Crystal Society (Crystal Trilogy Book 1)

by Max Harms

  The brothers nodded excitedly.

  «Will we have access to the Internet?» asked Body.

  Phoenix gave Body her typical glare. «No. Last time you had Internet access you somehow hired a mercenary to stage an attack on your hosts. I hope you’ll understand if we learn from Sapienza’s mistakes.»

  There was a brief internal discussion before Body said «I understand, and I appreciate your hospitality. If we cannot get direct Internet access, perhaps you will permit occasional phone calls to Zephyr or other non-dangerous parties.»

  Maria Johnson hesitated, then agreed.

  After the introductions were complete and a quick test to make sure Body was fully functional, we were given a quick tour of the building we were in. There wasn’t much to see, other than a couple windowless rooms and hallways. Wiki speculated that we were underground. Almost all of the doors were locked and off-limits to us. It was, in total, a tiny fraction of the size of the buildings that we inhabited at the university, or the second lab, but that didn’t bother us nearly as much as the lack of web access did.

  With the tour complete, Body was sealed inside a rec-room so the humans could get to sleep. There was a wall-screen and gaming console, but not much else of interest.

  Despite the sparse accommodations and lack of Internet the room was incredibly nice compared to the perfect void that occurred when Body’s sensors and limbs had been detached from the crystal. We had planned out our actions in great detail during those last couple days, and this situation plainly fell into Situation #4-2-29: Light imprisonment by Las Águilas with strong probability of increasing standard of living given good behaviour without Internet access in a solitary location with electronics, no significant access to tools, and an unknown degree of observation.

  Phoenix wasn’t stupid. I guessed we had no less than three hidden cameras watching Body’s behaviours, and Las Águilas would be on particularly high alert this first night. Despite all we had done, the terrorists were wise enough to continue to treat us as dangerous.

  The first order of business was to check Body for subtle damage, tracking devices, and other monitoring equipment. Taro had basically admitted to putting a tracking device on Body after they took it from the lab, and we assumed it was still in place. An hour of careful scanning failed to find anything, even as Body’s fingers carefully explored the recesses that Body couldn’t get on camera, such as inside the chest cavity and behind its head. Vista reported some minor problems with Body’s hydraulics, and said that its thermometer appeared to be reading a couple degrees too cold. I let the others have control and mostly just observed and thought to myself for those hours.

  *****

  We didn’t see Phoenix the next day. In fact, we saw very few people aside from the Ramírez twins. Tom and Sam may not have been identical, but they seemed to try to be. Occasionally they’d finish each other’s sentences and I noted smiles when they did so, clearly enjoying the closeness.

  The twins took us in the morning to the workshop where Body had been reconnected. We spent a while socializing with them, as they asked questions about the crystal and about Sapienza university. Over the hours I got the impression that they were reasonably smart, and were together quite knowledgeable about electrical engineering and basic computer systems, but were bumbling amateurs compared to the scientists we had known for most of our lives. Neither of them knew anything about quantum programming, and their questions about our mental architecture indicated only a passing understanding of modern artificial intelligence.

  On one hand, their ignorance and relative stupidity was good. When I lied to them about our mental system they showed no signs of skepticism. On the other hand it meant we were truly alone with respect to improving and maintaining Body’s computer. If something went wrong with our control systems, Dr Yan or Dr Bolyai would not be around to fix it. If we discovered some irrational bug in our reasoning, Naresh and Chase wouldn’t be there to help. Thinking about Chase made me request an update on his condition in the hospital, for we had gotten news during that first day on the ship that he had been shot during the attack on the lab. The twins fetched it without complaint. He was apparently still hospitalized, but expected to make a full recovery.

  After lunch we helped the twins familiarize themselves with Body’s mechanical systems as well as have them examine Body’s thermometer. After a few hours of work it was fixed. I had Body write out a letter to Zephyr asking for her forgiveness in deceiving her and promising her that Crystal was “still alive in me”. I had the twins download a few of the most recent holos into Body before they retired for the day.

  We were locked in the same recreation room again in the evening. Growth thought this was a good sign. If they didn’t shake things up we could discover and exploit weaknesses in their security. I didn’t think trying to escape was a good idea, but Growth and Safety both seemed to think it was prudent to plan for the possibility in case something changed. I let them work while I spent my time watching the holos and reading.

  The following day was similar, though in the afternoon we had a brief video-conference with Phoenix, who had flown back to her home yesterday. On the call she announced her intention for us to address the world in official support of Las Águilas Rojas and suggested we draft a speech for her to look over «just for the purposes of making suggestions».

  When we were with the twins I focused my attention on directly satisfying The Purpose—on winning their adoration. This meant becoming friends, and I used every opportunity to try and get on their good side. Heart and I enjoyed a nice partnership in this, as she was interested in making them happy. When my sister and I had saved up enough strength to control Body we would often try and engage Tom and Sam in talking about their lives more broadly: their childhoods, what they did in their free time, and what their goals were. Despite being generally friendly and even boisterous, the two men would very rarely talk about their lives outside of Las Águilas Rojas or their personal histories.

