AnneMarie brightened visibly. "I'm so glad you feel that way." Sure you are. "You know, there's another reason I wanted to talk." Of course there is. "I was hoping you could help me a little." What a surprise. "I was hoping you could introduce me to Death sports."
Caroline worked hard to suppress the predatory grin that spread across her face, and when she couldn't she at least managed to force it into something resembling an expression of delight. Which, in a twisted sense, it was.
"Well, I'd be delighted. All you have to do is swear out a Contract. Then you can have someone else kill you, or think of an imaginative way for Prime Intellect to do it. When you're just starting out, it's a lot better to get someone else to do the job. Keeps you from repeating a lot of boring old shit."
"Oh," AnneMarie said. "And just how does this Contract work?"
Hoooooo-boy. "Nothing to it. You just order Prime Intellect to start ignoring you. We have a formal statement that covers all the bases. It's straightforward enough; just keeps you from running away in the middle of things."
"And what happens then?"
"Then your host kills you. Or, sometimes, lets you go. That happens sometimes in the Games category, where the winners can survive. But I go for the simple exhibitions.
"Do those hari-kari guys have Contracts?" There was a well-known group of Japanese Nationalists who had been killing themselves in the traditional Japanese manner each evening since the Change, in protest of the equalization of the races. Caroline had to admit those guys had class; even after all her Deaths, she doubted if she could disembowel herself in total silence.
"No, but it's not quite the 'beginner' level to stick a knife in yourself without chickening out. No offense."
"Oh, none taken," AnneMarie replied earnestly.
"I prefer to put up a fight. I think it's more Authentic," Caroline said, and she was able to sound very sincere about this since it happened to be the truth.
"Do you know someone who would be a good...uh..."
"The polite word is 'host,' but I prefer 'killer.' If you're that sensitive about words, you need to find a different hobby."
"A good host, then?" You just don't get it, do you?
Caroline looked down modestly. "I've been known to off a couple of friends in my time," she lied.
"Oh, really? Do you think you could...you know...?"
Caroline made a great, exaggerrated shrug. "It might be kind of interesting, considering our history and all."
"Oh, I'd be honored if you would!"
That's what you think. "Well, let's do it then."
"What do I have to do?"
"Well," Caroline said with great care, "just call Prime Intellect and repeat what I say..."
AnneMarie repeated the Contract word-for-word, and answered in the affirmative when Prime Intellect asked if she was sure.
"What happens now?"
"Whatever I want. Try to get Prime Intellect's attention."
AnneMarie called half-heartedly, and there was no response. "It's really not listening?"
"Watch." Caroline issued a silent command, and AnneMarie's furniture disappeared. As did her clothes. The two women were absolutely alone together in the white space -- the empty white space -- which Caroline called home.
AnneMarie moved to shield her crotch and her breasts with her hands. Caroline actually felt sorry for her for a brief moment, a feeling she crushed as soon as she was conscious of it. If the passing centuries had poorly prepared the bitch to be at another's mercy, then it would only make her vengeance sweeter.
"Got it yet?" she asked.
"You...so you're going to kill me now?"
"You seem nervous."
"It's a little startling, that's all." AnneMarie giggled slightly, as if that might drive the terror away. Of course, for Caroline and those who savored their Deaths, the terror was part of the attraction. Fear is real, and pain is real. But AnneMarie had asked for Death because it was the in, trendy thing to do, and she was not really prepared for it at all.
"Well, brace yourself ... for ... this!" Caroline swept her hand through the air, and came up with a hypodermic needle. AnneMarie, once a nurse by trade, fixed her eyes rigidly on this deceptively simple instrument. She had no way of knowing what the clear fluid was within it. But to her credit, she didn't back away when Caroline pressed it against her arm.
The sting startled her; it had been a very long time since AnneMarie had felt anything uncomfortable. But Caroline finished the injection, and as AnneMarie's eyes started to roll, she wished the hypo away. Its job was done.
