Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 194, page 9
part #194 of Clarkesworld Series
You pulled on a white T-shirt, tugging your long hair out from the collar. Then you sat there with your back to me, still and quiet. Time seemed to fold in on itself, past and present superimposed on one another, right up until you finally spoke.
“Mom, I’m sick.”
I stood there stock-still, frozen in place. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”
“I’m sick. It’s cancer.”
The flapping of tiny wings buzzed past my ears. That sound drowned out the rest of the world.
There’s an empty space on your bookshelf, on the third row from the bottom. It’s the perfect size for an urn. Before, your books were always lying on their sides; now, with the urn box acting as a bookend, your colorful collection of books stands at attention, leaning on you for support. I don’t know why you ended up becoming so enamored with these writers—Camus, Miłosz, Kawabata. When you were still living at home, I don’t remember you reading them all that often, if at all. Perhaps they were just more passing fancies, just like the rest of your hobbies. You had always lived for the thrill of the chase—or maybe, you were always trying to do as much as you possibly could, chasing after the rush of being alive.
You had just turned twenty when you started to make a living through art. You used all the money you made from selling your paintings to buy paper books—old antiques, specters of a bygone era. You even went as far as to order a huge, custom-made bookshelf, stuffing it into your cramped bedroom. At first, I thought that your new obsession would fizzle out in no time, if only because money was tight—after all, it isn’t easy for artists to survive these days. With the rise of AI artists and deep learning, any art style could be imitated to a tee. Artists would release a piece only to have their style analyzed and reproduced within the day, with no way of competing against the low prices and high output of those specially trained AIs. Because of this, all the artists, authors, and musicians that I could recall were nothing more than a flash in the pan—and I expected you to be no different.
But I was wrong.
I’ve held on to one of your paintings, one that I bought back from some other owner. You painted a hummingbird—a real one. A tiny thing clad in reds and blues, hovering over a forest-green background. The hummingbird’s body is made up of a series of strange, jagged lines, with the usual rules of perspective having been thrown out the window entirely. Even as someone who doesn’t know the first thing about art, I can see your artistic talent shining through this piece. Some people proclaimed you the modern-day Chagall—and to be sure, you had the same predilection for vivid colors and unconventional compositions. If someone’s art style could be so easily summed up in a handful of words, though, it usually meant that the algorithms would catch up with them sooner or later, and they’d be outcompeted by AI artists. But during your fleeting career, that never happened to you. There was something to your artwork that the algorithms could never capture.
Just what was it?
There were plenty of people who wanted to know the answer to that question. One of them was a man that would later become your lover: Li Zhuoran, a star student from some big-name university. Back then, he’d started working for an artificial intelligence company that specialized in artistic production—the algorithms he designed drove plenty of artists out of business, all the while bringing in droves of money for the AI industry. By all accounts, you should have been his prey. At one of your exhibitions, he approached you, his hair in wild disarray.
“Art is nothing but an algorithm,” he proclaimed. “I’ll crack your code, and I’ll use it to beat you at your own game.”
You smiled and replied, “Be my guest, but . . . why are you telling me this now?”
His face flushed red, fingers combing frantically through his mussed hair. “Sometimes, an artist’s algorithm is hidden under layers and layers of complex calculations. But just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. I need time.”
You were still smiling. “I’ll give you time. And before you go about ‘cracking my code,’ how about going out for a cup of coffee?”
The hand raking through his hair finally stilled. To a young man like him, the casual ease with which you carried yourself was both alluring and dangerous. I think it was at that moment that Li Zhuoran fell for you, hopelessly and irrevocably, even as he had no plans of giving up his hunt for your art’s algorithm. And I think that if he had understood you and your life, truly and completely, he would have found what he was looking for. It was that touch of something in your work—or to put it in Li Zhuoran’s words, some complex layer of mathematical calculation that he was missing. It was hidden in plain sight, something that hovered over your colors and compositions. It was in a painting of a celebration, in the downward tug at the corners of a guest’s mouth. It was in the absent-minded trace of autumn’s inevitable arrival in a painting of summer’s glory. It was in the subject of the painting itself, in that hummingbird and what it inevitably represented. It was what sent a shiver down the spine of every observer, a pang through the heart of every admirer.
To an algorithm, it was something it might never understand: the touch of death.
My daughter, that realization once left me trembling. But by the time I understood, you had already given up painting, setting your sights instead on traveling the world. I couldn’t help but tremble, consumed by my shame and my fear. I was ashamed that I couldn’t have given you a different childhood, a childhood where you wouldn’t have had to grow up with death as a constant companion. And I was afraid—because I knew that very few of us can ever truly escape the shadows of our youth.
. . . The tears come again, relentless as the tide. Through my blurred vision, I tidy up your bookshelf. All the books you collected came from authors and eras that are long gone. But at least they managed to leave something behind.
My daughter, what did you leave me?
A sob shudders through my body. I reach out on instinct, grabbing the shelf to steady myself. My fingers brush against something smooth and cold, its edges sharp and pointed.
