Hugh Howey - Machine Learning

She pulled herself out of Daniel’s protective embrace and whirled on the crowd of ex-friends and old colleagues. She placed her hand flat on her chest. “You people think I chose this?” She turned to her fiancé. “You think I could stop loving him if I just tried hard enough? Could any of you choose to fall in or out of love by force of will? Do you really think you’re in control?”

Daniel reached for her again, trying to comfort her. Melanie grabbed his hands and forced them down, but didn’t let them go. “We’re staying,” she said softly.

“We’re staying.” Louder. For the crowd. “And we’re eating. And you can hate us for being the first, but we won’t be the last. You can go get your surgeries and implants, you can medicate yourselves according to some prescription-language program, and you can all go to hell with your hypocrisy.”

The crowd swayed with the attack, held at bay even if it would take years—generations—for them to become convinced. Daniel guided Melanie to her seat, willing to stay if she was.

“Things are going to change,” she said to herself.

“I know, sweetheart,” Daniel said.

Melanie leaned to the side to scoop up her napkin, which was fringed with the red wine it wicked from the carpet. Daniel reached it first and handed it to her, careful to fold the stains away where they couldn’t spread any further.

“It’s coming,” Melanie repeated. “And if they didn’t hear it today, they need to check their hearing aids.”

Cort eyed the school’s entrance warily; its double doors were gaped, swallowing children like krill.

He really didn’t want to be one of them.

“Mom—”

“We’ve been over this, son.” Melanie adjusted the strap on his breathing pack, jerking his torso around as she cinched it up.

“It’s not a parachute,” Cort said, frowning.

“Don’t talk with your mouth,” she told him. She tugged on the other strap, then lifted his chin to make him look at her. “You need to work extra hard to get along, okay?”

Cort grumbled but pushed his breathing tube back in his mouth. He tucked a thumb into one of the straps and tried to wiggle some circulation through to his shoulder. Behind him, the pack whirred purposefully, as if doing something. But it was just a prop to help him fit in.

He nodded to his mom, then waved goodbye to his dad, who sat in the car, his mouth a flat line. He didn’t feel like trying to communicate with the machine. He hadn’t been practicing like he should.

Cort turned to the hungry building and sulked off, trying to merge with the flow of Martian kids, blending in before they were all swallowed whole. It took every ounce of effort in his ten-year-old body to look straight ahead. They’d only been on-planet for three weeks, so he still had a tendency of walking around like a tourist, gazing up at the ruddy sky beyond the habidome.

It’s my last year of middle grades, he reminded himself. Next year will be even worse. Somehow, that made him feel better.

He jostled against a few other kids as the wide column squeezed past the hinged teeth and into the maw. The kids pushed against each other, wading forward, eager to be digested. Cort fought the urge to spit out his stupid tube; he found it hard to breathe through his nose while he was concentrating on it.

He tried to focus on the kid’s backpack ahead of him, forgetting about the breathing so he wouldn’t panic. Beneath a plastic grille, he could see a large fan spinning, just like his. The only difference was: this one wasn’t for show. It actually pushed oxygen somewhere, mixing it with proteins and fluids before circulating the slurry through the kid’s lungs.

Cort felt bile rise up in his throat just thinking about it. He quickly accosted himself for being judgmental, remembering what his mom had said—

Something hit the back of his heel, nearly pulling his shoe off. Cort stumbled, hopping on one foot, and knocked into the kid ahead.

The one behind shoved him. “Watch where you’re going, freak!”

The kid’s voice was perfect. Deep, gruff, and enunciated with crisp precision. Cort didn’t dare turn around and try to reply. It would just make things worse.

When the flow of kids started branching, Cort concentrated on moving with the fewer number, trying to find air, some room to breathe. He used his thumb and finger to pull the saliva away from the corner of his mouth, then wiped his chin with the back of his sleeve. He really wanted to tear the plastic tube out, but, impossibly, he was able to resist.

He needed to get in a pod before his head exploded.

Cort followed the masses down another hall, this one lined with individual learning units. He scanned ahead for “unoccupied” lights, but each one was grabbed by one of the other kids, usually a bigger one.

As the crowd thinned, Cort could see an end to the agony—a line of pods with green lights. Two kids wrestled with each other after choosing the same one. Cort slid past and grabbed the next one, practically falling inside before ripping the tube out of his mouth. He sucked in huge lungfuls of glorious air, nearly hyperventilating himself with relief. It had been like a kilometer-long swim underwater, blending in with the fishes.

He bent over, both elbows resting on his knees, and tried to take slower, deeper breaths. Sweat—partly from effort, partly from nerves—dripped off his nose. He rubbed his hands up his face and wiped them off on his thighs.

There was no way he could do this twice a day. Every day.

He wanted to go back to Earth.

The first lesson flashed up on the pod’s screen: a mixture of history and math. It leaned heavily on the Martian perspective, looking for calculations with dates he hadn’t yet memorized.

After a string of ten incorrect answers in a row, it kicked him down to fourth-grade history, which just made it harder to concentrate.

Luckily, the next few had a mix of Earth dates, but with a strange bias. He keyed in his answers quickly, watching the clock, and got back into fifth-grade history. Once again, the instructor wanted information he just didn’t have. Cort wiped more sweat from his brow, which just made the keyboard slick. For the next hour, he felt like he spent more time between the two grades than he did in either one of them.

When the Mathory lesson concluded, he had a few minutes to relieve himself in the suction potty before the next course. He was hoping for Englo-Bio, but got Poli-Theism instead.

He groaned to himself. Not only did he hate politics—he could never tell the Roman and Greek gods apart. He tried his hardest to stay out of third grade, but it was no use. The political structure of Mars made even less sense to him than Earth’s. And why teach this stuff anyway? It’d be eight years before he could vote!

He read the questions and typed in his best guesses, his concentration waning and waxing.

Had he known recess was up next, he would have at least enjoyed the opportunity to breathe freely, unmolested.

At the end of the Poli-Theism lesson, Cort’s morning report flashed up, along with a list of the people it would be sent to. He wondered if his mom would be one of those doting and bored parents, waiting on the real-time status update for everything their spawn were up to.

He looked at his dismal performance and hoped the report would get flagged as spam and never be delivered. In a smaller window, an instructor popped up and informed them that it was recess, a map underneath him showing directions to the gymnasium.

Cort immediately felt the urge to use the suction potty. He wondered if he could just stay in the pod, if anyone would notice. The sight of the three cameras mounted to the testing wall provided the answer. Not a good idea.