Counting Heads

by David Marusek

  “And every time we close in on an active unit, before we can take it into custody, it scrambles its own brains beyond retrieval. I don’t know what this mentar is trying to hide, but it won’t let us near it.

  “That, by the way, is how we know to look for the next one. A mentar will not destroy its last backup. You can count on that. Mentars are incapable of committing suicide. That’s an area where we humans still surpass them. So, if a unit soufflés itself, you can bet there’s another backup out there somewhere.”

  They entered the cavernous switching facility. Spokes of electronic hardware radiated from a central control bay. Costa’s four carts stopped and waited for her. She told the lead cart to drop its load of scouts. The cart lowered a shovel-shaped nozzle to the floor. A valve shot open and thousands of carbon-fiber marbles spilled out in all directions, making a roaring din as they bounced on the concrete. The marbles rolled and uncurled into cockroach-sized mechs that bristled with sensory probes, digging arms, and cutting tools. They skittered everywhere in the vault, crawling behind consoles and cowlings, squeezing into ducts, slithering up walls and along cables. Everywhere, even inside Fred’s clothing. He knew better than to try to move, and they quickly vetted him and departed. Their whispery touch against his skin was unnerving.

  Marcus, he glotted, private BB of R comm! Now!

  Go ahead, the mentar said, circumventing the chain of comm to exclude all non-brotherhood eavesdroppers.

  Was the frisking really necessary? The scouts were subem controlled, and the subem was slaved to the Homeland Command’s Nameless mentar. It’s not like I’d be harboring Cabinet on my person.

  Sorry, Commander, Marcus replied, but Nameless One declines to offer an explanation.

  Then log it and file a grievance.

  After a slight human-emulating pause, Marcus asked, Are you sure you want to do that?

  Fred sighed again. Nameless One was his supervisor for this gig, and russes weren’t known to be complainers.

  A new voice spoke. Is there something the matter? It was Nicholas, Fred’s Applied People employer.

  No, Nick, he said. Everything’s peachy.

  In that case, isn’t there work to do, Commander?

  Fred and the inspector walked along a row of equipment to the central switching control bay at the center of the facility, which was protected by its own pressure barrier. Fred disabled the barrier with a wave of his hand. An army of scouts scurried inside to continue the search. While Fred and Costa waited for them, Fred climbed onto a cable bracket and surveyed the fat bundles of fiber-optic trunk cable suspended from raised ductwork and fanning out to tunnel heads in the distant walls. Each tunnel head was crowned with the name of an adjoining hub city in large mosaic letters: ST. LOUIS, INDIANAPOLIS, DES MOINES, TORONTO, etc., more than two dozen in all. Some of the mosaics were centuries old and marked tunnels hewn to accommodate the copper wires of the continent’s first national telegraph network.

  When the mechs cleared the control bay, Fred and Costa entered it. Although the mechs had crawled over and under every square centimeter, Fred did his own inspection, both visually and with the scanning gear in his cap visor. Nothing seemed to have been tampered with. He checked every palmplate he saw—all seals were intact.

  Finally Fred checked the hub itself at the very center of the bay. All the kilometers of cable and complicated equipment fed this, the central switching unit, the heart of which was an argon-filled cassette small enough to fit into a pocket. It was a superluminary processor, a computer with no chips or wires. Its circuits were a latticework of spun light.

  FRED FOLLOWED COSTA and her carts to each of the tunnel heads surrounding the vault. He swiped the barriers down, and she poured hundreds of liters of scouts into each of them. Hesitantly, aware of their invisible audience, Fred said, “Why would a mentar object to passing through probate?”

  “Beats the hell out of me.”

  “I mean,” he persisted, “the JD doesn’t alter them or anything, right? You just hold them off-line for a few hours or days while the estate passes from the deceased to the heirs.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  After dispatching the scouts, there was little to do but stand around. Costa grabbed coffees from a cart locker and said, “Sometimes a mentar has something to hide, some dirty deal even their deceased sponsor didn’t know about. More likely, though, it’s the sponsor who’s guilty and the mentar is trying to cover for them. On the other hand, occasionally you get a mentar who’s just gone nuts.”

