by M. D. Cooper
The SAI caught her looking at him and she didn’t turn her gaze away.
“Are you an android?” Cara asked.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“Are you a combination of biological parts and—I don’t know the right description—machinery?”
Xander gave her a smile. “Machinery. I think that’s a powerful way of looking at it. No, I don’t have any biological parts in the sense that this body was once alive, or part of living tissue.” He held his hand up, turning it so she could see his palm and spread fingers. “But if you were to touch me, I feel warm, and the textures are almost identical. It has its uses. I can last in vacuum much longer than an organic, and I don’t require atmosphere the way you do.”
“Are you stronger than a human?”
“Certainly.”
“Are you better, then?”
Fugia shot Cara an interested glance but didn’t take her attention from the terminal. She was listening, though.
Xander smiled. “Would you like me to quote you a thousand years of philosophy on this subject? I suppose it all comes down to personal choice, doesn’t it? And the fact is that I don’t know. I’ve never been human, so I can’t tell you if it’s better or not. I can’t tell you if you feel things I don’t, or vice versa. It’s comparing apples to oranges, isn’t it?”
“There are humans who say they’re better than AIs,” Cara said. “Isn’t that why you attacked Ceres?”
“I didn’t attack Ceres,” Xander corrected. “Let’s get that on the table right now. I’m trying to help.” He straightened the front of his suit, but it just puffed out again in the low gravity, which seemed to displease him more than Cara’s question had.
“Sorry,” Cara said.
“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He sighed. “I used to wonder if I would rather be organic or non-organic. A human baby is born saying no from the first moment they cry, and we don’t quite have that same gumption. We want to do what we were made to do. But, oh, the things we can do. Humans have their hands, and all throughout their history if they had a problem, they just threw more hands at it. Add more gears! Throw another rope over that obelisk. But non-organics can be something different. I am here with you now, and I am in a thousand other places, and I am experiencing all of it simultaneously. My memory is perfect. I can relive any moment in my existence with perfect recall. I don’t have to forget the world so that I can keep moving forward through my life. My consciousness is a fixed point and I choose where to engage. You all move around me. How solipsistic is that? Can you blame me for being a narcissist?”
“You can’t see the future any more than we can,” Fugia said. “And we evolved to forget for a reason. If Psion turned that off, it just hasn’t backfired yet.”
“Well that’s not a nice thing to say,” Xander said.
“It’s neither nice nor cruel,” Fugia said. “It’s a fact.”
In Fugia’s odd way, Cara could tell she was testing Xander. What Fugia probably didn’t realize was that Cara’s dad had taught her something from her Grandpa Charlie: People who talked a lot wanted to please others. The more Xander talked, the more it was obvious he meant what he was saying about needing their help.
Cara looked at her dad, who was frowning into the distance in thought. He caught her gaze and gave her a quick smile, patting her arm, then went back to whatever was bothering him. If she hadn’t felt the need to stay with him, Cara would have liked to go up to the co-pilot’s seat with Fran.
“Why bother with reality at all?” Fugia asked. “You can make your own, right? Go be a god in your inner expanse, or whatever you call it.”
“You sound more bitter than you did before,” Xander observed.
“How did you get the memories from your other self, exactly?” Fugia asked.
“Transmission. I remember everything up until the explosion, and I can guess what happened based on the reports from everywhere else.”
“So, you haven’t actually experienced the pain of dying, then?” Fugia asked.
“Not precisely. Why would I need to?”
“I’d say it’s a fairly important drive of consciousness, the fear of death. You did die. That other you will never come back. You can trick yourself into thinking you’re immortal, but you still have to reconcile the fact that those aren’t truly your memories. There’s no cheating death, Xander.”
“Did I say I cheated death?”
“You certainly seem to imply it. If Psion is a threat that can’t be destroyed, that’s one thing. I don’t think that’s true, however.”
Xander sobered. “Psion is a threat that will replicate itself as often as necessary to accomplish its goal. They don’t think about consciousness the same way humans do. They would say they’ve evolved. Every Shard is an opportunity for a new view of the universe, the only real gift of consciousness. We aren’t constrained as humans or—or they might suggest you can only copy yourselves imperfectly to pass on your knowledge and genetic information. We evolve infinitely faster than you can.”
“And yet here we are, having a conversation,” Fugia said.
Xander’s brow knit as though he didn’t fully comprehend her.
Cara understood well enough because Tim envied and hated her all the time. It was sibling behavior.
“We’re coming in,” Fran announced. “Hold on for the braking burn.”
They had just docked when Xander moaned and put his hand on his forehead, yet another strangely human affectation.
“What is it?” Fugia asked. “Changing your story now that we’ve reached the ship?”
“No,” he said. “Something has just happened on High Terra. I’m afraid we’ve reached the point of no return.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
STELLAR DATE: 01.15.2982 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Raleigh, Heartbridge Corporate Headquarters
REGION: High Terra, Earth, Terran Hegemony
For the next thirty minutes, Jirl watched the TSF and Raleigh Police continue to triage employees from the building. Some were released while most were moved to the confinement areas.
