Unnaturals (10 page)

Of course, the sheep didn't really eat grass. Once upon a time they had, so long ago that even the old feeds didn't really mention it. There had been many different kinds of animals in those days, and they had all eaten something living, be it grass or other animals, Eryn said. For some time, Mel even thought that Eryn had lied, that this information was a new way to punish Mel for whatever transgression Eryn thought Mel had committed this time. The very thought of creatures eating creatures... But it was likely true. Eryn didn't lie often.

Mom was waiting for her at the station closest to their house. She always did. For some reason, even though she hadn't cried for months, Mel threw herself into Mom's arms and wept.

A medstat wheeled quickly to her. Mel had to tell it "No!" very firmly and in a very loud voice. It wouldn't obey anything less than that. Six months ago, it would have.

"Mel, my love," Mom told her after they were both at home, Mel having been silent all the time they were walking, "Mel, do you want to go away?"

"What... What do you mean, Mommy?"
Are you asking me whether I want to die? Do you know what you're asking at all
?

"You're sad," Mommy said, simply. "You're angry. I've seen it before, Mel."

Meliora looked at her mother. Mom met her eyes and held them for what for Mom was a very long time. Mom's eyes were deep and brown and sad. She wore her birth eye color today, and it wasn't even enhanced. Mel thought that Mom wasn't even wearing lenses.

"Mom... Mom, what is it?" Suddenly, she was afraid.

"You remember your dad, don't you, Mel?"

After Mom had taken Mel to the doctor for the first time and blamed her ACD on Dad, they had never, ever again talked about him.

"Mel, of course you remember him. You're such a smart, remembering child. Just like him. I don't remember many things in my life"—Mom laughed, trying to sound natural a bit too hard—"but him, I remember. He was also studying to be a doctor. They broke him, Mel. They broke my mate. He told me, once, '
They will always try to break you. They will try to push you away. You have no place there unless you can bear it. You must keep on. Always, you keep on.
' But he didn't. A month later, he was gone. You keep on, Mel. Don't let them break you. Never, ever let them break you!"

Mom was crying. It was so soft and quiet that even the medstat took its time to notice and edge closer to her. Time enough for Mel to stand up and shoo it away. This should be Mom's decision, not hers—yet, some tears must be cried. Even for a person who had let the medstat administer to her whenever it wanted throughout her life, some tears must be let go.

"They won't break me, Mom."

Mom met her eyes again. She wasn't even messaging. The computer was lying lonely on the table by Mom's chair. Mel didn't know if she'd ever seen Mom's computer anywhere but in Mom's hands or elsewhere on her body.

"They won't break me! I'll never, ever leave you, Mommy. Don't worry about this, don't worry at all!"

She
had
thought about leaving, but she had kept this hidden even from herself.

"Oh, but what an old fool I am! Was this how I sounded—trying to keep you here tied to me? You go if you wish, love. You go wherever you wish, whenever you wish! I certainly wouldn't stop you, Mel, only make sure it is your own choice. Don't let them break you. Don't let anyone, ever, break you."

Mel remained silent. Mom laughed softly. "I've surprised you, haven't I, talking about choice. Your old mom, who throughout her life has always done what fashion and being natural dictated, talking to you about choice. Strange, right?"

"No, Mom. It is not strange. It was your choice, all of that. I know this. It still is our choice. And you aren't old, Mom. You aren't
old.
"

"Mel, I am. That much even I know. He told me, Mel. He told me when it is that people go away forever, even though he wasn't supposed to tell. I am close to this time. A year more for me, two at most. I am old—and even if he hadn't told me, I would know something. Those of my friends my own age do know something. We all...feel it, Mel, deep in our bones—Oh, Mel, my sweet love, don't cry! What did I do now? Stupid, stupid woman, Bunny, can't you do something right once in your life? You know, Mel, he hated
Bunny.
He said it was a stupid name to use on the interweb. He liked Erika, the name my parents gave me. Don't cry, Mel. Please, don't cry. These are the facts of life, Mel. You must accept them, for your own happiness. I want you to be happy, Mel."

