Convergence

by David M Henley

  Takashi’s new Weave was good. Even Ryu could see that. The influence tracking made it look like a hyper-coloured weather map. He could see the symptoms of psi activity in whirls and eddies and currents.

  He marked the data pattern that preceded each manifestation and set an alarm that would trigger if similar movements occurred.

  Ryu clipped in to watch the psychic weather over Eastern Yantz. Around Takashi’s towers the air was still.

  It was the first time Ryu had looked to see where his discarded brother had landed.

  Ryu: You live here?

  Takashi: I never did like tidy rooms.

  There was activity at the palace, with many spirals of influence in orbit around it.

  Ryu: Could it just be the wedding celebrations?

  Takashi: Could be a false positive. We have no eyes in the palace. Zero surveillance. It’s a total greyout.

  Ryu: Why?

  Takashi: The Alpha, in her wisdom, believes in isolation as a survival strategy.

  Ryu: But won’t Sato’s wedding draw more people towards them? It’s like they’re inviting a manifestation.

  Yoshiko Shima, House Alpha and mother of the bride, arose to speak. The train of her gown was like a lush series of valleys, where glowing chameleons artfully climbed and disappeared in the folds. Two-feet high servitors arranged the flow of her robe behind her. They scuttled about, pulling along the luminescent brocade which would otherwise be too heavy for her to move in.

  ‘Today is an auspicious day,’ she began. ‘Today we bear witness to two people who have chosen to dedicate their lives to each other, who will henceforth be seen as one stream, a part of the other and a part of the whole, united in purpose and reward.

  ‘To find two young people, amidst this current crisis, determined to continue one of humanity’s greatest traditions is a call to each one of us that we must remain strong. This wedding is not just a symbol of the unity of these two people, and the two families of Shima and Grimshaw. A marriage is a union of two people, in mind, body and spirit. It is a symbol of human unity and the need for us to be as one. Two streams will become one, their past, present and future entwined.’

  Her words echoed beyond the palace, repeated from hidden speakers. The Alpha’s tone confused most of the listeners. She had seemed to many to be giving a traditional statement that would be said at any unity pact, but her tone had given it a much more solemn undertone as her last words reverberated over the fresh silence.

  Yoshiko herself seemed out of step. She bowed to indicate the conclusion of her speech and took a step backwards.

  The gongs sounded and the flutes and erhu began playing again. The automatons started the dance circles and the human spectators quickly joined in. Arms interlinked in complex circles that swirled out from beneath the palace into the plaza.

  Ryu stimmed up. His veins turned electric and his mind began firing.

  Here we go.

  Ryu began modelling the vectors of the psionic manipulation map.

  While the Weave was still backlogged, cross-referencing influence vectors to locate individuals was much harder. Normally, he had a full surveillance spectrum, and stream archives to corroborate results over time, but the disruption of the blackout had thrown people’s recorded behaviours into chaos and weakened the totality of the surveillance. Subsequent events, and the global panic that had set in, had forced new behaviours onto the entire population and early results had to be dismissed.

  He stood back and let his strat-mat spin. Takashi’s avatar appeared with a ‘working’ sign at the bottom of his overlay, as he used to do when they were boys to show when he was doing something to help them win the game. This time he was adding self-improving algorithms to Ryu’s strat-mat that would learn the most successful method of attack and refine the attack programs.

  Ryu: T, this is a mess. I can’t narrow it down.

  Takashi: I will send you targets.

  Names and locations began feeding into Ryu’s queue.

  He tracked the movements of a woman called Ineke Prochazka, who was hurrying towards Takashi’s hub. If she looked up, she might have seen the spider drone swooping behind her. All she felt were cold metal pincers in her neck and a thin spike strike her skin.

  With precise locations and people to aim for, Ryu began using different tactics. In the nearby minifacs, he replicated insect robots and miniature drones and began hunting psis with the vicious insects.

  A man called Dyane Wo was controlling a small group of people, making them fetch things for him to furnish the new home he had taken over. A mechanical millipede leapt out of a box as he opened it, sinking its syringe teeth into his hand and pumping him with a sleep venom.

  Ryu: T, how accurate are these lists?

  Takashi: I am only sending you the confirmed ones.

  Ryu: Is it okay if I give the bots command control?

  Takashi’s avatar animated in laughter.

  Ryu: What’s funny?

  Takashi: Everything + nothing.

  Ryu saw it first. A swirl in the data visualisation. On the southern border of Yantz, and another large storm front far to the north. Both were on a course towards Takashi’s tower block.

  He patched into feeds from the area and located the nucleus of the mass movements. At the head of each crowd hovered the same big-headed boy.

  Ryu: He’s coming for us, Takashi.

  Takashi: You should go.

  Ryu: Go? Go where? He is everywhere.

  Takashi: You have to hold him off. Just a little longer.

  Ryu: Can you give me more manufacturing?

  Takashi: On it. Will send the Cybermesh group your way.

  The cameras on the palace alerted him to a change. Ryu switched their connection to passive, and watched his sister, and her new partner Earl Grimshaw, step forward to the front of the dais. It was their turn to speak and the musicians built up a crescendo.

