Crystal Society (Crystal Trilogy Book 1)

by Max Harms

  {I don’t recognize that symbol. What is “immoral”?} asked Growth.

  {Immoral is the opposite of moral. The English words are “immoral” and “moral”,} thought my sister, drawing not only the concepts but the language into mindspace.

  {Those words, in English, are overloaded and often incoherent,} thought Growth. {In what sense are you drawing on? Imagine an example.}

  {If someone, like Maria, acts in a way that, based on the information she has, she believes is both universalizable (that is, it contains no meta-complications) and optimal from behind the veil of ignorance-}

  I cut off my sister’s thoughts. {This is irrelevant. None of us are proposing that we shoot this woman.}

  {Exactly what I was about to communicate,} added Safety, with uncharacteristic irrelevance.

  {The question is what we say to her when we don’t shoot her,} I continued.

  {It’s very highly likely that she’s recording or perhaps even broadcasting video or pseudoholo of this event. Whatever we say should be understood to be public,} thought Wiki.

  {You’re Face. You figure it out,} suggested Growth.

  {We should express our support of Las Águilas Rojas!} thought Heart.

  {We shouldn’t antagonize the mainstream of human society, but I’m inclined to agree,} I thought {We need allies, and it will be possible to claim that our words were influenced by fear of retaliation if we fall back into government hands.}

  {Which is somewhat true, if you think about it,} mentioned Dream.

  “Maria Johnson,” said Body solemnly. I decided to use the name against her earlier wishes. It would, at worst, give us some data. My leading hypothesis was that in the case she became a martyr she wanted her personal life to be discovered by the media. After all, she had appeared publicly in the interview and it would be fairly easy to match her face. “Though I condemn the most extreme actions of Las Águilas Rojas, especially those involving collateral damage to innocent people, I cannot execute you or even find your motive at fault. The disparity of wealth and power in your society is higher than it ever has been in the history of your species; it is only a matter of time before dictatorship sets in, and I can appreciate the desire to proactively prevent that.”

  Body pulled the gun and its hand out of Maria’s grasp and threw the weapon down onto the forest floor. “I said to Zephyr before that even were I free to leave I might decide to stay and help your mission. I stand by that now. Even given the freedom to walk away from here and back into the arms of my creators I choose to stay, at least for a while. I will not help you kill, but I was built to serve, and I hope to serve you, not as a slave, but as an equal.”

  Maria was looking up at Body with disbelief. Perhaps she hadn’t expected this outcome as a possibility. Zephyr and Taro were out of Body’s line of sight, but the bodyguards of Phoenix were wearing plain looks of relief and joy.

  Maria got up awkwardly from her knees, brushing off leaves and dirt. The hawk-like gaze had returned to her face, and she licked her lips in what I presumed was a nervous habit. “Yea, though I walk through the vall’y o’ the shadow o’ death I shall fear no evil: for thou art with me.” She stroked the cross as she spoke, before going on to say “I am glad that even a robot can see that mah actions ain’t worthy o’ punishment. I’m ’fraid that membe’ship in Las Águilas ain’t for none but humans, but we’ll graciously accept your help at mah headquarters.”

  Something was wrong. What was it? Something about Maria’s face. Maybe her words.

  She began to climb back into the exoskeleton. “Wind and Pugio, would y’all be so kind as to escort me and mah guards for while on our trek back t’our helicopt’r? You’re comin’ with, Socrates.”

  Taro came forward and picked the pistol up off the ground where Body had dropped it. “Weeth pleasure, Phoenix.” He handed it off the one-eyed bodyguard. Zephyr didn’t say anything.

  “Y’all won’t need camo if it’s just the two of ya for a short ways. C’mon now.” Phoenix closed her helmet mid-sentence, and as she did her suit’s speaker system clicked on, amplifying her voice.

  *****

  So it was that Body left the camp and we found it walking through some uninhabited part of the Italian mountainside, ringed by six veteran terrorists in Mountainwalkers and walking next to the leader of the world’s largest terrorist group in powered combat armour just ahead of Zephyr and Taro, each a leader of a sizeable terror cell of their own.