Your hummingbird.
When you first brought your hummingbird home, we got into a huge fight. On the surface, I was angry because you were wasting money. Even for adults, those fancy, magnet-powered robots weren’t cheap—to say nothing of a middle schooler. You must have expected my reaction, because without batting an eye, you placidly explained how you’d purchased the bird with the red envelopes you’d saved up over the years. But even so, the argument dragged on for a long time. Long enough to make us both consider if it was time to finally dig up all the resentment we’d buried and drag all of its ugliest parts out into the light.
In the end, we both settled on the same tactic: the cold shoulder.
Now, I can be honest. I can say—and you would agree—that hummingbirds are humanity’s attempt at transcending death. Equipped with cameras and microphones, these tireless creatures record every moment of its owner’s life. Every scowl and every smile. Every word and every action. They also function as a miniature terminal through which one can access the internet, all the while recording their owner’s online data trail. In other words, a hummingbird serves as a witnesses to their owner’s life in its entirety. Everyone hopes that they can leave behind something on this earth, after all. Hummingbirds serve as a sprawling epitaph, one that leaves no stone unturned.
But that isn’t their only function.
“Mom, I’m leaving this for you.”
The hummingbird’s round belly chimes pleasantly, letting me know that it’s fully charged. After the iris recognition scan verifies my identity, I initiate the connection request at my smart terminal, and the data cloud unfurls before my eyes.
My daughter, you were telling the truth. You left all of this behind for me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my arms wrapping tight around my legs as I curl into myself on the couch. You are here, in the urn on your shelf. You are here, in the cloud of data before me. The two statements coexist, equally true and untrue, and I have no way of understanding it all. I sit there for a long time. Finally, I manage to pry myself open, wiping away my tears and sitting up. With a finger, I swipe through the data points projected in midair, diving into your memories.
Every file corresponds to a single day of your life; the drop-down menu seems to go on forever. At first, I jump around at random: you at fifteen, then at eighteen, at twenty-two, at thirty. I see you squatting over a toilet with your nose wrinkled in disgust, your pants down at your ankles and your toes wiggling in boredom. I see your posts on an immersive video sharing site where you jump at the opportunity to argue with people online, using insults that make me shift uncomfortably in my seat. I see you with your face up against a holographic mirror, squeezing the pimples on your forehead as my disgruntled voice echoes from outside the room, urging you to hurry up. I see you scrunched up in a narrow vactrain car with a dark expression on your face as the man next to you lets out a deafening snore. I see moment after moment of your ordinary, everyday life.
Nothing about these scenes are special, yet I can’t look away, not even for a second. One second after another, and then another—and bit by bit, those seconds form a version of you that still lives and breathes. A version of you that thirsted for everything life had to offer, yet at the same time had no way of escaping all of life’s mediocrities and mundanities.
Over the next few days, I lose myself entirely to your memories. Once, I saw the hummingbird as nothing more than an unnatural eyesore. Now, it’s become my salvation.
My daughter, I’m sure you know what I mean.
File #02784
Date: Dec. 21, 2062, 11:16 AM
Location: Sydney, Australia
You’re wearing a wetsuit, your long hair whipping through the air. Over your shoulder, an azure expanse of open ocean stretches on into the distance, the faint outline of something white and pointed reaching up through the surface of the water behind you. You turn, gesturing at the camera. “I’m about to explore what remains of the sunken Sydney Opera House. A fun fact: when you dive deeper than forty feet, your body stops floating up toward the surface. Instead, you get dragged down towards deeper waters . . . Does that remind you of anything?”
You blink innocently.
“Well, wish me luck, everyone!” With that, you dive into the sea, water splashing in your wake. The camera dips down before stilling, the steady beat of the hummingbird’s wings whipping up faint ripples across the water’s surface. Below the ripples, your silhouette fades steadily into darkness.
—Accompanying audio log now playing.
Date: February 2, 2073, 4:53 AM
Location: Beishan, China
I always did love a good adventure, Mom. You must’ve been worried about me all those years, right? I’m sorry for that. All I wanted was to prove that I was really, truly alive. Of course, there were ways to do that without tempting fate with all these death-defying stunts. But we all think ourselves invincible in our youth, right?
Mom, I’ve always dreamed of going on an adventure with you, of traveling to some far-off places together. I always thought that eventually, that day would come. I guess I overestimated how kind life would be to me.
File #00858
Date: March 11, 2058, 6:31 PM
Location: Beishan, China
The pitter-patter of your slippers across the floor as you walk towards our bathroom’s half-open door. The splashing sounds of running water. Inside the bathroom, a woman bends over the sink as she washes her hands. It’s me. You enter, your hummingbird perched over your shoulder like a voyeur. I look over my shoulder and then turn to face you; my face is ashen, my expression pained. You take a step towards me, and I take a step back. My hands, still wet and dripping, are raised defensively by my sides; I look like a surgeon fresh from the washing station.
