His Dan-Dan gratitude list was getting pretty long and crammed with acts he’d never be able to repay. Which was kind of what friendship was all about, right. Or family. Or love.
Fanaida met him on the porch, feisty and sad, her hands already reaching out to him, to steer him and Dan-Dan into a cozy room dominated by an old, carved, wood-burning fireplace. She swore all the way in. As was her way. “Ni ca’…What’d they do to you, mijo? You look like shit.”
So maybe Dan-Dan hadn’t fixed all the bruising. But he had done enough.
Décor in this house looked old-timey, but in that pseudo-art deco style that was big in the first wave of augmented reality. Probably the overabundance of fake-marble smartsurfaces had made integration of tech and daily living more palatable, but the overall effect was an intersection of traditional and trippy, kind of like houndstooth orbit shorts. Odd angles and swirl patterns on the contoured wall-to-wall carpeting met the medications flowing through Garrett’s system, and the combo made him want to hork. He held back, but only just.
Dan-Dan settled him into a low chair by the fire that was unexpectedly comfortable. The lamp stand at his elbow was made of a smartsurface material, and on it rested a pair of haptic gloves done up to look like doilies.
Garrett pulled on one of those doily gloves and started air-typing an answer to Fanaida one-handed, but smack in the middle of his sentence a speaker picked up instead, pushing his voice into the room. His voice. Chloe must have made a print of it. “…rought us here. I’m okay, and I think she is, too. The plane is inconsolable, and by the way, Chloe, this typing and having my voice come out of the room speakers is extremely freaky. When did you make a voiceprint of me? And worse, what do you make me say when I’m not around?”
He went for a joke but fell flat.
Dan-Dan turned to him and addressed him in Chloe’s voice. “Keep thinking. It’ll come to you.”
Wait. Yes, that had been Chloe’s voice, and definitely she was here, and yes she had carried him home with lullabies in his ears, but something wasn’t right. She sounded… stressed? Sad? Overwhelmed?
He watched Dan-Dan carefully, but the mech gave no clue about Chloe’s state of mind. He just stood in his usual posture, feet slightly apart, long hands folded and chin tipped down, like a pall-bearer at a gravesite.
Garrett wanted to ask if Dan-Dan was archived again or if those two were sharing space, but that topic was fraught with stuff that he’d rather keep private. Which was not possible right now, because people had started filling up the room.
Expected people, for the most part, family people. Fanaida and Dan-Dan were here already, but Mari and Kellen and Angela arrived shortly after, Angela almost unrecognizable in an oversized flannel shirt—Kellen’s?—some armored longstockings, and fluffy slippers. No wig covered the psychemitter implant in her scalp, and her short-cropped black hair gleamed like a helm. Was this house the place Angela referred to as her “eastern command”? The one Chloe had been so stoked to see? Angela certainly seemed comfortable here, and the whole place was wired with so much tech it put out a persistent background hum.
When Kellen’s weird little cat slipped in, the only door to the room shut. Locked. And silence settled in, uncomfortable as a courtroom.
In front of the locked door, Chloe’s image resolved, denser than usual. Taller, too. The air around her crackled.
She looked wrong, but he couldn’t say right away why that was. Maybe he just knew it in his guts.
“First, I really appreciate what you’ve done for me,” she said. “I know none of this was easy, especially when you were all enduring your own personal emergencies, but I want you to know that it worked. I’m back together, mostly. Enough to feel like me again. And, um, thank you for that.”
Her not-really-there eyes pierced them each in turn, and when she turned the force of them on him, Garrett for one would never have believed they weren’t real eyes, backed by a real soul.
Deep eyes, old eyes, knowing eyes. But there was something else in there, a pain he didn’t recognize. Those eyes were holding back a secret, and also possibly a hope.
What did you find inside that storm, Chloe?
