Crowd Futures: We Have Always Died in the Castle

by Elizabeth Bear

As Marie is signing out at the reception desk, an older white man in a very well-tailored dark suit walks past her. He doesn’t check in, but moves with the preening arrogance she associates with the investor class. Cohn, she decides, watching him pop his cuffs before he walks through the door into the laboratory.

  She means to turn away and leave. If they shut down the program, that means she’s free, right? Cut loose. Work can’t hold it against her if she doesn’t have a cutting-edge retraining program to report to.

  But the receptionist catches her gaze and rolls her eyes, and Marie can’t help but roll her own in agreement. And when she turns away, she feels warmed inside by the unspoken but shared Christ, what an asshole that has passed between her and this relative stranger.

  All week she waits to see if the call will come cancelling her appointment on Monday. It doesn’t, and by Friday night she admits to herself that it will not come. Nobody is letting her off the hook this time. She’s going to have to figure it out for herself. Is she going, or is she staying the course?

  Sunday night she still hasn’t decided. She lies in her bed, staying up way too late if she’s getting up early enough to go to her session, window-shopping on her phone.

  Putting it off, she finally understands.

  Well, it’s too late to cancel, anyway. If she doesn’t go in tomorrow—today, now—she still has to pay for the session. She might as well. It’ll give her a chance to say goodbye to Jeff, anyway.

  That’s what a normal person would do, she supposes.

  She sets her alarm.

  After the session, which is just as frustrating as that of the week before, Marie walks into Jeff’s office one more time. She sits down in the chair.

  He says, “What are your thoughts on today’s experience?”

  “Same frustrating nonsense,” she says. “How do you solve a problem where everybody has been dead for hundreds of years?”

  Jeff waits, as if she’s merely pausing to collect her thoughts.

  Maybe she is. Marie stares down at her fingers. They’re a little waterlogged, still; prunish at the tips.

  It comes to her with the vividness of kinetic memory, the rush of sensations that tell her what she is experiencing and how. It comes to her in a

  —flash—

  with all that freight-train rush of

  pleasure. She’s figured it out.

  She can’t believe it. She’s utterly confident now: she’s actually figured it out.

  She says to her hands, but really to Jeff, “You can’t help the horse, can you? Or the stable boy? I mean, I can’t help them.”

  “What evidence led you to that conclusion?”

  “The horse wants to get out of the burning barn. The stable boy wants to rescue the horse. There’s no way I can make those things happen.”

  “Okay,” he says, nodding. “What does that tell you, then?”

  She rubs her nose with her knuckles and blows across the back of her hand. Being submerged for so long makes the corners of her eyes sting, apparently. Makes her voice sound thick. That’s definitely what’s going on.

  “Some mistakes you can’t make up for, no matter how well-meaning you are.”

  “I think that’s fair,” Jeff says. “I think you’re right about that one.”

  “It’s my professional opinion that you’ve created a really frustrating narrative arc here.”

  He gives her a startled, amused-pleased half smile. “I’m not here to tell you a story.”

  She says, “I have realized that … I’ve done lots of things that people had to clean up after.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “Guilty.” It pops out, unconsidered, and she wants to slap a hand over her mouth and push it back in. Then she squares her shoulders and says, “Guilty,” again.

  He’s silent for a minute, and she doesn’t feel the need to fill it in. Finally he sighs and stretches. She can hear his spine pop.

  “This will be our last session,” Jeff says, apologetically. “I’m sorry for the lack of notice, Marie. Our funding is being pulled. You’ve participated in good faith, though, and here’s your paperwork to recommend that you be reinstated in your position.” It rustles when he hands it to her. “It’s not your fault—”

  He sighs and waves his hand. She notices the bruised look around his eyes for the first time.

  “So I’m cured, doc?”

  “No,” he says, laughing, then flushes and cuts himself off with an irritated hand. “I’m sorry. What I meant to say was, I think you’re making some very positive changes. Becoming more self-aware. I hope—”

  He sighs again. He considers for a long time.

  “I hope you’ll find a good therapist and continue exploring and tuning your social adaptations.”

  Marie feels a spike of anger. She wanted the pat on the head. She wanted a “Good girl!” and a seal of approval.

  But she also knows she hasn’t really earned that yet. And now she’ll never have the chance to.

  Redemption is a process, not a destination.

  She folds the paperwork and tucks it into her handbag. “He offered to keep you open if you changed the focus, didn’t he?”

  Jeff cocks his head. She has his full attention now.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” he says, speaking carefully.

  “Cohn,” she says. “He offered to keep funding you. If you broke your process the way he told you to.”

  He looks at her. Studies her face.

  Stands up abruptly and takes a flash drive out of his pocket; places it on the edge of the desk near her. “It’s a pity I have to turn all this program code and the results over to Cohn. But he’s the legal owner of the data. Excuse me, Marie, I have to run to the lavatory. I’ll be right back to finish our session.”

  The door swings shut behind him and his footsteps fade down the hall.

  She stares at the flash drive. It’s an Angry Bird. The yellow one. All the rage, in the dim historic year of 2011.

  It might as well be a poisonous snake, curled up and hissing on the desk edge. She reaches out for it reflexively, but then her hand hovers, not touching. The fingers bent, but not closing.

  She thinks, I could save other people from having to go through this rigmarole!

  She looks toward the door. It’s still shut. No footsteps.

  And there is the angry cartoon character on the desk edge. Staring at her.

  Full of someone else’s data.

