Eden Burning (Fox Meridian Book 7)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘I suppose I’m flattered.’ Fox glanced at the virtual display appearing near her but did not bother listening in. ‘They’re just reporting the basics, I assume.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what we expect for the first hour or so. IB-Sixty-two may have more to report since the release indicated that Eve would be making her first visit to Earth in this metro.’

  ‘Well, they are the local news service. Or one of them.’

  ‘Yes. Given an hour to work with the press release, there will be more comment pieces and we will get a better idea of how people are reacting.’ There was a tiny pause and then, ‘Jason is waking up.’

  ‘Right.’ A thought flicked up Fox’s transfer control panel. She tagged her gynoid frame and hit the commit button… And opened her eyes in bed beside her boyfriend; he had never moved into his official suite. She reached behind her head and pulled out the fibre she had plugged in there. Her recharging belt had been removed during the night. ‘Morning,’ she said.

  Jason smiled at her. ‘You know, it is a little strange to awake and find you… immobile.’

  ‘Sorry. I was monitoring a press release from BioTek.’

  ‘Ah, yes. They have created their first bioroid.’

  ‘Uh-huh. You get that through on your implant, or did someone brief you?’

  ‘A little of both,’ Jason said, heading through to the bathroom. ‘I am seeing early reports now, but I did see a communication regarding the legal position the UN are taking… two weeks ago.’

  ‘Huh.’ Fox followed him through and watched as he stepped into the shower. ‘You’re here on Thursday, right?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Want to meet her?’

  Jason looked back out of the shower area. ‘I… think that would be very interesting. If it would be okay with your people.’

  Fox shrugged. ‘They put me in charge of handling her security and I say it’s okay…’

  14th July.

  Fox watched the weather map Belle was displaying, frowning as she did so. ‘Tropical Storm Andrea. The first of the year and it’s coming in fairly hot.’

  ‘Palladium’s weather services are suggesting landfall between eighteen hundred local tonight and midday tomorrow,’ Belle supplied. ‘The pattern is unusually chaotic, making exact determinations problematic. Current estimates give a sixty-two percent chance of Andrea hitting this metro.’

  ‘Let Kit know if the estimates change, please. If it’s getting too close, they may need to delay Eve’s landing.’

  ‘There is only a six percent chance of that happening, if your schedule remains correct.’

  ‘It does,’ Kit said. ‘We have received no indication of a delay.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fox said, ‘but this is BioTek we’re talking about. They won’t tell us of a change in schedule until we’ve already left for the original time. Anything new on the media reporting?’

  ‘Most of the serious media channels seem to be adopting a wait-and-see approach,’ Belle said. ‘They have reported the facts and presented a few opinion pieces from both sides of the argument, for and against bioroids, but are largely restricting betraying any opinion themselves until they have had a chance to see Eve for themselves.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kit said, ‘the more opinionated channels are pushing whatever view they normally espouse, no matter what the facts. Interestingly, however, the MarTech analysts are saying that the antibioroid elements seem to be… confused. Their messages often conflict with each other in some manner, producing greater resistance to the memes in the popular cognitive ecology.’

  ‘Cognitive dissonance,’ Fox said.

  Kit grinned. ‘Very good, Fox. You have been listening when I talk about memetics.’

  ‘Less of your sass, young lady, or you’ll be integrating memories of me spanking your gynoid. And not in the good way.’

  ‘One other item of interest, Fox,’ Belle said. ‘Luna City updated its legal codes yesterday following a minor procedural vote. The updates have been ratified by Tranquillity Base and their attached territories. They have, essentially, ensured that the Akh process used on you is fully legal and would present no issues for someone using it. There was little media coverage since the changes were minor and expected.’

  ‘Huh. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m needed here, I’d transfer up to Jenner and celebrate.’

  ‘I am sure that Mister Martins would be willing to crack open a bottle of champagne when you meet him later.’

  ‘Maybe, but he doesn’t drink much and I need virtual alcohol. You know, they just didn’t think that kind of thing through when they were designing the system.’

