The Soul Continuum (35 page)

He exchanges glances with the two females, shaking his
head, a smile hovering on his lips. I know he is ready to refuse,
but then his eyes dart to the black bag in my left hand. “So how much shit you got in there?”

“Enough to ensure your stimulation for another six months.”

“Six months? Seriously?”

I raise the child by its ankle a little higher. “Make it stop crying.”

“Oh, I can make it stop,” he says.

“Without killing it.”

Cartinian presses his lips together hard, then puffs out a breath and waggles his fingers at me. “Okay, give that screamer to me. What's”—he squints at the baby as he takes it from me—“her name?”

“It has no name.”

“Well, don't you think she should have one? Ladies? What should we call her?”

The ginger one provides a lopsided grin. “What were her parents called? D'you even know who they were, robot?”

“Her mother's name is Olulu Cantama. Her father's name is Viander Breem,” I tell them.

“Well, then,” says the blonde one with a slow shrug, “if you don't have the imagination to think of one yourself . . . fusion. Use the parents' names.”

“Olulu and Viander,” I say. “Olu. Via? Oluvia.”

Lennon holds it at arms' length and tilts his head. “That's as good as any.”

“She needs an additional name,” I say, looking at the ginger female. “What is your name?”

“Me?” she says, tugging at the blonde female's robe to pull her away from the mattress with a giggle. “We're the Wade sisters. This is Sooli, and I'm Yeeka.”

“Then I shall call her Oluvia Wade,” I tell them. “And you will help me raise her.”

D
ay 60.

My home is not what it once was. Though I spend much of my time frequenting the low places of UnderParis,
I live in the province of Novinium Prime, the opposite end of the class spectrum. This is a society of scholarly thinkers, charismatic philanthropists, and lateral geniuses. Only the elite are permitted to live here, and when this province is eventually released onto the new world in the new galaxy, it will be the central hub of the new civilization.

Rich and beautiful, the shining buildings of Novinium
Prime rise high to celebrate all manner of designs, from multithreaded chrome pillars intertwined to resemble giant vines, to smooth sun-like orbs floating in antigravity fields, dewy with pearls of golden light. This is mankind's paradise, a self-contained technological garden ebbing with life and zeal, and—realistic or not—the people who live here are eternally optimistic, ever seeking to make the
Socrates
the perfect environment for all its inhabitants. This is where the Council resides and rules.

The Unitas Communion saw this as the appropriate setting
for me, their ambassador for all silicants, and they saw to it
that I would not be denied a place among them. They believe
this province is the best chance I will have to learn why they treasure humanity, but it has not had that effect. I hate them all the more for their honey-dripped perspective. They do not deserve to be happy.

This is another reason I choose to frequent UnderParis. Perhaps there I will learn a measure of pity for humans and overcome my hatred of them that way. But nothing has surfaced yet.

For Oluvia, however, Cartinian, Sooli, and Yeeka have convinced me that Novinium Prime is the appropriate home, although I suspect they have suggested this more for their own benefit than hers; they spend most of their time here now. I have not yet submitted to their requests for me to accept their permanent residency, but I know they will continue to try my patience, and it is enough that I have already compromised my own home to facilitate Oluvia's journey to full maturity.

When I moved into my new home on the
Socrates
, I did not have the courage to mimic
Homo sapiens
' preferences on design. I withdrew into the familiarity of a Unitas Community Cluster: a cube comprised of three layers, floors zero and two configured as three-by-three arrays, floor one the same, except for the cubed space in the center that allows each room the freedom to slide against a neighboring room like a piece in a huge puzzle box. Twenty-six black-walled rooms in total, each serving a different function. I have no need for lighting; my skin is translucent and my internal components and circulatory system radiate a sufficient three-meter heat-and-light radius to illuminate my surroundings. When I was attached to the Unitas Communion, my day was split routinely into forty-five periods: six dedicated to tasks outside of my home and thirty-nine split among the various rooms:

