CAPACITY a-2

by Tony Ballantyne

  “We weren’t smuggling,” he was saying, waving his hands. “Everything on board the ship was strictly legal.” He nodded his head in affirmation, his stomach wobbling slightly. “Come on. They constantly measure the mass of every ship traveling through the Inner System and compare it with the registered manifest. There’s no way to fool the EA.”

  “Precisely.” Judy gazed at him. “At 04.10.33 GMT, on the fourteenth of September 2226, the mass of your ship decreased by just under twelve kilograms.”

  Peter blinked rapidly. “We were testing the reaction engines. They burn a lot of chemical fuel. I imagine we could easily have burned twelve kilograms’ worth.”

  “You seem to have a very good memory. I’m sure I couldn’t remember what I was doing on the fourteenth of September, fourteen years ago. What was your job on the ship?”

  “Systems,” Peter said, rubbing at the tick below his eye. “The ship’s Turing machine was old. The self-diagnostics weren’t all they should have been: they needed some backup.”

  “A systems man, eh? Then you’d know what a type two VNM was.”

  “Yes…” He was slowly collapsing as Judy gazed at him, Helen noted with contempt. He looked as if he was about to break down now and confess everything. This was the sort of man who had kept her imprisoned? He was pathetic.

  Now Judy half closed her eyes. “So, given access to suitable raw materials and the library code, you’d be able to construct a type two VNM?”

  “Yes…” Peter sat down, folding himself into a chair. He was mentally preparing to run up a white flag. Helen could see it.

  “That’s what you did, wasn’t it? Formed a processing space out of a type two VNM and then released it into space. How many personality constructs were there aboard?”

  Peter slumped forward, his head in his hands. Helen could almost see his thoughts. He had been found out, so now he was going to bargain.

  “Look, it wasn’t me. I’m a PC myself. I was only created twelve years ago. You need to go and see the atomic Peter Onethirteen.”

  Judy’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Oh someone will, Peter, but that’s not the point. Your personality construct is based on a personality that has operated beyond the acceptable parameters laid down by the EA after the Transition of 2171. The behavior patterns of the atomic Peter will be the same as yours. You need correction just as much as he does.”

  Peter looked up at this, his eyes darting around the apartment, looking at the door, at Helen. Judy shifted just a little, drawing his attention back to herself. Back to her white skin, her black kimono. Back to the collar falling away from her neck, exposing the long white curve leading up from her smooth back to be lost beneath the elaborate black design of her hair. When she knew she had his full attention, Judy lowered her voice a little more.

  “Now, Peter Onethirteen. Do you understand that you are about to begin corrective therapy as part of the Social Care contract?”

  He crossed his arms and gazed at the floor, looking like a petulant child.

  “There are three copies of me. Will they all be punished?”

  Slowly Judy knelt down before him. Her black hair, so smooth and shiny, banded in shades of violet under the light like a blackbird’s wing. She reached out and took both of his hands in hers.

  “This is not punishment, Peter,” she crooned. “That will be decided upon later by the EA. I’m neither qualified nor interested in deciding punishment. My talent lies in healing, and we begin the first step of that process today.”

  Peter snatched his hands away. “Why should I be punished? I thought that this was supposed to be an enlightened society.”

  Helen was incensed. How dare this fat, pathetic little man expect the understanding of an enlightened society when it was he who had imprisoned her in that processing space? The words that leapt to her lips were stilled as she realized that Judy had turned to stare at her. She knew that Helen was about to lose her temper. She held Helen’s gaze, calming her. When Helen regained control of herself, Judy turned back to face Peter.

  “Peter, the threat of punishment will be enough to prevent some individuals from following in your crimes. That’s part of the reason that you will be punished. Now, I want you to swallow this.”

  She pulled her left hand from her sleeve and held it out towards him, the palm facing upwards. Helen could just make out a tiny red dot lying upon it. Was it maybe a deeper red than the pill that Judy had invited her to swallow earlier, outside the door?

