Shifting Reality (ISF-Allion Book 1)

by Patty Jansen

  Because they were afraid, either of the smugglers or of losing their standing in the community. Afraid to lose customers. Fifteen years after she’d almost died, girls like Susanti were still snared in these vile schemes.

  Uncle spread his hands as if he were going to say something, thought better of it and dropped them again, heaving a sigh.

  Ari patted Melati on the shoulder; his eyes said, Leave it.

  Melati dropped on the bench beside him. She would damn well not leave it. Not until the smugglers were caught and girls got decent education, and birth control, and decent hospitals no one had to fear visiting for moral backlash. Not until no more girls died in back-alley rooms giving birth.

  But her seething anger would have to stay under the surface a bit longer.

  * * *

  Rina still hadn’t turned up when Melati finished eating and the customers left. Melati tried calling Uncle’s unit while dancing over Grandma’s sweeping broom. Her call wasn’t answered. Uncle told her not to worry, that Rina might hide in darkness in her sleeping cubicle for days, which was true, but still.

  When Uncle and Grandma left for their apartment, Melati made her way through JeJe, where shop owners were all cleaning up and moving furniture, ready for the next shift of workers to use the rooms. At this, the quietest time of the day, JeJe roughly resembled the neat thoroughfares found in other parts of the station: a corridor curving endlessly upwards, whose gleaming linoleum floor reflected the ceiling lights set at regular intervals. Except the floor here was metal, and smooth from the passage of many feet, and a fair few of the ceiling lights no longer worked.

  When she turned into the lift foyer, she ran into a crowd, all of Ari’s age and younger. Talking, laughing, smoking, drinking. She made her way through the loud music, the yelling and friendly jostling, the couples kissing, and she managed not to say anything about the boys smoking. The smoke set off the fire alarm, and if the enforcers caught the smokers, they’d present their parents with the bill. Their parents would be too poor to pay, so StatOp would add it to their debt which was to be paid or carried over after their deaths. The whole system was stupid and entrenched a culture of insurmountable debts, simply from doing stupid things.

  It made her so angry. Melati could scream about how they were wasting their lives, while there were real opportunities out there. The ISF locals program was heavily under-subscribed, and there were training places available.

  But there was no point. They wouldn’t listen.

  Melati spotted a young woman in a corner . . . Rina.

  She wore a hooded black jumpsuit, with sleeves that covered her hands. A black headscarf hid half her face. That was almost hypertech gear. Her eyes met Melati’s, and lingered, for a startled moment.

  “Rina!”

  “Oh—er, Melati.”

  “Where were you? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Socrates said you’d gone home sick. Is everything all right at work?” What had happened to the pretty clothes she usually wore?

  Rina glared. “What about it? Why are you asking, anyway?”

  “Because I went to see Socrates, and he didn’t look all right to me. He was really nervous, and he said he wanted me to tell you that he appreciates you and he’s got work for you. It was really weird, the way he was saying it. Is he all right?”

  Rina shrugged. “How am I supposed to know what he does with his life? If he’s got trouble, it’s nothing to do with me.” So defensive and careful.

  “You didn’t turn up for dinner.”

  “I’ve already eaten. I went with some friends.”

  Melati didn’t see any friends, just dark forms of teenagers dressed similarly to Rina.

  Then Melati’s heart jumped as she noticed a blond man in the red overalls of an istel crewmember, hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall. The insignia on his breast pocket showed that he was a trainee pilot, but a strict captain would never allow him onboard with those smudges on his uniform’s shoulders. A little worse for wear after too much partying, perhaps. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, yes. Fine.” A distinct pause. “Why the need to ask, lo?”

  Melati shrugged. Spread her hands. Looked pointedly at the man behind Rina’s back. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. That’s all. It’s OK to tell me if there is trouble. I won’t tell anyone else.”

  “Don’t start talking like Grandma with all her ridiculous superstitions.”

  “Don’t be rude to her, cousin. I was concerned and wanted to talk.” And what about that stranger? Are you spending the night with him in some dirty dockside hostel?

  Rina glared at her. “Uncle doesn’t own me. Grandma doesn’t own me. I am twenty-five years old. No one tells me what to do, not even my closest cousin.” There was a defiant spark in her eyes.

  “I know that, Rina, but we look out for each other, OK? Don’t do anything silly.”

  Rina gave her a look that said, and?

  Melati bent closer and whispered in Rina’s ear, “Rina, they may pay real money, but they ruin a girl’s life.” Melati’s throat felt tight. If Rina came into these vile men’s influence, like those poor girls she’d seen in the docks, Melati would never forgive herself.

  “I’m OK, Melati, really.”

  “Then can I come visit your work tomorrow?”

  “What? At work?”

  “Yes.”

  A flighty glance to the side—Melati couldn’t identify at what. “What’s this about?”

  “Nothing special. Just wanted to ask a question. It’s not really important, it’s to do with work and it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Can’t do it here?”

  “Not without the mindbase database.”

  “Oh.” Rina’s gaze grew distant. “OK then. Tomorrow?”

