Текст книги "Our Lady of the Ice"

Автор книги: Cassandra Clarke

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SOFIA

Sofia sat out in the garden, the folder with her schematics resting in her lap. Eliana and Marianella had returned several hours ago, both of them quiet but not hurt. Night had fallen shortly after that, and she had monitored the screens herself since then, waiting to see if Cabrera would make a move under cover of dark. But he hadn’t. No one had.

She decided it was time.

She’d already read through the schematics, studying each line of information to see if she could find some scrap of herself. She couldn’t. It wasn’t like reading code, which was like looking into a mirror. This was more like the time she had found an advertisement for herself in the back of a cigar magazine. Disconcerting and strange.

Far away, in the city itself, a church bell chimed three o’clock. As the gongs faded into silence, Sofia stood up and walked to Araceli’s workshop. Marianella was asleep in the palace, dreaming like a human. And Sofia did not want Marianella to watch this. She didn’t want anyone to watch this, except for Araceli. And that was only out of necessity.

The walk to the workshop took seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds. The night air was cold and shimmered with the movement of entertainment robots watching her from the shadows. Sofia held her head high.

The workshop door hung open, waiting. She went inside. Araceli was gone, but she had taped a note to her desk that said, Ran to the cottage. Be back shortly. A record player sat beside it, unmoving, not even plugged in.

It still felt dangerous.

Sofia wandered from the record player to the worktable. All of the supplies she’d procured from Cabrera were laid out in a neat display, glittering in the work lights. She selected one of the smaller vacuum tubes and held it up, twisting it so that it caught in the light.

“You shouldn’t touch anything.”

Sofia looked at Araceli. “My touching never bothered you before.”

“I just didn’t want you to get started without me.”

“You know I can’t.”

Araceli walked across the room, carrying a big canvas bag that clanked as she moved. She dumped its contents out onto the work tray—mostly spare electronics parts. But there was also a long, thin knife of the sort used to operate on robots.

“Did Eliana get the information?” she asked.

“She did.” Sofia handed Araceli the file. Araceli opened it up and scanned it.

“The activation code is in the upper-right corner.”

“Yes, I see it. This is perfect.” Araceli set the folder next to the parts on the table, leaving it open. Then she looked up at Sofia.

“Do you understand how this is going to work?” she asked.

“Of course I do.” Sofia tilted her head, looking again at the scatter of electronics and the surgical knife. “You’re going to cut out my heart. So to speak.”

One end of Araceli’s mouth turned up. “Pretty much.”

Sofia trusted Araceli. She was the only human Sofia trusted, because she had given up everything to protect a maintenance drone. And when the city belonged to the robots, Araceli would be the only human allowed to stay behind.

But nevertheless Sofia could not imagine Araceli plunging that knife into her chest, not without harming her in some way, cutting the wrong wire or knocking the wrong part loose. Not on purpose, but out of nervousness.

“If you don’t mind,” Sofia said, “I think I’d like to cut the core engine out myself.”

A faint relief washed over Araceli’s features. Sofia was almost touched.

“Well, let’s get it over with,” Araceli said.

Sofia stripped off her blouse and camisole and sat, topless, on the edge of the table. She had not been fully naked in front of a human for almost forty years, but Araceli looked at her the way she always did.

“Let me put in the code so we can access everything,” she said, dragging a cable across Sofia’s lap. She inserted it in the place behind Sofia’s ear, and when she plugged it into her computer, Sofia felt a twinge of connection. An electric shock. Araceli hunched over her computer and input the code, using the old polished-brass keyboard that clicked and clacked like bones. When it was done, something inside Sofia opened up like a flower.

Araceli straightened. “Your knife,” she said, handing it over.

Sofia pressed the tip of the knife against her clavicle. The core engine was only a heart in the metaphorical sense. Her brain, tucked away in her skull, contained her motor skills and the programming necessary to create intelligence, but the core engine was a cluster of wires that housed her intrinsic programming, the programming that defined her. Here was the programming that made robots servile to humans. Here was the programming that converted music into orders. The intrinsic programming was separate because it could not be reprogrammed easily, by just anyone. You had to have the right permissions. And entering the code made it possible to remove the programming without destroying Sofia completely.

Sofia dug the knife into her skin.

It didn’t hurt because she didn’t feel pain. She split open her sternum, hydraulic fluid pouring down her chest. Araceli looked at her feet, hair falling over her eyes. Exactly as Sofia had thought. She couldn’t bear to watch this violence. Or rather, what she perceived as violence.

