Whose Future Is It?: Cellarius Stories, Volume I

ENHANCEMENT

Tananarive Due

Ag Sector 25 – Victoria Falls East

Zimbabwe

2050

Good luck today, Hope! We love you. —The Mamas

The holonote fluttered over the entryway in large letters in purple, Hope’s favorite color. The holographic banner’s dance was the first thing Hope saw when she opened her eyes from her bed across the floor, last to wake. Mama Pat and Mama Lucy had gone to work already, and her brother was frying up something to eat that smelled like a birthday or holiday. Or a mourning day. Cooking was rare in their house beyond simple heating. Hope was surprised he’d gotten the stove working.

Then Hope remembered the reason for the cooked food and her brother’s spices and felt wide awake. The sun’s intensity outside of their dome’s fabric felt like it was at least seven in the morning; the heat’s prickle on her skin was only a hint of the blistering afternoon to come. She had to be in line for the train by eight, and the train ride would take thirty minutes to Harare. The instructions with the approval letter had been very specific. She might be late already.

Hope cursed and jumped out of bed to get dressed, racing behind the privacy panel that was the only wall in their dome except for the bathroom.

Why didn’t you wake me?

If you overslept, you couldn’t go, her brother said blandly, a confession. I put curry powder in these eggs the way you like. You know you don’t have to do this, yeah?

That was ironic, coming from him. Hope carried her parents’ dreams even in her name. Her brother’s name was less old-fashioned, ringing less of Old Ways because he’d been born in Zimbabwe instead of the U.S.: Garai. And Garai never had any responsibilities in their mothers’ eyes, even before his accident with the door on the train. His injury might easily be mended if they could afford the spinal replacement, but only the rich or the politically savvy could rebuild their spines with reliability. A badly performed replacement, one Harare doctor had told them after an expensive visit, might mean a lifetime of agony for Garai.

The Mamas were ag engineers who still lived much like the sharecroppers whose legacies they had carried to Zimbabwe from what was left of the United States; whose great-great-grandparents had set out for Chicago from Mobile, Alabama. Garai meant settled in Shona, another wish. One day, The Mamas said, Hope might earn enough for Garai’s surgery. All other previous dreams—moving into the city in a standing structure instead of their years-old portable dome, paying off their migration debts, gravity surfing on a passenger shuttle beyond the mesosphere (Hope’s secret dream)—were now secondary to putting Garai back on two feet.

And he knew it. She gave him a look so sharp he bowed his head. While he stirred another curry concoction in the bowl, his chair’s underside glowed blue before it backed up and turned to move closer to her, bringing them face-to-face. He set the bowl down in his lap.

Yes, but no one can make you do it, he said. There are laws—you have the right to go natural. That’s protected at schools. At jobs.

Stop talking, she said. You’re embarrassing yourself. Even if he was only thirteen—four years younger—it was no excuse to be so naïve. He was a voracious reader, but he wasted all his time studying the way things were supposed to be, not the way they actually were. Hope’s school scores had already begun declining against the curve since EnChip sales began; by the time she was ready to find a job, her prospects would be worse, not better, than The Mamas’.

Garai threw a small towel at her and she smiled a little as she ducked. She threw it back at him, much harder, and it flew into his face with more force than she’d intended. He cried out.

You all right? Her laughter made her sound insincere. He was always being fussed over, so she tried not to fuss over him even when he deserved it.

Ow—not really.

Because there are laws, you know—protections—to prevent towels from flying at you.

They both laughed; him because he thought she was the funniest person he knew, even when she wasn’t, and her because she needed to laugh so she wouldn’t be afraid, or angry. The idea of an aggie in a mobile village having access to a Magistrate was joke enough in itself.

Their laughter stopped abruptly, both of them remembering which day it was. What time. Mama Lucy had fretted and fretted, asking if she was sure she could get there on time on her own, and Mama Pat had just given her a look to say Are you sure? Period. Hope was less disappointed in herself for wanting the chip than she was by how much both Mama Pat and Mama Lucy had encouraged her to get it. Once upon a time, Mama Pat had rebellious leanings, restricting Hope’s gaming when she was young—long forgotten by the time Mama Lucy had Garai, of course. Garai barely existed outside of his gaming worlds, more and more a shut-in except at school. The only reason they both attended the red-brick American School ten kilometers away instead of online classrooms where they could attend any of the world’s best secondary classes was because The Mamas wanted to be sure Garai spent time outside of their dome. Still, as far as Hope knew, she was her brother’s only friend.

