“Will I be able to play with Brownie?”
“Of course, sweetheart, you’ll be able to call him up just like you did tonight. It’s important that you play. It keeps you healthy and alert, and it’s good for Brownie, too. “
“Will I be able to call you and Mommy?”
“Well, princess, that depends on what kind of job you’re doing. You just might be so busy and important that you don’t have time to call us.”
Like Bobby, she thought. Her parents didn’t talk much about her brother Bobby. He had done well on his tests, too. Now he was a milintel cyborg with go-nogo authority. He never called home, and her parents didn’t call him, either.
“Being an executive is sort of like playing games all the time,” her father added, when Elizabeth didn’t say anything. “And the harder you work right now, the better you do on your tests, the more fun you’ll have later.”
He tucked the covers up around her neck again. “Now you go to sleep, so you can work your best tomorrow, OK, princess?” Elizabeth nodded. Her dad kissed her goodnight, and poked at the covers again. He got up. “Goodnight, sweetheart,” he said, and he left the room.
Elizabeth lay in bed for a while, trying to get to sleep. The door was open so that the light would come in from the hall, and she could hear her parents talking downstairs.
Her dad, she knew, would be reading the news at his access box, as he did every evening. Her mom would be tidying up noise-damaged data in the household module. She didn’t have to do that, but she said it calmed her nerves.
Listening to the rise and fall of their voices, she heard her name. What were they saying? Was it about the test? She got up out of bed, crept to the door of her room. They stopped talking. Could they hear her? She was very quiet. Standing in the doorway, she was only a meter from the railing at the top of the staircase, and the sounds came up very clearly from the livingroom below.
“Just the house settling,” said her father, after a moment. “She’s asleep by now.” Ice cubes clinked in a glass.
“Well,” said her mother, resuming the conversation, “I don’t know what they think they’re doing, putting euthanasable children in the testing center with children like Elizabeth.” There was a bit of a whine behind her mother’s voice. RF interference, perhaps. “Just talking with that Sheena could skew her test results for years. I have half a mind to call the net executive and ask it what it thinks it’s doing.”
“Now, calm down, honey,” said her dad. Elizabeth heard his chair squeak as he turned away from his access box toward the console that housed her mother. “You don’t want the exec to think we’re questioning its judgment. Maybe this was part of the test.”
“Well, you’d think they’d let us know, so we could prepare her for it.”
Was Sheena part of the test, wondered Elizabeth. She’d have to ask the system what “euthanasable” meant.
“Look at her scores,” said her father. “She did much better than the first two on verbal skills — her programs are on the right track there. And her physical aptitude scores are even lower than Bobby’s.”
“That’s a blessing,” said her mother. “It held Christopher back, right from the beginning, being so active.” Who’s Christopher? wondered Elizabeth.
Her mother continued. “But it was a mistake, putting him in with the euthana— ”
“Her socialization scores were okay, but right on the edge,” added her dad, talking right over her mother. “Maybe they should reduce her class time to twice a month. Look at how she sat right down with those children at lunch.”
“Anyway, she passed,” said her mother. “They’re moving her up a level instead of taking her now.”
“Maybe because she didn’t initiate the contact, but she was able to handle it when it occurred. Maybe that’s what they want for the execs.”
Elizabeth shifted her weight, and the floor squeaked again.
Her father called up to her, “Elizabeth, are you up?”
“Just getting a drink of water, Daddy.” She walked to the bathroom and drew a glass of water from the tap. She drank a little and poured the rest down the drain.
Then she went back to her room and climbed into bed. Her parents were talking more quietly now, and she could hear only little bits of what they were saying.
“…mistake about Christopher….” Her mother’s voice.
“…that other little girl to sleep forever?…” Her dad.
“…worth it?…” Her mother again.
Their voices slowed down and fell away, and Elizabeth dreamed of eerie white things in glass jars, of Brownie, still a dog, all furry and fetching a ball, and of Sheena, wearing a sparkly costume and tapdancing very fast. She fanned her hands out to her sides and turned around in a circle, tapping faster and faster.
Then Sheena began to run down like a wind-up toy. She went limp and dropped to the floor. Brownie sniffed at her and the white things in the jars watched. Elizabeth was afraid, but she didn’t know why. She grabbed Sheena’s shoulders and tried to rouse her.
“Don’t let me fall asleep,” Sheena murmured, but she dozed off even as Elizabeth shook her.
“Wake up! Wake up!” Elizabeth’s own words pulled her out of her dream. She sat up in bed. The house was quiet, except for the sound of her father snoring in the other room.
Sheena needed her help, thought Elizabeth, but she wasn’t really sure why. Very quietly, she slipped out of bed. On the other side of her room, her terminal was waiting for her, humming faintly.
When she put the headset on, she saw her familiar animal friends: a gorilla, a bird, and a pig. Each was a node that enabled her to communicate with other parts of the system. Elizabeth had given them names.
Facing Sam, the crow, she called her dog. Sam transmitted the signal, and was replaced by Brownie, who was barking. That meant his brain was routing information, and she couldn’t get through.
What am I doing, anyway, Elizabeth asked herself. As she thought, a window irised open in the center of her vision, and there appeared the face of a boy of about eleven or twelve. “Hey, Elizabeth, what are you doing up at this hour?” It was the sysop on duty in her sector.
“My dog was crying.”
The sysop laughed. “Your dog was crying? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anybody say something like that.” He shook his head at her.
“He was so crying. Even if he wasn’t crying out loud, I heard him, and I came over to see what was the matter. Now he’s busy and I can’t get through.”
The sysop stopped laughing. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun of you. I had a dog once, before I came here, and they took him for the system, too.”
“Do you call him up?”
“Well, not anymore. I don’t have time. I used to, though. He was a golden lab….” Then the boy shook his head sternly and said, “But you should be in bed.”
“Can’t I stay until Brownie is free again? Just a few more minutes?”
“Well, maybe a couple minutes more. But then you gotta go to bed for sure. I’ll be back to check. Goodnight, Elizabeth.”
“Goodnight,” she said, but the window had already closed.
Wow, thought Elizabeth. That worked. She had never told a really complicated lie before, and was surprised that it had gone over so well. It seemed to be mostly a matter of convincing yourself that what you said was true.
But right now, she had an important problem to solve, and she wasn’t even exactly sure what it was. If she could get into the files for Sheena and Oginga, maybe she could find out what was going on. Then maybe she could change the results on their tests or move them to her socialization group or something….
If she could just get through to Brownie, she knew he could help her. After a few minutes, the flood of data washed away, and the dog stopped barking. “Here, Brownie!” she called. He wagged his tail and looked happy to see her.