by JT Lawrence
“Small,” says Kate. “She’s quite small for her age.”
The man’s eyes widen. “You mean, ‘Ghost’?”
“What?” snaps Kate. For some reason, the name unsettles her. Her hair stands on end.
“Ghost?” says Keke. “That could be her.”
The man looks impressed. “She’s a legend around here, you know. She’s, like, the best player in the whole place.”
Kate remembers when Silver was a toddler and used to put a white serviette over her head at dinnertime.
I’m a gho-o-ost, she used to say. I’m a gho-o-ost.
What do they know? What’s going on? Paranoia, as familiar and shocking as cold water, splashes her in the face. “Why do you call her that?”
The man looks puzzled at her reaction. “It’s her avatar,” he says, frowning. What he means is: You don’t know your own daughter’s avatar?
“And …”
“And what?”
“And it fits her perfectly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His eyes meet Kate’s. “She’s impossible to kill.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?” Keke slips easily into her investigative journo cloak.
“She was here earlier.” The man’s wearing a perfumed shirt and the fragrance comes off him in feathers of invisible smoke. Amber, pepperwood, juniper berry. Kate tried out a perfumed bra when the trend hit, but her kids kept on sniffing the air around her and saying Can you smell that? Can you smell that? as if someone had stepped in dog shit instead of what it was supposed to be: Citrus Burn.
“When?” asks Keke. “And where did she go?”
“I don’t know. Time gets a bit foggy in here.” The lights are always set to daylight-bright and there are no clocks on the walls. “I’d guess at late afternoon? I don’t know where she went, but she did say something.”
This gets Kate’s attention. “Yes?”
“Well, Nova was teasing her, saying she’d beat Silver to the win.”
“Win the game?”
“Ja. All in good fun, because everyone knows that when Silver turns sixteen she’s going to dominate Eden 7.0. I mean, we don’t stand a chance. The only reason we’re ahead of her at the moment is because we’re meshed and she’s not.”
“You need to be meshed to win?”
“You need to be meshed to access 7.0.”
“And she said she was going to get meshed when she turned sixteen?”
“It goes without saying. She’s a fucking prodigy. Have you seen the worlds she’s designed? She’s like a freaking space architect. And her colonies are brilliant. Even her bio systems—”
“So,” Kate interrupts, “Nova was goading her—”
“Not goading,” he says, “not really. We’re always just stinging each other. We’re all close friends and we look out for one another. Nova loves Silver like a little sister.”
Along with the warm fragrance coming off him there are other scents: tea, and timber. It’s difficult to see his face when there are so many shapes in the air between them.
“And then?”
“And then Silver said she was leaving early, which she never does, so we asked her why, and she said that she was going to get her sixteenth birthday present.”
The bright bulbs start hurting Kate’s head, as if somehow the light is seeping into her brain and dehydrating her thoughts.
“Which is?”
The man smiles, showing the distinctive grey, ground-down teeth of a hard-line gamer.
“Well, she didn’t say, but … isn’t it obvious?”
“She wouldn’t,” says Kate as they jog out of the Atrium.
Keke glances at her, purses her lips.
“Silver wouldn’t do that. Go out on her own and get it done against my wishes. Would she?”
“Get meshed?” says Keke. “Of course she would. She’s been talking about it for two years. You just haven’t been listening.”
“I thought it was a phase. Everything’s a phase, with kids, you know?”
“Not this.”
“And I was listening. Just because I didn’t want her to get it, doesn’t mean I wasn’t listening.”
“What I mean is … and don’t take this the wrong way … that you weren’t listening-listening.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You heard Silver asking if she could get the neural lace. She wasn’t really asking. What she was saying was that she was going to get it with or without you.”
“Well, then, in that case, there’s nothing I could have done to stop her, right?”
“No, but you could have gone with her. You could have made sure she got it done safely.”
Kate’s face burns: anger swirls with regret. A whirlpool on fire.
“Wow, Keke, look at you. All the answers. Why don’t you try to parent fifteen-year-old twins and see how you do with that?”
Keke grabs Kate’s arm, makes her stop walking, arrests her with her ice-blue biolenses.
“KittyKat. I’d never be able to do what you do. It’s terrifying.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I wouldn’t even like to try to be a mother. Not for a day. I’d rather shoot myself.”
“Again, not helping.”
“Sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“They always tell you everything,” says Kate.
“Well, they wouldn’t if I was their parent!”
They hurry out of the Atrium and stop on the pavement outside, not sure where to go next.
Kate’s mandible begins to ring.
“Kate,” purrs the DarkDoc. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
The combination of the static and his gruff voice blows silver streamers into her vision.
“The commlines are a mess,” she says. “It’ll get worse.”
She doesn’t hear the next few words.
“…I need you to come here as soon as you can.”
“I can’t,” says Kate.
“I need to see you before—”
“Before the world ends?”
There’s a pause. More shimmering static.