I’ve heard people say, Hope began in her once-up-a-time voice she’d used to tell him stories, that EnChips feel like reading minds.

If brain power did that, I’d be reading your mind right now.

That small truth stung: Garai was a prodigy. He’d been stronger than she was in math since he was eight.

I don’t want to be like one of those footballers, half man, half machine, Garai said. That one, Fire Walker— He clicked his teeth, shaking his head. I’ll never watch him play again. His body was a lie the whole time. Last year’s scandals had rocked all of them, especially Garai. Watching football together was one of the few activities they all shared, even in a home so small. It seemed naïve now not to assume that the strongest players had been modded all this time, but the lie felt like a betrayal down to their human bones. Bot fights were fine, but her family had all shed tears over lost football matches. Human grit mattered more. Or used to. Hope hadn’t watched any matches since the scandals, but she understood why players wanted to win.

How are modded players or an EnChip different than your chair? Hope said. "It does what you think. Front, back, fast, slow. It’s the same kind of company, the same kind of neuro."

"For the chair—which is outside of my body."

She leaned over eye-to-eye. Your body tells it what to do, she said. Don’t lie to yourself, Garai. It’s already a part of your brain. This isn’t different. You just want it to be.

Garai’s chair charged forward a centimeter, his foot rest bumping her shin with a flash of pain. Deliberately. Nothing in my body fixes my legs, Garai said. I’m fine natural, and so are you. If I don’t ever walk, so I don’t walk.

Ow, Hope whispered. Your chair, all by itself, hurt my shin. Because it’s not a part of your brain. At all.

Must be a glitch, Garai said.

Liar.

She had never seen his eyes so sad. Just don’t do it for me, he said.

I’m not, she lied.

But she was. Of course. Hope hugged him, and he hooked his arms tightly around her neck, the way she remembered from when he was small. For the millionth time, she imagined herself snatching his collar on the train platform, pulling him clear. And undoing it all, even the way Mama Lucy had screamed at her, Why weren’t you watching your brother?

All of them had been on the train with him the day of the accident—Hope and The Mamas—and any of them might have kept Garai away from the train’s door. Doors were supposed to stop when they sensed a passenger, but everyone knew ag sector trains were old and buggy, and it was best to keep clear of the doors once they started closing, and sometimes they closed too fast. Caught midway through the doors, Garai had been dragged so far that they had all believed they were watching him die. They had chased the train down the platform while Garai screamed for them from a monster’s mouth.

As Hope hugged Garai two years later, she thought one of them would start crying, but neither did. Garai pulled away first. The Mamas said you should eat.

Save it for me.

You might not like my cooking anymore, Garai said. After.

He’d tried to make a joke—his dark face brightened with grinning teeth—but his smile withered when he saw her startling with the realization that the EnChip was different: it would change her. That was what it was designed to do.

Still, Hope found a way to smile. A big sister protects her sibling, The Mamas said.

I’ll always like your cooking, she promised herself, and Garai.

But for the first time, Hope was afraid.

The No. 15 train was the one that had maimed her brother, so Hope never rode it even though the No. 13 train took two extra stops to get to Harare. It was no different today, so she lost another ten minutes waiting for the right train to come, and she was afraid to check the time while the crowd piled into the No. 15 and she watched it whisk away, its hateful number flashing at her from the rear car in blood red. The wait was hot. The sun flaps at the train station weren’t nearly as effective as theirs at home—most of The Mamas’ salaries went to fighting the sun—so Hope’s clothes were soaked with sweat, and her expensive new fabric could not condense the moisture fast enough to keep her dry. She hoped her clothes would dry her skin during the ride.

Their dome had a loft level, taller than most, so she could pick it out at a distance over the mounds and peaks of the mobile village in Sector 25, nicknamed for Victoria Falls but without its waterfall or splendor. The village had moved once when Hope was twelve, memories of upheaval she had largely suppressed since Garai’s accident. This was home to her, despite its cheerless tents and domes and crowding and the feeling that, at any time, they would all have to move to build the next ag sector, concocting ways to bring the next crops to life from over-farmed, drought-ravaged soil that had once grown only tobacco.

Still.

