by DeVere, Taya
“I am not naïve!” Kaarina says, knowing very well she’s lying. She takes a quick stride forward when Nurse Saarinen waves her off and starts walking away. “Don’t you dare walk away from me!”
The woman stops by the puddle, extending her leg to nudge at one of the sneakers.
“Don’t pretend that you shoving me off that damn rock was a necessity! That it was somehow all for my own good!”
The Nurse turns around, disdain shadowing her face. “Oh, you think I actually think about things like what’s good for you and what isn’t? Tell me… Why on earth would I care?”
Kaarina opens her mouth for a snappy comeback, but no words come out. Too flustered, too furious, all she can do is kick a piece of the broken asphalt on the road. An intense pain enters her body from the tip of her toe, traveling all the way up her leg, radiating pain to the rest of her limbs. She screams briefly. “Motherfff… How the hell does that hurt me more than a twenty-meter fall onto solid concrete?!”
“It’s asphalt.”
“Whatever!”
Kaarina curses under her breath. Jumping on the other foot while holding onto the hurting one, she forces herself to regroup and think. This is all going downhill way too fast. What on earth was she thinking, signing up for some sort of a cyber quest with a nasty, the second most sadistic person that ever existed in human history? Even if she is able to lead Nurse Saarinen to Solomon, Kaarina surely won’t arrive at the Egg’s core as a sane person, or mind, or whatever the f—
“You can stop fuming now,” Nurse Saarinen interrupts Kaarina’s train of thought. “I needed to see if you were up for the task, even if things get a bit… bumpy on the way. That’s why I pushed you. Just a quick test, is all.”
Kaarina sets her foot down. After a disapproving glance at Nurse Saarinen, she carefully puts weight on the injured foot to see if anything’s broken. But just like the fall from the sky, the rock has only done real damage to her rumbling mind—none to her make-believe body. “And did I pass your little test?” she asks in a slightly calmer tone of voice.
“Are you still willing to hack into the Egg’s core?”
“How many fucking times do I need to…” Kaarina snaps, then pauses to take a deep breath. “Yes, I am willing. Yes.”
Nurse Saarinen nods. She reaches for her chest pocket and puts on a set of AR-glasses. Her hand strikes through the air, tapping on information that Kaarina can’t see.
“I thought you didn’t know how to code?” Kaarina says.
“I don’t. But my nanobots do.”
“So what do you need me for?”
“For access.”
“But I don’t have a…” Kaarina rolls her eyes. Anything and everything coming out of her mouth these days is too absurd for her mind to process. “I don’t have a brain anymore. Remember? No chips or bots for me. They all burned to ashes at the mansion, if they ever worked in the first place.”
“Correct. But your mind is still human. Your existence in the Egg is based on everything you represented, experienced, and felt back before your body died.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m sending someone to guide you through the Egg’s programming. An AI whose earthly programming skills were, well, impressive. But the AI needs human influence. It can’t think without emotion and direction so you two will have to work together.”
“Why aren’t you doing it? With your neonbots, or whatever?”
“Nanobots.”
“Whatever.”
“Because I don’t have access. I need a way to enter before I can manipulate anything in the Egg.”
“But you pushed me.”
“That’s just a simulation,” Nurse Saarinen says, her voice taking on an agitated edge. “It’s not like I pushed you down a cyber-void…” she shakes her head quickly. “Can we focus here? You’ll start from Solomon’s previous work. Get familiar with the Happiness-Program’s code. It should help us understand the way the Egg is built. Walking through the earlier patterns will help us visualize the present programming of the Egg, the way Laura now thinks. Now, most of it will be too advanced, even for your AI.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, let’s simplify. Something tells me that you haven’t kept up with your programming knowledge. I’ll use a simplified example. Using a malware not unlike SQL injection, we will enter specifically crafted inferential SQLi commands into the Egg’s form field instead of the information it expects. This way, obviously, we’ll secure a response from the core that will not only let me understand the system’s construction, but also reconstruct the core’s structure by sending payloads, observing the Egg’s application’s response and the resulting behavior of the database server.”
