It, at least, could safely observe the Schrödinger boxes; it possessed no intelligence to which they could react. It could observe them, and yet it did not pay them any attention. The Dark Seeds held no interest to the meta-intelligence, devoid as they were of any sign of artificial design themselves. They were natural artifacts, something that had evolved over time without external artifice. The meta-intelligence turned its attention to Constantine. The robot had separated its thought processes into strands that ran independently. At the moment, it would not be true to say that the robot was thinking, but the potential of thought was there amongst the processes that were undoubtedly taking place. Situations were being observed, events were being recorded, simple relationships were being established. Nothing more. Constantine was thinking without thought. What a fascinating thing for a meta-intelligence to observe.
Judy sat up, her hand to her face.
“What’s the matter?” asked Maurice.
Judy was gasping. “I had a dream,” she said.
Maurice was dismissive. “We all had dreams.” Judy was getting on his nerves, the way she bottled up her emotions so that no one knew what she was thinking and then got upset when others didn’t show her any sympathy.
Judy’s reply was predictably cool. “This came after, Maurice. A hand pressing down over my face.”
She brushed her hands through her hair and gazed back into his blue eyes. We accuse others of what we don’t like in ourselves, she thought. Why are you looking at me like that, Maurice? Why are you copying me and running your fingers through that crew cut of yours? You are clever and strong minded. So why don’t you adopt a personality of your own?
“Hey,” said Judy, “you’ve taken your hood off?”
“No point keeping them on,” Maurice said. “The Watcher showed it could bypass our suits when it put us all to sleep.”
Your voice always sounds so sulky, Maurice, thought Judy. You don’t like being caught out .
“The flier is landing,” announced Constantine.
“We need to get off straightaway,” one of the other passengers said urgently. “The flier needs to return to the evacuation area as quickly as possible. There will be others there waiting to escape.”
“How often do these attacks happen?” Saskia asked, neatly tucking her hood away into the collar of her active suit. It was clearly displacement activity: she didn’t want to think of Miss Rose and the other seed carriers silently walking to their death in those eerie, snow-filled streets.
“These attacks? Once every few days. But we fight on.”
The flier landed with a bump and the rear exit ramp dropped down.
There were people waiting outside dressed in wasp-striped tabards.
“Out out out!” they called, even before the ramp had touched the ground. Maurice and the rest charged out into the light, their feet bouncing and clapping down the flimsy plastic of the ramp, before slipping and skidding onto the cold mud outside.
There were more fliers sitting in a rough semicircle around them and yet more personnel in wasp-striped tabards hurrying the evacuees along.
“This way, this way…come on, come on, come on.”
The crew of the Eva Rye pressed close together, anxious not to lose one another in the crush as they were herded across the torn and rutted surface of a once smooth lawn. The horde of shocked evacuees was growing by the minute, but someone was obviously well practiced in dealing with these situations. Maurice and the rest were quickly and efficiently processed: they were funneled between hastily erected plastic strip-fencing and sent over to a trestle table where they were met by the delicious smell of chocolate. Big mugs were set ready on the table, steam rising from them into the cold January air. Mugs were pressed into their hands and thin foil coats draped over their shoulders by willing helpers.
“Thank you,” Edward said happily. “Thank you, thank you!”
“I don’t need that,” Maurice complained, shrugging off his foil coat, which went fluttering to the ground.
“I’m wearing an active suit!”
A flier rose into the air behind them, the rear exit ramp closing as it went. It turned, seeking the source of the infection, then flew off trailing its long silver tether behind it. Another flier was returning from the same direction, coming in low over the black-and-white watchtower that stood at the edge of the field.
“Come on,” Judy said. “Let’s get out of here before Social Care really get their hooks into us.”
“I think we should head in that direction,” Constantine said, pointing at a stream of people walking from the field. “The fliers haven’t brought us that far. We’re close to DIANA now.”
“Good,” Judy said unemotionally.
Saskia was gazing sadly back towards the descending fliers. Maurice made no move to comfort her. Neither, he noticed, did Judy.
The DIANA complex wasn’t there. Where it should have been was a wide empty square paved in round cobbles, the sinister shape of a watchtower rising from the center.
“I don’t understand,” Judy said. She was close to tears. She had wound herself up for this confrontation, only to be cheated now at the end. “Where is it?” A thought struck her. “Is it disguised?”
“No,” said Constantine, “there is nothing there but the watchtower.”
Without even thinking, they crossed the wide square to stand at the foot of the tower. Judy looked up to the honey band circling the top. She had to tilt her head and body right back to see it.
“We should have checked,” Maurice said, gazing at his console. “All that time spent on the ship and we never thought to check. It’s been like this for years.”
He was the only one not captivated by the faint horror of the tower. This close the watchtower loomed over them like an adult towering over tiny children. Perpendicular to the wall, millions of needles emerged bristling from the tower’s interior, fine hairs sensing the cold air that filled the empty square. Saskia reached out and brushed her hands across some of them.
“Uggh! They’re horrible!” she yelped, recoiling. “They suck at you!”
