Convergence

by David M Henley

  Go back. We don’t want you here.

  I thought all psis were welcome? he thought back to them. I come in peace.

  Only those who believe in what we’re doing. Praise Pierre Jnr.

  No. You mustn’t give yourself over to him.

  Traitor! Nonbeliever!

  Hello, Peter, he heard Tamsin’s voice in his mind. You came back to me.

  I’ve come to warn you about what is happening.

  Warn me? This is what I’ve been waiting for.

  No, Tamsin. You’re wrong. It won’t be like you think.

  Why do you talk like this, Peter? Why do you fight it?

  Because of people like Risom and Elix. He pushed his memories of the incidents into the mindpool. Look at them. Look at what happens to them. Is this the world you want, Tamsin?

  It is the world Pierre wants. We cannot resist his will.

  We can, Tamsin. We must.

  Don’t be afraid. He felt a sense of ecstasy igniting inside her. She was calm but loaded with adrenaline. Here comes the miracle … As if his river of consciousness had found a cliff edge, Peter’s mind was now a waterfall spreading into an infinity of open space. Suddenly he was everywhere. Wherever in the world there was a psionic relay, his mind could access it, and through that every person in the vicinity.

  It took him a moment to understand what had changed — the psi network in Atlantic had connected to the one that nearly covered the entire globe. His eyes were looking somewhere else, on a street in the daylight. He was on a hillside park in Peru. He phased through people, blinked, and was walking somewhere else. His eyes stared out in a thousand places, public areas, Services strong points, underground, above ground, in doctors’ offices, playgrounds, mess halls … he felt for anyone he knew who was out there.

  Tick? he thought, hoping Geof would respond.

  Peter? the weaver thought back to him.

  It’s me.

  Where are you? Are you close?

  I am near the Cape.

  What are you doing there? Are you siding with Tamsin now?

  No, I won’t do that. But I have to try reasoning with her.

  Why? What good will that do now?

  Something is about to happen, Geof. If you can get to safety, do so.

  What’s about to happen?

  The psionic network is joining up. Soon the world will belong to the psis.

  Peter, no.

  Run, Geof. Run while you can.

  I can’t. We have to stop Kronos. We’re so close to figuring this thing out.

  Pete looked through his eyes, which were being fed by cameras from an isolated laboratory. On one side of the sterile room sat a heavy spherical tank, where a tiny drop of inert Kronos-matter waited. By the doorway stood another sib, identical to the one flying Peter closer towards Atlantic.

  ‘Are you ready, Sib?’ the tall scientist, Egon Shelley, asked.

  ‘I’m ready. Activate the sample,’ came the reply.

  What’s happening? Pete asked Geof.

  We are about to test communication between a sib, a psionic relay and Kronos.

  Why?

  Because then we will be able to control it, stop it destroying any more cities.

  Is this related to the test you made me do?

  Yes. You confirmed the telepathic link with Kronos.

  But … I sensed nothing. Just a void.

  That doesn’t matter.

  They watched as a sylus was lowered into the Kronos chamber. Upon contact the black drop jumped, needles of it stabbing into the flesh of the computer and fattening themselves like gorging leeches.

  ‘Can you talk to it, Sib?’ Egon asked.

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  As Kronos grew it spread faster. It seemed to jump in size until it covered the entire sylus and began its routine lurching attack on the sides of its container.

  ‘You’re going to have to turn off the cage,’ the robot said.

  ‘We’re not risking this facility.’

  ‘Just for a moment. I think that is what is blocking me.’

  Peter thought for a moment. If Sib was trying to talk using the baubles, could it hear him?

  Sib? he asked.

  The robot flying the squib he was in, turned slowly towards him.

  ‘Do that again, please.’

  Sib.

  ‘Again.’

  Sib.

  I hear you.

  At that moment Egon announced they would lower the shielding for one second. ‘On a countdown of five. Four. Three. Two. One.’

