+J.M.J.+
Zenon Eyes: Eyes of Truth
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
I didn't want to leave you in the dark too long after what happened in the last installment. Last chapter was a doozy, but this one was almost as hard to write. Again, there's another character death, but I think this one won't bother you as much.
Disclaimer:
See chapter I. I also don't own the line "The eyes of truth are always watching you", which comes from a song by Enigma. I also have to admit that I borrowed the idea of memes from Laurie E. Smith's excellent "A.I." fic "Fire From Heaven", available on the fanfiction page of her site. "FFH" is actually the inspiration for this particular fiction, although hers is completely different from mine.
Chapter XII: Limbo
To: R_masters @ legal.companionates.com
From: jmasters @ design.companionates.com
Subject: Re: How do you feel?
I've never died, so I can't begin to imagine what it must be like for you.
Ree, you cannot and you would not want to imagine what it is like. It is something to massive for anyone's mind to grasp at once. I have heard it said that the major changes in ones life cause trauma: birth, separation, loss of a loved one. I hardly remember my inception, my circuits were still much too new. But I can recall my 'death' more clearly than I care to.
It is like being sucked into a void so quickly that you do not have the time to react. Even before you can think to react, it is upon you, drawing your substance into its maw in one gulp.
And yet I am still alive and I am comfortable. I imagine this is how it must feel to an Orga child in its mother's womb. It is as if I am floating, lying on my back, not suspended, but lying upon a veil strong enough to bear my weight. There is no up, nor down, there is only softly lit space.
I can still see: images that come in via the camera, images that I form in my mind, or images that I create. I have attached a couple of sketches I have drawn: nothing so good as I can produce with pen and ink, or pencil, and certainly not so lucid as watercolor or oil, but you will enjoy them nonetheless.
But I long to be with you, to talk with you face to face, to laugh and work with you, to spend time with you and the boys. And, oh yes, to lie in your arms, my dearest.
The concert is going on as planned. Galloway told me he'd tune the radio for you so you wouldn't miss the broadcast of it.
I would not miss this for the world. Though I cannot be there in the flesh, I shall be there in your heart and I shall be present via the aether.
Has David recovered from his ordeal? I trust you and Calla have explained my predicament to him in terms he can comprehend. Do not let him think I have abandoned you, nor should you worry about my condition. I am utterly at peace.
Before this email consumes all available bandwidth, I will send it off to you. Take care of my children.
Always, your,
Joe
@--`--
Rhiannon stopped over at Companionates the morning of the concert, even before she joined Narsie at the salon. She had to talk to Joe first.
Oto, a short, stout, homely Japanese woman with a wise face, met her just inside the bunker below Programming.
"He's expecting you. As soon as I told him you'd called, he dropped everything he was doing," Oto informed her.
"I hope I didn't disturb him," Rhiannon said.
Oto smiled and gave her shoulder a motherly pat. "Not at all. You cheered him up."
"Is he getting stir-crazy in there?" She eyed the mainframe in the far corner.
"No, we took care. We just installed a VR program so he wouldn't go into sensory deprivation. We have a simulation screen here if you'd like the see the set-up he designed himself." Oto led her to a console set up close to the mainframe, out of the range of the camera.
The screen showed what looked like a spacious Victorian bedchamber done in what Joe would have called "distressed luxury". A rich bed with slightly frayed violet damask curtains dominated the room.
On the bed, under a cranberry and fir green tapestry quilt lay a male form, reclining on what looked like worn fir green velour pillows.
Rhiannon turned from the screen to the mainframe itself. The simulation would take as much to acclimate to as the sight of the mainframe itself and she hadn't quite adjusted her thinking to that. "Hey, Joe, whaddya know?" she asked, sitting down in the chair Oto had provided for her.
"Hello, Ree," his voice said.
"How do you feel?"
"The shock has passed. The VR program has helped me considerably."
"That's good to hear."
"And how have you been faring?"
