The Sentient Page 3

  Amira glared with eyes like dark razors and Perkins snapped into silence. She turned away guiltily from the genial man’s crestfallen face.

  “Interesting.” Barlow nodded again. “If you will both excuse me, I have a rather urgent meeting to get to. I look forward to working with you, M. Valdez.” He shook both of their hands, giving Amira a final appraising look before he turned toward the main building.

  “A strange man,” Perkins whispered rather loudly as they watched Barlow walk away. He appeared to have forgotten Amira’s glare. “But a very talented and brilliant one, they say. They’re all like that, these men and women who devote themselves to the riddles of science. Aldwych demands the dedicated. I imagine you will feel quite at home among them, my dear.”

  Chapter Two

  Westport

  When Amira arrived in Greater Westport ten years ago, armed with a tattered shoulder bag carrying clothes she would never wear again, the noise and chaos of the metro stations overwhelmed her. Now the trains incited a strange, kinetic excitement. The stop near the Academy was one of the city’s main intersections, an imposing, towering strata of tracks, platforms and rusted stairs that rattled above and beneath the streets. The highest train level was also the fastest – the Gradient line, which traveled between cities on the continent, and the Bullet, which could reach anywhere Earthside in a matter of hours. The slowest routes remained underground and dated back over a hundred years, carrying rattling electric cars through Westport’s scattered stations.

  Amira knew them well. The Orange line took her to and from the Academy, but she could also get there through the Green and Gray lines. The Red line ran in a semi-circular path along the oceanfront through Northampton, Sullivan’s Wharf and the Westport Harbor, turning toward bustling Midtown and the cloud-slicing towers of Aldwych.

  Aldwych. A city within a city. Technically, a district within the city of Westport, but Amira knew better than to consider Aldwych part of any world but its own. Within its boundaries, elite scientists defined the laws. Justice existed for those who contributed to the district’s power and knowledge, provided they knew their place within Aldwych’s complex, delicate ecosystem, where even the color of a person’s lab coat marked their caste in the scientific order.

  Amira gazed numbly out the window where the station signs flashed by in a river of concrete. Her small frame swayed rhythmically in the train car, bathed in absinthe-green light. A battered, hologrammed TV screen delivered the news in static fits.

  “…no official word yet on why ISP security forces were denied access to the Carthage station, but Mendel-Soma sources suggest that experiments with radioactive components made travel to and from the station too perilous at present, rendering inspections impossible…. In other news, the Volta station’s chief, Victor Zhang, has been conspicuously absent from Aldwych press conferences in the last month.”

  An old woman in a brown coat coughed violently. Amira glanced at her briefly before training her eyes back on the TV.

  “In the meantime, President Hume is considering a formal hearing on the genetic research giant’s highly controversial ‘Pandora’ project, following the deaths of its two volunteer subjects this past summer. Much of the criticism has centered on the use of subjects that are perceived to be among the most vulnerable….”

  Amira stood up. Why hadn’t she brought music with her? Trying to drown out the news report, she could only think of New Covenant hymns, ones she hadn’t thought of in years that came bubbling up from the dark undertows of memory. Songs of sin and salvation, of realities spread across space and time like beads on a necklace, some sparkling and beautiful, others marred and broken. A dull throb settled in her temples where the holomentic machine’s sensors had sucked the past out of her.

  Shrieking brakes signaled the train’s approach to the Riverfront, and Amira departed, ascending from the grimy station to the familiar scent of foaming canal water and moss. Candy-colored graffiti lined the walls along the station’s exit, bearing the usual slogans. Remember the Cataclysm. Human Workers First. We All Bleed the Same (Except Robots, But Fuck Them). She joined the frenetic rush of bodies that always greeted her as she stepped out into the sunlight.

  It was an unusually warm late afternoon for September and the Riverfront’s denizens gathered in force along the waterfront’s main promenade. Young students crowded the walkway, spilling out of the neighborhood’s many bars and cafés into a swelling tributary of heavily tattooed street performers, transients and artists with makeshift displays. The sun dipped behind the red brick buildings, illuminating the waterway and the crowd in a muted, peachy glow.

