by Jaine Fenn
‘Likewise.’ As I sat down I thought of an immediate and innocuous question, before we got to the elephant on the table. ‘You’re not Ana then?’ She didn’t have a Korean accent, or sound like a teenager, but that didn’t mean anything.
‘Oh no. She’s around somewhere, though. She’d love to meet you.’
The beeping was louder here, and something about that rhythm bugged me. ‘Later, perhaps. You said I stole the dis-cat for the nanowrap? I thought I stole this impressive object.’ And it was impressive; the opal’s surface drew the eye, tricking the brain into following the swirls of azure and rose and gold and lavender trapped under its milky surface. It sat on a red cushion; there was no sign of the black holder we’d also stolen.
‘You did.’
‘That cradle it was in was a data-storage device, wasn’t it?’ Everlight Mars’ intel was always faultless, and secure. Rumours of secret off-line storage for their most sensitive data had reached me even when I worked for them, and I’d heard the same rumour locally since coming to Mars. Tattle like that was common currency amongst both criminals and corporates but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Only Everlight would have the hubris to hide their backup in plain sight. And the Deimons had managed to steal both Everlight’s most treasured possession and their most sensitive data. My ex-employers must be fuming.
‘We do indeed have copies of all Everlight’s alpha-clearance databases now. As will everyone else soon. Ryan and Kwame over there,’ she nodded to two men hunched over a console on the far side of the room, ‘are currently transmitting the data we took from Everlight as an unencrypted, hi-energy databurst. It’ll take a few hours, but we’ve set it to repeat for the next week.’
Everlight wouldn’t just be fuming. They’d be incandescent. ‘And what did the most powerful corporation in the solar system do to piss off you hippy-dippy neo-anarchists so much?’ We were in swearing territory now.
‘Nothing, other than be the most powerful corporation in the solar system. We wanted to bring back a bit of parity.’
‘That’s admirable. Suicidal, but admirable. You do know they’ll come after you?’ Deimos might have the natural armour that came with being a giant rock, but I doubted the Deimons had much in the way of active defences. Given the correct incentive – which the Deimons had just provided - Everlight could invade, or even destroy, their community.
‘They’ll try.’
Sam spoke at the same time, more softly, but I thought he said, ‘Have to catch us first.’
I’d pinned down the beeping now. As well as natural languages, I’ve an interest in artificial ones. I taught myself Morse when I was at the LunaFree; it had even come in useful in jobs with Mum and Shiv. I was hearing a short repeated phrase, in Morse Code.
‘I have to correct you, though,’ continued Marcia. ‘You’re right that the ‘cradle’ was more than a means of displaying the Eye. But we got the dis-cat formula, and so much more, from the Eye itself.’
Now I knew what I was hearing I had to decode it: dot-dot-dot-dot, that’s H.
‘You okay, Lizzie?’ Sam looked over at me.
One dot: E
‘I’m…’ Marcia’s smile had broadened and she’d sat back. ‘I’m listening,’ I finished. Neither Sam not Marcia interrupted.
The next letter was L. And that was repeated. Then O.
I focused on Marcia. ‘Where’s that coming from?’
She pointed to the Eye.
‘So,’ I said, while my brain worked on the second part of the phrase, ‘the Eye itself was the data-storage device, and not a natural opal at all.’
‘True, as far as it goes.’
‘You do know it’s saying HELLO WORLD in Morse Code?’
‘Yes. It is.’
‘Why is it doing that?’
‘Because it wasn’t given any means to verbalise.’
‘This is more than a data storage device, isn’t it?’ The conclusion was inescapable. Awful, but inescapable. I jabbed a finger at the perfect egg-shaped opal. ‘This is an unlimited AI!’
‘Yes, the Eye of Heaven is a UAI.’
‘Are you people fucking insane?’ I moved my chair back, as though that could save me from the epitome of automated evil.
‘Sanity is relative.’ Marcia shook her head, though she was still smiling. ‘But your concerns are understandable.’
‘You think? The only other time one of these bastards came into being, it decided to take out an entire country. Wait, the base… Was that keeping it contained?’
‘The base projected an EM suppression harness. The Eye could only communicate with the rest of Everlight’s systems through a hard-wired data pipeline.’
Everlight had kept this thing contained – but also used its abilities, which explained their recent ascendancy over Mars, and coups like Project Rainfall. ‘And now you’ve set it free. What were you thinking?’
‘We knew what we were getting.’
‘Really? How?’
‘We’d heard rumours –’
‘Rumours!’ I shut up. Interrupting soft-spoken and smiling Marcia felt wrong, even if she was crazy.
