Assisted Living

by E. M. Foner

“It’s not my first time moving around in low gravity,” Bill protested indignantly after picking himself up off the deck. “You just caught me off guard. Wow, this place is huge.”

  “Decks three through five are traditionally used for warehousing on Dollnick colony ships. In addition to their proximity to the core, they feature high ceilings, and since the circumference is much smaller than on outer decks, the inventory is closer to the nearest lift tube. Of course, I’ll have to be careful about distributing the mass if we do expand into commodities.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You do know that I’m spinning the ship to create weight for the biological occupants. Having too much mass out of balance would cause a wobble and possibly lead to structural failure if it went uncorrected.”

  “You mean if all the people on board stood together somewhere the ship would fall apart?”

  “Not at the current population level, though I would still discourage you from trying,” the Dollnick AI said. “Do you realize that I haven’t been broadcasting my voice from the nearest speaker since you left the lift tube capsule?”

  “You’re talking in my head like you do with Julie?”

  “Exactly. Most species consider it polite behavior to point at an ear when communicating via an implant so that the people you’re with know that you’re not paying attention to them.”

  “But you’re hearing me the same way?”

  “You’re still speaking out loud so I’m also hearing you through your new hardware, in addition to the embedded microphones in my structure. Your subvocalization pickup works when you speak normally, but with practice, you should be able to talk to me without others hearing your words.”

  “Like whispering.”

  “Ask Julie to explain it to you. She has more experience breathing than I do.”

  “And this is where we’re going to run the new business?”

  “I have my bots getting some wheeled shelving out of storage as we speak. I’ve designed a system that will utilize a continuous chain of shelving units distributed around the full circumference of the deck. By putting everything on wheels, I’ll be able to position empty shelves near the lift tube for loading, and then rotate the proper inventory section into place at stops.”

  “But what about the weight distribution you just told me about? If we only have one stop’s worth of packages to put on shelves, won’t I have to spread it out?”

  “No, there won’t be enough mass to make a difference unless I start with commodities, and whether in bulk or cargo containers, I’ll have my bots handle moving the material.”

  “So where do I come in again?” Bill asked.

  “Have you already forgotten what I taught you in the cafeteria?”

  “I’ll be handing people packages.”

  “Picking up too,” Flower told him.

  Two

  “Where were you this morning, Dewey?” Julie asked the AI assistant librarian, who inhabited a robotic body with a unique shelving attachment for carrying books. “I was going to ask you to teach me how to create catalog entries today.”

  “How much longer will you be here?”

  “Just a few more minutes. I’m meeting Dianne to give her that interview we talked about for the Galactic Free Press. I’m actually kind of nervous.”

  “Would you like to bring Zelda with you?” Dewey asked, referring to the library Labrador retriever, who habitually followed the AI around knowing him to be a soft touch for treats. “She was sleeping in the Greek Dramatists section last time I saw her.”

  “Maybe you could come along instead? I need somebody to reel me in if I start talking too much. I don’t know anything about this on-the-record, off-the-record stuff, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask a reporter to keep me out of trouble.”

  “I’d be honored to sit in. Do you have any guidelines?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about my childhood or my mom’s drug addiction. I was old enough to know better by the time I started working as a courier for the syndicate and I don’t want people thinking I’m trying to make excuses. Just tell me if I start sounding whiny.”

  “I’ve known you for over two months now, and if there’s one thing you aren’t, it’s whiny,” Dewey told her. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have your boyfriend there? I just came from our first work meeting.”

  “My boyfriend? Do you mean Bill? We’re just friends and neighbors, and we’re on the same sports team, if you can call theatre a sport.”

  “I thought you went on a date last week.”

  “We did, kind of, but he seems to be avoiding me since so it can’t have gone that well. Why were you meeting him for work? Did he get a job at the library?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Flower drafted me into a new package delivery business the two of them are setting up together. Between this robotic body I designed for myself, and my experience operating the bookmobile, I’m the perfect match.”

  “Bill is going into business with Flower? Has he quit his other jobs?”

  “They’re doing a soft-launch, starting slow with limited advertising and services. Flower doesn’t expect it to turn into a full-time job for Bill until the end of the current circuit. The truth is, she could handle everything herself, but the Stryx on Union Station frequently partner with biologicals in businesses, and Flower figures there must be a reason. We’ll be making our first pickups at the next stop.”

  “Do you know where we’re going next? I asked Flower and she said it’s an unscheduled surprise. I thought our whole circuit was set ahead of time.”

  “The regular stops are all published six months in advance, but the schedule has two open slots for in case an emergency or a business opportunity comes up. One slot is reserved for the captain and the other for Flower.”

  “So whose stop is this?” Julie asked.

  “The captain’s. We’ll be arriving at Bits sometime tonight, and from what I hear, we may be taking on a large number of passengers in transit to a different world.”

  “What’s Bits? Have you ever been there?”

