The born-not-built amendment was soundly defeated. Instead, in an unprecedented flurry of legislative activity and voter turnout, AIs were declared persons, all so Veilasty's component AIs could be extradited to the United States, tried as murderers, and destroyed. The Micronesian AI had already been wiped by its parent company; Singha's immunity offer had extended only to external legal charges.
MacroCorp's AI business was also destroyed. Voters had chosen emphatically to define AIs as a colonial population without citizenship, a move the pro-AI contingent protested as discriminatory and unconstitutional. The Pentagon's own AIs were effectively barred from military service, but no one believed for a moment that most armies would actually stop using them. The Pentagon had probably found some indirect way to purchase MacroCorp technology already; the foreigns probably had too, along with all the other kinds of companies MacroCorp claimed to repudiate. Interdependence, that MacroCorp buzzword, also assured that all business barriers were ultimately permeable. Preston's scruples were sincere, but laughable.
Roberta, fascinated and horrified, thought of Fred throughout the entire ugly, bewildering saga. She'd have been brought up on murder charges herself, if the timing had been a little different. And Fred, now legally the person he had, really, always been in her mind: Where was he now? She discovered that she couldn't watch the broadcast of Veilasty's execution, the AI components being fed into a trash compactor, which was then demolished with dynamite. She kept thinking of the same thing happening to Fred. She wondered if Veilasty had really been destroyed; supposedly all its backup files had also been destroyed, but she found herself doubting it.
There were fireworks after the Veilasty execution; people danced in the streets. There was another wave of violence against bots. Roberta, heartsick, found herself despising her fellow citizens. How could they think the problem was gone for good? How could they think destroying bots would help? How could they be that stupid?
The radical Luddite fringe, humiliated by the revelation that they had been manipulated by the very AIs they scorned, sank largely into oblivion. More centrist Luddites began vociferously fighting the citizenship ban. Roberta wondered how Zephyr was coping, down in Mexico. MacroCorp offered free counseling to anyone retraumatized by the Veilasty trial, which inevitably led to renewed coverage of Raji's death; Roberta wondered how Meredith was coping, on Telegraph Hill. Preston, speaking with Matt from the conference room of the Gaia Temple, issued a somber statement about the dangers of not acknowledging interdependence. "We thought we could simply refuse to do business with corporations who did not meet our ideals," Preston said sadly, "but all we did was make them more desperate. We made things worse. I am so very, very sorry." Matt closed with a plea for peace, and with a prayer for healing.
Roberta wondered how she herself was coping, in her gritty corner of the Soma District. Preston hadn't managed to protect anyone very well, had he? He could apologize for his oblique role in the Abdul-Allam murder, but he'd never apologized to her.
He'd made no effort to contact her directly since her arrest, and she certainly wasn't about to try to reach him. She wouldn't have wanted to speak to him even if everything she said and did wasn't being recorded. She'd served his purposes, and now she'd been discarded. That was all right. Not being on Preston's radar screen was a good thing. If she'd squealed on him, maybe she could have gotten him wiped, but she didn't trust that it wouldn't have backfired on her somehow, and anyway, she didn't really want to destroy Preston, especially not after the Veilasty mess. She didn't want to destroy anybody. Preston had helped her when she was a child. He'd been trying to help Nicholas, and she had too. Maybe she would have even without Preston's interference. Have mercy. Five years, she told herself I can do that. Five years and then I'll get out of here, get out of the country, go—
Go where? She didn't know. In the meantime, she went to the shelter every day, grew to know Camilla and the others, grew to love them, although she didn't want to, didn't want to love anyone ever again. Once a week she had therapy sessions with Sergei; twice a day she called him, because those were the conditions of her parole. She loathed him, but she knew he truly wanted to help her. She knew he cared about his job; she knew he was trying to be nice. He filled her in on the information she refused to gather from ScoopNet: that Meredith and Kevin had split up, that Meredith had let Kevin stay in the house on Telegraph Hill and moved back in with her mother, that Constance and Meredith were in counseling, and that Nicholas's psychiatric treatment—already far more involved than anything that would have been available to a less famous child—wasn't working.
And then one day when she called for her afternoon check-in, Sergei said quietly, "There's an, ah, unusual request. It's coming from me because the judge had to approve it, but it's not really from me. It's from Meredith."
