Jennie

"I think we have a problem with Jennie," Barbara O'Connor said. She adjusted her squarish horn-rimmed glasses with one finger and tried to corral a lock of red-gold hair that had found its way into the space behind the right lens.

Jan Morziewicz sighed. He leaned against the doorframe of the video analysis room and waved one had in the direction of the video screen and control console. "What now? Has she been boycotting her lessons again? Refusing to eat?"

Barbara shook her head. "No. It's— well, here, watch this bit." She slid her fingertip across the touchpad to 'rewind' the digital video file, then tapped once to restart the playback.

"You're not listening to me! I'm the Mama! You're my little girl!" A young girl, Sissy or Buffy, something like that— stood beside the playhouse in Jennie's back yard with freckled arms crossed and lower lip protruding like a tiny pink balloon.

Jan winced. "Sounds like a normal session to me."

But Barbara shushed him and gestured to redirect his attention to the screen.

"Jennie! You're s'posed to play with me!"

Jennie turned her head and whispered to someone offscreen.

"Is there someone else there?" Jan asked. "I thought these social interaction sessions were supposed to be one-on-one—"

Again, Barbara waved her hand at the screen. "Marcy and Jennie are the only ones there."

"Then who—?"

Jennie finally turned her attention toward Marcy. "Bonnie doesn't like you," she said flatly. "She thinks you're loud and bossy."

"Who's Bonnie? Is she another one of the volunteers' kids?"

Marcy's face turned red. "There is no Bonnie! You're just being mean!" Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she turned and ran out of the yard.

Jennie tilted her head to one side, apparently listening to someone sitting beside her on the brightly-colored plastic bench. Then she nodded solemnly. "You're right. It's not my fault Marcy's a crybaby."

"Oh, my God," Jan said. "Jennie has an imaginary friend."

"It definitely looks that way," Barbara said. She tapped the touchpad to freeze the video playback. "We don't even know where she heard the name 'Bonnie'; she's never met anyone with that name."

Jan sat down on the edge of the console. "This might not be a bad thing," he said. "We wanted Jennie to be as normal as possible, and bright, imaginative children do have imaginary friends."

Barbara nodded. "It is normal. Up to a point. But I've watched several social interaction sessions now, and they have all gone the same way. Jennie prefers Bonnie's company over that of any of the real kids in the program."

"She seemed to like them well enough before," Jan said. "Has anything changed in their relationships, the way they talk to her, the way she talks to them? Any reason why she might think Bonnie is a better friend?"

Barbara shrugged. "Who knows? There might have been something that didn't mean anything to us, but was hugely important from Jennie's point of view. As adults, it's pretty hard for us to understand exactly what importance someone Jennie's— age— might place on an offhand remark or trivial action by another child."

Jan buried his face in his hands. "On the one hand, this is a remarkable development, proof that Jennie is as much like a normal child as we could ever have imagined. On the other hand— if she refuses to interact with other children, the project will be viewed as a failure."

"We can't just give up," Barbara said. "Jennie is— she's like a daughter to me. To you, too. I've seen the way you respond to each other."

Jan laughed. "Yeah. The stupid thing is I think I've spent more time and energy on Jennie than I ever did with my own kids. And I'm not a bad father by current standards."

"Which is exactly why the world needs Jennie," Barbara said. "The pandemics have meant that a lot of children have little or no contact with others their own age for fear of infection, and with their parents absent much of the time as well, they're likely to be unable to interact with others in a meaningful way. Jennie can change all that..."

Jan stood, paced slowly around the perimeter of the little room, detouring to avoid the console, the chairs, Barbara's legs... "Crap," he said. "You can't think on your feet when you have to pay attention to where you're walking. But I know— I think I know— what we have to do."

Jan sat down again and rolled his chair to a panel to one side of the video control console. He pressed his hand against a scanner and said, "Morziewicz. Unlock Jennie matrix."

A cool, emotionless voice said, "Welcome, Doctor Morziewicz. Access to Juvenile Empathic Neural Network Interface Entity programming module enabled."

Barbara gasped. "You're not going to erase her, are you?"

Jan shook his head. "Not entirely. We know things were fine up until a few days ago. But we can't just erase a few days and try to carry on with the same playmates that she has now rejected. We have to go back further than that..."

He turned back toward the interface panel. "What was the first date when Jennie met or heard of any of her playmates?"

"April 14th, 2031," the computer replied.

Jan and Barbara exchanged looks of sadness. "It isn't as if we were lobotomizing a real child," Jan said. "But damned if it doesn't feel like it."

"Restore backup of full matrix from April 13th, 2031," Jan said. "Adjust calendar references in Jennie memories forward to eliminate gap."

"Backup restored and adjusted."

Ann sighed. "I've contacted the next family on the list of volunteers. Mr. and Mrs. Morton and— Alyssa, their eight-year-old daughter— will be here in about an hour."

"Let's hope Bonnie stays away this time," Jan said. "I don't think I could do that again."

Find more by Robert Moriyama in the Author Index.

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