  “All right. Take care, OK?”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  Melati left her there, leaning against the wall. She remembered the aching loneliness during those years when Uncle told her to work in the mines, and Grandma told her to get a man, and she wanted neither. Like all the girls here, she had dreams of leaving the station, but tickets cost money. A lot of it. And then someone offered that money to her.

  And that’s how she had gotten into trouble.

  Because money comes with a price.

  Fifteen years back, no one was looking out for her, and no one had understood what those New Hyderabad men did, and they’d denied it when they found out because reality was too awful. Melati still felt the buzz of receiving the money. For a young woman like Rina, with the impossible dreams of youth, the lure would be great. The only thing the smugglers asked was a premature baby, right?

  Rina was five to ten years older than the smugglers’ perfect target, but that didn’t make her any less susceptible. In fact, with those clothes, she might already be pregnant. And that while she had a decent job. Why, Rina, why?

  No, Melati would not let her slip away. She’d go to see Rina at work before the start of the A shift.

  She weaved through the crowd and arrived at the lifts, pressed the button to go up, while all around her youths laughed and talked.

  The lift had just pinged when a young man in the crowd raised his voice. Melati didn’t catch what he said, but people stopped talking. Between the press of bodies, Melati spotted a glimpse of white uniforms.

  People pressed towards Melati waiting for the lift.

  The foyer had no exits except the lifts.

  She caught shards of agitated talk.

  “. . . second time they’ve been here.”

  “. . . have no idea what they want. They keep asking for ID.”

  “I gotta get out of here, man. I don’t have any ID.”

  “What do you think about the rest of us, huh? I got two chips against me and that was just today.” There were many mumbles of agreement.

  The lift doors rumbled open and Melati was swept inside with a great rush of young people. Squashed against the back wall
, she could barely move.

  “Any more room?” someone yelled at the front.

  Several voices replied, “No!”

  “Fuck! I gotta get out before they catch me.”

  “Take the next one!” someone inside the lift yelled as the doors shut again.

  The lift moved up.

  Someone said, in strong sekong-B3 slang, “Next time they try this trick, we should try what Beno did: just tell ’em we got no ID and see if they dare punish us in front of everybody.”

  “Did they punish him?”

  “Too scared. There were a lot of us and only three of them.”

  Everyone laughed.

  And then another young man said, “ ’S no good jus’ giving them what they want, lo, ’cause they’ll keep screwing us again and again. Next time any of you gets recycling duty, chuck a few jars of inorganics in with the organics.”

  “They’ll punish us.”

  “If they do, we fight. If we occupy the biolab, they’ll have to deal with us.”

  “They’ll shoot us.”

  “Then we’ll shoot back.”

  “With catapults, huh?”

  “We got better than that.

  You’ll see, brother.”

  Rumours of smuggled weapons in the B sector were common. But not even enforcers carried weapons that did more than stun. When all that separated you from death by asphyxiation was a thin wall of metal, shooting projectiles was a bad idea. ISF officers carried arms, but only when on guard or when they left the station.

  Whatever the enforcers’ reason for this constant checking, it was not helping the situation. These people had nothing to lose. They didn’t care about the station, about the mining operations, or about some far-off interstellar war.

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  THE LIFT DOORS OPENED and everyone streamed out, around the corner and into the main upstairs corridor, nicknamed Jalan Nusatera. There were no shops; this was where most people lived and slept. Most of the youths would walk to the end of the passage and take the stairs at the start of the sector down to JeJe. And, most likely, enforcers would be waiting for them, asking for their ID.

  Some things never changed.

  She turned right off Jalan Nusatera and then left, to a narrower parallel passage. Her unit was at the end, where the passage turned left again to rejoin Jalan Nusatera. Once inside, she sent a message to Uncle. Make sure you lock up well tonight. And she told him about the crowd of youths. Then she sent: I saw Rina. Everything fine with her?

  To which he replied, Why do you ask?

  She sensed defensiveness, which probably meant he didn’t want to talk about whatever arguments they’d had. Rina clamoured for independence and Uncle could be very stubborn about his rules and what young people should and shouldn’t do. And Rina would say that twenty-five wasn’t all that young.

  She could already hear what Grandma would say tomorrow. “The young ones have no respect anymore. When I came here . . .”

  It was easy for her to say. When she came, there were fewer people. People remembered Indonesia, and going back was the cause that held them together across generations. Also, Grandma made it sound like that time was better, but back then, the barang-barang had far fewer rights than they had now. They’d been poor, living in Jakarta’s overcrowded slums with no eduction, and had been forced into signing up “for free food and accommodation”. They never knew about the mines in the sky and didn’t understand what they signed up for or that they would never see Indonesia again.

  Melati threw a spoonful of instant tea into two cups and drew boiling water from the tap. She carried the steaming mugs into the living room, where the lights came on as she entered. A feeling of warmth, of home, came over her.

  She set both mugs on the table and said, “Good evening, Pak, how was your day?”

