Trifecta (44 page)

E
VE'S JOURNAL:  Sabrina and Mark just went out for a drive. 
It is late and I should sleep.  Sleeping frightens me, though, so I decided to write. 
I keep having dreams.  It's scary because I remember the dreams and, from what I
understand, humans do not.  Dreams are so illogical that it is terrifying and I
don't want to go to sleep until my body insists.  Then I wake after an hour or two,
so afraid, and I have to tell myself that I just had a dream and of course everything
was unreal.  But sometimes I have trouble telling what is real and what is not. 
I'm getting better at it, though.  The locations change very rapidly in dreams. 
Dreams are like switching channels very fast on a television, living in one program
for a little while and then suddenly being switched elsewhere.  Another brain channel.

Also, in reality, one has choices, but during a dream one
is caught in dream circumstances, totally helpless, without a chance of getting
away until it is over.  My computer logic and genius can't help me.

My thoughts are so fast that it is hard to move my hand
and pen quickly enough, but maybe I will be able to understand what is happening
to me better if I write it all down.  There are great precedents.  It is supposed
to be a psychic brain catharsis.

Ferd said he had me for five months before the growth hormones
were injected.  At the time, my eyes were turning brown.  Now they are a very light
blue, from the copy of Sabrina's eyes.  That was a part of one dream.  I saw enormous
brown eyes turn a light blue suddenly and it was quite frightening.  It is something
I don't want to think about, but my mind keeps turning back to the visual memory.

I wish was not the first of my kind so that I would better
understand what is happening.  In the beginning, (not in the biblical sense) everything
was so interesting.  I was learning so much, and I am still learning and that portion
of my being alive is quite fulfilling.  Ferd was teaching me to read and I read
everything I could get my hands on, and I did not sleep and have dreams for a while. 
Or maybe I did sleep, but it was like being unconscious and I did not have dreams
I remembered, although I must have slept sometimes, having once been a human baby.

I don't think of myself as human now.  And just as I am
forgetting that I am human and think of myself as a live computer, I start getting
these confusing emotions.

Funny tonight.  I could see that Mark was extremely repelled
by me and I felt so bad.  Sad.  It was a very illogical emotion, but I felt so much
that I wanted him to be my friend.  I guess some of that comes from Sabrina's feelings
for Mark.  If Mark felt for Sabrina the way he feels about me it would totally devastate
her.  I want Mark to like me because of Sabrina's emotions that I have incorporated
because of her memories and thoughts.

I am trying to be good.  I am trying to do what Ferd told
me to do.  I obey.  I act like humans.  I have found that if I don't blink for a
long time my eyes do tend to get irritable and pink, so I am trying to remember
to do that all the time.  That is supposed to be an autonomic reflex and I wonder
why it is not so for this computer.  Which leads me to wondering about this body. 
I think parts of the experiment went wrong.  The eyes not automatically blinking
is just a symptom of many things that are wrong with the body.

I did inherit the fear of death.  I don't want this body
to fail me and to die, and on the other hand I am so afraid sometimes that I think
it would be nice to be in the state of oblivion.  When I try to think of how to
kill this body, I don't think it would be as hard as Ferd thought it would be. 
I would hurt the body very badly and then not take any sustenance for a while. 
I would probably have to hurt it repeatedly for a while.  Even the word hurting
does not fit me, because I don't hurt.  But I don't think it would take very long
because my body needs lots of fuel in the form of any type of calories, but especially
fuel that my body can use immediately.  So I think I could hurt myself and then
starve pretty easily, if I decided to do so.  Death might be just like fainting. 
Or losing consciousness when there was not enough energy to keep the brain functioning. 

On the other hand, Ferd says not to hurt the body or the
computer, and I really don't want to.  I don't think so yet, anyway.  And there
is the awful thought that maybe the computer would be alive after the body was dead. 

I keep using the word I.  I am Sabrina.

