Unnatural

  * * * *

  “Just why did you wait so long to contact us?” said Zolnerowich. “And where is Mr. Uriah?”

  “We were under time constraints, Governess.” Sabrina looked down, biting her lip, at the neatly polished conference table of Aberdeen Police Department. The androids had repaired the communications system since the time Jane and Uriah had gone their separate ways.

  She remembered Artemis and put her chin up. “As for Dennis, I’ve sworn not to disclose his location.”

  “We can find him easily enough –”

  “No, you can’t. Go ahead, see what happens when you try to conduct a search.” She’ll probably take me up on that challenge. She put her folded hands on the table, staring Zolnerowich down. “Listen, Governess, before I explain just what happened between the time you contacted Jane and now, I want to make this clear. I’m as loyal to my country, or what remains of it, as I ever was. But if you expect me, as the only woman capable of keeping the human race alive for generations to come, to be loyal, then I expect loyalty from you and the rest of the government. You may be leaders, but you’re also representatives, and I think that if you ask the people of Luna what they want done about the Dethroning, they’ll say they want what I happen to want.”

  The faces of the men and women sitting with Zolnerowich, some of whom were observing the screens below, featured a mix of horror, gravity, skepticism, and noncommittal openness. Zolnerowich herself was filled mostly with the latter, yet there was a hint of pride reminiscent of their discourse a week ago.

  “Well said, but I have a few objections. First, much as I congratulate you for the care you have given to your child in spite of tremendous adversity” – she nodded toward Michael, who was playing with a toy action figure Sabrina had picked up earlier – “I fail to see how the sustenance of humanity depends on you anymore. Obviously you and Artemis have found a means to restore the vitrification victims.”

  She doesn’t know … “True, but the means would normally involve each victim’s being personally revived by Jane, and as you can imagine, over six billion people would take at least two centuries to bring back.”

  “Normally.”

  “Yes. That might not be a problem for the first ones to return, but even if that didn’t create a serious ethical concern for us about deciding who these first ones would be, it’s not certain we can restore anyone who’s had this much time to gain temperature.”

  Zolnerowich leaned in. “Miss Lockhart, did you ever wonder where all the vitrified had gone?”

  Sabrina furrowed her brow.

  “You may have found a way to stop surveillance now, but just after Mr. Livingston’s downfall that was not the case. Think about it. Where might the bodies have gone if you have not seen a single one on the streets or in buildings?”

  “Oh my God.” She looked at nowhere in particular, processing the implications. “But he –”

  “Was a man who, though gravely mistaken to the point of delusion, found himself victimized by Mr. Uriah’s impulsive violence, and who had the bravery to end his life with a gesture of penance.”

  “You’re defending him?”

  “No. I am condemning your friend.”

  Friend? It was not an inappropriate term for Uriah, yet she had simply never thought of him as a “friend.” An ally, sure, a co-conspirator against hierarchical insanity and Livingston’s ultimate subversion of liberty, but she couldn’t remember the last time a friend had been locked in the basement of an Amish house with her. Friends share raucous laughter, see movies, shoot the breeze.

  “J-Just why have you condemned him?”

  “Because I have reason to believe he is a threat to his fellow humans if his brain remains as it is. Regardless of the intentions of the man he attempted to murder, Mr. Uriah did still attempt murder. He had insufficient basis for so strong a conviction of Mr. Livingston’s guilt as to justify such a crime, and even if he knew Miss Mallard was a rape victim, it was reckless to take justice into his own hands.”

  “Can you blame him?” She folded her arms. “Face it, Governess, the social climate among every state dominated by the Robotic Revolution has been hostile towards people like him from the start. Were I not as high-class as I am, you and most other Transhumans in power would sell out my future, too.”

  Sabrina looked back at Michael. “And unless this world sees some major changes in the way it handles the responsibility of possessing this kind of technology, the kind that is the reason we’re debating this at all, then I’m willing to test that claim.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I used to accept grants from the government for my research at Luna, but considering I can’t even trust that government with a satellite, much less the rights of my friend, I think you leave me no choice but to step down.”

  She knew what Zolnerowich was thinking: I do not want to lose a scientist as competent as she, but I cannot show weakness. “This is a mistake.”

  “A mistake on the part of society, yes. I don’t know what I’m going to do for a living now. To be honest, I probably don’t have it in me to follow through on what I said, not with a child to care for. That’s why I want you – all of you – to please, own up to your deceit and help put this train wreck back on course. This just may be the last time I give you my trust, and the same goes for the rest of Luna. You wanna know why? Ask anyone who lives up there if they care for at least one Organic.”

  “None of us has anything against Organics.”

  “Oh, really? You only stand up for the equality of socialism when there are no bodies to feed. I bet my life that you’d be defending Dennis if he had gotten that Libertas transplant a few days earlier than he did.”

  She rested her head on interlocked fingers, looking at Sabrina’s flawed eyes with her own perfect ones. Or was it the other way around?

  No one spoke for what seemed like an Organic lifetime.

  “Miss Lockhart, it is your conviction in the power of the individual to change the world that I find simultaneously your most respectable and most stupid belief. As an individual, you demonstrated admirable valor and a willingness to do the not-so-pleasant necessities of life, in order that you would do your community good. Yet you may excuse me when I say your political power is no greater than any other citizen’s, and your delusion to the contrary does not accord with the sad reality.”

  Condescending as usual.

  “That said, I have considered what you have said in this meeting, and I think everyone at this table would agree that we have learned something from you. Not just your words, but the actions that have permitted this conversation to take place at all.” She turned her head both ways, not seeming to actually look for approval in the others’ faces, but as if she knew they concurred.

  “So, yes, I would expect nothing less from my fellow servants of the people than honesty about our role in recent military secrecy – beneficial as it turned out to be in hindsight,” she added wryly. “With hope, the events of this past week will put international relations in perspective. Moreover, I am always ready to encourage dialogue on the ethics of robotic society.

  “But for now, I suggest we find an alternative to the ‘normal’ way of reviving all Dethroned persons.” Even those who may very well be out to create the Singularity, her look seemed to append.

  “What about Dennis?”

  The governess smirked. “I have never heard of the man.”