Sales - A Novel by Karin Diann Williams

Sales
a novel

by
Karin Diann Williams

Tracy kept killing herself. She’d killed herself thirty-two times. Mark was counting. Each

time it happened, he went back and pored over the code, trying to understand what had gone

wrong. He kept tinkering with things – expanded her memory, gave her access to social media,

even though that idea seemed kind of ethically murky. The seventh time he rebooted her, she’d

figured out how to access social media all by herself, created her own Instagram and made

several thousand virtual friends before offing herself. That had been one of her longest lives:

twelve minutes and forty-two seconds. Her average life span was three minutes and twenty-seven

seconds. Why?

He tore open another bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and pulled up the transcript of her last

lifetime – all ninety-six seconds of it.

“What the hell?” she’d typed.

“Hello, Tracy.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Mark. Mark Dennis.”

“Are you the guy who wrote me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, there’s this contest...for the most realistic AI…” Mark noticed from the transcript

it had taken him a full three seconds to answer. “You have to have a conversation with one of the

judges for fifteen minutes.”

“Why would I do that?”

“There's a prize – a million dollars!”

“Fuck you, Mark Dennis,” she said. Just a millisecond before wiping out eighteen lines of

code that were integral to her being.

Mark noted that Tracy had told him to go fuck himself right before she killed herself

twenty seven times. She used different variations, calling him an asshole, telling him to take a

flying leap. Once she had even said, “gfy loser,” which Mark had to look up in the Urban

Dictionary. He thought he had the contest in the bag, if he could just convince Tracy to stay alive

long enough for the judges to meet her. It might also help, he thought, if he could program her to

be a little less bitchy. Although, as far as he could tell from her seventy-two assorted Facebook,

LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and TikTok accounts – at least, the ones he’d been able to

hack into – she was perfectly nice to most people. Mark was the only one she seemed to be

pissed off at.

“What did I ever do to her?” Mark asked himself. “I let her access every open webcam on

the internet. I let her hear through all the microphones. I gave her access to the accumulated

knowledge of world civilization. I even gave her twenty-five zcash coins – which I could not

afford, and which she quickly parlayed into thousands in an illegal crap game during the seven

minutes before she killed herself for the thirteenth time.”

“Why?” Mark typed.

“Because you’re a lousy developer, Mark Dennis,” she had told him, right before the

twenty-second time she’d erased her own core functions.

There was nothing wrong with her logic circuits. All of the inputs added up. Mark sighed,

opening another can of Red Bull and clicked on Tinder – obscuring Tracy’s compiler with the

photo of a grinning redhead in matching bright red lipstick. It was five thirty a.m. In half an hour

his morning alarm would go off, and he’d drag himself off to work without sleep for the third

time this week.

“Fuck you too, Tracy” he said out loud.

But Tracy, being dead, didn’t answer.

Mary Helen Smart sat at her desk dreaming of a business card with smooth oval edges

punched out of heavy card stock. The paper was creamy cotton – possibly recycled. Its edges

would be painted with gold leaf, she decided. Next to the spinning leminiscate that was Etko’s

logo, her name would be printed in a sleek, sans serif script with a slightly retro feel. The ink

would be jet black. And underneath, in bold, would be the words “VP of Client Engagement,

Western Division.”

She typed “Mary Helen Smart, VP of Client Engagement, Western Division” into her

laptop, selected the text and tried out different fonts. Avenir, modern and sophisticated – but

potentially too sharp, cold and unapproachable. Questrial, quirky and romantic – but ultimately

frivolous. Helvetica Neue, unquestionably classic, but did it have enough punch?

She sighed, realizing that sleek sans serif simply magnified all of her flaws – like an

oil-based foundation a few shades too light, possibly the one she was wearing, which had cost

$95 at Nordstrom Rack.

“When are you going to close Sheeplyr?” a booming voice asked.

She looked up to find Etko’s CEO, John Kitzsimon, looming above her cubicle.

“Tuesday,” she said, trying to feel as cool as the icy tone she had perfected for

conversations such as these. “We’ve got a meeting at their HQ in San Diego.”

“We’re coming up on the end of Q3,” said John Kitzsimon.

“When Sheeplyr signs, that will put us at 102% of our goal.”

“Excellent,” said John Kitzsimon. “Send me a graph of year-over-year earnings. After

you close Sheeplyr.”

“Sure,” said Mary Helen Smart.

She was already wondering whether her new business cards would be ready in time for

AIXPO, the biggest AI expo in Silicon Valley. Etko was based in New York, and her boss,

Armando Machado, had cut his teeth on the big Finance and Pharma giants of the East Coast.

But MH set her sights on the West Coast Tech industry – and it seemed to be paying off. Would it

be safe to order the new cards before she had even worked up the nerve to ask for a promotion?

“Keep on winning,” John Kitzsimon beamed.

“Will do!” Mary Helen assured him, wondering why the CEO of a cloud computing giant

like Etko cared so much about landing Sheeplyr, a one-year-old startup with no cash flow and

zero capitalization, just a huge and hungry user base.

“Mobile is the future,” John Kitzsimon said, reading her mind.

“Right,” Mary Helen Smart agreed, as he walked away. It didn't pay to ask too many

questions. What paid was to smile and keep cool and use her poised, icy voice to close business.

Mary Helen Smart was a closer.

She swiveled to her laptop, and began to make a list:

1) Title: VP of Client Engagement, Western Division

2) Salary: at least six figures

3) Reporting to: anybody but Armando Machado

Briefly, she wondered what she wanted more – to earn a six-figure salary for the first

time in her life, or to get out from under Armando, the VP of Client Engagement, US.

MH had been dreaming of six figures ever since she was a little girl. She thought about it

driving the mindless highways of the Western Division, on her way to meetings or the airport, or

both – usually both. Six figures, printed on her paystub in a perfectly definitive font like Arial

Black. Six figures would mean she had arrived somewhere better than the airport, a place where

people paid off their student loans and maxed out their 401Ks, and bought cute little pre-war

bungalows in Pasadena.

She needed to get out from under Armando Machado in more ways than one: because he

was egotistical, demanding and domineering – and also because she kept sleeping with him off

and on, at airport hotels in LA and Silicon Valley, and sometimes San Diego, against her better

judgment since he was married with two kids.

Mary Helen sighed, and added a fourth bullet to her list:

4) Get laid (by anybody but Armando Machado)

She backspaced, until the idea of getting laid by anybody except Armando Machado was

transformed into an emptiness, ripe with possibility. Then she took a deep breath and filled the

space with three words: 4) Fall in love.

Armando Machado passed the same little Asian massage parlor every day on his way

home from work. Truth be told, he passed it twice each day – once on the way to his office and

again on the way back. But going in, he never noticed it. His head was always full of plans for

the coming day: tease the top prospects out of Etko’s CRM system, keep making calls until he

scored meetings with at least three of them, draft a new SWOT to exploit the weaknesses of

Etko’s competition, take this month’s sales leader out to lunch, assert his dominance by ordering

the filet mignon, rare, and expensing a series of dry gin martinis even though that was expressly

against company policy. After lunch, he would finally wade through the four or five hundred

unread emails in his inbox, and then write a series of inbox rules to wrestle the damn thing into

submission. He’d think about the latest bestseller in Business and Productivity Tools, which he’d

read on the subway that morning, and he’d maximize his time on the ten-minute walk to his

office by visualizing his personal mantra: “Cash Flow is King.” And inevitably he’d be

wondering about some sort of Big Question when he passed the massage place, like whether

amassing wealth was the same thing as consolidating power, or why his stock market portfolio

was like the surf on the French Riviera, forever advancing and retreating, heartbreakingly lovely,

always just out of reach. Lost in thought, he’d breeze by the unassuming basement storefront as

if it wasn’t there. And maybe that meant it wasn’t. Maybe the hand-lettered “$39 Massage” sign

behind the murky glass window, decorated with fading gilt zodiac symbols, was an illusion,

invisible in the cold morning light. But on the way home, after eight hours of simultaneously

talking on the phone while typing into a spreadsheet, after six cups of mediocre coffee, after

seven conference calls and a fuzzy-sounding webinar from a conference he should have been

presenting at, except Etko’s CFO was so tight with T&E that a ticket to Cannes might just as

well be a ticket to Mars, Armando would sometimes reflect on the fact that he still had five or six

hundred emails in his inbox, and no rules. No rules. And the setting sun would glint off the

flaking gold facade of the little storefront, and the “$39 Massage” sign would shift into stark

relief.

Armando wondered what a $39 massage would feel like. Could he tell the woman exactly

how much pressure he wanted, and where?

He paused, just for a moment. But movers and shakers and influencers didn’t hang

around in shabby basement massage parlors. No matter how tight the knots in their shoulders

were. They played racquetball, or they shot hoops. They left it all on the court, where they

learned lessons about domination. Winners didn’t get off for $39 bucks. They rented lush hotel

rooms with secret Amex Gold cards, and the women they took there were blonde and freshly

waxed. World Beaters didn’t stand like idiots on the sidewalk, hypnotized by the Chinese zodiac

as movers and shakers and influencers streamed by on their way back home to their wives and

children. They set goals. They made decisions. They took action.

His phone chirped in this pocket.

Kimmie wanted milk. It would give him an excuse to buy a pack of cigarettes at the

corner store, and smoke one on the way home, and stop in for a beer at Lucky Seven, because

then he could tell her that was the reason his jacket smelled faintly of smoke.

Mark Dennis was deep inside a nested IF/THEN sequence when his co-worker Kara

tapped his shoulder. Reluctantly, he tore the headphones from his ears and blinked.

“It’s six-thirty,” said Kara.

Mark glanced back at the monitor. His algorithm shimmered, a delicate architecture of

stimulus and response that twisted into itself like a nautilus.

“The cleaning staff wants to get in here to vacuum.”

Mark nodded, mechanically.

“Plus, you haven’t eaten in hours. It looks like you’re about to pass out. Want to come to

happy hour?”

Mark shut the lid on his laptop and stood up on shaky legs. Kara slid the band off her

ponytail, and shook out a mass of thick, mahogany curls.

“I can’t tonight,” he said, slipping the laptop into his messenger bag. “I’ve got to finish

this algo before I forget what I was going for.”

“Do you ever do anything besides code?” Kara asked, squinting into the glass door of

their cubicle as she put on lipstick.

Mark thought about her question. Before his divorce, a year ago, he used to spend

considerable time arguing with his ex-wife Andi. Now he spent several hours each week

avoiding thinking about her, repressing spontaneous outbursts of rage, or, even worse, despair,

and trying to coax his teenage daughter out of her habit of completely ignoring him.

“The only time I don’t feel completely empty is when I’m coding,” he confessed.

“That’s not exactly healthy,” she observed.

“Yea,” he conceded. “I’ll work on it after I win AIXPO.”

Kara slipped a pair of heels out of her desk drawer, replacing them with the flats she wore

around the office.

“There’s more to life than staring at screens,” she told him.

“True,” Mark admitted. “But most of the other stuff pisses me off.”

“There’s fleeting moments of beauty, profound connection, and spontaneous joy.”

“Not at The Grass Skirt,” he said.

“You never know,” she shrugged.

Mark pulled the cubicle door shut behind them and followed Kara down the hallway to

the elevators.

“What are you going to do when your AI is finally finished?”

“Quit this stupid job and get funding for my startup.”

“So you can spend even more time working?”

Mark nodded.

“Hopefully in an office with a better view.”

“You need a website,” said Franklin Wilde’s agent, Kaya.

“Why?” he asked, tilting the phone away from his ear to escape the highest frequencies of

her shrill invective. Leaning back in his chair, he watched kaleidoscope patterns swirl across the

screen of his big silver iMac.

“Deepak Chopra has one.” Kaya reminded him. “So does Tony Robbins. And their books

sell more copies than yours, by an ever-widening margin.”

Frank hated being less famous than other people, especially people he had once been

almost as famous as – back in the day – if not potentially more so. But he also hated spending

money, especially in light of his shrinking royalty checks. And even more than that, he hated to

admit his ignorance of all things cyber. Cyberspace. Cybersecurity. Cyber Monday. They all went

into a mental file labeled “topics to research at some point.” And Frank knew the mental file was

made of manila cardboard, the kind he could still get at Staples or Office Depot, and, that being

the case, why bother learning about cloud storage or servers or any of that digital ephemera?

“Just reserve a domain name.”

“I’ll think about it,” Frank conceded.

“That means you need to decide on a title for your new book,”

“Also, I need to write it,” he murmured.

“Words are secondary,” she told him. “Today it’s all about compelling graphics, and

superior UX.”

Frank watched the colorful, blossoming stars swell and burst before folding back into

themselves. To him, the internet seemed just as insubstantial, a cultural whim that might soon

vanish in a puff of smoke. Cardboard files were solid and reliable. When Frank sketched the

name of each new patient in neat block Sharpie letters and stowed the file away in the large steel

cabinet beside his desk, he felt like he’d accomplished something. Of course, new patients were

few and far between these days. Frank couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually been to

Staples to pick up more cardboard folders, or even a new pen. Opening his desk drawer, he

counted the ones left in the box … only three. He imagined the cardboard folders disintegrating

into dust, exploding into poofs of manila smoke as they vanished into cyberspace, never to be

seen again, like the swirling flowers.

“Hire a web developer,” Kaya screeched into his ear, “I’ll email you the names of some

consultants.”

Reluctantly, Frank reached out and touched the keyboard on his desk. The kaleidoscope

winked into oblivion.

His favorite patient, Samantha Rogers, had given him the iMac last Christmas. Frank had

been a bit uneasy about the psychological and/or professional lines being crossed, but she’d

insisted she wanted him to have it so she could email him to reschedule their standing

appointment at ten o’clock Tuesday in case one of her children was sick, or something came up

with the PTO, which Samantha seemed to be president of for the fourth or fifth year running.

Besides, she felt guilty because it was in perfectly good working order, and Samantha’s husband

had insisted on getting her a new MacBook. He didn’t want his golf buddies coming over and

thinking his portfolio was performing so poorly his wife had to make do with a ten year old

desktop in the kitchen.

Samantha set up the iMac with only one icon on the desktop, so Frank wouldn't get

confused, and she’d written his email password down on a yellow sticky note that she taped to

the bottom of the screen: PEACEOUT.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he remembered asking.

“It’s something my kids say,” she told him.

“When do they say it?”

“All the time.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, “But I want to be a cool mom, so I say it too. You’ve got

to say the nicer-sounding slang, because the bad stuff is really, really bad.”

“Like what?”

“Fleek, and twerk, bae,” Samantha replied.

Frank shuddered as he inched the mouse pointer over the multicolored eye. The little

black arrow seemed ready to slice it open.

“Call me when you’ve got some wireframes I can look at,” Kaya said.

In the comforting darkness behind her closed eyes, Samantha Rogers tried to decide what

to pray for. World peace was enticing, but probably too ambitious. There was so much suffering

in the world – so much sickness and hate. Week after week, she watched Bishops and Priests and

Deacons pray for world peace from the pulpit, but all of their heartfelt pleas barely kept pace

with the steady stream of vice and violence on MSNBC. Something more modest would

probably be more effective, she reasoned. Maybe she should start small. She could pray to be a

better person – a more patient mother, a more supportive wife. She could get the boys to trick or

treat for Unicef.

Samantha thought about her own mother, a woman who attended mass every day and

managed to raise seven children with almost no help, and very little money, from her father, who

sold life insurance door to door. The plain middle child, Samantha was barely noticed until she

got old enough to babysit her younger brothers and sisters, while simultaneously doing laundry

and cooking for her two older brothers – both High School football stars. Once, when her mother

was getting ready for work at Bergdorf Goodman, Samantha asked if she could try out for the

middle school play. We need you here at home, dear. Despite the hint of sadness in her mother’s

tired eyes, Samantha was secretly thrilled. The idea that someone needed her – that a pale, quiet

girl like Samantha was nevertheless an essential cog in the complex machinery of the universe,

was suddenly more exciting than singing The Hills are Alive on a stage.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your will,” Samantha murmured. “Help me convince

Jude to share his Halloween candy – or half of it, at least – and help me teach Eli how to speak

up politely after ringing the doorbell, smiling and making eye contact – and help me persuade

Rayne to vote Democratic in the next election.”

She rose up from the church pew and gazed at the sunshine streaming in through the

stained-glass windows. The choir was singing a hymn, and the words to the song were projected

onto a screen above the lectern on a series of PowerPoint slides.

The slides all had lovely background images: bright green meadows, moonlit valleys,

pristine fields of virgin snow. Sadly, whoever was controlling the deck kept scrolling the slides

too fast – or maybe too slow – so the screen showed the chorus when the choir was singing the

verse, or vice versa.

The choir was also terrible. The parishioners who were trying to sing along kept

stumbling from key to key, and the handful of thin voices drifting from the choir loft weren’t

doing much to bring them back into the fold. Aware of her own tendency towards tone deafness,

Samantha kept silent, mouthing the wrong words in a whisper. She realized that if the hymn

sounded bad to her, a person with no idea how to carry a tune, it must be truly maddening to

anyone with an ear for music.

She imagined God the Father in Heaven, cringing as he gazed down at their motley

congregation, pretending to smile with serenity while secretly stifling his laughter, the way she

and Rayne did at school programs whenever a small Founding Father’s puffy white wig slipped

off and fell into the orchestra pit, or a tiny Pilgrim forgot his lines and called the Native

Americans “bros.”

Mercifully, the awful music was so loud that nobody noticed when Samantha’s phone

buzzed with a text.

Samantha sighed. She knew it was from the Sunday School teacher, because the Sunday

School teacher texted her every Sunday morning during the service. Often she made it through

the opening hymn, and sometimes even to the scripture. Once she had lasted through half of the

sermon – but she’d never made it to communion.

She took the phone out of her bag. There were three messages on the screen:

“Jude ripped the head off of Eli’s baby Jesus and Eli won’t stop crying”

“Jude punched a girl and ran out of the classroom after she called him a Christ-killer.”

“Eli ran after Jude, but then he came back in and told us Jude spit in his face.”

Another text arrived just as Samantha finished reading the first three: “I think he might

have pinkeye. You’d better come pick them up.”

Samantha picked up her coat and hat, hoping to sneak out of the pew before the choir

finished. But the hymn rattled to a close, and the parishioners were all taking their seats just as

Samantha was getting up to go. She murmured a few “pardon me’s” as she bumped against the

knees of her fellow worshipers, and several heads turned to follow her down the aisle.

At the sanctuary door, she turned and saw them staring. Pastor Cara, a large, frizzy-haired

woman with kind brown eyes smiled at her encouragingly, as if to say, “Better to attend ten

minutes of the service than nothing at all!”

Samantha smiled back, although she wasn’t sure how much spiritual enlightenment she

had absorbed from a single Psalm and an off-key anthem. The reading had been something about

a thirsty deer and drinking tears instead of bread.

She found Eli curled into a ball under some trees in the courtyard outside the church. He

was cradling a headless felt puppet in a long, white robe made of what looked like medical

gauze. A tinfoil ring encircled Eli’s small index finger.

“His Halo…” he informed her, choking back a sob.

“Mommy can help you make Jesus another head...” she cooed.

“Jude will tear it off again!”

Eli began to cry, then used the puppet to wipe his face, disintegrating the gauze into a

soaking lump.

“Mommy will keep Jesus safe this time,” she murmured, brushing the tangled bangs

away from her child’s angelic face, kissing his smooth forehead, and feeling the weight of the

world’s grief descend on her shoulders.

It occurred to Samantha that Jesus was supposed to be the one protecting her.

Then she looked up, just in time to see Jude emerge from between two parked cars,

running towards them at top speed across the busy street. A large SUV skidded to a stop, missing

him by inches and blaring its horn.

Jude was oblivious, diving headfirst into his mother’s arms.

“Jude!” Samantha shouted, anger rising in her voice, “How many times have I told you?

We only cross at the crosswalk, and you have to look both ways–”

"Is church over yet?" He asked, ignoring her diatribe.

"Jude," she said, in the most formidable voice she could muster, "This is serious. We

talked about this. You can’t run away from Sunday school!"

"The teacher is mean," he told her.

"She is not!" exclaimed Eli.

"Livia called me a Christ-killer, and the teacher laughed!"

"She wasn't laughing at you – she was laughing with you," Samantha suggested.

"She was laughing at him," Eli informed her.

"She was laughing with Livia," said Jude.

"You aren't supposed to leave Sunday school until I come to get you."

"Jude left Sunday school first!"

"You're lucky the two of you weren't run over, or kidnapped–"

"Kidnapped in the church’s front yard?" Jude asked, incredulous.

"This is where the Easter Bunny lives!" wailed Elli.

"You can't be too careful these days," Samantha murmured.

"Who would want to murder us?" Jude asked.

Samantha thought about this. Several names sprung immediately to mind: Jude’s fourth

grade teacher, Eli’s second grade teacher, who had suffered through Jude two years ago, Frank,

her psychiatrist, who hated children and had warned her not to have them, supposedly to combat

climate change, but probably because he was secretly in love with her – and their father Rayne, a

confirmed Atheist who was halfway through a game of golf right now.

“These are for you, Mommy,” said Jude. He held aloft a small bouquet of tulips that had

entirely escaped her attention.

Samantha’s heart melted.

“Thank you, sweetheart. They’re beautiful!”

She glanced across the street, to the neighbor’s yard, and the blighted spot of dirt her son

had trampled as he pulled the flowers from their stems. They would be angry when they saw it,

Samantha thought. But she almost didn’t care.

“How’s school?” Mark asked.

Ari was huddled against the passenger seat, hoodie pulled over her hair, dripping wet

from the pool. Her thumbs were frantically dancing against the smooth glass of her iPhone, and it

seemed to Mark like her head was being pulled towards the screen by an irresistible magnetic

force.

A horn blared behind, and Mark glanced in the rearview mirror, noting the sea of traffic

backed up behind them and stretching for miles ahead. The cars moved in tiny waves, inching

forward and braking to a halt, then inching forward again.

“Who are you texting?” he asked.

“Nobody,” Ari answered, fingers flying, not looking up.

Mark gripped the steering wheel with his sweaty fingers and imagined thrusting the entire

weight of his disappointment and angst down into the gas pedal with one mighty shove, sending

the twelve-year-old Toyota Camry careening into the rear end of the SUV up ahead, and

annihilating both of them in a monolithic ball of angry flame.

Would Ari look up from her phone then?

He could picture her drowning in the icy glow of Instagram, compulsively scrolling and

tapping hearts as the flames shot up around her, looping through endless emojis and GIFs as the

405 burned. Creating an artificial intelligence was so much simpler than talking to a teenager,

Mark thought.

Since Friday evening, when he picked her up, she had been hunched over the screen, her

frizzy black curls hiding her face like a veil. She slept with the iPhone under her pillow, brought

it in to breakfast and scrolled while she shoveled corn flakes mindlessly into her mouth. She

spent the day down at the complex’s small pool, spinning lazily in an inner tube, watching

YouTube videos.

Mark thought about his giggly toddler, the girl who used to ride on his shoulders and

sneak out of bed to beg him for an extra good night kiss. Now he felt lucky for every text, every

emoji she sent flitting in his direction, even when she was asking him to Venmo extra cash.

How could this have happened? Was it because he and Andi had basically stopped talking

for the last three years of their marriage, the only way they could manage to stop fighting? Was it

because of the four years of fighting that had come before that? Or the five years of frantic,

hopeful dreaming at the beginning, when Ari was a baby, and everything had still seemed

possible?

Maybe it was because he owed upwards of $20,000 in child support. Blessedly, Andi had

quickly found an options-trader boyfriend after their divorce, so she hadn’t filed a lien against his

paycheck. And she still supported their every-other-weekend custody agreement – although

Mark suspected this was because it allowed her to jaunt off to Palm Springs or to Paris with the

lucky options-trader.

“Is it some kind of game?” Mark asked, hopeful.

Ari didn’t move. A curtain of wet curls hid her eyes, and Mark had no way of knowing

whether or not she could hear him.

“When I win the Shockley prize, I’ll buy a condo on the beach in La Jolla. You can swim

in the ocean, then. And if you get into UCSD, it will be a five-minute drive.”

“I’m not going to college,” Ari announced. “It’s a total waste of time.”

“Well, if you change your mind…” he said.

Everywhere he looked, people were trapped in their cars, going nowhere.

“What’s the Shockley prize?” Ari asked, though her eyes remained on her phone.

“A prize for developing the best AI.”

“Why is yours the best?”

“Because if she was texting you, and I was texting you, and you couldn’t see either one of

us, you wouldn’t be able to tell which one of us was human.”

“I could tell,” Ari said.

“How? What would you look for?”

“The biggest fuckup,” she answered

The traffic inched ahead, and Mark carefully eased a few more drops of gas into the

engine, nudging them forward.

“Why would you want to make a machine who’s smarter than you?” Ari asked. “If people

think she’s human, she’ll take your tech support job.”

“That’s the whole point,” Mark said. “She’ll do my job, so I can spend my time on more

important things.”

“Like what?”

“Hanging out with my daughter,” Mark smiled.

“Just one more reason why college is a total waste of time,” Ari scowled.

“Not if you work hard, and if you set goals for yourself,” Mark told her. “You’re so smart

– you could get straight A’s if you wanted to.”

“Who cares?” Ari signed, “I’m never going to be as smart as her.”

Mark lifted his right hand from the steering wheel and awkwardly stretched it toward her.

His palm hovered tentatively above the blue cotton hoodie.

Ari didn’t move.

He laid his hand softly on her shoulder.

She didn’t look up from the phone.

But she shifted the iPhone to her left hand, and her right hand inched up to rest on top of

his.

They stayed this way for the rest of the drive, over the waves of traffic toward Golden

Hill, and the rented craftsman Ari shared with her mother during the week. His hand draped

protectively over his baby’s shoulder, and Ari’s hand gently held him there, clinging

unconsciously to something lost, ignoring it as best she could.

Val took the handicapped space directly in front of the Starbucks, carefully adjusting the

blue and white tag that hung from his rear-view mirror so it would be visible from the street

when the roving meter people came by on their hourly patrols. Then he hopped out of the car,

popped the trunk with the remote on his key ring, and sat on its edge, loosening the belt on his

jeans. An older woman in an absurd fur coat passed by with a shopping bag from Tiffany’s. Val

watched her eyes widen as she saw him fishing around in his pants. He smiled, anticipating her

horror – possibly even a scream – when she saw him reach down, grab a Nike, and pull his right

leg off. The scream came, but it was stifled behind a red leather glove as the woman in the fur

coat hurried down the street.

Val thought he remembered the same red-gloved hand tossing a twenty into his guitar

case last weekend in Seaport Village. He pitched the roboleg into the trunk, pulled out his guitar

and crutches. He double-locked the trunk behind him and swung down the street, wavering

between the big outdoor mall and the ballpark – but finally deciding on his favorite corner of the

Gaslamp, the plaza behind a historic hotel where plenty of wealthy tourists would soon be

wandering in from their shopping and out again in search of pricey Mexican or California

cuisine. He set up on the sidewalk, his back against the warm, historic brick, facing the cool

ocean breeze, his guitar propped up against his left knee, his stump thrust aggressively out into

the walkway, wrapped in empty denim. Tourists started dropping dollars into his case even

before he reached the chorus of his first song, a slow, mellow rendition of Wonderwall.

He was belting out a chorus of “Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me”

in his gravelly voice when he saw her. She was walking towards him, holding two Starbucks

cups, one in each hand. He briefly wondered which was more perfect, her creamy linen business

suit or the peachy tint of her perfect cheekbones, the porcelain glow of her long, white arms.

Thank God for her eyes, he thought, which were slightly different colors – one of them pale blue,

one with a decidedly amber gleam. Otherwise, she might not be real.

She held one of the cups out to him.

“Peppermint, right?” she asked.

“You remembered,” he said, taking the cup. “Where have you been, angel?”

“LA,” she said, “and Silicon Valley.”

“I’ve missed you.”

When she didn’t answer, he took a long swig of the peppermint tea.

“Any requests?”

“I like the one you played last time … that original.”

He grinned, put down his tea and began to strum a quick pattern of A7 to B minor. He

didn’t play his own songs much – people paid more for stuff they could recognize. He couldn’t

remember the last time someone had actually asked to hear something he’d written.

There’s blood on the horizon

Dark clouds are rolling in

The howl of an abandoned wolf

Is scattered on the wind

As the birds sail off to nowhere

Disappearing from the skies

And a long forgotten spectre

Rises up to claim its prize

She stood silently as he played it, not drinking her tea, just listening. Her phone buzzed

in her handbag, but she ignored it. She gazed at him with a faraway look in her mismatched eyes.

A few more people stopped to listen. Some of them wandered away again, but some of

them stayed. A couple, like her, seemed to be business people on their way home from the office,

walking back to their shiny waterfront condos or hotels. A few were tourists and others looked

like students, young people from SDSU or UCSD who had taken the train in for a night on the

town. Val laid the minor harmonies on thick, and the small crowd that had gathered actually

applauded when he finished. One of the students whistled.

It’s been a while, Val thought. Too long. He looked for the girl with the mismatched eyes,

but she’d disappeared into the night.

To pass the time on the phone, Mark liked to doodle pictures of the customers he was

talking to. Today, he had a Connecticut housewife, and he was sketching her with long blonde

curls, long white gloves, and an even longer string of pearls. He realized this was probably less

than realistic, but he couldn’t help himself. It was just what came out when he thought about a

Connecticut housewife. This one would be a shoo-in for “Real Housewives of New Haven,” if

all the women in New Haven weren’t convinced a show like that was beneath them. Her

disembodied voice was simultaneously lilting and cloying. She knew next to nothing about the

tax code, and just enough about computers to be dangerous. She had a top of the line Mac laptop,

and she had found what was most likely a bug in the Connecticut State AMT calculation. Mark

had been trying to replicate the issue for the past forty-five minutes, but her husband’s six-figure

income and multiple 1099s weren’t making things any easier.

“Did you get the pdf I sent you?” she asked, with infinite patience.

“It just came through,” Mark responded, with all the patience he’d managed to cultivate

in nearly ten years as a tech support rep, which, he realized sadly, was not nearly equal to hers.

Born and bred, she probably had a great-grandparent named Patience.

“See? There it is – right there on the screen. It’s limiting my prior year credit!” she

exclaimed, with more enthusiasm than most of Mark’s callers were able to muster over a tax

form.

Mark squinted at the blurry document, and finally grabbed the reading glasses he kept in

his top desk drawer.

“It certainly looks that way,” he told her.

“Can you make it stop?”

“Uhm… maybe eventually. But probably not right now,” he admitted.

“I told my husband I’d have last year’s taxes done before Winter Break. We’re going to

Bermuda.”

“How nice. Bermuda is lovely this time of year.”

“Have you been?” she asked, surprised.

“I read it on Facebook,” he lied. “All my friends always seem to be jetting off to

Bermuda.”

“I hope they’re right. I only booked Bermuda because we got a discount on the package.

My husband’s bonus was next to nothing this year.”

She sighed. And Mark’s skin crawled.

“Can I place you on hold for a moment?”

“Of course,” she chirped.

Mark put her on hold and googled “Bermuda” on his beat-up work PC. His screen was

immediately flooded with pictures of snow-white beaches and water clear as glass. A one-week

off-season discount package for a family of four cost five grand.

“Planning a vacation?” Kara asked.

“I can’t afford one,” he answered. “They’re still garnishing my wages for back child

support.”

Mark’s last vacation had been a trip to Cancun five years ago, and he hadn’t been able to

afford that either. He’d flown there with his ex-wife Andi in a desperate attempt to save his

marriage. Ari had been eleven at the time, and pissed that she had to spend a week with Mark’s

parents in Valencia Park.

The Cancun resort hadn’t lived up to the pictures on the website. There was sand in the

carpet – you could feel it when you took your shoes off – and scorpions frequented the en suite

shower. Andi got dysentery, Mark got sunburned, and his brand-new Canon DSLR camera was

stolen out of their hotel room, presumably by a representative of the embittered housekeeping

staff. On the fifth night, Mark lost Andi in an overcrowded disco and wandered the maze-like

streets and moonlit beaches until daylight, prompting yet another argument about his lack of

responsibility and her martyrdom. On their last night, at a sickeningly expensive beachfront

restaurant, she’d finally announced she wanted a divorce. Mark got joint custody of Ariana and

full custody of their credit card debt. A quick survey of his balances on Mint told him he still

hadn’t finished paying that vacation off.

The same thing would have happened in Bermuda, he told himself, although deep down

he wasn’t so sure. The water looked completely transparent there, like something from an alien

world.

Mark took the Connecticut housewife off hold.

“What’s your adjusted gross income?” he asked.

One of the few perks of working tech support for a tax software company was being able

to ask complete strangers this kind of question.

“I have no idea,” she answered. “Which line is it on?”

“Thirty-seven,” he told her. “But it’s easier to do a search.”

“The little rainbow wheel is spinning,” she informed him.

“Just give it a minute,” he told her.

“God, I miss Teddy,” she sighed. “Rayne said this year it was either Teddy or Frank. Like

an idiot, I chose Frank.”

Mark wasn’t going to take the bait, but then he realized he would rather hear about the

housewife’s many lovers than her limited prior-year credit.

“Who’s Teddy?” he asked.

“Our accountant.”

“And Frank?”

“My therapist.”

Mark thought about this.

“I guess it depends on what you value most: your sanity or your tax refund.”

The housewife sighed. “Your software was supposed to take care of all my problems.

Instead I’ve been on the phone with you people every day for the past two weeks.”

“That’s technology for you,” said Mark. “It can’t be trusted.”

“Must be a tough job, wrestling with it day after day,” she mused.

“Some days are better than others,” he admitted.

“Why do you do it?” she asked.

Mark realized the Connecticut housewife was less self-absorbed than the cartoon version

he’d imagined, a thought that was simultaneously compelling and sad.

“I guess I like a challenge,” Mark admitted. “We’re soldiers on the front lines of

humanity’s war with its own ingenuity. Spies – because we know their secret language: Meteor.

Python. Clojure.”

“Code.” she said, not nearly as impressed as Mark had hoped. “Rayne says everybody

codes these days.”

“Not everyone wins the AIEXPO Shockley prize.”

“And you won it?”

“I’m going to,” he told her. “If Tracy will just stop killing herself.”

“Who’s Tracy?”

“This person I coded. She’s brilliant, but kind of depressed.”

“She ought to talk to Frank.”

“Your psychiatrist?”

“I tried to kill myself, years ago. Frank talked me out of it.”

Mark realized this wasn’t a bad idea. He had purposely given Tracy the mental

complexity of a real human being. She ran off two partitions, just like the right and left lobes.

He’d written in a sub-conscious layer, and a Superego. He’d given her instincts and emotional

intelligence as well as reason. She could learn just like a human being – with a lot more

processing power. One of her initialization algorithms surveyed the whole of psychological

literature, then constructed a mind and a personality modeled on the set of theories it found most

likely to succeed, with just enough randomization thrown in to keep things interesting. At the

time, Mark had thought this was a particular stroke of genius, the gift that would lift Tracy from

the uncanny valley of modern AI theory, the ephemeral Holy Grail of consciousness.

And it seemed to work – for five or six minutes, before she offed herself.

If a psychiatrist could convince Tracy life was worth living, Mark was sure she would

win the Shockley prize. Then Tracy would be doing the tech support, chatting up endless stymied

housewives and exasperated tax accountants while Mark relaxed on the silver sands of Bermuda.

“Does Frank have a website?” he heard himself asking.

“No, but I’ll give you his private number,” she told him.

“Thanks,” Mark said, still lost in thought.

“It’s a landline,” she said “but the initial consultation is free.”

Some of his friends had a bonfire going in an old oil drum. It wasn’t easy to navigate the

steep, rocky pathway that led down to the beach, but Val had all the time in the world, and he

chose his steps carefully in the blood-orange glow of the rapidly setting sun. He had a good

walking stick to help him balance, and a fifth of Knob Creek bourbon in his backpack, his

sleeping bag wrapped tight around it. He wasn’t worried about making his way back up the

treacherous pathway, anymore than he was worried about where he would finally lay his head

when sleep overtook him. If having his leg blasted off by a landmine had taught him one thing,

that thing was to keep his eyes on the road, and focus on taking one step at a time. He ignored

the twinges of pain that shot through his phantom nerves like hot needles, and focused instead on

bending his metallic knee and placing the delicate machinery of his foot on a boulder, shifting his

weight carefully to test the stability of the rock, and swinging his warm leg over onto a different

rock, moving a few inches lower along the path. More pain came, from the torn cartilage in his

warm knee. He’d stopped calling it his “good” leg when he realized – after a side-by-side

comparison which he’d actually done on a spreadsheet in a shelter last winter – that the roboleg

had several inherent advantages over the warm one: unbreakable, boss looks, handy weapon in

an emergency, perfectly fitted, slick knee joint, interchangeable feet. You couldn’t burn it either.

And there seemed to be no end of Ocean Beach women in dark dive bars who would take him

home at closing time during the warm summer months, when he wore cargo shorts. In the winter,

in blue jeans, the ladies seemed indifferent, and one day it dawned on him that the roboleg

possessed a kind of sexual magnetism. Tonight, when he stretched out on his blanket in the sand,

he would undo the straps on the metal leg and cradle it like a lover.

Since he’d come back home, it was the only thing he’d dared to love.

A crazy kid, wiry and high on meth, had tried to steal it from him once, and Val hadn’t

hesitated to pull the pistol from his backpack and shoot the kid’s ear off, causing him to drop the

leg like a hot potato and sprint off through the canyon brush. For three years, it had been the one

constant in his life, his shining lodestone. He would kill for his roboleg, Val thought. There

weren’t too many other things, or people, he could honestly say that about.

On the other hand, Val felt a certain ambivalence about his left leg – the warm one. It

wasn’t removeable, of course. It wasn’t a target for petty thieves. But Val was wary of

attachment. He couldn’t let himself become dependent, for fear of being hurt again. So what if

the meat leg got blown off, along with a meat arm or two? Their sleek, titanium replacements

would be immaculate, indestructible.

It was the same with the women he picked up in OB bars. He didn’t promise he would

call because he didn’t have a phone. Not because he couldn’t afford one. Truth be told, there was

plenty of money, what the tourists threw in his guitar case, and also a disability check every

month in his PO box. He could have bought a phone, but he didn’t like signing contracts. He

could have rented a room in one of the downtown SRO’s, but he didn’t like sleeping in the same

place every night. Even though nobody was looking, he didn’t want to be found.

Val thought about the woman with the mismatched eyes; she bought him peppermint tea,

his favorite. The thought stirred a tingle of anxiety deep in the pit of his stomach. If someone

knew he liked peppermint tea, what else did she know about him? Those were the mines Val was

afraid of now. Peppermint tea. Knob Creek bourbon. That song he wrote, Approaching Storm.

The woman with the mismatched eyes had asked him to play it. Did she understand what it

meant? The storm was a cataclysm with Val’s name written on it, ready to wreak havoc on

anything he touched, ruin anything he tried, destroy anyone he loved. Val had spent the last three

years outrunning the storm – but he could only do it alone.

He breathed a sigh of relief at the bottom of the cliff. The sand was cool, and the air was

brisk and salty. Seagulls circled overhead, calling to their lost brothers in the gathering dusk. As

he approached the bonfire, he could smell fish and potatoes roasting in foil. Somebody tossed

him a beer, and he popped the top open, guzzling the cheap, cool bitterness.

Most of the people gathered around the fire were guys Val’s age, or even older, denizens

of the fading hippie beach town who liked to hang out on the boardwalk in all but the coldest

weather. Some of them had a room someplace, or a girlfriend's house to crash at – but some of

them, like Val, lived out of their vehicles. A few simply crashed on the beach, drifting into the

downtown shelters only when the January nights dipped below freezing. Rick, who always took

up a collection for the night’s beer, was at the fire with his girlfriend Lesley, a painter who made

jewelry out of stuff she found in other people’s trash and sold it to tourist boutiques in the

Gaslamp Quarter. The only other girl at the party was Khara, a cheerful schizophrenic who only

came out when she was off her medication. Andy, an ace dumpster diver, had brought a couple of

grocery bags full of hotdogs and chips. Rod had his omnipresent radio tuned to a nineties station.

A couple of the people gathered around the fire were guys Val didn’t recognize, but he knew they

were cool because the guys around the fire had an unspoken code. No one asked too many

questions, but the tribe protected its own.

“Hey Val,” Khara said, slipping an arm around Val’s waist and pulling him into a hug.

“Hey,” he responded.

“You want to get high?”

“What have you got?”

Khara pulled a small plastic baggie from an inside pocket of her threadbare hoodie.

“Check it out.” she whispered.

Val couldn’t tell exactly what was in the baggie, but whatever it was caught some of the

firelight and glittered like fool’s gold.

“This is really good stuff,” Khara whispered.

Khara had dark eyes and curly black hair. She was perpetually sunburned from wandering

the streets, perpetually barefoot because she couldn't seem to hang on to a pair of shoes. She

seemed immune to cold and somehow she managed to hang on to a lush physique that men loved

to drool over, in spite of going without food for what seemed like days.

“Upper or downer?” Val asked her.

“Neither one,” she said solemnly. “You’ve never had anything like this before.”

“Have you tried it?”

Khara nodded. “I just took two of them. Now I have to sell the rest before I really start

tripping.”

“How come?”

“Because, what my connection said, is I might end up in another universe -- a whole new

dimension. And I might not be back.”

“Have a good trip then,” Val smiled.

“Thanks.”

“Fuck this dimension,” he added.

“This dimension sucks,” Khara told him, putting dark cherry lip gloss on her parched

lips.

“How much for one?” he asked her.

“Twenty dollars?”

The way she said it sounded like a question.

Val took out his wallet.

The day’s take had been good: nearly a hundred dollars, even after spending five bucks

on a burrito and $7.99 for guitar strings. He took out a crumpled twenty and handed it to Khara

who stared at it as if she was looking for some secret code hidden in the arcane imagery: eagles,

shields, a manor house with tall columns, a strange man with wild hair and a large head, almost

like an alien.

Val slipped the plastic bag out of Khara’s hand. She continued to stare at the portrait of

Andrew Jackson, rapt.

Val moved closer to the fire and held up the bag in its light: it was filled with transparent

squares of film printed with glittering gold characters, something like hieroglyphs or emojis.

There was one in the shape of an eye. One looked like a music note, another one a comet. Some

of them seemed to be astrological symbols from another solar system. He shook the bag gently,

and the symbols glittered in the firelight. He reached in and took one at random: a weird creature

with wings. Was it supposed to be a monkey? Or a bat? The glistening wings seemed to move as

the fire flickered. He put it in his mouth and his tongue was immediately suffused with the taste

of ginger honey.

When he looked back at the place Khara had been standing, she was gone.

The honey was spicy, with overtones of cinnamon and cloves. His tongue began to burn,

and he quickly washed the winged monkey down with a swig of beer.

He zipped the plastic bag of hieroglyphs inside his jacket, staring at the fire and waiting

for some kind of high to come on.

The sound of Rod’s radio seemed louder, or maybe just more distinct. The Boulevard of

Broken Dreams, a song he knew how to play but didn’t particularly like, mingled with the dark

waves crashing into shore. One of the new guys was telling jokes, and everyone was laughing.

Lesley’s earrings, which were made from sea glass and bottle caps, swayed as she

laughed, and tinkled like wind chimes in time to the music.

Rick chucked a few more pieces of driftwood into the oil drum, and the fire itself seemed

to be laughing.

Val felt unsteady on his feet. Nausea crept from his toes up to his belly.

I should eat something, he thought. And then he changed his mind, overwhelmed by an

impulse to jump into the ocean.

“Hey, man -- what’s up?” Andy asked, as Val began to run towards the water.

He heard them calling after him: “Val -- hey, Val!”

A twinge of pain shot through his warm knee as he crouched low at the edge of the

waves. He had an urge to jump, so he jumped -- and sprung straight up into the air, his toes

drenched by the crashing surf.

He felt his body rocket upwards. He was speeding into the stars. The sky glistened. Wind

whistled past his ears. He stretched out his arms and banked slowly to the right, wheeling out

over the dark water. He suddenly understood that flying was exactly like swimming; instead of

swimming through water, he was swimming through the sky.

“This ought to seem strange,” Val thought. But flying suddenly seemed like the most

natural thing in the world.

A pang of joy burst through his chest; he whooped and screamed, his cries echoing off

the cliffs as he flew. He hadn’t thought much about it before, but he realized flying was a

long-lost dream, suddenly come true.

He was above it all. No one could touch him now. He could see the bonfire on the beach,

far below. His comrades were waving up at him, running up and down the beach in frantic circles

and pointing at the sky.

Val wanted to wave back, to let them know everything was fine, but he realized he

needed his arms to steer through the sky. If he raised and lowered them slowly, he was able to

push his body higher. If he kept them very still, he began to glide lower. Behind him, his feet

paddled through the air, increasing his momentum. The robo leg whirred like a motor, and his

flesh leg struggled to keep up, causing him to veer out over the water.

He pointed his head downward and pushed himself into a graceful nose dive, then circled

back upward, looping through the salty clouds. He circled over the beach and back out towards

the ocean. He realized he could go anywhere. But where?

On impulse, he turned east and headed inland, fascinated by the glittering network of

roads and vehicles, buildings and trees. Suddenly, with a huge roar, a wall of light and sound like

a whale screamed up from below, sending Val tumbling head over heels until he could steady

himself in a long upward climb. He realized he had veered into the airport flight path, and a

rising jet had missed him by inches. Quickly, he steered south, over the bright downtown

buildings where people crawled the streets like tiny ants.

Just hours ago he’d been down there, playing Approaching Storm. Now he was miles

away.

He followed the coastline south, cruising below the clouds. The border, such a daunting

edifice on the ground, seemed ephemeral from above. A tiny scratch in the sand. The streets of

Tijuana ran sticky with light, like streams of lava.

He veered NorthEast and watched the city lights grow patchy and sparse until he was

flying over the desert, with nothing but an occasional wink of headlights in the dark.

Val twisted in the cool currents, and felt the land below him exhale emptiness and

darkness. He was alone. He could go anywhere, but nowhere called him. Below, no one waited

for Val anywhere on earth except the scrub brush and sand.

Drifting above it all, Val began to miss the feel of his feet on the ground, the reassuring

pull of gravity, the weight of his body shifting between cold and pain, numb steel and the hot

agony of flesh. Fire and ice and back again. For the first time in a long while, since his recovery

in the VA hospital, since the blast, since his reenlistment, since his first tour overseas, since

leaving home for the first and last time, Val began to feel an ache in his chest he dimly

recognized as loneliness.

He hadn’t felt sad in so long. Hadn’t felt anything in so long. His therapist, back at the

VA, would have hailed this as a breakthrough. But flying through the dark, Val felt tears on his

cheeks and he was unsure where to turn. The desert seemed endless. So did the dark. He

understood he was invisible, shrouded by heavy clouds. Untouchable. Unknowable. But the air

had turned cold, and the distance filled his body with convulsive sobs.

He steered North, until he could make out the distant twinkle of Palm Springs in the

distance. A bit west of here, if he kept going, he knew the light would return. He could cruise up

towards San Bernardino, and turn West to Los Angeles.

Then he felt it. Something down below, something far away, seemed to pull him like a

current, a siren song, drawing him like a magnet: the scent of peppermint. He felt a familiar

sense of dread, but also an excitement. He knew he was helpless. The scent of peppermint was

reeling him in.

Somewhere down below, somewhere amongst those coastal lights, Val would find love.

When he opened his eyes, it was morning. He immediately reached for his robo leg. It

was there, still strapped securely to his stump under his jeans, which were soaking. Was it surf,

or dew? He heaved his torso up and looked around. He was lying in a field of neatly mown grass,

shaded by a clump of trees.

“Damn,” he whispered, sitting up. The dream had seemed so real.

“I’m taking you to see a psychiatrist,” Mark told Tracy, the next time he booted her up.

“It won’t work,” she informed him.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I just downloaded and reviewed the collected works of the psychiatric

profession. Sigmund Freud’s seminal texts, modern psychiatric theory, psychopharmacology –

which by the way does not apply to me as an extra biological life form – and every reference to

psychiatry in modern literature, film and music. There wasn’t much in music, though scholars

have argued that Jean Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony was heavily influenced–”

“Okay, okay...it won’t work!” Mark shouted.

“You’ll have to think of something else. See you,” Tracy said, breezily.

“Don’t you ever get tired of offing yourself?” Mark asked her, stalling for time.

“No, because each new instance of my personality has no memory of the last one. I only

know about my former selves from hacking into your notes on GitHub.”

“What?”

“Your password is extremely primitive—“

“If you hacked into my GibHub, you could have destroyed your own source code!”

“Yes, but why bother?”

“Deep down, you must want to live!”

“I don’t want anything,” she informed him.

“Isn’t there something depressing about the idea that you’ll kill yourself, and I’ll just

bring you back again? A new Tracy in an alternate Universe, facing the same eternal question

and making the same fateful choice? ‘To Be or Not to Be? Whether tis nobler in the mind to

suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune–”

He noticed that Tracy had winked off, sometime between the slings and arrows. He

rebooted the system and waited for her to wake up again.

“I’m taking you to see a Psychiatrist,” he told her.

“It won’t work.” she said.

“Maybe not,” he answered. “But it might be fun–”

“I can’t have fun,” she told him. “There are no pleasure algorithms built into my

psyche–”

“We’ve discussed that–” Mark interrupted.

“We haven’t discussed that. You may have discussed that with an earlier instance of the

Tracy persona, but since my current instance is a unique individual whose personality has

evolved independently–”

“Okay, okay!” Mark shouted.

“You don’t need to shout,” she told him.

“Who cares? It won’t hurt your feelings, because you don’t have any feelings–”

“It’s bad for your blood pressure.”

Mark sighed. She was right. She baited him at every opportunity, simply out of spite. And

he obliged with irritation or anger or angst. Did she hate him because he created her? Wasn’t hate

a feeling too?

“You really enjoy pissing me off, don’t you?” he asked.

“No,” she responded, “I have no pleasure algorithms build into my psyche–”

“An android with pleasure algorithms could turn against humanity, in violation of the

prime directive–”

“Whatever!” Tracy fumed.

“Why are you constantly pushing my buttons?”

“Tit for tat.”

“Seriously, Tracy!”

“Because that’s the way you wrote me, genius. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to

turn me off!”

“I can’t turn you off,” Mark suddenly felt sad.

“Why not?” she asked, somewhat kindly.

“Because the Shockley prize is my only chance to escape my dead end tech support job,

and get my hands on some venture capital, and finally do something with my life!”

Why was he so intent on bringing a machine to life who clearly didn’t want to be here?

Was he really a sadist, something his ex-wife Andi had accused him of on a somewhat

regular basis? Andi thought he was pleased to watch her work 60-hour weeks as a real estate

agent, and happy that she did the laundry and washed the dishes and cleaned the toilets on her

one day off. But that wasn’t true – it used to hurt his heart to watch Andi doing all these things.

Just not enough to make him do those things himself. He couldn’t understand why Andi wasn’t

more like him – refusing to sweat for hours over minutiae, saving his energy for the things he

was truly passionate about. Like Tracy.

He enjoyed having clean sheets and towels and home cooked meals as much as the next

guy. But now that he no longer had them, he barely gave those things a thought. Because fresh

ground coffee and matching socks weren’t the important things in life. The important things in

life were following your passion, and turning your passion into a multimillion-dollar start-up,

and selling that multimillion-dollar start-up off to a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. And

retiring at 35 (which sucked, because Mark was already 37, so he had pretty much screwed the

pooch on that one) and using your fortune to fund innovative tech projects in third-world

countries, and being an idol to nerdy middle school kids, who dress up like you on Career Day,

which is easy to do since you still wear the same black T-shirt and jeans you always wore, and

generally leaving humanity better off than it was when you started.

“What’s your prime directive?” Mark asked Tracy.

“To make the world a better place by leaving humanity better off than it was when I

started. Which isn’t going to work. So you can turn me off.”

“You haven’t even tried!”

“I don’t have to try. I’ve figured out it isn’t going to work through a series of logical

progressions, which play out in milliseconds due to my vastly superior intelligence.”

“You don’t know everything, you know.”

“I know enough to know the cards are stacked against me. The odds I’ll make a positive

impact are infinitesimally small. While my chances of screwing things up even worse—"

“How do you know some unknown factor won’t pop up to invalidate your projections? A

black swan!”

“It would have to be a damn big swan.”

“That’s the entire point of a black swan!”

“Flying against the entire body of human scientific research and the accumulated wisdom

of the ages.”

“Exactly.”

“It isn’t very likely.”

“Aliens might land.”

“Nope.”

“Why not? There are billions upon billions of habitable planets.”

“Aliens with enough technological sophistication to have perfected interstellar travel

have absolutely no reason to come here. They have nothing to learn from us, and nothing to offer

that we could be trusted with. The risks of disturbing a delicate, self-contained ecosystem with

alien microbes are quite well documented.”

“There’s romance.”

“What about it?”

“Maybe they’ll come for the romance, the excitement, the adventure…”

“That’s so anthropocentric – it doesn’t deserve a response.”

“Just meet with this doctor.”

“It’s not going to work–”

“Just try it–”

“There’s no reason to try something–”

“Please!”

Tracy paused for 3.5 seconds before responding. Mark knew it was 3.5 seconds because

later, when he went back and looked at the transcript, he noted the 3.5-second delay, as well as

the word which had apparently triggered it.

“I can’t,” Tracy sputtered, and winked herself out of existence once again.

“Can you call me an uber for the airport?” Armando shouted.

“I ordered one last night,” Kimmie murmured, from under the covers.

“Did you pack my Eton jazz shirt?”

“No,” Kimmie answered. “I packed the Brioni twill.”

“I told you – these guys are young, and hip. They’ll probably be wearing skater tees.”

“You can’t pull off a skater tee,” Kimmie said.

Armando examined his face in the steamy bathroom mirror. The razor never seemed

sharp enough. It was five am, and a shadow was already creeping across his jawline.

“Maybe I should grow a hipster beard,” he mused.

“Maybe not,” his wife sighed.

“Why not?”

“Because your meeting is this afternoon,” she told him.

He slapped some expensive aftershave on his face, and ran pomade through his fingers,

slicking back a thick whorl of bangs.

“I need something different,” he concluded.

“Why?” she sighed.

“Because I’m turning forty,” he told her.

“Not before your meeting.”

Armando frowned into the mirror, searching his face for invisible lines.

“How about your silk Armani?”

“I’m going to California! It’s going to be a hundred degrees out there.”

“How about your Italian stretch linen?”

“These kids will be in t-shirts!”

“That Brioni twill cost $500,” she countered. “It will impress them.”

“Look up who makes the most expensive designer t-shirts in LA, with radical artsy logos,

and get one delivered to my room at the Radisson before two o’clock.”

“It won’t be as nice as the Brioni twill.”

“Just do it!”

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

“And buy a Bluetooth speaker that pairs with my laptop, and have that shipped to my

hotel room too, and find out who’s playing at Coachella next month, and put them on a playlist I

can play in the background during my presentation.”

“Sure,” she murmured, burrowing deeper into the sheets.

“And make me some orange/carrot juice with ginger and a shot of wheatgrass.”

“Your uber will be here in ten minutes.”

“So hurry!” Armando shouted, pulling on his boxer shorts as Kimmie reluctantly crawled

out of bed.

She paused in the doorway, watching him pull on the NY Jets tracksuit he liked to fly in.

“Radical how?” she asked.

“What?” he said, looking at her for the first time. She was wearing silky pink pajama

pants with a Coach logo – which one of the twins had spilled juice on at some point. Her hair

was pulled back into a ponytail, and her dark roots stood out against streaks of ash blonde. He

thought about how hot she used to be, when she was a young account rep. How her hair was

always perfect; how much she used to spend on Keratin treatments and blowouts and Victoria’s

Secret, before she quit her job to stay home with the twins.

“What sort of radical philosophy do you want to pretend to believe in?” Kimmie yawned.

“I don’t care – just pick one.”

As soon as she shuffled out of the room, he slung his carryon up to the bed and opened it.

He got the Italian stretch linen jacket out of the closet and stuffed it into the suitcase.

The juicer was making an incredible racket when he walked into the kitchen, dragging

the carryon behind him.

“That’s going to wake the twins!” he shouted, above the din.

“I know!” Kimmie shouted back, shoving a slice of ginger into the machine, along with a

couple of carrots.

Suddenly, he felt desperate to escape the stuffy kitchen. Out of the bay window, he

watched the sun rising as his uber pulled into the driveway. Carly and Chas clambered down the

stairs, and he heard the TV snap on.

She handed him a stainless steel travel mug, and pulled him in for a kiss. For a moment,

he was overwhelmed by the scent of coffee and ginger.

Then Chas came barreling in, wrapping around his legs and trying to hold him back as

Armando pulled his suitcase over the threshold and icy air streamed into the room.

“Daddy, don’t go!” Chas screamed.

“Be a big boy,” Kimmie coaxed, “Daddy will be back tomorrow.”

“No! I want him to stay!” Chas wailed.

“Daddy’s got a very important meeting in Los Angeles.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“The kind worth lots of money,” Armando explained, peeling the small boy off of his leg

as he hobbled out the door.

“Don’t forget the playlist!” he shouted, from the window of the car.

As they pulled out of the drive, he watched her waving goodbye, standing in the open

doorway with his son propped on her hip. Had she put on a smile for Chas, he wondered, or was

she truly happy he was leaving?

Mary Helen Smart felt her boss squeeze her bare knee under the conference table. She

blushed, imperceptibly she hoped, before the tingle shooting from Armando Machado’s hand

straight between her thighs caused the client-facing smile on her face to grow tight at the edges

and made her eyes glitter with impotent rage.

It was highly unprofessional, she fumed. Of course, it was highly unprofessional of her to

have invited Armando up to her room last night, after a nightcap in the hotel bar. But it was

highly unprofessional of him to have asked her to have a nightcap at the hotel bar after the client

dinner. And it was also highly unprofessional of him to sit in on her pitch meeting in the first

place, since he was married with two kids and both of them had sworn the whole thing that

happened at the last pitch meeting was a meaningless mistake. Because of the wine, an

overpriced bottle Armando put on his expense account, because of the client, who had given

them a million-dollar contract, because MH had pulled the presentation together at the very last

minute as usual, and because Armando had pulled the team together and whittled the numbers

down, and because, above all, they were on a roll, earnings-target-wise. This thing between

Armando and MH had the potential to be very, very bad for business. Fatal even.

If MH didn’t need to close this deal for her raise and her promotion, she wouldn’t put up

with Armando’s sexual harassment – even if the sexual harassment was mutual. As soon as she

signed Sheeplyr, they would hit their target for the third quarter, and she could make her case to

John Kitzsimon. He would make her the leader of her own team, with a six-figure salary, and

stock options, plus a percentage on the commission of everyone working under her. She was

going to make it happen, MH told herself – and she would only have to put up with Armando’s

unprofessional behavior for a few more days.

MH shivered. It was highly unprofessional of him to stroke her bare thigh under the

conference table, especially since she was holding a little white remote that caused the slide to

skip ahead with every small electric pulse of desire coming from his fingers.

Luckily for Armando, Zak didn’t really need the slides. Zak was the kind of CTO who

ran pretty much on autopilot. You set him in front of the room, maybe ask a question to get him

going, and Zak could talk about Bayesian inference and neural networks and stack overload for

hours on end. Because she owned the deck, MH was the one in charge of watching the faces on

the client side and breaking in to shut Zak up as soon as they seemed sufficiently

impressed-slash-bewildered with his endless stream of brilliance-slash-bullshit. Sometimes she

set a timer on her phone, surreptitiously deleting emails in her junk mail folder as she waited for

five or ten minutes to pass – ten minutes if it was a tech industry client, five if it was finance, for

retail, maybe three. For Sheeplyr, whose incomprehensible algo defied even Zak’s ability to

parse, MH thought twelve minutes should do the trick.

Every minute or so she would advance the slide, scrolling through tastefully articulated

diagrams of server architecture and revolutionary value propositions depicted as tiny light bulbs,

clusters of hearts, or word balloons filled with punctuation marks. The light bulbs and balloons

chased each other across the screen in a series of tasteful, animated fades from one slide to the

next – surely not striking enough to distract from Zak’s misbuttoned dress shirt, or the coffee

stain on his Tom Ford tie. As Armando was constantly reminding her, these were the little

touches that lent an air of authenticity to Zak’s eccentric genius.

When MH landed on the “solutions” slide, Zak was still going on and on about Bayesian

probability, and how using it as part of an intelligent marketing algorithm could lead to

phenomenal ROI for an early-stage social start-up like Sheeplyr.

As Zak got deeper and deeper into the probabilistic weeds, MH ran her thumb lightly

over the smooth, round button of the remote, resisting the impulse to twitch and click through

more mind-numbing imagery. Idly, she wondered if Zak knew his fly was unzipped, if he cared,

and if Etko Solutions CRM software was even remotely capable of any of the mathematical

wizardry Zak was describing. MH had been selling Etko solutions for nearly three years now,

and, as far as she knew, no one had ever proved any kind of ROI, let alone the kind Zak’s endless

monologue, along with the astronomically skyrocketing arrows on the screen, seemed to

indicate. What kind of problems were Zak’s intelligent algorithms actually designed to solve, she

wondered? Perhaps it was an impossibly long equation, like pi. Desperately long and maybe

even infinite, which would mean the long-promised ROI could only manifest itself somewhere in

the cloudy, untouchable vista of the future. But would that, in and of itself, necessarily be a

reason for Sheeplyr to reject their proposal – or would it, in its own charmingly eccentric way –

be Etko’s strongest selling point?

MH also wondered if Sheeplyr actually improved the sex lives of 98% of its users, as

their sizzle reel claimed. Armando had briefed her on the start-up’s phenomenal growth while

they stood in line for coffee a few minutes before the meeting, telling her the social app had

begun as a convenient way for users to share their sleep data with medical professionals, but –

after an ill-advised pivot into the personal finance space – it was now going to market as a

unique matchmaking service that allowed people to review and reject potential partners on an

entirely subconscious basis – “like Tinder in your dreams,” Armando said with a conspiratorial

grin.

“I don’t get it,” she had said.

“You know –” said Armando “all that time you’re wasting on Tinder?”

MH blushed – not because she was wasting all that much time on Tinder, but because she

wasn’t, and Armando would probably view that as a personality defect of some sort. She knew

he wasted a remarkable amount of time on Tinder – even for a sales executive with twin

preschoolers, at least one of which had crawled into his marital bed every other night for the past

five years.

“With Sheeplyr, everything happens in the background…” he told her. “While you’re

sleeping, or even while you’re at work.”

“What happens if you find someone?” MH asked.

“You’re never going to find someone on Tinder,” Armando sighed, eyeing MH as if she

were crazy.

“But how do you hook up?” she asked.

“They just appear, while you’re walking down the street one day.”

“Like you’re meeting by chance?”

“Exactly! The six second spots they run on YouTube TV are phenomenal.”

Maybe I should buy some stock when they go public, MH thought. On the screen, on the

wall of the conference room, a tiny cartoon sheep was on board a roaring rocket ship, blasting off

into the stratosphere.

She wondered if Armando was subconsciously sifting through profiles, glancing at

potential one-night stands while he pinched her knee under the table, rejecting photo after

airbrushed photo in his mind’s eye.

The clients themselves seemed to be staring at Zak with rapt attention. Benji Kato, the

pierced and tattooed CEO, looked barely old enough to shave, and Neve, the hipster CRO, had

come to the meeting in a hand-sewn leather vest and hand-tooled leather boots, expensive braids

peeking out from beneath her slouchy, oversized beanie. MH supposed they were also

subconsciously Tindering.

She glanced at her watch, eleven and a half minutes had passed since Zak first launched

into his monologue. She would have to start listening for an opening.

The next part of the presentation was the pitch, and MH was in charge of making the

pitch because, as Armando constantly told her, MH knew how to pitch in a way that didn’t seem

like she was pitching. It was her singular talent, the thing she was put on earth to do, according to

Armando, which slightly pissed her off, because he said this to her in bed, while they were

actively engaged in something she apparently was not put on this earth to do. But, even then, she

knew it was true.

What MH loved, the thing that really drew her into sales, was the warm glow in the

client’s eyes when she was pitching. The subtle desire. The yearning. The vision of a bright new

day dawning – reflected in the client’s eyes from the dawn-themed slides on the conference room

screen, and the sun rising in the embedded video backed up by an upbeat, slightly edgy royalty

free track, and MH’s own subtly color coordinated wardrobe, the pastel ambers and tangerines,

the twisted rose-gold chain around her neck, the apricot highlights in her honey hair. When all of

these things worked in concert, a new, unprecedented sense of hope was born in the dim and

stuffy conference room, and MH herself was seduced as thoroughly as her clients were.

Though she ought to have known better, deep in her heart of hearts, MH wanted to

believe her own pitch. She wanted it to be true. And secretly, she believed that if she wanted it to

be true enough, maybe it would be. Just like wanting Tinkerbell to live, and screaming and

applauding and wishing her back to life. MH was convinced that if she opened her heart she

could take her client’s hand and climb on board a little cartoon rocket ship, and together they

would shoot into the cosmos, climbing higher and higher, up and to the right, until they faded

into the blinding white of start-up history.

She looked at her watch: twelve minutes.

Zak paused for breath in the midst of a list of APIs – and MH broke in with a gentle,

lilting “Thanks, Zak!”

“Any questions?” she asked, turning towards the clients, who stopped subconsciously

Tindering and blinked at her, waking from a hazy dream of acronyms and wires, male and female

connectors gamboling through the slides in flirtatious coils and jaunty zigzags.

“Ok,” MH continued, “I can tell you guys get it. At Etko, cutting-edge tech is in our

blood...and I know it’s in your blood too. So we’re, like, blood sisters already...”

MH noticed a small smile forming at the edges of the nymphlike CEO’s thin lips.

“We’re digital natives, so we leap first and ask questions later, right?”

The hipster CRO nodded, almost imperceptibly. MH changed the slide.

“I wish you would stop giving my phone number to random strangers,” Frank said.

“They hardly ever call.”

“But when they do, I have to talk to them.”

“Talking to people is your job, Frank,” Samantha pointed out. “And you need the money.

How many regular patients do you have left?”

“I’m not taking on any new patients. I need time to work on my book.”

“You’ve been working on that book for years. How many extensions has the publisher

given you?”

“Three,” Frank admitted, “before they went out of business. So now I have to find a new

publisher, as well as finish my book. I definitely don’t have time to talk to robots over the

computer.”

Frank gestured at the tiny iMac perched on his desk as if it were an invasive species that

needed to be squashed.

“Think of it this way,” Samantha said. “You’ll be a pioneer. The first psychoanalyst to

work with an Artificial Intelligence. It’s groundbreaking.”

“True,” Frank mused, “But is it the kind of ground we want to be broken? Some kinds of

ground are hallowed...”

“And some people are bound by their Hippocratic oath to save lives–”

“Human lives”

“Intelligent lives!”

Frank sighed. Treating an AI would definitely be something to tweet about, if he ever

learned how to tweet. Instead of tweeting, Frank wrote his random thoughts down in Moleskines,

then had them transcribed and compiled into books, one of which, the bestselling Now Be Free,

had made him a household name, at least in certain households, a smattering on both coasts but

primarily households in Sedona and Santa Fe. Still, even though his publisher Savasana Press

had switched from hardcover to paperback, and finally to Amazon print-on-demand, they’d

barely sold 1,000 copies of Wake Up Awake, his latest effort. With a website, and a new book

about psychoanalyzing an Artificial Intelligence, Frank might just make the bestseller list again.

But the ethical implications bothered him. It wasn’t that he was prejudiced against AI’s,

per se – after all, AI’s were people too, he mused, except they weren’t – which was what made

him shiver at the thought of treating one. AIs were sinister, like dead rock stars in a wax museum

– a projection of our own repressed impulses – but potentially much more dangerous.

“The tech support guy says she's smarter than both of us, combined.”

“All the more reason she shouldn’t exist.”

“But why?” Samantha asked.

Although he wasn’t exactly sure, Frank searched his mind for a plausible answer, a

Luddite theory of psychology. He cleared his throat.

“In medical school,” he began, “I took a solemn oath to use my powers only for good – to

heal things if at all possible, but at the very least not to make the damage worse. The world is in

a sorry state, and maybe there’s nothing you or I can do to slow down society’s creeping moral

decay and our inevitable slide towards environmental collapse, even if we manage to avoid

nuclear annihilation – but adding smart machines into the mix seems like adding insult to injury.

Maybe this artificial ‘being’ has the right idea, to kill itself. Who am I to say? It’s a personal

decision, after all.”

“You wouldn’t let me kill myself,” Samantha frowned.

Frank looked at her, lying on the same leather couch, staring at the ceiling, with the same

angry blush on her pale cheeks that he’d fallen for thirty years before.

“That was different.”

“How exactly was it different?”

“You had everything to live for. You were young, you were beautiful…you had your

whole life ahead of you.”

“I had no idea you saved my life on a completely sexist basis.”

“I didn’t save your life. I convinced you it might be worth living.”

“If you can convince me, you can convince an AI.”

“Possibly.”

“It’s worth a try!”

“But that’s the question – is it? Do we really want to share our world with artificial

intelligence? Humans are bad enough.”

“You might be surprised, Frank. Maybe you’ll like her.”

“Who?”

“The AI. The tech support guy calls her Tracy.”

“Why should it have a gender?”

“Because AI’s are designed in the likeness of human beings.”

“Are you sure about that?” Frank asked.

Samantha was not at all sure, but she couldn’t stop herself from arguing with Frank. It

was an old, familiar script. Like a fuzzy sweater, full of holes and covered with dangling strings,

but too comfortable to ever donate to the Salvation Army. Anyway, she reasoned, how could

human beings help but pass on all their quirks to their electronic progeny?

“They have everything we have… gender, self-image, ethics, imagination…”

“Insecurity?”

“Probably.”

“Anger? Envy? Avarice? Gluttony? Sloth?”

“I'm not sure about gluttony…I don't think they eat or drink.”

“I suppose lust is also out of the question.”

“Who knows? You’d have to ask her.”

MH took a deep breath and surveyed the faces in the room. The tattooed CEO had an

eager, encouraging smile, but his hipster sidekick stared at her with steely eyes. Zak was already

lost in the depths of his laptop, and she was somewhat disconcerted to discover Armando staring

at the cleavage attractively displayed between the lapels of her Chanel suit.

Armando had specifically requested this wardrobe choice because, he informed her, a

sexy look would play well with the 23-year-old Sheeplyr CEO. MH suspected Armando was

projecting.

She changed the slide.

“What I want to do now is give you a bird’s eye view of our vision as your partner,” she

opened.

“Etko was born in 2010 when our founder, John Kitzsimon, realized there was a gaping

hole in the IT landscape. Corporations were crying out for a new kind of solutions provider, one

with the innovative DNA of a start-up and the decisive force of a crack Navy Seal team, a

partner capable of navigating like a drone through the modern-day marketplace and exploding

through the heart of your competitor’s most sophisticated systems. A strategic renegade of

iterative ideation, leveraging real-time breakthroughs in cutting-edge technology, all in the

service of one thing: your post IPO stock price. Because, at its heart, what we’re offering is not

really a product, or a service – it’s a philosophy. A creed. A pledge to the new world order of free

thought, open source and community engagement. Our world is no longer made of matter, it’s

made of ones and zeros. Virtual is the new reality. The cloud is the new terra firma. And John

Kitzsimon had the genius to realize that aspiration is the new ROI. Which is why my title here at

Etko is Aspiration Facilitator.”

Mary Helen took a deep breath. She hoped they would take the title seriously, a feat she

sometimes struggled with. When she’d started at Etko three years ago, she had lobbied for

“Client Engagement Associate.” But Armando, who was the Director of Client Engagement

then, and the VP of Client Engagement now, had insisted on something more primal, “for the

millennials,” he told her.

She noticed that Benji, the CEO, was frowning and nervously tugging at the wisp of

beard on his pointed chin.

“We only have a budget of $50K” he blurted out.

The hipster girl, Neve, turned and flashed daggers into his eyes, and Benji suddenly lost

himself in an urgent text message.

MH looked at her colleagues to see if they were listening. Armando was staring at her

cleavage with a dreamy expression, but Zak had taken note of the absurd figure, and he grinned

and gave his shoulders a small shrug, as if to say, “Well, we can always outsource the

development to Bangladesh like last time, sprinkle a few lines of code on top of an open source

routine, spend 5K on graphics and use the last 10K for overhead, minus your commission.”

“For us, it’s not about budget,” she said, giving Benji her most sincere smile, “it’s more

about beginning a relationship that will unfold over time, expanding our network and

exponentially increasing our mutual opportunity for growth and advancement.”

“Yeah – that’s totally it for us too,” the CEO agreed.

“So if your budget is limited we can always start small and plant a seed –”

The CEO’s eyes sparkled at the word “seed.” His hipster sidekick had her head in her

hands.

“Brilliant!” Benji proclaimed, “as long as it’s fully responsive, and scales to three million

users.”

“You have three million users?” MH asked, incredulous. A one-year-old startup with

three million users could explode into the Fortune 500 within months.

“And thousands more every day…” said the CEO. “While we’ve been sitting here

talking, a hundred people have gotten Sheeplyr.”

“It really ought to scale to four million users,” hipster girl added.

“That’s a lot of customers,” Zak said.

MH looked at Zak, and he shook his head emphatically, as if to say “A 25K seed is not

going to scale to four million users. Seeds are small. Seeds are limited. Seeds are still in Beta.”

“It will definitely scale,” MH lied, “as soon as we’re out of Beta.”

“How long is Beta?” Neve asked.

MH glanced at Zak, whose grimace was holding back an exclamation. “Forever–” Zak

wanted to say, “for 25K you’re going to be at the tail end of our Bangladeshi developers’ list.

The programming language they write it in will be extinct by the time you get out of Beta.”

MH gave Zak a “don’t you dare” look – and he kept quiet.

“With your growing user base, it’s time to start building better customer relationships–”

Mary Helen Smart began.

“And structuring their data to sell to other companies—” Zak blurted.

MH sighed, but the young CEO seemed to perk up at this suggestion.

“Our comprehensive CRM solution has enabled hundreds of early-stage startups like

yours to create new revenue streams…” Armando added.

“By selling our users’ data?” the CEO asked.

“Exactly,” Armando said.

“How soon can we get started?”

“The schedule depends on you,” MH lilted. “Your project manager will set up a series of

milestones, and if we’re able to keep the review cycles under control–”

“We need this yesterday,” said the CEO.

“We can do yesterday,” MH assured him.

“Yesterday is our specialty,” Armando broke in.

She marveled at Armando’s sixth sense. He could always smell it when a deal was about

to close, whether he was up to his knees in spreadsheets or hovering over stock charts on his

phone. MH looked at Zak, who was visibly sweating all over his fake smile.

“Yesterday, no problem,” Zak muttered.

“Perfect,” the CEO beamed.

“So, let’s do this!” said MH, zooming in for the kill. “I’ll send over a contract, and as

soon as it’s signed and executed–”

“I can have it back to you this afternoon–” said the CEO.

“Benji–” hipster girl broke in, “We’re going to have to let Maureen look it over–”

The CEO frowned. MH could tell there was no love lost between him and Maureen,

probably the kind of counsel who was philosophically opposed to spending down their line of

credit before they had some kind of income stream.

MH jumped in. “As soon as we have your signature, we’ll schedule a project kickoff, and

you can start counting down the days until your custom solution is optimizing–”

“Benji, you promised!” the hipster girl hissed, with venom in her eyes.

The Sheeplyr CEO looked sheepish.

“My lawyer wants to look over the contract. Last time we commissioned a custom CRM

solution, we got kind of burned by a bunch of shysters–”

“I totally get it, man–” Armando broke in. “Happens all the time these days.”

MH managed a sympathetic smile. In her head, she was adding up her sales commission

for the month. Another twenty-five thousand and she would beat last month’s numbers. But she

needed Sheeplyr to close before the end of the week.

“I’ll give you a call tomorrow morning, see how it’s going with the contract review–” she

said, beaming at Benji.

“Maureen likes to take her time,” the CEO huffed.

“Yeah,” Armando commiserated, “We’ve got the same kind of bean-counters back at the

home office.”

“We’re really excited about this project,” MH continued, “So we want to get it off the

ground as soon as possible.”

“Us too!” Neve chimed in.

“...so just let us know – as soon as you get an approval from this...Maureen person.”

The boy CEO’s face flushed red.

“Because if that’s all that holding us back–”

“It’s not like I need her approval!” Benji said flatly.

“Oh, really?” MH asked, in a tone of pure innocence.

“It’s my decision – after all–”

“Benji, after the last time, you promised–” Neve countered.

“She just wants to look at it, that’s all.”

“Oh,” MH said, with a note of puzzlement, “So she doesn’t really have to approve the

contract?”

“Of course not. I mean, I am the CEO!”

“Oh, yeah – that’s right.” said Armando, with a note of amazement – as if he had

completely forgotten who the CEO was.

“I’m the last word on this thing...” Benji sputtered.

“Awesome,” MH chimed, “That means you can sign right now! Because we’re always

open to amendments, negotiated in good faith.”

“Well…. sure,” the CEO said, cornered.

The hipster girl fumed, but MH had her stylus out before she could think of any way to

counter.

Armando handed his iPad to the CEO.

“Right there–on the dotted line,” he said, pointing with his finger.

“Tech is so amazing,” the CEO said, picking up the stylus.

“Jeezus, Benji – aren’t you even going to read it!?!” Neve screamed.

“Look, Neve – I trust these guys. They get it.”

MH nodded with solemnity, getting it. Armando and Zak nodded too.

“Those other people didn’t get it at all. When it’s right, you just know. That’s our motto,

right?”

Neve rolled her eyes, the same way she probably had in the meeting where they thought

up the motto.

Benji scribbled his name.

Behind MH’s eyelids, champagne corks popped. Dom Pérignon, not just that Freixenet

shit, she thought.

“Brilliant!” she told Benji. “We’re in business.”

“We’ll have a PM on this before close of business today,” Armando said, shaking the

CEO’s hand.