“Something like that.”
Usually when he says those words—I need to see you—Kate feels an immediate rush of warmth to her pelvis, but today the yellow adrenaline is splattering over all her other emotions.
“I can’t.”
“Things are getting dangerous out there. Please come to me.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know. It doesn’t change how I feel.”
“I want to be with you too,” says Kate, and Keke makes googly eyes at her. She turns away. “But I can’t. Silver is missing.”
“No, she’s not,” says Morgan. “That’s what I’m calling to tell you.”
“She is,” says Kate. “She’s not at home. We’re at the Atrium. She’s not here, either.”
“I know. That’s because she’s here, with us.”
Chapter 36
Is This The Real World?
“You’re fucking the DarkDoc?” asks Keke.
“Language,” scolds Kate, not because she minds the word—god knows it’s one of her favourites—but because it’s become a habit to try to keep things clean with the twins around.
Keke is genuinely shocked. “I did not see that coming!”
“Stop with the sex puns already.”
“How? Where? When?”
They pass a mean posse of men with automatic rifles, clubs, and hunting knives. It says Fuck Robots on one of the men’s wide chests. Another man wears a face mask emblazoned with a pixellated swastika and an anthrobot’s severed arm around his neck like a mantle. Badly drawn prison tattoos scribble their skin.
Bot Hunters. Science deniers. Alt-tech nazis.
The hate group gathered momentum last year when a few of the older generation of anthrobots started spontaneously activating their self-destruct buttons in crowded places. There were si
x bomb blasts and more than twenty fatalities before they were all seized and taken off the market.
TERRORBOTS! the newstream tickertape had screamed, whipping people into a frenzy of panic and suspicion of all things AI, but then when the terror attacks had been properly investigated, it turned out that an unidentified human had hacked the switches, so it hadn’t really been a robot rebellion at all. Of course, the alt-tech nazis didn’t let the truth get in the way of their mission to ‘enslave the enemy’ and drive other violent propaganda. And, while the new anthrobots still have baked-in self-destruct switches, the only way to deploy them now is for both the bot and a human to activate it at the same time. Unlike humans, 7thGen robosapiens are untouched by the Suicide Contagion, which in theory ensures that the detonator will only be deployed in true emergencies.
One of the men glares at Kate. She feels for her gun and is relieved when it’s still there in its holster, thigh-warmed.
“I want to know everything,” says Keke. “Spill!”
“It’s not important. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
“Oh no, you’re not going to get away with that. I want details.”
Kate motions for a northbound tram to stop and they hop on, relieved to put space between themselves and the creeps.
Keke’s still looking at her. “This is a mindfuck on so many levels.”
“So the world has gone completely mad and we’re practically in the midst of a civil war but you think that my sex life is a mindfuck.”
“It is!”
“Why?” asks Kate. “Am I that out of the game?”
“You’re as hot-damn sexy as ever, and you know that,” says Keke. “But—”
“Yes? Get it all out of your system. We’re on our way to see him, and I don’t want you acting crackers around him.”
“The DarkDoc!”
“He has a name, you know. Morgan. I don’t call him the DarkDoc in bed.”
“You should,” says Keke. “That’s hot.”
“No,” Kate shakes her head, laughing. “No. It’s not.”
“That voice,” says Keke, pretending to be enraptured.
“I know,” says Kate. “It’s the voice that did it.”
“I thought you hated doctors.”
“I do. I did. It’s complicated.”
They ride past 4D street art. Animations of characters and slogans. Japanimé. Logos and tags and avatar stamps. Two-dimensional bumper stickers read ‘QE’; ‘Wake Up’ and ‘Is this the Real World?’
“You’re gonna tell me where we’re going?” asks Keke.
“You haven’t given me a chance!”
There’s a screeching on the other side of the street. A cabbie drives off the road and straight into a Mexican food truck. A big bang and smoke and yelling, but no one seems too badly hurt. Pedestrians hurry past the tacos and salsa on tar. The wall in the background says ‘The Internet is God’, and it animates so that the words ‘The Internet’ and ‘God’ swap places every few seconds.
The Internet is God. God is the Internet. The Internet is God.
“Holy shit,” says Keke. “What the fuck. This is so surreal.”
“Morgan’s with Silver. That’s why we’re going there.”
“She’s safe?”
“He didn’t say that.”
“What did he say?”
“That we need to get there as soon as possible.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“He wouldn’t say more than that. Said he didn’t want me to worry. He’ll tell us everything when we get there.”
“Get where?”
“The Lipworth Institute.”
Chapter 37
Smudged with Ash and Heartache
The Android Pod
Johannesburg, 2036
Any hope of finding Mally at Vega’s hostel evaporates as soon as Seth arrives. The front door has been blown wide open, and now the entrance to the building is a gaping, smoking maw. Looters stream out with chips and roscoe bullets they’ll never be able to use. Seth hears shouting and mad laughter. Broken glass crunches underfoot as he makes his way inside. Whoops of victory ring out as people kick cabinet locks in and smash the expensive tech with baseball bats. Fuck Robots is emblazoned on more than one of the fire-smoked walls.
