The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  Nina smiled. 「I’m cranky when I oversleep. I think it’s the way Hickman looked at me as soon as he realized I was a doll. Panicked like a little boy staring at the closet monster. He was sure I’d kill him. Probably why I didn’t.」 She straightened her posture and gathered her hair behind her back. 「I’ll be okay. Late night, reports, overslept. I think everyone goes through some sort of existential crisis at one point or another. I haven’t quite decided if I’m still alive or if this is some kind of second chance-slash-‘dark Nina rising’ situation.」

  「That’s fair, but if you want to talk to one of the head-docs, I won’t think less of you. Any one of us behind a badge needs to air shit out now and then. No shame in it.」

  「Right. Thanks.」

  「Oh… things look quiet save for some additional paperwork needed for the dissolution process on Osiris, but you can do that from home. Why don’t you take the day and get some rest?」

  「Sounds good to me. Been awhile since I had some quiet time. See you Monday.」

  Hardin nodded, and dropped off the vid.

  Nina stepped out of the shower tube into the chilly bathroom air. She spent a minute or so at the sink fussing with her hair. How strange to think that this body generated real hair, modeled on her actual DNA. It had the same texture, and the same tendency to retain ‘bedhead’ as before most of her consisted of nonliving parts.

  Stop thinking about that. She pictured Bertrand’s gaping skull. Perhaps she’d lied a little to herself. Revenge did make her feel happier, but not better. Most of that happiness came from knowing he wouldn’t victimize any more innocent women or girls. Sixty-four percent of his victims weren’t even eighteen yet. One survivor had been fourteen, the youngest of the prostitutes he’d attacked; that girl had pleaded for her life and told him her age. By some strange twist of whatever psychological disaster he’d become, he didn’t feel like killing a girl that young. She’d been so scared by the near miss she’d begged Division 1 to send her to a colony adoption. The girl didn’t even want to be on the same planet as Bertrand.

  Maybe I’ll send her a message. She’d probably like to know he’s dead.

  Nina padded out into the living room, eager to get started on her day of doing nothing but lounging around the house. She froze two steps from her new sofa at the sound of a small sneeze from the corridor behind her.

  Shit. I’ve got a kid now. She looked down at her naked self. I suppose I’ll need to get used to wearing clothes around the house again. After hurrying back to her room to grab a knee-length white t-shirt, she flopped on the sofa and logged in wirelessly to the Division 9 network. At least having a doll body let her carry restricted headware: a direct connection to the secure government system.

  Six panels opened in midair over her, email client, reports database, bulletins, and three screens’ worth of empty space where various search and monitoring apps would open if she needed them. Two emails from Hardin requested additional details and records on the Osiris case. Thirty-six more contained back-patting from everyone who’d helped work on it, grateful they’d found the kids alive. A bit of a morale boost seemed in order, so she sent the team an hours-old picture of Elizaveta smiling with the note, ‘Thank you for helping me’ on it.

  She took video files Joey’d sent into the master incident report and crosslinked them with the write-ups she’d done, as well as her personal-recorded-video. Any judge, lawyer, or investigator who subsequently needed to refer to the raid on the lab could watch the whole thing from her point-of-view. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to feel the blinding rage that came over her as Doctor Rice attempted to justify keeping children in cages and using them for medical experimentation. Anyone who questions doing a summary on that asshole needs to be tested to make sure they’re not an AI.

  The sight of the lab, even a still image on paused video, got her angry all over again. Watching the recording Joey found of the kids being carried over the beach to a van didn’t help. Her mind ran away with how terrified they must’ve been for however long they’d been on the boat, not knowing what future awaited them. She’d done a little digging. The old bastard on the vid hadn’t been lying. Much to her astonishment, the ACC did tend to remand child detainees taken in anti-resistance operations back to an adoption queue rather than treat them as prisoners, as long as they had no evidence the kid had participated in actual resistance activity. Merely being the child of a traitor wasn’t a crime.

  She grumbled. Who knows what happens when the cameras aren’t running.