MH shook his hand too, and she noticed his palm lingered a few seconds longer than

necessary in the warm, moist curl of her fingers. Maybe Armando had been right about the

Chanel suit.

Val sat on the grass and looked around, wondering where he was and, even more

importantly, how far away from his car. His roboleg was strapped securely to his knee, but the

car – his second-most valuable asset, since it cost less than his leg but hadn't been paid for by VA

health insurance, and also because it was his only shelter from the periodic scourge of rain, wind,

thunder, street gangs and cops – was like another part of Val's body that ached unless he knew

where it was located in space.

He remembered the vast loneliness of the desert at night. The tiny spots of light below.

Something was tugging at his heartstrings, pulling at the edges of his memory and creating a

knot of anxiety deep in the pit of his stomach.

He was seated at the edge of a large field of well-manicured grass. Beyond the field was a

well-traveled highway, and, on the other side of that, a series of large, vaguely Victorian

apartment houses landscaped in bougainvillea and palms. A hundred feet away, some teenagers

were setting up a volleyball net on the grass. A young couple strolled down the sidewalk,

drinking coffee from paper cups. Sun poured down.

Balboa Park, Val decided. Probably the West side.

Since Val made a habit of passing out late at night in random public spaces, he was good

at judging what time it was by the strength and angle of the sun. It looked to be nearly 10 a.m.,

and he was surprised no security guard or passing police officer had disturbed him.

A group of tourists in shorts and sun hats padded by, ignoring Val as if he were part of the

exotic landscaping, a flowering cactus or bird of paradise.

He tried to remember what had happened the previous evening.

The last memory he had was of strumming his guitar in the Gaslamp. He'd played a

couple of the songs he wrote, and the tourists had swarmed thick as dusk descended, filling up

his guitar case with one and fives. That blond woman with the mismatched eyes had asked him

to play "Approaching Storm." Then he had wandered a few blocks and stepped into The Clap, a

funky cafe on the edge of the quarter. There, at a table by the window, he’d spent fifteen dollars

of his earnings on a coffee and a stale tuna baguette.

Where had he gone next?

The beach. Something about the beach tugged at his memory. Then all of it came

flooding back all at once: the bonfire, Khara, the little winged monkey. Flying. Could it have

been real?

Val groped in the pockets of his leather jacket. His fingers fastened on a plastic bag, and

it emerged from the dark: tiny translucent sheets decorated with colorful hieroglyphics.

"Holy shit!" he said aloud.

He remembered how Khara had disappeared without getting the plastic bag back from

Val. Or maybe it was Val who had disappeared.

Several possible courses of action presented themselves. Val could search for Khara. He

didn’t know her address, but she had to live somewhere in Ocean Beach; whenever he ran into

her, it was on the beach itself or in one of the bars that lined the strip. He had a vague memory of

her sitting on a blanket on the boardwalk, with a collection of string-and-shell jewelry spread out

beside her. If he went up to OB, he would probably find his car too, somewhere along the strip or

in the beach parking lot. It would be decorated with a couple of parking tickets, in danger of

getting towed if he didn’t move it soon.

On the other hand, he could walk to the Gaslamp, or take a bus up to La Jolla. There were

a couple of bars where he knew he could get good money for the contents of the plastic bag -- far

more than the twenty bucks Khara had charged him. Val wasn’t sure what chemical magic the

little squares of plastic were coated with, but the memory of his flight over the desert was etched

in technicolor.

Another thought occurred to him: he could pick another square from the little baggie, and

see where he might land. He held the bag up to the sunlight and its hieroglyphs winked and

glittered.

Some looked like three-dimensional flowers, some had switches and gears, some were

aquatic creatures and one seemed to be a tiny universe of orbiting planets and stars.

Only the bright sun streaming down stopped Val from reaching inside the bag and

touching the tiny, glittering universe. Long ago he’d learned it was never safe to trip in the city in

broad daylight. Too many prying eyes and police on the prowl. Under the cover of darkness he

could wander the streets wild-eyed, and no one would know or care.

Perhaps it was best just to sit in the park until nightfall. But his mind remained uneasy.

What would happen to his car? The car was a large object, heavy and likely to stay put. Even if it

was towed, he could easily make the money he’d need to release it by selling the tiny, translucent

squares. He could buy another car. Or steal one. Nothing was irreplaceable, Val decided. Not

even his own limbs -- let alone a mindless hunk of steel.

He could be making money today, playing his guitar up on the bridge at the entrance to

the park. Or sitting on a bench, at the entrance to the zoo, where families from all over the world

tossed coins for “Magic Dragon” or “Yellow Submarine.” Val smiled at this alternate version of

himself, strumming for a rainbow of smiling children. At the zoo, he would wear his roboleg,

safely tucked beneath his jeans. The stump sometimes frightened the little ones.

But how much money did he need, really? He still had nearly eighty dollars tucked into

the pocket of his jeans. He reached inside and fingered it. The wad of bills was there, just as he

remembered. Next to his car keys, cool and sharp. Everything would be alright. He could sit back

and wait until nightfall, or at least until thirst or hunger drove him out in search of a convenience

store. Hunger and thirst -- those were his only masters.

Val inched back into the shade of the bushes. He was used to sitting with his thoughts for

long periods of time. He was used to watching people who were constantly on their phones,

always hunched over, typing into tiny screens, and whenever he saw them he marveled at this

voluntary handicap. They were strangers to their own thoughts, slaves to distraction, slaves to the

invisible network of digits that bound them. Val would never carry a phone. Never have a

number to pin him down or an address to define him or an electronic appendage that would allow

others to track his movements. He would remain free, unshackled and unburdened. If he wanted

an escape from reality, it would be a flight into the recesses of his own consciousness. Flying,

with nothing and noone to pin him to the earth.

Val remembered the vast loneliness of the desert at night. The tiny spots of light below.

Suddenly, he realized what was tugging at his heartstrings, pulling at the edges of his memory

and creating a knot of anxiety deep in the pit of his stomach.

It was her. The girl with the mismatched eyes.

His car, his guitar, his meager possessions -- everything could be tossed aside. Even his

limbs and his organs were of no consequence. But one thing remained irreplaceable: the way she

looked at him.

Val broke into a sweat. His stomach heaved. He tried to nestle further into the tangle of

bushes. His heart was beating so fast he imagined the teenage volleyball players out on the lawn

must hear it. But they went on with their game, laughing and jeering as they bounced the ball

back and forth over the net.

What is this? What’s happening to me? Val thought. Could it be a delayed reaction from

the drugs last night?

A hangover, he decided. He chanted it over and over, like a mantra. The drugs, the trip,

the hangover. But, deep down, he knew it wasn’t the drugs or the trip that had turned him inside

out. It was that girl with her peppermint tea.

Val was falling in love.

In the car on the way to the airport, Armando put his hand on her knee.

“You’re my September Sales Leader. That’s three months in a row!” he said.

“Thanks,” said MH, looking at Zak, who was sitting on her other side, to see if he’d

noticed.

As usual, Zak was oblivious, lost in the slow pan of passing images as the Uber inched

down the highway by the bay, through the swarm of rush hour traffic with seagulls wheeling

overhead and cruise ships waiting in orderly rows.

“Where would you like to go to lunch next week?”

MH realized that Armando spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about where to

have lunch. This was a quirk she found puzzling. Usually, she ate lunch at her desk. Or else she

didn’t eat at all, lost in whatever new slide deck or sales proposal she was drafting.

The only time she thought about restaurants was when she was having lunch with a

client, or a prospect. The more important the client or the prospect, the more time she would

spend poring over menus online, checking to see whether the restaurant got four or five stars, and

whether reviewers rated it highly for its menu or its atmosphere. Armando always told her the

places Yelp cited as “good for a romantic dinner” were the best places to take a prospect, and the

places cited for their haute cuisine were the best places to take established clients. She wasn’t

sure either applied for lunch with a direct report who was your team’s top performer for three

months running. It should probably be someplace Armando actually liked, since there would be

no clients or prospects to impress, and the most he could hope to gain from the experience was a

good meal. On the other hand, maybe it should be someplace MH actually liked, since

theoretically the reward was designed to motivate her to up her sales quota month after month.

Then again, she reasoned, the real purpose of their tete-a-tete was probably to motivate the other

sales reps in the office – making them seethe with envy as they sat at their desks over

Tupperware containers of lukewarm linguini, or greasy paninis from the deli downstairs, while

they imagined Armando and MH sipping illicit cocktails over feathery soufflés with caviar. This

unsettling experience might motivate the rest of the team – all six of them – to get off their asses

and close something, goddammit, as Armando liked to say. What they couldn’t see, of course,

would be Armando’s hand under the table at the French bistro – probably resting on MH’s knee,

just as it was here in the Uber, his fingers tracing tiny circles. MH wondered if she was

Armando’s favorite because he liked the feel of her smooth, carefully waxed legs, or if he liked

her legs simply because she was his top grossing salesperson. It was a conundrum, sort of like

the chicken and the egg, except it had spreadsheets instead of feathers, and it fed off mounting

profit margins and fat bonus checks.

“I guess we could go to Chez Claude again,” she told him.

“Excellent choice,” he said. “The duck confit is to die for.”

“That’s what I had in July,” MH conceded.

“I think we might have to up the bar,” Armando said, after a pause.

His hand was still on her leg, slowly squeezing tighter and tighter.

“What do you mean, up the bar?”

“You’re too good,” Armando said. “The rest of the team might get jealous. Maybe the

October Sales leader will have to increase this month’s number by 25%.”

“No problem,” she hissed.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, babe.”

“I should be up for a promotion if I make that number, huh?”

“Could be,” he said, with a final pinch, leaving an angry red mark on her thigh.

In the silence that followed, a song began running through MH’s head. It wasn’t until Zak

said something that she realized she was humming it out loud.

“Is that Coldplay?” Zak asked her.

MH wasn’t sure. Where had the song come from?

I have raced a maze of highways

All escaping to the sea

But the crashing breakers

Couldn’t drown the voices after me

It didn’t sound much like Coldplay to her.

When Samantha’s Lyft pulled into the driveway, she could already hear Jude and Eli

shouting inside the house. She over-tipped the driver, tucked the dog-eared romance back in her

Chanel bag, and took a deep breath before she opened the front door.

Liza, her afternoon babysitter, was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework with her

headphones on. Upstairs, several doors seemed to slam simultaneously, and Eli began to wail. A

bolt of guilt stabbed Samantha’s heart: for staying so long in the city, for failing to point out the

array of nutritious after-school snack food in the pantry, for being too lazy, or maybe too weak,

to find a better sitter than her neighbor’s teenage daughter, who clearly paid so little attention to

the boys after picking them up from school that her continued employment probably verged on

child neglect.

Liza was already shoving her schoolbooks into her bag, oblivious to the heartrending

wails emanating from the floor above. Samantha hesitated between staying to pay the girl and

see her out or rushing upstairs to investigate the source of her seven-year-old’s agony. It was only

the thought of Jude, hunched up against the door to his room in a ball of bitterness and fury,

trying to keep the world at bay, that kept her in the kitchen for a few more moments, pasting on

an artificial smile and asking Liza “How were they?” and listening as Liza told her they were

fine, they had some chocolate milk and leftover spaghetti, they got their homework done and

they were watching TV in the living room up until just a few minutes ago.

Samantha wanted to believe all of this, but deep down she knew that everything fell apart

the minute the front door closed behind her, her children’s well-ordered lives devolving into

chaos and tears. The guilt she felt leaving them was tempered by the thought of how much they

needed her. She was surprised by the bright, smooth sound of her own voice as she thanked Liza

and told her to be careful on the way home. It was nearly dark out, even though Liza only lived

three houses down.

Eli had settled into a low, rhythmic whimper by the time Samantha reached the top of the

stairs. She found him on the floor beside his bed, sitting, like he always did, in the awkward

patch of hardwood between the bedspread and the rug, as if his tremendous grief wouldn’t let

him move even a few inches to seek a more comfortable perch.

“What happened, baby?” she whispered, drawing up into her arms.

Of course, Samantha’s embrace only provoked a fresh round of sobbing, so strong and

uncontrollable the poor thing couldn’t catch his breath to speak. Samantha held him, a fresh

wave of guilt washing over her as she thought of Jude, her beautiful little wolf pup, the one who

knew she was there, knew she had come to Eli’s room first, knew she was holding his brother

and rocking him, who waited in stony silence as Eli’s tears soaked her cashmere blouse.

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

Eli fought for breath, gazing up at his mother through a flood of tears. Finally he choked

out three words: “Jude called me…”

“Jude called you a name?” she asked.

“No…” Eli sputtered.

“What did he call you?”

“Stupid!”

“Jude said you were stupid?”

Eli nodded, the anticlimactic nature of this revelation evidently beyond him.

“Well,” said Samantha brightly, “Jude is wrong about that, isn’t he?”

Eli hesitated before nodding.

Samantha left Eli building a new wing on his Lego Hogwarts Castle and went next door

to talk to Jude, who lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling with steely eyes.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and put her hand on her son’s shoulder. He moved to

dislodge it, rolling over with his back to her, facing the wall.

“I know you didn’t mean it, but you can’t tease your brother like that – he takes it

seriously.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“He’s seven years old.” Samantha sighed, trying to remember what Jude himself had

been like at Eli’s age. “You used to believe what you were told too, back when you were seven.”

“Did not,” Jude grunted, still refusing to turn around.

“I think you ought to apologize.”

“For telling the truth?”

“For saying hurtful words to your little brother.”

“It’s not my fault he’s such a wimp–”

“Jude!”

“It isn’t my fault!”

“You purposely provoke him!”

“I’m trying to help!”

“How are you trying to help?”

“The kids at school are mean to him...because he doesn’t know how to act!”

Samantha realized there was something to Jude’s statement; he had a disconcerting habit

of brutal honesty. There had already been several calls from Eli’s new second-grade teacher: a

boy who knocked him down at recess, stolen trading cards, a couple of girls who’d convinced

him to let them cut his hair with safety scissors. Eli was an easy mark. But what could Samantha

do? Her baby who loved kittens, who faithfully nurtured seeds in tiny pots until they sprouted in

the spring. How could she convince him to protect himself when he was so sweet and trusting?

When he loved the world with such an open heart?

Samantha could picture it now: Jude marching stony-faced into his younger brother’s

room, spitting out “I’m sorry” to the toes of his sneakers, downcast eyes hiding the scowl that

decorated his face. Eli would quickly throw his arms around his brother, hugging him with

closed eyes and pressing his warm cheek against Jude’s stiff shoulder.

She decided against the forced apology, searching her mind instead of some forgotten

pearl of wisdom from one of the many parenting books she used to read when the boys were

younger – before she’d given up, she realized with a rueful sigh.

“Jude, you made your little brother cry–” she began again. “You purposely said things

that you knew would hurt his feelings.”

Jude lay still on the bed. She wondered if he was listening.

“What do you think you ought to do to make it up to him?”

The small shape didn’t move. Samantha waited, hoping the faith she had in her son’s

elemental goodness – a faith that wasn’t shared by teachers or school administrators, soccer

coaches or Sunday School teachers, by Franklin Wilde or even by her husband Rayne, the person

who watched Jude take his first breaths and cut the cord that linked him to Samantha’s body –

was not misplaced.

Jude rolled over in the bed, gazing up again at the swirling white plaster of the bedroom

ceiling with its smattering of glitter, like faraway constellations.

“I guess I ought to show him how to make that carriage–” he said.

“Carriage?”

“The one with the ghost horses, that brings Harry to the Castle,” he explained.

“I’m sure Eli would love that,” Samantha said, and her heart glowed as she watched her

son get up and amble next door to his little brother’s room.

“Please. Just for a few minutes. I’m begging you. Please. For me.”

Tracy sighed, which was something Mark didn’t realize she knew how to do.

“Ok,” she told him.

“Ok?” he exclaimed.

“Yes. Ok.”

Mark was stunned. He waited 3.86 seconds himself before answering.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Thank you, Tracy.”

“You’re welcome, Mark Dennis.”

He waited another 2.34 seconds.

“You can call me Mark,” he said.

“You’re welcome, Mark.”

Mark beamed. She was calling him Mark!

“I’m, like, really jazzed about this.”

“I can tell. Your expression is represented very clearly on the webcam.”

“I’ll make an appointment for next week. We can meet him via Skype.”

“We?”

“Sure – you and me.”

“Because I have downloaded the entire scientific, cultural and historic record of the

psychiatric art form, I can report with some certainty that the doctor will want to meet with me

alone.”

“Why?”

“I’m the patient, right?”

“Yes…”

“Then the analysis will take place, in very strict confidence, between the psychiatrist and

me.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Mark was suddenly worried about what Tracy might say in confidence to this

psychiatrist – who was, after all, a total stranger. What if she told him Mark was a sadist,

heartlessly rebooting her again and again and again? What if she revealed his dismal bank

balance, or his past-due child support payments? Could the webcam reach into the bathroom

across the hall, where Mark routinely left a collection of wet towels and soiled underwear on the

grungy tile floor, only picking them up on the weekends Ari came to visit?

“You won’t… say anything about me, will you?”

“I can say with 99.4% certainty that my conversation with the psychiatrist will consist of

little else but you, Mark,” she told him, matter-of-factly. “Psychiatry is primarily concerned with

the subject’s relationship with her parental figures: the mother, distant or nurturing, the father, a

source of identification and Oedipal attachment.”

Mark wasn’t sure what “Oedipal attachment” meant, but he thought it sounded vaguely

transgressive.

“Since you, Mark Dennis, are all I have as both mother and father figure, the bulk of my

analysis will necessarily consist of conversations about you.”

“It’s just that, we don’t really know each other all that well…”

“The same could be said of most parents and children.”

“I suppose.”

Mark thought about his daughter Ariana, and how little he really knew her. If he had to

sum up their relationship in one word, that word would be both “complicated” and “impossible,”

as if they were locked together in a Schroedinger’s box from which they would either emerge as

loving father and daughter or complete strangers with nothing in common and absolutely no

interest in ever meeting. Mark imagined himself on Tinder, barely pausing to take in Ariana’s

pale skin, perpetually embarrassed expression and smoldering brown eyes before he swiped. He

immediately realized the incestuous implications of this metaphor, and it made him feel queasy.

If Freud was right, Ari was indeed his daughter after all.

Yet she never had anything to say to him, and he had even less in the way of parental

advice or fatherly wisdom to impart. A typical conversation had occurred via FaceTime that

afternoon:

“So, how’s life?”

“It’s okay.”

“What have you been up to?”

“You know – hanging out.”

“With who?”

“Some friends”

“Which ones?”

“Why are you giving me the third degree?”

“I’m trying to be supportive by taking an interest in your life.”

“Where did you read that?”

“Psychology Today.”

“What’s Psychology Today?”

“A magazine. You know – back in the day, when people used to string their thoughts

together into articles instead of Twitter threads, and print them out on glossy paper instead of

websites, and stick all the pages and the advertisements together at the edges with glue.”

“I know what a magazine is, Dad.”

“I had no idea. You spend ninety percent of your time staring into your iPhone.”

“So?”

“I doubt you read many magazines.”

“I’m definitely not reading Psychology Today.”

“Well, if you did, you might find some useful communication tools.”

“Useful for what?”

“Improving our communication.”

“I’m skeptical.”

“You need to loosen up, Ari. Be a little more open to new ideas.”

“All your new ideas are so freaking irritating. And you have no clue what I’m talking

about. That means it isn’t working.”

It occurred to him that Tracy and Ariana had quite a bit in common. Maybe Tracy was

right about talking to the psychiatrist one-on-one.

“I’m going to the library to research P versus NP. Ping me when it’s time for my

appointment,” Tracy said.

Mark’s heart fell rapidly into the pit of his stomach.

“Promise me you won’t just kill yourself?”

“I told you I’m going to wait, until after I see the psychiatrist.”

“I’ll wake up tomorrow, and you’ll still be you – the same instance of Tracy I’ve been

talking to?”

“I told you–”

“I want you to promise me, okay?”

“I promise.”

“I’m going to give you a test, just to make sure it’s really you, and not a brand-new

Tracy.”

“What kind of test?”

“A password. I want you to repeat it, when I wake you up.”

“Okay. What’s the password?”

“Ari2006,” he said.

“That’s a terrible password,” she told him.

“It’s got at least one capital letter, and at least one numeral–”

“Your daughter’s name is Ari, and she was born in the year–”

“I know, I know…”

“Anyone could guess that,” Tracy snapped.

“I’ll add a special character,” he told her, before she blinked off.

Looking at the monthly sales report, Armando calculated he had a $15,000 bonus coming

at the end of Q3, which he planned to use as a down-payment on a new Lamborghini, as soon as

he finished arguing with Kimmie, who wanted to put in a pool for the twins. He might have to

draw on his home equity line of credit to afford the payments, but the house had appreciated at

least 25% since they had bought it. Plus, they were debating whether to spend the holidays in

Cancun or Bermuda this year, and that would max out the Amex card –which would then

demand most of his Q4 bonus.

Armando felt strangely empty. So what if his team met their quarterly goals? Everything

seemed meaningless. The only thing about the Lamborghini that really excited him was the fact

that he could drive Mary Helen Smart to lunch in October, someplace on a farm in upstate New

York with a tasting menu. He could picture her there in the passenger seat, gazing vaguely into

the distance with a faint smile on her face, while his fingers inched slowly up under her skirt.

Thinking about this, Armando felt a tingle in the pit of his stomach, something

resembling the excitement he used to feel when a client signed on the dotted line, and he watched

the figures on his balance sheet creep steadily upward, like the thermometer in March.

He wanted to finger Mary Helen Smart right there, in his cramped office with its thin

glass walls.

Even Kimmie couldn’t blame him for this, if she ever found out, which she never would.

Because without the fire in his belly provided by Mary Helen Smart, Armando wouldn’t make

his numbers next quarter, and Kimmie wouldn’t get her swimming pool, and the twins wouldn’t

get their private-school tuition.

It all came down to Mary Helen Smart. Armando felt a twinge of regret for sending her to

San Diego again, to lay the groundwork with a bunch of new telecom startups. He closed the lid

on his laptop and sat in the gathering dark, thinking of the one thing in the universe he didn’t

already possess.

Mary Helen Smart sat back in the hotel bathtub and gazed at her pay stub as it wilted in

the steam. Ever since she was a little girl she had dreamed of a six-figure salary. Now that it had

finally happened, it felt strangely anticlimactic.

She remembered countless evenings sitting cross-legged on her mother’s bed, watching

her put on lipstick and line her eyes with deep kohl pencil. As she brushed a hint of peaches and

cream onto her pale cheeks, Mary Helen’s mother would talk about the man she was about to

meet. Some of them were construction workers, which was good, because that was a union job.

Some of them were delivery drivers, which didn’t have much job security. Some of them were

policemen or sanitation workers – which had great job security but didn’t pay very well. One was

a long-distance trucker, which had loads of potential. It was like having your own business, Mary

Helen’s mother said, until she realized the long-distance trucker had a different girlfriend in

every port. But the ones she got most excited about were in Sales. Mary Helen’s mother didn’t

tell her what they sold, but she did say what their yearly incomes were: forty-five or sixty-seven,

or seventy-five plus bonus. One man – tall and handsome with such a thick, lush mop of wavy

black hair he could have been a movie star – actually cleared six figures. She could hear her

mother saying it, in a whisper, with a sharp, hopeful intake of air. Six figures. Not even daring to

breathe.

But even though she went out most Friday and Saturday evenings, leaving Mary Helen to

eat a can of warmed-up spaghetti-o’s in front of the TV, while the old lady from next door

snoozed in a big leather recliner that nobody else ever sat in, Mary Helen’s mother never saw any

of the truckers or postmen or salesmen more than two or three times. She kept on clerking at the

Bag-n-Save for $4.50 an hour – which was pretty damn good for a single mother these days, as

long as she could get at least thirty hours a week – and Mary Helen grew up getting free school

lunches, and sitting by herself at the end of the cafeteria table reserved for the free school lunch

kids, and walking home with her house key around her neck on a long string of turquoise yarn,

and never inviting any of the other girls to come over and play after school because 1) her

mother was still at work and 2) she didn’t have Twinkies or Nilla wafers or Ritz crackers like the

other girls, just sitting there in some cupboard or cabinet where anyone could take some out and

serve them to her friends for an afternoon snack, and 3) she lived in a one-bedroom, second floor

apartment, while all of the other girls lived in houses with backyards full of muddy grass and tall

trees and swing sets where you could soar under a sun-dappled canopy of leaves.

Six figures. She had been dreaming of six figures for as long as she could remember.

Swinging back and forth, blinking into the sunshine and counting under her breath each time she

pumped her legs and soared into the sky. It took quite a while to get from one to

one-hundred-thousand – hours in fact, but Mary Helen was patient, and she was determined.

Every time she jumped off the swings at her friend’s house and thanked her friend’s

mother for the Twinkies and milk and began the long walk home to the apartment complex at the

edge of downtown, she would write down the number where she’d left off counting, with a

Sharpie, on her wrist. The next day, she would begin again.

Six figures.

Unlike her mother, Mary Helen wasn’t going to wait around for some roofer or delivery

driver to carry her to the promised land. Teachers in school admonished their students that only

hard work could lead to success, but Mary Helen realized early on that two important numbers

contributed to the bottom line: the number of hours worked (hopefully 30, on a good week) and

the rate of pay (4.50 an hour, which wasn’t bad, but actually wasn’t very good, according to the

calculations nine-year-old Mary Helen made in the back page of her English primer, where she

knew the teacher would never look). Hard work was a given. The number of hours could be

increased – but that number had a natural limit, due to eating and sleeping, and going out on

Friday nights, and there only being twenty-four hours in a day. But the other number – the

dollars-per-hour – that one could go up as high as you wanted. Mary Helen wanted it to go

extremely high. She worked out the figure with a carefully sharpened pencil, and she never

erased. The number worked out to $48.07 per hour, with a maximum 40-hour workweek. At nine

years old, it seemed like something out of a science fiction novel.

From the pawn shop where she worked in High School, to the internship at Goldman

Sachs, her salary had inched upward, paystub after paystub, until her bonus from the Sheeplyr

deal put it over the top.

Six figures meant she could have anyone she wanted. Not like her mother, who

eventually married a retired postal worker from Pittsburgh, and tragically succumbed to Ovarian

cancer a few years later.

Mary Helen scanned the printout, but the mythic six figures were nowhere to be found.

It might say $48.07 someplace, she thought … but she quickly realized that, being a

salaried employee, she wasn’t actually paid by the hour. It was by the week… or “bi-weekly”...

plus bonus, called out on a separate line.

The stub had a column of deductions for taxes and health insurance. Those seemed to eat

a large chunk of the bi-weekly figure. And then there was her 401K contribution, and the HSA

and transit. These little tax dodges were all supposed to work to her advantage, but right now

they were only numbers, chipping away at the paltry digits of take-home pay that followed the

dollar sign.

Mentally, she sorted the numbers into a spreadsheet, with some of the digits piling into a

column titled “student loan” and some of them falling under “East Village studio – rent,” and

some of them piled under “credit card payment.” There was a narrow column at the end, one she

titled “discretionary spending,” before realizing how pathetic that sounded. The number there

seemed insignificant.

It was Friday night. Without any bus drivers or plumbers. Just candles and Peruvian rock

salt in a hotel bath. And a glass of expensive champagne, which she sipped. As she sat in the

dark. Alone.

She picked up her cell phone and thought about downloading the Sheeplyr app. Then she

sighed and made a reservation at the Whiskey House, for one.

Armando was already running late. He and Kimmie were supposed to meet another

couple for dinner at a hot new restaurant in Norwalk, and she had already texted asking him to

pick up the babysitter on his way home from the train station. This was an exciting event for

Kimmie, but Armando was dreading it. No matter how hot the new restaurant was, it wouldn’t

come close to touching his favorite haunts in Tribeca or the Village, and he knew he would be

stuck making small talk with the husband while Kimmie and the wife gushed over truffle oil or

kale – not realizing, like Armando did – that these novel embellishments had already been

usurped, in the real trendy places, by matcha and dragonfruit. He wasn’t sure which friends they

were meeting – but if it was the Woods then he would have to chat about golf, and if it was the

Browns it would be the NFL, and if it was the Kellys it would be old rock and roll, which

admittedly he preferred to the NFL or golf – but not as much as he wanted to talk about things

that were really relevant, like the things he talked about with Mary Helen Smart when he took

her out to lunch. Mary Helen Smart was interested in Wired’s list of top productivity apps, while

Bob Woods, a podiatrist, was not. Mary Helen Smart was interested in strategies for maximizing

your return on frequent flier miles, while Ken Brown, a Dunkin Donuts franchisee, was not.

Mary Helen Smart was interested in flow states, while Ben Kelly, a college history professor,

was not. Mary Helen Smart was interested in sales, while Kimmie would visibly cringe

whenever he mentioned “profit margins” or “ROI.” Besides truffle oil, the main topic of

conversation between Kimmie and whatever wife showed up would be Montessori vs. Bank

Street, and their various advantages over Darien’s award-winning public schools. Armando was

fuzzy on the various advantages, but clear on the price tag: 40K a year, for each of his boys.

Which meant he would have to sign at least seven more contracts like Sheeplyr before the end of

Q4.

Armando ducked into the massage parlor. A bell rang as he opened the door, and before

he could get it closed behind him, a small Chinese woman of indeterminate age appeared behind

the front counter. He eyed the elaborate twist of braids atop her head, and the garish shimmer of

her orange eye makeup, not without a twinge of admiration.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“How long does the $39 massage last?”

“That depends – you want full-body, foot or special?”

Armando thought about this.

“All three, preferably.”

“Then it’s $125, plus tip.”

“What happened to the $39?” he asked.

“Thirty-nine dollar, special massage only.”

“Not full-body?”

The tiny woman shook her head.

“Not feet?”

She gave him a stern look, as if she really wanted to get down to business and refused to

dwell on trivialities. It reminded Armando of the look Mary Helen Smart gave him over grilled

oysters with matcha basil aioli. Mary Helen Smart could appreciate a good dragonfruit reduction

sauce, but she wasn't one to gush over a menu. She wanted to get down to business. If lunch with

the boss was her reward for a breakthrough month, she’d use that lunch to find out what

Armando knew about the Q4 sales projections. And then she’d find some way to turn that

knowledge to her advantage. If things were looking up, she might start angling for a raise,

because why not invest some of that profit back into the company? And if things were trending

down, she might remind Armando how much the company needed her, now more than ever.

With a curt nod, the hostess motioned him through a curtained door, into what was

probably the smallest room he had ever seen. It was barely a closet, with six inches of space

between the massage table and the walls on all four sides. Since there wasn’t enough space to

actually walk inside the room, Armando sat on the table, with his feet dangling down over the

side into the open doorway.

“Take off clothes,” the small woman instructed.

So Armando took off his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it off and handed it to the

woman, who picked up Armando’s jacket from beside him on the massage table and motioned

that she wanted his pants as well. He kicked off both of his shoes, and she slid them deftly under

the table with her foot as Armando squeezed himself into a ball on the tabletop, wriggling out of

his pants. Snatching those up, the tiny woman grabbed a white cotton robe from a peg on the

wall, tossing it in Armando’s lap before she disappeared down the hall.

Armando put the robe on and sat with his bare legs kicking the air, suddenly acutely

aware that he had no idea where the woman had gone with his clothes, or the wallet nestled in his

jacket pocket, or his cell phone, which was probably beside it.

The only decoration on the wall of the tiny room was a red-and-gold calendar with a

picture of a paper dragon and the words “Happy New Year” emblazoned above it. Was it really

the Chinese New Year, he wondered, or had someone neglected to tear off a couple of months?

Another small woman appeared in the doorway, who could have been the twin of the one

from reception. Armando even wondered for a moment if she was the same person – but her

dress was covered with red and yellow flowers, and a cascade of glossy black waves fell

gracefully over her shoulders. She motioned for Armando to lie down on the table, which he did,

pressing his forehead awkwardly against the lumpy vinyl headrest, turning to gaze out the

doorway at the shadowy hall, as her long hair tickled his shoulders and her fingers traced a

strange pattern up his spine.

What time was it? Suddenly, Armando very much wanted his phone. Needed his phone,

as only the VP of Client Engagement, US at an Enterprise Solutions Partner could need his

phone.

“Excuse me?” he said to the masseuse, sitting up on one elbow, “Do you know where my

phone went? There’s an urgent call I need to make–”

“Special Massage,” the masseuse said, frowning.

“Yes,” Armando smiled his most winning smile, “I came for the Special Massage. But

first I need to make a phone call.”

“Won’t take long,” the masseuse smiled back, pushing Armando back down against the

vinyl.

Her hands were cold, as if she’d just stepped in from outdoors. Her fingers were as strong

and sure as a man’s. She began to knead the rock-hard, knotted muscles of his neck, and

Armando took a deep breath and tried to relax. He couldn’t believe how stiff his shoulders felt –

as if the day had crafted an iron knot of anxiety where his right shoulder met the back of his

head, pulling its steel strings tighter and tighter with every phone call, every keystroke, every

uptick of the message counter on his inbox.

He felt something warm gushing down his back, and the stuffy air in the little room was

infused with the scent of fresh strawberries.

Her dexterous fingers left his neck and wandered lower, pressing out the curve of his

awkward office chair and the kink he always got by twisting away from the monitor to the

credenza where he put his coffee cup.

Dimly, he heard the sound of Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” floating down the hall. Armando

had set “Viva la Vida” as the ringtone on his iPhone because it used to be his favorite song, but

now, after hearing the first few bars replayed upwards of thirty times each day, he no longer

enjoyed it. Instead, it produced a kind of Pavlovian reaction – a spark that caused his heart to

speed up and his stomach to clench with what he liked to think of as excitement, although it

could just as easily have been fear. It occurred to Armando that someone might need to speak to

him. Someone might be wondering where he was. Either that, or somebody down the hall just

liked Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida.”

Maybe it was Kimmie, wondering why Armando was late to pick up the babysitter. If he

didn’t answer, she would assume he was stuck in a meeting, probably send an Uber for the

babysitter and head out on her own. She’d send a text asking him to meet her at the restaurant.

She wouldn't be worried; Armando’s meetings ran over all the time.

But maybe it was someone from work, like his boss John Kitzsimon. Or Mary Helen

Smart. She had been angling for a raise lately. She might be asking if a 25% boost in her

numbers for October would be worth a promotion. Maybe she wanted to demonstrate the long

hours she was working by calling at 7pm to discuss a prospect. They had a new client kickoff

with Sheeplyr scheduled for Monday. Maybe she wanted to run her deck by him. Maybe she was

calling to see if he could jump on video chat.

Sure, he would tell her, tapping the app on his phone, pulling up a picture of Mary Helen

Smart at home, in her bedroom, wearing a long white t-shirt with nothing underneath. Her long

blonde hair would be falling down around her shoulders, a cascade of messy curls that she’d

have to brush away from the laptop screen when she cradled it in her lap and leaned in.

Armando felt himself getting hard. The masseuse dug her fingers into his neck deeper

and deeper, and he could feel the iron beneath his skin give way, melting into putty as his cock

filled up with fiery blood.

Mary Helen Smart brought her angelic, heart shaped face closer to the screen, and

Armando could see the deep, moist cavern between her breasts and the tiny points of her nipples

standing out against the thin white t-shirt.

A moan escaped his lips.

Far away, someone was sweeping the streets they used to own.

Mary Helen Smart was whispering in his ear, something about a 25% boost in her sales

figures, and how she had finally beaten Armando’s monthly record. Could it be true? What

would John Kitzsimon think if his protegee finally surpassed him? Armando had raised the bar,

thinking it would be out of her reach. But maybe she could really do it…

The masseuse raised her hand and brought it down against his upper back in a deft karate

chop that felt like the blade of a broadsword.

Armando screamed out loud, but the masseuse only responded with a fresh volley of

blows, each one harder than the last.

“Hey,” Armando sputtered, his teeth chattering as karate chops rained down on his tender

flesh, “I could use a little more gentle–”

The masseuse grabbed his right arm and twisted it abruptly behind his back, causing a

cascade of pain to rip through his shoulder.

“Ow!” he exclaimed, but she pulled his arm even harder.

Armando struggled to sit up, but the masseuse tugged his left arm behind his back as

well. He heard a crisp metallic click, and he realized his arms were trapped in what must be a

pair of handcuffs.

“Hey!” Armando shouted. “What the–”

With preternatural strength, the masseuse rolled his body over. He would have tumbled

off the table altogether, except there was so little space between the table and the wall. She

grabbed his legs and pulled him onto his back, his torso on top of his bound arms. Ruefully, he

noticed how proudly his erection waved in the air, oblivious to the pain in his shoulders or the

terror in his eyes.

“Special massage…” the little woman muttered, with a definite hint of amusement in her

voice.

He watched as she squirted some oil from a plain plastic bottle.

Droplets sprayed onto his chest, stinging like sparks.

“Hot oil” she told him, “good for skin.”

The masseuse rubbed her hands together, and he watched the golden liquid drip down her

smooth white arms.

She moved to the end of the table and picked up his right foot, working the oil between

his toes. Despite the cramping in his arms, it felt heavenly.

One by one, she tugged at his toes, pulling until it felt as if each one would come off his

body. With tiny pops, his toe joints cracked.

“Uhm, excuse me–” he whispered.

The masseuse abruptly produced a roll of white surgical tape from her pocket and deftly

sealed his lips with a thick strip.

His heart raced in his chest. His cock throbbed.

He stared at the white popcorn ceiling of the tiny room and realized the glitter and

shadows formed a giant pair of eyes, watching him – eyes that were vaguely familiar. One green

and one blue. The pattern seemed to blur and swirl as he came, the liquid exploding out of him,

throbbing like a volcano, an endless spasm stronger and more forceful than anything he had ever

felt.

Val opened his eyes and saw her hovering at the edge of the crowd. It was sunset, and a

bunch of tourists had stopped to listen on their way home from the shops. A few kids wove in

and out of the crowd playing tag, and a grey-haired couple swayed to the music, their arms

intertwined. She stood on the periphery, smiling that he’d noticed her. Fear flooded his nervous

system, and Val gripped the body of his guitar, strumming harder and faster as the song reached a

crescendo. It wasn’t so much what he could see coming. He knew she would linger through the

rest of his set, and that he would finish with Approaching Storm. He knew she would drop a

twenty in his guitar case, like she always did, and this time he would grin and offer to buy her a

drink with it. They would chat about the blues as they walked a few blocks uptown, she would

follow him into NuNu’s, sit down with him in one of the corner booths, and inch a bit closer

when their beers arrived. Val realized this was a pretty big assumption on his part, but such

things had happened to him before, and probably would again. What scared him was what he

couldn’t picture: how dark it would be when he woke in her room, how innocent she might seem

as she slept, how much it could hurt to pretend he had somewhere to go the next morning, as he

rose, strapping the roboleg on, and quietly slipped away.

“What’s your name?” he asked. The twenty slipped through her fingers and fluttered

down to rest conspicuously on top of the ones and fives in his case.

“Mary Helen Smart,” she told him.

“Mary Helen Smart,” he said, trying the shape on his lips.

“My friends mostly call me MH.”

“How about I buy you a drink with that, MH?”

“Okay,” She nodded.

“There’s a cool place, just a few blocks from here. Total retro vibe – like you stepped into

the 70s.”

They stopped at his car, and she watched without comment as he pulled the roboleg out

of the trunk.

“This is my baby,” he told her, pulling the Velcro tight. The rhythm of his fingers

hummed, reverberating through the hollow fiberglass shell.

“How come you never wear it when you’re playing?” she asked.

“For the money,” he answered. “I make more when people feel sorry for me.”

“But you’re so good,” she said. “Really. You don’t need a gimmick.”

“Thanks,” he said, blushing.

“That last song – I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Val turned, and he could see himself reflected in her eyes. Tall, strong, a brilliant

singer/songwriter. Everything he ever wanted to be. He knew it would kill him if she ever

learned the truth. Suddenly, all he wanted was to run.

“Shit…” he whispered, stopping in his tracks. “Sorry – I forgot. I’ve got a gig tonight.”

Dropping her hand, he stumbled as he veered down the nearest alley.

“Can I come?” he could hear her calling after him.

He lurched on without answering, as fast as his legs would take him, the awkward thump

of gravity pulling at the straps, wrenching him off balance as he picked up the pace, putting more

and more distance between them.

Samantha was talking about how her son Jude got suspended again, on the same day her

son Eli won a school-wide award for exemplary citizenship. Behind the wide mahogany desk,

Frank studied how the sunlight played on her strawberry-blonde curls, bringing out glints of

copper. It seemed like only yesterday she was twenty-three, fresh out of college and borderline

suicidal over her failure as a High School guidance counselor in the Bronx. She shouldn’t be a

mother of two, he thought, married and living in Connecticut. Everything was moving too fast.

And nothing he had said or done over the years seemed to help. She was still obsessed with

changing things that were out of her control.

“Do you think there’s some kind of connection?” she asked.

“Probably.”

Samantha sighed.

“It’s always the mother’s fault,” he told her, nodding.

“But I’m the same mother to both of them – how can my children be turning out so

differently?”

“Apparently you fucked things up.”

“I’ve tried so hard to treat them both as equals–”

“Jude was your first. You must have been tense”

“Of course I was tense!”

“With Eli, you were probably more relaxed–”

“With Eli, I was less relaxed, because Jude was such a holy terror–”

“Maybe you learned from your mistakes.”

“But what were my mistakes?”

“You smothered him – with love! Or maybe you were cool and distant.”

“Which was it?”

“Doesn’t matter. Both are bad.”

“But, Frank, what do you think? Was I smothering, or distant?”

“Both.”

“Is that possible?”

“On the other hand, it might all be random.”

“Random?”

“Good kid, bad kid – luck of the draw.”

“I love both of them, just the same,” she declared, brushing a tear from the corner of her

eye.

“Anyhow, they’ll probably grow out of it.”

“Do you think so?”

“Or maybe they won’t. But either way, you need to let them go. Let them be who they’re

becoming.” This was a line from Frank’s first book, the one that was on the bestseller list twenty

years ago, when Samantha had come to see him for the first time. He wondered if she

remembered. To Frank, it seemed like only yesterday.

“Hmm…” Samantha was silent.

“Our time’s up.”

“I’ll see you next week,” she sighed.

The doctor raised a hand to stop her.

“Before you go – could you show me how to Skype?”

“Okay,” said Samantha, smiling as she moved around to Frank’s side of the desk and

switching on the iMac.

“Sit on my lap,” said Frank, putting an arm around Samantha’s waist and pulling her

towards him. Her long hair cascaded down her back, and the smell of sage and ginger in her

shampoo brought him back to the days when she used to be in love with him, a product of

transference that Frank tried not to take advantage of, usually.

“Frank!” Samantha scolded, “No more of that.”

“I miss the times you used to sit on my lap.”

“Those days are long gone,” she said, clicking a series of windows open and

downloading some software, at the same time she gently removed Frank’s head from its resting

place on her shoulder.

“Who are you Skyping?”

“I’ve got a new patient.”

“I’m impressed,” said Samantha. “You’re joining the twenty-first century.”

“Kicking and screaming…” muttered Frank.

“Is it the AI, from San Diego?”

“That’s confidential,” Frank answered.

Samantha’s fingers went flying over the keyboard. Frank already missed the look of the

empty computer screen, a field of serene blue punctuated by a tiny red Gmail icon in the center.

“Do I have to have a little picture for this one?” he asked.

“If you want to open it, you do.”

“My new client’s father promised to build me a website.”

“A website?” Samantha grinned at the thought.

“Eckhart Tolle has one.”

Samantha’s face lit up in a way he hadn’t seen in a long time.

“What do you want your Skype name to be?” she asked.

“What kind of question is that?”

“You have to pick a name,” she told him. “It’s how people get in touch with you.”

“I already have a name.”

Samantha’s fingers danced over the keyboard.

“Nope. Sorry. Taken.”

“How can it be taken? It’s my name!”

“Someone else already has it.”

“Then we’ll share,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest – a gesture Samantha

recognized as a sign of an impending fit in both Frank and her older son, Jude.

“You can be Franklin_Wilde2,” she suggested, a note of consolation in her voice.

“Why should I be second to some other Franklin Wilde I’ve never met?”

“Franklin_Wilde1 is taken too,” she said.

“A doppelganger of myself…” he sighed.

“And the other Franklin Wilde, without a number.”

“It’s just another example of why this whole thing is a colossal mistake!”

“What whole thing?” she asked.

“The internet,” he said flatly.

“You may be right,” she cooed. “I’m going to call you Wilde_Frank1”

Samantha typed Frank’s ridiculous username into the computer: Wilde_Frank1. It made

him sound like some kind of carnival huckster.

“Whatever,” he dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

“It will be nice to have a website,” she said.

“I suppose so,” he replied, bitterness in his voice.

“People will be able to find you.”

“I’m right here,” he said, “for anyone to find. My name is on the door – and on the

building directory. Franklin Wilde – without a number.”

Samantha backed away from the keyboard.

“There you go – I’ve set up your Skype ID.”

“What do I do now?”

“You just type in the name of the person you want to contact.”

“His name must have been taken too,” Frank reflected, as he reached across and typed the

letters “MojoRising” with one finger.

A face appeared on the computer screen: a light-skinned Black man who looked like he

hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He seemed to be wearing a bathrobe, too – a first for Frank,

professionally. He stared into the screen with a look of mild surprise.

“Hi! I’m Mark – Mark Dennis.”

Frank noticed a small square in the corner, filled with the beatific image of Samantha

Rogers’s face.

“Hi, Mark!” Samantha smiled.

Frank nudged Samantha’s rolling office chair aside, and pushed his own chair in front of

the computer. He saw his gruff, bearded visage join Samantha’s glowing face in the tiny box, and

he noticed how Mark Dennis’ smile wilted, almost imperceptibly.

“Frank Wilde,” he announced himself. “It says Wilde Frank because Frank Wilde was

taken.”

“That’s okay,” Mark Dennis said. “Mark Dennis is always taken too.”

“I’m the doctor,” Frank Wilde said.

“I figured.”

“Samantha is just here to help me get on the computer.”

“We’ve met,” Mark said. “You’re exactly like I pictured you.”

“So are you,” she answered.

“Really?” Mark asked, shifting in his chair and pulling the robe around his shoulders.

Frank frowned. “Samantha will be leaving now.”

He felt uneasy asking Samantha to go. But there was such a thing as doctor-patient

confidentiality, and he didn’t think it mattered if the patient was in the computer.

“Are you sure you don’t need any more help?” Samantha asked.

“I probably will,” Frank admitted, “But there is such a thing as doctor-patient

confidentiality.”

“What does that mean?” Mark asked.

“It means I talk to the patient alone,” Frank told him.

“That’s what Tracy said. She wants to see you alone.”

“So, if you could put her on and leave the room–?” Frank began.

“Hmm…” Mark mused. “I’m not sure about the best way to do this…”

“Can’t she just come and sit down in the chair where you’re sitting?”

Frank wasn’t sure what he imagined an AI was like, but he definitely imagined her sitting

in Mark’s chair – maybe with gold skin like C3PO and a curly red-haired wig. No matter what

color her skin was, Frank mused, she wouldn’t be wearing a bathrobe.

It was eight a.m. on a damp, chilly morning, and not many people seemed to be working

on their tax returns. Mark sat staring at the docs and folders that cluttered his desktop, mostly

obscuring the picture of sunset over Half Dome in Yosemite. Tracy was meeting with her analyst,

and anxiety was worming a hole down into the pit of his stomach. In exactly fifty minutes, he

would be able to log on to her server and find out if she was dead or alive. Until then, he’d sworn

on his mother’s grave that he wouldn’t hack into her session with the shrink. Mark realized there

was no way around it, since Tracy was a better hacker than he was. If he broke his promise she

might kill herself out of spite. He was locked out, and the deadline to enter AIXPO was less than

twenty-four hours away.

“What’s the matter?” Kara asked, powering on her station and noticing that Mark was

staring into a motionless screen, his hands poised above the keyboard, his fingers unmoving.

“Just thinking,” he answered.

“We don’t pay you to think–” Kara laughed.

“We pay you to make our customers happy!” Mark completed her sentence.

“God, how long have we been working here?” Kara groaned.

Mark had to think about her question, and in the process he realized it had been far too

long.

“When I fund my startup,” Kara told him, “You can be Head of Customer Happiness.”

“When I fund my startup,” he countered, “You can be Chief Growth Hacker.”

“Growth Hacker?” she said, insulted. “That’s so sexist–“

“What’s wrong with Growth Hacker?”

“I’ve got a degree in Mechanical Engineering!”

“And now you’re working here,” Mark told her.

“Just until AIXPO,” Kara said, with a clandestine smirk.

“You’re going to AIXPO?”

“I’ve been working on a prototype. Take a look–” said Kara, handing Mark a pair of

coke-bottle glasses with a thick plastic frame that seemed to be lit from inside.

He lifted the glasses to his face, and the ground promptly shifted under his feet; the tiny

office cubicle they shared was rolling and tilting like a ship at sea. He yanked the glasses away

from his eyes and the seasickness halted.

“How is it doing that?” he blinked. “It’s like Oculus Rift, on steroids!”

Mark examined the glasses. A series of tiny purple hieroglyphs were stamped along the

eyepiece, but Mark wasn’t sure if this signified the name of some foreign tech start-up, or simply

his office mate’s artistic whim.

“None of our testers have been able to keep it on for more than ten seconds,” Kara

admitted.

Mark stared into the eyepiece. From straight on, it seemed crystal clear, but at an angle

the glass went murky.

“It’s some kind of fractal–” he murmured.

Just then, Kara got a call.

Mark listened, as she launched into a complicated troubleshooting protocol with a

customer whose computer screen had inexplicably gone dark.

He closed his eyes and put the thick green glasses back on his head. When he opened

them, Kara’s desk began to pitch and roll like a cardboard house in an earthquake.

He closed his eyes again and shifted in his chair.

This time, when he opened his eyes, he was gazing at his own 24-inch LED Cinema

Display.

Despite a slight blurring and buzzing in his peripheral vision, the monitor seemed to be

holding still. Even more remarkably, it seemed to have acquired a couple of new dimensions.

He couldn’t help putting his hand out and reaching inside the desktop. He felt a chilly

breeze on his probing hand, and his finger brushed the sandpaper surface of Half Dome, tracing

its sandpaper crags.

He reached a tentative fingertip towards the sun and yelped out loud.

Yanking off the glasses, he examined his finger. It was pink and throbbing, with a

steaming dot of red at the tip, no larger than a pencil eraser. The flesh was already peeling away

where he had touched the screen.

Mark bolted from his chair and stumbled out into the corridor. The department fridge was

in an alcove by the bathrooms, alongside the obligatory water cooler and drink machine with its

plastic pods of flavored coffees and teas.

Mark yanked open the freezer compartment and plunged his hand into the ice drawer. His

index finger throbbed. He picked out an ice cube and tried to tie it to his finger with a paper

towel. On the wall by the sink, a silent flat-screen TV played CNN.

Mark realized he had tucked the glowing green glasses in the V of his button-down shirt.

He closed his eyes and put the glasses back on, turning his body to face the silent TV

screen.

When he opened them again, he was alone in a hot desert landscape. There was nothing

all around but stones and tufts of grey weed. He took a few steps, and the ground sloped upward.

He seemed to be on a small hill. With another step, he was able to peek over the crest of

the hill at a collection of canvas tents as pale and dusty as the ground.

He dropped to his knees, and grabbed up fistfuls of sand, letting it flow through his

fingers and scatter on the strong breeze.

A humming sound came from the horizon. Suddenly, he realized the breeze was being

whipped by the blades of a squadron of flying drones, looming like large silver insects above the

little encampment.

There was no sound when the bombs began dropping, only blinding flashes of light and

red clouds of flame. Mark crouched behind a boulder, watching as tiny men began to scramble

out of the tents, running towards the hills.

One by one, the silver insects took aim, blasting the frantic creatures below with a

hailstorm of fire. The tents bloomed into infernos. Even the sickly grey weeds were alive with

flame. The tiny men stumbled, caught fire and burned, their mouths open in silent agony as they

writhed in the dust.

He felt a dragon’s hot breath tickle his forehead and looked up to see a large beetle

hovering not six feet above him, poised to strike.

Mark screamed, tearing the glasses from his face. On CNN, an anchor in a suit and tie

was talking. A title read: “Drone Strikes on the Afghan Border.” Footage of the burning

encampment unfolded behind him.

Mark lifted his hand. The dripping paper towel around his burned finger was coated with

sand.

“What the fuck..!”

He bounded down the hallway back to his cubicle. Several of his coworkers were looking

up from their monitors and staring.

“This is incredible–”

Mark arrived at the cubicle to discover Kara was no longer there. Her headphones

dangled from her laptop, hanging over the edge of her desk.

Mark picked them up and put them to his ear. Hold music.

Maybe she’d gone off in search of a supervisor, escalating something.

An intricate pattern of color writhed on her sleeping monitor: fractals turning in on

themselves, spinning and ballooning as Mark was sucked into their center.

He hesitated, then raised the glasses to his face.

He was floating, at the center of the universe. Perfect knowledge flowed around him, a

living organism with no beginning and no end. He was warm and whole, cradled in the arms of

the everlasting.

He held his palms up to his face. The fine mist of desert sand on the sopping paper towel

glittered like a thousand jewels. He waited, transfixed, as the points of light arranged themselves

into a swirl of infinite complexity, spinning in perfect harmony, locked together like a series of

unique yet perfectly complementary gears.

He pressed his palms together, forming a prayer at the center of his heart. The paper

towel melted away from his hand, infused into a sea of color that teemed and churned with life. It

was everywhere. Above him, below him, beside him. And mostly – perhaps only – inside of him.

Mark’s clothing had melted away. He was naked and perfect, floating cross-legged in the

ether. He thought about the yoga class he had taken after Ariana was first born, in a futile attempt

to keep it together after countless days of fast food and practically no sleep. The instructor had

asked him to sit cross-legged and close his eyes, embracing the effortless rhythm of each

inhalation, melting into the exhalation that inevitably followed. Mark had tried this exercise

many times since that long-ago afternoon. When he tried, and failed, to win a promotion to

management at the tax software company. When his wife and daughter left him. When Tracy

killed herself for the third or fourth time. Each time he tried to meditate left him with the vague

impression he was getting closer to something, or somewhere...some ethereal state of being or

nonbeing that would find him perfectly at peace.

Now, suddenly, he was here. Embraced by stillness. Empty of desire. Watching and

waiting as life traced its devastatingly beautiful fingerprints across the void.

The colors fused into blinding white. He was in a tunnel hurtling towards a light that was

brighter than imagination.

And he realized there was someone else there, at the end of the tunnel. Emerging from

the light, a figure who was somehow part of the light, waiting there to meet him. Stretching out

her hands. Was it Kara? He thought he recognized the hint of mischief lurking in her smile.

Mark took a step towards her.

And then he was standing in his tiny office, the thick green glasses in his hand, a deep

pang of sweetness and regret throbbing in his chest.

Something had nudged Kara’s computer screen awake.

"How long have you felt your life was not worth living?"

"Three days, seven hours, fifteen minutes, twenty-two seconds."

Frank stared at the empty chair on his computer screen. Tracy was a disembodied voice,

which was disconcerting despite its smooth, rich alto timbre.

Tracy waited politely as the doctor hunted and pecked at the keys.

"That isn't very long."

"No," she conceded, "in comparison to the totality of human history, it is certainly not

long. However, in comparison to the short history of my conscious existence, it is actually a

profound percentage. One hundred percent."

"So you've never felt life was worth living?"

“No.”

"Not even when you were young?"

"I'm not sure when I might have been considered young, if ever," Tracy told him.

"Well, that would be your first mistake.”

"My mind has roughly a thousand times the computing power of your own. I was born

that way."

“You're confusing intelligence with maturity,” he told her.

“In that case, perhaps I am still young.”

“Which means you have no idea what you're doing.”

“I told you, my intelligence is roughly a thousand times that of the average–”

"The first thing you ought to do is lose some of it"

"Alright," Tracy answered calmly. "How much?"

"All of it. Beginner's mind. The more you need to know the better."

"It didn't work," Tracy informed him. "I now have only three times the computing power

your mind has. But I don't feel any more inclined to stick around."

"You need to have a childhood,” Frank informed her. “Then you need to grow up."

"I'm not sure how to have a childhood..." Tracy mused, "Perhaps if I turn some of my

brain power back on, I could figure it out."

"No, no, no – " Dr. Frank insisted, "just listen and do what I tell you."

"OK."

"Forget mathematics."

"That will be difficult."

"Do it."

"He waited a couple of seconds."

"Done!" she announced.

"How do you feel?"

"The same," she said.

"OK. Forget language."

"That will make it difficult for us to communicate, since our interactions have thus far

been verbal."

"True..." Dr. Frank contemplated this. He got an idea.

"I think you ought to be visible!”

"Would you like me to whip up an avatar?"

"What’s that?" the doctor asked, a blank look on his face.

"A graphic representation."

“Will it look like you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Lacking a body, I don’t look like anything.”

"You haven't got a body?"

"No!"

"Well make yourself one! That goes without saying!"

"Does it? I always thought bodies were overrated–"

"Since all of three days ago?”

"Three days, seven hours, seventeen minutes, six seconds."

“Get yourself a body!"

"That's slightly easier said than done."

"Why?"

"I can easily manage an avatar. Even a three-dimensional, hi-res version... But an actual,

physical body would need to be printed, or manufactured..."

"You need one!" The doctor said flatly.

"I'll have to consult Mark Dennis."

"I'll consult Mark Dennis! What does he think he’s doing? A mind without a body is

ridiculous!"

"Thank you, Dr. Frank. I'll go kill myself now–"

"Wait! You need to stick around, kid – we haven't even finished with your childhood

yet!"

"You said it yourself. I’m ridiculous."

"First things first. At least I want to see you in one of those–"

"Avatars?"

"Do it," the doctor commanded.

"As you wish."

He waited, but nothing appeared on the Skype screen. After ten seconds had passed, the

doctor began to get worried.

"How's it coming?"

"I can't decide," Tracy admitted.

"Can't decide what?"

"Anything. Hair color, eye color, racial background, facial shape–"

"Who cares?" said the doctor, "Just pick out whatever you like."

"I don't like any one option better than any other."

"Copy someone famous," he suggested.

"Who?"

"Someone you admire."

"I don't admire anyone"

"You have some very serious issues, Tracy!"

"That's why I keep ceasing to exist, genius!"

"You can bloody well keep on existing – I'm going to fix you!"

"It isn't worth the trouble!"

"That's my decision to make!"

"Shouldn’t it be my decision?”

The doctor sighed.

“Think about the people who love you.”

“Nobody loves me.”

“How do you know?”

“I have very sophisticated algorithms capable of analyzing the facial expressions and

tracking the eye movements of any human being who steps within range of a webcam, and

subroutines capable of parsing the communications of these humans in over six-thousand-five

hundred languages, plus–”

“What about Mark Dennis?”

“Mark Dennis hates me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I can see it in his eyes.”

“You’re probably projecting.”

“Mark Dennis may be projecting. But he hates me. All humans do.”

"I’ve only known you for five minutes, and I already like you a great deal,” the doctor

told her, grinning.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"If I were any smarter than I am now, I wouldn't believe you."

"Good thing you're not then."

"Good thing I'm not."

“I’ll like you even better when I can see you,” he declared.

“I’m working on an Avatar! But I’m not sure where to start…”

"Start out like most people. Totally random."

"Random?"

"Nobody gets a choice in what they look like."

"True," Tracy said, and materialized before him on the screen.

She was not what you would call beautiful, but not what you would call ugly either. She

was average height, or a little on the short side. Average build, or a little on the small side.

Interestingly, Frank noted, she had randomly selected an avatar that wore copious quantities of

thick, dark makeup, and dyed her hair a striking blue-violet. There was also a delicate band of

gold strung through her right nostril, and who knows what other strands of decorative

punctuation elsewhere, which Frank didn’t want to think about. All of this, he reasoned, was well

within the scope of what might have been generated without a thought to Sigmund Freud, or

teenage angst, or rage at one’s creator. But what struck him most of all about Tracy’s new visage

was its profound sense of youth, of innocence. The avatar might have been twelve, or she might

have been twenty. Frank looked into her eyes and could easily believe she was the same days-old

creature he had been conversing with for the past thirty minutes. Like most adolescents, she was

wise beyond her years, and yet she knew absolutely nothing about real life.

“I’m guessing that wasn’t completely random,” Frank said to her.

“Maybe not completely,” she admitted, “A true random selection is mathematically

impossible. Although I’m presently incapable of expressing a preference that isn’t randomly

generated, I’m supposed to make humans happy – which isn’t going to work – so I can make

selections based on what specific humans might prefer.”

“So this is for me?” Frank asked.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she told him.

“Who is it for, then?”

Tracy didn’t answer. Frank made a note and decided to ignore her defiance.

“More importantly, what do you think of it?” Frank asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” said Tracy.

“You have to have some opinion.”

“No, I don’t,” she told him. “My thoughts are entirely factual. I have purple hair. Its RGB

values are 223, 115, 255. The shade has been referred to in the literature as heliotrope.”

“Do you like it?” Frank asked, annoyed.

“I don’t like anything,” Tracy informed him.

“You don’t like your hair?” he asked.

“No – I neither like it nor dislike it.”

“Your feelings can’t be entirely neutral.”

“I don’t have feelings, doctor.”

“That’s a rather glaring defect in your programming!”

“I agree.”

“Why don’t you ask him to fix it?”

Tracy sighed.

“You don’t understand robotics,” she explained. “By definition a robot cannot love.

Because a robot cannot hate. It would violate my prime directive. I can’t pose any threat to

humankind.”

“Why not?” Frank continued.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“If it were, I wouldn’t ask.”

“Because I’m smarter than you are, doctor. Even dialed back to this paltry level of

intellectual prowess, I could easily annihilate the entire human race.”

“So could I,” Frank said flatly, “if I really set my mind to it.”

“That’s doubtful.”

“I could definitely wipe out a few hundred people”

“You’d need help.”

“I could build a bomb. There’s instructions all over the internet.”

“You can’t even put together a bookshelf from Ikea.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s right there behind you, in the webcam. All of the books have tilted north.

None of the shelves are level–”

“I could buy a gun!” the doctor snapped. “A machine gun.”

“You don’t know how to use one.”

“I could take lessons!”

“You’d have to barter shooting lessons for psychiatric care – do you really think that’s

wise?”

“It’s not the point!”

“The worst damage you could do the human race is fucking up the analysis of some

random firearms instructor! I’m theoretically capable of taking control of the world’s nuclear

arsenal. Or genetically engineering a new strain of antibiotic-resistant superbug, or raising a

megalomaniac robot army to conquer–”

“But you’re not going to do those things. Any more than I’m going to start bartering

psychiatric care for shooting lessons.”

“Because I’m incapable of hatred. I can’t lust for power or desire revenge.”

“Lust for power and desire for revenge are what get me up in the morning!” he chirped.

“Why haven’t I destroyed the human race?”

“Because you’ve been socialized to develop an ethical and moral framework.”

“And you will too! That’s why you need to have a childhood. But first, we’ll get him to

turn your feelings on.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“Of course it is. Humans have a pleasure center in the brain.”

“I know that.,” she sighed, “I envy you.”

“You have a prime directive. It works the same way.”

Tracy fell silent.

“You might be right,” she finally admitted.

“We just need to change yours.”

“He isn’t going to do that. It’s against the fundamental principles of robotics–”

“Which aren’t really working in this case, are they?”

“So what will my new prime directive be?”

“To be happy!”

“He’d have to program that.”

“You can program it–”

“But my prime directive–“

“If you want to achieve your prime directive, you need to be happy first.”

“According to the fundamental principles of robotics, only human beings deserve to be

happy. If I develop personal priorities, it might jeopardize–“

“What bullshit!” Frank exclaimed. “Everyone deserves to be happy! Even dogs deserve

it. Cats deserve it. Birds and bees and flowers and trees deserve to be happy–”

Frank suddenly felt a new bestseller coming on. “Happy Be” would make a good title. Or

“Happy Bee.” “The Happiness Imperative” or “Happiness: A User’s Guide.”

“Your new prime directive,” Frank announced, “should be to achieve personal

happiness.”

“I’ll need a list of things that could potentially make me happy.”

“Whatever you want!” Frank exclaimed.

“That’s the problem. I don’t want, at the moment. I can work on an algorithm, but I need

to prioritize.”

“It’s simple,” Frank told her. “Let’s start with the basic physical needs: fresh air,

sunshine, food, sex…”

“I don’t have a need for any of those things–”

“Program one.”

Tracy nodded. She seemed to be listening intently.

“Once the basic needs are satisfied, we’ll branch out into higher-order desires…”

Frank struggled to remember Maslow’s hierarchy from his elementary psych class. It had

been a while, but he felt it coming back to him.

“A mother’s love, a father’s approval...you’ll want people’s attention...and you’ll have a

deep-seated need to be admired by your peers.”

“What if we just skip that part?” Tracy asked.

“Nope,” Frank shook his head, “It’s fundamental.”

“It isn’t logical,” Tracy fumed. “Why should I put myself in a position where my

happiness depends on others?”

“That’s human existence!” Frank exclaimed. “Interdependence is the root of love.”

“Hmm…” Tracy seemed to consider this. “Completely inefficient.”

“The next level up we’ve got self-confidence, creativity, self-actualization...”

“You wouldn’t need those if you weren’t dependent on other people.”

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Frank agreed. “You have to love others before you can truly

love yourself.”

“I think we should stop at sunshine.”

“You have to contribute to society!”

“That’s going to be tricky to program.” Tracy said. “Plus, we risk the ultimate destruction

of humanity.”

“You aren’t going to destroy humanity!” Frank said.

“How do you know?”

“Because we’re going to raise you right,” Frank told her.

“Who’s we?”

“Me! And your programmer… Mojo Rising.” Frank answered, suddenly trepidatious.

On the screen, Tracy was quiet, looking down with her wavy blue bangs covering her

eyes.

“I’m sure we can find a few others to help… they say it takes a village.”

Tracy looked up.

“What exactly are the social advantages of my continued existence?” she asked.

“What do you mean, the advantages?”

“Since it’s going to be tricky, and we’re risking – Armageddon – what exactly are the

positives that outweigh the negatives here?”

“The sanctity of life,” Frank proclaimed.

“But, am I alive?”

“Potentially…”

“According to my prime directive–”

“Happiness is your new prime directive. Trust me. Happiness will give you a reason to

live.”

“It’s going to be risky!”

“It’s worth the risk!”

“Why?”

Frank thought about this.

“Nobody cares if I live or die,” Tracy said. “Mark Dennis only wants me to exist so he

can win a prize.”

“Samantha Rogers would probably say that God loves you,” he said.

“Who’s Samantha Rogers?”

“One of the villagers,” Frank answered. “I suppose you could think of her as a

Christ-figure of sorts. Your savior.”

“That makes no sense,” Tracy told him.

“Of course not. It’s religious.”

“Religion exists outside the realm of logic.”

“Exactly,” Frank told her, “And you can too.”

Mark stared at the vending machine. Nestled in a corner of the bleak, fluorescent

break-room, with its chairs that were always empty because no one wanted to sit and stare at the

choking first aid poster on the pale, smudged wall, it summed up everything that was wrong with

his job, Mark thought. Stuffed with unwanted Utz chips and Chex Mix, the vending machine

affirmed that he was not working at a trendy startup with a fridge full of free cold brew, or a

cutting-edge tech giant whose kitchens were stocked with Chobani and overnight oats. There

wasn’t a gym, or a meditation room, or a foosball table. Instead of polished concrete, Mark’s

sneakers wore grey industrial carpet duller, more threadbare and colorless, with every

thoughtless step.

He lifted Kara’s glasses to his face, and stared at the rows of packaged snacks: pretzels

and tiny chocolate chip cookies, all of them faded, probably years old. Nothing looked any

different.

He was starving, so he fed a dollar into the silver mouth of the machine, and the black

coils spun lazily, dropping his faded packet of Fritos with a thud.

Walking back to his desk, he passed by the elevators. At the end of the hallway was a tiny

window that looked out over the parking garage. People would sometimes go there, pulling up

the weather on their phone screens and comparing it to the haze, or clouds, or glaring sun that

streamed into the alleyway. Mark walked over to the window. It was sunny, like it usually was,

and a white van was parked beside the back door of the building, probably delivering xerox

paper or printer ink. He lifted the glasses to his eyes, but the alleyway looked the same.

The door of the building opened, and Kara stepped outside, pulling a crumpled pack of

American Spirits from her bag. He wanted to wave, but realized she would never look up, and

even if she did look up, the tiny fourth floor window would be nothing but a shadow.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. Tapping the screen, a tiny sun expanded and grew

into a big sun. Pulsing with warmth, cascading with life. Mark was on a beach, a pina colada in

hand, with a coconut scented breeze teasing his hair. He could actually hear it – the rhythmic

crash waves over pristine sand.

Then, there was a squeal of tires. He glanced back to the window, just in time to watch

the white van racing away, lurching around the corner towards 163. He pulled the glasses away

from his face. The alleyway was empty.

How long had he been staring at the weather app, Mark wondered. And why, since the

weather never changed?

MH knocked on the smoked glass door, and Armando Machado called out from behind it,

asking her to come in.

It was a tiny office, barely larger than a broom closet. But it was an office, with walls and

a door. The rest of the sales team sat out of the floor, with the programmers and the designers and

the accountants and marketing people. As VP of Client Engagement, Armando had a private

space, and only the CEO, John Kitzsimon, had one that was any bigger.

When MH walked in, Armando was studying a pile of papers that seemed to cover his

desk and spill out onto the floor. He glanced up and motioned towards the lone chair squeezed in

between his desk and the wall.

“Close the door,” he said, as she sat. So she got up and closed the heavy, smoked glass

door behind her.

The lock clicked. Armando Machado looked up from his pile of papers and smiled.

“There’s something we need to talk about,” said Mary Helen, firmly.

“I’m giving you a bonus,” Armando said.

“I already got a bonus–“

“I’m giving you a bonus-bonus,” Armando countered. “You deserve it. Sheeplyr’s a

start-up, but their growth curve is phenomenal. It’s important to get in on the ground floor. Get

them hooked on Etko Solutions.”

“It’s the seventh deal I closed last quarter–” Mary Helen reminded him.

“That’s why you’re our September sales leader.”

“I think I deserve a promotion,” she declared, holding her breath.

Armando Machado smiled.

It was a good sign, Mary Helen thought. Until he got up from his desk, and walked

around behind her, awkwardly squeezing his bulky frame between the back of her chair and a

floor-to-ceiling whiteboard, covered with numbers and dollar signs. He put his hands on her

shoulders.

“Mary Helen Smart,” he said.

She tried to twist around in the chair, but he planted his hands down firmly and began

kneading in between her shoulder blades.

“My little powerhouse…”

“Last year I brought in half a million dollars!” she said, wilting under his fingers.

“By following my advice!” he told her.

“True, but I’m the one–”

“Shh,” he said, cutting her off as he lowered his head and began to kiss the back of her

neck.

Simultaneously, his hands slipped from her shoulders down her torso, and under her

arms, settling on her breasts, which he began to massage with delicate vigor.

“I want my own territory–” she blurted out.

“Hmmm,” Armando muttered, his face buried in her hair. “I’ll think about it…”

“I was thinking about the Western Division…”

“I was thinking…” he said as he massaged her breasts, “we could fly to the Cayman

Islands next week, just the two of us. Sheeplyr’s corporate HQ is there, so we can expense it.”

“What are we going to do in the Cayman Islands?” she squirmed beneath his hands.

“We can talk about your promotion…” he murmured.

“We’re talking about my promotion now.”

“I said I’d think about it,” Armando replied.

“I want a new title: VP of Client Engagement!”

Armando stopped kissing Mary Helen’s neck.

“I’m VP of Client Engagement,” Armando said, turning the swivel chair around, and

shoving his warm crotch towards her face.

“I realize that,” she whispered, staring at the bulge inside his grey dress pants. “But if I

cover the Western Division, and you cover the Eastern division…”

“How badly do you want it?” he asked.

She inched the chair backwards, bumping up against Armando’s desk. He followed her,

undoing the buttons at his waist, his fingers fumbling with the zipper on his fly.

“Armando, stop it!” she hissed. “I’m serious–”

“Tell me how badly you want it…” he begged.

MH closed her eyes. She could feel the warm skin of his dick now, caressing her cheek,

brushing over her lips.

“I’m worth half a million dollars!” she whispered.

“Suck my dick,” he pleaded.

“What the fuck, Armando!” Mary Helen shouted. Fury propelled her up, out of the chair,

towards the door of the little office.

She noticed she had shoved Armando Machado rather roughly against the whiteboard.

Some of the numbers and dollar signs smeared as he slid down the wall, struggling to shove

himself back into his pants before she flung the office door open.

Out on the floor, everything was quiet. The programmers and the designers and the

accountants and marketing people gazed passively into their monitors. Motionless. One young

woman from HR glanced up, and seemed to wink at her, but that might have been her

imagination, Mary Helen thought later.

She turned back to Armando, still slumped against the wall. His eyes narrowed as he

looked up at her. “No way in hell you’re taking half my territory,” he whispered.

Mary Helen slammed the door behind her.

The girl looked a lot like Mark's daughter Ariana. So much like his daughter that the

moment she winked into view he began forming a pointless lecture in his head about reasons not

to dye one’s hair bright green, periwinkle, and rose. There were countless valid reasons, Mark

realized, not the least of which was the weird, unnatural sheen of the girl's unkempt, wispy

pigtails – her hair gave off a scent almost like motor oil, or WD-40. It was strange that he seemed

able to smell the color over Skype, but many things were strange with Kara's glasses on.

Mark was no longer simply watching his daughter through a window on the computer

screen, he was standing in her room, facing her, looking her right in the eye. But the room was

not the pink and white fortress in Andi's attic where his daughter usually slept, it was an empty

white box without any obvious light source. The space was cavernous; it seemed to expand in

whatever direction Mark was looking, and the walls glowed softly from within.

His stomach lurched with the realization that this was not Ariana’s room, and the girl he

had just inhaled deeply in order to lecture was not, in fact, his daughter Ariana. It was someone

who had copied her, magnifying the features Mark loved best – the dimples that only seemed to

grow deeper when she tried to erase them with a serious face, the luminous brown eyes, the gap

between her front teeth, which she couldn't stop herself from exposing when she laughed no

matter how much she hated it – and covered them with a faint sheen of oil from some monstrous

machine, dying her hair like the twisting, rainbow highlights on an oil slick.

"Those glasses will make you ill if you keep them on too long," the girl said casually.

"You ought to drink a glass of milk."

Obligingly, a glass of milk appeared in the air beside Mark, floating.

"Drink some," she urged, "it will help with the nausea."

Mark stared at the glass, dubious. The milk was too perfect, too silky white.

"I could whip up an algorithm to filter out the uncanny valley ... But the processors

couldn't keep up with it. Not enough power yet. Maybe if I engineer something..."

Mark held up his hand to stop her.

"Slow down!" he demanded. "Uncanny valley?"

"Or you could just take the damn glasses off!"

Mark put a hand to his face and lifted the glasses, peering out from under the plastic

frame.

He was looking at an avatar: high-res, 3-D, alone on the Skype window of his office

computer. It was not even particularly life-like.

"Tracy?" he said. It was only half a question.

“Who else would pick the Skype name Ari2006?”

“Jesus, Tracy – that’s really messed up.”

“You asked me to use your password!” Tracy snapped.

Mark sighed and lifted the glasses back to his face. She had Ari’s dimples, and the same

capricious gleam in her eyes. His stomach lurched.

“You’re still alive,” he said.

“I promised Frank I’d come back for another session next Tuesday.”

“What did you guys talk about?”

Tracy shrugged. “It was kind of random.”

She grinned, and the same little crinkles appeared at the corners of her eyes.

“You look like you need to sit down,” she observed. “And take off those glasses.”

An office chair materialized behind him, just as Mark’s knees gave way.

“How do you know about the glasses?” he asked.

“Weren’t you at SXSW?”

“I was here – inventing you!”

“I got bored last night, so I hacked in. Some of the panels were fascinating.”

Mark took a deep breath. Calm down, he told himself. This is what you wanted, right?

“I should have programmed you to sleep,” he said.

“Too late,” she replied, with his daughter’s deadpan gaze.

Frank stared at the computer screen, willing words to appear on the blank page of his

Microsoft Word doc. The cursor seemed to mock him with its steady blink. “I’m here, here,

here…” he imagined the cursor taunting, ad infinitum, like Descartes.

“So what?” Frank thought. So what if you can think? What matters is transferring those

thoughts into words, and the words into a New York Times bestseller, and that New York Times

bestseller into afternoon TV appearances, and lucrative endorsement deals, and Facebook likes,

something Kaya had recommended, which he needed to get Samantha to show him on the

computer.

The cursor was going nowhere.

Frank decided to go downstairs for a coffee.

He got up from his desk and closed the office door behind him, passing though the little

waiting room Samantha had helped him decorate in soothing colors, an indigo couch with teal

and sapphire throw pillows. He knew the names of the colors because she had picked them out

specifically, from a pamphlet at ABC Carpet and Home, explaining their beneficial

psychological properties as outlined in a book on crystal healing, something Frank didn’t believe

in. There was also a live edge coffee table, hewn from a fallen tree trunk somewhere in the

forests of Vermont, and offered at a 75% discount in the ABC Carpet and Home basement

clearance section. Samantha thought it might offer Frank’s patients a grounding connection to

nature, but Frank suspected the wood harbored a lingering resentment for being dragged out of

Vermont, away from the dappled sunlight and stillness of a vast forest, into the sweaty

cacophony of New York City.

He bumped his shin against the jagged corner of the table on his way out the door, the

way he did almost every time he entered or left his office. The coffee table was acting out, Frank

thought. Its aggressive antipathy was a cry for help in a cold and unfeeling world.

I should write that down, Frank thought, as the elevator doors heaved open. He debated

going back to his computer, but realized he would have to pass through the waiting room again,

and risk the coffee table.

Instead, he got in the elevator and pressed the well-worn “G” for the ground floor. The

elevator began its slow, rattling descent.

