Beautiful Intelligence

by Stephen Palmer

  “Yeah, and you’re the queen of America,” he snarled back. “You shot–”

  “I had to! Else the guys in the petrol racer would’ve got ’em both, which was what they wanted. And you don’t want that, remember? Listen, we got out with our skins intact. They were tryin’ to disable the soltruck. They want you alive, Manfred! Think about it. You wanna work for Aritomo again? You want Aritomo to get a sample bi to dissect? No, no, no! So you listen to me and do as you’re told. In an emergency, my rules count, not yours.”

  Manfred sat back, arms folded, scowling, like a school kid. Pouncey swerved to avoid a dead car, then flashed up the headlights to main beam.

  “Where are you driving us?” Joanna asked.

  “Uphill. We need to secure the soltruck. It’s been badly damaged. We can’t afford to lose anything else.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Aritomo and Ikuo sat in front of a single 312cm monitor screen, on which a raft of data floated, like a golden barge on a sea of indigo blue.

  “I cannot locate the source at all,” Ikuo said.

  Aritomo sat back. They had spent almost twenty hours deciphering the signal, moulding it, translating it, discarding child results, then returning, perplexed, to the source.

  “It is impossible for the nexus not to know the geographical location of this signal,” Aritomo said. “Therefore the source must be concealing its location in an original way, that so far no software anywhere on the planet has encountered. So the nexus itself cannot tell us where this source is. We must therefore analyse the signal until meaning is discovered.”

  “The meaning must be you,” Ikuo replied. “Your name is the only decipherable component. The signal is tagged to you.”

  “Yes, but I could invent a hundred and one meanings for that fact. The person who sent it knows me. The computer who sent it likes me. The software that sent it was designed by me. And so forth.”

  Then Ikuo leaned forward. “What if this is not a verbal message?” he said.

  “Audio?”

  “Visual!”

  Aritomo nodded. “An interesting notion. Apply all standard image formats to the data.” He paused for thought. “Use phone and cam formats first. Professional formats last.”

  At once Ikuo began work. Aritomo stood up, made green tea for himself, then sat down again. After sipping for a few minutes, he said, “You may take a brief while to make yourself one cup.”

  “Thank you, Mr Ichikawa, thank you.”

  Ikuo returned to work thirty seconds later. Then, as the two men watched, the golden raft dissolved into a picture.

  It was a photograph.

  Aritomo leaned forward. Already banks of analytical computers were matching the scene to known images, but he could see useful details already with his own eyes. An urban scene. There – a clock on a wall. There – a reflection in shattered glass of the red sun low on the horizon. There – a sign in white on blue, in a distinctive US font, marking a computer intelligence corporation.

  Results flooded in. “Photograph taken 06:59. Probable location 122 degrees longitude – sun reflection indicates West Coast America. City: possible Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Springfield, Portland, Seattle.”

  “Somebody has sent us that deliberately,” said Aritomo. “Somebody wants to contact us again. He wants me to know his location. Yet he concealed himself in the nexus. He must therefore have been afraid of discovery. He must be in a stressful situation.”

  “Somebody in the BIteam?”

  Aritomo nodded. “A distinct possibility. Note that a computer intelligence corporation logo was included. The chance of that being a coincidence is low.”

  “Not Manfred, nor Joanna, Mr Ichikawa… yet surely not their security person either.”

  “You eliminate candidates on the basis of no evidence. I agree Manfred is highly unlikely to return to Ichikawa Laboratories, but we know little of Joanna Rohlen, and less about their security person. So that is two candidates who may have sent the photograph.”

  “There has been an earthquake warning in that locale,” said Ikuo. “Tens of thousands of people are evacuating Seattle, Springfield and Portland, and many other towns and cities. Stress will be common throughout the north west Pacific zone.”