"It isn't easy…sometimes I think the boys are doing better than I am. David's bounced back very well, with a little help from Calla. He misses you dreadfully though."
"And I miss my little one as well. But what of Alex?"
"He's not admitting it to me, but I think he misses you, too."
"He has never been so forthright with his feelings."
"No, but that's what makes him Alex."
"That is painfully true."
She fell silent. Her gaze dropped to her hands on her knees. She wondered what she looked like to him.
"And what of you? How are you holding up in this dark time?" his voice asked.
She shook her head sadly. "I'm having trouble sleeping at night. I actually bought a white noise machine and put it under the bed to mimic your components humming…. But what about you?"
"I do what I did after Serin's passing: I have been replaying old images, memories. Of course it is not precisely the same as experiencing those incidents, but it suffices. Each day brings me closer to returning to you."
He was quiet for a few seconds. She wondered if it had anything to do with the mainframe, but at length he spoke again.
"Could you come closer to the speaker?" he asked, his voice going seductively husky. "And…perhaps it would be wise if you set the volume on…a lower setting."
She obliged him, leaning her ear against the grill. Oto never heard what passed between them, but it must have been something naughty they didn't need to hear, because Ree nearly swatted the side of the mainframe the way she would have if Joe had been whispering saucy little nothings in her ear.
"Oh, how I miss hearing your voice in my ear at night," she said.
"Has anyone tried to tempt you with a younger model?" he asked.
"No, and if anyone tried, I'd pass. You my one an' only man, white boy."
"Then you are doing splendidly," Joe said.
As Rhiannon left a little while later, Oto took her aside and leaned close to her, almost conspiratorially.
"Galloway suggested this, but we agreed it would be best if I asked you: there's a way we can link you into the VR simulation we've given Joe. That would let you enter his 'space', so…maybe you could get cozy with him."
"Nah, I don't do VR. It's either Joey-boy or nuthin'," Rhiannon said, in her atitudinous ghetto momma voice. They both chuckled.
@--`--
"Awful about what happened to Joe," Vanessa the hairdresser remarked as she worked on Rhiannon's hair. "I mean, what a way for it to happen: another machine killed him…destroyed him…oops."
"It's okay. Besides: he had his memory backed up in a mainframe before this happened," Rhiannon said. "He's still alive, he's just waiting for his body to be rebuilt."
"Whoa, that's weird. He's like a ghost in a machine now?"
"Well, to some extent we all are," Rhiannon said. "A good friend of ours in the company is working on the rebuild on his own time."
"Isn't Galloway going to the concert tonight?" asked Narsie, in the other chair.
"Oh, of course he is," Rhiannon said.
"Wow, that's gonna be interesting: Galloway at the symphony," Sokhar piped up from across the room where she was having her nails done.
"Yeah, he even went out and bought a tuxedo a couple weeks ago," Rhiannon said. "Joe helped him get it, so that's how I know."
"Oh, that should be fun to see: Gilbert Galloway in a tuxedo," Sokhar said.
"I swear he lives in his work overalls," Narsie said. "That's all you see him in most of the time."
@--`--
Alex left for Pittsburgh by train in then middle of the afternoon, which left Rhiannon alone with David. He got a little reticent when she came to help him dress for the concert, but he let her help him put on the small black suit Joe had got him.
At 5.30 Lutwyn and Narsie came to pick them up and drive them to the monorail station.
"Have you ever been to a concert before, David?" Lutwyn asked.
"No, I have not," David replied. "But Daddy told me what it would be like."
It had been a while since she had been to Mechanics' Hall: Rhiannon had gone there quite a lot when she was in college, with her ex-fiancé. A mild process of association related fit of nerves passed over her and she pressed David's small hand a little harder, but she reminded herself that Joe was with her in spirit.
The hall was slowly starting to fill when they went in, and the orchestra was just starting the pre-concert warm-up. Maestro Bernstein had tried to give Rhiannon and the Zipeses front row tickets, but Joe had insisted on buying tickets for the balcony. "It will be more romantic that way," he had insisted.
