by DeVere, Taya
Him.
Here.
From a totally different direction in her mind, far away from Margaret and her corner, he approaches carefully. He doesn’t clear his throat, but Kaarina can feel his need to say something. And she lets him. Frozen on the floor among the dirt and clutter, she waits for him to speak.
You’re right about one thing.
Markus’s voice is soft, friendly. Just like Kaarina remembers it. Just like the ghost had been. But this time, she has no idea what he’s about to say next. Markus is thinking on his own again. Nurse Saarinen has restored him—right into Kaarina’s mind.
Getting a bit. Crowded in. Here. Markus and Kaarina both focus on the corner where the amused Margaret chuckles and then gestures for them to go on and ignore her. Too soon? Okay. Don’t mind. The AI on. Time-out.
“I, um…” Kaarina’s voice is just a whisper. She focuses solely on Markus again, who is now so present she can almost smell the soap and freshly baked buns on him. Almost. “I’m right about what… exactly?”
That a lot of the people made it. That they’re alive and kicking. Just like you said. Markus pauses. You don’t have to tell me that Solomon is bad news. After all, she killed my… she…”
Kaarina closes her eyes, cursing, and already knowing Markus won’t be able to read her thoughts about the fake memory Nurse Saarinen has installed in his mind. But who did she kill? Who did Markus have left to love?
Never mind that. We were talking about the people. How a lot of people are still living their best lives. But would they be… if not for the Happiness-Program? Without Solo—
Kaarina lifts her hand abruptly to stop Markus in the middle of his thought. “Stop.” She gets up from the floor and wipes her hands on the back of her pants. “I can’t listen to this shit. Not from you too. Listen, Markus. I’m glad you’re back. I love having you…” Kaarina stops on her way out of the conference room to shake her head once. It’s getting harder and harder to focus on her surroundings. She scratches her temple and taps her feet to give her agitated body something to do while trying to keep the anger out of her voice. Breathing deeply, she says, “I appreciate that I haven’t lost you for good. But your data is clearly not updated. You don’t know what that psychopath has done. What she is still doing. Solomon is a rotten apple, and I’m going to wipe her out of existence if it’s the last thing I do. Now, you can tag along or go back to whatever brainstem you crawled out of.”
Actually. Just like William. You don’t have. A brain…
Kaarina’s scream interrupts Margaret and sends her deeper into her corner. Kaarina storms out of the room and back to the corridor. She rolls the wheelchair toward the wall as she passes. She grabs hold of the trolley bed, pushing it toward the corridor’s glass windows, expecting it to hit the glass with a dull thud. Instead, the trolley hits the window with force, shattering the glass. The paper sheet flaps and dances in the air as the trolley plummets down to the courtyard, crashing into a swing set in the health house’s children’s center. Out of breath, Kaarina leans against her knees and watches the paper sheet land on the dead grass for just a moment before the wind picks it up again. It swirls around wildly, helpless in the wind’s grip.
Markus’s presence pushes closer. Carefully, he settles close to Kaarina, watching the paper sheet’s fight against forces far greater than its own. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry, Kaarina.
She doesn’t reply. Tears should stream down her face, but all she feels is the wind pushing through the broken window.
But you see… Not everyone is out to get you. You have friends. People who care. You just need to…
“Don’t you dare tell me what I need to do. What I need to feel.”
Markus pauses for a long time. The paper sheet tangles around a metal trash can in the middle of the courtyard. When the fierce wind picks it up again, it rips into two pieces. One piece remains stuck on a selfie stick stuffed between a pile of dog poop bags, one piece traveling up, ravaged by the wind.
What makes me so different from the rest of your friends? Markus asks, his voice soft. Why do you let me in but no one else?
Unsure how to answer Markus’s question, Kaarina fights the urge to storm out of the building. What good would it do anyway? Wherever she goes, there they are. All three of them.
How are you so sure about me… but no one else?
