Visions of the Future

by Brin, David

  If it weren’t for your stupid obsession with squiggly lines, you wouldn’t have gotten sterilized, idiot.

  True. But if she gave birth to an amazing idea that saved humanity, they would thank her. The algorithms could keep things ticking along, but could they do original research in abstract mathematics? She was pretty sure they couldn’t.

  Her pencil flew across the page, tracing squiggles as fast as she could write. Her idea was coming together. She wasn’t sure yet, but the proof was almost done, if she could just figure out how to—

  A nip at her toe made her yelp. Dragonfly. Shit. She flicked off the lamp before it got suspicious. Or maybe it already was. If they found her work… She stuffed it back under the pillow. Nowhere else to hide it. She closed her eyes and laid still. If she could stay still long enough, maybe she could trick it into thinking she was asleep.

  Kaybe counted to five thousand this time, but somewhere in the three-thousand four hundreds she trailed off, and when she opened her eyes the sun was shining in the window, and the dragonflies were buzzing in circles over her head.

  “I’ve got an alarm clock,” she said. “When I want your help I’ll ask you for it.”

  She got up and got dressed, doing her best not to look at the pillow on her bed. Almost there. She could taste it. If she could make this proof work… if she could show them what this work means, for mathematics, for humanity… they might even regret sterilizing her.

  School went by in a blur. The anthem, classes, kelp for lunch, teachers droning on. All she could think of was that proof.

  Tonight. Tonight’s the night. A breakthrough. I can feel it.

  Father was sober when she flounced into the house.

  “Hi, Pa!” she said, and kissed him on the cheek. “What’s the special occasion?”

  His eyes were full of fear and rage and loathing. He pointed to the sofa. Where the goon squad had sat. “Bum in chair, dearest.”

  Uh-oh. He only ever called her “dearest” when he was really pissed off.

  Kaybe dumped her backpack on the ground and curled up on the sofa. “Rough day at the kelp factory, Pa?”

  He had lost his job as a history professor some years previous. The algorithms had detected a hint of bias against computer-assisted species survival. Ever since he had slaved in the local kelp factory, grinding up the tough fronds into digestible powders.

  “What. Is. This?”

  Pa clenched a sheaf of papers in his fist.

  She chuckled. “I have no idea, you tell—”

  But then Kaybe recognized her own handwriting. It was her proof.

  “You can’t—what are you—give that here!” She snatched for it, but he held the papers out of reach.

  “As the algorithms are your witness,” he said, indicating the dragonflies with a jerk of his head, “I want you to promise me. No more math. You know what happens next, you don’t stop.”

  “But that won’t happen to me!” she protested. “It’s not like I’m—”

  “You think the algorithms care about you?” he said. He was talking for both her and the cameras, she realized. Filter the meaning. “You think they care who has to be pruned in order to save the ‘tree of humanity’?”

  “But I—”

  “They will prune you in an instant if they think you are a threat!”

  “But I’m trying to save humanity!” she protested.

  Pa leaned forward, lowered his voice. More for dramatic effect, she supposed. “Humanity does not want to be saved. Get that through your thick skull.” He lit a match, held it to her proof. “If I catch you doing math again, I will personally beat your ass till its black and blue. Do you understand me?”

  Kaybe watched the flame catch, her proofs disintegrating into flowers of black and gold, petals fluttering down to the ashtray on the coffee table.

  “I asked you a question,” he growled. “I said, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Pa,” she whispered. She did not look at him. Could not look at him. “I understand you.”

  That night she got into bed fully dressed. She yawned a lot beforehand, made a show of how tired she was. Collapsing into bed. Emotionally exhausted. Been a long day. Nothing to see here.

  Kaybe waited what seemed like a suitably long time—although for the ruling algorithms, she supposed time was not like it was for people. Just something in a database. That’s all. When she could wait no longer, she threw off the sheets, reached under the bed for her tennis racket, and raced for the hallway. Two of the dragonflies managed to escape before she slammed the door. She slashed at one with the tennis racket, and it went down. The other zapped her, but missed. She swung for it, and it dodged out of reach. Shit.

