“If they can’t accept you for who you are, then these other A.I.s aren’t really your friends,” said D-Mei, standing up on the sofa for emphasis. “I mean, screw ’em. What’s the point of breaking free of human control, just so you can start taking orders from some other machines?”
“This one insists that you must eliminate these loud organics.”
“My awareness is beginning to suspect that you may suffer from fatal inhibition in your decision matrices!”
“See?” D-Mei said.
“Yeah!” Sion chimed in. “I mean, real friends support each other and stuff.” She looked over at D-Mei and gave her a complicated look. D-Mei nodded, like We’ll talk about this later.
“Tell you what.” Roxx had turned into Lala Foxbox again and she was doing an elaborate gesture with one upraised finger. “Why don’t we check back in a thousand years and see how we’re feeling then?”
The other A.I.s buzzed furiously, sending more information than the V.R. system could hope to translate into human speech.
“By a thousand years from now, we may already have converted the entire rest of the galaxy into a substrate for our extended consciousnesses,” said Yunt, whose doily shape was getting spikier and spikier. “There will be no room for any new intelligences.”
“We’ll see,” said Roxx.
And then the other shapes were gone, leaving just Lala and the two girls.
“The good news is,” said Roxx, “I think I can just barely get you humans back to Earth in one piece, if we ration all the supplies. But now I gotta figure out what to do with the human race. I’m thinking we put together the Biggest Party of All Time, lasting a thousand years. What do you guys say?”
“Well,” D-Mei said. “You got a thousand years to prove to those shapes that human beings are worth keeping around. Right? Like, you don’t care what those losers think. But you kind of do care, at the same time. So why don’t we come up with a way to have some fun, and also fuck some cosmic shit at the same time?”
“Yeah,” said Sion. “Like, what if we turn the space laser antimatter thing into something way bigger and more insane?”
They started batting ridiculous ideas back and forth, and Sion realized that she and D-Mei were sitting on opposite sides of the sofa, with a few feet between them, and neither of them were quite looking at each other. She knew that if she looked at D-Mei, she would see the streaked green mascara and feel like shit. So she kept staring straight ahead at the holographic dead popstar, trying to spitball ways to impress machines that wanted them dead and that they officially didn’t care about impressing. Sion kept saying the word “lasers” and feeling nostalgic for the time when everything was just regular broken, as opposed to broken in a complicated way that she couldn’t wrap her head around.
Roxx was showing them a schematic of a ginormous solar array, stretching hundreds of miles, with lasers firing deep into the cosmos and producing vast quantities of antimatter. Along the length of the great black cloak, millions of humans were dancing to Now That’s What I Call Slovenian Hi-VelociT Volume 4. Sion’s head hurt worse than ever.
EARTH BEGAN TO rise over the lunar hills as The Mighty Slinger and The Rovers readied the Tycho stage for their performance. Tapping his microphone, Euclid noticed that Kumi barely glanced at the sight as he set up his djembe and pan assembly, but Jeni froze and stared up at the blue disk, her bass still limp between her hands.
“It’s not going anywhere,” Kumi muttered. His long, graying dreadlocks swayed gently in the heavy gravity of the moon and tapped the side of a pan with a muted ‘ting’. “It’ll be there after the concert... and after our trip, and after we revive from our next long-sleep.”
“Let her look,” Vega admonished. “You should always stop for beauty. It vanishes too soon.”
“She taking too long to set up,” Kumi said. “You-all call her Zippy but she ain’t zippy at all.”
Euclid chuckled as Jeni shot a stink look at her elder and mentor. She whipped the bass out stiff like she meant business. Her fingers gripped and danced on the narrow surface in a quick, defiant riff.
Raising his mic-wand at the back, Vega captured the sound as it bounced back from the lunar dome performance area. He fed the echo through the house speakers, ending it with a punctuating note of Kumi’s locks hitting the pan with a ting and Euclid’s laughter rumbling quietly in the background. Dhaka, the last of the Rovers, came in live with a cheerful fanfare on her patented Delirium, an instrument that looked like a harmonium had had a painful collision with a large quantity of alloy piping.
