It was after eleven that night when a on-demand shuttle delivered Gene home to Zora. The night was less hot but still humid, and mist blurred the outlines of the houses along the community path.
Gene’s mind churned, working through invasion scenarios, relocating and housing fleeing citizens, food, water, sanitation, aiding the wounded and identifying the dead.
A fragile calm settled over him as he entered the flowered and tree-scattered green space, which ran between two facing rows of multicolored buildings to a circular central green. More buildings bordered the green, which opened at the far end onto another long green space between two more facing rows of yet more buildings. Smaller paths branched off to houses set further back into the surrounding woods. All told, there were more than a hundred and twenty homes, plus shared and private office spaces, stores, a furniture printing business, two cafés, a restaurant, and the childcare center. The Community Building, a broad, homey structure one story higher than the surrounding houses, presided over one side of the central circle. Its windows shed warm light onto the green.
Gene and his then-fiancé, Edison, had moved to Zora more than twenty years before, not long after Cascadia split from the U.S. They’d been on a tight budget and nervous about becoming parents, and Zora had welcomed them. Here was a community founded by people of color working together, where pooled resources and the off-the-beaten-path location made it affordable to have a well-built, comfortable home. The community building had housed the little school at the time, along with shared studios and work areas. Over the years, it had expanded to include community dining, exercise and dance space, a workshop with a good 3-D printer, guest rooms, and other improvements. Gene felt a sense of safety and connection in Zora that he felt nowhere else. Even when he was in turmoil, it grounded him.
The clean scent of hummingbird sage mixed with lemony yerba buena as Gene followed the path. He saw Akeyo Brooks, a neighbor, coming toward him, in conversation with her two grown sons. When they waved to him and smiled, Gene did the same, but he turned his eyes away before Akeyo could start a conversation. Most of his work was meant to be shared with the public, and he was used to being open with his community. This new concern, however, one that threatened Zora specifically, he had to keep to himself for now. It made him feel separate from his neighbors in a way that was both unfamiliar and painful.
There was no immediate threat, though, and if trouble did start, Zora should receive ample warning. If for any reason that didn’t happen when it needed to, he’d warn them himself, whether he was allowed to or not.
He turned off onto the path to his own house. Gene shared a pale violet, two-story home with his twenty-three-year-old daughter, Samantha. Their house was connected on the inside to the house next door, where family friends Kiara and Vi and their son, Will, lived. The two families shared most meals and household responsibilities, and they’d teamed up in caring for the children when they were young. Gene’s husband, Edison, had spent most of his days around the children while he was alive, but he had been gone for twelve years now.
Samantha was in her first year of graduate school now, specializing in AIM--artificial intelligence management--and taking most of her classes remotely. Her brother, Mark, was in France studying painting.
Samantha and Will both liked to study well past midnight and then sleep until 10 or 11 when they could, so Gene wasn’t surprised to see that the light was still on upstairs. Will was in his senior undergraduate year, studying social work through a college in Sacramento.
Light flickered over Gene’s eyes as the door lock scanned his retina. The door opened at his push, and the lights in the living room came up as he walked in. Somewhere further back in his brain, the dangers ahead still rattled, but exhaustion was taking over. A tense and active day had worn him down in ways he’d ignored until he was safely home.
From upstairs, he heard a faint sound of sobbing. Samantha murmured something he couldn’t make out. It sounded to him like loss, not danger, and he felt a pain inside him rise in answer to that sound.
Gene untied his shoes, slid them into an empty spot on the shoe rack, and climbed the stairs in his socks, making only faint brushing sounds as his feet pressed into the carpet. The sobbing came from Sammi and Will’s study room, and Gene followed it there.
Sammi looked up when he came in. She was sitting on the couch, her arm around Will, who was crying into her shoulder. Sammi had Edison’s amber eyes in a wide, quiet face. Her short, black-and-violet hair framed her face in compact spirals.
“A girl?” Gene mouthed quietly.
Sammi nodded, her expression somewhere between sadness and exasperation. Will had a habit of falling hard for the girls he dated, then taking it harder whenever things came to an end. He was strong and tawny-skinned, with fine features and a gentleness that seemed to enthrall a steady stream of interested girls. In another week, he’d probably be dizzily in love again. Meanwhile, he’d be miserable.
Gene settled into the chair across from the couch. “Hi Will,” he said. “Hard time today?”
Will looked up, tears still trickling down the sides of his nose. “How do you always know?” he said, and they all laughed.
“Hey, Will,” Sammi said. “Give me a minute? I have to check on a project I’m running. I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” Will said. “If you find me here dead of a broken heart, bury me under the willow tree, OK?”
“Dad, do me a favor and don’t let Will die of a broken heart while I’m gone?”
“I hardly ever do,” Gene said.
Samantha shook her head, shifted Will’s weight, and left.
Gene looked into Will’s eyes. Will wasn’t trying to be dramatic: he genuinely felt things very deeply. It was hard to know whether to admire that or to hope it was a phase.
