Machinehood

by S. B. Divya

  Outside, the sun glared from a cloudless sky. They faced a line of soldiers, with armed agents farther back. A quick scan of the faces showed Olafson and Director Rice standing behind raised weapons.

  Welga kept her hands visible as she held the monk. “My name is Olga Ramírez. This is Ao Tara, formerly known as Josephine Lee, currently the head of Eko-Yi Station Council.”

  Ao Tara pressed her palms together, arms shaking from the effort. Her saffron shawl glowed under the midday sun.

  Welga continued, “We are here in the hope that the United States government will respect diplomatic immunity and ensure our personal safety. Ao Tara offers her presence as a guarantee in exchange for the safe return of her dakini, who is currently held prisoner by the US government. The Machinehood would like to negotiate for peace.”

  NITHYA

  I think it’s a great honor to have my body enhanced with mods. I no longer have to wear jewels or haptic gloves. My hands and wrists are reinforced to avoid injury, and enhanced vision helps me react faster. An integrated WAI interface lets my agent optimize my targeting so I can focus on strategy. I will represent China when I play Empire Triage at the World Gaming Finals, and that means I must do everything I can to win.

  —Wei Lu, 2093 World Champion, Empire Triage. Current expertise rating: 100% Current global ranking: 3/52,721,046

  Nithya, Luis, Zeli, her family, even Carma, watched as the president of the United States sat down with the leader of Eko-Yi. Nine days had passed since the world witnessed the incredible landing of the supply shuttle. The US government had conferred in private, keeping Welga and Ao Tara out of sight the entire time. That frail monk, once Josephine Lee, had run the Machinehood? It didn’t seem possible. But she took responsibility for all that had happened—the attacks by the dakini, the stella crash. She looked so unassuming, so benign, like a grandmother waiting for her family to arrive.

  The captured dakini turned out to be her daughter—another surprise. The US had broadcast the reunion of mother and child. Nithya felt a stab of outrage at the unhealthy state of the prisoner, who hobbled into a tearful embrace looking as fragile as Ao Tara. Some experts speculated that the dakini could not survive long on Earth if their VeeMod technology relied on microgravity smart-metal. What kind of person would send their child to such a fate?

  “It’s Aunty Welga!” Carma cried. “Look!”

  “So it is,” Nithya said, stunned at the news feeds calling Welga a dakini.

  Her sister-in-law moved with all the speed and grace that had made her a popular shield. No sign of tremor. Certainly no fear of seizure.

  “Luis, do you have a feed to Connor? Is he seeing this?”

  The western United States still hadn’t fully restored its constellations. India and China had. Most of Europe and Africa, too. The South Americans and Australians had been left out of the Machinehood attacks almost entirely. Jady Ammanuel had sent a brief message when they’d arrived in San Francisco, and Connor and Oscar communicated when they could, but the gaps had left her and Luis worried. Neither her father-in-law nor Welga’s partner had fully recovered their health, and new pathogens were hitting hardest on America’s West Coast.

  “I got a message from Connor that he’s watching.” Her husband’s expression was as bewildered as hers. “Welga’s… a dakini? Do you think they brainwashed her somehow? Her bringing Ao Tara in made sense, but this?”

  Nithya gave him a baffled shrug. “Until we can speak to her, we can’t ask. Maybe the transformation to dakini helped her. It looks like she’s still able to use zips. I don’t know what any of it means. I’m still trying to understand how someone like Josephine Lee could have done what the Machinehood did. She was a bioethics lawyer!”

  Ao Tara addressed the world in a voice as tremulous as her body. “In the Buddhist tradition, dakini bring wisdom, but they do with it force… and sometimes anger. Think of our dakini as ambassadors to a new way of life, one that does not discriminate between human and bot, between organic and machine intelligence. They helped you purge your own anger. I understand this, because I was once Josephine Lee and full of rage. Thanks to the work of a few courageous individuals, the reason for that is known to all of you.”

