Homesick

Dr. Poole watched Scott’s image on the monitor screen in her office in the advanced projects wing of the institute. The windows were dark, which was the only reason she knew it was evening. The clocks on the instrument panels blinked the seconds away in massive chunks, skipping hours at a time between those instances when Poole glanced in their direction. In fact, she could not be sure exactly how long it had been since she’d left her office even to eat. She washed in the scrub room and slept on a cot she kept behind her desk. The world outside the building now seemed like another dimension, a universe separated from her by glass, steel, and concrete barriers, reinforced one hundred fold by Poole’s focused attention. Even the sounds of construction within the building barely registered as a rumble through the large, glass doors of her suite. Rachel had invested a lot in her program and her lab, to the point of now being imprisoned there fulltime. She hoped it would be worth it.

Scott strained cheerfully with a bag of bricks and pieces of wood, hobbling down the concrete road. His leg was scarred and bleeding from an impact with a piece of rusty metal. The remains of his jacket had been torn almost completely off one shoulder, and shreds of it trailed behind him in the wind. On a smaller monitor below the main viewer she could see Scott standing in his quarters, pacing in a circular track. In this view his leg was not injured and his remaining wounds were all but healed. Using a joystick, Poole positioned her angle of view to face Scott head-on in his labor camp environment. She touched her keypad and watched the facsimile of Carrie materialize outside his line of vision. She noted the speed at which the other load carriers were marching, including Scott. Finding Carrie’s statistical data, she increased her walking pace to overtake Scott and watched as she crept into his view. Then, sidestepping with the joystick, she forced Carrie to bump Scott hard enough for him to notice. Scott glanced at her, but didn’t appear to react. Or did he? Was there a subtle difference in his expression? She noticed something in the way he carried himself that took her a moment to identify.

“Access! Compare travel speed of Anderson with speed norms of facsimile Brethren.”

The screen lit up with statistics.

“Vocal response!”

“Anderson speed now approximately .3 KPH faster than average norm,” the computer’s blank, male voice responded.

“Did this condition exist before the introduction of Carrie facsimile?”

“Before aforementioned addition, Anderson speed did not deviate significantly from norms. That is to say that such deviations were not constant and did not exceed .1 KPH plus or minus.”

“Model map. Show me Anderson’s face as it is now. Use the VR interface.”

Beside the monitor displaying Scott in his environment a model of his head appeared on a cylindrical platform. The skin was translucent, but instead of muscle and bone beneath it, a geometric grid pattern interpreted Anderson’s facial movements.

“Compare current model with established norms for Anderson’s face and look for deviations that indicate emotional states.”

There was a pause. “Comparison indicates current facial markers represent significantly less positive emotional cues than normal measures for this subject.”

“Continue to monitor. Signal if patterns return to normal parameters. Reduce speed of Carrie facsimile to .3 KPH below group norm.”

She watched as Carrie began to fall behind again. First, she was no longer walking abreast Scott and then she began to disappear into the crowd behind him. Poole stared silently at the action, sipping a cup of coffee.

A tone beeped. “Anderson facial characteristics have reached standard norms with current deviation below level of significance.”

“Was this change sudden or gradual?”

“Change took place gradually over a period of 0.7 minutes.”

“She bothers you, doesn’t she?” Poole mumbled. “I guess you do know her.” She clucked her tongue. “End model ma__” She stopped in mid-sentence.

“Command not complete. Do you wish to terminate three dimensional model currently displayed?”

“No, not yet.” She looked at the map of Scott’s head. Something was missing! Touching the cylinder, she rotated it from side to side, as if searching for some unseen mark on his face. “Access! Enhance detail on facial model to include full surface features and textures.”

The model re-drew itself from bottom to top, now forming a complete image of Scott’s head, including hair that now appeared to blow in the breeze. She examined his smile.

“Compare known facial norms for Anderson with established norms of facsimiles. Have there been any trends towards greater or less positive emotional cues since the construction of this environment universe?”

A pause. “No significant patterns noted after initial adjustment period. However, facial norms at the beginning of model history can no longer be compared successfully with current norms without taking into account a .01% deviation in overall norm values.”

“Crap!” she groaned. “Not a breakdown. Not now! Access! Explain error in calculating facial norms for facsimiles in environment universe. All facsimiles should be controlled within expected parameters.”

“The deviation is not an error.”