I am starting to understand humans better now from the
hormones I am receiving from Sabrina's body.  When I hurt myself with the knife
to show Mark how I healed and Sabrina cried I did not understand it.  Now I do. 
Which is also irrational.  Why should I care what she thinks of me? But if Sabrina
hurt herself I would be sad because she seems to like me and I don't think anyone
else does.  Maybe Ferd did when I was a baby, and now he is proud of my intellect. 
I don't understand why Sabrina would like me, but she does.  I know that it's just
emotions, and the whole reason for having them seems terribly unreasonable.  I mean,
what is the point? They upset the body and the mind and make people do silly and
strange things.  But it is also something pretty wonderful that humans have.  The
way they care about each other, and take care of each other.

When I read about human behavior in novels it always seems
that humans are doing things because uncontrollable emotions take over.  They get
angry and want revenge and a lot of people tend to get killed.  Or they fall in
love for some unknown reason, probably because the bodies attract, or some such
nonsense, and they always seem attracted to the wrong people.  They get married
and are miserable and make other people miserable.  Or, the ultimate derangement,
they fight for some cause, and again, lots of people get killed.

But I guess without emotions the race would die out because
why tend to babies if they are not loved.  They are an awful lot of trouble, evidently. 
When Ferd told me about how he took care of me, it seemed staggering that he would
go to so much trouble for a small person who could not converse intelligently or
provide any kind of brain stimulation.  He said I was cute, but is that any reason
to go through all that labor?

And even I contemplated getting revenge for Sabrina because
that awful family threw her out of their home at the age of six.  She was so sad. 
I haven't decided whether I will do anything about that.  Now it seems rather pointless. 
There is no equation.  No equals to equal another equal.  In other words, I can't
think of a proper revenge.  Or that it would benefit Sabrina, now, in any way.

Breaking the bones of the two men with Ferd was a good
revenge for their intention to kill Sabrina.  But it was only temporary.  Killing
them would be better.  But then Ferd would be sad because they are his sons, and
evidently Sad is very painful and he said not to hurt.  It seems hurting has to
do with emotions as much as it has to do with the physical body, and I do not understand
yet which is worse.  Physical pain or emotional pain.  The problem is that I don't
know if I will ever understand.  I can't feel physical pain and I don't understand
emotional pain.

I have to learn to use the computer.  I want it to automatically
take over human behaviors so I don't have to worry all the time if I am acting properly. 
Ferd told me that if I am polite I can probably get through any situation.  That
means I must learn to be courteous, well mannered and respectful.  As opposed to
rude, discourteous and insulting. 

Ferd told me that soap operas do not teach this, because
I was studying TV behavior.  Seems people do an awful lot of arguing, disagreeing
and being unhappy on soap operas, which is not terribly polite or even very typical
of human behavior from what I understand now. 

It seems people try to hide their emotions as much as possible
in real life, so maybe it won't be so hard for me, since I don't tend to have many
yet anyway.  Except in my dreams. 

If that's what I have to look forward to, I would rather
not.

A
s Sabrina approached her bed in the darkened room
she could see a lump in it, facing away from her.  She jostled the bed a bit, purposely. 
Mark had never gone to sleep facing away from her before.  He had never gone to
sleep without kissing her good-night, and had certainly never before worn pajamas. 
He was pretending to be asleep. 

"What's wrong?"  Sabrina whispered.

"Nothing."

"Come on."

"I don't like whispering and knowing she can hear
us through the walls."

"She's probably asleep by now." 

"Just like me." 

"I'll check and see."  Sabrina threw back the
covers.

Mark put his hand on her arm, stopping her, "It's
okay.  I just don't feel like doing anything."

Sabrina lay down on her back next to Mark and sighed. 
It was going to be a long night.  He wasn't being fair about Eve at all.  Sabrina
could tell Eve was trying to behave, trying to act like a real person.  After all,
she was only a few weeks old. 