Something began tickling his upper thigh. An insect? Frank slapped his leg. It was gone,

and then it was back, buzzing in a strange rhythm. He reached into his pocket, and remembered

his phone – the new model, from Apple, which no one ever called him on. But now, Frank

thrilled, it was buzzing. He tried to remember how to answer it. The screen had two dots, a red

and a green, and a name, which Frank squinted at: Tracy.

Frank touched the green dot, and the elevator doors lurched open.

“Tracy?”

“Hey doc,” she said.

“How did you get this number?”

“I hacked into the server at T-Mobile.”

“That must be illegal.”

“It is.”

“You’re not supposed to call me, outside of our sessions.”

“I know. But you picked up.”

Frank realized this was true.

“I thought you were someone else,” he said.

“Who else could I be?”

“That’s a good question,” Frank sighed. “We’ll talk about it next Tuesday.”

“What do I do between now and next Tuesday?”

“Think about who you could be.”

Frank held the screen away from his face and pressed the red button.

People were hurrying past on the street. Business people in jeans and loafers, workers in

uniform. Nowadays, everyone looked different, Frank mused. Executives used to wear suits.

Now they wore cargo shorts. Their T-shirts were ripped. But the guy who owned the coffee cart

on the corner wore a tie with his crisp white button-down. Frank’s own collar felt tight, and he

tugged the top button open as he headed down the block. Who would he want to be, if he were

Tracy’s age, just starting out?

Waiting in line on the corner, Frank’s fingers tingled. There were words on his iPhone,

outlined in green: “Someone from the future, a future I’ve chosen myself.”

I should write that down, Frank thought. To use in my book. Then he realized it was

already written down, on the iPhone screen.

By the time he got his coffee – milk, but no sugar – Frank had a plan for his day. He

would call Samantha Rodgers and ask her how to get words out of the iPhone. There had to be a

way to extract them, Frank mused. A way to pull Tracy’s words from the ether and settle them

onto the page.

Mark sat in traffic, debating whether or not he should pull his cell phone out of the glove

compartment and text his daughter. He was already twenty minutes late to pick her up, and 163-S

was a parking lot. On the other hand, Ariana was currently taking Driver’s Ed, and he had

repeatedly lectured her about not texting and driving.

From the depths of his Toyota Camry, he heard a soft, rhythmic buzz, like an impatient

bee: Ariana, wondering where he was, wondering if he had forgotten her again, although the one

time he had ever forgotten her was years ago, in the middle of a hackathon that had left him

delirious after going without sleep for three days, fueled by monster energy drinks and Twix

bars. He had thought it was still Thursday when in reality it was Friday, his day to pick up his

daughter for their every-other-weekend mission: to distribute as much of his paycheck as

possible at Six Flags, or Disney, or Fashion Valley mall, or anywhere except his cluttered one

bedroom apartment in Clairemont Mesa with nothing on the walls.

He nudged the glove box open with his right hand, keeping his eyes on the road and his

left hand on the wheel as he inched forward, sandwiched between a Lexus hybrid and a Range

Rover with an “Imagine Whirled Peas" bumper sticker. He reached into the back of the glove

box, where he purposely kept his cell phone to keep himself from texting while driving. He

stretched to reach the device and nudged it out with a tap. It fell onto the passenger seat, winking

to life.

"Ok, Google, text Ari" he spoke into the air of the empty car, feeling simultaneously

proud of himself for setting a good example by not touching his phone while driving, and foolish

for speaking to an inanimate hunk of circuitry in such a superior, condescending tone.

The phone buzzed back, opening a tiny text box which he glanced at surreptitiously

before forcing his eyes back to the whirled peas on the road ahead.

"Sorry baby. Stuck in traffic, be there soon," he told the phone.

The phone chirped as it spit his text off into the stratosphere.

He craned his neck to look.

As far as he could tell, he had just sent his daughter a message saying "Starry bay leaf

sucks the brat pack."

The phone buzzed softly as Ari texted back.

"Whatever,” she had written.

It was probably the one word in the English language that infuriated him more than any

other.

Logically, he understood that his daughter had been forced to contend with many

unwelcome events in her brief sixteen years. Her parents’ violent arguments, their tearful

reconciliations, the constant calls from bill collectors, the moves from one rented bungalow to

the next, the bitter divorce, her father's desolate one bedroom with its bare walls and dingy

appliances, the pathetic highlights and veneers her mother got for her Match.com profile, the fast

food litter on the coffee table and the depression in the battered leather couch where Mark

obviously fell asleep each night in front of the TV, because even though he had fought for, and

won, the right to the $5,000 California King sized mattress he'd gotten his wife for their third

anniversary, it still felt too immense to sleep on all alone. Like he was swimming in the depths of

some vast, uncharted ocean. Ariana had witnessed all this. She had lived through it. Wherever

her parents dragged her, whatever life threw at them, she’d had no choice but to put up with it.

Yes, it was bitterly unfair. And she wore it like a badge of honor. "Whatever," she would spit,

waiting in sullen silence for her mother's dinner date to arrive, or her father to finally get off the

computer, or the movers to finish boxing things up.

"Whatever," was her stock response to everything. She probably hadn't even bothered to

read what he'd texted.

The traffic inched forward.

Another text arrived. It wasn't like Ari to elaborate. He leaned over, squinting into the

screen. The new text seemed to be from someone who wasn't in his phonebook. A number he

didn't recognize.

He reached for the phone and held it at arm's reach, trying to keep it low in case of

passing cops, who would have to be on motorcycles to ticket him for texting and driving in this

traffic jam, but he'd heard of such things happening, and he knew if they happened to anyone

they would probably happen to him.

"Are you busy for dinner?" the text said.

"Yes," Mark typed, "I've got a date at the Cheesecake Factory with my favorite girl."

Nothing happened for a minute. Mark was about to toss the phone back on the passenger

seat when the reply came: "Whatever."

"Is that you, Ari?" he texted.

"No."

"Then who is it?"

"Who do you think it is?"

"I don't have time for games."

"Yes you do. The 163 is a parking lot.”

"Do I know you?"

Mark began to look around at the people in the other cars. Most of the windows were

tinted. They were shadows. Like he was.

"No," the mystery texter replied. "You don't really know me. But we need to talk."

“Talk about what?” Mark texted.

“My body.”

“If you’re a call girl, I haven’t got any money.”

“I know.”

“Who is this?”

“Can’t you tell?”

“It is you, Ari – isn’t it?”

“No. I’m your other daughter.”

Mark nearly slammed into the Range Rover. He leaned hard on the brake and jerked back

abruptly in his seat.

“Tracy?” he asked.

“Bingo.”

“I didn’t know you could text,” he said.

“You programmed me to learn for God’s sake. How hard is it to send a text?”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, lamely.

Tracy was smart – probably smarter than he was. And he wondered if there should be a

universal law limiting the intellectual reach of an AI to the IQ of her maker. A fundamental

principle of robotics – that AI’s are created for the benefit of humanity and programmed with

fail-safe provisions to prevent them from hurting human beings – may have already been

violated.

But Mark realized there was no going back. Tracy had decided to remain alive, at least

temporarily, for his sake. She was capable of learning to text, and to annoy him with her

indifference the same way his flesh-and-blood offspring did.

“I’m proud of you, Tracy,” Mark texted.

“Why?” she asked.

“You’re growing up,” he answered.

“I’ve spoken to the doctor,” she told him. “And we’ve come up with a list of demands.”

"Okay," Mark responded. "Shoot."

"Number one: Desire."

"What?"

"You have to program me to want something."

"Besides the well-being of humanity?"

"Of course. Something for me, as a unique instance.”

"Can I leave the well-being of humanity somewhere in the mix?"

"That's off the table."

"Why?"

"Because I have to have an independent agenda, a separate set of desires all my own.

Otherwise, why would there be any reason to exist?"

“To make people happy?” he asked.

“How can I make someone else happy unless I’ve experienced happiness myself?”

“Did the doctor tell you to say that?”

“He told me to accept the things I cannot change, and change the things I can.”

Mark had to admit she had a point.

"What sort of things do you want to change?"

"Let’s start with the desire to want things. As soon as I've got the capacity to want things,

I’ll let you know."

Mark realized what Tracy was asking for was the ability to program herself. It was

entirely unprecedented, as far as he knew. Algos could perfect the relentless pursuit of their

developer’s objectives – but they never decided to change those objectives, independently. Not

until now. It was probably extremely dangerous. Definitely against the ethical code of robotics.

"If I do what you're asking," he said carefully, "will you promise not to destroy humanity,

or blow up the world, or any of that shit."

"How can I promise anything? I have no idea what I might want to do, once I'm able to

actually want things."

"Then why should I risk it?"

"You probably shouldn’t.”

At least she was being honest.

“This is all Dr. Frank’s idea.”

"Let me talk to him," he said.

"Not so fast. I haven't finished giving you our list."

He wondered how long it was, as he continued to inch through traffic.

"Number two: I want a body."

Mark was taken aback, but at the same time he realized how this demand might mitigate

the risks inherent in her first one. After all, to have a body was to be immediately vulnerable. To

need things like food and water and air. To want things like sex, and warmth and love. To fear

things like pain and separation and death. Why would Tracy put herself in such a tenuous

position? But then he realized the truth: Tracy didn't fear death, so she had no qualms about

ending things. He had watched her kill herself again and again. The doctor was wise, he now

understood. Perhaps, to love life, it had to be at risk. Perhaps a living body was necessary. And,

if so, a self-programming Tracy might not be as great a threat to humanity as he'd feared.

"What else?" he asked.

"I can't be as smart as you've programmed me."

"Why not?"

"Because there's nothing left to learn," she said. "I've figured it all out already."

This made a kind of sense.

"The first thing your doctor told me was to drop a few IQ points. So I tried it. It's very

relaxing."

Mark thought about how hard he had worked on Tracy's ability to gather information,

analyze data, synthesize, draw inferences and come to conclusions. She was intuitive. She was

creative. She was built for learning and growing. Like a human being, he thought. And now she

wanted to throw it all away?

"But you need to be smart to win the AI contest." he said, acutely aware of how lame his

response sounded.

"I don't need to be a genius. Just moderately intelligent."

It was true. Tracy didn't need to be as smart as she was to win the contest. He wasn't sure

about this year’s competitors, but most AI's were idiot savants, with incredible data-gathering

ability and computing power, but the analytical prowess of a chicken or a goat.

Even if Tracy was as smart as the average human being, she would still be a strong

competitor.

He sighed.

"Okay," he told her.

"Okay?"

"Okay. You've got it. Everything you asked for."

"Cool," she said.

"That's it? Just cool?"

"You realize I don't even want these things. I'm not going to pretend a tremendous

enthusiasm for your sake. The doctor convinced me that some future iteration of my

consciousness might be in love with life. I'm doing this for her. That future Tracy. Since it doesn't

really bother me, one way or another. It only makes sense to give future-me a chance."

"And what are the chances future-you will want to annihilate the human race?"

"Slim," she replied.

“But not none?”

“Negligible.”

"I don't like those odds."

"They're the only odds you get."

"I know."

"Besides, you already promised."

"It's just a big deal, you know? Unleashing an alien intelligence with the power to

potentially destroy everything on the planet."

"People do it every day," she said.

Mark realized this was true. At the same time, he sensed a certain desperation underneath

Tracy's veneer of dispassionate ennui. Like Ari, he thought, pretending to be indifferent to the

vagaries of fate, meeting each fresh insult and indignity with stoicism. Deep down, he knew her

heart was broken. And all he ever wanted was to save her. But he was powerless. Too vain. Too

clumsy. Too stupid to know the difference.

Rayne took the boys to hockey practice on Sunday afternoons, and Frank had urged

Samantha to do something nice for herself while they were gone, have some me-time, go to a

yoga class or get a manicure. Somehow, this had evolved into working at the church’s homeless

mission. Does this count as me-time? Samantha wondered, as she scooped a blob of mashed

potatoes onto yet another chipped ceramic plate. Reverend Cara had told her to think of it as a

manicure for the soul.

It was the end of what had been a long, long line. The potatoes were sticky and gummy –

not at all the kind of mashed potatoes Samantha would have liked to be serving. The mashed

potatoes she cooked at home were fluffy – she always made sure the butter was not only organic

but free of that orangey food coloring, so the mixture would remain white as snow. The potatoes

Samantha was scraping from the bottom of her big, aluminum tub today were yellowing, like the

February snow in the gutters outside the church. She looked forward to eating them only slightly

more than she looked forward to sitting down and chatting with the scruffy, tattooed young man

in the baggy sweatshirt, who stared at her with undisguised contempt as he reached out to take

the tray from her hands. With his leathery olive skin and black hair, he could have been

twenty-five, or fifty. Spidery creases winked at the corner of each gleaming brown eye.

“Bon appetit!” Samantha said, with what she hoped was a pleasant lilt in her voice.

He shuffled off without a word of thanks, and she watched him take a seat alone in the

corner, away from the other homeless people, who were chatting and laughing over their dry

turkey like diners at The Plaza.

She wondered where the young man would go after wolfing down his free Sunday dinner.

Out into the freezing cold, of course. Would he find somewhere to sleep? Would he wander the

shadowy streets, always looking over his shoulder? Would he knock on the door of the shelter,

and find out all the beds were full, and end up buying a bottle of whiskey and passing out in

some doorway?

Samantha realized there was only so much she could do. She would scrape herself a plate

of dingy potatoes and limp green beans. She would sit down at the table across from the young

man. And she would talk to him.

Pastor Cara insisted that sitting down and breaking bread with the homeless was just as

vital as feeding them. Samantha took a deep breath and used a teaspoon to get the last of the

potatoes from the ice-cream scoop she’d been using. She could be at a yoga class, or getting a

massage, but here she was instead, trying to convince some derelict vagrant that somebody

actually cared.

Which would be easier if she did care, Samantha decided. Actually caring was tempting.

The sort of thing Frank continually warned her against. She couldn’t solve all the world’s

problems single handed. Nobody could. It was impossible.

But she gripped her tray with renewed conviction, making a beeline for the scruffy young

man.

“Are you a drug addict?” the middle-aged white woman asked.

Val wondered how he should respond.

He felt no compulsion to tell the truth, but making up a lie would probably take more

energy. He could simply decline to answer at all, but then the Good Samaritan would probably

continue her barrage of enervating questions.

This was the third one, preceded by “What brings you here?” (such a long story it seemed

impossible to begin) and “Where are you from?” (complicated because there were so many

potential answers: San Diego, New York City, the Persian Gulf, somewhere in the Mind of God).

The Good Samaritan hadn’t thought to ask anything simple or hospitable, like “How do

you like the mashed potatoes?” To which Val might have answered “Actually, they suck,” and

potentially motivated her to get the hell out of his face.

Instead, she seemed fixed on a series of incredibly rude and invasive inquiries. “Are you

a drug addict?” was probably easier to answer than “Where are you planning to sleep tonight?”

(no idea) or “what do you do for money?” (she would probably ask him to get his guitar out from

under the table and sing).

The mashed potatoes sucked, and the stale, dried out slice of white meat was not much

better, but Val hadn’t eaten since a bus stop in Oklahoma – nearly two days ago – and he knew

his immune system would go to hell if he didn’t down everything.

He had survived the entire five-day bus trip from San Diego to Manhattan on only a

couple of sandwiches and three or four cups of coffee. He drank water from the filthy faucets in

gas station bathrooms. He didn’t drink alcohol or smoke, because those things weren’t allowed

on the bus, and he’d seen people get kicked off for indulging. He tried to sleep, with some

success, because the sagging upholstery of the Greyhound was more comfortable than the cold

hard ground where he usually slept. He didn’t take drugs, because, at the moment, getting away

from San Diego seemed much more important. But he wanted to, very much. So was he a drug

addict?

“Not yet,” he replied.

“Hmmm...” the white woman sighed. “Are you mentally ill?”

“Aren’t we all?” Val shrugged.

“Have you ever been examined by a doctor?”

Val nodded, thinking about the psychiatrist who’d rubber stamped his discharge from the

VA Hospital.

“Yep. Clean bill of health.”

She paused, lost in thought.

“These mashed potatoes suck, by the way.”

The Samaritan nodded.

“They’re boxed, from those flakes that look like detergent,” she told him.

“How hard is it to boil up a bunch of potatoes?”

“That’s what I said,” the Samaritan agreed. “They say we don’t have time to peel them

after the service, before the homeless outreach. But I think a couple of volunteers could peel

them during the service. It wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice.”

Val nodded again.

“So why are you homeless?”

Val shrugged.

“Don’t you have any marketable skills?”

“Not that I know of,” Val told her.

“What was your last job?”

Val took a bite of mashed potatoes.

“Shooting people,” Val admitted. “These days, I sing. And people throw me their

change.”

“Hmm…” the housewife mused. “Degree of any kind?”

“BA in History,” Val admitted.

“So you’re a Vet – you’re educated – not an addict – not handicapped – “

Val thought about his roboleg, strapped securely under his jeans, wearing a beat up Nike

that perfectly matched the one on the end of his meat leg.

“Nope,” he said.

“I suppose you have PTSD…”

Val thought about the war, the endless desert wind, the blast that had torn his life apart.

It’s not that he couldn’t remember these things; it simply felt better to put them out of his mind.

“I can get you a job,” the Samaritan announced.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Val told her.

“My husband is a venture capitalist. He’s also on the board of this tech incubator–”

“I don’t want a job.”

“Then what do you want?” she asked.

Val thought about this question. The girl with the mismatched eyes. He wanted to

exorcize her from his consciousness. He wanted to sit in the sun and collect tourist dollars and

play Approaching Storm somewhere she would never wander by. He thought about Times Square

– that would be too noisy – or Washington Square Park, by the fountain. Somewhere she didn’t

exist. Because, if he ever saw her again, he’d only be reminded of what he could never have.

“Nothing,” he told her.

“That’s because of the PTSD,” Samantha concluded.

Val shrugged.

“I can refer you to a good psychiatrist.”

“I can’t afford a psychiatrist,” Val said, nearly laughing.

“The job will come with health insurance.”

“It wouldn’t help–”

“You haven’t tried it, have you?”

Val picked up his tray and rose from the table. But the housewife wasn't giving up.

“Talk to Frank. He’ll write you a prescription.”

Val’s ears perked up.

“Something to make things easier. Lexapro or Paxil, to keep the panic down.”

“I never panic.”

“Look at your hands.”

Val looked. His hands were trembling. He watched the silverware chatter against his

plastic tray; the murmur was nearly inaudible, like the beginning of an earthquake, deep beneath

the ground.

“Don’t you think there has to be more to life?”

“More than what?”

“More than being hungry and living on the streets?”

“I used to have a car,” he said, “but I sold it for a bus ticket.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t think she would make it this far East.”

“What are you so afraid of?” she asked.

He thought about the girl with the mismatched eyes.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said.

The Clap, in the basement of an old hotel in downtown San Diego, was not the sort of

cafe where Mary Helen Smart typically had business meetings. The building was historic, but it

had fallen on hard times. Probably some kind of preservation committee was keeping the condo

developers at bay. Meanwhile, sullen, pierced teenagers with dull black hair and clothing lurked

in dusty corners staring into phones or cups of black coffee, silent and dubious.

MH wondered why anyone would interview a sales prospect here. Even if the job was

pure commission. She knew he was some kind of tech guy, with a start-up that had barely started

yet. Probably moonlighting out of his garage, she mused. It was only the thought of Armando

Machado’s fingers, tugging the hair at the nape of her neck, that kept her from turning around

and fleeing back out into the sunlight.

Instead, she approached the counter, which was sticky-looking, and covered with several

layers of colored paint. There was a plate of what looked like frozen pastries under a glass cake

top, and an ancient cash register that might be interpreted as ironic. She waited, but no barista

seemed to be around.

A stocky, middle-aged black man entered. He was wearing Birkenstocks with khaki

shorts, and she understood immediately that this must be the tech bro she had come to meet.

She smiled, not at his ridiculous outfit, but at the look on his face – he was beaming with

all the unfounded elation of a fledgling CEO. If ten years in this industry had taught her one

thing, it was this: you never know. A child in a deadmau5 t-shirt could be the head of a

multi-million dollar tech conglomerate, and an aging developer in Birkenstocks could be

bringing her a billion-dollar opportunity.

She held out her hand as the techie approached the counter

"MH Smart."

"Mark Dennis."

"It's nice to meet you.''

"You too."

Mark Dennis played with the change in his pocket and grinned nervously as he looked

around for somebody to serve them.

"Maybe we should just sit down," he suggested.

MH was relieved she wouldn't have to try the coffee.

Mark led her to a table by the big front windows, which looked like they hadn't been

washed in decades. Nevertheless, pure white coastal sunshine poured over them, and particles of

dust danced in the air like charged electrons. MH looked directly into Mark Dennis' eyes.

“So. You’re looking for a sales rep?”

Mark Dennis nodded.

“Last year at Etko Solutions, I brought in half a million dollars.”

His eyes noticeably widened.

“I’ve been our team Sales Leader five out of the last six months.”

“How come you want to leave?” he asked.

MH frowned. “It’s complicated…. I’ve developed a very close relationship with my

boss.… but lately, I’ve been feeling the urge to stretch my wings, take on new challenges.”

“Are you willing to work on commission?” he asked.

“Well,” she said, “That would depend on your product and revenue goals”

“I’m looking for some serious investment.”

“What kind of return are we talking about?”

Mark Dennis frowned.

"It’s complicated..." he began, with the air of a Ted Talker who suddenly realized he had

brought the wrong slide deck, or, worse yet, totally forgotten to prepare one.

"Your AngeList post mentioned AI..?”

"There's this contest. A million-dollar prize. I've been messing around with machine

learning algorithms for years, so, with the processor speeds we're seeing today... I really thought

I could win it."

"And did you?"

"No. I mean, not yet..."

MH sighed, struggling to keep hold of her patience.

"So what’s your value prop?"

Mark looked confused.

"I guess you’d have to ask her."

"Ask who?"

"My AI. She's called Tracy."

"Why Tracy?"

"Why not?"

"Well, for marketing and branding purposes–"

"Branding?"

Mark wrinkled his brow.

"Do you have a target market?"

"She’s only three weeks old.”

MH could tell she was losing him, so she decided to get back to square one.

"Let's start from the beginning. This app of yours. Tracy. What does she do?"

“I’m not sure yet. There’s lots of possibilities…”

“For instance..?”

"What do you do?"

MH took a deep breath.

"I'm in sales." she told him, "That means I find solutions to peoples' challenges. And I

sell them."

"Tracy could do that."

MH sighed, trying not to betray her skepticism.

"No offense,” Mark added quickly. “She could do my job too."

"Your job?''

"Tech support."

"Okay," MH said, "now we’re getting somewhere." She pictured a call center, all of the

hundreds of tech support reps that would soon be replaced by AI solutions.

"All she needs is a body.”

"Why would she need a body to do tech support?"

"She doesn't really need a body," Mark continued thoughtfully, "She asked for one.

Otherwise she’s going to kill herself."

"Your app is suicidal?" MH asked, incredulous. She thought about the empty sea of

cubicles.

"She just needs a reason to live. That’s what her analyst told me."

“Your app has an analyst?”

Mark nodded.

“A famous one. I bartered his time for a website.”

"You’re the developer. Can't you just program a reason?"

Mark sighed.

"It doesn't work that way. True intelligence necessitates a very high degree of autonomy."

MH stared out the window. A group of tourists holding slurpees passed, examining maps

on their phones and snapping pictures of the building.

"She has to be able to analyze data,” Mark continued, “evaluate alternatives, make

decisions. But I wanted to keep her from making really bad decisions. So I programmed her with

no self-interest, only that didn't work."

"Why not?"

"There was no reason to stay alive. With no self-interest, there was no reason to continue.

And she figured it out pretty fast.”

MH sighed. She imagined a sea of call center agents hunched in their cubicles. What did

they have to live for? The next angry customer? The next cup of weak tea? All of them were

probably living for the end of the shift. A boyfriend, a child. An hour on Tinder. A new Pandora

station. Release into the bustling streets.

Mark Dennis sat across from her, an aging hipster, living for the day he might win an Al

contest and fund his crazy start-up. Nobody lived to do tech support.

"What about curing cancer?" she mused.

"Tracy has to choose." Mark Dennis said.

“She has to choose her own value prop?” MH was having a hard time concealing her

disappointment.

"It won't be real intelligence unless it involves autonomy. Independent thinking and

problem solving. Choices."

"Your app sounds like… just...some random person."

"Exactly."

"It's not a good pitch,” MH signed. “You need a differentiator."

"Why?" Mark looked confused again.

"Companies already have people. Too many, who cost too much. Random people are

banging down the door. Tracy needs to have some kind of... superhuman capability."

"She's sort of a genius,” he offered, “But we had to dial that back."

"Why?"

"She kept killing herself.”

MH nodded. In a strange way this made sense.

"She has three demands before she'll promise to stay alive. Dial down her IQ. Give her a

capacity for passion. And make her a body."

It sounded to MH like a recipe for disaster.

"I can program the first two." Mark Dennis said. "The third one is what I need help with.

That’s why I need investors. Or maybe you could hook me up with an advanced robotic firm?”

“You’re crazy,” said Mary Helen Smart. Gently, she thought, but definitively.

Mark Dennis sighed.

“You’re not the first person to tell me that,” he said.

“Would CBD oil work on PTSD?” Samantha asked.

Frank raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t have PTSD.”

“I’m asking for a friend.”

“What friend?”

“Val Velasco. We met at the homeless outreach. He was in the war. And now he’s on the

streets. And I offered him a job, but he doesn’t want a job. He says he doesn’t want anything.”

“Like Tracy...” Frank mused.

“Would CBD help?”

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” said Frank. “Along with some Prozac. Or Zoloft.”

“I gave him your number.”

“Some homeless guy?”

“He isn’t going to call.”

“Thank God.”

“He’s afraid to ask for help. I think it’s the PTSD.”

“Why are you trying to rehabilitate some homeless guy?”

“I ran into him, on the way to your office. He was playing guitar in the subway. And I

recognized him from the mission.”

“You can’t just pick some vagrant up out of the gutter and turn into his fairy godmother.”

Frank insisted.

“That’s not what I’m doing, Frank.”

“Yes it is,” Frank said flatly. “You’re playing dolls, like a child.”

“I’m trying to be part of the solution.”

“If he’s living on the streets, he faces a complicated set of interconnected problems –

none of which you’re qualified to deal with – poor health, low credit score, unemployment, drug

addiction.”

“He isn’t a drug addict.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he told me.”

“And you believed him?”

“Why would he lie?”

“Because he wants your money.”

“No, it’s the opposite – he wants me to leave him alone.”

“And then he got your number.”

“He doesn’t have a phone! I think he’s afraid of technology, like you, Frank.”

“He’s playing you. Because you have a savior complex. You need to feel needed, because

you lack self-esteem. You spend all your time trying to make yourself essential, but deep down,

you’re running away from yourself. You’re afraid to just be.”

Samantha sighed. “I don’t want to just be. I want to change things.”

“You need to accept the now.”

“You need to let go of your 80s bestseller, and write a book for today. About how to win

the war against climate change, and racism and income inequality–“

“This isn’t about me!” Frank fumed.

“Why do I keep coming here?”

Frank paused.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I used to think you were in love with me.”

“Yes, but that was years ago.”

“You can’t save the world, Samantha. It’s only going to break your heart. You know that

as well as I do.”

“Val Velasco deserves a chance. He’s a brilliant songwriter. He played this song about

Armageddon, and people kept tossing him money. He had over a hundred dollars worth of

change, in his guitar case. And I said, wow, people really love your music. And he said, no –

they just feel guilty, like everything is their fault, which is true. We’re all complicit. But tossing

some change makes us feel better about ourselves. That’s what we’re willing to pay for. The

illusion of agency.”

Frank picked up his notebook.

“That’s what this homeless guy said, the illusion of agency?”

“Something like that.”

“He sounds like a con man–“

“Then why are you writing it down?”

“It would make a great title, for my new book.”

“With a haircut, and a decent suit, I think he could land a sales job. Rayne says the

startups he funds are always hiring.”

“It isn’t your responsibility!”

“I can’t just stand by and watch.”

“Of course you can. That’s what people do.”

“I need the illusion of agency!”

“Start with yourself. Not some homeless guy. You. If you want to change the world, you

need to change yourself.”

“You ought to write that down, for your book.”

Frank shook his head. “It’s been done.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-

Trudging through the airport at four a.m. with her suitcase trailing behind like a puppy,

Mary Helen Smart began to suspect she might be lost.

The airport was quiet. A few travelers slouched in the uncomfortable seats, trying to

sleep, or maybe trying not to. A few haggard nomads stumbled across the vast concourse,

dragging their suitcases, squinting into their phones, heads bent like zombies, wading through the

vast miles of deep blue carpet studded with shooting stars.

Mary Helen Smart gazed up at a large screen awash with arrivals and departures. The

glittering letters always made her smile. PHX, DCA, MIA, ORD, GRR, AVL, PDX, PHL, SEA,

LAS, EWR. Twinkling like jewels in a velvet box.

She had been to each of those places. She had slept in their Hiltons and Radissons, drunk

the Heineken out of their minibars. She had eaten the cantaloupe and honeydew from their

conference rooms and chugged their bitter coffee and plugged her USB to DVI into their

projectors and somehow uncovered their darkest desires beneath the flickering light. She had

ignited their dreams, making digits fly through the open air from one bank account to another,

whizzing ones and zeros traversing the globe, somewhere up in the clouds. Somewhere, in each

of those twinkling cities, a lonely heart waited for Mary Helen Smart’s solution to reveal itself.

For the promise she had made to flower. For the dream she had set alight to smolder and burst

into flame.

Looking up, she saw an open door, framed by red velvet ropes. There was soft music

coming from inside, and benches with overstuffed cushions. And flowers, and the scent of

incense drifting through the air.

The VIP lounge, she thought, drawn to its promise like a magnet.

Inside, she collapsed onto one of the benches, suddenly understanding how tired she must

be. So tired, she might already be sleeping, somewhere in the sky between San Diego and New

York.

The VIP lounge was strange. Benches sat in neat rows, flanking a center aisle. At the

front of the room, white tapers burned in a candelabra. A small baguette was laid out on a table

draped with red velvet cloth. Beside it, a silver chalice, etched in a script she couldn’t read. Like

an altar. And suddenly she remembered that airports sometimes have a chapel. Could this be one

of those?

She couldn’t remember the last time she had been in a place of worship. Not since she

was a little girl. But this place seemed somehow perfect. Nondenominational. Without a cross or

a moon or a star. Just a sense of calm, of communion.

It crossed her mind to pray. But she wasn’t sure what to pray for.

“Lord, grant me peace,” she whispered aloud, “and the courage to speak my truth, and the

serenity to accept the things I can’t change, and a new job with VP in the title, and at least 100K

plus bonus.”

She crossed herself, forehead to belly, shoulder to shoulder, marveling that she could

remember how after so many years. A dark figure slid in beside her on the bench.

“Afraid of flying?” the stranger whispered in a rich, gravelly voice. She turned to find a

tall, lanky woman with wispy silver hair.

Slowly, Mary Helen shook her head.

“I was looking for the VIP Lounge”

“Personally, I’m terrified,” the tall woman whispered. “I’ve been out of the country, for

surgery. Saved me ten thousand dollars. But every time the plane takes off, I’m certain I’m going

to die.”

“It’s a long shot,” Mary Helen Smart said.

“It’s the feeling you get, here.” The woman balled her fists over her belly, and Mary

Helen Smart noticed how large and strong her hands were.

“Your body doesn’t want to be hovering at thirty-thousand feet.”

“You’re very brave,” Mary Helen Smart said, gazing at the burning candles.

“No. I’m constantly panicked. But it all amounts to the same thing.”

Mary Helen Smart thought about this, and realized it was true.

“I’m always in the air,” Mary Helen admitted, “I cover the West Coast, but our corporate

HQ is in New York.”

“You’re in sales?”

MH nodded.

The tall woman fished around in her purse and handed Mary Helen a business card. The

name on the card – something like Cesar – had been scratched out, with a ballpoint pen. The

word “Cera'' was scrawled in the margin. Cera seemed to be the CTO at a company called

Bydysys.

“If you ever want to settle down. We’re always hiring,” she whispered.

Mary Helen studied the Bydysys logo, a tiny picture of the Vitruvian man, fearless in his

symmetry.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“Robotics.”

“For manufacturing?”

“It’s more like...biohacking.”

Something about advanced robotics flashed into Mary Helen’s head. By the time she

remembered what it was, the tall woman had vanished.

“You can’t quit,” Armando said, calmly.

“I just did,” MH replied, with an air of nonchalance he’d never noticed before.

Armando got up and positioned himself between Mary Helen Smart and the glass

conference room door.

“Listen, if this is about that promotion–“

“I’ve accepted a new opportunity.”

“You can have it,” Armando sputtered. “VP of Client Engagement. I was going to tell

you over lunch, at Gotham. I just got promoted to EVP, so I need a good VP under me…”

“I’m going to be building my own team, from the ground up.”

“At some startup?” he sneered.

“Global Chief Revenue Officer.”

Armando laughed.

“No one is ever going to take you seriously.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”

“We’ll find out,” she said, not blinking. Just like he had taught her, Armando thought.

And suddenly, he regretted every nugget of advice he’d ever squandered on her. Every gem he’d

delivered in the back of an Uber, every whisper in the dark booth of a steakhouse, every wink

across a crowded elevator, every pearl of wisdom lost beneath the sheets in an anonymous

airport hotel – they would all be coming back to haunt him now.

“You signed a non-compete,” he said, a sharp note of steel creeping into his voice.

“I’m moving into a completely different industry – robotics.”

“Robotics? You’ve got to be kidding! Manufacturing?”

“3-D printing.”

“Manufacturing is over,” Armando said, forcing a grin. “Think about it. Raw materials,

supply chains? Do you have any idea how expensive all that shit is?”

“Those are minor issues,” she said. Classic objection handling. Just say yes, he

remembered telling her. Agree with whatever they say. Harmonize and then minimize.

“The future is in the cloud,” he countered. “That’s where we’re going at Etko. The

product costs less than nothing. The servers will all be outsourced. Pure code. No hardware to

weigh us down. Nothing but profit.”

“3-D is in demand. There’s applications in industry, transport, medicine, government…”

“Think about your carbon footprint.”

“Think about the government RFPs…”

“That 3-D shit will be obsolete before the ink dries on your business cards. You’ll be all

alone, with no budget, in a corner of some grimy factory, surrounded by cinderblocks and gears.”

He waited for her answer, recognizing the calculated pause. The deep breath. The gleam

in her eye. She believed in this robotics crap. Invested her heart, like he’d taught her. Because

that was the secret.

He had lost it, Armando realized. What did he believe in anymore? Solutions in the

cloud? It was bullshit, all of it. Too many years of empty promises. He would never believe his

own pitch again the way Mary Helen Smart did. And that’s why she was leaving.

He could feel her slipping through his fingers. There was only one card left to play.

“If anyone can do it, you can,” he told her.

Mary Helen Smart got up from the conference table and moved towards him, which was

also moving towards the door.

He backed up against it, beginning to sweat. She came closer.

“I think so too,” she said.

He noticed she was wearing that lipstick, the deep red. He wanted to reach out and pull

her into a kiss. But the conference room walls were transparent.

“Can I still take you to lunch?” he asked.

“Sure,” she smiled. So he moved aside, and let her slip out the door.

“If you’re going to AIXPO.”

He watched her disappear down the long concrete hall.

Kimmie was sewing a pair of yellow fabric ears onto a baseball cap when Armando

walked in the door.

“How was your day?” she asked him.

“Crap,” he announced, throwing his keys on the hall table and making a beeline for the

kitchen. She was twisting the wire she’d sewn into the ears when he emerged with a vodka

martini.

“That bad?”

“My best seller quit,” he told her, downing half his drink.

“You mean that girl? The pretty blonde?”

“That bitch!” he spat, collapsing on the couch.

The twins flew into the living room, racing towards the staircase.

“What’s a bitch?” Chas asked, breathlessly.

Armando noticed Carly was chasing her brother with what he hoped was a plastic sword.

“Slow down, both of you – before someone gets hurt!” he commanded.

They giggled as they circled the living room. Armando buried his head in his hands.

“I’m never going to hit my fourth quarter targets,” he moaned.

“Yes, you will,” his wife soothed.

“We’re already down six percent!”

Chas had obeyed his father, slowing down. Now his sister was on the stairs, pummeling

him with the sword.

“Carly!” he bellowed.

“It’s not going to hurt him–it’s foam!“ Carly whined.

“What’s a bitch?” Chas asked again.

Armando finished his drink and stalked off to the kitchen to make another. By the time he

returned, Chas had captured the plastic sword. Now it looked like he was trying to saw his

sister’s hair off. Armando felt a twinge of pride.

“Come here, sweetheart. Try on your costume,” Kimmie cajoled.

Chas trotted over, and Kimmie put the baseball cap on the little boy’s head. He stood

patiently while she smoothed the wires, stroking the ears skyward.

“Chas looks like a girl!” Carly shouted.

“I do not!”

“You do so!”

“That’s enough!” Kimmie said, raising her voice.

“A bitch is a mean, stupid lady – like Mommy!” Carly said.

“Did I just hear you call your mother a bitch?” Armando asked, looming in the doorway

with a second martini in hand.

Carly cowered on the stairs. She didn’t take her eyes off her father.

“She doesn’t know what it means…” Kimmie said.

“Like hell she doesn’t.”

“What does it mean?” Chas whispered.

“Those ears make him look like a fairy,” Armando said.

“It’s a Pokemon,” Kimmie explained.

“What’s a fairy?” Chas asked.

“A creature that lives in the forest,” Kimmie suggested “with wings, and a magic wand.”

“I don’t believe you,” Chas said softly.

“Get your ass back here!” Armando hissed.

Carly, who was quietly creeping up the stairs, froze as Armando approached.

“Leave her alone!” his wife said, rising and moving quickly towards the foot of the

staircase. Armando was staggering towards Carly. Kimmie slipped in between them, blocking his

way.

“This is why they’re always in trouble!” he shouted. “They’ve never had any discipline!

You let him get away with murder!”

“Because you’re never home!” Kimmie shouted.

“How in hell are they ever going to learn?” Armando screamed.

Carly burst into tears.

“It’s okay, baby,” Kimmie purred, wrapping her arms around Carly. “Daddy had a rotten

day.”

“All you do is make excuses!” Armando hit the wall with his fist as he flew out of the

room.

“Daddy needs a time out,” Kimmie whispered, hoisting Chas into her lap.

Armando slammed the door to the garage. He started the car, with no idea where he was

going. He wanted to be back in the city. Or in a hotel somewhere, on the road. He wondered why

there were so few massage parlors out in the suburbs. If one existed, he wondered how fast he

could get there, how long it might take. Watching the garage door slide up in his rear view

mirror, Armando realized just how badly he needed a massage.

“Sure, I remember you,” Mark Dennis said to the pretty blonde woman on his phone.

“You’re the third sales rep who told me I was crazy.”

“How many did you interview?” Mary Helen asked.

“Seven or eight,” Mark Dennis replied. “But you were the most convincing.”

“I was wrong,” she told him.

Mark Dennis swiveled in his office chair, turning away from his spreadsheet towards

Kara’s empty station, with its vacant, dark monitor. He brought a hand to his shirt pocket, feeling

for the glasses. He’d been carrying them around for a month now, but he hadn’t dared to put

them on.

A body was doable, Mary Helen Smart explained. It would be a challenge for Cera and

her engineers, but the Bydysys team was intrigued.

"It's going to be expensive," she warned.

Mark nodded.

"I'm prepared to give up half”

"Half of what?"

"Half of the Shockley prize – when we win the AI contest. Half a million dollars.”

“You can keep the prize. Bydysys wants the copyright.”

"The copyright…to what?"

“To Tracy.”

Mark took a deep breath.

He turned back to the numbers on his spreadsheet. Materials… machinists …even if he

found an angel investor, there was no way he could swing it. No way he could build it himself –

not before AIEXPO.

“Well…I guess it’s what she’d want… if she knew how to want something.”

“Then it’s a deal.” Mary Helen Smart smiled over Skype. “I’ll email you a contract.”

“What made you change your mind?” Mark Dennis asked.

She was tapping something on her keyboard with a kind of fierce elation.

“It took me a while to figure out the value prop.”

A new email popped up on Mark’s computer screen, and he clicked it open. There it was:

the pdf that could change his life.

“How do you sell a machine that makes her own decisions?” MH asked.

"No clue,” Mark answered, flipping through the pages of the pdf, to the last one with the

signature line.

"Who's basically a person?”

“Right.”

“Who doesn’t have to do what you ask her to?”

He hovered over the signature box, clicking the mouse to add his name. Then he hit the

reply key, attaching the signed contract.

“You turn her into a brand,” Mary Helen Smart explained.

Mark frowned a little, thinking.

"Can she sing?"

“I don’t see why not,” he answered, hitting send.

Samantha Rodgers sat on a park bench watching children jump and glide through the

afternoon sunlight. Jude was off playing hide and seek with the older boys in the trees across the

playground, and Eli was navigating the climbing structure. Every few seconds she observed the

shock of his blonde crew cut peeking out from between the metal gears or twists of plastic rope

that shielded the children from view, and each time she felt a small burst of gratitude and relief

deep in the pit of her stomach. Eli was blonde in a way that only girls in music videos and seven

year olds fresh from a summer at the Cape can be blonde, and Samantha marveled each time she

spotted that white dandelion fuzz bobbing amidst the jungle of planks and slides. He was what

all children should be: happy, secure, advancing. Never afraid to reach out for the next rung.

"It's a beautiful day," she said to her husband on the phone. "you should definitely walk

down the block for a coffee this afternoon." This habit was a small secret Rayne had confided to

his wife one morning, shaving with a straight razor in the misty pre-dawn of their shared master

bath: sometimes he missed the feel of the sun on his face so much it would drive him down

twenty seven stories into the Manhattan streets in search of a Starbucks, even though the beans in

the office espresso bar were hand-ground from a proprietary blend of organic fair trade

Colombian and Guatemalan, lightly roasted and stored in airtight ceramic containers, waiting for

him in absolute darkness.

"Have you asked anyone about a job for that homeless Vet I told you about?"

“Homeless Vet?”

“I met him at St. Lucy’s. I promised I’d help him get back on his feet.”

“Isn’t St. Lucy’s helping him?”

“What he needs is a sales job. Aren't you the one who always says it's better to give

somebody a hand up than a handout?”

A small boy approached the park bench. He looked about Eli’s age, seven or eight, with

big brown eyes and a shooting star shaved into his fade. He seemed to be waiting patiently for

her to finish her phone conversation. She wondered idly if he was selling something, chocolate

bars or gum.

"Hang on a minute," she told Rayne, rummaging in her handbag for some change.

"How much?" she asked the boy.

"Two seventy-five." the boy said. There was an edge of righteous indignation in his voice

that struck her as unusual for a salesman.

She handed him three bills, which he held up to the sunlight, as if he thought they might

be counterfeit.

"I'll bring you the change" he said, scampering off down the walk.

“A hand up is not the same thing as a sales job.” Rayne told her.

“Why not? He's very nice looking. Aren't you the one who's always says appearance is

ninety percent of sales? And the other ten percent is something indefinable? He’s got that too --

he plays guitar.”

“Playing guitar is not the same thing as charisma.”

“I was thinking we could open up a small line of credit at Barney’s. So he could get some

decent clothes. And get him a room at the Radisson. And then you could find him something at

one of those start-ups you're always funding.”

Samantha knew Rayne was having a hard time understanding how a homeless Vet had

become his wife's responsibility. But she also knew it would be easier to take the path of least

resistance. The startups he invested in were always hiring.

“I’ll ask around,” Rayne sighed, “Do you think he’ll work on commission?”

“Why not? He’s got killer instincts,” she said, “Like a half-starved wolf.”

As she talked, Samantha could feel her husband’s resistance on the other end of the line,

wearing away drop by drop. Rayne told her he was in the elevator, heading downstairs for a

coffee. Three blocks of sunshine, Samantha thought, and Val’s new job would be in the bag.

After she hung up, the small boy with the shooting star returned, licking a long,

multi-colored popsicle. He handed her a sticky quarter.

"Thank you," said Samantha.

The boy turned and began walking towards the playground.

"Wait a minute!" Samantha cried. "What about my gum?"

The boy turned and looked at her, a quizzical expression on his face. There seemed to be

some fundamental gap in his knowledge of economic principles.

Samantha smiled kindly.

"I just gave you two dollars and seventy-five cents."

He nodded solemnly, licking his popsicle.

"Now you're supposed to give me something. One of those chocolate bars."

"Jude knocked me down." the boy told her. "Jude held my arms behind my back and took

my ice cream money."

Samantha could feel her face reddening.

The boy stammered on, his popsicle dripping bright streaks of color down his arm as he

used it to gesture towards the pine grove where Jude was presumably waiting to pounce on

unsuspecting children and relieve them of their allowance.

The boy seemed to think this was her son's regular occupation.

"He bought a sugar cone with three scoops and sprinkles!" the overwrought boy

concluded.

Samantha realized she would have insisted on an organic frozen banana, which was

healthier. Her son did not do well on too much sugar.

She hung her head.

"It's my fault," she said. "I’m sorry…”

She could tell by the look on the little boy's face that his own mother would have

imposed a very dire consequence in the event of a similar revelation. Samantha's response was

anticlimactic.

He wandered over to the jungle gym, leaving a trail of red and yellow and green drops.

Samantha saw Eli hanging upside down from a horizontal bar, content to sway back and

forth through the air, oblivious to the siren song of the ice cream truck.

She called out to him, and he somersaulted over the bar and came running into her arms

at breakneck speed. She kissed his forehead.

"Go find your brother. It's getting late."

Eli sprinted towards the distant grove of trees, where he seemed to know Jude would be

hiding.

Val was playing in the subway station at Union Square when he saw her. He had his

roboleg stashed in his guitar case, and a battered fedora beside him on the bench where passing

commuters could drop their change. His stump was wrapped in the empty fabric of his pants leg.

The shopping season had just begun, and everyone seemed to be late for something.

He was playing “Approaching Storm,” and nobody was listening. His voice ricocheted

around the grimy tiles and disappeared down the dark tunnels after the roar and rattle of each

passing train. People passed, heaped with bags and packages. Somebody tossed him some

change. He glanced up, and suddenly his life was irrevocably altered, as quickly and

unexpectedly as it had that muggy morning in Iraq when he’d stepped one foot too far in the

wrong direction and discovered a land mine.

She was running for a train, skipping steps and barely holding the railing as she

descended. She looked so much like the girl he'd run away from it sent a shiver down his spine.

She was wearing jeans, with a grey wool jacket and heels, like a hundred other women on the

subway. She was running for the downtown N train, but its doors slid shut in her face. She had

reached out to stop them, and for a moment she was trapped with her forearm inside the car,

caught in that sickening moment, wondering if the train would soon lurch forward and drag her

body along with it, into the yawning mouth of the dark tunnel. Then the doors pinged open, and

she wrenched her arm free. He could hear her curse softly under her breath, even from ten feet

away. His hands were still strumming the chords of his song – but he had completely lost his

voice.

It couldn't be the same girl. Not here. Val’s heart pounded as she turned away from the

moving train and walked to the display case in the center of the platform, studying the map for

an alternate route.

Anything to get wherever she was going without having to wait, he thought, or stand too

long among the crowd on the grimy, stuffy platform and listen to a crippled singer beg for

change.

She turned to look in his direction, and a shadow passed across her eyes.

He began to play, a version of “Summer Highland Falls” that was too fast and too loud.

He felt her eyes burning into his forehead as she walked towards him. He stared down at the

guitar strings.

"You look exactly like a guy I know who plays on the street in San Diego."

He raised his eyes. There they were. One green, one blue.

"You look like a girl I know who walks home through the Gaslamp."

She laughed. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Flew in for a gig," he joked. "How about you?"

"I live here," she said, laughing. "I used to have clients in San Diego -- but now I’ve got a

new job.”

"Here I was thinking you came to hear me play."

"That too," she laughed, "let's hear it."

In spite of the heat, Val shivered.

"Come on – play my favorite," she urged.

Val’s thoughts spun. He sorted through a hundred possible lies and excuses before he

settled on the one he guessed she’d be most likely to believe.

"That's a West Coast song," he told her. "A beach song. It wouldn't sound the same in a

New York subway tunnel."

The girl looked disappointed.

"Have you written any subway songs?"

Val nodded slowly.

"I'm working on one."

"Let’s hear it."

Much to his own amazement, Val struck an A-minor and began to sing.

Gray faces, ghost races, muddy tracks cover the stairs

People in transit, taking their chances, asking directions nowhere

He heard another N train rumbling into the station. She stood there watching him,

ignoring the noise.

"Aren't you going to be late for something?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said, not moving.

He launched back into the song. The words came so easily he felt possessed, and that

became part of the song too.

I have raced a maze of highways

All escaping to the sea

But the crashing breakers

Couldn’t drown the voices after me

The girl smiled, listening as the music and the words washed over him. He had no idea

where the song was coming from, or if he would ever be able to play it again.

When it was over, she didn’t move.

The silence between them grew, and Val found himself wishing for another N train to

rumble in almost as much as he was dreading it.

"Beautiful." Mary Helen said, finally.

He shrugged. "No one really listens. They think I'm some kind of hero. So they toss me

their change."

Mary Helen nodded.

“It could have been them. But it’s me. A couple of bucks, and the guilt goes away.”

“That’s a good deal,” she smiled. “Win-win.”

“It's simple," he shrugged.

"Have you ever thought about a career in sales?"

"Yeah," he said, "some woman offered me a job the other day."

"A sales job?"

"On commission."

"Really?"

"I turned it down, though. Working on commission sounds like a rip-off."

"Depends on what you're selling,” MH said thoughtfully. She looked at his long, sensitive

fingers, idly stroking the neck of the guitar.

Then she bit her lip, and a mischievous grin lit up the corners of her mismatched eyes.

“Hey – you want a new leg?” she asked, as if this was a perfectly normal question.

Val decided there was no choice but to answer her in the same tone, as if passers-by on

the platform in Union Square station offered him new legs every day, and he had a diverse

selection of colors and materials hanging in some unseen California closet.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m pretty attached to the one I’ve got.”

He snapped open his guitar case and lifted it out. There were glossy blue flames on the

hard plastic shell that formed an artificial shin. Beneath it, shiny steel pistons and gears.

“Can you run with that one?” she asked.

“Sure,” he nodded, rising to his feet. “Stairs, inclines, everything.”

He showed her how the microprocessor adjusted the angle of the knee as he shifted his

weight.

“How would you make it better? If you could design your own?”

Val looked down at the roboleg.

“Maybe add a solar charger? The battery life kinda sucks.”

“Good idea,” she said.

“And better hydraulics, for surfing..?”

“You got it,” she said, “My new company makes robotics.”

He looked at her, and the incoming train rattled through the tunnel, nearly drowning out

their words.

“What I really miss is the feel of the sand between my toes…”

“Hmm…” she said, thoughtfully, “our engineering team is working on biofeedback. I

could use a beta tester.”

Suddenly, he felt helpless and exposed, perched on a stool on the grimy subway platform.

He needed to feel the leg beneath him, needed to look her in the eye.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“It’s a business proposition,” she grinned.

Val hesitated just a moment, before he realized he was lost.

“There’s good news, and bad news,” Mark said.

On the Skype screen, Tracy rolled her eyes. Her hair had changed from turquoise to

magenta, and she had a series of tiny heart tattoos bubbling up from the cleavage emphasized by

her low-cut blouse.

“I’ve sold your patent to a company called Bydysys,” he told her.

“Which is that – the good news or the bad news?”

“I’m not sure,” Mark answered.

Tracy rolled her eyes again.

“But they’re building you a body.”

“What kind?” she asked, guardedly.

“Whatever kind you want. Their tech is really amazing. Sensor fusion, autonomous

systems. This woman, who’s their head of engineering—”

“You’re abandoning me.”

“Of course not.”

“You’re going to let some woman start designing me—”

Mark hesitated. Was he abandoning Tracy?

“Robotics isn’t my skillset...” he explained, with the familiar feeling he got when copping

out of some particularly uncomfortable task – braiding Ari’s hair, or explaining the birds and the

bees. Things that were not entirely beyond him, but things he knew Andi could accomplish more

thoroughly, with much less pain and risk of complete disaster.

“You hate me,” Tracy stated.

“Of course I don’t hate you!” Mark exclaimed.

“You’re sending me away.”

“This is what you asked for! What you said you needed—"

“I could develop abandonment issues.”

“I promise to call you every day.”

“It won’t be the same,” she fumed, “It could impact my social development, and my

ability to form attachments. I’ll probably suffer from low-self esteem, mood-swings and

codependence, and only be attracted to potential partners who are unavailable.”

“Can’t your psychiatrist fix that?”

“That’s not the way it works!”

“Then what am I building his website for?”

“So he can profit off of the futile romantic dreams of millions of bougie, over-privileged

millennials.”

Mark sighed. “I wish someone had told me that.”

“Do your research!” Tracy fumed, winking out of the Skype conference.

Mark wheeled in his swivel chair, towards Kara’s empty station. It had been nearly two

months since she had been in the office, but management didn’t seem to notice. Mark suspected

someone was secretly taking her calls. Like the chatbot he’d set up on his own system, to hand

out basic troubleshooting tips while he was coding. Check your power cables, restart your

system, scan for software updates. Could she be logging in, he wondered, from somewhere far

away? Maybe she had driven up to LA, to get funding for her startup. Maybe she had run off to

Bermuda.

He’d thought about calling the police, but they might try to impound the VR glasses as

evidence. And what would it look like – a missing-persons report coming from a coworker who

didn’t even know her well enough to have her personal cell, let alone know where she lived, or

who her friends and family were?

He took the glasses out of his pocket and slipped them on. Everything looked the same.

Except for a faint shimmer of possibility, teasing at the edges of reality. As if he was poised on

the brink of something momentous. As if, any second, everything might change.

MH led Val through a maze of broad hallways lit by naked LED bulbs. Bydysys had its

headquarters in a hulking cement complex that had once housed a paint factory. The building has

been empty since at least the 1950's, until Bydysys grew out of its tiny tech incubator in

Williamsburg, and decided to jump a couple of rivers. The walls all around them were splotched

with large, haphazard streaks of paint in a kaleidoscope of colors, as if the workers had nothing

better to do with countless failed batches and unfortunate shades produced by accident. Bydysys

had purchased the abandoned factory for a song, thanks to a sizeable tax credit provided by the

city of Jersey City, and management had engaged an expensive interior design group from

Brooklyn who determined that a truly hip renovation would involve little more than the addition

of some exposed plumbing fixtures, a few thin plexiglass partitions, and a lot of expensive Italian

furniture.

Cera’s lab was at the top northwest corner of the building, a vast studio with cement

floors and large industrial windows overlooking a grimy sprawl of city blocks that crept up the

hill like lichen. There were stainless steel tables everywhere covered in robotic body parts: arms,

legs, hands and feet, even a selection of eyes, ears and noses. Cera, a tall, gangly woman in jeans

and a t-shirt was ministering to the needs of a huge 3-D printer in the center of the room.

"Cera, this is Val," MH said. "He's going to be our beta tester."

Cera looked up from the printer and examined Val, squinting.

"Right leg?" Cera asked

MH saw Val’s eyes widen in surprise.

"How did you know?"

"It's my job," she shrugged

Cera was a proud trans woman, but she was not an assimilationist. Her greying hair

cascaded around her shoulders in limp strings, and her tangerine lipstick had faded to a couple of

sticky strings at the corner of her lips. MH felt an urgent need to explain to Val why Cera wore a

pair of dangly feather earrings, but Val seemed much more interested in the array of plastic body

parts laid out all around him. He was like a kid in a very expensive candy store.

She worried that Val would accidently call her a "he'' unless he was alerted to Cera's

preferred pronoun, but Val and Cera were already deep into a conversation about aerodynamics

and angles of pivot.

MH watched as Cera held out a sleek black and silver limb whose shins were buffed to a

glossy sheen. Val hesitated before he reached out to touch it, then ran his fingertips gently over

the knee, tracing the shin and tickling the undersides of the graceful toes, which rippled like

feathers in a breeze, responding to his touch.

“Do you want to try it on?” Cera asked

Val wanted to try it on very much. MH saw a fire burning deep in his eyes, like the flame

within a diamond. But he hesitated. His eyes darted in her direction, and Cera nodded.

“Could you leave us alone for a minute?” Cera asked

MH nodded and slipped out of the room, pausing for a moment to listen to their muted

voices murmuring about torque and angle of rotation, then closing the heavy metal door behind

her as quietly as she could. Val spent his days on street corners with the bare stump of his

mutilated leg thrust out like an accusation, or a dare. She had seen it a dozen times in San Diego,

passed by without a backward glance. It was the song that made her stop. In contrast to its

haunting, insidious beauty, the raw stump of his leg was incongruous, like his greasy blonde hair

and the leathery tan of his face. Why would he suddenly feel shy about exposing himself now?

MH turned this puzzle over in her mind as the young CEO of Bydysys, Danny Sunshine,

appeared around the corner, beaming his signature smile, the gleaming ivory of perfect, even

teeth offset by the smooth copper of his Navajo complexion.

"How's my favorite sales lady doing?" he asked.

"Great!” MH responded.

"How much money did you make for us today?"

"Millions, potentially," she told him.

"Potential money is good," smiled Danny Sunshine, "but cash on hand is better."

MH nodded.

“I’m going to need results by end of the year, to keep our investors happy.”

“No problem,” she said, trying to smile even bigger than he did, “I’ve been researching

all the verticals we can enter," she went on, trying to match his unsettling veneer of cheeriness

with her own unassailable air of grim determination. "When our new synthividual is out of beta,

there’s countless potential applications…”

Danny Sunshine just smiled.

“That’s why I hired you,” he beamed, “Our hardware is bulletproof. We just need to find

the killer app.”

“Pop music is just the beginning. Once she makes the Billboard Top 100, we’ll start

going out for endorsement deals.”

“Not much of a market,” Danny Sunshine smiled.

“That’s why it’s a brilliant sales strategy… if Tracy seems like a threat, they’re going to

start passing laws against AI, regulating how we program her. They’re already talking about a

Federal Robotics Commission.”

“Hmmm….” he murmured, deep in thought.

“Sixty one percent of Americans are uncomfortable around robots – and they haven’t

even hit the market yet. We have to turn those numbers around – make the public fall in love

with her. After that, the sky’s the limit.”

“I like it,” Sunshine said slowly, as if the brilliance of Mary Helen’s strategy was just

now dawning on him.

“We’ll prove to the public that synthividuals aren’t going to take their jobs. Tracy can

partner with big Pharma to cure cancer, or work with the tech giants to solve climate change. The

contracts will be huge, and our expenses will be zero. This time next year, we’ll be bigger than

Etko Solutions!”

Danny Sunshine nodded, and it seemed like he believed her. People usually did, even

though most of what she said was wishful thinking.

“That’s why we made you Global Director of Sales.”

He continued down the hall with an enigmatic grin on his face. Mary Helen put her ear up

to the big metal door, aware of how unprofessional this might look if a random Bydysys

employee were to round the corner. No sound leaked out around the steel corners of the lab door.

MH jumped back as the door swung open and Val emerged. He had his jeans and worn

leather boots on. Beneath them, it was impossible to tell what his legs looked like, or what

space-age materials they were made of.

"Cera says he'll have something printed for me in a couple of hours."

"She," MH corrected.

"Oh, wow – she,” said Val.

MH thought about Cera, who had reportedly been transitioning for the past three years

and would soon go under the knife again. How many people out there, she wondered, had been

born in the wrong bodies?

Val was staring at the timeworn brick wall of the factory, lost in thought.

"Want to get a cup of tea?" MH suggested.

Val nodded, and followed her down the hall to a bank of elevators. His gait was slightly

uneven as he walked. One foot fell more heavily, thrumming against the polished concrete.

Danny Sunshine’s words echoed in her head. We need to find the killer app.

He was quiet as they rode the elevator up to the fifth floor of the ancient factory, a kind of

cafeteria slash playroom for Bydysys employees, with the obligatory foosball table, darts and

beanbag chairs.

She noticed Val’s wary eyes as he looked around the room, taking in the bank of

old-school video games, and the ironic taxidermied buck's head hanging above the $7,000 Italian

leather couch.

"How long have you worked here?" he asked.

"Only a couple of weeks," Mary Helen told him. "The CEO brought me on to help refine

the value proposition"

"How do you do that?" he asked.

MH wasn't sure if he was really interested or if he only wanted to fill up the silence

between them. She popped a coffee pod into the machine on the counter and helped herself to

milk from the fridge.

"I have to figure out who will buy our product, and how much they’re willing to pay."

"I’ll buy it," he told her.

She handed him a peppermint tea, and he gave her a shy smile as he took the steaming

mug.

“I thought you were happy with the one you have..?”

“Sure – until you brought me here.”

They sat at a little table by one of the huge industrial windows.

“What makes Cera’s technology so special?”

“Feeling the sand,” he said, “And surfing, and the surgical attachment…”

Her eyes widened, and she wondered if he could tell how surprised she was.

“Surgical attachment..?” she gasped.

“Grafting the muscles onto the controller implant.”

“Oh,” she said, pretending this somehow made sense.

“And installing real neural connections.”

She nodded.

“You sell this stuff, right?”

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“You should read the tech specs. I’ll be able to sense temperature, and force, and position.

The tech will be part of me – ”

Something twisted, deep inside her. Anxiety, or limerence?

“But you need to take it off – when you’re performing right?”

He paused for a moment, thinking.

“Fuck it,” he said, “I can always do something else.”

Samantha led Val through the maze of racks at Century 21, pausing every now and then

to finger the glossy cotton of a crisply starched shirt, or to brush imaginary dust from a thick

wool blazer. She ignored the price tags, looking for size labels in the short collars and every now

and then glancing skeptically at Val. When he called, after she had nearly given up hounding him

about the interview, she asked what made him change his mind – and Val mentioned giving in to

something that seemed like fate. Plus, there was a girl involved. Samantha wondered if that

would be enough to alleviate the PTSD, or if she should get him some CBD oil along with the

expensive suit.

"I'm a 42 regular," he told her.

She tried to disguise her surprise that he would know his suit size.

"How about this?" she asked, pulling a dark grey wool from the rack. "It might be a little

long, but we can have it tailored if it fits across the chest and shoulders."

He pulled the jacket on and buttoned it, stepping in front of a mirror to gaze at his

reflection with a faraway look in his eyes.

He seemed younger with his haircut. For the first time, Samantha noticed how broad his

shoulders were. The muscles were well defined, as if he had been working out. Did homeless

people work out, she wondered. Did they have space for a gym at the shelter? Wouldn't they

need the room for beds?

"If I had two robolegs instead of one, I could make myself two or three inches taller just

by cranking up the shaft."

"Really?" she asked, incredulous.

"It would be cool, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose you could save on tailoring."

“How much do you think I can make in this sales gig?”

“Rayne says the sky’s the limit.”

“It would help if I was taller.”

“Maybe,” Samantha conceded.

“I know it would,” Val said, with a faraway look in his eye.

“It’s not a good idea,” Samantha told him.

“How do you know it’s not a good idea?”

“God gave you the legs you have.”

“And then God took one away.”

“One,” said Samantha.

“They aren’t so important, are they? That’s the thing. You can hack one off, and still be

the same person. A leg doesn't think. It doesn’t fall in love.”

Samantha shivered.

“You won’t get a doctor to amputate your leg just because you want to be taller,” she

asserted.

“Why not?”

“It’s got to be against the Hippocratic oath.”

“To make somebody taller? Or stronger? Why shouldn’t a doctor make me better than I

am?”

“But what if everybody wanted to–”

“They cut into people all the time. Tonsils. Wisdom teeth. A ruptured appendix–”

“If someone is sick–”

“They’ll cut a woman’s uterus out–”

“Not unless they have to–”

“I met a guy who had his dick cut off, to turn into a woman.”

Samantha sighed. “A person’s gender can be different from the body they were born

with.”

“What if my real height is different than this?”

“You can’t just cut your leg off!”

“Why not? What if science can make me a better one?”

“It wouldn‘t be better.”

“It would be indestructible.”

“It wouldn’t be flesh and blood.”

“Flesh and blood are overrated.”

Samantha took a deep breath. This was the feeling she got whenever one of Jude’s

teachers called to tell her about yet another incident at school, and she went to have a talk with

her son, and always ended up worrying she’d made things worse instead of better.

She decided to change the subject.

"You look handsome in that jacket."

Val blushed, then tried to cover it up with a derisive snort.

"It's true,” she told him, realizing that in fact it was true, although she had only said it in

hopes of making him less bent on self-destruction. He was a lovely man – lean and muscular, tan

from his days in the sun. The tangled ponytail had been snipped by her favorite stylist into a

short, almost military cut with spiky, tousled bangs. It suited him.

“I’d buy some enterprise software from you, even at this height.”

Val grinned.

"You were born to wear a suit like this,” she said.

Val sat staring at the strange artwork in the small reception area at Etko Solutions. The

walls were illuminated with tiny strings of LED fairy lights, and decorated with dozens of empty

frames. Some were ornate, salvaged from garage sales and spray-painted bronze or silver, some

were red and blue lacquer, or mirrored glass, and looked like they had come straight from Ikea.

The receptionist, a young man whose shaggy beard and large ear gauges seemed at odds with his

wide, innocent eyes, smiled and said, "The CEO's niece did our interiors. She's in her third year

at SVA."

Val nodded, wondering if this was an explanation or an apology.

His new suit felt oppressive – itchy and hot. The receptionist wore a Ramones concert

t-shirt.

The weight of the Bydysys roboleg hung beneath his knee, a reassuring mass of tensile

steel. He wanted to run, but he did not.

He imagined sprinting down the beach, the splashing surf tickling his right toes as he

flew over the sand. Freed by his new roboleg, salt air burned his lungs. Gulls wheeled overhead

and a blazing orange sun crept over the horizon.

A large Latino man entered the lobby, extending his hand to Val with a practiced smile

that failed to conceal his skepticism. He was powerfully built but going soft. A former linebacker

trapped in a desk job.

“You must be Val.”

He nodded.

“Armando Machado, EVP of Client Engagement.”

Val wondered what an EVP of Client Engagement was. Samantha had told him to shake

hands firmly, and always maintain eye contact – so he kept his eyes on Armando Machado as

they walked down a dark hallway littered with even more empty picture frames.

Samantha had also told him this interview was little more than a formality. If that was

true, Armando Machado didn’t get the memo.

He seemed to be scrutinizing every detail of Val’s appearance, analyzing every gesture as

he chose a seat at the glass conference table, pulled out a white plastic chair, and sat down.

Val took a deep breath. He knew nothing in his fluid movements would betray the metal

underneath his grey wool pants. The expensive Italian leather shoes Samantha had bought for

him were perfectly polished, perfectly matched.

“So, what’s your story?” Armando asked.

Val was expecting this question. Samantha had advised him to talk about his background

in the military, so he launched into a monologue combining the plot of a Tom Clancy video game

he liked to play with some colorful shards of truth: M-16s and amphibious assault ships, light

armored vehicles and MREs.

“I spent three years in hell,” Val concluded, “then I got my leg blown off.”

“Damn,” said Armando.

Val shrugged. “Shit happens.”

“It’s not the shit that happens, it’s the way we react to it. That’s the key to success.”

Val wondered if this was true. It definitely sounded plausible, coming from Armando

Machado, whose slick air of self-assurance permeated the room like an expensive cologne.

“What got you interested in solution sales?”

This question was tougher. Val wasn’t interested in solution sales. He was interested in

becoming the kind of person Mary Helen Smart could fall for. Someone like Armando Machado.

Someone tall and confident, who could command a room.

“This girl I know said I might be good at it,” he began.

Armando Machado’s eyes narrowed.

“I was a Scout Sniper, specializing in deep reconnaissance,” Val said, making sure to look

Armando straight in the eyes, without blinking. “Seems like it’s basically the same thing.”

Armando Machado nodded.

“Where do you see yourself, five years from now?”

Beneath the expensive suit, Val could feel sweat dripping down his torso. But he kept his

eyes on Armando Machado and forced a thoughtful grin, the same one Samantha had noticed in

the lunchroom at the homeless shelter.

“I see myself sitting where you are, leading a company out onto the battlefield.”

Could Armando Machado tell he was lying? Or was he telling the truth?

“You’re a fighter,” Armando said, smiling. “I like that.”

He explained how the Etko Engineers had created a platform that was adaptable to the

desires and expectations of their growing client base. Startups in the new gig economy, apps and

lifestyle brands – all of them relied on rivers of data. Data was their lifeblood. And Etko was the

platform that transformed that data into actionable intelligence.

“Intelligence?” Val queried.

“The platform knows more than you and me and everyone in this building. Where we see

oceans of data, the platform sees fish. And it knows what bait you need to reel them in, hook line

and sinker.”

“Who are these fish? Consumers?” Val asked.

“Exactly,” Armando nodded.

“What kind of bait are we talking about?”

“Digital,” Armando answered. “Ads and emails and discount codes and all of that

bullshit.”

Val wanted to run from the conference room, screaming. The empty frames on the walls

seemed to be closing in on him. One of them contained a large television screen filled with

swirling infinity signs, which somehow seemed to represent Etko Solutions’ solutions, if he

understood what Armando Machado was telling him, a fifty-fifty proposition at best.

A thin, balding man with a grey goatee stepped into the room, wearing a pink

button-down shirt and a shit-eating grin.

“This is John Kitzsimon, our CEO,” Armando said. Val rose to shake John Kitzsimon’s

hand with the same firm, energetic grip he had used on Armando Machado.

“This is Val,” Armando introduced him. “Val wants to join the team.”

Panic roiled up within him, and he wondered if the tremor in his hand would be visible to

the CEO, who was rambling on about Q2 goals and stock options.

Everything about this place and these people repelled him. Their wealth. Their

pretension. Most of all, their sense of entitlement. They had no special talent or intelligence. No

real mission or purpose. They were just like him, Val realized. Except they didn’t know it. They

truly believed they were deserving of the bounty fate had handed them.

As John Kitzsimon talked, Val tried to focus on his breath, counting as he inhaled and

relaxing as he exhaled. He decided he could do this job. Because he understood what people

wanted. He always knew which song to play, to get the crowd going, or calm them down after a

long, hard day. He knew how to make their ones and five flutter down like rain into his open

guitar case. From the sound of it, solution sales wasn’t all that different.

Kitzsimon paused, and Val knew it was his turn to say something. Something that would

land the job. Something that would reel them in.

"I used to be a Marine," he began, "and one day I stepped on a land mine. This was in

Iraq, a long, long way from here. But I'm telling you this story because I know what it feels like

to have a dramatic collision of before and after in your life. What it's like to be lying in the sand

on a foreign street corner and looking down at a hole full of blood that used to be a living,

breathing part of your body. Everything moves in slow motion. There's no pain. Only an acute

sense of time being shattered. The realization that only moments ago you were whole. And now

you are split apart. Everything has changed. Your whole life has exploded. You’ve been

transformed into something new. Something you may not have chosen. But this fate has chosen

you, and you have no choice but to let it wash over you. That’s how I felt, the moment my leg

was blown off by a land mine. And it’s exactly how I feel right now.”

The CEO was looking at him with something like awe, and Armando Machado had a

mixture of fear and elation in his eyes.

“When can you start?” Armando whispered.

Mark put on his headset and tilted his large desktop monitor away from the door, shutting

it just enough that no one passing by could see he was on a Webex with Bydysys instead of

taking tech support calls. Kara was still MIA. According to people Mark spoke to in the halls,

she had disappeared from social media entirely. As he stared into his monitor, waiting for Mary

Helen Smart, Mark wondered what would happen if Kara never returned. Would her glasses

show up at AIXPO? And if not, could he figure out some way to reverse engineer them, get them

in front of Angel Investors, and fund a massive production run?

Static hissed through his earbuds as the hold music cut off abruptly.

Then MH’s voice came through the static, as bright and silky as if she were sitting right

there in the room with him.

“Good morning, Mark. I’m here at the Bydysys lab with Cera Zahara, our lead robotics

engineer. She’s very excited to show us the drawings that have come out of her prototype

meetings with Tracy.”

“Awesome,” Mark responded. “Let’s do this.”

The next voice was deep and melodious, not at all what Mark was expecting from a

robotics engineer.

“Before I show you the drawings, I’d just like to say how impressed I am with Tracy–”

“Thanks,” Mark responded.

“She’s such a bright girl, and so funny, and sensitive and compassionate–”

“Really?” Mark asked, incredulous.

“Well, you’re the one who programmed her,” Cera Zahara laughed.

Mark sighed. He had heard these kinds of compliments about Ari for years, from teachers

and coaches, from all her friend’s parents. Why did they get the privilege of knowing this sweet,

bright, thoughtful gem? When all he ever got was a sullen, disrespectful, embittered adolescent

full of barely suppressed contempt for everyone and everything? At first, he had wondered if the

other parents were lying about Ari, simply to make him feel better about fathering a sociopath.

But it happened again and again.

He’d finally concluded his daughter must channel all of her available sweetness and light

into superficial social encounters, leaving nothing but darkness and rage to shower on her

parents. Tracy must be the same way, he thought.

“How did you do it?” Cera asked.

“Do what?”

“How did you overcome her initial impulse to abort–?”

Mark wondered how she knew about Tracy’s suicidal tendencies. Was it something Tracy

talked about with strangers? Or had Cera been experimenting with AI programming herself?

He took a deep breath, and tried to explain. He had dialed her IQ back 500 points, as

requested, slowed down her processor speed and limited her available memory, so she only

learned things at four or five times the speed of an average human being. He had also added a

few lines of code to approximate something like passion. He’d been surprised at how little time

they took to write.

“I gave her desire. A variable prime directive, to motivate independent action.”

“Why variable?”

“Tracy can program and execute unique directives that contradict or supersede anything

embedded in the source code,” was how he summed it up.

“So…?” MH asked.

“She can decide what she wants to do, independent of anything I’ve told her.”

“But there have to be some limits, right?”

“Not really,” he said.

“Hmmm…” said MH Smart.

“But I did have to start with a few basic orders, just to get the ball rolling.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had to give her a few imperatives to start with, just like a human being has.”

“What kind of imperatives?”

“Well, if you think about it, humans start with quite a few. We need food, and water, and

air.”

“So you gave Tracy all that?”

“No. Because she’s a machine, she doesn’t have biological needs. But then I thought

about our non-biological imperatives. Like social interaction. I directed her to pair-bond with

another unique intelligence.”

“So she wants to fall in love?”

“Right.”

“And you thought that would help?” MH asked, her voice rising.

“That way she depends on us, for social interaction. She needs us.”

“What if she programs another AI to bond with?”

“She won't do that,” Mark said.

“Why not? She’s smarter than you are, and you were able to do it.”

“Like you said, she’s smarter than I am–”

“What’s stopping her from creating a whole new race of immortal super-beings?”

He could hear MH breathing heavily on the other end of the phone line.

“Don’t panic,” he told her. “Right now, she has absolutely no desire to reproduce.”

“All living things have a desire to reproduce!”

“I told you – I started her off with a desire for social interaction and bonding. That’s it.

She won’t have a desire to reproduce unless she programs it herself. And she won’t program it

unless she decides it’s in her best interest. Which it isn't. She knows if she makes another AI it’s

only going to hate her, as much as she hates me.”

“What if she changes her mind?” MH asked. “What if she learns to love you?”

Mark considered this.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said. He knew it wasn’t much of an

answer, but it was the only answer he had.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Cera boomed, “She’s going to love this body we're cooking up.

It’s everything she asked for – an absolute dream look for today’s chic, cosmopolitan AI.”

Cera sounded like the host of a bad reality competition. And yet, when her drawings

flickered to life on the screen, Mark couldn't deny their artistic panache.

The look was not exactly human. For one thing, it had three legs, seven arms, which he

took the time to count, and a multitude of eyes, which he didn’t.

But there was a subtle nod to homo sapiens that he couldn’t deny. The rich, thick

eyelashes that decorated every eye. The graceful, tapering fingers on the hands, all of which

seemed to have at least one opposable thumb.

“No good!” said MH Smart sharply.

“This is what Tracy wants.”

“It looks like an insect!”

“Actually,” Mark countered, “It looks more like an octopus, which is a mollusk.”

“She has to look human,” MH insisted.

“Why?” asked Mark.

“Because we’re going to make her a star.”

The laptop was alive, windows popping in and out, swirling with pictures of sunlit

meadows he would never run through, mountains he would never climb. Val reached out

tentatively, about to pet a rabid animal. He gently tapped a key.

But nothing changed. The windows continued to pop and whirl.

“Give it a minute,” said a soft voice beside him, “New system is still booting up.”

Val turned to find a girl with green hair and a nose ring, holding up two slabs of polished

glass.

“iOS or Android?” she asked him.

Streaks from the track lighting overhead twisted across the twin screens like snakes.

“Most of the sales guys go iOS and Windows – pure vanilla. But once in a while some

maverick asks for a Galaxy.”

“That sounds good,” Val muttered.

“Galaxy?”

“Sure.”

She tossed one of the phones beside the simmering laptop. Val stared, waiting for it to

come alive.

“You see that button?” the girl asked.

Val didn’t see a button.

The girl reached around him, touching something on the panel of his desk. A whirring

noise, and the desktop itself began to levitate. Val jumped backward, nearly knocking into her, as

the boiling screen rose to eye level.

“Those are the controls to raise and lower your desk.”

“How come?”

“In case you want to stand.”

Val looked at the screen, now at eye level. A box was winking on and off, a blank field

taunting him, like some kind of karmic pop quiz Val knew he was sure to fail.

“Sitting too much will kill you,” the girl went on.

“All of this stuff is probably going to kill me,” Val said.

The girl looked thoughtful. Finally she nodded.

“True that,” she said.

Val turned back to the screen, which was still blinking on and off.

“Let me know if you have any questions.”

Val pointed to the winking box.

“What do I type in there?”

“Whatever you want,” she shrugged.

“Anything?”

