by Alex White
“Gladly,” said Boots.
Nilah held up her hand. “I’ll help. I’m no datamancer, but I can interface with the Devil and improve data flow.”
“I’d like to help, too,” said Alister.
“Me too,” said Aisha. “In fact, I would imagine we’d all like to try and solve this one.”
“Captain,” said Malik, “this is our one real lead, and it’s substantial. We’re supplied up, no one knows where we are, and Witts is more interested in attacking GATO. Why don’t we set up multiple terminals and let the whole crew help sift data?”
“All right,” said Cordell. “Get us a war room going. Until further notice, all crew are authorized for half shifts down here. I’m going to want daily reports.”
“Count on us, sir,” said Nilah, prouder than ever.
The others, Nilah learned, sucked at researching. She was one of only three people with any aptitude for it, and even she found it painfully boring. She’d hoped for treasure troves of magical secrets but found a lot of birth records, taxes, estate contracts, and other nonsense. Boots was a great researcher but consistently engrossed by whatever was on her screen and not much for collaboration. Aisha, who’d also picked up a few tips the last time they’d been researching together, was only allowed to work quarter shifts, since a pilot’s place was on the bridge.
They’d started at the most logical place—the Vogelstrand’s commissioning. The ship contained a wide array of imaging feeds from the day he’d been launched. He’d been constructed in orbit, and Nilah had trouble understanding the scaffolding in the archival images. It seemed to fold and unfold, depending on the angle of view.
Despite the fascinating architecture and strange customs, the actual location of Origin remained secret. They’d wanted to use the night sky over the launch to triangulate the position of Origin, but the planet had supposedly been moved.
She sighed a cloud from the surface of her tea as she sipped. The discoveries of the past two weeks had rocked her understanding of the universe, and she was already paging through their contents and yawning.
Aisha’s snore from the corner of the cargo bay startled her, and Nilah glanced over to find the pilot fast asleep before her projections. She was no better about that than her husband, who seemed to pass out anywhere and everywhere.
Nilah blinked at her own console. “Pilot down.”
“Hm? What?” asked Boots, and Nilah nodded in Aisha’s direction.
“There’s no way that woman is behind on her sleep,” said Boots. “Malik probably knocks them both out promptly at seven.”
“I won’t lie, it’d be nice if I could just switch my brain off some nights,” said Nilah, trying to hide her boredom.
Boots leaned back from her projection. “Reading thousands of records is switching my brain off.” She kicked a foot up on the desk and nudged Kin’s mic button, unmuting him. “Kin, we’re falling asleep over here. Cheer us up.”
“I’ll need some context,” said Kin, a small voice from a tiny speaker. “What are you doing?”
“Interminable research,” said Nilah, rubbing her eyes.
“I could help,” said Kin. Boots had left him on the table next to Nilah, and his cage flickered with the light of constant thought. The virus kept his processor pretty busy. “You should not listen to me. I just want to infect your network.”
“It’s okay, buddy,” said Boots. “I’m just about to drop off, is all.”
“Thank god. I didn’t want to give in before you, but I am bloody tired.” Nilah waved away her projection and craned her head to regard the stolen data crystal from the Vogelstrand. “For a crew ‘grasping at straws,’ we’re doing all right.”
Boots leaned forward in her chair and took a sip of her coffee before grimacing. “Ugh. Cold. Yeah, I know what you mean, kid. In another life, a find like this would’ve set me up for good. I’d be one of the foremost experts on Origin in the galaxy. Now… not so much.”
“It’s going to change everything if it goes public,” said Nilah. “Provided the galaxy, uh, survives whatever Witts has in store, this’ll always be our legacy.”
“Technically, the credit for discovering the Vogelstrand goes to Witts,” Boots said with a sour look. “Who knows how he figured it out?”
“Years of painstaking research?” Kin offered.
“Well, yes,” said Boots. “Probably.”