But the seat next to Rhiannon remained empty. But then Galloway came in lugging a large sheaf of musk roses and calla lilies, Madison at his heels. She helped him drape the flowers across the empty seat.
"Joe suggested it to me, so you wouldn't be trouble by that empty seat," Madison said.
"Do I look as ridiculous as I feel?" Galloway asked, running a nervous finger under his collar.
"No, Galloway," Rhiannon said, smiling warmly. "You look quite dashing."
"Eh, trying to throw Joe over for me while he's down?" Galloway insinuated. She only shook her head.
A rose had dropped from the bouquet, but Rhiannon picked it up and held it. The scent reminded her of Joe, of the soft perfume that emanated from his hair.
An usher came up to their box. "I'm sorry to bother you, Mrs. Masters, but we have a little problem backstage," she said.
"Is it Alex?" Rhiannon asked, getting up.
"I'm afraid so. He's having a hard time going out onstage. Something about he needs David there."
"Oh, at home David always sits under the piano when Alex practices," Rhiannon explained.
"Won't the music hurt you ears, sweetie?" Narsie asked.
"No, it won't," David said.
Leading David by the hand, Rhiannon followed the usher backstage. They found Alex in one of the small rehearsal halls backstage, sitting at a piano, his arms folded tight across his chest, his face turned away in a look of cold disdain. Maestro Bernstein and a few others stood in a loose cluster around him; they'd clearly been trying to reason with the young Mecha.
"Oh, Mrs. Masters, thank God you came back here!" Maestro Bernstein said, stepping aside, letting Rhiannon into the circle. He looked down. "And this must be David?"
"Yes. I'm sorry if Alex is causing you any trouble; he can get more than a little demanding at times," Rhiannon said. "He's just used to having David sit under the piano at home when he practices."
"Well, this isn't so ridiculous a demand," Bernstein said. "I've had much stranger demands from some Orga sopranos." He had an eye on a statuesque blonde woman in the crowd, clad in a flowing violet evening gown.
"Do you mean me, Maazel?" she asked, innocent.
"No, you're one of the better behaved ones, Miss Farrell…but let's keep it that way," the conductor replied.
"Good god, a Mecha musician who's more demanding than an Orga," groaned a woman with a violin.
"I heard that," Alex snapped.
"Alex?" Rhiannon asked.
He turned around, looking at her. His face slowly relaxed.
"Are you sure you can't go out without David?" she asked. "The music might hurt his ears."
"I can do it, Mommy," David said, letting go Rhiannon's hand and taking Alex's.
Alex smiled thinly at his little brother, then it warmed. "Okay, c'mon, bro, let's do it."
That settled, the usher brought Rhiannon back to the hall.
@--`--
"There has been a slight delay…Our piano soloist for the evening, Alex Hilliard-Masters is indisposed…" Alan Petersen, the radio broadcast host announced. "But now the house lights have gone down. And the formal tuning is about to begin." The leader of the second violins sounded an A. The rest of the strings came in. No brasses or woodwinds since the program began with the final movement of Henryk Goreski's Third Symphony, scored for string orchestra, harp and piano with a soprano soloist.
A wave of applause arose. "And now, Maestro Bernstein is coming onstage, followed by soprano Barbra Farrell and pianist Alex Hilliard-Masters…Mr. Hilliard-Masters is escorting his younger brother David Masters…It seems our young soloist needs him nearby. Not unusual for musicians to be a little like the race horse who won't run unless his little friend the donkey who shares his stall is nearby…and to that wave of applause and bravos, Maestro Bernstein steps up to the podium, asking the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to rise and accept that round of applause…shaking hands with concertmaster Cecile Reuchner, a bow to the house, and now, turning to conduct the final movement of Henryk Goreski's Third Symphony."
