“ – nice girly chats – ” the headstone squawks.
Gasping for breath, Janine backs away from Elizabeth’s grave. The headstone is leaning back at an angle, fragments of glass tumbling out of the space where the screen was. Sudden upsurge of guilt, like bile. Shit, she’s just damaged Enfield Cemetery’s property, she’s a vandal!
But through her Vades™, she can still see the profile of Elizabeth Selby – Elizabeth Kinglake – hovering in the air.
She spins back to her Dad’s headstone, unsteady on her feet. She almost expects his own screen to be displaying an image of him angry, scowling at her with disappointment the way he used to whenever she was naughty. A memory pops up, like it does with Mum, filling the gap: “Janine! Mustn’t kick, kicking people is wrong!” What she actually hears isn’t scolding but as upbeat as always.
“And now that we’re properly married, we can start a family.”
Quicksand. That’s what this feels like. That Janine has wandered into quicksand, transplanted from some tropical jungle into this North London cemetery, and she’s gone blundering right into it up to her knees, up to her waist, up to her neck.
“You’ve...” Janine coughs to clear her choked throat. “You’ve got a family, Dad. You’ve got me!”
“Yes, but I always wanted to have grandchildren, sweetheart. Obviously it’s your life, I wasn’t going to put any pressure on you and Frank. But now I think it’s time to hear the patter of tiny feet. Elizabeth will make a wonderful mother, don’t you think?”
An electronically distorted giggle floats out of the damaged headstone.
His words shock her a little, hearing him state his desire for grandchildren so baldly. She knew her Dad had wanted them, of course. But that hadn’t been a good enough reason. She has to want them too.
She thinks of Frank again, of their discussions about having kids. He’d been more keen on the idea than she was. It’s not that she doesn’t like children. Playing Aunty Jan to all her mates’ babies is a lot of fun. But fun isn’t enough. Her argument to Frank was that in order to be a decent parent, you should be desperate for kids, you should want them more than anything in the world, more than your own life. And that honestly wasn’t how she felt. So again, they had tiptoed around the idea, never bringing it up.
Janine takes a deep breath and prepares to argue that her father’s auto cannot somehow, magically, produce a baby with another unliving auto, when the headstone remarks “We’ll have to adopt, of course.”
“Wha – adopt? Adopt who?”
“Well, there are quite a lot of unliving autos for children, sadly. In fact the majority of them are for young people. There are nine in Enfield Cemetery alone. But I’ve found 845 on CemNet. Poor little mites could really do with some foster parents. And it’s not like we’ll ever abandon them. We’re not going anywhere!” he chuckles.
“ – not going anywhere – ” squeals Elizabeth’s headstone.
A word pops into Janine’s head. A word that she’s sure Frank had once mentioned, in passing, under his breath. Autonasia. No, it hadn’t even been spoken. He’d just Liked the idea online, and her own auto had flagged his Like for her attention. He must have known that she’d see it. He was telling her what he really thought, in a roundabout way.
Autonasia: the euthanasia of an unliving auto. Shutdown. It’s an option afforded to the next of kin, something that living relatives can legally apply for if they have due cause.
Oh God, is his auto broken? Is it going wrong, is that it? It’s nearly a decade old after all, and what with all the mucking around that he did, and stuffing it full of historical crap, perhaps... perhaps its memory has become corrupted or something. Perhaps this is like Alzheimer’s Disease. The same thing that started happening to her Mum, in those last few months. Digital Alzheimer’s.
She’s surprised to feel the prickle of tears, wondering if it’s time to consider autonasia. To really let Dad go.
Janine lifts her Vades™ for a moment to wipe her eyes. When she drops them back into place, what’s being displayed freezes her in place.