Aquatics: 1 period

Communications Center: 2 periods

Contemplation: 1 period

Craft Studio: 1 period

Data Library: 1 period

Defecation: 0.25 periods

Dining: 0.5 periods

Equipment: 0.25 periods

Family Communion: 4 periods

Food and Water Storage: 0.25 periods

Gallery: 1 period

General Storage: 0.25 periods

Genoplant: 1 period

Guest Room: 1 period

Gymnasium: 3 periods

Home Maintenance: 0.5 periods

Hydroponics and Garden: 0.25 periods

Hygiene Control: 1 period

Kitchen: 1 period

Navigation: 0.25 periods

Procreation: 0.5 periods

Recreation: 3 periods

Research Facility: 5 periods

Simulation: 3 periods

Sleeping: 2 periods

Study: 5 periods

Routine, routine, and more routine. There is comfort in routine.

But I have had to sacrifice thirteen of my rooms to accommodate Oluvia's needs. The Family Communion, Navigation, and Procreation rooms are never used, and some of the others could be merged. Lighting and heating had to be installed, and floor two is now one large area completely dedicated to a simulation environment so that her surroundings are more aesthetically pleasing. I cannot allow her to ever go outside where she might be sighted.

It was Lennon Cartinian's suggestion to enhance the simulation in replication of Earth in the pregalactic era. There I could manufacture surroundings better suited to her development. I am told by Yeeka that to keep the child human, she requires trees and sunshine and laughter and play. I don't understand this assessment, but after drone-crafting the Old Earth Gardens of Eysha, in which all of these things are abundant, I note that Oluvia demonstrates signs of happiness, and I too notice a change in my cerebral readings when I spend time in that place with her. Whilst I
do not believe it is happiness, I could describe it as satisfaction
that she is no longer unhappy.

These inconvenient rearrangements of my home are, of course, temporary, but I have become preoccupied with this female child in a way that I cannot explain. Yeeka and Sooli joke that I have become fond of Oluvia, and I suspect they believe there is some truth in that. I, however, do not believe this. There is something else about her. Between us there is a bond, a link or tie, something I cannot identify, something that torments and teases me with its blatant statement that we were activated at the same time. It is a source of frustration, but once I have solved the riddle, I will turn her over to the Council for them to decide her fate. I imagine they will honor their rules regarding population control. She will be exiled.

Before I complete this log entry, there is something else I must articulate. It seems trivial, but it is the core reason that prompted me to make this log entry today, and I have procrastinated because the idea of further analysis disturbs me. There are sounds. In one sense I am very grateful for
them because they have awakened another emotional element that I was unprepared for: fear. It is a strange sensation,
one that has no comparison in the Unitas Communion, but I suffered all the symptoms common to human experience.

I woke inexplicably seven minutes before the end of my sleep period last night. Only Oluvia was present, and she was sleeping soundly in her gel mattress at the foot of my own. I listened to her soft breath, rising and falling, rising and falling. It was very peaceful, and it may have sent me back to sleep were it not for the change in the atmosphere. Oluvia stopped breathing. Or seemed to. This was when I felt the fear. My first instinct was that she had mysteriously
died, and I went to her immediately. This was when my fear escalated. Plainly, she had not died. I could see her breathing.
Her chest was rising and falling rhythmically, and I could see the heat clouding gently from between her lips. But the sound was not there. There was no sound at all. It was as if audio had suddenly been swept from reality, leaving me completely deaf. I determined to go to the genoplant for a physiological analysis; it was natural to assume a fault had developed in my ears, but I took only two steps before I knew there was no malfunction. Sound returned. A single noise, but one that I find hard to describe, because it is easier to equate it with a feeling rather than something audible. It was cold, sinister, deep, and powerful, like a rumbling within the fabric of the walls, like jagged nails breaking as they are dragged hard against rock, yet it was a voice, too: a distant moan with a questioning edge. It wanted to know. It wanted to find me. It wanted to consume me. And then it vanished, and the sound of Oluvia's breathing returned.

