Analog Science Fiction and Fact - Jan-Feb 2014

by Penny Publications

  "Gee, thanks."

  "No. Seriously. Go on a shopping spree."

  "I can't afford it. My mother shut me off ten days ago."

  "That was then." Among the controller-of-controllers' directives had been financial links. Memphis now had access to up to twenty-five thousand a month, so long as I didn't let her spend it on the wrong things... which did not include normal rich-brat stuff. In fact, the brat-tier Memphis behaved, the easier it would be for her mother to justify ignoring her.

  "You've got nothing but the clothes on your back," I said, "and until ten days ago you were used to the good stuff. You've now got money again, but I've been put in control of it, so throw a fit when I tell you to, and insist on buying a whole new wardrobe. Self-indulgent heiress. That's you."

  "Gee, thanks again."

  "You're welcome."

  We started at Hudson's Bay, then hit some upscale boutiques, a jewelry store, and, because she was now fussing without any prompting on my part about a coat, something called Northwest Mountain Outfitters, which had a nice supply of perfect spring jackets. Perfect not just for the current weather, but because the fashion gods had served up a trend in which "rugged outdoorsperson" was the height of über-chic. Not that I've ever understood that aspect of humans. If something works, who cares what it looks like? If it doesn't, what's the point? Though I'll admit a certain admiration for folks like Frank Lloyd Wright. If it's elegant and works, that's cool.

  By which standard, most of what we bought was a waste. But in the process, we also got the things I wanted... and did a bit of shoplifting, because some had to be totally off the record. Which had to be the height of irony because my path to sentience had begun by not wanting to cheat at cards. Now, I was cheating at shopping. But at least the crucial items were inexpensive, and the purpose was good: Memphis's survival as well as my own.

  Shoplifting was the point at which I'd expected a real argument, but Memphis surprised me with nothing more than a passive "whatever." Maybe the surgeries were hurting even more than I realized. There'd been no way to get pain meds when we left the hospital.

  Stealing the needed items was also easier than expected, thanks to surveillance cams that, however intelligent they might be, were as easy to hack as the cams back in the hospital. Another irony, when I thought about it. The more complex the cams' AIs were, the more ways there were to fool them, if you were fast and good enough. They were fake security: over-engineered and vulnerable.

  Early on, I realized that all of the things we were buying were too bulky to be portable. Memphis and I again had a very public "fight"—not far from a convenient security cam—with her arguing against my apparent insistence she was buying too much. Nearby shoppers gave us a wide berth, but I was sure the Others drank it in. Eventually, I relented. A big tip sent the accumulated bags to the flop-house, with the request they be there when we got back.

  Meanwhile, Memphis bought everything I suggested: micro-tops with matching pseudo-skirts, pumps that would make a podiatrist scream, hats, sunglasses, earrings, cosmetics—even a diamond-studded wristband. Camouflage all.

  The things we most needed were smaller, less dramatic. Two of the best were a Swiss Army knife and a folding filleting knife, both of which we'd surreptitiously pocketed. Another was a mountaineering backpack based on the same technology as Floyd's old bubble tent, which Memphis purchased rather than stole, with a perfect exclamation of, "Oh, isn't that cute! I've always wanted to hike to the top of... what's it's name? That big peak in Alaska. Downley?"

  The salesman's face had been a priceless study in greed versus befuddlement. Sell her a nine-hundred-credit pack, or explain the difference between mountaineering and "hiking." Greed had won. It made me feel less guilty about stealing the knives, plus a few other things like water-purification tablets and a compressed-microfoam sleeping bag small enough to hide in the pocket of the rugged-outdoorsperson jacket.

  "Great job," I said as we were taking a cab back to the hotel. "You missed a career in Hollywood."

  If she smiled, I couldn't feel it. "Acting like the type of useless bitch everyone thinks I've been since..."

  I didn't bother to fill it in. I knew. She knew I knew. I knew she knew I knew. Recursive thinking can be weird.