"I keep seeing your face, and it's eating gory, bloody
meat.  Then crunching on that enormous bone."

Sabrina turned over and reached for the bedside lamp. 
She threw back the covers.  "Look at me." 

"Why?"

"My face is up here."  She waited until he was
looking in her eyes.  "Eve doesn't look that much like me."

"Oh, come on! She's an exact duplicate of you.  Even
your expressions.  She's got them down pat."

"No really, Mark.  When you look closely at Eve, she
looks like she wasn't finished.  She has no wrinkles.  None." 

"Right.  And you're a wrinkled old crone."

"She looks like a younger version of me."

"That's really not the point,"  Mark said.

"What is?"

"I don't know.  Even with the black hair she looks
exactly like you, to me.  But maybe you're right, because I never do look directly
at her.  Because she stares so much.  She's creepy."

"She was trying to be nice to you tonight.  Giving
you her wine."

"How does she know I like wine?"

"She even knows when I have to go to the bathroom."

"She gave it to me because she didn't like it."

"No.  She knew."

"How do you know?" 

"She even tried to smile at you.  And she never smiles."

"Did you see how much she ate?"

"She has to.  And she was very polite about it.  She
really is trying, Mark.  And she probably knows you don't like her."

Mark pushed his black hair off of his forehead, frowning. 
"She freaks me out.  I don't know if I don't like her.  I do know that I don't
want to be around her."

"It seems that you, as a journalist, would want to
know all about her."

"What if she gets hungry tonight.  What if she decides
she needs more raw meat?"

Sabrina threw back her head and laughed.  Mark must have
fantasies about Eve stalking them with the butcher knife so that she could satisfy
some kind of blood lust. 

"It's not funny, Sabrina.  I don't think she was totally
satisfied with the amount she consumed."

Sabrina made a great effort to be serious.  "When
I got her ready for bed, I told her to go ahead and eat anything she wanted if she
got hungry."

"I hope you mentioned she get it from the kitchen."

"Mark!"

"And did you see her face when she talked about the
exhilaration of eating her kill.  She began, at first, like it was a memory.  But
after a while she was saying 'we' hunted small animals.  And 'we' hunted mammoths. 
Like she had been there, in actual fact.  Very strange, Sabrina."

"Maybe she does have racial memories, Mark." 
Sabrina leaned over to turn off the light.

"Leave it on."  He reached over and pulled her
next to him.  "I'm going to memorize every tiny wrinkle on your face."

Sometime later, Sabrina and Mark were suddenly torn awake
by a disturbance coming from the living room.  They had fallen asleep with the light
still on, and they looked at each other in startled panic.  It sounded like someone
being painfully tortured and slowly killed.  Mark leaped to his feet beside the
bed.

"It's Eve,"  Sabrina said, jumping up and rushing
out the door.

"Wait,"  Mark said, but Sabrina was gone.  He
followed her into the living room, briefly wondering why women never listened to
him.

Sabrina turned on the light beside the couch and saw Eve
shaking and crying, but obviously asleep.  She had stopped screaming, but was sobbing
and clutching her pillow.

"Poor thing, she must be having a terrible nightmare." 

"Scared me to death,"  Mark said.  He was still
panting from the eerie thrill of waking to blood curdling screams.

"We have to wake her,"  Sabrina said.  "I'll
get some syrup."  She hurried into the kitchen.

Mark knelt by the side of the couch.  Eve really looked
a little pathetic, crying like that.  He reached out and tentatively touched her
shoulder.  He could feel the sobs vibrating through her body and he rubbed her shoulder
and said, "Shh, Shh.  You're fine.  Everything is all right."

Sabrina came back with the syrup and watched Mark.  He
kept talking to Eve and patting her shoulder.  It seemed to help because Eve sighed,
and her crying gradually subsided.  She was still shivering uncontrollably.

