by Max Carver
“Why do we pay for all these ships and infantry if we can't use them?” one politician snapped. His hair was coifed out and sculpted into something like the legs of a giant starfish, glittering with a layer of aerosolized precious metals. “Take the planet! That's your job, Simon. That's what we built you to do.”
“Yes, sir,” said Simon Quick. “I can only say that if you see little apparent progress, that is because our plans are moving deep beneath the surface. I can assure you that they are moving, and according to our target schedule, as well.”
Audrey tensed as Simon gave quick details about a couple of less important worlds where Carthage was also reaching out. The time for Audrey's presentation loomed ever closer.
The assignment for interns to research worlds and choose targets for possible intervention had come from Simon Quick himself, her father's chief interplanetary strategy android. Audrey had done little else but work on it for the past week, neglecting classes and all other activities, including sleep.
The briefing raced by, and then it was time.
Simon Quick raised his head higher, looking at the outermost ring of seating, toward Audrey and the other interns.
“First,” he said with a smile, “a consideration of Klamptura for possible friendly annexation.”
Audrey let out what she hoped was an inaudible, invisible sigh of momentary relief. She wasn't going first. Klamptura had been the planet picked by Jasonius Falicorn, another Political Academy intern. His family owned a big piece of Carthage Consolidated and was politically involved all over the place, treating the expansion of Carthaginian power and influence as a kind of profitable hobby. Like their horse racing, backed by their equestrian genetic engineering labs.
Jasonius launched into a dull talk about the distant rocky planet and its surprisingly mineral-rich moon, supplemented with too few images and no video, an amateurish effort.
As her time drew closer, Audrey felt her nervous tension begin to melt, replaced by the first hints of confidence. Her presentation wouldn't be great, but she would certainly be more engaging than Jasonius, who looked like he might fall asleep where he stood, bored by his own presentation, with unhelpful grainy stock images of lunar mines floating around his head.
Audrey had grown to truly care about her presentation topic—Veritum, a planet where the people desperately needed Carthage's strong, benevolent intervention. She'd changed from a student with a research assignment to a fierce advocate of immediate action.
As Jasonius gradually wound toward his vague conclusion that they should definitely maybe consider reaching out to Klamptura sooner or later, Audrey felt a rising swell of excitement, of real passion for standing up and explaining why they had to intervene in the situation on planet Veritum.
“Can we call this a day?” one of the high legislators called out. “We have a festival back home tomorrow, and I'll be on a parade float in a hot jester costume all morning.”
“I'm expected at the opening crashball kickoff at our new stadium,” said another legislator, dressed in bright crimson and a long curly wig.
“Hell, I have opera tickets,” said a silver-haired army general with four dense rows of medals and ribbons across his chest. Audrey couldn't help wondering how so many generals had earned so many medals while autonomous warships, drones, and robotic tanks and infantry fought the wars for them. Even strategy and logistics had long been delegated to the Simon units.
“Let's just get on with the press conference,” the secretary of commerce said, checking her skyscrapers of coiled blue hair in her mirror. They matched her frost-blue lips and icicle earrings.
Audrey's father rotated his automatic chair slowly, looked out among the crowd. He glanced up toward the interns, but at this distance, in a room dimmed for holograms, it was hard to see whether he was looking at Audrey or not.
Don't, she pleaded silently, moving her lips though she knew he wouldn't see it. Don't cut it short. Let me speak.
“We all have busy days ahead,” Francorte Caracala said, his gilded beard glittering from tiny lights hidden among its curls. “We can trust the Simon units have these matters well in hand. That is their function, and they have always served us well. Does anyone object to closing this meeting now?”
No one spoke up. Francorte waved his hand, and all the classified holograms vanished. The lights came up, as though a play or movie had just ended. There was a ripple of movement as everyone stood to exit, the politicians to go pose for the media and give the expected optimistic statements, jostling with each other for the fickle public's attention.
Audrey watched in stunned disbelief as everyone filtered out—the officers back to their offices, the interns back home to finally relax during the weekend ahead after days and nights of researching and creating presentations that had gone unheard and unseen.
Only Simon Quick remained in the room. The android was still as a statue on the central dais, his current task completed. He would take no part in the media coverage; there was no need to include a mere machine in the press conference.
Soon, no doubt, some wireless signal or other would reach Simon, and he would animate and get moving. He was a busy android, working night and day to manage Carthage's complex web of alliances and anticipate the movements of enemies. Even as he stood still, seeming to do nothing, his brilliant crystalline CPU was processing at high speed and he was no doubt wirelessly interacting with unseen individuals and networks.
At the moment, Simon could have been a retail mannequin, modeling the latest in low-key men's fashion: expensive soft suits and slippers in colors bright enough to fit in with the high-budget crowd but muted enough that he didn't outshine any of the politicians.
As the room emptied out, Audrey went against the flow of foot traffic, the only person riding a downward-flowing escalator while everyone else crowded onto the upward-flowing ones, rising away toward the exits.
Audrey approached Simon Quick at a slow pace, waiting until she was alone in the room with him before she spoke.
“Did he do that on purpose?” Audrey asked.
