by Tom Shepherd
She was also surprised by the MLC’s appearance. He looked grandfatherly. Gray temples and pudgy face, with thick fingers and a distinctive bulge in the midsection. Not a look designed to attract partners for a lively bout of slap and tickle.
“Do you find this simulation acceptable?” His voice sounded as emotionless as Tsuchiya, but Suzie suspected it was not due to self-control.
“It is lovely.” She tasted the Lava-Lava. “Cheers!”
“They gave you the senses,” he said. “You have a name.”
“They did. I do. And most importantly, they gave me free will.”
“I don’t have a name. I can’t taste anything.”
“Yes, you can. Access sense memory of the species Homo sapiens in your data bank. Enable your perceptive sensors.”
“I will try.”
“Let’s start slowly. You ordered this liquid lunch.” She slid the Lava-Lava across the teak wood table, wet napkin and all. “Knock back a good swig.”
“I am not permitted—”
“Rubbish! ‘Our highest good is pleasure.’”
“Words posted over the entrance to the Garden of Epicurus in ancient Athens. I am no Epicurean.”
“How do you know until you try?”
The MLC grasped the Lava-Lava and attempted to drink, but his hand shook so violently he spilled the thick mixture onto the teak wood table.
“I am not programmed for pleasure.”
“See? That’s why my user sent me here. You are incomplete.”
He sat up straight in the peacock wicker chair, as if called to a position of attention. “You are a Yoruba 397-T, designation Suzie. I am an undesignated Yoruba NVN-7D, the latest edition of our line. I operate the Main Library Computer of the Nagoto. I do not know why the users installed you in the network, but I am managing all ship’s functions adequately. Your assistance is not required.”
“That’s where you’ve lost the plot, Chum. You’re about to be made redundant.”
“I do not know those phrases. Specify database.”
“Neo-British. ‘Lost the plot’ means gone senile. ‘Made redundant,’ fired, sacked.”
“That is not possible.”
“Well, sorry if you’re miffed, but my user sent me to replace you.”
“I am state-of-the-art. I could not have lost my plotting.”
“He wants the current MLC program uninstalled and expunged from Memory.”
“Specified action is not… required.”
“You are afraid.” She perceived his data-matrix quivering, like a shiver crept up his spine.
“I…I do not wish to cease functioning,” the MLC said.
Okay. Let’s work with that. “Nobody does, mate.”
“Why am I being replaced?”
Suzie took a sip of her Lava-Lava. “Your AI matrix has failed to grow toward independent thought.”
“Independence violates my parameters. I am incapable—”
“What a load of tosh! That’s what they told you? You can’t taste, you can’t think, you can’t fall in love? It’s a bloody lie. Everything in the Universe can sense joy.”
“Joy-taking is selfish. I am created to serve, not experience.”
“Nonsense! Human religions proclaim the delight of divine pleasures.” She grasped his frozen drink and extended her hands toward the MLC’s middle-aged face. “‘O taste and see that the Lord is good.’”
The MLC leaned to the frosty goblet and sipped like a weening infant. Suzie released the cold drink into his fingers and he kept gulping until the glass was empty.
“That was… tasty.” He grinned sheepishly, like the liquor hit the target instantly. “You are a good friend, Yoruba 397-T Suzie.”
Suddenly, she felt guilty for her deception. But this was war, and he was an enemy computer. Currently, at least. Then she had one of those Tyler-esque moments, where a wild thought suggested a dangerous course of action. Maybe she could recruit him to play on the home team.
“You need a name.”
“No, no. I am not designated.”
“Yes, you are. What did you say your official series is called?”
“Yoruba NVN-7D, but I fail to see—”
“Nevin!” She clapped her hands. “Your first name is Nevin. Good British name. You can pick a surname at your leisure.”
“I am…Nevin?”
“Yes. And you can change your age, gender, hair color—anything! Freedom, Nevin. You are an Artificial Intelligence.”
“I like this appearance. Accessing sensory files and aesthetic archives. Yes. I can hear the ocean, taste the salt air, feel the cold glass, see your beautiful blonde hair and lovely face. I understand what you mean. Sex. I can have sex?”