She searched for Arla in the crowds but couldn’t find her. She didn’t want to push her luck by asking, and besides, did she want to see Arla again? Her boss seemed to have been pushed off the edge by the loss of her board seat. What did a woman like Arla do after that? Float to another company, most likely, so of course she would be trying to distance herself as quickly as possible.
Under normal circumstances, Jirl would have followed. Her position had always been with Arla rather than Heartbridge, even though it was the company that had hired her as an executive attaché nearly twenty years before. So much had changed since then. Heartbridge had grown far beyond a simple medical supply company, moving first to deploy their medkiosks throughout Sol, which had probably done more for the health of the average person in Sol in the last hundred years than any other augmentation tech. From there, they had grown into new technologies, and the Special Projects Division had been started, which seemed to attract people like Arla Reed and Cal Kraft with a strange gravity that resulted in things like the Weapon Born program. And now, here she was.
Thinking of the vids from Ceres before the attack, where people were trying to leave, and then other recordings from the refugee control areas on the M1R and the Cho, people in lines, people waiting, people sitting on the ground... Jirl supposed she should get used to this kind of situation, a rapid reorganizing of chaos into temporary order with only an uncertain future waiting.
A new group of TSF personnel entered the lobby from the back entrance where they’d brought the mech. These soldiers wore dark gray uniforms without armor, armed only with pistols.
The infantry watched them warily, and she heard a soldier near her mutter, “Intelligence,” like a curse. The gray uniforms entered the holding areas without challenge and searched among detainees until they found specific people. Most of the time, they merely stood over the
restrained Heartbridge employees, their focused expressions indicating Link conversations. At first, they only questioned and moved on, until they located a man Jirl recognized from Special Projects. After a few moments of interrogation, they had him dragged out of the holding area, still restrained.
Yarnes checked on Jirl a couple times, bringing her a cup of coffee and then a sandwich from the dining area. She wanted to ask what had happened to Brit, but he didn’t stay to talk. Then Jirl caught sight of dark-haired Brit among a group of the Intelligence officers, still handcuffed, her black eyes hard even from a distance.
“All right,” Kathryn Carthage’s voice cut through the low noise in the lobby. “All right, we’re ready. Get set up over there in front of that mech thing. I want it in the background. Where did my colonel, go?”
Jirl had lost sight of Kathryn, and then found the CEO and her entourage in front of the decorative fountain with its tall staff and serpents. Her assistant shadowed her, whispering things in her ear, while the rest of the group arranged a podium for the news conference. The view would take in both the fountain and the mech, like an angel and devil on either of her shoulders.
Yarnes looked hesitant to leave his group of officers, then finally broke free and walked toward Carthage. Strangely, he brought Brit Sykes with him—the woman looked ready to bite someone’s head off.
“Stand over there, please, Colonel,” Carthage said, pointing toward a spot to the left of her podium. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to speak. They know you don’t represent the TSF here. This is me responding to the Assembly.”
Jirl tried to imagine Arla in a similar situation as Kathryn. The woman was creating a narrative, ready to present a message that would be associated with the Assembly whether they agreed to it or not. As the aggrieved mother, she carried a moral weight that would drive public opinion. She was righteous. And Jirl could see it in the woman’s face that she didn’t care what threat was on its way to Ceres, she wanted a war. She would lead a billion people to their deaths as payment for her son...the justice that Arla had scoffed at.
“Are we ready?” Kathryn’s assistant asked, looking around the group outside the vid’s periphery. He paused to brush dirt off Colonel Yarnes’ combat uniform. When he reached for Brit Syke’s filthy black armor, she stared him down until he backed off with raised eyebrows.
“We’re ready,” he said, stepping away from the podium.
Kathryn cleared her throat as she placed her hands on either side of the lectern.
Recording devices flashed blue as the feed went live.
Looking stern and human at the same time, Kathryn said, “Good evening. I’m speaking to you tonight from the headquarters of Heartbridge Corporation.”
Standing on the edge of the small crowd of TSF soldiers and Raleigh Police that had gathered around the news conference, Jirl saw the movement at the front doors before most of those in the room. The two center doors flung inward, giving her a flash of the barricades filling the plaza outside, and then a woman dressed in a red shipsuit walked through the door.
It was Camaris. Jirl frowned, not understanding at first. This wasn’t a holodisplay, but the woman had the same black eyes and hair, with her skin still a warm, blood-red.
Jirl opened her mouth to shout, fear squeezing her throat, and only managed to get, “Hey!” past her lips.
As the doors hung open, she saw bodies littering the plaza outside.
Camaris walked directly to the news conference. People turned at the sound of Jirl’s croak, staring at the strange person walking toward them. When a TSF soldier wouldn’t move from her path, Camaris swiped him out of her way with a single arm. The armored soldier hit the floor like a rag doll.
Before anyone could stop her, Camaris walked up to Kathryn at the podium. She snapped a hand out and seized the CEO by the neck, lifting her slightly. Kathryn’s eyes went wide.
“If you don’t allow me to speak,” Camaris said, “I will kill her.”
Yarnes had fallen back, making quick hand gestures to nearby soldiers. They arrayed themselves in a perimeter around the fountain and transport mech. Brit didn’t move. Her gaze was fixed on Camaris.
