Echoes of Another

by Chandra Clarke

  Jarvis nodded and walked away, his servos whirring softly. She undressed and stepped into the bath, which had stopped filling. When she settled back, the massage jets came on. She willed her muscles to loosen up, letting the water swirl around her.

  She considered her options. The CEO of Imprint Tech had rebuffed her first thing this morning, refusing to even take a call from anyone at EduTain. His reaction puzzled her. She knew from their agents inside the company that second-quarter results would be about four times worse than market analysts had predicted, which meant costs were spiralling out of control there. That would not go down well with investors and would result in a big sell-off. What she couldn’t figure out was why costs were so high. None of their contacts reported a hiring spree, any major investment in hardware, or content development projects. And yet, several of their bestselling medical training simulations badly needed updates.

  What happening there? Where was the money being spent? She wondered if the CEO was gouging the company, taking the profits all for himself. The business celebrity chatter websites didn’t have any headlines about him engaging in any lavish spending personally. There were no lifestyle-section photos of him carousing on a new private island, for example, but then again, they weren’t always reliable sources of gossip. Perhaps he was funnelling money offshore.

  Maura took a dim view of that sort of behaviour. It was one thing to live well, if you’d earned it, but quite another to gut the balance sheet and endanger the livelihoods of the people who trusted you and worked for you. While some executives at her level might own several houses, Maura kept just one, and if pressed, she’d happily admit she got it for pennies on the dollar at auction, the same way she’d acquired most of her possessions. There were so many interesting things to spend money on: sponsoring scientific studies, helping to fund the planned Mars expedition, or even reforesting the southwest portion of the province.

  Maura reached up to the shelf along the tub insert and found her favourite bottle of lavender oil; the only scent that didn’t make her sneeze. She put a drop in the hot water and inhaled. That left the president of Xperience to woo, at least for now. Cheryl Bhattacharya was a darling of the virtual reality gaming industry, having built a solid franchise in the fantasy role-playing market practically from scratch. She had done it through meticulous research — legend had it she’d personally attended every major fantasy con on the planet for five years in a row — and shrewd poaching, luring staff away from old stalwarts like Ubisoft and Blizzard. She had worked out exactly what people wanted: smart, immersive, challenging worlds with just the right amount of fair competition, and got the best talent to produce it.

  Maura smiled and sank lower into the water. She felt she would get along well with Cheryl, as her own ascent had been similar. When Maura had first inherited EduTain, it was a nascent software company in the augmented-reality sector. While other companies in that space killed themselves trying to produce the next breakout game or intrusive advertising platforms, she had focused on the tourism industry, producing highly detailed and fun AR overlays for major tourist attractions. Her software succeeded where others failed because she’d done her research and figured out different tourists wanted different things. Whereas one tourist might want to grok out on the construction details of the Great Wall, another would love to know how it fit into the grand sweep of geopolitical history. EduTain’s code, delivered through stylish wearables, customised everyone’s experience.

  With revenue from that pouring in, Maura could then take her time, acquiring other equally unsexy but robust businesses in AR and then VR. The question was what carrot to dangle for Cheryl to get her to merge with EduTain? A leader like that would want more than money. She would need a challenge.

  She finished her bath, slipped into her housecoat, and padded through the big, silent house down to the kitchen. Jarvis had laid out her food and wine and set up a virtual screen with her messages. The first one made her smile: Councillor Brown’s polling numbers were already down five percent.

  As she tucked into her meal, only one thing prevented her from relaxing completely. There was another question bothering her this evening: Was Pauline a spy now embedded in EduTain?

  KEL

  Her messenger software dinged again. Kel groaned. There could only be one person who would call her this early in the morning.

  “Answer,” she mumbled, sitting up in bed. The messenger beeped brightly in response. “Hello, Mother.”

  “Hello, dear. Where’s the video?”

  “Mother, it’s 5:30 a.m. I really don—”

  “Oh, don’t be silly sweetie, your dad and I have seen you this way before.”

  Kel sighed and did her best to wake up and smooth down her hair. “Video,” she told her messenger.

  An image of her mother and father appeared. She tried not to think about how baggy-eyed and rough her image would look at their end.

  “There you are,” her mother said. They were both in their kitchen, standing stiffly in front of the one camera they owned, dressed as usual in clothes that were at least six fashion cycles behind. Canadian Gothic, Kel thought sourly.

  “Hello, Kelleen,” her father beamed. “How’s life in the city?”

  “Father, please, I haven’t been Kelleen since I was four.”

  “Just checking to see whether you were awake. So…”

  Don’t say it. Just once, don’t say it, Kel thought.

  “…why are you still in bed? Half the day is gone!”

  Kel sighed.

  “I had a late night, guys,” she said, and instantly regretted it.

  “Oh!” Her mother brightened. “A nice young man?”

  “Aaaarrgggh, no!” Kel threw the covers off and staggered towards the kitchen. She had more important things to do than get involved in the drama of a relationship right now. The image of her parents reconstructed itself over her counter. She fumbled for the coffee. “I was working,” she said over her shoulder to the display.

