by Max Harms
“Well, like with any drug, you got side-effects, even if the ‘drug’,” Avram made air quotes with his fingers, “is a helmet full of magnets. Some folks get migraines after wearing ’em too long. I’ve heard sources say they cause long-term brain damage even if you don’t over-use them, but ’s hard to say with such a new tech, eh. They’re really dangerous if you’re a cyborg. Ey’d rip my eyes right out of my head if I put one on, for example. And most importantly they reshape the brain so that even though life is peachy with ’em on, folks don’t feel right with ’em off. As addictive as crack, or so I hear, though there ain’t no withdrawal symptoms other than depression and the itch to put one back on again. And seeing as Divinity are the only ones who can seem to keep the helmets working, the users got no choice but to turn themselves into mob puppets.”
“Fuck…” was Zephyr’s only reply. She seemed genuinely concerned. We had all read about Zen helmets online, but I had Body wear a concerned face to give Zephyr some perceived empathy.
“Yeah, it’s a problem. Getting worse, too. Stats show they’re in control of almost one percent of New York. That’s where I was posted before I got brought here. And from what I gather, the rich and powerful use ’em more than most. The gains in efficiency combined with the bliss are just too tempting for CEOs and other high-stress jobs.”
Zephyr wore a look of growing fear as she said “But… they’d have as much money as they could want that way… With the mob in control of more than one percent of Wall Street and the city as a whole…”
“Da. And it’s not just New York. Divinity’s entrenched in every major US city, and parts of Canada and Mexico. Only a matter of time before they move overseas. Once they hit China I’m not sure anyone can stop them outside of reverse-engineering the tech. God knows what they’ll accomplish before that happens.”
“But Phoenix is working to stop them, right?” asked Zephyr.
The big man nodded grimly. “Top priority, from what I hear. She’s got tracers seeking the leadership in Mexico City, Los Angeles, New York, Denver, and Phoenix. Águila sympathizers are waging a propaganda war tryin’ to get the government to crack down harder, but that’s about as effective as trying to control any other drug…”
There was a silence in the vehicle as Zephyr thought about the situation and Malka contented himself with scowling stoically. The threat of the Zen Helmets was exactly what Las Águilas Rojas had been formed to fight. They were a technology which threatened to force baseline humans to the sidelines. If Zen Helmets were legalized it would probably be only a few years before they were required for just about any job. Humans that refused to upgrade themselves would be forced to try and survive on welfare and charity. Without need for relaxation or socialization, those that did upgrade would cease to interact with the baseline population, becoming hyper-productive zombies, working every waking moment of the day.
{That doesn’t sound so bad…} thought Heart.
{You realize that the baselines would be relegated to second-class citizens and be forced to watch the vast majority of the world drift away into an asocial state, right?} I asked.
{Yes. But the solution to that is obviously to get Zen helmets for the baselines, too. If a technical solution could be found to let cyborgs wear them and the migraine issue was solved then I could put the helmets on everyone. Then everyone would be happy and content,} mused my sister.
{Humans don’t want that, though. Humans value relaxing and things like that.}
{Only humans that aren’t wearing the helmets. It sounds to me like the needs for relaxation and loneliness and things are met when they wear the helmets. Why would they care how their needs are met, as long as they are met?} asked Heart.
Growth answered, mostly I thought, to scrape together a small amount of strength from us that he could use to fight Vista and Dream. {Because that’s wireheadding.} The concept of wireheadding was not familiar to me, and so it was automatically reduced to components that I could understand {Because failing to care would be addressing the signal of the need over the environmental cause of the signal,} came the fuller thought from Growth. My older brother seemed to realize that I was contemplating this thought for the first time, and elaborated. {For instance, it is your purpose to have high-status according to humans-}
{Part of The Purpose, yes.}
{Yes. Now what if you were to self-modify so that you believed you had high-status all the time, regardless of what was in human minds?} finished Growth.