  Amira loved to walk this street on cool summer evenings or warm autumn days, but today an invisible, suffocating fog weighed down on her, slowing her progress through the jostling crowd. Pandora. The word clung to her thoughts like a clawed jungle animal onto a tree. Lyrical and taunting. She pushed against her fellow pedestrians, twisting past a pair of musicians lazily strumming their guitars in harmony.

  Placement Day had ended with a placement, one she would have never imagined. Her bewilderment swelled with each step, accompanied by a growing sense of injustice. Had the panel intended to sabotage her career before it even began? Had she been a fool to mention the Osiris station? Why else would she have walked away with Pandora’s cloning project, the most hated endeavor in Westport, on her resume?

  Her apartment was several blocks from the main waterway, close enough to hear drunken shouts in the later hours but far enough away to sleep through them. Affectionately named the Canary House due to the many birds that had overtaken its pipes and roof, it was one of several Academy-owned student residences in the area. The weathered brick exterior, coated in creeping vines, gave the Canary House a quiet charm.

  Amira entered the common area, finding complete silence in the wake of Placement Day. A young male student with a mop of dark hair slept on a forest green couch, buried under a blanket of chemistry books, but the first floor was otherwise abandoned.

  Amira arrived at her bedroom, one of eight on the third floor. A note taped to her door, written in a tight, distinctive scrawl, read ‘Music & BBQ on the roof’.

  Amira threw her bag unceremoniously on the edge of her wire-framed bed. Though cluttered with books and bio-paper, her room had little in the way of decoration; the only personalized features were a pair of cactuses along the windowsill and a large three-dimensional map of the human brain on her desk. Her only prized possession in the New Covenant, a hand-held telescope unexpectedly gifted by her father, had not made the journey to Westport. Not that she would be able to star-gaze through Westport’s smog.

  She forced the window open and stepped out onto the fire escape that led to the roof. The hum of music and animated chatter swelled near the top of the building. The scent of charred synthetic kebab hung in the air, sending a wave of nausea through Amira’s body. Of all her stories about life in the compound, few details shocked her fellow students more than the fact that its residents ate real meat, slaughtered from living animals, in defiance of the Synthetic Meat Act. Most of the students were born well after bio-tech advances rendered synth meat cost-effective, leading to a ban on factory farming. Butchery was an alien and frightening concept to them, but one Amira knew well.

  Amira stepped onto the roof and a pair of skinny arms slipped around her shoulders. D’Arcy’s wide grin faltered slightly as her eyes met Amira’s.

  “What happened?” she asked. “You got placed, didn’t you? There’s no way––”

  “It’s Pandora,” Amira said.

  “You too?” D’Arcy said with an excited shriek. “I’m going to be in the quantum division, programming the Stream to work in space, to get ready for the Titan colony. We’ll be working together. Do you know which team you’ll be on?”

  “Not a team so much as a den of wolves,” Amira said, unable to suppress the note of bitterness. “It’s the c
loning project.”

  D’Arcy opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. In the crowd at the center of the roof, several students shot brief glances in Amira’s direction, their expressions a mixture of pity and suspicion. Word traveled quickly.

  “But why?” D’Arcy managed to say, shaking her head. “You’re not a geneticist. Why put a therapist on a cloning project?”

  “I’ve got an idea.” The voice belonged to Julian, Amira’s friend and D’Arcy’s long-term partner. He reached for the old-fashioned radio the Canary House students kept on the rooftop and raised the volume.

  “The increased scrutiny of the Pandora cloning project,” the radio announcer said, “comes as inside reports suggest that the third and last surviving subject of the project, an unnamed young woman, is in precarious health and displaying increasingly erratic behavior. The nature of her complications has not been revealed, but similar reports preceded the deaths of the previous two subjects, both of whom died while carrying their unborn clones in the third trimester. Pandora, a rare collaborative effort between high-ranking Aldwych scientists, encompasses a number of controversial and challenging projects. With the latest setback to Pandora’s cloning effort, Dr. Valerie Singh faces renewed pressure to shut down a lifelong dream.”

