Divergence a-3

by Tony Ballantyne

  “From underneath the building,” Ivan said, blushing. “The earth is full of VNMs. They crawl up from beneath the ground. You find them in mines, in caves—they are there all the time, working away beneath our feet.”

  “Yes,” Alexandr agreed. He seemed pleased to be allowed to confirm this. “You did not know this, Eva? It is an open secret—”

  “It is not a secret,” interrupted Ivan, “but there is no point in worrying people.”

  “They run up the walls of the Narkomfin,” Alexandr continued. “They have interfaced with most of the screens, thus attaching themselves to the outside world.” He gave a laugh. “It’s a joke. Social Care are interfacing you to the rest of the world, whether you like it or not, and at the same time they are paying me to come in here and eliminate their machines.”

  “They are not all Social Care’s machines,” Ivan said darkly.

  Alexandr was stirring his feet uncomfortably at this. He drained his glass with a hurried gulp. “All done. Come on, old man Vanya. Let’s get on or neither of us will get to the concert.”

  Ivan quickly packed their tools while Alexandr vacuumed up the tiny pieces of plaster he had chiseled out of the wall in his search for the VNMs’ line of approach.

  Ivan took hold of Eva’s hand again.

  “Would you like to come around to my apartment tonight? For dinner?”

  “Yes,” she said, staring back into his dark eyes. “Will Katya be there?”

  “No, she is going out. Her friends have organized a good-bye party of their own.”

  I bet they have, thought Eva. I bet Paul in particular is hoping to say good-bye.

  “I want to say good-bye properly,” Ivan continued, mercifully unaware of her thoughts.

  “It’s not good-bye forever. I’m sure you will come back, at least for a visit.”

  Ivan nodded and squeezed her hand. She kissed him lightly on the lips and gave a little wave as the two men left.

  Eva softly closed the door and returned to the solitude of her lounge. She glanced at the screen on the wall. She didn’t care what Alexandr said, she still felt she was being watched. This was why she had come to the Russian Free States: to get away from the constant surveillance of the Watcher. The Watcher, Earth’s first AI, was shaping the world to its own ends, and sometimes it even asked Eva for advice. Why Eva? She didn’t know. But the responsibility of it had been too great to begin with and had only gotten worse since.

  She shivered, remembering. She had met the Watcher. She had been present when it had released the original VNMs into the ground. Now they were sprouting forth—bursting from the fertile Earth—even here. Metal tendrils searching and questing and reaching for the sunlight, binding humanity in their growth as they reached up to the stars.

  “Go away!” Eva shouted at nothing in particular. “Leave me alone!”

  There was silence, but to Eva’s ears it was the silence of someone choosing not to speak.

  Let me sleep in peace, thought Judy. I need to rest after last night. Already it is Wednesday morning. Soon I will be on Earth. FE software, Chris, Watcher: leave me alone, whoever you are. Dreams were forming in her head, resurrecting themselves, like the Eva Rye had been reborn inside the metal shell of the Bailero.

  This Narkomfin was built in the late 2030s, one of a series of communal homes modeled on a Russian prototype from the early twentieth century. Eva liked the place, with its yellow plaster walls and curving concrete balconies. She liked to stand inside the building and look out through the front-facing wall of windows, hundreds of square panes in metal frames looking out over the rough grass and untidy hills. She liked to stand outside in the bitter wind and watch the late winter sun burning yellow in the glass’

  reflection. She liked the way that she could step out from her apartment and gaze down the long corridor at the round pillars on her left, marching off into the distance. She liked the way the doors of her neighbors were patched and painted with flowers and faces. The smell of warmth and damp clothes drying, of cabbage and beetroot soup, was comforting, even mixed with the sickly tang of used diapers from the adults and children who lived in the crowded rooms. It made the whole place seem homely and welcoming.

