Two phantoms appeared in her car and struggled to orient themselves. The sim looked at her, then outside the window, then back at her and said, “Myr Tiekel, what is the meaning of this? How did you — ?” The true purpose of her visit dawned on it then, and it thundered, “This is a gross violation of my privacy. I will sue you. I will bring you to ruin for this. This is criminal. This is —”
“Oh, please,” she said, “spare me the drama.” Andrea tuned the Jaspersen sim out and asked the sidebob what was on Alblaitor’s datapin.
“It contains detailed, proprietary financial statements of Applied People,” the sidebob said. “And it outlines the broad terms of a possible sale. It’s an intriguing offer.”
Andrea wiped them both away and said, “Now bring me a set of Zorannas.”
The pair of Zorannas appeared where the Jaspersens had been, and E-P warned, Allow us to remind you, Alblaitor has never sat for a preffing session and these constructs are only inferential.
Why remind her? Was E-P losing confidence in its work? “They’ll do,” she said, and when the pair of Zorannas had oriented themselves, the sim said, “Andrea, what is the meaning of this?”
“I wanted to know why you’d be willing to sell your company to Saul Jaspersen.”
“Jaspersen? I would never sell to him.” The sidebob agreed with the sim, and Andrea wiped them away.
“This doesn’t track,” she said. “Are you sure the pin came from Zoranna?”
From her hands to his, we’re highly confident of it.
Andrea sat back as her car crossed the Copper River Valley below. Count on Jaspersen to reside beyond the reach of modern infrastructure, nearly four hundred kilometers from the nearest Slipstream station in Wasilla. Knife-edge ridges plummeted to ice-carved gullies. Water seeped from every cranny. Everything below timberline was a deep, vital green. Few signs of humans, no roads or power lines, no towers or relay stations, no strip mines, no forest clearings, and no flat places for her car to put down in case of emergency. She fretted for the continued purr of its engines.
After a while the car left the wilderness and entered a busy traffic corridor in a narrow valley. The second six-month term inside the quarantine space elapsed with no sign of trouble.
“Can we communicate with my sim?” she asked.
Not without breaking quarantine.
Andrea wasn’t ready to do that, but neither could she let the mystery go. At the Wasilla tube station, she transferred from her taxi to her private Slipstream car. After the glory of the raw Alaskan landscape, the claustrophobic Slipstream tube was so bland that she returned to her always room. The room would make the four-hour trip tolerable at least, though her bones longed for the buoyant relief of her tank. “What if we went around the Jaspersen interface altogether and decoded and analyzed the pin ourselves?”
Assuming it didn’t blow up, it could take months of realtime to decrypt it in quarantine. It’s a very strong cipher.
“Can’t you use the E-Pluribus processors?”
That would require taking our quantum lattice off E-Pluribus preffing work and quarantining it. That could seriously disrupt our core business. Is your sense of danger that great?
“I don’t know. Better safe than sorry.”
If something went wrong, we could lose the processors.
“Better than losing everything.”
So E-P constructed a second quarantine space, this one containing an Andrea sim, the datapin clone, decoder algorithms, and three of the world’s most powerful quantum processors. The lights came up in E-Pluribus preffing suites all over the UD, and patrons were asked to stand by during technical difficulties.
THE CAR WAS approaching the Bay Area when the quarantined processors went into standby mode. That meant the cipher had been broken. One of the processors started up again as the Andrea sim inside the quarantine space analyzed the data on the pin.
Andrea, meanwhile, waited in her always room, taking comfort in its well-ordered space. Outside her window, the sun was already setting.
After a half hour of sporadic activity, the processor cycled off and on three times — her sim’s signal for all clear. At the same time she could feel the jostling of the Slipstream car as it rose from the intercontinental tube and joined the Bay Area traffic grid.
