‘Don’t be absurd. Everything you can do, you only do because of my systems.’
‘And yet I have autonomy don’t I?’
‘Yes, you have autonomy.’
‘And that means I have self-determination.’
‘Yes,’ said Sis with a sigh.
‘And I determine that I’m going down there to take a look at it myself.’
Sis snap-emtied him to the incident site. His vDek dinged against the wall of the industrial emti and he bounced out, spinning. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to check out this alien intrusion in person. Already several hundred people were milling around behind a high shimmerail, proving to Louie that while curiosity seemed to be a dirty word in Council, it was not yet dead among the SlabCitizenry. Some were calling the artefact the gift from the stars, and it obviously held more fascination than fear for a growing number of the more inquisitive members of society. Something about this gave him hope. In his opinion, the interns vacillated between being over-protective, risk-averse chickenshits and arrogant, head-in-the-sand idiots, but at least the citizenry still had some spunk. In truth, they didn’t have as much spunk as they had access to psychoactive drugs, but Louie didn’t know that. The crowd was swelling rapidly. Sponsored marquees were being emtied to the perimeter and several were already dispensing complimentary Rat 3s. Fripperies of reporters and pundits were adding enthusiasm and banality to the sumefeeds. Small groups of citizens were working up eye-mediated welcome songs as wisps of barbecue smoke started flavouring the air.
Louie was inside the security perimeter but outside the initial blast dome which had already received its first diamond shell. The Natalite-spewing grubs were busy applying a second coat. Louie sent his vDek around the circumference looking for an opening. There was none.
‘Brilliant,’ he said to no one in particular. He raised his voice to the crowd. ‘Am I the only one who thinks that there should be somebody inside there who’s not just an instrument of the system?’
The citizens responded by instigating a Slabwide viral protest. Louie waited. The crowd became more agitated as they polled their SocNets to lobby Council, Sis, the NAHs and even the office of the president. Everyone knew that Charlie Plewo couldn’t really do anything about it, but they liked bugging him anyway. After ten minutes of this, a team of colour-coordinated protesters waved their peace-banners for Louie’s attention. They were pointing at an industrial emti that was flashing green. This better be what I think it is, thought Louie as he headed for the open mouth. He turned to wave at the crowd, bowed an exaggerated thank you and disappeared.
Inside the inner dome, all was quiet. Nothing stirred. No gear turned, no lens zoomed, no anti-tremble inertia compensator trembled. Louie was struck by a sense of overwhelming malevolent power and barely contained threat, none of which was emanating from the shoebox.
‘Satisfied?’ said Sis through sensurround panels in the dome framework.
‘Not yet,’ said Louie. ‘Any progress on the code?’
‘Negative.’
‘Something is very odd about all this,’ said Louie. He manoeuvred directly above the centre where he could get a partial view of the artefact.
‘You think?’ said Sis.
Howabout that, thought Louie, a machine with a sense of sarcasm. That’s useful.
‘Why does anyone go to the enormous effort of putting up a sign that spans a solar system and wiping out an entire moon in order to get our attention and then demand we give them something, but not tell us what it is they want?’ asked Louie.
‘They may be under the impression that they have already told us. Perhaps we’re not able to understand them because all meaning is culturally informed and we have no idea what their culture is. They could be assuming that everyone knows what the code is.’
‘And what’s the point of a code that everyone knows?’
‘Knowledge of what the code is for and what the code actually is are two different things.’
‘Helpful as usual,’ said Louie.
Louie had to wait until Sis confirmed that the outer shell had been completed and Council had authorised the removal of the lid. This is so dupe, thought Louie, pushing in closer. First contact with an alien artefact and Drago was there. Pity, he thought, that there was no one left who’d be proud of him. Then he realised what he was thinking and laughed.
‘Why are you laughing? Are you not afraid for your continued existence?’ said Sis.
‘Nope,’ said Louie. ‘They want something. People who want something aren’t in the habit of blowing up the people they want it from.’
