by Paul Anlee
“Vacationland?” Kaloor asked.
“Yes,” Strang answered for the Cybrid. “A few months ago a programmer from Romania, a member of the YTG Church, if you can believe it, approached me by email with a virtual world he’d modified for Cybrid use. He called it Vacationland. It’s based on an inSense entertainment program he’d designed on Earth.”
Kaloor eyed him with a skeptical sidelong glance. “And Alum’s okay with this?”
“I wondered about that, too, but Alum seems to have embraced the idea wholeheartedly. Perhaps he believes it makes him appear more kind hearted.”
“At any rate,” DAR-K said. “It provides my people with a place to play and to remember their humanity, if only for a while. I’m looking into providing a user-friendly development interface so we can create other such worlds.”
“So, you’re content to exist in servitude?” Jared asked.
“We all exist to serve within our societies, do we not? Cybrids have little or no personal ambition. We have everything we need: energy, maintenance, purpose. We have no desire for dominance over our fellows, neither Cybrid nor human. With the proposed software and computational support, we can make and inhabit any world we dream up. It’s as good a life as anyone ever had.”
Kaloor wobbled his head left and right as he considered DAR-K’s position. “Okaaay. Well, that’s one way to think of it. So, you’re saying you’d prefer to remain above the fray, then?”
“As I’ve told Jared before, Alum is humanity’s problem to sort out. I remember freedom. I remember democracy. Nice ideals. Not everything works out as pretty as planned.
“If you want to ask me about the best way to administer the habitats, I’ll be happy to answer. Alum has a good design, in my estimation. If I were you, I’d plan a cooperative opposition, a small tweak here and there, a different perspective, nothing overly dramatic.”
“So that’s going to be our platform? A tweak here and there, a different perspective, nothing overly dramatic,” Thurgood scoffed. “Try winning elections with that!”
“I’m sure we can come up with something a little catchier,” Strang replied. “Maybe along the lines of, ‘Every government needs a sober second opinion,’ or how about, ‘Experience counts.’ Something like that.”
Kaloor’s face gave in to a mischievous, wry grin. “Marketing is really not your strength, is it?”
“Maybe not,” Strang admitted. “It doesn’t matter. We know why an opposition party is needed, and that’s enough to get started. There are several thousand members of the previous Administration living among the three asteroids. We need to get in touch with them and start identifying potential candidates.”
“We may have all worked together, but I don’t believe we were ever politically united,” Thurgood admitted. “The old Administration ran the spectrum from far left to far right and everything in between.”
“Luckily, we were able to unite in survival,” Kaloor said.
“The very few of us who knew, that is,” Strang replied. “Most of the original colonists never knew anything beyond the official ‘opportunities for expansion’ cover story. Most of them believed it was an option for humanity to push into a new frontier.”
Thurgood took a sip of her coffee. “These people know nothing beyond their faith in Alum and their God.” She scowled at the dark liquid. The untouched cup had grown cold, and they hadn’t gotten past the basic existential issues.
“Their faith allowed them to get off Earth, and to take over the asteroids,” DAR-K pointed out. “They may not be the finest representatives of humanity, and they may not be the survivors we ourselves would’ve chosen, but they are the survivors we have. For now, we need to support their efforts. We need guidance, not revolution.”
“What if they don’t want any guidance from us?” Kaloor asked. “What if they are content to live under Alum’s political and religious dictatorship?”
DAR-K had no reply.
25
“Can’t we rest for a few minutes?”
“You don’t need to rest.” Darya stood en garde, her fencing épée pointed over Timothy’s head, ready for the next round of thrust and parry, feint and counter.
They stood on a grass-covered hilltop occupied by a single, resplendent maple. As far as the eye could see, the world was an endless plane of hilltops with maple trees identical to this one. She would add more trees, some creeks, stone walls, houses, and other such complicating features to their virtual training ground later. They’d only been at it for three weeks and Timothy wasn’t ready for that level yet.
The former First Footman of Casa DonTon dropped his arm to his side. “No, I don’t need to rest. I realize you’ve altered things in this world so I don’t fatigue. It’s just that we’ve been practicing twenty hours a day for weeks now. It’s getting…tiresome, if not actually tiring.”
“Should we switch weapons? A change can be as good as a rest, the ancients used to say.”
Timothy glared at her in exasperation. “I was hoping we might have a little fun for a change.”
“Isn’t this fun?” Darya, former warrior Princess of Lysrandia, returned the glare with open innocence.
Timothy picked up the nearest rock and whipped it at her head. She casually deflected it with the edge of her sword.
“See?” Timothy wailed. “How can this be fun when I don’t stand a chance against you?”
“You don’t learn anything against a weaker opponent.”
He threw up his hands, turned his back on her, and walked away.
Darya watched him retreat without comment. She let him get a seven or eight meters away, grabbed her épée by the shaft like a spear, and launched it at his back.
An instant before the flying sword met its target, Timothy wheeled and knocked it from the air. He roared in protest and charged back up the incline, yelling the whole way.
