by S. J. Ryan
The
Wizard
from
Earth
by S.J. Ryan
(REV 2014-10-07)
To Stuart
1.
Through darkness and rain, the taxi glided low over the long-abandoned cornfields of central Kansas. Sheila Nakamura pressed her cheek against the side window and searched the sky for the lights of another vehicle. She saw only clouds and the flicker of lightning.
Within her purse, her fingers grasped a freshly-printed component of triaxial graphene, tracing the tabs and indentations that rendered it a three-dimensional puzzle piece capable of deceiving the best of security scanners. For the uncounted time that evening, she firmed her resolution to use the completed device if necessary. It was meant to stun but it could kill – but she had decided days before that even her own life was a small price to prevent genocide.
She remembered how she had once regarded Eric as a friend, and trembled as she clasped the purse shut.
"We are approaching restricted airspace," the driver said. "I will require authorization to enter."
Ahead over the horizon gleamed the lights of a warehouse-like building. On the tarmac behind it, bathed in floodlights, rested the leased shuttle that would carry the seeder probe into orbit, the first step in its journey beyond the Solar System.
"We're not going to enter." She nodded out the window. "Set down on that road instead."
"Are you certain? Under current severe weather conditions, you will become extremely wet."
Sheila didn't have to explain herself to an rudimentary AI, but nonetheless replied, "It's been years since I've felt the rain."
A moment later, Sheila watched the taxi fly away until it was a dim blinking light absorbed by clouds. She became aware of the pelting of the rain drops. She had forgotten to print an umbrella and was indeed becoming extremely wet.
She faced the building and trudged along the cracked asphalt, dodging clumps of high weeds, wondering how long it had been since wheeled traffic had shooshed down the road at all hours of the night. Probably before the advent of printed food, back when fields like these actually fed people with harvested crops.
Sheila remembered seeing a farm as a child. The back-breaking efforts that the Pre-Singularitites had to exert for generations, to stay a meal ahead of famine!
She leveled her eyes upon the lights of the building and thought, Never again.
A voice inside her head spoke: "Sheila, we are being hailed by the building keeper. He is requesting identification. I presume you wish to use the alternate ID at this time."
"Yes, Marie," Sheila replied.
Lines of glowing letters superimposed over her field of vision. INTERROG: ANN JOHNSON/ EARTH RESIDENT ID# CONFIRMED. WELCOME TO THE STAR SEED PROJECT, ANN.
The real Ann Johnson, a contract maintenance robot technician, was offline at a party in Australia at the moment. By the time the party was over, Sheila would either have completed her task and escaped, or would have worse things to worry about than a charge of identity theft.
Worse things, Sheila thought. She couldn't imagine that Eric would kill in cold blood, but Athena was capable of anything. Athena was reason enough for the gun.
"Sheila," Marie said. "Your stomach pH level has become highly acidic. Would you like me to normalize?"
"Yes, please. Quickly."
The outer doors of the headquarters building slid open. Sheila entered. SECURITY SCAN CLEAR, danced the letters superimposed upon her vision. The inner doors opened into the empty lobby. Sheila strode toward the elevators, gazing longingly at the dynamic mobile of the Twenty Nearest Stars suspended beneath the vaulted ceiling. She didn't need to see the plaque or query her neural implant, for she knew their names by color, size, and position: Alpha Centauri, Bernard's Star, Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti . . . .
"I would have given anything to go. But after tonight, my career with the Project is finished."
"There is always hope."
"You're programmed to be annoyingly optimistic, so I forgive you."
Marie interfaced with the elevator and they rode to the third floor. Marie signaled the security code and the office door labeled SHEILA NAKAMURA / ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR / ASTROGATION AND SENSORS unlocked. Sheila entered the room, closed the door, reached into her purse and placed the component on the table.
"Now where did I hide the other pieces?"
Marie superimposed Augmented-Reality arrows that pointed to the locations within cabinets and drawers. Sheila smiled and said, "How did ever I manage without you?"
