Version 43

by Philip Palmer

  My human personality was an imprint taken from a dead human brain. But whose brain? Someone who loved to kill? A serial murderer? A monster? A berserker Soldier? Who?

  I would never know. That knowledge no longer existed in this sector of the universe.

  And it did not matter. I had to deal with the task in hand.

  Nor, I decided, did this woman Sergeant Aretha Jones matter. She had no special knowledge, no useful skills. The advice and strategic guidance she had offered to Version 45 had proved to be useless. I would no longer bother to confide in her.

  My mission was clear; my focus was absolute.

  The anciens were no longer a threat to humanity. They were a threat to all reality.

  But how, I wondered, could I destroy them?

  “I have no further need of your help,” I explained patiently, when I met Aretha again a few days later. “You may return to your regular duties.”

  “You arrogant fucking fool!” Aretha roared at me.

  I stood in the park, and watched the birds in flight, forming a perfect V-shape in the sky. I noted that the Earth-born birds were part of the same flocks as the alien-birds, and found a note on the same phenomenon made by Version 45.

  It was an irrelevant observation, and I wondered why it hadn’t been erased.

  I reassessed all Version 45’s data on his failed attempt to destroy the anciens. There must, I confidently hypothesised, be a clue in there that would help me devise a new strategy.

  But no ideas suggested themselves.

  I mulled on a peculiar fact: according to 45’s mission log, Sergeant Aretha Jones had seemed strangely obsessed by the way 45 had befriended and fornicated with an ancien woman called Livia. Aretha’s conversations with Version 45 on this matter were flagged as having considerable connotative bias. Words like “bitch” and “monster” had been included in what was meant to be a dispassionate assessment by Sergeant Jones of the threat level and vulnerabilities of the target.

  I noted that I did not retain memories of 45’s acts of love-making with Livia, which was a relief.

  Version 45 had also, in his mission log, speculated on the nature of the anciens’ secret weapon, but he had failed to propose any detailed hypotheses to solve this mystery. I found this baffling, and was puzzled at the glaring gaps and leaps in logic to be found in 45’s contemporaneous mission log.

  It was obvious to me that the anciens had acquired a way to exist on the quantum level of reality. I further deduced that their powers were enhanced by starlight, which is why they needed the cover of darkness to kill Version 43. And this explained how the anciens had shown such effortless prowess when Version 45 was on board their space station; in other words, when they were surrounded by stars.

  I was also aware of the scientific basis for all this: namely, that distant stars in space project vast probability proxy waves – some as wide as a continent – which behave “as if” matter can exist in many places at the same time. These proxy waves are the source of the anciens’ power. Thus, when the stars shine upon them, the anciens are transformed into quantum beings. Quantum warriors.

  It might therefore, I surmised, be possible to create a weapon that could neutralise this quantum power: a flash-light bomb, perhaps, that would drown the distant light of the stars with photons possessed of no proxy waves, in order to collapse the wave functions of the quantum warriors.

  The physics was formidable, but I quickly solved it.

  I also identified a strategy that would allow me to defeat the anciens on the planet they commanded so totally.

  Barely a week had passed, and already I had evolved an approach that would allow me to defeat my enemy.

  And yet, I considered that I was operating at far less than optimum efficiency. For my cybernetic circuits were sluggish, and haunted by thoughts, recollections, and speculations about Aretha. The memory of her face, her beauty, the sexuality of her body, the special glow of her “inner life,” her wicked sense of humour, her look of rage when I told her I had no use for her any more.

  Sheriff Heath had alleged that Version 45 had “loved” Aretha Jones. It was preposterous of course. So why did the Sheriff say it?, I wondered to myself. Was he trying to destabilise me? Sabotage me?

  I decided that the situation was unsatisfactory, and that my lack of efficiency was potentially damaging to the mission. I then concluded that I needed to complete a full datapicture on the matter, in order to banish this human being from my thoughts.

