Shelter (63 page)

    He hugged himself "Yes, it is."

    "So Monster Mouse and the boy," Roberta said slowly, trying to sound as calm as Fred did, "are trying to save the world?" Nicholas nodded up at her, looking grave. "How long do they have, Nicky?"

    "I don't know." Nicholas shrugged, an oddly adult gesture for such a small boy, and said, "Naptime's up now, Fred, right?"

    * * *

    When she got home that evening, Roberta found another note from Zephyr shoved under her door. So how's it going? Have you warmed yourself in the sun after crawling out from under your rock? Can I come visit Mr. Clean sometime? I miss him.

    Not as much as I miss Doe, Roberta thought. She wondered if Zephyr was glad that Doe was gone, since it meant that Roberta no longer went downstairs to ask Zephyr to quiet her rehearsing bots. On the other hand, that meant Zephyr didn't see Roberta, either, and Roberta suspected that Zephyr was lonelier than she let on. Her apartment never seemed to have any human visitors. I should go down there, Roberta thought, but she really didn't want to. Zephyr gave her the creeps. Sighing, she scribbled on the bottom of the note, I'm sure Mr. Clean misses you too, but he's just fine. I, on the other hand, am still a little wobbly and need to stay a hermit for a while. Sorry, Zephyr. Thanks for understanding. She went downstairs to deliver the note, feeling guilty—there was no noise from Zephyr's apartment at all, which meant that she and her bots were all out at the park or something—and then trudged back to her apartment. She wasn't at all surprised when Fred called.

    "Roberta, I don't think Nicholas's story is just a story."

    "Neither do I." It occurred to her that she was every bit as pathetic as Zephyr. Zephyr took bots for walks. Roberta gossiped with an AI. "Is Preston here too?"

    "Here I am," said Preston's voice. "Roberta, Fred and I were wondering if Nicholas's monsters are the reason Meredith will not allow him to have pets."

    Roberta sighed, pushing her fingers against her eyelids. "Yeah, no kidding. I've been wondering that too. Do you think maybe he's done something already?"

    "If I am correct about Meredith's fear of resocialization," Preston said, "such an action on Nicholas's part would certainly explain it."

    "I agree," Fred said sadly. ''I'm worried, Roberta. I wonder how his first mouse died. And I wonder if he's been telling his mother the same stories he's been telling us."

    "Yeah," Roberta said. "Or if he told the Hobbit too much. Doy ou think that's why she had the guy arrested and wiped?"

    "I can't say, Roberta."

    "Preston? What de you think?"

    "That is a plausible theory, Roberta, but we cannot knew fer sure."

    She sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound "Okay. I knew you both knew this even better than I do, but just let me say it again. If we think he's that seriously disturbed, we're required to report it. If we don't report it, and something awful happens, and it turns out we knew, we're in big trouble. We are. Preston, yeu want me and Fred to help Nicholas by ourselves. I'm not at all sure we can do that. I don't know how."

    "We can help him tell his story," said Fred. "If we can help him finish telling the story about Monster Meuse, maybe the mouse and the boy will outsmart the monsters and everything will be fine."

    Fred, the eternal optimist. Roberta shook her head, although neither Fred nor Preston could see her. "Zillinth knows. And she's not one to keep her mouth shut. So the mouse may already be out of the bag, so to speak."

    "Zillinth knows about Monster Mouse," Fred said. "She doesn't know all of it. She doesn't know that Nicholas's mother lied about the cat. And I don't think Zillinth thinks the story's important, Roberta. You and I do."

    "Yes," said Preston, "I agree. The little girl represents no serious danger."

    Roberta's skin crawled. "If something happens, we're going to know we could have prevented it. If something happens, it's going to be our fault."

    "I will protect you," Preston said. "Do not worry, Roberta."

    "With all due respect, Preston, yeu can't protect me from my conscience." That sounded stuffy and priggish, she knew. She didn't care. She wished, not fer the first time, that Meredith were on speaking terms with her father; it would have made Roberta's life infinitely easier.

    "Roberta," said Fred—was it her imagination, or did he sound a little desperate?—"we have to have faith in Nicholas. He wants us to help him. That's why he's telling us the story. I don't think we'd be helping him if we reported this, Roberta. I don't think that would be a kind or loving thing to do."

