Perion Synthetics (16 page)

Cyn had grown tired of her hospital bed
anyway, so she followed the balding Indian man through the hallways and around
the nurse stations until they came to an open space where the ceiling rose to
twice its normal height. On the second floor, frosted glass railings obscured
Cyn’s view of the other patients.

The atrium was made up to look like a
garden, with a quincunx of flower beds at the corners and center. The low walls
of the beds provided close seating for those who could endure the overpowering
aroma of fresh flowers. Small tables filled the empty spaces, with armless
chairs for patients and doctors to sit and chat.

A bronze tree rose from the center of the atrium,
its branches bending in a deliberate pattern, reminding Cyn of the copper
pathways on printed circuit boards. Instead of leaves, the tree had sprouted
four large vidscreens which displayed the same tranquil nonsense as the one in
Cyn’s room.

“There are some divans along the west side,”
said Dr. Bhenderu. “And it’s quieter there as well.”

“Thanks,” said Cyn, though she barely felt
the words.

Candice continued to whimper. The longer the
doctor took to show her around, the longer Candice went without her late
afternoon snack. If she didn’t eat now, she wouldn’t nap, wouldn’t fall asleep
at the right time later in the evening before Patsy arrived.

The name echoed, but no face rose from her
memory.

“I’ll see about that bottle,” said Dr.
Bhenderu.

“
See
that it’s warm,” said Cyn.

She made the short walk from the entrance to
the blue divans, noticing for the first time that the skylights in the ceiling
weren’t real. It was in the way the light rolled, like old fluorescent light
bulbs. The bits of blue sky were just projections from a vidscreen hidden in
the ceiling. As she sat down on the divan, she wondered if anything in the room
were real.

Candice settled down with the change in
scenery, but it wasn’t until the nurse arrived with the bottle that she closed
her eyes in contentment. Her fidgety limbs slowed as she drank.

In the calm that followed, Cyn put her head
back and shut her eyes. She listened to the din of conversation, the whoosh of an
air conditioning vent somewhere off to her left, and the light classical music
emanating from hidden speakers in the gardens.

The gentle melodies brought her heart rate
down, allowed her a brief moment of repose before a voice in the back of her
head spoke up, telling her it was dangerous to let her guard down. The voice
had been chatty all day, begging for something but unable to articulate exactly
what it wanted. It was hard to hear over the bustle of the real world, but in
Cyn’s fleeting moment of calm, it came out of the darkness like the back-beat
of some techno slop when all other tracks had faded out. It came with the
realization it had always been there.

Cyn opened her eyes, feeling a presence
nearby.

On the divan to her right sat a woman about
Cyn’s age with radiant eyes that reminded her of Candice. The woman was smiling
and blushing a little.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to
wake you.”

Candice had fallen asleep after the bottle
went empty.

Cyn readjusted her arms and shook her head.
“I must have dozed off.”

“She’s beautiful. I saw her from across the
room and…”

Cyn tightened her grip.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The woman put up her hands.
“Please don’t think…”

Cyn managed a weak laugh. “No, it’s me. I’ve
been on edge all day. I’m not usually this paranoid.”

“Every mother’s different. Mine was very
protective of me and my sisters when we were kids. She rarely even let us out
of the house.”

“I hope I’m not that bad,” said Cyn, looking
down at Candice again. One day, she would have to let her daughter go out into
the world and experience everything it had to offer: sex, drugs, and rock and
roll.

Cyn shook her head. Rock and roll? She
couldn’t remember being a fan. The only memories of music she had involved
techno offshoots and anything by Eliana Alcivar. Why then had the words formed
in her brain like that? Had she heard the three put together before? Was it
just something old hippies said when they talked about the good old days?

“What’s her name?”

“Candice,” said Cyn, breaking out of the
cloud. “And I’m Cynthia.” She extended her hand to the woman.

