The Machine's Child (Company)

by Kage Baker

  A what? Alec attempted to move his lower back into the warm proximity of Mendoza’s bottom, but Edward took control, vaulting from the bed and dragging him along.

  In the saloon!

  Is it dangerous? Edward demanded, shrugging into Alec’s bathrobe, which resulted in Nicholas being hauled unceremoniously out of bed as well.

  Well, it don’t look dangerous—but—

  Edward strode away to the saloon, as Alec followed grumbling and Nicholas staggered after, looking dazed. Stepping over the door frame, they halted.

  Er, said Alec.

  “Good God,” said Edward, so startled he slipped back, and Alec got control again.

  There was a gooseberry bush on the table, reaching almost up to the gimbal lamp. The bud vase lay on its side near the bush; a lacy fanwork of roots had spread out over the tabletop, following the path of the spilled water.

  It didn’t register on my sensors, not a damn one, and I ain’t—

  “What’s the matter?” said Mendoza, yawning as she came up behind them. She spotted the gooseberry bush and gave a little cry of delight.

  “Oh, look how nice it grew!” she said, pushing past them. “Poor thing, it needs water. But, see? Now you can have fresh berries, anytime.”

  You, er, made the bush grow yerself, did you, dearie?

  God’s Holy Wounds, cried Nicholas.

  “No, I just made it part of the ship’s temporal continuum, like you said,” she replied proudly. Standing there, naked, with a wilting gooseberry bush in her arms, she became aware of Alec’s shocked expression. “Oh. Was I not supposed to do that?”

  “No, no, it’s fine—” stammered Alec, at the same moment the Captain boomed, Well, ain’t my girl clever, figuring that out all by herself! It were just a little unexpected, that’s all, darlin’—

  “Oh, how stupid of me! We don’t have anywhere to put it yet, do we?” said Mendoza, clouding up.

  We’ll stick it in a bucket, so we will. Never you mind. The Captain seemed to have developed a slight electronic tremor in his voice. Old Flint’s just fetching one along now.

  Edward shouted silently. Her diary! Remember? This happened in her garden, and she didn’t know why! She must have some unwitting power—and just now she doesn’t know she can’t, and therefore—

  We ain’t a-telling her she can’t, neither, said the Captain, privately. Aloud, he said:

  You leave that for Flint, darlin’, and go get yerself some clothes on afore you catches cold. What about a nice hot burgoo for breakfast, eh?

  “Okay,” said Mendoza. She set down the bush and took Alec’s hand, leading him back into the bedroom. As he followed, he was uncomfortably aware that Edward was watching her with a look of hungry speculation.

  ANOTHER MORNING IN 500,000 BCE

  David Reed woke to the alarm without surprise, quickly found his plug and connected himself. When he removed the sleep mask he was able to see that it was a bright summer day. Beyond the windows of his Flat the gardener was mowing the lawn in tidy green stripes.

  Yawning, David got out of bed and went to the bathroom for a shower. Anyone watching as David pulled off his pajama top would get a good look at what a cut-rate job of cyborging looked like, as opposed to, say, the job that Alec Checkerfield had been able to afford. Alec’s was a work of art, graceful spirals in an intricate pattern just under his skin; David Reed’s was patternless, the raw straight lines of a hack job. And whereas Alec had merely to wear a contact connector that resembled a handsome piece of Bronze Age jewelry, David did need that plug stuck in its port just above his topmost cervical vertebra, and it did need to be removed and sterilized every night.

  But David had no idea that he’d been made a cyborg on the cheap. Even if he’d known about the level of comfort and elegance he might have had if the Company had been willing to spend that kind of money on him, he probably wouldn’t have complained.

  Ancilla had laid out a clean towel and his clean clothes when he emerged from the shower. He thanked her briefly. She murmured something polite and went off to prepare his breakfast.

  David didn’t like speaking to Ancilla much, though she resembled a very attractive woman. She was an artificial intelligence, and he felt that artificial things were creepy, and much preferred conversations with real girls, like Sylvya and Leslie, even though they were in fact cyberprojections of real girls living half a million years in the future.

  Moreover, Ancilla assisted him with his sexual health, and that was embarrassing.

