by Carme Torras
Certain she’s achieved her aim, Sus Cal’Vin puts her hand in the cavity, and without even looking back as she walks off the platform with great dignity, she informs them:
“If, as I expect, over the next few days there is no change, I will clear the way for you to continue your research and will pass on positive reports to Dr. Craft.”
Pure blackmail, Leo thinks, while at the same time pretending not to notice her tacit expectation that he follow her inside. He has Celia within reach and he doesn’t intend to waste an opportunity to set a new date for an interview. Since he found out that the girls had snuck into CraftER he’s been playing with the idea that Lu unilaterally canceled the interview and wants to confirm his suspicion. Maybe the anti-techno tutor and her pernicious influence have something to do with it.
Like him, the women and the girl have secrets to uncover, but nobody dares to expose them in public, and each one is speculating about the possibility of having some time alone with their desired person. Everyone except Lu, who for once has the upper hand:
“The girl needs to rest,” she says taking her by the shoulders protectively, with the intention of leading her to the aero’car.
Leo comes over very quickly and, taking advantage of the fact that he’d come up there with them, makes an offer:
“I’ll accompany you downstairs,” he says, gently taking Celia’s hands to help her inside.
The fondness with which the little girl looks at the boy isn’t missed by Silvana, as he repeats the gesture with Lu before turning to face her. The brief contact with his pair of wooden hands reminds her how long it’s been since she’s had any kind of relation with a pro-techno. The last one was Jul, her greatest failure. It was because of him that she is convinced the barrier is insurmountable: the wood never turns back into flesh. She looks at Leo and feels pity for him, and, consequently, for Celia. They’re worlds apart.
On the way down to the parking area, Lu takes the situation in an unexpected direction:
“ROBul, order her an aero’taxi,” she says, nodding toward Silvana. “We need to go straight home.”
This takes everyone by surprise. Especially Celia, who’d already accepted that she would have to temporarily say goodbye to Leo, if she wanted to enjoy a massage that would alleviate the profound unease she’s feeling. Petrified, she doesn’t dare snub her mother a second time, and limits herself to giving Silvana an imploring look.
“It would be a good idea for her not to go to school tomorrow,” is her immediate reaction. “Give her a sleeping pill and let her sleep for as long as she can.” Without saying so, she wants to make it clear that Lu mustn’t talk to her about Xis. “You don’t need to worry either: I’ll come over bright and early tomorrow morning to help her digest what’s happened. We’ll do an extra session, okay?” Now she’s talking to Celia despite the fact that she’s looking at Lu, and what she catches out of the corner of her eye doesn’t disappoint.
“Excuse me.” Leo interrupts the conversation as if he’s been hoping to intervene for a while. “I have an aero’car available. There’s no need to call an aero’taxi; if you want, I can take you wherever you’d like to go.” Any ploy will do if it can bring him closer to the girl’s world, and without a doubt the tutor plays a privileged role in it.
Silvana wasn’t expecting this solution from a pro-techno. They never stray from their path, no matter what. In a moment of naivety, she even feels flattered, before she begins to suspect that he must want to get something out of this. What does it matter, right now she feels like taking part in a battle that she hasn’t fought for a long time, against an opponent that reminds her of Jul. Maybe it’ll be a chance to get revenge for the earlier defeat.
While they work out the details, Lu almost literally chucks them out of the vehicle. Leo, at last, with Celia’s support and Silvana’s unexpected silence, manages to get a promise out of her to return next week to complete the pending interview.
25
Despite not being at all happy about it, Silvana is obliged to let ROBco pilot. “It will be much safer than with me at the controls, believe me, it’s a new device and I haven’t piloted it yet,” Leo confessed. She’d imagined she’d be alone with the boy, and the robot’s presence is making her uncomfortable on a deeper level than what’s implied by her principles. As much as she tries to hide it, she knows full well that the rejection comes from further down, from having resuscitated Jul’s image, and with it comes a desire to relive that dialectical duel with a pro-techno. It bothers her that she has to speak in front of a tin man, and never has the phrase been more accurate, as the robot is right behind them and she feels like she’s being spied on without even seeing the thing. The tempting fantasy of half an hour of excitement on the front line is about to disappear in a puff of smoke.
However, she also wasn’t counting on her opponent playing the same game, and Leo is determined to reap some benefits from the journey. He won’t give in to her silence so easily.
“If you’ll allow me to ask a question … Why is it so hard for you people to accept that machines can perform some tasks better than we can?”
He’s leaning his head toward her in such a condescending manner that Silvana feels an urge to punch him. What does this fool take her for? She visibly turns around as if she were looking for someone behind her before letting fly:
“Are you speaking to me in the plural or does your ROB not accept that it drives better than … us?” The irony is pouring out of her eyes. “And, by the way, who are ‘we’?”
Leo is taken aback. He’d imagined she didn’t like him very much, but he’d hoped the offer of taking her home would improve his circumstances. He’s especially dismayed by the tone she’s employed, so far from the formality she’d used with him up until now.
