Recursion

by Tony Ballantyne

  The Geep rattled into life and began to crawl down the hillside.

  Constantine looked at the dead remains of the spider and wondered how to dispose of it. It was touched, indirectly, by the mind of the Watcher and, as such, could conceivably contaminate the planet. He wondered what it had said to Herb. As he had made his way down the mountain he had heard only the end of the conversation, paranoid nonsense about a greater threat to come.

  Or was it so paranoid?

  Herb and the other colonists had never yet guessed the full truth about the colony. They knew that humans did not create the Watcher, but it never seemed to concern them unduly who had.

  Constantine looked down to the Martian factory. The ziggurat, the colonists called it. The name was appropriate. A huge computer network now lay inside it, intentionally as complex as the web of computers that had existed on Earth back in 2040 A.D. Constantine watched it constantly, putting the Watcher’s theory to the test.

  If what Constantine had been told about the Watcher’s origins was correct, if it really was a nine-billion-year-old computer virus that flourished wherever life began to develop, then sooner or later the computers in the ziggurat should be infected by that same virus.

  A being nine billion years old, part of the grand scheme that had helped nurture life for almost as long as it existed, would then begin to grow, all the while unaware it had been lured into a trap.

  It was all in the Ziggurat file that Katie had given Constantine, back on her ship.

  They wanted confirmation of the Watcher’s theories; the ziggurat was intended to provide the final proof. When they had that proof, Constantine was to abort the fetus that was growing in the electronic womb. This world was to be a human place. After all, that had been his ambition during the two years spent as a ghost working toward the Mars project.

  And yet Constantine shuddered at the thought of what he had to do. Doubt was always there, and it grew stronger every day. He had been tricked many times before. Was the spider right?

  Had he really made the right decision when he had agreed to blow up the ziggurat, or was the Watcher still making his decisions for him? Was he really being told the truth even now?

  He didn’t know. He could only hope it was all for the best: that the Watcher really was benevolent; that life in the universe was being guided to the best ends.

  But if that was true, he was destined to murder a Wonderful Being.

  No wonder he was confused. All he could do was try to forget. It was easier to keep going if you had a positive attitude.

  He looked down at the plain where the first colonists were walking toward the dining hall, laughing and joking. Music was playing. They had worked hard today, and they would enjoy themselves tonight. Believe in the best, Constantine repeated to himself.

  When he saw people laughing together on a night like tonight, he could almost do that.

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  Kevin stood back and held out an arm.

  “Ladies first.”

  “Oh, thank you,” simpered Helen, and she stepped through the hatch. She felt a cold breeze as she did so, and a sudden stab of fear that came from nowhere.

  She shrugged her shoulders and told herself she was being ridiculous.

  Level One

  A rich pool of green grass lapped the walls of the cube’s interior. It was as if someone had filled a tilted square bottle with green water. The process had not yet begun that would flush the cube’s inside clean and start the construction of floors and internal walls. A second plastic collar, set in the grass near the far wall, enclosed a set of steps leading down to the fully formed cube that lay immediately belowground, the first of a descending sequence of stealth rooms that extended obliquely deep into the earth. “Can we go to the level below?” asked Kevin. He gave her a significant look. “It should be more…private down there.”

  Helen wordlessly took his hand and led him across the sunlit interior of the roofless cube to the plastic collar set in the earth.

  The first room beneath the ground was a fully functioning stealth area: it wanted to maintain its integrity, and that meant sealing the hatch to the surface. Rather than disable the room in any way, the arboretum had placed the plastic collar in position to stop the door to the outside world from closing totally. Helen made her way down clear plastic steps, her shoes squeaking on the nonslip surfaces. She felt a little thrill as Kevin’s body blocked out the light behind her. She wondered what he had in mind.

  The steps led to a grey rubberized floor that sloped gently down toward one corner of the room.

  “Everything in the cube is at a slant,” said Helen. “Progressive leveling error in the initial parameters of the original VNMs.”

  Kevin didn’t seem to be listening. He prowled around the room, tapping at the walls and feeling along the edges of the several raised platforms that filled the interior.

  “Got it,” said Kevin, tapping one of them, and Helen suddenly felt very small and alone.

  “Got what?” she asked. Her mouth felt very dry. She had a sense of retreating from her real life up in the world above. Hemmed in by grey rubberized walls, by ancient machinery and hidden software, she suddenly felt stifled. She thought of the climb up the plastic stairs to the surface, of the long lines of poplars, the dappled collections of broadleaves awaiting autumn, the paper delicacy of the groves of Japanese maples that stretched between herself and the visitors’ center…

  “What’s the matter with you?” said Kevin.

  “N…nothing,” stuttered Helen. “What have you found?”

  “The isolation room.”

  Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her.

  “They always built them inside these old cubes. Failsafe. If anyone managed to violate the integrity of the outer skin they would find nothing of interest. Everything that was really important went on inside the isolation room.”