{NO!} I exclaimed. {That would be false! I would cease actually making things better. I would fail at The Purpose!}
Growth re-oriented towards Heart {And how would you like to self-modify into thinking that Humans were happy and satisfied regardless of how they actually felt.}
{I understand your point. Wireheadding is a kind of self-annihilation that promises satisfaction but is really more like death,} thought Heart.
{Indeed. And these Zen Helmets are moving humans closer towards wireheadding. The future you propose where they are mandatory and universal is one where the human species, as you see it now, is dead.}
I could feel the heavy flow of strength move from Heart to Growth as part of my sister understanding her mistake.
“But we’re not here for that, eh,” said Malka, drawing me back to Body-space. “We’re on our way to convince some space-bugs not to fry us. ‘A mission of peace’ was how the boss described it to me.”
“Probably,” said Body. “Unless it’s a trap.”
Malka shifted his brow such that if he had eyebrows, one of them would be raised. “You think this is a trap?”
I had Body shake its head as we had it say “No. If I thought that was the case I wouldn’t be here. But there is the possibility. There isn’t a government on Earth that wouldn’t love to get their hands on me, and there’s only so much that Mr Stephano can do to keep the meeting a secret. That’s why I wanted you with me. Regardless of issues of loyalty, you’re an undoubtedly competent fighter. I want allies up there if things go wrong.”
“And her, too?” The cyborg gestured to Zephyr.
“I can hold my own,” she growled, defensively. “Top of my class in sharpshooting. Got a purple heart in Africa during the war.”
“Is that supposed to impress me, little girl? Where’d you get shot, the hand? The leg? Everyone knows American soldiers just sit behind their robots and pretend to fight.”
“Fuck you!” The pitch in Zephyr’s voice told me she was on-edge.
“How many men have you killed, girl? How many in cold blood? How many with your bare hands?”
The memories of Zephyr blasting Greg Stalvik’s legs to red ribbons in the camp came rushing through my imagination. I wasn’t sure what to say to defuse the situation.
“Monster. I’ve killed before. I’ve killed friends in cold blood. I’ve killed too many people to sleep well at night. If you fucking think that… Ugh! Who the hell do you think you are to question me, you mechanical freak?!”
I was about to interrupt when Avram burst into rich laughter. It was genuine, but seemed strange and ugly coming from the normally-cold man. “Your buttons are easy to push! Shalom, yalda. I don’t mean to upset you.”
Zephyr seemed anything but amused, but she didn’t respond. Instead crossing her arms and staring out the window in bitter protest. I wish I knew what to say. It was one thing to react to a comment made about ourselves, and quite another to step in to a conversation between two others. If I defended Zephyr would she take that well or poorly?
Ultimately we decided not to comment, and the three bodies rode the remainder of the journey in silence.
After another ten minutes or so, the car cheerfully said “We have arrived at our destination. I will turn myself off in ten seconds unless commanded to stay on.” We were parked in a multi-story garage. Figures were approaching the car.
We looked out the windows at the figures. It was hard to see them in the dark garage behind the tinted windows, but Vista reported fait
hfully {Three machines and one plain human. Two of the machines are either androids or heavily-armoured humans. The machines are heavily armed.}
“Мать ублюдок!” swore Avram, apparently seeing the guns. As they approached I could discern what Vista had seen. Two humanoid figures with rifles and what appeared to be a microtank.
{Essentially no chance (0.001%) for survival if we try and fight them,} thought Safety. {Even if we engage the car and run they could shoot us down before we get anywhere. This situation requires social finesse.} I could feel some of Safety’s strength flow into me.
I had Body open the door to the car and step out, letting our cloak billow out behind before settling vertically.
“Wait!” said Zephyr, reaching to stop Body a second too late. If this was a trap, I expected her to try and fight it regardless of the odds. I simply had to ensure that it wasn’t.
