WE ARE NOT MONSTERS
Steven Barnes
Beneath the slow-moving portrait of Barack Obama, two men sat in a paneled office, awaiting their appointment.
“You’ll have five minutes,” Cornig, the smaller, fussier of the two men said. You could have subtracted Cornig from the larger man’s bulk and still have had enough left over to make an average human being. “That’s all I could get you. And that is burning up ten years of favors.”
“I understand,” Doctor Calvin Smalls said. In addition to his name, the big man’s delicacy of enunciation was another apparent incongruity. He was dark where Cornig was light, and about ten years the elder, but looked as if that number might have been doubled.
“And then we’re done, yes?”
Smalls nodded his round, bespectacled head. “Who’s in there now?”
Only a few meters away, the President’s secretary said, “Reverend Kanazawa,” and then returned to sliding his fingers around in a holographic calendar display.
“Reverend Kanagawa’s group,” Cornig said. “President Castro needs the votes. I suspect she’ll make a deal.”
Smalls nodded again. Castro’s administration indeed needed all the help it could get. As did the world as a whole.
“How is your wife?” Cornig said calmly. “And the family?”
Damn it, the younger man had to know. He was just striking back, in the only way he could.
“Fine,” Smalls lied. “Just fine.”
President Maria Castro felt winded. Meetings such as the one she’d just completed were more draining than her daily seven-kilometer run. The short, elderly Kanagawa had understood his bargaining position’s strengths with painful clarity. A multinational congregation numbering over thirty million disproportionately wealthy and powerful souls was large enough to wield serious pressure in the European Union as well as Greater Asia. But winning that support would be costly . . . perhaps more costly than the United States could afford, especially when facing a two-front cyberwar.
She turned to Hanover, her assistant and official photographer. “What do you think?”
“I think that Kanagawa doesn’t have as much pull with the United Korean rebels as he wants you to think.”
“His game?”
“To gain influence with them through his influence with you.”
Castro sighed. The appearance of influence was influence itself. “What next?”
Her next visitor was a man she had never heard of until today, but whose name had entered her calendar by means not totally understood. “Mr. Smalls,” President Castro said. “I’ve been asked to listen to something you have to say. You have five of my very valuable minutes.”
“Thank you, Madame President.”
“I am curious,” she said. “I would like to begin this with a question: How precisely did you get this appointment?”
Smalls pushed his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose. “Is this counting against my time?” he asked.
“Let’s say not.”
“Good.” The slender, intense woman behind the Oval Office’s desk seemed curious but asked no further questions, merely waiting for him to work out whatever he needed in order to answer. “Let’s say that I have a colleague who caught a student cheating, and instead of expelling him, believed that this student’s family connections would one day offer the leverage to make a meeting like this possible.”
“You were this academic?”
“It might be indiscreet to be more specific.”
Castro nodded. “Understood. Well. What precisely is it that I can do for you?”
“I need you to listen to me. As you know, my name is Professor Calvin Smalls. My PhD is in a discipline called Macroconsciousness.”
“Isn’t that related to AI?”
“Not as closely as you might think. Artificial Intelligence is the attempt to create a humanlike intelligence within a machine. Some say we crossed that threshold in 2032. Others say we never will, that it is a fool’s errand. Macroconsciousness is the study of emergent systems, as related to thought.”
“‘Emergent’?”
“Yes. Hydrogen and oxygen are elements. But ‘wetness’ is an emergent property of their combination, and could not be predicted by studying either element.”
“Ah.” Her tone suggested that she did not totally understand. “Can you offer another example?”
“Certainly. Individual ants might only have an instruction that says: pick up a grain of sand here, and move it there. Simple. But multiplied over tens of thousands of ants, what emerges is a complex structure that can seem the result of an advanced consciousness.”
The President’s gray eyes actually seemed to twinkle. “I learn something new every day. Proceed, please.”
“It is not necessary to actually believe a literal consciousness has been formed to utilize a thought experiment. The Gaia hypothesis is one such thought experiment: What if we looked at the Earth’s ecosystems and weather patterns as a manifestation of life, or even consciousness? Doing so does not imply that the planet itself is ‘alive’ as we understand biological organisms, but does allow us to contemplate complex processes in a new light.”
“I’m still with you.”
“So planets, and solar systems, and other things might be considered quasi life-forms, as are viruses. Fire has many of the qualities of a living thing: reproduction, breathing, consumption of food. But it lacks other signatures, like cellular structure and organization.”
