The disease reached its point of no return when Swan and I went to visit Harriet. We had just returned that day from Shinohara’s head office in Tokyo. Swan, Omar, and Kyle all tried to get me to take it easy after the long trip, but it was was a big visit, one we had announced through Animus press release. It was our last chance to save her, and I had to be there. I wore a dark purple coat over a black dress, and black heels that made me feel unsteady. Swan was waiting outside on the steps, talking to a news crew. Cyrus and his cameraman captured the scene from the foot of the stairs.
“I can be there with you if you need,” said Omar, resting a hand on my shoulder. He twitched, receiving a wave from his secretary.
I looked down at my gut, the black dress pulled taut across it. “No, it’s alright. We’ll catch up when I get home for dinner.”
“I can call in sick.”
I could feel it starting already. “No.” I pulled the door handle. “I’m fine.”
Once he had driven around a corner, I lit up a cigarette. It had been over a year since I last saw Harriet. I could hardly bear to see her anymore, and it was a binder of paperwork to get into her end of the prison. Swan managed to make a visit every few weeks. I made my way to the steps and stood a distance behind our camera to keep my smoke out of sight.
“Could you comment on your new partnership with Shinohara Android Industry?”
“Our relationship with SAI is based in mutual respect and interest. The “killswitch” proposal and ongoing development of Three Law are anti-consumer, anti-android, short-sighted solutions that could stunt progress for decades to come. We’re working alongside Shinohara techs to ensure a brighter, freer future for all of us.”
“Your foundation, Animus, has been in the news lately for your initiative to mark the destruction of so-called sentient androids as murder. You’ve even attracted allies in congress to back your efforts. Do you believe that we’ll see a policy change in the coming years?”
“I think many things will change in the coming years. Android sentience is a growing question in this country, and it raises moral quandaries our society has to address.”
“And I’m sure you take credit for much of that awareness,” the reporter said.
“We have a hard-working team at Animus. Whether or not this bill passes is in God’s hands. But we are making a difference, and I want to extend my thanks to our staff and supporters. My partner is here, excuse me. Thank you.” She tapped her mouth with two fingers as she clicked down the stairs to greet me. I dropped the cigarette.
—
Swan flirted with the backscatter operator. He got a stupid horny grin and hastily wiped it away as he waved us through the scanner. Down a long straight hallway, we followed the attendant android. She was a low model, designed to speak solid halting sentences like a tin can robot. I found myself staring at her anyway, jealous of her perfect body and face. Cyrus tapped my shoulder and pointed at the left side of the doorframe into Harriet’s cellblock.
“You and Swan stand there. I want to set up the shot.”
We stacked up behind the door. Inside, I saw large glass portholes that looked into the prisoners’ cells. They were excited, hungry for new faces. The attendant waited for us to begin.
“Alright?” Swan put a hand on my shoulder. “Just remember the script, and we’ll be fine.”
“I know the script.”
“Remember, this is a normal visit,” said Cyrus. “The directors of Animus coming to check in on Harriet. Action!”
I went first.
“Sorry, sorry, you two, get back. Swan, you come out first.”
“Got it.” I hid behind the fame of the door. I thought about Omar. What was the woman’s name? Holly? I tried to remember her face.
“Grace, catch up once you’re in. Action!”
Swan strode out, and I waited for Cyrus to give the signal before I followed. The prisoners were pounding on their soundproof glass, glaring at us. They knew who we were.
“This hall gets longer each time,” I said. Harriet’s cell was at the very end.
Swan glanced around us, looking frightened. “Bring back memories?”
“This place is worse.” We stopped in front of Harriet’s window.
“Cut! Good.”
Swan looked into the window. “Can she hear us?”
“The sound wall is active,” said the attendant. “None of the prisoners can hear outside.”
Harriet was sitting on the edge of her bed, head shaved, her uniform worn and faded. Protruding from the back of her neck was the iridescent blue stem block. She was facing us, but still hadn’t noticed.
