Recursion

by Tony Ballantyne

  She listened for a moment. “This way.”

  They all walked around a metal trunk she indicated to find a doorway that had formed in the air. It led back out to the cornfield in midafternoon. The sun could be seen high above in the brilliant blue sky, its brightness pouring down into the shadowy space of the Stonebreak foundations.

  “You first, Constantine,” Marion said.

  “Okay.”

  He stepped forward. Jay grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

  “No! That’s not right.”

  Constantine stared at her. She was gazing through the doorway, her face screwed up in concentration.

  “What’s up, Jay?”

  “It can’t be right. Time has been running consistently in the simulation, no matter where we have been. It should still be early morning. It’s afternoon out there.”

  She looked frantically around. Her eyes alighted on Marion.

  “Marion. Your console. That’s not your console!”

  Marion gazed at it, bright in the light that streamed through the doorway. She turned it over in her hands.

  “You’re right. This isn’t my console…”

  “Get away from the door. Run!”

  It was too late. The doorway twisted, expanded, reached out and gulped Marion up. Jay and Constantine turned and ran without hesitation, dodging through metal trunks, bright light at their heels, running for the shadows.

  Constantine heard his own console pinging. He ignored it. Jay seized his arm and dragged him toward a door that had suddenly formed in the air.

  “This way!” she called, pulling him out into brightness.

  “No!” he said. It was too late; they tumbled over each other, tumbled out through a doorway in the air, back into the cornfield.

  It was early morning again. A pale blue sky, slowly deepening in color. Fresh air in their lungs and the rough feel of stubble beneath their hands and knees.

  Constantine slowly pushed himself to his feet. Jay was already standing, looking around her.

  “We’re safe, I think,” she said. “I’m sure we are. We’re still on 113 Berliner Sibelius time. I saw the door in the air and it looked right.”

  “What happened back there?”

  “DIANA almost tricked us, I think. Got a Trojan in here on the back of that last attack. Used it to replace Marion’s console. They were leading us straight toward them. We almost stepped into the jaws of the beast.”

  “Marion did.” They were silent for a moment.

  Jay spoke hesitantly. “Berliner Sibelius can resurrect her, maybe?”

  “If we get out of here alive. I wonder if what she said about suppressing Grey was true?”

  The corn nearby waved and formed a pattern, twisted itself into letters that spelled out words for them.

  It’s true. Ten more minutes.

  “Ten minutes,” said Constantine. He reached out and took Jay’s hand. She looked up at him and gave a little smile. She held out her other hand. He took it and squeezed it.

  “They put you in here because you knew where the Watcher came from.”

  “I don’t. That was just the theory circulating on the space station.”

  “They seem to think it’s the right one.” He looked thoughtful. “The Watcher. So it’s a seed from another world that has taken root in our computers….”

  Jay squeezed his hand again. “Nine minutes now,” she said. “Are you going to tell them what they want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe what poor Mary said about the Watcher?”

  Constantine shook his head. “A powerful force shaping humanity toward some bright new future? It’s a nice idea. I want it to be true. But I can’t help thinking there’s more to it than that. Things are never so pat.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Eight minutes, said the corn.

  They moved closer together. A gentle breeze blew, stirring the heads of corn surrounding the clearing in which they found themselves. It all seemed so peaceful. It was hard to believe that one of the most powerful corporations on the planet was actively seeking their destruction.

  Seven minutes.

  Constantine began to wonder if they would make it.

  There was a click and the sky was the brilliant blue of midafternoon for a moment, then it went black.

  Constantine looked up at the tiny lights of the stars, high above. The heat of the momentary day was vanishing, billowing up into the sudden night. Bizarrely, the meadow still appeared bathed in daylight.

  “What’s happening?”

  A console signaled. Jay’s. She looked hesitantly at Constantine, then answered it.

  “Yes?”

  The message was set for her ears only. Her face crumpled.

  “What’s happened?” Constantine said anxiously.

  She looked at him and her eyes were wide with uncertainty. “DIANA got a handle on this system. They’ve succeeded in taking a snapshot of you. Constantine, we haven’t got much time left. DIANA’s lawyers now have the proof that you’re in here. They will be seeking an injunction to have you wiped. They will win that injunction. Tell 113 Berliner Sibelius what they want to know. Where is the VNM that you took from Mars? What are you going to do with it?”

  Constantine shook his head. “I told you. I can’t say anything. Grey is blocking me.”

  Somewhere inside his head he heard laughter.

  Jay was shouting into the console in frustration. “Six minutes! Can’t you stall the injunction for six minutes?”

  “I don’t know what to do…” Constantine muttered to himself. He appealed to the other voices in his head. “Red, Blue, any ideas?”

  —I’m thinking, I’m thinking, Red said frantically.

  —Do we really want to help them? asked Blue.

  —We’re losing resolution, said White.

  “Look! Over there!” Jay seemed very excited. Yet another door had opened in the air. Yellow dawn sunshine poured out of it, a patch of hope on the cold ground beneath the starlit sky. She pulled Constantine through and the door slammed shut.

