Unnatural

by Anthony DiGiovanni

  * * * *

  The Everett conference room was almost identical to that of Aberdeen, except androids stood on either side of the table, peering into his soul with ever-following unnatural eyes. There seemed to be fewer bars of light illuminated on the ceiling than at his last interrogation. Nothing made a sound save the buzz of cold machinery.

  Harmony of events came full circle as Uriah and Jane sat next to each other and Zolnerowich’s face appeared in the center of the screen. His paralysis abated.

  “I am sorry it had to come to this, Mr. Uriah,” she sighed. The governess glanced at her screen regularly, as no other Lunar officials were present. “You could have been an immense asset to the cause of this new age of humanity, all of your own will, but it seems we may be forced to use subversive methods.”

  “Why don’t you start by proving your accusation, or, say, granting me a fair trial?”

  “Certainly, as that is your right. You will have to undergo minor Neurehab procedures beforehand, however.”

  “Why?” he said with narrowed eyes. “I haven’t exactly been accused of child abuse. I won’t submit to anything until after my trial.”

  “Come now, Mr. Uriah, you did not think homicide was the most of your crimes we know of, did you? Legally, none of us can accuse you of the Dethroning, but the risk that you will commit felonies consistent with such behavior is high enough to warrant this precaution.”

  “Governess, surely you know what drastic effects Neurehab had on Sabrina Lockhart, if Jane’s been informing you? I refuse to subject myself to anything that’ll alter my memory and beliefs against my will.”

  Her eyes flickered up in a Planck time. “Miss Lockhart was changed for the better. She would have been a danger to society with her convictions, and I do not just mean that she would have risked the extinction of our species.”

  “Oh, please, you think everyone’s a threat. It’s not like she would’ve been the next Pope Innocent.”

  “Are you confident in that belief, Mr. Uriah?”

  “As confident as the evidence shows.”

  She pressed something on the screen before her, turning Uriah’s into a display of the interior of a helicopter. Sabrina and Livingston were discussing matters with unnerving civility.

  “You won’t kill your body to put your brain in a Libertas, but you’re fine with the idea of killing your cousin’s body to relieve her of pain?” said Livingston through Big Blue. As Sabrina told the story of her “idea,” Uriah felt vaguely disturbed. Zolnerowich’s interpretation of it was absurd, of course, but Sabrina’s remark that “you might think it makes your past of harassment seem innocuous” was hardly promising.

  “How’d you find this footage?” said Uriah when the screen returned to a view of the LPD conference room.

  Jane chimed in, looking down, “She got it from me. Lunar authorities questioned me at Plestsy and asked me to get the video evidence from all the likely sources. Livingston told me before he left about what had happened before we met, and that led me to this video.”

  “Looks to me like Livingston’s the guy who hacked the robots on Earth and kept you from talking to Sabrina, so why do you trust him?”

  “He didn’t do that, Dennis, I did. That’s what I meant earlier about the bots I hijacked.”

  “Jane has informed me of its encounter with him,” Zolnerowich added, “and I am not convinced his motives were malicious. Assuming that is a prerequisite to the illegality of your killing him.”

  Is there a politician’s version of Poe’s Law? “You’re making it very hard to take you seriously, Governess. Am I missing something here? Jane, what exactly did you tell her?”

  “Everything. I said that, last Thursday, you tracked Livingston down at his house and shot him with an EM gun. The next day, I met him not far from Goodsprings, and he asked who you were, said stuff about an android he thought was responsible for the explosion at the town. I told her you suspected him of the bombing, and that when I found you after the surgery I believed you.”

  “Well, that settles it, doesn’t it, Governess? You may not think highly of Jane, but she wouldn’t lie because she has nothing to gain from protecting me here.”

  Zolnerowich didn’t respond for a while, apparently more focused on something on her screen than on the conversation. It had to be rather important, as Uriah had never seen someone so adept at multitasking. She looked up. “I never accused the android of deceit, but even supposing sincerity entails a lack of bias, which it does not, I believe I said his motives were not malicious, and nothing more. He was acting in self-defense, if I am to believe that you did fire an EM gun at him.”

  There had to be something else going on behind the scenes. Zolnerowich was many things, but she was no idiot. Only a propagandist could defend bombing as self-defense. “First of all, I shot him because I was under the impression that my girlfriend wasn’t lying when she said he’d raped her, and that he was likely to kill me first. And I shot him most recently in my own self-defense! Or did Jane leave out the whole ‘enslaving me’ detail?”

  “Based on Jane’s account, I would say that, if anything, his measures were no more enslavement than an officer’s cuffing a criminal – and after giving that criminal benevolent medical care, I might add. Without a functional police force to aid him, one could consider Mr. Livingston’s actions justified.”

