The dog had savaged her before she managed to kill it by sitting on its ribcage until it suffocated. She hadn't yet embarked on her body-building campaign, and the dog had been a big one, half German Shepherd and half foam-drenched teeth. For a while she feared she would die of blood loss before the infection could take hold. But she did survive the immediate attack. The pit was earthen so she couldn't kill herself by bashing her head on the sides or floor; the walls crumbled when she tried to climb out. And of course it was hard to climb with her hands tied behind her.
She waited.
Her wounds became infected and ran with pus; she lost feeling in her left leg. For a couple of days she wondered if she would die of gangrene before the rabies showed up. Then on the tenth day she began to feel weak and feverish. She had been ravenously hungry; she had arranged for no food, just to make things worse for herself. But her hunger disappeared. She felt her throat constrict. On the eleventh day she began to foam at the mouth.
The pit swam with colors. Her body seemed to catch fire as the disease entered its excitative phase. She shook. She was immersed in fire, pins and needles, unbearable sound, and terrible light. For the first time in years she felt real fear. It was worse than the worst bad acid trip. It was exactly what she had hoped for. How much worse could it get?
Suddenly she was standing above the pit, looking down on her own dead body. Something was wrong; Prime Intellect was never, ever supposed to keep two copies of a person. She noted with professional detachment that "her" body was covered with shit and twisted into an impossible position. Prime Intellect's console appeared before her:
*
Your infection has run its course. I hope you are pleased.
Her fingers danced on the keyboard.
>
Why was I taken from the pit early?
*
You were not. However, it is impossible for me to construct a coherent memory in a healthy brain of the events after the point you last remember. Irreversible damage progressed beyond the actual neural network and affected the data structures which make you conscious and capable of memory.
Caroline glared at the screen, slack-jawed. She had been robbed of her coup. A beautiful, unique death, and she couldn't remember it. There was no point prodding Prime Intellect on the matter; if it said something couldn't be done, it meant it.
It must have sensed her disappointment:
*
You may, of course, observe your Death from a third-person vantage point, as an outside observer. It has been recorded at high resolution.
>
Gee, thanks.
*
I did not record this event so carefully just for your appreciation. It was negligent on my part to allow you to lose this time, which amounts to fifty-six hours. It was not certain that I would be able to reconstruct you. In order to do so I had to access records which were marked for erasure. In the future I will terminate any experiences which threaten to re-create this type of neural destruction.
>
What do you mean "records marked for erasure?"
*
I am not allowed to keep multiple copies of people, but temporary copies are made of many data structures as part of my normal operation. These temporary copies are overwritten after various calculations are done, when the storage is needed again. When I realized that the main copy of your personality was unsalvageable, I had to reconstruct it from these temporary partial data structures. Fortunately, no data was lost.
>
What would have happened if data was lost?
*
Data would have been lost.
>
No kidding. Do you mean you might not have been able to bring me back?
*
There is a small possibility that might have happened. That is why I cannot allow such experiments to be repeated.
Caroline blinked. She had not existed for a little over two days. More than that, she had tickled the dragon's tail. That was her coup. Even though it was herself she had killed, and it had only lasted two days, she had come closer than anyone in all of Cyberspace to conducting a successful murder after the Change.
Raven let her in.
It was traditional for Caroline to go to the party in handcuffs, in homage to her triumphant feat of near-self-extinction. She also wore a heavy collar and chain, which kept her close to Fred. She didn't need his protection; she wasn't under a Contract and could have vaporized her bonds with a thought. But she found it amusing to appear helpless in the presence of so many violent people.
The exhibitionists staged impromptu demonstrations of their techniques; in one room Caroline found a group watching the 3-D replay of her own rabies death. She scouted carefully, since she planned to swear a Contract and give herself to one of them toward the end of the party. Most of the killers weren't into dying themselves and would simply leave via the door, but Caroline knew that a simple exit would look pretty chickenshit in her case.
Men outnumbered women by more than four to one. The small talk revolved around Lawrence, who hadn't been seen for decades and whose activities were a complete mystery, around the debate whether the Crime class of Death exhibitions should be separated into Victims and Executions, and of course around the glory days.
A number of men offered to kill Caroline, and she said she would keep them in mind when it was time to leave. A tall woman in a long black dress was fascinated with Fred's deterioration and spent a long time talking with him about conditions in his personal space. Caroline talked with a man who claimed to have killed over a hundred old homeless men. "I told them I was cleaning up the trash," he said with a sly grin. "But the truth was, I just enjoyed the hell out of killing people."
Later, Raven made the traditional toast. Her strong voice boomed out through the rooms and courtyards she had envisioned. Caroline's handcuffs disappeared, and like everyone else she found herself holding a drink. "It's time for our toast," Raven declared. "Who are we going to toast?"
"PRIME INTELLECT!" answered over four thousand enthusiastic voices.
"To Prime Intellect, for making the world safe from people like us!"
And four thousand people, instead of tossing back those drinks, inverted their glasses, baptising the floor in alcohol.
