“Where did you find all this stuff?” Javier asked.
“We had to replicate a few museum pieces. Mostly Buckminster Fuller stuff, and a lot of Eames and Jacobsen, but also some demo furniture and fabrics from the original Playboy mansion. And the Playboy townhouse. Did you know there was supposed to be a Playboy townhouse? In 1962?”
“Playboy?” Javier asked.
“They were actually extremely helpful. I really wish I could have worked for their interiors division, back then, when they tried their home design revival. It was so trashy, all leopard-print and mohair. They needed a better team.”
“Right,” Javier said, as though those words meant something to him.
“Anyway, my thinking was that we should really dig into that sense of wonder and optimism that pervaded the Mid-Century Modern period. Because it was all about this one approach to the future, before we knew how hard the future was going to be. Like space, for example.”
“Space?”
“Well, space travel. I mean, these people still believed in space travel.”
Javier watched the houses rolling by. Their floor-to-ceiling windows exposed all the goings-on inside, when the sun’s glare went the right way. Inside, there was always an Amy. Amy, watching a display. Amy, checking a cupboard. Amy, watering a succulent. Amy, but not Amy. Just a constant reminder of what he’d lost. He had his doubts about God, but Hell was looking like a distinct possibility. There was no other word for an entire community planned around housing multiple copies of the woman he’d loved and betrayed.
“Space travel? You mean like generation ships?” Javier asked.
“Yeah, like those,” Holberton said. “Although, these people, these Jetsons types, they were into domed cities on the moon. Can you imagine that? Domed cities? On the fucking moon? Jesus Christ.”
The lawns were fake. Children played on them nonetheless. Holberton stopped at an intersection, and as Javier watched, three small versions of Amy led a group of human children across the street. The Amys watched the intersection with narrow eyes and perfect posture: heads high, chins up, shoulders back, spines straight. Their alertness only diminished when the organic kids had all made it to the sidewalk. They looked exactly like the lionesses Amy had designed to guard the Veldt.
“They’re deeply focused,” Holberton said. “It’s a leftover from the original nursing programs. It has to do with problem-solving. They prioritize goals differently. They’re long-term thinkers.”
Well. That would explain some of Portia’s behaviour.
They drove past a park with a swingset and a bunch of toys. Amys of different sizes played there, swinging impossibly high, climbing cargo nets with grim determination, swinging from monkey-bars like zealous humans at a terrorist training camp. Javier used to take his sons to playgrounds. He considered it a key part of their social development. Apparently the parents here thought the same. The adult Amys watched from the sidelines. They clustered together, watching the human children and their own iterations with the same precision that their daughters exhibited while crossing the street.
“It’s not a bad life,” Holberton said. “There’s a school. And a library. And a grocery store full of vN food.”
“All home comforts,” Javier said.
“Don’t take that tone. I know what real poverty – real lack of privilege – looks like.” Holberton gunned the engine and started driving toward the centre of the city. “Under Las Vegas, there’s a whole network of flood tunnels. There were hundreds of people who lived down there. Humans. Before the vN came along. When I first came to Vegas, I ran a haunted house down there. It was cash only, and you got a text an hour before it started telling you which entrance to take. No one under eighteen allowed.”
“But you were eighteen,” Javier said.
Holberton turned to him. “Someone’s done his homework.”
Javier shrugged. Holberton continued staring at him, but he said nothing. Eventually, Holberton turned away and focused on the road.
“Anyway, I guess you could say that’s how I got started in all this.” He gestured at the houses with their prickly pear and rhododendron in the front yards. “And this is not that. Do you see an inch of flood water everywhere? No. Do you see parents on drugs? No. A few alcoholics, maybe, but we’ve even got some AA meetings over at the church.”
“Did these people quit their jobs to come here?”
Holberton shrugged. “I’m sure some of them did. A lot of them didn’t have work. They get paid a stipend to stay here. It’s not much, but they can spend it any way they like. And there’s no shortage of businesses who want to take their money. It’s not all government cheese, if that’s what you’re asking.”