“You and Iris split up?” Gene said gently.
“Who’s Iris?” said Will.
“Oh--isn’t ... wait, I saw you two together Saturday!”
Will laughed, tears still dribbling down his face. He took a tissue from a box on the side table, blew his nose loudly, then started crying again. “Sorry,” he said. “Just kidding. Yes, we had to break up.”
“What happened? It wasn’t because--”
“No, she was fine with that. She knew before we started dating. I guess ... she says I’m not aggressive enough. She wants--” he made a little choking noise. “Honestly, I don’t know what she wants.”
“You looked happy together there for--” Gene began, but he was interrupted by shrieking from Samantha’s room. He bolted down the hallway. His stomach clenched, and for a moment it seemed like his legs would not hold him. He banged his hip against the stairway railing, but he didn’t slow down as he sprinted into Sammi’s room. Will was close behind.
Sammi sprawled across the floor on her back, her knees bent, clutching her stomach and wailing in pain.
“What happened?” Gene said, dropping to his knees. He looked for signs of some accident, but there was nothing--no cut or bruise he could see, no blood. He felt her forehead: she was clammy, and he could feel her pulse throbbing in double time.
“My stomach,” Samantha wailed. Then, weakly, “... and my back. Ow. Ow!”
“Ollie, get an ambulance!” Gene shouted. “And help me diagnose this.” Gene’s AI interface was housed on secure servers in Sacramento and was used for both his work and his private life. Ollie was available from anywhere through Gene’s earpiece as well as the house sound system.
“A mobile medical unit is on its way,” Ollie said. “Let’s see if we can get a better idea of what’s happening. Samantha, you mentioned the pain is in your stomach and back. Is it more to one side than the other?”
“Yes,” Samantha gasped, “the left?”
“What kind of pain is it? Is it sharp, dull, aching, pressure--”
“I don’t know!” Samantha wailed. “Dad, it hurts!” Gene hadn’t felt so useless since Edison was sick.
“Do you feel dizzy, weak, or lightheaded?” Ollie asked.
“Pretty dizzy,” Samantha said. Then frowned. “What?” she said.
“I didn’t--” Gene started.
“Not you, Dad. Ollie. Say that again, Ollie.”
Ollie hadn’t said anything. Unless ... Was he asking her a question privately?
“No!” Samantha groaned. “... I don’t think so. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Gene said. “Maybe what?
“There isn’t enough information for a conclusive diagnosis,” Ollie said. “The ambulance is inbound and should arrive in seven minutes with an orderly robot. A paramedic will arrive separately within the three to four minutes, on foot from within Zora. Meanwhile, please try to keep Samantha comfortable, but don’t move her.”
“Will,” Gene said, “can you go to the door and let the paramedic in when they come?”
Will nodded, his face paler than usual, and ran.
Gene gently lifted Sammi’s head into his lap and held her hand. Between shrieks and gasps, she clutched his fingers so hard that her fingernails cut him. A cascade of memories of Samantha spilled and intermixed just beyond clear recollection: falling out of trees, a bloody knee, a heartbreak when she was 13.
Kiara and Vi were on a trip to wine country, and he was glad Will had been home. He didn’t like to think what might have happened if Will hadn’t been there and if Gene had arrived half an hour later.
Had Sammi hurt herself on something? Maybe it was something she ate? Gene had no medical knowledge beyond basic first aid. He didn’t think it could be drugs, but he didn’t know enough to be able to rule that out. Something had changed between Samantha and him within the last couple of years--some kind of gap had appeared. They were still close, but now sometimes Sammi spent hours in places she didn’t care to describe, with people she didn’t care to name. He’d never seen any evidence of addiction, though--no strange behaviors, suspicious smells, physical reactions ... until now. But who knew what this was?
She can’t die now, Edison, he thought. He always felt embarrassed, talking in his mind to someone who had been gone so long, but that never stopped him from doing it.
Footsteps drummed on the stairs, and Gene looked up to see a slight, umber-skinned woman in a T-shirt and leggings, someone he recognized from community dinners. Shannel, maybe? Shannon? He hadn’t known she was a paramedic. Shantelle, his lenses told him. Where was Will? Oh, probably waiting in back to let the orderly bot in.
“Excuse me,” Shantelle said to Gene, and he made space for her to lean in. “I heard you’re having abdominal pain,” she said. “Any other symptoms?”
“Her heartbeat is elevated,” Ollie said. “She reported feeling dizzy and is experiencing severe abdominal pain, spreading to her back.”
“And--ow, fuck!” Sammi wailed.
“Got it,” the paramedic said. She glanced for a moment at Gene, questioning, but he could only look back at her blankly.
“Stay where you are for another minute or two, OK?” said the paramedic, checking Sammi with her hands as she spoke. “We’ve got an orderly coming to get you into the mobile unit. There’s a full diagnosis and field surgery system in there, so we should be able to start treating you on the way to the hospital.”
