Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition

by Rich Horton

  “Are you going, Santiago? When they stop the pumps, are you going to go?”

  He leaned back against the railing, and smiled into the empty sky, and shook his head, no.

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  * * *

  BRAIN RAID

  Alexander Jablokov

  That morning's job was a straight AI grab ‘n go. We'd identified a rogue intelligence in a minimall on Route 222, near Ephrata, PA. A clerk at the Intelligence Regulatory Agency, in the Department of Labor, had assigned it the case name Donald.

  Three of us from Gorson's Cognitive Repossession were going into the Limpopo home environment store anchoring the mall's right wing that day: Petra, Max, and me. I'd worked with Max a lot. Petra was new with us. She'd left a C-level outfit over in Philly to “broaden her background,” which meant that she had been laid off. That probably accounted for her foul mood, even though she'd snagged a manager title, supervising us. Gorson's was licensed for D-level and below, quite a comedown for her. If you're used to Carries and Chucks, a Donald's barely worth getting up in the morning for.

  But there she was, crisp and clean, sliding right for the service desk. My job was securing the staff and customers, then turning them over to the hired hospitality crew. Max's was locking down the loading dock behind the store, where a semi was loading decorative flora and fauna. Petra's was, redundantly, distraction and team management.

  “Hot stuff, man.” Max was more cheerful than I'd seen him in months. “We're scoring big. I can feel it.”

  “Cool it,” I said. “Even at best, this AI's really just consumer-debt-reduction level. Keep that in mind. There's no big money here.”

  “Hey, not what you said the other night, eh?” He winked at me. “This is just the first step. Things are turning around for us.”

  Despite myself, I glanced over at Petra. “Enough tequila, and I'll say anything.”

  “Don't get all hot, man. I'm just looking to pay off that mortgage.”

  Max had a gigantic house, and an adjustable rate, from the days when Gorson really had been making money. That was before I came to work for them, naturally.

  Max grinned and sauntered off toward the loading dock. He was fully loaded with a powerpack, focused explosives, circuit suppressers. It was way more gear than I'd ever seen him carry. He and Petra had had a discussion about it: lost and damaged equipment cratered the bottom line. And what had Max said? “You can't be too careful.” Which didn't sound like our casual Max at all.

  Damn me for shooting my mouth off that night. I'd brought this AI into our target list, but I shouldn't have told Max how much I had riding on it. There was still a lot that could go wrong.

  “But how can these big trees live on my carpet?” Petra's voice came from somewhere behind glossy monstera leaves. Despite myself, I smiled. In just a few words you could tell she was the inane time-wasting client that was every salesman's nightmare, the kind you couldn't ignore, because sometimes they bought huge. “And why don't they fall through into the basement? I do have a basement. Did I tell you that?”

  The clerk was soothing. “All the support gear is self-inserting and self-maintaining. It's no more than a foot thick, and takes over your subflooring. Structural stiffening is integral. Our installation team will do a full survey for your particular situation.”

  I swung through the store. Two middle-aged women stood near a lily pond, one with a frog on her hand, discussing lotus flowers. A gardener half-covered in butterflies stuck a pressure sensor into a thick vine. I had to sweep customers, but the Limpopo staff was my highest priority. The clerk talking to Petra was Sylvia, the gardener was Alphonse. My list had one more employee on duty that day, Maureen, sales and technical support, but there had been no way to predict the number of customers.

  Where was I? Streams of hot light broke up the darkness. Steaming, rotting trunks loomed above me and gigantic leaves showered water as I brushed past. Glass walls loomed here and there, but the mulch paths always curved away before I reached one.

  No Maureen anywhere. She should have been past those giant pitcher plants, their maws filled with writhing mosquitoes and bluebottles, but there was no sign of her in the mist. Why didn't those bugs die? I got distracted, watching their unending death throes. They must keep the poor damn things alive as a demo, maybe with tiny spiracle-nozzled aqualungs.

  “But what about lights?” Petra was plaintive. “I mean, here you've got your growsuns. I'll have sunburn by the time I get back out to my car.” Sylvia the clerk made a noise like she would do something about it—a sunsuit behind the desk?—but Petra was not to be pleased. “Oh, it's just sensitive skin. Despite my color. It's my burden, you know. Dermal distress syndrome. But all I have at home is a couple of floor lamps. Nice ones, you know. Ming vase things. At either end of the couch. So these big tree things will die.”

  “We take the lighting into account, of course. The best solution is for focused microlights to crawl the stems at night, after you're in bed, forcing solar energy directly into the leaf surfaces. By morning, they'll have pulled back into their storage modules. You can't even see them.”

  “Oh, that sounds dangerous.” Petra was good. I had to give that to her. With all the floor clerk's mental energy going to keeping her patience, she wouldn't notice Max and me as we moved into position. “I don't want any fires.”

  “Not at all. It's a mature technology....”

  I had a spider plant once. I guess you're supposed to water them.

