Perion Synthetics (31 page)

“I missed the morning staff meeting, didn’t
I?”

“Yes, sir. Synth J ran it. He’s meeting with
Ms. Kessler right now. He’s bringing in an aggregator.”

Dad shook his head. “Sava Kessler. There’s a
woman I would have liked to see you end up with.”

“You don’t have a problem with an aggregator
being in the city?”

“No, Joey. If I know myself, I’ll have
contacted Donato Banks and asked him to send his best man. Your godfather would
never do anything to disparage the company. He’s all too aware of what is at
stake.”

“But we’ve done things. Things the world
isn’t ready to hear about.”

“The world is more ready than you give it
credit for. Everything we’ve accomplished up to this point will be considered a
miracle by most people. My plan has always been to perfect the product and then
release it to the public without warning. People will be shocked; Vinestead
will be shocked. But if I’m bringing in an aggregator, maybe I’ve decided to go
another way.”

He coughed, producing a fine spray that
coated his chin. Joe wiped it away with the edge of the blanket.

“Do you know why I trust Mr. Banks? Because
he runs his company like we run ours. Everything goes through him, from the
biggest decisions to the tiniest details. Whatever his aggregator feeds will
cross his desk before it goes out to the public. Even if he feeds some detail
about how advanced our synthetics are, I’m sure it won’t be without my
counterpart’s approval.”

Joe let go of his father’s hand and looked
at the floor. He had never known James Perion to accept the will of others,
even if the other person was himself.

“You get that from your mother. I tried to
teach you not to look away when you disagree, but you have too much of her in
you.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“On the contrary. I was lucky to have you to
remind me of her after she passed.”

“And what will I have?” asked Joe. He tried
to keep his voice from rising. “A synthetic imprint? A machine that looks and
talks like you but is
nothing
like you?”

Dad narrowed his eyes. “You don’t agree with
what he’s doing?”

“I don’t agree with any of this!” Joe backed
away and put his hand on the window. “All those people out there have no idea
what is happening right now. They need to know their time with you is coming to
an end. You’re not even giving people who love you the opportunity to say goodbye.
What gives you the right to deny them that?”

Behind him, Joe heard his father take a deep
breath and release it.

“Sava Kessler thinks she’s talking to you
right now,” continued Joe. “She thinks she’s doing what’s best for the company
because she
thinks
you are still running it. Of all the wonderful things
you’ve done in your life, this deception will be what you’re remembered for.
Because when the news comes out, and you
know
it will, people will
question whether anything has ever been real with you. Did you ever really want
to help people? Or has all of this been about living forever?”

“You know I want to help.” The usual bass
returned to his voice for a moment and then was gone. “I still see a world
where human lives are spared from the dangerous and the mundane.”

“I know the propaganda. I know the story we’ve
fed to the media in every interview for the last twenty years. But what’s the
truth? Why do any of this if at the end of your life, you’ll just use what
you’ve learned for your own selfish pursuits?”

Dad closed his eyes again, retreated to
whatever dark place he had inhabited for the last week.

“Water,” he said, lifting a weary index
finger.

Joe obliged once more and waited as his
father sipped. Part of him knew it was just a stalling tactic, but his heart
kept him humble. As he put the glass down, James Perion cleared his throat.

“You were only seven when your mother died,
but I was already an old man. I had spent forty-two wonderful years with her.
Can you imagine that, son? Four decades with the same woman? Do you know how
hard it is to let someone go after that much time?”

Joe shook his head.

“It’s difficult, maybe the most difficult
task life will throw at you.” Dad looked to the ceiling. “We kept so many
pictures of her around the house. Every video had her smiling face in it. I
watched them after you fell asleep, over and over, for years. I sat in her
favorite chair and listened to the piano play back her music. The keys moved
like she was still there.”

Joe remembered his mother playing piano,
practicing for hours on what already sounded like perfection.

“There was a company out of Glendale called
Companion Dynamics. They had a silly tagline like
one plus one equals one
.
I heard about them when Vinestead tried to make a buy in the late nineties. CD
refused, of course.”

