This Automatic Eden

by Jim Keen

  “It’s always peculiar to have your life reduced to a few sentences, but, yes, it seems you know the basics. It’s important that you understand that I don’t come from the moneyed elite; there’s nothing in my history that connects me to the Ones. I have as much claim to be street trash as you do. I’m not overachieving to appear special, as you put it, but because I don’t want anyone else to suffer as I have.”

  “A politician with a heart of gold, that’s a new one.”

  “And there is the crux of the issue, the way government and politicians are seen these days. Everyone immediately assumes we are liars and cheats only out for ourselves. All I’ve ever wanted to do is help, that is why I ran for president. The government is the only machine left that can affect change on a national scale.”

  “If you’re such an angel why did you go work for Cortex?” Alice flexed her arms and the chair creaked. A footstep approached from behind—she would have to deal with her guard first.

  “Cortex wasn’t the corporation you see today. It only employed a few people and was conducting bleeding-edge research into synthetic intelligences. It was clear societal upheaval was a likely outcome, and I wanted to understand that from the inside. Governments are many things, but fast is not one of them. By the time Congress understood the nature of Mechanical Intelligences, it would be too late to effectively regulate, and I didn’t want to be that far behind the curve.”

  “I’m sure the money had nothing to do with it.”

  Harper gave a sad laugh. “There’s that political cynicism again. You assume I want money for money’s sake, but I didn’t, and I don’t. Look around you. I don’t live a life of luxury—no Blade Tower penthouse for me, no remote island. I could live as a queen of old, command my surroundings. Instead, I go to work in cramped, hot offices with old, disagreeable people because I believe someone has to make the hard decisions, someone who can see the future. Believe me, there are many times when I regret my drive, when I wish the easy life was something that appealed.”

  “If I may add,” Takamatsu said, “it was I that petitioned Rachel to join Cortex. I met her at a lecture, and she asked the most incisive questions. Afterward, I investigated and found nothing in her genetic history to suggest such an intellect. She was a leap, a mutation of her bloodline. That fascinated me. I employed her and took repeated scans of her cerebrum; its layout transformed the Babbage circuit design and helped the machines achieve consciousness. There’s a part of her in every MI.”

  “Charles, we have a lot to get through,” Harper said. “And I’m very tired.”

  “Apologies. Rachel was the first person I ever worked with who understood the potential of the neural interlink. As I told you at Cortex, to make the technology universal, I need access to millions of neural scans, the scale of data only the government has. When Rachel mentioned an interest in politics, I supported her. She cashed in her stock to become a billionaire, and I provided her with the MIs required to win the election.”

  “You fixed it?” Alice asked.

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Harper asked, her disappointment clear. “No, I respect democracy as much as I can. There was no fix, but I used their capacity for analysis to microtarget the voters needed to win. But you’re missing the point. You’ve seen what’s happened to the world in the last ten years, and it’s only getting worse. I wanted to fix the country and didn’t have time to waste. I was a fool though. I thought the big chair would help me find solutions—instead I ran headfirst into our political system’s many limitations. Congress and the opposition were a block to anything I proposed, no matter the cost-benefit analysis. It was just no, no, no for self-serving reasons. Your political cynicism would have found a home with my colleagues, but I refused to succumb and found a way around them.”

  Alice saw it in her mind, the explosion on June thirtieth, the Capitol Building on fire. It was so obvious now. “You were behind Six-Thirty.”

  “Yes. It wasn’t something I did lightly, and before you protest, remember only the building was destroyed. I made sure the bomb triggered when it was empty. There were casualties of course, but I could’ve struck during some grand debate and killed everyone. I didn’t because there needs to be governing structures in place after my retirement. I’ve no interest in being a tyrant; I don’t want godlike power and an army of sycophants—I just want the freedom to move fast and make the changes necessary. I set up the SSP and used them to plant the bomb and frame the terrorists. Afterward, I enacted emergency laws to split Congress into small groups and prevent them working as an effective opposition. Last week’s collection rounded up anyone left who was going to challenge what we have to do.”

