Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire

by Joel Shepherd

  “Yeah. Unless you believe the stories.”

  Sandy didn’t. They sounded too much like old fashioned human xenophobia to her. Talee just weren’t as enthusiastic about alien contact as many humans were. She knew from FSA reports that many in the League were quite disappointed that the Talee wouldn’t talk to them, the enlightened League, and were worried their alien neighbours would make a terrible mistake and talk to the Federation barbarians instead, and share things. That kind of human politics made Sandy think the Talee had been damn smart to avoid humans from the beginning, lest one side think they were hostile because they talked to the other. And that humans might be damn smart to avoid talking to the Talee, for similar reasons.

  “So Chancelry find some Talee technology,” she repeated, determined to piece this together. “Maybe just a database. Salvage it, translate it and report it, because they have to under exploration law. League government sees this as national significance, classifies it to within an inch of its life, puts its own labs onto it, comes out with . . . what? Let’s say synthetic neuro-science. The neuron replication breakout, across the sigma barrier. That’s always been the suspicion—that was one technological leap too far for even League ingenuity.”

  Kiet nodded, arms folded, watching her. As though wondering where she’d go with it.

  “They use it to replicate human brains in synthetic form,” Sandy continued. “That makes GIs. Chancelry aren’t big enough to go into full production, and League government won’t allow a monopoly anyway, so that’s where the licencing system starts, with Thurtel Corp, Tirvukal Engineering and Zhijue Inc. Those were always the big players. And, damn,” she said, as another thought occurred to her, “that would explain why League government were always so involved from the beginning, when usually they’re so free market about everything, and how no single corporation ever got credit, it was always suspiciously well spread. They must have made it that way, to avoid monopolies and retain central control.”

  “Above my pay grade,” Kiet remarked. “But go on.”

  “Hobby of mine,” said Sandy. Sunlight moved across the carved Talee fingertip and the spectrum of beamed light changed, from yellows to reds and violets. GI origin history. Ari had called it GI theology theory, which Sandy hadn’t found helpful. “So Chancelry give up sole rights, but get a big royalty payment . . . only that doesn’t work, because ongoing royalties will get the financial watchdogs asking questions of what they’re for, so maybe a big lump sum, plus promises of big future government contracts. Which is why Chancelry is one of the League’s favorite corporations when the war begins, wins lots of big weapons contracts.”

  “Starships,” Kiet agreed. “Trying to build new ones right here.”

  “But this is just the local arm of Chancelry Corporation,” said Sandy, frowning. “Chancelry became a League-wide conglomerate, arms in every system. Torah Chancelry was the one that started the deal, but after expansion it was just another branch. And after the crash its own parent company cut it loose, like they all did. Damn, that must have been a decision.”

  Because this was where Chancelry had started. The other corporations had followed once the war began, as Chancelry landed huge weapons contracts and starship facilities based on the incredible mineral wealth of the systems, and League government had insisted that Chancelry share, if only to keep up appearances. They’d set up their operations in parallel to Chancelry, cooperating with them mostly, competing occasionally, serving huge government orders for starships, flyers, tanks, robotics, microsystems, everything League needed to win the war.

  But Chancelry was born here. This was where Chancelry’s core intellectual property resided, and damn sure they weren’t about to share that with the other corporations. It was well known they had small bases in various places around Pantala, places it hadn’t always made sense for them to be, if they were only interested in mining. Surely they’d surveyed the entire world, and all the Torah systems, whatever Kiet said, just to keep other corporations from discovering variations of what they’d discovered.

  Unless they’d somehow known their source was the only source. And Kiet was right. Chancelry had been small when they’d first discovered it, with no capabilities to survey that much space. If the first thing they’d done was tell League government what they’d found, League would have sent Fleet to do the surveying, like Kiet said. And however big Chancelry got, and however many ships and other capabilities they acquired, no one pushed Fleet around, not even the League mega-corps. In that, League and Federation were alike. Fleet would have retained that responsibility, even if it meant threatening Chancelry at the point of a gun. National importance. National security. The government will take it from here, we’ll tell you what we think you need to know and no more. She knew Chancelry and League government had had their share of strains before, during and after the war, but this put it all in a whole new light.

