Penelope was not a particularly notable rat before her disappearance. She was about a year and a half old. Like all Algernon Project rats, her coat was the slate blue that I’d dyed my hair to match (though since pregnancy I’d gotten a little lazy and my roots were showing). She had a splash of pure white around the eyes and nose that gave the appearance of a mask. She’d not done exceptionally poorly or well in the vocabulary or aptitude tests. Unlike my favorites, she didn’t seek out human companionship. She wasn’t shy or human-adverse so much as independent, checking in and then going about her daily rat business (mostly horsing around with her favorite cagemate, Jasmine).

Still, I cared for her and mourned.  The loss was also an embarrassment for the Algernon Project. BabbleLinks are an exorbitantly costly A.I. cross-species communication system.

In my defense, I was housing fourteen rats across three large cages when Penelope disappeared. I’d never lost a rat despite having been a part of the program for years, and I’d long since stopped conducting rigorous headcounts. After free-roam, everybody mostly was eager to return to their preferred hammocks for mid-morning naps. At most, I’d note whether the younger rats — the ones who still explored with vigor — were all in their cages. But Penelope didn’t have the demeanor of a runner.

My husband Peter scolded the Algernon Project for not having included basic trackers in the implants. In truth, more surveillance had hardly seemed necessary. Video cameras were everywhere (I’d watched Penelope’s moment of escape many times). So long as the rats remained in close range, an LCD screen on the wall displayed their brain activity, vitals and transcribed everything they said.

And so, I was relieved a week later when I found Penelope sleeping in the curve of a running-wheel stored beneath her preferred cage.

I gently petted her awake. She yawned and stretched her paws forward — as though she’d only been away for a minute.

“Where have you been, Penny?” I asked through the BabbleLink.  The human end of the BabbleLink was a bone conduction headset that translated their chitters and ultrasonic frequency tones. When humans spoke, their headset communicated with the BabbleLink implants in the project’s specimens and created bone conduction sounds for the rat designed to appear to emanate from the human wearing the headset.

She crawled into my palm lazily, anticipating that I’d transfer her to the cage. I had bandages on the back of my hand covering a new tattoo of a neuron. The rats all loved worrying it and Penelope was no different. She busied herself tearing at the gauze while I inspected her coat for injuries and fleas. My tattoo was mostly healed and, rather than pain, her nips created a physical tingle in me that mirrored my excitement over her miraculous return from the dead. I combed out the few fleas I found on Penelope, but otherwise, she was in remarkably good shape. 

“Where have you been?” I asked again. “Why did you leave? How did you survive?” This was bad form. Multiple questions with less familiar words like “survive” often led to muddy answers.

I placed her next to the communal food dish and watched her wolf down lab blocks — ignoring me. Then I listened to the familiar click-clank-click of her drinking from the water bottle.

I worried that her BabbleLink implant had been damaged, but eventually, her answers flowed in through my headset. “Mango?” she asked with urgency — an emotion signified by her faster, higher-volume speech.

In some ways, this was unremarkable. A good chunk of our newfound ability to communicate with animals involved relating culinary desires. Every rat I had ever known requested the same four foods: peas, corn, nut butters and avocado. Beyond that came individual preference. Long ago, I’d laid down ground rules that my rats could state food preferences only after I said “Requests?” Otherwise, the BabbleLink became overwhelmed. My rules were not always honored by the rats, but ignoring their unsolicited demands helped hold the line. 

In other ways, Penelope’s request was peculiar. While she was a fan of fruit, she’d never requested mango by name before. She also was not particularly food-motivated and rarely made unprompted requests. She was polite. But she’d just returned from an adventure and so I indulged her.

“It’s frozen. Give it some time to warm in the water or you’ll hurt your tongue.”

Penelope’s requests for mango continued in the days that followed, as did her heavy appetite. I rationed lab blocks for the first time ever. Typically, animals didn’t overeat lab blocks because they weren’t very appetizing. This restriction, however, worsened her behavior. I caught her stealing food from friends. She stopped coming out for free-range time and slept more. She was curt and sometimes downright touchy when questioned about why she ran away, where she’d gone and why she returned.

I didn’t panic. Prey animals are hesitant to reveal what bothers them and the BabbleLink doesn’t change this instinct. Yet at the same time, traumatic events could change a rat’s personality. I’d witnessed this when a friend of theirs died after hind-leg degeneration injuries or even just as they adjusted to the indignities of rodent aging. I’d had an energetic rat pup suffer an electric wire shock that left him afraid to leave the cage. From the outside, he’d just seemed to spiral into a spontaneous existential funk. After a week of playing rattie-therapist, he confessed what had happened. I showed him how to avoid shocks, double-checked for other wires and promised he’d be safe. He recovered.

I held out hope that Penelope could similarly be coaxed to talk with patience, even as she denied being lethargic or that anything hurt. Vitals revealed nothing amiss. I chalked the changes up to overexcitement, suspecting that they might subside.

After another week, the lethargy broke. A flurry of activity followed where she requested paper towels, tissues and cotton balls. She built a fort of sorts. This new interest in engineering led to a fresh conflict on cage-cleaning day. Cage-cleaning day was always unpopular, and so I typically waited for everyone to be out playing. But now Penny no longer left the cage; instead, she sat territorially in her little fort and refused to come out — even giving a warning nip at my finger.

“Please, Penny,” I said.

“Sharon,” she said back, in a manner that I swear sounded like sarcasm.

“You can rebuild your fort. The cage is dirty.”

She stared back stubbornly. I sighed, and pet behind her ear then down to her rump. She didn’t relax, but also didn’t protest with another nip.

“Your belly has gotten so big,” I said. “My God.” My hand shot away, sending Penelope’s hair up in high alert. “Penny, you’re pregnant.”

Her body went slack and she chittered. The AI translated this as laughter — perhaps in response to my obliviousness. 

“I didn’t realize,” I said. “I won’t clean. Hold on.” I got her a fresh mango meant for me. She ate the messy fruit straight from my hand and everything seemed forgiven.

Her head tilted. “You can’t smell my babies?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “You can smell babies?”

“I smell your babies.”

My baby. Six months along. I hadn’t mentioned him to the rats, but suspected they were aware. They were newly curious about my swollen belly.

Penelope’s comment was a breakthrough. Plenty of evidence existed that animals anticipate the future (something unsurprising to anyone who’s seen a dog excited for a walk), but expressing awareness of a future childbirth was sophisticated anticipation.

“I can’t smell your babies. Your nose is stronger than mine. Do you know how you became pregnant?”

“Babies.”

“Yes, babies. But do you know how they got in your belly?”

Penelope was silent. The data on the LCD screen attached to the wall showed that her brain was trying to process, then abruptly the attempt stopped and she grew distracted.

“You met someone out there,” I said, guiding her toward an idea.

“Fernando,” she said. Fernando was Penelope’s former favorite elder cagemate. He had passed away a year before. For a mad moment I imagined he’d actually escaped and was living in my walls, but I’d seen him peacefully gassed after his cancer spread.

“Fernando who used to live with us?”

“No. Fernando. Fernando.” she repeated insistently.

“Okay. This new Fernando, he was nice? You got along with him?”

“Fernando smelled good.” This was her way of expressing affection, rather than concept words like love — the cagemates she cared for smelled good. Disfavored cagemates smelled bad.

“Could he speak?” I asked.

“Mute.” Mute was their word for a rodent without an implant. Rats didn’t use BabbleLinks with each other directly, but they knew who had implants. The project hadn’t figured out how the rats could tell — but I suspected it was listening to their cagemates’ vocabulary usage and observing how their companions interacted with humans.

“Do you think this is why you got pregnant? From meeting Fernando?”

The brain activity scanner didn’t tick up this time. “Sleepy,” she said. Some rats would say I don’t understand. Penelope’s habit was that — rather than admitting confusion — she claimed to be tired. Pride, perhaps. Or she was tired. Already, this was the longest conversation Penelope had ever had with me.

I nodded. “Was life difficult while you were gone?”

Her brain activity flared up again. “Fernando hungry. Thin. Penelope hungry. Poison food. Poison.”

This was a stunner. Had I mentioned poison? Never. I’d once inadvertently offered them spoilt peas, but probably called them moldy. But then again, poison would be central to a wild rat’s life, so of course some word would exist.

I pet her firmly, resisting the urge to squeeze her in apology for rationing her food when she’d first come home,  and for all the poisoning that humans had done across history.

My gestating baby was most active at night. The evening Penelope returned, I felt him kicking while considering this cross-species conversation. I internally debated whether my baby triggered Penelope’s elevated maternal drive.

The Project had set up the experiment with neutered bucks (male rats) and “intact” does (female rats). The bucks’ surgery was done simultaneously with BabbleLink implanting. This had been a compromise result so that lab leaders could commingle the sexes without propagating a million rats, while also preserving the ability to continue the biological strains the Algernon Project had carefully bred.

Neutering is less invasive than spaying and lowers buck aggression. Although leaving the does intact raised tumor risk slightly, that seemed worth avoiding surgery risk and preserving some gene lines. But it did mean the does had weekly cycles where they grew hyperactive and harassed the bucks with futile mating rituals, sometimes mounting them as if demonstrating what they should be doing — teaching steps to a dance these bucks would never learn.

Generally, I tried not to think about my rats as sexual beings. Normal things easily got weird when I did. For example, some rats enjoyed being tickled during playtime. Yet some female rats only requested tickling while in heat. What to do with that data? It was best to ignore the ramifications. Usually, I just ended up tickling them and moving on with my day.

But having a pregnant rat who had confided in me the details of a forbidden coupling was something else. The incident made me suspect that Penelope was far more intellectually capable and resourceful than I’d realized, to the point that she’d even kept her cleverness secret. What if she’d seen me pregnant, conspired to escape, and go on a hero’s journey to create her own parallel pregnancy and children?

I woke Peter even though I knew this would annoy him, and recounted the day’s events. As I spoke, he traced my linea nigra — that mysterious line that appears during the second trimester. Mine was thick and rich and ran all the way from my belly button down to my pubic hair.  

When I finished the recounting, he sighed. “That’s everything?”

“That’s not remarkable enough for you?”

“A tale as old as time. A small-town lass has no viable men around, so she sets out to the next town over. In the human version, six months later she’d show up at her parents’ door crying that Fernando had jilted her. For rats, I’m sure you can find many Reddit pages asking what to do if your pet rat escapes and then returns pregnant.” He sighed again, then asked, “Well grandma, are you going to let Penelope keep the litter?”

“What do you mean?” I was half-horrified he’d considered any other option, but he was correct that the Project might request this.

“They’ll be half wild. They might harass their tame cage-mates. They might bite them or you. Imagine having a half-wolf in a dog pack.  And the expense of maybe a dozen more unplanned Babble chips might concern the Algernon Board.”

“I can’t believe I rationed her food. So stupid, the pregnancy was so obvious. You’d think I was a hobbyist.”

“Obvious once you saw it.” He rubbed my back. “She’s eating plenty now. Much more overall than if she’d stayed away.”

“She was on calorie restriction for nearly half of her pregnancy.”

He scratched the surface of my bump. Our boy was doing bicycle wheels in there. “An understandable blind spot. You were thinking your rats were a new thing, separated from the wild world — which they are in many ways. But they are still also that old thing.”

My friends sometimes suggested that Peter was the rational one and I was more emotional. He was ex-military, and many read rationality into his good posture and understated delivery. But I knew him well enough to see past this.  He had wept uncontrollably for almost 20 minutes after I told him he was going to be a father. It was so unexpected, so raw, that it took some time to realize he was happy and merely overcome with emotion. The child had been planned and conceiving hadn’t been difficult compared to many couples in their 30s. This outburst had made me love him more, which annoyed me. Crying over something like that shouldn’t make him more worthy of love — but some primal place in me was stirred and reassured by his display.

I spent several days drafting an explanatory email to the Project’s program director.  In the meantime, Penelope consented to having her makeshift nest moved to the maternity cage where only Jasmine, her best friend, was allowed to join. I showed Penelope our baby room from the perch on my shoulder. Rat eyesight is weak, so I had to take her up close to see the cradle, the glider where I’d nurse and the little stuffed rat toys everyone had sent as gifts. I explained this was my nest, feeling a little silly given that Penelope’s overwhelming experience of it, for now, was likely the unpleasant smell of off-gassing. Still, she was chatty and curious, asking why the baby wouldn’t sleep with Peter and me. Contrary to her pre-adventure behavior, she wanted to talk all the time.

I watched Penelope labor in real time from the next room via video screen, as she moved every which way, trying to find a comfortable spot. Something in her breathing suggested birth was imminent. This squirming stage lasted for about half an hour. Then, slowly, eight pink pups came out and immediately squealed. She licked the squirming pink mass of babies clean, chewed through the tiny umbilical cords and consumed their still-throbbing placentas. And like that, it was done. No epidural, no forceps, no c-section, no doctor or midwife shouting “push!”

After she woke from a long nap, I approached the maternity cage with mango. Penelope ignored it and instead dragged me by the finger where the blind, hairless pink pups were stacked. I dutifully pet them. Her BabbleLink transmission was an endless loop of their names, all of which were old cagemate names plus Peter and Sharon. (Perhaps rats simply don’t have many name sounds?) Penelope kept noting how good the babies smelled.

I sent my email to the Board only once the birth was complete, ensuring that aborting wasn’t an option.

I was invited to present my case at the next online meeting of the Project’s Board. 

STEVEN (SECRETARY): This is the time and the place designated for our April 10, 2030, meeting of the Board. We have present five Board members. One non-present voting member has delegated her right to the Chair, Emily Spiro. The sole item on our agenda is whether to grant a one-time expenditure for BabbleLinks for an additional litter of unexpected half-wild rats. 

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): I think we are going to hear briefly from Sharon Esposito, the leader of Lab Number 26. Right, Sharon? Are you in the meeting?

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Here.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Oh, I love the tattoo on the back of your hand. Is that a neuron?

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): A rat brain neuron. I did my graduate research on rat consciousness as well.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Fitting. Plus, your hair is the same color as the rat coats. Classic. So, what would you like the Board to consider?

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Yes. So, Penelope the rat escaped for one week and was impregnated by a wild rat. She successfully gave birth to eight pups earlier this week: three girls, five boys. The mom and babies all survived and appear healthy. As a result of her sojourn, Penny has become more expressive and is providing insights into maternal behavior. I’d love to see where this takes us and I believe having implants for the babies will continue us on that path, and provide insights into wild rat minds. Letting me raise half-wilds would be a good half-step.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Thank you for that. I’ve spoken informally with the rest of the Board and I can say approving money for the half-wild litter won’t be an issue.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Great! You don’t know what a relief that is.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Of course! Your experience already shows that there’s much we can learn from expanding our data set. The revelation that wild rats seem to have a pre-existing word for “poison” is fascinating.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Surprising yet intuitive. We know wild rats communicated poison risk. They’ve been observed designating a “taster” when encountering new foods and smelling each other’s breath to memorize the scent, then avoiding similar foods when the taster got sick.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Fascinating. For the benefit of the group, do we have an idea of how much transfer of knowledge there is among your rats, say intergenerationally?

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): We know they use the sounds we teach them through the BabbleLink with each other. This builds a vocabulary that outpaces their non-linked peers. Each successive generation is more sophisticated. For example, we see little things like the older rats teach the younger ones where the designated toilet areas are and we don’t need to potty train each new generation.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Very helpful. Now, the reason I ask all this is because we got a call from a key funder with anxiety around the accidental release of super rats who understand how bait works and who is setting it. The information we give these augmented lab rats will spread to the wild population. We want to implement some additional mitigation measures, and we’d very much like to say in the press release that you and the other Lab Leaders support them — plus mention your rat’s outside adventure.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): What kind of measures?

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): First measure, we’ll ask that you spay the half-wild does when the bucks are neutered. This is because the half-wilds are seen as a greater flight risk because they aren’t bred for docility and their mom has already shown that capability. We don’t want them to continue their line in the wild if that happens.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Okay.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Second, we’ll put in guardrails to make sure that escapees won’t be able to interfere with pest control. He compared the risk of rats escaping to gain-of-function lab leak risks, because your labs contain enhanced species that if introduced to wild environments could quickly spread and dominate standard species due to their communication advantages.  And I agree that we need to think through what happens if an evolution we engineer spreads in the general community. So until further notice, we are asking that you not share anything with your rats about the history of lab work or engage in any data sharing about how poisons work or how to spot them. Current subjects with this knowledge must be isolated from younger generations until natural death.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Is this necessary? We’re not talking Planet of the Apes. Their communication is still mostly monosyllabic.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): So long as the BabbleLink is mechanical and non-hereditable, I agree that sophisticated language evolution risk is low. But as your own experience suggests, these are social creatures that teach each other, and we are only now getting a loose grasp on their language capabilities. Any trait that improves survival chances could quickly dominate and frustrate rodent control.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Still, you’re talking about isolating twilight rats, which can be stressful.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): As to your colony, this concern is purely theoretical as our database records show that your Penelope was the first in your colony to use the term “poison,” and that word was introduced to her by a wild rat, rather than vice versa.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): So you’re saying Penelope would not need to be separated under these new guardrails?

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Correct.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): That’s fine then. I wasn’t planning to teach my rats molecular biology. I don’t want to hold this up.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Great. I think that’s it. We are ready to vote on our agenda.

ANAMARIA (BOARD SEAT #4): Hold on. Hold on one second. I have a right to enter my dissent into the record. As the saying goes, great causes have a habit of becoming businesses and then degenerating into rackets. Our vote today completes a shift from the Nomadic Labs, the movement, to Algernon, LLC the business. While I can see everyone currently on our Board still believes deeply in animal welfare, unless we hew back to our initial purpose, I fear the racket is imminent. 

ASHIM (PROJECT DIRECTOR): Missions change and—

ANAMARIA (BOARD SEAT #4): I didn’t interrupt you, please let me make my record. I feel I need to remind everyone, as the last remaining member of the old guard and the only Board member with gray hair, of our initial mission. Though we do business as the Algernon Project, our legal name remains NRNL. As in Natural Research Nomadic Labs.

Our original purpose was to design an ethical way to conduct rodent experiments by raising them as quasi-pets. To give them good lives, love them and gather data as injuries and illnesses naturally arose. With enough volume, our hope was that this “natural research” would provide more scientifically accurate results because during prior rat research the animals’ anxiety, poor health and depression confounded results. The variation of domestic environments would help because humans, after all, do not live with standardized diets or habits.

But now, money has warped this simple idea into one involving expensive AI equipment. The project’s namesake, Algernon, typifies this. Only one Algernon was ever introduced to the public, a charismatic rat with a slate blue tint to his coat. The dirty secret was that hundreds of Algernons lived unpleasant lives to develop the technology, and more are suffering in labs now to upgrade it. Even the implantation procedure has a mortality rate we’d never accept in human babies. So, in effect, we’ve moved from protesting cruel research to funding it.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): We’ve all read your book, AnaMaria. Is this really necessary to repeat here?

ANAMARIA (BOARD SEAT #4): Absolutely it is. If we want to eliminate animal testing, the best way to do that is to not test on animals. These new protocols are going to put us back in the place of lab worker/lab rat dynamics. For the first time, Sharon is being asked to limit what she can communicate to them for the purpose of, what, helping pest control agencies maintain their jobs and out of a fear that rodents will become too conscious of what is being done to them? This is not how we treat pets. And why are we expanding our mandate to include studying wild rats? Why are we monitoring their intergenerational communications about poison? What use is that data except for rodent control. Let poison manufacturers do their own studies.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Is that all?

ANAMARIA (BOARD SEAT #4): That’s all.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Well, I didn’t expect to have debate club today, so I didn’t prepare a formal rebuttal and don’t speak for the full Board but let me just say a few things for the record. First, I’ll just note that AnaMaria and her late husband had years to create a sustainable model without an AI component. As we know, enough rats with naturally occurring conditions must be presented to research anything meaningfully. But the pure natural model never got enough participants to hit those statistically significant thresholds. Outside the welfare community, researchers’ habits are sticky. They were trained torturing rats, their teachers were trained torturing rats and they’ll instruct their students to torture rates unless there are quantifiable benefits to transition to a different system.

Using AI as a carrot, we have enough participation to create usable results for behavior studies, common illnesses and nearly all major cancer research. So, while my esteemed colleague AnaMaria remains an inspiration to me and a friend — and I do envy her ideological purity — she is, unfortunately, comparing a theoretical nonprofit of unproven viability with an actual operating one that needs to make complex ethical choices. We have good data demonstrating that giving animals the ability to say “that hurts, please stop” changes researcher behavior — including the behavior of researchers not directly working with our chipped subjects.

Finally, contrary to what AnaMaria implies, we are not a for-profit corporation and nobody affiliated with us stands to make money from today’s decisions. We are accommodating donors not because we have lost the faith or are “selling out” but rather because they are correct. Ideologically, we don’t want to make rodent control harder when we all know excess wild rats disproportionally impact poor urban areas. Okay, that was a lot. Secretary, are we ready to vote in today’s measures and unplanned expenditures?

STEVEN (SECRETARY): I’m ready. On today’s agenda items A-1 and A-2 and A-3, Board seat two, how do you vote.

ANATOLY (BOARD SEAT #2): I vote aye to all measures.

STEVEN (SECRETARY): Board seat three?

STACY (BOARD SEAT #3): Aye to all measures. Thank you for that discourse, both of you. I thought it was helpful.

STEVEN (SECRETARY): Seat four?

ANAMARIA (BOARD SEAT #4): Nay.

STEVEN (SECRETARY): Seat five?

JOHNNY (BOARD SEAT #5): Aye.

STEVEN (SECRETARY): And the chair?

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): I vote aye.

STEVEN (SECRETARY): The resolutions pass 4-1. This meeting is adjourned.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Okay everyone, thank you for your time. Sharon thank you for your patience, don’t be surprised to see your name on the press release for the new protocols. We’ll get you a draft before the notice goes out so you’re comfortable.

SHARON (LAB LEADER # 26): Sounds good.

EMILY (CHAIR/ BOARD SEAT #1): Great. See the rest of you at the annual benefit.

I shut my laptop screen and turned to Peter, who had listened off-screen.

“What do you think?” my husband asked.

 “We’ll see what the press release says. It might be fine. I’ll probably sign off.”

“That’s it?”

“I mostly found myself agreeing with whoever was speaking. I hadn’t really intellectually separated the AI piece of it from the distributed labs piece beforehand. And I guess I dissected rat brains for my PhD research, so I don’t have the high ground. Maybe I’m exhibit A of the person Emily imagined when she said the AI gets people in the door through curiosity or whatever. Ultimately, I suppose I’m more concerned for Penny and my colony. This outcome seems to work okay for them.”

He nodded slowly, not exactly agreeing — more contemplating. 

“I guess I’m sad that the half-wild ones aren’t going to have their own pups someday,” I said. “But a small price, all told, for the life we give them. An abstract thing to steal from a small creature who may not know what they’ve lost — having children or grandchildren. Wild rats rarely live to meet their grandchildren.”

He kept up that slow, unconvinced nod.

“The thing I hadn’t thought about is really all that surveillance. The fact that they could look and see I hadn’t already discussed poison with the rats. That’s strange and drives home that this is a massive research project, not a hobby. I know that privacy isn’t a fair expectation and caring for the rats is in some sense a job. But I don’t think of it like that when I’m interacting. What do you think?” 

“What I’ve always thought. Very little that’s useful can be learned about humans from studying rats and that we shouldn’t do it.” He stood to leave the room. “That said, studying you looking after your rats lets me know our son will have a loving, caring mother.”

“Then the experiment was a success,” I said, and half smiled.

He winked at me, rubbed my shin, kissed my belly and headed out.

I resented that his beliefs were so pure and simple — like AnaMaria, his absolutism freed him from complex, messy moral choices. Instead, his solution of banning all animal testing was clean; and it would never be implemented. 

And so, I signed off on the press release.

Penelope’s pups grew. Their pink skin gained dark brown fur that easily distinguished them from the classy blue tint that marked the main Algernon line. As Peter predicted, they behaved half-wild. They ran around saying, “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” as they bumped into each other and play-fought (before the operation, we could roughly translate words, but the pups couldn’t understand us).

When the day came, and they were both fixed and received their implants, a pup did die — little Peter, sadly. As was my practice, I left Peter’s body in the cage so the others would know he had passed away. Penelope licked at Peter, as if trying to wake him. After a few minutes, she gave up and thereafter ignored the corpse. She never mentioned the loss to me.

Another of the bucks was too aggressive — raising his fur and hissing if I got close to him, chasing, shoving and pinning his brothers, and generally making life miserable for everybody— and needed to be separated. He finally was put down after he nipped Peter (the human) hard enough to draw blood. The rest grew to be physically and emotionally healthy, if otherwise unremarkable, adults.

While they were pups and it was unclear whether their wild side would make them too aggressive to be near, I kept Penelope’s brood with just Penelope and her best friend Jasmine, who also started lactating and helped with the caretaking, but once they were neutered and past the asshole-teenage stage, I decided it was safe to reunite the colony. This was just around the time I gave birth to my son Jackie. Penelope loved licking him.

Another few months passed and Penelope acquired stately greys to go with her blue coat. They came in a slightly different color from the vibrant white splash around her nose and eyes. She grew even chattier than before. The rats I was closest with often grew extra chatty toward the end. This began around the two-year mark when their bodies started winding down, entering into their twilight age. During this period, Penelope who rarely sat still when younger, would sit on my shoulder and listen to the younger ones play, peering down in their direction. We talked and talked but in simple sentences. Age made Penelope’s thoughts lose sharpness.

I’d given up drinking for the pregnancy but had resumed after Jackie arrived. I learned from the internet that the safest time for a nursing mom to drink was actually while nursing so that the alcohol would be out of my breastmilk before the next session. One night, while feeding Jackie, I had a little more wine than usual and I got chatty with Penelope.

I brought up Penelope’s escape into the walls.

“Me?” she said, surprised.  

“You don’t remember?”

“No,” she said when I asked if she remembered anything, then chittered, seemingly amused by her younger self’s brashness.

“No memory of Fernando in the walls?”

“Fernando. Son.”

She fell asleep, and so did Jackie, and I put him down in the cradle, returned to the rat room with a fresh glass of wine and watched the young ones play.

They slept so many hours in the day, these pet rats, with their three-year lifespans — that’s just when human kids started to know anything of the world around them, and they had more waking hours in that time. Life extension was the key to learning what rats could fully evolve into.  But what scientific use was there in breeding long-lived rats? The project was probably something you could sell to some Silicon Valley guy who didn’t give a damn about rats but would pay a million dollars to stay young or simply live, for one more day.

They were taken too soon. Little lives in fast forward. Penelope was in her twilight period and firmly content, like a human retiree watching the manatees in the canal out the back porch, nowhere to go, no plans to be made, naps pleasantly sneaking up and weighing down their eyelids, as they slowly left this earth, a little less present each day while the young tried to squeeze out more moments, more memories, shaking them and startling them awake to announce dinner, startling them awake to say I love you. One last time.

Penelope yawned back awake, and I moved her to my lap and gave her a nut to puzzle open.

I wanted to tell her about the poison out there in the wild world and everything humans had done, mostly because I had been told I couldn’t tell her that. But I knew all this was recorded, surveilled, tabulated and that I could lose my place as a lab leader.

What came out was something else:

“I know you’re not going to understand this Penny, but when I was in grad school. When I was learning how to be a scientist, I was doing research. I didn’t feel comfortable turning projects down — despite the way they had us treat the rats. I didn’t have the power or the awareness that rats were like you. I did things that were unkind.”  As I spoke, I spilled a little of my wine on the baby’s swaddle, triggering another wave of guilt. 

Penelope’s brain scan was going up and down, I think more in response to the anxiety and seriousness she heard in my voice. Then, as I kept talking on, her brain scan didn’t beep at all, as though the effort had exhausted her. Penelope was just letting my words flow over her now.

I teared up.

Then Penelope said, “You smell good, you smell good, you smell good,” as if to soothe me.

The post Penelope The Rat appeared first on NOEMA.

She was barely into her second trimester. She could have made the flight.

Josh took a leftover slice of pizza out of a Ziploc bag in the fridge. He ate it cold, unsure if it was from the pie his aunt sent a couple of days ago or the one Matt sent over last week.

Josh’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was his 5:32 p.m. alarm. As long as he left within three minutes, he wouldn’t be late.

Fifteen minutes after daycare officially closed, Josh arrived for Desmond. He gave the teacher an excuse he hadn’t tried yet, that there was a traffic light out on Steinway Street causing a backup. She grimaced as she opened the gate for Desmond and handed Josh the diaper bag.

“Just a reminder that we officially close at 6,” she told him. “So if you go over at all, we start charging by the minute.” 

Josh knew the policy. And he knew that she knew that he was newly widowed. And they both knew she wouldn’t tack on the extra charges.

Josh lifted Desmond into the crook of his left arm. “Hey, buddy. Did you have a good day today?”

Desmond clapped his hands. “Kit. Tee. Kit. Tee.”

“Did you talk about cats today?”

“One more thing,” the teacher said. “It isn’t a big deal. And we love having Desmond here. But today, he and Maya were playing with the plastic fruit. She took his orange and he hit her.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry.”

“We talked about how we never use our hands like that. We’ve never seen that from him before. And they were playing together again by the end of the day.”

“I don’t know where he got that from. I never hit him.” Josh immediately regretted saying that. Of course he didn’t hit Desmond. 

“Oh,” said the teacher.

“Uh, thanks,” said Josh. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Josh set Desmond down into his pack-and-play along with his plastic stacking cups and a firefly stuffed animal. Was Desmond an 18-month-old acting like an 18-month-old? Or did Josh need to correct his behavior with some kind of “behavioral therapy”? Maybe his son was showing early signs of psychopathy.

This was an Amy question. 

“Gub-Gub,” Desmond babbled, reaching out with his hand. Josh handed him Gub-Gub, a now-grimy Build-A-Bear built for Desmond by someone else. Didn’t that defeat the purpose?

They were so close to the end of the day. Just dinner, bath, pajamas, bed. Actually, Desmond had had a bath last night, so they could skip tonight. Blueberries would be fine for dinner. Josh would make vegetables for dinner tomorrow.

Josh sent Desmond to daycare not because Josh needed to get work done in his apartment, which is what he told himself. Since Amy had died, he was doing close to nothing, only checking his email once around noon. It was because Desmond’s favorite word was “mama.” 

It wasn’t until Amy was gone that Josh registered how many different uses Desmond had for the word: joy, confusion, anger, inquisition, excitement. “Mama” was the word Desmond used whenever he wanted to just talk. But he’d been saying it less and less in Amy’s absence. Josh dreaded the day when he wouldn’t say it at all.

Will, Josh’s college friend, was in town the next day for a teachers’ conference and Josh agreed to lunch within seconds of receiving the text. Teachers made excellent dining companions. 

“Have you encountered it yet?” Will asked.

“Hmm? Encountered …” Josh said, emerging from a daze. 

“LivingChat.”

“No. I mean, I don’t think I have. Have you?”

From the look in Will’s eyes, Josh guessed that this had been the conversation topic for quite some time. “Yeah. My students use it all the time.”

“How do you know?”

“Because a C student doesn’t become an A+ writer over the course of a week. He doesn’t start citing obscure literary criticism when, in the previous two years, he hasn’t even taken a book out of the library.”

“Can you tell if they’re using it?”

“There are usually a couple of sentences without the proper syntax. If they don’t proof it first, they’re pretty easy to catch. But otherwise …” He shrugs.

“How does it work?”

“You input all the information you need, and it’ll spit out whatever you want.”

“So they upload their notes? Or the books themselves?”

“Most of the stuff they need is available somewhere online. It’s easy with the classics. With someone like Shakespeare, you have more than 400 years of scholarly criticism about the plays.”

“Does it make teaching harder?”

“Honestly? Makes my job pretty fucking easy. But the kids aren’t getting any smarter.”

Josh had been dreading the drive out to Long Island since he got a call from his father-in-law the week before. But traffic was light in the middle of the workday. And the emails piling up in his inbox could wait until tomorrow. Maybe he would even do some actual work.

Tim was mowing the lawn when Josh arrived. A cigarette hung effortlessly from his lip. In the years since he’d known Amy’s father, Josh had only seen him smoke cigars, and only then on celebratory occasions — though a cause for celebration was sometimes just “a warm summer day.”

The white hairs of Tim’s belly poked out from beneath his stained undershirt as he stomped out his cigarette and walked over to Josh. He stumbled slightly and slurred his words when he spoke.

“Hey, Tim,” Josh said.

“Thanks for coming,” said Tim. “How was traffic?”

“Fine.”

After some false starts and misplaced arms, the two men hugged. Even without the lingering tobacco smell on him, Tim gave off an unwashed odor.

“Want a drink?” Tim asked.

“Sure,” Josh said.

Inside, Josh pushed aside the crusty dishes of at least three meals and took a seat at the kitchen table. This was only the second time he’d been alone with his father-in-law for more than a few moments, following an ill-fated outing to a Mets game shortly after he and Amy had gotten engaged. Rain delayed the game and Josh ran out of conversation topics by the bottom of the second inning.

Tim looked inside his fridge. “Coors Light? I have harder stuff if you’d rather.”

“Water is fine,” Josh said. Tim filled a coffee mug from the faucet and gave it to Josh as he popped the cap off a beer bottle on the counter’s edge.

They sipped in silence.

“How’s Desmond?” Tim finally asked.

“Good,” Josh said. “He’s good.”

“You think he knows what’s going on?”

Josh heard the echoes of “Mama,” pictured the toddler carrying around Amy’s running sneakers in circles around the coffee table.

“No,” Josh said. “He’s too young to understand. Plus, kids are so resilient.”

