The Pieces of My Self

21 - Witness

LILLIAN

The Knightly Mansion, 9 June 2174, Thursday

Usher was always around the mansion, hovering, helpful, as invisible as the woodwork. Its brain held memories, and I wanted them. It wasn't just a servant; it was a witness. I hoped it could lead me to Debra's money and discover the circumstances of Henri's death.

Debra set me up in a connecting atrium near the center of the mansion, open to the main entry hall to the west, the banquet hall to the east, the salon to the north, and a front-facing corridor to the south.

As we walked toward the atrium, my growing paranoia about spies and snoops got the better of me. The house seemed alive with strange, muted noises.

"Did you hear that?" I said. "There's a buzzing, like that spy bug we saw near the gazebo, and I heard something moving."

Debra halted, cocked her head, then turned toward me. "Oh, that. Pay no attention. I've gotten so used to them I don't even hear them anymore. They're my friends. Maybe the only ones I have."

Her only friends? "Mice? Rats? Waltzing squirrels?" I wondered about Debra's mental health.

"Goodness, no. Henri would never tolerate sharing the mansion with filthy creatures. At least not when he was in his civilized frame of mind. The noises are from things that keep this place clean and tidy and operating. You can see one of them over there peeking through that little door."

My eyes followed her extended finger toward a snub-nosed object poking through the opening, blinking its green runlight.

"Some of them are as small as mice. A few others are as big as Usher. They are creatures of the shadows and come out only when they're needed. I go for walks in the early morning from one end of the mansion to the other. That's my exercise. They scurry about as I pass. Some hide, others reveal. I imagine when I'm dead they'll still be here, cleaning and fixing and self-repairing and hiding."

"Do they collect data?" I said, moving toward the thing protruding from the mouse door.

"I suppose. Like father, like son. Henri was their Frankenstein. He wanted to know everything and control everything. He always knew where I was and what I was doing. But he wanted to be anonymous. Elusive. That was his great contradiction. He built robots and avatars and all manner of surveillance capabilities, but occasionally he liked to get away to what he called the Wild, or Le Nature Sauvage."

She stooped, pulled the metal object out of the little door and showed it to me, turning it upside down to reveal six legs kicking at air.

"Cute little thing, yes? I'm not sure what its function is." She put it on the floor, and it skittered back into its hole.

"Henri was defined by his obsessions and inconsistencies. For example, he would only let me buy clothing off the rack in Loumissala—never imported garments that lacked the tracking sensors. He, on the other hand, only wore 'quiet' attire he smuggled in from Texas and Montana—the only two places in the world that still produce it."

Debra chuckled to herself. I couldn't decide whether she was responding to a humorous thought or was going crazy from isolation. I leaned toward the latter idea.

"One time I wore Henri's clothes and went shopping off the estate. I used his company car, which is more-or-less invisible to surveillance. I finally felt free. He was furious, of course, that he had lost me for an entire day. He thought something was wrong with his tracking systems. Spent a week trying to fix the problem. Score one for Debra."