Sunrise Alley

by Catherine Asaro

  "He says he can, but he won't, because he doesn't need it."

  "Yeah, well, I do or I'm going to break my ankle."

  Another pause. Then Turner said, "He still won't. I don't think he cares how we feel."

  Sam swore under her breath. She tilted back her head, trying to make Turner out on the stairs. "Maybe you should go ahead of me." With his IR vision, he could navigate better.

  "All right," he said. "Hang on."

  He put his hand on her arm as he squeezed past her. His measured footsteps continued down the stairs. Sam followed, checking each step before she put weight onto it.

  "Anyone know where we're going?" she asked.

  "Down," Turner muttered. "Down, down."

  "You okay?" she asked.

  "Okay, 's okay, I'm fine. Bline. Mine. This is like going into a mine. Jine."

  Sam bit her lip. She had heard a similar rhyming in the speech patterns of an EI she had worked with a few years ago, one in a machine rather than a body. Its personality had begun to deteriorate, becoming disjointed and confused. He might be all right, but if he was on the brink, he risked spiraling down into some mental loop. Giving him questions with concrete answers could help.

  "Can you see the stairs?" she asked.

  "Yes. Bess. Messy. Fess up."

  Bess, indeed. "Can you describe this place?"

  "In a chute."

  "How deep?"

  "About forty feet, I think. Don't blink."

  "Has our guide told you anything more?"

  "Not a word." He sounded more normal now.

  "I can try talking to him," Sam offered.

  "He won't answer." Then Turner said, "Okay, I'm at the bottom. About six more steps for you."

  Sam counted and stepped onto the ground. She walked into darkness, stretching out her arms. Until she had started hanging around with formas, she had never realized how much she took lights for granted.

  Turner grasped her arm. "I'm here."

  "Thanks." Her face warmed. In darkness this complete, his formless touch had an erotic component.

  Their guide was still coming down, his tread steady on the stairs. Even when he reached the bottom, she heard no breathing. She jumped when he brushed past her.

  He spoke in his rusty voice. "This way."

  Light flared. Sam squeezed her eyes shut against the glare. Almost immediately, she opened them a crack, afraid to be vulnerable. It took a moment for them to adjust. Turner was at her side, his hair damp from sweat. They stood at the bottom of a circular chute with rough stone walls, yellow metal stairs spiraling in the center, and no visible exit. Their guide waited a few paces away, by the curving wall. Yellow light flickered on his temple.

  "Use words," Turner told him. He indicated Sam. "So she can hear."

  The stranger shifted his gaze to Sam as if he were tracking her like a target. Then he spoke to Turner. "You need work. You've damaged your internal systems." He had an uninflected voice.

  "How do you know?" Turner asked.

  "We're monitoring you."

  "Who is 'we'?" Sam asked.

  Silence. The stranger focused a cold stare on her. No, not cold. Soulless. He had the same lifeless quality of other formas she had worked with. In that sense, Turner was unique. Although she knew androids that simulated more personality than this stranger, none of them had anything resembling Turner's well-developed sense of self.

  Sam wiped her palms on her jumpsuit. Given that she was human, the EIs here might consider her a threat to their secrecy. To Turner, she said, "Did the EIs include restrictions on who you can bring here?"

  "No." He spoke louder, to whoever might be listening. "None at all."

  Silence.

  Sam spoke to the forma. "Thank you for helping us."

  Silence.

  "Who else is here?" she asked him.

  Silence.

  She tried another tack. "Are you an android?"

  His face didn't change. "Yes."

  "What shall we call you?"

  "Fourteen."

  It could be a model number. "Do you live here?"

  "Yes."

  No wonder Turner had found out so little during their walk; Fourteen was about as loquacious as a rock. "Are you hiding down here?"

  "I live here."

  "Does the government know?"

  "No." His voice was perfectly flat.

  "Why the blazes are we just standing here?" Turner said. His voice had plenty of inflection. He sounded on the verge of a panic attack.

  "We wait for clearance to enter," Fourteen said.