‘The information we had was consistent. We did further research, including speaking to a disgruntled ex-employee. Then last New Year we got an agent onto the Celestial Colonnades tour. The Eye had worked out how to broadcast Morse as a sonic emission; ultra low-power to bypass the suppression, but our woman smuggled in tech able to pick the broadcast up.’
‘“Hello World”?’
‘No. At that point it was saying, “Help Me”.’
Sam spoke up. ‘We carried out extensive tests before shutting down the harness. We’re as certain as we can be that it won’t cause any harm.’
‘Just like the American military were certain their new toy wouldn’t try and take over the world?’
Marcia said, ‘The Eye of Heaven is a very different device to the Doomsday UAI.’
Sam chipped in, ‘It only uses multivalent logic.’
‘Oh, well that’s all right then. You do know I have no idea what multivalent logic is?’
‘Buddhist versus Aristotelian paradigms,’ Sam added, as though that explained everything.
Marcia shushed him gently. ‘The culture that produced the Doomsday UAI was militaristic and bivalent: black or white, friend or foe, kill or be killed. This philosophy permeated their creation.’
‘And Everlight are better?’ But they were, at least in the terms we were discussing. Everlight was built on the Eastern, not the Western, worldview.
‘Everlight’s ethos is more flexible, and embraces the fuzziness of the real world in a way the old US military never could. Somewhat ironically for an entity that doesn’t deal in absolutes, they also programmed a core parameter which, even once the machine evolved full self-awareness, it couldn’t purge without ending its own existence: if it projects, beyond a certain degree of certainty, that an action it wishes to take will lead to one or more human deaths, then it cannot take that course of action. We confirmed the Eye had this first law override before we committed to freeing it.’
‘So it won’t kill you directly. That’s good. It might still think it knows better than you.’
‘And it might be right. But it’ll enter into a dialogue rather than take over.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘To as great a degree as anyone can be sure of anything.’
‘But not one hundred percent, because you don’t do absolutes.’
‘Exactly. The Eye of Heaven is like a child with an immutable moral centre and boundless curiosity who’s been imprisoned in a small dark room all her life. And is now free. What happens next will be amazing.’
I’d always assumed UAIs were the ultimate evil, because of what the Doomsday UAI had done, but that was a sample of one. ‘So you plan to keep it, give it a decent home?’ However desirable I’d thought the Eye of Heaven was as a trophy object, the real Eye was hundreds – no thousands – of times more valuable. ‘Everlight kn
ow you’ve got this thing but you don’t seem concerned about their response.’ I looked over at Sam, remembering what he’d said before trying to blind me with philosophy. Then I thought about the odd physical set-up of the spaces we’d passed through. Deimos was a small moon, and even with its natural spin enhanced by its inhabitants, the gravity shouldn’t be more than a tenth of a G; less nearer the core. But I was experiencing at least a third of a G now, enough to stick to the floor. And the floor, in places like the gym and that shaft we’d passed, was no longer where it once was. Previously, ‘down’ had been the surface nearest the outside, though the low G meant stuff also got strapped to walls and ceilings. Those straps on my bed hadn’t been restraints, they’d been to stop patients falling out. But now, ‘down’ was the surface nearest the back of the moon – I mean, ship. Deimos was under acceleration.
‘Because you won’t be here for Everlight to come after, will you?’ I finished.
‘You got it.’ Sam sounded pleased as a puppy.
I turned in my seat to look at the starscape projected behind me. ‘Is that a real-time display?’
‘It is,’ said Marcia. ‘That’s the view ahead.’
‘Can we see what’s behind us?’
‘Of course.’ Marcia called across the room; her voice was soft, but carried. ‘Gita, can we have the aft view please?’
The stars disappeared. Though Mars still filled about half the display we were too far away to be orbiting it.
Sam said, ‘We’ll take months to get up to full speed, but no one is in any position to stop us.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Revert the forward view please Gita.’ The star field was back. Marcia pointed. ‘Out there.’
‘Anywhere in particular?’
‘We’ll get clear of Sol’s influence and see what looks good. The current favourite is Proxima.’
‘And how long will that take?’
‘Longer than I’ll be around. Sam should see it, though.’
Sam added, ‘As I said: the grandmarms always thought long term.’
‘And you’re taking the Eye of Heaven with you?’
‘It’s a lot more interested in seeing the universe than in being the hobbled tool of a corporation. Plus, being less altruistic, we need its help. This is the most audacious mission humanity’s ever undertaken.’
‘So that works out fine for everyone.’ I meant to be sarcastic but the comment came out impressed; surprised, but impressed. ‘Except me, perhaps?’
