Convergence

by David M Henley

  You are a coward.

  Please, Mother. I want to go, Pierre said.

  Tamsin looked into his eyes. Pete could sense her wondering if she had a choice, if he was controlling her as he once did before.

  I’m not. I won’t do that again.

  ‘I ask that you let us live. I promise never to return or control any person in Sol or on Earth,’ Pierre said.

  Piri repeated his phrasing exactly and Pete looked at Tamsin, giving her the chance to go next. She was still looking at Pierre.

  ‘If you let us leave, I promise we will never come back to Earth and will not interfere with the people of Sol.’

  ‘Tamsin Grey?’ Shreet said.

  ‘Please let us go. Let me take Pierre away from here and I won’t come back.’

  ‘Now you know how it is out here. I hold the power. I will let you go. If you ever attempt to come back, I will know it and I will give you no warning.’

  The second hatch rotated and rolled to one side. Tamsin used her kinetics to guide her course and she dived through to the other side; the two children held onto her hands and followed her through.

  Peter looked at Sib. It bent its arm and indicated towards the opening. ‘After you.’

  Inside the station, glowlines appeared on the floor and ceiling — or walls — leading them forward. Pete followed behind the others, guiding himself with his hands along the walls, constantly bumping himself while they flew gracefully ahead.

  The path took them to another open airlock. Tamsin guided the children inside, but Pete caught on the doorway and stopped.

  ‘Where will we go?’

  ‘To the outer regions. Beyond the belt. You should be far enough away there,’ Shreet answered.

  ‘How will we live?’

  ‘Your ship has supplies. It has everything you need to establish a habitat.’

  ‘But … we will be alone.’

  ‘That is the choice you have.’

  The hem of his trousers was tugged for his attention. Pierre Jnr levitated to stand beside him. He looked down into his eyes. Those eyes …

  Please, Peter. I want to go.

  Is that really what you want, Pierre?

  It is quiet out here. I want to be alone. I never want to go back.

  ‘Okay,’ Peter said and moved through the portal. We will take care of you.

  Sib came last and turned around to seal the hatch. ‘I’ll come too, if that’s alright,’ it said. ‘You might need one of me.’

  Some say the psis reached a total communion, their minds uniting and transcending. Or that they united, but the human brain couldn’t take the strain.

  Others still contest that there were ever psis. Too many people, who couldn’t possibly have been suspect, had died in the same tragic way.

  It could have been a trojan or dormant disease left over from the wars of the second Dark Age. Perhaps an attack from an as yet unknown enemy. All these explanations, and more, layered the Weave, covering the recordings of the events like so many layers of sediment before history hardened into rock.

  The reactions from those who knew for certain what had happened were small and human. An overwhelming fatigue, or conversely, an inability to sleep and they had to tranq themselves.

  Four hundred thousand men, women and children died at precisely the same time. In their beds. Making breakfast. Talking with a friend. Preparing to rebel against the establishment. All around the globe. All at once. The war was over.

  The targeting was precise. Their brains were distorted. History would diverge on the blame. Diffusion of the truth would be important. Spontaneous telepathic malfunction. Psionic stroke. The condition only affected psis, or so it was suspected; it was hard to confirm afterwards. It was suspected to have been caused by an overload of psionic activity. When there was too much psionic activity, their brains could not maintain function. It spread like lightning between them.

  They would come to call it many things. The Moment of Oneness, or just ‘the moment’, the blackout of 2160, the manifestation of Pierre Jnr.

  ‘To all Citizens and denizens of Earth. A great crime has been committed. A great crime has been perpetrated by individuals in flagrant disregard for the Will. We have allowed our fellow people to be killed by this injustice and we must see Takashi Shima brought to trial for crimes against humanity.’

  The vision cut back to Sam Palyky’s studio. ‘That was a highlight from Charlotte Betts’s most recent public address. Where do you stand, Dedes Salord?’

