Complete Atopia Chronicles

She was laughing at a shared rendering of my inVerse. She even tried sharing the smell with the guests. I wasn’t even a year old, and Mother was at it again, and drunk of course.

“Look, look, smell that?” she laughed. “Can you believe something so small and useless could make a smell so bad?”

As children, we had no right to privacy from our parents. Mother was always criticizing everything I did, in minute detail, and in excruciatingly public fashion.

My parents had been having another couple over for coffee, and Mother had turned our cramped apartment into a synthetic space projection that was decked out like a Spanish palace for the evening. We were sitting in the middle of an open courtyard, under a deep blue sky, surrounded by a three story terracotta palazzo, the walls decorated with intricate murals inlaid with tiny blue, white and gold tiles.

I was playing between potted ferns next to a small pool filled with colorful Koi fish. A fountain bubbled water into the pond, sprayed from the penis of a cherubic statue of a small boy. Dragonflies buzzed at the water’s edge, holding my attention as I reached towards them.

I still hadn’t learnt to walk yet, so I sat on my haunches in my own excrement, eyes on the dragonflies, curiously sniffing the air around me.

“Don’t you think you should change him?” asked Steve uncomfortably. He worked in the aquaponics group with my dad, and they spent a lot of time together, both at work and off hours. It was a source of friction between my parents.

“It’s all that fish protein in his little diet,” continued Mother. “Phil seems to think it will help his brain development and help him grow big and strong. So far, it just doesn’t seem to be working.”

She laughed again, louder this time, shrugging her shoulders. The guests didn’t share her sense of humor, but politely tried to smile and nod just the same.

Mother finished laughing at her own joke.

“Yolanda!” she yelled unnecessarily. “Could you change Jim, please?”

Mother smiled at my guests as her image flickered just a little. She detached and her proxxi, Yolanda took over control of her physical body. The pssi functioned less than flawlessly at this prototype stage, years ago, and the net effect was that Mother seemed to remain in place while Yolanda materialized into view and morphed away with her body to stand up.

Yolanda smiled at the guests, and then walked over to pick me up, holding me tenderly, and then disappeared into a side room to change me.

“Isn’t it just the best thing?” Mother gushed to the guests, referring to the pssi which was still a new toy to them back then. This was the first time Steve, and his wife Arlene, had done a social call with my parents. Our family didn’t have many guests over. We weren’t what you’d call popular.

“I was skeptical at first, when Patricia Killiam, my great aunt,” she emphasized, stopping for effect, “offered us a berth, but really, it has made my life so relaxing.” She smiled.

“It is amazing,” agreed Steve, happy to have gotten off the topic of nappies. “It’s completely changed our lives as well. All the build–up wasn’t just hype.” He nodded and looked around the room.

“Absolutely,” agreed Mother, “I mean, who would have thought? I modeled my proxxi after my own nanny from when I was growing up. I feel so at home now. Little Jimmy here has hardly put a dent in my lifestyle.”

“We’re still learning new ways to use it too,” added Steve’s wife, trying to add something to the conversation. “It is nice to take the time to have real face time with people, though. Synthetics do lack a certain…something.”

Everyone around the table nodded, except Mother who just crinkled her nose a little. An uncomfortable silence settled.

“Well!” exclaimed Mother, breaking the silence. “Who would have imagined that we’d end up in the most technologically advanced place on earth, and I’d be a fishmonger’s wife!” She tittered, looking towards my father. He just stared down into his coffee.

“Gretchen, we manage the aquaculture program, we’re not exactly fishmongers,” my father sighed, stealing a tiny hateful glance her way, but smiling broadly to the guests.

Steve nodded and added, “Yeah, and we farm kelp too!”

Mother smiled her tight lipped smile that I was all too familiar with.

“That’s nice. Call it what you like,” she declared. “We’re here and that’s all that matters!”

Yolanda walked back in and offered me to Mother, who took me on her knee and smiled into my little face.

“How’s my little stinker?” she laughed, shaking me more than lightly.

4

Identity: Patricia Killiam

“THERE’S SOMETHING VERY odd about this latest string of disappearances,” I stated, getting to my point of calling this private meeting with Kesselring, the CEO and owner of Cognix Corporation.