Kaarina blinks twice. She has no idea what any of that means, but she’ll be damned if she’s going to let Nurse Saarinen know that. She clears her throat, “Right. Obviously.”
The nurse sighs. “I need you and the AI to basically track the changes in Laura’s oeuvre over the years. If we can chart her growth, we can find the flaw. And once we find a slit in the Egg’s core—a weak spot—then the AI should have enough information to enter and get me uploaded permanently.”
Kaarina presses her lips together. “And then what?”
“And then you don’t have to worry about Solomon ever again.”
Kaarina rubs her forehead, then hops a step closer to Nurse Saarinen. Her toe still aches more than the rest of her body. “You’re sending an AI. Meaning… You’re not coming with me at all? Not even as part of this… this simulation?”
Nurse Saarinen looks in Kaarina’s direction but doesn’t take the glasses off. “Would you really want me to?”
Kaarina blinks, her lips parted. She’s unsure how to answer the question.
“Didn’t think so. That’s why I’m integrating your chip file with the AI’s. It’s better that way, anyway. This is someone you’ll get along with. Someone who can tolerate your drama. Now the thing with AIs is this – I can’t create a physical form for it, as I have no access to the Egg’s database, just your chip folder. And once you leave this simulation, I’ll cease to have any access whatsoever. Until I’m successfully uploaded into the system.”
“Hold on.” Kaarina folds her arms. “Someone I get along with? So… it’s Markus? The AI?” A warm sensation enters and washes over Kaarina’s mind. Could Nurse Saarinen bring Markus back? If not fully, at least in a way where Kaarina wouldn’t be the one deciding what Markus’s ghost is saying, doing, and thinking?
Nurse Saarinen rolls her eyes. “You want that useless puppy dog with you as well?” She continues to tap the air. “Fine. I have a backup of his chip folder, too. The drone that killed him scanned and saved the data at the time of his demise.”
Too thrilled, too astonished, Kaarina ignores the harsh words about Markus’s premature passing. “You… You can bring Markus back to life?”
“No.” Nurse Saarinen takes a breath and glances at Kaarina with annoyance. “You really need to start listening better.”
“I swear to fucking…”
Nurse Saarinen lifts her hand, stopping Kaarina from talking. Why is she so compelled to obey this lunatic? Why is it so hard not to obey everything she says?
“Markus will be just another AI tagging along.” Nurse Saarinen turns back to face the invisible gadget she’s tapping and striking. “An unthinkably useless AI, I might add, as all the skills this one has saved on his chip folder seem to involve paddling, gardening, baking, or child care. I really don’t get why you’d want such an irrelevant creature joining you.”
“So I can see him?”
“You can’t. He won’t have a physical form, either.”
“Either?” Kaarina shakes her head to focus better. Before Nurse Saarinen can point out her struggle to keep up, she hurries to say, “Right, right. The other AI. Who is he? You said that I would get along with him. Is he based on Markus’s chip… bots?”
Nurse Saarinen
sighs but continues her tapping and swiping. “I’m regretting this quest already…” she mumbles, then clears her throat. “No, there’ll only be one Markus. You need a more sophisticated AI to guide you through the Egg’s programming. To read, learn, and process Laura’s code to find that breach. No matter how powerful she’s become, no system is perfect. And Laura’s failure to care about anything to do with her old life is her greatest vulnerability.” Nurse Saarinen pauses and lowers her voice so that Kaarina can barely hear her murmur, “That should teach her not to ignore me… ever again.”
“Will Markus be the same? As an actual Markus? Will he think and act the same way he did when he was still alive?”
“AIs don’t really think or feel. But because they are programmed to utilize all their past experiences to formulate responses to new situations, they will appear to think and feel.”
“So… yes? Markus will be himself?”
“With minor tweaks and modifications… yes.”
“Minor tweaks, like what?”
“For the AIs to function according to our requirements, I will need to install a new motivation—a fake memory—for them wanting to help you. It’s not enough that you used to be their ally. They’ll need to feel your personal vendetta to justify going after Solomon.”
