Singularity's Ring

by Paul Melko

  One of the duo, someone corrected.

  The other of the pair had then committed suicide, immediately afterward. But that hadn’t stopped the genetic engineering. Triplets had already been pod-modified with rudimentary ability to share physical memories.

  The Community AIs weren’t created until a decade after the first pods.

  But that doesn’t mean the Community couldn’t have subverted the pod research.

  Why?

  And why did the Community disappear? If it created and needed the pods, why leave them behind?

  We need more data.

  More data.

  The doctor was the source of that data. The question was how to get it and how to determine its reliability.

  We helped Dr. Baker do physicals on all the bears. In addition to Papa’s broken tooth, we fixed a broken nail on Sleepy’s claw and stitched an old wound on Roam’s flank. The bears drowsed the day away, content to sleep in their paddock and have their meals brought to them.

  “Lazy bears,” Strom said affectionately as we fed them dinner.

  Yes, Roam replied, yawning.

  In addition to bear care and feeding, we tried to understand the bear genome and what Dr. Baker had done to it. He let us have time on his sequencer, but wouldn’t tell us the answer. It was as if we were back in school after a six-month hiatus. Dr. Baker treated us as if we had taken the position he’d offered as lab assistants, even though we hadn’t officially accepted.

  Why shouldn’t we take the jobs? Manuel asked. What’s the downside?

  Dr. Baker is the downside, I replied.

  Why? Manuel shot back.

  Paranoia, god-complex, delusions, I ticked off.

  He’s eccentric, Manuel sent.

  He treats the bears like animals.

  Well, they are.

  Sentient animals, just like us.

  Quant was bent over the sequencer screen, listening only partially to the argument. I don’t understand this at all, she sent.

  The rest of us shared her view, but even with all five of us analyzing it, the sequence made no sense.

  We’ve asked Dr. Baker. He won’t explain this.

  He’s forgotten, Manuel sent. It might have been true. Dr. Baker seemed to forget many things. Nor would he discuss the pod-Community connection, waving his hand muttering how it was all in the past.

  “Not important! Not important!” he said.

  Our expertise was not genetic engineering. We knew the basics; after all, one summer we had built a duck pod on Mother Redd’s farm, a science fair project with unexpected results. But we had never meddled with human or mammal DNA.

  I have no idea what these sequences do! Quant sent.

  They look like they build enzymes, Meda said.

  Obviously!

  Don’t get snippy!

  They must catalyze the conversion of chemical memories to brain memory, Manuel sent.

  Quant cut back her retort. We’d been studying the genome for hours, and we were all tired.

  We need Mother Redd.

  We could call her.

  And she would call the OG.

  She would not!

  Enough! I sent. We need a break.

  “Hello!” Dr. Baker’s voice issued tinnily from the box next to the door. “Would you be so kind as to lead the larger female into the examination room?”

  Roam followed the boys from the paddock to the examination room, while we filled a syringe of anesthesia for Roam.

  “We’ve got to abort her fetuses,” Dr. Baker said as he entered.

  “What?” Meda said.

  “No!” I shouted.

  Dr. Baker looked at us, his bushy eyebrows raised.

  “Yes, of course. We can’t let them breed yet!”

  “But Roam wants her cubs,” Meda said.

  “Nonsense, she doesn’t even understand she’s pregnant.”

  The door opened and Roam walked in with Strom and Manuel.

  He wants to abort Roam’s cubs! I sent.

  Strom stopped where he was, his face contorted. I felt anger from him.

  “She does know she’s pregnant,” Meda said. “She does know.”

  What does “abort” mean? Roam asked, scratching her ear.

  “Don’t anthropomorphize these bears more than necessary,” Dr. Baker said. “Yes, their descendants will one day rule the world, but these three are only a few steps away from being wild animals.”

  Manuel painted the picture for Roam, faster than I could say not to.

  Roam blinked, then bawled as if in pain.