At sunset each day, the most spectacular purple and orange display glittered across the village’s three-hundred shiny rooftop solar shields, a sea of color. And from the train platform, she could see the park in the center of the ring of homes, designed with thick foliage and a sandy play area where she had spent so many hours chasing Garai, his fat legs pumping hard, when crises kept The Mamas at work late. It was the biggest irony: their village worked to solve the puzzles of irrigation and crops and automated harvests, but barely anything grew where they lived. Only the hardiest natural vegetables survived The Mamas’ backyard garden. But the workers’ village had pooled together to build the communal park and its symphony of green, every tree and fern enhanced and bright. The purple jacaranda blossoms might outlast them all. And if the village moved again, the park would be waiting for the people who came next.

Enhancement makes the plants better. It can make you better too.

That was what she told herself as she boarded the No. 13 when it came at last.

EnChip Incorporated was in the high-security area of Harare, accessible only by tubing, no exiting the stations—so Hope did not have the chance she would have enjoyed to gawk at Harare’s famed sky towers and streets meticulously green with artificial grass. With her school pass, she would have had access to the culture exits, but she was on the wrong side of the city for museums, galleries, and theaters. The new finance district was indoor traffic only, with no walking or driving or remarkable architecture, only tube stops from building to building, one corridor or station identical to the next except for their alphanumeric designations: EnChip was in M-300.

When she found her destination on the wall map and saw how close she was, she finally checked the time: she was five minutes late. But she was only five minutes late. Hope ran past banks of windows so dark they were nearly opaque, mirroring her haste as they blotted out the sun’s UV and all but a hint of its light.

M-200. M-250. There—M-300. The door was bright red, easy to spot. As she neared the door, she triggered the holohost, whose image was very much like Hope’s, with matched height and weight, although she wore a red hostess dress and had blurred features. Her voice was generically chipper: Welcome to EnChip—your key to your future. Please proceed inside…Hope Jackson-Hill. The door clicked open for her.

An attendant was already waiting inside, his clothes bright yellow against dark skin, not much older than she, head shaved bald. Oh, good—we thought you’d missed your chance.

Hope had expected to wait like Garai waited to see his doctors, but the white marble lobby was empty except for potted palms and a few empty lounge chairs. The first thing Hope noticed was the cold. The Mamas never cooled their home below thirty degrees Celsius and the trains were hardly more pleasant, so the crisp air in EnChip’s lobby was shocking. Hope was glad her clothing had dried her perspiration; off-brand, but it worked.

Sorry I’m late, Hope said with a small bow. Her school had taught her that the Harare business class often bowed in the Chinese custom, although Hope felt awkward when the attendant did not return her bow. Hope didn’t spend much time outside of her school, home and village, so she never knew how to behave with city people. The Mamas said people used to shake hands when they met, but that must have been before they understood germs.

The time didn’t worry us, the attendant said, but the intervention was a surprise. The attendant gestured for Hope to follow him down a corridor, then activated a video image on a gallery of large bright monitors: Mama Pat! Suddenly, Mama Pat’s mane of salt-and-pepper locs was everywhere. Mama Pat was in her lab attire. She looked harried and surreptitious, clearly making the call from a private corner at work.

Mama Pat? Hope’s feet fell still in the bosom of multiple screens of Mama Pat. But Mama Pat was staring dully at the camera, not seeing her. Her image was only a message.

This is Patricia Jackson, Mama Pat said, enunciating clearly, softening her American accent as much as she could, which wasn’t much. My daughter, Hope, is scheduled to receive an EnChip today, but since my family has already passed the screening, I want to get the chip in her place. Hope nearly gasped aloud. Mama Pat had never said a word about getting the chip! At the family meeting, all she’d said was that Hope was the only one in EnChip’s age window between sixteen and twenty-four.

Mama Pat’s message went on: I know—I’m past the window—but I’m only 35 and my neural charts are strong. I have a U.S. I.Q. of 160, so my mind is already quick. I had Hope when I was young. I know some of the choices we make when we’re young can’t be undone.

Tears stung the corners of Hope’s eyes. She felt both moved and hurt.

Hope? Mama Pat said, although her eyes still didn’t look her way. I can’t be there today, but listen to me: I’ll go in your place, if they’ll let me. Garai called me and said you’re afraid, and I just want you to know we have choices. Mama Pat suddenly looked away, perhaps hearing a noise. Mama Pat’s faces clicked away, the info screens returning to the EnChip company logo: a single hand reaching for the sky.