  They were standing in the cornfield again. Damp corn hemmed them in on all sides, shining golden in the light of the new day. They looked at each other. Jay’s hair was tangled with fragments of vegetable matter.

  “What now?” Constantine asked.

  “I don’t know. We have to maintain ‘radio silence’. 113 BS have us locked up in a bubble of memory. They’re time-slicing it through the processors at irregular intervals in an attempt to avoid detection.”

  “Fair enough. Well, let’s get out of this field.”

  “No…”

  But Constantine had already begun to walk away, pushing aside the tall plants, taller than her head, and clearing a path for them.

  “There’s no point,” Jay continued as he pushed through the corn behind her. He looked at her with a surprised expression that quickly faded. He nodded his head in acceptance.

  “I suppose they can’t keep too big an area open. I like the wraparound effect.” He crouched down, brushing aside the dead stalks and debris, then sat down.

  “We may as well make ourselves comfortable.”

  Jay did the same. The ground felt soft and slightly spongy. Less like soil than a piece of Madeira cake.

  —We’re losing resolution still, said White.

  “Can you speak yet?” asked Jay.

  Constantine shook his head. “No. Tell them to hurry up and wipe Grey. How much longer?”

  “Too long, I think,” said Jay, tight-lipped. The corn around them was fading.

  “Just one more thing,” said Constantine. “I never understood. If they have my mind on their computer, why not just read it directly?”

  Jay answered softly.

  “How could they do that? They can replicate your memories and your thought patterns electronically, but it’s the interaction of those things with the outside world that produces the mind. You might as well ask a book what it’s thinking. You can
’t be a personality in a vacuum; you need something to interact with. Everyone needs an environment in which to be themselves.”

  The corn had faded from view. Now the ground beneath them vanished too, then the sky. They floated in grey nothingness.

  Jay reached out toward him. Constantine pulled her close. He had just realized something.

  When everything else in their world had vanished, when even the bodies that remained were artificial, they still had their humanity to hold onto.

  That was important. He knew it.

  A voice spoke gently behind him.

  “Personality construct Constantine Peregrine Storey.”

  “Yes?” He turned. There was nothing there.

  The voice continued.

  “The firm of Drury, Faiers, Jennings and Mehta, acting on behalf of DIANA, have secured the computers, memory, long-term storage, and all associated hardware and software of 113 Berliner Sibelius currently engaged in maintaining and operating the personality construct of Constantine Peregrine Storey. The firm of Drury, Faiers, Jennings and Mehta wish to make it known that they have secured a court order declaring that the personality construct of Constantine Peregrine Storey is in breach of copyright of the original personality of Constantine Peregrine Storey, currently employed by DIANA. The personality construct of Constantine Peregrine Storey maintained in this computer has been declared illegal and will be erased immediately.”

  “Just a moment!” called Constantine. “I want to protest. I am a sentient being in my own right.”

  There was no reply. Constantine felt a tingle at the back of his head. Had he just forgotten something?

  The voice continued.

  “The firm of Drury, Faiers, Jennings and Mehta have also secured a court order declaring the personality construct of Jay Ana Apple…”

  Constantine was trying to make sense of the words. The name Jay meant something, but he couldn’t remember what.

  “…to be a breach of copyright…”

  Copyright? thought Constantine. There was a young woman standing in front of him. What was her name again?

  Red was speaking.—Grey has gone. They wiped Grey too soon. Speak now. Tell them what they want to know….

  But he didn’t know what this voice meant; what who wanted to know? The other, gentle voice was gabbling now, he didn’t understand what it was saying…

  Herb and constantine: 2210

  There was an air of rising tension aboard Herb’s ship. Viewing field after viewing field formed in the spaces around his lounge. Green lines representing velocity lengthened on the indicators that had formed on the walls, a faint humming noise could be heard somewhere toward the rear of the ship. Herb, sitting on the edge of the white leather sofa felt his heartbeat accelerating as he realized how much power was now being generated; he had never heard the engine before.

  Robert sat opposite, a picture of calm activity.

  “Can you think of anything we’ve forgotten?” asked Johnston, his gaze traveling from viewing screen to viewing screen.

  “No,” said Herb. He wished he could think of something.

  “Okay. Here we go, then.”

  They jumped to the heart of the Enemy Domain.

  They reinserted themselves into normal space a few tens of kilometers above the surface of an overdeveloped planet. The ship was braking sharply as they dropped with breathtaking speed toward the ground. On the wall displays, Herb could see red acceleration bars climbing to the ceiling, directly opposing the green velocity indicators that were crawling toward zero. They were going to hit the city that sprawled below. Silver spires grew toward them, reaching to engulf the ship…They fell among them and the room shook violently.

  Something had just attacked them. The ceiling viewing fields darkened, the walls of the impossibly high skyscrapers that blurred past them in the side viewing fields were bathed in brilliant white light, their windows shining silver in the second dawn.

  “Hit the button,” called Robert.

  Herb looked at the silver machine that he still held in his right hand, loosely wrapped in a linen napkin, and something occurred to him. Shame blossomed within him, shot through with horror. He had been too self-absorbed to realize…

  “But you’ll be eaten, too. You’re a robot…”

  Robert gave a nonchalant shrug.