  “I’m from there. It’s where I was originally programmed. Bits is a world of computer geeks and hackers, and it’s one of the few places outside of universities where Humans create AI. I was born at a hack-a-thon.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s where a bunch of hackers get together and compete or collaborate at coming up with something new. In my case, they mainly collaborated. I’m the result of over ten thousand programmers putting their heads together for a long weekend of beer and pizza.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the girl said.

  “I’m not complaining. The funny thing is that they never expected me to become self-aware, which meant their efforts were wasted.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s never a good idea to enslave sentient artificial intelligence because the Stryx have been known to intervene. The Bitters were trying to come up with better software to manage their extensive library of games from all over the galaxy and I just sort of happened. It’s something I have in common with Flower.”

  “But the Dollnicks created her.”

  “Not by design. Flower is the byproduct of tying together all of the complex systems needed to run a colony ship without imposing any constraints. The Dollnicks have been building the same way for over a million years, so they know what to expect at this point, but neither of us were intentionally engineered the way most AI is created.”

  “And now your creators are bitter about the wasted effort.”

  “What?” Dewey paused for a second to review the conversation. “I see where you misunderstood me. Bitters is what the people on Bits call themselves. I’m a Bitter too.”

  A woman in her early thirties came around the shelves and spotted the unlikely pair, “There you are. I was afraid you changed your mind at the last minute and were hiding from me.”

  “No, but I’m a little nervous,” Julie admitted. “Do you mind if Dewey comes along for moral s
upport?”

  “It’s fine by me,” Dianne said. “Can I treat you to a café or is there somewhere in the library you’d rather sit and talk?”

  “I think I’d be more comfortable here, but I wouldn’t want to disturb people.”

  “Let’s head into the reading room,” Dewey suggested.

  “Isn’t that the worst place to talk?”

  “There are Dollnick audio suppression fields at every table, and I can fine-tune the area to include the three of us,” Dewey explained.

  “Four,” Flower said over the girl’s implant. “You can’t expect me to miss this.”

  “The reading room sounds good to me,” Dianne said. “Lead the way.”

  Dewey escorted the two women to an area that boasted an eight-by-eight grid of large rectangular tables, each of which could have sat a dozen humans for supper. Rather than walls, the tables were surrounded by deck-to-ceiling bookshelves, but the lighting was excellent, and there were a number of bronze busts of famous scientists and philosophers on display. Several of the tables were occupied by groups of students from one of the boarding schools, but the audio suppression fields were doing their job, meaning the rambunctious children could be seen and not heard.

  “The corner feels more private,” Dewy suggested, positioning himself at the end of a table. “Why don’t the two of you sit on the same side so you aren’t talking across the table? They’re sized for spreading out reference materials.”

  “I’ll have to remember this place,” Dianne said. “It looks ideal for the work I do.”

  “Don’t you dictate all of your articles to your tab?” Julie asked.

  “Mainly, but I’m trying to move into investigative journalism, and the stories are so complex that I like to make notes and pictures on cards and then arrange them so I can see the connections. It’s hard to do that on a tab, and these tables have more space than a bed.” The reporter pulled a stack of large white cards out of her purse, removed the rubber band, and began spreading them out on the table. “They’re already in order so I can do it quickly.”

  “And this is my story? I mean, about the drug syndicate?”

  “Yes,” Dianne said, holding up a card. “See what it says?”

  “Interview Julie,” the girl read. “What was that on the back?”

  “A book cover. You know that my husband runs the on-demand printing business next to the library.”

  “Is that a half of a man-chest?”

  “Yes, they’re very popular on romance novel covers.”

  “And you tear the covers off the ones that don’t sell?”

  “They’re quality control rejects. My husband only prints books that have already been paid for, but sometimes the machine glues the cover on a little crooked. I asked him to cut them into cards for me rather than sending the paper to recycling.” Dianne rapidly dealt out the rest of her stack and then rearranged a few of the cards more to her liking. “There. This will help me ask the questions that will fill in the blanks. Do you want to start with what happened back on Earth, or talk about your life since then?”

  “You’re going to write about the assassination attempts too?”

  “It’s an important part of the story, and I think it will help potential whistleblowers understand that while there are always risks, they don’t have to be alone. You don’t mind if I record this, I hope,” she added, putting her tab on the table.

  Julie shrugged in response and said, “I’d rather start with the trial, I guess.”

  “Great. Record interview with Julie Gold,” the correspondent instructed the tab. “I was able to get the trial transcript through the Galactic Free Press, but I couldn’t find a total for how much money you moved for the syndicate over the years.”

  “I didn’t always know what I was moving,” Julie admitted. “I mean, the gold was kind of obvious because it weighs so much, and they weren’t going to send me all over the world moving lead. But sometimes it was small packages of jewels that I couldn’t have placed a value on even if I saw them, and some of the alien currency tokens don’t display their values.”

  “Do you know if you ever carried programmable creds?”

  “Programmable Stryx creds? I remember once that the pirates the syndicate worked with demanded payment on a programmable cred. I had to run all over Earth to shady tourist traps that had Stryx registers and pay them cash for credit at a discounted rate.”