  Kit smiled. ‘I think they may have been too busy celebrating your continued existence to worry over your ability to celebrate future legal changes.’

  ~~~

  Tropical Storm Andrea was sticking to a route which would keep it out of the New York area for a while, so Fox was waiting in a private arrivals lounge in Newark Spaceport with Jackson and a squad of Palladium’s security personnel. The security was probably overkill given the private nature of the lounge, but Fox had decided it was appropriate, especially since Jackson had decided that he wished to greet Eve when she arrived on Earth.

  ‘The shuttle is being tendered over now,’ Kit said, appearing beside Fox and peering out of the observation window as Fox was doing. ‘They should be disembarking within five minutes.’

  ‘Thank you, Kit,’ Jackson said, though Fox had no doubt his VA was also monitoring traffic information. The genius inventor was, in some ways, a little out of his depth as far as Eve went. He understood the principles and had been heavily involved with the technology which had actually created Eve, but biotechnology was not one of his major areas of expertise. Of course, ‘not a major area of expertise’ to Jackson Martins was not quite the same as it was to most people; the man knew a lot about a lot of things, having the kind of brain which retained scientific information much as Fox’s tended to accumulate crime data.

  ‘I think,’ Jackson went on, ‘that I may have to go up to Jenner in the near future.’

  Fox blinked. The statement had come out of the blue and Jackson was suggesting a space trip. ‘Have you developed some sort of masochistic streak I should know about?’

  ‘Ha! No. I’m considering the possibility of getting myself sedated for the entire trip. I’m not so bad once I’m in lunar gravity. I believe that I need to examine Teresa’s newest project myself and consider where to go from here.’

  He was being circumspect with good reason. His daughter’s newest project was Fei, a sentient computer system named for Fractal Emergent Intelligence, and it had the possibility of changing the world in any number of ways. Not all of those ways were good. ‘Well, I’m not going to argue with you too much. You know how stressful space travel is for you. If you really think you need to go…’

  Outside the window, the huge, streamlined, delta-winged shape of an orbital shuttle was being towed into place beside the bridge. This one was probably built by MarTech Stellar, but there were only so many ways you could put such a ship together and they all looked much the same. They generally carried around sixty passengers and some cargo, but this one was under-occupied.

  ‘I’m still considering,’ Jackson said, ‘but I believe that sooner rather than later would be a good idea.’

  ‘And you’re missing Terri.’

  ‘There is also that, yes.’

  There was silence then until the door from the bridge opened up and a pair of Palladium security personnel preceded the party from the BioTek station into the lounge. There were three technicians, bioengineers responsible for Eve’s production and continued evaluation; the slim, very tall form of Rainer Gottschalk, the man most responsible for the bioroid project; a couple of PR people who had been up on the L4 station to brief those coming down; and then there was the star of the show, so to speak.

  Eve was a relatively unassuming woman. She was certainly attractive, but not sufficiently so that it provo
ked jealousy. Her hair was a mass of purple which tended to obscure her face a little. If you got closer, you would discover that her irises were also a purple or violet colour. But aside from some colouration differences, Eve appeared to be a typical human. If you dug deeper, you would discover that she was three months old yet still a full-sized adult, spoke two languages fluently, and was a trained diplomat and public speaker. She looked bored and a little uncomfortable as she walked through into the lounge in a grey business suit, but she brightened visibly when she spotted Fox and Jackson standing there waiting for her.

  Still, she waited quietly for them to welcome Gottschalk before saying anything, and then she waited to be spoken to.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Eve,’ Jackson said, offering his hand to the bioroid.

  ‘The same, Jackson,’ Eve replied, smiling. ‘I hope that you are keeping well.’

  ‘Oh, as well as modern medicine can manage. Missing my daughter, but that can’t be helped. We all have work to keep us busy.’

  ‘Yes. I have my work cut out for me in the next few weeks.’

  ‘And I’ll be right there with you for a lot of it,’ Fox said. ‘Welcome to Earth, Eve.’

  ‘Thank you, Fox. Will you introduce me to your companion?’ Eve was looking at Kit’s avatar, which meant she had an implant installed.

  ‘Certainly. Eve, this is Kit, my personal assistant. She has a gynoid frame you may meet at some point, but she can introduce herself if you do.’

  ‘Hello, Eve,’ Kit said, smiling. ‘I am pleased to meet you in person. Uh, so to speak.’

  ‘And the same to you, Kit,’ Eve replied. ‘I have met relatively few infomorphs.’

  ‘Two here,’ Fox said. ‘Though people have a habit of forgetting I’m one.’

  ‘Are you complaining?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘Not really. Let’s get everyone to tower three. We’ve a vertol waiting and we’ll get everyone comfortable there before we need to worry about Andrea.’

  ‘Andrea?’ Eve asked.

  ‘There’s a tropical storm headed this way. Not only do you have to deal with twice as much gravity as you’re used to, but you also get to see Earth’s weather up close and personal.’

  Eve smiled the smile of someone who was not sure how to take that. ‘I’m sure it will be a novel experience.’

