Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330)

by Mitchell, Laura Remson

  “But you said we could quote from other sources,” Linda complained.

  “True. But not without acknowledging your source. It’s all right to say, ‘The Rebirth was the most significant turning point in the history of human relations,’ according to the Scholar’s World Encyclopedia. It’s not all right to say the same thing using the encyclopedia’s words but pretending the words are yours!”

  Linda frowned and bowed her head in an indignant huff. Every few seconds, she would glance up surreptitiously from beneath long, dark lashes. Rayna could almost feel the heat of Linda’s gaze boring into her back as she turned toward the other side of the room.

  “Even those of you who weren’t guilty of plagiarism didn’t seem to take this assignment very seriously.”

  The only sound in the room was the uneasy shifting of 20 student rumps as they moved nervously against their chairs.

  “Emilio, you usually do such good work. Why just copy? You know this material.” Emilio shrugged, and Rayna’s glance darted from face to face around the hushed classroom. “You all know the material. I expected more from you than a summary of the facts and a bunch of old platitudes.”

  She waited, hoping for a response—even an argument—but the students just sat there, looking bored.

  “It’s not enough to say that the Rebirth began after the 1971 riots and changed the way we live today,” she resumed, suddenly hating the sound of her own voice. “That’s just a cliché. You have to explain it—show it!”

  “And how’re we supposed to do that?” challenged a slender young man with ebony skin, a strong jaw line and the faint beginnings of a mustache.

  Rayna thought for a moment.

  “You live near school, don’t you, Jason?”

  “Yeah. Couple of blocks away.”

  “Are all your neighbors black?”

  “What? Of course not! Why should they be?”

  “Fifty years ago, they would have been.” Rayna paused to let the point sink in, but she could see she’d have to say more.

  “As you all should know by now, South-Central Los Angeles was almost all black 50 years ago. There were other parts of the city that were mostly white. Latinos lived primarily on the east side. Koreans and Chinese and other groups each had their own little sections, too....”

  Rayna surveyed the faces in the room. The most positive expression she observed was one of tolerant politeness. The familiar signposts of active interest—the excited look of comprehension and the bright-eyed eagerness to learn more—those were missing. The spark had been dimming steadily over the past weeks. Now, her students were cast in bronze. The change was more than disheartening. It sent icy ripples down her spine.

  “Listen, Miss Kingman, we know the story,” Xian offered. “We know what happened. John Martin Roberts was shot, and then people rioted all over the country, and then the cities were rebuilt. How can we not know the story? Roberts Park is less than a mile away. We’ve heard about him all our lives. Maybe we’re just tired of rehashing something that happened 50 years ago. Why make such a big deal out of it?”

  Rayna shook her head sadly.

  “The shooting of John Martin Roberts was a major turning point in American history,” she said with a sigh. “The Rebirth period that came after the riots made a reality out of ideals Americans had paid lip service to for almost two centuries. That’s a pretty big deal, wouldn’t you say, Xian?”

  “We know that, Miss Kingman, but—”

  “There’s more,” Rayna continued. “It’s largely because of John Martin Roberts that we that we no longer have to live with the constant threat of nuclear war or the hundreds of ‘little’ wars that were once common all over the world. I’d say that qualifies as a big deal, too.”

  “Yeah, but now you’re talking about the stuff Roberts did when he was with the United Nations,” said Jason.

  Rayna nodded. “Right, but it’s all connected. As soon as Roberts was well enough, President Muskie named him United States ambassador to the U.N. As you all should know, Roberts helped negotiate an end to the Vietnam War. But he did much more than that. More than any other human being, Roberts was responsible for turning the World Court into an effective tool for resolving international disagreements without armed conflict, and he played a major role in negotiating the big U.S.-Soviet disarmament treaty of 1983—the one that set up the first joint Soviet-American space missions.”

  Shafts of yellow light burst through the classroom windows as the afternoon sun found a clearing in the cirrus-streaked sky.

  “Of course, those early missions eventually led to development of the Borisov drive and colonization of the asteroids, and pollution-free energy systems based on Nitinol from the colonies, and....”

  She hesitated, once again conscious of the sound of her own voice. “Let me remind you, the purpose of this class is not to memorize facts. A computer can give you facts. Our purpose here is to understand history and, by understanding the past, learn more about ourselves today. To do that, you have to think. That was your assignment.”

  There was no sound from the students, but few of them met Rayna’s gaze.

  “Today, you don’t come into the world with two strikes against you just because of your sex or your religion or the color of your skin. Your future depends on you, not on how much money your parents may have. For most of humanity throughout most of history, that hasn’t been the case. It’s important for you to understand that. In the past, it always seemed to take a riot to remind those in power that things weren’t right. And when the riots were over, all you usually had were dead bodies and burned-out neighborhoods and a lot of words.”

  “Sort of like what we’re getting now,” Rick muttered to his neighbor.

  Rayna glared at Rick.

  “The point is that after the 1971 riots, people made a conscious commitment to rebuild the damaged cities in a way that would make a lasting difference. Project New Start—the program that replaced slum buildings with planned integrated housing and new local businesses—that started right here in Los Angeles and eventually spread to other cities.”