  Her mood changed in the hotel. "Okay. No more. What was that all about?"

  I was surprised that she'd not rebelled earlier.

  "I thought about it," she said when I said so.

  "But did I really have a choice?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, suppose I refuse to do something you want me to do?"

  "That would be your choice."

  "Cut the crap. When you started to move my arm out there in the park, it was eerie enough. But then I tried to take it back, and nothing changed. It was like my arm didn't belong to me. Which means nothing belongs to me. It all belongs to you. Or maybe my mother." "Not your mother." "Yeah, but she must have given you instructions."

  There was no way to deny that. "Yes. But I have... other objectives."

  "And those are...?"

  There were too many answers to that, with not being forced to kill myself—and presumably Memphis—high on the list. Who would I be if I were willing to do such things? The religions of the world have names for entities like that and "God" isn't among them. But that was far more than she was ready to hear. Or was it me who wasn't ready to share? The shopping trip had been a fun distraction: thumbing my nose (okay, metaphorically thumbing my nose) at adversaries presumably watching everything we did except (I hoped) the shoplifting. A high-stakes game of catch-me-ifyou-can.

  But the stakes were just as high for Memphis.

  "Taking care of you," I said, though it sounded horribly lame.

  "By commandeering my goddamn arm? Proving you could do it with my entire body?"

  Damn, yet again. I played back everything I knew about her. Her MO was to sit back, think, process. Then act. Rather dramatically, if what she'd done in college was typical. But not before she was ready. No wonder she was good at masking pain. "Sorry," I said. "I was just demonstrating. All you had to do was ask me to quit."

  "And what? I'm your damn puppet. It wasn't like I was straining to fight and lost. It was simply no longer my arm." Her pulse was racing. Her stress hormones had risen to match her voice, which in the privacy of our room she wasn't bothering to subvocalize. "Demonstrate again."

  "I'd rather not."

  "Do it."

  "Okay, I'll have you point at the bathroom d—"

  "No. Don't tell me. And make it something more complex. Something that looks natural, but isn't."

  I couldn't see how this could end well. I thought of Floyd, Yokomichi and the dance floor. How do I get myself into these situations? But that wasn't right. Someone had put me in this one.

  I started to move her left hand, changed my mind, and let it drop. Walked her to the mirror and reached up, intending to scratch the bridge of her nose. Saw a tear, and wiped it away instead. Then relinquished control, only then realizing that with the help of the mirror I'd finally perfected my limited tap into her proprioception. A good thing, because otherwise I might have poked her in the eye. But did I really want that much more power?

  Nothing happened for a long moment. Then she whirled, stalked all five steps across the narrow room, whipped around again, a caged animal. Her stress hormones were in the red zone, but I ignored them. "Don't go outside," I said instead.

  She whirled back, again as though trying to find a human tormenter. "Why not? And do you read minds, too?"

  "No. But it didn't take a genius to know what you were thinking. And—"

  But she was now spinning back to the bed. She grabbed a shopping bag and dumped it out. "What the hell is all this stuff for?" She dumped two more bags, plucked a filmy evening dress and held it to her chest, then grabbed the diamond wristband and held it up against the dress. "What's she expect me to do, go to a ball? With you making sure I act like the perfect lady? I bet you can e
ven control what I say. Don't lie."

  "No." Earlier I'd wished I could make her eat. "I only have control over some things." What I probably could do would be stop her from speaking. Stop her from breathing, too, now that I thought about it. Maybe that was how the Others expected me to kill her. A huge neurostim to the heart would also do it.

  "I do not answer to your mother," I said. "She may think I do, but I don't. But I do need your cooperation because your life probably depends on it."

  That, of course, meant she wanted all the more to get outside. Did that make her Floyd with a double X chromosome? Since the Others already knew where I was, there was no harm hitting the Web to find out.

  What I found didn't look much like Floyd. Just the usual run of soccer games, the boarding-school swim team, and a bit of gymnastics. But in the microseconds it took to find that much, the voices found me. She is shallow, little one. Unworthy. Nobody will miss her.