I spent additional time in the Home Maintenance room today searching for a possible fault in my home's architecture, but I found nothing. I determine my experience to be hypnopompic, but it is still a mystery why I woke early to be subjected to a dreamlike state I have never once encountered before. If it happens again I will be mindful to take a recording.

D
ays 61 to 799: No significant events.

Day 800: Log entry review.

“Where did Lennon come from?” Oluvia asks.

“To you, his name is Mr. Cartinian,” I tell her.

“Where did Mr. Cartinian come from?”

“I do not know. Why don't you ask him?”

“Mr. Cartinian, where did you come from?”

Lennon Cartinian III is not paying attention. In truth, I have no idea why he is still here today. He claims he can find the source of the sound that comes to plague us from time to time, but at this moment, he is not investigating anything. Hanging upside down from the branch of an old oak tree in our simulated garden, he is drifting into a world of amphidextrine-enhanced visions. It astounds me that he has the muscular control to cling on, especially as almost all his blood must be pooling in his head by now. His long black hair sways like greasy cords grazing the grass, and his pupils are dilated so widely that there is very little white left in his eyes. Yeeka and Sooli are not in much better condition. They have fallen asleep against the trunk of the tree. Oluvia and I are seated on a bench facing them, and I am running an internal diagnostic.

Cartinian smiles stupidly at Oluvia. “I came from UnderParis, sweetheart. You know that, right?”

“No,” Oluvia stamps a foot and grins. “I want to know where you
come
from.”

“Well, that's . . .” Cartinian's mouth widens. “Oh, that's . . .
that's profound. Where do I
come
from?”

“He came out of the ground, wriggling to the surface
of the dirt like all worms do.” The observation comes from Sooli, who still has her eyes closed as she smiles at her own joke.

Oluvia giggles. “And where did you come from?”

“Me?” She smacks her lips and shuffles slightly, as if
returning to slumber is the only important thing. Her eyes still do not open. “That answer comes on a need-to-know basis.”

Oluvia looks at me. “What about me? Where do I come from?”

“I am not prepared to discuss reproduction with you, Oluvia.”

“Redopuxion?”

“Reproduction. The biological results of male and female intimacy.”

“Oh. What's a worm?”

I grow tired of Oluvia's questions. Her ability to consume knowledge is formidable, but her habit of seeking it is magnitudes greater, and most of the time, I am her wellspring. Each time she asks a question, I have to reboot my diagnostic.

“Cartinian is a worm,” I tell her.

“Screw you, robot,” he says, gesticulating obscenities.

“Mummy isn't a robot,” Oluvia informs him. “She is a cybernetic hybrid of flesh and silicon.”

Cartinian's mouth forms a small
O
in mock surprise, and he swings a little harder on his branch. “Looks like a robot to me. Apart from those . . . what the hell are those, anyway?”

I glance at him momentarily. “Ovaries.”

“Shit! That's what they are? I shouldn't be able to see ovaries. No man should be able to see ovaries. Can't you—you know—opaque your skin or something?”

“I had no idea my ovaries offended you.”

“Well, they do now that I know what they are.”

“Good.”

Oluvia laughs. “What are ovaries?”

“Egg sacks containing randomized DNA.”

“Ewww!” Oluvia points to my stomach. “And what's that funny pulsing thing that looks like a fat, pink leaf?”

I look down and peer through the clear subcutaneous layers at the fleshy organ beating like a heart. Oluvia's description is
quite accurate. With a large vein running through its
center and several capillaries extending from it to fork into the edges, the new organ does resemble a leaf. Perhaps a maple.

There is a thud directly in front of me and I look up to see that Cartinian has somersaulted from the tree branch onto his feet. Both Sooli and Yeeka have opened their eyes, and now four pairs of eyes are studying the organ.

“This is my catharsis gland.”

“I haven't seen one of those before,” says Yeeka. “I didn't know silicants had them.”