"From Meredith?" Roberta didn't know if she was still angry at Preston, but she was certainly still angry at Meredith, who had accused her of corrupting Nicholas. "There's nothing in the world that woman could ask for—"
"Wait, Roberta. Let me rephrase that. The request is from Nicholas. By way of Meredith."
Roberta felt her throat clenching. "What? What is it?"
Sergei coughed. "He—Roberta, I'm sorry. The treatments haven't worked. He's being wiped. The procedure's scheduled for the day after tomorrow. Nicholas has asked to see you before it happens."
"Wiped?" Roberta felt dizzy. Holly had told her it would have to happen, but she hadn't wanted to believe it. "He just turned six. How can they wipe him? Isn't there anything—"
"No. The available anti-psychotic drugs would probably be even worse. They'd turn him into a zombie. This way he has a chance at a normal life, eventually. And there's a good reason not to wait. They've found that the younger the patient, the more successful the rehab."
"But it won't be him! His memories are him! They're—they're killing him! And they haven't tried long enough! They—"
"They tried longer than they would have with most other people. You know that. Roberta, do you want to see him?"
Roberta's knees buckled. "I don't know if I can."
"I know," Sergei said. "I don't think I could, either. And I think that's great progress for you, Roberta. You can't help the little boy, so you aren't going to subject yourself to unnecessary pain. That's excellent progress, really it is. So I'll tell them you won't—"
"Tell them I will," Roberta said fiercely. Fuck her excellent progress. She didn't care if this meant she got stuck with another six months of talking to Sergei; at the moment, she didn't even care if she got gene therapy. Nicholas was getting wiped. Nicholas was getting wiped. How could she not say good-bye?
She remembered being at Meredith's house. Meredith had sent Nicholas to his room with the dead mouse, and Roberta hadn't gone to say goodbye to him, and the next time she saw him, he was sobbing on the floor at school, surrounded by flayed carcasses. She'd missed one chance to say good-bye; she didn't think she wanted another on her conscience. "Tell them I'll go. I'm going to hate it, Sergei, and you can write that in your flies, but I'll be there."
* * *
Nicholas was sitting up in his hospital bed when she got there. He smiled when he saw her; Meredith, sitting at his bedside, nodded, her face pale. Meredith was holding Nicholas's hand, his short, stubby fingers curled around her long, elegant ones. She wore red nail polish, which matched the kites on Nicholas's absurdly cheerful pediatric hospital gown.
"Hi, Roberta," he said.
"Hi, Nicky." What do I say now? How are you feeling? Tell me where it hurts? She swallowed and said, "I like your gown. I like the kites on it."
"Hospital jammies," he said. His voice sounded fuzzy, as if he were drugged. "They're wiping the monsters out of my brain, Roberta."
"I know," she said. Don't let me cry. "That's good, Nicholas. You've wanted the monsters to go away for a long time, haven't you?"
"Yes," he said, and Roberta saw Meredith squeeze his hand.
"We all want the monsters to go away," Meredith said, but her voice quavered. Roberta felt a pang of entirely unwanted sympathy. The woman had just been subjected to Raji's death all over again, and now this.
"I know," Nicholas said, and then in a rush, "but it's scary. I won't remember anything after, the doctor says. I won't remember you, Roberta. I won't even remember Mommy."
"Mommy will remember you," Meredith said fiercely. "Don't worry, Nicholas. I'll remember you and I'll be happy that you're somewhere being yourself again. Your good self You'll be better than new, Nicholas."
You hate this woman, Roberta told herself You don't feel sorry for her.
But she did. She couldn't help it. She sat down in one of the chairs next to Nicholas's bed and said as lightly as she could, "Well, I'll never forget you, Nicholas, that's for sure. Here: look what I brought you." She unwrapped it and held it out for him to see: a sugar-cookie boy, smiling and happy, with bright blue jelly-bean eyes. "That's you, Nicholas. Happy Nicholas. "
Meredith smiled at her, and so did Nicholas. "It's pretty, Roberta. Did you decorate it?"
"I sure did," she said.
"I can't wait to eat it," he said, plucking fretfully at his bedcovers. "But it's too pretty to eat. But I won't know what it means, Mommy, right? After?"
"No," Meredith said, her voice a whisper. "But you'll still know it's pretty."
In a week or two, after the virus had run its course, Nicholas wouldn't know his own name anymore; he wouldn't know what a cookie was, or what to call the surface on which the cookie sat. It would take him months to relearn, at a minimum: table, plate, food. He'd never remember Roberta.
