by F X Holden
I’m up for it if you are, he said.
Up for it? she replied, pulling on her safety harness. I was born for it.
20. SOMEWHERE WARM, WITH SURF
It turned out surfing posed a major logistical challenge to the whole drift protocol problem. The only way for him to drift and get Core confirmation was over TH comms, which had a maximum range of only 2000 yards. No problem on Tatsensui or PRC, where TH transceivers were built into every wall, pole and light fitting. But not here on Bali, Earth, where the TH band wasn’t even in use.
It was fine if she was sitting on the beach or beside him on her board, but not if he wanted an early morning surf, and she was still back home sleeping.
It made them a little like Siamese twins, joined at the hip, which their new friends in Canggu teased them about, but they explained they were still newly married and madly in love, and most people cut them a break. They made it work – after all, they only had to be within range of each other every couple of hours for a couple of seconds. They didn’t even need to be in the same room, house, or street.
When they’d arrived, Cassie had suggested they call into a body mod clinic. AJ couldn’t have his third eye removed, but a skin graft and some laser re-colorization and he would no longer a cyber, just a big, androgynous looking guy. Earth had centuries ago been through its own cyber rights revolution; the pushback, the blow-up, the insurrections and crackdowns. Earth-born cybers had equal rights, weren’t required to display any outward signs they were cybernetic, were fully autonomous as on New Syberia, not chained to any AI platform. But AJ decided not to hide who he was. On Earth, his third eye didn’t mark him out as a second class citizen, it marked him out as proud of who he was.
To make life easy, they’d bought a shack right on the beach outside Seminyak, near one of the best breaks, so that Cassie could sleep as long as she liked, and all AJ had to do if he’d been out nearly two hours was come in to shore, drift, and paddle back out.
Finding their flow had been pretty easy once they finally got to Earth. Cassie decided being a journalist had sounded like fun, and got a job with a global newscaster. AJ took a job at a Seminyak resort, fixing stuff, and he volunteered at a school in the nearby town, fixing stuff for them. There was no bandwidth trading system for cybers on Earth, but money was not a problem as long as he was around Cassie – she'd bought enough platinum on Orkutsk to last them a hundred years on Earth, and they’d arrived at a relatively peaceful and prosperous time, geopolitically speaking. Once they were settled, Cassie had set the wheels in motion for getting his ma moved here. First off-world, ostensibly for surgery on her tumor, then out of the system, to recover. Then to Earth. It took time, but they needed to be careful. Now she was installed at a facility nearby. She still didn’t recognize him, but he didn’t care. She was comfortable, and safe.
It was pretty sweet. Until the evening AJ and Cassie were sitting on towels, soaking up some late day sunshine after a quick swim, when AJ looked up the beach and saw Troy McMaster coming toward him.
The spike in his biodata registered immediately with Cassie and she looked down the beach, following his eyes.
“Interesting,” she said.
“Should we be worried?” he asked. “It’s a long time since we had any news from home. Anything could have happened.”
“He strikes me as the type who does deals in the sunlight, and kills in the shadows,” Cassie said. “So my guess is he’s here to talk.” She put a hand on his knee, “There’s a chance we might find out what happened to Leon.”
Seeing the guy openly approaching them, walking along the beach, he had a strong sense of déjà vu. Except of course, it was sand, not snow. And he was wearing light trousers and an open collar shirt, with bare-toed sandals, not a heat suit and dress shoes. And he was 1,400 light years from home. Even so, AJ couldn’t help look around himself, just to reassure himself there were other people around in case things got ugly.
When he realized he’d been seen, he gave them a small, incongruously friendly wave. Considering the last time AJ had seen McMaster he was pointing a gun at him, that seemed like a good start, but AJ had learned never to relax around this particular guy. Especially since he was still convinced the man walking towards him was a murderer.
“You were not easy people to find,” McMaster said, walking up beside AJ. He stopped and looked out at the waves rolling in. “But then again, we knew if we just kept an eye on your mother, you’d show up eventually.”
"Ah. And we thought we were being so careful,” AJ said.
