The Immaculate Conception

by Aubrey Parker

  Andrew’s mind wound back to how things had been just eight or ten years before, when he’d first become interested in girls. They were still a mystery back then, and the cultural pendulum had swung far enough in the other direction that dating even just a decade ago had still been sweet and shy and mostly only got dirty (so he’d heard from his older brothers) behind closed doors.

  Things were so much more out in the open now. Even as they looked around the green space, a girl of maybe 18 had her head under a blanket tossed across her boyfriend’s lap, said blanket bobbing up and down in a predictable rhythm. If the kids were remotely on-trend, the boy would come a few times in her mouth while a stimulator ring inside her panties rewarded her oral efforts.

  Right now, Andrew wanted to be at the opposite of where society’s pendulum was swinging. He wanted to lay in the open with his girl, clothed, with appropriate undergarments in place, all their hands in respectable positions, with love the dominant emotion and anticipation their only aphrodisiac.

  Andrew lifted his head to look at Chloe. He was on his back with her head on his chest. Her earnest blue-green eyes gazed into his.

  Alexa Mathis echoed, unwelcome, in his head: You think you’re in love because she became exactly what you would love.

  “I’m thinking the air smells particularly sweet today.” He felt the hitch as he said it, as if he were reading a script.

  That’s because you’re just an actor playing a part, said Alexa in his head.

  He forced himself to crack a smile, but it was three sizes too small. Chloe had been looking for an answer as cheesy as their situation (it was one of their standing jokes; he’d actually put his jacket over a puddle once to let her cross, but it had been more funny than gallant, and had left him coatless), but his delivery was off.

  “What are you really thinking?”

  “That’s what I’m really thinking.”

  Chloe sat up. Something crossed her face, but she seemed to shake it away. With a feeling of resetting, she turned to Andrew. “I missed you while I was away.”

  “Oh, yeah?” The sentiment surprised a genuine reaction out of Andrew, momentarily bypassing his doubt. But then he remembered where she’d been, and what Alexa had said about it. He wasn’t supposed to know the things she’d done. Chloe wouldn’t keep secrets — she was a proud member of O and saw nothing wrong with her job. What’s more, she knew he knew it was only business, no different from two actors feigning love on-screen.

  But still, he shouldn’t know the details — and because he did, Andrew found it impossible to shake the vision.

  “What is it?” Chloe asked, apparently seeing the conflict on his face.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s never nothing when people say, ‘It’s nothing.’”

  Andrew forced another smile. “It’s literally nothing. What I was thinking about, I mean. Like, I was thinking about the empty vacuum of space.”

  A small smile creased Chloe’s wide lips, but it wasn’t genuine. Andrew looked down, pretending to be interested in the blanket’s woven pattern.

  “I did miss you, though,” she said.

  “I missed you, too,” he said, his eyes still on the weave.

  “Did you?”

  “Of course.”

  Something touched his chin: Chloe’s hand, lifting his face to her eyes.

  “I want to talk about sex,” she said.

  He pretended to be over-the-top enthusiastic, playing yet another ridiculous part. But it felt artificial and she was already reacting with confusion (and maybe hurt?), so he let it go and nodded.

  “Is there something wrong with our sex?” he asked.

  The answer to that, at least, he knew for sure. Their sex was mind-blowing. The best he’d ever had — and, ironically, the most “boring” by typical definitions.

  “I mean, I want to talk about my job.”

  There was nothing artificial in his reaction now. Andrew felt only surprise. “I thought you didn’t like to talk about your job.”

  She’d never said that, exactly. Chloe had been neither willing nor evasive — but now she was headed toward the core of the wound Alexa had opened in O’s boardroom.

  “I’m proud of what I do. But you have to understand, it’s only work.”

  “So you don’t enjoy it.”

  Chloe shook her head. “I love it.”

  Andrew looked away.

  “I love it a lot, Andrew. It feels really, really good. It satisfies me in a way that’s so deep, I can barely believe—”

  Andrew vented an uncomfortable laugh. “Let’s not talk about sex.”

