November 5
Today I tried something. I’ve been thinking about what it must have been like out here before the change began, what the forest was like when there were still birds, so I called up a simulation in my overlays and walked out among the trees to listen. The noise was incredible. Birds shrieking and singing, things moving in the undergrowth. Even the light was different, thicker somehow, full of smoke and colour. It was so amazing I didn’t realise Noah was nearby until I heard a footstep right behind me, and flicking off my overlays found him standing there.
‘Noah!’ I said. ‘You frightened me.’ But as usual he didn’t reply, just stood staring at the ground.
‘How long have you been there?’ I asked. Looking down I saw his hands were clenched. ‘Did you want to talk to me?’ I asked, more gently this time.
He shook his head, his whole body swaying slightly as he did. ‘What are you watching?’ he asked at last.
‘It’s a simulation of what it used to be like here before the birds died. Do you want to see it?’
He gave a stiff nod. I pinged the details across and saw his eyes flicker behind his lenses as he pulled the simulation up. Then an expression of perplexity passed over his face, and once again I was struck by what a space alien he is, how thin and alone. We must all seem very baffling to him. What’s it really like being in there, wanting to connect but not knowing how? So many things that seem normal to me must seem almost impossible to him. Without thinking, I took his hand. He recoiled at my touch but then he relaxed.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ I said, and I realised I wanted it to be okay for him as much as for me.
November 8
These are the things we’ve lost:
Birds
Bananas
Tigers
Frogs
Bees
Coffee
Polar bears
Coral
These are the things we’ve saved:
Seeds
Elephants
Dolphins
Each other
November 12
I came in today to find Dr Leith crying. Because I thought he hadn’t heard me, I was about to slip back to my room when he turned around and told me to stay.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘A friend,’ he said. ‘Someone I knew.’ Wiping his eyes he looked at me. ‘Still nothing from your mum?’
I shook my head. I could see he wanted to say something reassuring but he didn’t, and I liked him for not lying to cheer me up.
Then he surprised me by pointing at the fridge and asking, ‘Would you like a beer?’
I wasn’t sure how to react. Although we’ve been here for a fortnight now it’s still difficult not to feel like I’m only really here because Dr Leith knows my mum and felt bad about leaving me on my own. Plus I’m under-age.
Perhaps he guessed what I was thinking because he said, ‘Well, I would.’
‘Sure,’ I said then, a little too quickly, and he grinned and handed me a bottle.
I followed him out onto the veranda. It was hot and still.
‘How are you doing?’ he asked.
I took a sip, trying not to screw my face up too much at the taste of it. ‘Okay, I suppose.’
‘And how do you think Noah’s coping?’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘He’s scared.’
Dr Leith took a long draught. ‘We all are.’
I hesitated. ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’
‘Sure. It’s not like there’s much point in leaving things for later.’
I laughed, and it felt so good, a relief after so long. ‘How did you end up looking after Noah?’
‘It’s a long story. Noah was born in England.’
‘Before London?’
‘Sometimes when you see the news out of England it’s easy to forget it was once a rich country.’
‘Was that weird?’ I asked. ‘Your daughter being so far away?’
‘I didn’t even know Noah existed until he was seven.’
I must have looked surprised because he smiled in a sad sort of way. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said again.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘And now?’
He didn’t answer at once. When he did his voice was different, quieter, almost sad. ‘I just want him to be safe. I just want both of you to be safe.’
‘You shouldn’t worry about me,’ I said.
‘But I do,’ he said.
November 15
I’ve been watching the feeds and it seems difficult to believe this isn’t the end. It’s not just that so many people are dead, it’s that everything seems to be coming unstitched. In Europe there are gangs on the streets, in America they’re closing off cities and killing anybody who tries to get in. Here in Australia groups are taking over suburbs and buildings, trying to quarantine them. The police have been shooting people, and the army are out, but nobody believes they’ll be able to control things. And because the net keeps going down nobody can even keep track of all of it anymore.
November 18
Noah told me about his mother today. I thought she was dead, but it turns out it’s more complicated than that. He was living with her in England when Dr Leith came to visit them. That was right when the first massive flood happened, and although the three of them got through it together, she disappeared straight afterwards. I asked Noah whether she died and he said she didn’t die, she just vanished.
I didn’t say anything, trying to imagine what that must have been like, and for a long time Noah didn’t say anything either, just sat staring at the ground like he always does. For once his leg wasn’t jiggling, but you could see the restlessness was still there, straining at him.
‘She didn’t mean to do it,’ he said at last. ‘Didn’t mean to leave me. Not really. It was just too much, too difficult, and she didn’t know what to do.’
When I still didn’t say anything he said, ‘It’s true. She’s not a bad person.’ His voice was almost angry.
‘What does your grandfather think?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. He never talks about her. It’s like he doesn’t want me to know about her.’
