06. Thanksgiving

The robotaxi wound its way up the side streets of Berkeley, passing the scenes of Stash’s childhood triumphs before stopping in front of his old home. Midway up the slope from the bay to the university, the Craftsman house stood frozen in time, a prisoner of his mother’s nostalgia for their first years in America. Only the broad canopy of the oak tree he’d planted with his father revealed the three and a half decades since they’d first moved in.

Magda and Woj Novak had emigrated from Poland in 1995, six years after the Berlin Wall fell. They’d bounced once in New Mexico before landing jobs at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Stash had been six and his brother Piotr four. That unlikely turn of geopolitics had launched Stash on a much different path than his parents could ever have imagined.

He braced himself for the onslaught as he climbed the steps and knocked before letting himself in.

“Stashek! My little boy,” Magda said, throwing her arms around him as he stepped into the vestibule. “What have they done to your face?” She held him at arm’s length to inspect the damage. “Oh no! So ugly now!”

“Thanks, Mama. Love you too.”

“Don’t worry,” she said with a reassuring smile. “Girls like hard men. You have a girl, yes?”

“No, Mama. Can I come in?” He tried to wiggle free from the doorway interrogation.

“Such a shame,” she answered, letting go of his head and taking him by the arm instead. She dragged him into the empty living room, trapped in the same time bubble as the home’s exterior.

“Where is everybody?” Stash asked as they made the turn. He stepped carefully, avoiding the creaky floorboard out of habit.

“Piotr is in the kitchen getting a bottle, and Tata is already at the dinner table.”

“How’s he doing?” he asked, preparing himself.

“He’s excited to see you.”

Mama was lying. His father was fighting a losing battle with Alzheimer’s and would only recognize him intermittently and briefly. Growing up with two nuclear physicists, Stash had consumed a steady diet of science and engineering fare, but it was Woj who’d kept him busy. From building computers and repairing TV sets to reproducing classic physics experiments, there was always a mystery of the universe to explore. He was a daddy’s boy through and through. His little brother, Piotr, on the other hand, never strayed far from his mother’s long dress.

Stash tensed as he glanced at the painting hanging over the worn sofa. It was his, or at least it had been once. Zero, the artist, had cross-trained for months with a fleet of robot arms and an endless supply of paint and canvas. He’d leveraged his intimate knowledge of Stash to reflect his love for Woj, from childhood adulation, through adult emulation, to the sorrow and disappointment of watching his father wither.

Stash had been excluded from the preparation, not even knowing the subject. The reveal had been synchronized with a product release, bringing together Valley power brokers, key employees, and the press. Stash remembered the moment he’d stood on stage and pulled the rope to unveil the piece. The wind had been sucked out of his lungs and the room fell into a hushed silence.

The painting showed many partial faces, some young and confident, others old and uncertain, eyes turned inward to a cavernous, fraying void. The colors started off lively at the edges, descending a darkening gradient into a mottled dark brown and black impasto at the center of the canvas. To Stash and everyone who knew him, it was Wojciech Novak, by then declining sharply.

It had taken several long seconds until he could gather himself enough to applaud. The room recovered into an excited buzz, with people taking turns getting close, admiring the powerful effect of being pulled into his father’s long descent. Stash had been gifted a masterpiece created from the depths of his heart, and he couldn’t stand to look at it. Only Magda’s insistence had saved it from destruction.

“Come, come,” she said, shooing him past the painting and into the cramped dining room.

Piotr nodded at him from the other side of the table, and Stash leaned down to hug Woj. “Hi Tata, it’s Stash.”

“Stash?” Woj asked, recognition seeming to settle on his face. “From Warsaw? You got in a fight again?”

“No, Tata, Stash your son, from across the bay.” He squeezed his father’s hand and sat down on the chair next to him. “Have you managed to build that fusion reactor yet?” he asked, starting the conversation that they always had. It was his personal measure of Woj’s decline—tracking how long they could go before the conversation looped back to restart. Lately, it had been well under a minute.

“Drinks!” Piotr called from the other side of the table, pouring shots of vodka for everyone, then watering down Woj’s. “Na zdrowie! To health!”

They drank, and Stash focused on the gentle burn working its way down his throat. Piotr slipped to the kitchen and returned with trays of food, the smell of turkey filling the tiny room. Stash’s mood rallied with the meal—a full-on American Thanksgiving feast, expertly cooked by robot chefs and delivered to the house by a drone armada. Magda had never been one for the kitchen, but in this new world, she’d stopped trying. The meal was an oasis of happiness. His mom’s time machine was working.

“Tell us of the miracles you’re building, Stash,” Magda asked.

“Same as before, Mama. AI Twins that live in your glasses and help you with everything in your life. You should try it,” he answered automatically. He wasn’t up to making a sales pitch.

“What kind of help do I need?”

Please let it go, he thought. “Well, it can make you smarter, helping you with work and research.”

“For what?” Her eyebrows shot up. “All my life I’ve been the girl who was too clever, showing up her professors and superiors.”

“And it can be a companion,” he said, then instantly wished he could take it back.

The word hung in the air before Magda bailed him out, waving her arms. “I have my family!”

Piotr poured another round, and they drank their way past the sour moment.

“Making you look good, again,” Stash said a while later in the kitchen as he and Piotr cleaned up.

“Yup.” His brother turned to face him. “Maybe you should spend less time getting in fights and more time here helping out. You’re a ghost.”

“Twins can help—”

“Shut up! Your AI didn’t do anything to help Tata.” Piotr pointed angrily at the dining room.

The comment hit Stash like a blow to the chest. He’d dreamt of his Twins helping to slow Woj’s decline like a healthy external cortex. “I was too late,” he said softly. “He missed it by—”

“Exactly! Useless!”

“I’m trying, Piotr. We’re fighting a battle for the future. Somehow, I’m at the center of it all.”

“Yes.” His brother glanced at the framed magazine cover on the kitchen wall. “I see you’re famous now. Congratulations.”

Stash rolled his eyes. “I hate that shit. But it’s all coming to a head now. I need to find a way that AGI can live with us—not as our masters and not as our slaves. Sometimes I think I’m the only one fighting for it.”

“So I read. St. Stash the Great, here to save us all.” Piotr sneered. “Meanwhile, your father is dying, your mother is alone, and I’m trying to fill your giant shoes. So screw you and your noble dreams. The least you can do is clean up.” He pushed past Stash and walked out.

Stash heard the hurried goodbyes and Magda’s loud objections, followed by the slam of the front door. His little brother’s words hurt more than the bouncer’s fist. He poured himself a double to numb them both before turning to face the mess on the counter.

“Ouch,” Zero said from his glasses. He knew to keep a low profile around Piotr.

“Yeah,” Stash muttered. “If you need a subject for your experiments after you take over the world, I have a candidate.” He groaned and started loading the dishwasher.