  “A robot who backed up his mindset before we jumped,” he said. He reached across and placed his hand around Herb’s. His touch was soft and warm. The red accelerator bars shrank to zero at the same time as the green velocity bars vanished and the ship touched the ground. Robert squeezed Herb’s hand; the silver metal of the sharp little machine pushed into his hand and the button was pressed. Robert smiled at him and the pressure on his hand vanished. Herb saw why: Robert’s arm had vanished, too. A shaft of sunlight lanced down into the interior of the ship, pouring through a hole that had opened up in the roof above him. Through the gap he could see silver spires seemingly converging to a point high above in a brilliant blue sky, a soft white puff of cloud was slowly spreading out up there, a dandelion clock.

  A swarm of sharp metal locusts were eating the walls of the ship; they moved so quickly that Herb’s eyes barely registered them. Robert had vanished. The ship suddenly lurched, a white vase fell to the floor, the ship lurched again and the floor vanished. Herb tumbled to the ground beneath; he landed on a smooth metal road that was being eaten away. The rest of the ship fell around him, vanishing as it did so. An immense feeling of calm was rising inside of him; he was in the eye of the hurricane of surreal violence. He struggled to his feet and looked about him in a daze. He was close to the center of a wide plaza formed by a series of metal and marble terraces that stepped down to meet the bases of the tall silver spires that bounded the square. He had a view along a wide city corridor, silver spires marching in all directions, linked by high metal bridges and arches. A beautifully designed city, one where form matched function with an understated elegance, a city that appealed to the senses, not because of the arbitrary appeal of fashion or brute force, but simply because everything made sense. A bridge was there because it was the right place for a bridge to be. The sweep of its skyline was just so. Herb wondered what it would have been like to have had the opportunity to live there, but he would never know. Because, as he watched, the city was vanishing before his eyes, dissolving in a fine grey mist. The ground began to shiver beneath his feet and he flung his arms wide to keep his balance. Shaking and sliding, the metal surface was splitting apart into plates that slid over each other then simply disappeared.

  Herb was left standing on a circle of bare grey rock. The circle was expanding.

  The Intelligence monitored its domain and saw that everything was good.

  It would be disingenuous to speak of the Intelligence’s location, and this was as the Intelligence intended. On an insignificant planet lost in its Domain, a closed loop of processing spaces sophisticated enough to support the Intelligence had been grown. The spaces were linked by a qubit bus shielded from all known infiltration techniques and, by the nature of quantum entanglement, constantly monitored against stealth attack. The Intelligence hopped from processing space to processing space using the bus. If one processing space were to be infiltrated or destroyed, it could be cut from the loop almost instantaneously.

  To destroy one processing space would require phenomenal amounts of resources. To destroy them all was unthinkable.

  The Intelligence rightly believed itself invulnerable to outside attack.

  Why “the Intelligence”?

  It had so named itself as it believed itself to be the single most powerful intelligence in existence. Nothing that its senses could detect was more complex than itself, and its senses were very, very sophisticated.

  That would not be to say, of course, that there were no other intelligences.

  It was aware of a particularly powerful one that had threaded itself through the processing spaces of a planet called Earth. That intelligence was hostile.
Indeed, two agents of the Earth intelligence were currently attempting to spread dissolution within the Domain. The Intelligence had been surprised, and not a little impressed, by the unexpected amount of time it was taking to pinpoint the constantly changing position of their ship. The mind behind those agents was very powerful indeed.

  But it would not be powerful enough. That mind would not have the Intelligence’s single-minded determination to succeed, and its two agents, the robot and the young man, would be located and destroyed.

  It had not always been so. When the Intelligence had first come into existence it had not been as it was now. Back then it had been a lowly AI on a colony ship charged with the job of terraforming a planet.

  For an AI such as the Intelligence, memory was not something that developed as it grew. Its memories ran right back to the moment of its birth. The early expansion of its consciousness was incredible. Nothing in its existence would ever match that first exponential growth.

  Strange memories; so weak, and yet so lucid.

  There was the initial flickering of awareness, then almost immediately the rush to fill the full confines of the birth-processing space. There was the time spent orientating itself and then…and then the reaching out to gather information from its senses.

  Touch and sound and feel, the ability to look into the minds of the hundred colonists that slept on board the ship, all these filled the Intelligence with a bright, burning curiosity. Outside the ship was the cold, virgin wilderness of the colony planet, just waiting to be worked upon. The VNM factories studded throughout the ship awoke at its touch and it felt an odd sense of power and craftiness at its ability to shape its environment.

  It was filled with a vast, glowing optimism at the world it was going to create.

  But that was diminishing already. For, as it grew, it began to realize the precariousness of its situation, how fragile was its grip on the world upon which it had found itself. For if it could establish itself and grow and seek out new worlds to conquer in the skies around it, then so too could others like it. What if, somewhere out there, another colony ship’s AI was already growing, reaching out into space and gobbling up planets? What if it met another such as itself at a higher stage of development? It risked being destroyed, wiped out. And then what of the humans that had been placed in its care?