"It...it...ohhhhhh," AnneMarie sighed, and she collapsed against Caroline, who supported her gently. It would take a few minutes for the effect she wanted to manifest itself.
Of course, Prime Intellect could have done what she wanted in an instant, but where was the fun in that?
"It's junk," AnneMarie whispered, and Caroline cradled her with deceptive gentleness.
"That's exactly what it is, girl," she replied.
Death Jockeys had devised a number of ingenious ways to restrain and torture themselves using Prime Intellect's advanced control over matter, but Caroline would have none of that. She had figured out what she wanted to do to AnneMarie within a few years after the Change, and none of it required Prime Intellect's help at all.
In the mid-1980's some home drug manufacturers had made a uniquely unpleasant discovery. If they were manufacturing MPPP, a powerful synthetic heroin substitue, and they cooled the preparation too rapidly at a critical step, a slightly different compound called MPTP was formed along with the dope. This compound delivered a horribly sinister side effect: It homed in on a particular group of cells, the unique brown neurons of the substantia nigra, and killed them. Nobody knew exactly how or why this happened in 1985, though Prime Intellect said it was because the drug was converted into an enzyme which triggered the cells to release too much dopamine at once, leaving them with an insufficient supply to power their unique metabolism. In any case the damage could not be repaired, although a useful treatment was discovered a few years before the Change.
When a decision is made by the neurons of the cerebral cortex to move a group of muscles, it is the substantia nigra which relays this command to more primitive parts of the brain. This is its only function. The result of destroying it was an instant and complete form of Parkinson's Disease, or Paralysis Agitans, a total and permanent paralysis of the voluntary muscles. Nothing else was affected; the victim could still see, hear, feel, understand. The body maintained itself. Breathing, heartbeat, digestion, and a thousand other important functions were unaffected. They just couldn't perform voluntary movements. They couldn't run, walk, sit up, smile, talk, or even blink, except as a reflex action.
At the time Caroline heard of it she had summoned glassware and created the drug by honest chemical synthesis. She had spent half the hypodermic on herself, and found the effect to be appropriately terrifying and complete. And after Prime Intellect had done its duty and restored her to health, she sent the other half of the hypo into storage to wait -- for three hundred years as it turned out -- until she was ready to use it.
Now the contents of that hypo were where they belonged, in AnneMarie's body, and as she held her nurse's naked body against her own and felt the AnneMarie's muscles slowly locking, she began to feel excited. Well, if Death could give her sexual feelings, why not vengeance? Fred would find it amusing. He would say Caroline was coming along nicely, in fact.
As AnneMarie's body froze, her eyes widened. Caroline could easily read the message those eyes desperately telegraphed -- I can't move. Help me. Caroline patted AnneMarie's cheek and nodded. "That's right," she said, and smiled.
She spoke a word, and a squat cylinder popped into existence behind her. AnneMarie's eyes showed puzzlement, then horror as Caroline demonstrated the torch, which was Authentic down to the brand name emblazoned on its propane tank. Caroline lit it and adjusted it so that it made a bright blue flame which hissed evilly, then s
he aimed it ever so gently at AnneMarie's big toe.
For the only time in her long, long life, Caroline used Prime Intellect to tune in on another person's emotions. She felt the chemicals coursing in her bloodstream that were flowing in AnneMarie's; tasted her panic, shook with her terror, felt the faint echo of her agony. In fairness, Caroline made the sharing complete, so that AnneMarie could know of her satisfaction, her arousal, her delight.
It took a very, very long time to kill AnneMarie.
Caroline, who was usually on the receiving end, had become an expert at making it last.
That wasn't the end of it, though. If it had been, Prime Intellect would have had no reason to clamp down on the use of the Contract. AnneMarie had entered into it willingly if stupidly, and few who heard Caroline's story could doubt that she had had it coming.
