The Reborn (The Day Eight Series Part 1) (15 page)

“Good day, Mr. Winters.”

~

Allison walked over to her terminal, looked in the camera at Trevor, and waved. She turned it so it was facing a loveseat in her room.

“I’m going to sit over here, okay?” she asked.

“Sure, that’s fine,” Trevor said.

Allison smiled, showing her perfect white teeth, then bounced over to her loveseat and threw herself sideways onto it and swiped a stuffed animal frog off the floor.

“You have nice teeth,” Trevor said, “you must brush a lot.”

“Nope!” she said, jumping the frog around on the table by her couch.

“No? How often do you brush?”

“Never! I don’t have to.”

“Why not?” Trevor had so many unanswered questions about how a synthetic human worked. Humans depended on an extremely complex balance of chemical and biological processes; he wondered how these simulations could even sustain themselves – that is, if they really
were
exact simulations of a human.

“Because. I asked Dad the same question and they brush their teeth on
Full House
and on
Wonder Years
and I wanted to brush my teeth too. It looked fun and I asked and Dad said I didn’t have to because the bad things that would rot my teeth the bacterias don’t live here.”

“You don’t have bacteria?”

“Nope I’m safe! They don’t get me here.”

“Don’t you need good bacteria that live in your body and help you digest food and good bacteria to take care of your mouth, too?”

“Um, I don’t know. That sounds gross.”

So she didn’t need to brush her teeth. Did she breathe? She appeared to be.

“How long can you hold your breath?” Trevor said, a challenge.

“For ten minutes! Just like Hops.” She waved her frog in the air.

“That’s an awfully long time, Allison. But I think I can beat you.”

“No you can’t!”

“Okay, let’s see, I’ll time us! Ready, go.” Trevor noted the time on his watch. Both he and Allison gulped large breaths and closed their mouths. Allison folded her lips in as if it would help keep air from escaping.

Thirty seconds passed.

After about forty-five seconds, Trevor began to lose it. He took a breath and told her she won. She didn’t say anything and kept holding her breath.

After three full minutes, he noticed her nostrils widen briefly and her chest rose, but she didn’t open her mouth.

“Hey!” Trevor said. “You’ve been cheating!”

Allison giggled and waved her frog again. “Ribbit!”

Trevor sat and watched her play with her frog for a bit. She seemed comfortable doing her own thing with him “there” to keep her company.

“Hey Allison?”

She looked up.

“Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Trevor searched. “Uh, like what do you do when you’re bored?”

“I go on the swings and play outside. I read lotsa books. I play with my friend Oscar, but Dad says Oscar got hurt when he sent a note for me and I won’t be able to see him for a while. He’s really nice though and thanks to him I’m back safe here. I miss Oscar.” Allison put her frog down and crossed her arms, looking slightly disgruntled.

“Well, I know I’m not the same as Oscar and I’m probably not even as fun, but I can hang out with you a lot now. And you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I got the note your friend Oscar sent.”

“You really got it? I knew it worked and that’s why I’m better now!” She scooted to the end of the couch and leaned closer to the screen. “How did you get it?”

“He put it on my computer.”

“Wow, Oscar’s smart with computers. I didn’t get a real computer, but he got a real computer.”

“Really? What’s Oscar’s place like?” Trevor asked.

“You mean his house where he lives?”

Trevor nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“I never got to go. Only he could come here but I couldn’t go there.”

“Do you know why?”

“The men in white jackets told me compat-uh… compatibil-ty or something and Oscar’s house was backwards… I can’t fit in it because there’s too much stuff happening. I want to go because it sounds fun.”

It sounded like Oscar, being a newer simulation, had a more complicated environment that Allison’s simulation couldn’t handle.

They chatted for long time, and ended up playing a game of twenty questions where Trevor guessed on question eighteen that she was thinking of butterflies. Then they played four games of
Candyland
. A few other board games had been programmed into her environment, including
Chutes and Ladders
,
Trivial Pursuit
, and
Chess.
When she decided to play
Candyland
, she said, “Let’s play
Candyland,
it’s the most colorful.”

She told him he could use the pointer thing to move pieces. After turning the tablet over, he found a stylus snapped into a slot in the back. He could actually touch a limited number of things that were in the view of the screen and drag them around or see them up close by double-tapping on them. She wasn’t fazed by it at all.

“So what do people usually use this for?” he asked.

“For the games mostly. Sometimes Dad uses it to tuck me in at night and turn out my light.”

Catastrophic Failure

T
revor used the tablet interface to help Allison set up the
Candyland
board game on her floor. When the phone rang, he looked around the room and was confused when he realized the ring was coming from Allison’s tablet.

“That’s for me!” she said as she excitedly lay down on her carpet and began fishing under her bed, yanking out dolls and toys. “Found it!” she exclaimed, waving around what looked like a normal portable phone for Trevor to see, flaunting her exceptional skill at “finding stuff.”

She held the phone up to her ear. “Allison Winters speaking, who would you like to talk to please?” … “Hillary!” … “I know!” … “Because it’s always you, silly,” she giggled. “Trevor’s here and we’re going to play
Candyland
and I’m going to beat him just like I always beat you because I’m good at getting the lollipop woods card!” … “Okay, bye-bye Hillary!”

Allison shoved the phone back under her bed.