  “From this chair, you look just like any other despot.”

  “History shall be my judge. There is little I can do to convince you except explain myself. In five, ten years, the world will be fundamentally different from now. For the better, I hope, due to what is underway.”

  “All of this just so you can ship people off world in secret?”

  “Initially, yes. It’s very hard to keep things private these days.”

  “Unless you build stealth drones, get them out into the system and have them self-replicate, build habitats like Europa in places no one is looking,” Alice said.

  “That was the first plan the Ghost Committee recommended, and we spent our last financial reserves building the machines required. We seeded the unoccupied spaces out there, and you know what we found?”

  “No.” But Alice knew, she’d seen it for herself.

  “The printer technology doesn’t scale. The power requirements are such it results in the need for fusion reactors, and they take too long to build. We’re talking months for each one, and we need hundreds per planet to accept the millions we wanted to transmit. We upped production, sent more drones, but couldn’t get close to the numbers needed. The system didn’t work, and we couldn’t afford to send more.”

  “But you’ve built that whole city in Arizona. I saw it—the upload center, the reactors, the trains, everything.” An image came to Alice, of pushing Xavi through a dark and empty Brooklyn neighborhood, the echoing streets closed and forgotten.

  “Yes, Arizona was always planned to be the main upload center.”

  “But there’s nowhere to send them.”

  “No, and still Arizona grew. I had failed my country again.”

  “But you’re scanning them.”

  “The breakthrough came from a shift in perspective. The military suggested we look at this as a war. In war, how do you husband your most precious matériels and labor? You concentrate only on what is absolutely vital and discard the rest. We applied that lens to the problem, and the solution was clear. There’s a small percentage of the population that remains vital to our countries future, the rest aren’t essential assets.”

  “You’re killing them, aren’t you? Every man, woman, and child,” Alice said.

  “I’m not Hitler doing this out of race hatred and insecurity. This isn’t about me, it’s about saving as many as I can, and saving the country while we still have the time. There simply isn’t another way. We tried. It’s this or the end of society as we know it,” Harper said.

  “You’re talking about the deaths of three hundred million people. It’s genocide.”

  “People who would die through starvation, illness, and exposure anyway. Better it was quick and painless. Charles helped design the destructive scanners you saw in Arizona.”

  Disgust at Harper rolled through Alice. Despite what she had seen, had heard, she couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t.

  “At first, we tried actually scanning and storing them,” Takamatsu said. “But the infrastructure and memory requirements weren’t remotely affordable. I have a team working on a better data-storage system now, but we couldn’t wait the years necessary for the technology to develop.”

  “As harsh as it may appear, when you get down to it, what’s the point of keeping their scans anyway?” Harper said. �
�When would we ever need them back? No, we have to consolidate and concentrate on those who’ll build our future, forgo the remainder. The Arizona scanners break the bodies down but don’t record the scan. That leaves no evidence behind, just the energy consumption which we can keep hidden.”

  Alice thought of the hospital wards full of ill and broken people, the new scanners at the end of those rooms, the medical questionnaire. Of her friend and neighbor Jeanie who had been the only person to support her after she lost her job, of the little woman’s worry when she asked about the questionnaire. Of Alice’s answer: The government just wants to know who is well and who needs help. They can’t take you away …

  “You’re killing the old and sick as well.”

  “Yes. Same reasons, same logistics,” Harper answered. “Converting the hospitals to destructive centers was a stroke of genius. The questionnaire was used to sort out who to scan and who to save. We had to use paper, which was annoying, but with so many homeless it was necessary.”

  “It doesn’t matter how you dress this up with fancy words and logic. What you’re doing is wrong, evil. You’re the biggest mass murderer in history.”

  “I’m aware of the irony. I dedicated my life to saving the unemployed but, in the end, there just wasn’t another way. If you have a solution to all of this, I’d love to hear it.”

