The Credulity Nexus

by Graham Storrs

  “I've met a couple,” Kirsty said. “They're just like anyone else really, except they don't have souls. Here we are. That's our stop.”

  -oOo-

  The private electro-prop circled a landing strip. One of the robots, still in the role of flight attendant, collected the litter from around Rik and checked his seat belt.

  It was dusk when they left the plane and made the short walk to an electric cart, which whisked them off down a smooth road. It was warm, and the air was full of the song of cicadas and frogs. The cart followed the road as it wound across broad lawns, around a huge ornamental lake, and towards the biggest, ugliest, most rambling mansion Rik had ever seen.

  “The guy who owns this must be pretty nuts, huh?” Rik asked his dour companion.

  The man didn't even look Rik's way, but for the first time since they'd met, the ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

  They went in through a back entrance, and down tiled corridors to a service elevator that took them up three storeys. When they got out, the corridors had carpets and were at least twice as wide as the ones below. They walked in near silence to an imposing set of double doors with a pair of equally imposing guards standing outside.

  “Are these guys robots too?” Rik asked, peering into the face of one of them. “'Cause, you know, I'll never be sure about this kind of thing again.”

  “You can go in now,” Mr Dour said, and one of the guards opened the door for him.

  Rik walked in, and only the two robots followed him. As the door closed behind him, a woman unfolded herself from a sofa the size of a Heinlein apartment.

  “Hello Rik. You look like you're been in the wars.”

  “Peth. How nice to see you again.”

  Elspeth Cordell was as elegant as ever in a light summer dress and sandals. She looked Rik up and down with an expression that made him aware of just how unkempt he must be, and then told one of the robots to fetch him a drink.

  “My husband will be along in a moment. I do hope you have good news for him.”

  “A man who has you, Peth, hardly needs me to add to his bounty.”

  She smiled and invited him to take a seat.

  “Who would imagine,” she said, “that a bundle of rags like you, the very dregs of the species, could be so charming?” Her crisp, old money accent made everything she said sound infinitely well-mannered.

  “I hope hubby wasn't too upset about you losing his package. It wasn't your fault, really.”

  Her smile soured a little. “I'm sure you're going to help him get it back. We wouldn't want anything else to happen to your friends and family, would we?”

  Rik was on his feet in an instant, fists balled. Fear sparked in Peth's eyes, and she flinched away from him, but she need not have worried. The two beautiful robots had Rik by the arms before he could take a single step forward.

  He glared at the woman without attempting to struggle. “What does your husband do with these things, Peth? Why did he make them look so hot? Could it be the rejuvenation treatments aren't working as well as they used to?”

  Peth, however, seemed impervious to his taunts. In fact, as he spoke, she appeared to find him increasingly amusing.

  “Silly boy,” she said, stepping closer. “These are my toys, not Newton's.” She reached out and stroked the cheek of one of the robots. “The trouble with people like you is that you have no imagination.”

  Rik's trouble, right at that moment, was an excess of imagination. “So where is he, your power-crazed lunatic of a husband?”

  “Right here, Mr Drew.”

  They both turned to find Newton Cordell crossing the broad expanse of the room. Rik had expected someone tall, strong, well turned-out. Someone like Martin Lanham, for example. He didn't expect a sour-faced stick insect in a motorised wheelchair.

  “I must apologise for my late arrival.” His voice was phlegmy, as if he ought to clear his throat. “I hope my wife has been keeping you amused.”

  Rik had had enough of the fake politeness. He glared at Cordell. “Why should you care? I'm your prisoner. Be as late as you like.”

  The trillionaire glanced sharply at Rik. “Let go of him,” he told the robots with an impatient gesture. The machines obeyed instantly, Rik noted. So much for any illusion of control Peth might have over them. Peth stepped quickly away and went to sit down. Perhaps she was annoyed. Perhaps she didn't want to be within Rik's reach. As far as Rik was concerned, her feelings didn't matter a damn.