  “I don’t want to lie to you. Just like I wouldn’t want you lying to me.”

  Chloe’s big eyes met his for a long moment, as if she could see everything he was hiding: the duplicity, the contract, the setup, and all he’d learned. Was he really so transparent? And if the answer was yes, had she seen through him all along? Or was it only the recent conflict that stirred his insides, and set off Chloe’s alarms?

  Andrew nodded, not trusting his speech. She knew he was lying about something, but he could see she wasn’t going to force it. She’d do the opposite instead: open like a paper flower, showing him she had nothing to hide — that, in Alexa’s words, she herself was an empty vessel.

  “Maybe you should lie to me a little.”

  She shook her head. “Look, I want to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t a virgin when we met.”

  Andrew belted a big enough laugh that the fellating girl popped out from under the blanket, her boyfriend’s dick hard and wet in her hand. She scrambled back under as Andrew calmed.

  Chloe stared at him humorlessly. “I’m not kidding.”

  “I know you aren’t. And as I’ve never explicitly said but have hopefully conveyed, I’m okay with it.”

  “I wasn’t a virgin in the same way I’ve never cheated on you.” Her gaze was unflinching. Penetrating, like an X-ray. He felt more than naked, as if she could see his soul.

  “Okay.”

  “I was almost a virgin, though. I wish I’d waited, but I didn’t. By the definitions that matter, my old boyfriend Brad was and remains the only other man I’ve ever been with.”

  Andrew didn’t know what to say. He felt like he’d lost his bearings. Chloe was an escort, right? She’d worked on glass tables on one of the sex islands, hadn’t she? Was it possible Alexa had been feeding him a line of bullshit? Was O’s best asset actually chaste — a tease whose talents went solely into digital worlds, omitting flesh entirely? It didn’t seem possible.

  “I’m going to say this in a way you can understand,” Chloe said. “But I’m only doing it, very carefully, so you’ll be able to get it. After this, I’ll speak like I normally do — the way I have to.”

  Andrew nodded.

  “My body has done things — of course it has. And my mind has done things, too. But Chloe, the girl you’re with right now? She’s someone else. It’s that black and white for me.”

  “So who works for O? It’s not Chloe?”

  “I’m serious about this, Andrew.”

  “I know you are. I just don’t understand.”

  “Both people I see myself as are me. I promise I’m not crazy. But I need to draw a line inside my mind or I’ll go crazy. And who I am now — here, in the park with you — has only had sex with one other man: Brad. You were next.”

  “I don’t have a problem with what you do, Chloe.”

  “I’m not saying this because you might have a problem. I’m saying it because it’s true, and I want you to know it. My mom had a traumatic childhood. She had sex too early, and standards were different back then. Not with escorts, of course, but for casual encounters. That’s what I mean by ‘the Chloe with you now.’”

  “This is all just semantics.” Andrew touched her hand. “But it’s okay. I don’t mind. You can do what you do. Enjoy it, whatever. But then you come back to me with a differe
nt part of yourself.”

  “It’s more than that.” Chloe shook her head. “My mom said she got her lines crossed too early, and couldn’t separate who she really was and who she had to be on the job. She was with men early who thought they were clients, but who she sort of adapted to — a talent I inherited — and then became attached to.”

  This was an old story. Since the dawn of prostitution, good escorts had learned to put part of themselves into their work while keeping another part private. Nothing Chloe was saying was in any way surprising. If anything, the extremity of her semantics was irritating. Or was it endearing? Andrew found it impossible to say.

  He felt guilty beneath the glow of her sincerity. Something in his manner had perked her antennae and prompted a desire to explain herself. Ironically, she was answering the questions that Alexa’s little speech had made Andrew desperate to ask — but ironically, he no longer felt like he had any right to the answers.