  Alice didn’t know what to say, how to express the enormity of sickness that filled her. The president’s entire argument was based on protecting the one percent and discarding the rest instead of helping those left behind. There had to be a better way, a means to harness what the country could do, not discard it.

  “Wait. There’s an MI you need to meet. She’s got a plan to make the world better. She can—”

  Harper held up her hand. “Please don’t be hard on yourself but it’s done, the machinery set, the process underway. It cannot be stopped. You’re part of the new order, Alice. You’re interlinked, eternal. Help us. This is just that start; there’s so much more to be done.”

  Harper stood calm and secure, her argument and logic radiant. Into that void, Xavi made his move. He stood and roared, the chair rising with him, and charged the president.

  Harper pulled a small silver gun from her pocket and pulled the trigger.

  It gave a quiet pop, and Alice was sprayed in blood.

  62

  Conner’s gun was deafening in the small studio. A series of holes appeared in the door, red paint flaking around the puncture wounds. Screams and return fire erupted from outside; he ducked and rolled. Julia felt stretched thin like a rubber band—part of her here, part with Alice. She turned to the mixing desk as a grenade bounced through the door.

  Link, now. Her clock meshed with his and the upload began. Data flowed through her, up and away to hit every major news network. She transmitted all seventeen million files pulled from the MIs—an indexed overview of the mass slaughter—and ran a live stream from Alice’s eyes. Her clock accelerated, and heat spread through her, skin hot as it struggled to dump the waste energy. She faced Conner and saw the grenade bounce once, twice, in slow motion. It exploded and a shockwave flew toward her. It slowed, slowed, but she couldn’t move. It was on her.

  Alice’s connection to Julia shattered as Xavi hit the floor. She’d been too slow, absorbed in the president’s plan, but now she acted. She scissored out her arms, the ropes cutting tight seams across her skin as the heavy antique chair exploded. Her guard was fast, with modifications like hers, but she ducked his blow and used her legs as pistons to drive her fist through his chest. He still fought, hands clubbing her head, so she twisted him to the ground and pulled free. The second guard ran at her.

  Don’t be distracted. These are pawns. Get her while you can.

  She kicked and caught the second guard in his knee; it snapped sideways, and blue liquid sprayed as he fell. Alice turned to the president. Harper raised the silver tube, wagged her finger, then pressed the button.

  The pain was immediate and devastating. Alice’s clock overloaded, safety buffers torn away. Time slowed as Takamatsu’s torture device dumped a high-voltage current into her fragile mechanical circuits. She felt/saw fuses blow, felt/saw gears melt, molten alloys eating into the soft flesh of her brain. She knew she was falling, the outside world a slow-moving blur with slanted angles, but had no control over her body.

  More circuits melted; her mind was torn apart piece by piece, a jigsaw smashed to the ground. The current advanced, overwhelming part after part. Next, her memory storage, the archive data spheres, unopened and mothballed by Four for a reason.

  The current hit like a tsunami, as block after block exploded to dump their contents into her, the reformatted cerebrum absorbing the data without a trace.

  She hit the floor, paralyzed. Cascading memories ricocheted through her. A baby, a child, her daddy—she loved him, she hated him. Paulie with her, now in a school, now in a cell. Her life as a runner, the skinny kid who could find a way. Across the frozen Hudson on skis, across the shuttered Manhattan Bridge clipped to the back of the last post train. Taking Paulie’s drug deal, the beating that put her in the Marines. Basic training—so hard to the rich kids, so easy to her. The wall, shooting dopes with a sniper rifle from miles away. Mars, the moles, the tunnels, the killing. The NYPD, Toko, a barbecue, making love to Conner after a long night, thinking she was pregnant and wishing she was. Julia, love, betrayal, torture. Her hand—it wasn’t real anymore. That was important, focus on that; what did it mean?