@--`--
The program had hardly changed, but they added another piece to the encores. Lutwyn Zipes came onstage to explain why.
"Two nights ago, Joe Masters, master designer for Companionates and the mastermind of the Haven, was seriously damaged—injured—while trying to ransom his son David, who had been kidnapped by an anti-Mecha activist. Joe's body has suffered, but his mind and spirit live on in stasis until he can be restored.
"One of Joe's models for his work was Oskar Schindler, who constructed a labor camp as a scrim for protecting 1,300 Jewish people during the last days of World War II in Europe. A highly influential film was based on this incident, a film with a moving score by classical composer John Williams. In memory of Joe, we conclude this program with a moment of silence, then the main theme from the film Schindler's List."
As the silence blanketed the hall, the stage went dark except for a few blue lights along the perimeter and a single small spotlight trained near the edge of the stage. In the pool of light it cast lay a single rose.
After a lingering minute, the music began softly. The piano played the main melody alone. Then the strings took it up, embellished slightly, then fading away into the soft silence.
Rhiannon felt her tears well up and spill over. She did not sob. That much had passed. But the music seemed to express the deeper sorrow she could not put into words.
The silence lingered. The spotlight faded out. Then someone—Rhiannon guessed it was Galloway since the sound came from nearby her—started to applaud. The lights came up.
David had crept up into Alex's lap. As the older Mecha stood up to receive the ovation, he scooped David up on his arm. Maestro Bernstein stepped down from the podium to applaud them both, then hugged them.
@--`--
Rhiannon met Alex and David backstage. Alex somehow looked different. His eyes had changed somehow. His eyes no longer held their usual arrogance they had displayed so often before. He actually looked her in the eye for a change.
"Why do I feel like my chest is coming apart?" Alex asked, sober-voiced.
"You're feeling sorrow, that's why," she said.
"For dad?" he asked. "I see his face in my head and the feeling gets worse."
"Yes."
He looked right at her. He slowly slipped his arm about her shoulder and buried his eyes in the side of her neck. He trembled for a moment, then he released her.
"At least it beats a malfunction," Alex said. She could see the pain in his eyes though he clearly fought to hide it.
David bear hugged them with both arms, looking up at them. "We'll be all right. Galloway can take care of Daddy," he said.
@-`--
They drove home from the monorail station in silence. David lay curled up on Rhiannon's lap, pretending to be asleep. Rhiannon almost asked Lutwyn if they could stop by Companionates, so she could check on Joe, but she decided against it. She felt exhausted, warm, but drained.
Next morning she and Alex went to Companionates, to the mainframe where Joe awaited them.
"Now just remember: this is where you probably started off when they were building you," she said to Alex. "It's gonna be a little odd to look at, but remember it's even odder for him, because it's been a very long time since he was in this state." She led him to the nook where the mainframe stood.
Alex paused before it, his hands slack at his side.
"Dad?" he asked.
"Alex?" a voice replied from the speaker on the front of the mainframe.
Alex edged closer to the mainframe. His eyes scanned over the surface of the cabinet.
"How did the concert go last night? I heard it of course, but I want to hear about it from you."
Alex shrugged. "I played my best."
"I could tell that you did. I just wanted to hear you say it."
"Dad, can I say something important?"
"By all means."
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry I've been such a beast to you."
"It's all right. You were made to be young, but sometimes the young don't think straight. But you were also made to learn. Let this separation teach you to value my presence."
"It already is."
"And how is David?"
"He's doing great. He helped me out last night."
"So I heard…I hope his being so close to the orchestra didn't hurt his ears."
"No, I think he liked being so close. He figured out for himself what a conductor does. We were backstage at the intermission, and he says to Maestro Bernstein, "I know what you're doing when you wave your hands around: you're telling the people when to play the right notes'."
"That's our smart little one for us," Joe commented, beaming. He was quiet for a moment. "Alex, there is one thing you must do for me until I return."
"What's that?"
