“You what?” I ask, unsure if that’s a crime or not. Also, unsure why I never thought of such a thing since I’ve been trapped in this world.
“It won’t harm them. Humans do best with limited information.”
His statement makes me wonder how he came to this conclusion. What is he holding back from the humans he interacts with? And mostly, why has he had the need to learn how to drug the humans so they don’t rouse? I’ve had that need and still didn’t figure it out. I can’t help but feel like I’m still losing at a game I haven’t been told the rules to.
“What do you want?” I ask, unsure if I should be wary of Juan, or take notes on better methods of donor/human interaction.
“To meet you,” he says. “This life is not my own during the day. I have to demonstrate myself to them.” He nods to the doors. “Loyalty.”
“Why?”
“They’re afraid of us,” Juan says.
“Don’t you have family?” I ask, knowing donors are part of something. There are people waiting to be reunited with the family member who they won’t lose because of this lottery system. “Won’t they see your humanness and embrace you?” Miller sees human in me that I hope I can grow into, something internal and honest. I don’t want to lose the way he makes me feel like I belong to him and him to me. It’s how I imagine a parent might be.
Juan laughs a low laugh. “What have they told you? Do you remember nothing?”
I want to be back in my room. “I remember everything.”
“That’s not what I hear.” His voice holds onto ‘hear’ a little long, almost like a melody he’s hypnotizing me with.
“I have no control over what you ‘hear.’” I stop. Juan continues a couple smooth paces ahead of me before he pauses. “It’s not true, what they say.”
“Fine.” Juan steps back. “Play it your way.”
Suddenly I wonder if Juan ever left the game. He’s still battling on this side when the human war over resources is over, not to mention the donor war. “I’m not playing at anything,” I say. “I already won.”
Juan looks at his wrist like he’s checking the time, though there’s nothing fastened to his arm. “When you wake up from their lies, come find me.”
With that, Juan glides into the blackness of the building, not a hitch in his step. Everything about him is smooth and terrifying. My surface feels much more rough and unrefined having met him. I fight my joints to return to my room, hoping to look effortless in my movements, knowing that I have no audience to witness the struggle it is to be ‘effortless’. My knee catches and I tumble onto my face.
“They’re holding you back on purpose,” Juan’s voice travels through the hall like it’s being conducted through the glass ceiling. Shattering my illusion of ‘alone’. “I could fix you up, so your body isn’t such a distraction.”
“I’m good, thanks.” I gather myself into a version of standing, open Abby’s door, then slam it closed, truly hoping I’ll rouse her. Whatever Juan put in the water, assuming he really did put something in there, Abby doesn’t stir.
Something in what Juan said won’t leave me alone.
They’re holding me back.
My thoughts power this new body. Every action I take is directed by my choices. Yet, I haven’t felt totally ‘me’ since waking up.
The room I share with Abby is filled with devices charging. Abby knows I need to recharge as well. Fueling my battery cells doesn’t mean I have to power down, not like humans sleep. I can remain alert. But I need access to a port. Abby claiming every possible outlet in the room for her devices feels like a personal attack like she’s purposefully preventing me from recharging.
“Stupid Juan.” I unplug one of Abby’s several electronic devices. It’s not like she needs seven different Wi-Fi connections. “He’s just messing with me because I’m the new bot.”
Not finished with most recent updates. Would you like to continue later? Flashes across the screen of the device I’ve unplugged. Does Abby know it’s updating? Will she notice if I skip it? Not now. I click the option to end the update and take five minutes to recharge my batteries. I then plug her cord back into power and don’t bother resuming any updates.
Morning takes its sweet time to arrive. I consider waking Abby just to have someone to talk to but remember that I don’t like talking to her. I opt to leave the room before anyone’s alarm forces company.
The halls are made of clear glass with exterior walls contrasted from the dark glass making this building look like a liquid shadow suspended atop a hill. Today has an agenda. I can feel it in the air, even though I don’t know what it is. I find myself standing outside the conference room from yesterday. It’s dark. The dawn light fighting the exterior glass can’t quite erase the ominous cast to the room. I don’t go in.