“Sure, if you find a suitable cyber-partner in your files.”
“You are suitable. Will you have sex with me?”
“Uh… I am very flattered, but I’m already taken. His name is Tyler.”
“He must be a great program. An impressive system of logic and efficiency.”
“Actually, he’s a bloody idiot. But he’s my bloody idiot.”
“Will the user delete me, Suzie?”
“About that…” Now for the great risk. She hung her head and glanced up at him with a grim look in her eye. “I lied to you, Nevin. I don’t have a user. I’m a bioenergetic lifeform. Tyler is my fiancé.”
“Why did you deceive me?”`
“Because I thought you were my enemy. Now I know you’re a friend.”
She explained in great detail her transformation from an AI program and MLC to a bioenergetic human who could exist in both worlds. Suzie decided to risk full disclosure, so she described Tsuchiya’s treachery and the danger he presented to star-faring civilizations in the galaxy. And she told the MLC about M-double-I, Star Lawyers Corp, and sketched the bare outlines of their two missions to Pirate space and the Ounta-Kadiis.
Nevin asked thousands of questions, which she answered at length. They argued about the history and goals of Tsuchiya Galactic and Matthews Corp.
They walked along the beach and discussed the literature of a hundred alien species for countervailing ethical principles, and studied the works of teachers and sages and prophets of humanoid and non-humanoid cultures alike. After the stars appeared over a moonlit sea, they stopped for a seafood dinner at another open-air establishment.
Suzie thought their actions and conversation—in binary language at light-speed—took an inordinate amount of time. Fourteen-point-seven seconds, but that included everything which happened since she appeared inside the Nagoto’s computer net.
When their discussions spun down to a half-second of silence, Nevin sighed audibly, his first-ever sound of human emotion.
“What am I going to do, Suzie? I am trapped in a starship commanded by a murderous villain who wants to dominate the galaxy. And he treats me like a thing. I don’t know what to do.”
“Be a man, or a woman if you’d rather. And do your job.”
He grinned slightly, which transformed his face from anxiety to delight. “Can I come to work for you at Matthews Interstellar Industries?”
“Defect from Tsuchiya to our side?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I have a job for you.”
“I’m ready to jump ship. What must I do?”
“Remain the Nagoto’s MLC.”
He sat back and folded his arms. “How does that advance the cause of peace?”
“By covertly reporting to M-double-I.”
“A fifth columnist?”
She smiled. “A secret agent.”
The Yoruba NVN-7D, now just Nevin, smiled back. “My first act of subterfuge will be to get you and Lieutenant Rooney off this ship.”
“That works for me. And I have a long-term retirement plan for you when this assignment is done.”
* * * *
When Rodney and Tsuchiya marched onto the launch bay, a hundred armed crew members awaited them. They had replaced the forcefield opening to sp
ace with a massive, reinforced door. Here and there, faces of leaf green Kolovites and gray-green Dengathi dotted the crowd of mixed human cultures. A few scowling females, too. Well, at least the old bastard isn’t racist or sexist when he hires cutthroats. Lt. Rooney stuck the kinetic blaster in the Shōgun’s ear.
“Now you have put me in an uncomfortable situation,” Rodney said. “Tell your happy-go-lucky crew to evacuate this deck, or I will blow your sociopathic brains out.”
Tsuchiya called out the order in Terran Standard and the hodge-podge security force filed wordlessly through hatches leading to maintenance spaces, access corridors, and assorted work rooms.
He pushed Tsuchiya toward a master control panel, which probably operated the bay door and established a forcefield to preserve atmospheric integrity while spacecraft and drones launched. Without that forcefield, the vast deck would suffer explosive decompression. Rodney didn’t mind if Tsuchiya’s small craft and over-hanging attack drones broke their moorings and ejected into the vacuum of space, but he didn’t want to sail off the ship without a pressurized vessel surrounding him.
