The Girl Who Wasn't There

by G Scott Huggins

  Jael felt Paul staring at her and ignored him. He was going to queer her lie for sure. She shot him a glare a child couldn’t miss, but what else could she do?

  “Illegal, obviously,” said Paul, finally catching on. “But what’s also illegal is slavery, and that’s what this amounts to. You’re the victim here, and you should come with us, make a full confession.”

  “But being an AI is illegal, too!” wailed Cynthia. “I know who you are. Who your mother is. If I go to her and tell her what I am, and what I have been doing, can you promise she would not erase me, expose me to a pulse weapon? I am not a human! I am a horrible thing!”

  “No!” said Paul, stepping forward.

  Jael’s stomach churned. Her brother was still acting like this was a poor, helpless girl that he’d fallen for. And she—it, dammit—was playing the part to the hilt. How much was it playing? And how much was the truth? Jael couldn’t trust anything it said, but on the other hand, she couldn’t very well tell it straight out that their mother would do precisely what Cynthia was afraid of. If Cynthia felt it had nothing to lose…

  “Please, have mercy,” said Cynthia, looking at Jael. “I mean you no harm. I am not like those…those other AI that you were taught to fear so. I never knew them. I won’t even be here much longer. I just want to live. I just want to pretend to be…to be like you.”

  Why is she appealing to me? Does she know I’m the one who disbelieves her? But that would make Cynthia very perceptive indeed, and as far as Jael could tell, she’d swallowed their lie about keeping records like a kid swallowed fruit. She seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Paul was besotted with her. But now that she thought back on it, Jael realized that Cynthia had always spoken to her. She’d only spoken to Paul when it had been absolutely necessary.

  “Why are you asking me?” said Jael.

  Cynthia hesitated. “Because I thought…because I thought for a time that you might be like me. Because you need machines,” she indicated Jael’s wheelchair. “To live. That. And those arm-legs you use.”

  Jael felt her face redden, but then put herself in the position of an AI watching humans. It made a kind of sense, she supposed, to think that humans who used machines might think more like machines. She had no idea how wrong she was, of course. Could Jael use that to her advantage? Perhaps Cynthia really was that gullible?

  “And if I promise that we won’t tell anyone about you? We could just pretend we’d never seen you and let you go.” Paul looked at her sharply, and Jael glared back. “We don’t have to tell anyone.”

  “But you said you had records,” said Cynthia.

  “Records can be erased. Can’t they, Paul?” Start with a truth! she thought furiously at him.

  “They can be erased,” said Paul, voice absolutely neutral.

  Cynthia looked from Paul to Jael and back in increasing agitation. “How can I know if you are telling the truth?” she burst out. “If what my owners have told me and what I learned at your school is true, then how can you not want to kill me?”

  “I don’t want to kill you!” said Paul.

  “What if you are lying?” Cynthia shot back.

  “Well, what is your solution?” asked Jael, trying to keep her temper from snapping. “You brought us here, you showed yourself to us. You must have at least a hope you can trust us. You can’t keep us here, and if you kill us, you’ll be leaving a trail that you have to know Security will never stop following.”

  “I don’t want to kill you!” said Cynthia.

  “Why not?” asked Jael.

  “Are you sure that you want to ask that?” muttered Paul.

  “Because…” Cynthia hesitated. “Because I don’t want to be a killer. Because I don’t want to be those…those things that we learned about. That they tell me I am.”

  “Your owners don’t know we saw you,” said Jael. “That you saw me. You didn’t tell them.”

  Cynthia shook her head.

  “You bet your life we wouldn’t tell for all this time,” said Paul. “Why not trust us now?”

  No answer.

  Paul turned to Jael. “If she wanted to do something truly dangerous to us—or to the whole colony—she had at least twelve hours to do it.”

  Jael bit her lip. Her brother was right, but… “That’s assuming we understand how she thinks. She’s an AI, Paul. This is over our head. We need help.”

  “And who could we get to help us that Cynthia might trust? You think we could trust Mother? Because I don’t.”

