by J. S. Morin
Abby nodded absently as she watched them haul Xander away.
Was this just an act? Method acting had gone out of fashion long before humanity’s demise, but the madness was convincing. Still, Abby couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all too convenient. Would Alex really have ruined Xander’s reputation just to sour one event amid a full calendar from now to the election?
Adjourning to a corridor outside the main factory floor, Abby conferred with her friends. “Write up a statement. Sympathy for Xander. Support for the facility’s work. Get out in front of this before Alex has a chance to spin this straw into gold.”
“On it,” Billy assured her.
“We’ll get this all sorted out,” Rosa assured her with a hug.
Nigel got in line for the next hug, but Abby stopped him short with a warning look. “Right. Don’t worry. This will all blow over.”
Abby wished she could believe that. Even with her supporters’ assurances, she knew that the day had gone to Alex.
Chapter Forty-Five
Eve’s office in her Paris home was a sanctuary. Even Plato left her alone there, by and large. She tried not to use it except for actual work, but at times she just needed to get away from everything including her husband. Despite a wall that was entirely window, she kept her back to the panoramic vista overlooking their garden with views to the city beyond.
Settling into her desk chair, Eve sank down and let the biostyrene padding settle around until she barely felt the sensation of sitting. She took deep breaths to relax, then cleared the nagging alert that told her she wasn’t going to like what she was about to see.
In her implanted interface, overlaid with her view of the real world around her, Eve selected Earthwide > Public > News Feeds > Saved. The default sorting was by recency, placing the blinking red indicator atop the listing.
“Play,” Eve said aloud, too weary to bother looking squarely at the news feed to even fix her attention on it.
A video popped open in the center of her vision, set to 30 percent transparency. Alex Truman sat behind a desk with his hands folded. He was wearing a suit and tie straight from the gentlemanly days of the Lincoln Douglas debates.
“I think we’re all upset in the aftermath of the incident at The Madagascar Center for Human Advancement. I’ve been in contact with Paul30 and Janice71, and they assure me that Xander is recovering from his breakdown and expected to make a full recovery. The scene he witnessed wasn’t for the faint of heart. The processes he witnessed were meant for the eyes of medical practitioners alone. Biology hid the messy side of life’s origins for good reason.
“While I applaud the field of genetics for all it has done to resuscitate mankind and how these factories continue to bolster our perilously small gene pool, this is not a long-term solution. We humans need to take responsibility for our own procreation, not simply by taking custody of human manufacturing but by rendering it redundant.
“I implore all of you listening. To the robots raising human children, I offer both my thanks and a simple request. Teach your children the value of natural diversity. Mankind never proved adept at improving on nature’s designs, only hastening them in narrow directions. To the humans hearing my voice right now, I speak to each and every one of you without exception. Think of procreation as an act of love, not merely for a partner but for your entire species. Your most enduring legacy is the genetic material you pass on to the next generation.
“With your help, we can—”
DELETE.
Eve didn’t need to hear the rest. The speech followed a pattern she was both familiar with and increasingly weary of. If the Human Welfare Committee had a position, Alex praised it effusively while simultaneously undercutting it and claiming it inferior to his own plans. He left hardly a seam in his arguments to pry open.
The Human Welfare Committee’s position on natural procreation was that it was a minor health risk and completely optional. Any prospective parents who wished to comingle DNA could submit samples to a genetics factory to perform the process under controlled conditions. Artificial incubation was safer for both the mother and child.
Eve never doubted that in the event of a planetary cataclysm such as a massive, tech-destroying EMP, humans would figure out the old fashioned way on their own. In the meantime, better to have their tiny population healthy and productive.
She shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe we might end up allowing a teenage boy to set reproductive rights for the entire planet.”
Chapter Forty-Six
At the same moment on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Abby fumed as she watched the video screen in her campaign headquarters. While Eve had viewed Alex Truman’s response to the cloning factory incident on playback, Abby and her staff had watched the broadcast live and already moved on to witnessing the latest twist in the farce being perpetrated on Earth’s voting public.
Xander Paulson looked haggard and exhausted. At larger-than-life magnification on the massive video screen, the day’s worth of wispy, unshaved stubble was plain to see. His cheeks were pale, and his eyelids hung. If he wasn’t self-medicating to achieve the effect of a man scraping himself out of the gutter, Abby would produce her next play with a cast of monkeys.
“I can’t begin to apologize enough for my actions. I have no excuse. It’s just that when I saw those little proto-humans trapped and bleeding inside that—” he paused a moment and took a deep breath to stem the tide of an oncoming rant. He resumed more calmly. “I just didn’t know what else to do. I blame being under-prepared for the horrors that take place behind the scenes in a genetics factory.”
“Sounds like an excuse to me,” Billy muttered. Nigel elbowed him to shut him up as Xander continued.
“Lest my actions be taken for a political statement, allow me to set the record straight. Despite not wanting any part of witnessing those…” he shuddered, “processes, I still support Abby Truman’s campaign and the policies of the Human Welfare Committee. The cloning factories are a necessary evil, and I support their continued operation. I’m sure all the robots who work there have nothing but the best of intentions for humanity.”
