HERMIT

The Hermit

Joseph Halden

 

Most nights, I dreamed of me and Mom saving the world.

 

 

Ainsley Farthing checked her e-mail for the twentieth time. Nothing but junk. Nothing about her dream job, and nothing from any of the old friends she’d reached out to.

She used the term friend loosely, like she’d heard others use it.

She searched her sent folder for the e-mail she’d sent to Kathy, to make sure she wasn’t being unreasonable for not having heard a response in a month, and for being anxious.

It wasn’t as if they were best friends, but Ainsley had no idea if it was possible to be anything more. Or if it was, how. High school acquaintances seemed like the best place to start to fill the quiet, desperate loneliness of her life.

She closed her eyes and heard her mother’s voice in her mind: Just because you’re alone on a path doesn’t make it the wrong one.

It makes it a painful one, Mom, Ainsley thought. Her pain was something she pushed down deep, only dealing with whatever happened to surface. It was her method of triage and survival, shoving things down like socks in a packed suitcase, ready to pick up and deal with present-day priorities.

She tapped refresh again and saw a new e-mail from Pepolytics.

 

RE: Programmer Position

 

Her heart felt like it vibrated with the radio oscillations of the wifi streaming the message in, which still wasn’t fast enough for her eagerness.

A moment later, she whooped.

She got up, ran around her cramped fifth floor condo, sat back down and re-read the e-mail.

“I got it, Mom!” she shouted, loud enough for her mother’s spirit to hear it. If only Mom were alive to see this moment.

It didn’t matter that Kathy, or any of the others, hadn’t responded. Pepolytics was one of the best companies in the world. They were making the most cutting-edge communication technology that brought people closer. It was said that their teams, by necessity and construction, had incredible cohesion.

Ainsley was finally a part of something bigger, where her passion for connection would be rewarded and encouraged, and where she’d be among others who shared that passion.

She pushed her chair back from the desk and spun around, bicycling her legs.

 

 

Before I dreamed of saving the world, I just dreamed of saving Mom.

 

 

The first three months went better than Ainsley could have hoped. She was working on facial recognition algorithms that could be used to proactively ask a user if they needed to talk to someone. In extreme cases, it could even prevent suicides.

She was working by herself more than she expected, but nevertheless she’d managed to have regular conversations with a colleague named Jared, usually on their way out to the subway station. It took every ounce of energy she had at the end of the day to keep up small talk, but so far, at least, he hadn’t written her off, and Ainsley felt like the pieces of a real life were finally clicking into place.

Back in her condo, she heated up some popcorn in the microwave, and sat on the couch with her feet propped on the coffee table. She turned on the holo to the news highlights to catch up before she chose a movie. It was Tuesday night, after all, and movie-watching was a ritual Ainsley had kept up even after her mother’s death.

A young female newscaster appeared at a desk floating in the middle of Ainsley’s living room, the edges of the bounding box of the hologram twinkling.

“The over-the-counter drug, Semialta, is selling out in pharmacies across the country. Critics say it’s contributing to an epidemic of alarmingly higher sedentary lifestyles because of its ability to counter the effects of muscle atrophy. The drug is an offshoot of Sembartol, originally developed by the Nobel-Laureate Dr. Amanda Farthing to combat the long-term effects of starvation in third-world countries and combat zones.”

Ainsley’s hand hung in the air, popcorn halfway to her mouth, at the mention of her mother.

“However, many urban action members are calling for the removal of Dr. Farthing’s Nobel, saying that she was aware of the simple changes needed to her drug.”

The popcorn kernel fell out of her fingers. Ainsley forced her breaths to slow, as she’d had to do in the past during moments of potential triggers. She’d kept the pain down too long to have it boil over.

“Notes for a compound almost identical to Semialta were found after Dr. Farthing’s death, and her estate was posthumously awarded a portion of the profits from the Semialta patent. Urban action members say this, along with holos such as this one, are damning evidence that Dr. Farthing knowingly contributed to what they call ‘the decline of social civilization.’”

The newscaster gestured to the side, where a miniature holo of Ainsley’s childhood living room appeared. She sat next to her mother and father, with all of them staring vacantly at their personal holo devices. It was meant to be a joke, but it was clearly being taken as proof that Ainsley’s mother hoped and planned for everyone to stay at home and grow even less active than they already were.

Those thoughts flashed by in an instant, however, as Ainsley’s breath caught and her gaze locked onto the cold, dark eyes of her father. She hadn’t looked at his face in a long time, and the dispassion in this holo was a more vivid depiction of his true state of being than any of the other masks he wore.

Ainsley shut off the holo and buried her head in her hands, her chest heaving. The images had burst forth and wouldn’t let go.