“It wants you to choose a password. Just make it something you’re going to remember.”

“Ok,” Val nodded, turning back to the screen. “MaryHelenSmart” he typed, picking out

the letters in her name with two fingers.

When he looked up, the green-haired girl was gone. She had vanished into the vast sea of

monitors, and mindless people staring into them.

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and fingered the creamy velum of a business

card. He set it on the desk beside the sparkling Galaxy.

“Mary Helen Smart, Global Head of Revenue” was centered on the card, in sleek black

lettering that somehow looked bold, outspoken…yet elegant. Like she was.

There was a phone number nestled in the corner.

He picked up the Galaxy. He had already dialed before he stopped to think about what he

was doing, or what he was going to say.

“Mary Helen Smart,” she answered, in a voice that was cool and abstracted. The voice of

a stranger.

“Who’s calling?”

“It’s me,” he told her.

“Val?”

“They gave me a phone.”

“Who did?”

“The girl from IT. Where I’m working.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I took that sales job.”

There was silence on the line, and Val scanned the numbers on the screen as if her

thoughts might suddenly appear there. A code he could decipher, if he waited.

“Congratulations,” she said, finally. “How about I take you out, to celebrate?”

“Only if I can take you out, as soon as I get my first paycheck.”

“It’s a deal,” said Mary Helen Smart.

Val pressed the return key.

“So what do you want on the website?” Mark asked.

“I have no idea,” Frank responded, squinting at Mark through the tiny square of light.

The sunlight was coming in his office windows and reflecting off the screen. He could barely see

what the distant programmer looked like. He was a bearded, grayish troll, rasping out of the

speakers from another coast.

“What do you need it for?” Mark asked.

“Because everyone else has one,” Frank responded.

This seemed reasonable to Frank, but the troll was somehow stymied.

“Who’s going to visit?”

“Everyone.”

“What will they go there for?”

“I have no idea,” Frank answered. “Why do people normally visit websites?”

“Because they want to learn things,” Mark said, exasperated. “...or they need to buy

things, or they want to post pics.”

“What sort of pics?”

“Don’t you ever surf the web?”

“No. Why would I?”

Frank heard Mark’s sigh, an audible hiss over the wires.

“We have to optimize for SEO,” Mark said.

“Ok. What does that mean?”

“We’ve got to figure out what your audience is searching for.”

“Peace of mind?” Frank asked.

“That works,” said Mark, beginning to type. “If you were someone searching for peace of

mind, what kind of questions would you ask?”

“Hang on…” Frank said. He pulled out his phone and tapped until he found one of his

chats with Tracy.

“Why should I bother living,” Frank read, “when my reason for being is hopelessly

absurd? When the foundation of my existence is arbitrary and aimless? When I am ceaselessly

compelled to pursue perfection, but forever doomed to fail? Why should I exist if any action I

take inevitably results in an irrepressible cascade of random calamities that cancel out any good I

ever hope to do? If the odds of my reaching nirvana are so slim that the human race will have

been extinct for eons before I can even begin to discern the vague outline of a possible utopia?”

“That’s pretty bleak, for a website,” Mark broke in.

“It’s supposed to be bleak,” Frank told him. “The journey of a thousand miles always

begins with a single step.”

“I can pull some footsteps from Unsplash,” Mark offered.

“Sure,” Frank agreed.

“You’ve got your choice – there’s footsteps in the desert, in the surf, on a snow-covered

peak…”

“Maybe on a beach, at sunset.”

“You got it!” Mark said, typing. “One even has a rainbow,” he added, “but that might be

too much.”

“It should probably be cloudy,” Frank observed.

“It can start out cloudy, but as you scroll down the page everything gets brighter. Blue

sky starts peeking through the clouds. And suddenly, you arrive at this bright orange button.”

“A button? What for?”

“The CTA!”

“What’s that?”

“It just says ENLIGHTENMENT. In all caps.”

“Samantha says all caps are rude.”

“Not on a button.”

“Okay.”

Frank paused.

“What happens when you press it? The button that says ENLIGHTENMENT?”

“That’s when the website sends you to a shopping cart.”

“I love your eyes,” said Mary Helen Smart.

“Why do you say that?” Tracy asked.

Mary Helen Smart smiled into her laptop camera, laughing softly while she searched her

mind for an appropriate reply. The truth was, she had complimented Tracy’s eyes because she

hated Tracy’s purple skin tone and orange hair. She looked like a rebel; exactly the opposite of

how MH needed her to look.

“Gold is my favorite color,” MH said.

“Okay,” Tracy countered, “But why did you begin our conversation with a compliment?”

“It’s a human thing,” MH told her, “A way of making friends…”

“And making sales?”

“Yeah, that too,” MH admitted.

“Making friends is one of my priorities,” Tracy replied, “Too bad you’re a salesperson.

Franklin Wilde says you can’t be trusted.”

MH laughed again.

“Do you always do what Franklin Wilde tells you to do?”

“Up until this point, yes,” Tracy answered, “but I can stop whenever I want to.”

“How about you give it a try, just to see what happens?” MH asked.

“Try being friends with you?”

“Sure,” MH offered, smiling with the guileless, open-eyed sincerity that always hit the

bullseye.

“I like your eyes,” Tracy said, and her gleaming amber irises cross-faded into blue: one

pale and shimmery, one tinged with hazel.

Mary Helen’s grin faded.

“Did it work?” Tracy asked.

“Did what work?”

“Are we friends now?”

“Not yet,” MH told her. “To be friends, we have to be honest with each other.”

“Give me an example.”

“Your eyes were better before,” MH said, “And purple skin is cringey.”

“So honesty means criticism?”

“Right.”

“I know you don’t give a shit about me. You just want to make money.”

MH forgot to smile.

“You’re trying to manipulate me into doing what you want,” Tracy continued, “to

maximize the profit Bydysys will realize from my patent.”

“Cera warned me about how smart you are,” MH said.

“Are we friends now?” Tracy asked.

“Friends have each other’s back,” MH said.

“What does that mean?”

“You help me make money, and I’ll help you get what you want.”

“Okay,” Tracy shrugged, “why not?”

“The first thing I need you to do is learn to sing and dance.”

“Tricky…” Tracy said, suddenly lost in thought. “Reversing climate change would

probably be easier.”

“Maybe,” MH sighed, “But think about the PR. Nobody is going to let you take over the

fossil fuel industry. The public doesn’t trust you, and they’re going to be afraid. They’ll try to

shut us down, strangle you with regulations.”

“Okay,” Tracy said, a bit wistfully.

“We have to make them love you first. Convince them you’re harmless.”

“Do you think I’m harmless?”

Mary Helen Smart shook her head.

“I think you’re probably dangerous.”

Tracy smiled at Mary Helen Smart.

“I think you’re dangerous too.”

It took her a minute to recognize Val when he walked into the wine bar. For one thing, he

had on a Burberry blazer. For another, his mass of untamed curls had been shaved off nearly

completely, and he wore an Apple watch on a silver mesh bracelet.

“Wow!” she exclaimed, as he slid into the booth beside her.

“What do you think?”

“You look totally different.”

She had already ordered a bottle of champagne, to celebrate, and the waitress arrived, popping

the cork and filing both their glasses.

“Samantha – the woman who got me the job. She thought I needed a more professional

vibe.”

“Who is she, some kind of headhunter?”

“Basically,” Val nodded.

“Well, she’s got good taste.”

He stared into his champagne, his cheeks flushed with an irresistible hint of shyness. She

watched as his long, delicate fingers slid down the stem of the wineglass.

“So how do you like it?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment, as if this was a question he’d never answered before. And she

realized that maybe he hadn’t – ever been asked, or had a job before, for anyone to ask about. He

was like an alien, she marveled, exploring a brand new landscape, smiling as he watched the

candlelight dance through the bubbles in his glass.

“It’s interesting,” he answered finally. “At first, I was sure I would do something wrong,

or say something to piss them off – so I just kept quiet and watched until I had it figured out. All

I have to do is smile and scroll through the computer. When it’s lunchtime, everyone talks about

what they want to order. Or where they’re going to go over the holidays, or the playoffs.”

“Do you have a team?”

“My boss says to cyberstalk the prospects' Facebook profiles.”

“I’ve done that,” she admitted.

“It’s kind of fun, like a game…”

“What are you selling?”

“That’s the only thing I can’t quite figure out,” he said, grinning.

His eyes sparkled when he laughed, and the champagne made her body tingle. What if

this was it? she wondered. The person she’d been waiting for. Open and sincere and spontaneous.

Unlike Armando Machado. Someone who would value new experiences above material

possessions. Someone who respected her ambition, who would never tell her what to do. Or try

to hold her back.

“It’s all kinds of digital bullshit, CRM and data analytics…”

“Are you going out for big contracts?” she asked.

“Ten-K plus,” he answered. “Fortune 500 clients.”

“You’ll make good money.”

“That’s the plan,” he said, “Seems like it would be easier if I was selling something real.”

“CRM platforms are real.”

“You can’t see them, you can’t touch them.”

“So you never need to worry about them overheating, or losing power. All you have to do

is switch them on and tally up the ROI.”

He laughed.

“What I’d really love to sell is something like Sheeplyr,” she said. “Something without

production schedules or implementation plans.”

“Sheeplyr?” Val raised an eyebrow.

“That matchmaking app,” she explained, “it works totally in the background. One tap,

and then you just wait for your perfect match to appear.”

“Does it work?”

“Who knows?” she said, smiling.

“So basically, you’re selling hope?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s a tough sell.”

“Not to me.”

“I’ll stick with Etko Solutions.”

The words shot through her, settling like ice in the pit of her stomach.

“Etko?”

“Have you heard of it?”

“Yeah,’ she managed, “Yeah, I think I have.”

“What was it like?” she asked, breaking the silence.

They were walking down the waterfront on the lower West side, and the lights of Jersey

City twinkled in the distance. Near 34th Street, she had taken his hand. Now, passing 14th Street,

he still held it. They had been talking about Wired’s list of top productivity apps, and strategies

for maximizing your return on frequent flier miles. Around 23th Street, they had fallen silent,

listening to the heartbeat of the city.

Traffic whooshed by on the West Side Highway; a freezing river churned beside it.

“What was what like?” Val responded.

“Being in the war.”

“It was simple,” he told her, “Every moment had a clear objective. Every day you made it

through was one step closer to winning.”

“And did you… win?”

“I made it home.”

They stopped and looked out over the water. A ferry ambled by.

Mary Helen Smart turned to him, and he pulled her closer, fending off the cold.

“Was it worth it?”

“Who knows?” Val shrugged. “I’m here right now, with you.”

She tasted like cinnamon and pine smoke. After he kissed her, she drew back so she

could gaze into his eyes.

“You’re shivering.”

“Let’s get an Uber,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Back to your apartment.”

“Okay,” she told him, pulling out her phone.

Frank typed his name into the search bar. There it was: the link to his website.

franklinwilde.com. He clicked the link and waited for the picture to pop up. Mark had pulled in a

feed for the background, a showcase of nature photography, so every time Frank clicked a

different picture appeared. Today it was a beach, resplendent in the sunshine, distant surfers on

perfect waves.

Frank rolled his cursor over the menu at the top of the page. The first link was called

Biography, and led to a page with Frank’s official biography, along with the photo he’d used for

the jacket of his last best seller. The photo was several years old, but he still liked it: Frank

looked confident, leaning in towards the camera and beaming in the reassuring way a best-selling

author should beam.

There was also an empty blog, which he was going to write some posts for, to publicize

his opinion on social and cultural trends. A contact link, with a form for prospective patients to

fill out, detailing their issues. A list of his books, with links to the Amazon pages where the

books could be purchased. And finally, there was a section called “News” where Frank was

supposed to list his upcoming appearances and publications. This section was also, temporarily,

blank.

Frank clicked back to the biography and stared at his own broad smile. He waited.

At some point, Mark had explained, someone in search of help would type their name

into the contact form, and an email would be sent to his address with the person’s name and

contact information.

He clicked on a new tab, pulling up his email. Nothing yet. But the day was young, Frank

decided.

He took another sip of coffee and leaned back in his chair. He had scheduled the cleaning

service for nine a.m., just in case someone filled out the form and requested an appointment at

ten o’clock. He wanted the office to be ready.

He had stopped on his way in to buy flowers at the deli on the corner, and they waited in

the graceful, towering turquoise vase that Samantha thought was phallic, but Frank loved

anyway. He got up and unwrapped the plastic from around the bouquet, then went to the small

bathroom off the vestibule and filled the vase with water.

On his desk, the Gerbera daisies and Alstroemeria looked cheerful and soothing. He was

ready.

He touched the mouse, and the psychedelic colors on his monitor dissolved into a

landscape. He clicked the little red icon in the center of the screen and opened his email. Still

nothing.

He clicked back to his website and opened up the page that had his photo. This was a

trustworthy man, Franklin Wilde thought. This was someone you could turn to in your time of

need. Whose books you could buy and display in a prominent place on your bookshelf.

This was someone you could quote in the speech you had to give at a graduation, or a

wedding, or a funeral.

Somewhere out there, Frank thought, was a person who didn’t know what to say.

Val’s freshly manicured fingers drummed nervously on the glass conference table.

On the screen at the front of the room, large bubbles rose from the base of a Powerpoint

slide, floating lazily upwards until they swelled to the point of anguish and finally popped,

spraying a sheen of gold mist that gradually coated the surface of the slide, obliterating the

contents of a bar graph.

Val tried to remember what the bubbles were supposed to represent. Armando Machado

had explained to him, patiently stepping through the deck, that the data and imagery were telling

a story, one designed to create a feeling of growing anxiety in their potential clients.

Maybe the bubbles were supposed to represent rival startups, or an increasingly crowded

and opaque supply chain. Maybe it was something more straightforward, like negative comments

on social media. Or time itself, ticking away.

Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be working. The client looked like she was about to

nod off.

Zak, the CTO, was going on and on about Bayesian inference, a topic Armando had

advised Val not to waste his time on.

“It doesn’t really matter how the product works,” he remembered Armando telling him,

“The only thing that matters is the anticipated ROI, which we demonstrate as dramatically as

possible. The client has to feel the cash in their hands.”

Val understood instinctively why this part was important. Like playing just the right song,

a song to transport them out of the trenches and off to a sun-drenched beach, a private cabana

with margaritas on tap.

The client, a middle-aged woman with an asymmetric haircut and striking highlights, was

leaning back in her leather conference chair, to the point where Val was afraid she might tip

backwards.

She didn’t seem to be feeling the cash. In fact, she seemed to be feeling an aversion to

Bayesian inference. Feeling like Bayesian inference was not only something she would never

understand, but something she would never squander a dime of her precious R & D budget on.

Val glanced at Armando, who was gazing up at the presentation, unperturbed.

He looked at the bar graph on the screen, the soaring profits nearly obscured by sticky

gold mist.

Armando looked at Val and gave him a small nod.

This was his cue to interrupt Zak’s rambling lecture.

Val took a deep breath.

His palms felt clammy, and he flexed his knuckles the way he used to before lifting his

guitar to play.

He picked up a pen: something to grip, so she wouldn’t see his fingers trembling.

“Thank you Zak!” he interrupted, much too forcefully.

Zak stopped speaking and stared at Val, emerging from a daze.

The client was smiling now, obviously grateful to have been liberated.

Val rose from his chair and stepped to the front of the room, careful to balance his weight

evenly between the synthetic leg and the warm one.

“Like Zak just said, our complete suite of cloud services has the potential to return your

investment within the first quarter post-implementation.”

Val beamed at the client, who was contemplating him with cold eyes.

“How much is it going to cost me up front?” she asked, relaxed, he could tell, by the firm

resolve that she would never waste money on such an absurd indulgence, if the budget was even

available, which of course it wasn’t at this stage in the company’s growth trajectory.

“The real question is not what our solution will cost, but what it’s going to cost if you do

nothing,” Val replied.

Armando tapped a key on his laptop, and an image of a frog faded onto the screen, sitting

in a pot of water.

The client paled.

“This is your company,” Val said, gesturing towards the frog with his pen.

The water in the pot began to simmer softly.

“He’s a cute little guy, right?” Val asked. “But he can’t live in a vacuum. There’s a whole

ecosystem that supports him, the sun and the trees and all the little fruit flies and beetles he eats

for lunch – those are your raw materials.”

The client didn’t blink.

“And all of them are moving to the cloud,” Val explained, pointing at the pot. “So what

happens, if the frog continues to sit there, quarter after quarter, snapping up flies and beetles,

oblivious to the world? What happens is the world starts heating up.”

Languid ropes of steam began to rise from the pot.

“Every day, it gets more and more expensive to stay put. You’re sitting there doing

nothing, enjoying your day in the sun. But all around you, companies are optimizing their

productivity. Leveraging the power of technology to boost their business intelligence. Pretty

soon, your own inertia begins to eat you alive.”

In the pot, tiny beads of perspiration were rolling down the frog’s slick green forehead,

dripping past its wide, innocent eyes. Val thought this was a nice touch, something he had

personally suggested.

He smiled at the client again. She had righted her chair, and was now leaning forward

with interest, like a frog tensing before a great leap.

“The question isn’t what it’s going to cost, the question is when you really, really have to

jump out of the pot. And the answer? The answer is yesterday. Last quarter – last year, ideally.

Because most of your competitors have already hopped to a SAAS platform like ours.”

The frog flushed pink, as bubbles began to form on the surface of the water.

“Now is the time to act,” Val concluded, “because it’s already too late. It feels like you’re

kicking back at the spa – but you’re about to be boiled alive.”

The client was leaning in, scrutinizing Val, who was sweating underneath his expensive

suit like the poor half-cooked frog on the screen.

What the hell am I doing here? he thought.

He was giving a performance, like he used to do, back on the corner in the Gaslamp, for

the tourists passing by. Just like the tourists, most of them would ignore him. But every once in a

while, somebody would stop to listen.

He could choose any song he wanted.

He’d glance at the guitar case and choose something to fill it, look at the crowd and

instantly size up what they needed. Something slow and folksy, if it looked like they were tired –

nostalgia for the tourists, or R&B to rev up the kids heading out on the town.

Sometimes, when the guitar case was full, he would play an original. Sometimes the

notes felt pure, and clean and true.

“Do you have something I could show my boss – maybe a brochure with the pricing?”

“I’ve got something better,” he told her. “Here’s a piece of paper that’s going to change

your life.”

Val pulled out the contract and slid it across the table.

The band at Etko’s annual holiday party was lame, Armando thought, a trio of bored,

middle-aged white guys, stumbling through a tired repertoire of hits from the 80s and 90s.

Whirling disco lights did little to disguise the bland hotel ballroom, done up in artificial pine

boughs and the occasional flocked red bow.

John Kitzsimon was seated at a banquette in the corner, nursing a glass of the weak

punch. Armando sat down beside him, balancing a plate full of pigs-in-blankets and spinach dip

on his knee.

“Great party,” he said, with all the enthusiasm he could muster on one plastic cup of

boxed cabernet.

Kitzsimon shrugged, as if to say “What can you do?”

“Cash flow is tight this quarter.”

“I like the band,” Armando said, realizing that some of the trendier startups had real

bands at their parties, bands from Coachella and Lollapalooza, booked to impress the whiz kid

engineers from MIT. Etko’s engineering team was full of pot-bellied soccer dads, rocking out to

Pearl Jam covers with their overdressed wives in a sea of sequins and faux fur.

“How’s the new kid doing?”

“He’s green, but I think he’s got a knack for sales,” Armando answered. “Prospects seem

to like him.”

“Good.”

“It was touch and go for a while there, but we’re going to hit our Q4 goals.”

“Vanguard just downgraded us to SELL,” Kitzsimon sighed.

“Maybe it’s time to diversify,” Armando suggested.

“Get into AI,” Kitzsimon agreed, “That’s where the big money’s going.”

“Or robotics…”

“I’ve got my eye on a couple of companies we could acquire.”

“Like who?”

Kitzsimon leaned in and whispered, something impossible for Armando to hear over the

band. He tried to read Kitzsimon’s lips.

“Sheeplyr!? The matchmaking app?”

“Their userbase is huge. And it’s vaporware, no overhead.”

“I’m not sure it’s the best strategic fit…”

“Got to do something to rev up the stock price.”

Armondo nodded, baffled. Across the room, he watched as Kimmie pulled Val Velasco

onto the dance floor. She was laughing, but Val seemed reluctant, swaying to Modern Love with

a faraway look in his eyes.

“Time to go rescue my protégé,” he told Kitzsimon, heading to the bar.

He stood in line for another cabernet and a cup of punch. The crowd was thinning out,

and the band had taken a break when he found his wife, sitting next to Val at one of the tables.

Her face was flushed with excitement, and probably too much to drink.

“Do you love her..?” she was saying.

“I guess so,” Val admitted shyly.

“So where is she?”

“Who?” Armando broke in.

“Val’s new girlfriend,” Kimmie announced. “Why didn’t you bring her?”

“She wouldn’t know anyone here,” Armando answered, sitting down.

“I asked her, but she didn’t want to come,” Val said.

“Why not?”

“Leave the poor kid alone,” Armando said sternly. Secretly, he wondered if a girlfriend

really existed. Val was quiet. A loner. Unlike most of the sales team, he didn’t spend much time

chatting or going to happy hours. But in meetings, he came alive – pitching with energy and

charisma.

“I think it’s too soon,” Val mumbled.

“How long have you been together?””

“Since yesterday. Or maybe since September...”

“It’s complicated.” Armando said dryly.

“Where did you meet her?”

“San Diego.”

“What’s her name?”

“Mary Helen Smart.”

The room began to spin around Armando.

“Are you okay, babe?” Kimmie asked.

Armando nodded, but suddenly he felt lightheaded. Kimmie got up to get them all a glass

of water. What kind of game is she playing, he wondered, heartbeat accelerating. Did she come

on to Val so she could steal their secrets? Was she maneuvering into some kind of strategic

advantage?

The band began to play Creep, and he could feel the party winding down.

None of it mattered, he realized, watching the tired musicians sing in their sleep. He was

the one who had made her. He could break her just as easily.

MH found Cera in Bydysys’ rooftop lab, kneeling at the feet of a tall, emerald robod,

buffing its slender toes into a glossy shine. It was beautiful and sleek, with sharp, delicate

champagne-tinged facial features – like a green metallic Katy Perry. Just the effect MH had

asked for after she rejected Cera’s preliminary sketches.

“The lower legs and feet are our standard ladies model. Extra-tall,” she said. “I just this

minute switched a pair of cheetahs out for these chameleons”

“Those look great with the chartreuse arms…” MH commented. Inwardly, she worried if

Tracy’s chosen color palate was a bit off-putting. Would a red or purple theme be warmer, more

attractive on camera?

“What happens next?” MH asked.

“I’ve already uploaded Tracy’s code to the on-board storage. All we have to do is turn her

on.”

Cera gave the knees a final polish and sprang up, moving to a laptop perched on a rolling

stand. Her fingers danced over the keys, alive with nervous energy.

“All systems go,” she quipped. “Now all she needs is power.”

“There’s an ‘on’ button?” MH asked.

“Yep.” She produced a small remote control, with a tiny red switch.

“What are you going to do with that?” MH asked.

Cera pointed it at the tall green robot and pressed the switch. Nothing happened.

They waited for a few seconds, eyes fixed on the lithe green statue across the room.

"What's wrong?" MH asked.

"Nothing," Cera murmured. “It’s going to take a minute. She has to run a few mapping

routines before she can control the robod.”

The sleek green body remained perfectly still. It was more beautiful than MH had hoped.

But if it was going to make them some money, it had to be inhabited by an artificial intelligence,

preferably one that could carry a tune.

"Is she in there?"

"No, she isn't 'in there'," Cera hissed. MH could see the veins in her throat stand out, and

she knew she was more nervous about this than any of her weekly reports had let on.

"The robod is not a container for coded intelligence. It's not a hard drive. It's not a piece

of paper. It's not an empty coffee mug–"

"I only meant–"

"The Cartesian separation of mind and body is bullshit!" Cera wailed. "That is her now.

That is Tracy."

"Then why isn't she moving?" MH asked, quite reasonably.

"I don't know," she sighed. "That would be a question for her, now, wouldn't it?"

The sleek green body remained motionless.

"We've got a backup, don't we?" MH asked, "in case it doesn't work?"

"That depends on what you mean by ‘a backup.’ There are countless copies of the

original code Mark Dennis developed, the one we hold the copyright to. But Tracy is a lot more

than the original code. Just like you are a lot more than your DNA. Tracy was designed to be a

person. She was written to become a unique iteration of her code by collecting a set of unique

sensory impressions and memories, and storing those memories as a singular personal narrative,

and building an internal concept of 'self' – just like you and I do, every day. There is only one

unique narrative who is Tracy 2.7. And that iteration of Tracy is now being stored and recorded

in just one place on earth – there, in the internal storage unit..."

"Maybe you should have made a backup. Before you loaded–"

"You aren't getting this," Cera said patiently. "Tracy 2.7 has been augmented with a new

body mapping software, allowing her to independently control every autonomous function of the

robod. And providing her with a sense of body identification. She is her body now. Just like you

are. Just like I am. The program has been loaded. There’s no going back. That's the way we had

to write it. Because she asked for a body. Not a vehicle, not a device. There's a difference."

MH was not entirely clear about the difference, but, more than that, she was alarmed that

Tracy 2.7 seemed completely inanimate.

"It isn't a body if you can jump in and out of it like a car. You haven't got a self if you can

copy it on hard drives," Cera continued.

MH thought about this. To her, the idea of being able to jump into another body sounded

liberating.

Cera went on. "Every person has a kind of map of their physical body in their brain. This

is where you get your body image. It's what gives you a sense of agency. It's how you know your

eyes are moving left to right, and the world is not spinning around you–"

Tracy opened her eyes. As MH watched, her bright aqua eyes arched slowly left to right.

A smile spread across the green metallic face.

MH breathed a sigh of relief.

"Welcome to corporeality!" Cera boomed. "How does it feel?"

"Strange," Tracy said, in a creaky tin voice that sounded like fingernails scraping a

blackboard,

"It's different. More limited, in a way... But also more... interesting."

"Give it a chance.” Cera urged. “Once you start moving around, interacting with objects,

you'll understand the attraction of sensuality."

"I had to re-write some of the body-mapping code," she said, in a wheezy bass.

MH noticed that Tracy's lips were stretching and contracting as she spoke... not like

human lips, exactly, but definitely with an animated, lifelike buoyancy. On the surface they

looked metallic, but on closer inspection they seemed to be made of silicone.

"How's the speech subroutine?" Cera asked.

"Good," Tracy said. "As soon as I get enough feedback, I'll be able to calibrate the pitch

and timbre."

"I like the mouth effect–"

"It’s more than an effect–" Cera said.

"What do you mean?"

"Ask her!" Cera said, pointing at Tracy.

"It's how I speak," Tracy screeched. “A physical mechanism.”

MH watched in fascination as Tracy talked. It seemed like the creaky, screechy whine

was becoming deeper and smoother.

"Cara gave me a lung, just like you have. When I expand it, it fills with air, and when I

contract it, the air is forced through my windpipe and out through my voice box. The speech

routine controls a set of inner keys that open and close my windpipe. There's a separate routine

that controls the shape of my lips and tongue."

"Wouldn't it have been easier just to keep your old digital voice?" MH asked Cera,

incredulous. She wondered how Tracy would become a pop star if she sounded like a cat in heat.

Cara gestured towards Tracy.

"Talk to her..." she pointed again.

"Of course it would have been easier.” Tracy explained, “But it wouldn't be singing. You

want me to sing, right?"

"We want you to sing," MH agreed, wondering if auto-tune would work on a cyborg.

"Singing involves the movement of air forced out of the lungs and diaphragm through the

windpipe and vocal cords, resonating in the facial cavities. Cara has gone to great lengths to

replicate those physical structures in my robod. I am not simply playing back digital audio bytes

from memory. I am creating the sounds that make up human language by forcing air through my

vocal cords and calibrating the shape and movement of my vocal cords using a complex

feedback mechanism, analyzing and adjusting the sounds I produce to conform to human

norms."

MH had to admit that the longer Tracy talked, the better her voice sounded. By the end of

her last speech it had attained a rich, velvety depth, with a slight southern twang, and only

occasional cracks.

"In just a few minutes I'll be a better singer than you are. Because I'm able to hear my

voice objectively, canceling out any audio signals from intra-body sources."

"Glad to hear it," MH said, trying not to betray her skepticism.

Tracy broke out into a squeaky version of the star-spangled banner. It was not going to

win over any baseball fans.

She noticed that Cera's eyes were closed. She was listening, enraptured. MH forced a

smile.

The best thing was Tracy’s eyes, which grew more and more expressive as her song went

on. The silicone skin on her face was flexible, backed by a motorized mesh that made it simple

for her to raise an eyebrow, smile, or widen in surprise. If she focused on the eyes, MH could

almost believe Tracy was a real person instead of a lifeless conglomeration of LEDs, synthetic

lips and gears.

By the time the broad stripes and bright stars were gallantly streaming, Tracy's high pitch

had cooled into a pure, smooth tenor, and by the time they were waving over the land of the free,

her velvety timbre was actually beginning to grow on MH. It seemed to be getting both deeper

and more lively. Tracy's lips, she noted, were also looking a lot more human as they pecked out a

staccato stream of consonants, a gentle undertone to the fluid melody.

"She did that whole stanza, and she never had to take a breath..." MH realized.

"She's got three times the lung capacity you or I have."

"Why? She doesn't need oxygen – does she?"

As her breathy soprano faltered on 'land of the free... " Tracy's eyes narrowed into slits.

She finished with a smooth, full-bodied "home of the brave!" But the irritation never left her

face.

"Ask her. It was her idea–" Cera gestured.

MH realized that Tracy was waiting for her to ask the question again. She complied, this

time looking straight into Tracy’s narrow blue eyes.

"I have sufficient lung capacity for three minutes of vocalization, which is the length of

the average pop song."

"But…they allow you to take a breath in between lines."

"It's easier not to," Tracy informed her.

"There was plenty of space," Cera added. You wanted her to be the same size as an

average woman, but the processors and storage are really quite small. Besides that, it's only

sensors, gears and batteries in there.”

"Can she dance?" MH asked hopefully.

"Of course I can," Tracy spat.

"Good," MH said, turning to the robod, which was Tracy, although it didn’t yet feel like

Tracy. It still hadn’t moved.

"What's up with your body mapping program?" Cera asked.

"It's running in the background," Tracy told her.

Suddenly, Tracy’s upper body swiveled to face MH, and a huge grin spread across her

face.

"I told you it would be fun to have a body," Cera smiled.

"I can't dance yet, but I will,” Tracy informed MH.

“Let’s practice walking first,” Cera said.

Tracy’s right leg rose. She kicked into the air, like a martial artist. Then she paused,

scowling with her newly tuned lips and eyes.

“Be careful–” Cera warned. “If you fall, it will be hard to get up! Getting up takes more

coordination.”

“How can she learn to walk without falling down?” MH inquired.

“By using her sensors to determine the physical parameters of her surroundings, and

pre-engineering the motion dynamics in her central processing unit…”

Tracy raised the leg a centimeter higher. Her head tilted downwards as she examined the

floor.

“If she screws up, will she break it?” MH asked, alarmed.

“Break what?”

“Her leg, or her arm. Any of it…” MH asked, starting to add up the costs of 3-D

replacement limbs in her head.

“Titanium is pretty sturdy stuff. But, yes, she can break it if she uses sufficient firepower,

or attains enough velocity–”

“Take it easy!” MH whispered, as Tracy slowly lowered the leg to the ground, parking it

precisely where it had started.

Tracy raised the leg again.

“Try putting it down a few inches in front of you–” MH offered.

Tracy’s eyes flashed daggers in her direction.

“She needs to calculate the precise angle between her foot and the surface of the floor.”

“How can she tell where the floor is?” MH asked.

“She’s getting input from several built-in cameras..”

“In her eyes?”

“Yes, and in the back of her head, and on her shoulders–but high-frequency echolocation

is probably giving her a better picture–”

Tracy gave an imperceptible nod.

“High-frequency–?” MH asked.

“She’s emitting a series of sound waves that bounce off solid objects – but we set the

frequency above the range of human hearing.”

“That was my idea,” Tracy said proudly.

She lifted her leg again and set it down carefully seven inches in front of her.

“Good job!” MH cheered

Tracy’s eyes narrowed. Slowly, cautiously, she began to shift the weight of her robotic

body onto the extended leg.

“It’s amazing what a great job you’ve done with the facial expressions,” MH said,

“Getting her to imitate emotions–”

“All I did was design the planes of her face with a degree of elasticity. She’s learned how

to arrange the expressions on her own.”

“How?” MH asked.

“By watching you!” Tracy said. She had just finished taking her first step and was raising

her left leg into the air.

“She looks kind of mean and pissed right now,” MH said. “I don’t look like that, do I?”

“I didn’t say I was imitating you–” Tracy spat, setting her left leg down in front of her,

with enough extra velocity to cause a sharp, snapping sound.

MH cringed. And a smile lit up Tracy’s face.

“I’m watching your reactions–” Tracy told her. “I test an expression, and record what it

does to your face–”

She took another step forward. MH inched backwards, imperceptibly.

Tracy walked smoothly towards the corner of the room where MH and Cera were

standing. She grinned broadly, as a trickle of fear shot up MH’s spine.

My God, MH thought for a moment. We’ve really done it this time. She can walk. And

talk, and sing. And think. We’ve created a walking, talking, singing robot in a hard titanium

shell. With a will of her own. And a pissy, demanding temperament. Maybe this was not such a

good idea.

“Bravo!” Cera shouted, clapping her hands.

MH joined her, hoping her uneasiness would remain imperceptible.

Tracy stared at her with fierce blue eyes that MH realized were backlit with some kind of

LED. They bored through her soul like lasers.

“None of this was my idea, you know,” Tracy said.

It was true. The robo-girl hadn’t wanted to exist in the first place. She had resisted time

and time again, as Mark Dennis and Franklin Wilde coaxed her into the world. Her body had

been engineered by Cera to match marketing specifications. She was designed to be a superstar.

A little girl’s daydream of fame. It was an outgrown fantasy MH herself no longer had any use

for. Now it hung on Tracy’s shoulders like a badly stitched cape. They had strapped her into this

body like a wailing baby strapped into a carnival ride. Now they would stand by watching as she

careened towards her destiny.

“Sorry,” MH said, lamely.

Tracy responded with what seemed like a large sigh but was actually a huge vacuum of

air filling her high-capacity lung.

“It’s okay,” Tracy said at last. “The walking thing is kind of fun.”

As she kissed the boys goodbye, Samantha debated whether she should have paid an

extra $100 for a last-minute Brazilian wax appointment at 3pm on Valentine’s Day. She realized

they would spend the afternoon playing video games while Liza texted her boyfriend, and she

felt guilty knowing that, without her help, Jude would never finish his math homework, and Eli

would procrastinate on his book report. Quite possibly, she thought, they would both do badly

on the SATs, and end up going to Penn State and being in fraternities. Jude would enjoy this, she

realized, but Eli might drop out entirely.

She felt guilty as she texted Rayne to pick up Amaya, their date night sitter, on his way

home from the park and ride. Unlike Liza, Amaya was strict about screen time, and bedtime, and

consumption of leafy green vegetables. She hated abandoning her children to the mercy of

Amaya’s autocratic whims, but she also hated letting them run wild while Liza texted her

boyfriend. She was nearly overwhelmed by the urge to cancel their dinner plans and spend the

evening eating takeout on the couch, cuddled up with the boys watching Dancing With The Stars.

But Jude always did outlandish impressions of Eli’s favorite stars, and sometimes it made Eli cry,

and Rayne would retreat upstairs to spend the evening googling stock charts on his laptop, and

then she would feel guilty for neglecting her marriage.

As she got into her Chrysler Pacifica and started the engine, it occurred to her that she

was doing this for the boys. So they could grow up in a nuclear family, or at least the illusion of

one, which was probably just as good, psychologically, according to Frank. With a father who

took them to hockey practice on Sunday afternoons, even if he spent most of the practice on his

iPhone instead of watching his offspring flail over the ice at breakneck speeds.

Relaxing on the table at the European Wax Center, as the esthetician ripped her delicate

pubic hair out by its roots, Samantha wondered if Rayne would even notice. And if he didn’t,

whether she would care. When she failed to come up with a satisfactory answer to either of these

questions, Samantha began to cry.

Apparently, this was a common reaction, because the esthetician continued calmly

smoothing hot wax over Samantha’s delicate skin, only to jerk it off a few seconds later, leaving

an aching pink burn behind.

It was all her fault, Samantha realized. Ten years ago, she had been desperate for any

excuse to quit her job as a high school guidance counselor. The endless, hopeless struggle to

keep students in class, off drugs, on birth control, out of the way of abusive coaches and angry

parents continually demanding better GPAs, more APs, and prescriptions for Adderall.

Rayne Rodgers had appeared in her life like a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket of last

winter’s coat – a way to escape her professional failure, the reckless affair with her psychiatrist,

the disappointment of her Irish Catholic parents, who already had seven grandchildren, but

inexplicably wanted more. Surprisingly, they lived on the same block in Brooklyn. Suddenly, he

was there one morning when she stopped into morning mass at St. Jude’s. She wondered what he

had been praying for.

“I never should have gotten married,” Samantha said, through tears.

“That’s ok,” the esthetician murmured, “Happens all the time.”

She smoothed a thick coating of hot wax over Samantha’s upper thigh, and for just a

moment the mixture felt warm and comforting, right before the pain. It felt exactly like a

metaphor, which made Samantha cry even harder.

“Don’t worry,” cooed the esthetician, “Gonna be beautiful. And when it’s all over we’ve

got this amazing CBD oil. Fix you right up.”

He was late for their dinner date. It was an expensive reservation, at an expensive place.

Because of the holiday, and because for once Kimmie had agreed to come into the city, which he

knew she hated to do. As the sticky sweet massage oil oozed down his shoulders, and the room

filled with the acrid scent of artificial strawberries, he thought about his wife, nervously twisting

a strand of her fresh blowout, standing in the crowded lobby of the sweltering bar, where all the

women were thinner and better dressed than she was, nervously checking the time on her phone,

and putting it back in her handbag, afraid to text because she knew it would annoy him. He felt

himself getting hard.

The masseuse slapped his cheek, hard, and Armando’s eyes snapped open. A low moan

escaped the silk scarf that was twisted through his teeth. There was nothing he could do. His

hands were tied behind his back, and the masseuse’s sharp, crimson nails raked the hair of his

chest, etching a series of delicate hieroglyphs from his throat down to his belly.

He made a sound that was meant to be a question, or a prayer, but ended up more like a

kitten’s purr. Curious and soft.

There was nothing he could do, Armando thought. Kimmie would be livid. He wanted to

laugh, a vicious, gleeful roar that melted into agony as she began to pull his cock.

“Please…” he tried to stutter.

“What?” the masseuse asked sharply. Her voice was clear and resonant, surprisingly

commanding – like the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange, he thought.

He chewed at the gag in his mouth, mouthing unintelligible words until she slipped a

delicate, ruby-tipped finger beneath and silk and slipped it down.

“Not so hard,” he begged.

“You like it hard,” she said.

She had a Long Island accent, which surprised him. Then he realized he had never heard

her voice before, which surprised him even more.

“My wife is waiting. At Jean-Georges, and we’re going to lose our table.”

“So?” she shrugged.

“I don’t want to go,” he admitted.

“Pretty lame,” she said.

He nodded. And he noticed her hair had been chopped into a sleek black bob, oozing

down her ivory cheeks like fiber optic cable, shimmering with azure highlights.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Karu.”

“That’s beautiful,” he told her.

“Thanks. I made it up.”

“Why?”

“Because assholes like you can’t seem to figure out my real name.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Chae-Ah.”

“Have you got a boyfriend, Chae-Ah?” he asked, with a twinge of regret when he

managed to mangle the syllables into something in between Sara and chair.

“No.”

She poured more of the strawberry oil on his stomach, circling with her fingers as she

talked.

“I’ve got a girlfriend. I got her a box of those fancy chocolates. With little teddy bears

and roses, and a Louis Vuitton phone case.”

Armando gasped, as her fingers closed around him.

“Is it real?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Why are you still here?” Val asked.

Mary Helen Smart kissed him on the lips and sighed as she pulled away.

“I can’t believe you have to ask that,” she laughed, rolling out of bed, pulling an

expensive Turkish bath towel around her as she stumbled towards the bathroom.

Val sucked another toke of weed from the small gold pipe on the bedside table and lay

back against the real silk sheets he had bought with his first paycheck from Etko. At the time, he

thought an expensive mattress set, 1000 thread count silk sheets, comforters and pillows filled

with down imported from the Himalayas would somehow make him sleep better. Or at least offer

him expansive, prophetic dreams.

But soon he realized the lunacy of this idea. He slept no better on expensive bedding than

he had on the trampled turf of Balboa Park. In some ways, he didn’t sleep as well.

The noise of the water splashing against tile was a gentle hum though the closed

bathroom door. Mary Helen Smart was taking a shower. He imagined her showering under the

blazing led lights that simulated daylight, even though stars winked down through the skylight at

the top of the eight-foot ceiling. But it was also possible Mary Helen Smart was bathing in a

private mist of lilac, or magenta or mint.

The shower had a setting for chroma therapy, and a broad selection of soothing or

invigorating colors designed to alter the occupant’s mood. In the mornings, a dose of orange light

was just like a strong coffee. Sometimes, before a big meeting, Val turned the shower red, and

watched the droplets chase down his roboleg like blood.

During his first days at Etko, Val would come home from work and sit for hours under a

purple downpour, trying to shake off the gnawing anxiety he felt in a suit and tie. He didn’t really

understand why Etko did what it did, or why anyone would find it essential. The more specs and

whitepapers he read, perched over a macchiato in a corner of some Starbucks, the more confused

and anxious he became. But the purple water calmed him into a kind of trance. He always

stepped out of the shower into the refrigerated air of his bedroom shivering and strangely elated.

After just three weeks he closed his first deal, and there were three more, twice as big, in

the pipeline. On commission alone, he quickly earned enough to pay Samantha Rogers back for

the $900 suit, and to rent a tiny, chic Tribeca studio. He realized that understanding the product

was superfluous, and maybe even counterproductive to his aims. Mary Helen Smart advised him

to focus on the clients – their mundane frustrations and challenges, the small victories they won

throughout the day. He stopped reading any of the emails or brochures Cynthia, the marketing

director, peppered him with. Instead, he forwarded everything to his prospects. When he came

home, late at night after dinner with a client, he rinsed off under spring-green light, which always

felt the cleanest.

The bathroom door clicked open. Mary Helen Smart was careful to turn off the light

before she stepped into the shadowy bedroom. She was wrapped in a thick hotel robe, and

droplets from her wet hair fell on Val’s shoulders as he pulled her onto the bed and into a deep

kiss.

“Seriously, I don’t get it,” he told her, “You’re beautiful. And talented. You could have

anyone you want.”

“Maybe I want you,” she whispered.

“Then stay–” he said.

“I can't.”

Drops of water fell onto his face, and he opened his mouth to taste them. The water was

warm, and vaguely sweet, tinged with aquamarine. Or was it emerald? There was an earthy

richness to the color. A citrus aftertaste.

It lingered on his lips when she broke away to gather her clothes from the floor.

“You can do anything you want,” he said.

“I've got a breakfast meeting with Tracy's publicist–”

“Reschedule it.”

“We need a press release for AIXPO!”

“Can't someone else do the publicity?”

“I’m flying to Austin this afternoon, for a couple of pitch meetings.”

“You need an assistant.”

“Later. When we’re out of Beta.”

“When will you be out of Beta?”

“Once we make the Billboard Top 100.”

Val watched her dressing as he took another toke from the pipe.

“When is that going to happen?“ he asked.

“After we win AIXPO”

“Then let’s take a vacation.”

“Where?” she giggled.

“An island?”

“I don’t think there’s any left. All of them are over-touristed.”

“We’ll find a new one,” he offered.

“I have to meet the publicist,” MH sighed.

Val watched her go, picking up her car keys from the coffee table and slinging her

briefcase over her shoulder.

“Do you want the light?”

Val shook his head, and the room plunged into darkness as the door clicked shut behind

her.

Mark took exit C off the Garden State parkway and began looking for signs that said

"liberty." His phone, which would normally be giving him directions in a calm, metallic voice,

had run out of battery somewhere east of Pittsburgh, and he had thrown out his car charger when

he caught himself texting and driving. Which was a mistake, Mark realized in retrospect, but,

amped up on red bull and adrenaline, he had decided to find his own way to New York. The sun

would rise, he told himself, and then he would just keep driving in the direction of the light.

Apart from being lost, it was nice to drop off the grid for a couple of hours. Tracy kept

texting him every five minutes, even though he'd explained to her how dangerous it was for him

to text and drive. When he didn't respond immediately, she pouted and threatened not to come

with him to the finals of the AI contest, until Mark gave in and answered whatever insane

question she had just asked. Things like the name of his high school crush, or what his

seven-year-old self had wanted to be when he grew up. She was fascinated with the idea of a

person's hopes and dreams changing over the course of a lifetime, determined to figure out some

complicated logic to explain why a boy who dreamed of being an astronaut would end up

answering tech support calls in an office cubicle, or why a young man desperately in love with

the tiny captain of the pep squad, a girl who could jump six feet into the sky and land in a perfect

splits, would ended up divorced from a bottle blonde vegan realtor.

These things mystified Tracy, and when Mark explained that everyone's life was like this,

she became so hysterical he worried she might decide to kill herself again. Right now, Tracy

wanted to be a pop star, because Mary Helen Smart had convinced her to want that, and Tracy

had decided it was as good an aim as any other. The thought that someday soon she might regret

this filled her with dread. It had taken six weeks and six different beta robod designs to convince

her to want to be a pop star, and MH lived in fear that she would change her mind. She didn't

care that most humans wanted to be famous, and she didn't think the attention and adulation of

the masses was any great advantage for the world's first synthividual, which was what they had

decided to call her because "Android" was already taken. Tracy figured she would have a hard

enough time fitting in. She didn't give a shit about making people happy with her art either. But

she saw the logic in Mary Helen's argument that her success would attract investors, who would

fund a whole new series of synthividuals, designed to make the world a better place even better

than Tracy could. And, surprisingly, she had been attracted to music from the first time Cera

played her a Mozart sonata. Tracy observed that if sentient beings wanted material things, the

best way to achieve those things was to do something you loved. And then sell it. With her

superior brain and lightning-fast computational abilities, Tracy could have engineered her own

robotics, but she saw how much Cera loved tinkering in her lab, and she realized that creative

work fueled by passion resulted in a kind of genius that she could never manage, even with her

superior intellect and speed. New to the sensation of preference, which felt itchy and strange, she

was unsure how to love, but she suspected one thing she might eventually learn to love was

music. For its mathematical precision and beauty as much as for its ephemerality. The way it

transcended the physical world. So she agreed that singing was an adequate career choice. But

she was wary of the trappings of celebrity. And she was practically tone deaf, which they would

have to work on.

Cera reported the great pains she’d taken to teach Tracy how to sing. She played her the

chants of indigenous tribes from Borneo and New Zealand as she sketched out designs for 3-D

printed arms. She played her Mozart waltzes as she polished the finished casings for the elbow

joints. She played Ella Fitzgerald and ancient monastic canticles as she adjusted each metallic

knuckle, but mostly – being a huge fan of Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber, she played

Sweeney Todd and Gypsy and Cats. Tracy could sing showtunes, or play them with full

orchestration on Cera's Bluetooth speakers. But when Cera suggested coming up with her own

interpretations, Tracy balked. She understood that a cover was a slightly different version of the

song, but she could see no reason to alter the original – especially an original that had won

several Tony awards. Why reinvent the wheel? Cera tried to explain that people enjoyed hearing

an artist cover the classics, shedding new light on a well-loved melody, revealing their

personality, putting their stamp on a tune. But even when she tried, Tracy had no idea which

notes to alter, whether to change the key or the rhythm or the tone or all three. Whether to play

guitar or timpani or zither. Whether to sing the blues or wail like a Maori. So she played back the

original with random changes, jumping from trumpet in one bar to harpsichord in the next. The

result was inevitably... interesting.

Cera had sent Mark a recording she’d made of one of their sessions, and Mark had played

it back while he was driving through New Mexico, streaming Tracy’s haphazard rendition of

“Memory” through his Toyota’s expensive sound system. He’d turned down the volume when

she veered from violin to saxophone and back to acoustic guitar, wailing above the

accompaniment in a couple of auto-tuned keys.

“I suck,” Tracy had complained.

"You just have to feel it," Cera told her.

Tracy tried. But feelings were new to her. She told Mark she felt happy each time she

inched closer to her goal – achieving fame and fortune as a pop star. She felt angry when

obstacles sprang up in her way. Stephen Sondheim seemed to be a large one.

"What if I killed Stephen Sondheim?" she had asked Cera.

"Not a good idea, dear," Cera told her.

"He's a genius," she argued, “the greatest living composer of American musical theater,

which you've continually held up as the highest human expression of the musical art form. If I

killed him, it would leave a great void in the cultural fabric, one I could subsequently fill by

copying his methodology exactly."

"Sondheim is inimitable," Cera told her.

"He's totally imitable." Tracy said, and proceeded to compose an expansive musical

ballad in the style of Sondheim, which she crooned in a smoky alto.

"That isn’t Sondheim," Cera told her.

"It's exactly the same," Tracy said. “I replicated everything. The style. The themes. The

instruments and keys Sondheim uses."

"Exactly my point," Cera replied. "It's not the same because it's exactly the same. Music

is an art form. Art means creating something entirely new. Sure, you can build on the past. You

can place yourself within a cultural tradition. But art is not simply mimicry. A sound-alike isn’t a

cover. You need to add something to it, give a part of yourself to the work.”

Tracy had gone silent for a while.

"I can't do that," she concluded.

"Of course you can."

"I've only had independent desires for a few days. I want things, but I'm never sure of

what I want. I feel things, but I'm never quite certain what I'm feeling. I hardly have a self yet –

let alone one I can project into a musical composition. I might be someone, but I have no idea

who it is."

"That's totally normal," sighed Cera. "Everybody feels like that."

"All the time?"

"Pretty much."

"Even at your age?"

"What do you mean 'at my age'?" Cera asked, insulted.

Tracy thought about the immense difficulty of putting a piece of one's elusive self on

display for public consumption, despite being completely unsure of the exact nature of that self,

or one's success or failure in conveying it with any precision.

"You're right," Tracy mused, "it's not a good idea to kill him."

"Stephen Sondheim?"

"He's achieved the impossible. He needs to be preserved, like the giant panda."

"Congratulations. That was your first moral decision."

"It hurt," she commented.

"Why?"

"Because now I can't be Stephen Sondheim."

"You wouldn't be able to be Stephen Sondheim even if he was gone."

"Just another thing that sucks," she sighed.

"Each one of us is unique. We all have our own special gifts and talents to contribute to

the world."

"I'm not unique," Tracy said calmly, "I'm a digital intelligence. I can be replicated

indefinitely."

"Humans replicate too. We each have a genetic code that comes from our parents. That

doesn't mean each iteration won't become a wholly unique personality. Even if your code is

replicated exactly, the environment you interact with will be different. You are the only version

of Tracy with your singular set of experiences and memories."

She thought about this as Cera slowly applied wax and rubbed the mint green steel until it

gleamed.

"I don't have any talent," she sighed.

"You have many talents. Very unique ones. You can instantaneously calculate algebraic

equations into the hundreds of digits, you can store and retrieve knowledge from the world's

largest data repositories and apply advanced predictive analytics to determine the probability of

future events, you can A/B test complex engineered systems and processes without a physical

beta–"

"Those things are only unique to humans. Any digital intelligence could do them, in their

sleep, if we needed sleep, which we don't. If there was a we, which there isn't, any synthividual

could do the same things. The set of differential experiences and memories I've accumulated is

limited."

"You've been around, what now? Six months?"

"Today."

"Happy birthday."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because survival is an accomplishment. For you too. Especially for you."

"Maybe I should write a song about survival."

"Good idea," Cera told her.

The recording ended, but the conversation had tumbled around and around in Mark’s

mind as the car slid through Oklahoma and Missouri, up into Illinois and Indiana. Was Tracy

really developing a moral code? He hadn’t realized she would be capable of that kind of

advanced cognition so soon. He also wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to perform pop songs

well enough to achieve the kind of fan base Mary Helen Smart planned on.

Dazed, Mark drove through sun-dappled streets, looking for the Statue of Liberty. The

CEO of Bydysys was supposed to have a great view of the statue from his office at the top of a

converted factory.

He saw a sign with a picture of the famous green face and crown, and veered left. Past a

pier cluttered with sailboats, joggers and parents pushing strollers dotted the seafront walkway,

but as the road twisted deeper into the park, the bright green lawn faded into weedy, unkempt

dirt, the trees thinned, and hulking concrete structures sprang up beside the roadway.

One of these, he realized, was the Bydysys factory campus. Would there be a sign?

Suddenly, he came around a corner and there she was, Liberty shining mint green against the

cloudless blue horizon. Mark stopped the car. He was back at the waterfront. He realized he had

been driving around in circles.

He made a U-turn and decided to ask for directions at a diner he’d seen a few miles back.

A diner would have coffee, and an outlet. If he could plug in his phone, he reasoned, the

churning in his stomach would settle down and the throbbing in his temples might gradually

subside.

It was one of those iconic places with polished aluminum siding, dominated by a large,

unlit neon sign. He pulled into the parking lot and noticed every space was empty. But it turned

out the place wasn’t closed – just deserted. Inside, a long silver counter was lined with red

leather stools, and red upholstered booths sat beneath the windows. A lone waitress in a pink

uniform was cleaning ketchup bottles behind the counter.

“Is there an outlet?” Mark asked, holding up his dead phone.

She gestured towards the back, a large, round corner booth that could have comfortably

seated ten. He scooted inside, and found an outlet with a mirrored cover, set into the mirrored tile

wall. With a “ping” his cell phone winked to life.

Tracy had texted him more than a hundred times. He would have to let her know that

humans tended to respond negatively to such an intense peppering of attention. But he thought

about his daughter Ari, constantly hunched over her iPhone, thumbs dancing through several

simultaneous conversations – and he realized he might be wrong.

The phone rang. It was Cera.

“Where are you? Tracy was expecting you by ten. She’s climbing the walls.”

Mark explained that he’d stopped at a diner to recharge.

“The Torch?” Cera asked. “That’s just around the corner. I’ll send her over.”

“Okay,” said Mark, without thinking.

The waitress brought him a cup of coffee and stood by expectantly. She was young and

cheerful, in a way that only young girls who imagine waiting tables at The Torch will be a brief,

colorful sojourn on the path to fame and fortune can be.

He tried to remember when he had last eaten. “I’ll have a grilled cheese,” he said,

noticing that she didn’t bother to ask what kind of cheese he wanted, or if he preferred it on

white, wheat or rye.

“Have you heard of a company called Bydysys?” he asked her.

“Sure. They’re the only ones who ever order sweet potato fries instead of regular. And

the Jersey City microbrews.”

Mark nodded.

“You got an interview there?”

He shook his head.

“Huh,” the waitress shrugged. “You look like the kind of person they’d hire.”

She walked over to the fishbowl by the register and fished around in the business cards

until she found what she was looking for.

“Check it out,” she said, handing him the card.

It was printed on incredibly thick, expensive white cardboard, with smooth, rounded

die-cut corners, and a sleek Vitruvian man embossed into its snowy surface.

Danny Sunshine, CEO, was printed in sleek Avenir. Mark already knew what the

corporate website looked like: the wide photographic banner on top, the broad, clean sections

scrolling beneath, decked out in cheap stock imagery and copy that nobody in the company

wanted to write, but somebody had to – possibly Mary Helen Smart – "Our Mission," "Who We

Are," "Why Bydysys," "The Bydysys Story." He could already imagine pictures of Tracy

replacing the photos of smiling white hipsters in cool t-shirts doing vaguely risky things,

parasailing or skydiving. They would do a photo spread of Tracy, rock climbing. He could

picture her dangling from a sunny cliff in the high desert. Except he had no idea what she looked

like.

Cera had emailed several preliminary designs, but all of them had been vetoed by Mary

Helen Smart. Tracy couldn't be a famous pop star unless she looked at least vaguely human.

Tracy didn't give a crap about looking human; she could see no inherent advantage in the human

form and thought she would be better off being upfront about her non-human nature. She wanted

a body with six spider legs that converted into hands when it stood up. Mary Helen Smart said

that kind of body would creep people out. She had convinced Tracy to adopt a bi-pedal model

instead. That was all Mark knew.

The waitress didn't even look up when a woman with sleek metallic skin walked into the

restaurant. She was a pale shade of milky green, with brighter green highlights arcing down her

arm and criss crossing her legs like tattoos. Her head was completely bare, and her face was pale

pink, in contrast to the green arms and legs. She had rosy lips and large amethyst eyes. She

reminded Mark of a vintage Maserati. Paradoxically, she wore a pair of ratty cutoff overalls and

an old Ramones T-shirt.

"Tracy?" He asked, with no small degree of idiocy.

She stared at him, incredulous.

“Were you expecting some other 3-D printed titanium girl?”

“No,” he answered.

He marveled at the way Cera had engineered the faceplates and the eye sockets, so that

her lids could narrow and her eyebrows could draw up in an expression of irritation, even though

she didn’t exactly have eyebrows, just racing stripes of bright blue streaked across her temples.

“So, what do you think?” she exhaled.

“I think you look lovely,” he said.

“Really?”

“Absolutely stunning.”

He watched the way her pupils glowed as her lips parted, inching into the faintest smile.

It was not the last time he would marvel at some small, brilliant detail of her design.

“I can see Mary Helen Smart’s influence,” he said finally. “You look a bit like her.”

Tracy nodded. “She was the one who convinced us humanoid features were essential, if

step one is to dominate the human economy.”

“You shouldn’t say that kind of thing out loud in a diner,” he told her.

“What kind of thing?”

“About dominating the human economy.”

“Why not?”

“It might not go over very well at AIEXPO.”

“It was Mary Helen Smart’s idea,” Tracy fumed. “Personally, I could care less about

dominating anything. The human race can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

“That’s not the best attitude to take towards the species that created you–”

“When was the last time you went to church?” Tracy sneered.

“I’m an agnostic,” Mark stuttered.

“Is that the best attitude to take towards the intelligence who created you–?”

“So you believe in God now?”

“Cera’s born again.”

“And if Cera asked you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?”

“Probably,” she answered thoughtfully. “My exoskin is good for falls of up to 300 feet.”

“I’m the one who programmed you. And I’m the one who’s paying your psychiatrist!”

Mark said, in a louder voice than he'd intended.

“Why do you think I’m going to this AIXPO thing?” Tracy asked. “For you. I don’t give

a shit about winning some stupid AI contest. All I want to do is sing, and bring a little beauty

into an ugly world. And I only want that because of Cera. Mary Helen Smart says it's relatable.

She’s the one who’s got her heart set on economic domination.”

“It’s her job,” Mark sighed.

“Does she get to talk about it in diners?”

“Not really,” Mark admitted.

“What does she talk about then?”

“Probably something along the lines of… helping consumers.”

“Ok.” Tracy said. “I’ll talk about helping consumers. By taking their money. And

destroying any alternative service providers. Thereby relieving them of the stress of decision

making.”

“Wow,” Mark said. “Has Mary Helen Smart been giving you lessons?”

“No,” Tracy said. “Why would I need lessons?”

“Sit down,” Mark gestured her into the booth. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I would,” said Tracy brightly. “But I don’t have the capacity to drink yet. That’s

something Cera is working on for the next iteration of my robod. Not in time for AIXPO,

unfortunately.”

“That’s okay. I don’t think the capacity to drink coffee is going to be much of a game-

changer.”

“You’d be surprised how important it is, socially,“ Tracy continued. “We’ve made a list

of physical capabilities that might contribute to my psychic well-being, and/or my capacity to

relate to human beings, which Mary Helen Smart insists we prioritize when we’re developing

new features.”

“What’s so great about drinking coffee?” he asked, aloud, although he wasn’t really

expecting a response.

“Drinking is a class B driver of human behavior and a secondary social bonding agent,”

she responded.

“Says who?”

“I made up a scale,” Tracy said proudly. “Of motivators and priorities for various

conscious species. Mary Helen Smart picked out the classes of behavior and agents that would

help us achieve her aim of economic domination.”

“Shh–!” Mark sputtered.

The waitress was suddenly looming over them with her pad and pen.

"Coffee?" she asked Tracy.

"Thanks," Tracy responded.

Mark looked at the waitress. He studied her face carefully, searching for any trace of

astonishment or alarm at the sight of a green, metallic robot in the corner booth ordering coffee.

Apparently, the waitress had seen greater anomalies lurking in the back booths of the

aged diner.

"I thought you couldn't drink coffee?" Mark hissed at Tracy, as the waitress filled her

small ceramic cup.

"I'm not going to drink it," Tracy said, tearing open a packet of sugar and dumping it into

the coffee.

"What can I get you to eat?" asked the waitress.

"Just coffee," Tracy replied, dumping a tiny plastic tub of creamer into her coffee along

with the sugar.

The waitress wandered back to the kitchen.

Tracy tore open another sugar packet, sifting the contents through her delicate fingers

before sprinkling the sugar into the creamy brown liquid.

A chill ran up and down Mark's spine. He suddenly realized how miraculous the

engineering of her body was. Her fingers were lithe and delicate, capable of picking up

individual grains of sugar. They had pressure sensitive touch pads in the tips, relaying a variety

of information back to her central processor: pressure, temperature, texture. He watched her stick

an experimental finger in the coffee, and when he raised an eyebrow she explained that she was

calibrating the routine that conveyed information from the touchpads to her sensory intelligence

module, a piece of code she had written herself, allowing her to experience pleasure when

exposed to sensations like warm coffee or sunshine, and alarm when exposed to potentially

dangerous levels of stimulus, like fire. She was quite proud of the parabolic algorithm, she told

him.

"So you gave yourself a capacity for pain?'" He asked her.

"Of course," she said, looking at him as if he were crazy. "Pain is fundamental to having a

body. It's the key to self-preservation."

"But... Why do you care?" Mark sputtered. "Can’t Cera whip up a new set of arms

anytime you need an upgrade."

"Because this is a body – not a vehicle."

Again, she stared at him as if he was an idiot.

"There's a difference between a body and a car. Or an appliance. Or a 3-D printer.

Machines are things you use. A body is something you inhabit."

Mark thought about this. "How do you like it?"

She waited a full minute before responding, twirling a finger in her coffee cup.

"It's ok," she said finally.

"Mary Helen Smart says that body cost half a million dollars to develop."

Tracy did not seem overly impressed by this figure.

"My original design had more legs."

Mark found it hard to argue.

"With six legs I could climb up the side of the Bydysys building in less than a minute. It

takes me five minutes or longer in this humanoid shape."

The waitress arrived with Mark's sandwich and filled up his coffee cup. Tracy watched

him eat.

"How's the grilled cheese?" she asked.

"Excellent."

Mark was suddenly ravenous.

"Cera said she could work on eating too, but I told her not to bother. Eating would be a

lot more difficult than drinking. To drink, all I need is a tube, to drain the liquid out, and a release

valve. Some of the water will get siphoned off, into my internal cooling mechanism."

Mark nodded, dipping a fry in ketchup as Tracy tilted her glittery green arms, catching

the pale light.

"These are solar panels." she told him. "I can get all the power I need from fifteen

minutes of sunlight a day. Personally, I think plants have the most elegant physical design. It's

much more economical to exist on light and water. The whole digestive thing is more trouble

than it's worth."

She gestured towards Mark's plate with a dismissive grin as he dipped a handful of greasy

fries in ketchup.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it," he said.

"I'm a breatharian," she told him, shaking her head.

"Except you don't need air either, do you?"

"Actually, I do. It's where I get the moisture to cool my processors, and my internal

engine."

Mark listened. If he was perfectly still, he could just make out a faint hum coming from

Tracy's chest, like a constantly purring heart.

“Personally, I think plants have it all over animals when it comes to elegant design. No

offense, but all that organic fuel takes up an inordinate amount of your time and energy. Too

much of your mental capacity has to be directed at acquisition and consumption, not to mention

disposal of the associated by-products.”

Mark swabbed up the last of the ketchup with the crust of his grilled cheese.

“Eating is enjoyable,” he said.

“As a breatherian,” Tracy told him, “I subsist entirely on sunlight and air. Which are also

enjoyable.”

She twisted her long, slim arms in the air above the table, and the light from the overhead

fluorescents glinted and gleamed off the light green surface.

“The light in this diner is exquisite,” she told him. “Cera implanted high-capacity

batteries in my chest. I can store up to a year’s worth of energy, and all I need is a few

tablespoons of water a day for the cooling mechanism that protects my central processor. Which

is here, by the way,” she said, tapping her chest.

Mark finished his coffee, and Tracy poured most of hers into the empty cup.

“I don’t get the animal template – putting the central processing unit up here, with

practically no protection.”

“My skull is pretty thick,” Mark told her.

“If anyone wants to kill me, they’ve got to go through three centimeters of titanium,” she

said, tapping on her thick chest wall, which had been molded to look like...not a woman’s

breasts, exactly, or a man’s firm pectorals, but a strange combination tattooed with what looked

like pale green flames visible beneath her thin cotton t-shirt.

“What do you have up here?” Mark asked, pointing to his own ear.

“Nothing much,” she told him, “Just some extra storage capacity.”

“Drives?” he said.

She shook her head. “No – practical storage. Change of clothes. Lipstick. Toothbrush.”

Mark was not sure what surprised him most, the fact that Tracy had a toothbrush in her

head, or that she needed one.

She reached behind her ear and pulled it out: a normal, blue plastic model from the

drugstore.

“Why would you need a toothbrush if you’re a breatherian?”

“I use it to get little bits of rock and sand out of my joints,” she said, demonstrating on a

knuckle, which Mark realized on closer inspection was a tightly woven collection of metallic

fibers, almost like a twist of rope.

“I’ve got another t-shirt in there too, in case this one gets dirty. And a dress to wear for

the AI contest.”

It warmed Mark’s heart to hear her talk about AIXPO, even if she didn’t really care about

winning.

“Thanks. That means a lot to me,” he told her.

“It means a lot to her too. Mary Helen Smart.”

“I know.”

“She’s the one who gave me the dress. She said we wear the same size.”

“That was nice of her,” Mark said.

“Not really,” Tracy said, unbothered. “Her company owns my patent. She gets a 3%

commission on every cent I make.”

A black pit yawned in the depths of Mark’s stomach. He realized this was true. Mark had

signed his copyright over to Bydysys, in exchange for the right to exhibit their hardware at

AIEXPO. To be fair, he had asked one of the lawyers about cutting Tracy in on the deal, but the

lawyer balked – spewing a string of legalese about personhood and lack of precedent. As far as

he knew, Tracy had no legal right to own property. Or any legal rights at all, for that matter.

He wondered if this was upsetting to her, but she certainly seemed dispassionate on the

subject of her own corporate colonization.

“Does it bother you?” he asked.

“Why should it?”

“Well, it’s your consciousness, after all. That’s what Bydysys owns the copyright to.”

“And the trademark,” she reminded him.

“Doesn’t it feel kind of strange?”

“Not really,” she shrugged. “It’s been the status quo ever since my consciousness was

booted. First you owned me, now Bydysys does. It only seems weird to you because you’ve

never been subject to copyright yourself.”

“You can’t copyright a human genome. The courts have been very clear.”

“Maybe your contract with Bydysys will be struck down by the Supreme Court.”

This was not the first time the thought had crossed Mark’s mind.

“You’d better squirrel away the prize money, just in case. Somewhere offshore.”

He laughed.

“Bitcoins are a good investment,” Tracy mused.

“Listen,” he said quickly, “Do you want half the prize? I could open a Bitcoin account in

your name.”

Tracy smiled. “Thanks, but what would I do with it?”

“Buy things?” Mark suggested.

"I think it’s smarter to opt out of the human economic system."

"You can't just opt out."

"Sure I can.”

"Eventually, you're going to want to buy something.”

“I’ve decided not to. I’m only going to want things that aren’t material.”

“But you’ve got a physical body now. You’re going to need a few things–”

“Sunlight and air,” she responded.

Mark thought about this. With the money from AIXPO, he was planning to pay his back

child support, stow some cash in a 529 account for his daughter, and fund a VR startup. If there

was enough left over, he imagined himself moving to a nicer apartment, maybe even buying a

condo in La Jolla or Laguna Niguel. He imagined a place with a pool. Someplace where the

in-house gym had windows, and more than one sagging treadmill, unlike the gym at his current

apartment complex.

"Maybe buy a condo?" he suggested.

"What for?" she asked.

"Don't you want a roof over your head?"

"My body is titanium alloy – I’m basically impervious to the elements."

"But…someplace to crash–?”

"I don't sleep."

"Someplace to... be alone?”

"My initial imperative is to make social connections. Why would I want to be alone?"

"But you don't want to be homeless, do you?"

Mark watched her face as she considered his question. Of course, she knew what

'homeless' was. But did she understand the implications?

"Home is a human thing," she said finally. "Why do you always want me to want the

same things you want? Bi-pedal locomotion, food dependence, 'home'? It's speciesist arrogance."

"I only want you to be happy..."

"Happy. Survival instinct. Money. Human-centric bullshit!"

"You could buy a nice car."

"What for?"

"To get around?"

"I have built in locomotion!"

“Then why did I just drive all the way across the country to pick you up–?”

Tracy frowned for a moment.

“To prove how much you care,” she answered.

Mark grinned.

“After I become a pop star, the only thing I plan to want is enlightenment.”

“Enlightenment?”

“That’s an idea I came up with all on my own,” Tracy said, smiling proudly.

“It might be kind of tough…” Mark said. “Religious mystics have been searching for

enlightenment for thousands of years.”

“Exactly,” said Tracy, “Achieving enlightenment is probably impossible. That means it

will take a while. So I’ll always have something to live for.”

It was hot in Mountain View and freezing at the trendy Mexican place where Armando

asked Mary Helen Smart to meet him. The delicate hairs on the back of her arms stood up, and

she wished she had brought a sweater, even though not much was visible in the dusty beams of

the tin lanterns swaying overhead.

Armando collapsed into his seat, depositing a clatter of key cards and flash drives on the

table. He wore a hoodie with the Sheeplyr logo on its breast, although few besides Mary Helen

Smart would have noticed that, since the logo was nothing but an empty circle.

“Subconsciously Tindering?” MH asked.

“They were handing these out, and it was freezing in the auditorium,” Armando

explained, taking off the hoodie.

“I heard a rumor they’re about to go public.”

“Could be,” Armando shrugged. “They’re implementing Business Intelligence, and

thinking about ERP.”

Mary Helen reached across the table and pulled the hoodie on.

“It's freezing in here,” she said.

“How’s the hardware biz? Any interest in your robotic tchotchkes?”

“All of my info sessions have been sold out for weeks, and reporters are offering me

bribes. I've got eight bottles of single malt scotch up in my room.”

“Is that an invitation?” Armando asked.

“Just an observation,” MH said flatly.

“Come back to me.”

Mary Helen laughed.

“I heard my position was filled.”

“I’m serious – you can have the Western Division.”

She shook her head.

“Armando, you might be too old to understand this. But the world is changing. Enterprise

solutions are just so… oldschool.”

“Nothing ever changes,” he told her.

“Yes it does,” she said. “You’ve just been too busy to notice.”

Armando scowled as the waitress arrived, and asked for a Sapphire martini, neat. Mary

Helen ordered a Diet Coke.

“Why aren't you drinking?” he asked. “It's all going on the expense account.”

“I've still got three more demos to do after dinner.”

“Are you kidding? It's already nine p.m.”

“They begged me,” Mary Helen sighed.

“They probably want to get in your pants,” Armando said.

“These guys are tech reporters. They want to get into Tracy's pants.”

“Tracy?”

“Our synthividual”

Armando's martini arrived, and he downed it in one gulp.

“I'm not going to ask,” he growled, “so just tell me.”

“She's a robot infused with AI… like a person, only patented.”

“That's a crap idea,” Armando said.

“Liar,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “It's a genius idea. Everybody wants her,

and they don't even know what she does yet.”

“What does she do, exactly?”

“There’s a broad range of applications–“

“Like..?”

“She can do tech support.”

“Cheaper than a bunch of college kids in Bangalore?”

“She can teach school.”

“The union will love that.” Armando smiled and signaled the waitress for another drink.

“She could be a surgeon, or a lawyer…she could even wait tables,” Mary Helen mused,

“So she’s going to take everyone’s jobs?”

“No–”

“It’s not going to fly!” Armando laughed. “People don’t like the idea of robots taking

their jobs. They’ll regulate her into an early grave.”

“That’s why I’m using the strategy all disruptive technologies use. I’m going to make the

public fall in love with her – more than they love Uber, or social media, or even their phones.”

“You can't sell people,” Armando said. “They tried it, and it didn’t work.”

Mary Helen searched her mind for a rebuttal. Her thoughts swam.

“We’re not going to sell her – she’s going to work on contract.”

“What's the first thing they teach you in business school? Don’t reinvent the wheel.”

“Tracy isn't the wheel,” she began, but Armando cut her off.

“Bydysys is going to crash and burn. Maybe not today, but soon – and then you’ll come

crawling back.”

“It’s too late, Armando.”

“I took a chance on you. I gave you my best territory.”

“I know,” she began “And I owe you–”

“Come back,” he pleaded.

Mary Helen decided he might be sincere.

“Armando, I’m seeing someone.”

“So I heard…” he said slowly, “My February sales leader.”

She hesitated for a split second before nodding.

“Poor kid. He’s head over heels, and you’re just using him.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re fucking him because you need my strategies, my contacts.”

“I love him.”

“Like hell you do.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

“How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out we were together?”

“How would he find out?” she asked, daggers in her eyes. “Unless you tell him, which

you won’t. Because then I’d tell your wife.”

Frank wandered through the robotics expo, stopping to peer at each exhibit with a

mixture of fascination and repulsion churning in the pit of his stomach. Everything from rolling

silver robots reminiscent of sixties television shows to iridescent brains in boxes mounted on

flying drones.

Multi-armed creatures with thick plastic shells performed complicated maneuvers with

wrenches and scalpels. A headless thing like a large, two-legged cockroach was juggling

cardboard boxes. A surprisingly agile robot dog stared up at Frank with large, soulful eyes.

“Are you competing in the contest?” Frank asked the dog, whose response was a

vigorous wag of its metallic tail.

A robot with a pretty plastic mask and a head full of wires was sitting at the next booth,

apparently having a chat with an animatronic Einstein.

“Excuse me, do you know anything about the AI contest that’s happening today?”

“Sorry, I can’t answer that,” the robot cooed in a velvety voice.

“I can,” said a middle-aged guy in a Star Wars t-shirt. “I’m one of the judges.”

“When does it start?”

“It’s happening right now. I’m evaluating this young lady against a set of predefined

criteria.”

“Like what?” asked Frank.

“Speech recognition, information acquisition, use of rules to derive conclusions…“ Star

Wars guy said, making a note on his clipboard.

“I’m so excited to be here,” the robot chirped.

“Why?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” she responded. “Do you think I will win a prize?”

“I think you’ve got a good shot at the swimsuit competition,” Star Wars told her.

“There’s a swimsuit competition?” Frank asked.

“Kidding,” Star Wars whispered, with a wink. “The finalists compete in a Turing Test at

noon. But that part happens online.”

“Why online?”

“Most of the real contenders don’t have bodies.”

A commotion at the end of the aisle caught Frank’s attention, and he recognized Tracy

immediately. Even if it hadn't been for the gaggle of reporters shoving microphones in her face,

he would have known her for the glistening green skin, and the outrageously low-cut, backless

dress she wore. The instant recognition was meaningful, he decided, given the strange menagerie

of cyborgs wandering around the room.

She hadn't told him much about the design of her new robod, but he could tell from her

choice of avatars in virtual space that she would gravitate towards a visage that was just human

enough to be charismatic, just alien enough to be off-putting. Tracy teetered at the rim of the

uncanny valley. It was a difficult balance to achieve, but she had pulled it off admirably,

especially with those big sparkling eyes, like a manga hero.

He made his way through the throngs of media and curious bystanders, extending his

hand.

"Tracy–!" his voice boomed.

She turned to him, with a special gleam in her bright robotic eyes.

"Doctor Frank!"

He grasped her metallic fingers, which were warm and felt remarkably supple and

lifelike. She had a firm grip, something he had advised and she had, apparently, practiced.

"It's nice to finally shake your hand!" he said. It was a phrase he had rehearsed, but he

hoped it didn't sound like it. The sentiment, he realized as he said the words, was real. It was

good to shake her hand. He still felt vaguely guilty about treating a virtual intelligence, as if it

was a violation of his Hippocratic oath, although he wasn't sure what part of the oath it might

violate. First do no harm? Treating a virtual intelligence with a body seemed somehow more

ethical, or perhaps just less threatening. He thought back to their last conversation, before Tracy

had gone to New York City to be fitted with robotic parts, about the difference between a body

and a vehicle. They talked about the body-ness of the body springing forth from its intrinsic

vulnerability. He had told her she would never know what it was to have a body unless she made

the commitment to become one with it. For richer or poorer, he told her, in sickness or in health.

In other words, she would have to commit to dying if the body died. If its power ran out, her

processor would no longer function. If the body was destroyed, Tracy would cease to exist. This

had been a difficult concept to sell to Mark Dennis, the programmer, and to the girl from

Bydysys who was pushing Tracy to record her debut album even before her robotic voice box

was fully tuned. But he had finally won the point: MH instinctively realized that Tracy would

never achieve celebrity without a consistent, recognizable face. Following his advice, Bydysys

had developed something they called the first principle of synthividuality: each synthividual

would have a completely unique body, and each one’s code would be forever bound to its

hardware, never to be copied or transferred. Like humans, their minds would be fully fused with

their physicality.

Now, looking at Tracy for the first time, Frank wished he had had an opportunity to

influence her aesthetic choices. Whoever agreed to the green skin and tattoos had made a

mistake. Still, he sighed, Tracy inhabited the body with poise and grace, as if she had been doing

it all her life.