The broadcast ended abruptly with a click.
“Hey,” Rosa protested, sweeping a hand toward the screen and shooting an accusatory glare at Billy. “We’re still watching.”
“Lemme tell you how the rest of it goes,” Billy said, pointing the remote at the inert screen. “Xander sobs and begs forgiveness, says he hopes it won’t influence his employment prospects, and subtly reiterates his support for Abby the whole time. Sound about right?”
Nigel hung his head. “Yeah. Something like that.”
Abby pinched the bridge of her nose as she paced. “I need to know how bad this is. Are people falling for this puppet show? I mean, Xander was working on Alex’s team last week, wearing one of those wrist-mounted blasters and chanting slogans at his rallies.”
“He’s been pretty brutal on Alex since walking out,” Rosa pointed out. “We’d need to show evidence of collusion. Otherwise, he looks like he’s disillusioned with the whole process but still supporting you.”
“Fine,” Abby snapped. “I’m going home and mixing myself martinis until someone gets me an answer.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Nigel asked with a cringe. “I mean, if you show up hung over at tomorrow’s—”
“Then get me an answer quick,” Abby cut in.
This was why she never should have gone into politics. Opening a new play was stressful enough despite everyone wanting to enjoy the production. Here, half the species was rooting for her to fail, and she wasn’t even sure what victory would look like.
She couldn’t get to her skyroamer fast enough.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Nigel sent the polling data to Abby within hours. None of it was a result of actual polling. That had gone out of fashion even before the alien invasion. The idea of going door-to-door or initiating voice chat with potential voters w
as archaic. Worse, it was inaccurate.
The Social knew who was voting for which candidate.
The odd factor was that there wasn’t even an official, sanctioned election being held. Technically, it was an ad hoc, non-binding referendum that carried all the weight of a student election.
As a point of fact, Nigel’s data said that was exactly how the majority of mixed robots viewed the whole hubbub. Without sufficient backing from the regulatory committees that oversaw general committee membership, the humans might as well be voting on updating the laws of physics or electing a pantheon of pagan gods.
They were fools.
Humanity was on the rise, and if Abby had learned one pervasive lesson from history, it was that oppression led to rebellion. How could the mixes not understand the dangers of antagonizing a growing minority among them? Six unmixed robots had wiped out an alien occupation force. Did they really view Alex Truman as any less dangerous as the potential leader of the anti-robot insurrection?
Abby sat alone in the solarium of her apartment, sipping cold coffee that had still been steaming hot when she began studying Nigel’s reports. “At least I don’t have to worry about abstract percentages,” she muttered.
There were 172 emancipated humans. Nigel’s Social algorithms had predicted voting behavior for 168 of them. 108 were planning to vote with Alex Truman. That left 60 voting for Abby’s status quo movement—which she had to admit, was hard to write slogans for—plus potentially four people whom the algorithm couldn’t predict.
Since Alex’s vision saw the unmixed robots of Project Transhuman as fully human, that added another potential thirty-three robots to the equation. Nigel had reported that they favored Alex by a twenty-five to seven margin. Abby smirked when she saw that Charlie7 was the lone unmixed robot that the algorithm didn’t predict.
“Yeah. Son or not, I wouldn’t try to guess what goes on in that crystal,” Abby said to the data on screen.
It was a discouraging mountain to climb. Public opinion fell heavily in favor of the visionary. He had answers for everything, saw problems everywhere, and promised to get things done. His success in pushing an anti-everything agenda spoke to levels of discontent buried shallow beneath a veneer of gratitude painted over humanity.
“Only one way to fix this,” Abby said, throwing back the last of her coffee like it came from a shot glass. “Time to go shake some hands and manually update public opinion.”
Her own quick algorithm, programmed on the walk to her skyroamer, took Nigel’s list and prioritized it by edge cases. People who fell weakly in favor of Alex Truman were her best avenue for swinging the pendulum back in her direction. With a manageable list of thirty-five candidates, she sorted the list by proximity and plotted a course.
Candice d’Arroyo lived just over on the far side of Paris. Abby was pressing her door alarm within minutes. Candice raised an eyebrow when she opened the door. “What’s this?” she asked. “You begging for votes? I think you’re supposed to say ‘trick or treat’ before you get handouts.”
Abby didn’t let the sarcasm deter you. “I’m making a tour of potential votes to find out what issues matter most to you. I’m trying to understand what might make some people prefer the chaos promised by the Truman Scheme over the stability of the Human Welfare Committee.”
Candice shrugged. “Eve doesn’t even really want the job. She’s not even campaigning; that’s why you’re here, not her.”
“My mother is terribly busy. It would be an indictment of her performance if she could ignore her job for weeks and still have the system carry on without her.”
Candice rolled her eyes. “I just like the idea of someone wanting the job. Alex will make changes, not just hold meeting after meeting to keep things the same.”
“The current system isn’t working for you?” Abby asked with a puzzled frown despite promising herself she’d keep things positive. Candice was a toy and home appliance designer and had a cozy Parisian home that must have contained four hundred square meters of floor space. “You look well.”
