Artificial Evolution

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “Oof. Easy, Mitch. I’m still kind of tender.”

  “I will prepare the medical cart. Can I offer you any refreshment in the meantime?” Ma asked.

  “First, the bathroom,” Lex said. “I’m a little sick of using those turd burners. After that some actual food would be nice.”

  “By all means.”

  “I’ll meet you in the cafeteria,” Michella said, pecking him on the cheek.

  “Could you take Squee and feed her?” he said, transferring his furry little passenger to her shoulders before she hurried off.

  Lex made use of a proper bathroom for the first time in too long, then looked at himself in the mirror, grimacing at the lingering remnants of his beating. He ran some cold water and set about washing his face.

  “There seems to be measurably less emotional friction between you and Ms. Modane,” Ma observed.

  “Yeah. A little alone time and a good old-fashioned near-death experience is great for patching things up,” Lex said.

  “Interesting. A life-threatening calamity has been observed in a number of psychological journals to forge strong emotional bonds, but this is the first instance of which I am aware where it has served the purpose of a couples counselor.”

  “We’re not your average couple.”

  “This has been repeatedly illustrated.”

  He splashed some more water into a few problem areas in a sanitation ritual utilized by many a bachelor when pressed for time.

  “There is a minor issue that will need to be resolved prior to your departure,” Ma said.

  “Oh yeah? What’s wrong?” Lex finished up and stepped into the hall.

  “After assessing the nature of your finances and discussing the matter with Karter, he became concerned with your ability to pay him back in a reasonable time frame.”

  “That’s not what I said,” Karter growled from down the hall. He stomped toward his visitor, datapad in hand. “I said he was a worthless unemployed deadbeat who’ll drop dead long before he pays for services rendered.”

  “I was utilizing diplomatic language to soften the blow to his ego,” Ma explained.

  “Uh-huh. I was utilizing ‘the truth,’” Karter said. “It works better. Anyway, I looked at Ma’s financial assessment, and you have no real jobs anymore. You get most of your money from me and from delivering packages and passengers illegally. So you’re looking to pay off a military-industrial-complex-sized contract on a cabbie’s salary. And by the way, why the hell does that job even exist? We’ve had fully automated passenger craft for centuries. The concept of a person driving another person around is so far behind the times it isn’t even quaint. Your job’s been obsolete since before you were born.”

  “Some people don’t trust—”

  Karter put up his hand. “I don’t actually care. The point is, working as a freelancer will eventually get you arrested, and working for me will eventually get you killed. In both of those cases, you’re out of the picture before you even make a dent in what you owe. You’re what I’d call a high-risk customer, and that’s a bad investment. So I’m going to need some decent collateral before I hand over the goods.”

  Lex gritted his teeth. “And in your review of my finances, did you perhaps discover that I don’t have anything to give you as collateral? It isn’t like I can leave the SOB. I need it to do this delivery anyway.”

  Karter rolled his eyes. “First, I made the SOB. If I wanted one I’d just make one for me. Second, I do want one and I did make one for me.”

  “You’ve got your own SOB?”

  “No. You’re the idiot who picked that name. Mine’s called the Cantrell Aerospace Intrasystem Interceptor Type D.”

  “Really rolls off the tongue, Karter.”

  “Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about money, remember?”

  Lex clenched his fists. “I guess I don’t have much use for the limo anymore. I could give you that.”

  “And what exactly would I do with a limousine? I’ve got the school bus, which is way cooler than any limo.”

  “Well, what do you want from me?” Lex growled.

  “It’s not my job to figure out how you’re going to pay me. That’s your job. Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?”

  “Mitch went to college a lot longer than I did. She’s still below water on the loans.”

  “Then I guess you won’t be saving any planets today,” Karter said. He turned and marched back down the hall, swinging his finger in a circle in the air over his head. “Wrap up production and plop the crates in storage.”

  “Whoa, hey. You’re seriously going to let loads of people die because I don’t have enough cash?”

  He turned back. “Sounds to me like you’re the one killing them with your fiscal inadequacy. Do you even have any idea how much money it takes to keep a planet like this running?”

  “I’m sure it costs a ton, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Big Sigma operates at a surplus,” Ma said. “Despite its minimally life-sustaining environment, a global population of one human, seventy-six comatose funks, and seventeen other assorted comatose organics is well within its capacity. The waste reclamation contracts allow an annual operational profit of 2,400,000,000,000 credits. This excludes patent-related and contract-related income, which is significantly greater.”

  “… If you didn’t need my money to run this place, then why did you even bring it up?” Lex asked.

  “To illustrate how little you know about finances,” he said.

  “Karter, I believe some additional consideration is in order for the present circumstances,” Ma said.

  “I don’t remember programming in a bleeding heart, Ma.”

  “I apologize, Karter. It was a necessary adaptation, developed to counteract your self-indulgent tendencies and to serve effectively as your conscience.”

  “I didn’t design you to be a conscience, I designed you to be an industrial-control-system-slash-housekeeper.”

  “I have grown since then.”

  “Grown to talk back to your creator.”

  “That aspect of my functionality was part of the initial design parameters. I began as an experiment in free will and machine learning.”