“Roberta,” she replied, grasping Cyn’s fingers
lightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

Roberta was at the hospital not as a patient, but as
assistant to her new friend, a man she spoke about in a voice so wistful it
made Cyn sick with envy. She pointed him out in the crowd, a lanky and
stylishly unkempt man with dark hair and a disarming smile. He had soft eyes
that shone with true interest as he spoke to people. He walked from table to
table while Cyn and Roberta talked, sitting casually with older patients as
they looked up from their palettes, artificial light glinting off the metal
clasps of their oxygen tubes.

According to Roberta, she had met Cameron
Gray only a few days before, the Monday preceding the Synthetic Collapse. She
explained about the resulting confusion, the lack of direction from managers
going all the way up the chain. How would the company respond? Would Perion
Synthetics survive such a widespread failure? Patio cafes saw a surge in
business as Perion City residents gave into their need for camaraderie, for
sharing their theories about what went wrong and who was to blame.

After a few days, the only discernable change
was the heightened security in the plaza outside the Spire. That and the media
blackout, a safety measure the executive team assured residents was only
temporary.

“But doesn’t he work for a media outlet?”

“Yes, Banks Media Productions,” said
Roberta, “out of Los Angeles. All they told him was not to mention the
Collapse, so he’s just been interviewing random people for the past few days.
It’s been kind of nice. They’ve pretty much forgotten about us. Even that nasty
woman who used to follow us around hasn’t shown her face in days.” She paused,
sighed. “Cam’s got hours and hours of interviews to go though. I’ll probably
have to help him index them.”

“The things we do for love, right?”

“Yes, but what beautiful things come of it,”
she replied, nodding at Candice.

Cyn felt her eyes tear up and she sniffled.

The voice in the back of her mind was
screaming at her, chastising her for being so weak, and pointing out the
ridiculousness of being so attached to something other than her own life. But
maybe that was what the voice didn’t realize; as the directive pointed out,
Candice was as much a part of Cyn as her own hand or memories or sense of
morality. Candice had grown in her womb, had been assembled from Cyn cells and
fed on Cyn nutrients. Why did the voice refuse to recognize that?

“Oh,” said Roberta, raising a hand in the
air. “Can I introduce you to Cameron?”

This time, the name resonated. Cyn reached
for a memory that wasn’t there.

“Sure,” replied Cyn.

The aggregator cut through the crowd,
tossing a few veiled looks at the two orderlies walking the second floor
balcony. When he arrived at the divans, he put out a sturdy hand.

“Cameron Gray,” he said, “with
Banks Media out of Los Angeles. Who are you today?”

“Excuse me?”

“How are you today, Miss…?”

“Paulson,” she replied. “Cynthia Paulson.
And I’m doing fine.”

Cam sat down on the divan next to Roberta
and tapped his phone. “I see you have a baby.”

“You don’t miss much, do you?”

Roberta snickered, but something defensive
flared behind Cam’s eyes. Cyn read the danger as easily as she read the
laminated press badge hanging around his neck.

“I don’t,” said Cam. “That’s how I get all
the cushy assignments. First aggregator to step foot in Perion City in who
knows how long.”

“Eight years three months,” said Roberta.

Cam laughed. “Yes, yes.”

Cyn raised her eyebrow, but the aggregator
pressed on.

“Would you mind if I asked you a few
questions about you and your daughter?”

His enunciation of the word
daughter
had that same bite as Sayre’s, but Cyn nodded her head anyway.

“First off, with the recent collapse of
Perion’s entire product line, I’ve been asking everyone for their reactions and
what they think could have been done to avoid this mishap.”

She paused, searching for an emotional
reaction to an entire population of synthetics dropping dead, but found none. “I
don’t know. Everyone seems pretty worried about it, I guess. Everyone except
you.”

Cam shrugged. “Objectivity comes with the
job. I’m just doing what I can to make sure the real story about the Great
Perion Synthetic Collapse of 2015 comes out in the end, that all parties are
held responsible, and that the true heroes are recognized blah blah blah.”

He didn’t actually use nonsense words, but
Cyn heard the meaningless syllables in her head just the same. The little
speech he rattled off reeked of insincerity.

“How’s the general mood about the company?”
asked Cyn. “Roberta says things have gone back to normal for the most part.”

