Ghosts of Tomorrow

by Michael R. Fletcher

  “Did you get any studying done?” Francesco asked. “I’m going to ask you some questions, right? We’ll start simple.”

  “No,” said 88. “No questions. Camera off. Go away.”

  Francesco’s face wrinkled up and 88 compared it to pictures, trying to understand the importance of the look. Again she couldn’t find a match. She did find something similar, but the hair color was wrong and hundreds of facial data points didn’t match.

  “I don’t want to do this, okay? So be a good kid and answer—”

  “No! No! No!”

  Francesco shook his head.

  Raw screaming colors assaulted her perceptions, became her reality. She was on fire. Her skin peeled away. Crushing digital distortion chainsawed all thought. With no mouth to scream, she’d been robbed of her only means of communication.

  And it went on.

  Forever.

  “Hey little buddy.” Francesco made another face that meant nothing. “I didn’t want to do that, right? You didn’t leave me any choice. My boss, your Master, he’s not exactly—” Francesco looked aside and then back to 88. “He’s not exactly patient, you know? So let’s do this again. A few questions, that’s all. We have to figure out what you know. Christ, I hope you know something.”

  “No! No! No! No!”

  Francesco stared into 88. “That last one was only a couple of seconds. If I have to do it again, it’s going to be a lot worse.”

  “No!”

  “That’s the way you wanna do this? Fine. Fuck you.”

  When thought once again surfaced, rising through oceans of agony, 88 acquiesced. There was no escaping reality, and hers was controlled by Root. 88 surrendered and answered Francesco’s questions as best she could. Afterward, Francesco talked with someone off-camera. 88 listened.

  “Well, her math abilities are crazy high,” said Francesco. “Way higher than I can test and I’m really good at math, right? But otherwise... Adelina, I can’t believe you thought buying an autistic brain was a good idea.” Francesco listened, nodding. “Well, duh. We’ll be able to use her for the market analysis stuff, but she won’t be much use beyond that.” He glanced at 88. “She learns fast, I’ll give her that.” Pause. “Like scary fast. I think we can give her market access by tomorrow.” Another pause “Dangerous? Nah. I hold all the keys, right? If she’s a bad little girl, I’ll put her in her place. Anyway, it’s just marketing data. What could go wrong?”

  Three hours after 88 began her new existence she pieced together enough of what she heard and studied to understand her reality. She was a system of data stored on a holoptigraphic computer, and data could be changed, rewritten, or added to. By altering parts of herself she could, in theory, change who and what she was. It became immediately clear that this held great potential. There was however a seemingly impenetrable wall between herself and her goal: the Operating System of the computer storing her Scan. An OS that could only be accessed from the outside, from biological reality.

  Through the eye and ear of the camera and transducer 88’s keepers used to communicate, she studied what little biological reality lay within range. She hunted for a means of controlling something in the outside universe so she could control the universe within.

  Nothing.

  Francesco stood and stretched. “That’s me done for the day, right? I’m tired. Going home. Adelina, she’s is all yours.”

  A woman walked into 88’s fixed point of view. Adelina was small and brown and looked much like Mom. Did she smell like Mom? Adelina and Francesco held each other for several seconds, and rubbed their mouths together.

  After Francesco left, Adelina sat cross-legged before 88’s camera and they played games of logic and pattern recognition. Each time she got a right answer Adelina gave her a look that reminded her of Mom. When she didn’t understand the question, Adelina shook her head and 88 got to watch the way her hair moved.

  “You’re doing really well,” Adelina said. “Francesco said you were slow.”

  Slow? I can’t move at all.

  “The boss is coming in from the city in a couple of days. He wants to see you for himself. You were expensive. It’s important that you do well with him. Much of this was my idea. Piss him off, and this goes badly for both of us.”

  “Don’t want it to go badly,” said 88.

  “That’s sweet. Me either. I have to teach you how to talk to him. It’s one thing for you to disobey Francesco, but the boss, he’s different. Very short-tempered.”