  The room seeped with fear pheromone. Roam knocked Strom away as if he were a paper doll. She went for the door to the paddock, but it was already shut. She clawed at the lock, gouging the metal.

  Papa!

  We won’t let him do it, I sent.

  Roam’s claws found the edge of the door, and it began to buckle under her strength.

  Dr. Baker took the syringe from my hand and dashed forward.

  No!

  He plunged the syringe into Roam’s flank before we could stop him.

  Roam turned, knocking Meda aside. Her roar shook the room. Outside in the paddock, I saw Papa prick his ears up.

  Roam chuffed at Dr. Baker and took two steps toward him before she collapsed.

  “She went wild,” Dr. Baker panted. “As if she knew what we were going to do.”

  “She did,” I said, angry.

  Dr. Baker’s eyes squinted, and he looked at each of us. When his eyes came to Meda, still on the ground, he gasped.

  Her hair was off her neck, revealing the interface jack clearly.

  “You’re with them!” he yelled. “I should have known!”

  He ran from the room, and we stood slowly, dusting off Strom who had slid into the wall from Roam’s push. Outside Papa and Sleepy were sniffing at the door, now bent in its frame. Roam whimpered in her sleep.

  We have to explain.

  Then he won’t blame us.

  And he won’t kill Roam’s cubs.

  We started for the lab, when Dr. Baker appeared in the doorway of the examination room.

  Look out!

  Strom had just started to take control, when it was as if portions of me started to black out. I tasted something strange from Meda, and she collapsed. Then Quant.

  I was near the back and backpedaled to the wall, avoiding most of the gas. The mist hung in the air. Dr. Baker, wearing a mask, sprayed another burst at Manuel, who dodged but still took enough in to knock him out.

  Without the rest of my pod, my brain suddenly felt lethargic. Things that seemed obvious a moment before were vague and elusive. I leaned back against the wall, waiting for the mist to dissipate, hoping that Dr. Baker didn’t squirt more.

  He looked at me, and I was certain he would spray me in the face, but he put the bottle down, and drew a pistol. Manuel would have known the model. To me it just looked deadly.

  “Without the rest of your cohort, you’re not so sure of yourself, are you?”

  “Dr. Baker,” I said, pausing to consider my words, something Meda would never do. “We’re not your enemy.”

  He knelt and pulled Meda’s hair from her neck. “I know what this means,” he snarled.

  “You don’t,” I said. “You’re dead wrong. And you’re wrong about the bears.”

  He snorted. “I am the creator. I know what the bears are, down to their double helix. Don’t taunt me.”

  “The bears are sentient. They”—I grasped for some proof—“tell stories!”

  “You’ve been fooled by your wishful thinking,” Dr. Baker said, waving the pistol. “I don’t know what your game is, but I’ve planned for when the Community finds me. I have a second lab. I can restart there after this site is destroyed.”

  “We aren’t allied with the Community. The Community is gone!”

  “This says otherwise.” His eyes drifted over Meda’s interface jack.

  “It wasn’t what we wanted! It was rape!”


  “More blather. I trust what I see with my eyes and what I make with my own hands. Pods have been corrupted from the start by the Community, and your appearing here and now proves it.”

  He was too certain of himself to argue with. I felt tears of frustration crawl down my face. “You won’t destroy the bears, will you?”

  He looked at me. “They’re just animals.”

  “They aren’t.” I hated myself for my lack of control, for my inability to reason with this singleton. At the paddock door, Papa and Sleepy huffed through the opening in the bent door frame.

  Moira? Okay?

  I knew then what I had to do. It was all I had left, even though it was the worst choice.

  He’s going to kill Roam and all her little cubs, I sent.

  “What are you doing?” Dr. Baker asked. “Your pod is unconscious—”

  Papa ripped the door from its hinges with a swipe of his paw. In a single stride he was on top of Dr. Baker, who managed one last comprehending look at me before Papa ripped his face to shreds. His screams were silenced a moment later when teeth slashed through his throat.