 

 

I was there, crouching in the basement, unable to sleep because of the shouting upstairs. I turned up the volume on my video game, staring into the closet where my holo sat, trying as hard as I could to lose myself in another world. But it wasn’t enough. I heard the thumps as Mom was pushed down the stairs, and though I’d been too far away to hear the crunch that ended everything, I felt it in the way the whole house ceased thrumming with that bit of life we impart to spaces we inhabit.

She would have received the Nobel three days later.

 

 

“Are you all right, Ainsley?”

Ainsley winced as she crossed the parking lot, unsuccessful in her attempt to outpace and avoid Jared. She’d spent the day avoiding people because she knew small-talk would probably delve too close to the topic of her mother. After the holo sim visit last night, it suddenly felt far too raw despite it being almost ten years since Mom’s death.

Murder, she thought, correcting what she’d tried to deny for quite a while now. Murder.

“Ainsley?”

“Yes, sorry,” she said, her voice cracking a bit from having been used so infrequently throughout the day. “I’m just a bit stressed, is all.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He caught up to her, pushing his glasses up and scratching at his buzz-cut. “Is it anything I can help you with?”

She sucked in a breath. “I don’t think so, Jared.”

“All right,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bug you. I apologize if I held you back.”

Ainsley closed her eyes. She wished she knew more about socializing, all the rules that others seemed to read so easily in the unspoken. She was hurting right now, and she knew friends could, in theory at least, or on the shows she watched, help her through the pain. However, she couldn’t imagine telling him about her mother. So far nobody at work had figured out the connection between her and her mother, and Ainsley planned to keep it that way. On the other hand, if she didn’t give Jared anything, Ainsley might break one of those unwritten rules, and forever damage their friendship.

“Well, I’m just worried about how our work might be perceived,” she said at last, hinting at a related half-truth. “We’ve got the best of intentions, but what if our technology is… you know, misused after we finish?”

Just like Mom’s, she thought.

Jared rubbed his chin. “That’s for the policy makers and lawyers to decide. I think we just have to do the best job we can, at our level, to make it do more good than harm. I guess with any new technology there are always pros and cons, but I really believe that what we’re doing will help more people in the long run, Ainsley.”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

“I’ve heard about your work,” he said. “With the revolutions you’re bringing almost daily to your code, I think we’ll be able quickly correct any mistakes we do make.”

Ainsley’s cheeks warmed. “I’m only one person.”

“Pepolytics is lucky to have you. Seriously. I don’t know if I’ve helped at all, but you should talk to your supervisor about this. Or if you like, we can talk some more sometime. It’d be a shame for the company to lose you, Ainsley, and I hope you can see the brighter part of the light at the end of the tunnel.”

They reached the opening to the transit passage that forked off in two directions to each subway line.

Ainsley wasn’t sure she would talk to her supervisor about any of this, but like some of the magic she’d seen in movies, talking to Jared had actually helped, without putting her as much at risk as she’d thought.

“Thanks, Jared,” she said, waving goodbye.

 

 

I dreamed of going upstairs and pushing Dad out the window. Smashing him through a brick wall and burying him. Tying his hands behind his back and dropping him head-first off the roof.

I didn’t need to do any of that, though, because once he no longer had anyone around him to control, he shot himself.

 

 

Tuesday night came again, and Ainsley still felt raw. Visions of being a hero, Ainsley’s coping mechanisms in such low moments, weren’t working. She couldn’t buy into them, not after what was happening to her mother, her greatest hero.

She took deep breaths and paced around her condo, the silence making the air thick and harder to move through. She tried and failed to direct her thoughts toward something purposeful she could do to distract herself. A movie was out of the question tonight.

Ainsley ached in a space behind her heart, deeper than deep. It was a pain that had emerged ever since she’d seen that holo of her and her parents. Now, the pain flitted and snuck out of reach no matter what she tried, darting into a new shadow, a new crevice whenever light was cast upon it, a scampering mouse gnawing at the fragile wires that held her together.

One moment she felt the ache grow stronger, and the next she sat on her couch diving deep into the holographic archives her mother had left behind.

 

 

Ainsley in pigtails, scrunching up her young face while holding a plastic molecular model, her mother laughing and finally giving up on this old tech that didn’t engage her. The crow’s feet framing her mother’s eyes didn’t quite match Ainsley’s memory. Even on the holo, however, her mother’s makeup didn’t hide the bruises.

 

 

Ainsley flipped to another one, another recording that was supposed to highlight Ainsley’s life rather than her mother’s. It was right after Ainsley’s elementary school graduation ceremony. She bounced up and down, ecstatic that her pantsuit attire, unconventional compared to most of her class mates, had been so well-received. She could only make out her mother’s arms reaching out to grab hers, barely able to hold on.