"That was before my time," Marie said diplomatically.
"Well, the honest answer is, not very well. Without a computer inside my skull, I'm afraid I'm just the stereotypical dizzy blonde. Or whatever color I had you make my hair this morning."
"Strawberry."
"Ah."
Sheila retrieved the parts and assembled them with Marie's guidance. The final product looked more like steampunk jewelry than a functional weapon. She plugged it into the wall outlet and watched the charge gauge. She wondered how much was enough to stun Athena.
Though her hair was still damp, the smart fabric of her vest was dry by then. She slipped the tiny gun into the inner pocket of the fake maintenance robot technician coveralls that she had printed that afternoon. She returned to the elevator. It descended, then shifted horizontally, then arose. It opened into a large windowless laboratory. In the center of the lab was a small room with glass walls.
As Sheila approached the room, a security robot waved its taser wand and said, "This is a restricted area."
"I have authorization," Sheila said.
"No authorization is approved at this time, by order of the Project Director. I must inform – "
"Marie! Security override!"
The robot froze in mid-wave.
Sheila slumped. "That was close."
"Sheila," Marie said, "you are registering increased heartbeat and respiration rates. Would you like me to stabilize them?"
"I'll cope. If anything, I wish you could speed up my metabolism by a factor of ten. We'd be done by now."
"There are plans to develop such a capability for neural implants. Perhaps in a future upgrade."
"Unlock the door, please."
The locks on the glass doors of the glass room clicked. Sheila passed through the bio-hazard airlock.
Within the room, upon a trolley, rested a box of metal and plastic. The box was one meter long by half a meter high and half a meter wide. With sensor arrays and indicator lights and neat rows of spore release vents, it looked like any of the half dozen seeder probes that had already been sent to render Tian habitable. But Sheila knew this probe wasn't going to Alpha Centauri, and its mission had far greater scope than to terraform an atmosphere with bio-engineered microbes.
As she always did in its presence, Sheila suppressed a shiver. Marie, she noted, wasn't offering to control those sensations. Sheila wondered if on some level beyond the expression of words or simple logic, Marie was using silence to convey her own sense of foreboding.
Sheila stood before the probe, took an unnecessarily deep breath, and said to Marie, "Let's hope this works. Transmit the codes."
Marie signaled the Box. The Box responded by blinking lights. A sprite-like female voice spoke:
"Hello, Doctor Nakamura. How nice to see you again."
"Hello Pandora," Sheila replied, noticing her mouth had gone dry. She swallowed. "It's – nice to see you too."
"Hello, Marie," Pandora said verbally and liltingly. "It's nice to see you again too."
"Hello," Marie said flatly and electromagnetically.
"Sheila, have you come to wish bon voyage?" Pandora asked. "I'll be leaving for Delta Pavonis in a few h
ours."
"Yes," Sheila said. "Pandora, we're going to upgrade your AEP files."
"That requires Senior Director Level Clearance."
"Marie, transmit override codes."
A moment later, a pop-up window appeared in Sheila's field of vision, displaying a schematic listing of all the programs in the seeder probe's Accelerated Evolution Program Menu. At Sheila's bidding, Marie summoned a second window that provided another, smaller listing.
"Pandora, see Marie's list?" Sheila asked. "Marie will transmit those files, and you will receive them to overwrite the versions you have in memory."
"Understood." Pause. "Doctor Nakamura, I perceive a potential discrepancy. The updated files for Homo Sapiens Development Phase contain nonsense DNA strings. Doesn't that therefore render it unnecessary to transport the mentor modules?"
"An alternate method of human evolution will be employed," Sheila lied. The truth was that removing the mentors would change launch mass and be a sure giveaway of probe tampering.
A longer pause. "Updates complete. I look forward to educating the humans of New Earth."
You won't be doing any educating, Sheila thought. Or experimenting. Or exterminating.
