A New Family

A NEW FAMILY

By Laurence Klinger

Suzy looked away from the screen to play with her new puppy.

The Pangea image was replaced with the teacher’s face.

“Suzy, pay attention,” the teacher said. Suzy’s light had come on in the panel monitoring the students’ eye movements.

The image of the planet as it was 300 million years ago reappeared, and then it became animated, showing blocks of land drifting apart and continents forming.

“What are countries?” a boy asked.

The teacher explained how the world had changed from autonomous societies into a single global nation.

When the lesson ended, Suzy’s mom asked her to take the dog outside for a walk.

It was a sunny afternoon, and the girl saw her friends playing across the street. She looked both ways

carefully before crossing, but not up; an aerial vehicle was landing at that exact moment.

The following day, before the cremation ceremony, Suzy was taken to a Receiving Server Center, where her life knowledge was downloaded and stored for future installation in a Hubryd body.

There was an urgent need to control and protect the planet’s dwindling resources, driven by population growth and by hostile foreign powers eyeing our mineral and vegetation reserves. Avoiding that threat required an army larger than the combined armies of all previous countries. It would be called the Great Force.

To reach that objective, the government had a two-stage plan:

The first stage addressed parents who were already expecting. As an incentive, families who opted to donate their offspring to the Great Force at birth would receive free credits for life. That would create an army of billions who “belonged” to the state and could be drafted at any moment to perform public duties.

Once the Great Force reached its required size, the second stage would begin, in which giving birth to natural children would be phased out, and the dying contingent would be replaced with Hubryds.

—-

The car's baedeker said, " In 500 feet, turn right." It had learned to speak like Richard Attenborough, probably from the radio. When Ferwin made the turn, the truck ran into a speed bump. The wheels left the ground, and Ferwin hit his head against the ceiling and lost control of the vehicle. He heard metal scratching underneath until the truck stopped in the middle of a scrapyard at the end of the road.

The baedeker exploded in laughter and then spoke, now like John Cleese:

“I said left, stupid! Not right, left! Right, left, right, left!”

It was happening, after all. Ferwin’s baedeker was playing tricks on him, deliberately giving him the wrong directions.

Ferwin rummaged through the glove compartment for the bottle of Innatepol; now that the baedeker couldn’t be trusted anymore, he needed it to find the way to The Nucleus on his own.

There was one pill left. It would last long enough to get to the store, but not long enough to get home. Maybe he’d find a dealer somewhere along the way.

He swallowed the pill and waited half an hour for it to kick in. He could feel his intuition rushing back to him. It had been a while. With so much information, guidance, and automation available to everyone, that part of his brain had fallen asleep.

Back on the road, Ferwin drove three hours until he saw a sign announcing that The Nucleus was only 10 miles away.

Almost immediately, the big blue-and-orange building was visible in the distance, crowning a hill with slopes covered in a patchwork of tarps, like a gypsy encampment.

It had been a nerve-wracking journey, with the baedeker getting louder, angrier, and crazier by the minute; as a safety feature, it couldn’t be turned off or removed from the vehicle by anyone other than a government-trained and authorized technician. Undoubtedly, unlicensed baedeker-disablers would be available in the store’s parking lot. The place had become an alternative market, where dealers sold all kinds of services, as well as counterfeit and stolen parts and accessories for the merchandise found inside the store. Those people and their families lived under the tarps Ferwin had seen from the road.

Ferwin parked and stepped out of the car. The air was filled with dust, smoke from bonfires and grills, and the voices of salespeople and dogs barking. Ferwin was immediately surrounded by men and women pushing their services. Some could have been hubryds, but there was no way to know.

Most dealers had simple stands displaying eyes, organs, skin rolls, teeth sets, sheets of nails, and other parts for hubryds out of warranty. Others just walked around with their wares, like a woman waving a single replacement arm.

“White adult male arm, all ligaments intact!” she announced. Then, she connected arteries from the arm to a vintage sodium-ion battery, and the fingers moved.

It took Ferwin a while to find and negotiate with a man he felt was qualified to properly terminate, remove, and dispose of his car’s baedeker.

Ferwin handed the man a few credits and the car code, and asked him to wait ten minutes before starting: he knew his baedeker wouldn’t go quietly, and Ferwin wanted to be far enough away to avoid being cursed and screamed at.

___

“So, Mr. Ferwin, what are you looking for?” hostess 686-B said after scanning Ferwin’s left eye.

“Father, mother, maybe a sister or brother," he said.

“In-laws are 50% off this week. Interested?” she said.

“No, thanks,” Ferwin said.

She had a quick look at Ferwin’s records and said:

“You do have enough credits for a 3-unit family, including assembly. But I must warn

you that you’ll have used almost all your available credits for the rest of the year. Maybe you’d

like to drop the sibling for now.”

“Can they procreate?” Ferwin asked.

“No, they’re not equipped to reproduce,” 686-B said.

“It’s all right,” Ferwin said.

“You may be destitute,” 686-B insisted, “the law requires me to warn you.”

