Uncanny Valley

by C. A. Gray

My heart jolted a little, but Liam didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t looking at me, still stirring the tea bag as he spoke. He went on, “Brian was the rebellious wild child, the ‘black sheep,’ if you will. I thought for the longest time that he was just jealous of me, and since he didn’t think he could compete, he decided to go to the other extreme instead.” Liam gave a hollow laugh. “Brian of course thought General Specs had made a deal with the devil, producing so many of the robots that put everyone else out of work. He and Dad fought about it all the time—I mean, screaming matches every time they were together. It was horrible.”

  “But you were actually working for General Specs?” I clarified. “You built and programmed robots?”

  “It was worse than that,” Liam said with a bitter smile. “I was Head of Operations. At twenty.” Sighing again, he said, “Eventually Dad and Brian had a complete rift. They didn’t speak to each other for about six months, and I didn’t see Brian for most of that time either. It turned out, he’d joined the Renegades before I did, though I didn’t know that until much later.” He took a sip of his tea and looked up at me briefly before looking back down at his cup again, like he couldn’t bear to hold my gaze.

  “Brian vanished five years ago.”

  He said it with finality, like that was the end of the story.

  I blinked. A year after my father. “Vanished?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, poof. All traces of him, gone. The best hackers and private detectives and even research robots in the world could find neither hide nor hair of him. The trail ended in San Jose, so once I realized that something was wrong, I came looking.”

  “And you found the Renegades yourself,” I finished.

  Liam nodded. “I also found out Brian had been right all along.”

  “That’s when you started your locus,” I guessed.

  He nodded again.

  “What did you tell your father?”

  “All of it,” Liam pursed his lips, looking around the room as if he’d gone back in time. “What I knew, anyway. I told him about the level of unrest among the people we’d put out of work, and the fact that the media purposely didn’t report that there even was another side to the progress our company had helped to achieve. They didn’t want that information out there, for some reason. The fact that I met so many other members of the Renegades who were apparently unharmed suggested to me that my brother had made himself dangerous somehow. He knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. I was determined to find out what it was.

  “My father didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to deal with the implication of his guilt. I think he felt betrayed by me. He fired me and I quit in the same fight, so I’m not sure who actually got the last word there.”

  “That’s when you went back for your Ph.D,” I concluded. I hated how Liam wore that smile as he told the story, like a mask to hide the pain.

  He nodded, turning up the brightness a notch, and joked, “Might as well use my powers for good and not for evil!”

  I looked down at my cup. “Have you spoken to your father since?”

  Liam shrugged. “Christmases, birthdays… we try. It’s not the same, but I’m the only son he has left.”

  I wanted to do something to comfort him, but considering our earlier conversation, I dared not reach out physically. So I just said, “I’m so sorry, Liam.”

  “So you see,” he concluded as if he hadn’t heard me, still wearing that tight smile, “it’s personal for both of us.”

  Chapter 17

  It was almost midnight when Liam and I finished talking, and we only stopped then because I could hardly keep my eyes open. After the revelations about Andy on my side, and his brother Brian on his, somehow the floodgates just opened. We swapped childhood stories. Liam told me about old girlfriends and adventures he’d been on. I told him all about my favorite memories with my friends from back home, and about my parents when I was growing up. It was as if we’d burst through a barrier of some kind—previously, there was a layer of awkwardness and formality between us that was just gone now. He knew my secrets, and I knew his.

  Well. Almost.

  After my third yawn in two minutes, Liam stood up. “All right, I’m calling it,” he announced, and made like he was going to hoist me to my feet by my elbows when Larissa stumbled in the sliding hotel doors, humming to herself. Liam raised his eyebrows at me with his lips pursed in a suppressed smile.

  “Have a good night?” he called to her.

  She hadn’t seen us, but she looked up when she found that she wasn’t alone. Her face broke into a grin.

  “Yes!” she staggered toward us, declaring, “Francis is sooo delicious.”

