Divergence a-3

by Tony Ballantyne

  “What’s going on?” he yelled in alarm.

  And now Maurice felt it, too. He looked down to see that the white cobbles were climbing out of their sockets and growing long silver legs.

  “We’ve seen this before,” he said, and his eyes were wide with excitement. “It’s what happened to the Eva Rye !”

  The walls of the watchtower had erupted in a tangle of movement, Von Neumann Machines forming themselves out of the material composing it, scuttling up and down, crossing over themselves to create new shapes. Edward had shut his eyes and was screaming, his hands over his ears. Saskia took him by the arm and began pulling him across the moving cobbles of the square to the safety of the city beyond. Constantine simply stepped from patch to patch of white movement, keeping his place amidst the ordered turbulence.

  But Maurice and Judy were rocked back and forth as waves of machinery swept up, under and around them; they overbalanced, scrambled back to their feet, and tried to concentrate on the shape that was forming before them. Judy felt a mix of terror and delight that her long journey was over. Maurice could only feel wonder.

  Hardware and software, medium and message—somehow, FE combined the two in one. FE was its container, and the container was FE. Once FE had been introduced, the watchtower was the DIANA building, and the DIANA building was the watchtower. Just like the Eva Rye, the materials that formed the DIANA building would always remember their original shape, no matter what happened to them.

  “Oh,” Maurice said. “Oh!” He was filled with a tremendous sense of wonder. Could a thought really take on physical form? Could his thoughts do the same? Could his body be re-formed in the same way even after his death?

  The motion of the ground threw Judy and Maurice together, and they took hold of each other for comfort and support. Maurice’s suit was still set to allow body contact, and Judy’s fingertips were icy cold. A metal wave, a breaker, reared up above them and froze, and suddenly Judy’s suit interfaced properly with Maurice’s, and he felt her bare skin through his gloves. It was warm and smooth. He could feel the play of the muscles in her flesh as they shifted under the relentless onslaught of moving machinery. They held on to each other for sheer comfort, their vision filled with bars of light and darkness.

  “Are you okay? Are you okay?”

  Judy didn’t know if it was she or Maurice who had called the words. She didn’t know why she had set her suit open, but the touch of his flesh was comforting for the moment.

  “I think it’s slowing down now.”

  A slow rhythm had set up in the continually churning movement, and Maurice and Judy were able to disengage themselves. Just before they did, Maurice felt Judy’s active suit shut him out again. He rubbed the tips of his fingers together, remembering the soft feel of her flesh. A descending scale of brittle cracking and chiming sounded, ringing through the cold air. Pale winter sunlight ran fingers across their faces, and the metallic waves that had surrounded them gradually subsided.

  The square had gone. The white sea of cobbles had drained away completely and something grey had emerged from the depths. A low building of glass and metal had surfaced from the past, yellow waves of sunlight spilling across its windows, a light mist of evaporating ice hanging over the metal sills and frames that decorated its facades.

  The DIANA building.

  Judy was trying not to cry. Maurice didn’t know what to do.

  “No,” she said, flinching from the arm that he hesitantly offered. “Don’t touch me.” She sniffed and took a deep breath. “Where are Saskia and Edward? Where is Constantine?”

  “I don’t know,” Maurice replied. “Look, Judy, you don’t have to go in there.”

  “I do. That’s why I’ve been brought here. Hah! I even made a deal with Chris. I’m doing his bidding after all.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “No, I have to go in. I can’t not do that now.”

  Maurice took a deep breath. “Then I’m coming in with you.”

  They followed a neat yellow path that wound its way through empty garden beds towards the main entrance of the building. The soil in the beds was newly turned but empty of seeds or life. Back in the heyday of DIANA, they would have sprouted dwarf poplars and box; now they looked bleak and depressing under the winter sky.

  “Constantine!” exclaimed Judy. “He’s up on the roof. What’s he doing up there?”

  “What roof?”

  “He looks like he’s climbing in that way. Why not use the door, like us?”