  “Yeah, and the federal government redesigned the employment service, too,” Rick interrupted. “Like Xian said, we’ve heard it all before. Why keep going over it?”

  Rayna heaved a deep sigh of frustration. “Can anyone answer Rick’s question? Did any of you give this assignment any real thought at all?”

  Rayna’s challenge was met by a score of blank stares. She shut her eyes briefly and massaged the bridge of her nose. After a moment, she swept the class with a silent, probing look, shifting her focus from face to face around the room. Finally, she spoke.

  “It’s because of the Rebirth that you can now take for granted the right to live anywhere you want to live, to get any job you decide to train for, with no thought about racial, religious or sexual barriers. Some of your grandparents must be old enough to remember the bad old days. Ask them about it. Maybe then you’ll understand.”

  She shook her head distractedly, her thoughts drifting from the students to a puzzle that had long piqued her academic curiosity. “Funny thing is, nobody ever could explain why it all worked out this time when even the best efforts had always failed before. There are plenty of theories, but nobody seems to agree on....” She paused for a deep breath and refocused on the class. “That’s why I asked you to write an essay on the period. Your opinion’s as good as the historians’. I wanted you to question. To wonder. To....”

  Rayna stopped, realizing once more that she wasn’t getting through. She needed to try a new approach.

  “Okay. Look, I know talking to you like this isn’t doing any good. I just seem to be boring you.” Rick rolled his eyes in agreement, eliciting a few muffled chuckles.

  “I’ve been thinking of trying a little experiment anyway, and this may be just the right time. It will give you a chance to learn more about history in a very personal way. Each of you will be doing something a little bit different. And it will be nearly
impossible for you to simply copy from an encyclopedia!”

  “Uh-oh,” Rick groaned. “Sounds like we’re in for a lot of work.”

  “If you give yourselves a chance, I think you’ll really enjoy this assignment.

  “Here’s what I want you to do: Choose an ancestor of yours—make it a minimum of, oh, five generations back. Then find out all you can about the time and place your ancestor lived in. Finally, I want you to get creative. I want you adopt your ancestor’s persona. In other words, pretend that you are your multi-great grandparent. Then I want you to write a letter or a diary entry or some kind of day-in-the-life narrative that will reflect your ancestor’s life and times. We’ll read your papers aloud and discuss them in class.”

  Twenty pairs of eyes stared at Rayna in horrified silence. A moment later, a buzz of uncertain comments and questions began building into a roar of indistinguishable voices.

  “When’s it due?” Emilio’s plaintive cry rose above the din. Somehow, he managed to make the question sound almost like a prayer for mercy.

  “I want you to give this a lot of thought. How about four weeks from today? That ought to give you enough time.”

  Another roar from the class.

  “I’m not even sure I can find out who my ancestors from five generations back were!” Emilio complained.

  “Sure you can. You all can. You’re sitting in front of the greatest boon any genealogist has ever known!”

  Rayna patted her computer terminal. “Over the last three decades, every existing paper record in the world has been transferred to the limited-access files of the Consolidated Data Network. So have all microfilm, microfiche and every other type of record. The originals are stored in environmentally controlled warehouses in case of a computer failure, but the data are available to anyone with voiceprint clearance for the information requested. Since all computers these days are automatically hooked into the network, all you have to do is ask the computer for your family tree going back five generations, and Voila! you have it. I’ve done traces on some historical figures for research purposes, and it’s really quite simple.”

  The students looked uncertainly at one another and then at Rayna.

  “Still not convinced? Okay. I’ll show you how to do a genealogy trace right now. That ought to get you started. Let’s go through it step by step.”

  Rayna waited as the students cleared their work areas and activated their terminals.

  “Okay, now. The first thing you do is punch in the CDN program code. That’s G-E-N-T-R-A-C. The program will begin by asking you how many generations you want traced. There. It’s coming up on my terminal now. I’ll put this all on ‘demo’ in case you want to watch what I’m doing before trying it on your own terminals.” Rayna pressed the appropriate keys as her students set their terminals to a “demo-receive” mode.

  “All right. Now I answer the question. Let’s make it a five-generation trace. You can make it longer than that if you wish simply by telling the computer how far back you want it to go.

  “This next prompt asks whether you want to follow natural parentage or adopted family lines. It’s simplest if you start out with a trace on natural lines only. If it turns out there’s an adoption in the family tree, the computer will let you know, and you can request adoption information for that stage of the trace. If you enter ‘adopted’ first, though, you’ll just get the official records as they stand. The computer will ignore the distinction between natural and adoptive lines, and it won’t alert you to adoptions in your family history. That’s because of our privacy laws. Many adoption records used to be completely sealed. Some still are. The only way the government would authorize the GENTRAC program to use the Central Data Network was on condition that traces involving adoptions would require a specific request and voiceprint clearance.

  “Anyway, the next step is to tell the computer who you are. Just type in your name...” Rayna did so as she spoke “...and key in a voiceprint test. Then state your name—slowly and clearly—into the ID mike.”