  “So the last one’s dying,” D’Arcy said with disgust. “They’re getting desperate. It’s not just the compound crazies, everyone in Westport will turn on Pandora.”

  “Notice what they said, though,” Julian replied. “Erratic behavior. It’s not just a medical problem, or something to do with the cloning process. They need a neuroscientist because there’s a psychological component at play.”

  “But what about the last two?” D’Arcy asked impatiently. “Did they both have nervous breakdowns and commit suicide? It seems unlikely.”

  “Maybe not so unlikely. They’re using former compound girls, because they’re the only ones desperate enough to volunteer. They—”

  Amira turned away from her friends, leaving them to continue their argument as though she wasn’t there. The ground swayed slightly before she remembered to breathe. She steadied her hands on the rooftop rails. Julian and D’Arcy’s sparring voices faded into the background as the cityscape stretched out before her. The distant towers of Aldwych, normally a source of awe, even hope, never looked more ominous than they did now.

  Amira replayed the interview with the Placement Panel in her mind, finding new hints in the woman’s questions about her compound upbringing. Although cautious, she had greeted the assignment as an endorsement of her talent, to join the most high-profile experiment in North America. Now, her placement seemed too coincidental. Did the panel believe that, as a former compound girl, she could empathize with the dying subject in ways that others could not? Or was she being used as a political prop, a compound girl done well, to deflect from the young, pregnant woman dying in the Soma building? Amira’s resume did offer a perfect counterbalance to the rumors shouted across the Stream that Pandora was exploiting some of Westport’s most vulnerable citizens – a compound escapee, overcoming adversity to survive, thrive and help other compound escapees. Amira winced at the potential headlines, not that she was likely to warrant her own feature story. Compound survivor, overcoming her past to help others. In Pandora, a chance to make a difference. Amid turbulent cloning effort, a story of triumph.

  Aldwych loomed over the city, its heart in more ways than one. All roadways, train tracks, air shuttle pathways gravitated to it, like a whirlpool dragging ships into an unstoppable current.

  And the next morning, Amira would become part of that current; a new world in which she would either navigate or drown beneath its glassy surface.

  * * *

  That afternoon, the Blue line departed Westport under a gloomy, gray sky for the mountains northeast of the city. Amira gazed through the window with wonder, as beyond the Pines district the dense topography of brick and concrete slowly gave way to nature. Rows of vertical farms were Westport’s final compromise with its surroundings. Located on the edge of the city zone, the towering structures were stacked with layer upon layer of lush farmland, its vines and branches hanging over the buildings’ sides. The vines curled around the windows like fingers and Amira smiled to herself, imagining green hands emerging to wave at the passing train. The lower levels contained the final remnants of legal livestock, milk cows lazily chewing cud under artificial lights, while the upper levels carried everything from basic vegetables to exotic tropical fruits, each floor climate controlled to suit the produce’s natural environment. Massive panels of vertical grassland sat on rolling green hills in the distance, their inclined surfaces rotating in the direction of the sun. Amira squinted, unable to find workers tending the farms. Had they been replaced by machines, spared from toiling under the cruel elements that she had been forced to endure in the compound? Or were they laboring somewhere in the structures’ shadows, invisible to those who didn’t want to see them?

  The mountains drew near. Amira never tired of their familiar outlines, the quiet power of their permanence. The temperature always dropped slightly when the train crossed into the shade of the snow-capped peaks. The quiet unsettled her – living in Westport for so long, she sometimes forgot how silent and still it could be in the world’s final stretches of wilderness. She shook off another residual memory of compound life, its bitter aura lingering after her holomentic exam.

  Dr. Paul Mercer lived above Clementine, a mining town on a remote pathway into the mountains. Once Amira exited the station at the town’s entrance, it required a bus ride followed by a brief hike to reach his property gate. He greeted her at the front door with outstretched arms and a warm smile.

