by S. B. Divya
“What is this? How do you know it’s real?”
“I don’t, but it’s from a trusted on-site source. I’m protecting them—they’re a minor—but if you need the identity, I can give it to you.”
“No, keep them safe for now. God knows what the al-Muwahhidun would do if they found out. Ramírez, you realize this is the connection we need? Assuming the WAIs at headquarters don’t find evidence of it being faked, all you have to do is verify this in person, and we’re in!”
“Is that all?” She bared her teeth. “So who’s buying the empire’s tech these days? If they have integrated smart-matter, why wouldn’t they sell it?”
“The usual suspects—China, India, Russia, and the black market—are dealing with their traders. We have plenty of evidence to see that. But those governments don’t act as overtly as the Machinehood has, and the underground has never pulled a stunt like this. I’m not sure they’d have the resources.”
“Which explains why half the world believes it’s a SAI. A true sentient artificial intelligence would do everything the Machinehood has done: disappear from the feeds, build a blox-integrated body, and destroy humanity by taking away our pills.”
“It’s plausible because everyone wants it to happen, but as far as our intelligence goes, nobody has come close to quantifying sentience yet, much less building an artificial mind. We’re encouraging the general public to keep thinking along those lines, though. We don’t want to give away our suspicions.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“When we’re ready, we’ll pull you in and send you overseas. This vid is a good start, but we need hard evidence to justify sending a stronger force to penetrate the empire. Until then, be your shield team’s liaison. Play up the SAI angle to the public swarms and your fans, but be smart about it. Make it credible. Keep looking for your own answers as well. Your decision to poke at that assassin gave us good visual information. Hopefully you’ll get attacked again. Follow your instincts.”
Welga pulled the sample of writhing metal from her pocket. “Speaking of which, I took this off Jackson’s attacker.”
“We recovered a lot of these in Boston. I’ll enter it into evidence, but I doubt it’s going to add anything new.”
“I picked it up before the explosion.”
Olafson pursed his lips and squinted at the fragment. “Is that… blood? Goddamn, Ramírez. What the hell were you thinking, holding on to it?”
“I haven’t exactly had a chance to get it somewhere secure.”
“This kind of thing? It’s exactly why we need you back.”
Olafson stood, and she followed him out of the bedroom to the front door. After he left, Welga ignored the questions racing through her mind and finished her recovery exercises. The tremors had eased as the duo-zip kicked in, leaving her muscles with the same sensation as when she woke up: an intense desire to stretch and move.
“Por Qué, did my, uh, neuromuscular tremors stop after I took the zip?”
“Yes, since your latest pill reached ninety-five percent effectiveness, you have not had any tremors. However, that also matches the time since the previous pill’s effects dropped below five percent.”
Not a clear cause-and-effect, then. I’m fine to keep taking zips. Welga stepped into a cool shower. Hot water dried out her still-healing skin too much. One minute later, she dried off and dressed in basic pants and a sleeveless T-shirt.
Platinum said they’d double up the detail on their funder clients, but if the al-Muwahhidun were behind the Machinehood’s threat, they’d go after infrastructure, not people. It was how they worked: rather than invading, they’d destroy power plants, block water flow, burn fields. Sow fear in the mind, and the body will be corrupted: another one of the caliph’s early sayings. The empire would force people to either attack them first or capitulate out of starvation. If they could cut off material production for pills and drugs, everyone would suffer. No more dailies to keep people safe from the latest engineered virus or super bacteria. No more flow or buffs or zips to help them do their jobs. No more juvers or pain drugs or microbial cocktails. Local economies would collapse.
The Machinehood’s deadline loomed in five days. She had a flight to San Francisco in the morning. In the meantime, she couldn’t do much other than heal and peruse the feeds for the same information everyone else wanted. To calm the restlessness and tension that crawled through her gut, she went to the kitchen. Static cabinets yielded ancient iron and stainless-steel pans. She extracted a pile of vegetables from the fridge and dumped them on a wood cutting board. The surface had the rich patina of decades of oil. She sliced a tomato using her grandmother’s knife. Papa’s one concession to modern technology was a chopper-bot, but Welga wanted to feel the weight of a blade in her hand.