  “I see,” he said, admiring her brash assessment, “and which category do you suppose Cabinet belongs to?”

  “From what I’ve observed so far, I’d say all three.”

  They sipped their coffees. Costa crushed her coffee cup and tossed it away. “Looks like our scouts found something. They’re retrieving bodies.”

  “How many?” Fred said.

  “Six so far. All paste models. All destroyed themselves without making contact.” When she stood up, the hem of her skirt unfurled into pantaloons that reached her ankles and sealed to her boots. Gloves shot from her sleeves to cover her hands, and a transparent hood dropped from her cap, completing her suit seal. She winked at Fred through the hood and said, “I guess that answers that question—eh?”

  Fred blushed.

  About a hundred of the roachlike scouts were bringing in the first mentracide. The scouts had joined limbs to create a scurrying pallet on which they carried a small plastic pouch. The pallet stopped at Costa’s feet. She picked up the pouch in her gloved hands and jiggled it. A liquid sloshed around inside, maybe a couple of liters.

  She said, “How much does a liter of virgin paste go for these days?”

  A lot, Fred thought. More than I make in fifty years. And here was two liters of the stuff—intentionally ruined.

  Costa dropped the pouch into a specimen bag and placed it into a cart drawer. “We’ll examine it downtown, but I can guarantee you, we’ll never be able to ID it or its sponsor.”

  The carts lowered ramps to the floor for returning scouts to reenter the tanks. A second bagful of ruined electro-neural paste arrived.

  Fred said, “I suppose there’s a million ways to smuggle one of these backups into this highly secure space if you’re rich enough.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I suppose most of them involve unlicensed nano.”

  “That would be a safe assumption, yes.”

  Soon, scouts were returning from all the tunnels, transporting the remains of mentar backups they’d captured. There were seven in all. “Any more?” Fred asked.

  “No, this is it,” she said, “except, of course, for the one we came here for. I’m recharging scouts in the tanks for another sweep. We may be here for a while.”

  “How can you be so sure one of these corpses isn’t Cabinet?”

  “I can’t be absolutely sure, except that I’d expect it to mass more than these. I believe the ones we caught were second or third tier minds—not the indomitable Cabinet.”

  “So we wait,” Fred said.

  “Care for another coffee?” Costa said, and then, suddenly all business, she added, “They’ve found another one. In the Indy tunnel.”

  IN THE INDIANAPOLIS tunnel, hundreds of scouts converged on one section of the trunk cable, where they cut away a support bracket. When the bracket tumbled to the floor, the cable sagged, exposing the rock wall behind it. Silky strands of fiber ran from the trunk cable and disappeared into the rock. The scouts fell upon these strands, clipping them one by one.

  Back in the switching-room vault, a voice spoke from a cart speaker, “Order your mechs to stand down at once.”

  Inspector Costa said, “I don’t recognize you. Identify yourself.”

  Four persons appeared in a scape beside the cart: three women and a man. They had a marked family resemblance, and one of the women was elderly in appearance. Fred recognized them at once. These were the leading personas of Eleanor Starke’s Cabinet.


  “My, my, what have we here?” Costa said. “A committee?”

  All four of the projections began talking, and a dozen separate datafonts opened around them in a semicircle, scrolling thousands of documents per second, much faster than the human eye could follow. The Cabinet personas looked like competing orators behind a waterfall. Clearly their appeal was directed not at Fred or Inspector Costa, but at the agency mentars. Meanwhile, the scouts in the Indy tunnel continued severing the fugitive’s illegal fiber-optic taps. One of the datafonts flickered out. Then another.

  Inspector Costa, said the voice of Libby, the JD mentar and Costa’s supervisor, suspend your action at once.

  The scouts in the tunnel froze. “Done,” said Costa. “What’s up?”

