Lamia

The woman folded her hands in her lap, looked down, looked up. Her mouth smiled. “Aces can profoundly distort the developing personality, leading to…”

“Aces?”

“Excuse me. Adverse childhood experiences, aces, may distort the developing personality and impair cognitive function, leading to a range of negative outcomes. Low educational attainment, criminality, difficulty forming long-term relationships, diabetes, substance misuse, obesity, emotional dysregulation, depression.” The kid grimaced. Sitting opposite him, in nasty stone-wash jeans and a cheap, shapeless sweater, the woman was dumpy, offensively unstylish. Her matted blonde dreds and colourful bandanna gave off enviro-activist vibes. She said, “The impact of childhood trauma can be mitigated somewhat by the presence of a persistent, trusted adult.” She smiled again, then her speech slowed, a little too much. “We all have needs, and that’s ok. Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness.” The emphasis on strength was weird, overdone. The kid wondered how many times she had trotted out that line.

Her coffee was untouched and she glanced around his neat lounge. “The farm is legally yours, of course, but remember: your living arrangements were directed by the court, so you are entitled to up to eight hours of one-to-one support per week. This may include intensive therapeutic work, help with independence skills: budgeting, cooking, interview practice. Are you eating well? Managing the pain? Thoughts of harming yourself or others.” Her hands were absolutely still. “While I have some concerns about your engagement, I must say I’m impressed with how you are managing, overall. You could do with a little more light and air in here.” She leant forward into a crouching squat, to place a hand on his forearm. Holding herself there with excellent core control, her ass hovered above the couch. Again, the too-slow speech: “We can talk about it, if you wish. Talking can help.” Head-tilt, nod. The hand was cold.

She talked some more and the kid sat back, folded his arms and exhaled, puffing his cheeks. He closed his eyes and thought of video games. Then, interrupting her, he said, “You’re a Mark 3, right, with the Munro empathy update and the restraint module? Your dialogue ratio set a little high?” She was silent, smiling at him, maintaining eye contact. Hard-coded not to respond to such questions, maybe. “I had a Mark 2 before, a male, big feller. Glitched out a lot, kept thinking I was someone else. I messed with it a little.” One time, the Mark 2 mistook him for some dude who defiled little girls. Frazzled, it asked him how come he wasn’t in the WY Secure Aspiration Facility, and he told it he’d burnt the place to the ground.

She regarded him evenly. “And how is the pony…” She blinked rapidly, mouth hanging open, “Jenny?”

He snorted. “Jenny’s good. Greedy. I ride her a bit.”

“And the farm. No thoughts of selling? It’s good land. Sad to see it going to waste. You are rather isolated here aren’t you. You could go anywhere, a fresh start.” He frowned at her, wondering if he saw hunger there.

“I’m good.” She talked some more, flipped some questionnaires and stuff to his pad then rose to leave, promising to return within six weeks, as per. That evening, he made hunnee-glazed spiced roast labgoose with confit potatoes and a broad bean salad. He watched strangulation-porn, but couldn’t get hard.

Rebel synth-metal roared from a portable speaker. The kid sat on the farmhouse gable roof with a bottle of vodka, three boxes of pain meds and some other junk they gave him a while back. It was evening, a beautiful pollution-sunset. He swallowed 10 pills, washing them down with booze. On his pad, he typed a brief message, set it to send with a 12-hour delay. On the horizon, one of the Weyland-Yutani terraform engines was taking shape, menacing and awesome in its enormity. Earth would be saved but they couldn’t bring all the animals back.

He started opening another box of meds but stopped as something registered in his peripheral vision. An aircraft was rolling, climbing and diving erratically as if in a dogfight with an invisible enemy. Smoke poured from it. He killed the music and heard the portamento whine of engines in distress. He opened his pad’s camera, held it up and zoomed in. A US Colonial Marines Cheyenne 4 or 5 maybe, with the cross-thrusters. A dark speck fell from the craft and he tracked its descent with the pad, tapping a red circle on the screen. It was too distant to make out detail but seemed spindly, flailing, and it disappeared among the trees maybe a mile from him, near the lake. The craft steadied and disappeared into the distance. In fluid, practised movements the kid slithered down the roof to the porch and dropped to the ground, the pills and booze forgotten.