She had hardly finished speaking when a tall, six-legged bot topped with what looked like a folded sail entered the room. Gene hadn’t heard it on the stairs.
“Get her into the mobile unit, please,” the paramedic said, standing back. “Sir, please take a step back once the orderly has her.”
The orderly bot repositioned itself on the floor and rotated its top half, unfolding a long, padded platform next to Sammi. White plastic prongs extended from the side of the platform, and the bot dipped its body to slip the prongs under her. Gene couldn’t tell what the mechanism was doing, but Sammi was lifted bit by bit as the platform shifted underneath her. Sammi was shifted the rest of the way onto the platform while long, multiple-jointed arms extended from the orderly bot, pulling some kind of webbing in from the sides of the platform to hold her in place.
Shantelle seemed to have received some information on her lenses, and she made control gestures as the orderly splayed its legs and lifted Sammi smoothly onto its back. Will was in the doorway now, and Shantelle gestured him aside to make room for the orderly to get out.
She turned to Gene as she followed the bot out the door. “You can meet us at Saleh,” she said. That was the closest hospital, about 10 miles away in Placerville. “We’ll be doing the initial assessment and maybe more in the mobile unit, but there’s no room in that for visitors, so you should follow up with your daughter in the recovery room. We’ll keep in contact so you’ll know what’s happening.”
“She’ll be all right, though?” Gene said.
Shantelle gave him a weak, professional smile. “We’ll know more in a few minutes,” she said.
Gene followed her out, Will close behind him. They stood in the back door while Shantelle followed the orderly as it carried Sammi across the gardens and out to the community ring road. A mobile medical unit was parked there, and it opened as the orderly bot approached. Once the bot, Sammi, and the paramedic were all inside, it closed, swallowing them. Will stood beside Gene, staring at the vehicle, his hands clenched against his chest.
“Ollie, get me a two-person car, please,” Gene said. “Bring it around back.” It would only take a minute or two for Ollie to request one of the shared cars from the Zora lot and have it drive over to pick them up. Gene went back inside and began gathering things that Sammi might want at the hospital. A fresh set of clothes, probably? He went to her room and found a gym duffel. He emptied it onto the floor, then he threw shorts and a T-shirt and some underthings in. She’d probably want her shoulder bag--he took that off her desk and put it in. He’d grab her toothbrush on the way out ... He looked around for more, and only then did he notice that she had an unlocked computer display running, with a data bloom--clusters of related information in text, numbers, and media--displayed on it. Probably the project for school she’d gone back to check on. He went over to close it, but before he could do that, he noticed an image that looked vaguely familiar. He tapped it, and it expanded to fill the screen, accompanying text appearing below it.
“Terence Palmer,” the picture was labeled. There was also a mind-bogglingly high amount listed next to him, in U.S. dollars. Why did that name ring a bell?
It took him another moment to remember: the Capital Complex; the woman who had stopped President Muñoz ...
He tapped the picture to close it and examined more of the materials in the data bloom. There were access paths, AI specifications, a list of compromised documents, and much more. He didn’t bother to review it all. Instead, he touched the “close” icon to lock the display.
He had never asked himself why Sammi had wanted physical computer displays in her room. To Gene, who had grown up with computers that required physical keyboards and that were programmed by human beings composing sets of explicit instructions, the new world of AIs that rewrote their own programming, of smart lenses that projected information directly onto your eyes, and of hackers whose abilities were more to do with marshaling advanced computer systems than with taking any action themselves was more foreign than familiar. Yet most people Sammi’s age, including techies, used their lenses for virtually everything. Physical displays were used mainly by technically backwards people like Gene--and, sometimes, by hackers. It was easier to tell who was connecting, as Gene understood it, if the information went to their personal lenses. Using a display, as he understood it, opened up ways to access systems more anonymously.
One ridiculous part of Gene was relieved. There was a reason for the distance that had grown between them, a reason for Samantha’s secrecy. It wasn’t a boy, or drugs, or that she didn’t care about her surviving father anymore.
Most of the other parts of Gene, however, were howling. Samantha was a hacker. Actually, she wasn’t just a hacker: she was a criminal who was contributing, even if not intentionally, to driving Cascadia and the United States to war. She was part of the Louvre.
Outside the window, a light on top of the emergency medical vehicle flashed red, and it pulled out and made for the main road.
At the same time, a communication icon came up in his lenses, and he gave a long gaze to open the message. It was from Saleh Medical Center, and it said, “Your daughter, Samantha Ajou, has been diagnosed and triaged in a mobile medical unit. Emergency endoscopic surgery was performed by a certified artificial intelligence appliance, and Samantha is now in stable condition. She is en route to Saleh Medical Center in Placerville. We do not yet have an estimate for when visitors will be allowed.”
The message continued: “You have standing permission from Samantha to receive private medical information. With this permission, we are able to share that her condition is a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Tap here for a brief video explanation of this condition. Samantha is expected to make a full recovery. Tap here to speak to an AI representative. Tap here to speak to a human representative.”