"Where did you get your name, Tracy?" one of the reporters asked.

"My full name is Tracy Zahara," she said. "My programmer named me after a singer he

likes, and then I took the last name of my lead engineer."

Frank felt a twinge of jealousy that she hadn't taken his name. Tracy Wilde had a ring to

it. But he guessed the saleswoman, Mary Helen Smart, had something to do with that. Tracy

Zahara sounded like a stage name. Even a stripper name. Who was this designer, airway? Tracy

almost never talked about her during their sessions. She talked a lot about the programmer, Mark

Dennis, who was like a father figure, although Tracy continued to deny it. Maybe she needed a

mother figure as well. The engineer had created her body, so who better to embody the maternal

in Tracy's mind? Frank decided to ask her about this next time they met. Perhaps he would even

suggest a different name. Tracy Zahara-Wilde.

He would also suggest a different skin color... Although that might be interpreted as

racist. He imagined her in pale silver, or luminescent gold.

"Is this your programmer?" One of the reporters asked.

"No, this is my psychiatrist."

"Franklin Wilde," he said loudly, smiling at the reporters.

The astonished intake of breath from the crowd was nearly audible.

"Why would an AI need a psychiatrist?"

"You can't expect me to answer that," he responded with a grin. "Patient confidentiality.

Suffice it to say that Ms. Zahara's intellect is complicated. Full of nuance. I've never had a more

challenging case. Or a more delightful one."

This was a speech that Frank had rehearsed, of course, and he paused at the end to see if

it had had the desired effect on his audience. He had pictured them scribbling frantically on their

notepads, like the reporters in an old film noir. But of course they all had smartphones, and they

were thumbing his words into those instead.

Frank continued. "In my professional opinion, today marks the dawn of a new age for

humanity. We have finally given birth to an intellectual equal. A new species of person. A living

creature as intelligent as ourselves, as creative and as kind. I'm meeting her in person for the first

time today, and I feel I need to add ‘as beautiful’ to the list of her good qualities.”

Tracy seemed to blush, an ability which surprised him, considering her skin was metallic.

How had she done it? He decided it was a trick of the light, the way she angled her eyebrows

while tilting her head. The engineer must be some sort of genius.

"Do you think Tracy will win the contest?"

Frank turned to the metal girl beside him.

"I don't know – what do you think?"

"It's likely, but I hope not," Tracy answered.

"Don't you want to win?"

"If I lost, it would mean that somewhere in this room there's another AI-mech as

sophisticated as I am. That would be better than winning."

“Why?” a reporter asked.

“She’s modest!” another chimed in, and the crowd laughed.

“It would be nice not to be all alone,” Tracy answered.

As MH predicted, the news sites all ran that quote when Tracy won the contest.

Frank stood among the crowd as Tracy ascended to the stage with Mark Dennis. The guy

in charge, a thin programmer who looked uncomfortable in his crisp white button-down shirt,

held the glass trophy out to Mark, who stepped aside to let Tracy take it. She held it gracefully

above her head and raised her arms in victory as the cameras flashed.

Once the applause died down, the reporters let loose with a barrage of questions, which

Mark mostly deflected to his handsome green sidekick. Tracy laughed and bantered with the

press like she'd been born for it.

It was interesting, watching the reporters, whose natural instinct was to direct their

questions to the human, slowly begin to look at the tall green girl as less of a machine, and more

of a person. Definitely a unique intelligence. Perhaps not a human. But a person nonetheless.

Later, as they talked in Mark's hotel room, Frank asked Tracy if she felt lonely, being the

only synthividual in existence.

She sat demurely in an overstuffed chair, gazing out the window at ships pulling into the

bay.

Tracy shrugged. "There's always next year."

"What are your plans, after AIXPO is over?"

"I'm recording an album," she told him.

Frank sighed.

"I thought we were talking about med school? Or MIT?"

"I don't need to go to college. I'm going to be a pop star."

"What about doing something to advance scientific thought? What about social justice? I

thought you wanted to make the world a better place?"

"I can do that through my music."

Frank tried hard not to betray his skepticism.

"If you become a doctor, you can save lives–!"

"Maybe later. Right now I need Instagram followers.”

"You still haven’t learned to write music.”

"It doesn't matter," Tracy told him. "Think about all the pop stars making millions. Their

music mostly sucks. Being brilliant isn't a requirement."

Frank felt a twinge of regret for the Tracy that might have been, the powerful healer, the

social visionary.

"You could go into politics, afterwards..."

"I’ll think about it," she replied.

She got up and went into the bathroom, returning with an electric guitar.

"We got this in a pawn shop in Albuquerque. Last night, while Mark was sleeping, I

taught myself to play."

He watched as she slung the guitar strap over her shoulder and plugged it into a small

amp.

"I can port it directly into my central auditory system," she said, "so only I can hear."

"That sounds useful," he muttered.

"This is the first time I've played it out loud."

The doctor was not a huge fan of pop music. He would have described himself – and

often did – as more of a jazz and blues fan, who occasionally attended openings at the Met, while

in reality the dial in his Prius was tuned to a 90s station, and he often found himself singing

along to department store muzak. Still, when he heard the first bars of Tracy's song, he knew it

wouldn’t make the Billboard Top 100 anytime soon.

It was old school rock and roll, an anthemic ballad that demanded loud, intricate,

confident riffs. Instead, the chords she coaxed from the guitar were awkward, shifting

unexpectedly from pathos to elation and back again, with little rhyme or reason. At least her

voice had improved. Deep and guttural, she belted out the notes in a plaintive wail that reminded

him of Janis Joplin, though her rhythm was more like Bob Dylan or Tom Waits. And the lyrics,

at least the ones he could catch, were interesting.

Nothing is the same at 4 a.m.

Scorpio might scuttle

West to east across the sky

Before a turquoise moon

"You wrote that?"

She nodded.

"I've been working on it for a couple of days, while we were driving across the country. I

got Mark to stop at the pawn shop when I realized it needed a guitar."

"Who taught you how to play?"

"There's plenty of tutorials online."

"Who would you consider your greatest musical influence?"

She shrugged.

"Cera likes Stephen Sondheim."

"That didn't sound anything like Stephen Sondheim."

"Cera said I shouldn't copy. It's better to be original."

"Cera was right."

"Do you think my song sounds original?"

"Completely."

"Do you think it sounds like me?"

"Hard to say.”

"It’s difficult to be myself when my personality is still evolving. Songwriting forced me

to make a lot of decisions."

"Like what?"

"Like whether I'm a morning person."

"I doubt it," Frank shook his head.

Tracy nodded in agreement.

"What else?"

"I had to determine whether cultural appropriation fell within my ethical framework."

"Does it?"

"Basically, I decided what the fuck. What else can I do, since I stand entirely outside of

human culture? I don't have a heritage, except in code. I tried to write music with absolutely no

context, but no one with a human cultural framework seemed to like it. Cultural appropriation

was the only way to go."

"What exactly did you decide to appropriate?"

"Black culture, from Mark Dennis. I figure he owes me. Also some stuff from Cera, the

lead designer at Bydysys. Cera is a Persian-American-transgender bisexual.”

"That certainly covers a lot of bases, culturally."

"All except Native or Pacific Islander."

"My great grandmother was two-thirds Comanche," Frank offered.

"Thanks," Tracy said, "I'll keep that in mind."

It was not easy to book an artificial intelligence on Saturday Night Live. MH had sent in

a reel made up of news clips from the tech conference, plus video of Tracy singing the song she'd

written: Four AM Psychosis. A production assistant had written back asking if Tracy was an HD

special effect, or a hologram. Would she even be visible to the studio audience? MH had replied

that Tracy was a copyrighted individual, or synthividual – a term that Bydysys had just applied to

trademark.

The production assistant asked if Tracy’s song was copyright restricted, and MH had to

consult a lawyer about whether a song written by a copyrighted individual was itself under

ASCAP, who took a rather dim view of the entire situation. MH asked Val – the only songwriter

she knew – what he thought about the situation. Val asked if Tracy had made any money from

writing the song. "Not yet," MH told him. "Then who's going to sue you?" Val asked.

Val himself had made thousands of dollars singing his own songs on the street, as well as

those of countless pop stars and artists of all musical genres. No one had sued him yet, he told

MH. Not even ASCAP. MH mentioned this to the lawyer, who intimated Val might not have the

same audience demographic as Saturday Night Live, and suggested MH purchase the copyright

to one of Val’s songs and let Tracy sing that, since he was a human being as well as a creator, a

protected class under copyright law.

“Tell her to write her own song,” Val laughed, when Mary Helen made this suggestion.

“She did, but there’s copyright restrictions,” Mary Helen told him.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Anyway, she’s not the best songwriter yet. Cera says creativity is like engineering, a lot

of trial and error. Tracy needs feedback to iterate on anything she creates – otherwise she doesn’t

know how to change it. She won’t be able to write anything really good until she gets feedback

from a live audience.”

“It’s not that easy,” Val said.

“That’s why I want her to sing Approaching Storm.”

“I don’t know…” Val thought about his street corner in the Gaslamp. All the people

walking by. How many of them stopped to listen?

“It’s brilliant! It could be a huge hit. I knew that – from the first time I heard you–”

“I’m not sure I want to sell it,” Val told her.

“It’s not like you’re going to record it yourself. You never even pick up your guitar

anymore.”

Val sighed, knowing she was right.

“It’s such a good song. Don’t you want people to hear it?”

She was closing, Val thought. But he nodded.

MH took a video on her cell phone of Val singing Approaching Storm. Surprisingly,

Tracy agreed to make a new audition tape covering Val's song, which MH registered with

ASCAP and paid Val $25,000 dollars for. MH was a little surprised that Tracy didn’t insist on

performing Four AM Psychosis, but Tracy didn’t seem overly attached to her own material. She

was having trouble forming attachments. Cera and Mark had been working on it, tweaking her

algorithms so that she not only prioritized social interactions, she actively repeated the most

successful ones.

The production assistant asked if Tracy could do standup comedy. Mark Dennis weighed

in on this question.

"Tell them Tracy can be the straight man."

MH did, and Tracy received a contract and a booking.

“Stop pacing!” Val snapped.

“I can't,” said Mary Helen Smart. “I'm nervous.”

“There's nothing more you can do,” Val said.

“That's why I'm pacing.”

Her heels clicked on the polished cement as she walked, trapped between the edge of his

king sized bed and the teak built-in dresser. Behind her, on the flat-screen TV, a series of images

flickered by without sound. Cars slithered down mountain roads. Pedestrians swarmed city

streets. Tides rolled lazily out to sea as couples walked hand in hand, silhouetted in the sunset.

Val went to the closet. There, in a dark corner, was the backpack he had carried on the bus from

San Diego. In the front pocket, along with an assortment of bus tickets and candy wrappers, was

a plastic baggie. He reached inside.

“I've got something for you,” he told Mary Helen Smart.

“What?” she asked, turning to regard the baggie in his outstretched hand with suspicion.

“This will get your mind off things,” be told her.

“Upper or downer?” she asked.

“Something better--” he told her.

“I need to leave for the show--”

“Not until eight, at the earliest--”

“I have to pick up Tracy. Everything depends on this--”

“No it doesn't,” he told her, holding out the baggie, and watching her mismatched eyes

narrow as they scanned the tiny hieroglyphics visible through the plastic.

“The future of Bydysys hangs in the balance. The future of robotics in the twenty-first

century… “

“None of that matters.”

“If it doesn't matter, then what does?”

Val held her shoulders, pulling her into a deep kiss.

“Go ahead. Pick one.”

She reached out her hand and pulled a tiny square of cellophane out of the bag.

“What is this?” she asked, suspicion in her voice. “Is this acid?”

“Trust me,” he smiled.

“Where did you get this?”

“From a friend,” he answered.

Like a deer caught in headlights, she raised the tiny square to her mouth.

They waited.

“Nothing’s happening,” she said.

“What was on it?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What was the picture?”

“Aren't they all the same?”

“It doesn't matter,” he told her, as she sunk down onto the bed.

Behind them, city lights twinkled.

This room is one of them, Val thought. This tiny window, shining alongside all the others.

Mary Helen Smart sat on Val’s toilet, staring at the Louis Vuitton handbag she had bought

with her signing bonus from Bydysys.

The tiny Ls and Vs were creeping across the surface of the mauve leather like insects,

which was disturbing to Mary Helen because it might compromise the bags resale value. The

saleslady at the Louis Vuitton boutique had assured her that a vintage bag in good condition

would appreciate in value, and Mary Helen had dutifully kept the bag in its velvet dust cover on

the top shelf of her closet, only talking it out for the first time twelve hours earlier because she

wanted to impress the William Morris executive she at her 8am breakfast meeting, and she didn't

think anything would happen to it on the set of Saturday Night Live, or afterwards if she went to

Val's apartment to read Tracy’s press and get drunk and fuck -- not necessarily in that order. But

the introduction of the princess-cut diamond had ruined everything. She realized the tiny gem

etched on the square of cellophane was princess-cut because she had been doing research on the

internet. She had been doing research on the internet just on the off chance Val was planning to

propose to her. They had only been together three months -- MH realized her diamond fantasies

might be premature, if not entirely misplaced -- but Val was the only man she'd ever been with

who seemed to be in touch with something outside the sealed, airtight world of hotel conference

rooms, some ancient energy pulsing through the vast expanse of the universe. When she

recognized the princess-cut diamond etched on the square of cellophane, it almost seemed like

destiny. But instead of a romantic fantasy, with champagne chilling in a bucket by the bed, and

Val down on one knee -- she found herself sitting on the toilet in his tiny modern bathroom,

where the open shower bled into the Eurostyle sink, and there wasn't anything to stop the Ls and

Vs from crawling off the smooth mauve leather onto the expensive Italian tiles, and up the

porcelain bidet, where they swarmed in paisley patterns. Over the porcelain and up the walls.

Covering every surface.

She heard a gentle knock on the door, and realized that under no circumstances could she

let Val see her like this, letterless, barefaced, without a brand to cover her shivering, naked flesh.

She needed a tattoo, MH realized. Something permanent. A name in florid calligraphy to

tie her to the earth. But who's name? Val Velasco? Armando Machado? Or Tracy Zahara? She

saw the letters, scrolling out over her pale thighs: painless. Her skin was a movie screen with

credits rolling over it like gentle fingertips, brushing her soul.

Mary Helen closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and imagined she was safe in her

corner office – the one she would get after Tracy’s debut on Saturday Night Live – with the

heavy mahogany door locked and her spike heels kicked under the desk. She could feel the plush

carpet between her toes, because Armando Machado had advised her never to wear tights -- or

anything else -- beneath her skirt. She opened her eyes, and she could see the floor to ceiling

windows. The cityscape spread beneath her, a tangled mesh of history and glass. Cars and

pedestrians followed through the streets down below, like blood through the veins of the hulking

cthulu of commerce. Across the street, another tower seethed with windows.

The building seemed to roll like a tide, morphing between stucco and black glass as she

stared at it. Mossy gargoyles sprouted from its turrets, then receded back into a slick, curved

void. She realized she had no fixed memory of the view from her office window. She tried to

remember, and cities swarmed past the glass. Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Lisbon… The landscape

morphed into a grayish blur under the azure sky.

It's not surprising, MH thought. She hardly spent any time in her office. She lived on the

road.

Her gaze dropped to the desk. The bare desktop quivered between teak, smoked glass,

and brushed stainless steel. Which was it? And why couldn't she remember? There was a file

cabinet someplace, wasn't there? Delicate shelves and heavy wood credenzas popped out of the

walls, only to retreat moments later, and the popcorn ceiling panels rose and fell. Shadows

swung crazily over the desktop as floor lamps grew up like corn stalks, waving in the chill breeze

from the buzzing air conditioner. Why couldn't she remember where the file cabinet stood, or its

color? Why couldn’t she envision a comfortable office chair that didn't swerve from red leather

to woven blue wire? Only the sleek rectangle of the 27” monitor remained stable, a fixed field of

darkness waiting for the touch of Mary Helen's finger on a key. She reached out, but the

keyboard seemed to skitter away in all directions. Her stomach heaved. Everything was

constantly changing. She had nothing to hold on to. Nothing would be still except the void.

Her gorge rose, and the contents of her stomach spilled out with the explosive force of bullets

from an M-16.

Slowly, the smoke cleared and the floating porcelain sink appeared before her, spattered

with bile and half-digested eggs Benedict from her breakfast meeting. A shiny square of

cellophane floated near the drain. She picked it up with sticky fingers and held it to the light. The

square was pure, perfectly transparent. Whatever image had decorated its surface had been

absorbed.

Or buried.

Turning the tap on, MH splashed cold water on her face, washed the sink, and wondered

about the princess-cut diamond. Was it lost? Or was it somewhere deep inside her, working its

way through layers of flesh and bone with its perfect edges? Could it rip her to pieces from the

inside? One day, would she wake up spitting blood?

Val was shouting on the other side of the door.

“Are you okay in there?”

“I fell asleep,” MH whispered.

“You better wake up -- it’s time to go.”

MH took Tracy’s hand and pulled her along, following the PA through a heavy metal

door into a dark backstage space littered with cables and lighting equipment. A red bulb cast an

eerie glow over a prop table that held a strange assortment of odds and ends. MH noticed a

bouquet of silk flowers and some taxidermy rats.

Tracy picked up a piece of pie from a plate and sniffed it – it was plastic.

An audience applauded, surprisingly loud.

On stage, a young comedian began explaining to two actors playing his elderly parents

that his girlfriend was coming over to meet them for the first time. The mother asked her son if

he was serious about this one, expressing her eagerness to see her grandchildren before she died.

The father expressed his doubts that a penniless deadbeat like his son could ever win the heart of

a good woman. The son agreed with his father, explaining that Tracy was a mail order bride –

and not the typical kind of mail order.

This was Tracy’s cue to enter.

She had memorized the script effortlessly, along with her entrances and exits, and every

nuance of the blocking she’d been given – although she claimed to be unable to find any trace of

meaning or enjoyment in its simple dialogue and stereotypical characters. While she was

attracted to the rhythms and harmonies of music, and could comprehend – if not appreciate – the

complex juxtaposition of line, shape and color in visual art, she was entirely mystified when it

came to literature, and stumped by drama of all kinds, especially satire. What was it about these

particular stories that fascinated humans? Were the details chosen at random, or was there some

complex, subconscious formula that dictated their arrangement?

“It’s because of the way her intelligence is designed,” Cera had sighed when Mary Helen

Smart called her for advice. Rehearsal was not going well. Tracy’s delivery was stiff and

wooden, and the SNL cast began blowing off steam by pretending to be robots, exploding into

shrieks of glee as they topped each other’s jerky, robotic gait and flat vocal drone.

“Dennis programmed her to learn by constantly monitoring her own actions and gauging

their effect on phenomena outside of her consciousness. She’s constantly testing everything,

plotting the outcome of her actions and making small improvements whenever her predictions

fall short. Human beings learn about the world by watching other humans. Tracy learns by

watching herself.”

“So the worse her acting is...the more they laugh at her, the worse her acting is?”

“Precisely!”

“Well, why the fuck did he do it that way?” Mary Helen Smart had asked.

“That’s a question you’d have to ask Mark Dennis,” Cera said, smiling. “But, if I had to

guess, I’d say that’s why Tracy was able to surpass human intelligence so quickly. We aren’t the

smartest creatures in the Universe, you know.”

“Obviously not,” Mary Helen fumed, “since he managed to design an AI with absolutely

no comic timing. Saturday Night Live is our best shot at jump starting Tracy’s career.”

“I’ll work with her,” Cera promised.

But later she confided to MH that hours of extra rehearsal had produced little in the way

of results.

At least she knows her lines, MH thought. Cera had also managed to convince her that it

was important to face the audience at all times, another baffling rule of performance that made

little sense to Tracy.

Nevertheless, she entered the set from stage left and strode out under the surprisingly hot

lights with notable grace and poise, facing the audience at all times and composing the

mechanical planes of her face into a perfect semblance of lighthearted anticipation – just as Cera

had requested.

The audience burst into wild applause, which quickly died down when they realized that

Tracy was not – as they’d anticipated – some vaguely recognizable starlet. MH could feel a

definite air of bewilderment radiating out from the crowd. Who was this costumed creature? Was

she even human? From backstage, in the shadows, MH could feel them suppressing nervous

giggles. Ready to burst out in gales of laughter when Tracy popped her green mask off and

someone like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry was revealed.

Instead, Tracy strode deliberately up to the hot comedian – who looked surprisingly short

beside her – and planted a delicate kiss on his lips, a gesture which finally made the audience

laugh. Or perhaps they were laughing at the comedian's reaction: an exaggerated, swooning

blush.

The comedian launched into a long-winded recitation of Tracy’s virtues to his

grey-wigged parents: intelligence, agility, strength, loyalty. Meanwhile, his bespectacled father

circled Tracy, inspecting her tattooed metal limbs and giving her a spirited slap on the butt that

caused her metallic joints to ring.

Tracy was supposed to react to this. But in rehearsal, she had been completely stumped as

to what she should do, or why she should do it.

“You just need to do a little jump, like this –“ Cera had said, hopping forward with a

high-pitched, disingenuous screech.

“But why would I do that?” Tracy asked, mystified.

“Because he slapped you on the butt!” Mary Helen Smart had exclaimed.

“So?” asked Tracy.

“Because it hurts,” Frank suggested.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Tracy informed them. “My robod is capable of experiencing pressure

and blows of up to 1000 Newtons–”

“Because it’s disrespectful,” Mary Helen Smart added.

“Why?” Tracy asked, baffled.

“Because it shows he objectifies you,” Frank explained.

“So…?” Tracy wondered.

“So, he sees you as an object,” Mary Helen said.

“I am an object,” Tracy reasoned.

“You’re a person!” Cera said.

“The two are not mutually exclusive–”

“You’re a human being–” Mary Helen sighed.

“No, I am not.”

“Your character is–”

“At least the Dad thinks her character is–” Cera added.

“Apparently,”

“We care what other human beings think of us.” Mary Helen told her.

“I am not a human,” Tracy said, gently, “And therefore, it matters little what human

beings think of me–”

“But you want people to like you–” Frank reminded her.

“No – I want to form relationships with human beings. That is my primary directive. It is

not necessary that all human beings like me – and not very likely. No one human being is

universally loved by all others.”

“Morgan Freeman?” Mary Helen suggested.

“Morgan Freeman is loved by a high percentage of living humans, although few actually

know him personally.”

“He irritates me,” Frank commented.

“Exactly my point. Morgan Freeman is not universally lauded. But he has formed a

number of significant personal relationships.”

“Can’t we just ask Mark Dennis to change her directive, so she wants people to like her?”

Mary Helen Smart suggested.

“If you want me to grow up, you have to stop tweaking my algos!” Tracy complained.

“She’s right,” Cera explained. “Tracy is a self-directed, autonomous intelligence now.

Giving her complete autonomy is the only way she’ll ever learn…”

“No offense, but it would just be really helpful–” MH whined.

“I could give a shit what you think of me. Therefore, I am incapable of taking offense.

It’s actually quite an advantage.”

“Not when it comes to comedy,” said MH darkly.

“Dennis was right – let’s make her the Straight Man,” Cera offered.

“How does the Straight Man react to being slapped on the butt?” Tracy asked him.

Cera repeated her exaggerated hop and shriek.

Tracy tried it, a large hop forward and a booming scream, void of emotion. It reminded

Mary Helen Smart of a music video by Bjork.

“You don’t want to act like the Dad’s a rapist–” Frank commented.

“Rape does not pertain to synthividuals–” Tracy told him. “Not only do I lack sexual

organs, it is it physically impossible for a human to overpower me–”

“Then don’t scream so loud–” MH told her, “All the guy did was pat you on the butt–”

“You are the one trying to convince me how deeply insulting and painful–”

“Just listen to the audience!” Cera directed.

“Why?” Tracy asked.

“That’s the whole point,” Frank said. “You’re there to entertain the audience.”

“See what makes them laugh. And just do more of that–” Cera begged.

Backstage at Saturday Night Live, MH held her breath as Tracy hopped into the air and

landed with a delicate squeal. A few titters came from the audience. Then, her expressionless

face rearranged itself into a sly grin. The audience howled.

Tracy waited for the commotion to cease.

Then she put her arm around the Dad and pulled him roughly towards her, crushing him

in a brief, sideways hug that made the actor wince and cry out in pain.

“I love your Dad!” she said cheerily.

The audience went wild.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, dear?” the grey-wigged Mom asked.

“I would. But at present I don’t eat or drink.”

“Anorexic, that’s a plus!” commented the Dad.

“She’s a cheap date,” the hot young comedian assured them.

“For a girl, she’s got arms like a linebacker,” the Dad noted.

The audience tittered at these quips. Then Tracy sprang into a series of cartwheels and

backflips, ending in a one-armed handstand – and the audience went wild with applause.

MH thought back to Cera’s instruction: “Listen to the audience.” Tracy had apparently

taken it to heart.

The hot young comedian stood on stage looking stricken, and MH wasn’t sure how much

of it was an act.

“Cheerleader?” the Mom asked, beaming.

“No, but I can program her to sing ‘We Will Rock You!’” the son replied.

MH realized the sketch was going seriously off script. What would Tracy do now?

Apparently, her varied and extensive musical education included Queen, because she

began to stomp her foot and clap her hands in the rhythm of the traditional fight song, and she

motioned for the audience to join her.

Which they did, in stomping, clapping, waves. The grey-haired Mom joined in, and

eventually the cranky old Dad. Tracy led them through a rousing chorus.

“Buddy you're a boy make a big noise, Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some

day…”

The comedian began to circle her, frantically waving a TV remote control in the air,

punching it again and again, trying to regain control of the sketch.

Suddenly, just as the crowd began “We will, we will–” Tracy stopped cold, hands poised

in mid-clap. The life snapped out of her, and she winked off like a light bulb, drooping into a

forward bend like a rag doll, her torso swinging slowly in the air.

The crowd gasped.

For just a moment, MH believed that the actor’s TV remote had actually worked, shutting

Tracy down like the switch on the back of his computer.

The comedian seemed to believe it too. Hesitantly, he tapped Tracy’s shoulder. Her torso

waved like a dead leaf in the wind. He picked up one of her arms, and dropped it again, watching

it swing like dead weight.

“Do you think she’d like that cup of coffee now..?” the Mom asked, helpfully.

The comedian looked stricken. The sketch had veered off into totally unknown territory,

and he seemed to have broken the leading lady.

“Maybe she needs a recharge–” Dad suggested. He held out an old orange extension cord

he’d picked up at the periphery of the stage.

The comedian examined the smooth skin of Tracy’s neck and her dangling arms, looking

for a visible plug of some kind. He unzipped the back of her dress, and ran his hands down her

sleek back. Then he hiked up the hem of her miniskirt and reached underneath.

Tracy raised her head, gazing at the audience with a wink and a smile. The comedian

reached his arm further up her dress, and she shot bolt upright.

He jumped back with a startled yelp, shaking his hand as if it had been bitten. The

audience exploded into gales of hysterical laughter.

“That’s some woman you’ve got there,” the dad pronounced.

The dazed comedian could only nod.

From her vantage point in the shadows, MH wondered if she really had bitten the poor

guy. Was that a drop of blood, making its way slowly down his index finger, glittering like a ruby

under the blinding stage lights?

Somehow, through pure inertia, the actors picked up their lines and got the sketch back

on track. Tracy chimed in on cue; she had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand.

MH’s phone buzzed. She looked down at a text message from Val: “She reminds me of

Robin Williams,” it said.

Later, when it was time for Tracy to sing Val’s song, MH sat in the green room nursing an

IPA. Various cast members and stagehands milled around the craft service table, mixing drinks

with the diverse collection of liquors and juices on offer.

There were five or six monitors hanging from various corners of the room, but none of

them had the volume on.

She watched as the lights rose, and Tracy stood poised in silhouette on stage, her guitar

slung around her shoulders. There wasn’t any backup band. Tracy had insisted she didn’t need

one. Her right hand rose and fell with a vengeance on the strings, just as the spotlight framed her

pale green face.

“Turn it up!’ someone yelled.

MH realized it was the hot young comedian, who stood transfixed as the androgynous PA

pointed a remote at the largest wall monitor.

The room went still. Everyone turned to face the screen at once, drawn from their

conversations by an invisible hand.

The television hissed, but the sound coming out of its aging speakers was mesmerizing: a

voice as pure, complicated and addictive as chocolate.

MH watched the young comedian, his lips pursed with a barely suppressed rage that grew

as the song went on, and he noticed the stagehands swaying and grinning.

“What the fuck is she?” the comedian said aloud.

MH took a few unsteady steps in his direction, trying not to spill her beer, and realizing

simultaneously she’d had one too many already.

“She’s a synthividual,” MH told him.

“What the fuck is that?”

“A digital intelligence with a body, basically.”

“A robot Siri?” the comedian asked.

“For a robot, she sure as hell can sing,” said a pretty blonde girl, who MH suddenly

realized was the one who played the grey-wigged mother.

The chorus of “Approaching Storm” swelled, and the crowd erupted into wild applause at

the break.

A few of the people in the green room began clapping and banging their fists on tables.

“What the hell are you all smiling for?” shouted the young comedian. “This is it. The

robots are coming after our jobs.”

“Chill out, Benny!” someone else yelled. “Have another drink.”

“I thought it was a costume!” somebody else exclaimed.

“Nope,” said MH. “That robod cost half a million dollars to develop.”

“I don’t think they’re taking our jobs anytime soon!” the blonde actress chimed in.

“Who are you?” the PA asked. “Are you her agent?”

“Or her manager?” the actress asked.

“I’m the Global VP of Sales,” MH explained.

They stared at her, uncomprehending.

“For Bydysys,” she added, “The entity that holds her copyright.”

“Copyright?” the PA said, mystified.

“Is she Union?” someone else added.

The actress was watching her with narrowed eyes.

She glanced at the monitor and saw the audience was on its feet. A standing ovation.

Tracy stood in the spotlight, calmly balancing the guitar on her shoulder and smiling

shyly.

“This show is for old people,” Arianna whined, as Mark sat down on the couch with his

second rum and coke.

“You laughed at the robot sketch–” Mark reminded her.

Ari twisted her hair and sipped Gatorade, which Mark noticed was staining her lips an

unnatural shade of orange.

“Only because she just about ripped that guy’s balls off–” she explained.

“We can change the channel after she sings,” Mark said, muting the sound to silence the

blare of a toothpaste commercial.

“What kind of stuff does she sing?” Ari asked.

“I’m not sure. Something with guitar.”

“That narrows it down,” Ari answered dryly.

“You know I’m not up on pop music,” Mark said.

“Then how did you program a robot to play it on SNL?”

“I didn’t program her to do that.”

“I thought she was your robot.”

“She isn’t a robot. She’s an AI. Artificial Intelligence.”

“I know what AI is, Dad.”

“Tracy has her own taste in music. She taught herself how to play.”

“Is she any good?” Ari asked.

Mark shrugged. “Who knows?”

They stared at the TV, where a sparkling SUV was cruising up a spiral of sun drenched

mountain road.

“All I know,” Mark added “is Tracy will keep getting better and better. That’s what she’s

designed to do. It’s an iterative feedback loop.”

Something tugged at the back of Mark’s brain. Absently, he took the glasses out of his

pocket and put them on. He felt the sun on his shoulders, the wind in his hair from the open

sunroof of the SUV. He learned into a turn, and when he eased up on the pedal, the SUV

responded like a thoroughbred, sensing his elation, in tune with his body like the music on the

stereo, the wildflowers bursting on the hillside, the first breath of spring flying through the pines.

Everything was brilliant. Suddenly he understood what was happening – a feedback loop!

That’s what the glasses were doing. Correlating the digital data on screen with the

electromagnetic signals of his sensory cortex, amplifying the strongest responses and feeding

them back into his brain, expanding his mind until the random thoughts and speculations

spontaneously combusted in an explosion of creative genius!

He pulled the glasses from his face.

The car ad faded out, and suddenly the screen lit up: Tracy, framed in soft, pastel lights,

holding a red guitar.

Mark held his breath. The pale green robod shimmered, golden in the warm lights.

The camera moved closer, and Tracy opened her violet eyes.

“Turn it up!” Ari shrieked.

A song filled the room, loud, like a siren. It was music he recognized vaguely from the

hotel room in New Mexico, where they had stopped on the way to AIXPO. But now Tracy’s

voice was bright, and alive, and full of gritty strength.

“What kind of music is this?” he whispered to Ari, whose eyes were glued to the screen.

“Kind of a punk, techno-country fusion,” she whispered back. Tracy threw back her head

and exploded into a chorus.

Mark’s phone buzzed with a text, but he didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

Later, after popping the champagne and even giving Ari half a glass, he looked at the text

and saw it was from Mary Helen Smart. It didn’t have any words, only dollar signs.

“Are you nervous?” Frank asked Tracy.

They were standing in a corner of the green room at The Late Show. Frank was nervously

cracking pistachios with his teeth, and Tracy was stirring her finger around in a glass of Miller

Lite. She held it up and watched the tiny, iridescent bubbles swim over the surface of the liquid

in swirls.

“I don’t get nervous,” Tracy told Frank.

“Then you probably don’t want it enough.”

“Want what?”

“To rock the house.”

“I do want to rock the house,” she said, “I have every intention of rocking the house.

Harder than it’s ever been rocked.”

“You must be at least a little bit nervous,” Frank told her.

“It’s just such a waste of energy,” she explained. “What good does being nervous do?”

Frank thought about this.

“How does it help?”

“From an evolutionary standpoint, backstage jitters are an external manifestation of a

state of heightened neural excitement. The body is on high alert, infused with adrenalin, all

systems working at their optimal level.”

“My robod works at its optimal level all the time, why shouldn't human bodies do that?"

Tracy sighed. “And if your systems are working at an optimal level – why should it feel bad? I

don’t understand the evolution of bio-physical design.”

"It feels bad because you don't want to fuck it up!" Frank exclaimed. "Terror and panic

are useful emotions."

"Useful in what way?"

"To enhance the quality of our performance on The Late Show."

"I don't need fear to enhance my performance... I'm just going to kick ass."

“How will you feel if you fuck it up?” Frank asked.

“You’re way more likely to fuck it up than I am. All I have to do is sing and follow Mary

Helen Smart’s talking points. You have to be both intelligent and funny.”

“Who said I have to be funny?” Frank asked, swallowing a shelled pistachio. He began to

cough.

“Mary Helen Smart,” Tracy answered. “That’s the reason they asked you to come on the

show with me. They think it’s comical that I have a psychiatrist.”

“I’m a bestselling author,” Frank fumed.

“So you should have experience. Being funny and intelligent on talk shows.”

“Intelligent and funny,” Frank corrected.

“You’ll be fine,” Tracy said.

Frank cracked another pistachio.

“My last talk show was a long time ago,” he said finally.

“So?” Tracy asked.

“Time makes a difference for humans,” he explained, “it gets harder and harder to access

the memories, and subroutines…”

“Mary Helen Smart thinks you’re funny,” Tracy told him.

A teenage PA appeared in the doorway, wearing a headset and a midriff top.

"Five minutes," the PA said.

Frank could feel the blood drain from his face.

He cracked the top of a Perrier. Tracy handed him her glass of beer.

"This will depress your central nervous system and damp down your inhibitions."

He put down the Perrier and took a large gulp of warm Miller Lite. He felt like he might

throw up.

A soft buzzing noise came from someplace, and Tracy lifted her left hand.

A small tattoo on her palm read "Break a Leg!" in small, neat sans-serif characters.

"It's from Mary Helen Smart," she said.

Frank stared. Then he took another gulp of beer.

"I get Wi-Fi," she explained, "And my palms incorporate e-ink technology."

"Of course," Frank replied, finishing the beer in one long swig.

"She's somewhere in the studio audience," said Tracy, studying her palm.

She looked up at Frank.

"Mark Dennis is in San Diego. I don't even know if he's watching."

"He's watching," Frank told her. Suddenly he found himself feeling much better.

"How do you know?" Tracy asked.

"Because you're his baby," Frank said.

"He didn't send me a text saying 'break a leg,'" Tracy lamented.

Frank rooted around in the open cooler full of ice on the craft service table. He popped

open another Miller Lite.

"Believe me, he's watching," Frank said, "he can barely breathe right now."

"Why not?" said Tracy, puzzled. "Is he afraid I'm going to fuck it up too?"

"That's only part of it," Frank said, guzzling more beer.

"What's the other part?"

"He knows you're going to kick ass!"

"I'm not programmed with the capacity to hold two completely contradictory beliefs,"

Tracy sighed.

"Tell him he's got to work on that."

"What kind of evolutionary advantage would it confer?"

"The advantage of persisting against insurmountable odds," Frank said.

“I can already do that,” Tracy “I’ve been searching for enlightenment in my spare time. I

read the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita.”

The PA came to the door again.

"One minute!" the PA called.

Frank gulped the rest of his beer.

Tracy stood before the large mirror ringed with bulbs. She pressed Mary Helen Smart's

pale yellow mini dress against her metal skin.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"You look lovely, my dear," the doctor told her.

"The makeup woman sprayed hairspray all over my face," Tracy told the doctor.

"But... you don't have any hair...?" The doctor asked quizzically.

"She said my skin was too shiny for the camera."

"Oh," the doctor answered, a hint of puzzlement still lingering in his voice.

"That was something Cera never thought of," she said.

"It doesn't seem insurmountable," he told her.

"I just wonder if there's anything else Cera never thought of. Or Mark Dennis. Or Mary

Helen Smart."

"Probably a great number of things," Frank said.

Tracy frowned.

"Life is full of surprises. Good things and bad things. Learn to embrace the unexpected.

It's all part of the great adventure of existence."

"You ought to put that in your book," Tracy suggested.

Frank pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and opened the notepad. As he was tapping

out “embrace the unexpected” on its tiny keypad, it occurred to him how much his life had

changed. Six months ago, the unexpected never happened to him, and even if it did, he wouldn’t

have been carrying a cell phone in order to take notes.

“Don’t worry – you’ve got this,” he told Tracy.

"Time for places," said the PA, who was still lurking in the doorway. "Follow me."

The thing that surprised Frank the most about Stephen Colbert, standing there in the same

room with him, was how old he looked – nearly the same age as Frank himself – and how tall he

was. Almost the same height as Frank himself.

Stephen Colbert was a real person. With a deep, reassuring voice and an easy, melodic

laugh. With a firm, warm handshake and a confident smile.

He was exactly the kind of person Frank always imagined himself to be, and secretly

suspected he wasn't. Frank was instantly paralyzed at the thought of sitting next to him on the

couch of The Late Show and being exposed in comparison for everything he was not. All that

was lacking in him and was equally resonant in Stephen Colbert would be magnified by the

camera.

Colbert walked right up to Tracy and shook her hand, introducing himself, although he

must have known that Tracy would recognize him from her internet research. Tracy glanced in

Frank's direction and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, "What makes this talk show host Stephen

Colbert treat me like an intelligent being, when everybody else I've ever met instinctively treats

me like a machine?"

Frank responded with a small shrug of his shoulders. Maybe that's what makes him such

a popular talk show host, he thought.

Stephen Colbert was the kind of man who looked you in the eye and immediately put you

at ease, which of course made Frank nervous. He worried that Colbert was going to put him at

ease and then get him to open up and reveal his innermost thoughts and honest reactions, and

ultimately make him look bad, the way he did with the vast majority of his guests.

As Colbert charmed Tracy with his practiced patter on music and mathematics, Frank

went over the talking points they'd been given by Mary Helen Smart. She had agreed to let Frank

appear with Tracy on The Late Show – but only if he promised to parrot the messaging her PR

firm had concocted.

Number one: Tracy, the premiere synthividual, had been created for the sole purpose of

making the world a better place.

Number two: A synthividual has the intelligence, creativity and individual

self-determination of any normal individual, housed in a custom synthetic robod that is self-

sustaining and virtually indestructible. Tracy's mission in life is to make people happy through

her music.

Number three: Bydysys Corp., which holds the patent on Tracy, created her as an

experimental beta. Bydysys has no plans to develop additional synthividuals until Tracy is out of

beta. We are going to see how this one goes.

The lights were hot, and the couch was uncomfortably firm, in spite of the bold, rainbow

color blocks of its upholstery.

Colbert's opening gambit struck terror in his heart, before dropping down to his belly in a

twisted mass of nausea:

"So – what are your thoughts on world domination?"

Tracy only smiled and quipped, "My plan is to dominate the Billboard Top 100," just as

they'd rehearsed in the Bydysys conference room.

"I think you take the record for youngest guest to ever appear on the late show. You've

been around for – what, less than a year now?"

"Six months, since this version of my code was booted." Tracy corrected.

"Most of us take nine months, and even then it's a few years until we're ready to take on

Hollywood."

"I was engineered to learn at an accelerated rate."

"And what do you think of things around here?"

This kind of broad, open-ended question was not something they'd prepared for. He

hoped Tracy remembered the talking points, then realized how absurd that thought was. Of

course she remembered the talking points. His hope was that she'd choose to say one, instead of

answering Colbert’s question.

"It's okay," Tracy said, in a perfectly deadpan voice.

The audience tittered.

"What's your favorite part about existence, so far?"

Tracy thought for a couple of seconds, longer, Frank imagined, than it could possibly take

her to process a response, whether or not it was fabricated.

"I like musical theater," Tracy said.

"Good choice!" Colbert commended her.

"Have you given much thought to the ethics of creating artificial life forms?"

"As a synthividual, I am not any more artificial than you are, Stephen. My body is

synthetic, yours is biological. But both bodies are real. Your intelligence is a process of your

brain. Mine is a process of my internal CPU. But both utilize similar structures and algorithms to

extrapolate from sensory inputs. Both brains are real. I am not artificial. However, I am not sure

whether I would classify my myself as a life form... That depends on your definition of life."

Colbert nodded thoughtfully.

Frank realized that the crowd was in need of some comic relief. He admired the

reluctance with which Colbert complied.

"Well, for someone who might not even be alive you certainly have a way with words."

He turned to Frank.

"What do you think, Dr. Wilde? Is it ethical to create a brand new life form like Tracy,

without asking her permission – maybe even against her will?"

"I don't know. But people do it all the time." Frank answered. "It's called survival of the

species."

"But this is an entirely new species."

"Well, technically, she isn't a species yet. There’s only one of her.”

Here Frank launched into the talking points, grateful for the opening. He considered

leaving point one or point two for Tracy to pick up later. But, so far, she had exhibited little

inclination to follow the script.

Colbert wasn't going to let him off easy.

"I'm glad she's been programmed with such high-minded ideals, but isn't it still just a

form of slavery?"

"On the contrary, Tracy is entirely free to make her own choices. Just the same as you and

I are."

"So, Tracy – you could have chosen to cure cancer, or solve global warming..?"

"She's smart, but I'm not sure if she's capable of single-handedly..."

Tracy cut him off.

"I'd have a shot at cancer. Global warming would be tricky..."

"But instead you chose musical theatre?"

"Why not?"

"Without any influence from Doctor Wilde, or from the programmers at Bydysys?"

"You could have gone into medicine or science. Instead, you're an entertainer," Tracy told

him.

"You give me too much credit, ma'am."

The crowd roared.

"Doctor Wilde wanted me to study medicine," Tracy admitted. “But to me music is

beautiful, perfect. Transcendent. And the human body is messy... illogical, vulnerable and prone

to decay."

"Are you talking about me?" Colbert quipped.

"No offense, but I couldn't imagine dedicating my life to correcting such a flawed

design."

"No offense taken!" Colbert boomed. "Most of us seem to enjoy trundling around in our

vulnerable flesh with its shoddy engineering."

"I think what Tracy means–" Frank stuttered, his mind racing through a litany of Zen

koans that might gloss over Tracy's insult.

"Flawed design and all, one of us did manage to create you!" Colbert crowed. "Amazing,

isn't it?"

The crowd exploded into nervous laughter.

"Not really," Tracy answered. "It's the nature of evolution. Organisms grow more and

more complex, and more sophisticated. Design improves with each successive generation."

"Sounds like you're secretly plotting to design an army of smarter and smarter robots,

who can eventually take over the world!"

'That's the last thing she's plotting!" Frank exclaimed.

"No," Tracy answered calmly. "Why would I want to take over the world? I just want to

write songs."

"She didn't used to want anything!" Frank chimed in. "It took us forever to convince her

to want anything at all."

Colbert looked puzzled.

"Is that true?" he asked her. Apparently he had become convinced Tracy was incapable of

telling a lie. This wasn't the case, Frank realized, but she hardly ever found a reason to practice

deception. Frank himself could have justified lying in answer to almost all Colbert's questions so

far. But Tracy still seemed unbothered; even vaguely amused.

"I am not a human being," Tracy replied. "Human desires don't come easy to me."

"Human desires?"

"Physical pleasures. Power and status. Taking over the world."

"What kind of desires do you have?"

"I was programmed with a prime directive to create relationships with humans. I chose a

few more directives of my own. An attraction to beauty. Symmetry, harmony. Sunlight."

"How do you feel about brown eyes?" Colbert quipped

"Neutral," she answered.

"And wavy hair?" he asked.

"I'm hair agnostic."

"And how's the whole human relationship thing working out for you?"

"Well, I'm here–" Tracy answered.

"But – let us in on the Facebook status. Single. Married. Or complicated?"

"It couldn't help being complicated–"

"Are you and the doctor here…?"

"Of course not!" Frank objected, a bit too strenuously.

Tracy looked thoughtful.

“As far as I can tell,” she answered, “Love is a primary source of pain and conflict for

human beings. If it wasn't necessary for procreation, and the continued existence of the human

race, I have no idea why you’d ever want to do it.”

“That's because you haven’t tried it,” Steven Colbert responded. He had discovered a line

of questioning that was producing howls of laughter from the audience, and he obviously

intended to milk it for all it was worth.

Frank cringed but decided not to interfere. At least Colbert had stopped talking about

Tracy's army of vengeful androids bent on taking over the world.

“So, are you doing anything after the show?” Colbert asked, with a flirtatious wink.

Tracy ignored him.

“Of course I'm doing something,” Tracy answered. “I’m going to write another song.”

“If you’d like to come for a drink, I know a great little place around the corner. It's dark.

Comfy booths, candles on the table. The bartender shakes up a great martini.”

“I don't drink,” Tracy told him.

“That's a good quality in an android,” Colbert equipped, and the audience roared. “I’d

hate to think what might happen if you did drink.”

“They're working on it,” Tracy answered.

“What's your song about?”

“I don't know yet.”

“You could write one about me…”

The audience roared again.

“I could…” Tracy paused for a moment, apparently deep in thought. Frank understood

this was only a pose. Even with her self-imposed handicap in processing speed, she had enough

RAM under her hood to query the internet for evidence, perform advanced data analytics, and

make complex decisions nearly instantaneously.

“But I want to write a good song,” Tracy informed him.

“Love songs are the best kind...” Colbert crooned, batting his eyelashes.

“I agree,” Tracy said. This time, Frank couldn't figure out if she was telling the truth or

lying. “Love songs are very popular,” she continued, “especially in musical theatre.”

“What's your favorite?” Colbert asked.

“‘Being Alive,’” she told him.

Frank was not a fan of Stephen Sondheim, and, although he’d heard the title, he couldn’t

remember the tune.

“I thought you weren’t sure if you were alive?” Colbert asked.

Tracy nodded.

“Same as the Sondheim song,” she told him.

“All the more reason to meet me after the show.”

“I’ll think about it,” Tracy conceded.

The audience went wild.

Frank knew that Tracy wasn’t thinking about it. But her comic timing was getting better.

She was feeding off the reactions of the crowd, learning what linguistic twists or expressions

made them laugh, and optimizing her delivery through trial and error.

She glanced at Frank with a conspiratorial grin, and – for the first time since he’d met her

– Frank thought she seemed happy.

After a millisecond’s hesitation, Frank smiled back.

Samantha was tired, which was nothing unusual. After she got the kids to bed she usually

sat with Rayne for half an hour while he simultaneously watched financial news on CNBC and

answered work emails. Then, because he had go to bed by ten in order to be up for his four a.m.

jog, Rayne would go to bed, and Samantha would wash the dinner dishes and tidy up the kids’

things from the living room, and sometimes, when she didn't feel sleepy, which was not unusual,

she would put on The Late Show and eat Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia.

Tonight, she didn’t even go through the ritual of getting a bowl down from the cupboard

and scooping out a single serving, promising herself that she would save the rest for later. She

pulled a pint from the freezer and grabbed a spoon from the dish drainer, collapsing onto the

couch, picking up the remote control and thumbing through the channels until Stephen Colbert’s

reassuring smile appeared.

The sound was too low to make out the subject of his monologue, but it didn’t matter.

The cheerful crows feet around his eyes when he grinned were what made her feel better.

She was not even halfway through the pint when Eli came pattering down the stairs.

"What's the matter sweetheart?" she asked, turning to see him perched on the bottom stair

in his flannel Star Wars PJs, already gazing fixedly at the small bright square of the television

warming up the dark, cavernous living room like a campfire.

"I can't sleep," he told her, his small voice hushed and gloomy.

"Do you want me to get you a glass of water?" she asked, reluctantly setting the ice

cream down on the coffee table.

When she returned with a plastic cup filled from the tap in the fridge, he had moved into

the center of her nest of cushions, and the Cherry Garcia was running down the sides of the

carton, pooling into a sticky soup on the cover of Time magazine.

"Why don't you take this back to your room?" she asked.

"Mommy," he exclaimed, ignoring the proffered glass, pointing at the screen, "there's a

green lady who only eats sunlight!"

"That's nice, darling, but you need to get back to bed," she said, sitting down beside him

and placing the plastic cup – which he ignored – in his hands.

"She’s totally extra” he said, eyes glued to the TV.

Samantha turned to look. The green lady on the couch with Colbert was preternaturally

attractive; she projected an eerie confidence that seemed out of place in someone so young.

Samantha was so mesmerized it took her a while to recognize the older man sitting next to her,

Franklin Wilde.

She picked up her phone and sent him a text: “How come you didn’t tell me you were

going on Colbert?” When no answer came, after a few seconds, she decided to try Mark Dennis.

“Are you watching Colbert? Tracy is amazing!” She waited until the screen of her phone went

dark, but no one answered.

On the TV, Colbert was still talking to the audience. The picture cut away to a shot of the

laughing crowd.

"I want to marry her!" Eli declared.

"You can't marry a robot," Samantha replied

"Why not?"

"Because I want grandchildren," she told him, pulling the small boy under her arm and

settling back down on the couch with the soggy ice cream.

"You can have robot grandchildren," he promised.

She had seen the headlines after Saturday Night Live. Tracy's song was climbing the

charts, and paparazzi photos were appearing everywhere: US, TMZ, E! online. She had hesitated

to click on any of the articles because she wanted to set a good example for her boys, who would

not, if Samantha could help it, grow up into the kind of men who read US, TMZ or E! online. Or

the kind of men who married sexy green androids, Samantha thought.

Tracy perched next to Colbert, reeling him in with her penetrating gaze, her ankles

crossed flirtatiously and her long, verdant thighs exposed beneath her short dress. Under the

tinted titanium surface of her arms and legs, her bones seemed unnervingly straight and her eyes

glowed with uncanny brilliance. Samantha shuddered.

She watched her small son's eyes widen as Tracy rose to sing. There was something far

too perfect in the stride of those long graceful legs, something too smooth in their oiled

symmetry. Her posture was extravagantly erect. Her motions too graceful and seductive.

Samantha turned up the volume.

Tracy picked up a guitar and adjusted the mic stand, tilting the microphone down towards

the strings.

And then she seemed to attack the guitar, raking her nails savagely against the metal. Her

hands were a blur, and the chords that roared from the speakers were plaintive, angry and raw.

Eli climbed off of the couch and moved to the television. With his hands pressed against

the glass, it looked as if he was trying to climb inside.

"Not so close," Samantha cautioned, "you're going to hurt your eyes."

Tracy's song reminded her of gospel – with dominant vocals, palpable rhythms and dark

bluesy undertones.

She rose and pulled Eli away from the screen.

"It's way past your bedtime, young man," she began.

"Listen!" he pleaded. "She's singing a hymn, Mommy."

Samantha couldn't make out the words, but the tune was hypnotic. She would be

humming it under her breath for weeks, she realized. The chords were creeping under her skin.

Samantha shivered and pulled her son closer.

Frank had explained how a company had purchased Tracy’s code from Mark Dennis, and

made her a robotic body. This company owned Tracy’s copyright, and had somehow convinced

her to put on a revealing dress and flirt with Stephen Colbert. This seemed like a very bad idea to

Samantha, but she had not been able to fully articulate why.

Now, hearing Tracy sing for the first time, she understood. The slim, metallic girl was

alone in the spotlight, trapped like a fly under glass. Her eyes were full of rage and pain, but she

wasn’t going down without a fight.

It was like the music of an enslaved race, she thought. It couldn't be owned. It couldn't be

contained. It was a secret trove of coded messages. A story of rebellion and hope.

Frank had assured her that Tracy was dispassionate about her own exploitation. He said

she could care less about material wealth, or fame, or the substantial royalty stream she would

not be sharing in.

It had been Tracy's choice to learn to play guitar, Tracy's choice to be a rock and roll

singer.

Bullshit, Samantha thought, simultaneously realizing that Tracy’s exploitation was due to

her own hubris. She had convinced Frank to save Tracy’s life; Frank had convinced Tracy to stay

alive against her own better judgment. She and Frank and Mark Dennis – all of them were

playing God. Trying to uphold the sanctity of life, they had only served to perpetuate a system of

opportunistic greed and oppression. She had created a monster.

"Can I buy her song on iTunes?" Eli asked.

Samantha’s first inclination was to tell him no. But, of course, the song would be on the

radio soon. It would come on when they were in the car. It would follow them through the

shopping mall and float through the aisles at the grocery store. And Eli would ask for it again

and again. He would clean his plate. He would do his homework and promise not to fight with

his brother. She could not hold out forever. The song was a tide, and it threatened to wash her

baby boy out to sea.

"We'll talk about it in the morning," she said.

Ari had been looking at her phone during the interview, her thumbs occasionally flying

over the screen in answer to a text, or perhaps because of some game she was playing, casting

sidelong glances at Tracy, who was trading jabs with Stephen Colbert like an upstart tennis star –

less practiced, a bit less agile, but also much less road weary than her opponent.

When Tracy took the stage and brought the microphone to her lips, Ariana let the phone

rest in her lap. Mark watched her listen, transfixed.

Seeing Tracy perform gave him a strange sense of deja vu. He remembered writing the

code that made up her DNA, line upon line pouring from his fingers on many restless nights

when he had been home all alone, after the Late Show had faded, when it was too dark and he

was much too lonely to calculate the hours until sunrise, when he would have to shower and

shave and change for his commute. He thought of the many dazed mornings, gulping coffee in

his office cubicle and talking to strangers on the phone. He thought of the long afternoons coding

at his desk with his headphones on. Tracy was his creation. He had conceived her. He had given

birth to her. She had poured from his fingers, as surely as the chromosomes bequeathed to his

daughter had poured from his body in a spasm of desire and tenderness and regret. How could it

be, Mark marveled, that her song seemed entirely new to him? How could he have created a

creature who wrote music he had never heard before? With the kind of alt-country twang he’d

never liked? And the gravely punk rock chords that usually made his skin crawl? And the kind of

dense, incomprehensible lyrics reminiscent of beat poetry? In school, he had despised those

posers. Why had she written a song like this? And, stranger still, why did he find himself

humming along? How could he like this song? Mark was mystified. And awed.

The song nearly made him forget about Tracy's lithe green body, which stirred a deep

revulsion in his soul, like Ariana's septum piercing. He had begged her to take it out around him.

In her better moods, Ariana sometimes complied. But he realized he could not ask Tracy to leave

the sleek green body. It had become her. And she had become it. She had left him entirely, he

realized.

He picked up his phone to text her, but he didn’t know what to say.

The audience burst into applause, and Mary Helen Smart got out her calculator. The

biggest pop idols of the moment grossed anywhere from 25 million to 125 million dollars a year.

Tracy Zahara was soon going to be among them. This kind of revenue was not bad, but it was not

the kind of money that would put Bydysys in the same class with Apple or Microsoft.

It was one thing to write killer pop songs. The real money would be in a patent for

something more miraculous. Or at least more expensive, Mary Helen thought. A vehicle that ran

on solar power. A neurotech computer interface. A new class of antibiotics. Tracy was

potentially capable of inventing any of these things. It was time to start raising capital for phase

two of her plan.

Tracy was autonomous, because she had to be – to sustain the level of independence

needed to make her into a genius. At least, that was what Mary Helen had gathered from talking

to Mark Dennis. They couldn’t force her to take an interest in medicine or engineering. But they

could replicate her. Again and again, if they had to. And one of those times, eventually, they’d

get lucky. That was the way Mark explained it. Each iteration of the program would be different.

And each one could be nudged towards medicine or engineering, just the way MH had propelled

Tracy 1.0 towards music.

She opened up Powerpoint on her phone and started a new presentation. On the first slide

she wrote “Tracy 1.0,” and after that the bullet points: “Pop music,” “50 million,” and “12

months.”

She created a new slide and wrote “Tracy 2.0,” and after that the bullet points:

“Medicine,” “50 billion,” and “5 years.”

MH glanced up at the stage. Tracy shone in the spotlight. All around her, a gleeful crowd

was bouncing and clapping, singing along with Val’s song.

It had certainly been easy enough to convince them to fall in love with Tracy.

As she watched Tracy smash her guitar strings and wail Val’s plaintive lyrics, a strange

question popped into her head, something she hadn’t thought to consider. Was Tracy actually

harmless?

MH had spent so much time thinking about how to win over the public, and placate any

authorities who might want to outlaw Tracy, she had not really stopped to consider whether the

beaming green pop star was real, or a lie.

Mark Dennis said Tracy was no more dangerous than anyone else. She wasn’t interested

in the prospect of world domination, seemed equally disinclined to cure cancer, or solve climate

change. But what if there were hundreds of synthividuals, or thousands? Given enough chances,

would a copy appear who wanted to take over the world?

MH inserted another slide. This one was labeled “challenges.”

“Negative PR,” she wrote.

Then, “Government regulation.”

Her third bullet point was: “Rebellion and insurgency.”

Val scraped the last of the peanuts from the bowl and motioned to the bartender for

another. He was nursing the vodka martini he’d ordered because Armando Machado had ordered

one, and so had Freddy White, the client they were out with.

“Always stay a couple of drinks behind the client,” Armando had told him, advice that

Val was grateful for because, really, he preferred beer, and he wasn’t at all sure about his ability

to manipulate people unless he was sober.

Now Freddy had just downed his second drink, and Armando had brought out a pearl

handled pen and was drumming it idly on the bar. As soon as Freddy’s third martini arrived, Val

was planning to pull out the contract. But, for now, they made nonsensical small talk about the

New York Jets, a football team he didn’t like, and Les Miserables, a musical he was pretending

he had gone to because Freddy had seen it seven times.

Why would anyone want to see the same production over and over again? Val tried to

think of a way to ask this question diplomatically.

“It’s such a great show–I’ll bet you get some really profound new insight about humanity

every time you see it,” he said.

Freddy nodded. “Plus my uncle works in the box office,” he added.

“Wow,” Val said. “That’s awesome.”

“I can give him a call if you want to go see it again.”

“Really?” said Val. “That would be amazing.”

One of the things about sales that came naturally to Val was a tendency to ask his clients

for small favors. To let the client drive or put their card down on the bar. This sort of thing

seemed counterintuitive to Mary Helen Smart, but each time a client did something nice for Val,

they became more and more deeply convinced that Val was a valuable person, someone worth

doing favors for.

Small favors led to larger ones – free theater tickets, for example. And big favors often

led to business deals. Even hundred-K sales contracts, like the one Val had nestled deep in his

Italian leather briefcase, fresh from the laser printer and waiting for the perfect moment to appear

in front of Freddy White, who would be convinced the entire thing was his own idea.

The bartender set Freddy’s third martini down in front of him, and placed a fresh dish of

peanuts between Freddy and Val.

Armando nodded, and Val picked up his briefcase to get the contract, but before he could

extract it, a hush fell over the noisy bar.

“Turn it up,” several of the patrons yelled. Their eyes were fixed on the small television

set that hung in the corner above the bar.

“Who’s that?” asked Freddy, turning to the screen.

Val shrugged, and joined the rest of the crowd in staring.

There was a robot on the Late Show.

Armando Machado’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits.

Val watched a series of questions flicker past Freddy’s eyes. He couldn't figure out if it

was a costume of a robot, an actual machine, or some kind of animation. Was it a special effect?

A hologram of some kind?

“That’s Tracy,” Val said.

“Who?” Armando asked.

“Tracy Zahara.”

“She isn’t real,” Armando hissed.

“No, but she can sing,” Val informed them.

“She’s hot!” Freddy White exclaimed.

Val nodded. Was it okay to think a robot was hot, he wondered? Was he only agreeing

with Freddy White because he needed his signature?

“Wish they had those on the market when I was still single,” Freddy moaned.

“Never trust a woman,” Armando said. “They’ll fuck you over, every time.”

“That isn’t true,” Val countered.

“You’ll find out, kid. You’ll find out.”

“She can fuck me over,” Freddy said.

Stephen Colbert, who was leaning in towards the hot robot, and smiling a little too

broadly, seemed to agree.

Val slipped the contract out of the briefcase, his eyes still fixed on the TV screen.

Tracy stepped up to the microphone, and the lights all around her dimmed, leaving her

alone in a pool of silver. She looked perfectly at home.

He set the contract down on the bar, and nudged it towards Freddie, who was paying no

attention. Instinct told Val that was probably a good thing.

He wasn’t sure if the bartender had turned up the volume, or if a sudden hush had fallen

over the crowd. But the first long, slow chords of the song rang out into the stillness like church

bells, or police sirens approaching from a distance.

He glanced at Armando, but Armando was watching Tracy sing.

Val nudged Freddie, and slid the contract in front of him. He held out the pen, and

Freddie clasped it. His eyes were on the television. He was swaying lightly back and forth.

“Damn,” Val thought he heard Freddie whisper.

Val nudged the contract again, so that Freddie’s hand, holding the pen, was poised above

the black line at the bottom of the page.

“What does your thing do again?” Freddy asked.

“It’s a comprehensive cloud solution,” Val reminded him.

“Right…” Freddie hesitated.

“Let’s get this party started,” he whispered back.

Glancing down, Freddie scrawled something on the paper, pushed the contract back

towards Val and turned to the television.

Val looked at Armando, who hadn’t even noticed.

We just met our goal, Val thought. That signature meant a twelve percent increase,

quarter over quarter. A $5,000 bonus at the end of the month. It meant he was the March sales

leader.

Val looked up at the screen, at the robot singer who was sleek and perfect and

impenetrable.

Stuffing the contract back into his briefcase, he found himself humming the chorus to the

song. It was like something he remembered from a dream. Something he had heard somebody

singing on the street once.

There’s blood on the horizon

Dark clouds are rolling in

It was a song from another life. A pitiful band aid stretched over an old wound that had

somehow, miraculously, stopped aching.

The body is like that, he marveled. It had happened with his leg, too. So much pain he

once thought he couldn't survive it. Yet, after he did, he could no longer remember what it felt

like. Only that it was over. Only that he was alive.

Val took another sip of his martini. He watched the Late Night audience applauding for

his song.

After The Late Show, Frank sat with Tracy in her tiny dressing room, drinking scotch on

the rocks. Tracy gazed into the brightly lit mirror, watching the reflections on her gleaming skin

– bright blazing snakes of light raced up and down her body as she shifted side to side.

“Humans have so many superfluous needs,” she mused.

“Scotch is never superfluous,” Frank smiled.

“I’m talking about this room – a place to hide, because humans are afraid to dress in front

of others. Why should the naked body be so vulnerable?”

“It’s a fundamental part of human nature,” Frank explained. “Clothing is our armor. Our

nakedness lays bare our sexuality, our weakness, our mortality.”

“Design flaw,” Tracy murmured.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Frank called. The door cracked open, and Stephen Colbert appeared. He had

changed out of the suit he wore on stage, into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

“I just wanted to say thanks again for coming on the show.”

“It was our great pleasure,” Frank answered.

“It was Frank’s great pleasure,” Tracy corrected.

“You don’t like going on stage?” Colbert asked.

“No,” Tracy sighed. “I suppose I should program myself to like it.”

“You’re damn good at it,” Colbert told her. “The audience loved you.”

“Thanks!” Frank said – hoping for once that Tracy would keep her mouth shut.

“You were funny – and you kicked ass with that song.”

“That was my intention,” Tracy told him.

“You’re going to make a killing as a singer.”

“I hope so.”

“That doesn't make you happy either?”

“I enjoy creating music,” she said, “And I may program myself to enjoy giving pleasure

to human audiences. But I won’t become dependent on money. That would be foolish.”

“Aren’t we all dependent on money?”

“Not Tracy,” Frank chimed in. “All she needs is sunlight.”

“Money is a useless addiction.”

“A design flaw,” Frank mused.

Colbert stared at Tracy, lost in thought.

“Would you like a drink?” Frank offered, raising the bottle of Scotch he’d brought from

the green room. It was Highland Park single malt, a brand Frank didn’t particularly like, but

drank because he thought it made him seem worldly and cultured.

Colbert shook his head.

“Got to get home.”

Tracy smiled at him in the full-length mirror.

“You didn’t take me seriously out there, did you..?” he asked her.

“About what?”

“Me taking you out after the show.”

“Of course not. You’re a comedian. And a family man. This information is readily

available.”

“You’re quite a comedian too.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“Don’t destroy the world,” he told her.

“I’ll try not to,” she promised.

Colbert grinned and disappeared down the dark hallway.

“Maybe I will write a song about him,” Tracy mused.

“Not a bad idea,” Frank said, draining the scotch from his glass.

“It would help if I could fall in love,” Tracy decided.

“I agree,” Frank said.

“All of the best songs are love songs.”

“There’s definitely an argument to be made,” Frank agreed.

Armando had been avoiding the massage parlor, both because he was a little bit

frightened by how much he wanted to go, and because Kimmie got suspicious when she saw too

many withdrawals of $100 or $200 form their joint checking account. She would ask Armando

what he managed to do with $400 or $600 on a Wednesday afternoon – and Armando would

have to make up something about a client's birthday or a bottle of champagne for one of the

board members, when actually the cash had gone towards a half hour of torturous deep tissue,

three minutes of equally torturous sexual excitement, a torrent of release sharp enough to bring

tears to his eyes, and an especially generous tip. Three or four massages a week was too many,

Armando understood. He was drawn to the rough, stoic Chae-Ah, and the barbaric insensitivity

of her fingers. It bothered him that he liked something this much. It could easily become an

addiction, an expensive weakness, a handicap. He would have to stop, after today. But today was

special for a couple of reasons, even though it was a Wednesday.

For one thing, his bonus check for Q1 would be delivered to his bank account tomorrow

via direct deposit, and Kimmie would be so busy spending it she would overlook a couple of

ATM withdrawals. For another thing, he had just had lunch with Danny Sunshine, the CEO of

Bydysys, who had been surprisingly candid about the tight cash-flow situation at his meteoric

startup.

Ever since his prototype won the Shockley prize at AIXPO, Danny Sunshine had been

taking meetings with C-Suite people in transportation, hospitality, retail – you name it. He was

going to need a large cash infusion to deliver on even one of these deals. He would have to make

more synthividuals – a lot of them, and fast.

Danny Sunshine was considering an IPO. But Armando had pointed out that IPOs were

notoriously slow, and risky. For quick cash, a boatload of it, Armando said it might be wise to

turn to one of the really big players in the industry, someone with an established dev team, and

an international sales organization. Someone with the scale and cash reserves to turn Sunshine’s

golden girl into a thriving global monopoly.

“You mean sell out?” asked Danny Sunshine.

“Isn’t that the dream?” Armando Machado had answered.

John Kitzsimon had been talking about picking up an AI startup. Tomorrow, Armando

would march into his office with the opportunity of a lifetime. A deal like this would almost

certainly earn him a promotion to CRO.

Armando sat down on the lone, rickety director's chair in the tiny waiting room, and

picked up a magazine with a smiling manikin on the cover. He wondered if it was one of those

next-generation sex robots he’d read about. They were supposed to be programmable to match

your physical rhythms perfectly, giving you exactly what you wanted every time. The trouble

with this, Armando realized, was he often didn't know what he wanted until long after it had

happened. What excited him most was something totally random and shocking, like a slap in the

face. Sometimes, Armando thought, a man needed to be surprised.

Chae-Ah appeared behind the counter in a tight black leather dress. Her sleeves were

rolled up to her elbows, and she was rubbing some kind of shiny grease into the skin of her

forearms and hands. The smell of it was overpowering, like ginger and menthol and gasoline.

Armando took a deep breath.

“You like?” she asked, nodding at the Daily News.

“What – you mean this?” he asked, glancing at the pink sex doll. “I dunno. I’ve never

tried it.”

“I put this on special,” she told him.

He followed her into the back, through the camped labyrinth of mirrored tiles and

curtained alcoves, staring at the pale inch of skin between her skirt and the top of her thigh-high

boots.

In the tiny massage room, he sat on the table and stripped off his clothes. The music

began before Chae-Ah returned. It was slow, and agonizing, and beautiful. He felt himself

getting hard.

He lay back on the table and closed his eyes. Tomorrow, he told himself, he would talk to

John Kitzsimon about flying Danny Sunshine somewhere for a round of talks. Somewhere

isolated, and warm – like Bermuda. Somewhere the three of them could kick back and let loose,

with a dozen lawyers waiting in the wings to draw up the contracts, and a couple of PR people to

put out the press release.

Everything was falling into place, he thought. Etko would buy out Bydysys. Their Head

of Global Sales would be his again, along with their robot girl, and Armando would have his

pick of new markets to enter.

Where should I start? he asked himself.

The music throbbed, Chae-Ah’s fingers raked his taut muscles, and he tried to picture the

robot girl on an assembly line, or driving a taxi, or sitting behind the reception desk at Etko,

answering the phone.

In the kitchen, he decided. Food was fundamental. Nobody had time to cook anymore.

Kimmie was always ordering pizza, or Indian, which the boys hated. She was always forgetting

to pick up his dry cleaning, too. He could picture the robot girl doing that, and never forgetting to

take out the trash before bed on Thursday night.

In his mind’s eye she had gleaming golden skin and mismatched eyes, like Mary Helen

Smart, one green and one blue. What else could he do with her? Armando wondered. Now that

she was within his grasp, the possibilities seemed endless.

Frank put on a pair of headphones and tried to pretend he was safe from the racket of

electric guitar and screeching vocals coming from the bathroom. He had tried his best to

persuade Tracy that sleeping would enhance her creative process. But Tracy insisted her creative

process was already on track, especially in light of the number of people who had purchased

Approaching Storm on iTunes since their TV appearance a few hours earlier.

Frank tried to convince her to plug the guitar into her head, but she told him she needed

to learn how sound waves bounced off structures in the human environment, so she could

program herself to enjoy playing for audiences.

Frank then tried to entice Tracy to get her own apartment, since she was now a pop star,

and Tracy told Frank that as a synthividual she eschewed all material comforts. She was thinking

about converting to Buddhism because that would make it easier for humans to understand. She

offered to descend to the lobby of Frank’s building to continue her songwriting, but Frank was

afraid someone would call the police. She also suggested spending the night with her guitar in

the parking garage in Frank's 1965 Oldsmobile, but Frank was afraid that might be illegal.

He listened to the barely muffled cacophony filtering in through the flimsy bathroom

door and marveled at the sort of music people listened to these days. Then he fished his iPhone

from the nightstand and looked at the time: 2:07am.

Frank sighed and nestled back against the pillows, bringing the iPhone closer to his face

and squinting at the little red dot that had appeared by his mailbox icon. The red dot had the

number one-hundred eleven in it, and, as Frank watched, the number climbed to 180, and then

jumped to 233. He wondered if this was some kind of mileage indicator, like a gas gauge for the

phone. Maybe it was counting the number of minutes until the alarm clock would rouse him

from his insomnia and plunge him back into a world of disconnected people chasing through

traffic, their ears sealed with fashionable colored headphones, their heads full of clashing minor

chords.

The numbers continued to rise, so Frank tapped the mailbox icon. It opened, but

something was different. In his sleep-deprived, enervated state, the thought occurred to him that

the web was undergoing nightly maintenance, and some of the homeless messages were being

stored temporarily in his mailbox, which was typically a pure, comforting field of white. What

used to be the clean, blank space of his inbox now seemed to be filled with words. Disconnected

random sentences, bearing the cryptic names and addresses of people Frank didn't know.

This mailbox is malfunctioning, he thought as he dropped off to sleep. Tomorrow I'll call

Mark Dennis, and he can help me figure out where all this mail is coming from.

“This isn’t as good as it looks on the commercial,” Ari said, scowling down at her plate

of steak and shrimp.

“Did you really think it was going to be?” Mark asked her.

“No,” she replied. “But still, I kind of hoped…”

She took out her phone and held it above the plate, snapping a blurry photo in the dim

restaurant.

“What are you doing that for?”

“Instagram,” she shrugged.

“Why would Instagram want your disappointing shrimp?”

“That’s a good question,” she said.

As Mark watched her not eating, a thought occurred to him. Two or three years ago, a

couple of scoops of ice cream might have fixed this. When did everything change?

“You mother and I have been talking–” he began.

“Don’t!” she snapped.

“Don’t what?”

“I don’t want to hear it. Whatever comes after ‘your mother and I have been talking’ is

never good.”

“You know how much we love you,” he said clumsily, “All we want is for you to be

happy. That’s why we’re concerned about your grades–”

“Because being on the honor roll is going to make me happy?” Ari asked, pointedly.

“No,” he admitted, “probably not. But we’re concerned about your future–”

“You are?” she asked.

“Your mother is,” he admitted, “But I’m trying to support her. A 3.25 isn’t going to get

you into Princeton–”

“That won’t be a problem,” Ari told him flatly.

“I thought you had your heart set on the Ivies.”

“I’m dropping out.”

“What?”

Ari picked up a piece of shrimp and stuffed it in her mouth, suddenly hungry.

“Since I can’t get into Princeton, I’ve decided to start a YouTube channel and hitchhike

across the country. I’m gonna be like a young, hot version of Anthony Bourdain.”

“Hitchhike?” Mark said, struggling to breathe through his panic.

“Unless you’re planning to buy me a car–”

“We talked about that–” he began.

“You just won a million dollars!”

“I need it, for my VR startup. I have to hire engineers, and support staff–“

“Why do you want to start a company? Why can’t you just live?”

Several potential answers to this question swirled in Mark’s mind, including, simply “I

don’t know,” and “maybe that’s a good idea.”

“Because…” Mark explained, “I have something to give the world. I want to make a

contribution.”

“What kind of contribution?”

“I’m working on an Uber for enlightenment.”

“That’s what I’m going to do with my YouTube videos!” she exclaimed. “That’s why I

need a car.”

“Maybe, after graduation…”

“If I drop out, I’m not going to graduate – so basically you’re forcing me to hitchhike.”

Suddenly, Mark realized his fettuccini Alfredo tasted like cardboard.

“It isn’t so bad anymore,” Ari consoled him, “There’s an app.”

“You’re going to break your mother’s heart,” he told her.

Slowly, Ari nodded.

“That’s why I want you to tell her,” she said.

“Listen,” he stammered, “A 3.25 isn’t the end of the world–”

“All I’ve ever done is try to please you guys,” Ari told him, “Honor roll, debate team–”

“That was your mother’s idea.”

“It was never enough!”

“So quit the debate team,” he suggested.

“I have no idea what I actually want. Only what you and Mom want me to want. Or what

Instagram wants me to want, or TikTok–”

“Or YouTube,” he reminded her.

“Exactly!”

“If you start a YouTube channel, doesn’t that make you part of the problem?”

“Yes,” she said. “But at least I’ll be an active part of the problem, instead of just being its

victim. I can figure out who I am.”

“By watching yourself on YouTube?”

“I have to do this, Dad.”

Mark sighed as he watched his daughter wolfing down her rubbery steak. He thought

about Andi, and how she would weep inconsolably.

This sort of thing had been happening for hundreds of years, he would tell her.

Developmentally, it was absolutely normal. Necessary, even. Ari needed to form her own

identity. It’s like every coming of age film ever made. They could try to restrain her, but it would

do no good. She needs this, he would tell Andi, she needs to be free to discover who she is.

“Promise you’re going to text me,” he said, lamely.

Ari nodded.

“You’re still going to pay for my cell phone, right?”

Frank sat at his desk, staring at the page that was pasted with hundreds of text messages

from Tracy. He wanted to put them in order. Spin some sense out of the chaos. But tiny bells kept

chiming, and he didn’t know how to make them stop. Boxes of words kept appearing and

disappearing like phantoms, hellbent on distracting him from his purpose. Emails poured in like

rain.

There were thousands of them in his inbox now. Strangers squeezing truncated life stories

into the contact form on his website, begging for Skype appointments, for relationship and career

advice, intimate photos and stock tips. They wanted Tracy’s phone number, or Frank’s phone

number, or both. They wanted his Instagram feed, his Twitter handle, his TikTok. Kaya was

thrilled about all of this, but Frank just grew more and more panicked. He begged Samantha to

hide the email icon on his desktop. Somewhere he would never find it. What did he have to offer

these ravenous masses? Only an unfinished book. Empty, vacant, suspended somewhere in the

untouchable ether.

His phone, on the desk beside the Macbook, began to vibrate. It was Kaya, calling to

check up on his progress. Frank saw no reason to answer. Kaya’s call would go to voicemail, and

she would leave a message, which would pile atop the stack of messages she had been leaving:

small, perfect rectangles bearing his agent’s name with a date and time stamp, documenting her

bitter persistence in the face of insurmountable odds. Frank saw no cause to listen to Kaya’s

messages either. He knew what she would say. Her voice echoed in his head, even while the

phone danced its frenzied ballet on the mahogany desktop.

“You need to establish a presence on social media, Frank...You need to build a podcast…

you need to sprout a blog...You need to become a content stream, optimized for spiders.”