  It took about twenty minutes to finish off the additional details Hardin wanted. She’d be damned if Osiris lawyers would worm their way out. Already, other companies circled like sharks looking to glom onto soon-to-be-former employees, facilities, and equipment. Assuming the judge found in favor of the government, Osiris Biotechnic would cease to exist, and everything it owned would be seized and sold at government auction for perhaps a third of its actual value.

  While those children had most of her sympathy, she afforded a little pity for the Osiris employees who had nothing to do with the illegal project. The stigma of being associated with the company might hamper finding new work, not so much for any sense of moral outrage, but more that they feared the government would bring increased scrutiny in their wake.

  Nina logged out; all the windows collapsed, leaving her a clear view of her empty―and too quiet―living room. Metal slats outside the amber windows responded to a wireless command, pivoting to mute the glaring morning sun.

  “Elizaveta?”

  She waited five seconds before standing. Since she’d heard a small sneeze earlier, she headed into the back hallway, and the girl’s room. The door had been pushed within two inches of closed. No sound came from within.

  “Elizaveta?” asked Nina in a soft tone.

  “Yes?” Her chip provided an echo in English after the child’s spoken Russian. “I’m here.”

  Nina walked in, finding the girl sitting in the narrow space between her bed and the wall, curled up in the corner with both arms wrapped around the white bear in her lap. The child didn’t look upset, though that she hadn’t gotten dressed yet worried her. “Why are you hiding back there?”

  “I don’t want the soldiers to see me if they find us.”

  “Come here.” Nina sat on the foot of the bed.

  Elizaveta stood. Her underpants started to fall, but she caught them and held them up while crawling to sit beside her.

  “It’s okay if you want to wear something. I don’t mind doing laundry.”

  The girl shrugged. “Joey made me put the dress on. I didn’t wanna get it dirty.”

  Nina put an arm around her. “He told me. It’s fine.” She smiled for a second until worry gripped her. “Did you get in trouble before for wearing too many clothes?”

  Elizaveta shook her head. “No. I only had my shirt and pants and sneakers. I wore them every day until the bad doctors stole them.”

  Nina’s heart sank at the memory of that box of disgusting rags. Maybe she shouldn’t push her too much too fast. She’d acclimate eventually, and around the house… let her be comfortable.

  “Can I really have this whole room?” Elizaveta looked around. “It’s so big.”

  “Yes, sweetie.” Nina brushed blonde strands away from the girl’s eyes. “This is your room.”

  The girl clasped her hands in her lap and stared down at her feet. “I’m sorry for having bad dreams and being afraid of loud noise. I’m trying to get better.” She lifted her head with the same pleading look she’d given Nina from inside the cage. “Please don’t return me.”

  “Elizaveta…” Nina gathered the girl’s hands and held them. “You’re not something I bought. As soon as I saw you in that place, I knew you needed a home. I…” Don’t know what came over me. I’m a couple months away from twenty-six. What am I doing with a kid? She stifled a sardonic chuckle. Not like I’m hitting the clubs with Vincent every night anymore.

  Elizaveta leaned in a
nd hugged her. “I’m glad you found us.”

  “Me too.”

  “You killed the bad doctor, didn’t you?”

  Nina glanced at the girl, pursed her lips, and sighed. The kid had probably seen people shot, not to mention who knows what kind of violence in the underground of Minsk, or wherever she’d been taken from. “Yeah. He tried to tell me what he was going to do to you was acceptable.”

  Elizaveta shivered. “He was bad.”

  Nina slid her hands under the girl’s armpits, picked her up, and set her standing in front of her. “Hold still a moment.”

  Elizaveta stiffened like a soldier, hands flat against her legs, chin high.

  A wireless connection filled Nina’s vision with a GlobeNet interface as though she’d opened her NetMini. She navigated to TMC’s online store, which sold just about everything a company wouldn’t get in legal trouble for selling, and pulled up the kids’ clothes section. A few mental button taps later, her cybereyes calculated Elizaveta’s dimensions, and she placed an order for an assortment of dresses, sweaters, pajamas, and a few shirts and pants.