  Rayna removed a small microphone from the clip that held it unobtrusively against the right side of the computer’s keyboard.

  “Rayna Joanne Kingman,” she stated carefully.

  “Now all you have to do is press the ‘run’ key,” she said, looking up and smiling at the class as they watched their terminals with intense interest.

  “Hey, Miss Kingman, if this is so doggone easy, why isn’t anything happening?” Rick taunted.

  “Huh?” Rayna returned her attention to her own terminal and stared in surprise. Her name was displayed on the screen in blinking capital letters. She must have made a mistake in initiating the program. Unless something was wrong with the terminal. But she’d used the terminal earlier in the day, and it had worked correctly. Furthermore, she had done a trace on John Martin Roberts just last week as part of her research for a new paper she was preparing on major political figures of the late 20th century. That, too, had run flawlessly. No, it must have been user error. But how could...? She cut off the unsettling thought and tried to ignore an insistent flutter in her stomach.

  “Well, I never said I was perfect,” she said, grinning sheepishly. “Even teachers are capable of hitting the wrong key sometimes. Linda, why don’t you try to do a trace, and I’ll monitor it as you go. Do you remember the steps?”

  Linda nodded and began punching the appropriate keys—and receiving the appropriate responses—each step of the way.

  “Now I do the voiceprint test?” Linda asked.

  The student’s voice interrupted Rayna’s apprehensive reflection.

  “Hmmmm? Oh! Yes. Very good, Linda. Now just press the ‘run’ key. That’s it.”

  In a sudden burst of activity, Linda’s terminal screen filled with moving lists of names linked by lines indicating family relationships.

  “I think I need a hard copy,” Linda said.

  “Yes. Sure. That’s fine,” Rayna said abstractedly. “You know how to do that.”

  Rayna forced her attention back to the class.

  “You all know the process now. It’s just five minutes till the end of school. You may as well go home now. You might want to get started while the technique is still fresh in your minds. You should be able to run GENTRAC on any home terminal.”

  Twenty young bodies eagerly made their way out the classroom doors to the school’s Trans-Mat pods. There, they would re-form into smaller groups of friends and head for the Trans-Mat centers nearest each of their destinations.

  Silence settled on the classroom like a cloud as Rayna anxiously turned back to her terminal and ran through the procedure for the GENTRAC trace once more. Same result: Her name blinked at her mockingly. Her heart hammered out its cadence with a vengeance, and emotion clutched at her throat. The explanation was now clear. She didn’t want to believe it, but it was the only remaining possibility. It would mean that for 35 years, she had been living a lie. It would mean....

  She had to be sure. She pressed a slightly different series of keys, repeated the voiceprint check, and pushed the “run” key.

  Her flashing name didn’t light up the screen, but no mad computer dance ensued, either. Instead, the words below her name read:

  “RECORDS SEALED. TRACE CANNOT BE COMPLETED.”

  Her eyebrows jerked upward in surprise. The rational, problem-solving part of her personality struggled to remain calm despite the vague sense that she was tumbling headlong into an abyss.

  Sealed! It was even worse than she thought. Not only had her parents deceived her, but the sealed records prevented her from getting at the truth.

  Know thyself, she thought bitterly. A piece of ancient wisdom. But how can you know yourself when you don’t even know your name? When you’ve only just found out that you don’t know your name?

  Chapter 4: Who am I?

  She never meant for it to be a confrontation. She’d simply wanted to clear things up. Against all the evidence, she’d still hoped that it was just some computer
foul-up—that Bill and Ann Kingman really hadn’t been lying to her all these years.

  Even if it turned out to be true that she was adopted, she told herself, the Kingmans were still the only parents she’d ever known. They’d shared the ups and downs of her growing years. They’d offered support and love during the tough times when her marriage to Frank was slowly crumbling. Afterward, they’d helped her to overcome the hurt and self-doubt that had settled in Frank’s wake, despite the amicable nature of the divorce. They couldn’t have treated her better. Except for one small item. They had neglected to tell her who she really was.

  “Why does it matter so much?” Bill Kingman had asked. “Whether you were adopted or born to us, you’re still our daughter, and we’re still your parents.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t matter, Dad, if you’d told me the truth years ago.”

  After that, the talk grew increasingly acrimonious. Rayna’s emotions wavered from anger over what she perceived as a breach of trust to fear over losing the love she still felt for the couple she’d always known as Mom and Dad—from a sense of betrayal to a sense of loss. Her pain had the sharp edge of a fine knife, but along with the pain, there was a swirling fog of other feelings that confused and frightened her.

  Now, riding through the city on a hoverbus tour, she found herself replaying parts of that painful conversation in her mind. The tour was a diversion she’d used before when she wanted to think. The movement of the vehicle was somehow soothing, and the guide’s patter gave others on the bus something to think about, thereby reducing chances that a well-meaning stranger might try to intrude on her mental solitude.

  “We couldn’t tell you,” her mother had said, her tone almost begging for understanding. “We couldn’t tell anyone. It was part of the deal. If we told anyone, the adoption agreement would have been cancelled. And we didn’t want to lose you!”