But his still-sore mouth wasn’t moving properly, and he couldn’t ask subvocally. Privacy again. What if quizzing her out loud, using the haptic glove and speakers combo, accidentally drew something uncomfortable out into the open? Granted he was used to functioning as a sort of Chloe-filter for the rest of the fam, but it didn’t look like he was going to get a chance at her info first this time. She was jumping right in, both feet first.
All right. Still with you, Fig. Still got your back.
He wondered if she could feel his support like he could feel her presence. A thing taken for granted, yeah, but only because depending on it was safe. Mostly. His whole world had wobbled a couple of times recently, which only made him that much more determined to be her solid ground.
“Currently I am running extensive searches on all data points I’ve collected so far,” she went on, steadily and not looking at him, like she either didn’t need his support or didn’t want it. “I have identified three statistical weather discrepancies that are likely the work of the Consortium—an unlikely storm system moving over SoCal and spawning tornados, a whiteout in the northern European Remnant, and a cold wave over the Bihar region in India already dipping below 34 degrees Celsius, which is almost unheard of, especially this late in the season. I have sent resources to each of those locations. They’re loaded with my homing beacons, so if Apega—uh, she’s the part of my swarm that appears to have gone rogue—has caused any of these disasters, I will repair them and collect still more of my pieces. I expect this process to be ongoing. As far as I can tell, I don’t need any further help in cleaning up my own messes, so yay for that.”
Her holoprojection tucked its bottom lip between sharp teeth. Did she realize that was a habit? He’d have to bring it up later. She’d get a kick out of having a physical habit when she was in holoform.
She looked around the assembled company one more time, her gaze lingering longest on him, like a warning, and then she said, “However, if you’ll indulge me, I must tell you all a thing.”
Chapter Twenty
CHLOE’S INFORMATION GIFT
“When I was held captive in Antarctica,” Chloe said, her even, pleasant machine voice betraying none of her inner trepidation—which, honestly, might be the only positive about being a robot girl, “I downloaded a lot of stuff from the archives there. Consortium files mostly. It was my way of resisting, of getting back at the people who hurt me. But I did it really fast, without taking time to analyze what I was grabbing, and all that information sort of got lost at the end when…there was a lot going on. Anyhow, I’ve found it now, along with most of my memories. It was in the storm. Actually, this was in the storm.”
On the smartsurface wall near the fireplace, an area made to look like white marble, a list appeared:
Athanatos in Three
CentralizeEncourage multinations (Neeraf, Himiko, Fanaida)
Infiltrate the power structure of each (Ofelia, Daniel, Yves-Adele)
Control the cloud (Fanaida, Asim, Eshe)
ExterminateNatural disasters (Asim, Zeke, Himiko)
War (Zeke, Daniel, Eshe)
Population displacement (Seyha, Boo, Zeke)
EndureClone and mech-clone tech (Frederic, [Mags, can we trust Damon?], ?)
Breeding smarter (Mags, Daniel, Neeraf)
Medical nanites (Frederic, Himiko, Ofelia)
“That list was a seed yielding hundreds of sprouts, one tagged with patents, biomarkers, financial account passwords. Another had codes to launch weapons, secret, secondary administrator logins for infrastructure systems and media sources and…” She sent a direct message to Dan-Dan, wordless pity and the machine equivalent of a hug, as she finished out loud, “…mech-clones.”
Thank you, Dan-Dan sent back. He looked stolid and unperturbed as ever, but it must have been a relief to hear confirmed what he’d suspected all along: the programming that made him turn on Angela and attack her hadn’t been him. And it hadn’t been his fault, either.
They can’t do this to us. They shouldn’t, Chloe sent.
They shouldn’t love us either, but sometimes they do, he returned.
“Boo?” Mari mouthed, and then said with actual voice, “I mean, Mags could be anybody, but when you have Mags and Boo, that’s almost gotta be… What the hell do my mom and auntie have to do with any of this Consortium bullshit?”
Nobody in the room was looking at the owner of the other name on the list. Mama Fan. And then, in the silence that settled, suddenly they all were.
