by J. A. Hailey
“As I had no need to save a Pakistani drug dealer’s life, I immediately stopped pursuing the subject.
“In fact, we later watched the beheading on the King’s monster computer monitor, through a private feed delivered via the landline Internet connection of the supercomputer.
“Watching the condemned wretch being tortured and pleading for his life was very interesting. And here is where I have to agree with the progression theory. Despite having grown up with an abhorrence of these things, I have to admit that it was rather good fun, too.”
“Your progression has probably been going on since the Mexican robotization program,” said Sagan. “You’ve been becoming immune to pain and beastliness, by degrees, over the years.”
“So, if this eternal life system does work out, and we have these people as our partners, we should expect to change, shouldn’t we?” remarked Gales.
He made a distasteful face. “Become beasts!”
“I just wish,” said Sagan, wistfully. “I just wish we had some way of creating feasible post-death partnerships in the human physical world, without having to work with such treacherous and cruel people, like the King and the Sheikh.”
Grietzmann laughed dryly. “What’s that old saying, Patrick?” said he, sarcastically. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
6
Esmeralda, mistress of chaos, often spent the night in her own room in her family house in Paris. For this, she needed Sabine, and the human girl was a most obliging accomplice, coming over from Marseilles whenever she was called.
Esmeralda could undoubtedly have worked physically through other human bodies, and such others could have proven to be more fun, offering her the option of operating through the amnesia loop, and of being much more herself in the human, than she could be with Sabine.
Of course, it would necessitate BC occupying a male patient other than Louis, and for the two replacement humans to develop a relationship in which sexual intimacy played a role, which would have been a relationship similar to what every other virtual couple, out in humanside Paris, had going on.
However, the rapport that both virtuals had with their human subjects was the envy of everyone in the know in screenside, made up mostly of their group of close friends – which, in itself, could have been sufficient reason for the virtuals to desire no change, as both Esmeralda and BC just loved being a couple out in the world, with the couple that the two humans had become, and they had both developed close working relationships with their fully aware human patients.
Because Sabine was so completely into it, absolutely aware, and was so highly thought of in screenside, she would, in fact, plan humanside programs with virtual girlfriends, and would encourage them to come up with agendas for the human world, in the bodies of those they were helping in Paris. Though Esmeralda was always with her, she often let Sabine be completely independent, and able to function as if no virtual was inside her head.
Additionally, Sabine’s house in Marseille was open, without appointment, to Esmeralda’s human family. In fact, the welcome extended to their partners too, and it was not uncommon for one or the other of the sisters to come over with her boyfriend, and to spend a weekend in Marseille.
Marseille, as a city, had gone considerably down the path to seed, but Sabine’s house was in its most upmarket segment, and the seediness of the rest of the city had not quite filtered down into their locality.
The city, as a whole, came with the insecurity of being a somewhat gang-infested, poverty-stricken metropolis, but Sabine, in her avatar as Knife Noura, and Louis were avoided like the plague by the gangs. And that made the extended neighborhood extremely safe too, as a no-go area for the lawless element in the city.
In the early days, neighbors would be shocked to see known criminals uncomplainingly paying for goods and delicacies purchased at Sabine’s shop.
There was, of course, no danger to either Sabine or Louis, in being thought of, by the gangs, as violent and dangerous people. Even when out, and letting the two humans live independently, BC and Esmeralda’s multitasking abilities permitted them to keep abreast of current situations with their wards at all times, and it would be a matter of a fraction of a second for them to be back in control, and to take care of any threat, with the extraordinary and highly skilled violence they were capable of executing. And that made both Sabine and Louis considerably more dangerous than the hoodlums they occasionally came in contact with.
When her business had been newly set up, BC and Esmeralda had once had to resort to violence upon the hoodlums. Provocation had been given in plenty, but the scale and the skill of the violence had completely shocked the gangs of Marseille.
A quartet of arrogant young men had walked into the shop on a Saturday morning, every single one of them smoking.
Esmeralda had said, “Smoking is not allowed in here. Please stub them out, those cigarettes, and don’t enter in future with lit cigarettes in your hands or mouths.”
The gang-leader hoodlum had stuck his face over the counter, and, blowing smoke, had snarled, “Find out my name, you stupid French bitch. I do what I want.”
BC, standing next to Esmeralda, had punched him so hard that he had lost a few teeth, spitting them out of his bloody mouth, his nose also clearly broken.
“I’ll fix this shit,” the deputy gangster had said, snapping open a six inch switchblade and moving forward.
Esmeralda, literally vaulting out from behind the counter, had said, “Here, come here.”
The astonished knifeman had half turned disbelievingly towards her, when she had caught his knife hand and twisted it deftly this way and that, and in two seconds had taken possession of the knife.
But BC, too, had been moving very fast, and he was in time to grab Esmeralda’s wrist and prevent her from sticking the knife all the way up, from under the hoodlum’s chin into his head.
Holding her wrist with obvious strength, and screaming, “No need to kill him!” he had pushed the gangster with such force that the fellow had flown, without control, altogether out of the shop.