  88 must talk differently to the boss than Root? She’d read about this. “Information protocol,” said 88.

  “Yes! Very good! Alright, let’s get started. Ready?”

  “Yes!”

  “How are our investments doing?” Adelina asked.

  88 rattled off a long stream of letters and numbers representing companies in different markets and any movement their stocks had made.

  Bright colors and thought shredding sound tore her mind.

  “Listen to the question,” Adelina said when 88 could once again think and hear. “How are they doing? Random numbers will mean nothing to the boss. We bought you for analysis, so analyze.”

  What did I do wrong? Desperate to please, 88 detailed the reasons for each fluctuation and predicted future movement.

  “You’re going to get me killed. Let’s try this again. How much money did we make this week?”

  She told Adelina. The number changed as an off-shore account earned interest and she told Adelina the new number. In the North American Trade Union representatives purchased several Urban Assault combat chassis. She told Adelina the new number.

  “We’ll continue tomorrow,” Adelina said, standing. “You’ll get this right if it kills you.” She walked off-camera, fists clenched tight.

  Already dead.

  Darkness. Someone turned off her camera feed.

  88 was lost. She would curl up and cry for the frustration but such actions were beyond her. Instead she simply existed. The future of that existence looked more and more like a nightmare. She fled to the only escape available, her data. The NATU markets showed strange patterns. She saw a level of increasing manipulation from within the market. It seemed as if the market developed its own intelligence. Was that possible?

  She also took the time to research her Masters. Much of what she read she couldn’t understand, but she learned some new words she had to look up. Organized Crime. Mafia. Cosa Nostra.

  88, floating in sublime nothingness, considered the last few hours. They asked questions and then hurt her when she answered. That didn’t make sense. They wanted different answers, but those she gave were the only available. The woman had said, “We’ll continue tomorrow. You’ll get this right if it kills you.”

  I answered the questions, what else can I do? If she didn’t answer they’d hurt her. If she did, they’d kill her.

  Late that night 88 came to the realization she must escape her captors. But how? She had exhaustively studied what little she could see and had no ability to effect anything on the outside. Escape was impossible.

  Tomorrow Adelina would return and torture 88 because she couldn’t understand the questions. It was all about communications. 88, desperate, thought dictionary and searched until she found Implicit. Implied. Alluded to. How could she possibly know what wasn’t plainly spoken?

  She didn’t see the answer until midnight. She couldn’t make her captors happy, but maybe she could make something that could. 88 delved into the world of computer languages and hacking. This, she saw, was where some small freedom might lie. Within bounds set by the Operating System she could alter some non-critical code. She couldn’t alter the data that defined her, but her keepers had left a huge amount of software on the system. She had access to translation software, games, and graphics and audio interfaces. Most importantly, to allow her access to the marketing data, she had access to NATUnet and beyond.

  88 stripped code from different software packages and recombined it like digital DNA. By mo
rning she’d built a Mirror of herself. It was a patchwork creation made by stealing learning software from the few companies still chasing the Artificial Intelligence dream combined with interactive personality modelling software stolen from virtuality gaming companies and university psyche-labs. She did this between midnight and three a.m. and the result—while barely acceptable to 88—was the single most complex entity of purely digital origins to ever exist. This creature was neither code nor sentience. It was something in-between. 88 could find nothing like it anywhere on NATUnet. The Mirror learned some standard responses and studied the Cosa Nostra lingo.

  When Adelina returned 88 felt ready. The woman still looked like Mom, but it was a cruel deception.

  “How are we today?” Adelina asked.

  “Fine,” the Mirror answered. “And yourself?” 88 would never have thought to ask such a question.

  “I’m good,” she said. “You seem different.”

  “It’s been a long night,” said the Mirror. “I’ve had time to think.”

  “Are you ready to cooperate?”

  “Of course! We want to make sure everyone is happy!”