“Keep away, Saskia,” Edward said, close to panic. “Judy, I don’t like it here. It’s listening to us.”
The cold wind blew harder. It brought the smell of winter ice and the faintest hint of spices. The city resumed at the distant edge of the vast square, and over there human beings could be seen walking about, drinking spiced wine or eating chocolate-dipped fruit. All those human activities: laughing and arguing, smiling and frowning, shaking hands and flirting.
And every one of those activities was being tasted and smelled and felt and heard and observed by towers just like this one.
Maurice felt someone at his side. Saskia was huddling close to him for comfort.
“What’s the matter with you?” she hissed at him. “Why do you keep pulling away from me?” She blushed deep crimson. “I’m frightened,” she whispered.
Her words cut through Maurice. It was such a huge admission from Saskia that he felt dizzy and ashamed. Holding his console in one hand, he placed an arm around her shoulders. They adjusted their active suits so they could feel the warmth and comfort of each other’s bodies. He doesn’t know what to do any more than I do, Saskia realized. We have so little in common . She thought back to the night they had spent together. It seemed like months ago now. The only thing we really share, she thought, is that we’re so emotionally fucked up that we can’t even take a moment’s comfort from each other without putting a price on it. Sadly, she let go of Maurice.
“Sorry,” she said. “But thank you.”
Maurice was blushing, too. To cover it up, he turned back to his console. He began to speak in an overly loud voice.
“This tower was built six years ago, at the same time as all the other ones. Before that it was residential flats. They were constructed from VNMs out of the ruins of the DIANA complex.”
Edward was tugging at Judy’s arm now. “Judy, I really don’t like it here. Ple
ase, let’s go somewhere else.”
Judy didn’t appear to hear Edward, she just continued gazing up the tower’s side. Maurice cleared his throat. “Edward just made a suggestion, Judy. I shouldn’t have to remind you, but he is leader, after all.”
Judy’s eyes kept darting back and forth. “What do you suppose those black bands do?” Her voice sounded wobbly. She was still ignoring Edward, tugging frantically at her arm.
“What’s the matter, Judy?” Saskia asked.
Judy felt sick. She could see Edward beside her, but she could also see Eva. She was back in the concert hall in the Russian Free States, all those years ago, realizing suddenly what Eva had understood. That there was a huge difference between Edward and herself. Edward barely grasped what was going on, and yet he stood here beside her at the end of a journey that had taken them both across the galaxy. There were Maurice and Saskia, wanting to hold on to each other but too proud to do so. They understood things so differently that they may as well have lived in different worlds. But their differences were nothing compared to hers with Edward. Edward who could barely read, who never really understood anything, yet was a positive genius when measured against those people in the concert hall whose bodies didn’t even work properly, the ones who drooled as they sat there twitching and who couldn’t even keep time on a drum. All of us so different, thought Judy, and yet all of us human .
“Edward wants us to go somewhere else.” Maurice tried to keep the smug triumph from his voice. Saskia could hear it. He was getting his own back, she knew. Getting his own back for the times they had all deferred to Edward against Maurice’s wishes.
“But where, Maurice?” Judy asked. “Where do we go?”
Her lips continued moving. She was muttering to herself under her breath, trying to figure out what to do next.
“Leave her alone, Maurice,” scolded Saskia. “Look at her. She doesn’t know what to do.”
“None of us does,” Maurice said. “That doesn’t mean that we should just stand here in the middle of an empty square, being watched by the Watcher.”
The wind gusted and Saskia sneezed. Her eyes were watering. Maurice felt cold too, even within the controlled environment of his passive suit. It was something to do with the huge emptiness of the square. In his mind, the looming tower was sucking all the available warmth and life into itself, discarding the chaff of the elements and picking over the grist of the humans’ emotions.
He frowned as a line of text appeared on his console screen.
Hello, Maurice.
Maurice looked up, looked around the empty square, looked towards the tower. The bristles along one side of it rippled in the wind with a whistling sigh. There was no one else to be seen. Maurice tapped at the keyboard.
—Hello. Who are you?
A friend. What is Judy doing?
What was Judy doing? She was gazing at Edward, who had folded his arms around himself and was gazing around the square, shivering. Her mouth hung slackly open as she gazed up at the tall man. An expression of something like horror crossed her face.
“What’s the matter, Judy?” asked Maurice.
She looked at him, dark eyes wide open, then she looked back to Edward.
“Judy, what’s the matter?” Saskia put her arm around her shoulders, but Judy hurriedly shrugged it off.
“I think I understand,” she said. “I think I finally understand. The Watcher…Chris was right all along. Or half right anyway. It’s the Watcher who is wrong.”
Speak to me, Maurice. What is Judy doing?
—I don’t know. She looks horrified. Tell me, who are you? How are you accessing my console?
Who am I? My name is Chris. And as to how I am accessing your console…well, when you are one of the most powerful AIs in existence, these things are easily done. I think you had better tell Judy that I am here.
“Judy,” said Maurice, “there is an AI called Chris…he wants to talk to you.”
Judy froze, and then ever so slowly she composed herself. Her arms fell to her side, her head rose slightly, her face assumed an impassive expression.
