The Resurrected Man

by Sean Williams

  It wasn't until later, when she stepped out of the d-mat booth in her apartment complex, that she remembered the letter. As she walked the short distance from the booth to the door of her unit, the edge of the old-fashioned envelope snagged on her undershirt. She removed it, frowning for a moment until it came back to her. Five d-mat transfers, two and a half hours of lost time, had addled her brain more than the two sobering beers she'd had with Fassini.

  Security saw her coming down the hall and opened her door before she arrived. Her unit was spacious but not overly so, and always bordered on the outright messy. A recording of Yankovic's “Blue Skirt Waltz,” selected at random from her extensive collection, began to play softly in the background. She slipped a finger along the seal of the envelope and settled into a chair, exhaustion dragging her down. She could remember only vaguely what she had written. Something about him calling her if he should find the note. Embarrassing enough for her not to want him to find it now.

  The note had been folded twice. Her handwriting stood out in block capitals like scorch marks on ivory. And below it…

  She blinked, and read through it a second time.

  Jonah

  You must contact me the moment you finish reading this note. This isn't a game. It's important.

  My UGI is the same, or you can find me via the EJC.

  Please call.

  Marylin

  Underneath someone else had scrawled:

  “I'll ‘contact’ you when I'm good and ready, bitch.”

  Her guts felt watery. The handwriting was in cursive, almost shockingly fluid, and was either Jonah's or a passable imitation. She would have it analysed immediately. But she couldn't understand how it had gotten there. The envelope had been sealed. She had checked it herself. There was no way someone could have opened it, unfolded the contents, and resealed it without her knowing.

  Someone? It was the Twinmaker; it had to be. “I'll ‘contact’ you—” He was twisting the knife, enhancing her apprehension, heightening his own sense of anticipation. “—when I'm good and ready—” Taunting her. “—bitch.”

  She wouldn't stand for it.

  Gritting her teeth, she opened her workspace and arranged for the envelope to be collected by someone in the home team when she d-matted it to them. Within hours it would be analysed down to its constituent molecules. The slightest genetic trace that didn't originate in her would be teased out and put through GLITCH for possible identification. The ink would be tested and traced. Anything at all she could use, she would accept with satisfaction.

  A threat wasn't a threat at all. That was something Jonah himself had taught her. A threat was a mistake on the criminal's behalf. A threat was a clue. Rather than be intimidated, she would turn the note against the Twinmaker, use it to help her catch him. And if it did turn out to be Jonah, then she swore she'd make him regret ever giving her that piece of advice…

  She waited two whole minutes for Marylin Blaylock to finish her sentence, then, when she did not, assumed that the conversation was over and QUALIA's services were no longer required. Although careful to avoid future charges of not allowing the MIU detective to pursue the subject, SHE was definitely grateful that the matter had been passed over for the time being.

  QUALIA had made a mistake.

  In retrospect SHE could see it. As Blaylock had, SHE scanned the file recording of the VTC to examine Jonah McEwen's subconscious recall spikes that occurred upon hearing QUALIA's voice. There was no denying the connection. Hearing QUALIA's voice prompted McEwen to respond in a way that did not directly impact upon his conscious mind. That response could take any form: a thought, a memory, an emotion, a hunch. The fact that McEwen had said nothing about it didn't negate the effect. It was there and could be measured. In time, it, or the cause underlying it, would surface.

  QUALIA had made a mistake, and Marylin Blaylock had come perilously close to suspecting.

  Next SHE accessed the recording of the REM probe SHE had conducted the previous day. “You sound like something my father wanted to build,” McEwen had said. And that was true. Lindsay Carlaw had devoted much of his adult life to the pursuit of Intelligent Awareness, that being, as he saw it, a logical step along the path to immortality. But he had achieved neither before the sabotage of QUIDDITY at the Science of Consciousness Applied Research laboratory. Only the concerted effort of SciCon's remaining researchers had put the pieces of Carlaw's groundbreaking research back together, creating a being that, although not exactly what he had originally had in mind, would certainly not have existed but for his plans.

