AN: We've got our first flashback chapter here. There will be several over the course of the fic, but not too many to begin with since I'm still not coming out and directly identifying our narrator. This chapter develops the character without naming him. But it does give what I thought were some rather large clues. Enjoy.
Ch. 6 The first trip to the Oracle
My brothers and I had been a rambunctious bunch, more rambunctious than programs aught to be even at such a young age. It was this fact that worried our mother despite our very obvious affinity for our purpose. My father's attitude toward us was largely disinterest. The older programs had a sense, a need to protect their own, but there were so many of us that it did not seem to matter to him that we were his offspring. Much of the time he wished to be rid of us entirely as we seemed more trouble than we were worth. It annoyed our father that Aiden was so dominating, that I was so inquisitive, that Brent was so needy, and that our sense of logic did not resemble his in the least.
So after another grueling day of training, grueling for our father anyway, he agreed to let our paranoid mother take us to see the Oracle, probably hoping she would say we were a lost cause and to delete us. We were preparing to get into the car when we received a call from Father saying that he had a particularly easy case that day and that one of us should come and observe. He knew better than to have all three of us come. We would have ended up in a tree four blocks from where we were supposed to be, pelting acorns at the people below us and then asking them for the time.
So Aiden, the most eager of the three, stayed at home and waited for Father to come and get him. Brent and I got into the backseat of our mother's Volvo and only put on the uncomfortable seatbelts that dug into our necks after she had nagged us.
I did not know anything about the Oracle except that she supposedly knew the future. I did not know then that she had played such a large part in our creation and what would happen as a result. So Brent and I thought we were going on a short trip, like any other, that would undoubtedly amuse us and give us opportunity to cause mischief, much to the chagrin of our mother.
We did not try to be bad; in fact we tried very hard to be good. But we had difficulty seeing things from others' perspectives and simply did not know enough about the world to properly react to it. That was normal. We just went at it with gusto.
We looked out the window trying to decide where we were in relation to everywhere else with which we were familiar. After half an hour of driving through the city, we came to a stop outside a shady-looking apartment building.
"Looks like the kind of place rebels would be," Brent whispered to me.
I nodded. I did not know then most of her visitors were rebels and that we going against the grain bringing young programs to see the Oracle. But my mother was well respected and she knew the Oracle personally as they were sister programs.
We entered the front door and my brother and I stiffened automatically. They could be lurking anywhere. Maybe we would see one! We rode in the elevator to the 13th floor and got out. Mother led us down a few hallways until we arrived at room 1342. She knocked on the door and the door immediately opened. Inside was an Asian man slightly taller than Father and wearing sunglasses.
"The Oracle has been expecting you. You may enter, one at a time, when you are ready."
I looked at Brent. He shrugged.
"You go first."
"No, you go first."
"No, you go first!"
"No, you go first!"
If Aiden had been there, he would have gone first and there would not have been an argument. But we were both more timid than he and the state of the building made us nervous and seek the protection of our mother.
"Charlie, just go in," she said waspishly.
I tried to contain my nervousness and walked through the beaded doorway to the kitchen. There, barefoot with a potholder on one hand and a cigarette in the other, was an elderly black woman. She smiled as I walked in.
"Come in, take a seat. Cookie?" She held out a plate of cookies to me.
"No, Mother says I shouldn't put things in my mouth."
She looked amused. "And why does she say that?"
I sat down at the table.
"She says it isn't becoming of a program," I told her. I paused and looked up at her. "But how am I supposed to know what things taste like if I don't put them in my mouth?"
The Oracle smiled broadly. "How, indeed?"
I shrugged and rested my head against the table, tapping my foot to some unheard rhythm.
"So why are you here today?"
I turned my head so that I was looking at her.
"You don't know? I thought she would have told you before she brought us."
"Oh, she told me, I want to know what you will say."
I gave her a quizzical look and told her anyway. "She's afraid the Mainframe is going to take one look at us and delete us. She wants you to tell her that it won't."
"What do you think?"
"What do you mean, what do I think? I'm just a kid. I don't know anything."
"I think you know more than you let on."
I thought for a few seconds. "I know that everyone thinks we're strange, but that Father thinks we are progressing faster than normal. Mother hopes we'll outgrow the strangeness."
"Do you think you're strange?"
I began to drum my fingers on the table nervously. Why was she asking me the questions? Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?
"I guess so. If everyone says we are, then we must be."
"How do you know everyone is right?"
I was getting flustered.
"They're my only point of reference. If I am not like them, I must be strange." I looked at the floor. "I don't want to be strange."
"Why not?"
I look up at her, angry. "Because it's dangerous! Because it's human! Because agents chases down and kills strange humans and programs! I want to be normal. I'll pretend to be normal. They won't come after me because I'm strange."
I felt a tear slide down my cheek.
"How sad it is that we must learn such discretion at such a young age."
I said nothing.
"Life will not be easy for you. It isn't for anyone," she said shaking her head sadly. "But you'll make it."
My head popped up.
"But I will have a life?"
"What do you think you're living right now?"
"A preparation for a life. If we're good enough, we'll live."
She looks sad for a moment. "Aren't you at all grateful for what has been given to you?"
"Sure I'm grateful. I'm grateful for my mom, and my siblings, and my house, and the car, and all the nifty bugs in our yard, and the big oak tree, and the stars in the sky, and sometimes even my dad."
She smiled slightly at this and then her face became serious.
"No matter what you're mother or father or brothers or anyone else tells you, you are a good boy."
I was rather surprised by her change of subject and precisely what she had said.
"How do you know? I just met you. And everyone else seems to disagree. How are you right and everyone else wrong?"
"Good and bad are more involved than doing or not doing what others tell you to do."
"Are you telling me to disobey my father? Cause I'd really like that."
She laughed. "No, I'm just telling you to consider that before you make decisions, that's all. Like eating cookies. Come on, I assure you that there is nothing inherently wicked about eating cookies. Your mother just wants what's best for you, but sometimes her notions are misguided." She offered me another cookie. I took it carefully and sniffed it suspiciously. I took a small bite and chewed it slowly, analyzing it. "Interesting."
She smiled at me.
"So I can tell my mom that they won't delete us, at least not now?"
"If you want to. You don't have to tell her anything if you don't want."
"I don't mind. I just won't tell her about the cookie." With that I shoved the rest of it into my mouth and crunched it noisily.
I got up to leave and stopped.
"So, can you tell me what will happen to us?"
She sighs. "Curiosity will be the death of you, that's for sure."
"That's what my mother says. What about my brothers? Will they be okay?"
She smiled rather wistfully. "Everything will happen as it should happen."
I took that to mean that everything would happen as I had hoped it would happen. Naïve, surely, but I wanted nothing more than to hear that we would happily fulfill our purpose for the next five centuries, as my mother had.