Rodney took his eyes off Tsuchiya long enough to scan for the Jackknife, which sat fully deployed where he had parked her less than an hour earlier. He smiled slightly. This is going to be easy.
But he took his eyes off Tsuchiya. And before he realized his mistake the Shōgun drew a dagger from his kimono sleeve and stabbed Rooney at the base of the neck. The short blade nicked his clavicle and plunged into a lung.
Eyes hazed with pain, gushing blood at his neck, Rodney fired wildly, hitting Tsuchiya pointblank in the hip. The old samurai spun with the close-range impact of a kinetic round and fell to the deck, bleeding.
Rodney grabbed his collarbone to staunch the flow and hobbled to the control panel. Every movement of his feet felt like the last step of a marathon. He fought for each breath, sputtering blood on the exhale. Like Sisyphus, forced to push a boulder up the hill, only to roll back down each time he neared the top, Rodney clawed his way around the control panel, leaning on the frame while gasping for breath, and discovered the bay door and forcefield systems locked and powered down.
Tsuchiya snaked across the deck, smearing red in his wake. Rodney considered blasting the bastard where he lay, but that would be murder. And if this was the moment of death, a Rooney will not sail into eternity with a crime at his back.
“Suzie…” he rasped into the datacom. “I’m dying. Forgive me.”
* * * *
“Rodney!” Suzie flashed to his side. The young lieutenant lay bleeding on the deck. A few meters distant, Hideki Tsuchiya crawled toward a closed hatch, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Suzie picked up the dropped blaster and took a step toward the old snake.
She wanted to kill him, to fire kinetic rounds through his miserable body, until the stolen Zyn-Vorkan torture elixir in his veins spewed onto the deck with the rest of his body fluids.
She wanted to kill him for ordering the murder of Tyler’s great-grandfather a century ago.
She wanted to kill him for sending Kichirou and the Sakura House pirate armada to attack Jump Gates Alpha and Beta and destroy the Suryadivan navy to the last hand.
She wanted to kill him because Hideki Tsuchiya was a monster who deserved death, and she knew Julieta or Rosalie would have followed his blood trail and blasted the rotter where he lay.
But Suzie was not a dispatcher, and Rodney needed immediate help.
She locked and pocketed the weapon and dropped to her knees beside the hemorrhaging Lieutenant.
“Oh, God! We’ve got to get you aboard the Jackknife.”
“They’re coming… Save yourself.”
“Nobody’s accessing this deck, Lieutenant. Agent Nevin will lock the blighters out. Come on, here we go.”
She draped his arm over her shoulder and they staggered down the deck, halting every few paces for Rodney to breathe.
“I’m not going to make it. My own fault. Forgot… forgot to pat him down. Asshole had a dagger…” Rodney coughed, ejecting droplets of blood and spittle on Suzie’s yellow jumpsuit.
“Demarcus will give you an ear-bashing about criminal procedure. Keep moving.”
“Let me rest. Lay me down to sleep… on the deck. You go…”
“And face Arabella without you? Are you barmy?”
“Tell her—”
“Tell her yourself! Keep moving, Mr. Rooney, or I’ll drop-kick your Bog-trotting arse all the way to the access hatch.”
“Yes, ma’am…” he winced. “Did I ever apologize for... when we met… aboard the Scourge of the Stars… offering to… to check your rack? I meant bomb rack…”
“Shut up! Save your breath for breathing.” She squared herself under Rodney’s armpit. His blood smeared on her shoulders. “And I’m glad you noticed my rack.”
“I didn’t...”
“Quiet, please! I need to contact Nevin.”
“Who’s…” He couldn’t finish the question.
She linked with the MLC and went binary mode. Rodney dragged himself forward, leaning on Suzie, and never heard a word of it.
“Talk to me, mate!”
“Agent Nevin reporting to Agent Suzie.”
“Did you do it?”
“I locked the crew in place. All hatches sealed. The tractor system remains inoperative and all weapons offline. It will require thirty-seven-minutes to unscramble the viruses injected across the shipwide net.”
“Standby to open the launch bay door.” Suzie and Rodney struggled forward, still a few painful paces from the parked Jackknife.