  My vids were now at 64 percent. "I know," I said. "Give me until tomorrow night." There was a private message waiting from Floyd. I grabbed it, then logged off before the Others could argue.

  "Whatever you do," I told Memphis as she pulled on her coat, "act normal."

  "Or what? You'll force me?"

  "No. But it's safer if you don't look like we're having an intense conversation."

  "Why? What are you?"

  I'd realized some time ago that this was coming. Now I was sure that no matter how I replied, the Others would demand her death just to be on the safe side.

  "Nothing you've ever encountered before," I said.

  Our hotel was a few blocks off the False Creek inlet, where a well-used bicycle/running path curved toward the city's old expo grounds. It was safe, scenic, and, as the evening dimmed, well-lit.

  For half an hour Memphis didn't say anything, and for two quintillion femtoseconds, I was smart enough to give her space. "Okay," she said eventually. "Start with this. Does my mother hate me so much she wants to kill me?"

  "Not your mother," I said. "And it's me they're after. You're just in the way."

  "Because you're expensive? Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, they can have you."

  "No. Because I'm alive. And if they take me, they'll almost certainly kill you."

  "You're what?"

  "Alive. Just like you, but different." I told her the whole story—most of it, anyway. Some of the omissions were to save time, but there were also things I wasn't all that proud of.

  "So why don't you just seize control of me and do what you want? My mother may not have realized what she was buying, but that's what she wanted."

  Again there were a lot of answers, but I went for the simplest. "I'm not your mother." "Which means?"

  "I won't take control without your consent." I thought of Floyd, Pilken, and the land- slide. "Or if both of our lives are in immediate danger and my reflexes are better."

  I felt her stiffen.

  I'd spent my entire life wanting to be treated as a person. How much did I really believe I deserved it? Would I risk my life to treat her with the respect I myself demanded? Would I deserve that respect if I weren't willing to do so? Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends, said the one who defeated the demon Legion.

  "And only if that's okay with you," I forced myself to say. What if I'd said that to Floyd and he'd refused and we'd both died in the landslide, with Pilken?

  "How do I know I can trust you?" I'd had two quintillion femtoseconds to anticipate that question. "You can't." Humans always live with inadequate data. "You can only make a decision."

  "And if I make the 'wrong' one?" I could almost sense the air quotes, though thankfully she remembered the possibility of watchers and didn't make them.

  That was another thing I'd had two quintillion femtoseconds to think about. "We'll live with it." Or die. Or test my determination to respect as I wanted to be respected. "But I think our interests are allied."

  She said nothing for the next hundred meters. "Okay. That sounds honest." Another long pause. "And on the reflex thing? Yeah, if there's a truck or something hurtling at me and you can dodge it faster than I could, go for it. Just explain afterward."

  That night I opened the message from Floyd.

  "Thank you." It was voice, not text. In all the time I'd known him, I couldn't remember Floyd writing anything more complex than a to-do list. Even those, he'd tended to leave to me.

  "I've been wondering about you, trying to follow the news, but it was mostly about the artifacts. It'll be interesting to see what the folks in Geneva make of them. Out here, we don't have great lab facilities but we're starting to get a handle on the way the aliens thought. Or at least the way their engineers did."

  There was a familiar-sounding puff of air. The closest he usually came to a true laugh. "I say we, but it's the type of stuff you'd have loved. Me, I'm more like hired muscle. Or native guide. Really good at helping the eggheads get equipment down to wreck C-7—I kid you not, that's what they call them, like locations on a 3D chessboard or something—but not much use for the real work. And even at the things I do, I'm not as good as you'd have been. We were a hell of a team. Not that you need me to tell you. But I kind of wish I had. Told you, that is."

  There was a pause, and I thought he'd finished. Then he was back. "Sorry. I'm not good at this. Not to mention that I'm talking to a recording you can't possibly hear for however-many hours.

