The Mother Code Read online

  Rose smiled. “We all hold beliefs of one sort or another. Please, go on.”

  “Anyway, my father spent days in the kiva with the other men who would perform the dance—getting ready. They fasted, smoked, prayed, and performed all their secret rites. They made pahos.”

  “Pahos?”

  “Prayer sticks, made with eagle feathers. Anyway, when my father came out in the morning, he was ready for the dance. He went to the edge of the mesa. That’s when he saw them.”

  “Who?”

  “They were flying, high in the sky. At first he thought they were eagles. But they looked more like insects, he said—like the inhabitants of the First World in some of the old Hopi stories. And they were coated with metal, a kind of silver color, he said, but pink because of the rising sun. He thought maybe they were the katsinam, flying back to their homes. But why were they leaving before the dance? He got worried.” Nova looked toward the window, the sunlight illuminating her brown eyes. “By the time he got home, my father had a fever. He couldn’t stand, but he couldn’t sleep. After all that work, he couldn’t participate in the dance. He was sure that if these creatures, whoever they were, flew away from us for good—if they never came back—it would mean the end.”

  Rose swallowed, realizing now that her mouth had gone dry. “The end?”

  “The end of everything. Of all human life on earth. They had to come back, to make things right.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I did for a long time. I used to have nightmares about those ‘Silver Spirits’ of his, flying away, leaving us all to die. But then I started learning about airplanes. A cousin of mine ran a business, flying tour planes. He took me up once when I was twelve, and I never looked back. I decided that my father had just seen some planes, maybe a formation of fighter jets, training. That’s all. And in his state of mind, hungry, thirsty, full of the spirit, he’d been frightened. Anyway, he never had that vision again. And when he died last year, I figured . . .”

  “That he’d been wrong?”

  “Yes. I figured he was just living in a dream. But my mother still believes. Even now, she’s still waiting for those Spirits to come home. She says it’s not right for me to leave. I’m too important now.”

  Despite herself, Rose gripped the edge of her desk. “Why?”

  “Because my father told her something else, just before he passed. He said the end is coming. But not for our family. After the end, the Spirits will come home to the mesas. It’s our job to be there, waiting for them.” Nova paused, her gaze turned inward. She sighed, as if she’d come to a decision. Feeling inside the collar of her uniform, she grasped a chain. She unclipped it, a thin band of silver from which hung something resembling a cross. But it wasn’t a cross. It was a woman, her arms spread wide, thin metallic feathers dripping from them like those of a wing. The silver woman’s hair flowed along the length of her spine, her chin tilted boldly upward. “Could you keep this for me?” Nova asked. “It’s from my mother. But I can’t take it where I’m going.”

  “You can’t?”

  “I couldn’t bear to lose it. Would you keep it safe for me until I get home?”

  * * *

  ROSE SAT IN silence, the office growing still around her. There’d been something missing from her synthesized “personalities.” But until her interview with Nova, she hadn’t known what it was. Now she knew.

  Rose wasn’t in charge of the Mothers’ educational database; that was under Kendra’s purview, and Kendra had been given strict orders not to include any information regarding IC-NAN, the classified root cause behind the new children’s existence. By design, this story wouldn’t be part of the “lore” that each child would learn—it couldn’t be part of their heritage. But without a heritage, who are you? There had to be more. Each Mother’s child would need more than just food and water, more than education, more even than safe nurturing and a sense of common purpose that would unite him with others of his kind. He would need that sense of security that came from knowing who he was. Somehow, she’d have to work this into her code.

  Opening her desk drawer, she gathered up the thin chain to pull out the necklace. It was delicate yet sturdy. Like Nova—this young woman, so strong, so vital, so rooted in her culture, a dwindling tribe of forgotten people living in the harsh desert of northeastern Arizona. The story of this family, the story of a history, a mother who dreamed for her daughter an untold destiny . . . Rose had never really known her own mother, who died just after Rose’s third birthday. Her father had been there for her, of course, but Lewis McBride had been a quiet, introspective man—not the type to dwell on the past. For much of her own childhood, Rose had felt rootless, an army brat turned army lifer, roaming in search of a home. That wouldn’t be enough for these children, so much alone in their new world.

  Nova had already passed all the air force’s physical and psychological tests before being assigned to her mission. It was her eagerness to preserve her eggs that had gained her a spot on Rose’s list. Now, with Rose’s approval, she would go to Boston to meet Bavi Sharma. Nova would no doubt be expecting more of the same testing. But Bavi would have another agenda.

  In Bavi’s lab at MIT, coders had long been involved with programming simple robots to interact with and care for humans. It would be her task to extract what she could of Nova’s essence. Nova’s voice, her mild, nasal intonation, would be synthesized into the voice of one of the Mothers. Her memories, the people and places she once knew, would be gone. But her beliefs, her way of seeing the world around her, would remain. Rose could only hope that this was a start toward encoding those elusive elements of family, of belonging, of self. She’d have to work more closely with Bavi . . .