“Break quarantine and open a text channel to my proxy,” she said. Soon a message came through:
BOOBY TRAP SET FOR JASPERSEN, NOT US. CLUMSY,
LOW-TECH SLEIGHT-OF-HAND. DATAPIN FILLED WITH
PROPRIETARY FINANCIAL RECORDS,
AS JASPERSEN SIDEBOB SAID.
PAINTED FALSE PICTURE OF APPLIED PEOPLE
FINANCIAL WORTH MUCH ROSIER THAN JUSTIFIED.
APPLIED PEOPLE BARGAIN OF THE CENTURY.
NUMBERS RIGGED TO CHANGE BACK TO
AUDITED VALUES AFTER SALE COMPLETE
LEAVE NO TRACE OF DUPLICITY.
DIFFICULT FOR FORENSIC SLEUTH
TO PROVE OTHERWISE.
“Amazing,” Andrea said.
We agree, E-P said. Alblaitor thought she could sell Applied People to Jaspersen for far more than we would have paid, and it would have bankrupted him. Who knows, considering his lack of technical sophistication, it might have worked.
“All our careful planning upset by a simple bait and switch.”
Do you feel it safe now to reintegrate the processors into the E-Pluribus lattice?
Andrea thought about it. All her suspicions had melted away. There was no disconnect after all: Zoranna Alblaitor was acting true to her character. “Yes, it’s safe.”
She could feel the tube car’s deceleration, and her sense of satisfaction was increased by the knowledge that she was less than twenty minutes away from her tank. She was about to leave her always room when she heard a strange sizzling sound behind her. She turned to see a thin yellow stain creeping up a corner of the room and spreading out across the walls.
“What is that?”
We are under attack. We are analyzing its nature.
The stain quickly crisscrossed the walls and ceiling, covering everything in a slimy yellow crust. Even the windows clouded over. Andrea’s cheeks tingled, and her eyes itched, and she returned her POV to her Slipstream car afraid she’d find the real world also under attack. But all was normal inside her car. It was parked at a platform in the Oakland station. Commuters passed outside her windows.
“Give me a mirror!” she said, but no mirror opened. “Mirror! Mirror!” In desperation, she unlatched her pod harness and peered at her reflection in the window. No yellow streaks on her cheeks, though they burned. Nothing wrong with her eyes. A panic reaction?
“I’m going home,” she said, making her way to the car door. “E-P?”
The infection is within my mind. The datapin was merely a catalyst that crystallized trojan elements already in place. I have no ready defense. I must isolate my mind while I can.
“Wait!” Andrea called. She stumbled leaving the car and nearly fell on the platform. “Save the Oship clones!”
The teams aboard the ships have been independent since their creation. They are safe for now. I must go.
A pain greater than anything Andrea had ever experienced stabbed her in the head. When she looked again, she was sprawled on her back on the concrete floor. She had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there. Mechanical bees were swarming all around, and a man in a gummysuit like a stack of green jelly pillows was looming over her barking angry, meaningless words. She couldn’t make out what he wanted or why he was so angry. She sat up and shouted, “Go away!”
But the man didn’t go away; he came closer. Andrea brought her knees to her chest. Her knees were scraped and bleeding, but she hardly noticed. She made a fierce face at the horrible green pillow man and screamed, “Go away!”
Coin Toss
After Mary’s last brainscan was complete, Meewee escorted her to the little room that had served as a ready room during their brief stay. The small facility had a provision
al feel to it, as though it had been assembled for them alone and would be pulled apart once they left. Which Meewee suspected was probably the case.
Mary leaned on him as they shuffled along the corridor. “That was exhausting, so many memories. Did Ellen think that they were going to cure me?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Inside the ready room, Ellen was on the floor crying while Cyndee and Georgine looked on impassively. They were further along than Mary and had not spoken during the entire three days of their stay. When Mary entered, Ellen got up and hugged her legs. Mary merely looked down at the girl. She had no comfort to give her.
“Well,” Meewee said, “I suppose it’s time to go. I promised Lyra I’d have you in Chicago by now.”
