by J. S. Morin
There was uneasy shifting among the gathering. The primary and secondary schools at Oxford were jokingly referred to as prisons for the unemancipated. But that flying fortress where Eves 14 through 20 had been taken upon their discovery had been the real thing.
“I don’t want to shoot anyone,” Leslie said, dropping the weapon to the table. Stephen, sitting where it was theoretically aimed, leaned out of the way.
Alex slid the wrist-mounted emitter back toward her. “Then wear it. If you don’t, then someone else might have to use theirs to protect you. Think back to ancient times, when diseases still ran rampant. Vaccines prevented infection, but they only worked to eradicate the disease if everyone who could get them did. Weapons are like a vaccine against violence. You either carry one or you burden the rest of the population with your protection.”
Gerry’s finger aimed at the weapons one by one in rapid succession. He was always quick to draw conclusions. “We’re short one.”
Alex smiled without humor. “My burden is yours to bear. As the spokesman for the movement, violence against me would only help the cause. If I’m seen as combative, it might turn away recruits or turn off voters. I need to be vulnerable, a man of ideas and principle.”
“Sounds like a double-standard,” Wendy said. She locked eyes with Alex from under a furrowed brow, but at the same time, she was fitting her hand through the glove of her wrist-rifle.
Spreading his hands, Alex didn’t see a point in arguing the obvious. “It is. And I apologize if this casts any of you in an unflattering light. But the truth of the matter is, it’s best for me to appear to be the voice of reason. If you’re all unified behind me and appear vaguely menacing—even with no intention of causing harm—the mixed robots will be more likely to deal with me.”
Gerry shook his head as he strapped on his own weapon. “Go figure. I’ve got a brain vat-tinkered to be one in a billion compared to First Human Era, and now I’m the muscle.”
Discontent. Disappointment. Need to recast role.
Alex snorted. “If I had half the brains I always claim, I wouldn’t be the one painting a bull’s-eye on my chest. Whether this movement is successful or not, history says there’s an even chance I won’t see the end of it.”
Leslie came up and put an arm around him. “Alex, if it’s going to be so dangerous, why not just forget this whole business?”
Weakness. Temptation. Emotional manipulation. Seeing it is beating it.
Alex resisted the allure of just accepting the role the committees wished for him.
“Because I will not accept half a life. I will win us the right to realize my, and your, own potential, and I’m willing to die rather than settle for mediocrity.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Abby always got jitters but not like this. It was opening night. Three weeks to put together a play had been a microsecond. It couldn’t be any good. The role of Eve14, the numbered clone who would one day become her mother, would be a demanding one, and Abby didn’t know that she’d rehearsed long enough.
Old acquaintances always liked to remark how much she looked like her mother. It was such a pointless pseudo-compliment. Of course, Abby looked like Eve Fourteen. They were genetically identical. Hairstyles and some worldly wear aside, she looked just like Phoebe, Olivia, Rachel, Sally, Theresa, and Uhura. Even little Jasmine Nineteen, twelve years old and prepping for emancipation testing, would look just like her one day soon.
Tonight, for the first time, Abby was going to make proper use of that resemblance. Her role required little to no makeup. She shaved her head to get into character. Tiny steel studs, fresh from the Protofab, were dotted all along her bare scalp, glue itching as it dried to hold them in place.
Three weeks had been too quick. The script had flowed onto the screen from Abby’s fingers with hardly a comment from her brain. She’d internalized the story so completely that she could imagine her mother’s frantic flight from captivity with her eyes closed.
And so she had.
A week to write. A week to tinker and check her facts. A week to prep the cast and hold rehearsals. Now it was opening night.
Toby22 laid a hand on her back. “It’s going to be fine.” The robot had accepted the offer to play himself on stage. His role was minor enough that she trusted the neophyte actor to acquit himself. It wasn’t as if a robot risked forgetting his lines.