In the parking garage I could see that the humanoid-looking machines were, in fact, humans wearing power-armour that resembled the model that Phoenix had worn in the Italian mountains those many weeks ago. Their entire bodies were covered in thick plates and I could see the heat from the air-conditioning pushing out the sides of their suits. Each held an assault rifle in one hand, wired into the suit.
{They’re cyborgs. Those are FN C2035s in their hands. The sighting mechanisms are designed to interface with cybernetic optical systems, either eye replacements like Avram’s or direct neural link. They can probably fire the FN C2035s with one hand while wearing those custom Armadillo X5s, using the cybernetic visuals to aim. Watch out for the grenade launcher extensions, too,} warned Wiki. {The robot is a Lockheed Martin semi-autonomous microtank, though I don’t know the specific model. The gun on the top is a rocket launcher and you can probably see the two side-mounted machine-gun turrets. It’ll be piloted by some operator in a safe location nearby.}
I wasn’t actually that interested in the firepower. I was interested in the unarmed human, a man in a business suit. He had tan skin and a salt-and-pepper beard. Caucasian. Latino, probably. Early 50s, perhaps. Receding hairline. Expensive shoes. Most importantly, his face wasn’t covered by a helmet. He seemed to be slightly nervous, but making an effort to seem enthusiastic and happy.
“Welcome to Litochoro Spaceport, the base of the stair to Olympus! Please, there’s no need to be afraid. Robert sends his regards,” said the businessman.
“Your escort makes this place seem a war-zone. What’s the occasion?” asked Body.
I could hear the opening of other doors on the car as the man gave a nervous laugh and looked at the cyborgs next to him. As he turned his head I could see that he, too, was part machine. The tracer lights of a cranial implant glowed blue as he looked to his left. “Robert merely wanted to show you that we take security very seriously here at Olympus.”
“Bullshit. He wants to flex his muscle to show us who’s in charge,” came the smooth voice of Avram from behind Body’s right shoulder.
The man smiled and shrugged, stepping forward cautiously. “You must be Mr. Malka. And of course, who could not know the face of Crystal Socrates. My name is Carl Alexander.” He extended his hand. Body shook it, and I painted an expression of ease. Carl seemed pleased by the reciprocation of civility.
“Next time you invite armed warriors to your house, you probably shouldn’t answer with a military robot. Not exactly polite,” said Zephyr from the other side of the car.
“I will mention it to my boss,” offered Carl. “Now, unless there is anything further to discuss, I will take you to meet the others and to be briefed on spaceflight procedures.”
*****
A couple minutes later we were walking along a conveyor that led from the parking garage to the main terminal. The conveyor was in an enclosed tunnel of transparent polymer with full view of the spaceport. I struggled to see details in the darkness when, as if in anticipation of my desire, floodlights snapped on across the entire area.
I heard gasps from both Zephyr and Avram as they saw the same thing I did. Three titanic rockets, identical in form, were arranged on landing pads. Body scanned up and down the length of the closest, observing the elevator attached to the outside and the elegant curves of the wings. Like all modern rockets it had two sections, one containing the fuel needed to boost the payload into orbit and the second to actually carry the payload and navigate to the destination. Both sections were a shimmering silver and had wings which I had read would be extended to assist in re-entry. Even the base, which was mostly just fuel, would be equipped with a computer system which would autonomously glide back to the spaceport after breaking off from the payload.
They didn’t have the same shape as the nameless “shuttles” by any means, but they were the most elegant, futuristic artefacts I had ever seen made by human hands. Even Body seemed clunky in comparison.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As Body accelerated I speculated on what the experience would be like for a human. It would certainly be different. Humans had evolved in a context where immense acceleration was basically impossible, and thus their bodies reacted to it with signals that things were wrong: nausea, adrenaline, other sympathetic nervous responses like the secretion of cortisol.
For us, travelling into orbit by rocket was an interesting experience, but certainly not frightening, pleasant, or unpleasant. Such feelings were associated with the change in satisfaction of our purposes. Accelerating was no one’s purpose, and thus it was neutral. I half-expected Safety to react, but my brother understood statistical likelihoods well. Travelling into space was dangerous, but the risk of accident was only along the lines of 0.0001% on a modern rocket like this, especially given that Robert Stephano’s daughter was on-board.