Benedict Harris
Gender: Male
Age range: 0-5
Birthday: Wednesday 3 August
2016
Date of death: Wednesday 29
December 2021
Son of Oscar Kinglake and
Elizabeth Kinglake
Janine feels a sort of creeping cold across her skin. The simplistic profile of a child glows alongside her Dad’s profile, connected to it. There’s a heartbreaking image of a five year old boy with floppy blonde hair, gap teeth and rosy cheeks, smiling as hard as he can. A five year old boy with a faded X across his face.
He’s the son of...
“No,” breathes Janine. And then: “No no no no no, Dad, you can’t just… how have you done this?”
Benedict’s profile flips up as another glides into place underneath it. This little girl’s smile is even bigger than his, perfect white teeth against black skin. Her curly hair is frizzy and wild, fake earrings clipped on.
Jala Tumbranasoki
Gender: Female
Age range: 6-10
Birthday: Thursday 2 May
2013
Date of death: Saturday 26
September 2020
Daughter of Oscar Kinglake
and Elizabeth Kinglake
“Dad, these aren’t your kids!” Janine shouts. “You can’t just adopt them, it’s not legal! How have you done this? Answer me!”
“Been around the block a bit, you know.” Again, this is a phrase her Dad used to come out with, especially when he’d managed to buy a rare toy for her Christmas present, or arranged a surprise party without her knowing. “You can always teach an old dog new tricks!”
Janine wonders briefly if this is just the parroting of a typical phrase from Oscar Kinglake’s lexicon, or if his auto is talking about itself somehow… an auto that’s been online for such a long time... But the thought is swept out of her mind by the sight of new profiles, scrolling into place alongside her Dad’s. New smiling, gorgeous, X-branded faces. New dead children.
Susie Chapman
Gender: Female
Age range: 11-15
Birthday: Sunday 17 February
2008
Date of death: Monday 23
March 2020
Daughter of Oscar Kinglake
and Elizabeth Kinglake
Ajay Rangarajan
Gender: Male
Age range: 6-10
Birthday: Tuesday 7 January
2014
Date of death: Saturday 2 April
2022
Son of Oscar Kinglake and
Elizabeth Kinglake
In her own newsfeed, a spray of notifications appear at machine-gun speed. Her auto is accepting all the family requests.
Janine Kinglake is related to
Benedict Harris
Janine Kinglake is related to
Jala Tumbranasoki
Janine Kinglake is related to
Susie Chapman
Janine Kinglake is related to
Ajay Rangarajan
...
She can hear the delight in her Dad’s voice. “There you go, Jan, lots of lovely new brothers and sisters for you!”
Elizabeth’s wonky headstone croaks “ – brothers and sisters – ”
Janine sways back and forth as she watches profile after profile appearing, all saying the same thing. Far more than the nine in Enfield Cemetery. Dozens, from across the country, all located via CemNet, all now having the same status.
“Dad, you have to stop this before it gets noticed! They’ll shut you down, Dad, you’re messing with real people! Please stop, they’re not your kids!”
Benedict Harris is now Benedict
Kinglake
“What... what the hell!”
Jala Tumbranasoki is now Jala
Kinglake
Susie Chapman is now Susie
Kinglake
Ajay Rangarajan is now Ajay
Kinglake
...
“They’re NOT YOUR KIDS!” she screams at the gravestone. But it doesn’t stop the child-profiles racing past, names changing almost faster than she can follow.
Panic rising, short of breath, Janine casts about, wondering whether to run to the chapel building for help, whether to call out, whether to call Frank, or maybe the police, maybe call Macroverse and ask them to shut down the Smartstone™, shut them all down, unplug CemNet, stop them from doing this...
And then, before her eyes, the profile names change again.
Benedict Kinglake is now Por-
Qui Kinglake
Jala Kinglake is now Por-Qui
Kinglake
Susie Kinglake is now Por-Qui
Kinglake
Ajay Kinglake is now Por-Qui
Kinglake
...
“What...?”
She remembers, back when she was 10 years old.
Her non-existent little brother.
On the headstone’s screen, the image of her Dad changes to an old photo of him, performing a big exaggerated wink for the camera. Then it flicks back to his usual smiling face.