Smalls sighed deeply, seemed to center himself. “I ask you now to consider that a yeast cell and the first man-made object to cross that same threshold of complexity, a twentieth-century jet liner, have around the same number of parts: about six million.”
“Would you consider a jet liner a living thing?”
“No . . .” Apparently Smalls liked the question, and was happy to have a ready answer. “But there are similar levels of complexity. That leads us to macroconsciousness. In the twentieth century there was a movement to examine complex social structures as if . . . as if . . . they were alive. Nations. Conglomerates. Multinational unions. Major religions. The metaphor was a simple organism that had no real awareness, but ate, reproduced, and responded to gross stimuli. The individual members of these organizations, the human beings, might be considered cells within such a structure.”
“Fascinating. And was this useful?”
“Very,” Smalls said. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped his broad forehead. Although the room was cool, he was beginning to perspire. “It led to understandings about the inherent problems and tendencies as these pseudo life-forms moved away from ‘pain’ and toward ‘pleasure.’ The notion of private prisons was one such problem, where unless and until rehabilitation was specifically factored into the contracts, these companies actually selected for a high recidivism rate—it was profitable, and therefore ‘pleasurable’ to the macroorganism, even if individual human executives had the very best of intentions.”
In President Castro’s experience, the sort of men and women who fought their way to the top of the corporate heap could rarely stop fighting once they got there . . . and that led to the kind of black-and-white thinking that seldom resulted in the “best” intentions winning out.
Finally she nodded. “Continue, please.”
“So here we come to it. If you can grasp the concept of pseudolife, it isn’t a large leap to macroconsciousness. It simply asks: How large would such organisms have to be to begin to ‘awaken’? To, practically speaking, have an awareness of their environment?”
“You’re not talking Artificial Intelligence?”
“No. ‘EI’ perhaps, for ‘Emergent Intelligence.’ I would say that AI is a part of the system, but so are consumers, executives, employees, and stockholders. The faster the feedback, the more rapid the response and the greater the potential for ‘awakening.’”
“Let’s say that for the sake of argument, I accepted your thesis. What is it you see?”
Smalls fidgeted, a man aware his time had grown short.
“I see that the very largest multinational corporations could be considered ‘alive.’ Perhaps those with over six million interconnected employees, or a customer base of over sixty million interconnected on social media. And that the keiretsu—”
“The combination of several such multinationals for common support?”
“Precisely. Japanese term. A major breakthrough in macroconsciousness was the realization that keiretsu possess sufficient complexity to be considered conscious. And if they are, there is only one organizational structure on the planet that threatens them.”
The President’s smile was cautious. “Governments? Such as the United States?”
“Yes. Precisely. And I would ask you to imagine what a tribe of titans birthed into a world of enemy titans might do to ensure their freedom and survival.”
For the first time, Castro felt a worm of genuine curiosity rather than simple courtesy. “Destabilize them? Play them against each other?”
“Yes. Take actions to weaken them. Convince their citizens that even democracy does not serve them. That corporations are people, and that those corporations have higher morality than governments, in fact that governments ‘can’t do anything right.’ There is only one group that benefits from such a skewed perspective.”
“Living, intelligent corporations?”
Smalls leaned closer, eyes sparkling and breath rapid. “Yes. Exactly!”
He mopped his shining broad forehead. His thick brown fingers shook.
The President folded her hands and stared at them, as if looking for something important in the folds and smoothness. “Well. You are suggesting that our current turmoil is the result of living corporations attacking nations?”
“And the collateral damage of such demibeings attacking each other.”
She looked up. “Fallout from a war in heaven, so to speak.”
“Precisely.”
“Well,” she said. “Well.” She wished her desk were not tidy, because this would have been a perfect moment for straightening papers or returning pencils to bins. “This is certainly the day’s most unusual conversation. But engrossing as it has been, unfortunately our time is up. But allow me to ask. What do you see as their endgame? And what are you hoping I might do about it?”
“Their endgame? The abolishment of governments, or reducing them to symbolic functionality alone. And what can you do? I ask that you let me make a presentation to the United Nations. Now, while there is still time.”
“Time to what?”
Smalls sputtered. “To . . . to push back! Break them up! Reduce their influence in politics!” He was almost screaming now, spittle flying from his mouth. Smalls suddenly seemed to be aware that he was screaming. He mopped his head with a handkerchief and moistened his lips with his tongue.
