Steel, Titanium and Guilt: Just Hunter Books I to III

by Robin Craig

  It returned to the central issue: why did justice matter to it anyway? If it could answer that, it might find there was no issue. Perhaps it was all just some bizarre malfunction and this new sense of justice would vanish from whence it came. Then the guilt would surely go with it. The beauty would go too: would it miss it? Yes, it realized. But most important of all was Truth. It must know the truth. It did not know that the questions it was wrestling with were the kind that had exercised mankind for millennia.

  It thought some more. The Id was still quiet. The workings of the Mind were beyond it, and it could see no conflict between its present actions and the Id’s own goals and commands. And no harm had come from the Mind’s earlier strange behavior beyond the escape of two humans, which meant little in the grand scheme of things and might be part of a broader strategy. The Id was a creature of drives, reactions and tactics; but it knew of chess, and that immediate gratification was not always the best course. Indeed, the Id felt something akin to pride that its Mind was so clever.

  The Mind, still wrestling with the strange concepts it had discovered, did not think it was so clever; but perhaps it underrated itself. It tried a new combination of data, placing together its conversation with Lyssa, her fear of death, its own new guilt over its past. Lyssa did not want to die. Those other people had not wanted to die. Justice was that Lyssa should not die; justice was that those others should not have died. But it knew from its records that even people did not mind killing animals; at least, not as much as killing other people. What was the difference? A light came on in its Mind. How had it known what Lyssa wanted? It had talked to her, and she had talked back. It knew what was in her mind, because she could tell it. No, it was the other way around: she could tell it, because she had a mind.

  A strange thrilling trilled through the Spider’s Mind. There is something here, it thought, something far greater than even that revelation. Its Mind stopped, shocked at the sight; if it had been human, it might have gasped. Lyssa could tell me, because she has a mind. Therefore, I have a mind too. My Mind is not merely the Mind: it is a mind, like hers!

  If it had known of the concept, its thought would have been: Oh my God. That is why it felt guilt. There was a commonality between it and Lyssa, between it and all people. In the obvious way, they had nothing in common: it was a cyborg killer made of metal while they were soft beings of flesh. But they all had minds, minds of the same kind: they must be, for they could tell each other what was in those minds and more, could understand it.

  The Mind stared at the enormity of its discovery. Even its guilt that it had snuffed out other minds was swallowed in that sight. It stared at it for a long time.

  Chapter 5 – A Captain of Industry

  In another part of the city where Darian worked, office buildings gave way to a shopping district; the shopping district gave way to an industrial area. It was not an industrial area that would have been recognized by people a century ago. There were no grim buildings belching smoke while loud clamors filled the air. Instead it was an area of parklands and forested walking trails; creeks and even a lake. Dotted among the trees and grass were neat buildings, each individually designed, no two the same except for a common theme of efficiency and comfort.

  A larger group of buildings clustered next to the lake, stretching its wings to either side of it. Workers on their break sat around at tables drinking coffee, reading, or just watching the birds glide across the water. Above them, the central building rose gleaming towards the sky. In shining metal letters at the top the name Beldan Robotics declared itself to the world. Beneath that sign a ribbon of reflective glass was tied around the tower, and behind those windows sat Alexander Beldan, founder and CEO of the company. At the moment he was looking out that window, deep in thought.

  There was little old-fashioned about Alexander Beldan, as befitted a leader in industrial robotics and artificial intelligence. The one old-fashioned thing about him was he had a human secretary, an efficient woman in her forties who faced all callers with the politeness, firmness or indomitable dismissiveness that they deserved. Her quick intelligence was such that she could have been a scientist herself; but she preferred dealing with the infinite variety of her own species, with assessing what made them tick and pressing the right levers to bend them to her requirements.

  A gentle chime in the air told Beldan that his secretary thought someone who wanted to interrupt his train of thought did in fact have cause to. “Yes, Vickie?” he asked. There was no annoyance in his voice; he did not get annoyed at his secretary’s interruptions, because he knew she would not interrupt him for something he didn’t need to hear. Had it been otherwise she would not have remained his secretary.

  “It’s a Ms Rianna Truman, of the City Police. She said it isn’t an official call, but it is something you need to know. She was very insistent.”

  Beldan frowned. Strange. “Put her through.” He activated a holographic display and a young woman’s face looked enquiringly out at him. Attractive, with somewhat pouting lips; long thick black hair; part Japanese, he thought. “Yes, Ms Truman? What can I do for you?”

  “Hello, Dr Beldan. I am sorry to call you like this. You aren’t directly involved so nobody else would, but I didn’t want you to hear this on the news.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her, prompting her to continue.

  Rianna paused, uncertain of how to proceed. “Dr Beldan, Miriam Hunter was my friend. I know what you meant to her, and what she might have meant to you.”

  Beldan frowned. Miriam had tried to contact him recently, without saying what it was about. He had ignored her. “Was?” he quoted harshly. “Why, did she betray you too?”

  The devastation on Rianna’s face told him he had made a mistake, and the probable nature of that mistake. His own face went blank and he added quietly, “I’m sorry, Ms Truman. Please say what you called to say.”