  Down the stairs she raced, an angry buzzing behind her. At the bottom she swung around, racket in hand, and took an electrical blast to the chest. She fell, twitching. When the effect wore off, she played dead, tennis racket in hand. Now what do I do?

  “Hunny-bunny?” Pa groaned from the living room floor. “That… that you?”

  The buzzing noise changed pitch.

  Kaybe leaped to her feet and slapped the tennis racket against the dragonfly so hard it flew across the room and crashed into the wall. Out the front door, slamming it behind her, down the darkened street, towards the woods she ran, forgetting her shawl, shivering in the cold, her heart pumping, sweat pooling in the small of her back, still she ran, ran until she could run no more, and she stood, lost, in the midst of the woods, dead leaves at her feet, a broken tennis racket in her hand.

  The ground was too cold for her to sleep. She tried to cover herself with a blanket of dead leaves, but that did little to warm her. Finally she climbed a tree and draped herself against a heavy branch, legs splayed down the trunk, ten feet off the ground. No wind stirred the leaves. She wasn’t any warmer in the tree, but it might—maybe—make it harder for them to find her. They would be looking for her.

  She must have dozed off, because she woke to the sound of footsteps beneath the tree. Dogs, too. One bayed, and pawed at the dead leaves.

  “Well take a piss then,” a voice said. “Get on with it.”

  Kaybe peered down, holding tight to the tree limb. The tennis racket. She’d left it down there on the ground. Shit shit shit. Now what was she going to do?

  A man and a boy stood beneath the tree, relieving themselves. A trio of mongrels snuffled around, doing what dogs do. Don’t find the tennis racket. Don’t find the tennis racket. Don’t find the—

  One of the dogs locked his jaws around the handle and shook it back and forth.

  The man zipped up. “What’s that you got there, pup?” He squatted down.

  “Fancy a game of tennis, m’lord?” the boy asked. He plucked the racket from the dog’s jaws, swung it in the air.

  “Wait. Give that here.” The man held the racket up to the thin moonlight. His fingers traced the netting, plucked a metal dragonfly wing. “Look at this… someone has been naughty.” He raised his voice. “I know you can hear me. Come on down, I promise we won’t hurt you.”

  Kaybe stayed completely still. If she said nothing maybe they would go away.

  “Whoever it is, they’re afraid of us,” the boy said. “Afraid of us.” He chuckled.

  “Hush, child. They don’t know who we are. We are but strangers to them.”

  Was this a show for her benefit? Did not matter. Say nothing.

  “We have food and shelter,” the man said. “We are, as you may have guessed, outlaws.”

  —outlaws!

  “Anyone who has escaped from the algorithms may join the Human Watch.”

  Some perverse instinct made her want to cry out, “What is the ‘Human Watch’?” But she said nothing.

  The man dropped the tennis racket onto the dead leaves at his feet. “If you change your mind, follow us that way.” He pointed. “Due east, into the morning sun. Can’t miss it.” Then to the boy, quietly. “Come on, son. Let’s go.”

  Kaybe lay there in the tree for lo
ng after they had gone. She was cold and every muscle in her body ached. She was hungry too, after her run. When dawn finally broke, she climbed down the tree, her hands stiff with cold, and picked up the tennis racket. East. Due east, into the morning sun.

  So she walked east. Looking everywhere for signs of food or shelter, any excuse not to have to reveal herself. But she found nothing.

  After an hour or so, the woods grew thicker, and the ground rose steeply. She found herself climbing over giant fallen logs, skirting around thickets of gorse, bumping again and again against a solid wall of rock. Where were they? How do I get wherever I’m supposed to be going?

  The morning sun was hidden behind the hill, or whatever it was. Due east now meant into the shadow.

  That’s when she saw the dragonfly.

  She wanted to cry. They had found her. It was no good. It was too late. After all her hard work… now they would prune her. Nothing personal. The algorithms didn’t hate her. If only they did hate her. That would make it more bearable. But to be extinguished like an unwanted bug… flick! And then you weren’t there, all because the algorithms judged you a menace.