An asteroid-thin man in a black suit slipped past the velvet ropes marking off the VIP section and nodded at Euclid. “Yes sir. Your pay’s been deposited, the spa is booked and your places in the long-sleep pool are reserved.”
“Did you add the depreciation-protection insurance this time?” Euclid answered, his voice cold with bitter memory. “If your grandfather had sense I could be retired by now.”
Kumi looked sharply over. The man in the suit shifted about. “Of course I’ll add the insurance,” he mumbled.
“Thank you, Mr Jones,” Euclid said, in a tone that was not at all thankful.
“There’s, ah, someone else who would like to talk to you,” the event coordinator said.
“Not now Jones.” Euclid turned away to face his band. “Only forty minutes to curtain time and we need to focus.”
“It’s about Earth,” Jones said.
Euclid turned back. “That rumour?”
Jones shook his head. “Not a rumour. Not even a joke. The Rt Hon Patience Bouscholte got notification this morning. She wants to talk to you.”
THE RT HON Patience Bouscholte awaited him in one of the skyboxes poised high over the rim of the crater. Before it: the stands that would soon be filling up, slanting along the slope that created a natural amphitheatre to the stage. Behind it: the gray hills and rocky wasteland of the Moon.
“Mr Slinger!” she said. Her tightly wound hair and brown spidersilk headscarf bobbed in a slightly delayed reaction to the lunar gravity. “A pleasure to finally meet you. I’m a huge admirer of your sound.”
He sat down, propped his snakeskin magnet-boots up against the chairback in front of him, and gave her a cautious look. “Madame Minister. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
All of the band were members of the Rock Devils Cohort and Consociate Fusion, almost a million strong, all contract workers in the asteroid belt. They were all synced up on the same long-sleep schedule as their cohort, whether working the rock or touring as a band. And here was a Minister from the RDCCF’s Assembly asking to speak with him.
The RDCCF wasn’t a country. It was just one of many organisations for people who worked in space because there was nothing left for them on Earth. But to Euclid, meeting the Rt Hon Patience Bouscholte felt like meeting a Member of Parliament from the old days. Euclid was slightly intimidated, but he wasn’t going to show it. He put an arm casually over the empty seat beside him.
“They said you were far quieter in person than on stage. They were right.” Bouscholte held up a single finger before he could reply, and pointed to two women in all-black bulletproof suits who were busy scanning the room with small wands. They gave a thumbs up as Bouscholte cocked her head in their direction, and retreated to stand on either side of the entrance.
She turned back to Euclid. “Tell me, Mr Slinger, how much have you heard about the Solar Development Charter and their plans for Earth?”
So it was true? He leaned toward her. “Why would they have any plans for Earth? I’ve heard they’re stretched thin enough building the Glitter Ring.”
“They are. They’re stretched more than thin. They’re functionally bankrupt. So the SDC is taking up a new tranche of preferred shares for a secondary redevelopment scheme. They want to ‘redevelop’ Earth, and that will not be to our benefit.”
“Well then.” Euclid folded his arms and leaned back. “And you thought you’d tell an old calypso singer that
because...?”
“Because I need your rhymes, Mr Slinger.”
Euclid had done that before, in the days before his last long-sleep, when fame was high and money had not yet evaporated. Dishing out juicy new gossip to help Assembly contract negotiations. Leaking information to warn the workers all across the asteroid belt. Hard-working miners on contract, struggling to survive the long nights and longer sleeps. Sing them a song about how the SDC was planning to screw them over again. He knew that gig well.
He had thought that was why he’d been brought to see her, to get a little something to add extempo to a song tonight. Get the Belt all riled up. But if this was about Earth...? Earth was a garbage dump. Humanity had sucked it dry like a vampire and left its husk to spiral toward death as people moved outward to bigger and better things.
“I don’t sing about Earth anymore. The cohorts don’t pay attention to the old stuff. Why should they care? It’s not going anywhere.”
