Zero, p.11
ZERO, page 11
It was difficult to get any useful information out of Simms and Davidson at first, but slowly they filled in a few blanks for us after we told them briefly about the past few days that we spent in St. Petersburg.
Just having returned from a trip to Afghanistan, they too were pulled from their assignment and forced to surrender their extensive notes. They had traveled to Kabul, chasing a lead on a terrorist cell responsible for a rash of bombings against the U.S.-backed government. The investigation had taken an odd turn, however. A few Marines the reporters interviewed mentioned glimpses of U.S. Army biodefense squads operating in the city—a rare occurrence considering the higher-ups declared Kabul a low risk zone for germ warfare. Shortly thereafter, the Marines described “wild children,” who were sick for a few days before growing violent. These children brutally attacked anyone from family members to strangers walking down the street. Ultimately, a platoon from the Afghan National Army slaughtered all of the children within a four block radius of the initial outbreak. After the massacre, Simms and Davidson returned home. Their investigation had come to a halt as leads and activity within the terrorist cell had grown cold. Rumors among the locals indicated that the cell had completely disbanded.
***
Since then I have left my job at The Post to start my own private carpentry business. After everything I learned, it was the only escape. I moved to Napa Valley, and I never did keep in touch with Pretlow. As far as I know, the German copy of the journal that he turned over to my boss was his only copy.
Like I said, I don’t pay much attention to the news these days, but every once in a while I hear isolated stories of local children attacking people in areas of Iraq and Afghanistan. Sometimes it’s North Korea. Sometimes it’s China. Regardless of the location, the incidents always leave me feeling harrowed. The details on the “wild children” differ between networks, but one thing is always the same: the reports air only briefly.
**--**--**
William
By A. A. Garrison
“We thought about it,” said the man on TV, seated tenderly with his purported wife and child, “but we just weren’t sure.” A minor chord, forebodingly low-register. “I mean, it all looked good on paper, but trust your child ... to a machine?” He smiled, the chord with him. “Then the Louises next door got one, and we saw firsthand just how safe the Sitters were.”
Cut to Man and Wife overseeing Child and Robot. “We got Jacob here the very next day, and we’ve never looked back,” said Man, with a specious warmth that could win elections. He wrapped a husbandly arm around Wife, then fondly regarded Jacob the Sitter robot and Child, the two capering through a paradisiacal swatch of lawn.
Close-up of Man’s I-could-be-middle-age face. “Do the right thing for your loved one,” he said, the chord now major and heartwarming. “Get a Swammy Sitter today.”
Julia killed the TV and turned to her husband, Dave, who looked nothing like the man in the Sitter commercial. “I want one,” she said, unequivocal as a hammer.
Dave, beside her in bed, made a henpecked face. “I’m aware of the Sitter, dear,” he said tactically. “I just read a piece about it yesterday. No need to wave it under my nose.” He was being truthful; the article had been a rant against Swammy, the Big Bad Corporation who’d achieved artificial intelligence and kept it proprietary.
“I want one,” Julia repeated, unimpressed.
Dave flashed an afflicted smile. “Great, then go buy one. I’m sure Mike’ll love it.”
Julia turned to stone. “Don’t play games with this, David,” she said, yelling without yelling. And that “David”— it could freeze water. “Mike would love it, and so would I, and so would you. These Sitters, they’re...well, you can read. You know.” A weighted pause. “I want one. We’ll dip into his college fund.”
Dave reached for a rejoinder, but there were none. The old battle-axe had him there: he would more than love one of the newfangled things. Swammy used the childcare angle as their flagship, but you could teach the machines damn near anything—cut the lawn, pressure-wash the house, keep watch at night like a two-legged dog. He’d been planning on getting one, actually, at Christmas, three months away, but try telling Jules to wait—especially after she’d gone into David-mode. He was tilting windmills, now.
He sighed his answer, then cut the lights and rolled over.
