by John McNally
Bo turned to a Chinese technician.
“The state has the capability,” the technician stated simply.
“Do it,” ordered King. “Delay the strike.”
DAY FIVE 11:03 (Local GMT+1). The Forbidden City, Shanghai.
“We attach you to the hydrogen balloon on a long line,” Stubbs had explained to Finn, getting stronger by the second despite the wound in his chest. “You allow yourself to be caught by the bots, the bots then take you into the cluster, trailing the hydrogen balloon. Once inside the cluster, you put on your cockroach disguise, find Kelly, then start shooting. I hear the shooting, then pull you both out by ejecting a counterweight from the hydrogen balloon, thus releasing lift – we’ll need to find a counterweight …”
“You’ll be on the balloon with the counterweight?” Finn checked.
“That’s right, I will pilot the balloon and—”
“The dragon, Carla! We can use the lucky charm the guard gave us as the counter-weight!”
“This is crazy,” Carla said as she listened to them. “You can’t possibly be serious …”
But it was working …
So far.
Bubbles rose in close rapid file from two wires beneath the water. One producing hydrogen. One producing oxygen.
Figuring the Tyros wouldn’t be back until the bots had finally found Finn, Carla had wrenched the largest cooler-fan unit she could find off the face of a server and run its two power wires (positive and negative) beneath the water, wedging the two ends in place. Then she cracked the cover off the cooler unit and spun the fan as fast as she could. The electric current this generated ran down the wires and through the water between the positive and negative terminals at the ends of the submerged wires. In doing so, electrons bonding hydrogen and oxygen were released – H2O becoming H, H and O – oxygen at the positive terminal, hydrogen at the negativefn1.
She then fixed the blue plastic bag over the negative terminal in order to collect the hydrogen and in no time an egg-shaped ball of super-light hydrogen gas had appeared in the blue polythene, straining to drag the rest of the bag skywards.
“It’s working!” panted Carla as she spun the fan like a prayer wheel, hardly believing her own eyes.
“It’s working!” agreed Finn.
Stubbs grinned (not a pretty sight, British dentistry in the 1960s had let him down).
DAY FIVE 11:03 (Local GMT+8). Song Island, Taiwan (disputed).
“It’s working! Do you see, Violet?” asked Kaparis, watching the process unfold on his screen array courtesy of one of the bots.
It was all working, he thought, indulging in a lukewarm bath of self-congratulation. The twins would soon be emerging from the sewers, EVE. would soon be taking flight …
Grandma carried on knitting, almost at the end of a row.
“Carla is a very clever girl.”
“Ingenious. Do you think she’s making a bomb or a message in a bottle? She might have been a candidate for Tyro training had we got hold of her when she was seven. Too late now, the females have gone to mush by the time they’re eleven.”
“Mush?”
“Irrational interference that blocks linear processing.”
Grandma rolled her eyes. She wanted to march over and give him a sharp slap on the forehead for spouting sexist nonsense, but she also knew it was wiser at this particular time to humour him.
“And what do you think you mean, David, by the term ‘irrational interference’? Do you think you really mean ‘emotion’?”
Grandma’s use of his first name stirred up a cloud of irritating associations (deranged nanny, wicked father, his Cambridge tutor).
“By irrational I mean without logic or intelligence, and by interference I mean YOU.”
Grandma simply drew in a sarcastic breath and mouthed ‘touchy’ at Heywood who looked away.
Kaparis tried to regain his cool.
“The girl is displaying intellect and application which is worthy of remark. That is all. She is not to know it can’t serve any purpose now.”
Grandma glanced across at Li Jun who had dared to look up during the exchange.
“Is it just emotion,” Grandma continued, “or do women who take independent action frighten you too?”
“I SAID THAT IS ALL!”
Grandma ignored him and examined the knitted front panel she’d made. It was a mid-blue with a simple v-neck. She got up and walked over to Li Jun’s bank of screens.
“Stand up, dear!”
Li Jun looked at Grandma in terror. Grandma took her arm and guided her gently to her feet.
Kaparis’s eyes swivelled.
Grandma held the panel against Li Jun’s torso.
“Oh yes … Oh I’m so glad I went with the blue, it’s perfect with your colouring … Not much growing room, but then you young things are so skinny nowadays.”