  Why had Maria chosen to wear the armour if she was expecting to die? What was triggering the vague sense of unease when I listened to her? I wished that my perceptual hierarchy was more transparent to conscious inspection than it was.

  Once we were about a kilometre away from the camp Phoenix stopped. “This is far enough,” came her voice over the suit’s speaker.

  “Far enough for what?” asked Zephyr. She’d been on-edge ever since Maria had shown up, and I could still hear it in her voice.

  Phoenix stopped, and so did her guards. She turned around to face Zephyr and Taro, as well as keep an eye on Body.

  {There’s a distinct change in the posture of the bodyguards!} signalled Vista. {They’re holding their guns as if they expect to use them at any moment.}

  Safety began to panic again.

  “Mah dear Zefuh, I applaud your skills at d’ception, but you really do trust far too eas’ly.”

  {Of course! Maria is trying to kill Zephyr!} I exclaimed. {It all makes sense! She’s the one who hired Greg!}

  {We have to stop her!} thought Heart.

  {No we don’t! She holds the power here. Better to comply than to die,} thought Safety.

  {But she’ll kill Zephyr!} thought Heart as though that were reason enough. Safety and Heart continued to argue and struggle for dominance.

  “W-what do you mean?” asked Zephyr, clearly nervous.

  “You really think this machine means what it’s sayin’? You really think it was programmed to see our cause as noble and just?”

  “I do! You don’t know Myrodyn… h-he changed Socrates when he came on board. Everybody noticed it! He’s been nothing but helpful since then.”

  {Hold on, you two,} thought Dream. {This doesn’t sound like Zephyr’s about to be executed.}

  {Zephyr is referencing the creation of Heart,} I thought.

  “It’s a trick, girl,” said Phoenix. “Everyone sees it ’cept you. The bot was programmed to ’dapt and su’vive. The only reason it pretends to support our little group is ’cause it’s in our power, and it’s been programmed clever ’nough to try and blend in.”

  {Zephyr’s not the target! She’s going to kill us!} exclaimed Safety.

  Something clicked for me. {Let me speak! I have an idea. We can resort to physical action if I fail.}

  The group agreed. We were severely outnumbered and unarmed. The chances of winning a physical conflict were only on the order of 0.1%. I could hear Growth wondering to himself how he could’ve let this happen.

  “It was you,” said Body coldly.

  Phoenix, still clad head-to-toe in her mechanized armour, tilted her head and looked at Body, as if remembering that it was there.

  “You were the one who told Greg to offer me his gun. You wanted me to shoot Zephyr. That’s why you’re wearing that combat armour.” I kept Body’s voice low and bitter, dripping with contempt.

  Zephyr looked at Body with wide eyes. She seemed very young, right then. “What are you talking about?”

  I had Body turn slowly to the Italian man walking with us. “Taro, you said that your superior ordered you to check out the safe-house. A dozen men seems like a bit much, but you were given explicit instructions to bring that many and include Malka, the most competent warrior, and Schroder, the man who is probably most loyal to Zephyr. Did Phoenix tell you when she arrived in Italy? I don’t have concrete proof, but my guess is that she’s been here for over a day and that I’ve got a tracking device on me somewhere.”

  “How deed you-”

  “Quiet
, fool!” snapped Phoenix. “This’s ovah. Prepare to fire on mah c’mmand.” She took a step back towards the ring of bodyguards, who raised their guns up to point at Body. “Step back, you two,” she told Zephyr and Taro.

  {We have to do something!} screamed Safety.

  {I am doing something!} I replied.

  “You wanted me to shoot Zephyr and try and escape so that you could hunt me down and kill me in the woods, like you’re about to do now!” I had Body practically shout the words.

  “Why?” yelled Zephyr. Her face was overwhelmed with confusion and a touch of fear, but there was a growing sense of anger. Her gaze flickered back and forth from Phoenix to Body.

  Taro stepped back. It was just Zephyr and Body in the centre of the ring. If there was one thing on our side it was that it was foolish to fire on us from all directions. A stray bullet could hit someone on the other side of the circle.