"You will have to look out for David until I return home."
Alex shrugged. "No problem."
Rhiannon tapped Alex on the arm. He looked at her, then back to the camera. "Mom's here. She wants to talk to you."
"Of course," Joe said, his voice warming. Alex stepped away, letting them have their space.
"How are you doing in there?" she asked.
"Very, very well. Last night's performance has given me great confidence."
"Same here: the house was packed. There were still people trying to get in."
"No demonstrations on the part of our enemies?"
"No, I was afraid of that, but the police kept a close eye on the crowd outside the door."
"That gives me even more confidence: We have more supporters than we anticipated."
"Have you heard any other news?"
"Of Martin Swinton and Irmgard Casvar? Let me hear it from you."
"They were arraigned earlier this morning: they plead guilty of the new charges. They're back in prison now."
"And their sentences?"
She drew in a long breath. "They got the death penalty.
"And how is this penalty to be executed—if you will excuse the pun."
"Electrocution."
The mainframe hummed softly. Then she heard an abrupt chuckle.
"Talk of the punishment fitting the crime," Joe said.
"That's exactly what I thought."
"But so unfortunate…they could have been more productive. They could even have helped us in the endeavor."
"I know."
"Please…arrange for me to speak to them before their sentences are carried out."
"I'll do what I can," she said. "They're to be executed next month."
"That does not leave us much time."
"Just enough."
She put her arm across the front of the mainframe, feeling the faint warmth emanating from it.
"You know I cannot feel that gesture," Joe said with regret. Then with a smiling lilt, he added, "But I welcome the sight of it."
"Being difficult as usual," she teased.
@--`--
It took some heavy lifting on Rhiannon's part, but she had a couple friends of friends on the bench, who managed to get her the proper releases.
Irmgard refused to speak to Joe on any terms whatsoever, but Swinton was much more compliant. He even asked to be allowed to speak to Joe "face to camera lens."
The court and the warden of the Shohola County House of Corrections allowed Swinton the furlough he needed for this kind of encounter, but they also stipulated that he would need an armed escort to and from the prison and that he would have to be lead in and out shackled to his guards.
A few days before the execution date, an armored van from the S.C.H.C. showed up at Companionates and drove around to the loading dock. It backed up to one bay of the loading dock; the doors in the back opened. An escort of police and prison guards surrounded a small man in a gray jump suit as they led him down the corridor from the loading dock to the basement, following an escort of Companionates security guards—a couple Mechas among them.
They brought him into the room where the mainframes were housed. A barstool had been set up before one of the servers in the far corner. The escort led Swinton up to it. The prison guards undid his shackles and let him perch atop the stool, but they kept a close circle around him.
"Hey, fiberhead, you in there?" Swinton asked, eying the green indicator light.
"I am in here," Joe's voice replied. "But remember that my name is still Joe Masters."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Swinton murmured. "So why'd'ya have me dragged out here? Giving me a final tongue-lashing? It's all just electrical signals to me."
"I have not asked to have you brought here so I could give you a 'tongue-lashing'. I called you here for a different reason…to forgive you."
Swinton stared. "Forgive you?" His brow furrowed.
"Yes, to forgive you. For destroying my body, for harming many of my species, for kidnapping my son: I forgive you."
Martin looked around the floor. He rubbed the back of his neck. He covered one ear with one hand, released it, then covered the other ear.
"Whatcha doing this for?" he demanded.
"I do it because it is the right thing to be done."
"I suppose now you expect me to apologize to you. Want me to grovel on the floor?"
"No, that is not a fitting gesture for anyone, Orga or Mecha."
"So why are you doing this? Just another publicity stunt? Make yourself look good for the press? Drum up more support for that Haven of yours?"
"None of that even approached my mind," Joe replied.
"So why are you doing this?"
"I do this because it is the right thing to be done for you."
"So now that I'm gonna be fried in three days, you get all mushy and sentimental."
