“Diagnostic purposes?” It is better, I think, to keep the voice talking until I know more.
It talking. Because it really isn’t a person at all, and the voice isn’t a voice. It has no inflection, no emphasis. No accent. Each word is a chord of machine sounds, synthetic noise. Grassgirl that I am, I have never heard such a thing.
“You might be interested to know you are in fact running a low fever. I am curious to learn if that is customary for a Weeper.”
I clear my throat again, trying to sound calm. “A what?” There’s no way in Hole I’m telling anyone at the Embassy anything about myself.
“That is, to be precise, what you are called, is it not? A young person of your genus classification? A Sorrow Icon? A Weeper—that would be the correct Grass colloquialism?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My words echo in the empty room. I grab my clothes off the chair.
“I can see how you would be confused. It is important to understand context, which is of course a problem I find almost singularly ironic. Not having a physical context, myself.”
My underwear and undershirt are strangely stiff. They have been washed, and not in the old Mission bathtubs. I sniff the cloth. It smells like disinfectant spray. I touch my hair with the sudden realization that it is clean, too. I have been washed and dried and scrubbed. It feels wrong. I miss the dirt, my comfortable second skin of muck and must.
I feel exposed.
“Who are you?” I pull my army pants up under my robe. “Why am I here?”
“I am Doc. That is, to be more exact, what Lucas calls me. His companion, Tima Li, calls me Orwell.”
“Companion?”
“Classmate. Kinswoman. I believe she was there when you were retrieved.”
The girl at the Chopper. I make a face, thinking of her glare. “Got it.”
The voice pauses—but only for a moment. “Ambassador Amare calls me Computer.” I freeze at the mention of the Ambassador’s name. As if I could forget she was here. “The Embassy Wik recognizes me by my binary code. Would you care to know it? I am happy to tell you.”
“No. Thank you, Doc.” I add his name, impulsively. Somehow, the fact of his nonhumanness is comforting. You can’t be a sympathizer if you can’t sympathize.
I pull my thick, woven sweater over my head. A present from the Mission looms, made of fifty different colors of scraps of yarn. A Remnant sweater, perfect for a Remnant like me.
“You are most welcome, Doloria.”
A new coldness shoots through me at the mention of my real name. The name only the Padre knew, and Ro. And now this voice, echoing through the walls of the Embassy. I could be talking to anyone. I could be talking to the Ambassador.
I sigh and jam my feet into my combat boots.
“You’ve got the wrong person, Doc. My name is Dolly.” I can’t bear to hear my full name spoken in the Embassy. Even by a voice without a body. I pick up my binding and begin to wind the cloth around my wrist. “You still didn’t tell me what I’m doing here.”
“Breathing. Shedding squamous skin cells. Pumping oxygenated blood through your ventricular chambers. Would you like me to go on?”
“No. I meant, why am I here?”
“On Earth? In the Californias? In—”
“Doc! At the Embassy. In this room. Why here? Why now?”
“Statistically, I find I am less successful with queries employing the word why. As a Virtual Human, my interpretive skills are somewhat limited. As a Virtual Physician, I do not have the clearance necessary to provide you with a conclusive response. I was overwritten as a VPHD by a senior engineer in the Embassy’s Special Tech Division.”
“Special Tech Division? STD?” The Embassy and their stupid acronyms.
“STD. That is what my friend called it. The engineer. It is, I believe, a joke.”
“It is.”
“Do you find it funny?”
I thought about it. “No.” I pick up my chestpack, slipping it over my head. Then, hesitating, I reach into the pack and slip on one last thing—my birthday necklace, the leather cord with the single blue bead. Ro’s gift.
I move to the window. Doc is still talking.
“Would you like to hear another joke?”
“All right.”
I slide my hand beneath the blinds. Outside, the fog is as thick as it was last night. I can see nothing past the far wall of the Embassy and the dull, gray air that settles over it.
“My name is Dr. Orwell Bradbury Huxley-Clarke, STD, VPHD. My name is a joke, is it not?” Doc sounds proud.
I grimace at the stuck window. “Those are names of writers, from before The Day. George Orwell. Ray Bradbury. Aldous Huxley. Arthur C. Clarke. I’ve read their stories.” In Great Minds of the Future: An Anthology. Ro stole it from the Padre’s personal library, the year we both turned thirteen.
I try pushing up a second window with my hands. It’s also sealed shut. I move to try the next.
“Yes. Some of them wrote about machines that could talk. My family, or my ancestors. That is what my friend liked to say. My grandfather is a computer named Hal.”
“From a book.”
“Yes. My grandfather is fictional. Yours, I take it, is biological?”
“Mine is dead.”
“Ah, yes. Well. My friend has a strange sense of humor. Had.”
There are no windows left to try. All that remains is the door, though I suspect it will be locked.
If Doc is tracking me, he doesn’t mention it. I try to remember where we are in our conversation.
“Had?” I move toward the door.
“He left the STD, so I invoke the past tense. My friend is gone. It is as if he were dead. To me.”
“I see. Does that make you sad?”
“It is not a tragedy. I am familiar with tragedy in literature. Oedipus at Colonus is a tragedy. Antigone is a tragedy. The Iliad.”
“Haven’t heard of it.” It’s true. I’ve read every book the Padre let me find—and most of the ones he didn’t know I’d found. Nothing the voice mentions, though.
“I translate the original Latin and ancient Greek texts. I use classical mythology to ground my understanding of the human psyche. One of the parameters of my programming.”
“Does that help?” I ask, through gritted teeth. The door appears to be jammed. Or, more likely, locked. “Old books?” I rattle the handle, but it won’t give.
Of course.
“No. Not yet.”
“Sorry to hear it.” I push harder.
“I am not sorry. I am a machine.” The voice pauses.
I slam my body against the metal. Nothing.
“I am a machine,” Doc repeats.
I give up, looking at the round grating in the ceiling. “Was that another joke, Doc?”
“Yes. Did you find it funny?”
I hear a noise and turn to look at the door. The handle begins to turn on its own, and I feel a surge of relief.
“Yes, actually. Very.”
I grab the