Julia gave him a victorious kiss, what always brought a warm shame. “You won’t regret it, Davey,” she whispered, running her hand over his in the way she knew he liked. “Everyone says they’re—”
“Perfect. I know,” Dave Conley mumbled. He reminded himself he was getting one anyway, and entered a disparaged sleep.
***
Julia had ordered the Sitter the next day, over the internet. The delivery had come three days later, not from a guy in brown shorts, like the myriad other goodies she got off the computer, but from Swammy’s own freight company. A hulking truck had growled to a stop outside the Conley’s idyllic suburban home, producing two jumpsuited men and a man-sized crate.
Nice fellows, the two. They had wheeled the crate inside, cracked it open—it had looked eerily like a coffin, the supine Sitter encased in foam—and then unloaded the robot. They had even walked Julia through the manual, going over the Sitter’s ins and outs. Then they were gone, taking the empty crate with them. Nice fellows.
Unfortunately, Julia had found herself unable to so much as turn the damn thing on, even after the delivery men’s edification. She had never been one for electronic crap; that was Dave and Mike’s forte (if not for Auction Bay, she wouldn’t have touched the computer with a ten-foot pole). Hence, she’d spent her afternoon admiring the dormant Sitter and hatching a name, which turned out to be harder than she’d thought. It wasn’t like naming a dog, where you sucked on its character and went with what came; the androgynous Sitter had conjured nothing but five-character model numbers. It was nothing but a gray silicone body and a featureless sphere head, what could’ve been an athletic man in a skin suit and funny hat. So she’d gone about her housework—which, with the Sitter’s advent, would soon be a thing of the past—and waited patiently for Mike to get home from school, when he would no doubt get it going (and probably have it doing dishes by suppertime; the child was only nine, but precocious, sometimes devastatingly so).
She’d thought he would go nuts at seeing it, and she hadn’t been wrong; the two had conspired to con Dave into plunking down for one of the fantabulous things, so when Mike had found it waiting for him, it was Christmas in September. Julia had been napping at the time, and she’d awoken to Mike’s little-boy cheers. The only time she’d seen him half as excited was his last birthday, when she and Dave had caved on a new video game system. And her prediction proved correct: Mike had it up and running within hours, as though he’d grown up with it. She’d watched him swaggering through the house, giving the Sitter the lay of the land as it fawned dutifully behind him. And he’d named it, too: William.
Julia had been struck with just how lifelike William was. Its gait was congruously human, slow and steady and patient, how Dave walked after they made love. And it spoke, of course, asking Mike canned questions in a gentrified monotone: “Where is the sink, Michael?” “Where shall I charge my batteries, Michael?” “Where is the door, Michael?” “Shall I lock it at night, Michael?” “Very well, Michael.” The Sitter was awfully curious, Julia had thought, but this catechism was normal, according to the Nice Fellows who’d dropped it off, just a one-time acclimation. Its speech was kind of cute, anyway; in lieu of lips, a diffused red light the size of a tomato would flash at the nadir of its head-sphere, a full sentence making it pulse like a heart. It jibed with the rest of its mannerisms, lending personality. There was an odd, almost priestly dignity to the machine, with that blank face and square walk, like a British guard without the hat. Even on that first afternoon, as Mike took William on its maiden tour of the Conley household, Julia had known it was going to work, and perfectly.
And for three months, that’s just how things went: William worked precisely as advertised, doing housework and odd jobs, shadowing Mike everywhere he went. It became a mascot for the three-strong family, much like the commercial Julia had used to sandpaper Dave into buying it. And sure, William had its upkeep, but nothing major: it hogged power, appreciably upping the light-bill; you had to jack it into the internet every week so it could update its “routines”; it would track dirt all over the house if you let it, despite it tirelessly wiping its feet. And there was also its cooling fan: while moving and working, a whiney little fan in William’s head would activate, presumably to cool whatever circuitry was responsible for its “thought.” The fan would cut in after a few minutes of activity, purring like a small kazoo. William’s benefit far outweighed its inconvenience, though; it was much like a pet, the three had agreed. “Except it doesn’t eat or poop,” Mike had observed, extracting laughter from everyone but William.