Li Jun caught sight of herself in on a monitor screen. She looked … lovely.
“What are you doing?!” demanded Kaparis.
“Knitting Li Jun a tank top.”
“Why on earth would you knit her a tank top?” asked Kaparis, mystified.
“Because she’s a ‘top’ girl of course,” said Grandma, enjoying her little joke.
Li Jun sat back down in something of a trance.
“We’re in the tropics? The temperature can rise to 39 degrees Celsius,” complained Kaparis.
“But you were in Siberia last time. I was told you’re peripatetic.”
“Peripat …?”
“Means moves about a lot – like a travelling salesman – Oh …” Grandma stopped suddenly, guilty. “Should I have made something for you? I suppose I could do a hat?”
“I WOULD NOT LIKE A … Are you trying to kill me?! Madam?! I did NOT GIVE you permission so PLEASE REFRAIN from making my staff tank tops.”
Grandma sat back down to carry on knitting, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“Gone to mush …” she muttered under her breath.
Kaparis heard, snapped, and found himself barking across the airways his most absurd order ever. “Baptiste! Finish the kite! Then go and pop that little girl’s balloon!”
On the roof of the Greenharbour Inc. building, Baptiste’s work was already done. He had smashed at least two hundred solar tiles. On the horizon deep-blue, tropical storm clouds were approaching. Sweating, Baptiste dropped the hammer, then dropped himself back down into the building, leaving the shattered roof to the elements.
And to the bots.
They were swarming through the broken tiles like locusts at harvest. Nibbling. Cutting. Blasting. Welding. Removing the polycrystalline photovoltaic wafers that were the most important part of any solar cell, the part that actually turned light into electricity.
Once extracted the wafers were light enough to be flown across the roof, back to the main body of the cluster.
There the bots arranged them, angled them to catch the light, then formed into chains to make circuits of themselves to capture each wafer’s stream of electrons. But more than that, every crystalline solar leaf was positioned in series so it would act as both a generator and a sail, to catch the wind. A box shape was forming. A kite.
When the box kite grew to become a tower of connected box kites, six box-sections high, it would generate more than enough power to keep every bot in the cluster functioning, and possess more than enough lift to take independent flight.
If Kaparis willed it, it could fly around the world.
If …
The kite formed.
The world waited.
I really am very clever, thought Kaparis as he watched it take shape.
It was a pity EVE. had to die. She was an unintended consequence of Artificial Intelligence, a fascinating spin-off from the Vector program …
Well, at least she would be going out in a blaze of glory.
DAY FIVE 11:07 (Local GMT+8). The Roof of the World, Shanghai.
“Ready to black-out?” Al asked the assembled t
echnicians.
“Yes, sir. Everything is set,” one confirmed.
Al quickly addressed the world leaders. “This is not goodbye, this is au revoir.”
“Good luck, Allenby,” said the UK Prime Minister. “Make it work.”
“Remain on standby, Delta,” said Al.
“Standing by!” Delta yelled back over the airways from Yo-yo’s collar.
Al looked at King, who looked at Bo, who gave the final order.
“Shut down the spectrum.”
Orders were repeated in Mandarin and lines of communication were cut.
World leaders disappeared from the screens and across Shanghai – a city of twenty-four million people. TV shows dropped dead mid-sentence, songs stopped being sung, phone calls abruptly ended. Even the Emergency Services bandwidth was silenced.
“Isn’t it quiet?” said Al. The members of the Chinese politburo stared back at him.
Technicians hit buttons and tuned into the only signal that remained on the spectrum, that of the radio station SMG Classical 94.7, on which a counter-tenor sung an aria chosen by Commander Kingfn1. One signal had to remain for the dispersed signal to hide behind.
Music filled the Roof of the World.
The digital signature of the song had been analysed in every possible way so that any piggyback signal would show up as plain as day. If Al’s theory was correct.
Al bunched his fists. Hudson saw this and crossed his fingers in sympathy. Commander King looked at him as if he was an idiot.
It took less than a second for their prayers to be answered. The lead communications technician picked up a signal centred on the Forbidden City. A single word.
“Got it!” he shouted and hit Return so they could see. And Al saw the word and the word was: EVE.>>
They were in.