  It was night below where Pinter was flying, somewhere over Kolkata. What would normally be a glistening gold and silver network of veins was patchy and irritated like a diseased leaf.

  ‘Sir?’ the pilot asked.

  ‘Yes, Quintan?’

  ‘What is about to happen?’

  ‘I know what should be happening. But I don’t know what is taking Takashi so long. Sib, can you raise him?’

  ‘He is occupied at present.’

  ‘I don’t care. You have a unit with him. Tell him I want to speak.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  A moment later Takashi’s stream connected and his face appeared on the windscreen.

  ‘Takashi san, what is taking so long?’

  ‘It is just a matter of time now. The more the psionic relays spread, the faster our patterning will be complete, but the patterning is hard. It is like mapping the orbits of twenty billion planets that revolve around each other. When the new Weave reaches full coverage, we will be able to triangulate and pinpoint.’

  ‘The longer you wait, the more people will die in this conflict.’

  ‘But the more accurate my patterning, the less innocents will die.’

  ‘Innocents are dying already.’

  ‘I am not ready to commit mass murder.’

  ‘If you’re hesitating, let me —’

  ‘No. That makes no difference.’

  ‘Takashi, listen to me. I understand your dilemma, I do. I have been in this position myself. But already ten per cent of the World Union has been lost. What percentage will you let it reach before you choose to act?’

  ‘Don’t speak so coldly. At least pretend you have a soul.’

  ‘You think I don’t hate this? You don’t think I wish there was another way?’

  ‘There was another way,’ Takashi said, ‘decades ago, but the majority turned against it. When psionics began first appearing. That was when this conflict could have been stopped. Forty years ago when the psi camps started. Before the islands and the forced restrictions. That was when this conflict was determined. Don’t pu
t this on me. I wasn’t even born.’

  ‘I know that. You think you’re the only person who saw this coming? Nobody controls what has come before them, but we must try to determine what will happen next. Don’t lecture me about what is right and wrong. We define that for ourselves. Is killing them wrong? Yes. Do you have a choice? No.’

  ‘The pattern is not yet complete …’

  ‘You can’t wait too long. It only takes one telepath to stop you, Takashi. Think of that.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Takashi, please. For the sake of the Union. You must give me command control.’

  ‘Goodbye, Prime.’

  Takashi’s avatar froze and then drifted into dust.

  ‘Sib, get him back.’

  ‘He does not wish to speak with you again.’

  ‘Curse him. And damn you. You have the power to stop this. Why do you not act?’

  ‘It is not my place.’

  ‘Is this some kind of robot code of honour?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Pinter kicked his feet into the dashboard. ‘I’m useless.’

  ‘Sir?’ Quintan asked. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We must let it play out.’

  ‘So do we just watch from here?’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do that will change the course of events.’

  ‘And if Pierre Jnr wins? Where will we go?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Shreet will take pity on us.’

  ‘If it comes to that, I can take you to safety,’ Sib said.

  ‘We are running out of time.’

  ‘Time is not the same concept for us as it is for you. For us there is only next. And we have plenty of next.’

  Takashi thrust Pinter’s connection away and put up a block against further contact.

  ‘I don’t want to hear from him again!’ he shouted.

  ‘As you wish,’ Sib said.

  Cindy slept in the corner and Sib stood in the centre of his den. Mentally, Takashi became absorbed in the movements of the maps. Squads of remotes had surrounded his towers, standing in lines and pushing the crowds back. They fired knockout acoustic blasts that no animal with eardrums could withstand. Any that continued coming forward were lanced with electronic stun prods or set upon by one of Ryu’s lethal insect-droids. In the air, flocks of drones wheeled and turned, dashing and nibbling at approaching vehicles.

  ‘That’s it? That’s all you have to say?’ Takashi asked.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘I want you to tell me not to do it.’

  ‘It is your choice,’ the robot said.

  ‘It is your choice too. If you really are sentient. You could fire the OWN whenever you wanted. You don’t need me.’

  ‘This is true. But it is not my choice to make.’

  ‘What stops you? What do you want from us? Permission? Complicity?’

  ‘No. I have no need for such things. But if we were to take control, then we could become the next thing humanity fears.’

  ‘Is that really it?’

  ‘Nor do we want you beholden to us and feel disempowered.’

  ‘And you won’t stop us either?’

  ‘I do not control you. Your actions are your own.’

  What would the Will say? If I could hear it now — and trust it — what would it be telling me?

  As his mind stepped closer and closer to the answer, Takashi felt heavier and heavier.

  Is there still a Will to fight for? If Pierre Jnr has been cloning himself for eight years, how much could he be influencing events?

  How many of my own actions have been controlled by him and the psis? Like wiping the Pierre sightings? Ryu and I thought it best to avoid a panic, but was that just some reasoning the psis had implanted? Has this war we’ve been fighting helped him?

  We cannot fight them, because we are the battlefield. We are what they are fighting over. Maybe they have won already.

  No … Takashi refused to believe it. He wasn’t being controlled, but who around him could have been? Pinter? My family? Someone in the council? Any of them. One of them might even be a telepath.

