Small Miracles

by Edward M. Lerner

  And knowing him just as well, Kim caught on. “The one thing you’re not forthcoming about is how to stop this.”

  Everyone had a right to exist, even the Emergent. (And the personalities the Emergent would dominate? What about their rights? And what about the casualties from today’s bombings? It was a calculus too subtle for Brent to sort out, and One was entirely amoral.) All Brent could do was set his own limits—and be thankful that, bound to this post, his new resolve wasn’t put to the test.

  Kim turned away and flipped the hood over her head. From the set of her shoulders she was determined to act—and already all but defeated.

  Soon the others would leave, distribute the bots, and scatter to produce many more like themselves. His duty to his creations would be discharged. He could not let Kim go—not because she could stop the Emergent, but because he cared what happened to her. He had to keep her here. He had to run out the clock. The others, if they caught her, would not be kind.

  He/One were many times smarter than she. Surely they could entice her to stay.

  “Kim, you have no idea how amazing Emergence is. You couldn’t possibly. Maybe once we’re not at risk of extinction, we can do proper controlled experiments and find the best way to make the transformation. Give us a year or two and we’ll know more about the meaning of consciousness than philosophers and neurologists have learned—ever.”

  She stopped. Intrigued despite herself or happy for the diversion? “What do you mean?”

  Brent lowered his voice as though confiding a secret. He leaned/sagged forward as much as his restraints would allow. “Not one scientist in the world today knows what consciousness is. If something in your brain makes you self-aware, what’s in it to make it aware? And where does the recursion stop? Surely you’ve wondered: how do you know you’re you?”

  “Well … yes.”

  “The thing is, Kim, I have an independent observer inside my head. The bots are integrated with my neurons. They communicate through my neurons.” The words poured from Brent. To reveal now served his purpose as, for so many months, to conceal had. If talking would keep Kim here, he had much to say. “So I, and it, can examine up close how those masses of neurons cooperate. Is there a coalition of neurons for each element of awareness? Are neural ensembles permanent, or are they alliances of convenience to be disrupted by stimuli, memories, and thoughts? Are—”

  “Whatever,” Kim said. “None of that stopped you from doing terrible things.”

  He winced. “I was discussing consciousness, not conscience, but they’re not so far apart. Consciousness emerges from enough processing power, whether neurons or nanites. Ant colonies exhibit emergence on a lesser scale, with group behaviors no single ant comprehends. And bureaucracies blithely do things hardly any individual member would dream of doing.”

  “Like cripple and kill homeless people?”

  Brent recoiled as if slapped. Did it excuse anything that he hadn’t understood then what he was doing, or even that he was doing it? At some level surely he had known, just as he had accepted Morgan’s bland assurances about minimal casualties from the contingency-plan diversions.

  “If I can’t eavesdrop electronically, I guess I’ll go spy the old-fashioned way.” She hesitated, then tore off a six-inch chunk of duct tape. A gag. She didn’t trust him.

  Well, why should she?

  He was a bundle of nerves, twitchy and drained, his body still burning off the adrenaline overdose and untold other hormone surges. Cold-turkey withdrawal from the ’net ached like a tooth newly pulled. He was hyped and depressed and struggling with himself, conflicted and frustrated.

  All he knew for certain was he wanted to keep Kim here. Safe.

  He twisted away as she approached with the tape. “Everyone is leaving. They were already loading trucks”—trussed up like this, Brent had to guess—“call it an hour ago. It’s too late now to stop them, so don’t even try to interfere with the stragglers. It can’t serve any useful purpose.”

  “An hour ago?” She considered. “When I last went for water, a few people were moving about the factory.”

  “Removing stuff to the loading dock?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Then they’re looking for me, Kim. I doubt they’ll believe I beat myself to a bruised, bloody pulp. If they find me, they’ll know to look for you. Cut me loose. We need to hide someplace better than this.”

  “I wish I could trust you, Brent.” Tears welling up in her eyes, Kim slapped the tape over his mouth.

  He wished he could trust him.

  Kim dashed off, leaving him to worry helplessly about her.

