RoboNomics

Chapter 71 - 2016

If you want to help your friends. 

The words ring in my ears as I leave the cafe. Rupert and Austin pick me up with the pod car. 

Now that I'm finished with my meeting, Rupert has the car bring Austin and I to what will now be our new home. It's on the edge of the large, domed European District. Here, the buildings thin out and roads become winding and tree-lined.

"I'm afraid you'll find the house surprisingly small compared to the enormity of your inheritance," he explains on the way there. "But needs must: space is limited here on Mars."

He also explains that these sparsely populated outer boroughs are reserved for the homes of individuals who, like me, have a net worth of many hundreds of billions. If lowly multi-millionaires managed to hold onto their money and buy a ticket to New Rome, they are obliged to crowd into the chic but tiny apartments we saw downtown before my meeting with Newhouse.

What surprises me most about Rupert's speech is the fact that even here, in this supposed paradise for the rich, there are class divisions still at play. But I keep my thought about it to myself.

Rupert is wrong about one thing. The house is not small. 

When we arrive, I stare up at its three floors. It looks like it was meant to be a cottage or a country home, with real cedar shingles on the roof and outer walls clad in dark brown brick. With its walled back garden and flagstone driveway, it's not my style at all. 

There are tall, unkempt hedges and pines surrounding it. It looks like a tall, brown mushroom growing up in the middle of a wild, green wood. The house is so different from the other sprawling mansions and palaces in the neighborhood, and so different from what I'd expect one of the richest men on two worlds to live in.

When Rupert opens the door, we enter a perfectly automated world. The foyer, with its cathedral ceiling, is immediately illuminated and we are greeted by a disembodied voice.

"Welcome, Ms. Anderson. Welcome, Dr. Clarke, to your new home. Welcome back, Mr. Jennings. You've been away too long."

"Who's that?" I look around for an android to approach us.

"That voice is the house," Rupert explains. "It contains a powerful artificial intelligence that can coordinate every system in the home to take care of whatever you need."

I look at the dark wood paneled walls. I look up at an oil painting of Donald that hangs over the heavy, twisting wood staircase. 

It doesn't seem like I should mistrust this house. But this rich old bachelor's monument to comfort contains an AI. And I still haven't forgotten how an intelligent machine took my livelihood away.

"You must be very tired," Rupert says at my silence. "Shall I leave you to it?"

"You're going?" 

It's the first time Austin and I will be without Rupert as our guide since we met him. It will be the first time Austin will be awake, coherent and alone with me for what feels like a year. And I'm terrified.

"I'll be up in the morning to pick you up."

"For what?"

"Your first day at iTronics. Might as well jump in and see what it's all about, eh?" He turns to go.

"Wait — how do I work it?" I gesture at the house, playing for time.

"Not to worry." He opens the broad front door. "You don't have to do anything. It does everything itself."

And then he's gone. The door closes with a strange finality and the sound reverberates in the silence that follows. I stare at it long after he's gone.

"Want to look around?" Austin's voice echoes in the vast space of the foyer.

We wander into the kitchen. It's a wide, impressive room with dark cabinets that match the rest of the house — at least, the part that we've seen. The lights adjust as we enter and little InvisiScreens appear on several counter tops and appliances.

"Ms. Anderson," the house says in soothing tones. "It has been 3.5 hours since your last meal. Your bio-medical tracker indicates high levels of caffeine in your bloodstream, leading to abnormal spikes in adrenaline. May I fetch you a glass of water? May I prepare something for you to eat?"

Before I even respond, a long pantry door swings open and a silver iTronics android unfolds itself. It heads to the stove top set in the large island.

Austin sits down heavily at one of the many espresso-toned, leather upholstered chairs that line the island. "That's just great, isn't it?"

"What's that?" I ask stupidly.

"What am I supposed to do with myself? Have you even thought of that, Andrea?" A note of annoyance has crept into this voice. It's an irritability that makes my heart sink at its harshness.

It's that same voice that he reserved for me when he was practicing medicine on the streets of Toronto for no money. When he would never talk to me but to snipe. I'm afraid that all the tenderness that he showed me through his sickness has disappeared along with his disease.

"We'll both have to adjust to this world, now that our vocations have disappeared."

"Come on, Andrea, you know it's not the same thing. You have a title now. You have a job waiting for you if you want it. But what I am supposed to do with my time?"

"Well, you can do whatever you want to, I guess."

"You really expect me to what? Pick up some indulgent hobby?"

"I never said —"

"Or maybe you want me to sit here all day waiting for you to get home from work like some pathetic housekeeper..." He checks himself. " But I can't even fill my time with that because look, it's all done for us!" 

He gestures to the android that's busy chopping vegetables. He's close to shouting. He's about to yell at me for making his life more comfortable.

And I've had enough.

"Look, I know you don't believe me when I say nothing happened. Back on Earth, between me and —"

He raises his hand. "Don't say that name to me."

"I know you haven't forgiven me for getting involved with the protest group in the first place. But I did what you said. I told Rupert that we'd come here so that you could get well. And now, what? You want to get pissed off at me because of it? Obviously that's not the real reason you're angry with me."

I can see that he's about to interrupt. I can tell he wants to protest. But I cut him off before he can start.

"This is a weird world we've come to, and I'm as lost as you are. But we're not going to be able to figure out how to live here if we don't stick together. We're going to have to trust each other again. We're all we have here, so I need you to talk to me again as if I'm your wife, not some dangerous stranger who's out to get you."

I can see his anger deflating. His burning gaze falls and his shoulders slump forward. 

"I know," he says quietly. "But Andrea, can't you see? I have to figure out what my life will be now, and I don't know that you can help me with it. I want to believe you. I want to trust you again. And I will, soon. But not yet. Just me let figure out myself first. Then I'll work on us."

(Continued in Chapter 72...)