“What kind of memory?”
“Easy. I’ll just have Solomon kill someone they loved. Just like she did to you.”
“Like who?”
“What is this, the question hour?”
“Will Markus be…” Kaarina pauses to think of the right word. It’s hard to focus and even harder to sound intelligent when she’s lost the plot—and is feeling this excited. “Will Markus be able to… feel again?”
“Oh, who knows,” the nurse says half-heartedly. Kaarina’s almost certain she hasn’t registered her question, until, “That’s actually one of the concerns when using AIs derived from the data of people who exist. We may not recognize if an AI moves from compiling data to form a sympathetic response to actually experiencing sympathy or empathy, creating new neural pathways. That could be quite dangerous.”
“Umm… So in other words… I’m in danger?!”
“Well, you don’t really exist. Not exactly.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?!”
When Nurse Saarinen ignores Kaarina completely, Kaarina leans down and grabs a piece of tarmac. She throws it in the air a few times, frowning and staring at Nurse Saarinen. Her hand moves before she has time to think about it too much.
A faint thump sounds as the tarmac hits Nurse Saarinen on her shoulder. The woman freezes, her hand forgotten midair. Slowly, she reaches for her AR-glasses and pulls them off her face. “Let’s just pretend,” her nasal voice starts slowly, “that you hit your head while taking that nasty fall earlier. And that’s the reason you’re now playing with your life like some adolescent moron.” She looks away, focusing on her gadgets again. Murmuring, she adds, “No wonder you are such a fangirl for Markus Nyman. Two peas in an unbelievably useless pod…”
Kaarina starts toward Nurse Saarinen, her whole being burning with rage. Just as she reaches the see-through woman, ready to wrap her hands around her neck, a familiar voice booms inside her head, stopping her attack.
Hello. Kaarina. It’s been. A while.
***
Two and a half seconds. That’s how long it took Margaret to hack into the Home-Helper and open the doors to the house where Kaarina grew up. Her finger now sliding along the top of a long wooden bookshelf, Kaarina roams around the house aimlessly, careful not to look in the direction of the bathroom door. She doesn’t know if her mother will still be in there, surrounded by the colorful pills that Doctor Solomon sprinkled around her lifeless body. She could ask Margaret, but for now, the two AIs have stayed relatively quiet. Because sharing a mind with other beings is beyond overwhelming, Kaarina decides not to ask too many questions, unless the AIs volunteer the info.
At the end of the corridor, she stops by a bedroom door to listen. She can feel Margaret’s presence at the back of her mind, careful not to intrude, but also slowly leaning in to take in every inch of the house and Kaarina’s private memories. Markus is nowhere to be seen, heard, or sensed. Maybe Nurse Saarinen failed to upload him into Kaarina’s mind?
No, he is. Here. Margaret’s voice is just like Kaarina remembers it. Dry, but yet somehow undemanding and pleasant. Converting into an AI hasn’t seemed to change the woman much. He’s giving. You time to. Adjust. That’s why. He’s quiet.
All Kaarina can do is nod. She’s not ready to have a full-on conversation with Margaret—with a piece of her mind—just yet. And the fact that Markus understands how much worse it’d be for Kaarina to deal with both of their presences at once confirms Kaarina’s hope that he is actually back. Back… ish.
He’s alive. In his. Own way, Margaret says. When Kaarina winces at her temporarily stronger presence, she moves back toward her corner of Kaarina’s mind. We can talk. About it. Later.
It’s not the same as tapping. While communicating with the Unchipped, Kaarina had always been in full control of it all; if an unwanted memory or a thought entered her mind—one she didn’t want to share with the person she was tapping—she’d simply shut down the connection. There’s no shutting down Margaret. She’s here, firmly installed at the back of Kaarina’s mind. So, for now, Kaarina will just listen to what the AI has to say. Listen, and secretly be glad that she’s finally not alone.
That’s hardly. A secret.
