by Neil Clarke
Clarkesworld Magazine
Issue 112
Table of Contents
The Algorithms of Value
by Robert Reed
The Abduction of Europa
by E. Catherine Tobler
Extraction Request
by Rich Larson
Everybody Loves Charles
by Bao Shu
The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale
by Robert Silverberg
Old Paint
by Megan Lindholm
Our Future is Artificial
by Sofia Siren
Painterly Cyborgs and Distant Horizons: A Conversation with Julie Dillon
by Chris Urie
Another Word: Let’s Write a Story Together, MacBook
by Ken Liu
Editor’s Desk: The 2015 Reader’s Poll and Contest
by Neil Clarke
Hierophant
Art by Julie Dillon
© Clarkesworld Magazine, 2016
www.clarkesworldmagazine.com
The Algorithms of Value
Robert Reed
Parchment woke comfortably hungry, a fine dream lingering while she lay inside the bed that knew her utterly.
This was the most unremarkable morning.
Happy eyes opened to find the expected room. Cockroaches scrambled across cracked plaster walls. Ancient cars roared and a neighbor’s hip hop shook the floor. But there was also a spring wind lifting the window curtain, bringing the scent of hot bacon and the quick, fierce shouts of sparrows. Parchment listened to the birds savoring their spectacular lives, and in the same spirit, she smiled to herself. Then came the sharp crack of a pistol followed by the wailing of someone who had never existed—a wounded voice begging for mercy from everything else unreal.
“Change,” Parchment ordered.
The walls silenced and blurred.
“You know where.”
The young emerald forest was rendered in precise detail. Bacon didn’t exist here, but there were orchids and scented insects and the luscious stink of soil built from comet tar and the purest water. Dawn had just broken on this portion of the terraformed world, glorious sunshine descending from an artificial moon designed by AI sowers. Every tree was a slender tower, the high branches too distant to resolve with sleepy eyes, and down through the sunbeams came a cobalt-blue bird, bigger than ten men, flying lazily against the feeble gravity.
“A day to value,” sang the bird. “A beautiful day to eat.”
She was born pale and pretty but with an unexpected golden cast to her skin. Wanting to bless the baby, the young mother gave her that rich-sounding name, and nearly two centuries of busy, busy life had mostly erased the old meanings. Parchment wasn’t the skin of animals anymore. Parchment was the famous old lady climbing out of her bed to use the toilet and cleansing fountain on the far side of a tree.
With a respectful tone, her room offered to measure her health and feed her.
“No, and no,” she replied. “I feel wonderful and I’m eating out this morning.”
Her room immediately wove new clothes, but to prove she could, Parchment wished the first hat to vanish, and the second, deciding to wear nothing on her head but carry three umbrellas—highly engineered umbrellas spun from boron and diamond—plus a new purse of moa leather filled with respectable possessions.
By law, every room needed one authentic door.
This particular room offered two doors, one leading directly outdoors, and having collected her belongings, that’s where she went.
Every room was able to feed and care for its owner, and people couldn’t be forced to leave any room. Yet the world outside always felt busy and crowded and alive. Parchment’s street was wide, lined with stacked rooms and standalone rooms. Mayhem flooded the senses. Mayhem had its music. Flocks of sparrows and other city birds swarmed, and intense little machines jetted about on important errands. Neighbors stood in or near the street, shouting to one another while watching strangers. They called to her by name, adding “Madam” and “Ms.” for good measure, and Parchment waved at no one in particular, giving warm words to the nearest few.
Approaching her, one familiar fellow praised the morning’s beauty by asking, “How could anyone stay inside with this splendor?”
“A fine question,” Parchment agreed.
Then his pretty little daughter hurried close, saying, “Yes, but rain is definitely coming, Madam Parchment.”
Parchment handed her one of the umbrellas. It was silly, thinking that any ordinary object was precious. But the gesture was what was important. To that child, what mattered were the famous hands that held the prize, and to the old lady, it was the illusion of charity lending warmth to one small moment.
The gift was cradled lovingly while the girl whispered, “Thank you thanks so much so much.”
It was never a bad day, getting attention from a famous lady.
There was a boy standing nearby. Maybe he had been standing there from the beginning. One foot behind the other, he flashed a bold smile at the woman with two umbrellas. Parchment didn’t recognize the face but she knew his attitude. Begging was older than humanity, and he looked like the sort who would beg for anything, regardless of his needs.
“You can have one too,” Parchment offered.
“No.”
What did he say?
“I like rain,” he said.
“Well, good,” she said.
Straightening his back, he asked, “But what else can you give me?”
The world grew a little quieter, bystanders turning, keeping tabs on the small, unseemly drama.
Aiming to tease, she asked, “What else is there?”
He showed her a wide, unendearing smirk.
“Think I’m generous, do you?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t.”
Parchment laughed at his tone, even while she bristled at the attitude, and tired of the child’s attitude, she decided to ignore him, walking off as quickly as she could on long legs that never covered ground fast enough.