  In a fury she slashed at the dragonfly with her racket, but it dodged aside. Again and again she slashed, hating it, hating everyone and everything, wanting to bring down that flying eye as her final deed on Earth.

  But the dragonfly flitted off, leaving her alone, lost, cold, in the shadow of what she now guessed was Outlaw Hill, the Revolutionary War hideaway of a band of colonists. They were long dead, and their revolution, too. Kaybe sat down hard on the ground and covered her face. She would soon be joining them.

  Time passed. Kaybe must have slept, because the rustling of feet in dead leaves woke her. The staccato pat-pat-pat of doggy paws on the forest floor accompanied the human trot. They’ve come for me. So die like a human. Not a bug.

  She stood, racket in hand, and prepared to meet her doom. The man and boy reappeared, this time with a woman in tow. The dogs followed.

  “Come,” the man said. “There’s not much time.”

  “You want to prune me, do it now.” Kaybe held the racket out as though it were a sword.

  The woman stepped forward. “We are outlaws and we welcome you but they are looking for you. We must hide.”

  She swallowed. Should she tell them? “They have already found me.”

  “What? Where?” They looked around, tensed, ready to run.

  “A—a dragonfly. Came this way. Saw me. Little while ago.”

  Much to Kaybe’s surprise, they relaxed. The woman flicked open the back of her hand and touched a screen.

  An android? But they were destroyed more than fifty years ago!

  A dragonfly drone flitted into view and landed on the woman’s—the android’s—outstretched palm. “Was it this dragonfly you saw?”

  Kaybe blinked. “They all look alike to me.”

  “Put it this way. Have you seen more than one?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  The man sighed. “That’s good news. Let’s keep it that way. Now we need to go. Now.”

  They led her along a narrow path that wound up through the trees, past boulders the size of houses, and along fallen logs deep into the morning shadow. Whenever they stepped under the open sky, the outlaws draped themselves in black cloaks that seemed to absorb the light. They gave her one, too.

  “Eyes in the sky,” the man muttered. “Expose no skin. Especially not your face.”

  The cloaks were made of foil-like fabric that did nothing to keep out the chill. Kaybe’s stomach began to grumble. She missed her morning bowl of kelp.

  A smell of burning meat. She wrinkled her nose. “Is there a fire?”

  “What do you mean?” the boy asked.

  “Smells funny. Like something’s burning.”

  The others laughed. “Ah, noobs,” the man said. “Can’t wait to see her face.”

  “Or clean up her puke,” the woman warned. “You know how it is.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kaybe demanded.

  “Come on,” the boy said. He was younger than she was, around ten, she guessed. He held out his hand, and she took it.

  Together they raced ahead of the others, up and over a final boulder, through a crevice in the rock, and into—a cave!

  Kaybe stared around in wonder. No one would call the place cozy, but it was certainly warm. A dozen men and women huddled at the far end of the cave. Near the mouth, at her feet, a small animal burned over an open flame. Its skin was missing, its flesh black and burned. A tarp dispersed the smoke so well she’d smelled it before she’d seen it.

  “Roast squirrel,” the boy said. “Yum. Auntie!”

  “Yes, love.” A young woman stood, clutched an overhanging rock. “You brought home another mouth to feed, I see. Yay.”

  “She’s escaped,” the boy said. “And they didn’t find her, or nothing!”

  “Not yet,” a man her father’s age said. “The algorithms will prune us all eventually.”

  The woman smacked his shoulder. “Well we’re not dead yet, are we? So quit yer griping and go check the traps.”

  “What is this place?” Kaybe asked. “Where are we? I mean, who are you?”

  “Didn’t you hear Pa?” the boy asked.

  She thought back. “The Human Watch. But what is that? What does that mean?”

  “It means,” a voice said behind her, “that we would rather die as humans than live as machines.”

  A dog licked her fingers. She turned. The man and the woman—the android—stood there, hand in hand.