  * * *

  The last SUV pulled away from Garner Nanotech, hauling a crated reaction vat and a small part of the nanobot inventory. Tyra drove, with Felipe riding shotgun. Both wore nanosuits beneath their coats.

  Good luck, Morgan IMed.

  Thanks, Tyra replied just before they exceeded WiFi range and she dropped off the link.

  Charles shared the loading dock, so recently the locus of purposeful frenzy, with just Morgan and Have-Mercy Ramirez. The only other Emergent left in the building were the three guards still searching for Brent Cleary—and Cleary himself, of course. Unlike the rest, Charles didn’t wear a nanosuit. None of the Army trial units, alas, could accommodate his tall frame.

  Well, Cleary didn’t have a suit, either. If by some fluke Brent had grabbed the suit still unaccounted for, the joke was on him. The missing nanosuit would be at least six inches too short.

  Behind the factory, open field beckoned, snow covered and pristine. Time to go, Charles sent to Morgan.

  Morgan: Cleary’s a loose end.

  Charles: As he’s been for an hour now. The complex was nearly two hundred thousand square feet. That was a lot of territory to search, and too many possible hiding places. We’re ready to go. Continued searching is counterproductive. Once we seal the building—which was already sealed, except for the loading dock—Brent won’t be going anywhere.

  Have-Mercy looked about uncertainly, out of the loop and doubtless puzzled that the three of them were just standing there.

  Morgan, stubbornly: Okay, we’ll go, but why shouldn’t the others keep looking for now? It’s insurance, in case Cleary tries something we didn’t think of. And it gives us a rear guard.

  Brent come up with something they hadn’t anticipated? That was patent nonsense, verging on ancestor worship. Charles sent: We’ll need a way to recall your rear guard.

  Understood. Morgan added Have-Mercy to the link. Merry, after we go we’d like to maintain comm with the rear guards here. What’s your recommendation?

  Merry: Reconnect a router to an incoming fiber-optic cable. Once we leave the WiMax outage zone in and around Utica, the comm path opens: from our specs to any functioning WiMax tower onto the Internet. The reconnected cable brings the Internet into the building, and then it’s WiFi and specs as usual for the guards.

  Morgan: Excellent. But first shut down WiFi all around the core of the building. If anyone in the auditorium has a WiFi-enabled phone, we don’t want them to signal out.

  Merry: Can do. So shall I?

  It was clear enough how Morgan wanted to proceed—and that Morgan would defer, however unhappily, to Charles’s decision. The transition of leadership had already begun. This was, Charles decided, a moment to be magnanimous. Do it, Merry.

  In minutes, the router connection was restored and tested. The building periphery had Internet access again. The search for Brent continued. And Charles, one on one, reconfirmed with Morgan that nothing and no one could interrupt the final cleanup.

  Morgan and Have-Mercy hopped onto one of the snowmobiles. Charles took another. The building sealed behind them, they raced away, engines growling, in separate directions across the snowy park, to new lives.

  friday, 3:30 P.M., january 20, 2017

  After Kim left, more adrenaline surged through Brent’s veins. He raged and strained against his bonds. Without breaki
ng him/them free, One’s latest intervention added to his bruises.

  One might have released endorphins against the pain; One chose to do nothing. Brent asked for endorphins; again, it did nothing.

  Instead, it sulked.

  Brent’s head pounded. His arms and legs ached from being held in one position. His rear end was petrified from the hard floor. His wrists chafed from their bonds. His cheeks hurt like hell where the tape gag tugged at his beard. He was hungry, thirsty, and needed to pee. An ear began to itch, and then his nose again.

  Okay, so One didn’t sulk. To sulk required the taking of offense, and One had no emotions, no values, beyond personal survival. Its silence, and the suffering it permitted, sent a message: defy me again at your peril. Or perhaps the only meaning was: try harder.

  The longer Brent waited, the more aches, pains, itches, and urges manifested themselves. He was powerless, and One unwilling, to do anything about them. When Brent tried to divert himself with some of the infinitesimal fraction—but still many gigabytes—of the Internet downloaded into One’s processors, One responded, simply, No.