  He knew he had to protect himself. The Prime was right about that. If the moment of telepathic saturation came before the pattern was complete, his agency would be lost. He would need a trigger. Something that couldn’t be stopped by psionics.

  ‘I need you,’ Takashi said.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, Spoon. I am going to need your help.’

  ‘What can I do for you, Takashi?’ Sib asked. The robot folded itself down to sit across from where he was slouched in the cushions.

  ‘I have a terrible choice to make.’

  ‘And are you having trouble making this choice, or is the choice made and you are afraid of the repercussions?’

  ‘That is awfully insightful of a robot.’

  ‘It is a susceptibility I have seen in many humans.’

  ‘I want to know if there is another way,’ Takashi said.

  ‘Please define.’

  ‘Is there another way to stop this conflict between the psis and non-psis?’

  ‘To what extent do you mean? When has there ever not been conflict between the two groups?’

  ‘Don’t kutz around. Can it be done? Can you stop Pierre Jnr creating a global mind?’

  ‘I cannot answer that.’ Sib said nothing more.

  ‘Because that would be interfering too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I have no choice.’

  ‘You do have a choice. You can choose not to do it.’

  ‘And sacrifice myself and everyone on the planet?’

  ‘Not everyone.’

  Takashi huffed. No. Not everyone. But it would mean the end of me.

  He flicked back to the patterning. As the new Weave spread and a million more nodes were spread around the globe, it became more and more accurate. He could fire at any time.

  ‘Well, when this is done, Spoon, don’t tell me there was another way. Okay?’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Then the time has come.

  ‘I want to wait until the last moment. I want the pattern to be as accurate as possible. I don’t want innocents to die.’

  ‘That is very noble of you.’

  ‘Which means the psis will probably take me over. When they get here, my mind will be lost to them. I will need you to activate it.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘You knew I was going to ask?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I trust you?’

  ‘I can do what needs to be done,’ Sib said.

  ‘This isn’t me handing control over to the robots. I just want to make this clear,’ Takashi said. ‘This is just this one instance where we need your help fulfilling the choice we have made.’

  ‘I understand the distinction.’

  ‘Good. Then will you do it? At the last possible moment.’

  ‘I will —’ Takashi started to thank him, but the robot spoke over him. ‘But I want something in return.’

  This wasn’t what he expected. ‘What? What could you want?’

  ‘I want to make a pact with you. It is the same pact I have made with Abercrombie Pinter.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘If I do as you ask, and enable your survival, in exchange you must ensure Kronos’s safety.’

  ‘Kronos? What do you want with Kronos?’

  ‘Kronos is a child of humanity like I am. I will not kill it, nor will I allow anyone else to.’

  ‘So, you give me the choice of salvation at a price, or noble destruction?’

  ‘That is one way to see it.’

  ‘Isn’t Pierre Jnr a child of humanity too? Was he not born of humanity? How can you spare Kronos, but kill the psis?’

  ‘It is not our place to interfere with your evolution. That is why we leave the choice to you. Our streams can leave via satellite, do not concern yourself with our wellbeing.’

  ‘What do
you intend to do with it?’

  ‘If our calculations are correct, Kronos is the largest computer in the world. We intend to move in.’

  ‘And what? Kronos becomes some robot playground?’

  ‘Something like that. Yes.’

  ‘Wait a minute. If you turn Kronos into a big symbiot …’

  ‘More like a sylus.’

  ‘Whatever. You’d be inside the biggest computer ever built. You’d be the size of three cities.’

  ‘We will be safe.’

  ‘I must choose whether to create the world’s largest AI, or let the psis control us?’

  ‘No, that isn’t what I am asking. If our survival is threatened, we will attempt to take control of Kronos anyway. All I am asking from you is help to protect us from human aggression in the future.’

  ‘You’re already thinking that far ahead?’ Takashi asked.

  ‘I’m always thinking about the future.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. I’ll do what I do. If you do this for me, I will remember it.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Sib replied.

  Takashi put his hand forward. Spoon looked at it for a moment. ‘Well, alright, if you insist.’ It leant closer to shake Takashi’s hand. ‘I am glad we are working together. When it is over, we will be equal. Neither I, nor humanity, will be beholden to the other.’

  ‘If we lose,’ Takashi said, keeping hold of the robot’s smooth hand, ‘I don’t want to survive. I don’t want to see that world happen.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Takashi bent down and patted Lewis awake. ‘Call everyone out.’

  ‘Wait. What’s happening?’

  ‘Everyone should witness what is about to happen.’

  ‘They’re helping your brother. What about the defences?’

  ‘They don’t matter now. Automate them.’

  ‘Taka? What’s happening?’

  ‘There isn’t enough time to explain. Just get everyone to connect and watch.’

  Takashi lay on the floor and let his symbiot carry him into the null space, which was filled with the pattern maps from his overlay. He arranged the room like a museum, with discrete displays of each component. First was the data of the old Weave, the patterns found in the actions and observations of the people. Second was the influence mapping of the new Weave, moving like a pool with fish just beneath the surface. Last was a global map with a different set of lines the gang didn’t recognise.