  “Indeed,” Aritomo said. “This then is what we shall do. In all of those listed cities – in one of which the photograph was taken – we shall set up mass cam passes, so that every vehicle and every human movement is recorded. We shall weight our anthropo soft with known images, face patterns and personal details of Manfred and Joanna. We shall also use the motion capture records of Manfred from when he worked here. I doubt he will have changed his style of walking.” He paused for thought. “This photograph dramatically reduces possible locations of the BIteam, if one of them sent it. For the moment, we shall assume from the combination of image and circumstance that it is from a BIteam member, sent deliberately, though that is conjecture. Yet it is useful conjecture–”

  “Mr Ichikawa!”

  Aritomo sat upright. A news report flashed up on the side of the monitor.

  Cascadia earthquake Mag. 9.3 recorded. 5.12 minute duration. Catastrophic destruction reported.

  CHAPTER 25

  The earthquake shock waves went on and on and on.

  Unlike a fault earthquake, a megathrust earthquake unzipped a long length of fault-line over many minutes. Manfred watched as trees, buildings and distant skyscrapers oscillated time and time again, left, right, left, right, before collapsing under the sustained assault.

  And then – more than five minutes later according to the soltruck clock – it faded.

  Manfred heard himself say, “Then it wasn’t a hoax?”

  “It was real,” Joanna whispered.

  “And we escaped it,” said Pouncey.

  “And thousands… millions didn’t,” said Joanna. Her eyes were wide with shock.

  Manfred shifted in his seat. They were holed up in a lay-by high atop a hill; hints of snow higher up. “Megathrust kilometres out to sea,” he said. “There’ll be a megatsunami going up the Columbia River.”

  “All those people,” Joanna said.

  Manfred shook his head. “If it wasn’t a hoax, how did Aritomo know where we were?”

  Pouncey said, “If that was Aritomo–”

  “It was! Who else, mmm? Random muggers trying to disable the soltruck?”

  Pouncey shrugged. “Just playin’ devil’s advocate. It was him, yeah.”

  Manfred glanced at Joanna and Dirk, both struck dumb by the enormity of the event. “Listen,” he said, “I know this is bad… terrible, but we’ve got to think about ourselves for a few hours. Not the people caught up in this, mmm? Aritomo’s nearby and hunting us. Pouncey?”

  Pouncey nodded. “Looks quiet. We better check the bis.”

  Manfred led them around to the back of the soltruck, unwiring the doors then opening them. “You need to make this more secure,” he said. “We can’t lose any more.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked inside. In battered cages lay Grey, Red and Violet, staring out like subdued animals. “I wonder if their extra senses caught a hint of the earthquake about to hit,” he said. “They say animals can detect the micro events just before a quake.”

  “Maybe,” said Dirk. “We got to tie dem up, so no more fall outs. Only four left–”

  “I know!” Manfred shouted. He felt as if he had been pushed too far, too fast. Just hours ago they had been comfortable inside the apartments; now they were homeless and on the run. He felt his stomach squirm with anxiety.

  Dirk said, “I say we put a dog lead on Indigo. He da important one.”

  Manfred waved a hand in Dirk’s direction. “If you insist.”

  Joanna peered into the back of the soltruck. “They look like poor little battered animals,” she said, a catch in her voice.

  Manfred hugged her, shoulder to shoulder, then took a deep breath and said, “We’re still alive, sweetheart, and we have four bis, three o
f which may be conscious.” He glanced at Red. “I don’t think he is.”

  Pouncey returned with her tool kit. Manfred watched as she patched up the e-lock then reset it. The rear and the sides of the soltruck were covered with bullet holes, fifty or more. Many bullets had gone right through. In a fit of temper he grabbed the nearest and threw them away.

  Pouncey glanced at him, then shrugged and lowered her gaze.

  “Aritomo,” said Manfred. “What did he latch onto to find us, Pouncey?”

  “Don’t know. My guess is the fake kids. But it could have been anythin’. He’s a multi-billionaire, he’ll have a hundred men with a thousand ranks of computers combin’ the nexus for anomalies. Any kind of anomaly to do with weird people, weird computers, weird kids. He must know somethin’ about your template for beautiful intelligence. He knows what to seek. Strange consciousness. Odd intelligence… and in a group. He was always gonna find us in the end. That’s why I insisted on the Hyperlinked – never stayin’ still. It was the only way.”