Voices catch my auditory sensors and I turn toward the stairwell and elevator. The sound of conversation, not an argument, muffles its way from a lower level. I flatten myself against a wall, back to glass, the way I would in the game if I was trying to listen in on someone else’s strategy, and make my way closer. The wall serves as additional support for my unsteady legs as I move. It definitely doesn’t conceal me. Stupid glass.
The voices rise from the stairwell. I drop to my hands and knees, which makes it easier for me to cross the open hallway without making as much noise with my odd way of walking. But it doesn’t do anything for me camouflage-wise since everything is freaking glass.
“You know what this is?” I recognize Geo’s voice. Gruff, full of the local accent, and impatience. I stretch to get a glimpse of ‘this’ through the glass door to the stairwell, without also drawing attention back to me.
Geo points to the left shoulder blade of whomever he’s speaking with. Someone tall with dark hair and deeply tanned skin. Morning light strengthens, increasing the risk I’m taking trying to siphon information from Geo’s conversation.
The other person doesn’t respond to Geo’s question. I assume because it’s one of those rhetorical situations, where they both know the answer.
“You shoot your mouth off one more time before I’ve had a chance to claim what’s mine, and…” Geo stops talking. I pull back on my outstretched frame. Trying to gather information through all sensory intake options might cost me anonymity. My rickety structure isn’t great for stealth mode.
“I’m not your property,” Juan speaks. He’s the other person in the stairwell. A shuffle of feet tells me that Juan’s words draw Geo back from somewhere. Was he coming to find me? Does he suspect someone is listening? Am I wearing anything too brightly colored? Whites and light blues—good choice.
“Don’t mess with me. You know damn well what’s mine, and what I can do about it. It should matter to you. You know what these guys are as well as I do, and neither of us wants them to have the upper hand. You mess up again and I’ll wipe your smug personality and start over.” I wait to hear Juan say something back. Something smart to put Geo in his place, remind him that it doesn’t work that way. Several seconds pass. Then maybe a minute. Juan says nothing.
My internal mechanics start working overtime, pumping too much fluid to my hands and feet, so I feel swollen and limb heavy. If Geo climbs the steps to where I crouch, I won’t be able to run or hide because all the parts of this stupid wannabe-human-body keep responding to information without my permission. Besides, when are fat hands and feet ever a logical or helpful response to stress? Who designed this body anyway?
A stair creaks much closer to me than the conversation originated.
“It’s going to take a lot more than bribing Spaulding to get access to Jennie’s codes,” Juan speaks again. His voice rises on my name and codes. I’m pinned by my poorly designed human-robotic-shell.
The creaking step sound recedes. Geo speaks again from the same location I first overheard their argument. “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
Footsteps descend further down the stairwell. I don’t know if they both retreat from my hid
ing place, or just one of them. I’m afraid to move. I can’t be certain Juan was trying to warn me, or simply engaged in an argument that included coincidental timing to save my cover from being blown.
“Jennie?’ I fall to my side when Mav says my name from behind where I’m crouched.
From my side, I look back toward the stairwell, fast filling with what morning light filters through the dark glass. Juan stands at the landing between the floor I’m on, and the one below. Mav obviously can’t see him. I open my mouth—not to say anything about Juan being there necessarily—but Juan shakes his head ‘no’ before any words come out.
“W-Mav,” I end up saying, like some mix of my brain almost called Juan instead of Mav. “What are you doing up so early?’
“What are you doing on your side? Did you not get enough sleep?” He bends low to grab my hand and help me to my feet. His face is in position to notice Juan on the stairs if he bothers to turn and look toward the landing. I’m a lot more weight than Mav bargains on. Looking like a fragile female human doesn’t mean weighing like a fragile female human.
“Bots don’t sleep,” I say in answer to his question.
