Maladapted

by Richard Kurti

  A flash of guilt jolted Tess to her senses. She owed it to Cillian to keep fighting. She wasn’t going to be killed by a dumb, dutiful robot.

  She was better than that.

  The chopping suddenly got louder. More blades powered up, as the processing unit prepared to be fed.

  Seconds. That was all she had left.

  Moving smoothly to avoid further inciting the bot, Tess wrapped her arms around its body. Her searching fingers ran over its surface and found glass spheres dotted along the circumference.

  Sensors.

  Sonar? Infrared?

  Perhaps she could blind it. She hammered her fist into one of the spheres, trying to smash it.

  The glass was too tough.

  Gripping the bot tightly, she jerked her body to one side, hoping to drag them both off course, away from the chopping blades.

  But the giros refused to be thrown.

  She saw clouds of bubbles rising from the salivating shredder’s vents—

  Her fingers brushed against a gnarled ring on the bot’s body – some kind of access port.

  Tess gripped it and twisted.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  She twisted harder … fingers numb, the last spoonfuls of air draining from her lungs … harder—

  Suddenly the cap loosened and flew off in her hand.

  Water gushed into the machine, fusing circuit boards, shorting power supplies, drowning it from the inside.

  Snake-arms twitched frantically in a last defiant attempt to live, then the Disposal-Bot went limp and spiralled down into the darkness of the giant tank, tentacles flailing uselessly behind it.

  Tess burst to the surface, gasping in the air. Utterly exhausted, she swam to the metal rungs, hauled herself up the wall and rolled into the overflow tunnel.

  She lay there for a few moments, lungs heaving, body shivering. She so wanted to close her eyes and rest, just for a few minutes…

  No.

  That’s how hypothermia got you.

  Tess forced herself onto her knees. She had to get away, had to get warm again.

  Stumbling, crawling, she made her way towards the circle of light at the end of the tunnel … and emerged into a wall of one of the service canals that criss-crossed the City. 3 fully loaded TrashBarges were lined up, waiting to join a convoy that would head downriver and out to the BoilDowns.

  Tess pulled back into the shadows and let the first 2 barges pass, then she leapt … landing with a heavy thump near the stern of the final barge.

  Quickly she rolled under a tarpaulin that covered the trash, and stripped off her soaking-wet clothes. She clamped her arms around her body and rubbed her flesh, trying to get some feeling back. At least under the tarpaulin there was some respite from the weather.

  Trembling, exhausted, alone, Tess crouched in the darkness, not daring to think about what would happen next.

  All she knew was that she was still alive.

  She had not given up.

  77

  “Maybe we haven’t told him enough,” Gabrielle reflected as she watched Cillian on the CCTV monitors, pacing back and forth in front of the panoramic windows. “Maybe if he understood where he really fitted in, we could capture his imagination.”

  “He can’t handle what he’s already been told,” Cole said pointedly.

  “Because it doesn’t quite make sense. You know how his mind’s been designed. He needs to see everything to understand the particular. Compulsive pattern recognition.”

  “It’s too big a risk. I don’t think he’s ready.”

  “His father could never let go,” Gabrielle continued. “Interesting how we’ve magnified stubbornness as a collateral effect.”

  “What if you show him everything and he hates it? What happens if he gets angry? You’ve seen how he reacts under pressure.”

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because at the end of the day, he’s just an experiment,” Gabrielle said calmly. “My experiment.”

  78

  The hot pipes running through the TrashBarge hold were lifesavers. Sprouting from vats that digested bulk food waste and turned it into biofuel, the pipes made perfect drying rails and it wasn’t long before Tess could get into warm clothes again.

  She poked around the hold: old computers and robotic components, smartCells and magazines, shoes and synthetics, TVs and tyres, power cells and plastics in every colour imaginable.

  So much waste.

  And this was just one barge. At least 100 convoys left the City every day; Foundation was like a giant monster excreting high-tech and synthetic debris.

  Tess knew she had to make a move before the TrashBarge reached a BoilDown, or she’d be arrested for trespass. In police custody it would be too easy for P8 to find her.

  Cautiously she lifted the edge of the tarpaulin. She was at the back of the boat, and this was the last barge in the convoy. A couple of kilometres further down the Great Canal she could make out the next convoy, and beyond that the City skyline disappearing into the mist.

  She clambered onto the deck and looked around. There were running boards on either side, leading forwards to the bridge cabin. That’s where the crew would be.

  Should she take the fight to them? Or should she play dumb? If she concocted some story about running away from home, maybe they would turn a blind eye to regulations and help her.

  Maybe.

  Taking no chances, she hunted around for something to use as a weapon and managed to yank a metal bar off a bedstead. She tested its weight, wielding it first as a club, then a spear. It would have to do.

  Slowly Tess crept down the running board, braced for the slightest sign of the crew.

  Closer … and closer…

  If they were paying attention, they should have seen her by now.

  She reached the back wall of the cabin, slowly edged forward, looked inside … and smiled. The cabin was empty: the captain was a computer.

  Tess swung open the door and stepped out of the biting wind. Banks of digital panels lined the cabin walls, controlling everything from satellite guidance systems to the burn-rate of the biofuel generators.