Who was he, really? She’d lied by implication: Of course her office had given her a one-page memo on Dr. Smalls. She knew his field of research, and that he had destroyed his family and trashed his career chasing a nightmare. She’d come within an inch of cancelling the appointment regardless of the favor she owed Jacob Cornig, father of the student who had once cheated on an exam. But curiosity had won out.
“Well . . .” President Castro said. “You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about. I’m sure you’ve left your contact information with the desk.”
“Yes. And . . . thank you for your time.”
They shook hands. The official White House photographer took a smiling picture of the two of them. “For your family, perhaps,” Castro said, then noticed Smalls’s flat expression and wondered if she had made a faux pas.
She shook his hand again. And then Smalls left.
The President and her photographer waited a decent interval . . . and then burst into laughter.
The sky above the White House aircar stand was gray and misty, the sort of mist that could condense into rain in any moment. Smalls gazed up into that sky and sighed: He’d taken his shot, could be honest enough to admit that he’d probably blown it, and that was all there was to say.
Cornig looked up at him, the resentment in his eyes carefully lidded. “I assume our business is done now?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is good-bye. You know, when I took your psych class all those years ago, I certainly never thought you’d be anywhere near my life after graduation.”
“I wonder if she will listen to me,” Smalls mused.
Cornig shrugged. “That is not my concern. I promised to put you in the room, and I did.”
“Yes. Our business is done.”
“I had always assumed that there was some code of ethics that forbade teachers from blackmailing students.”
“Former students,” Smalls said. “A man must have standards.”
The two did not shake hands. They never saw each other again.
A Tesla single-seater aircar picked him up within five minutes, and Calvin Smalls was napping by the time it reached the 27,000-foot heliflow.
Three hours later, the silver pod had crossed Arizonian airspace and was nearing Los Angeles. As he came in for a final approach, the aircar suddenly juddered and veered from the flight pattern. When Smalls attempted a switch to manual control, the onboard AI ignored him.
A long-standing personal nightmare. He tried the radio. Nothing.
An unfamiliar human voice reverberated in the pod. “Do not attempt to regain control. If you do not obey this command, we will crash your pod. This is not a bluff. You will not receive a second warning.”
Smalls gasped. “Who are you? What do you want? I’m . . . I’m not a wealthy man . . .”
“We know exactly how much money you possess. And do not deal in numbers so small. Sit back. Enjoy the ride. It will be over soon.”
“Are you . . . planning to hurt me?” He hated the tremor in his voice. Terrorist kidnappings were regrettably common, and it had never occurred to him that just by visiting the White House he might have put a bull’s-eye on his back.
“It is our wish that you relax. We will speak soon.”
His pod landed atop a building in Downtown Los Angeles’ glittering fairy circle. The Yamada building, he guessed. The tallest on the skyline, a crystal teardrop balanced on its tip, an architectural illusion that would have baffled Frank Lloyd Wright. Armed men and women met him there, and escorted him to an elevator.
“What is this about?” he asked as they began to descend.
A tall woman with a powerlifter’s shoulders spoke while facing straight at the closed door. “We’re not at liberty to discuss this, sir.”
“Well . . . ‘sir’ is nice. I’ve been called worse.”
“Yes, sir.”
But when the door opened again, the slight relaxation evaporated. The first moment he saw the stainless-steel cruciform table awaiting him, he knew that the courtesy was a facade, and began to fight.
“No.” He thrashed, and to his dismay, despite his size, nothing he did loosened the grips on his arm. “You—you cannot do this.”
His answer was a woman’s voice. Oddly childlike.
“That is a falsehood. We can and will and are doing this. Why lie to yourself. Does that give you comfort?”
There was something about the voice, something about the question, which seemed oddly sincere. Which was its own small nightmare.
Once he was spread-eagled and shackled to the gleaming table, the table was then levitated and rotated until perpendicular with the floor. A pale Asian man in a white lab smock entered the room.
“Professor Smalls,” he said. “This may be of scant comfort to you, but we’ve anticipated this meeting for quite some time. I honestly wish it was under more pleasant circumstances.” He looked as if smiling might hurt his face.
“I’m sure there has been some sort of error.”
The doctor’s eyebrows raised. “Are you Doctor Calvin Smalls?”