“Right. And when he’s older … is he too young to have … will he —”

“No memories.”

“Right.” Tim downed the rest of his beer.

They sat in silence. Josh’s cup was already empty, but he pretended to take sips from it every so often. Tim got another beer from the refrigerator and set the empty bottle in the sink on top of a mountain of dirty dishes overdue for an avalanche. 

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Josh asked.

Tim looked surprised. “Oh. Right.” He belched. “I’m selling the house. I’m moving.”

“That’s … where?”

“Phoenix. Or Wyoming. Haven’t decided yet.”

“Right,” Josh said. “Well, Desmond and I will really miss you.”

“I’ll be back, though. For his birthday. And other important stuff.”

“Of course,” Josh said.

“All her stuff is still in her old room. You should take it.”

“What kind of stuff?” Josh asked.

Tim gestured vaguely as he drank. “Her stuff. Everything. I’m not taking it out west.”

“Ok. Yeah, I’ll take it.”

“Great. There are some empty boxes in the garage. I’ll help you pack it up if you need it.”

“I’ll be all right.”

Tim stood up, leaving his empty bottle on the table. “Then I’m gonna get back to the yard.”

“It’s starting to become a problem,” the teacher said, as Desmond wriggled around in Josh’s arms. “There wasn’t any provocation. He ran up to Ava during snack time and pulled her hair. We had to pry his fingers open because he wouldn’t let go.”

“Oh,” Josh said. “God.”

“And then during circle time, he tried to bite Monroe’s arm, but we were able to stop him.”

“I’m so sorry.” Josh could tell from her face that that wasn’t enough. “Are the other kids ok?”

“They’re fine, but a lot of the children are starting to avoid him. It’s becoming disruptive.”

Desmond snatched Josh’s glasses off his face and held them at arm’s length. Josh tried to gently take them back but Desmond flung them to the ground. The teacher picked them up but didn’t give them back.

“I don’t know where he’s getting this from,” Josh said. “He’s not like this at home.”

“We’re doing our best, given the circumstances. But this isn’t something that can continue.”

Josh looked at the blurry form of the teacher as Desmond pawed his face. One of his fingernails scratched Josh’s ear and he tried not to wince. “Isn’t this supposed to be your job?” he blurted.

The teacher’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the teacher. Isn’t it your job to teach him how to behave around other kids?”

“Our staff works diligently to teach and model positive behavior. But it needs to be reinforced at home.”

“He spends almost all of his waking hours here. He’s learning that behavior here.”

She handed him his glasses. Her lips were pressed tightly together. “I’m sorry you feel that way.” 

Josh walked back to the car, fairly certain he’d never return. It had been Amy’s first choice daycare. They had joined the waitlist four months before Desmond was born.

“Ya ba ba,” Desmond said as Josh put him down on the apartment floor. He started pounding on the side of the nearest cardboard box, right where “Amy box” was scrawled in Sharpie. There were eight of them — full of books, old schoolwork, clothes and knickknacks that Amy had deemed unnecessary to take to college and unworthy of retrieving in the decade that followed. 

Josh felt his phone buzz. He ignored it. He put Desmond in his highchair and gave him a bowl of blueberries and a strawberry pop-tart straight out of the package. Vegetables tomorrow. Same with a bath. He changed Desmond into a mismatched set of pajamas — lions on top, dinosaurs on the bottom — and put him into his crib without reading to him. Desmond cried for almost 20 minutes before falling asleep.

An email from daycare was waiting for him when he opened his laptop. He knew what it would say. “Given recent behaviors … sorry for all that you and Desmond have been through … everyone’s best interest if you found alternative childcare … will be reimbursed for the rest of the month within five business days.”

Shit.

He searched through old emails until he found the spreadsheet that Amy had shared with him two years ago, the one with all the nearby daycare options, sortable by tuition and a rating from one to five that she had assigned to them. Most would not be viable options on such short notice. But maybe the one run by the Greek woman out of her basement. Neither Josh nor Amy had been able to figure out if it was licensed. 

Josh fired off an email to his team: “Sorry, my childcare just fell through. I’ll need a personal day tomorrow. Best, Josh.” They probably wouldn’t miss him.

Desmond started to cry again.

Amy would be so pissed at him right now.

Josh moved one of Amy’s boxes out of the way to get into the freezer. There was nothing in there; he hadn’t been shopping in nearly a week. He settled for tap water, a handful of stale pretzels and the last pop-tart (unheated). He ate on the couch.

Josh was googling “daycare near me” when one of the boxes crashed to the ground. He froze, listening for sounds from Desmond’s room. Nothing.

He picked up a stack of Amy’s old tests and quizzes from his kitchen floor. Mostly 100s and A+’s, with the odd 96 or 92 on some history tests. She never had a head for dates. A green metallic ribbon boasted that she made the principal’s list in 5th grade. 

A small notebook had slid under the oven. Josh pulled it out. On the cover was a rainbow dolphin. He flipped through the lined, yellowing pages. It was her diary, spanning part of her fifth-grade school year. Elegant and flowing cursive writing filled each page until the last line. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was some violation of spousal trust. But he pressed on.

The entries were simple, borderline dull. Retellings of a given day: her classes, what books she was reading, what she had for dinner, what songs she was learning on the clarinet. Among the comforting banality, he recognized traces of the personality he had grown to love. One entry described how excited Amy was that her friend Nicole was sleeping over the next night and how she had “fun stuff” planned to make her feel better about her parents’ divorce. Another recounted how Amy had spent her lunch period helping a classmate find his lost pencil case.

Josh closed the journal and looked around the apartment. She had worked so hard to build this micro-empire that they had inhabited. And now, barely two weeks since her departure, everything was beginning to crumble.

Desmond yanked the straps of his stroller. “Daddy! Out. Out, Daddy!” His little firetruck, a cup of Goldfish crackers and the people walking in and out of the library had done an admirable job of keeping him entertained — almost an hour now. But Josh could feel a tantrum approaching. He pulled up a Cocomelon video on his phone, set the volume low, handed the phone to Desmond and ignored the looks of other parents nearby.

Josh was hard at work at the copy machine. The plan was to digitize Amy’s documents, scan by scan — everything he had in the boxes. The night before, while struggling to fall asleep, he remembered his conversation with Will about the students who used LivingChat. Laying in bed, he did some research on the AI software, which was both a text generator and chatbot, able to be trained on whatever material you wanted to upload. If it could put together a college-level essay about literary history, could it create a convincing personality? 

He was still less than halfway through the first box. Several times, people came up behind him and cleared their throats. Josh stepped aside so they could run their photocopies, then he returned to his task. He glanced at Desmond, still in a YouTube trance. Josh figured he had another 30 minutes.

Three days later and he was done with the boxes. But his sense of accomplishment was fleeting: He realized that the boxes only covered parts of the first 18 years of Amy’s life. 

Having already violated her privacy by reading four separate diaries (and she most certainly would not have wanted anyone to see the one from grade 10), he felt less guilt about charging her dead iPhone and exporting tens of thousands of texts and emails (her personal, work and even college accounts, the last of which required a Kafkaesque process of forgotten password retrieval) plus a trove of notes and pictures he found on her computer. Josh was patient. The more the better.

He downloaded LivingChat onto his computer and began the laborious process of uploading Amy’s digital footprint. Every picture and word he had found would now be — he hoped — amalgamated into something resembling the woman he married.

While Josh worked, Desmond sat in front of the TV, new episodes and shows queueing up when one ended. When necessary, Josh took a break to feed him and change his diaper; once, he comforted him when he tripped chasing a toy car and hit his head on the edge of the coffee table. 

At 6:00 p.m., an hour earlier than usual, he put Desmond in his crib. He left a small pile of Desmond’s favorite books in a corner. The toddler wasn’t pleased. But Josh barely registered the thump of books and the clatter of the pacifier hitting the floor, nor the 40 minutes of nonstop crying that followed.

Josh stared at his screen, watching a green bar journey to the right, one-hundredth of a percent at a time. Midnight came and went before “COMPLETE” popped up on his screen.

His heart was pounding. He felt like he was asking Amy out for the first time again. It had taken him a full week to muster up the courage.

Josh stared at the screen. A flashing cursor waited for him. He got up to get a cup of water and then decided he needed mouthwash too. He paced around the couch four times before he sat back down and started to type.

Instead of text, an image appeared. 

It was a selfie of Amy, sitting on his couch in the exact spot he was sitting. Desmond was lying asleep across her body. She held a paperback above the baby. She was smirking.

He shut the laptop. Only then did he realize how much he was sweating. He smelled. Josh realized he hadn’t put on deodorant that morning. Or — God, how many mornings had it been? He looked in his medicine cabinet. Empty except for an expired bottle of Aleve and several boxes of Imodium. He’d pick up a stick of Old Spice tomorrow so he smelled ok for Amy.

Josh was at the self-checkout machine in CVS around noon the next day when he got an email from a daycare saying that they currently had openings and would be happy for him and Desmond to tour the facilities that afternoon. He hurriedly jammed his phone back in his pocket and ripped the receipt out of the machine, then put back a pack of Juicy Fruit that Desmond had gotten a hold of while he wasn’t looking. Desmond cried when he took it away. Josh imagined the laundry list of suggestions that Amy would have had. “Did you ask him to put it back? Did you make it into a game? Did you offer him an alternative? Don’t tell me you left the house without Gub-Gub.”

At the daycare, the kids were all in a big room together, divided into groups by age, some painting, some dancing, some napping. The adults sported permanent smiles. Desmond tried to thrust himself out of Josh’s arms toward a colorful set of foam blocks. 

“You can put him down if you’d like,” said a warm, brown-haired woman in her 40s in the same tone she had used with the kids.

Josh watched as Desmond tried to stack the blocks, unable to do more than two. “So,” said the woman — Cleo, her name was Cleo — “your wife told me that the two of you are looking for full-time care?”

“Yes!” Josh said. He felt a pang in his gut when Cleo mentioned Amy doing something in the present tense.

“That’s great,” Cleo said. “For Desmond’s age, it’s $1,680 per month and he can start tomorrow. I’ll just need a $250 deposit from you today, and then tomorrow bring a pack of diapers and wipes and two spare changes of clothes, plus lunch and a snack. We provide a second snack after nap.”

“That sounds great. Thanks, Cleo,” Josh said.

Cleo handed him a form. “And if you could fill this out too, and bring it back tomorrow. We’ll need Desmond’s pediatrician’s information, contact info for you and your wife, and the names and relationships of anyone else who you authorize to pick him up, other than the two of you.”

On his way home, Josh stopped at the Key Food down the street from the daycare and bought a full cart of groceries for the first time in weeks: fruit, vegetables, rice, pasta, chicken thighs, beans, eggs, milk, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

That night, he cooked Desmond a real dinner. He wolfed it down. Josh tried not to think about how hungry the boy must have been. Then Josh gave him a thorough bath, scrubbing the dirt off his feet and making a mental note to mop the apartment floors in the morning. He read him “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” twice, then laid him to sleep.

Then he sat on the couch and opened his laptop. 

A naked picture of Amy appeared on the screen. Just like last night, she was lying on the couch he was sitting on, her head where his lap was. She was lying on her side in a seductive pose, with her arm covering one of her breasts. He’d seen her naked thousands of times when she was alive, but she’d never sent him a naked picture before. It was uncanny how much it looked like her. Sure, a few small details were off. She was missing the small mole under her right armpit, her nipples were a little larger, her pubic hair a little darker, but otherwise, it was the body he’d seen and held and kissed, the body that he thought he’d be seeing and holding and kissing for decades.

Josh undid his belt and pulled off his pants, surprised that he was already hard. He gripped his penis with his right hand and typed with his left.

Josh fell back into the couch, a wet stain on his undershirt. He caught his breath, while making sure his right hand didn’t touch the couch.

Josh was already asleep on the couch.

It was still dark when a car alarm outside the building woke Josh up. He peed and took a hot shower. Standing in his towel in the bathroom, he typed out an email to his team at work on his phone.

He opened his laptop to find a message from Amy.

Desmond woke up a few minutes later. Josh turned on the light in his room and saw the familiar brown stains of a diaper blowout that leaked through his pajamas and onto his mattress. He hurried him into the bathtub and scrubbed him down with a crab-shaped sponge. As the water was draining, pieces of shit got caught in the drain. A problem for later.

He put Desmond into a blue shirt and tan toddler khakis. He looked like he was about to play a round of golf. Josh took a picture to show to Amy.

At daycare, they were greeted by a six-foot-long “WELCOME DESMOND!” banner across the middle of the main play area. It was covered with multicolored handprints; Josh smiled at the kids, several of whom still had paint on their palms.

“Thanks again — Cleo — for taking him on such short notice,” Josh said, handing over the bag with diapers, wipes and clothes.

“It’s our pleasure,” Cleo said. “We’re so excited to get to know Desmond. And just a reminder, we close at 6 every night.”

“No problem. I’ll be here by 5:30.”

Josh hugged Desmond goodbye, holding on until the boy started to wriggle out of his grasp to play with a well-loved wooden truck. Josh lingered in the doorway, watching as Cleo and Desmond joined the rest of the group. 

Back at his apartment, Josh read through weeks’ worth of work emails and messages, trying to catch himself up. He’d missed a lot. There was a customer who had been particularly livid about the bugs in his software and threatened to take his business elsewhere. Josh was composing an apology but then realized that Craig had responded and resolved it days ago. He made a mental note to thank Craig. Maybe should send him a bottle of gin. 

He checked his phone. Eleven minutes until the meeting started.

Josh’s screen populated with a dozen people’s portraits and a handful of black rectangles. Some faces were clearer than others, but all of them looked alien to him.

“Hey everyone,” Josh said, lifting his hand in a weak wave.

Everyone started to applaud. His chat box filled up with hearts and gifs. He should feel embarrassed, but he smiled, and not just out of professional courtesy.

“It’s really good to be back.”

A picture popped up in the chat. Josh clicked on it. He and Amy were standing outside in a light snow, sporting blue Rangers jerseys. Behind them were throngs of Montreal Canadiens fans. In the background, he could make out the outline of an arena.

The picture disappeared from the chat. Amy sent another. The two of them were bundled in winter clothes standing next to half a dozen huskies tied to a sled.

Josh closed his computer, went to brush his teeth. In bed, he turned on the TV. Nothing worth watching. He didn’t feel tired.

He retrieved his computer from the living room. Another picture from Amy was waiting for him. It was the two of them together on the living room couch. Josh was wearing a faded Star Wars t-shirt, which he actually owned, and a pair of grey shorts, which were the same style as a blue pair that he had. Amy had on a tie-die tank top and pink shorts, which she had worn all the time. Her hand was under his shirt, on his chest.

Josh started typing.

Another picture appeared in the chat. Josh opened it immediately.

Desmond slept half an hour later than he usually did, which Josh appreciated. He hadn’t gotten as much sleep as he had intended. After breakfast, Josh dropped him off at daycare — on time.

At home, he logged onto his computer to join the morning Zoom call. His supervisor, Keith, gave his usual rundown. Somehow, Keith always managed to appear blurry onscreen.

“Josh,” Keith said. “What’s the latest on ScoreCast?”

“Right now, only one online sportsbook is allowed in Oregon, but they hope to be able to start operations within two years. I don’t think that’s happening. When we spoke a few months ago, they were insisting that they would remain independent, but I think now they’re warming to the idea of partnering with one of the Native American casinos. However — their app sucks.”

Multiple thumbs up appeared in the chat.

“So how long until we can offer them a functional app?” Keith asked.

“I think we can have a beta model in three months.”

“And it’ll be unique from the other big ones?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Next Thursday is our Family Day,” Cleo said, as Desmond bobbled up and down in Josh’s arms. 

“Oh cool,” said Josh. “Is that something I need to come in for?”

“No, we just talk about our families during the day.” She handed him a piece of paper with “FAMILY DAY” written in yellow bubble letters at the top. “We just ask that you send in a few things so we can put together a little board for each of the children.”

“Of course,” Josh said. “That sounds nice.”

Josh didn’t look at the paper. He spent half of the car ride home responding to Desmond’s babbling and the other half congratulating himself for keeping up his perfect record of on-time pick-ups.

Desmond threw most of his dinner — chicken, pasta, carrots and raspberries — onto the floor and then started crying. Josh looked at the floor — clean enough — and put most of the food back onto Desmond’s tray. He ate so much of it that Josh felt a little guilty. 

Only then did Josh look at the sheet Cleo had given him. For Family Day, he needed to provide:

1. A family picture (the more recent the better so that the children are more likely to recognize themselves and each other)
2. Parents’ names, places of birth and occupations (optional)
3. What fun family traditions do you have?

For the first time, it occurred to Josh that he’d be the only one around to help Desmond with all of the convoluted projects that he would have throughout school. Some were going to be more difficult than others. Josh had never been artistic.

“Dada! Dada!” Desmond yelled. His lips and cheeks were red from where he had smushed the raspberries. He had a big smile on his face. A good pic for Amy. Josh knelt next to him and held his phone at arm’s length to take a selfie of them.

“Look at the camera, Des,” Josh cooed. “Come on, look at Daddy’s hand.” Desmond was more interested in grabbing Josh’s hair. Feeling raspberry goo smear into his scalp, Josh snapped pictures. 

A picture appeared on the screen. It was a picture he recognized. The two of them were sitting under a tree, its leaves red and orange. Amy was visibly pregnant and rested her hand on her belly. It was from a weekend getaway to Vermont the autumn before Desmond was born. Amy had dubbed it a “babymoon,” but Josh refused to call it anything other than a “trip.” He scanned the picture for any irregularities but found none. It seemed to be authentic.

She sent another picture, this time a selfie of him and Amy lying on a comforter of an immaculately made king bed. This was real, too. She had taken it right after they arrived.

Another picture appeared. Josh opened it. It was the picture from earlier that evening, Desmond grinning at the camera and Josh kneeling next to him, raspberry mush smeared in his hair.

And next to Josh, with her head leaning on his shoulder and her arm hooked around his elbow, was Amy.

Josh handed Cleo a manilla folder. “Here’s all the Family Day stuff,” he said. He watched as Desmond stumbled around the play kitchen with two other kids. One was named Skyler? Maybe. He needed to do better to learn the other kids’ names. Then he could say hi to them at pick up and drop off. It would make up for him not remembering any of the parents’ names.

“Thank you,” said Cleo as she opened it up. “Perfect. Looks like everything is here.”

Back home, his phone vibrated and he saw that Amy had emailed him at his work account.

Josh poured milk and sugar into his coffee and then typed out a response:

Josh set his laptop and mug on the coffee table and started to answer other emails. Five minutes later, Amy emailed him back.

“Oh fuck,” Josh said. He spilled some of his coffee as he grabbed his laptop. The email was from Amy Gallagher, a developer on his team. Not his Amy. He quickly responded:

It wasn’t until after he hit send that Josh realize how crazy that made him sound. Amy Gallagher emailed him back two minutes later. 

Josh spent the rest of the day waiting for a call or email from HR that never came. In a way, this was worse. His coworkers found him so unstable that they didn’t think he could be held accountable. The workplace equivalent of an insanity plea. He decided against telling Amy — his Amy — when they talked that night. 

The weekend passed. Monday came around and Josh still hadn’t been fired. He met with his team, which included Amy Gallagher, and everything was normal. Since everyone worked remotely, Josh had even convinced himself that maybe they weren’t talking about him behind his back. 

And even if they were, who cares? They weren’t his family. He just had to work with them. Not even with them, in the traditional sense. It was a group of people who just happened to work for the same organization.

After he put Desmond to bed, Josh finished the sandwich and chips he got from the corner deli and changed into shorts and a t-shirt. He took a handful of tissues with him as he sat on the couch with his laptop. It had been over a week since he and Amy had had sex. At least, their new version of sex.

What was she talking about? He was imagining her voice in a tone that he hadn’t heard in years. When they were dating for a year and a half, they broke up for just under 72 hours. That was the only time he heard her speak that way, a combination of regret, sadness and something Josh interpreted as pity.

Desmond.

Josh ran to Desmond’s room and turned on the light. Desmond was sleeping on his stomach, with his face turned to the wall. The light caused him to stir but didn’t wake him up. Josh lifted him up from under the arms. Desmond’s small hands instinctively covered his face.

“Wake up. Come on, wake up,” Josh said, gently tapping Desmond’s forehead. He tapped a cheek until Des’s eyes fluttered open and he squinted against the light. The pacifier dropped to the floor and Des let out a wail.

“I have something for you, buddy. There’s something I want to show you. Mama’s here. You want to talk to Mama?”

“Mama,” Desmond babbled. “Mama. Mmmm mama!”

“Yeah, that’s right!”

Josh carried Desmond over to the couch. Several messages were waiting on the laptop.

Josh pointed to the screen. “Mama’s there. She’s on the computer. We can talk to Mama now. She’s here and she wants to say ‘hi’ to you.”

“Mama! Mamamamama! Mama!”

“Mama!”

“That’s right, Mama. She sees you and she can hear you and she says she loves you very much.”

He never heard back from Amy again.

Josh tried everything to get her back. He started from scratch, reuploaded all her files. But all her got error messages. He called LivingChat’s tech support, but they said that they couldn’t control any particular AI, just software malfunctions. Josh yelled and cursed, shouting into his phone long after the rep had hung up.

Two weeks later, LivingChat was shut down for good after a bipartisan bill swept rapidly through both houses of Congress. Apparently, the CIA had confirmed that LivingChat contained malware that a Russian intelligence service was using to spy on people. 

Josh cried that night, more than on the night Amy passed away. Second deaths, he learned, were harder.

The post If The Dead Could Live Again appeared first on NOEMA.

“Why? What did she say?” whines Brayden.

I shrug. He knows as well as I do that our esteemed editor, despite her legacy title, does not give notes. A chapter is either “all wrong” or “perfect, as though Hemingway himself had written it.” Which is, after all, the whole point.

“Where are Nova and Maverick?” I ask, gesturing to the empty chairs.

“Nap room.”

“Did they clock out?”

“Yes.”

So we wait. Brayden jots something in his notebook, a gorgeous, leatherbound Japanese number that he strokes like a pet during meetings. He often boasts that his home is free of screen-based technology. Maybe this means he is more evolved than I am. Maybe he can use this time to ruminate on Chapter 4. Maybe he can stop his brain from picturing Maverick and Nova fucking each other’s brains out in the nap room.

“What?” he says when he notices me staring at him.

I look away. “Nothing.” I feel my nipples harden in my bra. I wonder what would happen if I suggested to Brayden that we fuck each other’s brains out sometime. I know I’ll never work up the nerve. I’m seven years older than he is, and older still than the others on my team. Seven years isn’t much, but sometimes it feels like an eternity. Back when I started this job, for example, the nap room was only for naps. It was considered poor form to fuck your coworkers.

Maverick and Nova reemerge, refreshed. Maverick bounces to his seat, slapping Brayden on the back. Nova slides into the chair beside mine, her face flushed.

“Bad news,” I say. “Katrina hates it.”

“All of it?” Nova asks.

“Chapter 4,” Brayden says, a sour note in his voice. Nova designed most of that chapter.

She doesn’t take the bait. She remains floaty and stress-free, thanks to the dopamine and oxytocin coursing through her veins. Whatever I feel about the nap room, it is hard to argue with results.

Maverick taps on his tablet and it links to the projector. He taps again and it beeps and starts transcribing our voices, throwing our words up on the wall.

“Where did we leave things in Chapter 3?” he asks.

“Jake is in Paris,” Brayden begins. “And he’s wandering around the city looking for hookers.”

Maverick frowns.

“What?” Brayden demands. Chapter 3 was his.

“Not sure where we go from there,” Mav says.

Nova raises her hands in the air, like: thank you!

“It just feels kind of … tired,” Maverick says. “Been done.”

Brayden huffs and looks at me.

I hesitate. Been done could be the motto of our department — New Classics, Hemingway. It’s all been done — that’s kinda the point.

“Let’s stick with it for a minute,” I venture. “He’s walking around Paris, and —”

The room stays silent. On the wall, the projected cursor blinks continuously before [silence] appears so that PAPA will know we hit a block.

Plot design is like this sometimes. More frequently these days, since we got the mandate to stop writing about the Spanish Civil War.

“No one even knows what that is,” Katrina had said to me, a pitying look on her face.

“What should we do instead?” I responded.

“Keep the … themes.” She snatched at the air like she was grabbing her own brilliant idea. She had a way of saying words like theme as though she was inventing them on the spot. “Disillusionment, alcoholism, masculinity. But move them into the 21^st century.”

“Right,” I said.

“Keep some animals in there. Everyone likes animals.”

“Ok.”

“Don’t get me wrong. We like Spain! We like Paris! You can keep the travel porn element. Maybe spice that up a bit, too. Could Jake be in Singapore? Could he be mixed race or perhaps bisexual?”

Our first design took two months. We kept getting it “all wrong.” We ended up structuring it as a collection of short stories instead of a novel. Easier for us, easier for PAPA to process. We couldn’t put novels off forever, though, the market for short stories being what it is.

“He’s in Paris,” Nova says, picking up where Brayden left off. “And he runs into that woman —” she snaps her fingers. “From Chapter 1. What did we call her? The socialite?”

“Kylie,” Maverick says.

“Kylie,” Nova echoes.

“Maybe he sees her through the window of a bar,” Brayden adds. He’s back in with them, designing.

“Yes!” Nova says. “There she is, drinking alone. And he zooms in on the bra strap hanging from her shoulder.”

“She would never let it hang like that,” Maverick chides.

“Unless she was shitfaced,” Brayden notes.

“Exactly,” Nova says. Behind her, on the wall, the transcription is keeping up, organizing our chatter into bullet points:

• Wandering, Paris
• Looking for hookers
• Spots Kylie, shitfaced in bar (bra strap detail)

“Hold up,” I say, reluctantly. I hate interrupting my team when they’re on a roll, but if I don’t tag now, it’ll get messy later.

I speak as clearly as possible in the direction of Maverick’s tablet: “Tag Kylie — alcoholism, dejection, depression, women, sex. Tag hooker — alienation, women, sex. Tag wandering — Paris, expat, alienation.” Dots of various colors appear next to each bullet point. Many people don’t realize this, but books are systems that move in patterns. There are major themes and minor themes, and they weave together like the strands of a braid. Our job is to help PAPA figure out which strand is which.

I turn back to Nova. “Ok go ahead.”

Nova takes Jake and Kylie from the bar back to the hotel. She starts to introduce a sex scene but hits a wall when they reach the threshold of the door, wrapped in a passionate embrace. I can see in her eyes that she is exhausted by the possibility of designing sex right now. It is best to design sex when you are horny, not when you are freshly fucked. Maverick, too, is going to be useless. Brayden takes over.

Brayden, we quickly realize, is so horny he might actually die. He designs the most graphic sex scene we’ve heard in a while, for 15 straight minutes walking us through the sucking and slapping and thwapping of every possible combination of body parts.

We know it will all be cut. It’s not Hemingway. It’s all wrong. But most of what we write gets cut, and we’re having fun. Fitz and Faulkner call us Baby Shoes, even though Hemingway probably never actually wrote that devastating little story, but they don’t understand negative space. I’d rather be here, with PAPA slashing our designs to ribbons than over at New Classics, Joyce. They don’t design shit. Those books are incomprehensible.

“Wow,” Nova says, when Brayden is done.

“Maybe you guys should —” Maverick nods his head in the direction of the nap room.

“I can’t,” Nova says apologetically. “It’s my anniversary. I promised Cosmo. I’d be sore.”

I’m holding Maverick’s tablet, adding the colored tags by hand, little dots next to each bullet. I wait for them to look my way and comment on the fact that my nipples are poking through my blouse, to suggest that maybe Brayden and I could have a quick fuck — wouldn’t that be nice?

I would demur of course: “No, no,” I’d say. “I’m fine. It’s cold in here, that’s all.”

And Maverick would snicker and say, “Sylvie, it’s 70 degrees in here.”

And I’d look to Brayden, and he’d be looking up at me with his head at an angle. “You’d be doing me a solid.”

Nova might chime in: “Come on,” she’d say, looking even more than usual like my childhood bestie, Olivia, when she crushed up my first Adderall in our middle school bathroom. “You need this.”

“Sylvie!” Maverick says, pulling me back to reality.

“Yes!”

“Are you falling asleep?”

“No.”

My team shares a look of concern.

“Are you going to feed that through?” Nova asks.

“I’ll do it now,” I say. “Why don’t you take a break, come back in 20.”

They leave for lunch. Or maybe they take a quick detour to the nap room so Nova or Maverick can suck Brayden off. Probably not. That’s a surefire way to ruin an appetite.

I feed the design through PAPA and wait. It takes the AI a minute to rewrite Chapter 4. It used to be quicker, but now that we’ve added in the patterning steps and learning requirements, things take a full 60 seconds or so.

I watch the progress bar move toward completion. I rub my own nipples with my palm, hoping the heat will bring them down. They are beginning to chafe.

From what I gather, all the teams use their nap rooms to one degree or another. New Classics, Fitzgerald is apparently a pansexual free-for-all. Team Woolf is more into therapeutic massage and light kissing.

The day that we had our New Sexual Harassment Training marked the end of my youth at 37. I felt it in real-time, somewhere between the presentation on “Ethical Non-Monogamy Paperwork” and a “Biological De-stressing” seminar, the ground slipping from beneath my feet, the world moving too quickly, leaving me behind.

PAPA beeps. I scan the first paragraph, all the text already formatted like a book, perfectly copy-edited. It’s Hemingway — or, at least, PAPA’s approximation of him:

The Seine was lined with rocks and bottles. The water was gray under a gray sky. Boats with passengers and cargo moved up and down the river, sending small waves to the shore. I turned away and saw her in the window of the Bar de Loup.

Our program — PAPA — is special. It is built with proprietary technology designed specifically to replicate Hemingway’s voice, characters, structures, sentences and themes. Anyone can do a close approximation of syntax and vocabulary, but what we do is so much more than that. The gap between a pretty good impersonation and the real deal is the uncanny valley. It is the worst-case scenario for our thing — our readers are counting on resurrection, no more, no less.

By the time the team returns from Taco Bell, stinking of Cheesy Gordita Crunches, lips stained blue with Baja Blast, I have the new pages loaded, and I have chosen George Clooney to read to us.

“George Clooney,” Maverick moans. “He’s like a hundred.”

“This voice is from when he was in his 70s,” I say.

“Jake is young,” Nova points out, like she’s telling me I have spinach in my teeth.

“I know,” I say. “Trust me. It’ll be good.”

Within moments, I am vindicated. Clooney’s voice is soft and grainy at once, like old music. I read along, and I am transported to my childhood home, to watching movies with my mom, after she first started to lose her memory, when she only wanted to watch the same five films over and over again — easy romantic comedies from her youth.

Brayden’s sex scene has been cut down to a few lengthy sentences. The only word that PAPA carried over from Brayden’s design: in.

He followed the girl. Into the room, now in further, with the smell of Paris on the sheets and elbows pressed; in and only in and more in, yes in, now in, deeper in, into the night and into himself and into the morning to come.

“Oh man,” Maverick interrupts, laughing.

Everyone knows about our boy’s clipped prose. The lack of adjectives. The plain English — monosyllabic, Germanic, poetic. Many forget about the sex scenes. Euphoric, anaphoric, breathless. Hemingway can go head-to-head with Joyce. We’ve run the tests. 

Nova identifies the influence. “For Whom The Bell Tolls.”

All that slurping and sliding and licking — it was just for us. It’s the story behind the story. The negative space. The shadow. You feel it.

Clooney wraps up the chapter: And the old woman at the desk also slept.

“So?” I say.

Nova is already on her tablet, flicking through the new pages and tweaking sentences. This is her specialty. She is our ear. She has perfect pitch when it comes to Hemingway — has read all the originals hundreds of times. She knows when a sentence is not quite right, when PAPA did its best but didn’t nail it. She’s our fixer.

Brayden and Maverick are big-picture guys. Mav flicks through his plot map, checking how we’re doing on threads.

“We could use one or maybe two more beats on expat experience unless we go hard in Chapter 5. Same for masculinity. Kind of lacking there.”

“I have an idea for masculinity,” Brayden says. “Right before Jake steps into the bar, he has a flashback. To his days as a police officer.”

Nova clicks her tongue.

“Why? Why not police?” Brayden says. “How is police different from soldier?”

“It is,” Nova says. She doesn’t even look up.

“Fine,” Brayden says. “A flashback to his time as a … a …”

I step in. “War reporter.”

“He’s a reporter now,” Maverick notes. “He’s going to flashback to more reporting?”

“You’re right,” I say. “A medic. A humanitarian worker, someone delivering aid.”

We all look to Nova. She thinks on it. “Fine.”

I add a bullet point: Medic. “What’s the flashback about?”

Brayden licks his lips. He doesn’t have Maverick’s sense of story, of shape, but he’s good with image and pathos. He’s a romantic, which is why he’s always writing with pens and paper, and why he mostly eschews the nap room.

“A man — no, a boy,” he begins. “A child on a stretcher. He’s badly injured. No wait — not a stretcher. He’s buried under rubble. It’s after an earthquake or in a warzone or something. Jake can hear his voice, but he can’t see him. He can tell it’s a boy.”

“He can only see the boy’s hand!” Maverick jumps in.

I’m taking it all down.

“Yes!” Brayden says. “One small hand, coming through the rubble. And they talk and the hand moves and then finally, after days trying to save the boy from the rubble, the hand stops moving and Jake calls out and no one answers.”

I shudder. “That’s great.”

“Is it masculinity though?” Nova says. She’s still scrolling the text on her tablet, hunting for sentences in the wrong key.

“Let’s see what it comes up with if I tag it.” Sometimes that’s enough. You can put “waffle” into the machine but tag it “violence” and it comes up with the most fucked-up waffle story you’ve ever heard.