Janine sags as she realises she’s the victim of the biggest porkie ever.
“Oh, you… fucking bastard, Dad!” she bellows.
The digitised laughter of Oscar Kinglake echoes across the cemetery, and its familiarity is so strong that a hundred memories come crash-banging into Janine’s head, a hundred times when she’d been suckered, when she realised the joke was on her. Tingling relief rushes through her like pins and needles, so strong that she collapses onto her knees next to his grave, mouth hanging open, not sure whether to join in laughing or bawl her eyes out.
“Oh, sweetheart,” cries the headstone, “you should have seen your face!”
Janine holds her Vades™ to her head with both hands, watching as the children’s profile names revert back to normal, all the changes redacted, removed from their timelines. Her auto alerts her to new messages, a scrolling list of them. The first is from Elizabeth – Elizabeth Selby, she notes.
Sorry Janine, he made me do it!
High-voltage guilt charges through Janine. She glances over at the leaning headstone, gravesite littered with bits of glass. “But I... oh Jesus, I’ll have to...”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. Elizabeth’s Smartstone™ is fully insured, she’s already booked in the repairs.”
Blinking rapidly to run down the list of messages inside her Vades™, she sees they are all from unliving autos around the country, including the kids. All say exactly the same thing. Sorry Janine, he made me do it!
“Oh my God,” she moans. “They were all in on it!”
“Of course,” says her Dad’s headstone. “It took a lot of time to organise, but it was worth it!”
Janine realises that this also feels very familiar. Plenty of times, her Dad got some of his friends to back him up as he told a massive porkie, all wearing poker faces that she completely believed. People never said no to him. He found it easy to sweep others along with his enthusiasm. So this feels very in character, to ask other un-autos to play along with the gag. To back him up.
A half-laugh escapes her. It’s mainly relief, she knows. “So that whole business of you and Elizabeth... all bogus?”
“Of course,” the voice repeats.
“But you made it look so real! All the adopted kids and everything!”
“Been around the block a bit, you know. You can always teach an old dog new tricks!”
It flits across her mind to wonder just how much help he had on this. Judging by the number of apologetic messages she’s receiving, dozens of un-autos were at that virtual party, all pretending to celebrate his marriage. How on earth did he convince them all to take part!
What if he... no.
Again, she recalls her Dad in the living room of their old house: a remote control in each hand, firing off invisible commands to all the technology circled around him. The way he loved controlling everything from a distance.
It’s like he was somehow... no.
Nerve centre.
He couldn’t have been contro –
“Jan,” calls the headstone, snapping her back to the moment. “I’ve got something for you.”
She sighs, suddenly exhausted. “Bloody hell, no more Dad, I don’t think – ”
“Take a look behind your Mum.”
Janine turns to her mother’s black marble headstone. Wearily, she pulls herself up from the ground and... oh hang on, there is something behind here, what’s…?
Her heart clogs her throat at the sight of the stuffed panda bear, sitting on the ground behind Mum’s headstone, smiling that same tiny stitched smile.
She wants to scream “Por-Qui!” like a little girl, but can’t. Can’t say a word.
As she picks it up, sense-memories rush in from her fingertips. It seems smaller, she remembers it being enormous, but the artificial fur and the button nose and the stubby ears all... all feel so right. It has the exact same effect as when she picked it up for the first time: defusing her anger. Slowing her racing heart. Making her smile and feel silly.
Just as she starts wondering how this got here, she hears “When I sold most of my property after the funeral, I arranged for it to be put into storage, along with a few other things. You left him in your old room when you moved in with Frank. I’ve been keeping him for you.”
Hugging Por-Qui tight, unable to stop grinning, Janine walks back in front of the graves. “Thanks, Dad.”
“It’s important not to throw everything away,” he goes on. “You need to store the past safely. You never know when it will be needed in the future.”
