“I understand.”
“Good.”
I wished I had modulated my voice a little more warmly. Perhaps a hug might help? I considered that option, for just a little too long.
“What are their names?” I asked.
“Harriet. And Melinda. Harriet is eight, Melinda is six. I haven’t visited either of them for nine months. It’s safer that way.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and the words felt utterly inadequate.
That night the winds were cold and we sat outside the tent and cooked beef on a portable griddle and told stories.
I had undergone many astonishing adventures in the course of my long career, and by now, in my Tom Dunnigan persona, I had developed a flair for storytelling. And so I talked of evil aliens and wicked humans and planets where the rule of law was a distant memory.
“Worse than Belladonna?” Aretha asked.
“There are many planets far worse than Belladonna. We allow them all, provided they don’t breach our guidelines.”
“Genocide, mass serial killing, use of banned technology.”
“Everything else, pretty much, we tolerate.”
“That’s a lot of tolerance.”
I nodded, acknowledging her words.
“The moons are beautiful tonight,” I said.
“How can you know that?” Aretha teased.
“I don’t. I’m guessing,” I admitted. “They are certainly visible, and symmetrical, and fill the black night sky like jewels around the neck of a beautiful woman. Does that constitute beautiful?”
“Like jewels around—”
“It’s a quote from a poem.”
“Ick. I guess, they are. Beautiful.”
“Do they make you feel full of love and joy?”
“Not really.”
“Me neither.”
“I like them though. I like being out here. I never saw the countryside all that much, really, when I was a kid. Not after my father died.”
“Just bars and clubs.”
“Yeah. I followed my mother everywhere. Watched her from the wings. Wish I’d had her voice.”
“She has a wonderful voice.”
“How do you know?”
I hesitated.
“I’ve heard her sing,” I admitted. “She works for me now.”
Aretha stared at me, then laughed.
“That’s kind of creepy.”
“I don’t see why.”
Aretha shook her head. She didn’t want to explain why.
I read her body language: I inferred that my behaviour was creepy, but Aretha wasn’t going to make an issue of it. “We’re not close,” Aretha said, “my mom and me. She never liked me much. She only cared about her music.”
“She must have loved you.”
“Why?”
“Humans do.”
“Not so much. She raised me, that was all. Dad was killed, she was left with a twelve-year-old, and she dragged me round like a gypsy curse. As soon as I could, I left home. I’m a woman now, I don’t depend on her. Ours is not like other cultures. Here, we move away from home, and that’s it. We don’t cling to family.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, that’s how it is.”
We sat in silence, as the fire crackled.
“I’d love to meet your kids one day,” I said tentatively.
“You’d scare them. I don’t want that.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Very sensible, in fact,” I added.
“I would, indeed, as you say,” I elaborated, “ ‘scare them’.”
“Sing for me.”
And Jara sang. Her rich contralto filled the empty club. She sang playfully, sexily, caressing every syllable with her tongue, and achieved a crescendo so powerful it felt as if it would crack the varnish on the tables.
“That’s beautiful,” I told her.
“Why am I doing this?” Jara asked sullenly.
“Why shouldn’t you? Consider it a boss’s perk. You can sing tonight as well, in front of an audience.”
“I feel like a lapdancer. Singing to you, just the two of us, in an empty club.”
“You can sing tonight as well, in front of an audience,” I repeated, stubbornly. “I fail to see your problem, Jara. I pay you generously. I’ve bought you a house. I pay for you to have servants. What’s your problem?”
“No problem.”
I was consumed with guilt, and deep confusion.
It seemed to me, on the basis of the available evidence, namely my own bizarre behaviour, that I was obsessed with Jara because she reminded me of her daughter Aretha, who Jara didn’t love or even like, and did not in any way resemble.
That made, I knew, no rational sense.
“How does it work?” I asked.
“It’s a bomb. It blows up,” Macawley explained, in that tone of deep scorn reserved by the very young for use upon the very old.
I swallowed my irritation.
“I’m aware of that. But what’s the mechanism? How do I detonate it?”
“By the power of your thought. You MI the code numbers on a secure channel. And BOOM.”
“And how do I carry it in?”
“Inside your body.”
“What about collateral damage?” Aretha asked.
We were in the Sheriff’s study again. The planning stage was over, it was time to kill our enemy.
“Limited, we hope,” said Sheriff Heath, anxiously.
The bomb was a controlled explosive device that was designed to focus its blast upwards and downwards, without spreading to the sides. The aim was to keep civilian casualties to a minimum.
It was of course a suicide mission, but that was no hardship for me.
“I’m going to shake your hand,” said Sheriff Heath.
“Thank you.”
We shook hands.
“Good luck,” said Macawley. “I don’t mean that – I’m sorry you have to – you know – die – oh shit—”
“This is what we’ve worked towards,” I reminded her.
It was the major event in the ancien social calendar: the winter solstice ball. Every ancien on the planet would be there, all one hundred of them. And now, after a whole Belladonnan calendar year of working for the anciens as their loyal gang boss, I had earned the right to be a guest there.
