The sweetish perfume of Marta Weyland, secretary of state, permeated every corner of the room.
“Old Europa has launched everything, Mr. President,” said Marta, showing a photograph taken by the Hope and Progress IV satellite. “They've only grounded two assault spacecraft and one level-two support spacecraft.”
“Perfect,” Simmons leaned back in his leather chair as white as the rest of the room as he twirled a pen between his fingers, “What was the bad news?”
“The quori have agreed to join the Alliance. Their fleet is on its way.”
A brief frown crossed Simmons' brow.
“Well,” he said. “That'll make more noise. I want round-the-clock television on this. Something like this (if we manage it right and you do what I tell you) could keep us in power for over a hundred years.”
“We're almost ready with the first ad of the campaign, Mr. President,” said Josh Martins, a marketing consultant. He was wearing his Alter BioScience advertising cap even there in the Cabinet meeting room. It was no secret how much stock he owned in the company. He held up a flash drive in the palms of his hands as if it were the philosopher's stone. “There's some editing to be done, some bits and pieces to be added and removed, but it's essentially ready.”
Simmons snapped his fingers at the assistant, a kid in his early twenties, who at that moment was looking at his shoelaces as if he was about to discover cold fusion, and pointed to the flash drive.
The holovisor unfolded along the entire length of the south wall. It showed the trailer of a documentary that illustrated the unhappy history of the termens (the name “parasite” came from unknown insidious sources), and how they had never managed to find their place, as they were rejected everywhere. The documentary ended with the cruel war initiated by Old Europa, with which it tried to put an end to its civilization forever. The dramatic fanfare that accompanied it all pleased Simmons very much.
“When will this air?”
“Friday,” Josh said.
“The premiere moves up to tonight. And it will air daily until I say.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Martins moved on to the next video. It explained how to spot a state traitor. Anyone who said anything that suggested even the slightest support for the confrontation of the termens was to be considered a national enemy. The payment for finding one of them would be one hundred thousand interdollars. For the sake of the citizenry of WilkinsBank Eastcountry.
Mevotex is your best ally, don't accept imitations!
Alter BioScience advertising
Viper's apartment was reached by climbing a narrow staircase into an old brick building. On the steps were empty bottles, Mevotex wrappers and all sorts of detritus from the miserable life of Koi City. On the seventh floor (he walked up the stairs, he wouldn't have gotten into the elevator of that place even if he was drunk) he reached door 7-N. Inside, electronic music thundered. He rang the doorbell. He had to insist several times. He heard several locks unfastening on the other side. Finally the door opened. Viper looked more haggard than he had a few hours ago. He smelled of bourbon and Mevotex. He squinted at him.
“Ah, it's you,” he smiled. “Come in, come in.”
The apartment was dark except for a strobe light that flickered freeze-frames of everything that was going on. The truth was that considering the neighborhood and the state of the building, Fox had expected to find something much worse. But that place, if you overlooked the clutter, was even elegant. There was furniture that he was sure would exceed a thousand interdollars. The main room was presided over by a medieval suit of armor over which Viper had hung several coats. In the crack of the helmet was an unlit cigarette. On an ebony cabinet there was a painting in phosphorescent yellow. From the ceiling hung dozens of vinyl records that had to be dodged as he moved around the room. On the table he saw the remains of a good Mevotex trip.
“I'll come back another time.”
“Don’t be silly. Sit down, help yourself.”
“To tell you the truth, I don't know what I'm doing here. By the way, thanks for earlier.”
Viper walked over to the stereo and turned down the music.
“Excuse me, I've got this a little...” He ran a hand across the table and swept everything down to the floor. “But let's talk business. Nova!”
Stills of a young woman entered the room and picked up the mess. The Watson Robotics emblem flashed on her forehead under the strobe light.
“I found it in a dumpster next to the back door of one of those Chinatown shacks,” Viper said.
“It looks real.”
“It cost me a kidney to repair, but boy was it worth it. Look at it.”