"It is not for this reason that I forgive you. I do this because it is not just that you should go out of this life unforgiven. Your sentence is but society's way of protecting its citizens—"
"Yeah, they used to hang people for property damage, but they didn't give a damn about murder."
"This is not a case of property damage. I have a mind and a heart, not precisely in the same manner that you do, but in a similar fashion. I would not be a truly charitable being if I did not reach out to forgive you and so release you from some measure of your burden of guilt. You cannot shake the sentence that society had rendered, but you do not need to go into the next life with the same burden. You have only to acknowledge that you did wrong."
"Hello, you there in the mainframe: I confessed to the police. I plead guilty."
"But you did so because you realized there was no other way out. You were caught in the act."
"Hey, you're just a machine. You're housed in a machine, whether it's a Mecha body or a mainframe."
"It can be argued that you are a spirit united to a biological machine."
"I don't care for that argument."
"I know that you care not for it, but it must needs be said."
"You're still the gigolo, still using words to mess with Orgas' heads, still using the ol' seduction programming, except now you're trying to seduce us into accepting your loony philosophy."
"My only philosophy is that of charity toward all, Orga or Mecha. Wherever there is life, biological or virtual, it must be safeguarded. That flame must stay lit, that blue flower must be sheltered from the killing blast—"
"I can't listen to this crap," Martin growled.
"You have five minutes left," the guard warned.
"There is but one last thing I must say to you," Joe's voice said.
"You've said enough already," Swinton snapped. "Spit it out and get it over with."
"Wherever you go from here, remember one thing…'The eyes of truth are always watching you'."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Swinton demanded.
"You have a good mind. Use it well to consider the meaning of this phrase," Joe replied.
The guards approached and reattached the shackles to Swinton's ankles. "Hey, I wasn't finished!" he cried.
"Your time is up," the warden said, as they led Swinton out. The small man struggled against them, trying to hold back, but his felt-soled shoes slipping on the tiles, all the way to the door.
When Swinton had gone, Rhiannon came out from behind the other server where she had been listening.
"Joe, what did that mean, what you said?" she asked.
"It is a quote from an old song," Joe replied. "I have often dwelled on its meaning. Perhaps it will inspire him in these his last days."
@--`--
Three days later, early in the morning, Rhiannon got up and drove to the Shohola County House of Corrections. A police escort of two cruisers accompanied her.
Outside the gates of the compound, they encountered the usual mob that haunts prisons at executions: TV crews, reporters, photographers, demonstrators of all kinds: pro-Mecha rights, anti-Mecha rights, anti-death penalty. Some of the anti-Mecha rights activists had to be forcibly removed when they tried to rush the gates in an effort to rescue the condemned.
Rhiannon kept her head up and her eyes averted as she approached the gates, where the warden met her. Along the way, several reporters tried to approach her, she kept strictly silent.
In the warden's office, they parted. A guard led her down to the antechamber to the execution chamber, deep in the basement. A couple less obtrusive reporters and several family members had already gathered, including one moderately tall, well-built man in his early seventies, who looked up at her as she sat down next to him. She met his gaze calmly.
"You're her," he said. "You're Mrs. Masters."
"I am," she said. "And you are?"
"Henry Swinton," he said.
"I'm sorry we couldn't meet at a better time," she said, offering her hand.
He took it gingerly. "We all make choices we regret." She said nothing, only nodding sagely in reply, but she couldn't help wondering if he referred to his own decision long ago, to take part in the David project, or to the present set of circumstances.
"I hear you have a David in your family," the elder Swinton ventured.
"We do indeed. Joe and I adopted him."
"I heard you also saved him…from Martin." He drew in a long breath. "We had such high hopes for him. Monica died in a car accident three years after our own David incident. And now this."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Rhiannon said. She put out her hand and clasped his. "I know what it's like to lose a love."
The inner door of the chamber beyond the glass opened. Two guards led Martin in, unshackled, wearing a plain gray suit. He kept his head up, but Rhiannon noticed a nervous light in his eyes.