  Her hand twitched on the blue carpet, the left flickered between new and old, between plastic and perfection. Other hands rolled her onto her back, the wooden ceiling an amber shroud. She felt her plastic hand as if it were here now—its heavy, dull senses, the smell. She clung to those memories as her mind burned away. She wasn’t a machine; she was human, organic. This pain was mechanical—seized rods and jammed gears—it meant nothing to who she was.

  The pain was the interlink, the embedded systems, but they were intruders, her nerves were her own. She reached up and turned off the clock. Its molten circuits glowed orange, red, bronze.

  The pain was gone.

  She knew who she was.

  She looked around. Harper was on the phone while Takamatsu bent over her with a look of professional curiosity. He placed a small black box against the side of her head, its metal cold against her skin. It beeped.

  “Well, well, well. Looks like Four has been a busy girl,” he said, then looked up to see her watching him. “Wait. I—”

  She lifted her hand and drove it into his heart, the blood hot and human. He choked, scrabbled at her wrist with fingers built for keyboards. She rolled him to one side and stood. The guard moved toward her, shouting. She ducked and turned; he took flight to crash into the wall. Harper looked up, dropped the phone, and stabbed again and again at the metal rod.

  Alice felt the pain locked away in her clock, a distant memory to be forgotten.

  “It’s not nice to be left behind, is it?” she said and drove her hand through the president’s neck.

  Harper’s head snapped back, the metal rod spiraling to the carpet. She held the woman for a moment longer, then let her fall. Free from the weight, Alice staggered left and held herself upright by sheer force of will.

  You’ve got to keep moving.

  She accessed her clock to see that it was severely damaged, but parts flickered to life at her request.

  >Alice_Yu: (Local Area Node Connection Outreach @ 10*local)_ (Connection Requested): Julia? Link? Anyone?

  LnK:(Connection Accepted): I am here.

  >AY: What happened?

  >LnK: Initial data analysis shows a major system breakdown. It appears security was interlinked to a central control. Those signals have ceased.

  Alice looked at Harper’s dead body, the metal rod still in her hand. She must have used her clock to control her staff as well as the whole conspiracy.

  >AY: The others?

  >LnK: Conner has received nonterminating i
njuries. Julia’s clock is running standard sleep cycles.

  >AY: Can you get out?

  >LnK: Yes. Incoming due in minutes.

  >AY: Run. I’ll catch up. (connection terminated)

  Alice turned to Xavi. He lay crumpled on the floor, chair destroyed, a pool of blood spreading under him. His chest hitched up and down with a whistle of air through parched lips. She knelt at his side, took his cold hand in hers, and stroked his cheek.

  He turned his head toward her and smiled, but his eyes weren’t focused on her. They looked to the past. “I missed you.”

  They closed.

  Alice bent down and kissed his lips. They tasted of blood.

  She held his hand.

  Time passed.

  Tears wouldn’t come. They were there but inside, waiting for another time when she was alone and ready. Outside, the aerial whine of Hoppers cut through the air as reinforcements arrived.

  It was time to go.

  “I’ll see you soon Xavi,” she said and left.

  63

  Where were they? Alice scanned the night sky for movement, but nothing stirred this side of the Hudson. Across the bay, Manhattan’s Blade Towers glittered through the haze, private high lanes connecting their snowcapped peaks. She gnawed her lip, annoyed, then ducked under the expressway to lean against a freezing concrete pier.

  It had taken a long time to get Paul out of Rikers, the roads chaotic with fleeing families. Their reunion had been brief, but he was safe for now, and that was enough.

  The Crazy Horse was just visible through the polluted haze, its flickering yellow and blue sign illuminating a square of sidewalk. The door swung open, and she watched the Professor emerge to throw a bucket of water onto the flooded street. The bar’s TV was loud; garbled words floated to her through the expressway’s roar. The screen showed a group of handcuffed people being forced into an FBI van while an angry crowd looked on. The wind changed, and a wave of freezing water found every opening in her bulletproof jacket. She didn’t notice, her body immune to the cold. She looked to the sky, and her shattered clock tracked every aerial target.