by Paul Anlee
Darak moved the array within a light year from Eso-La. “In any case, we need to confirm. I hope I’m wrong.” The tiny star was still the brightest thing in the poorly lit sky of the dim galaxy.
Stralasi yearned to go there and to take Crissea to somewhere safe. He had bad premonitions about what they were going to find once the array was reactivated.
Darak arranged the detector asteroids in a wide array out of the projected path of the Eater, and stood before the control panel. His tight lips conveyed his worry. He activated the detector array.
Darak and Stralasi barely breathed while they waited for the reflective spheres to pass detection events to the devices spaced around the metal cages.
A strong signal appeared, but it was rapidly receding.
Even with his limited experience, Stralasi was able to interpret the data. “The Eater’s less than a light year from Eso-La, and moving fast.”
Darak nodded. “It’s headed right for them. Impact, if you can call it that, will happen in less than a year.”
He spun away from the control panel and walked toward the detector globe. He stared at his reflection, lost in troubled thoughts.
Stralasi tried to comfort his mentor. “Okay, we’ve found it. It’s a little closer than we’d hoped but, no problem, right?”
Darak mumbled something unintelligible.
Stralasi tried again. “So? What do we do next?”
Darak’s answer was barely audible. “Not much we can do.” His eyes studied the gleaming detector or perhaps his reflection.
“There’s always something you can do,” Stralasi encouraged.
“Eso-La and its billions of inhabitants have less than a year to live. They have nowhere to run, and no way to evacuate everyone.”
“Surely, you could get everyone safely away. You could just pop in and take them somewhere else.”
“Where would they go?” Darak scoffed. “Somewhere in the Realm? Who would welcome them? Alum would jail them, kill them, or wipe their minds.”
“Can’t you find a new planet, one outside the Realm?”
“You and I have visited thousands of planets inhabited by the Realm. You’ve seen the genetic changes, the Standard modifications necessary in order for people to survive.”
“You must know of some place.”
Darak snapped, “What do you know about it? What do you know about anything, for that matter?” He removed himself to a far corner of the observation chamber.
Stralasi gave him a few minutes to calm down, and followed him.
“You can’t simply give up. Not now. The people need you. You have to take them somewhere.”
Darak glowered at the Good Brother. Seeing the resolution tempered with compassion in Stralasi’s face, he softened.
“Sure, I could take them to some other planet. But, you of all people have to understand. To bring Standard Life to a virgin planet in under a year so that it’s habitable by humans, or to modify humans enough to survive on a non-Standard planet, you’ve got to have all the biochemistry exactly right. I wouldn’t have the time to make that many modifications. What you’re asking is impossible.”
Darak covered his face with his hands and rubbed his brow. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to face this again.”
“Again?” Stralasi asked.
Darak’s fingers crested his brow and combed through his hair. He inhaled deeply and released it loudly.
“Earth,” he said. “Origin, that is. When we first discovered the Eater, we had only decades to take the planet from a primitive, squabbling, greedy, narrow-minded, unscientific bunch of incompetents only recently out of the stone age, and turn them into self-sufficient space colonists. Even then, we could only save millions out of the billions of people on the planet.”
He faced the monk. “It’s a terrible thing, to choose who lives and who dies. Less than a few in every thousand was chosen. But even that wasn’t good enough for Alum. He didn’t like our choices, so he made his own. The best of humanity died with Earth, and we were left with…your ancestors.”
Stubbornly, Stralasi pressed on. “We could at least try to save some of them.”
Darak snorted. “Your precious Crissea? Do you think she’d go with you and leave her people to die? You think she loves you that much and them so little?”
Stung by the bitterness in Darak’s tone, Stralasi turned his face away. “You can move them out of the way,” he said.
Darak gaped at him. “Move Eso-La? The sun and the entire ringworld?”
“If not them, you can move the Eater.”
Darak started to object but Stralasi spoke over him. “If Alum can do it, so can you.”
Darak stared at Stralasi, then laughed, and shook his head.
“What did I say that was so funny this time?” Stralasi demanded.
“I knew you’d prove valuable to have along. I didn’t know how or when, but I had a hunch. I never would have predicted something like this, though.”
“Like what?”
“You, my good man, are absolutely right. Alum moved the Eater, but I don’t have the computational capability to generate a shifting field that big.”
“And how does that help?”
“We don’t need to be able to do it ourselves. We just need to steal the capability from him.”
34
Friday, March 10, 2062 Vesta News – Wide-scale riots broke out earlier today along the Spinward district near North 50 in Vesta Five when customers arrived to find doors to their local branch of the Administration Bank locked and the ATMs out of service. The angry protests began this morning and escalated to isolated violence by mid-afternoon as citizens discovered they could not access their most recent paychecks. Additional security was brought in to manage and disperse the angry crowd. Like many areas throughout the asteroids, the district has been plagued by malfunctioning electricity and unexplained food and water shortages for several months.