  “Cut the sim,” she said. She needed her real mind back, the one unencumbered by VR simulations, however spectacular.

  The real world reappeared, GIs seated around, watching her. Sandy wondered how much of that conversation with Kiet they’d been privy to.

  “Amazing,” she told them. “Not especially surprising. Some of my friends in Tanusha have been insisting it’s the truth for years, but these are people who think the government puts micro-recon colonies in drinking water. Amazing to find out they’re right for once.”

  “How does the joke go?” Gunter asked her. “Even paranoids have enemies?”

  Sandy smiled. A few of the GIs laughed. That was amazing, too. The joke worked on an abstract level that GIs of this designation rarely responded to. Some of these guys had been kind of old by GI standards before the crash. At least fifteen, some twenty or older. That was five years ago. So quite a few were older than her. Even low-des GIs began to show real sophistication at this age, and it was wonderful to see. It made her hopeful for her people. And made her wonder if even regs would start to demonstrate a comprehension of abstract concepts if they lived long enough. Sadly, few had. But what about now that the war was over?

  She took a deep breath, and ran a hand through her hair. “So we really all are products of alien technology.” It would take a long, long time to figure out how she felt about that. The knowledge made her feel different somehow, she just couldn’t put her finger on how. Maybe it was just that being a GI had always been something hard to define. Was she really a human? Or did synthetic creation make her something else? She’d always leaned to thinking of herself as human, just made of different stuff. But this . . . this made her reconsider.

  “We don’t talk about it,” said Gunter, slicing a pear with his knife and eating. “One, Chancelry will have us exterminated if they know we know. Two, people won’t understand anyway. They struggle to accept GIs as things stand; now they’ll think we’re actually aliens or something. They won’t understand that the technology just allows humans to replicate human function, and it’s not like we’re part Talee. I don’t know if anyone actually has access to Talee DNA at all. Assuming they have DNA.”

  “Do we know what happened to them?” Sandy asked. The FSA didn’t. Or, not that they’d told her. These days, there wasn’t much that they wouldn’t.

  “No,” said Kiet. “They were here once, a long time ago. Then they left. Haven’t been here for nearly two thousand years. No idea why. Geological survey doesn’t find any natural disaster. It’s like they got bored, or something happened elsewhere that required them to leave.”

  “What if Chancelry are doing experiments on the original data?” another GI asked. A woman, African appearance, Sandy hadn’t learned her name. “The original stuff they used to create the technology? Maybe they have stuff they never pursued, and now League want to know what’s in it?”

  “Yeah, but why?” countered another. “Chancelry wouldn’t have ignored anything they’d found. There was a war on.”

  “And money to be made,” Kiet added. He seemed to Sandy a little cynic
al. She always liked that in a GI. It wasn’t common enough. All of them impressed her. Lower des or not, this was a real debate, and worth listening to. In her experience it rarely happened.

  “And they do hate the League,” the other continued. “That part’s not bullshit, we’ve seen how they hate the League, after the crash. They were abandoned and got slaughtered. So why work with them now?”

  “I bet it wasn’t Chancelry’s idea,” said another. “I bet it was League’s. And League don’t do anything unless there’s profit in it, or advantage.”

  Sandy’s eyes widened. “Or unless they’re scared,” she said. Mustafa. Seated on his surfboard, asking question after question about Pyeongwha. Neural Cluster Technology. Prepared to send the ISO into what was effectively a small scale war against his own government, to find out what they were up to on New Torah. The government hadn’t told the ISO. League and its own primary security agency, working at odds, fighting each other. The government running top secret tests on GIs in New Torah, and not telling the ISO why. The ISO desperate to find out. She’d thought of the usual motivations, strategic advantage, greed, power. She hadn’t really thought of fear.