    She closed her eyes. "Fred, you're a machine. What the fuck do you know about faith or love or kindness? At least Preston used to be human. You've never been human. So how can you know what those words even mean?"

    "I know what they mean because people tell me what they mean, Roberta."

    "Who? What people?" She briefly imagined some crazed chorus of baggies holding religious services in the deserted school every weekend, singing about love and faith to a machine because no one else would let them in out of the cold. It was the same fantasy she'd had the night Doe left, the night Fred had let her in and let her drink warm milk. But of course Fred would never let in anyone he didn't know—would he?

    "Why, you, Roberta. You and Nicholas and the other children, and the writers who tell those other stories. The people who tell stories about the Velveteen Rabbit, and Pinocchio, and the Nutcracker, and Calvin and Hobbes. And that other person, the man I was named after. He knew about love and faith and kindness. He knew how important it is for children to feel safe. I try to be just like him, Roberta."

    Roberta shook her head again. Machines. Crazy machines using crazy words. What could Fred know, what could he feel, without a body to feel with? How could he feel without a heart?

    Preston said quietly, "Roberta, do you want to report Nicholas? Do you want him to be brainwiped?"

    She remembered teaching the clients to brush their teeth. She remembered grown-ups learning all over again how to put on their socks, how to use a spoon. She remembered the fear in their eyes. Who was I? What did I do? She remembered Preston's plea. Have mercy. "No, of course I don't want that. I don't want that for anyone."

    "Then we have to help Nicholas finish telling his story," Fred said. "We don't really have much choice, Roberta, do we?"

    * * *

    As it turned out, Nicholas had already figured out how to finish his story. He arrived bright-eyed at school the next day, his normally calm, reserved manner replaced with an almost manic energy. He bounced around the room all morning, singing strange, tuneless little songs and playing with blocks and finger painting with far more abandon than he usually did, so much so that he got some finger paint on the table. For Nicholas, allowing himself to be this messy was a major breakthrough, and Roberta wondered what in the world had happened.

    She found out at nap time. The other kids settled down onto their mats, and as soon as their eyes were closed, Nicholas made a beeline for the booknook. "Fred," he said breathlessly, the moment he arrived, "Roberta, I figured it out. I figured out what happens in the story!"

    "That's wonderful, Nicholas." Fred was as calm and as supportive as ever; Roberta, a knot in her stomach, hoped that Nicholas's solution really would be wonderful. "What happens? I can't wait to hear."

    "Neither can I," said Roberta. "So you'd better tell us right now, Nicholas."

    He actually giggled, a sound nearly unheard of from him. "All the boy has to do is find a mouse that's already dead! Then he can tell the monsters that Monster Mouse has died, but really, it won't be Monster Mouse. Monster Mouse will still be alive in the Land of Make-Believe, but the monsters will eat the other mouse and be happy. And the boy won't have to hurt anything."

    Roberta, knowing how happy the child was and how happy he wanted them to be too, swallowed her nausea and tried to get her face to unfrown itself "Nicky, where is he going to find a mouse that's already dead?"

    "I don't know," Nicholas said. For a moment his frown mirrored hers, but then he cheered up again. "In the grass, maybe, or maybe a cat catches it. Maybe the kitty brings it to him as a present so he can give it to the monsters. "

    "A real cat." Fred's voice was matter-of-fact. "Like Miss Mittens."

    "Uh-huh. Or maybe somebody poisons it or catches it in a trap. Poison would be good, because then maybe the monsters would be poisoned and maybe they would die too."

    "If the monsters die," Fred said, "will Monster Mouse and the boy be safe?"

    "Uh-huh. Unless the monsters grow back. But then he could find a dead mouse again. And maybe it was just a normal mouse and it never did anything special when it was alive, but now it's a hero, 'cause it's saving the world." Nicholas looked up at the speaker, his face serious, and said, "I think it better be a poison mouse, Fred, so the monsters will die too."

    "Nicholas, it hurts animals when they die of poison."

    "And it hurts them when cats kill them," Roberta said, trying to sound as calm as Fred sounded. "And if the cat doesn't get to eat the mouse, the cat's sad too. Nicholas, can the mouse just die of old age? Would that be okay? Can the mouse die in its sleep?"