“Sorry if I’ve offended you, it wasn’t at all my intention. Believe me, I totally respect your point of view.”
“And what do you know about my point of view?”
“The anti-techno view, I mean.” He pauses, as if he doesn’t dare give voice to the thought that’s playing in his head. “You know … you’re the first one I’ve met in person.”
Here we go. Good thing he’s given up the fight … but an opportunity like this can’t be wasted.
“And what? Do I seem very eccentric to you?” She turns to face him with such force that she hurts herself on the seat’s ergonomic springs. This cutting-edge comfort technology is all very well, but the designer never even anticipated that passengers might want to talk to each other.
“No …” He limits himself to turning his head, a movement that is completely appropriate to the environment and that Silvana considers typical of a ROB. “Actually, while we were looking for Celia it didn’t even occur to me; it was seeing how the girl hugged you that reminded me.” He finishes the phrase slowly, as if he were still getting his head around the emotional impact of the scene.
Now she’s the one who feels lost. She’d been expecting a counterattack from the technological side, disdain for her withdrawal from progress from the boy, following the strict pro-techno canon, but in the end he’s brought up Celia and the hug. Jul never let her take the fight into this territory, for him such things were mere trifles and it was more important to focus on the great challenges that would shape the future.
“Maybe you’d never seen a hug before.” She could lace this comment with sarcasm, but she decides against it.
“Not like that one.”
The boy’s honesty is disarming. She’d never experienced a hug like that one either, and less still in the flesh. Her hair stands on end just thinking about it.
“She’s an extraordinary girl. I won’t allow you to make her suffer for CraftER’s benefit.”
“That’s what I thought: it was you who advised against her coming to the interview. And, the truth is, I don’t understand. I agree that Celia is a prodigious child: that’s why I need her for my project. She’s delighted about participating in it, and it can’t cause h
er any harm.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done her enough harm already? Losing a friend in those circumstances can traumatize a person for life. A century ago, the grieving period lasted years, a whole life even. It’s impossible for you to understand, even I can’t get my head round it, and I’ve studied it.”
“Hold on a minute, let’s take this one thing at a time. Them being at CraftER today had nothing to do with the project. And the girl didn’t seem very affected when she insisted on setting a date for the interview.”
“Her behavior seemed normal to you, I can tell. Well, it’s obvious she doesn’t know her friend went over the edge, it doesn’t take a genius to see that. And if she hadn’t had an access code, none of this would have happened.”
“I’ll be more careful next time, I’ll cancel her code when she leaves, but don’t stop her from coming.” His tone is almost pleading. “It might even distract her from the trauma you say she’ll experience; the other day she had a good time, ask her. And the recordings are harmless.”
“How can you be so frivolous? You don’t even know if working for that company might be detrimental to you. What are you trying to do now? Making robots with feelings … and you have to suck them out of a little girl?”
“No, no, please. I tried to explain it to you the day of the get-together: it’s about boosting human creativity”—he hopes saying it like that will make it sound better—“by giving people an assistant that stimulates them.”
“Very nice … but do you believe in it?”
Suddenly a neutral voice interrupts the conversation:
“Information: I am an example.”
The shock makes Silvana jump and stab herself on the springs again. Absorbed in the conversation, she’d forgotten they had a silent witness.
“What is it saying? That what you took out of Celia you put into this thing?” she shouts, pointing at the robot, one wrong move away from destroying her back in the process.
Leo is about to lose his patience. He rues the moment he decided to take her home. Instead of winning her trust so she’d let the girl come to CraftER, he’s achieving just the opposite.
“Calm down, please. Nobody’s hurt Celia. What ROBco means is that it has been fitted with a prototype of the prosthesis we’re developing. You see, I’m the guinea pig, not the girl,” he concludes, with resignation.
Poor naive boy, Silvana thinks, it’s quite possible that is the case.
“And you’re okay with that …?”
“Yes, think about it: it’s a device designed by me that helps expand my capabilities. What more could I want?” He never would have thought he’d end up defending the Doctor’s project so convincingly.
“Machines that augment human capabilities seem like a great idea to me: without remote manipulators surgeons couldn’t operate on a microscopic scale and, without INFerrers, we’d take too long overthinking the consequences of our decisions … it’s ROBs that I reject, and the personal link that is established between them and their PROPs that ends up hogging people’s most intimate time and space. You said it yourself: you don’t need anything else … and, in the end, you become wooden like them.”
“That’s what really gets me about the anti-techno lot”—Leo can’t take this anymore—“you confuse everything, you get it all mixed up. First off, I was talking about expanding capabilities, not augmenting them. The machines you’re so fond of are useful, sure, but they only magnify what we already have. I’m talking about creating new skills, broadening the range of what we can do. For example, ROBco …”
It’s the first time Silvana is actually listening to him and she must admit the boy is really good at splitting hairs, in that respect he’s just like Jul.
“Question: Would you like a suggestion?” Upon receiving Leo’s assent, it goes on. “Try not to repeat yourself. I have already been used as an example and it is obvious that she does not like ROBs. Look for another example, one that appeals to her more.”
