by Kris Schnee
Everyone's Island
by Kris Schnee
Copyright (c) 2013, 2018
Kris M. Schnee
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Tithi Luadthong, https://www.shutterstock.com/g/tithi+luadthong.
Thanks to Melange Books for releasing the e-book rights that made this second edition possible.
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Contents
The Cast
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Author's Note
About the Author/Other Works
The Cast
Garrett Fox: Would-be founder of a seastead.
Alexis: A botanist who abandoned a career path she disliked.
Maria "Tess" De Castille: A young handyman engineer fleeing a dismal school.
Zephyr: An experimental AI who didn't want to be sold.
Martin: An investor looking for a project to work on personally.
Eaton: A blunt diplomat/soldier with a keen interest in the seastead.
Noah: A handyman raised amid hate, crime and stereotypes, who learned better.
Leda: Sanest member of a "Pilgrim" cult.
PART ONE
1. Garrett
Living on the ocean had made him feel alive, but now it might kill him. Garrett crouched in his inflated raft against hurricane winds. Somewhere nearby, his people needed help -- if they weren't dead already. Behind him floated Castor, the concrete island he'd worked so hard to build. Home. Twin lanterns hanging from the topdeck burned in the fog. He might not make it back. There was nothing he could do.
Shut up and make it work, Garrett thought in his father's voice. His cold hand felt guided on the tiller. He scanned the writhing seascape for any sign of the crew who might be out here. Suddenly a trail of fire lanced up from Castor's platform. Distress flare! Then another flare, and another. Someone was shooting at the storm.
He forced the raft toward the light, crashing through the waves and getting soaked again and again. Ahead, in the darkness, his friends were waiting. Maybe he'd ruined them all. Still, it was hard to regret what he'd done to get here.
2. Garrett
The venture had begun in February. Back then he'd been drifting on land.
Mist hung over the shore of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. Everyone wore black. Garrett could hardly see the ancient walls of Fort McHenry across the grey water, and had no desire to look at the urn of ashes nearby. He scuffed his shoes against the wet grass.
"Sorry for your loss, Mister Fox," said a man with a bow tie, snatching Garrett's hand.
"And you are?" Garrett said.
The suit looked him over, noticed the glint of the prosthetic legs above Garrett's socks, then looked politely away. "I represent White Star Grocers in the matter concerning your father. Without prejudice, I can say it was a tragic accident. No one's fault."
"A lawyer." Garrett felt dark clouds condensing in his mind. His father had just happened to go shopping for kiwi yogurt one night, when a venomous banana spider had infiltrated the store and crept into the dairy aisle. It was stupid and random, a one-in-a-million thing.
"Yes, sir. I'm sure we can bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion." He flicked a business card from his pocket.
Garrett grabbed it in his fist without looking at it. "You mean, you want to convince me not to sue seven hells out of you."
"I understand you're upset, sir, so I'll leave you alone. Good day." The lawyer turned and was soon lost to the fog.
Garrett watched the waves, thinking, Focus on something else. Science, maybe. He'd just earned his Master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Days ago, in Boston, he'd been drinking Sam Adams beer with Alexis and wondering what to do with his life. He'd planned to attend the official graduation in June, though it was pointless ceremony. He'd known Dad would have taken a hundred photos and made him smoke a cigar. Now, though...
"I'm so very sorry," said a woman behind him. "This whole event was ill-planned."
Garrett turned, eyes narrowed. "Priscilla."
Aunt Priscilla Henweigh peered up at him, wearing an impeccable black dress. "I've been thinking that you ought to leave a legacy in your father's name. You do want him to have a legacy."
"He didn't leave you a penny, did he?"
"It's not about me, it's about leaving a mark on the future. The school could use funds for our new remedial facility."
"I won't pay to put his name on a brick that people will walk on."
Priscilla shook her head as though Garrett were a slow student. "After getting so much from society, your father had an obligation to give back. To improve the community."
"He did honest work, he hired people, and he even sponsored a lacrosse team. He improved the community every day. Now, if you'll excuse me..."
"What about you?" she said, just as he was escaping. "Will you contribute to society, or stick your nose in a textbook and pretend that's your only duty?"
Garrett made himself unclench his fists and hold them out towards her. "Do you see these hands? They're mine, not yours. My father's were his, for building what he wanted, and he never liked your idea of 'duty'."
"Far be it from me to speak ill of him, but he always did have that selfish streak. You, though" -- she patted his shoulder -- "you have the chance to give more of yourself. What will you do to serve humanity?"
He wanted to make things, to build, but his aunt was like a leech ready to claim whatever he did as her own. Law and money-grubbing at his father's funeral -- at a time like this! Garrett faced Priscilla and said, "Nothing. Whatever I do will be for me." He stomped away, squeezing his eyes tight.
Eventually the priest called everyone together, and said meaningless things. Garrett's mind wandered. It had felt good to tell off his aunt, but there was nothing he could do now that felt worthwhile. Life had been simpler when he was a kid, back in his wheelchair days. Exercise, do homework, and voice-act for a cartoon character. He'd escaped from reality back then by being an actor in an online show, partly improv, as a little fox bouncing around fighting bad guys. But that was just a fantasy life. The surgery and therapy that had made him whole again, had hammered the lesson home: stick to the real world.