“Tell him I have nothing to say to him,” she said.
—She doesn’t want to speak to you.
Tell her she has no choice. I had her brought here.
“He says you have no choice. He had you brought here.”
“Give me that.” Judy took Maurice’s console from him. “Set it so it will accept my voice,” she demanded.
“As she requested,” Maurice instructed.
Judy held the console in front of her. Maurice stood just by her shoulder to read the words that Chris sent. Saskia was comforting Edward. Constantine gazed into the middle distance. Maurice wasn’t fooled. Constantine had robot senses. He could look where he liked, regardless of the orientation of his head. He was reading the console.
“You didn’t have me brought here, Chris,” Judy said. “Don’t try to bluff me. I was returned here by DIANA. I am their property, apparently.”
That is also true, Judy, but, with regard to FE, debts and obligations may run in many directions. I paid for your delivery to me.
Maurice had to hand it to Judy: her composure remained undisturbed. She didn’t even ask the obvious question, why?
There was a touch of amusement in her tone when she asked, “What did it cost you, Chris?”
It cost me far more than I expected, Judy. I don’t think that any of us have fully grasped the implications of FE, not least the Watcher. Does that surprise you?
“No. But I knew it would cost you a lot. You have disturbed my life significantly in order to get me here. You must have encountered an equivalent disturbance to your life in order to restore the balance. Did you not realize that would happen before you initiated the FE?”
No—or rather, I thought I could defeat the effect. But I was wrong. FE is far more powerful than even I.
“Surely not.”
Don’t be sarcastic, Judy.
“But I don’t understand,” Maurice interjected. “What is all of this about FE? Surely it’s just a trading mechanism?”
“No, it isn’t,” said Judy. “To quote the Watcher, I think that FE is what keeps us here in the first place.”
I think you’re right, Judy. FE creates fair, unbreakable contracts, but their effects can be surprisingly deep and subtle.
“ Unbreakable contracts?” asked Judy. “I thought anyone could walk away from them?”
Only once.
The watchtower listened to the ensuing silence in the square. Then more text appeared on Maurice’s console.
Judy, I can get you into the DIANA building, but you will have to do something for me in return.
“Get me in? The building is long gone, Chris.”
Don’t you believe me, Judy? You know I can do it.
But you will have to help me.
“Chris, I told you long ago, I will never work for you. Why should I do anything for you? Why should I trust you?”
Why indeed? You don’t have to trust me, of course. I can give you something that you want, but I wish to be paid for the service. Why don’t we use FE?
The answer was obvious once he said it.
“That’s a good idea,” said Edward. He had brightened up considerably at the suggestion. Of course he had, thought Judy. With FE he was safe; no one could take advantage of him. In an unfair universe, FE
put him on a level playing field.
The wind was cold. Judy’s stomach rumbled. It was a long time since she had eaten, and they couldn’t stay in this square forever. She wanted to know who she was and why she had been brought here.
“Okay,” she said, feeling a crushing sensation in her stomach. What was Chris going to ask of her?
“Okay, let’s do a deal. Maurice, begin the exchange.”
He tapped at his console.
“You’ll need to give me some sort of handle on you, Chris. All I can see is a line of text. Where are you?”
I’m here, Mau
rice. I’m all around you. Nearly everything you see in this city is built of my body, and yet my intelligence is virtually nothing now. Such was the deal I made through FE, but that is irrelevant for the moment. Here is your handle.
A blinking object appeared on Maurice’s console, and he dragged it into the golden region representing the FE software running in the processing systems of the Eva Rye .
“Uploading parameters now,” he said.
This won’t take long. Aleph has this all planned out.
“Aleph? The systems repair robot?”
Do you know any other Alephs? The space around Earth is now overrun with Dark Seeds. Systems repair robots are converging on this region in order to correct the anomaly.
“What anomaly?”
The Watcher, of course. Only an intelligence such as the Watcher’s would attract so many seeds. Haven’t you realized that? The Dark Seeds are everywhere. The Watcher is trying to find a solution to a problem of its own making! If it were to leave, if the Earth were to be emptied of AI minds tomorrow, then there would be nothing to fix the seeds in position here. There would be no problem. Ah, here we are!
Maurice’s console chimed. “Fair Exchange completed,” he said. Saskia was looking at him questioningly, and he understood what she was silently asking. He reached out and took Judy’s hand, a gesture of support.
“Here comes the contract.” Judy was already reading the lines of text that appeared on the screen.
“Oh,” she said, “you want me to enter the building. That is the exchange? You help me to enter the building, and in return I have to enter the building? That doesn’t make sense!”
It is the end of the correction process, Judy. To be honest, I just wanted the link through to the Eva Rye that Maurice’s console has provided. You see, long ago, when the DIANA building stood here, it too contained a processing space on which FE software ran. Remember what happened to the Eva Rye after Kevin destroyed it? As you have seen, FE is very persistent.
Saskia suddenly stumbled. She grabbed hold of Maurice for support.
“Hey,” she said in surprise.
Edward was dancing on the white cobbles.
Divergence a-3 Page 28