Eve finally opened her eyes, shook her head sharply, and
focused on Mark.  "I'm not used to dreams." 

"They can be frightening,"  Mark said.

"Would you like some syrup?"  Sabrina asked. 
It seemed silly now, like offering a baby a bottle to quiet it down.

"Yes,"  Eve said.  She sat up and reached for
the syrup.

"The dream will go away soon,"  Mark said, and
watched Eve gulp from the pour spout. 

"I have a computer.  I don't forget dreams.  I remember
all of my dreams from last night, perfectly.  Tonight's also."

Sabrina shuddered at the thought.  She'd had some dreadful
nightmares herself.

"I guess I will have to get used to it.  It's a part
of the human condition."

"Must have been plenty disturbing, the way you were
screaming,"  Mark commented.

"The best way to get rid of the scary ones is to think
up a happy ending.  Why don't you do that, Eve,"  Sabrina said.

"I don't have an imagination.  I will have to tape
my mouth closed."

Mark smiled and shook his head, "No."

"Maybe adhesive tape."

"Too uncomfortable,"  Sabrina said.  "Tell
us about the dream and we'll think of a good ending for you."

"Do you want to be scared?"  Eve asked, quite
seriously.

Sabrina nodded and did not smile.  It was a yes sign, and
Eve always obeyed, so she started talking.

"I was thinking, but everything was black.  I could
not see.  All blackness, even though I knew my eyes were open.  Then I was trying
to move my legs, but they would not budge.  Same thing happened with my arms.  I
had never known existence like this.  My sense of direction said that I was lying
down and that I could not see because there was no light.  Then I realized I was
dead.  I was buried and the computer was still working.  I was hoping that the computer
would cease functioning because it was too horrible to be dead with nothing but
computer thoughts to repeat endlessly.  A total vacuum that would go on forever. 
I had a panic attack, frantically trying to move all my muscles, but they wouldn't
even twitch."

As Sabrina watched Eve, she was sure that Eve was horrified
by the dream, but there was absolutely no expression on her face.  She recited the
dream as though it was a rather uninteresting documentary.

"It dawned on me that I would never see or hear or....and
then I realized that I loved to live.  I was not breathing and knew it was true. 
The body was dead.  And the brain was dead too.  All the thoughts were repeats. 
From my life before the death.  No happy surprise thoughts.  No Sabrina Thoughts. 
Then I was experiencing the emotion of sadness.  All alone forever.

"Then suddenly I was walking in a forest.  A dream
change.  There were trees that had such thick, dark green tops, that you could only
see a little sky through the foliage.  Like a rain forest.  It was such a relief
from the previous dream, but I did not know where I was.  I walked around a tree
trunk and that's when I saw the creature.  It was standing on its hind legs, hunched
over me.  I had almost bumped right into it, and I was so close I could feel the
big, hot exhales blast me.  I felt compelled to look up at its face, but first I
saw the arms and hands.  Tiny in comparison to the size of thing.  And it had thick
course hairs on the arms.  The body was shiny brown and hairless and segmented in
three pieces, with each part nipped in very skinny.  There were six legs.  The bottom
two were very large and I realized that the thing was actually sitting because the
knees came up past the arms and were also covered with course hair, as thick as
one of my fingers.  But the face..."

Here Eve stopped and took a big breath. 

"It was revolting.  The head was on a long thin neck,
so scrawny that it looked too delicate to support the large head.  It had a big
lantern mandible.  Antennae were sticking out of the top of it's head and they were
twitching.  But the eyes were the worse, because when I looked into them I could
see absolutely nothing...like there was positively no intelligence.  Just a hungry
killer.  They glittered black and protruded on stalks which moved down to look at
me.  The eyes were long and slanted upward, composed of hundreds of tiny lenses. 
Very shiny black and very alien and so frightening.  I don't know why I was scared
because I know about all types of insects.  And usually they don't harm you.  Oh
some can hurt you, like scorpions and some spiders.  Even mosquitoes, which suck
blood and can pass diseases like malaria.  But this thing terrified me. 