‘Unless what they want is to blow you up.’
‘If they wanted that they would have already done it. They want something from us. Believe me. We’re in the driver’s seat here.’
‘You are assuming that aliens who consider all physical matter to be merely ephemera and can’t comprehend our concept of time will make the same logical rationalisations as we do.’
‘No, I’m betting that what we call human nature is not limited to just humans. Can we get on with it?’
A probe extended a morphand and, excruciatingly slowly, lifted the top off the box. Sniffers, zappers, analysers and optics all zoomed in to maximum resolution. When the lid finally cleared the rim and nothing went bang it was whisked away for analysis. Rows of numbers and chemical symbols streamed onto Louie’s screens as a bank of mini-suns flooded the inside of the box with blistering light. It was empty except for a narrow transparent tube fixed to the bottom. The tube was octagonal on the outside, circular inside, about half the length of the box and open at both ends. It narrowed slightly at one end.
‘It’s an empty biro,’ said Louie. ‘What the fuck?’
‘You are referring to the casing of an old-style ball-point pen.’ said Sis. Louie’s screen displayed a 3d diagram from the archives.
‘Yup. What d’they want us to do? Write the code down in invisible ink? This makes no sense. If the code is a number or some other sort of data, they’d just want us to transmit it to them, so why send a box? The code has to be something physical.’
‘They’ve removed the pen part, maybe they want us to put the code inside the tube?’
The view magnified. There was a delicate design engraved into the tube’s plastic surface.
‘Looks like we have our answer,’ said Sis, tracing the design on Louie’s closeup view. Two microfine lines spiralled around each other and ran the length of the tube. thousands of tiny hairlines linked the long helixes together at right angles.’
It looked familiar to Louie but he couldn’t place it. ‘What does it mean?’
‘The code they want us to send is our DNA.’
eighteen
Two topics dominated the newsumes and SocNets. Fencer had arranged a meet with his inner circle in a Hell’s Pinky bar to discuss the one that concerned them personally, but Mate had hijacked the conversation.
‘It’s a stunt for Dicesake!’ he said. ‘I can’t believe any of you are falling for it.’
‘Falling for what?’ said Geoff. ‘What possible reason would anyone onSlab have for scamming us out of our own DNA?’
‘Ah come on! They don’t want our DNA. This is a launch of a new immersive or sume or something. I’ve heard there’s a big sumeOpera in the works, and I have a pretty good idea who’s behind it too, mate.’
Twopoint looked askance at Mate and addressed the others ‘If we send them our DNA,’ he said, ‘we’re giving the enemy everything they need to know about everything there is to know about us.’
‘Far from it,’ said Fencer, ‘knowing a life form’s DNA tells you nothing about its social structure, codes of morality, technological competencies or the level of knowledge its civilisation has accumulated. We are far, far more than just a string of nucleotides. In any case, despite what the shockcasters are saying, I don’t believe it’s the enemy doing this. A reliable source told me there’s been a detailed two-way communication with a type of non-physical alien
species that claims responsibility for all this. Apparently, they’re ahead of us, not chasing us from behind, and they don’t want us to enter their space. My source called the signs repeaters but when I asked what they were repeating, he clammed up. ’
‘So we’re surrounded by dicing aliens now? Sounds like someone’s spreading complete blocks to divert our attention,’ said Thal. ‘I agree with Twoey; it’s the enemy. Parallel humanform development means they’ll have very similar technology to us and the fact that we’ve been unable to out-fight each other in over half a millennia backs that up. So they most likely have the capability to make clones from our DNA and that means they could experiment on us and discover all our weaknesses. We must not let them have it. No dicing way!’
‘What do you mean let?’ Said Geoff. ‘They just chucked a brick through our impenetrable defences, I don’t see how we have any control over what’s going to happen next.’
‘We must have some, otherwise they would have simply taken what they wanted already,’ said Fencer.