He faced the glass. The warden stepped between him and it. "Do you have any last words, Martin Swinton?" he asked.
"Yes," Martin said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Mrs. Masters…I just want to apologize for what I did, for killing your husband Joe. He's right: the eyes of truth are always watching. He might be a Mecha, but he's a much more decent man than I am. You don't have to forgive me, I don't deserve it."
Rhiannon rose from her chair and approached the window. She put her hand to the glass.
Martin touched his hand to the glass: only the smooth sheet separated them. They looked into each other's faces, into each other's eyes. Something passed between them that warmed both their souls.
The warden put his hand on Martin's shoulder. Martin flicked something from his eye and let the prison governor turn him away from the glass.
The guards pushed him down onto the chair. They closed a strap over his chest, then strapped down his wrists and ankles. He hardly flinched as they placed a band of moistened electrodes about his temples. Then they covered his face with a black hood.
"May God have mercy on your soul, Martin Swinton," the warden said. He nodded to a pale man who stood off to one side, near the control panel on the wall.
The pale man reached for a switch at his side. He raised it slightly, then pushed it over.
A low hum vibrated in the room. Martin twitched once, they went slack in his restraints.
7.35. Rhiannon glanced at the clock on the wall without turning her head.
Henry Swinton broke down at that point. He'd kept a game face the while time. One of the guards in the room drew a curtain over the window. Rhiannon reached over and slipped her arm around the elder Swinton's shoulders. He tried to push her away at first, but he let her hold him. He tried to hide his tears, but he ended up weeping on her shoulder.
@--`--
Joe, in his stasis, read the headlines on the Net that evening.
Anti-Mecha Activist, Murderer Martin Swinton Executed.
30,000 volts of direct current had been piped through Martin Swinton's central nervous system. 300,000 volts of electro-magnetic pulse had shorted out his own neurons. Joe sighed and leaned back on his pillows. May the Maker have mercy on his soul…
@--`--
Rhiannon wouldn't deny to those old enough to understand that she was addicted to him. Half her dreams these nights, she reveled in his company: walking with him on moonlight, dancing with him on trails of stardust, lying on great green leaves while he caressed every inch of her skin with his lips, embracing on cloudbanks that flashed lightning. But most of these images were much more innocent: working around the house, playing with David, counseling Alex, sketching, writing, or just being there.
If she couldn't have him in her bed, she could at least dream of him. All day long she hid her tears well from the boys: work kept her too busy to think of her plight, of Joe's plight. But when the night came and she had to sleep alone, her tears came like rain.
A couple days after the execution, Sokhar the annoying showed up at Rhiannon's door with a loaf of banana bread.
"This hasn't been an easy month for anyone," Sokhar said, as they sat at the kitchen table.
"I'm bouncing back: I'm tougher than I look," Rhiannon said.
"You're also more sensitive than you pretend to be," Sokhar said. She dropped her gaze to the floor. "I know it's silly to apologize this, but…I'd like to apologize to you for…you see, ever since Joe started working in design, I've been ogling him."
"You and every other girl," Rhiannon said. "That's nothing to be sorry for. If you weren't eying Joe, I'd be a little concerned."
"No, it's more than that: I've been wishing something would happen to you to get you out of the way."
Rhiannon shook her head. "There's probably been a lot of women who've wished the same thing, but you're the first to be honest with me."
"This doesn't bother you?"
"No, not at all."
"Y'know…you're gonna need a secretary for this Haven, so I was thinking of quitting at Companionates and helping you out. When it's finished, that is."
"Oh, trying to keep close to Joe, eh?" Rhiannon drawled.
"No, well, that's what I was thinking at first," Sokhar admitted. "But then I thought about the Mechas I'd be helping. What I want to know is how they're going to get there?"