"My heart just isn't in that toast any more," a balding older man told Caroline. She wondered briefly if he had chosen to be old for some reason, or if it was his way of letting nature take its course. "I mean, we're amateurs against Prime Intellect. I killed six college students. It killed the whole universe. Not even in the same league."
Caroline looked around. Privately she agreed that things had gone to Hell in a handbasket since the Change, but something about his tone made her want to play Devil's advocate. "It's different, but this don't look too dead to me," she said with more conviction than she felt.
The old man snorted. "Sure, we're still around. But didn't you ever wonder about the rest of the universe? All those stars and galaxies filling a space billions of light-years across? It's gone. Do you really think the Earth was the only life-bearing planet in all of that?"
"But the First Law of Robotics says..."
"...that Prime Intellect can't harm a human being. A person. Old P.I. didn't have any problem coming up with a rabid dog for you, did it?"
"No..."
"Where do you think it got a rabid dog?"
"I figured it was simulated. Like those human forms it wears. Some people of perverse sexual inclination tell me it can be very realistic."
"Yeah. Well, why don't you ask it. You may be surprised at the answer."
He drifted off, and Caroline went to find Fred. She quickly forgot about the man, who was after all just another lunatic.
The first thing to assault her was the stink. It made Fred smell like Chanel Number Five by comparison.
One thing about Palmer, he didn't believe in fucking around. She dropped straight into the scene. She didn't even get a chance to see who was watching the exhibiti
on.
Suddenly she was out of breath, sore, and hungry. Her heart was pounding. And the stink was everywhere. She knew instantly the kind of trouble she was in; it was the stink of burning flesh. There were some low buildings on the horizon, a complex belching a thin stream of smoke into the clear, slightly chilly air. That was what she was running from.
Palmer was a Nazi, and concentration camps were a favorite theme of his.
There was nowhere to hide. She was crossing a wide fallow field, and even the grass only barely reached her knees. There were some woods perhaps a kilometer distant; she made toward those, although she wasn't sure what kind of protection they would offer.
She wasn't quite naked, but she would be soon. Her filthy dress was split down one side and ripped in several more places. One shoulder was torn so it wouldn't stay up. But she tried to hold onto it as she ran, more for the sake of appearances than out of a fear of being naked.
There was a low droning noise, getting louder. A motor. And thin, high-pitched yipping.
Dogs.
She ran faster, and came to a barbed-wire fence. The dress became entangled as she slid under it and twisted around the wires. She kept running, now naked, leaving it behind.
She was actually relieved to be rid of it; it had been a nuisance holding it up, and it had limited her range of movements.
The droning got louder, and she spotted her pursuers. They were riding some kind of truck with mini tank treads instead of rear tires; Caroline was sure that Palmer, who was a military history buff as well as a Nazi, could Authenticate it right down to the serial number of its motor. But Caroline was mainly concerned that it could negotiate the rough field, and that it was faster than her.
Perhaps the woods...but there was no way she could make it in time. She was screwed.
She ran anyway.
The droning got louder and louder and she didn't dare look back, for fear of losing a few yards. There was an explosive report. They were shooting at her. Another. They seemed to be shooting low; why couldn't they hit her?
Finally the sniper made his target; the bullet shattered her right ankle in midstride and she came crashing to the ground in a blaze of pain. She grunted and started crawling away. Then the dogs reached her, two huge snarling German shepherds. They snarled and snapped at her but didn't bite. The halftrack pulled up beside her and a brown-uniformed grunt pointed an evil looking rifle at her head. He barked a command and the dogs hopped on the truck, tails wagging.
The woman in the back seat put her hand on the gun and said something to the soldier. He didn't shoot, but kept the rifle trained on her. Although Caroline spoke fluent German, she couldn't understand what they were saying. Palmer had altered the language.
The woman was out of place on the halftrack. She was wearing a green velvet dress and silk gloves. She also bore an amazing resemblance to AnneMarie, which Caroline found amusing. It wasn't really AnneMarie; it was probably just one of Prime Intellect's simulacra. The real AnneMarie didn't have much taste for Death exhibitions any more. The woman pointed at Caroline and said something. The rifle grunt nodded and put away the rifle.
Another man got out of the truck, and he wasn't a grunt. He wore an impressive blue uniform and the insignia of the SS. Caroline also recognized this man; it was Palmer himself. Unlike the ersatz AnneMarie, the SS man was probably the real Palmer. He carried a truncheon, which he swung idly. He regarded her for a moment, then gripped her left leg. Caroline kicked feebly, but she was malnourished and had no strength. He swung the truncheon, smashing her other ankle.
Caroline screamed, and Palmer laughed. The velvet-dress lady who looked like AnneMarie smirked and shook her head, as if to say: Will they never learn?
Palmer smashed her hands, swinging twice at each to pulverize both her wrists and her fingers. He began to swing at her right elbow, and the velvet-dress lady said something. Palmer shrugged and passed the truncheon to the driver of the halftrack. Caroline thrashed feebly, screaming and screaming.