  And so I used my stealth skills to follow Aretha home from work that night.

  And the next night.

  And the night after that.

  I also set six remotely controlled dragonflies loose, and they flew into her apartment, and filmed Aretha at home, and followed her to work as well. And I further programmed the dragonflies to transmit their images of Aretha directly into my cybernetic mind.

  And thus, by proxy, through the eyes of my miniature hovering cameras, I saw Aretha by day, and I saw her too at night.

  I even saw her, from time to time, though I tried to keep this to a minimum, naked; and I saw her in the gym; and running around the park; and in her pyjamas; brushing her hair; getting into bed; asleep.

  I noted that she said her prayers every night – prayers! – and on her bedside table were photographs of her two daughters, one six years old (Melinda), one eight years old (Harriet), who (my database informed me) were living with Aretha’s sister because of the frequent death threats made against Aretha and those close to her, by person or persons unknown.

  And when she fell asleep, I watched her even more acutely. She was an active sleeper; a thrasher and groaner, and a snorer too. But every night, in the early hours, there came a moment of total peace, and she was still. And then, very often, she would smile at something, whilst still in deep sleep.

  My dragonflies watched Aretha at breakfast; they followed her in the patrol car. They watched her taking bribes, as was the universal custom on this planet, and they saw her daily acts of heroism. Aretha was a smart and a brave cop, and the dragonflies saw all that she did, and didn’t do.

  Aretha was having an on–off affair with another cop called Hernandez. My dragonflies followed them to Hernandez’ place, and watched them chat, and kiss, and cuddle, and whisper obscenities, until the point when they were about to strip and make love. And at this juncture I withdrew my consciousness; not for prudish reasons, for I was familiar with the mechanics of human love-making, but because I felt that to spy on Aretha in such moments would be… wrong.

  But, after allowing sufficient time for the act of congress to be completed, I would return. By then, Aretha would generally be chilled out, yet also emotionally expansive, and liked to tell stories about work and life. Hernandez was clearly charmed by her, and besotted with her. One night Aretha had to warn him not to get too serious. But Hernandez laughed, and clearly thought that Aretha was madly in love with him, which, I concluded, she clearly wasn’t, and nor, I further decided, should she be.

  A month had passed and I had held no briefing sessions with Sheriff Heath, and had made no progress in my war against the anciens. But still I followed Aretha every day, and every night, and lovingly watched every detail of her life routine. The way she drank wine, in tiny greedy sips; she drank, in my estimate, moderately, except on a few regrettable occasions when she became slurringly incoherent, and sang. But she liked to buy the most expensive vintages, and could easily afford to do so on her salary. And she clearly savoured fine drink, and good food, and loved to prepare ornate salads splashed with olive oil and dotted with herbs.

  I also loved – as I had always loved! – the way froth accumulated on her upper lip when she drank frothy coffee, just as she had done a century ago. The way her muscles bunched as she sweated at the gym. The way she talked to members of the public, clearly and firmly and courteously, winning confidence and respect with her frankness. And I loved the husky timbre of her voice, and the half-smile that lurked on her lips when she w
as amused.

  But she had enemies, I discovered. A number of police officers, including Lieutenant Marshall, the head of the precinct house, clearly regarded Aretha with some scorn. She took bribes, but she refused to participate in paid assassinations or bank robberies. Her arrest rate was high, and she was considered to be “incorruptible,” which was a devastating black mark on her record.

  Furthermore, she was believed to have colluded with the Galactic Cop on several of his visits, which gave her pariah status within the force. I hadn’t appreciated how lonely a life Aretha was living, and how much she had risked to assist the earlier Versions of myself.

  One day Hernandez broke off the affair with Aretha. She took the news badly, and accused him of listening to “gossip” about her. Hernandez accepted the truth of this claim, and alleged that Aretha was a robot-loving collaborator. Aretha had no response to this.