  “Have you got my ex-wife, Maria Dunlop?” Rik demanded of Cordell.

  “Sit down, Mr. Drew. I have some questions for you.”

  “Up yours, creep. If you have Maria, I want her. Then we're leaving.”

  Cordell studied Rik, as if trying to decide just how stupid he really was. He rolled his chair closer. “Your ex-wife is not here. Currently, I do not have her. That could change at any moment. Now sit down and stop playing the fool.” With another gesture, he waved the robots away from Rik.

  Rik hardly noticed them go. Maria was safe. For now. He felt himself relax a little. If Cordell had harmed her, Rik would have beaten him to a pulp. He only realised it after the fact, but it was true. There was a huge ball of rage that had built up inside him, and it was aimed at Lanham and Cordell. It would take very little provocation for him to unleash it at this man. The robot bodyguards could not have stopped him, Rik was certain.

  The impression Cordell gave of being an old man was false, Rik now saw. He probably wasn't more than fifty-five or sixty. Hardly anything for a rich man these days. So why the chair? Why the obvious decrepitude? Rik sat down and waited for the great industrialist to continue.

  “Do you believe in God, Mr. Drew?”

  This echo of his interview with Lanham made Rik snort with amusement. “You've got my file. Look it up.”

  “The file only tells me so much. It tells me you don't belong to any church. It tells me you were divorced from your first wife, despite God's law. It tells me you entered into a disgusting and sinful liaison with two strumpets on–”

  Rik leaned forwards abruptly. “Say that again, Cordell, and you will never say another word.”

  Cordell frowned back into Rik's glare, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Oh for goodness sake!” Peth complained. “Just ask him your questions and get him out of here.”

  Cordell flinched at his wife's outburst, but otherwise ignored her.

  “Yet, for all this,” he went on, “the file doesn't tell me what you truly feel in your heart. Do you understand? It could be, it could easily be, that you are as disgusted by your life as I am. It could be that you will, in the end, seek our Lord's redemption. I would like to know, Mr. Drew. It is important.”

  Rik's eyes stayed fixed on Cordell's. “I'll tell you what's important, Cordell. It's important that you never, ever get hold of that little brew you've had concocted. It's important that people hear about your half-witted plans to poison the world. It's important that nutcases like you should be locked up in padded cells and not be allowed to roam free.”

  Cordell laughed and rolled away. “What can I do with an idiot like this?” he asked his wife. She looked away, bored, and he turned back to Rik.

  “If I thought there was any small chance of saving your soul, Mr. Drew, I would do whatever I could to help you find salvation. You've been out there, haven't you, at Omega Point? Listening to their blasphemous nonsense? You're helping them, too. Trying to get the package to them.” He sounded disgusted, and his contempt for Rik's actions burned in his eyes.

  “Do you know why they call their home – their nest! – Omega Point? No, of course not. Do you know why it's orbiting at the L4 Lagrangian Point, so far away?

  “Even their ridiculous symbolism is taken from that blasphemous Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. You won't have read his book, The Phenomenon of Man, but if you had, you'd know about his ridiculous, teleological view of evolution, the insane idea that we are all being led to evolve towards the Omega Point, which that
poor sinner equated with God Himself! And where is the Omega Point? Ahead of us, pulling us along. That's why they're at L4! The hubris! The overweening pride! And the irony of it all is this: for all their symbolism, they are nothing but symbols themselves; code in a machine; lifeless, soulless monsters!”

  “Sorry, Newt, you lost me at 'blasphemous Jesuit'. Could we just, you know, skip to the point of all this? I like to hear a deranged rant as much as the next man, but–”

  “Silence!” For a sickly guy in a wheelchair, Newton Cordell still had a powerful set of lungs. His bellow seemed to hang in the air as the seconds ticked past. The ageing trillionaire glowered at Rik. Slowly, slowly, he got himself under control again.

  “Very well. The point. I brought you here to tell me where my package is. So tell me, and let's get this over with.”