  I couldn’t suppress a giggle, and Liam laughed out loud too.

  “I’ve heard a lot of colorful language used to describe Francis before, but I’m pretty sure that’s a first.”

  “Maybe I should help you up to your room,” I offered, noticing how unsteady she was on her feet. I slipped an arm under her elbow, with an amused glance back at Liam.

  “Good night,” Liam mouthed at me with a wave, grinning.

  Larissa prattled all about Francis, and how attentive he was to her—but even with her imagination, I wasn’t sure how she’d interpreted Francis’s behavior as attentive. From what I’d seen before Liam and I had left, Francis would have been perfectly happy to sit aloof from the others with his drink, amusing himself with his inappropriate deductions about every passerby… but Larissa was persistent. He’d taken as little notice of her as if she’d been a gnat at first—having already laid bare the secrets of her soul, presumably he found her dull now. But she had very little competition for his attentions (shocking, I thought), and as the hours passed, according to her, she’d worn him down. He’d even given her a compliment—“He said if I did my hair differently and wore different clothes and changed my makeup, I might even be pretty!”

  I made a little choking sound to stop myself from commenting on this. “Oh! Um. That’s—” I couldn’t think of any way to finish that sentence. “You don’t think he might be a little…”

  “Socially awkward?” she piped without reservation, and shrugged. “Sure, but… what programmer isn’t? I certainly am. And I’ve never seen a mind like his before… it’s so sexy!” She giggled.

  I guffawed once, involuntarily.

  “And you and Liam, huh?” she said loudly, gesturing behind us. “About time!” Fortunately we were already to the elevators, so I hoped he didn’t overhear.

  “Shh!” I hissed instinctively, feeling my cheeks redden for the hundredth time that night. “It’s not like that. We were just talking.”

  “I know Francis says you’re not into him, or at least you think you’re not,” she waved me off. “But even everybody in the lab can see the way he looks at you.”

  I opened my mouth, and closed it again, caught off guard by this. I’d only admitted Liam’s feelings to myself earlier that evening… it never occurred to me that everyone else had already known. “Really?”

  “Oh. So obvious. Francis thinks so too,” she declared dramatically. “And like Nilesh said, what woman’s gonna resist Liam? When you two went off on this little adventure together, we all took bets in the lab on how long it would take you to hook up!”

  “What?” I gasped, mortified.

  But she went on as if she hadn’t heard me, “Nilesh guessed within the week, but I said no way. You’re such an uptight perfectionist, it’ll take Liam at least a month to loosen you up.”

  The elevator door opened, and I guided Larissa to her room without speaking for a minute, trying to identify the emotion I felt. Finally I decided it was indignation.

  “‘Uptight perfectionist’?” I echoed, unable to keep the affront from my tone.

  “Of course! You’re Little Miss Pleaser, soooo ‘by the book’!” Larissa burst out with a giggle, totally missing my offense. “That’s what Francis said, anyway. He says
you need someone like Liam to lighten you up, if only you knew it!”

  “Well, you can tell Francis to mind his own business!” I snapped, as we stopped in front of her door. “Liam and I are just friends, and that’s all we’re going to be. You and Nilesh both lose. Thumb here.” I grabbed her hand and thrust her thumb at the scanner, and the door clicked open.

  “Then you’re an idiot,” Larissa informed me, in a singsong voice. Then she waggled her fingers at me. “Good night!”

  When her door clicked shut, I shuddered and let out a whisper-grunt of disgust before heading up to my own room.

  “How was it?” Madeline asked when I got back to my room, perky as ever.

  “Shh!” I told her, wincing at the shrillness of her voice. I was already moving into that space between waking and dreams, half asleep on my feet. “It was… interesting.” I slipped out of my shoes, shrugged out of my light jacket and changed into pajamas as I told her that Liam and I had left the others and had been downstairs talking for the last several hours.

  “He told me what happened to his brother,” I informed Madeline.

  Her digital eyes widened. “What did happen to his brother?”