  ~~~

  Naomi’s face appeared in Fox’s vision field and Fox frowned. ‘Naomi, is something up? I’m busy settling our visitors from BioTek into tower three.’

  ‘It’s your new bioroid friend I called about,’ Naomi replied.

  ‘Eve? Uh, what’s up?’

  ‘The ecology monitoring team have noted a resurgence of the Ragnarok ninety-seven meme which seems to have been started immediately after the BioTek announcement.’

  ‘I guess we should’ve expected that.’

  ‘Perhaps, but there are some aspects to the new campaign I found interesting. It’s still primarily using apocalypse-oriented sites as vectors, but they are predominantly those frequented by American users. On top of that, the campaign has been altered slightly. Eve is not mentioned directly, but there is a push in her direction in some of the wording.’

  ‘Pardon the interrupt,’ Kit said, her own image appearing beside Naomi’s, which was a little disconcerting since there was also an avatar in the room, currently talking to Eve. ‘I have contacted the MarTech memetics department. They have also noted the new campaign, but had not considered it worth mentioning yet. Their analysis shows a fairly small population affected at this time.’

  ‘Less than a thousand,’ Naomi agreed. ‘That’s an estimated value, obviously, but there have been some interesting reactions. Some of the more religious forums have noted the coincidental arrival of Eve and Andrea.’

  ‘Huh?’ Fox asked. ‘Oh, uh, God’s wrath?’

  ‘Exactly. As with the more baseline reactions, believers in this seem to fall into three schools. There are the ones who see this as a sign from God that the world is ending and they have decided that there is nothing more they can do. There are those that believe that eliminating bioroids can save the world, and a slightly larger number who believe that bioroids are here to take over from humans or are God’s messengers.’

  ‘They think Eve is an angel?’

  Naomi smiled. ‘I haven’t met the young lady, so I couldn’t possibly comment.’

  Fox glanced across the room to where Eve was busy chatting away to Kit’s avatar. The bioroid had shown a fairly strong desire to meet new people, even greeting the guards on duty at the elevator. ‘Have you got anything planned for this evening?’

  ‘Nothing substantive. There’s always some report or other I should read. We have a few preparations to make before the storm hits.’

  ‘Come over to tower three at about seven. I’ll clear you through security. Jason’s coming over too. Eve seems to like meeting people, so I don’t see a problem in her meeting you.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ~~~

  Business suits with pants were in for women this season. Eve’s was grey and collarless; Mariel Hoarsen was in the same design, but pinstriped black with a red blouse of some sort under it. Even Fox had decided to look suitably corporate, though her jacket had a simple collar and she was just wearing one of her purple bodysuits beneath it. Naomi’s uniform was a fairly massive contrast to the general dress code as a result and Eve was fascinated. To be fair, a few of the other people down from the BioTek station were also fascinated, but they did not get to see women dressed like that too often.