WELGA
7. We have now reached the breaking point of the Biotechnology Age. Humanity is engineering itself to where the definition of “human” may not go forward as it has been.
—The Machinehood Manifesto, March 20, 2095
“I owe you a birthday surprise,” Connor said.
They sat side by side on a static couch whose design was as old as their relationship. Connor had replaced most of their furniture with smart-materials, but Welga couldn’t let go of the sentimental value from their first joint purchase. She turned over the ultrafast candy thermometer in her hands.
“I thought this was it,” she said, teasing.
She’d arrived in San Francisco that morning via a standard airplane flight, then spent the afternoon cooking a dinner of lamb tagine on a bed of lemon-saffron rice. The luxury of time was the best gift, but the thermometer came a close second.
“Not that kind of surprise,” Connor said.
He ran a finger down her bare shoulder. Her new skin tingled with the same intensity as the first time he’d touched her. Warmth cascaded from her chest down, between her legs. He leaned closer, his breath marvelous with the spices of their meal. His lips crushed hers. She wrapped her arms around his back and tugged at the hem of his shirt. He slipped it off and then pressed her into the sofa’s embrace with an undeniable urgency.
We didn’t launch a swarm.
Neither had they applied makeup or dressed for foreplay.
Few people had time to sit around watching others have sex, and most weren’t particularly good at it, but those with some skill—or luck in the looks department—could make decent coin with a little effort.
They wouldn’t gain many tips from today, though, not with stray cams providing the only feeds. She swiped her visual display clear of everything. Seeing their disheveled state annoyed and distracted her, and she intended to enjoy her birthday surprise with her full attention.
Connor’s hand slipped under her shirt. Her fingers found the still-healing scar on his torso, skimmed it and moved on, lower, between his legs. He grabbed her wrist and pulled it away, pinning it above her head. She let him. When his lips reached her nipple, she forgot everything else.
* * *
After they’d washed up and moved to bed, Connor turned to his side, faced her, and said, “Happy belated birthday.”
Welga returned his smirk with one of her own. “Thanks. I think you made up for the shitstorm that was March twelfth.”
“There’s one more gift, something I need to show you… in person.”
He sounded positively nervous. What the hell was he going to ask? Oh, Christ, don’t propose, Connor. I thought we agreed on no marriage, no kids.
He handed her a piece of printed paper from his bedside drawer. She quirked an eyebrow at him before reading:
Your joint application to relocate off-planet has been approved for residency on Eko-Yi Station. You have two seats on a launch from San Francisco on March 24, 2095. You will remain on-station for the period of one month, during which you will be evaluated for fitness and genetic suitability for microgravity environments and related treatments. Upon approval by Eko-Yi Station Council, you will be granted residence s
tatus. The council reserves the right to deny residency for any reason, including but not limited to: lack of medical fitness, incompatible psyche, lack of necessary skills.
“Shit,” Welga said.
Connor grinned. “We finally won the lottery.”
“Shit.” Back in ’88, after they quit their intelligence jobs, they’d considered moving off-world. A fresh start, like she’d dreamed of when Mama died, except that by 2088, she could make it happen. Connor had no family ties. His father had died of a heart attack when he was sixteen, and his mother fell victim to a designer virus in 2086, barely a year after Welga and Connor got together. Welga had met her once for Thanksgiving, when she’d taught Welga how to make a sourdough starter. Welga had kept hers going ever since, a living tribute to a great cook.
“Well, the timing is about as bad as it could get,” she said.
“Why? Platinum’s about to dump you anyway. What’s a few weeks early?”
“The Machinehood! We can’t leave in the middle of all this.” She waved in the general direction of the outside world. “They pulled me off R and R early. They need our help. And what about the rest of your contract with Platinum?” Being two years younger than her, Connor had plenty of time left to work as a shield.
He shrugged. “I’ll terminate it.”
“It’s employment,” Welga said. “It’s steady coin that you can’t get any other way.”