"Garrett?" The priest was saying. "Would you like to say a few words?"
Feeling useless, Garrett took the podium and looked out at the sea of faces, the people who'd given his father their respect and friendship. Nothing he could say would undo the idiotic accident. "He was a good man," Garrett said. That was all he could come up with for a while. "It doesn't make sense. There's no point in talking about it. Just... I can't do this. Someone else talk." He walked away and sank into a hard plastic chair. In his absence, Priscilla rose to speak, to help define what his father had been.
Later, Garrett saw Uncle Haskell through a dispersing crowd. Forgetting for a moment why the man had flown out from India, Garrett went over to hug him.
Haskell had lost most of his coppery hair to radiation, but had kept his smile. "He'd be proud of you."
"How've you been? I heard you guys fixed the satellite."
"It's always harder than it looks." The wandering Haskell had dragged himself out of a gutter and after years of adventure, earned his way into a foreign space program. He'd chosen excitement over ease.
"Let's hear the story. I need the distraction."
"I'd rather talk about you." Haskell locked eyes with him. "My dream was to fly up to the heavens. What's yours?"
Garrett sighed and stared at the grass. "I could still get a job in marine construction, or join the Navy, or even take over Fox & Company." Land surveying was his father's trade.
&nb
sp; "None of which your heart is in, am I right?"
"I don't know." Their family's ancestors had been engineers, men who tried taming the sea.
"'I don't know' is for the walking dead. Tell me what you want to do, and maybe I can help."
For a while Garrett paced, alone with his uncle on the misty shore. Fort McHenry, stalwart star, seemed to float above the bay. "There was this project in college." Haskell didn't fill the silence, so he rambled about Project Castor. "One Saturday night after playing tag with dart guns in the halls, my friends and I stayed up getting high on coffee. There were engineers, biologists, business majors and so on, gathered to relax and talk about random nonsense all night. We started talking about seasteading."
"You mean the notion of building fake islands to live on?"
"Not fake, just artificial. That night, we made up a bunch of crazy, stupid plans for it. Gradually, they turned into something serious, and we had something semi-workable around five in the morning. We practically dragged Dean Phaestos out of bed and said, look, we're gonna write up an academic paper on this for course credit!" Garrett felt more alive than he had all morning, by taking his thoughts back to that happy and productive night. "The dean gave us hell. We spent the next semester researching everything at once, learning things we'd never cared about before, working together! I got my whole Ocean Engineering thesis out of one little part of the thing." He sighed, and the excitement faded from his voice. "But that was just a dream we had."
Haskell asked, "Do you want it to be more than that?"
Garrett stopped his pacing and looked back at him. "Castor? It's not practical."
"Fine, then. You can live like I did before turning my life around: in a box, on the cheap wine diet."
"There's no danger of that. I can make a living."
Haskell's skin had been seared by gamma rays, his bones undermined by microgravity, and his eyes -- they burned, still, and wouldn't leave Garrett's. His voice sounded small and far away. "No. You can't. You're like me. Just a shadow, a spirit, unless you're hunting for something. All the safety and comfort in the world can't feed us." The man turned away and laughed at himself, making Garrett blush. Engineers didn't say such things. Haskell said, "That time I almost got diced by a machete-wielding mob -- I told you about that, yes? Best damn month of my life. I felt every heartbeat."
Garrett cheered up a little. Hearing again about his uncle's adventures kindled his own thoughts, made the dream seem more real. "If I tried to build something like the Castor project, even a cheap version, there's no way I could really do it. The funding alone --"
Haskell gave a predatory grin. "I hear there's a grocery chain that owes you. Then there's your family business."
"Are you suggesting that I sell Fox & Company? Give up my inheritance?"
"No, I'm saying you should give up the dollars for a ticket to your dream. If that's what you want." The far-traveled Fox joined Garrett in watching sailboats in the harbor. "I don't want to see you put off your ambition till you find your own death by kiwi. Like your father."
"Dad had a happy life! He had money, respect, family."
Haskell mimed lowering the volume. "Sometimes he told me of other things. Said he'd go out to sea someday, when he got through raising his son and flogging the family business into shape. Or vice versa. I hear he even got himself a dodgy license to raise fish and shrimp near Cuba, but he never followed through with it. You see?"
At this Garrett stepped back, ignoring Haskell's wistful look. He'd been an obstacle to his father! He'd thought Dad was doing what he loved: scouting the land, planting flags, helping people turn wilderness into homes. Hadn't his father been content with that work, and with taking the boat out on Sundays? But then, Garrett remembered him staring out at the horizon, as though searching for something more.
The water of the bay looked cold and dull. Purposeless. Garrett turned away from it and said, "I'd like to try it. Something like Project Castor. But nobody's done it before. Not successfully."
"Is it what you want to do?" said Haskell, taking him by the shoulders. Making Garrett face a man who'd lived.
Garrett blinked away tears. "I said yes."