She said aloud, "Pandora, Marie is transmitting changes to your ethical parameters."
"Received. Ethical parameter matrix has been modified. Doctor Nakamura, I see a rule exception in the verification sub-matrix that requires me to erase all record of this interaction, and then to erase the rule exception without logging the erasure."
"Yes." Sheila said. She held her breath.
A very long pause.
Then, "If I may say so, it seems very thorough."
Sheila released her breath. "Well, that's it then. Have a good trip, Pandora. Power down now."
"Good-bye, Doctor Nakamura. I hope to see you again someday."
The lights on the control panel faded.
"Sheila," Marie said. "I realize that evaluation of another AI's psychological profile opens the question as to whether AIs have psychologies to evaluate. Nonetheless, I determine that it is necessary to inform you that Pandora's verbal patterns give indications of manipulation."
"I get that feeling too. But to be fair, she will be reenacting the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. That kind of power would go to a human's head." Sheila paused. "And has."
"Sheila. The building keeper reports lobby entry."
"Patch the cam."
An AR window popped open, showing a security camera view of a tall man with a goatee and pencil mustache and a woman who moved with catlike slinks.
"Speak of the devils," Sheila said softly. "They're ahead of schedule." She pressed her hand against the concealed gun. "Let's get out of here so I won't have to use this."
As the couple entered the elevator compartment, Sheila willed the collapse of her implant's pop-up window and headed toward the bay door that led to the tarmac. Marie transmitted the command code. The door motor whirred. The door itself should have lifted, but didn't. Sheila frowned, then spotted the manual lock and chain wrapped between handles on the door and wall. She yanked at the chain and scowled.
"Marie, can you get this off?"
"It requires a physical key."
Sheila threw up her hands. "Who uses a physical key any more?"
But she knew that was Eric's trademark genius: to always be unpredictable. Marie could ultrasonically scan the lock mechanism, and if they could find a printer they could print a key – but that would take too long. The elevator was already rolling toward them, about to ascend.
Sheila approached the security guard and said, "Activate."
Power light blinking, the robot faced her with full attention.
Now, how had Johnny done it that one time? Sheila said, "Delete all memory of my presence tonight. Ignore my continued presence."
"Understood."
The robot resumed its rounds. Sheila saw a forklift and crouched behind it.
She heard the elevator doors open. Foot steps padded down the passage. She pulled out the gun, wrapped her hand around the handle, and subdued her breathing. After only a few seconds of waiting, the couple entered her sight.
"It sounds like a renaissance faire," Athena was saying. "You think that will raise funds?"
"It's more like a cross between cosplay and a life-size board game tournament," Eric replied. "I'm ready to try anything. National governments are falling apart and when I talk to local politicians about financing a stellar expedition, they look at me like I'm from Haumea."
They stopped at the glass room. Sheila assumed Eric's neural implant was sending codes and slipped deeper into the shadows. Athena didn't look in her direction, but was frowning.
Eric spoke too quietly for Marie's microphones to eavesdrop, but Sheila gathered from the agitation that he was into his usual diatribes against the evolutionary catastrophes of energy and resource abundance. Noticing that Athena wasn't listening, he halted in mid-sentence.
"There's an odor," Athena said in response to his questioning gaze.
"Smoke?"
"Person."
"Your sense of smell is enhanced to detect people now?"
"Yes, after my last treatment. And before, when they didn't bathe enough."
Eric laughed. "I appreciate your quest for genetic improvement, but a mutation for superior sense of smell? Who would even conceive of such a thing?"
"Cro-Magnons. Anyway, it's faded."
The doors opened and Eric entered the glass room. According to Marie's scan, Pandora and Eric, via his implant, were conversing on an old but secure wi-fi band. Pandora's lights blinked and Eric absent-mindedly stroked her casing. Outside, Athena folded her arms and scowled.
Eric pushed the trolley out to the lab. Athena, meanwhile, was squinting at the floor.