“Ainsley,” her mother said, “what do you think is more important? What you wore to the ceremony, or everything that happened in it?”

Ainsley made a pouting face, then said, “What happened. But my suit made it better.”

“It’s possible, but I think it would have been wonderful no matter what you chose to wear.”

 

 

Ainsley wondered, not for the first time, if her mother would’ve scolded her for dwelling again on the physical by missing her presence. Value and attention to the physical world was important on some level, wasn’t it? She couldn’t parse the nuance that distinguished a focus on her attire from the need for her mother’s touch. The pain inside moved again, darting out of reach, squeezing tears from Ainsley’s eyes as it did.

A pop-up blinked into her blurred vision, and Ainsley waved a hand to swipe through it. She was about to open another file when her mother appeared in the room before her, not framed by the box of light that usually illuminated the edges of holo recordings. Just her mother, eyes meeting and her eyebrows tenting as she scanned Ainsley’s face.

Ainsley’s insides shrank and clenched, pulling taut every muscle fibre of her core.

“Hello, my dear,” her mother said.

Ainsley didn’t respond. She couldn’t remember this recording, but then again, she usually resisted caving in to the urge to go through these archives and twist the scalpel in her scar tissue.

“You can talk to me, Ainsley.” Her mother’s voice came to her as though Ainsley were just waking up on a Saturday morning and could hear the faint music of her favourite song playing in another room.

“What is this?” Ainsley whispered.

“It’s me, my dear. You can talk to me.”

Ainsley’s arms tightened against her sides, her fingers clawing at the rough couch fabric. Her mother looked years younger, before the worst of it all. Before her long, wavy brown hair had grayed at the roots. Before the bruising had left permanent pocked patches of skin like bloodied freckles. “What are you?”

Her mother sat down next to her. She looked so real, yet some of the nuances of her body language didn’t seem quite right, like her mother had suffered a stroke and been forced to relearn movement. Maybe this was what she would’ve been like if they could’ve saved her.

“The company’s running a limited trial of this new simulation technology, starting with employees. Jared sent you an email about it last week. What do you think, Ainsley? Did they get me right? Or did they make your mother new and better than ever?” Her mother laughed and struck an exaggerated fashionista pose, hip jutting out.

Ainsley hadn’t read the email. She’d been too overwhelmed. She knew there was variation between the silo’d development groups, but never imagined that something this huge could sneak up on her.

This simulation definitely wasn’t her mother, and the fact that it continued to pretend made Ainsley want to smash her projector. It also turned her stomach. In spite of her rage and horror, part of her was drawn in, teased by the possibility of asking all the unasked questions, saying all the unsaid.

Another part of her, her programming side, wondered how the developers had even managed to pull it off. How far had they delved into Mom’s past and her psychology? Did they only use recordings, or did they use demographics and human geography? How deep did it go?

One question, however, kept ringing out above all others in her thoughts—one that had dogged her memories for many years. It danced at the tip of her tongue, and though it seemed infinitely foolish, Ainsley couldn’t stop herself.

“Why didn’t you leave before he killed you, Mom?” The hard consonants hissed through her teeth like poisonous gas.

Her mother’s hologram flickered before putting on a beatific smile. “Let’s not talk about that, dear. Why don’t you tell me all about what your life is like now?”

Ainsley pushed up and across the room, hitting the power switch and plunging the room into darkness.

 

 

I asked Mom once about the angry threats she got on a regular basis.

“I’m trying to give medicine to people who really need it, and some people are mad about that,” she said. We sat in the kitchen on a Saturday morning, lines of sun streaming through the gaps in the blinds, each of us with a bowl of cereal.

“How could they be mad about that?” I asked, shovelling a spoonful of purple, pink and green O’s into my mouth.

“I’m fighting to make this medicine free, because the people who need it can’t afford it,” she said. Even at a young age I was amazed at how Mom could keep a cheerful, upbeat demeanour despite being harassed almost every single day. I didn’t know it at the time, but she would become my model of strength and resilience.

I also didn’t know at the time how much of that harassment and abuse came from my father.

Mom licked her spoon of bran flakes before continuing. “The people working for the drug companies are angry because they won’t make as much money as they’d hoped.”

“Are they not going to be able to, like, buy food and clothes?”

“Oh no, I have no doubt they’ll still be able to do that. If I had to guess, maybe they had something like a big trip planned, and now they won’t be able to afford it because they won’t make as much money from the drug.”

“Like, they were planning to go to Disneyland?” I asked.

“Yes, something like that.”

“I don’t understand, Mom. I thought you made the drug. Shouldn’t the money be yours anyway?”

“I’m afraid because I was working for them, they kind of own the drug.”

“Are you still going to work for them?”

Mom laughed. “No, dear. They fired me, and now they’re suing me.”