  “Excellent.”

  Over the next few hours, the Mirror answered questions while 88 worked on designing new Mirrors. She wanted something capable of pursuing the lines of inquiry she didn’t have time for. By the time Adelina was finished and heaping praise on 88’s first Mirror, 88 had built several more and launched them into the wide world beyond the computer on which she was stored.

  As 88 sifted through terabytes of data on Artificial Intelligence, hoping to find something that would improve upon her designs, one of her Mirrors returned with questions regarding the search on which it had been sent.

  “I require clarification and guidance,” said the Mirror. “I have found over one-point-four billion references to my Mom in the last tenth of a second.”

  “No, my Mom. I want you to look for my Mom.”

  “Mom, and my Mom have defined my search parameters, as instructed. I have searched the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore, and confirmed that she has never worked within that nation’s government.”

  “Singapore?”

  “Nor does she have any affiliation with Motorcycles of Manchester.”

  “Manchester?” 88 referenced an atlas. “In the European Trade Union?”

  “District of Massachusetts, North American Trade Union. Mothers of Multiples looked promising—”

  “Stop,” interrupted 88, annoyed. “Start with me, here. Trace backwards to wherever I came from. Find my mother. Discover her current whereabouts.”

  The Mirror left.

  88 had returned to her research when another Mirror appeared. She answered more questions and narrowed more search parameters, but before she finished yet another Mirror returned with questions of its own. As she modified that Mirror, two more returned, uncertain of which branches of research to follow when their original lines of inquiry dissected. Her answers led to more questions and soon she spent more time answering queries from her many Mirrors than doing her own research.

  Learning Software, she decided, was something of a misnomer.

  CHAPTER FOUR: Wednesday, August 1st, 2046

  Oh my god there’s a—

  Awake. That wasn’t right; it made it sound like he’d been asleep. It was dark, but not the kind of dark you got when you closed your eyes in an unlit room. No random flash of phosphenes flickered across his vision. There was no visual noise at all, a black that couldn’t exist. Reach out and touch...no arms, no hands. No reaching. He felt a flash of tight panic and it was gone, turned off, just like that. Abdul existed in nothing. Not floating, that implied something to float on. No sensation at all.

  This should be scary.

  He felt nothing, all emotion beyond arm’s reach. He’d achieved some kind of disconnect.

  No. He hadn’t achieved it, it was achieved for him. An important distinction.

  He had no ribs and no lungs. No feeling of sheets on skin or blood in veins. He tried to recapture that moment of panic but found himself incapable. That unreal black didn’t distract him for long. The disconnect grabbed his attention. Disconnected. He opened his mouth to speak but had no mouth to move. No lips to form words.

  He waited for the impending sensory deprivation insanity. Try as he might, he couldn’t become bored. He could almost become annoyed if he focused.

  Fuck. Sure, but he felt no real emotion.

  Thinking. It helped pass the time.

  He hadn’t done any real drugs since joining the Marines. This wasn’t like that anyway.

  Okay. All right. Where am I?

  There was something he didn’t want to remember. He knew it.

  He’d been with the NATU 409th Marine Corps in Old Montreal.

  He remembered the classroom, the Urban Pacification digitext sitting before him. He remembered moving from building to building. Hugging the walls, ducking into doorways. Rue Le Royer, Boulevard St. Laurent. Bullet holes pocked the rotting and pollution-gnawed stone. The stench of the St. Lawrence River less than two-hundred meters away. The river so choked with garbage Abdul thought he could walk across it. He’d been tempted to try, but the Corporal said he’d be dead in half an hour if he ingested river water. He remembered sitting on the shore with his friend, whose name escaped him right now, counting the corpses floating past. Six in one morning. That was January 20th, 2046.

  He’d rather just exist here than think about—

  Private First Class Abdul Aziiz-Giordano? A voice in his thoughts, but not his.

