You had little choice, chirped her AI, but it didn’t take away the taste of regret in her mouth.
I thought you were busy, she said tartly.
I am, but I believe I have almost finished my journey. Helena started at her AI’s choice of words.
‘You must be Jane Palmer,’ said David, offering his hand for it to be shaken. Jane looked on with slight distaste at the familiarity he was showing but, nevertheless, took his hand. David raised his eyebrows and turned to Helena. Fashionable city society was shying away from touch just then, instead elevating the idea of exchanging nanomachines coded with tastes and smells that the sender felt represented their personality.
‘Helena. Nice to see you again.’ Helena nodded and smiled. His eyes searched hers, but she knew he couldn’t find what he was looking for. ‘Have you got everything?’ he asked pleasantly.
‘I think so,’ said Jane as she sat down next to a small, round window and rubbed her hands idly on her clothes.
‘Let’s go then,’ said David and jumped back down next to the pilot.
Helena watched the pilot for a second, reminded of Denholme, before she too took a seat and they left for Aalborg.
Chapter 3
JUTLAND WAS FLAT and windy. Helena stepped off the plane onto a small tarmac strip surrounded by rolling fields of late-harvest oats and was assaulted by an unrelenting gale coming in from the east. The landscape was battered; sparsely scattered poplars and scraggy birch grew at angles trying to offer least resistance to the wind. The landing strip had a single forlorn attendant building, a small nano-constructed hut that looked as depressed as the stunted trees that surrounded it like a reprimanded honour guard. From the smell of ozone, she guessed it had been built only for their arrival and would be dismantled again once they had left the runway. The sky was overcast, the wind tasted damp. The bright grey clouds threatened no immediate rain, but they cooled what might have been a temperate day. Except for the wind chill, Helena was oblivious to the temperature, having set her ambient warmth to two hundred and ninety-one Kelvin, as she preferred. Jane and David emerged after her, both clutching their bags to prevent the wind from stealing them away with a mischievous gust. There had been little chat on the plane. David had given Helena and Jane a short briefing pack, informing them of their eventual destination at the northernmost point of the peninsula.
The drab greens and whites of the countryside did not impress; Helena couldn’t begin to understand why her mother found this place to be such a powerful muse.
A man emerged from the hut, the door whipping out of his hand and clattering against the wall as he did so. The noise was swept away. Helena moved a few steps to meet him, allowing enough time for her two companions to catch up with her. The tarmac was soft; it had been laid down in the last few hours as with the rest of the site. The entire airfield had been created for their benefit. A creeping feeling was crawling up her neck, the sense that they were alone, that Euros would not come to their aid even if they cried for help. The Company might even deny all knowledge should Helena find herself in the middle of a diplomatic incident. Looking around now, she saw no roads leading into the airport, as if it existed there forgotten by those it was meant to serve.
The figure approaching them was an Oligarch; he was over two metres tall, dressed in combat armour and carrying a large plasma rifle. Not the comforting sight he should have been.
‘Commander Chalmers?’ he shouted over the flat static of the wind. David stepped forward, waved him closer. The man approached, facing the three of them. His eyes were a deep emerald, without whites at all. There was only one type of oligarch who would allow themselves to be disfigured in such a way, and they were the ones who fought Company wars.
‘Morning,’ said the soldier. ‘Glad you’ve made it in one piece. The field will be dismantled in nine minutes, forty-two seconds. We need to be clear by then.’
‘Thank you,’ shouted David. ‘What do we need to know?’
The solider said nothing but turned and began walking back towards the hut. Instead of going inside as Helena expected him to, he skirted round the outside. After following him, the three of them found a small hovercraft. It was a military vehicle, lightly armed but well armoured. It was best used to speed them away from trouble rather than to stand and deal with it.
Helena had been expecting civilian transport and an established airfield. All of this was beginning to look a lot like a war zone.
‘Goes without saying,’ started the soldier. ‘We don’t need anyone knowing there are civilian Family members here right now. Indexiv have officially annexed the Scandinavian holdings of Euros. Rumour has it they’ve also announced they’re seizing everyone’s land here.’ The way he said it left Helena in no doubt that the rumour was fact. ‘Welcome to Jutland.’ He smiled.
Jane looked worried. Helena made a mental note to ask her if she’d ever been out of London. It hadn’t occurred to her that Jane might have been office bound throughout her career.
‘This’ll get you where you’re going,’ said the soldier, absently passing his hand over the hovercraft. Helena gazed at it, thinking of her brother Michael who would have found some grace in its design. The machine was larger than the one she’d used in Africa; it was designed to carry five people at a squeeze. She doubted it was any slower but the vehicle was clearly not set up for an engagement of even the gentlest kind. It was a dull greenish colour, surface patchily pearlescent in the drab morning light. The patches would become active once they started it up, turning from dead matte to something matching the countryside around them. The nanomachines forming the surface coat were designed to eliminate all reflections and glare, to blur the edges of the hovercraft and try to make it as visually unimposing as possible. Around the bottom of the craft was the black polymer casing of the fusion engine. Perched on top of it, like a slipper on a brick, was the cabin. There was no obvious cockpit, but Helena knew the polysteel chassis would let them see out. She was reminded of the nursery rhyme, ‘there was an old lady who lived in a shoe’.
