Lettie Prell: The Need for Air

She looked down into the abyss. It would be easy to throw herself off, but she knew she couldn’t die here. Instead, she tried covering her eyes with her hands again. Wrong pair. She tried again, with the other hands that she was still getting used to manipulating, and covered her eyes with those.

Instead of seeing the beautiful feed sprung to life, with the customizable body and all those clothes, she was out of the simulation altogether.

Thank you Lake cherry cherry lime, said the more feminine voice.

Was that a reference to a slot machine? Lake almost laughed. She started to report out, sharing her impressions and thoughts—especially about that new way to experience the feed!—but she was suddenly very tired. They probably knew everything they needed to, anyway. She punched out for home.

Lake paced the living room, frowning. She’d rather be at the Never-Ending Mixer, her favorite after-work hangout, but she’d told Jared she’d be here when he came home. But just when was that going to be? She replayed the memory of their conversation, and saw no time had been mentioned. He’d said he was going to hang out with the kids after classes, so even if she checked the school times, it wouldn’t tell her anything about Jared’s return.

She replayed the memory again. There was her son, leaning on the door jamb, studying his shoes. That was his father’s slouch, with the downward gaze. She pursed her lips. Jared’s intentions were plain as day, but she’d failed to see it because she’d been so relieved she could go to work. If you passed a statue in an art museum posed like this, its title would read Dishonest Boy with Secret Plans.

Oh, but she knew exactly where he was. She flung herself on the couch and closed her eyes. Clap, she shouted at herself. That wouldn’t do. She sighed out a lungful of anger and tried again. Clap. Clap your hands.

She sat up, pulling the hood from her head in one smooth motion, and then the lines connecting her suit with the bed. God, she was getting too good at coming out. She was steady on her feet as she rose and walked swiftly to the door of the ward.

There was a robot in the hallway, apparently waiting for her. For a moment, she took it for the one that had brought Jared back from wherever he’d roamed, but then again, all of them looked alike. Robot personality programming had been purged several updates ago.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

The robot tilted its head as if unsure what she’d said. “This is your formal warning that repeated surfacing behavior will result in ejection from Sequester.”

Lake sucked in her breath. “Just how many formal warnings do I get?”

“One,” the robot replied.

Lake blinked. “This one? This is it?”

“Correct.”

Lake’s hands clenched. “Then help me find my fucking son.”

She pushed past the robot and let herself into the children’s ward. All the bodies looked so similar in their black suits, but at least none of the beds were empty. She breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted Jared’s artificial legs, gleaming in the dim light. She approached, and stared down at his form, suddenly wanting to scream at him, he’s caused them both so much trouble. They’re on the brink of being evicted, of losing this golden opportunity to improve their lives for good.

But he was already on the other side, back where he should be in the virtual world. She’d have to save her fury for when she returned.

She felt rather than heard the robot’s presence at her side. There was a displacement of the air, a large mass in her peripheral vision. Her memory worked the old way here, but it was vivid enough.

“You mentioned you could put on a child lock,” she said. “On his hood. So he can’t take it off.”

“It requires the legal guardian of the child to authorize,” it said.

She chewed her lower lip briefly. “Then let’s do it.”

The robot reached down. Its arm made two clamping motions, one on each side of Jared’s neck.

“And take his legs,” she said, turning away.

“Repeat?”

“You heard me. Take his goddam legs off.” She exited, crossed the hall swiftly, and reentered her own ward.

It’s for his own good, she told herself as she fastened herself into the bed. He’ll be fine. He’ll adjust. Everyone does. And he’ll thank me. He’ll thank me for this.

She sat in her beach chair, toes grinding into the black sand, and watched her son—her only son—stare out to sea. He hadn’t spoken to her for three hours, not since he’d obviously tried to leave, to come out of it, to do his little visit back to his body. He’d come bursting out of his room screaming, “Mom! What’s going on?” She’d tried to soothe him, of course. She wasn’t a monster. She was doing this because she loved him.

“Honey,” she’d said as she held him close. “It’s because I care about you. I care about your future. You’ve got to believe me, this is better than out there. You’ll live forever, for one.”

Then, because he hadn’t stopped crying, she’d brought him here, to the beach. He liked the beach. Kids don’t understand about mortality, she thought. Jared probably never thought she’d die someday, let alone himself.

Jared was planted in the wet sand, letting gentle waves roll over his legs. His father, David, had liked the beach. He was always photographing the beach, and their seaside cottage, with that impossibly archaic camera with the bellows, and gargantuan negatives. He had to send for supplies halfway across the country, to make his blasted black-and-white photographs.

“Why do you bother?” she’d asked him many times.

“I like old things,” he’d responded. But there were some things he liked young, she’d discovered. He’d left her for a twenty-five-year-old man who’d majored in psychology at Sarah Lawrence. They got the beach cottage in the divorce. Lake had taken the two-bedroom apartment in Cambridge, near Jared’s school.

The morning she’d left him with Jared in tow, David had stood staring at the sea in the same way that Jared stared now.

She reached up and ran her fingers over her hair, as if the memories would shake out with the sand and float down the shore. This programmed place she’d secured for herself, for Jared, was her new world now, an exciting and seemingly limitless place that she was helping to create with A.I., through her beta testing job. Cherry cherry lime, they’d told her. They’d been pleased. When would she be able to leave Jared again and go back to work? She’d love to be enveloped by the feed again. The current sidebar of goodies suddenly seemed outdated. She watched the offerings scroll by: mood boosters, a memory excision tool. She paused to read about the latter.

“Mom? Mom!”

It was Jared, kneeling in front of her. Black sand stuck to his arms and thighs like so much pepper.

“Yes, I’m here,” she said. “You don’t have to shout.”

“Mom, I have to go back. Now.”

“Jared, you know you can’t. It’d mean—”

“I have to feed the dog, Mom. It’ll starve if I don’t.”

“Dog?” She couldn’t process this. “We can get you a dog, honey. Whatever you want.”

“Mom. This is a real dog. There’s a place outside Sequester where I go. Mom.” He started to cry.

“Go? What do you mean go?” But now guilt stabbed through the anger and made everything clear. She’d been so wrapped up in her new job, and being around A.I., and going to the Never-Ending Mixer, and worrying about what he was going to do, that she’d neglected to access her son’s space to look at his history of movements. She called it up now, even as he relentlessly stared at her with those serious eyes. And what she saw was unbelievable.