  “After I was born, after Crossbrace was live, my mom sprung for a neural implant she couldn’t afford. It was all the rage, to see how extensively people could trick out their minds and bodies. ‘Oh, Crossbrace knows what’s happening in front of my building so it can alert me when a cab is available? Well, I’d better get a heads-up display in my eye so I can watch the front of the building at all times!’ Stupid things like that.”

  “What kind of an upgrade did your mom get?”

  “It was a partition. A literal partition, like they used to do with old computers to make one hard drive into two. But because she could barely afford the implantation, it was an amateur job. It worked, but it can’t be removed. Every time I see her, she complains it gives her terrible headaches and leaves her horribly confused.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “My mom got the implant because she’d been hurt. Emotionally, I mean. She needed — and honestly enjoyed — her job with the spa she was working for, but she desperately wanted a separate identity. She wanted to be someone who had a life, love, and even lust of her own. The implant was supposed to give her a kind of artificial split personality. She didn’t literally toggle from one to the other, but the implant offered her buckets for her memories and experiences. Personal stuff went on one side, professional stuff on the other.”

  “And that worked for her?”

  “Yes. But she always resented that she was weak enough to need it. It seemed to insult her sense of self. ‘An integrated woman is a healthy woman,’ she used to say — her way of insisting you couldn’t just be okay with who you were; sometimes you had to be several people at once. She both appreciated and hated the partition. She wanted something like that for me, but she also didn’t.”

  Andrew nodded slowly. Here came the crux, finally.

  “I learned to do the same thing as Mom, at her insistence. But I did it naturally, using mnemonics and Graffenberg habituation. And because I trained my brain that way, it’s like I have a partition in my own mind, but there’s no actual device in my brain. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Interesting,” was all Andrew could think to say. His mind was already wandering. He found himself thinking of Alexa’s assertion that Chloe was an intuitive chameleon, found himself wondering if he truly loved her, if she truly loved him … or if perhaps he was only another partition in Chloe’s multifaceted self.

  “This Chloe,” she said, putting a hand to her chest, “doesn’t work for O. And other than the one time, she’s never had another man inside her. There’s you and there was Brad … once. That’s this Chloe’s entire sexual history.”

  “Chloe, it’s okay.”

  “I know it is. But I want you to see that it is.”

  He looked up and met her earnest eyes.

  “Now,” she said, “what are you thinking?”

  “That you’re an impressive specimen.” Andrew reached down and tried to honk her boob, but she pushed his hand away. “Real Chloe is kind of a prude,” he said, feeling the soft flesh vanish from under his fingertips.

  “I’m serious. Talk to me, Andrew.”

  “To you, or to the other you?”

  “Something’s bothering you.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You keep saying that, but I don’t believe you. Please understand that in addition to my work for O being just business, the woman who does that work is also — in a very real way — not the same woman you kiss.”

  “Is she the same girl I fuck?” The word felt hard in his mouth, but conflicted emotions were at war within him. Andrew wondered if he was trying to sabotage the relationship — forcing it to stop working on its own, so his betrayal wouldn’t break it instead.

  “No,” she said.

  “Because if she works for O, she must be the best. And if I have access to the best …” Andrew shrugged. He was going for playful, but knew he was coming off cruel.

  Chloe shook her head. “I knew this was bothering you.” Then, in an infuriatingly patient tone, she said, “Andrew. Trust me, please. Let it all out.”

  “So is there a door inside you? Can we flip-flop? Can the escort talk to my girlfriend and teach her tricks?” He kept the grin on his face to lessen the sting, but his smile was all teeth — kidding but not kidding at all.

  “We should have talked about this earlier,” Chloe said, eyes flicking away.

  “It doesn’t bother me.”

  “Sure it doesn’t.”

  “I’m serious.” Then, trying to reset this out-of-control moment, Andrew sighed. “There. Okay. I had my moment. Just don’t tell me how emphatically you enjoy your work again, and we’ll be fine.” He tried another smile. It still wasn’t right, but at least it felt closer to genuine.