Sofia reached inside her chest, her movements jerking, halted. Her programming was trying to stop her. But she could overcome it. For the five seconds it would take, she could overcome it.

She wrapped her fingers around the core engine. Her thoughts blacked out, grayed out, returned. Her hand was still inside her chest. Using her fingers, she unhooked the wires, one at a time.

Another blackout. She returned, having lost three seconds. No time to delay.

Sofia yanked out her core engine.

She screamed and slammed backward onto the worktable. Her mind was rioting, flooding her with a thousand images of humans—Araceli and past clients and workers from the amusement park and even the engineers who had built her so long ago in Brazil. She was aware of a weight being lifted from her hand, and then of a warm human palm pressing against her forehead.

“It’s all right.” Araceli’s sweet voice. “You did it, and you’re all right.”

Sofia couldn’t see the workroom, only the mass of humans crowding around her. Memories come to life. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound of Araceli’s humming as she worked. It was enough to draw her out of the past and into the present.

Slowly, her mind cleared and returned back to her. She felt hollow and purposeless, like a discarded doll. When she sat up, it surprised her that she could move, because what reason did she have to move, without her programming?

Araceli leaned over the worktable, a bright light fixed on the core engine. It was dismantled, strewn out in many tiny pieces across the surface, glittering like sand. When Sofia saw it, she felt nothing, and that was not what she’d expected.

Araceli set the micro-engine under the light and snapped it open. It was larger than the core engine, despite its name, but Sofia knew, distantly, that it would still fit inside her chest. Araceli hunched over the micro-engine with a soldering iron and a vacuum tube. There was a faint whiff of burning.

The micro-engine was the foundation, although without the old programming key it would be harder to align it to Sofia’s specifications. That was why they needed the schematics. With that information, Araceli would be able to override Sofia’s old programming. Sofia had explained what she wanted, and had collected all the necessary equipment, because a robot could not reprogram itself. They were designed that way.

“This is easier than I expected,” Araceli said.

“It’s because you’re the best.” Sofia’s voice sounded tinny and far away. She wasn’t whole. Not without that micro-engine.

Araceli laughed. “I’m just working off your designs. If you don’t mind waiting, I think I’ll be able to hook this into the computer and clear out some of the music programming. I mean, the new micro-engine should take care of it, but just to be on the safe side.”

“I don’t mind waiting.” Sofia remembered when she was brand-new, sitting in the laboratory waiting to be programmed. It had been like this, that curious calmness, that sense of expectation. She didn’t know what she would become.

The best version of myself, she thought, watching Araceli work. The work lamp illuminated the pores and lines in Araceli’s skin, and Sofia was momentarily fascinated by them, by her humanity. Those lines and pores meant Araceli had freedom when Sofia did not.

Except, no—that was no longer the case.

Araceli stood up and carried the micro-engine over to the computer. Sofia followed, although her steps shook, and moving made her vaguely dizzy. She steadied herself against the wall, aware that she was leaking hydraulic fluid down the front of her chest. That bothered her more than her nakedness. Funny.

“Do you want a chair?” Araceli glanced at her, then set the micro-engine down and pulled one out from beside the computer. “Here. Sit. I’m worried about your bleeding.”

Sofia sank into the chair and said, “It’s not blood.”

Araceli didn’t answer, only turned back to the computer. She linked the micro-engine into the mainframe and sat down at the keyboard and began to type. The micro-engine sat there, unmoving. The rotary display whirred through the list of programs that Araceli was going through and deleting. The display was too far away for Sofia to see which ones exactly. But she trusted Araceli.

Sofia stuck her finger into the hydraulic fluid and lifted it up to the light. It was thick purplish black, like motor oil. She’d never seen it before. None of her patrons had ever cut deep enough. They were, after all, warned not to, because seeing a woman bleed black instead of red ruined the effect.

When she still had her core engine, thinking on those things would make her angry. Or sad, sometimes. But right now they didn’t make her think of anything. They were simply a fragment of the past. They didn’t matter anymore.

Araceli hit one last keystroke and leaned back in her chair. “There. Got it.” She turned and grinned at Sofia. “You ready to reinstall?”

Sofia nodded.

Araceli lifted the micro-engine off the table and held it to her chest, waiting. Sofia stumbled back over to the work counter and stretched out on her back. She blinked up at the lights. Everything was fogged and hazy.