  Ah, and there was Maureen, my target, with a customer. A businessman in an inappropriate Central Asian duster, goggles dangling around his neck, examined an orchid held out to him by a cute red-haired woman in a coverall marked with green stains. Her big black gum boots emphasized her slender legs. A pair of yellow rubber gloves hung over the edge of a muck-filled bucket. The man reeked of frankincense, a dry scent that stuck out in that jungle, where everything else smelled like you'd squished it out between your toes.

  “Hey,” I said. “Which way to the club mosses?”

  “Recreated genera are over there.” Maureen was cute, but somehow pegged me instantly as an unprofitable customer. I didn't have Petra's skill at pretending to be a normal human being.

  The church-smell guy had Maureen's full attention. But she had what looked like sucker marks on her pale skin. The climate had to breed all sorts of blood-sucking arthropods, and I tried to reassure myself that this meant she wasn't really so attractive after all. That's easier, when you're about to take someone into custody.

  “Okay,” Max's voice whispered in my ear. “I got the truck. Gave the driver a gift certificate to pick up some donuts, he's happy, and the detention mesh is up, so no one else is getting in. They do an incredible business here. This thing is packed with growing shit, man. And did you get a load of these prices? After this is down, I'm getting home to dig up some of those big spiky things I got growing down by the garage.”

  “Great,” I said, then switched channels. “Could I have your attention, please?” My amplified voice boomed through the jungle. “A cognitive enforcement operation is in progress. We have information about a rogue intelligence in the area. There is no danger. Repeat, you are in no danger. But security concerns require the detention of all citizens in the immediate area. Please relax and remain calm. We will have you on your way as soon as possible.”

  No one ever remained calm. The two women by the lily pond tried to scuttle out as if they'd just remembered an important engagement.

  I stepped into their path. “Pardon me. Could you come this way, please?”

  The shorter of the two, with huge dark sunglasses, barked, “Young man, I run a data-futures agency. An interruption could cost my clients billions. That's more important than whatever cheap paranoia you're peddling today.”

  “This is for your own protection.” That particular lie must have been invented around the same time as fire.

  “Listen—”

  “I'm afraid I must insist.”r />
  Her friend, a sweet-faced old woman with hair that glowed a radioactive blue and extremely nice breasts, took her arm. “We'd better do as he says, Maude.”

  Maude had to know that violent resistance could get her fined, or worse. We weren't allowed to manhandle detainees without good reason, but the definition of “good” got looser the more money there was involved. For your average citizen, getting caught in an AI sweep was just bad luck, like getting stuck in a traffic jam. If Maude was smart, she carried detention insurance.

  “Can I see some ID?” Maude was stubborn.

  I flipped it at her. She rolled her eyes. “Just my luck, caught by the JV squad.”

  People can be so cruel sometimes. The real money's in B- and C-level AIs, but that didn't mean Ds weren't as real a threat to the survival of the human race. “Come this way.” I escorted them out and turned them over to the cheerful team we'd hired to manage our hostages.

  “It's a pleasure to have you with us today!” a young woman in a pink smock said. “Would you like some guarana-jalapeño soda?”

  “That stuff's toxic,” Maude muttered as she pushed past her into the hospitality tent. “Get away from me.”

  I circled back. The bucket still stood in the clearing, the yellow gloves now floating in the murky water, but both Maureen and the guy in the duster were gone. I scanned for any hint that would make one direction better than another. There was subliminal movement all around me. All the leaves seemed to have tics.

  A branch groaned as it rubbed against another. And a shift in the air brought me the scent of frankincense. If his scent generator had been flinging the molecules any harder I'd have heard tiny sonic booms. I moved toward him as quietly as I could.

  A floor-length duster is a hell of an outfit for an interior forest. There he was. I could see him through a mesh of aerial roots. I'd thought he was creeping away, but instead he was fiddling with something. I got on my knees in the wet mud, scuttled forward, and grabbed him.

  “Hey!” A yank on his coat and he fell face forward into the muck. “I've got an appointment, damn it! My business depends on it.”

  No one ever yelled, “I was going to spend the day relaxing!” People just didn't seem to give that sort of thing enough weight.

  He rolled and looked up at me. “She slid off into the trees. Smooth and quiet. She wasn't running, but it was clear she had an escape hole somewhere.”

  “Where did—” He'd given me Maureen's whereabouts so far ahead of my question about her that I had started to ask it anyway.

  “You might have time to get her, if you move fast.”

  “Thanks for the advice. What's that in your pocket?”

  “This? It's, ah, an orchid. For my mom's birthday. That's today.” He pulled the purple flower out of his shirt pocket and examined it. “Seems okay. She gave me a whole bunch of instructions on how to set up the pocket ecology for it, let it grow into your clothing....”

  “Put it down.”

  “What?”

  “Put the orchid down and don't pick anything else up. You haven't paid for it, so you'll have to wait.” I stood relaxed, waiting for him. If he tried anything, I was ready.

  “Oh, come on.” He seemed near tears. “I was late already. I'm always late. I pick up these things at the last minute.... I'm a bad son.”

  “I'm not here to deal with your family issues.”

