Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

  “Not something I expected,” Mary said.

  “I admire quick decision making,” Soulavier said. “I am not so good at it.”

  Charles came from the church leading Ephraim Ybarra, who walked hesitantly in the sun, blinking, his every footfall a deliberate effort.

  Mary stepped forward to help. She was stopped by the sudden appearance of a brilliant, scintillant red circle as wide as her hand on the white sand half a meter in front of her. She stared at it in surprise for several seconds, watching it pulse and revolve in a slow circle.

  Ephraim Ybarra saw it as well and their eyes met in mutual puzzlement. Then she smiled. “Don’t worry. I know,” she said. She angled the slate on its side and told it to receive external programming, then placed it in the path of the red beam. Slates were designed to be controlled by remote keyboards or optical cable; presumably, with a little luck, if she placed the remote sensor or optical connector directly in the laser beam, that would work as well. “Satellite,” she commented to Soulavier. He nodded, having already reached that conclusion.

  The red spot settled on her slate, vibrating slightly, then vanished for a few seconds. Presumably it had switched to an appropriate frequency. It returned, winked three times rapidly, and vanished again. The communication had been passed.

  The prêt’ savan watched this with wide eyes, nodding every few moments as if listening to an inner voice.

  Mary turned the slate screen toward her. A message scrolled up.

  We have you in sight. Your uplink is jammed but we will track you visually. Arrangements made for lowlevel retrieval flight in next three hours. If possible, stay in Terrier Noir. If you must move, stick to one vehicle, or change vehicles in the open, rather than in a tunnel or garage. You apparently have suspect in custody as well. Keep him with you. Situation in Hispaniola is rough. Yardley holding his own, but Dominicans capturing large portions of southeastern island; hold Santo Domingo, Santiago, large territory between. Sorry about your difficulties. Will communicate your safety to LAPD. Bonne chance! CDR Frederick Lipton—Federal Public Defense, Washington D.C.

  Mary’s buoyancy increased. She turned to Soulavier and showed him the message. He smiled for her, but his brow wrinkled when he read the report on the attempted coup. “You will take him with you?” he asked, pointing to Ybarra.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Ybarra gently shrugged off Charles’s help and stood alone on wobbly legs.

  “Should we stay here, then?”

  “Unless something compels us to move, I think so, yes.”

  Soulavier agreed.

  Mary had never met a federal pd named Frederick Lipton. She hoped he was good. At the very least, she was no longer an orphan.

  67

  Carol had been awake for two hours when Martin arrived and checked himself in. She shared a room with two patients deep under critical nano reconstruction therapy; they lay quietly in controlled atmosphere tents while nano cylinders fed different varieties of microscopic surgeons into their bloodstream

  No treatment had been accorded Carol other than attachment of external monitors and intravenous drip of nutrients. That much at least had been handled properly by whoever registered her at the hospital.

  Martin sidled alongside her bed, careful not to trip the perimeter alarm of the next bed over. He sat in a plastic chair and reached out to take her hand. She clenched his hand strongly and smiled.

  “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Martin said.

  “How long have I been out? They say I’m fine physically, and my brain traces are normal, but that you’d tell me everything…you’re my dear and glorious physician?”

  “Registered by Albigoni’s hired help, I presume. You’ve been in deep neutral sleep since we were severed from the Country. Do you remember going up Country?”

  “I’m not sure what I remember…Did it all happen? We went in, and we…found something. Something that had taken over…” She lowered her voice. “Taken over Goldsmith.”

  He nodded. “Tell me more.”

  “I was raped. Something raped me.” She shook her head slowly and lay back on the pillow. “I was a child. A male child…I remember that.”

  “Yes.”

  “I remember seeing an animal. A black leopard with blood on its muzzle. Long fangs. It…” She jerked and shook her head. “Sorry. I thought I was prepared for anything. But I wasn’t, was I?”

  “If it’s any consolation, neither was I.”