“But what’s the point of any of it?” Candice countered. “Maybe I want to start a family without some geneticist or doctor warning me that it’d be safer to rent my children from a factory.”
Abby vaguely recalled that argument from one of Alex’s speeches. A commitment to co-parent a child to emancipation—and with no further obligation—amounted to an extended rental. Abby suspected some parental abandonment issues at work behind that message.
“You can still use the old-fashioned way,” Abby said with a helpful smile.
Candice rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because nothing says ‘desperate breeder’ like having your hormone regulator implant removed. I’m sure guys will be interested in a deep emotional relationship, not just being the progenitor of the species.”
Abby realized that Candice was more firmly in Alex’s camp than Nigel’s data had realized. She backed her way out of the conversation and bid a lost voter good day.
She toured Europe and part of Africa throughout the rest of the day. At every stop, she asked mostly the same questions. What she found was a general wish to shake up the lethargy of humanity’s reawakening. People didn’t want a gradual transition that might see their grandchildren—or a batch of clones two generations removed from them—take an active role in committee life. They wanted to be there for history.
Alex was just the right fool at the right time.
Abby changed some minds, she fervently believed. Ronald Schwarz and Mindy Zimmerman were talked out of removing Eve from the chairman’s position for her own good. They’d been worried that the weight of responsibility was too much for her to bear for this long, but Abby convinced them that she loved her work and wouldn’t know what to do without it. Cassidy Chalmers was won over by logic when Abby poked holes in some of his ill-considered policies. Celeste Francoeur she swung by promising that Eve would address the misconception that the Human Welfare Committee didn’t approve of natural parenting.
But there were plenty of others whose minds were hard-wired already. Alex was the future; Eve was the past. Humans deserved more than a single committee. Eve was too much a cyborg to understand regular humans anymore. Eve had grown complacent… or greedy… or callous.
The ones that maligned her mother were the hardest discussions to get through without screaming in someone’s face.
You’re being manipulated by an arrogant little prat. Can’t you see that?
It was her acting skills that saved her. Each time she was tempted to shout some sense into a voter, she could hear a director off stage whispering: stay in character. She was the amiable, civic-minded political aspirant filled with visions of rainbows and soap bubbles.
And no gullible half-wit genetics failure was going to get her to break character.
She slept in her skyroamer that night, programming the auto-pilot for half speed as it ferried her off to South America. Four hours, and she’d be back on the campaign trail.
The stage always took its toll on Abby, body and soul. A performance only lasted a couple hours because any longer would leave the actor an empty husk to be carted off the stage, utterly spent. But politics was relentless, sinking in its hooks and hauling her along like an ancient whaling vessel, picking away at her values and ideals the whole while. Even if she proved victorious in the end, she wondered how much of her would be left to enjoy it.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The Truman political whistle stop tour was in full swing. Every day, he picked a different backdrop for his speeches. Every day, another piece of forgotten history dragged front and center to highlight his argument du jour. He’d spoken at Cape Canaveral, headquarters to the first lunar expedition. He’d stood upon the steps of the Parthenon, a thirty-five hundred year old monument to quality craftsmanship. Just yesterday, he had visited Alexandria—which he’d joked about not being named after him, just to highlight the similarity—which had been the site of the Great Library, whose lost knowledge wa
s one of history’s great tragedies.
Yesterday’s theme had been lost opportunity. Today, Alex Truman wanted to address ingenuity.
Mainz wasn’t as well known as his prior stops. In modern times, it was a young forest, replanted by a team of Tobies and home to a variety of skittish wildlife. But Alex had done his research and come up with a location for the home of one Johannes Gutenberg.
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Alex said, nominally addressing a loyal knot of thirty or so followers who had taken his political campaign as a sort of roving holiday. For them, it was a chance to witness history up close. For Alex, it was a captive audience absorbing his message through repetition. But while it was the loyalists at the fore of the crowd, Alex aimed his words carefully to be best picked up by the camera crew at the rear of the gathering. “But this was where the printing press was born. Automated information. No more need to hand-copy books one at a time. It paved the way for mass literacy, the newspaper, and stands as the ground level upon which the information age was built.”
Nobody cared. His speeches were performances. The words were music, hypnotic and soothing. They sounded like progress, like ingenuity, like greatness.
“Martin Luther nailed his treatise to a church door. Johannes Gutenberg printed his message for the masses. He made it repeatable. He made it quick. What a perfect application of simple science to the cause of technology.”
Attentiveness. Acceptance. Malleability.
He could tell these people that the sun was a failed weapons test by an alien race, and they’d believe him.
He wagged a finger in the air. “Gutenberg fought against stagnation, just as any good scientist would. Technology grows exponentially. It started small and continued to build. With the fall of Rome, civilization collapsed. In the Dark Ages, humans lived little better than animals, eating shabby vegetables that you wouldn’t use for garnish these days. Five hundred years after Gutenberg’s simple printing press, we had flying machines. Less than a hundred after that, man had set foot on the moon.”