‘I’m sure it’s not like that,’ I said, but he didn’t answer.
November 20
Noah and Dr Leith had an argument today. It was after dinner and I was out the back when I heard a crash. I came in to find Noah standing in the middle of the kitchen with broken glass in front of him.
‘Pick it up,’ Dr Leith was saying, but Noah shook his head.
‘Pick it up,’ he said again, but Noah just stared at him.
‘Pick it up!’ Dr Leith said for a third time. Noah flinched, then pushed past him and ran outside, slamming the screen door. I began to back away, embarrassed, but Dr Leith looked up and saw me. I thought he might say something, but when he didn’t I followed Noah out into the night.
I was pretty sure he’d gone to the lake, so I went down the path through the forest. The sky was full of stars, so bright you could almost feel the Earth moving beneath you.
Noah was down by the water, sitting on a log. I could see his shape against the surface of the lake. He must have heard me approaching but he didn’t turn.
‘Hey,’ I said as I got to him and sat myself down.
He didn’t acknowledge my presence.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
Finally he nodded abruptly.
‘He doesn’t mean it, you know,’ I said. ‘He’s just worried.’
‘It’s stupid,’ he said. ‘In a couple of years I’ll be able to do what I want, but for now I have to listen to him.’
I laughed and that made him turn towards me briefly.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You seem to do a pretty good job of doing what you want now,’ I said. ‘And you spend so much time playing Universe and doing your astronomical simulations it’s not like you’re around all that much anyway.’
‘It’s easier in there. Less complicated. I c
an be myself.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Out here’s confusing for all of us.’
From somewhere in the distance came a rumbling sound. I thought it was thunder, but then it came again, louder. In the sky to the south a glow was visible.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, but Noah’s eyes were already moving behind his lenses.
‘A fire in a gas reservoir in Sydney,’ he said, and before he could say anything else there was another rumble, louder this time, and the glow grew brighter.
‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘At this rate there may not be any “out here” left for us to find complicated.’
November 22
I’ve been reading about autism. It’s not a subject I’ve ever thought about very much, and if I had I think I’d assumed it was just some kind of genetic disorder, but it’s more complicated than that. To begin with it’s not one condition, it’s about five or six, all overlapping and interacting. Some have to do with language, others with the development of the bits of the brain that help us understand what other people are feeling, some with processing information.
There are different genes associated with all of these conditions, and they express themselves in different ways. Some people are unable to communicate at all, others have trouble making sense of auditory information, or isolating meaning from noise, others find it difficult to relate and connect to other people.
It must be so hard to live in a world filled with signs and signals you don’t understand, with people who do baffling things and expect you to react in particular ways. No wonder people on the spectrum find the modern world so frightening and complicated.
I can see it in Noah, in how alone he often seems. When I first met him I thought he was weird, cut off, but the more time I spend with him, the easier it is to see he has feelings, he just doesn’t know how to articulate them, how to control them, so when they come they come in a rush, as anger or frustration. It’s like he’s a little child sometimes, and all that feeling is backed up, trying to find a way out.
November 25
I’m really frightened. This last week things seem to have gotten rapidly worse. In China and India the cities are burning, death rates are way up, and there’s still no sign of a cure. It feels like there won’t ever be one, like this is it. Although Dr Leith hasn’t said anything I can see he feels the same, and so does Noah. They’ve been fighting again, which doesn’t help, but I think the fighting is partly because they’re scared. Sometimes I try to imagine what the world would be like without people, what would happen if we were all gone, and it makes me so sad. The cities are ugly and there are too many of us, but it seems wrong that we should end this way.
November 30
It’s late and I should be asleep but I want to get this down while I can. It’s been five days since I wrote in here and a lot has happened, most of it bad. The first thing was four days ago when the net went down. The first time it was just a blip, ten minutes without coverage, but then it happened again and we lost it for a few hours, and then for good. Dr Leith says it means there’s a problem with the satellite, and the systems can’t cope anymore, but whatever it is it’s really scary, because we only have occasional coverage from a local node.
But that was only the beginning. Although we didn’t realise it at the time, the explosion the other night wasn’t an accident, and reports have been coming in ever since about rioting and looting and fires. Dr Leith says the situation has reached a sort of tipping point, and things are beginning to fall apart too quickly for anybody to stop them.
To make things worse, he and Noah have been fighting constantly. It’s awful. Not just because it makes me feel like I shouldn’t be here, but because I can see neither of them want to fight, they just don’t seem to be able to stop. This morning it was over Noah saying we have to head back into town to get food and Dr Leith not wanting us to. Noah accused him of being afraid, said he’d always been afraid, and that he wanted to keep Noah from ever doing anything. Dr Leith said that wasn’t it, he was trying to keep us all safe, and it wasn’t safe in town. Noah was angry and upset, which is always difficult to watch because he seems to go all stiff, as if he’s about to explode.