“It’s your…” Kaarina pauses to inhale. “Eyes. The way you look at me.” Markus doesn’t say a thing, but Kaarina can feel his warmth and acceptance in her whole being. It calms her nerves. Soothes her need to escape. “You accept me as I am. Since day one, I’ve been enough for you just the way I am. The others…” The thought of Solomon with her friends brings back the pressing bitterness—her need for revenge. “Bill and Luna… even Kristian. They just don’t get it. None of them get me.”
After a moment of staring at the sheet in silence, Markus moves closer to Kaarina. A soothing sensation takes over her mind, like she’s just a baby, back in her mother’s safe arms. Loved. Cared for.
Just look them in the eye, Markus says, his voice soft and reassuring. Look them in the eye, and you’ll see. Just because they don’t always agree with you doesn’t mean you’re not loved.
CHAPTER 2 — THE LOOP
A partly torn Euro bill blows into Kaarina’s face as she walks between the lampposts and fake trees. Cobblestone under her feet, she stops to pick up the note. After staring at the green paper for a while, she lifts it above her head, letting the fierce wind pull and push the money back and forth until she lets go. Markus has been quiet since they left the health house. Margaret too—if her distant humming doesn’t count.
Approaching an old ice cream kiosk, Kaarina turns her back to the river, pulls her backpack off and sets it on the metal counter. The sign with its enormous penguin holding an ice cream cone stands undamaged next to her. Everything else around them looks more like wasteland than the heart of her hometown. The ice cream flavors are written on a cardboard sign by the order window.
Why you. Need. That many flavors. Is beyond me.
Kaarina digs out the stack of papers, then lets the bag fall next to her feet. Before looking at the map, she glances at the sign, then mumbles half-heartedly, “Agreed. Only an idiot would go for anything other than orange-vanilla.”
Huh. It’s Markus’s voice, which Margaret soon blocks by asking, Why ruin. Perfectly good. Vanilla. With citrus?
I would have sworn you preferred licorice over anything and everything, Kaarina. Markus’s voice is surprised, his tone pleased. I guess you learn something new every day.
“And let me guess,” Kaarina says, her focus more on the map she’s holding than the chitchat going on inside her head. “Chocolate-chip for you, Markus?” She turns her back on the wind to read the map more easily. “And raspberry for Margaret?”
Wrong, the two AIs say in perfect sync. I already. Told you, Margaret continues. Why ruin perfectly decent. Vanilla. With. Anything?
I always liked tar ice cream, Markus continues. Too bad it was so terribly underrated.
Margaret and Kaarina stop investigating the map, stare off into space for two blinks, then focus solely on Markus. Kaarina frowns at him but can’t help a small laugh.
What? he asks, slightly vexed.
Oh nothing. I guess. We were. Expecting something. More…
What? Markus asks again, slight irritation in his voice. Something more… what? Boring and predictable?
Your. Words. Not mine.
Kaarina sits down on the kiosk stairs and presses the map against her stomach. Three seagulls land in front of her near the man-made river. There they tilt their heads, trying to see whether Kaarina has anything suitable for ingestion.
You know what? Markus asks, his presence closer to Margaret’s quarters than before. Usually, the two AIs seem to stay as far away from each other as possible. Just because I’m not some virtuoso that can code and solve mysteries like child’s play, doesn’t mean I’m not sma
rt and useful.
Kaarina suppresses her laughter but can’t help a small snort.
What? I am not dumb!
“You’re not!” Kaarina says, laughing. “It’s not that.”
“What then?”
She shakes her head, rolling the stack of papers up to keep the wind from tearing the corners. “It’s just that even when you try and insult people—like you just tried to scold Margaret—you end up complimenting them.”
Markus pauses to think. “So I’m nice. What’s wrong with that?”
Nothing wrong. With that. Hey, maybe you can. Kill Solomon. With your. Kindness.
Markus remains quiet, his focus locked on Margaret. Without stepping over the mental line that separates the two, he investigates the other AI disapprovingly.
What? Margaret asks, not even trying to hide her amusement.