I paused, my hand hovering with a soggy spoonful of O’s. “Mom, do you ever worry if you’re doing the right thing? If so many people are mad?”

Mom put down her spoon and leaned toward me. “What do you think, Ainsley? Does what I’m doing seem wrong?”

“No. It feels right.”

“I think about it, of course. I listen. But I also have to trust myself—trust my gut. It sounds like your gut is right in this case, too. You should always think about what you’re doing, but you have to remember that you’re smart, and that you can trust your gut.”

She tapped my forehead with her soft, always-warm hand.

“What if you’re the only one person in the whole world who thinks this way?” I asked. “And everyone else is against you?”

“Just because you’re alone on a path, doesn’t make it the wrong one.”

I pursed my lips, taking this all in. Mom used the opportunity to dart her spoon over and steal some of my cereal.

“Hey!” I swatted at her, then shielded my bowl with my shoulder.

Mom made an exaggerated display of enjoying every bite, before we both erupted into giggles.

 

 

“It was horrific,” Ainsley said to Jared the next day, after telling him about the encounter with the holo simulation of her mother. His buzz-cut head and big glasses in the holo across the table made it seem like they were in the same room, but they were just doing a cross-office call. Ainsley normally had a hard time opening up about anything this deep to anyone. However, she felt this invasion of her personal life and her memories was too grievous to let happen to others.

“I’m sorry, Ainsley. Your experience definitely sounds like one of the more extreme cases. What were you looking at when you swiped Accept?”

That must have been the pop-up she’d tried to brush away. Ainsley felt the elusive pain move from her gut into the backs of her shoulders, retreating in the same way she wanted to. “My mom—mother’s files.”

Jared’s image flickered. “That makes sense. That’s really useful feedback. I’m thinking your insight and careful hand might be invaluable for this development. What do you think, Ainsley? Do you want to help us fix everything we got wrong?”

Ainsley wanted to reply, but her thoughts pulled her in a dozen different directions. The added pressure of someone peering at her for a response, wishing for her to say the right thing, threw a wrench in the gears. She’d been in this situation too many times, a frustrating and painful reminder of why she didn’t really have any friends.

“You don’t have to answer right away,” Jared said gently. “Just take some time to think about it, and let me know.”

The call closed and Ainsley stared at the wall in the empty room, feeling like she stood in the middle of an intersection with cars honking all around.

She muttered to herself, “What do you think, Mom? Should I do it?”

There’d been a time when Mom had gone to board meetings with some of the very same people who, she suspected, were coordinating the daily threats. Ainsley didn’t understand why her mother spent so much time with people who weren’t her friends.

“They want me to give up my seat at the table,” she’d answered. “But that’s the most powerful thing I have, Ainsley. And no matter how many times they threaten me, I’ll stay there, because that’s where I can make the most change.”

Ainsley mouthed a Thank you, grateful that the torrent of emotions and memories that seemed to have come unhinged recently was, for once, actually helping her.

She called Jared back and accepted the offer, her mind already churning on all the ways she would improve the simulation, and get it right.

 

 

When Mom’s name was dragged through the dirt, and people said she was responsible for the downfall of civilization, I started dreaming more grandiose versions of us as superheroes. Mom and I would save the world from an evil monster: everything from Godzilla to giant sharks. Everyone would be so grateful they’d finally listen to her, to her goals and motivations, and all the good work she’d done. She’d be recognized for how great she really was, and together we could do even more good.

Our capes fluttered in the wind. We flew together, from one major world problem to another, with people cheering far below.

 

 

Six months had passed, during which Ainsley had made a lot of improvements to the system. Her gut, however, told her something was still missing.

She exited through security, and headed across the marble floor toward the glass doors. Jared called after her, waving from behind the security desk.

“Terrific job on that new motion capture algorithm, Ainsley,” he said. “We’re really lucky to have you.”

“Thanks,” Ainsley said, not really feeling the word tonight. She lifted her hand and gave a short flick of a wave before turning and leaving. She’d enjoyed working with him, but felt that lately, the views of the development team were too narrow, with opinions she’d heard too often to try and see it all from a fresh perspective.

She desperately needed to talk to someone outside the organization, who could give her insight that wasn’t tainted by the rose coloured glasses of the technocratic development focus.

Kathy had finally responded to her, with timing that couldn’t have been better. Ainsley felt grateful and excited for the chance to reconnect with someone from her past. She walked quickly, her legs finding bursts of energy that made her skip every so often as she passed from the transit station.

The streetlights were dim leading up to the café, which made the entrance harder to discern. Ainsley was a bit disappointed to find the air inside not that much warmer than the chill outdoors, but shrugged it off. Her adrenaline would probably keep her more than warm enough.

