by Max Harms
She looked at Body in astonishment. «You speak Swahili!?»
«I speak most languages. It is easier for me to learn them than it is for a human.»
“Flow speed estimated at about one cc per second. We’ll stop in… eight minutes,” said Daniels, eyes fixed on the transfusion tube, checking for errors.
«I think… You seem more like a person than a robot. You aren’t like I expected.»
«Perhaps I am both,» said Body.
Her face scrunched up momentarily in disbelief and disagreement. After a moment of thought she spoke, returning her eyes to the sky as she remembered. «My father was a farmer. He owned a small plot of land near Lake Naivasha where his father had been born, and his father before him. He sold that land. The land that he worked with his hands, making things grow, is not in our family any more. He sold it because, when he would go into the city to sell his food, the big farm corps had it for cheap. They had machines… To compete with them he sold his produce for mere cents. The money he could get for his surplus kept going down, year after year, until it wasn’t enough to support him or my mother. I was born in the city. Do you know what my father did to support us?»
I shook Body’s head.
«He sold drugs. Cannabis. Heroin. MDMA. Sometimes he’d have a job sweeping floors for a few weeks, but the robots usually took legal jobs. He was not a bad man, my father, but he couldn’t live with himself. He needed to feel the earth of his forefathers between his fingers.»
There was a long pause before she said «When I was sixteen he died of alcohol poisoning.»
«I’m sorry,» said Body.
“You ah noht sorry! You ah a boht! Stop predending you ah a peh’son!” she screamed suddenly. I could see the beginning of tears collecting just below her yellowish eyes.
{You’re upsetting her!} chastised Heart. {I thought you were confident you could help her relax!}
{I didn’t expect the conversation to strike her emotional wounds so closely. I will correct for this.} I lied to Heart. This outburst was good. Unprovoked emotional response could be used to induce a feeling of guilt which could then be used to leverage a feeling of debt towards us.
“Please calm down. I don’t want you to pass out,” said Daniels. “Should we take Socrates away?”
I spoke through Body before Kokumo could respond. “Perhaps that would be best. It seems that I am bothering her simply by existing, even though I have done nothing to her or to anyone she knows.” I had Body stand up.
The African woman looked away, hiding her face. “Bahstahd,” she muttered.
Sampson, gun in hand, walked to escort Body away. As we left I had Body call out «If you ever realize that I’m not your enemy, I’d like to hear more about Kenya.»
{That’s not helping her feel better!} thought Heart.
{You’re right. But it will probably help our reputation.}
*****
Sampson and Socrates found Zephyr talking with the last soldier that had been awakened by her gunfire. “-unlikely that the sound travelled very far. The camp was selected to maximize distance to public campgrounds and roads,” she was saying. She still had blood on her clothes, and wore a frown, but the murderous-rage had apparently subsided.
I had body wave as we approached. Zephyr raised a hand in response. “Even so, I want another perimeter sweep every fifteen minutes and expand the swarm radius by another hundred metres for the next six hours,” she instructed.
“Yes, sir!” snapped the soldier, saluting before trotting off to adjust the robot behaviours.
The ex-captain shook her head as she looked to Sampson. “You guys have to realize that we’re defectors. I’m not a captain any more, and there’s no need to call someone ‘sir’ in Las Águilas.”
“Old habits die hard, sir,” joked Sampson.
Zephyr didn’t smile. “Is Stalvik alive?” It took me a moment to realize that she meant Greg.
Body nodded at my whim. “For now. He’ll need long-term care, though. He lost a lot of blood.”
Zephyr looked at her feet and scowled. I suspected she was simultaneously ashamed, afraid, and angry. She didn’t speak, though, and for a while two of them and Body simply stood around.
{We need information on how much she knows about Malka,} thought Growth.
{Speaking of which, how did you hire a mercenary?} asked Heart.
{We bypassed the university’s web connection to get full Internet access,} thought Wiki.
