She sighed and shifted her attention to the AI. “All right you. You wanted the world’s attention. Well, here I am? My web channel is the most popular on the internet. Try getting this kind of exposure with the primetime news feeds, I dare you.”
The “washing machine” deigned to speak. “It’s a suicide club. They met on the internet and agreed to take the ride together. They reached out to me in advance, of course, to solicit my cooperation. I checked the jurisprudence records in this state, which allows for euthanasia with the permission of the participants. All the necessary paperwork has been filed with their attorneys. I assure you everything was above board. You can of course consult the video surveillance and the internet chatter to your heart’s content.”
“You’re spoiling all my fun!” Notchka screamed. “How am I supposed to be the most successful fourteen year old detective in the world if I don’t get the most sensationalist crimes to investigate? You’ve failed me entirely!”
Kendra caught up with them. “They’re all sporting tags saying, ‘Just Do it’. I looked it up. It’s a suicide club. So we’re done here. Anyone for some fast food?”
“I guess,” Notchka said, sounding deflated.
“Remember your own sage advice, dear?” Torin said, grabbing the back of her head. “We’re all about quick recoveries around here.”
“Done in by a socially conscious AI. I tell you, today is the worst.” Notchka stomped off.
“I don’t know,” Torin said to Kendra, who alone remained in earshot. “We saved the world and patched up the family, even if it is just a patch job for now. All in all, a lot of deep and meaningful in that, squeezed from the sum and sundry sensationalist headlines like blood from a turnip.”
“Speaking of the family, what happened to them?” Kendra asked, scanning for her dad and Torin’s parents.
“I don’t know. You’re the investigator. You were complaining you didn’t have anything to do earlier.”
She sighed. “I suppose finding them is my penance for speaking out of turn.”
They walked on, allegedly to regroup with the rest of the family, but there was no rush; it felt more like aimless wandering of the semi-retired Coney Island Park. The rides were too rusted anymore to be all that reliable. Maybe now that the suicide clubs had latched on to it, it would see a kind of resurgence in popularity, reminiscent of the good old days.
Their heads turned in tandem to the sounds of gunfire on Manhattan Island. It was all too common of an occurrence. “What a strange post-apocalyptic world we’ve inherited,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know, better than the one in Terminator. In that movie, the robots were trying to eliminate the humans. Those gunshots you hear are the gangs having a little fun with the Peace bots, using them for target practice. Laughing their asses off, no doubt, when the robot turns around and tries to calm them with quips like, ‘I’m sure we can talk this out.’”
“They won’t justify spending the money on hiring more human cops. Just like they won’t spend a dime on urban renewal. With nothing but the SWAT class robots to put down the riots, it’s another advertisement declaring there’s really no one left to care what they do to themselves or to one another.”
“I remain positive that the one percent will see reason in time,” Torin said. “Sooner or later they’ll realize it’s better to stop trying to squeeze ninety-nine percent of the wealth out of ninety-nine percent of the people to concentrate it in their hands. Makes them as much a prisoner in their fortress worlds.”
They continued to navigate the cracks in the asphalt, having to jump over some as if playing a game of hopscotch. “You and your endless optimism,” she said. “I tell you what their solution is. Every once in a while they let me arrest a one percenter, a sacrificial goat, stealing from the public trust, and reapportion his funds to charitable ends. Just so they can show justice is served, and all is right with the world.”
“I grant you, common sense is a bit late in coming to those whose minds are bent on greed, avarice, and the rest of the seven deadly sins. But in time, even the most self-serving see that it’s in their best interest to share enough of the wealth to get the whole economic engine turning again. Cheap enough just to stick a chip in people’s heads, make them God’s answer to whatever, insta-geniuses and master innovators in any number of fields.”
“God help us,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s all we need is runaway tech. Nano plagues. Robot wars between one generation and the last one on line. Someone needs to put the brakes on in an Age of Abundance just as surely as it was needed in the preceding Age of Scarcity.”
“Maybe. But if enough people have the human upgrades, that’s a lot of people keeping everyone else in check. And if there is enough diversity in the AI community as well, we might just end up with a self-sustainable ecosystem of AI and human hybrids, all magnificently interwoven and interdependent in ways so complex our simple human minds could never fathom. A world filled possibly with even more crises than we have now, more fires to put out, but one that is paradoxically all the more sustainable because the intelligence of sentient life is migrated to the system itself, each of us but neurons in this larger brain.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about an Age of Abundance twenty or thirty years into the future, as it continues to ripen. Should give me time to swallow that pill. Let’s hope there’s something to this benign group mind idea of yours, whose good will is predicated on the fact that only through interdependence does the entire upgraded biosphere survive.”