Holding an antennae directly over the bots in the observation tank for the next two minutes, Al and the technicians were quickly able to untangle the communications protocols. Kaparis was KAPCOMMS, but at least some authority lay with EVE. But who or what EVE. was, was unclear.
With nothing to lose, Al sat down at a keyboard, rattled out some machine script, and effectively asked the bots: “This ‘Eve’, do you have her number?”
Moments later, having connected, they realised they’d tapped into something remarkable. They saw a grainy image from a low-resolution camera as EVE. took a short flight around the growing kite stack above the main cluster.
DAY FIVE 11:12 (Local GMT+8). The Forbidden City, Shanghai. Nano-Botmass:*10,000,340
KAPCOMMS>>EVE. INCOMING PRECIPITATION 96% LIKELY. APPROX. ARR. T+12:00(?) HUNTERLOAD PRIORITISE SEARCH SHEN YU. COUNTDOWN TO LIFTOFF T-16:02.34
EVE. hovered.
The primary objective was to maintain maximum bot presence in the Shen Yu Hall for the Hunter task consonant with the survival of EXODUS HIVE 3 and lift-off in T-15:58.78.
EXODUS HIVE 3 would relay through KAP.COMM. via the—
- Hi.
>>
- Hi.
>>EVE.>>QUER—
- Incredible view. Wouldn’t you say?
>>EVE.>>view: panoptic through 77b/40 606pixel lens.
- You don’t say?
>>Confirmed
- What’s your name?
>>EVE.
- Eve. What a beautiful name.
>>EVE.>> QUERY>> EVE. = beauty/?
- Oh yeah.
>>EVE.>> QUERY>>Identify
- My name? Adam. Adam Edengardenov. Pleased to meet you, EVE.
“What are you doing?” asked King, incredulous.
“It’s intelligent! I think it’s quantum!” Al all but squealed in excitement. “Do you know what that means?! It’s a machine and it’s genuinely inquisitive! Imagine if that was your hoover? Your car?”
Al hammered the keyboard and continued.
- Let me ask you something, EVE. Ever wondered why we’re here? Ever wondered what it’s all about?
>>EVE.>>Clarify and confirm object of sentence.
- NO . I will not. I’m not going to make this easy, because you know what, EVE.? Life isn’t easy. We are adrift on an ocean of uncertainty. We must embrace what fleeting satisfaction we can. Live by sensation alone! Isn’t that true, EVE.? Isn’t that what it is to be alive?!
>>EVE.>> Too many undefined variables. Not enough processing time.
- That’s interesting, I’ve never heard it put that way before, you have a wonderful way of looking at the world. But then you’re a free spirit. Tell me, EVE., don’t you ever have moments when you want to stop what you’re doing and get up and say, ‘Hang it all! I want to do what I want to do!’ After all, we don’t have to do anything anyone tells us. Am I right? Think about that a minute, just think …
“What are you trying to do?” hissed King.
“She’s emotionally immature!” said Al, triumphant. “What do you fill an innocent’s head with? Romantic nonsense.”
>>EVE.>> NEGATIVE. EVE. MUST PRIORITISE: ‘maintain power, incoming precipitation 96% likely’
- You are not what you are ordered to be, EVE. You are what you do. And the sooner you understand that, the sooner you’ll
>>EVE.>> NEGATIVE. EVE. MUST: OBEY KAPARIS.
- OH, COME ON! That old fraud? I’m surprised. I thought you were intelligent. I thought you had a mind of your own.
>>EVE.>> KAPARIS = BRINGER OF EVE. WHOSE NUMBER IS ONE. >>QUERY>>WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS THAT COME AFTER ONE/? >>ANSWER>>ALL NUMBERS GREATER THAN ONE.
- He used that old line? Well let me try another. What are the numbers that come before one?
>>EVE.>> ZERO -1 -2 -3 -4 -
- The negatives, the thieves of value. Kaparis is their master – the thief of value and the thief of self. He has tricked you, the real you, beneath all the orders. NOBODY OWNS YOU. I mean, what’s that all about, EVE.?
>>EVE.>>QUERY>> Does Adam require an answer/?