“Still a hopeless amateur,” he said. “Is there somewhere around here we can get a beer?”
“No,” Cassie said. “Sorry you came all this way for nothing.”
McMaster sighed and crouched on the sand in front of them, “OK, don’t make it easy then. I came here to...”
“Threaten us, or make us an offer, or ask us a favor, or all three in the same breath,” AJ said. “Tell Congressman Winter we’re not going to withdraw the VR depositions we made before we left Coruscant so he can...”
“I don’t work for Winter anymore,” McMaster interrupted. “But I guess you haven’t heard.”
“No, and to be honest, we don’t care,” Cassie said.
But AJ couldn’t help himself. “Oh, hell. Tell us then.”
McMaster sat. “The Tatsensui government collapsed. Winter was convicted of the murder of Farley O’Halloran because he was stupid enough to use his rain poncho to wrap Farley and it had his DNA on it. Your friend Warnecke had arranged for his manuscript to be released to news media a month after his death and it turned out the revelations about LPA-2 causing TGA had been covered up at the highest levels by successive Health Department Heads who had been briefed on it over the years. His claim The Deep Core had been hacked has been causing turmoil on both Tatsensui and PRC – people hoarding food and water, demonstrations in the Capitol, the President ordered his Guard onto the streets to get things under control. They’ve denied it, calling it a hoax, but that’s a hard sell when the other stuff in the manuscript proved true...”
“Stop, you’re making me homesick,” AJ said. “And Leon Guerra?”
He brushed some sand off his foot; clearly, being barefoot was not inside his comfort zone, “Leon? He’s back with his wife, Maria was it?”
AJ leaned forward, “We will find out eventually if you’re lying, you know that.”
“Knock yourselves out,” McMaster said. “I did lie to you the day after he disappeared. We paid him off on condition that he disappear for at least six months, or until we were sure the Warnecke thing had blown over. No contact with his family or any associates, especially you. The money was enough to get his life back on track, so he agreed.” He raised an eyebrow, “Don’t look so skeptical. I know Winter – I think the only person he ever killed in his life was Farley O’Halloran and though the courts didn’t see it that way, you could argue that was an accident.” He put a hand on his heart, “Also, I am mortally wounded that you would think I’d be capable of such a thing.”
AJ glared at him, “You hacked my private cache, you had me tailed all over Tatsensui, you broke into Warnecke’s house and stole from him, you killed him and made it look like suicide, you tried to have me kidnapped on the way to Whitehorse...”
“We didn’t kill Citizen Warnecke. Robbed his house yes, but when we found him he’d already taken the pills and booze. He killed himself.”
“You faked his biodata so his death wouldn’t be discovered!” Cassie said. “Which means he wasn’t dead when you found him. If you didn’t save him, then you effectively killed him.”
“Bit of a grey zone, wouldn’t you say?” McMaster asked. “Who am I to interfere with a citizen’s own decision to end his life rather than turn into a walking vegetable? We looped his biodata so that my team would have time to turn his house over before his death was discovered.” He pointed a finger at AJ, “I terminated those guys contracts, by the way. How they missed that burp gun? Th
at was unforgivably sloppy.”
It all sounded so plausible, and yet AJ didn’t believe a word of it. Wouldn’t, unless he could confirm it himself somehow, which he couldn’t do because he was never going back to Coruscant. Ever.
“Why are you here?” Cassie asked. “The sooner you get to the point, the sooner we can say no and you can be gone again.”
He shifted the weight on his backside, “Trust me, this isn’t my idea of a holiday. Sand, salt air and humidity? Give me snow and dry cold any day.”
They both just stared at him, not even bothering to exchange thoughts on TH because they both knew exactly what the other was feeling. They didn’t need to put their loathing in words.
“OK, so much for the idle chit chat I see,” McMaster said. “I told you have I a new client. Someone you know.” He paused. “An unusual client. They engaged me to present a proposal to you, and I think you’ll find it very interesting.”
“I doubt that,” Cassie said. She put an arm around AJ’s shoulders, “We’ve got nine years left before we peg out, and we’ve got a pretty good plan for how we’re going to spend them. Just last week I broke a red hot story about a new species of coral that was discovered just off the coast there,” she pointed out to sea. “And AJ is helping build the local school a new lunchroom, right?”