  “What are you doing?” Elizaveta snugged her underwear up again.

  Nina ordered a ten pack of new ones based on the measurements. “Ordering some stuff.”

  “Stuff?” She squirmed. “Can I move yet?”

  “Yes.” Nina grinned, and logged off the GlobeNet. “I’m getting you some more clothes. I’ve been so busy with that last case I’d only gotten you a few things.”

  Elizaveta climbed onto the Comforgel pad, crawled to the pillow end, and retrieved her new bear. She carried it back and sat once more at Nina’s side, holding it in her lap. Nina watched her for a little while as she spoke to the stuffed animal, telling it how her last bear had kept her safe when things got scary, but now that she wasn’t living in a scary place, she would keep him safe instead.

  A few minutes later, Nina looked up at a chime from the front door. A quick link to the security system showed a trio of delivery bots hovering in the hallway outside. “Be right back.”

  She crossed the apartment to the entrance and opened the door. One by one, the floating bots opened hatches, dropped off boxes, and glided off toward the ‘bot door’ her building had at the end of every hallway on each floor. When she returned to Elizaveta’s room and set her haul on the bed, the girl hopped to her feet and stood up on her toes to get a better look.

  Nina opened each box in turn, laying out dresses, shirts, pants, leggings, and a few sets of pajamas. The new underwear came in individual plastic packs, which she loaded into the cleaning unit on the wall after removing the stack of slightly-too-large ones. Those, she packed in the closet for future use, once the child had grown a little.

  Elizaveta clutched the white bear to her chest, staring at the clothes arranged on her bed, eyes wide with shock.

  Nina smiled. “Would you like to wear one of them now?”

  The girl looked up at her, back at the clothes, back at her, and collapsed to her knees, sobbing.

  I wasn’t expecting that… Nina sat on the floor nearby, rubbing Elizaveta’s back. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s so much…” She sniffled into the bear’s head. “So much clothes.”

  She’s never seen my closet. Nina bit her lip. Is she crying because she’s happy? Nina pulled the girl into her lap and held on.

  Elizaveta calmed in a few minutes, looking guilty. “There’s still people who only have one thing to wear, like I used to… It’s bad for me to have so much.”

  Nina hugged her and rocked slightly back and forth. “There are people everywhere who are barely hanging on. Even here in the UCF… on the Moon, Mars… We should help when we can, but you shouldn’t feel guilty for being safe. You are safe now. No one is going to come and take you.”

  “I can stay here?” Elizaveta sniffed and wiped at her face. “Not like before?”

  “What happened before?” Nina squeezed her.

  The girl looked down. “A police man found me begging, and took me to his home. He let me sleep on his sofa for a few days, but then he took me to another place. The man and woman there didn’t really like me. They didn’t give me as much food as the other kids, and made me clean. If I didn’t listen to them, they would hit. I ran away.”

  Nina shook her head. “Sometimes, police officers will take in an orphan like that until they can find them a better home. I’m sure he didn’t know those people would be mean to you. You’re not ‘crashing on my couch’ for a couple days. This is your home now.” I guess I’m doing more than fostering. They’ll approve it. I could always ask Dad to make sure. He’s got pull. She ran her hand over the girl’s hair, smiling. Makes sense why she’s been hiding in her room. She’s afraid she’ll lose it.

  Elizaveta blinked, looking shocked. “But you’re the police.”

  “That’s right, but I knew the minute I saw you that you needed a good home.”

  The child beamed, hugged her, and leapt away to pick at the clothes on the bed. She went straight for a white dress with a pink heart on the chest and pulled it on before modeling it for Nina.

  “It’s pretty!” Nina grinned.

  Elizaveta curtseyed. “Thank you.”

  Beep.