  And then there were the various sounds: of music playing from speakers or scraped out on a violin; of people laughing or talking or squabbling; the gurgle of the pipes or the hiss of the heating; and the rush of the rain on the windows when she was safe and warm inside, drinking tea or pepper vodka. But best of all was the press of the people. Eva had lived her early life in South Street and had spent so much time alone in the middle of the city, with only the saccharine comfort of Social Care for company. But here in the Narkomfin she cared and was cared for.

  She cooked ham and pease pudding for others, and she shared their kvass and borscht. She accepted rides in the community’s cars and britzkas, and in exchange she pushed the handicapped through the corridors in their wheelchairs. She helped in the nursery and took her turn accompanying those with Down’s syndrome, and in return she was regarded with warmth and respect. And then she had met Ivan.

  He answered the door to his apartment with a sheepish smile and showed her into the neat living area.

  “You look so pretty,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Eva said, trim in her calf-length brown skirt and yellow patterned sweater. Her white hair was clipped back in a ponytail; on her left wrist she wore the gold chain bracelet her long dead husband had bought her.

  On the table in the middle of the room, Ivan had laid out dishes of salted cucumber and little roast potatoes. The shelves were already cleared of his and Katya’s belongings, stacked neatly now in a set of silver cases set in the corner, but truth to tell, the apartment did not feel much emptier than usual. Ivan led a neat, Spartan existence, constantly cleaning up after the mess of his teenage daughter. They made small talk, and Eva found herself becoming tipsy on black currant vodka. Ivan’s cheeks were flushing red, and she could tell he was getting ready to ask her to accompany him when he left the Russian Free States.

  He led her to the table and served her hot salted beef and horseradish, which she ate with special care. Afterwards there was green shchi with sour cream and then honeyed baklava.

  “Where did you get all this from?” Eva asked. “It must have cost a fortune.”

  “Special occasion,” Ivan said, avoiding the point.

  They ate their meal with relish, passing each other morsels to try, wiping imaginary spots of food from each other’s cheeks.

  Afterwards, they sat on the thin sofa and drank coffee with warmed-up cream on top. From somewhere below, the sound of a practicing brass band swelled and fell in the background. Finally Ivan got to the point.

  “Eva,” he said, flecks of cream on his mustache. “You are a flower that blooms unnoticed in this wilderness. You should not stay here alone. Come back with me, Eva. Come with me.”

  Eva felt her dinner settling like a stone inside her.

  “You know I can’t,” she replied, looking at her feet. “Why not stay here with me?”

  “You know I can’t. Katya should not grow up here. It has been a fine holiday for her, but the people who live in this place have no sense of responsibility. No sense of their duty to each other.”

  The lounge was filled with the golden glow of late evening. There was a hazy, otherworldly feeling to their conversation. Ivan made to wipe his mustache with his hand, paused, and drew a handkerchief from his pocket.

  “Eva,” he said, wiping himself clean, “what is wrong with the real world? Look at the people whom you have chosen to live with! Dropouts, the handicapped, the stupid, the stubborn.”

  “You don’t mean that, Ivan. Your own daughter is handicapped.”

  Ivan was hot now with nerves and vodka. “I don’t blame the handicapped,” he said thickly. “But what sort of mother would bring a child with Down’s syndrome to live in this place? Out there in the real world there is medical care and corrective therapy and…and…
”

  He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the window. “Come back with me, Eva.”

  Eva chose her words with a drunkard’s care. “The mother would say that the child she inherits after the cure is not the same as the one before.”

  Ivan was dismissive. “Pah! Religion! Only fools listen to that!”

  “It’s not about religion! Barely anyone here believes—”

  “You have been talking to Pobyedov, that fool of a priest, again, haven’t you?”

  “Credit me with my own opinions, Ivan,” Eva said quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” said Ivan.

  The awkward silence was punctuated by a distant fanfare of cornets. One of them was clearly out of tune.

