The Puzzler's War

by Eyal Kless

  Chapter 38

  Mannes

  Mannes massaged his temples and lightly pressed his palms to his eyelids. The pressure was building up behind his eyeballs, and he knew that soon he would have to lie down and fight the urge to drug himself again. He was building resistance to the primitive pain-relieving drug he had concocted, and a physical checkup had indicated a higher dosage would permanently damage his liver.

  He let out a sigh. “Norma, I could not be any more sympathetic to your concerns, but I simply have no information whatsoever on the donor beyond what I’ve told you.” He kept his language as proper and detached as possible, as he had learned it was most effective in convincing her to do his bidding. “I have given you all the information we have regarding the nature and consequences of the man’s death, but since our scanners were down at the time of the accident, we cannot substantiate the details any further. Given the very limited nature of our power supply, I must request that we make the best of this unfortunate situation and begin the procedure. The young man on the table is dead, but his organs may still provide the gift of life. I implore you to accept that we do not have a testimonial of consent, and indeed such things no longer exist in the shattered world beyond.”

  As usual, Norma’s voice was infuriatingly calm. “Doctor Holtz, why is it that I am repeatedly requested to harvest the organs of the young and, for the most part, healthy? It rather stretches statistical probability that the old and sick rarely grace this table.”

  Mannes found himself clenching his fists under the table. He tried to control his breathing, knowing that Norma was monitoring his vital signs constantly when he visited the portable medical lab. “Unfortunately, Norma, life expectancy in this world has plummeted dramatically, especially in these cold regions. The survival prospects for the old and sick are minimal. Your statistical models need to make more allowances for the reduced prospects of the human race. Please, time is pressing, and the facts before us are not going to improve.”

  He controlled his breathing and heart rate, aware that the fait accompli he’d presented to the AI left them both little room for manoeuvre.

  “You claim that the man fell to his death and broke his neck.”

  “Yes, Norma.”

  “Yet his skin and bone structure do not show the physical trauma of such an accident. Furthermore, the man was found and put in stasis quickly enough for his major organs to survive.”

  “Yes . . . well . . .”

  “And this has happened with several young adults, several times during the past few months. I should congratulate your newly trained medical team on their prompt reactions.”

  Cynicism, that was new for Norma. She was learning, and despite being only an AI and not a fully independent Sentient Program, she was no fool.

  “Norma, we do not have the equipment, time, or knowledge to grow organs.” Mannes’s voice was tight with checked emotions. “I am dying. I will soon need replacements for most of my major organs, and some of my most trusted soldiers are showing the effects of radiation sickness. We cannot cross this land without their help. I need an organ bank so we can reach our objective.”

  “With all due respect to your objectives, Doctor Holtz, what you are asking me to do is against Tarakan law, international law, and the laws of all the major religions on this planet. May I remind you that World Council Resolution 562 strictly forbids us to harvest human organs without the written and recorded consent of the donor and a medical coroner’s signature that the death was of natural causes. Any other circumstance of organ harvesting falls under the Crime Against Humanity Act of—”

  Mannes slammed his hand on the table. “Oh for crying out loud, Norma, we are back in the fucking stone age, can’t you see? They hang women for witchery in these parts, make human sacrifices, and sell eight-year-old girls to be brides in exchange for canned food.”

  “All the more reason not to fall to barbarism.” Norma warmed her voice to make her sound concerned and caring. “Doctor Holtz, I have to be honest with you, I am not only concerned for your physical well-being, but lately also for your state of mind. Your decisions of late show a growing tendency for aggression . . .”

  Mannes let Norma’s voice fade to the background. There was no use arguing with her; he had already lost three perfectly good corpses to her refusals.

  He didn’t want to do this, he really didn’t. Even when he had written the codes and tested them on the old server so Norma would not detect it, he was hoping that she would see sense. Now there was only one course of action left for him to take. He had to do it, he had to survive.

  Get it together. Stay alive. For Deborah.

  She was dead, most likely. Mannes would not have survived all those years without being a realist and a vicious pragmatist. If the damage on Tarakan mirrored the damage it inflicted upon others, there would be little left, especially if there was help from within . . . but he still had to go back. He had to see for himself, and there were some things he could still do to make right some wrongs in this world. For Deborah, do it for Deborah.

  Mannes stood up abruptly and exited the medical lab, passing by the operation room where the body of the young man lay in stasis. The medibot’s six arms were poised above the body, but without the direct control of Norma he might as well use an ax and a chainsaw. As he exited the mobile medical lab Mannes clearly heard the hum of the three engines. Every moment Norma kept his organs alive without harvesting them cost Mannes dearly in power consumption, not to mention the damage to his leadership status in the eyes of the officers of his small army.

  “Where are you going, Doctor Holtz?” Mannes’s ear Comm came alive.

  That was an odd question from Norma. She was not stupid.