The original aggressive hoodlum was still inside the shop, moaning and spitting blood, quite out of his senses from the blow he had received.
But Esmeralda was not done, and she had taken the visible pistol out from the groggy gangster’s waistband.
Half a dozen other petty criminals had been watching the show from the road. Esmeralda had stepped out, brandishing the pistol, and had screamed, “This is a no smoking road. All of it. This time it’s a warning; next time, I’ll miss the cigarette!”
And then Sabine had become forever immune to being bothered by gangsters in France, when Esmeralda had precisely shot out the glowing tip of a lit cigarette from the mouth of a young Algerian hoodlum across the road.
Although there was no chance of Marseille’s gangsters finding the courage to visit aggressively, two young girls had come knocking diffidently at the door, that night.
“Madame Sabine,” one had said, speaking in Arabic. “We have heard from Paris that you can speak in Arabic, and that your real name is Noura.”
“Yes. So?”
“The boys who made a mistake with you, are our relatives, and they have begged us to represent them to you. They are very frightened, as your vindictiveness is very well known in Algiers. They are there in the shadows, and will come to seek forgiveness personally, once you assure us that you will not kill them at sight.”
“It’s okay. Call them.”
Three of the daytime gangsters had shuffled out of the darkness and had stood penitently in front of Sabine.
“Please forgive us,” the one who had been at the receiving end of BC’s fist had said. “Achmet, from the Latin Quarter in Paris, recognized your photo and told us that we are lucky to be alive. We know this to be true, as Knife Noura is not famous for sparing lives.”
“Trained by Mad Max Habibi himself, they say…” another had muttered.
&nbs
p; “And, Noura, we know that your reach extends to our houses and our families in Algeria.”
“Okay, okay,” Esmeralda had said dismissively, waving at them to go away. “I am watching TV, and I have dinner to feed my mother. Be sure that if I was interested in finishing everyone off, I would have already been hunting for you in the Arab part of Marseille. We have enough connections, and you would not have been able to stay secret and hidden for long.”
The three boys had backed away, saying sorry in Arabic and French.
“Be respectful,” Esmeralda had warned. “We are dangerous wherever we are. It’s all about respect. There is no other way to be safe from us.”
And thus Sabine became the least bothered person in Marseille, a status which would later extend throughout France. In fact, if she ever got into public transport, someone or the other would give up a seat for her.
She also often went through the lawless St Charles area on foot, to use trains to and from Paris. When returning at night, regular French passengers on the train would recognize her and walk out of the station in a crowd around her - absolutely safe from any form of violence!
Her anti-cigarette stance was so well known that crowds of hoodlums would stub out lit cigarettes, or hide their hands behind their backs as she passed by.
7
In Paris, a few mornings after their get together at the hotel, at the dining table in the kitchen, having a breakfast of croissants, mushroom scrambled eggs and cheese, with lots of orange juice to drink, Esmeralda and BC, as Sabine and Louis, sat with the entire family.
A couple of minutes after they had commenced eating, two very pretty young girls, clearly sisters, and probably just about teens, walked in unannounced, without even a knock on any door.
“Ooh, mushroom scrambled?” squealed one, took a plate out from the crockery drawer, and helped herself. “I told Martine it would be better here, and that we should forget about breakfast at home any day.” Then, leaning against the kitchen counter, she proceeded to eat, feeding her sister from the same plate.
“Martine and Clarisse,” said Esmeralda, to her sisters. “Martine is a year younger, and is autistic; needs help. Clarisse is a lovely young girl, and looks after Martine diligently. They are both very pretty, aren’t they? I see them often through the cameras, when watching the family, although, as you know, this is the first time I have been in the same room as them.” She spoke softly, although it was clear that the two girls were not bothered about listening in.
“I’ve been thinking, Esme,” said Jane. “They moved in, two houses away, a couple of months ago, and they’ve been pretty regular here, in our house, from almost the beginning, as you know. You people are helping so many, and I am aware that Twixie is doing evening duties with mum. Why not put her into helping Martine? Is it allowed? In screenside, I mean?”
“Twixie is too young to be allowed to take on a lifetime obligation,” answered Esmeralda. “That means that she will neither be assigned to anyone, nor be permitted to commit to a time frame which must last until a patient like Martine is capable of independent life in the human world. But I don’t see why she cannot come in and help Clarisse, when her schooling and education schedules permit. I’m calling her.”
Twixie appeared instantly on the monitor, on the side counter in the kitchen. “Sweetie,” said Esmeralda. “You know these girls?”
“Yes, Miss Esmeralda. These two are Clarisse and Martine; sisters from a couple of houses away. I sometimes visit them through the cameras in their house, so I know them quite well. I feel very sorry for Martine, the poor thing.”
“Want to help her?” asked Esmeralda.
“Yes, miss, very much. But we know that it’s not allowed before being adulted. Teens have applied a number of times to help humans, but have been told that they are too young to take on such heavy responsibilities in human lives. And I’m not even a teen yet. I get to help and manage mummy, because her helpers, you and your group of friends, Miss Esmeralda, allow me to take over on your shifts. She is not assigned to me. And, anyway, as she’s a motor case, and not a mental one, I think guardian programs overlook the illegality, if there is any.”
