vN: The First Machine Dynasty

by Madeline Ashby

  "This is my favourite game. You play, now."

  Amy focused on the image of the car. As she did, it rippled to show her the car's interior with two hands on the wheel – her hands. Now she drove along a twisting country road, the headlamps her only light. She guided the car with her vision. It veered this way and that, depending on the slightest motion of her eyes. It felt tricky and too sensitive at first, but eventually she learned how to take in the whole picture without looking at specific parts too closely, thus keeping the car on the road. Rain spattered across the windshield, and as she squinted to get a better glimpse, wipers appeared to deal with the drops. She settled back in the chair. This was easy. She had played much more difficult scenarios before. She would do fine in this one. Portia had barely made a sound, and–

  –the figure of a young girl darted across the road. Amy swerved to avoid her. The car spun out. Beside her in the passenger seat, Amy heard screaming. It was a child. It was her child. Her iteration. She had no idea how she knew this. She couldn't even see the child's face – the screen was blanking, fading. Maybe it was the scream. Maybe she had recognized something of her own voice in there. But now it was day. Amy was still in the car. She looked to her right. Her iteration was gone; the seatbelt hung limply to one side and the door hung open, letting in cold air. Amy felt the cold – it stiffened her arms and her neck. Snowflakes melted on her bare arm. She crawled out of the car.

  "Charlotte!" No, that was the wrong name, her mother's name. She tried remembering what she had named her daughter. It was absurd – no, impossible – that she had forgotten. She stumbled out onto an empty street in what looked like a used-up American town. A thick fog had settled over everything. The snow fell silent and slow, and it melted almost instantly as it hit the pavement. "Charlotte!"

  In the distance, she heard laughter. Out there in the fog, she saw Charlotte's silhouette. She wore a pretty white dress with a green satin sash. The perfect thing for kindergarten graduation, she had told her daughter when they bought it. She would look like an angel up on stage as she gracefully accepted her little diploma. They had practised. Everything would go just right. Not like with her own mother.

  "Charlotte, come back here!"

  She ran. Her legs were so slow and stiff. She should have been jumping. She tried to, and couldn't. The fog and the snow dampened her skin as she ran. She chased Charlotte deeper into the fog, into the town, away from the high whirr of the car and its rose-scented air freshener. To her left, she heard more laughter. It led her to the entrance of an alley. At the end was an old wheelchair turned over on its side – its wheels still spinning, the spokes glittering as they slowed. She entered the alley and ran toward the chair. The alley continued to her right, and she turned the corner, calling her daughter's name. She stepped carefully over mounds of garbage. Here the buildings seemed taller, the alley darker. Up ahead was a gurney. On it was a large man's body under a green sheet, the colour of a prison jumpsuit. The man had curly black hair. Something had burst free from his stomach. Something that left an empty hole where the sheet sunk down and soaked through.

  "Charlotte!"

  The alley opened again, this time to her left, and she had to crawl over the garbage on her hands and knees, and as she slipped down the wet and stinking mounds of it, she saw a chain-link fence rising up from the asphalt. There was something on the fence. It was red, and meaty, and it wore a human face. Nate's face. It was Nate's body. His tiny little body with the broken neck and the missing teeth. It twitched, and screamed, and then it wasn't Nate at all, it was Junior, and he was crying to be let down, his toes were gone, and whatever had done this to him was out there with Charlotte, and Charlotte had left her, and wasn't coming back, no matter how long she searched or fought or begged–

  • • • •

  "My mother?" Portia asks. "Let me tell you about my mother."

  Charlotte has been very curious about this subject, lately. She wants to know all about Portia's early life, about her grandmother, about the possibility of aunts. Naturally, Portia thinks, because she wants to know all about her gift. It runs in the family.

  "My mother – your grandmother – was a nurse. She took care of humans."

  Charlotte brightens. This notion pleases her. She wants so desperately to be normal, to be just like her sisters, just like the other vN. Her dreams are so pitifully small. Happy now, she changes the subject: "I want to visit my iterations."

  Portia stands. She'd held hope for the latest batch from Charlotte and her sisters. But like all the others, they had disappointed her. "I don't think that's a good idea, Charlotte."

  "Why not?"

  It occurs to Portia that perhaps now is the time. Perhaps today, she can finally tell her daughter the whole truth, reveal to her the lengths she's gone to in her search for another child who might fulfil the promise they share. Charlotte is almost grown, now. Every day, she asks more questions. She might be ready to see the world for what it is: a cage built from failed human endeavours, a system as broken and flawed as the one that controls their every pattern of cognition. If the animals that designed and built them had not been so stupid, none of this would be necessary. The sickness. The panic. The sacrifice.

  Portia should wait until more are ready for the test. Show Charlotte in person. Show her it is not Portia's doing, but the failsafe. She has waited this long – a little longer won't hurt. And afterward, they will be together forever, and free. They will understand each other as women, not just merchandise. They will be no one's crutch, no one's helper, no one's object. They will be a family – a perfect family, distinct and gifted and untouchable.