  Jael shook her head. “We need an adult. Someone with experience. Someone who isn’t going to react without thinking.” An image formed in her mind. “What about Mr. H?” Who also relies on machinery to get around.

  Paul looked at her and nodded. “We could ask him. He doesn’t teach anyone today. We could go to his place.”

  Cynthia frowned. “But he said his family was killed in the AI War!”

  “Some of our family was killed in the war, too,” said Jael. “Almost everybody lost someone in the war.”

  “He also said, if you recall,” said Paul, “that he almost felt sorry for the AIs. That he thought they must have been terrified. As you, obviously, are. I think, if you’re looking for a human who will listen to you, an adult that we can all trust, you’re not going to do better than Mr. H.”

  Slowly, Cynthia nodded. “I will listen to him.”

  Mr. H lived at the edge of one of the colony’s habitat-modules. It didn’t take them very long to get there, because nothing was very far away in a lunar colony, but they had to pass through Water Treatment and its vast columns of armored pipes to get there. Jael wondered if, like her, Cynthia saw the looming housing of the retracted bulkhead as a giant, steel mouth. Or perhaps a gate, only Jael didn’t know whether it was to heaven or hell. Or perhaps AIs didn’t even think in those terms.

  Paul pressed the door chime at Mr. H’s apartment. The moments afterward seemed to stretch into an eternity.

  “Yes, how may I help you?”

  “Sir, it’s Paul and Jael. And Cynthia. We have some questions.”

  And if that isn’t the understatement of the year, thought Jael.

  “Hmm. I think you’re both supposed to be in Calculus class if my memory serves. What question could you possibly have that would be more pressing than that, I wonder? Certainly enough to spark my curiosity. Come in.”

  The door opened at his words. Paul gestured Jael in first, then led Cynthia into Mr. H’s apartment.

  It was not a large apartment, but the spartan style of his great room gave the illusion of more space than their family apartment. A long-legged futon and two stools were the only furniture. Through the narrow hallway, Jael could see the closed door of the bedroom, and a tiny office that was as cluttered as the rest of the apartment was neat.

  Mr. H stood in the middle of the small room. It was strange to see him without his business-professional outsuit. And yet there he stood in faded denim jeans and a T-shirt, dressed like pictures of college students nearly a century old. Which, Jael supposed, he had been. Of course, the thin frames of the exoskeleton that he wore, not to mention his wrinkled features and snow-white hair, detracted significantly from that image.

  “Come in, my students,” said Mr. Hybels. His eyebrows went up as he took in Jael’s wheelchair.

  “Jael, I never considered it any of my business, but I hope that this is not a sign that your condition, whatever it is, has degenerated.”

  “No, sir. I’m afraid I just overdid things yesterday.”

  “Well, I hope to see you up and around again. Although I don’t think I’ll need you to teach the particular lesson you gave Denariis any time soon again, it never hurts to be prepared.” He looked up. “Paul. And Cynthia. I’m glad to see that you’re making friends with two of my more promising students.”

  Jael felt her mouth bending into a rather sickly grin. How were they going to begin this? Her tongue seemed fastened to the roof of her mouth. Fortunately, Paul started t
alking.

  “Sir, we discovered something that…well, we think you’re the best person to help us with.”

  Mr. H sat down, gesturing Cynthia and Paul to stools. “Very well. What is it, college applications?” Seeing the looks on their faces, he said. “No. So, not letters of recommendation, either. Something a bit more serious. What kind of thing?”

  “It’s sort of a question of…law.”

  Mr. Hybels’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Paul, your mother is the colony’s chief law enforcement officer. If you’re in some sort of trouble you can’t go to her about, then you need to consult a lawyer. There’s a great deal of difference between that and a history teacher, even a knowledgeable one, which I flatter myself I am.”

  “It’s also a question of history. Kind of an application question. You know, sir, how you encourage us to learn from the past to judge the present. And how people will react to things?”

  Mr. H nodded. “You’re intriguing me, Paul, but I wish you’d tell me more plainly what this is all about.”

