“To feed her?”
“No, to change her.” I held Cleopatra at arm’s length, and Albert pinched his nostrils. “And to sit with her so Jimmy can return home.” I faced Jimmy. “Thank you for your help.”
He rushed from the room without offering additional babysitting services.
Albert continued to glare at Cleopatra, as if the ooze seeping around her diaper with its accompanying odor was a personal affront. “Are you going to take your daughter or not?” I demanded.
“You do it.”
He turned to leave, as I laid Cleopatra on the floor and removed her soiled diaper. I yelled, “Don’t leave. We need to talk.” He stood with his back to the door. “You don’t really want this child.”
He glanced down and muttered, “I didn’t expect we’d be living together, just that you wanted a baby.”
“And I should raise her all by myself?”
“We never talked about that part.”
With Cleopatra cleaned and diapered, I carried her into our bedroom and laid her in her crib. When I returned, Albert hadn’t moved from the door. He sunk to the floor in his frog-legged position, and I squatted in front of him.
I asked, “How come Bob and Helen sign themselves when they greet me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You did it a couple of times, too.”
“Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t.”
“Mimicking some crazy behavior without a sound rationale is not your style. I want to know why you signed and why you stopped.”
He blushed. “Because your baby might be a special gift from God.”
“She’s a special gift from your DNA. If God is involved in any way, She just allowed it to happen.”
“I don’t believe I am the father.”
I pointed to his crotch. “You shoved that thing into me and it hurt like hell.”
He cast his eyes down. “You were already pregnant when that happened.”
Had he guessed I’d still been a virgin when we finally consummated our relationship? “Well, who do you suppose got me pregnant that night back on Mission One? The Man in the Moon?”
“I don’t know who the Man in the Moon is, but I don’t think it was me.”
“Well, who do you think you screwed? My droid?” I considered confessing the fraud Sera and I concocted, but he shook his head.
“I think you were already pregnant, and you used me as a cover.”
I stood and turned my back to him. “You were the only man capable of getting me pregnant.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a man.”
“Go back to your project, and get that crazy notion out of your head.”
I faced him as he scrambled to his feet. “Build that passage so I can go home to my parents.” As he opened the door, I asked, “Why did you and the others stop that stupid gesture?” I pulled my mother’s cross from under my blouse. “I still wear this thing.”
“I stopped because my father forbade it. Bob and Helen hide the gesture by sliding their thumbs across their palms.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m going to grab Helen’s hand the next time she greets me with it.”
“Not you. Since you gave birth, they use the sign to honor your baby.” He ducked out of the room, and I stood dumbfounded.
I resigned myself to the role of a mother who loves and tends to her child, disregarding Bob and Helen’s veneration, Frank’s agitation, and Albert and his mother’s hesitation. If the gods chose my child or me as some kind of connection between human and divine, She or He will have to speak in a loud voice.
A YEAR LATER
AUGUST 1, 3152
I had just put my toddler down for her afternoon nap, when Jimmy peered from behind the door and said, “You got to see this.”
By the time I summoned Sera to watch Cleopatra, Jimmy had sped down the hall beckoning me to follow. I entered his parent’s apartment wondering if maybe they needed assistance, but Jimmy appeared to be home alone. He stood outside the closed door to his room, obviously preparing me for a surprise.
“She asked for you.”
As the door swung open, I scanned the dimly lit interior. A series of flashing laser beams intersected a plume of vapor rising from what looked like a turntable, and a blurred three-dimensional image appeared.
“I see Albert has enhanced your toy with a hologram. Very impressive.”
“Close the door.”
The room darkened and within the cloud, I discerned a girl about my age. I thought of Anne Frank, assuming Albert’s new medium could turn a grainy black and white photo into a full-color three-dimensional form. I momentarily panicked that Jimmy had read my personal history but remembered that Albert had acquired a much earlier copy of my tutorial before I inserted my narrative into Anne Frank’s diary.
“This gal appeared instead of Princess Lea when I tried to access Star Wars.”
“Are you sure Lea hasn’t disguised herself, suggesting you watch something different for a change?”
“Listen.” He waved his hand in front of the image’s face.
It responded, “I have a message for Ariel Gordon.”
“It just keeps repeating the same thing.” He stepped back. “If you think it’s for your ears only, I’ll leave.”
It must be viewed in secret, but I can’t ask him to leave his own room. “She’s probably mistaking me for Sera. I’ll relieve her from babysitting duties and send her over here to receive it.” I decided but didn’t mention that she’d download the entire Star Wars program, if that’s where this apparition resides.
“I’ll get Sera and stay with Cleopatra.”
He seemed too eager and I hesitated.
He cowered, his back against the door. “That thing scares me.”
I willed Sera to diaper Cleopatra and expect Jimmy. “Thank you. That would be nice.” He opened the door and continued to back through the living room. “If she fusses, push her on the swing. She likes that.” Sera would repeat these instructions if he hadn’t heard.