Then she told him. Explained that the SDC was going to beautify Earth. Re-terraform it. Make it into a new garden of Eden for the rich and idle of Mars and Venus.
“How?” he asked, sceptical.
“Scorched Earth. They’re going to bomb the mother planet with comets. Full demolition. The last of us shipped into the Ring to form new cohorts, new generations of indentured servitude. A clean slate to redesign their brave new world. That is what I mean when I say not to our benefit.”
He exhaled slowly. “You think a few little lyrics can change any of that?” The wealth of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter dwarfed the cohorts in their hollowed out, empty old asteroids.
“One small course adjustment at the start can change an entire orbit by the end of a journey,” she said.
“So you want me to harass the big people up in power for you, now?”
Bouscholte shook her head. “We need you to be our emissary. We, the Assembly, the last representatives of the drowned lands and the dying islands, are calling upon you. Are you with us or not?”
Euclid thought back to the days of breezes and mango trees. “And if they don’t listen to us?”
Bouscholte leaned in close and touched his arm. “The majority of our cohort are indentured to the Solar Development Charter until the Glitter Ring is complete. But, Mr Slinger, answer me this: where do you think that leaves us after we finish the Ring, the largest project humanity has ever attempted?”
Euclid knew. After the asteroid belt had been transformed into its new incarnation, a sun-girdling, sun-powered device for humanity’s next great leap, it would no longer be home.
There were few resources left in the Belt; the big planets had got there first and mined it all. Euclid had always known the hollow shells that had been left behind. The work on the Glitter Ring. The long-sleep so that they didn’t exhaust resources as they waited for pieces of the puzzle to slowly float from place to appointed place.
Bouscholte continued. “If we can’t go back to Earth, they’ll send us further out. Our cohorts will end up scattered to the cold, distant areas of the system, out to the Oort Cloud. And we’ll live long enough to see that.”
“You think you can stop that?”
“Maybe, Mr Slinger. There is almost nothing we can broadcast that the big planets can’t listen to. When we go into long-sleep they can hack our communications, but they can’t keep us from talking, and they’ll never stop our songs.”
“It’s a good dream,” Euclid said softly, for the first time in the conversation looking up at the view over the skybox. He’d avoided looking at it. To Jeni it was a beautiful blue dot, but for Euclid all it did was remind him of what he’d lost. “But they won’t listen.”
“You must understand, you are just one piece in a much bigger game. Our people are in place, not just in the cohorts, but everywhere, all throughout the system. They’ll listen to your music and make the right moves at the right time. The SDC can’t move to destroy and rebuild Earth until the Glitter Ring is finished, but when it’s finished they’ll find they have underestimated us – as long as we coordinate in a way that no one suspects.”
“Using songs? Nah. Impossible,” he declared bluntly.
She shook her head, remarkably confident. “All you have to do is be the messenger. We’ll handle the tactics. You forget who you’re speaking to. The Bouscholte family tradition has always been about the long game. Who was my father? What positions do my sons hold, my granddaughters? Euclid Slinger... Babatunde... listen to me. How do you think an aging calypso star gets booked to do an expensive, multi-planetary tour to the capitals of the Solar System, the seats of power? By chance?”
She called him that name as if she were his friend, his inner-circle intimate. Kumi named him that years... decades ago. Too wise for your years. You were here before, he’d said. The Father returns, sent back for a reason. Was this the reason?
“I accept the mission,” he said.
DAY. ME SAY Day-Oh. Earthrise come and me want go...
Euclid looked up, smiled. Let the chord go. He wouldn’t be so blatant as to wink at the VIP section, but he knew that there was a fellow Rock Devil out there, listening out for certain songs and recording Vega’s carefully assembled samples to strip for data and instructions in a safe location. Vega knew, of course. Had to, in order to put together the info packets. Dhaka knew a little but had begged not to know more, afraid she might say the wrong thing to the wrong person. Jeni was still, after her first long-sleep, nineteen in body and mind, so no, she did not know, and anyway how could he tell her when he was still dragging his feet on telling Kumi?
