Tangled Wires, page 11
“Then I found you after you called me… here.” The pain in Matthew’s words makes me hurt and I can’t take much more pain. I’m still shaking my head.
“I have memories of those two months; I have a therapist for fuck’s sake!” I’m dizzy, grappling for answers.
Matthew looks resigned. “You don’t. I didn’t want to take anything away from you, but I had to give you enough to go on so that your programming would complete itself. You needed to be able to adapt organically.”
He makes the confession in a low voice that thrums with sincerity. Beseeching me, as if trying to make me understand, as if seeking forgiveness.
“You planted memories in my head!” Nausea rises. The violation is the proverbial straw that breaks me.
“I need you to go.” My voice sounds choked but I’m glad that the underlying steel is there.
“Charlotte…” Matthew whispers as if to make an appeal.
“Leave!”
My anger and pain are looking for a target and I still care about him. The future of our relationship and my life are unknown, but I don’t want to react in a way that causes the both of us more pain.
“I did it for you!” he says.
I snarl, “You did it for yourself! I’m not me anymore. I’m a different version of the woman who got into that bathtub.”
Which is the crux of the issue. I don’t know who or what I am now.
“Please, Charlotte… I need to know you’re okay.” The heartbreak in Matthew’s face makes me soften but some truths can’t be softened.
“I need space, Matthew. I need time. I need to figure out if I can live this way,” I say. He looks stricken. I feel stricken. I squeeze his hand; the first contact I’ve made since pushing him away. “Please, give me some time.”
Matthew looks away and nods. He gets out of bed and pulls on his discarded clothing. The sounds of the rustle of fabric on skin and the shadows cast by his body are all that fill the room. The silence lasts until he gets to the door.
“I need…” Matthew starts, “I need you to call me if you need anything. Please let me know if you make any decisions.” His gaze is full of longing and distress. I nod to him and listen to the sounds of him leaving the apartment.
I am alone. Matthew isn’t going to leave me alone forever and there is some reassurance in that. He had been right the night he had shown up with curry. We are the only ones each other can trust in the whole wide world. I allow myself to soak in the comfort provided by the darkness of the room and cry.
15
By the time the morning sun begins to illuminate my bedroom, my tears have run dry. Have I stopped crying because I’m done grieving my old life or because the reservoir for my tear ducts is empty? It’s a cynical thought. It doesn’t really matter; the effect is the same. The old Charlotte is gone, and I am what is left. Whether I want to cry a river and stay in bed or drag myself to work and act like nothing has happened; the effect is the same.
Am I Charlotte Simpson or am I now someone else? The only person who would have mourned Charlotte Simpson’s death had made me instead. Try as I might, I can’t fault Matthew for bringing me back. I’m just confused about what my life will be now.
I sit against my headboard, watching as the light in the room gets brighter, and think deep circular thoughts. I don’t physically feel as if I had stayed up through the night but that would be an added benefit of my inorganic status. I don’t need sleep, food, or drink. I don’t want to ponder on how Matthew had kept me from noticing before.
The thoughts aren’t just about my personal life. Good news, I will now have first-hand knowledge about how Matthew and I run. I now have access to amazing technology. Bad news, Matthew is right, it’s dangerous. I am living proof that immortality is an option if people choose to live synthetically.
Something like this can change everything. Truly disruptive technology that won’t result in a better world.
At the same time, I still want to continue my own synthetic lung project. Even if it would bring humans closer to the point of immortality. My compass turns.
If the revelations from last night had stayed buried, this morning might have been like any other. It isn’t. As the silence of my apartment attests. The regular kitchen sounds I had gotten used to are absent. Matthew isn’t out there burning my toast or ready to ply me with coffee. I am alone and I don’t like it.
Last night was a mix of so many things. The pleasure from our bodies coming together. The pain from the memories coming back. The feeling of betrayal when it had all been revealed. It had been a big night, but in the light of the morning, I miss Matthew.
It’s stupid to miss him. But no matter what deception occurred and who I am now, he’s still my best friend and now lover. I thought I loved him. I’d still say that I love him, but what is real and what is a fabrication? Is he someone I should trust? Did he bring me back to life because he wants me alive or to serve some other purpose? And my thoughts continue to wind on themselves.
Throughout the night I could feel my priorities sliding around. It’s an overdue process that really should have happened after I had found out how my father regarded me, but I had allowed myself, like a boat in a river, to just be led along.
Originally, I believed that my path lay with Exordium. Growing the company and having its success also mean making a better life for people like Sean. Exordium is my father’s legacy and I had committed myself to strengthening it. But as I care less and less about what Clark Simpson had wanted, I fall more out of love with what his real pride and joy had been.
I don’t really know what that means for my long-term plans. In the short-term, it means I’m taking the day off. I can’t just walk into the office like nothing has changed. Nothing has physically changed from yesterday to today, but everything feels different.
I move for the first time in what must be hours and call Delila. She picks up after the third ring. “Ms. Simpson? Is everything okay?” I look at the time and wince. It was just in the bounds of the appropriate time to call someone.