“I closed the door and studied the image up close. Passing my hand through the cloud activated an audible recording. “Ariel, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Enter so I can sense you.”
I stepped onto the slightly raised platform and pushed the turntable with my foot. The image rotated. I advanced head-on with outstretched arms, but my body passed through to the other side.
“Ariel, is that you?”
“How can I identify myself if I can’t join you?”
“You can’t intercept the image with your body.” Sera, not the girl enveloped in smoke, answered. She stepped up to the console and fidgeted with some gadgets. The image dissolved, and the vapor receded into the turntable. The lasers went dark, and a slightly acrid odor accosted my sinuses.
“Where’d she go?” My knees buckled and my entire body trembled. A delayed reaction? Had adrenaline sustained me during the encounter?
“Into my computer.”
“Huh?”
“The full program downloaded into my computer. It had never come this close to full capacity before.”
“You need to charge?”
“Yes. I’ll be in the basement, not Frank’s office. Join me after you feed Cleopatra. This program will take a while to set up.”
Albert, not Jimmy, met me at our apartment door, struggling to maintain his hold on Cleopatra as she squirmed and wiggled to break free. He released her and she waddled to my outstretched arms.
Albert asked, “Why didn’t Jimmy call me to fix the problem? I told him some glitches would occur in the program.”
Fix the problem? I needed to thank Jimmy for his discretion. “You weren’t here, so I took the opportunity to test his babysitting skills, while Sera and I went to investigate.”
“Did she understand the problem?”
“Nothing serious enough to call in the master program designer.” I needed to divert his curio
sity. “How come you never developed three dimensional viewing when I still used the system?”
“I hadn’t yet figured out how.”
“I’ll forgive you only if you relieve me of parenting duties until our daughter’s bedtime.” I set Cleopatra in her swing and headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Just to wander around. Maybe stir up some mischief with the neighbors.” I kissed his cheek. “I need some time to myself.”
I paused at Frank’s office until I heard his and Emily’s voices, and then I tiptoed next door to the commissary and its alternate access to the interior and lower levels. After perusing three aisles of groceries and toiletries, I entered the storeroom by way of the back door. Sera would intercept any signals alerting my intrusion. I stepped between conveyors and dodged robotic arms blending ingredients and jamming pans into ovens, some directly into refrigeration units. Another set of arms packaged and shelved processed food and household items ready for display in the commissary. Manufactured items and raw material mysteriously popped up through shafts from a lower level where humans were not permitted. Sera would be charging there. I rode the lift down to the in-between level, a duplication of my Mother’s laboratory space minus any noticeable function.
Step back on the lift and descend further.
I peered through the transparent pad to the depth of hell, judging from the crackling noises and lighting flashes emanating from Sera’s charging area. No way! My legs already felt the increased weight of my body.
Do it now.
I pressed my toe against the circle of glass, and it dropped a few inches.
Stand on it.
I obeyed and dropped through a transparent tube that shielded me from anything harmful to humans, but it offered no relief from increased gravity. Had I still been pregnant, Cleopatra would have been crushed inside my body. I descended to what appeared to be the top of a large round storage tank. My knees buckled, and I sunk to a sitting position, my back against the circular wall of my protective enclosure. The pad on which I sat rotated and I observed products rising through chutes, no doubt popping into the back room of the commissary. Liquid gurgled as it made the round trip through parallel pipes.
My gaze passed over Sera standing rigid as she had in her charging closet, but with no visible connections. Through the din, I observed swirls of black powder creating drifts like snow banks around the holding tank’s circumference. Rotating arms augured the material into the structure, flashing light and crackling noises leaking from their connecting points. Dark Energy?
Dark Energy has no substance, but it creates matter on the outer surface of our habitat. It will produce layers like rings on a tree until our two units merge in fifty years What you see are flakes eroding off the inner skin, the basic raw material for structures, household items and even your food, air, and water.
“Why am I down here?”
To meet your Earth cousin. Sera’s lips moved but her words arrived in a cluster.
“But I can hardly breathe.” My lift began to rise.
“We encountered a problem.” Sera’s voice penetrated the transparent enclosure. Wait for me at the next level.
As I emerged free of the tube, I questioned Sera’s intentions but got no response. I reclined on the couch, breathed deep, and willed my pulse to return to normal, convinced I could never spend any amount of time with Marty’s image under those circumstances. Besides, what kind of conversation could we have while waiting two years for each verbal exchange? With Jimmy’s toy, Princess Lea’s image is inches, not light years, away from the program where her interactive elements reside. I don’t need a visual gimmick to glean the information from Marty’s message.
Sera rose through the opening in the floor minus the protective tube, holding what might have been a motor cyclist’s helmet, if such a vehicle still existed.
She said, “Your virtual presence is required to establish contact with Marty’s image.”