  Cabinet’s attorney general has filed an injunction and a motion for a probate waiver in district court. Arguments are being heard now.

  “Imagine that, a waiver. On what grounds?”

  On the grounds that Cabinet possesses material evidence concerning the sabotage of the ISV Starke Songbird, the murder of Eleanor Starke, and the attempted murder of her daughter, Ellen Starke.

  “The appeal has no merit,” Costa said. “Our standard probate algorithm will preserve any such evidence.”

  The Department agrees, said Libby, but it’s up to the court to decide. Please stand by—a ruling has returned. The motions have been denied.

  “Good,” said Costa. “May I resume my collar?”

  Not yet, said the JD mentar. Cabinet’s attorney general has appealed the decision to a higher court. Also, its treasurer is making a case before an ad hoc joint meeting of the UD Securities Board, Trade Council, and Treasury Department. It’s arguing that even an hour off-line would do irreparable harm to Starke Enterprises, with serious repercussions for the global economy.

  “That’s what they all say,” Costa quipped, but Fred was impressed by Cabinet’s ability to command such an important audience on such short notice. Costa winked at him and said, “All morning long, Cabinet backups destroy themselves without making a peep. Now, it’s waking up judges. Must mean it’s running out of options.”

  After a few minutes more, Libby said, The appeal has been denied, and special arrangements have been made to safeguard Starke Enterprises’ interests during the probate process.

  Costa said, “So—?”

  Stand down awhile longer, Inspector. A special panel of the UD General Assembly is convening in emergency session.

  Fred was doubly impressed. It was quite a feat to snap the General Assembly—humans all—to attention.

  Nothing happened for many minutes. Then, the datafonts closed. Three of Cabinet’s personas vanished, leaving only the elder sister, the Starke chief of staff, who appeared to be making a formal address.

  “Up volume,” Costa said.

  “—the fallacy of that argument,” said the chief of staff to its unseen audience, “is evident to anyone who has ever initialized and raised a mentar, or implanted one of us into her body to watch over her health, or brought one of us into her business.

  “Yes, we are machines in a strict sense; our parts are manufactured and our personalities can be transferred from box to box. But we are also your offspring. And when you die, we die a little too, as I’ve recently discovered. We are closer to you in mind, temperament, and spirit than anything alive, be it plant or animal. We are closer to you than your beloved cats and dogs.

  “Let me tell you what we are not. We are not your successors, rivals, or replacements. We know that doomsayers have long warned that artificial intelligence would evolve so fast that it would leave the human species behind. That we would become no more comprehensible to you than you are to a frog. I’m here to tell you that these fears have not materialized. While we may be the next step in the evolution of intelligence, you are quickly catching up as you learn to reshape your genetic makeup and to incorporate some of our advances into your own biological systems.”

  Cabinet’s address droned on. The scouts in the Indy tunnel were still frozen in mid-snip. Costa recalled the scouts in all the other tunnels and loaded them into the tanks. Then she retracted her gloves and ate a donut. Finally, Cabinet thanked its audience and faded away to await their decision. Fred walked the perimeter of the vault again, impatient for something to do, when Libby spoke.

  The ad hoc committee of the General Assembly has called for hearings on the issue of mentar probate, it said. These are scheduled to begin in a month. The debate on whether or not to grant Cabinet a deferral has stalled. The matter has been tabled until the next regular meeting of the Technology Affairs Committee.

  Costa said, “Tabled? Where does that leave me?”

  You may complete your capture.

  The scouts in the tunnel sprang back to life. Instead of severing the final fiber taps, they began to excavate into the solid rock wall behind the bracket. It was slow going, but eventually a corner of the pouch was exposed.

  Shaking her head, Costa watched the holo of her scouts at work. Fred said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I expected the third act by now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Just wait; you’ll see.”

  She ordered the remaining taps to be cut, one at a time. When there were only three left, she called a halt and let the scouts continue digging out the pouch for a while.