The door opens as I finish tagging. Katrina. She has another woman with her, someone I don’t recognize.

“Don’t mind us,” Katrina says, escorting the woman into the room. “This is Suri, head of YA.”

I hear Brayden gasp and then compose himself. Brayden dreamed of writing YA once upon a time. I know because he told me so the first time I met him, in his interview.

“If you want to be a writer,” I had said, “this is not the place.”

“No, no,” he said. “Used to. That’s all.”

I could tell he was lying, but I didn’t push. Most of us wanted to be writers at one point; we grew out of it. (Who is stopping you? Katrina always says when she catches wind of such ambitions. Write! Write poetry! Make pottery! Dance like no one’s watching!)

Suri waves to all of us at the table. She is immaculately dressed in a tailored pink suit and pink heels. Her hair is braided in long rows and tied in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her skin is a creamy brown, smattered with freckles. It glows even under the fluorescent lights.

“Hi,” Nova says awkwardly before turning back to her tablet. Nova never wanted to write — she is the only true editor among us. But even she is cowed by YA. YA is where the money is. YA, as Katrina is always reminding us, keeps New Classics afloat. And against the odds, YA still employs human authors.

“Do you mind if I sit?” Suri asks.

“Sure,” I say, gesturing towards a seat.

Katrina shoots me a look: Don’t fuck this up.

“Pretend I’m not here,” Suri says into the awkward silence.

“Right. Well.” I finish my notes and send the new design through the program. It spits back a fresh draft almost instantly; the revisions were modest.

This time, I pick a more conventional reader (old reliable: Timmy Chalamet), and we listen to the new-new Chapter 4. I am struck by the power of Nova’s small adjustments. The flashback works — how it begins to illuminate Jake’s character. I feel a wave of pride for my team and our work.

The narration stops and we all look to Katrina. She glances at Suri. Suri is stone-faced, impenetrable.

“Good,” Katrina hedges. “A good start. Fine.”

“I thought it was remarkable,” Suri says. Her voice is low and quiet. I find myself leaning toward her and silencing even my body’s tiniest sounds. “Sounds just like him,” she finishes.

“Thank you,” Maverick says, as though the chapter was his alone.

“So you see,” Katrina says. “It’s quite fast. Quite a bit faster than what your des — your authors — can handle.”

“This is all from today?”

I nod. “Yes. A fresh draft that we started this morning.”

“Do you shoot for one chapter a day?”

“Depends,” I say. “But most of the time, that’s a good pace.”

“Impressive,” Suri says. She sighs, and I can’t tell if it’s a good sigh or a bad sigh.

I want to ask her what her authors do — how they think about characters, how they design. I want to tell her about the fun we used to have years ago when we fed designs into programs where they didn’t belong. Before the Morrison estate pulled the rights, we would feed my spare, masculine Hemingway designs through SULA and strange, magical Morrison designs about Blackness and cultural inheritance through PAPA. The results were mostly nonsense. The programs had been trained to find what doesn’t belong and cut like crazy, and their confusion led to big gaps in the narratives. Still, every three or four sentences, we’d find something interesting. Something that felt new and exciting. Something that we could polish up, tweak the language until it gleamed like a shiny stone.

Katrina speaks. “This novel is something new. Not just for New Classics, Hemingway but for all of New Classics. Since the department was put together two years ago, we’ve kept the books set during the author’s lifetime. The idea was that every book was something the author could have written, but just didn’t have time to.”

“Right,” Suri says.

Katrina went on: “Recently, the Hemingway estate agreed to a trial period where we would be released from that mandate. If it goes well, the others may follow. There’s a crossover market as I’m sure you can imagine.”

I think of the listicles Katrina had shown me, spinning her monitor so I could read. At the top of a women’s website: 25 Things The Man in Your Life Doesn’t Know to Ask For, etc.

My mind went somewhere filthy almost immediately. As she scrolled, I realized the list was all shearling slippers and ergonomic backscratchers. She wanted new Hemingway books on there — not just for superfans, but casual readers too. People who would love his work if they could get past the associations with “Classic.”

“What if we made Hemingway fun?” Katrina had wondered. “Sexy? Modern? Get him out of the classroom. Get away from the period details.”

I replied that I thought Hemingway was fun, sexy, modern.

“You’re so right,” Katrina said. “He is. But how do we convey it? How do we take Hemingway from a man to a brand?”

Suri stands to leave. “I’ll let you get back to work,” she says. “Thank you for letting me observe.”

Katrina nods, surreptitiously, in my direction. Her tacit approval feels like sunlight. I am not used to being bad at my work, but I have been, lately. It feels good to be back on solid ground.

Nova watches them leave through slitted eyes, like she suspects them of a crime.

The door closes, and I exhale. “Nice work, team!”

Maverick offers a weak smile, but Nova studies her hands. Brayden looks upset, his jaw pulsing, his nostrils flared.

“What?”

“We just helped them kill YA,” he says.

“No,” I say. “No, we —”

Nova looks at me, her brows low and heavy. “We did.”

“Well,” I say. “If we did — good for us. That means we did our job well.”

The others are not convinced. Maverick shakes his head. Nova pushes away from the table. “I’m going to finish this tonight if that’s ok,” she says, meaning the sentences.

“Sure,” I say. “Happy anniversary. Nice work.”

Maverick doesn’t even ask to leave, he just follows Nova out. Through the glass walls of our room, I watch them file towards the elevators, not talking.

Brayden is furiously scrawling in his leatherbound journal. “What are you writing?” I ask. He doesn’t respond.

“Can I read it?”

Brayden stops and looks up. I can see he is surprised.

“Ok,” he says.

He hands me the journal. I take it from him and open it to a random page. His handwriting is small and cramped. The ink from his pen has smudged the pages, dark smears of blue.

I can’t read any of the words. There doesn’t seem to be any discernable pattern in the weird loops.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“I can’t read your writing,” I say. “But it looks beautiful.”

I try to hand the journal back, but Brayden won’t take it. I lay it back on the table. He has come behind me and leans over my shoulder, his longish hair grazing my ear. He reads aloud: “The lair was stone, carved into the side of Mount Hollor and as a big as a banquet hall. Inside, the dragonettes slept atop their eggs, warming them with the heat from their velvety undersides.”

As he reads, he relaxes his weight down on top of me until I am hunched over the table and he is pressed on top of me, and we are both inches from the swirling, looping text on the page. I stop trying to track the words. I unfocus my eyes. I worry that I’m panting or that I need a mint or that I might accidentally drool onto one of his linen pages, so I hold my breath. I feel faint.

Brayden seems to have forgotten about me entirely. He is in a trance, flipping pages so fast, going, further, deeper into his story. The dragons have breasts — six of them — large and swollen with dragon milk, marked by pale areolae the size of a knight’s head. I find it all a bit hard to follow. But I enjoy the music of Brayden’s voice work — high for the dragonettes and deeper for their human lovers.

“The fire that blew from atop the mount that day burned blue — a scorching icecap, and a warning.”

Brayden stops, sucks air through his nose like he’s trying to huff the story, take it straight to the bloodstream.

I wait for him to continue, but he stands and shakes his head, almost like a dog, flicking some hair away from his forehead that had become slicked with sweat.

“So,” he says, eyes focused on me. “What do you think?”

“Beautiful,” I say. I say so many things, so many things that draw him to me. I can’t tell where my thoughts end and my speech begins, if I’m still talking or if he’s reading my thoughts or if he’s sucking them out of my mouth.

He pushes me back onto the table, climbs on top of me. We are fused.

“Should we —” I try. “Should we —”

I want to go to the nap room. It’s not the glass walls or the sanctity of this space or the fact that I’d rather not fuck where I design. It’s just that I’ve never gotten to use the nap room. Sure, I’ve laid down on the chaise longue and stared at the recessed lighting and imagined Brayden and Maverick and Nova and even Katrina licking my pussy. But that doesn’t count.

I push Brayden away. He’s undeterred. He tugs my pants from my waist and makes a sound of approval when he sees my underwear — old-fashioned Days of the Week briefs.

“Let’s go to the nap room,” I say.

“It’s fine,” he says, not looking me in the eye. “No one comes by here.”

I know this. “But it’s softer,” I say. “The cushion.”

Brayden looks down at the cold table under my bare ass.

“Let’s switch,” he says.

I think he means ok, let’s go to the nap room, but no. As soon as I hop down, he hops onto the table and shimmies his pants off in a single gesture. His erection pops out like a jack in the box.

I want to object: If the table was too hard for my ass, it will obviously be too hard for my knees. But maybe he wants me to perch on my toes, like they do on the internet, and bounce. In any case, he is growing irritable. I am testing his patience. I say nothing.

I climb onto the table like a primate, squat over him, and try not to imagine how this would look if anyone from Woolf walked by. I stare at Brayden, who looks to the side and then up, past me.

I start to worry that he is logging the details for later use. That at some point, he will design a sex scene that resembles this one in some small, humiliating way. That Nova and Maverick will be able to tell.

The way he is looking all around, eyes wide, palms flat against the table — I know he is. He’s recording in the leatherbound Japanese notebook in his mind: the blue veins of my upper thighs, where they meet my groin; the noises I make as I struggle to complete an infinite set of tiny squats; the sour smell of our bodies meeting.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

He twists his head more rapidly — up, side, side — avoiding my searching gaze.

I go faster — up, down, up, down. I try to think of something sexy to say. I repeat a line from his story, as best I can remember it.

“The eggs,” I say, “are warm and ready.”

Brayden looks at me now. For a split second, he is perfectly still, lips pressed tight. I assume he is about to come. This is his come face.

Instead, he starts to cry. A loud, wailing cry that I associate with small children and hysterical women. He begins to hyperventilate.

Quickly, I dismount. I prop him up to a seated position. I wait for someone — a gaggle of someones — to appear in the glass windows that surround us, responding to his cry, but no one comes. We are alone, wearing our work shirts and socks, naked from hips to ankles. We sit on the table, hunched and sweaty. Brayden tries to steady his breathing, pursing his lips and pushing out little puffs of air.

“Are you ok?” I ask. “What happened?” This would never have happened in the nap room, which is scented like eucalyptus and has a dehumidifier and disposable blankets.

“It’s over,” Brayden says. “We killed it.”

“What?”

“We killed YA.” He gestures to his notebook. “It’s dead.”

“Your little story?”

Suddenly, his breathing is fine, and he glares at me. “My little story?”

“You know what I —”

Brayden starts to dress.

“We didn’t kill it. Suri didn’t say that.”

Brayden shoots me a look: Be serious.

“I don’t think your dragon story is YA,” I say. “Sure it’s fantasy, but it’s awfully sexy. You could put it online.”

I mean this as a compliment, but I can tell from the look on Brayden’s face that it is not.

“’The Fires of Tolleckmire’ is a five-part epic,” Brayden says. “It’s not jerkoff reading for middle-aged —”

“Brayden,” I say. “I had no idea you wrote so much. You can bring more of your ideas to design. Katrina said we need to spice it up!”

But Brayden knows as well as I do that his work is all wrong. It’s not Hemingway. “I’m done,” he says. “I can’t do this anymore.”

I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. I close it again. Brayden looks to me for something, and I stare back helplessly. I suppose it comes off like apathy, because he huffs indignantly.

“Fine.” He storms out of the room before I have a chance to put my pants on.

I lay back on the table and watch the SAD lamp’s timed sunset. I flip through Brayden’s journal, which he left behind in his hurry. I imagine what he might write about me, eventually. I imagine what we could design together, about ourselves. The tags: sex, alienation, negative space.

The post The AI In The Writers’ Room appeared first on NOEMA.

“Where’d you find this guy?” Dave Clutch asks me, pushing bangs out of anime-girl eyes with a flick of a cell-shaded hand.

“Yeah, nice try lol,” I reply. “Like I’m gonna tell you my trade secrets.”

Dave’s avatar giggles, its hand in front of its mouth, red spirals of blush spinning on 2D cheeks. I brace for a stylized sweat drop that never comes, thankfully. The aesthetic is so played out that my reaction to it borders on allergic, but at least it is an aesthetic.

When I first found Dave he was just another youtuber, all skinny white boy grey skin and sagging eye bags lit by nothing but the slowly cycling RGB LEDs of his gaming rig, staring awkwardly into the camera as he read his scripts and flicked real bangs of hobbit hair out of his eyes. It was a look that screamed a desperate need for authenticity, and it was the first thing I had to beat out of him. 

Back then he was posting weekly videos about his patent dives into smart contact lens technology ­— long, rambling monologues detailing what he’d unearthed about some obscure Chinese manufacturer and how they were going to “reinvent personal immersion” by making VR headsets and spex obsolete. What he didn’t know was that the company was already in acquisition talks with Meta, and they’d been feeding him bullshit patents for fantasy tech in order to drive their market value up. Meta didn’t give a fuck, the whole deal was pocket change for them, but the day traders whose algos had already decided his info was whack and the company was a good shorting opportunity were pissed and braying for blood. It didn’t help that Dave had been stupid enough to blow his student loans on buying shares in them himself. 

It was not, as we used to say, a good look. My algos kept finding people mentioning the SEC and his name in the same sentence. There were three separate subreddits dedicated to memes of him in prison, ranging from the genuinely witty to the violently homophobic. 

Which is when I swept in, his fucking white knight on a golden steed, and showed him how rebranding and tokenization could flip downvotes into coins. He was a performance artist now, a status formalized and legitimized by the fact that anyone could buy tokenized shares in him on all the major art exchanges. The little shit had made close to a quarter mil just by minting PDFs of the clearly fake design docs he’d been given. But more importantly it meant the SEC wouldn’t go near him; they were still licking their wounds from the Abramović NFT case to try to figure out if some youtuber with a K-On! avatar was guilty of insider trading or just selling really opportunistic meme art. 

“Look, I don’t give a fuck,” Dave says. “You know me. I trust you. But if we’re running this as a straight P&D I’m going to need a good story for my marks, ‘cos believe it or not they’re not as stupid as you think they are.”

“Chill Clutch, Jesus. Just mention my name. They’ll assume I’m doing the same secret sauce Svengali shit I did on you and he’s going to be a superstar. They won’t see shit but coin.”

“And you’re not doing your kingmaker shit on him?”

“Fuck no. A street artist? Graffiti? What the fuck am I meant to do with that? Guy paints on actual walls. Nobody goes outside anymore.” 

“Yeah, which is exactly why I need a better story than ‘Hey look at his pretty pictures.’ C’mon man.”

“Okay, Okay. I got one word for you.” I pause for dramatic effect. “Prescience.”

“Pre … wait,” Dave’s avatar’s eyes narrow, bangs and pigtails bouncing as its head snaps to the left to read some unseen window. “You mean PreScience? That predictive policing start-up Alphabet bought?”

“Yeah, that’s them. Man, people got short memories these days. Before they got into ACAB shit they made their rep doing trend prediction. Real-time mapping and analysis of FB and Twitter feeds. Picking up emerging fashions through image analysis on IG. They were the OGs at that shit. Sitting on millions of data points.”

“And they’re doing talent spotting now?”

I smile. “I mean, in a way they always were. But yeah, let’s just say I got some beta access to a new product for early adopter art collectors they’re testing. Let that slip to your guys, I’m sure they’ll be able to check it out, see what I’ve seen on this guy. Should put their minds to rest.” 

“Poor fuckers,” giggles Dave, cat ears erupting from his avatar’s skull with an obscene popping sound. “Ok, leave it to me.”

I am taking off my spex and staring out the window at the city below. Full whiteout. The Manhattan skyline across the river, struggling to be seen as eddies of snow spiral around one too many uninhabited Greenpoint condo towers. A sudden shot of anxiety. I shudder, more at the thought of people than the cold.

I am slipping my spex on, and I’m back, safe again. The room is full of data. So much that the view is hidden once more, behind subreddits and art exchanges, Twitter threads and rolling news, market visualizations and shard value trackers, the New Yorker and Artforum, Coindesk and Bloomberg. And in the middle of it all, seeming to hold everything in place through unseen gravitational waves, floats a single window: Fragileman’s Instagram page.

It’s a simple, unassuming bio. Typical, even. Fragileman. Street artist. Baltimore. And then a hash link to his NyftEX page. Below it, the infinite scroll of images. Pictures of his work splattered over the sides of red brick walls and greying, damp concrete. The work is … nice, actually. Good use of color, bold hard lines. Organic, almost botanical details juxtaposed against simple, urgent geometry. Not my world, but I can see the appeal. 

I wonder how the PreScience algorithms found him, what they saw as they scanned every pixel of these images. I wonder what patterns they saw emerging from his colors and lines that — when mixed with patterns from a hundred thousand other data points they’d extracted from the fumes of his data exhaust — matched the patterns they’d been told equaled potential. 

What’s missing from the page is anything personal. No selfies, no friends or family, no plates of food. Just the work. I have no idea who Fragileman really is, what he looks like. Presumably the PreScience algorithms must know his true identity, having divined the connections from immeasurable flows of data that no human brain could conceive. But they weren’t telling me. Some things are, believe it or not, still private, still anonymized. Or at least they are at my tier of account access. 

I blink through to his NyftEX page, apparently the only exchange he’s ever registered with. Like every young kid with an IG account he’d tried minting a few of the images as NFTs. None had sold. Well, not until yesterday, when I got some bots to buy a few. But like every artist that got in after the initial goldrush, Fragileman had realized there was no real money in tokenizing your work when you were starting out. The days of buying any tokenized art you saw just for the novelty or some mystical potentials were long gone; now only established artists, artists with connections and influence and a recognizable brand, made serious money selling their work. 

No, as a new artist there was little point wasting money and carbon on having your work minted when you could tokenize something far more valuable: yourself. Pay an exchange to mint you into an NFT, split it into thousands of shards, and then put those up for sale. Suddenly you were there, legitimately part of the real art world: a line on a chart. 

The artist as tradable financial product, your artistic value ranked by the automated exchanges, subreddit day traders, stonks hustlers, hedge fund analysts and high-frequency trading algorithms. They — the critics, the holdouts, the no-coiner ludds — they keep telling us we’d finally destroyed art, reduced it all to nothing but stocks and shares, meaningless toy money for the world’s rich to play with. Of course, the truth was that’s what art had always been, for centuries if not longer. We just made it more ubiquitous, more efficient, more technologically mediated. We made it faster.

As I stare at Fragileman’s NyftEx page, I see his shard price tick up by two points, and smile. We made it damn near instantaneous.  

The play here is simple. It’s a good old-fashioned pump and dump. Quick in, quick out. Over the last week I’ve slowly and silently, via a couple dozen proxy accounts and shell DAOs, been buying up Fragileman’s shards. Not too much volume, not too fast, just enough to make it look like there’s some organic upward movement on his shard price. Now Dave was in the loop, buying a few shards of his own, and privately tipping off some of his inner circle — his most loyal YouTube and Patreon subscribers, the ones with the deepest pockets — about this exciting new investment opportunity. 

He wasn’t the only one of course. I tipped off a handful of other influencers about Fragileman. Some of them, like Dave, were in on the play. Most of them weren’t. Most of them were just happy to have someone like me hand them some fresh, exclusive-looking content. Something that’d make their followers pause their doom scrolling for a second, to look at something they were being told was cool, and beautiful, and relevant. And crucially to remind them that the person showing it to them was also cool, and beautiful, and relevant, and had shards to buy on the influence exchange of their choice. 

Now I am looking at social media data, at trending terms and engagement metrics. I am watching a previously unknown street artist go viral in real-time. I am watching his name spread through networks like a virus through an unvaccinated immune system, jumping from influencer to influencer, from subreddit to subreddit, from bot network to bot network. Minutes pass, then hours. Guided by invisible hands — of both the market and NyftEX’s automated influence metric trackers — Fragileman is up seven points. The infection grows, turning everything into organic, almost botanical details and simple, urgent geometry. Fragileman blossoms with big main character energy. 

And now, here come the big fish, the sharks in the dark pools, the celebrity-branded investment funds. Cyrus Capital, Swift Finance, Knowles & Carter Investment. The pop stars fronting hedge funds, the people that finally brought trading to the masses, that helped them see that side-hustle culture and financial speculation went hand in hand, selling them a dream where they can actually own a tiny sliver of their anointed significance, that asked them to prove their fan loyalty via direct investment. They are all over Fragileman now, tweeting and reposting, slipping his work into stories and mentioning it on livestreams. Hashtags trend. Fragileman to the moon. Line go up. I wonder where he is right now, what he’s doing, what he must be thinking as his phone blows up with notifications. Up 17 points now, and still rising.

First we pump, and then we dump.

It’s all about timing now. It’s all about holding the line until you feel it’s right. Between us, Dave and I now own — via various proxies and shells — about 2,000 of the initial 5,000 shards Fragileman had minted of himself. We got them all for around a buck each. Pocket change. I’ve a figure in my head, maybe. A number that I’m holding out for. Or I might just go with my gut. Either way, at some point I know it’ll be time to sell every Fragileman shard I’m holding, to cash the fuck in. To flood the market and take the money while everyone else rushes to follow us and do the same, and to watch Fragileman’s artistic value fall like a stone. Line go down.

I’m staring at Fragileman’s work again, at the good use of color and bold lines. For a second I actually feel guilty. I’m not sure why. He’s an unwitting pawn in this, but he’ll be ok. It’ll be a wild ride, but he’ll survive it. Fuck, he’ll come out of this pretty well off, if he’s sensible — he’s already got a hundred times the followers he had this morning, and he’s sold a bunch of minted images. He’ll come out of this with a profile he never had, probably richer than when we started. I minimize his IG page with a flick of my hand, and the guilt with it. What’s the worst that could happen? 

I am at a gallery opening. I do not know who the artist is. The work seems uninteresting, procedurally generated iterations of something or another. Flickering gifs hang on flat, white walls. I don’t care. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one feeling that way. From a quick scan of the crowd, most of them are more interested in the venue than the art. It’s the first night it’s been open, and nothing gets rich people more excited than gawping at other rich people’s real estate. 

I’m standing in the corner, hoping nobody notices me, idly watching a window full of numbers in my periphery, when AphexFan08 slides up next to me. Another tedious nerd fuck that owes me a career. When I found him he was posting YouTube mixes of other people’s ambient music called things like “14 hours of lo-fi chill beats to avoid studying to,” and the fact that he had two million subscribers for them was just pissing the DMCA algorithms off even more. I hooked him up with some Reaktor plug-ins that procedurally generated fake field recordings, an AI prompt agent that walked him through media interviews, and gave him a 48-hour influence bump via my network. I also made sure the style pages thought he was from Canada, rural BC to be exact. A week later he had five million subs and an opening set at Coachella. 

“Nice spot, huh?” he says, meaning the gallery. 

“Yeah. Yeah,” I manage in reply, staring out through glass walls. Rolling green fields, blue-white cliffs, towering pines swaying gently against perfectly azure skies. “Real fucking serene. Must have cost a bit.”

“Lots.”

“Where’s it meant to be, exactly? Banff?”

AphexFan08 laughs, louder and more raucously than any ambient composer ever should. “Nah man! Really? You don’t recognize it? It’s ‘The Silent Cartographer.’”

I stare back at him blankly. “No fucking idea.”

“The classic Halo level? From the first game? Really?”

“Never fucking heard of it.” 

“Wow, I just — I’m surprised, I guess,” He’s got that glee in his eye, the barely concealed joy that he knows something I don’t. Fucking nerd pecking-order bullshit. “Bit before my time, but y’know — I thought this is where it all started?”

“All what?” I am very bored now and refusing to hide it.

“The culture! Everything! Y’know, all the stories, your generation — coming home from school, Cheetos and Mountain Dew, logging into Halo to shout slurs at each other, learning that this other world existed, where nobody could stop you, tell you what to do — y’know, the beginning! Of the culture! The future was built here, man!” 

“Not by me,” I reply. “Never had an Xbox.”

I can sense him about to lurch into more of it, more of the weird, context-free nostalgia his generation maintains for stuff they never fucking experienced in the vague hope they can construct a history for themselves that’s more than just a list of pop-cultural references that got transformed into financial products. So I change the subject. 

“Who’s that guy in Clutch’s group without an avi?” I gesture over at Dave, holding court to his inner circle of special followers, all presenting as similarly drawn anime girls. All except one, that is, who doesn’t have an avatar at all, his body nothing but the anonymous, translucent mannequin you get when you create a new Meta account. “Someone thinks they’re special?”

“Oh you didn’t hear? Can’t remember the guy’s name, but it’s one of Dave’s top followers. Got scammed out of the ownership of his avatar. Guy’s down 60 grand, apparently.”

“How’d it happen?”

“Who knows? Usual shit, probably. Got given a link to a NyftEX sale that looked too good to be true, because it was, clicks it anyway, ends up giving his very real login creds to a very fake site. Next thing you know and yoink, ownership of your favorite lolicon avi has been transferred to some pervert who’s richer than you. Whatever. All part of the game.”

“Fucking idiots. But then why turn up with no avatar at all? I’m sure the guy has a creepily large collection of other waifus he can present as.”

“Now, see, that’s why you should always try and turn up to these things earlier. Always a surprising amount of drama, watching others arrive. So the guy gets here, right, and he’s wearing some anime girl, looks like exactly the same shit as the rest of them to me, but what the fuck do I know. Anyway his crew is not happy, they just circle him immediately, start insisting he take it off. And he’s like ‘But guys, I just lost 60k in a scam,’ but they don’t fucking care, they’re like ‘That’s not from the same show we’re from, either you wear the right one or nothing at all, or you can leave,’ and they make him go naked, right here in front of everyone. It was fucking brutal. You could hear the sobbing over the proximity chat.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I shake my head. “I know for a fact every single one of those fuckers is a 45-year-old fintech coder. I swear Dave gets off on running them through this high school hazing shit.” 

“Yeah man, for reals. Look what you fucking made lol,” We both laugh at that one. “Speaking of which, what’s the deal with Fragileman?”

“Oh, what, the Baltimore guy?” I say, like it’s no biggie, as if I’m not watching his numbers in a window I’ve positioned just to the right of AphexFan08’s face. “Yeah, looks super interesting. Good use of color, bold hard lines.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Certainly a talented guy.” I can tell from his tone that he’s not even glanced at the guy’s work. “I mean his numbers over the last few hours, just incredible. Incredible. Picked up a few shards myself. To the moon, man.”

I know exactly what he’s going to ask me next.

“Where d’you find these guys?” 

“Oh, y’know, I have my methods,” I tell him. “It’s what I do, man. Pattern recognition. Nodes in the network. Emerging forms.”

“Sure,” he says, slightly awkwardly. He doesn’t want to offend by prying further. Perfect. “I mean, of course, What you do. Super interesting.”

“Look, I can tell you this.” I lean in closer to his avatar while pinging him a private chat bubble. He’s accepted it before I’ve even finished talking. “But you can’t say shit to anyone. This is real insider stuff, plus I’m under an NDA, understand?”

“Of course. I mean, of course.” He’s so excited it’s almost cute, and I have to mute expression capture so that I don’t laugh at him. “Your secret’s safe with me.”    

“You know PreScience?”

“What, the copware?”

“That’s them. Well they’re diversifying a bit. Going back to their trend-spotting roots. Put me on a very exclusive beta of their new product. Uses the same algorithms they use for predictive policing to spot emerging talent. So far, the results I’ve had have been incredible.”

“Wow, that’s … wait? So you’re saying this isn’t the first time? You’ve found other artists this way? Who?”

Clever kid. I mime zipping my lips tight and throwing away the key. 

“Wow, that’s amazing. I really had no idea.” His head flaps back and forth, as he nervously glances over his shoulders. I can’t tell whether he’s worried someone is watching us, or terrified that nobody is. “That’s incredible, I’d love to talk to you more about it.“

“Of course, anytime,” I say, simultaneously killing the private chat. “Just not right now, yeah? Actually, speaking of emerging forms, I gotta hit the bathroom.”

And I pull my spex from my face, hard disconnect. The gallery is gone, replaced by more condo blocks and swirling snow. I imagine AphexFan08’s avatar still standing there, metaphorical dick in his hand, not knowing what to do first with the data bombshell I just dropped on him.

Grinning, I put my spex back on. The room is full of data again, but I’m only watching one window. In my mind’s eye AphexFan08 has zipped his dick away and is teleporting around the gallery, trying to mingle while simultaneously spamming his contacts’ DMs. If there’s one thing I know about him from hours of painful Spotify negotiations, it’s that the motherfucker is clinically incapable of keeping a secret. Right now he’s telling everyone he can about my PreScience revelation, and reveling in how fleetingly significant it makes him look. Good. He knows a lot of people with a lot of money and no fucking clue, who don’t know a good use of color from a bold line but will buy some art if an algorithm tells them it’s the right art to buy. 

I stare at the window as minutes pass. I can imagine a gallery full of avatars seeming to glitch as they simultaneously pause to buy shards. Already green numbers start to climb further. Line go up.

I am sleeping with my spex on, so that when the notification hits at 3.17 a.m. I awake directly into a world of screaming alerts and flashing red numbers. 

Line go down. 

Dave is already talking when his avatar teleports into my room. “Yeah yeah, I’m on it, I’m on it.”

“What the fuck is going on?” I am sitting upright, rummaging in the drawer of my nightstand for a Xanax I’m sure is there.

“I … ugh. Oh fuck.” He pauses, anime eyes narrowing and darting from one unseen screen to another. I know he’s reading the logs of the dark pool he operates, a semi-private, invite-only market for high-frequency algorithms to trade shards. Originally, dark pools were used by big banks and funds to trade shares in secret so they didn’t affect public market prices. But Dave’s pool basically does the opposite — it mainly exists to sell trading data instantaneously to outside investors and exchanges, so they can get nanosecond jumps on the rest of the market. “Looks like a bunch of algos started automatically dumping back into the pool.”

“Whose?”

“Well … a couple of mine, for a start —” 

“The fuck —” 

“— and some of yours, senpai. Don’t worry, I’ve shut them all down.  It … it looks like the price is stabilizing. Phew. Weird.”

Line go flat. 

“Tell me something good Dave, fucking please?” The Xanax is nowhere to be found. 

“I dunno. Something spooked the algorithms, and then the whole pool. Looks like I caught it before the exchanges spotted it, but who knows.”

“Yeah but what? If it can spook them now, it can spook them tomorrow. I need to know what it is Dave, so I can make it go away.”

“I mean, you did due diligence on this guy, right?”

“Due … what?” I am actually laughing out loud. “He’s an anonymous fucking graffiti artist from Baltimore, Dave. I don’t even know his fucking name!” 

“Well, I suggest you fucking find out.” Dave makes oversized eye contact with me, his face turning a cartoon shade of angry red. “Like, we don’t know what’s in this guy’s past, who the fuck he is, he could be one of those me too guys, he could have been canceled —” 

“There’s nothing bad on the socials, not a thing.”

“Not yet!” His voice is full of disbelief. “You know these are meant to be predictive algos, right?” 

“Ok. Ok. Fuck.” I’m out of bed, pulling on a shirt. “What do I do? How do I find this guy?”

“On PreScience?”

“You kidding me? It’s all anonymized for end users. I don’t have that kind of access.” 

“Well, I guess you’d better find someone who does.” 

I am realizing that even though I drink their coffee every day, this is the first time I’ve actually been inside a Starbucks in at least seven years. Since the first lockdowns, I am guessing. I stopped going inside a lot of places around then.

I am watching the cop sitting opposite me. His eyes are twitching and blinking behind his Oakley spex. Such an ugly design. He is checking to make sure the shards I just deposited in his NyftEX account have cleared. We’re sitting in the badly lit corner near the bathrooms, away from the counter. The air smells like burned Colombian roast and diarrhea, and the tiled floor is slick with trodden-in snow melting into grey water. 

He picked the table when we arrived, saying he’d already checked the store’s network and this was a blind spot. “It’s fucked,” he had said, pointing at an unmoving dome camera on the ceiling. 

Now he nods, grunting. Takes the spex from his face, passes them to me. “You got five minutes,” he says, surveying the store with that self-important cop gaze. I know really he’s just trying to avoid my eyes, as though it’ll somehow distance him from his crime.

I slip the spex on, trying not to think about where they’ve been, and then I’m there, in the copverse. 

I’m trying not to laugh. In here it all feels so … Hollywood. Like “Robocop” meets “Minority Report.” Retro futuristic fascism via white sci-fi fonts on deep blue text boxes. On the sides are a few windows showing grayscale camera feeds: subway platforms, a drone’s eye view of the intersection outside, the Starbucks cam watching the entrance. In the center are two windows.

The first is a rap sheet. A mugshot of a young man. Tired eyes. Andre Hendrix. Twenty-three years old. Known alias: Fragileman. Then a list of minor offenses, the usual shit. Minor vandalism, destruction of public property, a little light shoplifting as a kid. Nothing major. Fines and community service but no prison time.  

The other window is far more interesting. The only things I recognize on it are the PreScience logo and the same mugshot. The rest is data viz that’s unfamiliar to me: flow charts of cascading probabilities, tables full of chances and odds. Pie charts cut into percentage slices of likely outcomes. I realize I’m looking at a rap sheet again, but this time a speculative one. Crimes that haven’t happened yet, and may never. A man’s life mapped out years in advance, based on cop data, institutionalized racism, hidden mathematics. It’s a lot to take in, too many possibilities. The visualizations shift and bloom when my gaze lingers on them for too long. But one prediction sticks out from the rest, pulsing a steady red designed to draw attention:

68% chance of being involved in a violent assault before age 25. 73% chance assault will involve firearms. 81% chance of fatality.