I eyed the antenna protruding from the headgear. “Can’t I, as a real person, just talk to her?”
“The security built into her program will allow an exchange of information only after your virtual presence is established and probably required to communicate in the future.”
“I need an out-of-body experience to hear what she has to say?”
“We nearly compressed your lungs attempting direct communication without success. With your permission, I will transport your image to comingle with hers.”
I nodded, but she already had my consent.
Sera extended the antenna and placed the mechanism over my head, an opaque shield covering my face. “Marty is programmed to respond only if you initiate a topic. Limit yourself to one question for your first encounter.”
Blinded behind opaque glass, I assumed that Sera positioned me in front of the lift. I willed my arms to resist but my body remained rigid.
Relax.
I took ten quick short breaths.
“Step forward.” My voice repeated Sera’s instructions, confirming where my body seemed to be heading. Weightlessly, I descended, not down the lift but through the floor. From habit, I preened, brushing hair from my face and pinching my cheeks for color. My hands passed through my head immersed in moderate light, but nothing appeared to exist around me until Marty materialized. Her Negro image didn’t alarm me as might have everyone else on Missions One or Two, except possibly Jimmy. I deliberated how to form a significant single question, but my curiosity had pre-empted my conscious attempt.
My memory arrived through the assistance of my father, an Earth Federation scientist. Marty’s lips moved but not in sync with her words, as had been happening recently with Sera.
Tell me more. Not a question, and according to Sera, requesting additional information about a single topic is possible. I cleared a myriad of distracting thoughts as best I could and smiled.
He planted a worm virus that allowed access through the Realm’s protective shield to open all levels of communication.
I reacted to the probable chaos with everything and everyone communicating simultaneously, and I must have mentally blurted my concern.
Marty dissolved like Alka-Seltzer in water.
On my way back to our apartment, exhausted and confused, I considered how much of my encounter to share with Albert. Our marriage hadn’t been based on mutual trust, and finding him gone and Jimmy tending Cleopatra when I had arrived added one additional strain. I stared him into a corner and demanded to know where Albert went and why.
“Albert’s father fetched me, because the baby couldn’t be left alone. Said he needed Albert for an emergency.”
My first reaction, instruct Sera to eavesdrop on the two of them, a direct violation of my promise not to use her in any clandestine fashion. “What kind of emergency?”
“I don’t know, but he seemed very excited and I think a little afraid. I heard him tell Albert to summon Sera.”
Summon Sera? As our Realm, Sera will respond to issues and problems reported by either Paul or Frank, but they haven’t the authority to request her attention. Both sets of families had agreed to the procedure during our first video conference. In exchange for their concessions, we had agreed that her relationship with me would be strictly as my personal avatar. I had the impression that Sera programmed herself to operate on these prescribed levels.
“Thank you, Jimmy. You are an excellent baby sitter, and I hope you’d be willing to offer your services in the future.”
“Only if she doesn’t have to eat or poop.”
“Albert and I will tend to those activities.” I sensed Frank’s emergency might have something to do with Marty’s communication. “Are you planning to use the tutorial when you get home?”
“Mom and Dad were watching Charlie’s Angels when I left. The program is probably still running.”
“Do you play it on your three-dimensional system?”
“That’s what makes it the most fun to watch.”
&n
bsp; “Let me know if anything unusual occurs while it’s operating.”
“Okay.”
“And thank you for keeping my mysterious visitor a secret.”
He nodded and waved. “Call when you want me to babysit.”
I followed him to the door and then sat and brooded. When Albert returned, he plopped onto the couch. Cleopatra and I had occupied his favorite rocking chair.
He said, “I think we need to talk.”
“Talk. Talk. That’s all we ever do.” I aimed for the juggler, his lack of libido. He remained unfazed.
He asked, “How did you smuggle a secret message back to Earth?”
“You did it when you and your father decided to punish Paul by hurting me.”
“How so?”
“You said the data library accidentally got sent off into space when you attempted to deny everyone access. Well, it returned to Earth, and my tutorial must have gone along. You wouldn’t know because Jimmy already had his copy to play with.” I casually bared my breast and attached Cleopatra’s mouth, shielding my nipple from sprouting teeth with my little finger. “Now, I have a question for you. Under what circumstances and by what authority did you summon Sera?”
“That happened automatically. The repair droids were alerted that her communication system had been challenged, as if her batteries had gone dead or her system had become overloaded. They, not me or my father, summoned her for repair. We suspect you had something to do with the sapping of her energy.”
“Not my father or I,” I corrected, as I attempted to piece together the facts. Had Sera put her system and our habitat at risk to accommodate Marty and me?
“The droids located Sera in the inner sanctum with you and a girl no one knew existed, a stowaway.”
Through the din of accusations, my respect for Albert’s technical skill soared. He’d designed and built a transponder so powerful that Marty’s virtual image passed for a human form. “How did Sera explain the anomaly?”
LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME Page 15