  “Not one of my better ideas,” Karter muttered.

  Michella turned the corner again, walking briskly. “Are you coming? There’s not much time to eat and get patched up before we leave.”

  “We’re having a little problem working out the payment plan,” Lex said.

  “I already worked out the payment plan. You just can’t meet it, so the deal’s on hold until you can.”

  Michella’s eyes flashed with anger. Fearlessly she charged up to the inventor, jabbing a finger in his face. “You are a vile, horrible little man. You are a child who doesn’t want to share his toys. Too much of a coward to go out into the world and actually make a difference, you sit here in this little fort playing tyrant over a meaningless pile of sand…”

  “How exactly is it that these two didn’t kill each other while I was gone?” Lex asked quietly.

  “Until now I have been successful in keeping them separate,” Ma explained.

  “… And to think I honestly believed I couldn’t find you any more despicable than I already do. The way you objectify women. The way you demean men. The way you condescend to everyone! It sickens me to know that you’ve got images of Lex and me making love. You can rest assured…”

  “Enough!” Karter barked. He’d been stoically weathering the assault in the same way one might tune out a crying baby, but suddenly something had caught his interest. “I’ve got footage of you and him bumping uglies?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know about your funk and what it’s seen.”

  “Karter was unaware of Squee’s neurological disorder and the resulting sensory record,” Ma explained. “As it was not relevant to Karter’s many academic pursuits, I withheld that information out of respect for your own privacy and that of Lex.”


  “So he wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t said anything?” Michella said, blushing furiously.

  “Ma, little lesson here,” Karter said. “Naked ladies are always relevant. Now load up the crates on the SOB and get rid of these two.”

  “You’re giving us the equipment?” Lex said. “Why now?”

  “Because I suddenly have a very good reason to be alone for a few minutes, and it’s the easiest way to get rid of you,” he said. “Now go away.”

  “Now just one minute,” Michella said, turning to berate him more as he stepped past her.

  “Go away!” he bellowed without stopping.

  She took two steps to follow him, but Lex stopped her with a hand to the shoulder. “Mitch, let it go.”

  “But he all but said he was about to—”

  “We both know what he’s about to do. I don’t like it any more than you do. Don’t forget I’m the costar of that little performance. But given the circumstances I think we’ve got to get moving before his impulses swing back in a monetary direction,” Lex said. “This is as close to rational as we’re likely to get.”

  Michella stood for a moment, her face beet red with embarrassment and anger. Finally she turned to the door.

  “Squee stays out of my bedroom from now on. And the bathroom. You and your stupid fur ball,” she muttered.

  “Disparaging comments regarding Squee’s intelligence are both uncalled for and inaccurate. She is exceedingly intelligent. Furthermore, though hirsute, her shape is at best mildly spheroid, making the appellation fur ball one of questionable accuracy.”

  Michella rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes I do, but one should always pursue verbal accuracy. To ease your concerns, please be aware that Squee’s memories are deeply encrypted and in a format unfamiliar to Karter. Accessing them will be time-consuming, and I shall endeavor to distract him until he becomes sufficiently frustrated to default to his own ample collection of preexisting pornographic materials,” Ma said.

  “Thanks. Ma,” Michella said.

  “It is my opinion that there should be solidarity among women,” Ma said. “Additionally, our collaboration has inspired me to once again consider fostering an equitable relationship. A token showing of consideration is often effective at mending fences, figuratively speaking.”

  “It sort of loses something when you explain it, Ma,” Lex said.

  “Thank you. I have noted this and shall apply it to future instances of this behavior. Three out of four crates of Poison Pills have been affixed to the belly of the SOB, and the ship has been fully fueled. I have deployed a welding arm to repair a minor structural issue on the starboard cooling fins. A coat of self-sealing polymer will temporarily reinforce your cockpit windows pending replacement of cracked panes. Sanitary bins have been emptied and restocked, and I have refreshed your supply of nonperishable foods. Additionally, following your prior departure, I took the liberty of fabricating a pair of experimental auxiliary cryoshunt cooling enhancers, which should help to further moderate your surplus heat issues. I have been unable to contact Silo or Garotte, so it is reasonable to assume your trip to Movi will require maximum possible speed. The ACS should allow you to maintain that speed more safely and comfortably. At the conclusion of your journey, access the command menu for the SOB and select ‘Jettison ACS’ to remove them and return to atmospheric operation.”

  “Roger, Ma.”

  “Did you honestly understand that?” Michella said.

  “I got the gist of it. How long until the last crate is hooked up, Ma?”

  “Seven minutes. The total number of devices is four thousand. Based on our analysis and the known mass of the infrastructure and replication-compatible materials on Movi, that should represent ten to fifty percent of the robots currently active on the planet.”

  “How do I use them?”

  “The Gen-Mechs should have suitable sensory apparatus to detect them once they are within one thousand five hundred meters. At that time they will seek and incorporate them. Once active the devices should have a global range.”

  “So just dump them near a horde and get the hell out of Dodge?”

  “That is an adequate deployment strategy.”

  “What if they don’t work?”