Why do you always have to be such a… Markus stops, hesitating. Such a…
Kaarina raises her eyebrows, genuinely interested to hear what Markus is about to call Margaret. The two give him time to finish his irritated thought.
…such a jerk-face?
Kaarina’s laughter mixes with Margaret’s. The seagulls jump up, spreading their wings, then landing a few meters farther away from the laughing woman.
Whatever, you two, Markus says, mentally waving them off. He retreats to the back of his quarters.
“Oh, come on, Markus!” Kaarina calls after him. “Don’t go! We didn’t mean anything bad! There’s nothing wrong with being nice and polite!”
But Markus doesn’t reply. He’s taking a break from his teasing companions. Margaret clears her throat, still chuckling as she refocuses on the task at hand. She leans in, gesturing at the roll of papers Kaarina’s holding. Did you. Figure it out?
She nods her head once.
So why are. We sitting. Here. Bird. Watching?
Kaarina looks around her, then spots a piece of ice cream cone inside the kiosk’s counter. She reaches for it through the broken window, crushes it in her hand, and starts tossing small pieces to the birds. She needs a moment—maybe more than a moment—before she’ll be ready to give Margaret full control again. “Just imagine,” Kaarina says, watching the largest seagull hop closer, its eye locked on the treat on the ground, “if this was the real world. No people around. No pollution. No war. Just birds and forest creatures, roaming the city streets.”
Margaret lingers midway between her corner and the center of Kaarina’s consciousness. She waits for Kaarina to continue, clearly not understanding where she’s going with this. When Kaarina remains quiet, Margaret asks, You want. To be. A bird?
Kaarina frowns. She throws another piece of the cone to another bird, who is lurking at a safe distance. But before it has time to approach, the big seagull jumps over, spreads its wings, and snatches the treat. “How can you not get it?” she asks Margaret. “Someone so smart, so… brilliant as you.” She throws the rest of the crumbs to the birds, sending them all forward to grab what they can get. “It’s not about me. What I want or need.”
Okay… Margaret pauses to wait. Who is it. About. Then?
Kaarina looks up at the sky. A murder of crows circles around the buildings, one by one landing on the lamp posts that line up the cobblestone precinct. The wind picks up again, tossing her short hair around her face. Between the mall and what used to be the city library, a fox jogs across the street. Soon, a white rabbit with long ears hops up the library steps, then sits by the main entrance, staring straight at the ice cream kiosk.
“It’s about the bigger picture,” she says, nodding at the rabbit. For a second, Kaarina imagines it nodding right back at her.
The Happiness. Program?
“No.” Kaarina pushes a lock of hair from her forehead. “Bigger than that.”
Bigger… You mean. Humanity?
Kaarina scoffs. She wipes her hands clean, wishing her unconscious had dropped the whole ice cream cone on the ground and not just a piece of it. “Humanity is the problem, Margaret. You, of all people, should know this. I know what was going through your head right before you walked to that bunker and let Nurse Saarinen slice your brain up for research purposes. It wasn’t a sacrifice. It wasn’t for the Unchipped to learn what they are and why.”
Oh. Really?
Kaarina sighs. “It was you, giving up on people. Giving up on humanity, deciding they don’t deserve a, what, third chance? To coexist with nature, with each other… You got tired of waiting for them to wake up and see that their need for comfort and convenience is destroying not just their own minds and bodies but other beings as well. Their pressing need for more, their constant greed for things they don’t really need, is eating away at their capability to connect with anything with the spark of life. You know, living, feeling things. And eventually… they lost their capability to connect with themselves. Living on autopilot, pursuing material good, or some imaginary status among people they don’t even know or like. That’s all that’s left. Sitting, sleeping, and walking on plastic or polyester. Only touching AR-glasses. Only talking to simulated people who are not willing to challenge them intellectually or emotionally.”
“I mean,” Kaarina continues. She wipes her nose, sniffing faintly. “I get it. You gave up on trying to fix something that was already broken. And you know what?” She pauses to hug her knees against her chest. “I don’t blame you one bit.”