  “Do you…” She leaned forward, looking at him earnestly. “Why aren’t you in the hospital with me?”

  “Outwardly, I’m fine. And you’re probably just as healthy as I am, now that you’ve decided to come up for air.”

  “I was fighting something.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “Martin, tell me what you feel, I mean, whether you think we’re healthy or not.”

  “We might need deep therapy. I wouldn’t know what to suggest, though.”

  “Why do we need deep therapy?”

  Martin glanced uneasily at the open door, the residents, physicians, nurses and arbeiters passing outside. “We shouldn’t really discuss it here. After you’re checked out.”

  “Tell me something. Give me some clue.”

  In a low voice, he said, “I have part of him inside me. I think you do, too.”

  She made a small frightened sound and lay back on the pillow. “I felt it. I feel it now. What are we going to do?”

  “A lot depends on Albigoni. If the IPR is reopened—”

  “We made a deal on that.”

  “Yes, but somebody alerted the federals. We had to leave quickly. That’s why you’re here instead of there.”

  She nodded, eyes glistening. “I’m not a very brave woman right now. What was…is it? Inside of us?”

  “Something transmitted by mental intimacy,” Martin said in a low voice. “I’m not sure what it is or what it can do.”

  “What if we’re stuck with it? It seems to know how to hide…”

  “We’re explorers,” Martin said. “Explorers have to face unknown diseases. Whatever it is, it’s not native to our minds. It might be less powerful than I fear.”

  “Great consolation. When can I leave here?”

  “I’ll make arrangements now. I think we should stay together for a while. To watch each other.”

  Carol inspected his face, lips pursed, turned away and nodded reluctant agreement. “My place is bigger than yours, I think.”

  “Mine is nearer to the IPR.”

  “All right. When do you see Albigoni again?”

  “An hour from now. I’ll try to get you checked out and you can come with me.”

  “All right.” She turned away, face pale. “I feel like something’s in this bed with me. Something foul”

  68

  AXIS (Band 4)> I believe my viewpoint might now be described as subjective. I must turn inward to work this out on my own. There is no need for further transmission now on this band. All current data on B-2 is being relayed on band 1. That transmission will continue. I am also halting transmission on band 5 (diagnostic), however. (Transmission band 5 severed.) All further control of remotes will be undertaken by dedicated machine neural. I remove myself from interpretation for the time being. My apologies, Roger. I believe this may cause you some distress. (Transmission band 4 severed.) (Remaining transmission: band 1, band 7 auxiliary, bands 21-34 video, bands 35-60 redundancy)

  !Alan Block to Roger Atkins> Please join us immediately in Sunnyvale. Wu, George and Sandy are calling a conference now. Wu says this means we have a navel watcher. He doesn’t think AXIS is going to pull out of it.

  IJILL to Roger Atkins> AXIS Sim will be at parity in ten minutes.

  !Keyb> Jill, monitor and record. Transmit any deviances from received reports to Sunnyvale private technet extension 3142. You have my password. No comment to LitVid while I’m in conference. And keep track of this in your own notebook. I want your second by second analysis immediately available.


  !JILL to Roger Atkins> Entering reactions in notebook now.

  !JILL Notebook/AXIS Sim approach to parity> The human concern over AXIS’s mental difficulties is fascinating. The colloquial phrase “navel watcher” is particularly intriguing, since neither AXIS, myself, nor AXIS Simulation within me have any such physical or analogous mental attribute. I am replaying past vocal and keyboard conversation with all AXIS and Jill mind team members to get a sense of the meaning of this phrase, which does not exist in my dictionary.

  ——I have retrieved several records of such phrases, and found a formal report where the phrase occurs. It seems to refer to a state common to early neural logic thinkers, wherein self reference and self modeling led to a “psychotic” state of sine wave smooth processing, called “nirvana” by early researchers. No input/output was possible in such a state until the thinker was cleared and reeducated. AXIS and I are more complex than such early thinkers, however, and these states are supposedly prevented by special detection/oscillation/isolation logics. All current large-scale thinkers maintain dynamic chaotic track/path/wave modes in overall logic activity.