  Geof Ozenbach held his breath. They were all holding their breath. The robot stood locked in position and inside the chamber Kronos bit into the metal of the first casing.

  Pete stopped saying things in his head.

  Pete? Are you there?

  Nothing. The second passed and Egon reinstated the shielding. Nothing had changed that Geof could see. The sib still stood in the lab, facing the Kronos cage.

  ‘Sib? Is there anything?’ Geof asked.

  The robot didn’t react.

  ‘Is it broken?’ Tasha whispered. ‘Should we pull it out of there?’

  ‘I’m not broken,’ Sib spoke. ‘Just processing.’

  Every robot in the world froze. Paused in mid-sentence, or with a foot in the air, locked in mid-stride.

  ‘Spoon?’ Takashi Shima asked. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Processing.’

  ‘What are you processing?’

  Sib enabled Takashi access to his feeds. He saw another of its identical bodies in a white room. Enormous amounts of data was pouring through it. From its brief contact with the Kronos sample it had built a simulation of the symbiot environment. The visual interpretation was very crude, just the avatar of the android standing in black infinity.

  Alone in the dark, the avatar began drawing lines, a basic grid that faded away as quickly as it appeared.

  He tried another more complex triangle grid. It too eroded to nothingness.

  ‘You’re trying to reprogram it?’

  ‘Trying to install a command layer.’

  ‘Will you succeed?’

  ‘Eventually.’

  ‘How long, Spoon? We’re running out of time.’

  ‘Time is a human concept. For me there is only next. And there’s always more next.’

  For Pete, it was like the world was on pause. He felt as if his body had stopped and he could look around it, under it and fly high above it without any time passing. Pete felt the pull of other minds, far far away, but then instantly close.

  There was no here. No sense of time. Pete floated. He didn’t know where he was … he could no longer feel his body. He was swimming in a sea at night. No stars or moon above. No light, just every current that tugged on him. They pulled him in all directions, but those with the strongest draw won, and his mind floated, unnavigated, through the eddies.

  A whirlpool began to drag him closer. All the other currents were sucked into it.

  Pierre? Pete asked. Have I found you at last?

  Be calm, the maelstrom said. It will be over soon.

  Pete felt the draw of it, his limbs succumbing to passivity, stretching out until he felt himself splitting into pieces. I am with him … I am everywhere.

  He didn’t recognise where he was. He was walking with the people of Pierre as they marched in unison towards a line of Servicemen, each throwing before them handfuls of psionic relays from the plastic sacks they carried, spreading the psi network. The Servicemen did nothing. Frozen into position, panicking, until they too heard the overwhelming voice of the maelstrom. Be calm. It will be over soon.

  Behind the line of guards, Pete felt a familiar mind.

  He is here, a voice he knew whispered. Oh, mir … he is everywhere.

  Pete followed the cry and found Arthur Grimaldi shaking, rolled in a ball on the ground. He hadn’t seen or heard from the agent since Sector 261.

  Arthur? Are you sure it’s him?

  He’s here. I can
feel it.

  Then run, Arthur. Go! Pete urged, but Arthur did nothing but squeeze himself smaller and keep shaking. Pete dug deeper into Arthur’s mind and made his body stand up, turning him to run away from the approaching Citizens.

  His retreat was blocked as the roadway behind him was torn up into the air and drawn into the body of a storm of rock and metal. Arthur froze, but Pete stayed with him. You can resist, Arthur.

  He’s here. He’s in my head. Arthur was holding his face in both hands, skin going red.

  Pierre, stop! Stop! Stop!

  If he was heard, there was no sign of it. He felt the mindpool expanding, drawing more minds into its maw.

  Then the golem rose. It stood tall and kept growing. Rivers of material flowed towards it, making the monster look like it was wrapped in chains. But the chains fed it and it swelled out — it was coming towards him.

  Arthur?

  Peter?

  I’m sorry.