“Define ‘fine,’” Abby said without looking back. She stared at the back of the curtains. On the other side, a scattering of robots would be there, just like her other performances, along with most of her friends—those who weren’t already backstage getting into costume.
Usually her friends made up the bulk of the cast for any of Abby’s productions. A robot here or there would get the acting bug and pitch in, often playing a human role just for lack of actors. But tonight, the only one of her friends to be in the cast was Nigel.
Abby had a weird cognitive dissonance every time she looked Nigel’s way, knowing that he was portraying her father. Times like this were when Abby wished she had a wider circle of actors to call upon. It had been a matter of choosing between him or Billy, and to call Billy unimposing was a criminal understatement. Nigel, while trim and tall with perfect teeth and a movie-star jaw line, at least maintained a physique.
That was where the similarity ended.
Abby had seen her father mad. There was footage. In fact, he was a case study on committee jurisdiction on human issues. Kind, gentle, and slow moving when Abby was growing up, there had been a Plato before there was a Plato Fourteen. Whether Mom had tamed him or whether physical breakdowns merely slowed him, Dad had once been a beast of a man. Quick, powerful, self-assured, he was an act of a vengeful god upon the robots who experimented on humans.
Nigel enjoyed surfing and tanning.
Still, what was acting if not donning a skin and making it your own for a few hours? , Once the curtains fell, no one expected a murderous Macbeth or a traitorous Iago. From rise to fall of that red velvet dimensional portal, audiences believed what they were shown and told.
At least for the robots, Abby had managed to cast by chassis. James151 used the same 68.9 that James187 had. Jocelyn40 had an uprev model from Evelyn11’s 26.9 and had even altered her vocal modulator for the role.
As for Charlie7, Abby had called in every favor she could think of to get an evening of Charlie13’s time. He still used the same Version 64.6 he had when Charlie7 had worn one to match.
“Places,” Rosa called out. She’d been nominated director in Abby’s absence. While Abby had directed from on stage before, she’d never done it in a starring role. “Curtain in two.”
Abby obediently scurried into position. The set was Creator’s laboratory, and Abby’s skin crawled just being on the fictionalized version of the test rig.
When the curtain rose, Abby sat up and brushed a tangle of wires from her head. She burst into song as the opening notes of “This Cozy Little Life” played.
From there, rehearsals and professional pride kicked in. After her ode to the simplistic, structured life that was all she’d known, Abby hustled over to a terminal that posed her a puzzle. The screen was hidden from the audience, but the set was designed such that the glow bathed her face with its light.
Abby then moved to a workout routine that was far easier than anything Mom had dealt with but still conveyed the sense of the daily routine. As the orchestra played a suspenseful tune, the door burst open and Nigel charged in.
The two of them sang a duet, one of those classic pieces where neither party seems to be aware that the other is singing despite playing off one another seamlessly. Nigel’s baritone was wrong for the character, but his singing voice was beautiful.
Actually, the stark differences in voice between Nigel and Plato made it a little easier singing a shy infatuation duet with him. Dad couldn’t even sing, really. He tried, but his untrained bass was like a sack of words beaten against a brick wall.
Scene by scene, Abby rec
ounted her tale, until, at intermission, the lights came down.
In the moment between her eyes adjusting to the darkness and the curtain blocking her view, Abby caught her first proper glimpse of the audience. A chill ran from her toes to teeth. Radio City Music Hall was packed to capacity. Though the replica had fewer seats than the original, that still meant hundreds of robots had been watching.
Thunderous applause rained down as the curtain fell.
“Fifteen minutes,” Rosa announced to the cast in a voice carefully calibrated to be heard by everyone behind the curtain and no one in front of it.
Abby had fifteen minutes to gather her wits. She’d never performed in front of more than a few dozen, and those were her earliest shows when a play-writing human was still a novelty.
Nigel sidled up to her. “Hey, we’re knocking ‘em dead out there. What say we do a little celebrating after the show? You know, still in character…”
“Eww,” Abby said, pushing him away. “You’re playing my dad.”