"I will be happy, Mom—Erika. This is prettier than Bunny, certainly. Why don't you change your interweb address, Mom?"
Updating all your connections and all the consequent stupid little stuff will occupy you for days, and you'll even enjoy it. You won't be thinking of being old. I'd like to be here to occupy you myself, but right now I can't afford it
.

"Yes, Mel, my love." Mom smiled. "This is such a good idea!"

I won't cry, Mom.

Because I won't let you die
.

Gods

She would have left. She knew it on the train back to the Academy, when she didn't feel like smashing people's heads into the wall any more. One brightlights period she would have woken up and gone where Nicolas had gone—or anywhere.

No longer.

Neither would she have the pleasure of not seeing Eryn any more after the first six months were over, even though a Doctor of Computers didn't need more human doctoring than that.

She missed her class with Theodore. She went straight to Eryn. She'd never been to Eryn's office before, and she'd certainly never gone looking for the woman.

There was a human gatekeeper outside the office, though usually the doctors only had machines, if that. Jerome, whom Mel had met on her first day here. He was a doctor himself, one of those who preferred to stay at the Academy. Yes, Eryn was special here. As for this man, he was as harsh as Eryn, from the vague information Mel had from others. She felt herself want to cringe and use the meek voice, to very cautiously ask him for permission to enter.

She'd only ever cringed or wanted to use that voice at the Academy.
Intuition,
Eryn called this. You built a subconscious system of who you were, how you should act—what they could do to you—and then you fell into it, and there was no rescuestat to get you out or medstat to heal you.

"But Doctors of Computers can build systems
consciously.
They know what they are doing." Mel whispered under her breath. "At least, I do."

"I need to see Doctor Eryn," Meliora said, firmly.

"She has no time for the likes of you outside of classes!" the man at the door snapped. "Off you go."

Meliora kicked the door. Metal clanged, wood splintered. Inside, Eryn jumped from her chair. It fell back, and a computer toppled to the floor. An indistinguishable voice cracked over an ancient speech interface.

"I demand that I be a Doctor of People in addition to a Doctor of Computers!" Meliora shouted at Eryn's widened eyes. "I demand that you teach me everything,
everything
that this damn place can teach a person! Especially, I demand to know how a person who once chose to stay young can still live as long as you."

Eryn took a deep breath. Now, it would come. It would be the dark room for days, weeks, perhaps months.

Time enough to get to that ceiling and to the breath of strange air Mel sometimes sensed when she climbed the wall. There must be a door there. There must be
something
—otherwise, what was the point? "
They are teaching us,
" Adelaide had said, and Meliora needed to be taught. Whatever the price.

Slowly, Eryn smiled. "Fine," she said. "We will teach you, and no need to gape at me like this. I said fine—for the first part of your request. For the second part, we shall see."

"You...you shall teach me the second part, too."

The smile grew more crooked. "If you deserve it. Now, leave my office. Report to Doctor Jerome out there tomorrow after your lessons with Doctor Theodore."

Meliora walked away to her room.

She lay on the bed. She sent messages to Mom and even to Adi, about little things, things you could risk sending over the hummie.

Otherwise, she couldn't have messaged. Her hands—her whole body—were suddenly trembling so much that she could not use the needle method.

***

"And now, my students," Theo beamed at Meliora and Ivan, "we are off to start our
real
work. Come with me."

They passed several locked doors that Mel hadn't known existed, since they blended so well with the walls, and ended up in a big room with many screens. Two people were there. Their eyes jumped between screens but slowly, not like the eyes of naturals.

"Mel and Ivan, these are Doctor Olaf and Doctor Veronica. Veronica and Olaf, these are our newest recruits. They have passed basic training with flying colors and are now here to help with programming the new hummie interfaces for train stations."

The screens on three of the four walls showed train stations and trains, as well as a dynamic map of the trains in motion.

The screens on the fourth wall showed the faces of people and their locations on the train map—right down to the exact seat.