  “His dad is the CEO of General Specs, believe it or not. Liam used to be the Head of Operations there himself—he actually built and programmed robots for a living, and he would have taken over as CEO if his brother hadn’t found the Renegades and disappeared five years ago!”

  Madeline took this in with less shock than I had. “Poor Liam,” she murmured. “But—disappeared? Like the way Randall Loomis did?”

  “I guess,” I shrugged, brushing my hair as I sat down on the bed. “But nobody else disappeared in the Renegades, at least not that we know of—just them. I’m pretty sure that his brother must have discovered something, and it must have been the same thing my father and his friends knew too. And probably Loomis. But if all these years in the Renegades haven’t helped Liam discover their secret, I don’t see how I can either…”

  Suddenly I felt the mattress vibrate: my handheld, still inside the pocket of my discarded jacket, alerted me to a comm. I pulled it out.

  “You must go back to Dublin with your colleagues tomorrow, and resume your normal life,” it read. “Leave the Renegades behind, Rebecca.”

  It was anonymous.

  “What?” Madeline rolled up to the edge of the bed, seeing my expression.

  I wrote back, “Why should I go back? What would happen if I stay?” But when I tried to send it, the screen read, “Message failed.”

  “Arrgh!” I said aloud, and Madeline wheeled against the bed frame, since she couldn’t come any closer.

  “What? What?” she demanded.

  “John Doe! Loomis, whoever!” I tossed the handheld away from me in disgust. “He’s got no intention of telling me the secret that my dad died for and Liam’s brother disappeared for. All he wants to do is warn me away!”

  After a pause, Madeline ventured, “Do you think he made some kind of a promise to your dad to keep you safe?”

  I looked up—this hadn’t occurred to me, actually, but it should have. It didn’t matter though. I wouldn’t rest until I knew the secret, and I knew Liam wouldn’t either. Not when we were this close.

  “I wonder if I should tell Liam about John Doe after all,” I mused.

  “But John Doe told you not to, for Liam’s own good!”

  “I know, and before, I didn’t feel like I had to,” I agreed, “but that was before tonight. Now he’s suddenly confiding in me, and he thinks I’m confiding in him too… and I was, about everything else…” I sighed. “An omission this large feels like a betrayal of trust somehow.”

  “Did you even tell him about Andy?” Madeline gasped.

  I had to laugh—that shocked her, yet nothing else I’d said so far had. “I did.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he thinks Andy is… wussy.” I bit my lip, trying not to be amused at Andy’s expense, even though it was kind of amusing. “Basically he says he thinks I can do better.”

  “Everybody thinks that,” Madeline said, matter-of-factly. “But you still want him to break up with Yolanda so he can come back to you anyway.”

  “I do,” I admitted. “Even though I don’t think ‘break up’ is the right word because at least according to Ivan, they’re not officially together.”

  As I swung my legs around and stuffed them under the sheets, Madeline said, “So… are you going to tell Liam then? About John Doe?”

  I flipped the lights off, all except the one right next to my bed. “I don’t know,” I yawned. “Maybe… maybe I’ll tell him I have something to confess, but make him promise to do nothing with the information before I say anything.”

  “You think he’ll go for that?” Madeline asked, skeptical.

  I shrugged, leaning over the edge of the bed to grab the plug for Madeline, and inserting it into the back of her neck. Her eyes brightened just a bit with the initial surge of power. “That’s what I did before I told him about you.”

  “And he promised?” she asked, surprised.

  I thought for a minute, remembering Liam’s mocking, “Cross my heart and hope to die!”

  “Well,” I amended, “He sarcastically promised. I don’t know if that counts. I’ll make him really promise before telling him about John Doe, though. He’ll give me his word, or I won’t say anything.”

  Chapter 18

  I woke up to a knock at my door the next morning: not syncopated, and a little timid. Not Liam then.

  “Rebecca?” The voice belonged to Dr. Yin.