“Hopefully, my new family will be able to help,” he said.

“We cannot guarantee that,” she said, “as much as we try to engineer them for a perfect

match, there’s no way to know exactly what kind of people they’ll turn out to be once they’re

exposed to their designated environment. Mind you, we do not accept returns or substitutions.”

“I understand,” Ferwin said.

“So you still want to go ahead with this?” 696-B said.

“Yes, I do.”

A solid metal gate opened behind 686-B, letting Ferwin see the interior of The Nucleus showroom. It was filled with clusters of furniture, appliances, and personal items, like houses without walls, where hubryd families lived their lives unaware of one another despite the transparency and closeness of their homes. You could tell about their personalities and lifestyles from the things they owned and the colors they chose to decorate their living spaces.

“Where do I start?” Ferwin asked.

“We have most character types here,” 686-B said, “which allows around 40.320 family

combinations. If you want to complicate things, you can pick members from different groups and create millions of other combinations or even create each member from a mosaic of individual characteristics. It’s virtually unlimited. We make it easier by exhibiting the most popular successful combination types in each cluster. This stage is your choice; I mean, visually perceivable traits. The final stage is the genetic heritage, which will be programmed by the engineers who will assemble them ‘in loco’ with the information provided by the counselor assigned to you. Your counselor will visit you at home one or two days before the engineers. Assembly typically takes a week.”

At the end of the second row, Ferwin saw a family who seemed to get along better than most others. Their faces were kind, and their home was inviting. Ferwin felt he would be comfortable living with them. And they had a dog! As he noticed Ferwin’s excitement, T-60f warned him that the animal wasn’t included.

That was disappointing, but Ferwin wasn’t expecting a pet anyway and could always get one separately. He wrote down the family’s I.D. and took it back to 686-B.

—-

Getting home to Inner Block F47 at Spiral G133 wasn’t easy, especially at night. All 6.400.000 helix complexes looked exactly the same. The outer apartment units, circling the perimeter of each development, were close to the beach or forest, and a main highway. A twisting, continuous design led to the inner units toward the center of the spiral, away from its entrance.

A couple of years before, when he was 18 and allowed to apply for a unit, Ferwin had been assigned a nice studio in the outer area. It was small, but he could walk to the forest preserve, and in five minutes, he could reach the highway with his car.

But because he was now planning to have a family, Ferwin had traded his outer unit for a larger, 2-bedroom one in the inner area near the center, the darkest and least desirable location in the maze. It was the same price as the one-bedroom unit in the outer area.

As indicated in the manual, all the boxes were stored in an empty room, awaiting the engineers’ arrival. That would be his future parents’ bedroom, while Ferwin and his sibling would occupy the other room.

He was relieved when the doorbell finally rang early one morning. A young Indian woman appeared on Ferwin’s screen. He opened the door and welcomed her in.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ferwin,” she said. My name is Acharya.”

“Thank you for coming,” Ferwin said, trying to be courteous despite his confusion.

“I need to know more about you so the engineers can program the right data into their tools. Once your family is assembled, you’re stuck with them for the rest of your life. They don’t accept exchanges or returns.”

“Just like a real family,” Ferwin said.

Acharya smiled and said, “Please start by telling me why you have decided to have a family.”

“Like many people, I never had one,” Ferwin said. “I grew up in the Foundation. They never told me my parents' names, and I never asked.”

The questioning took most of the day. Once Ferwin’s life inventory was completed, Acharya took a blood sample and asked him to sign an acknowledgment. When she left, the street lights had turned everything pale green.

___

A big white van parked outside Block F47. Two men in tan uniforms and caps came out and rang the doorbell. Ferwin let the men in with their bags of tools and instruments and showed them the room where the packages were. The energy almost knocked them down, and one of the men commented on how good that was, a sign of vitality.

They worked quietly for a week, arriving early in the morning and leaving at night. On the last day of the assembly, one of the men came out and told Ferwin they were finished but needed to clean up before he could meet his new family.

Finally, the men washed their hands, changed back into their tan uniforms and caps, and disposed of their white work outfits in a yellow garbage bag.

“Are you ready?” one of them said to Ferwin,

With the door to the room wide open, Ferwin saw a man and a woman, both in their early 40s, and a teenage girl.

“This is Adino, your father. Mariah, your mother. Suzy, your sister.”

Adino and Mariah smiled. Suzy looked at her brother suspiciously. Ferwin approached his new family, unsure how to welcome them. Adino opened his arms, and Ferwin did the same. They embraced.

“Hello, my son,” Adino said.

“Father,” Ferwin said, then he embraced his mother and sister, and kissed their cheeks.

“Welcome to our home,” Ferwin said.

“We’re happy to be here,” Mariah said, “would you like me to bake you a cake?”

“I don’t think we have the ingredients,” Ferwin said.

Mariah went to the kitchen and checked the cabinets, drawers, and the fridge.

“You’re right, we don’t,” she said, “We need to go shopping for groceries, or I won’t be able to fulfill my duties.”