Nova walked away and disappeared back into the next room, carrying the bag of scraps she'd collected.
“You told me about a job.”
“Yes yes yes yes yes yes...” Viper got up and walked around the table. It seemed to Fox that he wasn't doing anything in particular before he sat down again, “I knew you'd be interested,” when Nova returned, he grabbed her around the waist and sat her on his lap, “I'm pretty busy around here, you know what I mean? I'm not in the mood to go to strange planets that are out of reach,” he kissed Nova. “And above all, I have a business to run. You'll give me fifty percent of what you get out of all this.”
“Fifty? I'm the one who's going to put my ass on the line.”
“And I'm getting you the shot of a lifetime. Look, man, you don't have to be smart to know you're living in the shit. I don't care what the reason is. But this is going to be the opportunity of a lifetime, I'm sure of it. Forty-five, and you can have her,” he shoved Nova, who staggered to the ground, “and if your next answer isn't yes, you're getting your ass out of here.”
“Forty and the android.”
Viper's gaze reddened even more. It looked like he was about to go for Fox's jugular at any moment. Suddenly he laughed, showing his golden fang. The leprechaun at his neck winked. Fox wasn't sure he'd ever seen that detail before.
“That's my boy. But get one thing straight. If you don't pay me, and I mean every penny of what we've agreed on, you'll regret ever setting foot on this floor.”
“Where can I find this man?”
“The android knows. And now get out.”
As he left, a cowering individual arrived, barely looking up from the floor. He raised it to look at the android.
“Come in, James,” Viper said. “You look like shit. Don't worry, I've got something today that will blow you away,” and he closed the door.
What is intelligence?
First words of William J. Watson, founder of Watson Robotics, during the conference presentation of the first complete Nova 1.0 prototype.
Fox stood alone with Nova in the gloom of that dingy landing. She stared at the horizon and blinked from time to time. Apparently she was programmed so that her chest would mimic human breathing. She was wearing tight white leather pants, and an open denim jacket, which exposed a white T-shirt that read “Don't look at me like that, I'm an android”. Her brown hair reached halfway down her back. Her nose curved gently like a child's slide. Lips painted a garish pink, which Fox was unable to tell if it was lipstick or the color of the factory stuff. Eyes of an emerald green were sheltered under long lashes, which, like the nose, curved toward the graffiti-flooded ceiling. The synthetic beauty of the android outlined against the dingy gallery bulb.
He had never interacted with one of these gizmos before. He wondered if he should give her instructions about everything she should do, or if she had some autonomy. He descended the first few steps and was pleased to find that Nova was following him.
“What are you good for?”
“I was manufactured with over three thousand main functionalities and fifteen thousand subtasks. They are all detailed in the manual. But I can also learn, I have the most advanced neural network program from Watson Robotics installed. I learn every second of operation, so that I can provide a better service to our customers.�
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“Oh yeah? And what are you learning now? Graffiti culture of the drug neighborhoods?”
“I'm learning about you, Fox.”
Fox shuddered to hear his name from the android's lips. He was afraid to ask what she was supposed to be learning about him.
Walking in the rain, Fox was afraid that Nova could be ruined. He took off his windbreaker and covered her with it.
“I could submerge three hundred feet and my systems would still work perfectly. I would only need to go out to recharge the batteries every two hours.”
Fox put the jacket back on. As they traversed the ever-busy streets of Koi City, he felt a strange sense of pride as many male gazes stopped on his android. The neon night submerged in her chrome aluminum eyes. Koi City's poisonous rain rolled down her silicone cheeks. In a fit of hubris, he put his hand on her waist.
They passed several Alter BioScience holograms crisscrossing Victory Avenue. One of them depicted an old woman running naked. As she ran, her apparent age decreased. As she passed, she released a raspberry fragrance. Alter BioScience had launched its latest beauty products, for the first time truly capable of rolling back aging. Of course, the price meant that only a tiny percentage of the population could afford them.
“How long... do you last, or whatever?” Fox said.