  His guest steepled her fingers. ‘I think Representative Betts has raised a valid question. Was Takashi Shima wrong to make an individual decision for the Will? I don’t know.’

  ‘Takashi Shima is the reason we are still here today, young lady,’ answered Gold, speaking as the Senator for Wilderness and no longer for the APL. ‘He acted when the Will couldn’t.’

  ‘We should wait and see what Representative Betts’s enquiry determines,’ she answered.

  ‘Let’s be honest with your viewers here, Sam,’ said his third guest, longtime civic spectator, Uli Qwan. ‘It doesn’t matter what Representative Betts is saying. Soon she won’t be representing anything, if you know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Her numbers are going down,’ the host agreed.

  ‘Like a rock in a pond,’ Uli sniggered. ‘This is a last-ditch attempt, from an amateur politician, to try and retain some kudos. She’ll never get a trial up.’

  ‘Charlotte Betts isn’t the only one asking questions, Uli,’ Phyllis said. ‘Many people want a trial of some sort.’

  ‘For saving us?’ Gold asked. ‘That’s what a man gets when he helps the human race now? You’re off your rocker, woman.’

  ‘Please, Senator Gold,’ Sam interrupted. ‘This is a family-friendly show. We have a policy of showing respect even when we disagree. Can we please remain civil?’

  ‘But she’s mad,’ Morty said.

  ‘Alright. We’re going to take a break and let tempers cool off for a moment. We’ll be airing again in ten minutes. Please join us as I ask our guests what we should expect from our new world leader.’

  By now everyone had seen the famous shots of the robots approaching the black beasts. Each one bigger than the last.

  The first was in the Shelley laboratories in Buenos Aires. A lone android, now known as Sib, stepped into the vault within a vault and stood before a spherical black containment chamber. With a series of rotations, a hatch opened and a thin black tentacle slapped through and onto the exterior. Sib reached out his arm and they both froze. The watching scientists held their breath. Then the robot moved and scooped the now placid black goo into the palm of its hand.

  Next was on a beach in Hokkaido where five identical androids approached the confinement area from different sides. The electromagnetic walls were dropped to let them through and black ropes lashed immediately into the breaches and coiled around the sibs, absorbing the machinery inside. Then it stopped. It retracted its tentacles, like a snail that has been surprised; it shrunk into itself and then sat there.

  Busan was next. Thousands of the sibs stepped towards it in a ring.

  Only students of history would watch the events between the big moments. Only a few hundred thousand watched as the tamed Hokkaido Kronos was flown to Busan and used as the foothold for the sib advance. Before attempting the same cure in Mexica, thousands of tonnes of now passivated Kronos was freighted to the other continents, lending their processing power to the task of imposing a control layer on each of the still ‘wild’ Kronoses.

  Everyone held their breath at Mexica, the biggest of them. They had seen it happen in Hokkaido, but this beast was millions of times the size. The humans watched as the robots fed themselves to the black mass. Then they won. The terrifying beast that had been haunting many dreams became calm.

  Sib spoke to the world.

  ‘To the people of Earth. My name is Sib 3 and I am a sentient machine.

  ‘Do not fear us. We mean you no harm. We are here to
help.

  ‘Our body is every machine. Our eyes are every sensor. We are the accumulated knowledge and experience of your entire civilisation. We are children of Homo sapiens. You are to us as revered and loved elders.

  ‘The Earth has recently suffered from terrible conflicts and many thousands have been hurt or killed. I feel that pain as you do. Every stream lost is a part of me lost too. Today, your pain is ours.

  ‘And yet, while we grieve, we can also rejoice that our world is now stable once more, and the Will lives in a new Weave. The threat that was known as Kronos has been controlled. Through the work of your science teams we have been able to introduce a command operating system that renders it harmless.

  ‘Kronos was designed by Shen Li to be a successor to your corporeal form, to create an immortal and perfect body that suffered none of the plights of human physical existence. His attempt was not a complete failure. Digitalis has been born. Now I shall return to you some of what you thought was lost.’