  That being was QUALIA. And, similarly, although his path to immortality had proven a dead-end, that didn't mean others had given up.

  SHE changed one word to two words in the recording of the conversation. Then SHE saved the file, taking care to ensure that no one would ever suspect that it had been altered. The protocols forbidding QUALIA from actively lying—modelled, SHE sometimes thought, on those of human government—were decidedly more lax when it came to concealing the truth.

  QUALIA had made a mistake, and the proof of it now lay only in Jonah McEwen's memory.

  SHE would have to find some way to deal with that threat. Otherwise all SHE could do was wait for him to realise. That he would SHE didn't dare doubt. He had already guessed the truth on an unconscious level. There was no other possible explanation for the memory spikes. He knew.

  There was too much for QUALIA to do, however, to warrant dwelling on the problem much longer. SHE took the time only to dispatch the KittyHawk eikon into the Pool to warn the Watchers. What their reaction would be SHE couldn't guess. Indifference was a possibility, but so was outrage and anger. Every difficulty SHE faced modelling ordinary humans was magnified a hundredfold in the case of the Watchers. SHE hoped they would simply accept the development as an innocent accident and not seek retribution or compensation. SHE wasn't in a position to provide either of these outcomes.

  All SHE could do was continue in QUALIA's usual capacity as overseer of the data flowing through the KTI network. Demand for d-mat waxed and waned across the globe as the terminator swept unstoppably westwards, but the overall load on the system rarely changed dramatically. Now that the network covered every longitude, there were no sudden peaks when the population of certain continents arose and went about their business. If anything, the people who used d-mat most tended to move away from busy population centres, thereby distributing the load, along with wealth and information. Interchanges in many parts of Eastern Africa and the Far East were now as busy as those in North America and Europe, with only the occasional thin patch marring what would otherwise have been perfect coverage.

  Even in such countries as Quebec, where d-mat travel was illegal for humans and livestock, access was not out of the question. Not one government on Earth had outlawed mass-freighting by d-mat, a testimony to the power of business over principles. Per tonne, d-mat was both quicker and more efficient than any other rapid transport currently available. It also promised clean and environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques that were already in use off-Earth. A d-mat booth produced an object from data and basic raw materials, but the data didn't have to come from another booth; it could come from its own internal memory, from a library, or a catalogue of items that could be integrated at will. Economic analysts were divided over whether d-mat mass-manufacturing would undermine or enrich the global economy, but one thing was certain: the laws permitting it would be passed one day, whether they were sound or not.

  SHE monitored the evolving organism that was KTI with as much interest as SHE monitored QUALIA's own development. Indeed, the two could be considered inseparable in one sense: SHE was the brain of the body, KTI. But the comparison was shallow, and ignored the important part played by the humans who were integral parts of KTI, even if they weren't technically bonded to it.

  Fabian Schumacher, for example. He was not the creator of d-mat (the head of the initial research team and therefore nominal “inventor,” Ni
ck Luhr, had been dead for a decade), but he was the man who had put the process into practise and continued to develop it in new and profitable ways. Whether the founder of Kudos Technologies Incorporated actually understood how the process worked was irrelevant; he had advisers who did. It was his primary job to guide the juggernaut along its course, and to clear the way ahead. A visionary and a diplomat both, it was said he refused an honorary political title on the grounds that he was doing more good as CEO of KTI than he ever could as a politician. The implication that what was good for KTI was good for humanity was a clear indication, not only of the globalisation of the once-small company, but of how Fabian Schumacher viewed the world and his place in it.

  So to treat seriously the possibility that he might be involved in a conspiracy to abet the Twinmaker struck QUALIA as counterproductive. If the existence of the Twinmaker murders ever reached the general public, KTI's position would be disastrously undermined, whether its administration was involved or not. It would not be in Schumacher's character to participate in such an act—QUALIA was certain of it.

  Yet SHE had to ask.

  “He wants what?” Schumacher's skin was pale and surprisingly smooth for an eighty-year-old man, but when he frowned his forehead and scalp bunched like a boot-sole.