  Fear about what? The Federation? The war was over, and while League remained paranoid about Feds, they weren’t so dumb as to believe the Federation were the slightest bit interested in resuming hostilities. The Talee? Talee never hurt anyone, at least not that was known.

  “I’m missing something,” she murmured. “Something big. I need to talk to Duage’s girl again.”

  Rishi found herself in a play room. It felt like waking up, but she wasn’t tired from sleep. It was just that one minute she wasn’t conscious, and the next she was. The play room was like her own, only different. Bean bags and cushions were in different places, and the toys were different. Everything was in the same bright colours though, and the wall displays showed colourful scenes in brilliant definition. This one showed a rain forest, emerald green and dripping. Cicadas shrilled and keened.

  The woman was there. The GI from before, blonde, blue eyed, sitting on a table. She tossed a ball in one hand. The ball looked old, and well worn.

  “Where am I?” asked Rishi, cautiously. “Is this VR?” It had to be VR. The woman nodded.

  “This was my play room,” said the woman. “Or as near as I can remember it. It’s odd, I have hardly any memories of events at this time in my life, but I do remember places. The more I worked on this room, the more I remembered. I guess it was cathartic.”

  Rishi didn’t know what that meant. “Where was this room?”

  “I’m still not entirely sure.” Still tossing the ball. “Either Angelo Three or Matawari, certainly. Those were the two main pre-service facilities Recruitment ran. I remember some of these games, and these toys. I remember this ball. The ball was for Goldie. Goldie was a dog, a golden retriever. He was my friend. He’d come here, and I’d play with him. I hardly remember him at all though. I had to read about him in a pre-service file I stole a look at.”

  Rishi looked around. She’d never seen VR this complete before. Usually when her minders let her into VR, it had safety controls, a panel she could activate if she wanted out. This world had nothing. But then, in the real world, she was drugged and restrained. There was no way out of that world, so it made sense there’d be none out of this one either.

  “What’s your name?” asked the woman.

  “Rishi.”

  “I’m Sandy. I’m twenty-two years old. How old are you?”

  “Four.”

  “Designation?” Rishi said nothing. “I’m 5074J.”

  “There’s no such thing,” said Rishi, with certainty.

  “There’s every such thing,” said Sandy. “You came to kill me and my friends the other night.”

  “You were here to attack the corporation,” Rishi retorted.

  “Why is that a bad thing?”

  Rishi blinked. Opened her mouth, and shut it again. Sandy’s blue eyes watched her, patiently, awaiting a reply. “Attacking the corporation is bad,” Rishi said finally.

  “Interesting,” said Sandy. “Why?”

  “It just is!” Rishi said in frustration. “People live in the corporation. You shouldn’t hurt people.”

  “What if those people are hurting others?”

  “The executives don’t hurt others.”

  “They do,” said Sandy. “They’re hurting you.”

  Rishi frowned. “They never hurt me.”

  “They keep you from being free. That’s the same as hurting you. Do they ever let you out? Can you walk wherever you want? Do whatever you want?”

  “No one can. It’s a corporation, we all have jobs.”

  “And you’re a GI.”

  “Yes,” Rishi agreed, more comfortable on firmer ground.

  “And it’s a GI’s job to fight, and do what she’s told.”

  “Yes.” Even more comfortable. “That’s how the corporation works. It’s not always fair, but nothing’s fair.” She felt pleased with that. She’d been told that once, and it seemed to fit this situation. It was a clever thing to say, she was certain.

  “Ah,” said Sandy.

  The room disappeared in a blur. It was replaced by a city. The scale of it was extraordinary. Rishi stood on a sidewalk as people in business clothes hurried by on all sides. Traffic whizzed on the road, and huge images splashed and danced colour up and down the sides of towers. High above, aircars whined, turning and flowing in streams.

  People everywhere! She’d never seen so many people. Not all of them wore business clothes. Some wore saris, and some bright jackets, or coloured scarves, or strange eyewear. Ahead, a woman was playing an instrument and singing. Passing people tossed coins in the case at her feet.

