“So is it possible he’s crazy?” This from Janelle, who looked very grave indeed. She’d swapped out her gown from the previous night for dark-colored sportswear. “Or, like, fake? I mean he’s not a program, he’s sentient. So he’s a person, or somewhere along those lines. He’s got a foundation of psychology, maybe even human psychology.”
“He felt like he always did,” Bobbi said with a shake of her head. “The…presence, I guess you could say. I don’t know. It felt like him, just different.”
“He evolved from a fusion of human and Yathi minds,” Yasmeen replied. “It may not be within my purview to make conjecture on this matter, but it does seem to me that though the Yathi aspect of his consciousness has been burned off, so to speak, the remaining personality has become so vast as to be virtually alien in its own right. Thus any of its activity is likely to be considered insane by human standards.”
“Then we focus on the variation of personality,” Bobbi said. “And not the strangeness of action. We assume that he’s always up to something – but is there more than one Cagliostro? And if there is, what does that mean? Are they independent of one another, plotting against each other? I saw something of this, you know, when I was going over Tom’s memories. The digital ones, that is, the ones he’s compiled since…well, since his reconstruction. When he talked to Cagliostro for the first time, he had this thought that maybe what he was looking at wasn’t just Cagliostro. Or at least, maybe he wasn’t seeing the whole of him.”
Yasmeen’s brows tented over her dark eyes. “Yes. I can see that. Like a finger or a limb, not the whole thing.”
“So what if that’s the case?” Bobbi drew another deep breath as the formed, but what spun itself into terrified her. “Look, what if we’re dealing with different incarnations of the same being? I mean, he’s had time to grow, right? And over the last six years, the only thing we’ve seen for sure is that he’s grown much more distant. But what if that isn’t a problem so much as a symptom of that growth?”
Shaper blew out a breath. “Mundane agencies have restrictions on artificial intelligence for fear of them developing sentience, but those are artificial. We’re already dealing with a sentient consciousness.”
Bobbi nodded. “Right. So maybe there’s Cagliostro, the being, that has grown so big it can’t speak to people personally. So we’re dealing with different…I don’t know, projections of him.”
“Like avatars.”
Camilla pursed her lips. “My great-grandmother might say that he’s a spirit who dreamed himself into the world. She’d probably also say that makes the worst kind of spirit.”
“In the virtual sense.” Bobbi pushed her long hair from her face. “And the actual. I mean historical gods had avatars, right? Shiva, Christ, etcetera.”
Andrew made a nervous laugh. “You’re suggesting that we’re dealing with a virtual Christ?”
Bobbi shrugged. “If I’m right, it might as well be. The alternative is worse.”
“Is it?” Andrew sat up where he had been lounging on the sofa, looking to Bobbi with a frown. “What is the alternative?”
Her expression hardened as her line of thought reached its conclusion. “The alternative is that we’re dealing with at least two subordinate intelligences, all of them potentially plotting against each other.”
Yasmeen stared at Bobbi, her eyes somber, this time for so long Bobbi shifted at her place standing by the bar. “I would not usually permit myself to think in such lines, but under the circumstances, it is not an inaccurate parallel.” She shrugged. “Given our situation, let us hope for apotheosis instead.”
“I guess.” Bobbi grunted. “I should have asked what that other Cagliostro, for lack of a better term, meant by being in trouble. I got angry, though. I’m sorry, guys, I fucked up.”
“I would’ve tried to kill the fucker years ago, girl.” Janelle said with a soft ‘tch’. “How you deal with it without melting down every time is beyond me. Anyway, if we’re looking at the prospect of separate actors, I figure that we can assume for now that as long as we’re working outside of our ‘roles,’ to so speak, we may well be in danger.”
Shaper frowned. “This is getting better and better by the hour, and so who exactly can we expect trouble from? Our own people? Local authorities? Depending on the amount of power that Lionel or the old ghostly bastard has up here, we could see ourselves taking a very long trip back home, Bobbi. It’s very cold out there, you know?”