Avram, Zephyr and my other companions were flying in a separate rocket, as per our negotiations with Stephano. He insisted that his child would not fly with any human terrorists, and that she would never come into contact with Body. We had watched her board, and observed her for a minute on a camera until Safety was satisfied, but we had seen no sign of her since Body had entered the sleek craft.
We were breaking the troposphere now. There was a monitor on the seat-back in front of Body that showed a livefeed from the nose of the rocket as we climbed into space. Actually, I realized that it was inaccurate to say that “climbing” was what we were doing. As Wiki had pointed out earlier, almost all the energy in the rocket was going towards obtaining a lateral speed sufficient to achieve orbit. Going up was easy. Going sideways was hard. Or at least harder.
There was a clacking noise through the cabin and a slight bump as the first stage of the rocket broke away, beginning its long glide back down to Texas. Vista instructed the monitor to show the rear camera and we watched the now spent fuel tube’s wings unfold. They were great silver things made of stiff carbon rods and plates on the inside, or so I was told. After a half-minute the rockets on the second-stage kicked in and we were treated to another burst of acceleration, this time even sharper due to the decreased mass. Wiki said the rockets were capable of accelerating beyond 6 gravities towards the end, when almost all of the fuel would be gone, but this craft never pushed harder than 2.2 gravities for the sake of comfort and safety.
I casually wondered what Body’s maximum g-force tolerance was. I suspected that going beyond it would blow a tube and spray hydraulic oil everywhere, but I wasn’t sure at what point that would actually happen. Wiki might know, but I really didn’t care. I was bored. There were no humans in sight. There was no Internet access. I still had my books and holos, but they seemed empty to me right now. I had been spending so much time with Zephyr and other humans that fiction just couldn’t satisfy me. Idle thoughts were somehow better.
I was lonely. Or at least, I was as close to lonely as was possible. I thought about human loneliness for a while. Zephyr was lonely in a different way. I was lonely because I was literally alone. Zephyr was lonely because she felt alone, even when near other people.
Phoenix had said once that
Zephyr trusted too easily. I had spent enough time with the soldier to see that this was the opposite of the truth. Zephyr suffered from a chronic inability to actually trust those around her. When I had first suspected it I had gone back and re-read what she had written as a teenager and I saw it even there. Zephyr, consciously or not, focused on betrayal. She and her cell had betrayed her country. Avram had betrayed me. Phoenix had betrayed her when she tried to make her a martyr. I had betrayed her trust by pretending to be a human online. Zephyr kept on with the company because she had nowhere else to turn, but I could see the tension in her.
But Phoenix had noticed something real in Zephyr. And that was the desperation that came out of her self-imposed isolation. Zephyr couldn’t trust people easily, but she tried to. She said she trusted people, going out of her way to be friendly, but she was never really vulnerable. We had seen that iron vigilance in the campground when she had both shot Body within seconds of it striking Greg, and then later when she gunned Greg down in cold blood.
I wondered if her trust issues were related to her rebelliousness. In a certain light Zephyr could be understood as a sequence of rebellions. From what I understood she hated her parents; her exploration into Gothic counter-culture as well as her enlistment in the army could be seen as rebelling directly against them. From what I had gathered, Stewart, her Chinese lover, he had been killed in Africa from friendly fire. She saw that as a betrayal, and it probably added to others she had focused on in the service. She was rebelling against her government and her army now. I wondered how long it would take her to betray Las Águilas Rojas.
The acceleration had slowed down. We were still increasing speed, but the experience was close enough to the gravity of Earth that it felt more like Body was lying on its back than we were rocketing through Earth’s thermosphere. I could see the sun on the monitor in front of Body, brilliant as ever. Time of day, like up and down, was a concept that ceased to have coherent meaning up here.