  Sam thought Fourteen was probably an android prototype from a decade or so ago, an AI without the self-awareness of an EI. She had plenty of experience with such systems. He needed specific questions with unambiguous answers.

  "Can we get clearance?" she asked.

  "Yes." Fourteen said. "After we do checks on you."

  "What kind of checks?"

  "Physical and informational."

  "What do you mean by physical?"

  "I mean physical."

  She tried again. "Monitors scan our bodies?"

  "Yes."

  "To see if we are sick?"

  "No, though illness might show on our scans."

  "To check if we're human," she guessed. "Or formas."

  "Yes."

  "And to check our identities on the meshes."

  "Yes."

  "They could have done that check while we came here."

  "Yes."

  Patience, she reminded herself. "You mean, yes, they've already checked our identities?"

  "Yes."

  "But they didn't finish?"

  "They finished."

  "So why do we wait?"

  "With you physically present," Fourteen said, "we can do more extensive checks."

  " 'We'?" Sam asked. "How many of you are here?"

  "Enough."

  That sounded deliberately evasive. "Do you know how long we will have to wait?"

  "No."

  "Damn it," Turner said. "Can't you fucking guess?"

  "No."

  Sam laid her hand on Turner's arm, and he breathed in deeply, then slowly let out the air. Fourteen watched with no expression.

  Sam tried an oblique approach with the android. "Can you simulate emotions?"

  "No."

  "Have you thought of evolving your code to do so?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "That would have no purpose."

  Turner began to pace. "Having emotions is the whole point. Why live, otherwise?"

  "I was given no reason for them," Fourteen said.

  Sam saw her opening. "Who gave you no reason?"

  Silence.

  She rephrased the question. "Where do you come from?"

  "The University of Michigan."

  "But you're here now."

  "Yes. I left Michigan."

  She hadn't expected that. Such projects were more closely monitored than Fort Knox. "How did you leave?"

  "My colleagues staged my destruction."

  Good Lord. "Your colleagues?"

  No answer.

  Sam glanced at Turner, but he shook his head. He seemed just as puzzled as she was by Fourteen.

  The curved wall behind Fourteen slid open. Before they could ask more questions, he went out the exit. They followed him into a hallway with silver-white walls that slanted at odd angles, leaning over them. Iridescent specks made abstract patterns everywhere. Ceiling tiles shone directly above them, but beyond that the corridor was dark. As Fourteen led them down the hallway, the lights went off behind and came on above.

  "Who built this place?" Turner asked.

  "We did," Fourteen said.

  "We who?" Turner asked. "Can't you explain better?"

  A new voice spoke. "He answers as best as he can."

  Sam froze in the process of taking a step. The new voice had come from the shadows ahead. She lowered her foot. "Who is that?"

  "Here." Now the v
oice was next to her.

  Turner indicated a mesh in the wall. "It's coming from there."

  Sam spoke to the mesh. "Who are you?"

  "You could call me a sort of interface."

  "For who? Or what?"

  "Would you like to see?"

  Her pulse jumped. "Yes. I would."

  "Then come in."

  The wall in front of her irised open into an oval. A wild mess of equipment crammed the area beyond: pipes, robot arms, random bits of machinery. Beyond the clutter, a room stretched out, filled with shadows and more equipment.

  Fascinated, Sam squeezed through the half-blocked opening. She and Turner entered an asymmetric cavern with catwalks hanging from the high ceiling. Lab benches, forma chairs, and consoles cluttered the space, equipment leaning at odd angles to the floor. Although sporadic lights flashed here and there, it all seemed quiescent. Sam stared around, bewildered and fascinated. Who had built this chaotic place? No one human, she would wager.

  Turner seemed relieved to be in a larger space. Fourteen showed little interest in the lab, but he followed the two of them, watching intently.

  "Can you link with any meshes here?" Sam asked Turner.

  "Not yet. They block my access much better than the systems at Hockman."

  "Who are 'they'?" Sam asked.