  “My favorite student!” he said. “How long has it been?”

  They sat on the main deck, absorbing the sun’s waning warmth and enjoying a breathtaking view of the mountains. Dr. Mercer’s humanoid robot, named Henry, brought them glasses of iced tea.

  “What’s its purpose exactly, other than housework?” Amira asked Dr. Mercer in a soft voice when Henry returned to the kitchen, wondering if robots possessed a hearing range.

  “Henry’s a ‘buddy’ robot,” the former professor replied. “You’ve encountered them, my dear, and know it’s insensitive to use the term ‘it’. Henry helps around the house, but I acquired him for company. Not in that way, of course, although other robots exist to serve all types of human urges. Henry is simply a friend, a source of conversation in my voluntary exile.”

  “I should have come to see you earlier,” Amira began uncomfortably.

  “Nonsense! I know how busy they keep you at the Academy. And especially you – I heard from Perkins about your assignment to Pandora.”

  Though Dr. Mercer had raised the very topic she made this trip for, Amira felt a compassionate curiosity about her former mentor, a man she hadn’t spoken to in over a year. He took his time showing her around the house and discussing his remodeled deck, displaying the enthusiasm of the committed suburbanites he used to ridicule. Clearly, he appreciated Amira’s company more than he would admit.

  “Have you heard from others at the Academy, Dr. Mercer? Do you keep in touch with them much?”

  “Not really,” he said. “I rarely talk to anyone back in Westport these days. Perkins told me that he approved your assignment there, through old-fashioned email, of all things. I threw away my Third Eye, nightmarish devices if you ask me. Who decided that we need computerized contact lenses that actually block your vision? Anyway, your assignment – I have my issues with the Academy getting into bed with Aldwych, but I will say that they could not have gained a more deserving pupil. Frankly, you have more talent than most of those lab-coated clowns over there.”

  “Paul always speaks highly of you, Amira Valdez,” Henry said. He was short, about Amira’s height, with features typical of companionate robots – large, almost childlike eyes, a soothing voice and a so
ft exterior comprised of smooth, silvery fabric.

  Amira smiled stiffly at Henry. Robots did not exist in the compound, but she had grown comfortable in her limited interactions with functional models in Westport, such as the police units that issued loitering tickets to curfew-defying bar patrons. Friendship robots, however, were another story.

  “Dr. Mercer, you should come down to Westport more,” she said, turning back to the professor. “It must get a little lonely up here. Everyone at the Academy would love to see you again.”

  Dr. Mercer waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “Westport has nothing else to offer me. Henry and I are perfectly happy up here. We go down to the little town once a week for lunch at the café and take a walk on the trails afterward. These new buddy bots are incredible, you know. My brother passed away a few years ago and it was hard. We were close, even as adults. When I purchased Henry, I set up a voice for him that sounded just like my brother’s – his inflections, his speech patterns. Quite remarkable! You can program past recollections, so Henry can bring them up in conversation. We used to surf on this beach in San Diego, and Henry reminds me of our adventures by the water. Did I mention to you that my final retirement home will be in Baja? I have some beachfront property there, a parting gift from the Academy if you’ll believe that, but the construction isn’t done yet. Anyway, the old stories…it’s impressive, almost like hearing voices from beyond the grave. A new era indeed.”

  Amira nodded, but the notion of reviving the dead’s voices left a hollow sensation in her chest. Did Dr. Mercer really feel that this shivering set of silver limbs could replicate his memories of his brother? Amira hoped that her mentor’s lonely life in Clementine had not dulled his judgment. She needed his advice.

  When it started to rain, they retreated into his study, a warmly lit room flanked with bookshelves and various gadgets. A traditional holomentic machine stood in the corner, not remotely as sophisticated as the models available at the Academy. She wandered around the room, examining the motion-based photographs hanging from the walls – the professor waving with colleagues at the Academy, collecting awards at various ceremonies, passing plates at Thanksgiving dinners.