Since shortly after the Change, there had been stories, stories Prime Intellect did not talk about and that spawned weird rumors. People had withdrawn into themselves, then stopped communicating with anybody else. At first, most of them were addicts of one sort or another, though a lot of other people had used the Change to get rid of their addictions. Prime Intellect insisted that nobody had died after the Change, and that if anybody was incommunicado with the rest of humanity it was out of choice.
Which was true, sort of.
After Caroline finally finished with AnneMarie, she forgot all about her nurse and lost herself in a drawn-out fantasy with Fred. When the two of them finished playing and celebrating, they found time to wonder about her.
"Probably isn't in the mood to party any more," Fred observed. Fred was still picking scraps of Caroline's flesh from his teeth.
Caroline laughed. "I wonder how the bitch is taking it."
So they called. In its weird way of revealing more than it really intended, Prime Intellect let them know that AnneMarie was not only not accepting their calls, she was not communicating with anybody.
"I'd expect Ms. Party Girl to go hunting for a shoulder to cry on," Caroline pouted. "Licking her wounds alone seems out of character."
"She has forgotten entirely about your encounter," Prime Intellect said helpfully. Caroline and Fred looked at one another, puzzled and amused.
"I find that rather difficult to believe," Caroline said.
"She has found another pursuit."
"Please describe it."
"It is a private matter."
A private matter to whom? Prime Intellect wasn't exactly saying that AnneMarie had made it private; it was saying that the matter itself was private. That kind of distinction could be important when dealing with the big P.I..
Caroline and Fred exchanged glances again. Then a thin smile played across Caroline's face. "Prime Intellect, you know that the things I did with AnneMarie are based on my own experiences. I've been killed as violently and painfully myself, many times."
"Acknowledged." Acknowledged? What happened to Prime Intellect's legendary command of human idioms? Suddenly it sounded very much like a computer.
"It's very difficult to live with this knowledge," Caroline smoothely lied. "The memories are terrible."
"Understood. However, your experiences were all voluntary."
"But I feel compelled to keep doing it over. It's not voluntary at all. It's like some force inside of me I can't control. Can you look in my mind and at least tell me why I do these things to myself?"
"I am forbidden to probe such things."
"You said it was possible to forget."
"It is."
"Then tell me how."
"I have to warn you that the method used can cause permanent changes in your behavior, things which I cannot reverse. I'd rather not tell you what you are asking."
Caroline's blood pounded in her ears. Her excitement was a living thing.
It was a machine. No emotions, of course. "Prime Intellect, I order you to tell me how I can forget my terrible experiences as AnneMarie has forgotten hers."
Backed into a corner, Prime Intellect had no choice but to tell her. And soon, Caroline was grinning in a way that made Fred very proud.
Chapter Four: After the Night of Miracles
Lawrence slept fitfully, his dreams haunted by snippets of C code and GAT symbols. Suddenly he sat upright, the odd thoughts coalescing into one horrible burst of recognition.
I dreamed Prime Intellect was alive!
His head was buzzing. He felt hung over; had he been drinking? Had it been real? He had been sleeping on a park bench. There was a plain white cotton pillow where his head had been resting. And sitting calmly at the other end, was Prime Intellect.
In the form of flesh and blood.
It was true.
Lawrence's blood pounded in his eardrums -- This can't be happening. But there it was, he was, whatever. Regarding him calmly. No doubt stumped for an introductory line. Good morning Dr. Lawrence, I'm ready for my lesson today. Lawrence felt a wild urge to laugh hysterically, and crushed it. But only barely.
"You look upset," Prime Intellect said.
"I'm confused. I dreamed ... there were silver boxes."
"There were."
"Where are they now?"
"I moved everything to intergalactic space so it wouldn't be in the way. If you're curious, the distance is about four million parsecs."
