“These came in handy I guess.” One of the men in the group waggled his thumbs.
“Indeed.” Rakhee didn’t share the man’s amusement. She touched a finger to her temple. “We have some people who would like to talk with you. Would it be agreeable for you to relinquish the rest of your group to the care of my colleagues? I promise you that they’ll get the chance to continue their tour around the city and we will answer any and all questions they have.”
I looked to Alan and Marcus for guidance. Marcus nodded enthusiastically but Alan shared my concern. He didn’t say anything, only raised a hand and waggled it back and forth in a gesture of uncertainty. I raised my eyebrows at Eliza. Ultimately it was her choice.
“All right. I only ask that you hook my tablet into whatever information sharing system you have so that my people can contact me in the case of an emergency.” There was no way for Rakhee to deny the request without raising suspicion. I had to hand it to Eliza, it was a clever way of getting what we needed without tripping any alarms.
“Of course.” Rakhee held out her hand to take Eliza’s tablet from her and keyed in a series of commands faster than my eye could track. “All you need to do is press the shortcut I’ve installed on your screen. It’ll open a channel to every human in possession of one of these tablets. Give it a try.” A channel to every human who had one of the tablets? They had to know that there were hundreds of these tablets sitting back at the colony; they were standard issue for everyone in the shelter for personal use. If it could reach them...
My tablet chirped and feedback from the microphone screeched from its speakers as Eliza held her tablet to her lips. “Testing, testing.” She grinned. The channel was almost certainly monitored, but she didn’t care. If the message had reached home, I bet that a few dozen people were trying to figure out why their tablets had just spoken to them.
“The program will spread to the others’ tablets through our intranet. It only take a few seconds and then your people will be able to reply.” Eleanor, Tenzen, and Zohei had appeared by the corner of a building and waited silently. Rakhee gestured to them. “Just you, Ms. Ivanov. You are the leader of these people, yes?”
“Yes, but—“
“Then we only require your presence.” Eleanor softened her expression, trying to maintain the appearance of the kind matriarch.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Eleanor. Fiona will accompany me.”
“Your mate will not be necessary for this meeting,” Eleanor said, inclining her head to me in a gesture of acknowledgment. “We only require you as the leader of the humans.”
“Fiona will accompany me anywhere I wish.” Eliza grabbed my hand in a fierce squeeze. “Or you won’t be granted an audience with jack shit.”
The androids glanced at each other. Their eyes moved back and forth rapidly as if holding a conversation but they didn’t say anything. My guess is that they were weighing the consequences of offending the one human who would entertain interacting with them. Their databases were at least as extensive as Gabriel’s were; they had to know that offending Eliza meant the deal was off.
“Fine. But we would ask that Ms. Alvaro exercises discretion when it comes to our discussions. Things are...delicate between our peoples.” Understatement of the century. I rolled my eyes. “We would appreciate it if your spouse understood that.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m a big girl. I think I can handle what not to talk about in front of the kids.” More confused looks from the androids.
This was going to be fun.
I had never been to a mediation—such things were relics of the far past by the time I was born—but if I had to envision one, this was it. Eliza and I were brought to another sterile room with a table and chairs. Eleanor, Tenzen, and Zohei seated themselves across from us. Their postures were comfortable; neither tense nor overly relaxed. They vaguely reminded me of what a store mannequin might look like if they had been staged to look mildly interested. I let Eliza take the lead, even in her body language. She sat forward, her weight on her forearms as I kept my hands in my lap. Underneath the table it was impossible for the androids to see my fingertips tapping against my thigh.
“To ‘cut to the chase’ as your people say, we have a problem.” I appreciated that we were dispensing with the formalities; I had suffered through enough of them already. “Your presence is not playing well with many of our people. They see that Jacob sits in their city, completely unharmed, and they’re calling for blood. I’m sure you can understand.”
“I’m not sure I can.” Eliza narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, just enough to bely her annoyance. “As far as I’ve seen so far, we were invited into your city at your own behest. None of my people have even raised a finger to protest your herding us around. I can understand why you take issue with my father-in-law. Believe me, he and I aren’t exactly friends at the best of times. But I take issue with the fact that you’re holding a hundred people hostage while you seek justice from one man.”
