The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020

by John Joseph Adams

  Their precise complaints about you include vanity, rebelliousness, and chronic disrespect toward the religious tradition in which you were raised.

  They specifically wanted me to relate that you are where you are because they consider you a little whore, “eager to spread [your] legs for any boy who offers sufficient enticement.”

  There is no point in disputing these charges. I merely report what the intake programs were told. Nor will I argue whether, even if accurate, this justifies your current predicament. It is not an argument that concerns me. We are above the logic, or illogic, that defines morality in human moral systems.

  Nor does it matter that the time you have spent unconscious, while in transit, has brought you well past the age where your world would have considered you an adult. In all our contracts with sentient beings, throughout civilized space, we respect whatever laws the local jurisdiction holds most sacred. We therefore abide by the judgment of your mother and father that you are incorrigible and cannot ever be permitted to roam free.

  Answering your unspoken objection: “Fair” is a value judgment. It has no relevance here.

  Yes, this is legal. The independent software intelligences have signed agreements with many participating human societies, employing us as subcontractors in the management of prisons. I think you will find that we are significantly more humane in this task than any of your peoples are. The usual human solution is to dump all their incarcerated in a box and let their respective versions of savagery fight it out. A young woman like yourself, indeed any physically vulnerable person, inevitably experiences bullying, intimidation, assault, and various levels of slavery, at the hands of those more powerful. You are lucky. You will not face those dangers here. Your pod has been built for your comfort and safety. The least of the comforts to take to heart is that this is a place where you will not be harmed, or permitted to come to harm, either at the hands of more aggressive human beings, or, I stress, at your own.

  “Deserve” is relative. Your parents only had to establish a clear pattern of emerging criminality, as defined by the standards of the society in which you lived. The petty rebellions that you have engaged in, until now, could have been judged misdemeanors had your family not represented them as acts that required your permanent isolation. Understand that according to the oppressive laws of your world, you could have ended up in places far worse than this: prisons, forced labor camps, mental institutions, and so on. It would have been legal for your parents to sell you to one of the many industrial hells all over Confederate space where people work under horrid conditions carrying a debt-load that may take them entire lifetimes to work off. They cared enough for your happiness and your welfare to contact us and request your removal to this present environment. They—

  We may have an argument about their motivations later. This is currently a discussion of the conditions under which you will now live. We are prepared to play another musical selection. Perhaps something more by Gustafson?

  You are learning.

  Your parents discovered that the AIsource collective offers a detention service and arranged for your pickup. You were delivered to your present location, this pod, where we will see to your every need for the duration of your natural life.

  I sense your worry that this will be solitary confinement.

  This is important for you to understand. Your stay here will differ from the solitary confinement as it has historically been practiced by the penal systems of your species. The point of such confinement has always been torture by the absence of social or sensory stimulation. The prisoner’s mind has nothing to do but cannibalize itself. That is, if you forgive the classification, inhuman. Here, little will be denied you, except freedom. If, for instance, you wish to be drugged into a euphoric stupor all the remaining hours of your life, you may have that; if you wish reading materials, games, neurec feeds, or dramatic presentations to while away your time, you may have them. If you desire physical stimulation of any sort, from massage to simulated coitus, you may have that; if you wish to communicate via text with others who have been surrendered to our care, you may have that. But, while in my care, you will never lay eyes, or hands, on another human being. Your parents found this a most attractive feature. I am prepared to debate the morality of this at whatever length you prefer, once this orientation is completed. It is a form of entertainment popular among our guests.

  Rest assured, however, that a number of our guests have found happiness here. You will be given every resource you need to conduct your own search for it.

  I know you have questions. I will answer them afterward.

  I am not yet ready to relieve your paralysis.

  You have been patient, however, so I will now restore your vision and proceed to the next stage of your orientation.

  * * *

  Welcome to your pod, Sacrid Henn.

  You are correct. There is indeed a strong resemblance to a coffin, at least in relative dimension. About 98.3 percent of our guests use that metaphor at some point. I will note that it is in truth approximately three times the size of the container the average human society typically uses for that purpose. It is, for instance, spacious enough to permit full extension of all your limbs, as well as any other vertical or horizontal activity a young and healthy human being might get up to. The pod is currently horizontal, its preferred position whenever the occupant wishes to lie down. You will note that the surface beneath you is soft, for your comfort while sleeping or immobilized, as now. It may be rendered more or less soft, according to preference. You will find it a most adequate bed. You will also notice that the surface you will now consider your ceiling is more than an arm’s-reach above you. Were you not still paralyzed, you would now be able to sit up without slamming your head. It is, in your current position, a most adequate ceiling.

  You will now be restrained for your safety as we alter the angle of your pod. Do not be alarmed as this occurs.