“You have a phone?” said Trevor. “Is that safe? And who was that calling just now?” He was surprised at his own level of concern; this was probably like what a parent felt when they found out their child had been offered candy by a stranger.

“That was Hillary,” said Allison. “She’s my…” Allison scrunched her face like she was trying to prepare for a difficult word. “My… au pair. My old one.”

“Like a nanny?”

Allison nodded exaggeratedly. “Yeah just like you! Haha, Nanny Trevor! Except I can’t see her anymore because I’m here now and she’s not and that’s why you play with me now.”

“Where is she?” said Trevor.

“She works for Daddy, like an execative something.”

“And she can call you, just like that?”

Allison shrugged. “She calls me in secret sometimes and I can call her.”

“But what if someone bad calls, like one of the white lab coat men, won’t they be able to figure out you’re here?”

Allison shook her head. “Nope! There’s a top secret password.”

“Oh,” said Trevor. “Can you tell me what it is? I’d like to be able to call you, too.”

She looked down and took on an air of sadness. “I don’t know what it is. Only Daddy knows and Hillary I guess. I wish you could call to say hi and stuff.”

“Well, you can still call me, do you want my phone number?”

“No I can’t. I can only call Daddy. Or I can call Hillary, her number is Daddy’s number but plus one. And my number is Daddy’s number but plus two, but it needs the password.” She crossed her arms, frustrated.

“I have an idea,” said Trevor. He pressed the function button to bring up the command console and virtual keyboard on the tablet. With a little exploration, he was able to find Allison’s program code, and it looked like he could change it on the fly from the tablet.

He ran a search for Damon’s phone number. Sure enough, there it was, typed out in a single spot of program code. The only other phone number was the same as Damon’s except the final digit was a “7” instead of a “6.” It must have been this “Hillary” girl’s phone number, just like Allison had said: “Daddy’s number but plus one.”

He studied the code surrounding the phone numbers. It looked like these were exceptions that allowed Allison to call the outside world. Either of these two numbers were allowed to connect. Other numbers were coded to have no response. Then he found a third string of numbers: “11235813.” From the look of the code, this was the “secret password” he could type in after dialing Allison’s number in order for the connection to go through. Excellent – now he could call Allison if he wanted, and without even changing any code.

But he did want Allison to be able to call him, too. All Trevor had to do was add his number as another exception. Simple enough.

He made the change, adding both his cell number and his apartment’s landline, then hesitated with his finger above the program’s
Deploy Code
button. He only had a moment of uncertainty as he imagined Allison’s huge computer catching fire in response, or alarm bells going off, or even just Damon walking in and yelling at him. But he reassured himself that it was a straightforward and safe change.

No.

No, this is stupid of me
, Trevor thought, his hands still hovering over the device. But before he could take his finger away, the touch sensitive screen reacted to the proximity of his warm fingertip and the
Deploy Code
button depressed.

“Crap! I didn’t even touch it!”

“Hey,” said Allison, “I can still hear you. Don’t say words like that or the boogie man might find out.”

“Sorry Allison,” said Trevor, subconsciously holding his breath as he watched a shimmering green progress bar fill up with text that read,
Compiling Changes
….

When the progress bar completed, a popup appeared:

Compilation complete. Execute now, or wait for integration matrix?

 There was no option to cancel, and a timer began counting down – it looked like it would automatically pick for him if he didn’t do anything.

Trevor touched
Wait for Integration Matrix
.

The screen flashed another message:

Integration Matrix not found.

Executing code changes now...

Trevor resisted the urge to swear.

The command console disappeared and his view on the tablet returned to Allison’s world, where she sat playing with the
Candyland
pieces. Everything looked exactly the same. As it should if his code was correct. This was a good sign.

“You’re back!” said Allison, hopping to her feet.

Trevor finally exhaled. “I made a change and you should be able to call me now.”

Allison clapped with a huge smile, “I wanna try!” she said, then dialed Trevor’s number into her phone one digit at a time as he dictated. They waited in silence. One breath. Two breaths. Then Trevor’s phone rang.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hi, it’s me!” said Allison, dancing around with her phone.

“It worked!” said Trevor, feeling a wave of accomplishment.

And then Allison screamed. Trevor heard the terror of her yell from the tablet and from his phone.

Trevor’s heart began to race as he watched a horrific scene unfold on the tablet. Bubbles and spikes of flesh began to pull themselves out from Allison’s skin in all directions. She yelled and flailed around until he could no longer discern limbs. Her wails turned to gargles, then faint muffles as her body undulated into a knotted mass of tissue and bone.

“Shit! Shit shit shit!” said Trevor as he wildly typed in the command console to bring up Allison’s program code, but it gave him the response,
Unknown Runtime Error – Code 15
, then it exited automatically back to his view of Allison. “SHIT!”

Although the rest of Allison’s environment appeared fine, the spiky mass that was Allison shifted intermittently between statuesque pauses, like a strobe of amorphous mass shaded with flesh, blood, and sinew. “Allison!” No response. In the final few seconds, her body – if you could even call it that – organized itself into a snowflake pattern of fractals, shimmered, then disappeared. The phone handset remained hovering in the air for a brief moment where it had been caged in her spiky flesh. Then it dropped to the ground and bits of plastic and number buttons splintered away on impact.