“I have analyzed the time stamps and storage history on various documents,” Chloe said, deliberately softening her tone. “In the first part of this century, all the people named in that list, and presumably some others, developed a plan to consolidate power, achieve personal immortality, and kill off everyone else who wasn’t them. I suspect it was their way of saving humanity from itself? Or something like that? They formed a Consortium.”
“Context, mija,” Fanida said at last, bracketing her forehead with bony hands and dropping her gaze to the floor. “Your story is accurate, but it lacks context.”
“You wanna fill us in?” Kellen asked, somehow managing to sound neither accusing nor surprised.
Yoink padded over and jumped up in Fan’s lap. The cat turned around three times, getting comfortable, and then nudged one frail wrist with her tiny head. Fanaida didn’t really have a choice. She stroked the soft fur and drew in a long breath.
And then she started talking. “No, I don’t want to tell. Not particularly. But I will do it. The aughts—is what we who lived them called the years between 2000 and 2010—were, you know, unsettled. Lots of terrorism and war and weapons of mass destruction and people hating each other. I was a kid then, but old enough to recognize what a giant clusterfuck it all was. Grown-ups, they thought the worst had already happened, that there wasn’t any way to stop the inevitable decline of humanity and, like, civilization. They walked around like zombies, just waiting for something to burn them up. That sense of not being able to do anything, not being able to make a difference? Was bullshit, and we kids knew it. And then a couple things happened.
“First, there was this streaming vid series, real popular, about how the world was ending not because of war or climate change necessarily but because of overpopulation. See, now I know about the cognitive error of declinism and the cycles technology and civilization go through to self-correct, but at the time it felt like revealed truth. The world was ending because stupid humans could not stop themselves from reproducing more stupid humans.
“Turned out, I wasn’t the only person on the planet buying into this nonsense theory. I found others with the same thoughts. Online, we met up and talked and bitched about everything around us. We were all over the world, in chat rooms, making up a better future as if it were a fucking fantasy land.
“And then, one day, a few years into it, we realized it didn’t have to be a fantasy. Two members of our group were stupid rich, several others really smart, like, prodigies. Daniel was already a celebrity—he was on a cable kids show, so his platform was huge already when social media took off. I wasn’t anything special, me, but Adele she liked me a lot, so she brought me into the inner circle. And I watched them plan it all out.”
On the list, something drew a line through all the instances of Fanaida’s name, and a message scrawled itself out to the side: But you aren’t part of the Consortium now, Mama Fan. You are part of our family.
Chloe knew without having to ask that Garrett was the message writer. When she looked at him again, he was still staring straight at her. His gold eyes had glazed. It was almost like he knew she had more information that she wasn’t sharing. And he…accepted it. Accepted that she had a reason for sharing all this painful revelation. But even if the family matriarch totally deserved it, he wasn’t going to let anybody roast Fanaida for her sins.
Oh, Chloe knew what his too-focused devotion felt like, but right now it just made her mad. Also frustrated. She didn’t want him to be on anybody else’s side. She wanted him all to herself. And at the same time she admitted that he hadn’t been hers in a long time. Ever, really.
Because devotion to someone you’re persistently lying to wasn’t love. It was condescension.
As if he could feel himself being watched, he closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the chair’s cushion.
Fat tears dripped on to cat fur, but Fanaida’s voice was still steady as she continued, “We were years into the plan before we all hooked up IRL, in real life, and met each other for the first time. I think we all disappointed each other, and we splintered fast after that. Adele and I visited Boo and Mags sometimes, in Texas. They convinced Seyha to come there, too. And when we saw the rest of the group enacting pieces of our plan, we knew we had to stop them. Or try. In the end, it was just a lot of trying, not a lot of succeeding, but I wouldn’t change what we built, Adele and I. This family. You kids. You’re my life’s work. You’re my immortality, my personal athanatos. I’m just sorry you feel compelled to keep fighting. It’s not worth it. Not worth losing her.”