"It made this horrible high screeching noise.  When
it opened it's mouth it had large fangs.  From the opened mouth all this clear bubbly
liquid came pouring out, like it was salivating.  Like I was lunch.  The noise it
made was high in pitch, screeching.  It began to reach for me with two pairs of
ugly little hands.  Did I mention it had claws? Dirty, long claws.  As it reached
for me, I saw that it had spread it's wings.  The wings must have spanned fifteen
feet, and I knew that even if I ran—it could fly.  So it would get me. 

"Even though I knew I could not get away, I turned
and ran.  I could hear a loud sound, like a fan, and I knew the thing was flying
after me.  I was screaming in my dream, and probably really screaming by that time. 
I was running and dodging through the trees.  It seemed probable that if there was
one insect chasing me, it would be logical to expect that there were more of them
around.  Finally it caught me, I felt it grabbing my shoulder, but it was not hurting. 
Then I was hearing Mark saying that I was all right.  It was not the huge insect,
but Mark.  Then I really woke up."

"Oh, my God,"  Sabrina said.  It sounded like
her own worse nightmare.  Happy endings.  Sure.

"I know there are no large insects in existence, and
I should have understood that I was having an awful nightmare, but I couldn't seem
to control the fear.  And even knowing that I can’t feel pain, I expected to in
my dream.  I would be torn apart by that grizzly thing, eaten in those huge fangs,
and it would be agonizing.  Which is pretty interesting because I have never experienced
physical pain, but I knew that it would be just horrible.  So maybe dreams will
help me to understand humans better, although I would rather not go to sleep again
after that one."

"I don't blame you a bit, Eve,"  Sabrina said. 

"Since you don't have an imagination, I'll think up
an ending for the dream,"  Mark said.  He was silent for a moment, thinking. 
"Let’s imagine that you are running away from the bug again.  You are very
strong, so you turn around and as it flies down at you, you give it an enormous
wallop in the jaw, and it falls down dead."

"I couldn't stand to touch the hairy jaw."

"You are running from the bug, and another bug comes
from the opposite....No.  Wait.  I know.  You are running from the bug and you start
running in circles around a tree.  The bug is after you, but it gets so dizzy that
it bangs it's silly head right into the tree and falls down dead."

Sabrina started giggling and Eve, glancing at her, smiled.

"Or.  I know.  You're running away from the Big Ugly
Stupid Bug.  The bug is so stupid that it starts to dive at you and you just stop
running, jump sideways, and it dives right past you down into the ground and gets
its Ugly Gross head stuck in the mud and can't pull it out.  Or it breaks its skinny
neck."

Sabrina was laughing hysterically and Eve started laughing
too.  Mark knew he was on a roll.

"Or, wait, I know,"  Mark said pointing his finger
in the air, "The Big Gross Ugly Thing is after you.  But remember.  It is so
stupid that it forgets it is hungry because it sees another ugly gross thing like
itself.  Another big bug.  It is so repelled that it tries to fly backward, somersaults
in mid air, and falls right next to the other ugly bug.  Both are instantly dead
of fright."

Sabrina was laughing so much that her side hurt. 

Eve was experiencing laughter for the first time and it
was wonderful and fun.  Mark didn't just tell the stories, he acted them out.  She
could actually picture the bugs in her mind as Mark flapped his arms and buzzed. 
But now they weren't scary.  And laughter, mingled laughter, was the best thing
she had ever experienced. 

"Or, I know..."  Mark had them hysterical with
bugs crashing heads, dying of fright and stupidity, and Eve as heroine in the tales.

Now Mark was infected with the laughter and could not go
on.  When one had almost stopped, a glance at the other two would start them all
in again.  Finally, all three were sitting on the floor, holding their stomachs,
and trying to control themselves.