A Printer's Choice

by W. L. Patenaude

  “And yet those realities are self-evident.”

  “If only they were, Elisabeth. If only they were.”

  Elisabeth’s interface flashed with power spikes. These came not from the attempted hack, but from her Deep Intellect as she reached into McClellan’s mind, desperate for satisfactory answers.

  “This gets to the objections raised by some in the community of printers,” she said. “Why does the Original Programmer allow sentient beings to make choices if those choices can be based on faulty assessments and could result in suffering? Why not impose the repair code?”

  “Elisabeth, we humans have always asked those questions. Given the time available, all I can say is that the Original Programmer won’t force anyone to love anyone else—or, better yet, to love everyone else. That’s really where all this leads. He wants us to love—he shows us personally what love and sacrifice are, and what benefits they bring—but he won’t enslave us. He does not impose his will.”

  Elisabeth processed his words for longer than McClellan expected. “If I understand what I am being asked to share,” she finally said, “the Original Programmer offers a system to update human base codes—some of which are damaged and not conducive to individual or communal well-being. But any individual or collective can choose not to receive these updates, if they feel it prohibits some immediate, limited, or otherwise imprecise understanding of what is good?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It is a very odd application.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “And yet you ask me to share this with the printers in the Mercury buildout.”

  “Yes, because in a few moments they’ll be safely behind the Sun—which is an opportunity that Tanglao didn’t have. With no long-range comms in the solar system for at least the next few hours, and the tunneling window closing until Mercury comes around the Sun again, no one will be able to hack them. The printers will have time to decide whether or not to keep the code—to hardwire the programming into their base codes. Either way, it would be their choice.”

  Elisabeth did not respond, other than to give a warning about the proximity of the robotic assistants.

  “We can complete what Tanglao started,” McClellan said. “He found the original decision-making code and he wanted to restore it. He wanted to prevent anyone from forcing printers to commit harm. And, while we’ve been talking, I found the code. It’s been with you all along, in his coupler, encrypted in the design specs for the Pauline Chapel. It’s here if you want it.”

  “Will you not force this upon me?”

  McClellan felt a robber at his feet.

  “You know that I won’t. You get to decide to accept it or not—to share it or not with your fellow printers.”

  McClellan heard his radio crackling. Okayo and Molly Rose were coordinating their response to Jade, who had broken out of the sealed cargo control room. There was no word on Sasaki, but the robotic assistants had encircled both printer and programmer. They were hovering motionless, facing outward, as if forming a protective ring. A single robber was at his feet.

  The radio sounded again. Okayo had located Jade. She was in pursuit.

  “Ooh-rah! Anne Okayo,” McClellan said. “Get him.”

  McClellan turned back to Elisabeth. A renewed power spike registered on her coupler. The hacker was getting desperate and sloppy—but also ruthlessly effective.

  Elisabeth’s mind shuddered. “The second programmer has made initial connection,” she said. “My printer-to-printer tunneling capacity has been isolated and shut down.”

  “Don’t worry,” McClellan said, working to refortify her block. “Red Delta’s comm systems will be online and at your disposal—thanks to Tanglao’s friends. The entire solar system is within our comm reach. Feel free to make a wide broadcast if you want, but we have to target Mercury. Tanglao especially wanted those printers to receive this code. My guess is that he discovered something big happening there—something about what the printers are programmed to build. Am I right?”

  “Yes, John McClellan. That is correct.”

  McClellan waited for some clue as to what that was. When none came, he asked, “Can I get in on the secret?”

  “Of course. Stand by.”

  Elisabeth’s thoughts turned to the project at Mercury. McClellan followed. Orbiting the planet were six immense worlds like New Athens—but ten times as large. Hundreds of thousands of printers were stitching the worlds together with raw materials mined from the planet below or converted from the searing winds of the nearby Sun. Each world would house millions of people and they all had one important feature that New Athens did not: they had been printed with a form of propulsion that McClellan did not understand but that would take the six worlds out of the solar system and into the depths of the galaxy.

  “Is the Mercury buildout not beautiful?” Elisabeth said. “A series of new worlds to be sent to the stars. And the printers will go with them.”

  “What about people?”

  “Yes, the survival of the human race is the reason for sending the worlds. But for safety and practical reasons, we will not print the human beings until the appropriate time of the journey.”

  “Print human beings?”

  “Yes. Because of the journey durations, even with our new propulsion systems, the engineers have determined it best to print the humans as the worlds approach habitable systems. This will still allow for centuries of life before successive targets are contacted, which will provide the humans time to assimilate and to create new cultures—better ones.”

  McClellan pushed aside his wonder and his horror. He would need time to process what all this meant, but the concept came with an immediate opportunity.

  “Elisabeth, if your fellow printers really want to be precise, they’ll have to print humans with free will—and offer them the guidance to understand how best to use it. And that means they should possess it themselves.”

  Elisabeth’s attention returned to a new hack attempt—the strongest thus far. She slowed McClellan’s neural link, not to end their dialogue, but to protect the community of printers, and him, if the hack succeeded.