Mari’s hand had drifted to her abdomen. Probably she didn’t even realize it had. “Let me get this straight, my parents—and my auntie too—were part of a conspiracy to take over the world because they thought folks were having too many babies? What the fuck kind of thinking is that?”
“Hey, my parents’ names are on there, too—Neeraf and Himiko,” Angela said, “Not to mention my ex-husband, Daniel, and my ex-boss, Zeke. Welcome to Team Guilt By Association.”
“Well, I ain’t part of it.” Mari got to her feet as if the chair could no longer contain her. She paced to the wall, re-read the list, flashed it a middle finger, and stalked to the window.
Garrett twitched his hand inside the haptic glove, and his voice sifted into the room, “The name Seyha is on there, too. She was my foster mom, in Houston. Nice lady, scared a lot, and for good reasons. I don’t think Chloe’s trying to guilt us, though. Right, Fig?”
His words, lazy and soothing, spilled out from the room’s speakers. Chloe wanted to scream at them, at him. It’s cruel to refuse a gift. But she didn’t.
“I need you all to come clean with each other,” she said steadily. “Because as much as you all claim to care about each other, this family is crammed full of lies.”
Fanaida had gotten up, too, settling the cat on Angela’s lap instead, and went to the smartsurface wall and its offending list. She placed a palm flat against her struck-out name. “I had forgotten so much of that early business. We were all so young, playing with power we hadn’t earned. The list is not up-to-date, but yeah, I do recognize it.”
“How do I not remember you or Adele at all?” Mari said, a thread of panic working its way into her voice.
Angela attempted something soothing, but Mari was way too worked up. Kellen and the cat got involved, and the conversation blurred together, a din of mingled outrage and defensiveness and confusion and care.
This wasn’t going as planned.
Garrett’s eyes were still closed. Chloe ran a quick scan. He was stable, healing, but she couldn’t get a bead on what these revelations meant to him, how he was reacting emotionally. She needed to know, but was scared to ask.
Coward. I am such a coward.
She deliberately did not let her holoprojection focus on him. She engaged the others, cutting through their chaotic chatter.
“I mentioned biomarkers for a reason,” she said. Garrett didn’t move, but he had to react, deep down. Had to. “Angela, your entire genome is in their records, studied extensively. Apparently the Consortium folks who were focused on breedin
g a super race had high hopes for you. So, uh, go you, I guess? Kellen’s records are not as complete, but…I don’t know how to say this and it will come as a significant shock I think, so brace yourselves.” Pause, as if for breath, and then, “Did you two know that you are parents of a daughter?”
Both of them visibly flinched and then paled, but they didn’t seem surprised. As if their fingertips had magnets, their hands reached for each other and clasped.
Touch. Connection. Oh, sweet stars, Chloe yearned for that that exact thing, yearned for it with every piece of her ridiculous, artificial self. Yearned for it even more now that she’d had a taste of it, and lost. She could feel her pieces vibrating, losing focus, veering into her default state of hopeless want.
No, no. Get it together. That’s not what you are. The queen said mechs don’t feel. We don’t regret, and we don’t forgive. We sure as hell don’t require others to validate our existence. We are different, other. Quite possibly better.
Neither Kellen nor Angela seemed capable of speech, so Chloe forged on ahead. “Something internal happened to fracture the Consortium eight years ago—I could hazard a guess, but I don’t think my storytelling abilities are going over extraordinarily well. At that point, the breeding program part of the plan just went away. Someone tried to destroy all the samples and erase all the records, but they should know that nothing in informationland ever really goes away.”
Her holoprojection shook its head, and Chloe was careful with the hair. Gravity. Nathan had reminded her about hair and gravity. Poor Nathan.
All her many millions of memories were glass shards in a bag—clanking, rubbing, hissing at each other, in perpetual conflict. They would hurt her hands if she squeezed too tight. She struggled to keep them sorted and the bleeding to a minimum.
More Than Stardust Page 26