“It was a way for us to be together instead of you running off on deployments while I watched from a chair. I’m tired of the endless fighting. For what? So some protes can make a buck for their cause? We can have a better life up there.” He pointed a finger at the ceiling. “No gigs. No fights. No tips. Real work, like our grandparents had. And they’re looking for people with cooking skills.”
“I like the sound of that,” she admitted. She hated the piecemeal nature of micropayment tasks, and she lacked expertise for the more in-depth jobs. Slow fast food in space—had a nice ring to it.
“Plus, Eko-Yi is now governed by Neo-Buddhists. I’ve been listening to their abbot’s talks, and she’s amazing.”
Welga groaned. “You and your Neo-Buddhism. I don’t even believe in god, much less the Buddha.”
“It’s not that kind of religion. You don’t have to convert, though we would have to follow their way of life. Ao Tara has a vision for the future that we could be a part of. Equality for all, dignity in work.” His words spilled in a rush of enthusiasm. “She opposes the use of pills and mechanical enhancements in the labor force. Everyone on the station helps keep things running. They don’t eat meat. They treat each other with respect, no matter what their skills or expertise ratings are. I think we could be happy there. Now you really should listen to some of her talks. I’ll send you my favorites.”
Welga held her hands up in surrender and laughed. For Connor to get this excited about something, he had to love it to the core of his being. Her leg trembled and shook the bed.
Connor frowned. “You asked Nithya about that, right? Did she say anything?”
“See for yourself.” Welga subvocalized to her agent, “Por Qué, send Connor a copy of the last conversation between me and Nithya.”
She propped herself on an elbow and watched his expression as he reached the end, the part where Nithya had advised her to stop using zips. She read his face like a card, the implied you should tell our boss and you should quit now. Her own nonverbal response was: no fucking way, and don’t you dare tell him yourself.
Aloud, she said, “If the Machinehood makes good on its threat, we won’t have a supply of pills to take anyway, which is a bigger problem than mine. If we do stop them in time, then I’ll consider quitting. Okay?”
“Does Olafson know about your tremors?”
“So you were paying attention to me in Phoenix.”
“I noticed that he came to see you. He’ll make a good liaison.”
Her throat went dry. “I’m the liaison. Surprise?”
Connor’s jaw worked up and down for a few heartbeats. “You rejoined the agency? What the hell, Welga? I thought we swore—”
“We can’t talk about it here, cardo, but trust me enough to know there’s a really damn good reason. It wasn’t an easy decision.”
“For God’s sake, Welga, you are in no shape to go back to soldiering, and you can’t take flow. What possible reason could there be?”
Because I know the Maghreb like few others do. But she couldn’t say that aloud. “If the Machinehood is backed by a sentient AI, it’s going to carve up the world like a hot knife through butter. This effort needs every enhanced fighter it can get.”
She used their old keywords, knife and butter, to remind Connor of Operation Golden Dagger. She needed him to consider the Maghreb while anyone watching thought about SAIs.
He narrowed his eyes as he considered her phrasing. She’d worked intelligence, but Connor had been the analyst. He knew how to put two and two together, flow or sober. He would come to the same conclusion as she had about the al-Muwahhidun. He’d been at Langley during the shitstorm of Marrakech, and he’d had the same intel—or more—that she had at the time. He’d understand the caliph’s methods, the significance of a disappearing Machinehood and a blackout zone, the real reason they’d ask someone like Welga to return.
When he started to mutter fuck at ten-second intervals, she knew he’d pieced it together.
“They’d better not send—” He broke off before he said too much. His jaw pulled taut. “What about moving to Eko-Yi? How could you say yes to that knowing that you’ve joined—”
“This is temporary, cardo. The Machinehood’s deadline is in four days. We have to stop them before then.”
“The launch is in nine days.”
“Plenty of time,” Welga said smoothly. “I bet we’ll have these assholes neutralized in a day or two.”
“Bullshit. Not if you end up having to chase them around the world.”