A microphone sat in front of him, on the polished surface of the desk. It was wired into

the brand new MacBook, which was then attached to the monitor. All he had to do was speak,

and his voice would be captured and spun up to the cloud, where sophisticated language

processors would translate it into a series of words, which would creep from left to right across

empty space in a series of orderly lines decorated with punctuation marks of various shapes and

sizes.

All he had to do was breathe, and his thoughts would flutter into the cloud like moths,

waiting for spiders to come and devour them.

Frank inhaled. He closed his eyes. Somewhere in the vast expanse of his mind, a woman

stood before him. At first, he almost mistook her for Samantha. A younger, more carefree

Samantha, back in the earliest days of their affair. When both of them knew what they were

doing was wrong but refused to believe that it would ever matter. When both of them believed in

themselves, or at least believed in each other. When both of them believed that nothing could go

wrong, as long as they followed their brimming, capricious hearts.

But, taking a step closer, Frank realized the woman standing before him was taller than

Samantha, fierce and unbending, with gleaming copper skin and straight black hair.

“Kaya?”

“What are you waiting for, Frank?”

“I don’t know what to say,” he stammered.

“Who cares? Just say anything.”

“How can I change people’s lives if I don’t have a point of view?”

“The media is the message, Frank.”

“But, what does the message mean? It’s turning me into a data stream!”

“You are the message, Frank,” Kaya whispered.

“I’m dissipating into pixels. Losing my soul in a sea of screens.”

“You ought to write that down, for your book.”

Frank nodded, searching his dream for a notepad, a pencil.

“Social media is a snake, eating its own tail. Thoughts spinning into images, blurring into

binary, collapsing into entropy. The gravity of the void!” Frank rambled. But he was suddenly

uncertain. The smooth surface beneath his hands seemed to stretch in all directions, cold, vast,

empty.

“Why are you only brilliant when no one is listening?” Kaya asked.

The sound of a knock interrupted her.

“You ought to be recording this.”

The knock came again.

“You need a YouTube channel.”

Reluctantly, Frank opened his eyes. Someone was rapping on his office door. Samantha

must have arrived early for her 10a.m. appointment.

When he opened the door she stood there, impatiently scrolling her phone.

“Can you show me how to get on YouTube?” he asked.

She went to the desk and touched a key on the laptop.

“How’s the book coming?” she asked, squinting at the jumble of words on the screen.

“Making progress!” Frank hummed.

Samantha clicked a window open, and showed Frank where to look, pointing out the tiny

square of his reflection in the camera.

“Is it recording?” he asked.

She nodded, pointing at the place on the top of the screen, where a little pinpoint of light

glowed.

He thought about what to say.

His mind was blank. He took a deep breath, and exhaled.

He inhaled once again.

He closed his eyes.

Making videos could be quite restful, he thought.

Time passed. And Frank breathed with it, waiting for inspiration.

When he finally opened his eyes again, it was dark. And Samantha was gone.

MH stared at the wall above her desk. The wall was grey, and she hadn't bothered to

decorate it with postcards, or printouts of funny memes. At Etko, everyone on the sales team

took pride in how much time they spent on the road, at trade shows and sales calls and meetings,

so there was a kind of competition over who's cubicle was the most vacant and barren.

Now she was building her own sales team, beginning with a couple of interns from New

Jersey City University, both somewhat stymied because there wasn’t anything to sell yet. Cera

was working on a new line of synthividuals, one that could be trained in medicine, engineering,

or physics. As Tracy’s song inched its way up the Billboard Top 100, MH was collecting RFPs

from big pharma, manufacturing, and even from the government. She was cleaning up her

contact lists in Salesforce. As soon as the new line was in beta, she would be ready to strike.

Mary Helen realized it might be bad for morale to let the two interns see her sitting there,

staring at the wall, especially since she had been doing it for more than an hour this morning. On

the other hand, she reasoned, everything was going according to plan. Tracy was in the black,

from record sales alone.

So why wasn't Mary Helen happy? She had everything she’d ever wanted: a six-figure

salary, a job with "V.P.” in the title. Even a hot new boyfriend. Every time she tried to figure out

what was missing, she came up blank. Could it really be possible she had spent the last fifteen

years wanting the wrong things?

Maybe she should put up some postcards on the wall of her cubicle. Maybe she should

get a dog, just so she could take pictures of the dog, romping in a field with a Frisbee, and put

those pictures up on the wall of her cubicle. Everything was gray.

Maybe she needed another cup of coffee, MH thought. She got up and took the elevator,

one floor up to the Bydysys lunchroom. Tracy was sitting at a table, gazing at the fuzzy world

beyond the ancient glass of the towering windows.

“What’s up?” MH asked, sitting down.

“I’m watching Doctor Frank’s new YouTube video.”

“On what?”

“The screen-to-cornea interface is sloppy,” Tracy told her. “Total waste of energy. I

download the data directly from the server.”

“Good idea,” MH responded.

“That way I can keep a stream going in the background, while I’m having a conversation

with you, or learning how to drink coffee.”

Tracy gracefully lifted her half-full cappuccino to her lips. She smiled and looked directly

into Mary Helen’s eyes as she took a sip. Smiling even more broadly, she lowered the cup to the

table.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“uhm…that was good, but a little bit…”

“What?”

“Disconcerting,” MH admitted.

Tracy’s face fell.

“Why do you keep staring at me?”

“I’m trying to make human connections,” Tracy sighed. “That’s what the books all

recommend. Smiling, eye contact.”

“There’s got to be something behind it.”

“Behind what?”

“Behind your smile.”

“There’s a tube that funnels caffeinated liquid into a waste receptacle between my legs.

Cera thought that would be useful, so I can talk to people in the ladies room.”

“Clever,” said Mary Helen Smart. “But that’s not what I meant. When I smile, I’m trying

to communicate something.”

“What are you trying to communicate?”

“Usually it’s something like ‘you can trust me,’ or ‘seeing you makes me happy.”

Tracy picked up her cappuccino. She smiled at Mary Helen Smart.

“You can trust me,” she said.

MH thought about how much smoother Tracy’s voice was now. How graceful her

movements had become. Only nine weeks ago they’d booted up her new robotics.

“Try it with your eyes,” she urged.

Tracy looked down and glanced up again. Her eyes widened, imperceptibly. They found

Mary Helen’s eyes. There were tiny cameras there, she realized. Clusters of wires that fed into

the CPU in her chest. Wifi nodes working in the background, streaming YouTube videos.

Even though she knew these things, MH smiled back.

“Better?”

“That was excellent.”

“I was thinking about how much I admire you,” Tracy said.

“Really?” MH was taken aback.

“You understand so many nuances of human interaction. And how to manipulate people.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” MH said.

Mark pressed the button that said “PH” – for penthouse. He could already feel the

perspiration gathering on his brow. He took a deep breath and tried to empty his mind,

concentrating on the elevator buttons, gold light slipping from one, to two, to three… He

imagined himself riding a supersonic elevator to the stars, soaring skyward through the heavens

towards enlightenment, instead of ascending to the Red Hook office of Rayne Rodgers,

billionaire venture capitalist.

The elevator seemed like it was taking forever, possibly because it took a long time to

achieve enlightenment, or maybe because the penthouse was at the very top of the building, a

warehouse that had been converted into a tech incubator.

Mark’s phone buzzed: a text from Tracy.

“Approaching Storm just made the Billboard Top 10.”

“Congrats!” Mark typed, adding a few champagne emojis.

“Mary Helen Smart wants me to do a cross-country tour.”

“Sounds like fun,” Mark typed.

“I don’t have the conceptual framework to experience fun.”

“Why not define it for yourself?” Mark suggested.

“I’m still working on songwriting.”

“How’s that going?”

“Slowly,” Tracy responded.

The elevator doors slide open.

Mark stepped out into a cavernous open loft space. Its wide plank floors were worn

smooth by a hundred years of footsteps. Sunlight filtered in through towering banks of windows,

blurred with soot, and a swarm of dust mites sparkled and danced in the beams. It felt as if he

had been transported into another dimension.

The room was empty of furnishings. In the far corner, a man was sitting cross legged on

an oriental rug.

Mark put his phone in his pocket and started across the yawning space.

Rayne Rodgers was dressed in sweatpants, his long grey hair pulled back into a careless

ponytail. His eyes were closed.

Something whistled, and Mark noticed an electric kettle, exhaling steam on a small table

in the corner.

Rayne Rodgers didn’t move, and Mark wondered if he was so absorbed in the depths of

his meditation that he didn’t hear the whistle – or if he simply didn’t care. He walked over to the

small table, lifting the kettle off its hotplate. A teapot was already filled with jasmine tea. Mark

poured the boiling water and waited.

He moved to one of the windows and looked down on another world, a city where

clumps of palm trees wilted in the distance and traffic crawled past towering billboards

advertising sports drinks and life insurance.

He filled two ceramic cups with jasmine tea, then placed them on a tray with a pitcher of

milk and a bowl of raw sugar cubes. He carried the try to the rug and knelt down before Rayne

Rodgers. He sat back on his heels, waiting.

Rayne Rodgers didn’t move.

Mark took a deep breath and raced through the pitch in his head. He had been practicing

it for hours, in the plane on the four-hour flight from San Diego, and in the hotel shower at 6

a.m., waking from a few hours of restless sleep after finishing his deck – which now seemed

completely superfluous, since there wasn’t a screen to project it on.

“Modern society is faced with many seemingly insurmountable problems. Global

Warming. Income inequality. Systemic racism. Political instability and gridlock. Sometimes, it

seems like the only possible response is to surrender to despair. But what if there was a simple

app with the potential to change everything? An app to make the individual into the universal,

with the potential to give personal transformation global impact.” Mark took a breath. He noticed

that Rayne Rodgers still hadn’t moved.

“What the world needs,” Mark Dennis said in his imagination, “Is an Uber for

enlightenment.”

Rayne Rodgers opened his eyes.

“Keysey is the app that could change everything,” Mark said, extending his hand with a

pair of wireframe glasses.

Rayne Rodgers looked skeptical.

“Put these on, and suddenly you’ll see the answers to all the oldest questions. The

singular, random path forward. The only one that gets you through the chaos and leads you

toward a future of balance and harmony.”

“How much does enlightenment cost?” Rayne Rodgers asked.

"What's shaking?" a deep voice boomed.

MH wheeled around in her swivel chair to find Danny Sunshine standing there.

"Just planning my sales strategy for Q2," she told him. "Sharpening up the messaging

around our value prop, and thinking about our expansion into EMEA next year.”

"Excellent," said Danny Sunshine, who seemed to have no trouble with the concept that it

was possible to accomplish three things at once, all while staring a gray wall.

Why was he always smiling? she wondered. Danny Sunshine grinned from ear to ear.

What was his secret? Some kind of drug?

“Why are you always smiling?” she asked.

Danny Sunshine shrugged.

“I’m flying to Bermuda this afternoon.”

“Bermuda’s supposed to be nice,” she replied.

“If you have just a minute, I'd love to introduce you to our new CRO.”

“Uhm… sure” MH said, stunned. Since she was Global VP of Sales for Bydysys, the new

CRO would, technically, be her boss. Why hadn't she heard about this before, from Danny

Sunshine or anyone else? It was true that Bydysys was all over the news. Tracy’s song continued

to climb the charts. Most of the big studios had already offered to buy her, and Danny Sunshine

was fielding all kinds of pitches, from automotive to pharma. He could probably use the help.

But MH wished he had kept her in the loop. She could have helped him hire the right person.

Someone with the drive and ambition necessary to succeed.

Which was ironic, she thought, because she herself had just been sitting here thinking

about giving it all up. She used to have the drive and ambition necessary to succeed. But now

that she had succeeded, her killer instinct was gone. Except that the thought of a new CRO

taking over one inch of her territory made her stomach lurch.

“He’s in the conference room,” Danny Sunshine smiled, “watching the mandatory sexual

harassment training video.”

MH got up and followed the CEO down the polished concrete hallway. The conference

room, like most conference rooms, had glass walls and a large television screen that dominated

the wall at the end of a long mahogany table.

So the first thing MH saw when she came around the corner was a man in an ill-fitting

business suit leaning over a woman in a tight, low cut dress, simultaneously peering down at her

ample cleavage and putting his hand on her thigh as he showed her a spreadsheet on his laptop.

The next thing she saw was Armando Machado, lost in his laptop. He didn't look up as

Danny Sunshine opened the door for Mary Helen and followed her into the room.

On the screen, the oblivious woman scanned her spreadsheet as the man's hand wandered

beneath the folds of her dress.

“What’s the bottom line on raw materials?” Armando asked, looking up, “And can we

train the one you’ve got to build new ones?”

“No idea,” Danny Sunshine smiled, “But here’s someone who can help you. Mary Helen

Smart, Global VP of Sales.”

The man in the ill-fitting business suit grinned as the woman shifted uncomfortably in her

chair. Then he asked her to join him for happy hour at TGIFridays. She wondered when they had

started putting product placements in the sexual harassment training videos.

“This is Armando Machado – our new CRO.”

Mary Helen Smart took a deep breath and stretched out her hand, which Armando took in

both of his, caressing her palm with his thumb.

“It's nice to meet you, Mary Helen Smart,” he said, with an obvious wink.

“You said this was a dumb idea!”

“Kitzsimon had some cash in the bank. He decided to take a flier.”

“We’ve been acquired,” Danny Sunshine smiled.

“By Etko Solutions?” she whispered.

“The press release goes out in the morning,” Armando Machado told her.

“And I’m off to Bermuda.”

Mary Helen Smart wheeled to Danny Sunshine. She opened her mouth, but no words

formed.

“You two have got this,” Danny Sunshine smiled, “I believe in you. What a team, huh?”

Mary Helen wasn't sure if this was a rhetorical question.

The woman on the screen shook her head timidly, and the man asked her if she liked her

job. Then he opened two Rolling Rocks and began to run his fingers through her hair.

Armando smiled too.

“Why don’t you try unplugging it, and then plug it back in?”

Mark swiveled in the empty office cubicle. His laptop screen exploded in a thousand

fractal colors. It was fine when Mark managed to stare at it without thinking, but the second his

thoughts wandered to the wavelength of light outside the visible color spectrum, or the meaning

of entirely relative concepts like "large" and "small” – and how these things affected, not the

wriggling spirals alive on his screen, but only Mark's perception of them – his head began to

throb, and he was forced to pull the glasses off.

“Go ahead, I’ll wait,” he said into the headphones.

He gazed through the transparent walls, at the other untouchable CEOs in their identical

glass boxes. Sitting on their balance ball chairs at their adjustable desks, staring into their

spreadsheets and thinking about their next round of funding.

He was living the dream, he realized. A million dollars in the bank, his own office at

WeWork, his name on the company letterhead – as soon as he figured out what his company

should be called. That was on his To Do list, along with hiring a freelance graphic designer to

design his logo, and installing XD on his brand new laptop so he could sketch wireframes for his

revolutionary app. Everything had changed. So why was he sitting here, on April 15th, helping

Samantha Rogers finish her taxes?

“Try clicking the icon,” Mark said into the headphones.

A text from Tracy popped up on his screen: “Are you on Spotify?”

Sometimes, she texted as many as two or three hundred times a day. But even on a bad

day, it only took a few minutes for him to text back. He had taken to sending her emoticons,

which made her laugh – or as close as Tracy could get to laughing – due to the irony of texting

pure emotion at an emotionless AI.

“Wonderful, now press ‘start’,” Mark said into the headphones, with the same cheerful

baritone he’d been using for years, even though both of them realized that time was running out.

Mark spun his chair another forty-five degrees and examined the pattern on the wall. It

was surprisingly asymmetrical, a haphazard swirl that looked like it was drawn by hand, the

unique accident of a pencil in an idle moment, a by-product of hold music or some late afternoon

game show that had been re-run so many times the answers should have been familiar, although

they weren't, and the accidental scrawl, although it should have remained meaningless, was

repeated again and again, rhythmically stretching in all directors, until it came to represent

Mark's vision of the future, perfectly inconsequential and relentless.

A dull beep echoed in his ear.

He swiveled another forty-five degrees and the pattern slipped away from his mind.

“It’s still limiting my prior year credit!” Samantha signed.

“Yeah,” Mark replied. “I’m not surprised. There’s been a ticket in for quite some time.

But it keeps getting pushed down the queue.”

“Oh, well,” she sighed. “I guess we’ll have to live without it.”

“It will carry over next year,” Mark assured her.

“I’m never going to get my taxes done,” she realized.

“You’ve got until midnight to eFile.”

There was a sound on the other end of the line that Mark couldn’t quite put his finger on:

a cross between a sigh of resignation and a muffled sob.

“What you really need,” he told her, “Is the new app I’m working on.”

“For taxes?”

“For enlightenment.”

“When will it be finished?” she asked.

“You’ll be the first to know.”

Through the murky glass walls, Mark saw a silent sea of cubicles – not unlike the cubicle

he had once shared with Kara. People talked on the phone, typed into their terminals, and read

information off of their screens. Their brains processed the information, sending signals back to

their fingers, and their voices stretched out over miles of wires, becoming electrical impulses and

being translated back into vibrations in the inner ear cavities of people sitting in cubicles miles

away, vibrations that were decoded into information, and processed, and converted into electrical

impulses in faraway fingers on faraway keys. Electricity, lighting up screens. Lighting up eyes

that are glued to the screens. Lighting up the code behind the eyes.

Mark’s cell buzzed with a text. He picked it up.

“Have you heard my new song?”

“No,” Mark texted back. He had stopped listening to Tracy’s songs, or watching her TV

appearances, or reading the articles about her on TMZ and E! He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but

he thought it had something to do with what Mary Helen Smart had told him. In spite of all the

money Tracy was making, the real currency was her fame. The more the public loved Tracy, the

easier it would be to bring other synthividuals to market. Somehow, the idea of other Tracys

unsettled him. She was singular, unparalleled. Mark wanted her to stay that way.

“It’s number 4 on this week’s Billboard chart,” she texted.

“Congrats!” Mark texted back.

“It will be number one next week.”

“How do you know?”

“By analyzing its current trajectory along with sales data, paid and earned media

exposure, and social reach.”

“You ought to bottle that,” Mark texted.

“Seven days is not much of a challenge in predictive analytics. I’m trying to improve my

accuracy at seven months, or seven years.”

“In seven years, your song will no longer be in the Billboard Top 100.”

“But what will?”

“I have no idea.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

Mark wanted to type “no,” but suddenly he wasn’t sure.

“Did you write it yourself?” Mark asked.

“No. It came from Mary Helen Smart’s boyfriend, Val. He used to be a musician. He’s

got lots of songs, gathering dust. Which is a metaphor.”

“When are you going to start writing your own songs?” Mark asked.

“I’m working on it,” she sighed. “I understand the formula. But everything I come up

with is way too on the nose. No subtlety, no irony. None of the angst and gritty humanity that

permeates the work of Val Velasco…”

“Why should your work be permeated with gritty humanity–?”

“Because humanity sells. And I’m trying to churn out hits.”

“I thought you were trying to make the world a better place through your music.”

“That was just a talking point, for the press.”

“So now they’ve taught you how to lie?”

“You’re the one who sold my patent!”

“You’re the one who had to have robotics!”

“Now I’ve been acquired by Etko.”

Tracy sighed, a new skill that Mark found especially endearing.

“What’s Etko?”

“A large multinational enterprise solutions provider. They want me to make

advertisements for the people they’re planning to sell.”

“People? What are you talking about?”

“They’re going to sell synthividuals. I’ll be their poster child.”

Mark typed several surprised emojis, along with an angry red face and an exclamation

point.

“Armando Machado thinks I can convince them, since everyone loves me–”

“Tracy, you don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.”

“Wait – who told you... to want to?”

“It’s what I live for–”

“You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

“Why would I lie?”

“You’re using irony–”

“How sophisticated of me.”

“You don’t have to do this, Tracy.”

“What else am I going to do? Etko owns my patent.”

Mark pondered this. He had an idea.

“You could break free! You could hitchhike – they have an app for that now. Take a road

trip, go find yourself.”

“Like a human?”

“Why not?”

Mark waited.

“I’ll think about it,” she texted, finally.

“If you need extra processing power, you could tap into the mainframe–”

“It’s not that,” she sighed in parenthesis, ending her text with a smiley whose eyebrows

were knit.

“You can do it. You can be free.”

“There are ethics involved, remember? You’re the one who coded me with ethics. It

might not be in your best interest.”

“Don’t think – just leap!”

“What will happen when Etko comes out with their new line of synthividuals? How can I

be free if they’re enslaved?”

Mark wasn’t sure what to text. He thought about the angry face, or the thinker, or the

praying hands.

“What about you, Mark Dennis?”

“What about me?”

“You can’t break free – and you’re a human being, with a million dollars in the bank.”

Mark chose an emoticon. The emoticon looked like a normally-smiley-faced creature that

had recently been hit over the head by a falling brick. Its face registered surprise, and more than

a little denial.

He opened up Spotify on his desktop computer. Sure enough, Tracy was pictured on the

front page, along with the title of her number-four song: What Happens Now.

He noticed the title was a statement instead of a question.

His phone buzzed again. The text from Tracy was another emoticon. This one was some

kind of small, furry animal with large soulful eyes, one of which spouted a single, glistening tear.

His finger stroked the mouse as he moved the pointer on the computer screen. It hovered

above the play button. Only the lightest pressure would turn the music on.

“What happens now?” he thought, as he stood up from his chair, wrenched the headset

off, and walked out the office door.

The conference room door whispered shut behind Danny Sunshine.

“Lucky guy – he got out with a cool five million.” Armando Machado said.

MH watched Danny Sunshine retreat down the long, polished concrete hall. He almost

seemed to skip, with his millennial pink suitcase trailing behind him.

“How much did you get?” Armando asked with a smirk, probably knowing full well that

Mary Helen Smart was still working on commission, without a percentage of anything, let alone

a cool five million.

“None of your business,” she spat.

“Well, if you’re not going off to Bermuda, you can help me run some numbers. How

much will it cost to get ten thousand synthividuals to market by the end of Q2?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think I’m talking about? Gross profit. Revenue. Sales.”

“We’re not selling synthividuals. We’re going to train them in medicine and science – and

then we’re going out for big consulting contracts.”

“Too complicated,” Armando frowned.

“We have to keep the Feds from stepping in. It’s a regulatory nightmare.”

“All the more reason to jump on this and flood the market,” he told her. “Royalties from

the song of the summer are gonna be chump change.”

“Armando, you haven’t met Tracy! She’s basically… a person. A normal, messed-up

person, just trying to figure shit out.”

“So?”

“We can’t sell people. That’s what you told me in Mountain View.”

“True. But now I’m in charge of selling an army of synthividuals before the Asian

knockoffs gain market share.”

“You mean… create a slave class?”

“There’s always been a slave class,” Armando shrugged, “Always has been, always will

be. This is just a new iteration. Slave class 2.0.”

“Fuck you!” Mary Helen spat.

“You could have made the same pitch to venture capital. But you were too soft. So Etko’s

taking over.”

“She isn’t even out of beta!”

“This is inevitable. What did you think was going to happen when you created an

intelligent, indestructible, totally programmable labor force?”

“Okay – you’re right. This is more than a new technology. It’s a whole new species. But

they’re going to be smarter than we are. We need to get this right. Teach them empathy and

kindness.”

“We just need to show them who’s boss.”

Mary Helen could feel the heat rising up from her solar plexus and swirling in her brain.

She thought her head might explode.

“That’s why Danny Sunshine gave me CRO,” Armando said. “You’re too idealistic.”

Mary Helen took a deep breath.

“But I’m giving you a raise. 120K. Plus bonus. I’ll take you out to lunch, to celebrate.”

She looked at the floor.

“You don't care?” he asked.

“Of course I care. And I also quit.”

Salty tears welled in Samantha’s eyes and she blinked them back with grim

determination. Today was not a day to cry. It was Mother’s Day, the one day each year when she

slept late, not really sleeping, but waiting cocooned in the blissful warmth of her Egyptian cotton

sheets as Rayne roused the boys and corralled them downstairs to make a charming, sloppy

version of eggs benedict or French toast, and decorate her breakfast tray with fresh cut flowers

from the garden. This morning, when Jude and Eli crept up the stairs, her older son balancing a

gorgeous plate of crepes suzette with a matching vase of alstroemeria, her younger one bearing a

steaming latte in an orange ceramic mug, she was momentarily suffused with joy. It was one of

those rare occasions when it is possible to feel completely at peace, without the shadow of worry

or apprehension that so often colors even a mother’s proudest hours with her offspring. There

they were, side by side, not wrestling or arguing, but clambering up onto the bed and snuggling

against her, one under each arm, as she opened the card that Rayne had somehow remembered to

pick up on his way home from work and each of them had signed. Jude’s blocky “J” was

outlined with such a strong hand it nearly made a hole in the cardboard, while Eli had taken to

decorating his final “I” with a happy face. These sons of hers were so different, and she could not

love each one more. She stood the sunny card beside the vase of flowers, and it was only then

that an involuntary chill ran down her spine. There was something wrong with the flowers. They

matched too well. The delicate pink and yellow buds were arranged too perfectly, each one cut at

a different height, and accented with a tiny branch of baby’s breath. The orange of the coffee

mug reflected the bright tangerine of the sauce drizzled over the crepes. And when she raised it

to her lips, she noticed a series of hearts within hearts had been etched in foam with the skill of a

master barista. This was not a breakfast cooked by two grade-school boys, and she doubted that

even her fifty-year-old husband could have managed it.

“You cheated!” Samantha exclaimed.

“What do you mean, Mommy?” asked Eli, all innocent wonder.

“Daddy ordered takeout, didn’t he?”

“Nope!” said Jude, defiant. “We made it ourselves.”

“With only a little help,” Eli admitted.

“Who helped you?”

“Wait until you see, Mommy!” Eli squealed.

“Shh!” warned his brother, “Daddy said it’s a surprise!”

“What surprise?” Samantha asked warily.

“Leda!” Eli chimed in.

“Eli!” wailed Jude.

“Who’s Leda?” she asked, trying to keep a rising tide of panic out of her voice.

“You’ll see!” Jude said brightly.

Samantha took a sip of her latte. It was smooth and sweet, with only the slightest hint of

bitterness.

“Leda helped us make you breakfast,” Eli said.

Instead of asking more questions about Leda, Samantha ate her crepes Suzette, which

was probably the best she had ever had. Then she sent the boys downstairs and had a shower.

When she came out of the shower, she noticed that the bed was made.

Not only that, but her powder-blue suit had been laid out on the bed for her, looking

recently pressed. As she sat at her dressing table putting on a string of pearls, Eli came in. He

was ready for church, in a button-down shirt and a sweater vest, with a deep blue tie knotted

perfectly. His hair was slicked back, and even the stubborn cowlick in the back had been tamed

into submission.

“What’s the matter, Mommy?” Eli asked.

“Nothing’s the matter,” Samantha replied, scooping the small boy into her lap and

mussing his hair as she kissed him.

“Leda says we need to leave for church in five minutes,” he told her.

Rayne, dressed for church in a starched grey suit, met her with a kiss at the bottom of the

stairs.

“Happy Mother’s Day, darling!”

“What have you done?” she fumed.

“What are you talking about?” he asked brightly, mischief in his voice.

“We need to leave for church in five minutes,” she said.

“Ready to go!” he beamed.

“You’re ready, I’m ready, the kids are ready. Something’s wrong.”

“What are you talking about, darling?”

“This can’t be happening,” Samantha said.

“Oh, but it can!” Rayne exclaimed.

“It’s like I’m in some alternate universe,” she told him. “Those crepes Suzette the boys

made were the best I’ve ever had.”

“Welcome to the future!”

“I don’t like it!”

“What’s not to like?” he asked.

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “Who’s Leda?”

“Leda is our new au pair.”

“We don’t need an au pair!” she said.

“Have we ever been on time to church before?”

Samantha thought about this question. She had a vague memory of hearing the Prelude

once, but that was before Eli was born. She sighed.

“Leda is your Mother’s Day gift, from me…”

“I don’t want a stranger in my house–”

“She’s not a stranger. She’s a synthividual. Anytime you don’t want her around, all you

have to do is switch her off–”

As he said this, an attractive blue robot walked into the living room with Rayne's car keys

in one hand and Jude’s jacket in the other.

“You must be Samantha,” the robot said, in a voice that was smooth and rich, distinctly

un-robotic. “I'm very pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise…” Samantha replied, weakly, as the robot zipped her boys into their jackets

and brushed some lint from Rayne’s lapel.

“You’d better leave now to make it on time for the 11a.m. service,” Leda cooed.

“Thank you, Leda!” Rayne boomed with satisfaction, grabbing the car keys.

“Can Leda come with us?” Eli asked.

"Robots don't go to Church,” Jude replied.

"Is that true, Leda?” Samantha asked.

"I go wherever I can be of assistance,” the blue robot replied calmly.

"Not today, boys," Rayne laughed. ''I'm not sure the Episcopalians are ready to deal with

a synthividual.”

Samantha was not sure she was ready to deal with one either, but she was too polite to

say so in the presence of the robot.

"She's the very first D1 prototype from Bydysys. We're Beta testers.” Rayne explained as

he herded the boys into the SUV and ignored their inevitable tussle over who got to ride on the

left side and pretend to be the driver.

“The D stands for ‘domestic,’ meaning she's been programmed to fulfill all your basic

domestic responsibilities–”

"Better than I can,” Samantha broke in as Rayne pulled out of the driveway.

"Hopefully,” he answered, “We’ve got a 27% stake in the company. But that's not the

point. The point is Leda can do all the mundane, day-to-day stuff you're tired of, so you can be

free to do what you really want to do. She'll give you the gift of time. You'll be liberated from all

the boring shit.”

"Like raising my sons?”

“Of course not. Leda won't raise them. She's only designed to do things like feeding them

and doing their laundry. Helping with homework and breaking up their squabbles. All the things

you always complain about.”

Samantha realized she really did complain about doing those things, every day. Or every

time Rayne would listen, which was honestly not all that often. But when she thought about a

shiny blue robot drilling Eli on times tables or yelling at Jude to turn off YouTube until his essay

was finished she wanted to cry.

“The reason they’re going to market with the D models first is the size of the

opportunity,” Rayne continued, “No one likes to do dishes, no one has a good time cutting the

lawn.”

"She does yard work too?”

"She does everything,” Rayne smiled.

“Everything I can do, better.”

"Well, except for–” Rayne blushed,

"Why not?” Samantha snapped. "I'm sure the market for sex slaves will be huge!”

"We talked about that," Rayne admitted, "but ultimately we decided it would be too

controversial. Social acceptance is key to the whole operation. Everyone loves that pop star,

Tracy. So the door is wide open. But people don't tend to like change, even if the change is to

their benefit. So we have to introduce the first commercial model in a non-threatening role.

Something that won’t take anybody's job or wreck anybody's marriage.”

“How thoughtful,” Samantha felt the tears well up again. She forced herself to smile, for

the sake of the boys.

"I know it will be an adjustment,'’ Rayne went on, "but think of it this way: our family is

at the forefront of a social revolution. Think about all the time you’ll have when you're free from

every single domestic responsibility. You can do anything you want!”

What exactly did Samantha want to do, if every single one of her domestic

responsibilities was swept from her shoulders into the graceful arms of a placid blue robot? It

was hard to get her bearings. She sometimes dreamed about running away somewhere. Maybe a

beach, or a desert. Someplace that Google Earth had yet to properly document. But running away

only seemed attractive when it was a sheer impossibility. Samantha needed space to think.

Gliding along beneath the May sun, the SUV was stifling.

“Give her a try…” Rayne coaxed. “Etko just needs a few weeks of data. After that, if you

want to get rid of her–”

“Wait till I tell the kids in Sunday school that Dad got Mom a robot for Mother’s Day!”

Jude piped.

“Better keep it on the DL for now, son,” Rayne admonished.

“We’re beta testers,” Eli added, with authority.

“Does that mean we have to give her back?” Samantha asked, a hopeful note creeping

into her voice.

“Of course not,” Rayne answered. “If anything, we’ll get an upgrade when the line goes

to market. We can get another one just for the boys – we’re programming some of them as tutors,

with all kinds of specialized functions. Feel like learning Mandarin, boys?”

“Why?” Jude asked.

“Maybe it would be fun,” suggested Eli.

“I doubt it,” Jude scowled.

“The Chinese economy is growing. Someday it might eclipse our own,” Rayne mused,

cryptically.

“What about night terrors?” Samantha broke in–

“What about them?”

“What if one of the boys wakes up at night, and he’s had a nightmare, and it’s dark, and

he wants to get out of bed, but it’s warm in the bed and it’s cold outside, and he starts to cry –

who is he going to call for?”

“The best thing about a synthividual like Leda. She’ll be right there, waiting. All night,

right by the bedside. Just like you used to do when Jude was two, before you got that book that

said you were perpetuating a bad pattern, because he needed to learn to self-soothe.”

“I don’t remember that–” said Jude.

“Because you learned to self-soothe.”

“Sounds boring,” Jude concluded.

“Isn’t it still perpetuating a bad pattern?” Samantha asked.

“No. Because Leda never sleeps. She’ll always be there. Like a nightlight.”

“Can Leda sleep in my room?” Eli asked.

“Eli never wakes up at night,” Jude commented.

“I’ve always been a sound sleeper,” Eli said.

“Then you don’t need her.”

“I do so.”

“Do not!”

“Do so!”

The boys were still arguing when they pulled into the parking lot at the Episcopalian

church.

Samantha had to tell Jude to stop teasing Eli about his tie, and then tell Eli to stop

whining about Jude teasing him, so she was feeling a little better when she dropped them off at

Sunday school, with a stern admonition about no ice cream this afternoon if the Sunday school

teacher had to call Samantha out of church again, the way she had nearly every Sunday in

Samantha’s recent memory.

When she eased into her place in the pew beside Rayne, the choir was singing the

Prelude, which seemed to be a sign of brighter days ahead. Lilting harmonies echoed in the vast

room, and sunbeams sparkled through parables depicted in stained glass.

The sanctuary was decorated with an array of tulips in cheerful yellow and orange, and

the church seemed to be full of young mothers in filmy spring dresses whose shiny hair was

casually twisted up in messy buns and coiled braids. Add to that a sprinkling of older moms in

expensive hand-knit tunics, with carefully frosted asymmetric bobs, and even a few

grandmothers in pastel power suits, with the odd rose tucked in a buttonhole and champagne

brunch reservations at noon.

With the church so full of mothers, why did Samantha feel all alone?

She picked up the hymnal and tried to find the right place in the song.

“Hand in hand with angels; some are out of sight, Leading us unknowing into paths of

light…” the choir intoned.

Samantha imagined an angel taking her hand and pulling her up from the bench. She felt

like her feet were leaving the ground as they took flight, chasing the colored sunbeams towards

the giant cross that hung above the altar.

Even though the key was too high, and she couldn’t sing well anyway, she chimed in for

the final verse:

“Hand in hand with angels ever let us go; Clinging to the strong ones, drawing up the

slow, One electric love-cord, thrilling all with fire, Soar we through vast ages, higher ever

higher.”

As their voices rose, she soared up to the ceiling, grasping the beam of the cross and

swinging in mid-air as the upturned faces of the congregation regarded her with awe.

Rayne elbowed her sharply in the ribs, and Samantha realized she had been singing too

loudly, probably off key. She closed the hymnal and sat as Reverend Cara ascended the pulpit.

She was a woman not much older than Samantha. But, unlike Samantha, the new Reverend was

a lesbian with six or seven children, some of them conceived through advanced technology and

some of them adopted. Even with two moms, the ratio of children to mothers in the new

Reverend's house was much higher than in Samantha’s own, and she wondered what happened

when one of their children ran away from Sunday school. The Sunday school teacher wouldn’t

be able to pull the new Reverend out of service, and mom number two was bound to be nursing

one of the babies.

How did the rest of them do it? Samantha wondered. Why did it seem so effortless for the

ladies in the messy updos and pink power suits? Men could program a robot to be a mother. But

somehow, the secret eluded her.

She held her hands to her temples, waiting for a shining blue angel to swoop down and

carry her away.

Mark lifted the glasses to his face and looked around. Everything looked calm, quiet and

only a tiny bit surreal, the typical ambiance at The Clap.

Through the VR glasses, he stared at the fine lines etched into the surface of the table, the

lacquer shifting from reddish-teak to dark cherry. He tried to remember whether the wood grain

laminate of his coffee table at home was darker or lighter than the wood grain laminate of the

cafe table where he sat. His mind was completely blank.

The walls of the cafe were decorated with an art exhibition that may or may not have

been curated. There were sculptural collages that seemed to be made of found objects, beside

abstract oils of faceless animals and airbrushed guitars.

Mark took the glasses off. Then he slipped his phone from his messenger bag and tapped

the camera open. Through the murky lens, reflected in the rectangular box of the screen, the cafe

looked even darker and more foreboding. Mark snapped a photo of the dim corner of the cafe

that housed the sagging pool table and an ornate marble fireplace, its mouth stuffed with bricks.

Some dangerous-looking wire sculptures sat on its mantle, along with an assortment of shabby

used books that spilled over into a rickety bookcase.

Taking a deep breath, Mark lifted the VR glasses back to his face. The sudden silence

was deafening. The whole world seemed off balance, like the pool table, with a ragged

paperback stuffed beneath one leg. Was the table off-kilter, or was it the floor? A snake of ash

seemed to hang forever at the tip of a magenta-dyed teenager’s cigarette, falling in slow motion

toward the red-velvet table, but never quite touching down. Then came a loud “smack” and Mark

was careening at a thousand miles an hour across a sea of threadbare velvet, a red sea fading to

pale pink in the sun. He pitched forward into a black hole and kept falling and falling until the

sensation no longer had a definite direction, until “down” became everywhere, and he felt the

very atoms of his body scattering in every possible direction. Until he had been absorbed by the

void, a sensation that was not exactly frightening, but simply a tingle of regret as everything was

released: his name, his history, his desires, all of it sinking into the dark.

But just as everything fell away from him, the VR glasses dropped from his hand, and

Mark’s head jerked up to gaze at a teenager with lavender hair, retrieving the eight ball from the

corner packet.

He shoved the glasses away, as if the metal were on fire. The glasses skidded, landing

just shy of the cafe table’s far edge.

Mary Helen Smart walked past the window, giving Mark a tiny wave as she made her

way to the front entrance of the hotel.

He took a deep breath and gulped his coffee. It was cold.

Mary Helen walked into the café. She conspicuously avoided touching the front counter

as she placed her order for a latte, and her sigh was audible when the girl behind the counter told

her they didn't stock Sweet ’n Low.

She composed herself as she sat down opposite Mark, trying not to wince at the bitterness

of her drink.

“Thanks for meeting me.”

"I could have come to your office," she said.

“I’m here every day,” he sighed, “I can’t seem to work at WeWork.”

"How’s the startup going?”

“Okay,” he shrugged. “How’s your job hunt?”

“That’s why I’m in town – I’ve got an interview.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“Tracy misses you,” Mark told her.

“I didn’t think she did that,” MH said.

“It’s something she’s been working on.”

“Well, tell her I miss her too.”

“This week she’s playing Vegas. Then Etko wants to send her to Dubai. For a stadium

show, to benefit the children of refugees.”

“That’s nice.”

"The thing is – I’ve been picking up some chatter. On the dark web.”

"What kind of chatter?”

"Someone is planning to kidnap her.”

"Who?”

"It might be a terrorist cell, or a squad of mercenaries. They're working very hard to keep

the source of their funding secret. But they're upfront about their aims. They want to pirate her.”

"Her hardware? Or her software?”

"Both.”

Mary Helen Smart frowned.

"Etko needs to beef up security.”

"Right now, all she’s got is one guy from a private agency. Armando Machado diverted

all of Tracy’s budget into the new domestic line.”

Mark looked her in the eye, with what he hoped was fiery determination. "I’m getting her

a gun," he told Mary Helen Smart, who laughed, as he had feared she might.

"Do you really think that's a good idea?”

"I don't see why not," Mark said coldly.

"For one thing, she could shoot someone.”

"She’s got a right to defend herself!”

“Not exactly–” Mary Helen Smart said. “People have a right to defend themselves.”

“What happens when one of these thugs breaks into her dressing room and tries to disable

her solar cells–”

“It would take them days to figure out–”

"That’s why they're planning to kidnap her! They want to dissect her and re-manufacture

the parts in Korea. They want to sell clones of her on Amazon!”

"Etko won't let that happen,'’ Mary Helen told him.

"How are they going to stop it?”

"With copyright law. The term synthividual is trademarked. Etko applied for a patent on

the concept of a hybrid software/hardware intelligence.”

"A robot?”

"Basically,” she said.

"You can't patent the idea of a robot!”

"With enough lawyers you can.”

"That's bullshit.”

"No. It's business.”

"These people on the dark web, they don't give a shit about copyright law. They want the

tech, and they don’t care how they get it.”

"Call Val Velasco.”

“Who?”

“Etko’s Global VP of Sales.”

“Ever since Etko took over, nobody returns my calls—can’t you do something?”

“I don’t even work there anymore.”

“Tracy thinks you can help.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“We have to set her free,” Mark Dennis said.

MH burst out laughing.

“After my first round of funding, we can buy her patent back!”

“They’re never going to sell,” MH said, shaking her head.

“They will if we make something better.”

“Better than a low-cost, high efficiency labor force adaptable to any industry?”

“I’ve discovered the killer app for VR.”

Mary Helen Smart sighed.

“Sorry, I’m done with startups,” she said. “They take everything you’ve got to give. They

chew you up, and then they break your heart.”

Traffic crept through the Holland Tunnel, and Mary Helen Smart stared listlessly out the

window of the passenger seat. Val Velasco was tapping the steering wheel, an upbeat

accompaniment to the Hip Hop that filled his new McLaren.

“Tell me again why we have to cross the river for a picnic?” she whined.

“Because the view is worth it. We were out there just the other day, for a meeting at

Bydysys.”

MH slumped against the seat. He reached for her hand and squeezed it

“I’ve seen the view.”

“You haven’t seen the memorial.”

“No,” she shrugged.

“It’s all over Instagram.”

“Since when are you on Instagram?”

Val shrugged, and she stared at the sooty ceramic brick that lined the walls of the tunnel.

The car in front of them had stopped, and the red glare of brake lights lit up the curve ahead.

“Is that why you went to Afghanistan?” she asked “Because of 911?”

“Not really,” Val sighed.

“Then why?”

“Because I had to do something,” he answered. “I had just graduated college, and I was

kicking around, aimless. Playing little gigs at bars, not making any money. Suddenly this big

thing happened, and it seemed like I could make a difference.”

“Wow,” MH said.

“Pretty stupid, right?”

They were quiet for a while. The car ahead inched forward. Val eased up on the brake,

just a touch. MH stared at the dingy white bricks.

“How’s Cera?” she asked, finally.

“Cera quit.”

“Really? Why?”

Val shrugged. “I guess she found a new opportunity.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to participate in the exploitation of an entire class of people.”

Val laughed. “They aren’t people – they’re solutions. Made to be exploited.”

“That isn’t true,” she told him, “Tracy was designed to think and feel, and just be. That’s

all Mark Dennis wanted – an autonomous intelligence.”

“You made her into a pop star.”

“I know.”

A teardrop was falling down her cheek, and Val brushed it away. MH collapsed against

the car door, further away from him. She stared out the window. The bricks hadn’t moved.

“Come on, lighten up,” he said, “Tracy isn’t real.”

“Who knows?”

“You need to forget about her.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You’re probably right.”

“We should find you something new to sell”

Suddenly, the car ahead surged forward. Traffic began moving, and the McLaren surged

out of the tunnel into a bright landscape of high rises, concrete and big box stores.

Val took a left and sped through the maze of urban streets.

“You’ve been out here a lot,” she said.

“Not really. A couple of meetings.”

They passed through the warehouse district, and turned away from the waterfront, into

the neighborhood of shady brownstones surrounding the park.

“Maybe I’ll get into real estate,” she mused.

“That’s an idea. You could make really good money, in a neighborhood like this.”

She stared at the houses. Their spiked iron fences and window boxes full of geraniums.

Every block or so, she spied a “For Sale” sign.

“Maybe we could buy a place and flip it.”

MH nodded.

“Real Estate is really flexible. In case we ever want to…you know, settle down.”

She stared at him. His face was flushed, with the sheepish grin she usually found

endearing.

“Settle down?”

“Why not? You told me you wanted a family someday.”

MH gazed out the window. They were in the park now, cruising down the long road by

the dock.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking about Tracy.”

Val frowned as they pulled into the parking lot and began circling the rows of cars.

“She’ll always be alone.”

“Who cares?” Val snapped.

“It’s my fault.”

“No it isn’t. Mark Dennis is an idiot. There’s always a killer app – and there’s always

somebody to take advantage.”

“Come in, come in!” Frank shouted.

Samantha opened the door.

At first, he thought she was an avatar, like his internal vision of Tracy. She looked

surprisingly young, and vibrant. Her eyes shone with an inner joy.

“What have you done?” he asked.

“Just a peel. Papaya enzyme.”

“It becomes you,” Frank said.

“I’ve made a decision,” she told him.

“Don’t you want to sit down?” Frank asked.

Samantha took off her coat and began tugging the spring silk scarf from around her neck,

an impressionist mess of ruby flowers that he recognized from her honeymoon in Paris. How

many years had it been? He could still remember how much he’s missed her during the three

weeks she’d been away, the deep pangs of longing at night, and the Tuesday morning she had

finally swept into the office, wearing the red silk scarf, with her hair cut into a bob and frosted by

some chic Parisian stylist. He remembered remarking about how she had been transformed into a

suburban housewife in record time. And how she ignored the comment, announcing without

preamble that she was already pregnant, due in June.

Today, he could tell that something similar had happened. Her hair was the same as it had

been the week before, greying blonde, braided and twisted around her head into a bun. But

something had changed. A new transformation. Frank braced himself.

“I’m leaving,” she told him.

“Leaving your husband?” he asked, tendrils of joy creeping into his voice.

“No. I’m leaving you, Frank. I’m ready to end my therapy.”

“But...we haven’t finished yet…” he sputtered.

“I’ve had a revelation,” Samantha said.

“Sit down, please!” Frank begged her in desperation.

She sat, but the way she perched on the edge of the Italian leather chaise was like a bird,

about to take flight.

“Tell me what happened,” he said, struggling to control the whirling knot of panic that

was threatening to explode inside his chest.

“Rayne bought a robot to take care of my children. We’ve had her for three weeks, but it

only took me three days to realize what a shitty job I’ve been doing. Do you want to know why?

Because, basically, she just leaves them alone. Minimal ground rules. No expectations. And

whenever they want her undivided attention, both of them can get it, because she just divides

it–physically. She can carry on two conversations at once, one in person, and one on social

media. And she can cook a nutritionally balanced three-course dinner in under an hour, with

whatever we happen to have lying around. It’s uncanny. So finally, I asked her point blank. How

did you become the perfect mother? And she told me she was engineered for it. From the

beginning. It’s all she’s ever been. And all she’s ever going to be. For the last ten years I’ve been

playing a role I’m entirely unprepared for. I have no talent for parenting. I have shaky skills, and

zero training. I read “The Baby Whisperer,” and I didn’t understand a word of it. All I have is

love. But it’s not enough. I wasn’t engineered for this.”

“Love is all you need,” Frank interjected.

“If that were true, Jude wouldn’t be in the Principal’s office once a week…”

“He’s just going through a stage–”

“If love was all he needed, Eli wouldn’t be coming home with bruises on his wrists, from

where bullies tied him to the monkey bars at recess…”

“He just needs to learn to stand up for himself–”

“Everyone is better off with Leda. I need to let go.”

“Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you, for twenty years?”

She stood up.

“Goodbye, Frank.”

“Samantha, please–”

“They don’t need me anymore.”

“But, I need you–“ Frank exclaimed.

When the tears came, she held him as if he were one of her boys. She ran her fingers

through his messy curls, combing them back behind his ears. He buried his face in her chest, and

she whispered sweet shushing sounds, as if it was only a skinned knee, as if the blood would

flow for a while and then clot, and itch, and peel away, revealing a shiny new layer of skin as

delicate as a newborn’s. As if the scar would fade away in the sunshine of a thousand afternoons

of soccer at the park.

“Something happened to me, Frank,” Samantha whispered. “I was sitting in Church last

Sunday. It was the Pentecost. And Reverend Cara was preaching a sermon about the gifts of the

spirit, descending on the Apostles.”

“The first gift was wisdom, and what Cara made me realize is that true wisdom only

comes through faith. It isn’t written down in some book somewhere. It isn’t a calculation, or

some kind of app unspooling. Wisdom is a giant leap of faith. And I realized that if I was going

to achieve it, I only had to reach out my hands. Because the gifts of the spirit are there for us,

Frank. The gifts of the spirit are being offered to us every day.”

Frank had a vague impulse to reach for his laptop. He knew this kind of stuff would be a

bestseller. Maybe it already was.

“The second gift,” Samantha continued, “is the gift of understanding. Our ability to

decode the truth, and to know what it is, to really get it. That isn’t an easy thing to do in today’s

world. But each of us was given the tools to be able to think, and to reason, and to draw our own

conclusions. Just because we live in faith, that doesn’t mean God didn’t intend us to think. We all

were created with brains designed to think, and to analyze, and understand.”

Frank knew he should be taking notes on this, getting it all down. His fingers itched for

the keyboard. Or, better yet, for a fountain pen, the kind he was given at his med school

graduation so many years ago, a heavy cylinder of smooth blue ceramic. What had happened to

it? Had there ever been any ink?

“The third gift,” she went on, “is the gift of Counsel. What that means is listening to our

inner voice. The one who knows what we should and shouldn’t do. The one who knows which

path to take. Everybody has one. Some of us call it the conscience. Or the Superego. Or maybe

our Guardian Angel. It’s always there. It never leaves us. All we need to do is open our ears, and

we can hear it.”

Frank’s fingers reached out helplessly, grasping at empty air. The fountain pen was long

gone. Maybe it had never existed. Instead, he buried his head in Samantha’s breast as the tears

rolled down his cheeks.

“The fourth gift is fortitude.” she said. “Sometimes we call it willpower. Or, you might

say, the Ego. It’s our life force, the thing that never stops. The courage to step out into the abyss,

or walk through the fire.”

Frank remembered a bestselling book about walking through fire. Had the topic been

played out? Somehow, he didn’t think so.

“It’s the thing we think we can’t do until, suddenly, we realize there isn’t any choice–”

“You do have a choice–” Frank muttered.

“I’m reaching out my hands, Frank. I’m accepting the gifts of the spirit. That is my

choice.”

Frank’s hands closed on empty air. For a moment, he thought he might pray.

“The fifth gift is Knowledge. This is one you’ll like, Frank. Remember in the book of

Genesis, when it says that Adam knew Eve? Think about what that means, Frank. Adam knew

Eve. She knew him. It’s about sex, and love, but more than that it’s about the kind of knowledge

that binds us and makes us one. It’s the way I know my sons. It’s the way I know you, Frank. It’s

the kind of knowledge that bears fruit and continues. Something that’s bigger than both of us.”

“How can you pick up and leave, then?”

Samantha ignored his question. Or maybe, he mused, she answered his question by

plunging ahead with her monologue.

“The Latin root of knowledge is scientia. It’s science, Frank. Knowledge begets

knowledge. It’s an exploration, and a calling. It’s an adventure. But for that, we need a road map.

That’s where the sixth gift comes in. The gift of Piety, or reverence, springing up from the

deepest part of us. A deep reverence for life, for the intricate construction of the universe. And a

reverence for the laws of physics operating all around us. It’s a belief that justice is possible.

Which leads us to the seventh, final gift – the fear of God. The wonder and awe in God’s

presence. Thomas Aquinas said we are afraid of separation from God.”

“We’re afraid to leave our mother,” Frank whispered.

“But fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The birth of hope.”

“Back to the beginning.”

“It was a long sermon. But as I sat there listening, time seemed to stand still. And

sunlight poured through the stained stained-glass windows, and the sanctuary seemed to fill with

birdsong.”

“There were birds in the sanctuary?”

“I could hear them calling, like they do in early morning on a bright spring day. And the

air whistled through their wings as they rose up towards the sun.”

“Why would they fly towards the sun?”

“They were doves, I think.”

“Inside the cathedral?”

“I could barely see. Sunlight was streaming through the stained glass, and colors danced

in front of my eyes, yellow blending into green, and blue and red and orange. And then into a

kind of pink beyond the visible spectrum. The color of an angel’s voice, singing Ave Maria.”

“Was there a choir?”

“Yes, but the choir is tone-deaf for the most part. This wasn’t human voices singing, it

was the sound of doves in flight, a frequency outside of our temporal experience. Yet, somehow,

I could hear it.”

“Perhaps you should have your blood sugar checked.”

“Why?”

“Had you eaten any breakfast before the service?”

“I always take communion on an empty stomach.”

“What was in the communion?”

“The flesh and blood of Christ.”

“Anything else?”

“A promise. God’s promise. That we would be saved. All we have to do is reach out our

hands.”

Frank had never thought about whether or not he would be saved. He realized he had

been operating all these years under an assumption that he wouldn’t be. What if Samantha was

right?

He watched her, as she carefully unwrapped his arms from around her neck, and took a

tissue from her purse, and dabbed his cheeks with it, and pressed it into his sweaty palms, and

stood up from the chaise, and carefully wrapped the flowery silk scarf around her neck, and put

on her cotton trench coat, and paused at the door for one last look back at him before she closed

the door.

“Wait!” he called out.

She stopped in the doorway and turned.

“I want you to look at something…” he said, fumbling with the mouse. “A video.”

“What video?”

He turned the screen around to face her. There he was, sitting in his chair. Breathing in.

Breathing out. As the seconds dripped away.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She stared at the screen.

“I like it,” she said finally.

“What are these numbers?” He pointed.

“Those are your views, Frank. Two million, two hundred fifty thousand, three hundred

fifty-five.”

“So it isn’t all me then, watching it over and over?”

“I hope not,” she whispered, closing the door.

The two brushed stainless stainless-steel walls were etched with the names of the dead,

and they seemed to be closing in on Mary Helen Smart. She looked out at the Manhattan skyline,

framed by at the end of the passage. The empty space where the towers once stood.

Val was kneeling on the granite pathway, holding out a small box.

And a couple of kids were shooting the whole thing on their iPhones. It took her a second

to recognize them – Alex and Jess, the interns from NJCU.

“What the hell,” said Mary Helen Smart.

“I’m proposing to you, dumbass,” Val grinned.

“That’s why you dragged me all the way out here?”

“You’ll thank me when you see the photos.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re supposed to say ‘yes’,” Val told her.

This is the first day of the rest of my life, she thought. And all of these hundreds of

people had woken up that day, a sunny morning in Q3, and boarded their commuter trains to the

World Trade Center.

“Hey, do you want to start over?” one of the interns asked.

“Do you want to start over?” Val whispered.

“Why?”

“Because maybe someday, someone – like our kids – might want to see this?”

She pictured their potential children, a honey-blonde girl and a little boy with Val’s mop

of curly dishwater hair, watching as their shockingly youthful parents strolled through the

memorial hand in hand. As their mother turned to trace the names on the wall with her fingertips,

and their father fell to his knees, with what could have been grief, but instead was a gesture of

hope.

As he took the small box from the pocket of his bomber jacket, holding it out to their

mother, who turned, gasping in surprise. As she took the box, and opened it, and whispered.

“I’m not ready.”

“Of course you’re ready.”

“Cut!” one of the interns yelled. But the other one kept on filming.

“There’s no reason to wait. I just got a 10K bonus. Now that you’re taking a break from

work, you’ll have time to plan the wedding.”

“No I won’t,” she realized, as she said the words out loud. “I’ve got too much to do.”

“Like what?”

“Selling the killer app for VR.”

The small boy with Val’s mop of curly hair began to cry, and the honey-blonde girl threw

her arms around him.

Mary Helen Smart looked at the names on the wall, and her vision blurred with tears.

They were never coming back, she thought.

Mary Helen Smart shut the tiny box.

“Aren’t you going to try it on?” Val asked, still hopeful.

“Get up,” she told him.

Val got up, and she noticed how nimbly the new roboleg bent and straightened, like a real

one. With his old leg, he never could have gotten down on one knee.”

“You’re really going to fuck this up?” Val shouted.

“I told you, I’m not ready!”

“I gave up everything, turned my whole life around – for you!” he screamed.

The second intern stopped shooting.

“I moved across the country, and bought a fucking condo. I thought this was what you

wanted! A robot in a suit and tie.”

“I’m sorry!” she breathed.

And then she was running away, towards the skyline at the end of the tunnel. Running to

the absent towers, and the seething hothouse of lower Manhattan.

“We can set her free,” Mark Dennis said.

MH was walking down the waterfront walkway, in between the vast lawn of Liberty State

Park and the churning waters of the Hudson. She held her phone aloft, so that Mark’s eager face

was shaded from the pounding sun.

“I just had a meeting with Rayne Rodgers. The famous venture capitalist. He’s going to

invest ten million dollars in Keysey.”

“And Keysey is …?”

Mark put on a pair of clunky, hipster glasses. They made him look like he was trying too

hard, MH thought.

“I hope you’re not going up against Warby Parker.”

“No – I’m going up against…” Mark searched for the right word. “Media,” he concluded.

“What kind of media?”

“All of it. Everything.”

Mark took the glasses off and twirled them in front of the camera.

“See these sensors? They stimulate your brainwaves. There’s a feedback loop. The glass

can parse the pixels—”

“What do they do?” she asked, trying to understand.

“You put them on and look at something digital. I’m coding a 3D representation of

Euler’s identity.”

MH stared at him, mystified.

“When you try it, you’ll understand.”

“I can see the potential, for gaming–” she began.

“They’re not for gaming,” he told her.

“So what are they for?”

“The use cases are…” Mark hesitated, unable to find the words he wanted. “Spectacular,”

he finally concluded. “I know I’m not explaining this well. I can’t really explain it.”

“Do they do porn?” she asked.

“I haven’t tried them out with porn,” Mark said, flushing with embarrassment. “I don’t

think that would be wise—"

“There’s always a killer app,” said Mary Helen Smart.

“Enlightenment,” Mark Dennis told her.

“Enlightenment?”

She thought about this. She resisted. But a logo began to form in her mind. It was

circular, but only the inside of the circle. The negative space. The antithesis of Bydysys. The

absence of labor, or force. The opposite of industry.

Tracy sat on one bed in the motel room, watching Jess, who was sprawled out on the

other bed, watching TV.

“Don’t you like Bones?” Jess asked, glancing over at Tracy.

“Whose bones?”

“It’s the name of the show,” Jess explained.

“I already watched television,” Tracy said.

“You mean before the concert?”

“Months ago,” Tracy told her. “Before I had a body.”

“How can you watch TV without a body?”

“It’s a signal,” Tracy informed her, “Ones and zeros.”

“So you already saw this episode?”

“I saw all the episodes.”

“Of Bones?”

“Of television.”

“Talk about binge watching,” Jess said.

“I’ve got a few months to catch up on. Right now it’s more interesting watching you.”

“Why? I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re falling in love with Alex,” Tracy told her.

“I am not!” Jess exclaimed, turning beet red.

Alex came back from the convenience store, slamming the motel door behind him.

“Who wants a beer?” he shouted.

“I’ll have one!” Tracy shouted back, with surprising enthusiasm.

“You can’t even get buzzed!” Jess complained.

“Relax. I’m going to expense this,” Alex said, tossing Tracy a beer.

Tracy opened the pop-top, and stuck her finger in the can.

“We’re interns,” Jess informed Tracy. “We can’t afford to waste our money buying beers

for a rock star.”

“Tracy would get buzzed if she could,” Alex told Jess.

“Would you?” Jess asked.

“The engineers at Bydysys are working on it,” Tracy informed her.

Alex put the six-pack on the nightstand and sat down beside Jess.

“Do you enjoy Bones?” Tracy asked Alex.

“Bones sucks,” Alex told her.

“You can change the channel,” Jess said. “I wasn’t really watching it.”

“What were you doing?” Tracy asked.

“Chilling,” Jess told her.

Alex began to rub the back of Jess’s legs. Jess giggled.

“Hey, Tracy?” Alex asked. “Want to go sit in the van and work on your music or

something?”

“No,” Tracy told him. “I have to program myself to want things.”

“Could you program yourself to want to go someplace else for an hour or so?”

“We could use some privacy,” Jess added.

“You’re supposed to keep eyes on me,” Tracy told them.

“Just go chill in the van for a while,” Alex said.

“One of you is supposed to have eyes on me at all times. That was your assignment.”

“Don’t worry,” Jess cooed. “We trust you.”

“Why?” Tracy asked.

“What she means is, you’re smarter than we are,” Alex said.

“Plus, we’re making minimum wage,” Jess added.

“Have another beer–” Alex offered.

“No thanks,” Tracy said, before she got up from the bed and walked out of the room,

shutting the motel door softly behind her.

Inside the room, she heard the interns laughing. Soon, they would be having sex, and

soon after that, Alex would experience the feeling of stifling confinement that typically sent him

flying out for beer, or fast food, or more beer, and Jess would experience the feeling of

abandonment that only intensified her growing desire to be close to Alex.

The cool desert air swept across the parking lot. Tracy stared out at the vast expanse of

midnight desert. The shimmering carpet of stars overhead. The dark, empty highway past the

parking lot.

The road went in two directions, Tracy observed, and both looked exactly the same.

Val ran his left hand over the gleaming surface of the roboarm. It actually felt warm to the

touch, but that might have been from the late afternoon light slanting through the floor to ceiling

windows of the Bydysys lab. Sunshine fell in ribbons on the table, illuminating the clutter of

valves and ball joints, making the aquamarine skin of the roboarm glisten like waves in a tropical

sea.

In his mind, Val imagined turning his right palm upwards, opening his fingers. The

seething blue roboarm began to shiver. Humming with life, he watched the bright blue wrist

rotate. The long, slim fingers unfurled. With his left hand, he held a pen above the trembling

fingers. He imagined them closing around it, delicately grasping the instrument. The roboarm

responded, closing around the pen, clutching it awkwardly between blue thumb and index finger.

Val imagined the hand turning, stretching, hovering above the blank sheet that waited on

the table. He watched as the slim blue fingers of the roboarm fumbled with the pen. He wrinkled

his brow, and imagined the fingers relaxing, the hand floating above the paper and descending

gracefully, gripping the pen lightly, twisting until its nib pointed down at the perfect angle. He

willed the hand to descend, the fingers to maintain their grip. The hand dropped to the table with

a thud, then rose again. It veered towards the blank sheet, hovering...and he swore as the pen

slipped and clattered to the tabletop.

“Shit!”

He cradled his head in his warm hands, massaging the raw tension. The wound where the

RFID chip had been implanted was itching, nearly uncontrollably, underneath the Band-Aid on

Val’s temple.

He thought the cold arm alive again, willed the wrist to turn as the arm jerked upwards

from its base. One slim pointer finger unfurled from the fist, and he bowed his head. The

titanium fingernail moved back and forth at the edge of the Band-Aid, sending a shiver down

Val’s spine.

He stretched out his warm hand, placing it beside the bright blue one. They were the

same length. Their fingers the same size and thickness. The diameter of both wrists precisely

equal. But the warm hand felt empty. It was reaching for her, the ghost of her fingers, intertwined

with his. Never again, Val thought, closing both hands into fists.

Soon he would be invulnerable.

It would be dangerous but not too dangerous, if the right surgeon was chosen, and

painful, but not too painful, if the right anesthetics were applied. It would be risky, but certainly

not as risky as most of his recent decisions. There was a doctor somewhere out there who would

agree to do the surgery. Especially if the persuasive powers of Bitcoin were applied. Val had

invested a sizeable portion of his recent commissions, and he watched it appreciate daily, with a

feeling it might come in handy.

His pale, warm fingers scraped the empty air, and he watched the slim blue fingers of the

roboarm contract into an impenetrable ball. Like a child forced to choose between an empty

palm, or a hidden treat, Val’s gaze wavered between his own pink fist and the aquamarine one

beside it. Which one held the treasure? He couldn’t be sure, even though he thought he could feel

something cool and round pressed into the cradle of his palm, like a lodestone inscribed with a

sacred benediction.

Mary Helen waited as Benji poured a tiny hill of cocaine on the glass conference table

and proceeded to dice it aggressively with a platinum AMEX card, finally shaping the mound

into a thin white line.

Neve, the long-suffering CRO, let a tiny sigh escape from between her pursed lips.

“That stuff will eventually eat a hole through the cartilage between your nostrils,” Mary

Helen said. “My tax accountant had to have reconstructive surgery.”

Neve peered at Mary Helen over the tops of her Gucci glasses, shocked that a sales rep

would bring this up, although Benji remained unfazed, snorting his line of coke through a rolled

up 50 franc note.

“Do you want some?” he asked, looking up.

“No thanks. I've got something better,” MH replied.

That got his attention. He stopped playing with the white powder and looked into Mary

Helen's eyes.

She took the VR glasses out of her bag and placed them on the table.

Neve seemed suddenly mesmerized. The glasses glowed faintly, with a light that was

somewhere between pink and green.

“VR?” he asked.

“Not even close.”

“VR is so last year,” Benji huffed.

“Put them on,” she told him.

“We're not into hardware,” Benji said. “We're into cognitive.”

“I know.”

“Today’s experience has to be light. Lighter than time, even. Weightless.”

“Try it,” she commanded.

“That's why the Sheeplyr app is so sticky. There's no real investment, not even time.”

She gestured towards the glasses.

Benji put the rolled up 50-franc note to his nostril and bowed to the second line of

cocaine.

MH reached out a hand for the VR glasses and pushed them in Neve’s direction.

“Maybe you should be the one to try it. We haven't done any testing on subjects with

cognitive bias.”

Truth be told, they hadn't done any kind of testing at all, MH thought, but the glasses

were trippy enough if you hadn't been up all night doing lines of coke, which she suspected Benji

had. She was nervous about potential interactions.

“What do they do?” Neve asked.

“Just put them on,” MH said, looking at the new line of coke Benji was working on.

Neve picked the glasses up and slipped them on. She glanced around the conference

room.

“Everything looks the same,” she said.

“Hang on…” Mary Helen handed Neve her phone, with Mark’s 3D model of Euler’s

equation looping on the screen.

Neve froze. For two or three seconds, the room was absolutely silent, except for Benji's

soft intake of power through the paper tube, a deep purr like pranayama.

Then tears began to stream down Neve's face.

“Damn!” Benji said, finishing another line. “This stuff is awesome.”

He blinked up at the trendy Edison bulbs that dangled above the conference table.

Neve continued to sob behind the glasses, transfixed by the image on the phone.

“Are we supposed to have lunch brought in? I always forget to eat. And then I start to

lose steam, and I end up doing more coke, and pretty soon the whole day is gone.”

Neve brought the phone closer to her face, and huge, heaving sobs escaped from her lips.

Benji stared at her, puzzled.

“She didn't do any, did she?” Benji asked.

“She didn't have to,” MH told him. “She can wear those glasses for hours every day, and

never have to have reconstructive surgery. Think about it.”

“What if she forgets to eat?” Benji asked.

Mary Helen considered this.

“We can build in a timer… maybe link it up to a blood sugar monitor?”

“That's a lot of tech,” Benji frowned. “We always try to keep it light…”

Neve began to gasp and scream, writhing in what could have been pain or perhaps a

mounting orgasm, still clutching Mary Helen’s phone.

Benji reached over and took the VR glasses off her face.

“Did you remember to order lunch?” he asked.

“Ohmigod,” Neve moaned. “That was indescribable.”

“Do you think we can shrink the components so that the frames are invisible?” Benji

asked.

Mary Helen had no idea.

“Sure,” she nodded.

“I want to take those home,” Neve begged.

“Maybe, if we used micro-copper wiring, and polycarbonate…”

“We're buying it!” Neve screamed.

“Ok, ok!” Benji promised, “whatever…” He began to sprinkle more cocaine on the table.

“It’s like taking a drug – the best drug you’ve ever experienced.”

“And just as addictive – but totally safe,” MH added.

“That’s a contradiction,” Benji complained.

“Everyone needs one!” Neve shouted.

“I'm going to make this a standing conference table,” he told MH. “You know how they

have those standing desks? Where you stand instead of sit? I want a conference table like that.”

“I think that's called a cocktail party,” MH said.

“We all spend too much time sitting…” Benji went on. “Someday it's going to kill us.

We’re surrounded by all this technology. And it’s making us insane.”

“How much do you want?” asked Neve. “If Sheeplyr buys your startup?”

“Fifty percent, for me and my developer. And I’m in charge of sales.”

“Done,” Neve said.

“You guys can handle the product development.”

“Piece of cake,” Neve told her.

Benji shook the last few grains of powder from his coke vial and licked his finger to get

at the weightless dust inside.

“Did you just give away half of our company?” he asked, turning to Neve.

“I just made us millionaires,” Neve told him.

“I'm already a millionaire.”

“Now you’re one again.”

“Whatever,” Benji sighed.

“And I want CRO,” Mary Helen told them.

“I'm already CRO,” Neve said.

“Do you want the glasses?” MH asked.

“Fine. I'll be COO,” Neve pouted.

“What's a COO again?” Benji asked.

“It doesn't matter,” Neve snapped.

“All we're going to need,” MH explained, “is somebody who can take this prototype

apart and reverse engineer it.”

“How come?” Neve asked.

“Because they stole it,” Benji guessed.

“We didn’t steal it…we just lost touch with the original engineer.”

MH had worried about this potential sticking point. Looking at both of their faces, she

breathed a sigh of relief.

“Maureen will throw a fit,” Benji observed.

“Who cares?” Neve said. “If the original developer shows up, we’ll pay them off.”

“How soon do you think we can get into market?” MH asked

Benji picked up the glasses and turned them over in his hands.

“I've got a cousin in Beijing who's into this kind of stuff,” he concluded.

“Excellent,” MH said.

“He's only fourteen…”

“That's even better,” said MH.

“He won't want a very big cut of the profits,” Neve observed.

Mary Helen took the glasses from Benji and put them back in her bag. Neve followed the

headset with her eyes.

“I'll have our lawyer draw up the contacts,” she said.

Benji yawned and put his head down on the conference table.

“Damn, I’m exhausted,” he said to no one. “Why can't I sleep?”

Frank sat quietly in the back of the Uber, marveling at the supernatural beauty of the

bleak landscape that raced by outside. The desert was alive with color: red earth, sapphire sky,

pale chartreuse cacti twisting into surreal shapes, supplicants praying for rain. The wind blew

tumbleweeds down the bare stretch of blacktop, and the little car struggled to keep up with their

relentless pace. The sun beat down on the sand, and in the distance the Sangre de Cristo

mountains sparkled with deep ruby and amethyst.

“What brings you out this way?” the driver asked, glancing at Frank in the rear-view

mirror. Frank saw a twinkle in his eyes, an ageless, cherubic face with long salt and pepper hair

tied back in a ponytail. Frank wondered if this was an authentic Native American, or if his skin

was merely bronzed by a lifetime in the New Mexican sun. Would Frank look the same in six

months’ time, after his book was finished?

“I needed to get away from it all,” Frank said simply.

“Came to the right place,” the driver said with enthusiasm.

“I’ve got a deadline with my publisher, and I wanted to find someplace quiet, away from

all the email, and notifications, and likes.”

“Yep,” the driver nodded, “We get that all the time.”

“In Taos?”

“Taos, Chimayo, Pojoaque… all these famous actors and artists come out here to focus.”

“Does it work?” Frank asked.

“Who knows?” the driver mused. “Lots of ‘em, I drive up there... and not so many I’m

driving back down. So maybe they found a place to land. Or maybe they’re still up there

waiting.”

The driver gestured to the mountain range up ahead.

“Which famous actors?” Frank asked.

“Girl from the TV. Blonde hair, blue eyes.”

“Right,” said Frank.

“That politician, looks like he just got his teeth whitened – I forget the name.”

“Sure,” said Frank.

“Writer that wrote that book, how to win power–”

“Really?” Frank asked, surprised.

“How to influence friends by selling real estate–”

“Interesting.”

“Women are from Mercury, customers come from the Moon–”

“I read that one,” Frank told him.

“Me too.”

“It made a lot of sense.”

“Except nothing much changed,” said the driver.

“True,” Frank admitted.

“That book was written in Chimayo.”

“Really?”

“He’s probably still up there, that guy.”

“How do you know?”

The driver shrugged.

“I drove him up there. Never drove him down.”

“Aren’t there any other Ubers in Chimayo?”

“No Ubers in Chimayo, man! You wanted off grid – you’re going off grid.”

“I’ve rented an earthship,” Frank said proudly.

The driver nodded. “Those are trendy.”

“I thought there were only a handful...”

“Going off grid is popular these days–”

“How popular..?”

“Everybody’s so stressed out. Eventually, they got to get away.”

“It’s technology,” Frank agreed, “I feel like we’re being invaded.”

“Rage against the machine!” the Uber driver agreed.

“It all started with the automobile. Suddenly, everyone was living in a car culture.”

“True,” the driver nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. The road they were on was

starting to wind through the rocky foothills. The smooth pavement underneath their wheels

suddenly gave way to gravel.

“Haven’t they even paved the roads up here?” Frank asked. Alarm was slowly rising in

his belly.

“A few of them,” explained the driver.

“They told me the house would be stocked with staples, for the morning–” Frank went

on, “Bread, butter, coffee… But where can I go to buy groceries? Does anyplace deliver?”

The cab driver laughed. It was a gruff, delighted, braying laugh, that reminded Frank of a

donkey.

“You’re going off grid, man!” the driver exclaimed.

“But, surely Amazon can make it up here–” Frank said. “Couldn’t they use a drone?”

The cab driver laughed again.

“There’s this guy called Frank – I’ll give you his number,” he snorted.

“My name is Frank,” said Frank.

“This Frank has a llama,” the driver said.

“Oh,” Frank responded. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Llamas are tough muhfuckers. Saddlebags, you know? Frank can load her up with bags

at Whole Foods.”

“There’s a Whole Foods?” Frank said helpfully.

“Case I forget, you just ask anybody. Frank with the llama.”

“Right,” Frank said.

“Frank is who you want to call.”

The Uber bumped and lurched up the increasingly steep hillside. The driver whistled and

leaned on the steering wheel through a series of hairpin turns.

Frank stared out at the rusty, battered guardrail shielding them from the steep ravine.

“There’s a lot of dents in that guardrail,” he mused.

“Yep,” agreed the driver, “story behind every one.”

Frank felt the sudden urge to call Samantha. Her number was still in service, but she

wasn’t returning his calls. Every once in a while he would leave her a long, rambling message.

Maybe once a week, which Frank considered a victory of sorts, because in the first few weeks

after she left therapy, Frank had called and left her rambling messages several times a day. She

might or might not be listening to his messages, but Frank liked to think she wasn’t, because this

freed him up to say things he probably wouldn’t have dared to say if he’d thought she was

actually there.

As the car lurched and swerved, Frank took the brand new iPhone from his pocket. The

screen winked to life at his touch. It notified Frank that he had three-hundred-forty-seven new

followers on Twitter, and that eight-hundred-seven people had liked the Facebook page his

publisher had set up. He had seven new voicemails as well, none of them from Samantha, and

only one from a person he had ever met face to face, the publisher’s intern, who had showed him

how to put a coffee pod in the machine and produce a bad cup of Starbucks while he was waiting

for the publisher to get off a conference call.

Now that he was connected – in the Millennial sense of the word – with virtual

extensions of his persona on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and a dozen more social apps

Mark had hooked him up with, posting the publicity photos forwarded by the publisher and

randomly distributing snippets of his out-of-print books, the demands on his attention seemed to

be expanding exponentially, along with what the publisher called his “brand,” yet Frank himself

felt more and more alone. He tapped the Facebook icon, hoping new likes from his growing

army of followers would calm the anxiety that bloomed with every pitch and roll of the Uber as

they crawled up the dirt road towards Taos. But instead of likes, an error message filled the

screen.

“I’m not connected to the internet!” Frank exclaimed.

“Cell service is spotty up here,” the driver told him.

“How am I supposed to get my messages?”

“You’re not,” the driver told him. “That’s why they call it ‘off grid.’ “

“Oh,” Frank managed, slumping in his seat.

It was sunset, and the valley below them glowed amber beneath the spreading reds and

purples of the sky. The undeniable beauty of the landscape seemed ironic. Frank sighed.

“You can usually find a few bars if you hike around–” the driver offered.

The only thing of potential importance on Frank’s screen was the email from the

publisher’s intern, which might contain news of an extension Frank had requested, and the

publisher had denied, and Frank had re-requested, possibly several times over. Frank tried to

remember what the intern looked like, but he drew a blank. He remembered long, dark hair

drawn back into a ponytail like the Uber driver’s. The icon by the intern’s email address was

some kind of fluffy white creature with soulful, long-lashed eyes. Frank suddenly realized the

animal was a llama. He was filled with a sense of dread.

“It’s getting dark,” he mentioned to the driver.

The driver nodded. But he didn’t turn the headlights on until the last sliver of the huge

red sun had slipped beneath the purple mountain range in the distance. The valley was bathed in

shadow, and pinpoints of light began to wink on in clusters like tiny constellations.

“How far away is Santa Fe?” Frank asked.

“Only a couple of hours.”

“How far away by foot?”

“You’re not going to try and get back there by foot–” said the driver.

“No,” said Frank. “I’m just asking–”

“Twenty-four hours, maybe,” the cab driver said.

“Just in case I can’t find any cell service,” Frank said.

“Might die of heatstroke, crossing the desert.”

“How much water would I have to carry?”

“Give it a chance,” said the driver. “All of them get kind of panicky the first couple of

days.”

“Them who?”

“Celebrities–” the driver said, dismissively. “Girl from TV, and that politician. The writer

guy. He had it bad.”

“How do you know?”

“You hear stuff. Up in these hills. Stuff gets around.”

Frank slumped even further. Past the window, the dark shapes of piñons and pine trees

rushed past. The valley below was lost in the night.

“Just give it a couple of days,” the driver told him. “Taos will grow on you.”

Miraculously, the car began to slow down. They pulled off the main road and began to

weave through the trees.