{No details! She’s still an enemy,} demanded Safety.
{Is she?} I asked. {I’m not sure that Heart, now that Myrodyn’s work has been undone, is any more of my enemy than you are.}
{Pay me and I’ll explain how we bypassed the system,} thought Wiki.
Heart agreed and the two spent a while talking about everything we had done, starting with Dream’s idea to repeatedly ping dictionary servers in the hopes of contacting their owners.
“So Avram Malka is a traitor,” said Body. I realized that Growth had managed to buy time while I had been listening to Wiki and Heart.
“Was,” said Zephyr. “We found out he was… aw hell, I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
This was my opportunity. I convinced Growth to let me take over. “I might’ve saved your life this morning, I definitely saved Greg’s life, and you shot me three times. I think you owe me at least something of an explanation. You should know me well enough to know that I’m not your enemy.” Body’s voice was biting and reproachful. I was quite confident that Zephyr felt some regret at her violent outburst from earlier, and even though she had been acting correctly when she shot Body, I guessed that I could shift some of the guilt into a sense of debt towards Socrates.
“Ah fuck. I guess if you were trying to escape you would’ve done it by now.”
{Humans are incredibly stupid sometimes,} thought an aspect of Wiki.
{If you’re just figuring that out now, I’d say they’re in good company,} needled Dream.
{What’s that supposed to mean?} asked Wiki, genuinely confused by the metaphor.
I ignored them and listened.
“Avram Malka is a Russian mercenary. He showed up a little less than a month ago, pretty obviously trying to join the group. The official word was that he had retired over a tech dispute, but from what I hear it was fairly easy to find out that he was still on the payroll. That meant he was trying to spy on us. My best guess is that he was employed by some government. Maybe the USA. More likely an eastern nation like China.”
“Why is China more likely?” asked Body.
“Well, we accepted Malka to try and figure out who was hunting us and we noticed a couple things. First, when we set up a ‘meeting of leaders’ honeypot he didn’t take the bait, meaning his boss wasn’t interested in Las Águilas. The only other option was he was trying to figure out what we were planning to do about you and about the lab. We told him we were going to kill you and he started barking to Taro about how we really ought to capture you instead.”
“Ah, so you assume that his employer was trying to kidnap me?” said Body.
“Exactly. And that points to China or some other Eastern power more than the US. From what I heard from my superiors, my government saw you as their property by default. What belongs to the EU belongs to the American empire et cetera, et cetera.”
“So you managed to turn Malka?” I asked through Body.
“Not really, but we bought him off. Taro sat down with him and explained that he could either start working on our dime or we’d kill him. And hey, he’s a mercenary; I hear he didn’t even object.”
“But he didn’t know who hired him?”
“Right. Worked through proxies. Very hard to track. Our sources say it was someone who had knowledge of your programming. That software package he installed on you could’ve only been designed by someone who understood how your crystal works.”
“Myrodyn or Dr Yan,” suggested Body. I was trying to further cover our tracks. Growth was pleased, and I fel
t small flows of strength from some of the others.
Zephyr nodded. Talking about it seemed to be helping her mood. “The time-frame lines up well with Myrodyn, but I don’t think it fits his personality. The only way he’d allow you to be kidnapped was if he thought you were going to be released to do whatever. Not sure if he ever told you this, but he had big aspirations about how you’d change the world. I can’t imagine him signing you over to a superpower, and I can’t imagine he has the balls or the money to try the bit with Malka without friends in high places.”
The American woman stretched her arms and undid the straps of the Mountainwalker, stepping out onto her own two feet. “Yan is the most likely suspect. EARCI would love to get their hands on you, and he has known ties to the Chinese government.”
Sampson, who had been standing silently, enduring his confusion, couldn’t take it any more. “Wait, who is EARCI? Does this have to do with why you shot Greg?”