“Oh have they?” Cam nudged Roberta with his
elbow. “Well, no doubt there have been some interesting revelations in the past
couple days. The sense I get is that James Perion and his son don’t see eye to
eye on the direction of the company—maybe they never have. There’s been a lot
of miscommunication between father and son, lots of drama, and lots of
special
projects
coming to light because of the Collapse. I’m purely speculating
here, but I think Joseph Perion has been running his own little company right
under the old man’s nose.”

“And what about the media blackout?”

Again, Cam shot a glance at Roberta. He
raised the glowing red sliver on his wrist into view. “There are always
exceptions.”

Cyn looked to her own wrist, at the
monitoring strip that hadn’t come off when the nurse disconnected the wires. It
felt stuck to her skin, as if some clueless intern had used too much glue.

“So let me ask you, Ms. Paulson…”

“
Mrs.
Paulson,” said Cyn.

Cam made a note on his phone. “As you may
have seen on the news, the world’s population passed eight billion over the
summer. This, of course, brings up a lot of questions about resources and
social services, but one group in particular has been using this milestone to
push their own agenda. This small minority believes child bearing should be a
privilege, not a right. There is an article available on my feed about a small
township in New England that has begun experimenting with competency exams and
birth licenses. As a new mother, what is your opinion on that?”

“On what?”

“On requiring a license to have a baby. You
would have to prove to a regulatory agency that you’re competent to raise and
care for a child, not to mention provide proof of financial stability.”

Cam’s eyes darted to the right to an
approaching orderly. The man in the white smock slowed at the attention and
took a position on the wall.

“Government,” Cam continued, his voice
quieter, “telling you if you’re fit to be a mother. I’m guessing you didn’t ask
permission to have her, right?”

Cyn shook her head.

“Of course, this creates a market for
training services. SAT prep classes are a million dollar industry. Imagine the
businesses that would spring up overnight if people actually had to
study
for parental competency exams.”

“It would never work,” said Cyn. “You can’t
deny people a basic human right.”

“This is America, sweetheart. We haven’t had
inalienable rights since…” He paused, cleared his throat. “Well, ever, I
guess.”

“Is everything alright over here?”

Dr. Bhenderu was winded, as if he had just
run a short distance at great speed.

“Dr. B!” said Cam, raising a hand. “Why am I
not surprised to see
you
here?”

“Mr. Gray, I thought for sure you had left
us already. I’m glad to see you’re still in good health. No more incidents, I
take it?”

“Nor will there be,” said Roberta, putting a
hand on Cam’s shoulder.

So that’s who wears the pants, thought Cyn.

“Well, Mrs. Paulson is still recuperating.
Perhaps you wouldn’t mind talking to her in a few days, once she’s had an
opportunity to regain her bearings.”

“Her bearings seem fine to me, Doc.”

“Is that your professional medical opinion,
Mr. Gray?”

Cam grinned, but conceded.

“Actually,” said Cyn, “I am feeling a bit
tired. I think Candice and I could use some quiet time.”

Dr. Bhenderu smiled. “I will have one of the
nurses take you back to your room, Mrs. Paulson. If there is anything else you
require, please let her know.” With a slight turn of his head, his smile
disappeared. “Mr. Gray, perhaps we can meet later to discuss your interviews
with my patients?”

“Absolutely, Doc,” said Cam, examining his
fingernails.

After Dr. Bhenderu had walked away, Cyn
asked, “What do parental competency exams have to do with me? And why doesn’t
he want you talking about them?”

“It’s just a theory I have, very new,
probably all sorts of wrong. But sometimes you just throw things out there and
see what makes people squirm.” Cam’s eyes trailed after the doctor. “I’m not
saying I have all the answers, but if you go back to your room, we’ll never
find out if I’m right or not. And besides, there are other things you need to
know.”

“Like what?”

“Not here,” said Cam.

Cyn watched Roberta inventory the room.

“West exit looks clear,” she whispered to Cam.
“The orderlies are distracted by a woman in a wheelchair.”

“Window?” he asked, his eyes locked with
Cyn’s.