Shifting Reality

Chapter 2

2

ABOUT AN HOUR later, Melati fussed around in the kitchenette of her Learning Unit, tapping drinks from the wall dispenser. Frothy fluid squirted into the cup, evoking memories with its sweet smell. The drink was specially developed for newly-awakened constructs to kick-start their bodies. Sugar, proteins and a good dose of growth hormones. A sign in red above the tap said for construct consumption only. There were jokes about what it would do to adult women’s bodies.

Melati’s movements were mechanical. Pick up cup, fill it, click on lid, stick in straw, put it on the tray. Over and over that young and anguished voice sounded in her head Where is he? Where is the f*****g bastard?

She’d left the boy in the CAU, alone in his crib, with Dr Chee already reattaching the immobilisation harness, and Laura still scowling.

She was pretty sure about what they’d do: measure his mindbase readouts, calculate the coherence coefficient, streamline and decode the readings, and then override the malfunctioning module, because clearly he’d had some material copied onto his brain that shouldn’t be there. He looked so young—too innocent for such intense emotions, or such adult language.

She picked up the tray and went into the unit’s central room, which was the hub of the Learning Unit, which was just a fancy name for an apartment with a large living room and a few smaller utility rooms. At Melati’s home in the B sector, this apartment would house at least twenty people, and there would be mattresses everywhere, and the carpet would be threadbare, and the kitchen would spill into the hall with piles of rough hand-made pans and dishes and pots of homemade sambal and baskets of eggs, and the walls would be covered in paintings or batik cloth.

In this part, the International Space Force ring, this apartment was a mere classroom and the boys didn’t even sleep here. An obscene luxury.

The room had a new carpet, comfortable seats, low tables with built-in deskscreens, every corner and sharp angle covered with protective film so the boys wouldn’t injure themselves if they were clumsy. All surrounding walls were covered in huge screens, displaying many different images, ranging from the outside of the station and other human space settlements to the letters of the alphabet. There were pictures of happy, smiling families, of men and women in white ISF uniforms chatting and laughing, of the central hall in the station, of the station’s outside, and the view to the soft green gas giant Sarasvati and its sixty-three pale blue and grey rings. The planet was a fat crescent and the rings bright until they disappeared in the shadow cast by the sun, which some of the Earth-born ISF officers called Epsilon Eridani, but which everyone else simply called Marahati—sun. The image also showed the other elements of the system closer to the sun: an asteroid belt and a small, desertlike rocky planet that people called Anak—the child.

Melati would change this image selection every day as the boys grew and learned more about the world around them. Immediate post-waking images were always gentle; they were about locality and identity. Where am I, who am I and what else is in this universe. That sort of thing.

The boys sat on chairs around the room, silent, looking at the door when she came in. She went around with the tray and they each took a drink container. One of the boys put the straw in his mouth and others copied him. Of course, one of them had to blow instead of suck, and the resulting rude noise brought a brief smile to his face.

Then another boy had to copy him, and soon they were all blowing into their drinks, giggling softly.

Melati only had to put down the tray for them to stop giggling and look at her again. Three sets of blue or green eyes and five brown. Three of the boys had dark hair, one blond, two ash and two brown. Two were lanky and tall; one was more cherubic than the others. Four had curly hair.

The only thing they had in common was the tag on their jumpsuits. Grimshaw 152, their cohort. It meant that they shared the same mindbase, a basic human set of mental functions and skills and character traits, derived from one of the original construct templates. The mindbases were named after the very first man who donated his body to be immortalised: Stephen Grimshaw. There was a picture of him on the wall screens, too, a short-haired military-looking man with an intense grey gaze. He wore an archaic uniform of a type that hadn’t been used for at least fifty years. Then again, he’d been dead more than a hundred. Earth years, too.

She sat down.

There were ten chairs in the room, and eight pairs of eyes stared at the chair that remained empty. None of the boys spoke a word.