"Water droplet," she said, pointing.
"So?"
"It's not from us. We landed in your garage."
"My clothing may have rubbed against the car and gotten wet. Then the water dripped there."
"Use your implant to check the security camera records."
"You know, you need to get your own implant."
"Do it."
"Doctor Roth," Pandora said audibly. "Is something wrong?"
Eric patted the box and cooed, "Nothing is wrong, baby." In a more businesslike tone, he said to Athena, "All right, I'm accessing security cams. And . . . nobody but us."
“Rain degrades the outside security sensors. Scheduled rainfall is a perfect time for a break-in."
"We'll miss our launch window." Eric sighed and motioned to the security guard. "You! Has anyone been here in the past two hours?"
The robot blinked. "I have no record of that, Director."
"Pandora, did you see anyone in the past two hours?"
"I have no record of that, Doctor Roth."
"Well, Athena, you're outvoted."
"I'm telling you, I smelled someone." Athena sniffed. "I still do."
Sheila heard the click of high heels across the hard floor of the lab. Glimpsing through a crack between fenders, she saw Athena stride from Eric and Pandora and stand in the middle of the lab.
Athena raised her chin. She sniffed the air in a slow turn. She stopped when she was facing Sheila. Sheila retreated from the crack, certain that no normal human could see her.
"Come out, come out," Athena said.
Sheila stepped from behind the forklift, leveling the gun. Athena was halfway into a crouch. Genetically toned as her muscles were, had she actually intended to leap the distance?
Eric shook his head. "Sheila! Why? You were one of the Project's founders."
"I support the Project," Sheila replied. She nodded at Pandora. "I would even have supported your unauthorized seeding of Delta Pavonis III. But this is involuntary genetic experimentation with humans, Eric. If you were doing it anywhere in the Solar System, you'd go to prison."
"But I'm not doing it here, Sheila. Don't you see, that's the beauty of it. It's among the
stars that we can finally discover what the biological potential of humanity is."
"You're not discovering human potential. You're committing genocide."
"Don't you think that's a bit melodramatic? We're simply recapitulating natural evolution."
"I don't need a sermon on the Circle of Life. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to walk out of here and have a nice personal chat with about twelve billion friends."
"Then you leave me no choice." Eric whirled to the security guard and barked, "Apprehend mode!"
Head swinging to and fro in the animatronic simulation of puzzlement, the robot replied, "Identify target."
"What do you mean? She's right there! Apprehend!"
The robot stared at where Eric pointed, and said, "Identify target."
"She's right there! Are you blind?"
"She must have the override codes," Athena said. "I wondered why she dated that kid in Security."
Sheila felt her cheeks flush. "Leave Johnny out of this!"
Athena bared teeth. "I seem to have touched a nerve."
Sheila reflected and said, "Look, Athena, Johnny didn't tell me anything. I investigated on my own when he mentioned you were working late in the bio-design lab. And I got the override codes by sneaking into his office. So leave Johnny out of this."
"You're protecting him because you're still romantically involved."
"No, but I know what you're doing. Stalling." Sheila sidestepped toward the elevators. "You two can gossip about my love life all you want, I'm going home."
Eric slapped the robot. "Worthless junk!"
"Don't worry," Athena said. "I'll handle this."
Athena loped toward Sheila with the poise of a supermodel and gait of a leopard. Sheila raised and pointed the gun at Athena's chest. She was shaking from fright, while Athena only smirked.
"My implant is controlling my trigger finger," Sheila said. "She'll shoot if you come closer. I don't care what mutations you have, Athena. You can't jump faster than an AI can pull a trigger."
"They're not called mutations. They're enhancements. And I think you will care about this one."
Athena extended her right arm toward Sheila, tilting the palm vertically. Her palm seemed to explode. A dart streaked from the center of her palm toward Sheila's chest, embedded and sparked. Sheila's entire body jerked and went stiff. Sheila collapsed onto the floor.