The trouble with someone who knew you well was that they could call your bluff. At least Connor hadn’t said the Maghreb out loud.
“Just—don’t get yourself killed, okay?”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
She’d barely made it out alive the first time. According to Olafson, not one intelligence officer had emerged since. Was she being an idiot to think she could do it?
“We didn’t know the Machinehood would show up to ruin your surprise,” she said. “If this operation doesn’t end in time, I’ll reconsider my position with the agency. I promise.”
The tension fell from Connor’s shoulders in that magical way only he had. He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get up there and discover that neither of our bodies like space. Maybe the Machinehood will reveal itself as our new AI god and make this whole conversation pointless.” He rolled out of bed. “I’m going to get a sleeping pill. You want one?”
“Please.”
Welga flopped back onto her pillow. Connor could let go of stress like a balloon and watch it float away. She had thought she was good at detachment and compartmentalization until she’d met him. In spite of a decade together, she still hadn’t figured out how he did it.
Part of her wanted a second chance in the Maghreb, the opportunity to finish what she couldn’t the first time around. The rest of her had looked forward to a more relaxed life. She loved the adrenaline rush of being a shield, but the physical recovery got harder with each passing year. Moving to a space station—it was a big change, and she couldn’t deny the appeal. But the Machinehood’s deadline loomed. Until the world resolved that threat, she had to set aside the idea of Eko-Yi and focus on the problem at hand. A lot could happen in nine days.
* * *
Welga rose before dawn broke. Connor breathed evenly, fast asleep. Her father also slept, though less restfully. The feeds from Chennai showed a domestic peace that she knew was superficial. All three of them—Luis, Nithya, and Carma—sat in different alcoves, each lost in their own activity.
She pulled her hair
up into a sloppy bun and then grabbed a duo-zip from the kitchen. It would warm her up for the day’s shield work, regardless of the client. She hesitated before slipping it into her mouth. Her tremors had increased in frequency since stopping some of the healing drugs. Not good, said a voice in her head, one that sounded remarkably like her sister-in-law. She brushed the concern aside and took the pill. For the next week, practice took priority over health.
“Por Qué, set my clothes for running.”
She scooped up a handful of microdrones from the charging tray on her way out and set her clothes to a workout design. By the time she descended the stairs and reached the street, she wore tight capri pants and a supportive sleeveless top. Welga tossed her swarm into the air. This early, the temperature was comfortable, though no breeze penetrated the fog that blanketed the streets. Everything lay still and quiet, including most people, and anyone up to no good would get dissuaded by her cameras. She loved the latent energy of dawn.
“Por Qué, read me the top-rated stories tagged with the words ‘Machinehood’ and ‘attack.’ ”
Her agent’s voice spoke in her ear. No further violence against funders. Some central African mining operations had stopped due to equipment failure and structural damage. The Machinehood hadn’t taken credit, but everyone assumed they’d done it. The machine rights people had found new fame and with it the courage to spread their gospel. Multiple interview feeds were giving them a platform to explain why the Machinehood must be seeking revenge or justice for the abuse of WAIs and bots.
“Por Qué, read me the top-rated opinion pieces that cross-match Machinehood with machine rights, first and last paragraphs.” She wished she could add al-Muwahhidun empire and caliph into the mix, but any open search could tip them off, and she had to keep the world’s attention focused on sentient AIs.
The popular arguments ranged widely. The most fanatical of machine rights activists wanted all intelligent machines to have the full rights of a citizen. As if a coffee-bot should be able to vote or go to jail. Well, maybe the latter would be worthwhile for the one that had served her in Chennai. More reasonable people, including expert bioethicists, wanted a protective framework that went both ways: punitive action against designers, and decommissioning for bots or WAIs that committed crimes; legal protections for machines from violence committed by humans or other intelligent machines. None of them offered a clear definition for a sentient artificial intelligence, though, or what rights one should have if it came into existence. Software had passed sophisticated Turing tests in the forties, but no one felt that made them self-aware. Apes and elephants were clearly sentient, intelligent, social creatures, but they didn’t get human rights.