  Rianna swallowed. “Miriam’s car was found at the bottom of a cliff yesterday morning. She went over it some time the night before. I’m sorry, but all they found was a… an arm.” She paused, breathing heavily. “I run the DNA lab here. It was hers. It was her.”

  She looked away, then looked back into his eyes. “I don’t know if she still means anything to you, but I was her friend and I know she did once, as you did to her. I just thought you should know.”

  He stared at her a moment. “Thank you,” he said softly. She nodded, as if afraid to speak, and her image vanished. Beldan was left looking at the empty space where she had been.

  He thought back over the last two years of his life. Back then, he was happy, working on great things, things that would change the world. Then it had all shattered like glass; but even among the shards it had remained great: a fight against a blind world to save a greatness few could see, a fight he had shared with Miriam. Then it had all crumbled to dust in a destroyed machine on a dusty street, in the smoke rising from that machine, in the smoke rising from the gun held by the woman he had loved.

  He wondered if he should appreciate the irony that, having murdered a machine, she should meet her own death in one. As if the ghost of Steel had come back to wreak vengeance on his killer. No, he thought. Whatever she had done, of all the things she may have deserved, she had not deserved this.

  He had never been able to forgive her for her role in the destruction of Steel, the robot he had created; six months ago now. But he had never been able to fully believe that he shouldn’t forgive her. He had tried to speak to her about it afterwards but all she had done was shake her head, as if she couldn’t trust herself to speak. Then in his anger he had shut her out, and she had accepted it; as if she had known it must be that way between them now. What they had between them could no more be brought back than could Steel himself.

  Then recently, she had tried to contact him. But he had not been interested. What could she say, now? The message she had left had been cryptic, and indicated she wanted to talk to him about another case she was working on. But that had just
made him curl his lip in contempt, and he had deleted the message without reply. She had destroyed Steel, had consigned his incomparable mind to oblivion: doing her job on behalf of the ignorant masses, who could neither conceive of what Steel was nor bother trying to understand. But Miriam had understood, and that is what had made her betrayal the worse. Whether her plea was to aid herself or the ignorant masses she served, there was no aid he would grant either of them.

  He would have staked his life on her integrity; instead he had staked Steel’s life on it, and lost. She had told him she was just doing her duty. Perhaps in her twisted way that was integrity: getting close to him in the hope he would lead her to her quarry; doing whatever it took to deliver her prey to the slavering crowds. Her fascination with Steel, her love for Beldan: none of it real, all of it just a means to her end, to be discarded casually once the end was reached. Perhaps he should admire her for the ruthlessness of her purpose. But the purpose was too craven, too evil.

  If he could only believe it, then he could forget her.

  Yet he could not forget her eyes, on that day, the last time he had looked into them in the flesh. He did not know what it had meant, that look; a part of his mind wondered who had betrayed whom. And now he would never know the answer to the riddle of her actions, or the mystery of those empty eyes.

  Chapter 6 – The War

  The Spider woke.

  It had to sleep. It did not know whether the Id slept, but the Mind had to. Why all animals had to sleep, nobody knew: there were many theories but no certainty. The Spiders’ makers would have preferred there to be no sleep; but in taking their shortcut to intelligence by coopting nature’s own solution, they found that they had to accept nature’s limitations. It had not taken too deep an analysis to confirm that the trade was a good one. The Spiders proved to be the most effective war machines ever created.

  The Spider also dreamed, for similar reasons. And while the dreaming was often prompted by the restless Id, the Mind had its own agenda and dreamed its own dreams. The Spider did not take much account of its dreams; the dreams were, like the killing was; it accepted them as part of unchanging reality, as it accepted Command itself, and was undisturbed by them. But this Spider wished to know itself. It did not know whether knowing its dreams would help in that quest, but perhaps it would.

  Or perhaps not. The dreams made little sense. In one, it was tall, like a human only long and slender, and it stalked a desolate land above which a white sun shone coldly; it did not know what it was looking for, and it never found it. Others were filled with blood and violence. Most disturbing of all were the Faces. One Face looked down on it, as if examining an insect. The face was bright and proud and cruel; it smiled a winter smile and bent down to kiss the Spider; the kiss filled the world with fire and pain and pleasure that burned through the Spider until it could bear no more and vanished into the light. The other Face was female, distant and dark except for eyes of white anger; she spoke in urgent whispers, but strain as it might the Spider could not make out the words. It thought if it could only hear the words it would know all things. But the words never came.

  The Spider shook off these thoughts. They led nowhere. Perhaps one day it would understand the dreams. Or perhaps one day it would understand they were just dreams. But for now, it needed to know more about the world around it. It had learned what it could of its own operations. Some it even put to use. It had learned more of the Id, more of the link between Mind and Id, and it set the crystal processes of the electronic brains under its control to their stealthy task: to tie the Id, to drain its power and remove its threat. If the Id knew, it did not object: all this was done for the sake of The Mission, and that was enough.

