AI's Children

by Ed Hurst

  Chapter 3

  “Mom, are we a persecuted minority?”

  Harp had asked the question during her history lesson. She was the budding image of her mother, Luz, the only girl and the only one of three children clearly resembling her. They both had that faintly olive skin tone paired with a surprising wavy blonde mane.

  “I suppose we would be, Harp, if we were more exposed to society. Living in the enclave serves to protect us from most of that.”

  “Was it hard for you to leave it behind when you married Dad?”

  Her mother smiled at the memory. “No. Like your father I was already out of place, an alien in my own world. He was and continues to be a man like no other, and I would still think so if he had never invited me to be a part of his world.”

  Harp was now old enough to have begun feeling the tug of hormones. “Isn’t that manly stuff part of The Brotherhood? I know Dad will always be my image of manhood, but when it comes to being a male, the other men here seem to act pretty much the same. The weenies that can’t adapt don’t seem to stay around very long.”

  Luz smiled at her daughter. “When I met your father, I never knew such men existed. I was just about your age when I first ran across the books my brothers had been reading secretly. No pictures except on the covers, and those were pretty tame, if a bit overdone. I mean, how many guys are built like that outside the enclave? Still, the fictional world they portrayed was romantic enough that I would sneak their books and read them. I think my brothers dreamed of being like that but didn’t dare act that way in public. A few guys could carry it off, but they had all the girls they could handle and I wasn’t willing to play by their rules.”

  Harp nodded. “Yeah, I’ve read some of that crap. Some of the science was interesting, but the rest of it – so silly!”

  “Exactly,” her mother agreed. “I mean, I never thought I would react that way to any man. The heroes in those stories were better than the average dweeb, especially the dweebs who read that trash, but then your father started giving away those books and it was like the sun had risen for the first time without an overcast sky. His heroes were totally foreign, not at all like the needy vulnerable guys in the chick-lit nor the fake studs in the secret sci-fi clubs. His stories had men like those here in The Brotherhood. I actually thought he was writing stuff with himself as the hero, because it was just like him. I’d have followed him anywhere – in fact, I did.”

  Harp stared off in space for a moment. In a quiet, wistful tone she said, “I hope I can find someone like that for me.”

  Luz took her daughter’s hands in her own and looked in her eyes. “You have the misfortune of living on the cutting edge of a totally different society. But that also means you aren’t bound by the same rules as the world I left behind. In my world, few women would even consider a man who wasn’t about the same age, unless she was playing with even younger boys to feed her ego. You and I are part of something that will outlive us, something so big we cannot possibly see where it’s headed. It could easily die, but I’m convinced it’s worth any price to try. I’m convinced this is what we humans were designed for, and I’m doing my part to help you and your brothers see that. There’s nothing wrong with marrying someone older than you, maybe even a lot older.”

  The young girl’s eyes drifted away slowly, but her mother kept the grip on her hands and continued. “I won’t push you. But I will ask you to make room for that possibility. I’m truly fortunate, so don’t think of my situation as the norm or the ideal. Don’t get stuck on the idea of an age-mate and fall for some dweeb who will tempt you to dominate instead of leading you to build together as partners. You’re easily the equal of any man here in the enclave if that’s how you want it, but that takes you right back out into the world I left behind – and good riddance to it.”

  “No,” Harp said firmly. “I refuse to go back to that. So, it’s okay to fall in love with someone even Dad’s age?”

  “Honey, boys your age couldn’t handle you. It would take someone strong and mature to be worth your trouble. The best man is one you can’t possibly control, but has a mission so powerful and inspiring you can’t walk away. Hitch your wagon to his and get involved. Find someone doing something worthy of your hopes, dreams and talents.”

  After a long pause, they both let go of each other’s hands. Luz leaned back in her chair, while Harp rotated her seat around on the swivel and faced her computer screen. She gestured to wake up the display, and then turned back to her mother. “Can we really bring back the ancient ways?”

  Luz smiled. “Nobody knows, not even AI. But it’s certainly worth trying to resurrect as much as we can understand of it. Your father has an instinct for some of it, but most of us will simply have to study and see if we can abstract the real juice of what it was like then, and what it could be and should be like now. All of this study does have a purpose. We figure out how we got here so we can estimate where we should go next.”

  Harp leaned back and folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself. Her eyes focused far off into the future. “I know it’s like one big family here, but I want to see what a real tribe is like, with everybody actually related by blood and by commitment. I want to be the mother of a whole nation, just like the ancients.”

  Luz decided there was nothing she could say to her daughter now. After a few moments, the girl turned back to the computer and began asking it a thousand questions.

  Meanwhile, somewhere in the basement below, her brother Dax was supine on the padded floor of the training room. Could his gaze penetrate the two floors above, he might have been staring at his sister’s feet. Instead, he was sweating profusely and trying to catch his breath, with his eyes focused nowhere in particular.

  He reminded himself once again that, while the Brotherhood’s gym machines had obviated the need for several tons of fitness equipment, no machine could duplicate the body-mind reflexes developed in hand-to-hand combat. He was waiting for his trainer to demand he rise again, probably providing yet another opportunity for the hulking man to throw him once more to his back.

  Instead, the dark-skinned face hovered over him, demanding he bring his gaze back in focus on the large features. “Good news, Trainee! Tomorrow you get another chance to go back for a visit to the military sports center. This time you’ll get to participate in some of the events. Your other teacher has arranged the visit for you.”

  Dax had been apprenticed to a pair of men who could not have been more contrasting. Nthanda was the senior therapist in one of the clinics and a master at physical training. The man was tireless, as persistently jovial as he was demanding. Dax wasn’t just learning how to engage in physical activities, but studied the full range of human health under him. Sometimes, quite physically under him, as he found himself just now. The trainer made no move to help him to his feet, but Dax rose simply from the faint renewing effect of his own excitement at this message.

  His other trainer was a small, quiet man, pale as a ghost. Most people knew him as Colonel Geroux. Dax had by reflex always called him, “Sir.” More than military history, the man was famous for his encyclopedic knowledge of the whole breadth of social sciences. When asked, the man said simply that he studied human nature.

  The choice of these two trainers was fairly obvious to his father, Chandler. On one of the family holidays some years before, they had hiked past a large enclosure behind a high security fence. Inside the fence they saw the tall wooden and rope structures of a military physical confidence course. Farther along this same fence line, they spotted men in military uniforms engaging in some unusual sporting activities, competing at games one rarely saw among civilians.

  Dax was entranced by the spectacle. It seemed to capture his imagination. Not that he was any kind of dreamy fool about military life; rather it was this that gave a justification for putting up with it. With all the cynicism he learned from his father, Dax was willing to tolerate a lot of mindless patriotic bilge for a chance to engage in such unrestra
ined physical adventure. The government had long restricted access to such things, making it the privilege of those who were willing to bind themselves under a military commitment.

  Of course, there had always been professional competitive sports, though teams were now centered on major metropolitan areas. There was still something like the old Olympic Games and a few extraordinary athletes doing unusual things, but the cult-like obsession had been discouraged by government policy. It had all been channeled into military readiness. The widest opportunities were in uniform.

  Chandler’s long consultation with AI on the matter resulted in assigning his son as apprentice to the Colonel and Nthanda as the best preparation for prospering in that atmosphere.