“Hi Delila, I’m just calling to say I’m not going to be at work today… You know what, feel free to not come in either. Also, I want you to plan a two-week vacation whenever, wherever you want. My treat. I’ll get you a credit card to use for it.” There is a shocked silence over the phone before she responds in a way that surprises me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, though. Right?”
A warmth suffuses my chest and I mentally correct my earlier thoughts. Delila would have mourned my death because she is a good person who cares about me. If I let her, she and I could be friends. I laugh at how odd this phone call must seem to her.
“Yes, everything is all right. I just need to take a day. Evaluate some things about my life and the company.” Including a certain CEO who I can’t stop thinking about, even now.
“Oh! Well if that’s all, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll plan the best vacation money can buy.” Delila’s cheeky happiness makes me smile as we say our goodbyes and hang up.
My happiness about making Delila’s day lasts until my phone buzzes. It seems like I’m not the only one up early. The text is from Jim; I want to snarl. With my current upheaval of emotion, I do not need this right now.
Jim: Dinner date tonight at 5. Same place
The audacity of the man is enough to make me respond.
Me: No
Jim: I have a story that u will want to comment on before it runs
Jim: If u don’t show, u will be sorry
Anxiety starts my heart rate picking up, fear a wild thing in me when I consider what information Jim could have. It can’t be Matthew’s, and now my, secret. That secret had been so hidden that even I hadn’t known. But that is the only story big enough to warrant Jim’s threat.
What if it’s about my father’s will? How foolproof is Matthew’s forgery?
I don’t respond to Jim’s last text. I now have dinner plans. A minor distraction from contemplating my purpose in life.
I’m about to delve back into the circle of my thoughts when the futility of it strikes me. My line of thinking will just spiral over and over again until I get more information. There is only one source for that information.
With that decided, I leave the bed. I grab the copy of Matthew’s key that he had given me after we started spending time together. My bare feet hitting the hallway snaps me out of my actions. I’m naked. A remnant of last night’s actions and a fact that I had somehow forgotten in my urgency.
A sound of frustration escapes me into the empty hallway, and I hurry back to my room, grabbing a robe, not caring to get much more. I wear no more armor. I don’t need it to face Matthew.
Something is different in the way I think of myself. I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.
I let myself into Matthew’s apartment without knocking. Privacy between the two of us is at a weird place right now. I stop when I see him.
Matthew sits on the piano bench dressed for work, hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped. He looks at me, but I could have sworn his head had hung forward before I had opened the door. The image of a defeated man.
The image dispels when Matthew sees me. Hunger simmers in his eyes as they travel over my barely clad body, but under the lust, hope lines his face. I don’t want to squash his hope. That would be cruel, but I’m not going to lie to him.
“I want your memories of my death,” I say.
The hope vanishes and instead he looks alarmed. “You want my memories?”
“We’re basically computers, right? I want you to give me your memories of that day.” I hold my breath.
Matthew struggles. It’s noticeable in the way he clenches and releases his hands. My request probably feels like a violation. But when he answers me, it’s not what I expect.
“What you’ll see… Charlotte, it isn’t pretty. I don’t want it to mess with you.”
Something crystallizes in my mind. That different thing I couldn’t place is the absence of fragility. Since puberty I’ve had to be careful with myself, my mind. Always scared that I would start spiraling into something I couldn’t come back from. That I’d end up like my mother.
“I don’t have to fight my brain biology anymore, so I assume that I don’t need to worry about the depression, about spiraling?”
Matthew shrugs. “It’s more complicated than that. The personality reader is a direct image. The tendencies in your mind, and programming, will still exist, but you’re right that it isn’t a biological reaction.” He hesitates, clenching his jaw before seeming to come to a decision. “But Charlotte, not all of your issues had to do with your biology. The trauma from your mother’s death, the neglect from Clark, Sean’s death, those are all still there.”
Matthew’s wording is careful, almost tender in the softness.
“So… you’re saying I’ll still need therapy?” Not entirely unexpected, I guess. So many parts of my psyche were built in reaction to trauma.
“Maybe? Probably?” One of the few times Matthew hasn’t looked confident.
Annoyance makes me throw my hands in the air. “Will I or won’t I suffer from depression?”
“I don’t know! You’re unique. Nothing like you has been created before. You have a whole personality from an organic transplant, while mine is only a hodgepodge of traits. I’m merely a prototype compared to you.”
The reverent way he says it strokes over my agitation, smooths it. We can argue later whose technology is more impressive.
I breathe. I feel strong. A confidence I didn’t have before asserts my decision. “I need to see it. I’m not weak.”
I have support: Matthew, Delila, and even Kawa. How many people have I pushed away in the past who would have stepped in? I’m present enough now to see that I don’t need to do this alone, but I still need answers. Resolution.
Matthew is the one who looks annoyed now. “I don’t think you’re weak. It’s just… It’s really upsetting. You’d feel all of my emotions too, it wouldn’t just be a film reel.”