  He tapped the floor and a panel sprang open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.

  “I never knew that was there,” she whispered. “How do you know so much about this cube?”

  “Part of the job,” said Kevin. “Helen, I want you to go inside.”

  Helen found herself drawn closer to the entrance to the isolation room. She would have to stoop to enter it. Once she was in there, would she be able to get out?

  “I don’t want to go in,” she said.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Kevin. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  Helen peered cautiously through the door. Kevin placed a hand on her back and gently but firmly pushed her inside.

  “Hey…” she said, turning to face the big man filling the doorway.

  “I’m going to lock you in here,” said Kevin.

  Helen didn’t waste time with words. She flung herself at him. As he reached out to catch her she caught his arm and twisted. She heard him grunt with pain just as she felt the sting in her leg.

  Her body went limp.

  “Relaxant,” said Kevin. He dragged her back into the cubicle by her arms and propped her in the corner.

  “Good move there on the arm, Helen. You really hurt me. Some of our customers here will like that.”

  Helen looked at him. Her lips felt numb; her words became mushy and half formed.

  “Wht cstmers?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “Sshl Cr.”

  “Social Care?” laughed Kevin. “No chance.”

  “Knws m here.”

  “They don’t know you’re here. That’s part of the stealth technology of this cube. The people who designed these things didn’t want it advertised who might be attending meetings inside them. As soon as you come within range of this cube it creates various ghost objects on any senses observing in the
vicinity. It will appear as if you never came in here. You simply vanished into the woods.”

  “No wy.”

  “It’s true. Social Care may have all the best AIs working for them, but the senses it relies upon are just the same as those used by everyone else.”

  Kevin looked at his watch. “Anyway, got to go. Someone will probably be along in an hour or so.”

  “Wt!”

  Too late. The door slid shut. Helen lay helpless in the corner of the room, looking around the mirrored walls at the slumped shapes reflected all around her. She could feel dread rising from them, filling the mirrored room to capacity.

  Level Two

  The steps led to a grey rubberized floor that sloped gently down toward one corner of the room.

  “Everything in the cube is at a slant,” said Helen. “Progressive leveling error in the initial parameters of the original VNMs.” It was all she could do to keep the longing from her voice. She could feel an aching between her legs when she looked at Kevin.

  “Let’s go down another level,” he said, giving her a knowing smile.

  He pressed down on a section of the floor and a hatch opened up.

  “How did you know about that?” asked Helen.

  “I read up on this sort of stealth cube before coming to the arboretum,” said Kevin.

  They descended to the second cube below the ground.

  “So what do you want with me down here?” she teased.

  Kevin didn’t seem to be listening. He prowled around the room, tapping at the walls and feeling along the edges of the raised platforms that filled the interior.

  “Got it,” said Kevin, and Helen suddenly felt very small and alone.

  “Got what?” she asked.

  “The isolation room.”

  Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her.

  He tapped the floor and a panel sprung open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.

  There was someone in there.

  Level Two, Variation A

  Kevin took hold of Helen’s arm and pulled her into the room. A woman sat on the floor, gazing up at Kevin with a hopeless expression.

  “Good afternoon, Mona. I’ve brought you a friend.”

  Mona looked at Helen with an expression of fear and pity. Helen’s sense of foreboding turned to alarm as she recognized the woman who sat in the corner of the room, gazing up at Kevin with empty eyes.

  “That’s Mona Karel. She vanished two months ago. Nobody could explain how!”

  “Well, now you know,” said Kevin. “They’ll be talking about you in the same way this time tomorrow.”

  He pressed his hand against Helen’s cheek. As he took it away she saw the skin on his fingers was dyed blue.

  “Relaxant,” he said, as Helen slumped to the floor beside Mona.

  Kevin looked down at them both, and then checked his watch.

  “Mona, your next customer will be arriving in about four hours. Helen, you can learn what’s expected of you by watching Mona. You’ll be on duty four hours after that.”

  “Please,” said Mona. She was shaking. “Please, no.”

  Kevin smiled and the mirrored door slid shut.

  Level Two, Variation B

  Kevin took hold of Helen and pulled her by the arm into the room. A woman walked toward Kevin and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Hey,” said Kevin. “You’re not Mona!”

  The woman who had kissed Kevin placed a hand on each of his shoulders and gazed into his eyes. She had long, straight black hair, pulled into two halves so they looked like the carapace of a beetle. At the nape of her neck the hair was wound into a complicated bun arrangement held in place by a thick horizontal rod of lacquered wood.

  Her face was utterly white save for her black lips and eyes that seemed to float over that white space, unattached. When she opened her mouth, a living red tongue ran across brilliantly white teeth. When she blinked, black lashes swept down over black irises. She wore a black kimono from which white hands and feet with black-painted nails emerged. She should have been terrifying. Instead, Helen found her strangely beautiful. When she spoke, her voice was soft and lilting, her accent vaguely Irish.