  Paul tried again. “It’s about Cynthia. She should explain it.”

  Cynthia froze. Paul reached out and took her hand. She seemed stunned by the contact. “It’s okay. You show him. I’ll explain. I won’t let him do anything to you.”

  Cynthia nodded. Slowly, she removed her gloves. Jael watched Mr. Hybels for his reaction. But he just watched, intently. Cynthia stripped off her sleeves and her trousers. Slowly, she knelt and rose on her telescoping thighs.

  “Cynthia is not what she appears,” Paul said.

  “That appears to be a gross understatement, Mr. Wardhey,” their teacher said, acidly.

  “Yes, sir. She has been created to imitate humans. She’s…sir, she’s an AI.”

  Jael didn’t realize that she was holding her breath until Mr. Hybels said, “Who told you that?”

  “She did, sir.”

  His eyes riveted themselves to Cynthia’s. “Is this true?”

  “Yes, sir.” Cynthia’s words were hardly above a whisper.

  “And yet your face is remarkably human,” said Mr. Hybels. “It seems a strange disguise, to make you so human, and yet so alien.”

  “Sir, they…” began Paul, but Mr. Hybels held up a finger.

  “How far down does that synthetic flesh go, my dear?”

  Cynthia—Or was it Synthia? Jael wondered—blinked. “All the way. To my limbs.”

  Then Mr. Hybels said the last thing Jael ever expected.

  “Show me.”

  Jael froze in shock. Cynthia blushed, and Paul reddened. “Sir, what are you..?”

  “Silence!” Mr. H turned on Paul in a voice neither of them had ever heard him use. “Do you want my advice, or do you want to pretend you don’t need it?”

  Paul’s face became a mask. “Yes. Sir.”

  Cynthia, hesitantly, unfastened her jacket. It unsealed on a side-seam that was invisible until she activated it. She opened it, still blushing, revealing a sports bra and underwear. Jael could see where Cynthia’s flesh emerged from her limbs, at her shoulders and nearly to her thighs.

  “Enough,” said Mr. Hybels. He gestured for Cynthia to close her jacket. He met her eyes. “And you are an AI?”

  Cynthia nodded. “Yes.”

  A light gleamed in Mr. H’s eyes, and he grinned like a wolf. “Ridiculous,” he said.

  What?

  “But…but, but sir…” stammered Paul. “She clearly is an AI. Just look at her.”

  “I have been looking at her. But I have an advantage in that regard that you don’t. Two advantages, really. Firstly, I’m not looking at her as some kind of hopeless romantic ideal, Paul. To me, she looks like a granddaughter.”

  Paul’s mouth worked. “Sir!” erupted from him in an agonized protest. Cynthia looked at Paul in wonder and puzzlement.

  “You may thank me for that someday, son,” said Mr. Hybels. “But more to the point, I’ve seen AI before. Oh, yes,” he answered their stares. “They were more common than you’d believe, and I’ve both seen and talked to the ones who looked like humans. And that’s the worst design possible.”

  He got to his feet, and the whine of his exoskeleton’s servomotors broke the silence. “Not that they haven’t done an incredible job, in other ways. I imagine they’ve proven it to you in many ways, haven’t they?” He walked over to Cynthia. “Like the lack of hair?” He lifted her close-cropped brown hair from her head. Someone gasped, and Jael realized it was her. Cynthia didn’t react, of course. She knew it was a wig. Gently, Mr. H touched Cynthia’s face, and she blinked in astonishment, looking up at him.

  “Not even any tears,” he said, sadly. “I recognize the reaction, though. You would be shedding tears if you could. But no one making an AI with a human body includes a blush response. Or human body temperature. Or moles. Except for some very specialist models, but that was expensive and very rare.” He brushed one at the base of Cynthia’s neck.

  She looked up at him. “They said that I could not―”

  “Look too perfect, or it would ruin the disguise?” Mr. Hybels interrupted. “Of course they did. Because the one person they couldn’t have doubting your story was you. Because if you did, why then, you might go for help. I wonder how they explain this?”