And that’s just how Julia came to perceive the Sitter, as a “one” rather than an “it.” It was hard not to: As she watched it pad through the property, doing chores and shepherding her son, it seemed nothing less than human—maybe a deficient human of some sort, say, an idiot savant, but still human. She had originally seen it as a glorified computer, her bulky tower and monitor sophisticated into a humanoid package, but that had changed after interacting with it. Any time she needed to teach William something—or “alter its routines,” as the lingo went—she would simply tell it what needed to be done, and it would do it, inerrantly and recursively. No fumbling with a Bible-sized manual, or dickering with technical support into the wee hours; just tell it what to do, in plain English, and that was that. If there was any confusion on William’s part, it would just ask questions until it understood. If only all men could be so communicative, Julia had thought.
To further sweeten the deal, Mike had really taken to the machine. Julia had feared him resenting its constant overbearing—perhaps seeing it as an extension of his parents, since William could objectively record and recount every station of his day—but Mike insisted on having it at wing, from the moment he got home to when he hit the hay. He’d even programmed William to be waiting when he got off the school bus, though Julia suspected this was more to show it off than anything else. Still, Mike came to treat William more like a friend than an appliance, the two palling around the neighborhood, conversing, even playing menial games.
The games were interesting. Apparently there were thousands of Sitter “routines” available free over the internet, some from Swammy themselves, but most created by individuals. Mike had demonstrated this with a “Fetch” routine he’d downloaded and installed, what mimicked the age-old game traditionally enjoyed by a boy and his dog. It had been spooky, all said, watching Mike toss a stick that William would either catch outright or faithfully retrieve, identical to any canine. Julia had shown concern at this, mainly that Mike would download some malicious routine that would transform William into a bloodthirsty maniac; watching the bizarre game of Fetch, she’d envisioned William employing that bestial agility against her son, who stood at its hip. However, Mike later informed her that this was impossible, as all downloadable routines were screened by the Swammy folk. Dave confirmed this, but the images remained unnervingly in the back of Julia’s head.
Also on her list of motherly concerns was Mike’s unnatural companionship with William. He seemed to have all but abandoned the neighborhood boys, even little James Boyle from down the street, his video-game buddy. Though, after discussing it with Dave, who had firsthand experience as a nine-year-old suburban boy, they’d concluded it harmless enough. Dave had argued that if he’d had William as a kid, he would’ve shunned other boys, too. Jointly, they’d decided their son could keep worse company; it wasn’t like William could pass along bad habits or four-letter words.
In any case, when the Conleys decided to, for the first time, leave Mike in complete care of the Sitter, Julia had her reservations. It was two months after their purchase, November, and Dave had been invited to an overnight soiree in the city. Despite the machine’s sterling presentation thus far, Julia’s maternal instinct had reared up at the thought of leaving her only child at the ward of a congeries of computer chips; so she declined, on the grounds that she wasn’t ready for such a leap. Dave, however, was adamant. In addition to thinking—rightly—that a night out would do them good, he’d had an ulterior motive: he planned on taking Jules for a long weekend down in Big Sur, as the Christmas gift displaced by William’s early purchase, and from past experience, he knew Mike would want nothing of such a trip. The boy preferred his computer and his video games—and, lately, William—to quality time with his fogy parents, thus begging the Sitter’s service. Dave, who held his own skepticisms, saw the overnight as an opportunity to test the waters before leaving his flesh and blood for an extended stay in the machine’s hands. So he’d worked Jules on it, abrading her defenses in the way he’d learned from the woman herself, and she had conceded.
And it had been a success: After returning home from the party to find William fixing lunch for a very intact Mike, Dave had cemented their January excursion down south.