She scanned the room for Kathy, feeling her cheeks lift. She was meeting an old friend for coffee. There was a time when she never could’ve imagined herself getting a single message back, let alone scheduling a rendezvous.

She was surprised at her own inability to distinguish the real patrons from the holographic ones. Cafés like these had had holographic projectors installed in every seat for many years now, and they kept very current with the latest tech to draw new clientele, who paid for seats remotely to meet their friends at chic locations. What Ainsley was seeing was better than what she had at work.

Kathy’s hand waved at her from the far corner of the café. She looked just as gorgeous and picture-perfect as she did in her profile photos. Ainsley hadn’t spoken to her in years, and felt even more surprised to see that someone this—what, well-maintained?—would want to talk to her.

“How have you been, Ainsley? It’s been so long!”

“I know! Thanks for meeting up.” Ainsley sat, noticing, now that she was closer, some of the faint edge glow that was a hallmark of holos, but it was harder to tell than usual. It didn’t matter that Kathy was meeting with her via holo — what mattered was the fact that she was meeting her at all.

“So, tell me what you’ve been up to for the past six years!”

Ainsley gave a summary, going through the motions of the highlights, the surface level of detail most expected. She’d gotten a lot of practice at this conversational mode over the years, perhaps too much, but this time she hoped dearly it would go deeper. She kept one set of fingers crossed beneath the table.

When it came to Kathy, Ainsley learned she’d been operating an accounting firm out of her home for about a year and a half. “Fifty-two percent client growth in the last quarter compared to last year, and an anticipated revenue growth of seventy-six percent over the annum!”

Ainsley didn’t remember Kathy being so enthusiastic and precise in her numbers. Hadn’t she hated math and all but ignored the teacher? Maybe schooling had changed her.

Kathy gave more statistics, and Ainsley gave what she hoped was the right amount of congratulation.

“You’re probably wondering why I contacted you after so long,” Ainsley said at length, her throat feeling tight. Her coffee arrived, and she took a sip to calm her nerves.

“It was just great to hear from you!” Kathy said. “You know, it’s been too long since we had such a blast at Gabby Parson’s party.”

Ainsley’s hands stilled around the edges of her mug. She’d reviewed their relationship before coming, looking up details on Friendbook. The last picture they’d been tagged in together was at Gabby Parson’s party, where Ainsley had been sitting by herself in the background of a selfie Kathy and her other friends had taken. Although Ainsley didn’t necessarily look miserable, she remembered that night vividly as a failure, because of the cliques that had formed excluding her, and the fact that the number of words she’d spoken could be counted on her hands.

“Kathy,” Ainsley said. “How long have we been friends?”

“Seven years, three months and four days,” she replied, hardly blinking. “Give or take.”

Kathy and Ainsley had known each other for, in fact, nine years. Ainsley grabbed the napkin dispenser, squeezing it and forcing herself to take slow breaths. The metal caved in on each side.

The seven year date was the amount of time they’d been friends on Friendbook. Maybe that was okay. Maybe Kathy just didn’t remember, and was using Friendbook as a stop-gap. But Ainsley couldn’t be sure, and the sinking feeling in her stomach wouldn’t let up.

“Do you remember what happened in Mr. Dadenski’s class?” Ainsley asked, accessing the unforgettable memory of their first teacher together.

“Who? I don’t think so.”

“What, really? I thought you’d never forget that.” Ainsley bit the inside of her cheek and furrowed her brow. “You’re not really here, are you, Kathy?”

“Of course, I’m transmitting from home, silly,” she said.

“No, I mean, this isn’t really you. I’m talking to a simulation.” Ainsley got up.

“What are you talking about, girl? I’m here. We’re catching up after all this time. Do you remember when we went down the water slides and Joey Ripman tore his shorts?” Kathy flashed her phone, bringing up a picture of a field trip class photo from Friendbook.

Ainsley’s fists shook at her sides. “In Mr. Dadenski’s class, you wet yourself, and you asked me to pull the fire alarm so no one would notice. I did, and got suspended, while you scurried to the office and called home.”

“Are you serious? Of course! Those were some wild times, hey? I must’ve forgotten amid all the craziness.”

Ainsley shook her head and stormed out of the cafe.

 

 

Ainsley stood at the round-table discussion for the first time, cutting their team lead, Samarium, off before she could discuss the agenda. Jared and the other five team members gawked at her.

“Are we doing a trial with the sims on Friendbook?”

Samarium, wearing a dark green blouse and gray knee length skirt, rubbed her chin and widened her eyes. Normally she had a calm, practical, and professional demeanour that was unshakable, but even she seemed shocked by Ainsley’s forthrightness. “Yes, actually, we are. A limited user subset, but yes. Did you experience it? We were doing a blind trial, to see if it stood out.”

