by Stephen Moss
Neal could appreciate it, and like others before him he did not question William’s choice here.
With assurances that they would maintain the strictest focus on haste and secrecy, Neal had bid his farewells to Mynd and young William, and his plane had banked away once more. He never even touched down. He just left with the same abruptness and haste he had arrived, leaving the massive Resonance Dome to its final days of construction in the winter darkness.
With progress steady here at Deception, it was time to escalate preparations for the only component of the Skalm he could not manufacture.
Chapter 39: Flight and Fight
“Quavoce, my friend. Bom dia!” said Amadeu, as he walked into his lab on Rolas Island.
Quavoce returned the young Portuguese man’s broad smile with one of his own, but did not reply. By his side stood an excited young Banu, brimming with her usual excitement for their little ‘experiments’.
Amadeu’s eyes met hers and their shared conspiratorial sparkle grew even brighter. “And good morning to you too, Banu,” Amadeu said to the young girl, kneeling in front of her, “or rather, sobh beh’khayr.”
His accent was appalling, but Banu had nothing but affection for the Portuguese scientist and for the amazing things she had seen and done since Quavoce had gently coaxed her into his office only a few months beforehand.
She replied in her tiny but clear voice, “Sobh beh’khayr, Amadeu.”
His face betrayed just the slightest of concern at hearing the correct pronunciation of the greeting juxtaposed against his sad approximation, but with the empathy of the young and kind, she assuaged his concern with a smile that would have melted the iciest of hearts. It was a smile that said, thank you for trying, it is more than enough just that you try.
Quavoce saw her expression too, and the way Amadeu responded, his eyes alighting with a moment of shared friendship, and he was happy for the young girl he had saved from the plague.
It was that simple empathy that only children are truly capable of, and even then they did not all feel it as deeply as Banu clearly did. It was one of the many reasons Quavoce was so fiercely protective of the young girl. He would kill whole cities without thinking in order to protect her. Few doubted it. Including Amadeu, as he glanced up at Banu’s guardian once more.
Amadeu suppressed a tremor of fear at Quavoce’s stern stare, then said, “So, are we ready?” then to her, “Are you ready to fly again, my little bird?”
She was. She always was. Once her initial trepidation had passed, once she managed to comprehend Quavoce’s placating explanation of what the scientist Amadeu wanted her to try, and then the strange sensation of having the little button put in the back of her neck. And then the conversation, if you could call it that, which she had then had with the woman called Minnie, a woman she had never met, yet maybe knew better than anyone except her very guardian.
She would never know how long it had taken Amadeu to convince Quavoce to even come to his lab and talk about letting the little girl try the spinal interface. She would never know the weight of the promise Quavoce had made Amadeu make before he allowed Banu to be plugged in, or the detailed and gruesome end he had promised Amadeu should any harm come the young girl.
But that was behind them all now, for the most part. Whilst letting someone plug your child into a computer may have seemed egregious to us, it was as commonplace as learning to read back on Mobilius, as it no doubt would be on Earth once the spinal interfaces were allowed to enter the mainstream.
And so Quavoce had given his blessing and Banu had been introduced to the machine, and to Minnie, and she had taken to it as any child would. Devoid of the preconceptions of age, and trusting entirely in her friend and adopted father, she had relaxed, closed her eyes, and trust-fallen into the ether.
Her voice rang out again with anticipation, “Where you me want?” she said, her English broken but improving fast now.
“Here?” her little hand pointed to one of the four plug-in couches in the cluttered lab.
“Wherever you like, Banu, wherever you like,” said Amadeu, nodding enthusiastically. He followed her to a couch and helped her into it, arranging the porting cable behind her as she got comfortable.
Though the gelports reached out and connected with practiced ease as she lay back, the system did not initiate contact. It was programmed to only allow Banu to connect with adult supervision, a stipulation of Quavoce’s which Amadeu had fully agreed to.
Stepping over to another couch, Amadeu lay down and plugged in as well, wary of the ever watchful Quavoce even as the Agent opened his own connection to Minnie using his onboard subspace tweeter. He did not need to sit down, or break eye contact with Amadeu and his charge, and indeed he never did.
But Amadeu did. Lying back and closing his eyes, Amadeu relaxed and opened his mind.
<¿open connection?>
Amadeu moved through the question even as it was said, popping the blue icewall that waited for him and then turning his electronic attention to Banu’s presence, waiting, patiently, inside a hard blue bubble of her own. He did not pop it, but stepped inside, finding Quavoce’s presence already there.
Amadeu: ‘hello again, banu. ¿are you ready to start?’
She nodded, her avatar brimming with anticipation. They all used avatars when she was in system to aid her acclimatization, though they were starting to realize that was she was fast becoming more comfortable in here than they were.
Amadeu: ‘ok. let’s go.’
He popped the bubble around Banu as only he or Quavoce could, attaching his consciousness to her own so he could stay with her as she swam outward.
Her mind surged forward with youthful enthusiasm.