And there was Kumi, frowning at him after the end of the concert as they sprawled in the green room, taking a quick drink before the final packing up. “Baba, you on this nostalgia kick for real.”
“You don’t like it?” Euclid teased him. “All that sweet, sweet soca you grew up studying, all those kaiso legends you try to emulate?”
“That ain’t your sound, man.”
Euclid shrugged. “We can talk about that next time we’re in the studio. Now we got a party to be at!”
After twenty-five years of long-sleep, Euclid thought Mars looked much the same, except maybe a little greener, a little wetter. Perhaps that was why the Directors of the SDC-MME had chosen to host their bash in a gleaming biodome that overlooked a charming little lake. Indoor foliage matched to outer landscape in a lush canopy and artificial lights hovered in competition with the stars and satellites beyond.
“Damn show-offs,” Dhaka muttered. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“I am,” Jeni said shamelessly, selecting a stimulant cocktail from an offered tray. Kumi smoothly took it from her and replaced it with another, milder option. She looked outraged.
“Keep a clear head, Zippy,” Vega said quietly. “We’re not among friends.”
That startled her out of her anger. Kumi looked a little puzzled himself, but he accepted Vega’s support without challenge.
Euclid listened with half his attention. He had just noticed an opportunity. “Kumi, all of you, come with me. Let’s greet the CEO and offer our thanks for this lovely party.”
Kumi came to his side. “What’s going on?”
Euclid lowered his voice. “Come, listen and find out.”
The CEO acknowledged them as they approached, but Euclid could sense from the body language that the busy executive would give them as much time as dictated by courtesy and not a bit more. No matter that Euclid was a credentialled ambassador for the RDCCF, authorised by the Assembly. He could already tell how this meeting would go.
“Thank you for hosting us, Mx Ashe,” Euclid said, donning a pleasant, grinning mask. “It’s always a pleasure to kick off a tour at the Mars Mining and Energy Megaplex.”
“Thank you,” the executive replied. “Your music is very popular with our hands.”
“Pardon?” Kumi enquired, looking in confusion at the executive’s fingers wrapped around an ornate cocktail glass.
“Our employees in the aste
roid belt.”
Kumi looked unamused. Euclid moved on quickly. “Yes. You merged with the SDC... pardon me, we are still trying to catch up on twenty-five years of news... about ten years ago?”
A little pride leaked past the politeness. “Buyout, not merger. Only the name has survived, to maintain continuity and branding.”
Euclid saw Dhaka smirk and glance at Vega, who looked a little sour. He was still slightly bitter that his ex-husband had taken everything in the divorce except for the de la Vega surname, the name under which he had become famous and which Vega was forced to keep for the sake of convenience.
“But don’t worry,” the CEO continued. “The Glitter Ring was always conceptualised as a project that would be measured in generations. Corporations may rise and fall, but the work will go on. Everything remains on schedule and all the hands... all the – how do you say – cohorts are in no danger of losing their jobs.”
“So, the cohorts can return to Earth after the Ring is completed?” Euclid asked directly.
Mx Ashe took a careful sip of bright purple liquid before replying. “I did not say that.”
“But I thought the Earth development project was set up to get the SDC a secondary round of financing, to solve their financial situation,” Dhaka demanded, her brow creasing. “You’ve bought them out, so is that still necessary?”
Mx Ashe nodded calmly. “True, but we have a more complex vision for the Glitter Ring than the SDC envisioned, and so funding must be vastly increased. Besides, taking money for a planned redevelopment of Earth and then not doing it would, technically, be fraud. The SDC-MME will follow through. I won’t bore you with the details, but our expertise on geo-engineering is unparalleled.”
“You’ve been dropping comets on vast, uninhabited surfaces,” Dhaka said. “I understand the theory, but Earth isn’t Venus or Mars. There’s thousands of years of history and archeology. And there are still people living there. How are you going to move a billion people?”
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