  “No,” Peter said, entranced by the little red pill. “You can’t make me.”

  Helen looked on, breathless, wondering what would happen next. Judy knelt on the floor before Peter, her little feet pressing into her round bottom, back braced by the thick obi she wore around her waist, hair immaculate, the black rod of her console a horizontal line emerging from the complicated knot at the back. Helen was certain that all Judy did was stare into Peter’s eyes…

  “Okay,” Peter said suddenly. Shivering, he reached out and pressed his finger onto the little red dot. “I’ll take it,” he said, and placed it in his mouth. He swallowed.

  “Good,” Judy said. “Now, before there can be repentance there must be understanding. Before punishment there must also be understanding, for without understanding, all we have is vengeance. Let us begin.”

  Peter gave a hesitant nod.

  Judy said nothing. Helen moved around so she could see them both better. The pair seemed to be locked in a silent conversation, Judy’s impassive stare conveying something that caused Peter’s lower lip to begin trembling. There was a tension in the room: Helen could feel it filling the apartment; it tarnished the gilt of the antique picture frames that hung on the wall; it brushed on the rich fabric of the furniture coverings.

  When it seemed like the tension could build no longer, Judy spoke at last. “Why were you working on the ship, Peter?”

  “I told you. To help keep the TM working. There was no AI on that ship.”

  “But why not?”

  “You don’t have to have an AI on a ship, do you?”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  There was a long pause. Peter was sweating.

  “You know why we didn’t have an AI.”

  Helen had guessed the answer.

  “I want you to say it,” Judy said.

  Peter rubbed his forehead with his pajama sleeve.

  “Okay, sometimes we wanted to keep a lid on what we were doing. Competitive advantage. Nothing illegal.”

  “But you were doing something illegal, weren’t you, Peter? You built the processing space in which those personality constructs were illegally imprisoned.”

  “I thought they were in there of their own volition!”

  Again, Judy didn’t speak, simply held Peter’s gaze, and Helen felt a little stirring inside her. The red pill that Judy had handed to her outside the door had heightened her senses, too. Judy was guiding him as to what to think and feel. Helen was catching the edge of it. It was powerful stuff. Peter cracked.

  “Okay,” he said. “I guessed, but I didn’t want to know. I thought that by not being told directly, by allowing myself to believe there was maybe nothing wrong going on, I would somehow be absolved of any connection to the crime. That was wrong of me.”

  Judy smiled. It looked sinister on her black-and-white face.

  “Good, Peter, good. You see, I’m trying to get a picture of whether or not you are a user of the Private Network. I don’t think you are, you know. I think you were on that ship for other reasons. Go on, tell me. What were they?”

  Peter waved his hand around his apartment.

  “For this. I like nice things. That takes money.”

  Judy frowned. “But everyone can have nice things, Peter. You know that.”

  Peter shook his head. He was trembling now. Trembling with something that almost felt like righteousness.

  “But these are the originals. There aren’t that many of them left. A copy isn’t good enough. That mir
ror on the wall, it’s an original Lebec.”

  Judy looked at it. She looked back at Peter.

  “But it isn’t, Peter. Remember where you are…”

  He shook his head violently.

  “You don’t understand, Judy. It may just be a shadow of the Lebec that was made in the atomic world, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that shadow Lebec is owned by Peter Onethirteen. Only he had the taste and the money to buy it.”

  Helen was so engrossed in watching Peter’s suddenly animated face, she didn’t realize for a moment that Judy had turned to stare at her. When Helen did, she flinched, but Judy appeared not to notice.

  “There you are, Helen,” she said calmly. “It always comes back to this: possession. Because possession disturbs the ideal of equality by making one object subordinate to another. Remember that.”

  She turned back to face Peter.

  “So, Peter, you operated beyond the law on those flights in order to get the money to acquire nice things. Is that the only reason?”