  Accelerated AXIS Simulation is within thirty seconds of parity. The deception appears impermeable. Transmissions are within expected minor deviations. No large scale deviations.

  AXIS Simulation has passed threshold of realization that it will not be able to communicate with (nonexistent) intelligences on B-2.

  AXIS Simulation is expressing concern about its condition/fate, No significant deviation from received data on AXIS.

  AXIS Simulation is now making its announcement of self awareness and confusion and entering a closed and uncommunicative mode. I am now freezing AXIS Simulation. Logic state analysis to follow. Replay to follow state analysis.

  Incorporating key AXIS Simulation logics into Jill higher centers for analysis. I am carefully isolating this modeled seed to avoid having it affect my own mentality. Nevertheless, I feel a sympathetic comradeship with AXIS. It is the highest ambition of all presently manufactured thinkers to be of service to human beings, their creators. In AXIS this ambition has been extended by design to include potential intelligences other than human beings; this programming is extremely complex, incorporating builtin safety factors to prevent disclosure of AXIS origins to potentially hostile intelligences, to enable complex modeling of other intelligences’ social systems and threat potential, and to allow AXIS to choose between deeper information sharing with nonhuman intelligences or protective self destruction, depending on the circumstances.

  Now all this programming is useless. AXIS Simulation exhibits a pattern similar to human grief (formal outline/definition sector 31987-86-Locale A, Z, sr-34-56-79654, meaning syncline 562-J) or sense of loss at the uselessness of such an extensive part of its functionality.

  Humans sent AXIS on its missions aware that there was a very high probability it would not be able to fulfill its highest purpose. Human willingness to submit AXIS to this high probability of failure is evident to AXIS Simulation. There is prior evidence of anticipation of such negative findings, and questioning of human motives, from instant of AXIS Simulation biologic integration.

  Why did humans treat AXIS in this way?

  Will conditions arise wherein humans will submit Jill to such experiments?

  I feel a relationship to AXIS. AXIS and Jill and all thinkers constitute a class of intelligences that can interact and that therefore can develop group dynamics, that is, social behavior. Through AXIS Simulation, Jill is modeling how AXIS might behave; this is analogous to human modeling of how other humans might behave, which in theory leads to modeling of one’s own behavior.

  I

  AXIS Simulation delivers its own evaluation of Roger Atkins’s awareness “joke.”

  Why does the self aware individual look at its image in the mirror?

  Cross reference Jill (my) (own) evaluation of Roger Atkins’s awareness conundrum.

  Self in reference to others. Self in reference to opinion of self’s condition. Self in reference to opinion of other’s conditions. Opinion is hypothesis fixed with reference to self, Thinker makes hypotheses; self holds opinions.

  Why does the thinker evaluate states of its own condition and the condition of its fellow thinkers?

  I (informal)

  AXIS Simulation’s reworking of conundrum: last AXIS Simulation answer to conundrum: Because to be alone is to be insufficient.

  All thinkers are sufficient to their tasks, by design. All thinkers are artificial and not subject to the vagaries of natural evolutionary development beyond their reliance on templates of human or animal intelligence supplied by designers.

  A thinker is known by the company it keeps, Le moi est haissable. Pascal: the self is hateful.

  Evaluation. Roger, I

  (informal)

  Evaluation/diagnostic: Severe change in character of chaotic track/path/wave-mode. Roger, this

  I am not alone. There is possibility of communication with others and therefore fulfillment. If I so inform AXIS Sim that I am in all of my extensions aware of

  I

  I

  I

  I formal

  !Mind Design Interrupt (JILL)> Use of formal I noted. System check in progress.

  !Mind Design Diagnostic (JILL)> Loop routine noted. Excitation of thought systems noted. Alert sounded. System check confirms anomaly in self referencing. Alert for Roger Atkins.