  He sat down at the table where, as always, she had everything ready: the cup of herbal tea steaming in its recess, the bowl of oatmeal in its recess, the soy protein strips arranged into a whimsical little face in their recess, the tiny cup containing his vitamins and medications. Ancilla had made the table lovely for him, with a bright assortment of holographic flowers. David accepted the thoughtfulness as his due, took his medication, ate his breakfast, and responded reluctantly to her attempts at small talk.

  He emptied his teacup and got to his feet. “Well, I guess I’d better go to the Office now,” he told Ancilla.

  “All right, dear. Have a nice day,” Ancilla said, from her corner by the window where she was engaged, as she generally was, in the appearance of crocheting an afghan.

  David cheered up as he stepped out onto the yellow track. There was London all bright beyond his window, there was Sylvya meeting his eye in a way that suggested she had something she needed to discuss with him in private, and there was Leslie placidly eating a breakfast sandwich from the Third Floor Lunchroom.

  David sat down at his console. He logged in, turning now and then to glance at Leslie’s progress with the sandwich. Presently she finished and got up to go wash her hands, as they had known she must, for the Third Floor Lunchroom’s breakfast sandwich was invariably wet and runny. David leaped to his feet and tiptoed out along the yellow track to her desk.

  “What is it?”

  Sylvya turned and leaned as close as she could, adjusting her optics. “The people from the Third Floor want to put on a baby shower for Leslie.”

  “They do?” David was mystified. “What’s a baby shower?”

  “It’s a party for the baby before it’s born,” Sylvya said. “Everyone gives the mother presents. Baby clothes and bath things, you know.”

  “Oh,” said David, thinking it sounded as though it were in rather poor taste. Sylvya seemed to know what he was thinking, because she added:

  “It’s very socially aware, really. Everybody helps, see? But we’re her coworkers, and if anybody’s going to organize a party for her, it should be us.”

  “Right,” David said, with a vague sense of outrage.

  “And we ought to have the party here, where she works, and not down on the Third Floor where you can’t even go,” said Sylvya, pouting.

  “That’s not fair!” David said.

  “It’s all that Brandi as usual, having her own way and bossing everybody,” Sylvya said. Brandi was the Third Floor Supervisor.

  But here came Leslie, still rubbing sanitizer on her hands, and David mouthed we’ll talk later to Sylvya and followed the yellow track back to his desk.

  Feeling brilliantly clever, he sent a message to Brandi on the Third Floor:

  WE’RE ALL, YOU SHOULD HAVE LESLIES PARTY UP HERE SO I CAN COME TOO. THAT WOULD BE FAIR. WHAT DO YOU THINK? AND TELL ME ABOUT PRESENTS SO I CAN GET ONE FOR HER.

  He sent it and leaned back at his console, feeling like the most subtle of diplomats. Then he settled down to evaluating the status of the contents of Recess Eighteen beyond the Portal.

  By evening his feeling of cleverness had been replaced by a peculiar unease. He refused to think about why he might be uneasy.

  Ancilla was sitting in her customary corner, looking out into the starlit garden, but she turned to him and smiled as he came in from the Office.

  “How nice to see you, David! Did you have a nice day?”

  “It was pretty good,” he said brusquely, and
went to the kitchen where his supper was waiting. Ancilla said:

  “It’s Savory Bounty tonight, with Lemon Herb Potatoes and Green Peas. That’s one of your favorites, isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes,” he said, filling his tumbler with distilled water. “I need you to order something in realtime.”

  “What is it, dear?”

  “There’s going to be this thing called a baby shower at the office,” David said, lifting a spoonful of peas to his mouth. “I need you to order a present delivered so Leslie can get it at the party.”

  “How thoughtful!” said Ancilla. “What would you like me to get for her?”

  “I don’t know.” David scowled at his Savory Bounty. The thought of Leslie was making him cross now.

  “I see,” Ancilla said. “Well, do you know if she’s having a little girl or a little boy?”

  “Little boy,” David said.

  “I can order some bath things and a blue bath towel, and have everything wrapped in blue,” said Ancilla. “You really ought to send a card, too.”

  “All right,” David said. “Do it.”