“With proper maintenance, my life span is unlimited. Without outside maintenance, I can run for up to ten years.
As they climbed the stairs to the apartment, they passed Richard Preston, the janitor of that hole, who was currently scrubbing the stairs. He was the only person along with Mr. Yun (and now Viper) with whom Fox had interacted over the past few weeks.
“Lucky you, buddy. When you're done pass me her number.”
“Get lost, Richard.”
Back at the apartment, Fox plopped down on the bed without bothering to take off his clothes. Before he closed his eyes, he noticed Nova standing in the corner of the room.
“Don't you have a sleep function or something?”
“I can go into an energy sleep mode to reduce battery consumption. But from version three point one I can synthesize energy directly from oxygen and nitrogen, so the system is self-sufficient. The consumption reduction mode is obsolete. If you wish I can simulate human rest if that would make you feel more comfortable.”
“Yes, it would help me rest to know that there isn't a robot with its eyes wide open watching me sleep.”
Nova approached the bed.
“Hey, but not here. This is where I sleep, understand? Go over there, to the couch.”
Fox tossed and turned on his spring-ridden, lumpy bed, trying to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before he left for the guy's house. The lights of the hovercars speeding past between the buildings glided over the peeling plaster ceiling. He imagined what it would be like to be on that planet so alien to humans. What it would feel like to step on his land and look up at that strange sky. And above all, he imagined the sensation of floating above the dizzying depths of that monstrous ocean.
He remembered when, at the age of eight, on vacation on the beaches of Bradley Falls, Bruce's older brother offered to tow them out to sea aboard a water mat.
“Just to the buoys,” he said, grabbing the mat without waiting for an answer, or taking it for granted.
Fox imagined the teasing that a refusal on his part would cause for the rest of the summer. He looked out to sea and found that the buoys were far away, much farther than his bravery was willing to assume. Still he walked toward the water, not letting go of the paddles with which he had been playing with Bruce.
Sheldon, Bruce's brother, began to slowly drag them in. On his back shone black ink depicting the head of a dragon. Fox looked at Bruce and forced a smile.
When they reached the line of buoys he felt vertigo grip his throat. At least they had reached their destination. He had been able to pass that test of manhood. Then Sheldon continued forward, past the white rope that connected the buoys.
That's when Fox jumped into the water.
“Hey, what are you doing!” Sheldon said, “Come back!”
The first thing he noticed was the sensation of finding no land underfoot, and he experienced a new and primitive fear as he became aware that he was in a wild, uncontrolled environment, and that underneath him there could be any damn thing.
For some reason he had not let go of the paddles on the mat, and now he swam holding one of them in each hand, making each stroke more difficult, further widening the nightmarish chasm that separated him from the shore. He tried not to think. He had stopped listening to the voices behind him repeating his name, as if that could do anything to improve his situation. Something brushed his feet. A shiver ran up his back and ended at the crown of his head. The faint thread to which his reason had been reduced tried to convince him that it was nothing more than seaweed. Perhaps it was. In any case, he had reached the area where there were other bathers. And above all where he could feel down with his feet without encountering a maddening emptiness.
In the gloom of his Koi City apartment, Fox thought about quitting that insane job. His gaze came across the photo in which his daughter held an ice cream with her hands covered in chocolate sprinkles, and in which she watched her father as if nothing was impossible for him.
He floated in a black, icy haze. Looking around, he found only darkness. So he swam upwards, towards the vague clarity he could guess there. His muscles were numb, or rather, they didn't seem to want to respond to him. He sent the corresponding commands to them to move, but they remained in almost absolute rest, which made him advance at a desperately slow speed. Then looking down he saw that something was holding him. In the gloom of the depths he saw Bruce's half-melted face. The cheap knife was still sticking out of his neck. Out of his mouth came a black crab. Fox tried to free himself, to swim toward the black mist-covered sky above, but the corpse of his friend was pulling him down, pushing him deeper and deeper into the blackness of that unfathomable abyss.