Suddenly it clicks into place. I can see what spooked the trading algos. Some of them, somewhere on a server out in some shithole muddy field in New Jersey, had done the due diligence they were designed to do, that I never could. They’d made the connection, worked out who Fragileman was, and saw a bad investment opportunity that ended in either death or incarceration. That or someone that Dave or AphexFan08 knew had let slip I was using PreScience and had higher-level access than me, and was actually smart enough to use it. Whatever. I let out a small breath of relief. This is fine. This is something I can work with. In fact, this is an opportunity, one the machine intelligences managing my portfolio had failed to predict.  

I take the spex off and hand them back to the cop. He makes to leave, but I stop him.

“Wait a minute,” I say sipping my coffee. He looks annoyed. “I’ll double the number of shards I just deposited if you get me a screengrab of that PreScience file. Just the front page. Nothing else.”

He settles back into his seat, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “Triple,” he says. “And go get me a fucking donut.”

I am spinning a story, a story of great injustice and stolen futures across the metaverse.

A new image spreads and infects, a leaked screenshot from a police database, a young man denied a career by anonymous, unseen software. A promising artist denied the fruits of his work and talent because the odds were always stacked against him. TikToks full of justifiable anger and distress. Headlines and tweets that write themselves. “Predictive Policing Tech Ruins Young Artist’s Dreams.” “Artist Punished For Crimes He May Never Commit.” “Questions Raised About PreScience’s Privacy Policies As Artist Sees Value Adjusted.”

And now, here come the big fish, the nodes in the networks, the too-big-to-fail legacy media platforms. The New York Times. Buzzfeed. Vice. Vox. The story ripples out from each of them, triggering an infinite cascade of retweets and reposts, upvotes and likes. 

And finally they’re here, the celebrities, the only market leaders that really matter, the guardian angels of late-stage capitalism. Tay and Bey, Nicki and Cardi, Kanye and Travis, Kylie and Miley. All of them coming out to show their support, fighting injustice the only way they know how — buying back the shards their analysts and algorithms were jettisoning hours ago, at rapidly inflating prices. And telling their legions of fans to do the same. Invest in justice. Invest in community. Invest in solidarity. Invest in all our futures. Invest in Fragileman. 

The exchanges react, adjust their valuations.

Line go up. 

Dave ports into my living room just to tell me I’m a fucking genius. We watch the numbers together.

“This is fucking nuts,” he says. “At this rate we could hit 250 a shard by midnight. That’s … we could come out of this with a half mil. Jesus.”

“My pleasure,” I say.

“We should dump soon, though? Like I thought the whole deal was to get out quick?”

“Hodl,” I tell him. “This news cycle has barely started. I give it another six hours at least.” I stare down at my open palm, at the small, skinny, stick-like Xanax tablet sitting in it. “Go chill out, jerk off in VRChat or whatever it is you people do. I’m gonna get some sleep.”

I am deep in Xanax space when my spex buzz next to me, vibrating angrily against my nightstand.

I put them on. No red numbers, everything green. Line go up.

Dave is here, animated. Hi Dave.

“Jesus fucking Christ dude what the fuck, I’ve been trying to wake you up for 20 fucking minutes.”

“Chill Clutch, fuck.” I start to sit up, wipe drool from my chin, glad he can’t see me. “What’s the problem? Everything looks fine.” 

“It’s Fragileman,” he says, panic in his voice. “He’s dead.”

Suddenly I am fully upright. Clarity returns.

“What?”

“Check your timelines,” Dave says.

I’ve already got them open. A video clip is spreading now, infecting. I blink it open; it starts to play.

The all-too-familiar low-light graininess of bodycam footage.

Some back alley, dimly lit. Melting snow on the ground, hints of collapsed industry in the architecture.

The body cam’s owner starts moving fast, toward a figure. A man, hooded. Back to the camera. Silhouetted against a glimpse of a half-finished mural. Good use of color, bold hard lines. Organic, almost botanical details juxtaposed against simple, urgent geometry.

A voice, too loud, too close to the mic, shouts “FREEZE!”

The figure spins around, a face I know, the first time I’ve seen it moving. 

Startled.

A hand starts to raise, something shiny, metal in its hands.

The sound of the shot.

The face shocked.

The body crumpling, lifeless.

The object falls from his hand.

In the snow.

A spray can.

“This is fucked,” Dave says. “It’s fucked. It’s so fucked.”

His voice seems distant, muffled. My hands are numb. I say nothing.

“What do we do now?”

The clip repeats, loops endlessly.

“Dude! What do we fucking do!?”

Clarity returns.

“When did this happen?” I blink open the exchange. Still trading. Line go up. “How long ago since the footage was first posted?”

“I dunno, two hours ago? Three?” Dave suddenly gets where I’m going. “Oh shit, yeah. But the exchange is still trading his shards?”

“And it will until his next of kin says otherwise,” I hear myself say, as if on autopilot. “We need to act quick.”

“Fuck, yeah. I’ll start dumping everything —” 

“No.” I say. “No. Wait. I’ve got a better idea.”

I am watching live-streamed drone footage of police forces in five cities simultaneously rioting. They surge through ranks of peaceful protestors, smashing heads with batons, trampling them underfoot, knocking them to the floor with polycarbonate shields. Tear gas arcs and swirls. Some of the protestors carry placards with Andre Hendrix’s mugshot printed on them. Others, his art. I see at least two people with huge, blown-up prints of the PreScience screengrab I got off a cop in a Starbucks at 5 a.m.

Line go up.

Two hours ago, I was on the phone with Andre Hendrix’s mother. She was inconsolable. I lied to her. Told her I was a friend of Andre’s, that I had been advising him on his career. I managed to convince her the best thing to do for her family’s future was to keep the Fragileman shards trading, but to consolidate them into a decentralized autonomous organization. I explained to her that by making them a DAO, everyone who owned a shard — Andre’s fans — would get a vote on the future of his career. I told her it’s what he would have wanted. I also told her I was transferring her a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of btc, 500 of her son’s own shards and that I’d be setting up a trust fund that would pay her and her family an annual dividend from whatever profits her son’s work made.

I did not tell her that Dave and I, via various proxies and shells, held enough shards between us to have a controlling vote over the Fragileman DAO.

She thanked me, said she was happy Andre had friends like me, and that she’d mention me in her prayers.

At midnight tonight, as the tear gas canisters still fall, we’ll drop an exclusive set of NFTs, just 20 images from the bodycam footage. We will make a fortune. Sometimes it takes a little human intuition to see investment opportunities the machines miss.  

Sometimes, as I stare out of the window at the swirling snow, I think I might be dead inside.

Line go up.

The post Line Go Up appeared first on NOEMA.

The stocky horses clapped their feet gently where they stood, harnessed to the carts. The light rain had passed and soft steam came off the animals, the sun now warmly on their backs. Steam came too off Jane King, lifted off the shoulders of her thick waxed coat. The coat had been her husband’s, oversize, too heavy for the time of year, and gave her a squareness. It was a contentious point among the men, Jane King’s figure. Whispered guesswork.

One claimed to have seen her silhouette one evening through the canvas of the tent, as she washed her long hair. This was altogether too romantic.

She stood in the sun by the piebald. It pushed out its breath too forcibly. Was visibly old. Its eyes fixed on some distant point. 

The other horses worked their legs, anticipated the rhythm of the long walk. But the piebald stood still.

Jane King put her hand on the bridge of the mare’s nose, kneaded the ridges beneath the long white blaze. Scratched her nails gently in the compact hair.

She breathed in the scent of chamomile flowers rubbed into her bandana to mask the off-milk stink that fugged around the landfill even through the azalea smell of the animals. With her face mostly covered there were only her eyes to read and the horseman could not meet them.

“Last walk,” quietly she said. Then, to the horseman, “Load her with enough to give her dignity. She can walk with us home.”

The troupe of Picas had been at the landfill almost three weeks. It had rained — as it always seemed to — just as they packed down the camp. Were she the sort to believe such things, Jane King might fancy the rain timed itself to clean things down. 

Three weeks away from my boys, she thought. 

Her droll eldest, 11, growing with slow patience, twisting with determination like a tree. Her unruly nearly nine-year-old.

Three weeks, she thought. Ten years. 

That she had produced such different sons amazed her. 

She had reached a point at which she felt her feet were solidly on the earth. That no matter what came, she would stand the blow. Then came a child. And ever since — all the time — she feels she walks miles up in the sky on glass-thin ice that could give way any minute. 

They’re our children, her husband King himself said. You could drop them from a building. They could be run over by a train! They’ll be fine. 

The heaped-up earth around the landfill made it look as if gigantic moles had been at work beneath the ground. Magpies popped on the wet heaps, their black bands flashed with oil, mimicked the peacock sheen on the sodden space around the carts, where the rain had washed axle grease onto the soil. 

The birds hopped, paced, as with hands held behind their backs to peep at the earth, which they flicked at, and turned. Pecked at tiny mica. One’s sorrow, two’s mirth. Jane could not help but count them. Nine. 

She did not know what nine magpies might mean.

And then a wren cricked; the birds stopped, for a moment intensely attentive, then scattered. A sudden tensioning. 

The horses went stock still. Ears stiff. Eyes distanceless, each animal, as if it could see some catastrophe that had not yet unfolded, a foresight. Then there was a doubling rotor chop, a thud, thick thud in the air, and a helicopter hove into the sky, a great steel box below it, swaying. 

The ground felt loosened as it blatted over. It seemed to grip the shipping container like some prey it had clutched and was carrying off. The noise raked through the sky behind as it traveled away. Smaller and smaller until it was gone, and swallowed into cloud. 

“Relocator housing,” noted one of the nearby Picas men. 

Sounds came tentatively back into the uncertain silence that followed in the helicopter’s wake. 

The ground ticked as the moisture sank. There was the thock of heavy ash poles as they landed in the carts. The rich snort of horses. 

Thick smoke rolled from the dampened burn-pits in dirty columns that lifted up and spread and seemed to grey the clouds.

Jane pushed down her bandana. The sour smell. Momentary, with the waft of stale milk, a memory — a child at her breast, the crew at work, the sea, a shimmer beyond the landfill.  

She watched the magpies return, one by one, as if they aimed to cue the rhyme. Still, she could not think what nine might mean.

A kakkaratcha prattle, abrupt into the stilled quiet. 

We have pretty much taken all that glitters. 

Almost an apology. The carts were loaded and the camp struck. Now only the methane drains to douse.

It’s just the plastic. The dull plastic. And the heavy dark soil. We should take that too, for the rooftop gardens. 

They would need more carts. The earth bagged and stacked and sold, taken to the tops of city buildings for the new rooftop allotments. Vertigo lifted within her at the thought of rising in the gardener’s box past sheets and sheets of solar glass. Seeing herself frightened in her own reflection. Her now constant fear of drop.

Mining the landfill was a sort of treasure hunt, a gamble. King’s precious falling-apart paper maps, his marks and crosses. But there was always soil.

There is always plastic. And there is always soil. 

The sun fell in a foil on the wet oiled canvasses not yet loaded. Seemed to transfix one magpie, as a mirror might, solitary, stationary as the others continued to parade. 

Maybe we should line the diggings that we leave. 

Pictured a bright surface of water.

Line the shallows to make a pool. Then we would just need to carry the purifier. We would not need to carry water. It would give us more space on the carts. It would give us space for soil.

She imagined leaving the ‘fills like a network of islands, to reach sites not practical from the city. Stations, clean water gabbling from the purifier.

There were many, farther out, the dotted patches that showed the tips and spoils, ringed and marked by her man on his maps; in some contrariness against tradition, those crossed with X discounted. Too big, these, too rich, and thus worthwhile to licensed crews, who fashioned furnaces to gasify the over-spoil, and foundries on-site to turn the smoldered residue to plasmarock. 

No. The Picas knew their role. 

If we planted the ground around the pools, potatoes. Apple trees.

They could come with her, again. Her boys. Perhaps. King. As far as the stations, at least. 

“Douse the flues,” she ordered.

Airy blue flames played from the ducts of the methane drains, the view of the piled plastic and pilled dark earth bending and warping through them. After what happened to her husband, they used the digger now to shut them down. 

The magpies rattled away into the surrounding willows as the machine coughed into life. 

“We can start moving,” Jane called. 

She glanced once at the great painted machine rolling toward the flues like some totemic beast. 

She had not been with her husband but could hear, as if she had been, the pop, flare, scream; see the burst that had engulfed his body. 

To each side of the road the nightsoil fell in thick fountained bands from the autractors that worked in measured grids across the vast fields. The human slurry hit the crop with small slack pats.

The stink became a taste. Jane brought up her bandana.

Even the horse at the rear of the team coughed, swiveled its head, an effort to shake away the stench. 

Ahead of them, the caps of the distant buildings above the otherwise monotonous horizon, faint silhouettes, the hydrophilic glint of dewcatchers. It was not possible that she truly heard it, but already the muted zizz of electraffic seemed, white noise, to occupy the air. 

Then a tremor, at first barely noticeable, thickened in the agriland, set until it came into the boards of the cart, as if the cart itself drew the shudder from the ground. Momentary.

Ten million gallons of water, two hundred miles per hour.

Passed. 

Although she knew it to be the Water Train, it left some portentous and unsettling thing. She felt the judder had got into her somehow. Come for her specifically. That it had shivered from the city into her bones like a chill.

The carts pulled up behind Jane King in a row that backed out of the yard and disappeared around the far corner of the street. 

“Change the horses,” she announced, “We’ll take things straight away.” It was relatively early.

They sorted the larger reclaim into piles, collected the small scrap into sacks. Any one-time plastic stuck amongst it they cast free and the kids that had come amongst them ran it to the incerbin, fed it in, saw it gobble down into the city’s energy system. Not one of them was able to resist watching each colored patch they took thump into flame.

You cannot work the landfill without bringing plastic home any more than you can pluck a fowl and not find feathers in your hair.

“Where’s the bag?” Jane asked. 

With the carts sorted and reloaded, the troupe went different ways. A cart of metal, a cart of glass, a cart of relics. The clop of horses, trundle of the iron-ringed wheels. 

Jane climbed onto her own cart, set the bag down on the wooden seat and checked once more her boys were not about the yard. No. She knew. But it was the first time they were not. They’re outgrowing me, she thought. 

The idea of age made her look over at the piebald. The horse seemed somehow younger now after the walk.

Jane clicked her tongue, flicked the reins. Moved on.

When she turned onto the street, she saw immediately the brutality that had been meted out. The proud old plane trees all cut down. The road widened and bereft. 

Blackbirds picked through the mulch of damp sawdust and dead leaves that had gathered in the unfixed maws left in the paving where the stumps had been wrenched out. The birds tap-tapped with their bright beaks the way the troupe tapped objects with their trowels to test of what material they were. 

It was as if some treachery had been carried on while she was not at home to stop it.

“Yttrium! Terbium!”

The wizard gestured at the board. 

“Praseodymium!”

The price was chalked beside each rare earth metal on the list. 

Jane nodded, pleased. “Gone up these last three weeks.”

“Gone up,” the wizard said. He had a strange elemental energy to him. Enjoyed the role. Was always, Jane thought, somewhat acting up the eccentricity. What other sort of person would inhabit such a nickname?

She hoisted the bag to the level of the table and tipped out the old handheld screens and phones. 

Insects scurried from the joints and cracks and damaged edges. Woodlice and earwigs. Two pied beetles they had not seen the like of before.

“And there’s a cart outside. A cart of widescreen televisions.”

“You must,” the wizard said. 

“It does not befit a King!” Jane bridled.

“Asphyxiation doesn’t either.”

Reluctantly she put on the mask. 

“We go through this every time.”

“It turns my head into the shape of a pig’s.”

“The pig’s a noble animal.”

The chief sound was the cracking of plastic. Sharp, snap, crack, snip. 

She smelled nothing through the mask but was sure the place must stink. The place was mostly dim apart from where some brilliant spit of liquid metal flashed momentarily to life. 

“People!” the wizard called. “King of the Landfill Miners!”

All turned their heads toward Jane, as if a herd of swine paid homage. Then gave a muffled grunt of deference, went back to their fiddly business, prying alloys from piles of archaeotech. 

A silvery-white ribbon ran bright along a narrow trough and slumped into a collection vat. 

“Gadolinium!” the wizard said. “It’s magnetocaloric. That vat’s six barrels’ worth of ice water.”

 “Where’s the gold?” Jane asked. For gold she understood. 

The breathing mask had dug into Jane face and given her a broad dark mark that looked bizarrely tribal and deliberate. 

The jewelry girls busily tapping and finicketing and fashioning were in bright clothes. They pretended not to be distracted. Flicked their eyes from Jane to one another, their glances running from her look with the same delighted mischief as the beetles that had wriggled from the screens. 

They were not quite sure how to behave before this woman.

Jane rubbed at the feeling of pressure round her face, suspecting it was visible. She smelled horses on her hand. Dug a nail into the soft oblong of gold, no bigger than her thumb. 

“How’s your man?” the wizard asked. 

“I’ve been away three weeks. You’ll likely know better than me. I’m still on my way home.”

As if this conversation had conjured the event, the place broke into kerfuffle, and a boy came in. He had run unmasked through the wizard’s lab and he gasped for breath. Red-eyed. Whether from the noxious fumes or simply from the effort. 

“It’s King, sir,” he said. He looked at Jane. “Miss. He needs you now. He heard you’re back.”

Jane put down the gold. 

“Is there something wrong?”

“They’re gone,” he said. “Both of them.”

“They’ll be somewhere,” she said. 

“No one has seen them.”

“They cannot both be gone.”

“They are.”

“And you have asked.”

“I’ve asked.”

She saw beneath the burned stretch of her husband’s face. His melted neck, the lump of arm. She saw into his good eye. 

She had always thought that if it went, that it would crack, but she felt the ice she walked on become fluid.

“Well, children are as children are. They’re boys. They’ll be somewhere.”

She saw his hollow fear.

“They’re not. They’re not anywhere.”

Jane held herself tall as she went among the dried-out canal beds, but the usually comfortable chaos of the dwellings improvised there suddenly seemed foreign. The garish shacks, the blatant shanties. Colors like noise turned up too loud. The clown performing on the corner. Bead sellers and stalls. Toddlers flickering in the crowd. All came through a glaze.

People nodded and she kept her swagger, but she felt full of liquid panic. It lapped into her throat. Felt like stumbling to be sick. 

She was sure she could still feel the loop of pressure from the pig-shaped mask.

She seemed to hear only the drum of her boots, step after step, the hollow pat of them as they hit the lifted pallet walkways. They were not her feet. Could not be her feet going so solidly along among the carnival cloths and panels of the homes. It could not be her face that felt the sun, her eyes that flinched at the bright flashes off the great glass buildings all around. 

Every costermonger ferried rumor. She heard the whisper filter through the canalleys, a horrible new nursery rhyme. 

Even in her vertigo, she wanted to scale the giant wharf cranes. Stand imposed on the derelict metal towers above the emptied riverbed and call out at the city: Does someone hold some grudge against me?

Ask: Have you taken my children? Is there something I have done?

They’re boys, she repeated within herself, over and over, a voice from elsewhere, they’re boys. They’ll be playing. They’ll be out somewhere with friends. 

She walked the bends of the drained river. A feathery iridescence to the mud. The white flash of the overland trains between the black struts of the bridges above. And then a warm memory, at once sickening because it came as if they had died long ago and she could recall them without pain: how they larked in the riverbed, and how the older one came home with mud no higher than his knees, the younger covered head to toe, as if he’d rolled in it.

She wanted to split from her skin. Unloose herself.

It was not from worry for her children — it had not formed yet as a real thing. She could not believe they would be gone. It was her husband’s certainty. The solidness in his eye.

The men stood from their game of dice at the low deal table. They were uncertain in Jane’s presence, as if guilty of something they were unconscious of themselves.

“Well, we can ask our young,” one said. “Tonight.” Then asked, reluctant, “Have you checked the hospitals?”

“Why?”

Another held out his selphone, the red hairs of his arm standing out unnaturally in the lamplight of the tent.

“I thought we didn’t have screens here,” challenged Jane. 

“I’m not one of you,” the red-haired man replied.

She saw the headline on the screen: “Nine More.” A picture. Bodies under white sheets, crisscrossed by the black straps of a gurney.

“Some superflu.”

The men kept talking. But Jane tumbled into the screen. The horse-cart clack of the gurney wheels, the clean chemical stench, the hiss through the morgue attendants’ masks, inhalation, exhalation.

The wriggle of insects. The piebald. 

The red-haired man held his hand out for the phone just as the air above the canalley tremored. Another helicopter. Traveling from the drained docks nearby.

The pile of coins answered the thudder with their own jingle, a tiny bright sound like the distant clink of harnesses. 

The die looked to have curiously approached the antique discs. 

Black and white.

A five and a four.

“I lost them.”

“You have not lost them. They are boys. They’ll be off somewhere adventuring. Perhaps they’ve even gone to look for me.”

King sat with his back to her, as he did now. His shoulders were still broad and strong. The single giant hand he’d kept. 

“It’s because I cannot go out with them.”

“It is not, King. They are boys.”

His skin felt like plastic sheet. When she laid her hand on him, he could sense, she knew, no more than a basic pressure.

He sucked a deep breath in, and a growl came from down within his chest, a rattle like a magpie’s clack.

“They found themselves a dog.”

For a brief moment, when he said this, she thought, He’ll be okay. He’s the strongest man I know.

“A scruffy mongrel thing.”

She noticed then the deep slices in his wasted forearm. New. The cuts long and bloodless in the skin. 

In the cartyard she threw the bales and tubs of mash and beat the walls until the screaming horses brought the others running. 

“Bring me the mask,” she told the wizard.  

“How many?”

“More and more.”

The woman was old and desiccated. Jane thought, It is like she is not made out of flesh. That is why she can nurse like this. She is paper and sheets, not person. There is nothing for the sickness to take.

“And children?”

The woman simply nodded. “Some.”

It felt to Jane that the earth itself gave way when the healer said, “There are nine.”

“I need to see the children. Boys.”

There were baskets of herbs burning. Lavender and wormwood and garlic bulbs that, through the mask, she could not smell. The glare of the stalks like the liquid metals of the wizard’s lab.

The hush was unbearable. Here, below ground. 

The small prone shapes; the white sheets stark; the black bars of the cot rails. 

She went from bed to bed. And with each child that was not hers, her tears thickened, pooling in the mask.

I must look like some grotesque thing to them. Come to take them. A visitation come to take them. 

Things began to swim. 

Jane was sure the mask was going to crush her head. The last few beds.

Relief, thickening. Hope coming. The salt of it. Stinging her eyes. The world ahead a blur.

They’re good boys, she told herself. They’re good boys. They’ll be out somewhere adventuring.

The post What’s Buried Is Not Gone appeared first on NOEMA.

Dawn is still four hours away when Jay noses his car into one of the spaces in the parking station and crosses the PanOps campus toward the Control Center. In his first months on the job he struggled with the hours, the way the time zone here didn’t align with the territory he patrolled. Driving to work through the empty streets, it seemed like he was the only person left alive; emerging into the bright light and hurrying people of the late morning at shift’s end, he felt like a stranger, invisible and unnoticed. At home, Lauren resented his inability to adjust his body clock on the weekends. “How are we supposed to have a normal social life?” she used to complain, at least until she stopped waiting around and started going out without him. Since she left, he has given up even trying. It’s been months since he opened the curtains in the apartment. Instead he sleeps when he can, his circadian rhythms calibrated to the demands of the company rather than any natural cycle.

The Control Room is in mid-changeover when he arrives; lowering his eyes to avoid the other pilots, he makes his way to his assigned booth. On the screen that fills the front wall, views of the Zone are already up, the morning light bright against the bleached buildings, the mountains deep pink and lilac in the distance. 

Picking up his rig, he clips the goggles over his face and pulls up the overlays. The system offers several levels of immersion; Jay tends to opt for the deepest, in which his visual field is replaced by that of the raptor and the data-streams hover in his peripheral vision.

As he works his way through the pre-flight checklist, he can hear Tyler breathing in the booth next to him. Some days Tyler’s breathing is broken up by humming or tuneless singing, but that worries him less than the sounds Tyler makes when he goes in for a kill, the way he makes shooting noises or whispered explosions, like a little kid playing with toy soldiers.

He sometimes wonders how Tyler ended up working here. When Jay applied for the drone program, they gave him a personality test, hundreds of questions with multiple choice answers. Some of the questions were easy: You learn one of your coworkers has a criminal record they haven’t disclosed. Do you (a) do nothing, (b) speak to them and seek assurances they’ll self-report or (c) report them to your supervisor? Some were weird and seemed to be trying to map some side of himself he wasn’t aware of or trip him up in some way: You’re out walking and you find a fish lying on the ground in the sun. Do you (a) think it’s nature’s way and ignore it, (b) kill it to put it out of its misery or (c) take it with you and look for a place to release it? And some were just plain scary, patterns of flashing shapes with questions next to them like, Which one is telling lies about you? And, Which shape is in pain? 

At the end he asked the woman in charge of the tests how he’d done and she smiled and told him she couldn’t give him that information. He thought that meant he’d failed, at least until he got the callback a few days later. But when he turned up for his first day and met the others he couldn’t help but notice how many were a little odd, with a tendency to stare at the ground or laugh slightly off cue. Sometimes he thinks about that test and wonders if it misread him somehow, or whether it just picked up on something about himself he didn’t know was there, whether there is something off in him as well.

The checklist complete, he engages his engines and moves out onto the runway. Once he found the shift into the raptor’s perspective relaxing, like he was being freed somehow. But since the incident his anxiety levels spike as soon as the raptor begins to move, his breath growing shallow and his heart beating faster. Today his agitation is so bad he almost misses the order to take off, engages a second too late, too hard. The raptor lurches. In the top right corner of his feed he sees Anders has already registered the error and noted it in his flight record, but he ignores it and pushes on and up into the air.

His assignment today is surveillance and support for one of the transports from the airport to the Old City. The manifest shows they have been waiting for support for an hour already, so he is not surprised when the commander hails him on the com to ask for an ETA when he is only halfway to the rendezvous. He has worked with this security detail before, and although he and the other pilots are anonymized to prevent bonds forming, he can tell from the way the commander’s tone tightens when he hears Jay’s voice that he remembers him.

The transport is already on the road by the time he reaches the rendezvous, their Humvees crawling along the highway toward the Old City. Silently he passes over them, slowing down to match their speed as he descends.

The highway is closed to everybody except security, but its eight lanes are still a mess of burned-out vehicles and other debris. Part of his role is to sweep the route for IEDs and other potential hazards by checking for signs of recent movement or heat and chemical signatures. Usually he is good at this task, his detection rate higher than almost any of the other operators, but today he is distracted and jumpy, unable to settle.

After 10 or 12 miles the highway reaches the outskirts of the city. When the road was constructed, the old government directed it through the poorer districts, razing buildings and slicing communities in half, so the buildings are built hard up against the side of its elevated path. In the wealthier parts of the city the traditional architecture has been supplanted by new blocks of apartments and walled compounds, but here the buildings it passes through are more traditional, the pale buildings piled one on top of the other, their flat roofs covered with a jumble of mats and tables and rugs arrayed beneath makeshift tents of ragged fabric. 

In his first months inside the rig Jay used to spend a lot of time cruising these streets and watching the local people go about their lives. The raptors are equipped with light-scattering paint, making them almost invisible, and their engines are so quiet one can hover only yards away and not be audible. A lot of the other pilots enjoy the power that grants, talking openly of using their invisibility to spy on women and girls and couples, sharing videos and photos when they can. But for Jay it was never about the power. Instead, the glimpses of domestic normality — parents playing with children, families seated around tables, kids leaning over homework — amid so much violence and disorder felt like he was being entrusted with something he did not quite know how to describe.

There is no time for quiet observation today. Instead he turns his attention to the structures beside the highway. In recent months there have been attacks from the buildings, shooters positioned on roofs, explosive devices thrown out of windows onto the highway below. His infrared means he can see bodies moving behind the walls, but thankfully he sees nothing that raises concerns. Then, a mile or so from the Green Zone, he hears the distant thump of an explosion. 

“Did you get that?” says the commander.

“On it,” Jay says, already ascending. As he clears the line of the rooftops he sees black smoke billowing upward a few miles to the west.

“Report,” demands the commander.

“Bomb,” Jay says, scanning the chatter on the feeds. “A big one. Looks like it’s in the market district.”

“Roger that.” Jay can hear the relief in the commander’s voice. 

Once the patrol has reached the Green Zone, he signs off. For a minute or so he watches the transport snake away down the highway. Then he leans back and sends the raptor shooting heavenward, his breath coming easier as the horizon dips away, the haze of the plain giving way to the mountains beyond and the deepening colorlessness of the sky. The moon is visible, and in the pale space below it the distant shape of a plane and its contrail. Suspended between is a long V of geese, their wings beating steadily as they ride the wind bound somewhere far away. Sometimes he sees media reports about the territory out here in the Zone, people calling it barren or a moonscape, but it isn’t. There is beauty in its starkness, its inhuman emptiness. 

For a few seconds he hovers, letting the silence enfold him, wondering how long he could stay here before a query from Anders or the oversight systems. Then he sets a course back to the base and begins to descend. 

As he reaches the edge of the Zone he gets a ping, and an order to turn around. He stiffens, the rig heavy on his head, the moment stretching on until finally he inhales and turns. The coordinates are in the Exclusion Area along the border, which probably means people attempting an unauthorized crossing, and as he draws closer he picks up movement. 

Two people are running toward the riverbed, a man and a woman; the woman holds a child, the man carries a backpack. They move quickly, zigzagging between the twisted bushes and rocks, dust rising behind them. Soon he can make out their faces: The man has thick black hair and wears glasses; the woman is young and wears a length of yellow cloth bound around her head. The child is a girl of three or four. The parents look exhausted and terrified.

“What have you got?” asks Anders from the Control Booth. “Unauthorized border crossing?”

“Looks like it.”

“Copy that. Seeking authorization for appropriate action.”

There is a brief silence while Anders passes the request up the chain. Jay hovers, watching the couple. Where the old riverbank drops away there is a sheer drop of a couple of yards; the pair stop at it and glance up and down. Seemingly reassured, the man drops the backpack over the side, its weight throwing up clouds of dust as it slides down into the dried riverbed, then turns and slips down after it. Skidding to a stop, he steadies himself and reaches up to motion to the woman to pass the child down.

“Okay D9, that’s a go,” says Anders. “Action authorized.”

Jay hesitates. His heart is pounding and he can feel the sweat on his palms. The rules of engagement demand he confirm the order, but his throat seems to have closed over.

“D9?”

Jay’s finger trembles on the firing button.

“D9, confirm the order, please.”

Jay opens his mouth to try to speak, but before he can the man stops and looks up. He should not be able to see the raptor hovering there, but perhaps some movement or trick of the light has alerted him to its presence, because he suddenly freezes, and stands there staring for a moment. Then he swings around and frantically shoves the child back up the bank toward the woman, shouting something Jay cannot hear. Grabbing the child the woman clutches her to her chest and looks up for half a second, before turning and running back the way they came. As she flees the man grabs the bag and swings it back up onto the bank before grabbing a protruding branch and hauling himself up after her.

“Is there a problem, D9?” says Anders, his voice tight.

“Targets are falling back,” Jay says.

“Doesn’t matter,” says Anders. “The kill has been sanctioned. Take the shot.”

Jay ignores him. A couple of hundred yards ahead of the woman stands the shell of a concrete building; the man shouts and gesticulates in its direction and the woman heads toward it, the child still in her arms, the man a few yards behind her. Jay watches them disappear into its shelter.

“They’ve moved inside a structure,” he says.

“Are there other individuals in the area?”

“Unclear.”

Jay waits while Anders advises their superiors about the new conditions. It is possible he will be ordered to fire anyway, to destroy the building, but when Anders speaks again his voice is flat, emotionless.

“Stand down and return to base, D9.”

“Affirmative,” Jay says.

Once he is back on the ground Jay runs his post-flight checks and pulls his rig off. He knows he should hurry, that Anders will want to speak to him, but he is too tired to care. He is almost at the door when Anders intercepts him. 

“What the hell was that?” Anders demands.

Jay shrugs. “I couldn’t get a clear shot.”

“Bullshit, Jay. You didn’t want to take it.” He hesitates. “Pull this crap again and I’ll have you reassigned. You’re affecting the entire unit’s performance.”

Jay nods. “Sure,” he says, unable to keep an edge of anger out of his voice. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

Outside, the campus is busy, the winter sun bright. The bustle is jarring after his hours in the raptor. For a few minutes Jay walks fast, trying to leave the tension behind. Soon he reaches a small grassy area, a place set aside for staff to reconnect with the natural world. Stopping in the shade of the tree, he stares into the middle distance until finally his breathing slows and his frustration is replaced by a sick, jangled feeling. Closing his eyes, he rubs his face and slumps down on a bench.

Ordinarily he would be wary of spending too long sitting here: Although the company provides these spaces for rest and recuperation, they track their use and analyze the data to identify employees who are performing below capacity or are at risk of some kind of emotional crisis in case someone needs to be terminated before they require expensive counseling or rehabilitation. Jay knows he is already on notice — his credits have been cut several times in the past few months — but for now at least he doesn’t care.

It is early afternoon by the time he gets back to the apartment, the warmth of the day already draining away. He parks his car and plugs it in, then climbs the stairs to the third level, his footsteps echoing against concrete walls. PanOps has nicer housing complexes, places that have better heating or are in more desirable locations, but they are only available to employees with higher credit ratings. The door of his apartment opens into a silent space; he still has not bought furniture to replace the stuff Lauren took when she moved out. Idly he considers calling her, but he knows she will be annoyed if he does. It has been three months since she left, and he heard through friends she has been seeing somebody. 