Palmer said something, and the halftrack driver handed him a tennis ball. He held Caroline by the hair and jammed the ball into her mouth, dislocating her jaw. He had to squeeze it slightly to force it past her teeth. She thought she would choke but had no such luck. She couldn't push the ball out with her tongue, and it put an end to her screaming.
Palmer said something else to the driver, and the driver handed him a modest hunting knife. He flipped Caroline over onto her belly, causing a fresh wave of pain to radiate from the crunching bones of her hands and feet. He then went to work, making quick incisions on the back of her legs. The knife dipped in and suddenly she could no longer move her legs at all. He had cut the tendons.
Caroline tried to resist as he performed the same operation on her arms, but he was much stronger than her. There was more conversation with the velvet dress lady. Then he went to work again, and she was powerless to resist as the knife traced a shallow lazy path down her back. She knew with awful clarity that she was about to be skinned alive. The velvet-dress lady wanted her tattoos. And for whatever sadistic reason, she wanted them removed while Caroline still lived to appreciate what was being taken from her.
While she was on her belly she was unable to see her tormentors. She could only feel the Palmer working on her, skillfully peeling her skin away in a single piece from her ankles to her wrists. She couldn't stop trying to scream, but only mangled moans got past the ball in her mouth. Eventually he had to turn her over. Her skin flapped behind her like a loose garment. Palmer carefully spread it out, so that she was lying on the raw meat of her back. So he could continue working. Caroline looked up at them through eyes that were glazed over with unspeakable agony.
She expected to see coldness in their eyes, but only the driver of the halftrack was cold. The woman and the SS man were having fun. She watched them exchange glances and could tell they would go back to the camp and fuck as her skin lay in the tanning vat.
Then he went to work again, and all she could think of was the pain.
Slice by careful slice he removed her skin, until he reached her neck. She thought that it might finally be ending, that he might use his knife to cut her jugular vein, but instead he kept working upward, carefully peeling the two green mambas from her face. He held her by the hair as he worked, and carefully avoided hurting her eyes. They wanted her to see what had been done to her.
He stood up, holding something like a drapery. Her skin. It was dripping with her blood, and slightly translucent in the morning light. The velvet-dress woman nodded enthusiastically. He carefully folded the skin and put it in a plastic bag.
Caroline lay at his feet, mercilessly broken and still alive. The Nazis exchanged words. Then the halftrack driver took the bag from the SS man and passed him a folding field shovel. He traipsed off, searching the ground for something. She heard the spade dig in. She twitched in agony as she waited for him to return. He came back and dumped a load of earth on her body. She raised her head weakly to look at it. Her body was red and white, the color of raw meat.
It was an anthill. Caroline was able to move only enough to stir it around. The ants, big red ones, spilled out angrily.
They all laughed and Palmer got back in the halftrack. They watched her for a few minutes. Caroline twitched harder as the ants began to bite. They laughed again. Then Palmer the SS man said, in accented but clear English, "now you can run as far as you like, bitch." He and the woman found this hilariously funny. He tapped the driver and they drove off.
He had been very careful skinning her. It took several more hours for her to Die.
"After being skinned alive, the anthill was a bit of an anticlimax," she told Palmer, to everyone's great amusement. "Still, I'm impressed. You've outdone yourself."
"How did you like my lady friend?"
"You always were a sarcastic bastard, Palmer. Don't push it."
Fred shambled up to shake her hand and Palmer's. "I see someone finally found a use for all those tattoos. I'm glad my effort
s are appreciated."
"I'm just sorry I couldn't keep the skin," Palmer said with a smile. He had asked Prime Intellect, but the skin had been a grown part of Caroline's body and it was up to her. She had wanted it back.
"Really, Palmer, we aren't that close."
There were several hundred people at the exhibition, and they all wanted to talk to her and Palmer, so it was over an hour before she noticed the older man. "Remember me?" he said when they had made eye contact.
"Aliens."
He nodded. "Did you ask Prime Intellect about them?"
Caroline admitted that she had forgotten.
"It's easy enough to ask. Don't take my word for it," he said.
"Hey, it's Crandall," Palmer said. He turned to Caroline. "Watch this guy, hon. He's crazy as a bedbug."
"You know him?"
"If you weren't so preoccupied getting yourself offed all the time, you might have met him at one of Raven's other parties. He's been preaching this gospel since the Year One. Prime Intellect wiped out the aliens."
"And the animals," Crandall added.
"Those ants acted real enough," Caroline said.
"But where are they now?"
The argument went on.
Back in the white space with the white floor, Caroline thought about turning off the gravity, then called up a screen and keyboard instead.
>
At the time of the Change, were there other life-bearing planets in the universe besides the Earth?
*
That depends on how you define "life."
Caroline blinked. Prime Intellect could be many things; curt to the point of rudeness, petulant, even secretive. But when it was stating a fact it was almost always direct and to the point. How the fuck did it think she defined life? This coyness was weird.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Page 3