They were having to lay planks down now to cross some of the cracks in the asphalt that had widened into crevasses. “You’ve heard of the Gaia hypothesis?” Torin said, testing the plank’s strength on all fours before he’d let Kendra cross it. “That Mother Nature herself is just such a distributed intelligence, that it alone is powerful enough to keep everything in check? I guess what I’m postulating is a future version of that, with Gaia augmented by all kinds of AI working at all kinds of levels, from nanotech infesting the earth and informing farmers on soil conditions to AI harvesters and soil tenders and irrigators and fly-over-surveillance drones assessing which crops need the most attention, all working together to maximize yield and potential. Now just extend that farming analogy to…” He could tell he was losing her, and that her attention was drifting, because he stopped himself midsentence. “Suppose we’ll have to wait for the post-apocalyptic New-York-look fad to wear off before we see any of that,” he mumbled to himself, angry he had to do her side of the conversation for her.
“What’s really troubling you?” he said. He must have read the concern on her face as something out of proportion with the subject matter they were discussing, though she couldn’t fathom how; the subject matter was more than suitably depressing to her way of thinking. Still, this was Torin, when he wasn’t busy being psychic, he knew her well enough to translate the slightest shifting nuances of her expressions.
“I guess I never realized what an anchor my neuroses were until today. This feeling more healed and whole on account of patching the wounds on our inner child, on account of better relations with our parents, and of reinterpreting our past like some piece of revisionist history literature, is for the birds.”
“I don’t know. I think Notchka had it right earlier. If there was ever a chance in history to let go of all the baggage we’re carrying around, this is it. We may not know who we are divorced from the crippling traumas which shaped us. But there’s something liberating in that.”
They stopped and regarded the “grand canyon” of crevasses like a couple vacationers using the vista to steady their minds and invite serenity. “I guess there’s also something reassuring in waking up each morning and knowing I’m doing what I’m doing out of love and not reactive fear from something that happened in my past,” she said.
“That’s the real anchor. If we can anneal the dark and light side of our natures, then we can find meaning and patterns in all this chaos, which requires t
he same cohesive, integral psychology.”
“We done with the spin control yet?”
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “I guess it’ll be a while before we can do more than talk the talk, and actually walk the walk.”
“I wonder how the other versions of ourselves in the parallel universes closest to us are coping?”
“Hopefully better now that we’ve done all the hard work for them.”
She laughed. “Yeah, right.
THE SOLARIS TIMELINE
THIRTY-SEVEN
Clyde materialized alongside Notchka on the desert world they meant to infect next with his virus. It looked to Notchka as if Clyde was pulling a face, but he was just squinting against the sun. “I know it doesn’t look like much,” he said, “but the desert people here live underground to shield themselves from the sun. The problem is it dampens their ability to make the most of the cosmic Ley lines they’re so adjacent to. Before their thoughts can affect others at a distance, it first has to penetrate the harsh mantle. Which up until now has proven quite the hi-tech psychic insulator, considering the rare-earth metals found there. But once the citizens are exposed to my virus, I don’t think the mantle is going to prove much of an obstacle.”
“How is it you know more about these places than I do, before we even get here? I’m the psychic one.”
“Your visions, of course. They may not make sense to you. But I designed your unconscious like a search beacon scanning for just what was most important to me.”
He looked for a clear sense of direction across the featureless expanse, found none. Even the deep cracks in the mud seemed to lead every which way. “I suppose this path is as good as any other. Suppose it was too much to ask just to beam us straight to where I needed to go.”
“A rhetorical question if I ever heard one.”
“You’re monitoring those four timelines I asked you to, right?” Clyde asked, setting the pace for them. “I don’t care about the versions of Kendra and Torin in the other timelines.”
“Yes, Clyde.” Notchka hit him with the obligatory eye roll. “You never did tell me why those four timelines.”
“When I kept you in that induced coma for over a year, it was to find the timelines that would present the greatest threat to my plans.”
“Sometimes I forget what a nice person you are. Thanks for reminding me.”
“It was for the greater good, Notchka. How many times have we talked about the greater good?”
“And how do you know I didn’t use my coma-time to create links between those timelines? To find ways for thoughts and ideas to bleed through between them? To find subtle ways for those versions of Torin and Kendra to be more than just a threat to you, but the perfect antidote to your particular brand of madness?” A vulture screeched overhead to convey Clyde’s reaction for him, which his face continued to belie.
“Don’t be like that, Notchka.”
The vulture’s cries seemed to echo and echo, fading only slowly, suggesting just how many shockwaves she’d sent rippling through Clyde’s mind. “Some people need to be taught a lesson in proper parenting.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I never shared the full extent of my plans with you.”
She hit him with the big dramatic sigh. “Maybe we can put this one-upping one another game on hold for a while. I’m getting quite bored with it.”
“Fine.”
An hour or so later, Clyde took his bearings again, frustrated that there was still no indication of entrances to a subterranean world, or any signs the planet held life at all. Besides the odd crows feeding on carrion. The buzzards were starting to circle more overhead, as if sensing their next meal. Deciding he needed to make better use of his time, he said, “Maybe you can tell me what Kendra and Torin are doing in these four timelines?”
“They’re learning to surrender to something other than their fears. Namely their higher power. You might do well to take a page from their playbook.” From the way he was looking at those vultures overhead, his fears were clearly getting the better of him.
“What are they using exactly as a self-salvation project?”