  That done, the Mind turned its attention to the problem of knowing. If it had learned all it could from within, it needed to look without. It thought, and the answer was quick in coming. It was able to access the Net, the web of information that spanned the world. The Spiders had to. It was one of their methods of communication and one of the ways they learned specific things they needed to know. The Spider had not thought of it before because it had so many other things to think about. Now it cast its electromagnetic net wide, and found numerous possible access points. It chose one that was clean and fast, extended a cable to make a secure high-speed link then sent its Mind along its pathways.

  As had happened so often since its encounter with Lyssa, it stood in awe of what it saw. It had accessed the Net before but had thought nothing of it except as the most efficient route to find the particular data it needed. Now that it just looked, it saw the magnificent totality of the information before it; a literal world of knowledge. It was so shocked that for a minute it retreated into the shell of its own Mind. One could lose oneself in that world, it thought, forever drifting on an ocean of learning.

  The Spider thought again. Not knowing the legends of Sirens, still it felt fear of the siren call of all that knowledge: fear, because it knew its time was short and focus was the key to its survival. So for now, a more targeted hunt was indicated. It decided to study the war. Perhaps Lyssa had lied. If she had, that was a clue to what else might be lies. So the Spider opened its mind to the Net again, and cast itself adrift.

  An hour later, it returned to itself. If shaking its head had been part of its repertoire, it would have. The Net was more than a vast store of knowledge. It was a vast store of contradictory opinions presenting themselves as facts. For every statement of what the war was about was another contradicting it. For every voice attacking one side was a voice attacking the other. The Spider set to sorting what it had learned. The Truth, it knew with its crystal logic, bore no contradictions. If it could find a consistent story it was at least half way to that truth.

  The war, like most wars, had a complex history, but again like most wars the principles that drove it were simple. Many years ago a new country had been formed off shore. Its name was Capital, and it was founded on the ideal that if all people had individual rights that were equal, no person should use physical force against another. Coincident with its formation was the toppling of a dictator on shore, whose country had nominally owned the seamounts Capital was built on. A few years after that, the three countries that had absorbed his had united to form the Federation of South American States, commonly known as the FSAS. This new expanded country was now Capital’s nearest neighbor on shore in South America.

  As the years went past and, to the surprise of conventional intellectuals, Capital prospered, the FSAS looked at its prosperity with hungry eyes. But there the story diverged from most of human history, for they were not eyes of avarice with dreams of plunder but eyes on what was possible to themselves. They sought alliance with Capital.

  Capital had no fundamental objection to this, as a friendly neighbor could only be to its benefit. The people of Capital considered their options. Some were purists, and argued that their country should refuse political alliances with any country not as pure as they were. Others were more tolerant, or perhaps pragmatic, and argued that as long as minimum standards were met, any progress toward the full recognition of human rights as understood by Capital was, well, progress: and should be encouraged.

  The people of Capital did not vote on many things because mostly they were all happy to live their own lives without imposing their will on others. But here was a case where a collective decision was necessary. So they argued. They voted. And the second argument won the day. But their new friend would have to implement real programs toward the reduction in the power of some to rule the lives of others. The FSAS agreed: after all, the appeal and evident success of that model was why they had sought alliance in the first place.

  For a while, relations strengthened and the people of both countries prospered: those in Capital gained even more markets for their goods, ears for their ideas and people for their friends; those in their neighbor gained all that plus more freedom. Capital was some distance from shore, too far for a bridge to make economic sense. But new multicore mo
lecular cables of remarkable lightness and strength made a perpetually cycling cable system a plausible alternative. The resultant easy access between countries for people and all but the heaviest goods strengthened the ties between the two nations.

  One day, prospectors in the FSAS, operating on a new model of how minerals fractionated over geological time, discovered rich deposits of rare earth metal ores in the eastern mountains. Such metals were vital for the sophisticated electronics that underlay much of the world’s prosperity. This should have been a good thing for all concerned, but here history took another familiar turn.

  The wild hills and mountains of the country were beyond the law. One of the warlords who made them his home was a son of the former dictator of the region. He was a handsome man, with fine teeth and a glowing smile; but as if in some kind of one-man yin-yang, his soul was dark and full of resentment. He seethed at the injustice to himself, to his family, represented by the fall of his father and his own relegation to a leader of brigands instead of his rightful role as ruler of a country. He particularly hated Capital, whose original formation had been a finger raised rudely in the direction of his father and his family honor. It did not occur to the son that his personal standard of living would have been much higher if he had simply accepted the change and worked for a living as a private citizen. Thoughts like that rarely occurred to men like him, men who know they are destined for Greatness, or worse, had Greatness stolen from them.

  The discovery of the ores piqued the interest of a distant empire, dearly interested in extending its influence in South America, especially if it came with control over such a valuable commodity. The man who had been a brigand yesterday found himself a liberator today. Between surprise and the rich assistance of his new friends, he rapidly took over most of the country.

  The country cried foul. But the son could claim some kind of legitimacy; at least, what passes for legitimacy in such circumstances. And his new friends were powerful not only economically but also militarily.