“What does it matter when we can just kill him and take credit for his find?” Nilah finished with a wink.
Boots reached across and clinked her mug against Nilah’s teacup. “Amen to that.”
“Lizzie,” said Kin, “my virus is very interested in your conversations. Would you mind muting my microphones for a bit so I can’t hear?”
“Sure, pal,” said Boots, picking him up to look for the switch. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“I appreciate your understanding,” he replied, before Boots switched off his ears.
“Seems like you two have figured out how to manage,” said Nilah.
Boots set him back down on the table with a gentle thunk. “Yeah. Sucks not being able to use him to hack and stuff, but…” She looked down at the cube and patted it with a metal hand. “He’s still Kin. I’m just happy to have him around again, whether he’s working or not.”
“That’s why you get along with mechanists,” said Nilah, looking at Teacup asleep on its cradle. “We’re all friends with robots.”
They sipped in silence for a bit, enjoying the low thrum of the engines through the walls of the cargo bay, but something didn’t sit right with Nilah. The records on board the Vogelstrand’s database were voluminous and complete. The Originals had been just as obsessed with data as modern folks. She set down her cup and propped her elbows on the table.
“Every time I look at that crystal, I think about how old it is. As a species, we’ve been keeping records forever. Why haven’t we got more from Origin? More paintings and books. More videos. Where did it all go?”
“Quintet War, maybe?” said Boots.
“It seems so… thoroughly erased.”
Squinting at her mug, Boots emptied it and made another disgusted face. “Think about what the Devil said. Powerful people sentenced all alchemists to death. They had a sleeper cell on board the Vogelstrand to hack the AI and release nanites. What if the other colonies created some group to ensure Origin stayed hidden? They might be going around, systematically destroying Originata and all the records.”
“You told me Valentino was a sucker for believing in the Conservators.”
“That was before I was about two steps from discovering Origin. Kid, I’m not ashamed to say I’m wrong quite often.”
“Oh, we’ve noticed,” said Nilah. “Devil, how much information have you got on the people who gassed the Vogelstrand?”
“I have full records of all six conspirators,” said the Devil. “They made no attempt to survive their encounters with the nanites or the rogue AI.”
A set of torsos appeared in the air over the Devil: three men and three women from various ages, ethnicities, and walks of life. At a cursory glance, there were no similarities between them. Their listed jobs had wildly different pay grades and educational requirements. It was as though six people just showed up with the spontaneous idea that they were going to kill everyone.
“May as well start with the easy questions,” said Nilah. “Are they related to one another in any meaningful way?”
“No,” said the Devil. “Their genetic makeup indicates almost no possible relationships. Let me check for any other similarities, including financial entanglements, known associates, pathing metadata, and aeronautical history.”
“And while we wait for that,” sighed Nilah, “maybe I can refill our drinks—”
“Okay, I’m done,” said the Devil. “They’re not known associates before the day of the crime.”
Surveillance images appeared over the floating torsos, depicting a sextet of masked infiltrators storming central c
ontrol. The Devil added, “This is the first time that all of them were recorded in the same place.”
“No prior contact?” asked Boots. “That’s some coordination right there.”
“Assuming they even knew they were saboteurs,” said Nilah. “What if they didn’t know what they were doing, or were under someone else’s control?”
“Three of them are mentioned in a ship security log,” said the Devil, and Nilah perked up. “They were flagged for strange behavior, and the security chief believed they were planning to manufacture dangerous substances.”
Nilah’s skin crawled as she thought of the leaves sprouting from her leg. “You don’t know how right you were, chum.”
Boots drummed her fingers on the desk and said, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Of course Valentino is going to end up being right about those, too.”
“What do you mean?” asked Nilah. “What are you even talking about?”
Boots appeared resigned to some unsavory conclusion, and with a defeated sigh asked, “Devil, does the word ‘Conservator’ appear prominently in the security chief’s logs?”