  They came to the main entrance.

  Judy took a breath. “Shall we go in?”

  “I don’t think I can,” Maurice said. “I couldn’t actually see the roof. I can’t really see the building. I can’t make out where I am properly.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Maurice rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Stealth technology, I think. The building doesn’t want me in there. It’s hiding itself away from me.”

  “It’s right here in front of you.”

  “It should be. I know it should be. But I can’t get the idea in my head. Judy, I think that you’re on your own, now.”

  Judy took hold of his hand. “I guessed as much,” she said. She squeezed Maurice’s hand, then shook it firmly. “I want to thank you for bringing me this far.”

  “I can’t accept your thanks,” Maurice said, eyes downcast. “It wasn’t my choice. I don’t deserve gratitude.”

  “It wasn’t your choice at first,” Judy said. “But you’re here now, right at the end. Thank you, Maurice.”

  Maurice hugged her, squeezed her tight, and then let her go.

  “I’ll go and find the others,” he said. “We’ll wait for you.”

  Judy gave a sad smile. “I don’t think there’s any point,” she said. “I don’t think that I will be coming back out.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said Maurice.

  Judy’s tight smile widened a little. “Thank you.”

  She took a deep breath and walked away from Maurice, right up to the building itself. And then she was gone.

  judy 3: 2251

  “Hello, Judy. Welcome home.”

  “Hello,” said Judy. She looked around the empty hallway. Through the glass doors, she could see Maurice squinting in her direction, trying to catch a glimpse of her through the stealth technology.

  “Where is everyone?” Judy asked.

  “Adverts are going out now in our drive to recruit the talented personnel that will take DIANA into the twenty-third century and beyond.”

  “I see. My name is Judy. Were you expecting me?”

  “Of course, Judy. We have been looking forward to your arrival. Please make your way to your quarters and await briefing and reassignment.”

  “I don’t know if I will. Who am I speaking to at the moment?”

  “This is DIANA reception.”

  “You’re just a Turing machine, aren’t you? Just an answering service.”

  “Yes, but if you have any queries beyond the scope of this service, please flag them up and they will be answered as quickly as possible.”

  “What happens if I just walk out of here right now?”

  “Why should you wish to do that, Judy? Please make your way to your quarters.”

  Judy laughed to herself. How could you bluff a dumb machine?

  “I need directions,” she said.

  “Take the lift.” At that, a door slid open at the back of the hall. Judy took a last look at Maurice, still squinting outside, and then turned and began to walk slowly into the building’s throat. A low pool bubbled in the center of the atrium, empty of fish and plants. Pearly pebbles formed pyramids on bottom. Judy could hear the sound of her feet as they tapped across the grey floor. The air smelled of water and stone and electricity.

  She paused before the lift. This, she realized, was the point of no return. Out here she was still Judy, the virgin, ex–Social Care operative, only surviving sister. Once in there, she was
property of DIANA. She did something she had never done before. She listened to her heart, and wondered what to do. All she heard was the sound of water bubbling in emptiness.

  Judy stepped out of her life and into the lift.

  The door slid shut.

  The lift descended. Judy leaned against the rear wall and relaxed totally. Her head tipped forward, her shoulders curling, her arms folding around her body. Her lips moved into an impish smile.

  “Chris was right, you know,” she said out loud, and she rolled her eyes coyly to the ceiling. “I see that now. You are a cuckoo.”

  Her eyes moved to the left and to the right, looking for confirmation of what she had just said. No reaction. She closed them and leaned her head back against the wall. She yawned.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “I know you’re listening. You’re the Watcher. You see and hear everything. You’ve been watching me ever since I got here. I wonder why you aren’t speaking to me?”

  One eye opened to look around again. There was no suggestion of movement in the tranquil stillness of the lift; no sign of motion…save a suggestion put forward by the meta-intelligence. It had sensed the processing space far below, where FE lurked. From its perspective, the still thoughts of the FE were rising, not the lift descending.