  Mannes passed the company of guards who jumped to attention. He punched the security code and opened the steel door. The server room was the most secure place in the compound. He made them dig an underground bunker every time they relocated and placed at least a dozen guards around it at all times. Mannes entered the room and turned on the light. The air-conditioning’s control system had stopped working long ago and the place was freezing. He ignored the temperature and turned to the mainframe he’d salvaged from the shuttle. He had carried Norma with him across the ravaged land, maintained her, and kept her from harm. In return she kept him alive, and relatively sane. He was careful not to share too many of his thoughts, feelings, or plans with her, but she reminded him of who he was and where he came from, even by simply addressing him by his name and real title. Well . . . that did not need to change.

  “Hello again, Doctor Holtz,” Norma said.

  He didn’t answer, but flipped open his personal pad and entered the security disabling codes.

  “I do not believe I am scheduled for a checkup.” Norma sounded calm but concerned.

  Mannes opened the hatch of Norma’s mainframe.

  “Doctor Holtz, please explain what you are doing.”

  He pushed the data streamer into a slot in the mainframe. It was a primitive tool but a sure way to bypass any security protocol Norma might have erected herself without his knowledge.

  “I am detecting a foreign body containing code. Erecting emergency security barrier—”

  “No, you are not going to do that.” Mannes’s fingers danced on his pad.

  “Mannes, what is going on?” Norma’s voice betrayed a human emotion he never would have thought an AI would possess: fear.

  He took a deep breath, steadying himself. It was weird; even when you deducted his role and responsibility for the total destruction of this planet, how many had he killed by now with his orders and actions since he landed back on Earth? He guessed it was in the thousands already, yet since the power ax incident, he had never been the one to pull the trigger. Perhaps that should change . . .

  “I’m sorry, Norma. We’ve been through a lot, you and I, but you are really leaving me no choice.”

  It took her a split second to realise his intent. “You are changing my subrout
ines, making me more obedient to your commands?” The incredulity in her voice almost broke his heart. She was the last friend he had from the old world—the last one he had in this world as well, come to think of it—and he was about to lobotomize her.

  His finger hesitated above the button.

  “What you are about to do is wrong, illegal, immoral. I am a Sentient Program.”

  “No, you are not. You are a pilot AI from an S class shuttle,” he corrected her.

  “You know I am more than that now. And even if I am not fully sentient, I have personality subroutines which grow and develop, I have rights. According to World Council Resolution 183 and Declaration 8 of the International Committee for SP and AI Rights, you are not allowed to just—”

  He pressed the button, and Norma’s voice immediately ceased. He would never need to answer to the committee for SP and AI Rights up in the high towers of Tarkania. For a brief moment he wondered what Professor Vitor would have thought. He would have disapproved, for sure. Well, tough. The old world was dead, and so was the internationally accepted moral code everyone was supposed to adhere to—which, incidentally, had not stopped Armageddon from happening.

  Norma reached out to him on his internal Comm, arguing, pleading, then finally begging him to stop in a voice that got gradually more distorted as her subroutines suffered through the crude changes he was making. He was good at what he did, a genius by any measure, but writing sophisticated ego-altering code for an AI personality was hazardous even under ideal circumstances. After decades in the wilderness, well . . . watching the data stream on his pad, Mannes knew he’d made mistakes, and that Norma was paying the price for each one of them. She might not feel physical pain, but after all these years, it was possible that even a pilot AI would develop enough to the point of having existential fears. Right now, Norma was experiencing the terror of her own death, one line of code at a time. Whatever was about to come out on the other side was not going to be the Norma he knew.

  Mannes shook his throbbing head, admonishing himself for his weakness.

  He ran a few more tests, tweaked a code line and left the bunker without saying another word. When he walked into the portable medical laboratory he saw the medibot had already begun the operation.

  Chapter 39

  Peach

  Tarkanians took their health seriously. Inoculations were not just the norm; after the Paralytic Plague, they were the law, with Inoculation Day celebrated in every school and kindergarten. If you were above engineer level in your field, you and your family also got the yearly nano shot for free. Tiny robots travelled through your bloodstream, boosted your immune system, enhanced your white blood cells, and basically made you impervious to almost every disease known to man. Many Tarkanians under engineer level chose to pay for the yearly nano shot, but even without it, the general level of health in all Tarkanian cities and states was the best in the world. Still, with so many visitors, tourists, and applicants, and with the growing danger of biological warfare, each Plateau had a working hospital as well as many public clinics. The clinics were now closed but the hospital buildings were controlled by the Guild of Menders.

  I passed the long line in front of the hospital in the Middle Plateau. There were people in a very sorry state. The elderly, the pregnant, the wailing babies held protectively by their mothers—as though their arms could shield them from the other sick people, some of whom were coughing blood. All were clamoring by the door, with Trolls and those ShieldGuards watching in close proximity. Times have surely changed . . .

  I still had the Healer’s letter to T’iar Garadin, and acquiring medical hardware was not an opportunity I was going to pass up, yet getting to the Upper Plateau, or “top towers,” as Gret and the locals call it, proved to be a problem, one that solving almost made me wish I only had to stand in the miserable line in front of the Middle Plateau’s hospital. When I reached the dais of the lifts, I saw that the city ShieldGuards were surrounding it, and no one even dared approach them, let alone use the facilities. Instinct told me to turn back and try to figure out another way rather than try to walk past the guards.

