“I wouldn’t get to see your thoughts though, I assume?” Nothing with Byron ever worked both ways.
“Well, no. I deal with very sensitive information, after all. Here’s the thing, Hazel. You have important proprietary technology inside you. I cannot convey the time and financial resources that went into getting this operational. Operational inside you, in particular, calibrated to your physiology. We have years of data and research on you. It’s too great a risk for my company to have such an asset loose in the world, and too great a waste not to use it. I don’t know what might happen if you fail to cooperate. Imagine the competition finding out and abducting you.” Byron made a wincing noise. “We can’t risk that.”
The line went quiet for a moment. “Byron?” Hazel asked.
“I invested in you.” His voice lowered with anger. “Your noncompliance will set us back years. Not just in terms of research. Think of the public rollout, Hazel. You’re my documented wife of a decade. That’s an established social fact. People are going to be leery of melding technology. They trust love and romance, though. If we promote it as part of our marital narrative—us wanting to take our closeness and relationship to a whole new level—it will be intimate instead of invasive. I could divorce and go start a new relationship, but people wouldn’t trust it as much with someone I’d just married.”
Hazel looked up and saw her father scoot past the window, return from the opposite direction a few moments later, then scoot past again. He was circling the couch, his scooter version of pacing. He was upset. “You know, I need to go clean up the bathroom. Let me think on all this. Will I always throw up during the downloads?”
“I’m not sure. Let me ask. Fiffany?” Hazel blushed; she’d once again wrongly assumed Byron was alone. “Fiffany says statistical probability favors you building up a tolerance.”
“How thoughtful of statistical probability, to shine so kindly upon me. Take care, Byron. Always a pleasure.”
Hazel dropped the phone on the lawn and headed inside. She needed to smooth things over with her father.
“DAD,” HAZEL BEGAN. HE WHIPPED THE SCOOTER AROUND AND PUT IT in PARK.
He was readying to give a speech.
“This doesn’t even have to do with what happened today. I’m still not clear about what that was. I don’t think I care to be. But I promise this is unrelated.”
“Okay. What is it?” Hazel was trying to decide whether or not to tell him about the chip. What would be the point though? There was nothing he could do.
“I need to rent out the back-porch room where you’re staying. I’m happy to rent it to you if you can cough up the cash. If you can’t, I’m not kicking you out. I want to be clear on that. You can sleep in the reclined La-Z-Boy, or the carport is completely empty now. Except the renter will probably have a car, so maybe the recliner is the better option.”
“Rent?” Hazel asked. She knew giving payment in return for lodging wasn’t an unusual custom. She’d just been hoping to play the whole “daughter” card until she figured out how to disappear, if she could survive long enough to do so. But disappearing didn’t seem to be possible, now. “Do you need money, or is this more a thing of principle?”
For the first time in her life, Hazel understood the importance of having principles and holding them sacred: Don’t marry someone evil for money; don’t place futuristic mind-sharing technology inside others without their consent, etc. Byron had cured her of her ethical apathy. Maybe telling her father that would make him proud. It seemed worth a try. “Dad, I admit that I lived the past thirtyish years of my life sans integrity. I mean I didn’t, like, kill anybody. Not that I feel I deserve a medal for that or anything. Actually I think it’s easier to get medals for killing people, right? Isn’t that crazy?”
“I need money, Hazel. Charging your adult daughter a few hundred a month might take the sting of failure out of the arrangement for some people, but I’m not prone to sugarcoating. You took a shot at adulthood, you blew it, you’re regrouping for round two. Me imposing a residential tax on you doesn’t make you more successful or independent. I simply need cash.”
This confession was frustrating. For years she’d been trying to lavish Byron’s money and luxury gifts on her father but he’d never accept a dime. Your husband’s geek currency is not welcome here, he’d insist. Quit trying to force the stink of affluence upon me.
“Dad, if you’d called me days ago, I could’ve given you anything you wanted!”
He nodded. “An irony not lost upon me. But things can change in a few days, and they have.”
“What changed?”
“It’s personal.” He fidgeted with the pocket of his robe. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I need another doll. There, I said it. It’s not up for discussion.”
She looked toward the darkened hallway where faceless, Throatginaless Diane still lay in the bathroom. Hazel’s chest squeezed with guilt: she had synthetic blood on her hands. “I killed her? Diane can’t be . . . salvaged?”
“Huh? No, Diane’s fine. I mean I need a second doll. I want two.”
“Oh.” Hazel couldn’t help but think how much this was going to amuse Byron. Should she tell her father he was under observation so he’d filter things, or did it not really matter? He was actually hard to embarrass on most accounts. Only Hazel’s deficiencies seemed to rattle him.
It was easiest, per usual, to just agree. “Of course, two dolls. A twin thing, kind of? Sister wives? I see.”
She didn’t, though. Every day, Hazel was learning there were new feelings to be had. Very advanced, complicated feelings that couldn’t be conveyed through language or physical expression or any form of art.
“You can think I’m being greedy. That’s fine. I don’t have to answer to you or anyone else.”
“I don’t think that.” Through Byron, Hazel had been exposed to people who had limitless funds to throw at their insatiable desires, both sexual and non. So much so that her old definitions of greed had become obsolete. Her new definition prioritized others getting hurt, and this meant that moving into her father’s house when she didn’t know what violent things Byron was going to do or try (and staying, now that she knew her brain was a recording device) were very, very greedy acts. Worse, she was going to continue being greedy in this way a little while longer. She couldn’t help it. She had no idea where else to stay while she gathered the necessary resources to travel, but this new information made the problem a lot different. She wasn’t going to be able to hide from Byron and begin anew. Wherever she went, whatever she did, he’d know.
Byron had made it impossible for her to leave him. The fact that she was no longer physically in his house didn’t matter.