  I could save other people from having to go through this. Cohn will bury this information. Or find somebody who will use it for what he wants.

  Or … I could save other people from having to waste huge chunks of their lives cleaning up after people like me. I could leak this. The research could be duplicated.

  Somebody else could copy Jeff’s work.

  She chokes on a laugh at the irony.

  Her fingers close on the flash drive. Clench around it. She slips the whole hand into her pocket. The fist stays there.

  She’s already standing and turning when the door opens. She didn’t hear the steps. And she’s surprised Jeff didn’t give her more time. Did he think better of leaving her alone with his data?

  But it’s not Jeff in the doorway. It’s Cohn.

  He blinks back, as surprised as she is. “Miss … Katz, isn’t it?”

  She nods, tight-lipped. The triangular bird cuts into her palm.

  He holds out his hand. “I’m Don Cohn. I’m the director of this program.”

  She can’t get her fingers to let go of the bird to shake his hand, so she shoves her left hand into her other pocket. It probably looks more natural that way.

  “I gathered,” she says politely.

  “I understand you’re a game interface designer.”

  “That’s true.” She hadn’t even realized he had noticed her existence. Apparently he’d researched her.

  “We’re going to be making some changes here.” His eyes narrow. He retrieves the hand she hasn’t
shaken. Waves it airily around. “Taking this functionality into the private sector. Building something more … fun. More profitable.”

  “Oh,” she says. He’s stepped into the office. Jeff is now framed in the hallway behind him, frozen there. Silently.

  She sees it. A VR game—maybe VR waterparks!—selling total immersion in an alternate reality. And buried in the code, patterns of choices that might make people … easier for this man to manipulate.

  She wonders what sort of politics this man supports.

  Admits to herself that she doesn’t have to wonder.

  “We could use people like you. I could make it worth your while.”

  “Worth my while?” she says.

  Jeff, in the hall, makes a noise.

  Cohn doesn’t turn. “Oh, hello, Dr. Schiller. Security is on the way to help you clean out your desk and check over what you’re taking with you.”

  Marie’s fingers close tighter. She’s going to draw blood if she keeps squeezing.

  Cohn says, “Name a starting point. What are you making now?”

  I haven’t been paid in over a month, she thinks.

  The job is going to be there. Jeff signed off on her going back. And she’ll have to face all those coworkers, a whole industry that knows how she screwed up.

  The key fob bites into her hand. All she has to do is take her hand out of her pocket and press it into the one that Cohn is extending again.

  And she’ll never have to face those people again. Or if she does, it will be with the insulation of plenty of money and visible success.

  “I’m thinking a director-level title,” Cohn says.

  Jeff flinches visibly. She doesn’t make any sign that he’s there. She knows what he knows. She’s being bought off. Probably Cohn will make similar offers to other subjects in the protocol. There will be jobs—good jobs—and NDAs.

  The job will probably last as long as it’s convenient.

  The NDA will be forever.

  She’s too much like Cohn to think she should trust him. And even if she was ready to gamble on it—just to get away from the shame of going back where she came from—what he wants to do is … mind control. And now without informed consent.

  But it would be so much easier not to face those people who are disappointed in her, now that she realizes what their disappointment is.

  Better in the long run, though. For her as well as them. For one thing, it’s pretty likely that Cohn’s plan is the sort of thing that ends with somebody going to jail.

  “Thanks,” she says. She takes her hands out of her pockets. Empty. Lets them fall to her sides. She’s shivering with the effort of keeping her voice level and calm. “I really appreciate it.”

  Cohn smiles.

  “But I like my job a lot. I think I want to stay in it.” She brushes past him. She meets Jeff’s eyes as he steps aside to let her go.

  “See you around, Doc,” she tells him. And makes her escape, as rapidly as is plausible, up the hall.

  About the Contributors

  Elizabeth Bear is a Hugo, Campbell, and Sturgeon Award–winning science fiction and fantasy writer, with thirty novels and over a hundred short stories spanning multiple genres including science fiction, fantasy, epic fantasy, steampunk, and more. Wired magazine called her “one of the hottest fantasy writers around.” Her most recent novel is Stone Mad: A Karen Memory Adventure. Follow her on Twitter at @matociquala.

  Dennis Bonilla is the Chief Technology Officer at Variable Labs, Inc., where he creates training systems that produce measurable change through virtual-reality experiences. His clients include Google, Facebook, and the United Nations. He has created data visualization and collaboration systems for NASA, and has supported committees advising President Obama about options for human spaceflight. Follow him on Twitter at @harbingeralpha.

  Melissa Gay is an award-winning illustrator of books and tabletop roleplaying games. Her credits include book covers and illustration projects with Hugo, World Fantasy, and Stoker Award–winning authors, as well as critically-acclaimed games. Her work has been featured in the annual Infected By Art anthologies for Imaginative Realist painting. Learn more about Melissa and see her work online at melissagay.com.

  About the Center for Science and the Imagination

  The Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University engages in research, outreach, and radical collaborations to reinvent our relationship with the future. From writers, artists, and teachers to scientists, engineers, and technologists, we bring diverse intellectual practices together to reignite humanity’s grand ambitions for innovation and discovery. The center serves as a network hub for audacious ideas and a cultural engine for thoughtful optimism through programs like the Frankenstein Bicentennial Project, a celebration of Mary Shelley’s novel and its scientific and cultural legacy. We provide a space for productive collaboration among the humanities, arts, and sciences, bring human narratives to scientific questions, and explore the full social implications of cutting-edge research. For more information, visit csi.asu.edu.