Rachel started to speak, but then stopped. “Question! How can the deviation not be an error if all facsimile Brethren are controlled according established parameters?”

“Facsimile Brethren are not deviating from established parameters and expectations.”

She sighed in frustration. “Then what caused the deviation in facial norms?”

“Deviation was caused by introduction of random data into original model, which was considered relevant to facial norm statistics.”

“Well, what __?” She stared at the model, unconsciously gouging her coffee cup with her thumbnail. “Random data? Access! Show me a visual representation of the relevant random data.”

The camera pulled away from Scott’s face and whizzed through the model as if she were looking through the eyes of some insane flying animal. It flew down the concrete road and onto one of the side passageways at dizzying speed. Finally, it rounded a quick turn past a piece of waste metal, rotated wildly, and stopped.

Poole coughed out her sip of coffee. There on the screen was Sally Buds’ nightmare memory of the dead little girl, her face cast in a maniacal grin. Poole stared, as if hypnotized by the girl’s empty eyes. The body was now in the later stages of decomposition and had become a nesting place for facsimile gnats. It seemed odd to her that the child’s smile had been so well preserved. Could this actually happen or was it the result of Sally’s intense memories of that smile? She pondered this for a moment, whispering quietly to herself.

She turned away in thought, but then found herself glancing back at the face again. She stared harder. It wasn’t exaggerated in the sense that it would be impossible for a girl of that age to produce a face like that, but there was something eerie about the intensity of the expression even in death. This girl looked much happier than the others.”

“Access! Go to full VR mode. Take me into this scene. Keep me invisible to Anderson and the facsimiles.”

The walls dissolved, expanding outward into the crumbling remains of brick structures and doorframes. A Pile of broken bricks formed the girl’s only resting place. Poole’s face wrinkled in disgust at the smell, and she instinctively waved at the gnats. She walked around the form, kicking bricks out of her way.

“Access! Compare this facial expression to established norms for other facsimiles of similar age and gender based on the parameters we were just looking at.”

“Depicted expression displays significantly higher positive emotional cues than established norms for similar faces.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, turning away with a knowing grin. “Skeletal protrusion and decomposition. The Jolly Roger strikes again! Access! Reverse evidence of decomposition on this scene element and re-do last comparison.”

She sucked her breath as the face of the little girl filled out, becoming more colorful and closer to life. The eyes were back as well, but they remained dull, crusted with dried blood.

“Comparison shows significant deviation from previous test. Subject now shows significantly more positive facial cues than in previous state.”

“More?” Poole said, crouching lower. But it was true. As she’d watched the computer breathe synthetic life into the model, she did get the sense that it grew happier. She moved her head closer to the girl’s, as if drawn by some ghoulish Pied Piper.

“Access!” she whispered. “Give me a data panel. Show me Captain Buds’ report on EVA rescue mission. Highlight the paragraph describing her discovery of an apparent rape victim upon entering the labor camp.”

A black rectangle appeared in the air next to the child’s head, displaying text in bright amber letters. Rachel took its edges in her hands and positioned it for optimum viewing.

“While in search of Anderson, we discovered further examples of atrocities and indignities as described earlier. The most haunting of these was the discovery of a girl who appeared to be no older than ten years. It was evident she had recently been raped, strangled, and mutilated with a sharp instrument. She was alive at the time we found her, but was beyond any help we could have provided. It should also be noted that it was at this point portable translator units were beginning to register audible glamour.”

“Audible glamour?” Poole exclaimed to the words on the screen. “You mean she said something? What did she say? Access! Find the downloaded logs from translator units used on the EVA rescue mission. Is there a record of translations specified in this log entry?”

A pause. “Translation log confirms. Translation accurate according to available data.”

“Reconstruct the event described in the log. Interpolate physical state of scene element and play back actual translation as it would have been witnessed by Captain Buds.”

She bit her lower lip as the girl’s face brightened further. Her eyes cleared, though they were more deep red than white. The dark stains that littered her broken face grew into fresh rivers of blood!

“I served my Masters!” the little girl cheered with her wheezing voice. And again, “I served my Masters!”

“Oh, God!” Poole shrieked, letting the coffee cup fall from her grasp. It hit the floor below with a hollow pop. Her eyes were still riveted to the grotesque smile, now even more intense in the ebbing life of the waif. “Now I understand, Sally. Now I see why you could never forget this.”