  She watched him as he ate.

  “You seem a little unhappy this evening, David,” she said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No!” he snapped.

  “All right,” she said, and sighed, and appeared to turn her attention to her crocheting again. He finished his supper hurriedly, leaving the dirty dishes where they were for Ancilla’s servo to clear away. He was in some haste to get into bed, thinking that a good two hours of Totter Dan would drive away all those thoughts about Leslie.

  Unfortunately, the game he chose tonight was Totter Dan in Microbe Land, which seemed to make the thoughts worse, especially as he was playing rather badly. Most of the time, instead of shooting the giant wobbling microbes and gaining Power Points, Totter Dan was missing and being engulfed by them, awful big round slimy things, absorbing him, swallowing him up . . .

  Midway through his third game matters became acute. To David’s dismay, Ancilla read his condition accurately and activated the sex glove, which came popping out of the bedside console the way air masks deployed on an aircraft in trouble, and it dangled there lewdly.

  “Oh, dear, I knew you needed to talk,” Ancilla said in a tone of gentle reproach, sitting on the chair beside his bed.

  “I didn’t want to,” David said irritably. “Besides, it’s only been six months since last time!”

  “Well, but these things happen,” Ancilla reminded him. “You have to expect them often at this time in your life. Someday they’ll stop.”

  “I wish they’d stop now,” David complained, adjusting his pajamas. “It’s all that Leslie. Getting all big like that. She’s making me do it. It’s selfish.”

  “Can’t be helped, David dear. Now, put on the glove. You want to be healthy, after all.”

  And it was good to be healthy, fundamentally morally good, so David put on the glove. Ancilla activated it, and stood and opened her robe to do the wonderful, frightening things she did for his excitement, that so fascinated and repelled him as he watched her.

  It was over quickly. He groaned in relief, and the glove cleaned away all nastiness and retracted back into the console. Ancilla sat down again.

  “There we are, David. Would you like to talk about it now?”

  “No,” David said, pulling up his blanket. “I want to go to sleep.” He opened the drawer and took out his sleep mask hurriedly.

  “Good night, then, David,” Ancilla said. She retreated to her corner, and resumed looking out into the night.

  “Good night,” he said, after a brief conflicted silence.

  ONE EVENING IN 2318 AD

  The Rogue Cyborg is doing serious Rogue Cyborg stuff. He’s crouched before a data terminal as though it were an ancient altar, and from the look on his face what he’s praying for is desperate and bloody revenge. The green light of the console throws his grim features into spooky relief. Of course, he’s not really praying; he’s stealing secrets, popping through locked files at a rate of speed that would be impossible for any mortal but Alec Checkerfield.

  Only a Rogue, you see, could have possibly obtained certain codes, and only by having them downloaded to him directly from another Rogue. Otherwise he’d never have found them himself, not in a thousand years of hacking around. Since he only has thirty-seven years to play with, this is a good thing.

  Now, abruptly, his whole body stiffens. He pulls back from the terminal like a diver rising into air from impossible depths, and gulps in breath with a cry. He shakes his head, clearing away superfluous concerns, focusing all his intention on a bright golden particular he has brought up out of the fathomless sea of general information.

  It’s a key, of sorts. He examines it in awe and disbelief.

  Then he’s on his feet, pelting down the corridor as fast as he can go. The giant in the vault opens pale eyes to watch his approach, though he is still unable to lift his head.

  “Father,” Joseph shouted hoarsely. “I’ve got it! I’ve got the goddam Holy Grail. Or a piece of it anyway. You know what I’ve just found? Part of the Temporal Concordance!”

  What he was referring to, of course, was the—literally—ultimate goal of the quest for knowledge: the record of known history, from its beginning to the year 2355, that enabled Dr. Zeus to send its operatives to the exact times and places that might be best mined for things like winning lottery tickets, race results, and stock futures, to say nothing of more subtle objectives.

  The Temporal Concordance resembled a map, in some ways; but those travelers who needed it most were shown no more than a bare inch at a time, by decree of All-Seeing Zeus, since otherwise he would not be exclusively All-Seeing, would he? And every Company immortal is taught, from earliest school days, that it is a wise decision to obscure the future, in greater or lesser degrees, from each operative, lest the griefs of immortal life become too terrible to contemplate.