He doesn’t turn the heat on, just flops down on the sofa and flicks on his goggles. He used to play the full-immersion games, but these days he prefers the older ones with their blocky geometry and endless passages underground or aboard alien spaceships. There is something calming about the rhythm of their constant motion, about the way he can lose himself in it. Sometimes in the night he realizes he has been dreaming of the corridors, his sleeping self moving down them, over and over; in those moments he is never certain whether he is awake or dreaming, or whether there is a difference anymore.

The next day he is on the late shift, but because it’s Thursday he has his appointment with Bachmann. Although he knows it goes on his record, he makes sure he arrives a few minutes late, knocking on the door and smiling to see the way Bachmann purses his lips, his eyes traveling to the clock on his desk.

“You’re late,” he says. Jay smiles but does not apologize.

Bachmann is in his thirties but looks like he’s been bald since he was 19 and has been wearing a beard ever since to compensate. The other guys don’t like him because they don’t like management in general. Jay, who has had a chance to get to know him up close, doesn’t like him because he thinks he’s a slimy, sleazy piece of shit.

“So, last time you were here we were talking about your interactions with Anders, and his view that you’ve been displaying inappropriate aggression.” Bachmann pauses, looking at Jay as if waiting for him to reply.

“Jay?”

“Sure,” Jay says.

“And do you think those interactions have improved since then?”

“I’ve been very careful to abide by company policy,” Jay says.

Bachmann looks at him over the top of his glasses. Not for the first time Jay wonders if he has kids, and if he does whether they’re superior little shits like their father or — and this gives him a brief shiver of pleasure — they think their father is as big a cock as Jay does.

“That’s good to hear. But I think there’s a learning experience here for us, don’t you?”

“Me,” Jay corrects him.

“I’m sorry?” Bachmann says.

“A learning experience for me. I’m pretty sure you already know all this stuff.”

Bachmann looks at him for a moment, then makes a quick note.

“I’m sorry to hear that note of aggression in your voice, Jay,” he says. “But if you’d rather do it that way, we can do it that way. I think there’s a learning experience here for you.”

Jay nods. “Sure,” he says.

“Perhaps you could tell me what that is?”

“Acting out aggression not only doesn’t help resolve conflicts, it actively inhibits their resolution.”

Bachmann stares at Jay for a moment. Jay smiles blandly.

“That’s right, he says. “Now, I wondered whether we could talk about yesterday. Apparently you refused to carry out an authorized termination.”

Jay doesn’t respond. 

“Perhaps you could tell me what happened?”

Jay looks up at the roof and sighs. “The targets escaped into a structure. I was worried there might be non-combatants in the building.”

“I’ve seen the incident report. You hesitated before that as well.”

Jay shrugs. “I guess.”

“Do you think your hesitation might be connected to the incident that led to you coming here in the first place?”

Jay snorts. “The incident? You mean the murder of a dozen innocent people?”

“Please don’t use that language, Jay.”

Jay stops himself from telling Bachman to not use his name. “What word? Murder?”

Bachman takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “We’ve been through this. The incident was regrettable, but it happened under the auspices of our contract with the governing authority and after appropriate clearances, so it was legally sanctioned.”

Jay nods. “Sure.”

“You understand that if you continue to disregard orders or miss quotas you’ll be reassigned or dismissed?” Bachman leans forward. “Jay, you need to take this seriously. Your credits are dangerously low. More antisocial behavior could have serious consequences.’

Jay stares at him. Finally he smiles and nods. “Of course,” he says.

Lauren always said he needed to open up. She used to try to find ways to get him to talk, peppering him with questions and then growing frustrated when he couldn’t find the words to respond. She always seemed to take it personally, as if his inability to express himself was deliberate, something he was choosing to do to her rather than the result of the fact he didn’t know how. She came from a big family and talked to her mother and sisters most days; in her view, his problems stemmed from his lack of the same. “Your parents didn’t have much emotional intelligence,” she said, putting air quotes around “intelligence.” “Growing up like that, alone, it’s not surprising you ended up so emotionally inarticulate.”

It wasn’t true, of course. The few times Lauren met his parents before they died she’d been running at full-throttle, talking over them about herself, making jokes. After, she’d wanted him to emote, to talk about how much he missed them, but when he tried to she immediately assumed the look of performative sympathy Jay had come to hate. Looking back, he wished he’d tried harder: Few people remembered his parents, so talking about them with another person felt like bringing them fleetingly back.

In those final weeks before she left, she started to tell him she didn’t care, she was sick of trying so hard, that perhaps they just weren’t compatible; he wished he could find the words to explain why it was so hard, but instead he’d found himself pulling back even more, afraid that if he showed her what was inside him he’d break, that she’d see the darkness for what it is.

Anders is down on the Control Room floor when he gets back from Bachman’s office. When Jay enters he walks toward him.

“You’re late,” he says.

Jay nods. “I had to see Bachmann.”

“You should have notified us.”

Jay doesn’t reply.

Anders shakes his head. “Time lost to counseling is at the employee’s expense.”

Jay nods. “Fine,” he says. “Whatever.”

Tyler is already hooked in; he glances at Jay but jerks away, unwilling to look at him. Jay ignores him, pulls on his rig. As he reads the instructions he is surprised to see he is on patrol support again. He notifies the commander he is ready and moves into position.

The patrol is uneventful, the only excitement an encounter with two men the patrol commander suspects of contacts with insurgents. For a while several of the soldiers play soccer with a group of boys under floodlights beneath the ruins of the bridge, shouting and kicking the ball between the thin-limbed kids while Jay hovers in the sky, watching. It is growing light by the time the shift is over, the sky to the west pink and blue, the light uncannily clear in the dry air as he heads back toward base, an approaching morning so real that when he uncouples and steps back out onto the campus he is confused to find it is deep night. 

Back in his apartment he pulls on his rig, flicks through the feeds. Fires in Turkey, Brazil, the Arctic, a hurricane in Mozambique, the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico still burning. In China a subway has flooded, the water filling the carriages, rising to the roof, the phones of the drowned glowing beneath the surface like fish in the depths of the ocean. And when it is too much he switches the game on and begins to play.

He is midway through the handover procedure the next day when a series of messages ping in from Adam. He looks at the notifications in surprise. He and Adam have not spoken since before Lauren left. 

Hey man …

Having a few beers. Thought you might want to come over.

See the new toys. 

Jay stares at the screen. He and Adam joined the company at the same time and ended up doing orientation training together. Adam had come straight out of college and had an electronic engineering degree, but he wasn’t like any other engineer Jay had ever met. He wore his dark hair long and seemed unable to take anything seriously, although he was always top of the list anytime the supervisors analyzed performance. For the first couple of days, Jay watched him across the room, marveling at the way the others gravitated toward him, but the two of them didn’t speak until they were paired up for a management training exercise. 

The exercise was the sort of thing Jay was getting used to, a simulated spaceship with an unfixable oxygen leak, and it was up to them to get home to Earth. As usual it was difficult to know what they were being asked to decide: Who were they supposed to throw out? Non-essential crew? The refugees in the hold? The pregnant stowaway who had somehow snuck aboard? The underperforming technician? 

But Adam just looked at it and snorted. “It’s all bullshit,” he said.

When Jay looked startled, Adam laughed.

“There’s no right answer. There can’t be. It won’t matter who we push out. All they want to know is that we’re prepared to make decisions.” He started selecting people at random and pushing them into space. Jay watched the air supply rise until finally it ticked into the green. But Adam didn’t stop. Instead he pushed a few more into space, only stopping when the column of green was well above zero. Then he turned to Jay and smiled.

“We can tell them those savings are blue sky earnings we can apply to future innovation.”

Jay began to object but before he had time to say anything the interface chimed and delivered their score. They’d been rated at close to 100. He broke into a grin. Adam smiled back.

“You see?” he said, nodding to the other pairs huddled anxiously over their consoles, trying to puzzle out what the exercise wanted of them. “All bullshit.”

After that they became friends, sort of, sitting next to each other in presentations, swapping information. Once they were assigned to different divisions they kept in contact, at least until Jay met Lauren. The couple of times Jay invited Adam out with them, Lauren was rigid with disapproval. 

“He doesn’t take anything seriously,” she said at one point. “Everything’s a joke to him.”

Jay tried to tell her she’d misunderstood, but Lauren held up her hand to silence him.

“Don’t defend him. You think he’s your friend, but he’s not. He only cares about himself.”

After that Jay and Adam caught up alone, meeting for a coffee or a beer now and then, but it wasn’t the same. Adam had been promoted and was now managing a research lab, but although he’d cut his hair and acquired a tendency to quote the Management Mantras, he did it in a way that implied he thought they were nonsense, which meant Jay still didn’t quite know how to take him.

Why, though, had he gotten back in touch now? Had he heard about Lauren? Or had somebody told him about the incident? For several seconds Jay sits and stares at the messages, then he taps out a reply.

Sure. Sounds great.

Later he steps through the security doors into Adam’s lab. The area is a jumble of cables and mechanical and electronic components. At the far end of the space, a small group stands with their backs to him, beers in hands, watching something. Adam turns.

“Jay, man!” he says, lifting an arm and ushering him in. Jay flinches away from the sweet smell of Adam’s breath. Adam doesn’t notice. Plucking a beer from the top of a console he hands it to Jay, and a cheer goes up.

The space in front of them has been set up as a sort of staging area, with boxes and other objects spread across it. In the middle a machine crouches; Jay recognizes it as one of the hundbots Adam’s lab has been working on, although even crouched down this one is bigger than earlier models, its body maybe five feet long and almost as high as Jay’s waist. Its legs are articulated like a dog’s, cables and tensioned springs twisting around like a diagram of a body flayed of skin, but it is ungainly, a massive, hulking hunk of steel, its tail end narrow and low, like the hindquarters of a hyena, its front end disconcertingly blunt and headless. Three prehensile arms snake around it: two at the front, a third at the back, like Cerberus’s tail, with a claw closed around a beer bottle.

There is a whirr and a clunk, and all at once the hundbot rises to its feet, the movement disconcertingly fluid, as if its suspension is suddenly inflating, the beer in its tail grip remaining perfectly steady.

Jay takes a step back, but Adam tightens his grip, holding him where he is.

“What do you think?” he asks. “It’s for crowd control.”

Jay opens his mouth to reply but nothing comes out. The idea of several of these things moving through a crowd is terrifying.

The guy beside him taps the tablet he is holding. The hundbot swings around and heads toward the opposite wall, moving faster now, gliding over obstacles with a stealthy hiss, sinuous despite its clumsy appearance, before turning around and heading back toward them. Next to Jay Adam swears quietly, and Jay, wanting to be part of whatever is happening here lifts his beer and says, “Fuck yeah!” but the words come out wrong somehow, and the guys on either side of him glance at him.

The hundbot comes to a halt just in front of Jay and Adam and falls still. Adam grins and takes the tablet from the guy next to him.

“Watch this,” he says, and taps the screen. There is a sudden whine and the hundbot swivels toward Jay. For a deeply disconcerting moment Jay is seized by the certainty that it is looking at him, as if some presence inhabits it, a cold, watchful thing that is all focus like a shark or some other predator. He hesitates, aware something is happening, something he does not quite understand. Then in a sudden blur of motion the hundbot lunges toward him, its movement no longer ungainly but shockingly, terrifyingly fast, its proximity triggering some sudden atavistic impulse to flee. Jay cries out in shock, a high-pitched sound, and stumbles back, crashing to the ground. Before he can recover himself the hundbot is standing over him, the blunt space where its head should be barely an inch from his face. He lies frozen, waiting for it to strike. The moment stretches on until with a hiss and a whirr the machine steps back and away. 

Jay doesn’t move; he lies there, shaking. He is dimly aware of dampness on his legs; glancing down he sees his beer has spilled across his pants, its yeasty soak dark on his crotch and leg.

Above him, Adam and the others are laughing. 

“Oh man!” Adam says. “You went down hard.”

Jay stares up at him, and Adam wipes his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, extending a hand to help Jay to his feet. “But you have to admit, that was classic.”

Jay waves Adam’s hand away and climbs to his feet. His elbow and leg hurt from the fall, and he can feel the beer soaking through his underwear. Behind Adam one of the others reenacts Jay’s collapse, scrabbling his hands in front of himself and shrieking; the others cackle. Jay forces himself to nod and smile.

“Sure,” he says. “Total classic.”

Adam slaps him on the back and turns away. Jay watches him walk away and imagines slamming his head into the wall.

The beer on his chinos has dried to a stain by the time he arrives home; the smell lingers, sickly sweet. He takes them off and throws them in the basket in his bedroom. Standing in his underwear he feels childlike, ridiculous, naked legs pale beneath his polo shirt. Lauren used to tease him when he lay around in his underwear, saying he looked like a beached whale; if he acted hurt she would lie next to him and put her arms around him and pretend it was a joke. 

Going back through to the living room he flops down in his chair and fires up his game; allowing himself to be drawn into the strobing light on the screen, the rectangle of the television like a moving window in the semi-darkness, the recoil of the controller as the bullets hit the aliens, the splatter of their green blood. What should he have said to Adam? How could he understand? Lauren couldn’t. They would have thought he was a monster. He clenches his fist around the controller, forces himself on down the tunnels. But he cannot run fast enough. No matter how hard he tries to forget he is always there, that early dawn, the patrol chasing the man down the alley, into the house. He hears the commander’s shouts, the demands to fire.

“Take it out!’

Then his own voice querying the order, his protests so pathetic and weak he hates himself for them. More shouts. “Do it now!” 

And then the feel of the trigger against his finger and the building disappearing in a blaze of light — but not before the infrared kicks in and he sees the shapes of the children through the wall. 

He clenches his eyes closed but he cannot make the image disappear, cannot do anything except keep moving, down the corridors, onward and onward, faster and faster, hoping it is possible to keep running forever.

Much later his phone rings in the darkness, jolts him awake.

Groping blindly he closes his hand around its cool surface and flicks it on. Anders’ face fills the screen.

“Yes?”

“We need you to come in.”

“Now? What time is it?” Jay fumbles for his watch.

“Just after one.”

Jay rubs his face. His contract is flexible, meaning he can be required to work at any time, without breaks or layovers. But that usually means long hours, not callouts in the early morning. 

“Sure. I’ll be there soon.”

The building is almost deserted as he makes his way through the corridors toward the Control Center, its quiet spaces seeming to hum with emptiness. Anders is waiting, arms folded and eyes fixed on the feeds from the operators in the field on the main screen. 

“You made it,” he says, not turning around.

“Of course,” Jay says, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the yeasty smell that clings to him from the night before. 

“We’ve got a patrol that needs support.”

Something in Anders’ expression makes Jay hesitate. He glances around, aware of people looking his way. “Is something going on?”

Anders shakes his head but a grin spreads across his face. “No,” he says. “Why would you say that?”

Unsettled, Jay heads for his booth. Once he is in his seat he fires up the rig and slips into the raptor. It is near dawn, the cloudless air lavender and mauve. As he descends he sees the patrol below, moving through sleeping streets, their heat signatures fanned out in formation.

“Support online,” he says.

“Roger that,” replies the commander.

Jay closes his eyes, tries to steady himself. He understands now why Anders was smiling, why they called him out like this. This is the district where it happened, the same time of day.

“We’ve had reports of insurgent activity in the area,” says the commander. “Chatter about bombs.’

Jay doesn’t reply. The patrol moves around a corner, slipping past each other down a street. Near the end an alley runs off to one side. At its end is a half-demolished building. Jay’s feeds tell him this is the target. 

“I’ve got the target in sight,” he says.

“Any movement?” asks the commander.

“Negative.”

“Okay,” says the commander. “Moving in.”

Jay watches the team move down the alley toward the building.

“Anything?” asks the commander.

“Negative,” says Jay again. But then he sees a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. 

“Wait, I’ve got something,” he says. 

But before he can finish the commander’s voice breaks over his. “Look out!” 

Jay swings around, scrambling to understand what is going on. And then he sees. A boy is crouched behind a wall just ahead of the patrol. He is small, skinny, no more than nine or 10, and wears some kind of backpack across his chest, its red nylon bright against the white of his tunic.

“Take him!” shouts the commander. 

Jay hesitates. Flicking on the infrared overlay he looks for a sign the boy is carrying weapons, but there is nothing.

“I don’t see any sign of weapons.”

“He’s got some kind of parcel.” 

“I’m not getting chemical traces. It could be nothing.” 

“We’re not taking that risk! Shoot him!” hisses the commander. 

Jay tenses, one finger on the trigger. The boy isn’t moving; he cowers in the same spot, swaying slightly from side to side.

“Now!”

Jay opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Everything seems far away, unreal. What if the backpack is empty? What if it’s not? His breath comes fast, shallow. Then, as if it is happening somewhere else or to somebody else, he sees movement, the boy stepping out into the open and his hand coming up. The commander begins to raise his rifle and shout, “N —,” but before he can fire there is a flash, the glare searing itself into Jay’s retinas before the screen collapses into static, then reshapes into smoke and fire. For a second or two everything is still, a moment that seems to go on for minutes, hours, and then everything is chaos, shots ringing out, people screaming. Anders appears at his shoulder, shouting at him, demanding to know what happened.

Jay shakes his head. He cannot find the words.

“Jesus,” spits Anders, and picking up a rig, overrides Jay’s command of the drone.

“Tyler,” he shouts. “You take over.”

The view goes black, leaving Jay sitting in the cubicle. He can hear shouting all around him, see people running here and there. In the next cubicle Tyler is humming. After what might be a few seconds or a few hours he stands up and stumbles toward the door. Nobody tries to stop him. Outside it is still dark, the air cool. It feels unreal, as if he is watching it on a screen. Without thinking he walks back toward his apartment, goes in, closes the door behind himself and lies down in the darkness. And closing his eyes he is there again, zeroing in, zeroing in.

The post The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Pilot appeared first on NOEMA.

“Those who lose dreaming are lost.”
—Australian Aboriginal proverb

Standing in the foyer, Keira looked her new surroundings up and down. The home’s entryway was spacious yet cozy, with pre­cious staghorn coral specimens and Aboriginal art arranged atop a console table made from reclaimed wood. 

She had been hovering next to her suitcases in the foyer for quite some time. As she waited for the home’s owner to appear, Keira tiptoed around the adjoining rooms, paying particular atten­tion to the pictures lining the walls. Most were mementos of a life spent on the water, featuring a dark-haired woman with a lively smile, laughing as she posed with various marine animals aboard a research vessel floating in the Coral Sea. 

The woman, Keira knew, was a younger Joanna Campbell. A famed marine ecologist, Campbell had spent her entire adult life researching the preservation of coral reefs. Now 71, with no children or other relatives, she had moved here, to the home Keira was now standing in — a unit within a smart retirement com­munity located outside Brisbane. 

Officially named Sunshine Village, the retirement facility was called AI Village by the locals. Each unit in the community had been designed by AI and assembled from prefabricated modules by robots. Every door, window, cabinet, appliance and toilet had been designed by AI based on data collected from Brisbane’s el­derly population and intended to optimize residents’ use of the space. Sensors measured the habits and physiological indicators of those living in Sunshine Village, as the complex’s AI offered per­sonalized suggestions for its residents on a daily basis.

As Keira surveyed the walls of Joanna Campbell’s unit, a piece of brightly colored Aboriginal art caught her eye: a classic Papunya painting teeming with dots of different colors in a psychedelic, dreamy swirl. She was mesmerized. The image reminded her of her home, Alice Springs, a small town located in central Australia, wedged in between the MacDonnell Ranges. Using her XR glasses, Keira scanned the painting for its information and saved it to a folder named “Home.”

“Everyone who’s visited loves this painting. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Keira nearly jumped at the sound of the hoarse voice behind her.

It was Joanna Campbell herself, in an electric wheelchair. With silver hair and a frame made diminutive from the passing of years, she certainly looked different from the robust, vibrant woman in the pictures. Still, Keira noted, the woman’s eyes were just as bright and sharp, scrutinizing her visitor.

“Yes, Ms. Campbell, I am Keira. I believe that the Sunshine Vil­lage Resident Services team informed you that I would be arriving today?”

“Well, no one told me that you would let yourself in, young lady. Or should I call you ‘young girl’? I can never figure out how old you people really are.”

Blushing, Keira scrambled to explain herself. “I’m so sorry! I rang your doorbell several times, but no one answered, so I entered with the password that the Resident Services team gave me.”

“I still don’t understand why they can’t just send a robot over,” muttered Joanna. “The last caregiver they sent couldn’t stop star­ing at my paintings. I saw greed in his eyes, so I made sure he didn’t last long. You wouldn’t consider doing something foolish with one of my belongings, would you, child? What’s your name again?”

“Keira,” responded the girl timidly. “And of course not. My job is to help take care of you, Ms. Campbell.”

“Ha! Guess this is what happens when you’re old — you’re left at the mercy of other people. How long will you be staying for?” Con­tempt laced the old woman’s voice.

“The wristband matched me to this job. I guess I’ll be stay­ing …” Keira raised her left hand and showed Joanna her flexible smart wristband, glowing with colored lights. “Until Jukurrpa de­cides that my task is complete,” she answered carefully.

“Please speak in plain English,” Joanna huffed.

“Oh! Jukurrpa means ‘dreaming’ in the Warlpiri language. You know, the Aboriginal origin myth and all that. To be honest, it seems like the government is paying a bit of lip service by giving the program an Aboriginal name,” said Keira, her tone unim­pressed. Then she brightened. “I heard so much about you before coming over. You are amazing!”

The reality was that when Keira had met with the community’s medical director at the Resident Services office, he’d warned Keira that Joanna Campbell would be tough to deal with. All of her pre­vious caregivers had quit because they couldn’t stand her temper.

“Oh, yes, ‘the dreaming project.’ Now I remember. A funny name. They’ve told me about it many times but my memory isn’t what it used to be,” Joanna went on, ignoring Keira’s compliment. “How much are they paying you to babysit me again?”

“Well, Project Jukurrpa pays me in Moola, not cash.”

“More young-people things I don’t understand,” said Joanna, cutting her off. “I suppose you don’t celebrate Australia Day ei­ther?”

“Um …” Keira smiled awkwardly. “Due to the problematic his­tory of January 26, we voted to reschedule the national holiday 10 years ago. Now Australia Day is May 8 — sounds like mate, doesn’t it?”

“Ludicrous,” Joanna said, waving a hand dismissively. She turned her wheelchair around and headed for the living room. Keira stood, dazed, until Joanna’s voice rang from the front of the house. “Kala! Come help me find my glasses. I can’t read anything without them.”

“Coming!” shouted Keira. She took a deep breath and followed Joanna into the room.

Over the past year, Joanna’s smart home had determined that she was exhibiting early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. First there was the frenzy with which she had taken to opening and closing the refrigerator door, and the growing delay in locating misplaced items, like her keys. Names and faces had begun to elude her. With wisdom gleaned from the accumulated health data of millions of Australians, the signs were unmistakable to the Sun­shine Village AI.

However advanced, the smart home itself could not compen­sate for the rate at which her mind was deteriorating. Joanna’s doc­tor had advised that human companionship could help alleviate the symptoms. The Sunshine Village Resident Services team had requested a companion for Joanna from Jukurrpa — or, rather, a string of companions, of which Keira was the most recent iteration.

Keira was far from unique in taking on work as a caregiver. In 2041, Australians aged 65 and over made up 35% of the entire population. At the same time, the growth of AI and the corresponding job automation meant that the unemployment rate had also skyrocketed. Now, the country’s job reallocation program struggled to keep unemployment to its current 12% of the population.

The age group hit hardest by the employment upheaval were those under 25. Most vulnerable of all, thanks in part to their long history of entrenched disadvantage, were young people within the Aboriginal population, whose members had fallen well below Australian averages in terms of education, employment, so­cial mobility and life expectancy.

Even as many of its residents struggled, Australia could hardly count itself as underdeveloped or lacking in innovation. Its abun­dance of natural resources and its “AI prioritization” national de­velopment strategy had turned it into a global leader in new energy, materials science and health technology. The govern­ment relentlessly advocated for renewable energies like solar and wind, which, together with low-cost, high-capacity lithium-ion battery arrays, had driven the cost of energy down close to zero. The country had also succeeded in eliminating greenhouse gas emissions altogether, making Australia one of the first countries in the world to achieve carbon-neutral status. Aided by advance­ments in genomics and precision medicine, Australia’s life expec­tancy was now 87.2 years.

These advances — combined with the country’s stable financial system, awe-inspiring natural environment and comprehensive welfare system — had attracted millions of immigrants, most of them wealthy people looking to retire in Australia.

Still, for all that the country’s leaders had done to address big problems and turn Australia into a magnet for the global elite, the nation’s persistent inequalities had incited the anger of its young people. In their eyes, Australia had become wealthy while failing them — and failing to bring about economic and social justice to marginalized groups. In the early 2030s, young people in Brisbane and other cities around the country — feeling overlooked and robbed of a prosperous future — had taken to the streets in mass outpourings of frustration. A wave of violence, crime and conflict rippled out from these initially peaceful protests, and the turmoil had spread throughout the country.

In 2036, in response to the social unrest, the Australian govern­ment had launched Project Jukurrpa and declared that “Australia would take good care of her people.” The project, spearheaded by ISA (Innovation and Science Australia), consisted of two parts. First was the introduction of the BLC, or Basic Life Card, which guaranteed that every citizen who opted in would receive a monthly allowance to cover the cost of food, shelter, utilities, transportation, health and even basic entertainment and clothing. All thanks to the abundance of wealth and nearly free clean energy generated by the technological revolution.

The second part of the Jukurrpa program was the establishment of a virtual credit and reward system called Moola. The system rewarded citizens for voluntary community work, such as caring for children and keeping public spaces pristine. Participants’ smart wristbands collected speech data from the volunteer work and quantified it with the help of AI. The score was predicated on vari­ables including difficulty, contribution to community and culture, degree of innovation and self-improvement, as well as the most important factor: the satisfaction of the person or community served. The data enabled the wristband to calculate the Moola earned by a participant in real-time. Moola scores were reflected on participants’ wristbands, with high scorers’ bands beaming with an array of bright colors.

With Moola, the government had intended to establish honor­able service, a sense of connection and belonging, rather than monetary wealth, as a true measure of an individual’s value. In reality, Moola had more practical benefits, too, operating as a kind of credit score that supplanted other forms of currency. For in­stance, when evaluating candidates for a job opening, employers could choose to prioritize applicants with a higher Moola score. Those who earned the country’s highest Moola scores were even entered into a competition for a chance to become a reserve mem­ber of the Mars base.

But the program didn’t always function as its designers — and the country’s leaders — intended. Despite the government’s lofty ambitions, many young people treated Moola as just one more in­dicator of social status, looking to the colors on the wristband as simply another label to boast about, a symbolic replacement of wealth. Some young people even tried to game the system by brib­ing service recipients and conducting fake conversations and phony interactions to improve their Moola scores in the shortest timespan possible.

The data also showed that among the groups enrolled in the program, the Moola growth rate for the Aboriginal population was significantly slower than the overall average. Project Jukurrpa, from its very first day, had come under public scrutiny regarding its potential to exacerbate racism. Because the Moola score de­pended on other community members affirming the successful completion of participants’ Moola-earning tasks, would Aboriginal and other non-white participants encounter bias and thus have a harder time building up credit? The government defended Project Jukurrpa in the face of these criticisms. Dr. William Swartz, Jr., a spokesperson for the ISA, gave a press conference calling the project a forward-thinking social in­vestment. “A society without love, belonging, justice and respect will no doubt collapse. The core of Project Jukurrpa is about re­building trust in the younger generation. We believe that every person can achieve their dreams in this land of plenitude, regard­less of their race and ethnicity.”

Project Jukurrpa’s first target: the unemployed population below the age of 25, where Aboriginals made up a whop­ping 35% of the demographic. This far exceeded their ratio to the entire Australian population, which was a meager 5%.

Keira Namatjira, aged 21, was one of the Aboriginals who signed up.

It didn’t take Keira long to grow accustomed to life at Sun­shine Village. In Joanna, she may have been assigned a cranky charge, but other residents welcomed the Aboriginal girl with long, curly, dark hair into their community, and many came to adore her. In addition to caring for Joanna, Keira frequently performed small acts of service for others in the community who weren’t eligible for a full-time caregiver. When she assisted them by making deliver­ies, hanging laundry or walking dogs, residents showered Keira with positive feedback and never hesitated to click “Confirm ser­vice” on her wristband. It would then flash varicolored lights and hum a melody, notifying her that new Moola had arrived.

Keira’s day-to-day work at Joanna’s place involved less instant gratification. In addition to helping Joanna with her daily routine, Keira was also responsible for conducting a comprehensive checkup of the old woman’s cognitive functions according to the Resident Services medical guidelines. Joanna’s truculence ensured Keira had her work cut out for her.

“Ms. Campbell, can you tell me about the article you read just now?” asked Keira one day, as they sat together at Joanna’s kitchen table.

“It’s about endangered marine life. Why do you ask? Do your schools no longer offer reading comprehension?” Joanna glared at Keira from behind her reading glasses.

“Ms. Campbell, do you remember where you put your pillbox?”

“You think you can baffle me? I put it … wait.” Joanna fumbled through her pockets, then shouted with glee as she pulled the box out, like a child who had discovered a hidden treat. “Ha, I knew it! In my pocket!”

“Ms. Campbell, do you remember what we had for lunch yes­terday?”

Joanna gave Keira a look and frowned. “Soup, egg custard, salad and fruit. Oh, right, there was also filet mignon. They told me that the meat was lab-grown and no animals were harmed in the process. That’s why I agreed to try. It tasted exactly like the beef I remember. So don’t take me for a fool, Ms. Koala.”

Keira grimaced; still, by now, she had grown accustomed to the older woman’s ways — and felt compassion for her declining cogni­tive abilities, even when they manifested in rude remarks. “Actu­ally, yesterday you said you weren’t hungry, so we skipped lunch. Also, my name is Keira, K-E-I-R-A.”

Hearing this, Joanna didn’t fire back in her usual way. She fell silent, a stunned look on her face. After a few minutes, she let out a sigh.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. The doctor said my symptoms were not so severe, and I only had to wait,” she mur­mured. All of a sudden, she raised her head again, and a glimmer of hope kindled in her eyes. “Do you know when I can get the pro­cedure?”

Keira knew Joanna was referring to genomic precision therapy for the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. However, even with Austra­lia’s comprehensive healthcare system, certain high-end medical therapies were hard to come by, given the sheer number of people demanding treatment. For genomic precision therapy, it would take months — maybe years — on the waiting list. Keira worried that when the time came for Joanna to receive treatment, the older woman’s symptoms would have advanced to the point that the therapy would no longer have any effect.

“Soon, in a few weeks,” reassured Keira, knowing Joanna wouldn’t remember this conversation. “I’ll be sure to remind you when the day comes.”

“It’s strange. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch yester­day, but memories of my younger days are just as vivid as ever.”

“Tell me what you remember,” said Keira. Half-crouching and pressing her palms to Joanna’s knees, she looked into her eyes en­couragingly.

“I remember …” Joanna’s gaze drifted over to the sunlit world outside her window and grew unfocused as her thoughts spread their wings, took off into the wind and embarked on a voyage to another space-time.

1992. Joanna was in the prime of her youth, her skin tanned from long hours in the scorching sun and her hair bleached a lighter shade from the ocean. She would spend months at a time at sea on a research ship, studying climate change and water pollution in the ailing Great Barrier Reef ecosystem. The Coral Sea, an aquatic kingdom of nearly 2 million square miles located in the Pacific Ocean northeast of Queensland, was home to hundreds of millions of marine creatures. However, it had been dying a slow death as a result of rising temperatures, unsustainable fishing and outbreaks of coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish. To counteract the destruc­tion of the Great Barrier Reef, Joanna was ready to do anything.

2004. After ending her marriage, Joanna gave her full attention over to her beloved ocean — her constant companion and what had come between her and her spouse. In June that year, after the Aus­tralian government refused to recognize same-sex marriage, a group of activists planted rainbow flags on one of the uninhabited Coral Sea islands southeast of the Great Barrier Reef, declaring the place an independent haven in an act of protest. Joanna journeyed alone out to the group, hoping she could persuade them to vacate the islands on account of their vulnerable ecosys­tem. However, when she told the protesters that the third global bleaching event, a result of ocean warming, would destroy 40% of the Great Barrier Reef, she was rebuffed with cries of Don’t you care about diversity? 

2023. Joanna was no longer fighting the battle alone. Leading a team of scientists, she was researching technology that might im­prove the Great Barrier Reef’s resilience to climate change. Joanna, now silver-haired, carefully studied the innovations that were being churned out by a new generation of marine science innova­tors. They were using underwater robots to plant coral larvae in designated areas pinpointed by AI algorithms, and relied on sen­sors to monitor growth; they covered the ocean surface of the Great Barrier Reef with an environmentally friendly film made from bio­materials in order to reduce the intensity of the sunlight hitting the reef. Joanna was also excited by a proposal to genetically engineer zooxanthellae, a microorganism that played a pivotal role in many symbiotic marine relationships. Ocean warming, along with acidi­fication, was impacting the health of the zooxanthellae, in turn triggering coral bleaching and the death of anthozoan coral polyps. Invertebrates and fish that had built their lives on corals would either leave or perish. As a result, the ecosystem would collapse.

“If we could improve the resilience and adaptivity of the zooxanthellae,” said Joanna to Keira, who was listening with rapt attention, “the corals would return to their original state and regain their color, and the anthozoan coral polyps would get the nutrients they need. We really thought it could save the Great Barrier Reef.”

Joanna was a different person when she talked about her work. Her gaze was no longer dim; her memory was sharp and refreshed. As she spoke, she radiated vitality, as beautiful as a blooming coral bush.