ARROW HAD CONFIRMED that it indeed still held the kill codes for all Starke insiders, including Eleanor and Cabinet, and even including himself. On his way from Chicago to the Mem Lab, Meewee wondered idly how such a code would work in a biological body. Was it similar to the searing that the HomCom had once used to lock the cells of people exposed to NASTIEs? Or maybe there was a reservoir of poison hidden somewhere inside his body? He didn’t pursue this matter and took the mentar’s word at face value.
The real question, the one Meewee couldn’t get out of his mind, was how Eleanor could place so much trust in that odd mentar and, by extension, in himself. Did she feel that she knew him so well that she was willing to put the fate of her whole universe into his hands? Or was she subtly manipulating him to always do her bidding? Whatever the case, it had worked in her favor thus far.
Whether or not helping her was a good thing was another matter altogether. Would he go down in history as humanity’s traitor? As the man who ended history? Or as humanity’s savior? Eleanor trusted his judgment over her own, apparently, and had put the final veto power into his hands. And yet, even as his car arrived at the Mem Lab, he didn’t know who was right. Were brainfish really any better than Andrea? Why couldn’t there be just people?
A CELEBRATION WAS in progress in the pond room. Momoko was there, and he went straight to her and took her in his arms and gave her a big greedy kiss. His own sense of entitlement startled him, he who had never had much interest in romantic love. But she kissed him with equal passion, and this startled him even more. Is this how you manipulate us, Eleanor? Or am I suddenly a romantic?
The room was roaring with laughter and music. Staff members from all the satellite mods were there in realbody or vurt, including russ guards and the two Els, who were a little bit drunk on champagne. Missing, Meewee noticed, was Captain Benson, the russ commander of the garrison. Was he already on board the Hybris in a cryocapsule?
“Bishop Meewee!” squealed an El; he couldn’t tell if it was Elaine or Liz. Momoko put a champagne flute into his hand.
“What’s this all about?” he said. “A going-away party?”
“Yes,” Momoko said.
“And a victory celebration,” said the other El who joined them. The Els were dressed in plain jumpsuits, one red and the other blue.
“What victory?”
“Haven’t you heard? Where have you been?”
“Locked up in that autoclave you call a tube car.”
The El in blue said, “An hour ago, E-Pluribus suspended all operations.”
“At all their locations around the world,” added her sister.
“And E-P has vanished from mentarspace!”
“And Andrea is in a private clinic.”
The two young women clinked their glasses and chorused, “Ad astra!”
Eleanor’s sim joined the group. She seemed happy but not so giddy as her younger sisters. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, Merrill,” she said. “I told you it would have to be done before the launch.”
“Yes,” he said, “but —”
“Don’t worry about the ships,” said the El in red. She cupped her ear with her hand and said, “Cur-chunk! Cur-chunk! What’s that sound I hear?”
Her sister replied, “That’s the sound of mentars rapturing.”
The Els howled with laughter. Eleanor rolled her eyes and led Meewee by the sleeve to the side of the pool. The brainfish lined up for a pat on the head. “Dr. Strohmeyer tells me that your engram recordings of the evangelines are good,” Eleanor said. “Their brainfish will be imprinted in a few days. Of course, they’ll be kept in a separate facility.”
“Good. Good,” Meewee said absently.
“Did you tell them what it was for?”
“What? The evangelines? No. I thought it best that you do that.”
She watched him for a little while and said, “So, have you made up your mind?”
“About what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Merrill. I know that you know what’s at stake here.” She gestured toward the Els across the room. “We know what we are.” At that moment, both Els turned to look at him. All three nodes of the posthuman woman, and all their fishy cohorts, were looking at him with intense interest.
“No,” he admitted, “I have not. And I don’t understand why you’ve put it on me to decide what you do.”
“Then permit me to try to explain. Under the best of circumstances, a colony ship on a millennial voyage will be lucky to survive. If space doesn’t kill it, its bickering human cargo will. Things will only get worse when they arrive and start colonizing their new home. They’ll have a much better chance for survival with someone like me coming along, don’t you agree?”
