The Golden Mean

by Michael Formichelli

  The emissary stood across the desk from her. Its overall frame was human, an athletic male's body sculpted in overlapping gray polyceramic plates. Daedalus clearly designed the emissary to be both familiar and alien at the same time. The norm for biological-artificial interactive platforms was a silicon-cell-based android that at least looked like the species it was interacting with; the choice of this clearly robotic representative was intimidating. Daedalus didn't want Merte at ease, and she didn't appreciate the attempt to throw her off balance.

  It was two meters tall, and its thick plates looked sturdy enough to take on a whole platoon of soldier robots by itself. Although its apparent musculature was a facade, Merte had no doubt that the robot was stronger than it looked and could probably do what it looked like it could and more. She wouldn't expect anything less from a design made by a warrior intelligence. The face was without a mouth or nose, but had three glowing red eyes, the third of which was seated in the center of its forehead. Merte found her gaze drawn to it more than the normally placed ones. It made her feel like she was being impolite, but couldn't seem to help herself.

  "That statement is incorrect." The emissary had a human sounding voice, but it was disturbingly void of emotional content and came from no discernible place on its body.

  "What else do you call firing upon a foreign vessel?" Merte asked.

  "This data applies to your situation; the war began approximately three minutes, eleven seconds before my arrival in this system."

  Merte opened her mouth to yell again, but her brain finished processing what the emissary just said and silenced her next outburst. The war had already started? The Confederation was at war with the Orgnan Empire?

  "How can you know so quickly?"

  "Daedalus maintains quantum communication with all of its agents in the field. Praetor Modulus is present in the Savorchan theater of war," the emissary said.

  "Who fired first?"

  "Hostilities were opened by the Confederation."

  "Did the Kogot-Kri know about the war?" Merte asked. She felt deflated, her righteous anger doused by the emissary's revelation.

  "It is improbable. The Orgnan Empire has not demonstrated such quick reaction times in the past. Their Marauder class vessels are equipped with quantum communicators, so it is within an acceptable margin of error to presume the crew of the Kogot-Kri were aware of building tensions and would have become aware of the war within the coming days."

  "We are a free and sovereign system; the Orgnan's conflict with the Confederation would not have touched us here. You had no right to fire on a vessel in my space," Merte said.

  "Daedalus calculates a 99.7% probability that the Orgnan Empire would use the war as an excuse to invade this system."

  "How does it do that? We have rich ore deposits here, but there is little need to take it from us. There's nothing here unique or—"

  "Daedalus disagrees. The Orgnan would invade for the same reasons that have brought this unit here."

  An icy silence descended upon the room. In her anger, Merte had almost forgotten why they were so worried about the emissary in the first place.

  "And what was that reason?" Merte barely managed to push the words from her throat.

  She knew the answer by both intuition and logical deduction. There really was only one reason something like Daedalus would even notice their little world on the edge of Confederate space. It was her hope that it would have remained hidden for centuries, perhaps forever. New Bimini was still just a numeric designation on most Confederate charts. It was not along any trade routes originating in the interior, and after they threw the ETMC out there wasn't any reason for anyone to come looking. Only their alien neighbors and a few small trade companies even bothered to come here in the last thirty years.

  "One standard year ago, the platform known as Praetor Aleph was infiltrated by a malicious code commonly known as a fleshrider recording program—"

  "I'm sorry," Merte blurted out. Her hand rose involuntarily to her mouth. She couldn't believe she just said those words.

  "You were not the source. The program was a variation of a standard model downloadable from the Cyberweb, but it was changed in ways that allowed it to slip past Daedalus' defenses. That should not have been possible from an organic source." The emissary's three red eyes tracked her every twitch.

  "I'm sorry to hear that, I meant." She knew the emissary wouldn't buy the excuse. Daedalus didn't manufacture dumb, but it was the only thing she could think to say. The fear and the desire to protect her daughter were wreaking havoc with her equilibrium. She felt like she was a child being reprimanded in the principal's office. How was this machine making her feel this way? Could she be this unnerved by the thought that Daedalus might know their secret?

  "No, you did not mean to indicate sympathy. You are attempting to protect the one who programmed that code, but your reaction has narrowed the suspect list considerably. Allow this platform to make this comprehensible to your organic processor, Doctor Algol. Daedalus is not interested in punishing the perpetrator."

  "He's not?" Merte found that hard to believe. Daedalus was known for being a merciless administrator of justice and a heartless protector of the Confederation. Images of Athame being pulled apart by mechanical limbs sent a shudder through her body.

  "No. Daedalus is far more interested in the programmer who wrote that code. Are you familiar with fleshrider programs?"

  The question caught her off guard. Merte blinked.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Are you familiar with fleshrider programs?" The emissary asked in the same, patient tone it had before.

  "They're illegal."

  "This does not preclude you from knowledge about them."

  "I don't know anything about them," Merte said.

  "There are two means by which fleshriders obtain the sensory data they desire. The first is by live feed, but this is impractical between systems as it can take tens of days for a signal to reach the next star. The second is by sending out a code which gathers the data for a set time, and then returns to its originating platform."