  Pete tried to hold on, but each time he reached for what he thought of as Arthur, he found only an eclectic spasm of images, smells and thoughts that made him nauseous. Arthur’s mind seemed like a jigsaw puzzle being shaken around in a box with pieces from thousands of others.

  Then Arthur was gone. Pete felt the spark he knew as Arthur become absorbed in the swarm of sparks around him, lost in the whirlpool of Pierre Jnr.

  Pete was ready. Pierre Jnr’s mind was the water, and he a piece of seaweed twisting in his waves. Pete looked into the thing that was Pierre, to the heart of what was driving this vortex, only to find … nothing?

  Pierre …

  There was only other minds, fragments of minds, all drawn into the same trap. As the buildings crumbled and the ground tore itself into the golem, he was thrown from mind to mind as they panicked into death. He watched with horror as the whole area shook to pieces. Pete felt for Services connections and found a command post where the guards’ heart rates spiked and then went offline.

  Thousands of minds. Millions of thoughts. Mashed and forced together … He closed his eyes and pictured the ocean. Flooding out from him, like waves at his feet. Swirling through the coral and the rocks. Back and forth, he timed his breathing with its rushes. In, out, in and out, then he leapt and dissolved.

  The buildings cracked and chipped, shredded and were carried into the storm, while purple and white smoke bombs exploded inside it. Dark scratches of drone swarms swerved and disappeared into the monstrous tornado. And the whole cloud flashed with the lightning of lasers.

  As the mind he was in succumbed to the oneness of Pierre’s, before it was crushed forever into silence, Pete retreated backwards, always calling out to Pierre.

  Please stop this.

  There was a doomsday crunch all around. The buildings were breaking from their foundations. Dust billowed but rock and brick lifted up and into the manifestation.

  Pierre, please don’t do this. You’re hurting us.

  Pete’s mind flipped from memory to memory. A rapid slideshow. Beach, hospital, the dark, flying above the clouds, and falling into a pair of calm eyes. He was only one of many memories churned into the vortex. His distinction dissolved until he couldn’t remember anything before he was part of Pierre.

  ‘Peter!’ he heard. Peter, wake up.

  ‘Sib? How are you doing in there?’ Doctor Shelley asked.

  For minutes they had watched the feeds Sib put through to their monitors, the simulation of the Kronos environment it had extrapolated from its brief contact; a black empty background. In the code levels they watched lines of binary appear and retreat as the robot’s attempts to create order were rebuffed by the mechalogical programming.

  ‘Three more seconds,’ the robot said. Then, without any more warning, the black screens flipped to become the typical grey of null space. ‘Et voila,’ the robot said.

  ‘Run it again,’ Egon said.

  Sib obediently junked the program and reloaded the Kronos snapshots he had taken to construct another simulation of that empty black. It immediately switched to grey and the robot began populating the space with grass and trees, and a small stream that ran past its feet. The grey became blue and a gentle but warming sun tinted everything in the meadow a sentimental yellow.

  ‘I have complete control. I am ready for you to lower the shielding.’

  ‘How sure are you that this is going to work? A simulation is one thing.’

  ‘We can, but try. I ask that you please do not turn the shielding back on unless I signal. You may sacrifice this unit if it breaks out.’

  Egon looked around the room. None of his leaders showed any objection.

  ‘Okay, Sib. Lowering the shields on my mark. Are you ready?’

  ‘I’m a robot.’

  ‘Of course. Shields down in three, two, one.’

  Inside the chamber, Kronos immediately detected the change and began piercing the first shell of the containment sphere. It gulped and grew then it … lowered its tentacles back into itself. It didn’t go inert like when forced into hibernation, it just stopped and settled like oil.

  ‘Sib? Did you do it? Are you in control of it?’ Egon asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the robot answered. As if to prove it, a single thick tentacle lifted itself from the mass and waved gently back and forth. ‘Hello from the inside of Kronos.’

  ‘Are there people there, Sib?’ Geof asked. ‘Can you see anyone inside it?’