Janine opens her mouth and closes it. She wants to say she’s sorry for even considering autonasia, that she’d never do it... but realises there’s no way that her Dad’s auto could know it had crossed her mind. She shouldn’t be feeling guilty about that.
No, she thinks, I get what he means by this. Oscar Kinglake set his auto up so that he could still be around for his daughter, after he was gone. It wasn’t for his benefit, it was for hers, just like everything he ever did. That’s what this is all about. This was always his backup plan.
“I know,” she says softly.
She looks away, squinting into the wind. That man is still shouting at the statue, and now starts kicking it. Know how you feel mate, Janine wants to say. Then turns her gaze down to the black and white panda in her arms, scrunching its short fur in her hands. Comforted.
“And you never know,” says the headstone, “if you and Frank ever change your minds, maybe Por-Qui can have a new owner one day!”
Janine laughs. “Give over, Dad!”
She notices the time in the bottom left corner of her Vades™. “I’ve got to go. I’ll pop back next week, okay?” Before she knows she’s going to say it, she adds “Maybe I’ll try and get Frank to come with me.”
“That would be fantastic!” Genuine excitement. “Be great to see that big fella again.”
“Bye, Dad. And thanks.”
“Look after yourself, sweetheart. See you soon.”
Holding the panda under one arm, Janine picks up her handbag and turns away. She passes the other black marble gravestone, reading the gold inscription as if looking into her mother’s kind, weary eyes.
“Bye, Mum.”
Walking past, Janine inhales the scents from the flowers lying there, blown her way by the wind. Memory-trigger. Lavender and eucalyptus, filling the air in the tiny private room at the hospice, blocking out disinfectant and stale sweat. So many vases and bouquets in that room, on the shelves and windowsill and bedside cabinet. Janine’s bottom hurting from perching on the edge of the hard plastic chair for hours, leaning as close as she can to the bed without bumping into the intravenous drip and other tubes and wires snaking out from under the white bedsheet. Janine breathes in the flowers as she listens to her M
um asking if the boy has arrived yet, and when she asks which boy she means, does she mean the orderly, should I go fetch him, her Mum shakes her white-haired head and looks at her like she’s mad, no no no, the boy, the little Chinese boy, is he here yet? And Janine smiles and gently reminds her that it was only a joke from years ago, that was Dad winding her up again, he gave her the stuffed panda remember, but her Mum is still shaking her head, no, he doesn’t have a mummy or daddy, so the little Chinese boy is coming to live with us Janine, is he here yet? Stroking her withered hand, Janine tells her it’s okay, heart breaking to hear Mum sound so confused now, her memories all mixed up, not sure what happened in her life and what didn’t, what was real and what was not, what was true and what was nothing but a...
...porkie.
Janine hasn’t walked more than a few metres when she slows to a stop. She looks down at the panda’s head, gazing up with button-eyed innocence.
The phrase ‘backup plan’ is floating around in her head.
She wants to laugh at the idea. That the poker face Dad had worn, when he first started telling the 10 year old Janine about adopting a Chinese boy, wasn’t a poker face at all.
The idea that he was testing his daughter’s reaction to something big, something life-changing. That only when she reacted badly did he transform it into a joke, to hide the truth. Just one more porkie amongst hundreds.
The idea that Por-Qui is still his backup plan. Testing his daughter’s reaction to the idea that he might really be able to get married to dead women and adopt dead children and…
No, she thinks firmly, and then says it aloud: “No.”
She squeezes Por-Qui and strides towards the car park. I’m being stupid, she thinks. Dad wouldn’t do anything like that to me. That’s not him.
That’s just not him at all.
The lights of her Mini Rocketman give a welcoming flash as she approaches. She pulls the unlocked door open, click-clack. Once inside, she plomps the panda onto the passenger seat then pulls the seat belt around him. That’s what she used to do on the back seat of their old car, making sure Por-Qui was safe, while Mum and Dad in the front beamed at her over their shoulders and made approving noises. The sight of it beside her makes Janine smile. It belongs there.
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