8

‘Oh, my God,’ said Charlotte. ‘He’s adorable. What’s his name?’

‘Zorro,’ I said. ‘Z for short.’

‘That’s a strange name.’

Aiden had suggested it. He pointed out that the dog had a dark patch over both eyes and there was a kind of zigzag pattern on his back where black fur was mottled in with grey. According to Aiden, Zorro was a really old fictional character, a bit like a superhero. He always wore a mask and he’d slash a ‘Z’ into things with a sword, like a sort of old-time tag. So Zorro it was.

It had only taken the dog a day to learn the sound of his name and it was incredibly cute when he jumped up and looked at you. He was also sitting on command, though sometimes he wouldn’t bother if he didn’t feel like it. I thought that was brilliant and just the way a real dog would behave. I didn’t always feel like doing what I was told, so why should a dog?

‘How does he get his power?’ asked Charlotte.

‘You see his fur? Each strand is a tiny fibre optic cable. All together they act like about a zillion solar panels.’

Charlotte was jealous, and who wouldn’t be? Normally, I’d be happy that she was jealous of what I had, but for some reason that didn’t seem as important today. This was the first time I’d seen her in person since camp, though we’d video-called each other heaps. On one of those occasions I asked her what had happened to our official complaint against Mr Dyson. She said she’d had a bit of a rethink after he dived in to save me when I was lashed to the rock, and she didn’t like to ask Mr Meredith what had happened. I was pretty sure Mr M hadn’t done anything about it and it wasn’t difficult to get Charlotte to agree to forget the whole thing. I felt loads better when she did.

I took Z into the pool room with us, partly to show off, I guess, but mainly because he was so adorable. He’d spent two nights curled up on Aiden’s bed, and after all Aiden had been through I couldn’t bring myself to ask for my share of the dog’s night-time company. Anyway, I was still hoping Aiden would come back to our room when he was feeling a little better. Then Z could sleep between us.

Mum had said I could swim, provided I didn’t ‘overdo it’ and she’d also said there was no reason why Zorro couldn’t either.

‘Totally waterproof,’ she said. ‘To at least one hundred metres. Beyond that, I wouldn’t risk it.’

So the dog ran up and down the side of the pool while Charlotte and I drifted and floated and swam. Z occasionally gave a small yip as if he wanted to join us and was just waiting for permission.

‘Well, come on then,’ I said, clapping my hands. ‘Jump in, you goober.’

And he did. It was amazing. One moment the dog was turning in tight circles, the next he had launched himself straight into the pool. Charlotte and I shrieked with laughter as he hit the surface.

I stopped laughing when he sank like a stone.

‘Oh, my God.’ I said and duck-dived immediately. Z had gone off into the deep end, naturally, so it was a bit of an effort to make it down to the bottom of the pool. When I got there, he was sitting on the floor tiles looking up at me; it was so funny I nearly burst out laughing, which is probably not the wisest thing to do when you’re on the bottom of a swimming pool. I managed to get to the surface, spluttering and choking, holding a wet dog that was as heavy as a brick. I placed him on the edge of the pool and he just stood there, dripping and blinking.

‘Shake yourself,’ I said. ‘That’s what wet dogs do. They shake themselves.’

But he drip-dried instead, while Charlotte and I nearly died laughing. I guessed Zorro was going to be relying on me and Aiden for a lot of training over the coming months. I was putting my hand up for swim instructor.

Our birthday dinner was terrific. Dad had gone to town on a cake that was shaped like a dog. It even had Zorro’s markings in icing on the side and thirteen candles along its spine. Aiden and I blew the candles out and Dad cut slices of cake for me, Charlotte and himself. Mum was at work and wouldn’t be back until late, if at all. Sometimes she slept at the office.

Aiden watched us eat. I don’t know how he does it every year. The cakes are yummy. But I guess it’s what you get used to. Then Charlotte gave us our presents. She’d got us the same thing, which I suppose is sensible – a hologram app for our tablets. We already had one of those installed, but it had bugs and the hologram it generated of whoever you were talking to was grainy and disappeared at odd moments. This app was terrific. I took my tablet into my room and called Dad, who was, of course, still in the kitchen cleaning up. As soon as he answered, this miniature Dad appeared on my bedclothes. Really lifelike and so solid-looking that I felt this irresistible urge to poke him in the stomach to see if I could make him fall over. I couldn’t. My finger disappeared into the hologram instead. It was brilliant fun.