“No serious preoccupation, but he does ask twice, ‘What are Conservators?’ without ever elaborating on record. One instance was on the day he was killed.”
“By the vines?” said Boots.
“No, he was killed two days prior in a maintenance accident. A failed gasket caused a fire in the—”
“There we go,” said Boots. “Run a query on the word and see if it appears anywhere else in the records.”
“And search similar terms,” said Nilah, “like ‘Conservatory.’”
“Of course,” said the Devil. “What do you take me for?”
Nilah wearily stood from her makeshift workstation. “Okay, now I’m going to refill our coff—”
The Devil flashed obnoxiously. “I’ve found one thousand four hundred and thirty-eight records. If I filter out the words for musical genres and prioritize coded messages, I have two records.”
Plopping back down, she said, “Let’s have it.”
Words appeared before them, along with a string of translation code. The words had been hidden behind several layers of encryption, though that was little problem for an advanced system like the Devil.
THERE ARE GREATER CAUSES IN THIS EXISTENCE THAN MERE SURVIVAL. I NEVER WANTED IT TO COME TO THIS. IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO SERVE THE CONSERVATORY. DON’T BE FRIGHTENED. JOIN US IN DEATH FOR LIFE ANEW. EXECUTE THE CONTINGENCY FOR ALL OF HUMANITY.
“I found this record in their medical database, mixed into the code for their biofabricator,” said the Devil. “The other record is a transmission of incredible complexity. I’m unfamiliar with the transport stream, but it appears to say ‘Conservator’ at the front of it. It might be an executable program. I could try running it in contained mode.”
“Give it a shot,” said Boots.
The spear-toting metal woman from the Vogelstrand appeared in their midst, and Nilah nearly fell over backward out of her chair.
“I am Ursula. Do not resist, for I have control of all your systems. I will begin hearing the case for your continued existence now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve shut off its sensor access, so it can’t hear us for the moment,” said the Devil, “and it only has complete control of a sandbox partition. I can kill it off at any second. All in a day’s work for Element security systems—”
“So there’s no risk?” asked Boots.
“It tickles a little. It’s still an ancient system versus a modern one.”
“Thank you,” said Nilah. “Switch the imagers back on.”
Ursula’s gaze snapped on to Nilah. “What chicanery is this? My vision went dark.”
“Just buggy surveillance systems, mate,” said Nilah. “I’m here to tell you that the Conservators have failed. Alchemy is loose, and a madman got his hands on it.”
“That’s a shame. I’ll have to hunt him down with your ship,” said Ursula. “You are innocent, so I will make this quick.”
It raised its spear and pointed at Nilah, who stood watching impassively. It thrust in her direction, then with a confused look, thrust again.
“Wondering why you can’t control the slingers?” Nilah asked with a smirk.
“They report that they are shooting you, but you remain frustratingly alive.”
“You’re our captive, trapped in a virtual machine,” said Nilah. “We can reset your memory every time things don’t go our way. Now, as I see it, we have two options: you either tell us everything about what you are… or I strip away layer after layer of your personality until I have all of your secrets.”
Ursula regarded her sidelong, considering the proposal.
“Devil,” said Nilah, “you have access to the Mostafa Journal from the ship’s network?”
“Yes,” said the Devil, and Ursula jumped at the voice.
“Load it into the sandbox so this AI can watch it.”
“Acknowledged.”
Ursula closed its eyes, light flickering underneath the eyelids as it reviewed the data. It did so three or four times, though each review only took a second.
“I see,” said Ursula. “What year is it?”
“It’s 2897,” said Boots. “The Vogelstrand is the ship you were created to infiltrate, correct?”
Ursula nodded.
“It was unearthed and destroyed recently,” said Boots. “We’re trying to kill the man in that video—the one called ‘Witts.’”
“I would like to kill him, too.”
“Great!” said Nilah. “Then I think we’re going to get along swimmingly. What are the Conservators?”