  Zeli elbowed Nithya and grinned. “That means you!”

  Nithya shook her head, not in denial but in wonder. “I wish we could reach Welga. Her address keeps bouncing.”

  “We ask your forgiveness and understanding,” Ao Tara continued. “Our numbers on Eko-Yi are small, and transforming the world is a large task. We needed your attention. Our actions may have caused harm, but our intentions are good. Think of the past few weeks as birthing pains. We offer our designs as a salve. We present our vision of the future as an alternative way of life. For too long, we’ve taken the current path as inevitable. Over the past two centuries, we’ve seen incredible progress, but the labor to get there has fallen on the shoulders of billions while a few thousand direct their efforts. We bring you not only new technologies but a new way of thinking. One that values all living things, the dignity of daily work, and the fabric of our lives.

  “Eko-Yi will open itself to you so you can see our way of life. Our designs will be released into the public domain so that all may benefit. You will have our dakini, like Olga Ramírez, as an example. Check her public medical records and see what a career built on pills did to her. She is far from alone, but her transformation can be yours, too. Humanity does not need to consume itself in the quest for progress. We can coexist with all life on Earth, including intelligent machines. We can merge with them or remain as we are, but we must move forward as equals.”

  From outside, the cry of the human vegetable seller floated in.

  “I’ll buy them. You keep watching,” Nithya whispered to Luis.

  He gave her hand a grateful squeeze, his focus unwavering on his feed. Nithya slipped her chappals on and went down to the ground floor. Debris from the great bot massacre still littered the street, but people had cleared the center enough for small vehicles to pass.

  “How much for the okra?” Nithya asked in Tamil.

  The pile of slender green vegetables looked to be fresh. She broke the tip of one with a satisfying snap. Yes, they were recently picked.

  He gave her the price, then said, “Madam, there’s a balance. You need to give me money for that first.”

  He tallied the amount on her page. She paid it with microcards and then purchased the day’s vegetables as well.

  Thunder rumbled in the sky above. The seller popped an umbrella open and tied it to the cart’s antenna. Nithya carried her bag upstairs and increased the volume on the American news feed.

  “Make no mistake,” the US president said. “We will hold Eko-Yi Station and its supporters accountable for their crimes. America will have justice. We will cooperate with the United Nations and our allies in Europe who have suffered from their attacks.” A significant pause to emphasize the exclusion of China and India. “But we also recognize that funders must account for their mismanagement, and the Department of Justice will join the USBGA to investigate the allegations brought forth.”

  Nithya gave the vegetables to the kitchen. Her government had already made its peace, waiving the Machinehood damages in exchange for loss of sovereignty for Eko-Yi. The station would once again be ruled by the Indians and Chinese, and the United States would have the right to annual inspections of station facilities. Eko-Yi would produce no new dakini without the authorization of its governments. Any return visitors to Earth would be subject to tracking swarms.

  Major funders—those who hadn’t been implicated in the document that Nithya released—announced new projects to develop greater VeeMod technologies. They would go wherever they could profit. Bhairavi Chitthi had returned home. The neighbors acted like they could resume their ordinary lives, and for them, it was mostly true. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. People still had to put their children through school and feed their families.

  �
�Sita, ask the kitchen to make rice, potato sambar, and okra curry.”

  “Yes, Nithya. Also, the clothes are clean. You can remove them from the machine.”

  Across the room, Carma, Zeli, and Zeli’s sister sat on the sofa, blanked out in their visuals. The baby and Zeli’s mother cuddled on a cot next to the cabinet. Most of the static items had gone back to their lower shelf.

  They could put walls up at night once Zeli and her family found a permanent residence—or returned to Senegal. People at the front lines of the al-Muwahhidun had expressed hope that dakini technology could help in their fight, too. Zeli was eager to go home, perhaps even to join the defense efforts. The family had been excellent guests, but Nithya would be glad to have the flat back to themselves.