Nonplussed, Nigel shrugged. “Not biologically.”
She punched him in the shoulder.
“Fine. But keep up the great work out there. And the offer still stands.”
Abby flushed the encounter from her mind. Lips moving, she ran through the words to “In My Three Days of Life,” hoping she could get through the whole of it without crying.
Perhaps sensing the unrest in her star, as any good director should, Rosa called out. “Need a little help?”
Abby turned to see the director in her turtleneck and beret, with high boots even indoors. Rosa was waggling a bottle of whiskey.
Practically leaping for the bottle, Abby gasped. “Yes!”
She pulled the stopper and had the bottle halfway to her lips before pausing. The words to the final song of act one were still stuck in her head.
How much more to this life can there possibly be?
I’m brimming with adventures, and it’s only day threeeee.
Were they just lyrics that fit a rhyme scheme and a generic theme, or had she really meant them? The stopper of the whiskey bottle held tight in her hand, Abby considered the events she’d just portrayed out there onstage.
Abby had never been the adventuress that her mother or father were. She’d played at heroism and imagined distant travels from the manicured lawns of her own back garden. Her parents had raised her, safe and cozy, in a world that didn’t need pioneers anymore.
Or so she’d imagined.
For the first time in her life, Abby was poised at the precipice of real change. The politics in this play were so closely manicured that a careless viewer might mistake it for pure entertainment, perhaps with a touch of recent history for flavor. But make no mistake, this was a shot across Alex Truman’s bow. He was taking on Eve Fourteen, and Abby wasn’t going to stand by and watch it happen from the cheap seats.
Replacing the stopper in the whiskey bottle, Abby took a deep breath and waited for the curtain to rise on act two.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alex sat in the audience, watching the events unfold on stage at Radio City Music Hall. He kept watch, looking for intentional deception in the telling of a story he’d heard as a child from Charlie7’s perspective. Whether that accounting was true or not, Alex would probably never know. But he suspected that his father was genuinely proud of his actions during that harrowing week where the world changed forever; he suspected that most of what he’d learned was truth.
Abbigail Fourteen’s portrayal of her mother was heartfelt and well meaning. Her voice was—like all the Madison Maxwell-Chang clones—flawless. Unlike many of her genetic sisters, she’d actually bothered to learn proper singing technique as well. The lyrics she wrote for the songs wore their message openly, grabbing the heartstrings like reins in the hand of a first-time horseback rider.
Defensive. Clannish. Filial duty. Mildly entertaining.
Alex preferred the time he spent on entertainment to be somewhat more intellectually challenging.
“This is wonderful,” Leslie whispered from the next seat. Alex had asked her to join him in an effort to buoy her flagging morale. She hadn’t worn the wrist-mounted dark energy rifle, but for a theater visit, that was probably for the best. This was more opposition research than an adversarial encounter.
Eve wasn’t even in attendance.
“Quite,” Alex agreed stoically. Leslie had twined her arm around his on the shared armrest separating them. He was glad of the thin partition. Without it, she might well have curled up beneath his arm and pillowed her head against his chest. With the low-cut gown she’d worn for this night out at the theater, it was already all Alex could manage to keep his attention on the performance.
Distraction. Discipline. Willpower.
Avoidance was a cop out. Only by exposing himself to temptation could it ever be overcome.
At the curtain fall for intermission, Alex clapped along with the audience. It gave him the perfect excuse to disentangle himself. Leslie joined in, adding a two-fingered whistle to the cheering that was both shrill and entirely uncalled for.
“Do you know, I’ve never come to a real play before?” Leslie asked. “Jennifer81 and Dr. Eddie never brought me.”
Odd, that for all his formality in other respects, Alex had never taken to calling his parents by their designations. Charlie7 and Dr. Nora were Dad and Mom when he spoke of them.
“I’d have never suspected,” Alex replied playfully.
Proximity. Perfume scent—or was it just Leslie’s shampoo? Hormonal response.
