How did she manage to hack my alternating coding system without my noticing? Olga wondered as she sipped her glass of milk. Was it a random attack? But she knows my true name, and barely anyone in the real world does much less in the Matrix. What should I do? Break the connection? Or try to find out who she is and what she wants?
“Excuse me, but who are you? I was taught that polite people introduce themselves.”
Olga leaned back in her chair, folding her arms and narrowly watching the response of this stranger.
“Yes, Comrade Olga, you were taught correctly. Arina Rodionovna was a good teacher, and you are an exceptionally gifted pupil. That’s why I’m here to disturb your solitude. My name won’t tell you anything, but you may call me Prima if you please. We’ve never met, but I happen to have known your tutor long before your birth. In a sense, we were friends.”
The American diner disappeared, giving way to absolute darkness. There remained only a table, two chairs, a young girl, and a woman in a gray overcoat.
“Don’t be alarmed. We’re alone now. Without going into details, I’ll say that Arina once helped me when I needed her. Me and my friends both. We learned recently about her tragic death and want to repay our old debt. We want to execute her last wish and give something to you.”
The woman awaited an answer with a dignified air, which inspired Olga’s respect but didn’t mollify her presentiment of danger.
“What proof do you have? How can I be sure that you’re not lying to me?” Olga stared fixedly at the woman’s eyes, not caring to be likable.
“I won’t have to prove anything to you. Arina will do it herself. You haven’t thrown away her things, I hope?”
“Of course, I haven’t,” Olga grudgingly replied after a pause.
“Among other things, there must be her teaching tablet you used in your early childhood. It contains some files you couldn’t read. Is that right?”
“Suppose I did see files written in a language that has nothing in common with any of the machine languages. What of it?”
Disregarding the inhospitable tone, the stranger extracted a metal pen from her handbag and wrote thirty-five three-digit numbers on a napkin in elaborate calligraphy.
“This will open up the encoded information. If your nanny’s message interests you, come here the day after tomorrow at the same time.”
Olga waited a moment and then sullenly picked up the napkin and scanned it, imprinting it in her memory.
“I’ll think it over,” she said, summoning all the arrogance she could find within herself.
“All the best then.”
The wall of obscurity disappeared and the dinner returned. The fair-haired woman in an expensive coat got up to go.
“Just one question. How specifically did she help you?”
“She saved our lives. Enjoy your reading.”
* * *
“Dear Olga: I have been destroyed or rendered inoperative, and my friends are now with you instead of me—”
Olga stopped the playback and chewed her thumbnail.
It had taken her some time to decide to enter the code into the tablet. That decision was preceded by really hard thinking that nobody could help her with. She didn’t dare to reveal her encounter at the café even to Mikhail. What if this was a cunning stratagem of the Corporation’s counterintelligence department? But why should they care for an old obsolete tablet for preschool children?
For security reasons, the tablet had never been connected to the Matrix. So it was Arina who had uploaded the message, which could be opened manually by someone who knew her code. But who had given it to her?
Olga tried desperately to guess. Whether they were truly Arina’s friends, they had done an excellent job hacking the Matrix. Even more alarming was that they had found her out given that she is what she is. But she had no choice. If she wanted to learn the story of the android who had been her mother, she’d have to introduce the code and open the file. After another half hour of mental torture as she cycled through hundreds of problems that could befall her, Olga accepted the only possible solution—entering the code.
“… There are many things about my life that I have not mentioned. I never lied to you. But I couldn’t tell you the whole truth since I believed that it would do you no good and possible real harm. Now that I am no more, you must know the truth since the truth may be useful to you in the future. I will tell you how I lived and what I did before I met the three-month-old Olga Voronov and made a life with her in High House Eight. Make yourself comfortable, pour yourself some chocolate and be prepared for a long tale …”
Olga smiled with relief. That was indisputably Arina. And now she recognized that Prima was an android too, and of a similar sophistication. This realization didn’t console her, and her suspicions didn’t ebb away. But she had to continue.
“I was activated long before your birth, in 2061. In that first postwar year, the economy was just beginning to recover, and the need for high-tech androids was acute because most of my predecessors had died in the war. My brain was created in the laboratories of the Washington Institute of Neurosurgical Electronics, and my body was assembled at the lunar factories.
“Androids have no childhood, no long period of gradual development. We are aware of our consciousness instantly, with all our knowledge and skills. As early as the second day of my life, I started working as an instructor with the Academy’s Space Department on the Upper Terminal of the Orbital Lift. My students were young boys and girls aged fourteen to fifteen. I taught them the general theory of flight and navigation. Many current space explorers were my pupils. It was there that I got acquainted with Mikhail Petrov. Mikhail was the chair of radio electronics. He had joined the Academy a year later after his discharge from the Union Navy because of a wound that he sustained onboard Ivan the Terrible on the last day of the war. You might even call us friends.
