Lettie Prell: The Three Lives of Sonata James

A black bird glided across the stars within the deep. No, not a bird. Sonata tracked the drone across her line of vision and watched it bank and turn.

“Hey,” she said. “Someone’s shooting video of us.”

Satchya followed her gaze, and then leapt to her feet, emitting a siren blast.

Everywhere, iterations leapt upright. Sonata’s newbody responded automatically as well. Kent touched her lightly on the shoulder and indicated a direction. “Run.” His touch transmitted his plan to her.

There was a flash of light, and Kent’s arm went flying. Sonata saw another drone scoop low, tracking after a small group fleeing for the parking lot. Everyone was scattering. Kent followed her as she ran toward Sheridan Road. Satchya caught up with them and passed them just as they ran across the road, heading for a stand of trees. Her blue-skinned friend’s body was in an erratic hyperdrive. Smoke curled from the side of Satchya’s neck, then her form suddenly jerked and crumpled at the base of a trunk.

Sonata felt fear in her mind, but she moved with efficient confidence. With Kent on her heels she headed under the cover of the trees, and they made their way through to the far edge of the tree line, where they saw their goal within reach. They paused to locate the drone’s position and calculate when they could make their final move with the least amount of risk. Then on Kent’s subvocalized signal they burst through into the open again on the other side of the grove, sped across a short span of lawn, leapt a hedge, and landed on the sand leading to the safety of the lake.

As they entered the water and submerged, Sonata subvocalized to Kent. What was that?

Attack of the idiots , he replied. Anti-NB sentiment has bloomed into terrorism, my dear .

Everything suddenly fell into place. From her mother’s voiced worries the day Sonata had left her home, to the distasteful moues on the street, to the Forum interview, and up to this moment, she’d been so into herself she’d been oblivious to what was going on in the world. That damned interview had played into the anti-NB sentiment.

Satchya . The subvocal protocol couldn’t convey the grief she felt, nor the sense she’d contributed to her friend’s destruction.

Kent reached out with his one arm and touched her shoulder with tenderness. I’ll restore her from backup when things calm down. They can’t annihilate us. We’re their future.

Yet Sonata recalled how she’d felt the day she’d pushed impatiently through the crowds. When any species is confined to an overcrowded space, the stress can cause them to attack one another. The haters were acting on emotions she’d once experienced herself. The interviewer who had mocked her knew he would eventually become an iteration. Every day, 150,000 breathers died, and over 25 percent now went into iterations. The birth rate was starting to decline, but not quickly enough. At some future point there would be no more breathers—or at least so few their breeding would not matter—and population would stabilize. There was a long time till then, however. What would happen in the meantime? She refused to run those scenarios.

A long, hot summer night was succumbing to a predawn rain bringing cooling northern winds when Sonata burst in the door of her mother’s house, slammed it behind her, and drew the dead bolt into place. She’d shut off her tattoos so she could blend into the shadows unseen. Looking around the living room for something to use as a weapon, she noticed the old couch had been replaced with matching loveseats facing each other across a sleek glass cocktail table. A chilling thought crossed her mind. Maybe her mother had moved. Maybe Sonata was standing in someone else’s house now. She felt a wave of deep regret wash through her mind, but her body remained calm and functional, so she let the feeling pass.

She heard a movement, and then a light went on, illuminating her mother standing at the top of the stairs. Her hand lingered on the switch, then fell away. Slowly, using the railing as support, the older woman made her way down the stairs and stopped, staring at Sonata.

Sonata remembered her tattoos were off, and turned them on again so her mother would recognize her.

“It’s you.”

“Yes.” They stood there, neither one moving. “The iteration hospital is gone, mother.”

“Gone? Tonight?”

“Burned.” In her mind, she felt deep grief. “I have friends who are no more. They got the backups.”

“Oh, baby.” Her mother approached, and they hugged. “I’m so sorry.”

With effort, Sonata pushed her mother away. “I could be endangering you, coming here.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.” Her mother suddenly seemed energetic, in charge. This was her mother’s working self. She motioned for Sonata to follow her up the stairs, which she scaled herself at a quick trot. “We’ll put you in your old room till this settles,” she said, heading down the hall. “There are good people left who won’t let this go away. I know who to talk to. People have rights, and that includes iterations.”

The door to Sonata’s room stood open. Her mother threw on a light and crossed to the window where she drew the drapes. The room had been converted into a media center, with a large flat-screen facing a couch. Sonata stayed in that room for a full week, convinced any glimpse of her through a window would jeopardize her mother’s safety. Finally, she realized her mother could take care of herself, and allowed herself freedom to roam the rest of the house, though she avoided standing at the windows. Her mother worked longer hours now and was meeting with the alderman of the ward and other officials after work, pushing for a solution.

During her seclusion, Sonata was in touch with her own kind over their secure network. Driven into hiding, they communicated exclusively in the new language of symbols and mathematics. Sonata discovered some of her friends, including Miller, had fled into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Others had spread out to midsized urban centers relatively untouched by the unrest. When she learned at last that Kent and Satchya were gone forever, their bodies destroyed and their backups burned in the fire, she mourned for them terribly until the emotion slid away.

There were hundreds of attempts to bring down the NB network, or to infect it—and the NBs—with one virus or another. But the NBs had superior technology, and the system stood. With the new language, they could conceive of technological developments much more rapidly than ever before. Planning went forward at a new supercomputing pace.

The breathers were busy as well. There were citywide protests, arrests, negotiations, and, finally, a formal agreement that became a model for the nation. When Sonata left her mother’s house at last, it was to go live in a special area set aside for NBs, where they were guaranteed to live free of harassment, and where they would be allowed to build their technological Eden. It wasn’t far from where the Cabrini-Green projects had once stood, and where a mixed income neighborhood had struggled to become viable but had failed just as miserably. And now? The non-breathers called it the tech ghetto.

Not trusting the truce, they erected a virtual security fence guarded by the most sophisticated anti-intruder system yet devised. The bodies of the elderly and near dead were delivered to the perimeter to receive newbodies, but the rate of new NBs had slowed markedly. The unrest had left people wary, and the prospect of leaving their communities for an unknown, isolated existence was a profound deterrent. The NBs turned their attentions to perfecting the longevity of their forms.