  “And now we have to do that again.”

  “Yeah.”

  Manfred shrugged. “Where are you going to take us?”

  She glared at him, as if annoyed by the question. “Still workin’ on it,” she said.

  “Well hurry. I feel naked out here. If Aritomo has choppers flying around, we’re damn well done for.”

  Pouncey insisted on a two hour rest-up – all of them inside and concealed by sun visors – while she devised plans. The sun sank into the west and clouds leaned in off the mountains. Manfred stared at the peaks: geological, volcanic evidence of the faults of the Pacific Ring Of Fire. Possibly he would never again see Portland. Probably it was best that he never did. It would be hell.

  Pouncey took them to a wood set deep inside a narrow valley: National Park territory. There were no artificial lights as far as they could see in every direction. No planes arced the sky. The nexus was tinted green in Manfred’s spex to represent the particular quality of the territory: protected ground.

  He browsed shoreline cams while Pouncey worked. The west coast was, indeed, hell. The megatsunami lashed the coast for kilometre after kilometre inland, destroying everything in its path. Media stations replayed vid footage loops over and over.

  Eventually Pouncey said, “Best thing I reckon is to stay woodside here for a while. No sign of any major movement in this direction – small roads. We might have to live off the land though for a few weeks, ’til I find a new town to check out. You guys okay with that?”

  Manfred nodded. “Guess so.”

  “We’ll need to keep the bis locked up, never let ’em out. Not even if they start wailin’ again.”

  “Which they haven’t,” Manfred observed. “They know something bad’s happened.”

  “Too right,” said Pouncey. “So. One guard every six hours. I’ll make a warnin’ soft for the soltruck computers. Hi-vel pistols at all times. Aritomo could’ve tracked us, though I do think the soltruck is safe from aerial eyes.”

  “How d’you know?”

  She grinned. “Ha! I know how to make a vehicle disappear. Easy. People… well, disappearin’ them is difficult ’cos they’re all different, they’ve all got quirks that anthropo soft can latch on to. But a car is a car is a car, borin’ and regular. Like I said – easy.”

  Manfred nodded, then grunted, “Okay. Ammo for the pistols?”

  “Not much, but enough for at least one shoot-out. But it won’t come to that.”

  “It better not,” said Manfred.

  ~

  Dirk sat alone in moonlit silence inside the wood clearing, behind him the soltruck, to his sides and ahead an impenetrable stand of trees. It was cool, the sky filled with ragged cloud, the grass wet from earlier rain. Indigo stood nearby. He wore a harness of leather straps made by Pouncey, bolted together with truck spares, attached to a length of strong agricultural twine, the other end of which was tied around Dirk’s ankle.

  The two stared at one another.

  Dirk took a standalone from his pocket, tapped in a few instructions, then placed it on a sawn-off tree stump. Indigo, alert and listening, moved when Dirk set the device down.

  Dirk nodded to himself. This bi was using many more senses than the five available to people. It was in a class of its own. He said, “You can understand da words I say, can’t you, not like dem other bis?”

  The standalone waited a fraction of a moment then said, You can understand the words I say, can you not, not like those other bis?

  Dirk smiled as he saw Indigo bend down, as if locating the exact position of the audio source. But he knew his accent might be a little thick for Indigo to penetrate – hence the sonic clarifier.

  “Answer da question, Indigo! I know you understand me.”

  Answer the question, Indigo! I know you understand me.

  “You’re da conscious one, yeah? I know you are. Don’t you lie to me.”

  You are the conscious one, yes? I know you are. Do not lie to me.

  Indigo’s fronds shivered, then went quiet. He looked at Dirk and said, “Not understand in mind. No.”

  Dirk decided to attack at once. “You lie, Indigo. I know you lie. You da conscious one, and maybe Grey too. But now I know something more. You sent Aritomo Ichikawa a picture, yeah? I know you did.”

  “I send no photograph.”

  Dirk hesitated. Indigo changed ‘picture’ to ‘photograph’. Interesting. He said, “I da best guy in da world to understand all dis. I been watching you. I been watching you watch me. When you said about vultures, dat was Aritomo’s agents, yeah? Listen to me, Indigo. You know why I came to America?”