Darya picked up the fighting staff at her feet, spun it in a blur in front of her, and brought it to an abrupt halt with one end under her arm and the other pointed directly at Timothy’s nose.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, hands on hips.
“We’ve been practicing sword-on-sword, hand-to-hand, ever since I transferred the basic weapons and combat concepts to you,” Darya replied. “Clearly, you think you’re ready for something more. Here it is.”
The staff blurred and one end struck smartly across Timothy’s arm, liberating his fencing sword.
“Ow!”
The pain in his arm pulsed long enough for him to consider the consequences of inattention and then shut off, thanks to Darya’s altered virtual biology.
“Pick it up.” She motioned with the stick, “Let’s see how your blade fares against my staff.”
Timothy stood, rubbing the memory of the blow to his arm. “I’d prefer something with an edge,” he said.
“Very well, saber, katana, scimitar, or jian?”
“In keeping with your martial arts style, I’ll use a jian, please.”
His fencing foil instantly transformed into a heavier double-edged Chinese sword. Timothy stretched out a hand to retrieve his weapon, and it leaped eagerly into his palm. He experimented with the grip and twirled it to get a feel for the weight. His third spin ended in a sideways slash at Darya.
Her staff whistled upward, deflecting the broad side of the sword and sending the jian gracefully over her head. The trailing end of the staff swooped under and behind Timothy’s swing, and connected against his shoulder with a loud “thwack!”
Timothy grunted and staggered but kept his balance.
“Would you prefer a different sword? Or maybe two jians?” she taunted.
He glowered as he grabbed his weapon and faced off again. He advanced steadily and flourished the blade in an elaborate pattern intended to impress and intimidate.
Darya retreated in pace. The wooden staff blurred in her hands as she expertly mirrored the motions of the slashing blade. She saw an opening, and her staff poked through and cau
ght him in the solar plexus.
Timothy fell backward with a gruff, “Ooof!” His sword landed a couple meters away. This time, he rolled backward and onto his feet immediately, instead of licking his wounds. He picked up his jian and advanced.
“That’s more like it,” Darya encouraged. “The faster you recover from a blow, the less chance it’ll be followed by something that kills you.”
Timothy’s sword chopped down and back up, flicking a few inches of top soil at his opponent. Darya released a hand from the spinning staff to block the dirt from reaching her eyes. As she did, his blade swept outward, where its movement was hidden by her own hand. Before she knew it, the sword slashed inward again, cutting her triceps.
Darya gasped at the sharp pain, and the fighting stick flew out of her grasp. She leaped into a back flip, putting some space between her and her opponent.
Sensing he had the advantage, Timothy rushed forward, stabbing and slashing.
She flipped backward several times to avoid his attack. Her last flip arced wider than the others, and she landed in side splits on the ground. Timothy’s sword sliced down in a killing blow aimed at her head.
She clapped her hands together, pinning his blade between her palms. A single drop of blood fell from her joined hands as Timothy strained to complete the blow. Darya twisted her body, and suddenly he was falling face down into the dirt. Instantly, Darya was on him, knife pressed to his throat.
“See,” he said. “I can never beat you!”
Darya pushed herself off him and dropped her knife back into its sheath.
“You don’t have to beat me,” she replied, “just whatever Trillian throws at us.
“Ready!” she commanded. “Again!”
26
“So, how’s the new business plan coming along?” Jared Strang was working on his second coffee of the morning at Rumi’s. It was a rare day off for the Councillor. Despite Alum’s proposal that employees work no more than three days a week, liaising with the Cybrids was taking double that. Nevertheless, it was his day away from the office and Jared was enjoying a novel he’d been meaning to re-read for months. So, today, life was good.
The owner of his favorite café looked back at him for a moment, working the question over in his mind. “I’m not sure you wanna know, man,” he replied.
Jared scanned the sparsely occupied terrace. Rumi’s two employees had everything under control. He pushed a chair out with his foot. “Sit. Tell.”
Rumi pulled off his gray apron and took a seat. He caught the eye of one of his staff and signaled for her to bring him a cappuccino.
“It’s the banks, man. I thought dealing with Ecuadorians was bureaucratic, but these guys have perfected it.”
“What’s up? I thought things would be getting better by now.” Like almost everyone, Jared had watched Alum’s pronouncements on the new economic and financial systems. Unlike most, he was actually interested. People always got caught up in the drama of elections, wars, and political infighting but policy was what really mattered.
“Yeah, you’d think so. It’s been over two months. I mean, the banks and all their people were already in place. All they had to do was change over the currency and get back into business. How much time could that take?”
“It’s entirely electronic; it should only take minutes. Hours, tops,” agreed Strang.
“Exactly! So, I waited two weeks before I put in a loan application. I was busy anyway, and I wasn’t going to be able to expand until the other shops had Certificates of Ownership for their people. So, I cooled my jets for a while. Then I went to see my manager.”
“How’d that go?”
“The first visit felt great. I filled out the paperwork, we had a nice chat about my plans, and I went home.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I didn’t hear a thing for another two weeks, so I popped in to see her again. Only, they had a new manager and he claimed that he’d never seen any paperwork.”