  Eva drained her cup. “You could stay here, Ivan. Social Care can’t make you return.”

  “What is wrong about you coming with me?” Ivan asked proudly.

  “I told you. The Watcher. It is waiting for me.”

  Ivan didn’t speak. Eva knew what he was thinking: that the Watcher didn’t exist. He was steeling himself to say it, weighing up the words carefully. She wasn’t going to give him the chance.

  “I told you, Ivan, I have met the Watcher.”

  “So you said.”

  “I told you, it is intelligent. Much more intelligent than you or me. It sees everything, it manipulates people. They obey its wishes but believe they are following their own. It has a course for this world laid out for centuries into the future. It now controls our destinies.”

  “So I have heard.”

  Eva gave a sigh. She hadn’t wanted to say this. “Hasn’t it occurred to you, Ivan?”

  “What?”

  “You turning up here?”

  He deliberately misunderstood her. “Social Care sends lots of people like me into the RFS. It does not neglect its duty. Are you saying that you do not like me?”

  Eva shook her head. “You know that I’m not. Ivan. You know I like you. I think I love you.” She slammed down her coffee cup. “Damn, I know I love you! That’s what I mean. I love you.”

  She glared at him. He was blushing. He was embarrassed. But he was a strong man. He was strong enough to say it.

  “I love you too, Eva.”

  There was a big round stone in her stomach, cold and hard. She couldn’t believe he had ever admitted it. She felt as if she were walking in concrete boots, lurching along, jerking her whole body just to move forward. She felt her nose begin to run. It was either that or cry.

  “And that’s just it, isn’t it? You were chosen just because of that. You were cast into here to hook me, so the Watcher could reel you back in with me in your arms.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way, Eva. Maybe—”

  “It’s the Watcher, Ivan. It says it wants to do good! But I hate to think what that means. Look what it’s done to us! It honestly believes it is doing what is right, trying to snatch me back.”

  Ivan waved a big hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “I do not care. Whether it is real or constructed. I love you. So come with me.”

  “I want to, but I can’t. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “I will help you.”

  “Against the Watcher? It is on a different plane to you or me. Beyond our grasp.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Ivan, I don’t think it even sees reality as we do.”

  Something flickered in Ivan’s eyes, as if Eva’s comment had struck home.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said Ivan slowly.

  “What?” Eva followed his gaze. He was staring at the screen. “What aren’t you telling me, Ivan? I saw the way you and Alexandr were looking at each other earlier. Those people we met the other day on the road here—the ones from Saolim—the way they spoke of this Narkomfin. What is it about this place, Ivan?”

  “I promised I would not tell you, Eva.”

  “Promised who?”

  “Social Care.”

  “When?”

  “Before I came here. I didn’t know what they were talking about then. I just signed a contract, promising not to disclose information regarding the VNMs and venumbs of this region.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The VNMs below this building. The ones that climb the walls. The ones that you are so frightened of.”

  “What about them?”

  “I found out where they came from. Well, Alexandr did.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Ivan fetched a featureless grey metal box and an induction screwdriver from one of the silver packing cases. He connected the box to the screen with a heavy cable.

  “Shielded,” he said, and began fiddling at the box with his screwdriver. “This way no one but me can activate it,” he explained. On the screen a picture came to flickering life.

  “This is not too far from here,” Ivan said. “This building sits practically on top of these caves.”

  Eva guessed that the caves weren’t entirely natural. The Kamchatka peninsula, where the Narkomfin was located, was a region of volcanic activity. Still, the view on the screen appeared just too regular to be natural formation. Eva wondered if the underground flows of lava had been redirected by the Watcher, just as humans redirected watercourses by using dams. Had the magma table been lowered so that these glassy, shiny caves could float free? Had machinery been at work under here, boring and shaping the walls? Eva thought she could make out the circular patterns of sanders and drill bits evident on the glittering walls. But that was irrelevant: she was distracting herself, trying not to look at the things that filled the caves.