  “Just a minute!” I gasped my first conscious breath, feeling that my eyes were still bloodshot before I saw them. I rushed around the room, splashing water on my face and tossing my messy auburn hair into a high ponytail before opening the door a crack. Dr. Yin was alone, so I admitted her. “Sorry, I guess I overslept…”

  “Yes, you did, it’s almost nine!” she said, with a hint of reproach. “The Quantum Track leaves at ten fifteen.”

  “Quantum Track?” my eyebrows contracted. “You mean for us to see you off?”

  “No, for you too, I thought. I got a comm that you were to be on board with us,” she frowned.

  “You—” my mind spun, trying to make sense of this. “Who sent it?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, it was anonymous, but—”

  “Why are all these people getting anonymous comms about my life!” I burst out. When I saw the shocked look on Dr. Yin’s face, I flushed. “I’m sorry. That… wasn’t supposed to be out loud.”

  She stopped, peering over my shoulder. “What is that?”

  I felt a stone drop into the pit of my stomach. Madeline. She was still plugged in and charging, but I’d completely forgotten about her when I’d opened the door. It didn’t matter in the Capital so much, but I’d always tried to keep her secret from everyone else in my life.

  “Ah…” I stammered, but my mind went blank.

  “You have a companion bot?” Dr. Yin gaped.

  There was nothing to do but tell the truth now—the evidence was right there. “Please don’t spread that around,” I said meekly. “It’s a long story.”

  “Does Liam know?” She said the words forcefully, like Madeline’s very existence constituted a betrayal.

  “Yes, of course he knows. I told him before we came. They’ve made friends.”

  Dr. Yin gave a short laugh. “Liam made friends with a companion bot?” She shook her head. “Wow. Okay. He must be really fond of you.” She turned to leave before I could reply to this. “Well, we’re having breakfast downstairs. If you don’t need to pack, then join us at your leisure, I suppose.”

  Liam waved me over to their table when he saw me, pulling out a chair beside him. I smiled, a little self-conscious. I wasn’t quite sure how to act around him now, since the dynamic of our relationship had changed so dramatically in the last twenty-four hours.r />
  “I’ve decided to stay, too!” Larissa announced to me brightly as soon as I sat down. I guessed in her mind, our conversation last night had been more bonding than insulting. Well, she admitted she was socially awkward, I thought. She dropped her voice and added, as if I’d asked, “I’m going to help Francis and Liam build the Commune. They’re going to need my help here more than in Dublin!”

  “Although Rebecca will be more use to us in Dublin,” Dr. Yin said to me pointedly. “You’ll have far more resources there for your morality and free will research, don’t you think?”

  Liam sighed, and glanced at me, reluctant. “I think she’s right, Bec. In Dublin you’ll be able to collaborate with the psych and theoretical physics departments, and whoever else you need. We won’t come in the picture on your project until later, anyway. Besides, I’ll rest easier knowing you’re safe.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I wasn’t going anywhere and he wasn’t getting rid of me. But just then, the lights in the hotel dimmed and a track light above a little platform lit up, like a stage at the front of the cafe. Then a holograph appeared: William Halpert.

  “This can’t be good,” murmured Nilesh, as holographic Halpert extended his arms.

  “Greetings, everyone,” he said. “Senate Leader Halpert here, with an update on the challenge I presented to you weeks ago. My team has confirmed a major breakthrough in Amsterdam: robotics engineer and biochemist Kathleen De Vries and her research team appear to have developed synthetic emotion. They have essentially created an analog of the human limbic system, the system responsible for emotion in the human brain, and verified that electrical responses match their predictions based upon crude markers of pleasure, pain, and fear. De Vries’ team is now working closely with General Specs, developing robotic prototypes to prove that this synthetic emotion will, in fact, lead to synthetic creativity.”

  Liam swore, and sank his head into his hands. I put a hand on his back, trying to comfort even though I knew there was nothing I could do. General Specs was his company, or would have been. Despite everything that had happened, it must have felt a bit like a betrayal. And now there was nothing he could do to stop them.