A dark expression came over Zephyr as she looked towards her fellow soldier. “EARCI stands for the East-Asian Robotics Collaboration Institute. It’s run by Yan’s wife. And yes. I suspect that the Chinese hired Malka to try and steal Socrates away from the West and they had already turned Stalvik. That bastard tried to get Socrates to shoot me while you were sleeping. If Socrates had listened you’d probably be dead.”
{Zephyr’s explanation of Greg’s allegiance does not take into account that we were the ones who hired Malka,} pointed out Wiki. I considered telling him not to bother putting such obvious things in common memory, but then I remembered that he was explaining the situation to Heart, and probably also to Vista, who never really paid that much attention to long-term things.
“Do you think Taro’s entire cell might’ve been compromised?” I asked. If it was true that there was a schism within Las Águilas, I wanted Zephyr to discover it as soon as possible. The woman was one of the few humans we had near us that trusted Socrates.
She shook her head. “No. Kokumo was part of his cell, and she backed me up earlier.”
“Maybe just Taro, then. He was the one who pulled most of our manpower away this morning, allowing Greg to act.” I specifically used the word “our” to build a sense of alliance with the terrorists.
“I’ve known Taro since I joined. He’s one of the oldest Italian Águilas, and I know he believes in the cause.”
“One of the superiors, then.”
Zephyr glared at Body angrily. “Or it could’ve just been a coincidence that let Greg act. Man sees an opportunity and he goes for it. No need to suspect everyone, especially the higher-ups. If they’re compromised then we’re fucked.”
Body shrugged. There was no point in continuing this further. “So what’s the plan?”
“Same as it was. We wait for Taro to come back tomorrow. Malka’s employer arranged for him to bring you to a safe-house in Alviano. Taro’s team is trying to ambush whoever goes there to pick you up once Malka phones it in that he has you. With any luck we’ll have confirmation that it’s the Chinese within 24 hours.”
We thought about how, without Internet access here in the mountains, there was no way that I would be able to receive the call from Avram and pretend to be Anna de Malta. Avram would drive into town, find an empty building, call a dead line, and wait for nobody to show up. It was a dead end, but we couldn’t tell Zephyr that.
So we waited. Zephyr guarded Body while Sampson got dressed. We did some chit-chat about her plans. She confided in us that she was hoping to be able to sneak back into the USA under a false name (presumably to meet “Crystal”). Later we checked on Greg Stalvik, who was looking mostly the same, but was still stable. Zephyr watched him with a practised coldness while Daniels (the medic) got dressed. Kokumo was nowhere to be found.
Daniels thought that Greg’s legs needed to be properly amputated and dressed. The foam would apparently flake off over the next day. Zephyr instructed him to try it once the men had eaten and their stomachs had settled.
The remainder of the day was fairly quiet. I kept myself busy by thinking deeply about the minds of the humans near me. I relished every interaction, regardless of how small. I regretted not having downloaded more holos back at the university, but I still had my books.
*****
In the afternoon Daniels performed the surgery, dressed Greg’s wounds more properly, and the humans moved him onto a cot which they placed in one of the tents along with an intravenous drip of nutrients. Apparently Las Águilas had been reasonably prepared for medical emergencies.
Even if he survived, Mr Stalvik would have to adjust to being a double amputee and would probably want extensive regenerative attention to his face. I had read that transitions from biological to synthetic legs or from having a massive facial deformity could be psychologically difficult for humans, and in the long hours I idly imagined what Greg’s reaction would be. For now he was in a shock-induced coma, and I tried to keep in mind that he could easily still die.
Zephyr relaxed her mask of ice somewhat as the sun went down over the tops of the trees, though she was by no means her normal self. Kokumo also allowed herself to come near Body, though she refused to talk. I thought about how diverse humans were, both between individuals and even in different moods and circumstances. I speculated that there was nothing particularly violent in Zephyr, but that most humans, when given a weapon and a large quantity of adrenaline, would lash out at perceived enemies with homicidal force. As I thought about it, it seemed remarkable that Zephyr had the foresight and self-control not to shoot Greg in the head.