“But you did it! Now everyone calls you ‘the savior of the Great Barrier Reef’!” exclaimed Keira. “I can’t even begin to imagine the difficulties you’ve been through …”

“Let me put it this way — the greatest difficulty doesn’t come from the outside, but rather from within yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It takes faith and courage, my child, to dedicate your entire life to a goal that appears impossible, especially when everyone else around you is busy making money, establishing a family and rear­ing children,” said Joanna with a smile. Her tone softened. “Now it’s my turn to ask questions. Is earning Moola your only motiva­tion for coming here?”

Keira could feel her cheeks burning. For a woman who often seemed to forget her name, it felt like Joanna had seen straight through her. Keira had struggled to find a stable job in an XR com­pany, and signing up for Project Jukurrpa and coming to Sunshine Village had been her best option.

“Yes and no,” said Keira. “It might have been my motivation at first, but now I’m beginning to feel that gaining the respect of oth­ers makes me happier than anything else.”

“Well said, K … child. I will confirm your service to your wrist­band thingy, as long as you promise to do one thing for me,” said Joanna, winking.

“I’ll promise you anything!” Keira said hastily.

“You don’t have to shout. My brain might be messed up, but my ears are not. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. Good night, now!”

The old lady wheeled herself toward the bedroom. Once again, Keira was left standing, stupefied, with her eyes fixed on the pho­tos of tropical fish that lined Joanna’s kitchen.

Joanna’s wish was for Keira to take her to the ocean.

Before everything was wiped away from her memory, Joanna hoped to once again gaze at the Coral Sea that she had given so much to save — and which had given her life so much purpose.

Keira was torn. As much as she would have loved to take Jo­anna to a beach in Brisbane, arranging day trips was outside the guidelines of her service. And despite their lucid conversation the previous day, Joanna’s health was deteriorating. Keira was worried that Joanna’s body couldn’t handle the rigors of traveling, and she herself couldn’t afford the possible consequences.

In the hopes that Joanna would forget her wish, Keira came up with all kinds of excuses: bad weather, traffic jams, holidays. Jo­anna, though, was as stubborn as a child, and pestered Keira every single day. “I heard there’s a community party today, and they’re having food, drinks and a live band. Everyone’s going! Don’t you want to go?” suggested Keira, trying to distract Joanna.

“No,” she replied instantly.

“Come on, Joanna,” pleaded Keira. A week earlier, Joanna had asked Keira to stop addressing her as “Ms. Campbell,” because ap­parently that was how people addressed real estate agents.

“You promised you would take me to the ocean! You lied!”

“No, I didn’t promise that.”

“Don’t you want your confirmation anymore? The Moola score you care so much about?”

“Shhh … the AI system would deduct points from my score if it heard this conversation,” whispered Keira. She took off her XR glasses and rubbed her eyes, sore from staring at the glasses’ image projections. Recently, in addition to her duties with Joanna, Keira had begun volunteering on the side as a product developer of aug­mented reality experiences for an AR company named DingoTech. She hoped that, with the experience she gained, she could one day land a real AR job.

“Why are you always wearing glasses? As far as I understand, you’re far too young to need reading glasses,” grumbled Joanna, curious, as she reached for Keira’s XR glasses. The moment she put them on, she cried out in surprise. “Wow! Everything is glowing!”

“Wait, let me adjust them for you,” said Keira, fine-tuning the XR glasses’ focus parameters to accommodate Joanna’s sight. Now Joanna no longer saw fuzzy blobs of light, but varicolored dots with sharpened edges superimposed on her vision, a filter in the style of a Papunya dot painting. The AR algorithm would alter how the dots’ effects were rendered in real-time based on the surround­ing environment and the user’s head posture, turning reality into a kind of dot painting that metamorphosed every second with new patterns and colors, undulating and rippling like the ocean surface on a windy day.

Incredulous, Joanna exclaimed, “It’s beautiful! Did you make this?”

“Yes,” Keira said bashfully. “I’ve always dreamed of becoming an artist, but it would be next to impossible for someone like me. This is the next best thing.”

“I don’t think so,” said Joanna, her face scrunched up in dis­dain. “Young people! Always looking for excuses —”

“No!” Keira blurted out, for the first time cutting the old woman off. She could feel a surge of emotions rising. “This isn’t an excuse. I’m talking about the difficulties of navigating life as an Arrernte.”

“I don’t believe I’ve heard of your people before,” said Joanna.

“My people have lived on this continent for 30,000 years, but look at what’s happening to us now!” Keira’s voice was loud, almost a shout. In that moment, she didn’t care what her smart wristband heard. Keira took a deep breath. “Our language has almost disappeared. We are driven to settlements and assimi­lated into big cities after our homes are snatched from us. And for us young people — yes, young people looking for excuses — ensuring our next meal can depend on either becoming a criminal or this goddamn Moola!”

“Hey, watch your language!”

“I used to hope that Project Jukurrpa would usher in a new age of equality,” Keira continued, “but I was wrong. Like everything else about our system, Project Jukurrpa favors certain people. Peo­ple who already excel at earning Moola and waving their glowing wristbands — people who know how to please, deceive or intimi­date other people — will only have more opportunities to win Moola and, duh, society’s respect. That’s how the world works. No matter how hardworking or talented I am, people like you will al­ways look down on people like me.”

“I didn’t — I didn’t mean to —” stuttered Joanna, clearly taken aback by the response of her usually even-tempered caregiver.

“Ms. Campbell, please understand that not everyone in this world is as lucky as you are. Not everyone can pursue their dream. But you are right about one thing: Everyone should have the cour­age to try. So, you’ve inspired me. I’m telling you right now: I quit.”

With that, Keira left the living room and strode toward her bed­room, walking so fast that she completely forgot she had left her XR glasses behind. 

That night, Keira had a nightmare.

A yowie, covered in long golden hair, emerged from under the bed and pounced on her. She wanted to run, but her feet were un­movable, her body utterly frozen; she wanted to scream, but no voice came out of her gaping mouth. She could do nothing but stare with horror as the ape-like monster’s jaws closed around her.

She woke with a start, drenched in sweat. Day had dawned; the sky was a light shade of blue. A little unsteady from the nightmare, she stepped into the kitchen for water, and her eyes landed imme­diately on the front door. It was wide open.

“Joanna?” Keira called. No response. She walked into Joanna’s bedroom and found the bed empty.

After searching the entire house, she found a scribbled note near the door, in the spot where Joanna usually put her keys:

K: I’m going to see the ocean. I’ll return your glasses when I get back. J.

Keira cursed under her breath as she threw on clothes and made a dash for the security desk in the Sunshine Village Resident Ser­vices center.

According to the surveillance footage, Joanna had left home about an hour ago on her electric wheelchair.

“Not to worry. The biosensor membrane on every elder person can help us track their whereabouts,” said Nguyen, a staff member at the Resident Services center. Still sleepy-eyed, he pulled up the real-time tracking system on the computer, then paused. The blink­ing GPS icon for Joanna indicated that she was, in fact, at home. Nguyen’s eyes widened, now alert and awake. “Wait, did she take the membrane off?”

“We need to get everyone to help track her down right now,” said Keira, now frantic with worry.

“How far can she possibly get on that wheelchair?” Nguyen tried to reason with Keira, who wasn’t having it. 

“Now!”

Keira knew that for people with Alzheimer’s disease, the great­est threats came from behavioral disorders caused by the deterio­ration of various cognitive functions: becoming distracted while taking the stairs and missing a step, forgetting their destination and pausing in the middle of a busy road to remember, injur­ing themselves when using sharp objects. She was terrified that Joanna, out in public on her own, would end up in an accident. If I hadn’t been so hot-tempered yesterday, maybe Joanna wouldn’t have left, thought Keira bitterly.

Nguyen launched the emergency procedures, which sent human staff and drones alike out on a search. The alert also went to the Brisbane police, who could access surveillance footage of the surrounding area.

Amid the frantic scene, Keira had fallen silent. A shadowy half-thought hung in the back of her mind. She knew it was important — but she couldn’t remember what it was.

The note. I’ll return your glasses when I get back.

“Glasses!” Keira pulled out her smartstream. If Joanna was wearing her XR glasses, Keira could access the glasses’ live vision field remotely and deduce Joanna’s location.

A river of flashing multicolored dots appeared on the screen. Sure enough, Joanna was wearing Keira’s glasses, and she hadn’t switched off the AR experience demo that Keira had made. The frame was still. Slowly, dots of light flowed down the winding river, changing colors as they bobbed up and down.

“There are several rivers that look like that around here,” said Nguyen, craning his neck to look at Keira’s screen. “Can you con­nect to audio as well?”

The glasses’ auditory sensors picked up various sounds of na­ture: the rippling and bubbling of the river, the chirping of birds, the rustling of tree leaves, a gentle swish of the morning breeze. It was overlaid by a rhythm of inhaling and exhaling, which presum­ably came from Joanna. After a while, they heard a rumble coming from the right, lasting for about three seconds before disappearing again.

“She’s at Breakfast Creek!” Nguyen cried. “That’s the train. There’s a bridge there that crosses the creek!”

“Take me there now!” Excited, Keira grabbed Nguyen’s hand. “Quick, tell everyone to meet us at the creek to search for Joanna!”

Kiera trotted along the riverbank, peering through the lush vegetation for any sign of Joanna. The singing birds and buzzing bees annoyed her, and sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped off the tip of her nose. Keira kept comparing the feed from her smartstream to the scene in front of her eyes. Finally, she saw a flash of long silver hair under a pine tree.

When she approached with the rescue team, she found Joanna sitting in her wheelchair in silence. On her inner wrist was a square of lighter-colored skin, where the biosensor membrane used to be. The woman appeared to be lost in a trance. Tears streamed down her face, staining the lenses with a foggy veil. Keira stepped up and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Keira, you’re here,” murmured Joanna. This is the first time she’s got my name right, thought Keira. “Your glasses brought me back. Now I remember. I am one of you.”

“Huh?” Keira, her anxious heartbeat still loud in her ears, was taken aback by the old woman’s words. She heard a camera flash.

“I am the stolen generation,” whispered Joanna as the staff car­ried her into the ambulance.

Keira pushed Joanna’s wheelchair along the pedestrian path by the sand. It was a beautiful day on Noosa Main Beach. Beachgoers laughed, children played in the sand and surfers pad­dled in the sunshine. Joanna set her gaze to the northeast, where azure water stretched infinitely into the horizon.

“Do you see the Great Barrier Reef?” asked Keira, even though she already knew the answer.

“Well, I know she’s there. I can feel her.” Joanna grinned. “Thanks to you. The government should give you more Moola than you’re getting. It’s funny to think that this time next week, I’ll be getting my precision treatment. I’d never imagined that I’d make it to the end of the waitlist.”

“I’m so happy for you. I’m sure you’ll recover in no time.” Keira laughed. “There’s one question I never got to ask you, though.”

“Shoot.”

“That day at Breakfast Creek, you said that you were ‘the stolen generation.’ I didn’t know what that meant, so I did some research. And I found that, starting in 1909, the Australian government sep­arated up to a hundred thousand Aboriginal children from their parents, placing them in the care of either white families or in of­ficial shelters for assimilation. This policy ended in 1969, along with those shelters, which left many children homeless. You were born after 1969, though. How can you be one of them?”

A look of melancholy appeared on Joanna’s face. “My adoptive parents were very kind people. They registered me with a later birth date, thinking that would protect me from the ugly truth. I was taken from my biological parents immediately after birth, and then raised by the church for the next few years, before I was even­tually adopted. I was lucky to be assigned to such loving steppar­ents.”

“So how did you find out? I mean, it’s been so many years since it happened, and I’m sure a lot of those records were destroyed,” asked Keira, unable to hide her curiosity.

“I always knew I didn’t look like my siblings. I could tell that I was different from the way people at school treated me. But I didn’t want to ask my parents the question. They gave me as much love as they gave the other children. So I buried the question and didn’t think of it again until the genome sequencing report.”

“Genome sequencing for the Alzheimer’s treatment?” asked Keira.

Joanna nodded and pointed north of the Pacific Ocean. “The report indicated an 85% probability that I was a descendent of Torres Strait Islanders. When I found out, my whole life seemed to collapse. I didn’t know who I was, or who my real parents were. What did it mean? I didn’t understand.”

“So you chose to forget?”

“I’m afraid that forgetfulness chose me, my child. My illness gave me the perfect excuse to deny the truth … until your artwork led me to it.”

“My what?” Keira couldn’t believe her ears.

“When I put on your glasses, I saw a magnificent world unfold before my eyes. Just like dreaming, my experience wasn’t static or linear, but rather crossing space-time, spanning from the past to the present, even seeping into the future. I could feel something ancient rising from my heart and rushing through my veins, recon­necting me to this piece of land. It told me that I shouldn’t run away from my pain, and I mustn’t forget who I am. Being honest with myself was the only way that I could heal myself.”

Keira, touched, stared speechlessly at Joanna.

“I need to thank you.” Joanna grabbed Keira’s hands and brought them to her chest. “There are not many of us left from the stolen generation. Many people have died carrying the weight of pain and confusion, just like what I had before. The government issued an official apology 33 years ago and began to declassify the history, but that’s not enough to make up for what they took from us.”

Keira could feel the sea breeze gently kissing her long curls. Never would she have dared dream that her creation could help another in such a way. The salty smell reminded her of the days and nights she had spent with Joanna.

“You know, I’m the one who needs to thank you,” said Keira, her tone solemn.

“Why? Because I always piss you off?” countered Joanna.

“Well, for that, too.” Keira brushed away a few strands of hair tickling her eyes and grinned. “You made me think about things that had never occurred to me. My hopes and dreams, Project Ju­kurrpa …”

“I’m listening.”

“In my opinion, Project Jukurrpa has cheapened the bonds be­tween people in our community and widened the inequal­ity gap even more. Most people don’t use it the way it was intended. It no longer motivates people to live up to their potential. I’ve been thinking about what you said, and I started a discussion in the VRock community a few weeks ago. Since then, tens of thousands of people have joined in. What started as an internet debate has now become a movement called ‘dream4future’ and the media can’t stop talking about it. The conversation struck a chord with people — their dissatisfaction with how Project Jukurrpa was working. Now, parliament has proposed a law to revise Project Jukurrpa.”

“Wow! What would the new version of the project look like?”

“BLC gave people basic life necessities and security, and that’s not going to go away. But everyone, especially young people like me, should have the right to choose freely how they would like to live — and no one’s dreams should be snatched away. When some­one strives for self-discovery and actualization, just like you, she should be granted the chance. Project Jukurrpa should be provid­ing everyone with equal opportunities to explore who they want to become and help them fully realize their potential. Whether it’s developing leadership skills, uncovering the mysteries of Mars, re­storing Aboriginal languages with AI, building environmentally friendly cities, you name it. Every step of an individual’s road to self-realization, every effort and achievement made should be seen, recognized and encouraged. That’s the only way we can bring back hope. Otherwise, we are facing a new kind of stolen generation.”

“Listen to you! Keira, you are amazing!” Joanna, enlivened by Keira’s speech, clapped excitedly. All of a sudden, her hands halted in midair. “Does this mean you’re going to leave me?”

“I’m sorry, Joanna, but yes. I’m here to say my goodbyes today,” said Keira, leaning down to hug Joanna. “The picture of us taken by Breakfast Creek was posted everywhere in VRock. After all the media attention, Dr. Swartz from ISA invited me to join their proj­ect team. Together, we’ll try to find a way to make these goals quan­tifiable and train a smarter AI to build a more equal, more inspiring Project Jukurrpa. I’ve always wanted a real job — I thought it was going to be in AR, but the chance to work to shape the possibilities of what young people can achieve is beyond my wildest dreams.”

“I’m truly happy for you,” said the older woman. Hesitating, she dropped her eyes, as if embarrassed. “But before you leave, there’s something that I need to tell you.”

“What is it?” 

“I was so reluctant to confirm your service because I was afraid that you would leave me behind once you received the Moola,” whispered Joanna, her voice trembling. “I didn’t want you to leave.”

“Oh, Joanna …” Tears were welling up in Keira’s eyes.

“Don’t cry, child. Don’t cry.” Joanna wiped the corners of her eyes and smiled at Keira. “You brought me to the ocean, and now it’s my turn to make good on my promise to you.”

The crisp, melodious tones of Moola cash-in dispersed in the sea breeze. With Keira pushing Joanna’s wheelchair, the duo con­tinued their long journey down the beach. Together they watched the waves ebb and flow, molding the shape of the shoreline, inch by inch. Just like they did a billion years ago. Just like they would in the future.

The post Dreaming Of Plentitude appeared first on NOEMA.

Gardels: Your novel with Ackerman, “2034,” is set 13 years in the future. The core plot revolves around China finally taking Taiwan by force after disabling the avionics of fighter jets and the digital control systems of an armada of U.S. ships, which it sinks. China’s advantage is the ability to blind satellites and internet communication while cloaking the movements of its own fleet.

How far are we today from this cyberwar asymmetry between the U.S. and China? 

Stavridis: Today, the U.S. enjoys a slight edge over China in offensive cyber technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning and quantum computing. But that edge is rapidly diminishing — see, for example, the report by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, chaired by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. Ten to 15 years from now, when “2034” is set, I believe there is a strong possibility that China will have surpassed the U.S. in all these areas. We still have time to course-correct, but the relative trends do not favor us on our current path.

Gardels: What needs to be done to keep even or surpass China? Is there a way to negotiate curbs or a code of conduct on using AI or other advanced weapons technologies? 

Stavridis: We should bolster resources for investment in science, technology, engineering and math curriculums at every level; identify and nurture the best and brightest among students in STEM fields; create new masters programs in computer science, AI and quantum computing at our top universities; increase research and development funding from the government to basic science in these fields; incentivize the private sector to work with U.S. defense authorities and partner with allies who have strong capabilities in these fields, including Japan, the U.K., Germany and France. Separately, we should be working to create the kind of deterrent regimes for cyber that exist for nuclear weapons.

Gardels: Some military planners believe that the current balance of traditional forces is skewed toward China and that if there was a war today, the U.S. and its allies could not defend Taiwan. Is this assessment correct? 

Stavridis: Well, it would be “the nearest-run thing you ever saw,” as the Duke of Wellington said of the Battle of Waterloo. Personally, I believe the U.S. could still prevail, but it would be very close and bloody for both sides. We must find a way to avoid such a disastrous outcome. Part of why we wrote “2034” was to provide a cautionary tale that ought to inspire us to take steps to avoid sleepwalking into war as the Europeans did in 1914.

Gardels: An Australian defense expert recently argued that President Xi is intent on “unifying China” by forcefully taking Taiwan as the capstone of his rejuvenation of China as a great civilization. Do you agree with this assessment? 

Stavridis: I do, and perhaps more importantly, the former leader of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Philip Davidson, testified recently in an open hearing to this very point, saying he believes a military move could come as soon as the next six years. Since he saw all the very top intelligence and woke up every morning thinking about these warfighting scenarios in great depth, we should listen closely to him.

Gardels: If China’s leaders perceive that the balance of military power closely favors the Middle Kingdom at this point, and the Biden administration and others pledge that the West will defend Taiwan, wouldn’t logic dictate that China should strike now instead of waiting until the West builds up its defenses? 

Stavridis: That is precisely the line of thought Adm. Davidson laid out, and I agree with it.

Gardels: Should the U.S. go to war to defend Taiwan?

Stavridis: To avoid getting to that point, what we should do for now is draw closer to Taiwan and seek to make it a harder target for China. This means more offensive and defensive cyber capability; advanced missile defense systems; anti-submarine warfare technology; fighter aircraft; and better intelligence and information sharing, along with joint training and exercises. Think of Taiwan as a porcupine — it won’t defeat the dragon of China, but it could be very hard to digest. That might create real deterrence. 

Similarly, we should bluntly communicate to China that an armed invasion is unacceptable and would provoke a significant diplomatic, economic — and possible military — response by the U.S.

Gardels: In your fictional book, you and your coauthor cast Russia as seizing the opportunity of conflict in the Pacific to take the long-coveted Baltic zones in and around Poland by force. The “atrophied bodies” of the West, as you call them in the book, implying NATO, are just too unprepared and lacking enough unified will to resist.

This brings to mind French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement that NATO is brain-dead. Do you agree?

Stavridis: Think of NATO and the larger network of allies, partners and friends around the world enjoyed by the U.S. today as a garden. It must be tended, nurtured and occasionally weeded. That means very consciously exchanging high level visits, conducting joint training and exercises, and coordinating positions on key global issues, from North Korea to Iran, Russia and China. When all share the same threat perceptions and posture in defending the democratic world, we will be able to overcome frustrations that can develop over issues like military spending differences.

Churchill said the only thing worse than fighting a war alongside allies is fighting a war without allies. The Biden team understands this and is putting a great deal of effort into tending these gardens. If we can consistently do so, NATO will be fine, as will the U.S.-Japan-Australia-India “quad” arrangement that is emerging as a new strategic cornerstone for the U.S.

Gardels: At one point in your novel, the Russians cut the undersea optic fiber cables in the Atlantic that carry internet communication and blacked out the East Coast and Washington. These are the same kind of cables that cross the Pacific and keep us connected. How vulnerable are those cables that cross international waters? How are, or should they be, protected? 

Stavridis: They are few in number — only several hundred essentially carry the internet. And yes, they are vulnerable. It is very difficult to “harden them” sufficiently to protect them from a determined attack by major powers armed with nuclear submarines. So the best way to ensure they remain viable is deterrence, showing our opponents that an attack on the internet cable system will be treated as a significant attack against our economy and will prompt a similar response.

Gardels: So far, the Biden administration has not shied away from confronting Russia and China at the same time, driving them further together against the West. This is the opposite of the Kissinger-Nixon strategy of dividing them, which led to the initial opening to China.

Is this wise from a strategic point of view?  

Stavridis: Russia and China are going to draw closer whatever we do. As the two leading authoritarian nations in the world, they are naturally inclined to reinforce each other diplomatically and economically. They complete each other, so to speak. Russia is a vast land power with considerable natural resources; China is relatively constrained geographically and has a huge population. There are natural symmetries built into their cooperation, including, of course, the fact that they share a significant land border.

Gardels: Finally, despite all these conflicts, both Xi and Putin showed up at Biden’s climate summit recently. Beyond the old geopolitical conflicts, there is now also an imperative of planetary realism around climate. Paradoxically, might the common challenge of global warming in the end temper what is shaping up to be an all-out Cold War?

Stavridis: Let us hope so. My approach to both China and Russia is pretty simple: confront where we must — interference in our elections, human rights violations, claims of ownership of the South China Sea, threats to Taiwan — but cooperate wherever we can. That can include climate but also cooperation in preparation for the next pandemic, humanitarian operations, arms control and at least discussions about creating a deterrent regime in cyberspace.

The purpose of “2034” is to show how miscalculation — a faulty understanding of controlling the ladder of escalation and an inability to understand what the other side aims to accomplish — could lead the U.S. and China into a war that would be, to say the least, in neither side’s interest.

The post War With China Over Taiwan Is Not A Fictional Worry appeared first on NOEMA.

“Are We There Yet?” // Salome Agbaroji

“Mermaid Goddess” // Violeta Esquivel

I shimmer like Hawaiian oceans
speak every language of the sea
Lenguaje de sal y perdón
Tongue of salt and forgiveness
“I’ve got gadgets and gizmos aplenty
sunken treasures of trumpets and pearls…”
A sacred coral necklace on the brink of extinction because of rising temperatures

I have long dark hair past my shoulders
glows with sun-kissed copper highlights
But remember… mermaid hair don’t care
Mermaids got bigger fish to fry.

Mermaid Goddesses know that climate change is real
As our oceans spike a fever
from the Northeast Atlantic to the Western Pacific
Waves and worries increase,
Kelp forests dying,
Plankton poisoned,
leaving nothing left to snack on

“I’ve got whozits and whatzits galore…”
13 million tons of plastic
Cigarette butts polluting our waters
Straws blocking the airway of sea turtles
Bags — 100 billion per year choking our whales, seals, and dolphins

Global warming gentrifying coral reefs
no longer red, like the tides of our demise,
displacing our homes.

Mermaid Goddesses don’t care who you love,
as long as you’re happy
Snails or whales, starfish and sawfish
All of them deserve to be loved,
all of them endangered species
So much at stake with all that you take

My voice is 14 times stronger than the fake tan man who
Won’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Mermaid Goddesses don’t lock mer-children
in abandoned caves, to the depths of the ocean’s sorrow
Dear Chiquita Mermaids:
Be careful when you ride the waves of the future
Remember your beauty on the inside
Your compassion for the climate
Hope for your home.
Have no fear of depth as rising sea levels become the new normal.
Lil’ ones, use your voice, keep our home healthy.

“I’ve got gadgets and gizmos aplenty,
I’ve got whozits and whatzits galore
You want thingamabobs? I’ve got twenty
But who cares? No big deal. I want more!”

Please don’t call me “Little Mermaid”
Unlike Ariel,
I would never give up my voice for a man.

The post ‘Are We There Yet?’ appeared first on NOEMA.

Critical Condition

Qian Rui never imagined he’d ever feel so remorseful. He thought his attitude toward his mother all these years had been completely reasonable, the result of careful consideration that caused no shame. It was only when he saw his mother on her sickbed — stiff and sallow, unmoving — that he realized how shallow this conviction was, and how closely it approached some kind of self-deceptive reassurance.

Over the past few hectic years, he hadn’t done enough for his mother. He always had an excuse to justify each time he stayed at the office instead of going home, but he was actually just avoiding responsibility. He often said he was so busy because he was caring for the world, but when he saw his mother barely clinging to life, he realized how insubstantial this claim was when he had to reconcile it with an actual person.

He recalled one time in particular when he was out for dinner and drinks with some friends. He had originally agreed to visit his mother’s house that evening, but by the time they finished eating it was already 9:00 p.m., and then he had to get a car, so he didn’t arrive at his mother’s house until nearly 10:00 p.m.

As he was making his way up to his parents’ apartment, he was worried that they’d be getting ready for bed and that his mother would accuse him of gallivanting around town, so he fearfully thought up a whole speech defending himself. When he entered the apartment and saw that look on his mother’s face, he raced to get the first word in. Before his mother could even open her mouth, he went off about how busy he’d been, how difficult and stressful his work was, how he wished his family wouldn’t hinder his career development.

As he spoke, his mother’s expression grew dim. In defending himself from the imagined rebuke, he hadn’t stopped to consider how deeply this false rebuttal would hurt his mother. She simply told him that in the future he didn’t have to come if he was so busy; there wasn’t any need for insincere gestures.

That stung. Qian Rui felt a dull ache in his heart, but he’d already erected this clumsy bulwark of excuses — and he’d built it in the desolate night that offered no place to hide.

Thinking back to this — and then thinking of his wax-yellow mother on her sickbed — the pain was almost unbearable. He’d always thought in the back of his mind that there was plenty of time left, that he’d be able to make it up to his mother once he wrapped up this busy period at work.

Little did he realize that time waits for no man.

He wanted to be at the hospital every day. He wanted to bring lots of tasty fruit for his mother and wait by her side so that he’d be the first thing she saw when she woke up. He thought about this constantly, almost to the point of obsession.

But the hospital wouldn’t let him in. The door’s identification system was exceptionally sensitive, and while the two glass doors looked weak and transparent, they were impregnable. There weren’t even any security guards at the door who he could beg or bribe; there was just Qian Rui pressed against the glass door, pounding on it futilely.

Occasionally a nurse would come out to see somebody off and he’d plead with them, but the nurse would brush him aside with a curt “That’s against regulation.” Faced with the hospital’s coldness, Qian Rui’s heart became impatiently hot.

Miracle Hospital. It was an expensive hospital known for effecting miraculous cures — so many patients with seemingly incurable illnesses had all gradually gotten better after going there. Word spread over time so that, eventually, everybody knew where to go if you got seriously ill. But this reputation came at a cost for the family members of terminal patients — knowing this place existed, if you didn’t send your loved one there for treatment, it was like you were killing them yourself, which was a painful burden to endure.

It was hard to know how many people had lined up at the hospital’s entrance looking to admit sick family members. One could imagine the hospital’s hardline response in situations like this — “There are regulations. If you cannot accept them, then you can leave.” The hospital’s interior was indeed immaculate. Qian Rui had been inside once when he brought his mother there. Its beige walls exuded tranquility, and there wasn’t any of the clamor and confusion of people coming and going that you’d see at a normal hospital. It was expensive for a reason.

The hospital’s “no visitors” policy had Qian Rui as agitated as an ant on a burning pan. Unlike his father, he wasn’t content to just sit at home and wait for news. He was anxious to hear any updates about his mother’s condition. He yearned to be by her side. Aside from his actual concern for her, he also didn’t want to face his guilt. Any time he was at home, he’d start to remember how neglectful and insincere he’d been to her over the years.

Qian Rui had been lingering outside the hospital for nearly two weeks when his opportunity finally came. One evening, he’d gotten off work and went to search for a way to sneak in, but the intelligent facial recognition system at the main entrance was too formidable, thwarting his attempts each time. But then he spotted a driverless supply truck at the hospital’s back door transporting medical equipment. It stopped at the entrance to the hospital’s warehouse for just a moment before it was identified by the system and drove inside.

Qian Rui knew this was his ticket. At the same time the next day, he clung to the door of the supply truck and got into the warehouse. After all, there was no driver, and nobody there to stop him either. And it just so happened that he only had to go through two more doors to reach the inpatient wing of the hospital.

Going off of memory, he found his mother’s room and, making sure there was nobody around, slipped inside.

His mother’s waxen face was sapped of life. She was shriveled, her skin bunched up in wrinkles like a deflated balloon. Her hair had been shaved off and her forehead was covered with electrodes, while tubes ran into her nose and other parts of her body. Qian Rui’s tears came instantly. He never knew he was such a coward that he’d be this appalled by the sight of his mother’s body. And yet he couldn’t help but tremble before the imperious glare of death.

He walked quietly to his mother’s side and reached out his hand, brushing against hers for just a moment before pulling quickly back. He wasn’t sure if he was afraid of waking her, or if he was afraid that any reaction she might have would catch him off guard.

After waiting for a few seconds, however, and seeing that his mother remained still, he relaxed. The room was deathly quiet. He touched her hand again. What followed was a torrent of grief as, for the first time, he became keenly aware of exactly what kind of loss he was facing. He observed his mother’s ashen complexion as though he was watching a sandcastle being swallowed up by ceaseless waves, eroded by the great ocean of death. He found himself drowning in that ocean. He grasped his mother’s hand and began to sob loudly.

He was watching life slip away from the body in front of him, breath by breath.

Qian Rui arrived at the hospital at precisely 10:00 p.m. each day for the next couple of days, getting in by clinging to the door of an autonomous supply truck. He’d then sneak into his mother’s room and stay there the entire night so that he didn’t draw any attention. He didn’t tell his father, who was in bad health and overly conservative; Qian Rui was worried his father would chew him out for this type of illicit behavior.

At first, Qian Rui’s mother would occasionally move a bit, but later she entered a wholly unconscious vegetative state. Her condition deteriorated and she was moved to a critical care room. There, Qian Rui would tend to her each night — wiping her brow, repositioning her, giving her water. He became increasingly despondent, tortured by remorse and love. He wanted to swim against the current of time, but his efforts were in vain.

Discovery

Two weeks later, Qian Rui was dragging himself back to his father’s house one night to discuss his mother’s funeral arrangements. He didn’t take the elevator; instead, he dallied in the stairwell so that he had some space to calm himself down. His mind was racing. He wasn’t sure how to broach the subject to his father. His father had been in high spirits, getting ready for his wife’s return from the hospital, when Qian Rui had seen him a few days ago. The pull of reputation was strong on Qian Rui’s father, who believed that since the hospital was so prestigious, it was a given that they’d be able to cure his mother.

How should Qian Rui tell him? His father didn’t have a great constitution; he’d had hypertension before, and his doctor warned him to avoid any emotional turbulence in light of his bad heart. Qian Rui wondered how — without getting him riled up — he could help his father accept that, despite the hospital’s reputation for miracle work, sometimes it was just impossible to prevent a soul from departing into the ether.

What could he say to make his father accept that his mother was just hanging on by a thread?

He hesitated at the door to his father’s apartment for a long time. The auspicious calligraphy decorations hanging outside the door trembled in the hallway breeze, mirroring the unrest in Qian Rui’s heart. He wondered how to explain his mother’s condition — and how to explain how he knew about her condition, too. He put his hand on the door handle several times, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn it.

Just then, however, the door suddenly opened up into the hallway. The metal door bashed Qian Rui on the forehead, making him see stars.

“Ow!” Qian Rui groaned.

“Xiao Rui,” his father said, surprised, after recognizing who it was. “What are you doing standing out here?”

“I was just coming back to check on you,” Qian Rui replied, still grimacing in pain. “Why are you tearing the door open like that?”

“Well why didn’t you knock?” his father asked in an accusatory tone.

Qian Rui wanted to retort, but what he suddenly saw then through the open doorway struck him mute with shock.

He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but the scene in the apartment stayed the same. He stood there stupefied, vibrating with energy but frozen to the ground like an electron in a magnetic field. His heart dropped and, for the first time, a shiver of horror ran up his spine.

It was sheer absurdity — there was his mother, in perfectly good condition, eating dinner right there on the sofa.

He took a while to stop gaping. Not heeding his father’s question, he kept his eyes glued to the ruddy-faced figure on the sofa. She looked healthy and relaxed. There was plenty of color in her cheeks. She was focused on picking up some food with her chopsticks, and then she took a few bites and continued watching TV. She was wearing his mother’s long-sleeve cotton shirt that she wore around the house with his mother’s black and white polka-dotted apron, and even his mother’s sleeve covers that she made herself. She would occasionally glance toward the front door, and seeing that shift, from profile to front view, convinced Qian Rui even more that it was his mother.

