io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we feature a story from Lightspeed’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Does Harlen Lattner Dream of Infected Sheep? (Part 2)” by Sarah Langan. You can read Part 1 here. Enjoy!
Does Harlen Lattner Dream of Infected Sheep? (Part 2)
by Sarah Langan
February 4, 2034:
AI Compendium: Classified documents stolen from Congo last year were released this morning. These indicate morally, ethically, and legally dubious research on their own workforce as they seek more productive employees. The Attorney General of Virginia, which has jurisdiction, says it has no comment. Congo released a statement this afternoon: We at Congo believe in the essential value of every human being. We’ve devoted our lives to making the world safer and more efficient for their benefit. In other news, excess deaths increased eightfold this week and are all linked to heart attacks, seizures, and abdominal hernias among otherwise healthy individuals. All deceased are Congo interface users. Congo denies any connection.
• • •
That night Lattner had a panic attack. He’d never had one before but as a physician, understood that his heart, pulsing at just eighty-five beats per minute, was under no serious threat. Still, it felt like he was changing. It felt, for just a heated, sweaty moment, that his organs had slipped and realigned.
He called his kids and neither answered so he took a deep breath and called Lorna. “I’m at work,” she said, “but like I told you, Congo promised to keep them safe and healthy. I can see them through the camera. They’re fine.”
“Send me the password for the stream on them or I’m calling the cops.”
“And saying what?” she asked.
“Anything. Everything. Send it. I’m their father. I have a right.”
“Since when? Our whole lives together I don’t think you changed a single diaper. What are you talking about?”
She could be such a pain in the ass. He really hated her sometimes. And then he thought: Was he supposed to have changed diapers? Did she have a point? “I’m worried. I’m . . . Jesus, I’m sick with worry. I think I might even be worried about you. Help me out, here, Lorna.”
“You’re worried about me,” she said, not like a question, but like a statement she was controverting.
“I am,” he said.
“You jackass. I had a nervous breakdown. We never called it that; you couldn’t stand to hear it, but that’s what it was. Ten years ago. I was in a mental hospital for three months and you never visited me. Do you remember that? You weren’t so worried about me, then.”
“I visited,” he said.
“No,” she said. “Not once. I used to sit there on visitor’s day like a jerk. You never even brought the kids. I missed them so much.”
“That’s impossible,” Lattner said, his heart beating fast all over again. “No! Wait! I remember. We decided you needed the time to yourself.”
“You decided,” she said. “I never got a say in anything.”
Lattner’s heart thudded in his throat. He surveyed his small apartment, thinking it was dumb to have picked the one here, when across town there’d been a complex with a pool that the kids might have liked. Thinking he should have hung posters in their rooms or made their beds so they didn’t have to bring their own sheets and towels.
“I feel so sick,” he said. “I feel like I’m dying.”
“Lattner,” she said, her voice soft. “What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you talk about anything important?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and now he was crying, his speech broken and shaking. “I don’t mean to be this person.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m sending the link. They’re okay and I’m okay,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said, weeping now.
Soon after, he watched them in their rooms through ceiling mounted cameras. They were aware of these cameras but had mostly forgotten about them. Bea was tuned to a streamie in her bedroom. Lattner counter her respiration. Nine breaths per minute. This was low, even for a resting rate, but not alarmingly so. He zoomed in, tried to see her skin—was she pale? But the resolution wasn’t strong enough. Dylan was jerking off, his respiration slightly elevated.
Lattner felt a measure of compunction about this. Still, he zoomed to see what the kid was looking at. A man? A woman? This, too, was out of focus. He couldn’t tell.