My brows lift; this is even better. My main question is if I can trust Matthew. What better way to answer that than with his own emotions?
“I need this.”
Matthew’s brows knit, but he nods. He leaves the piano bench for the worktable we set up for my prototyping and grabs a double ended cable from one of the boxes. In the next breath his suit jacket is off and he’s unbuttoning his shirt. I get a little distracted as I watch him undo each button, revealing more of his skin. I didn’t take as much time as I wanted to analyze him last night. He reaches the end of the cable into his… Armpit?
“That’s where he hid your input?” I have the urge to check my underarms now. Matthew smiles and shakes his head as if he’s reading my mind.
“Better than my groin,” he teases.
I have to agree with him there. Matthew approaches me with the other end of the cable, asking permission. I nod and his fingers run gently through my hair until he reaches the spot of the “implant” which would make sense.
When Matthew slides in the plug, it makes me a little queasy; the sensation is just odd. He massages my neck after connecting to me, as if in understanding. We make eye contact then and I let myself soften under the soothing touch. The gray of his eyes is dark with concern.
“Are you ready?” Matthew seems jumpy, like he wants me to change my mind. I can’t chicken out of this. More information will help me figure out what to do, who to trust. I can’t afford to hide from this. I nod again and the world stops.
16
The stack of folders mocks me. That Exordium still has paper processes at all, when there were digital options, still makes no sense to me. But there is so much pushback when it comes to changing the littlest of things that I have learned to pick my battles. I’ve learned a lot about picking my battles lately; a certain smart-mouthed blonde comes to mind.
Every paper I have to read slows me down. I have the ability to understand full databases and spreadsheets in seconds. When it comes to things on paper, I am restricted to what I can read line-by-line. It’s frustrating that I can’t use that reasoning with anyone else. Only one person now knows the struggle it is for my patience to read physical papers, and she submits every single thing she can in a paper format.
The thought makes me sigh. Charlotte Simpson, the bane of my existence. I feel like I’m cursed. As if I’m in one of the old stories humans tell, fairy tales. The one person who knows what I am, who fascinates me to distraction and makes me feel the oddest sensations, is the person who hates me.
Strong emotions had confused me at first, and sometimes still do. Feeling happy or disappointed is fine but as soon as the outliers hit, everything got fuzzy. What is fury? Is it a burning aggression? A lashing of violence? Why are those also the sensations of lust?
What is the name for the binding sensation in your chest that tightens until you can’t breathe, is that pain or love?
I feel like I know what hate is, this urge to bare your teeth and destroy everything in your path. Clark had the ability to bring hate out of me quickly. Is that how Charlotte feels about me?
We haven’t spoken in over a week. Somehow, it’s possible to work and live in close proximity without contact. I had left it alone because I don’t have the first clue about how to diffuse whatever bomb is ticking between the two of us. I am getting worried though. We don’t speak, but I watch her.
Humans would probably be disgusted, but I looked up the definition for stalking and I am performing well below that boundary. Whenever I see Charlotte, I watch her. Lately she hasn’t been looking right. As if the entire world merely moves around her; like the fire that makes her spit out whatever insults at me has gone out. It had been my intention to ambush her today but when I saw her, she was smiling for the first time in weeks and I had decided to put off our confrontation.
I had more than enough on my plate without prodding Charlotte into a battle of wills. The paperwork stares back at me and despondency closes in on me. It’s starting to get dark and it’s going to be another long night before creeping back to the apartment building where I can hear Charlotte move from across the hall. The sounds comfort me. I’m sure if she knew I took any comfort in what she did, Charlotte would figure out how to take it away.
Technically, I can’t get physically or mentally exhausted but sifting through the mess Clark Simpson made of his company makes me want to burn the whole thing down. The company itself isn’t helping matters much. The pushback to going digital is only a small battle to be fought. Anything proposed is sequestered into endless meetings, picked apart until the bright new thing has so many dull holes in it that it becomes similar to something already done. It is all incredibly tedious and boring.
I did not take the CEO position because I wanted it. I ruthlessly plotted to get this position because it is the best way I can help Charlotte. She doesn’t want to deal with me in her personal life. But professionally, without my help at Exordium, the board would have found a way to keep her out. Especially the reptile Parsons. I watched him too. Not that Charlotte will ever thank me for interfering in her professional life or any of the other things I’ve done for her. Clark’s will comes to mind.
As I had many times while being locked in that basement, I had gotten bored and had gone on a digital expedition of hacking whatever I could get into. Lawyer offices should have better digital security. I’d almost discarded the find as unimportant until a chill had raced up my spine seeing Charlotte’s name next to Parsons’s.
Many times, I’ve asked myself why I care so much about Charlotte Simpson, but definite answers always elude me. I can only define the moment of my obsession. It had been right after one of Clark’s many iterations. My creator was analyzing the code as my systems ran. Clark mumbled as he watched the screen, chewing on an end of his glasses.