  Even their current goals weren’t simple. It was one thing, Bavi said, to program a robot to follow Boolean logic: IF this AND this, THEN do that. But the programming of distinct personalities—the differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that make one person different from all others—presented a challenge on a whole new scale.

  Still, Bavi had assured her that the personalities of the donors might be mimicked, at least on a superficial level. Under the guise of an “experiment in psychological profiling,” the volunteers would record their life experiences while attached to biomonitors in a room devoid of outside stimuli. They would be subjected to Bavi’s “Game of 100 Questions,” a list designed to differentiate between a myriad of different personality types. Along with the distinct speech patterns and mannerisms of each of the human mothers, gleaned from the hours of video recordings, this input would be fed into a learning program for each bot. The training sets were admittedly limited. But to Rose, this was the heart of the Mother Code, the one thing that would distinguish one Mother from another and give each child his own unique standard.

  Rose sighed. The secrecy of the project weighed on her more each day—the fact that the women whose intake she supervised at the institute, the women whose souls she dreamed of encapsulating in code, knew nothing of her intent. To them, it was just another part of the well-known process of personality profiling prior to deployment on a dangerous mission.

  Her mind turned to Rick Blevins. Though it was past five in Washington, she was still waiting for him to call her back. She smiled. Ever since her reassignment six months before, ever since their face-to-face in Los Alamos, their relationship had changed. After the formal meeting, he’d asked her out to dinner. He’d been waiting all along, he said—waiting to bring her into the tight circle of people who knew about IC-NAN, not wanting to get too close until he knew she was as safe as he could make her. She knew it now: The tension she’d always felt between the two of them, the emergence of something more than just a professional relationship or a mutual admiration, was real. Now, they were in this together.

  The phone on her desk buzzed, and she cleared her throat, pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear b
efore pressing the button. “McBride.”

  “Rose. It’s me.” Blushing despite herself, Rose leaned forward. She pictured Rick alone in his office. His broad, kind face. His strong, reassuring hands laid flat on the desk in front of him.

  “Rick. Hello. It’s so nice to hear your voice.”

  “You too. I got your message.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, I was a bit stressed when I called earlier. Somehow, that interview this morning . . . it got to me.”

  “What happened? Tell me again, from the beginning.”

  “She was a pilot, a lieutenant. Nova Susquetewa. She’s Hopi, from Arizona. She told me a story—”

  “A folk tale.”

  “It seemed like more than that. It was something her parents had entrusted to her. Her mother told her it was why she needed to return home safe.”

  “Go on . . .”

  “According to this story, something is going to happen to end human life on earth.”

  “Yes, but that’s a common theme—”

  “According to this story, Nova’s family have been chosen to carry on afterward. They’re supposed to survive. She even said something about ‘Silver Spirits’ that could fly. Her father supposedly saw them, years ago now. How could he—”

  “All common themes. But after I heard your message, I had Dr. Garza check the genetic database. We’ve screened the Hopi, as well as every other ethnic population we could come up with. Nothing special there. They’re susceptible.”

  “But Dr. Said reminded us of the issue of introns—silent DNA.”

  “Another folk tale.”

  “The science is real. There is so much silent DNA in the human genome. So much vestigial information. Dr. Said insists that there could be populations on earth who have the right code to survive this thing. It just needs a stimulus to turn it on. The Hopi are a perfect match for the sort of thing he describes—though intermarriage with those outside the tribe may have muddied the gene pool, there might still be some bloodlines . . .”

  “Then how come it didn’t show up in the screen?”

  “We didn’t screen all of the Hopi,” Rose insisted. “And even if we could, we can only look for the gene we know. These Hopi most likely have the same susceptible gene sequence that we all have. But they might also have vestigial DNA that we don’t have. A code that would save them from this, should it be called upon. The only way to test for that would be to—”

  “Expose them to IC-NAN and see what happens. I know. But you understand why we can’t do that, don’t you? We can’t use humans as guinea pigs . . .”

  “You’re doing it in the Somali prison, aren’t you? For the antidote trials? You forget, Rick, I have access to Dr. Garza’s reports now.”

  Rick sighed. “You know that’s different. Those people are convicted war criminals.”

  “People we can kill without a second thought.” Rose put one hand to the side of her neck, accepting the deep pulse of disappointment. Wasn’t the killing of terrorists the very thing that had started this whole nightmare?

  She understood, of course, that the real experiment could not be carried out on the Hopi. But she so wanted to believe in Nova’s story—it meant hope, a people immune from the catastrophic mistakes of their government. She stared at the orderly row of old print books lining her shelves, her last gift from her father. Of course, it was most likely just another of the tales told by tribes, faiths, and sects through the ages, each designed to enhance the importance of the messenger who spoke it. She should know; what had her Catholic faith ever done for her? Even if all went according to plan, her own life might soon be assured only by a daily dose of some exotic DNA cocktail. “I’m sorry, Rick,” she said, gathering her scattered composure. She had no right to take out her frustrations on him . . . “How are the trials going?”

