The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl

  As they left, Other Helen gave her an apologetic backward glance. We'll be back soon, she heard in her mind. It infuriated her, but it was also really, really cool. Then they were gone, and she was alone, and not quite sure what to do with herself.

  She sat. She fumed. She stood up. She cuddled with the rats. She taught them how to do a human pyramid. She toyed with the idea of altering their vocal cords so that the rat at the top could stand on its hind legs and say "Ta-daaaa!" When she couldn't distract herself any further, and the rats had gotten bored and wandered off, she gave herself over to delicious, self-destructive revenge fantasies. Spilling the news of the affair all over the Grid. Finding a shovel and using Other Helen as a piñata. Getting "A Horse With No Name" stuck in her treacherous head. No, too cruel.

  She checked her feeds and saw a new message from Vincent. She felt her heart leap.

  "And in that moment," she murmured to herself, "the student was enlightened."

  /*****/

  Helen lay in the grass with her head in William's lap, holding his hand, at peace with herself in a way that she hadn't felt since the affair began. William hadn't stormed off, or called her any of the horrible things she had thought he was entitled to call her, or even raised his voice. Instead, he had held her, and made her feel safe, asked the hard questions, but in a way that let her know he was really listening to the answers. He heard her, even when her words tore at his ego.

  "Why are you being like this?" Helen asked him.

  "Like what?"

  "So understanding."

  "Because I love you, silly girl." She pinched him. "Oh, and also a healthy dose of fear. When I wanted to walk away, I was afraid of losing you, so I stayed. When I thought of something really vile to say, the thought of what it would do to us kept me from saying it."

  "You wanted to say vile things?" she asked, looking up at him.

  "Sometimes. That wasn't an easy conversation we just had. I'm exhausted."

  "You know, it's not healthy to bottle things up like that."

  William shrugged. "You could call it 'bottling,' I guess. I prefer to think of it as 'averaging my emotions over time.' In three months, how am I going to feel about this? Less angry, more at peace, maybe. Still hopelessly in love with you, I have no doubt. So I say, 'hey, me-from-three-months from now, can I borrow some of that?'"

  She thought about that for a while. "So, three months from now, when you come out of the blue and call me a robo-whore, I know why?"

  "I hope that's not how it works."

  She nuzzled into him. "The Universe strives for balance."

  "You love someone else. That's not easy for me to accept. But you love me, and that's what I'm going to hold to."

  She kissed him. "Thank you," she whispered.

  William pointed off into the distance. Helen looked and saw Other Helen coming over the hill. She sat up, still leaning into William. Other Helen had that strange glide-walk that alt'ers used when they wanted to cover lots of ground; she seemed to be skating over the surface of the grass. In seconds, she stopped in front of them.

  "You two seem all non-violent. Good talk?"

  "Good talk," William said, smiling at her.

  "I'll find out soon enough, I suppose. I've come to my senses, and I wish to proceed with the merging post-haste. Also, you're gonna what the rats can do now."

  Helen gave a squeal of delight.

  "So," Other Helen asked. "How does the merging work?"

  "Well, um." Helen blushed a bit. "Do you remember back when we were ten? What you thought you would do if you ever met your clone?"

  Other Helen was confused. "You mean, hide in a closet until the scary thing went away?"

  "No, that was more like when we were seven. I don't think we understood cloning properly then."

  "So I have to... and you didn't think to consult me on this?"

  "My god, am I really this big a control freak?" Helen asked William.

  William rubbed his temple. "Somebody fill me in."

  Other Helen said, "I always thought I would want to try kissing myself full on the lips, like they do in movies. That's the action trigger you chose?"

  Helen nodded. "We've always kind of thought of kissing as two people trying their best to become one," she explained to William. "We can forgo it if you like," she said to Other Helen.

  "Do I get a vote in this," William asked, a little too innocently. They ignored him.

  "All right," Other Helen said. "But this is my first time, and damn it, you'd better make me feel special!"