Araceli nestled the micro-engine inside Sofia’s open chest cavity. With each reconnection Sofia’s thoughts sharpened and clarified until they were sharper and clearer than she could ever remember.

Araceli murmured, “One mo—”

Everything cut out.

Sofia floated in the darkness, a disembodied consciousness. She was nothing but memories: The lights in the laboratory where they built her. The first time she saw Hope City glowing through the porthole in the ship that brought her to Antarctica. Dancing up onstage. Memory after memory.

And then Sofia felt a spark in her head, and she remembered she had a body. The overhead lights flared into existence. One by one her programs came online. As soon as she could move, she sat up.

“Lie down,” Araceli said, pressing gently against her shoulder. “You’re still—open.”

Sofia looked down at her gaping chest cavity. “Oh,” she said. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“It matters if you bleed out. Lie down.”

Sofia sighed and lay down. It was the last time she would do as a human said, she decided, as Araceli pressed her sternum back together and closed the split with sealant. The cut had been deep enough that the sealant wouldn’t erase the line completely. She’d have to get new skin brought in or have a scar. She preferred the scar.

“All right, all finished.” Araceli stepped back. Her hands were coated in hydraulic fluid. “How do you feel?”

“Amazing.”

Araceli smiled a little. “Are you ready to test?”

Sofia nodded without hesitation. They had agreed on the test beforehand—“La Entrerriana,” which would only make her tango across the room. But Sofia was confident the procedure had worked. She could feel her freedom inside her like a virus.

Araceli nodded and turned to the record player. Sofia stared at it with a bland implacability. It was not going to hurt her. She knew it.

Araceli switched on the turntable and dropped the needle. The record crackled. The music crept on, slow and twisting like a vine. It was a dangerous song.

Sofia did nothing.

She sat on the work counter, her bare chest covered in hydraulic fluid, and for the first time in her existence she was able to listen to the song without it consuming her. The music was a cord that twisted through the room. It was beautiful, in a human sort of way. The dance was, as well—she could remember it, she could see the steps in her head if she thought about them, but she was not compelled to perform them.

“It worked,” Araceli said breathlessly. “It works. Oh my God—”

“It works,” Sofia whispered. She pulled her blouse back on, not caring that it grew dark with hydraulic fluid. She hopped off the counter and drew Araceli into an embrace. Araceli was warm and living against her. Vulnerable. “Thank you,” she said into the top of Araceli’s hair.

The music played on in the background.

They pulled apart. Araceli was grinning wildly. “I can’t believe we pulled it off.”

“I can.” That empty feeling from before lingered, but now it wasn’t so much an emptiness as a removed weight. It was a lightness. She didn’t need Araceli anymore. She didn’t need any of them. With the right equipment, the right schematics, she could reprogram all the robots in the city herself.

“We’ll need to wait a week or so to make sure the modifications work. You’ll need to avoid Cabrera until then.”

“I will.”

“I should probably run a diagnostic,” Araceli began, but Sofia held up one hand.

“I can do it myself,” she said. “I would—prefer it.”

“Oh, of course.” Araceli smiled again. “I understand.”

Sofia knew she didn’t, not really, but she didn’t begrudge her for trying.

And the music, the music was still playing.

*  *  *  *

Sofia knocked on Marianella’s door—rap, rap, rap over and over in a steady and unwavering pattern. If she’d been human, her knuckles would have bruised and ached. But she wasn’t human.

Four minutes passed, and Marianella answered.

“What is it?” She leaned against the doorframe, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Is something wrong?” The hallway was flooded with that silvery false moonlight, and it washed over Marianella’s skin, turning her into a ghost. Sofia was glad she had bothered to change and wash the hydraulic fluid from her skin; Marianella might have panicked at the sight of it.

“I have something I want to show you,” Sofia said, and she grabbed Marianella by both hands and pulled her out of the room. Marianella sputtered with confusion.

“What’s happening?” she said. “Sofia, has someone come into the park?”

“No, of course not.” Sofia led her to the stairs. “I’m sorry I woke you, but we both know you don’t need sleep.”

“I do need sleep.”

“Not as much as you pretend.”

Marianella didn’t respond. When Sofia glanced over at her, she was pouting—annoyed, no doubt, that Sofia was right about something related to her nature.

They walked downstairs, Sofia bright with anticipation, Marianella slow and soft-footed, like she was still waking up. An affectation, Sofia knew. A cyborg was either resting or awake. There was no in-between, as with humans.