Garai! Hope’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment. When—

Fifteen minutes ago. We can try to reach her now—

No, don’t, Hope said. She’s at work. How had Garai reached Mama Pat when only emergency calls were allowed? How had Mama Pat explained the call? Her supervisors would only have been envious that she had a child getting an EnChip. Mama Pat got docked enough at work for breaking rules; she’d already missed her last promotion.

And the EnChip was a family secret. When the notification came that their family had passed the screening and was eligible for a chip at a subsidized cost, they had all cheered as if they’d won a city housing lottery. The Mamas admitted they almost had not applied for the aggie subsidy, since the chips had a long waiting list. They had told only their closest friends, in case talking about it might destroy the opportunity. Hope would never forget the naked envy in the eyes of her friend Dani, her playful competitor since they were six, as if the chip were a personal weapon against her.

The subsidy is specific to you, the attendant said. "A developing brain. An older brain is experimental at best—"

I know, Hope said. Sorry. Mama Pat’s call seemed to point to a dramatic departure, but Hope didn’t want to leave. She wanted the chip. That had been the truth all along. Of course she wanted to help Garai, but she would never see space if her school scores kept falling.

The attendant’s face loosened into a broad, relieved smile. Let’s get started, then.

The woman waiting in the implantation lab was older, with silver hair cut short. She introduced herself as Dr. Nia Zuva. Her carriage bespoke her experience, and Hope felt more at ease, with no desire to bow or put on city airs. Chicago? Dr. Zuva said, reading her notes. She cast a smile to Hope. My parents were from Chicago too. South side.

That settled it. Hope took her place in the sand-colored reclining chair, which had no straps or restraints. It didn’t look like a chair for a medical procedure, or anything to fear. She listened in relaxed repose while Dr. Zuva explained how the chip would be injected directly into her brain with a simple procedure behind her ear. She would have a slight ache afterward, but silent visualizations in a quiet place would help ease it. Her chip would not come online all at once, but in small enough pieces for her to adapt to it. She would choose one area where she most wanted to improve her brain function first.

Where do you want to start with the new you? Dr. Zuva said.

Math, Hope said, the first word that popped into her mind. Her forever weakness. She could memorize history and formulas because she cared about how things came to be, but computations numbed a part of her mind. Math had forced her to EnChip, not Garai.

Popular choice, Dr. Zuva said.

Dr. Zuva reminded her that she was entitled to sign her own consent because she was over the age of sixteen—but EnChip was obligated by law to inform her verbally that the subsidized EnChips were from the 2048 batch and subsequent chips had received upgrades. Although the models were completely up to standards, they were no longer for general sale.

Hope stopped fantasizing about her rebirth in calculus.

I’m sorry—that last thing? You stopped selling them?

Because they’re obsolete, Dr. Zuva said.

But they’re safe. Hope tried not to say it like a question.

Yes, Dr. Zuva said, and Hope waited for her to say more because a silent but hung between them. But remember your focused visualizations. At least two hours a day—once when you wake up, once before you go to sleep. I understand that’s expected in your religion in the aggie sectors? An hour or two of meditation a day?

Hope often meditated, but she’d never heard of any faith in the aggie districts with such strict time requirements. Was that her own ignorance, or had Dr. Zuva heard quaint, made-up stories about aggies she used to justify giving them obsolete chips? The statement was so odd that Hope wondered if Dr. Zuva really was the child of migrants. Or was that just a story?

Do your daily mind exercises, Dr. Zuva said, and the chip should integrate just fine.

Should.

What were the upgrades? Hope said.

Modulating the integration, Dr. Zuva said. Fewer headaches.

That didn’t sound so bad. Hope watched Dr. Zuva’s face for unspoken Chicago-sister warnings and saw none, so she relaxed again. She offered her thumbprint signature to authorize the chip and remembered how Mama Pat had said We have choices.

Lie down on your side, please.

Hope thought of calculus again and closed her eyes.

When she sat up, four hours had passed. She didn’t have to find a clock to know. She didn’t remember anything after the doctor telling her to lie down, but she felt a faint throbbing behind her ear and an…odd feeling in her head. Headache might be one word for it, but the feeling was more than that. Her brain could be spilling from her ears, pulsing with her heartbeat.