The edge in his voice said everything. She had no interest in letting some goddamned computer program, however badass it may be, sow dissention in the ranks, and so she turned toward Shaper and drew herself up to her full height. “Fuck ‘em.”
Shaper’s brows arched.” ‘Fuck ‘em?’”
“Fuck ‘em.” She took another swig of her water and put the bottle on the bar. “We came up here to make something happen, to get information. I say we suit up and we go find out what’s going on. We know where Lionel is, or at least where his servers are. We go there, find out just who’s doing what, and with whom. Besides, it’s like I told you; he’s basically daring us to go and talk to Lionel, which means there’s already something going on we’re not going to like. We need to go find out what that is.”
Though she spoke in earnest, Shaper didn’t look too sure. And if Shaper didn’t look sure, the rest of them would follow. “I dunno, boss.” He rubbed the back of his head.” I mean if I’ve got this right, won’t we be walking directly into what he wants? Hardly a tactical situation we’d want to be involved in. The word ‘trap’ springs to mind.”
Bobbi couldn’t argue with that. “Well… If it’s a trap—and I know I’m going to sound like some friggin’ holofilm character saying this—then knowing it exists is halfway to avoiding it. Besides, who knows? If things are fucked up with Cagliostro, he might be leading us somewhere that we need to be. Big on roles, you remember. We’re his spies and covert people.”
“Which makes me wonder who his military is,” said Andrew.
“You fellas are the ones with the tanks,” Camilla said. She, like Janelle, had elected to dress for business in similar dark sportswear. “I’ve never met this Scalli, but maybe he was chosen to do the hard action. Instead we got Julie.”
“And since Mendelsohn’s allied with Lionel, and by extension possibly the Cagliostro up here…” Bobbi spread her hands. “I don’t see how we can stay away.”
Janelle let out a sigh, and Shaper got to his feet. “All right. I’m sorry I questioned you.” He offered Bobbi his gilded hand. “I’m in.”
“Everybody has every right to ask questions.” Bobbi shook his hand firmly. “I’ve said it before. We don’t do anything I don’t have good answers for.”
“And such wonderful places we go with those good answers,” Janelle muttered, but she got to her feet as well, followed much to Bobbi’s relief, by Camilla and Yasmeen.
Camilla offered Bobbi her hand as well. “I’m in.”
Yasmeen cleared her throat delicately as the two women shook hands. “I think it interesting to note that the soldiers are the ones last to rise.”
“I like to think that you’re just putting an exclamation point on it all.” Bobbi shrugged. “Either way, there’s no army here, just warriors fighting for a common cause.” She offered them her hand in turn, and each of them shook it.
“There.” Bobbi smirked.” All right, we’re decided. Now let’s go get into trouble.”
y lady says that you’re to continue having your systems examined. You are not to leave the facility, nor are you to go beyond the boundaries that we have set without escort.”
“All right, I understand.” Walken sat in the small room that served as cafeteria and lounge for the few Reclaimed and human members of Bobbi’s movement who attempted some form of society. It wasn’t much: a few long tables with seats, a pantry and cooking suite – which featured, for reasons that he did not elect to explore, an industrial-sized tissue printer for making very large slabs of
beef from cultured cells. Several couches formed a semicircle in one corner, where he and Violet sat while Bobbi’s dark-haired lieutenant gave him marching orders. “And that’s all she wants? Just for me to have my systems scanned?”
Violet shrugged. “My lady believes that it is vital that your systems are fully quantified, so that we understand what it is you are capable of. Moreover, she wishes to understand why the synthetic neural tissue in your brain regenerated when you attempted communication with your parasite.”
