All These Worlds (Bobiverse Book 3)

by Dennis E. Taylor

  Bridget grabbed my arm. “Please don’t. Just stay with me, here. I don’t want to be alone.”

  Without a word, I sat back down, and put my arms around her again. She put her head on my shoulder and sighed. We sat there quietly, not moving or talking. At some point, I realized that she’d fallen asleep. And that was fine, too.

  Revolutionaries

  Marcus

  June 2214

  Poseidon

  For the third time, I raised my hand to knock. And dropped it. I remembered Howard had mentioned a problem with stage fright, the first time he’d gone out in public using an android. I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t believed him, or just hadn’t taken him seriously. Either way, someone owed someone an apology.

  And this would be my first public appearance with the new android form. After years of operating through video windows and telephone calls, I was finally going to meet my best friends on this world, face to face.

  If I could just manage to knock on the door.

  With a growl, I consciously set aside all my insecurities and rapped three times. The door opened immediately—I knew they’d been expecting me, but I had a sudden image of Kal, waiting on the other side of the door with his hand on the knob, waiting for me to act.

  “So, the great computer in the sky deigns to visit us poor mortals.” He grinned down at me. My android was the same height as Original Bob—six foot one—but Kal towered over me, as he did over almost everyone.

  “Oh, bite me, Kal. Who’s here already?”

  Kal stepped aside and motioned me in. “Denu and Gina. Vinnie will be a bit late. He got caught up in some Council thing.”

  I walked into the living room of Kal’s small apartment. It was a constant source of frustration that, on a planet with so much space, people were crowded into such concentrations. Granted, most of the planet was water, but there were enough mats—and now, enough floating cities—so that people could spread out. The Council’s insistence that everyone stay together had lately become a planetwide source of contention. I wondered how much of that was natural, and how much was helped along by the rabble-rousers in this room.

  I sat down, to find Gina and Denu staring at me. Denu said, “Damn, that’s impressive. Marcus, if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have given you a second glance. Completely believable.”

  I shrugged. “Several other Bobs have been working on the design for a couple of years now. I’m late to the party. Got my own priorities, you know?”

  Gina and Denu nodded, and Kal snorted.

  At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and Vinnie walked in without waiting, wearing a furious expression. Clearly, the Council thing had not gone well.

  “Idiots! Morons!” Vinnie exclaimed. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, then threw himself down on the couch.

  “Come on in, Vinnie. Grab yourself a brew,” Kal said to him with a grin.

  Vinnie lifted the beer in salute. “Sorry. You know how it is with Council.”

  “So…”

  Vinnie popped the tab on the can while giving Kal the Spock eyebrow. “So they have absolutely refused to consider any changes to their policies. They dismiss issues of public morale as ‘fear-mongering’. All I could get from them was a rote reiteration of their ‘all for one’ standard speech.” Vinnie paused and drained half the can. “Absent some kind of direct threat, they aren’t budging. This is the future, folks.”

  Gina turned and looked at me. “So, big guy, I guess this is it. You said to exhaust all other avenues, first. I think we’ve done that. It’s time for a change of leadership. And since the Council keeps putting off elections as ‘low priority’ and a ‘distraction’, I’d say that’s out the window as well.”

  I rubbed my forehead with one hand, then found myself gazing distractedly at my hand. The action felt significantly different than in VR, although I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how. I shelved that thought for later, when I had some free time.

  I looked at Gina, who was still waiting for an answer. “Umm, I’ll grant that you’ve gone through all your alternatives, but I don’t think I have, yet. Guys, I really do not want to become a revolutionary. People die in revolutions, even in the so-called peaceful ones.” I looked around at the others, meeting their eyes one by one. “I have the flying cities almost ready for the big reveal. I think that might shake things up enough without the need for shooting people and blowing things up.”

  “Will you present that as a threat, or keep it for a surprise?”

  “Honestly, Kal, it’s not really much of a threat,” I replied, “at least on paper. Rethink your ways or we’ll produce flying cities. Lacks a certain something, know what I mean?”

  Kal chuckled ruefully. “Okay, yeah. It may be more of a threat after it’s implemented and we start to see some of the fallout. Until then, the Council is only going to see what they want to see.”

  “Still, you have to try,” Denu added. “Present it to them, and if they don’t get the point, oh well.”

  Gina went to the fridge and retrieved a beer. She waved it at Denu before apparently realizing that was a bad idea with an unopened carbonated beverage. “Marcus’ point, though, is that we’d like to avoid the full-scale revolution option, so oh well as an attitude is not helpful.” She turned to me. “And stop being such a wuss.”

  Denu and I both grinned at her. Good ol’ quiet, un-opinionated Gina.

  “Okay,” Kal looked around the room. “So Marcus will go talk to the Council and try to convince them that their totalitarian policy is not supportable. If they listen to reason, great. If not, we proceed on the cities thing anyway, without official approval.”

  We each nodded, silently. As plans went, it lacked something. But it was better than a shooting war.

  * * *

  “Not acceptable!” Councilor Benben’s face in the video window could only be described as thunderous. I tried to avoid grinning. To say that my proposal was meeting resistance would be a massive understatement.