Banu: ‘sobh beh’khayr, minnie!’ she exclaimed to the void.
Minnie:
They engaged in some Farsi banter that was far beyond Amadeu’s extremely limited grasp of the language, and Quavoce chided his young charge.
Quavoce: ‘¿now, banu, remember? we have talked about speaking english when our friend amadeu is around.’
Banu apologized with the simple innocence of the young. Whether it was genuine innocence or just a lack of care for the complexities of courtesy, it did not matter to Amadeu. He merely chuckled at her simple joy here. She was darting this way and that, seeking out the systems she could enter, asking questions about the ones she could not.
Amadeu: ‘¿shall we begin?’
Banu: ‘yes! ¿but where? i cannot find the simulator.’
Amadeu: ‘well, we have something new for you today, banu. something … faster.’
She beamed, as Amadeu had known she would, and Quavoce frowned, as Amadeu had feared he would. And this was why Quavoce had taken the time to join them today. It was not every day that he was able to drag himself away from the myriad tasks and projects that Neal had him consulting on, leading, reviewing, or helping get back on track.
But today they were going to up the ante, a great deal, and Neal had agreed that it was worth the time off for Quavoce to be there. In fact, he had insisted upon it. It was, after all, Neal who had ordered them to take the next step in Banu’s training.
Minnie:
Banu looked at Amadeu, who in turn was looking at Quavoce. The Agent seemed to take a deep breath, then he nodded.
And so it happened. In a flash, they were in midair, high above a wide desert plain, windless and cloudless as far as their eyes could see.
Their avatars hung there, and Minnie’s voice seemed to echo in the air around them as they waited.
Minnie:
Banu: ‘¿level 1!? but we were at level 14.’
Minnie:
Banu was curious, but still annoyed, until the ‘plane’ in question appeared, floating just below them. Minnie began to describe the vast cross that now hun
g magically below, details and data supporting her description floated across their minds.
Minnie:
Banu lost interest in what Minnie was saying after the word dimensions, focusing instead on the strangely beautiful craft below her. But her interest was brought squarely back by the mention of speed.
Minnie: <… top speed, in-atmosphere: mach 8.>
Such terms as ‘Mach’ were new to her, but she knew the simulated StratoJet she had flown for the last month was capable of Mach 4 when she pushed it, which never failed to invigorate Amadeu and infuriate Quavoce, respectively.
But Mach 8.
What did Mach 8 feel like?
She longed for Mach 8.
Amadeu: ‘¿shall we give her a try, banu?’
As his question made access possible, she was already stepping forward, and down, into the machine, her avatar morphing and vanishing as she joined with it.
They all watched, partially as their avatar selves, and partially from within the virtual craft, from her perspective, as she entered the ship. Not that it had a cockpit, or room for any crew.
The ship, realistically reproduced as it was from the real one Neal so yearned to be making soon, existed here as it would in real life only as pure function, its only compromise toward control being the large subspace tweeters built into its wings, allowing it to instantaneously transmit the data coming from its sensors and also receive instructions for its grotesquely powerful engines from whoever was insane enough to try and pilot it.
So as Banu entered the virtual Skalm, she forwent her avatar, just as any pilot would forgo any sense of their self when they slaved to the ship, as she became the Skalm. They must leave everything else behind, no human body could survive what the Skalm was designed to do.
Minnie: <¿would you like me to start the engines, banu?>
Quavoce at Minnie/Amadeu: ‘one-tenth power, minnie. for now.’
Minnie at Quavoce/Amadeu:
Quavoce at Minnie/Amadeu: ‘i am aware of that, minnie, but let’s not scare her with that just yet. ¿amadeu?’
Though Amadeu appreciated Minnie’s point, he did actually agree with Quavoce. From what he understood of the Skalm, and from his own aborted attempt to fly the virtual construct, giving Banu full power immediately would be less like throwing her in the deep end and more like throwing her from a moving car.
Amadeu at Minnie/Quavoce: ‘quavoce is right. one-tenth power, please, minnie. we can give her more to play with once she has found her sea legs.’
Minnie:
Amadeu suppressed a virtual snort. More like going for a bike ride in a hurricane, maybe, but he did not share his skepticism. Instead he contented himself with giving Banu the concept of a hug with his right mind, as he had learned to do when raising Minnie. The young girl hugged him back, clearly brimming with excitement. She was like a child on a fairground ride, waiting for her mother to put the coin in the slot.
And so Minnie did.
- - -
Banu: ‘dear, sweet, gorgeous minnie! i love it!’
Banu screamed inside her mind, she panted, throbbing with the sheer joy of it all.
Banu: ‘minnie, level 5. level 5! i want hills!’
They watched, they flew behind, they tried to keep up with the speed of the unfolding world Banu was hurtling through. Beside the plane, within it, statistics flew at them with equally alarming speed.
For Amadeu, the forces at play were just figures now, beyond Amadeu’s ability to comprehend in real-time.
Power was ramping up slowly as Banu applied her thousands of hours in simulated flight these past months to the agitated madness of flying the Skalm.