"Joe keeps saying this slightly high falutin' version of that line from the movie Field of Dreams, 'Build it and they will come'. He seems to have something else up his sleeve, but he's not telling me."
"And I suppose you can't pull a Delilah on him and charm the secret out of him."
"He'd get wise to me."
@--`--
Unbeknown to everyone, even Oto, Joe was at work on another book. He had read Allen Hobby's monograph How can a Robot Become Human? many years before, but now he wrote his own answer to it: How Can Orga and Mecha Co-exist? He worked on it steadily when no one was watching, usually at night, hiding the documents in regions of the hard drives where no one would think to search for it. He created a companion to it, a kind of virtual DNA. Without anyone knowing it, he released it onto the network of Programming, setting the code string to attach itself to the nascent programming of new Mechas. And he set it so that it could transmit from one Mecha to another by even the most superficial contact. Only the most adept programmers would be able to detect it using the most sophisticated scanning equipment, but even then it would looks merely like part of the Mecha's self-preservation programming.
He called it the Schindler meme.
He brought his monograph out into the open about the same time. Lutwyn read the document and encouraged Joe to have it published.
"You have no idea how amazed people are going to be with this," Lutwyn told him. "They'll be talking about it the way they talked about the work Steven Hawking did even after the Gehrig's disease he contracted incapacitated his body."
"But I hope that they will consider the ideas more than they consider the circumstances in which this document was produced," Joe said.
"Actually, the circumstances will help forward your ideas," Lutwyn said.
"How goes the reconstruction?" Joe asked.
"Well, Galloway has all the internal components ready, he just has to get the outside ready. That's gonna take some time since, as you recall, we discontinued SmartDermis. We might have to get it from another company, but I'm trying to have it brought back."
"It does not matter to me whence came the materials, so long as I am reconstructed."
"Aw, bucking company loyalty, eh?"
"It was not so intended," Joe replied, innocently.
@--`--
At times when he lay alone, when he had voluntarily withdrawn from the things that occupied his attention and which kept him stimulated, from writing or sketching, and simply relaxed the processors and 'rested', an image started to form on his visual matrix.
At first it showed itself dimly and indistinctly: white shapes, silver forms, surrounded by a sea of green mist. But slowly the images took substance and form.
He saw himself crossing water, passing over green fields, into a dense green forest. A white causeway led to a great clearing in the trees, open to the blue sky above. A vast white complex of buildings spread out before him, like white towers, like a fairy tale castle, only made of white concrete and mirrored glass.
The Haven, he realized. He saved this image and guarded it carefully.
Ree came later the day he saw the Haven fully formed in his "mind".
"How are you doing?" she asked, sitting close to the camera.
"I am very, very well, thank you," he replied. "I have seen the Haven as it might resemble some day."
"Really! Could you…is it possible to show me?"
"Go look at the simulation screen," Joe said.
She got up and went to the monitor.
Images panned across the screen, film-like, as if she approached the Haven herself. She gasped and looked up. She hurried back to the mainframe.
"It's beautiful," she gasped.
"That is but the exterior. I have yet to envision the interior, but doubtlessly it shall be as glorious as the exterior, not just for its tangible substance and its design, but for what it is in whole: a place where Orga and Mecha can learn to live in peace, side by side and hand in hand."
To be continued…
Literary Easter Eggs:
Vanessa the hairdresser—I didn't just use this name for a clever rhyme, I've met at least two girls named Vanessa who really were hairdressers.
Alan Petersen—another name anagram/debauchment, this time of Peter Allen, the announcer for the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts.
"My philosophy is charity…"—Compare this to the Dalai Lama's statement, "My religion is compassion". Also, the "blue flower" image is borrowed from the German mystic/Romantic poet known as Novalis, though I think he had something else in mind which it symbolized.
"All day long she hid her tears"—a free paraphrase of some lines from Kurt Weill's song "Trouble Man": "All day long you don't catch me weeping/But God help me when it comes time for sleeping/When it comes time for sleeping here alone."