Charlotte and I talked until nearly midnight. About school and what had been happening since I’d been away (not much, it seemed), but mainly about camp. The kids were bummed that it had all been called off, even though they were the ones who had insisted because they were scared. Charlotte was annoyed that she’d missed out on the horseriding.

‘I’ve always wanted to ride a horse,’ she said. ‘When I got back from camp, I made Mum and Dad promise they’d take me. There’s a pony club on the other side of Sydney, apparently, but it’s really expensive and there’s a waiting list to join. Dad’s taking me to see it next Monday after school. Perhaps you’d like to come along too, Ash. Then you could sleep over at my place, if you want.’

‘Sure,’ I said. Actually, I wasn’t sure about the horse business. I’d kinda changed my mind about it being an ambition. From the movies I’d seen, being perched on top of a horse just meant you had a long way to fall and the landing was always going to be hard. Plus, they appeared to be dangerous at both ends. I’d think about it.

‘My house is nothing like as nice as yours, though,’ Charlotte added. Her mouth twisted as if she regretted inviting me. I knew what she was thinking. No house could match up to mine and she was worried she’d be embarrassed. ‘I mean, we don’t have a pool or anything, and …’

‘I’m sure it will be lovely,’ I replied. I wasn’t sure, of course, but Charlotte smiled and relaxed, which was the main thing.

We giggled, we gossiped, we chatted.

Eventually, we fell asleep, our words slurring and blurring into nothing.

I have no idea why I woke at two-thirty in the morning. Maybe a sound startled me, though as I lay in the darkness listening, I couldn’t hear anything at all. I strained my ears but there weren’t even the normal sounds of a house creaking and groaning as the cooler night air made the building bend and twist.

Then Charlotte farted in her sleep.

It wasn’t very loud, but it was high-pitched, and I knew that I was going to burst out laughing. So I hopped out of bed, bottling up my laughter as best I could – it was a real strain, and I knew I’d have to let it out soon because the pressure was building. Then I thought that was probably what had caused Charlotte to fart in the first place, which only made things worse. I could feel the laughter coming down my nose, but I made it out of my bedroom, shutting the door before letting out a yelp that was almost hysterical.

There was a light on in Aiden’s room and I tapped gently on his door when I’d recovered a bit, but there was no reply. Maybe he’d fallen asleep with the light on. I thought it would be a good idea to sneak in and turn it off. Mum and Dad were always going on about conserving energy, even though we generated huge amounts through our solar sail and stored it in a massive array of batteries. But, to be honest, that was just an excuse. I knew Z was in there, lying on Aiden’s bed, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to give him a cuddle.

Aiden was awake and sitting in the wheelchair, with that strange contraption still framing his skull. He was due to go into the clinic in the morning to have it removed. He’d also been promised that he could leave the chair behind and walk to the waiting car when all procedures had been done. I could only imagine how much he was looking forward to that. His eyes were open and fixed on the wall. He didn’t even turn his gaze to me when I came into the room.

‘Hey, Aiden,’ I said. He slowly moved his entire head to face me and smiled, though that was small and faded almost immediately. ‘Can’t you sleep?’ I continued.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he replied.

I sat down on the edge of his bed. Zorro stirred and uncurled himself from a pile of Aiden’s pillows. I ran a hand through his fur and he rolled onto his back. I knew Aiden had been teaching him about belly-rubbing.

‘What about?’

‘All sorts of things,’ he replied.

‘Give me an example.’

‘Is it possible to love a machine?’

‘What?’

He scratched himself under his right eye. He had to do it carefully because of the framework.

‘Your tablet with its new whizzy app. Would you say you love that?’

It was a strange question, so I didn’t reply right away. If Aiden had been spending hours thinking about this, then he wouldn’t be happy with an answer straight off the top of my head.

‘I do love it,’ I said finally. ‘It makes me happy, and if it can give me that emotion, then why shouldn’t it loveable?’

‘As loveable as Mum and Dad? As loveable as me?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not. We’re all related, obviously. Flesh and blood. My tablet isn’t.’

‘But that’s the point I’m making,’ said Aiden. He was really animated now, as if I’d touched on something crucial. ‘Why is flesh and blood so important?’

I rubbed at my forehead and tried to frame an argument, but it didn’t matter because Aiden was in full flow now.