Ferwin felt that Mariah sounded robotic. He’d call the store the following day and schedule an adjustment for her. Ferwin ordered take-out, and they spent the rest of the evening eating and talking.

Before going to bed, the family watched TV, and the newcomers seemed familiar with the sitcom characters and celebrities on late-night shows.

Suzy wasn’t happy to share a room with Ferwin and slept on the sofa in the living room.

___

Acharya showed up three weeks later, on a Sunday, to see how things were going. Ferwin told her the news. Mariah had been repaired and was acting normal. Suzy was enrolled in the local high school. Spending day and night with his parents felt awkward, so Ferwin got a day job in a convenience store, although he didn’t need the extra credits. Adino had been a supportive father.

Acharya was glad to hear the news and gave Ferwin her contact information in case he ran into trouble.

“So you’re not coming back?” Ferwin said.

“No, counselors are not supposed to do follow-up visits,” Acharya said, “I came today of my own will.”

Ferwin thanked her and accompanied her outside just as his family returned from a walk. Acharya waved at them, entered her AV, and started the engine. Suzy ran inside, frightened. For some reason, she was terrified of those machines. However, Ground vehicles didn’t scare her; she even planned to drive one someday.

One morning, while having breakfast, Ferwin noticed a couple of bruises on Mariah. He asked her about them, and she said some hot cooking oil had splattered on her. When Ferwin arrived from work that evening, Suzy asked him if they could talk before dinner. They went outside, and Suzy told him she was worried.

“What happened?” Ferwin asked.

“You haven’t heard them screaming?” Suzy said.

“No, when?”

“At night, when we’re in bed.”

“I just close my door and listen to music on my headphones until I’m asleep.”

“They scream and fight every night. Sometimes there are noises; things being thrown around.”

Ferwin thought about Mariah’s bruises. He asked Suzy if she knew what their parents were fighting about, but she couldn’t make out their words.

Ferwin called Acharya the following day. She told him there was nothing she or The Nucleus could do about it. The contract was clear: the guarantees didn’t cover unsuccessful relationships, character flaws, or even crimes committed by Hubryds. She suggested talking to the Family Police, but Ferwin was afraid to do so; he’d heard that they could deprogram a Hubryd’s core functions in case of domestic violence. That was the equivalent of a human lobotomy; Adino would become deprived of emotions, almost like the old-fashioned robots of the past.

Ferwin talked to Suzy about it; she hugged him and cried. He’d never been so close to a girl before, and it was nice to feel her body's warmth, smell, smooth skin, and long hair brush against his face. His heart beat fast.

After a long talk, Ferwin and Suzy agreed that the first step was to talk with Adino. They waited a day or two for the right moment, when Mariah would be out for at least one hour. The three sat down in the living room with cups of tea, and Ferwin started:

“What’s going on between you and mom?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Adino said.

“I hear you two fighting every night,” Suzy said.

“That’s none of your business,” Adino said.

“But we’re a family, and your children are suffering with that,” Ferwin said.

“Your mother is a crazy woman,” Adino said.

“You hurt her, didn't you? I saw the bruises,” Ferwin said.

“She deserved it,” Adino said.

Ferwin and Suzy looked at each other, shocked by what they’d heard. Suzy started crying again.

“But she’s your wife…” Suzy said.

“I didn’t choose her, and you know that!” Adino said.

“I’ll report you to the police,” Ferwin said.

“No, you won’t,” Adino said as he stood up and threw his hot tea at Ferwin and Suzy, burning their faces. Then he slid off his belt and started beating them with the heavy buckle.

Ferwin picked up a photo frame from a side table and hit Adino’s bregma with the sharp metal corner. A rupture in the soft membrane covering the open spot on a Hubryds’ head provided access to their processors. Ferwin hit again, now through the open gap, and short-circuited Adino’s brain, disabling his movements and voice. Lying on the floor, Adino twitched twice and expired.

Without knowing what to do, Ferwin called Acharya.

“It’s a planetary crime,” Acharya said. “ The sentence is extremely harsh.”

“But it was in self-defense.”

“That doesn’t work when Hubryds are involved. In theory, they’re not equipped to kill humans unless they’re assigned to law enforcement or the Great Force.”

“But what can I do now?” Ferwin said.

“Run away!”

“They’ll find me.”

“Our planet still has deserts, islands, and forests where you can hide forever. Please go fast! Save yourself! I lost you before; I don’t want to lose you again.”

“Mother?” Ferwin said. He could hear Acharya sobbing.

“I’m so sorry,” Acharya said and hung up.

Ferwin had tears in his eyes for the first time since that distant day at the foundation when he was a little boy and found himself alone in his crib.

“That was my real mother, Suzy. She says I have to escape…” Ferwin said.

“What about Mariah?”

“They’ll rewrite her so she’ll forget everything, join a different family and, hopefully, a kinder husband.”

“I want to come with you,” Suzy said.

“Nothing would make me happier.”

They held hands and ran out the door, around the spiral, and away from the building towards the forest.

Ferwin’s heart beat fast again with the thought of spending the rest of his life with Suzy.

The End