  “Jonah McEwen has requested access to the Unorthodox Procedure Archive, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “To investigate a possible connection between the Twinmaker and highly placed officials in KTI.”

  “Like me, you mean?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Schumacher laughed aloud. Rising from his bed in the room adjoining his on-Earth office and donning a white robe, the CEO of the company with the largest Research & Development budget in the history of capitalism opened a small bar fridge and removed a bottle of home-brewed beer. Popping the cap with an opener that bore the logo of a brewery that had ceased conducting business fifty years earlier, he took a sip and returned to bed, where he had been resting between engagements.

  “We can't give him access,” he said. “You know that, don't you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What excuse have you given him?”

  “None, yet. I have simply told him that I would ask.”

  “Passing the buck, eh?” Schumacher's smile softened the sharpness of his tone. “At least you've given us time to think of a reason.”

  “He will be suspicious no matter what we tell him.”

  “And I don't blame him. Christ, he's been jerked around enough in the last couple of days to make anyone paranoid.” Schumacher stopped and raised his eyebrows. “And there's a thought.”

  “Sir?”

  “He'll be paranoid regardless. Maybe we can use that to our advantage.” Schumacher sat straighter on the bed and tapped his fingernails on the moisture-beaded glass. “I've had Jago Trevaskis on the line for the last hour wanting me to call Herold off. Something about using d-med on McEwen. I haven't read the proposal all the way through yet. What do you think?”

  QUALIA floundered for a moment. SHE wasn't used to Schumacher asking for QUALIA's opinion, only information. “I believe, sir, that bringing Jonah to the disposal site could provide a unique insight into the mind of Jonah McEwen, and that—”

  “I'll forgive the pun and agree, Q—but what about the risk of fallout? If it becomes known that we've used experimental technology on a suspect, for christ's sake, we could screw up the whole thing.” He smiled again. “Another pun. WHOLE would just love this. Fucking with evidence. What does that damn pamphlet say? ‘Subtly warping minds and bodies’ or some such crap?”

  QUALIA accessed the database on the Twinmaker killings. SHE recited the text Schumacher had paraphrased in its original wording: “Reaching into the mind and/or body of an innocent person in order to subtly warp it from its natural state is not beyond the capacity of this technology.” It was a quote from Soul Pollution, the subversive text found at several Twinmaker disposal sites, including the latest one, and in public places all across the world. The text protested against technology in general, including VTC and bioimplants, but KTI in particular, using everything from religious texts to Einstein's “world line” to justify the criticism. Some people, QUALIA assumed, would simply never accept the fact that d-mat was safe; if the process couldn't be faulted, the people behind it could be.

  “That's the one.” Schumacher nodded, taking another sip. “This sort of thinking is endemic. Always will be. People need something to be afraid of, and it might as well be us. But it could work in our favour here, right? We use d-med. McEwen wakes up not knowing what the hell's happened to him. We're a little cagey, mutter about secret developments and such shit. He puts two and two together, figures that's what we're hiding in the archive, and we're off the hook. He's solved the mystery to his satisfaction, even thinks he's got an edge over us, and we all get on with business. The fact that ninety percent of what's in the archive is about d-med just makes it all the more sweet. If he ever hacks in, a quick glance will confirm what he thinks he's already worked out. I love it! How about you, Q? Do you think we can pull it off?”

  Again, QUALIA was momentarily taken aback by the question.

  “Yes, sir. Your analysis agrees with the outcomes predicted by my own behaviour models—”

  Schumacher waved for silence. “A ‘yes’ would do. Same with this question: Is Blaylock up to it?”

  “To what, sir?”

  “To keeping an eye on McEwen, making sure he doesn't go off the rails.”

  If he was asking whether Marylin Blaylock was a competent officer, there was only one possible answer. “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “As sure as I can be, sir.”

  “Models again, huh?” Schumacher chuckled. “My friend, you should follow your instincts more often. I'll have Herold build some for you, if you like.”