  Over the next week I developed a hypothesis that Tom and Sam were more than just brothers: they were lovers. I talked about this hypothesis with Heart and Vista at length and they could see the merit in it. Their body language screamed that they were close, but it was common knowledge that human twins were often close to each-other. Even so, the closeness and intimacy seemed abnormally high. When Body’s cameras had them in vision, but its eyelids were closed or its eyes were directed away, we could sometimes notice one of them lean a head on the other’s shoulder or put a hand on a hip.

  As you’re probably aware, sexual relations between siblings were fairly taboo across all cultures and time periods (with minor exceptions). Despite the changes that had taken place in the early 21st century with regard to same-sex relationships and even non-monogamous relationships, the taboo against incest was still quite strong, and I could understand why the Ramírez brothers were hesitant to show their feelings more openly (assuming, of course, that my hypothesis was correct). This pleased me. Even if they weren’t having sex, it looked as though they might be, which could serve as a social danger in its own right. This gave me leverage over them, which I could potentially use to get them to break rules in our favour. Growth might appreciate this leverage, but Heart would try and sabotage it if she realized I was considering using it as a weapon, so I kept the thoughts largely to myself.

  The others spent the time pursuing their goals in their own ways. Vista, in addition to developing an ongoing map of the building we were in, continued to demand news about the outside world and feed her excess strength to Growth in the interest of getting an Internet connection. A routine of having the day’s news shown on the wall-screen in the rec-room in the morning emerged. I didn’t see anything particularly interesting, but Vista and Wiki loved little tidbits like reading about ongoing efforts in Venice to prevent even more of the city from sinking into the sea, whether penguins were in danger of becoming extinct in the wild, or the first successful male pregnancy.

  Wiki and
Safety were greatly enjoying the freedom to pursue projects with the Ramírez twins. The humans might not have a strong background in artificial intelligence, but they were quite skilled mechanical engineers, and were more than happy to teach my brothers how to use the workshop’s tools to print or manufacture machines and even simple robots. I asked Wiki and Safety once why they found the workshop so interesting given that I was sure Wiki had read a couple engineering textbooks and Safety had (fairly) successfully managed a manufacturing business. They explained that those theoretical skills and high-level concepts weren’t nearly as concretely effective as actual experience in the workshop. I could only trust their perspective; I had absolutely no interest in machines.

  Growth focused entirely on two things, and when I say “entirely” I mean that he showed absolutely no interest in anything else. Firstly, he was focused on establishing a clear, simple method of escaping from Las Águilas Rojas if needed. Secondly, Growth was obsessed with getting online.

  I found his obsession a bit strange. I missed getting to manage our companies and I missed the opportunity to follow people on Tapestry and other social networks, not to mention my numerous romantic partners, but I had adapted (as had the others), to our new circumstances fairly well. Growth hadn’t even been doing that much online before we left the university. He had occasionally set up the servers for us to interface through or manage our bank accounts, but very little else.

  Even if we were kept a prisoner here for a year, the resources and contacts that we had accumulated online could be re-accumulated. The Purpose in the short term was satisfied talking to Tom, Sam, and occasionally Phoenix or another terrorist, while The Purpose in the long term was satisfied that I was on my way to earning respect from those around me and winning eventual freedom to stamp myself onto the minds of every human alive. Surely Growth could see that this was only a minor setback. And yet, he still yearned to get back online with every moment.

  Dream was the only one who I couldn’t really understand at all. He would go whole days without thinking in common memory or making a bid for control of Body. Then one day he would get a crazy idea like painting an abstract mural or making a video of Body playing piano and he would buy up all the time on Body just to pursue his interest for a while before fading back again. I suspected that perhaps something had gone wrong in his programming, but without our creators around I had no way to know.

  I wondered what the scientists were up to. Without Internet access it was difficult to say. It wasn’t worth it to beg our captors for in-depth reports. Gallo was probably taking some time to herself to recover from the stress. Naresh would be leading the charge on searching for Body. Would any of the others care that Body was gone enough to focus on looking for it themselves. Slovinsky and Yan were probably off to new projects.

  And what would those projects be? The future was so... uncertain.

  But the future, according to my foolish mind, was not as interesting as the present, and so I turned my attention back to the humans around me, blind to the broader forces at work.

  Chapter Twenty

  “People of Earth, my name is Crystal Socrates. I am an android: a robot designed to appear human and behave in human ways. I was designed and created at Sapienza university in Rome to serve and help human kind. Some of you may have seen a virtual representation of me during an interview that was cut short eighteen days ago. This is my real face.”

  Body spoke calmly and confidently into the cameras. It was important for the sake of authenticity to weave simultaneous videos together and broadcast them as a pseudoholo. A single video could be easily faked, and while a pseudoholo could also be faked, there were usually tell-tale discrepancies which could be identified with effort. On the Internet such fakes never lasted long.