Leslie looked him in the eye without a word. She bit her lip.
Pupil dilation. Head tilt. Closing distance. Eyes closing…
Alex was no fool. Even the dreariest of curmudgeons could have read the signs as easily as the troubleshooting guide to a computer terminal. But this was a time-sensitive issue. An immediate response was in order.
Without time to think, Alex reacted on instinct.
Leslie’s lips were warm and soft. For a period of time that he lost track of, higher brain function ceased.
Alex peeked. A break from the protocols established by archival films, he knew, but he couldn’t shake a persistent tickling at the back of his mind.
Eyes. Glowing robotic eyes turned in their direction. Discreet but prying. Distant but invasive. Not everyone in the theater had taken notice—perhaps no fewer than fifteen or twenty out of hundreds—but Alex felt the weight of those judging gazes.
He pulled away. The curtain rose. The timing was coincidental but fortunate. Leslie squirmed back into a position facing the stage.
Fool. Ruination.
He’d shown himself to be a mere slab of flesh in front of so many influential robots. None would criticize him publicly. They’d all “understand,” which was code for the patronizing condescension humans suffered in any interaction with their mechanical betters.
Still, for a brief moment, there had been a welcoming intimacy that had shut out the outside world and all its complexity. If it cost him the esteem of a handful of leering robots with privacy issues, so be it. Leslie had been wavering in her support of his political agenda. This was simpler than tailoring his platform and methods to maintain a single follower in the fold.
The final act of the play carried a few notable differences from the version Alex had been taught. The visit to Janet3’s abandoned farm and James187’s chase through an agrarian complex had been reduced to a single stopover at a generic farmhouse without describing an owner. Plato’s role in Eve14’s eventual rescue had been greatly expanded to the point where Charlie7 had been merely a heroic assistant, giving his life—though everyone in the audience knew he’d made a backup copy—so that Plato could complete his mission.
The songs were passable and fit with the established framework of show tunes. As the crowd dispersed after the final curtain, Alex caught Leslie humming the melody to “No Room for Two,” the villainous duet between Eve14 and Evelyn11 as the upload prep was underway.
Alex took Leslie along with him to the lobby and stopped outside the flow of traffic.
“What are we doing?” she whispered, tickling his ear with her breath. With her heeled shoes, she was a centimeter or two taller than him.
Alex answered with a sly wink. He caught the first robot notable among the exiting robots and extended a hand. “Nice to see you, Jason,” he greeted Jason90. “Glad to see you supporting the humanities.”
“First start-to-finish rendition of that story,” Jason90 said, accepting the handshake. “Always odd thinking of Eve Fourteen as that scared refugee. You’d never know it talking to her now.”
“Indeed,” Alex said. “She’s nothing like that anymore. Just goes to show, bravery and guile don’t always translate to effective administration.”
Jason90 went on his way after a brief exchange of pleasantries with Leslie.
The next robot in Alex’s improvised receiving line was Eddie51, who sat on the Human Welfare Committee. “How was it seeing your boss deconstructed on stage?” Alex asked with a jovial smile.
Disarming. Tongue-in-cheek.
“No surprises,” Eddie51 replied. “And she’s not my boss, and you know it.”
Leslie reached out and touched Eddie51 on the arm through the fabric of his tuxedo. “Of course, she isn’t.”
Eddie51 cast them both a sour look and moved on.
Alex and Leslie—who caught on quickly—kept up a slow trickle of backhanded compliments to Eve in casual conversations with every important robot who exited through the lobby. After a time, the cast of the production came out via a side door to mingle with the lingering patrons who’d waited for them.
Abby shook hands, offered smiles, and looked worn, body and soul. “Thanks so much for coming tonight … we really appreciate your support … it means so much to see so many smiling faces out in the audience … thank you for—oh, it’s you.”
Alex held out a hand and waited to see whether Abby accepted it. “Nice performance. Upsells your mom pretty good, I must say.”