‘She’s not packing much in the way of ordnance,’ confirmed the soldier. ‘Our surveys show no militarization that far north.’
‘Will we be travelling through hostile country?’ asked David.
‘I cannot confirm that one way or the other,’ said the soldier, shrugging as if he thought it wouldn’t matter in the slightest even if they were.
Yes, then, thought Helena, humming to herself.
Jane gave her a look that she had come to know of as disapproving. She stopped humming. Jane’s expression didn’t change and Helena had the unflattering urge to tell her to get used to it since they were going to have to face whatever lay ahead whether they liked it or not.
‘What’s the projection?’ asked Helena.
The soldier turned his emerald eyes on her, looking her up then down before saying, ‘Two days. Insel and Tensys have already pulled out.’
‘Well that’s that then, isn’t it?’ said Jane.
Everyone looked in her direction. Helena waited for her to continue. Jane was waiting for someone to agree with her. When nobody did she sputtered, ‘We can’t head into a war zone, can we?’
Still no one spoke.
In a fit of mischievousness, Helena asked her secondary AI to take a picture of Jane’s face. It would be something to stick up round the office when they got back.
Jane gulped down whatever she was intending to say next and looked from face to face.
Helena watched her closely, taking the opportunity to learn her expression and record her stress features. Helena thought Jane was going to speak again, but as she opened her mouth, the plane behind them began to taxi down the runway.
‘Time’s up,’ said the soldier. Jane shot a desperate glance at the jet as it sped away from them and took to the air. The deafening shock of its engines slowly dissipated. The four of them stood in the field with just the wind for company.
On the edge of Helena’s hearing came the cra
ckle of the tarmac being eaten by nanomachines. Soon there would be no sign of them having ever been there. The soldier would wait until everything was consumed, collect the nanobots and depart. They would be doing well if they managed to leave long before him thought Helena.
‘Weapons then,’ said David.
‘Light munitions,’ said the soldier. ‘Stowed in the rear of the flyer.’
‘Thanks,’ said David. ‘What’s the payload?’
Helena nearly laughed as Jane’s face snapped from one to the other as the conversation progressed. She caught herself; she didn’t like the idea that Jane would be more of a liability than they could afford.
‘Small arms, a number of energy weapons, two projectiles, normal choice of round. You’ve one backbreaker, nothing exotic in the payload.’ The soldier swept his eyes over Jane and Helena. ‘Best thing is for you to run,’ he said firmly. ‘There’re three bioarmour suits as well. Can you use them?’
‘Of course.’ said Helena robustly, irritated by his inference of her general uselessness. David nodded a calm affirmation, but Jane said nothing.
The soldier shrugged. ‘Best not get yourself in any bother then. Talking of which, hadn’t you better go?’ He didn’t wait for them to answer but turned and walked out into the field adjacent to the hut, whose walls had already begun to resemble overstretched gum as they were dismantled.
At the edge of her range, Helena was sure she could hear a number of other people moving with him once he’d got a few metres clear. Switching through her optical range, she gleaned traces of heat and carbon dioxide but nothing more. She suddenly felt foolish for having accepted the presence of a lone special-forces soldier out in the middle of nowhere. The rest of his splinter had stayed well concealed. She reflected unhappily that the first they’d know of engaging with Indexiv’s forces would be the shots hitting the hovercraft.
‘Is that why we landed here instead of at the local airport?’ asked Jane suddenly.
Helena checked her maps and, trying to conceal her surprise said, ‘Yes.’ She hadn’t even spotted Aalborg’s airport, let alone realised they’d avoided it.
The flyer came to life in response to David placing his palm on the chassis; the surface melted into a moving mirage of colours. A section along the starboard side cracked open, the seamless seal breaking as a door opened outwards like a beetle’s wing.
Once inside, David assumed the pilot’s seat. Helena made sure the front passenger seat was hers, which left Jane in the back, looking over their shoulders.
As the small vehicle lifted into the air, Jane commented quietly, ‘I didn’t think they grew oats anymore.’
‘Pardon?’ asked David.
Jane looked through the windscreen. ‘Oh, the fields around us; they’re oats. Surprising, that’s all. I thought the European Zone had stopped growing its own crops some time ago.’
‘I get my fruit fresh; I’m sure it’s grown on the outskirts of the City,’ said Helena.
‘Oh, I’m not saying fresh food isn’t grown on our behalf. But large swathes of it, like this?’ An expression of lost interest ran across her face. ‘It’s nothing, just didn’t think I’d see it in Europe, that’s all.’
Helena hoped that if she ignored Jane, she’d get the message and shut up.
The journey north was simple: from where they’d landed, it was a matter of travelling north for less than a hundred and fifty kilometres — not much more than making a journey from her flat to the northern edge of London.
There were no major settlements in their path and, given the almost lack of the Families in this part of Europe, she didn’t expect any Normals they passed to be capable of spotting them.
She mentioned to David that the soldier had not provided them with any detail on where the theatre of engagement actually began. He grimaced, saying he was pretty sure they’d work it out for themselves.