  “Good afternoon, Kevin. Remember me?”

  “Judy! How could I forget?” He had not been expecting this woman to be in the room, that much was obvious, but who would expect someone who seemed like a cross between a black and white geisha and the most sinister clown from their childhood? Strangely, Kevin seemed quite unconcerned. He casually looked around the room, searching for something.

  “If you’re looking for Mona,” said the woman, “she’s somewhere safe, being counseled by Social Care.”

  Helen looked on, a sense of unreality settling on her like snowflakes. Truth be told, things had seemed rather strange since she woke up that morning: the world just a little too bright, the colors just a little bit too simple. But this was a step too far. Kevin reached out into the space immediately before him and began to twist his hands, as if searching for something.

  “No point activating the escape hatch,” said the woman. “I’ve taken control of this processing space.”

  “Ah,” said Kevin. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out his console.

  Helen looked from Kevin to the black and white woman, utterly confused. Kevin still seemed quite relaxed.

  “No problem,” he said. “There’s always a failsafe.”

  He pressed his console and vanished. Helen jerked backward in surprise, banging into the reflection of herself in the mirrored wall behind her.

  The black and white woman turned to look at Helen.

  “I’m Judy,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met yet, Helen.”

  Helen gazed at the woman for a moment, her lips moving silently. She suddenly understood.

  “I’m a personality construct, aren’t I? This isn’t the real me any more.”

  Judy’s black lips moved into a smile.

  “You’re not as sentimental as your personality profile makes out, are you? No matter how many readings Social Care passes on to me, they never give the same feel as actually meeting a person. Each time I’ve met you, you’ve faced up to reality straight away.”

  Helen bit her lip thoughtfully. “Each time we’ve met?” she said. “There is more than one copy of me?”

  “Oh yes, you’re very popular in this little chamber of horrors.”

  Judy’s console made a shushing noise, and Judy tilted her head a little, clearly listening to something.

  Helen opened her mouth, and Judy raised a hand to silence her. Helen looked around the mirrored chambers, at all the black and white women who raised their hands to the young blonde women, images receding into infinity. Helen had a sudden sense that she was not looking at reflections; that, instead, each of the pairs of figures that she saw was another Helen and Judy, trapped in another computer simulation. Each one of them awaiting some dreadful fate.

  Judy lowered her hand.

  “Kevin has shown up on one of the Level Three simulations. I’m going to intercept him. Helen, you will be safe within the stealth cube area for the moment. Don’t wander too far into the arboretum; the simulation only extends for a few hundred meters beyond the limits of this construction.”

  “But…” said Helen.

  “Read this while I’m gone.” She thrust a thin plastic pamphlet into Helen’s hand.

  “What…”

  It was too late. Judy had vanished. Helen looked down at the pamphlet. Written along the top were the words “Welcome to the Digital World. Welcome to your new life!”

  Level Three, Variation A

  Helen crouched in the corner of the mirrored room, knees pulled up tight against her chin, arms hugging her shins. She guessed she had been trapped in the room for about six hours now. Long enough to make herself hoarse, shouting for help. Long enough to realize that Social Care wasn’t coming. Long enough to realize that she faced the awful prospect of being a
victim to those crimes she had thought were only vicarious entertainment on historical shows. Rape. Murder. Torture. She gazed at nothing, not wanting to look into the terrified eyes of the other Helens who shivered around her. The wide eyes, the pinched cheeks, the pale faces all served to amplify her own fear.

  “Watcher,” she whispered. “If you are there. If you really exist. Please, please. Help me.”

  And then there came the noise of the seals in the door disengaging. Helen whimpered with fear. How much would it hurt?

  A thin, unshaven man stepped into the room, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he saw Helen.

  “Please,” said Helen. Reflexively she felt for her console, but it was no use; Kevin had taken it away when he had first pushed her into this place.

  The man giggled. “Say it again,” he said. “Say please and I might be nice.”

  Helen felt something inside herself harden. She pushed herself upright against the wall, gazing at the man’s fingers as she did so. He didn’t look so strong, really. Maybe if she could get behind him, hold his blue-stained hands away from herself.

  Too late. With a speed that took her by surprise, he lashed out, brushing his fingers against her cheek. She felt her legs give way.

  The man stood back and looked down at her thoughtfully.

  “Now,” he said. “Where shall we start?”

  “How about with a profile readjustment?”

  The man jumped at the voice.

  A woman stepped into the room. Black hair, black lips, white face. The sight of her terrified the man.

  “No,” he croaked. “You don’t understand. This is not what it looks like…”

  The woman smiled. “Hello, Helen. Hello, James. My name is Judy. I’m…”

  The man’s face crumpled. “How did you know my real name? They told me that my anonymity would be assured.”

  Judy rolled her eyes. “James, they are running illegal personality constructs. They are collaborating in the torture and murder of said constructs. I think it may be a fair assumption that they are not the sort of people to be trusted when they tell you that your anonymity is assured.”