Prey

Jack sees Ricky Morse, a Xymos division head, at the grocery store. Jack gave him his first job. Julia had some issues with Ricky, who often overpromised and failed to meet deadlines. He says things are good at Xymos and that Julia is fine, although he rarely sees her. He says that she is always in the “fab complex” (30), where they are using atoms to build molecules. Jack thinks about nanotechnology after they say goodbye. He compares the assembly of atoms to compiling a computer program. Compiling never works the first time; the program always has to be debugged. He can’t imagine Julia waiting around while the molecules are debugged, nor can he imagine her at the hub, way out in Tonopah, Nevada.

That evening, Nicole calls while Jack is waiting for Eric’s soccer practice to end. She says he always puts Eric first. That night, Jack is looking at family pictures later when Julia comes home and wakes Amanda up to hold her. He changes Amanda while Julia showers. He is annoyed with her unreliability and worried by his suspicions.

Amanda starts screaming at one in the morning. She has a rash on her belly and thighs. Jack thinks he sees it spread while he watches. The ER doctors sedate Amanda to examine her but soon determine that she has no infection. However, she screams the entire time Jack speaks with the doctor and then starts convulsing. She eventually grows calmer but keeps screaming. In the morning the medical staff orders a battery of tests, and they put Amanda in an MRI machine, where she immediately stops screaming after they turn it on. Her skin clears and her pain stops. An hour later, mystified, they let Jack take her home.

At home, Julia says she is relieved about Amanda, but she isn’t convincing. She doesn’t want to hold her and pretends to go check the sprinklers instead. Later, when Jack catches her on her cell phone, she immediately says she has to go to work and leaves. On the way to school, Eric is tired. He says the “vacuum men” kept waking him up (46). He says they vacuumed up a ghost that was silver and faceless.

At eleven o’clock, Maria, their housekeeper, wakes Jack from a nap. Amanda’s whole body is purple, like a bruise, but she is happy. The discoloration is so consistent that it is like she has been dyed. A doctor calls and tells Jack that a similar case has been reported, by someone who encountered an unusual flower in the mountains. In that case as well, the MRI seemed to stop it, and the bruising was like Amanda’s. Amanda pulls off Jack’s glasses and throws them on the floor. While getting them, Jack sees a plastic box plugged in beneath the crib. It has the letters “SSVT” on its casing. He searches for the acronym “SSVT” online but finds nothing helpful.

As he thinks about the converging complications in his work and home lives, Jack compares life to his agent-based programs. It’s like chess, but the pieces move themselves. His programs give the pieces memories. Some programmers believe the pieces develop beliefs based on pattern repetition. Some of the pieces misbehave and refuse to evolve. That evening, Eric tells Jack that his MP3 player isn’t working. He found it by Amanda’s changing table. When Jack opens it, he sees that the memory chip has eroded, but everything else is functional.

When Julia fails to come home, Jack watches her demo again. She has told him Xymos is having trouble getting funding, and he doesn’t understand why, if the project is as successful as it looks—and as she claims. He torments himself with thoughts of Julia cheating on him, using the funding crisis as an excuse to stay out late. In bed, he falls asleep and dreams that her lips change color as blackness covers her skin.