  I crawled onto a lab bench, drawing my feet above the spread of blood across the floor, and clutched my knees to my cheeks. I sobbed and sobbed, even after Papa had dragged the doctor’s corpse into the paddock, even after Sleepy came and licked my hair.

  We watched from a distance as the lab burned. Doctor Baker had set a charge before coming to kill us and the bears. All of his work was in ruins, though he had carried a copy of key genomes and discoveries in his pocket. We had that now, in Manuel’s pack.

  The bears stood with us, silent in thought and voice, watching as we did.

  Finally, I sent, You should head far away from here.

  Roam shook herself, snorting. You should come with us.

  It was the same offer Strom had been presented.

  Strom hesitated, looked at me. I shook my head.

  No.

  What we had learned from Baker would have to be reconciled. There was no hiding from it, and we, caught in the crux of the matter, were the only ones to address it. In the distance, Quant picked up the whine of the aircar, perhaps drawn by the smoke of the flaming bunker.

  Papa stood, leaned over me with his bulk and licked my face.

  Goodbye, they sent. They lumbered into the woods, disappearing from sight as the aircar landed.

  Quant noted, as we wiped saliva from our faces, that the aircar was civilian. A duo opened the door and climbed out. Each of him held a rifle.

  “Was that a bear?” he called.

  He walked closer, keeping an eye or three on the treeline.

  “Bears are unpredictable,” he said. “Gotta be careful with them.”

  “Sometimes,” Meda said.

  Campfire got out of control.

  Foolish kids out hiking.

  They weren’t our thoughts. We had caught the duo’s chemical thoughts as he approached. Meda smiled.

  “It wasn’t our campfire.”

  The man stopped.

  Did she just … ?

  Isn’t that the quintet the OG is looking for?

  “Yes, the OG is looking for us. Go back and radio it in,” Meda said.

  The man looked flustered. He turned and walked quickly to the aircar where he stayed until we heard the whine of military craft in the distance.

  I found I was crying again. Regardless of what Dr. Baker had planned for us, my actions had led to his death, and it hurt.

  It was necessary, Meda sent.

  I shook my head, unable to answer with thought. I was too confused, too angry.

  Self-defense, Strom sent simply.

  No blame on you, Manuel added.

  I know, I sent, but that didn’t stop the hurt. Still, I felt a resolve grow in me.

  The military aircar landed in the clearing, sending up a spray of pinecones and mulch.

  They’re going to expect answers, Meda sent nervously.

  So are we, I replied. I took her and Strom’s hand.

  SIX

  Apollo

  The aircar is a Scryfejet 1200X. It comes in from the east with a roar of its hydrogen-burning engines, scattering a roost of birds from the trees. Quant follows their flight in the air, watches the pattern as they re-form, split, and re-form before landing again in the trees.

  Big one, Manuel sends. Could hold ten pods.

  The schematics for the aircar flit among us: thrust curves, performance numbers. From Quant comes the feel of its yoke. From Strom the look of a sunset at ten thousand meters. From Moira the fact that it could hold twenty-five military duos.

  This drives us to consense, touching palms, swapping chemical memories, reaching decisions.

  We stand in a circle, each grasping the wrists of two others, the easier to share the chemical memories secreted from the pads on our wrists. There is comfort in this for us, to shed individual thinking for the group mind.

  The bears are gone, Strom sends. The last lingering trace of their goodbye has faded away. They had sadly watched the laboratory burn as we had ignored the blood in their fur.

  Mother Redd is here.

  We don’t have to turn for all of us to see Manuel’s view. He shares it with the pod: Mother Redd stepping off the aircar ramp, all three of her, and she alone. The pilot, a duo, looks at us from the front bubble.

  Military, Strom assesses. We have seen enough military duos to know. We remember the genetically programmed swiftness and precision. We remember their viciousness. If it had not been for the ants, McCorkle would have killed us in the Amazon.