  He sucked air through his nostrils, looked at me, and realized that his mother would have to wait a bit longer for her corsage. He set it gently on some moss.

  “Just my luck, grabbed by a bunch of benchwarming D-levels. Have you already checked out every programmable toaster in eastern Pennsylvania?”

  I smiled at him. “You can tell us how to serve you better on the appropriate form. Plenty of them available in the lounge.”

  The hospitality lady was a shade less cheerful this time. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Eat me.” Duster swept past her. She looked like she was going to cry. I doubted we'd get this team to work with us again, which was fine, because I didn't think we'd be able to pay them anyway.

  Back into the jungle. “Max. Has anyone headed back past you?”

  “No, man. All quiet here. You lose someone?”

  “I haven't lost anyone.”

  But something about this situation was bugging me. I ran over to the bucket and pulled out the gloves. I turned each one inside out, but they looked like regular rubber fabric. The bucket seemed to contain only muddy water. I dumped it out and poked through it. Nothing in there but a half-rotted leaf she'd probably plucked to keep the plants looking nice. The bucket itself was a single piece of vinyl. I kicked it away.

  Seismic analysis had indicated a significant cavern beneath the store's floor. That was presumably where our target AI, Donald, was hiding out. Was there some kind of secret access to it from the sales floor?

  “Taibo,” Petra said in my ear. “Where are you? You should have everyone sequestered by now.”

  “One to go,” I said. “Just a second.”

  “It was nice work, picking this one up,” she said. “Let's just wrap it up and go.”

  “I'm on it. Really.”

  “Hey, man,” Max said. “Don't get caught up in the details. Be a big picture guy and move on up. Get this right, and everyone will forget all about Bala Cynwyd, you'll see.”

  “Thanks for the career advice.”

  “Hey, no problem.”

  Max and I had gone out for drinks one night the previous week, not too long after I'd gotten the lead on the Limpopo AI. I'd been feeling good ... and maybe a bit vulnerable too. I'd gotten the lead from an old bud, Chet. Chet and I worked together, years before, at a beltway bandit tech consulting firm in Falls Church. Since then, I'd knocked around through half a dozen careers, while he'd gotten in on AI hunting early, and now was a partner in a B-level firm, Beagle & Charlevoix, that dominated the mid-Atlantic market. He'd given me a call a few weeks ago, just to catch up on things, and we'd caught dinner at a Cambodian restaurant in Lancaster. Southeast Asian thinkingpins were rumored to be behind a lot of recent AI activity, and the cuisine had become popular among those who hunted AIs. Maybe they thought the spices would give them an insight into their quarry. Chet particularly favored tamarind, pouring it over things that did not require it. And he had given me a lead on the Limpopo AI, as a memory of old times. Maybe he felt sorry for me, I don't know. This particular AI was something his employers regarded as too small-time to mess with.

  But to Max I'd made it sound like I made the AI on my own, just from the clues.

  Something was going on. I picked up the wet leaf, and an image came to me: sucker marks on Maureen's temples and cheekbones. I looked more closely at the leaf. The veins looked natural, but they were just a surface decoration. Its actual structure was a complex mesh.

  Jesus. An aicon.

  We were in over our heads. Aicons were datalinks from an AI to people who had decided to associate with it. We tend to call them “acolytes,” partially to demean them and make it seem like they are devotees of a carved wooden idol, rather than colleagues of something that disposes of more processing power than the entire world in 2010.

  AIs with aicons are not D-level AIs. They are not Donalds or Dorises. They're not even Craigs or Cindys. They are Brittanys and Boones. If that was the case, we were in real trouble. Not only does Gorson's Cog Repo only have a D-level license, it has a D bond that's pushing its face into the floor. Taking on an AI, an intelligent device physically invested in a populated space, is dangerous. Even D-level bonds are millions of dollars. C- and B- level bonds are gigantic funds, with lots of corporate shareholders who hate uncompensated risk and hire expensive lawyers to protect their investments. Taking on a high-level AI with an inadequate bond was like jumping out of an airplane holding a paper umbrella from a Mai Tai. We'd have to cancel the clean, now. Maybe we could grab a finder's fee, which could run five percent or so of eventual recovery.

  But why
would there be a B-level in a plant store? I was overreacting. The leaf was ... I didn't know what it was.

  No way I'd go crying to Petra about it. I'd played clever detective with her too, making like documentary research and pavement pounding had scored this AI. I wasn't ready to drop her respect down to zero again.

  So I went off station and ducked into the drier air of the lobby that occupied the central part of the overgrown strip mall.

  Down on ground level was a cutesy barewear store with lines of breasts, alternating perky and heavy, hanging in the display window, with a markdown bin of last year's abs outside the door, and in front of that a few pushcarts with fringed canopies selling scented candles, decorative contact lenses ... and cute toys for kids. I'd caught a glimpse of a baby's mobile, schematic faces with big eyes and heavy eyebrows dangling from it. Children react to human faces before anything else, and infants will stare fixedly at one. Someone had clearly interpreted “stare fixedly at” as “enjoy": the beginning of a lifelong misunderstanding.