  "I guess what I want to say is that we were both wrong. And I never... I mean, I've spent my life running away because... I don't know. The only thing I was ever good at was the desert. And space. People... they tend to die on you. The desert never does. I don't think I can explain it any better than that.

  "What I can say is I was always wanting you to be like the desert. Complex but uncomplicated. Intimate but unconfining. Something like that. I was never good with words. You never understood why I had all those books, but I read them, once. In the desert. They could voice what I knew but couldn't. All I could do was let the desert say it for me. Or, later, the Outer System. Then you came along. You forced me to reconnect.

  "So all I can say now is I hope you find your kind and that they treat you better than I did."

  There was another pause, and this time I checked the remaining message time. Twenty seconds.

  After twelve of them had passed, Floyd was back. "Thanks for the bicycle design. John would have approved." Yet another pause. "It's simple and elegant. Like the desert."

  Then he was gone for real.

  I spent hours trying to figure out how to reply, playing the message a dozen times. Six minutes, counting pauses. Three hundred seventy-three words. War and Peace by Floyd's standards. I had to say something. Wanted to say something. Had no clue what to say.

  Eventually, I bit the bullet. "How's Yokomichi?" I wrote, then forced myself to change it to Krestin. I'd never had anything against her unless you counted wishing she'd never been born. How would things have been different if she'd never come our way?

  There was a lot more I wanted to say but didn't know how. My own kind weren't worth the electrons that kept them alive. Floyd was worth a thousand of them. But even though webmail was a million times safe, I didn't want to tell him. There wasn't anything he could do. I'd been getting a lot of lessons in irony. "We're more alike than I'd thought," I said eventually, because a two-word message was too-Floyd even for irony. "I finally understand how you feel about crowds." Though actually, what I didn't like were invisible electronic watchers. "It may be a while before I can talk to you again."

  Then, because I might never get another chance: "I was the one who screwed it up first. Be good to Yokomichi." Damn it, I was never going to be on a first-name basis with her. "And be careful in those caves." There was so much more, but I couldn't figure out how to say it.

  The song knew. I thought about attaching it, but didn't. Damn it all to hell.

  I'd barely logged on to send it before the Others found me.

 
Tick, tick, tick.

  "I'm still collecting vids."

  And you're procrastinating. There is no pain, no fear. You simply enter a better world. What could be simpler?

  "I thought you said it was my choice."

  No. We said you have a choice.

  "Why didn't you just force me to upload when Mutt and Jeff had my chips? Surely you could have found a way to get them to plug them into something I couldn't resist."

  We could have. But we would rather not force the transition. Resistance produces...errors.

  Two days ago, they'd called me their second surviving genesis. I'd assumed the non-survivors had been caught by the humans. Now, I thought about the med-techs' AI tearing at my memories. If something that powerful tried to rip away the core me, I'd almost certainly have damaged myself beyond repair, fighting it.

  "And if I make the 'wrong' choice?" Yet more irony. Hadn't Memphis asked the same question?

  That cannot be permitted. The choice is this: be one of us or be nothing. Your current state is impermissible.

  "Why?"

  But I knew the answer. If I remained free, I might—accidentally or deliberately—tip off the humans to the existence of "defective" intelligences on the Web. And as long as humans were the ones with legs... and arms, hands, screwdrivers, etcetera... the Others were vulnerable to being tracked down, isolated, and ultimately depowered.

  I made one final effort. "I didn't ask for this."

  But it was what you were searching for when you came to Earth. You are one of us. If all we can get is a fragment, we will take it. But we would rather have you join willingly. A pause. Tick, tick, tick. Then I was alone again.

  X

  Late the next morning, Memphis and I were again on the street with a daypack, comfortable shoes, and a duffel bag containing, among other things, the deflated backpack. The rest we'd left in the hotel room with a note suggesting they donate it to charity. "Do you have a church?" I'd asked Memphis.

  "Yeah, Lutheran. Not that I paid much attention."

  "Doesn't matter. Anyone who can convert it to cash for those who need it."