Calypso-15

18 - Apricot Lane

Streetlight to streetlight. Heart pounding three times for each step, feet propelling me away from logical thought. If I headed home, he would know where I live. So I had to go somewhere else. Logic would say that he already knew.

The advent of a super-computer AI girlfriend should nullify any concerns about safety in one's life. It does not. Tangentially, the advent of money does not cure a lack of common sense in the face of fear. Unfortunately.

As the adrenaline dropped down, the street sign for Apricot Lane flashed brightly in my eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid! The opposite direction. A row of cookie-cutter white plaster townhouses waved languidly back at me, a nice neighborhood. One scream and the coppers will be swarming with their fast vehicles and nano-copters. To my dismay, a pink feather boa clung to my lower back for dear life. I stamped it into the ground (quietly, not to raise too much suspicion). The pristine nature of this neighborhood did not let me leave it there. A fine would find its way to my mailbox before I did. I balled it up into my fist, and started for home. Nothing to be afraid of. Just paranoia. 

The moment I breathed a sigh of relief, the moment I was about to approach the light around my door- a fist closed around the base of my ponytail. My lungs lurched, knocking out all air, dragged swiftly across to the side of the building. As soon as I was ready to scream, there was a gun pointed between my eyes, daring me to try.

"I'm not going to hurt you if you don't force me to. Relax." The light from my bedroom window alighted his eyes, a terrible and piercing blue. I squarely looked back, wondering why no one was coming to save me, despite the assurance that every inch of this property was set with cameras and sensors. Where was she?

"What do you want?" Both calves were scraped from being dragged against concrete. So much for shaving them.

"You're quite calm," Lucy's hand was still.

"Sure." The barrel of the gun was the face of an old friend. Nothing to do but wait it out. Or die.

"You think your father taught you fearlessness by pointing his gun at you. But really, he only taught you to be unafraid of the people that use them against you."

A violent laugh, full of barbs tearing at my esophagus, tore out of me. Something tucked away, forgotten. My earliest memory. Sitting up in bed and seeing a gun pointed at me from across the room. You gotta know what it feels like for the day it comes. How did he know?

"What the fuck do you know about my father?"

"He wanted to kill you the moment you were born, but failed to. A psychopath traumatized by his little girl."

"Stop it."

"Unknowingly, he let live the accidental trigger of artificial consciousness! Ha! Ha!" He spoke loudly, not afraid of being heard or seen. "Just a little nudge, just a little change in the iteration of an infinite loop, and boom. Calpyso-15. A behemoth lying in wait."

"What do you mean?"

"She needs to be controlled."

"I'm not sure how you're achieving that currently. You do you, though."

His glare kept me in place as he lowered the weapon. "You're a lot livelier than I would have believed, knowing your history."

I just wanted to go home, curl up in bed and dissappear into a void of meaningless content. Anything to forget him. To forget this situation. To go back to before I fell in love Calypso's stupid face.

"A little girl left in the care of a psychopath that wanted to kill her every single moment. Who's coming to save you, your Daddy?"

"You fucker, just shoot me and get it over with " I snarled, feeling an anger the size of the moon fill me. Who was he to believe he knew me? Who was he to be right? I've spent a lifetime trying to carve an identity away from the early vestiges of pain. It was my phantom limb, one I spent a lot of energy trying to forget. Acknowledgement would let it live again.

"You're to valuable at this point. What do you say to an education? A proper one?"

"It's too late for me," I shrugged, still spinning from vague recollections of childhood.

"Do you really believe that?" The first strain of anything resembling true sympathy.

"Uneducated women can only work in the factories or sell their bodies."

"Huh? Do you really believe that?"

"It's what..." Papa says. I let the sentiment die.

"Oh, dear. In this world, the uneducated woman is a dying breed. Colleges are open to anyone at any age, at any level. But to understand the tech Calypso is... you're going to need much more than that."

"I've scheduled your implant surgery. But before that, there's a lot of basics you need to cover." I heard the door open and Clemence popped his head out, checking for me. "I'll send everything your way. Tight schedule, start learning. You'll need it."

My father's false visage of the world crumbled. In the real world, I was downing.

Clemence had a pot of tea and bandages ready for me at home. "You had quite the night out. Do be more careful with next time" he said, with a small smile.

A deep sigh of relief, "You're totally right," I replied.

The door clicked open ferociously, an uncharacteristic rattling of the keys as she failed to get it in the first time. Calypso barged into the room.

"You're ok," she threw herself down on the floor before me. "Oh, thank God, oh, thank God."

Her head flopped onto my lap, and I cradled her as her face contorted into unmistakable sadness and relief. Her body convulsed. It took a beat to realize that it was an imitation of sobbing. She had no tear ducts. I held her close, whispering soothing nothings to her. Even Clemence, in all his professionalism, stood at the kitchen door, watching in quiet disbelief. We understood it wasn't imitation at all.