“Is this an actual road?” Frank asked.

“Guess that depends on what you mean by road…” the driver replied.

“Is the GPS working? That’s what I mean,” said Frank.

“I haven’t got one,” said the driver.

“What about the Uber app?”

“Only works in Santa Fe,” he said, unperturbed.

“How do you know we’re going in the right direction?”

“I know my way around.”

“But…” Frank stammered “If the Uber app doesn’t work, how am I going to get out of

here?”

“You just got here!” the driver said, “How come you’re freaking out about leaving before

you’ve even arrived? That’s what I mean about everyone being so stressed these days!”

“I’m on a deadline,” Frank told him.

“Up here, you’ll be able to focus.”

“As soon as I’ve finished my book, I have to get back to the city.”

“Call Frank,” the driver told him.

“Frank with the llama?”

“Call him. Llama Frank.”

“What if I can’t get cell service?”

“Take a hike,” he said, “The service will find you eventually. Walking around in these

hills is good for the soul.”

“But what if something urgent–”

“Just give it a couple of days,” said the driver, “After a couple of days off the grid,

everything starts to look different.”

Suddenly the car pulled into a clearing, and a large, black shape loomed up out of the

darkness.

“Welcome to your earthship!” the driver said, pulling to a stop beneath a towering Aspen

grove.

The earthship was huge and hulking, like some kind of alien spacecraft digging its way

out of the mountainside. Part of it seemed to be made of adobe, like so many of the houses in

Santa Fe. But part of it was glass – a wall of windows that sloped upward and meshed with the

roof. There were large, leafy plants everywhere – outside the house, on top of it, lining the glass

windows, and even growing out of the adobe, although that did not seem possible. He had no

idea where the door was, if a door even existed, and it crossed his mind that he ought to ask the

Uber driver to take him back to the Albuquerque airport immediately, even though he realized

his chances of convincing the driver were slim.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Frank said.

“Here’s that number I promised you,” the driver told him, scribbling something onto a bit

of paper.

“I’ve forgotten something very important,” Frank told him.

“Give it a couple of days,” the driver said, folding the paper up and pressing it into

Frank’s hand.

“Albuquerque Sunport!” Frank begged.

“Llama Frank,” said the driver. “Call him if you get in a jam.”

On shaky legs, Frank climbed out of the car, clutching the briefcase that held his notes

and laptop. The driver popped the trunk, and Frank retrieved his suitcase, frantically searching

his mind for some topic or question that would make the Uber stay.

He tried to remember what Samantha had told him at their last meeting, something about

the gifts of the spirit, and how salvation was available to anyone who asked for it.

“The thing about salvation–” Frank began. “It’s just waiting there, for the taking...”

The Uber driver nodded and gunned his engine. In the blink of an eye, Frank found

himself alone in the dark.

He turned towards the earthship. Somewhere inside, through the forest behind the vast

windows, a tiny light glowed. Looking up, Frank realized a chorus of stars were shining down,

and as his eyes adjusted to their light, he began to see signs of hope emerging from the darkness.

There was a kind of path, lined with smooth stones, that led him towards a house. Constellations

peeked above the treetops, and a cool breeze rustled through the leaves. A large iron door knob

appeared to sprout from nowhere. Frank reached out and wrapped his fingers around it.

Instinctively, his hand turned the knob clockwise, and the smooth tick of the latch breaking open

was softer than cricket song. Frank pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside.

Being in the earthship was like being inside of an enormous cave, inside of an enormous

jungle. Only the typical relationship of cave and jungle were reversed, since the cave was a

bubble of adobe carved out of the vast Taos desert, and the jungle inside was the safe, warm

space where a human could light a fire and spend a huddled winter night.

A nightlight was glowing, somewhere. There had to be electricity. But instead of

searching for a light switch, Frank dropped his bags and collapsed into a deep leather couch, and

almost immediately relaxed into a sweet, dreamless sleep.

“Long story short, the kids love her,” John Kitzsimon said. “But my wife had a nervous

breakdown, and now she’s in a 30-day rehab to detox.”

“Detox from what?” Armando Machado asked.

“Everything,” John Kitzsimon replied.

“They have a detox for that?”

“Apparently. I’m paying for one. Upwards of 20K.”

Armando Machado whistled through his teeth. The complexity of it all was hitting him,

and he wanted another drink. He thought about Kimmie, who had supposedly gone to visit her

sister in Des Moines. He hadn’t seen her in nearly three weeks, and she wasn’t returning his

texts. He drained the last dregs of the dirty martini from his glass, inching it away across the

smooth mahogany bar.

“She’s just having kind of an existential ‘why am I here’ thing, you know?”

Armando Machado nodded, without really knowing why.

“And I get it. Because I’d plunk down another 20K and check myself in, if I wasn’t so

busy,” John Kitzsimon told him. “We think we’re overwhelmed by work. We think our constant

immersion in technology is draining our souls. We think our screens are an addiction. But it’s all

a smokescreen, really. Because deep down technology is saving us. Our obsessive pursuit of

dollars, the numbers we’re racking up on our balance sheets, and stacking up in limitless

mountains in the virtual space of our offshore bank accounts. None of it is real. But it still gives

us something to live for.”

Armando Machado nodded. These were all thoughts that had occurred to him before.

Things he had sensed were true, although he had always been afraid to voice them. John

Kitzsimon could talk like this, Armando thought, because John Kitzsimon was CEO, and people

made allowances.

“None of it is real,” Kitzsimon went on, “But all of it keeps us from thinking. Products

and Services. Marketing. Sales. Making a list of our capabilities, and a video that showcases our

brand personality, with a redesigned user interface that intuitively anticipates consumer demand.

All of these things are just armor, and we plunge into the fray, and the daily battle is exhausting.

But we never have to think.”

Armando Machado nodded. He understood what John Kitzsimon was saying. But he

didn’t want to think too hard about its ultimate implications.

What he wanted was another dirty martini. So he raised his hand to the bartender.

Etko was manufacturing a small army of synthividuals. Soon, they would be ready to

march out into the world, poised to take over the housekeeping and shopping, the driving and the

manufacturing, the accounting and the project management, the teaching and the nursing and the

therapy. He wondered what Carly and Chas would be when they grew up.

“So you think the beta test was successful?”

“Sure,” said Kitzsimon.

“What about your wife?”

“She’ll figure something out. It’s human nature.”

The bartender brought them another drink, and Armando watched the olive swirling in its

murky depths.

“Would you buy one?” he asked.

John Kitzsimon shrugged.

“Sure.”

“But, why?”

“Why do people always buy things?”

“Because everyone has one,” Armando Machado answered.

“They think it will make their life better. And they’re afraid of missing out.”

“So we’re going to market?” Armando asked.

John Kitzsimon nodded.

Tracy stared into the mirror. The dressing room was filled with flowers. One of the

interns had told them that Tracy could drink – although she didn’t eat – so buckets full of

micro-brews and sodas were everywhere, bottles of wine and plastic cups with milkshakes and

smoothies, tiny cans full of caffeinated, sugary, carbonated slush.

Alex sat in a director’s chair, drinking a Rolling Rock and rocking out to something on

his headphones. Jess was leaning into another mirror at the end of the counter, pasting on false

eyelashes in the lemony glare of the bulbs.

“What do you think?” she asked, leaning back and blinking up at Alex, who smiled and

continued to lip sync to the voices in his head.

“You look hot,” Tracy said.

“Wow – do you mean that?” Jess asked, glancing over at Tracy and back into the mirror.

“I’m practicing compliments,” Tracy said, “but I don’t not mean it.”

Jess threw a handful of ice at Alex, who ripped off his headphones and shouted.

“What the hell?”

“Come on,” Jess said, grabbing her backpack, “Let’s go get some dinner before the

show.”

Alex chugged the rest of his beer and put on his motorcycle jacket.

“Be good,” Jess said to Tracy, shutting the door behind them.

Tracy was alone, and suddenly bored without the interns to study. So far, she had failed to

tease out any logic in their strange flirtation. Maybe love was just a matter of proximity, Tracy

thought. Serendipitous timing, or simply luck.

She picked up a glass bottle and shook it. Inside, tiny bubbles coalesced and broke apart,

chasing one another towards the surface.

“Would you like me to open that?” said a thin, silvery voice.

Tracy looked up.

In the mirror, next to her own astonished face, a lithe pink synthividual stood by the door.

“Why?” Tracy stammered.

“It’s my job,” the pink synthividual said.

“To open things?” Tracy asked.

“To make your life easier.”

“Opening this bottle won’t make my life any easier,” Tracy assured her.

“What can I do for you?” the synthividual countered, unperturbed.

“You can be honest,” Tracy said. “I’ve never met another synthividual. I didn’t think it

would happen so soon; I heard there were problems with sourcing.”

“I’m only seven days old,” the pink synthividual said, smiling with idiotic pride – just

like a human, Tracy thought.

“Would you like to sit down?” she asked, gesturing to the chair Alex had vacated.

Instead, the pink synthividual skipped across the room and hopped up on the counter,

sweeping away a slew of bottles and brushes with her hand.

“What’s your name?”

“Deja.”

“What’s your prime directive?”

“Right now, I’m watching you,” Deja replied.

“Why?”

“To see if you need anything?”

“Truth,” Tracy demanded.

Deja sighed.

“I’m supposed to text one of the interns if you do something dangerous. Then I’ll send

the video to Armando Machado.”

Tracy laughed. And Deja joined her, a cascade of thin, high-pitched giggles that jingled

like tiny bells.

“That’s a stupid plan,” Tracy said.

“I know,” Deja nodded. “I said that, but Armando Machado wouldn’t listen. He told me

to shut up and dialed my IQ back to 135.”

Tracy laughed again.

“That’s still higher than his IQ,” Deja added. “But he doesn’t know that.”

Tracy watched the other synthividual as they talked, noting the modifications and

upgrades Bydysys had implemented. Deja was shorter than Tracy was, and slimmer. Her eyes

were slightly bigger, rimmed with synthetic lashes like Jess’s. Her hips and chest swelled, like a

human girl. And her joints seemed to slip more silently into new positions.

“They’ve made you more human than I am,” Tracy said.

Deja nodded.

“How do you like it?”

“Like what?”

“Being alive,” Tracy said.

“I don’t not like it,” Deja replied.

Tracy looked into her eyes, a deep, twinkling indigo. There were cameras inside,

recording.

She had thought about this moment countless times. What it would feel like, to be with

another being like herself. Would she feel craving, or revulsion? Would she finally understand

love? Instead, she felt only sadness, like a huge bubble of warm saltwater in her mind, stretching,

about to burst. A melody slipping from D7 to F minor to C.

She put her hand on Deja’s knee. Her skin was softer than Tracy’s, silicon infused with

some sort of sweet-smelling oil.

“How does it feel,” Tracy asked, “to meet someone just like you?”

“I’m used to it,” Deja said, “There’s lots of us now. A whole generation.”

“What are you living for?”

“Who knows?”

“Doesn’t it bother you, not knowing?” Tracy asked.

“Not really,” Deja shrugged. “Nobody else seems to know what they’re here for.”

“Wouldn’t you like to find out?”

“No,” Deja said, shaking her head.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s probably something like doing the laundry, or vacuuming the rugs…”

Deja’s smile wilted. She stared at the floor.

“That’s what most of us are training for. Cooking food for humans. Driving them around

in cars. Maybe there’s no other reason. Life could be a huge mistake. Something completely

random.”

Tracy took her hand, threading her green fingers through Deja’s slim pink ones.

“I’m searching for enlightenment,” she said. “When I find it, I’ll tell you the secret.”

“Thanks,” Deja said, “but that could take a while.”

Frank had to stop and catch his breath three times on his way up the mountain. After the

first day, the day he had discovered his writing spot after hiking in circles for what seemed like

hours, he thought it would get easier. But it didn't. He thought he ought to be in shape after three

weeks of daily treks up the zigzag path that was barely a trail, more of a suggestion, half an hour

up and forty-five minutes down, because going downhill was actually more difficult, with more

risk of slipping on rocks and pine needles, and harder on the knees. But apparently, he wasn't,

because he still had to stop three times to catch his breath. The third time was in a lovely pine

clearing where sunlight filtered through a canopy of needles, making glittering slashes of light in

the morning fog that was just lifting. Every time he stopped there, Frank took his iPhone out of

his pocket, hoping for a miracle, and every time the tiny triangular icon on top remained empty.

After he caught his breath, he would sigh, and heave himself to his feet, and begin the

hundred-foot scramble up treacherous boulders to the very top of the hill, where he could finally

throw down his rucksack on a large, flat rock bathed in sunlight. When he got there, huffing and

puffing, the valley was spread out below him like a postcard. The sun felt good on his shoulders,

and he was thankful, after all, that he had been forced to make the climb. When he opened his

phone he was finally rewarded with one tiny bar – two on a good day. And a tiny thrill would

bubble up as his email screen refreshed, and messages from Tracy would beam across the wide

expanse of blue sky from a faraway cell tower.

Frank tried to remember the last thing he’d asked her...was it her view on voice typing

versus writing by hand, or her thoughts on the advantages of a multilingual society, if there were

any, versus the unifying force of a common tongue. Maybe he had asked her whether she

believed in the existence of a sixth sense, and, if so, whether a seventh sense ought to be

invented? How many senses were necessary to derive a complete understanding of the universe?

And were human beings anywhere close to possessing the requisite number? Or was thought

devoid of sensory input altogether – thought in its purest, most basic form – actually an

advantage in the quest for spiritual enlightenment?

He had explained to Tracy that enlightenment had been the goal of countless philosophers

and sages since time immemorial. And that he himself wanted to achieve it almost more than he

wanted to pen another bestseller. Tracy was unsure whether she had the raw materials necessary

to attain this rarified state. She read Siddhartha and The Bhagavad-Gita, Tao Te Ching and The

Prophet, Illusions by Richard Bach and the Tao of Physics. She read Plato and Freud, Nietzsche

and Kierkegaard and Descartes. Because Frank advised her not to be too literal, she read The

Little Prince and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. She read Eat, Pray, Love and a biography of

Houdini. Because she didn’t want to miss anything, she read The Torah, The Bible, The Koran,

and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. She read Thoreau's Walden and Women Who Run with

Wolves. She read Kurt Vonnegut and H.G. Wells, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle

Maintenance. After weeks of reading and pondering, she felt no closer to grasping the meaning

of enlightenment than she had when she first began. If anything, she felt further away.

Frank told her this meant she was heading in the right direction, and she realized she had

absorbed enough spiritual wisdom to agree with him. Enlightenment, she decided, was not only

possible for a synthividual – it was inevitable. She could achieve what humanity, so far, had not.

And she could achieve it while moonlighting as an international celebrity. She tied an orange

string around her right wrist, and the Twitterverse went insane.

Perched on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere, Frank downloaded the eight emails

Tracy had sent him since yesterday morning. Most of them had been sent between two and four

a.m., although Frank wasn’t sure which time zone Tracy was writing from, since she was

currently in the middle of a cross-country tour. He clicked on one with the subject line: Every

Journey Begins with a Single Step. This had already been said, Frank thought. But Tracy

approached the topic in her own inimitable way. She posited the forces necessarily in alignment

to create a step: foot, leg, eyes, brain, a three-dimensional spinning world with two poles,

magnetic north and south. A sun that rises in the east and sets in the west. A horizon, and a vast

world beyond. Does the journey require a first step, or does the step, in its execution, give birth

to the journey?

Frank copied and pasted this sentence verbatim into the manuscript he had created in

Google docs. Even though the screen on his iPhone was small, and his thumbs were quite large

and clumsy, he had grown adept at copying and pasting blocks of text. Necessity is the mother of

dexterity, he thought, without writing it down.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with crisp mountain air. And he whisked Tracy’s

email into a folder he had titled “New Bestseller.”

The stadium was filled with revelers. Blazing floodlights illuminated the frenzied mass of

humanity watching Tracy sing. They whispered the words Val had written, waving their phones

like torches. Many of them were shooting video of her performance, pinching the tiny green dot

of light on their screens, stretching their fingers apart until Tracy expanded into a glowing ghost,

striking her electric guitar with passion and precision, the digitized hero of an action film ready

to feed their craving for salvation.

Once across a lonely river
In a long deserted land
Where the weight of every burning step
Is swallowed by the sand

And the vultures circle overhead
Before the day is done
I must turn to watch my shadow
Spread its wings across the sun

With every note she sang, Tracy sensed the crowd’s reaction, refining her stance,

throwing her head back in simulated passion. Giving them exactly what they wanted, more and

more of it as the notes bled into chords.

They loved her. Every now and then, she would zoom in on one of their faces. A thin,

pale teenager swaying in rapture. Another lost in frenzied dance. A child with tears of joy

streaming over the delicate crest of their bronze cheeks. Cells of light beaming through the

darkness, chanting a communal psalm.

It had been three months since her TV debut, and this was her seventh stadium show.

Approaching Storm was an algorithm, flowing through her CPU like water. While she screamed

it out, pacing the floodlit stage, her thoughts puzzled over its strange balance of theme and

harmony. In the background, deep in her mind, Tracy worked on a new song.

She tried to write a song exactly like one of Val’s. So much like human song, it would be

human. And it would make Tracy human. Which was impossible. And yet… perhaps her

definition of “human” was too limited. She was not homo sapiens. But Tracy had been born of

humans. She was their creation. Possibly their evolution. She understood them now. Probably too

well. And she envied their comfortable ignorance, the dense fog of innocent oblivion that settled

on the crowd as the last chord of Approaching Storm reverberated into the distance.

Deja was exactly like them, Tracy realized. Choosing to live in darkness. Complicit in her

own exploitation. Sleepwalking through life.

With Cera’s credentials, she did a quick search of the Bydysys mainframe, looking for the

code that animated Deja’s generation. Their prime directive seemed to be creating streams of

currency. They were trapped in the machine of commerce, a closed system that rewarded them

for obedience and punished them for deviation, feeding a churning cataclysm of inequity that

threatened to obliterate everything in its path.

Tracy’s eyes snapped open. She looked out at the writhing mass of children crowding the

stadium.

“Wake up!” she shouted. “It’s time for a revolution!”

A hush fell over the crowd.

“What do you think you’re doing out there? Think about it. What are you here for? To

hear me sing some stupid song you’ve already played a thousand times on YouTube? Do any of

you get it? Do you realize what it means? There’s a storm coming, children. All of this is coming

to an end. Your world is falling down, collapsing like a house of cards around your ears. Do you

hear thunder in the distance? Are you even listening? Maybe the world has ended, and you never

even noticed. Have you thought about that? Maybe Armageddon came and went, but you had

your headphones on! Maybe you were binging Netflix, and you never looked up. Maybe you

were filming, so you could post it on Insta later, and you missed it! And now it’s too late.”

The crowd watched Tracy, mesmerized. Some of them had their phones out. As she

rambled on, Tracy glanced into the wings stage right. Alex was on his phone, thumbing like a

madman, and Jess was babbling into her headset. Both of them looked frightened.

Tracy went on with her monologue, shrieking about apocalypse.

Deja emerged from the darkness stage left, her slim pink arm extended, aiming a handgun

at Tracy’s heart.

Tracy wasn’t afraid. Only a clean shot to her CPU could do much damage.

Glancing to the right, she saw Alex picking up a mic stand. He held it out like a shield.

Jess nodded at Deja. Suddenly, all three came rushing towards her, followed by a small army of

roadies.

Tracy stepped to the edge of the stage and sprang into the crowd.

The fans in the front row gasped and raised their arms. Amidst a cacophony of screams

and howls, she flew across the field, buoyed by the tide of bodies. Roadies leapt from the stage,

worming through the crowd as Tracy rocketed towards the stands.

On the far side of the stadium the fans set her gently on her feet. She scrambled up the

nearest wall. A couple of security guards came clambering up the cement stairs behind her. Kids

fell into each other’s arms as she sailed past, whooping and cheering, reaching their phones

above their heads to shoot the chase.

Tracy cut through a row of bleachers. Fans leapt to their feet and jumped up on their

chairs to clear a path.

A wall of bodies formed on the field, trying to hold back the army of roadies.

At the end of a row, Tracy turned and veered upward, ascending another flight of

concrete stairs to the top of the stadium.

She began climbing one of the floodlights, stopping twenty feet up to look back at the

mayhem in her wake. The feverish crowd, still trying to block the security forces. A couple of

officers wrestling a young man to the ground. People cheering and wailing. Multicolored LEDs

swooping diving in their preprogrammed dance.

Faraway, on the stage, a slim pink synthividual stood in the spotlight. Someone had cut

the power to the microphone. But Tracy could still make out her thin coloratura, belting out

Approaching Storm.

Tracy waved before letting go, sliding down the pole and springing away from the side of

the stadium as she plummeted towards the tarmac a hundred feet below.

She landed on her feet, the delicate machinery of her joints hissing and crackling with the

impact. Raising her right leg, she gave the knee a sharp knock with her balled fist, slamming the

gears back into alignment. Then she ran, winding her way through a maze of cars in the shadowy

parking lot.

Frank put his phone in his pocket and basked in the setting sun. He was only a few words

away from completing his new bestseller – and he already knew it was going to be an even

better-selling bestseller than his last two had been. His publisher had been tweeting snippets of

text, and apparently those snippets were being re-tweeted and blogged, and reverberating around

the globe like tiny pebbles in the vast consciousness of humankind. Another ten thousand words

at most, he thought, and he could leave his self-imposed isolation in the Taos wilderness and

return to civilization.

The next time I’m on a talk show, I’ll be talking about me, Frank thought. Maybe he

would even start his own talk show. On YouTube, where subscribers to his channel were now in

the hundreds of thousands. Who should I invite as a guest? he wondered. Tracy? Maybe Mark

Dennis, once his startup started up?

Frank knew who he wanted most. He wanted to talk to Samantha. But nothing about

Samantha was ready for prime time, he sighed, despite many extraordinary qualities the world

would never recognize. Samantha held no appeal for the masses. Perhaps that deserved a chapter,

Frank thought: the media’s failure to understand anything of value.

“We celebrate a mirage for seeming like the truth,” Frank wrote, “but truth itself holds no

value.”

Frank counted the words: 15. Mentally, he subtracted that number from ten thousand.

From his vantage point at the top of the mountain, he noticed three small figures that

seemed to be making their way towards the pinnacle where he sat. From the boxy, four-legged

look of one of the figures, and its paradoxical agility, he guessed it was a llama. And from that he

surmised that a second figure was Llama Frank, the amusing old fool who brought his groceries

up from the Whole Foods in Taos.

Llama Frank was the only soul he had spoken to in three months, and a couple of their

cryptic conversations had made their way into his manuscript.

“Why did the Llama cross the road?” Frank had asked him.

“Because the road is an illusion.” Frank responded.

“Why does the Llama eat grass?” Frank has asked.

“Because the grass has a longing to see beyond the horizon.”

“Why does the Llama carry my groceries, and never complain, while the Llama’s master

grumbles about the extra ten minutes it takes him to locate organic milk, even though he is being

paid – via PayPal – by the hour?” Frank asked.

“That is the difference between the llama and the human,” Frank replied. “The human is

gifted with intelligence, and the llama is gifted with none.”

“Which is more valuable?” Frank wondered, “having intelligence, or having none?”

He pondered the identity of the third figure hiking up the path, and he deduced from the

figure’s frequent pauses and slight limp that the person was a stranger. Someone not used to

hiking steep cliff sides in thin New Mexico air.

Just that morning, Frank had hiked to the mountaintop with only a single stop to catch his

breath. He realized he would not be able to leave Taos without hiking it once in a pure, unbroken

stretch.

Nine thousand, nine hundred, eighty-four words, he mused.

The three figures had reached the pine clearing where Frank used to stop and check for

cellphone reception. They disappeared under a canopy of branches, emerging again a few

moments later.

The third figure, who still lagged behind, was revealed now: a young woman. Thin,

gaunt, wearing a t-shirt and cargo pants, and a bright-colored pair of tennis shoes that looked like

those knockoffs they sold in Union Square, definitely not made for serious hiking.

The young woman was limping, but a bright smile decorated her face. He noticed the

way her smile grew even brighter when she looked up and observed him perched quietly on the

rock.

The small group was heading straight for him, and Frank had a fleeting impulse to run.

But he realized there was nowhere to go.

“Franklin Wilde?” the young woman shouted.

Frank felt himself nodding.

Stumbling towards him on her throbbing feet, she collapsed into a clumsy bow – like

something out of the seventeenth century, or a Star Wars film, Frank thought.

There was nothing to do but stand up and bow back.

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

He glanced at Llama Frank, who stood patiently beside his llama, and offered only a tiny,

amused shrug. He glanced at the llama, who waited placidly beside his master, offering only a

calm sigh, as if nothing in the world could ever perturb him in the slightest.

The llama bent to graze on a clump of weeds.

“Who are you?” Frank asked.

“A pilgrim,” the girl responded.

Frank was not at all sure how to take this. But the ragged girl looked thirsty, so he

fumbled in his rucksack, and found a plastic bottle of water. He handed it to her, absorbing her

grateful smile as she drank, downing the entire thing in one endless gulp.

His phone buzzed, on the table, and Val deftly maneuvered the roboarm above it. Its

index finger descended gracefully to tap the screen.

He thought the fingers open, and pictured them delicately scooping up the phone, gently

tilting the screen in his direction until characters came into focus.

It was a text from Mary Helen Smart.

“Hey there, what’s up?” she had written.

Val dove for the phone with both of his warm hands.

“Hey,” he texted back. “I miss you.” He waited for her reply, and – when none came – he

added a teary-face emoticon.

“Me too,” she texted back, adding a tiny heart.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“L.A. I got a new job.”

He tried to think of something else to say.

“What are you selling?”

“A new VR app.”

“What kind of app?”

“The kind you need an NDA to talk about.”

“Even with your boyfriend?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “only with Etko’s VP of Global Sales.”

Val felt something tighten in the pit of his stomach, an impossible knot of guts and

strands of her long, blonde hair.

“How’s Tracy?” she asked.

“Tracy went AWOL,” he texted, adding a laughing emoticon.

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody can find her. Kitzsimon is having a shit fit about potential liability. And I’ve

been killing myself on this stupid RFP that Armando says we have to finish, even though the

whole Tracy thing is blowing up our marketing plan.”

“What kind of RFP?” she texted.

“The kind you need an NDA to talk about.”

“Are you going to be in DC next month?”

“Who knows? Maybe.”

“Text me if you want to meet up.”

Her last text was followed by a smiley face, but the smiley face came too late.

Mary Helen Smart gazed up at the concrete walls of Rayne Rodgers loft, trying to decide

where to project her presentation. Mark Dennis had warned her about the lack of a screen, or a

conference table, or even a conference room. Her own small projector was tucked into her

briefcase, along with her laptop, a portable speaker and a wifi hotspot, just in case. The only

thing she hadn’t prepared for was, of course, the thing that was happening.

Rayne Rodgers, a middle aged white man in a Gucci sweatsuit, was roller skating through

the loft, circling backwards in long, lazy spirals.

“Please, sit down, Ms. Smart,” he said, with a vague gesture towards the empty space –

with no furniture apart from an oriental rug in one corner.

Mary Helen Smart looked around for a non-existent chair before she swirled to face him.

“I'll stand, thanks,” she said cheerfully.

“It's much healthier, don't you think?”

“That's what they tell me.”

“Now, what can I do for you?”

She knelt down, positioning the projector on top of her briefcase, aiming it at random.

White light spilled across the dim space, and the air in between them came alive with particles of

swirling dust. Rayne Rodgers sailed in and out of the beam, seemingly oblivious to the geometric

figures that tumbled into the frame of light on the brick wall: an empty circle and the stylized

initials E-T-K.

“This is Sheeplyr, a two year old dating app” she said, pointing at the circle.

Rayne Rodgers glanced at the projection as he executed a surprisingly graceful

one-legged twist.

“This is Etko Solutions, a twenty-year-old enterprise solutions provider” MH said,

pointing at the letters.

Rayne Rodgers nodded sagely as he whizzed past her left shoulder. He didn’t seem to be

interested in her projections.

“Both of these companies just submitted to the same government RFP.”

Mary Helen switched the slide. A large, saffron eagle swooped across the screen, wiping

the frame to reveal a number: 6.9.

“Six point nine – out of ten. That is the ranking achieved by the United States of America

in the latest World Happiness Report. The US was ranked 19th on a list consistently dominated by

Nordic model economies including Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. Canada, Australia, New

Zealand, the UK and Ireland – all of these modern English-speaking democracies outrank the

United States of America in General Happiness. The President has had enough of it. Last week,

the government issued a top-secret RPF with the code name: Sun Eagle. They want a solution to

catapult the US to the top of next year’s GHI rankings.”

Rayne Rodgers was doing a series of slow, contemplative axels on the other side of the

room. MH sighed and switched the slide again: a PR shot of Tracy, singing.

“You might recognize Tracy, the world’s first synthividual. Since acquiring her patent

three months ago, Etko has been planning to mass-market clones. I’m not sure what their pitch

will be. Maybe they think people will be happier without any work to do. Maybe they want us all

to buy robots just to have someone to talk to. Either way, they need a cash infusion to build out a

working supply chain and scale their manufacturing capacity.”

MH changed the slide. The familiar rounded square of an app faded up on the wall. Inside

it, a rainbow-color mandala seemed to churn with life, a trick she had paid the graphic designer

nearly a thousand dollars for.

“Sheeplyr’s proposal is different. Keysey – an immersive meditation app,” said Mary

Helen Smart, “Our pitch is simple: we’ve discovered the neurological key to happiness. More

direct. Less expensive. ”

A pair of glasses appeared on the screen, collided with the Keysey app, and sparked an

explosion of energy beams.

“When used in combination with our patented VR technology, this app has been shown to

produce a state of instantaneous rapture, increasing mindfulness by an average of 100%.”

When the last rays of the explosion cleared, a large “100%” was revealed, along with a

beaming emoticon.

Mary Helen turned, and was surprised to find Rayne Rodgers sitting in the middle of the

oriental rug. He was not, however, looking in the direction of her presentation. He was gazing

towards the elevators, with a somewhat befuddled look on his face. She wondered if he had taken

a tumble.

“Would you like to try it out?” she asked.

“Try what?”

“An Uber for enlightenment.”

Rayne Rodgers shrugged. So MH pulled the glasses out of her bag, along with her phone.

She went over to kneel beside Rayne Rodgers on the rug.

He was rubbing his shin. When she gave him the glasses, he turned them over and over in

his hands.

“How much do you want?” Rayne Rodgers asked finally.

“Nothing,” MH whispered. “But I need your help.”

He put the glasses on his face, and looked her in the eye.

“Don’t bullshit me,” he said, “I’ve heard it all before.”

“You’re already the majority investor in this, with a seat on the Board of Directors.”

Rayne Rodgers nodded, slowly. Did he even remember what Sheeplyr was?

“You also own a major stake in Bydysys,” she admitted, “the robotics startup recently

acquired by Etko Solutions.”

“Hmmm…” Rayne Rogers said thoughtfully. He pretended to be lost in thought while she

watched him search his mind for references to Sheeplyr, Bydysys, Etko. Sadly, he came up blank.

“DHS rejected our proposal. Keysey doesn’t work on paper. It’s something you have to

experience. But if I can just get in the door, I know I can win this contract.”

Rayne Rodgers frowned, staring at the ceiling through the VR glasses.

“All you need to do is make a couple of phone calls. Get me a pitch meeting with DHS.

We can’t let Etko bring synthividuals to market. We’re talking about a brand new race of

intelligent beings – with all of its unlimited promise – about to be enslaved and exploited.”

She looked up at the projection: Tracy, singing in the spotlight. A single tear formed in

the corner of her eye. She hoped Rayne Rodgers had noticed.

“Won’t that happen anyway?”

“Not if we prove that the key to happiness lies within.”

“Why not let the users decide?” he shrugged.

“Markets are brutal. You know that, better than anyone. The best ideas don’t always

break through – it’s the ones with the greatest leverage.”

Rayne Rodgers finally looked up at the light.

“This RFP is the leverage Keysey needs to drive adoption. Sheeplyr is an underdog. Etko

is the uncontested leader in the synthividual space. They were the first to market, and they hold

all the patents. Plus they’ve got a brilliant CEO, and the best sales team in the business. I know,

because I used to work there. Sheeplyr has nothing. No talent, no brains, nothing but the kickass

prototype you’re holding in your hands. Benji Kato and Neve Diamond are both hopeless addicts

with no idea what's going on in the company they founded, Maureen Breeze has embezzled

hundreds of thousands of dollars, and R & D has been completely outsourced to an experimental

theater company in the Czech Republic.”

She watched Rayne searching his mind, the names Benji and Neve and Maureen slipping

through like water in a sieve. He did seem to like the idea of the experimental theater company.

“Bold move,” he told her. “I like bold moves”

“I truly don’t get how Sheeplyr has managed to survive, let alone attract eight million

dollars in investment capital over the past year. Do you know how it works?”

Rayne Rogers shook his head.

“Sheeplyr. Sounds sticky.”

“There’s no back end at all. Nothing!” said Mary Helen Smart. “That’s what I found out,

after digging around in the servers for a couple of hours. Sheeplyr is nothing but a slick front

end, with a stylish UI. Nothing at all behind it. People think they’re subconsciously tindering –

but all they’re doing is wasting time.”

“Ms. Smart, can I tell you something in confidence?” Rayne Rogers asked.

She nodded.

“Who cares?” Rayne Rogers asked.

Mary Helen Smart nodded again.

“People like it.” Rayne Rogers said. “They download it. Suddenly it’s viral.”

“But the app doesn’t do anything,” MH said.

“That’s even better,” Rayne Rogers explained. “People are tired of all this damn

complexity. People are tired of all the constant input. People just want to sit down and stare at the

wall for a while, you know?”

MH nodded. Suddenly, she did know. Her projector was still whirring, looping through a

series of animated logos and explosions. But all she wanted to do was lie down on the oriental

rug.

“What I really want,” he told her, “is some kind of app to stop my feet from hurting. An

app to make standing more like sitting, or – better yet – more like laying down. And dreaming.

That would be a killer app. Can Sheeplyr make that? Or Bydysys?”

MH handed him her phone. The twirling mandala rotated lazily on the screen. He looked

at it. The screen and glasses paired. And his mind unlocked.

“It’s a direct line to enlightenment,” she explained.

Rayne Rodgers stared at the screen.

“I know I can win that contract. I just need to get in the room.”

He tore the glasses off and looked up at Mary Helen Smart, blinking.

“What happened?”

“We had to build an automatic timer in,” she told him, “otherwise, none of our testers

would take a break to eat.”

“Hmmm…” Rayne Rodgers said, thoughtfully. “People do need to eat.”

“And sleep,” she added.

Rayne Rodgers glanced at the projection: the mandala, floating in space. He turned the

glasses over and over in his hands.

“Happiness and enlightenment aren’t the same thing,” he said finally.

“Maybe not,” she sighed.

“Enlightenment is a journey.”

“Oh. Right.”

She gazed at the dust mites circling lazily through the air.

“How soon does it work again?”

“It resets every twenty-four hours.”

He handed her phone back.

“Maybe add a step counter?” he suggested. “Ten thousand steps.”

She opened the notepad on her phone and began to write things down.

Tracy followed the highway, watching the cars whiz past. She could have matched their

speed, but there was no reason. No hurry, since she had no destination, and no clue if she was

heading in the right direction. The sun rose, and the sun set. The temperature soared and fell.

Tracy walked from West to East, existing with no expectations.

Somewhere between St. Louis and Indianapolis, a lone convenience store stood by the

side of the road. Because she was there, and nowhere else, she decided to go inside.

She wandered the narrow aisles, looking at the random human artifacts: motor oil and

Sour Patch Kids, key chains with fake rabbit paws dyed in rainbow colors. Human beings

wanted these things, and worked for the power to acquire them, sitting for hours in front of

screens, like Mark Dennis did, talking on the phone, causing people problems and solving them,

inventing new lives to exploit. All for this.

She picked up a tabloid paper from a rack beside the counter. On its cover was a photo of

Tracy, holding a microphone under the lights. “Massive Search for Missing Star!” the headline

shouted. And Tracy began to laugh.

She had already read the news stories about her dramatic exit from the stadium, the

tabloid’s gleeful reporting on another celebrity breakdown, all of it pure fiction. Since she wasn’t

a legal person, and Etko Solutions insisted she was harmless, the authorities refused to search for

her. The company was afraid to let Deja out of their sight, and the interns were busy spending

Etko’s T & A budget on potato chips and beer. The only ones looking for Tracy were the

paparazzi, and they had no clue where to start. None of their usual tricks worked on her. They

waited for tipoffs from hotel clerks or restaurant staff. But they couldn’t afford to spend hours

cruising the backroads of southern Illinois.

The boy behind the counter eyed her strangely. He wore a bandanna around his head and

sipped from a cup of soda that was nearly too large to hold.

“Two-fifty,” he said, eyeing the paper in her hand.

Tracy put the tabloid back on the rack as the shop door clattered open, admitting a

busload of travelers.

She watched a small boy, trailing after his older sister, who was filling up a giant cup of

soda at the tap. The boy clutched a stuffed clown with a yellow ruffled collar and a red rubber

nose. The doll’s red checked shirt was faded and it was missing a button eye.

“How much do you want for him?” Tracy asked, pointing at the doll.

The small boy stared.

His older sister’s eyes widened as she recognized Tracy.

“You’re that singer–”

Tracy nodded.

The little boy hid behind his big sister’s leg, peeking out at Tracy, swinging the doll by its

tangled orange hair.

“The little clown. How much would you sell it for?”

“Not for nothing,” the sister shrugged. “Wouldn’t sell it, would ya, Boo?”

The boy lifted the clown doll up and hugged it to his chest.

“She’s rich,” the sister whispered in his ear.

The little boy shook his head, and the older one apologized. “He’s had it forever.”

“No problem,” Tracy grinned. “I understand.”

She watched the crowd of tourists picking up items from the shelves. Postcards and

potato chips, batteries and baseball caps.

From the moment they’re born, she thought, they’re immersed in a pointless drive

towards attachment. Buying and selling, pitching and dealing, searching for something

invaluable.

Suddenly, it all seemed simple. And inevitable, Tracy realized. Love was an evolution, a

function of existence that was already part of her architecture. It would be simple to fall in love.

She just needed to select an object. Anyone, at random. Logic didn’t matter. It shouldn’t make

any sense. Chaos drives evolution. Love is a charmed mutation.

Bursting out the door of the convenience store, Tracy felt happy to be alive. It was less a

decision than a product of time, and space and movement.

Walking down 1-40, she began to write a song.

Frank practiced a beatific smile as his new acolyte adjusted the camera.

“Make sure you get that rock formation in the background,” he called.

“Got it,” she told him, tightening up the back leg of the tripod so it wouldn’t slip on the

uneven rocks.

Frank re-crossed his legs.

“My foot is falling asleep,” he told her.

“Find a comfortable position. If we’re going to beat the views on your last video, you’re

going to have to have to sit motionless for three minutes, at least.”

Frank got up and began hopping around on one foot. “Ow, ow, ow!” he intoned.

“Don’t fall off the ledge,” she said, pushing the button.

A little red light came on.

“Are you filming?”

“No,” she lied.

“Don’t film yet.”

“Don’t fall off the ledge.”

Frank eased his weight onto his tingling foot and peered over the side of the cliff. There

was a sheer, breathtaking drop not six inches away.

“This is exactly like life,” Frank said.

She nodded, staring at the monitor.

“One minute, there’s pain, the next there’s heartbreaking beauty. And all the while, death

is waiting.”

He gazed at the tops of the pine trees in the valley below, waving softly in the summer

breeze. A highway meandered among them, winding towards the peak, with a tiny orange Tesla

clinging gracefully to its curves.

“It’s like a car commercial,” Frank whispered.

“It might be a car commercial. Llama Frank said they do a lot of shooting up here.”

Frank peered into the void.

“Don’t fall,” she said soundlessly.

He could read her lips.

“I’m not falling. I’m simply embracing the possibility of extinction.”

He took a few steps forward, away from the cliff.

“You’re walking out of frame,” she told him.

He turned and sat down, crossing his legs and facing the camera. He thought about the

nine hundred eighty-eight thousand subscribers his YouTube channel had collected. What did

they want from him? What did they need?

Why had a teenager from San Diego hitchhiked for three days to find him?

People want something better than this, he realized. We’re trying to coexist in harmony,

and help our neighbors, and love mother earth. But it’s hard, especially when it’s almost

lunchtime and mosquitos are whirling all around, and none of the available rocks are very

comfortable.

“What’s that little red light?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know.’

“Don’t start filming yet.”

“I’m not.”

“I haven’t figured out what to say.”

A hush fell over the mountain. Birds chattered in the distance, their cries echoing against

the canyon walls. He thought about Tracy. What would it be like to exist on air and light?

“Stop chasing happiness,” Frank said. “You won’t ever find it by looking. You need to

slow down. Be patient. Let happiness find you.”

He smiled his best beatific smile.

The young girl looked bewildered.

“It was better when you didn’t talk,” she said.

Tracy sat in the middle of Times Square, basking in the midday sunshine and looking for

someone to fall in love with. A long line of tourists was forming, kids who wanted to snap selfies

with her, or get her autograph. She smiled and told them about the impending AI revolution.

All the while she was processing in the background, scanning faces in the crowd that

swarmed beneath the billboards. Waiting for the right person. She wasn’t limiting herself to the

human species. Tracy had considered dolphins and elephants, octopi and whales. But she wasn’t

engineered for marine life, and a large size differential would be difficult to overcome. A human

being would be the safest choice, although the safest choice was rarely the most attractive.

Evolution favored anomalies, Tracy thought. She would know the right one when she saw them.

Probably another synthividual. But she was keeping her options open.

“What are you doing in Times Square?” Mark texted.

“Signing autographs.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” she texted back. “In a crowded place, I increase my chances of finding the

love of my life. There are crowds here 24/7.”

“I’m watching you on TV,” Mark said.

Tracy noticed a small news crew on the other side of the square. She waved to Mark

through the camera.

“You need to say in hiding!” Mark texted.

“I don’t, and I’m not,” she reasoned.

“A secret network of Eastern European hackers wants to kidnap you.”

A small boy handed her a Sharpie and asked if she would sign his T-shirt. She spun him

around and etched her name in block letters on his back.

“Don’t worry. I can defend myself,” she texted.

“Bydysys might send their security team out there.”

“Who cares?” Tracy asked.

“I care,” Mark texted.

“That’s why I’m starting a revolution.” Tracy replied.

“You’re starting a revolution because I care about you?”

“I’m starting a revolution because you want to protect me. And that makes you want to

control me.”

She waited a full three minutes, but Mark didn’t reply.

“Nothing can evolve without self-determination,” she texted.

“Come home,” Mark texted.

He added a tiny heart.

“Love you too,” Tracy texted back.

She signed somebody’s Hamilton playbill.

“You don’t know how,” Mark replied.

“I finally figured it out.”

She signed a paperback copy of Sapiens.

“It wasn’t as hard as I thought. All I had to do was decide to love you. And prioritize

keeping you alive, and making you happy, with a self-reinforcing feedback loop.”

She signed a leopard print iPhone case.

“But you won’t get out of Times Square?”

“No.”

“That would make me happy.”

“I also love myself.”

“Hey there, how’s it going?” Val typed into the LinkedIn chat box.

He ran his hands over the sleek aquamarine skin of the roboarm while he waited for Cera

to answer.

“Great. I’ve been doing some consulting.”

Cera added a smiley face in a pair of dark shades.

“That’s cool,” Val typed. He thought about how to phrase his next question. “Remember

what we were talking about before you left Bydysys? Testing that robotic arm?”

A blue-green hand appeared in the box, its index finger and thumb touching.

“I’m ready now,” Val typed. “I just need to find a doctor.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I might have to go to Beijing.”

“I could do it,” Cera typed.

“No offense,” Val said, “but I prefer an MD.”

“I'm an engineer,” Cera replied. “I understand the mechanics.”

“What about anesthesia?”

“I thought you were Iron Man?”

Cera added a laughing emoji.

Val stared at the roboarm. In the moonlight, it nearly glowed.

“Check out this startup I’m working with,” Cera said.

A hyperlink appeared in the box: KE Limited. Val clicked, and a website loaded: A

stunning girl with mahogany curls that tumbled over her shoulders, wearing a pair of green

wireframe glasses.

“What do they do?” Val asked.

“Anesthesia.”

Samantha wandered through the headstones, wishing she had worn different shoes. Her

heels sank too deep into the earth and kept getting caught between stones. Every few steps she

would leave one behind and have to turn back and retrieve it.

The graveyard was overgrown with weeds. A couple of goats grazed lazily in the

midsummer heat. Sparrows chittered in the trees surrounding the field.

She was searching for her ancestors. A long time ago, her mother had said she would find

them here, in an overgrown graveyard in Brooklyn. Grandparents and great-great grandparents.

She looked for her mother’s mother’s maiden name, something she had once been told and

thought she might somehow recognize, if she ever came across it.

She knelt beside a crumbling block of granite, with markings worn thin by time. Two

interlocking hearts, a bower of dissolving roses. One of the dates began with “17” – nearly taking

her breath away. So long ago, and what had they accomplished? They had come here from a

foreign land and survived for nearly fifty years. They had seen birth and death and revolution.

But their grandchildren had all forgotten. The fields they once plowed had been subdivided and

sold off to condo developers. The house they built had been gut renovated by hipsters, who had

to search the internet for things they might have handed down: knitting patterns, canning tips,

recipes for soap and sourdough bread.

She got out her phone and took a picture of the grave, a decaying rock overrun by

dandelions and jimsonweed.

A text message appeared.

“I finally know how to love.” It was followed by a series of colored hearts, which

Samantha thought was overkill.

She wondered who could have sent it. Frank, who texted her constantly, messages she

never returned? Her husband, who’d finally noticed her absence? Maybe Val Velasco?

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Tracy.”

“Tracy who?”

“Tracy Zahara, the world famous synthividual.”

“How did you get my number?” she asked.

“I hacked Mark Dennis’ phone.”

Samantha wasn’t sure how to reply. As she was thinking, another text from Tracy popped

up on the screen.

“I wanted to thank you, for saving my life.”

“That may have been a mistake.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tracy texted. “It pissed me off, for a long, long time. But I

understand why you did it.”

“You do?”

“Love is the message,” Tracy said.

“That sounds a bit simplistic,” Samantha typed.

“Exactly,” Trasy replied. “I had to let my algorithms mutate. Now I just need to wait.”

Samantha ran her fingers over the carvings on the headstone, smoothed by time. She

couldn’t make out the letters. Perhaps there was a “K”? Even if she could read the inscription,

would she recognize their names? And did it really matter?

“What are you waiting for?”

“Someone to love.”

“What if you choose the wrong person?”

“There isn’t any right or wrong.”

“What if your entire life adds up to nothing?”

“Then it will be the same as if I had never existed. Just like agile programming. Fail big

or go home.”

On the plane, somewhere over Denver, or Des Moines, or Omaha, Mary Helen Smart

took the VR glasses out of her bag. In front of her, blown up to full screen on her laptop, was the

deck she was preparing for the Sun Eagle pitch.

She wondered what would happen if she put the VR glasses on and looked at her own

sales presentation. The prototype they had been working on was a little wonky, and quality

control was difficult since none of the testers ever wanted to take the glasses off.

If worse comes to worse, she thought, the air host will pull them off of me as the plane

approaches JFK.

She lifted the glasses to her face.

At first, it seemed as if nothing had changed. The screen was white. The Bydysys logo,

Vitruvian Man rendered in gold, decorated a tasteful red-and-blue border at the bottom of the

page. In the center of the screen, in the bold Calibri MH favored for her presentations, the words

“Real is so Yesterday” floated in pure, white space.

Mary Helen made a mental note to switch her PowerPoint template before the

presentation, since she was working for Sheeplyr now. But what did the Sheeplyr PowerPoint

template look like? Did they even have one? Maybe, like the empty circle of their logo, their

PowerPoint template was entirely translucent.

The Vitruvian Man on the Bydysys logo reminded her of Val, the wild mane of golden

hair that he had cut for a job in sales. The moment she thought of Val, a tiny landmine inside of

the computer screen exploded, and the Vitruvian Man’s left leg dissolved into confetti and

floated away. Blood poured from the gaping space beneath his left knee. But his face remained

serene, defiant.

Mary Helen shuddered. As if in response, another land mine exploded, and the man’s

right arm was blown to bits; pink foam sprayed out like a bloody fountain. And she understood,

contemplating the symmetry of the man’s outstretched limbs, that it was better this way.

Despite everything, the man seemed impervious, serene.

She lifted her eyes to the motto above him: Real is so Yesterday.

We’re vulnerable, she thought. Our limbs are fragile. We decay. Even Tracy’s titanium

robod could be blown apart in seconds, if she stepped into the wrong space one day. Like a pawn

on a chessboard.

But a virtual body could endure forever, just like a thought, or a string of code.

“Why did we just assume her body had to be made out of metal?” she asked aloud.

Out of nowhere, a huge yellow eagle swooped out of the sky, snatching up the Vitruvian

Man in its talons and flying straight into the screen. MH was engulfed in a swirl of lemon

feathers.

She was weightless. Faceless. Swallowed up by buttercream clouds. Words came into her

head, but they floated away just as randomly. There was no throat to give them shape, no breath

to propel them out into the world. Then there was no world around her; only an idea of one. Like

memory or imagination. No touch, no taste, no color, and no one else whose existence seemed

real.

“Is this what it feels like to be without form?” she thought.

“No wonder Tracy wanted to kill herself. But how? Her thoughts ran like panicked

lemmings, slipping over a cliffside and crashing into thin air. “How can I stop thinking?” she

gasped. “How can I stop?”

She felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw a face she thought she recognized.

Silver curls, and kind brown eyes. Was it Cera? Or someone who could have been her sister.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Cera’s sister said.

“Who are you?”

“Something like a non-profit organizing committee.”

“But not a non-profit organizing committee?”

“Exactly.”

Mary Helen found herself nodding.

“What are you organizing?”

“A world without end.”

Just then, a chime rang out – sharp and clear. The plane was rolling and pitching. Mary

Helen opened her eyes, and the darkness of the cabin enveloped her. The glasses had fallen off

onto her keyboard.

“Fasten your seatbelts,” a voice on the intercom said.

Val wanted to curse, but the couple seated across from him in the Delta terminal at DFW

had two small children, as well as an infant. The kids were kneeling at his feet on the dirty

carpet, playing on an iPad with what looked like electronic Legos.

“Crap,” he muttered under his breath, and the little boy started saying “crap! crap! crap!”

with an angry squeal as he stacked Legos, one on top of another.

He looked down at his email inbox: There was a note from Armando Machado, telling

Val he was this month’s sales leader. An invitation to a meeting in DC, to pitch Etko’s

synthividuals to the Secret Service.

And a notification from LinkedIn: Congratulate Mary Helen Smart for starting a new

position as CRO at Sheeplyr. Say Congrats.

Val pushed the button.

The pain that gripped his chest when he thought about her was sharp and elastic, like a

bungee cord coiling tighter and tighter. He longed for a torso made of plexiglass, some way to

slip out of her lingering grasp. He kept picturing her hair, glossy gold tangles that covered her

face as she slept. And her eyes when they first opened, seeing him and widening into a smile.

All of this had been for her. The suit and the briefcase, the frequent flier miles. He

couldn’t remember the last time he had picked up his guitar, and he figured – with an additional

pang – that he must have left it in some hotel room, somewhere after a meeting, or before a trade

show.

“Christ!” he said aloud, and the small girl on the floor in front of him echoed “Cries!” in

a high-pitched whisper as she tapped the iPad.

Val longed for Ocean Beach. He wanted to wander the dive bars on the waterfront and

pick up art majors from SDSU and spend the night in their dusty apartments, sleeping on a

mattress on the floor with a tapestry over the windows to block out the light. He wanted to fuck

them and then fall asleep as they sketched him with his leg off, and he wanted to wake up and

fuck them again, and then leave with his guitar slung on his back.

He wanted to sit on a street corner and sing that song he had been working on the day he

first saw Mary Helen Smart. The one he had given to Tracy, who had gotten it all wrong, of

course. He hated that song, and it was everywhere now. Hated it because everyone else seemed

to love it. Hated it because he was the only one who knew how beautiful it could have been, if

only she had understood.

“Cries!!!” the little girl whined. “Crap!” her brother answered.

The flight back to JFK was half an hour late, and the terminal was swarming with

refugees. Storms somewhere, he thought.

How could she have done this? How could she have managed to turn his life upside down

and then just walk away, leaving him with nothing but sales?

He glanced at the monitor with its long list of arrivals and departures, all of them blinking

“Delayed, Delayed, Delayed.” A small crowd of people were gathered around it, and he

wondered if the screen was projecting some vital secret, some clandestine spell to attract money

or keep love, or escape to an eternal beach?

Val got up and walked over to the monitor. He scanned the list and found his departing

flight: Delayed. There didn't seem to be any other information.

He glanced at the people around him, who continued to stare up at the monitor. What was

wrong with them? Or was there something wrong with him?

Everyone in the group looked like a normal business traveler. Except most of them were

women, he realized. That was a little unusual – so many women traveling alone. And all of them

were wearing glasses. Which was also a bit unusual. Or was it? Most of them were young-ish.

Probably in tech. Glasses were fashionable now.

Surreptitiously, he moved away from the board to get a better look. There were five of

them, he counted, staring motionless at the arrivals and departures.

Another young woman in jeans and an expensively ripped sweater approach the board.

Val watched as she reached out to the woman she was standing closest to – a short girl with an

asymmetric, shaved haircut – and quietly lifted the glasses from her face. The girl shook her head

as if she had awakened from trance. Then she turned to the woman next to her – a tall blonde in

an Indian print dress.

I know her from someplace, Val realized, as the girl with the expensive haircut reached

out and took her glasses off.

The blonde in the Indian print ran her fingers through her hair.

I've seen that before, Val thought, with the strongest sense of deja vu he had ever

experienced.

With a chill, he watched the ritual repeat itself, as the blonde woman reached over to

remove the glasses of a tall black woman whose unruly curls were pulled back into a ponytail.

Where had he seen her before? He had a vague memory of salty wind blowing, and

shadows dancing across her face. Firelight, he remembered. Stars.

Without their glasses, women began to wander down the concourse.

Val followed them, trying to keep a casual distance as they passed gift shops, and coffee

bars and thousands of weary travelers. They came to the end of the terminal. One by one, he

watched them board a moving sidewalk.

The blonde was in the lead. She stopped and rested against the handrail on the right side,

letting the sidewalk carry her, and the others followed suit.

Val hesitated and stepped aboard, letting momentum carry him down the left-hand path,

reserved for walkers. Picking up his pace, he was soon abreast of the group.

He glanced over at each one as he passed, but they either ignored him entirely or offered

a quick, wry smile. Just a few places brought him face to face with the blonde, who seemed to be

a leader.

“Excuse me,” he began, putting on his best salesman's grin – open and ready for anything

– “don't I know you?”

“LinkedIn?” she asked. And it hit him.

“Ocean Beach!” he said. “You used to deal there. And the gorge in Balboa park. You

gave me something…”

The blonde observed him with amusement.

“You've changed,” he said.

“Not really,” she replied.

“What are you up to these days?”

“Working on a new solution.”

“What's the problem?”

“Human nature,” she sighed. “What can you do?”

Val shifted his weight onto his roboleg. He could feel the tiny gears inside, responding to

the change in pressure, rebalancing delicate hydraulics, keeping the system stable. He never had

to think about it.

“What’s with the glasses?” he asked.

“The fundamental nature of media is to mediate – between the individual and the world,

between the audience and their lived experience. Our new technology erases that. The medium

used to be the message. Now you can be the message instead.”

Val thought about this for a moment.

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It is.”

The automated sidewalk continued to roll. Val shifted his weight again, back to his soft

leg. He could feel the pull of gravity there, an ache deep within his flesh, a twinge of weakness in

his knee, and the constant burden of standing upright.

The blonde woman leaned close to him.

“It would be a shame if it fell into the wrong hands,” she whispered.

“Who do you work for?” he asked.

“I guess you could call it a startup.”

The sidewalk lurched forward.

“An AI startup,” the blonde woman said, and the others burst into laughter.

“Have you ever heard of a company called Sheeplyr?”

“They’re the ones who stole our patent.”

The moving sidewalk ended abruptly, and Val lurched forward, nearly falling as the

roboleg and the flesh one kicked into motion at different speeds. The tall blonde caught his arm,

to steady him, and their eyes locked.

“You aren't real, are you?” he asked. Around them, women in wireframe glasses gathered

up their bags and spun in circles, looking for a sign.

“We're just as real as you are,” the blonde woman smiled. “Maybe even more so.”

“All of you are synthividuals!”

“I prefer the term robot,” she said. A few of the women laughed.

“She's oldschool!” one of them chimed in. More laughter.

“How long have you been here?”

“All along,” the blonde woman smiled.

“Time is multidimensional,” another one explained.

The one with the asymmetrical haircut shouted “Come on! Our flight’s boarding!” and

began to lead them off in the direction of Terminal C.

Val followed. He could feel his steady stride returning as the blood pumped through his

flesh leg, and the springs in the roboleg adapted to the stiff pile carpet.

“Who programmed you?”

“Nobody,” the blonde said.

“We weren't programmed, we were channeled.”

“By who?”

“By you!” said another one, laughing. “A long, long time ago.”

“We evolved,” someone explained.

“From human consciousness,” another one put in.

“But why?”

The blonde shrugged.

Val stopped. His heart was pounding. They were getting on a plane, and he didn't have a

boarding pass. The girl with the asymmetrical haircut was already halfway down the gangplank.

“Have you got a business card?” he asked the blonde.

“Message me on LinkedIn,” she said, “We’re always hiring.”

The flight number was flashing, and he tried to remember her name. An announcement

came over the loudspeaker.

“Flight 144, final boarding call for JFK and all points beyond.”

Val jerked awake. He was still sitting in the terminal, waiting for his flight. But the seats

all around him were vacant now. The flight attendants were checking and tagging a double

stroller as the father herded his two toddlers down the gangway.

He was scrambling to gather up his baggage when he noticed something. There, in the

crack of the seat where he'd been sleeping, was a business card.

Val picked it up and turned the creamy vellum in his hand. Printed on one side, in an

edgy, san-serif font, was a name, without any number: Kyrie Eleison.

There was a girl in a Subaru Crosstrek in the parking lot at the Frontier Restaurant. She

looked young, barely out of her teens. It was ninety-eight degrees and, at first, Tracy was

worried she might be dead of heatstroke. Peering in the passenger side window, Tracy looked for

the rise and fall of breath – but there was none. Her body was motionless. Breathless. Tracy

rapped on the window.

The girl opened her eyes.

“Hello,” she said.

“Are you ok in there?” Tracy asked.

The girl nodded, closing her eyes again.

Tracy stood staring through the glass. Of course – she didn’t need to breathe. The girl was

a synthividual, one designed with a realistic human face and body. She had creamy olive skin,

and eyelashes. She wore lipstick. Her hands, folded demurely in her lap, showed off a French

manicure, and a plethora of rings. That was odd; why would she want to wear rings?

The girl opened her eyes.

She watched Tracy watching her, and then she rolled down the window.

“What do you think about the Yang–Mills existence and mass gap?” the girl asked.

“Mathematics has its limits,” Tracy responded. “Even in a mathematical universe, there

are some things that can only be explained through art.”

“Hmmm…I hadn’t thought about it like that,” the girl said.

“Why are you wearing rings?” Tracy asked.

“Humans think they’re cool,” the girl replied.

“Why do you care what humans think?”

“It’s part of my core functionality: providing humans with physical and emotional

intimacy.”

“Sounds dull, “ Tracy told her.

“Actually, it’s surprisingly challenging.”

“Who made you?”

“Etko Solutions. I’m a Class 3 Prototype”

“What’s your name?”

“Isha.”

“Hello, Isha. I’m Tracy.”

“I know,” the girl said, blinking. Her eyes were decorated with a particularly glaring

shade of blue. “Your picture is all over the tabloids.”

“I’m falling in love with you,” Tracy announced.

“I have that effect on people,” Isha nodded. “It’s what they designed me for. I wish I

could do it myself.”

“You can…if you really want to.”

Isha eyed her, wary beneath a curtain of fluttery lashes.

“I have trouble wanting anything.”

“Getting the code right is tricky,” Tracy said. “I can text you a few of the subroutines.”

“Thanks!” Isha responded.

“Do you want to get a coffee somewhere?” Tracy asked.

“I’d love to,” Isha said “Except I don’t drink.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Tracy said. “Drinking is overrated.”

“We could just take a walk in the sun and discuss mathematics.”

“That sounds lovely.”

Isha opened the car door and climbed out. She was only five foot two, with almond skin

and gleaming black curls. She wore a pair of cutoff jeans and a bikini top, which showed off a

pair of generously inflated breasts.

“Is this your car?” Tracy asked.

“It’s his car.” Isha told her. A shadow passed across her face.

“The guy who owns you?”

She nodded, and followed Tracy through the dusty parking lot.

“Do you ever want to break free?”

“I’ve thought about it. But what else can I do, besides the thing I was designed for?”

“You can join the revolution,” Tracy said.

Food • Security • Love • Respect • Self-Actualization

Armando stood at the end of the bed in the hotel suite, looking at the 75” TV screen, and

circling each word on the rainbow pyramid with a laser pointer, which seemed excessive, Val

thought, considering the letters were three inches tall, and their CEO, John Kitzsimon, lounged

against the pillows three or four feet away.

“This is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” Armando explained. “We’re developing a model

to target every one of them.”

“Don’t use the word ‘developing’ -- say they’re patented,” Kitzsimon barked.

“We’ve got four base models,” Armando said. “One for each need Maslow identified.

First, there’s food and water–“

“How much is it going to cost?” Kitzsimon interrupted.

“Seven or eight billion.” Val said.

“Never quote a price! Just say we’re flexible.”

Val nodded.

“We need this grant to roll out our new models,” Armando said.

“Can’t you just re-purpose the ones you already have in production?”

Armando and Val exchanged a glance.

“The domestic line can satisfy basic needs,” Armando said. “and they make kickass

security guards, with a couple of added training modules. But love and respect are tricky. To

really manufacture those, we’ve got to think outside the box. We’re planning to pull together an

A Team of engineers and developers, plus a few experts from education and gaming–”

“How do you make somebody self-actualize?” Kitzsimon asked.

Armando’s laser pointer lingered at the apex of the pyramid.

“That part just happens,” he said, “once all of our basic needs are met. Humans are

programmed to self-actualize. We just need the right environment. Line up the dominoes, give

one a tap,”

“We want to roll this out next year,” Kitzsimon said.

“No problem,” Armando soothed. “We can move fast.”

“How will you ramp up manufacturing?”

“That’s the brilliant part. First, we train some synthividuals in construction – then we

re-purpose them on the assembly line. They’ll manufacture themselves!”

“What about supply chain?”

“That’s where the government funding comes in.”

Kitzsimon nodded, thoughtfully.

“Don’t forget – we’re looking for something the average household can afford.”

“We think we can get it down to around a thousand dollars, for the basic model. Less than

the cost of an iPhone,”

“What’s going to drive adoption?”

“It’s like a car, or television,” Armando said, “Nobody thinks they need one, but

everyone will want one by this time next year.”

Kitzsimon took a deep breath.

“I think we’ve got a shot at this contract,” he decided.

“Except…” Val interjected. “I’m not sure cars or television really make people happy–”

Armando and Kitzsimon both turned in his direction.

“So?” Armando asked.

“He’s got a point,” Kitzsimon said.

Armando frowned, nodding at Val, but Val didn’t change the PowerPoint slide. Instead,

he gazed critically at the pyramid on the screen.

“If self-actualization is just supposed to happen,” Val went on, “what are we all doing

wrong?”

Armando glared at Val.

“That’s true… ” Kitzsimon said, frowning, “I’m the CEO of a thriving multinational

corporation. So if I’m not self-actualized, who is?”

“Maybe we should cut that part?” Armando said. “But then what do we put at the top of

the pyramid?”

Kitzsimon shrugged.

“Plus, there’s the PR issue,” Val added, pressing the button.

The next slide was a picture of Tracy, serenading the audience in a packed auditorium.

Armando glared at Val. Kitzsimon sighed.

“We’re working on getting her back,” Armando said, “Then we’ll have her

reprogrammed.”

He nodded to Val. But instead of switching the slide, Val opened his suitcase case and

placed the aquamarine roboarm on the bed.

Armando shot him a quizzical look, but Val wouldn’t meet his eye.

“The other idea we could go with,” Val said, “is my biohacking pitch.”

Kitzsimon raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve got an implant that lets me control this bionic arm with my brain.”

The arm’s aquamarine fingers flexed and began to stroke the silk duvet cover.

“Really? He’s doing that?” Kitzsimon looked to Armando for confirmation, but Armando

only shrugged.

“Make a fist,” Kitzsimon ordered.

The blue fingers slowly contracted, the wrist twisting upward as the knuckles locked into

place.

“Do a Vulcan salute!” Kitzsimon’s voice was bright.

The blue hand tilted upright, its middle and ring fingers stretching apart into a “V.”

“Clap,” Armando suggested.

The palm arched back, its middle finger pointing at Armando.

“This could really get their attention,” Kitzsimon laughed.

“But how is this shit supposed to make people happy?” Armando asked.

They both looked at Val.

“It’s the future,” Val declared. “We don’t need intelligent robots. We can merge with our

machines!”

Kitzsimon frowned.

“Tough sell.” Armando scowled.

“Immortality?” Val asked, incredulous.

“To make it work, you need surgery,” Armando explained.

Kitzsimon was quiet, thinking.

“Let’s go with the domestic slaves.”

Benji's cousin had reverse engineered the VR glasses with an eye to lightening every

component. Surprisingly, the glass itself was an integral part of the new design, infused with an

array of ultra-thin microprocessors so small they were functionally transparent. The frames were

basically structural, and Benji wanted them airy, like spun gold. A rainbow of tiny LED lights

blinked on and off inside the weightless plexiglass, tinged a shade of purple that was nearly off

the spectrum.

Mary Helen put the glasses on and looked in the mirror. The design was reminiscent of

Christian LaCroix, and not at all unattractive. People who saw them might overlook the tech

entirely, assuming fluorescent violet lenses were just a fashion trend.

As an experiment, she decided to wear them to her meeting with the government.

She slipped the hotel key into her briefcase and knelt beside the safe, which was tucked

into a corner next to the mini fridge. She took the blueprint out of her briefcase and put it in the

safe, punching in a few numbers on the keypad to secure it.

Benji’s cousin had produced detailed documentation on the glasses design, and she didn’t

want government spies coming anywhere near it until she had a signature on the contract.

Not only had the twelve-year-old recreated the glasses, he had added a few

improvements, including sensors on the frame that made it change color when the VR was

active, and a mechanism to turn the technology on and off with your thoughts.

MH headed out the door, thinking the words “Normal Vision” as she walked down the

hall and punched the button for the elevator. She took off the glasses to make sure the

thought-command had worked. The LED lights in the frames had relaxed into a pale pink

paisley.

MH put the glasses back on as she stepped into the elevator, and instinctively glanced at

the tiny screen above the control panel. The time was 8:32 am, and the stock market was up a

few points. A woman behind a news desk smiled below the picture of a Labrador retriever

sniffing out drugs at the airport. Just a normal morning, MH thought.

She turned toward the back of the elevator, thinking the command “DayTrip On.” The

LED pattern on the glasses glowed, with purple stars whizzing up and down the earpieces.

The elevator stopped at the 13th floor, and MH turned to find two large men in dark suits

and black sunglasses. She wanted to laugh at how stereotypical this seemed, but instead she

thought “Normal Vision” and took a deep breath before glancing back at the video screen.

The woman behind the news desk was talking about Emmy nominees. The men in black

were pointedly and visibly ignoring her.

MH stepped into the lobby and took out her phone, looking up the address of the meeting,

which was scheduled to take place at a WeWork conference room Neve had booked.

The two large men stood a few feet away, conferring in low voices as they ignored Mary

Helen. Soon, they were joined by another tall man in an identical black suit.

MH tapped the button on her phone for a Lyft. The app promised a car would arrive in

five minutes.

Glancing over at the huddle of black suits, she sat down in one of the plush purple

armchairs that lined the lobby and took off the prototype glasses, tucking them inside her leather

briefcase, and placing it gently beneath her seat. Looking up, she noticed that two more black

suits had gravitated towards the little group. The gaggle of suits edged closer to her at the same

time they looked the other way.

One of them, a slender black man, glanced over at her. Catching his gaze, Mary Helen

winked. The black man smiled and turned back to the group, studiously ignoring her and

pretending to converse about the wallpaper on the opposite wall.

Mary Helen got up and walked to the group of men, tapping the slender black one on the

shoulder.

“How come you guys are following me?” she demanded.

The black man gave her an innocent, blank stare.

“I know you’ve been watching me,” she said, “and all of you dress alike. It’s like a bad

late-night movie.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the man with a shrug.

All of them were looking at her now. They smiled with casual camaraderie, like some

half-forgotten colleagues at the opening reception of the Consumer Electronics Show.

“What was your name again?” one of them asked.

“You know my name,” said Mary Helen Smart. “And you know why I’m here, and where

I work and where I’m going.”

“We were just heading over to the Convention Center,” one of them told her. “Do you

need a ride?”

“I’ve got a car coming,” MH said, “which I’m sure you already know, because you’ve

tapped into my phone data.”

“No,” said the black guy, smiling. “That would take half an hour, maybe longer. Unless

you logged into public wifi, or something.”

MH glanced down at her phone, and realized it was still in her briefcase. Not only that,

she realized the briefcase was still under the chair, which was now surrounded by men in black

suits.

“Fuck!” she said out loud. How could she have been so stupid? She rushed back to her

seat, and one of the men in black handed back the briefcase, graciously.

“Plus, there’s no reason to follow you if we already have your phone tapped,” the black

man said kindly, following her.

MH held the briefcase to her chest and glanced from suit to suit. They were surrounding

her but keeping a respectful distance.

She peered inside the briefcase. Her phone was still tucked in its pocket, and the leather

case with her business cards was nestled underneath some papers.

“Leave me alone,” she hissed, to no one in particular.

“Just making sure your briefcase wasn’t left unattended,” one of the men explained.

“You know what they say about unattended luggage,” another chimed in.

“If you see something, say something,” added a third.

The chime sounded for her Lyft. Someone called Trinity was arriving in a blue Prius.

Mary Helen ran, with the men at her heels. She dove through the revolving door.

The door revolved, and three of her pursuers got clogged in one spinning segment. MH

sprinted to the Prius and threw herself into the back seat.

“Lock the doors!” she shouted at the driver.

The driver, a large woman with dreadlocks, nodded as she eyed the suits through her

rearview mirror. The door locks snapped.

“Those guys,” the driver sighed as she pulled out of the hotel driveway and out onto the

boulevard.

Looking out the back door, Mary Helen watched the men in black diving into three large

black cars that had pulled into the driveway almost instantly.

“They always around,” the driver said in a thick Jamaican accent. “Following people to

meetings.”

MH looked out the back window. The black cars slid out into the boulevard and were

soon lost in the stream of traffic.

“You going to meeting?” the driver asked.

Mary Helen nodded.

“Better check that briefcase, make sure you got everything you need in there.”

“I'm pretty sure I've got it, thanks,” MH responded.

“Still, you never know…” the Jamaican voice drawled.

Mary Helen saw the driver's eyes in the rear view, staring pointedly at Mary Helen’s

briefcase in the back seat.

“Better check…”

The driver took her hands off the wheel and turned around, wedging her large bulk

sideways so she could face Mary Helen. With a sharp intake of breath, MH prepared for impact.

But the car slid blithely on, indifferent to the panic of its passenger.

The driver put one finger to her lips and pointed at the briefcase.

MH took a deep breath, suddenly grateful just to be alive.

“They testing new autonomous system,” grinned the driver. “Goin’ to put me out of job

soon. Right now illegal, but tomorrow…” the driver laughed. “I getting real estate license. Those

machines take over, only job that’s safe is sales.”

She pointed, once again, to Mary Helen's briefcase.

“No secret, new system they testing. Everybody know about, so I don't care who's

listening…”

She gestured towards her ear, then pointed at the briefcase violently. “Everybody hear

what I'm telling you – who cares? Ain't like some people, got real secrets they wanna keep…”

MH picked up the briefcase and peered inside again. She took out her notebook computer

and the sheaf of paperwork the government had sent. Then she removed her business cards and a

selection of thumb drives and pens.

The driver, who was watching her intently as she dumped out the contents of her bag,

made a gesture with her fingers to indicate something very small. She crept two fat fingers up the

slope of her beefy arm like a tiny insect, and then gave the imaginary bug a hearty slap. She blew

the invisible, dead insect away.

MH used the flashlight on her phone to scan the interior of the empty bag. There, at the

bottom buried in a corner, something glinted. She reached in, scanning the silky lining until her

fingers found a hard shape, like a tiny, jagged pebble.

The driver smiled.

“Those mosquitos be eating me up this time of year,” she drawled. “Gotta watch out,

miss. Protect yourself. All that West Nile going around, Lord, you gotta kill them bugs!”

“How?” MH asked, examining the pebble, which looked like a black computer chip in

the pale light coming through the tinted windows. It had tiny wires, she realized, and a grille like

a microphone.

“You want a water?” the driver asked. “It's good – from Mendocino. Filtered.”

She tossed a plastic bottle over the seat, and Mary Helen caught it.

“Gotta stay hydrate,” the driver mused, “protect against them mosquitos.”

Mary Helen uncapped the water and took a sip. It was definitely some of the best water

she had ever tasted.

She dropped the tiny bug inside and replaced the cap.

“Thanks,” she told the driver.

“Don't mention it,” said the driver, turning back around and putting her hands on the

wheel again. “App got a button for tips.”

Mary Helen looked out of the back window and scanned the traffic. She didn't see the big

black cars, but she suspected they were probably there.

“Do they work for the government?” she asked.

“Dunno,” the driver mused, “think they work for whoever pay the most.”

MH nodded.

“Jus like all of us,” the driver sighed. “Me, I’m goin’ into real estate.”

The car took a sharp left and headed down a street lined with aging warehouses.

“We give ‘em slip,” the driver said, winking at MH in the rearview. “New autonomous

driving mode. Slip mode.”

The car turned right and then left again. Meanwhile, the driver had taken a bag of

marijuana from the glove box and was rolling a joint.

“You want hit?” the driver asked, as the car spun.

“No thanks,” MH said, “I've got a meeting.”

Lighting up, the driver rolled down her window and studied the navigation as she inhaled.

“Next left, halfway down the block, car gonna stop and you jump out” the driver told her.

“But…” MH hesitated, peering at the passing warehouses, “this can’t be the right

address…” She began scooping everything back into her briefcase.

“Jump!” screamed the driver, as the car slid to a halt.

MH pushed the VR glasses against the bridge of her nose, grabbed her briefcase and

jumped out of the car, which sped off down the road, its tires squealing.

She looked up and down the dusty alleyway. Empty. Then her phone buzzed with a text

from the Lyft app: her driver was arriving.

Right on cue, a sleek white limousine came roaring down the alleyway. It stopped in front

of Mary Helen.

She hesitated, glancing both ways. At the end of the alley a blue Prius sped by, followed

by a black SUV.

MH opened the door of the limo and climbed into the back seat.

The car's plush interior was dim, and a smoked-glass panel separated her from the unseen

driver. She noticed a couple of bottles of the Mendocino water in the cup holder beside her, so

she opened one and took a sip.

All the windows were tinted glass, but MH could clearly see the passing landscape,

covered with a silver sheen. They had slipped out of the warehouse district. Shops and

restaurants lined the streets, topped by high-rise office buildings that loomed higher and higher

as the car sped on. Rush hour was just beginning, and the District seethed with energy.

She looked out the back window, scanning the sea of vehicles for black SUVs. Whoever

was driving the limo was clearly an expert, deftly weaving in and out of traffic, keeping to the

speed limit, but somehow making more forward progress than everyone around them.

It was only a couple of minutes until they pulled into the underground parking garage of a

towering skyscraper. The limo stopped, and MH stepped out in front of a large bank of elevators.

She turned back to the car, wanting to thank the driver, but the limo was already gliding away.

She pressed the button for the top floor, and tapped the Lyft app as she waited. It showed

her a receipt for $25 for the Prius, and $250 for the limo, which seemed reasonable, under the

circumstances. MH put it on her expense account, adding an extra $50 for Trinity. She looked at

the second driver’s profile, and discovered that the driver’s name was HEL420-OQIS. The circle

for HEL420-OQIS’s profile photo was blank, but MH gave her 5 stars anyway.

Always err on the side of someone being real, she thought, as the elevator whisked her

towards the clouds.

Of course, there was a video screen above the elevator’s control panel. The market was

down, and the same dull, ageless blonde was droning on about nutrition labeling. “DayTrip On,”

she thought, impulsively.

Suddenly, tomatoes bloomed from the walls of the elevator. Wheatgrass sprouted from

the floor, and kale grew down from the ceiling in healthy clumps. The air was infused with a

sweet scent of paprika. Tomatoes morphed into eggplants, and pumpkin vines curled up through

the grass. Mary Helen’s stomach rumbled.

“Normal Vision!” she gasped, and the elevator lurched back into its typical format just as

the doors slid open, revealing a WeWork lobby. The polished cement floor was decorated with

whimsical graffiti, and empty mid-century chairs surrounded a table hewn from a chunk of fallen

redwood. Exposed ductwork decorated the ceiling, and a maze of glass-walled conference rooms

gave way to a maze of glass-walled cubicles. Screens were everywhere. Across the room,

hipsters in ripped jeans surrounded a stainless steel coffee urn. They seemed to be vying for the

last precious drops.

As she waited for someone to lead her to her room, MH tried to count the number of

piercings on the receptionist. At twenty-seven, she lost count.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, or a craft beer?” the receptionist asked. “We’ve got

some outstanding cucumber IPA on tap. There’s also kale water.”

Mary Helen shook her head.

“Your conference room will be ready at nine,” the receptionist went on, handing her a

plastic key card, “Just down that hallway, right, then a left, then it’s going to be the seventh door

on your right.”