As Margaret falls quiet, Kaarina sits and stares at the rabbit. Somewhere across the man-made river, a wolf howls in broad daylight. Something that would never happen if there were still humans around, hunting anything that might harm them, causing wolves and other wildlife to slowly vanish. Just because someone once decided it was no longer natural for the animals to approach the invisible city lines.
You know. What happened. To me?
Kaarina feels Markus approaching. The man hovers somewhere in the background, wanting to hear what Margaret has to say but also awkward and slightly scared to participate in this particular conversation.
“I have… an inkling.”
William. Told you?
“Not exactly.” Kaarina reaches for her backpack and tosses the papers in. “Bill didn’t really understand what had happened. But when he spoke to you, Micky was there, and Maria overheard… or over-tapped your conversation while connected with Micky. And Maria thought about it while we tapped about something else.” Kaarina pauses to wet her lips. “You were… violated?”
Margaret stays quiet.
“We don’t have to talk about it. I understand this makes you feel uncomfortable.”
What makes you. Think. I can feel. Anything. In the first. Place?
Kaarina’s head jerks back. Huh. She hasn’t really thought about it—AIs and emotions. Can’t Margaret and Markus feel? They can still think on their own. Surely they have feelings as well?
It’s like. The worst thing. You think can. Happen. Is for Markus. And me not to. Have feelings.
“But that would mean that you’re…”
Dead? Margaret pauses, amusement lingering around her. Look who’s talking.
“I know, but…” Kaarina gets up and lifts the backpack onto her shoulder. She now realizes Margaret has swiftly changed the subject of their conversation, but she doesn’t want to point this out. When—if—Margaret wants to talk about what happened to her, Kaarina won’t be far away. So instead, she says, “Maybe Nurse Saarinen has a way to bring you back. Maybe you could have a body again. A more… solid existence.”
The rabbit stretches its front paws, then its whole body, giving a long, luxuriant yawn before hopping down the stairs and disappearing around the library corner.
Sure, we could. Have a body. Again.
Markus perks up, listening closely.
Sure, we could. Walk on the earth. Again. Kaarina holds her breath, and somehow—she holds Markus’s hand as well. But then we’d. Miss all these. Fun. AI shenanigans.
Hold on a second, Markus says. So you mean that there’s still a way fo
r us to live as actual human beings again?
Is it. Really. That surprising. To you?
Um, yes? How have you not mentioned this before?
Well, it’s not. Like you’d go. For it.
But still!
“But…” Kaarina joins in, the sudden realization burning the tip of her tongue. “Does that mean that… I mean, why is it that you two are able to get new bodies and go back to the real world… but I can’t? No offense but you guys are way deader than I am!”
Markus makes a gesture that can only be described as frantic mental nodding. Kaarina flinches as his excitement accelerates her own. How on earth hasn’t Margaret mentioned any of this before?
Margaret pauses, happily letting her two companions tense up as they wait for her reply. She comes closer, leans in, and whispers, Who said. You couldn’t. Go back?
***
Seaweed-green paint crumbles off the unemployment center’s doorframe as Kaarina tries to pull the handle and get in. She knows what they need to do but was hoping that this time—for once in her life—Margaret would be wrong. That they could get access without a new hack, without Margaret taking over Kaarina’s mind. But so far, the door has remained shut. Rattling, shoving, pushing… all she’s opened is an old wound on her injured toe. Kicking the door a second time in frustration, Kaarina groans and spreads her arms.
You done. With that?
“I’ll tell you what I’m done with…” Kaarina mumbles. “I’m done with this whole place.” Restlessness takes over her mind, the thought of losing control trying her nerves. The door has gotten the worst of it, though no matter how badly Kaarina lashes at it, the frame won’t give in. “Can you…” she clears her throat, then takes a few steps back and sits down on the ground. “Can you just be quick about it?”
She senses Margaret nodding, but the AI doesn’t immediately rush over to take control. She waits while Kaarina digs her fingertips into the gravel, then closes her eyes. Not that the latter will help; she’ll still see the numbers and images once Margaret takes over her mind.