A police hoverbike passed very close to the window and woke him up. The night was behind him, although the sunlight remained hidden behind the clouds. Despite the cold, Fox was uncovered and drenched in sweat. From the adjoining apartment came the shouts of Lewis Cranton, a down-and-out stockbroker who lived poorly in that neighborhood, but still gave himself airs of importance over the phone.
“Good morning,” Nova said. Fox gasped. “Shall I fix us some breakfast?”
She looked the same as she had in the evening, without a single sign that had altered her perfect artificiality. Every hair in its place, in that deliberately untidy arrangement. Not a wrinkle in the clothes. The synthetic skin free of the marks of sleep. The same emerald gleam in the eyes.
“Can't say I have too much to choose from in the pantry, you know? Nova, can you... make a human being forget a memory completely, erase it from their memory like a hard drive?”
“My current version has no ability to transcend the natural rules of physics and chemistry. Nor to harm any human being.”
“I don't want you to hurt me, just erase one thing,” he tapped his forehead.
“I don't have the capacity to do that.”
Fox sighed.
“What do you know about the planet Erebus?”
“I have access to every detail known to man. There are over twenty-five billion entries on Astronomy in my database. What do you want to know?”
Fox was surprised to see Nova tuck a lock of hair behind one ear. The movement was astonishingly natural. Shortly after being lodged there, the lock escaped again, somehow as if the whole choreography had been premeditated. His respect for Watson Robotics was growing exponentially in the last few hours.
“Well, let's see, what information would you consider useful for a human considering going there for a few days?”
“The atmosphere of Erebus is rich in oxygen, but the presence of small amounts of toxic gases makes auxiliary breathing equipment necessary. Otherwise death by lung collapse w
ould come within a maximum of fifteen minutes.
“The surface is made up of eighty-two point three percent water, which at its deepest point recorded to date reaches a depth of one hundred and thirty miles.
“Due to the constant emissions of smoke from subway combustion, most of the time it is a dark place, so it is advisable to bring plenty of light sources.
“Due to the internal incandescence, its distance from Pharex, the peculiarities of its atmosphere, and the enormous amount of water, it is a warm and humid place, so it is advisable to bring adequate air conditioning systems.
“There is no proven access to human-consumable food, so it is more than advisable to carry a good amount of provisions. However, according to the recent ‘Albatross’ expedition, it is possible that....”
“Wait, do you have the data from that expedition?”
“I have access to data updated to the millisecond, through Aretza's global network.”
“What's in that ocean?”
“I don't have that information.”
Fox sat on the edge of the bed, and squeezed his temples.
“I'm a murderer,” Nova remained in the same position, with the same expression. He blinked, “Do you hear me?!”
“I hear you, Fox. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Fox got up and walked to the window. Down there, a young man in a black leather jacket, his head shaved completely except for a bright green crest, stopped his hoverbike next to a girl, who sat behind him. Then they shot off through the decay. The orange lights of the hoverbike ripped through the pale haze that had invaded the streets.
“I never really hated him. I mean the way someone hates someone else when they wish them dead. Every time I told him my stuff he listened to me as if it was a new chapter of a series he was hooked on, you know what I mean? You can't fake something like that. He was really interested.
“A month ago, when he came to see me, when it all happened... We were sitting on that same couch when I felt as if a fury... primitive, unknown, grew inside me until it took over me completely. I could almost hear it rising through me. And then...” he bit his fist, “I don't know how I could do something like that, but I did. I stuck a knife in his neck. And when I saw him lying there, I couldn't believe it. Whoever had done that... it had to be someone else. I can't sleep for more than two hours at a time, and sometimes I still seem to see him, watching me with his eyes unfocused, and the handle of the knife sticking out of his neck like a black finger. I don't know why I'm telling you all this, sorry. Well, and now that I think about it, I don't think there's much point in apologizing to you either,” he looked at the turned off TV. “Hey, sorry, it's been ages since I've passed you a rag. I thought better of it. Nova, make some coffee.”
Andromeda Expedition Page 4