  My dragonflies watched Aretha that night, as she drank herself into oblivion, and passed out in a chair. At one point she vomited and I contemplated rushing to her apartment in order to administer precautionary first aid. But Aretha woke herself up and puked herself dry, then stood with her clothes on in the shower until she was sober. And I watched her till she slept, and then watched her till dawn, and carried on watching till she got up again, and I ached with sorrow.

  The next morning she was back on duty, as focused and as courageous as ever. But she had even fewer friends now. Even Hernandez wasn’t making eye contact with her. No one was willing to be her partner.

  I worried about this; Aretha’s life had been wrecked because of her relationship with me: or rather, with Versions 7, 11, 12, 43, 44 and 45 of me. Previously, I’d had no inkling of this fact. I wondered why she had never revealed this information.

  The days went by. My dragonflies continued to stalk Aretha, and transmitted every image of her every waking and sleeping hour back to me.

  I was confident that my brilliant strategy would allow me to destroy the anciens. But I found myself lacking the necessary motivation to implement it.

  Much time passed this way.

  I found myself in a bar, the Black Saloon, and my database told me that the owner, Filipa Santiago, was a good source of information.

  I uttered a few preliminary comments to establish my identity, and a huge smile lit Filipa’s face.

  “It’s you?” she marvelled.

  “It’s me,” I admitted.

  We went into the back snug, and swapped stories. I explained the failure of my original plan to defeat the anciens. And I asked for clarification about some of the things she had said to Version 45. In particular, I was puzzled at his mission log’s insistence that Filipa possessed stealth technology of an unknown and inexplicable nature.

  “Here’s how it works,” said Filipa, and suddenly she had the face of an angry ugly wrathful Gorgon.

  Then she was Filipa again; and the illusion popped.

  “Projective telepathy?” I said.

  “Glamour,” Filipa told him. “It’s a magic power. I am part-witch. I was born on Hecuba.”

  “Hecubans are religious cultists.”

  “We’re witches.”

  “That’s a fatuous and erroneous claim,” I explained.

  “Well we are,” said Filipa mildly.

  “I have a question,” I said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are the anciens all-powerful?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Filipa.

  “But surely,” I argued, “the evidence suggests that they are. They’re immortal. Superhuman. Unkillable.”

  “No, they’re human,” Filipa insisted. “Just human. Rejuve and stolen bodies make them immortal. And their superpower is just one power, one strange power, but when we understand it we can defeat it. And unkillable? Nothing is unkillable. We just have to look at our enemies, see them for what they truly are, and then we can beat them.” Filipa’s tone was calm and confident. As she spoke, I found myself swept up with a blind faith in her.

  “An anti-matter bomb couldn’t do it,” I reminded her.

  “So you said,” said Filipa.

  “There is in fact a way,” I admitted.

  “What is it?”

  And I told her what I was planning to do.

  When I had completed my account, Filipa smiled, lost in admiration.

  “Then what, in the name of all that’s holy,” she said gently, “are you waiting for?”

  “My name is Jack,” I said. “Jack Wingfield.” I shook the supervisor’s hand.

  “Have you worked in a place like this before?”

  “Fifty years or so in an accounts department on Gullyfoyle,” I lied shyly.

  “Then you’ll find this a piece of cake,” said the Supervisor, whose name was Cantrill. “We handle all the data for the fabricator plants. Location, output, processes, everything. The data is visualised, you access it via your desk, in a direct link with the Belladonna Computer. The rest is up to you.”

  The planet, like every planet, was run by robots: the humans oversaw.

  “Design flaws kick in,” Cantrill explained, because her job was a deeply tedious one and explaining things made it more interesting. “Repetitions occur. Viruses corrode data. Robots have no common sense. Even quantum computers find it hard to go round corners. That’s where you come in.”

  Cantrill sat in a chair and waved her hands, and was immediately surrounded by a shroud of images. She gestured at one – a flybike image – and a shoal of flybikes hovered around her.

