by Neal Aher
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to understand perfectly,” the AI replied.
It took me a moment to recover from actually receiving a reply from the thing.
“You want me to understand you perfectly,” I said, “so you manoeuvred me here so I could learn about your insane creator . . . your insane mother? Are you a poor abused child I must forgive?”
“The facts are plain,” Penny Royal stated.
“I still don’t know what you want,” I said.
“We have returned to my beginning, and now we must return to yours.”
I can’t remember what I screamed at the AI as it folded up like black origami and collapsed. Just the gem remained, briefly, before turning away like some hard insect eye and disappearing into non-existence.
THE BROCKLE
The terms of the Brockle’s confinement had been quite simple. It was to remain aboard the Tyburn until such a time as it was deemed fit to return to Polity AI society. Assessments to this end occurred once a decade. Meanwhile, it would provide full reports on those sent to it for interrogation, under death sentence. It could also execute that sentence as it saw fit. Otherwise, it was to obey its instructions to the letter. The Brockle had chafed under the restrictions but fully understood that its situation was not so bad, considering its past excesses. This was because, in the end, it had become very useful to the Polity. Few other forensic AIs possessed the same kind of insight it possessed and few of them knew the right questions to ask of the criminal mind, especially the human ones. Of course, Earth Central and other Polity AIs put the Brockle’s greater understanding of criminality down to it being of the same kind.
They didn’t understand.
And now, with the essence of Ikbal and Martina contained inside it while their remains floated in a bloody cloud in the interrogation room, it had breached its terms. In respect of these two, it had disobeyed a direct order. It had also, under Polity law, committed murder. And now it was finally about to escape confinement itself.
In the human shape of a large and obese man—a favoured form from its past existence—the Brockle smiled sadly as it strolled out onto the platform of its dock. It had prevented Earth Central taking control of the latest arriving single-ship, by quickly reabsorbing the submind that had piloted it. Now the ship was back here in the dock, with another prisoner aboard for interrogation. Somewhat impatiently, the Brockle scanned the man’s record, and a microsecond later was already bored. Here was another separatist from Cheyne III, guilty of four murders in his past and recently guilty of releasing a bio-agent into a swimming pool complex and killing twenty more people. Monitors arrested him when a simple sniffer had detected the bio-agent on his clothing as he attempted to leave Cheyne III. They’d interrogated him with a cut aug for a rough outline of his associations and to confirm the extent of his crimes. A judicial sub-AI had sentenced him to death, then sent him here so the Brockle could obtain all the details before executing sentence.
But the Brockle was no longer interested. The Brockle had ceased to be interested the moment it began interrogating Trent Sobel—and began to learn of the sheer extent and intricacy of the AI Penny Royal’s manipulations.
Walking over to the edge of the platform, the Brockle halted, folded its arms and gazed at the single-ship. Meanwhile, it checked its firm link to the one unit of its body it would be leaving behind. The thing was now running at full capacity, still connected to the U-space transmitter. It had also taken full control of the Tyburn’s twinned U-space engine. Those engines could not be more ready, and the Brockle had programmed the unit to accept and indeed relish its sacrifice.
After a moment, a door etched itself out in the side of the craft and folded down into a ramp. The convicted man, one Norris Piper, stepped onto the ramp and casually walked down. He gave the Brockle a brief inspection, then put his hands on his hips and studied his surroundings. Obviously, he was one of those who liked admirers to describe him as a “cool one,” and shortly he would say something tough and dismissive.
“So,” he said, “I take it you’re my executioner.” He eyed the Brockle’s girth and added, “I guess the job as a restaurant critic didn’t work out.”
In other circumstances, the Brockle would have immensely enjoyed the interrogation of Norris Piper. It would have toyed with the limits of his endurance, allowing him to believe he was capable of resisting. It would have revelled in his begging and crying, the terror and agony of feeling as it took his mind and body apart. It would have relished his relief when it seemed that it was coming to an end, and then his horrified disbelief when it put him back together and started again. Now the forensic AI had no time for this, because a bigger and more intricate game was afoot, and a greater threat to the Polity existed than Piper could ever be.
It paced forwards, noting Piper laughably adjusting his stance and preparing to fight. Holding one pudgy hand out flat, the forensic AI extruded one of its body units—a growing, silvery, globular mass. It tossed this ball towards Piper but, as it arced over, the man threw himself off the side of the ramp into a perfect roll, coming up onto his feet again. The unit turned at a right angle in mid-air and slapped into his chest just as he came upright. There, it broke into a dozen subunit worms and burrowed. Piper gaped and began shuddering, his body deforming in ways it just shouldn’t, then he howled. Blood and minced flesh exploded from his mouth and ears. His eyes sucked inwards with a thwacking sound and silver worms wiggled from the sockets. He gagged and toppled, hitting the floor like a bag of jelly—everything inside his skin broken down into nothing larger than a fingertip. By that time, the Brockle had reached the top of the ramp, where it paused to look back. The dozen original worms flowed across the floor, melded into one single worm by the time they reached the ramp, squirmed up a leg and entered the Brockle’s mouth.
Gone.
The Brockle turned and entered the single-ship, mentally linked to its controls and prepared it for departure. Behind, when the Brockle entire was gone, its sacrificial unit would drop the Tyburn into U-space and take the ship just outside the Polity. Its designated arrival point was a region scattered with Polity spy satellites—marking a route around the Graveyard that the prador might try—so they would quickly detect it. The Polity would dispatch warships and, after a brief battle, they would destroy the Tyburn. That, as far as Earth Central was concerned, would be the end of the Brockle. However, in reality its first port of call was the nearest: outlink station Par Avion. There it would obtain a better ship so it could hunt down that dangerous and murderous AI, Penny Royal.
Such monsters should not be allowed to exist in the Polity.
