Maria Arena paid the bill for the cloning, a little troubled that the last clone had only lasted five years. She was missing another several weeks. She had no report on the state of her body on delivery. The cloning lab manager claimed the information they took on the body had been lost after the body’s cremation. It happened sometimes, he assured her.
She called for a car to take her home, went to the apartment in Firetown that Sallie Mignon had given her, unlocked her door with her handprint, and collapsed on the sofa. Normally she craved food and a nap after waking up, but now she was fidgety and couldn’t focus.
She tried to parse out the events, but her last mindmap had been a routine one. She hadn’t done a job for Sallie in months, and she’d been living comfortably on her retainer while waiting for a job.
Maybe Sallie knew something about what was going on.
She went to her bedroom and changed out of the simple jumpsuit the cloning lab had fitted her with. She put on flannel pajamas and a fluffy robe.
She would call Sallie tomorrow. For now, she would make dinner and go to bed. After some homemade coquito acaramelado, naturally.
As she made them, she pictured her aunt in her kitchen, stirring the sweet milk and coconut together. Only this time her aunt had much darker skin, and was much older than her memory. And while in one hand she held the wooden spoon for stirring, in her other hand she hefted a small—but definitely lethal—chain saw.
“That’s different,” she said, and kept stirring. The memories came stronger now, her aunt slowly stirring and looking at her. The memory wasn’t that of comfort food and love, it was of fierce protection from obvious danger. As Aunt Lucia stirred, the window behind her showed a vast wasteland, with inky black skies and shining white dust. Hanging in the sky was the Earth, blue and white.
Aunt Lucia had never traveled to the moon. The Luna colony was still being established in her time, and travel between the moon and Earth was incredibly expensive.
My Maria, the woman in her memory said. Aunt Lucia hadn’t spoken much English, and now her words had a much more American accent. You’re in danger. They take you and they use you. Your beautiful skills, they use them to harm others. Then they dispose of you. They will come again when they need you. You must get protection.
Here, Aunt Lucia hefted the chain saw in her other hand. Be strong.
It was one of those dreams where she knew it was Aunt Lucia even though it looked like Mrs. Perkins from that horror movie she loved from years back.
She snapped back to herself in shock. She wasn’t asleep and this wasn’t a dream. “You’re really in there, aren’t you?” she asked, tapping her forehead.
Her vision blurred and then Mrs. Perkins was sitting in a rocking chair on her porch. Her chain saw was on the floor by her chair, the motor grumbling to itself. She sipped a glass of ice water. Condensation was beading on the glass even though they were still outside the Luna dome. They should be asphyxiating and having heart attacks by now.
I’m what you made me, my Maria, she said. You put me here to warn you.
Maria concentrated and she was on the porch by the old woman in her mind. “I made you? When did I have access to a computer that strong?”
“The last time they took you. They had you do some work for them, bad work.” Against the sky, news sites flashed announcing the assassination of a Japanese diplomat who was working on clones’ rights. The picture of a young Japanese man, the main suspect, appeared next to it.
The chain saw stopped grumbling. It had become an ax—no, the handle was too short. It was a hatchet, lying on the floor of the porch, stained with blood.
“Oh shit,” Maria said, sinking back into one of the rocking chairs. “So I put you into my own mindmap? I must have been pretty desperate.”
The old woman’s thin white eyebrows lifted, and she said, “They took you. They hurt you when you wouldn’t obey. They will do it again. That’s why you made me. To warn you.”
“Because I wasn’t able to make a mindmap before they killed me. But I could hack my existing one,” Maria said, the dawning horror making her flesh crawl. She became selfishly grateful that she didn’t remember whatever they had done to her.
“I need to talk to Sallie,” Maria said.
“Probably. I wouldn’t trust her either.” Mrs. Perkins returned her gentle gaze to the lunar landscape.
“What? Did I tell you to tell me that?”
“No, but she is very powerful. And it was a powerful man who keeps doing this to you. People in power are dangerous.”
“That’s an interesting logical jump for an AI to make,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ll be careful, but as you said, I need someone to protect me.”
They rocked on the porch for a bit, Maria thinking and oddly enjoying the companionable presence of the AI she had developed. She wanted to ask her so many questions, but wasn’t sure where to start.
“Is there anything else you’re supposed to tell me?” she asked.
“Good Christ on a cross, child,” Mrs. Perkins said, stopping her chair mid-rock. “Were you not listening? You keep getting kidnapped and forced to do unspeakable things. Protect yourself. Trust none of those people you think mean you no harm.”
She started rocking again, closing her eyes as if on a warm and sunny porch. “Oh, and maybe you should think about another career. This hacking thing is dangerous. You should try something nice, like cooking.”
Maria came back to herself, her mind a storm of wonder and fear. The milk and sugar had burned into a napalm-like mess, and she hurriedly pushed the pan off the hot element.
She had done something no one had ever done before. And to her own mind. She’d created a yadokari she could actually access.
No one would believe her. If they did, they would use it to harm and control people, even more than they currently did with hacking. She sighed and headed to her computer. She had to look at her mindmap and figure out what she had written.
Criminals
The Maria who no longer hid her talents fascinated Joanna. She had been sitting on the cot in her cell, clasping and unclasping her hands, when Maria had started talking to her. Now they were coming up with A Plan. From inside jail cells.
Having the all-powerful AI on her side didn’t hurt, Joanna supposed.
“So what do you need to know about the medbay?” Joanna said.
“You and Wolfgang analyzed the corpses in your full body scanner, right?” Maria asked. She sounded energetic, as if she were pacing and just ready to burst out of the cell. Joanna just wanted a nap.
“Yes.”
“All right, um, IAN, can you show me some video via the terminal in my cell?” Both cells had terminals on the wall for incoming messages and alerts, but there was no way for the prisoners to control the video.
“Sure thing,” IAN said. “Do you want the medbay?”
“Yes, please.”
“What are you getting at?” Joanna asked.
The medbay, complete with Hiro and the captain arguing, came up on the terminal. Joanna watched, feeling vaguely dirty, like a voyeur.
“Great, now can you access the doctor’s scans from the scanner?”
“Yes, which one?” he asked.
“Wait a minute, you’re not supposed to have access to that!” Joanna said.