  “You mean money laundering.”

  “Exactly, but it didn’t work.”

  “You couldn’t find enough people with access to Stryx registers willing to take the chance?” Dianne asked.

  “No, that part just took time because it was so much cash. The problem came after the programmable cred was delivered to the pirates. It turns out that the Stryx can wipe them remotely and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. We went back to jewels and gold after that.”

  “Funny,” Dianne observed. “It’s almost the same as your name.”

  “Julie Gold. That’s how the witness protection program came up with it.”

  “Interesting. Like I said, the transcript covers your trial testimony, but I wanted to fill in a little more background about how you came to work for the drug syndicate in the first place. When did you start?”

  “Uh—”

  “Julie would prefer not to talk about her childhood,” Dewey interjected. “She doesn’t want your readers to think she’s making excuses.”

  “You started working for the syndicate as a child?” the correspondent asked.

  “When I was eight, my mom was an addict,” Julie answered reflexively. “But that was just delivering drugs to other users for my mom’s pusher so he wouldn’t cut her off. I was in my early teens before they started me on sales, and there’s no excuse for that when I’d already seen what those drugs did to people. I was relieved when they promoted me to being a courier because I didn’t have to see the addicts anymore, but I realize now that was just a rationalization.”

  “Recording off,” Dianne said to her tab. “I was primarily an entertainment correspondent before I got married and came on board Flower, but I worked with journalists at the paper who reported on child labor, including gangs that turned children into criminals, even killers. It’s easy for adults who were brought up in nice homes to point their fingers, but sometimes children in bad situations have to survive any way they can. You did the right thing in the end.”

  “Only after my mother died,” the girl said in a flat voice.

  “Can’t we talk about something more cheerful, like the attempts on Julie’s life?” Dewey suggested.

  Dianne ran her eyes over the spread-out cards seeking the next hole in the narrative and spotted one with a large red question mark in the corner. She picked it up and puzzled for a moment over her own informal shorthand for the questions she wanted to ask.

  “I was able to confirm that you were the first person in EarthCent’s new witness protection program, and I understand it didn’t go as smoothly as you might have hoped.”

  “They made a big deal of rushing me off Earth in a shuttle to board Flower at the last minute, so that even if the syndicate found out, they wouldn’t have time to follow. Then it turned out that somebody in the prosecutor’s office leaked the plan days before, so there was already an assassin waiting on the ship when I boarded.”

  “I know about the killers who came aboard at Break Rock and the Alfe recycling facility we stopped at, but what happened to the first assassin?”

  “Flower tricked me into going for a walk on the reservoir deck, and when the hitman followed me out onto a catwalk, she had one of those big Dollnick fish eat him. I didn’t see it happen,” Julie added. “Just the ripples in the water and the gear bag he left behind.”

  “But you knew from that point that you were being hunted.”

  “No, nobody saw fit to tell me. I didn’t find out until the assassination attempt when we were stopped at Alfe and I was visiting the blacksmith shop in Colonial J
eevesburg to get a practice sword for my theatre sport. It turned out that Flower was paying bonuses to the aliens on board for protecting me.”

  “And I understand that after the leaders of the syndicate were all killed during a decompression accident while being extradited to an alien jurisdiction, EarthCent was able to have the contract on your life canceled.”

  “The way Captain Pyun explained it, they took out a reverse contract with the Tharks. I think it’s actually a kind of insurance policy, but everybody says it amounts to the same thing as canceling the contract.”

  Dianne made a few notes on her cards and then shifted gears. “Aside from the attempts on your life, how do you find living on Flower? Do you miss Earth?”

  “It’s really nice here. The one thing the witness protection program got right was they found me an internship in the library. I love working with books. I’ve even started helping the children with their reading.”

  “Is EarthCent providing you with a stipend?”

  “The internship comes with free room and board if I eat in one of the ship’s cafeterias, and I have a job waitressing at The Spoon to earn spending money. Flower gave me an implant when she had the Farling doctor remove the nanobot self-destruct device from my body—did you know about that?”

  “I heard a rumor, but if you’re willing to talk about it…”

  “Are you sure, Julie?” Dewy put in.

  “Yeah, it seems almost funny now. Flower manipulated me into taking my neighbor to the med bay so I’d have to go through the scanners, and then the beetle doctor cleaned out all of the alien technology in my body. It turns out the syndicate had been buying nanobots from rogue Gem intelligence agents, and I was loaded with stuff that made it easy for them to track me as well.”

  “It must be hard to believe that the trial took place just over two months ago. Do you have any plans for what to do with the rest of your life?”

  “I’m going to keep working and see a little bit of the galaxy, though I don’t really expect to find anywhere I’d rather live than here. A woman on my theatre team invited me to accompany the tour group from their independent living cooperative as a helper when we visit stops, so I’m going to try that just to get off the ship for a few hours. Dewey told me that we’ll be arriving at a planet later tonight. It will be nice to go for a walk outside.”