She brought up their ID list on her screen. “I’m going to read out your names. Tell me when I read out yours.” And she was going to come across their missing brother’s name. “You understand that?”

Nods all around.

“We have Tika . . .”

Nod

“Kari . . .”

Nod.

“Esse . . .”

Nod.

“Keb . . .”

Nothing. She looked around, meeting their pained expressions. Keb was her missing student. She highlighted the line in red and read out the other names, Zax, Simo, Shan, Tyro and Abe. They all replied with silent nods, although she noted some activity from the boy named Simo. He was looking around at the images on the walls, his dark eyebrows knotted in a frown. He had the curly dark hair that was so common to construct boys, and hazel eyes.

“Do you like those pictures?” she asked.

He nodded. His gaze lingered on the picture of Stephen Grimshaw.

The boy named Esse was swinging his legs so hard that his heels hit the bottom of the chair. He was one of the light-haired ones, with green eyes and a long, straight nose. She bet he’d be quite tall when grown.

“When is he coming back?” Simo asked. His gaze had gone back to the empty chair.

All the others looked at Melati, Esse’s heels going thud-thud-thud against the bottom of his seat.

“I can’t tell you exactly, but he should be back soon.” Or so she hoped, although most likely not today. She’d had minor module failures before, and usually the CAU kept those children overnight. “Meanwhile, we will not waste any time and start on your learning modules.”

“We can’t start without Keb,” Simo said. Yes, he was developing into the cohort’s leader.

Nods all around.

“That’s blue,” said Zax.

More nods. Blue, the colour of discomfort and unease between people.

“We’ll have to make a start on our work,” Melati said. “I will make sure he catches up when he comes.”

“No, I want to help him,” said the boy named Shan—brown straight hair, mousey appearance.

“No, me,” said Tyro.

Thud-thud-thud went Esse’s heels against the bottom of the chair.

“Don’t worry, boys. We’ll all help him.”

Nods. All was good. They understood all.

Esse shifted, and put his feet on the floor.

“That’s pink,” whispered Simo and a few others nodded. Pink was good. Pink was happy.

Melati explained to them how to turn on the deskscreens and how to navigate the menus. Of course, some of them had to press their entire hands against the touchscreen, which made the temperature-sensitive screen run through a rapid procession of menu options. They thought it was funny, and giggled, almost too softly to hear, pushing each other with their shoulders in a conspiratorial way as they did so.

Melati tried hard not to smile—for it would only encourage them—but this was how they were supposed to act.

Grimshaw boys were hands-on. Depending on their intended specialties, computer work either turned them off or they obsessed over it. During her time with ISF, she’d trained countless Grimshaw cohorts and had experienced both. Already, she sensed that these boys were one of the obsessing variety.

Grimshaw were rarely brilliant, but they could be very inventive through sheer pigheadedness. If a Grimshaw said he was going to rig a routine through his handheld so he could deliver precision fire while he was on the toilet on the other side of the ship, then he’d spend his life fiddling with it, but he would do it or die, whichever came first. In combination with tech specialists, like Kessler, they could be deadly. The Kessler tech would say “wouldn’t it be great if we had . . .” and the Grimshaw partner would work until they had just such a thing.

Spelling, reading and writing, though, did not excite them very much, yet Melati had to spend a few days covering just that. She opened up her teacher’s module and asked them if they could give her words starting with F.

There were frowns all around. Eight pairs of eyes roved the room. The illustrations on the walls held deliberate cues for them.

Simo said, “Fence.” Despite never having seen one.

Good.

“Fire,” said Shan.

Abe’s eyes were on a picture of parents with a young child in a playroom. “Family.”

“Friend,” said Tika. Another blond one, his eyes were brilliant blue. She hadn’t heard him speak previously. His voice was timid, and she suspected he would be the cohort’s thinker. The first one to come up with an abstract word.