  “But I do enjoy it, Andrew. I don’t want to lie and tell you I don’t. Another part of me enjoys it very much.”

  “There’s that thing we shouldn’t talk about again.”

  “I can’t feel like I need to keep secrets with you. Not if we—” Chloe stopped.

  He drew another deep breath, trying again to reset the moment. “Okay.”

  “Do you still love me?”

  Andrew felt his heart break. In the blink of an eye, a thousand images assaulted him: his signed contract, Parker’s understanding expression, Alexa’s disapproving, superior scowl.

  The image of his vocal cords locking if he breached the potentially deadly contract.

  But that last one must have been hot air, right? Nanobots couldn’t hide inside him like tiny time bombs without his knowledge. His apartment’s Crossbrace connection, like any modern apartment’s, had a bio sweeper. O couldn’t hurt him for real. If he crossed them, they’d simply ruin him.

  Looking at Chloe now, he felt it might be worth it.

  Unless O truly had access to next-level technology. Which was possible. Likely, even.

  But Andrew shook it away. Shook all of it away.

  Alexa was wrong. Chloe’s allegiances weren’t as fluid as she’d argued. She’d explained her mnemonic, conditioned partition: proof that Chloe Shaw, as she existed here and now, was a mere two men past virginity.

  Quite by accident — and unasked — Chloe had said exactly what Andrew had needed to hear after Alexa’s verbal assault.

  “Of course I still love you,” he said.

  “You’ve seemed bothered all day.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  Exactly what he needed to hear. “Yes.” Exactly.

  Chloe pushed him down to the blanket, then laid her head back on his chest. She rolled to her back so they were both staring up at the blue sky, the overhead lattice barely visible as a haze between the few clouds.

  For now, O had him in a vise. And maybe that was fine. Andrew was right and the Six were wrong, and in time they’d have learned all they needed to learn about Chloe. She’d do her work, using a separate part of herself, and he’d be with her other, better part. It wouldn’t matter that he’d been hired to do a job.

  In a separate part of his own
mind (a partition of sorts, you might say) he’d be a boy in love, with his girl beside him, and everything would work out because Chloe’s explanation had so conveniently answered all his niggling concerns, and that made everything okay.

  Coincidence?

  Truth?

  Or just another adaptation?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alexa’s Beam porter was a tall, thin, professional-looking woman she’d named Sarah. She always appeared in a sober gray suit that was a few decades antiquated but nonetheless came off as elegant rather than dated. She had a British accent (also antiquated, given what had happened to Britain during the fall). To Alexa, both suit and accent were relics of a past that seemed much more ancient than it had actually been — fitting comfort in this increasingly uncertain age.

  “Sarah,” said Alexa, “I need you to create a personality fingerprint for me.”

  “Yes, Miss,” said Sarah, clipped and polite like always. “I assume you will need the pollinated network?”

  “Yes. And we’ll be fingerprinting using Purcell’s data.”

  “AcUity data?”

  “No. I need earlier data. What did he have prior to 2040?”

  “Aiden Purcell’s primary software release before the AcUity app was Smartz, an IQ test and aptitude finder, presented as a novelty and bundled with a stacking game.”

  “IQ?”

  “Yes, Miss,” said Sarah, her hands primly clasped in front of her waist. “But Smartz was the progenitor of Mr. Purcell’s later methods, and employed an early version of the same habit-tracking algorithms as AcUity.”

  Alexa nodded. That was actually better than she’d been hoping for. Her next-next-level access would offer a wide reach, but if she was going to try and suss information from over twenty years ago, Alexa still needed a data pool to work with. She might have been able to make do with one of the social networks (by the late 2030s, they’d all been covertly collecting information about their users), but a Purcell dataset was exponentially better.

  Everyone knew Aiden Purcell as the inventor of AcUity, the intelligence-training app that had been such a huge deal a few years ago, but Alexa’s friends in Panel knew AcUity’s true purpose was to map the nation’s brains and behaviors — not unlike what Alexa had once planned for the Anthony Ross platform.