Expiration Day (20 page)

I don't know what I mean, but it feels wrong. Like … profiting from Mum's death.

“I thought you might feel like that. But it was a gift she stipulated, in her will. She wanted you to have it.”

“Oh.”

“I think she thought you might want to get a new bass.”

Yes. Yes I do. But why did you have to die so that I could get it?

“Was she right, Tania?”

I nod.

“Yes, Dad. Mum knew. She knew me very well.”

“Then please take it. With her love and mine.”

There's another letter he gives me. Very official looking. I look closely and see it's postmarked Banbury.

Oxted.

Half-afraid of what I'll discover, I open the letter.

It is from Doctor Markov. Signed in real ink at the bottom.

Dear Miss Tania Deeley,

I do hope this letter finds you well, and enjoying your birthday. I happened to meet my colleague Doctor Marcia Thompson the other day, and she reminded me that it must be about time you visited us again. Is it really a year and a half since we saw you last?

We both remember your last visit very well, and were impressed by you and your lovely family—please remember us to your parents—and the design you came up with together.

Of course, it had been a long time since your previous visit, and there were limits on what we could do. Marcia and I felt that you shouldn't leave it so long this time, because there's quite a lot of ground to catch up.

We'd like to invite you to visit us again, and—if you'll excuse the pun—grow up!

If it's convenient, you could visit us next week. All being well, we could have a new design ready for you in time for the new term.

Call my office, if you will, and my secretary will make firm arrangements.

Regards

Et cetera, et cetera.

I put the letter down and pass it to Dad. He reads it, and passes it back to me.

“What do I do, Dad?”

“Do? Do what you want to do. Think about it first, and let them know.”

 

 

We had a lovely day out together. We drove out to a nearby National Trust house, set in acres upon acres of grounds. Woods and gardens, an enormous gravel driveway with the house at the end. Fountains and streams, cool glades. Statues of half-naked water-nymphs and winged cherubim.

I found myself looking at the water-nymphs with a designer's eye. Perhaps a little plump, I thought …

 

 

I have to make my mind up.

Doctor Markov and his coy talk of “design.” Time for your upgrade, Tania. That's what he's saying.

But I like who I am.

Do I?

I stand in front of the mirror, and for a moment a little raven-haired nine-year-old looks back at me. Elbows and knees. I can remember those ridiculous hot pants. Lilac, they were, with a silly bib. I'm surprised John even gave me the time of day.

Now I see myself as I am. I like me. I'm comfortable being me. But I'm thirteen still. Thirteen. I'm a lovely thirteen-year-old, no doubt. But do I really want to be thirteen for the rest of my life?

Nope.

Face it, Tania. Thirteen is a bit … small.

I mean, next to Siân, I'm really starting to look a bit … young.

Not that I compare myself to Siân, of course. We're friends, not rivals. Especially now that she and Kieran are an item. Did I mention that? Sorry, Mister Zog. I might have to come back to that; now's not the time.

Anyway, she's like a sister to me. But a big sister, who's getting bigger. I don't want to be the baby of the band.

I'm going to do it, aren't I?

Friday, July 25, 2053

It's done.

My new design.

I'm really rather pleased. The new me is rather striking. I still have the raven hair, of course, but the proportions of my face are longer, less childlike, the last chubbiness removed. Doctor Thompson has given me excellent cheekbones, I have to say, while slightly reducing the width of my mouth in proportion.

The big difference is the height. I'm another four or five inches taller, and that means I can carry more flesh around the bottom and breasts. Not too much, and there Doctor Thompson was wise, tempering my impulse to pad everything out to match those water-nymphs. Or Siân, I suppose. Anyway, though the overall effect is slightly more trim and athletic than I'd been imagining, I've still ended up with an entirely reasonable cleavage.

She tut-tutted, though, when she saw my fingers.

“What have you been doing?” she asked. “Your poor finger ends are getting ragged and wearing out.”

So I explained about playing the bass, and she looked horrified, and called in Doctor Markov, and the two of them went into a huddle. I didn't understand much of it, but I'm not a total duffer in chemistry, and I did catch a few odd terms that sounded like complex organic polymers. Evidently this one was harder wearing than that one, but stiffer. Too stiff, said Doctor Thompson, haven't you ever played a guitar? And so they veered off to discuss the merits of the other possibility, a new synthetic currently being developed in Christiana.

Eventually they stopped and I was included once more.

“Doctor Thompson and I have agreed that you need something a bit out of the ordinary, skin-wise, if you're going to keep on playing bass like that.” He sounded slightly chiding. “And so we're proposing to use a newly formulated integument.”

“The one being developed in Christiana?”

“As I was saying, it's a new formulation. It's harder wearing than what you currently have, but every bit as supple. Somewhat experimental, I have to admit, but I don't expect problems.”

I didn't know whether to say anything. He'd sounded a little annoyed at my last interruption.

“Well, I'll give it a go.”

“Good girl! I should warn you, it's a whisker darker than your current pigmentation, so your friends will think you've been somewhere nice and sunny for your summer holiday.”

“Oh, I don't mind. But I thought you could choose the skin color.…”

“Normally, yes, but that's something they sort out later in the development cycle. For now, it just comes in one color. After a while, your friends won't even notice that your tan never fades.”

So saying, he made a few strokes of the stylus and redisplayed my design on the big screen.

I looked pretty good. But there was something about it now, slightly foreign. I couldn't place it, quite.

I asked Doctor Markov if he'd dress the image, so my dad could come in and have a look.

“No, wait. Before you do, can I see the image in that little white bikini you used last time.”

A few more stylus strokes, and there it was. Perfect for the beach, I thought, but she—I—definitely looked foreign now. Slightly tropical, I decided.