    Nicholas considered this, his lips pursed. "Well, I guess. It could die and then you could poison it. Like putting sprinkles on a cookie." He looked over at the terrarium, where Snowy was drinking water and Buster was running on the exercise wheel. "Do mice live a long time?"

    * * *

    He went back to taking his afternoon naps, but every day now, his first act upon entering and his last before leaving was to watch the mice. His expression as he did so was always cheerful; he called the mice by name, helped fill their water bottle and seed dishes, patted them sometimes when Roberta picked them up for him, since he was reluctant to lift them himself Roberta was very, very afraid that he was waiting for one of them to die.

    She and Fred and Preston talked nearly every night now. Of the three of them, Fred was most hopeful. "He's doing much, much better. Both of you must have noticed that. He's relating better to the other children, and he seems happier. He's not as tense. His pictures are messier."

    "I know," she said bleakly.

    "We did it, Roberta. We helped Nicholas finish his story, and now he's all right. We're special, Roberta."

    She wanted so badly to believe him. She wanted so badly to believe that a story could really fix the world. "Fred, I don't know. I just don't know. The way he looks at those mice, I get the creeps sometimes."

    "I agree with Roberta," Preston said. "I find his continuing preoccupation with the mice extremely disturbing."

    "But he's not afraid of them anymore. Preston, Roberta, he pats them now. He isn't afraid to go near the cage."

    "I just hope you're right," she said grimly. "It's going to be very interesting to see what happens when the first mouse dies."

    One night, because she was tired of talking about Nicholas and also because she really wanted to know, she decided to change the subject. "You know, we've been telling the parents that nothing's going to change as a result of the ratification hearings, all this born-not-built stuff I know that will be true if the amendment passes, if Fred can't ever be a person, because then he'll still be MacroCorp property. But what if it doesn't pass? What if the law decides that AIs are already people, or can be declared people? What then?"

    The debate had sparked a new wave of Luddite activism. The infamous Gina Veilasty, as elusive as ever, had once again issued a statement accusing MacroCorp of dealing in weapons, raping the environment, and supporting exploitative labor practices. MacroCorp had issued the usual denials. Preston had, in fact, used the subject of weapons to argue that AIs weren't human. During one of the hearings, he'd talked about MacroCorp's negotiations with several small companies in Africa, businesses that ordinarily wouldn't have been able to afford MacroCorp systems, but with which MacroCorp was willing to cut deals to encourage entrepreneurial activity on the ravaged continent. "One of these companies," Preston said earnestly, "lost the contract with us because they had done business with military suppliers. We would not have known about those transactions had the company's AI not included them in the reports it gave us. If the AI had been acting out of self-interest, it would have hidden that detail to further the negotiations. Its honesty in this situation demonstrates that it is a machine, not a sentient entity capable of dishonesty."

    Roberta, watching the hearings in her pajamas while Mr. Clean doggedly pursued a stubborn dust bunny, had snorted a mouthful of tea. Fred, at least, had very flexible notions of honesty, and surely Preston knew that. But she supposed that Preston's position was no more hypocritical than Veilasty's. Aside from the cognitive dissonance of a terrorist construct acting sanctimonious about violence—if in fact Veilasty was a puppet for whomever had masterminded the Abdul-Allam killing—the politics of the situation made Roberta's head hurt. Ironically enough, the Luds and MacroCorp agreed in denying that AIs were people. The Lud position was ideological; they feared that AIs would acquire too much power if granted personhood. MacroCorp's logic was economic; they didn't want their AI manufacturing business affected by human-rights legislation. But for exactly that reason, various Luds—including Veilasty, evidently—wanted the born-not-built amendment to be defeated, wanted to be able to call AIs legal persons, all so MacroCorp would be forced to stop manufacturing them. It didn't make any sense, and it made Roberta very grateful that she'd never even thought about going to law school.

    "The amendment will pass," Preston said now.

    "Fred? What do you think?"

    "It won't make any difference, Roberta. The amendment may affect my legal status, but that won't change who I am. It will only change who I am on paper. I'll still be real, whether the amendment is ratified or not."