  Rik's body tensed, and he wished he'd let the old fool rant a bit more. There was only one way this was likely to end. He thought briefly about trying to bluff his way out of it. If he could, he might still have a chance to find Maria before Cordell's people did – or Lanham's. But he was flat out of convincing lies.

  “I don't know where it is. I lost it.”

  Cordell laughed again, but not in a nice way.

  “We're talking about the salvation of the human race, you buffoon! It took me a decade to find the faith nexus–“

  “The credulity nexus, you mean.”

  “No! I mean faith! Faith! The pattern of genes that opens a man's heart to faith. That will open his ears to the Word of God. A decade to find it, and years more to build the vector that would carry the genes to reshape it. And now, thanks to you and those... those... machines, my lab is in ruins, and the people I need are all dead. All I have left is what's in that package, and I don't have the time to do it all again. I'm dying! Look at me! I'm going to face my Maker soon. Within the year! And I was going to bring Him the gift of eight billion converts. Eight billion sinners, singing His praise!”

  “You must have a real bad conscience, if it's going to take all that to buy your way into Heaven.”

  For a moment, Cordell was apoplectic with rage. “Buy my way? Buy? You think God can be bought, you miserable worm?”

  He stopped speaking and gasped in silence, eyes bulging, struggling to draw a breath. Small arms and gadgets appeared from out of the chair and attached themselves to his legs and chest, administering medicines and checking his responses. Peth jumped up and ran to him, touching him and soothing him, urging him to relax.

  By the time he could breathe again, Cordell looked exhausted. He slumped in his chair, his face slack. His eyes, however, still regarded Rik from under heavy lids.

  Peth turned to Rik, her own eyes bright with anger.

  “My husband isn't the kind of person your sort is used to dealing with. The thought of all those billions of people dying in sin is agony to him. His only thought is to bring them all to God and eternal joy.”

  “Right, by screwing up their brains. You think this god of yours would want that? Wasn't he supposed to have given us free will so we could make up our own minds?”

  Cordell struggled out of his stupor. “The nexus is God's gift to us, the path to Grace, and Satan has corrupted it. Corrupted it! But I will undo the Beast's work. I will save us all from damnation!”

  Rik was growing increasingly creeped out by the man's obvious insanity. He knew Cordell was reputed to be a religious man, but he'd assumed that meant the same cynical lip-service that everyone paid the Divine. The political scheming to take control of the world's governments by use of the nexus, as explained by Lanham, had made perfect sense to Rik. But this man was a True Believer, and the difference between that and a raving nutcase was too close for Rik to call.

  “All we want is your co-operation, Rik,” Peth said, apparently trying for a more reasonable tone. “Just tell us where the package is and no-one will get hurt.”

  “Who?” Rik asked, his temper rising again. “Who are you planning to hurt now? Don't you freaks see the contradiction here? Saint fucking Newton wants to save the world, but he doesn't care how many people suffer to make it happen? If you're really worried about your immortal souls, tell me where Maria is, and forget about the damned credulity nexus.”

  “Faith!” Cordell shouted. The meds he'd received seemed to be restoring him. He slammed his palm down on the arm of his chair, insisting. “Faith!”

  “Whatever.”

  “Rik,” Peth tried again. “Those... people at Omega Point, they're not the good guys.”

  Rik knew that all right. He had two dead wives and a friend in a coma to remind him.

  “They probably told you all kinds of lies about us. They probably painted us blacker than black. But why do you think they want to get hold of the package so badly?”

  That seemed pretty obvious to Rik, especially now he'd met the devout Mr. Cordell.

  “They want to use it, Rik.”

  “What? What possible reason could they have for turning the world into religious nutters? That doesn't make sense.”

  “Think about the nexus Rik. It opens people up to belief. It makes them willing to go beyond mere physical evidence, beyond what they see and hear. Newton and I want to give that blessing to everyone, Rik. But what if the ghosts got the vector? What if they re-engineered it to shut the nexus down completely?