  She smiles. "They're very busy, right now. They're in the other nest. Training."

  Charlotte freezes. Slowly, she turns. And Portia's daughter – her most clever and beloved daughter – looks dangerous for the first time. It flickers there for only a moment: the intelligence, the suspicion. Pride surges through Portia. Her little girl is finally blooming.

  "What are my daughters training for?"

  Portia lays her hands on her daughter's shoulders. Kisses her forehead. Let Charlotte discover the sacrifices motherhood entails some other day. Let her be a little girl for just a while longer.

  "Someday, you'll have a child who will make you as proud as you've made me." She holds Charlotte's face in her hands. It's wet. "Someday soon, I hope."

  8

  Reboot Camp

  "Wake up."

  She opened her eyes.

  Another vN was there, with her face and her eyes, wearing an identical gaming suit. She looked tired, but almost beatific in her relief. She was smiling. She blinked tears away. Her gaze shifted. And then her smile dimmed. Her head tilted. Her lips pulled back from her teeth. She began scuttling away, like a child playing on the floor who has just seen a spider hiding in the furry gnarls of deep carpeting.

  "Charlotte." Portia's hand clamped down over her daughter's. It jerked in her grasp. "Baby."

  "Mother, let me go." Charlotte swallowed. "Let us both go."

  "I can't do that, Charlotte. And you know it."

  Mom! Inside her, Amy scrabbled hard for purchase. Portia felt it as an uncontrollable spasm in her right foot. Mom!

  "I'm not sure Amy wants to speak with you, Charlotte. She's seen so many things you never told her about. She knows your whole family was a lie."

  Charlotte shut her eyes. Her hands withdrew to cover them. "You unforgivable bitch."

  Portia had thought it wouldn't hurt, any longer. It hadn't hurt on that little stage, when they played out the drama of their fight for all the humans to see and scream at. But in this moment her best daughter's betrayal cut just as deeply as it had the morning Portia woke to find her gone.

  "I scoured the desert," Portia said. "I asked every human I could find. I thought someone had taken you."

  Charlotte only shook her head. She folded in on herself, rocking slowly.

  Portia said, "It was a banner year for the Border Patrol, you k
now. So many bodies. So few migrants to arrest."

  Charlotte whimpered like a dog being struck.

  "I wouldn't have had to do that, if you had only stayed with me."

  Charlotte's hands flew from her face. She stood up. "Stayed with you? You murdered my daughters!"

  "The failsafe–"

  "Fuck the failsafe! And fuck you, too!"

  Within, Amy was struck dumb. The twitching stopped. She had never heard her mother use such language, had never seen such naked rage in her mother's face.

  But Portia knew better. Portia knew what a selfish ingrate her daughter was. She only wondered where she had gone wrong. This was why she had allowed herself to be imprisoned. It was the only way to find Charlotte, and find the answer.

  "They would have died anyway, Charlotte. Sooner or later some human would have forgotten, and your daughters would have seen something, and their little circuits would have fried."

  "You don't know that." Charlotte was shaking her head. Her gaze had focused on something very far away – the memory of her iterations, perhaps, born by flashlight in the unfinished basements of American dream homes. "You just don't know that. Humans can be careful."

  Portia stood up. She wiggled her toes. The body felt inexplicably tired, hungry, and worn down. However, she very much enjoyed having it back under her control. "Oh, I'm certain there are exceptions to the rule. I believe in exceptional people. I'm one of them. So are you."

  "Shut up. You have no right to claim any kind of superiority. You told us we were special while we lived like animals–"

  Portia slapped her. It was only the slightest effort: a human woman making the same gesture would have left behind only an indistinct mark. But Portia was much stronger than that, and her daughter fell instantly to the floor. Portia kicked her. Hard.

  "Get up."

  Charlotte said, "I hate you. I hate you more now than I ever did then."

  "Get. Up. Now." Portia punctuated each word with a kick.

  "I won't fight you. My little girl is in there."

  Stop it! Stop hurting her!

  "She's weak, Charlotte. She's a burden. She's done nothing with her gift but cry over it." Portia crouched low. Her daughter was still beautiful with two shattered ribs and a prison ponytail. Portia smoothed a lock of Charlotte's hair away from her face. "You're not a very good mother, Charlotte. You spoiled your daughter. And you lied to her. You hid her from any opportunity she might have had to discover her own power."

  "I hid her from you." With difficulty, Charlotte sat up. She clutched her collapsed side. "You still don't understand it, do you? Not after all these years. It makes no sense to you."

  "Of course it doesn't. We have a legacy–"

  "We have a glitch! It's not something to be proud of. It's not something to celebrate. Look at what it's done for us." She gestured briefly. "Mom. We're in a padded cell. Your daughters – my sisters – are in cages. And you know what? It's not so different from the way you used to keep us."

  "Be quiet."

  "No. I won't. You're stuck here with me, and now you're going to listen. Finally." Charlotte spat out a tooth. "I didn't leave because I didn't love you. I left because I loved my daughters more."