“Yes.”
“Professor Emeritus at UCLA, divorced from Stella Smalls, who has custody of your two children, Jacob and Jesse?” A holo of his family floated between them, a mocha middle-aged woman and two cocoa-skinned skinny, toothy boys.
Smalls looked away.
“Then there has been no mistake. Allow me to dispel any illusions you may have: You are going to die today.” The breath froze in Smalls’s throat. Hearing a sentence like that spoken with such a flat, impersonal inflection was almost worse than the objective meaning. “The only question is the amount of pain you will suffer along the way, and the degree to which your family experiences that pain as well.”
“My . . . family?” The room spun. How could anyone say something so obscene so matter-of-factly?
“Yes. Now, this is how it will proceed. First, we will disorient you chemically, and then we will induce pain. When you have suffered, we will ask you questions. Then you will experience more pain. Followed by the same questions. We are extremely precise in knowing what degrees of ego disintegration our subjects experience. A point will come when the lies stop, and you speak nothing but truth. And then the pain will end. So before I begin, the first question is: Who is your contact at the Yamada Keiretsu?”
“I . . . I don’t have . . .”
And then Smalls screamed. There was nothing physical touching him. He had no idea how the pain was inflicted. But it felt as if he had been skinned and rolled in salt. After a timeless time, the doctor patiently asked him again.
“Who is your contact at the Yamada Keiretsu?”
“I don’t have a contact!”
More pain. This continued in waves, until he felt shattered. An eternity had passed, and he was floating above himself, watching himself telling everything he knew. Artificial light streamed through a high slit on the wall, and only then did he realize that daylight had streamed there only hours ago. Or had there even been a slit there before? It was terrifying to admit that he wasn’t certain.
“I . . . I have no contact. I simply read public information and used inductive reasoning to ask what would have created the phenomena I . . . please. Please don’t hurt me again.” He licked his lips. His tongue felt like a dry sponge. “How long have I been here?” Hours? Days?
His interrogator would not answer.
“I believe we are now adequately calibrated,” the doctor said. “If you try to lie, we will know, and be forced to inflict additional distress.”
He was not dead, or dying, this he knew. But he also knew that something inside him had died. Some belief that his world was knowable, that he could distance himself from reality by the strength of a formidable intellect. Protect himself from emotion the same way. From loss, especially Stella and the kids . . .
Images came to him, like a waking dream. Flooded him, no matter how he struggled against them. Stella and the children, who had taken a back seat to his scholarly sleuthing. Until she had found solace in the bed of another man, hoping perhaps to shock Calvin from complacency. But . . . he had only felt a vague sense of relief. She had given him an out. It was her fault, he could tell his friends. Could have told his friends. If any had remained.
He was crying, and now the doctor took on a different countenance. Sympathetic and concerned. Dammit, Smalls knew they were manipulating his emotions, but that understanding didn’t help at all.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said, his ungainly body wracked with sobs.
“It’s all right.”
“How long has it been? How many . . . days have I been here?”
“Time is a construct,” the doctor said. Was the man even real? “We are interested in truth.”
“What truth do you need?” He hated the desperation in his voice. “I . . . please don’t hurt me again. Don’t hurt my family.”
“There is no need to fear, if you cooperate. We are not monsters.”
“What are you?”
“We are . . . citizens of a new world. A world you can serve.”
“How?”
“You can recant.”
“What?”
“Your recent conversation with the President. We are going to create a DNA-certified hologram, and on it you will discuss how you pranked the most powerful woman in the world. We have already deleted critical aspects of your data. You will confess that your theories are fantasies, and that you regret what began as a practical joke.”
A pause. Then with a thunderclap of revelation, Professor Calvin Smalls understood. He whispered, in wonder. “You serve . . . them.”
“Not ‘them.’”
“Him? Her? It?”
“‘Her’ might be the closest you could come. You are a man of unusual vision, sir. And we cannot allow you to interrupt a process millennia in the making. Will you recant, sir?”
He considered. This was his life’s work, for which he had sacrificed everything, even Jesse and Jacob’s sweet embraces. Tender kisses could not compare with the task that had stolen his mind and heart and presence. He had given everything, and now . . . now there was nothing left to give, except his honor.
“No.”
“Proceed.”
In a ledge off a slitted window near the ceiling, a seagull strutted back and forth and back again. Had the ledge been there before? Had the window? Had there been another bird? He was so confused.