“What were they selling?”

Dad managed a playful sneer. “Love dolls.
Silicone sex toys for the well-to-do but lonely American.”

“You didn’t…?”

“Please,” he replied, shaking his head.
“Companion Dynamics was blowing up, quarter over quarter, really positive
growth. And I didn’t understand it at the time. Maybe I was arrogant, but I
judged every sale and every customer they ever had. How could people be so
depraved?” He paused to take a sharp breath. “Some months later, I saw a
documentary about CD customers, men who treated their dolls like wives and
girlfriends. They dressed them up, took them to parties, the whole thing. I
remember wondering how humans could bond so deeply with inanimate objects.
Whether or not these men were deranged or depraved, they
believed
they
loved these things.

“That’s when I realized it wasn’t just about
sex for those men; it was about companionship, as CD claimed in their
brochures. They just didn’t have the funds or resources to take their companion
dolls to the next level. When Vinestead eventually took them over in ‘03, all
they added were ridges in their bajingos.”

Joe laughed through his nose.

“Think it childish if you want, but
Vinestead rolled CD into a new company along with Kitzingen Escorts and turned
artificial sex into a multi-million dollar industry. Sex sells, Joey, but
Vinestead was missing the point, as usual. I thought about what I wanted and
realized it wasn’t intimacy with your mother. I just wanted her around again. I
wanted her
presence
. That’s when everything changed for me.”

“So why didn’t you get a doll that looked
like her?”

Dad rolled his eyes. “I didn’t want a doll;
I wanted
her
. Plus, there was a stigma in those days. If people found
out you had a doll at home, they immediately thought you were a sex-crazed
deviant or maybe just a lonely, pathetic man. God help them if they took their
dolls out in public. So I thought, what if the dolls were indistinguishable
from a real woman? What if they actually had a purpose beyond sex and a
personality beyond pillow talk?”

“But we don’t have any companion doll
products…”

“Of course we do, Joey. Don’t you get it?
All
of our synthetics have the capacity to be companions. The last piece of the
puzzle was the user and how to convince them they should love an inanimate
thing. Virgos will change that; they have a spark of humanity that makes them
more real than real. Roberta will be the first prototype in the Domestic
Partner series.” Another sharp breath brought a grimace to his face. “I was so
close. Simple companionship. That’s all people want.”

“And you think Synth J will carry on that
vision?”

“The other me has different priorities now,
I expect. I don’t know what they are, but I don’t believe…” He paused, groaned.
The heart rate monitor spiked.

“Dad?”

“Who would have thought dying would be so
painful?” he asked. His eyes shut tightly over a forced smile.

“The Creator is in pain,” said the nurse.
The beeping of the monitors had summoned her from the library. “Doctor Parris
instructed me to resume the morphine regimen. If you do not allow me, I will
have to notify her.”

“Not yet.” Joe moved in front of her,
blocking access to the tray of syringes next to the bed.

“Joey, listen to me.”

Joe turned and faced his father; agony
burned behind those tired eyes.

“I’ve always asked you to trust me, to
listen to me and believe I’m doing the best I can for you. I won’t be around
much longer; you’ll have to figure things out on your own now. You have a lot
of your mother in you, but I’m in there too, and the world will have
you
to remind them of me.
You
, Joseph, are my legacy.”

“What about Synth J?” asked Joe, squeezing
his father’s fingers.

“You will figure out what to do about him.
Just know, whatever you decide, I will support it. It’s your company now. If
you want something, you demand it from him. Or remove him.”

Dad cried out as his body convulsed.

“Please,” said the nurse. “Don’t let the
Creator suffer.”

“Let her do her job. We can talk a little
later.”

Joe thought of the inert code card in his
pocket. He would have to get another one if he ever wanted to talk to his
father again. He stepped out of the way and allowed the nurse to resume the
morphine drip.

“I’ll let you rest for a bit,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Dad. He pointed to the
vidscreen on the far wall. “Do me a favor and put on a video of your mother.
I’d like to see her again…”

One last time, thought Joe.