Every street was a machine, smart as necessary and busy doing its lifelong calling. Avenues and alleys kept themselves clean, recycling bins ruling the corners. Today the nearest bin resembled a shark’s mouth rising from the pavement, and a man had climbed into the mouth, furiously burrowing into the trash.
Scavenging was honorable long before the first ape pushed a hungry hand into someone else’s garbage. But these were the wealthiest times and there was zero reason for this nonsense. Parchment’s mother had called these people “dumpster dogs,” and they were usually best avoided. But that irritating boy was following, keeping far too close, and that’s why she paused and struck the shark with a flat hand.
The man inside the trash twisted and popped up, startled to find an umbrella dropped into his hands.
One glance at her face was enough.
“Thank you, Madam Parchment,” he sputtered.
“You’re welcome,” she said, walking on.
Undeterred, the boy fell in beside her.
“I know all about you,” he said.
“You think so?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he said sharply.
She stopped walking, instantly regretting showing just that flicker of interest. But this was her neighborhood and these were people friendly to her, and Parchment refused to be intimidated by a child who was . . . how old did he look to be . . . ? A mature twelve, perhaps.
“I don’t want to know about you,” she said, opening the final umbrella and tipping its shadow over her face, leaving that peculiar little sparrow blinking in the sunshine.
“You’re the old lady who invented the Algorithms,” he said.
> The street grew quiet.
With a slow, firm tone, she said, “First of all, I had tiny roles in an exceptionally large project. So no, you’re wrong. I built almost nothing.”
The resolve didn’t waver. That face wasn’t as young as she imagined. He was older. Fourteen, maybe?
“Second of all, nobody can invent what already exists, and the Algorithms have always been. Profound relationships woven through the universe, waiting to be discovered. Like gravity. Like fire and poetry. I filled my own little niche, and that was long ago, and third of all, are you going to leave me alone now?”
“Probably not,” the boy confessed.
Several neighbors, stronger than old women or boys, set themselves near the two debaters, offering their help with concerned glances and clenched fists.
Parchment handed over the last umbrella.
“Take this and leave me alone,” was her advice.
The boy smiled when he looked at the prize. But then he ran back to the shark mouth, climbing in beside the trash hunter before shoving the gift as far down as he could reach.
Sentience deserved quite a lot, and the Algorithms of Value spoke to exactly that: the fierce guarantees afforded every self-aware entity, organic or machine.
Safety was the first necessity. Surviving the next moment was paramount. For humans, nourishment and clean water were unimpeachable if rather less urgent rights. There also was the universal right to shelter. By law, every person was guaranteed a home and every home possessed at least one dependable room. Walls had to be ready to project any image, real or fictional. Rooms could sing any song and tell any story, calibrating versions according to the resident’s desires. And of course every sentient voice had to be able to speak to everyone else, whenever they wished and without cost. Of course, of course.
Wealth itself was never guaranteed, and true wealth had never been harder to weigh. But there were sentient fortunes who owed their allegiance to Parchment, and she owned comets and asteroids outright, plus valuable lands scattered across the Earth. And she held title to three connected rooms, none of which were tiny. With her age and that small, critical role working with the Algorithms, she also owned a rather considerable celebrity.
Thousands of people had been involved in the Algorithms. Some were more important than her, but they died long ago and here she was, proud for what she had done, damn humility and other silly standards.
But what piece of the Algorithms was Parchment’s? In her own eyes, what made her special?
More than any other person, she ensured everyone had the absolute right to be different. To be odd, unique. Or even pathetically ordinary. Food and shelter were essentials, yes. But people and self-aware machines had to be able to cling to peculiar beliefs, just so long as nobody was hurt. For instance, one old lady could wake inside a vanished room decorated with dirty chairs and a ragged curtain drawn across one imaginary window, the close ceiling built from bowed plaster, two cracks peeking through tired white paint.
Sixteen decades ago, there were very few rooms in the world that could manage that trickery. But Parchment and her husband were fortunate enough to own one, and that’s when the bedroom habit began, leading to a string of acidic comments.
“Why this fucking dump?” her husband would ask.
“This where I came from,” Parchment responded. “And I’ll fall back to this, if things go wrong.”
“Well, I didn’t grow up in your fucking dump,” he said. “Don’t pretend I care about games you play with your guilty conscience, and sure as shit I don’t believe in your reasons anyway. You’re lying.”
The man was never mild or sweet or decent. But he was useful. He inherited his cash and old-style stocks, and that was long before a pretty golden girl graduated from grade school. He was one of the old masters of a corporation responsible for the best AIs anywhere. An occasional charmer, he had a habit of stalking the pretty girls, like Parchment, and she knew that full well and married him regardless. Nobody else offered a faster route to success, and just as important, her roguish mate had his own simplicities. Immune to normal jealousies, Parchment didn’t have to watch over him or pay any attention to the gossip. It was enough to be a famous couple with a unique normalcy, and as it happened, that normalcy didn’t have to last all that long. The AIs were building a new world, richer and far more flexible, and what was expensive soon became cheap. The best rooms weaved better and better illusions, capturing the heart of existence, and a successful couple could afford a giant home filled with ever-changing realms. And that’s why a difficult husband didn’t have to come out of his favorite room for weeks, even to throw an insult at his aging wife. Which was a fair description of their last fifty years.