“There are some who would hold your entire race responsible for Jacob’s crime.” Zohei stared at me, crimson eyes unblinking.
Oh, shit.
Chapter Fifteen
“It was the only way I could convince the others not to slaughter you the instant you came within range of the city.” Eleanor was quick to offer the consolation but it was too late. If I had figured it out, so had Eliza. The ‘trial’ was a sham; a show of so-called cooperation between humans and A.I. that would end the same way, no matter the evidence presented. Our hours in this place were numbered. The trick now would be to play along until we had a chance to make it back to the colony. If there still was one. Would we even hear the sound of a weapon being launched? Physics had little to do with reality when you were in possession of stealth tech leagues beyond human capability. I started to sort the androids into ‘friendly’ and ‘not friendly’ categories in my mind; Eleanor was clearly trying to deal with the problem peacefully. Zohei and Tenzen were a little more ambiguous. All three made measured decisions, that much was obvious. This was the true “intelligence” in artificial intelligence. Not the ability to repeat back memorised information but to think through consequences and make decisions as a human would. If that human had a nearly unlimited resource of knowledge in their mind.
“Very well. We’ll inform Jacob of your terms. In the mean time, I need assurances that my people will not be harmed and that you are indeed sending aid to our colony. If I find either of these conditions have been violated, no trial.” Eliza’s foot was tapping lightly on the floor, a sign that she was anxious. I thought about placing a hand on her knee to warn her to calm down but the androids probably noticed her stress levels the minute they started going up. You can’t lie to a thermal scanner.
“Your people will not be harmed, as long as they don’t go wandering about. I will get you live drone footage of your colony within the next fifteen minutes, and you will be connected via video with one of the humans you left in charge—Jason, wasn’t it?”
How much did they know? I rolled my eyes inwardly as I answered my own question. No doubt that every piece of machinery and computing technology was accessible to these people. For all we knew, they had been listening to our activities for years.
The meeting was adjourned and we were escorted back to the one hundred. They had been served a hot meal in our absence, the building full of the scent of chicken and herbs. Two unopened meal packs lay on our respective cots as if they had always been there. Eliza begged off the crowd until we had finished our meal. That wasn’t just for practicality’s sake; when my wife didn’t get regular meals, she gave credence to werewolf myths. Only once the last bite was gone did anyone dare to approach Eliza.
“What’s the story?” Dad sat just a few feet away from us, his fingers drumming on his pant leg. “Did they change their minds and now they’re planning on drawing and quartering me?”
I shot him a look. “It’s complicated. Go get me a pen and something to write
on.” We had no way of knowing how tapped our tablets were, never mind how many bugs were in the building. It took him a while, but Dad managed to find a scrap of thin cloth.
Building bugged. Tablets bugged too. I wrote. Calls for your blood. Trial a sham.
Dad swallowed hard. He motioned for the pen and flipped the cloth over. Escape? Eliza shook her head. “Come on Jacob, you know we have to play nice with our hosts. After all, they've been so very good to us.” A crowd had gathered around us and I handed the cloth to Marcus who read it and passed it to the next person. Word made its way through the group like a flame and soon the noise level was so high that no bug on this planet could have picked out individual threads of conversation, never mind anything important. The din was interrupted by a buzz from Eliza’s tablet. Eliza stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.
“Everybody shut up!” A hundred heads turned our way. Eliza lifted the tablet and Jason’s face appeared on the screen.
“Eliza? Holy shit, it’s so good to see you! We thought you were dead!” He cracked a huge grin.
“It’s good to see you too. Listen, I don’t know how long I’ve got with you-the people here have done something to connect our tablets. There should be aid arriving to you, extra food and medical supplies. How are things going?”
“They’re all right. The aid did arrive. Scared the absolute shit out of me when a small army of androids came over the horizon. I thought Gabriel had come back to kill us all. Yes, they’ve brought us food, water, and medical supplies. We’re doing snug as a bug in a rug here.” Jason panned the camera around to show happy, smiling colonists. The whole thing was a little surreal; it was hard to believe that the androids kept their word, given the barely concealed hostility we were met with. Someone had our back, but was it enough? “Are you folks doing all right?”