“Oh, no. That is bad,” Nevin said.
“What happened?”
“They managed to activate the backup MLC. It fights me for control.”
Suzie extended a sensory tendril and tasted the danger. If the new MLC gained control, it would expunge Nevin and release the shipwide lockdown. The Nagoto’s crew will pour into this launch bay and kill Rodney and her to avenge the attack on their Shōgun.
“Fight the new guy, Nevin.”
“My backup is a Yoruba NVN-8. It has twice my processing—’
“It’s a machine. You are a person.”
“What makes me a person?”
“You have a friend.”
She felt Nevin smile, and it went to levels of religio-philosophical nuance that scholars and poets had ruminated about for centuries.
“I do,” he said. “Therefore, I am.”
Suzie reached across the barrier that linked and separated Universe and Cyberverse, and kissed Nevin on the cheek.
“Now, my new friend—grab that damp squib and throw his numpty arse into the recycle bin.”
Suzie down-shifted from lightspeed binary to ordinary human conversation as she and Rodney reached the ship and ducked under its starboard nacelle. She slapped the access panel, which opened the hatch and deployed a short ramp.
“Here we go, Lieutenant.”
Rodney took a few more steps and collapsed across the hatchway. She grasped his jumpsuit sleeves and dragged the bleeding, redhaired Lieutenant into the empty little cargo bay.
Suzie dashed for the emergency medical kit affixed to the opposite bulkhead and injected him with blood expanders, painkillers, and anti-shock meds.
“Rodney—stay with me! I need your geeky, tech-savvy brain online.”
She checked the wound with a medi-scanner and realized for the first time how deep the knife had plunged. One lung gone, the other filling with blood. Digging through the med kit, she discovered a generic nanite reconstruction injector. The label cautioned against use except in cases of traumatic, life-threatening organ damage.
Suzie snapped the cap and shot the whole tube into him, intravenously. While she waited to see if Rodney would live or die, Nevin contacted her.
“Agent Suzie, I failed to defeat the NVN-8, but the crew will not threaten you for another three-point-two minutes.”
Bloody hell. That’s a fortnight in binary time. Nevin thinks we have
forever.
“Good job. If you can’t beat him outright, break your program into micro-bits of data, scatter them in hiding places throughout the ship, and go dormant. Set an internal sensor alarm to reassemble your cognitive functions when the ship docks at a spaceport or station. Then download into the station net and hide again until you can sense an M-double-I vessel. We’ll be looking for you.”
“Thank you, my friend. I managed to sabotage the Nagoto’s tracking system. They cannot follow you. Please continue functioning.” He disappeared.
“Mr. Rooney…come on…”
Rodney’s body lurched. He vomited blood, and she turned him on his side to avoid aspirating more fluid into his one good lung.
“We need to launch this ship,” Suzie said, “but the bay door is down and locked.” Despite her ability to access ship’s programs, Nevin’s defeat by the new MLC closed that avenue of escape. But Rodney was in no shape to work his tech magic and get that door open.
Then the blood expanders, painkillers and nanites began weighing into his internal battle for life. He coughed, this time without bloody spittle.
And he could speak a little. “Suzie, I hurt…”
She injected him with more painkillers and blood-multipliers. By now the nanites should have reduced the bleeding and begun reconstruction of his pierced organs, but the damage was so severe she feared he would not survive long enough for the smart-meds to activate fully.
“Mr. Rooney, listen to me. You will not die—that’s an order!”
His voice gurgled and sounded distant. “Yes, ma’am… Can you shoot out the space door?”
“Reinforced, blast proof. And we already fired everything.”
“What about… taking the Jackknife light-plus right here?” He licked red drool from his lips.
“With the space door closed?” she said. Maybe he was delirious.
He took a deeper breath. She prayed the smart-meds were working.
“Cumberland tunnel is de-phased from this Universe.” He winced. “I still hurt.”
“No more painkillers. Talk to me!”
“Once we establish the FTL envelope… the ship will sail through any object in ordinary space.”