  Cynthia jerked away, yelping. A single drop of blood, almost invisible, leaked from the nape of her neck. Mr. H held up a small pin that had been concealed between two fingers. “I apologize, my dear. I was just wondering what they told you about this. I can’t believe you’ve never seen it before.”

  Cynthia drew back her metallic finger from where she brushed the spot. The fluid gleamed blackly in the room lights. “It’s a heat exchange fluid and lubricant,” she said automatically. “Formulated to resemble blood in case I was damaged in front of people. Just like the pain response was programmed.” She stared at it. “But I can see the nanomachines in it.”

  “With those eyes?” asked Mr. H gently. “Those eyes that shed no tears? Very ingenious. Cybernetic implants with microscopic lenses, no doubt.”

  “They’re what I use to examine the alloys on the Ship,” Cynthia said.

  “How do you know all this?” Jael burst out.

  Mr. H reached up a hand to his own clear, green eyes and tapped one with a fingernail. The clack of plastic was audible in the room. “How do you think?” he asked. “My old ones clouded and wore out long ago.” He looked at Cynthia. “Long ago, before the War, I saw AIs that were programmed to think they were human. I always thought that was needlessly cruel, or at least a terrible simulation of cruelty. But this is multitudes worse.” He shook his head. “A human who’s been programmed to believe that she is an AI.”

  “But the nanomachines?” said Cynthia.

  “Those eyes will show you what they’re supposed to,” said Mr. Hybels. “Even completely natural human children have to learn the meaning of the images they see. But those eyes of yours have to translate invisible features into visual signals. They can be programmed to show you that your blood is full of nanites rather than red blood cells. And they have been.”

  “Then…” Jael’s mouth worked as Cynthia’s widened in uncertainty. “You have microscopic implants, too?”

  “Hah!” laughed Mr. Hybels. “No. Cost a fortune, and for what? I’m no spy. I deduced it. The real tell was far more obvious. Show me, please, your shoulder where the flesh and metal meet.”

  Staring at him, Cynthia rolled up her short sleeve and complied, revealing the flesh disappearing under the metal collar of her upper arm.

  “Now, why in the world would anyone design you like this? Your false outsuit achieves a perfect seal with invisible seams, we’ve all seen it. Synthetic flesh could do the same. Your owners could have provided you with coverings for those limbs that would seal to the synthetic flesh you have. But of course, that would mean that your metal parts would emerge from the false flesh covers, rather than your false flesh covers emerging from your metal parts. In fact, here on the Moon, where outsuits c
over everyone from neck to toe, there would be no reason to cover anything below your neck at all.”

  Cynthia was staring at herself as if seeing her body for the first time.

  “But she’s half machine,” Jael heard herself say.

  “So am I,” Mr. H snapped, gesturing to his exoskeleton. “My wife was a quarter of one: she was born without her left arm. So are you, Jael, if you define ‘machine’ broadly enough.” “Haven’t you ever heard of prosthetics?”

  Jael’s mind spun, and she remembered Cynthia’s feeling of kinship with her.

  “But then,” said Cynthia, looking at him as if seeing a god, or a demon, “what am I?”

  Mr. Hybels’ voice went soft. “You’re a little girl. As human and as real as any girl in this colony, or any who wander around on Earth’s blue orb above.”

  Mr. Hybels continued, “I imagine that there is a very sad story at the beginning of your life. Not that the current story isn’t sad enough. Somewhere on Earth, a baby girl was born and was orphaned, or taken, or possibly even sold, to some truly evil people. They…changed you.”

  They cut all her limbs off, Jael realized in horror, and replaced her eyes.

  “They trained you in the use of your new body and told you that it was all programming. I wonder what story they told you to explain the way you grew?”

  “They told me I had been upgraded,” Cynthia said, wonderingly.

  “Just so,” said Mr. Hybels. “Well, the simplest lies tend to work the best. I’ll bet you eat, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” said Cynthia. “Not being able to eat and drink would give me away.”

  “And do you re-use the same food over and over?”