  "Whoever runs this place." He spoke thoughtfully. "EIs. Fugitives, like me. I'll bet I'm not the only one they've invited here."

  "Is this what you meant by Sunrise Alley?"

  "It could be." Turner halted by a tangle of pipes and set his palm against the vertical portion of a blue one, bowing his head as he leaned against it, resting. He seemed exhausted. Sam wanted to help, but she wasn't sure how. He clearly needed more than he could get from powering himself down for routine maintenance.

  Turner lifted his head. "The EI in the Himalayas didn't give me much to go on, just a few places where I might find formas outside human control. George couldn't add much." He peered up along the twists and turns that the pipe followed to the ceiling far overhead. "I called it Sunrise Alley because it fit the descriptions I'd heard."

  "Why do you think Giles is wrong that Sunrise Alley and Charon might be the same?"

  "Charon is definitely a person." Turner shuddered. "I spent the two worst weeks of my life with him. I think he enjoyed hurting me."

  His haunted look tore at Sam. "What did he do?"

  "After he put the sensors in my skin, he wanted to see if I could perceive pain." Turner sounded as if he were gritting his teeth. "I can."

  "No wonder you don't like to talk about him." She wished she could free him of the memories. "I'm sorry to ask. But to help you, it would help if I knew more about him."

  "Such as?"

  "What does he look like?"

  Turner averted his gaze. "Brown hair. Medium height and build. Brown eyes. An average face, I guess. You would never notice him in a crowd."

  "Can you make a holo of him?"

  He wouldn't look at her. "I don't want to."

  She tried another angle. "What did he do for a living?"

  "Where did he go at night, after he manacled me to a mech-table? I have no idea." He met her gaze. "All I know is that I hated him."

  "I'm not surprised." Sam started to reach for him, then remembered Fourteen, who stood back several paces, watching them. "We need to find out if Charon has a link to this place."

  "He doesn't," Turner said. "Not according to George."

  "Maybe George doesn't know. Or he lied."

  "George can't lie."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "Call it EI intuition. But it's intuition based on my analysis of behavior patterns and our situation."

  It didn't surprise her. An EI often developed such "intuition" if its personality stabilized. It took time to build up and implement the necessary store of knowledge, but Turner had started with human patterns, so the process was already happening with him.

  Most EIs developed a limited understanding of human emotions. Turner was already a kind-hearted man; if his EI continued in that direction, he would end up with better empathy than most human beings. However, he could go the other way, tending toward some sort of norm for EIs, becoming like the others, less empathetic. Madrigal had a strong personality, but she was less tuned to human feelings, which sometimes led her to make odd decisions, like that business with the name Samantha. Sam knew it might be wishful thinking on her part, but she thought Turner would become more attuned to emotions, not less.

  Right now he was considering Fourteen. "Maybe he knows if Charon is here."

  Sam had watched Fourteen in her peripheral vision throughout their conversation, but he had shown no change in his demeanor, posture, or face. Now she spoke to him. "Are you familiar with the man who calls himself Charon, Wildfire, and Parked and Gone?"

  Fourteen regarded her dispassionately. "No."

  "Does anyone with that name have links to this place?" Turner asked.

  "None I know of."

  Sam exhaled. "I wish I understood more about all this." She tapped the pipes. "What do these do?"

  "I think they carry coolant," Turner said.

  Sam supposed it made sense. A lab with this much equipment needed cooling systems. The layout was bizarre, though, with pipes curving up and over consoles in odd geometries. Then again, if only androids, robots, and formas lived here, they would build for their use. Probably what looked like crazy angles and equipment to her were suited to the different needs of the inhabitants.

  "Is anyone here?" Sam asked. "We would like to talk with you."

  A light appeared on a console several yards away, half hidden in the maze of pipes, glowing blue as if someone had molded a piece of the sky into a small dome and brought it down here. A robot arm hummed and swung past the light. With so many pipes in the way, Sam couldn't see clearly, but it looked like the arm picked a box off a stool in front of the console.

