vN: The First Machine Dynasty

by Madeline Ashby

  "Is it OK to just leave him there?"

  Javier rolled his eyes. "I don't think any bears are going to make off with him, if that's what you mean." He nodded at the sandbox. "What are you turning inside out?"

  "The last kid's design. I'm going to put all the houses next to each other, with a park in the middle." She drew a circle in the centre of the box with one finger. "There. And then the houses go here," she dotted the ring around the park, speckling the sand to remind herself where the neighbourhoods would go, "and then there should be some places for people to work, so their commutes are short." She drew Ws in the sand near the homes.

  Javier raised his brows. "I had no idea you had such a kink for urban planning."

  Amy started building her first house. "I just wanted to make it better than it was," she said. "The old way, everyone would be on the road all the time. But this way, people get home earlier to do fun stuff."

  Javier smiled. "Wow. You really can't wait to go home, can you?"

  Amy's hands hovered motionless over the houses she'd just imagined. To her horror, her eyes filled with tears. She had the strangest sense that if she moved a single inch, if she so much as made a sound, the tears would overwhelm her. So she remained perfectly still and silent. She stayed this way, frozen and quiet, until Javier gently turned her face toward his with a finger. Then the spell was broken, and she blinked and the tears rolled down, and she turned away again.

  "Wow," he repeated. "Just, uh… Damn. You cry just like a real girl."

  Her indignation put an immediate hold on her tears. "I am a real girl."

  "No, no, I mean – it's emergent. Not a plug-in. Nobody told you to start crying."

  She blinked wetly. "Why would someone tell me to start crying?"

  Javier shrugged. "I don't know. Why do humans do anything they do?" He stood up quickly and made for the trees bordering the playground.

  Amy stared after him for a moment. Then she scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand and focused again on her sculpture. It looked so ugly, now. Her first house closely resembled a pile of dog crap on the sidewalk. She moved to wipe it away.

  "No, don't." Javier reappeared behind her. He dumped two fistfuls of twigs and pine cones and dead pine needles in the centre of the sandbox, where she'd marked out the park.

  "What are you doing?" Amy asked.

  "My job." Javier picked up one pinecone with his good hand and screwed it into the sand until it stood upright. "Planting trees."

  Amy smiled. She blinked the rest of her tears back. "Thank you," she said. "I was just thinking that there was something missing."

  "You don't say." Javier jammed a twig into the sand in front of her little house.

  Amy nodded. "You can be my landscape architect."

  "You can't afford me." He sucked his teeth and shook his head. "You gringos. Always trying to make us into your gardeners."

  Amy's jaw dropped. "That's not true at all! I didn't–"

  "Make with the condos, lady, before I let the kudzu run wild all over this thing."

  "OK, OK, I'm building!" She paused. "What's a kudzu?"

  Javier shook his head again, more softly this time. "Hopeless. You're completely hopeless." But he kept planting.

  In the end, their city blossomed in fits and starts, and they talked about where to put things, and whether sidewalks were implied or not (Javier maintained that she should draw separate lines to indicate them, whereas she thought that any self-respecting city would have them already), and if decorative fountains were too wasteful. But when they finished, it looked real and lived-in, and not like a school project. Amy sat on her knees admiring it as Javier stood and stretched.

  "I feel like I should be tired, but I'm not," she said.

  "Of course you're not." Javier pointed to a broad band of pink in the eastern sky. "Sun's rising."

  Amy stood up. "Does it really make that much of a difference?"

  "Definitely," Javier said. "If it weren't so damn cold, we could go up to the Arctic and stay awake for months."

  Amy tried to imagine living up there amid all the snow. "I think I prefer sleeping."

  Javier nodded. "Me too. Let's go back to bed."

  "You mean the back of the car?"

  "No, I mean the darling little B and B I booked us into. Of course I mean the back of the car." He began crossing the playground, then walked backwards to face her. "Haven't you ever slept in the back of a car before?"

  Amy jogged up to meet him. "Not for a whole night."

  "Well, that wasn't a whole night, either, so it doesn't count."

  "It does too. I fully intended to sleep there the whole night."

  "So why'd you leave?"

  Amy stopped short. She looked at Javier. He folded his arms and raised his chin. "I just couldn't sleep," she said.

  Liar.

  "Why'd you come find me?" Amy asked before Granny could say anything further.

  "I couldn't sleep, either." Javier turned and continued walking. "You defrag to wake the dead. All those little twitches and moans."

  "I was not moaning."

  "Oh, so now my voice detection is off, huh? Just all of a sudden since I met you."

  "Maybe it's been off all along, and nobody's ever told you."

  "Trust me, I know a m–" He stopped short, and she bumped into him. He stood in a stream of sunlight trickling between the trees, eyes shut, letting the brightness wash over his face. Then his eyes opened, and he smiled down at Amy. "Your turn."