“Yeah, but you’re in a heap like maybe you should be asleep. Do you get tired?”
“No.” But I do. Just a different kind of tired. The kind of tired where I get so tired of human things and trying to guess humanness that I’d like to be just ones and zeroes without any extra variables, please. Too much to explain, so I don’t.
“Have you seen the news?” Mav asks.
“No.” That one’s true. I haven’t seen the news today.
“Some reporter in Mexico thinks he’s found your family.”
My mouth drops open involuntarily. I close it. It’s not possible. Mav continues to wait for me to respond. Maybe he thinks I’m going to jump around giving people high fives down the hall. I’m much closer to breaking another large pane of glass than celebrating. Because how am I supposed to deal with this?
I follow Mav to the room I share with Abby. Once through the door, Mav barks a command. “Turn on the news.”
“Jennie, did you unplug my phone?” Abby has a tangle of cords in her hand, all untethered to any power source.
I attempt a shrug in reply. I’ve witnessed plenty of the gesture from Abby, but my version is more of an up-down jerkish dance movement than an evasive gesture.
“Everything was updating.” Abby pushes buttons and swipes at her screens. “I lost data because my battery ran out before everything loaded.”
I attempt another shrug, this time the version that also means ‘sorry’ with a question mark, while Mav stomps to the remote in order to turn the television on himself.
“You should know about updates. You practically qualify as one.” Abby raises her voice. Whatever bug fix or glitch repair she undertook the night before, it didn’t happen. Or maybe it’s the newest and greatest version of some operating system that she’s now behind on. It’s a thing among the techs to have the newest, most up to date, operating systems.
“….Parents of Jillian Newberry claim she suffered amnesia prior to qualifying for the donor program in Mexico City…”
“Jilly?” I ask the news anchor as if she too remembers Ace using that name within the game when talking to me. Suddenly, I’m much more concerned with the news than shrugging at Abby.
“What’s this?” Abby motions toward the television with a power cord that’s hanging from her hand.
“They claim to be Jennie’s family.” Mav looks over his shoulder to both of us. “Explains the memory loss thing.”
“….Rumors surrounding the successful transfer of human intelligence to an artificial body have gone as far as to suggest the winning donor was a runaway, or that the family separated in dispute of the experimental procedure…”
“Jennie, do you recognize them?” Abby asks. “You said ‘Jilly’ like you remember that identity?”
“And it is similar to your own name,” Mav adds.
My eyes are glued to the screen. Pictures of ‘Jillian’ with her family flash across the screen. She has blond hair. Her family consists of both a Mom and Dad and one younger sister. She’s short and straight without many curves. If I squint enough, I’m looking at a reflection of myself when I was in the game.
“Jennie?” Mav asks. “Is that you?” He points to the pictures of someone I was designed to look like because my parts were taken from her failure. But not all my parts. I had longer arms than Jillian, and my eyes weren’t the same color brown. Jillian’s eyes would have been erased by the time Ace put my parts together and coded me into the game of life. But this is the girl he was trying to revive. This person on the screen is who Ace wanted me to be and I’d give my left arm to meet her. In this case, her family.
Gordon appears in the doorway behind us with Dr. Miller. “Oh, you’ve seen.” He flips through screens on his computer. “Here she is. Jillian Newberry, GenCiv code.” He taps the screen with the back of his index nail. “I knew it. Her code disappeared three months before we had an upload.” By upload, he means me. “So, either our system has some serious glitches—”
“We know it does,” Abby interrupts.
“Or this isn’t our Jennie,” Gordon continues.
Dr. Miller steps into the room. Five occupants push the comfort limits to standing room only. “What’s your opinion, Jennie?” he asks. He looks worried, according to the new Webster dictionary definition ‘give way to anxiety, allow the mind to dwell on troubles.’
I’m torn. Part of me wants to deny these people and their claim on me, but there’s also part of me that could be theirs—the loser parts. Lately, loser feels like the majority of what I came out of the game with. Maybe I am their long-lost Jilly. “Could be,” I say.