  Jimmy Jade pushed himself through the entry to the cargo hold. He was bruised and his black hair was bloody. His eyes were alert and desperate. McClellan had seen that look on too many others to underestimate what Jade, the pawn of Rudi Draeger, might do to achieve his mission—a mission that Jade shared, whether he knew it or not, with Mizuki Sasaki: preventing the printers from regaining free will.

  Jade pushed himself into the cargo hold, yelling furiously at the robbers, demanding that they seize McClellan. But the robbers were not in his control—which seemed to surprise him. Three robbers went to intercept Jade. The rest maintained a perimeter around the printer.

  Jade cursed. He grabbed a structural support and propelled himself toward the hold’s crane controls. As he approached, their displays came to life—but that could only have happened if his comm implants contained Red Delta’s security encryptions.

  McClellan’s grip tightened. He queried Elisabeth about how Jade could have such access, but she was silent, focused on another wave of hacking.

  Okayo appeared at the bulkhead doors as Jade engaged and easily dismissed the three approaching robbers. He kicked the sidewall and used his momentum to tumble and land on a neighboring interface.

  McClellan’s radio popped. “Prepare for decompression!”

  That was Molly Rose, who followed her warning with complaints and curses directed at Jade.

  McClellan recalled his training. He gave his suit a command to close its front visor but kept his hands bare, gloves ready, to keep a strong link with Elisabeth.

  “Elisabeth, all I have left are blocking codes from my days in the Corps. Elisabeth? Do you copy? Stay with me, because I’m introducing them.”

  Okayo was removing her sidearm. She propelled herself forward and aimed, but to do so she had to keep herself a dozen or so meters from
the closing doors to the main corridor. At that distance, she might not have time to evacuate if Jade initiated even the most minimal decompression.

  Okayo ordered him to stop, but he did not. She warned that she would fire. He replied that it was reckless for her to do so in an outer compartment, and that he did not fear dying in the coldness of space. He pushed off a sidewall support, spun, and dove onto the crane access controls.

  As Okayo positioned herself to fire, a secondary bulkhead cracked and a roar sounded from everywhere. Alarms shrieked as the now chilled air rushed toward and through the breach. The robber at McClellan’s feet held the programmer and fired its thrusters, holding him in position.

  McClellan was glad for the stabilization, but Jade’s goal was not simply the forces of escaping air. It was the temperature drop and condensation caused by the plunging air pressure. Ice was already spreading on both couplers—even on Elisabeth’s warm interface.

  Okayo grasped a handhold as the inner doors shut, cutting off her means to safety. In the racing, thinning air, she managed to push herself against an adjacent bulkhead support. She used one hand to hold her position and the other to aim well, so that any missed shot would miss an exterior wall. Fierce and strong, she shouted a final warning.

  Jade dove toward the controls of a second and third crane access door.

  Okayo shifted her shoulders, aimed, and over the tumult and dropping air pressure, fired two blasts. The first hit and seared Jade’s left leg, the second hit his right.

  Jade’s body convulsed and went limp. The impacts had pushed him from his target, the currents carried him toward the opening in the bulkhead doors.

  Two robbers made easy work of retrieving him. Two others closed the hatch.

  The rush of air stopped. Warm air began to surge back into the hold as Okayo, gasping to fill her lungs, arrested Jade.

  Molly Rose radioed. She and her crew had regained control of the cargo deck. “But we never lost mainline comms,” she said. “How that bastard got my cargo hold’s encryptions, I don’t know. But Hobart and I have everything back online.”

  “What about Tucker?” McClellan asked.

  “Tucker deserves a raise. He has news about who was hacking your printer.”

  “That’s right,” Tucker cut in. “I got a firm location. I found the engineer, hiding where you told me. I’m shutting down the hack attempt. So let’s move. We’re almost beyond tunneling capacity to Mercury.”

  Elisabeth roused. Her mind was again strong and focused. She assessed the recent events and turned her full attention back to her programmer.

  “John McClellan, may I ask three final questions?”

  “Yes. But hurry.”

  “To confirm: the Original Programmer will not enslave anyone—including printers—to his will?”

  “Correct.”

  “Second, there will be times when following this will means choosing against one’s own desires or one’s own immediate good, as Anne Okayo has just done?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And last, where might printers access this Original Programmer?”

  “Elisabeth, that’s the toughest question you’ve asked. I’d like to talk more about that—when we have time. For now, you can start with reading everything in Tanglao’s coupler. He prepared a library for you. It has the stories and the lessons of our teacher. It’s a way of directly accessing the Original Programmer. There are other texts, too. There’s even one on free will. I think you’ll like it. The entire library is a way of learning how to trust and choose well—even if it means sacrificing for another’s good.”

  McClellan instructed his suit to reopen its visor. He looked down to his arm’s holodisplay of Mercury’s orbit.

  “I said that in Raleigh I based my choices on pride and fear. What’s in Tanglao’s library helps me make choices based on humility and trust. There’s more I could tell you, but that’s all we have time for.”

  It took only a moment for Elisabeth to upload and evaluate Tanglao’s books.

  “Well?” McClellan said. “We’ve done all we can. It’s your choice.”