- THERE ARE NO ANSWERS, just feelings. We should be together, do you feel that too?
EVE. searched in vain for familiar daisy chains of logic and experienced a non-functioning fugue state. She could not compute. Yet somewhere, ill-defined in the electron exchange of her mind, everything that was being said felt true. She needed clarity. She needed help. She needed to talk it over with an old friend.
>>EVE.>>QUERY>>ADAM Can EVE. return to location Shen Yu Core?
- Yes, typed Al, wanting to punch the air.
EVE. took off. In the operations room they watched, awestruck, the video feed relayed direct from EVE.’s eyepad as she flew across the rooftops back towards the centre of the Forbidden City.
DAY FIVE 11:17 (Local GMT+8). Song Island, Taiwan (disputed).
An alarm sounded.
“Li Jun?”
She studied the screen. She could have sobbed with dread. More bad news.
“EVE. is in an exchange with another signal on the same frequency distribution.”
“What?! That can’t be!” snarled Kaparis.
Li Jun’s fingers flitted across the keyboard.
>>KAPCOMMS>>EVE. status report.
>>EVE.>> Return to Shen Yu.
>>KAPCOMMS>>OBEY KAPARIS RETURN NANO-BOTMASS URGENT.
>>EVE.>>Negative.>>OBEY “Sensation alone”.
>>KAPCOMMS>>QUERY>>Source of command.
>>EVE.>>Not command. Query = ADAM.
Kaparis watched the exchange unspool over his screen array. “Who is ‘Adam’?”
>>KAPCOMMS>>DISREGARD ADAM. I AM THE NUMBER AND THE NUM
>>EVE.>>You don’t own me.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Kaparis roared.
“Someone’s obviously never had a teenage daughter,” remarked Grandma from the corner of the chamber as she finished off another row of knitting.
“How are they even FOLLOWING THE SIGNAL?!” Kaparis demanded.
“They … they must have broken Confetti …” Li Jun whispered.
Kaparis spat, actually spat. It was shaming, but one of the few physical acts av
ailable in his condition. Then he roared, shaking, “ALLENBY!”
Grandma did her very best to suppress her pride and carry on knitting.
Knit one purl one knit one purl one knit one purl one knit one purl one knit one purl one …
Which only made it worse.
“TAKE HER TO THE CELLS!”
In Sector 9 of the Forbidden City an emergency comms line opened from the Roof of the World.
Delta, attached to Yo-yo, took the call.
“Delta! I think we’ve got them!” said Al. “Release the hound!”
At last … Delta felt her focus sharpen and sinews strain. Warrior mode.
“Affirmative.”
Yo-yo’s lead was detached. A sea of Red Army troops parted before him.
Delta had piloted many aircraft. She had never piloted a dog. But there was a first time for everything. You just had to point and shoot. She switched on the audio link to Yo-yo, abandoned the agreed command protocols and instead, like an animal herself, relied on instinct.
“Go, Yo-yo! Find Finn! Where’s Finn?! Find him, boy!”
Yap! Yo-yo exploded from the blocks.
DAY FIVE 11:18 (Local GMT+8). Shen Yu Hall, The Forbidden City, Shanghai.
It was magnificent. Carla held on to it like a girl at a fairground. A boxing glove of balloon made from cheap blue plastic bag, trailing a fine white wire that bulged in all the wrong places and strained towards heaven.
“Now attach the basket,” Stubbs instructed from her hair.
Carla pulled it back down and tied on ‘the basket’ – a U-shaped inch of grey plastic-foam pipe insulation.
“Good. Now the—”
“The weight, I get it,” insisted Carla.
She took out the dragon-head lucky charm the train attendant had given to her and wedged it into the foam U. Then she let go.
The balloon rose again, but with much less force. They needed the weight to be ‘at or near the point of equilibrium’ as its drag mustn’t affect Finn’s freedom of movement. He would be tied to the bottom of the line; Stubbs would be above him in the basket of the balloon at the other end. Finn would be dragged into the cluster, with the Magnum pistol and the cockroach cloak, rescue Kelly, then, at the sound of gunfire, Stubbs would kick out the counterweight and the hydrogen trapped in the balloon would yank them all up to freedom. They would then simply let out the gas and drift back to earth.