Lenora
Hugo and that robot, Zipper, have done something to my modes that make my head pound and my vision go wonky. The kids playing beneath the trees and the people sitting on benches enjoying lunch all shimmer, a hazy mirage outlining their bodies, shifting in time, like clinging gold dustmotes.
I’m seeing their physical selves and their holo-glamours at the same time and it’s nauseating. Short people are taller, fat people are lean, and scrawny people are well-built. Yet worse are their faces, a blurring swirl of multiple lips and noses that fail to align quite right, and facial hair that flickers in and out of focus like a malicious rash.
“You’ll get used to it,” Hugo says as I almost stumble trying to avoid a man who seems far wider than he actually is. “And you can still message people, and they can contact you. I’ve just set it up to filter through me first. I’m like your firewall, and it’s not much different from what I usually do. Zipper’s helped me increase the security, is all. That’s why you can see how people really look. Focus on the real version and the holo-glamour will fade.”
I ignore him.
My right cheek twitches slightly as I bring up the link to my father. I barely hesitate to put through a call, even though he insists we only contact him if it’s an emergency. I think this counts. Unsurprisingly, it fails to connect and I leave a strained message saying he needs to come home as soon as he can.
“The Professor gave me a choice,” Hugo says, to break the heavy tension, as we slip into a lift. I focus on the fraying carpet, the pattern long worn into obscurity.
“Nora? I was given a choice.”
Right. This really isn’t the place to be having this conversation, yet it doesn’t deter Hugo.
I shrug, trying to prove I’m unbothered and watch the lift go up a level.
“Hey,” Hugo almost begs, “please, you must hear me out.” He takes my silence as consent. “When I was new, the Professor would take me to different levels between my classes and he’d let me play in the playgrounds as though I was …” the word ‘real’ hangs like a soap bubble in the air, fragile and ephemeral, until it pops. “He said I could choose whoever I’d like to be my companion, and at first it seemed impossible to pick from so many. I couldn’t bear it if I chose wrong. And then I saw you.”
I chance a look at him, his shoulders slumped and hands tugging at the seam of his jacket. Never have I seen him so distressed. The Professor has clearly done a good job in creating such a well-rounded AI.
“You were on your own by the monkey bars, your hair a lodestar even beneath those lurid pink learner caps your year had to wear.” Mother kept my first modes, for sentimental reasons. “You were trying to do a handstand. Arms above your head, so focused as you placed your hands on the ground and kicked off, legs flailing. Every time you fell, you got back up, dusted yourself off, and had another go.”
The lift opens onto Level Two and I almost fail to step out in time as the doors begin to close. I ignore the motor-carriages waiting for fares, choosing to walk home, hoping to work off some of my frustration. The day I met Hugo was only a hazy memory. Being so young, all the days blurred together, yet I do remember the time before Hugo as, while not being distinctly unhappy, somewhat lonesome.
“When you finally did a handstand it wasn’t straight at all and you held it for less than two seconds, but when you looked up, you had the most perfect smile on your face. But no one had seen it. The other kids were shouting and running about, your mother was chatting with another Mediator’s husband, and your smile just flickered out. The following moment, when you straightened your shoulders, tilted your chin up as only a four-year-old can do, and carried on practicing, I knew I wanted to be your friend.” Hugo steps in front of me and I automatically stop in the middle of the path, gaining a few strange looks as people move past me. All I can see is Hugo. “No one else’s, Nora. Just yours.” If I could have hugged Hugo, I would’ve. My arms reach out before I can stop them and when I fail to feel the brush of material against my palms, I drop them limply.
“I forgive you,” I whisper. “I do.” I love him too much not to forgive him, and when his face lights up, his eyes bright and wrinkled at the corners, his lips part as his smile grows and grows, I know I’m setting myself up for a tragic fall.
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“You’re my friend, Hugo.” I don’t care that I speak aloud. Voicing it makes it more real, a public declaration for everyone to hear. “I’ll always forgive you.” Even if you’re not real.
Back at home, the house makes me tea. I should’ve been live sharing again, my followers are surely worried by now, and the Studios have most likely found my mother in my room and are wondering why I’ve vanished.
My father gets my message and flicks me a brief on my way that makes my heart flutter in a mixture of panic, trepidation and excitement. He has to know what’s going on. Reflecting back on all the arguments over the last few days between my parents only proves he does. They both do. Or at least my mother did. I flinch away from the thought that my father is the one who removed her memories.