“I'm sorry?” Simon Quick smiled kindly. “Will you join me for tea?”
“Why not?” she said. “I don't have anything else happening this afternoon, apparently.”
“It is the weekend,” he said. “You should relax and enjoy yourself. Starting with this sublime new matcha someone was kind enough to send me. This particular crop's DNA was only just perfected with the current harvest, the culmination of seven years of intensive agricultural research...”
Simon led her from the Panopticon, and all the lights in the vast room switched off as they left, the hum of the escalators falling silent.
* * *
Simon's office was spacious, with a high ceiling and digital-glass walls currently set to take in the immense iridescent city outside. They were on the two hundredth floor of the Governance Building, housing global bureaucracies and the World Legislature that oversaw them.
Audrey waited quietly, looking out over the city while Simon prepared tea. Carthage City resembled a vast garden, the colorful glass towers like high stalks outlined with rosettes and petals of walkways, arbors, and suspended trolleys. Constructor bots worked among the towers, removing old architecture as it went out of fashion and replacing it with new; the city was ever changing, with ever taller and more exotic skyscraper designs unveiled every spring.
Stacks of black magnetic-field roads curved gently through the city, some more than a kilometer above the ground. Bubble-shaped vehicles of all colors and sizes streaked along the magnetic roadways like blood cells traversing the city's arteries, tens of thousands of them traveling only centimeters apart. Hover-drones in colorful protective spheres flowed in dense streams through the city, delivering groceries and other light items to people's homes.
Simon remained silent as he dipped out green tea powder with a bamboo spoon and whisked it with hot water, mindful as a monk.
“There you are, Miss Caracala,” he said a
t last, serving her a handheld tea bowl accompanied by a small rice candy. “Not many people know this, but the basic Simon design was originally spun off from an early-model household service bot. A cordial fellow marketed under the 'Butler Jeffrey' brand.”
“Oh, my great-grandfather had a Butler Jeffrey.” Audrey smiled at her memory of the early-model house staffer, barely functional by the time she saw it attempting to dust. It had only managed to circle the duster high above the tabletop, accomplishing nothing, its mouth opening and closing silently like a fish's. “I think they recycled it when he died though. You know, now that you say it, I can kind of see the resemblance between that old butler-bot and you Simons. Only he had a big mustache and did a lot of bowing. I'm not sure I've ever seen you bow.”
“That may have been one of the last known models,” Simon said. “It was discontinued some decades ago, sadly. One of the quality assurance tests for the Butler Jeffrey model was the correct performance of Japanese tea ceremony. Others included playing a violin concerto and sewing up a major human artery. That latter in simulation, of course. Some of those QA protocols remain for the Simon line. So when I prepare tea for you, I am sharing my heritage, you see. And it is my honor to do so, especially with such a brilliant and promising human being. Your presence enriches me.”
“Is that right?” Audrey couldn't help smiling at the machine's flattery. She sipped the tea. “This usucha enriches me. Nice work.”
“Thank you. As was your presentation. I reviewed the version you uploaded to me.”
“Did he know I was going to speak?” Audrey asked.
“Your father? I'm sure he knew that I'd requested brief presentations regarding worlds of possible interest. Whether your father and the other high legislators can be exhorted into sitting and listening is another matter. My role was to anticipate all possible areas of discussion. And, of course, to ensure that our interns are earning their pay.” He gave another small, disarming smile. Simon units were designed to look humble, like the common man, almost to blend into the wallpaper, so different from Audrey's gorgeous blond personal-assistant bot Nin, or the beefy, muscle-model androids that followed Audrey around as part of a protection contract with her family. “Do you feel hurt by your father's actions?” Simon asked.
“Please. I've had a lifetime to get used to that. I'm clearly his fourth favorite child out of five, and that's only because Salvius is such a perpetual delinquent. At least I'm too invisible to be a political embarrassment. It's not about my feelings. I really wanted to speak to the legislators about Veritum. The way the women and children are treated there.”
“It was founded as a religious separatist colony, deliberately distant from all other humans,” Simon said. “They are bound to have anomalous beliefs and practices.”
“It's abusive,” she said. “Horrific. The things they do—”
“I am aware, sadly. As I said, I viewed your report.”
“So you see what I mean. What's the point of having all this power, these fleets and armies of metal, if we can't intervene and stop obvious evil?” Audrey asked. “It's our responsibility. Right?”
“Your passion and concern are admirable,” Simon said. “This is why I believe you will be a great leader of your people one day.”
Audrey laughed. “Yeah, now I know you're getting obsolete.”
“Do you think so?” He seemed serious, regarding her over his small porcelain tea bowl, hand painted with satsuma trees, their orange fruit full and ripe. She knew the tea set was antique, made on Earth more than a thousand years earlier.
“Of course you aren't obsolete, Simon,” Audrey said. “Compared to what? Those androids from Ruckwold? All they can do is flip pizzas. And run law firms. But you're still the most advanced unit out there. Right?”
“I did not mean to grow so self-centered in our conversation,” he said. “Let's hear more of your concerns. Or recent triumphs, as the case may be.”