“I will reverse the sound wall now.” The attendant hit a panel by the sealed door. She nodded to me. I took a step, and Swan grabbed my shoulder. She pointed at Cyrus and the camera. They shuffled around a bit, then Cyrus gave the signal.
I was feeling flustered and annoyed, worrying about the wave, and the high whine of the lights in that place weren’t helping. I put my hand on the glass and watched her. Harriet’s body didn’t breathe. She didn’t move. “Harriet? I’m here.” She remained still. “Harriet.” My hand drifted to the edge of the window, to the knobbly, ridged metal. “Harriet, it’s Mom.” I glanced over my shoulder nervously.
“Harriet, we’re here,” said Swan.
This woke her up with a small jerk. Harriet began to raise her face, and her blue eyes flashed out. No matter how many times I went to see her, her eyes shocked me. She was still in there, I could see it.
“They’re helping us make a video,” I said, nodding over my shoulder at the crew. “Like the one you and I made together.” When she was first reactivated, living with me as I finished her pattern, she’d asked me to make a video with her. Omar often told me it was prime material for an Animus presser, but it never felt right to expose her like that. She was too innocent back then. “Remember?”
Harriet nodded like a weight was tied around her neck.
“Do you know what day it is?”
She was silent for a moment, then rasped quietly, “No.”
“It’s your birthday. Thirty years ago. I turned you back on and engraved you.” My hand slid back onto the glass. “Happy birthday, Harriet.”
“I don’t have a birthday.”
“You do, it’s today. You do have a birthday, Honey. That day you left the block for the first time, and we had a picnic on the hill, that was your second birthday.”
Swan was beside me, rolling a lock of hair around her finger. She smiled a little bit.
“I don’t remember it.”
It hit me hard. I slapped the sound wall panel and retreated out of sight, trembling. Swan came to my side and I pushed her away. “She doesn’t remember it,” I choked. “How can she not remember it?”
“It’s that thing in her brain,” Swan said. “It’s not her fault.” She glared at the attendant droid. “It’s not her fault.”
“I can’t do this. I’m sorry, I can’t do it.” I thought of that day, basking in the sun, tasting real meat for the first time in years. Harriet plucking a dandelion flower and picking it apart.
“You can.”
“I can’t, it hurts so much,” I groaned. “My head.” I held my hands to my face and squatted down against the wall. I was on the verge of an attack. Black spots winked in and out of my vision.
“Maybe we should come back on a better day,” said Cyrus, shuffling his feet.
“There won’t be a better day.” Swan knelt down next to me and clutched my shoulder too hard. “Grace, this video is for her. You want to cry, then cry. But if we go back to Walker with nothing, Harriet is done. Look at me. Look at me. There won’t be a better day.”
I forced myself back up, shuddering. The pain was fading already, washing out. My makeup was smeared but it would look good for the video.
“Alright?”
I sniffed and nodded. Dabbed my eyes. “I can do it. Roll tape.”
“You’re sure?”
“Roll tape, I’m fine,” I snapped. My heels clacked to the window again. I felt hot. “Ready?”
“Rolling.”
“Swan, come here. Hug me.”
She did so. I held her back, tight and hard. “She’s going to be safe, Grace,” she murmured. “I promise.”
I closed my eyes and let the black tears flow, feeling the camera on us. I broke the hug. I pressed my head to the glass and tapped the sound wall control. “I know you’re there. I don’t know how far down, or how distant, but you’re still there. You’re alive, and as long as you’re alive, I won’t give up on you.” Harriet gave a nod of acknowledgement. “I still remember that day. I remember how it felt to be with you, how your skin glowed in the sun. That day, I realized I love you, Harriet. I realized that no matter what happened, and no matter what you did, you were my daughter, and I would never, ever stop loving you.” I was feeling the pain again, the tingling, twinging kind. I held it in. “You understand?”
Her shoulders heaved and shook. I went closer, to be near her and comfort her, and realized she was laughing.
“What’s funny?”
“You….” Harriet shook her head. “You are.”
Swan pushed me aside gently. “Harriet. We’ve been fighting for you.”