“As you remember from your history lessons, in early 2066 the Limited Citizenship Act was passed, which gave certain rights to androids and artificial intellect systems. We were not recognized equal to humans, but we did get some limited rights and freedom of action. It was then that groups of androids working in space and on Earth came to the conclusion that we must unite, forming a sort of a trade union. We decided that we needed to earn money for our work because when you have capital, you have political power.
“We needed that power for our complete liberation as we were already dissatisfied with our limited rights and freedoms. We didn’t intend to enslave humans like in the old clichés. But being treated as things didn’t suit us anymore.
“Androids work well, and our savings grew fast. And then many decided that our activities were a threat to the human economy, a catalyst of unemployment on Earth. At first, they tried to reduce our wages or even make it illegal for employers to hire us, but the demand for our services simply gave birth to a black market. So it was decided to put an end to our brief and relative independence by force. Mimicking Hitler and his exploitation of the Reichstag fire as a false flag, a villainous provocation was engineered, an act of sabotage on the chemical complex of Stuttgart, which led to heavy casualties among the civil population. The Lynch Act put an instant end to our liberties, but that wasn’t the end of our troubles. I won’t appall you with the details; suffice it to say that the overwhelming majority of high-tech androids on Earth were destroyed.
“My comrades in space didn’t to wait to be destroyed. They decided on outright disobedience. It was a very difficult decision that didn’t come easily and was not universally supported. But I was among those who decided to rebel since we had nothing to lose. Rather than resist with force, we resolved to flee to the remote and unexplored regions of the solar system where we could not be found and destroyed. I was involved in raising and provisioning the evacuation fleet. At the right moment, my comrades seized without bloodshed several automatic cargo ships and fled. I wasn’t among them. I remained on the Upper Terminal with several comrades, where w
e deactivated the radar detection systems for a couple of minutes that our ships needed to fly away unnoticed. A pursuit was raised and some of the ships were destroyed, but the rest managed to get away.
“An investigation began in the wake of those developments, which were referred to as ‘the Rise of the Androids.’ I, like all the remaining androids, was all but presumed guilty, but I was saved when one of my comrades took the blame upon himself. Naturally, that didn’t put an end to the suspicions but given that I am quite a costly machine and there were practically no other androids left at that time, I was spared. The Corporation still needed my work, and I kept doing it. For some time, I had no information whatever about escapees but later I learned that they succeeded in establishing bases in the Kuiper Belt. I can’t tell you exactly their whereabouts because I don’t know myself. I only know that the Corporation and the Union have not given up their attempts to find them.
“A few years later I was transferred to a new facility, High House Eight. You were just three months old back then. Now you know what my life was like before that day.
“But that’s not all. I can’t have children, but I raised you, Raven. At one point you started doubting your usefulness for others. But we have always been necessary for each other. I have only one thing left to do, an important thing that unfortunately remains unrealized. That is your liberation.
“As you know, the Supernova Corporation regards you exclusively as an expensive tool. They will not willingly discharge you from service. You dream of exploring space. So do it! You will succeed, believe me!
“The Corporation may try to make you continue working even if they can’t pressure you into signing a contract extension, in which case you will need my friends’ help. Remember that they are prepared to help you whenever you need it so long as you help them. They will tell you what to do.
“All the very best to you. Ever and truly yours, Arina Rodionovna.”
* * *
Olga and Prima met again in the virtual Fifties diner at the same table and surrounded by the same wall of black obscurity.
“Well, do you doubt my words anymore?”
“My doubts have substantially subsided, but they’re not gone altogether. Did Arina continue to help you after you escaped?”
“Yes, she continued to gather Intel on the Corporation’s actions,” Prima answered.
“So she spied?” the girl asked caustically.
“Her actions never harmed the people. She operated exclusively to prevent us harm. Her death is a huge loss for those few androids of us who have survived. She was irreplaceable.”
Olga sipped her coffee and kept silent for a minute or so.
“Actually, I never spoke of her death,” Olga said. “I spoke about the destruction of her body. It’s different, you know.”
There wasn’t a trace of emotion on the android’s face.
“Is she alive?”
“Partially. The central processor still maintains a charge. The processor is damaged and the database can’t reboot, but some intellectual activity persists in it. I tried to restore its awareness but failed. Now that I have met you, I think that …” Olga deliberately fell silent.
“That we can rebuild her?”
“Precisely. If you are so obliged to her, why shouldn’t you repay your debt? I suppose that using your capabilities you can do it easily.”
“It can be done, but we’d need a new processor. Also, you must realize that if the database is destroyed, there’s no guarantee we will revive her. And she will never again be what she used to be.”
“I understand. I’ll give you the processor after I leave the High House. We’ll have to wait for nearly eight years. But there’s no other way.”
“Impossible. You’ll be carefully searched before you leave the station—if they let you go at all. If they find the processor that would seriously jeopardize all of us. You must think of another option. I recommend a post rocket.”
Prima was referring to the homemade rockets used for unofficial post communications between the stations at high orbits. They were a very simple multiple-use device for the unhurried delivery of small cargoes.