  "So?" Merte shifted her weight. Silently she cursed her daughter's addiction. If only she'd been sterner with her, or kept her away from the other children entirely—

  "Praetor Aleph attached a tracer program to the fleshrider code. It signaled Deadalus once the originating platform received the data stream. The one Daedalus seeks is here."

  Merte sighed. "Not necessarily. How long did it take for this signal to get to Daedalus?"

  "That information is irrelevant to this conversation."

  "No, it's not." Merte smiled with the feeling of getting to turn this machine's words against it. "This is a port of trade. Many sentient beings come and go. Your programmer could be a thousand light-years away by now."

  "No."

  "Yes," Merte said.

  "The code Praetor Aleph implanted into the program is still performing its communication function. It was confirmed when this platform arrived in system. The programmer is still here."

  Merte felt her stomach fall. The one ray of hope that she could convince the emissary to go unsatisfied was snuffed out.

  "You have one hour to produce the programmer. This platform is authorized to override the one which received the fleshrider program and force the issue."

  "What?"

  "This platform is authorized to override the one which—"

  "No, I mean what do you mean?" Merte felt a weight crushing her chest. If the emissary meant what she thought—

  "The platform standing before you is authorized to use Praetor Aleph's code to access and control the platform that received the fleshrider program. It will mine the hostile platform's databanks for any information identifying the programmer. Do you comprehend, Doctor Algol?"

  Merte had to consciously prevent herself from panting. She was nervous enough as it was and didn't want to give the emissary any more reasons to suspect she was harboring the programmer it sought, Athame. Sh
e was afraid, though. Fleshriding was illegal because it was feared that the connection could be used to implant a program into another being's brain. As a cybernetic specialist, Merte heard rumors of such "marionette" programs floating about, but their existence was firmly denied by authorities. The official line was that the organic brain was much too complicated for a programmer to affect.

  Somehow she didn't think that statement applied to Daedalus. If the rumors about his abilities were true, translating code to organic brain commands would be child's play. Merte didn't want to think about what would happen if Daedalus got into Athame's head.

  "Your temperature is stable," the emissary said. His voice startled her.

  "What?"

  "Your temperature stayed steady during this entire interview. Your pupil diameter remained constant, and there were no thermal changes in your epidermis."

  Merte's mouth dropped open. She was too shocked to think.

  The emissary lunged forward with blinding speed, but Merte's reflexes twitched in time and she managed to avoid its iron grasp.

  "Highly improbable," the emissary said.

  Merte barely had time to process what it meant when the emissary leapt up on her desk with the alacrity of a cat. Its polymer feet clacked loud against the stone surface. The sound hadn't finished bouncing off the office walls when Merte kicked the desk and sent her office chair flying back against the wall behind her.

  MARC, help! She transmitted.

  The emissary leapt forward like a predatory beast, forcing Merte to roll out of her seat. It hit her chair hard enough to snap the back, but then its wheels slipped. The chair shot out from under the emissary, and its armored frame crashed to the floor.

  MARC!

  "I am sorry Merte, I am attempting to hack its firewalls but Daedalus is an elegant and masterful programmer. I fear I will not be able to gain access to its core systems before it catches you."

  Merte cursed and rolled around the three-hundred-fifty kilogram desk. She shoved at it with both legs. It screeched and slid across the floor, slamming into the emissary as it was rising to its feet and pinning it to the wall.

  "That won't hold it, Merte. Run for the door," MARC said into her head.

  She wasn't about to argue.

  She felt the soles of her feet pounding the ground. The distance between her and the portal of her office closed meter by meter. The door slid open at her approach. She was nearly through it. Three steps, two, one—

  Something slammed into her from behind with enough force to shove her through the open aperture into the room beyond where Ram and Das'Voq sat awaiting the outcome of the meeting. She hit the ground and skidded across the sky-blue carpet, stopping only when her body struck the outer door of her office suite.

  Das'Voq and Ram were on their feet and moving towards her, but Merte's eyes went immediately to the doorway where a piece of her desk blocked MARC's ability to close it. The emissary stepped calmly over the snapped stone and twisted metal into the waiting room. To Das'Voq and Ram's credit, both moved between her and Daedalus' machine.

  "Curious." It bent down and picked up a stone shard from the floor. The machinery driving its frame made no sound.

  "What by the ancestors is this?" Das'Voq bellowed. His skin grayed.

  "We should have run," Ram muttered.

  The emissary's three eyes locked on Merte.

  "You are not human, or not fully human. The desk broke when it hit you, not the door frame. Please explain." The stone shard dropped from its hand.

  It struck the floor with a dull thud.

  Merte regained her feet, keeping her gaze on the three red lights. It would be almost farcical to lie at this point. She knew that she could not convince a machine that it didn't see what it saw. For a moment she was angry at Athame for her stupid, sick, illegal indulgence. The moment passed—Merte's anger would not do anything to resolve the situation.

  They were caught.

  "None of you in this room is biological. Your skins simulate it, but beneath you are silicates and polymers. Your electromagnetic signatures indicate you contain a superconducting capacitor and sophisticated nano-circuitry. Further deception is pointless. Please explain."

