vN The First Machine Dynasty(19)

"Some humans only feel right when they're in pain," she explains. "It's difficult for us to imagine, having never felt it, but pain makes them feel loved."



"…Really?"



"Yes. It has to do with their hormones – adrenaline, dopamine. Organic things."



They sit in one of a series of abandoned basements below a suburb that never happened. The foundations were dug, but no homes were built. Flashlights bob down the raw hallways; her other daughters are so industrious, so quiet, only giggling now and then when they bump into one another in the shadows.



"Mother?"



Blinking, she twists her daughter's pale hair around one finger. "Yes?"



"Why don't we live with humans?"



"I lived with humans once, already."



"Was it fun?"



"Sometimes."



Amy could not remember when her eyes opened and the dream of the basements faded, but soon the darkness around her solidified into night, and the noises sounded like animals and not people living like animals. Quickly, she dropped her hands – they looked strange, hovering in mid-air where her dream had left them. She winced, but Javier and Junior made no sound. When night came, Javier had spread out a blanket on the floor of the station wagon, taken a blanket for himself and Junior, and curled into a little ball with his back to her. Neither he nor the baby had moved from that spot in the meantime.

They look so sweet, Granny said. Like matryoshka dolls. Do you know that that word means?



"Be quiet," Amy whispered.



Those nesting dolls. One inside the other. That's what they call us, sometimes. Because of how we iterate.



Amy got on her hands and knees and tried to find the latch that would open the rear door from within. The darkness made it difficult, but she continued pawing at the surface until she found something like a button.



Inside of you is a perfect copy of me. Just like a little doll. Someday you'll open up and there I'll be waiting.



Amy pushed the button, popped the door, and slid herself out of the vehicle as quietly as possible. She didn't even shut the rear door all the way; it took some slamming, and she knew it would wake Javier and Junior. She listened to the crunch of her feet across gravel, and heard the path change beneath when she found asphalt.



At regular intervals, sunflower lamps opened as her steps drew near, briefly illuminating the path and colouring the trees, before closing again as she moved on. This late, most of the campfires had died. Only the taste of their smoke remained on the air. The whole campground seemed asleep; she counted two tents lit blue from within by readers or other devices, but the only truly alert camper she encountered on her walk was a tiny, angry dog whose chain jingled once before his furious barks urged her away. At last she found the playground, right where Javier said it was, at the bottom of the odd teardrop made by the park's main road.



She might not have noticed it there in the shadows, without the unblinking red eye of a security summons button to draw her attention. Every public space she'd ever entered had one. As she entered this area, a ring of sunflowers unfurled sleepily and cast a flickering violet glow over the swingsets and tiltseats. The lamp nearest a climb-frame model of a caffeine molecule blinked badly; perhaps one of its circuits hadn't quite survived a Frisbee or basketball attack. Amy had no desire to climb the molecule, though, or to swing, or pretend like there was somebody on the other end of the tiltseat to make things interesting.



All the equipment seemed so much smaller than she remembered from similar nightly trips to her local parks, less exciting, less dangerous. The real danger was those sunflowers drawing attention; any botflies attached to the park would be here any minute now to investigate the sudden awakening of the playground's devices.



Amy moved outside their glow, now, to a ragged field separating the playground from the bathrooms. The interface stood in this middle ground, carved into a faux totem pole, its screen clutched between the wooden paws of a smiling bear. The screen displayed the park's logo and asked for a campsite number when she touched it, so the ping could go on her tab. But Amy didn't know the number, and she realized now that she didn't quite know what to say, either.



That's easy. Tell your mother that you let me kill her sisters. She'll understand.



Amy leaned against the pole and sank to the ground. Her elbows rested on her knees. "Mom never mentioned any sisters."



Your mother never mentioned a lot of things.

Amy kicked the air sharply, as though that could shut Granny up. Her left foot grazed the rough edge of something hollow; when her eyes focused on it, she realized it was a box of some sort. Crawling over, she slid her hands around its surface: wooden, around five feet by three, slightly damp, splintering in places but otherwise solid. It had two sets of hinges at either of the long ends, and a set of handles in the centre like an old-fashioned cellar door. She yanked them open, and in the flickering light of the last remaining lamp, she saw a sandbox with a crumbling city inside it, complete with the remnants of roads left there by the evening's last visitors.