It was one of those rare clear days. I went out into the garden. Laurel was sitting under the apple tree as usual, the sun casting shadows of leaves on her upturned face. She was smiling gently, but not at me. It had rained earlier and water dripped from the boughs. I flinched when a drop hit me.
"Laurel, come in?" I smiled at her edgily, wanting to get in out of the weather. "There's a great space show on RDB."
She carried on smiling, almost beatifically. Her eyes were unfocussed. The wire wound wetly through the mutant grass to her ears. I checked the channel; Vivaldi again. She never used to be this way.
"Laurel! You'll burn!" I shouted at her. It was no good. She couldn't hear me and she wasn't listening anyway. The wind started to rise, lifting her hair from her shoulders. She did not seem to have moved since yesterday. I retreated to the apartment.
I took a glass of concentrate and sat down with my back to the window. There was no point looking out at her anyway. She never did anything. Three months now. Three months sleeping alone. I'd thought about taking the bedcovers and going out to sleep next to her, but the thought of sleeping in the open air scared me. And there might be ... live things in the garden. Instead, I went out every day to talk to Laurel. So far, she had not replied. And I don't like being outside. The garden used to be pleasant to look at. Then Laurel sat down under the tree and I didn't like the view so much.
I don't know what made me finally make the call and fix the time. Annoyance more than anything else, I suppose. I'd thought about it every day. Then I'd invariably thought "She'll come in today." Now I just wanted to make her come in. Why should she have it her own way?
The time and the place; a nice clean white waiting room. Waiting rooms are always the same. Nice slow music. Nice fluid holos. I hate nice.
I ground my teeth until the door signalled me. Through the door was a nice old lady. She rose from the moulded chair and smiled at me. "Mr Paz? I'm Doctor Isa Rosetti."
This was the doctor? Suddenly I didn't feel so right about things. We sat down and I looked at her. She looked back at me, still smiling gently. I could feel my teeth clenching, ready to grind some more.
"What can I do to help you, Mr Paz?"
"It's not me who needs help." I left it at that. Let her do the work. I was paying enough, if I couldn't help it.
"Then who is it, Mr Paz?" What was she doing, trying to help me remember my name? I smirked at her and said conversationally, "My partner's turning into a tree."
She slid her old-fashioned spectacles - what an affectation - down her nose and peered at me over them. "I see," she said curiously. A perfect textbook manner, I think they call it. I noticed the gentle whir of the recorder's fan. "Why do you believe that your partner is turning into a tree, Mr Paz?"
"I suppose it's more tuning into a tree. She's plugged herself into the tree in my garden. You know, these biosimulation things. Big craze a couple of years back."
"But surely these devices merely chart the activity of a plant or other lower life form?" The doctor was being sympathetic. She had learnt her patience well. She was elderly, maybe seventy, and you could tell just by looking at her that she knew she didn't understand real things any more.
"Laurel's into virtuals," I said. Dr. Rosetti looked puzzled, which I thought was pushing it a bit. Everybody knows about virtuals. They probably had them even when she was young. I found myself studying the wrinkles on her neck. Anybody would think anti-aging had never happened.
"Explain to me Laurel's behaviour, how she acts, how she ... 'tunes in' to the tree." She was managing to sound patronising, so I patronised her back. "She puts on the headframe and experiences it, Doctor."
"And how do you know this?"
"She's just sitting there, doctor. Under the tree with the headframe on and the sim running. Day and night. She's blooming." I gave a mirthless laugh. "Sitting there smiling and looking real happy. Won't talk or move. Just sitting and listening to music."
"Do you know what sort of music she is listening to?" she asked cautiously. If I'd said ramp or synth, or even rock, I think she'd just have switched herself out. Good thing. "Mozart," I said, "and Vivaldi. Old stuff." I looked meaningfully at her as I said it, but the insult was wasted. For the first time she looked interested. "I didn't know you were ... 'into' that sort of sound these days," she smirked, trying to sound up-to-the-nano and not even hitting the right century.
I shrugged contemptuously, my shirt crackling nicely. "Laurel is. Part of the problem, I think," I couldn't resist adding.
"So why have you come to see me?"
I suddenly got twitchy and stood up, getting some small jab from seeing her flinch. "I thought the sort of prices you're charging, maybe you would just care to take a look at Laurel. Or isn't this the Reality Therapy place? Just tell me where it is and I'll go." I knew I sounded pompous but it seemed to impress her. You have to humour the old. They're out of reality.