  “They seem to work you hard at this job,” her mother said. “Any prospects? Is your assistant cute? What about your boss?”

  Only the scent of fresh coffee brewing prevented her from shuddering at the thought of going out with Robert. “Most emphatically not,” she said, and, desperate to change the subject, she continued, “So, what’s new with you?”

  While her father launched into the latest gossip from his game club, she tried to suppress the growing anger she always felt when her parents called. You are such throwbacks! she wanted to shout at them.

  Her father was a fabber tech, in charge of inspecting, calibrating, and maintaining a series of the big, central fab stations throughout Muskoka that printed pods and housing units. It was all he’d ever aspired to. Her mother had finished her mandatory education, found her father, and promptly gotten pregnant. She had never even tried to enter the workforce. Kel suspected her mother would have been an Analogue, but for the fact she liked the creature comforts technology provided too much. She’d shown no desire to participate in modern society.

  They hadn’t known what to do with Kel. Precocious from the beginning, she had grown bored with her toys quickly and pulled things apart to see how they worked. They had done their best, supplying her with unlimited access to the thingweb far earlier than usual, taking her on trips, allowing her to sign up for all the extracurricular activities offered by the local school board, but this just seemed to fuel her discontent and make her want to do more.

  As her father moved on to relaying the latest news from his job, Kel recalled one terrible day, not long after she’d turned ten. She had discovered a documentary about the poverty and extreme pollution in Louisiana and confronted her parents as to why they hadn’t done something about it. They hadn’t understood why someone would be so upset over an event they couldn’t control, and which wasn’t even local. She didn’t understand why they wouldn’t try to end suffering, no matter where it was. They’d had a huge fight, and Kel hadn’t spoken to them f
or days afterwards. It had been the first of many blow-ups.

  It had been a relief to everyone when Kel eventually left home and moved to Toronto.

  And yet, they keep trying to get me to come back, she thought, as she took a deep pull of coffee. For the first few years, the only thing that had brought her to Muskoka was her grandmother. It had been all Kel could do to attend her funeral.

  “—and you’re not listening.”

  “What? Oh, sorry, Mother. It’s just been a very, very rough week.”

  “Oh dear. Tell me how.”

  Kel tried to resist; she wanted to brush her off and yet… this was her mother. It was so hard to ignore the immediate softness that had entered her mother’s voice, the virtual hug Kel was being offered. Before long, she found herself pouring out the last month’s woes, her parents looking concerned, nodding in sympathy at all the right places.

  “Did you write a protocol to prevent further issues with the other implants?” her mother asked. “Perhaps something in COGOL to make it hard to detect, much less work around?”

  The warm feelings that had been rising in her quickly vanished. This, this is what Kel could not fathom. One minute Mother would be prattling on about her back garden, the next she’d let slip something that proved there was so much more under the surface. Why did she suppress it? Why didn’t she use it? Such a waste of potential. Kel put down her coffee cup slowly and deliberately, willing herself not to shout.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Or at least, that’s what I was working on last night. It’s just all very frustrating as those were my two oldest macaques and they were just about to produce some senescent data. I should have thought to safeguard against something like this.”

  “My girl,” her father said fondly, “the manufacturers of these kinds of things are supposed to have all sorts of quality controls.”

  “Yes, you can’t be expected to think of everything,” her mother agreed. “Stop being so hard on yourself. It’s nearly impossible for one person to make a difference in today’s world.”

  Kel bit back many replies and politely signed off. She had enough on her plate without feeling guilty about another fight with her parents.

  HAROON

  Yoshi threw himself into the chair and aimed a kick at the cafeteria table. Haroon lost his grip on the reader he’d been holding — another Bacchi novel — and it skittered to the floor.

  Haroon gave him a what the hell? look, then bent to pick up his reader. Yoshi sat there sullenly for several minutes before answering.

  “Sorry. I’m just completely done with my father,” he announced.

  “What’s up?”

  Yoshi rolled his eyes. “He’s insisting I make out my applications for university. He says it used to cost lots of money and I should be grateful for that now it’s free and use it.”

  Haroon stayed silent. He never knew what to say when Yoshi was like this. He picked up his fork and took a bite of the poutine he’d bought for breakfast.

  “I mean,” Yoshi went on, “I don’t understand why I should be forced to do something just because of the way it used to be. I don’t even know what I’d get a degree in.”

  “Maybe he figures you’re smart enough to do one,” Haroon said, scraping up gravy. “You would be a great bioengineer, and there’s a shortage of those.”

  “Pfft,” Yoshi waved it away. “Bioengineering is hard work. I want to go flick around in Japan for a while. Check out Korea, Singapore. Try out at some tournaments.”

  Haroon nodded. Yoshi was an avid Outrider player and would do well on the pro circuit. “You know what your dad thinks of e-sports, though.”

  “Shakai ni kōken shinai,” Yoshi said bitterly. “Does not contribute to society. But it does. Entertaining other people with your skills is a totally valid contribution.” Yoshi went quiet for a while. “So what does old man Subhan want you to do?”

  Haroon thought of this morning, when his father had kicked him out of bed as he always did. “You get up, you go to work, you don’t go wrong,” he’d said in his thick accent. He was always telling Haroon not to go wrong. He never let on what he felt was right, though.