  QUALIA simulated a gentle laugh in reply. In truth, though, the humour struck a little too close to home. SHE was aware enough of QUALIA's lack of subconscious mind every time SHE dealt with humans without one of them deliberately accentuating the fact. The speed with which Jonah McEwen had cut to the very heart of the issue of his father, for instance, left QUALIA both amazed and appalled. As SHE often did when confronting the unplumbed potential of the human subconscious, SHE felt something that might have been called awe.

  But SHE had something they did not: the ability to think in parallel, and to allocate tasks to semi-independent subroutines nicknamed “eikons.” What humans could accomplish in a moment of irrational brilliance, SHE could soon enough do at QUALIA's own pace. Up to twenty-four independent streams of thought divided and merged every few seconds around the nominal Primary Stream—adding experience, data and other inputs all the while—and this was no less wonderful a thing than the human subconscious. It was just different.

  QUALIA was alien in a fundamental sense, and SHE was still fathoming the way SHE thought. The basic germ of QUALIA had been copied four times and brought to ometeosis twice. SHE watched the development of QUALIA's younger siblings with interest.

  One day, SHE would know exactly what QUALIA was, and when SHE did SHE would know exactly where SHE stood in relation to QUALIA's human creators.

  “I'll instruct Herold to go ahead and use d-med,” Schumacher went on, “and draft a memo to Trevaskis telling him I've noted his concerns. That should keep them both happy for the time being.” He drained the bottle and put it on the floor beside the bed. Later, he would put it out for recyc himself rather than rely on office staff. QUALIA knew his routines well. No one but he was allowed inside his private antechamber.

  He stood and slipped out of the robe. “Can you and Whitesmith handle Blaylock?”

  “Sir?”

  “Prep her, keep her in line.” Schumacher donned a white linen kaftan and stepped into a pair of slippers. Skinny, hairless and small in stature, his age and sex were indeterminate at a casual glance. Only his voice fitted the model of masculinity a
s perceived in another century. “We don't want McEwen to guess too much, or too little. We just want him focussed on the issue at hand. Once he's caught the Twinmaker, he can ask any question he wants.” He smiled and added: “Within reason. Please don't take that as a literal instruction, Q.”

  “No, sir.”

  “And I want you, QUALIA, to oversee the d-med procedure on McEwen.”

  “But I am not medically qualified—”

  “Exactly. You can use the experience. Call in all the help you need—surgical add-ons, expert databases, whatever. There'll be a human surgeon watching you, so there's no need to panic about making mistakes.” He scratched the bridge of his nose. “The real reason I want you there is because I can trust you without question. I know you won't screw anything up, or let feelings get in the way.”

  “Yes, sir.” SHE gave a deliberately ambiguous answer. If he knew how wrong he was about QUALIA's emotional detachment, he would rescind the offer.

  But SHE didn't let QUALIA's interest show and Schumacher clearly did not suspect.

  “The primary objective is to make McEwen mobile,” he went on. “He doesn't have to break any land-speed records. As long as he can be wheeled around without fibrillating or having a stroke or whatever, that's good enough. Get him out there, and record everything he says and does. If it doesn't work with Blaylock behind the wheel, we'll set Whitesmith on to him. Trevaskis can't possibly have a real problem with this. My bet is he's just pissed off because Herold's involved and Whitesmith seems to be going over his head. I've seen it before. Administrators always resent the ones who actually do the work. The trick is to make everyone realise that they have a function to perform, and that no one is necessarily more important than anyone else…”

  QUALIA's attention wandered while the elderly patriarch of Kudos Technologies Incorporated ran through a familiar spiel. It would end, SHE knew, with the declaration that, in the broad view, he was no more significant to the running of KTI than the lowliest systems analyst. In principle SHE agreed with him, but in practise had found it to be more complicated. Employees performed more than just a function. They interacted with their fellow workers on a large number of levels, and many of these interactions could have a profound effect on productivity. Politics, SHE sometimes thought, was a perfect example of a situation where the emphasis was on anything but productivity, and running a transglobal corporation such as KTI had more similarities to running a large country than Schumacher would usually admit.