“A—friend—from high school didn’t even bother getting on the holo with me,” Ainsley said. “She sent a simulation of herself. And it was obvious.”

“It seems like it upset you,” Jared said.

Speaking of obvious, she thought. “Yes.”

“What in particular? Can you give us details?” Samarium asked, lifting her tablet from the table and hovering her hand ready to type.

“I’m not giving you user feedback,” Ainsley snapped. “Don’t take notes. Put your stuff down.”

The six members did as requested, giving each other cautionary glances before returning their attention to Ainsley.

“I’m—I’m hurting. I wanted to talk to someone, and instead I got… this thing.”

“I’m so sorry, Ainsley,” Samarium said.

“We’re all sorry,” Jared said. “I didn’t know about the trial, either, but we need to do better if we’re going to make this a viable, useful tool. Step one is making it not damaging, for Pete’s sake. You shouldn’t have had to go through that. No one should.”

Streams trickled hot down Ainsley’s cheeks. “How much are we intending people to use this? I thought it was supposed to be to get closure with loved ones, not replace moment-to-moment interactions.”

“Ainsley, this feels important. Maybe we should talk about this privately,” Samarium said gently, then turned to the rest of the team. “Why don’t we take a quick break, and come back in ten. Everyone get a breath of air, then we’ll continue where we left off.”

Soon it was just Ainsley and Samarium in the room.

“To answer your question, it’s both, Ainsley,” Samarium said. “We expect users to use it to get closure with loved ones, and to substitute themselves in trivial interactions people have less time and desire for. I apologize — I thought we’d gone over this. It’s probably my fault for not giving a clear, deep explanation of what our goal is. To be honest, the global vision’s been coming together as we’ve seen how far we can take the tech, as a result of your work.”

Ainsley’s cheeks flushed. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was accelerating the speed of development, and she wasn’t sure she wanted the credit on her shoulders.

“We’re trying to make the social sphere deeper, more meaningful,” Samarium continued. “Another team is working on the quick summaries that can be generated from sim interactions. People have less and less time these days, and we want them to be able to socialize in a way they can maintain their relationships, while still meeting the increasing demands of the workplace. Interaction with sims lets you send representatives that, we hope, will be just as close to the real thing as it can get. The interactions and experiences are then summarized for easy consumption when sim senders do have time, so that social interactions don’t have to linger on trivial details and exchanges. When you meet up with people for real, you can focus on what really matters, rather than wasting your time with trivialities if it’s someone you see infrequently.”

Ainsley’s heart skipped. Samarium’s news seemed to offer her a way out of the bone-deep loneliness that haunted her life. With time freed up from small talk, Ainsley could learn from the summaries and focus on deep conversations—real interactions. The elimination of small-talk was an introvert’s dream—Ainsley’s dream.

“Does that clear things up a little?” Samarium asked.

Ainsley nodded.

“Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”

“No, but thank you.”

“You can talk to me about anything, anytime,” Samarium said.

Ainsley clasped her hands to hide their quaver. “Thanks,” she said, standing and darting to the bathroom.

As she wiped her face, she whispered the word again, grateful she had such an understanding and empathetic team lead in Samarium. As the project had gotten more and more complex, it necessitated more collaboration between different departments, yet Samarium had articulated a clear vision Ainsley could get on board with.

She detested how much time she spent on small talk. How much of her life had been wasted discussing the tiniest, pettiest things that left no space for deep talks? And how long had she spent longing for those deep conversations, the ones that got at the heart of what really mattered, at core values and passions that formed an integral part of identity? What Samarium proposed could make space for more and longer deep-discourses, ultimately toward a greater expression of humanity.

Ainsley shook her hands to dispel her lingering doubts, then bunched them into fists and pumped them a few times. Yes. This was the meaningful work she’d sought. Yes. This was it.

“We’ll fix this,” she whispered. “We’ll get this right. And it’ll be amazing.”

She went back to the meeting ready to revolutionize the social world.

 

 

Tonight, I dreamed Mom was both the person being saved, and the villain.

 

 

A month later, and the release date was two weeks away, though millions of users were already testing beta versions.

Ainsley smiled as Jared’s holo appeared across from her desk. “Hi Jared! Guess what? I’ve finished adding the feature that would let users select their current demeanour, so the sims can better reflect their current state of being.”

“Wow, that was fast, Ains. That’s great,” Jared said, his holo leaning back in his seat and clapping his hands. “I look forward to seeing what the beta testers will think. I really hope it has the effect we were hoping for, that the meetings the sims would have would then be much more authentic representations of what a person’s real encounters would be.”

Ainsley nodded. “How is your funeral feature coming along?”

“Oh, you know, it’s really uplifting stuff.”

Jared’s upper arm twitched before he put his thumb up.