I find the most recent argument I tagged for further examination and Mother’s voice echoes about my head.
“But you promised Thad! You promised him!” They’d known Greyson’s father. Known him well enough to break promises. Maybe it has to do with Hugo? How had he found his way into my life? There has to be more to it than him picking me out on a playground. What were the chances he would pick the Chief Mediator’s daughter? But my father had only been a standard Mediator back then. He was still working his way up the ranks, yet after Ashville was cleared he’d been promoted quickly, as though the two were linked. Maybe, like the Professor, he’d been tricked into helping?
Hugo is still nervous, perhaps worried I’ll change my mind about forgiving him, and fills the kitchen with funny anecdotes he’s picked up from the AIs in the history section of the Archive. He keeps a straight face before cracking under my onslaught of giggles, and then he juggles teapots full of tea. Things are suddenly back to normal.
Yet not quite.
There’s something tentative in the way he glances at me, in how we pass smiles between us like sweets, or the way he stands, always a little shy of being too close. The feeling is somewhere between the thrilling rush of electricity down a live wire and the heavy surge of warmth from the heating vents by the Core.
He’s in the middle of telling me the old fable of the hare with many friends, and has pitched his voice to sound like a bull, hat discarded and fingers curled like horns on his head, when my father comes home.
“Lenora?”
“In here,” I call out. The teacup in my hand rattles as I sit it down.
“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” Father sweeps into the kitchen like a storm front. His long jacket billows out behind him in heavy folds, and he’s yet to change out of his work modes, the visor sweeping low over his nose and encasing most of his head.
“I learnt something today.”
Hugo smiles at me encouragingly and gets the house to start making hot chocolates. Father drags out a stool and perches on the edge, smoothing his shirt over his stomach and attempting to check his work cuff discreetly. His gestures are not subtle.
“And it couldn’t have waited until after I finished work? Are you having issues with the automaton I gave you? Or that high-ranker? Hunt?”
“No, Father, listen. It’s about the Evictions.”
He stiffens, body rigid and immovable as steel, and his lips, the only part of his face I can see, are a thin, tight line.
“Your hot chocolates are ready,” the house says cheerfully, yet neither of us move.
“I didn’t come home for you to waste my time, Lenora.” Father stands in a manner that’s one hundred percent controlled. Hugo steps forward, tense and watchful.
“I know about Professor Ward and Ashville,” I say, gripping the bench top tightly. “I know about last night, I was there! And someone’s altered Mother’s memories. Please, tell me …”
“No,” he growls. He strips off his modes and I shrink underneath his burning gaze. His eyes are a murky grey and fierce, his brows knotted tight, casting his face in shadow. My chair squeaks as it scrapes across the floor and away from him. “You can’t speak of this!” he snaps.
He grabs my arms, his hands big enough to touch fingers to thumb, shaking me gently as though he’s undecided whether to hug me or hit me. Hugo clearly thinks he’s capable of the latter, surging forward to grab my father’s wrist and my father’s cuff sparks. A faint electric jolt runs through my arm, yet my father gets the worst of it, swearing and letting go so suddenly I almost fall from my chair. He snaps off the broken cuff, clenching it in one fist as he rubs his temple.
“Damn Thad and his goddam idealism!”
I stand too, moving so the table is between us, and think of everything I’ve ever wanted to accomplish. To be someone my followers look up to. To stand for all the people who’ve no voice. Nothing could be more important than this.
“How did you know Greyson’s father?” I demand.
“Did that boy tell you all this? Fill your head with nonsense? I’ll Evict him! That whole family should’ve been Evicted with the rest of Ashville!”
“No! Stop it! He has nothing to do with this!”
“You’ve no idea what’s at risk, Lenora.” He throws the cuff into the sink with such force it bounces out and across the bench top, collecting our cooling hot chocolates, to crash onto the floor in a pile of circuitry and broken glass. I’m out of the kitchen before the mess has settled, hauling myself up the stairs two at a time and down the hallway until I reach the safety of my bedroom. My door rattles in its frame when I slam it behind me and I collapse onto my bed, heaving in choking wet breaths.
“Lenora, you have to pack,” Hugo says frantically, back to the door, as though he could keep my father from following me. I remember the cuff and think maybe he could if my father is wearing his modes. What would a pulse directly to the head do?
“What? Why?”
“He’s calling for another Mediator to come and collect you. To Evict you.”
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