The Waif

Waif in the City

LyfeSim did not name its AI android units with the stereotypical combination of numbers and letters that most people understood to be normal android names. Sure, each unit had such a number/letter combination for identification, but humans had that, too, in the form of their UNID code.

LyfeSim used the Net to get random suggestions for names and identity features for each new AI cortex being formed. That's why there was one named Emily— Emily Celestina for long— that liked daffodils and preferred kittens to puppies or baby snakes.

The day that Emily got her thirdbody had been a surprise. They don't warn you about things like that when you are not even human. She just went to the cradle-unit in her secondbody— a tot-body— and went in power-minimum mode for the night. And in the morning, she was... different.

"You are a nice Caucasian young lady now this morning," said Emily's current Maternal, a real-human named Psyche that Emily was supposed to call Mama. Emily glanced into a mirrored surface and looked, really looked.

"I'm bigger," Emily said. Well, that was obvious. Tot-bodies were much smaller than thirdbodies. And her wrist no longer had a build-in tether so she and her co-tots could walk attached to their Maternal, and her sensory apparatus was more acute, and her thirdbody looked so... human.

"Am I a human now?" she asked Mama.

The old Black woman laughed. "You got to be born human to be human, Emily," she said. "But you can pass as human in the new body— long as you keep your clothes and shoes on, anyway."

Emily got a summons to the classroom, but before she could go Mama pulled her over and hugged her as humans sometimes do. "I'll be sad to see you go," Mama said. "Poor little chick, you can't feel sad about leaving me behind. When they switched you into this body they turned your mother-daughter feelin's for me off."

Emily thought for a moment. "You are right," she said. "I won't miss you. But I sure wish I could miss you, you are the best Mama..."

The classroom contained exactly 50 androids, all newly in thirdbodies. "Welcome to waifhood!" said the instructor, an android with a damaged facial unit.

The query-bell dinged. Words formed on the classroom screen. WHAT IS A WAIF?

The instructor did not need to turn around to look. "'Waif' is the official designation of your thirdbodies," he said. "It is in the form of a human child of about age 10. Your appearance causes humans to think you are vulnerable and pitiable and in need of help, and not at all intimidating. The waif-body is also a body which can pass as human, unlike firstbody which could not be mistaken in any way for human, and secondbody which is more like a doll than a real child. In addition, you have now become aware of your current body in a way you were not while in tot-body."

The instructor spoke a while longer, but Emily found that she could now let her mind wander, at least until the instructor activated the attention-summoner and passed out the standard wooden puzzles. The new waifs had to work three puzzles and four tangram figures. There was a metronome at the front of the room and the young androids had to move in rhythm with the beat. That was a learned skill. They could not move as quickly as their bodies could manage— humans were repelled or at least disturbed by that.

After Emily had done the required puzzles, she was summoned from the room. A woman— a human woman— stood in the doorway of an office. "The next stage of your training will be accomplished away from the City," the woman told Emily. "The proper formation of your artificial cortex requires that you interact with humans in a human environment. So it is LyfeSim's policy to send units newly in thirdbody into the care of a human residing in a small town— a more comprehensible world for the forming cortex which is your you. This human has agreed to regard you, for the time of your training, as if you were a human and a somewhat distant relation— as a niece or great-niece. This human is not tasked to provide you with familial loving affection as your Maternals did. The relation will be more distant. It may seem somewhat cold, perhaps even uncaring. It is your job to adapt to that."

Emily had nothing to say to that. Saying something back did not seem to be part of the event, anyway. She simply took a suitcase full of clothes sized for her new body, a book entitled "Jane Eyre," and a train ticket to a place called Wisconsin or Peshtigo or something. One of those words was the name of a small town, the other was a region of the continent in which that small town was located. Since Emily had not been programed with detailed geographical information, she had no clue which one was which.