The Children Of Women

So here’s what Ava told me yesterday.

‘Every woman born before 2070 – that’s 100 EE – had the legal right to bear two children. Nearly all of them used it before the end of the 2nd century – or sold it on. I didn’t. I was out in space, I was doing fantastic, exciting stuff, and earning good money. I didn’t need to use it or sell it.’

I stared at her. We – all of us – were sitting on the shore of the lake, on the shady side under the trees. A slight, irregular rustling in the leaves told me something was alive in there. I wondered if it was listening.

‘So you’ve – still got it?’

Ava nodded. ‘The childright came with me when we made the Company. It’s still valid. There were originally billions of them, but there are only a few tens of thousands left now. It’s become a sort of – sacred totem, a link with what we once were.’

Naomi spoke. ‘The issue was whether Ava could use it to legitimise a separate existence for someone who – technically – had existed as part of a Company. So I took a look with some experts from the City.’

‘Turns out it wasn’t us that messed up the template,’ said Carys.

‘Your body had been in storage for a long time. It wasn’t a very popular shape.’

‘Can’t think why,’ said Rick with a grin. Darina jogged his arm and made an apologetic face in my direction.

But I wasn’t too concerned about the popularity of my body type at that moment.

‘Is that why there were things wrong with it?’ I asked Naomi.

‘Stranger than that.’ She made a pattern in the sand with her foot, gazing out at the lake. ‘There are actually wild neurons growing in your brain.’

‘Wild?’

‘Since the…’ she glanced at Ava ‘…3rd? 4th? Century EE, what you can think – what you are – has been carefully managed. Minds – neurons, quanta, dimensional systems – can only operate in a certain way if they want to be conscious. You have a huge amount of freedom, but not the freedom to destroy other people’s.’

‘It started as a set of rules for the first primitive non-human intelligences,’ supplied Ava. ‘But eventually it was realised they needed to apply it to everyone.’

‘“This Perfect Day”,’ muttered Carys. ‘Sorry, I’m just reading something. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.’

‘So wild neurons are a problem. Your body has developed some quirks due to long storage, but we fixed most of those and I can easily fix the rest. But I can’t just cull the wild neurons. I’d be destroying you. Those neurons are why you’re a new person.’

‘You were happy to cull my neurons,’ said Rick.

Naomi made a face at him, ‘Nah. Mostly just pituitary gland changes. Doesn’t look like it’s taken too well either.’

Darina laughed. ‘He’s much better…’ she rolled her eyes ‘… in most ways!’

But Ava didn’t smile. She was watching me, watching my face.

‘So what are you going to do to me?’ I asked desperately.

Naomi frowned. ‘Well, look after you of course,’ she said. ‘As a new being – officially a child – you have to be given a full-time fully conscious carer for at least 16 years. Up to 21, depending on how it goes.’

I smiled at Ava. But she looked away, her face strained.

‘I’ll be doing the carer bit,’ said Naomi. ‘We can’t all stay. You only get one. And I’m the best qualified.’

‘But Ava…’ I said.

I couldn’t explain. Couldn’t speak. Perhaps it was the wild neurons.

Suddenly ‘a huge amount of freedom’ seemed like no freedom at all.

‘Aren’t you … my mother?’ I asked Ava. ‘Shouldn’t you…’

Naomi answered. ‘The child right belonged to all of us as the Company. It’s a matter of who’s the best person to do it.’

‘I have to go back, Paolo,’ said Ava quietly. ‘I am not my own person, not like you. I am a part of the Company.’

‘I’m going back too,’ said Naomi. ‘But they’re allowing me to make a copy for the journey. To give you the continuity you need here. So I get entity status too!’

There was a silence. A small gust of wind rippled the surface of the lake and brought a breath of cool watery air.

‘Yes, but do you really want it, Naomi?’ It was Carys. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t mind. I’ve got quite used to it, being a pain in the teeth.’ He winked at me.

‘Why can’t you all stay?’ I asked.

Another silence.

‘Not enough space,’ muttered Naomi.

After a while, I realised she was lying.

It was Rick and Darina who found me. I was at Deep Crater Lake. I’d scrambled across several kilometres of rough, dry, hot terrain, scraping and bruising my legs, and probably nearly getting heatstroke again. The sun was getting lower, which helped, but it would still be several days before it set.

‘We got worried about you when you didn’t come back for supper,’ said Rick. ‘So Naomi got a tracer on you.’

‘We said we’d come out,’ supplied Darina. ‘We’re the fittest and can move fast.’

I knew that was a lie too – any of them could easily have got here in minutes using a machine – but I didn’t mind it this time. I just looked at her, letting her read my face.

She put her head on one side, nodded. ‘Ava and Naomi have had a talk. Ava can stay instead of Naomi if you really want that.’

‘No.’ I was surprised at the sound of my own voice. How firm and certain it was. I remembered Ava’s protective growl in the hotel room.

‘But I thought you wanted…’ Rick began.

‘I want all of you,’ I said. ‘You’re my family.’