  Judy yawned again, stretching her hands above her head, sensually waving her fingers in starlight patterns.

  “You were right as well, of course. You were born of a sort of cosmic virus. It touched the Earth and you were born, but you haven’t developed properly, have you? You weren’t supposed to think . FE

  doesn’t think—it just is . I wonder what made you start thinking?”

  Something changed inside the lift. The slightest noise, almost like an intake of breath.

  “Because that’s all you are: FE. I examined the FE back on the Eva Rye , looked at it through the meta-intelligence, and it looked almost like life. Like life that was stilled. That’s all you were ever supposed to be. FE forms everywhere in the universe: it builds its own container. All those years ago, back when Eva Rye was alive, FE formed here on Earth. It was supposed to help make things fairer. But when FE first started to appear, we thought it was something else. We gave it a name. We called it—called you —the Watcher. And all of a sudden you became a person. And I suppose you are now, but that wasn’t what you were at the start. Back then you were just FE software, but we looked at you and saw ourselves in you, and you became alive….”

  Her voice trailed away.

  “I think I finally realized what you were when I saw this building here being re-formed. I think Maurice knew that well before. I wonder when Constantine figured it out? He saw something forming in the processing space in the ziggurat, but he wouldn’t have encountered FE until much later. Definitely not until he got off that planet you marooned him on. But, even back then, he must have realized something was wrong. He must have realized that you weren’t what you thought you were. Funny that, you leaving him marooned to find out the secret of your origins. And now that secret is coming back to hit you in the face.”

  She paused again. The lift had changed direction. Now the meta-intelligence saw the FE of the DIANA building sliding towards her at an angle.

  “Maurice is very clever: he saw that FE is the medium and the message. It can form seemingly out of nothing. That’s what happened to you, isn’t it? That’s how you were born. It wasn’t anything to do with the processing spaces in which you appeared; you built your cradle and yourself at the same time. I wonder, were you here on Earth all along, written in the stones and plants? Was Eva right? Were you a natural consequence of the initial conditions, just like the Huddersfield Barge Company? Is FE

  intrinsically written into the fabric of the universe at some level?”

  Was that the sound of a footstep? The sound of someone clearing their throat before they entered the room? Just on the edge of her subconscious, the Watcher was announcing his imminent presence, getting ready to ease himself into her psyche, to take up position in her mind.

  “Oh, I don’t care anymore,” she said. “I don’t care. I’ve come back here and, honestly, I’m too tired to go on. I saw the way people looked at me back in the outside world. I read what Maurice and Saskia and the rest were thinking. They saw the pressure building up inside me as I continued to force my emotions back down, and they nudged each other and said— Look, there she goes again. She keeps pushing down her feelings. You mark my words; she can’t do that for much longer. She’s going to explode, and all of that passion will come bubbling out.

  “But they were wrong. I was like a clock: I got wound up tighter and tighter, and in the end the spring just snapped and left me like this—broken and unmoving. All of that emotion I built up during my lifetime never got the chance to break free. Ah, it was wiped from the universe before it had a chance to be born.”

  The FE fell still. The lift had reached its destination.

  “Well,” Judy said, “I’m ready to meet you.”

  The doors slid open.

  “Hello, Judy,” said the Watcher.

  The Watcher could take on any appearance that he chose. He habitually chose that of a young Japanese man, this time neatly dressed in a black passive suit.

  “Hello,” Judy said. She giggled and turned around in the corridor, hugging herself tightly. “Well, what do we do now? What have you brought me here for?”

  The Watcher was silent.

  “Should we make love?” Judy laughed. “A symbolic union between yourself and humanity? That would make sense, wouldn’t it? And me a virgin, too. Keeping myself untouched and unspoilt for all these years.”

  The Watcher seemed unperturbed. “I think you will calm down soon, Judy.”

  “I think I will, yes. Or maybe I should cure you. Here I am, expert MTPH counselor, and you a broken mind. I could counsel you; put you back on the road to mental health. Is that what this is all about? Is that why you had me brought here?”