"I see." She smiled at me carefully. "It is actually my colleague, Doctor Sterling, to whom you wish to speak."
Someone preserve me from grammar like that. Who cares? I frowned at her and said "Do I have to make another time?"
"No, no," she soothed. Poor old slug. "I'll call her for you right now." She muttered into the voicebox. I couldn't hear what she was saying, which made me even twitchier. "Doctor Sterling will be with us in just a moment," she said reassuringly. If I wanted to be reassured I'd plug in. Watching fluid turbulence would be more soothing than this moving corpse.
Doctor Sterling made an entrance. She was tall and had long blonde hair, either real or recently fixed. In fact she looked a lot like Laurel, except recently Laurel had given up fixing her hair. Or her clothes. Anyway, I scowled and though of maggots. I didn't need to be checking resemblances right then.
"Mr Paz? I understand your girlfriend has a problem." She smiled radiantly at me. A lot less soothing than Doctor Rosetti, who just sat there and didn't blink.
I outlined the scene.
"Would it be possible for Laurel to come into the clinic?" Doctor Sterling asked, in a voice that reminded me of last week's holo star. I still shook my head. "She's inseparable from the tree. Or at least the sim." She had hit me when I tried to unwire her, but I didn't feel like telling Doctor Sterling about that.
"I see," she replied. "It may be possible for me to arrange to visit her. May I have your code?"
I recited it. Laurel would hate a doctor being there. Good. Might bring her down out of the branches. I watched Doctor Sterling check my credit. "Under the circumstances," she said, "we would be happy to arrange an external consultation." That meant they were paying Laurel's credit into mine as I'd asked. I was rich. For a while. I smiled at the doctor, completely ignoring Doctor Rosetti, who sat with her head bowed, examining her fingernails. They were old like the rest of her.
"Next Sunday, then?"
"Next Sunday," said Doctor Sterling, glowing at me.
Sunday came, and so did Doctor Sterling. At least the sun wasn't shining, although there was a foul, cold wind rattling the leaves. We went purposefully out into the garden. I tried not to meet Laurel's eyes even though I knew there would be no one in.
"Laurel, this is Doctor Sterling. She's going to help you." It sounded pathetic. Laurel carried on smiling. The Doctor knelt in the damp grass and applied various instruments with little lights and wavy sensors. I checked Laurel's sound channel again; today it was Mozart. She did not seem to notice being examined.
When the doctor stood up she wasn't smiling. "Let's go inside. It's cold out here," she said. I was shivering slightly and the wind seemed to howl. I had a sharp suspicion the day was about to become fouler. "Laurel, are you coming in?"
Laurel didn't move. She wasn't shivering, either.
We hurried in out of the sun which had chosen that moment to show itself. In the entrance hall, Doctor Sterling turned to me dramatically. "Laurel isn't well, Mr Paz."
"I'm paying you to tell me that?" I sneered, uncomfortably aware that she was about to tell me a lot more and not really sure I wanted to know. Things had been simple.
"The tests I ran indicate that Laurel is two months into a pregnancy."
I sat down. I knew I looked stupid. "How did that happen?" How pathetic.
She beamed at me. "Really, Mr Paz! Didn't you listen in class?"
"Sure I did!" I shouted at her. "And I listened when they said I wasn't fertile." Now she looked shocked and I was a bit sorry, but not really.
"Why ...?"
"My parents worked at one of the D stations." I stared at the floor. It was dirty, since I hadn't bothered having the cleaners in lately. I decided to clean it myself when the doctor had gone.
"I'm sorry, Mr Paz. How long has Laurel been ... ?" Now the nice lady doctor had developed an inability to finish questions. Scared of the answers? Count two.
"If you mean out in the garden under the tree with wires coming out of her head, three months at least. If you mean pregnant, you tell me." I grinned at her nastily. "You're the doctor."
"But surely she must come in sometimes. To eat, to ... She must come in occasionally!"
"Not at all," I told her. "She doesn't eat, doesn't use the sanitary, as far as I can tell she lives on rain water. I thought you had to die like that, but I suppose I'm missing something." Like I missed her getting pregnant. Clever, Laurel.
"If you had contacted us before - " she started, sympathetically. I had no sympathy for her. Didn't even find her attractive any more, really.
"Why? What have you done? You haven't told me if you can unplug her without hurting her. Or why she's doing it in the first place. Or how in hell she got pregnant!" It was almost funny. But not quite.
