Human Sister (11 page)

What he seemed not to have known was that I had often fantasized about having a brother who would live with me, and run and play and study with me. I wanted to help First Brother acquire a richer emotional life, to skip and laugh and recognize faces in clouds; but he lived with Mom and Dad, and he didn’t care much for play, not with me, at any rate.

When I detected a break in Grandpa’s train of thought, I exclaimed, “I want his name to be Michael! Not Third Brother—Michael!”

“Michael? Are you paying attention to what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” I answered guiltily, for my mind had been timesharing between his words and my fantasies. “Tell me what my new brother will be like.”

Grandpa proceeded to explain that because few self-generating, non-biologic materials were available, my new brother would begin life adult size. However, like human babies, my new brother’s ability to interact with the world would develop primarily through his experiences of his body and his relations with his primary caregiver—me.

Grandpa said that if the project were to go forward, it would involve extracting a few neurons and other cells from various locations in my brain—if I didn’t mind, of course—reprogramming those cells, and then placing them in a gestation chamber, where for ten months they would reproduce, differentiate, and connect with each other and with organic nanoneuralnets. During the same operation, cells from my liver, kidneys, thymus, bone marrow, and other organs would also be extracted; and through a process similar to that used for the brain cells, those extracted cells would develop into functioning organs of a biologic system necessary to support the biologic parts of the integrated brain.

Unlike First Brother, my new brother would need to go to the bathroom; he would even cry salty tears, just like mine!

And then came the disclosure of what I now believe was the core reason for my involvement: Michael and I could more directly be a part of each other, Grandpa said, if interconnections between our brains were made through implants to my cribriform plate, which, he explained, was a good place for such a junction because it was hidden and was easily accessible through my nostrils. The implants would be constructed from my cells and would be nourished and repaired as if they were a natural part of me, thereby making the junctions all the more difficult to detect—possibly an important feature, depending on future political developments.

“What would the connection be for?” I asked.

“After some practice with the braincord, it should be possible for you and Michael to enter each other’s thoughts and to control each other’s arms, hands, and other motor functions.”

Though I don’t remember being concerned about the extraction of cells, I reacted strongly to this braincord suggestion. Someone’s controlling my body had not been part of my fantasy of having a new brother. Images of some of my own intimate interactions with my body flashed through my mind, and I scooted off the couch. “No!”

Grandpa’s eyebrows squirmed like fuzzy white caterpillars. “Of course, Michael wouldn’t—”

“No! No! I don’t want that!”

I wanted a brother I could play with, not someone new who would be capable of controlling me even more than Grandpa already did.

Grandpa continued looking at me with steady attention. This was the look that often preceded my having to sit cross-legged on the floor of his study and meditate until I calmed. But determined to have the brother I wanted, not the brother I thought Grandpa wanted, I stayed my ground, standing silently in front of him.

Although he was intent on motivating his androids with emotion, Grandpa was suspicious of human emotions, which, he said, had evolved in a primitive world very different from the one in which we now had to survive and prosper. In our advanced technological world, only reason transformed into wisdom through carefully guided experience and training could tame and properly direct our powerful yet often errant and dangerous emotional heritage, a heritage providing modern humans with at best a call to action and a coarse first approximation as to what that action should be. Thus, my human emotions had to be passed through the meditative filter of reason, so that I might confront reality with a minimum of illusions and self- or clan-centered aggression.

“I just want a nice brother I can study with and play with,” I finally said.

Grandpa smiled. “Yes, of course, you do. I wouldn’t think of giving Michael any capability to harm or embarrass you. I can assure you that Michael will not be able to exert any control over you that you wouldn’t approve of. The power of his intentions and desires coming in through the braincord would be only a slight fraction of the power of your brain over itself. For him to have any influence over you at all, you would have to meditate and enter into a high state of relaxation and receptivity for him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. We thought you would enjoy being able to get inside and feel and understand Michael more directly and deeply than you ever could by using normal means of communication.”

“I’d be able to feel what he feels?”

“We hope you will, at least to some extent.”

“You mean, as when Grandma’s happy I can see it in her face and hear it in her voice, but I can’t really feel it. But with Michael I could really and truly feel his happiness?”

“Yes, that’s right. And he could feel your happiness, too, if you choose to let him.”

My imagination sparkled. I knew that words often were used to hide, not disclose. I’d sensed the shadowy underneath and behind of things. How wonderful it would be, then, to know, truly know, what was inside the words, gestures, and bright feelings of another.

“But,” Grandpa said, interrupting my growing excitement, “if you don’t want to have this capability with Michael, we can do quite well without the implant and the braincord.”

Did Grandpa actually believe that Michael would never learn to override my will, or was that another deception? I haven’t brainjoined with Michael even once since coming here to this watery hideaway, because on the way here I discovered that he could, in fact, control me completely. And not only that—I discovered a secret that he’s been keeping from me, a secret I’m not yet ready to let him know that I know.