***
When Christmas rolled around, contrarily warm in the way of California Christmases, Dave gave his wife a single gift: a box of chocolates, empty but for a scrap of paper billing itself as tender for a four-day getaway to Big Sur. Julia scanned it, growing puzzled, and offended in her eager way...then comprehension bloomed over her, and she swooned into his arms. They made love three times that night, and there was no discussion as to who would care for their son when it came time to leave.
***
Trips never quite turn out as planned, but the Conleys’ much-anticipated outing appeared the exception. Dave had his vacation from the Silicon Valley electronics firm he slaved at; the car had its oil changed and its tires rotated; they had picked out, over the handy-dandy internet, a beautiful combination hotel and spa, and secured a penthouse suite overlooking the drink. And Mike had William. Other than stocking the house with food and other consumables, there was little preparation on the home end of things, which, convenient as it was, spurred an unexpected sadness in Julia. Having her son so seen to, without her lifting a hand...it made her feel unneeded, a kind of mongrelized empty-nest syndrome. Why, with a regular grocery delivery, Mike would be set for life: food prepared, clothes washed, companionship, protection—and from the ministrations of a robot, no less. Still, it spoiled her excitement none.
Then William was hit by lightning.
Though unheard of in some areas, January thunderstorms are regular fare in the depths of SoCal, and a fine specimen arrived a week before the Conleys were set to depart. Mike and William had been out playing their disturbing game of Fetch, and Julia, noting the sky’s angry temperament, had gone to the door and called them in, thereby allowing her to witness the terrifying incident. She’d had time to adjure them inside—even heard William begin to back her up, probably referencing some weather data Mike had fed it—when a blinding bolt of noon erupted in their yard, reducing her world to a milky blob reminiscent of a blank movie screen. The sound was the worst of it, though: it was deafening, like a 747 taking off amidst a salvo of mortar fire. Her ears had bled.
There had been a frantic minute after the strike, when Julia, all but deaf and blind, had navigated the world solely by touch, unsure of what, exactly, had befallen her. Her head had clogged with ugly potentials—an aneurysm, chiefly, she’d had an aneurysm and she’d never see or hear again and, oh, God right before her trip what would she do—but they’d faded as she caught wind of ozone, flatulently thick, as though someone had opened a hose. She’d understood then, though it brought little consolation.
There had been no pain, so she knew the lightning hadn’t hit her, but that had raised the possibility that Mike had been struck, and that had given way to screaming. At first she’d heard only a muffled double of herself, one of those godlike phone calls you get when your ears are opened up, but then her shattered hearing had slowly come back and she’d heard Mike shrieking in reply. It was one of the rare instances where a shriek was welcome, given that the dead possess no such talent. Her vision had trickled back like her hearing, and she’d eventually found her son within the chalky haze that had replaced the world, unscathed. They’d been crowding the open doorway, holding each other and awaiting the return of their faculties, when a calm monotone had asked a simple question: “Are Michael and the Misses okay?”
Julia had started to answer, then yelped instead: William had been reduced to a charred hulk not unlike an overdone steak, the recipient of the lightning. A toupee of burn-residue had crowned its head, looking like an angry splatter of black paint. Its silicone epidermis had melted in most areas, sloughing off in big waxlike chunks. The machine had looked fresh from a daytrip in Hell. A little smoldering circle of earth had dotted the yard, presumably where William had been standing.
“Shall I dial emergency services, Misses Julia?” William had gone on, its mouth-light strobing beneath the head’s black corsage.
Julia had managed a shake of the head, breaking from her womb of shock. Mike had also begun recovering by then, and he took to giving his smote friend a once-over, asking questions and feeling it up like a good doctor. Surprisingly, the Sitter seemed internally unfazed after riding the lightning, in spite of its wasted exterior. It had coherently answered Mike’s questions and allowed itself to be led inside, moving with its wonted grace. Even so, Julia had, that afternoon, called the Swammy service number printed over William’s torso, to arrange a replacement skin if nothing else. A repair man had shown up a day later.