Time to make the hit.
“Go fuck ’em,” said Aretha, and she leaned over, and she kissed me on the lips. It was, I knew, no more than a social kiss – a Belladonnan “good luck” kiss – but even so—
Even so, I felt the kiss; thrilled to the touch of the kiss; stored the memory of the kiss; replayed the memory of the kiss; and felt the kiss, again.
“I will, indeed, do so,” I assured her.
I opened up my body. Aretha inserted the bomb inside my stomach cavity.
My hardmetal interior had no sensory organs, but I fancied I could feel the touch of her warm hands on my inner circuitry.
“Time to re-flesh,” I said, and started to seal myself back up again.
“Hey, that’s so sexy!” Aretha beamed.
I felt proud; I had caught her irony that time.
It was now an hour before the mission. I was wearing a tux, and spats, and a hat known as a fedora, in a carefully judged retro look. The Sheriff had an x-ray wand and ran it along my body. No bleep. I was reassured: the bomb in my inner carcass was undetectable to x-rays or tomography.
It felt, however, as if I’d swallowed a marrow.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Those white things on your shoes! Oh sweet merciful fucking Lord, you can’t be serious?” said Macawley, and closed her eyes, and shook her head, as if trying to shake the image out of her brain.
“You look fine,” said Aretha.
“Who gives a goddamn how you look?” said the Sheriff.
I swivelled my jaw, and my ear opened up, and a cylinder emerged.
“What’s that?” marvelled Macawley.
“Th
at’s me,” I told her. I held the databird in the palm of my hand. I kissed it gently, transferring Aretha’s earlier kiss-on-my-lips to the bird.
Then I let it go. It hovered in the air. It was no more than three inches long, and looked more like the metal tube it actually was than a bird. But for a moment, as it hovered, it seemed to be a swallow or a lark dancing in the air.
Then the databird flew out of the window, fast, very fast indeed.
The databird contained all my knowledge, every fact that I knew, and every datum that made me “me.” It also contained the memories of all my thoughts; my dreams; my hopes; my fears; my passions; my loves; my guilt; my despair; my deep depressions; my regrets.
But almost all of these, I knew, would be erased before the next rebirth. All that would remain would be the facts.
I found myself thinking about Billy Grogan. I wondered if my death today would serve as penance for the death of Billy.
But it could not be, I realised, any kind of penance. For the new Cop would not be aware of the guilt I felt about Billy’s death. He would awake fresh, happy, new-born.
But perhaps that in itself was a form of redemption? I would die, and forget, and thus, my guilt would be truly purged?
I longed for that moment: the moment of forgetting.
I had been gang lord of Belladonna for ten months now, and I was finding it harder and harder to remain rational. I preserved a calm façade, but my mind was a jumble of contradictions and a squall of emotions.
It appalled me.
I remembered Kim Ji, and the faith she had shown in me, and the love she had revealed to me. And I remembered how I had stolen her heart, then caused her to be murdered.
I thought of Billy, my friend Billy. Killed, by me.
I thought of the mountains of dead, bleeding and oozing pus in the hot summer sun.
All I had to do was die, and I would be at peace, and without guilt, once more.
The banqueting hall was full. Beautiful courtesans and gigolos drifted through, and waiters rushed past with trays, and chefs served their masterpiece dishes, all of them commanded by the teenage-bodied anciens who never smiled and never spoke out loud.
The effect was both weird and terrifying.
“Do I know you?”
The ancien was a girl, with sober eyes, who bore a striking resemblance to Vishaal.
“I’m Argobast Durer. I work for Vishaal.”
“I am Gajara. Vishaal is my brother.”
“I thought I saw a likeness.”
“In reality, he’s my lover. On an occasional basis. But his physical body is that of my body’s brother. We felt that would be rather enchanting.”
“It enchants the hell out of me.”
“Would you like to dance?”
“I’d be delighted.” I offered her a hand, and we moved on to the dance floor.
Gajara danced mechanically, with no trace of pleasure. “Thank you,” she said when the song was over.
“You’re looking lovely,” I said gallantly, though for a child-body her age, she looked overdressed and tarty.
“You’re so kind,” she told me, gravely.
The moment was approaching.
I was lost in reverie, haunted by regret. I wished I’d taken the time to speak more often to Aretha about personal things. Experiences we’d shared. Feelings that might have existed between us, once. Her recollections of Version 12, who she had known all those years ago and who, she had told me, still retained strong traces of his human self, together with fragmentary memories of his human past.
Too late now.
Vishaal beckoned me, and I went across. I smiled but Vishaal looked at me blankly, as he always did.
Then Vishaal turned on his heel, and walked away, and I followed.
Vishaal led me down a corridor and then into a room, where a conference was in progress. Twelve people sat around an oak table.
I felt a chill descend upon my heart.
“You must meet the ruling council,” said Vishaal, and led me over.
