vN The First Machine Dynasty(10)

Amy squared her shoulders. "Well, at least they never left me behind."



Something changed in Javier's face. His eyes went dark and flat. He snatched his baby from her. "Iterating isn't something most of us do because we feel like it, or because we're ready, or even because we want to."



Amy straightened. "Then why do you do it?"



"Because I can't stop," Javier said. "It's what I'm programmed to do. I'm an eco-model. I was made for helping trees. But I'm also a big fat carbon sink, and so are all my boys."



He seemed to come back to himself. Suddenly his grin reappeared. "You know, the more babies I make, the cooler this planet gets."



Amy had only just graduated kindergarten, but had watched enough media to know a line when she heard one. "I'll bet you say that to all the girls."



He nodded, and winked. "All the boys, too."



They didn't speak much after that. A morning spent in the sun helped Javier feel better, though, and soon he was tying the old sweater around himself like a sling in which to carry his son. He pushed vaguely north, claiming that he'd been headed that way before being arrested for "serial iteration," which Amy hadn't known was illegal in California.



"I didn't know, either, till recently," he said. "It's to preserve resources or something. They know we have to eat a lot to keep iterating, and the trace metals cost money. That's why they jack the price up on the reprocessed crap."



Amy happened to enjoy the reprocessed crap. She didn't like having to stick to the diet plan Rory sent her parents each week, but she liked the cute shapes each piece of feedstock was moulded into, and the smart offers on the wrappers, and the prizes that came with them, and the way she and her mother would save up for days and days just to binge on bigger meals later in the week. Her mom was trying to avoid having another baby. To do so, she had to monitor her diet very carefully. Her portions were only a little bit bigger than Amy's. But Javier didn't seem to have that problem. Now that she'd eaten the first big meal of her life, Amy could understand the draw.



"Were you really going to eat all that garbage behind the old electronics store?" she said.



"What the hell else is it good for? Better in my belly than a landfill."



"Isn't it all that metal bad for your teeth?"



"What, you've never broken a tooth before? They grow back the next day."



Javier picked out trails much faster than Amy did; he seemed to know just how to cross fallen logs and climb the ridges of hairy, exposed roots without really thinking about it, whereas Amy had to stand back and plot a path for herself before taking a step. Her slowness annoyed him – she could tell by the set of his shoulders – and it only worsened as she paused to stare into the cathedral-like ceiling of trees overhead, or ask about what animals he thought they might see. She had heard that vN proved especially troublesome for wild animals: bears and mountain lions and the like got frustrated because the vN just kept fighting back and didn't taste right. Her dad had read her a story online about a vN surfer who reached down into a shark's mouth and grabbed back part of his missing thigh. If a cougar decided to pounce on them, Amy wasn't so sure she'd be as calm.



"Where do you think we should go?" she asked, as a way of changing the subject.



"A main access road, and then our separate ways."



"Are you heading home?"



"Not really."



"Where do you live?"



Javier made a circle in the air with one finger. "Wherever I want."



Amy paused. She watched him continue hiking away. "Are you really homeless?"



He turned. "Well, yeah," he said. "It's a bad idea for my iterations to be clustered in one place, you know."



"I thought maybe you had a home base! You know, like a travelling salesman, or something!"



"Travelling salesman?"



"Well, there are these people in my building sometimes, and they offer to fix things. My dad says they narrow down searches about broken things to one IP and then knock on your door."



Javier nodded. "Oh yeah. I knew an abortion doctor in Mexico who did that." His eyes narrowed. "You know what those are, right?"



Amy rolled her eyes. "I can read spam as well as anybody, Javier." She hauled herself up over a fallen tree. "If you're not going home, are you going anywhere in particular?"



"Not really. Just north. You?"



Amy dusted off her palms. "I have to go home to Oakland. My mom and dad are probably really worried." She surveyed the trees. "I must be really far away, though. How long was I asleep?"