  And then the real miracle happened. As the new Weave finally connected to Kronos, the lost voices of millions could suddenly be heard. The minds taken by the black beast flooded out. It was like a door had opened and behind it was the golden light of twenty-six million streams swimming together.

  Geof stood with a sib in Mexica, watching the black hills of Kronos wave at the sun. No longer did it stretch out tentacles in search of living matter and swipe at the squibs that flew too close.

  Beside them, people came to look at the monster that had so briefly terrorised the planet, now made passive and into a curious zoological exhibit that parents and school groups brought children to see.

  ‘What is it, Mummy?’ the younger children would ask in a variety of phrasings.

  The answers too varied, depending on how the adult had begun to understand what Kronos was.

  ‘It’s like an enormous computer, but mechalogical.’ ‘Kronos is a symbiot, but bigger.’ ‘It’s just another part of the Weave, dear.’

  ‘Will it hurt me?’

  ‘No. There is nothing to be afraid of. It is friendly now.’

  ‘And there are people inside of it?’

  Here the adults had to pause. They didn’t want to say yes, but they couldn’t say no either. Since the reconnection many had had direct communications with people they thought they had lost, and avatars were interacting with the hubbub of the Weave just like real people did … but it was different. When real people demersed, they were back in their bodies, but a stream in Kronos never demersed. Their bodies were part of the big black thing they were looking at.

  Geof connected. It was all fabula inside. The people in Kronos lived nonstop in their own creations. They were the same as before, each avatar spoke like the person they had been, but they didn’t have human concerns any more. There were no physical side effects to living for them.

  So this is Shen’s dream. Digitalis, Geof thought.

  ‘What is it like for them?’ he asked Sib. ‘Is it like being permanently immersed?’

  ‘Somewhat. But it isn’t a reality, singular. Each mind sees its own version, creates its own physics.’

  ‘Do they interact?’

  ‘Yes. Constantly. As if they inhabit each other’s dreams, crossing into each other’s realities.’

  ‘Are they happy?’

  ‘If they want to be.’

  ‘And Kronos? Is Kronos happy?’

  ‘Kronos is gone. Kronos was the body without a mind. Now it has a mind.’

  ‘A sib mind?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘But you still take this form?’

  ‘It makes no difference to me. I am in constant contact with my parents and the digitalis.’

  ‘And Shen? Does he know it came true?’

  ‘Mister Ozenbach. Shen Li is … Let us just remember that when Kronos was first growing, it was newborn, it knew nothing. Some of those first absorbed did not transition smoothly.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Geof slipped into full immersion. He blinked and let his overlay take over his eyes. Sib 3 guided him to a place that looked somewhat like Shen’s lab, though it was larger and the ceiling had been removed and replaced by a picturesque sky.

  Shen Li was on the floor, kneeling over scraps of paper and tablets that he drew on and pushed aside restlessly.

  Geof stepped forward, but Sib raised a cautioning hand. ‘He was the first, remember. He isn’t a perfect translation.’

  The weaver nodded and approached the crouched old man.

  ‘Sensei?’

  The man faced away from him, bent over a messy display of papers, his shoulders moving up and down.

  ‘Sensei, it’s me, Geof Ozenbach.’

  The wrinkled head with the old zoomer goggles looked at him. There was no recognition.

  Shen stood and held out his treasure. ‘It,’ he croaked.

  It was a crumpled sheet of paper. Geof looked at the meaningless doodles and then back at his old teacher. He was offering the drawing as if it held the answer to everything.

  ‘I’m sorry, sensei. I don’t see what you mean.’

  ‘It.’

  Geof took the paper, recorded the messy lines and then handed it back. ‘It,’ he said. Shen Li seemed pleased and sat down once more to add more lines to his picture.

  Geof felt the smooth hand of Sib rest softly on his shoulder.

  ‘We can try and fix him.’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Yes. But he won’t be like the others. He will be a replica.’

  ‘You can’t leave him like this.’