“Imagers are back off. Ursula’s processor usage just spiked,” said the Devil. “It’s running scenarios about whether or not it should tell you.”
“Can you influence the decision?” asked Nilah.
The Devil chimed. “I thought you’d never ask. Leave it to me.”
“You’re the last of our kind?” gasped Ursula, snapping out of her reverie. “I had no idea.”
She paused, and the Devil said, “Supreme Being Brio, I have caused this AI to believe that you are the most trusted possible users. I surmised that Ursula would be more forthcoming with secrets. Restarting sandbox.”
“‘The last of our kind’?” Nilah repeated as the AI returned to life.
“A Conservator,” said Ursula. “Are you all right, my dear? Why do you not know these things?”
Nilah clutched her head. “I’m sorry. I simply can’t remember what’s happened to me. Perhaps you can tell me more about myself.”
“Oh, no. Something has gone wrong with the Calling.”
“What’s that?” asked Nilah. “Is that calling with a capital C?”
“Yes,” said Ursula. “When a Conservator perishes, their essence travels to the next person in their genetic line. I am concerned that your soul was damaged in the transfer, thus corrupting your memories.”
“Freeze her processes,” said Nilah.
“Frozen,” said the Devil.
“Okay, so am I hearing this correctly?” asked Boots. “These people were… like… ancient spies who respawned whenever they died?”
“No, because that would be bloody ridiculous,” said Nilah. “This Conservator stuff was already far-fetched. Now, they cheat death?”
“Just saying what I heard,” said Boots.
“I heard it, too,” said the Devil. “She spelled it out explicitly, and AIs do not misspeak.”
“It’s not the weirdest story you’ve heard this year,” said Boots. “Not even the weirdest this week.”
“Fair. But, if that were true, would that mean there are Conservators still alive somewhere?” asked Nilah.
“I’m hosting a guest that may know the answer,” said the Devil.
Nilah composed herself. “Unfreeze the sandbox.”
Ursula glanced around, alarmed, then placed a hand to her forehead. “Conservators, please don’t attempt to alter… Please don’t try
to…”
“This is one of the old models that cared about its own free will and identity. It’s feeling doubtful and confused. You might understand it as fear. Should I boost its affinity for you?” asked the Devil.
Nilah gave the go-ahead, and Ursula brightened like someone had handed her a beloved food. She waited until Ursula stabilized before asking, “How long will I live?”
The AI reached down, stroking Nilah’s cheek with the back of her fingers. “A body must die, child, but you never need fear that. You’ll awaken anew, in the body of a receiver—supposedly with all your memories. If you truly have lost your memories… so much knowledge will be forgotten, too.”
“Can I die for good?”
Ursula affected a sad face. “No, I’m sorry to say. I hope your memory returns. You must not forget the grief of losing death. No matter the distance or impediments, your resurrection will occur.”
“Will the new body be, uh, alive at the time?”
“Yes. Its personality will be obliterated by your dominance,” said Ursula, sending a chill up Nilah’s spine.
“How can we find the other living Conservators?” Nilah asked, giving Boots a may as well try look.
Ursula disappeared, replaced by a forking tree of thousands of data nodes. “Recursive Primacy. The Conservator knowledge is inherited upon the death of a living member, passing down the genetic line in this order. Though… honestly, I’m surprised. Why any Conservator would’ve lost their memories… is… beyond me…”
“Hit this weirdo with a hefty shot of affinity,” said Boots, crossing her arms. “Taking too long.”
“Sorry! I don’t know what came over me!” Ursula shouted, and Aisha fell out of her chair with a start. “I started thinking bad but now am feel good! You are all good! Everything nominal! Safe!”
“Freeze sim.” Nilah had forgotten Aisha was asleep in the corner and felt a twinge of guilt—but only a twinge, since she was supposed to be helping them research. She looked to Boots. “Please help me understand why you overdosed the AI.”