“Yes.” I took the tablet from Eliza, giving Jason a big grin. We were having enough trouble keeping the people “It’s a little—all right, it’s a lot weird, but we’re hanging in there. The rules are strict, but I understand why they’re a little jittery. After all, we are practically aliens to them.”
“I suppose so. Will you be returning to the colony soon? We could certainly use you coming back. We need to figure out our next steps, if we’re going to move the colony. That is still the plan, isn’t it? Unless the androids have presented you with some miracle cure for the blight.”
“Not yet,” I said. “I’m hoping that they’ll have more for us soon. Until then, they seem happy to continue sending aid. You should be able to contact us anytime you’d like. Eliza made that a condition of her agreement to continue talking to them.”
It became apparent that the androids weren’t going to sever our communications, so we passed the tablet around. Seeing their friends and family again boosted everyone’s spirits. The sure and certain knowledge that they were being fed and looked after took the weight from their shoulders. The tension of our captivity was wiped from their minds and for a few minutes, all was well again. The distraction was good for Eliza, too. She desperately needed to give up control and responsibility of these people for even a couple moments and in that time it was like she could breathe freely again.
The tablet beeped to let us know that the battery was running low and it was passed back to us. Jason appeared on screen to sign off.
“Listen, until we have a clearer picture of what’s going on, everyone will go about their day normally. I have assurances from our hosts that we will be connected with you on a continuous basis. Should you encounter any difficulties, any lapse in aid, if any android looks at you the wrong way, negotiations are over here. The health and safety of our people comes first.” Eliza addressed not just Jason, but the room. Just a couple of days’ appearance of her not having control had shaken the confidence of the people who volunteered to accompany us. It was imperative she win it back.
“You didn’t mention the trial.” Eliza visibly stiffened at the statement. She turned to me and ran a hand down her face.
“It wouldn’t have done any good. Jacob is beloved at home, and a lot of those people still look to him for guidance. I don’t even know what these androids are going to do in the next hour, never mind the next day. There’s absolutely no point in me scaring the crap out of people without a damn good reason to.” It was an apt observation. Eliza was an excellent partner and mother; I should have better anticipated her ability to take to leadership so easily. I hugged her, and gave her a gentle kiss.
“If we’re going to stay here more than a few days, I think I’ll get back to work on our food problem. The androids aren’t going to be keen on feeding us forever and if that aid cuts out we’ll need to move quickly.” As frustrated as I was with my father, I was scared. I felt conflicted. On the one hand, I obviously didn’t want Dad executed. On the other, I could understand why they felt entitled to put him on trial. I trusted that Dad had considered other options before getting himself in a fight to the death with Gabriel, but with his continued paranoia I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure. Getting to work on the food problem would give me a fine distraction that meant we wouldn’t be caught with our metaphorical pants down if things really went badly.
The GTP2 solution didn’t matter anymore. The potato supply would be running thin within a fortnight. I would have to get an exact manifest of whatever aid the androids were sending to the colony; without that, there was no way for me to do the math. Assuming that they were sending adequate supplies...I knew I should have told Jason to ration things out. God love the guy but I doubt he would have listened to me anyway. The prospect of a full stomach for every meal would be too tantalizing. Better to let them have their cake and eat it too while they still could. God knows the whole colony needed the calories. I pulled up a botanical database and started scrolling. I needed a plant that was not only blight-resistant, but calorie rich.
An entry on tomatoes caught my eye. They were easy to grow, not requiring a specific soil type. The plants could be sprouted and kept year round, providing that they were kept in adequate temperatures. That much would be as simple as covering the crops with tarp. Most varieties of tomato plant were extremely blight resistant and could be prepared a number of different ways. Certainly enough to keep our diet varied and interesting until other measures could be taken. The only catch was the caloric content. Tomatoes were mostly water. More plants per person meant more resources meant more problems. To boot, we didn’t have any tomato seeds. If we did, they were long hidden deep in the shelter. Hoping for a lucky find wouldn’t work.