  “No.”

  “To pick you up. Dat why I locate da BIteam. You da one dat’s wanted. You wanna come with me?”

  “Where to? You know somewhere?”

  Dirk took a deep breath. Indigo was not concealing his understanding of complex concepts. This was a real BI! Manfred had succeeded. Suddenly Dirk felt a touch of vertigo as he considered the half size entity standing beside him. Before, he had only guessed that Indigo was conscious. Now he knew.

  He said, “To Japan.” The clarifier waited half a second, then, when he said nothing more, parroted his words. No reply from Indigo: the lie stood. Dirk continued, “So, is Grey conscious, like you? And what about Blue and Red?”

  “You tell me about Aritomo. He come fetch me?”

  “Answer me dis first. Grey conscious – like you – yeah?”

  Indigo replied, “Grey is something like me.”

  “Red?”

  “Red an infant. Red like to explore and let days go empty. Red boring.”

  This was as Dirk had guessed. “And Blue?”

  “Blue is different. Not stable. Always fear of danger.”

  Scared. Dirk nodded. Blue had been through tough times, more so than others in the bi group. He said, “You talk with Grey?”

  “Aritomo, he here? Fetch me?”

  Dirk hesitated. Indigo was prepared to give out some information, but only if Dirk reciprocated in kind. This was not just a conscious intelligence. Indigo understood the basics of the net of relationships between people: the concept of lying, the concept of like-for-like, the concepts of secrets, betrayal, fear. He said, “Yeah, for sure, Aritomo’s close by. We know Aritomo and da agents looking for us.”

  “How long when they arrive?”

  “I don’t know dat. Da big quake smashed Portland. Aritomo’s guys, dey were in da city when da fault line ruptured. Dead, most likely.”

  “Like White?” Indigo asked.

  “Just like White.”

  “They never come back?”

  Dirk frowned, baffled… then grasped that Indigo did not realise humans died permanently. That was intriguing. He said, “You tell me something first. Why does Grey never socialise? Why’s he always hanging back?”

  “Grey hate too much input. Grey over complex everything. Grey watch and listen and electrosense and chem-trail.”

  Dirk no
dded, fascinated. How far could he push this extraordinary creation? “Why you wanna go with dat Aritomo guy? He’s a bad man. He’ll lock you up and never let you go out.”

  “You lie. Aritomo good man.”

  “You know for sure? You read da nexus histories?”

  “The nexus ocean tell me everything about Aritomo–”

  “Dem histories are lies,” Dirk interrupted, “written by Aritomo for public consumption. It all a phoney, all for show. Lies.”

  “Never. Aritomo make good plans for lives. Aritomo all good.”

  Dirk sat back. It was impossible to judge how Indigo felt about this statement since there was no emotional modulation in his faux-vocoder voice. But his fronds were flapping about – unusual. The hypothesis that the bis used visual signals to express important knowledge seemed once again confirmed. Yet the bis, like aliens, shared nothing of common human emotional knowledge; a wall of incomprehension stood between man and machine. That was frustrating.

  Eventually Dirk said, “Why don’t you believe me? I know much more about Aritomo dan you.”

  “This bad place. Portland too near.”

  Dirk waved to the west. “Portland’s fifteen kilometres away. We’re safe.”

  “These tree fall on me. Fear full.”

  “What, dis little wood? No, it well managed.” He glanced at an old National Parks sign. “Very well managed,” he added. Indigo turned, as if to look at the sign, and Dirk concluded, “You safe with me. So, you gonna answer my question?”

  “Human opinion varies. I sift information, come to conclusion.”

  “Self reliant, huh?” said Dirk. “But what if you’re wrong? Don’t you trust us? What about Manfred and Joanna and Pouncey?”

  “Three part of the group. But you are different.”

  Dirk nodded. “In what way?”

  “Now you answer a question. Why did White go away?”

  “Go away? You mean, die? Well, dat was an accident.”

  “There never accidents. Everything part of a pattern. Forward and backward, in all zones and up and down.”