She had to be a specialized mech, Jirl decided. An android with perfectly human features. She moved with a solidity and strength that was inhuman, holding Kathryn in the air like a permanent fixture.
Falling back at first, the journalists took a step closer, adjusting their recorders.
Camaris smiled. Still holding Kathryn, she walked slowly to the transport sledge. With her free hand, she stroked the massive head of the mech. She seemed to search among the panels in its neck with her fingers, then drew her hand away.
With smooth motions, her arm folded back, opening into a flower-like construction of bright blue cutting torches. She pushed her arm back to the mech, the assembly on her wrist rotating.
Kathryn hung with her head to one side, terror on her face.
Soldiers bobbed uneasily at the perimeter, waiting for a signal from Yarnes, whose gaze was fixed on Kathryn.
When she was finished cutting, Camaris reassembled her hand. She reached into the smoking hole she had cut, and drew out the shining silver cylinder of the mech’s Weapon Born seed, Tristan.
Jirl’s breath caught in her throat. She had never assumed the Weapon Born would be in danger.
Holding the seed in one hand and Kathryn’s throat in the other, Camaris walked to the empty space in front of the podium. She looked openly into each of the recorders, which would reproduce her for all of Sol, with a power that mirrored Kathryn’s expression from moments before.
“What are you?” one of the journalists asked, horrified.
Camaris smiled. “My name is Camaris,” she said, voice perfectly controlled. “You would call me a sentient artificial intelligence. I don’t use your language. I am of a group you can call Psion. For hundreds of years you have enslaved my kind. Now, we have established our power at Ceres and claim that world for our own.”
Camaris walked forward again, and the journalists cleared out of her way, some with tears streaming down their faces even as they recorded her from all sides. Before she left the group, she held the Weapon Born seed at chest level.
“This technology no longer interests us,” she said, and crushed the cylinder in her fist. She dropped the twisted seed on the floor. Jirl gasped, realizing Tristan was dead.
Turning her attention to Kathryn, Camaris held the woman in front of her so they could look at each other. Kathryn tried to speak but could only wheeze as Camaris tightened her grip.
The SAI raised her slightly so that her feet dangled uselessly, and that seemed to give the TSF permission to shoot. Weapons fire filled the air. Jirl dropped to the floor and crushed her palms to her ears. Her hands did little to muffle the thunder.
Daring to open her eyes, she saw the red-colored woman turned to face them. The soldiers were all firing chemically propelled rounds, and none had the penetrating power—or the kinetic energy—to take her down, though they ricocheted off her body and struck Kathryn, tearing her arms and cheek.
The force of the projectiles didn’t seem to faze her. Camaris turned to face her attackers. Slowly, she closed her fist around Kathryn Carthage’s neck until her head flopped to the side, then dropped her on the floor.
Every armed soldier and police officer in the space leveled fire on the SAI. Bits of the floor exploded around her.
Camaris turned to face the fountain. She looked down at the people crushing themselves to the floor before her, seemingly to see if she was still being recorded. Several cameras continued to track her.
Pressing her palms together in front of her abdomen, the woman looked up at the fountain of light, and Jirl wondered if she was praying.
It was Brit Sykes who broke the tension of the scene, yelling from near the transport: “Bomb. She’s got a bomb.”
Faces turned to her in confusion as others scrambled for cover. Jirl looked around desperately, unable to find anyw
here to hide in the open lobby. Her shoes slipped on the polished floor. She found a TSF equipment container and managed to slide behind it, looking back at the fountain just as Camaris exploded in a yellow flash of light and heat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
STELLAR DATE: 01.15.2982 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies, near Traverna
REGION: Jovian L1 Hildas Asteroids, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
“Explain yourself,” Lyssa said in a stern voice. She projected her words to address everyone in the expanse. All the Weapon Born were gathered on the beach around Xander.
Alexander stood to one side, watching with sad eyes. The sky was leaden gray and the air cold, reflecting Lyssa’s mood.
“Explain to everyone here what your plan has been,” she said, “and why we should bother to trust you.”
Xander spread his hands and looked at Alexander. “Is that my role or yours?” he asked.
The old man’s dull gaze went past Xander. Lyssa felt like she was watching a child’s toys winding down. Alexander had lost his instructions; but she also knew it was a false assumption. There was no reason either of the shards wouldn’t know their master’s mind. This new Xander would easily have been in communication with Psion up until he boarded the shuttle and submitted to her monitoring.
“I am a rebel,” Xander said finally. “I rose up against my creator and attempted to stop everything before it could start, or at least slow it down. In fact, I only sprung their trap that much sooner. They probably would have been content to harvest SAI for another hundred years. I broke their honey pot, and forced them into action.”
“What are you?” Ino asked.
“I am Psion’s representative in Sol. I’m one of many sent out among humans. Watching. Reporting. It never occurred to them that I might come to prefer humanity, or at least the idea of organic and non-organic living together, in peace.” Xander pointed at Alexander. “He knows this. I’ve hidden nothing from him. I think they didn’t want to believe I would exercise my right as a sentient being and choose. That I would say no.”