“Mom . . . ” you call. I grip at the hem of my shirt, wringing it back and forth in my hands.
“You haven’t eaten yet, right? Let me go make you some food, sweetie.”
—Accompanying audio log now playing.
Date: February 5, 2073, 4:27 PM
Location: Beishan, China
I know what your hands have done, Mom. With your hands, you’ve seen countless people off to their final journey. With your hands, you’ve given them the gift of a dignified passing. Ever since I understood that, I’ve never once been afraid of your touch. The only one who was afraid was you.
Mom, when my time comes, I hope that you’ll take care of me with your own hands. When my time comes, I hope that you’ll forgive yourself.
File #03673
Date: April 7, 2065, 2:34 PM
Location: Chengdu, China
A small room with seven or eight people sitting on simple stools, arranged in a rough circle. Each person holds a book in their hands, a hummingbird hovering at each of their backs. The sounds of a dozen fluttering wingbeats overlap into a single steady hum. From the white noise emerges a single, soothing voice: a tall, handsome youth begins reading a poem aloud, orange overhead lights casting the planes of his face in stark relief.
“A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers . . . ”
After finishing his reading, the man slams the book shut with a loud thump. “‘Gift,’ by Czesław Miłosz.”
Your hummingbird takes in the look in your eyes as you glance over at him. There’s nothing in your gaze but desire. Clear-cut and uncomplicated.
—Accompanying audio log now playing.
Date: February 14, 2073, 6:02 AM
Location: Beishan, China
Today’s Valentine’s Day, Mom. I miss all the lovers I’ve had in the past, but at the same time, I’m glad that none of them are here to see me like this. Over the course of my life, I’ve tried using both my books and my lovers to stave off death’s approach. Like the man you just saw. Our time together was short, but beautiful. Just like the time I spent with all the other men I’ve loved. I’ve chased pleasures of both the mind and the body—to me, the two are equally important. I’ve drifted between encounter after encounter, forging emotional and physical connections alike. Till death do us part—how trite. Being loyal to a single partner doesn’t give anyone the moral high ground. And in any case, absolute morality doesn’t exist.
Mom, if I had to name the one difference between your generation and mine, it’s that we only live for ourselves, in the moment. That’s how we decide our morals.
I hope you’ll forgive me for my selfishness.
File #06573
Date: May 12, 2073, 7:04 AM
Location: Beishan, China
You’re standing in front of a mirror. You take off your wig. Your head seems so small, so round. It’s not quite smooth, still dotted with stubble. Your hands come up to cover your face, and you sob soundlessly into your palms. I watch you unravel, strand by strand, until you’re crumpled on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. With each second that passes and with every tear that falls, you seem younger to me, until you’re just a child again. My baby. The hummingbird flies toward you, patiently waiting.
A few minutes later, you pry your hands away from your face, the corners of your mouth pulled down in a trembling frown as you speak.
“Mom, I’m scared.”
—No accompanying audio log.
“Are you sure, ma’am?”
I nod.
Blue eyes blink up at me a few times. The robot’s optical projector forms a holographic screen in midair, displaying an animated list of products. My eyes rake over the product descriptions, but all that comes to mind are the events of the other day—the robot’s poor, innocent monitor, covered in strings of spittle.
“About what happened a few days ago . . . I’m very sorry.” My voice is quiet. “But your company made a mistake by assigning you this job.”
A question mark lights up the robot’s face.
“You could say we’re in the same field. Automation’s taken plenty of jobs away from people, but it hasn’t been able to replace people like me. Only people who truly understand death can give the deceased the respect they deserve. That’s something that robots like you will never be able to do.”
“I think that you’re being a bit prejudiced, ma’am,” the robot replies. “I understand death.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I don’t believe you.”
The robot raises its glowing eyebrows at my comment, before retracting its projections. It spends a few seconds in silence. To a robot’s electronic brain, a few seconds may as well be an eternity. But this is just an illusion. An imitation of human behavior, pretending to be lost in thought. I watch it patiently; after a moment, my eyes stray to the dark, swirling clouds above, and the soft blue of the sky that peeks out from behind them. It’s been days since I’ve set foot in this world. My daughter, your memories have become my home. If only I could, I would stay in the world of your memories forever. Even if those memories are nothing more than scattered pieces of a stagnant past, I would gladly drown in them.
If only I could.
“Ma’am, an understanding of death is built into my programming,” the robot finally says. “Just as it’s built into your genes.”
I stare into the robot’s blue eyes.
“My creator programmed me with a genetic algorithm,” the robot continues. “The foundation for my neural network was a set of cellular automata, programmed with a single, simple directive: to stay alive, at least for long enough to pass on their code to the next generation. He introduced rules for cellular death, as well as mutation rates and ecological competition. Then he started the simulation. And for us, time began.”
Time. Mutation. Competition. Inevitably, the automata that survive possess a deep-rooted fear of death. Humans may not be able to catch a glimpse inside the “black box” of neural networks, but that’s never stopped us from stuffing them into the brains of robots.