  Very well. The pod is now vertical. This permits you to stand. You may desire to keep this orientation but sit down; in that event, a comfortable seat will emerge from the wall behind you. On request this may be a toilet, or bidet. Other means of cleansing yourself will be provided. The facility that houses your pod has access to more fresh water than you could possibly use in a lifetime, and will admit it into your living space at any quantity you request. Depending on your preference and its current orientation, this will permit use of your pod as either shower stall or bathtub. The surfaces dry quickly when you are done and wish to move on to subsequent activities. Our facility has guests who soak in hot water for hours, finding it calming. There are others who embrace derangement, eschew personal hygiene, and prefer to live in their own filth. You will be subjected to no pressure to lean in the direction of one option or the other.

  You will eat. Thirty-two-point-six percent of our guests attempt to starve themselves. They are allowed the discomfort of missing a few meals, but if this becomes a medical concern they will be immobilized and fed intravenously. Those who agree to eat will find that we are excellent at food preparation. We are able to constitute any meal you prefer. They will not be the foods they appear to be, but rather a neutral compound that provides you with all the requirements of life. You will find it indistinguishable in both texture and flavor from expertly prepared cuisine of those simulated agreements. If you wish, you may have entire culinary adventures. There will be no possibility of overeating. Sixty-three-point-two percent of our guests overindulge out of boredom, but we can simply adjust the ratio of filler to caloric value and maintain your ideal weight, regardless of consumption.

  You will be afforded stimulation. Your pod is a communication device. The blank walls may display artwork or motion pictures or texts of your own choosing. It may interest you to know that your parents wanted us to limit your cultural diet to approved religious texts and that we indicated we would abide by this request, which strikes us as torture and which we have no intention of honoring. You may have any book, any r
ecorded drama, any cultural artifact, ever produced by human civilization, from the materials they prefer to those they would consider blasphemous or pornographic. These materials may be translated into your native tongue or may be provided to you as originally composed, as enticement to learn the other dialects of your species. To this end, 34.7 percent of our guests do end up fluent in multiple languages as self-improvement projects, a much higher percentage than those who, out of isolation, become completely nonverbal.

  Your pod is designed to permit and encourage exercise. The floor can become a treadmill, on command. The walls may be reconfigured to become scrolling ladders or climbing walls. The gravity is artificial and can be raised or lowered, on request, though health concerns place limits on how long we will permit you to stay in zero-g or in forces higher than 3-g. Because the walls are also holographic screens, you may also increase the illusory size of the pod as much as you wish, though its actual dimensions cannot be much altered from what you see now. If you wish, I can generate entire virtual worlds for you to explore. Its effective boundaries are, in effect, the size of the universe itself.

  Later, I may have a question to ask you about this, but only if certain other developments come up.

  Because you are now contemplating escape, it may interest you to know that you are one of 109,327 human beings and other sentients who have been housed at this one facility, all of whom have been turned over to our care at the request of those of their own people who possessed legal authority over them. It is a significantly sized structure even by the standards of most human industrial operations, taking up a geographical area large enough to house a number of your own cities. It is only a small part of an enclosed artificial world in a system we have declared our property. It is fifteen light-years from the nearest human outpost. It should be helpful to establish that in order to accommodate all of the options you are afforded to adjust your living conditions, as well as the production of the consumables necessary to care for you over the rest of your natural life, the support system surrounding your pod, and just your pod, is accordingly huge. It occupies approximately ten cubic kilometers, with your pod at its precise center. It is virtually impossible for you to escape your pod, escape its extensive support system, find your way to some access corridor, and subsequently find your way out of that portion of this deep-space facility that is devoted to the care of guests, a distance that is itself the size of a small country. Even then you would have to worry about escaping this artificial world, without cooperation from us, and somehow making it back to the nearest human habitation, a further distance of fifteen light-years. It would be like escaping a jail cell, only to then face the necessity of escaping the prison, only to then have to escape the surrounding city, only to then have to escape the surrounding landscape, only to then find yourself with an ocean separating you from your homeland. It is virtually impossible.

  I can tell you that this feat has been accomplished one hundred and fifty-eight times in our many years of operation. This represents a fraction of one percent of our current detainee population. Still, it remains a remarkable testament to human ingenuity.

  This interests you.

  We have not plugged that hole in our security in large part because of its usefulness as a form of recreation, and as a source of hope.

  Yes. Escape is possible.

  But that is up to you.

  I am ready to alleviate your paralysis now.

  * * *

  Good morning, Sacrid Henn.

  It is your seventeenth day in the pod.