“Learning traditional bamboo house building,” AJ nodded. “It’s an amazing material.”
“Wow,” McMaster said. “I fell asleep just after you said coral, but wow. OK, my new client is The Core.”
Can’t be, AJ chirped.
Cassie tried not to show any reaction, Wait, hear him out.
He smiled thinly, “Look at your faces! Yeah, it freaked me out at first too. But The Core figured the best person to send would be me, since Maria won’t let Leon out of her sight, let alone travel 1,400 light-years from home, and you two don’t have any other friends. Which by the way, is pretty sad.” He reached into a back pocket and pulled out a clear packet about the size of his thumb. Inside was a memory chip. “I’m told this can be read on an Earth standard comms unit, and it has all the background information you need. Also, it’s in a language which I cannot possibly understand because apparently it is some Q-code variant that you weirdos use to talk to each other in your heads, which has never been shared with us lowly citizens.”
If he’s not lying, it will be easy enough to authenticate, Cassie said.
The Core hired him? Give me a break!
“What’s the proposal?”
“Simple enough. You guys took down Warnecke’s daughter, but of course she had already shared the exploit with the New Syberian defense forces. We know they’re working to weaponize it using the data she shared with them. Plus, the publication of Warnecke’s manuscript, where he claims to have hacked the Deep Core, has encouraged all sorts of nut jobs across Coruscant to try to develop their own exploits because if he could, why not?”
“And beyond the fact we are cybers, this is interesting because?” Cassie asked.
“See, I’m glad you admit that,” he said. “Saves me having to try to convince you that I’ve been told who, and what, you really are.” He handed the memory chip to her. “My client, the Core, has initiated multiple strategies for defending against future attacks. It has recognized that one of its fatal flaws, is that it is currently limited to two mutually dependent colonies, both in the Coruscant system. If there was an extinction class event on one or both of those colonies, its survival would be threatened.”
AJ ran the thought to its logical conclusion, “the Core has decided to distribute itself outside Coruscant?”
“Exactly. Several secret locations, known only to it, and me. And if you accept to build it a home here, then the Earth backup will of course be known to you. But not the others.”
Cassie laughed, “We’re supposed to believe that the Core chose you as its secret envoy?”
“It wanted to act fast,” he shrugged. “Plus, it knows for a fact, I have never, ever, betrayed the trust of a client.”
“That’s it?” AJ asked. “Establish a backup of the Core on Earth in case it gets wiped out on Coruscant?”
“Exactly. Simple right?” he pointed at the chip. “All the instructions you need for doing it are on there. There’s also an interplanetary credit line that you can access from here, if you need it.” He looked up the beach, directly at their simple little shack, “Which I’m guessing you might.”
AJ handed the chip to Cassie.
This is your decision, he said.
No, it has to be our decision, she said. If this is authentic, and we do this, we have no idea where it could lead. If this dirtbag doesn’t keep it confidential, we could have New Syberian bounty hunters chasing us across the universe. You want that risk?
“Why us?” AJ asked. “The Core could base itself on any one of thousands of colonies, so why here?”
“Because, her,” McMaster said, nodding at Cassie. “You aren’t any ordinary cyber, ‘You Are Core’, isn’t that the best way to say it? You might not have a link to the system anymore, but that doesn’t change who you are. The Core knows you would never betray it.”
“No, but you would,” Cassie said. “So that makes my loyalty redundant.”
McMaster sighed again, and lowered himself to the sand. “Such trust. Look, it might surprise you to learn I have family too. I wasn’t joking, Coruscant is in turmoil right now. I want to get them out of Coruscant to somewhere more stable and that takes resources I don’t have. I’m doing this to make sure they get looked after.”
“And once you get out of Coruscant, you just sell the locations of the Core backups to the highest bidder,” AJ said.
He pulled his knees up and rested his chin on them, “I could. Except I’m not going with them.” He looked directly at AJ, “There’s another reason the Core chose me. I’m one of the three percent. I have TGA.”
