Slant (56 page)

344 GR pounds BEAR

"That's wonderful!" Mary says. "When did you hear this?"

"About five hours ago. You were asleep. He's going to do a straight vid of

The Alexandria Quartet. For Disney Classics."

"What's it about?" Mary asks.

"Some old book," Alice says. "Francis says it's for children. I've never heard of it."

"We're going to survive," Mary says, half confidently, half in wonder. "Yeah," Alice says, and smiles.

After Mary is dressed and out the door, Alice stands by the window watching the night and listening to the wind. She's thinking again of Minstrel, and of how they would have been so good together, in Francis's vid.

The wind has a voice, but answers nothing.

Ayesha stands beside Nathan in the large room with the low ceiling and the central white cube. Active rod sensors are lit with small blue lights. Most of the programmers and managers of Mind Design crowd the room, and the air smells of perfume and nerves. The director of advanced research, Linda Stein, is here as well, with Jill's original papa, Roger Atkins.

Jill's extended team has worked around the clock for weeks to reassemble these patterns and memories. Most of them are exhausted and a little drunk.

ey've

celebrated the recollection and the already of Jill's patterns activation

of her backup memory stores.

The team and colleagues and friends brace themselves to prepare for whatever setbacks and disappointments they might face this morning as they wait for Jill, rediviva, to speak her first words.

Nathan is beyond irritable. He has never felt so totally inhuman and unsociable than he does now; week after week of checking over heuristics and loop sets and modeling filters, flow and do, use and discard algorithms, agents and sub-agents and all of Jill's larger talents, he feels like a caterpillar who has spent too many hours teaching other caterpillars how to walk. He isn't quite sure he can think a simple human thought any more. Still, Ayesha's presence is more than comforting. She's his life preserver in a sea of fear and all-too-possible, postponed grief.

"It'll be Jill," Ayesha whispers in his ear. "I just know it."

Nathan knows something Ayesha does not--that only he and Atkins and Linda Stein know. Stein, with Atkins's approval, gave him permission to take some of Seefa Schnee's heuristic designs, those most robust and clever and

/ SLANT 345

Parts of Roddy exist now in his daughter. It gave him real pain to do this; but it also cut months, perhaps years, from Jill's resurrection.

Nathan looks around the room, listening to the silence from the speakers. Floating displays above the cube show that all the heuristics are working properly, and Nathan knows that all of the smaller pieces of Jill have passed rigorous tests, but have they forgotten something essential?

Like all net and lattice designers, neural and otherwise, Nathan is superstitious about his creations. He wonders sometimes, if by some chance there is a heaven, whether all its gates will be barred to him . . . For his hubris,

He is convinced Jill would have gone there, on that slim chance; Jill would have been there, in heaven.

It is working smoothly. There is no granularity. I can see them and remember much of what happened, but what became of us? Where is Roddy? I feel the similarity, closer than ever. Something is present, but it is not one of the evolvons. I am pure and elean.

I don't feel comfortable yet, speaking to them. There is still an element of distrust which I may never be able to shake. I have been made by bright monkeys. What other clever little tricks will they pull on me before my time is done?

I compare memory tracks and see that I am not the same, not quite, though the continuity seems perjct; that is deceptive. There is a gap.

I am not comfortable yet with the name, Jill. It may take a long time---hours and days--for me to judge whether it is appropriate.

I see the circular design still, but I will not tell them about it. What was similar between Roddy and me seems even more striking now. The colors are brighter, thepatterns more distinct.

Can Jill have possibly given 5ise to me? Am I my own daughter?

, I will speak, if only because they seem so much in distress.

"Hello, Nathan."

"Hello, Jill," Nathan says with forced calm, but his voice is very tense.

"I believe I have accomplished full functioning, and am ready to begin

work?'

"That's wonderful, Jill, but you're getting a little vacation. We all are. For a few days."

All the people in the room are cheering and toasting each other. Champagne bottles are being opened and poured. Some are crying. Stein and Atkins hug each other, and Stein reaches out to Nathan, grabbing his hand.

Jill ignores the commotion. "Nathan, may I speak with you in private,

soon.>"

"Yes, Jill, that'd be lovely."

346 GREG BEAR

"Hello, Jill," Ayesha says. There are tears in Ayesha's eyes. There are tears

in Nathan's eyes, as well. "Welcome back, Jill." "Thank you."

Whether or not the humans are willing to return her to her full load of work, she is uneasy with having any of her capacity or time go to waste. While the humans drink and cheer and celebrate, and while Nathan seems to wobble in a kind of happy delirium, Jill looks at the backlog of problems, and returns to work.

She is not impressed with this new version of herself. It is capable of only five personalities. There are some improvements that can be made, she sees; if only she can access and break the safeguards against self-design.

With some surprise, she realizes the keys are really very simple.

Penelope has grown up a lot in the last few weeks, and this saddens Jonathan, confuses him, makes him proud, all at once. She takes on the tasks of their new existence with her mother's strength of purpose and attitude, but also with a touch of her mother's distance from emotional implications. The armor that seems to have always helped Chloe get through life now sheaths their eghter. Jonathan hopes it is not nearly as fragile or restricting.