  Helen stood up and closed the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around her twin's torso. "Don't you dare flinch," she said, then leaned in. Their lips met, their mouths explored, hesitantly at first, then with more force. This is way different than kissing a guy, Helen thought, before she disappeared in a cloud of light.

  One Helen disappeared, the other crumpled to the ground unconscious. A progress bar appeared, tattooed on her forehead.

  ///////////////

  // NEXT MOVE //

  ///////////////

  Date: February 05, 2037

  Four Helens were scattered around the house. Helen the First -- designated by task priority -- was lying on the couch, trying to stay abreast of nanotechnology research. Helen the Second was at the desk, writing up yet another NSF grant application. Helen the Third was swinging from a hammock, answering fan mail. Helen the Fourth -- whom they affectionately called Short Straw -- was playing with the rats. The doorbell rang.

  "Short Straw!" three Helens called out. The designation signified that it was her job to keep distractions from intruding on the others.

  "Yeah, yeah." She thought about getting up, then decided to send one of the rats -- Imp1 -- to check it out. It took about twenty seconds to create a mind link between them, during which time Short Straw had to ignore the impatient calls of "Are you going to get that?" The link let Helen tap into the rat's senses without losing the sense of her own surroundings. It was a vertigo-inducing sensation: a much stronger version of the emotional bleed-over that the Helens used to get from each other. She could also coax her rat into going places, and even take control of its vocal cords when someone warranted a tiny, high-pitched chewing out.

  Imp ran out the rat door and straight into a foot. Imp scurried up onto a ledge to face the intruder. "Who goes there?" Helen squeaked, and got petted for her efforts.

  "It is Kriti. Would you request Helen to let me in?" The door opened, and she stepped inside.

  Short Straw could see that she had been crying. "What ha-"

  "Our funding is gone! Your foolish president striked us from the bill before he signed it, no explanation."

  The Helens all stopped what they were doing and gathered around her. This was terrible news. Over the last month, they had already lost three major corporate sponsors, with little explanation. So the money in the tech bill had become very important to them.

  Second Helen spoke first. "Kriti, it's okay. We can fight this, and even if we lose, losing the extra funding isn't going to kill us."

  Kriti looked at her in horror. "You cannot understand. It is not merely the increase that has been taken. Our whole grant is terminated! Everything is gone!"

  The Helens looked back and forth at each other, not knowing what to say. The federal money was nearly half of the lab's remaining budget. Without it, the lab would have to make some very hard choices. Choices like "Turn off Helen, or fire the rest of the lab."

  Even with four of her voting, she couldn't imagine winning that one.

  Eventually, Third Helen spoke. "God damn the line item veto."

  Second Helen fumed. "What the hell could he be thinking?"

  "That he's shutting down The Altworld Antichrist before she can gather her armies." The others looked at Helen the First, dumbfounded. "The Grid said it, not me."

  Prez just axed our funding, said Helen's feed. I do the dance of sad.

  "Short Straw, would you please clear those with the rest o
f us before you post them?"

  "Why? What would you have written?"

  Hey, Grid. Ol' buddy, ol' pal. Can I borrow $53M? I'm totally good for it, the feed chimed in again.

  "Seriously, knock that off!"

  "Ladies," Kriti pleaded. "Now is not time for the fighting! Use your big, tangled brain and think of something!"

  Short Straw started delegating tasks, and the others went along with it because they made sense. Helen the First took the rats out hunting for information that might shed light on the decision. Second went hunting for the Vice President, armed only with her feminine wiles and a laundry list of difficult questions, including "What the hell?" and "No, really, what the hell?" Third started brainstorming for other funding ideas. Short Straw took on the most challenging task: keeping Kriti from telling the Grid what she thought of this new turn of events. Her rants, full of passion and problematic grammar, had given the lab headaches in the past.

  "Kriti, what are you doing?" she asked.

  "Nothing," Kriti said.

  "Because if you happened to be writing, say, a threatening letter to a certain highly important government official, that might cause us problems that we really don't want right now."

  She looked embarrassed, and stared at the ground for a moment. Finally she said, "I will not make threats."