  Were they a couple? Did they, you know… do it? Did androids even have anything down there?

  Roast squirrel was a treat. It was the first time she had eaten meat in… how many years had it been? And much to everyone’s surprise, she didn’t vomit or anything. That made them like her right off the bat.

  It was so nice to be warm after her time in the woods. They gave her a space in the back of the cave and let her sleep. She was so tired.

  “Poor thing,” a woman clucked. “So young to be an outlaw.”

  “I’m younger than she is!” the boy protested.

  “Yes, but you were born an outlaw, and therein lies the difference, my sweet.” She rumpled his hair. “Now let our dearie—what was your name again?”

  “Kaybe,” Kaybe said. “My father calls me Kaybe Maybe.”

  “Let Kaybe Maybe get some sleep.”

  And they did. Her dreams were peaceful. She floated in ether, surrounded by equations. Her own proof appeared before her eyes, and she saw what she had been missing, the final piece of the puzzle.

  She woke screaming.

  “What’s the matter, dearie? You alright?”

  “I need paper,” she panted. “A pencil.”

  “We have no need of such things in the woods, child. You are an outlaw, now, you—”

  “But my proof,” she protested. “I found a way.”

  “A way to what?”

  It was growing dark outside. The others sat around the fire, roasting another squirrel.

  “Are none of you mathematicians?”

  They chuckled. “The woods are full of them,” someone joked.

  “The only math I know,” the woman said, “is camp calculus.”

  Kaybe blinked. “I know of every kind of calculus, but I’ve never heard of that one.”

  “Camp calculus,” the man said, “is the daily death tally in the camps. The failed experiments.”

  “…camps?” Kaybe sat back against a rock. “Experiments?”

  “I escaped from such a camp,” the man said quietly. “The algorithms are experimenting on human subjects. Trying to find a way to ensure species survival.”

  “What kind of… experiments?”

  He shrugged. “Genetic modification. Among other nasties.”

  “But GMO nearly destroyed the human race!”

  He spread his hands out wide. “The algorithms know best. They want to genet
ically modify human beings this time. Speed up our adaptation to a poisonous atmosphere.”

  Kaybe stared out the mouth of the cave at the gathering dusk. “And who goes to these camps?”

  “Troublemakers. You know.”

  Brian. “Would they a send a boy my age to camp?”

  “Depends on what he did.” The man sucked on a squirrel bone. “Don’t even think about looking for him, though. Whoever he is.”

  “Why?” she said. “Where are these camps?”

  The man flicked the bone into the fire, where it hissed and sputtered. “Long way from here, I’m afraid. Benji over there escaped. One of the lucky ones. Most don’t.”

  “Camp calculus,” repeated the woman.

  That reminded her. “You really don’t have any paper?”

  The man and the woman exchanged glances. “Tomorrow we will take you to see Master Saizon. Until then, eat and sleep some more. You never know when we might have to run.”

  “How long have you been here?” Kaybe asked, accepting a squirrel leg.

  “Oh, five years? Six? But it only takes one little sky photo to end the game for us all.”

  With that, they shuffled away, leaving her to chew on the tough sinews of a dead squirrel. Across from her sat Benji, asleep. A giant lump rose from his forehead. A smile that could only be called idiotic traced his lips. His fingers had fused at the bone, giving him flippers. She wondered what the point of escaping was. Camp calculus would have been a blessing, or so it seemed to her.

  She realized with a start that she knew none of their names. Where they were from. They weren’t from town. That was for sure. And the next nearest town was fifty clicks away. How did they get here? On foot, she supposed. But why here? Because of the plentiful squirrel population? Or because this cave was a good place to hide?

  And how did they spend their time? Hiding all day, hunting by night, confined to this tiny cave for the rest of their lives—assuming the algorithms didn’t find them first, and add them to the camp calculus?

  Poor Brian.

  Were they experimenting on him right now? Was it too late to save him? Was he really in a camp? Then she had to find him. A kiss is just a kiss. You don’t owe him anything. But she ached to think of him hurting and dying, alone, in a camp far from here, never to return.