“What did you do?”
Rumi sighed. “What could I do? I filled out the forms again, had a nice chat about my plans, and went home.”
“And?”
“I wasn’t going to wait another two weeks so, after a few days, I went back in. Same story: new manager, no paperwork.”
“What? I would have thought their people were more competent than that.”
“Me, too. So I said to Hell with them and switched banks.”
“Branches, you mean, seeing as they’re all one bank now.”
“Yeah. Well, I got the same story there.”
“No way! Seriously?”
“Seriously, man. It’s messed up out there. They even lost track of some of my people’s paychecks.”
“Come on, now.”
“Truth. Gabbi didn’t get her pay two weeks ago, and Melissa missed one a month ago. Half my savings went missing for ten days.”
“Okay, that does sound serious.”
“Look, I’m only an engineer—“
“—and successful entrepreneur,” Jared added.
“Aw, thanks, man. Yeah. Anyway, even I know that if people don’t think they can rely on their banks, sooner or later there’ll be trouble. More likely, sooner.”
Jared checked his inSense news feed. ““Hmm, you know, this isn’t the only kind of trouble we’ve been having.”
“You’re telling me. I’ve had to shut down twice this month. No water.”
“No water? I travel so much, I hadn’t heard.”
“Yeah, I bet you stay in all the best hotels.”
“On business, I do. Not that any of them are luxurious compared to the nicer places we had on Earth.”
“It’ll get pretty sad if the definition of luxury becomes any place with steady, running water.”
“My own newsfeed, not the official mainstream broadcasts—”
“Of course,” Rumi toasted Jared with the newly-arrived cup.
“My newsfeed says these infrastructure problems may be a little more common and frequent than one might expect by chance.”
“Are you suggesting the Cybrids are lousy builders?” Rumi’s cynical grin gave away that he wouldn’t believe such a thing.
“No, not possible. Maybe it’s the new colonists who are assuming responsibilities previously carried by Cybrids.”
“Aren’t your people—the Cybrids, I mean—aren’t they training them?”
“My people, as you put it, are doing their best to train and supervise the new colonists under very trying circumstances. The majority of trainees are poorly educated, completely inexperienced, and resentful of learning from ‘machines’.
“I thought things were going well, all considered. This would suggest quite the contrary.” The furrows in Strang’s forehead deepened as he lost himself in his newsfeed.
“What is it?” Rumi asked.
“The problems are popping up randomly. Almost too randomly; it’s as if someone is trying to hide a pattern.”
“Sabotage? Who’d do that?”
“I have no idea. I’ll need to talk with DAR-K…and then with Alum.”
27
“Do you really live here?” Timothy, in his spherical trueself Cybrid body, followed Darya down a long, narrow tunnel in Secondus. The passageway joined two of her laboratories in a rabbit warren of corridors and chambers comprising her secluded asteroid base.
“What, you don’t like the décor?”
“A little stark and utilitarian for my tastes.”
“Well, you’ve spent most of your existence in the lavish halls of Casa DonTon.”
Timothy sighed. “Yes, this place does make one homesick.”
“I could de-instantiate you and return you to your former position as a Partial, if you’d rather.”
“You can do that?”
Darya couldn’t help laughing at the horrified tone in his voice. “Sorry, a poor joke. Don’t worry. Your security is solid. No one will be messing with your persona without your permission eve
r again.”
“Thank goodness for small graces.”
They had arrived at Secondus a few days earlier after a meandering voyage through local space. When the rock appeared out of the blackness, Timothy had never been so happy to see solid ground.
That felt like ages ago. Darya had shown him around and he’d committed a map of Secondus to memory. Sadly, there was no part of the asteroid base that fueled the imagination. From the small recharging station where they filled their matter-antimatter tanks, to the numerous labs, to the endless tunnels, the place was stark and ugly.
“Why do I need beauty in this world when I can have all I want and more inworld?” Darya had challenged. He had no good answer. So, he spent as much time as he could in the Recharging and Reconnecting room, as Darya called it.
A little R&R time in the virtual fairytale lands Darya had designed was a welcome respite from the harsh reality of this universe and from the virtual training ground where he’d spent the past months.
They turned off the corridor and into a bare, nondescript room.
“What’s this place for?”
“Mary is still trapped in Alternus. I need to see if I can help her,” Darya answered.
“Wait. You want to go back in there?”
“I have to,” Darya answered flatly.
“But if you go back to the recharging station, you could be captured or killed.”
“I don’t need to go anywhere. I can access Alternus from here.”
Timothy noticed the pair of interface stations at opposite ends of the chamber. “What if you’re discovered?”
“The main risk is that they could trace my signal back here. That’s of minimal concern. I route my interface through a variety of small satellites; if anyone starts tracing the network back toward here, I can simply blow them.”
“But wouldn’t that trap you in Trillian’s insane inworld?”
“No, I’ll leave my trueself here and just send in a puppet Partial.”
“Like what you sent to me when I first woke up in Gerhardt’s body?”