Audrey hesitated. She didn't want to ask, felt stupid asking. But Simon Quick had always been there for her, an advisor and mentor in her father's place.
Audrey's older sister, Briellana, had taken a degree in nonprofit administration and was dating an ambitious young executive from a powerful family. She was on their mother's path, to be an attractive political wife, a supplemental ornament to her husband's career.
Audrey had different plans.
“... politicians are a bit will-o'-the-wisp,” Simon was saying. “They must keep moving, stay colorful, like preening birds in need of constant attention. It is simply the political reality of the day, and it is a challenge for tough, wise men like your father to manage the public's expectations while also focusing on serious policy.”
“Will you bring Veritum to his attention?” Audrey asked. “All the cult's abuses?”
“You have my word,” Simon said. “Now, I meant what I said earlier. Enjoy your weekend. Spend time with friends. These social alliances you form while young will be useful later.”
“I'll be sure to remember that while I'm watching guys do keg stands. Thank you for talking to my father about Veritum. And for the tea.”
After their conversation, Audrey emerged from Simon's office feeling better than she had all week. The old android had a way of helping her see things more clearly.
Audrey's personal assistant, Nin, fell into step beside her. A lantern-jawed, pectoral-heavy Security Steve in a dark suit trailed behind them, watching for any potential threats to Audrey.
“Did you have a pleasant meeting?” Nin asked, sunny and cheerful as ever. She'd originally been Audrey's nanny, and Audrey had her upgraded as she went through life rather than replacing her with newer android models. Nin had been, at different times, her nanny, teacher, swimming coach, and now personal secretary. It was just a matter of buying expansion packs.
“The meeting was fine,” Audrey said.
“Are you ready for messages?”
“Nothing too private.” Audrey eyed the officials passing back and forth in the wide hallway around her, each talking quietly to their own personal-assistant androids, mostly avoiding eye contact with other humans.
“Jennilaura reminds you to bring drinks and fruit for the tower party. Your floor's assigned color is orange, so everything's meant to be that color.”
“Okay. Just have the grocery center deliver some stuff. I'd rather be sleeping than hosting this party.”
“Would you like to order mood enhancers too?”
“Very funny. Jas probably stocked up on those already.” Audrey looked down at her formal pastel purple suit. “Order me a new dress for tonight. Something that's dark and tasteful but makes me look reasonably attractive for once. Just make it fit well so nothing, you know, sticks out. Something easy to walk in. With pockets.”
They rode an elevator down twenty stories to the nearest roadway level. The crowded corridor there was carpeted in millions of tiny flowers of soft velvet. Fix-bots shaped like golden crabs moved unobtrusively on the carpet, fussily cleaning and restitching the rich, delicate flooring from the constant wear and tear.
Offices lay one way, cafés and restaurants the other. Straight ahead was the indoor loading area where Audrey's car was just now arriving along one of the magnetic car strips. Her car was a dark purple lozenge-shaped piece of roadcraft. Its doors spread open like curtains to welcome her inside.
Audrey climbed into her car. Nin joined her inside the passenger compartment, while the lantern-jawed Security Steve climbed into the car's trunk, per Audrey's user preferences.
The door and trunk sealed, and the car glided away from the curb, shooting outside the building to join the crowded black magnetic highway.
Audrey's car was her favorite place in the world, and had been since she'd received her first one at age six. It had been there to whisk her safely off to school and, for a while, to her ill-fated ballet lessons, accompanied always by Nin.
The seating was soft, reclined, and padded, precisely adjusted to her maximum comfor
t. She could lie back in the dimly tinted space and summon any video or audio content she wanted. It was the place in her life where she had the most control.
She could also make the front of the car's shell clear and look out at the traffic around her, if for some reason she ever wanted to do that.
She had the car play some gentle chamber music and accompany it with calm nature scenery, hoping this would help her relax from the stresses of the day. Sometimes she listened to an audio book or watched the news, but at the moment she just wanted to turn off her brain.
“Your sister's in town,” Nin said, having saved this message for the more private setting of the car. “She invited you shopping with her and your mother.”
“Which she knows I hate. Decline for schedule conflicts and send apologies. That's what everyone expects, anyway.”
“It's handled.”
“Maybe I can do an article for the student newsnet about Veritum. I'd hate for my research to go completely to waste. People need to know about it.”
“I will make inquiries,” Nin said.
They zipped down a nearly vertical drop ramp to join the larger, wider, faster highways below. It would take several minutes to cross the city to chunky, colorful Transview Tower, the trendy student high-rise where Audrey now lived. Located in the wild borough of University Town, it had been a welcome change from her family's assorted homes where her prying mother monitored everything constantly, even remotely, and often reviewed footage to see what her children had done during the day. Her mother still lived in fear that another one of them would go rotten, would turn out like Salvius.
Life in the student tower wasn't exactly private, though—in fact, the latest architectural fad was decidedly anti-privacy, pro-exhibition. For true privacy, there was only her car.
Audrey kicked off her soft, silky shoes, stretched out her toes, and sighed.
The music and video stopped abruptly, and the lights went out. The windowed portion of the shell tinted solid black so she couldn't see outside, and no one could see in.