  Hardin appeared in a floating panel. 「Nina… Sorry to bother you again. Something has come up and I’d like you to take the lead on the investigation.」 He raised a hand. 「Nothing’s on fire. Monday’s fine.」 He dropped his arm and smiled. 「You could use a weekend to unwind.」

  “You’re welcome, sweetie.” Nina shifted her gaze to Hardin, and chuckled mentally over the comm. 「It can wait ’til Monday? You’re not throwing me a softball are you?」

  「Doubtful, but no one is in any imminent danger.」

  Elizaveta picked up a pair of pajamas with teddy bear feet. “What is this?”

  “Pajamas.” Nina’s avatar nodded. 「Right. See you Monday, sir.」

  Hardin returned the nod and hung up.

  “What are pajamas?” Elizaveta held them up to herself and looked down at the footies.

  “Something to wear to sleep in when it’s cold.”

  “Oh.” She set them back on the bed.

  Nina stood. “Would you like to watch a holovid?”

  Elizaveta tilted her head.

  “Don’t know what that is?”

  “No.”

  “Come on.” Nina reached toward her. “I know a few you’d like. I still have a bunch I liked at your age.”

  Elizaveta took her hand and beamed. “Okay.”

  age after page of employment listings scrolled left within a blue-on-black holo-panel. Katya sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the sofa, her pale skin tinged azure in the radiant glow of thousands of options she didn’t feel qualified for. A search for ‘security work’ turned up numerous high-risk-shit-pay jobs that involved a lot of ass-in-chair time behind monitoring stations or walking around a facility after-hours and being the first idiot to get shot at by anyone trying to break in.

  Her vision of leveraging her experience into corporate security more involved planning, design, and/or management… not being the girl munching donuts behind a desk. While she could do it, the pay wouldn’t sustain the apartment―and the boredom wouldn’t sustain her sanity. More advanced options always seemed to require eight or more years of experience doing the same job.

  How does anyone get such experience when they all want people to have it already?

  She grumbled, debating asking Joey to fiddle with her public record. A few falsified ‘previous employers’ might get her in the door. Of course, trying to fit in and ‘make nice’ with the UCF wouldn’t work so well if she got caught. Her cherry-red fingernail glowed as she impaled it in the hologram and dragged left to the next page. Everyone has to do it. There is no way to get a job without experience, and no way to get experience without the job.

  Frustrated, Katya went to the ‘job wizard’ area of the listing site, and got to filling out a questionnaire
about her skills. Perhaps the software could come up with a better suggestion. Eve walked in from the back wearing tight black shorts that stopped halfway down her thighs, and no top. Katya raised an eyebrow. The not-quite-child went over to a fitness machine by the living room’s exterior wall, which consisted of floor-to-ceiling glass from wall to wall. She leapt half her height up to grab a bar, and proceeded to do pull-ups.

  “Eve?” asked Katya.

  “Morning,” said the girl between grunts.

  “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

  Eve relaxed and hung on her arms. “I know, but it’s fun. I enjoy working out, plus I gotta get used to not having those damn nanobots in me. It’s weird getting tired so fast.” She resumed doing pull-ups. “I mean, it’s weird getting tired in general.”

  Katya smiled. “All right. As long as you’re doing it because you want to.”

  “Did they make you work out when you were a kid?” Eve looked up and muttered, “Thirteen… fourteen…”

  “Not so much. Running, acrobatics, gymnastics mostly. They didn’t want me looking unfeminine with too much muscle.”

  Eve scoffed. “Pigs.”

  “Yes, they are… but it is easy to be offended when you do not face consequences for having an opinion.” Katya stared through the hologram, all the words reduced to meaningless shapes as old memories haunted her.

  “Twenty… twenty-one,” whispered Eve. She stopped, hanging again and breathing hard. “Maybe you should do some pull-ups. A guy can’t beat a girl into submission if she can kick his ass.”

  Katya blinked away the past and swiped a strand of hair off her face. “It is more than one man. The society rewards strength and punishes weakness. Women are expected to be weak. Those who aren’t gain a little respect, but are always talked about in vile terms behind their backs.” She exhaled contempt. “They tell us the UCF is a police state, where no one has freedom and the government watches everything. They watch everything too. This place has many flaws, but at least here I do not feel lesser for being a woman.”