‘Please, Noah,’ Dr Leith said at last, ‘we can’t keep doing this.’
‘You did this to her as well, didn’t you?’ Noah said. ‘That’s why she left, why she left me.’
Dr Leith went so still and pale that I thought he was going to hit Noah. But when he spoke again his voice was very quiet and very careful, which was somehow even worse.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ he said.
Afterwards I tried to talk to him but he waved me away.
‘I don’t want to discuss it,’ he said. ‘We’ve said enough.’
When I went out to look for Noah he had his lenses on.
‘Is the net back up?’ I asked.
‘There’s a backlink but it’s weak.’
‘Is there any news?’
Noah shook his head. I sat down beside him.
‘Do you think you’d know?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Know what?’
‘If your mother was dead?’
I felt something catch in my throat. Then I realised he was looking at me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I tell myself I would have to know, that it isn’t possible for her to be gone without me knowing it. It’s stupid, because so many people have died, but I just can’t imagine the world without her, can’t believe she could be gone.’
I felt my voice crack and I had to fight to hold back tears. Next to me Noah was staring at the ground in front of him.
‘What about you? Do you think you’d know?’ I asked.
‘Before we came here, before everyone got sick, I always told myself I would. But now I don’t know. Everything is all wrong.’
I put my hand on his. This time he didn’t flinch. I could smell his sharp funky smell, the rubber of his sneakers. Not knowing what else to do I leaned over, pulled his head towards me, tears coming in a gasp.
December 2
Dr Leith woke us when the fire began and told us to get dressed. If he was surprised to find us in the same bed he didn’t say anything, although he looked at me in a way he hadn’t before, like he was disappointed. As Noah put his clothes on I thought about going after his grandfather and trying to explain that it wasn’t how it looked, that we both just needed to know there was somebody nearby, but I wasn’t sure it would make any difference.
Out on the road the glow of the fire was visible to the west, and as we drove I watched it against the sky.
‘Where are we going?’
Dr Leith glanced around at me. ‘The coast. We should be okay there.’
From behind us I could feel the heat coming in gusts and judders. In the darkness beside me Noah had gone quiet.
‘You don’t need to worry,’ Dr Leith said. ‘The fire’s a long way off. We’ve got lots of time.’
‘What about the house?’ Noah asked.
‘With any luck it’ll be fine,’ Dr Leith replied. When Noah didn’t answer he said, ‘Besides, I thought you hated it.’
‘I do,’ Noah said. ‘I just don’t want it to burn.’
Dr Leith smiled. ‘Neither do I,’ he said as we rounded the head and the ocean came into view. To the east the moon was huge and pale and shimmered on the water. Dr Leith pulled in and we climbed out, the sand thick and coarse and yellow beneath our feet.
‘We’re here,’ he said.
I’m not sure what makes the order stand out. Some detail in the description, perhaps. Or the fact that it’s a child. Not that that’s unusual, of course: a lot of our orders are children. But something about it catches my eye as I’m flicking through the assignments, making me pause long enough to realise I recognise the face in the photo accompanying it.
He’s older than he was the last time I saw him, five or six rather than three or four. But even without reading the details I know it’s him. Cassie’s little brother. Matthew.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, I suppose; there are so many who died, after all. But somehow it does. I haven’t thought about either of them for quite a while, although like a lot of us I think I’ve learned not to dwell too much upon people we’ve lost contact with, or to ask too many questions. But still, as I scan the order I’m relieved to find it’s in her name, even if there’s no mention of other family. Exiting the order, I call up my logs, pull up a picture of her. Her face so familiar, so far away.
We’re supposed to report orders like this, of course, to prevent situations in which people might feel their privacy has been invaded. But as I look at Matthew’s photo I’m seized by the thought that I can help somehow, make it better than it would be otherwise, the idea so clear I scarcely notice myself tagging the job as my own.
They’re called sims, or echoes. Virtual recreations of the dead assembled from photos and videos. Back before the pandemic they were pretty rare. Sometimes people created sims of themselves when they got old or sick, hoping they might live on; occasionally they were bought by parents or spouses prostrate with grief. But mostly they were seen as slightly grotesque rather than consoling.
Since the pandemic, though, it’s as if for every person who would rather forget there is another who cannot bear to let go, who needs the past to continue. And so they come to Semblance and other companies like us, wanting us to recreate those who have been lost.
They’re not the person, of course, even if it’s often difficult to tell the difference. Instead they’re copies programmed with as much information about the originals as we can get. At their core is a cloned, virtual Artificial Intelligence, programmed with heuristics that allow it to read the responses of people it interacts with so it can mimic the dead person as closely as possible. They’re not conscious, or not quite: they’re complex emulations fully focused on convincing their owners they are who they seem to be.
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