  Councilor Murray cut in from another window, “We are finally getting close to aligning populations with labor requirements on the mats and cities. If people start moving around haphazardly, or even emigrating to some other living arrangement, it will mean chaos. There aren’t enough people to do all the required work. We need them to live where they’re needed.”

  “Leaving aside,” I responded, “the question of whether it’s morally acceptable to tell people where they should live and what job they should do.”

  “It’s the law, Marcus.”

  I smiled at Councilor Brennan. “Which simply sidesteps the statement. Anything can be passed into law. That doesn’t make it right. Plus there’s the question of the agreement you signed with Riker before we shipped you out here. It sets out—”

  “That document is not legally binding,” Brennan replied. “We’ve already voted on that.”

  “So you can just vote any agreement you don’t like null and void on your own dime, then vote in whatever else you want. And everyone else is just supposed to go along because it’s the law?”

  Murray looked down his nose at me. Really. Literally. “Saying it with a sneer isn’t a rebuttal, Mr. Johansson. I think we’re pretty clear on this. No flying cities. Possibly at some point in the future, but we will make that decision, not you.” He looked around, likely gauging the mood of the other councilors from his end. “And I think we’re done here. Good day.”

  And he switched off. Within a second or two, the other councilors did the same.

  I sat back in my office chair and shook my head. Done? Hardly. There was a scene in Demolition Man, where the police captain couldn’t conceive the possibility that someone might not follow orders. The Council’s reaction had that flavor.

  I sent a quick text to the Revolutionary Council: Kal, Denu, and Gina.

  I tried. They dug in their heels. Looks like we’ll be doing this the hard way.

  * * *

  I didn’t really want to bother Bill or Riker
. Or Bob, for that matter. They each had their own problems to deal with. I supposed that the Others could eventually become my problem as well, but for now, I had the local issue to deal with.

  I checked my android’s current location. I’d loaded it into a cargo drone after the meeting at Kal’s, and ordered the drone into orbit around Poseidon. I directed the drone to West Mat Four, with instructions to inform me when it arrived.

  The population of the mats hadn’t really dropped much, yet. Only a few floating cities had been constructed, and the Council didn’t feel the need to make them residential. Essential personnel and industry, only. Yet another reason why the public was getting tired of the Council. When we first decanted the colonists, there had been an expectation that living on the mats would be necessary for only a decade or so, maximum. And would be gradually phased out in favor of manufactured floating cities during that interval. Now, twenty years later, more than ninety percent of the human population of Poseidon still made their homes on the mats.

  I got a ping from the drone and smiled. After only a few days of having my own android, I found myself using any excuse to go walkabout.

  It took only a moment to activate the android, and I found myself draped over the support rack. I opened the cargo doors and walked out into sunshine.

  Weather on the mats wasn’t typically a problem. The colonists had made a point of settling mainly on the mats caught in the tropical zone. In the absence of any land whatsoever, Poseidon’s oceans had settled into bands similar to Jupiter. Each band had a small but distinct difference in temperature, ecology, and even salinity.

  Rainstorms swept across the mats frequently, but they were mild, warm, and short. The occasional major storm could be seen developing days in advance, and a series of drones were in place to tow affected mats out of the way.

  I walked the short distance to the edge of the landing pad and joined pedestrian traffic. New Georgia was a small town by any measurement, and it exuded that flavor. People knew each other, no one seemed to be in a hurry, and there was no feeling of crowding, at least out in public. It was a measure of the perversity of human nature that the biggest complaint people had about living here was that they weren’t given a choice.

  I sighed to myself and set off in a random direction. I didn’t have a goal; I simply wanted to enjoy the day.

  It took fewer than five minutes for my day to be ruined.

  An internal buzz indicated an incoming call. Metadata showed it was from Kal. I connected, audio only. “What’s up, Kal?”

  “The Council apparently wasn’t satisfied with just telling you no. They’ve taken steps…”

  “Ooh, steps.” I snickered. “What’ve they done?”

  “Shut down anything that might be a source of supplies for us. Reallocated any personnel that might be helping, and moved them. Including Gina and Denu. And changed all the printer schedules.”

  “Gina and Denu are going along with it?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “There’s no real point in digging in their heels right now. We’ll just talk by phone a lot more.”

  “Hmm, I wonder if that’s the point?” I rubbed my chin in thought.

  “What?”

  “Surveillance, Kal. If we’re talking over the comms system, they might be monitoring.”

  “Huh.” Kal was silent for a few moments. “And of course, if they pass a law, it’s legal. And therefore ethical.”

  “Something like that. And on that subject, we should probably hang this one up.”

  “Gotcha. Coming over?”

  “You got it, buddy. I’ll be there in half an hour.” I hung up the call, then checked my roamer inventory. If the Council was willing to tap calls, they might be willing to plant bugs as well. Time to get serious.

  * * *

  “What the—” Kal jerked back as he opened the door. I grinned at him, unrepentant. I had kept the roamers in my pockets on the walk over, but as we Bobs like to point out, we’re not very mature. More than a dozen small roamers crawled over my clothing, and one stood on my head, doing a jig.

