2050: After The Horizon of Veronica Smart.
She'd been used to changes. She changed her face and limbs and eyes and name ("Bright "seemed better than "Smart", somehow. It was originally "Martin." She didn't care what anyone called her. She liked being called "Veronica" but her godmother called her "Ronnie." She wanted to not be called anything but "free", but things got very confused. Her liberty in the form of a variety of tech turned out to be a massive financial encumbrance.
Was she really afraid of seeing her own godmother? Theoretically, the woman might have even changed her diapers, if she was the kind of person who changed diapers. Was she?
Her godmother wasn't the most accessible person in the world. Veronica was very accessible--a socials celebrity. And the old bird was like 80 or whatever. Did she even know what socials was like? Facebook and X and whatever her father's old friend knew were bygones.
But she had sent a very nice basket and a handwritten note (print) explaining she was always there for her and to please contact her for anything she needed. Which was how things were probably done in the late 20th century. She didn't know about NOW.
Mostly she saw the woman on streams and was probably an avatar. Fifty might look like thirty. Eighty didn't look like twenty.
Dad gave her a trust fund and never expected her to be in the business. He said point blank to please stay a bit clear from Zia Genoveffa.
And here she was, with a hand full of bills,
An Adonis was at her front desk "Call me 'George'." He said. That one? The AI given citizenship because she pushed it all the way to the top? "She's been waiting for you. This way--"
She followed him. And then felt a small and terrible shock. This was the face at her birthday parties. This was the streaming avatar. In life.
"Are you a clone?"
"I mean, I guess that technology exists, but I am not using it. This is me. In the original flesh."
Veronica gaped for a minute.
"This job is..."
Not a job. She shook her head. "I am in a little trouble, and I want to talk with you about it. I got a lot of work done since my accident,"
Genevive heard about it--the speedboat. It supposedly tore the girl limb from limb, but modern science heeded the call or whatever. "I understand you were at death's door."
"And they never let me up--look at these."
She understood the old lady would be impressed by paper and spread the invoices across her desk.
Zia looked at the invoices. She seemed to boil under the surface, "You are paying this kind of rent on your own body?" She stared and seemed to be doing math in her head. "Do you have anything of your inheritance left?"
"Something, but they are threating to disable me. Take away functions if I can't pay."
Genevieve motioned to George. "We know these ones, they can get taken over breakfast--who are these?"
She stood. "We can end the problems, but you are going to need to sort out your finances, and I think that means joining the family business. " With a wag of her finger, George was off to carry out the plan they both understood in minutes.
"Aunt Gen, I don't think I've told you at all how much of my original self I've got left--I might have signed away something. And this is for you."
She looked at the trust paperwork, and what it entailed. "You never did marry that boy."
"It was unfair. And I'm sorry I am only telling you now about my financial constraints."
"You are family. And I understand you need a mentor regarding the cybernetic life--I want you to work closely with George."
"George>"
"He's an old-school AI. You'll love him."
And she thought Ronnie would. George was pretty loveable by nature, after all. They had a lot in common.
***
1993
It was several days coming home after the accident, and she cut herself, and watched it heal. And she stared. And then cut herself again, for science. And watched herself heal. And didn't have anyone to ask what she was or how. And cut herself again, for science.
And you don't forget something like that.
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