  The punishment wasn’t quite sensory deprivation, because Brent could hardly plan an escape while cut off from his senses. The silent treatment and the withholding of mental stimulus were meant to focus him on escape. Part of him tried.

  And part of him, in the neglected recesses of the mind that remained wholly his, was able, for the first time in a long time, to make itself noticed. The imagery it dredged up wounded far more deeply than any physical complaint.

  The lives he had usurped. The blood spilled today. The plague of transformations the dispersed Emergent would soon unleash. The crime wave about to be launched, to finance a bot factory in some Third World haven.

  And he had begun it all, sanctioned it all.

  Not Griffiss, countered the cool, dispassionate part of Brent most integrated with One. Others made that decision and overruled you.

  Even that was a rationalization. He had transformed Charles and Morgan and many of the rest. He had agreed to various contingency plans, and acquiesced to more, and turned a blind eye to yet others the group might consider, “just in case.”

  For what further atrocities did his creations lay plans—just in case—even now?

  With bombs and robots and cyberattacks, small groups waged war against nations. Equip an insurgency with Emergent minds, bulletproof nanosuits, and Morgan’s counterterrorism expertise—and things could get very ugly, very quickly.

  Feeling closer to human than he had in weeks, Brent wept.

  * * *

  Kim watched two figures methodically explore the factory floor. A third checked out the R & D area, disappearing and reappearing cyclically at the ends of successive office aisles.

  Brent was right: a search was underway. Barring some change in the search pattern, she had perhaps twenty minutes before Brent was discovered. Fewer, if there were searchers she had yet to spot.

  Her spying had revealed yet another problem: the searchers wore nanosuits. They didn’t use them in camo mode, perhaps so they wouldn’t surprise each other. If they found her, her nanosuit wouldn’t offer any advantage.

  She stood stock still, a yellow suit against a yellow wall. When both factory searchers happened to face away, she rushed on tiptoe to the side area where factory supervisors had their offices. Room by room she popped laptops from their docking cradles. She returned the way she had come bearing an armful of laptops.

  Her newest idea was to find a WiMax-equipped laptop. In WiFi mode, her phone hadn’t reached beyond the building, but WiMax interfaces were higher powered. A WiMax-equipped computer might directly reach another WiMax-equipped computer outside the building.

  Everything she had scavenged turned out to use WiFi. Not entirely surprising—foremen didn’t get top-of-the-line gear—but still a disappointment. R & D had plenty of laptops with WiMax, the one on her desk to begin with, but she wasn’t about to play cat and mouse with whoever was searching the hallways of R & D.

  Now what?

  Most of the laptops had antennas integrated into their cases, but on a couple the antennas were removable. If she swapped the standard omnidirectional antenna for a directional aerial, she should get better range in that direction. Maybe she could reach a WiFi hotspot outside this building.

  She could spend days searching the storerooms, not knowing that a suitable part was even here. She permitted herself five minutes, and found nothing helpful. If she were online, she could figure out how to improvise an antenna. If she were online, she wouldn’t need to.

  Dwelling on what she didn’t have accomplished nothing.

  Something else about laptops flitted across Kim’s mind. Fierce concentration did nothing to capture the elusive notion. She slid the laptops beneath parts shelves, where a cursory peek into the room might not reveal them, and went off to check on Brent and in search of fresh inspiration.

  * * *

  Alone, helpless, Brent wallowed in despair.

  The mystery was that One responded with neither comment nor chemical intervention. Human nature was something no amount of web surfing could truly explain. Perhaps One expected its snubbing to render Brent more malleable.

  Soon enough he began to worry One might be right.

  He kept asking the time. Either the messages never got across or One ignored them. Not knowing how long he had been here made every speculation worse. Had the Emergent made good their escape? Had Kim been caught? What would the others do to her?

  It took several tries, but Brent struggled to his feet. Standing proved marginally more comfortable, but the change did nothing for his spirits.