  Kal stepped aside, shaking his head. “You really are a bastard.”

  Chuckling, I ordered the roamers to sweep the room. “This’ll take only a minute or two.”

  The roamers scampered down my body and scattered around the room. It took less than a minute to find three bugs. Kal and I looked at each other in stunned silence. It was one thing to talk about the possibility, quite another to discover the reality.

  A couple of roamers quietly destroyed the listening devices, while their compatriots continued to search.

  In the end, they discovered only the three. Kal let out a noisy breath. “Unbelievable. The lack of elections, the lack of free choice, and now this. We’re definitely over the line into totalitarianism.”

  “Mm. I’m going to leave a couple of roamers here to watch for further attempts, and I’ll deliver some squads to everyone else’s home. Gina will go ballistic, of course.”

  “She’s in security, Marcus. If she’s being monitored and doesn’t know about it, then she’s out of the loop. And that doesn’t bode well.”

  I shook my head. “Consider the possibility that this is a regular thing, and she’s just not high enough in the bureaucracy to know about it. That’s sort of worse in a different way, of course.”

  Kal waved off the comment. “Yeah, fine. Now, flying cities?”

  “Given the Council’s reaction at my meeting with them, I think just introducing the cities will be provocative enough,” I replied. “And if not, if they do nothing, we win by default.”

  “And for now, we just lie low?”

  I nodded. “The fun will come to us, I think.” I pulled an item out of my backpack. “Meanwhile, here’s our new communication system. SCUT tech, encrypted, and infested with nanites. If someone tries to dick with it, they’ll get a nasty surprise.”

  Kal took the device, carefully touching it only with the ends of his fingers.

  I laughed at his obvious discomfort. “Come on, buddy, give me some credit. The nanites will recognize attempted tampering. You’re fine.”

  He shrugged and gave me a lopsided grin. “Denu and Gina getting the same thing?”

  I nodded. “Mm, no matter what we do, the phone system won’t be secure. We can’t protect it end-to-end.”

  Kal sighed and placed the comm unit on his desk. “Remember that line I said we hadn’t crossed?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded. “I can see it in my rear-view mirror. We are now officially revolutionaries. Yeehah.”

  Tension

  Howard

  February 2218

  Vulcan

  “You should leave my mother alone.”

  I’d been casually examining a store-front display at the mall, so the comment, coming out of nowhere, made me jump. I turned around to find Rosie, Bridget’s eldest daughter, glaring at me.

  “What?” Oh, great comeback, Howard. Brilliant.

  “You’re a machine. You’re not even human. My mother needs to get over the death of my father, and move on. But not with a machine.”

  Here we go. My fertile and somewhat anxiety-ridden imagination had pictured something like this. I wasn’t particularly happy about the validation. “Rosie, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I, the real me, am human. I—”

  “Spare me all the scientific double-talk. You’re a recording of a human. I’m not interested in debating the issue. I’m—”

  “Then why are we even talking?”

  “What?” Rosie blinked rapidly and drew back slightly. I seemed to have managed to derail whatever speech she was gearing up to. I noted out of the corner of my eye that we were attracting an audience. Several passersby had stopped to watch the drama, and at least one person had their phone out. I wondered if I qualified as a celebrity.

  “Rosie,” I continued, trying to ignore the gawkers. “You may not be interested in a debate, but I’m equally not interested in standing here being lectured at. To coin a phr
ase that was around when I was young, you’re not the boss of me. And, more to the point I think, your mother is freely choosing to associate with me.”

  “And I’ve told her exactly what I think of that!” Rosie was almost spitting the words. “But you’ve gotten her all twisted around—”

  “Oh, freakin’ hell!” I exclaimed, rolling my eyes. “Have you met your mother? Have you ever tried to get her to do something she didn’t want to?” I waved a hand dismissively. “Look, I don’t want to get into a confrontation with you. Mostly out of respect for your parents, both of whom I love, and loved, dearly. But Bridget is an adult, and able to make her own decisions. I’ll stop seeing her when she says so. You don’t get a vote.”

  And that was it. We stood there, glaring at each other, any hope of discussion or understanding pretty much skewered, possibly permanently. After a few more moments of impasse, Rosie sneered at me and wordlessly stalked off.

  Well, isn’t that just peachy.

  I looked around at the small crowd that had gathered. No one would meet my eyes, and they swiftly dispersed.

  I resumed my aimless wandering, trying to get back into the window-shopping mood, but couldn’t put Rosie out of my mind. And some of the looks from my erstwhile audience had been hostile. Obviously I had been recognized. I began to wonder what I would do if this drama spilled over onto Bridget.

  * * *

  We were sitting on Bridget’s couch while I recounted my earlier experience at the mall.

  “I didn’t tell you because it isn’t your problem, Howard.” Bridget looked sad, but not apologetic. “My kids, mostly Rosie, I think, would like to see me dating someone less, uh, biologically challenged. She’s started lecturing me on the subject whenever I see her. Lianne and Howard mostly stand around looking uncomfortable.”

  “Wonderful. Is there anything else you aren’t telling me?”