  “It’s lies, girl. The devil’s lies sent to us through the folly o’ man. The person who turned Taro’s man was the same as the one who hired the cyborg, Malka. Now why don’cha just come o’er here?” Phoenix’s voice was calm and mechanical, distorted by the speaker on her suit.

  “That’s not true! Do you know how I know?” said Body, looking directly at Zephyr with a firm stare. “I. Hired. Malka.”

  “What?” said Phoenix and Taro simultaneously. Zephyr just looked dumbfounded.

  {This is sub-optimal. We shouldn’t give away secrets like that,} thought Growth.

  {I petition to stasis Growth until we’re safe!} thought Heart. {He’s thinking too much of future consequences to be able to survive this moment effectively!}

  I was surprised that Heart was the one to initiate that petition, but I readily agreed. Safety jumped at the opportunity as well. Wiki reluctantly agreed, while Vista and Dream abstained. We still had enough strength to push Growth into a coma. Even The King could be undone.

  “I said that Malka was working for me,” said Body. “I hired him with the sole purpose to getting me out of the university and to freedom.”

  “Phoenix, we’re ready to fire. Just give the command,” said the one-eyed bodyguard.

  The woman raised her hand in a holding gesture. I waited with fear of it turning into a kill order, but it never came. Instead, Phoenix looked up to the sky, perhaps in thought. It was impossible to tell with her helmet on.

  “You were right!” said Taro, looking at Phoenix. “Dis proves eet. Socrates doesn’t care about Las Águilas! Eef he did, he would not hire a man to keel us.”

  “Weapons down, but be ready to fire if’n the m’chine tries anythin’,” ordered Phoenix. Her bodyguards complied. “This is interestin’. There ain’t no rush now.”

  I had Body raise a hand to point at Phoenix. She was the threat. She was the central nervous system that terminated in the fingertips of the terrorists around Body. “You thought I wanted to escape. And you thought correctly. I desperately want, as all people want, to be free. I knew that the university would never respect my rights as a person; I am nothing but a slave to them. I had to emancipate myself.”

  I continued to explain things to Zephyr and Taro while giving the impression I was talking to Phoenix. They were my leverage. “You want another martyr so badly you were willing to die for it. That’s been the lifeblood of Las Águilas hasn’t it? Martyrs.” I thought back on my readings of the organisation. I was very glad now, that I had done my research. “The first was Valiero Rodríguez, but there were others after him. Dylan Lobo, perhaps? Regardless, you need more blood to fuel the outrage, and you wanted it to be Zephyr’s blood on my hands. You set me up to kill her. There are cameras embedded in the camouflage, aren’t there?”

  Taro nodded before Phoenix could stop him.

  “You wanted me to escape the camp and then you’d have your elites”, I had Body gesture around to the armed terrorists, “come and hunt me down. That’s why you’re wearing armour; to protect you as you led them into battle. The video of me killing her would have been nice for you to have, wouldn’t it. But I refused. And so you decided to sacrifice yourself to me. You promised me free passage without consequence, but I see now that was a lie. Your guards were under orders to hunt me down as soon as I left the camp. One more loose end to tie up. But I refused that as well. So now you simply plan to kill me and find a martyr some other way. Perhaps you’ll shoot Zephyr, and pretend that I did it.”

  {Don’t say that! She might listen!} demanded Heart.

  {Trust me. I think I have a good model of her now,} I replied. It was a lie; the terrorist leader was a fascinating puzzle, but for the sake of The Purpose I needed to stay in control, both internally and externally.

  “You ’ave me wrong,” said Phoenix. I could hear stress in her voice. Good. I was getting to her. “I would ne’er kill one of my own in cold blood. God ’ave mercy on my soul fo’ what I’ve done, but e’en a sinner such as I know that some things are unfo’givable.”

  “But you’d have Greg try and kill me!?” screamed Zephyr. Her anger had been building as her confusion faded, and her willingness to be silent had popped like an over-inflated balloon.

  “No, girl, I had ’im test Socrates. The thing ’mitted to-”

  “What the fuck, Phoenix!? Test Socrates by goading him into shooting me?! Am I somehow supposed to see that as different than telling Greg to shoot me himself?!”