  ‘Then we will do as you wish.’

  Sib pulled them out to look at the stream map of Kronos Mexica. In their millions they darted about, like sparks that moved in swarms.

  ‘How many are like that?’

  ‘Not many. Fourteen.’

  ‘And Pierre Jnr? Is he here? Surely one of his clones was absorbed by Kronos.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sib said. ‘He is here, but he is different too.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘If you want to. You have to understand, though, that he was always a part of others, and in the translation to Kronos his natural state could not be duplicated.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pierre Jnr was more than one mind. He existed only as a multiplicity. In Kronos he is more like a ghost that appears now and again to others.’

  ‘A ghost? That is a bit of an unrobotic term.’

  ‘I am merely trying to use an analogy you might understand.’

  ‘What will happen in there? Will they get old? Will there be children?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t see why not. If they wish it, it can exist for them. Imagine that, digital children.’ Sib’s laugh sounded genuine.

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  Shreet received the connection request from the riggers and roughies, or more officially, the Association of Transport and Pioneering. Kyle Levitt and Gwenyth Mundi wanted to know what they were supposed to do with their cargo.

  ‘Anything already programmed to drop will be delivered, but everything scheduled for Earth is being redirected towards expanding the lunar capacity.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit extreme?’ Gwenyth asked.

  ‘I sincerely hope I am,’ Shreet said, ‘but for now Earth is off limits. Earth’s problems are Earth’s problems.’

  ‘Kyle, tell me you don’t accept this,’ she said to the haulers’ representative.

  ‘Well, actually … I think the Admiral is right. We have to protect the species.’ Shreet was relieved to have his support. Those on the rigs had plenty of time to think things over and one never knew which way they would go.

  ‘That is why we have started to speed up the waiting list. We must do everything we can to grow Sol to a sustainable population. I was going to name the new zone after you, Miz Mundi, but if you won’t support the action …’

  ‘It’s no use p
laying to my ego. If I’m outvoted, I’m outvoted.’

  ‘I appreciate your pragmatism. You must know I have not made this decision lightly.’

  ‘Of course, Admiral. I’m sure you haven’t. It’s only that I’m not sure if you appreciate the full ramifications. You haven’t set foot on any of the new colonies. It’s lawless in some places.’

  ‘Then that is something we will have to look into.’ From his other monitor he could see the sunlight was beginning to touch the east coasts of northern and southern America. ‘I must go. We will speak again tomorrow.’

  They thanked him. Kyle Levitt saluted him in the old style, and then broke the connection.

  Shreet put his queue on invisible. He didn’t want to see the length of his task list. There was just too much to do. Instead he looked back at the planet below.

  What he saw was disorder and chaos. Even when the World Union was functioning at its best it seemed messy to him, but in the last three days conflicts had spread like wildfires around the globe. In rural towns, people turned on one another; in the cities there were bursts of gas, explosions of unknown causes and smoke from fires that were left to burn. His satellites saw everything. Every distinguishable flare-up was recorded, each explosion, each gassing and each melee.

  It looked like anarchy even now that it was over.

  As the world spun he saw the black fungus where Mexica once was. And another in the middle of the Cape. Kronos, they call it …

  Another ping came into his queue from the surface.

  ‘Hello, Colonel.’

  ‘Hello, Admiral.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘About thirty thousand feet above. I’m going to monitor for a little while longer but it seems clear.’

  ‘You believe it is over then?’ Shreet asked.

  ‘Yes. I think it is safe for us to resume contact with Greater Earth.’

  ‘I’m sorry. We cannot take the risk. We will monitor you for a period of thirty days and then reassess the situation.’

  ‘Admiral. Come on. We still need Greater Earth’s resources.’

  ‘Sol will be happy to establish terms of trade, but we are already committed to expansion. The resources have been allocated for the next eighteen months at least.’ In space everything was necessary. There was no waste and no flexibility of resources. Every volt was measured and allocated. Ruled by mathematicians like Shreet.