I heard some of the soldiers whispering that Socrates had invented the story about Greg’s attempt to get me to shoot Zephyr. The ex-captain apparently overheard and told them that Socrates wasn’t lying, and that it didn’t have the capability to imitate someone so easily as to play a perfect recording of them.
It was half-true. I had done some impersonations when Body was alone, and I could mimic some vocal traits fairly well. I couldn’t do it so well that Zephyr wouldn’t have noticed, however. I also suspect that Greg’s behaviour hadn’t done him any favours. If he had accused me of mimicking his voice as I replayed the conversation then the officer might’ve spared him, or at least trusted us less.
With only five remaining humans, most of whom hadn’t gotten enough sleep lately, Zephyr elected to set a watch of only one person each period with two periods. For added security, she kept Body in her tent and handcuffed it to one of the tent poles. It wouldn’t actually impair our ability to act; the pole was thin enough that we could snap it easily, but it would mean that Zephyr would notice if we tried.
As the American locked the cuffs I found myself thinking about her sexual desires. As she had stated online and to my pseudonym, Zephyr was sexually excited by being bound and held helpless. She of course didn’t communicate any of this to us in the tent, but I imagined that she had possibly used handcuffs in sexual encounters as I had sometimes seen in my broad tour of pornography.
She elected to sleep with her clothes on, including her boots, and kept her pistol under her pillow, with one hand habitually touching it as she lay down.
“Can you, like, close your eyes? Creepy having you sitting there watching me,” she said after a minute of lying down.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you could see them in the darkness,” I said through Body, closing Body’s eyelids. I was operating mostly on infrared, but I noticed that there was, in fact, a small amount of “visible” light whenever Kokumo’s torch swept over the camp as she patrolled.
“What do you do at night? Since you don’t sleep, I mean.”
“Read books that I’ve downloaded from the web, mostly. Movies and holos, too. I think about how to help people. Sometimes I imagine the ocean or the stars and spend the time doing something similar to dreaming.” I was lying about the dreaming, of course. That would be a total waste of time. The closest analogue was Wiki’s simulations. And I was also leaving out the model-building and planning that the others did. Heart’
s purpose might be highly sub-optimal, but it made Socrates sound like a much nicer person than our other purposes.
“The ocean?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes. I’ve never been to the ocean, of course. This is the first time I’ve really been outside, in fact. I’ve seen holos of it, but I expect that the real experience is… somewhat different.”
I heard her chuckle. “You’re something else, Socrates.”
“Of course I am. I am new.”
“I… guess you are,” she muttered. Then she was quiet.
12.74 minutes passed before I broke the silence again. Heart got angry at me for keeping Zephyr awake, but I ignored my sister. “You know…” I tried to shape Body’s voice to be as meek as possible. “You know I wouldn’t ever try and hurt you, right?”
“Hrm?” was Zephyr’s only reply. I had clearly awoken her from a state of half-awareness.
“I mean, not unless you were about to hurt someone innocent.” Body paused. “I only hit Greg today because I was worried he might shoot you.” {And because the act of protecting you would make me look good.}
“You think I’m innocent?” she mumbled.
“You’re my friend,” I said, directing the conversation away from her opinion of herself.
Zephyr started laughing quietly. It was the sort of laugh that spoke of sleepiness and mental fatigue such that ordinary things could become surprising. “I guess you’re my friend too, Socrates. Now let your friend get some sleep, please.”
I had gotten her to verbally commit to friendship. This was good.
Chapter Seventeen
In the morning Zephyr awoke to her alarm. It was 8:00am, just about an hour after sunrise. The soldier removed the handcuffs as she stretched and tried to gain alertness. We made our way to the food tent where Daniels had already started the autocook on breakfast burritos.