  “This is where I live,” said Sandy. She stood at Rishi’s side on the sidewalk, suddenly wearing jeans and a leather jacket. “This is Tanusha. Bhubaneswa District; it’s a big business hub. There’s maybe seventy districts this size in the city. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  Sandy walked, beckoning Rishi to follow. Rishi knew she shouldn’t, Sandy was her enemy. But she walked anyway, because she was a prisoner and had no way out of here, and because the street just looked so amazing. The flow of people never stopped, no two ever alike. There were brown people, white people, black people. A group of old people, following a guide who was shouting to them over the noise and explaining what they saw around them. Some kids, balancing on strange boards on wheels that clattered on the pavement. A pair of police, in uniforms she’d never seen before.

  Sandy turned down a street, and Rishi was astonished to see that this street was completely different from the first. How big was this VR construct, anyway? Staring up past the sidewalk trees, the towers seemed to go on forever against a blue sky.

  “This is a great street,” said Sandy. “Have you ever seen a street like this before? There’s lots of functions and conventions in Bhubaneswa District, so this street became a catering hub. Lots of food shops.”

  A big van had pulled to the curb, and some people were carrying huge cakes in protective covers to the vans. In the shop window, more cakes, with crazy decorations. The next shop was chocolates—Rishi had never seen so much chocolate in her life. Then pastries, and the VR was truly amazing, because the smell made her feel instantly hungry. Then a sweets shop, crowded with many Indian women in clashing saris who laughed and chattered while selecting big containers.

  “They’re dressed that way because they’re going to a wedding,” said Sandy, pointing to them as they walked. “Indian weddings are the biggest; some go on for days. Ever been to an Indian wedding, Rishi?”

  Rishi shook her head, staring about. In a small garden alcove between shops, men and women in robes were singing chants, and dancing, banging tambourines. “Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna!”

  “What does that mean?” Rishi asked.

  “Praise Krishna,” said Sandy. “Krishna’s a god. Hindus have lots. You believe in God, Rishi?”
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br />   “I don’t know.”

  “Never thought about it? Ever wonder why not? Everyone else believes in God, or believes in something else. Ever wonder why they don’t want GIs to think about it?” She took Rishi’s arm, and guided her about the next corner. “This is the best bit. I hope the VR doesn’t crash. This can get a little crazy.”

  About the corner was a lane with no cars, filled entirely with people. It was crowded with stalls, mostly food stalls, and here crowds made a press so thick Rishi and Sandy had to dawdle and edge sideways to get through it. Stalls of live fish and crabs, stalls of hanging meat, stalls of piled vegetables, stalls of multi-coloured spices and smells so thick it was like breathing fumes. Sellers shouted prices, buyers clamoured back, and at the back of stalls, newly arrived vehicles were unloaded, men manoeuvering automated carts directly from a tower’s service elevators in a nearby lane, trying not to run people over. More of a street than a lane, wide and long, and filled with people. Thousands of people.

  “The cruisers land in the service parking!” Sandy shouted over the din, pointing to the elevators. “For the seafood they come straight from the ports; the fish gets here within a few hours of being caught.”

  “Why do it all like this?” Rishi shouted back, jostling through the confusion. “This is so crazy! There must be easier ways!”

  Sandy made a grand shrug. “This is what human civilisation gets like when you let it free! It just happens. Market forces, social demands . . . no one plans it like this, it just evolves naturally. But you’d never know it if you don’t get to live free, yourself.”

  They got past the worst of the crush, and now it was flower stalls, huge multi-coloured garlands dangling from every post. People were buying them in bunches, with bundles of incense.

  “How much of Tanusha is like this?” Rishi wondered.

  “Oh, only small bits. But every bit’s different, that’s the fun of it. There are plenty of markets. This is the Bhubaneswa market. It’s sometimes called the Jain Market; it’s quite famous. The Ranarid gold souk is even more famous, and even bigger, but myself I like food and flowers more than gold.”