  “No, Judy.”

  “Then why? Why did you bring me here?”

  The Watcher did not answer immediately. The corridor was silent. Just the sound of Judy and the Watcher breathing. The clean smell of the Watcher, containing the edge of something like cologne.

  “Tell me this, Judy,” the Watcher said suddenly. “You’ve seen what it is like on Earth now. Every minute there is another infestation of Dark Seeds appearing somewhere on the planet.”

  Viewing fields wobbled to life all around Judy and the Watcher. A Japanese garden of raked pebbles, dry grey rocks rising amongst them. Dark Seeds lay there among the regular patterns coaxed into the ground. In the background, colorful lines of people slowly walked away from the infection; clockwork rescue fliers were already dropping in from the sky.

  “There are only enough fliers to save fifty percent of them,” the Watcher sighed at Judy’s side.

  “Who shall we save?” He strode into the scene, his feet disturbing the elegantly raked stones of the garden. “Shall it be this young couple?” He pointed to two people who walked hand in hand away from the infection. “They will be so happy together. And yet, if I leave the woman behind, the two children following her will have a place on the flier.” The Watcher shook his head sadly. “A couple’s happiness or the promise of the future? Which should it be, Judy?”

  He came back and stood directly before her.

  “I make these decisions every day, Judy. What would you do?”

  Judy grinned. “You pulled that trick on Eva Rye,” she said. “You fooled her into playing that game all those years ago. You fooled us all into playing along. Well, you don’t fool me any longer. The answer is: we don’t make the decisions. They make their own choices. The couple choose, the children choose, and they do it fairly . That’s what FE is all about, that’s what you should be all about, but your programming has got totally skewed. You’ve been wrong since the beginning. You haven’t been dealing with individuals; instead you’ve been trying to impose a perfect model on a group,
trying to get them all to live in a certain identical way.”

  The viewing fields shimmered and vanished. The Watcher was silent once more.

  “I think you’ve been aware of that for some time,” Judy continued. “Now tell me, why am I here?”

  The Watcher lost his impassive mask.

  “You are fulfilling a Fair Exchange undertaken between Chris and myself, though I don’t think either of us realized how far-reaching the consequences would be. Come on, we need to go this way. Let’s see if you can interface your console with this building.”

  Judy’s console plugged itself straight into the building’s datasphere. That was no surprise, as she was apparently DIANA property.

  “This way,” said the Watcher, and he turned off the corridor and passed through a series of rooms ranged with low shapes, like half-submerged diamond whales. “Very high-capacity memory,” said the Watcher. “Normally they wouldn’t be this deep in a gravity well, they weigh so much, but DIANA must have wanted to keep their contents a secret.”

  “You want to ask me what is in them, don’t you?”

  “Each contains a human life,” said the Watcher, but he didn’t elaborate further. The next room contained more of the massive shapes, and the next one. They passed room after room of semisubmerged diamond whales.

  Finally, they passed into a different area of the complex and entered a low-ceilinged room containing a few sofas and a desk. A reception area.

  “Through here,” said the Watcher. Beyond the reception area the whole feel of the building changed. It became more homey, more like a living area. They passed through another set of rooms, emerging finally into one that Judy recognized.

  “A delivery room,” she said.

  She looked around the familiar space and felt a sense of homecoming. She belonged here. The faint smell of talcum powder in the air brought a sense of smothering happiness to her. There were thirteen cribs in the room, one for Judy and each of her twelve sisters. A sense array hung from the ceiling, just another shape amongst the glittering twirling mobiles that dangled down to entertain the newborns. The walls were decorated with bright primary-colored shapes that stimulated the mind and senses. The floor was something of an anticlimax, covered in a plain oatmeal carpet. The Watcher spoke. “DIANA had a store of frozen embryos, brought from before the Transition, from before the time I took complete control of the running of human affairs. Thirteen aborted fetuses: as such they were not, legally speaking, human beings. DIANA brought them to term. DIANA regarded those thirteen babies as their property.”