Kaarina half-heartedly wipes the air next to her right ear, waving off Margaret’s comment. She focuses on her surroundings again and pushes the bedroom door open. A dog bed lies at the back of the room, next to a queen sized bed without sheets or blankets. Her room. The way she left it when she moved away from home. A soft blue glimmer pushes through the gap between the pull-down blinds and the windowsill. It’s the only thing reminding her she’s not really back in her past but in the Egg’s version of it.
Is the dog. Here too?
Kaarina stops in the middle of the room, frowning at Margaret’s question. As she’s about to reply, her mind struggles to choose between saying the words aloud or simply thinking them. As a result, she mumbles, “He…umpf.”
Margaret stays quiet for three seconds, but Kaarina can sense her amusement. Well, that. Explains it.
“Ässä’s not here,” Kaarina murmurs, annoyance pushing through in her tone. To distract herself from the absurd sensation of feeling Margaret’s amusement and her own irritation mixing together into a new conflicting emotion, she walks over to the window and pulls on the blinds. The curtain rolls up and reveals a strange yellow and blue light piercing through the murky skies outside. “My mother’s dog,” she says, “Ässä. He’s not dead. He’s with Iris and Mrs. Salonen.”
In City of. England?
“Or Iceland…” Kaarina rubs the bridge of her nose. She holds a breath, then exhales, flustered. “I don’t fucking know anymore.” It’s hard to put the timeline together. Especially after spending all this time with Markus, locked up in a private room, away from everyone else.
Not Markus, Margaret corrects her. But his ghost.
Kaarina spins around and walks to a closet in the corner. She waves the air next to her ear as if to push Margaret away. “Is this how it’s going to be? You, commenting on my every thought?”
Mhm. And you, telling me. To piss off.
Kaarina suppresses her small smile. Without commenting on Margaret’s witty remark, she opens the closet at the back of the room. Closing her eyes, she silently hopes it won’t be empty. As she opens her eyes, she sees neatly folded T-shirts, jeans, and underwear on the higher shelves and bags, belts, and hats on the lower shelves. After kneeling down to grab a pale green backpack, she tosses in a few T-shirts and a pair of blue jeans.
So you’re. Planning to. Change your shirt. But not your…
“Oh, save it,” Kaarina snaps at Margaret, cutting her sentence short. “I don’t know how thi
s asshole place works.” She can sense Margaret’s amused smile. But when the AI doesn’t start Maggiesplaining how the Egg’s cyberspace does work, Kaarina soon forgives her.
She marches out of the room and into the kitchen. On the table sits Nurse Saarinen’s hard drive and a stack of papers. She shoves the drive into her bag and picks up the papers. It’s just a clumsily drawn map and short code snippets Kaarina can’t read. Looking up—as if that’s where Margaret now lives, where the ceiling and the wall meet—she waves the stack of papers. “Whatever happened to high-end computers and tablets and whatnot? Should I be insulted by this?”
Oh. Forgive me. I thought. It’d make you. More comfortable.
“What? Stupid riddles and maps that look like they were drawn by a five-year-old?”
What is it. That you. Want?
“How about an actual computer? You know, one designed by an adult.”
Swipe the. Air. Above your. Head.
Kaarina waves her hand half-heartedly. Nothing happens.
Not like. That. Like Luna. Showed you.
“How do you know about that?”
What? About the. Thoughts. That enter your… Sorry, our mind?
Kaarina rolls her eyes but strokes the air, imitating the way she did it back when Luna helped her get access to the Home-Helper. A computer screen now hovers at eye-level, next to a see-through keyboard. “Now what?” she asks between her gritted teeth.
Now. Nothing. Margaret’s voice is genuinely cheerful. Much more so than Kaarina remembers her ever sounding back when she was still alive. You wanted to. Know. Why there’s no. Computer or. CS-key. All that is. Available to you. Whenever you. Need it.
Kaarina waves the Egg’s gadgets away. Shoving the papers into her backpack, Kaarina sends an irritated glare at the ceiling. She zips the bag, tosses it on her shoulder, and turns to leave. At the corner of her eye, she sees the bathroom door cracked open—partly unhinged. She could have sworn it was appropriately shut just a moment ago.