  Oh God, and she had better set Sita up to track her cycles again. Her period had returned a month earlier, after two weeks of not taking daily pills. The last thing their marriage needed was for her to get pregnant again.

  Her abortion seemed like it had happened in another lifetime, though not even two full months had passed. Her body had recovered, but her relationship with Luis would bear the scars forever. As if they didn’t have enough stress, Synaxel had terminated her contract within hours of her exposure of their malfeasance. She’d received everything from death threats to offers of marriage from strangers around the world, but as others came forward to support her, she started to get new contract offers from smaller funders.

  And then the miracle happened.

  Like every adult, she’d set up a tip jar along with her bank account. It never got much money. Nithya didn’t do anything to earn tips. She didn’t have a flamboyant, entertaining job like Welga’s. Over the past week, though, her balance brimmed so full that she had no problems paying their bills. The vast majority came from regular gig-working people—in single-digit amounts—but the sum astonished her.

  Carma tugged on Nithya’s arm. “Amma, I’m bored of this. Can I go upstairs to Shobana’s house?”

  “Sure, but come when I call you for dinner.” Nithya sent a small swarm with Carma and pushed the feed to the upper left of her visual.

  With schools now on summer holidays, they no longer had to care that the educational system’s WAIs hadn’t come back online. Trust in anything powered by artificial intelligence had eroded. The Indian government expected months, possibly years, before they finished reviewing and restoring all public WAIs and bots. They’d formed committees to review machine rights and to consider drafting laws about them, not as property but as forms of life. Private households, like their own, could take risks and turn their machines back on. Thank God for that.

  “Incoming call request from Olga Ramírez,” Sita announced.

  At last!

  “Accept,” she said, joining Luis in front of a static camera on the wall.

  They stared at each other for a full second before speaking all at once.

  “Hi.”

  “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You look well.”

  Welga snorted. “I’m better than when I left. I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t do it over the network. Here’s what I’m allowed to say: I did what I went up there for. I stopped the attacks. The Machinehood won’t threaten Earth anymore, and I owe a huge part of that to both of you. Thank you.” Her voice caught.

  Was her sister-in-law getting emotional? Nithya marveled at the possibility. Perhaps Welga had changed in more ways than her appearance.

  Luis smiled. “I guess this means you’ll live?”

  Welga nodded. “Yes, but I’ll have to return to the station. Whatever they did to make me this way also means I can’t stay in full gravity for too long or I’ll start falling apart, like Khandro.” She paused. “Luis, I want to bring Papa with me.”

  “Where? To space?”

  Welga nodded. “I can’t help him with the house anymore. You can’t keep running off to Phoenix. With his heart problems, he shouldn’t live alone, far from either of us. I figure you need some time to think it over, so do that before I leave. You have three days before I return to the station. If you can talk him into moving to Chennai, great, but if not, I’ll convince him to come with me. I think he might actually like the life up there.” Her focus shifted to Nithya. “What you did with that document—it took guts, strength.”

  “Not as much as what you’ve done,” Nithya said.

  “I don’t know about that. I don’t have a family depending on me, and I’m used to thinking of my life as expendable in the service of my country. Exposing the pill testing reports… it made a difference in my ability to complete my mission. You’re my squad mate in spirit if not in rank.”

  “And I might have a new career because of it,” Nithya said.

  “As a whistleblower?” Welga grinned.

  Nithya shook her head. “As a funder.”

  “What?”

  “Tips—so much that I think I can start my own project.”

  Welga blinked and shifted focus. “Goddamn. Look at that balance!”

  “Nothing too big, of course, but I hope to hire Zeli and a few others from my former team. I can also send money to repair your father’s house.”

  “That’s generous of you, but I’d rather he stay close to one of us, for his own sake.” Welga looked over her shoulder. “Time’s up. I’m heading home soon—to San Francisco—to pack up and collect Connor. He’s coming to the station with us. As a condition of the truce, I can’t accept any incoming communication—the government thinks I’m a security risk—but I’ll call you when they let me.”