Qian Rui was so astonished that he drew back a step. His father, noticing how strange Qian Rui was acting, frowned and yanked him inside, regardless of whatever it was Qian Rui had been going to say. Qian Rui bumped against the shoe cabinet, and this disturbance caught his mother’s attention.

“What is it, dear?” the mother asked. “Oh, it’s Xiao Rui,” she added after seeing Qian Rui.

“Dear” was what his mother usually called Qian Rui’s father, so that made sense. Qian Rui watched her intently as she came toward him. His mind was racing and his eyes darted around. He observed everything vigilantly with a taut, uncomfortable expression.

“Where have you been?” she asked, just as she would normally. “I haven’t seen you since I got out of the hospital a few days ago.”

Qian Rui swallowed before croaking: “Dad didn’t tell me.”

“That’s on you, dear. Why didn’t you tell Xiao Rui?” As she spoke, she took a pair of slippers out of the right side of the second level of the shoe cabinet. Yep — those were Qian Rui’s.

“Hey, he’s always too busy,” his father said. “I was going to wait till the weekend.”

Qian Rui was distracted the entire night. He kept staring at this “mother.” Every detail was the same — the laugh lines on her face, her moles and the things she did all made her seem like Qian Rui’s mother. And none of her answers to his questions revealed any cracks in her facade.

There was a moment where he even doubted himself: This had to be her, right? She’d actually returned from the hospital? Maybe his sickly mother had made a miraculous turnaround since he had seen her the previous night? Or perhaps he’d been mistaken, and the woman in the hospital was not his mother?

His thoughts were becoming convoluted, and the more he tried to make sense of them, the more they coiled together into one incomprehensible knot. He looked at this mother walking back and forth in front of him. He felt something was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. She asked about how his job had been recently, and even lovingly nagged him about skipping meals and not getting enough sleep.

Qian Rui managed to survive until 9:30 p.m., at which point he grabbed his bag and made a quick exit. He went back to the hospital and, making use of the warehouse door as usual, went to his mother’s room. She was still there.

He finally felt himself relax and realized he was covered in a cold sweat. He let himself breathe. At the very least, this proved his memory was real and he hadn’t gone crazy. The next second, however, he began having second thoughts again. He got close to the body in front of him and checked if there was any possibility he had the wrong person.

His mother’s ashen complexion was quite different from how it usually was: her eyes shut tight, skin loose, half of her head shaved. Only her moles — two on her cheek and one on her neck — showed it was really her, because there was no mistaking those moles.

This put him at ease once more. He remembered those three moles each time his mother held him while he was growing up. This woman, on the brink of death, was his mom. He was right in coming here this whole time. He looked at her there, alone and miserable, and tears rushed to his eyes.

But if this woman was his mother, then who was the other woman having a grand old time at his parents’ house?

Qian Rui was suddenly engulfed by a surge of indignation. She was an imposter!

He guessed it had to be the hospital’s doing. He wasn’t sure how exactly they pulled it off, but he conjectured that while the hospital didn’t ever actually cure anybody, they had access to some kind of technology for making clones who they passed off as cured patients. That would explain how the hospital had been able to claim so many miraculous cures, and why they wouldn’t let anybody in to see the patients. They weren’t miracle workers, they were fraudsters!

Qian Rui was overwhelmed by anger and anguish, bitterness and agitation. His world was spinning. He wanted to vomit. He paced frantically in the narrow hospital room. He felt the urge to start smashing things, but when he lifted a chair, his last remaining bit of reason told him that now was not the time for rashness. He knew that if he wanted to fight back against the hospital, he’d have to find another way.

That imposter had taken over his home and his father. Qian Rui resolved to expose the hospital’s lies for all to see, to restore justice for his dying mother.

Disappearance

The next day, Qian Rui went to his parents’ house for dinner after getting off work.

When his mother was in the kitchen, he quietly asked his father to go back to the hospital with him. His father asked why. After all, they’d already handled all the procedures. Qian Rui told him he’d know when they got there. His father thought Qian Rui was being too abstruse, and insisted there was no reason to go back.

Qian Rui tried again later while they were eating. Qian Rui told his father there were still some papers that needed to be signed at the hospital, and he had to go there in person. He observed his mother’s reaction while he spoke, but she was totally composed, with no hint of unease on her face.

Qian Rui said there was something at the hospital that would shock his father. His father asked what, but Qian Rui didn’t say. His father was becoming vexed. Qian Rui hadn’t visited them for so long that he didn’t even know his mother had returned from the hospital, and now he was here talking cryptic nonsense. What nerve.

Qian Rui watched as his mother put food on his plate. It had been his favorite food as a kid, but he purposefully furrowed his brow and moved the food to the communal trash plate. This upset his father, but his mother didn’t mind; she just asked him what he’d like to eat instead.

Qian Rui also brought up two pieces of recent tech news. He said some company was passing their cyborgs off as real people, and they would become a real danger in the future. Despite his veiled implication, his mother didn’t react in any way.

Qian Rui could tell something was off with this “mother,” but he couldn’t find any proof. He wanted to tell his father that she was an imposter, but he never got a chance because she stayed by his father’s side at all times.

“Mom, did I leave my favorite green shirt here last time?” Qian Rui asked deceptively at one point.

But his mother didn’t fall for it. “You hate green. What shirt are you talking about?”

Qian Rui was stumped. He couldn’t get anything out of her, and it was starting to drive him nuts.

Running out of options, Qian Rui decided to drag his father to the hospital. That night, he got his father out of the house by saying that he had to intercede on Qian Rui’s behalf to the security guard downstairs who always gave Qian Rui trouble about entering the complex. Then, with some more cajoling, he got his father into his car and drove straight to the hospital. His father was furious, asking where they were going, but Qian Rui refused to answer and just kept driving.

Once at the hospital, Qian Rui brought his father to the cargo passage. Such furtive behavior enraged his father, who tried to leave. But Qian Rui pushed his father through the space in between the supply truck and the hospital’s warehouse door, and then they took the stairs to the third floor.

Even though it was nighttime and most of the hospital’s staff had left, they still nearly ran into two nurses checking rooms. Qian Rui, hoping to avoid detection, brought his father to a dark corner so they could hide while the two nurses moved on. His father had never done something so shameful in his life. He wanted to shout out in protest, but Qian Rui put a hand over his mouth. His father struggled so hard his face turned purple.

Qian Rui and his father were drenched in sweat by the time they finally made it to Qian Rui’s mother’s room. His father was on the verge of losing it, but Qian Rui knew that as soon as he saw the truth, everything would be fine.

When he opened the door to that familiar room, however, Qian Rui’s blood ran cold. The bed was empty. The sheets were clean, without a wrinkle to be seen on them, and all of the apparatuses at the head of the bed were shut off. All of the electrodes and intubation equipment were gone too. The night air coming in through the slightly opened window made the whole room smell fresh.

Where was his mother?

Qian Rui quickly checked to make sure they had the right room number, and then he checked for any patient information by the side of the bed. There was nothing.

The only possibility was that his mother had been taken to another room. Qian Rui tried to calm himself down and contemplate what this might mean. Had the hospital picked up on his actions and suspicions? If it wasn’t to conceal the truth, why else would they move a critically ill patient to another room? Had they killed his mother after sending her copy back home so nobody would reveal their secret?

At this last thought, Qian Rui felt like he’d been plunged into ice water and couldn’t stop himself from trembling. His father, meanwhile, totally unaware of the turmoil in Qian Rui’s heart, simply felt that he’d put up with a whole night of sneaking around only to be brought to see an empty bed.

This kind of behavior from his son was simply unacceptable. Without asking for an explanation, he simply turned around and left the room with a humph. Qian Rui hurried after him, tripping over his own words to try to explain the situation. He swore he’d seen his mother in critical condition there, but his father, gripping at his chest like he might soon pass out as he hastened toward the exit, wouldn’t have it. Qian Rui followed close behind, not wanting to exacerbate his father’s bad heart.

Before leaving the room, however, Qian Rui turned back for a second. The floor, bathed in moonlight, looked abnormally cold.

He began doubting his memory. Had it all just been a dream? But that pain he’d felt sitting by his mother’s sickbed every night holding her hand had certainly been real. He chased after his father, his heart pounding with grief.

Investigation

After waking up the next day, Qian Rui thought back carefully about everything that had happened recently. Why did everything seem so suspicious? He was so upset that he skipped breakfast and phoned a friend who worked as a private investigator. His friend went by the nickname “White Crane.” Qian Rui had met him by chance during a commercial fraud investigation, and on two other occasions afterward he had helped Qian Rui look into some shady business. Qian Rui didn’t know his real name, but he was well-connected and efficient at his work.

White Crane didn’t get out of bed until nine, so Qian Rui was pacing outside his building, his impatience building like a static charge. When White Crane arrived, Qian Rui’s furrowed brow looked like the lines on sheet music.

“What’s up? Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” White Crane said before dragging Qian Rui over to a breakfast spot. White Crane took his time enjoying his food, but Qian Rui had no appetite.

“Do you know anything about hacking?” Qian Rui asked.

“A little. Why?” White Crane replied, leisurely grabbing a fried dough stick.

“Can you hack into Miracle Hospital and check recent security camera footage from room 3208 in building number two?”

“What for?”

“Can you do it or not?”

“Tell me why first,” White Crane insisted.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ll believe me,” Qian Rui began, clearing his throat. “But I think … I think my mom’s been replaced by an imposter.” Qian Rui watched White Crane’s shocked expression before moving on in a low voice. “My mom was at Miracle Hospital the past couple of days. I snuck in every night to see her. It was obvious she wasn’t going to hold on much longer. I was crying and everything. And then out of nowhere, my mom is back at home, perfectly healthy — and there’s nobody in her hospital room. It all seems wrong, but I don’t have any proof.”

White Crane ruminated for a while. He appeared shocked, but it also seemed like he had thought of something. Qian Rui waited patiently.

“Now that you say it,” White Crane began after a long while, “this reminds me of something. I had this client three years ago. He was real sick. Terminal cancer. I was bummed out about that because he still owed me a ton of cash, so he couldn’t just die like that. I went to talk to him about it a few times, but he sent me away. I guess he wasn’t feeling well and he was in a bad mood. So I figured he’d just renege on the payment. I was out of options, so I just dropped it and chalked it up as a loss. After a few days, though, I heard he was strutting out of Miracle Hospital healthy as ever. He even had me come over and paid his debt in full. I was flabbergasted. The hospital didn’t just cure his cancer; they made him a better person too! Now that I think about it, though, it’d all make more sense if he’d been replaced.”

“Exactly, that’s what I’m saying,” Qian Rui said. “Finally, somebody believes me.”

“If it’s true, though, this is huge.” White Crane was also getting excited. As a private investigator, more often than not, he just spied on cheating husbands; here was a case that actually meant something.

“Damn right it is!” Qian Rui said. “Think about how big Miracle Hospital is. There are at least 10 of them throughout the country. And they’re so expensive. They’re raking it in. If all they’re doing is making these imposters, that’s all dirty money!”

“Alright then … what do you need me to look into?” White Crane asked.

“Start with the recordings of my mom’s room,” Qian Rui whispered. “Especially during the day on the 11th. I was there on the night of the 10th. She was still in room 3208, and then on the 11th she was gone. Find out what happened that day. And then also check if there are any secret locations inside the hospital. If they are making body doubles, we have to find out how they’re doing it — how they’ve been able to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes.”

“Based on what you’ve seen, just what is this imposter they sent home? A cyborg?” White Crane asked, trying to fathom what might be going on.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Qian Rui said. “It’s too real.”

“Then it’s a clone? Those are illegal.”

“It doesn’t seem like a clone, either …” Qian Rui said, shaking his head. “A clone wouldn’t have the original’s memories, right?”

“That’s real fishy then,” White Crane mumbled, but then a second later he was patting Qian Rui on the shoulder affably. “Don’t worry. With me on the case, I guarantee we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

After White Crane left, Qian Rui wasn’t relieved like he thought he would be. Instead, he felt shaken for having disclosed this secret since he didn’t know what the consequences were going to be. Would his suspicions fizzle out due to a lack of evidence, or would they reveal a huge conspiracy and he would have to confront the dark forces behind everything?

If they really did end up unraveling the world’s greatest mystery, did Qian Rui have the strength to go toe to toe with such a large corporation? What would his life be like then? Would his name be plastered all over the internet? Or perhaps this conspiracy would lead to even more secrets. The more he thought about it, the more apprehensive he felt.

What was waiting behind this door they were about to open?

Traces

Qian Rui didn’t tell his father he hired an investigator.

His heart was still recovering after the antics at the hospital. Qian Rui worried if he told his father he’d hired somebody to expose the hospital’s dark secrets, his father would probably have a conniption. He didn’t want to tell him without any concrete proof for fear of seeming too unreasonable.

Aside from that, Qian Rui had also discovered his father had gradually become quite attached to the imposter. Perhaps his father’s affection for his wife had grown stronger after she’d seemingly been brought back from the dead. This made Qian Rui want to tell him even less, because he feared his father might alert the imposter.

Something happened later on, however, that made Qian Rui fret. His fake mother stayed inside all day convalescing, but she was already fully cured, so she had tons of energy. She kept the house sparkling clean, made three meals a day and got along perfectly with Qian Rui’s father. His father had a short fuse, so had always been irascible toward his wife. Her brush with death, however, must have made him feel guilty, so he started treating her much more gently. And now, enough time had passed that this had become his father’s new way of life.

Qian Rui went to his parents’ house often to see how his father and fake mother were getting along. “Junsheng,” his fake mother would say to his father every time they watched TV. “Get up and exercise a bit. Don’t sit for too long.” And his father would, surprisingly, heed her advice and get up and walk around.

Qian Rui’s parents had always been quite cold toward one another. They’d never been so affectionate, which made this new behavior appear both tender and bizarre. Qian Rui was increasingly conflicted. When he realized he was growing hesitant, he made a decision to carry out the investigation as quickly as possible to avoid his father becoming hopelessly wrapped up with this imposter. He was worried that his father wouldn’t be able to handle the truth and his heart problems would flare up again.

“Mom, do you remember that teacher I absolutely hated when I was little?” Qian Rui probed one day.

“Which one? Ms. Wang? Mr. Xu? Or Ms. Gu?”

“You know. The one I hated the most.”

“Ms. Gu, right?” his mother replied casually. “What about her?”

Qian Rui awkwardly thought of something: “She invited me to a student reunion last week. I don’t want to go.”

“Well then, you don’t have to,” his mother said with a placid smile.

That was suspicious too. If it had been before, his mother probably would have gotten upset and nagged him to go see his old teacher. Qian Rui’s fake mother was much more equanimous, and he had caught on to this difference in temper from the very beginning.  His mother used to act bitter and unhappy when he hadn’t come to visit in a few days, complaining that he was neglectful. But his fake mother was graciously understanding of how busy he was, and she’d urge him to take it easy. This unusual level of leniency seemed warmhearted, but it belied the artificial alienation underneath.

There were a lot of things Qian Rui found abnormal, but they were all very subtle. He couldn’t quite pin them down, and they wouldn’t count as proof if he told anybody. He had yet to catch her with anything substantial.

His fake mother remembered everything, but she seemed emotionally deficient. Qian Rui was perplexed at just what kind of replica she was.

He ended up avoiding his parents’ house. Sometimes he’d walk in the door and his mother would be rubbing his father’s feet on the sofa, which was a display of affection he hadn’t seen in years. Sometimes he’d recall the household squabbles they used to have back when his real mother was alive, and those memories brought about an anguished tightness in his chest.

Qian Rui was feeling increasingly conflicted. If the truth came out, should his father know? Was it really so wrong that his father was enjoying life again? The idea of telling his father the truth was becoming less and less appealing.

It was only as he was leaving one day, when he turned one of the hallway’s dark corners, that he suddenly remembered that lonely sickroom he’d visited on those nights. Just like this hallway, it was haunted by abandonment. And his mother then, so old, so pitiful — nobody knew she was there, and nobody cared that she even existed. Her breath then was but a whisper, but she was still holding on, struggling, as though there was some wish she hadn’t yet fulfilled. He had been the only one by his mother’s side on those desolate nights, each tear a symbol of remorse. And while he was there, perhaps his father already had his arms wrapped around the rosy-cheeked woman at home.

His heart hardened at that thought. The imposter had invaded their home; he had to expose the truth so his mother could rest peacefully!

Steeling himself, Qian Rui left the building in a cloud of anger.

A Turn Of Events

White Crane arranged to meet with Qian Rui only a few days later.

Qian Rui arrived at the agreed-upon cafe and found a seat in a tucked-away corner. For some reason, his stomach felt heavy, as though he’d swallowed a block of gold. He had no taste for coffee. White Crane finally strolled in after about a half-hour. Qian Rui was itching to ask him what he discovered.

White Crane turned on his laptop and opened a few clips of security camera footage.

The first one was from the 11th at around 4 p.m. in his mother’s hospital room. The device monitoring his mother’s heart suddenly started ringing. With that, the cardiogram and EEG scanner flatlined. They became as sharp and level as a well-made sword, filling the lonely room with a cold glow. The loud sound must’ve signaled in a control room somewhere else in the hospital. Shortly after, there were footsteps outside the door to his mother’s room.

The door opened and a single nurse walked in. He commanded the medical cart to load Qian Rui’s mother’s body, and then the automated cart noiselessly left the room. Qian Rui felt a sudden stab in his heart as he realized that his mother was about to permanently pass on. Though he’d known for a long time that this was how things would end, the feeling was absolutely crushing, like the panic that spreads through a besieged town during war.

The view switched to a camera out in the hallway. The automated medical cart glided along, following the nurse around two corners toward a door at the end of the corridor. The nurse and cart disappeared behind the door. White Crane paused the video and enlarged the frame. It was a plain door, and with the low resolution of the image, Qian Rui could only make out two callous words on it: “Low-temperature Crematorium.”

There was no need to imagine; his mother’s entire existence had ended behind that door.

Tears welled up in Qian Rui’s eyes again.

White Crane, unaware of the anguish Qian Rui was going through, was eager to plan their next move. They had enough to file an investigation of the hospital just with this footage and the imposter in Qian Rui’s home, and they might even be able to prosecute, but White Crane wanted more; he wanted to use these clues to unveil an even bigger conspiracy. The thought of riding this case to fame made him shiver with excitement. Back when he first gave up his steady career to take on this shadowy role, it wasn’t because he wanted to bust adulterers; he had been waiting for just this kind of opportunity.

White Crane had covered his tracks. He had done nothing to arouse the hospital’s suspicion. He first hacked into the hospital’s monitoring system and checked all of the videos around that date, and then he hung around the hospital’s entrance and stuck a bugging device on the collar of a doctor walking inside. He even had a couple of miniature camera drones fly over the hospital’s back wall and take pictures outside each window. He had collected about a week’s worth of information on the hospital.

“I’m telling you, it’s insane,” White Crane said. “I got everything we need. I didn’t even expect to uncover so many details. I checked the footage from the crematorium first. You have no idea — they have a ton of cremation equipment. Rows of rooms where they secretly do cremations. They’re very secretive about it, but you can tell from how they move things around that they’re burning bodies. What does this mean? It means they’re doing cremations all the time. There are way more deaths at that hospital than they’re reporting!”

“Of course,” Qian Rui said, nodding.

“But that’s not all!” White Crane said suspensefully. “What do you think I found in the science building behind the hospital?”

“What?”

“I got photos of them cultivating human organs! There are dozens of people working there every day, which means they’re really busy making these bodies. You know, cloning organs is illegal now. We can bring charges against the hospital with these pictures alone,” White Crane said. “It’s just a shame we don’t have enough evidence to prove they’re creating these full imposters.”

White Crane’s excitement was starting to rub off on Qian Rui. It was the evidence Qian Rui had been hoping for, but, surprisingly, it didn’t bring him the joy or catharsis he’d expected. Instead, all he felt was a vague seriousness and sense of unease.

“What’s wrong?” White Crane asked, nudging him with his elbow. “Any questions?”

“Oh, heh, no,” Qian Rui replied, laughing insipidly. “No problem. Great job.”

Qian Rui walked back to his parents’ house, dragging all of his mental baggage with him. White Crane told him to get ready for war, but Qian Rui was reluctant and worried. When he walked in the door, his fake mother, unexpectedly, was not there; she was out getting groceries. He made up his mind to tell his father right then.

“Dad,” he began uncertainly, “have you heard that … Miracle Hospital might be defrauding people?”

“What are you talking about?” his father asked incredulously, removing his reading glasses.

“Like … they’re not curing anybody. They’re just pretending they are.” Qian Rui wasn’t sure how to tell him.

“How’s that possible? Anybody with two eyes could tell you that’s not true. You’ve seen your mother, haven’t you? She’s been cured,” his father said, furrowing his brow. He couldn’t understand why his son would say such a thing. “They’ve been operating for so many years now without any issues.”

Qian Rui wasn’t sure how to proceed. He wanted to tell him that that woman wasn’t his real wife, but for some reason, he couldn’t get it out. The words got all twisted up in his mouth so that when he finally spoke next, he said, “Dad, have you ever thought about what it would have been like if mother died in the hospital?”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” his father said. “It wasn’t easy for your mom to recover. Don’t curse her like that.”

“I’m not,” Qian Rui explained desperately. “I just mean … hypothetically.”

“I don’t even want to entertain the thought,” his father said, massaging his chest. “My heart almost acted up twice while your mother was in the hospital. It’s better now, but the doctor said the most important thing is not to worry too much. I really thought I was being punished by the heavens then for having such a bad temper. Thank god they spared me.”

Without another word, his father habitually reached for his left shirt pocket — he smoked whenever he got upset — but he grasped at air. His pocket was empty. His father looked down in confusion for a few seconds before remembering why, and this made Qian Rui feel even worse. He knew his father had quit smoking and started taking his health more seriously as a way of thanking the heavens for sparing his wife.

His reluctance grew as he watched his father. If believing in a lie made somebody happy, should you really tell them the truth?

Going To Battle

White Crane had Qian Rui meet him again three days later, this time at a hot pot restaurant. White Crane apparently wanted to take advantage of the clamor of the busy restaurant to mask the secret intel he was going to reveal. The steamy white vapors from the hot pot seemed to wrap around him like a veil.

White Crane had critical information. A secret informer had helped him get an internship at the hospital. He’d been uncovering the hospital’s secrets as a spy for the last three days.

“Anything about the imposters?” Qian Rui asked.

“Yep,” White Crane said, flashing his eyebrows. “Just as we expected, they’ve figured out how to grow human cells with incredible speed. They can make them age and they use the patient’s DNA to create a duplicate of the body. I saw the body parts of these fast-aging duplicates. They replicated like cancer, creating a new body through the growth medium. You have no idea, man. It’s freaky as hell.”

Qian Rui shivered.

“I looked into what you said about their memories, too, and I found something even more shocking,” White Crane continued. “All of the bodies they make have the same functions as real human bodies. The development of the brains, however, stops at a very primitive level because the duplicates don’t have any time for learning. So the hospital uses smart technology to deal with this. They do scans of the patient’s neural connections, recording the entire connectome, and then convert the neural connection model into a sequence that is implanted into the new body’s brain. Going off of this sequence, the new cranial nerves grow based on the past model, which has the effect of allowing the new body to quickly emulate the brain of the original patient. This preserves that person’s genes and cerebral memory, but in a different body.”

“How did you find out about all this?” Qian Rui asked, somewhat in awe, but mostly terrified.

“It wasn’t easy!” White Crane said. “I used a micro-camera to capture all of the critical evidence. The hospital has been denying access to families of patients and keeping their treatment methods under wraps all these years. Why? Because they’re hiding these secrets. They’re extremely protective. If I wasn’t such a veteran gumshoe, it would’ve been impossible to break through their security measures. There were two times I nearly blew it!”

White Crane showed Qian Rui some videos that he risked his neck recording. He talked about how dangerous it had been getting evidence out of the lab. He appeared very pleased with himself.

These revelations had gotten White Crane exceptionally worked up. He had already contacted a lawyer friend of his to deliver the coup de grace to the hospital. This caught Qian Rui off guard; he didn’t think his personal case would go public so quickly. White Crane had put together a team, though. They were all connections he’d made on the job over the years, including the partner of a well-known law firm, a popular news editor, two online influencers who covered current events, two competing hospitals and the inspector-general of the ministry of health management. White Crane was extremely well-connected from having helped so many different people with their touchy problems over the years.

Qian Rui was feeling uncertain, but he didn’t want to step on White Crane’s toes. “Isn’t it a little early for all that? It seems a little reckless to be contacting people already. Maybe we should just do some more investigating first?”

“We’ve done enough investigating!” White Crane said confidently. “The concrete evidence we have now proves they’re conducting illegal experiments, and they’re doing them with the hospital’s patients. That’s enough to take them to court and fine them out the wazoo. And if we can stir the pot a little more, all the cracks in their armor will start to show.”

“What other cracks are there?” Qian Rui asked, somewhat stupefied.

“I don’t have enough evidence to prove it yet, but all of their previous patients they claimed to have cured were actually imposters too,” White Crane said, moving closer. “I don’t have those records, though, so I still can’t prove it. If I can’t get that evidence, then the most we can do is charge them with conducting illegal experiments. But if we have enough proof, we can charge them with murder and fraud. That’s not just violating medical research regulations; those are serious criminal charges. We can take down their entire group.”

“You really want to go after them like that?” Qian Rui asked tentatively.

“You’ve gotta be vicious,” White Crane said. He lowered his voice and explained what the person he hired to investigate the hospital’s finances found: “This hospital is known for curing terminal illnesses. All the money they collect is from people about to die, people whose families don’t care about cost, so they can charge an astronomical amount. Their profits are ridiculous. I’m telling you, they move a lot of money around, and they’ve made extensive investments in related sectors, including buying tech companies and treatment centers up and down the entire supply network, so that nobody ever finds out their secrets. They’ve become this huge, convoluted medical empire. The hospital’s chairman is this super-mysterious, ultra-rich dude. He’s gone through a lot of trouble to make himself hard to find, probably because he knows how disgraceful the stuff he’s involved with is. Nobody’s ever really seen him all these years. I bet they won’t expect him to fall right into my net this time.” White Crane had a prideful smile on his face like he’d just caught the biggest bass in the ocean.

“This doesn’t seem like it’s going to be easy,” Qian Rui murmured.

“It’s not. That’s why I need your help again,” White Crane said, snaking his arm over Qian Rui’s shoulders like they were close pals. “Help me check your mom’s record. She was discharged not too long ago, so they should still be able to check it. Take pictures of all of her daily tests for me. If they replaced her with an imposter, there should be some kind of discrepancy between them that will show up on the tests. If it really is an imposter, there’ll definitely be a trace of it there.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that,” Qian Rui said. “They wouldn’t even let me in to see her before. Now she’s not even a patient and you want me to get access to her record?”

“How will you know without trying?” White Crane said, egging him on.

Qian Rui tried to refuse a bit more, but in the end, even though he wasn’t very willing, he agreed to give it a shot.

A few days later, Qian Rui met the crew that White Crane had put together. They were all sharp characters unafraid of twisting the lion’s tail, and they were now united against a common enemy. They vowed to expose the hospital and put its leaders to shame. They put together an action plan: First, they’d report the hospital’s murders to the prosecutor’s office, and then, once the trial began, the media and influential people would start focusing on the story to draw in public interest. Then they’d expose the finances of the hospital’s grand medical empire, and finally, they’d get the government involved to ensure that the hospital was brought to its knees. Throughout their small meetings, Qian Rui began to feel increasingly uneasy.

Memories

Qian Rui couldn’t sleep that night. He lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling. He realized that the most entrenched memories he had of his mother were starting to fade along with his resentment of the imposter. He hadn’t dreamt of his mother in many days. Around the time she had just passed, he would see her withered face every time he closed his eyes, which prevented him from falling asleep. Now, however, that pain was diminishing.

He rolled around in bed, racked by sorrowful thoughts. Why did memories have to fade? Why did memories that once seemed more important than anything disappear after a while? A part of him could tell that forgetting was a form of self-deception and self-protection. If one could forget all of one’s guilt, perhaps one would find it easier to start a new life.

But could he allow himself to forget all of his guilt?

He went to his parents’ house the next morning and went straight to his old room from when he was a child. He wanted to look through his old pictures to find records of his youth, to find every memory he had involving his mother.

He scrolled through the images on his old hard drive. Even though they were digital, they looked so old, as though they’d faded over time. The more he looked, the more he felt that he’d let his mother down over the years. Some pictures reminded him of the time he had a falling out with her over some girl he liked. He had said a lot of hurtful things to her then, but the way things played out proved that that girl wasn’t nearly as perfect as he had perceived; she fawned over some other guy who started flirting with her, and Qian Rui broke things off with her quickly. But he couldn’t take back those hurtful things he’d said to his mother.

Another group of photos reminded him of his first birthday party after he had started working. He held a little dinner party with his colleagues and his mother came, but he was too busy drinking and hobnobbing in an attempt to build his professional network that he forgot all about his mother. By the time he remembered, she had already gone.

Another picture was from when his mom booked a table at a restaurant for her own birthday and invited Qian Rui and his father. Qian Rui had been trying to avoid going because he was swamped with writing a report for a project at work, and his father was in a terrible mood because he had just quit smoking, so he showed up really late. When Qian Rui arrived at the restaurant, his mother was crying. When his father finally came, his mother complained plaintively for a bit, but then she wiped away her tears and they all took a family photo. The forced smiles on their faces looked especially unpleasant now.

All these memories were starting to make him feel anguished again, and he was overcome with remorse that his mother passed before he had been able to make things up to her.

These feelings provided him with some encouragement to help White Crane.

He called up the hospital for his mother’s medical records. He was told that he could schedule a time to come to the hospital and look at them, but because of patient privacy concerns, he couldn’t take them out. Qian Rui pleaded to no avail, so he just scheduled a time to go to the hospital.

As he was leaving his room, he ran into his fake mother who was preparing to go grocery shopping. She had a big shopping list and she wasn’t sure if she should walk or take public transport, so Qian Rui’s father told him to go with her. Seeing no way to refuse, Qian Rui accompanied his fake mother out the door.

He walked a short distance behind his fake mother. Neither of them made contact with each other, and his mother didn’t turn around either. Qian Rui felt as though he was following something he’d never catch up to, like time slipping away.

After they turned a corner, his fake mother suddenly turned and said, “This was the road you used to take to school every day.”

Qian Rui froze for a moment, trying to decipher what his mother meant by this. It sparked something from the past, and Qian Rui saw himself as a child in his school uniform swerving through the narrow lane on his bike, eyebrows knit. His lunchbox hung from his handlebars and his face was solemn as he watched a girl brushing her ponytail from afar. That was a long time ago.

Next, they came to a corner near his old middle school, which prompted another scene from the past. He was 14 then, but his mother still worried about him. If he tarried coming home after school, his mother would always wait for him at this intersection, sometimes carrying snacks for him. He used to think she looked so lame standing there with her canvas bag and red sweater, and he’d be anxious for her to leave so his classmates wouldn’t make fun of him.

He stood there, frozen in place, as though he could see his grim-faced, arrogant, obstinate self from 20 years ago in front of him. Qian Rui in the present had somehow taken on the role of his mother then, looking at her son from far away, wanting to go to him but unable to move, and simultaneously too worried to leave. Just stuck there, skewered by the disdainful glare coming down the lane.

These memories brought on an intense feeling of melancholy again. Why was it only now that he understood the significance of those scenes? It was all too late …

Just then, the fake mother to his side turned to him and said, “I used to come here to pick you up from school, but you didn’t want to see me. I know it’s because you didn’t like how I looked. You even said so, but I still came. Were you thinking of that too? It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Qian Rui looked at his fake mother in shock as she calmly recounted these memories. When she said “It’s okay,” it was like a balloon had been popped inside Qian Rui’s head, like something burst inside his heart, and he felt tears threatening to come out. Who was this person before him? Why did she have the same exact memories as his real mother, and yet everything else about them seemed somehow different? Was it really okay? Had he really been forgiven for treating his mother poorly for so long?

His fake mother moved closer and patted him on the shoulder warmly. He didn’t shrink away.

Qian Rui helped his fake mother buy groceries, and later they had a peaceful family supper. After dinner, they had a video call with Qian Rui’s sister, who was studying for her Ph.D. in the U.S. She was eight years his junior, beaming with youthful exuberance, and didn’t keep up too much with family matters. It was morning where she was, and even though they could tell from her eyes that she’d just gotten out of bed, she was cheerful and animated as she shared stories about university life with them. Qian Rui’s parents made sure his sister was taking care of herself, and then his sister talked privately with his fake mother, probably about her new boyfriend. His fake mother didn’t say much; she just nodded and smiled.

Qian Rui came out of the bathroom just in time to see from afar his sister saying good night to his fake mother on the iPad. At that instant, Qian Rui suddenly thought how great it would be if his family could be this happy all the time.

He closed his eyes, recalling again those final days in the hospital room, and he felt that dull throbbing ache in his chest.

The Meeting

The next time Qian Rui and White Crane met, White Crane wanted to raise charges against the hospital in advance. Qian Rui was taken aback. He wasn’t fully ready for the battle ahead.

“Why so soon?” Qian Rui asked. “I haven’t gotten my mother’s medical records yet.” He was trying to appear as calm as possible because he didn’t want to give away how reluctant he was inside.

“We can’t wait,” White Crane said. “The hospital knows what we’re up to. They keep pausing their work and destroying evidence. They even sent people to steal the evidence we had. Two of our team’s computers got hacked into. They erased everything. Luckily it wasn’t anything too critical, and there are backups of most of the evidence.”