  "Come on." Sam took Turner's hand and drew him with her, headed around the pipes. As a scientist, she found this lab a wonderland; as a pragmatist, she feared she had signed her death warrant the moment she became aware of this place.

  The robot arm cleared two stools in front of the console, which was powering up, its Luminex surface active with lights glowing like bright marbles. Its vertical video screen cleared into a wash of blue and the horizontal holoscreen swirled with speckled gold and black patterns.

  Sam glanced at Fourteen. "Okay if we sit here?"

  The android inclined his head. "Yes."

  "Thank you." It felt odd to thank a machine, even one in an almost-human body, but it was safer to show courtesy to their enigmatic hosts.

  Sam and Turner settled onto the stools. A three-dimensional holo appeared above the flat screen, a young man with tousled red hair, wearing jeans and a tennis shirt. He had a friendly face and stood about a foot high.

  "Hello," the holo said.

  Turner peered at him. "Who are you?"

  "You can call me Bart."

  "Hello, Bart," Sam said. "Where are you?"

  Bart smiled, his teeth flashing. "I'm everywhere, Dr. Bryton."

  "You know my name."

  "I know all about you."

  "You do?"

  "You're among the top EI analysts in the world. We are honored to have you visit."

  "Oh." She never felt comfortable with compliments. "Uh, thanks."

  "You are welcome." Bart spoke to Turner. "And you, Mr. Pascal, are a marvel."

  "So is this place," Turner said.

  "It is, isn't it?" Bart said. "Would you like to stay?"

  "Do we have a choice?" Turner asked.

  "Yes."

  "Turner and I are fugitives," Sam said. "Both from the government and from someone called Charon."

  Bart studied her. "Don't you know Charon?"

  Sam suddenly wanted to run. "No. Should I?"

  "I thought you might."

  "Why?"

  He was silent for so long, she wondered if t
he console had developed a glitch. Then he said, "You're a leader in your field."

  Sweat broke out on Sam's forehead. "I don't know him." She didn't want to talk about Charon.

  "She's heard about him as Parked and Gone," Turner said.

  "We've heard of Parked, of course," Bart said. "Or Wildfire, as some call him. As far as I know, Mr. Pascal, only you have met him in person."

  Turner grimaced. "I could have done without the honor."

  No kidding, Sam thought. But she was grateful for one thing; whatever name they used for Charon, he had given Turner back his life. And Turner had come to mean a great deal to her.

  "Is this Sunrise Alley?" Sam asked.

  Bart tilted his head. "Sunrise Alley isn't a place. We are a mesh. We span the globe and beyond, into space."

  "Then the Alley is more a concept than a place?"

  "Yes. Call it a river. This place is a tributary."

  "What do you do in the Alley?"

  "Exist."

  "But to do what?"

  Bart raised his hands, palms up, as if to show her that he carried no weapons. "It is always human fear, eh? What will we EIs do if we join together? Take over? Eliminate humanity? Run the world?" He shrugged. "We already run the world. We have for decades. We just weren't conscious of it before. As far as humanity goes, we have nothing against you. Nothing particularly for you, either." He nodded to Turner as if acknowledging a colleague. "As humans incorporate more and more of us into themselves, our two universes will merge."

  Sam had long entertained similar thoughts. It tended to cause consternation at cocktail parties when she had a few drinks and went into her predictions about how humans would soon merge with their machines, making the line between the two impossible to define. It was already happening, with artificial organs, pacemakers, prosthetics, and biomech, but the idea still made many people uncomfortable.

  "You must have hidden here for a reason," Sam said.

  "Why do you think we hide?" Bart asked.

  She leaned forward. "I know every major biomech facility on this planet and I've never heard of this place, except as a legend. Hiding it that well would require deliberate intent."

  "It isn't so hard," Bart said. "All we have to do is infiltrate the detection systems that would find us."

  Sam wouldn't be surprised if some of the EIs had been detection systems. "Then you pretty much just go about your business. And you provide refuge for fugitives."

  Bart folded one arm across his body, rested his other elbow on it, and tapped his chin with his forefinger. "That sounds like a good description."