Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 29

There are people in this world who will disregard justice, seeing it as an anachronism to classical liberal independence where a man's fate is determined by their character, and who entrust no empathy to those not in their tribe, strangers in their own land, and who sense the scale of injustices as too large a burden to overcome, the opponent -- an individual, an institution, society -- too powerful. Libbi was not these people.

She waited for a response. Would have held her breath if she had one. This was it, she'd finally learn the truth about who she was, and maybe a clue as to how she became stuck inside this constricting carapace.

Emma screwed her face up. Then turned to her mum. "Did you set this up? Is this meant to somehow make me feel better?!"

The older woman put her hands up in surrender, shaking her head.

"Well who else?" said Emma. "You're the one who works for a selfiebot company."

"This is a House of Paschar model. B-ware. Premium. We don't have anything like that at Film Me Bots Bulk Direct."

"But you know people," said Emma. "You're in the business."

They weren't listening. But she could convince them. She had the experience, she could sense it, like that scant memory of the playground, of the other school children. She convinced them then and she'll convince her cousin now.

"Listen," said Libbi. "It's really me. I can't explain it, I...I still don't know exactly what happened. But you're Emma, right? My cousin."

"Is this some sick joke?" said Emma. "A new selfiebot that parrots anything it hears?"

Will stared around the room with a modicum of interest. "Do you ever feel like you're being watched?" he said, clearly not party to the conversation.

"Please, just give me a chance," said Libbi.

But Emma was already on her feet.

Libbi began to follow but stopped and rotated on the spot. "You need to come with me, Will. We need to convince them. This is our chance. Hurry."

But Will wasn't. Hurrying, that is. He had his own news.

"They've given me free <trademarked burgers>!" he said. "Just because they burnt my set-trigger-back-on-firearm. Isn't that nice of them?"

Libbi was giving him her best puppy dog face, which bore a striking similarity to the standard selfiebot expression. But it must have been enough because, with exaggerated effort and a sigh heard in space, Will scrambled to his feet and ambled toward the exit.

Libbi waited there impatiently, frustrated at not possessing the kind of body that could open a door, even an automatic one like this. She needed her independence. "They're getting away," she said.

Will finally arrived. His presence was enough to swing open the door, which knocked an object off the ground, sending it skidding away. But Libbi didn't pay it any attention, her eye squarely on Emma.

"All I had to do was sign something to say I wouldn't sue," said Will, his mind still back in the restaurant, "and they gave me a year's supply!"

Libbi floated out in front of Emma. "We grew up in the same neighbourhood," she said. "Didn't we? I remember you following me around in the back yard when we were kids. You were younger, and...I don't know, that's all there is."

"I mean it," said Emma, shooing at the annoyance, "get away from me."

Libbi swiftly dodged the arm swings. She was getting good at escape manoeuvres after recent events.

"I know more," she said. "I just can't access it yet. Can you tell me anything else you know about me?" A dodge "The more I learn--" A dodge "--the more I remember."

"So your trick is cold reading?" said Emma. "If you were really Libbi, you'd know she taught me not to fall for that, especially after she did that investigation into-- Ugh, why am I even talking to you?"

"Investigation?" said Libbi. "What do you-- Tell me more!"

"No," said Emma.

"I think that's enough," said her mother. "You need to stop harassing us."

They were right, this wasn't the way to get information out of people. She stopped her chase but called out in hope. "Can you at least tell me my surname?"

They hurried away, giving her no more attention than a used tissue at the bottom of a bin. She was getting used to it.

She set down on the bonnet of a parked car. A few tiny figurative suitcases floated by and she snatched at them, scattered memories of when she was a child, a teenager, a young woman, but none concrete enough to determine locations or dates, or other distinguishing characteristics. It was as if her own mind was conspiring against her. The most striking memory was a single image, a freeze-frame of Emma's worried eyes looking up at her, a concern that touched Libbi's heart. As soon as she tried to focus more on the memory others forced their way in, the black room from earlier, the reflected torch light.

These memories couldn't be made up. They were too real. But it was more than that. She was a rational consciousness at heart, and it just didn't make sense to impart a selfiebot with memories of being a human. Particularly if you were intending to send it off to some random customer.

She studied Will. Make that a below-average customer. Certainly not one wittingly involved in some kind of ground-breaking experiment or secret research. But she needed him, his human body, and at times just his presence alone to lend credence to her own investigation.

"Will?" she said.

She had to be real. And now her own cousin didn't want anything to do with her. It hurt. And it wasn't right. It was a kind of injustice, one that needed to be corrected.

"Will?"

He was gone. Not slouched against the shop window, not lying on the footpath, simply missing.

The electricity flowing through her circuits sped up. Where could he be? It didn't make sense. They were connected. She'd be feeling pain right now if he was--

He coughed. Or someone did. She bent down and found him pressed low against the car.

"Get down!" he hissed. "And stop looking at me."

Was he embarrassed? She hadn't known him to be self-conscious in any respect so far. At all. In the slightest. Some might even call him astoundingly unabashed. She had the sense she'd dealt with people like him before.

"She'll see us," he whispered.

"Who?"

"That woman. The purple and yellow one."

She quickly worked out that he meant the same evil person who kidnapped her at House of Paschar. That was enough for her to drop to the ground faster than a black man at a traffic stop.

"Where?" she said. Another one of those important questions.

Will scrunched his face up and made a barely perceptible sound. Which meant close by, I suppose.

"But how did she know where we were?" said Libbi, rising enough to peek through the car windows, before ducking again at a flash of gold. "I thinks she saw me!"