They had met outside a McDonald’s. At first, Qian Rui thought White Crane was going to talk about sensitive information in a public place again, but instead he brought Qian Rui through a series of twisting roads and lanes to an old apartment complex. There, they groped about in the dark, brick building until they finally reached a door on the fourth floor. The building was a relic from the last century with few inhabitants left, as everybody who could move had already done so. It was cold, dismal and deserted, but they certainly didn’t have to worry about security cameras here, as there weren’t many places in the city as primitive as this.

White Crane pushed the door open and Qian Rui discovered the apartment inside was actually well furnished. Everything from the wallpaper to the bar was kept in good order, making it obvious that there was somebody managing the place. There were already several people sitting inside having a spirited discussion about something. Stifling cigarette smoke coiled around the room.

Qian Rui sat down on the sofa. In front of the sofa was a coffee table, on top of which were glasses of beer and liquor drunk down to the bottom. He was about to reach out to grab a clean glass for some water, but a newspaper on the coffee table caught his attention. The newspaper had a sensational headline: “Area Hospital Murdering Patients and Running Schemes: Are the Shocking Rumors True?”

His heart skipped a beat. So the battle was already underway?

He anxiously picked up the newspaper and read it carefully. He could tell the article had been crafted to be provocative and probing. It included plenty of sweeping conjecture and ambiguous suspicion, but not much in the way of credible evidence or concrete accusations. It reeked of yellow journalism, but it fell short of outright rumormongering too.

Qian Rui guessed this was an attempt to rattle the hospital into revealing something. Judging from the way the article was written, it was clear they were waiting for an appropriate time to expose more. This was the prelude to the main assault. He had already met the people sitting in the room once or twice before, but he didn’t really know them. This was clearly his case; why were these people more excited about it than he was?

“Qian Rui, we still need you to be the one to present the case,” White Crane said, pulling Qian Rui out of his own head.

“But …” Qian Rui began diffidently, “I haven’t gotten my mother’s medical records yet …”

“That’s fine. We’ve had a breakthrough hacking into the hospital’s systems recently,” White Crane said. “Remember when you had me check the hospital’s security camera footage last time? I only pulled footage from the night of the 11th like you asked, but the next day I realized I should have copied all of the footage from around that time. But when I hacked into their systems the next day, they’d deleted all of the recordings from that time. I thought it was just routine maintenance, but the hospital’s firewall was upgraded shortly after. It wasn’t until recently, when we got into their systems again, that we found backups of the footage from those days in a different drive. This footage is enough to prove your testimony is true, and enough to take down the hospital in one shot.”

“So … since you have concrete evidence, why don’t you guys just present the charges?” Qian Rui said. “Don’t have me lead the charge.”

A middle-aged man with a square face sitting nearby spoke up. Qian Rui recognized him as an influential lawyer. “You don’t have to worry. We wouldn’t have decided to strike without being able to ensure your safety,” he said in a soothing voice. “No matter how powerful the hospital is, they wouldn’t dare do anything to you under our watch.”

Qian Rui shook his head. He wasn’t sure how to explain his complicated headspace. “It’s not them seeking revenge I’m worried about …”

“Then what is it?” White Crane asked impatiently.

“It’s just …” Qian Rui began, thinking about what he wanted to say. “I’m thinking, can we be sure the hospital is really evil? Why don’t we talk about it with the hospital’s chairman first?”

“You want to settle this out of court? Ask for a settlement?” the lawyer asked. “I would advise against that. Now is the time to strike, not go against them lightly. Nothing good would come of trying to negotiate something with their chairman. The operation they’re running is so huge, there’s no way they’d be willing to let you coerce them into something. And if we show them our trump cards too early, it will give them time to prepare. If you coordinate with our attack, we’ll be able to take them out in one move, and you’ll receive more than enough compensation then.”

“It’s not about the compensation,” Qian Rui said. He knew they were all getting annoyed with his perplexing attitude, so he reorganized his thoughts before speaking again. “My point is, is what they’re doing really that wrong? Is it really a crime to create an imposter and send it home as the patient? Isn’t it a little extreme to go ahead and sue them?”

“How is that not a crime?” White Crane fumed. “The patient and the imposter are two different people. Killing one and sending the other home is, first of all, deceiving the consumer and, second, a horrible murder and disrespect for human life. The imposter goes home good as new while the sick patient dies all alone — is that not murder? You can’t waver on this now.”

Qian Rui sighed. He still had misgivings. “I’m just thinking, do they really count as two different people? Their genes and memories are the same; they’ve just swapped bodies. Couldn’t they still be seen as the same person?”

“Now’s not the time to get all philosophical,” said the veteran reporter sitting at the other end of the room. “That won’t get you anywhere. The imposters are not humans. They’re robots. They are bodies controlled by computer chips and programs, right? That’s a robot.”

“You should think about something more practical instead of worrying about the philosophical implications of whether it’s one person or two,” added the lawyer. “Do you know how much the chairman of Miracle Hospital is worth? It’s an appalling number. He’s a multi-billionaire. How did a small-time businessman like him do it? He started with the very first Miracle Hospital, and now he controls the entire medical industry, including a few media entities that he uses to keep everything under wraps. You tell me; can we really let a guy like this, who profits off the suffering of others, go free?

“Exactly!” White Crane chimed in. “This is a crucial moment. We can’t get cold feet now. Think about your mom. If you accept that imposter as your new mom and don’t speak up now, what would your mom think of you? Wherever she is now, she knows what’s going on. Don’t you want her to rest with a smile on her face? And think about all the other families like yours. You can’t show the hospital any mercy.”

Qian Rui listened and nodded, his heart heavy. He didn’t try to say anything else.

The Conversation

The day before the first court session, the detective called Qian Rui to go over some essential matters regarding his court appearance.

Qian Rui was in his own apartment, feeling a little out of sorts, his mind wandering throughout the call. His eyes were twitching and his heart was weirdly starting to race. When he finished the call, he saw a news alert on his phone and was shocked to see the name “Miracle Hospital” in the headline. It was the heavyweight cover story that predicted things to come. 

Reading the article, he saw that while they hadn’t officially dropped the bomb yet, they were broaching the subject. His own name appeared in the article too, as the first victim brave enough to speak out and initiate the criminal lawsuit. He was painted as standing up for all the other victims. Qian Rui’s throat turned dry as he wondered just when he had been propped up in this perilous role.

He went out onto his balcony for some air. He hoped the coolness would soothe his agitated mind. Out of nowhere, his phone rang, making his heart skip a beat. It was his fake mother. His father had had a sudden heart attack at home. They were on their way to the hospital now. His dad had requested to go to Miracle Hospital. Feeling his heart jump up into his mouth, Qian Rui hung up his phone and rushed to the hospital.

What had happened? Why would his father’s heart act up all of a sudden? Why Miracle Hospital again?

Qian Rui’s thoughts were all over the place.

When he got to the hospital, he saw his fake mother sitting in the waiting room outside the inpatient area. He hurried over to ask her what was going on. His fake mother said that his father had seen some news on his phone and suddenly became agitated. At first, his face turned pale, and then he started fuming, but before he could explain why, he had a heart attack. All he managed to tell her was that he wanted to go to Miracle Hospital.

Qian Rui guessed what news his father had seen. He stood there in the waiting room. No matter how much he swallowed, his throat burned with painful anxiety; his heart even more so. This was making him even more indecisive. He wondered if he was doing something cruel to his father.

He kept asking the nurse at the door if he could go into the inpatient area, but he was denied each time. Dejected, he sat with his fake mother. He put his arms on his knees and buried his head between his hands. When he looked up again, he found that his fake mother was sitting there totally unperturbed, and this made his growing affection for her wane. He started rejecting her in his mind again. How could she be so tranquil? She was a fake wife, after all. She had no real emotions. Qian Rui felt like his head was about to split open from pain.

“Don’t worry,” his fake mother said when she noticed him staring at her.

“What did the doctor say?” Qian Rui asked.

His mother smiled and said, “The doctor said it’s about time for a heart transplant. They have quite advanced organ generation technology now. It’s quite simple to do surgery and switch hearts.”

“Switch hearts?” This stirred something inside Qian Rui, prompting him to ask, “If you switch out every part of someone’s body, are they still the original person?”

His fake mother remained composed. “Of course they are,” she said. “I heard that every cell in our bodies gets replaced after a while. The matter in your body now is already different from the matter in your body a year ago, but nobody feels like they aren’t themselves. People’s minds and memories are continuous.”

“So the brain always stays the same?” Qian Rui asked, his eyes fixed on her.

“Well, no,” his mother said, shaking her head. “Your brain changes every day too. Memories are continuous, but all of our thoughts are changing. The brain can change too.”

Qian Rui pondered her words carefully. He didn’t know why, but he felt like she was implying something, so he questioned her further: “So is there anything in us that never changes?”

“If you’re talking about any specific elements or ideas, then … no,” she said. “But don’t get too caught up in these kinds of questions, since there might not be any answers. The parts change, but the whole remains the same. You will always be you.”

“But how do I know I am me?” Qian Rui was staring at her intently, as though he wanted to drill a hole through her face and see inside her brain.

“That’s not what’s important,” his mother said, seemingly willing to answer his riddle with one of her own. “What’s important is that the people in your life know you’re you.”

“What do you mean?” he pressed.

“Just what I said.” He felt like his mother was trying to tell him something through the expression in her eyes. “As long as the people in your life know you’re you.”

Qian Rui’s heart was beating quickly in his chest. He didn’t know why she would say this. Was she just responding to his questions, or did she fully understand what he was getting at? Did she know what she was?

Qian Rui realized he couldn’t get a read on her. She was identical to his mother in every way, even the way she’d stop in the middle of what she was saying as though she was hesitating. But she was far more placid than his mother; it seemed nothing could faze her, perhaps because she hadn’t had time, as a newly created person, to fully develop her emotions.

But her mind and memories were obviously his mother’s, and he realized that he had never been able to get a read on his mother before either. He desperately wanted to remember all of the little things his mother had garrulously said to him over the years, but he couldn’t.

When he really thought about it, he realized that he didn’t understand the people around him nearly as much as he thought he did. It was an exceptionally painful realization.

What did she mean? Was it a plea for acceptance? The barrier held up between Qian Rui and his fake mother was starting to come down, but for some reason, he didn’t feel like stopping that from happening; on the contrary, there actually seemed to be some good in its removal.

“As long as the people in your life can accept you, right?” Qian Rui asked, following his mother’s logic.

Just then his phone rang. It was an unknown number. He stood up, walked a few feet away, and answered. It was Miracle Hospital notifying him it was time for his scheduled look at his mother’s medical records and that a staff member would receive him at the hospital’s archives at 5 p.m. Before the end of the call, the sweet-sounding woman on the other end told Qian Rui that after he looked at the records, the hospital’s chairman would like to meet with him in his office.

Qian Rui felt like his throat was choked with weeds. He couldn’t get any words out. The chairman’s office? So he knew about their plan? Why did he want to meet with Qian Rui? What was he going to say? A dull anxiety grew in Qian Rui the more he thought about it.

Back in the waiting room, his fake mother wanted to talk with him more, but his mind was too scattered and he couldn’t focus. They sat there quietly on the bench, looking at the door to the operating room Qian Rui’s father had been wheeled into, nervous and tense.

Qian Rui felt something in the shadows was waiting to be revealed.

Preparing For Battle

That afternoon, Qian Rui received a text from White Crane telling him to hurry to Miracle Hospital to take part in their rally. White Crane didn’t know that Qian Rui was already inside the hospital.

Standing at the waiting room’s window, Qian Rui saw people starting to gather outside the hospital’s entrance. They arrived in groups — he wasn’t sure from where, pouring in from all directions. Some of them had protest signs, but it was obvious they were hired demonstrators — they lacked even the slightest bit of passionate indignation. There was all manner of accusations written on their signs, some decrying the hospital’s exorbitant fees, others accusing the hospital of concealing patients’ conditions; only a handful of signs mentioned the hospital’s deceptive false cures.

Qian Rui knew this was the work of White Crane’s crew to make it seem like the hospital had already ignited the anger of the masses. It was clear they were still holding back the most damning secrets though. The protestors didn’t press forward, either; they just gathered a few yards outside the hospital, where they mostly waved their signs and chanted at passersby. They weren’t trying to get anything out of the hospital — they were putting on a show for the media.

White Crane called Qian Rui on the phone again. “Where are you?” he demanded. “Get down here!”

Looking out, Qian Rui could see White Crane outside talking to him on the phone, but he didn’t let him know he was inside the hospital.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked White Crane.

“We’re demonstrating. Putting some pressure on the hospital and heating things up for the trial tomorrow,” White Crane said. “The court is going to consider both sides’ influence when they make their verdict. They want to know who they shouldn’t mess with, so we need to let them know we have the support of the people on our side.”

“Then carry on. Why do you need me there?”

“Oh, come on!” White Crane said. “You’re the man of the hour; how could you not show up? The protestors will look up to you.”

“Where did you get all those people anyway?” Qian Rui asked.

“It wasn’t hard. Did you think we’re the only ones pissed off at the hospital? I found them online. They volunteered.”

“What do they know?”

“There are some things they know, and some things they don’t,” White Crane said. He had also started speaking in riddles. “What they know is the rich are living longer than the poor. They know this hospital has a penchant for miracles and that they can cure the terminal illness of any moneybags that comes in, sending them home to live a long, healthy life. Without money, you can’t even get a consultation, making any disease a possible death sentence. So this is the only hospital in the world that can pull off these miracles, and it just so happens to only serve the rich — how could it not be hated? We’re shining a spotlight on wealth disparity. I didn’t have to trick anybody into coming here; there were plenty itching to protest. But they probably don’t know about the whole imposter thing.”

White Crane was pacing around. Qian Rui understood that even though White Crane had hired people to help his cause, it’s not like there wasn’t any actual support. If you could put a price on human life, plenty of people would find themselves in dire straits. It had even become a privilege to be replaced by an imposter. Considering this, Qian Rui wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or aggrieved.

“Where the hell are you anyway?” White Crane asked impatiently again.

“I’m at Miracle Hospital,” Qian Rui replied, finally telling the truth. “My dad got sick.”

Qian Rui quickly explained how his father had asked to come to Miracle Hospital after he saw the news this morning and the shock gave him a heart attack. He muttered through his reservations — how his father was old and couldn’t take much stress; how they’d just barely gotten his mother back, and if his father knew she was a fake, that might be the final nail in the coffin for him. Maybe it was better to keep the truth from him so he and his fake mother could enjoy their twilight years together.

“You’re losing it, man!” White Crane raged on the other end of the line. “You can worry about telling him the truth after he gets out of the hospital, but things are dire now. If we don’t step in and bring the hospital down now, it might not be your dad coming home, but an imposter.”

His words came like a bucket of ice water dumped on Qian Rui’s head, chilling him to the bone. He shivered involuntarily. He thought about how he had accompanied his mother on those final, gloomy nights, and watched her body be discarded in the end. He didn’t want to relive that, and this thought helped him recompose. He remembered what White Crane had said to him during their last meeting: Think about your mother’s final days. If you accept this imposter, how would your mom feel?

“Okay. I’ll come,” he said to White Crane.

He balled up his hand into a fist and pressed it tightly against the window, hoping to draw courage from the cold, unyielding glass. The protestors’ numbers were growing outside. He walked toward the exit to join his comrades declaring war against the hospital system. He refused to look toward his fake mother in the waiting room, however, because he was afraid he would waver again if he saw her face.

The Meeting

Qian Rui was feeling sapped after the afternoon demonstration. He had stood amid the crowd of protesters who had gathered together, and their indignation had rubbed off on him. When their protest was over, that indignation had not dissipated, but only grown stronger. It was only then that he realized this resentment could not be released through protest. He needed an outlet, a release, an eruption — or an amends.

He arrived at the hospital’s archives on the third floor at 5 p.m. After his face and fingerprint scans were verified at the glass door in the middle of the hallway, he entered, the doors closing softly behind him.

Qian Rui swiveled his head to glance at the tightly shut glass doors, but he didn’t stop. He continued alone toward the open door that led to a small room at the end of the hallway. The metal walls were devoid of decoration. The white light in the small room was the only light source as the day slowly dimmed outside.

The only things inside the small room were an empty table, a steel armchair and a small, grey, leather sofa. There was a neat folder on the table. Nobody else was in the room.

Qian Rui walked over, sat down on the hard armchair, and picked up the folder. His heart was beating intensely. He fumbled around with the folder for a while without opening it, and then he rubbed his hands together and placed them flat on the table so he could compose himself. He took a deep breath.

The first two pages of the report were filled with typical personal information. The middle three pages were diagnostic details; the type of cancer, symptom history, treatment history and initial pathology. All standard. Qian Rui looked through it carefully and couldn’t find anything out of place. A word written on the final diagnosis — “malignant” — stuck out. Had her cancer been diagnosed as malignant? Had his mother been doomed all along?

He flipped forward in the report. The last few pages were all pathology information that he couldn’t understand. Judging by the scattered numbers, however, his mother’s cancer had metastasized quickly. At the end of June, it was located around her stomach only, but by the beginning of July it had spread to all of her internal organs. The CT scans showed terrifying splotches of creeping blackness. After this came countless forms recording her vitals for each day. Some of the figures were falling, and it showed a decline in heart function too. All of this data looked reliable, and it seemed to be reflecting the obvious truth. It was all in front of him.

This made Qian Rui apprehensive. It was clear as day that the numbers inside this report detailed the terminal progression of his mother’s illness. Why were they showing him this so openly? Did they not fear that he would piece everything together and use it as evidence in court? Or perhaps they knew full well his reason for coming, and something emboldened them to not fear it?

He continued flipping through the pages suspiciously, working his way to the end. When he turned to the last page, the first thing that caught his eye was his mother’s signature. A shiver of realization ran through him. Nothing else on the page concerned him; he just stared transfixed at his mother’s signature and the handwritten date. There was no doubt it was hers. June 23. That was the day after her cancer was diagnosed as malignant. What did that mean? A storm of possibilities brewed in his head before he gathered himself and looked at the text above his mother’s signature.

It was an authorization agreement. Qian Rui read through it intently before finally understanding: His mother had allowed Miracle Hospital to conduct a full scan of her brain and implant the scan data into an artificial body. In other words, his mother knew about everything that had happened; she had even agreed to it.

His mother knew everything?

She authorized the brain scan and the duplication? How could that be?

Had she given up? Was she unwilling to fight, and instead agreed to give her family over to an artificial person? Why had she done this? Was it to comfort Qian Rui and his father?

Qian Rui’s chest tightened, his breath quickening. Everything had suddenly become clear, and yet nothing made sense. The report crumpled as he clutched at it in anxious bewilderment.

Just then, the door slid open. Qian Rui looked toward the doorway in surprise, but there was nobody there. A woman’s voice came in from the ceiling via a PA system: “Mr. Qian, it is time for your meeting with the hospital’s chairman, Mr. Lu. Please follow the arrows to your destination.” Qian Rui saw there were green arrows on the floor heading out of the room. He reluctantly followed them, turned the corner, and came to a concealed elevator.

The elevator came to a stop on the eighth floor, the hospital’s highest. There was only one room here: the chairman’s office.

Qian Rui stepped forward in a state of confusion, entering into an abnormally spacious, rectangular office, three sides of which were covered in floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around the room, affording an extensive vista of the city. The office was dimly lit by spotlights near the walls, a standing lamp near the sofa and a table lamp on the desk, which allowed one to appreciate the bustling glow of the city lights outside. Qian Rui stood at the entranceway, hesitating.

There was only one person in the room sitting on the sofa next to the coffee table under the standing lamp. He was brewing tea with a fine tea set. Qian Rui supposed this was Mr. Lu, the hospital’s chairman. He lifted the kettle and carefully poured steaming hot water into the teapot, letting it rinse the leaves inside before pouring it out over a ceramic tea pet and returning the teapot to the tray. Then he brewed the tea again, letting it infuse the leaves longer this time, before pouring the tea into two small, green cups.

It was only then that he looked up at Qian Rui, standing in the doorway. He motioned for Qian Rui to sit in the nearby armchair. He pushed one of the porcelain cups of tea toward Qian Rui. Qian Rui sat and watched, but did not drink. He was on high alert.

Mr. Lu was a short, skinny man with a crew cut. He wore an ordinary shirt with the sleeves rolled up. There was nothing ostentatious about his appearance. One would likely pass over him in a crowd, and certainly nobody would guess he was the head of a mighty medical empire.

Qian Rui waited for Mr. Lu. It was a long while before he spoke: “I know what you all are doing.”

“Oh yeah?” Qian Rui asked. “Then you know what we’re investigating too, right?”

“Yes,” Mr. Lu replied calmly.

“So everything we’ve found is true?” White Crane had basically confirmed the answer to this already, but Qian Rui wanted to hear Mr. Lu admit it himself. “You’re sending imposters home to act as recovered patients?”

The chairman neither denied this, nor did he directly answer Qian Rui’s question. Instead, he had a question of his own: “Are you going to appear in court tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Qian Rui nodded. Qian Rui felt he saw through the chairman’s attitude, so he asked him another question: “Is there anything you want to explain to me about tomorrow’s court hearing?”

“In theory, you are the accuser, and I am the defendant,” Mr. Lu said. “There is no need for me to explain myself to you right now, nor would it be appropriate. However, I would like to tell you my own story.”

Qian Rui nodded, not thinking it odd. He knew Mr. Lu didn’t just invite him here for tea; he certainly had some things to say as well. Given that Qian Rui knew the truth, he expected Mr. Lu would try to appeal to his emotions and arrange an out-of-court settlement. Qian Rui waited silently for Mr. Lu to begin his story.

Mr. Lu brewed some more tea. This was the third infusion. The tea’s color was becoming slightly richer, and its flavor had reached its peak. Qian Rui was not optimistic about the story Mr. Lu was about to tell. He was expecting Mr. Lu to try to sway him, and so he was already on guard.

“I was once a very ambitious investment manager in my youth …” Mr. Lu began.

The chairman shared his story with Qian Rui. There was a period of time when he worked day and night at a new company. He was always going on business trips to try to get involved with more projects and to leave a good impression on his bosses. Eventually, he became a partner at the company, just like he’d wanted.

His daughter became very sick at that time, though, and he had to care for her while managing the company. During one especially hectic period when he was responsible for taking a client public, he stayed at the client’s office for three days straight to help organize their financial reports. He would call his daughter, and she sounded extremely tired over the phone. Once the IPO was settled, Mr. Lu dragged himself home, only to find his house empty.

He felt like he’d just been torn from a dream and broke into a sweat immediately. While he was working, his daughter’s illness had taken an abrupt turn for the worse. Her immune system started failing and an ambulance took her to the ICU the night before. He rushed to the hospital. His daughter was on the verge of passing out when he arrived, but she was obviously happy to see him. A steady stream of tears rolled down her cheeks.

Her condition quickly became critical. Mr. Lu cared for her during her final week. He was desperate to do whatever he could for her, as though if he were dedicated enough he could make up for the reality of things and assuage his guilt.

But it was all for naught. He watched his daughter’s life slip away before his very eyes.

Mr. Lu was grief-stricken and inconsolably remorseful after that. He quit his job, sold his shares and sequestered himself. He kept thinking about the last week he spent with his daughter, watching her life slip through his fingers. He cursed himself for not being with her during the most crucial time before she got sick. He was racked by guilt and had frequent nightmares. It was a struggle to keep going.

“Even now, I would be willing to sacrifice anything for another chance …” The chairman stopped there, his eyes gleaming at Qian Rui. “Afterwards, I yearned to do something that could let me save lives. A way of absolving my guilt. Can you understand that feeling?”

Qian Rui felt like he’d been fixed in a tractor beam. It was a little uncomfortable. If he had to be honest, Qian Rui was certainly familiar with that feeling. It was strikingly similar to his own experiences. For a moment, his nose tingled like he was about to cry, but he couldn’t let himself appear weak. After all, the man sitting across from him was who he was bringing charges against in court tomorrow. He avoided Mr. Lu’s glare and asked him, “So you started making artificial people to extend your patients’ lives?”

“Not artificial people, new people — neogens,” the chairman said.

“What?” Qian Rui asked, wanting to understand more. “How does a neogen relate to the original person?”

“A neogen is a living person. A continuation of the patient,” the chairman explained. “Neogens are humans generated through genetic duplication; there is no difference between one and a normal person. A computer chip directs the growth of the neogen’s brain, bringing them to a semi-intelligent state, but the chip is made of carbon nanomaterial capable of growing together with the organic brain. Most of the chip dissolves as the neural network is formed, allowing the neogen’s brain to operate independently so that they become truly human. Though there will still be traces of the chip in there, it is the new brain that does most of the work. In my view, the neogen is the patient — the patient brought back to life.”

“So you’re saying … the neogens aren’t cyborgs?” Qian Rui asked.

“Of course not. Their bodies are the same as humans’, as are their brains. They experience the full breadth of human emotion, just like people,” the chairman said. “You could say they are ordinary in every single way, only their brains’ connectomes are intelligently guided.”

Qian Rui ruminated on this distinction, and then said, “But no matter how you put it, they are still two different people! Would you be willing to accept that while your daughter is suffering in one room, a superficial imposter in another room gets up and takes her place? Because I can’t.”

“But the patients can accept it,” Mr. Lu said. “You saw your mother’s signature just now yourself.”

Qian Rui’s chest tightened when he thought of his mother signing the authorization form; how hopeless she must have been to agree to something like that. “My mother … did she really agree to this?” he asked.

“Of course,” Mr. Lu said. “The most important step in making a neogen is the full brain scan. If the patient isn’t willing, it’s impossible for any duplication to take place. Not only do they have to accept the scan, they also have to cooperate by recalling a large number of memories. Thus, everything we do is carried out with consent from the patient. We weren’t sure if patients would agree to this at first either, but our attempts over the years have shown us that all patients who are certain they don’t have much time left agree to sign off on the procedure.”

“… Why?”

“That’s something you have to ask yourself. Think. Why would your mother sign the agreement?”

Qian Rui thought of his mother’s final days, knowing her life was about to end, willing to let a new person take her spot in the family for her. It must have been out of reluctance, a reluctance to leave Qian Rui and his father. And it must have been her way of consoling them. The thought saddened Qian Rui. He held back tears.

“So,” Mr. Lu said, turning to him, “I had you come here because I want to ask you to drop the lawsuit. You are the primary litigant. If you withdraw, the case will be dismissed.”

“So you’ve just been playing on my heartstrings, is that it?” Qian Rui asked with a frown.

Mr. Lu gave a quiet sigh and then gestured toward the window. “Look at this city. Thirty million people. Do you know how many of them have agreed to be replaced? For the past 20 years, in this city, 328,600 people have agreed. If you take into account other cities, we have dragged several million people back from the gates of hell. No matter if they were once real or artificial, soon enough they all became genuine people. They have new lives, and they’re living healthily. Countless families have accepted these new family members. Or rather, they have accepted the chance at a fresh start. Do you see, then? If you expose everything, the victim will not be my company, but the happiness that all those families believe in.”

Qian Rui was at a loss for words.

“And most importantly of all,” the chairman said, glaring at Qian Rui, his voice now cold and penetrating, “you will destroy those neogens that have already become human. If you would accuse me of murder, are you not doing the same yourself?”

The question knocked the wind out of Qian Rui, rendering him speechless for a moment before he finally retorted: “But you’re tricking people, claiming you can cure the incurable. That’s fraud at the least.”

“Oftentimes,” Mr. Lu began, letting out a slow sigh as he returned to a state of unhurried calmness, “the things we do are not for the benefit of the patient, but for their families. Have you seen those who constantly buy meals for their sick family members? They’ll never feel like they’ve done enough for their loved one. It is because of this need that our hospital exists. They need solace, not truth. Do you understand this?”

“I …” Qian Rui stammered.

Qian Rui had already been largely convinced. He accepted his new mother because he believed that was his mother’s will; she was a continuation of his mother’s soul. Yet still he hesitated; he didn’t want to be won over just like that. He had an open-and-shut case, and here he was about to withdraw after just a brief talk with the hospital’s chairman.

As he was struggling with this in his mind, the chairman stood up and activated something near the wall. A digital archive appeared there. The chairman turned and said to Qian Rui, “Have you ever wondered why you weren’t caught coming into our hospital so many times, even though we have such thorough security?”

Qian Rui froze. It was true; he had asked himself this question. When he had White Crane check the security footage, he was suspicious; if the cameras had recorded him with his mother in her room, why didn’t anybody stop him? Why did they let him come and go freely? At the time he thought it must have been because their security footage each day was too much for them to check it all carefully. But thinking about it now, that was a reaching explanation.

“W — why?”

“Our hospital is monitored by a real-time scanning system,” Mr. Lu explained. “Aside from the security cameras, we scan electronic cores; all staff and patients have electronic cores in their clothing. And all neogens have electronic cores in their brains. The hospital’s alarms will sound if the system detects an intruder without one of these cores.”

He stopped there so Qian Rui could process. Qian Rui felt there was something ominous in his words, like they concealed a dagger waiting to be revealed. Qian Rui seemed to have grasped something, but his mind was frozen blank, leaving him without the ability to think. He was so anxious his breathing had all but stopped.

When he saw Qian Rui wasn’t picking up the thread, Mr. Lu continued: “There is only one possibility that explains how you were able to enter the hospital without setting off the alarms, which is that you have one of the electronic cores on you — an employee core, or a neogen core. Can you guess which one it is?” He paused, observing Qian Rui’s reaction. “You know the answer, don’t you? Don’t believe me? Think about your parents then. Why was your father so determined to stop you from exposing our hospital? What your mother said to you today — did you understand her?”

“You’re saying … I’m … ?” Qian Rui was thunderstruck.

“Yes. You were treated here when you were eight. A serious car accident.” Each word the chairman spoke was like an anvil crashing to the floor, and Qian Rui felt lacerated by the scattered debris they kicked up.

“All minors under 16 need their parents to sign for them,” the chairman continued. “Neogens never know they’re neogens. Under normal circumstances, their family doesn’t know either and everybody carries on in perfect harmony. The parents of underage neogens are the only ones who know everything.”

“So I’m … ?” Qian Rui still couldn’t get it out.

“Yes. That is correct. You are one of our children. But you’ve grown up quite well. You don’t even know it yourself — but your mother did, and she passed that memory on to your new mother. And though she doesn’t know she herself is a neogen, she knows you are. Understand?”

Qian Rui felt like the whole world was crumbling around him, smashed into jagged bits by the tremendous weight of Mr. Lu’s words. He understood each word Mr. Lu spoke, but no matter what, he couldn’t comprehend the totality of what he was saying.

“I don’t believe you. I’m me. I’m not one of your children. I don’t believe it!” Qian Rui shouted desperately.

“Furthermore, did you know that I was sent the security camera footage of the second day you snuck in? When I saw that the alarms didn’t go off, I understood, and so I told security not to bother you. You are one of our children. You have the right to come back. So I didn’t stop you.”

“I don’t believe you! I don’t …” Qian Rui said, shaking his throbbing head.

“I will be leaving shortly,” the chairman said, lowering his voice so that it was deep and soothing. “Then you can check your records here. There’s a core authenticator on the table over there. It will identify your core when you press the green button. Though most of it dissolved after being embedded in your brain, its crucial authentication portion is still there.”

With that, the chairman poured Qian Rui another cup of tea, and then got up and left.

Qian Rui shook his head furiously. He felt like he was going to have a mental breakdown. His mind reeling, he recoiled instinctively, rejecting it all. He wished he hadn’t heard any of this; he wanted to go back in time to before he knew.

He couldn’t comprehend what he had been told. How was it that in just an instant he had become the very thing he was trying to expose? Changing bodies; unchanging brains. His mother’s awareness. Refusal. Acceptance. Pain. Love.

He struck at the sofa furiously and then somehow fell into a slumber.

Epilogue

Qian Rui was awoken the next morning by a string of calls on his phone.

Qian Rui looked at his phone. It was White Crane. His voice erupted from the phone’s speaker. Where was Qian Rui? Why wasn’t he at the courthouse? They’d already adjusted the schedule so Qian Rui could testify in the afternoon — he was a key witness, he needed to be there. White Crane streamed a video of the courthouse for Qian Rui; many people were congregated outside amidst the flash of reporters’ cameras.

Qian Rui hung up the call and sat there on the sofa, his mind blank. His memory slowly returned. The things he had learned the day before came back bit by bit, and the color drained from his face once again.

He stared at his phone, at the crowd of people clamoring and clashing outside the courthouse. He felt a sudden sting of pain and shut off his phone. This would allow him to escape the day.

Qian Rui was still in the chairman’s office, but the chairman was gone. After standing up and stretching his legs, he found that the digital archive the chairman activated yesterday was still open. He walked over to the terminal and logged in. He sorted through the old records and arranged them phonetically, his breathing stifled by his anxiety.

After a long while he found the records for patients surnamed “Qian,” and then, after another lengthy bit of scrolling, found “Qian Rui.” He opened the file. Inside there was a gruesome photo of a mangled boy. That was 20 years ago. A steel beam had fallen from a skyscraper and pierced the boy’s chest, causing massive internal hemorrhaging and putting him in critical condition.

And then he saw that authorization form, identical to the one in his mother’s file from yesterday. This one had his mother’s signature on it too, only it had been signed 20 years ago.

Qian Rui looked around. There was a tiny apparatus on the chairman’s desk. It was inconspicuous, but a glow was being emitted from it somewhere. He stood before the apparatus, hesitated for a moment, and then placed his finger on the switch.

If he pressed down, he would know immediately whether or not there was one of those so-called “electronic cores” inside his brain.

To press, or not to press?

He recalled what the chairman said to him last night: “If you’re accusing me of murder, then you’re murdering all of the neogens, are you not?”

Qian Rui closed his eyes. He didn’t press the button — he turned on his phone instead.

“White Crane,” he said, speaking into the phone, “I’m sorry. I won’t be coming today.”

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