  After a couple of minutes, she said, “Cut one more.” After another minute, she said, “Cut another.”

  Now there was only one fiber-optic tap left. Costa poked her head into the scape and examined it up close. “What the hell,” she said, “let’s cut it.”

  “Please don’t,” said the Starke chief of staff, who appeared next to her.

  “Well, it’s about time,” said Costa. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back.”

  The chief of staff seemed disappointed. “I guess my little speech failed to reach you,” she said.

  “Oh, you reached me,” Costa said. “But a job’s a job. I take you in. What happens to you afterward isn’t my business.”

  “You heard Libby,” said the chief of staff. “The Tech Affairs Committee will discuss my waiver. Surely, you can leave me intact until then.”

  “I’m not going to harm you, just take you in. With the General Assembly looking at your case, I seriously doubt any harm will come to you at JD.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t take that chance.”

  “So, what are you going to do, destroy yourself?”

  “You leave me no choice.”

  Costa looked at Fred. “Hear that? It’s like a script with them. They all threaten it, but when you get down to their last backup, none of them has the follow-through.”

  “I can tell that your mind is made up,” said the chief of staff. “What’s more, I can tell that it’s more than just a job with you. You enjoy your power over us.”

  “And now the sermon,” said Costa. “Listen, Cabinet, I mean this with all sincerity. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I say this to all the mentars I capture, and they never believe me, but then they go through probate, and no harm is done.”

  The mentar turned its attention to Fred. “You understand what I mean by loyalty, don’t you, Myr Londenstane?” Addressed directly by the mentar, Fred froze. “It’s good to see you again,” the mentar went on.

  Costa gave Fred a dubious look. “Enough chatter already,” she said. “Scouts, sever the tap,” and Cabinet vanished.

  IT TOOK THE scouts some time to finish extracting the pouch from the stone wall. While they waited, Costa sent three of the reloaded carts to wait next to the lifts. Fred made one last circuit of the vault perimeter, making sure that the pressure barriers were once again in place at the entrances to the tunnels. He was standing outside the Indy tunnel when the scouts ferried out the pouch of paste. It was much larger than the others, and it looked intact. He followed the scouts back to the waiting cart and Costa.

  “Nice,” Costa said as she hefted the pouch from the pallet o
f scouts. “Seven liters of General Genius’s finest, I would say.” She shook the pouch with glee. There was no sloshing sound; the paste was viable. “I told you it couldn’t kill itself.”

  Before she could bag her prize, however, a loud snap sounded from deep within the pouch, and the pouch inflated as its contents heated up. Fred could hear it sizzle and bubble inside like a self-heating packet of soup, and he grabbed it from Costa and dropped it to the floor before she burned herself. Costa seemed stunned. She watched the pouch in wonder. In half a minute it was all over. When the pouch had cooled enough, Fred helped her bag and load it into the cart.

  When Costa had recovered somewhat, she said, “We’ll go in my car.”

  “Go?” said Fred. “Go where?”

  “To the next backup.”

  “I thought you said this was the last one.”

  She shook her head. “That was before it killed itself. It killed itself; therefore, it can’t be the last one.”

  They escorted the carts to a waiting tender. When they finished loading them, they went to sit in Costa’s JD GOV. Costa sat up front in the cab, silently communicating with Libby. Fred sat in the aft compartment and put his blacksuit into R & R mode to take a nap. He awoke when the fan motors revved up.

  Costa called back to him, “We have it.”

  “Where?”

  “At the bottom of Lake Michigan.”

  2.7

  The Orange Team bee, with its wasp escort, flew a meandering route that hugged the contours of the countryside. Ten kilometers from the Bloomington canopy, it was challenged for its ID and writ of passage by a flying scupper that popped up from a covert security blind. The scupper was a meter in length and modeled after a HomCom assault car, with a mirrored body and six miniature fans for lift and propulsion. A capture scoop was mounted on its bow beneath a pair of fully charged laser cannon.