  A beautiful old wooden stool sat in front of the monitoring panels – perhaps when the TrashBarge docked a pilot took over – but the long trek out to the Provinces had been delegated entirely to computers.

  Ignoring her pangs of hunger, Tess perched on the seat. An electronic chart slowly unfurled across the main screen as the TrashBarge made its way down the Great Canal; the convoy’s route was going to take it across a daisy chain of vast lakes. Tess vaguely remembered from her history lessons that these had once been picturesque rural towns and valleys, all flooded to create the reservoirs that let Foundation City drink and wash.

  In the far distance was the ridge of mountains that she had last seen from the speeding Bullet Train. Beyond those mountains lay her only hope. She needed to find a small community where she could start again.

  It wouldn’t be easy. A stranger arriving from the City would arouse suspicion. Her best bet would be to lie low for a while until the news moved on.

  Tess gazed up at the mountain ridge. There must be caves up there, somewhere she could shelter, make a fire, hunt small animals, live off the land for a few weeks. It was the best her exhausted mind could come up with; at least now she had a plan.

  She checked the charts to find the closest point between the Great Canal and the mountains. There was still time to close her eyes and grab some sleep…

  But unlike Tess, the computer-driven TrashBarge never closed its eyes, never rested.

  As she’d climbed out of the hold, the onboard sensors had detected a tiny change in weight distribution. And inanimate loads shouldn’t move.

  A systems alert was activated, and the TrashBarge’s CCTV powered up to take a look. Someone, somewhere watched as a teenage girl made herself comfortable in the cabin. An unauthorized presence on the bridge breached shipping regul
ations. It would have to be investigated and dealt with.

  Traces. There were always traces.

  79

  The elevator reached the bottom floor, but didn’t stop. It kept going down to levels unmarked on the indicator panel.

  “Not many people are allowed this far,” Gabrielle said calmly.

  Cillian didn’t feel reassured.

  “One of the things I love about science is its humility,” she said. “I have no illusions about myself. I’m just a link in the chain. We all are, and anyone who thinks differently is deluded.”

  The elevator finally eased to a standstill but the doors stayed shut. The control panel demanded fingerprint verification. Gabrielle touched her thumb on the screen and only then did the doors open, flooding the elevator with light.

  They emerged into an expansive hallowed space, silent and calm. In the very centre of the glossy marble floor were 2 highly polished titanium statues, life-size depictions of a strange creature. One posed standing up, the other crouched on all fours like a hunter.

  Cillian gazed at the statues, struggling to make sense of what he was seeing. It was confusing; the creature was a disturbing amalgam of the familiar and the strange…

  Then suddenly it pulled into focus.

  “My God…” he whispered.

  “Not quite. But I think He would’ve approved.” Gabrielle walked towards the statues. “This is the real goal of our research, Cillian.” She reached out and gently touched the gleaming metal surface. “Human perfection.”

  The creature had a muscular torso rippled with an exoskeleton, 4 limbs that were a strange fusion of arms and legs, a face that was human but with individual elements rearranged and supplemented.

  “Meet H+,” Gabrielle said. “She’s the future. The epitome of intellect and athleticism. As comfortable on 2 legs as 4, pre-adapted to survive the environmental changes that are now unstoppable and the social chaos that will follow.”

  She paced around the statues, proudly pointing out various innovations. “Gills that work alongside lungs – for a world that’s flooded. Skin that photosynthesizes sunlight into energy – to survive famine. Eyes that work across a broad range of frequencies – to see toxic radiation. Limbs that can regenerate, an immune system resistant to nearly all known diseases … this is the ultimate human being. And you, and me, and all those children in Gilgamesh … we’re just stepping stones on the journey to this.”

  For a few moments Cillian was dazzled by the beauty of the creature, built with such searing logic. “It’s incredible,” he whispered.

  “She is,” Gabrielle said with quiet pride. “I knew you’d understand.”

  “But…”

  Gabrielle turned her piercing gaze on Cillian.

  “What about everyone else?”

  “What about them?” Gabrielle seemed puzzled.

  “If this is ‘Human Plus’, where does that leave humans? Ordinary humans, who are alive today?”

  “I’m not interested in ordinary.”

  “There’s a world full of people who need genetic cures and vaccines—”

  “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Gabrielle said sharply.

  “You can’t just write off 10 billion people.”

  “People who did nothing as the climate changed, despite all the warnings. People who ignore warnings reap the whirlwind.”

  “So this is some kind of revenge?”

  “No. It’s just the inevitable. Evolution is brilliant but cruel: it punishes weakness and stupidity.”

  “What kind of justice is that?”

  “Justice has nothing to do with it. If natural selection was fair, life on Earth would’ve been snuffed out as soon as it began. That’s just a simple fact. But now humans can define what we are.” She rested her hand on H+. “And this is it.”

  “No. It isn’t.” Cillian stared at the gleaming, arrogant statues. “This isn’t what it means to be human at all. This is just about survival.”

  “What else is there?”

  “Everything. Everything that makes life worth living.”