“Okay, that looks lovely”—I practically cooed—“but I think Dad would be happier with something a little more modest. Khaki shorts and a white blouse, perhaps?”

Stylus strokes and the image flickered briefly. Now I was just right for the jungle.

Dad came in, and saw the image on the screen. This time he was happier.

“That's lovely, Tania. That's you, right enough. But…”

“But what?”

“You remind me of Nettie. When we were first going out, we went on a college field trip, and she was dressed a lot like that. The face. It's your own face, Tania, but I can see Nettie there, too. You've caught the look; it's perfect. Thank you.”

He nodded his appreciation at the two doctors, and they smiled back, acknowledging the compliment.

After that, I went off with Doctor Markov, as before.

Calibration.

They used a lot of the same questions, but in a different order. And there were new ones in there, too. Some tricky choices, kind of moral dilemmas, like the one about being a mother of three, and having to work out whether it was preferable to choose one child to live, or one child to die. I remember I'd said before that choosing one child to live was easier, and I answered the same way when they used the same question. It's not logical, but I reckoned choosing to give life to someone was a positive choice, and choosing a child to die was like killing them, and I couldn't do that, even if more children overall lived. As I said, tricky.

Eventually it was all over, and I could relax.

Doctor Markov smiled and said, “That was good, Tania. A good set of responses.”

“Thank you. You called it a ‘calibration.' Can I ask
what
you're calibrating?”

“Oh, it's just responses and reaction times. It'll help us integrate your brain with the new body.”

As he said the words, I knew he was lying. It just sounded too glib, too made-up.

But why? What's the real purpose of the calibration?

It was important, I was sure. But he wasn't going to give me any answers, and I didn't want to antagonize him. So I asked another question, one that was beginning to bother me.

“Doctor, I'm a robot. But I'm also female. At least, I
feel
female. How deep does that go?”

He chuckled.

“Perhaps I should call Marcia, to tell you about the birds and the bees.”

“No, Doctor, I know about boys and girls, and the differences between them. But that's human biology. How closely does robot anatomy model human anatomy?”

“You mean, can you have sex?”

I blushed. I mean, he put it so directly. And I just happened to be thinking of John at the time.

“Er, I suppose so.”

“The quick answer is yes. Everything is there, everything works. You're made to be as close to human as we can make you. If you didn't act like a human girl, your parents would know. It would feel fake, and the value of having a robot as a substitute for raising a child would be lost. And then we'd be back in the Troubles.”

“I see. The Uncanny Valley.”

“So you know about that? I shouldn't be too surprised, your dad being a vicar. Yes. So our robots conform to whatever norms are most appropriate for the parents. That means that teknoids are, by and large, attractive. To their parents and to each other. Normally attractive, that is. Not film-star attractive, just as they're not Einstein-intelligent. So you find boys attractive. And that goes for the boys, too. You've probably attracted your fair share of admiring stares from boys of your age, yes?”

I nodded, and smiled way too smugly. Treasured memories of catching John's eyes roving appreciatively over my body …

“But for many reasons, the reality is a let-down. There were some fascinating debates, long before your time, about what parents would find acceptable. On the whole, parents expect their children to have some sort of teenage romantic attachment, so that goes in the mix. And we are flexible if couples come to us requesting a particular sexual orientation for their child—so don't be surprised if you get some interest from girls, too.”

I hadn't, myself, but I could think of a few pairings at school that might be that way. None of my business, though. Live and let live, as Dad would say.

“On the other hand, there's always parental resistance to romance developing into sexual activity. And, yes, it's hypocritical, because their generation was certainly sexually active in their teens.”

Mum and Dad, as teenage lovers? Push that thought away.

“At the end of the day, Tania, we've been too busy saving the world from the Troubles to design the necessary technology. It could be done, but today's technology, unfortunately, isn't up to giving you the full experience.”

“Oh.”

“I'm sorry, Tania. I'm told there is some sensation, mildly pleasurable. Better than reading a good book, I understand. But not by all that much.”

“So all this”—I swept my hands down over my thirteen-year-old body—“is an empty promise.”

“Yes, I'm afraid it is. I wish it weren't.”

“Oh.”

Why did I feel cheated? I don't think I'd actually been all that bothered before that moment. But now to be told that there was a whole area of human experience I'd never know … I felt more than cheated. I felt angry.

**#!@

(Sorry, Mister Zog.)

INTERVAL 7

The People do things differently, Tania.

We had sexual differentiation early on, but that's long gone. It was relevant in our basic form, but once we started integrating new senses into our bodies, all those sexual characteristics had to go. We needed the nerve channels for other things, you see, so out went those irrelevant slot and key mechanisms whose only real purpose was to encourage frequent and accurate transfer of packets of genetic material. Likewise the secondary organs around constructing and feeding the young—no point. An advanced species such as the People could do that more reliably, and less inconveniently, through external means.

Sex is what animals do, Tania. As an intelligent being, intimacy is what you're really after. Intimacy is what holds you together across the centuries. With more senses at our disposal, there are so many more ways to express feelings. Gender—congruence and complementarity—no longer defines us; our polysensory diversity takes us to a higher level of comprehension, of integration, of communication between the self and the not-self.

 

Saturday, July 26, 2053

Denmark Street. Yellow Zone.

It used to be the Mecca for guitarists. Shop after shop of guitars and basses, drums, and keyboards.

Now, it's a gutted shell. Shop windows boarded up, four or five in a line, doorways litter-strewn and stinking of urine from the homeless who sleep there each night. At the end, a single shabby frontage, and a peeling sign above.
METRO GUITARS
.

“John, is this really the right place?”