“Oh, sure, Twixie, you cannot be assigned a human permanently, as you are too young. But you can certainly come in and relieve the poor girl’s sister, a few times a day, sometimes for long stretches. I am sure it would be very, very beneficial to Martine, as she will get the feeling that she’s operating independently in the world, and get the impression of having somehow defeated her handicap. Want?”
“Absolutely want, Miss Esmeralda,” screamed Twixie, jumping for joy.
“Then, go and meet Priya and Rosa, and tell them that you have been appointed. They will schedule the doctor work, to implant a neural microchip into Martine’s head.
“I’ll have a word with Brenda to assign a unit control group, to ensure that you are doing all the right things, and not dancing the poor girl to death.”
“I would never, never do that, Miss Esmeralda,” said the abashed Twixie, and promptly disappeared from the screen, presumably having headed off to meet Priya and Rosa.
A few days later, Priya herself operated, in Patrick Sagan’s presence, in hospital facilities under his management, and inserted the neural implant into Martine’s head.
Sophie-Marie had organized permission for the operation from Martine’s parents, having informed them that extremely advanced programs would now be deployed to take care of their afflicted daughter. The programs were so good, she said, that after observing the girl for a day or two, they would be happy to entrust the care of the autistic child entirely to the programs, and free up her elder sister to enjoy doing the dozens of early-teen things she was finding no time for.
None of the teens in screenside minded that Twixie had been selected and permitted to work in humanside. There were many reasons for their placid, non-envious acceptance. Firstly, Twixie was already known to be working with mum Sophie-Marie; then, she was the youngest child in screenside, currently practically the same age as the girl she would be helping; and, lastly, she had been assigned the job by Esmeralda, and questioning Esmeralda was absolutely out of the question.
8
After the neural implant had been placed in her head, Martine’s first excursion, unaccompanied by her parents, was as early as the second day, to a mall not far away. The chip had already impressed the parents, as Martine had begun functioning like an absolutely normal girl. Also, Jane’s friend, Sabine, whom they had occasionally seen in the neighborhood, had volunteered to accompany Martine on her solo venture.
Sabine and Martine, both had rather short skirts on, and, with Sabine’s extravagantly sexy strut, many eyes turned onto them when they entered the shopping mall, intending, with money robbed from a passing ATM, to go to a famous bakery and buy some goodies to eat and carry back home.
Esmeralda had given Twixie all the guidance, and Martine was operating through Epsilon in her, under Esmeralda’s strict instructions. “At no point are you to ever reveal to the girl, or to any other human, that you are in her head. And you are to never disconnect Martine and redirect her through the amnesia loop; let me show you; it’s this one, unless she somehow begins getting into mortal physical danger.”
They had passed a small park, where a few fairground rides were being operated for the public. Twixie and Martine were both desperately keen to get onto them, although Martine had no idea that Twixie was in her.
Thus, after an hour in the shopping mall, having bought a few clothing items for Sabine, and a large box of mixed confectionery items, the two girls went to the little fairground. As they went through rides on machines chosen by Martine, Esmeralda became aware of being under close observation by a couple of Arab-type men. It was while walking out that they were accosted by one of the two men, of undoubtedly North-African origin, possibly an Algerian, or maybe a Moroccan.
Speaking reasonably good French, he said, “We like the look of you two
girls. Want to join us for an evening of fun?”
Esmeralda, telling Sabine and Twixie to be quiet, answered, “What do you mean by fun? Everybody is ready for fun, but you have to define fun yourself.”
“See that person there?” The Arab now proved himself to be an inferior companion of the other man, playing the role of manager, mouthpiece, legman and pimp. “He is the son of a very big oil sheikh of Arabia; lots and lots of money; more than you can imagine. He will take care of everything. He likes her very much.” And the pimp nodded to indicate it was Martine they were after.
Sabine was outraged, and actually attempted to hit the pimp, but Esmeralda prevented that, and said, “That’s why we’re here. It’s business. But this one is seriously under aged, and petty cash will not do it.”
“The sheikh is not talking petty cash. Let me explain to him.” And the pimp hurried away to the paymaster, who looked to be around 45 years old. He now came over to meet the two girls.
“Money is no problem, but I want everything, understand? I want to do everything that men do with girls. No saying later, oh, she doesn’t do that.”
“She’s a virgin, in every way,” said Esmeralda. “It will hurt.”
“It is good to feel pain when your first lover has you,” said the son of a sheikh. “I will do her from the back, after I have had her first blood.”
“Of course, of course,” said Esmeralda. “But we are not common street people, and we like to eat and drink well. We like to think of our men as our boyfriends.”
The sheikh crowed in delight. “Yes, yes, you say where you want to go. Money is no object.”
“I will call my friends to join us for dinner with your lordship. They are all business people, in the same line of work as me, of providing child girls and boys for the enjoyment of the wealthy. That way, you can have a young one every evening, or even more frequently, as everyone I am calling is a serious and committed business person, specializing in child-girls from very aristocratic families.”