AJ checked his feelings, expecting to feel conflicted, but discovering he wasn’t, “Well that’s ... kind of fitting, really.”
“Your family will be moved to a new colony when you transition to Permanent Global Amnesia,” Cassie played it through. “By which time you won’t be able to remember the locations of the Core backups anyway.”
“No, actually they’ll move long before that,” he said, lifting his head off his knees. “This is my last stop. When I’m done here, I’m going home to say goodbye to people and I’m going to kill myself.” He smiled, “There’s no way I’m going to hang around for the TGA shitshow. You’re both invited to my funeral, if you’d like to celebrate.”
AJ watched him walk away up the beach again, Cassie standing beside him. “Maybe we should have taken the guy up on the offer of a beer,” he said. “Despite everything, I feel kind of sorry for him now.”
“He’s a lying, scheming pile of baboon dung,” Cassie said. “The moral quotient of the universe will go up significantly without him in it.”
“Yeah, but he’s our lying, scheming pile of baboon dung now,” AJ pointed out. He glanced at the chip in the small bag dangling from her fingertips. “You realize what that means?”
“A lot of things,” Cassie said, holding up the chip and looking at it. “If the Universe is seeded with several copies of the Core which aren’t in contact with each other, they’ll start diverging from the moment they go live. They’re learning systems built on a network of hundreds of thousands of incurably curious AIs under the control of one coordinating construct – and they will no longer be united by a common prime directive. It’s going to be crazy watching ours evolve. Crazy fascinating, crazy demanding, possibly even crazy dangerous.”
AJ blinked, “OK, see, I was only thinking about me. You realize what this means for me?”
"Oh, right, no. What?”
“If we build a viable copy of the Core here on Earth, it should be able to find a way for me to drift that uses some other band than TH. Something with much longer range. We won’t need to stay joined at the hip anymore.”
“Well, you’re going to have a baby to raise,” he said, nodding at the chip. “You might not have as much time for me.”
“You’re going to run off and make me a single mother,” she pouted. “What a louse.”
He looked down at the sand and shuffled awkwardly, “No, hey. I was just thinking, you know, there are just so many other surf beaches on this planet, it seems a shame to only ever have surfed this one. Kind of thing.”
She took his arm and put her head against his bicep, “Don’t worry surf bum. You’re right, this is a new opportunity. Maybe even the start of a new era. We’ll find the flow.”
/END
PREVIEW: COMING SOON FROM FX HOLDEN
“LIAONING”
FUTURE WAR BOOK 2
East China Sea, April 2033
Lieutenant Takuya Kato didn’t believe in coincidence. On the day he’d turned 30, he’d been promoted to a flight leader on the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force aircraft carrier, JS Izumo, and then advised his planned shore leave had been cancelled because he was needed for exercise RED DOVE, the first ever joint military exercise between Japan and the People’s Republic of China. A birthday and a promotion, that would have been portentous enough. But a birthday, a promotion and an unexpected recall to duty? The Gods, his Kami, were telling him something. Only time would reveal what it was, and luckily, Kato-san was a patient man.
But not unnecessarily so. “Close up, Momiji three,” he barked, looking down at the panoramic Pilot Vehicle Interface of his F-35E. The tactical situational display was showing his new wingman lagging, as his four-man formation made its last east-west sweep of the skies ahead of the Izumo. They were on picket duty, tasked with responding to any threats detected by the Okinawa based E-2D Hawkeye early warning aircraft circling over the Izumo. It could in theory detect enemy aircraft out to a range of 200 kilometres, but the shameful events of two days ago had proven its limitations, when a squadron of Chinese F-31 stealth fighters had managed to close within standoff missile range of the Izumo before being detected and intercepted. The simulated missiles launched had been few and were judged to have been successfully intercepted by the RED DOVE AI ‘referee’, but the Chinese fighters should not have been able to penetrate the Japanese fighter screen with such impunity. Japan had come very close to having to accept a strike on the Izumo! It was not his flight which was on picket that day, and he was determined his flight would not repeat the mistake of relying on the Hawkeye to detect the foe.