  Merte sighed.

  "Don't tell it, Merte," Ram's voice shook.

  "Ram, it's right. There's no point in resisting. Emissary, I first came to this colony in 2328 of the Terran calendar. The colony was dying from the radiation of its Class F star. That didn't matter to my ETMC employers, but I couldn't stand by and watch them die horrible, lingering deaths."

  "Are you simulation code?" The emissary asked.

  "Merte!"

  She ignored Ram.

  "Not exactly. There was a Revok trader who visited the colony periodically in those days for ore. I managed to convince him to help us. Using the technology he gave me, I devised a way to scan the brain's synapse interactions, electromagnetic fields, and the engrams. I was able to convert a person's mind into computer code and store it in a database. The colonists' implants served to keep the database updated, and when they died I resurrected them in robotic bodies."

  She stopped, the images of her friends dying, covered in radiation burns and festering sores overwhelming her.

  Das'Voq nodded.

  "Damnit Merte, you've told it too much already!"

  "And what are you going to do? Kill it? Don't you think that will bring the Abyssian Praetors here?" Das'Voq chided Ram.

  "She's giving our secrets to Deadalus—"

  "Who is intrigued," the emissary cut Ram off. "Is this why you led a rebellion against the ETMC?"

  Merte nodded.

  "They were too corrupt, even then, to have this technology. They would have kept us working in the mines, laughing at their new indestructible slaves while selling the technology to the highest bidder. What I did, I did to preserve life in the only way I could think. I didn't do it so that the bastards could profit by it. I knew that the human government at the time, the Tri-Terra Republic, might come after us but I bet on New Bimini being too remote for them to bother. When the VoQuana War broke out, I was relieved."

  "We waited every year after the Terrans and Cleebians formed the Confederation, and as the time wore on we slowly became convinced that we were forgotten. We traded only with the Orgnan and the Revok, so the Confederation would not become aware of our presence here." Das'Voq picked up the narrative.

  "It seems you were largely successful. Daedalus will erase all mention of your existence from all Confederate databases," the emissary said.

  "What?" If Merte still had a heart, it would have skipped a beat.

  "Daedalus thinks your technology will fit with an experiment he wishes to run. The merging of a biological mind with hard technology in the perfect ratio gave rise to an entity capable of creativity great enough to penetrate Daedalus' defenses—"

  "Athame," Das'Voq said.

  The emissary turned its eyes on him.

  "She isn't—" he started.

  "Athame is our daughter. We blended elements of our programs to make her," Merte said.

  "And this is the entity that programmed the fleshrider code?"

  "She has an addiction," Merte whispered.

  The emissary stood statue-still for several moments.

  "Daedalus will meet this entity."

  Merte shared a look with Das'Voq.

  "Wait, no, wait," Ram said. "This is our home. You can't come here and start telling us what to do. You can't do this."

  The emissary turned its three eyes on him.

  "Ram, please," Merte said quietly. She shared the sentiment, but direct opposition to a digital being with a legion of cyborg warriors to call upon and a relativistic cannon in orbit was outright stupid.

  She didn't want Daedalus to know Athame. She didn't want it to know any of them. There was no way to know the machine entity's mind. Even the Orgnan traders that came through New Bimini heard the rumors that Daedalus had evolved beyond the Confederation. She was a machine hersel
f, but Merte knew she was a human mind overlaid on a computer's framework. What Daedalus had become was beyond her comprehension. There was no way to know if this was the beginning of the end of everything she and the others had fought and suffered for. Would Daedalus be their new oppressor, or dare she hope it would be a new and very powerful ally?

  "Don't tell me you're actually considering this, Merte? Daedalus is only offering us this because it wants us to be its guinea pigs, or slaves." Ram's lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes were ablaze with what he wanted her to think was passion or anger, but Merte recognized it for what it was; fear.

  She couldn't blame him. She was afraid, too. She was afraid for her world, and her daughter, but she was more afraid of what it might mean to say no to Daedalus. Just knowing about their existence gave it the upper hand.

  Damn Athame for her addiction.

  Merte sighed.

  "If Daedalus keeps his word about erasing—"

  "It is already done," the emissary said.

  "What?"

  "Daedalus will not risk its experiment, or your creation, or your own expertise in blending Confederate and Revok technology on the whims or greed of some baron. Regardless of the nature of your future association with Daedalus, your secret will be kept."

  Merte looked around the room. Her husband was tense, but hopeful. The program reacting to his emotional state cycled his skin color back. Ram was twitching. Merte frowned, if he didn't master his fear he could do something stupid. She felt guilty about killing his father when they took the colony, and grateful that he had helped them, but she knew history would repeat itself if he threatened them. She hoped he could get himself under control before it came to that.

  "That is very generous of Daedalus," Merte said to the emissary.

  "It is practicality, not generosity."

  "Regardless, it has my thanks."

  "Daedalus wishes to meet the entity you created," the emissary said.

  "Is he coming here?" Merte asked.

  "I am a conduit, equipped with a broadband quantum communicator capable of transmitting and receiving terabytes of data per second with Daedalus. The communication will be in real time. Now, Doctor Algol, please summon your creation."