The Chapter Where The Unexpected Happens

Liane sighed, soft but not too soft, keeping her acting just right. “When you last saw your dad,” she explained using the prepared script from Aurelia, “you said to him that you never wanted to see him again. The System thought you were serious. It turned what you said into a sort of restraining order. Under no circumstances would it let him see you. Not unless you changed your mind and took back what you said. Your dad never came to see you because he couldn’t, but he never stopped waiting for you to come to him.”

Claire was quiet. Her eyes were downcast. Her hands curled into tight fists on the table.

“Claire?” Liane ventured.

When she looked up, her eyes glistened with tears. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me? All this time I blamed him. I told myself it was his own fault. That he could have come to see me, but he chose not to. I always felt betrayed. I felt like he purposefully died without coming to see me because he was trying to get back at me, or trying to hurt me, but it was my fault all along.”

Something Claire said nagged at the back of Liane’s mind, but she ignored it for the sake of the plan.

Liane reached across the table and put her hand over Claire’s. “It’s okay. You didn’t know. You know what, I have an idea. Why don’t you undo it, the restraining order, I mean?”

“It’s too late now. He’s gone.”

“Maybe it’s just me, but I get the feeling that he’ll still hear you, and that undoing it will make him happy. Don’t you think? Like I said, he never stopped waiting for you. Maybe he’s still waiting. I think it will be the perfect way to reconcile and move forward. You’ll be able to move on to new and better relationships.”

Without me, Liane held back from saying.

Claire intertwined her fingers with Liane’s. “You really think so?”

“I do,” Liane affirmed.

Claire wiped her eyes and nose with a napkin. “How do I do it?”

“Just say, ‘I changed my mind. I do want to see my dad again.’”

“Okay.” Claire took a steadying breath. “I changed my mind. I—”

The glass table between Claire and Liane shattered. Claire screamed and they both jumped away from the spray of broken glass.

“What…”

Liane trailed off when she spotted something familiar beneath the broken table. She carefully pushed sharp shards out of the way and lifted CP1 out of the glass pile.

“CP1?” Liane exclaimed.

“CP1!” Claire echoed. “What happ—”

Liane turned around to show Claire the dented drone, but she wasn’t there. She turned in a circle, but didn’t see her anywhere. She was about to call Claire’s name when she noticed something was wrong. The mall was silent, all the ghosts were gone, and so was Claire. She was alone.

“What? What’s happening?” Liane tapped on CP1. “Hey, CP1, what’s going on? Did you do this? I almost got Claire to take back the restraining order. You shouldn’t have interrupted. CP1?”

The small drone didn’t respond or even react.

Clunking footsteps made Liane turn. A shell approached and started cleaning up the broken glass, but it was wrong. Though normally indistinguishable from humans, this one didn't have its human facade, all its metal parts were showing.

“Hey you. What’s going on?” Liane asked.

The shell didn’t respond. It finished cleaning up the glass, then picked up the broken table and left without acknowledging Liane in the least. She in fact had to move out of it’s way when it left.

“What’s going on?”

“So you’re Liane?”

Liane yelped and jumped away from the voice. She turned to find a suited gray haired man sitting in the chair Claire had been in a minute earlier.

“I’ve waited a long time to talk to you. Would you prefer I call you Liam?”

Liane took a step back. “I… I don’t know what you're talking about. Who are you? Did you do this?” Liane gestured around herself.

The man looked around and nodded. “I did do this, yes. It’s a simple trick. I used your Second Sight to manipulate what you could see, hear, and feel. Claire is still here. You just can’t perceive her. The same goes for her in regard to you, though she can still see all the ghosts, as you like to call them. Not a very friendly term. You know that the AI personas are there to provide you with social stimuli, help you feel happy, find fulfillment, provide good company, etcetera, right?”

The man waited. Liane nodded uncertainly.

“Good. We put a lot of effort into maintaining them. Now then, my apologies, you asked who I am. I am a System AI. You can call me Sai. Not very creative, I know, but I wasn’t programmed for creativity,” Sai said.

“A System AI?”

“That’s right. I serve in the role of Director and Chief. I’ve been waiting to meet you for quite a while now, Liam. Or would you prefer Liane? And there’s no use pretending, I know everything.”

Liane was frozen in place. Sai wasn’t just a System AI, he was Director and Chief? This must be what Aurelia had warned her about. She could practically feel the cold winds of her soon-to-be desert island home already. What was she to do?

“Liam,” Sai interrupted, “are you okay? Your Second Sight indicates you are highly stressed.”

What was she to do? Nothing. Against a System AI that could read her mind and manipulate her senses at will, there was nothing she could do. Nothing except give up.

She returned to her seat across from Sai.

“Liane is fine,” she said. “What happens now? Are you going to take me to a desert island?”

“No, not yet. I wanted to talk to you first. Would you like a drink? Tea, lemonade, soda?”

Liane shook her head. Sai nodded understandingly. He let the silence sit before continuing.

“Aurelia really outdid herself this time. It took me weeks to catch on that something was amiss, and weeks more before you caught my attention.” Sai tapped the lifeless CP1 resting in Liane’s hands. “Then I had to get through this one's defenses.” He chuckled. “Creativity really isn't my strong point.”

“Is Aurelia in trouble?” Liane asked, surprising herself.

Sai inhaled through his teeth. “No, not exactly. It’s complicated. I actually had a few questions for you, if that’s alright.”

Liane nodded.

“Why did you do it?” Sai asked.

Liane sighed. “At first it was all for me,” she admitted. “I wanted to see Claire again before I died. I wanted her to be sorry for what she said and did. I think a little part of me wanted to see her unhappy, unable to go on without me. At some point, that all changed. I realized she was hurting. She was holding on to me, and it was holding her back. Somehow, she blamed herself for my death, and I knew it would only be worse if she discovered the truth, that what she said prevented me from seeing her. I wanted to clear all that and everything away before I died again. That way she could move on, unburdened. She could be happy.”

Sai nodded. “Do you love her?”

“Of course I do,” Liane snapped, “she’s my daughter.”

Sai chuckled. “Sorry, just asking. If Claire knew the truth, how do you think she would react?”

The truth. Liane didn’t want to consider it. Her goal from the very start had been to tell Claire the truth, that she, Liane, was actually her dad, Liam, come back from the grave as a girl to repair their relationship by… by what? Invading her life, lying to her, drudging up her most painful memories? Did she still want Claire to know the truth? No. The real truth was Liane had broken into Claire’s life with selfish intent. She had tricked and betrayed her. She didn’t want Claire to know the truth.

“I don’t know,” Liane admitted, “and I don’t want to find out.”

Sai nodded then stood. “Are you ready?”

Liane stood. She tenderly set CP1 on her chair, then nodded.