  He stepped aside, and ushered her into the light. It hit Amy like a wave, like the first time she'd ever visited the ocean and been knocked down by the tide. She even started a little and Javier's fingers landed on her shoulders to steady her. She'd had no idea just how cold she'd been until that first morning light flooded her face. Her lips burned with it. She turned her head just to get more, to feel it on her ears and down her neck and across her collarbone. When she opened her eyes, Javier was staring.

  "What's wrong?" Amy asked.

  "Nothing," Javier said. "Absolutely nothing."

  Later that morning, it was Amy's turn to wake up and find Javier gone. Not that she'd really slept very much; the sun streaming through the windows kept her right on the cusp of sleep without actually granting her the unconsciousness she needed. But even if she weren't photosynthetic, Amy doubted she could have gotten back to sleep. She'd faced away from Javier when they crawled back into the car (he watched her get in ahead of him, and for a moment she panicked, thinking that she would put a hand or foot wrong and accidentally hurt Junior, until Javier cleared his throat and she hurried under the blanket), but for the longest time, she sensed a pair of eyes watching the back of her neck as the interior of the vehicle warmed and brightened.

  They couldn't have gone far, so she set out to look. More people walked along the path now that the sun was fully out. Some of them had even finished breakfast, already; she saw dogs licking dishes clean and humans folding up solar grills. Babies cried. Kids whined about boredom. Amy wondered how long Junior had before he became one of them. Did Javier take his sons to places like this often? Did they go hiking or photographing or birding or whatever else it was that these people – these normal people, organic and synthetic both, these non-fugitives – came here intending to do?

  "Hey! Looks like you lost that game of King of the Mountain, huh?"

  Amy blinked. Melissa stood before her, carrying a caddy of dishes. She looked Amy up and down. Belatedly, Amy realized she probably did look worse for wear: the combination of goo and sap had been washed away by the rain from her skin but not her clothes or hair, and last night's epic sandbox construction probably hadn't helped, either.

  "Well," Amy said, "you did say the showers were out, right?"

  Melissa laughed. "You want to try it out? Your boyfriend would probably appreciate it."

  "What? Oh. Yeah." Amy nodded. She examined the dirt under her nails. "I guess you're right."

  Melissa led the way. "And I have an
enzymatic spray for those clothes, too! You'll be looking like your old self again in no time!"

  Amy rather doubted that, but she followed anyway.

  After far too much time spent in tall trees and crashed cars, the hot water was wonderful. This was also Amy's first chance to really look at her new grown-up body – at least as much as the tiny closet-sized bathroom would allow. She still didn't really like the knobby look of her longer fingers and toes, and the breasts were just plain weird. They seemed like they might snag on things. When she bounced on her toes, they didn't jiggle like the ones on her game skins. It was a little disappointing. And why did vN women have breasts, anyway? At least on organic people they served some purpose.

  They serve a purpose for us, too.

  Amy ignored her granny and continued washing her hair. When she found her mom again, they'd have to get different haircuts. Otherwise strangers might think they were the same person. Would her dad be able to tell them apart? Of course he would. Amy would have different clothes, and different hair, and she would like different things. Dad would notice this.

  Do you really think they'll let you see him again? Granny asked.

  "It's all just been one big misunderstanding," Amy muttered as she scrubbed her feet. They were positively filthy.

  No, it hasn't. They have every right to hunt you down.

  "I didn't do anything wrong."

  It's not about you.

  Outside, Amy heard doors slamming and raised voices. Were Rick and Melissa having a fight? Maybe it was best to just get out of her hosts' way. Amy shut off the water. She had probably used too much of it already. Squeezing her way out of the shower – wow, she was right, breasts were stupidly inefficient – she grabbed a towel and squeezed out her hair before scrubbing herself dry.

  "I'm done! May I have my clothes back, please?"

  She heard only thumping, and a sound of metal.

  I don't like this, Granny said.

  Amy pulled open the bathroom door. On the other side was Melissa, and she held a gun. It was large and absurd in her hands, but her eyes promised business. "You know, for a girl who just got out of kindergarten, you sure talk to strangers a lot." She made a come here motion. "Don't make me melt you. I'll lose the bounty."

  Amy stumbled back, clinging to her towel as though it could somehow help. "But…"

  "Sorry, kid," Rick said, pushing the door open the rest of the way and grabbing her still-damp elbow. "You seem nice and all, but a man's gotta eat."

  He crowded Amy into what she'd previously assumed was the RV's sleeping cabin, but was in fact populated by two big steel crates like the ones for housetraining dogs. One yawned open emptily. The other one contained Javier and Junior. Javier sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor with his son in his arms. Upon seeing Amy, his eyes burned.

  "What's going on, here?"

  "Cool it, Tin Man." Rick pushed Amy into the crate and locked the door. He reached over and flicked a switch embedded in the faux-pine panelling. An audible hum filled the air. "Watch the fence, OK? We lose the bounty if you're corrupted."

  Amy glanced over at Javier and Junior. "Please let them go. They haven't done anyth–"

  "Your friend here is guilty of armed robbery as of last night," Rick said.