She wanted to ask him if he knew what a friend was, but at that moment, the Learning Unit’s outer door opened and Laura Jennings came in, pushing a boy in front of her ample uniform-covered bosom. Melati recognised her recalcitrant pupil.

Already?

“Here you go, this is your classroom and your teacher,” Laura said to the boy.

“But I don’t want to—”

“Go inside please.”

The boy took a few steps into the unit’s hall, until he was in the central room’s doorway. His shirt hung askew, shoelaces were undone. Defiant hazel eyes met Melati’s from under a too-long fringe. The CAU sent him back to her because they’d fixed the problem?

“Good morning—” She glanced at the class roll on her screen. “—Keb. Sit down over there—”

“My name is Jas,” he said in a firm confident voice very different from the timid tone of his brothers. “I’m not in the right place.”

“Yes, you are. This is your classroom. Sit down please.”

“I’m not meant to be here. It’s a mistake—”

“Sit down,” Laura barked, behind him.

The boy flinched and sat, but his eyes remained defiant.

All his brothers were gaping at him as if he were a ghost. Simo and Tyro looked at each other, eyes wide.

Laura continued, “You are now in your classroom with Grimshaw cohort 152, which is where you belong. You will eat, sleep and come to school with these boys, who are your brothers. Miss Rudiyanto is your teacher. You will obey her, and respect her. During A-shift school time, she is the adult responsible for you. You will do as she says until she passes you into the care of your B-shift carer, Louise, who will be relieved for the C shift by Christine. All these women are your teachers and your carers. You will listen to them and obey them. Do you understand?”

“I understand that part, ma’am. But if you’d listen—”

“Good. Then I will leave you to it.” Her eyes met Melati’s.

“What. . . ?” Melati began.

Laura jerked her head to the hallway and Melati followed her. When the door closed she began, “He’s not fixed—”

“No, we didn’t override his modules.”

“Why not?” He was going to create trouble in the cohort if he was left like this.

“Doctor scanned him and needs more time to work out what’s going on.” Laura sounded horribly smug. Oh yes, it was payback time.

“But why bring him in here? He’s going to upset the entire cohort.”

“His mindbase is fully functional and there is no need for him to stay in the hospital. Doctor said it’s better that he interact with his cohort brothers. He wants you to keep a log of his behaviour.”

What a stupid remark; Melati always kept a log, and everyone knew that.

Laura turned and walked down the corridor in complete silence.

Melati went back into the classroom, where the boys were staring at the door. None of them had spoken to the new boy.

He had taken his seat, his arms crossed over his chest. He leant back, with his legs apart like the sexed-up tier 1 enforcer cads who sometimes came to the B sector bars. His gaze measured her from under his lowered brow. It gave her the chills.

None of his brothers looked at him. Tyro and Shan whispered in the corner. Esse was swinging his legs again. Thud-thud-thud.

Melati sat down. “Welcome to the classroom, Keb—”

“—Jas—”

“—Your deskscreen is folded away on the side of your chair. Zax will show you how to retrieve it and turn it on. If you open the work program on the first page, you can see the letters of the alphabet. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise them all—”

He opened his mouth.

“—You will be quiet. You are now in the classroom and your military training has begun. I am employed as your teacher, and you are a newly awoken construct and not mature enough to hold the rank of Private. Remember that. Remember to put up your hand when you want to speak.”

Shan’s hand went up.

“Yes, Shan.”

“Why does he call himself Jas? His name is Keb.” A very good question, since the construct names were all supposed to have been included in the pre-awakening module that had been transferred to all of them.

“I’m Jas,” he said, and tightened his arms about his chest.

“Keb!” Simo said.

“Jas.”

“No, Simo is right. It’s Keb,” said Shan.

“Jas.”

“Keb!”

“Boys.” Melati didn’t need to raise her voice to get their attention. They fell silent immediately.