  "Stay cool," Helen admonished. "Lashing out won't fix anything. Just relax for a few hours. We'll gather some information and see what shakes out. Everything will be fine, I promise."

  Kriti looked doubtful. Suddenly, her eyes went wide. "Something important has been written. Look to your thought thing."

  "Thought thing?" Helen wondered. She looked at her microblog. $53M? Sure, someone had replied. Meet me at the Sigil of the Feral Labradoodle.

  "That's nothing, Kriti. It's just somebody messing with us."

  "You do not know!"

  "You're right. It could be a wealthy Nigerian prince who needs to marry an American woman to inherit the family fortune."

  Kriti missed the sarcasm. Her eyes were wide and full of hope. "True! Strange things happen. You must go to this meeting."

  How can I say no to that face? Helen wondered. "If you promise to sit right here until I get back, and to send no angry communications of any form, then I will go find the person who sent this. Can you do that?"

  Kriti nodded with enthusiasm. Helen departed without enthusiasm.

  /*****/

  The rain was falling hard onto the city, pooling on the sidewalks and sloshing down into the gutters. Occasionally, lightning would strike the street, pool there for a second, then rise up into a bellowing electricity monster that passers-by would try to hunt and kill.

  The Labradoodle hadn't been hard to find. A quick search revealed it to be a hangout in the newbie zone of a Roaring Twenties urban fantasy alt called Burning Lights. It was public access, with a one month free trial. Not exactly the type of place that bespoke serious people making serious deals. Quite the contrary, it seemed to scream "fanboy lies to meet celebrity."

  She formulated a plan. First, obliterate his ego. Second, crush his hopes and dreams. No, wait. Back up. Put a screwdriver or two on his tab, then ego, then dreams.

  The door was so heavy, Short Straw had to put her shoulder into it to get it open. She stepped inside, shaking off the rain. The bar was a poorly lit, seedy affair. The patrons at their various tables appraised her with suspicion before returning to their conversations. A small sign advertised rooms by the hour, and another offered surprisingly expensive lemonade.

  The bartender was a huge, beefy man with two days of stubble and a vivid scar down the left side of his face. The eye patch was a nice touch. He looked at her disapprovingly, and motioned her over.

  "You're out of character," he whispered as she took a seat. "Try one of these." A small display lit up, offering a selection of Roaring Twenties outfits. "I recommend one of the flapper outfits. You look like you might have the gams to pull it off."

  She chose one of the cream colored evening gowns, almost at random, and a hat with a big peacock feather sticking out the top. "Thanks," she said, a bit weakly.

  "Little bit of advice, dame. Don't ever accept a favor around here without asking, 'How much?' There's grifters here who will nab your dough before you can blink. Want some hooch?" he asked.

  "Umm, how much?"

  "That's better. On the house," he replied, sliding a glass toward her. "Also, don't eat or drink anything without scoping it for hidden effects. That'll be more important outside the newbie zone."

  "Not looking to play. I'm just here because some swell offered to give me some dough."

  The bartender scowled. "Look, lady. My place is on the up-and-up. You two can toss back a few drinks here, but whatever he's paying for, I don't want it happening in one of my rooms. I get enough harassment from the bulls as it is."

  Helen's brain facepalmed itself. "No, no. This is strictly a business meeting. He so much as gooses me, I'll pop him in the kisser."

  The man nodded, muttered something complimentary about her lingo, then slid some brass knuckles across the bar. "Also on the house. Good weapon for a young'un."

  Helen smiled. "I like you. Are you real?"

  "What is real? How do you define real?" he asked. "I have a meatspace body, but it's dead to me. My life is in Altworld now." Someone behind her had become increasingly loud and obnoxious. "Hold on, I have to provide some customer service." The bartender grabbed a machine gun from behind the counter, then jumped over it.

  The guy started running for the door. The gun came alive with a deafening sprtttttt, and the man fell to the ground, where he lay groaning. The bartender fired a dozen more rounds into him, then attached some sort of marker to the body. "Three hour ban," the barkeep said, then watched with satisfaction as the corpse disappeared.