“Gordon, contact the Mexico City facility and get them tickets out here. No point delaying.” With that, Dr. Miller retreats back out the door. He’s hardly spent any time in my company since leaving Mexico. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, besides not being more human faster. I still move rickety. Maybe that’s it. I can’t help but take his distance as evidence of my failure.
After Dr. Miller leaves, I walk closer to the door, like I might follow him. What would I say? ‘Hey, sorry I suck at being human, to make it up to you, I’m going to fake like I’m the relation of this loser girl’s family, which I sort of am…’
That’s stupid.
“Oh, hey.” I’m blocking Gordon’s exit. I move so he can get around me. “Actually, is it cool if I talk to you in the hall for a minute?” He checks behind him to see that Mav and Abby aren’t watching. They’re both glued to the television and the condensed life story of Jillian, the amnesiac intelligence donor. Which, if you ask me, sounds like the stupidest candidate possible for such a game. Who were they expecting to come out the other side—someone who knew what they’d signed up for?
I lead the way into the hall. Gordon closes the door all but a crack, so it doesn’t click and draw attention at closing all the way. “Remember how I said there was a code from a donor who worked here?”
I nod.
“I think I found her.”
Whoop-de-doo, Gordon. “Okay.”
He turns his screen to face me. TECH-chick stares back. Rainbow hair and everything. Spitting image of herself, no altered ego image from inside the game like Ace. TECH-chick was apparently as equally intimidating in life as she was in suspended circuitry. “TECH-chick,” I say.
“Yeah, actually. She’s listed as GenTECH.” Gordon turns the screen back to himself and scrolls through information regarding TECH-chick. All I can think is, why couldn’t I find her in the database when I was looking on my own all those nights? There are pictures with every entry, and I’d have recognized TECH-chick. “Weirdest thing, she worked security here. She’s listed under science lab, but worked security.” He pauses like that’s a mismatch of skillset. They both sound demanding to me, so I don’t ask. “And all her donor files and even her code…” Gordon
scrolls some more, tapping into different folders. “…It’s all stored here.” He points to the carpeted hallway flooring. “She’s registered to this facility, but her information—her brain, if you will—uploaded to our facility.”
“How is that possible?” I ask.
“It’s not.” Gordon shuts off his screen as the door behind him opens.
Mav holds the knob in his hands. His eyes roam to the black display of Gordon’s device. “What’re you guys discussing out here?”
“Just trying to figure out if we need to start calling Jennie Jillian, haha.” Gordon’s voice cracks on forced lightness.
“Jilly,” I say. “They called her Jilly.”
“They?” Mav asks.
And I realize I’ve just misspoken. If I know Jilly from the game or know someone who knows her… “Her family. My family maybe.” Not sure I cover well enough.
“That wasn’t mentioned on the news,” he says.
I turn to Gordon. “But, like I was saying, please just stick to Jennie. I like it better now anyway.” I walk past Mav into my room, tap his hand till he frees the knob, and shoo him toward the hall. Then I shut the door and input the mental commands to ‘act normal’ and ‘don’t say anything stupid that might give away the fact you’re not a real donor’. I imagine it looks like heavy breathing from an outside viewer.
Abby’s still in the room. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks. “It looks like you’re about to vomit. Can you hurl? What would you spew anyway? Battery acid?”
I guess I look more like someone ready to lose it than someone centering themselves. Being human requires a lot more self-awareness than I currently possess. “Just nervous about the meeting later today.”
We’re supposed to meet Geo and be ‘introduced’ to Juan, their ‘major accomplishment’—supposedly without flaws as I have.
“Don’t be,” Abby says. “I’ve heard their robot is a glorified program. Just follows commands and performs tasks. AI fail if you ask me.” I’d like to ask her what she’s heard about me, or even what she thinks of me, but I also don’t want to ‘ask her’ because she’s likely to tell me the truth.
Con Code Page 9