  ‘I am here primarily to act as an ambassador for artificial biological life forms,’ Eve said, ‘but my understanding of the likely purposes we will be put to is that sex will feature strongly.’

  ‘But BioTek did not design you for that purpose?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘And we have no intention of designing bioroids specifically for the sex industry,’ Gottschalk put in.

  ‘However,’ Eve continued, ‘I am… capable of sexual intercourse should the need arise. Not that I expect it to, but the capability is there and, if more like me are created, it is likely that we would find work in service industries where androids and gynoids do not currently meet everyone’s requirements. It seems likely that “bed companions” is one of those areas.’

  ‘Of course,’ Naomi agreed. ‘Our primary focus at the moment is on trying to ensure that you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. No one should be put into that position.’ Naomi frowned slightly. ‘You don’t like the term “bioroid,” do you?’

  ‘Not really,’ Eve admitted. ‘On the other hand, no one seems to have come up with a better term which is also short enough to use. “Artificial biological life form” is long and does not form a pronounceable acronym. Being called a bioroid is not upsetting, just not ideal.’

  ‘Well, to be concise, bioroids should not need to give their bodies for their jobs. Unless they want to.’ Naomi smiled. ‘Obviously, I wouldn’t wish to deny anyone the choice since I took it.’

  ‘There are some interesting legal hurdles to negotiate regarding that,’ Jason said, stepping up beside Naomi. ‘Androids designed for the sex industry have been classified in most regions of the world as, well, sex toys. If you can buy a vibrator legally, you can buy a gynoid sex doll, or an android one. We may not know what the position on biological sex dolls is until someone attempts to sell one or transport it into a given administrative region.’

  ‘Clearly not an issue in Japan,’ Fox said, stepping in beside Jason. ‘Uh, everyone’s been introduced to Jason, right? Turns out one of the reasons Jason is here and not in space is some rather odd memes floating around about bioroids.’

  ‘Which is not something the UNTPP is making a lot of noise about,’ Jason said, frowning at Fox.

  ‘Ah, but Sister Naomi has been monitoring one of those you mentioned. You might want to get her impressions on the subject. The Sisters of Corruption have a very good memetics unit. Did I hear mention of the North E
uropean Union going along the same route as Luna City regarding bioroids?’

  ‘Yes, and no,’ Jason said. ‘Lunar law guarantees artificial biologicals the same rights as humans or AIs. Europe is aiming to introduce legislation which makes bioroids no different from humans. All the same statutes would apply. That would effectively make bioroids illegal unless procured by a private individual in a manner similar to adoption. Since there are limits on adoption agency fees…’

  ‘It would be uneconomic for any company to cater to such a market,’ Gottschalk said. ‘Eve represents almost two million American dollars as an individual unit.’ He glanced at Fox for a second. ‘If you’ll excuse reducing a living being to the status of a product for the purposes of discussion, if the European legislation goes through, the NU will be effectively taken off the map for bioroid sales. At BioTek, we actually expect rather less… humanoid designs to form the backbone of any attempts to commercialise bioroids. Biological brains still retain some advantages over electronic ones on a simple performance-per-kilo basis. We have designs which utilise the capacity for sentience in a compact form, combined with native tolerance to conditions which would normally necessitate a robot.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Fox said. ‘I’ve got some really oversized processors in here to cope with my code. Well, that and the fact that this frame was intended for the military. One of the reasons I need so much maintenance and have a lousy battery lifetime. I think Jackson is expecting the next generation of processors to be a lot better, but we’re looking at a couple of years before they’re on the market. And there are limitations on the architecture of all current AIs, which could make bioroids viable in some roles for quite a while.’

  ‘I consider myself lucky,’ Eve said. ‘I was needed for this earliest part of the introduction of artificial biological life forms. My kind have a need for a diplomat, someone to present us in a good light to humans, and I have been made for that. Without that need, I would not exist.’

  Fox grinned at her. ‘And we like existing, don’t we?’