Doctor Veronica noticed Mel's look and smiled. She was almost as young as Meliora herself.

"These are not all the people in trains or train stations. We don't need to monitor everyone at all times. The other people are on other virtual screens, and you can switch." She beckoned Meliora closer and looked at her face. "You're Meliora with the forty tickets, aren't you? I remember you. Very atypical behavior. You gave us a few hours of monitoring fun on that day."

"Thank you." Mel didn't know what else to say. The doctor laughed.

"What do they know about the project, Theo?" Olaf asked.

"Nothing yet." Theo laughed himself. "I've kept it a surprise. Olaf and Ver, unfortunately for you folks, you came to us when nothing big and new was due. You had to rewrite what had already been written to pass your Doctor tests—but these two, I thought, could do some real work."

Veronica smiled.

"So, kids." Olaf waved at two chairs. "You've been training to write demo versions of the old emotion interfaces—of the hummie interfaces, that is. So, you're familiar with how those work. They will be slowly phased out in the next few years. The newer thoughtmotion interfaces—
thoughtmotion
comes from
thought
and
emotion,
by the way—will become prevalent. We've long had the hummie interfaces for interpersonal communication. Yet, all that time, people've had to press buttons in order to buy train tickets. We, and by that I mean all of us, the Doctors of Computers in all four cities, were given the task to start work on updating the train ticket interfaces to hummies. You two have come just in time to help."

"Given?" Mel said. "Who gave you the task?"

"To us in Lucasta, Doctor Eryn. She gives the big tasks. We have to figure out the resulting smaller ones ourselves."

"But," Mel said again, "shouldn't Doctors of Computers decide what is to be done with computers and interfaces?"

"Mel," Veronica laughed. "Of course, this is how it is. We decide what is to be done with the computers. Only Doctors of Computers have enough knowledge to program everything."

"Yes, but, the big task..." Mel stopped trying to get her answer. She asked another question, "Why hummie interfaces?" just as Ivan said, "So what exactly do we have to do?"

Olaf shrugged. "I've no idea why." Veronica started pointing at Ivan's monitor, and a moment later Ivan was programming.

"But how is this supposed to work!? The hummie interfaces are imprecise! They might do the job in interpersonal communication, but buying the tickets is communication between a person and a machine!"

Why
was everyone except for the madly typing Ivan looking at her strangely?

"You can't rely on emotion for something like this! A person might need to go to work, or visit their mother, and yet they might want, or think they want, to go to the wonderful experiences instead. They might very well get a ticket to the wonderful experiences with a hummie interface, but never with a button to the work station or mother's place."

Theo just sighed. He'd had months to learn that his explanations were never enough and his arguments useless.

Olaf smiled in the way one might smile at a child.

"If the person gets the ticket to wonderful experiences, Mel, it only means that this is where the person should indeed go. It will make the person happy. And it will make
us
happy to know that we have improved the ticketing system."

Mel bit her tongue and started typing like Ivan.

The person would be happy, of course. They would also be happy if the system gave them a ticket to the moon.

People were always happy because the system always knew best.

***

At least Jerome didn't look happy. She thought she might smack the next smile she saw.

He scowled at Mel. "Let's go, girl."

She followed, for once not asking questions.

Jerome walked slowly. He wasn't as old as Great-Granddad Nicolas, but he wasn't a young man, either, and it showed. He was very thin, and not fashionably so. His limbs looked as if they could snap at any moment.

"Gods damn it," he muttered when one of his legs quivered and he had to stop.

"Gods?" Mel hadn't heard someone mention them since Great-Granddad Nicolas.

Someone must stand above those who do this to us
.

"Do gods exist, Doctor Jerome?"

The old man laughed. He wheezed as he did, and the laughter itself came out as screeching.

"You tell me, girl. You tell me this after our little tour today."

They passed many locked doors and corridors before they reached an enormous, brightly-lit room. The Academy was bigger than it looked. Good. There must be an answer behind one of those doors.