“I can see you’re excited about creating Michael,” Grandpa said after more discussion, “but there is one thing we have to be clear about before we proceed. We must keep all things related to him secret. Only you and I, Grandma, your father, mother, and brothers can ever know. Even Elio must not learn anything about your operation or about Michael.”

My excitement was instantly replaced by a hollow feeling of dread. Only a few months earlier, when Grandpa and I had visited Elio and Aunt Lynh for the third summer in a row, Elio had more or less forced me to tell him what I knew about his father’s death. I’d felt terrible about divulging the secret I’d promised Grandpa I would keep, and I’d promised myself never again to agree to keep a secret from Elio.

“Please, Grandpa, I can’t keep secrets from Elio.”

“If we are to do this, you must.”

“But I’m sure he won’t tell.”

Grandpa again looked at me silently. I knew he was probably right about keeping Michael secret and that he would probably win this little battle with me, as he nearly always did. When my gaze finally slid toward the floor, he said, “It is likely that our phones are tapped, so we can’t speak over the phone about any secret. Our use of encryption would only serve to inflame suspicion and increase surveillance. Nor can we speak about this matter among ourselves, even in the kitchen or anywhere else outside of these rooms where we have level 3 security. During the ten-month gestation period, we’ll move most of my study and library into one of the guest bedrooms. We’ll make a second bedroom for you in here. Michael will have to remain in these level 3 security rooms until the political climate improves.”

“Michael can’t leave here?”

“Not until it’s safe for him to go outside. But we can make a comfortable world for him here. Grandma has plans for a beautiful hydroponic garden. Michael will have at least one of the three of us with him at all times, and we can import any information he might desire. I doubt he’ll miss what he never experiences. Let me show you our plans for these rooms.”

I wonder whether Grandpa thought much the same about me: that I wouldn’t miss the parents I saw so little of, that I wouldn’t miss the playmates I didn’t have, and that even if I did miss other children, the desire would be transformed into one for a new brother. I wonder about all this now, but you—you little girl who once was I—you never wondered about such things, did you?

We moved to Grandpa’s desk chair. I sat on his lap, and while he showed me on a monitor what he and Grandma had planned, I leaned my head back onto his firm, warm chest, where the endearing mustiness of his long-worn clothes reminded me of autumn leaves. The back part of the house in level 3 security was twenty meters wide and fifteen meters deep. At the time of this discussion, it contained Grandpa’s study, library, and research lab; but by the time of Michael’s birth (planned for the following September), Grandpa’s things would be moved out, and two bedrooms, a play and study area, and a hydroponic garden with flowers, shrubs, and miniature trees would be installed.

Gatekeeper 3 was to be upgraded to include a small monitoring enclosure with heavy doors on each end. To enter the security area through Gatekeeper 3 after the upgrade, I would have to undress, leaving my clothes in a small antechamber in front of Gatekeeper’s door. After an initial optical identification that would allow me to enter the monitoring enclosure through the first door, my skin and hair would be optically examined to ensure that no micro-devices were attached to me. Then the second door would open to let me into another small antechamber—this one inside the level 3 security area. To take anything other than my naked self into this area would require a special security procedure supervised by Grandpa.

Grandpa explained that within the thick carbon nanofiber-reinforced walls, ceiling, and floor of the level 3 security area there was a layer of microactuators that scrambled into gibberish all sounds that were made in the area. Even silence was converted into gibberish, leaving no way to detect from outside the walls what was said or done within the area. No plumbing or communication links with the outside world were available in the area. Batteries installed in the level 2 area provided all the power. There wasn’t even any plumbing, so to use the bathroom I would have to go through Gatekeeper to the level 2 area, and Michael would have to use a bedpan.

Most of Michael’s nutritional and oxygenic needs would be met by air scrubbers and by the hydroponic garden. Everything necessary to complete the plans would be purchased, moved, and constructed over the ten-month gestation by Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, and Dad.

“But Grandpa, Michael can’t leave? He can’t see the sky and hills? What about the vineyard? These rooms will be like a cage.”

“A cage! Oh my, no. Nothing like a cage. There will be scenescreens on which we can play recordings of the sky, hills, vineyard, and anything else you or he might want to see. He’ll have you and Grandma and me and any and all information products available. His world will be a rich, interesting, and love-filled world, not a cage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. In fact, I believe you have things quite turned around. Out there, in the big world, his activities would, at best, be severely restricted. He would not be free. He would not be loved. And his life would be in great danger from people who hate androids. Indeed, for most of us, it is the outside world that is a cage. Can you understand this—that these three rooms we have planned can be made into a wonderful and free world, whereas the outside is a vicious, dangerous cage in which most of our actions are severely circumscribed by others?”

I studied the finished space displayed on the monitor. It did appear to be a comfortable home for Michael, and I turned again to what was for me the most difficult issue.

“I understand about the phone and about not talking about Michael outside of here, but couldn’t I whisper in Elio’s ear next summer when I see him?”

“First, I don’t think the two of you could whisper softly enough to defeat sophisticated monitoring devices. Second, we can’t trust that Elio will keep—”