  “We’ve had flybikes overproduced some years, and underproduced other years. Bikes with no engine; bikes with two engines. The fabricators never break down; the robot brains are infallible when it comes to little things. But unless it’s an AI, robots are stupid. A small mistake escalates. Grows like a snowflake. Gets stupider and stupider.”

  “So my job,” I said, “is to teach the robots to be smart like humans.”

  “No,” said Cantrill, with a hint of sourness, “your job is to keep an eye on machines who are a million times smarter than you, and check they do their homework.”

  It was slow, dispiriting work, even for a cyborg.

  Belladonna was run by millions of robots brains all connected up to the main Belladonna quantum-computing AI, creating a kind of robot Gaia. Solar panels around the sun were networked to satellites in orbit around the planet, transmitting energy in a constant flow. Energy was then used to power fabricator plants in space orbit, which generated consumer items, which were brought down to the planet in huge containers carried on space elevators. And thus, the heat from the sun became a flybike.

  The RoboGaia ran itself, more or less. Minor glitches were weeded out by human supervisors, like me; major glitches came to the attention of the Belladonnan Computer, which dealt with them accordingly.

  The balance between energy and resources was, I learned, finely judged. This was not a rich planetary system, and it could not easily support a rapidly growing human population. However, I discovered, an ingenious population-feedback system was in place, which made it all but impossible for the planet to experience rapid overpopulation.

  The key to the system, I learned after several months in my job, was the murder rate. It was a shocking but true statistic that, year on year, the number of true-death murders and inexplicable disappearances on Belladonna was almost perfectly equivalent to the birth rate. The frequent gang-related killings and the mass murders that were a consequence of the organ-theft scam at the phantom hospital had for decades served an ulterior motive: they kept the population at precisely the optimum level for this civilisation to thrive.

  But the arrival of the earlier Versions of myself had thrown the system out of balance. First, the phantom hospital was closed, and the “disappearances” and subsequent murders had shrunk to a record low. This meant that not enough people were dying, and births were no longer being balanced by deaths.

  But then, the gang
war massacres caused by Version 45 had tipped the balance the other way. Tens of thousands of people had died – not just gangsters but innocent civilians too. And the population of Belladonna had dipped significantly. It would take a sustained increase in the number of unprotected acts of sexual intercourse to get the numbers up again. Learned papers had been written about the problem, and subsidies for single mothers and government-funded Conception Balls were being proposed.

  I recognised the antecedents of this birth/death feedback system: a similar method of population control had been in operation in the heyday of the Galactic Corporation.

  There were, it seemed, only two ways to cope with the human propensity for having sex and babies:

  1) Ceaseless expansion to colonise the infinite reaches of the universe, as was currently practised by the Solar Neighbourhood Government. Or, as the Belladonnans had it,

  2) a social structure which relied upon mass violent deaths among the ranks of the many, to sustain the immortality of the few.

  I worked fourteen-hour days, to the amazement of my colleagues, who did not realise that I was in fact working twenty-four-hour days. I ate lunch at my desk. I sometimes slept at my desk too, though actually I merely closed my eyes and snored, then continued working silently via my own network connection. And when I went home to my tiny cramped apartment, I carried on working there too.

  And all the while I learned, and learned.

  I already knew, from my database and personal experience, that a small mistake, repeated often, or a tiny bias echoed again and again could have appalling consequences. And now I learned how to apply that principle on a macro scale.

  I learned how to enter the programs run by the Belladonnan Computer and make myself a part of them. Eventually, instead of subvocalising commands to the Belladonnan Computer, I forged a direct cybernetic link so that my mind and the mind of the Computer began to merge.

  I had no access, however, to the powerful computer network that existed between the spires – those formidable AIs that sustained the empire of the anciens. It became apparent that two societies existed in tandem. The anciens had their own solar panels, their own satellites, their own space elevators. And it was a fair surmise that in times of crisis the spires had the capacity and the intelligence to wage cyberwar against the Belladonnan Computer and win.