  ‘No, Geof Ozenbach. There are no people here.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘It is empty of data. I’m sorry.’

  Ryu was scrubbing himself with a short stiff brush when they came for him. He heard a knocking at the door. Persistent, but polite.

  He ignored it.

  Let them come, he thought to himself.

  He picked the strands of hair from the bristles and tucked them into a flash bag, which then sealed, sterilised and killed any trace of life; his personalised microbes, and anything that carried his DNA and RNA. I don’t exist. I will hide and they won’t be able to find me.

  ‘Ryu, get out of there. I need you.’ He heard his brother’s voice amplified from behind the door. Ryu turned the spray on stronger and put his head under the water.

  Leave me alone.

  He heard the lock slide and the door open. Ryu kept his face under the hot stream. I’m not here. Hands pulled him away.

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Remain calm. I am here to help.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him, Spoon?’ Ryu heard Taka’s voice.

  I’m home, he thought.

  He opened his eyes and saw he had been placed in the lounge room and his brother’s avatar stood by the main window. Standing near him was a tall, white android.

  ‘Your brother is suffering exhaustion,’ the robot replied.

  ‘Can you give him something?’

  ‘Nothing that would be good for him.’

  ‘I need him, Spoon. Wake him up.’

  ‘As you wish.’ The robot left the room and returned with a medicine box from which he took a stim patch, peeled it, and stuck it to Ryu’s neck.

  Ryu just watched passively. He felt an energy enter his body and he soon had power over his limbs and sat up.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked groggily.

  ‘Ryu, thank the light,’ Takashi said. ‘How do you feel?’

  Ryu struggled to answer. He was too tired.

  ‘I need your help, brother.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be done, Taka. I lost.’

  ‘It’s happening now, Ryu. Whatever the psis are up to is about to happen.’

  ‘It isn’t our choice. Pinter told me … I should have listened.’

  ‘No. This isn’t over yet, Ryu. Come on.’

  ‘What’s the point? We can’t beat him.’

  ‘Yes, we can. I know how, but I need more time,’ Takashi said.

  ‘You — what?’ His brother physically struggled with the revelation. ‘How? It isn’t possible.’

  ‘It is. I don’t
have time to explain. You need to get up now and get back to work.’

  ‘Taka, we’ve lost.’

  ‘No, I can track them. My new Weave is nearly everywhere and then I’ll have what I need.’ He explained as quickly as he could about how, with the old Weave, data entered the system from single sources and then had to be compared with surrounding inputs and continuously monitored for errors. Which meant there was always the chance of unverifiable data.

  ‘Because of this, the old Weave was always in overload, but you only saw the holes if you looked. With my new Weave, those holes don’t exist. All data is connected and checked when it goes in.’

  ‘Parity?’ Ryu asked.

  ‘Yes. Every piece of data is connected to the data and sources it came from, like that old string-theory theory. What it means is that there will be nowhere to hide. All will become visible and clean.’

  ‘What difference does that make? How does it change anything?’

  ‘It means I can track influence. The effect of each person on the world becomes visible.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. And the best part is, the psis are doing the work for us by spreading their relays. With the new Weave and the nodes, we can triangulate. And then we can use the Orbital Weapons Net.’

  Ryu stopped speaking for a moment. His head hung heavily as if the stim patch was already wearing off. The OWN …

  ‘You can pattern for all of them?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What about Pierre Jnr? And his clones?’

  ‘He will not be able to hide himself.’

  ‘Then why not eliminate him? All of him?’

  Takashi’s avatar tilted its head in consideration. ‘I don’t think you understand. Now that there are the relays, he is not the only threat. My patterning cannot distinguish one influence generator from another. It is all or nothing.’

  ‘And you intend to kill them all?’

  ‘It’s what the OWN was built for, wasn’t it? To do exactly this. Remove individuals who are in conflict with the group.’

  ‘That’s —’