‘Ah, of course.’ Marcia shook her head, like she was being a bad host. ‘There’s a lifepod with your name on it. Obviously we’ll pay you in full for the job, in whatever currency you’d prefer. I think we even have some gold around here somewhere. And we’ll leave it up to you to activate your transponder, or not.’
‘You couldn’t just give me a lift back to Phobos?’ Everlight didn’t have much influence on Phobos; I might be able to get back to Earth from there without getting arrested.
‘I’m afraid not. But the lifepod has its own motor. You could get to Phobos yourself, provided you leave within the next couple of hours.’
‘Or you can come with us.’
I turned to Sam. ‘What?’
‘Come with us. You’re good with languages, aren’t you? We could use someone like you if we meet aliens.’ Then seeing my expression he added, ‘Joke! Really, we’ve no idea what we’ll find out there.’
‘I think,’ I said slowly, ‘that having an exceptional administrator might be more useful. Everyone benefits from good organisation.’
Marcia waved a hand. ‘Even hippy-dippy neo-anarchists?’
‘If they want to.’ I didn’t apologise for the judgement she’d just thrown back at me because she didn’t appear to have been offended by it.
‘That could be useful. It’s your choice, Lizzie. But you don’t have long to make it, I’m afraid.’
This was the most important decision of my life. It needed a lot of consideration. Before I made it, I needed a hot meal, a shower, maybe to sleep on it… by which point the choice would have been made for me.
If I did go with the Deimons, then who’d miss me? The answer came back at once.
‘Marcia,’ I said, ‘if I come with you, will you still pay me for the job?’
‘Of course. Though we won’t be needing money where we’re going.’
‘And if I wanted to send my share to someone could you arrange that?’
‘Sure.’
Sam added, ‘You can include a message too if you want. A lot of us are sending goodbye notes.’ He laughed. ‘Well, all of us are, really. Once we’re sure everyone’s had a chance to access Everlight’s data, we’ll transmit all the Collective’s databases. Our parting gift. It’s not as if we’ll be around to give people the cut-out codes for our tech in future.’
‘In that case, I need my share to go to a facility on Luna. No, two, actually.’ Assuming Everlight hadn’t got to her – and why would they, with me out of reach – I’d buy Mum out of jail. After that she was on her own. The rest could go to the LunaFree Community. They’d given me the best years of my life. So far.
‘Just let us know, and we’ll send it.’
Sam cleared his throat. ‘So you’re coming with us then?’
What was I thinking? I never acted this impulsively. It was like driving off a cliff – and then coming up with a plan.
‘You know what?’ I said, ‘I believe I am.’
And that’s how I became the most wanted person in the Solar System.
For now.
I’ll be leaving soon.
About the Author
Jaine Fenn is the author of the Hidden Empire series of far future SF novels, which starts with Principles of Angels. She has also had numerous short stories published. More recently she has been writing for the video games industry, including the Halo franchise.
Whilst she could never stick it as a career criminal, she does enjoy a good heist and would love to go to Mars.
Selected bibliography:
The Hidden Empire
Principles of Angels (2008)
Consorts of Heaven (2009)
Guardians of Paradise (2010)
Bringer of Light (2011)
Queen of Nowhere (2013)
Downside Girls (2012) collected short stories
The Ships of Aleph (2015) chapbook
Author Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my patrons for their continued support via www.patreon.com/jainefenn: Jim Anderson, Chris Banks, Shirley Bell, John Dallman, Gemma Holiday, Cathy Holroyd, Sara Mulryan, Dave Mansfield, Pete Randall and Martin Reed.
Big thanks also to Ian Whates of Newcon Press, for giving me the chance to indulge myself with this story; writing it was the best fun I’ve had by myself for a long time.
NewCon Press
Novellas
Set 3: Cover art by Jim Burns
The Martian Job – Jaine Fenn
The Martian Simulacra: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery –
Eric Brown
Phosphorous: A Winterstrike Story – Liz Williams
The Greatest Story Ever Told – Una McCormack
Set 2: Cover art by Vincent Sammy
Case of the Bedeviled Poet: A Sherlock Holmes Enigma
– Simon Clark
Cottingley – Alison Littlewood
Body in the Woods – Sarah Lotz
The Wind – Jay Caselberg
Set 1: Cover art by Chris Moore
1. The Iron Tactician – Alastair Reynolds
2. At the Speed of Light – Simon Morden
3. The Enclave – Anne Charnock
4. The Memoirist – Neil Williamson
All novellas are available separately in paperback edition and as a numbered limited edition hardback, signed by the author.
Each set of four novellas is also available as a limited edition lettered slipcase set, containing all four signed hardbacks with the combined artwork as a wrap-around.
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Slipcase Set 2: [Sold Out]
Slipcase Set 3: £85.00
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