  “Oh, you mean love and art and all those fuzzy ways of thinking?” Gabrielle smiled. “We tried so hard to design sentimentality out of you, Cillian. Love is just an illusion, a trick to remix the genes with every generation. And music and literature and culture, they service the remix. They’re the veneer that masks what’s actually going on.”

  Cillian finally saw just how pitiless she was. “I want nothing to do with this. Or with you.”

  “I understand. It’s strong stuff, isn’t it? That’s why we need to make some adjustments.”

  Cillian felt suddenly uneasy as Gabrielle walked towards him.

  “You haven’t turned out quite how we’d hoped.”

  “I don’t want adjusting.” He backed away. “I just want to leave here. Now.”

  “OK. That’s fine. If that’s what you want, you can go.”

  Why was she being so understanding?

  “Let’s at least part on good terms.” Gabrielle opened her arms as if to give him a final hug, but Cillian shook his head. “After what you’ve done?”

  He turned and strode towards the elevator doors.

  Moments later he heard her footsteps behind him. Cillian spun around defensively, but Gabrielle just smiled. “You’ll need me to unlock the doors.”

  Innocently she lifted her right hand to show her thumb, and in that moment of distraction she struck—

  Her left hand lashed out, gripping Cillian’s neck.

  He felt a sharp pinprick in his flesh.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Immediately weakness started flooding into him.

  He tried to pull away, but she held his neck tightly. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she spoke softly. “I just want to put you back into development.”

  “No!”

  “You won’t remember any of this. Not even as a bad dream. And you’ll wake up so much better.”

  Fight.

  Before it’s too late.

  He tried to gather his energy, to slip out of time, but the toxins flooding his body were confusing his reactions.

  He was not going to end up back in Gilgamesh.

  They were not going to wipe him clean like some malfunctioning machine.

  “NO!” Exploding with rage he smashed Gabrielle’s arms aside. As she stumbled backwards he saw a half-discharged microsyringe in her hand.

  “What’s in it?” Cillian swayed uneasily. “Tell me!”

  He lunged towards her, trying to grab the syringe, but Gabrielle dodged backwards and ran towards the elevator.

  Without thinking, Cillian leapt, but now he was off balance, his senses confused.

  He smashed into her too heavily, slamming her to the floor.

  She gasped with pain. With shock.

  Fighting to co-ordinate his movements, Cillian dragged himself to his knees and rolled Gabrielle over.Blood was oozing across her shirt.

  The syringe had punctured her heart.

  She gasped, but it was barely audible.

  Already the colour was draining from her face; her lips were tinged with grey.

  “You should’ve let me go!” Cillian said. “Why didn’t you let me go?”

  Gabrielle mustered all her energy, fighting the drugs that were shutting her systems down. “You … can never be out…”

  She coughed, tried to speak again, but it was incoherent.

  A last groan…

  Then she fell silent.

  Cillian stared at her, but she didn’t move again. Her body didn’t even twitch.

  He dropped to his knees, slumped over her, trying to wrestle back control.

  She was a predator.

  Trying to kill him.

  He’d defended himself.

  There was no choice: one of them had to die.

  Cillian touched his neck. The weakness had stopped spreading; his body was containing the chemical.

  Escape. He had to escape or it would all have been
in vain.

  His eyes darted across the walls, hunting for CCTV, but there was nothing. Perhaps the secret inside this room was so sacrosanct it had to remain invisible.

  His mind flashed back, piecing together the fragments of the building he’d seen over the last 2 days, constructing a map.

  I see it.

  Struggling to contain his remorse, Cillian bent down, grabbed Gabrielle and dragged her body across the room, leaving a bloody wet smear on the smooth marble. At the elevator he yanked her hands up and touched her thumbs on the control panel…

  Identity Confirmed.

  The doors opened.

  He dropped Gabrielle’s body, but as she fell, Cillian heard her smartCell clatter to the floor. He picked it up. A whole string of message updates from P8 Security scrolled across the screen.

  They had a trace on Tess.

  She was trying to escape along the Great Canal.

  And they were closing in fast.

  80

  Tess couldn’t help smiling. No matter how smart the world got, water still flowed downhill. Right now that gave her the perfect chance to get away.

  Several kilometres back, the convoy had started to break up, as individual TrashBarges peeled off for different destinations. Her barge was heading for one of the Highland BoilDowns, which meant it had to navigate a series of 40 canal locks that climbed into the mountain foothills.

  Fully-automated and computer-controlled, these locks bore only a passing resemblance to the hand-cranked wood and iron gates from centuries ago. Now huge synthetic shutters rose and fell on hydraulic rails in a continuous, noisy techno-dance. It was ugly and soulless, but it didn’t matter as no-one was out here to see. One feature had survived brutal modernization: the towpaths, and as the barge rose through the first lock, Tess leapt onto dry land and ran.

  She picked a line straight across the heathland and headed for the saw-toothed mountain ridge.

  Even though the low shrubs had caught the most recent snowfall, stopping the ground underneath from freezing hard, it was still tough going. Every intake of cold air stabbed her lungs, and her muscles craved energy, reminding her how little she’d eaten in the last 24 hours.