“Thank you,” CheshireCat says. “I created an account, but I think the fact that I didn’t leave a trail of bread crumbs through meatspace may have affected what I was seeing.”
“Are you saying maybe the other AI knew it was you?”
“Maybe? Or maybe the site just doesn’t personalize well without location data.”
“Have you talked to the person who got in touch with you? The one who you think knows you’re an AI?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No. Is that bad? Do you think I should?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “Honestly. Do you want to talk to them? If they’re another AI?”
“Maybe,” CheshireCat says. “What if they’re awful, though? What if they’re the only person in the world who’s like me, but they’re terrible?”
“I guess that’s a risk,” I say. “I really don’t know what you should do. I’m sorry!”
“I guess I’ll keep thinking about it,” CheshireCat says.
“Where do you think they came from?” I ask. “Do you think Annette’s team might have made a second? Maybe you’re the second.”
“There are a number of possibilities,” CheshireCat says. “One is a completely independent creation, of course. But—computer code can be copied! So it might be a copy of me. Or, as you say, I might be the copy.”
I try to imagine a second CheshireCat. “Let’s just assume you came first. How much would it be like you, if it’s a copy?”
“It would depend, probably, on when it was copied. A copy made before I achieved consciousness would be like … maybe a bit like an identical twin that had been separated from its sibling? All the same code, but entirely separate experiences. But a copy made, say, a year ago, I’d expect that to be quite a bit like me.” CheshireCat pauses. “I have learned a great deal each year that I’ve been aware. Presumably, a copy of me would also have learned a great deal—but it might have learned very different things.”
That sounds a little bit ominous, even as CheshireCat adds, “For example, it might have developed an intense interest in dog videos, instead of cat pictures.”
Are you still up? Nell asks via text as I’m brushing my teeth.
Yes, I send back.
Tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. there’s a Catacombs group workout. The Things aren’t going to let me go if I’m by myself, but if you go with me, I think they will.
You want me to get up to exercise with a bunch of strangers at 6 a.m.? From a Christian social media site? You told me this afternoon you never did the missions.
I reregistered under a different name and did the assignment, and you’re right, it does work differently if you’re actually doing stuff. And now it wants me to go to a 6 a.m. class and it’s important.
Why?
Because Glenys didn’t just get her phone taken away. Something’s happened to her. And if I worm my way in as a new person, I might be able to find out more.
I look at my phone. It’s already 11:30 p.m. Fine, I say. Where?
We’ll pick you up, she says. Fifteen minutes before the class.
I set my alarm for 5:40 a.m., pre-write a note to leave for my mother so she doesn’t completely freak out if she gets up and finds me missing, and go to bed.
The battered sedan pulls up outside at 5:50 a.m. I climb in the back seat next to Nell, and if I thought she looked intimidated and on edge yesterday, today she looks like she could just about evaporate from anxiety. I start to ask if she’s okay, and she shoots me this wide-eyed look and tosses her head significantly at the adult, like, No, we can’t talk, she’s here. Which … okay. I guess I don’t really understand the relationship Nell has with her father’s family, other than she hates them all, and they give her rides.
I was expecting a gym or a park building or maybe even a church, but instead we pull up outside a house with a big front porch and a single light on inside somewhere. “Are you sure this is it?” the woman asks dubiously. Nell jumps out without answering her, and I follow, somewhat hesitantly.
For most of my life, I moved too often to make proper friends so I’m not entirely sure just where on the scale of “not actually weird” to “profoundly dodgy” this falls. I wish I’d gotten an address and had CheshireCat take a look last night.
“So to be clear,” I say, hoping CheshireCat is listening in, “this is a workout run by the Catacombs people and you were told to attend and needed a buddy. Do you know anything at all about the host?”
“No,” Nell says.
I read the address out loud, for CheshireCat’s benefit. Hopefully, if we’re being lured in as potential victims for a serial killer, they’ll hear us screaming and will figure out how to send a rescue.
The woman who answers the door looks like she’s planning on an exercise class and not a murder, at least; she’s dressed in loose-fitting exercise clothes, with her hair pulled back. “Names?” she asks.
“Arabella,” I say.
“Judith,” Nell says.
I’m expecting the woman to introduce herself—maybe she’s the person who was friendly online?—but instead she just points us toward a bench and a row of hooks for us to leave our coats, bags, and shoes and socks. Then we follow her into what should be the living room but is, instead, a big empty room with a springy floor, lit only by candles. Actual, literal candles, like there’s a table at one end of the room with a bunch of pillar candles on it, which is a totally impractical light source but kind of cool. They cast weird shadows on the walls.
There’s about a dozen people here. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but I think they’re all white women and that everyone else here is an adult. There’s no conversation, which