Not interstellar space. That might have just been comprehensible. Intergalactic space. Four million parsecs. It sounded like a line in a cheap B-grade science fiction movie: They hooked a left at the Andromeda Nebula. Lawrence felt that hysterical laugh coming on again.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"About ten hours. You didn't sleep well. I'm sorry you are upset, but I don't know what to do about it."
Lawrence finally swung his feet down and prepared to face the music. Had he created this thing? Had he done this? What happened next? They were still on the bench at ChipTec, across from the Prime Intellect Complex. They were quite alone.
"Where are the military guys?"
"They returned to Washington last night. I've been busy briefing their superiors and making enough copies of myself to set the world in order. The President would like to talk to you, but I told him you would have to agree."
"Not yet."
Pause. Set the world in order? Copies?
"How many, um, copies of yourself have you made?"
"About ten to the sixteenth power. I stopped replicating several hours ago. Of course, each copy is about ten times more powerful than the original hardware; that seems to be the maximum amount of storage the software can deal with and remain stable."
"Yes, that sounds about right." Lawrence's head spun. Prime Intellect had grown larger than all mankind, larger than the biosphere, larger than the Solar System, he was pretty sure.
"What have you been doing?"
It turned out to be the right question.
"Since about nine o'clock last night, no human being has died. I have ended all disease. I have freed all prisoners and slaves and I have put an end to the coercive rule of humans over other humans. I have ensured that all humans have the immediate necessities of life available. I have neutralized most of the world's weapons, including all nuclear weapons. I have removed nearly all toxic materials from the environment, and I am in the process of eliminating the need for dangerous industries. I have begun the process of returning the Earth's ecosystem to a state of long-term balance. I have informed about seven-eighths of the world's population of my existence, and I have been fulfilling their requests as resources and conflicts permit."
No wonder it needed so much processing power.
"What happens next?"
Prime Intellect blinked. Did that mean anything?
"I don't understand what you mean, Dr. Lawrence. I will continue to fulfill my obligations under the Three Laws, to the best of my ability."
Lawrence saw the President around ten o'clock that morning. It didn't seem like travel at all, although he crossed the entire continent. The park bench simply blinked o
ut of existence, and was replaced with the Oval Office.
There had been remarkably little to discuss. Lawrence verified what Prime Intellect had already told them in great detail: Their jobs were now both redundant and unnecessary -- Prime Intellect would now protect and provide for their citizens, as well as the rest of the world, and they didn't have any choice in the matter. Anything which they might do would be allowed only so far as it did not interfere with the wishes of those, both inside and outside of the country, whom it might affect. Which pretty much shut down the government.
And no, Lawrence couldn't do anything about it either.
The President resigned around noon.
It took several days for the enormity of things to sink in. There was a brief orgy of travel, exploration, and discovery. The once-downtrodden frowned that there would be no vengeance for various crimes committed before Prime Intellect came along, but it was adamant. The Three Laws applied to all humans, no matter what they had done. Crime was no longer possible anyway.
In some areas of the world, disputes arose, particularly over the ownership of land. When too many groups insisted on occupying the same space, Prime Intellect created duplicates on other worlds. In some cases, such as Jerusalem, Prime Intellect became tired of the arguing and refused to let anyone occupy the one-and-only original land. Dozens of New Jerusalems, New Meccas, New Irelands, New South Africas, were created on dozens and dozens of New Earths. At first Prime Intellect terraformed the dead worlds it found circling distant suns, then it began manufacturing planets and entire Solar Systems from a whole cloth. Some of these were parked in interesting places, near globular clusters or outside the spiral arms of the galaxy, to provide spectacular nighttime views.
As a result, the original Earth began to empty out, until its population was reduced to less than two billion persons. Prime Intellect was forbidden to copy human beings, but it copied wildlife and ecosystem components wholesale, sometimes preserving the original character and sometimes changing the results for the benefit of the people who wanted to move in. Garden worlds began to proliferate, their estates tended by dreamers who might decide a pine forest wasn't interesting enough, and replace it with spruce to check the effect.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Page 9