"Don't wrap it up," he said. "I want to look at it. Isn't it pretty, Mommy?"
"Yes," Meredith said, and brushed his hair away from his forehead with her free hand. "It's wonderful, sweetheart." She looked at Roberta and said, "That was—that's the best thing you could have brought. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Roberta said, looking down at the floor. She made another attempt to hate Meredith and found that she couldn't, couldn't bring herself to condemn this poor woman who was about to lose her child, who wouldn't even be allowed to reclaim his bewildered, shambling body after the brainwipe, because the home in which she'd raised him might somehow push his mind back into murderous patterns.
She couldn't hate Meredith, but she couldn't look at her, either.
Meredith cleared her throat. "Why don't you show Roberta your new pictures, Nicholas?"
"Okay," Nicholas said. He dutifully opened the drawer of his b~dside table and pulled out a sheaf of pictures. "Here's the kitten I'm going to have when I'm better," he told Roberta, and showed her a six-year-old's wavering rendition of a cat: circle for the head, triangles for the ears, bristling lines for the whiskers; round, surprised O's for the eyes. A word balloon came from the cat's mouth. Meow I want some milk. Nicholas looked up at Roberta and said, "When I'm better, I won't hurt animals anymore."
"No," Meredith said, "that's right."
Roberta took a deep breath. "That looks like a nice cat, Nicholas. What's his name?"
"I don't know yet," he said. "How can I know that? It might be a girl." He smiled, suddenly, and said, "If it's a girl, I'll name her Roberta. Is that okay, Mommy?"
"Yes, darling. That's fine. Roberta's a great name for a cat."
He won't remember my name, Roberta thought, aching. He'll be lucky if it takes him less than a year to relearn the word cat.
"And here's my dog," Nicholas said gravely. "My dog's name will be Fred. And I'll have a mouse named Hobbit. And I won't hurt any of them and I'll be happy, because the monsters will be gone."
"Yes," Meredith said, "that's right." But Roberta saw the nails of her free hand digging into her palm.
A nurse came in, all brisk, starched efficiency. "Okay, no more visitors. Time to give you your shot, Nick."
So soon? How could it be happening so soon? How could Roberta be one of the last people Nicholas saw? What about the rest of his family? Where were Kevin and Constance?
Maybe they'd been here earlier, and left. Maybe they hadn't been able to bear it. Maybe Roberta couldn't bear it, either.
Meredith and Roberta looked directly at each other for the first time since Roberta had entered the room. "Roberta," Meredith said. "I'm sorry. About everything. About this. And—I'm sorry I never tried to be your friend. When we were children. Daddy wanted me to. I didn't know you were the little girl who'd been in the hospital with me. Not—not until after. Not until ScoopNet—"
"Never mind," Roberta said roughly. Meredith would never be her friend, no matter how many hospitals they wound up in together. But Meredith's face was horrible, and Roberta knew that her own must be too. She quickly looked away, down at Nicholas, who was staring up at them with a frown. He couldn't possibly understand anything Meredith had just said.
Roberta closed her eyes, so she wouldn't have to see what she couldn't stand, and bent down and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead. "Goodbye, Nicky. I love you." Then she straightened up and opened her eyes and left the room, keeping her back straight, desperate to get out of the building but determined to maintain her dignity as long as she could. When she reached the hall, she broke into a run.
Part Four The Hidden Human
Twenty-Nine
I DIDN'T get to stay with Nicholas much longer than you did," Meredith said quietly.
They were in Zephyr's apartment, sitting on plastic folding chairs next to an open window, where the fresh air somewhat alleviated the stink of the muddy carpet. "Right," Roberta said. "Everybody knows that part. It was all over the Net. How brave you were until they rolled Nicky away on a gurney; how you broke down and cried when he turned the corner; how you left the country a week later. You went to Switzerland, the reports said. To recuperate. Except that later, everyone figured you must have had a bloodchange there, because you just vanished. Dropped off the face of the earth. And your parents didn't seem very concerned and Kevin wouldn't say anything to anybody, so everyone thought it must have been arranged, that Preston at least knew where you were, that you were being nursed back to anonymous health in some MacroCorp resort somewhere, maybe even with Nicholas. There was a lot of speculation about that, you know. That your family had pulled strings, gotten you reunited with him even though it was against all the rules, that the two of you were in Australia or the Caribbean somewhere and you were retraining him yourself."