Some robosapien bodies lie in pieces on the floor, completely human-looking at a glance. Human from the outside, anyway: stamped silicone, padded by flesh-coloured sponge—it’s just the colour of their blood that gives them away. That, and, if you look closely enough, the white titanium bones.
A man in a camouflaged exo-suit walks with purpose through the trashed hall, finger on the trigger of a large automatic weapon: a metal-melter. Instead of bullets, it’s specifically designed to fry a robot’s circuitry. Seth recognises the type. These people are usually underground, but it seems that the AI uprising has coaxed them out of their secret bunkers.
This is not good news, he thinks as he stops and looks around at the chaos.
The Bot Hunter sidles past Seth, bumping him just hard enough to send a message. Seth automatically feels for his Vektor, but remembers it’s not there just before his hand comes away empty. He turns to look at the man, and they exchange hard looks before letting go.
There’s another small explosion a few rooms away. The looters jump, but recover quickly, then seem energised by the destruction. They remind Seth of grinning hyenas, come to steal the scraps from the Grim Reaper’s table.
Seth grabs one of the young men running past.
“Where are they?” Seth asks. “The robots?”
The man shakes himself loose from Seth, shrugs, then takes off.
A woman’s shaking voice sounds from behind him. “They took them.”
Seth turns around to see a woman smudged with ash and heartache. Was she there all along? She’s so grey he didn’t even noticed her when he walked in.
“They took them,” she says. Her shoulder is bleeding: some kind of black shrapnel is poking out, pointing towards Seth.
“Are you all right?” he says. “Can I help you? Take you somewhere? Hospital?”
“What’s the point.” It’s not a question.
Seth leaves the exploding building with the feeling that it will devour itself before dawn. He sees a NASP policeman—code for Roguebot Cop—handcuffing an anthrobot.
“I don’t understand,” the bot is saying. She looks like a fourth-generation model, quite obviously not human, so an easy target for brutes like this. “There is no reason for my arrest. I didn’t break protocol.”
The cop swipes perspiration from his eyebrow. “It’s for your own safety.”
“I don’t understand,” she says.
A distraught woman in a faded yellow dress is arguing with the cop. She has a wailing toddler on her hip. A small patch of blood and dirt is visible where the kid’s knee is bleeding onto her.
“She was helping us!” the mother keeps saying. “Don’t you understand? She was helping!”
“It doesn’t matter,” says the cop.
The toddler cries and cries.
“My child fell in the street. This robot helped her. Why are you handcuffing her?”
The cop’s lips shrink; he doesn’t have time for this. He’s got a whole city to clean up.
“I don’t understand,” the bot says.
“You don’t need to understand, buttercup.” He finally clicks the cuffs in place. A van with the NASP insignia rolls up and he walks her over, helps her up into the pen, which Seth sees is crowded with all kinds of anthrobots.
“Where are you taking them?” asks Seth.
The cop ignores him.
“Hey!” shouts Seth. “Where are you taking them?”
They slam shut the back door and the vehicle speeds away.
Chapter 38
You Used to be Able to See the Stars
The Lipworth Institute
Johannesburg, 2036
When Kate and Keke arrive at the Lipworth Institute
they are scanned and frisked and interviewed and snapped. Their DNA code is verified by the bottle of water they are offered on arrival.
“Someone’s paranoid,” mumbles Keke.
“Not paranoid,” says Kate. “Safe.”
“Now they’ve got our numbers,” says Keke. “They could print a copy of you right now. They could clone your ass and keep you in a cage in the basement and no one would be any the wiser.”
“Jesus. Now who’s being paranoid?”
“I’m just saying. Stranger things have happened.”
“I’d like to think that my family would know the difference between me and a facsimile.”
“Ha,” says Keke.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Keke shrugs. “This place just gives me the creeps. It’s so …clean. White.”
“Really.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“It doesn’t bother me. In fact, I like it. It gives me a break from my synaesthesia. It’s like a palate cleanser for my brain.”
“What did you say about me being crackers earlier? For the record, I am not the one who is crackers.”
A smooth white robot cycles up to them. “Good morning.”
Is it morning already?
“Good morning,” says Kate. “Doctor Morgan said I should meet him here.”
“Of course, Miss Denicker, please follow me.”
After a few steps the droid stops and addresses Keke, “I’m sorry, but your access has been denied.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your code has not been pre-approved.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Your record,” says Kate.
“My record?”
“Your criminal record,” says the bot, helpfully.
“My record is clean!”
“Not according to the SACRKS. I’m sorry.”
“If you’re talking about what happened in 2024, they dropped the charges.”
“Hmm,” says the droid.
Keke stands her ground.
“And the 2021 charge was also dropped.”