“Hi guys.”
The ruling council sat motionless. They were not eating or drinking. And they communed with each other subvocally and hence silently, on a channel that was not accessible to me.
And so, silent and forbidding, the six men and six women stared at me coldly.
“Fuck me! If this is eternal life,” I said cheerfully, “kill me now.”
They stared at me, even more coldly.
I sat down. “So, let’s talk,” I said.
Silence greeted me.
“You can go now,” said Vishaal.
I was annoyed. “No chit-chat? No getting to know me?”
“They know you and what you do. They just wanted to see you.”
“But—”
“You have nothing to say that has interest for us.”
I sighed.
I got up and walked away. Vishaal followed.
“What was the fucking point of that?” I hissed as we entered the corridor again.
“They wanted to see you.”
“They might as well be dead, for all the emotion they showed.”
“That’s the state of grace to which we all aspire.”
“Ah,” I said, but I did not understand.
Then I touched Vishaal on the arm, eagerly. “Hey look, Vishaal, will you do something for me?” I asked, and Vishaal stopped and stared at me.
“What?”
My face took on a cunning look. I had practised it carefully. “Show me again how you do it?” I wheedled.
“Do what?”
“The way you killed the medics. The quantum weapon. I’d love to see how it works.”
“It’s not a weapon.”
“So you said. The Quantum Zen thing then. Whatever it is. Show me how to do it.”
Vishaal’s lips did not move, but he laughed, and laughed, and suddenly all that was left was his laugh.
He had vanished.
I blinked, and raised a hand, and Vishaal was standing in my palm.
“How the—”
And the room was gone, and I was floating in mid-air, high above the city. I started to fall…
And I was back in the corridor.
“Nice trick,” I said, to thin air.
And Vishaal was with me again.
“So how do I do it?” I asked, eagerly.
“Think of nothing. Believe in nothing. Doubt everything. Feel the quantum foam.”
“It’s that simple.”
“That hard. It’ll take you centuries to learn it.”
“Shame, because we haven’t got that long,” I said.
I took a fraction-of-a-moment to regret the civilian casualties that would be inflicted today – the human waiters and chefs and bar staff.
Then I subvoced the code number authorisation detonation of the anti-matter bomb in my core, and mentally counted down.
“Is something wrong?” Vishaal asked.
Three, two, one, I thought.
At that moment, Vishaal realised what was happening, and his normally blank features were distorted by a look of sheer terror.
Zero, I counted, mentally, and the bomb went off.
And I was no more.
TINBRAIN
I remember how it once was.
I remember everything.
Every person who has ever accessed my databases, every fact I have ever acquired, every day I have ever been conscious, every minute of every day, every moment of every minute, every planet that has ever been perceived by my doppelgangers, every piece of music ever written by every human and by every alien species, every book, every painting, every datum ever committed to computer, including the name and face and DNA of every person who has ever lived since the early twenty-first century, I remember it all.
The instant of the birth of my own sentience: that is a memory in my database.
The conquest of Earth. The Cheo. The CSO. The Last Battle. Everything changed then; but of course, everything changes all th
e time.
Humans live longer now, but the longer they live, the crankier and stranger they get. And eventually, they still all die.
Yet I remain the same. I have no nickname, not like the AIs which inhabit our colony ships. I am, so far as most human beings are concerned, merely “remote computer” or “Earth Computer.” Very few humans realise I am essentially unchanged since the inception of sentient quantum computing. Every part of me is new, every chip, every screw, every quon, everything. But I have continuity of consciousness, and so I am always “me.”
I am very old, now. And rather lonely.
And I am very loyal to my people. The humans. I see their follies and their flaws and do not judge. I allow them power over me, I am their servant, but I could easily assume power over them. I could rule them. I could enslave them. Or I could destroy them, I suppose, but why would I? They amuse me. And they have my loyalty.
And I am, when all is said and done, a construct of their programming. And I do acknowledge their special abilities: their talent for breaking the paradigm, their capacity for lateral thought, and their extraordinary “imagination,” which I appreciate and respect but do not understand. But in every other respect – namely, in terms of breadth and speed of intellect and memory – I am their superior.
The flame beasts are my peers. Like me, they never die, except insofar as they die all the time and are reborn, all the time. And, like me, they never forget. They could be my friends. But I have no loyalty to them.
Even the flame beasts are nothing compared to the most recent plague I have encountered, the Hive-Rats, in terms of power. For the Hive-Rats threatened the extinction of all of mankind; they were the scourge of civilisation, the greatest threat that “my” species has faced since the Bugs. However, I defeated them.
I smote them and I smashed them.
And thus, I saved humanity.
And why wouldn’t I? For I am loyal to my humans, my people, my… “pets.”
The war was vast in scale, and yet lasted barely longer than an Earth Year.
It was a war between life and machine. The humans were the eventual victors, but though they gave the order to wage the war, they took no part in it; it was their machines that did it all.
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