Cybrid JSC475319 saw no choice but to shut down the bank. The computer system was misbehaving and she could not determine the cause. Worse, the problem was beginning to spread to other branches. If she didn’t take it offline now, accounts all over Vesta were going to be scrambled. People could lose all their savings. Businesses could seize up. Blame would fly freely and a scapegoat would be punished. A Cybrid one, almost certainly.
She motioned to Cynthia, the Branch Manager. “I’m afraid your systems have some sort of malfunction. I have to shut them down.”
The manager scanned the customer service area nervously. Today was payday and people wanted to get at their cash. The bank was full. Despite efforts to encourage the use of electronic currency, people still preferred the feel of physical dollars, Vesta dollars included, in their wallets.
Being uprooted from home and family, being moved to the asteroid colonies, and witnessing the destruction of Earth last year, had left everyone feeling insecure. She understood that. They were alive, working, and hoping to build again but the absence of their home planet, the origin of humankind, was still painful to most. Feeling a few dollars nestled in one’s pocket was comforting.
“JSC—Jessica—are you sure about this? Couldn’t we just restart the computers?” the manager asked.
“I’ve tried that three times already. They keep coming back up the same way. There’s likely a software virus of some sort, but I can’t find it. My team needs more time to scope it out. Either way, our system is sending out requests for transfers, payments, deposits, and loans. Each one has the potential to spread the problem to the Vesta-wide system. I’m sorry, Cynthia, but we have to shut down this branch until we can figure out what’s going on.”
“My customers aren’t going to be happy.”
“I know. That’s why I need you to explain it to them. They wouldn’t like it coming from me.”
People started to notice the line slowing. A hushed buzz of concern permeated the air. A little commotion was developing at the front of one of the lines. Necks craned to see what
was going on.
A couple of tellers caught the manager’s eye and flashed subtle hand signals, hopefully indecipherable by their customer—Cash dispensers are frozen.
The hushed buzz was growing louder and more irritated.
Cynthia sighed heavily. “Okay. Turn it off.”
“I already did, a few minutes ago,” the Cybrid replied. “It was necessary.”
The manager bit her lower lip and nodded once. It had to be done. “Okay, I’ll close the branch.”
She took a deep breath, instructed her employees to step back from their stations, and faced the snaking lineup of unhappy customers to deliver the news.
“Ladies and gentlemen, due to a technical issue, this branch is now closed. We invite you to visit any of our other branches. Thank you in advance for your understanding and patience as we work to resolve the matter.”
As predicted, the clientele surged forward and loudly demanded access to their funds.
JSC floated toward the counters, protecting the bank staff from their frustrated clients. The two other Cybrids posted to the branch hovered behind her. Their imposing gray, spherical bodies rose together over the counter.
The sight of the three carboceramic beings rising from behind the teller stations only served to raise panic. They retreated in fear, mistakenly perceiving a threat from the mechanical beings. Several people who’d been holding their place at the front of the lines now turned and bolted, shoving their way through anyone standing between them and the exit.
“That probably wasn’t how you wanted me to get everyone out,” JSC said as Cynthia walked up to the three Cybrids. They stood together in the middle of the empty floor.
Scared but angry, the customers refused to leave the front of the building. Others joined them, curious about the commotion. Before long, hundreds were gathered.
In a surprise concession at last month’s Governing Council meeting, the Administration accepted an offer of assistance from Jared Strang, Director of the Office of Cybrid-Human relations.
Strang immediately placed Cybrid experts in locations throughout the habitats in an attempt to remedy some of the recent banking and infrastructure issues. Despite their presence, troubles continue to plague many habitat districts.
Strang has been calling for an increase in the number of Cybrids permitted to work within the habitats, citing “human inefficiencies” as justification. The Administration has so far refused to allow more than one thousand of the autonomous machines inside any single habitat. In an official press release last week, Alum stated that, “Cybrids and people are working together to solve these problems in a show of cooperation. The machines have a support role, only. We humans like to come up with our own solutions.”
“I really should go out there,” JSC said, “See if I can reassure them and calm them down.”
“Because your last efforts weren’t enough?” the manager replied.
“I’ll do my best to be less intimidating.”
“Is that even possible?”
The Cybrid emitted a sighing sound from her speaker panel. “What is with people?”
The manager regarded her with raised eyebrows. “For starters, you’re a machine.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously. And we know your kind built the habitats.”
“But?”
“We still aren’t sure whether you can be trusted. It can be hard to see the humanity in you.”
“Ouch,” JSC replied. “What can I do, then?”
“Let me go out.”
“Are you sure? They think my team has messed up. They want to hear from us.”
“I’ll tell them what you told me. Nobody wants to risk releasing a virus into the banking system.” Cynthia moved toward the door and paused. “Do you have any idea when things will get back to normal?”