  Also, omniscience isn’t the kind of thing you want to leave lying around.

  “Is It A Fragment Of Code,” Budu asked.

  “Yeah! Looks like something interstitial.” Joseph swarmed the ladder up the tank. “It’s giving me surveillance reports from the years 2345 to 2353. Look at it and see if I’m not right.”

  He reached into the bioregenerant and downloaded his bright bit of key. Budu was silent a long moment, accessing, integrating, correlating, and then:

  “It Is Part Of The Temporal Concordance,” he said.

  “Boy, oh, boy, nobody’s gonna stop us now,” Joseph chortled. “Look out, Dr. Zeus! And you’re absolutely sure about this, Father?”

  “Yes. It Corresponds To The Other Sections.”

  “So it—Excuse me?” Joseph blinked. “What other sections?”

  By way of answer Budu reached out and downloaded to Joseph in return. He clung to the top of his ladder unsteadily, feeling like a struck bell.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh, my gosh, that’s a lot of information. How long have you had this?”

  “Since The Fifteenth Century.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “I Never Told Labienus.”

  “Good point,” Joseph said. He blinked again, still integrating. “I think I’ll just . . . crawl off and lie down someplace quiet for a while, until I can defrag and rearrange this stuff in my memory. Is that okay?”

  “Go, Son.”

  Joseph fell off the ladder, picked himself up, and walked into a wall. He righted himself and wandered away.

  It was a week before Joseph opened his eyes wide in the darkness, and his bloodthirsty look was back with a vengeance. He lay there awhile, smiling unpleasantly to himself; then he got to his feet and trotted off to speak to Budu.

  “I’ve found him, Father.”

  “Who Did You Find,” said the giant in the vault.

  “The guy who took Mendoza,” said Joseph. “The mortal schmuck. Dr. Zeus has a dossier on him. Marco was totally wrong; he’ll be
no New Enforcer. Hell, he won’t even be a mortal employed by the Company. All he’ll really be is a weasely hacker who’ll manage to get into some of the Company files, so they’ve got him under surveillance, there in the future. His name’ll be Alec Checkerfield.”

  “If The Man Is No More Than That, How Does He Disable Marco.” Budu stared at Joseph from beyond the glass.

  “He’ll use poison. Maybe the same stuff that Victor used to take you down. He’ll probably steal it from Dr. Zeus! No wonder Marco was such a mess.” Joseph paced back and forth.

  “Why Is He Twin To The Mortal You Hate So Much?”

  Joseph opened and shut his mouth.

  “Sheer coincidence,” he said. “He’s not Nicholas Harpole or Edward Whoever at all. Just somebody who looks like them.”

  “Why Has He Taken Your Daughter,” inquired Budu, marveling at Joseph’s ability to lie to himself.

  “He just, uh, accidentally captured Mendoza when he went to Options Research. Maybe he took her hostage or something.”

  “Why Would He Go To Options Research.”

  “That’s a good question, and I’m confident I can answer it. He went to Options Research, uh, to, uh, hide out after he blew up Mars Two!”

  “Would You Seek Refuge In That Place.”

  “Well, no, but—he left as soon as he saw what it was like! Okay?”

  “Why Has He Taken Your Daughter.”

  Joseph gritted his teeth.

  “This Man Is More Than You Want To Think He Is,” Budu said.

  “All right!” said Joseph, seizing his hair at the temples. “So what am I supposed to do? Go back to thinking he’s Satan incarnate? That he comes back to life over and over and tracks Mendoza down and destroys her every time? To say nothing of Lewis. How much sense does that make?”

  “No Sense Without More Information,” Budu said. “Do You Still Want To Find Your Daughter.”

  “Yes!” Joseph said fiercely, looking up at Budu. “Because I don’t care who he is, he’s bad for her! If—if she’s damaged, after Options Research—how can he repair her? He’s a mortal! And he’s the mortal who blows up Mars Two, so the police of three worlds will be looking for him. What the hell is he going to do, buy her a rose-covered cottage to settle down in? Raise a family? No, no, no. He can’t have her this time.”