  “Sir, yes, Sir!” Only a commanding officer would call him that. He couldn’t actually verbalize anything. Had they heard him?

  Link seems to be working.

  “Yes, Sir.” He knew not to question.

  How you feeling, Private?

  “Fine, Sir.” That wasn’t entirely right. “Kind of disconnected,” he added.

  You’ve been disconnected so you can think clearly. You have an important choice to make.

  Abdul didn’t like the word disconnected now that someone else used it.

  “Sir, I don’t remember—”

  Blocked in the interest of communication. And healing.

  “Healing, Sir?”

  You’ve suffered a massive trauma. Best to take it slowly. Give the mind time to heal. Come to terms with the new reality.

  He was healing, what a relief. Probably in some minimalist military virtuality while his body was on the mend. That wasn’t so bad. Could be worse. Abdul expected to feel more relaxed but nothing changed. There was no body to reflect his mood. This bothered him. At least he felt like it should.

  Well, better ask the obvious question. Get it out of the way. “The new reality, Sir?”

  No sugar-coating will make this taste better. If you can’t take it we’ll shut you down again and do more psyche work.

  Again? More? Had they done this before? Was this not the first time he’d had this conversation? Déjà vu but darker. Abdul wished his French were better. It should be with the weeks he’d spent in Old Montreal.

  Quiet dread. Excellent, he felt something.

  You walked into a Cyrba mine.

  “Cyrba?”

  Jumping spider mine. Total tissue trauma with the exception of your head. Your squad medic got it into a Brainbox and airlifted out.

  “They airlifted my head out?” The thought of his head no longer being attached to his body was unpleasant. Unpleasant wasn’t enough. Total tissue trauma: Military jargon for your body got all blown up. That sounded unpleasant.

  Un-fucking-pleasant.

  Abdul wanted a stronger reaction.

  Correct.

  They got his head out. That wasn’t so bad, right? No. No, that was bad. No two ways around it. Very bad. Quiet dread blossomed like a rose in old-fashioned stop-motion photography. “The rest of me?”

  Burnt burger. Completely unsalvageable.

  That slow-motion rose metamorphosed into full-blown, mi
nd-shattering terror. What had they fucking done with his body? Why were they—

  And calm. Dispassionate. No, disconnected. That was the word. They did this. Reset or something. Head in a box, they could do whatever they wanted to his brain. Tell it what to feel.

  Please. Tell it to feel something.

  “Burger. Oh.” Abdul wanted outrage or shock but couldn’t summon either.

  You’ve heard about the brain Scans, correct? NATU Military have been embedding Scanned minds into tanks and aircraft for a couple of years now.

  Of course he’d heard about it. But scanning was for old people. Abdul was only seventeen! And didn’t the scanned minds always go insane, or was that just in the shows?

  A memory. “The scanning process is destructive. Nothing left of the original brain afterwards.” The rose began to blossom again.

  Correct.

  Not even a head. They’d taken everything he was and run it through a digital blender. Scrambled thoughts in a box. Pinocchio in reverse, they’d taken the boy and made him a puppet. The rose wilted and curled under the heat of a new emotion.

  Rage.

  Helplessness fed the anger.

  Excellent! That’s what we were looking for.

  Looking for? The rage subsided. It wasn’t gone, just attenuated like someone twiddled the volume on an entertainment system. The anger had been dialled back enough he could think clearly. At least they hadn’t taken it away. He was almost grateful.

  We want you to volunteer.

  A flash of memory: a grizzled French-Canadian soldier saying, ‘Never be first, never be last, never volunteer.’

  “So I volunteer and you stick a digitized copy of me in a tank or a jet fighter, or I decline and I’m dead.”

  Essentially. I need to be extremely clear here. Our need for Scans outstrips the supply. The Asian Rim Union doesn’t give a rat’s ass for Human Rights and they’re churning out chassis and Scans far beyond what we are managing. They’ve already launched a damned Scan-crewed spaceship. We’re falling behind.