“In the Praxis timeline, the higher power they default to for guidance is the Davenport/Kardassian dyad. Using the gay couple’s strengths in the hi-tech sector to balance their weaknesses. In the Nexus timeline, it’s synchronicities. In the Solaris timeline, it’s the city AI. They toy with synchronicities for a while, but decided it wasn’t for them. In the Thombari timeline, it’s me. I’m their higher power.”
Clyde chuckled. “Like addicts. Looking for all the right things in all the wrong places.”
“Looks to me like you’re looking for all the right solutions in all the wrong places yourself.”
He hadn’t heard her or at least he hadn’t processed what she was saying. The landscape was frustrating his sense of direction too much. The hills to either side of them kept shifting, much like dunes. It was their constantly changing perspective, of course, that lent them that appearance, coinciding with the lapses in concentration. “How can they view any of those methods for getting over themselves as better than what I offer?”
“I have to admit, they’re not terribly bright. They have yet to figure out that if they want to surrender to their higher power, the best way is just to fine tune the connection to their inner voice. But at least they know to surrender to their higher power.” She gave him an accusatory look. “Sometimes the brighter you are, the harder it is to see the importance of that, and all the easier to inflate your opinion of yourself beyond all reason.” She swatted the fly from her face. “That was a hint, not that you’re any good at picking up hints.”
“I hear what I need to.”
“Well, hear this. Shouldn’t they have the right to evolve and grow at their own pace?” She fell out of pace with him to illustrate her point, forcing him to slow, and vexing him all the more. “The right to face down their demons in their admittedly plodding way in hopes of being all they can be? That seems more natural to me than you forcing enlightenment on them just because you’re better at it.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Besides, I think their developmental angst is kind of cute. Reminds me of myself.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? In all four timelines they’re determined to heal their hurt inner child, and to undo the psychological damage done to them as kids. Their idea is that all crime, all evil is perpetrated by villains with a hurt inner child. Tell me that diagnosis doesn’t have OUR names written all over it.” This time he slowed his march to throw her a dirty look. “They believe if they can heal that hurt inner child then they can release the psychic energy trapped in that part of their minds, bring it to bear on solving their cases, which ought to make it all the easier to find you and trap you. Personally, I think it’s an ass-backwards way of pursuing an investigation, but the argument is not without its merits.”
“Enough, Notchka! I need you to focus on helping me with finding a way out of this maze.”
“Why do you think I put you in it? So you could have time to clear your head. Where was I? That’s right. Kendra and Torin keep pursuing these seemingly unrelated cases, all in an effort to not get sucked into chasing you down. Why you ask? Because they’re tired playing the victim. They’ve got this wild idea that reality is entirely co-created by people who find their way towards one another by matching neuroses. Here’s the thing. Every seemingly unrelated case they follow leads them right back to you. Is it their unconscious in the driver’s seat? The City AIs? Or is the entire universe itself conspiring to bring us and them together? If the universe, then what does that say about your project? You claim to speak to God, but it looks to me like God is speaking to them.”
“You done toying with me yet?”
She stopped her hiking and sighed. “I suppose if you’re determined to be this dense, any further torture is a waste of time.” She waved her hand and at once the subterranean world was before t
hem.
Notchka grimaced. “Well, I see you’re past playing to my childhood fantasies. These people are positively grisly. Are they even people?”
“They do look a bit more like machines, don’t they? Must be having to make do with the strange rear earth elements down here as a cradle for life.”
Clyde noted the illumination within the cavern was coming from the phosphorescent innards of the creatures themselves. It was a bit like looking at a metropolis at night, only, one where the buildings and its inhabitants were all moving about and shapeshifting, linking up, then breaking apart again.
“It’s like a game of Robo-LEGOs,” Notchka said, “that plays itself.”
“I wonder why they’ve taken no notice of us.”
“Duh. We pair of meat sacks. We must strike them as a bizarre form of animated trees. If we’re not careful someone will try and plant us in their living room.”
“I guess I better get on with it.”
“Why? What makes you think amplifying their thoughts to broadcast across the heavens with your serum, like brightening a lighthouse beacon, is going to keep sentient lifeforms—the ships in this analogy—from crashing against the shore? Likely to play more like the Sirens of Ulysses, and drive everyone mad.”
“You’ll see when the time comes.” Clyde retrieved the vial from his pouch of such vials, loaded his dart gun, took aim at one of the inhabitants he’d chosen as his “disease” spreading vector, and fired.
Suddenly, all movement in the underground cavern—big enough to swallow multiple Philadelphia train stations—came to a jarring stop. Then all heads craned toward Clyde. In so much as buildings and bizarre looking creatures could be said to have heads. Then everything was still again, but not exactly in a calming way.
Then Clyde and Notchka were rushed. The machine people were all a whirl of curiosity over Clyde’s gun. They still hadn’t much registered Clyde or her. They were running tests on the gun, photographing it, x-raying it, dismembering it, reassembling it.
Time Bandits (Age of Abundance Book 1) Page 34