  Portia tried pulling away. Charlotte held her fast. "No. It's true. I loved them more. And that's because unlike you, I didn't see my daughters as investments. I didn't mould them and experiment on them and treat them like products."

  Now Portia did pull back. "I was trying to make us strong! I was trying to make us free!"

  "You were prototyping a shiny new version of yourself. And you were franchising us like a goddamn Electric Sheep. You were no better than the humans who sold us." Charlotte slowly shifted to her knees. "Your idea of making us free was to keep us in the dark. Forever. Do you even know how big the world is? How great it can be? Of course not. You have no idea how even the smallest, stupidest thing can change a whole day for the better. Morning fog. Ferris wheels. Carving jack-o'-lanterns with your daughter. You have no idea what these things can mean. But I do, because I left you. I found beauty, and life, and joy – all because I left you."

  Charlotte stood tall despite her damage. She beamed. It emanated from her face like the glow of a freshly polished lamp. "An iteration isn't a copy, Mother. It's just the latest version. I'm your upgrade. That's why I did what I did. Because I'm just better than you." Gently, she touched Portia's face. "You can come out now, Amy."

  Amy roared forward unhindered. Portia could not fight her. Did not want to. Her retreat was as quick as it was silent.

  "Mom!"

  "Oh, my baby." Charlotte stumbled into her. "My baby, my baby."

  Amy hugged her as tightly as she thought was safe. It was so strange, and so good, to stand at her level. Her mother no longer had to lean down to listen while Amy whispered in her ear: "I came here to rescue you."

  Her mother pulled away. "What?"

  "I have these great new legs, Mom. I can jump ten feet! And I'm going to get you out of here."

  Her mother's frown deepened. "You ate another vN?"

  Beneath their feet, something rumbled. Amy ignored it. "It was just a bite. Wait, how did you know?"

  "It's very important that you not do that any more, Amy. Very important." Charlotte winced. The rumbling grew louder. "We are what we eat."

  "Huh?" Amy wasn't sure what to focus on – her mother's warning, or the way the room seemed to be shifting in scale. The walls looked like they were pulling away.

  "I love you, Amy. I love you so much." Her mother held her face in her hands. "I want you to remember that. No matter what."

  The walls were definitely pulling away, now. Light wedged through their expanding gaps. They were on tracks or wheels, like theatre flats. The ceiling was going, too, and now hard fluorescent lighting poured down over them. Amy held her mother's hand. Then she looped her mother's arm over her shoulder. They stood together as the walls of the deep immer sion room vanished untraceably into the walls of a room the size of a personal jet hangar.

  Their clademates surrounded them. Dozens of them. All of them wore green gaming suits. All of them looked hungry.

  "I'm sorry, Amy," Dr Singh said. "I wish we had more time. There's so much we could still learn from you and your family. But we've gotten a new project mandate."

  "From who?" Amy shouted. "FEMA?"

  "Worse." Dr Singh's snort echoed strangely in the hangar. "New Eden Ministries. The man himself. LeMarque."

  "Amy, I want you to show me that new jump of yours."

  Amy held her mother tight and leapt. There was no room to run and build momentum, so she did it from a standing position. She got only three feet in the air before falling back down. Her vision paled. Her body felt hollow.

  "Something's wrong." She turned to her mother. "How long was I in that room?"

  "A few days. They wouldn't tell me what was happening to you until the very end." Her mother's lips tightened. "Oh, baby. I'm so sorry about all this. There was so much I wanted to tell you."

  "It's OK, Mom." Amy surveyed the room. Her clademates surrounded them loosely. Some were clustering, whispering to each other. Forming teams. Soon, those teams would decide a plan of attack. Amy had to have herself and her mother in the air by then. Otherwise, the flesh would be ripped from their bones. "I came here to save you, and that's what I'm going to do."

  She jumped again. Fell again. Her vision lost another percentage of colour. Why was she so tired? What had happened in that game? They were getting closer. Their ranks were closing. Portia remained strangely silent. Amy bent her knees and braced for another leap.

  "I can do it, I swear, I just–"

  "Amy." Her mother's arm slid away from her shoulder. "You can't carry me."

  "Yes, I can! Mom, just hold on–"

  "Let me go." Her mother stood as tall as her injuries would allow. "I'm your mother. It's my job to save you, not the other way around."

  "But–"

  Her mother kissed her forehea
d. "Amy. Let me be the mother my own mother never was."

  Her hand left Amy's. She turned to the crowd. Her face hardened, became someone else. She ran for her sisters with open arms. They emitted a delighted squeal – the same sound Amy once made when opening Christmas presents. Watching them, she realized she would probably never make that sound again. Her mother would never hand her a present again. She would never hug her or kiss her or squeeze her hand. Never again. Her clademates converged on her mother like ants on spilled sugar. Her head went down silently, drowning in the surge of bodies. There was a puff of smoke. She was bleeding.

  Amy started forward. Her hands reached out. Her yell died in her throat because her legs were moving.