  He could delude himself for only so long. What truly tormented him was not isolation; it was clarity. Without distractions, the guilt grew and grew.

  This nightmare began with him trying to save people. Chasing the kids away from the pipeline in Angleton—that had to have been a good thing, right?

  A good thing, sneered his more cynical side, or good intentions? With which is the road to Hell paved? Maybe by charging out of the dark, startling the thieves, he caused the accident. A monstrous act, if true.

  How fitting, then, his own monstrous transformation. Perhaps there was more than concussion behind his memory loss. Maybe he wanted to forget.

  Now those Brent had changed had triggered more explosions, brought on more deaths and injuries. More guilt lay on his shoulders.

  It was too much. Too much! He wanted—needed—to confess everything. If only Kim would return, if only she could bear to listen … maybe, together, they would find a way to act. His conscience could not bear more violence or forced conversions.

  And then Kim was back, and she must have seen the tears welling up in his eyes. She removed the tape gag, apologizing profusely at the whiskers stuck to the tape. What did physical pain matter? He hardly noticed. He opened his mouth to speak—

  And One clamped down, hard.

  * * *

  “Chh-gu-gug,” Brent managed.

  Say nothing, One wrote across his vision. Do not betray me again.

  As though he could. Still, One had given the warning for a reason. Its control was less than absolute.

  All right, One wasn’t going to permit a confessional. Still, not that long ago, Brent had defied One long enough to save Kim’s life. Maybe he could defy his inner demon long enough to get the essential message across. The Emergent had an Achilles’ heel. It was their—

  Pain!

  His body spasmed, on fire. His stomach heaved. Vomit splattered everywhere, then clear stomach juices. What was One doing to him? Old memories? Neurotransmitter signal cascades? He couldn’t concentrate enough to figure it out.

  Why worry how? The message he had for Kim was the important thing: VR specs were the Emergents’ vulnerability. If he could only explain, only force out a few words. “Gl … g-gl,” he stuttered.

  Kim stared in horror. “Aaron’s in the auditorium. I’ll get him.”

  An
d get caught by whoever was searching for me.

  Brent shook his head vigorously, heartened to have even that much control. “No” was a short word, and he managed to speak it.

  “No” was the best he could manage. Speech wouldn’t do. Another minute or two of this pain and he would surely black out.

  Now tears streamed down Kim’s face. “Stop it, Brent! Stop whatever you’re trying to do before it kills you.”

  VR glasses. Head shakes. The need to stop this madness. Send Kim a message. VR glasses. Head shakes.… Snatches of thought, disjointed, chased each other around his brain. How could he hope to communicate anything?

  The futility of hope was bitterer than the taste of vomit in his mouth.

  Head shake. Head shake. What else could he move? A possible communication flashed across Brent’s mind, brilliant and cryptic. Would One understand, and stop him? Would Kim understand him anyway?

  After so many surgeries, so much PT, Brent knew all about pain—but this was different. Fire seared along every nerve. He used everything he had learned and set the agony aside. Everything now depended on a bit of mime.

  Kim was facing him. Shuffling, twisting, he worked his way almost a quarter turn around the pole. He caught her eye, then glanced down meaningfully at his bound hands. He began tapping randomly, spastically, against the post.

  She shook her head, confusion plain on her face.

  He kept up the erratic tapping and started pursing his lips. Tapping. Pursing. Tapping and pursing.

  One didn’t get what Brent was doing or it couldn’t stop him—and it made its displeasure even clearer. The pain, somehow, ratcheted up even more.

  He hissed in anguish but kept going. Tap. Purse. Tap-tap.

  Pain!

  Purse. Tap-tap. Purse …

  Just as Brent blacked out from the pain, understanding illuminated Kim’s face.

  * * *

  Suddenly, gloriously, Charles’s VR specs returned to life. He had crossed the park.

  Charles launched his snowmobile over a mogul for the sheer joy of it. He throttled down then and drove cautiously to the crest of a low ridge, coasting to a stop beside a stand of scruffy hemlocks. City streets began a mere twenty yards downhill. He didn’t see any police cruisers.