"As for disconnecting her ... I think it can be done, although I would need equipment that I don't have with me. Her pregnancy - and the tests could be wrong, although that happens very seldom - perhaps an intruder ... ?"
"You've seen the security on this place. Light sensors, video - the lot. Nobody can get in without the system spotting them, and that fence at the back is wired for deterrence." I looked up at her wearily. "It happened, and you don't know why."
"You could have the pregnancy ... terminated," she offered, warily.
I shrugged. "I could. Not really up to me, though, is it?"
She frowned at me. "While Laurel is unable to make the decision for herself at this time, it is your place as someone who cares for her to take the responsibility for this." She sounded like a teacher. I stood up, bored, and said, "I don't think it's up to me. I'll think about it. When would you be able to unwire her?"
Doctor Sterling looked taken aback by my abruptness. "If you're sure that's what you want?"
I nodded patiently. "I want her back in the apartment, talking." I could see we might have quite a conversation. "When could you do it?" I repeated.
"Would Thursday be convenient?"
"I'll see you on Thursday." I led her to the door. She left, looking at me, but I had turned back to the window to think.
Three days was a long time to think. I did not go out into the garden, but I stared at Laurel in the wind and the sun and the rain. She did not move. Once I thought I saw something crawling on her, but I did nothing. I was thinking. I couldn't work; the current diagnostics didn't interest me right now. There was one thing I wanted to solve and that was for myself. And Laurel, I suppose.
On Thursday it rained. Doctor Sterling arrived promptly in the morning, bearing a large case and towing another one behind her. She looked nervous.
"Hello, Mr Paz. Any changes?" Her voice was more hesitant today. I shook my head. "Nothing." There was nothing to add. I did not want to talk to her. It hit me that I didn't know what we were dragging Laurel out of. I doubted she would thank me; but then, she'd given up making choices, hadn't she?
We went out into the garden, me in my weathercoat and Doctor Sterling in one of Laurel's. I found it strange that she had not brought one with her. Maybe she'd thought I changed my mind.
"Are you sure you want her unwired?" she said, echoing my thought. I looked away from her, at the apple tree. "I'm sure."
"I thought you might want to see if anything happened."
"Does that mean you haven't brought the stuff?"
She sighed. "No, it's all here." She knelt down next to Laurel and started to unpack the case. There were wires and sensors and needles. I did not want to watch. "Do you need any help?"
"I would be very grateful if you could hold Laurel."
I stared. "Hold her? How, hold her?"
"Just put your arms round her. She needs to feel safe when she comes out." Gingerly I sat down next to Laurel and laid my arm over her shoulders. She did not move. She felt very cold. For a moment I thought she might be dead, but I knew she wasn't. Death is not just coldness. I wrapped both my arms round her as the doctor applied pads to her wrists. "Sedatives," she explained. "She won't know what's happening." I did not want to know.
I held Laurel for about an hour. She only screamed once. Occasionally she moved, and I hugged her tighter. I missed her.
And now she's back.
Laurel is lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling. I have asked her to stop listening to music for a while each day, so we can talk. I talk to her.
"Laurel, they say you're going to have a child," I say gently.
She says nothing.
"Who was it, Laurel? Do you remember?"
She does not look at me, but I can see her eyes are going vague again. "They came on the wind," she says softly, "and they brought me the child. I wanted a child. You can share it if you like," she says, suddenly generous, turning her face half towards me and smiling.
I feel my teeth grind, but I smile back. Then she looks grief-stricken. "What's wrong?" I ask her.
"Dying now," she says, and there are tears running over her cheekbones. "Used to be alive. Strong and alive. Dying now."
I am alarmed. The doctor said she was fit. Fitter than possible. Then Laurel says, "Dying now. Leaves falling. Things crawling out. The wind is a bad thing now," and I realise she is talking about the apple tree. I noticed the leaves falling out of season a few days ago, but you can't trust the seasons now.
"Why is the tree dying, Laurel?"
"You took me away." Her voice is calm. She doesn't care. "It liked me there. I liked it there," she says, surprised, and frowns. "I was part of it all."
"Laurel, it was a sim. A virtual. It wasn't real."
She sighs. "The air was dirty but it moved. The soil was poisoned but I could grow. So much in it around the roots. So much life I never saw. I could lift up my face to the sun and feel it. It was real. I felt it. It was real."
I stay silent. I don't have words for this. Growth and death and birth isn't real now. We left all the dirt behind. So the apple tree is dying and Laurel is pregnant. And I guess I don't know anything.