  "The Sigil has one rule, and one rule only," the bartender explained as he walked back to her. "Show your waitress some goddamned respect."

  "And follow the dress code," Helen added. "And no hookers in your rooms."

  "Yeah, but those aren't the rules that make me whip out Tommy here," he pointed out, sliding the machine gun back under the counter. "Any sign of your mark? Maybe he took one look at you, got the heebie-jeebies, and flew the coop."

  "You think it was the gams that scared him off?"

  "Or maybe he recognized you from the news feeds. You're that resurrected super-genius zombie girl, right? Haley Whatshername."

  "Helen Whatshername. Anyhow, lots of people wear this body. Why would you assume I'm actually her?"

  "I'm a sysop on this server, so I can actually see everyone's credentials. Plus, I was expecting her to come. If you're not her, it's an odd coincidence."

  Helen had unwittingly found the target of her wrath. "You're the one, then. So, do you have my fifty-three million dollars?"

  "Not exactly."

  "I knew it," she said, standing up. "Just another idiot fanboy who--"

  "Hold up, doll! Before you go off on me, could you scope my credentials?" He pulled a wallet from his rear pocket and held it out to her. Helen leaned in to examine it. The name said Eric Altanos, and the crypto marked it as legitimate.

  "As in, son of the Peter and Elaina Altanos who wrote the AltWorld federated world protocols? Who built AltWorld from a tiny server farm in Philadelphia into a globe-spanning goofoffpolis?"

  "They hate it when people call it that. I mean, it's accurate, but the -fp sound doesn't roll off the tongue. But yeah, I'm me."

  Helen retrieved the information in an eyeblink. Their son was fifteen, and a genius in his own right. He had a rare, degenerative neurological disorder that had eventually left him unable to move, or even breathe unassisted.

  Thirty years ago, he would have been dead. Ten years ago, he would be wasting away as a permanent resident of some intensive care unit. But here he was, building and running a well-regarded virtual world, then slinging drinks in it. Judging by the way the waitresses were dressed, he was having mo
re fun than any fifteen year old ought to.

  "Not impressed," she finally said. "Okay, maybe a little. But you asked me here under false pretenses."

  "I did not!"

  She grabbed him by his collar and half pulled him across the bar. When his forehead knocked against hers she half shouted, "Then give me my fifty-three million dollars!"

  He busted out laughing. "Aw, Roderick. I knew you must be a little crazy. That's why I'm going to help you."

  "Explain," she said, releasing his collar.

  He smoothed his shirt. "Until I got your Sentience rigging installed, what I was doing could hardly be called living. It was like looking out at the world through a big window. AltWorld had its charms, and I had some fun designing this place. But when I got your rig? When I could see and feel and touch and lick everything? It was a revelation! Like I'd only seen the world in black and white before."

  "Here, my body is whole. I can go anywhere, do anything, experience anything, and it's all real!"

  "No it isn't," Helen said.

  "Feh. Semantics." A customer came up to the bar. "Come around the bar and help yourself. I'm busy. So anyways," he continued, "With you losing your government funding and your corporate contracts, you need money. After what you did for me, I hate to imagine you hauling buffalo wings around some strip joint to make ends meet."

  "You can convince your parents to give us some?"

  Without breaking eye contact, Eric pulled a revolver and fired a single shot into the customer's head. "I meant help yourself to the drinks, not the till. No, my parents aren't about to cross El Presidente. But I will."

  "This world you're standing in, it's all mine. I built it, I own it, I generate nearly a hundred kay a month in revenue from it, with only twenty thousand paying subscribers. That's small for an alt, but I figure that makes it worth about twenty million, soaking wet. I've had a few offers for significantly more, but I didn't want the place to lose that niche alt charm."

  "So I can get you some money, if you're willing to deal. I even have a buyer in mind. He's a friend of mine, a real gambler, and a big fan of The Helen. He might be willing to up his offer, if we cut him in on your next big idea."