The new boy still held his arms crossed over his chest. He looked at her from under his unruly curls and reminded her of one or two of her natural-born nephews. He ignored his brothers. It chilled her. The boys within a cohort were supposed to be inseparable and attentive. She had never encountered any who had a disagreement within the first day of waking up.

Then Tyro said, in a small voice, still looking at Keb, “Do you know any of our names?”

Keb was silent. He stared at his knees.

Esse’s heels went thud-thud-thud against the bottom of his chair.

“No,” he said after a heavy silence, a harsh bark of a word that vibrated with anger.

One or two of his brothers flinched. Melati could only guess how this blunt confession hurt them. Knowing each other’s names and personalities within a cohort was essential to constructs.

Simo patted his knee. “That’s all right. We can tell you our names. I’m Simo.”

“Shan.”

“Tyro.”

“Kari.”

“Tika.”

“Abe.”

“Zax.”

“Esse.” Thud-thud-thud.

Keb said nothing; he glanced at Esse’s swinging feet. His lips twitched. “I don’t belong here.”

“Yes, you do,” Shan said, his voice wavering. “I don’t mind that you don’t know my name. You can learn.”

Nods all around. Anxious looks. They needed him to belong; that was how their minds worked.

Keb said nothing. His lips twitched.

“Come on,” said Simo, holding out his arms.

“Yes, come on, hug him,” Melati said, and put her arm around Simo’s bony shoulders.

Keb got up from his seat, his face impassive, and settled himself on Simo’s lap. All the other boys piled around them.

Looking out over their heads, Keb’s eyes met Melati’s. The look in them chilled her. His expression said that he was doing this for Simo’s sake, under sufferance. That he considered himself below such childish stuff.

“You’ll be fine,” Tika said.

“Yes,” added Simo. “We’ll help you.”

Keb nodded, but didn’t convince Melati at all. Things weren’t fine, not by a long shot.

“Come boys, let’s do some work.”

The tangle of bodies unknotted, and they all went back to their seats.

Melati continued with the words that started with F. As the boys mentioned words, she recorded them on the class-database. She would feed this into the learning program, which would then, over a period of a few days, make a map of their understanding and knowledge, and would give her a picture of how the mindbase transfers had taken in their brains, and she would use standard files to find out in which areas they needed extra teaching. The process of imprinting billions and billions of miniscule currents in brain synapses was becoming more and more refined, but was rarely perfect. That was why the constructs were awakened as boys, not as adults like they originally did.

A single line scrolled across her screen:

I know a word that starts with F.

Since she hadn’t covered writing yet, there was only one child who could have written that.

She gave him her best polite words only stare.

“Please let me go,” Keb said. “I really don’t have time to muck around with this infantile stuff. I need to get out of here. I need to find someone.”

“Your brothers are all you need at this point in time.”

“I can write and read. I don’t need school. Why can’t you just let me go?”

“Where do you want to go then?” There was nowhere to go within the base that was not a learning area. That was all ISF did at New Jakarta: construct activation and training, far away from areas of conflict.

Keb stared at her, his face a mask of confusion. Clearly, he hadn’t thought about where he would go. He blinked a few times as if about to burst into tears.

She asked, “Do you remember what you wanted to do, then? Who is this person you wanted to find?”

“He’s . . .” His expression became distant.

Melati observed him closely. If she could get him to display “break” behaviour—like sudden displays of irrational anger or crying—that would help Dr Chee in locating the problem. But he remained composed, maintaining that defiant look. “I need to go.”

“You’re not allowed to leave the base until you’ve completed your education.” And grown half a metre, and learned the basics of behaviour in society.

“Listen,” he said, grabbing her arm. “I’m not joking. I need to get out of here.”

“You can’t. There is nowhere else for you to go. This is a closed base.”

“I have to leave, why don’t you f*****g listen to me.”

“Keb!”

Silence.

All the boys were staring at him, one or two with eyes shining with laughter. Esse, still as a statue, held up his hand, as if he wanted to say, I know something that starts with F.