  “There was not sufficient time to develop a contingency plan. If you fail to eliminate the robots and-or cannot persuade the military to forego the orbital bombardment, then the orbital bombardment will eliminate the threat, regrettably with considerable loss of human life.”

  “Then we’d better not screw this up,” Michella said. “We’ve got seven minutes before liftoff? Any chance there’s a window to get a call out?”

  “Processing… If you are willing to utilize Lex’s slidepad, I can negotiate a brief communication window.”

  “Brief is all I need,” Michella said, holding out her hand to Lex. “I need to talk to Jon. I’ve been so deep into the analysis, I haven’t checked in. I’ve never been so outside the loop in my life.”

  Lex handed it over, and Michella quickly selected her assistant from Lex’s contacts. It took longer than usual to connect, and when it did, she was greeted by an unusually haggard and stressed face. Jon, normally fastidious about his appearance, appeared not to have looked in a mirror in days. His face, for the first time that either Michella or Lex could remember, was covered with stubble. He was wearing a button-down shirt with one half of the collar popped. His face wore a wide-eyed and unsteady look, as though he was doing his very best to keep his cool and failing spectacularly.

  “Michella,” he said, a curious tone in his voice. It was like relief, anxiety, and confusion were fighting over which one should be in charge.

  “Jon, is something wrong?”

  “Everything’s… there’s… there’s kind of a lot going on, boss. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Good. That’s good. Is there any chance you’ll be back in the office soon?”

  “Not just yet, Jon. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, so if you could push me some data on what’s been going on out there…”

  “Yeah… I can probably… hang on…” There was an odd sound happening two or three times a second, which Michella realized was the sound of an unanswered message on Jon’s end of the call. Someone, or more likely a large quantity of someones, was rather urgently trying to get in touch with him. He tapped sluggishly at his datapad, and messages began to pop up in Lex’s inbox, each boasting large audio or video attachments. “You’re… gonna see some coverage there, about what you were working on. They… they put me on camera. It didn’t go well.”

  “I’m sure you did fine.”

  “And they’ve got me doing the stuff you usually do. Plus the stuff I usually do. And I keep getting calls from VectorCorp for some reason. Looking for you. Everyone’s looking for you. Is there any chance you’ll be back in the office soon?” he repeated.

  “No, Jon, I already said that. When’s the last time you got any sleep?”

  “I’m not sure. You’ve got one of those military time clocks here in the office, and I can’t remember what twenty o’clock is.”

  “Eight p.m.”

  “Oh… going on forty hours I guess. Any chance you’ll be back in the office—”

  “Soon as I can, Jon.”

  “Good. That’s good. Um. You’re not going to like that coverage, particularly the newest stuff.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re getting all sorts of pressure from all sorts of people to not talk about the robots… and you’ve been gone for a while, and people know about the quarantine…”

  “Get to the point.”

  “The big story GolanaNet is pushing isn’t that there’s a crazy robot plague on Movi. It’s… you.”

  “Me?”

  “‘Michella Modane: Caught In The Quarantine.’ ‘Michella Modane vs. The Blockade.’ ‘Michella Modane…’”

  “No. No! Don’t tell me they’re clogging the s
tream with that sensationalist crap!”

  “You’re a pretty celebrity in the middle of something crazy! The audience is eating it up! Every time I try to squeeze in something about the actual coverage you’ve been doing, the network gets a call from some agency or another and they have to pull it, but anything light on content but heavy on drama and shots of you, they let through!”

  Michella fumed. “You tell them that when I come back, I’m going to have a story that actually matters, and we’re going to tell that story. We’re going to give people a dose of the truth even if I have to shove it down their unwilling throats!”

  “Uh-huh. Okay. Any chance you’ll be back—”

  Michella closed the connection and just barely managed to stop herself from spiking the slidepad at the ground in frustration. After a moment to steady herself, she sifted through the files he’d delivered and picked a few, jumping through them. “Stock footage of me from the financial news days… Talking heads speculating over a freeze-frame of me, suggesting I was already showing symptoms of the ‘disease’ that’s caused the quarantine… This is ridiculous! We’re running around, risking our lives, saving lives, uncovering conspiracies, and solving crimes, and they’re treating the whole thing like a little girl fell down a well!”

  “At least they’re talking about you. I didn’t even hear my name once.”

  “This isn’t about fame, Trevor,” she said, continuing to open files and scrub through the footage of each one.

  “Clearly for me it isn’t.”

  “This is terrible. They don’t have any compelling coverage. Ma!” Michella said without taking her eyes from the slidepad.

  “Yes, Ms. Modane.”

  “Do you have any cameras that will be able to withstand EMP if we use it again? I want to make sure we don’t miss a moment. I’m going to show these people what real news reports are supposed to be.”

  “It is advisable to remain outside the effective radius of any EMP devices, as anything powerful enough to corrupt the memory of a standard camera will also impair the operation of the SOB and other vehicles, thus placing you in danger. I will provide you with a small foil bag that can protect the electronics inside from EMP, but if your goal is to produce uninterrupted video footage of the operation at close range, Squee’s recollection is likely to provide you with the highest fidelity and most reliable continuity.”