  It had been a good day, because she would feel cold if it hadn’t, if there were something wrong with the power, or the hub program had crashed again.

  “I have tea, if you want some.”

  One day, when StatOp discovered that she lived here alone and had three rooms to herself since the death of her parents, they would take this unit from her, but until that day it was her safe haven from the craziness outside. And when that day came, she would fight eviction, because Pak’s spirit would not take kindly to being removed from his home.

  Even if he never did drink his tea.

  She took his cup to the colourful, albeit frayed, rug in the corner. It had belonged to her other grandmother, who had brought it from Indonesia. Melati knelt on the rug and did her incantations and prayers, facing in the direction communication would travel if she was able to send a message from here to Mecca, which she could not. Of course, the place where messages were really sent was the hub in the centre of the station, but you could not bow to the ceiling, so Wahid had done a lot of work to determine how the wiring went if you sent something to the hub. He had also translated the incantations from ancient Arabic, so that now all children whose parents cared enough to send them to the school would learn from him not just how to pray and how to be a good person, but also what the prayers meant.

  Never mind what others thought of his efforts in the StatOp council, Wahid was a good man, and it was a pity that he would retire at the end of his current term.

  After having attended to all that, she sat down at the table and tried to focus on the promise she had made to Ari.

  To construct a tokay’s mindbase she would have to start from scratch. During her ISF-sponsored studies, she had done a small project on basic mindbase programming. But her degree was in education, and although she helped determine the information that went into the wake-up module’s content, she did not program any of it. Her study had been limited to theory and scientific research.

  After finishing her qualification, she had backed up all the papers she’d used, taken the backup off ISF workspace and stored it at the data hub in the apartment. She hoped that, eight years later, the data was still there.

  She opened the directory in her reader and typed development of simple mindbases, and the pad showed a list that brought back a lot of memories.

  She flicked through the directory.

  There were the familiar papers on the development of the Grimshaw mindbase, ironically by Charlotte West of the Taurus Army. But those mindbases were much more complicated than what she was looking for.

  So she searched for other mindbases.

  The screen came up with a much shorter list, which included titles like Relationship between monkey and human mindbases and Interpreting results from rat mindbase results for human purposes.

  The very last paper in the list was called, Evidence for semi-autonomous movement by artificial intelligence files. What was that doing in this directory?

  She hit the back button before the realisation sank in: artificial intelligence files—mindbases. Semi-autonomous movement—mindbases moving by themselves.

  Well, what the . . .

  She went back and opened the document, written by Dr Ruby Selinger, Guru Artificial Intelligence, Ares II Station. Publication date some notation she didn’t recognise, 2115. Earth years.

  God. This was more than two hundred years old.

  This research had to be part of the very first mindbase technology that had been done on Earth by Allion Aerospace Ltd.

  If the original mindbase of Stephen Grimshaw was old, this research pre-dated him by almost a hundred years. Very few of the Allion papers had ever become public—private company and all that—and fewer still had been published in places people could still access. On top of that, Allion had grown to be the ISF’s major enemy, a technology-crazy, power-hungry community run like an empire by a board which considered only commercial viability and had no morals. There were rumours that the New Hyderabad baby cloning practice had something to do with them, that they had seeded the technology so that they could introduce sleeper viruses or spies into the community. That was the sort of thing they wo
uld do. Allion was about money, power, or both.

  Melati scanned the pages. The paper was short and documented only an observation, not a full-blown trial.

  Even back when Allion and ISF worked together, Allion used a very different mindbase encoding language, and with the translation references mentioned in the work out of her reach, Melati couldn’t decipher the code examples in the paper’s fifteen pages. But the Discussion section made up for the lack of clarity of the code.

  It was written in archaic language that, way back when she was a student, she had run through a translator. She didn’t even remember seeing this back then. She probably hadn’t realised the significance.

  In case of the complete brain code KZ163, it was clear that it had autonomously made changes to its parameters, without commands given by programs or people outside the storage device. Therefore, it seems fair to say that this stored brain code had developed limited consciousness while not activated in a live body.

  The mindbase in question had moved itself from one directory to another. A minor change, but a major fact in mindbase research. How could she or anyone work with them if the modules were prepared for a wake-up sequence and overnight the mindbases rearranged themselves?

  Could that possibly have happened with Keb?

  She felt cold. Was it her imagination or did the lights dim for a second?

  “What do you think, Pak? Am I crazy? No one seems to have a clue what’s happened.”

  The door rumbled aside. Melati gasped and turned around.

  “Working late, Melati?” Ari came in, carrying his plastic container.

  “You gave me such a fright!” Her heart was hammering. Had he heard her talking to Pak? That would be so embarrassing.

  He sat down opposite her at the table and put the box down. The tokay inside skittered across the plastic.

  “Same one?” she asked.

  “Yep. I caught it.” He nodded at her screen. “What are you doing?”

  “Some work.”

  He squinted at the screen, and she felt the urge to shut it down before he saw the Allion name. He’d be all over her for telling him off about who to associate with while she sat here reading reports written by the evil corporation responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.