match that miracle, why not overcome this lesser obstacle? Science will save these people.”
Fighting back a smirk, Abby allowed Alex to continue. Science for everything was a common mantra among those who’d let science run amok. It was the cry of everyone denied their petition in front of the Scientific Safety Committee. Alex was one of the believers in the new religion that science could fix every problem it caused.
“The Human Welfare Committee guidelines on infant manufacturing contain a protocol for prenatal anomalies,” Alex explained. Being products of manufacturing centers themselves, most of the audience was well aware of where babies came from. “As chairwoman, Eve Fourteen has the responsibility to recommend one of three courses of action: termination of the embryo, experimental treatment of the condition, or nothing. Now, these anomalies are rare after three weeks’ gestation—before which, the geneticist can unilaterally decide to terminate. The technology is getting better every day. But do you know how many times Eve has
chosen treatment?”
Alex waited. Or tried.
Abby didn’t let him. “Zero. They’re not lab rats. Those experimental treatments are as likely to make things worse as better.”
“Not so,” Alex argued. “And it’s not as if the outcomes carry equal weight, either? Imagine, all of you, fit and healthy as you are, that you’d had one chance in five of never being born. The alternative was a life over there.” He pointed off in the direction of the sanctuary complex. “How many of you would thank your parents for giving you the life you now have? How many would curse them for recklessly endangering you?”
“Selection bias,” Abby countered quickly. “Of course, the survivors would choose to go through with it. The ones who are horribly maimed or deformed wouldn’t make the same choice.”
“That’s why we had that first option,” Alex pointed out softly but not so softly that the gathering wouldn’t all have heard him. “You see, Eve can’t make the hard choice. My conscience would ache with each termination, but by that same token, mine wouldn’t allow me to watch genetic disasters unfold without doing all I could to stop them.”
“Nice theory,” Abby said, crossing her arms. “But there aren’t any specialists in post-natal genetic therapy. It’s a lot harder to reverse a condition than to prevent it. Orders of magnitude harder. That science is still probably beyond our lifetimes.”
“Gemini,” Alex said with iron in his voice.
The crowd gasped and muttered at that pronouncement.
“Never!” Abby shouted, getting in Alex’s face. “You can’t let that monster experiment on humans again!”
She knew that losing her temper in front of a crowd was unprofessional. Abby couldn’t help it. She was born of that laboratory. Her only blessing was being brought into the world after Evelyn11’s horror factory had been shut down.
“It’s been more than twenty years,” Alex replied. “She’d been made a robot and sent back to the flesh. Who can imagine what that’s like? Twenty years and more, she’s worked here, tying shoelaces and spooning oatmeal, giving baths and changing soiled pants. Nothing any robot couldn’t do. But inside that skull is the most brilliant genetic mind the world has known. Are we so hell-bent on punishing her that we condemn all those poor people—and those yet to come—to genetic disease?”