  “No,” said Peter, “there was another reason, and you know it. I can feel the recognition in you. This pill is helping, isn’t it?” He seemed to be gaining confidence. He had found a confidante, a kindred spirit. “Yes, you feel it, too.” He nodded, pleased. “We both know what it’s like, knowing that you’re the best at something.”

  Judy’s face remained impassive. Peter held her gaze.

  “Don’t deny it, Judy. You know you’re the best at what you do, and you do what you do because you’re the best.”

  “I don’t deny it, Peter.”

  “Then you know what I mean.”

  Helen shifted uneasily on the coffee table. She wasn’t sure what she had expected in the course of an MTPH session. Certainly not this. She sensed that something extra was being exchanged between Peter and Judy, something she was not part of. Peter seemed to be becoming more self-confident, and something told her he should not be. Judy was setting him up.

  “Do you recognize this woman?” Judy said suddenly.

  With a start, Helen realized that Judy was pointing at her.

  “No,” Peter said.

  “Her name is Helen. She was one of the commodity personalities you transferred into the processing space before launching it on its way across the solar system.”

  Peter was examining Helen now, his expression one of morbid fascination. He rubbed a finger across his upper lip. He was sweating again.

  “I never saw the personalities. I wasn’t that interested in what went on inside the PS. It’s not my sort of thing. Honestly.”

  “I told you, I believe you.” Judy’s voice was a gentle monotone. Peter relaxed a little. “But in some ways,” continued Judy, “that makes your actions worse. I think your claim that you were uninterested is intended to imply that you were disinterested, and I don’t think that, as a human being, you can be allowed to make that claim.”

  Silence.

  “I don’t understand you,” said Peter.

  “Yes, you do. Look at Helen. If I told you to, would you force her into your bedroom and then hold her down while she was raped repeatedly?”

  Helen caught the edge of excitement that fluttered briefly inside him at the thought.

  “You bastard!” she yelled, standing up and clenching her fist to strike at him. But then she hesitated. Judy was doing something to Peter, sending waves of emotion crashing down upon him, and Helen was feeling their reflection. Suddenly she saw herself as Judy was making Peter see her: as a real person, crying in pain and humiliation, biting her lip and wishing that it would just stop, and she could…

  “No!” Peter shouted, dragging himself back to the real world.

  “Yes,” Judy said calmly, “imagine this…”

  The northern edge of the arboretum rose towards a dull grey moor. Purple heather rippled in a cold wind around the artificially crashed spaceship, its hull cracked open like an egg, a tangle of silver-grey venumbs spilling out from inside, and across the bleak landscape. Helen walked briskly along the wet grass, by the little stream into which a silver venumb dipped its branches. Despite the cold, she found she was sweating under her simple white shift. A single drop of sweat ran down between her breasts….

  “Do you like that, Peter?” Judy asked, still kneeling before him.

  “Why?” Peter said, on his guard.

  “Don’t be so defensive. It’s natural to have at least some interest in what it feels like to inhabit the body of the opposite sex.”

  …and Helen rubbed a sleeve across her forehead. The fuchsias she had wound so carefully into her hair like a crown were tickling her. The grass gave way to wide brown expanses of peat. A series of pale blue duckboards led across the cold mud towards the cracked spaceship. She walked across them, feeling them give slightly beneath her feet. The sweat dried cold on her face as she skipped from duckboard to duckboard. One of them slipped to the side and she tumbled forward. Her legs sank into the rich mud with a sucking sound.

  “Shit!” The mud smelled; now she was filthy. She sank a little deeper, her white shift riding up around her waist on the black mire. Lightly, she pressed a hand on its surface. It was no use trying to push her way out; she would only force her arms down into the cold bog. She turned and tried to catch hold of the duckboards, but they were too far away. This was embarrassing. She was going to have to ask for help. She gave a sigh and reached for her console.

  It wasn’t there.