  Move off into the trees.

  Mother Redd will follow.

  In case there are more duos on the aircar.

  Just in case.

  Let’s go.

  We walk into the trees.

  “Apollo!” Mother Redd yells. She is fifty meters away.

  Quant pauses to wave her forward, then she is lost from sight as we jog into the trees.

  Moira remembers nothing from the walk here. She was unconscious and febrile. She asks for Strom’s memories, and touches his wrist to retrieve them. For a moment she is Strom, strength and justice, and she sees the path we and the bears took to reach the laboratory.

  Manuel brachiates into a tree, a pine tree with sticky sap that will take a long time to get out of his clothes. But the sap fixes his grip when he plants it, and he reaches the wobbling top.

  Just Mother Redd is leaving the car.

  His words are weak on the wind. It is what we say, even when there is no wind. There is none in this pine forest.

  The pungent smell of pine is heavy in the air. Our feet sink centimeters into the needles.

  We stop and wait, not bothering to consense, lingering in individual thoughts that we may or may not share later.

  We hear Mother Redd before we see her.

  She is old.

  She is older than we remember.

  It has been only a few months.

  “Child?” she calls.

  “We’re here,” Meda replies.

  They are holding hands, the three of them as they come down the path, mindful of the surfaced roots of the pine trees.

  We construct a fourth Mother Redd, superimposed at the end of the three walking. She had once been a quartet, but one of her died.

  When she is five meters away, we begin to hear her thoughts.

  We must be strong.

  We must be firm.

  He must do what we tell him.

  The smell of Mother Redd’s chemical thoughts is the same as we remember from the farm, but now we can understand. It is assumed that each pod’s thoughts are private, that no other pod can understand another. Yet we have found that we can understand the bear’s. And now we understood Mother Redd’s. This does not surprise us.

  “You will not be able to control us,” Meda says.

  Mother Redd stops in surprise.

  He has anticipated our words.

  We will try subtlety.

&n
bsp; Apollo respects us and moral rightness.

  Focus on Moira.

  The calculated manner shocks us, for just a moment.

  No one should be this intimate, Strom sends.

  We are this intimate with each other, Quant replies.

  A person’s true self is revealed when no one is watching, Moira sends.

  “Apollo, it’s time you come back to the farm. There’s work to be done,” Mother Redd begins, watching Moira’s face. “The OG has—”

  “—tried to disassemble us.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  What does he know? Mother Redd is three identical females, yet it is clear to us who is thinking, and a name we have not known before, Martha, attaches to the thoughts.

  Where did he learn this? Rachel.

  It’s odd to know she has three names, other than Mother Redd.

  “Cluster—” Manuel starts, from the trees above.

  “—buster,” Quant finishes below.

  “Heard of it?” Meda asks.

  They got to him!

  How much damage have they done?

  “Just our naïveté is destroyed,” Meda replies. Mother Redd doesn’t even realize we are hovering on the edge of her mind.

  “They are a rogue segment of the OG, Apollo,” Mother Redd cried. “They aren’t—”

  He’s in our mind.

  Panic smell fills the air, and Mother Redd is backing up fast. They squeeze their hands shut to block us out, but it is no good.

  Manuel drops from his tree and touches Vivian’s palm. We are an octet. Memories that we can’t escape drift through our mind:

  Scarlet Redd looked at the printout from Khalid’s gene-splicer.

  What the hell?

  Scarlet never cursed. Her sisters looked up. They had just finished implanting a possible gene to enlarge the vomeronasal organ in beavers.

  Martha touched Scarlet’s wrist and the four saw what she saw on the paper.

  He’s building a quintet.

  What?

  He’s not that good!

  Who gave him permission?

  It was true; he was going to try for a quintet. Peake, who had built the first quartet years before, had tried quintets but they aborted after six weeks. The OG Eugenics Department had refused all requests for a quintet after that.