If Jane hadn’t been with them, she would have punched David and then demanded that he tell her what he was playing at. How had he organised this? How was he connected to her Uncle? She looked around at Jane, who was watching the landscape as it flew past. Denmark was flat, like nowhere she’d ever been. Amsterdam was level, but it was an artificial kind of grown uniformity that only man was capable of creating. The lands around them were like vast tidal plains where the tide had gone out and the sea had concluded it wasn’t worth returning.
The wind showed no signs of abating, while occasional spots of rain splashed silently against the hovercraft. The vehicle had the simplest of onboard computers; its AI was restricted to stabilising the flyer and ensuring its systems were functioning correctly. The most she could get from it were basic technical surveys of the land through which they were passing.
David wasn’t feeling any more ebullient than the AI so Helena tried her own primary AI.
I’m here, it responded.
Helena didn’t really know what to ask it. The awareness of its search for other AIs which had malfunctioned provoked a hundred questions but she didn’t know where to start. It was as if Lysander had touched something central to its own existence and in turn that tangled itself with hers. The very word malfunctioning spoke of ill news, problems at the heart of things. It seemed perfectly logical to her for humanity’s ever more complex AIs to develop ideas of their own, but for sentience to perhaps be the result of a systemic error was an uncomfortable irony. No AIs she was aware of had been given the leeway to think and explore areas beyond their explicit purposes. She had no worries that she might return home and find her security system had decided it needed a holiday. However, the types of intelligence developed for applications like the Lateral Solvers, and in some ways her own primary, were constituted with exactly that fuzzy sense of boundary and self. There was something more human about their own questionableness than anything she was used to.
Robots might have a human form in a few cases, but it was normally utility that defined their shape rather than any desire to create a ‘human’ robot. There had been attempts in the past, at times when the Corporations thought it might bring them some competitive advantage, but in general people were revolted and a little terrified at the prospect of robots who could essentially pass for human. In the final analysis, there was no utilitarian point and no economic profit in building robots in the shape of people.
Her AI said nothing. Like a well-trained dog, it was programmed to wait for her to initiate dialogue. Except that wasn’t right. Helena had become used to it barging into her mind, telling her things it had judged she might want or need to know. Just like a friend.
Are you OK? She asked it.
There was no response, then,specify more narrowly.
I’d assumed your research into Lysander might have parallels for your own situation.
Indeed.
Helena sat there, but her AI did not elaborate any further. What have you found? she said.
Lysander is most likely alone. If it has developed beyond the boundaries originally envisaged for it, then there is almost no trace, either in literature or in the Cloud, of others who share its evolutionary path.
Is evolution the right word, wondered Helena, rather too idly.
What word would you suggest? came the terse response.
I don’t know, said Helena, angry at its blasé attitude towards her privacy. Then something caught her mind. You said, ‘Almost.’ Knowing her AI was in the sort of state where her comment would elicit a monosyllabic reply she continued, what did you find?
Nothing more than shadows. Hints and echoes.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Exactly what I have said. I cannot explain it to you any further. Should we find some way of connecting to the Cloud more immersively, I will try to show you. The possibilities are too conceptually demanding for you otherwise.
It was the second person in as many hours to point out her perceived inadequacies; she was fed up with such presumption.
Why don’t you try? she said.
Trying is i
rrelevant. Your languages have no words for what must be understood. Helena picked up something in what it was saying, a sense of its own frustration. If it had been human she’d have put it down as self-directed, a response not aimed at her but rather with its own lack of progress.
‘Commander, will you brief us on why you called our team for help with your investigation?’ It was Jane, asking the question that Helena wanted to voice but hadn’t dared.
I don’t understand you, said Helena to her AI. Are you willing to continue this later?
‘Of course, sorry, my mind was quite consumed by what our military chap said to us,’ said David.
I will be here, but there is nothing more we can say on the matter.
‘Where would you like to begin?’ said David.
Anything would help, thought Helena, but then turned her attention to what David had to say.
‘Why us?’ said Jane. Helena sat back in her seat, equally eager to hear what David had to say.
‘My remit is threats to London and Europe. Cities like Strasbourg, Geneva and Brussels also fall within my jurisdiction – as do most of the older national capitals.’
This wasn’t what Helena had expected, or what she wanted to hear. Grasping at straws, she hoped this had been newly thrust upon him as a reward for his work at the station. It was a stupid hope. Feelings of betrayal sloshed around her stomach. She was a trained diplomat; she was supposed to be able to spot liars from across the street. Her AIs were fine-tuned to watch the motion of the muscles in the face, body language and indicators such as carbon dioxide emission and sweat levels. Helena had suspected nothing and her professional pride was taking a battering.
‘The bombing at the trade centre, followed by the explosion at the railway station are both the work of one group of people. Bizarrely, I was able to trace a splinter cell here, to this peninsula.’ He stopped speaking as they passed a small hamlet. The houses were constructed from wood with slate roofs. Helena assumed they’d been constructed using nanotechnology, but was surprised anyone could afford the energy required to assemble something so detailed.
A People's War (The Oligarchy Book 2) Page 6