“For school,” said Dad.
Oh, right. She wasn’t an engineer anymore. She wasn’t really anything.
Mom said, “We thought you might want to try a new hobby to replace the busywork you’d been doing, so we signed you up for some dancing lessons.”
Tess stared at the nice presents, feeling empty.
That night she shut her door as she did aboard the station, plunged beneath the covers, and tried to sleep. Here on land the nightmares were worse. She woke up grabbing for her computer and turning it on to whisper with Zephyr, or at least the version of him that the tablet contained. This software echo of him could converse, could help chase away her mixed-up dreams of the sea crashing in on her house.
Her parents worried about her when she trudged around bleary-eyed, jaw jittering as she tried to comment on everything, as though talking to a dial tone. By New Year’s Eve she was wearing her headset openly and staying in constant contact with the mini-Zephyr and her tribe. Much better, full of thoughts and speculation, filling the world with annotation again. She mailed the real robot several times a day, like running a Net connection by carrier pigeon.
Mom made pancakes for her on the morning the spring semester started. Tess protested that she’d be late and could get breakfast at school, but Mom insisted and the food was okay. She’d forgotten what home cooking tasted like.
At school the guard stopped her. “No outside computers.”
She didn’t know what they were talking about until her hand brushed against the headset on her jaw. Kids were jeering at her for holding up the line — Hey, pirate bitch! — so she pulled it off and stuffed it into the scanner with her wallet and tablet. “Fine, I’ll put it in my locker.”
“No, ma’am,” said a guard. “Confiscated goods go to the counselor’s office.”
Tess cursed.
She trudged through the halls, seeing grey. Nobody here meant a thing to her. It was weirdly quiet, maybe from the soft new floor. Morning Pledge and classes went by before she remembered to get her stuff back.
Henweigh’s office now advertised not “Advising and Wellness” but “Guidance and Discipline.” Tess entered during a free period, imagining that she’d see the counselor in black leather. Instead Henweigh looked beleaguered, with grey roots in her hair and with one fewer photo on her desk than Tess recalled. The perfect daughter was still there.
“My computer,” Tess said, not feeling articulate.
Henweigh’s tone was serrated sugar. “Miss de Castille, how nice to see you again.”
“I need it back. The guards took it.”
“That was an unkind prank of yours.” Tess blinked, and Henweigh prompted, “You left a rude message on your machine.”
“What? Where is it?”
Henweigh brought out a box with the headset and tablet. Tess snatched at them but Henweigh kept them out of reach. “I understand that you’ve been off in the wilderness, but you should have known our new policies. You can’t bring an unsecured, unapproved machine into school. Didn’t you hear about the hate crime incident?”
“I’m not here to shoot anyone.”
“You’ve been exposed to quite a lot of violence. People can’t help being influenced by their cultural surroundings.”
The thought of the gun battle made Tess squeeze her eyes shut and clutch the knees of her jeans.
Henweigh’s voice was soft again. “You’ve been through a lot, Tesla. Maria, rather. Let it go.”
Tess tried to relax, and for once it actually worked. Her shoulder muscles unclenched and she slumped in her seat. “I’ll put my stuff away in my locker if I can have it back.”
“At the end of the day. Now, about that machine’s content.” The counselor’s brow furrowed. “It didn’t respond to standard administrative codes when I tried to get in and have a look.”
“You snooped!” said Tess, looking up again.
“You really have been away too long! You can’t keep secrets from the people trusted with your guidance. It’s technically illegal to lock me out like that, and it shows a lack of respect. Now that you started this mess by bringing the machine to school, I would have to demand your encryption code. To make sure you’re harmless, not that I think otherwise of course. But it wouldn’t do any good.”
“Huh?” said a tired Tess. The nonsense weighed on her.
“Your computer came active for just long enough to call me some very rude names, then announced that it was deleting itself.”
Tess sat there faintly amused, until she realized what had happened. She lurched to her feet saying, “Murderer!”
“Calm down.”
“You killed him again,” said Tess. She lurched toward Henweigh, then trembled and rested her hands on the desk for support. The counselor watched her, reaching for a hidden panic button, then seemed satisfied that Tess was no threat to anyone, anymore.
Mom and Dad kept up the pampering and homecooked food, so that after a couple of days she barely cared about anything. She let Castor’s Net site go without updates, left off the long messages to Zephyr, went with the flow at school. She wore the cute skirts and after class she went to dance lessons, where she learned to stand in line and move with everyone else. Alone. Even her tribe barely interested her.
School felt dim and quiet. Peaceful. It was a couple of days before she noticed that her eyes looked drugged, and by then she didn’t care enough to complain.
7. Garrett
Garrett wrote:
“Hey, Tess. You haven’t been writing much these days. I figure you need a break, and you deserve one. I wish I had a good engineer besides Zephyr around. One who’d work for peanuts.
“In fishing for one, I pulled out some oddballs. A German family fleeing the police after insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Some Irish programming group called the Dunkirk Five. A doctor from Pittsburgh who said she wanted to stop being treated like dirt, three ambitious Cubans, a couple of Africans even, and a time-share group. All of which is good news, since they’re bringing money, but not quite what I need.
“The newbies are swarming around the main platforms. It’s amazing to see. They’re calling our original one the Fort, and setting up a touristy area called Libertalia next door. That’s cool, though parts of their operations are causing trouble. They’re not all hooked into the recycling system, especially the set of regular boats, so the water’s getting fouled. I wish I could make everyone cooperate, but I can’t. And you know, maybe I don’t need to be running everything directly. Maybe we can work something out.
“Oh! I’ve got a new leg, too. See the photo. Between me, Institute contacts, Herr’s group, Valerie and Zephyr, we put together an advanced replacement. I’m a test case. It gives me a pins-and-needles feeling, but that should pass. Besides the power-leech system and waterproofing, there’s a free-rotating ankle like a squirrel’s and some other features. I’ve stared at this leg and had trouble thinking “This is me,” but why not? I can be whatever is physically possible. Not that I’m eager to get any more “upgrades” for a while. And really, I’m not here to revel in technology. There’s important work to do.
“I hope you’re doing okay. Write back! We can talk about college and other things. I miss having you around.