  “Are they alive?” she asked Ivan.

  “Alive? What is life ? Look closer.” Ivan did something with his induction screwdriver, and the picture zoomed in. Now Eva could see what it was that was creeping and crawling on the floors of the caves.

  “VNMs!” she exclaimed. “But what’s the matter with them?”

  All of the machines were obviously disabled in some way. Maybe the legs down one side hadn’t grown properly; maybe the sense cluster located on the head section was missing. Eva watched as one rusty creature moving painfully across the rippled stone floor; she could almost hear the metallic squeaking of its unlubricated joints.

  “It’s in pain,” she whispered, but her attention was then caught by a deformed spider, its body and legs all way too long, tip-toeing fragilely amongst the squirming mass of metal creatures.

  “But what are they all doing down there?” she asked.

  “I think it is someone’s idea of a joke,” Ivan said coldly. “This building houses the handicapped above ground. So where better to send all the hurt and lame machines but underneath it?”

  “But that’s not funny at all.” Eva felt something cold grip her heart. The Watcher. Would he do this?

  “I don’t know,” Ivan said, guessing her thoughts. “But this is not all. Look here. And here.”

  He fiddled with his screwdriver again, zooming back out. Eva saw a robot feeling its way along the cave floor. Then another one. And another. A trailing crowd of orange robots, roughly humanoid, all shuffling in the same direction.

  “They are searching for the next power mast,” said Ivan. “You see them, painted yellow? They are turned on in sequence according to a regular period.” Eva saw the masts, dwarf versions of old-fashioned pylons.

  “Why do they move so slowly?” asked Eva.

  “Look.” He zoomed in on one robot.

  “What’s wrong with its eyes?” asked Eva, noticing the cloudy lenses set in the smooth orange head.

  “The glass was deliberately contaminated during manufacture. That robot is almost blind. Look at this one here.”

  “It seems normal. Why is it moving like that?”

  “Faulty connection between the processor and the body. Its brain cannot properly control its limbs.”

  The camera ran along the trailing l
ine of orange robots, and Eva saw they had all been tampered with in some way. Their limbs would be stiff and inflexible, or one would be shorter than the other, or they would appear perfectly sound but unable to move properly. The robots shuffled and stumbled and twitched and dragged themselves along a channel in the rippled stone floor, heading for the skeletal metal shape of the yellow pylon.

  “They can only hold an hour’s worth of charge,” explained Ivan. “Those that don’t make it to the pylon in time die.”

  “What happens to them?”

  Wordlessly, Ivan directed the view to the motionless orange body of a robot. It was slowly and inexpertly being taken apart by a group of rusty VNMs.

  “But that’s horrible,” said Eva.

  “I know. Look at that.”

  One of the robots had now reached the pylon. Several black rubber cables hung there, a heavy male socket at the end of each. The robot unhooked the cable with its too short arms and stood, waiting.

  “What’s the matter with it?” asked Eva. “Oh, I see.” The robot’s charging socket was located low down, where its navel would have been if it were human. The robot’s arms would not reach that far.

  “It’s waiting for another robot to come and help it,” said Ivan.

  Do you know what recursion is, Judy? It is when something causes itself to happen. A function that calls itself. Eva and Ivan aren’t real; they’re your dreams, Judy. Your life calls theirs into existence. Is someone calling you, Judy? The FE, perhaps? Are you merely another subroutine that is being run by a higher intelligence?

  “Is everything in that cave handicapped in some way?”

  “I think so.”

  Eva felt dizzy and nauseated from peering at the stream of orange figures, the glassy smoothness of the cave walls. She looked away from the screen into the yellow evening sunlit room.

  “That is happening right now, somewhere beneath our feet?”

  “Yes—or something like that. This is a recording.”

  “Does anyone from this Narkomfin know about it?”

  “Some do, but they’re not telling anyone what they know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let me show you.”