  “Are you all right, Peter?” Judy asked.

  “Yes.” But he wasn’t. Helen could feel the sudden stab of panic that he had felt when he realized the console was missing. He was gasping for breath, one hand to his heart.

  Judy lowered her head for a moment, pondering. She came to a decision.

  “This isn’t one of the violent scenarios, you know, Peter. It is more of a…a connoisseur’s choice, you might say. They used to run…well, let us call them competitions, with the various PCs. Helen here was used in what you might call the first-division categories.”

  “What?” Helen said. Judy waved at her, did something to calm her down.

  “Oh, yes,” Judy continued, “Helen has a strong personality. To break it requires some skill. To break it without resorting to the stock properties-”

  “The stock properties?” Helen said. There was rage inside her. She could feel Judy was pushing it down, somehow.

  “Oh, yes, stock properties: rape, murder, mutilation. The products of a limited mind, an average intelligence. It takes some skill to bring about a mental breakdown without resort to the clichés.”

  Helen snarled.

  “Calm down please, Helen,” Judy said, mildly. “This is about Peter, not you.”

  Her console was gone. She forced her hands into the mud, feeling for the belt around her waist that was her console’s usual form. It wasn’t there. The shock of its absence was so unsettling that she found herself panting, gasping out little breaths while her heart pounded. Keep calm. If she began to panic now, she would never stop. Concentrate on being calm. She could see the grey sky high above, feel the soft grip of the mud. She could move in it, slide her legs up and down, wriggle her body. She just couldn’t press down with her arms to force her way up. Newton’s Law: action and reaction. Everyone knew that if you were sinking in mud, you should relax. Don’t fight it, just relax and wait for the natural buoyancy of your body to float you up. But that was easily said when you were sitting safe on firm ground. Not so easy to imagine when you could feel yourself slipping deeper and deeper down. Feel the mud pressing up on your breasts, each precious breath filled with that rich earthy smell. Still, relax, lay your arms out on the mud and relax…

  “I’m frightened,” Peter said. He was gasping for breath. He looked at Helen. “Helen, I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry. Make her stop. I get the point. What you said was true, Judy. I can see that now. I never wanted to know what they did to them in the processing spaces.”

  “To them? Don’t depersonalize it, Peter.�
��

  “To Helen,” he cried. “I admit it. Just stop it now. Please.”

  “Stop what?” Judy said.

  “Stop making me feel what Helen must have felt when she drowned. I understand the lesson.”

  “What lesson?”

  “Of how awful it must be to die in that way.”

  “That isn’t the lesson,” Judy said.

  “It should be,” Helen whispered, eyes filling with cold hatred.

  She couldn’t relax. She was sinking down, her legs slipping forward in slow motion as if she had slid on ice and was falling backwards, her arms flung wide. Her head rolled back, resting itself on the mud behind her like a pillow. She wondered if she could feel her legs rising up from the sucking earth. She was doing what she was supposed to, wasn’t she? Cold wind on her face. Now she was beginning to panic. Then she saw someone coming along the duckboards. A man in a red-and-white candy-striped jacket. He carried an umbrella in one hand.

  “Help,” Helen called. “Over here! Help!” Her whole body was held in a soft, cold grip. Her left hand clenched cold mud, uselessly.

  The man heard her cry and came towards her.

  “I’m drowning,” sobbed Helen. “Use your console. Get help.”

  The man stopped on the walkway, leaning on his umbrella, and looked down at her. When he spoke it was in a puzzled voice. His words chilled her fear and replaced it with a sudden pang of sadness so deep she felt like crying.

  “Why should I?” he asked.

  Peter gave a whimper. “That’s horrible.”

  “How do you feel on hearing that?”

  “Alone. Abandoned. That someone has so little humanity…Didn’t he understand how she felt?”

  “All too well.”

  Mud was forming a circle around Helen’s face. She was looking out into the world of life from a cold, sucking grave.