“Really, Sofia, I wish you would just tell me what’s going on.” They were downstairs now, in the great vaulted hallway filled with glowing stained-glass windows. The floor was crisscrossed with shattered color. “I don’t see the point in keeping secrets, with everything that’s happened.”

Sofia stopped. She was where she wanted to be—the entrance to the ballroom. She cocked out her hip and shrugged and said, “It wouldn’t be a secret if you paid attention.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you notice the difference?” Sofia doubted that Marianella would, since Marianella never gave her instructions. But she liked playing this game. Flirtation because she wanted to.

“I’m half-asleep. So, no.”

“You’re not half-asleep.” Sofia really was enjoying herself, for the first time since she could remember. Removing her programming had changed her completely. She took Marianella by the hand and led her into the vast, empty ballroom. The moonlight shone in through the windows, casting everything in silver and shadows.

Marianella looked around the room, blinking. “Sofia, I don’t—” She stopped, staring straight ahead, at the theremin set up in the center of the dance floor.

“Remember when you played it for me before?” Sofia asked. “All those years ago?”

“You dragged me out of bed to play the theremin for you?”

“Go look at the sheet music.”

Marianella looked at her. A moment passed. Then Marianella whispered, “Mother of God,” and Sofia knew then that she understood what had happened.

“Go on,” Sofia said.

Marianella walked across the room, her footsteps echoing in all that empty space. Sofia didn’t follow her, only stood in place and watched as she stopped at the theremin and picked up the music. It was a dangerous song, one that Marianella had asked to play for Sofia before Marianella had understood about the music.

Marianella lifted her head. She stared across the ballroom at Sofia. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

In the darkness, Marianella was too far away for even Sofia to read her expression. She set the sheet music back into place and switched on the theremin. It buzzed and whined. Her hands hung at her sides.

Music swelled.

It was a sad song, and sadder still on a theremin. The music sounded like starlight. Sofia stood very still, watching Marianella sway, her eyes closed, her hands unmoving. It was a neat trick, to play a theremin with her own thoughts. A trick that could get her deported, if she performed it for the wrong people.

Sofia did not want the song to end, and when it did, she filled the silence with applause, her claps bouncing off the walls. She realized that she enjoyed the music not just because of Marianella but because of the music itself, because it was beautiful and haunting and sad. She had never thought that could be possible.

Marianella opened her eyes.

“Beautiful!” Sofia cried. “Wonderful!” She bounded over to the theremin, where Marianella smiled at her.

“It didn’t hurt you,” she said.

“Of course not.”

They looked at each other across the theremin, the memory of the music still lingering on the air. Marianella looked brighter now, like she was carved out of light. All Sofia wanted was to touch her.

“I have records,” Sofia said. “Over in the corner.” She wheeled the theremin off to the side. “Wait here.” Then she rushed away, across the dusty polished floors. Araceli’s record player was set up in the corner.

Sofia switched on the speakers, and the vibrations from their feedback skittered across her skin. A whole stack of records sat on the floor beside the player. Dangerous no more.

Sofia selected one of the records and dropped the needle. There was an immense novelty to that one simple act, the act of control. That was how she’d always thought of it before, when it had been a tool designed to enslave her.

Music poured out of the speakers, a tango, the music driving and fierce. And although this was a song that had once compelled her to dance, her programming didn’t even jump.

She stood up and turned around in one silken motion.

Marianella stood at the far end of the room, surrounded by silver light, staring at her. She really was quite beautiful, in the human sense. And Sofia had seen her code, and knew she was beautiful in the machine sense too.

“I used to have to dance to this song,” Sofia said into the gap between them. “I don’t have to anymore.”

Sofia glided across the floor, her feet moving in those familiar sliding steps. The room spun around. She closed her eyes, let the music wash over her.

And then she caught Marianella in her arms.

Marianella yelped with surprise, fumbling against Sofia’s grip. But as Sofia guided her back into the dance, Marianella laughed and fell easily into the steps. Sofia had been tangoing alone all night, and for the first time in her entire existence she was dancing with a partner she wanted. Marianella’s laughter faded, and her face became serious, intense with concentration. Sofia whirled her around, and Marianella moved exactly as she should. Their bodies clicked into place together like the gears of a clock. Marianella’s breath quickened, her skin flushed—Sofia could feel the intoxicating heat of it.

Dancing, like this, with Marianella, Sofia felt as if she could lose herself completely. And for the first time the notion wasn’t terrifying.