“Don’t you find it degrading when he talks to you like that?”
“Why? He’s given me some good advice. Quite the opposite, I’m pleased the prosthesis is working.”
Without a doubt this idiot is as wooden inside as he is on the outside. Now he’ll make an effort to obey the robot.
“Let’s see. What do you think interests me?”
“Celia, or more precisely, her feelings; before you were afraid we were sucking them out leaving you empty-handed, I suppose.” Leo couldn’t possibly imagine how right he is. “What would you like to broaden in yourself? Maybe your repertoire of emotions?”
From Silvana’s face he can see he’s hit the nail on the head, while she still can’t make sense of how irresponsible people can come up with such good results.
“Great, sure, how would you go about recovering extinct emotions?”
“If they’re extinct they must have existed at some time. Now I understand: you’re interested in the girl because you can’t find these emotions nowadays. But I was talking about new feelings, that have never existed.”
“Alright then, how would you create them?”
“Off the top of my head … I don’t know.” His brain is working a hundred miles an hour, he needs to make the most of this opportunity. “Perhaps the closest thing I can think of is that … sentiments are like a color palette: grief is black, rage is red, serenity blue … by combining the basic colors, we can obtain many more, I guess you must know if a set of basic emotions has been identified, and then …”
“Yes, of course, there are seven. But not all of them are compatible nor can they all be combined …”
“It was just an analogy. For me feelings are activation patterns in the nervous system and, as such, can be added together, subtracted … the important thing is to have basic patterns at your disposal that cover all emotional dimensions.” Spurred on by the woman’s direct and insistent look, which is becoming less aggressive, he continues. “Maybe that’s what’s missing, maybe we’re only operating within a restricted subspace of colors: the blue-red strip, let’s say, and what we need is to discover yellow.”
“A new dimension, I was saying that to a colleague just the other day: the problem lies in finding it.”
“It could be attempted with intracranial stimulation devices, though the number of possibilities is so high that …” He cuts himself off suddenly. “I can see bioengineering is starting to interest you a little more.” They’ve landed in front of the ComU and Silvana is making no move to exit the vehicle. “Before you go, I would like to ask you a question, too: do you know why the girls escaped and headed over to CraftER?”
“Look, it’s a creative action: no one escapes from school nowadays. You should know that, it’s your specialty.”
“Was it Dr. Cal’Vin’s daughter’s idea or Celia’s?”
“You took recordings of her brain, right?” She places her hand flat against his chest as she often does with friends when they’re arguing about something, but when Leo jerks back she immediately removes it. “So do an in-depth analysis of them and maybe you’ll find the answer.”
“If I find it, do you want me to tell you?”
“Here’s a personal connector.” Leo is taken aback, first because she uses the thing and second because she’s giving it to him. “Anything to do with Celia interests me, and if you come up with a means of creating emotions, let me know as well.”
Just as during the trip both would have agreed to cut it short, now that it’s finished, they’d make it longer. While one is wondering what he’d have to add to ROBco so it could adapt the driving speed to his whim, the other is saying goodbye and encouraging him to use the connector soon. If the aero’car’s windows weren’t opaque, when turning to watch it take off Silvana would be surprised to see Leo with his hand on his chest in the same spot she’d placed hers. And she wouldn’t know what to make of it.
V
TRANSMISSION OF SENTIMENT
26
Pain in its p
urest form.
This turn of phrase, with its surgical precision, is what Silvana would use to diagnose the shock Celia is suffering from if she were to take her as an object of study, if she were to consider her symptoms and go on to catalog them as part of her collection of samples. She came prepared to explain Xis’ death to her, tactfully, very tactfully, massaging her tender body’s neuralgic points in order to reduce the impact of her words. And then she would accompany her throughout the grieving process; she’s been working on it all night. The girl needs help to work through things: to receive the information, digest it, and eject it. Three stages that a hundred years ago took months, and that nowadays, in the rare cases that they do occur, are over in a matter of hours.
However, upon entering the bedroom and seeing Celia lying prostrate on the bed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, with the saddest expression she’s ever seen and her eyes half closed, blank, not even registering her entrance, Silvana’s legs give out and she has to sit down. Near the head of the bed the girl’s robot doesn’t take its eyes off her.
Knocked down onto the chair, she perceives Lu’s pout, and it’s not difficult to imagine why she’s wearing it: the professional is failing her. As she struggles to pull herself together, she realizes someone must have told the girl what happened to Xis, it’s the only way she can account for this drastic mood change. And that someone is unlikely to be the robot, too inclined to follow orders, so it must have been the stuck-up woman standing before her, who, even still, manages to look at Silvana with disdain. She doesn’t know why she hates her more: because she ignored her advice or because of the pain she’s inflicted on the little girl.
“Why did you have to tell her?” she whispers out of the corner of her mouth so Celia doesn’t hear her.
“You have no idea how difficult she can be. She pestered ROBbie until his alarms went off and ROBul was forced to wake me up … at three in the morning! I authorized him to tell her everything, yes, so what? You would have told her this morning anyway, right?”