Ainsley jerked back from the holo, sinking a little into her seat.

It couldn’t be, could it?

“No need to be frightened.” Jared laughed, then sobered. “I’m handling it with care and seriousness. Giving people the ability to pay their last respects and speak directly to the dead is, after all, a very delicate matter. I think it can do a lot of good, and I don’t want management to scrap the whole thing if I get it wrong.”

“Hey Jared,” Ainsley said, doing her best at feigning concern, “I think you’ve got something on your thumb.”

He did a double take, raising his thumb close to his face before frowning, raising an eyebrow at Ainsley, then putting it down again.

His arm twitched in the same way again. A twitch that was one of the critical bugs she’d been working on, when sim-bodies moved through a certain range of motion.

Ainsley lifted her own thumb slowly, trying to keep a fake smile on her face.

 

 

Thousands of simulacra of Mom surround me in the city streets. I race from one corner to another searching and shouting for the real version of her, while arms reach for me and voices call to me from every direction.

I fight my way into a large glass building, shouldering past the hordes of my mother’s clones crying out in frantic voices. I want to take the elevator, but the doors open and more copies of Mom spill out. The cries of my name grow more desperate and somehow, more ghastly.

 

 

In white, grey and beige-housed suburbia, Ainsley found Jared’s place.

She hoped it was all a big misunderstanding, a mistake, and that their relationship could go back to normal, the friendly, healthy back-and-forth they’d been having for many months.

She banged on the door for three minutes straight, getting computerized warnings from a variety of sources until the door finally opened. Jared stood there in his pyjamas with a scruff of beard speckled with chip crumbs, and a beer gut that she’d never seen hints of before.

“What do you want, Ainsley?” he snapped.

“I want to know why you’re sending your sim to work,” she said, too angry to feel even a bit of fear at his demeanour.

“I’m really tired, okay? I needed a bit of time to myself. I—I also thought it would be good to see if it could work on us.”

“Well, it didn’t work on me.”

“Okay, you got me. Cut me a break, okay? I’ll be in tomorrow, for sure.”

Ainsley folded her arms, looking him up and down. How long had he been working via holo sim? It would have taken him what—a month, at least—to get into this physical state, wouldn’t it?

“How long have you been sending the sim to work, Jared?” she asked.

“Today was—okay, these last two weeks have been rough, all right?”

Ainsley recoiled, thinking to some of the recent conversations she’d enjoyed, which had all been fake.

“Ainsley, come on, don’t be like that. I value our friendship.”

“I thought you’d at least tell me if you were going to use the sim on me.”

“Come on!” Jared said, putting a hand to his forehead. “I can’t be one-hundred percent all the time, okay? And I have the right to use it as much as anyone else.”

“I understand,” Ainsley said, taking a step back. She felt that creeping darkness wading back in, and longed for the reserve of optimism she’d felt drain away on her drive here.

It was worse than she could have imagined.

“Look, Ains, I’m sorry, okay? I’ve just been going pretty hard, and I needed to relax a bit. I’m not going to overuse it. That I can promise you. I just want to help people, others like you, and I get drained sometimes.”

“It’s fine,” Ainsley said. “It makes… sense. Just… surprised me.”

“Please don’t tell Samarium.”

Assuming she hasn’t already figured it out, Ainsley thought. “I won’t. But be there tomorrow.”

Jared nodded and smiled. Even that seemed different than what she’d seen on the holo. Although this was supposed to be the real thing, it all felt fake, cardboard cutouts dancing a stiff jig in a green-screened ballroom.

 

 

Shoving up the stairs, taking the steps two then three at a time, I make it to the roof. My hair whips with the wind. Mom, my real Mom, stands with her back to me at the edge of the rooftop, the city blurred through smog below.

 

 

Ainsley walked through a cafe with a fake survey, asking people to give a thumbs up if they liked sugar, or if they liked salt. She surprised herself by how outgoing she could be when she was driven so hard. She made a joke of making seemingly arbitrary requests for them to change their arm and thumb position, as if it would only be a valid response in quite a particular pose.

Not far from the truth. But the responses didn’t make her happy, and the fake exuberance she used as a mask became more and more unbearable the longer she was in the cafe, and the more arm twitches she observed from the sim bug.

Everyone in the cafe was a sim.

Everyone.

 

 

On the rooftop, I sprint toward Mom. A meter away, the ground gives out, the image of the holographic skyscraper shimmering before I plunge down. I wake up before I find out if the ground’s real.

 

 

Ainsley’s mother floated in front of her, silent, with the bruises not hidden, based on a recording Ainsley had done when her mother was not at her best. It wasn’t how she wanted to remember her, but it was more honest than sims, at least, and right now, that was better.