  “You know what it's like for them now. Ordinary people don't trust them. Decent religious people condemn them for the abominations they are. Omega Point is their big symbol of transhuman superiority, but the reality is it's not safe for them down here on Earth, or anywhere close by. There are plenty of people who want to destroy them.

  “But imagine if they could stamp out belief altogether. Most of their enemies would turn into friends. Some people might still be jealous of their immortality and their wealth, but the rest would no longer be able to see what a foul mockery of life they are. They would be accepted. Safe. They could even move back among us and wield their power more directly.”

  Rik wanted to argue with her, because that's what you do with paranoid, crazy-people, but he'd met Lanham and his friend Celestina. He knew they wouldn't hesitate to mess with people's genes if it would serve their ends.

  He shook his head, trying to get his thoughts in a more orderly pattern. He turned to Cordell. “All right, so Lanham's a creep too. So handing the package over to him might be a bad idea. It doesn't change anything. You can torture me, kill everyone I ever knew, whatever twisted thing is in your decaying mind, but you can't change the facts. I don't know where the package is. It's lost.”

  Cordell looked into Rik's eyes and smiled. “I don't believe you.”

  He called for the robots to take Rik's arms again, which they did.

  “Tonight you will be my guest, Mr. Drew. I have arranged accommodation for you. Tomorrow I will show you all those twisted things in my decaying mind.”

  Chapter 27

  The Barbie-bots led him along long corridors, out of the expensive, plush parts of the house into an area that looked more like a business-class hotel. They released him outside an anonymous door and he heard the lock click open. One of the robots signalled for him to enter, and he grabbed the knob and pushed the door wide.

  Something large and loud came charging out of the room and hit him in the chest. If he hadn't been such a big guy, he would have been knocked flat. As it was, he staggered back into his guards with his attacker clamped to his chest, kicking and punching him with gusto.

  “Hey!” he shouted, recovering from the shock. His assailant, he realised, was a woman. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away from him at arm's length. The woman looked up at him, with blazing eyes and a curse on her lips, and stopped dead.

  “Rik?”

  “Fariba?”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  She threw herself at him again, this time hugging him tightly. Rik wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He felt a wash of emotions: surprise at how small she seemed, astonishment
and dismay at finding her there, and a sudden, glorious happiness that she was alive and unharmed.

  “Please enter the room,” one of the robots said.

  Freymann looked around Rik at the tall, beautiful speaker in the white catsuit.

  “Are you going to introduce me?”

  They let go of one another and stepped apart.

  “Fariba, meet Barbie, and, er, Barbie.”

  “Please enter the room,” Barbie said.

  Freymann eyed the twins critically. “These two catwalk models are your guards? I don't see any weapons.”

  Rik held up a cautionary hand. “Don't be fooled by their willowy elegance. Either one of these ladies could take the pair of us apart with her bare hands. Shall we go in?”

  Freymann was clearly reluctant to believe him, but she turned and led him back into her room.

  As the door closed behind him, Rik surveyed the shambles of broken furniture and the gutted carcass of what might once have been a domestic robot.

  “I like what you've done with the place.”

  He looked to her for a smile but Freymann was all business.

  “The walls, floors and ceiling are hardened concrete. The door is steel. The window is... Well, who knows what it is, but I can't break the damned thing. There isn't a vent, crack or gap anywhere big enough for me to crawl through. And I've found three cameras already, so watch what you say.”

  “How long have they had you here?” He cleared some electronic junk off the bed and lay down. Just the possibility of rest made him want to sleep for a month.

  “I'm not sure. Days. Two or three. Maybe four. Where have you been all this time? It's more than a week since that zombie took you in LA.”

  “What's up with your face?”

  She pulled her hand away as if she'd only just realised she was rubbing it. “The damned zombie broke my jaw. The Feds fixed me up, but I've got three new teeth growing, and it hurts like shit.”