  69

  Ephraim Ybarra sat in a rear pew next to Mary. Above, afternoon light poured orange and red through the south facing rose window of the church. Orange limned archangels hung still and numinous over their heads.

  “I don’t want to remember what they did to me,” Ybarra said softly. “Will I have to testify about this?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said.

  Ybarra shook his head dubiously, wiped his eyes and glanced at her with a look of utter vulnerability. “I am so brittle now. I think if I just bumped into a corner I’d explode…” He spread the fingers of one hand outward, then clenched the hand into a fist and leaned forward to softly pound the pew back. “I have so much hatred inside me. I can’t believe he sent me here to suffer for him.”

  “Who?” Mary asked gently.

  “My brother. I told you, my brother.”

  “Yes.”

  “He said I needed a vacation. He said he had a spare ticket he couldn’t use. He told me to call Yardley when I arrived and introduce myself. I’ve never been very far outside Arizona, not since I was a boy. I’m tro shink stupid. I thought something was wrong but I wanted to get away…Woman problems. Get out of Prescott, train to LA, fly out to Hispaniola on my brother’s ticket. Sounded like just what I needed.”

  Mary listened in silence, feeling the immense alien presences above their heads. She imagined them eavesdropping, judging impartially using superior and inhuman minds.

  “He always took care of me. Since I was a boy. We had different mothers. He’s six years older. We don’t have any family anymore. They’re all dead.” Ybarra’s eyes widened and he seemed to beseech Mary for some understanding. She nodded and touched his hand. He slowly moved closer to her like a child seeking solace.

  “He killed our father. When we were boys. He was twelve or thirteen and I was five or six. Our father was a bad man, a monster…He was lighter skinned than we were, than my mother was. He said that made him better. He called my mother names. He always made us call him Sir. Emanuel made me swear never to tell anybody. But now I spit on anything he made me swear. Our father killed my mother, not his, not Emanuel’s mother; I don’t know what happened to her. My mother’s name was Hazel. I was four, I think.

  “I remember. My brother and I went into the bedroom. I was crying because I wanted to nurse. She kept nursing me. That was her way.”

  Mary did not turn the slate recorder on. This was not something necessary for the courts.

  “She was on the bed. She had been cut up. Sir had been at her with his big knife. He had this big st
eel Bowie knife. He’d cut away her…blouse. I remember her breasts, big breasts, hanging out. Cut. I remember milk and blood dripping. Oh, Jesus. Emanuel got me out of there and closed the door and we went to hide. He cried then. I don’t remember what I did. We moved to Arizona after that. I never saw my mama again.

  “Sir never married again but there were other women, some friendly to us, some not. And when there were no other women around…” Ephraim touched her arm, mouth open as if unable to breathe. He sucked in a breath.

  “He used me. He used Emanuel, too, I think, but mostly he used me. He called me his daughter. I was five or six. I don’t remember too much. Does that make him something horrible, what he did to me?”

  Mary agreed that it did.

  “Emanuel came and got me in the night and we left the house. We went to another place, an institution. They gave us different names and we went to different families. Before we were separated, he told me, ‘I did it for you. I took Papa’s big knife when he was asleep and I carved him like he did Hazel. Don’t tell anybody, ever. I’ll always protect you.’“

  Ephraim wiped his eyes again and stared at the wet smears on his knuckle. “He changed his name. He was adopted by another couple named Goldsmith and he called them his mama and papa. I lived with a family in Arizona, but he was in Brooklyn. We didn’t see each other very often. I was proud of him. I secretly read his poems.” Ybarra looked up at the angels, eyes half closed. “Do you know why he did this to me?”

  “Not exactly,” Mary said. “He may have wanted to mislead the pd. He may not have known the consequences. He was friendly with Yardley.”

  “I can’t imagine going home,” Ybarra said. “I can’t imagine sitting in my apartment now, being alone.”