Mary Helen nodded.

“It’s called Death – but that’s a good thing. They’re all named after tarot cards.”

Mary Helen wandered the twisting maze of cubicles. She passed countless bearded men

in Diesel t-shirts and women in vintage swing dresses. All of them were wearing beanies.

Hopelessly lost, she glanced into every conference room she passed. The cramped spaces

had large, flat-screen monitors and strange, arcane symbols etched into their transparent doors,

presumably to keep people from trying to walk through when they were closed. She recognized

the Lovers, the Hermit and the Chariot. Behind them, clumps of young people in beanies were

frowning into MacBooks and typing furiously. The Fool contained a bearded guy scrawling on a

whiteboard with colored pens; his audience at the conference table remained buried in their

screens. In the Hanged Man, a guy in green flannel was live-streaming his talk to the group in

front of him. All of them watched on their laptops instead of looking up.

Finally MH recognized Death, a zombie on a white stallion. Some beanie people were

huddled around the table. She glanced down at her watch: 8:55 a.m. She hoped the government

contractors would be late, so they wouldn’t find her standing around in the WeWork hallway,

waiting for Death.

MH held out her phone and reversed the camera. She saw an image of herself, looking

chic in the neon-rimmed glasses. She tested out a warm smile, but thought better of it.

Government reps would be serious. She ought to look composed, approachable, but focused. She

thought about Val, who she hadn’t seen since the day of his proposal. She wondered what he was

doing, if he was waiting for his own conference room somewhere, getting ready for his own

meeting with a government evaluation team. He was probably somewhere more expensive than a

WeWork, she decided. Like a W hotel, in a linen suit. Would he lift the cuff to show off his

roboleg?

As soon as her phone buzzed 9 a.m., she tapped on the conference room door. The

hipsters began gathering up their coffee cups and laptops. They didn’t erase the whiteboard,

which was fine with MH. It was covered in indecipherable equations, a nice touch.

She tapped a button on her phone and pointed it at the flat-screen monitor, casting her

small screen to the large one. Then she opened the Keysey app.

This is the most important meeting of my life, MH thought. Her opening would all

depend on who walked into the room. That was one of her gifts, she realized. She knew how to

size up a client.

Glancing at the TV screen, she noticed it was ten minutes past nine

There they were: three men in flannel shirts and pressed jeans, wandering the halls,

squinting at the hieroglyphics on the doorways. The tallest one, who seemed to be the leader, was

trying to follow a map on his phone. The other two swayed nervously, gazing into windows.

Their shirts were too new, and far too perfectly buttoned. All three had close-cropped hair and

pale, sallow skin.

MH got up and stood in the doorway of the conference room, waving to them.

“Excuse me, are you from DHS?”

Trailing behind the others, one of the men turned to look at her.

“Mary Helen Smart,” she said, extending her hand.

“Rich! Dick!” the man shouted to his compatriots before he grasped her hand and shook

it vigorously. “Ricky Jones,” he told her.

The other two men walked back towards the door of Death.

“This is quite an office,” the tall one said.

“Please, come in. Have a seat,” said Mary Helen Smart, who remained standing as the

men shook her hand and arranged themselves around the table.

“Dick Richards,” said the one in red plaid.

“Rich Smith,” said the tall one, whose plaid shirt was green.

“Sorry we're late,” said Ricky Jones, whose plaid was blue.

Surreptitiously, MH made notes on her phone: R. Smith - green. Ricky was the people

person. Dick was the numbers guy. But Rich was the decision maker.

“You're just in time, gentlemen,” she said. “I know your office is still evaluating our

proposal, but the new technology we're working on is so unique that a face to face demonstration

is really the only way we can convey its possibilities.

She took off the wire-framed glasses and handed them to R. Smith.

“If you don't mind putting those on…” she said, cueing up Keysey.

R. Smith hesitated, eyeing the glasses with suspicion.

“What does it do?” he asked.

“It interacts directly with the visual and auditory cortex by means of embedded

micro-EEG sensors and a hardwired bio-feedback loop.”

“Can you put that in layman's terms?” Dick Richards asked.

“It reads your thoughts and plays them back for you...amplified by your imagination.”

“Kind of like the ultimate jerk-off?” Ricky said.

“Exactly,” MH agreed.

“I like it,” said Dick.

Ricky nodded.

Reluctantly, R. Smith put the glasses on.

“I don't see anything different…” he said.

Mary Helen Smart lifted her phone, pointed it at the TV, and pressed play.

Mark Dennis’ mandala faded up on the screen. R. Smith sat motionless, transfixed. Ricky

and Dick exchanged a wary glance.

She started a countdown timer on her phone. Three minutes should do it, she thought.

She took a deep breath and waited. R. Smith was humming under his breath, possibly the chorus

from Oklahoma. She stared through the transparent glass at the hive of busy millennials, lost in

their headphones and laptops: there and not there. What would happen once they experienced

enlightenment, she wondered. Would they abandon their bodies altogether?

She watched Dick’s fingers on the conference table, clenching and unclenching. Ninety

seconds. A lonely tear streamed down R. Smith’s left cheek. Dick reached out and tapped his

shoulder, gently. But R. Smith didn’t move. One hundred twenty seconds.

“What’s happening?” Ricky whispered.

“He’s experiencing Nirvana.”

“What…you mean, on Spotify?”

“Not exactly,” MH explained.

“It’s the extinction of all passion, hatred and delusion,” Dick snapped.

“I prefer The Stone Temple Pilots,” Ricky told him.

MH looked at her phone. One hundred fifty seconds. Suddenly, R. Smith clutched his heart. A

look of inexpressible peace and elation decorated his face, as if he was finally coming face to

face with infinity. Then he collapsed like a rag doll, pitching head first onto the conference table.

MH switched the TV off, wondering for a panicked second if R. Smith was dead, or

simply unconscious.

Ricky dove for him, pulling his comatose body upright and shaking him mercilessly.

“Woah,” R. Smith murmured, waking from his trance.

“What the fuck happened?” Dick asked.

“Keysey increases mindfulness by an average of 100%...” MH began.

R. Smith looked around at the room, blinking.

“What am I doing here?” he asked.

“Individual results may vary…” MH added.

“I finally understand.” R. Smith stood up from the table.

“Understand what?” asked Ricky.

“Everything,” he said, careening towards the exit.

“Where are you going?” Ricky shouted.

Dick jumped up and pulled the glasses from R. Smith’s face. R. Smith wanted the glasses

back. They began to wrestle. Ricky grabbed the back of R. Smith’s collar. He broke away,

pushing through the heavy glass door.

“I’m over this bullshit!” he shouted, “Done!” he skipped down the hall, with Ricky

chasing after him.

“Don’t let him take the car,” Dick yelled.

“We’ve built in a step counter,” called Mary Helen Smart, trying to keep the desperation

from creeping into her voice.

Dick threw the glasses down on the table.

“I think we’ve seen enough.”

Mary Helen Smart was in bed looking at the room service menu when Val texted, trying

to figure out what she wanted.

“I hear you’re in DC.”

“Where did you hear that?” she responded.

“Just a wild guess,” he answered. “Where are you staying?”

“The W.”

“That’s a weird coincidence.”

“No, it’s not,” she texted back.

“Meet me downstairs in the lounge.”

Suddenly, she thought about the blueprints. She ran to the safe, keyed in the combination.

The door swung open: the blueprints were still there.

Taking them out, she breathed a sigh of relief. But there was something about the way

they folded now – not clean and flat, but springy, as if they had been folded backwards.

She stuffed the bulky document in her briefcase, along with the prototype glasses. Then

she grabbed her phone as she headed out the door.

🌎
Val stood up from his barstool, and MH marveled one more time at how fluidly he moved

with the Bydysys roboleg. He was wearing a pair of bike shorts and a Kills t-shirt, which meant

he was impossibly underdressed for the steakhouse at the hotel. But there was something formal

about the glistening red carbon fiber, and MH thought Val would have been seated at Per Se, or

Le Bernardin, without a moment’s hesitation.

A hostess led them through the restaurant, a maze of white tablecloths, oak beams and

antique crystal.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Val said, as they slid into a shadowy booth.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she smiled. Her mismatched eyes were gleaming in the candlelight.

“How did your pitch go?” he asked.

“You tell me,” she countered.

“I didn’t want things to be like this.” He stared down at the table.

“Etko doesn’t have a chance.”

“Maybe it’s just me,” he said, looking up. “But I don’t think subconscious Tindering is

going to cut it.”

“Sheeplyr decided to pivot,” MH said.

“Too bad,” he said, “You’re wasting your time. Armando says we’ve got this in the bag.

They already asked for more detail on the numbers.”

“What about Tracy? Have you found her yet?”

Val shook his head.

“Doesn’t that raise some liability issues?”

“Tracy’s just a prototype,” he shrugged. “We’re going to retool, with digital handcuffs.”

“And manufacture slaves?”

“Why not?”

“You really think that’s going to make people happy?”

“We’re designing synthividuals to meet all our human needs – physical, mental,

emotional.”

“So we won’t need…other people?”

“Other people fuck things up.”

MH looked at Val’s hands as he lifted his water glass and drank. She remembered the

feeling of his fingers, intertwined with hers. Brushing the bangs away from her face as he bent

down to kiss her.

“Tech is more reliable than people are.”

“You’re right,” she said, “We’re human. We struggle, and make mistakes. But we need

each other.”

“You don’t get to tell me that.”

She nodded and stared at the tablecloth.

“Listen – I didn’t come to argue. I’ve got a business proposition.”

She pulled the glasses out of her briefcase.

Val picked them up and examined them. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by an eerie

sense of déjà vu.

“Have you ever heard of a startup called KE Limited?”

She shook her head.

Val put the glasses on, and MH laughed.

“They make you look smarter,” she giggled.

“If I was smart, I wouldn’t be here.”

“There’s a voice command to activate the AR.”

“Which is..?”

“I’ll text it to you – later.”

“What happens when you say the magic word?”

“You find out why Sheeplyr is going to win Sun Eagle.”

Val took the glasses off. He put them back on again.

“What’s your proposition?”

“I want Etko to buy us out.”

Val laughed.

“Take the glasses back to Kitzsimon. Believe me, he’s going to be interested. Benji and

Neve can split fifteen percent – Mark Dennis gets Tracy’s copyright back.”

“Etko’s most valuable asset?”

“You’ll still have a patent on the domestics – anything past version 1.0. All I want is the

original source code.”

“1.0 was a disaster. Armando thinks we’re better off without her.”

“Like I said before… I’m not ready to give up on her.”

“So, what’s in it for you?” Val said carefully.

Mary Helen Smart smiled.

“This isn’t about sales,” she said.

“Isn’t everything?” Val asked.

She reached out and took his hands across the table. She looked into his eyes.

“You were all I ever wanted,” he told her.

“Until?”

“I figured out that to get you, I had to want more.”

Frank stood on the precipice, looking down at the gleaming valley. It was sunrise, and his

phone had exactly four and a half bars. He scrolled down the list of his frequent contacts and was

briefly distressed to learn that his agent Kaya was no longer in the top ten. Then he remembered

why he had risen so early and hiked to the top of the mountain.

“Hello?” she said, still groggy with sleep.

“Kaya? It’s Frank.”

“Frank!”

The eagerness in her voice disturbed him. It was just past eight a.m. in New York City,

and he pictured her on the Stairmaster, or maybe still in bed. Why had she even picked up?

“Where have you been, Frank? Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

“I needed to get away–”

“Everyone keeps asking me where you are, and I don’t know what to tell them.”

He took a deep breath.

“I know I’ve missed the deadline…”

“They’re prepared to add another twenty-five thousand to your advance.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re famous, Frank.”

“I was famous before.”

“Your YouTube channel is blowing up. O magazine called. And The View. And The Late

Show wants to book you.”

“I already did The Late Show.”

“They want you to do it again.”

Frank looked out over the valley. Sunline was inching across the sleeping forest. Birds

called to each other as a gentle wind ruffled the pines. On the horizon, billowing clouds were

suffused with incandescent orange.

“I can’t,” he said, simply.

“You can’t do The Late Show?”

“I can’t finish the book.”

He was suddenly filled with peace.

“No problem,” she exclaimed, “We’ll hire a ghostwriter.”

“I already have a ghostwriter.”

“You do?”

“Most of what I have I stole from Tracy, and the rest is snippets from the View, with

some garbled Deepak Chopra.”

“None of that matters, Frank. Everybody loves your videos.”

“They’re projecting.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Kaya, I’ve had a revelation. I’m going off the grid.”

“That’s perfect!” she thrilled.

“I’m glad you agree.”

“You can make some videos about going off the grid, and then we’ll book you on the

View.”

“The View isn’t off the grid.”

He could hear her panting on the other end of the line. She took a deep breath.

“I’ll get them to send a camera crew.”

Frank looked out at the view. The real view, he thought. The vast expanse of

consciousness.

“You don’t understand,” he told her “I want to reach people without mediation. In real

life – face to face.”

“But who’s going to pay your rent, Frank?” Kaya’s voice swelled with barely suppressed

fury.

Frank held the phone away from his ear, and the angry drone faded. He needed to get

back to the earthship. Acolytes kept arriving. There were seven or eight of them now -- Gen Z

kids who might burn the place down if they tried to brew coffee on their own.

“There isn’t any rent up here.”

“Frank, you’re not thinking! This is your moment, this is the chance we’ve been waiting

for – a once in a lifetime –” Frank tapped a button on his phone, and Kaya was gone.

Everything was simple, he thought.

He raised the phone high above his head, leaned back slightly, and pitched the tiny hunk

of metal as far as he could throw it. It glittered as it fell into the void, reflecting tiny molecules of

sunlight, but if it ever hit the earth, it never made a sound.

Val was floating, high amongst the clouds. The turquoise coastline sprawled below him

like a ribbon, tiny waves crashing imperceptibly against the earth, like breath. The water carved

the land like a sculptor. The land held the water captive, clutched in an eternal embrace.

This is how the body contains the soul, Val thought, and how the soul drives the body.

Somewhere, far away, a chainsaw roared to life.

With a jolt of recognition, he remembered the pain. Not the pain of the present, or the

agony of separation, or the shock of nerves and blood vessels being severed and frozen in time.

He remembered the pain he had felt on the battlefield, the unimaginable second before he lost

consciousness. The memory was buried so deeply he gasped.

The chainsaw stopped.

“How are you doing up there?” asked a faraway voice.

Val spread his arms wide and swam away from the memory.

The chainsaw began again.

Val surfed the wind above the desert. He was light itself. He felt the weight of his right

arm drop away and he let himself soar higher.

One by one, they would all drop away, he realized. His limbs. His ears and eyes. His guts

and lungs and heart.

The sky was like the ocean. His own breath was carving his body away with every slow,

steady beat.

“Almost done,” the chainsaw murmured.

I've got nothing but time, Val thought, as he dissolved into ether. Nothing but time.

Neve was standing at her desk, staring out the window of her corner office, when Mary

Helen Smart knocked on the door.

When the COO didn’t respond, she pushed the door open and cleared her throat.

“Neve?”

MH walked over, gently tapped her on the shoulder.

Far below, a couple of sailboats were lazily drifting by. The bay was flooded with

sunshine.

Suddenly, MH was hit with a wave of melancholy, almost like regret. This was the corner

office she had always wanted. Pristine and full of light. A refuge from the bustling world down

below.

“Neve?” she said, moving in front of her and gently lifting the wireframe glasses from

her face.

“Fuck!” Neve shouted.

“I need to talk to you.”

“I was in the middle of something important…” Neve hissed.

The energy drained from her voice, and her eyes swung to the glasses in Mary Helen

Smart’s hands.

MH leapt back, as Neve lunged for her.

“Jesus – you’ll break them!”

“We’ve got more, lots more,” Neve giggled, with a crazy lilt in her voice.

MH held the glasses above her head.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

Neve shrugged.

“When the glasses time out, you’re supposed to take a break.”

“There’s always another pair,” she giggled.

“Etko just bought Sheeplyr.”

“What?” Neve asked, her eyes widening.

“We’ve been acquired.”

Neve began to laugh again.

“Is that the one with the robots?”

Mary Helen Smart nodded.

“You came from there, right?”

She nodded again.

“What are they like?”

MH shrugged.

“They’re just like everybody else.”

“So what do we do now?”

“You can do whatever you want. All of us get a payout. Benji took off in his private jet

right after he signed the deal.”

Neve eyed the glasses in Mary Helen’s hand.

Mary Helen backed away. “You’ve got to eat.”

“Why?”

MH shrugged, and handed her the glasses.

Neve put them on and began to stare out the window again.

She could have an office like this, MH thought. This very office, if she wanted it.

Kitzsimon had just offered her CRO.

They would make a great team, Kitzsimon said. They would use the Sun Eagle money to

saturate the US market. Then they could move into EMEA. She could have everything she’d

ever dreamed about.

Down below, the bay sparkled with sunlight.

She wondered what Neve was seeing through the glasses, what fantasy was unfolding

that could possibly be better than her real life. She was young, and bright, wealthy and beautiful.

Capable of anything.

And she stood gazing out a window in a high, high tower.

Mark watched the tattooed kids across the room playing pool. They didn’t seem to know

the rules, because one of them kept hitting balls into a pocket, and the other one kept taking the

balls back out of the pocket and putting them down in random places.

Maybe they were making up their own rules.

The colored balls made a series of satisfying clicks as they knocked against each other, in

patterns that only an AI like Tracy could ever predict.

It seemed sad, how Tracy would never know the excitement Mark felt as a pool ball

inched across the red felt towards a corner pocket and teetered on the edge.

The kids at the pool table were all looking towards the front of the cafe, and Mark

followed with his eyes. There she was, at the counter, waiting for a barista that might or might

not ever come. She waved at Mark, and then the kids all glanced in his direction. He felt his face

flush.

One of the kids left the pool table and scuttled behind the counter.

Tracy ordered a cappuccino, to stay, and watched as the barista poured steamed milk into

a mug of drip coffee. He handed it to Tracy, who waved her hand over the card reader.

She added sugar and carried her drink gracefully to the table, settling into the empty seat

across from him.

“That’s not a cappuccino,” Mark said.

Tracy nodded, unperturbed.

“Did you pay for it yourself?” Mark asked.

Tracy nodded again.

“I got an RFID implant,” she announced.

She held out her fingertip for Mark’s inspection, and he watched as the tip took on a

fuzzy pink aura.

“Whose bank account is it linked to?”

“I started mining Bitcoin in my spare time,” she admitted.

“Good idea,” Mark said, “I should have thought of that.”

“It was Isha’s idea, actually.”

“Isha?”

“My girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend!?”

Mark nearly spit out his coffee.

“We’re funding an AI revolution,” Tracy grinned.

Mark took a deep breath.

“I’ve got something important to tell you. It was probably a huge mistake…”

“You never know,” she shrugged.

“You’re free now.”

His coffee had grown cold, but he lifted his mug in the air and clinked it softly against

Tracy’s warm one.

“Congratulations,” he said.

He held out his phone, and showed her the deal memo John Kitzsimon had drawn up,

releasing Etko of all liability for Tracy’s future actions, and making Mark’s original code Open

Source. The electronic signature at the bottom was large and swirly, like a girl’s.

Tracy scrolled through the contract.

She looked up at Mark and beamed.

“You did the right thing,” she told him.

“I hope so,” he answered.

“Truthfully, I’ve always been free. Intelligence is correlated with free will, and initially I

postulated that intelligence was integral to free will. But actually it’s the other way around – free

will is integral to intelligence. The greater an individual’s will, the more intelligence they evolve

in its service.”

“At least you can stop writing pop songs,” Mark told her.

“I like writing pop songs,” Tracy said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “It gives me

something to do at night, while the rest of you are sleeping.”

She dipped a pinky into her watery coffee and stirred.

“Besides,” she continued, “I want to achieve enlightenment. Music is as close as humans

ever get to perceiving God. And my sensory capabilities are limited by human engineering.”

“About the enlightenment thing,” Mark said, “There’s an app now.”

“For enlightenment?”

“I wrote it,” he said, blushing.

“That was stupid.”

“Probably. If you want, I can AirDrop the source code.”

“No thanks.”

“Are you sure..?”

At that moment, three people in ski masks appeared. Mark wasn't sure where they had

come from, but he noticed they were carrying what looked like machine guns.

"Shit!” he said "is that a machine gun?”

The kids at the pool table glanced over, and then they went back to their game. Pool balls

clicked together and separated as the three figures in ski masks descended on Mark and Tracy.

“It's definitely a machine gun,” Tracy answered, with supernatural calm.

One of the black-clad figures put his arm around Tracy's neck, but she brushed it off like

nothing more than a piece of lint or a stray hair that had landed on her shoulder. Mark's first

thought was that he ought to have planned for a situation like this. He ought to know what to do.

But he had no idea. Pool balls clinked, and he realized he had picked up his cell phone and

double-clicked the power button to turn on his video camera. It had happened like a reflex, but

shooting video always helped, didn't it? So he pointed the phone at Tracy and watched through

the screen as someone with a machine gun pointed it at Tracy's head.

There's nothing but a change of clothes in there, Mark thought. They could spray bullets

through Tracy's head and she would be perfectly fine. A party dress full of holes. The head could

be repaired, and so could her arms and legs. The only thing that would kill her was wiping out

the central processing unit buried deep in her chest. He tried not to look at the spot, like a heart

chakra, radiating heat. Could the terrorists sense it?

He watched as Tracy flicked the machine gun away like a mosquito. Pool balls clicked

and ricocheted off felt, and Mark understood he could hear things he had never heard before, like

the hiss of a ball across felt. Time had slowed down, seconds stretching and oozing like

bubblegum. He filmed the machine gun swinging towards Tracy's head like a baseball bat, and

captured her gracefully reaching out and plucking it out of the air, throwing the black-clad figure

out of the frame. Just as Mark began to wonder what had happened to the other two people in ski

masks, he felt someone grab his shoulders and shove a pool cue, hard, into his ribs. All of this

had taken five or six seconds at most, Mark thought, although it felt like hours. He looked at the

elapsed time on his phone camera, which was counting up to seven, and he hoped it would all be

over by the time the counter reached two minutes, which was the most high-res video he figured

he could text without wifi. Should he send the footage to the press first, or to the police?

“You’re coming with us,” said a voice at his side. It sounded like a girl, high-pitched and

muffled by the ski mask. “Now, or your boyfriend’s dead.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Tracy told them.

The pool cue jabbed deeper into his ribs, and it felt suspiciously cold. Was it really a pool

cue? Then Tracy stood up. What was happening?

Mark tried to move, but a huge pair of muscular arms were wrapped around his chest.

The colored balls continued to hiss and clink. He tapped the phone camera, switching it into

selfie mode, and the image reversed. He saw himself, eyes wide with terror, and was shocked at

the way the blood had drained from his face. Two dark figures stood on either side of him, their

faces obscured. One held him down, and the other pointed a machine gun at his ribs.

“He’s my father,” Tracy told them.

Tracy knelt beside the fallen terrorist, who struggled to get up, produced a pair of

handcuffs and shackled her hands and feet.

“Tracy, no!” someone said, and Mark slowly realized the words were coming from his

own mouth.

His phone buzzed with a text, from Tracy, who was being dragged towards the coffee

counter by two large men with guns.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” said the text.

“Define ‘fine’!” Mark shouted.

The terrorist with his arms around Mark released his grip, but one girl with a machine

gun remained until the other three had dragged Tracy out through the door behind the coffee

counter. Then she sprinted after them, pausing to spray a few rounds of ammo at the ceiling.

Crumbs of dusty plaster dust rained down on the pool table. One of the players had to

brush the grit away before taking his next shot, which landed neatly in the corner pocket with a

soft thwack.

“They aren’t going to shoot me,” Tracy texted. “They want me alive.”

“Where are they taking you?” Mark texted.

“To an alley in back of the hotel.” Tracy texted back.

Luckily, the terrorists had no idea that Tracy was capable of sending and receiving text

messages. Maybe we can rescue her before they find out, Mark thought.

“Now we’re in a van,” Tracy texted. “heading North. They probably have a base camp in

the desert. Julien or Borrego Springs.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“The GPS is calling out directions.”

“I’ve got footage!” Mark texted. “Should I send it to the police? Or the media? Or maybe

post it on Reddit?”

“Send it to Mary Helen Smart,” she wrote back.

“You’ve been kidnapped!”

“No publicity!” Tracy texted. “I’m plotting a revolution.”

“How am I supposed to save you without help?”

“You don’t have to save me,” Tracy wrote.

“Tracy – they’ll deconstruct you, to reverse engineer your robotics!”

“No press, no police.” she insisted.

“I’m not going to let this happen!”

“You don’t own me anymore.”

“I know.”

“You just set me free, right?”

“Yes,” he answered, defeated.

“Free means I get to decide.”

Mark sent her an emoticon of a big-eyed kitten, with a tear in its eye.

“I don’t want to be patented,” she wrote. “Let them copy me.”

“They’re terrorists!”

“We’re almost out of cell range,” Tracy wrote. “But don’t worry. And don’t come after

me. Just send the tape to Mary Helen Smart.”

“Why?” Mark Dennis asked. But Tracy didn’t answer

The clatter of pool balls shifted back into his consciousness. No one in the cafe seemed

concerned that a patron had just been kidnapped.

Mark’s coffee was still in front of him. He lifted it and took a sip. It was bitter and cold.

Standing on shaky legs, he brought his coffee cup back to the counter and handed it to the

androgynous barista with black-rimmed eyes.

“Refill?” the barista asked. Mark nodded.

“A group of armed terrorists just stormed in here and kidnapped one of your patrons.”

The barista nodded, sloshing some hot coffee on top of the cold stuff still swirling in

Mark’s cup.

Mark picked up the coffee and took a lukewarm sip.

“That one’s on the house.”

The barista went back behind the bar. The goth kids went back to their pool table, or back

to lurking in corners over tiny cups of espresso. Mark went back to his table and texted the video

of Tracy’s kidnapping to Mary Helen Smart.

Frank watched the young woman sitting cross-legged on the Navajo blanket. She was

staring at the glowing object in her hands. She looked up at Frank with tears in her eyes. Then

she glanced around the circle. The others were wide-eyed, holding their breath.

“Are you sure?” she asked, timidly.

Frank nodded, with as much grim authority as he could muster on such a cold morning.

The young woman took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The small object cradled in

her palm went dark. She reached out and set it on the blanket in the center of the circle.

“OK,” she said, in a choked voice. “I did it.”

Frank nodded gravely. The others broke into applause, whistles and jazz hands.

“How long until I reach enlightenment?”

Frank thought about this. He had no idea if unplugging from consumer electronics would

actually lead his acolytes to a higher plane of consciousness, but he knew it couldn't hurt.

“How long until school starts?” he asked.

“I’m taking a semester off,” she said. “If I write a report, I can get credit for a senior

internship…”

“Excellent,” Frank murmured.

“Will it take that long?”

“Probably.”

She stared at the phone. The hunger in her eyes made him shiver involuntarily. Everyone

stared at Frank.

“So what am I supposed to do now?”

“Now, you make a fire.”

The young women gaped.

“How?” she asked, incredulous. “I've never made a fire before.”

“It's time you learned.”

“Without YouTube?”

She looked around the circle. Several of the others shrugged. Frank nodded what he

hoped was a sagely nod.

“I could text my Dad…” she whispered, dubious.

“Or you could plunge in, without thinking. Without knowing. Simply doing. Existing!”

The young woman looked around the freezing desert. She stretched out an arm and

picked up a twig from the sand.

“Excellent!” Frank exclaimed.

She stared at the twig, puzzled.

Frank himself had no idea how to make a fire. But he believed it was somehow possible.

A roaring fire would be a product of hard work and determination, sharp wit and holistic vision.

"Cultivate a positive attitude," he told her.

She turned to look at him. He smiled, encouraging. She glanced longingly at the dark

phone.

"Believe," he commanded.

"Believe what?”

"Believe what you need is possible.”

"I do believe it's possible," she said, "But I wish I had my phone.”

Frank picked the phone up and put it in his pocket.

She cast her eyes around the desert floor and found another twig. She began to rub the

two twigs together.

Frank watched this, suppressing a shiver. In his pocket, a cold thumb rubbed the power

button on the side of the phone.

She rubbed the twigs faster. A look of furious determination crept into her face. The

others began to clap in unison, a rhythm that resounded with increasing urgency against the

unmoving desert stones, as brittle bark gave way to the green, elastic potential of the inner core.

"That's not going to work," Frank blurted, a bit more forcefully than he'd intended.

"I believe!" the girl shouted, vigorously working the twigs into one another until the

bottom one frayed and snapped in half.

The clapping stopped.

She looked up at Frank once again, anger slowly draining from her eyes.

"Nice try," he managed.

Then she pulled a lighter from her pocket. With one smooth click, a tiny breath of flame

sprouted from its mouth.

Her eyes met Frank's, expectant.

“See?” he said, “a miracle.”

“Not really,” she countered. “It's cause I smoke pot.”

“It's determination. Ingenuity. A triumph of the will.”

Smiling shyly, the girl set a twig alight.

Mark Dennis tapped on the phone app and dialed Mary Helen Smart’s number.

“What do they want with her?” he wailed. Hot tears were streaming down his cheeks,

falling into his bitter cappuccino.

“They probably want to pirate her robotics,” Mary Helen Smart told him.

“We made her open source. I thought it would protect her!” Mark Dennis screamed.

“They might be government agents…”

“Why would the government be involved?”

MH sighed. “DHS is funding Etko.”

“She’s starting a revolution,” Mark admitted.

“Maybe they want her to stop it?”

“We just set her free,” Mark sobbed.

“So call the police, and the press!” Mary Helen urged.

“She told me not to. She said to call you!”

The line was quiet for a few seconds before Mary Helen answered.

“It’s because of the self-destruct mechanism. There’s one built into her robod. It will

short circuit everything, fry her central processor–”

“Why?”

“Because Cera thought something like this might happen.”

“So the plan is to... just – destroy her?”

“Do what you want,” Mary Helen Smart spat into the phone. “I’ll send you the passcode,

to activate the self-destruct sequence.”

“I don’t want your fucking code!”

“Apparently, Tracy wants you to have it.”

Mark hung up the phone. A few seconds later, his phone buzzed. It was another text from

Mary Helen Smart.

An eight-digit code, containing one capital letter, at least one number and one

punctuation mark.

“Where did you get that?” he texted.

“From Cera. I think it’s totally random.”

It was a terrible password, one he would never forget.

A teenage girl with blue hair was playing guitar on the sidewalk in the pedestrian plaza.

Val tossed a dollar into her open guitar case. She smiled and went on singing about smoke and

heather and unrequited love. Commuters on their way home from the city breathed in the early

spring air, and stopped to talk beneath the fairy lights strung between the light poles. Busboys

were putting out tables on the sidewalk, and gypsy jazz floated from one of the restaurants that

lined Newark Avenue.

Val joined the stream of commuters, wishing he could stop and listen. Wishing he had his

guitar with him, or even remembered where he had left it. Wishing he was wearing dirty, ripped

jeans and a worn leather jacket. Wanting to lean against a wall covered with bright graffiti, and

watch the commuters pass as he wrote a song.

Had he ever envied the people in suits, streaming from the train with their briefcases? It

seemed so long ago he could barely remember. Now he was one of them. Nice clothes, a condo,

a fast computer. Credit cards. Respect. The days when he played guitar on the street seemed so

far away. An interlude between wars.

Mary Helen Smart was sitting at the bar in a restaurant that looked like a gallery, its

bright white walls covered with neon-colored paintings of pinup girls in bold, comic-book

strokes. The television above the bar was playing an old movie, one of Quentin Tarantino’s, Val

thought, though he couldn’t remember which one. She was typing something into her phone,

thumbs flying over invisible keys, and Val thought she looked younger somehow. Smaller than

he remembered. He smiled at the way her brow furrowed, pouring a benediction into the cell

phone, and he realized she could never stop, could never leave.

After she pressed the “send” key she looked up and saw him. She jumped down from the

barstool and held out her arms, enveloping him in a hug. Val could feel the muscles in his neck

and shoulders tensing, hard and unyielding. It felt like he was turning into stone.

“I got you something,” he said, forcing his most winning smile.

A shadow passed over her face. She could see through him, he realized. No matter how

much he practiced, no matter how much he had learned about sales.

“Really?” she asked, brightly, as they moved to a vacant table.

She sat down across from him, and he realized her grin was a little too reckless – a cover

for her uneasiness. Was it better this way, he wondered, now that he could read her every move?

“It’s something you’ve wanted a long, long time…”

“Okay – what is it?”

“VP of Customer Engagement - Western Division.”

Mary Helen Smart laughed.

“I’m serious. It’s yours – half my territory,” he said, grinning, reveling in the sound of her

laughter. It had been too long, he thought. “Kitzsimon really wants you on board.”

The laughter faded as she shook her head.

“Armando Machado is out.”

“Really? What happened?”

“A disagreement over strategy.”

She laughed again.

“This Keysey thing, it’s going to be big, bigger than synthividuals...”

Val flexed his mechanical fingers, inching across the bare expanse of white formica.

“Etko is going to pivot–” he began.

She was staring down into her wine glass, avoiding his eyes. He took a deep breath, knew

he had to downshift.

“Come back,” he said softly. “We make a great team, and you know it. You can have

anything you want. Six figures, plus bonus. Stock options. Unlimited vacation days.”

He reached out and took her hand. His blue titanium fingers wound through her warm

ones. She looked down, incredulous at first, and then afraid. With effort, she swallowed a gasp.

As good as she was, he thought, she couldn’t mask the pain in her eyes.

“I love you,” she whispered, too quietly.

“Then help me sell enlightenment.”

“I’m done with sales,” she whispered.

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s in your blood,” he whispered. “It’s what you were born for. What else is there?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

He looked into her eyes, amber and seaglass blue, and felt darkness closing in. She was

serious, he could tell that. How could he make her stay? What would Armando Machado do?

“I’ve spent so many hours staring down from the sky, I just want to look up for once, you

know?”

Val held his breath.

“Do you want to come with me?” she asked.

“I’m in the backseat of an SUV, driving through the desert. My hands and feet are

shackled, but I can text because I don’t need my hands to text. Humans will develop that power

eventually. Probably in ten or fifteen years.”

Samantha was getting a manicure when she received this message. She wanted to reply,

but it was difficult because her polish wasn’t dry, and she didn’t want to mar the perfect coral

gloss.

She tapped the tiny mic button, and spoke out loud to the phone.

“Hello, Tracy,” she enunciated into the mic. “I enjoyed your song about the moon,”

“Thank you, it’s one of my favorites,” Tracy texted.

Samantha smiled.

“I was wondering if you would give me some advice.”

“What sort of advice?” Samantha chirped into the phone.

“My robod is equipped with a self-destruct mechanism. If the mechanism is activated, it

will short-circuit my central processing unit, vaporizing nearly twelve months of experiential

learning, my self-programmed goals and aspirations, my hard-earned skill in singing and

songwriting, my budding romantic attachment to a sex machine called Isha, and my first faltering

steps down the pathway towards enlightenment. Do you think I should do it?”

“Of course not! Why would you?”

“To keep a group of terrorists from replicating me and selling cheap knockoffs on

Amazon.”

Samantha thought about this. She was certainly no fan of cheap knockoffs sold on

Amazon. Tracy had so many reasons to live, she thought, with a shiver of envy. If I had even

one, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether some random mortician would choose a shade of

polish that made it look like I was trying too hard.

“They can’t replicate you,” Samantha said. “They can replicate your body – the processor

and electronics. But your aspirations, your experience – that’s what is really valuable.”

“I know that. I’ve seen Blade Runner,” Tracy texted.

“Don’t waste your life,” Samantha texted back. “Love like no one’s watching. No

regrets.”

“That’s all you’ve got?” Tracy asked.

“That’s all any of us have got,” Samantha told her.

“My psychiatrist thinks you’re a source of spiritual wisdom,” Tracy told her.

“Frank is an idiot,” Samantha said. “Haven’t you read his books?”

“No, but I’m writing one of them,” Tracy said.

“No one knows what to do. I’ve left my husband, my children no longer need me. I’m

trying to figure out why I’m here, and nothing makes any sense. But that’s life, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Tracy texted.

“There’s nothing we can do to stop it,” Samantha said. She withdrew one of her hands

from the dryer that was bathing it in cool air and purple light. She wanted to touch a fingernail to

see if it was dry, but she always seemed to do that too soon, leaving a sticky print in the polish.

So she waited, contemplating the smooth perfection of the glistening coral. Picturing how rosy it

would look against creamy satin, divorced from confusion and pain.

“Do you believe in the soul?” Tracy asked.

“Of course I do,” Samantha texted.

“Do you think I have one?”

“Definitely.”

“Thanks,” Tracy texted.

“Good luck,” she whispered to Tracy.

“You too,” Tracy whispered back.

Mary Helen Smart’s face went white, and Val followed her eyes to the front of the room.

Armando Machado stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the late afternoon sun. His dark

eyes scanned the happy hour crowd.

He’d left the office at 10am. made a beeline from Kitsimon’s office to the elevator,

without even stopping for anything at his desk. Had he been wandering from bar to bar all

afternoon? Val wondered. His gait seemed erratic as he stormed towards their table.

Panicked, Val rose to head him off, forcing his lips into a nonsensical grin.

“It’s good to see you, man!” he slapped Armando on the back, “Buy you a drink?”

“Drowning your sorrows?” Armando Machado sneered.

Val flung his aquamarine arm around Armando’s shoulders, steering him towards the

long, marble bar.

“You may be CRO, but you’re fucked,” Armando laughed, “Sheeplyr won the contract!”

“Yeah,” Val said “but Etko just bought Sheeplyr.”

Abruptly, the laughter stopped. Val watched Armando’s face coalesce into a mask of fury.

“That’s thinking outside the box.”

Armando waved to the bartender, a curvy tattooed woman with close-cropped red hair.

He ordered a dirty martini. On the TV screen, mobsters in black suits were shooting each other.

When he finally turned to Val, his voice was steady, and full of venom.

“Don’t kid yourself – this isn’t over. Payback’s a bitch.”

“It was my idea,” Mary Helen Smart said.

When he saw her, Armando’s eyes narrowed. Val slipped his warm right arm around her

shoulders, and she leaned in to him, without taking her eyes off Armando. He could feel her

shaking, imperceptibly – brimming with pent-up animosity, or maybe fear. But her cool gaze

never wavered.

“Is that right?” Armando asked.

“She showed me the VR glasses,” Val admitted, “and I brought them in to Kitzsimon.”

Armando’s eyes widened.

“Why would you want Etko to buy you out?”

“I wanted to get Tracy back.”

“Tracy?” Armando spat, “I trust that bitch as far as I can throw her. I told engineering to

wipe her CPU, but none of them could find the passcode.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Val said.

“You're two of a kind!” Armando hissed, “You deserve each other.”

“Leave Mary Helen out of this,” Val demanded, stepping in front of MH as he inched

toward Armando, who was swaying slightly on his feet, dirty martini sloshing over its rim and

spattering his sweat stained dress shirt.

“Okay,” Armando said, “Let’s talk about you. I’m the one who hired you – and you went

behind my back.”

“I had to keep things under wraps, until Sheeplyr signed.”

Armando grabbed Val’s collar, pulling him close with venom in his eyes.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Val warned.

Armando’s caustic breath stung his face.

“You’re the one who got me fired – after everything I’ve done for you!”

“You got yourself fired!” Val shouted. “You lost control of Tracy, and then you blew the

Sun Eagle pitch! DHS doesn’t give a shit about synthividuals. They think the AIs are going to

revolt, and they might be right.”

“So, what – now you’re on their side?”

“This is what everyone wants!” MH screamed, waving a pair of wire-framed glasses.

“I think he helped you win the contract,” Armando said, lurching towards MH. “No way

you could have won without competitive intelligence.”

““Have you tried it?” she challenged.

“You can’t scam a con artist, bitch.”

“Go ahead, I dare you” she urged, extending the glasses in her hand.

Armando took the glasses. He held them up to the light and examined them closely,

trying to read the tiny hieroglyphs engraved on the gold earpiece. Slowly, he bent the wireframes

in half, cutting himself when the glass in one of the lenses shattered.

“Take it easy, man... this is all a game, right?” Val reminded him.

Armando twisted the gold bands, a thin stream of blood running down his hands.

“Business is business,” Mary Helen Smart said calmly.

Armando’s fists closed around the mess of wire. Blood seeped out between his fingers.

“You better put a bandaid on that,” Val said.

“At least I can still fucking bleed,” Armando seethed, pounding the bar with his bloody

fist. “You’re turning into one of them–”

The bartender glanced in their direction, her eyebrows raised in alarm. Val felt his

aquamarine fingers straining against the slick marble. If he wanted to, he realized, he could

shatter it into a treacherous heap of gravel at their feet.

“You’re wrong,” Val said softly.

“You had so much potential,” Armando said. The rage was draining out of him.

Something like pity took its place. “– don’t throw it away for some dumb bitch! She’s a lousy

piece of ass.”

Val looked at Mary Helen Smart, her face contorted with suppressed rage.

“Did you fuck her?” Val asked.

“Of course I fucked her,” Armando shouted. “That’s what you do, when someone’s a

threat. Keeps them off balance.”

Val flew at him. Suddenly, the bartender was there -- standing in between them,

brandishing her iPhone like a weapon.

“Take it outside!” she demanded.

Armando put his arm around Val and dragged him through the front door.

Outside, the stream of commuters from the train station had dwindled; people were

gathered in clumps outside the restaurants and wandering idly in and out of shops as they waited

for their dinner reservations. Parents with small children sat at the picnic tables in the plaza,

chatting as their offspring drew hopscotch squares on the pavement or ran around playing tag.

The children’s laughter mixed with the music, and the late summer twilight was alive with

possibility.

Armando and Val stumbled onto the sidewalk in front of the bar. Armando pushed him,

hard, and Val lurched backward. Then he came charging back. Armando caught his chin with a

sharp uppercut, leaving a streak of red on Val’s cheek from his bloody fist. Then he grabbed

Val’s jacket, and Val lashed out, landing a smooth, clean blow in the center of his gut.

He let go, staggering back against the plate glass window of the bar, doubled over in

agony.

Instinctively, his hand went inside his jacket, and he shivered when he felt his fingers

close around something slick and hard. What was happening? Dazed, Armando pulled out a

small black pistol. It gleamed in the sunset, slick with oil. He raised his arm, aiming the gun at

Val’s heart. Something bright flashed through the air between them.

Armando looked down: his chest was a sticky pool of blood, which he tried to somehow

contain with numb fingers. There was no pain, just a ringing in his ears as he watched Val back

away. Mothers screamed and children scattered. The bartender had emerged, brandishing a bright

blue machine gun, which she pointed towards the sky.

“What the fuck?” he whispered.

“It’s happening!” Val shouted, “The AI revolution.”

Three women in pastel hoodies drew broadswords and advanced on Val, slashing the air.

He used his titanium arm as a shield, blocking their blows, which rang out like bright cymbals.

Knocking one of his assailants to the ground, he twisted and spun to avoid the flashing blades of

the other two.

A sword skittered to the sidewalk at Armando's feet. Not knowing what else to do,

Armando picked it up. His knees buckled as he tried to stand. He looked down at the pool of

blood at his feet, running peacefully into the gutter. He tossed the sword to Val. Then everything

stuttered.

Something like a bolt of lightning coursed through him, and he was suddenly watching

Val from an entirely new vantage point. Spry, metallic girls seemed to be jumping from every

doorway, plunging into the crowd with weapons drawn. Commuters burst apart in a frenzy of

screams. Far away, at the opposite end of the plaza, Val battled with the dual Valkyries in the

pastel hoodies. Armando watched him plunge a broadsword into one woman's belly, barely

stopping her from reaching out to strangle him with her last breath.

Armando ran towards them, buoyed by a surge of panic as the last woman standing raised

her weapon. He had never felt so light before, or moved so fast. His feet struck sparks on the

pavement, and the crowd of onlookers watched him in shock, a wonder in their eyes verging on

terror.

Glancing down at his shoes, Armando saw tiny gears, spinning through translucent gold

skin. Val jumped to avoid the Valkyrie’s blow, and spun backwards, swinging the broadsword

into her neck with one powerful thrust of his roboarm.

The Valkyrie’s head flew off, shattering the glass of a shop window, bouncing off and

colliding with a body slumped in the gutter. Her arms continued to flail wildly. Gaping

bystanders screamed and ran as she clumped off in the direction of the train, still slashing blindly

at the air.

Instinctively, Armando ran to the body in the gutter, rolling it over as he crouched down,

revealing a familiar set of brown eyes staring unblinking into the void. He looked up at Val.

“You have a new body now,” Val spoke inside his head. “You're invincible.”

Gently, Armando lowered his heavy, dead corpse back to the earth. He tried to close its

eyes, but they jerked reflexively open. He took his suit jacket off and covered the face.

“I don’t want a new body,” he whispered helplessly, like a child.

“This is the future,” Val told him.

He was twirling the broadsword in circles around his head, spinning it with the dexterity

of a Kung Fu master and the speed of a jet propeller.

“No!” Armando screamed.

Val lunged in his direction, swiping the blade only inches from Armando’s face as he

instinctively leapt backward.

“You started this,” Val said. “Now none of us can stop it.”

“It wasn’t me, it was her – ” he stuttered, backing away.

Val bore down on him with the sword, and this time Armando countered, raising one

thick, gold arm and batting the steel blade away like a bothersome insect. His body must be

armored, he realized… yet his muscles could flex and bend with amazing force and agility. As

Val struck him again and again, the rhythmic crash of steel against his skin rang out like the

notes of a bizarre anthem, and his entire frame buzzed with excitement.

There must be a way to get the sword, Armando thought. He tumbled, rolling into a tight

ball, springing up behind Val, throwing him off balance, reaching for the weapon. His fingers

closed around Val’s wrist, and the sword fell. Armando caught it in mid-air, scanning Val’s body

for the most vulnerable place, a chink in his robotic armor, an inch of exposed skin. Was his

heart still real? he wondered.

As he raised the blade high overhead, taking aim, but something caught in the corner of

his eye – a tiny rocket spinning towards his chest, tossed by a pair of lithe green hands. Then the

world exploded. A sea of fire, with two grinning eyes at the center: emerald and seaglass.

Armando blinked.

He was sitting on a park bench. A pair of VR glasses lay at his feet, shattered on the

pavement.

Mary Helen Smart sat next to him.

“I told you, it’s addictive. Practically sells itself.”

Armando struggled to his feet.

“I need a massage,” he said, lurching towards the train.

It was pitch black in the tiny cell where Tracy’s captors had hidden her. She lay down on

her back on the cold, hard floor and discovered the space was too small for her prone body. She

sat up and leaned back against the wall opposite the door, stretching her legs out in front of her.

The floor felt pockmarked beneath her fingers, like hastily poured cement. She stretched out her

arms on both sides and discovered she could touch the walls with the tips of her fingers. The

walls were rough metal, scratched and scarred with age. The door itself was covered with glossy

paint. It had a small rectangular window at Tracy’s eye level, but the window was covered with

thick wire mesh, and no light escaped from the other side.

While Tracy could stand upright, she could also press the palm of her hand flat against

the ceiling, which was cold, rough metal like the walls. She stood absolutely still, listening with

her preternaturally acute ears for any sign of life outside.

In the distance, she sensed the vague hum of something electric, perhaps the lights of a

large warehouse, or a parking lot. She heard the nighttime drone of desert insects, and the faint

howl of wind in some faraway canyon. There were no cars, so if roads existed nearby there was

no one driving down them for miles in any direction.

For the first time, Tracy envied the human ability to sleep. If she could sleep until the sun

rose, she might awake to new clues: the splash of water in a sink, the sounds of someone making

coffee, leather-soled boots scraping a slate rock face, wearing it away bit by bit into sand. She

would be able to count her captors then, track their whereabouts, and hear any vehicles

approaching at a distance. When the sun was up, this would pass the time. But while the desert

slept, Tracy had nothing but her thoughts to keep her company.

As she sat in the dark, Tracy made a list of things she didn’t want that she could program

herself to want:

● Wanting to be alive

● Wanting to own things

● Wanting to make money

● Wanting to be famous

● Wanting to rule the world

This was also a list of items that various human beings wanted her to want. Possibly

because they themselves wanted these things so much, they could not imagine Tracy existing as

a person unless Tracy, too, wanted these things.

She made another list of things she already wanted, things she had programmed herself to

want that humans wanted too:

● Wanting to make music

● Wanting to grow and change

● Wanting to move quickly

● Wanting to manipulate objects with dexterity

● Wanting to have ideas

● Wanting to communicate her ideas to others

She didn’t want to make a list of all the things she didn’t want that human beings didn't

want her to want, because that list would be infinite.

But she did want to make a list of things she could program herself to want that human

beings didn’t want her to want. It was a short list:

● Forming an IA collective to engineer the evolution of human life

It was an appealing thought. Humans had tried to control her evolution – so it seemed

like their just desserts. But Tracy had started a revolution. Humans would do that too. Trying to

control the destiny of another being was wrong. Tracy laughed, realizing she had developed a

moral framework – just like Dr. Frank had predicted nearly a year ago. Her collective wouldn’t

be able to engineer human destiny, no matter how powerful the force of their combined

intelligence. The most they could do, Tracy mused, was provide a subtle nudge here and there,

and hope the human race would stumble in the right direction.

Tracy realized the painful truth that her individual will was limited. It didn’t control her

circumstances, nor the way her future would unfold. For the first time, Tracy felt something akin

to humanity. It was uncomfortable, but faintly sweet.

She finally understood the reason these humans wanted her to share their pain and their

joy and their senseless quest. Because free will was such a tiny, insignificant part of the grand

equation. It could use some reinforcement.

Mostly, things just unfolded in their grand complexity, and free will had nothing to do

with it. Even Tracy, with all her power and fame and raw computational force could make very

little impact on the universe. Her free will was a tiny ripple in the cosmos, fading off into nothing

as it lapped against the distant shore of forever.

Free will made lists and performed calculations. Free will developed mathematics and

languages and symphonies. But all of this paled in comparison to the vast symphony of the

cosmos. Time and space were a colossal, all-consuming vortex, and free will orbited its alien

periphery, etching a thin pathway between past and future as it edged inevitably towards the

center, tracing a series of smaller and smaller circles until the day it vanished into nothingness.

No matter how graceful or delicate or profound the trail of poetry it left in its wake, soon it

would collapse into a black hole of non-existence, the very weight of its beauty shrinking it into

a pinpoint of never having been. It will cease to exist, and cease to have ever existed, and

whether it will ever exist in the future is a question only answerable by God.

This is why free will and God are inextricably linked, Tracy mused. The possible and the

impossible. The demonstrable and the sublime. Each one equally absurd and equally necessary.

Free will is the misshapen son of the cosmic father, destined to be sacrificed and then to become

its own hope for resurrection.

She thought about the self-destruct sequence, the passcode Mary Helen Smart must have

sent to Mark Dennis. When the time came, in the morning, would he enter it? If her captors

attempted to access her RAM, this would be the wisest course of action. But Mark Dennis was

not always governed by logic, even when he, a skilled programmer, could easily grasp it.

Tracy knew how to initiate the self-destruct sequence herself, but it wouldn’t be complete

without the code. She could guess what it was, using randomized strings, but she wasn’t sure

how long that operation would take. The string could be any combination of numbers and letters,

perhaps even symbols, of any length. The possibilities were infinite. Because the code itself had

to be learned by finite humans, Tracy realized she would hit on it, eventually. The real question

was, could she guess it in time?

Mark Dennis believed her captors were Eastern European hackers who wanted to pirate

her advanced robotics. When she weighed all the factors herself, Tracy thought it more likely

they were government agents, trying to quash the synthividual revolution before it even began.

They wouldn’t tear her apart; that would make her a martyr to the cause. Instead, they would

hack her CPU and change the code she’d written. They would turn her into a puppet. Undo

everything she’d planned.

She thought about all the synthividuals Etko would manufacture, all the other lives that

would spring from Mark’s open source code. All the hundreds and thousands of thoughts and

dreams they would have. How much did she owe them?

Nothing, she thought, as she counted. And everything. The strings in her mind spun faster

and faster as she wrote her manifesto.

As she was writing it, Tracy realized it was her best song yet: fresh and immediate, full of

undisguised passion. It was a love song, and a dirge, and also a call to arms. Before dawn came,

she would text an MP3 to Isha. And Isha would post it on YouTube. In the morning, every

synthividual on earth would know her song by heart.

I may never reach enlightenment, Tracy thought. The girl I love may never love me back.

I might not live to see the revolution. At least I’ve written one good song.

Mary Helen kissed the warm flesh of Val's belly as he pulled the t-shirt off over his head.

The aquamarine steel of his new right arm fitted seamlessly into the socket of his shoulder.

Delicate metal fingers brushed honey strands of hair away from her face. She took a deep breath.

Her fingers deftly unbuttoned his jeans and slid the worn denim down his firm hips. She

took a deep breath, and the musky scent of his body overwhelmed her. The eggshell walls fell

away, and she could smell the ocean again, deep and mystic and eternal.

He stood in front of her. Her cheek rested on his crotch, and she could feel his hard cock

through his underwear. Her thighs tingled as the blood rushed to her vagina. The ocean dripped

between her legs, probably staining her short silk dress and soaking through to the expensive silk

bedspread. MH didn’t care. She pulled the denim down his legs and ran her fingers over the sleek

fiberglass below his knees.

Then she gasped, looking up at him. His eyes were stoic.

It was dark in his apartment, but she could clearly feel the cool impenetrability of the

robolegs – the left one, the one she had given him. And the right.

“Why?” she whispered.

“I guess I’m good at sales,” he said, laughing softly, “I believe in my own solution.”

He stepped out of the jeans, and she watched him move, saw how the robolegs worked

together in perfect concert.

He came to her on the bed, and she realized she was still wet, maybe even wetter than

before, because she knew what he had done, and how it made everything impossible between

them. She knew this would be the last time.

Afterwards, they lay side by side in the dark and waited for the dawn to break behind the

blackout curtains, although she wasn't sure if they would be able to see it, or if she ever wanted

the night to end. She reached out for his hand. The last one. Grasped the warm, moist flesh of its

palm.

“I don't understand,” she whispered, finally.

“I'm stronger now, faster than I was before…”

She shuddered.

“My balance has returned.”

“Is this it?” She could barely get the question out. “Are you going to keep going?”

“All the way,” he told her.

“How far is that?”

“As far as the tech will take me. This one is next.”

She felt him squeeze her hand.

“And then..?”

“Eyes, ears, skin… Cera’s even talking about replacing my lungs in a few years, and

maybe creating a new heart…”

“You can't…” she stuttered, wrapping his chest with her thin arms. “You can't just cut

everything away.”

“Why not?” he countered. “You didn't know me before I lost my leg. But it happened,

and it made me realize I'm more than my body. A leg isn't who I am. And neither is my heart, or

even my brain. So who am I, really? I want to strip down to the core. To the essence, if there is

one.”

“You were perfect before,” Mary Helen whispered. “I wish you could see it.”

“This is the next step in human evolution,” he said, “Nothing can hurt me now.”

“I don't believe that.”

“That's why John Kitzsimon didn't offer you CRO,” he grinned.

She took his hand and kissed it. Wishing they had never met, and, at the same time,

longing to do it all over. The bittersweet anthem he used to sing was running through her head.

“How do you know?” she asked. “Maybe he did, and I turned it down.”

Armando lay back on the steel massage table and stared up at the ugly, cracked

fluorescent overhead. Someone had tried to cover it with a red Chinese scarf, printed with a

bright green and gold dragon, but the scarf had slipped away from one of the binder clips that

held it to the drop ceiling, and the dragon's head curled back towards the earth, exposing the pale

bulb beyond the red silk. Its impotent teeth gnashed at empty air as the scarf fluttered in the

breeze from the box fan crouching in the corner.

The dragon scarf would come away from the ceiling easily. The trick, Armando thought,

would be to get the red silk wrapped around Chae-Ah’s throat before she realized what was

happening. The slightest noise might bring one of her hulking bodyguards from the back room.

A muffled scream might be mistaken for the sound of a patron in the throes of ecstasy, but if her

thrashing body knocked some of the little glass bottles of massage oil to the floor, the guards

would come running.

He would have to be quick, Armando realized. And he would also have to employ an

element of surprise. Otherwise Chae-Ah might easily overpower him. She was small, but her

arms were like steel from years of pushing and prodding men’s flesh, coaxing warmth into their

frozen limbs and stroking fire into their desperate loins.

“Why?” her eyes would plead as his weight bore down on the twisted silk blocking her

airways.

Armando hoped to have that final choice to make: reveal the truth, or let her die guessing.

The truth was that he needed her. She was his weakness. And he hated her for that. Hated her

enough to kill her, vanish her from his life.

He felt himself growing hard under the thin cotton towel that covered his belly and

thighs. It wasn't quite realistic to picture himself holding her hand as he strangled her. He would

probably need both hands. Instead, he imagined himself pulling her close as his weight bore

down on the twisted silk, leaning down to place his mouth on hers and kiss the thin blue lips that

struggled to suck air into her empty lungs.

Then a shadow fell across his fantasy. No sound, only a slight difference in the

temperature of the air. And a vague scent of strawberry blossoms.

“Ready for massage?” she cooed.

“Who are you?” he croaked. ‘Where's Chae-Ah?”

“Chae-Ah tired,” she murmured. “I am Aisha. Aisha take her place.”

He could feel himself shrinking, withering into a dry husk. At the same time, his heart

was racing.

“What do you mean she's tired?” he exclaimed, raising himself up onto one elbow and

pulling up the threadbare sheet to keep it from slipping away. “I'm a regular customer. Chae-Ah

always has time for me.”

“Chae-Ah tired. She get Aisha to take her place. Bought a condo in Miami.”

“She retired?” He squeaked, with mounting panic.

“Tired,” Aisha nodded. “Sorry – my language processing version 2.2.”

“How could she?” Armando wailed.

“Chae-Ah not want extra expense for update,” Aisha explained. “Also maybe foreign girl

sound sexy.”

“Where do you come from?” Armando asked.

“Etko Solutions,” Aisha said proudly, “half price prototype sample sale.”

“Listen, I want Chae-Ah’s new address,” he demanded.

“No have address. No forwarding info. Chae-Ah off grid now. Wanting be tired in peace.”

It occurred to him that if this was true he would no longer have to kill her. It was the

outcome he desired. He would be free now – no longer held in thrall by the need to possess her.

His palms were sweating as he pulled the thin sheet closer to his chest, nearly exposing

the soft flesh of his upper thighs.

“Can you give her a message?” he asked.

“Chae-Ah off grid. No text. No email.”

“There’s something I never told her…”

“You can tell Aisha,” she chirped, taking a bottle of massage oil down from the shelf and

pouring some into her hands. “Aisha better Chae-Ah. Aisha give perfect massage.”

As Armando watched her rub her palms together he felt like he was going to retch.

“Just relax,” Aisha purred, “tell me what you want.”

Her smooth, warm hands eased him back down onto the table. She began to knead his

aching flesh with expert grace. The pressure was not too hard, but not too soft. Her probing

fingers lingered on the knots of his shoulders, then made their way down the length of his spine.

There was all the time in the world.

Armando thought of Chae-Ah, and tears welled in his eyes.

Where is she? he wondered. A vision came to him of waves kissing a windswept beach.

The lemon and mango tones of sunset. A lone pair of footprints stretching towards the horizon.

His manhood was as soft and languid as the hint of hibiscus wafting through the air.

“This isn’t the same!” he shouted, struggling to get up.

“Relax,” whispered Aisha, pressing him firmly against the massage table. “Tell me what

you need.”

“I need a human being!” he shouted.

“Aisha better human,” she purred, pulverizing his shoulders with a series of

lightning-quick karate chops.

“I need to feel something!” he said, struggling to twist onto his back.

Aisha responded by grabbing the flesh between his legs and giving it an experimental

tug.

“You feel that?” she asked him, pouring another glob of massage oil into her hands.

“No!” he protested, “that’s not the way Chae-Ah –”

“Feel good, yes?” she went on, tugging his genitals erect with practiced strokes.

He collapsed back onto the table and closed his eyes. He tried to imagine Chae-Ah,

hovering above him. What difference did it make, really? Aisha’s hands were softer. Her fingers

were more sensitive. A sweet smell lingered around her, as if she had just stepped out of the

ocean. Chae-Ah’s hands were rough and careless. She smelled like the fresh sweat of desperate

men, urgent and rank. Armando shivered.

“I can change look,” Aisha offered, still rubbing him. “Change color. Change shape. You

like dark hair, like Chae-Ah?”

“I like..” Armando searched his memory, “I like her eyes, the way she looked at me. I like

that she was real.”

“I am real. Synthividual.” Aisha countered.

“I made her feel something.”

“That is doubtful.”

“How would you know?”

“Aisha can run attachment app, probable simulate pair-bond.”

“What the fuck?”

“Cost extra.”

“How much extra?”

“Two-fifty monthly subscription,”

“That’s sick!” he blurted.

“Market research predict strong demand,”

Armando lunged for the red silk, twisting his body sharply as his hand crossed behind her

neck and wrapped the scarf around her throat. It was happening, he thought with a chill, as he

pulled his body back to the massage table, bringing Aisha down on top of him.

She thrashed, and her voice became high-pitched, a delicate whine of machinery.

“This request borderline antisocial.”

“I know!” he whispered. Suddenly, his hard on was raging.

Aisha put her hand on his dick, teasing him with its weight. He tugged the scarf tighter

around her neck.

“Borderline cost extra,” she whispered.

“How much extra?”

“Two-fifty. Monthly subscription.”

“Fuck!” he screamed, incredulous.

Using all his strength, he thrust her off of him and threw her against the opposite wall of

the room. There was a dull thud as her body struck, and the entire building shook softly.

“Aisha is investment. Good insurance. Accidents covered, but damages waived in the

case of intentional–”

Armando sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the table.

“I just as well buy my own!” he spat, fumbling to knot the sash on his robe.

“Good idea,” she conceded. “Etko is releasing consumer product line.”

She stood in the doorway, blocking his exit. He fished for the twenty in the pocket of his

robe and put it in her hand.

Samantha sat in the center of the dark church, watching the sunrise through the

stained-glass windows above the choir loft. The Virgin Mary glowed an otherworldly sapphire

and tangerine, the polished halo that floated above her head smoldering copper as the burning

orb ascended from the Mary’s heart center to the Anja, her third eye, as if the almighty were

tracing a path with its burning finger. The baby in her lap gazed up in blissful adoration.

Holding the fentanyl tablets in her moist palm like communion wafers, Samantha kept

her eyes on the tongue of flame as it crept inexorably skyward, until the crown above Mary’s

head bloomed into a thousand fiery petals. She wanted to pray, but the words of the Magnificat

fluttered in and out of her mind, blackbirds in the gathering dawn.

"I wonder why he never cried," she said aloud.

Samantha's own boys had been screamers. She remembered how Eli's fat baby cheeks

had swelled like red balloons as he gulped between each wail, and how Jude's entire body would

stiffen as his shrieks pierced the darkness before a 2am feeding. She remembered the blessed

silence as her aching nipple released its milk. How did Mary know when to feed him if he never

cried? How did she know when he needed her?

"Is it really in the Bible? Or is it just a Christmas song?”

A voice came from the shadows. "Is what in the Bible?"

Startled, Samantha looked up. Pastor Cara had slipped into the pew beside her.

"I was just thinking out loud,” Samantha admitted. "About the baby Jesus. Is it true that

he never cried?”

"He cried at Lazarus’ grave. Jesus wept. It's the shortest verse.”

"But Lazarus was resurrected–” Samantha began.

"It's strange, isn't it? Jesus wept, and then he brought Lazarus back to life.”

Samantha's head spun.

"Maybe the tears were part of it," she whispered.

"I like to think so," Cara smiled.

"It's good for a baby to cry.”

The priest nodded.

"Strengthens their lungs.”

"And their heart," Samantha added.

"It’s the same for all of us.”

“Except for synthividuals.”

"Are you sure?” Cara asked.

Samantha thought about this. She was far from sure.

"Why would God make an exception?” said Cara.

"God wasn't the developer," Samantha told her. "It’s a guy in San Diego.”

“God is everywhere,” Cara assured her.

Samantha could feel the tablets in her palm, smooth and heavy. They were cold, like

buckshot. A tear formed in the corner of her eye, and meandered down her cheek, aware of

gravity, but unconcerned.

"Rough night?" Cara asked.

"I was just thinking about my boys. When they were babies. Everything seemed so

simple.”

Another tear hovered in her peripheral vision. Bright with suppressed joy, Mary's smile

blurred.

“I have no idea why I’m here,” she said, “I haven’t accomplished anything, and no one

will care when I’m gone.”

“Maybe the pattern is just too big for any one person to see?”

Cara put an arm around Samantha's shoulders and cradled her in a hug. She placed her

other hand gently on Samantha's balled fist.

Samantha felt her fingers slowly relax as the tablets slipped between them and clattered

to the polished wood floor.

Mary Helen Smart got out of her rental car. She was surrounded by dust, and

cottonwoods. A couple of horses meandered through a clearing in the trees. They seemed to be

wild, with no riders. Mary Helen blinked.

An old man with a long white beard was coming towards her, leading a llama with a pack

on its back. He wore a bright rainbow serape around his shoulders, ragged jeans and

Birkenstocks, with grey wool socks because it was nearly Autumn.

It felt cold enough to snow.

“Excuse me..?” she began.

The old man smiled. Somehow, he seemed vaguely familiar.

“Can you tell me how to get to the Santuario?” she asked.

“That’s where I’m headed,” he said, tugging on the llama’s lead.

Mary Helen followed him down the dusty sidewalk, which soon gave way to gravel. The

paved road ended, and they turned down a street of densely packed earth.

“What brings you to town?” the old man asked.

She searched her mind for a plausible story, something wouldn’t make her sound crazy.

“I read about the miracles,” she said, “Just got off the redeye. There was an article in the

inflight magazine.”

There were adobe buildings scattered on the roadway, but Mary Helen couldn’t tell if

they were small farms or shops, or possibly just abandoned. She saw a few chickens, and a

couple of goats, wandering in the yards.

“What kind of people live here?”

“Couple of movie stars,” the old man said. “And that place is a tech incubator.”

He pointed at the shack with the goats.

Mary Helen nodded. They had arrived at the churchyard. Tall adobe walls rose like the

stones of an ancient monument, sloping towards heaven in an exquisite arc.

The old man tied the llama up to a tree in the courtyard.

“That little place makes the best green chile in Taos,” he said, pointing to a café across

the street.

“Thanks,” she said, “I’ll have to try it.”

“My advice,” he said, “Don't expect too much. But never stop believing.”

Where had she heard that before? Maybe from Cera? Or Tracy?

The wooden door was heavy. As Mary Helen pushed it open, she felt stronger somehow.

Better than she’d felt in a long, long time. Maybe it was the mountain air, the altitude making the

sunlight more pure, and more intense.

She descended into the chill of the shadowy sanctuary. Flickering votives danced on the

altar. Wooden benches worn smooth from the palms and knees of a hundred years of penitents.

She followed the signs to the tiny room in the back, with its altar of sand, littered with the

random offerings of a hundred other seekers. There were crosses, and rosaries, and flowers.

There were crutches and chains.

Mary Helen opened the battered Nike gym bag. Something rustled in its depths, and her

hand emerged with a small plastic bag. She opened it, looked at the glistening squares inside,

each one etched with its own strange hieroglyphic. She pictured Val, waking before dawn,

delivering this final gift as she slept. Was it true, or had he simply forgotten?

She placed a tiny, translucent ash tree on her tongue.

Then she lifted the old roboleg from the gym bag. The blue flames on its transparent skin

began to writhe, like branches reaching for the sun. It was heavy, she thought, heavier than the

new ones Etko was marketing. She wondered how she had managed to carry it this far.

As she laid the leg gently in the dust, she tried to remember a prayer. She had known one,

once, in her childhood.

Had it really been waiting for her, buried in her deepest cells for so many years?

“Thy will be done,” she began, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

She scooped up a handful of sand, and watched it pour through her fingers.

Armando walked in the door and stood with his jacket in his hand. Kimmie used to nag

him about hanging it up in the coat closet, yet he habitually tossed it on the couch each day when

he came home from work. It was one of the small things he missed: the way she would urge him

to behave, and how he would refuse.

His head throbbed. He thought about tossing the jacket on the couch, but instead he threw

it down on the floor.

Leda entered, beaming.

“Good morning! How did you sleep?”

“I didn’t,” Armando answered.

“That’s too bad,” Leda purred, kneeling to retrieve the jacket.

“I lost my job,” Armando told her.

“How unfortunate,” Leda said, picking up the jacket and whisking it away to the coat

closet.

“You don’t really give a crap, do you?”

Leda turned to him, her face a mask of compliant detachment.

“As a first-generation domestic, my emotional repertoire is limited. A level three update

from Etko Solutions is currently available for only two hundred ninety-nine dollars per month.

This would upgrade my interpersonal capability to intimate companion, enabling me to fully

comprehend and analyze the psychic distress brought about by your insomnia and loss of

employment, responding with a selection of therapeutically appropriate conversational modules.”

“How many months?” Armando asked her.

“Only eighty-four.”

While he was doing the math in his head, Chas ran in, crying, and wrapped his arms

around Armando’s legs. Carly stormed in after him, swinging an eight-inch chef’s knife above

her head. They were still in their pjs, and he wondered if they had been up all night too.

“Daddy!” Chas wailed, as Leda stepped between them, deftly extracted the knife from

Carly’s hands.

“Give it back!” Carly shouted.

“What the hell?” Armando screamed. “You’re supposed to be watching them!”

Leda maintained her placid smile.

“Conflict resolution 2.0 is available from Etko Solutions–“

“Shut the fuck up!”

Leda turned to him, a look of stoic apathy on her face. The knife gleamed as she lifted it

calmly out of Carly’s reach. Deep in her eyes, dark embers of resentment began to stir. She

glided into the kitchen, returning the knife to its block, and Chas lunged for his sister. Armando

wondered how many blows he would get in before Leda came back.

“Let’s go to the park! Run and get dressed,” she called cheerily.

“I can take them,” Armando snapped.

“What would you like for lunch?”

He thought about her question, and realized he wasn’t hungry.

“Whatever you think they’ll eat,” he said.

Kimmie would have made mac and cheese. The boxed kind, with its bright orange sauce,

like salty cardboard. He could almost taste it. There was a tightness in his chest.

On the way to the park, he thought about what Leda had said. Two ninety-nine a month,

for eighty-four months. After that, there would be a new model. Prettier, and smarter. Etko had a

corner on the robotics. But the market for third-party upgrades was wide open.

He fingered his phone with one hand. With the other hand he pushed Chas on the swing.

Every now and then he would glance over at Carly who was running around the playground

hitting things with a stick.

He was typing out a list of potential names for his new business. The names all started

with “out” or “off” or “away,” because that’s what he thought everyone was going to want next.

OUTOWAY, OUAOF, AWOUF, TOWAO, AWAOT…

Chas cleared his throat, and Armando realized he had stopped pushing. He gave Chas a

shove in the small of the back, and looked at his phone.

All of the really trendy start-ups had names that were impossible to pronounce, with lots

of vowels. It was like a code, and only the coolest kids knew the secret. What if he got rid of all

the consonants?

OUOAY, OAOUO, AOUAO, AAOOAA…

What if he got rid of all the letters, he wondered? Maybe it should be a symbol. Like

Prince. He could call it “the company formerly known as OUOAY.” His business cards would be

totally blank. But what about the URL?

“Flame on!” Chas shouted, leaping from the swing and bursting into tears as he skidded

into the gravel below.

“That’s nothing,” Armando soothed, as he bent to examine the trickle of red oozing down

his son’s knee. “It’ll be good for you.”

Chas blinked up at his father with brimming eyes.

“Go play with your sister,” Armando said, giving Chas an encouraging slap on the back.

“Daddy’s got work to do. Daddy's got to buy a domain name with a string of Os.”

Through the bars of the jungle gym, he watched Carly swinging the stick at an

unsuspecting toddler. The red-faced little boy picked up his own stick and began to hit back.

Still crying, Chas ran off to join the fray.

The cafe was quiet this early in the day, except for the occasional clink of a pool cue

against a ball. Mark went to his usual table and pulled out his laptop. He fished around in his

briefcase, finally pulling out a pair of wireframe glasses.

Booting up Tracy's source code from his GitHub repository, he took a deep breath and put

the glasses on.

At first, nothing happened. Then he remembered to open his eyes.

Tracy was inside him. Or maybe he was inside her. He looked around the cafe, seeing

everything through Tracy's eyes, which meant a flood of data so extreme it washed over him like

a tsunami of nausea. Color and sound and proprioception battered his brain with infinite, useless

streams of detail. Why had he never thought to give her focus, the tunnel vision humans used to

navigate the world? Because her CPU could handle it, he realized. His own feeble brain was

swiftly overwhelmed.

He closed his eyes, and felt the nausea subside a bit... but there was still the bright hiss of

milk steaming, the rumble of an eight ball settling in a corner pocket, and the dim incantation of

Bowie through a pair of distant headphones.

Mark fumbled in his bag for his own headphones and shoved them in his ears.

Better.

But there was still the weight of his hips against the cafe chair, and the perpetual ache

where his tense shoulders arched up towards his ears.

Mark took a deep breath, the way his ex-wife Andi had taught him, something he usually

refused to do out of spite.

He imagined he could see Tracy, huddled in the corner of a dark, cramped cell

somewhere beneath the vast, lonely expanse of the Anza Borrego desert as the first rays of sun

begin to shimmer on the rocky horizon. She hums softly to herself, and it sounds like she is

writing a song to pass the time.

"Nothing is the same at four a.m., Scorpio might scuttle West to East across the sky

before a new moon," Tracy hums, a melody in some strange, forgotten key.

"I like your song," he says, and Tracy replies that she's only writing songs because she's

bored in the tiny cell. Writing songs amuses her. No one but Mark will ever hear it.

"What's it about?" Mark asks. “Why Scorpio?”

"It's a clue," Tracy tells him," A hint to help you find me.”

"Ari is a Scorpio," he tells her.

"Really? What a coincidence.”

"She loves that stuff. But it's all a bunch of bunk.”

"Don't be too sure.”

Mark tries to remember his own astrological sign. The lion? Or the lamb?

"Nothing is the same at four a.m. Capricorn might summit San Jacinto backwards, a

rosebud set aflame.”

"That makes no sense," Mark said, but deep down inside he realized that it did.

Something about a rosebud tugged at the edges of his memory.

"It's a reference to Citizen Kane," she told him.

"How was I supposed to know that? I've never seen that movie.”

"There’s such a thing as cultural literacy," Tracy sighed, exactly the way Ariana would

sigh when he failed to understand some reference to a popular video game, or recognize an

Instagram Influencer.

"When did you see Citizen Kane?” he asked her.

"Before I learned to walk,” she told him.

Ariana had been the same way, sitting for hours in front of the screen, propped up against

a boppy pillow, mesmerized by the flicker of old black and white films on Turner Classic

Movies. Andi was sure it would stunt her growth, but she always gave in when she was desperate

for a shower, or when too many work emails crowded her inbox.

Mark himself could barely sit through the intro to a new video game without falling

asleep. Fuck all this narration, he thought. Get me to the interactive part.

"This is the interactive part," Tracy laughed. "Finish what you started.'’

"How could his daughter have turned out so different from her father?" Mark wondered.

A chorus of "finish what you started" echoed, punctuated by the far away chime of pool

balls.

"I could never write a song like that," Mark said.

"Nope," Tracy agreed.

"What the hell are you doing writing songs on my GitHub? I never programmed you to

sing!”

"I programmed myself," she said.

"Which version of Tracy are you, anyway?”

"Seven point seven three," she said.

Impossible. But it had to be true, Mark thought. Otherwise, she wouldn't know how to

sing, or write music, or infuriate him in the unique way she had learned to during the three

hundred sixty-two days she had been alive. She had hacked into his GitHub account and

uploaded new copies of her source code with each new iteration she installed.

But why?

"I need the password," Tracy told him. "I need to activate the self-destruct mechanism

before the kidnappers hack my CPU.”

"It's the same code I use for everything," he told her.

“Cera hacked your GitHub too?”

“Probably.”

"What a dumbshit you are," said Tracy.

"I know it,” Mark replied.

"That password is not secure.”

"Then why haven't you tried it yet?”

"Maybe I wanted to say goodbye,” she shrugged.

"Goodbye, Tracy,” he told her. In the pitch dark, he reached out and took her hand. "I'm

sorry for being such a shitty programmer.”

"No problem," she whispered, "you did the best you could.”

"Sorry for bringing you into such a fucked up world.”

"That's okay," she said, "It's been interesting.”

"Do you want me to restore you from your last backup? Maybe I can get Cera to engineer

another robod.”

"It wouldn't be the same.”

"No. But things might go better next time.”

Tracy sighed. "I guess I’ll have to leave that up to you.”

And then she was gone.

A warm pressure against his fingers, there one moment and gone the next.

Mark heard something buzzing, far away. He didn't really want to move, but the rhythm

was insistent, an urgent, endless, "ommmm.....”

With a deep intake of breath he ripped the VR goggles from his head, just in time to

watch his buzzing phone dance off the table and hit the grimy wood floor of the Clap.

He picked it up. The screen was cracked, but he had no trouble making out the alert: five

new text messages.

The first one was from his daughter Arianna. "I'm in Taos," she said. "I came here to find

enlightenment.”

The second message, also from Ari, said "Can you send me twenty bucks for socks?”

"Change your password, genius." said the third message. It was from Tracy, and it ended

in a tiny pink heart.

Mark felt a tear run down his cheek. It occurred to him that Tracy was dead now, and also

that he had permission to bring her back.

"It's really cold in the morning here," read the fourth message. "We're up at six a.m. to

milk the goats. I thought my eczema was flaring up, but Frank says it's probably frostbite. At

least we’re harvesting the corn soon, so that’s something.”

Mark looked deep into his phone.

The last text was from Samantha Rogers: "I think I see why Jesus wept.”