‘I can say that I love Zorro already,’ he said. ‘He’s cute and loyal and funny and … well, just fantastic. But he’s a machine. Really, when it comes down to it, he’s just an assembly of wires and conductors and algorithms. I can’t love a wire by itself or a conductor and I certainly can’t love an algorithm, but when you put them all together like Mum has done with Zorro, then I love the whole. So why don’t I love a solar sail?’

‘Because it doesn’t seem alive.’

‘Exactly.’ Aiden was so enthusiastic, I felt strangely pleased, like I’d given a teacher the right answer in a particularly tough test. ‘The appearance of being alive. I’ve been thinking about Turing.’

‘Who?’

‘Alan Turing. Look him up on your tablet. He’s a really old computer guy, one of the first to even think about computers. He came up with a test to determine whether machines can actually think.’ Aiden stared off into the distance as if marshalling his memories and arranging his thoughts. I waited. ‘He proposed a kind of game. Have one person, the tester, in a room with a computer that’s connected to two other rooms, each with computers. In one of the rooms is a person, but in the other room there’s just the computer and the code that works it. Now have the tester ask questions of the other two rooms. In one, a person will type in their response; in the other the computer will do it. What does it mean if the tester can’t tell what is a human response and what is a machine’s response, no matter how many questions he asks?’

I tried thinking this through, but it was difficult.

‘It doesn’t mean the computer can think,’ I said finally. ‘It just means the computer can imitate a person really well.’

‘But if it can imitate it so well that no one can ever tell the difference, it becomes human, doesn’t it?’

‘Errr …’

‘Or maybe people’s minds are really just like exceptionally sophisticated computers that are programmed to produce emotions like love. That would work, wouldn’t it? We’d all be asking the wrong question. It’s not, “Can machines become human?” but “Are humans really just another type of machine?” If so, then we can love machines and they can love us back. They’d be alive, just as we are alive. Of course, then there’s John Searle and the Chinese Room thought experiment …’

I held up a hand.

‘Aiden,’ I said. ‘My brain, the computer in my head, whatever, is hurting right now. And it’s really tired. Tell me about it some other time. I’m going back to bed.’ I scuffed Zorro under the chin and he licked my hand. ‘Love you, puppy,’ I said. ‘And you, bro,’ I said to Aiden.

He laughed.

When I got to the door, he spoke once more.

‘Another thing I’ve been thinking about, Ash,’ he said. ‘That girl in the park. Xena.’

‘What about her?’

‘I want to talk to her again.’

That stopped me. I’d been thinking about her on and off as well and as soon as Aiden said he wanted to speak to her, I realised that was something I wanted too. But it was impossible, so I’d never allowed the wish to properly form.

‘Why?’

‘Because I think she might have answers to other questions I need answered.’

‘Like what?’

But Aiden was back inside his own head and I don’t think he even heard me.

Aiden was in the clinic most of the following day, but when he got back he seemed much happier. The frame was gone and he was walking, though I think I detected a very slight limp in his right leg. Dad agreed that we could both go swimming, though he put a one-hour limit on it. More importantly, he told us that he and Mum were agreed that we could both go back to school on Monday. That gave us just three more days of being cooped up in the house.

Z improved slightly at swimming. Aiden and I took it in turns to hold him in the water, one hand under his belly, and get him to make walking movements. When all four legs were going, we’d let go and he would swim maybe a couple of metres before he’d stop and sink like a brick. Aiden dived and got him each time. I struggled to dive that deep, whereas my brother made it look easy.

We rested at the side of the pool. Dad seemed to have forgotten the hour rule and we weren’t going to remind him. I put my arm around Aiden’s shoulders.

‘Are you ready to move back into our bedroom?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ he said. There was no hesitation. He kicked away from the wall and floated on his back a metre away, staring at the ceiling. ‘I like having my own room. It feels like a place I don’t have to share. I asked Mum and Dad and they said I could stay where I am.’ He scissored up to face me, treading water. ‘No offence, Ash. And anyway, you’ve always moaned about having me in there. Plus, let’s be honest. We’re both thirteen now. It’s not like we’re kids afraid of the dark.’

‘You’re right,’ I said, as breezily as I could manage. ‘Way too old to be sharing a room.’ I splashed him in the face. ‘I don’t even like you,’ I added.

‘You said you loved me last night.’

‘That’s when you were sick and stuck in that wheelchair. I felt sorry for you.’

He splashed me back and that started a proper water war, which got us both laughing.

So why was it that I felt a little sad when I thought about going to bed that night?