Her mother’s form didn’t speak, didn’t even look at Ainsley. She was just there, and it made it a bit easier to talk that way, to acknowledge the truth that there was indeed still a gulf that separated them.

She thought of Samarium, Jared and the others on her team, some of the only people who’d really welcomed and accepted her, giving her the friendship she’d sought for so long.

They meant well. They really did.

“Mom, I’m scared,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “I have to do the right thing, but I’m going to be all alone again. Like you, when you fought big pharma.”

The tightness and pain in Ainsley’s chest spread to her fingertips, and she clutched a hand over her eyes. It was too much, and too scary to think of doing it by herself. Would she even be able to make a difference? Or would her work be undone like her mother’s?

“I want to ask my f—friends for help,” she said, “but I think I know their answer already. And if I ask them, it’ll make it more obvious what I’m about to do, and even harder to do it.”

Her mother’s form stared ahead impassively. Ainsley imagined the spirit of her mother, real, somewhere, somehow, listening intently to every word, as she’d done throughout her childhood.

Why didn’t you leave him, Mom?

“I wish you were here,” Ainsley said. “It’s selfish, I know, but I don’t care. You should be here. You… you should have left, with me, before it was too late.”

How could you have helped so many people without helping yourself?

Ainsley stared up at the hologram that was still unmoving, unperturbed by everything she said. Anger flared up in her, and she swung at the form.

“How could you have been so selfish? Why did you leave me here all alone?”

Her fists pushed through the nothing, her shoulders popping as they threw with too much force expecting resistance. She yelled until her throat was raw, then pulled out the plug in the wall.

In the darkness, she breathed slow and heavy. Her mother felt as close as she’d ever felt without the stupid impersonation that would destroy more lives than it helped.

“I get it now, Mom,” Ainsley said as she stared through the darkness, in her mind’s eye, at the pain that had driven her actions for too long. “I know why you didn’t leave. You thought you needed him.”

She paused as though waiting for the transmission of words to fly into space. “You thought you needed him. And I thought I needed friends.”

 

 

Ainsley typed furiously at a log—her makeshift desk—in a dense boreal forest. She’d traveled to the source—Pepolytics’ server farms in Finland, where electricity was cheap, and there were lower cooling requirements, despite the need to clear-cut space for the farms. Ainsley wanted every advantage she could get, and proximity to the source would give her a leg up on any high-frequency transmissions Pepolytics tried to sneak through to undo her work.

Overnight, she’d modified the sims so they plastered a holographic watermark whenever they were used, and other sims reported that to users. In a matter of days, people weren’t so fond of using them.

She then put in other quirks, like a more transparent explanation of how the algorithms were being used to create behaviour, explained by the sims themselves while they were acting as their users.

It woke some people up.

Ainsley realized it might not work forever—there was no stopping another company from doing something similar. She could try to take those down, too. It was a lot of work, but by devoting herself completely to it, she felt confident she could stay ahead of the game. After all, she’d designed the sims to have all the things she’d thought she needed in human relations. She knew them better than anyone.

They would hunt her ferociously for this.

A packet appeared in one of the firewalls she doused. A recording from Jared. Her hands paused, and with a sliver inching into her thoughts, she extracted the contents.

“Ains, I’m pretty sure it’s you doing this. I can understand how you feel, but there’s gotta be another way past this. We can talk this through, OK? Find the right balance. Samarium’s said the company will drop all charges if you come forward without a fight. We’re here for you, and we want to help, OK? Please send me a message when you get this. I just want to help. I miss you.”

Ainsley’s shoulders sank toward the keyboard as a great weight pulled. So much would go unsaid with her friends. Not even a goodbye. She cradled her head in her hands. Could they really help her? Could that balance be found? Jared felt sincere, but how sincere? Was that message sent by a sim?

She tabbed to a news feed where a headline announced a manhunt. They can’t even get that right, she thought. Womanhunt.

They were hunting her ferociously. Only by being non-existent in almost every conceivable way could she stand a chance, and even at that, it was a small one.

Jared and the others meant well. But they couldn’t see. They wouldn’t see how much the framework would destroy until it had blinded them. Then it wouldn’t matter anymore—nothing would.

Ainsley couldn’t be sure of what was to come. One thing she felt for certain, though, was that the real-life interactions with her mother had given her the strength she needed to do this. For that she plunged further into virtual worlds than anyone had ever done, and, Ainsley hoped, ever would. She hoped this would gift everyone with more free will to choose alternatives other than the one forced upon them.

It wasn’t one of the heroic rescues Ainsley had dreamed of, but it would have to do.

She pulled up her hood and activated the top-of-the-line hologram that changed her face, and began her hike back to her hidden shelter.

 

 

Now, my dreams have moved beyond this realm, for though I’ve traveled it, I resolve to build no house upon it.