Dr. Zuva was gone. Hope was lying in a dimly-lit recovery room of six beds beneath a thin blanket. One other person was in his own bed across the room, an identical blanket pulled up to his chin. She thought he was unconscious, but as she rocked to her feet and stood up, she saw that his eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. She looked away quickly, as if she had seen him naked. She tried to make herself ask him questions about which chip he had received and if he had a headache, but she didn’t like his unblinking eyes. Instead, she found the door.

No, she didn’t have questions. No, she didn’t need a moment. Yes, she would read her orientation memo carefully. The faces and voices rushed past her as she made her way back to the tubes and the train. Back toward home.

Without realizing it, as she walked—jogged, really—she contemplated the numbers.

The next No. 13 train would leave for her sector in twenty-five minutes. But why take the No. 13? The No. 15 had fewer stops and would get her home eighteen minutes faster.

She scoffed at herself for riding the slower train earlier. No wonder she’d been late.

Hope was sitting on the No. 15, halfway home, when her headache became a roar.

The orientation memo said to chronicle any changes in a journal, but Hope only realized much later that she missed the first change: arriving back at the Victoria Falls Sector 25 train platform precisely at sunset, she did not draw in an appreciative breath when she saw the shimmering array of solar shields and panels before her. She only noticed how cracked and worn they were, and how, compared to the panels she’d seen in the city, theirs needed improving. No thought of the prettiness of the colored light, or even the park. Was she changed, or only jaded?

She had to pretend to smile when she came home to find that Garai and The Mamas had fixed her a Welcome Back meal, the entire dome hot from the stove, everyone swarming her to look for sudden changes. She felt separate from their celebration, studying them instead of enjoying their hugs and extra helpings. She saw how opposite The Mamas were: Mama June’s dreads reached her waist, and Mama Lucy’s hair grew up as high as a miniature scrub tree. Hope had to stop herself from counting the strands of their hair, a strong impulse. Mama Pat nervously tapped her finger on her plate thirty-six times while they ate.

I saved you the curry. Garai tested Hope, watching her eat.

So I see. Garai’s curry tasted flat, although she didn’t tell him. Maybe he only needed more cumin, or cayenne. To please them, she kept eating long after the blandness turned her stomach. Her families’ voices made her head throb with a longing for silence.

What’s 175 times 60? Garai asked her, his usual manner of flustering her. Another test.

Ten thousand five-hundred, Hope said. She might have figured that in her head before the EnChip, but the chip gave her confidence.

"Then 60 divided by 175?" He never gave up.

Hope’s mind was empty until she closed her eyes and saw ghostly numbers arranging behind her eyelids, sharper when she concentrated. Zero, she said, point 34285714.

The Mamas stared as if she had just spoken a new language. Mama Pat looked alarmed.

She’s a droid, all right, Garai said. His nervous laughter made her headache worse.

I have to meditate every night, Hope said, cutting their questions and quizzes short. She couldn’t finish the last of her rice. Or stew. Headaches.

What are the other side effects? Mama Pat said, attentive. She squeezed Hope’s hand.

All of their eyes waited, especially Garai’s. Mama Pat gave Hope an anxious stare that made it obvious she hadn’t told Mama Lucy about her last-minute attempt to prevent her from implanting the chip. Maybe they had argued about what to do. With her headache throbbing, Hope wished she had listened to Mama Pat’s advice.

Nothing else so far. Hope decided not to talk about her lack of appetite. But she didn’t fool Garai. His eyes told her that. But yeah, a bad headache.

Go do what you need to do, pumpkin, Mama Lucy said. Don’t let us keep you. We just wanted to show you how proud we are. While Mama Lucy beamed, Mama Pat’s right eyelid flinched.

The quietest spot in the house was behind Hope’s privacy screen at the foot of her bed, so she settled with her back to the taut dome fabric and tried to meditate her headache away, her eyes closed. She usually imagined a humming tone when he meditated, but this time she visualized the tone as a straight red line and the tone sharpened. Real.

Her eyes wanted to be open, not closed. The humming was everywhere. She was staring, but not seeing.

Again, she lost time.

When Hope remembered herself, the dome was dark and filled with gentle snores. Five hours, fifteen minutes and thirty-five seconds had passed since dinner. She blinked several times; her eyes were terribly dry.

But Hope’s headache was gone.

Once Hope got used to managing the