  "But the baby–"

  "The baby will be taken care of," Melissa said. She crossed her arms. "It's not as though he really spends a lot of time with them anyway, is it?" She glanced into Javier's cage. "I know your M.O. You're not exactly Father of the Year."

  Javier smiled. "Still more fertile than you."

  "Watch it," Rick said.

  But Javier was showing teeth. "How old are you? Thirties? You look like it. You know your eggs are rotting inside you, right? Just sitting there, going past their expiration date. By the time the two of you scrape together enough cash to afford a kid, you'll probably crap out something defective–"

  "Hey!" Rick lunged for the cage. A spark shot between it and his hand; he gasped and cradled the hand against himself.

  "Stings, huh?" Javier asked.

  "Stop. Don't make this any worse." Amy hugged herself. "May I please have my clothes?"

  "No," Rick said.

  "Rick, come on."

  "No, Melissa. We are not playing dress-up with the dolly. OK? She creeps me the fuck out."

  In the cage beside her, Javier was wrestling with his shirt. He pulled it off and started stuffing it between the links in the fence. The smell of scorching cotton rose inside the room. She was just about to thank Javier when Rick said: "I'd watch out if I were you, buddy. She's a zombie."

  Javier paused. "What?"

  "Cannibal. Ate her own grandmother."

  Javier frowned at Amy. "Is that true?"

  "All the graphene. All the memory. Every last drop," Rick said.

  Amy blinked. "She… she was fighting with my mom…"

  Rick snorted. "Tell him the whole story, Amy. Tell him about the boy your grandmother killed."

  "She was hurting people," Amy said, hearing desperation climb into her voice.

  "You hear that, Javier?" Rick bent down at the waist and got nose-to-nose with the cages. "She was hurting people."

  Javier lifted his chin. "You're lying. The failsafe–"

  "Failed," Rick said. "Amy's grandmother killed a kindergartener. And then Amy ate her all up." He grinned at Amy. "You been hearing voices, kiddo? Feel like your skull's a little more cramped than usual?"

  Amy backed up against the wall. She tried holding the towel closed, as though his seeing her naked still mattered somehow. But she didn't answer. Couldn't answer.

  "Is he for real, Amy?" Javier asked. "Did you eat her?"

  All of me, Granny said. Every last little bone and tooth.

  Amy clutched her head. "Shut up," she whispered. "Shut up, get out, leave me alone…"

  "There's your answer." Rick looked over at Javier. "What happened to your thumb, buddy?"

  Javier closed his eyes. "Chingadera."

  "You know how she works, now, right? Her OS just opens up for any old code that wanders in," Rick said. "Her skin's already a little darker. Maybe her little ankle-biters would have had your eyes, too."

  I would have warned you about how this worked. But you were busy biting out my throat.

  "I'm sorry." Amy covered her face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

  Javier muttered something in Spanish. He pulled his shirt back. "I wondered what you were really in for. I thought…"

  "You thought it was all some big mistake, right?" Rick folded his arms. "You thought anything so sweet and cute couldn't possibly be that bad." Grinning, he shook his head. "Sucker."

  Javier looked away.

  Amy sat up on her knees. "It's not like that! I didn't mean to lie, I just thought…" She swallowed. "I just thought you wouldn't be my friend if I told you what I'd done."

  Javier's face whipped around. "You were right! I wouldn't have!" He curled his arms around Junior's little body and turned his back to her. "I'm lucky you didn't eat my kid."

  "Take me away," Amy said after a moment. "I don't want to hurt anybody else."

  You're giving in? You don't care what happens to you?

  "I don't care what happens to me," Amy said.

  You won't mind this, then. I'll even let you watch.

  Cold rippled across her skin and stiffened her limbs. It frosted her resolve. She felt herself standing up. She felt the towel sliding down. Rick backed away.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Leaving," said a thing with Amy's voice. Granny.

  "I prefer to be called Portia," Granny said with Amy's mouth.

  Rick paled. "Oh, shit–"

  Amy's hands – Portia's hands, now – shot out, towel closed tightly around each fist, and gripped the fencing. Discomfort sizzled up her arms; she ignored it. The charge was useful; the amount she absorbed hardened the gel in her limbs, transforming her body from something soft into something lethal. She pulled at the fence. The metal scree
ched backward, sparking, as she yanked it down. She tossed it behind her and stepped through the smoking hole of frayed wire.

  Rick and Melissa reached for their guns. But the small space worked against them, trapping them well within the reach of her arms and legs. With a flick of the wrist, Portia twisted the towel into a whip and cracked it across Melissa's eyes. She kicked Rick solidly between the legs. He fell to his knees. She aimed for his head, next. It snapped backward. His teeth skimmed across her bare toes. Melissa charged Portia and she reached out, grabbed her wrist, slammed her against the live wires of the cage. Melissa's body stiffened. She twitched, teeth clenched together in a rictus of pain that had no impact, whatsoever, on anything in either Portia or Amy's consciousness.