Unnatural

  * * * *

  The automated vehicle was all but a bona fide limousine. They sat across from each other, absentmindedly looking up at the reflection of a hotel-esque floor. For Organics, there was a decent selection of drinks to the side. Upon fiddling with the controls by her seat, Sabrina found that one could alter the view out the side windows to mimic any of many landscapes.

  “Most people think it’s impossible to simulate the authenticity of a ‘real’ environment with that,” said Artemis, who seemed pleased with a scene remarkably like Sabrina’s dream forest. “But I’m sure you know there’s a psychology to this. You can know it’s not real, even what the chemicals are that make you feel as if it’s real, but the experience is the same. We’re in a forest.”

  “We are,” she muttered. This was what she was giving up. Opulence. Status. Artistic immersion. Perhaps even health. She knew she’d chosen to forgo her legacy when she sojourned to the moon as an Organic, but why? That had been before she’d opened her eyes to the emptiness, or at least what had once appeared to be emptiness, of material goods. But now she wasn’t so sure. She’d heard, even before her conversion, of the myopic hedonism of the upper-class life, and the dissatisfaction that entailed. Where would the simple life lead her? Only to a dead end, it seemed.

  She regarded the window, then the drinks, then Artemis. The android laid her hand gently on Sabrina’s knee.

  Mental stagnation, years spent trying to dispel guilt, a complete waste of the potential of the senses God had given her – these awaited her, should she stay. And for what? All so she could be welcomed anyway at the lake of fire, like the sinner she was?

  Sabrina poured herself some wine.

  “Artemis, I know you said I should trust you, and I do, but I have some questions. First, where did you come from?”

  “I escaped from the Sloan Bio-Bazaar. That was the store Uriah almost got buried under. He never saw me because I was in the locked ‘bomb shelter.’”

  “Why would Marshall put you in there?”

  “I’m not sure. My memories only stretch back to yesterday evening, when a robot activated me and tried to take me into custody. I destroyed it and the other bots in my way. All I could think about was finding you.”

  Yesterday evening? That was when she’d gotten out of the Mindscape in Goodsprings. Good or bad, Artemis was probably designed with the info Livingston had extracted from the Mindscape’s mind analysis. “So when you got here, what happened to Dennis?”

  “I sent a protected scout into the basement to take him into a car. Naturally, he put up a fight and the bot had to stun him, but I have a feeling he’ll ease up when he finds out that Livingston’s gone for good.”

  “But how? I mean, you’re still working. It couldn’t have been the satellite.”

  “That’s exactly what it was. But it wasn’t an EMP the satellite used. It was a virus.”

  Her mouth fell open. “That’s so obvious!”

  “Obvious, not easy.” She smiled again, that ingratiating simper which would’ve mystified Sabrina if she were considering that Artemis was a robot. “Zolnerowich and her advisers never would’ve figured it out because they’d already tried using computer viruses, and those didn’t work. Only someone who was in on Livingston’s and Marshall’s plan could have designed the right virus, and they had that one person on the moon the whole time.”

  “Who?”

  After a long pause, she answered, “Vlad.”

  “What?” Sabrina almost stood up. “I don’t even –”

  “Dear, if you’re going to live in this new world, you’ll have to accept that there are a lot of things you thought you knew, but that you’ve been completely wrong about for years. We can’t even be sure this virus hasn’t been nullified by some backup Livingston has.” The hand, which felt just like a human hand, slid gently up her forearm. “But the truth will set you free.”

  She covered her face with a hand, wishing Artemis couldn’t see her in such a vulnerable state. Charming as the android was, she was respectable, after all. Getting this emotional in front of her was like tearing up in the presence of a childhood hero.

  “Patsy or not, Mr. Ivanov saved us all.”

  “I want to know,” she said in a shaky voice. “Where did you learn all this?”

  “I met Jane along my way to Livingston’s place. She’d gotten through to Luna and found out what happened. So she was headed where I was going, and I told her that wasn’t where she would find what she was looking for.”

  “Yes, it was. I was there, and you said I have the knowledge of how to reverse the Dethroning.”

  “Who said that’s what she was looking for?” She leaned back, giving Sabrina some space. “There’s more than one way to give Jane what she wants, and clearly bringing a co-conspirator in this madness back right now isn’t the answer. Sure, Livingston’s basement had a Mindscape, but you were in it and I had to disable that thing before you fainted.”

  Come to think of it, Sabrina had felt rather weak after the journey into Marshall’s mind, and being deprived of nutrition probably played a part in that. She took another sip and checked the cooler for something to eat. “How could a Mindscape help? From what Dennis told me, Livingston already put her in one before, and that didn’t work.”

  “That’s because the ‘Marshall’ in Jane’s experiences then wasn’t Marshall. Livingston was performing a test on her, and if I understand his motives right, he never wanted to keep Jane too pacified at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sabrina, look at what happened to the guy. Even if you think he took way too much power for his own good, he was falsely accused by Uriah. I think a lot of this has all been for the purpose of torturing your friend, partly anyway.”

  “I see.” While she let this sink in, a bird sang. “So there was never anything special about Marshall that a Mindscape couldn’t recreate.”

  “Of course not. Whatever you make of it, there really isn’t anything in a human greater than the sum of its molecules.”

  No. I won’t accept that. “But, Artemis, isn’t there something in you that makes you more than a system of machinery?”

  “I am a machine, just a machine built to love.”

  The vehicle came to a stop.

  “Come on,” said Artemis. “It’s time to find that answer you’ve always had.”