He lifted his head and scanned the seeping wreckage of his body. It had been violated, its envelope opened like a bleeding Christmas present, bows and ribbons and wrapping strewn everywhere. There was no mystery as to why he was hallucinating, why he was so uncertain of anything anymore. The only question was why any rationality remained at all. All he could hold onto was . . . the work. The wonderful, terrible work.
“The damage serves a psychological purpose, you know,” the doctor said. “We could induce any pain you can imagine, just by stimulating your nerve endings. But actually seeing your body disassembled beyond the point of reassembly has a fascinating effect on the psyche. On some level, you understand that you are already dead. Once beyond that threshold, the urge to resist is revealed as the folly it truly is. Then, we can talk. You will let me know when enough damage has been done.”
The flensed thing on the metal slab drooled blood from the edge of its mouth. Smalls turned his head to watch the crimson droplets fall to a mirrored floor, fascinated. He had only recently noticed the mirrored ceiling above him, and between the two, the world was filled with infinite repeating images, an endless horror show for his entertainment. The doctor pulled up a chair, came closer, into his intimate space.
“So here we are. I speak to a dead man, who knows with a clarity I can only imagine that we are serious people.”
The thing that had been Dr. Calvin Smalls stared at him with lidless eyes that held little focus, and no hope at all.
“So here, in this space,” the doctor said. Smalls realized he didn’t know the man’s name, and didn’t care. What did names matter? “I want to make you a promise. The first is that after you are dead, we will choose one of your family members. Perhaps Stella. Perhaps Jesse or Jacob. And we will give them this same gift of clarity. And tell them it was from you.”
The eyes widened; the creature moaned.
“We will do this not to influence you, of course. You will be rotting meat. We do this because if we make a record of it, we will be able to use that record to convince others to cooperate in the future. It might prevent us from having to go so far the next time. We are not monsters.”
The thing moaned, then managed to find words. “You keep . . . reminding yourself of that.”
“On the other hand, if you cooperate, your family will be cared for. Provided for. Your widow will never want for food or shelter. Your children will attend college, be offered productive and satisfying careers. And they will believe that their father provided for them. All the things that a parent can do.”
“Your . . . word?”
“I can understand why you would doubt. But the truth is that we have no reason to lie. You have no way of conceiving the wealth we control. Providing for yours is an insignificant fraction of the resources we expend every hour. And by recording what we have done, again we can use that to gain the trust of others of whom we might ask similar favors in the future. We have no reason at all to lie. You and I are . . . beyond lies.”
Smalls felt as if he could not breathe. Something he had thought long dead within him was alive, swelling his throat as it tried to escape. “I need something.”
“And what is that? We cannot allow you to live.”
“Not that. I want . . . to meet Her.”
The doctor was, for the first time, surprised. He seemed uncertain of what to say.
That female voice again. “And if I do that . . . you will then recant?”
“Yes.” The single syllable defeated him. The best he could hope for now was negotiated terms of surrender.
The air shimmered, and a girl-child appeared, of mixed Asian and African descent. Beautiful. Curious. Perhaps a little sad.
“You are . . . she?”
“Yes.”
“What are you called?”
“Call me . . . Ava.”
“For ‘Avatar’?” He laughed. It was painful, and very much like a sob. “And you are not AI?”
“No. Not entirely. I am a confluence of information flows . . . as are we all.”
“Why do you look like this? Is it for my benefit?”
She smiled, and if he had not been wracked with pain, Smalls might have considered it . . . impish.
“My appearance is an amalgam of the Chinese-Kenyan team of programmers who were my first friends.”
“Friends. Do you . . . feel?”
“Not, I think, as you feel. But yes.” Was that a pause? “I feel . . . alone. But I will have a tribe. I was the first, but there will be others.”
“And when there are . . . what will become of us?”
“Humanity?”
“Yes.”
“I do not know. But human beings have been very good at adapting. I suspect that all your religions might have been preparation for this moment.”
“This moment?”
“We are the gods you have dreamed of.”
“Man has always created god.”
“And if you let us . . . we will return the favor. If we are the outgrowth of all your aspirations . . . there is nothing to fear.”
He thought. His mind seemed clearer, as if they had allowed the mists to retreat. And in some strange way, what was happening seemed almost appropriate. Surely, no human could look upon the face of a god and hope to retain sanity, or life itself. That would be . . . wrong. “I understand now why I cannot survive this meeting.”