  “Governess, we’re talking about two bloody bombs and a fire in the road!” he said hysterically. The security robots were getting closer, but Zolnerowich made a gesture that pacified them.

  She waved her hand impatiently. “There is insufficient indication that he was responsible for those, and Jane has since altered its position on this matter.”

  “Oh, has she, now?”

  “You never let it finish.” Zolnerowich nodded stiffly to Jane. “Proceed, android.”

  “I confessed to flying to Plesetsk Cosmodrome and sabotaging Strange. Along the way to Plestsy, Livingston and I crossed paths again, and he took me there to test one of those machines on me that he used on you.”

  “How are you not getting some seriously suspicious vibes from this guy, Governess?” Self-aware, he soon added, “Excuse me, Jane.”

  “Jane told me that this was in no way a detrimental agreement to it, as you would know from your pleasant experience with the aforementioned machine. His use of it on a human was certainly questionable if not merciful to you, but in the context of the situation on Sunday, I would say he was in the right. Mr. Livingston sought to keep the android under control until he could reestablish connections between Earth and Luna.”

  The sheer density of lies was about to give Uriah an ulcer, but he breathed in and told Jane, “Continue.”

  “After what must have been hours, an android disconnected me from the Mindscape. It was operated remotely by Governess Zolnerowich, and that’s when the interrogation happened. She knew about the murder from videos of the EMFI.”

  Uriah looked to the side thoughtfully. “‘Operated remotely’? So that must have happened after Livingston died, which means you couldn’t have been the one who locked me in that house, Jane. There wouldn’t be enough time for you to fly here.” He turned to Zolnerowich with a piercing glare. “You, on the other hand, would have the means and the motive to do that.”

  “Spare me your petty accusations. We know who conspired against you and Miss Lockhart.”

  “Mind telling me how ya knew where to find me in the first place? And explaining those signals Sabrina detected that were headed for the moon?”

  “Jane led us to you. It knew you would not be far from your hometown, and it reported a strange migration of robots toward the offending house yesterday.”

  “So how’d Jane get in if you didn’t help her by deactivating the nanos?”

  “I will get to that soon. We found clues as to the perpetrator’s identity. Turns out it was the same person who planted the bombs, and as it happens, he worked a
t the store where one of them exploded.”

  Uriah rolled his eyes, although he’d be a filthy liar if he denied having been slightly unnerved at the time. “So you buy into the same theory Sabrina got all excited about. What convinced you?”

  “It was not hard to figure out the role nanobots played in this, and suffice it to say an engineer at the TLTB, Vladimir Ivanov, confessed to conspiracy with the late George Thornton, a fellow underground – in more ways than one, it seems – nanotech enthusiast. Hence the signals.”

  He wasn’t expecting that. “But why the bombings? Why’d they target me at all?”

  “The bomb at the Bio-Bazaar likely served a dual purpose – to bury the evidence and to bury you. Robots planted them, although we are not sure how you managed to escape being killed twice. Considering you survived those days in the house, it is probable Mr. Ivanov did not intend to murder you at all.”

  Of course, otherwise he would’ve made similar attempts on Sabrina. “This isn’t very convincing to me.”

  “We have a confession, Mr. Uriah, plus Mr. Ivanov’s freeing you. You certainly cannot accuse me, as I would have no reason to force you to adopt a Libertas, considering the request I made of you earlier.”

  He was about to say he could’ve impregnated Sabrina under the influence before the transplant, but that could get him in further legal trouble. Unless … “I suppose Ivanov told you Sabrina was in there, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you what happened inside?”

  For the first time, Uriah heard Zolnerowich laugh. “He did. The quilts around your heads were a clever move. Yes, Mr. Uriah, I am aware of your and Sabrina’s abnormal behavior in that house, and I know it was mostly Ivanov’s doing, except for the drinking. Until we hear from Miss Lockhart, no charges will be pressed against you for sexual harassment, in light of the necessity of the drink for your survival.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Does her word matter, considering Ivanov made me do it?” That sounded more callous than he meant it to, but now was the time to ask.

  “He denies any role in that, but since this may just be deceit on his part, that is another reason you are exempt from blame.”

  Uriah cleared his throat. “Er, Governess, did Ivanov’s report include anything I should know about?”

  “If you are implying what I think you are implying, that is classified information, Mr. Uriah. All I am allowed to tell you is that which is pertinent to your arrest and that of your captor.”

  Hands folded under his chin, he knew she knew something. “Can I at least know where Sabrina is?”

  “She is being sent on her way back here.”

  “You’re not gonna have her raid a sperm bank?”

  “No need. According to the reports I have been sent, she is already pregnant.”