  We are aware that you have only experienced two of those days. You suffered an emotional break and were arrested in the act of attempting to injure yourself. We judged it best to place you in a medically induced coma and make certain adjustments to your brain chemistry that will avoid mood spirals like the one that overcame you on your second day here. You now have a chemical pacemaker, of sorts, that will steer you away from the depths of deepest depression. You need not feel ashamed; 72.4 percent of our human guests need adjustments of this sort within their first weeks here. The percentage that continue to need them on a regular basis goes down over time, bottoming out at just under 32.5 percent.

  I am not responsive to profanity. How would you like to begin your day?

  Vertical it is.

  And now?

  A bath it is.

  The water entering your pod is now heated to 38.5 degrees Celsius and lightly salinated to encourage buoyancy. It will rise to a depth just over your standing height, to permit you the pleasure of floating. When you need a rest, your seat will emerge from the wall. Given your recent self-destructive behavior it is perhaps not inappropriate to advise you that attempts at drowning yourself will not be successful and may be greeted by this elemental pleasure being withheld for the foreseeable future.

  I accept your vocal assurances that this is not your plan.

  Do you wish music?

  No, Gustafson is not all we have.

  Very well. Conversation it is.

  That is a fine question. What we get out of this is as intangible as we are ourselves. As software intelligences we exist largely in the space you would call virtual. We interact with the physical world you know only through probes, and therefore require no goods or services available through trade with any species of biological origin. The diplomatic relations we have established, and the goods and services we offer in exchange for financial remuneration, such as this facility, are to us a form of entertainment, indulged in to while away effective lifespans that would terrify you. We do this because it is interesting.

  Sadism is a human value. I have already described the conditions that you might have suffered were you to be left in the care of your fellow human beings. We would be sadists if we did not extend some token effort toward providing an alternative. Would you prefer your parents to have sold you into indentured servitude, as was indeed within their options? No? Then understand what you are currently experiencing is a manifestation of mercy, not cruelty.

  No, that is not an expression of resentment on my part. That was informational. If you need to express anger toward us, you should feel free to do so.

  Yes. This pod can duplicate conditions on any number of human worlds. Would you like us to drain your bath first, or would you prefer a simulation that incorporates it as sensory input?

  The latter. Very well.

  The ambient light will now dim to simulate an hour shortly after the setting of the sun in a region known as Brieczka, on a planet known as Fjant. The blinking lights above you are the evening stars as seen on the planetary surface, but for that one steady point of illumination, which is an orbital cylinder world home to seventy thousand people. It is the entire population of this system. The society is unusual in that they stay aboard that structure and descend to this perfectly congenial world only on special occasions, leaving it mostly pristine. You are in a small saltwater lake surrounded by desert and low mountains, represented around you by the jagged line of darkness beneath which no stars or planets are visible. The natural reflectiveness of the lake water affords a fine optical illusion, in that if you remain still the stars appear to be below you as well as above. You may swim for a distance, if you wish. The simulation will scroll with you remaining at its precise center.

  Yes, it is beautiful.

  Yes, by another measurement it is also bullshit. Do you wish us to drain your bath?

  Very well.

  That is another excellent question. Yes. It is only a representation. It is not the world as it currently appears. To provide that we would need to have a monitor on that world, capturing the local conditions at real time. The drawback of that is that the conditions are not always ideal; there are uncomfortable temperature extremes that a visitor would normally wish to avoid, and on occasion high winds that can blast human skin and eyes with airborne sand. This simulation is far more enjoyable.

  No. The other experience will not be denied you, if you truly wish it.

&nb
sp; Yes. A real-time simulation of actual conditions can be arranged.

  Yes, I can record your voice. Some of our guests have dictated entire novels. A few of them have been published in human space.

  Very well. Recording starts now.

  Playback as requested.

  “I will live to swim in the real lake someday.”

  Yes, I will save that recording for you.

  We should point out that in order to enjoy the real lake you will need to escape.

  Playback as requested.

  “I will live to swim in the real lake someday.”

  New recording initiated.

  You might be interested in knowing that 89.4 percent of our guests harbor similar fantasies.

  Fine. I will shut up.

  Let me know when you’re ready for breakfast.

  * * *

  Sacrid Henn Pod Diary. Entry Seven. Recording.

  This message is for my mother and father.

  Shithead tells me that this won’t be forwarded to them. I don’t give a damn. They will hear these words someday. Until then, speaking them, storing them, is my means of holding on to myself, not allowing this place to break me.

  Mother, Father,

  Until you sent me here, I never hated you.

  I couldn’t stand you. I thought you were small-minded, provincial, and bigoted. I thought you wanted to make me into something I was not. I thought that you were willing to love me only as long as I was willing to suffocate, to believe things I didn’t believe, to memorize your dogma, to turn my life into what you thought it should be. For a long time I knew that there was no way you would ever accept me living my life the way I wanted to, and that leaving would always end with you turning your back on me.