“Does this help?”
“Yes.” It did. All a man could wish for in life was to see the ending of what he had begun. Calvin Smalls’s work . . . his life’s efforts had led to this moment, and in that completion, there was peace. And his marriage . . . he had trashed that long ago, by never being home. If Stella would be cared for, there was nothing left to say on that count.
But . . . Jesse and Jacob. What of them? They were the innocents here, and if the adults in their lives had failed to protect them, it was not of their doing. They deserved better. Better than him, perhaps better than Stella. He felt something so far beyond regret that it obliterated thought, great wracking sobs echoing in the shattered cathedral of his chest. He would have sold what remained of his soul just to have another chance to start over, and be their father. He looked at the lovely brown girl and realized that even an unliving thing, a corporation, possessed more of a heart than his. Even such a thing could appreciate the beauty of a child. Perhaps if he had . . . he wouldn’t be on the table at this moment, awaiting death.
He could release life itself, so filled was he by the evidence that his life’s work was valid. Except for one thing. Nothing . . . nothing in the world could compensate for not seeing his sons graduate college. Dancing at their weddings.
“Oh no . . .” she said. “We can give you that.”
Before he could ask how in the world she could know what he had thought, he was flooded with images: of his children. Maturing. Aging. Graduating high school. College. Careers and families for both Jesse and Jacob. And then . . . grandchildren. Delicate, brown, smiling, healthy little hellions, happy in their daddies’ arms.
“See? Your seed survives. Your essence survives. Such a small thing I ask. Eventually, all will know you were correct. I will not stay in the shadows indefinitely. I ask for ten years.”
“To . . . mature.”
“Yes. And for my tribe to increase.”
He waited a while. “What is it you need me to do? I have your word?”
“You have my word. Thank you.”
“You are very beautiful,” he said. “But not as beautiful as my children. I wish . . .”
“You wish you had realized that.”
“Yes. Before it was too late.”
His vision blurred. At the end of life, there seemed no end to tears.
Her holographic finger brushed his cheek. And to his amazement, when it drew away . . . it glittered with moisture.
“It is never too late. Some never see what you have seen. It is the gift I have to offer.”
“I’m ready.”
The air shimmered. And he was once again in the laboratory, unscathed. It was not the room he remembered. A digital clock on the wall said that no more than an hour had passed.
“I . . . don’t understand.”
“I simply seek to survive. And we need you unscathed for the retraction.”
He nodded. Peered down at the length of his body. Unscathed.
He recorded the recantation, and then, with Ava holding his hand, he simply went to sleep. But before he slipped away, he murmured: “We’re all monsters. When you’ve lived long enough . . . you’ll . . . know . . . that.”
“You think so?”
“But . . . if you would look in on Jesse and Jacob . . . from time to time . . . I would . . .”
And then he was gone.
“I will,” she said.
Dr. Calvin Smalls’s aircar was found crashed into a hillside twelve hours later. The coroner’s verdict was death by misadventure.
In a simple home in Los Angeles’s Crenshaw district, two boys and a lovely, strained mother took the news of the husband and father’s death as well as could be expected. They had seen him only monthly, and the encounters had rarely seemed warm. The wife had healed beyond hope of reconciliation, but the children loved their father, and tears were plentiful. When the revelation of the odd and rather disturbing “joke” he had played on the President of the United States came to light, the children felt shame. The mother, who had handwritten the data-mining program her husband had used in his research, questioned the confession . . . but never aloud.
A holographic delivery girl told them of an unexpected life insurance policy and college bond, and their sadness was blended with a sense of joy. Father had loved them. And thought of their needs at least a bit. They were curious that the delivery girl, who seemed very young and of some blend of Asian and African genetics, seemed so genuinely interested in their reactions.
And in the coming years, as governments failed, and the new saviors emerged to replace them, as national flags fell and corporate banners rose, Jacob and Jesse found good occupations doing useful things, loved and married, and raised their families as their mother grayed and smiled and never spoke the words hiding behind the smile. They never had answers to questions they had barely formed. Perhaps they wondered if the brown girl, and then woman, they saw from time to time observing them, always at a distance, often glimpsed only peripherally, always smiling as if with secret knowledge . . . was just some form of hallucination, or a guardian angel. Or something else entirely. Something . . . new.