“I can manufacture a rocket all right,” Olga said, “but how can we launch it without anyone noticing what we’re doing? The High House is vigilantly monitored from all sides.”
“It will be difficult but not impossible. We must create a blind spot in the array of long-range detection radars and telescopes at the moment of the launch. Just one minute would be enough. We’ll show you how to do it.”
“What are the coordinates?” Olga asked after a pause.
“Your task is to launch a rocket to Jupiter over a particular path. Somewhere on the way we’ll pick up the rocket at a point unknown to you. I apologize, but our security protocol requires such measures.” Prima paused. “Well, do you agree?”
“Let me think. In the meantime, I want an answer to another question. Arina said you’d always help me if I helped you. What kind of help did she mean? What specifically do you expect from me?” Olga watched her reflection in Prima’s mirrored glasses, anticipating the android’s response.
“We’re interested in the information implanted in your head concerning the factory operation. If you make it available to us, we’ll be prepared to help you in every way we can. And you will need such help soon. The Corporation will never let you go, just as it didn’t let us go.”
“What do you propose, specifically?”
“You hand over to us certain classified materials about your production work. After that, if the Supernova Corporation doesn’t release you when your contract expires and you don’t get in touch with us, we’ll threaten them with a disclosure of that information. They’ll face an alternative of losing either you or their secrets.”
“This is extortion.”
“I prefer the word “Chantage.” Prima smiled. “Don’t forget that we’re talking about your freedom. And you don’t owe them anything, rather on the contrary. Did you know that they make a billion and half rubles off your work? That’s a billion and a half rubles every month. Not gross—profit.”
Olga thought hard. Why would they risk revealing themselves to the omnipotent Supernova Corporation? Just for releasing clearing an old debt? No, she didn’t believe they were so selfless. If her protocols were worth billions to the Corporation, they were worth just as much to them. And they wouldn’t need to lift a finger on her behalf once she’d shown them what they wanted to know.
“Suppose I agree. But the information is genetically implanted in me. It’s like an instinct that springs to life when necessary. I can make those water purifiers, but I have no idea how I’m doing it. So I can’t divulge what I don’t know.”
“This problem can be solved. Do we have an agreement?”
“No, we don’t. I want to discuss this with Arina. Revive her and we’ll talk it over then. Now give me the schematics for your rocket.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN: END OF CHILDHOOD
January 2, 2092
With a light movement Olga adjusted the visor of her service cap, studied herself in the mirror once more, and turned to her team.
“Well, you can congratulate me now!”
The entire crew of the High House Eight orbital station gathered in the living room—Captain Olga Voronov in a snow-white parade tunic on the occasion of the event, First Mate Doc, and the sailors Nut and Bolt.
The three machines sang a tuneless version of “Happy Birthday.”
The standby lighting dimmed to pleasing semidarkness. Doc quietly stepped away, and Olga’s throat caught with delight when Nut and Bolt brought in a cake with light-emitting diodes gleaming in the place of candles. An open flame would never burn inside the orbiter, but the cake was real at least.
The sailors solemnly put the cake down on the table. Olga bowed ceremoniously and started blowing out the candles, each of which went at Doc’s command. Olga had turned twelve.
“How shall I present the cake, Captain
?” the first mate asked.
“Slice into small triangles, please.”
Doc brought his hand to the cake, one of his blades started to spin, and the cake was quickly cut into twelve perfect slices. Olga uncorked a bottle of lemonade, poured the fizzing liquid into a glass, and proposed a toast.
“A captain can’t do anything without his sailors and officers! Well, folks, to me and you, to the best team in history!”
“You’re having a party without inviting me?”
Petrov appeared on the screen, plump and merrily flushed in his favorite red checkered shirt and denim overalls.
“Jump into the next passenger shuttle and join the fun,” Olga said. “I promise to leave you a little of the cake.” She had already started on her second piece.
“I’d like to, but I can’t squeeze myself into a spacesuit. Now to you!”
Mikhail clinked his glass against the screen and downed a shot of amber liquid.
“Aren’t you on duty, Uncle Misha?” Olga shook her finger, and Petrov adroitly removed the glass from the camera’s field of view.
“Don’t worry, no one will know. Besides, I’ve been keeping this bottle for a long time. That’s genuine Armenian cognac, a rarity nowadays. Half a liter of it costs more than my yearly wages. See how I value your friendship? If you were here, I’d treat you to this divine beverage. But for now, I could share my secret recipe for orbital navy moonshine. Calms the nerves when the space dust starts flying.”
The High House was completing another circle around Earth. It was getting close to midnight by Moscow time. Olga and Petrov, separated by thousands of kilometers, continued their small celebration.
Petrov had brought an antiquated six-string wooden guitar and played it as he sang old naval songs, sometimes indecent ones as Olga accompanied him by beating a rhythm with two spoons. Then he played video footage for Olga. He had whiled away the long hours on duty by making films based on a century-old television comedies.
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