Walken nodded. He looked Violet over from his perch. She was a strange woman, even for Reclaimed, in that she didn’t seem insane at all. Many of them didn’t, he had noticed, at least the ones who spent the most time around Bobbi. She was certainly hard, a fanatic devoted to her commander and the greater cause, though the “my lady” affectation seemed out of place. He didn’t imagine Bobbi put up with that when Violet was around. Her clear, dark blue eyes, as unyielding as lacquered steel made him wonder if she would try to kill him at the first sign of betrayal, even imagined, knowing she could not harm him. “I’d like to know the same thing. So where am I not allowed to go? Are there signs?”
“The doors will tell you if you approach,” she said. “I’m sure the restrictions will be lifted when my lady returns, but until then, you are restricted to the lounge, the medical wing, and the dormitory if you need it.”
“I haven’t gotten the tour.”
“And you won’t.” Violet squinted at him. “Not until we discover what happened.”
He looked into her eyes, lips pursed as he watched her. “You are stone where she’s concerned. Aren’t you?”
“I have to be,” Violet replied. “Nobody else supports her nearly as closely.”
Walken smiled faintly when he heard that. “Is that how you see it? You and her against the world?”
“I…” Violet frowned. “It certainly feels that way, yes.”
“So you don’t think that anyone else trusts her? What about Shaper, or those other people that went with her into orbit? She must trust them if she took them with her.” He shrugged. “I came here myself, didn’t I?”
Her eyes narrowed into slits. “What are you trying to say, Mr. Walken?”
The edge in her voice gave him pause. She might not be able to hurt him, but she could certainly be scary. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I just mean to say, it seems that other people seem to trust her as much as you do, or at least enough to go into space with her. Obviously, she trusts you very much, too, since she put you in charge here.”
“I’d much rather be with my lady,” she hissed. “Are you finished mocking me?”
Walken winced. “Again, I apologize. I do not intend mockery. I’m not sure how I…” He paused for a moment. “I’m sorry. Are the two of you involved? Is this…is this a sore subject? Because I can—”
“No,” Violet nearly spat. “We aren’t. I love my lady very much, and she loves me, but…it is not the way that you describe.”
“Very close, then.” Walken nodded. He’d have to file that away to discuss with Bobbi later. “Again, though, I apologize if I led you down any particular track. It was meant to be complimentary. To both of you.”
Violet shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Will you need anything while you are here?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I think I’ve asked enough of you for one day. I suppose we should go ahead and get going on the examinations, if your technicians are ready for me.”
“I will ask them.” She got to her feet, but paused. “Tell me… What is it like?”
He blinked at her. “What is what like?”
“Being…detached,” she said. “Without the thing still there.”
Walken thought about it a moment. “Very empty, I think. It’s more like driving around a vehicle than actually being a connected being. And I don’t really have much in the way of emotional capacity, which of course you’ve gotten a dose of just a moment ago. I doubt I’d trip over myself quite as much as I do if I didn’t have to work so hard to summon empathy.”
She turned to face him. “I see.” Violet leaned against the sofa, lips pursed. She stared into his face again, the way she did when she first arrived. Looking for signs of the enemy, he guessed. “I am very emotional.”
“So I’ve been led to believe.” He smiled, but he doubted it did anything for her. “I envy you that. I doubt I’ll ever be truly human after this, whatever Bobbi ends up doing. Assuming that I survive.”
Violet looked at her hands for a while. The silence got to be taxing. “I feel the same way. We do not want her to end up like us. It’s why we protect her.”
“Because you feel that you aren’t human?”
“No, because we become more human when we’re with her. I used to kill the Yathi and eat their corpses. I don’t even remember why, now. But with my lady, everything seems all right. I doubt that I could ever do something so savage again.”
Her tone was so hushed as she said it, so deeply affected, Walken could only watch her mouth as she spoke, unable to respond for a short time himself. “I think I understand, Violet.”
Violet looked at him with her blue eyes strangely calm. “Do you?”
“I do.” Walken nodded. “She makes you better. She did the same for me, when we first met. Only you seem to appreciate it a great deal more than I ever did back then.”