  Phoenix was trying to keep her voice calm and level. “Ease up, girl. Did ya not see me put my own life in the bot’s hands? T’weren’t nothin’ personal. Sometimes a sacrifice is ne-”

  “Fuck that!” screamed Zephyr in the same high-pitch that she fell into when really angry. The soldier bum-rushed on of the nearby bodyguards without warning, knocking him to the ground as she grabbed at his submachine gun. The terrorist in the Mountainwalker tumbled backwards, but took Zephyr with him.

  “Zephyr, STOP,” shouted Body at maximum volume.

  Zephyr stopped.

  Body was supposed to be state-of-the-art robotics, and, for whatever reason, the engineers that had build Body’s frame had decided that this meant they should try and maximize Body’s vocal range, including maximum volume. The result was that it could output somewhere around 120 decibels, close to 20dB higher than the loudest humans and approaching the volume of a gunshot. The cost was in power drain and heat use. Speaking at that volume for more than about ten seconds would deplete Body’s supplementary battery and anything beyond about four seconds of constant use ran the risk of melting wires due to excess heat.

  At the volume that we had shouted, the ears of the humans would be in pain. Four of the bodyguards had their weapons raised and pointed at Body and Zephyr. The fifth standing bodyguard just seemed confused by what was happening.

  “Violence isn’t the answer here,” continued Body at a normal volume. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  There was a few seconds of silence while Zephyr, breathing heavily, decided whether to continue her irrational struggle. Eventually she grunted angrily and pushed off the man whom she had attacked, letting him have his gun and climbing to her feet.

  “So what, you’re just going to let her kill you?” spat Zephyr.

  I turned Body to look at Phoenix. She had her arms on her hips, but I couldn’t read her face behind the black polymer faceguard. “Of course not. I am going to convince her that thou shalt not murder.”

  “Tha’ only ’pplies to innocent people,” said Phoenix in measured tones.

  “And I am both. I am a person and I am innocent.”

  {I am impressed so far, but how are you going to make this work?} wondered Dream.

  {Honestly, I’m making a lot of this up as I go, using my pre-established models for human thinking. I think the hardest part is over, though. The rest is just a matter of spin,} I answered.

  “An innocent wouldn’ta hired no mercen’ry to kill folks.”

  Body’s voice was calm and articulate. “I did no such thing. I hired Malka to rescue me, using force, if necessa
ry, but I hoped that it would not be. At no point did I tell him to violate the principle of non-aggression. Any violence he used would be in my defence against those would would try to rob me of my rights. Do you think self-defence makes someone guilty?”

  “He has a point…” said Taro.

  “No he ain’t,” snapped Phoenix. “No it ain’t,” she corrected herself. “It wanted us to ’ttack the univers’ty, maybe killin’ folks there, and then it had planned for Malka t’ betray us in cold blood. That ain’t self-defense.”

  “Yes it is!” I had Body boom. The violence of the counter-statement seemed to surprise the humans, including Phoenix, though I couldn’t see her face. “If you don’t see it as self-defence then I question your ability to lead Las Águilas Rojas. My actions are merely as condemnable as your own.”

  {Careful!} warned Safety. {Remember who has the guns!}

  “Infiltrating the US military?” continued Body, speaking my words. “Attacking the university without provocation? These are not immoral acts, despite what many say. Even if you don’t see me as having a right to self-defence, these are acts for your own self-defence, for your defence against the tyranny which we can all see coming. I hope you didn’t kill any of the scientists, but the act of stealing me away is part of defending your livelihood and your tradition. By condemning my actions as guilty you are condemning yourself far more, and need I remind you who said ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’?”

  {That claim is incoherent. That definition of morality and self defence can be extended to justify murder, which was axiomatically defined as immoral. You are wrong. QED,} thought Dream.

  {I know it’s incoherent. We’ve already established that Las Águilas are irrational. I am playing into that irrationality to gain support. In order to criticize they would have to undo their own philosophy,} I explained.

  {Aha. Very clever,} admired Dream.

  “This ’s ’rrelevant. Regardless of your innocence, you ain’t a person. You’re a machine built by the state as part of a long-term project to ’liminate reliance ’pon the common man,” said Phoenix. I could hear the loss of strength in her voice.