Melati’s heart thudded against her ribs. She’d slipped up. She shouldn’t have raised her voice, but something was very, very wrong with this boy.

“My name is Jas,” he said in an icy voice.

“I don’t care what your name is. That’s not the sort of language you use at your age, and not the kind you use in places where it is inappropriate, like the classroom.”

“I’m not a child. I’m telling you. I was put in the cohort by accident. I’ll prove it to you. I know you are tier 2 and that you’re from Indonesian descent, like most of the tier 2 in the B sector. I know you call yourself barang-barang, which means luggage, and you call yourselves that because that’s what you think tier 1 thinks of you. I know you call this station New Jakarta, but its real name is Epsilon Eridani III. I know that the planet out there is called Epsilon Eridani B, but everyone calls it Sarasvati. It’s a gas giant, and it’s blue-green. I know my letters, and my numbers. I can say the alphabet backwards. Do I need to go on?”

She returned his stare. What he said was general knowledge and proved nothing.

He repeated, “I need to get out of this place.”

“No, Keb!” Tyro cried. “You can’t leave us.”

All the other boys watched with absolute horror on their faces. Melati rose. “Maybe you’d like to continue this discussion elsewhere. Come.” She took him by the arm and guided him out of the room. Esse’s whole body shook with the banging of his legs. “Work on your letters while I’m gone, boys.”

Like that was going to happen. They were more upset than ever. Even she was trembling.

In the unit’s tiny hall was a door that led into the small sickbay, where Melati would treat the boys’ upset stomachs, fevers or cuts and bruises, or give them prescribed mindbase updates when they were old enough.

“Sit down,” she said, gesturing at the bed.

His gaze was on the computer and the rack that held the BCI patches. “And then, what are you going to do to me? Knock me unconscious again?”

“Fine.” She sat on the bed, so that he could have the chair. He glared at her and she felt an irrational anger inside which she shouldn’t feel for a six-year-old boy, a feeling that disturbed her greatly. “But if you want anyone to help you, you’ll have to allow people to ‘knock you unconscious’, as you call it. Because that’s the only way we can treat you.”

“I don’t need to be treated.”

“Then are you going back into the classroom to do your work?” Even the fact that she needed to argue with him over this was wrong. Newly awakened constructs were always quiet and obedient.

He said nothing, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Then let me help you.” Melati rose and went to the bench, where she picked up the headset with electrodes of a simple scanner. She could use some tranquillising routines. The treatment would wear off, but would allow him to function better, and not mess so much with the rest of the cohort. She turned on the MISAT machine. It blinked at her: Attach electrodes to input 1-5. She plugged in the headset, but when she wanted to put it on his head, he pushed her in the chest.

“No! No one is touching me with those things!”

The force of the blow made Melati stumble. She fell back, her thigh painfully colliding with the bench.

Right, that was it. She put the headset down. “Wait here.”

She left the room, trembling. Never had any of the constructs attacked her, let alone such a young one.

She used the wall com at the control hub near the door to call up the hospital.

Two male construct nurses arrived not long after that. The boy took one look, saw the men in their hospital uniforms and his eyes widened. “No! I’m not going with them! I don’t want to go back to the clinic.”

One nurse put his big hands on Keb’s shoulders. “Come with us. We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

Keb squirmed and kicked backwards, trying to hit the nurse in his knees, but he was too small and his efforts too feeble.

He screamed, “It’s a mistake. I’m in the wrong body. Please, don’t let them take me. I need to find this bastard that’s taken off with my body, please!”

The nurse winked to Melati. “The doc will be in contact, I’m sure.”

“Thank you.”

Then they were off, Keb still screaming.

His voice grew softer as the group proceeded down the corridor.

Even though Melati knew she could not have done anything else, she felt sick. He’d mentioned Indonesia, and barang-barang. There was no way he would know about these things unless at least the memories he saw were real.