In the end, three rooms were plenty. One was Parchment’s sanctuary, another belonged entirely to her husband, while the large space between could serve as a social playground, but was mostly filled with anti-noise—ensuring she never had to hear the games an old beast played with his various toys.
The beast was a century dead, and his widow rarely thought about him. But in the proper mood, Parchment would admit that the man was perceptive in one critical fashion: The old bedroom with its cracks and curtains and gunfire wasn’t just a cautionary reminder to herself. It was also aimed at her husband. Beginning life male and at a respectable height, he had managed to rise quite a bit higher. But his wife was born at the bottom, and not only did she match his achievements, but she eventually supplanted him.
And of course she was the one-half of a marriage blessed with the unique, increasingly famous name.
Fire was an honorable attraction among humans. So were the blessings of food prepared by friendly hands and padded seats where an ancient body could find repose if not out-and-out rest. Parchment had several favorite restaurants, but there was only one nicest nearest and finest establishment. It offered simple candles at each table and an eager blaze surrounded by a stone chamber set inside the longest wall. The food was barely better than what her home could weave from perfect ingredients, but there were those who counted on her commerce and appreciated her nature. And in turn, she enjoyed those who smiled at her, keeping her favorite booth ready for no one else. Unless of course this was a day to invite a guest.
“Is anyone joining you, madam?”
“Not this morning. No.”
Some museum establishments had waiters and individual service, but Parchment would never seek out places as egalitarian as that. A long steel counter ruled by a smiling workman was enough, with people and machines in the kitchen supervising the meals.
“And what will you have this morning, madam?”
She knew the fellow’s name and much of his life story. Less than thirty when they met, he had reached his sixties—not young but plenty of energy in the bright smile and the jittering dance of fingers waiting to strike the ordering keys.
“A hadrosaur omelet,” she said. “With cuttlefish and Martian greens and a double helping of feta and why not coffee too?”
The proper keys were struck—an archaic ritual that didn’t need to exist anywhere for the last hundred years.
The old lady paid with gold coins pulled from the new purse.
Another ritual, and splendid because of it.
The smile and the man handed her a new mug and an old wooden marker. She was required to pour her own coffee, and what she liked best wasn’t the abundance of brews or the infinite capacity to mix them in any combination . . . no, the joy was in doing this for herself inside a room filled with strangers and neighbors. The heat of the coffee was another kind of fire, and her booth was empty and eager for her to sit inside the reassuring confines. Furniture and windows could always be reconfigured, following endless whims, but this place resisted change. Maybe that’s what she liked best. And maybe that’s why she had abandoned plenty of other restaurants over the decades, each for committing the crime of novelty.
Parchment’s wealth was difficult to calculate, and that from AIs built to do nothing
but count the mass of capital. She could purchase this business and a thousand other restaurants, remaking them however she wished or preserving them in amber. But not only didn’t she avoid that, it had been decades since even the possibility had drifted through her mind.
Sitting where she belonged, alone, she sipped hot water laced with brown chemicals born minutes ago. Nothing in the mug had anything to do with coffee trees and beans. The fireplace stood to her right. On her left, tall diamond windows opened onto a city corner, and standing on that popular corner—doing nothing and obvious because of his immobility—was that same odd boy.
Looking at him, Parchment felt tense.
The boy was going to stare. She expected nothing else. So she sipped while studying the numbered marker on her table, certain that the young face would soon push against the diamond. But no, when she looked again, nothing had changed. People strode past and they stood together and chatted, but the boy just stared at the soft clean face of the street, and not once, even in small ways, did the nameless creature beg from any of the passersby.
Yet he had certainly made a plea for Parchment’s kindness.
Her meal arrived, full of its own heat and flavors—a collection of materials derived by guesswork and perfected by experience. The man from the counter personally delivered the plate and disposable utensils along with the standard question, “Will there be anything else, madam?”
“That child,” she said, pointing.
Then she said nothing, curious what her friend would imagine to come next.
“Do you wish him gone?” the man inquired.
“Eventually,” she said. “But for now, I’d like to have him sit in front of me. If you can induce him to do that. And I’ll pay for his breakfast, if he wishes.”
“What will we make of our world?”
The Algorithms were meant to answer one iteration of that everlasting question. Humanity and the machines were approaching a rough balance, but this wasn’t going to be the fabled, feared Singularity. AIs were brighter by the second, but human reach was expanding at an astonishing pace. The situation was as perilous as any thriller alarmist scenarios. This was a situation hungry for order, and that’s why the Algorithms were conceived over beer and then heavily funded. And most importantly, the work was empowered by emergency laws. Ten thousand meetings and a thousand thousand emails wrestled with the “make of our world” conundrum. Genius worked on nothing else, and the work marched across most of a decade, crafting the world’s shape. And when genius slept—human and otherwise—it suffered nightmares about a quiet, empty future that would come if any portion of the critical work failed.