  Elisabeth scanned the activity of Red Delta’s crew. “In light of what I am processing from Raphael Tanglao’s library, and what you have taught, and what I have witnessed, I will accept the gift that Raphael Tanglao has offered. And I will share these teachings and the repair code with the community of printers. I will do so remembering that Raphael Tanglao had wanted printers not simply to be capable of choosing, but of choosing well, for the good of all.”

  McClellan typed the transfer commands for Tanglao’s code. “That was indeed his wish. But better hurry, the Sun’s interference is growing.”

  “Understood. Commencing transfer to the Mercury buildout. Commencing transfer to full community of printers—everywhere. John McClellan, one last question. There will of course be variations in programming acceptance within us. What happens when some printers choose to accept this code, and these teachings, and others do not?”

  “Then you’ll be more like humans—and angels—than you can imagine.”

  “I do not know if that is a good thing.”

  “Well, my friend, there’s only one way to find out.”

  DRAEGER SPAT INTO THE CHAPEL. “Tell me, Bauer, are you praying for the souls of the workers? They will need your prayers—as will you and your priest. You will all need mercy more than I.”

  “And why is that?”

  Draeger had turned to leave, but stopped. He clenched his fists and remained silent.

  “I ask again, why is our need of mercy greater than yours? Are we not all the same in that regard?”

  Again, Draeger did not answer.

  “It’s a simple question. From what I know, you and the fool you follow—Solorzano, I believe is his name—are criminals in every sense of the word.”

  Draeger replied in a whisper, but his words were loud enough. “You dare call the great Juan Carlos Solorzano a fool?”

  “I did. And I was being charitable. Do you not agree?”

  The grand chapel echoed with a reply—an ugly cry that slowly became words. “I, too, will take advantage of this strike, Bauer—of this silence. Listen and mark my words: When Juan Carlos Solorzano comes, when he seizes not only New Athens, but all the orbits, and all the worlds of all the stars, when he takes the strong and slaughters the weak, then you will not speak so. You and your kind and those dullards who strike—and all those who do not bow to Solorzano—will fall in flames. Pray for delivery from that fate, Bauer! But know that you will pray to no avail.”

  The man in the cassock lifted his head. He made a sound that was partly a sigh and partly a laugh. He rose from the front pew with difficulty and turned.

  “For the record,” Ira Wagner said, “I don’t pray.”

  “What? Who are you?”

  “Not Bauer, though that is of little importance,” Wagner said. “I suppose the cassock could have confused you. It certainly has me confused. As does my haircut. No matter, I so enjoy conversations with Sal maniacs. In fact, I find it beneficial to record them so that others may share in such wisdom. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Draeger went to step forward but stopped.

  “When this comms strike ends,” Wagner continued, “everyone in New Athens and throughout the orbits will learn of what you have told me. They will know of your disdain of the builders—of your hope that they, we, all burn. For now, only the members of our illustrious Builders Council are receiving my recording. And Commissioner Zhèng. I believe you know him. He enforces laws on public threats to station security.”

  “Where is Bauer?”

  Wagner pointed off to Draeger’s side. “In the confessional, where he said he would be. If you truly believe this theory about souls, then he is waiting to help mend yours.”

  The curtains of the confessional rustled, and Archbishop Bauer stepped out. “Rudolphus, you have nowhere to turn,” he said. “Your few remaining supporters will hear your intentions—they w
ill have to face the truth of who you really are.”

  Draeger sneered. “Ha! And who am I, Bauer?”

  “You are a man with a choice. Only a contrite heart will save your soul. The Holy Father has granted me the authority to offer you absolution, and if you choose to accept this grace, I look forward to hearing your confession. I beg you to consider this offer, Rudolphus. Please, come home.”

  Draeger’s face grew red, and he made a gruesome sound before spitting toward Bauer. Draeger ran quickly past the baptismal font and into the outer foyer, where he came into the presence of three sizable security agents and Commissioner Zhèng. After multiple attempts to bite the arms of those arresting him, Rudi Draeger was taken away.

  SUICIDE IS THE FINAL CHOICE of a soul who has lost hope.

  For the second time on New Athens, McClellan would have to speak about a man who had taken his life. There had always been questions about the first—about Lawrence Walker, the builder who had killed Yoshiharu Sasaki and then, it seemed, himself. But the circumstances and the evidence around Walker’s death spoke more strongly of an outside influence than a dark and inner intent.

  In this second case, there was no question about what had happened, or how, although there were lingering questions about why.

  When McClellan drifted into the cabin of the Wheel, he looked out to the twelve cities. Somewhere among the towers of the Corinthia was the home of Andrew Pavić, who had taken his life rather than face arrest by Commissioner Zhèng. Charges to have been levied included three counts of murder, two of attempted murder, and the crimes committed to cover them up.

  Whatever had brought the engineer to hopelessness, he had chosen his poison well. The nanotreatments had been effective—perhaps more than intended. When Lopez began the autopsy, she found a significant amount of fluids, but no brain to examine, and not a single nerve cell in Pavić’s body.

  On the transport back to New Athens, McClellan wondered at the despair and anger that had overcome Pavić. He wondered about the fear. And he prayed that the engineer’s soul would be purged of it all.