  “I dunno. All he ever says is I’m to stay out of trouble and stay away from the gangs and especially the government. And I have to earn like a man. As long as I don’t eat too much and keep out of his way, I don’t think he cares.”

  Yoshi slumped forward, crossing his arms on the table and resting his chin on them. “Sorry, man. You must feel I’m a real dingus sometimes. I just wish I wasn’t their only kid, eh? That all their attention wasn’t on me. And I wouldn’t have to help make up for how grandad went all johatsu on us.”

  Haroon reached out and patted him on the arm. Yoshi had recently confessed the reason they’d immigrated was that his grandfather had up and disappeared one night, becoming one of Japan’s ‘evaporated people.’ No one understood why. Had he lost his job? Was he been cheating on his wife? The shame of his disappearance had prompted the family to move out of Japan. His grandmother had passed away not long after the transfer. That it had taken Yoshi this many years to tell him this showed how much it still disturbed his family, even now, in a new country.

  Yoshi glanced down at Haroon’s long sleeves. “Your dad ever work out you’d been tatted? Or that you’re at school?”

  Haroon pulled up his sleeve to reveal the digital ID Yoshi’s father had helped him get a few years back. Given he was so young, the tattoo wasn’t very complicated and it only extended a little way up from the top of his wrist bone. The first line, a solid, boring glyph, was his government-issued social insurance number, encrypted and machine-readable only on the underside of the wrist. A second pattern showed he’d completed his early education. He’d add his third, for high school graduation, soon. He couldn’t wait to see that pattern on there: school had been a real struggle.

  “I doubt it. He’s never said, and I don’t bring it up.” He’d always suspected his father would be angry about it. Haroon had never worked out why they lived where they did. All he knew was he couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen his father smile.

  “So what will you do?” Yoshi asked him.

  Haroon rubbed his ear and stretched. “Not sure. Well,” he corrected himself, “I know the minute I qualify for the basic income and can afford it, I’m moving out of J.” That was another thing that made him angry, learning that would be available to him at age of majority. He understood why the government didn’t pay parents an extra income per child; that would have been too easy to abuse. But why hadn’t his father signed up for basic for himself? It would have made his childhood so much less painful. “I’m not sure after that. I don’t think I’d be any good doing any more schoolwork. It’s like my brain evaporates when I step in the room and I have zero attention span. Kind of also depends on how things go with Saba.”

  “Ooooh, is it getting serious? Making life plans together?”

  “I didn’t say that. We’ve only just had our third date. But I like her enough I’d maybe want to stick around Toronto for a while. We’ll see.” He grinned. “I’ll be your coach.”

  Yoshi swiped one of his fries. “Have you even played Outrider? That’s sort of required, you know. To be a coach you have to play the game.”

  Haroon laughed. “No, I like the strategy games better. The fighting ones get too repetitive for me.”

  Yoshi’s wristband chimed. “I gotta go. Comparative literature this morning.” He faked an exaggerated yawn and rolled his eyes. He left Haroon to the remains of his breakfast.

  Haroon tried to get back into his book but failed. His mind kept straying back to the question of what he would do. He struggled to think of a job either his father or Yoshi’s father might approve of. Subhan’s stern face loomed in his thoughts, and nothing came to mind.

  RAY

  He was bigger than his mother.

  Because Mick had taught him how to break into the storeroom at the museum at Black Creek, and each of the grungy shops alo
ng Jane in turn, and to take just enough food from each that no one would bother calling the cops or to send anyone around to smash his knees. Mick had shown him where to stash the food and spare clothes so they wouldn’t be stolen, and how to wear layers with the worst stuff on top so he didn’t look like he was worth mugging. So he’d eaten. Regularly. And stayed warm. And gotten bigger.

  He was bigger than his mother.

  Ray didn’t know why it had taken him so long to realise it. One day, he looked down at her, bunched his fists, and saw fear. In her eyes.

  That was all he needed. There would be no more cowering in a corner during one of her drug-induced breakdowns.

  He turned around and walked out. And walked and walked and walked for hours until he reached the edge of a lake that looked as big as a sea.

  It occurred to him now in a sudden wave of shame and guilt that Mick hadn’t disappeared.

  He had.

  When he had fallen to his knees at the lake that day, someone found him and told him he was in Woodbine, whatever that meant. And then they took him to a place with red doors.

  The man who helped him clean up said Ray looked about fifteen. His name was Mubarak. He reminded Ray of Peter.

  ~

  A chest so tight he could barely breathe. A heart that pounded so hard he was sure other people could hear it.

  So much anger.

  He was outside the District now. He totted up all the things they had denied him for years.

  A roof that didn’t leak in the rain and walls that didn’t whistle and shudder when the December winds blew.

  The knowledge that a stomach could be full all day.

  Clothes that didn’t stink of other people.

  And the thingweb. A world of worlds within a world. There was so much there, he could see that. He wanted into it so bad he could taste it.

  But he didn’t have the tattoo that would let him access any of it, those inky smudges everyone was given at birth. All of them except him, of course.