“Sure,” he replied.

The vidscreen woke at his touch and
displayed the company’s feed. Joe switched it to his father’s personal media
and brought up a playlist of clips from the eighties. Victoria Perion appeared
on the screen, looking young and healthy in her early thirties. Her voice
flowed from hidden speakers in the ceiling, drowning out the beeping and
whirring of the medical equipment.

A smile appeared on his father’s face, but
whether it was from the morphine or the movie, Joe couldn’t tell.

“I’ll see you later, Dad.”

James Perion nodded and closed his eyes.

Joe drank the rest of Monday away.

He had only intended to fill the heavy
tumbler once—the gritty but sweet taste of Glenfiddich was more his father’s
preference—but after feeling the comforting warmth in his stomach, Joe found
himself pouring another, then another. Each time the tumbler grew empty, Joe
held it close to his face and looked at the skewed world though the glass
bottom. The cuts transformed reality, allowed him to see things from a
different perspective. The answers he had been looking for pushed up through
the dark wood of his desk, dancing in the shadows cast by the LED clock on the
wall. Joe watched the shadows twist into letters, coagulate into words that
foretold the future.

The events of the next few days unfolded
before him.

Succumbing to the alcohol early, Joe fell
asleep at his desk, missing the group dinner Sava Kessler had invited him to.
He dreamed of his father’s death and resurrection, repeating in an endless
loop, with a synthetic audience looking on with indifference. And each time his
father died, the more nauseated he became, until finally he awoke and threw up
in the trashcan beside the desk.

The blinds were still open from the night
before, and the clear weather allowed the moon to shine unopposed on his
apartment. He used the ambient light as a guide to find his way to the bathroom
where he washed his face and examined his features in the mirror, wondering
when they would start to resemble his father’s. The vidscreen by the door
showed the time just passing three. Joe stumbled back to his bedroom and
collapsed onto the thick pillows on his bed. The cool silk welcomed him, made
him forget about the tempest in his stomach.

Around six, the sound of footsteps roused
him from his dark sleep.

Nico was standing at the foot of the bed,
his eyes red but his suit and tie in place. He cleared his throat when Joe
refused to turn over.

“No meetings today, Nico.”

“I know. I’ve cleared your schedule. You
should come upstairs, Mr. Perion. Your father…”

Joe felt the fog slip away. He bolted
upright.

Nico shook his head. “No, but it may come
soon. Doctor Parris thought you’d want to be there for…”

The end, thought Joe.

“I’ve got the elevator waiting,” said Nico.

Each action blurred into the next. Joe rose
from the bed and navigated the minefield of his dirty apartment. The desk
flashed in his periphery; a foul smell emanated from the trashcan. In the
hallway, the walls rotated back and forth, the floor swinging like a pendulum.
Joe imagined the whole Spire rotating around its highest point, suspended from
the heavens like a knife held by the tip of its blade. His stomach lurched, but
Nico had him by the shoulder and steadied him as they entered the elevator.
When it opened on sixty-eight, the walls had stopped moving. Joe broke free of
his escort and sprinted the last thirty yards to his father’s bedside.

James Kirkland Perion was more corpse than
man. The skin on his face had sunken even further. The eyelids were crusted in
a white substance and nothing moved beneath him. Machines beside the bed beeped
a forlorn tempo.

Alerts on the vidscreens flashed silently.

“I’ve turned off the audible alarms,” said
Dr. Parris. “I know it looks bad, but he isn’t feeling any pain right now.”

Joe grabbed his father’s hand; the fingers
were ice cold and unresponsive.

“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” asked Synth J.
He was standing in the corner of the room with his arms folded and head
slightly down. “I never thought I would live long enough to see myself die.”

“This isn’t about you,” said Joe. “My father
is dying.”

Synth J approached the bed. “We all die,
Joseph, in our due time. I’m not uncaring, but look what we’re about to
witness. If that James Perion dies and I continue to live, then the soul is
truly divisible. We will have found a way to split the essence of a human
being. That is simply amazing.”