  Welga disappeared from her visual.

  Luis shrugged. “She sounded fine, almost happy. It’s like she’s a new person.”

  “Reborn in space,” Nithya said. “Did you see that dakini appear in the Hindu pantheon, too, related to Kali? They are the embodiment of female power and sensuality. It fits Welga, I think.”

  “It does,” Luis said. He smiled. “I wonder if she knows about that. An atheist named after a goddess. She wouldn’t like it.”

  Nithya removed the clothes from the cleaning machine. Luis moved to the sofa to join Zeli. He might not have to gig anymore, if she could earn enough from funding other projects. Maybe he could spend more time on the rocketry work that he loved. Maybe one day they’d have enough coin to visit Eko-Yi.

  She has asked Sita to find the highest-rated tutorials on the basics of project funding. It scared her, starting on a new career path at this stage of life, but less than it would have a few weeks earlier. Acts of courage came easier with practice.

  WELGA

  13. Today, we recognize the atrocious nature of human slavery, and yet we refuse to acknowledge what we do to intelligent animals and machines. Unless we change, the future will judge us as harshly as we do the past.

  —The Machinehood Manifesto, March 20, 2095

  Olafson pulled Welga aside during the temporary chaos of the White House audience dispersing. The president, Ao Tara, and other officials had retired to a secure office. The monk had exchanged a brief glance of acknowledgment with Welga before they parted, and Welga felt a pang. Ao Tara was responsible for terrible things, but she had turned a corner, and Welga suspected she wouldn’t last long on Earth.

  Everyone had calmed down after they convinced themselves that she and Khandro Ekoyi weren’t going to blow themselves up or attack anyone—not that Khandro was in any shape to do so. They kept her sister dakini under medical arrest and set a monitor swarm on Welga. As an official ambassador, she had a degree of diplomatic immunity, and the people who’d worked with her vouched for her. She had permission to gather Connor and her things from San Francisco, but she had to return to DC within two days to catch the rocket to Eko-Yi. They would launch exactly two months after the initial Machinehood attack.

  “You’re going to live up there from now on?” Olafson said as they walked across the White House lawn.

  Welga nodded. Sweat trickled down her chest and stuck her hair to her neck. The
day’s heat lay like a suffocating blanket over the city.

  “I don’t have a choice. I left before they completed my mods, so I have a shorter fuse than the other dakini, but even when that’s complete, I can’t stay here too long.”

  Public swarms followed them like flies after honey.

  “You never know what tech they’ll develop next. Maybe they’ll have the ability to keep you healthy here on Earth one day.” Olafson shrugged and mopped his brow. “Hell of a stunt you pulled on the way down. The president came this close to launching surface-to-air missiles. I suppose you would’ve found a way to disable those, too?”

  “Maybe. I really don’t know.”

  No, those would’ve killed us. We can’t access their guidance systems.

  “Did you convert to Neo-Buddhism? Are you loyal to the station now?”

  “They didn’t ask me to take any oaths or swear on any books. What they do there feels more like a way of life than a religion. It’s… different, how they look at things. A mix of honor and twisted logic. I don’t think Ao Tara wanted this kind of violence to happen, but she also believes that she made the best choice for humanity.”

  “She’s a fanatic. Sounds like the caliph in many ways.”

  “Maybe not. She changed her mind in the end. I didn’t force her back to Earth.” I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. “She has sympathy for the caliph, though. Says that life in the empire isn’t as bad as we imagine.”

  “He’s remained silent throughout this whole crisis. You’d think he would side with the Machinehood and use this as an opportunity to spread their holy word. Our team… hit some issues over there.”

  “I know. I have eyes everywhere now. You pulled the operation soon after the White House announced the embargo.”

  “Not because we wanted to. I can’t help wondering what might’ve happened if you’d been there. Would you have gone in anyway?”