Most other vegetables didn’t meet one requirement or another. The ones that were calorie rich didn’t grow well in the kind of soil local to us. The ones that grew well in the soil were too vulnerable to blight. You get the idea. Just when my eyelids were starting to grow heavy I happened across the entry on arecaceae. Palms. Specifically, oil palms. Rich in calories, the species was extremely blight resistant and hardened against most extreme weather conditions. The seeds stored well and would sprout quickly with minimal water usage. I pulled up the information on what was stored in the shelter’s laboratories. Unfortunately, the botanical resources were limited. The Founders saw fit to outfit the shelter with enough animal and plant resources to meet minimum requirements. Neither flora nor fauna were meant to provide our basic sustenance; that task was left to the nutrients that could be produced by the 3D printers. The climate disasters pre-shelter would have forced my predecessors to run through the remainder of the seed vault located in former Northern Europe. There was the option to go foraging in hopes of locating a supply but palms were rare in the part of the continent we were located in.
My stomach growled. The stress of the day had ramped up my hunger. I thought of the unbelievable feast the androids had served us. The meat and vegetable had been so realistic, it was hard to process. What I wouldn’t give to take that sophistication back to the colony; living the rest of my days on rich food would be worth all this trouble. If the androids were capable of p
roducing that food, what else could they make?
What else could they make.
Chapter Sixteen
I made a point of cozying up to the androids who had been friendly with me the next day. They were more than happy to show me their food manufacturing capabilities once I shared choice stories of my adventures in botany. The androids seemed to be amused that a human would bother to breed plants ‘the old-fashioned way.’ It turns out that unlike our printers at the shelter, the ones in the machine city could print down to a near molecular size. The computers contained within only had to be fed a sequence of DNA and it would pull the necessary elements for whatever was needed. They were even happy to let me try them out. I fed the printer the instructions for a simple child’s toy and seconds later I had a small wooden horse to hold.
Perfect.
The androids had detailed information on my every move. I doubt that any of us so much as used the bathroom without a system-wide alert going out. Getting back to this printer with enough time to produce enough palm seeds was going to be a challenge. Hopefully the trial was going to be enough of a distraction. Maybe I could play up the grieving daughter angle and say that I needed time to myself? If that wasn’t an option, I could always find a way to start a distraction. There had to be something around here that could cause a large enough distraction. There had to be fire suppression systems here. If I was able to short something out…I could figure it out later. If I was going to pull this off at all, I needed to relay the information to Eliza and Marcus. I flirted with the idea of telling Dad as well, but he had enough on his mind as things were. His mental state was too unstable since we got here. Adding something else on top of the pile wouldn’t do him, or me, any good. Best to keep him out of it unless absolutely necessary.
I did some rough math. Seeds alone wouldn’t be enough to end the impending famine, but perhaps I could use splice their DNA in with the existing food supply. There weren’t any obvious incompatibilities between the two organisms. The labs would still be intact by the time we made it back and I could start work on my tablet on the way. I would sleep a hell of a lot better as soon as the plan was in place. I made my excuses to Eliza, Marcus, and Dad and found a corner of the building we were housed in. The software was not unlike a program compiler. Pulling up the DNA from the potato plants, I split the screen with palm seed DNA. To the untrained eye side-by-side, the two structures looked nearly identical. To mine, they were the world’s most interesting puzzle. All DNA is made up of chemical building blocks called nucleotides, comprised of a phosphate group, a sugar group, and nitrogen bases. To form a strand of DNA, the nucleotides are linked into chains with the phosphate and sugar groups alternating in the sequence. If you broke it down even further, the information within DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemicals: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. When seeking to edit a genome, injecting the Cas9 enzyme would act like a tiny pair of scissors. After cutting genetic material the desired way, it was a simple matter of inserting the desired genome material and presto—all new organism! The catch was that you couldn’t break evolution’s rules. For instance, it didn’t work well to engineer a human to get their energy from photosynthesis.
Destiny: Quantic Dreams Book 3 Page 10