The ground came at them as Minnie added in the terrain of Level 5. The levels changed the dynamics of the virtual environment; terrain morphed from flat to mountainous; visibility changed incrementally from infinite to the densest of fog; obstacles, other planes, birds, clouds along a spectrum from the clearest of blue vistas to a sky full of problems, each level adding new complexity.
For its part, Level 5 brought gently rolling green hills and valleys and Banu rocketed into them. She darted between their low rises, her hypersonic passage ripping virtual foliage from the soil. Entering a deeper valley, she braced her directional cores, spinning the Skalm, and accelerating at right angles to her passage, throwing the Skalm violently this way and that, dodging the rocks and rises of the ground below with the speed and agility of a hummingbird.
Amadeu was actively suppressing his body’s reactions to the visuals, disconnecting his mind from his physiology to limit the damage this was doing to his psyche. He could no longer focus on their meteoric progress. It was too fast for his brain to process and eventually he stepped out of the simulation.
He did not let Banu know, he did not want to alarm her. Though as he looked now at the statistics flowing from the system, it was clear she did not care a damn for anything else right now; she was lost in the dance.
He called up her processing statistics. When he had first enlisted her she had instantly surprised him with her adeptness in the system. Speculation had followed among his teammates about how her upbringing had left less preconceptions about technology, or how the leap she’d already had to make just to get on a plane for the first time, or see an ocean for the first time, had made it easier to adjust to Minnie’s world. But it was all moot. The truth was she was a child, a blank canvas. And she was a curious child at that.
She had quickly matched and then surpassed the average adults’ processing speeds, and soon was matching his and William Baerwistwyth’s times. As the hours turned into days and into weeks in Minnie’s simulated worlds, Amadeu’s processing records had eventually become moot as Banu had practiced and learned, days and nights lost in the system.
The day she beaten Hektor Gruler’s times they had celebrated.
He studied her times now in absolute silence.
He was surprised when Quavoce joined him in stepping out of the simulation. Amadeu glanced quickly at the data. She was still flying. She had not stopped. Oh boy, was she still flying.
Amadeu: ‘¿quavoce, is banu all right?’
Quavoce: ‘banu is fine. it would seem she is far better than all right. she is close to exceeding my ability to track her and I wanted to check on her vitals.’
Amadeu reeled. They had talked of it. They knew the coming Mobiliei pilots were faster than AIs and AMs. Not with large-scale data processing, but in the reactive, high-speed moment that was stellar conflict they were milliseconds faster at complex decision-making. It was all the difference.
Quavoce: ‘i believe minnie has a larger processing substrate than my body does. but she is still a machine, i believe she will not always be able to process and manage this virtual environment as banu becomes more practiced with the skalm.’
They both studied the data, watching as though from a distance.
Banu swam and darted within the virtual space, up now to Level 12, nearly 93% of the Skalm’s full power. She darted about inside Minnie’s mind, now tracking targets that Minnie was creating for her, chasing them down.
Minnie:
Amadeu shared a mental smile with Quavoce. But knew that it was not enough to express his full joy. Inside the machine his avatar yelled for joy, shouting and pumping virtual fists.
Amadeu: ‘you beautiful little girl! you wonderful little genius! you�
�re doing it! you’re doing it!’
Quavoce could not help but smile at the man’s overwhelming delight.
Amadeu: ‘you are so wonderful, banu, i could marry you!’
The girl could not hear his proposal. But Quavoce could, and his smile quickly turned to a frown.
Amadeu nodded and went silent.
Across the globe, research teams, construction leaders, generals, and admirals stared confused as data requests waited and systems slowed. Not many had access to Minnie directly, but those that did had come to depend on her. Far above on Terminus, Birgit reacted, confused and concerned, to Minnie’s sudden shift to a monotone, left-brain only speech. Airborne, Neal sensed as his plane switched to its onboard AI once more, and pinged Minnie to find out why she wasn’t personally piloting anymore.
He received only an automated response.
Amadeu switched his avatar off and focused on the data coming out of the system. one hundred and nineteen.
Amadeu: ‘she is so close.’
Minnie:
Amadeu was disappointed they couldn’t go further, but chided himself. That they had reached this point was … it was … he could not describe it, and he knew that the fact that they could not go much further in this virtual world was only a sign of how close they now were to breaking the cyber ceiling.
Quavoce: ‘amadeu, banu’s heart rate is elevated, it is struggling to supply enough oxygen to her brain.’
Amadeu came back to reality with a bang. Shit. He had not expected this much activity today. He had not been prepared. He should have planned for this. He should have adjusted her medical subroutine, and may have to provide a supply of super-oxygenated blood, maybe even supplemented with the zinc and other nutrients the brain needed to function for extended periods at such speeds. Her system was flooding with psychomotor stimulants. Her brain was becoming hyperactive.
Amadeu: ‘minnie, let’s end the chase sequence. bring her down, slowly … but now, please.’