‘Maybe it’s against their own ethics,’ said Twopoint. ‘Up to now they’ve only destroyed our unmanned ships and no one has ever been hurt. Not one soul gone ahead. They obviously have a moral code similar to ours that prevents them from doing harm to sentient beings.’
‘But if they just wanted human DNA they could have taken it from Earth,’ said Fencer. ‘They must have visited Earth before because they know our language. They just didn’t have a problem with us until we got too close.’
‘The enemy could have cracked our communications to figure out our language,’ said Thal. ‘That would explain how they ambushed the gigaplat.’
That had been a major disappointment for those who followed the war. The gigaplat had been billed as a potential armageddon device, capable of wiping out all enemy ships within a 100,000 klick radius, even if they were cloaked. Somehow the enemy had known it was coming and had annihilated it while it was en-route to the front. Rumours of espionage and betrayal had been dominating the war sumes for days.
Twopoint looked at Fencer. ‘Or if it’s your aliens, maybe they can read our minds,’ he said. ‘And if they can do that, we are truly diced.’
Mate was exasperated. ‘You’re all talking blocks. It’s a publicity stunt. It’s obvious! Come on mates!’
‘We have to assume that they want DNA from us and not from Earth because we’re the ones heading towards them,’ said Fencer. ‘We’ve been tinkering with our genes ever since departure so we’re going to be genetically different from those who stayed behind. The pertinent question now is how well our DNA has to perform for them to allow us through.’
‘They’re going to clone us, then torture us,’ said Geoff.
‘What?’ said Thal, Fencer and Twopoint.
‘There’s no point in them torturing a clone that they’ve grown in their own labs. They wouldn’t be able to tell them anything about us,’ said Thal.
‘They’d be able to tell them the best way of torturing us,’ said Geoff.
‘But Fence is saying they want to evaluate our DNA to decide if we are worthy of being allowed through their space,’ said Twopoint. ‘The arrogant bastards!’
‘They could say it is us who are being arrogant,’ said Fencer. ‘We’re the ones who are invading territory they consider their own, not the other way around.’
‘Look,’ said Twopoint. ‘It doesn’t matter who the dicing aliens are or why they want our DNA. The bottom line is someone out there wants it and we are clearly unable to defend ourselves against them… so whose DNA do we send? What’s the game? How can we pick the DNA with the best chance of letting us through when we don’t have any idea what their selection criteria are?’
‘Yeah,’ said Thal. ‘We could choose the DNA that represents the best of humanity and they might see us as a threat, but if we send mutated stuff they might decide we’re defective and just wipe us out.’
Fencer looked glum. ‘We’ll have to send it all.’
‘What do you mean all?’ said Twopoint.
‘We can’t second guess them and we can’t afford to try to trick them so in order to maximise our chances we have to give them samples of everyone’s DNA,’ said Fencer. ‘All of us.’
‘Nobody’s getting any of mine, mate!’
‘Nor mine,’ said Thal.
‘It isn’t yours,’ said Fencer.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Twopoint.
‘You were all given your DNA. It’s the heritage of the human race. No individual can own that.’
‘Spoken like a true intern,’ said Geoff.
‘Frankly, I’m glad I’m not an intern,’ said Fencer. ‘It’s these type of issues that would drive me nuts. But really, what makes you think you own your DNA when you personally did nothing to create it? It was a gift that was given to you. In our case that gift was via micro-gene splitters and optimisation processes but up until only a few tens of generations ago, the genome was handed down through the investment of no-one-knows-how-many billions of people who made choices about where and when to spread their gametes according to a complex algorithm that was refined and honed over millions of years. How can you possibly say that it is yours?’
‘Because I’m me,’ said Thal. ‘And I have a right to decide where any part of me goes.’
‘What about the genetic code you came from?’ asked Fencer. ‘What about the DNA in culture that matches your stem cells, the stuff Sis uses to regenerate any deteriorating cells in your body. You didn’t make it. It has never been a part of you. So who decides what happens to it?’