“We’re only marginally smarter at figuring out this kind of thing than humans are. However, we’ll work twenty-four hours a day without sleep or rest until it’s fixed. That’s one thing we can do.”
“That’ll have to be enough. I’ll alert the authorities that we may have a bit of a situation here; ask them to send a couple of officers to disperse the crowd.”
Cynthia stepped outside to address the crowd, which had since picked up support from curious passersby. There had to be at least a thousand of them out there.
Oh, I don’t like the looks of this. They’re blowing it all out of proportion. They’re feeding months and months of repressed fear, anger, and resentment into this one minor annoyance. If I don’t diffuse this right now, things could get ugly.
“I know you’re frustrated, and so am I,” she began. “But our system has a virus. If we leave it running, it could wipe out your accounts and those in other branches.”
“It was fine before those machines touched it,” a man wearing construction coveralls yelled.
“The Administration sent the Cybrids here to help. They are experts in banking and information systems. They can work without eating, resting, or sleeping. It’s the fastest way to get things back up and running.”
“When can we get our money?” someone hollered.
“I assure you, we’ll get back online as fast we can. Your debit and credit cards will continue to work all over the city. You can pay your bills, buy food, go out and enjoy yourselves, whatever you like. Your money’s safe in your account. Other branches will process transactions during our difficulty.”
“That’s what they said on Earth, too.” The speaker, a middle-aged, well-dressed man at the front of the crowd, stared defiantly at Cynthia.
She’d been in the business over thirty years; she remembered.
“This isn’t Earth,” she pointed out, her voice rising over the din of those in agreement with the cynic. “Alum and the Administration will look out for us.”
“The Administration can’t even get my toilets to flush right!”
The crowd laughed, but Cynthia could sense the mood was far from jovial. Ugly scowls met her eyes as she looked for a reasonable face in which to take momentary refuge.
“Go home,” she said, as loudly as she dared. She didn’t want to yell at people; they might misinterpret that. “Come back tomorrow. I’m sure things will be working properly by then.” She could only hope that was true.
Director Strang denied recent rumors that Cybrids have been sabotaging habitat infrastructures in an attempt to justify their continued presence in the cities, saying, “Such claims are unfounded and counterproductive.”
The growing mob attracted citizens from nearby offices and residences. By late afternoon, over five thousand people blocked the streets and chanted anti-Administration slogans for hours.
Protesters armed with portable megaphones spoke to the crowd for hours about Cybrid-led false flag operations and conspiracies. Such rumors have been growing in popularity since the Administration conceded they might need machine assistance to address problems in the habitats.
“You should go home,” JSC suggested. She floated a few meters behind Cynthia.
The manager was staring at the sea of people huddling around fires they’d lit in the streets outside her bank. “What’s happening?” she asked no one in particular.
“They’re just being people. Very angry people. They only care about what they want. Sadly, they know they can’t get it. They think by showing how mad they are, how passionate and united, they can make my team come up with solutions faster.”
Cynthia regarded the Cybrid. “You probably shouldn’t be talking to me if it’s taking you away from the problem.”
“That’s okay. We have a whole team working on the system. Only three here, but a few dozen more are working in branches all over the city. Hundreds, in all, counting those in other habitats.”
“It’s that big?”
“When I shut down the system, I alerted others before their software started demonstrating the same issues. But it spread anyway. So, yeah, it’s that big.”
Cynthia rubbed her
eyes with the palms of her hands. “Wow.”
“No one knows how a bug or virus might have snuck into the system, or how to get it out without causing more damage. Our best programmers are working hard just to figure out the system.”
“What about the original programmers?”
JSC emitted a sound that was unintelligible but clearly derisive. “The system is based on old banking code from Earth. The original programmers are all dead. Anyone the Old Administration may have placed here to maintain the system was sent back before the planet was destroyed. We’re searching through the Stored Minds database to see what expertise is available there.”
“We really screwed up, didn’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
“Alum. The Church. Taking over the asteroids when we had no idea what we were doing.”
The Cybrid extended a tentacle-like, metallic appendage and touched the manager’s shoulder gently.
The woman suppressed an instinctive flinch at the touch.
The Cybrid was used to it and didn’t let it bother her. “Cynthia,” JSC said. “There’s no battle between us. What’s done is done. If all of humanity, including Cybrids, has any hope of surviving we have to leave that behind. DAR-K says—“
“Who’s DAR-K?”
“Our…leader isn’t the right word. She’s more like a guide than a leader. She was the managing Project Director when Earth was still in charge, and the Cybrid embodiment of Dr. Kathy Liang. DAR-K K has inspired us to be more, to be better, to understand ourselves and our relationship with humans.”
“Ah, yes. I’ve heard of Kathy Liang. I didn’t realize she’d been downloaded into a Cybrid. DAR-K, you say?”