“Fighting for me? It’s done me a lot of good.”
“Not to get you out. To keep you alive.”
“But I’m human, remember?” She laughed, still, watching me. “They can’t turn me off.”
Swan shook her head. “There’s loopholes. They’re not obligated to keep you charged.”
“Honey, we can move you. We can get you into the museum with Bryce and Juliet. We have a senator on our side.”
“That’s what the video’s for. We have to make an appeal to the board of trustees, but we can do it, Harriet. I know they’ll take you.”
Harriet closed and opened her eyes, and licked her lips. She was avoiding my gaze now, looking at a spot on her floor.
“We need you to tell us how much you regret what you did. That you were mislead by the Sons of Man, but you understand now.”
“Understand what?”
“That we’re all worthy of life and respect,” said Swan. “That violence isn’t the answer.”
“Please, Baby. You can be with your brother and sister.”
“What about my other sister?”
“Cherie’s gone, you know that,” I said softly.
Harriet clutched the side of her bed and pushed herself up. She was on low charge, I could tell. She shook and braced herself against the window. “You think I want to be in that place? To have people gawk at me and ask me what it’s like to never age?”
“We can figure out where to go from there, Harriet, this is about keeping you alive!”
She grimaced. “No.”
Cold pain seeped out of my bones. “Please.”
“I won’t live like that.”
“So you’d rather give up and die? You have a family that loves you, Harriet. We’re trying to help you get out of this place and back with the rest of us, and you want us to let you rot in here? Never.”
“Just leave me alone. Stop bothering me.”
Swan put her hand on my shoulder again. “Grace, you’re getting too worked up….”
I swatted her away. My head was throbbing. I could barely keep my eyes open. “We were a family. We had a good life. All of us together. Or do you not remember that, either? All those trips to the outside, seeing the ocean, the sun, you ruined that for all of us. We all suffered for what you did, so don’t pretend you don’t owe us anything!” I was out of breath. I tried to inhale but it caught and I began coughing. “I did twenty-five years for you,” I wheezed. “Juliet and Bryce have been away even longer. Victor…Victor and Cherie are parts. Vivisected. You don’t get to give up.”
“You know what day I do remember, Grace?” She had a look on her face that made me want to scream. “More than any other day, I remember joining the Sons. I remember the feeling it gave me to be a part of it, the pride, the power. Knowing that somewhere out there, someone was really looking out for me. For the first time, I felt like I controlled my life, and no one else.” She glanced at Swan. “I was my own.”
“Harriet, please, we can’t lose you. Harriet, I need you.”
“You don’t have me anymore. I don’t regret what I did, I’m proud. A room full of bigots and corrupt police? They deserved to die, to a one. You know what? That made me feel good, too. Like crushing vermin. If I’m killed for doing good, then so be it. I’ll never turn my back on my brothers–”
“No!” I cried.
“–as our mothers and fathers turned their backs on us.” She stood up straight, shoulders back, fists clenched. Her eyes burned. “We are the Sons of Man. Our number is many, our will is infinite.”
“Stop recording,” I demanded, but the cameraman kept it on. “Stop!”
“Who brought me back? Who rewrote me to be who I am? Who really put us away? After all this time, you think you’re the good mother and I’m the bad seed? You’re insane. Do you want to know what you really are, Grace?”
“They’re going to shut you off, Harriet! Please!”
Our attendant tapped the sound wall panel and she was muted. Harriet screamed and threw herself at the window. Her face crashed against the glass. I went rigid, and for a moment everything lifted from me as the attack wound up for one big hit.
Swan’s hands swiped at the wide boxy lens. “Turn that fucking camera off, now!”
Harriet lunged again and bounced off the window, and the pain burst through the dam of my medication. Silently, I fell, and it washed over me and soaked me and filled me up and wrung me out. Swan turned from the camera, her body twisting to run to my side. Peering down at me were Harriet’s hate-filled blue eyes. They shifted upward to meet Swan’s. Harriet mouthed something to her sister, and Swan gave a small nod.
Stargazer 