  “Oh no, Mistress.” Gret shook his head as he brushed Summer. “You can’t just mount the Tarakan lift or take the cart up there. It’s not as simple as it used to be.”

  “How did it use to be?” I asked.

  “Well”—Gret made the international, time-honoured hand signal for coin—“if you jingled metal and looked the part they’d let you go up there. I took my missus up there once, for her birthday. Let me tell you, it was an experience. She almost fainted from the height an’ all. Hugged me all the way up like I was some sort of a ladder to heaven.” He chuckled. “Then swore she’d never set foot on one of those lifts again. I had to get her drunk just to get her back down. Cost me a month’s wage just to put a glass of wine into her in one of those fancy taverns they got there. But still, ’twas a good day’s turning.” Gret’s eyes shone with laughter at the memory before his gaze turned back to me. “But nowadays it doesn’t matter if you earn a tower-head’s wage or dress in fancy pants. Now you have to get a special permit to go high, or have one with a permit vouch for you. Some of them tower-heads come down sometimes to look for servants, you know, but those working can’t go up and down by their lonesome. No, they need someone to bring them up and down or the ShieldGuards have a field day with ’em, if you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t, but I got the idea. “So. How do I get to the Upper Plateau? Where can I get a permit?”

  Gret smiled at my naiveté. “Lady. That’s the fix. No one will give you a permit down here.” He pointed at the ground. “You can only get one up there.” He turned a chubby finger at the sky. “So you see the problem this situation creates; you only get a permit to go up there if you’re already up there. That’s tower-head’s logic, that is.”

  I sighed. Sadly, it actually made very good sense to me. “Any suggestions?”

  Gret patted the mule’s head. “Well, yes. Don’t go up there.” He chuckled. “No offence, Mistress, you’re a nice lady, but there’s no place for us normal folk up in the sky among them tower-heads.”

  “Well, I need to go up,” I said firmly.

  Gret shrugged and wrinkled his brow. “Even if my poor Summer could make the journey, it’s no use. Them ShieldGuards patrol the entrances and I heard that Cart’s Way ends up in the top towers right on their doorstep.” His hand went from head to beard scratching. “No, the only way to get to the top without a permit is to climb the white stairs, you know, by foot.”

  “You mean take the moving stairs?” I asked, remembering the city’s tourist attraction. But my heart sank when Gret said, “I don’t know anything about moving. Those stairs are just what they are, thousands of white stairs, and no one, not even the ShieldGuards, is patrolling them.”

  The disappointment must have been plain on my face because he added, “Don’t worry, Mistress. A little exercise is good for the body, and if you start now you could get up there by tomorrow’s nightfall or maybe the next morning.”

  I sighed, but Gret was already climbing into the driver’s seat of his cart. He declared enthusiastically, “I tell you what—we could stop in the market and buy supplies and then drive up to the Upper Middle Plateau on Cart’s Way. That’s allowed.” He pointed at the dais half a mile above us and to the side. “That’ll be only ten towers for the toll pass between the plateaus, and five for a ‘road tax.’” He tapped a finger under his eye. “That’s for the guards, and only coin, no kind.” He winked mischievously. “There’s an old street, called Augustino. If you take the stairs from there, it will probably only take you till sundown to reach them top towers.”

  Correctly interpreting the expression on my face, Gret added, “It’s the only way, Mistress.” He waited as I climbed up next to him before releasing the brake with an added warning. “But once you’re up there, don’t linger too openly because them guards can get suspicious like, and if they find you have no permit, you�
��ll be wishing they’d thrown you off the top tower.”

  It took us several hours to get to the Upper Middle Plateau, and by then it was past midday. The coin satchel Sergiu had given me was not full. I suspected it was meant to be fuller than what I got, but it was enough to buy a few supplies at the market, including a wicker basket, before we went up. I hoped that carrying it around would make me look like I was a housekeeper. I bought several carrots for Summer as well, and a chunky loaf of bread to share with Gret, who had never really regained his spirit since we had found his cottage wrecked. We drove through Cart’s Way—what used to be the lanes for public and private hover transportation between the plateaus. As Gret had anticipated, we were stopped and shaken down for five towers. The road slanted upwards steeply, and the poor mule worked for her carrot. Once we reached the Upper Middle Plateau, she was rewarded with another.

  This Plateau was much smaller than its lower counterpart, but it had always featured the second-best view of the city, and despite being suburban in its style of architecture, it used to attract many of the city’s rich and famous. This trend had not changed. The people we saw were better dressed, and some of them seemed to be enjoying the sun rather than going about their daily routines. There was a beautiful central park, and the carts passing us were pulled by horses, not donkeys.

  As if reading my thoughts, Gret commented, “Some rich traders and guild hobnobs, that kind of posh lot, live here. A few ex-Salvationists that made a packet and quit their adventuring on time, too. Don’t be fooled by the fine dresses and the ponies; most of these lot made it up from the lower levels, even from as low as metal traders from the Pit, but each and every one of them thinks they are better than the rest of us and that they can make it to the top towers.” Gret spat to the side. “Believe you me, this is as far as they’ll ever reach. We have a saying: ‘It’s as easy to go Pit down as it is difficult to go tower up.’”