“And now?” Her eyes remained calm, but he read something behind them – something like dismay, but not entirely. Was it…. ah.
Is that what this is about? “Now, I realize that I never gave her enough credit, and I respect her a great deal. And I want to make sure that I give her my all, so that she can be happy with the people that she loves.”
Violet frowned at him for a moment, but then nodded. “That’s a good answer.”
“I thought that it might be,” he said with a flat, tinny chuckle. “But it’s the truth.”
“I can show you the facility.” Violet frowned again, this time looking at her hands. “If you want to see it.”
“Please.” Somehow, Walken felt he’d made a bit of a friend.
The rest of the place exceeded his assumptions. He expected the laboratory facilities, of course, but they had a factory, storage areas, an armory full of weapons both exotic and mundane, living facilities for those who did not crave constant workspace or the quiet sound, and even light-sealed rooms. The base even had a small power plant with a fusion reactor that provided the prodigious amount of energy the base’s facilities needed. Yathi machinery was all over the facility, though Violet explained anything accessible from a remote location had so many layers of codewalls, defense programs and out-and-out lethal antihack software that even Yathi operators could kill themselves coming in, to say nothing of human operators. Given what he’d come to know about Bobbi, he really had no reason to doubt her.
A lower level was filled with a number of cryogenic cells, each of which contained a sleeping Reclaimed. Those yet unable to “calm down,” as Violet so gently put it. Walken knew what that meant, of course. Either Bobbi didn’t have the heart to kill them, or she genuinely believed they could be salvaged. Whatever her reasoning, it warmed him to think that she wasn’t quite the same stone-cold hardass she presented herself to be. He would never want this whole thing to destroy her.
“Tell me,” he said as they strolled through the factory level once more, via a wide catwalk that led to the lift back down to the to the labs block and command center. “What did you intend to do with all of this? I mean originally.”
“Originally?” Violet stopped to lean against a railing, looking down over long rows of silent industrial robots and assembly lines. “I think that she had expected Scalli to be right, that there was going to be a military solution to all of this. When we built the Cave, we designed it in the hope we might be able to bring Scalli and his people back into the fold, you see. She always hoped it would be possible.”
“Hence the military solution,” Walken replied. “And we still don’t kn
ow just how much we’re going to need to do to kill them off.”
“We know what will be necessary to kill off Mendelsohn and her people, should the worst take place.” Violet shrugged. “I don’t know what it is that’s gotten up that woman’s ass, but I doubt it’s what needs to be.”
Walken snorted. “I doubt that everything in the world can be solved with sex.”
“Certainly couldn’t hurt.” She gave a thin smile.” Trust me, I know. A good lover can do wonders for a bad attitude. It’s what I used to do for them, you understand. I was an infiltration specialist.”
“Oh? So you’re a spy?”
She tapped the side of her neck. “Emotional manipulator. Programmable pheromone generator, full-spectrum psychological analysis package. A few other bits and bobs, so to speak, but yes. Well. I used to.”
“Now you kill people.”
Violet nodded. “Yes, though I did that back then, too. It’s just that I kill the right people now. I have an anger problem, you see. That’s something I’ve only been able to fix so much. Just keep that in mind.”
“No pissing off the scary lady with the shiny teeth,” Walken mused. “I think that’s something that I can remember. “Looking at her expression, he tapped his own teeth with a finger. “I was a policeman, remember? It’s my job to know about combat prostheses. The teeth aren’t a Yathi invention, or at least they aren’t secret.”
“Fair enough.” Violet sighed. “Look, I…I have a question for you.”
Walken’s brows lifted.” Of course.”
“Well, I was wondering about something.” Violet turned to rest her back against the railing, fixing her eyes on him again. “It’s about Mother.”
“Ah.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. Questions about Mother were rarely positive. “If I can answer, I’ll try.”
Gathering Ashes (The Wonderland Cycle Book 3) Page 48