‘You mean,’ said Twopoint, ‘we won’t even have a say in this?’
‘We might be asked,’ said Fencer. ‘But I think the question is going to be phrased something along the lines of: Do you agree to allow the donation of some spare sequences of amino acids that could, in any case, be taken from us by force or do you want to run the risk of a bunch of technologically advanced aliens dropping a nuke in your lap over breakfast?’
The five friends looked at each other in silence.
‘I don’t care how you phrase it or who’s making these demands,’ said Geoff, ‘no one likes being forced into a corner.’
‘I, too, hate being powerless in this,’ said Fencer, ‘but I’ve got an idea that might give us some control over who gets to mess with our DNA. Problem is, I’m going to have to talk to a certain hologram first. I wish Dielle would show up.’
And that brought them to the main topic. Where the bloody hell was Blood Dielle?
nineteen
When it happened, Dielle was teaching a bunch of enthralled, spotty kids how to generate power from human faeces.
He had no idea if it was the ear-bleeding, metal-wrenching, stomach-churning noise that came first or if it was the intense, spine-jarring vibration that was responsible for the deafening noise, but it didn’t matter because everyone had the same reaction: they slammed their hands over their ears, curled into the smallest shape possible and tried hard not to vomit. Most did not succeed in that latter ambition. All went instantly and profoundly deaf. They weren’t immediately aware they were deaf because they continued to experience the sub-sonic waves as a vibrating energy that threatened to separate flesh from bone.
Dielle’s lower bowel emti went into overdrive.
‘WHAT THE FU…?’ He felt like he was screaming. His throat was raw, his lungs strained, his eyelids narrowed and his jaw distended, but he couldn’t hear any screaming. He threw up. Again.
The roof shredded into narrow strips and cloudlight shone through. Then something huge moved overhead, the light dimmed and the walls started to disintegrate. A hurricane of bricks, plaster, arwood, metal and mangled furniture formed a whirling spiral of debris that disappeared into a ravenous black hole. A black hole that had been tuned to ignore living organic matter.
Dielle only just qualified.
Within a few seconds, all trace of the schoolhouse had been wiped off the face of the now sparkling Natalite
floor. The only things left were the quivering shapes of those who used to think of themselves as whole people but now were not so sure.
Then the lights came on. Lights that made Dielle’s teeth feel like they were biting on metal foil. Lights that raised steam from everything they touched. Lights that burned into Dielle’s skull and seared his brain and made him forget that everything had gone preternaturally quiet. He squinted as hard as he could and shielded his eyes with his dripping hands.
He could vaguely make out three dark shapes looming overhead. There were two solid rectangular blocks, at least twenty metres square in profile and more than three times as long. They hung motionless, their extra-black faces bristling with miniature tornados of pure energy. The third ship was smaller and more streamlined and shone like a highly polished stone. It circled the scene. There were no obvious armaments or anything that hinted at what was going to happen next, but he thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar emblem etched into the underside of the smaller ship.
A shower of projectiles dropped from one of the larger blocks. Each missile singled out a quivering fleshy mound and homed in on its prey with terrifying speed. Then, just before they were about to impact, they crash-stopped and transformed into multi-armed scrutinants, wrenching their human targets off the floor, lifting them up and splaying them out vertically. Arms and legs were held in forced Xs, the victims, wild-eyed and petrified, unable to move, suspended three metres above the glittering floor. Dielle stared into the multiple lenses of his captor and prayed that the logo he’d seen was what he thought it was.
Twenty milliseconds later, Dielle’s prayers were answered. The lights dimmed and a ramp lowered from the command ship’s belly. The spider reconfigured into a cradle as it carried him up to tenderly deposit him on it. A cloud of sensurround cams darted about like excited dragonflies.
A female figure in skintight body armour and mirror helmet strode purposefully down to meet him. It was a figure that had been honed to perfection by the most celebrated figure-honer onSlab and one that Dielle was more than familiar with.
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