  “Jury’s still out. But I think they’ll get it right. We have to believe in that, at least.”

  “Yes. We have to believe.”

  “Rose? I just want you to know. The work you’re doing . . . the Mother Code. I believe in that too.”

  Rose sat back. “It’s just so tough. These women are donating their eggs, enduring all this questioning and profiling, and I can’t tell them anything about the reason why.”

  “Most of them are in the military. For them, it’s nothing much more than what women in their situations have done for decades. A sort of insurance plan—”

  “But, Rick, the eggs are only supposed to be fertilized for the benefit of the donor. Not fertilized with some stranger’s sperm, hatched in an incubator like a farm animal, brought up by a robot . . .”

  “Are you saying you don’t believe we’re on the right path?”

  “No . . .” Rose closed her eyes. “It’s not that. I just wish we could be more open.”

  “We all wish that. But we—”

  “I know. We can’t risk a panic. But, Rick . . .” She knew she was pushing now, but she had to. “You remember Dr. Sharma? The robopsychologist at MIT?”

  “Your old Harvard classmate?”

  “Yes. Bavi. She’s given us some wonderful insights into the mother-child bond. She truly believes we can teach our bots to rear their children as their real mothers might have.”

  “But not love them.”

  “No. We can try to give the bot a personality. We can give her the ability to teach, to protect. But complex emotions like love . . . A code like that has yet to be written, and there’s far too little time to write it now.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “But why can’t we at least let Bavi in on the project? After all, she’s volunteered to be one of the mothers too.”

  “We’ve been over this.” Rick’s voice was strained but firm. “I have less power than you think. I had to do a lot of convincing to get you the clearance, to get you on the list for the final trial. When the time comes, even if we have a working antidote, the supply will be limited.”

  Rose sighed. “I’m sorry. And I know I have you to thank. For getting me on the final trial, as you say.”

  A shuffling sound came through the console. “I’m sorry too, Rose. I told you, I’ve wanted to get close to you ever since we first met. At least now we have each other to confide in.”

  Rose looked toward her window. “When will you be out here again?”

  “I could come out next weekend . . .”

  “It would be great to see you. Maybe we could get away for a few days. Taste some wine. Pretend.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Yes. Nice.” Sitting back, Rose watched the last rays of the setting sun playing across the delicate chain, the feathered arms of the silver goddess that dangled from her fingertips.

  12

  JUNE 2064

  OVER THE PAST two years, Sela and Kai had settled into a new pattern. They were nomads, constantly on the move, searching for others—still searching for water. Early each morning they took the bike out to scout the desert, Sela steering and Kai on the lookout, straddling a makeshift wooden seat mounted behind hers. They were both the same age—just over ten years old. But Kai had always been taller. He’d found a broken pair of binoculars on one of their forays, and from time to time he brought these up to his eyes to peer hopefully over Sela’s shoulder.

  Their Mothers followed in rapid-response mode—not on their treads but on their feet, their powerful legs in motion. At full height, standing over three times as tall as their charges, the bots were less stable but more mobile. Kai could still remember himself as a small child, the first time he’d seen Rosie in this stance—her soft inner hands emerging from within their hard outer gloves to grip his waist as she scooped him up and out of the path of a slavering coyote. Now she only seemed awkward, frighteningly off balance as she lumbered behind them.

  “I don’t see any towers,” Kai called into Sela’s ear, hoping she
could hear him over the whir of the bike’s engine and through the barrier of his particle mask.

  Sela stopped the bike. She struggled out of her seat and planted her feet on the uneven ground. As she stripped off her mask, Kai could see the chafed skin of her dust-stained cheeks. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, beating the mask against her thigh. “According to Alpha, we’ve found almost all of the depots already. And you know what we found there. The towers are all choked up with dirt. The depots don’t have any bottled water. Or food. Somebody took it all.”

  Kai licked his cracked lips. “That’s good, right? It means there’s somebody else out here.”

  “I suppose,” she said. “But not good for us. I think we should stick to the roads. We need to look for more cars. Maybe we’ll find another truck—like that one last week.”

  Kai shuddered. They’d managed to pry the lids off the cans stored in the truck’s bed—tomato sauce, a kind of green chili soaked in a spicy brine, a pasty brown foodstuff called “frijoles.” The food had been filling enough but had given them both stomachaches—and afflicted them with an even more terrible thirst. Sela had raided the cab for tools, nudging aside the limp, skeletal hand of its former driver. There, she’d found only one small bottle of water.

  Kai pointed in the direction opposite the rising sun. “Rosie says there’s a depressed area with rocky soil over that way. Like the remains of a riverbed. There might be underground water there.”

  “Are you sure we haven’t already been there?” Sela asked. “I feel like we’re just going in circles . . .”

  “We’ve been traveling in a spiral—wider circles every time. Rosie’s keeping track. We’ve been east and west of that stony area. But she’s sure we haven’t been to those exact coordinates.” He looked at Sela, her mouth now held in a stern line. “To get there, I think we can follow that wide road we were on yesterday most of the way,” he said.