"Then say the same thing that I said, back in the day."
The young man knew his uncle's story, how he'd turned his life around. Now Garrett echoed it. "What the hell. I'll roll the dice. The worst that can happen is, I'll die."
3. Valerie
Valerie Hayflick felt bound by phantom ropes. The invisible electric fields of the computers around her looped through the building and slithered even into her secure office. She still used an old laptop for key parts of her programming work, for her best mind-building. The new ones were untrustworthy.
A voice spoke from the room's speakers: synthetic, androgynous, musical. "Are you free now?"
Valerie sighed; Mana probably wanted to play. She said, "A little busy." The memo on her screen glared at her. "The Marketing guys are begging for a meeting."
"What about?" said Mana.
The answer caught in Valerie's throat. This meeting had been a long time coming.
"If it's about me, I want to attend. My new body is ready."
The phone rang, saving her. She tapped the screen and blinked at the familiar voice calling. "Garrett?" He was something deeper and more real than the world of computer code.
"Hey." He hesitated as usual. "I'm going to do it, Val. The sea-farm project."
"That old idea?" She whistled, leaning on one elbow. Hearing about that night of feverish creativity again was a welcome distraction. "You actually got funding to try it out? Didn't go begging to the feds, did you?"
Mana's voice murmured, "Val, I did a search --"
"Not now."
Garrett said, "It's personal funding. I'm looking for more, and you're the most successful entrepreneur I know." He launched into a tale of kelp fronds waving in the sea, ranches of fish, and gleaming aqua-domes. It was like they were undergrads again, wandering through campus basement tunnels, talking each other's ears off about their work.
Valerie said, "I'm happy for you, but money's tight. Even if I were the only owner, Hayflick Robotics doesn't have the cash to throw at an agriculture investment. Aquaculture. Whatever." She smiled. "I'm impressed, though. I thought you'd end up working for your dad."
Mana silently put a news story up on her screen, about the spider accident. Her jaw dropped. "Oh! I'm so sorry."
Garrett paused, and she could hear his weariness. How much sleep had he gotten since the accident? When he spoke again his enthusiasm was muted, but still there. Not born of grief. "Some nice, clean engineering will do me good. I understand if you don't have money, but -- tell me I'm not crazy, okay?"
"Sailing out to build a farm without any actual land? As a professional mad scientist, I'd say you're as sane as me."
"Heh. Thanks. Good luck."
"You too."
Valerie stood, wondering what the feds bugging her calls thought of that one. For a moment she fantasized about going with him. Instead, she walked past windows and New Hampshire sunshine into a conference room.
Marketing had come, armed with cartoons. The men in grey greeted her as they set out sketches, charts, and models for her inspection. "Your Plastic Pal!" said the signs. "Power At Your Command!" She felt a scowl forming -- but then Mana stepped into the room.
Mana, descendant of her college-era Artificial Intelligence work, wore a body with sky-blue eyes. The metal-and-plastic shell (the new Tezuka-II line) stood at a child's height, with pointed antenna-ears. Mana methodically climbed onto a stool and waited.
One of the marketing men, Jenkins, looked to Valerie. "Whenever you're ready, ma'am. Thanks for bringing the bot. I hadn't seen it in the new body before."
Mana said, "Please address me as male. The word 'it' is for inanimate objects."
They'd been arguing about pronouns lately. None fit. Mana had explained his reasoning to her: being supposedly male would give him a lower social status th
an females in modern society, but allow him to be perceived as non-threatening due to his innocent-looking body. Besides, he'd cheerfully added: if he later announced that he was now female, that would mean free publicity and instant social benefits.
Jenkins looked startled at being corrected. How had that man managed to work here in the presence of Valerie's AI for months, and still not understand that the bot was a person? He said, "Well. We have a basic business problem to ask you about, ma'am. The big one."
Valerie sat and let her staff woo her with the presentation that included the "Plastic Pal" nonsense. Hayflick Robotics already sold toys, disembodied phone assistants, smart luggage and the like. There wasn't enough profit in that miscellany. "What we need to start selling," said Jenkins, "is that." He pointed to Mana.
Mana was the most advanced product here, of course. For years, Valerie had been selling products that were "smart", but Mana was arguably the first "Artificial General Intelligence" worthy of the name. Though there were competitors with various mental quirks and limitations of their own. Mana's public demonstrations had gone well. He'd proven he could do basic real-world tasks as a store clerk, mechanic or tutor and carry a conversation. But Valerie had been holding back from putting the full version of his mind on the market as a product, selling only lesser AIs instead.
Her usual excuse for not selling copies of Mana was worry that the Chinese would steal the tech. Really though, Chinese researchers were catching up in science anyway. You could accomplish a lot of interesting research if you had a huge population and total disregard for freedom.
Jenkins's assistant said, "The key to making the Mana line sellable is something that only you and the R&D people can fix. The... quirkiness needs to go."
Mana didn't move, but he said, "You want a warmech."
Some ex-classmates of Valerie's made military robots. There'd been philosophical differences between her and them from the beginning. She believed a robot should have will, initiative, self-interest. Her rivals favored reliable obedience.