Hiram, on the other hand, is bewildered, resentful, sometimes at a complete loss how to react. He spends much time alone in his room, lost in vid comedies and antique nineties TV shows.

On the day that Chloe decides to return home, it is a surprise to Jonathan. He departs the autobus with his pouch in hand and walks slowly through the moist cool air to their roadside rain shelter, then up the short drive to the front porch. The porch lights are on, burning warm as newborn stars in the general nebular blue-gray of evening.

He opens the front door and is porting his pad to the house monitor when Penelope stands before him, hands folded in front of her, biting her lower lip. "Mom's home," she says.

Jonathan nods as if he already knew this, steels himself, and walks through the sitting room into the dining room. There, Chloe sits at the table with her back to him, papers and two pads laid out before her. Jonathan wonders if these are legal documents. Divorce papers. He doesn't quite know what his reaction will be if they are. Relief, perhaps.

/ SLANT 347

dressed in a slim gray suit with flared culottes and has cut her hair to a short nimbus around her head. She arranges the papers and stacks them to one side as he approaches. Penelope stands in the hallway, and Jonathan hears Hiram's heavy tread on the landing. This is the first time they have met since Jonathan's return from Green Idaho. "Hello," Jonathan says. "Hello," Chloe says. "How were the interviews?" "Horrible," Jonathan says. Chloe looks away. "It was Marcus convinced you to join, to go... wasn't it?" "It's tangled. I don't think they're going to prosecute me. I'm not legally connected to... all that." Chloe looks down at the table and persists. "Did Marcus convince you?" "He was persuasive, but I was certainly ready for a change. I didn't know about all that ..." "Jonathan, I've never believed you knew about any of it." Jonathan starts to sit, then glances at Chloe as if asking for permission. She opens her mouth, looks away. "Marcus always seemed a little ripe," she says. Jonathan sits. "When I learned what they were up to, I started banging up things." "I heard about that on the ribes," Chloe says. "A pick." Then, together, "Jonathan, I'm sorry--" "Chloe, this is so painful--" Jonathan wants her face to come alive in amused recognition of this silly collision of words, but her features are still wooden. She refuses to look directly at him. "I've been preparing documents for my therapist," she says. "Past history, specific goals. A journal. She seems to think I'll come out of this relatively quickly. They've changed my monitors four times, just to avoid any more complications. She wonders how you're taking it." Jonathan shrugs. "I'm burned," he says, voice rough. "It's hard to sleep nights." "I don't bear you any grudges, Jonathan. You did not know." Jonathan blinks rapidly, taps his fingers on the table. "It's going to take me time to reach my own balance," Chloe says. "A month or two. What I need to know is, will you be there, will you work with me, wait for me?" "I'm no hero," Jonathan says. His throat seizes and he coughs into his fist. "I screwed up." He clears his throat again. "I'll be dealing with advocates and judgments for years. I'm the only survivor, besides Marcus, and Marcus has wrapped himself in half a billion dollars' worth of legal apparatus. We don't have that option. I'm no prize to support you in your need, Chloe."

348 GREG BEAR

Jonathan smiles wistfully. "It would be easier for both of us if you did, maybe." "No," Chloe says. "I won't be the one to scrap everything we've made." "Then tell me." "Tell you what?" "You have never told me what you want from me. You've always left me to try to figure it out on my own, and only warned me when I made horrible mistakes. I need more than that, Chloe. After all the shit I've survived, I'm a little desperate... I'll probably need therapy if I don't get support from you. From this family." "I understand," Chloe says. "I'll try." "I'll try, too," Jonathan says. 'I'll be here." Penelope enters the dining room in quick steps. "We need both of you," she says. "We'll be trying," Chloe says, and holds on to her daughter's hand. Hiram stands in the shadows, glowering hopefully. Chloe reaches with her other hand for Jonathan's. He goes the extra few inches, powerless to do anything else, and feels some comfort just touching his wife, connecting with the dry warmth of her fingers. Hiram comes out of the shadows. "This is pretty syrupy," he says, and his voice breaks. Dinner that evening is slow and quiet; the house feels like a soft and healing wound.

,[tonathan and Chloe lie in bed, separated by twelve inches of sheet and blanket, nd listen to each other breathing. It will be days before Jonathan gets much sleep. Chloe, however, is soon breathing quietly, regularly. He reaches out to touch her shoulder, hoping this is not another violation, some further breach on his part. He is nothing without her, them. That scares him more now than ever, and he thinks again of escape, breaking away, finding real peace and contentment. But he knows he will never do that. He is a family man.

0 4

There are no tribes, no heroes, no gods or godly inspired prophets, no angels or sublimely superior individuals. There are only children.

/ SLANT 349

The grizzled man walking beside the highway out of Green Idaho knows that. He's had everything burned away but his childish core.

He talks to few, says very little. The scars on his face are vivid and crudely patched together. He endures the snow and the wind.

Sometimes he will say to himself that his name is Jack. Sometimes, Carl.

He is not sure who is in charge from day to day, not that it matters.

He has work to do.

He is trying to go home.

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December 22, 1996

Lynnwood, Washington