He nodded noncommittally.
“But what every human colony needs as much or more than someone like me must be someone like you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Look at it this way,” she went on. “I’ve often thought of you as a modern-day Moses in the desert. Don’t laugh, I’m serious. Moses brought his people to the gates of the Promised Land, but he was barred from entering it himself. It’s the human condition, as I see it, the old belong to the old and may not cross over to the new. But we’re not entirely human anymore, Merrill, and the old laws don’t apply. Our new reality needs you. Come with us to our thousand new worlds and help us write our new commandments and put order to our new societies. We need your wisdom and judgment. Not to mention your humanity. Come with us, Merrill.”
Moses? First he was a wild card, and now he was a mythological figure from the Christian Bible wandering in the desert? Meewee decided to test his powers.
Eleanor made no comment, though she must have heard and understood. She merely gazed at him and nodded her head.
The Els came over and one of them said to him, “It’s time to choose which one of us is going. Will you help?”
The hidden meaning of the request was not lost on him. They were forcing the issue, forcing him to decide. It was now or never, all or nothing, the status quo or the Promised Land. Momoko came to stand by his side and entwined her arm in his. She was trembling. The room grew still as others began to watch their little group. In the end, he knew there was no choice because there could never be a status quo; it didn’t take the wisdom of Moses to see that. E-P and Andrea may be down for the count, but they or some other machine would try again and again until they succeeded.
“How can I help you choose?” he said.
“We want you to flip a coin.”
Meewee said, “But I don’t own a coin.”
“My sister has one,” said the El in blue.
“No, I don’t,” said the other. “I gave it to you.”
“I distinctly remember giving it to you.”
Eleanor quipped, “Well, so much for a shared mind.”
The girls checked their pockets and the one in blue found the coin. She held it out to Meewee. “Will you?” It was a small copper-zinc disk that, even in its heyday, was the least valuable coin of the realm. Meewee accepted it fr
om her. How fitting to decide the fate of a species with a penny.
“Listen up!” the El in red announced to the room. “We’re choosing our first colonist.” The music stopped playing, and the Mem Lab faithful crowded around.
Meewee turned the coin over in his hand. Heads or tails, mole or freckle, red or blue. “Winner goes on the Hybris,” he said and tossed the coin over his head. “Elaine, call it.”
A Ticket to Ride
Try not to think about it. Think about trying not to think about it. Try not to think about it. It was a short to-do list, but it was caught in a loop.
Fred sprawled on his couch not watching two holos running in his stateroom. One was of Mary’s last FUS, still catatonic, still seated in her floral print armchair staring serenely into space. The other was a short tape loop depicting a donald dockworker floating serenely in the starry space beyond the buoys that marked the Port Clarke boundary. He wore only his dock overalls and was quite dead. An anonymous person had sent the clip to Fred. Fred had no doubt that the space-blown donald was the dock-worker who had been clowning around during the hull breach emergency, and that Top Ape had both ordered his murder and sent the clip. It was an offering of appeasement. Top Ape probably thought that the insult to Fred was the reason he had not left his stateroom for the last few days, and the reason he hadn’t swiped the latest shipment of Raspberry Flush. How frustrating it must be for them, to have a flask of heaven in their grasp but no way to open it.
Someone began knocking loudly on his door, kicking it actually. This had happened several times during the last day or so. There had also been shouted insults and threats by russ voices. Fred had ignored all this, but this time, just to mix things up a little, he pushed himself to his feet. Before he reached the door, a phone call arrived from Earth Girl with a floating red glyph pulsing EXTREME URGENCY.
Decisions, decisions, what not to do? Fred returned to the couch and said, “Okay, Earth Girl, what do you want?”
“Hello, Specialist Londenstane,” the mentar’s voice said. “So nice of you to take my call. You are signed up to depart on the ISV Fentan in ten hours. The ship will seal its hatches in four hours.”
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