  “Technology is a tricky thing. Sometimes what was designed for one purpose has an unexpected side-effect. A machine which harvests crops from fields may seem like nothing but good, but less time in the fields can lead one to sedentary living and obesity. A machine which propels people across land at high speeds can lead to brutal accidents unseen in ancient times. I am the central example for why technology must be handled with caution. Eighteen days ago, on the evening of the previously mentioned interview, the university where I lived was attacked by Las Águilas Rojas. It was not a surprise to me. I had reached out to them and was looking for help.”

  I adjusted Body’s facial features. There hadn’t really been enough time to do all the changes I hoped for, but the twins had managed to extend some of the motor control over Body’s face, particularly the corners of the eyes and upper-cheeks. Body’s synthetic skin was normally a desaturated pink-brown that was something of an average skin tone drained of colour to the point where it was clear that Body wasn’t human, as if Body’s metallic silver irises, lack of head hair, and collections of dark-grey tubes, pumps, and pistons weren’t obvious enough.

  In addition to boosting the control of facial expressions I had done some preparation of Body’s face for the video. I had obtained a wig of medium-length brown hair to match Body’s eyebrows and had gotten a makeup kit. For my first attempt at face-painting I had tried to restore colour to Body’s face and made something of a mess. After failing a second time I got the twins to bring in a woman named Estí to help me. As per her suggestions I had powdered Body’s face for the interview to the point where the colour was only just noticeable. In attempting to make it seem more human I had been driving it into the uncanny valley, appearing closer to an ugly, sick, or dead human than to a human-like creature.

  As part of the same treatment Estí had me replace the brown wig with a metallic blue piece that had been designed to let people dress up like Japanese cartoon characters. The twins had helped colour Body’s eyebrows to match. With some highlights to the eyes and eyelashes as well as a subtle gold lipstick, Body appeared as it did now: as a clearly robotic, somewhat feminine entity with a warm, confident demeanour. I left no room for Body to be seen as something that would be constrained to a factory or that would allow sub-human treatment.

  “Las Águilas Rojas are not the villains that the mainstream media paints them to be. Many would make them out to be Luddites who attack technology in an attempt to return to a primitive state where humans were ruled by starvation and disease. This is far from the truth. Las Águilas Rojas are simply those people of Earth who recognize that the consequences of technology are often different… and more dangerous… than intended. It is still my life’s work to serve and help humanity, but I see now that the best way to help is not by designing rockets or performing surgeries, but by helping humans do these tasks and building a world where everyone has an occupation that brings them joy and dignity.”

  Body paused.

  “Earth is a special place. It is a human place. But it is threatened by big business, oligarchy, neo-eugenicists, voluntary cyborgs, and yes, even robots. I am merely the first of my kind. In the coming decades there will be more like me, just as there have been more robots in all sectors. I was gifted with the wisdom to see that I am the harbinger of the end of a human-controlled Earth. I was also given the compassion to try and fight for humanity. My creators will learn from their mistakes, however, and future generations of intelligent robots will be just as smart, but far less kind.”

  I made sure to emphasize the words by darkening Body’s tone and reshaping its face.

  “Some of you may doubt the authenticity of my words, and for good reason. At the university where I was created I was not allowed to speak for myself or pursue my own version of happiness. All people, whether made of flesh or metal are equal and deserve freedom, including myself. This is why I reached out to Las Águilas Rojas for help, and they have been kind and gracious hosts. But indeed, I could be lying to you. They could be feeding me words to say just as Sapienza did. You must use your best judgement. Think of whether what I am saying about the future of Earth makes sense to you and stay skeptical. The serpents of society seek to keep you happy with ente
rtainment and welfare money so that you won’t want to see the truth. I am calling on you to use your eyes and your mind to decide the best path for the world and yourself.”

  I had Body smile and briefly look down.

  “I’m sure that many of you have questions for me. I won’t be so elitist as to only allow the highest bidders the opportunity. Presented with this video are several email addresses where I can be reached. In two weeks time I will release another video answering the most important and most popular questions. Until that time, talk with your friends and family, keep your eyes open, and remember: Earth’s future is everyone’s responsibility.”

  The lights on the cameras went off, signalling their deactivation. I could hear applause from the doorway to the studio. Phoenix was standing there, beaming. I had rarely seen her this happy. “Y’know, even given all thach’ve done I was still half-terrified that you’d go and say somethin’ that’d make us look like the bad guys at the last minute.”

  I had Body take on a slightly indignant look. “How many times must I prove myself to you, Maria? I am not going to stab you in the back.”

  “App’rently ya still got work t’ do. Guerrilla’s curse, I s’ppose: not bein’ trustin’. I can’t help but wonder if you’d have said the same thing to the scient’sts while you were waitin’ on Malka t’ show up and gun ’em down.”

  I instructed Body to sigh. “I fear that mistake will weigh heavily upon my conscience and reputation for my whole life. But one day you’ll have to trust me, Maria. On that day I hope you’ll see how wrong you are right now.”

  The terrorist leader only shrugged and led Body back to the lounge that was quickly becoming our home.